Chapter Fifteen

1908. A FATEFUL YEAR

Europe was now definitely divided into two camps, each arming against the other. Plots thickened, and events crowded on one another. So knotted did the Balkan threads become, it is hard to untwine them. One thing must be remembered, and that is that at the centre of the knot was always Constantinople. To which Power or group should it belong?

I arrived in Cetinje at the end of April to find things about as bad as they could be. Depression was general, and the place in a hush of terror. Every one hastened to warn me against every one else. The Prince was due next day on his return from Petersburg, whence great things were expected, and a general holiday was proclaimed in honour of the event. Mourning added to the general gloom, for the two infant sons of Prince Mirko, the only direct heirs to the throne, had died within a month or two of each other of tubercular meningitis. Baby Stefan had been playfully called Stefan Dushan II, with the hope that he would reign at Prizren--and he was dead. All hope of a child to Prince Danilo had been given up; much had died with Baby Stefan. Some even hinted at foul play, but this suspicion was quite groundless, for tuberculosis was rapidly spreading in the land; it is worth mentioning only as showing the mental state of the country.

On the other side were murmurs deep and sinister against the Prince and his line, the first growl of a storm. The prisons were full. Folk whispered of many untried prisoners. Some Who had befriended me in former years were not only in prison, but in heavy irons --Gjurovitch, who had been a minister, and poor garrulous Dr. Marusitch. His wife had snatched her husband's revolver and fired at the gendarme who arrested him. The peasants of Drobnjak had tried to prevent the arrest of Serb agents who were distributing revolutionary leaflets, printed in Belgrade. Soldiers were sent to enforce the arrests. Some had refused to act, and had had some heavy sentences inflicted on them. It was all part of the Great Serbian movement. The Montenegrin Government would send no more students to Belgrade to be corrupted.

The very morning after my arrival Tomanovitch, the Prime Minister, sent for me. He was extremely anxious and nervous, and asked what the English papers said about the plot against Prince Nikola. I told him the English Press had said little beyond reporting unrest in Montenegro. He hurried to deny there was any, and said he wished me to know the truth. Prince Nikola had behaved with the greatest moderation, and had even permitted Dr. Marusitch to visit his sick child. The plot against the Prince had been planned by wicked enemies from outside. What did I intend writing to the papers on the subject?

I had been but a few hours in Cetinje, but perceived the affair was a bad one, and as I knew people on both sides it would be hard to avoid being dragged into it. I replied therefore that I had written nothing, and intended writing nothing to the papers, and wished to take no part in Montenegro's internal affairs. He was visibly relieved and thanked me. We parted on friendly terms, he assuring me that he wanted me to know the "truth." So did every one else. And it was always different. One side said that so soon as the people had had a voice, a wild scramble for place and power had ensued; that "freedom of the Press" had loosed such a flood of scurrility, abuse, and libel that it had to be suppressed by force; that finding themselves thwarted, a gang of malcontents had plotted to assassinate the Prince--some said Prince Danilo, too--and to seize power themselves; that they had been in communication with Russia and Serbia, and had arranged the affair in the latter country; that severe example should be made, and wholesale executions take place.

On the other hand, folk said that the Prince, furiously jealous of power, had offered the "Constitution" merely as a pretence to Europe that he was up-to-date, and had so arranged as to retain autocracy; that he purposely suppressed knowledge, kept out literature, and encouraged only the narrowest education in order to retain power and keep folk ignorant; that those arrested were the cream of the land, all the most advanced spirits, all those who were for civilization; that even schoolboys had been hunted down like wild beasts and thrown into prison as political offenders; that no one's life was safe; that spies were everywhere, who curried favour with the Petrovitches by the numbers they arrested; that the prisoners were miserably maltreated. The more moderate declared the Prince to be helpless in a "ring;" that by rashly giving the Constitution he had deprived himself largely of power, and no longer knew what went on; that, till he gave up administering justice eight years before, he had been "the father of his flock," and knew all about everything. Now he had lost touch and would never regain it. They hoped for a general amnesty of all prisoners. The Prince's return from Russia was melancholy. He was reported to be suffering from a feverish attack, and the Princess, too, was very unwell. His journey was believed to have been a failure.

The Russians of Cetinje received me with extraordinary enthusiasm. Filled with joy for the Anglo-Russian agreement, Sofia Petrovna, of the Russian Institute, kissed me over and over again. The Institute was a feature of Cetinje, and Sofia Petrovna was its queen. It was the Pan-Slav centre of the whole district, where Slav girls, brought in from Turkish and Austrian districts--girls from Prizren, girls from Bosnia and Dalmatia, as well as Montenegrin girls, were brought up to Serbism and belief in Holy Russia. Mademoiselle was stout, ruddy, And amazingly energetic; autocratic, but good-natured. Her lean, restless-eyed subordinate, Alexandrovna, however, drove the pupils the way they should go with pitiless severity, and perhaps as a result the girls of the Institute were all said to leave it finished intriguers.

The glory of Holy Russia was what Sofia Petrovna lived for. Russia and England were now united, and she dreamed dreams and saw visions. Russia's path was clear. Her dominion over all Europe and all Asia merely a matter of time. Sofia was enchanted. "Ah, my dear! What is your Empire? Your ambitions are nothing to ours. Nothing, nothing. Till now you have stood in our path. Now we shall march together. Russia is God's agent. You will give us your practicalness. We shall give you our beautiful religion. For at present you know you have none!" Borne on a wave of enthusiasm, she pressed me to spend Good Friday and Easter Sunday at the Institute and take part in the celebrations.

The gathering was very Russian. I was astonished at the difference made by the Anglo-Russian agreement. Hitherto the Legation had been distantly polite. Had sometimes asked questions, but never supplied information. Now nothing could exceed their friendliness. Together England and Russia were to fight Germany, and I said in vain I had no wish to. "Your commerce necessitates it," they declared. They considered Austria's railway scheme to Salonika as a direct insult "which we shall never permit." About Montenegro they despaired. The Prince was riding to ruin. All Russians who visited him were pained to find him surrounded with Austrian Slavs, Gregovitch, Tomanovitch, Ramadanovitch, even his doctor, Perisitch--all from Austria. The very servants in the palaces often Austrian or German. The arrests had been directed by senseless fear; he had alienated the sympathy of the best in the land; could brook no rival; had quarrelled with his Petrovitch relations; listened only to flatterers who directed him against Russia. Finally, they blamed him severely for the Constitution, which he had promulgated! without consulting Russia.. Even she--Sofia Petrovna--who had given twenty years of her life to Montenegro and spared no pains; even she was now the victim of anti-Russian intrigue, and accused of the childish folly of bidding her girls trample on the Prince's portrait! Her girls--in a school paid for largely by the Dowager Tsaritsa! Oh, it was too much. And the Prince had believed it, and informed her that never again would the Royal Family visit the school (nor, in fact, did they). Tears stood in the poor lady's eyes. Her school had been the meeting-place of the intelligentzia. Ministers, priests, and officials had sought her advice. Now persons wishing to curry favour with the Prince had maligned her.

A lying, treacherous race, said one of the Russians. But poor Sofia, through her tears, said they were foolish and misled. Both she and the Secretary of Legation wanted me to ask, for an audience with the Prince, but I decided not to be mixed in anybody's plots, so merely left a card at the Palace, where I learnt that the Prince was still very unwell. A report of a conversation between Vesnitch, Serbian Minister in Paris, and Izvolsky, October 1908 (see Bogitchcvitch, xvii), throws light on what had occurred. "You must," said Izvolsky, "however, soon come to an understanding with Montenegro. The scandalous discord which exists between Belgrade and Cetinje must be cleared off the carpet. We have most urgently pressed this on Prince Nikola when he was in Petersburg." The Prince, we may surmise, went to ask Russian support, received no sympathy, began to realize he was no longer Russia's "only friend," and was filled with sick anxiety.

The Montenegrins, too, were much excited about the Anglo-Russian agreement. Vuko Vuletitch said cheerfully: "Now you can fight Germany." And the usual group round the hotel door cried: "Of course you will. For what else is this Entente? You must fight soon, or you will lose all your trade." They looked forward to an Anglo-Russian Paradise, where the Teuton ceased from troubling. I fear it is not so joyful as they anticipated.

Vuko Vukotitch was as sore as Sofia Petrovna. He, too, had been accused of anti-Petrovitch sympathies, and threatened with the boycott of his hotel. He was seeking influential marriages for his many daughters. The eldest, Madame Rizoff, as wife of the Bulgarian diplomatic agent, was already playing a part in politics. Rumour said he had been on the point of affiancing another to one of the men now in prison.

I decided that Cetinje was no place for me, and that I would carry out my long deferred plan of a tour in the Albanian mountains. Sofia Petrovna pressed upon me an introduction to M. Lobatcheff, the Russian Vice-Consul at Scutari, and thither I went, leaving Cetinje to stew in its own juice. It was anthropology I wanted, not plots.

My work and travels in High Albania I have told elsewhere. I shall here only indicate the political happenings, for I did not escape them by going from Montenegro. In the Balkans you may change your mind any number of times, but you never change your sky full of Power-clouds.

All Europe was represented at Scutari, as in Cetinje, but by Consuls, not Ministers. A difference mainly in name, for they were there for the same purpose, and in Turkish territory even a Vice-Consul, if of an energetic and bullying nature, had almost as much influence as a Minister Plenipotentiary. For the Turks lived in terror of the Great Powers who squatted round the edge waiting an opportunity to pounce, and allowed consuls to do things unthinkable in any other land. During the late war America was roused to frenzy because the German representatives there tried to work a German propaganda. But for over a century the representative of every Power that wanted a bit of Turkey, not only worked ceaselessly by similar means, but had a private post office by which to convey and distribute the correspondence of any revolutionaries his country was supporting; had spies everywhere, and could, should any of his minions be caught red-handed by the Turkish authorities, obtain and demand their release, if not by fair means, then by foul. The Turks could not even close a brothel, if protected, as it frequently was, by a Great Power.

In Scutari, in 1908, Austria and Italy were both working strenuously to obtain influence over Albania. Austria had had a long start. Italy was now a good second. One made a hospital, the other replied with a home for the aged. One played a dispensary, the other an infant school, and so on, regardless of expense. Russia, who hoped ultimately to obtain Albanian lands for the Serbs, made a very bad third, for the Slav element in Scutari and its district was so small as to be practically negligible, and she could not work, as did her rivals, by means of churches and schools. There were but a few Slav families, mainly those whose ancestors had fled from Montenegro or the Herzegovina to escape from bloodvengeance, with a sprinkling of late comers who were "wanted" by the Montenegrin police. A tiny school and church were all they could fill. M. Lobatcheff and Petar Plamenatz, however, gave all their energies to working on this element and keeping it as discontented as possible.

Lobatcheff was very friendly to me. Being introduced by the Russians in Cetinje, I was expected to supply and convey information. The politics of the little consular world are funny. I found that the fact that he--Lobatcheff--representing All the Russias, had as a mere Vice-Consul to walk behind Petar Plamenatz, representing All Montenegro as a Consul-General, rankled most bitterly. He, too, like the Russian Legation at Cetinje, made no concealment of his belief that Montenegro had taken the wrong turning, and was on the down grade; said the Prince, after the wholesale arrests of last summer, would never regain his position and popularity. But I would not be attached to the Russian consulate, nor to any other party, and made the acquaintance also of the attache to the Austrian Consulate, a charming and cultivated Viennese, who was my very good friend.

Austria was represented by an arch-plotter, Consul-General Krai, who worked the pro-Austrian propaganda; the same man who was in Monastir when I was there in 1903-4, and he did not like my reappearance in Scutari. Count Mancinelli represented Italy. France had not in 1908 begun her pro-Slav intrigues in Albania, and had but a feeble representative, who picked quarrels with the Austrian attache over the latter's bulldog. But as in the Near East even a consular dog is suspected of politics, this may, for all I know, have been the first sproutling of France's subsequent conduct.

The Austrian Consulate-General, with Krai at its head, was easily top-dog in Scutari then. The Slavs punned on his name: "Krai hoche bit' Kralj!" (Krai wants to be king). Especially he looked on the mountains as an Austrian preserve, and sent parties of Austrians there. The Turkish Government, acutely suspicious of "tourists," consequently forbade all strangers to travel inland--pretending danger. Just before my arrival, an Englishman, who arrived with letters to the Vali from our Embassy at Constantinople, had been refused a permit to travel inland, and had gone for a tour in Montenegro instead.

Our dear old Albanian Vice-Consul, M. Nikola Summa, however, said that if I would go without permission the tour could be easily managed. And so it was. The now notorious Essad Pasha, then Bey, was head of the Scutari gendarmerie, and I dodged his patrols successfully in the grey dawn.

Essad, known through the land as "the tyrant of Tirana," had till recently commanded gendarmerie at Janina. By his unscrupulous extortions and his quarrels he had made the place too hot to hold him, and had been transferred to Scutari, where he was very unpopular. The tale current about him was that he had married a second wife because his first had not borne him a son; that he lived in terror of being poisoned by the discarded lady, and Scutari cheerfully wished her speedy success.

Head of the family of Toptani of Tirana, he was known to be very ambitious, and was therefore employed by the Turkish Government, who thought it safer to make a friend than a foe of him. His elder brother, Gani Bey, had been murdered in Constantinople some years earlier, by a son of the Grand Vezir by order, it was said, of Abdul Hamid. The murder had been dramatically avenged by Gjujo Fais, one of Gani's serving men, who shot the assassin in broad daylight on the Galata bridge. A spirited ballad, one of the most popular in the land, describes this feat. Gjujo's life was spared, but 'in 1908 he was still in prison, and Essad was despised for having left his brother to be avenged by a servant. Essad took vengeance later, as we shall see.

In the Albanian mountains, as in Bosnia, it was impossible not to wonder at the great work done by Austria. Every Catholic tribe had its neat and usually well-caredfor church, whose priest lived hard by in a house rough, it is true, but superior in its arrangements to the average native dwelling.

Europe had entrusted Austria with the care of the Catholics of North Albania. She had trained priests, built and maintained churches and hospices, had built the Cathedral of Scutari, and established and protected the first Albanian schools of the North. Austria had carried out Europe's behest well.

With but few exceptions all the mountain priests were Albanians, and almost all had had part of their training in Austria. In knowledge and intelligence they were much ahead of the almost untrained "popas" of Montenegro, who had never been beyond their own borders. In the case of the higher ecclesiastical orders the difference was even more marked, for they included many very cultivated and able men.

The Catholic quarter of Scutari had greatly advanced since my first visit in 1901. New shops and businesses had been opened, and the streets repaved. I made the acquaintance of many of the townsfolk, and was struck by-the far higher standard of cleanliness to be found here than in Cetinje.

The idea that the Montenegrin could teach civilization to the Albanian was patently absurd.

Scutari was hotly excited over the bomb affair of Cetinje. The trial of the prisoners, who had been in close confinement for nearly a year, came on in May. Scutari, as a whole, expressed disgust for the Montenegrins: "Nikita," folk said, "is our enemy. But he has done well for Montenegro. If God had given us a Prince like him we should have known how to value him." Petar Plamenatz left Scutari to defend the prisoners, and his consular colleagues--including Lobatcheff --foretold that all would receive heavy sentences, for they had no great opinion of Petar's powers.

