Or if he still remains obstinate, there are other paraphernalia of torture worthy of the vaults of the Inquisition. A village will occasionally band together to defend themselves from these extortioners. Thereupon the tithe-farmer applies to the civil power, protesting that if he does not get the full amount from the village, he will be unable in his turn to pay the Government. The Zaptiehs, the factotums of the Turkish officials, are immediately quartered on the villagers, and live on them, insult their wives, and ill-treat their children. With the aid of these gentry all kinds of personal tortures are applied to the recalcitrant. In the heat of summer men are stripped naked, and tied to a tree smeared over with honey or other sweet-stuff, and left to the tender mercies of the insect world. For winter extortion it is found convenient to bind people to stakes and leave them barefooted to be frost-bitten; or at other times they are thrust into a pigsty and cold water poured on them. A favourite plan is to drive a party of rayahs up a tree or into a chamber, and then smoke them with green wood. Instances are recorded of Bosniac peasants being buried up to their heads in earth, and left to repent at leisure.[249]
I will quote a single instance of these practices, communicated by the Princess Julia of Servia to the author of ‘Servia and the Servians.’ ‘A poor woman, frantic with agony, burst into the palace of the Princess at Belgrade. She had been assessed by the Turkish authorities of a village in Bosnia of a sum which she had no means of paying.... She was smoked. This failed of extracting the gold. She begged for a remission, and stated her inability to pay. In answer she was tossed into the river Drina, and after her were thrown her two infant children—one of four years old, the other of two. Before her eyes, notwithstanding her frantic efforts to save them, her children perished. Half drowned and insensible, she was dragged to land by a Serbian peasant. She made her way to Belgrade, believing, from the character of the Princess for humanity, that she would aid her. Of course to do so was out of the question.’[250]
Gustav Thoemmel, who was attached to the Austrian Consulate here, relates how the application of such tortures drove many Bosnian rayahs to desperation in 1865. No less than five hundred families took refuge across the borders from these inquisitors in the spring of that year. They were, however, turned back and forced to return to their homes in Bosnia in a most deplorable state. ‘Complaint,’ says Thoemmel, ‘about outrages of this kind are scarcely ever brought forward, since the rayah seldom obtains evidence or even hearing, and his complaining only brings down on him increased persecution. So it happens that the higher officials often remain in entire ignorance of the barbarities perpetrated by their underlings.’
It must not be supposed that the higher authorities here are altogether blind as to the evils attendant on the tithe-farming. It will hardly be believed that the present Governor-General, and his predecessor Osman Pashà, have been doing their best to remove this abuse, but were thwarted by the authorities at Stamboul, who have in recent years taken away much of the independent power of the provincial Vali, the better to suck everything into that sink of corruption. Our Consul has for years directed his energies with the same object, and acting on his representations, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe used all his influence to support the appeal of Osman Pashà. But neither our most influential ambassador nor the Turkish Governor-General of Bosnia could induce the Porte to remove the abuse. The pretext by which these representations were always eluded was that the tithe was a religious institution. The present Vali,[251] a man of more subtle genius, had, however, succeeded in drawing a distinction between this and the religious tithe, and was confident that he would be shortly permitted to abolish it, and substitute for it a land tax not farmed by middle-men. But it was already too late. The present revolts, both in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, are mainly due to the extortion of the ‘dime.’
It was on Sunday, August 15—the same day on which the great Christian pilgrimage took place on the mountain above Comušina—that the peasants of that part of Bosnia, who had been goaded to madness during the last few weeks by the exactions of the tax-gatherer (with whom this year the government, itself unable to meet its creditors, had driven a harder bargain than usual), first took up arms. From the rapidity with which the revolt spread through Lower Bosnia there seems to have been a preconcerted movement—indeed, it was previously known at Belgrade with sufficient accuracy what lines the outbreak would follow. The first movement took place near Banjaluka, where the rayah villagers rose on their extortioners and slew eight tax-gatherers. This was immediately followed by other risings extending along the Possávina to the neighbourhood of Brood and Dervent. Several of the watch-towers along this frontier were surprised, and their Turkish garrison massacred. Meanwhile, the Christian women and children are fleeing beyond the Austrian border for protection; the banks of the Save at the present moment are a piteous sight, and the forest border and willow river-hedge are crowded with these harmless fugitives, holding out their hands and entreating to be ferried over to the Slavonian shore. The news of the outbreak quite bewildered the authorities at Serajevo. The Vali, the only man capable of coping with the difficulties of the situation, had just left for the Herzegovina. Bosnia was bereft of troops, for the Seraskier at Stamboul, disregarding the earnest warnings of the Vali, had persisted in withdrawing the regulars stationed in the province till hardly any were left, and of these every available man, except those absolutely necessary for garrison duty, had now been dispatched to the Herzegovina.
