Part 14

"Yonder, yonder!--Let me see Prizren, For it is mine--I shall come to my home...."

but Nikita, who had written these famous words and who had taught them to his people for a generation, had no cavalry--in the Montenegrin mountains they would have been of no avail--and thus, while his warriors were still some hours from Prizren, they had the mortification of hearing that the Serbs had entered it. With passionate desire they turned to Scutari. Nikita told them of the old Slav princes who were buried there--and to the simple-minded Montenegrins that seemed a good enough reason why 20,000 of them, the flower of the army, should lay down their own lives on the dreary hills that barred them from the town. It was hardly necessary for Nikita to allude to the wealth that would be theirs if they could gain possession of this outlet to the Adriatic. There in the plain at the end of the lake was the glittering white town, and if they could have seen themselves as clearly and their own inadequate resources, they would have refrained from the attempt. The minarets of Scutari, raised like so many warning fingers, failed to warn them. Their equipment was such that munitions and other supplies were frequently carried up to the lines by women--on the Bardonjolt no less than eighty of these were killed and wounded in one day. When the Serbs in October pushed through Albania to the Adriatic they offered to assist in the taking of Scutari, but Nikita shook his head. And it was not until some time after this that he accepted the co-operation of three batteries of Krupp guns, which had been meanwhile taken from the Turks at Kumanovo. But the Montenegrin army was not only handicapped by its lack of resources; the Crown Prince, who commanded a division, actually instigated a revolt among his own men. He had promised the Austrian Minister, Baron Giesl von Gieslingen, that the Montenegrin army would not enter Scutari, and the Government could only put a stop to Danilo's intrigues by invoking the aid of General Potapoff. The Turks were not wasting their time; they employed Austrian engineers to strengthen the fortifications, and thus the task had become far more difficult when finally the Montenegrin Court party availed itself of Serbian reinforcements. In more ways than one they were badly needed by the brave but ill-disciplined soldiers. "It is wonderful," they said to Major Temperley, "their troops do not fire until an officer gives the word." Primitive men and a venal commander--according to Dr. Sekula Drljevi, who was Minister of Finance and Justice, Prince Danilo is alleged to have remembered, just before his country's entrance into the War, that money could be made on the Vienna Bourse by judicious selling and, after the declaration of war, by purchasing. The professional financier who on this occasion, thanks to his knowledge of the Montenegrin royal plans, is alleged to have realized, with his friends, the sum of 140 million francs, was no less a person than Baron Rosenberg, whose subsequent operations in Paris at the beginning of the Great War and in Switzerland during the War received the close attention of the French authorities. These financial methods of Danilo's did less material harm, at any rate to his own people than the system he employed as a motorist; it was necessary that he should obtain the latest models, and it suited him that the Government, not haggling over the price, should take over his discarded vehicles. Similar hostages to gossip were given by Mirko, his younger brother; one remembers the smiles of the diplomatic corps at Cetinje when this young man dispatched, at the cost of the Government, a telegram of about 500 words to Austria, concerning a horse which he wanted to buy. Mirko, who died during the Great War in an Austrian sanatorium, was not one of those rugged and valiant Montenegrin mountaineers whom Gladstone and Tennyson celebrated; once when his father ordered him to come back from Paris, where he was copiously spending his country's substance on an actress with whom he had decamped, leaving his wife and several young children at Naples, he dutifully returned and settled down in his palace, a large, comfortable house outside Podgorica. Since it was less amusing than in Paris he remained in bed for most of the twenty-four hours; he would often spend an hour before dinner in superintending the removal of pictures from one wall to another, and having dined he would immerse himself in State affairs, which took the form of speculating as to when he and his heirs--Danilo being childless--would be called to rule over the great Serbian kingdom of Serbia combined with Montenegro. As to the fate of the Karageorgevi['c] dynasty, this was wont to vary from night to night, in proportion to the amount of wine that Mirko had drunk.