The trial proved highly sensational. The fact that a good deal of evidence was given by a Bosnian journalist--one Nastitch--who was proved later in the Frledjung trial to be a discreditable witness, has led to the erroneous opinion in some quarters that the plot was a bogus affair. But the plot was a very genuine one, as I learnt beyond all doubt from my own observations, from details given me by relatives of some of the men implicated, and other Montenegrin sources. It was, in fact, the first round in the death-or-victory struggle for supremacy between the Karageorgevitches and the Petrovitches, the prize for which was to be the headship of Great Serbia.

I had learnt already in 1905 the growing ill-feeling against Prince Nikola, and had remarked that his most bitter critics had lived in Russia or Serbia.

There was also talk of a widespread secret society, known as the Club. A club in the Near East means something revolutionary. The people of Andrijevitza, who told me later on in hushed whispers about the "Clubashi," were amazed to hear that in London the police permitted clubs to exist in the best thoroughfares. The Clubashi went round the country spreading Great Serbian propaganda. Its headquarters were in Belgrade, where it worked by inciting the numerous Montenegrin students to revolution. The brother of one of these students, and the son of one of the arrested men, both gave me details. The students met in an eating-house at Belgrade, since notorious, "At the sign of the Green Garland" (Zelenom Vjencu). Great Serbia could not have two heads. The Petrovitches were therefore to be rendered impotent. All the powder and ammunition magazines of Montenegro were to be simultaneously seized, and the Prince was to be killed, or--and many preferred this--terrorized into abdication. Nikola was represented by the propagandists as the tyrant that stood in Great Serbia's path. Any one who has passed hours and days in Near Eastern eating-houses and cafes knows the ceaseless political altercations which go on and the violence of the sentiments habitually expressed, heightened ever by one glass more of rakia, "josh jedan!" The South Slav is a born orator, and sweeps away himself and his listeners on a flood of eloquence. I have seen livid wrath over mere trivialities. Had our Foreign Office but graduated in a Balkan pot-house its outlook on things Near Eastern would have been greatly extended.

The plot against Prince Nikola failed, for one of the said students had doubts about it and wrote to his brother, who held an official position in Montenegro, hinting at sinister events. The recipient told me that he feared at first that his brother was mixed in the affair, and wrote a very strong remonstrance. In return the boy supplied the Montenegrin Government with full details as to the routes by which the conspirators would enter the country with their bombs.

They were all arrested on arrival. Some came via Cattaro, others overland to Andrijevitza, for the Vassojevitch tribe, together with the Bratonitchitch and the Drobnjaci, were deeply dipped in the plot, and in touch with the propaganda worked by Serb komitadjis in the district between Serbia and Montenegro. Vassojevitch paid heavily. Three of her finest youths were condemned to be publicly shot. The whole population, including even the mothers of the condemned, were ordered to witness the execution, and to the further anguish of the relatives the bodies were buried "like dogs" by the wayside.

Such was the plot. The question was: Who was behind the Montenegrin students in Belgrade, and who supplied the bombs? These came from the Royal Serbian arsenal at Kraguyevatz, where, in 1902, I had heard so much of Karageorgism. It was asserted at the trial that Prince George of Serbia had been concerned in obtaining them. That they were brought from Serbia by Montenegrins was proven. It was then clearly the duty of the Serbian Government to investigate into a conspiracy planned on its own soil against a neighbour state and punish the supplier of Government bombs. It not only, however, refused to extradite certain Montenegrin students, who were suspect, but it made no arrests, asserted violently it knew nothing of the plot, took no steps to obtain information, and withdrew its representative from Montenegro.

To one who, like myself, knew from personal experience that you cannot even draw a cow or buy a carpet in Serbia without the knowledge of the Serbian police, the conduct of the Serbian Government was entirely unconvincing, and the obvious reply to Serbia's "We know nothing," was "But it is your business to know and to take such steps as to make it impossible in the future for a gang of students in a pot-house in the capital to plot the murder of a neighbour sovereign, and to obtain Government bombs for the purpose. Who superintends the foreign students in your capital?"

Pashitch, when interviewed on the subject, replied only that Montenegro had made demands for extradition "completely incompatible with our constitution and laws, and so they could not be fulfilled." He was Prime Minister during part of this troublous time, but did nothing to make peace between the two rival Serb nations.

Montenegro claimed that even before the discovery of the plot Belgrade knew that something was happening, as Serb papers had been carrying on an anti-Petrovitch propaganda openly, and had reported that the Montenegrin students of Belgrade University had read a proclamation calling on Montenegrins to revolt.

Of the accused, several turned informers against others, and asked for pardon. Others begged for light sentences, but did not deny guilt. The ex-Minister Gjurovitch denied all complicity, and so did poor Marusitch, but his wild and loudly expressed plans for turning Montenegro upside down and inside out went hopelessly against him. Both men got heavy sentences.

Lobatcheff, the Russian Vice-Consul, was furious at the arrest of Marusitch, the ex-Russian military surgeon, declared him a harmless chatterbox, and said Prince Nikola had lost his head. So had all Montenegro. Neither party knew which would come out "top-dog"; each suspected the other, and spies and treachery were rampant. Prince Nikola leapt at any evidence that would help him crush his enemies, and Nastitch, the spy, took advantage of his terror to help widen the gap that already yawned between Serbia and Montenegro. The Prince was terrified. Not only was his life threatened, but even if that were spared he dreaded losing the one thing for which he had lived and striven--the throne of Great Serbia. That Austria, as some have stated, should have planned the coup is very improbable. For one thing, its object was to strengthen Serbia by joining the two states under one dynasty. Not even Sofia Petrovna nor Lobatcheff, both red-hot believers in Holy Russia and haters of Austria, ever even suggested to me that Austria was the cause: they ascribed it all to Nikola's own folly, and were pro-Serb. That Austria should try to take advantage of the complication was but natural.

Among the accused who got crushingly heavy sentences of imprisonment in irons was Radovitch, since well known as one of Nikola's fiercest opponents. He was known as a "Clubashi," and as an engineer had built the prison at Podgoritza, to which he was now doomed. "My God, why did I build cells like this?" is said to have been his cry on entering, for the prison was inhuman in its arrangements.

"True or false," I noted in my diary at the time, "the charge against the Crown Prince George of Serbia will probably split Serbia and Montenegro. ... I hope old Nikola's reign won't end in fiasco."

By the time the trial was ended much else had happened. In June King Edward and the Tsar had met at Reval. England and Russia had indeed "agreed." And things were acute in Morocco. The junior staff of the Austrian consulate chaffed me, and asked when we meant to fight Germany. I declared "Never." My friend the attache assured me that if we went on in the way we were going we should be obliged to have military conscription. The Macedonian question now was acute. England was believed to have arranged with Russia to take active steps in Turkey. We discussed it endlessly. The attache used to dine with me, and we agreed that our respective countries were guilty. If the Powers wished, they could establish order easily. No Power wanted order. Each was seeking its own interests. Never has there been more hypocritical humbug talked by both great and small Powers than over Macedonia. They handed moral letters about law and order to the Turk with one hand, and with the other distributed revolutionary funds to effectually prevent the establishment of either. Each group preferred to burn up the whole place rather than let the other get a bit of it.

The ethics of the situation were illustrated by Lobatcheff, who asked me whether I thought Montenegro safe for tourists. On my replying that I had had no difficulties, he told me that a Czech had very recently been murdered there for his money, and his body cut to pieces and hidden. The Montenegrin peasants had declared that, contrary to their advice, he had gone over the Albanian frontier, and the remains had only been accidentally discovered. Lobatcheff had had the details from Dr. Perisitch, the Prince's physician, who had made the post mortem.

Next day the Austrian attache came laughing, and told how some Czech tourists had just arrived, and at once bought and put on fezzes as a protection against the "fanatical inhabitants," who, so they had been told in Cetinje, had lately murdered a Czech. I gave him Lobatcheff's report, which put a very different complexion on the matter. When it was too late Lobatcheff came to beg me to consider the tale of the murder as strictly confidential. The Austrians were on no account to hear of it! Nor could I make him see that it was only fair to warn others beside Russians and English. In fact Lobatcheff's ideas were little less crude than those of Montenegro. Like the Cetinje folk, he expected that the result of the Anglo-Russian agreement would be that Russia would get all she wanted, and was vexed that I took up the cause of the Albanians. The more I saw of the Albanians and of the Slav intrigues for their destruction, the more I thought Albania worthy of help. The enterprising and industrious Albanian was worth a dozen of the conceited idle Montenegrins. Except Prince Nikola and the hotelier Vuke Vuletitch, it was hard to find a Montenegrin in Cetinje who used his brains--if he had any. An educated Albanian is often a highly cultivated man, whereas even Lobatcheff was forced to admit that Paris and Petersburg could not make more of a Montenegrin than a Petar Plamenatz or a Marusitch. Nor was the Austrian Consul Kral better pleased with my Albanian travels. It was reported to him that whereas the mountains had formerly been pro-Austrian, they had become, since my visit, entirely pro-English. He concluded, ridiculously enough, that I was sent by the British Government, and made a long report to Vienna about me, as I ascertained later. I was unaware then of the activity being shown by the Franco-Russian combine and England, and thought his anxiety overdone. To an outside observer, however, Anglo-Russian activity also seemed perilous. Baron Greindl, Belgian Minister at Berlin at that very time, wrote (July 4, Letter 49): "I asked the Secretary of State yesterday ... if he had not yet received the English proposals with regard to reforms in Macedonia. .. . I said that another point seemed disquieting to me, viz. the way in which the preliminary pourparlers were conducted between London and St. Petersburg to the exclusion of Austria-Hungary, whose interests were of the most importance in Balkan affairs."

That Krai spied my movements is perhaps under these circumstances not surprising, more especially as Lobatcheff, who hated him, called out derisively to him at a friendly gathering of all the Consuls: "Have not you found out what the English-woman is here for yet?" which made matters worse.

The political tension was felt even in the remote corners of the Albanian mountains. Tribesmen vaguely expected war. An Austrian advance in the Sanjak was rumoured.

I was up in the mountains when the astounding news arrived that there had been a Turkish revolution. It was incredible. I hastened to Scutari. Not one Consulate as yet had any information, except that a Constitution had been proclaimed. Scutari was wildly excited. The foreign representatives were sceptical and contemptuous. The thing was impossible. Not till Sunday, August 2nd, did the official proclamations and rejoicing begin. Then all North Albania was wild with joy. Moslem and Christian united. It was believed that Europe had intervened, and the Turk would rule no more. The mountain men swarmed down in their best, were feasted by the town, shouted "Long live Constituzi," and fired their rifles till not a cartridge was left in the town. Yet with over two thousand armed men in the town for two days and nights, and no police force to cope with an outbreak, not a single disorder occurred. Every one was far too happy to do wrong, and enjoyed themselves wholeheartedly. Even the French Consul and Lobatcheff, who did not conceal their anti-Albanian feelings, said: "Mon Dieu! what a people this would be if they had a just ruler!"

The Mirdites were cautious. Their Abbot, Premi Dochi, waited to see which way the wind blew before committing his flock. In reply to the newly-appointed Vali, who asked why the Mirdites did not come to take the oath of fealty, he replied that when he was allowed to return from exile to Mirdita, he promised that he would concern himself solely with spiritual affairs, and was therefore powerless; that the only head the Mirdites recognized was Prenk Bib Doda, their chief, who was unfortunately in exile still at Constantinople. He alone could put matters right. It was an astute move. The Young Turks at once sent Prenk home.

On September 30th Prenk Pasha rode up into Mirdita and was received by his delighted people. I went with him, and witnessed the wildly magnificent scene. Mirdita believed no Turkish promises. They had never seen "a Constituzi"; they did not know if they would like it, and thought it was a "flam of the devil." Nor were they pleased to see the two Young Turk representatives, Halil and Khiassim Beys. It took all the eloquence of the Abbot to talk them over, and only after long deliberations did they consent to swear a "besa" (peace oath) till Ash Wednesday, 1909, stipulating at the same time for the retention of their old privileges and their old laws.

Premi Dochi's successful scheme for the restoration to Mirdita of Prenk Bib Doda was a masterpiece, which might have well led to the autonomy of Albania. Had Prenk been a born leader of men, not only Mirdita but all the mountain tribes would have rallied to him. But alas! there was nothing of the leader in him. Thirty years of enforced idleness and exile had turned him from a rebel youth into a stout and amiable elderly gentleman, with a considerable sense of humour, but devoid of all capacity or even desire, to rule.

The Abbot's trump card was not an ace--it was not even a knave.

Meanwhile the Austrian Consulate was bubbling with rumours of a quarrel at Ischl between King Edward VII and the Emperor Franz Josef. It was said that King Edward had rudely walked out of the Royal box at the theatre where he was the Emperor's guest, in the middle of the performance, and had given as an excuse that the performance was improper. The consular youths refused to believe any play could be too highly flavoured for the King of England, judging by pieces which they knew he had witnessed, and declared there had been a political quarrel. This was later officially denied. In any: case the result was the same--friction and misunderstanding between the two countries--and it is evident that King Edward's journeys to Reval cannot have pleased Franz Josef.

Nor was there any sign that the Turkish Constitution would be a success. The Albanian Moslems were soon furious to find that instead of giving them freedom, it meant that they would all now have to give military service. The districts of Ipek, Prizren, Djakova, Upper Dibra, Scutari, and others who had hitherto been exempt, declared that they had not fought the Turk for years in order to be conquered now. The Christians, who had believed that "Constituzi" meant the Turk was going, were horrified. Nothing would induce them to fight for the Turks. Already in September I found distrust of the Turk all through Kosovo vilayet. The Moslems who had gathered at Ferizovitch and demanded Constitution of Abdul Hamid saw they had been tricked. They declared they had been summoned to fight Austria, and said they were ready to do that, but they would never allow themselves to be dictated to by the Turks.

I talked with the two Young Turk officers, Halil and Khiassim Bey, at Scutari. They were hopelessly ignorant. Knew, in fact, no more about a Constitution than did the up-country mountain men. It was a sort of magic word which was to put all right. They were arranging to be photographed in new uniforms with plenty of gold braid, and were childishly happy. When I said: "But you have the Bulgar question, the Greek, the Serb, and Albanian questions all to solve in Europe alone--surely those are more important than new uniforms," they replied: "These questions no longer exist. We have made a law. All are now Ottomans!"

"You may make a law that a cat is a dog," said I, "but it will remain a cat."

They expressed horror that I should compare human beings to animals, and Halil persisted: "It will be like England. In England you have the people of Scotland and Ireland. But they are all English. A man from Scotland, for example, would not say 'I am Scotch.'"

"But he would," I persisted. "If you call an Irishman, English, he will probably knock you down." They were surprised and incredulous. They had no plans, no ideas. That no one wanted to be an Ottoman, and that, contracted to "Ot" the word was used as a term of contempt to denote "Turk" by the town Christians was unknown to them. Albania was, in fact, for the Young Turks, the most important of its European possessions, for, well handled, it might have remained loyal to the Turk against the dreaded Slav. But Constantinople did nothing to achieve this. And Scutari was infuriated because, though the prisoners had been released in honour of the Constitution throughout the land, the doors of Scutari prisons were still closed. Folk began to say: "The Young Turk is as bad as the Old."

