Part 7

During the reigns of Joseph II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Montenegro began to assume greater importance in the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of the Serbs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed part of the Turkish dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible nature of its mountain fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very forcibly asserted. It was ruled by a prince-bishop, and its religious independence thus connoted a certain secular freedom of thought if not of action. In the seventeenth century warlike encounters between the Turks and the Montenegrins increased in frequency, and the latter tried to enlist the help of Venice on their side but with indifferent success. The fighting in Montenegro was often rather civil in character, being caused by the ill-feeling which existed between the numerous Montenegrins who had become Mohammedans and those who remained faithful to their national Church. In the course of the eighteenth century the rôle which fell to Montenegro became more important. In all the other Serb countries the families which naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or in exile, as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of international importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had survived both a greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all, the ancient Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a number of at any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families; these families naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as destined to play an important part in the resistance to and the eventual overthrow of the Turkish dominion. The prince-bishop had to be consecrated by the Patriarch of Peć, and in 1700 Patriarch Arsen III consecrated one Daniel, of the house (which has been ever since then and is now still the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of Petrović-Njegoš, to this office, after he had been elected to it by the council of notables at Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and precluded from participating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey by the intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was solidly Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks independently of the other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his anti-Turkish policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to the south and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians, he developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb principality on the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent feature of eastern European politics ever since. This intimacy did not prevent the Turks giving Montenegro many hard blows whenever they had the time or energy to do so, and did not ensure any special protective clauses in favour of the mountain state whenever the various treaties between Russia and Turkey were concluded. Its effect was rather psychological and financial. From the time when the Vladika (= Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the Great, in 1714, the rulers of Montenegro often made pilgrimages to the Russian capital, and were always sure of finding sympathy as well as pecuniary if not armed support. Bishops in the Orthodox Church are compulsorily celibate, and the succession in Montenegro always descended from uncle to nephew. When Peter I Petrović-Njegoš succeeded, in 1782, the Patriarchate of Peć was no more, so he had to get permission from the Austrian Emperor Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan of Karlovci (Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.

About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils between them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the same time (1788) in the district of Šumadija, in Serbia, by a number of Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Koča, after whom the whole war is called Kočina Krajina (=Koča’s country), another, yet the Austrians were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was concluded between Austria and Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which Turkey retained the whole of Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube remained the frontier between the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of Montenegro had joined in the fray and had fared better, inflicting some unpleasant defeats on the Turks under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated in two battles in 1796 (the Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari. With this triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro, the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was de facto established.

17 The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804–13) and Miloš Obrenović (1815–30): 1796–1830

The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment as an independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous accomplishment than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries. One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position was cut off from outside help. It was easy for the western powers to help Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to help Rumania and, later, Bulgaria directly with its army, because communication between them was easy. But Serbia on the one hand was separated from the sea, first by Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and then by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and the sandjak (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro, also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to bear upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to be traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards through Turkish territory. The only country which could have helped Serbia was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do so, the Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to retard the Serbian cause. As a result of all this Serbia, in her long struggle against the Turks, had to rely principally on its own resources, though Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent country from disaster.

Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation and development of modern Serbia has been the proneness of its people to internal dissension. There was no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the country would naturally devolve after the first successful revolution against Turkish rule, there was not even any aristocracy left, and no foreign ruler was ever asked for by the Serbs or was ever imposed on them by the other nations as in the case of Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria. On the other hand the rising against Turkey was a rising of the whole people, and it was almost inevitable that as soon as some measure of independence was gained the unity the Serbs had shown when fighting against their oppressors should dissolve and be replaced by bitter rivalries and disputes amongst the various local leaders who had become prominent during the rebellion.

These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves into a blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjević and the Obrenović, a quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against the progress of the Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.

The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political independence of Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible, its economic development and material prosperity. Until recent years Austria-Hungary and Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in such a position that whenever Serbia either demurred at its neighbours’ tariffs or wished to retaliate by means of its own, the screw was immediately applied and economic strangulation threatened. Rumania and Bulgaria economically could never be of help to Serbia, because the products and the requirements of all three are identical, and Rumania and Bulgaria cannot be expected to facilitate the sale of their neighbours’ live stock and cereals, when their first business is to sell their own, while the cost of transit of imports from western Europe through those countries is prohibitive.