These events occurred in 1913, and in the same year the Montenegrins entered Scutari. It was not brought about by force of arms, but by some arrangement with Essad Pasha, the illiterate and clever Albanian who succeeded to the command of the town after Hussein Riza Bey, the Turkish leader, had been assassinated on the threshold of Essad's house, where he had been dining, by a couple of the Pasha's men, disguised as women. Scutari was not to stay for long in Montenegrin hands; an International Force arrived, under Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, and took it over. One need scarcely add that the national sentiment of the Albanians moved the Powers at this juncture as little as it moved the Albanians.

VERY HIGH POLITICS

We have seen that Prince Danilo, before flinging himself against the infidel Turk, is alleged to have transacted a little business on the Bourse--a former Montenegrin Minister of Finance says that he may well have netted between 25 and 30 million crowns--and his royal father, though his methods often had a tinge of mediaevalism, was not the man to rush, like some old knight, in succour of distress. When Serbia was attacked in 1914 he refrained from flying to her side. Montenegro "stood up spontaneously to defend the Serbian cause: she fought and she fell," says Mr. Devine. There is not the least doubt but that the vast majority of Montenegrins would have acted in this fashion. To some degree they had deteriorated under the example of Nikita--"A fish stinks from its head," says a Turkish proverb; but when their brother Serbs were in deadly peril all else was forgotten. And they were bewildered and suspicious when the Skuptina was summoned, seeing that the Constitution laid it down that the declaring of war was a royal prerogative. As practically every man was thirsting for battle--after all they were Serbs and incapable of committing high treason against their brethren--they marvelled at the King's delay. But to the politicians his manoeuvre explained itself; they recognized that Nikita had some secret arrangement with the Austrians and that he wanted to tell Francis Joseph that the War had been forced upon him. From that moment he was playing a double role; a Serbian officer was chief of the Montenegrin staff. "They have placed my army under Serbian command," he told the Austrians. "So faithful was I," he said to the Entente, "that I even took a Serbian commander."

In view of the persistent pro-Nikita propaganda which subsequently reared its foolish head in Great Britain, it is as well to note what were the sentiments of the Montenegrins towards their own country and their brother Serbs, and on the other hand how they regarded Nikita. Alone among the Allies the Montenegrin soldier received no decorations either in the Balkan wars or in the Great War, and yet he had formerly been so proud of such recognition that it had often been carved upon his tombstone, and when for one decoration there were two claimants a duel was frequently arranged in order to decide which was to be the recipient. But Nikita's regime of corruption and intrigue caused these marks of distinction to be conferred more and more upon police-agents and such like, so that in the Balkan War, when the heroes could no longer be counted, when more than five standard-bearers fell one after another in carrying the same standard and when it was proposed to decorate en bloc the Kui brigade, the soldiers refused to accept what had been so profaned.

THE RIDDLE OF SARAJEVO

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was murdered at Sarajevo.