I took a long journey up into Kosovo vilayet to districts which had previously been practically closed to travellers for many years, visiting Djakova, Prizren, Prishtina, Mitrovitza, and the plain of Kosovo. Here it seemed obvious that the new regime must fail. The Serbs everywhere were in very much of a minority, and their headmen --the Bishop of Prizren, the Archimandrite of Grachanitza, the master of the Serb theological school at Prizren, and others frankly lamented the Turkish revolution, and looked on it only as a frustration of all their schemes. A well-governed Turkey was the last thing they wished for, as it would prevent the creation of Great Serbia. Prizren itself was so overwhelmingly Albanian that the Serbian College, with its students brought even from Montenegro and other non-Turk lands, seemed ridiculously artificial.

Nor were the Albanians any longer pleased about the revolution. They meant to accept nothing that would bring them further under Turkish power. As for the Turkish authorities, they were still under the magic of the blessed word "Constitution," and in order that foreigners should be so too, sent gendarmes ahead to prepare a group of "peasants rejoicing under the Constitution" at Djakova, ready for the arrival of some French delegates.

I was back in Scutari when, on October 5th, came the startling news that Ferdinand of Bulgaria had proclaimed himself Tsar of independent Bulgaria. This confirmed the Christians of the town in their rooted belief that all that was going on was arranged by the Great Powers for the purpose of entirely overthrowing the Turk.

Tuesday, October 6th, the Austrian attache had supper with me, and was bubbling with excitement. He had a great piece of news, but it might not yet be told. I was to try and guess< He would tell me so soon as possible. Wednesday and Thursday passed, and on Friday early, in rushed my old Marko crying: "War is declared by Serbia, Russia, Montenegro, and Turkey against Austria!" Why, he did not know. Running out to learn, I met the attache beaming: "We have annexed Bosnia and the Herzegovina!" he said. "Then you have done a dashed silly thing!" said I. He was greatly surprised, and promised to come to dinner with me and fight it out. I went to the Montenegrin Consulate and found Petar Plamenatz almost in tears with a red-hot proclamation of Prince Nikola's in his hands, calling on all Serbs of all countries to unite and denounce the breaking of the Berlin Treaty, and laying great stress on the fact that all his ancestors were buried in the Herzegovina, which was now seized by Austria. Petar was of opinion that war was inevitable, otherwise all the plans of the Serbs for Great Serbia were ruined. Serbs and Montenegrins must act as brothers.

Excitement in the town was further heated by the arrival of the French Minister from Belgrade, who interviewed the newly-arrived Prenk Bib Doda, and the wildest things were reported and believed, even that England, Germany, and Austria had combined to crush the Slavs. Folk discussed which Power would land there. Prizren was said to have declared itself independent. And one of the political prisoners of the Cetinje bomb affair, who had been condemned to fifteen years, escaped and took refuge in Scutari. In the general excitement I never learnt his name, and he left for Serbia.

The Austrian attache duly came to dinner, and explained that it was absolutely necessary to annex Bosnia as the Young Turks were preparing for the general elections. The two provinces were nominally part of the Turkish Empire, and the Turks would claim that they should be represented in their Parliament. Europe had never intended the provinces to revert to Turkey; they had been entirely Austrian for thirty years, and the change was in name only. It would also make it possible to give the provinces a liberal and civilian government, a thing not possible when it was a question only of a military occupation. I countered with: "Let sleeping dogs lie." Europe would never have taken it from Austria, and if it had been agreed that Austria should retire from part she would have been necessarily heavily compensated. He replied: "Ah, but you don't know something we know, and which has expedited the affair. England is on the point of annexing Egypt. The same problem faces you there." I did not believe this possible, and declared that we were pledged to the Egyptians to restore the land to them. I believed, then, we should keep our word. He laughed, and said he had certain information that we should annex it. Nor would he agree, when I persisted, that Austria had made a mistake in not bringing the question up before the signatory Powers. We discussed the anti-Austrian propaganda, which I had found rife in Bosnian He believed it to have been largely due to the uncertainty of the position, and declared that, faced with the fait accompli, the Serbs would drop the intrigues which kept up the agitation, and that a civilian government and a constitution would speedily ameliorate everything.

Austria was already withdrawing the officers' families from the Sanjak, and complete evacuation would follow. She dropped also the Uvatz-Mitrovitza railway scheme which the Young Turks seemed not over-willing to permit.

Moslem wrath, fierce against Austria, was further excited by the arrival of malcontent Moslems from the annexed provinces, who had thrown up their businesses and emigrated to the Young Turks. A curio-dealer from Mostar, whom I knew, was among them He and his friends had all believed that the Turkish revolution meant that Bosnia-Herzegovina would be the Sultan's once more. I asked why there had been no rising, and he explained humorously that, except his wife's scissors, he had no weapon to rise with. The "Schwabs" had called in all knives big enough to fight with, some weeks before the annexation was proclaimed.

A Moslem demonstration took place outside the Austrian consulate. The consular staff sent for Browning pistols, and insisted on ordering one for me, too, as declared my lodgings outside the town were dangerous. There was a whirlpool of contrary currents. Just before the Turkish revolution took place Essad Bey, who was aware of what was going on but, characteristically, meant to keep clear till he knew which was the winning side, applied for leave to go abroad for his health, which appeared excellent, and abroad he remained till Young Turk victory was certain.

In the first frenzy of joy, over what they believed to be the coming reign of liberty and justice, one of the cries of the townsfolk had been: "Now if Essad ever dares come back they will hang him, and give back all the lands and monies he has stolen!" Essad, however, outwitted the Young Turks as easily as he later outwitted the British Foreign Office. Whatever happened, he would be "butter-side uppermost." He announced that he, too, was a Young Turk, and returned in triumph as a member of the Committee of Union and Progress. This did more in Scutari to shake all faith in the new regime than anything else. Excitement grew. War was expected at any moment. Serbia and Montenegro were reported to have mobilized, and all frontiers were armed. On October 28th I find in my diary: "Had urgent appeal to go to Belgrade, but decided not--I don't want to get badly mixed in their politics." The Montenegrins were all for war, and the wildest reports reached us of Prince George of Serbia's efforts to precipitate it.

Russia, still reeling from her Japanese thrashing and torn with internal troubles, could do nothing. That was plain to every one but the South Slavs.

Baron Nopcsa, the Hungarian traveller, whose knowledge of Albanian matters is unrivalled, returned from a tour in the mountains. He was violently anti-Serb, and, in reply to my hope that war would be avoided, said very earnestly: "It can't be. Russia Is rapidly recovering. The Slavs mean our destruction; it is now or never for us. Our one chance is to crush them before they become too strong." I suggested there was room for both. He maintained there was not. "Let the Slav once get the upper hand, and there will be room for no one else. You had better remember that!" As a choice of evils, he favoured union with Germany against the common foe.

The pro-Serb attitude of England astonished every one except the "Great Serbians," who did not think it strong enough, and hoped for British naval support at least. To the Austrians it was incomprehensible that England should have made such a complete volte-face since 1878. The Czech consul-general, the Croatian secretary, and the Dalmatian doctor--all Slavs--were dead against Serbia and-all her claims. And in spite of the surprise expressed by England it appeared that the question of Bosnia's status had been discussed with England almost immediately after the proclamation of the Young Turk revolution. For a Reuter telegram had reported: "August 12, Vienna. . . . it was agreed at the conference between Baron Aehrenthal and Sir Charles Hardinge at Ischl to-day that any developments arising in Bosnia and the Herzegovina from the constitutional changes in Turkey should be considered as purely internal matters affecting Austria-Hungary and not involving any question of international policy." Sir Charles Hardinge, who had come in company with King Edward VII, at once returned to England.

The Moslems regarded the annexation as a Christian attack on Islam, and, as it was Ramazan, demonstrated loudly at night in the Christian quarter of Scutari. The Turkish Government boycotted all Austrian goods, and as the bulk of Scutari's imports came from Trieste the town felt this severely. The attache told me that England was believed to be behind this boycott for commercial purposes, and that as Austria manufactured a great deal expressly for the Turkish market a prolonged boycott must spell ruin. How easily we thought it spelt in those days!

Montenegro, meanwhile, went rabid because her special envoy to Belgrade, Yanko Vukotitch, cousin to the Princess, was stopped, and, it was said, searched on Austrian territory. Things were touch and go. The Montenegrin army was preparing to fall on Cattaro. War seemed inevitable, for England's attitude caused the Montenegrins to believe that they had only to begin and British aid was certain. Imaginative people actually saw the Mediterranean fleet coming up the Adriatic. They were spoiling for a fight. I was sure our bark was far worse than our bite was likely to be, but was very anxious, for we had no British representative in Cetinje to advise moderation, and, while we went on barking, Montenegro might bite. Montenegrin and Austrian troops faced each other on the frontier, and a rifle fired by a man full of rakia might set the whole ablaze.

People at home did not know how close the spark and the powder lay. If war ensued, it would mean the end of Turkey in Europe. In spite of tension between Christian and Moslem, the Albanians remembered that blood is thicker than water, and were very anxious to consolidate their position by adopting a common alphabet for all Albania. This, owing to Turkish prohibitions, had previously been impossible. For Italy and Austria, who printed school books in Albanian, did so for their own purposes, and not to encourage nationality, and so each used a different alphabet and changed it not infrequently.

A great national meeting of representatives of all Albania was held at Monastir, which the Albanians then reckoned as one of their towns. The Latin alphabet was chosen, a common system of orthography adopted, and the frontiers of Albanian territory discussed. The Turks, alarmed at the growth of Albanian Nationalism, again began restrictions, and hurried to arrange for the election to Parliament of such members only as were pro-Turk. As I wrote at the time: "The so-called election is no election at all. The tyrant of Tirana, Essad Bey, a man who is greatly detested, and has an awful reputation, is to be member for Tirana, elected' by the peasants who are terrified of him. Even Scutari is surprised he has succeeded in making them do it. He is head of the gendarmerie, and this gives him great power." It has been said that in an emergency you can always trust a Turk to do the wrong thing. Every mistake possible to make in Albania, the Young Turks made, and while they still rubbed Albania up the wrong way, Austria was still boycotted. Kral himself tried vainly to unload a barge of sugar. And still Serbia, Montenegro, and Austria showed their teeth on the frontier. The Crown Prince George of Serbia was reported to be about to assume the command of the army as a second Stefan Dushan. But his rush to Petersburg and appeal to the Tsar met with rebuff and refusal. Russia was not yet ready for another war, as Lobatcheff sadly admitted.

We became used to reports several times a week that war had begun somewhere or other. But the town was in a fever of excitement when, towards the middle of November, we heard that the British fleet had arrived in the Adriatic, and that the Admiral was about to visit Scutari. "War for certain! Albania is saved!" cried folk. The hotel reported that the Admiral and suite had engaged rooms, and were coming via Cetinje. The British fleet must be in the Bocche di Cattaro! The Vali decided to send a band and a guard of honour to meet him. I suggested that Edward VII was coming in person, but people were past seeing jokes. Our Vice-Consul had had no news at all, and was agitated. All day the Admiral and British fleet were expected. The Crimea would be repeated, and Turkey saved. Next day brought forth--a British charge d'affaires and five ladies who had merely come for fun to see the bazar, and were overpowered by finding themselves officially received. All Scutari, perhaps all Turkey, tense and tremulous, waited to see what steps Great Britain would take. And its representative, all unaware of what political fever in the Balkans is, saw the bazar, had tea at the Austrian Consulate, and went back again to Cetinje, escorted to the boat by a Turkish guard. Then the storm broke! What did Great Britain mean? Scutari was amazed, perplexed, bewildered; wild rumours flew. An Anglo-Austrian Alliance--a break with Russia--a slap in the face for the Turks. Nothing was too crazy to be believed and repeated. A knock came at my door. In came Lobatcheff in full uniform. He said that his Tsar had been insulted in his person. Was fizzling with excitement. Had I any information for him? Had the British Government reversed its policy? What was the object of this mission to Scutari? And so on--red hot. I told him there was nothing to be excited about. "An English official had come for a holiday. That was all. Did he suppose that a diplomat on business would bring a party of ladies?" But the Russian had got all his bristles up. "That I decline to believe," he said. "I have too high an idea of the skill of your Foreign Office to believe they would send a man at such a moment to visit the bazar for no purpose!" And it took me ever so long to talk him round. Having settled Russia and got rid of him, in came Mr. Summa, our Vice-Consul, also deeply troubled. The Vali had asked him for an explanation of the policy of Great Britain. He, too, was of opinion that the Foreign Office could not have concocted such a plan as a visit to the bazar, except for some deep and obscure purpose. The Young Turks having made a Constitution, naturally expected Great Britain, also a Constitutional country, etc. etc. Why had not the British envoy visited the Vali? In fact, you could hardly blow your nose in Scutari without being suspected of political intentions.

Then came a message from Petar Plamenatz, who was ill, and wished to see me. The Slav kettle gets hot in a minute. Petar, who was not such a big pot as he imagined, was boiling over. His Prince, his country, and--worst of all--himself, had all been insulted. Why had he, who was Consul-General for Montenegro, not been called on? With Petar, as usual, I was very firm. "This gentleman," said I, "doubtless heard of your illness in Cetinje. He came here as a tourist, and so naturally did not wish to disturb you. Why should he, when he came not on official business, but merely to see the bazar?" Petar was squashed. The whole episode illustrates the fact, which few people in West Europe appreciate, namely, that in the Near East politics are a nervous disease.

I left for Cetinje shortly afterwards. My last letter said: "The war-clouds are thickening. The people here who foretell the future in sheep's bladebones and fowls' breastbones have foretold nothing but blood for weeks. ... It is said that by the end of four months Austria will occupy the Sanjak as far as Mitrovitza."

"To save us," say the Albanians, "if the Serbs are allowed to have it, it will at once be Russian. We should be lost, and our religion crushed. If Montenegro declared war the Albanians will at once reoccupy Dulcigno; that forced cession of Dulcigno, engineered by Gladstone, has done more to keep up hatred here than anything else."

"I gather from the Press cuttings that none of the reviewers like my idea that the Constitution can't last. But so far as I can make out, only the English and the French papers believe--or pretend to believe--in it." To me it seemed, indeed, clear that the Young Turk regime was bound to fail. No one but the Young Turks wanted it, and they had started it at least thirty years too late. Territorial aggrandizement was what Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro wanted. Russia and Austria, too, were both burning to "free Christians from the Turkish yoke." And if Turkey reformed herself into an earthly Paradise, the lands those Christians lived in would be lost for ever.

Then came talk of withdrawing the international gendarmerie from Macedonia. This I could not believe possible. "England will never do anything so crazy!" I declared.

"She will though," said the Austrian Consulate, "and so soon as the Young Turks have enough rope they will hang themselves." And sure enough the gendarmerie was withdrawn, and the Young Turk let loose to go as he pleased. In Cetinje I found popular opinion furious both with the Young Turks and with Austria. Either and each would prevent the formation of Great Serbia. All were for war, and still believed England would support them if they began. I went to the drinkshops as being the centres from which to distribute information, and told gendarmes, soldiers, and pot-house visitors generally that England Would not go to war for them.

"But," they declared, "your own Prime Minister in Parliament has said: 'We will never allow the Treaty of Berlin to be violated.' Our guns are on the frontier pointing at Cattaro. It is war!"

"Oh, they tell a lot of lies in our Parliament," said I. "Don't believe them. We are not going to fight. You will get no help."

I was exceedingly afraid some fool would start firing, for they were getting tired of doing nothing on the frontier in the cold. All the Corps Diplomatique, save Austria, interviewed me, anxious to hear how the Constitution was working in Albania. None of them had any belief in it. The French Minister even said it would require twenty Napoleons to solve Turkey's many problems, and the Turks had not one.

