The policy of the Servian Ministry, whether military, economical, or political, is all directed towards this one end, and here it may be pointed out that King Peter is grandson of the great hero of the Servian people, the peasant Karageorge, who in 1804 raised the Servians against the Turks and defeated them.
King Peter has already given evidence of his patriotic sentiments, not only interesting himself in the nation before he was elected ruler, but perhaps it is not generally remembered that in 1875 he fought at the head of his troop—which he raised himself, and crippled his finances thereby—for the emancipation of Bosnia. In the Servian national poetry there is a hero called Peter Mrcognitch, the Protector of the Poor against the oppressors, and it was under this assumed name that the present ruler of Servia fought. In 1870, too, he fought with the French against the Germans, and was awarded the Legion of Honour for valour on the battlefield. Therefore the Servians regard him as a patriot—as indeed he is—and up to the present he has certainly shown himself an able, wise, and discreet ruler, who has the interests of his country very deeply at heart.
The Road to the East: The last view of Europe.
Villagers and Gypsies in Miriavo (Servia).
To refer to the tragic events of the night of June 11, 1903, is unnecessary. All I can personally say is that I arrived in Belgrade full of an Englishman’s natural prejudice against the present régime, but after careful inquiry, not only in government and diplomatic circles, but also among the adherents of the old régime, I came to the conclusion that though drastic and cruel, yet had not those events happened that night, hundreds of unfortunate ones would have lost their lives on the following morning.
In the régime of the late King no one was safe in Belgrade. Draga had her spies everywhere, and alas for those who dared to utter a word against her or her methods! Leading men in the political, social, and literary world of Belgrade to-day have explained to me how they had from day to day lived in fear and dread of false accusations and arrest, until life became so intolerable that many were almost driven from the country. These men strongly disagreed with the methods of the regicides, but they are now thankful they are free.
The truth of those black days of spies and suspicion in Belgrade in the last days of Alexander’s reign has never been told. Only those who lived there, and only those who hear the truth from the lips of responsible persons, can realise how entirely the country was in the hands of one unscrupulous woman. The journalists of Europe were horrified at the methods by which the Obrenovitch were wiped out, and they condemned the Servians. Not one had the courage, or the inclination, to put the facts fairly and impartially before the public.