In the course of July 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Government (wherein far more influence was exerted by Count Tisza, the wealthy and incorruptible, the vastly ambitious Magyar Prime Minister, than by the Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, the courteous, somewhat frivolous man of the world who was doomed to execute reluctantly the orders of Berlin and be swept away by the resulting storm, while the brave and brutal Tisza, fighting for the glory of the Habsburgs and the greater glory of the Magyars, rode upon the storm for years)--the Austro-Hungarian Government in July 1914 dispatched to Sarajevo a commissioner for the purpose of investigating whether the Serbian authorities had anything to do with the Archduke's assassination. This official, Baron von Weisner, a very distinguished Professor of Political Economy who was a German Bohemian with staunch German sympathies, reported in the same month that he was convinced that no accusation whatever could be levelled against Belgrade. (As a matter of fact the Serbian police, who had information that a plot was being hatched in Bosnia, gave warning to the Austrian authorities; but no notice was taken of this, not even when a similar warning was uttered on June 21 by the Serbian Minister at Vienna, nor were any special precautions laid down for the Archduke's safety. It was all rather mysterious.) "Byzantium, the everlasting and unconquerable Byzantium," says an Austrian publicist, "had won another victory.... The Habsburg Empire," says he, "only wished to defend herself against those invisible and irrepressible intrigues." And after denouncing the Serbs for throwing a spark into the powder barrel on June 28, 1914, he accounts for their conduct by writing that "it is the tradition of nomad blood to tear down ancient, noble palaces, replacing them by nomad huts." What we know is that General Potiorek, the Governor of Bosnia, who had urged Francis Ferdinand and his wife to continue their programme after the failure of the first attempt at assassination before lunch, was never invited to explain anything--unfortunately for Austria he was placed in command of the "punitive expedition" into Serbia. Other incidents on which a light may some day be thrown were the very unceremonious funeral arrangements for the murdered couple (though this may very likely have been due to the High Chamberlain's personal hatred of the Archduke), and the fact that an Imperial Commission was sent to Konopit, the Archduke's Bohemian estate, to seize his papers. It was there that he had lately been confabulating with the German Emperor; and Count Berchtold had visited the place on the day after the Kaiser's departure to try to ascertain what had occurred.... It was also at Konopit that Francis Ferdinand, who was threatened with hereditary madness, had shot a gamekeeper dead. Knowing that the Archduke was as good a shot as he was insignificant in horsemanship, this had excited great attention in the highest circles, coming as it did after other scenes of violence.... In contrast with all these semi-mysteries it is clear that Serbia had nothing whatever to gain by the Archduke's disappearance, and although Austria had time and again endeavoured to pick a quarrel with her she had managed to avoid a situation which, after the two recent wars, would be perilous in the extreme. The Serbian Press, which enjoyed a complete freedom, was naturally violent in tone when it observed that the Austro-Hungarian Government was doing little to control the demonstrations hostile to Serbia. Houses of prominent Serbs were looted and gutted at Sarajevo, while similar scenes took place--with the connivance of the authorities--in other large towns of the Monarchy. But the Belgrade populace, uninflamed by their Press, conducted themselves with great moderation. The stories circulated in Austria-Hungary of several Magyar journalists having been murdered were absolutely false. Just as false were the rumours of a demonstration against the Austrian Minister at the funeral of M. Hartwig, his Russian colleague, although Serbian public opinion ascribed the sudden death of this powerful friend of theirs to a cup of poisoned coffee at the Austrian Legation. Hartwig has been criticized for his encouragement of Serbia's idea of expansion and for having fostered anti-Austrian propaganda--of course it was a very wicked thing, from the Austrian point of view, to think of the day when the Serbs might be joined to their unredeemed brethren; and as for the blessed word "propaganda," which covers everything from the mildest expression of opinion to assassination, there has been no responsible Austrian so reckless as to accuse the Serbs or M. Hartwig of having had recourse to methods that approached in wrong-doing their own notorious (and unsuccessful) forgeries.

Let us address three questions to those who carried on a calumnious campaign against Serbia:

(a) Why was the Sarajevo trial conducted behind a closed door? If the crime was instigated and perpetrated by Serbia, the Habsburg Monarchy, which at the time of the trial had already declared war on Serbia, had every interest in establishing with all publicity the guilt and the complicity of Serbian circles.

(b) Why were the evidence of the witnesses and the declarations of the authors of the assassination not published? It was only in 1918 that the Austrian Government, with the help of a professor of Berlin University, published a few facts taken from the proceedings of the trial. Although in this book a great deal of material importance has been omitted--for example, the declarations of the witnesses as well as the last declarations of the accused, nevertheless that which we have before us constitutes one of the most terrible accusations against the Habsburg Monarchy. The young accused persons were not afraid to state, even behind closed doors in a barrack-room, some bitter truths concerning Austria-Hungary. One can have some idea of what they would have said in a public trial from the results of the famous trials of Zagreb and of Friedjung. All the accused persons, as well as their accomplices, declared that the decision to kill the Archduke was an act of their own personal will and that nobody incited or ordered them to make the attempt, least of all any authority of the Kingdom of Serbia. The crime was the personal act of Bosnian patriots who believed that they were serving their oppressed people. "In Bosnia," said the Minister Burian--"in Bosnia, there is no policy, there is only administration."