The Prince sent for me, and I saw he, too, expected war, for he questioned me about the Red Cross, and asked me whether I could get medical aid from England.

The steamer in which I left Cattaro was empty of goods because of the boycott, and of passengers because of the political situation. There was a non-commissioned Austrian officer with me in the second class. As the boat left the shore he said fervently: "Gott sei dank! Gott sei dank! I have got away. The war will begin very soon now, and every one in Cattaro will be killed, like a rat in a trap. We shall win in the end. But Cattaro will fall at once. I have been there for weeks with the guns pointed on us day and night. Gott bewahre!" He, like Baron Nopesa, believed it to be a case of "Now or never!" Austria must fight. If she waited a few years the Slav combine would be too strong.

"We have the whole of the German army with us," said the officer, "and you could do nothing to stop us."

Probably he was correct. In 1908 Russia was quite impotent, and the Central Powers might have won.

But Germany insisted on peace.

I arrived in London, and was amazed to find for the first time people who believed in the Young Turks. They would listen to no facts, and would not believe me when I said that the Turkish Empire, as it stood, would probably barely survive one Parliament. A prophecy which was almost exactly fulfilled.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

1909

An accident and a long illness forced me to spend 1909 in London. In March came a significant change in Serbia. Prince George, the Crown Prince, in a fit of uncontrolled rage, amounting to mania, kicked his valet down some stone steps and killed him. Rumours of the Prince's strange and violent conduct had long been rife. He escaped trial by renouncing all rights to succession to the throne, and his brother, Prince Alexander, became heir. Alexander was said to have the support of the regicide officers' party, the Black Hand. George, too, had his partisans, who declared that if he were as mad as his great-grandfather, old Karageorge, so much the better, he would lead Serbia to glory.

In March, too, came the counter-revolution against the Young Turk regime. I had learnt from a letter from Albania that this was about to take place. It failed, to my regret, for I hoped that its success would result in the landing of international forces, and that international control might solve the Balkan problem peacefully. I believed then that rule by the Western Powers would be better than that of the Turks. Now that we Know that these so-called civilized Powers will starve millions, and bomb helpless crowds, in order to obtain land and supremacy, many of us blush for the criticisms we once showered on the state of Macedonia.

The Young Turk won in 1909, and Abdul Hamid was called on to abdicate. Essad Pasha (formerly Bey) the ex-gendarmerie commander at Scutari, was now hand in glove with the Young Turks. He played, in fact, on whichever side he thought to gain something for himself. He managed to be one of the three who took the fatal message to the terrified Sultan, and spoke the words: "Abdul, the nation hath pronounced thee deposed!" Thus dramatically avenging the murder of his brother Gani fifteen years before, very completely. Abdul went, and with him went the Empire. He had lived a life of terror, and played a long game of "bluff." But those who knew him intimately declare that his success with the Powers depended more on the way they outwitted each other than on his skill as a diplomatist. Recent revelations have shown us that the much talked of intrigues of the East are child's play compared to the plans built by the West.

Hitherto all that went wrong in Turkey was ascribed to Abdul Hamid. The Young Turks had now no scapegoat, and were in a perilous position with foes within and without. They resolved, therefore, that the only way to consolidate the Empire was to forcibly Ottomanize the population as fast as possible. But it was too late by many years for this. The Balkan States had expended huge sums on propaganda in Turkish territory, and knew that if their oft-repeated demands for reform were carried out, all their plans for territorial aggrandizement would be ruined. They fitted out bands and hurried on propaganda. The Serbs had started the Narodna Odbrana society, and opened a school in which officers trained komitadji bands, taught bomb throwing, train wrecking, mining, and shooting, to volunteers. These were designed primarily for attack on Austria to avenge the annexation of Bosnia. They acted also with ferocity in Macedonia against the Bulgars. Serbia, whose propaganda in Macedonia was very recent, tried to make up now, by planting schools and sending forth komitadjis.

Austria early in 1909 dropped her North and South railway scheme. But the Slavs clamoured still for an East and West line, and Russia backed them, and Prince Nikola still cried out about his ancestors, who, for the time, remained buried in the Herzegovina. Russia demanded that the Dardanelles should now be opened to her warships. It came out that when Baron von Aehrenthal met Izvolsky--Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs--at Buchlau in September 1908, Izvolsky had agreed to the Austrian annexation of Bosnia in exchange for the opening of the Dardanelles. He may have believed this would automatically follow any violation of the Berlin Treaty. But he was outwitted. Would that he had always been! After much argle-bargle Europe decided to accept the fait accompli in Bosnia, and not to reassemble the signatory Powers. Serbia did not receive the corridor she demanded through the Sanjak, and signed an agreement accepting the changed state of Bosnia. Prince Nikola, in consideration of his lost and buried ancestors, obtained certain concessions in the status of Antivari. Russia, as war was impossible for her, did all she could to maintain peace, even undertaking a large share of the pecuniary compensation demanded of Bulgaria by the Turks. To Serbia she counselled moderation, but, as we have learnt from recently published documents, pledged herself' to support Serbia later on. On March 6, 1909, the Serb representative in Petersburg informed Belgrade: "Chamjakow informed me very confidentially that . . . in the audience which took place on Monday the Tsar said that the situation was terrible, for Russia was unprepared for war, and the defeat of Russia would be the ruin of Slavdom . . . In answer to the question what attitude Russia would assume in case Austria should attack Serbia, the President of the Duma said: We did something no other State has done up till now. We proclaimed to the Whole world that we are not in a position to make war, but we shall consider any attempt to coerce Serbia as the beginning of a European conflagration, in which we cannot at present join. But it will flame up in the future when we are in a position to have our way." (Telegram xvi, Bogitchevitch). Russia thus very clearly told Serbia so early as 1909 that so soon as Russia was ready, Serbia had but to provoke Austria to retaliation and the European war, from which Russia hoped to obtain so much, would at once blaze up. "You press the button, and we'll do the rest."

As one result of the Bosnian crisis, Izvolsky lost his popularity. In 1910 he was retired from the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs, which he had held since 1906, and went to Paris as Russian ambassador, where he toiled unremittingly at inciting France to co-operate in his schemes. Already in October 1908 he had thus instructed M. Vesnitch, Serb Minister in Paris: "Russia has hitherto supported Serbia, and will continue to support her, however and wherever she can. You must come to an understanding soon with Montenegro. . . . Further, you must come to an understanding with, Bulgaria, and in this we shall honestly support you. We no longer desire a Great Bulgaria. Such an idea we now look on as a mistake" (i.e. it would block the route to Constantinople). This is the first official proof we have of Russia's plan to construct a Balkan League for her own use, from which it is clear Bulgaria was to derive no benefit. Before going to Paris, Izvolsky laid yet another stick ready to kindle the European blaze. In October 1909 he made an agreement with Italy, whose hatred of Austria was increasing, by which Italy and Russia "bind themselves to a mutually benevolent attitude, the former in regard to Russia's interests in the Dardanelles, and the latter in regard to Italy's interests in Tripoli and the Cyrenaica." Italy, in fact, under cover of military manoeuvres, made extensive military preparations against Austria in 1909, while hostilities over Bosnia were possible. Baron Nopcsa told me bitterly in 1910: "We shall never again rely on Italy. She mobilized against us last year." That his statement was true was confirmed to me later by Mr. Wadham Peacock, who told me he had been at that time in Verona, seen active preparations, and heard the approaching war against Austria freely discussed by Italian officers.

The Albanians hastened to consolidate their position by holding two important National Congresses at Dibra and Elbasan, at which a scheme for national education was discussed, and the formation of Courts of Justice, road-making, and the purpose to which taxes were to be applied. These, they insisted, were to be used for national works. The Young Turks would give no pledge to this effect, and foolishly tried to extort a tax to pay for the Bulgar rising of 1903. They ordered also the disarming of Albania, and sent a large force into Kosovo vilayet for this purpose.

The Albanians, led by that very gallant chieftain, Isa Boletin, rose, and fierce fighting ensued, which, had the Turks but known it, was the beginning of the end. They hopelessly alienated the Albanians, the one race whom they might have had as ally.

Another important event was the trial at Agram of a number of Serbs and Croats accused of conspiracy with Serbia against the Austro-Hungarian Government. Thirty-three were condemned to various terms of imprisonment, but were released on appeal, and brought a countercharge of libel against Dr. Fried Jung, a Journalist, for asserting in the Neue Freie Presse that they had been subsidized by Belgrade, and advocating that Belgrade should be purged of a nest of conspirators. Pashitch, Spalaikovitch, and the Slovenski Jug (founded in 1904), and others were accused. There was no question of Friedjung's bona fides. He founded his article upon what he believed to be genuine documents, and on the evidence of Nastitch, the Bosnian, who had given sensational evidence at the Cetinje bomb trial. Nastitch proved to be a professional spy, and the evidence forged. Friedjung lost his case, and the sentences of the condemned men were annulled. But his contention that plots against Austria were being made in Belgrade has been proved undoubtedly true by later events. The accused denied everything at the trial, but so soon as war broke out in 1914 the Serbo-Croat party appeared with ready-made plans, and Supilo, who had most vehemently protested his innocence, appeared as a recognized leader. The trial, in truth, resembles the case of The Times v. Parnell. The Times, like Friedjung, lost its case not because the charge was false, but because all the evidence produced was forged. That Parnell was intimately acquainted with and connected with all the anti-English work going on in Ireland is now well known. Friedjung was correct. Belgrade winked at the anti-Austrian work that was going on. The komitadji school was taught by Serb officers. Evidence was not easy to get, for, as it was explained to me by the pro-Serb party in Bosnia, in 1906, nothing of importance was written down, and the Austrians searched the post vainly. And the fact that they told me the Slovenski Jug was directed against Austria prevented me from joining it. Friedjung's failure proves only the folly of employing a stupid spy, not the innocence of the accused. Pashitch, after war began, never ceased trumpeting his schemes for Great Serbia. He grudges even now a few snippets to Italy, without whose aid it might not have been made. To assert that Pashitch, who, with his set, had worked to make Great Serbia ever since they had removed the Obrenovitch from its path in 1903, was innocent of plotting against Austria in 1909-10, is to ask for too much credulity. Had not Russia already said the road to Constantinople lay through Vienna?

England had previously been uneasy about the regicides, and had demanded their dismissal from the Serb army, but now ceased to trouble about them. They were probably needed to teach in the bandit school of the Narodna Odbrana. And henceforth they held important posts. The original gang of some fifty murderers, officers and civilians, developed into a formidable society called the Tsrna Ruka (Black Hand), which became a government within a government. The Black Hand was responsible to none. Many members of the Government were reported to belong to it, a convenient Jekyll and Hyde arrangement, by means of which crimes of all kind could be committed, for which the Government took no responsibility, and of which it denied all knowledge. King Petar having been put on the throne by this gang, had naturally no power over them, and Prince Alexander was reported to have joined the society. Talk there was about it all enough to lead one to think "No smoke without fire." Members of the Tsrna Ruka joined the police force, and so secured their plans against police interference. By means of a paper called Premont they preach violent chauvinism, and advocated savage methods. Damian Popovitch, the head assassin, held an important post. Efforts on the part of politicians, who disapproved of its methods, to break up the society failed. Unexplained deaths took place. The Black Hand brooked no interference.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

1910

Ill and crippled with sciatica, but hopeless of recovery in England, I managed to get to Scutari in April 1910, hoping there to find a sun-cure, and at least to learn what was happening.

Things had gone from bad to worse. No one now believed in "Constitution." The attitude of the populace on the Sultan's accession day showed this. No reforms or improvements had as yet been even begun. People said: "We will not give money to the Turks to buy gold braid for officers and guns to kill us with."

Lobatcheff had gone to Mitrovitza to hold it as a Slav outpost. My friend, the attache, had left after having almost fought a duel with the French Consul over his bulldog. Dushan Gregovitch represented Montenegro. Italy and Austria were redoubling their efforts to win over the Albanians by showering "benefits" upon them, although each had formally agreed not to countenance the partition of Albania, and the Nationalist Albanians were making strides in spite of the efforts of enemies. At the time of the Young Turk revolution some thirty Albanian papers were being published abroad. Now, as the Constitution promised freedom of the Press, printing was going on all over Albania, and the new alphabet was universally adopted. The Albanian girls' school at Koritza was filled to overflowing. The South strove to throw off Greek influence, and at Elbasan a school for training teachers was opened with mixed Moslem and Christian staff. As the Albanian poet had sung, it was a case of:

Awake, Albanians, awake! Let not mosques nor churches divide you. The true religion of the Albanian is his national ideal.

Nationalism gained in Scutari by the death of the old Austrian Archbishop, and the elevation in his place of Mgr. Serreggi, an Albanian patriot.

Fighting was going on in Kosovo vilayet, but the Christians of Scutari firmly believed that Austria, as protector of the Catholics, would never allow the Turkish army to enter the Catholic districts. In the town the Turks pursued a foolish policy. Only one per cent, of the Christians understood Turkish, and about 20 per cent, of the Moslems, and but few could read or write it. Nevertheless the Turks gave out all notices in Turkish, and the people did not even trouble to ask their meaning.

Then came a grave event. One Sunday morning my old Marko, in whose house I lodged, announced solemnly: "Last night Teresi had a terrible dream about you. To-day you will have important news from England. God grant nothing bad has happened to your noble family." I chaffed the old man, saying: "There is no post to-day!" And then came a knock at the door, and the old blue kavas from the British Consulate handed me a note from M. Summa. "I regret to inform you of the death of our beloved Sovereign, Edward VII, which I have just learnt by telegraph from Salonika." Teresi's reputation as a dreamer became immense.

King Edward VII, in a short reign, had largely contributed towards bringing Great Britain from a state of "splendid isolation" into a tangle of--to me--very doubtful associates. I wrote: "The King's death knocks out one's ideas of what sort of a position England is going to hold. . . . Poor George ascends the throne in an awfully difficult time, with internal and foreign politics both in a regular tangle. A far more difficult beginning than Edward had. For, then, we had not upset the whole balance of power in Asia and Europe by making that alliance with Japan. I always hated it. The result . . . the predominance of Germany in Europe, is going to cost us dear. And when Japan has got all she can out of us, she will turn round and bite."

And in the same week I noted: "The newly-appointed British Minister is coming here to-morrow. Thank goodness there is no acute political crisis on now, as there was when the last man came." Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont arrived, and there followed in pursuit of them a King's messenger, who bore the assent of the British Government to Prince Nikola's desire to proclaim himself king.

His position now hurt badly. The Petrovitches were the oldest Balkan dynasty, and were the lowest in rank. The Montenegrins were divided as to the desirability of the change. Prince Danilo and his set were said to favour it strongly. The thing was decided upon suddenly, and the country consented. "I expect some Power engineered it," says my diary. And soon the rumour was very certain that the step had been taken by the advice and with the agreement of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria. "Which do you love best--me or Ferdinand?" Prince Nikola had asked me suddenly, when I last visited him. "You, of course, Sire!" said I, and wondered at the time why he had Ferdinand on the brain.

That the Turkish Empire would now soon break up, was the general belief, and Kings Ferdinand and Nikola would divide the peninsula. Bulgaria would obtain her Alsace-Lorraine, Macedonia, and Nikita would reign over Great Serbia from Prizren.