After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the authority of the Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real power was wielded by local Turkish officials, who exploited the country, looked on it as their own property, and enjoyed semi-independence. Their exactions and cruelties were worse than had been those of the Turks in the old days, and it was against them and their troops, not against those of the Sultan, that the first battles in the Serbian war of independence were fought. It was during the year 1803 that the Serbian leaders first made definite plans for the rising which eventually took place in the following year. The ringleader was George Petrović, known as Black George, or Kara-George, and amongst his confederates was Miloš Obrenović. The centre of the conspiracy was at Topola, in the district of Šumadija in central Serbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place of Kara-George. The first two years of fighting between the Serbians and, first, the provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan’s forces, fully rewarded the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of 1807 they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided efforts and captured the towns of Požarevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and Šabac. The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening of diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he gave the Serbs financial assistance and commended their cause to the especial care of his ambassador at Constantinople.

In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence which prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with better fortune. In 1811 Kara-George was elected Gospodar, or sovereign, by a popular assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish province. At the end of that year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria, and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then have achieved complete independence.

But Napoleon was already preparing his invasion and Russia had to conclude peace with Turkey in a hurry, which necessarily implied that the Sultan obtained unduly favourable terms. In the Treaty of Bucarest between the two countries signed in May 1812, the Serbs were indeed mentioned, and promised vague internal autonomy and a general amnesty, but all the fortified towns they had captured were to be returned to the Turks, and the few Russian troops who had been helping the Serbs in Serbia had to withdraw. Negotiations between the Turks and the Serbs for the regulation of their position were continued throughout 1812, but finally the Turks refused all their claims and conditions and, seeing the European powers preoccupied with their own affairs, invaded the country from Bosnia in the west, and also from the east and south, in August 1813. The Serbs, left entirely to their own resources, succumbed before the superior forces of the Turks, and by the beginning of October the latter were again masters of the whole country and in possession of Belgrade. Meanwhile Kara-George, broken in health and unable to cope with the difficulties of the situation, which demanded successful strategy both against the overwhelming forces of the Turks in the field and against the intrigues of his enemies at home, somewhat ignominiously fled across the river to Semlin in Hungary, and was duly incarcerated by the Austrian authorities.

The news of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipsic (October 1813) arrived just after that of the re-occupation of Belgrade by the Turks, damped feu-de-joie which they were firing at Constantinople, and made them rather more conciliatory and lenient to the Serbian rebels. But this attitude did not last long, and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh efforts to regain their short-lived liberty. The Congress of Vienna met in the autumn of 1814, and during its whole course Serbian emissaries gave the Russian envoys no peace. But with the return of Napoleon to France in the spring of 1815 and the break-up of the Congress, all that Russia could do was, through its ambassador at Constantinople, to threaten invasion unless the Turks left the Serbs alone. Nevertheless, conditions in Serbia became so intolerable that another rebellion soon took shape, this time under Miloš Obrenović. This leader was no less patriotic than his rival, Kara-George, but he was far more able and a consummate diplomat. Kara-George had possessed indomitable courage, energy, and will-power, but he could not temporize, and his arbitrary methods of enforcing discipline and his ungovernable temper had made him many enemies. While the credit for the first Serbian revolt (1804-13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly to him, the second revolt owed its more lasting success to the skill of Miloš Obrenović. The fighting started at Takovo, the home of the Obrenović family, in April 1815, and after many astonishing successes against the Turks, including the capture of the towns of Rudnik, Čačak, Požarevac, and Kraljevo, was all over by July of the same year. The Turks were ready with large armies in the west in Bosnia, and also south of the Morava river, to continue the campaign and crush the rebellion, but the news of the final defeat of Napoleon, and the knowledge that Russia would soon have time again to devote attention to the Balkans, withheld their appetites for revenge, and negotiations with the successful rebels were initiated. During the whole of this period, from 1813 onwards, Miloš Obrenović, as head of a district, was an official of the Sultan in Serbia, and it was one of his principles never to break irreparably with the Turks, who were still suzerains of the country. At the same time, owing to his skill and initiative he was recognized as the only real leader of the movement for independence. From the cessation of the rebellion in 1815 onwards he himself personally conducted negotiations in the name of his people with the various pashas who were deputed to deal with him. While these negotiations went on and the armistice was in force, he was confronted, or rather harassed from behind, by a series of revolts against his growing authority on the part of his jealous compatriots.