(c) Why did the Sarajevo police and Austro-Hungarian official circles conduct themselves so strangely with respect to the bomb-thrower abrinovi['c], a notorious anarchist and son of a Sarajevo police spy, who had on a former occasion been expelled by the police from Sarajevo? Later on, after the Belgrade police had been obliged, owing to the intervention of the Austrian Consulate, to allow him to stay in Belgrade, he returned to Sarajevo and was quite unmolested by the police, whose precautions a few years previously, at the time of the visit of Francis Joseph, had gone so far as to expel, as suspected persons, two members of the Bosnian Parliament.

The sole charge that could be laid, not against Serbia but against a Serbian subject, concerned the relations of the subordinate officer Tankosi['c] with the authors of the crime. It was asserted that he knew of the plan and that he helped the assassins to procure money and weapons. The accused definitely said that he exercised no influence on their decision, which had been taken before conversation with him. But even supposing that he was an accomplice, it is evident that the whole Serbian nation and especially the Serbian Government is not identical with an officer who, on account of other troubles with the Ministry of War, had already been removed from the active service list. When the Austrian ultimatum was transmitted to the Serbian Government, Tankosi['c] was immediately arrested, so that his guilt and complicity might be enquired into and established. Serbia could not do more than that. But the whole Serbian people, in Serbia and out of Serbia, was declared guilty of the crime, and immediate steps were taken to carry out the sentence. The unprecedented atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian army in Serbia were to be the expiation of an imaginary crime, and such proceedings, which recall the times of Attila, are shielded by the illustrious name of the aforementioned Professor Kohler, whose reputation it was to be the most democratic of German jurists. All his previous theories on crime, causality and responsibility became void; we see him adopt the monstrous theory according to which every act of private persons is the responsibility of the whole nation.

It remained for Nikita, a man of Serbian blood, a man whose verses had been laden with love for the Serbian nation, it remained for this shameless Prince to charge his brothers with the crime. So implacable was the old man's hatred of Serbia that when President Wilson arrived in Europe he immediately wrote to him, in his indifferent French, for fear, he said, lest the intrigues conducted by the Serbs or their accomplices should precede him in capturing the President's sympathies. "In spite of their perfidy," said he, "I was the first to lend them a hand by being the first to declare war against Austria, although I was certain that the provocation originated on their side by the Sarajevo murders and their Black Hand.... Horrible thought that this country refuses to realize the crime it has committed, for which it is responsible to mankind no less than William!"

At last, on January 5, 1917, the Neue Freie Presse acknowledged that Austria provoked the war with the intention of crushing Serbia. It is a formal and categorical confession. And it obliges us to consider seriously the thesis put forward by Jules Chopin in Le Complot de Sarajevo (Paris, 1918), according to which the plot was hatched at Konopit between the German Kaiser and the man to whom the plot proved fatal. Monsieur Chopin, after a minute examination of the facts and of grave presumptions, believes that Serbia was to be held up to the world as having provoked the war that was to consolidate the Monarchy and satisfy the Archduke's paternal ambitions. The army manoeuvres were to be in Bosnia, the Archduke was to make his ceremonial entry into Sarajevo on Vidov dan, the day when the Serbs solemnly celebrate the battle of Kossovo, and abrinovi['c], son of the Sarajevo police-spy, was to be assisted through the Chinese Wall which then encircled Bosnia. But what did not enter into the royal calculations was the possibility that other Southern Slavs, acting on their own initiative, might strike a real blow.