Fighting continued in Kosovo vilayet. Meanwhile I was carried dangerously ill to the Austrian hospital, and lay helpless between bouts of agony and injections of morphine. The Albanians came and wept over me, and prayed for advice and help. When I was nearly screaming with pain they implored me to make an effort and write for them to the Foreign Office and the papers, for the Turkish army was approaching. I was dragged to a sitting position, managed to write two letters, and fainted with the pain. Vain agony. Nothing could break the journalistic ring which forbade any criticism of the Young Turks. A foolish policy, for it led them to believe their actions beyond criticism, and helped their undoing. The more they blundered, the more Italy, and Austria, and Russia rejoiced. They expected the Withdrawal of the international gendarmerie to send the Turks downhill with a crash. England, probably, was not guilty of withdrawing for that reason, but was much less well informed, because more sparsely represented, than the other Powers. And we were already tangled in Russia's plans, and did not know what they were.

The Turks sent over increased forces and artillery into Kosovo vilayet, and Scutari learnt with dismay that in spite of the valour of the Kosovo men they were being forced back and back, and the Turkish army was approaching Scutari.

Prenk Pasha, who had been made a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, had promised the Turks safe-conduct through Mirdita. This was in strict conformity with the policy explained to me by the Abbot Premi Dochi in 1904, viz. that the Turk must be maintained until Albania was sufficiently organized to stand alone, otherwise the Slav, the more relentless foe, would fall upon her. The other Catholic tribes were wildly dismayed, and the headmen ran from one consulate to another begging advice. None was given them. They were far too poorly armed to resist, and in July 1910 the Turkish army entered Scutari and ordered the populace to give up its arms. They did so quietly. The Christians had few to give. The Moslems feared, by rising, to provoke an Austrian intervention.

I was too ill to be taken out to see what was going on, and, to my great disappointment, was still unable to move when the celebration on the occasion of Nikita's elevation to kingship took place in August.

Montenegro had raised a loan from England the year before, and had expended the whole of it in making electric light in Cetinje and building a Government house of superlative ugliness, and so vast that it seemed obviously intended to administer a much larger territory than Montenegro.

Scutari was excited about Montenegrin doings. Foreign visitors flocked to Cetinje to assist at the fete. Bulgaria was represented by King Ferdinand himself, Serbia, only by the Crown Prince, and he, said rumour, decided to come only at the last minute. Conclusions about a Bulgar-Montenegrin combine were freely drawn. One point both Montenegrins and Albanians agreed upon, "A king must have a kingdom. The Powers would not otherwise have allowed him to be king. Soon there will be war!"

While still in hospital I received an English paper, with illustrations of the launch of a Dreadnought. The doctor, a Dalmatian Slav, looked at them sadly. "Why do you do these things?" he asked. "You are forcing on war. You will ruin Austria. We admire everything English, except your Dreadnoughts. Each time you build one, we of the Triple Alliance are forced to build one too. We Austrians have no colonies, and never want any. We need no navy. We are already overtaxed, and the breaking-point must come one day. You eat us up with your terrible wealth. To my mind all Europe is mad. We have one common danger--the peoples of Africa and Asia, who are developing rapidly. If we want to save European civilization we must federate against the common foe. If ever there is a war in Europe --and God forbid--it will be the suicide of the white races. They will fight to extermination, and the day of the coloured people will dawn. We shall deserve our fate. It will be the result of our own folly."

Where he is now I know not. His words come back to me always. After three months I emerged from the hospital, well but weak, into a dismayed and depressed Scutari. The Turks were trying to hamper nationalism by ordering Albanian to be printed in Arabic characters, and making Turkish compulsory in the schools. They had roused fierce anger, too, by publicly flogging some offenders, a punishment regarded in Albania as so shameful and humiliating that it bred sympathy for the victim and hatred for the inflicter. Has it, perhaps, the same result in India and Egypt?

Our next news was that Montenegro's feelings were woefully hurt. Nikola had Just been made king--but Montenegro was the only state in Europe on which the special mission to announce the death of King Edward and the accession of King George had not called. Montenegro had spent much on sending Prince Danilo to attend the funeral, and Princess Militza is distantly related to Queen Mary. The omission rankled very badly. It would be interesting to know who suggested that King Nikola should be left out.

Having achieved kingship, Nikola soon began to act. So soon as the Turks had persuaded the Albanians to disarm, they began to make a census of all fit for military service. This the Christians swore they would never give, and were furious with Austria for not intervening. The Moslems, too, vowed they would not serve outside Albania. And before any one knew what was going to happen a number of the Gruda tribe went over the border into Montenegro. Numbers of the Hoti and Shkreli followed. Scutari was astounded. The Austrians were furious, and vowed Russia had paid for it. The Turks clapped on further anti-Albanian laws, and most of the papers were suppressed. The Koritza girls' school was closed, and news of arrests came from all over the country. The Turks circulated copies of the Arabic alphabet, and ordered its use, and the Albanians burnt them.

To escape the winter I went to Egypt, nor will I detail my six months' stay there, except to note that it entirely changed my ideas about the Austrian occupation of Bosnia. My diary towards the close of my stay notes: "I wouldn't be a native under British rule at any price. They may 'do a lot of good to you,' but, dear God! they do let you know their contempt for you, and drive your inferiority into you. Any one with any spunk would rather go to hell his own way than be chivied to heaven by such odiously superior beasts. . . . The Moslems are not grateful for 'benefits' they do not want, and the Christians are discontented and annoyed, as in Bosnia." During the winter I heard from Albania that a fresh revolt was planning; that General Garibaldi had promised arms and men, and that it would break out in the spring. Before leaving Egypt for Europe I stayed at Alexandria, and saw my friend the attache, who was now a full-blown Austrian consul, and retracted the criticisms I had made to him on Austria in Bosnia.

At Constantinople, I learnt that the Albanian revolution had broken out. Popovitch, the Montenegrin Minister, complained bitterly that his Government gave him no information, and left him to answer the Turks' charges of complicity as best he could. He was so anxious about the affair that it was obvious Montenegro was "dipped" in whatever was happening, and he begged me to go straight to the scene of action.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

1911 AND THE INSURRECTION OF THE CATHOLICS

I arrived in Cetinje on May 5th, and found Italy had built a Legation bigger than that of Austria. France had erected a gay villa in the main street. Great Britain still only parlour-boarded at the hotel for a few months in the year. The elephantine Vladni Dom (Government House) dominated the town, and two ridiculous new houses in the "new art" style had been built in the main street out of the "pickings" so folk said, of the British loan, the whole of which had been spent on useless ostentation. I had hoped that it would have been used for irrigating, or otherwise developing the land, and promptly sold out my few shares in disgust--and at par. I wonder how many other people got out as cheaply?

Vuko Vuletitich was swollen with pride over his daughter, who, as Madame Rizoff, held a great position as wife of the Bulgarian Minister in Rome and was known as "la bella Montenegrina." Through Rizoff I was told Montenegro hoped to attain to much.

I had been so disgusted over the bomb affair in 1908 that I had fully intended not to visit Montenegro again. I was sick of the web of intrigue which entangled the land. But now it seemed that only from Montenegro could I watch the case for Albania.

I was summoned to the palace, and received by the whole royal family, who were very gay, and did not conceal the fact that they expected and wanted war, and bade me go to Podgoritza, where the Queen's cousin, General Yamko Vukotitch, was in command of affairs.

The details of the insurrection I have told in my book, The Struggle for Scutari. Here I will narrate only those political facts which fear of injuring my informants compelled me then to withhold.

Briefly: the insurrection was planned by King Nikola as part of his effort to obtain a kingdom. Taking advantage of the unrest caused by Young Turk rule, he used as his lever old Sokol Batzi, a worthy man of the Gruda tribe, who had fought against the Turks in 1877, and therefore taken Montenegrin nationality. Nikola rewarded him suitably, and Sokol, in return, served him with dog-like fidelity. To Sokol, much respected by the tribesmen, Nikola entrusted the task of inducing the Albanian Catholics to migrate in numbers into Montenegro, promising them that if they would revolt against the Turks their wives and children should have shelter and protection till their land was freed from the Turks, and that they should receive sufficient arms and ammunition. Nikola himself promised independence to the tribesmen. Sokol was a simple-minded old fellow. Bitterly did he and his family repent later of the way they had let themselves be made cat's paws of. A considerable sum of money was collected in Montenegro to finance the revolution. An Austrian Slav doctor was engaged, and a rough hospital prepared, and a store of maize purchased. These preparations went on through the winter. Montenegro's protests, to Europe, of her innocence were lies which were black even for diplomacy, As for the interview which Prince Danilo gave to the Morning Post, it was a shameless tissue of falsehoods. He declared that Montenegro had supplied no arms or ammunition to the insurgents, when at that very time his cousin, Yanko Vukotitch, was distributing weapons and directing the military operations under my eyes.

Even worse was his statement: "It grieves my heart to see these brave mountaineers die for the liberty of having their own schools for their children." When not one single Albanian school was permitted in Montenegro; forcible Slavizing was going on in the Kuchi and Triepshl tribes, and the Catholic Albanians of Podgoritza were not allowed to make a floor to their church and had to kneel on the bare gravel.

At Podgoritza I soon saw that the Montenegrins wanted war. King Nikola hoped thus to mend his damaged prestige. Mobilization began. On July 11th Yanko told me all was ready, and he could take Scutari in ten days. He offered to take me there on a gun carriage. The artillery tracks to the mountains were completed, and the big guns were going up. Ox-carts creaked past at night, taking up the ammunition. The Turks, it was said with glee, dared not withdraw troops from the Bulgar frontier, and were hampered with revolts elsewhere. Soon, however, large Turkish forces arrived. It was clear the untrained Maltsors could not stand against the overpowering numbers. Too late they saw they had been tricked by the Montenegrins, and cried to the Powers. At their request I helped draw up a letter to Sir Edward Grey, explaining their situation and their wishes, and we sent it. King Nikola, who was posing to the Powers as the victim of the Albanian insurrection, was very angry when he heard of this, and suspected me of instigating it. But I did not. The Maltsors, too, were tricked by General Garibaldi, who had promised to aid them and did not do so. They had expected the South of Albania to rise also. Had it done so, I believe the Powers would have been obliged to recognize the Albanian question, and much future war might have been spared. But, unfortunately, the South believed in Ismail Kemal, and he worked on which ever side paid him. He was then in league with a Corfiote Greek, one Androutzos, who boasted to me in a letter that he and Ismail had advised the South against rising, and had "saved Albania." A few risings took place, but not enough to make a mark in Europe.

Meanwhile Montenegro still expected war, and to every protest I made that Montenegro could not fight the Turks single-handed I was always told that Bulgarian help was certain. The army was anxious to begin, for it was mobilized, and the revolt had cost more than had been expected. But for the fund I raised the wretched refugees would have suffered yet more bitterly. Montenegro cared nothing for them. All she wanted was territory. Great Serbia was discussed with singular cold-bloodedness, one of the schoolmasters saying at the dinner-table that it would never be "made till the Petrovitches and the Karageorgevitches are sent after the Obrenovitches." And King Nikola's tactics were severely criticised. Either make war or demobilize--the country could not stand the strain. I was warned not to trust Stanko Markovitch, the Governor of Podgoritza, a sinister figure enough, who had been raised suddenly to this height from being master in a primary school, for "services rendered." "The King's poisoner," said folk. "Beware!"

Foreign correspondents swarmed, and Russian officers came and reconnoitred the frontier. The Turks occupied all the strategical posts. Russia was not ready for war, and would not have it. Suddenly the Maltsors were told Montenegro could do no more for them, and they were to make peace, and go back to their burnt and pillaged homes. Never has a people been more shamelessly betrayed. King Nikola had used the poor creatures as a cat's paw, had failed, and now brutally cast them out, and pretended to the Powers that Montenegro was innocent. By brutal threats the Maltsors were induced to accept the Turkish terms. But they stipulated I was to return with them and stay the winter. This I undertook to do, and before leaving was told by some one who had just had audience with the King that owing to pressure from the Powers he had been forced to postpone war till next year, but that Montenegrin troops would occupy the strategical points so soon as the Turkish troops withdrew, and I was to be ready. The Montenegrin army was, in fact, never quite demobilized, and the King badgered the Powers continually to order the withdrawal of the Turkish troops "which threatened his frontier." Great Britain realized that Montenegro was a spot which needed watching, and sent Count de Salis there as Minister. High time, too.

I went to Scutari worn out with toil, responsibility, and the heat which stood at 104 in the shade. France was now represented by a Levantine Pole. Krajewsky, bitterly anti-Austrian, and very active.

English sympathy for the Maltsors had been aroused, and Mr. Nevinson came out to report on the state of things and help me to organize relief work. In order to close the Turkish frontier the Montenegrins declared cholera in Scutari, though we saw no signs of it, and quarantine was declared. We were cut off from news, and when distributing quinine in the fever districts round Alessio learnt suddenly that Italy had declared war, and was bombarding Tripoli. It was a bolt from the blue. Italy had no casus belli, but as we have seen, Izvolsky had arranged the affair two years before and no Power protested, save that Austria forbade Italy to land in Albania. Krajewsky became violently pro-Turk. Scutari rightly judged the war as the first step towards the break-up of Turkey. The Turks behaved with admirable tolerance. None of the Italians of the town were Interfered with, and though war broke out on September 30th the Italian Minister did not leave till October 23rd. Mr. Nevinson returned to London, and I was left to carry on relief work.

All I could do to prevent the tribesmen being again cheated by Montenegro I did. Petar Plamenatz, now consul, tried hard to buy their help in the coming war by promising arms and liberty. Montenegro intended no annexation, he said. "Nikita himself had promised," said the tribesmen. But I now would not believe King Nikola, even if he swore on the body of St. Peter Cetinski. His actions were suspicious.

For the first time for many years he visited his Austrian rentiers, and was warned by the Entente Ministers. "England," said Plamenatz, "was firm; France mild, and Russia very disagreeable."

Montenegro was evidently in touch with Bulgaria. Plamenatz told me that the bomb thrown into a mosque at Istib to excite reprisals or force the Turks to declare War, had been expressly prepared in Sofia, and anxiously awaited results.

Serbia and Montenegro were now on the worst terms. On December 24th, the season of peace and goodwill, Plamenatz, in a rage, showed me a telegram just received by the Orthodox priest of Scutari. The Patriarchia had been persuaded to appoint one Dochitch, a Montenegrin of Moracha, to the Bishopric of Prizren, in place of Nicephor, dismissed for drunkenness and other inappropriate conduct. Montenegro triumphed, and looked on Prizren as hers. The Serbs were furious; the priests of Kosovo refused to recognize him, and had telegraphed to the two priests of Scutari and Vraka to do so, too. They, being Montenegrin, were all for Dochitch, and their tiny flocks supported them.

Any Serbo-Montenegrin agreement seemed, then, quite impossible, and Petar fulminated against Serb infamy.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

1912. THE FIRST DROPS OF THE THUNDERSTORM

1912 dawned ominously. Montenegro worked ceaselessly to rouse the Maltsors, promising them that they should receive sufficient arms and, this time, gain freedom. Meanwhile the Turks carried out their agreement to feed the late insurgents very well. But Petar Plamenatz never ceased quibbling over the French translation of the terms, and inciting the tribesmen to quite impossible demands. Repeated messages brought me varying dates for the commencement of hostilities. Montenegro meant war. But Montenegro could not wage it alone. Which Power was shoving her? I was fairly certain that Bulgaria and Montenegro had some sort of an engagement, and learnt later I was right.