In June 1817 Kara-George, who had been in Russia after being released by the Austrians in 1814, returned surreptitiously to Serbia, encouraged by the brighter aspect which affairs in his country seemed to be assuming. But the return of his most dangerous rival was as unwelcome to Miloš as it was to the Turkish authorities at Belgrade, and, measures having been concerted between them, Kara-George was murdered on July 26,1817, and the first act in the blood-feud between the two families thus committed. In November of the same year a skupština, or national assembly, was held at Belgrade, and Miloš Obrenović, whose position was already thoroughly assured, was elected hereditary prince (knez) of the country.

Meanwhile events of considerable importance for the future of the Serb race had been happening elsewhere. Dalmatia, the whole of which had been in the possession of Venice since the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, passed into the hands of Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, when the Venetian republic was extinguished by Napoleon. The Bocche di Cuttaro, a harbour both strategically and commercially of immense value, which had in the old days belonged to the Serb principality of Zeta or Montenegro, and is its only natural outlet on the Adriatic, likewise became Venetian in 1699 and Austrian in 1797, one year after the successful rebellion of the Montenegrins against the Turks.

By the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria Dalmatia became French in 1805. But the Montenegrins, supported by the Russians, resisted the new owners and occupied the Bocche; at the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, however, this important place was assigned to France by Russia, and Montenegro had to submit to its loss. In 1806 the French occupied Ragusa, and in 1808 abolished the independence of the ancient Serb city-republic. In 1812 the Montenegrins, helped by the Russians and British, again expelled the French and reoccupied Cattaro; but Austria was by now fully alive to the meaning this harbour would have once it was in the possession of Montenegro, and after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 took definitive possession of it as well as of all the rest of Dalmatia, thus effecting the complete exclusion of the Serb race for all political and commercial purposes from the Adriatic, its most natural and obvious means of communication with western Europe.

Though Miloš had been elected prince by his own people, it was long before he was recognized as such by the Porte. His efforts for the regularization of his position entailed endless negotiations in Constantinople; these were enlivened by frequent anti-Obrenović revolts in Serbia, all of which Miloš successfully quelled. The revolution in Greece in 1821 threw the Serbian question from the international point of view into the shade, but the Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded his brother Alexander I on the Russian throne in 1825, soon showed that he took a lively and active interest in Balkan affairs. Pan-Slavism had scarcely become fashionable in those days, and it was still rather as the protector of its co-religionists under the Crescent that Russia intervened. In 1826 Russian and Turkish delegates met at Akerman in Bessarabia, and in September of that year signed a convention by which the Russian protectorate over the Serbs was recognized, the Serbs were granted internal autonomy, the right to trade and erect churches, schools, and printing-presses, and the Turks were forbidden to live in Serbia except in eight garrison towns; the garrisons were to be Turkish, and tribute was still to be paid to the Sultan as suzerain. These concessions, announced by Prince Miloš to his people at a special skupština held at Kragujevac in 1827, evoked great enthusiasm, but the urgency of the Greek question again delayed their fulfilment. After the battle of Navarino on October 20, 1827, in which the British, French, and Russian fleets defeated the Turkish, the Turks became obstinate and refused to carry out the stipulations of the Convention of Akerman in favour of Serbia. Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey in April 1828, and the Russian armies crossed the Danube and the Balkans and marched on Constantinople.