THE MISERABLE MACEDONIANS

This period of Yugoslav history (from 1876 until the European War) was at the beginning much concerned with Macedonia. And so it was towards the end. Very wretched was the lot of the Macedonian Slavs--occasionally the Exarchists and occasionally the Patriarchists were in the ascendant, but while in religious matters the Greeks clung by all possible means to their ancient, privileged position, so the Turks maintained in secular affairs the sorry plight of their Slav raia. The Macedonian Slavs, when the rest of Europe began to listen to their cries, were not the most sympathetic of mortals--the more enterprising of them had abandoned the country, while the moral sense of those who stayed was grievously affected by the course of conduct which the presence of the Turk compelled. Europe was touched by the anguish of these Christians and did not inquire too closely as to the proportion of the virtues, often called the Christian virtues, which they cultivated. And it was undoubtedly a fact that their treatment left a great deal to be desired. The peasant was obliged to pay direct imposts in cash. There were taxes on landed property, on cattle, on sheep and on fruit-trees, tithes on every species of harvest and a poll-tax to which only Christians were liable, amounting to ten shillings per annum for every male. To complete the exactions with a touch of irony, there was also an education-tax and a heavy road-tax for the upkeep of the indescribable highways. These taxes were not collected by Government officials, but were farmed out to the highest bidder, and so flagrant were the abuses of this system that it was not unusual for the villagers to cut down their fruit-trees in order to avoid the tax upon them, for the tax-farmer, against whom an appeal would be worse than useless, was wont to appear with gendarmes and estimate, according to his fancy, the amount of any crop. Another tax very frequently imposed upon the helpless peasant was the tribute to some Albanian chief, who in return undertook to protect the village. And if the village was outside the Albanian sphere of influence it was usually obliged to have its own resident brigands, who might or might not be Albanians. Generally speaking, those villages were the least to be envied which were on the borders of Albanian territory: cattle were lifted, crops of corn or hay were carried off before they could be garnered, young men and old men were kidnapped and held to ransom; sometimes, says Mr. Brailsford, they were fettered and driven to the fields at sunrise with the cattle and were forced to work there until evening. Most of the villages in Macedonia were owned by a Turkish bey to whom the peasant was obliged to give a clear half of the harvest, besides a certain amount of labour on the bey's private farm and in his mill, as well as hewing wood for him and transporting his produce to the market without payment. It is not surprising that the Macedonian Slavs, whose labour brought them such inadequate reward, sank into very slothful habits. Thus at Monastir in 1914-1915, when the population had the choice of taking flour from the Serbian Government or else the British Consul's bread, which came from India, most of them--to save themselves trouble--preferred the bread, though with the Serbian flour they could have baked themselves just twice as much.... When Europe took up the Macedonian problem towards the close of 1902 there had been a considerable revolt, followed by an outburst of official ferocity and the flight of some thousands of peasants. The Sultan, in the hope of forestalling any Russian interference, promised various reforms. But Russia and Austria proceeded to discuss what each of them would do in Macedonia, and one resolve was that they also, being the two "interested" Powers, would institute a scheme of reform. The Western Powers for a time abdicated their responsibilities and left the miserable Macedonians to the supervision of the two countries which, as they themselves said, were the least disinterested. Now and then the other Powers made a suggestion, as when Lord Lansdowne, who was in favour of autonomy, made in January 1905 a number of proposals which would have assisted the solution of the problem. But Austria and Russia would only accept a part of his programme. Their own programme, drawn up at Muerzsteg in September 1903, was plainly of a transitional nature. It announced to the different Balkan peoples that the end of their serfdom was approaching, and thus it accentuated their latent rivalries and hostilities. Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian bands ravaged the country.