Baron de Kruyff, Dutch correspondent and head of the Foreign Journalists Society which visited Podgoritza in 1911, told me that when he left Montenegro in June (1911) King Nikola, on hearing he was going to Sofia, asked him to convey a letter thither, addressed to a private individual, and to open it on crossing the frontier. On doing so he found it contained another addressed to King Ferdinand, with instructions to deliver it into the King's hands. He had an audience, and did so. The letter contained the first proposals for a Bulgar-Montenegrin agreement, by means of which each monarch should aid the other to achieve his ambitions, and Nikola hoped to reign at Prizren. King Ferdinand favoured de Kruyff with a long audience, and asked him to convey the reply. De Kruyff objected that his sudden return to Cetinje without obvious reason would excite suspicion. It was therefore arranged that he should meet Popovitch as Montenegrin envoy in Trieste. Which he did. I wonder if Russia knew this? I fancy not.

Russia was now working for a Balkan Alliance, which, though primarily directed against Austria, had for its ultimate goal the acquisition of Constantinople. Nicholas II of Russia, like Nikola I of Montenegro, was obsessed with a city. Russia was recuperating rapidly. She was financed by France, and sure of military aid. She had entangled England. The secular enmity of the Balkan peoples was the one weak spot in her plan. To amend this she transferred Hartwig, Russian Minister in Teheran, to Belgrade.

He had successfully worked the ruin of Persia. He was now to compass that of Turkey. Hartwig was a man to stick at nothing. Dr. Dillon tells us that his methods were so abominable that even the Russian Foreign Office protested. "People asked how he dared oppose the Foreign Office on which he depended. The answer was that he was encouraged, and put up to it by the Tsar. When at last M. Izvolsky extracted permission to recall the rebellious minister, Nicholas II decorated him, and told him that his was the only policy Russia could pursue with dignity and profit. . . . Thereupon he entrusted Hartwig with the most important post in the Balkans."

De Schelking, secretary to the Russian Legation in Berlin, gives a picture of Hartwig's immense influence: "Shortly after his arrival in Belgrade, Hartwig created a most exceptional position for himself. The King, Prince Alexander, Pashitch, none of these made any decisions without consulting him first. . . . Every morning his study was besieged by Serbian statesmen who came to ask advice" (The Game of Diplomacy). It is amusing to compare de Schelking's account with an order from Pashitch, November 14, 1912: "Take notice: Our Ministers in Foreign lands are to be informed that Hartwig has not visited the King, and that he comes to the Foreign Office less than any of the other Ministers." According to de Schelking he had no need to visit anybody. But I fancy Kings Ferdinand and Nikola made their plans without consulting him. Nor can they be blamed for so doing.

The alleged object of Hartwig's Balkan alliance was to protect the Balkan peoples from further annexation. It was, however, difficult to unite Bulgaria and Serbia, and would have been harder yet had King Ferdinand known that Russia had already told Serbia that she had no use for a Big Bulgaria. Perhaps neither the Serbo-Bulgar nor the Bulgar-Greek alliances would have been effected, but for the co-operation of Mr. J. B. Bourchier, whose honesty was beyond all doubt, and who was trusted where a Balkan envoy would not have been. He too, unfortunately, was unaware that Bulgaria's fate was already sealed by Russia, and that England was too deeply tangled in Russian intrigue to be able to stand for justice.

The Serbo-Bulgar alliance was signed on February 29, 1912, and was to be in force till December 1920. The two parties were "unconditionally and without reservation to mutually aid each other with all the forces of the State if one or more other States should attack one of these countries" and "to support one another with all force should any one of the Great Powers make the attempt to forcibly acquire even temporarily any territory situate in the Balkans, and at present under Turkish suzerainty." Russia meant none but herself to put a finger in the Balkan pie.

Russia seems to have been doubtful about Montenegro, for the Serb minister in Petersburg reports (February 17, 1912): "As regards the visit of the King of Montenegro, and as regards Austro-Hungarian relations . . . in pursuance of what was intended King Nikola was given some energetic counsel to pursue a quiet line of conduct, and not to let himself in for any adventures." Serbia now was on very friendly terms with the Greeks and helping them to kill Bulgar komitadjis in Macedonia. Montenegro, feeling secure in her arrangements with Bulgaria, was induced to declare alliance with Serbia. The Bulgar-Greek alliance, the hardest to make, was finally negotiated.

These things were all secret, but the air was tense with them. We were told we should know definitely if it were peace or war when King Nikola returned from Petersburg in February. Prince Danilo at the same time went to Sofia. We were told to be ready for war in April. Gavrilovitch, who was Serb Minister at Cetinje, came to Scutari with young M. Cambon, a significant combination, and was visibly relieved when I told him I was doing all I could to keep peace in the mountains Serbia, as we know now, was acting strictly as Russia's tool, as shown by official documents, and Russia wished to postpone the Balkan crash till she was ready. But having made the Balkan Alliance, it took the bit in its teeth. Daily I saw Montenegro shoving towards war, and the Turks steadily fortifying Scutari.

On March 10th Petar Plamenatz was suddenly transferred to Constantinople, and replaced by Jovan Jovitchevitch, who naively said he had been instructed to ask me for maps and information. Petar went to Constantinople, as he afterwards boasted, for the express purpose of declaring war. "Ma guerre a moi!" he called it. "Car c'est moi qui l'a fait."

At the last moment, when war was seething, Hadji Avdil, Minister of the Interior, started with a Reform Commission through Turkey. But he only precipitated the end. A narrow-minded man, filled with inordinate conceit of his own importance, he passed with difficulty through Kosovo vilayet and arrived in Scutari on March 10th. Instead of pacifying the excited Maltsors, he refused to meet them on any terms which they considered safe. And he left matters far worse than he found them. That he, too, expected war was evident, for he appointed the military commandant Hussein Riza as Vali.

The Albanians of Kosovo again rose in revolt. Ise Boletin again led them. They triumphed everywhere, and this time entered Uskub, where their conduct was admitted to have been exemplary by the Foreign Consuls. The Turks, finding that the Albanians were about to march on Monastir, called a truce, and agreed to recognize the four vilayets of Janina, Scutari, Kosovo, and part of Monastir, as an autonomous Albanian province. The immediate result of the Albanian victory was the overthrow of the chauvinistic Young Turk party and the appointment of a more moderate Cabinet. The effect of this coup on the Balkans was electric. Each Balkan State had pegged out for itself a slice of Albania. Delenda est Albania was the one point on which they agreed. Heedless of Russia, they hastened to make war before Albania should have time to consolidate.

War preparations hurried on. Montenegro worked upon the discontent caused by Hadji Avdil. King Nikola had returned from Russia, but had not fixed the date of war as we had expected. I thought perhaps Italy was shoving, in order to assist her war in Tripoli, which still dragged on. But in a few weeks' visit to Rome I had a long talk with San Giuliano, and perceived clearly that Italy was not urging Montenegro.

There seemed but one possible explanation, and that was that an understanding had been come to between Greece and Bulgaria, and that Montenegro therefore felt certain of the co-operation of the whole of the Bulgar army. In Rome, Popovitch, the Montenegrin Minister, had told me, when announcing that General Martinovitch had been made War Minister: "This means war."

Returned to Scutari, I went straight to the Greek consul and in the middle of a chat on nothing particular, asked: "A propos, Monsieur, is it true your Government has signed a treaty of alliance with Bulgaria against Turkey!" The poor little man almost leapt from his chair. "Mademoiselle!" he stammered, "you are surely aware there are things political of which one may not speak." I begged him to say no more. More was unnecessary. War I knew was now certain. The secret alliance had, in fact, been signed on May 16th.

Next day a frontier fight took place, provoked by Montenegro. It lasted seven hours. Every one cried: "It is war!" The Montenegrin Consul was greatly agitated. He knew what his country was doing, and cried: "Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, I hope you will not write a book for five years! You know too much."

To avoid being besieged in Scutari I left for Podgoritza at once, and found Podgoritza so certain of war that I was begged to stay and see the first shot fired. Why war was then postponed I never made out. Perhaps Montenegro had to wait for Bulgaria.

Cetinje also expected war, and asked me to collect funds for the wounded. The King begged me to prevent the Maltsors rising yet, which showed me he again intended to make a tool of them. Kol Mirashi, one of the pluckiest of the Maltsor patriots, told me they all knew this, and meant to rise at once to show Europe they were fighting for independence, and not for Montenegro.

I said: "Why not keep quiet and develop autonomy?" He replied: "Impossible. The Montenegrin-Austrian plan is now complete, and will soon be in motion. We must act independently. King Nikola went to Russia for help. They refused him. So he has joined with Austria."

The Russian visit had been a fiasco. Lazar Mioushkovitch, who, with Dushan Gregovitch, had accompanied the King, told me: "It was terrible." Dushan Gregovitch--good looking, and remarkable rather for high stakes at bridge than common-sense--rashly allowed himself to be interviewed. Montenegro's grandiose schemes for conquest appeared next day in the papers. "The Tsar was furious. He threatened us even with annihilation! The King told him Dushan was known to be a liar, but it was of no use. It is finished! We have no more to expect from Russia!"

But war preparations hurried on. And some of the Bank employees told me that the King had raised a loan in Vienna "in order to start an Agricultural Bank!" They smiled.

Montenegro now tried to force the Turks to declare war by provoking two bad frontier fights near Kolashin and Andrijevitza, each time burning several Turkish blockhouses, and going far over the frontier. The Powers ordered the recall of the Montenegrin troops on August 5th, or they would have occupied the whole Berani district. I went to Andrijevitza on August 27th and stayed there a month. The big guns had already been taken up and were on the frontier, and ammunition was widely distributed, not only to Montenegrins, but also to the Serbs from Turkish territory, who came over the border at night. General Yanko Vukotitch was in command. There was a hospital full of wounded, and Andrijevitza was furious with the Government for having broken faith. They had been promised assistance, and had expected this fight to be followed at once by war. The whole district was strongly anti-Petrovitch, and in close touch with Serbia. Veshovitch, the frontier commandant, even said-- when I suggested that a declaration of war might be followed by the re-occupation of the Sanjak by Austria, and a possible attack on Montenegro: "What then? Anything would be better than the Government we have down there!" and pointed Cetinjewards. Jovan Plamenatz assured me emphatically that Austria would not attack them. And he counted for certain on Bulgar support. The Turks, however, displayed great restraint, and did not declare war. Veshovitch then told me that as neither the efforts of Bulgaria nor Montenegro could force them to it, Montenegro herself would begin. He had bombs ready to spring another Turkish blockhouse, and so soon as he had finished the big bread-oven for the army would do so, and cross the border. Sniping, as I saw myself, was already going on daily.

A strange tale has been circulated that Montenegro mobilized but four days before war broke out. The above facts show this to be quite a mistake. Montenegro had been preparing over a year, and could have begun in July.

I hastened to Cetinje to tell Count de Salis what was happening. He replied that the Powers were doing nothing useful, and he feared it was now too late.

I went to the Russia Institut. It was October 3rd. Sofia Petrovna was happy and excited at the prospect of war; foretold the end of the Turk and the triumph of the Holy Orthodox Church, to which she was heart and soul passionately attached. While we were discussing the situation, in hurried Yougourieff, one of the Russian officers attached to the Legation, and superintending the Military Cadet School financed by Russia, who, though she was no longer supporting Nikola, was actively training young Montenegrins as cannon-fodder.

He stopped short on seeing me; hesitated; said something in Russian. Seeing I was de trop, I rose to go. Sofia Petrovna bade me stay. "Mademoiselle," she said, "knows the whole political situation. You can speak before her."

He asked me doubtfully: "Will you promise not to send off what I say to a newspaper?" I promised.

He sat down and began hotly in French to Sofia: "The Montenegrins are absolutely mad! You must use all your influence to stop them. They must not make this war! We have already told them so most severely. They are mad, I tell you--we cannot and must not have war now."

Sofia disagreed vehemently. All was ready. Things could not go on like this. "But I tell you," said Yougourieff excitedly, "absolutely there must be no Balkan war without Russia. And we are not ready." Sofia persisted: "My friend--we shall intervene. We said we would not in 1877--and we did. We shall now."

He became very serious. "I tell you this is not 1877. We cannot intervene. Unless Austria intervenes, which God forbid, we have no excuse for war. And nothing is yet ready. We are working as fast as possible, but there is much yet to do. These people must wait!" He was in deadly earnest, and plainly speaking the truth.

I asked quite suddenly: "And when will you be ready, Monsieur?"

"In two years from now, Mademoiselle, we shall be absolutely ready for our great war!"

It was October 3rd, 1912. Russia began her great war on August 1, 1914. Yougourieff was only two months out. No wonder he made me promise not to publish his remarks.

We learn now, from a report by Gruitch, Serbian Minister in London, September 8, 1911, to the Serbian Foreign Office, that the date was known to others as well. Speaking of the agreement about Morocco, he says: "The agreement has one result, that war will be postponed three or four years. . . . Both France and her allies are of opinion that the war--even at the expense of great sacrifice, must be postponed to a later time, that it to say, until the year 1914-15" (see Bogitchevitch, xi). No wonder that Gavrilovitch and young Cambon approved of my peace policy, and that Yougourieff was emphatic.

I went to General Yanko Vukotitch's house. Rakia was flowing. He, madame, his secretary, and others were in high feather. Yanko explained the plan of campaign to me. He was to lead the main division to Prizren. The two other divisions under Brigadier Boshkovitch and General Martinovitch, were to attack Scutari, and, having taken it, to join the triumphant Yanko at Prizren. No mention was made of when the other Balkan States were to come in. Bulgarian support was certain. Madame Yanko begged me to go with her husband and photograph his entry into Prizren.

The whole campaign, it appeared, was expected only to last a few weeks, and only 150 beds had been made ready at the hospital. The Montenegrins honestly believed that theirs was the finest army for its size in Europe.

General Martinovitch told me to go off to Podgoritza if I wanted to see the first shot fired. When I arrived there on October 6th all was ready and waiting. Another proof that the "four days' mobilization" tale is an error.

King Nikola had made up his outstanding quarrel with his relatives, and the Royal Voyvodas, Marko, Sharko, Bozho, and Gjuro all arrived. On the night of the 8th all sang: "Let me see Prizren!"

There was wild excitement. No one mentioned the Serbs. I asked, "What is the Serb army like?" They roared with laughter. "Oni chuvahjuf svinje Gospodjitza!" (They are swineherds, lady!) Next morning at 8 a.m. Prince Petar fired a gun into a Turkish camp across the frontier.

The tale of the war has already been told. Here only a few significant facts need telling.

Montenegro expected by rushing the first into war to occupy all the coveted districts, including Prizren, before Serbia was ready. Bulgaria would beat back the Turks, and Ferdinand and Nikita share the bulk of the peninsula. The Montenegrins recked nothing of the Serbs, but they miserably miscalculated. The Serbs reached Prizren before they did.

It is possible that Bulgaria and Montenegro, in fact, forced on the war. Both knew they would gain nothing by waiting for Russia. And if two of the Balkan States insisted on war the other two were bound to come in.

Montenegro's plan failed. Her first startling successes were due to the fact that the Maltsor risings had largely cleared the way for her. But as the Montenegrins began at once to treat Albanian territory as their own, and even loot Catholic Albanian houses, tension between the Maltsors and Montenegrins arose and increased. The Maltsors flung away the Montenegrin caps dealt out to them, withdrew in numbers, and soon consulted me as to whether they should attack the Montenegrins in the rear and cut them off. I begged them not to, as I then believed in the honesty of the Powers, and thought Albania would get justice. I regret it now.