Peace was concluded at Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey agreed to carry out immediately all the stipulations of the Treaty of Bucarest (1812) and the Convention of Akerman (1826). The details took some time to settle, but in November 1830 the hatti-sherif of the Sultan, acknowledging Miloš as hereditary prince of Serbia, was publicly read in Belgrade. All the concessions already promised were duly granted, and Serbia became virtually independent, but still tributary to the Sultan. Its territory included most of the northern part of the modern kingdom of Serbia, between the rivers Drina, Save, Danube, and Timok, but not the districts of Nish, Vranja, and Pirot. Turkey still retained Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, the sandjak of Novi-Pazar, which separated Serbia from Montenegro, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).

18 The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia, 1830–1903

During his rule of Serbia, which lasted virtually from 1817 till 1839, Prince Miloš did a very great deal for the welfare of his country. He emancipated the Serbian Church from the trammels of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1831, from which date onwards it was ruled by a Metropolitan of Serb nationality, resident at Belgrade. He encouraged the trade of the country, a great deal of which he held in his own hands; he was in fact a sort of prototype of those modern Balkan business-kings of whom King George of Greece and King Carol of Rumania were the most notable examples. He raised an army and put it on a permanent footing, and organized the construction of roads, schools, and churches. He was, however, an autocratic ruler of the old school, and he had no inclination to share the power for the attainment of which he had laboured so many years and gone through so much. From his definite installation as hereditary prince discontent at his arbitrary methods of government amongst his ex-equals increased, and after several revolts he was forced eventually to grant a constitution in 1835. This, however, remained a dead letter, and things went on as before. Later in the same year he paid a prolonged visit to his suzerain at Constantinople, and while he was there the situation in Serbia became still more serious. After his return he was, after several years of delay and of growing unpopularity, compelled to agree to another constitution which was forced on him, paradoxically enough, by the joint efforts of the Tsar and of the Sultan, who seemed to take an unnatural pleasure in supporting the democratic Serbians against their successful colleague in autocracy, who had done so much for his turbulent subjects. Serbia even in those days was essentially and uncompromisingly democratic, but even so Miloš obstinately refused to carry out the provisions of the constitution or in any way to submit to a curtailment of his power, and in 1839 he left his ungrateful principality and took refuge in Rumania, where he possessed an estate, abdicating in favour of his elder son Milan. This Prince Milan, known as Obrenović II, was seriously ill at the time of his accession, and died within a month of it. He was succeeded by his younger brother Michael, known as Obrenović III, who was then only sixteen years of age. This prince, though young, had a good head on his shoulders, and eventually proved the most gifted ruler modern Serbia has ever had. His first reign (1840-2), however, did not open well. He inaugurated it by paying a state visit to Constantinople, but the Sultan only recognized him as elective prince and insisted on his having two advisers approved and appointed by the Porte. Michael on his return showed his determination to have nothing to do with them, but this led to a rebellion headed by one of them, Vučić, and, though Michael’s rule was not as arbitrary as his father’s, he had to bow to the popular will which supported Vučić and cross the river to Semlin. After a stormy interval, during which the Emperor Nicholas I tried to intervene in favour of Michael, Alexander Karagjorgjević, son of Kara-George, was elected prince (1843). No sooner was this representative of the rival dynasty installed, however, than rebellions in favour of Michael occurred. These were thrown into the shade by the events of 1848, In that memorable year of revolutions the Magyars rose against Austria and the Serbs in southern Hungary rose against the Magyars. Prince Alexander resolved to send military help to his oppressed countrymen north of the Save and Danube, and, though the insurgents were unsuccessful, Prince Alexander gained in popularity amongst the Serbs by the line of action he had taken. During the Crimean War, on the other hand, Serbia remained strictly neutral, to the annoyance of the Tsar; at the Congress of Paris (1856) the exclusive protectorate of Russia was replaced by one of all the powers, and Russian influence in the western Balkans was thereby weakened. Prince Alexander’s prudence, moreover, cost him his popularity, and in 1858 he in his turn had to bid farewell to his difficult countrymen.