"The Serbo-Bulgarian conflict," said Dr. Milovanovi['c], a Serbian Minister of Justice, "has its origin exclusively in the chauvinistic circles of both countries. Macedonia is the battlefield." He said, very rightly, that the population of Macedonia was equally near to Serb and to Bulgar; but unhappily, in his efforts to establish a modus vivendi, he proposed that Macedonia should be divided between the two countries. Surely it is far better that it should become the common possession of Serb and Bulgar, the link joining them to one another. After Dr. Milovanovi['c] came the Balkan wars, of which the second utterly destroyed for many a long day his hopes of an understanding, since the experiences of the invaded Bulgars were generally very different from those recorded by the careful schoolmaster, Stavri Popoff, in his monograph, The Self-Defence of the Village of Ciprovci against the Serbo-Roumanian Invasion of 1913 (Berkovica, 1915). This isolated village in the mountains was defended by thirty old reservists, who possessed 100 guns and 15,000 cartridges. So pleased is their historian with the manner in which they held their own--the rocks which surround Ciprovci are so many natural fortresses--that he tells us not only the names of the thirty warriors but those of the other inhabitants who carried milk and bread to the outposts. On July 14, a Sunday, there was an exciting battle, in the course of which the Bulgars suffered no human casualties, but lost to the Serbs 900 sheep and a score of cattle, and this, says Popoff, "made the women weep very much." As soon as possible a telegram was sent to the War Office at Sofia, asking for reinforcements, after which "their spirits rose to such a height that they felt they could resist anything." On July 26 the Serbs were again repulsed, but once more a number of sheep and cattle were carried off. In conclusion the author thanks "all those who morally and materially have helped and will help the cause," including the mayors of the neighbourhood.

If the second Balkan War had not left memories more bitter than at Ciprovci then the reconciling labours of those who follow Dr. Milovanovi['c] would be less difficult. In our own day Mr. Leland Buxton, working also for this union which eventually must come, suggests in his Black Sheep of the Balkans that Macedonia should be made autonomous. But this would do no more than perpetuate the wearisome and fierce intrigues of which exponents can be always found in Balkan countries. Macedonia must become the common possession; and what could be more desirable than that one of these countries should administer the province in such a way as to attract the other country? Marshal Mii['c] was of opinion that the officials whom the Serbs, after the Balkan War, placed in Macedonia were too often not the kind of men whom wisdom would have chosen; but there was as yet a general eagerness to avoid being sent to those unalluring parts. The officials left behind them such unhappy recollections that the Serbian army, advancing through Macedonia in 1918, was received, as a rule, with something less than delight. Fortunately the Yugoslav Government was able, after these events, to induce a far superior class of officials to serve in Macedonia, though I believe the scale of remuneration is no higher than in the old kingdom. Men are selected who, in addition to other qualities, speak the Turkish or Albanian of the district. "You can count on our moral and material support, on all that we now give to Turkey," said Mr. Balfour in 1903 to M. Svetislav Simi['c], the Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who came as special envoy to London "if," said Mr. Balfour, "you can come to an understanding with the Bulgars on the one side and the Croats on the other." In many Macedonian places one finds that priests and schoolmasters--I have said this before but it will bear repetition--who officiated under the Bulgars have been confirmed in their posts. How very different is this from the policy of a few years ago when, for example, at Kriva (or Egri) Palanka there was considerable propaganda with respect to the school. While Macedonia was part of the Sultan's dominions there was, on the whole, more willingness of Serbs and Bulgars to provide a school than of the local population to frequent it.