South Albania also perceived that the self-styled "liberators" who poured in from Greece were but brigands intent on gain and murder, and on November 28, 1912, Ismail Kemal, who was in Constantinople when war broke out, managed with difficulty to return to his native town Valona, where he hoisted the National flag, proclaimed the independence of Albania, and formed a provisional government. It was hoped that by thus showing that Albania wanted freedom, and detached herself completely from the Turks, she would be respected by Europe. For the Balkan Allies had stated they were at war only with the Turks.

Official notification of Albania's resolve was sent to the Powers, and the Albanians hoped for sympathy, for it was they who in fact had aimed the first blow at Young Turk tyranny. The Greeks and Montenegrins and Serbs, far from sympathizing with Albania's wish for freedom, were incensed by it. The Greeks blockaded Valona, and cut the telegraph. The yacht of the Duc le Monpensier, however, ran the blockade, and took off Ismail Kemal, Gurikuchi, and that gallant chieftain Isa Boletin. He had fought on the side of the Serb till he saw what Serb victory would mean. The three pleaded their cause in the capitals of Europe. Europe meanwhile seethed with intrigue.

Russia's plans were overset by the premature outbreak of the Balkan war. But she was bent on getting all she could out of it for her side, and dragged France along with her. At the beginning of the Italy-Tripoli war, Izvolsky had written: "We must even now not only concern ourselves with the best means of preserving peace and order in the Balkans, but also with the matter of extracting the greatest possible advantage to ourselves from coming events."

The Powers called a Conference of Ambassadors in London to try to arrange a Balkan settlement. The Russian Ambassador in London reports, February 25, 1913, that England wishes peace and a compromise. Of France he states that M. Cambon "has directed himself in reality entirely to me. . . . When I recall his conversations and . . . add the attitude of Poincare, the thought comes to me that of all the Powers, France is the only one which, not to say that it wishes war, yet would look on it with least regret. . . . The disposition of France offers us on the one hand a guarantee, but on the other it must not happen that the war breaks out on account of interests more French than Russian, and in any case not under circumstances more favourable to France than to Russia."

The Conference inevitably became a struggle by Russia to obtain all possible lands for her proteges regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. Possession of land for a short time in the Middle Ages was given as reason for handing it over now.

"We might as justly claim Calais," I said to a Podgoritza schoolmaster, "for it was ours at the same time!"

"Why don't you," said he. "You have a navy?"

Sir Edward Grey, in the interests of justice, stood out against Slav rapacity, but Russia insisted on having either Scutari or Djakovo for the Slavs; though Djakovo, a town of between two and three thousand houses, contained but one hundred Serb families. Nor was there a single Serb village near it. All were Albanian Moslems or Catholics, but they were offered up as a living sacrifice on the altar of Russia's ambitions.

Montenegro meanwhile was very bitter. Yanko had failed to take Prizren. The population railed against the Government. The King had never recovered popularity since the bomb affair. Some of the condemned were still in prison.

Had Prizren been taken, things would have been very different. All Montenegro had been trained from childhood to sing: "Onward, onward, let me see Prizren!" and though the town consisted of nearly four thousand Albanian houses and but 950 Serb ones, Prizren had become a sort of insanity with them. Not only Prizren was not taken by Montenegro, but Scutari was not either. The population now turned with savage desire on Scutari, about which previously little had been said.

It had been believed that Constantinople would soon fall, and that the four Crown princes would enter it in state. Though how they could have been so simple as to think Russia would permit this, it is hard to understand.

The cry rose: "Russia helped us in 1877, why does she not come forward now?" Whatever the heads of the land knew, the rank and file had confidently expected Russian intervention.

Only by dragging in Austria could Russia's hand be forced. The Serbs endeavoured to goad Austria into action. News reached us that they had imprisoned and maltreated Prochaska, the Austrian Consul in Prizren, and Montenegro's delight and expectation were immense. His nose, said the Montenegrins, should be cut off just as though he were a Turk. Prochaska was, in fact, a brother Slav, a Czech, a capable man, whom I had met in 1908. Austria, it was confidently asserted at the inn dinner table, would be forced to fight--or for ever hide disgraced. Yanko Vukotitch's secretary, who had been up at Prizren, described to me with the greatest gusto what happened: "Oh, if you could but have seen what the officers did to Prochasko! They rolled him on the ground, spat in his face, tore the Austrian flag, did all that you can imagine that is most dirty upon him! Austria will never dare tell the world what we did to her consul. All Europe would laugh at her, and she would have to declare war."

"But why was this done?" I asked.

"Because he asked some dirty Albanians to his consulate."

"But a consul has the right to ask whom he pleases to his consulate. It was his duty also to protect the Catholics."

"Very well. This is to teach Austria we have no need of her consuls. Austria is finished!" He, as all the Montenegrins, was furious at any attempt to save the Albanians from extirpation. All those who would not be Slavized were to be killed.

Austria would have been fully justified in making war on Serbia. And as Russia was not ready, and the Serbs engaged with the Turks, then was the moment to do it. But Germany was strong for peace. "Berlin had applied itself, above all, to calm the exasperation and desire for intervention at the Ballplatz," says Baron Beyens, Belgian Minister in Berlin. "The Archduke Ferdinand stated at Berlin that Austria had come to the end of the concessions it could make to its neighbour. The Emperor and his councillors showered upon him, none the less, counsels of moderation, which William II when conducting his guest to the railway station summarized in these expressive words: "Above all, no folly (pas de betises). . . . But to lead Austria to show itself more tractable, as it is believed here the Imperial Government has succeeded in doing, is not enough to pacify the conflict. It yet remains to bend the obstinate resistance of Serbia, and to effect a diminution of her demands. There was a rumour last week in the European Chancellories that M. Sasonov had ceased to struggle against the Court party, which wishes to drag Russia into war, though the soil of the Empire is undermined with revolution and military preparations are yet insufficient."

Prochaska, after some weeks of imprisonment, was released. Austria humbled her pride and accepted an apology. Prochaska was compensated and bound to secrecy. As my informant had foretold, Austria dared not tell her humiliation.

In Montenegro this produced a howl of contempt. Austria was finished; you could do what you pleased with her with impunity; the next war would be with Austria. Montenegro, on her side, thought well to insult her. Perhaps one more stab would make her fight, and then hurrah for Russia and Constantinople!

From the conquered districts came piteous reports of the hideous cruelties which Serb and Montenegrin alike were committing on the Albanian populations. Far from concealing their deeds, the conquerors boasted of them. A Serb officer nearly choked with laughter over his beer, as he told how his men had bayoneted the women and children of Ljuma. And one of the Petrovitches boasted to me that in two years no one in the conquered lands would dare speak "that dirty language" (Albanian). Moslem men were given the choice of baptism or death, and shot down. The women were unveiled, and they and the children driven to church and baptized. "In one generation we shall thus Serbize the lot!" they said. And later evidence proved that these reports were true. No Turk ever treated Armenian worse than did the two Serb peoples treat the Albanians in the name of the Holy Orthodox Church. Stanko Markovitch, Governor of Podgoritza, forbade the giving of any food to the starving people of the burnt villages, and told me flatly that they were doomed to die. Podgoritza exclaimed he was a fool to tell me this: "Now she will denounce us in England and America, too!" But they did not deny it. News came from Djakovo that Father Palitch, a plucky Franciscan, whom I had met there in 1908, had been bayoneted to death for refusing to make the sign of the cross in Orthodox fashion. The account of his death, given by Moslems and Catholics alike, was denied by the Montenegrin Government. Austria rightly insisted on an examination, for, as a Catholic, he was under her protection. This was made by a commission under Mgr. Miedia, Bishop of Prizren. Father Palitch's body was exhumed. It was proved that he was killed by bayonets, and the tale of the Montenegrins that he had been shot when trying to escape was devoid of foundation, there being no gunshot wounds in the body. The case was gone into fully. Austria a second time accepted apology and certain compensations, and failed to respond to provocation. No Russian intervention could now be expected. But the Slavs continued to cry: "Death to Albania," and it was the clear duty of Austria, and should have been also of Italy, to save it. The organ of the Serb Black Hand, Piemont, advocated the slaughter of all the inhabitants of Scutari, to punish them for having dared to resist. War, as is always the case, had aroused the worst passions of this--at best--semi-civilized race. But the Powers realized that Russia's unbridled greed on behalf of her Serb proteges must be checked.

Scutari was a town of 35,000 Albanian inhabitants. Montenegro was ordered by the Powers to withdraw from Scutari, and Serbia from Scutari and Durazzo. The Powers sent a naval demonstration, and prepared a collective Note. The Tsar ordered King Nikola to yield. But while he spoke publicly, the representatives of France and Russia did all they could to impede the delivery of the Note till too late, in order to give the Montenegrins time to acquire by fraud what they could not take by force. King Nikola and many of his subjects went about swearing aloud that if they did not get all they wanted they would set the whole of Europe on fire, and the combined Serb and Montenegrin armies would take Vienna.

The plans for the taking of Scutari by fraud had probably been long laid. In February came news that the gallant commander of Scutari, Hussein Riza Bey, had been murdered-and his place taken by the notorious Essad Pasha. Essad had been servant of the Old Turk, and then member of the Committee of Union and Progress. He aimed solely at power for himself, and now became servant of the Slav. Hussein Riza, seeing no help could be expected from the Turks, and determined not to yield the town to the Slavs, decided to hand it over to the Albanians. On his mother's side he was of Albanian blood. His plan was to communicate with all the tribesmen, and to arrange that they should fall on the besieging army in the rear while he and his army made a simultaneous sortie. He hoped thus to cut up the Montenegrin army and save the town. One of the Franciscan fathers and another man were to steal through the lines at night and arrange that the tribesmen should attack when Hussein Riza hoisted the Albanian flag on the citadel. That night after Hussein Riza had supped with Essad, he was shot dead a few yards away from the house by two men disguised as women. Osman Bali and Mehmed Kavaja, both servants of Essad, boasted afterwards they had done the deed. The town crier proclaimed that nothing was to be said about the murder and Essad, who was second, now took command, and soon entered into communication with the Montenegrins. As he knew only Turkish and Albanian, the letters went through the hands of the dragoman of the Italian consulate.

Italy played an oddly double game. She was bound by Treaty to assist Austria to preserve the integrity of Albania. But she did not object to King Nikola--father of the Queen of Italy--taking the town if he could. Italy was striving for influence in Montenegro, out of hatred of Austria, and failed to see that the South Slav, not the German-Austrian, was her real danger.

While France and Russia delayed matters, Petar Plamenatz drew up terms with Essad. Provided he evacuated the town in time for Montenegro to occupy it before the Powers could stop it, he was to leave with all honours, and a large supply of arms and food. He was also to aid the Serbs to reach Durazzo later, and as a reward was to be recognized as ruler in his own district of Tirana. A vile enough plot.

In order to deceive Europe, the Montenegrin Government telegraphed everywhere an account of a huge fight, in which Scutari had been taken, and thousands of Montenegrins wounded. But it was such a lie that they dared not give it either to The Times' correspondent or to me.

Essad withdrew. The Montenegrins entered without firing a shot. Thus was Scutari betrayed to her enemy. That the plot was known to the Italian Legation is clear, for the Italian war correspondents had the information from the Legation and hurried to the spot the day before.

King Nikola having obtained the town, tried to effect a bargain with Austria by offering the Lovtchen in exchange for it. But I fancy the Powers burked this.

The war was over. All through I used to say to myself: "War is so obscene, so degrading, so devoid of one redeeming spark, that it is quite impossible there can ever be a war in West Europe." This was the one thing that consoled me in the whole bestial experience. War brings out all that is foulest in the human race, and the most disgusting animal ferocity poses as a virtue. As for the Balkan Slav and his vaunted Christianity, it seemed to me all civilization should rise and restrain him from further brutality.

Of the saving of Scutari by the arrival of International forces under Admiral Sir Cecil Burney I have told elsewhere, and of the months of relief work in the villages burnt by Serb and Montenegrin, who had destroyed nearly every olive and fruit tree, and devastated the land.

But even when their army of saviours arrived the luckless Scutarenes were ordered to make no demonstration, and had to lay aside the flowers and flags they were joyfully preparing. In return for their obedience, their enemies reported in the papers that the "naval force was received without interest or enthusiasm."

The Montenegrins left, after having burnt and pillaged nearly a third of the bazar as vengeance.

At Podgoritza, where I went to fetch my store of relief stuff, I was set on by a number of officials at the parcel office. Furious at losing Scutari, they swore they would retake it and take Bosnia, too. I told them not to talk so foolishly. They cried: "We--the Serb people--have beaten the Turk. We are now a danger to Europe. We shall take what we please. The Serbs will go to Vienna. We shall go to Serajevo. We have the whole of the Russian army with us. If you do not believe it--you will see. We shall begin in Bosnia!" This was in May 1913. Yougourieff, by the way, was delighted at the capture of Scutari, and told me that the fait accompli could not be upset. "Except by accomplishing another," I said. The French and Italian legations, too, were indecently elated.

The Great Serbia party explained its plans freely. King Ferdinand was to be assassinated, and Bulgaria be suzerain to Serbia. There was to be war with Austria. Any one in Great Serbia's path was to be "removed." A friend, who was doing relief work at Uskub, told me that there the Serb officers talked incessantly of their next war with Austria, and were savagely extirpating the Bulgarian and Albanian populations from the newly annexed districts.

As for M. Krajewsky, the French Consul, he now "outjuggered" the Jugoslavs. "Never," he declared, "would France allow independent Albania to exist." The Russian Consul Miller, on the contrary, said he had written the strongest possible report against Montenegro to his Government, saying "that the Montenegrins by their disgraceful conduct in war had forfeited all right to it." His report did much to save the town.

The Dalmatian doctor, who had cured me of my long illness in 1910, was also most emphatically anti-Serb and Montenegrin, though a Slav himself, declaring them to be a set of savages who should not be allowed to take Albanian lands. This was the more noteworthy, as he had previously been by no means pro-Albanian.

On June 12th Mr. Nevinson arrived with Mr. Erickson, an American\ missionary who had done much work in Albania, and on the 15th we started to ride through the country to learn the state of things. As little has been written of Albania at this period I give a rsume of my diary.

June 15th.--Rode to Alessio, past the villages burnt by the Serbs. Found the Albanian flag flying on the bridge of Alessio, and Albanian guards. Town dead, inn ruined. District patrolled by Ded Soko's men. Perfect order. Heard tales of Serb brutality to prisoners.

Tuesday, 17th.--Provisional government of Kruja welcomed us in grand old house. The government, with old Kadi at its head, hoped anxiously for appointment of a Prince. Full of fear of Essad. Told sad tale of suffering. When war began they determined not to help the Turks, and declared independence in November, hoping thus to escape complications and take no part in the war. When the vanguard of the Serb army arrived they believed that, as there were no Serbs in the district, there was no danger. It is pathetic to note that the luckless Albanians at first believed that the Serbs and Montenegrins spoke truth when they said the war was in order to liberate their brethren. That whole districts of solid Albanian population would be seized, did not occur to them. They sat up all night and made bread for the Serb army, and treated them as guests. Later, they found their mistake. The Serbs treated them as conquered. . . . People were arrested by the wayside and hanged without trial. Three women were brought from villages to Kruja and hanged there. In all fifty quite innocent people suffered. The two Serb officers responsible for these atrocities were Dragoslav Voinovitch (artillery) and Dragoljub Petrovitch (infantry). . . . Left Kruja. Stopped at wattled shed for coffee. Han burnt by Serbs. Folk gathered and told how Serbs had swooped on village, robbed and arrested innocent people, taken them to Kruja and hanged them. All said they had expected the Serbs to be allies and not foes.