In December of the same year the veteran Prince Miloš Obrenović I was recalled to power as hereditary prince. His activities during his second reign were directed against Turkish influence, which was still strong, and he made efforts to have the Turkish populations removed from the eight garrison towns, including Belgrade, where they still lived in spite of the fact that their emigration had been stipulated for in 1830. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to carry out his plans, for he fell ill at Topchider, the summer palace near Belgrade, in the autumn of 1860, and died a few days afterwards. He was again succeeded by his son Michael Obrenović III, who was already thirty-six years of age. This able prince’s second reign was brilliantly successful, and it was a disaster for which his foolish countrymen had to pay dearly, when, by their fault, it was prematurely cut short in 1868. His first act was with the consent of a specially summoned skupština to abolish the law by which he could only appoint and remove his counsellers with the approval of the Porte. Next he set about the organization and establishment of a regular army of 30,000 men. In 1862 an anti-Turkish rebellion broke out amongst the Serbs in Hercegovina (still, with Bosnia, a Turkish province), and the Porte, accusing Prince Michael of complicity, made warlike preparations against him.

Events, however, were precipitated in such a way that, without waiting for the opening of hostilities, the Turkish general in command of the fortress of Belgrade turned his guns on the city; this provoked the intervention of the powers at Constantinople, and the entire civilian Turkish population had to quit the country (in accordance with the stipulations of 1830), only Turkish garrisons remaining in the fortresses of Šabac, Belgrade, Smederevo, and Kladovo, along the northern river frontier, still theoretically the boundary of the Sultan’s dominions. After this success Prince Michael continued his military preparations in order to obtain final possession of the fortresses when a suitable occasion should arise. This occurred in 1866, when Austria was engaged in the struggle with Prussia, and the policy of Great Britain became less Turcophil than it had hitherto been. On April 6, 1867, the four fortresses, which had been in Serbian possession from 1804 to 1813, but had since then been garrisoned by the Turks, were delivered over to Serbia and the last Turkish soldier left Serbian soil without a shot having been fired. Though Serbia after this was still a vassal state, being tributary to the Sultan, these further steps on the road to complete independence were a great triumph, especially for Prince Michael personally. But this very triumph actuated his political opponents amongst his own countrymen, amongst whom were undoubtedly adherents of the rival dynasty, to revenge, and blind to the interests of their people they foolishly and most brutally murdered this extremely capable and conscientious prince in the deer park near Topchider on June 10, 1868. The opponents of the Obrenović dynasty were, however, baulked in their plans, and a cousin of the late prince was elected to the vacant and difficult position. This ruler, known as Milan Obrenović IV, who was only fourteen years of age at the time of his accession (1868), was of a very different character from his predecessor. The first thing that happened during his minority was the substitution of the constitution of 1838 by another one which was meant to give the prince and the national assembly much more power, but which, eventually, made the ministers supreme.

The prince came of age in 1872 when he was eighteen, and he soon showed that the potential pleasures to be derived from his position were far more attractive to him than the fulfilment of its obvious duties. He found much to occupy him in Vienna and Paris and but little in Belgrade. At the same time the Serb people had lost, largely by its own faults, much of the respect and sympathy which it had acquired in Europe during Prince Michael’s reign. In 1875 a formidable anti-Turkish insurrection (the last of many) broke out amongst the Serbs of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and all the efforts of the Turks to quell it were unavailing. In June 1876 Prince Milan was forced by the pressure of public opinion to declare war on Turkey in support of the ‘unredeemed’ Serbs of Bosnia, and Serbia was joined by Montenegro. The country was, however, not materially prepared for war, the expected sympathetic risings in other parts of Turkey either did not take place or failed, and the Turks turned their whole army on to Serbia, with the result that in October the Serbs had to appeal to the Tsar for help and an armistice was arranged, which lasted till February 1877. During the winter a conference was held in Constantinople to devise means for alleviating the lot of the Christians in Turkey, and a peace was arranged between Turkey and Serbia whereby the status quo ante was restored. But after the conference the heart of Turkey was again hardened and the stipulations in favour of the Christians were not carried out.