Meantime, the Mahometan population of Lower Bosnia has taken the law into its own hands, and the authorities have been forced to look on and see the Mahometan volunteers, the Bashi-Bazouks—not long ago suppressed for conduct too outrageous for even the worst of governments to tolerate—spring once more into existence. Such were the ferocious warriors whose acquaintance we had made at Travnik. To-day they are streaming into Serajevo: we met a party of them defiling through the street, and the leader of the gang, as he passed, glared savagely at the Giaour. They are, from what we hear, mere organised brigands headed by irresponsible partizans, and at present are committing the wildest atrocities—cutting down women, children, and old men who come in their way, and burning the crops and homesteads of the rayah. That the defence of Bosnia should have fallen into the hands of such men is one of the most terrible features of the situation, and nothing can better show the abjectness of her present governors than that they have now consented to accept the services of these bandits—and that even the Turkish authorities are now calling them out as well as the Redìf. There seems, however, to be little authority of any sort left to the government at the seat of the insurrection in Bosnia, for the native Mahometan population, seeing itself left defenceless by its Osmanlì officials, has rudely thrust them aside, and the defensive measures are now being carried out by self-constituted committees of public safety, which have sprung up at Banjaluka, Dervent, and other towns. The artificial bureaucracy of 1851 has collapsed under the shock, and the long-restrained savagery of the old dominant caste has burst forth like a caged lion for the defence of Islâm. The marauding bands now desolating Bosnia are for the most part headed by Begs or Agas, scions of the old Bosnian nobility: the Bashi-Bazouks are simply feudal retainers following their lords. Thus, in Bosnia, the Christian outbreak has been opposed by a counter-revolution of Moslem fanaticism in close alliance with the still vital relics of Bosnian feudalism.
News of a sanguinary fight near Banjaluka, between five hundred insurgents and the Turks, has just come in. It lasted eleven hours, ‘with uncertain results’—which means favourably to the Christians. The number of the revolters at one spot, and the duration of the conflict, alike witness the seriousness of the rising. The telegraph to Brood has just been cut, but a battalion has been dispatched to keep open the communication at this important point. We further hear that the streets of Agram and Belgrade are placarded with inflammatory proclamations, calling on the Southern Sclaves to rise in defence of their brothers. Like manifestoes have appeared at Bucharest. The German Consul looks on this South-Sclavonic agitation as one of the most serious features of the present situation. As far as Serajevo is concerned, he already telegraphed three days ago to Berlin and Constantinople that there was no longer security here against any contingency.
Meanwhile, the events in the city seem to be shaping their course on the model of 1872. To-day a conjuration of about three hundred of the leading Turks took place in the great Mosque. They appeared there with arms in their hands, and swore that there was a plot against their lives! It has now oozed out that they have banded themselves together to fall with their following on the Christians of Serajevo, should the revolt break out any nearer here—as things go, a not unlikely contingency. The Christians are more alarmed than ever, and appeal to consular protection. Their apprehensions are further excited by the fact that a notorious brigand—a certain Dervish Aga—has appeared at the head of the Mahometan volunteers of this neighbourhood.
Now, it appears that even our humble selves have become the objects of fanatical suspicion. We have been already honoured by having consular reports sent to the representative of Austria regarding our motions and conduct during our tour—which reports were the subject of an official interview between that gentleman and our Consul, who endeavoured to explain it to him—with what success is doubtful—that it was not the practice of the English Government to send political agitators on secret missions to nationalities! It is now the turn of the Mahometans to suspect our intentions, and a few harmless sketches of Serajevan costumes, and a little innocent curiosity as to the wares on some of the Serajevan shop-boards, have excited such indignation in the bosoms of true believers that a deputation of forty Turks waited on the Pashà to complain of us, and entering, as it would appear, into a kind of competition which could display the most Oriental inventiveness of calumny—it has resulted in our being accused first of taking notes of the fortress, and ultimately of violating a mosque! Of course we had scrupulously avoided even approaching the portals of such a sacred edifice; and as to the fortress, we had not even visited the quarter of the town in which it stands. Mr. Freeman convinced the Pashà that these accusations were false; but it was thought better after this that we should be accompanied in our peregrinations by consular guards or cavasses, English or German.