FEROCITIES OF EDUCATION

A report of February 1901 says that in Rankovci three pupils came to the teacher's house; in April of the same year the attendance has been reduced to one pupil, who after coming regularly for a month decided to keep away. In 1906 the peasants of that locality prevented a school from being opened. At Kriva Palanka until the Balkan War the teachers came from Kustendil--but how far they were patronized I do not know. The three teachers from Serbia who appeared in 1909 seem to have spent their time in promenading the village. Not until after the Balkan War did pupils resort to them. In 1916 the same school taught Bulgarian. In 1918 the Serbian language was resumed. These changes were unfortunate for the child and still more so for the teachers, who were continually being chased away or hanged. And now at last one finds the Serbs so much in advance of what they and the Bulgars used to practise. Their ex-Bulgarian schoolmasters are mostly of Macedonian origin, so that it is not difficult for these gentlemen to give their instruction in the kindred Serbian language, using, of course, the local dialect. And we can look back with a smile to the not very distant days when a zealous Serbian schoolmaster in Macedonia was wont, instead of prayers, to make the children repeat after him three times, every morning and every afternoon, "Ja sam pravo Serbin" ("I am a true Serb"). Likewise the Bulgar was so certain of the superiority of his religion that he deprived the Pomaks of their Moslem names, giving them for Abdulla such a name as Anastasius. The Pomak, unable to remember his new name, was handed a sheet of paper with a record of the matter; but very few of these people can read.

THE STORM IS PAST

Gone for ever are the days of the Turkish censor when Danov, who sold at Veles and Salonica the schoolbooks which at first he wrote himself, was obliged to leave the name of Pushkin out of an anthology because of its resemblance to pushka, a gun. And, with their more civilized methods towards each other, we may be sure that the days have gone when a Serb at Kumanovo could compel Moslem children, before uttering the above-mentioned slogan, to cross themselves; while no Serbian bishop will find himself confronted with such a problem as that which in 1913 nonplussed the Bishop of Skoplje--certain Moslems had been, against their will, converted by the Bulgars to Christianity and they now requested the Bishop to undo what had been done. These days of religious intolerance are as distant as those mediaeval ones in Bohemia when Roman Catholic nobles, many of them foreigners, succeeded after the Battle of the White Mountain to the estates of the decapitated Protestants and conducted themselves after the fashion of one Huerta, an ennobled tailor of Spanish origin, who drove the peasants of his district to Mass with the help of savage dogs.... In view of the strides which have been made in so short a time we shall have in Macedonia an example for the other Yugoslav lands. No longer then will anyone complain like that old couple at Ni who, on the arrival of the Bulgarian army in the winter of 1915-1916, announced that they were Bulgars. "But what can you do with our daughter?" they asked, "for she says resolutely that she is a Serb, since she has been to the Serbian school." Both the Serbian and the Bulgarian people have, in the last twenty or thirty years, been through the severest school. Now, after an appropriate interval--some authorities say five and some say a hundred years--they will be fellow-citizens in Yugoslavia. The last serious conflict between them, which we will consider in the next chapter, has been waged.

FOOTNOTES:

THE EUROPEAN WAR

HOW THE AUSTRIANS WAGED WAR--THE SERBIAN PRINCES--THE TACTICS OF THE MONTENEGRIN KING--THE MAGYARS AND THEIR PRISONERS--THE SOUTHERN SLAVS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY--HOW THE WAR RAGED IN THE WINTER OF 1914-1915--THE TREATY OF LONDON, APRIL 1915--HOW BULGARIA CAME INTO THE WAR--ATTEMPT TO BUY OFF THE SERBS--GREEK TRANSACTIONS--FLIGHT OF THE SERBS--THE FAITHFUL CROATS--HOW THE SERBS CAME TO THEIR PATRIARCH'S TOWN--THE SHADOW OVER MONTENEGRO--THE BROKEN SERBS AT CORFU--THE SOUTHERN SLAVS IN THE UNITED STATES--CASH AND THE MONTENEGRIN ROYAL FAMILY---THE BURDEN OF AUSTRIA'S SOUTHERN SLAV TROOPS--THE FAITHFUL ITALIANS--SOUTHERN SLAVS IN THE AUSTRIAN NAVY--ADVANCE OF THE ALLIES IN MACEDONIA--HOW THE MAGYARS TREATED THEIR SERBIAN SUBJECTS--THE SOUTHERN SLAVS PAY PART OF THEIR DEBT TO THE HABSBURG MONARCHY: (a) IN SYRMIA; (b) IN SLOVENIA.

HOW THE AUSTRIANS WAGED WAR