In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey (cf. chap. 10), and in the autumn of the same year Serbia joined in. This time the armies of Prince Milan were more successful, and conquered and occupied the whole of southern Serbia including the towns and districts of Nish, Pirot, Vranja, and Leskovac, Montenegro, which had not been included in the peace of the previous winter, but had been fighting desperately and continuously against the Turks ever since it had begun actively to help the Serb rebels of Hercegovina in 1875, had a series of successes, as a result of which it obtained possession of the important localities of Nikšić, Podgorica, Budua, Antivari, and Dulcigno, the last three on the shore of the Adriatic. By the Treaty of San Stefano the future interests of both Serbia and Montenegro were jeopardised by the creation of a Great Bulgaria, but that would not have mattered if in return they had been given control of the purely Serb provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina, which ethnically they can claim just as legitimately as Bulgaria claims most of Macedonia. The Treaty of San Stefano was, however, soon replaced by that of Berlin. By its terms both Serbia and Montenegro achieved complete independence and the former ceased to be a tributary state of Turkey. The Serbs were given the districts of southern Serbia which they had occupied, and which are all ethnically Serb except Pirot, the population of which is a sort of cross between Serb and Bulgar. The Serbs also undertook to build a railway through their country to the Turkish and Bulgarian frontiers. Montenegro was nearly doubled in size, receiving the districts of Nikšić, Podgorica, and others; certain places in the interior the Turks and Albanians absolutely refused to surrender, and to compensate for these Montenegro was given a strip of coast with the townlets of Antivari and Dulcigno. The memory of Gladstone, who specially espoused Montenegro’s cause in this matter, is held in the greatest reverence in the brave little mountain country, but unfortunately the ports themselves are economically absolutely useless. Budua, higher up the Dalmatian coast, which would have been of some use, was handed over to Austria, to which country, already possessed of Cattaro and all the rest of Dalmatia, it was quite superfluous. Greatest tragedy of all for the future of the Serb race, the administration of Bosnia and Hercegovina was handed over ‘temporarily’ to Austria-Hungary, and Austrian garrisons were quartered throughout those two provinces, which they were able to occupy only after the most bitter armed opposition on the part of the inhabitants, and also in the Turkish sandjak or province of Novi-Pazar, the ancient Raska and cradle of the Serb state; this strip of mountainous territory under Turkish administrative and Austrian military control was thus converted into a fortified wedge which effectually kept the two independent Serb states of Serbia and Montenegro apart. After all these events the Serbs had to set to work to put their enlarged house in order. But the building of railways and schools and the organization of the services cost a lot of money, and as public economy is not a Serbian virtue the debt grew rapidly. In 1882 Serbia proclaimed itself a kingdom and was duly recognized by the other nations. But King Milan did not learn to manage the affairs of his country any better as time went on. He was too weak to stand alone, and having freed himself from Turkey he threw himself into the arms of Austria, with which country he concluded a secret military convention. In 1885, when Bulgaria and ‘Eastern Rumelia’ successfully coalesced and Bulgaria thereby received a considerable increase of territory and power, the Serbs, prompted by jealousy, began to grow restless, and King Milan, at the instigation of Austria, foolishly declared war on Prince Alexander of Battenberg. This speedily ended in the disastrous battle of Slivnitsa (cf. chap. II); Austria had to intervene to save its victim, and Serbia got nothing for its trouble but a large increase of debt and a considerable decrease of military reputation. In addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate in his conjugal relations; his wife, the beautiful Queen Natalie, was a Russian, and as he himself had Austrian sympathies, they could scarcely be expected to agree on politics. But the strife between them extended from the sphere of international to that of personal sympathies and antipathies. King Milan was promiscuous in affairs of the heart and Queen Natalie was jealous. Scenes of domestic discord were frequent and violent, and the effect of this atmosphere on the character of their only child Alexander, who was born in 1876, was naturally bad.

The king, who had for some years been very popular with, his subjects with all his failings, lost his hold on the country after the unfortunate war of 1885, and the partisans of the rival dynasty began to be hopeful once more. In 1888 King Milan gave Serbia a very much more liberal constitution, by which the ministers were for the first time made really responsible to the skupština or national assembly, replacing that of 1869, and the following year, worried by his political and domestic failures, discredited and unpopular both at home and abroad, he resigned in favour of his son Alexander, then aged thirteen. This boy, who had been brought up in what may be called a permanent storm-centre, both domestic and political, was placed under a regency, which included M. Ristić, with a radical ministry under M. Pašić, an extremely able and patriotic statesman of pro-Russian sympathies, who ever since he first became prominent in 1877 had been growing in power and influence. But trouble did not cease with the abdication of King Milan. He and his wife played Box and Cox at Belgrade for the next four years, quarrelling and being reconciled, intriguing and fighting round the throne and person of their son. At last both parents agreed to leave the country and give the unfortunate youth a chance. King Milan settled in Vienna, Queen Natalie in Biarritz. In 1893 King Alexander suddenly declared himself of age and arrested all his ministers and regents one evening while they were dining with him. The next year he abrogated the constitution of 1888, under which party warfare in the Serbian parliament had been bitter and uninterrupted, obstructing any real progress, and restored that of 1869. Ever since 1889 (the date of the accession of the German Emperor) Berlin had taken more interest in Serbian affairs, and it has been alleged that it was William II who, through the wife of the Rumanian minister at his court, who was sister of Queen Natalie, influenced King Alexander in his abrupt and ill-judged decisions. It was certainly German policy to weaken and discredit Serbia and to further Austrian influence at Belgrade at the expense of that of Russia. King Milan returned for a time to Belgrade in 1897, and the reaction, favourable to Austria, which had begun in 1894, increased during his presence and under the ministry of Dr. Vladan Gjorgjević, which lasted from 1897 till 1900. This state of repression caused unrest throughout the country. All its energies were absorbed in fruitless political party strife, and no material or moral progress was possible. King Alexander, distracted, solitary, and helpless in the midst of this unending welter of political intrigue, committed an extremely imprudent act in the summer of 1900. Having gone for much-needed relaxation to see his mother at Biarritz, he fell violently in love with her lady in waiting, Madame Draga Mašin, the divorced wife of a Serbian officer. Her somewhat equivocal past was in King Alexander’s eyes quite eclipsed by her great beauty and her wit, which had not been impaired by conjugal infelicity. Although she was thirty-two, and he only twenty-four, he determined to marry her, and the desperate opposition of his parents, his army, his ministers, and his people, based principally on the fact that the woman was known to be incapable of child-birth, only precipitated the accomplishment of his intention. This unfortunate and headstrong action on the part of the young king, who, though deficient in tact and intuition, had plenty of energy and was by no means stupid, might have been forgiven him by his people if, as was at first thought possible, it had restored internal peace and prosperity in the country and thereby enabled it to prepare itself to take a part in the solution o£ those foreign questions which vitally affected Serb interests and were already looming on the horizon. But it did not. In 1901 King Alexander granted another constitution and for a time attempted to work with a coalition ministry; but this failed, and a term of reaction with pro-Austrian tendencies, which were favoured by the king and queen, set in. This reaction, combined with the growing disorganization of the finances and the general sense of the discredit and failure which the follies of its rulers had during the last thirty years brought on the country; completely undermined the position of the dynasty and made a catastrophe inevitable. This occurred, as is well known, on June 10, 1903, when, as the result of a military conspiracy, King Alexander, the last of the Obrenović dynasty, his wife, and her male relatives were murdered. This crime was purely political, and it is absurd to gloss it over or to explain it merely as the result of the family feud between the two dynasties. That came to an end in 1868, when the murder of Kara-George in 1817 by the agency of Miloš Obrenović was avenged by the lunatic assassination of the brilliant Prince Michael Obrenović III. It is no exaggeration to say that, from the point of view of the Serbian patriot, the only salvation of his country in 1903 lay in getting rid of the Obrenović dynasty, which had become pro-Austrian, had no longer the great gifts possessed by its earlier members, and undoubtedly by its vagaries hindered the progress of Serbia both in internal and external politics. The assassination was unfortunately carried out with unnecessary cruelty, and it is this fact that made such a bad impression and for so long militated against Serbia in western Europe; but it must be remembered that civilization in the Balkans, where political murder, far from being a product of the five hundred years of Turkish dominion, has always been endemic, is not on the same level in many respects as it is in the rest of Europe. Life is one of the commodities which are still cheap in backward countries.

Although King Alexander and his wife can in no sense be said to have deserved the awful fate that befell them, it is equally true that had any other course been adopted, such as deposition and exile, the wire-pulling and intriguing from outside, which had already done the country so much harm, would have become infinitely worse. Even so, it was long before things in any sense settled down. As for the alleged complicity of the rival dynasty in the crime, it is well established that that did not exist. It was no secret to anybody interested in Serbian affairs that something catastrophic was about to happen, and when the tragedy occurred it was natural to appeal to the alternative native dynasty to step into the breach. But the head of that dynasty was in no way responsible for the plot, still less for the manner in which it was carried out, and it was only after much natural hesitation and in the face of his strong disinclination that Prince Peter Karagjorgjević was induced to accept the by no means enviable, easy, or profitable task of guiding Serbia’s destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903 was a source neither of glory nor of riches, and it was notoriously no sinecure.

After the tragedy, the democratic constitution of 1888 was first of all restored, and then Prince Peter Karagjorgjević, grandson of Kara-George, the leader of the first Serbian insurrection of 1804-13, who was at that time fifty-nine years of age, was unanimously elected king. He had married in 1883 a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and sister of the future Queen of Italy, but she had been dead already some years at the time of his accession, leaving him with a family of two sons and a daughter.

19 Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary, 1903–8

It was inevitable that, after the sensation which such an event could not fail to cause in twentieth-century Europe, it should take the country where it occurred some time to live down the results. Other powers, especially those of western Europe, looked coldly on Serbia and were in no hurry to resume diplomatic intercourse, still less to offer diplomatic support. The question of the punishment and exile of the conspirators was almost impossible of solution, and only time was able to obliterate the resentment caused by the whole affair. In Serbia itself a great change took place. The new sovereign, though he laboured under the greatest possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable behaviour, modesty, tact, and strictly constitutional rule, was able to withdraw the court of Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it had become used. The public finances began to be reorganized, commerce began to improve in spite of endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, and attention was again diverted from home to foreign politics. With the gradual spread of education and increase of communication, and the growth of national self-consciousness amongst the Serbs and Croats of Austria-Hungary and the two independent Serb states, a new movement for the closer intercourse amongst the various branches of the Serb race for south Slav unity, as it was called, gradually began to take shape. At the same time a more definitely political agitation started in Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating position of economic bondage in which the country was held by Austria-Hungary, and was roughly justified by the indisputable argument: ‘Serbia must expand or die.’ Expansion at the cost of Turkey seemed hopeless, because even the acquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a large alien population and no maritime outlet. It was towards the Adriatic that the gaze of the Serbs was directed, to the coast which was ethnically Serbian and could legitimately be considered a heritage of the Serb race.

Macedonia was also taken into account, schools and armed bands began their educative activity amongst those inhabitants of the unhappy province who were Serb, or who lived in places where Serbs had lived, or who with sufficient persuasion could be induced to call themselves Serb; but the principal stream of propaganda was directed westwards into Bosnia and Hercegovina. The antagonism between Christian and Mohammedan, Serb and Turk, was never so bitter as between Christian and Christian, Serb and German or Magyar, and the Serbs were clever enough to see that Bosnia and Hercegovina, from every point of view, was to them worth ten Macedonias, though it would he ten times more difficult to obtain. Bosnia and Hercegovina, though containing three confessions, were ethnically homogeneous, and it was realised that these two provinces were as important to Serbia and Montenegro as the rest of Italy had been to Piedmont.