At Tirana (18th) we visited Essad Pasha, and were struck with the number of troops in the town. Essad explained they would leave by a Turkish transport. He spoke with contempt of Ismail Kemal and the provisional governmental Liter, at the house of Avdi bey, a number of refugees from Dibra arrived and told of the sufferings in the villages annexed by the Serbs. They asserted five hundred burnt-out destitute persons had been prevented by the Serbs from receiving help from the agent of the Macedonian Relief Committee. We arranged to send maize.

At Durazzo folk were very nervous about Essad Pasha, who alone had an armed force and was said to be in constant communication with the Greek Bishop at Duiazzo, a notorious intriguer.

The Italian consul reported: "Perfect order prevails, but the delay of the Powers must make for unsettlement." This, alas, was what certain Powers intended. At the time the journey had the glory of a plunge into a freed land rejoicing in liberty won after centuries of anguish.

At Kavaia and Pekinj we heard of the massacre of prisoners by the Serbs and the relief of the people that the invaders had gone, they hoped, for ever.

At Elbasan admirable order was being kept by Akif Pasha. Here we heard how the Serbs had imprisoned Albanian patriots. All hoped a Prince would soon come and suppress Essad, who was feared as a possible danger. The Americans were buying land and planning a big college, to which the people looked forward as a means for national regeneration. Parents were already refusing to send children to the Greek school, in spite of the fulminations of the Greek priest.

A young man arrived from Starovo and told how he and two others had been taken prisoners by the Serbs and offered their lives for a heavy ransom. Only he had enough to pay. Both the others were killed. A rumour came that the Serbs and Bulgars had begun to fight for the possession of Monastir. It had been allotted by agreement to Bulgaria, but the Serbs were in possession and refused to yield it. We decided to push on to Ochrida to learn what was happening.

Arrived at Stiuga we found Serb officers in possession. We had left free Albania and were in a conquered land under military rule. They at once started "propaganda," and had the impudence to say that the dialect of Struga was as pure Serb as that of Belgrade. But an officer bent on annexation will say anything. Poor old Jovan Golubovitch, the innkeeper at Podgoritza, was a native of Struga, and was known always as Jovan Bulgar.

We visited the uniquely interesting fishtraps on the Drin, built like a prehistoric lake-village. These, said our Serb escort, would be a source of great wealth when modernized. "But," we objected, "perhaps this will not be yours. The question has to be arbitrated." They retorted they would accept no arbitration, and cared nothing for agreements. What Serbia had taken, Serbia would keep. The Bulgars should never recover one kilometre.

Friday, 27th.--At Ochrida--after ten years. Town most melancholy. A tablet on the big plane tree commemorates the "liberation" of the town. But there are no signs of joy. Even in 1904, after the Bulgar revolution and under Turkish military rule, the town was not so dead and hopeless as now under the Serb. All seems crushed beneath an iron heel. Then the Bulgar population hoped for union with Bulgaria. Now the Serb was dominant. The Bulgar school was closed, and soldiers were at the door. The Bulgar churches were shut, and their priests had disappeared. So had the bishop. Some people recognized me. An old woman rushed up and told me things were worse than under the Turk, but we dared make few enquiries lest our informants should suffer. Only the great lake was the same as before in its marvellous beauty. I felt like a ghost among the shadows of all we had striven for ten years ago.

The bazar, once full of Moslems, was half deserted. The intransigence of the Serb officers was here as blatant as at Struga. They were eagerly waiting the declaration of war on Bulgaria. And would accept no form of arbitration that did not give all to themselves. We spoke strongly of the wickedness of fighting their allies. They said they cared for no treaty, and meant to fight--the sooner the better. All they had taken they would soon Serbize. They --the military--had the power, and would do what they chose.

That the policy was a deliberate one we now know from published documents.

On February 4, 1913, the Serb Minister at Petersburg telegraphed: "the Minister for Foreign Affairs told me Serbia was the only state in the Balkans in which Russia had confidence, and that Russia would do everything for Serbia." Serbia felt quite safe in tearing up her Bulgarian "scrap of paper." The Serb officers were, in fact, most explicit, and told us they had all their plans laid and expected soon to be back in Durazzo, and to keep it.

So set were they on fighting Bulgaria that had the Bulgars waited but a few hours the Serbs would probably have saved them the trouble of firing the first shot. The whole guilt rests with Serbia, for it was she who broke her pledged word and threw down the glove.

Kosovo Day was a melancholy spectacle. Nothing is more dolorous than a people forced "to rejoice" by an army of occupation. All shops are shut, and the population summoned to church to celebrate the "freeing" of the land. Once how pleased I should have been. Now I have seen and know too much! The people of Ochrida had to officially rejoice that their nationality was destroyed, though it had survived some six centuries of the Turk.

At Pogradech we again found the Serbs. Here the whole population is Albanian. There was no doubt of their sentiments. They asked anxiously as to the fate of their town, and dreaded lest the Serb occupation should be permanent. Wanted news of free Albania, and asked when the Prince would arrive. At the han, when paying for my horse, I asked for Turkish money as change, for we were leaving the Serb zone. The hanjee and those in the inn burst into sudden joy: "Ah, she too does not want anything Serb!" I was alarmed lest a prowling Serb should overhear and make them pay dearly for patriotism.

We arrived at Koritza on June 30th and found it "in a state of great tension." "Persons afraid of arrest. A sort of silent terror in the air. Great Greek propaganda going on, and Greek troops everywhere. People called on us and said many wished to come, but dared not. They prayed us to save Koritza. Called on the Commandant, Colonel Condoulis, to whom Mr. Nevinson had an introduction." I learnt what a mistake the Americans had made in 1903, when they put the mission under Austrian instead of English protection. The Greeks now, in consequence, pretended that the Albanian school was an Austrian school, and declared there was no Albanian movement. The Albanian Nationalists, on the other hand, were in bitter trouble, for, through the years of Turkish rule, they had with danger and toil kept this school "the beacon light," open. They now found the Greek more oppressive than the Turk. The American missionaries had been expelled from the town at twenty-four hours' notice. The school was closed. The Turkish troops had behaved well in the town, and never entered a private house. The Greeks had shown themselves as conquerors bent on pillage, and behaved with cruelty and violence.

Colonel Condoulis did not even pretend to be out for anything but wholesale annexation. He showed on a map frontiers which should include even Tepeleni. I exclaimed, horrified: "But that is half Albania!" Condoulis did not deny it. He merely said: "There is a French proverb which says--appetite comes with eating. We have eaten; now we must eat more and more." I replied: "Monsieur, those that eat too much get bellyache." Which annoyed him.

I have met few things more repulsive than a military man bent on conquest, for lust of conquest brings a man lower than the beasts. The beasts eat for hunger. Condoulis wished to eat for sheer greed. May the day come when such men will be looked On as mad dogs to be destroyed painlessly before they have time to inflict misery upon peoples.

What with the Serbs at Ochrida and tijle Greeks at Kctitza, I began to regret that I had ever wished to send the Turk from Europe. While he was there, there was yet hope. These "Christian" conquerors were a hundredfold worse.

They showed their devilry by arranging a meeting that should cause Mr. Nevinson to write to his paper that Koritza wished to be Greek. The arrival of a well-known journalist was a chance to be exploited.

Unluckily for Condoulis, we were not in the Balkans for the first time. The visit arranged for us at the Bishop's therefore missed fire. We found his Grace seated at a table, at which there were some fourteen local shopkeepers, who, when told to do so by the Bishop, stated to us that they wanted to be Greek. It would, indeed, have needed some courage to say in the presence of Greek officials that they did not want to be Greek! "You see," said our guide, "the Christians of Koritza want to be Greek!"

We were trotted off to the house of an old Moslem, who also replied obediently. What else could the poor man do?

An unarmed population faced with a big army is helpless. Many an English village would declare itself Choctaw if five thousand armed men bade it do so--or be extirpated.

We lunched with Condoulis, and learnt that the Greeks were as anxious to fight the Bulgars as were the Serbs. "Death to Bulgaria" was their cry. Not a metre of land to be ceded to those "cochons de Bulgares." "We went," they said, "willingly to fight the Turk. We go with ten times more joy to fight the Bulgars; they are our worst enemies." And they would listen to no remonstrance. So strong were they on this that I could only think Greece and Serbia had a secret understanding on the subject, and that Greece, like Serbia, knew that Russia had no use for a Big Bulgaria. And so indeed it was.

The Greeks next invited us to a mass meeting, which was to be held to ascertain the wishes of the population. We accepted, and on returning to our quarters learnt that Greek soldiers and priests were going from house to house ordering every one to attend the meeting and close their shops. It was intended to make use of us, for the women were told to come and hear what an Englishwoman had to say to them. The Greek authorities, aware that we knew no Greek, would have been able to interpret bogus messages from us.

We decided, therefore, to arrive so late as not to be put on the platform and made use of, and went for a walk lest an officer be sent to fetch us. One was--but we had already left. We arrived late at the meeting. Surrounded by Greek military, the populace had had to consent to the sending of a telegram to the Ambassadors' Conference in London, stating that Koritza voted unanimously for Greece.

So soon as it was dark, people came to visit us. Sixty Moslems outside the town sent an emissary to know if they could speak with us. We dared do nothing that would subject them to arrest. We had heard too much of the fate of prisoners. We were prayed to send a counter telegram to London, but there was no nearer telegraph station than Berat. The wire controlled by the Greeks was, of course, useless. The crisis was acute, and the prayers of the Koritzans pressing. We gave up our plan of travelling further South, and started for Berat so soon as mules and guide could be prepared.

The Greek authorities prepared a strange pantomime at Moskopol, our first halting-place. They sent up overnight a number of people who danced out to meet us like stage peasants, crying: "Welcome to a Greek town!" Moskopol is, in fact, inhabited by Vlachs and Albanians. The imported gang went everywhere with us to try to prevent our discovering this fact. It was clear they were imported, for they seemed to be in the town for the first time. One spoke Albanian to a woman as we passed. I asked how he had learnt it. He replied: "From my mother."

"Then you are half Albanian," I said.

"No," he answered, much vexed. "My mother is Greek, but there were no Greek schools when she was young, poor woman, so she never learnt to speak [i.e. she only knew Albanian] properly!" This is a fair sample of Greek propaganda. We reached Berat, and were received with great enthusiasm. The telegram was sent, and, we hope, helped to save Koritza. At Valona, where our journey ended, we met a number of refugees from Chameria, splendid mountain men, who had been till now under local autonomy with their own old Albanian law. They were threatened with Greek annexation, and prayed us piteously to save their Fatherland.

We visited the Albanian provisional government. A small assembly in a poor house. But it represented the hopes of a little nation. Its members were earnest and anxious. War had broken out between Serbo-Greek against Bulgar. They feared that Bulgaria could not stand against the combined forces, and the victory of Greek and Serb would spell ruin for Albania.

I returned to Scutari and resumed relief work. Things were going badly. The Powers who wished to ruin Albania had arranged that the international control should not have jurisdiction beyond ten kilometres from the town, and gave no signs of appointing any form of government for the country, nor recognizing a native one.

The two gallant tribes of Hoti and Gruda begged hard not to be included in Montenegro.

In Montenegro I learnt there was disgust at having been dragged into the second Balkan war Montenegro could not refuse to take part as, then, if the Serbs won, she would lose all her war-spoils. I noted in my diary: "The Powers are making a damned mess of everything by their shilly-shally. . . . What rot it is for five Powers to be spending the Lord knows what on these warships, admirals, soldiers, etc. hanging about Scutari while the people up-country are dying of hunger." The suffering in the burnt villages was terrible. People were cooking grass for their starving children, and the death-rate from diarrhoea was high. Anything the Belgians suffered in 1914 was child's play in comparison. Meanwhile Roumania entered into the second Balkan war and stabbed Bulgaria in the back. History records few dirtier actions, nor need we waste pity on Roumania for the punishment which has since fallen upon her.

That the destruction of Bulgaria was early planned by Greek and Serb seems likely, for, as early as April, the Serb Minister at Bucarest proposed a Serbo-Roumanian alliance against Bulgaria, and the Serbian General staff began fortifying Ovtchepolje. Bulgaria fell, and the Treaty of Bucarest was signed on August 10, 1913. Albania was deadly anxious. The victorious Serbs and Greeks were drunk with blood, and thirsted for hers, too. And still the Powers made no move to send a Prince.

At the end of August I went up to the Shala mountains, where refugees from the Gusinje district seized by Montenegro, came in misery; survivors of the massacres which, in the name of Christianity, were going on. I examined witnesses. Four battalions of Montenegrins were carrying on a reign of terror. Moslems were given choice of baptism or death. Praying in Moslem form was forbidden. Men were slaughtered, and their wives unveiled and baptised, and in some cases violated as well. I was prayed to ask the King of England, who has many Moslem subjects, to save these hapless Moslems from extinction.

To Scutari came similar news of the hideous cruelty, by means of which Great Serbia was being created. An Ipek man, well educated and of high standing, told of what happened there: "Every day the telal cried in the streets 'To-day the Government will shoot ten (or more) men!' No one knew which men they would be, or why they were shot. They were stood in a trench, which was to be their grave. Twelve soldiers fired, and as the victims fell the earth was shovelled over them, whether living or dead. Baptisms were forced by torture. Men were plunged into the ice-cold river, and then half roasted till they cried for mercy. And conversion to Christianity was the price." Many, terrorized into baptism, came to me. One man with tears in his eyes assured me he had consented only to save his wife and children, but that he felt now that he was defiled and wished he were dead.

The International forces did nothing. They had no jurisdiction outside Scutari.

Unfortunately, also, the British staff knew no language but English, and the most reliable dragomans knew only French, Italian, or German. England was thus more heavily handicapped than the representatives of the other Powers, and the Albanians asked with wonder: "Are there, then, no schools in England?" And, in general, Scutari's high idea of European civilization shrivelled and shrank.

By the end of September the conduct of the Serbs in the Dibra district was so bad that the maddened populace, profiting by a moment when the garrison was reduced, revolted, drove out the Serbs and retook Ochrida, where they were welcomed by both Bulgars and Albanians. As I wrote at the time: "It is criminal of the Powers to delay the frontier commissions. Both Serb and Montenegrin are working to clear off the Albanians from the debatable districts so as to show a Slav majority to the Commission." The ill-timed revolt gave them a chance of doing this. The Serbs fell on the Gostivar district, burning the villages with petroleum, and throwing such people as could not escape, back into the flames with their bayonets. An urgent appeal for bandages and medicaments came from Elbasan, into which refugees were pouring. Our naval force was not allowed to supply any, but I begged two cases of stores from the Italian consulate and started across country to Elbasan to the horror of the International control, who had the idea that travelling in Albania was dangerous. As I soon got beyond their zone they could not interfere. At Tirana and at Elbasan I found thousands of destitute creatures pouring in, footsore and exhausted. Their accounts of Serb brutality up-country was amply confirmed by a letter of a Serb in the Radnitchke Novina (see Carnegie Report): "My dear friend," writes a Serb soldier, "appalling things are going on. I am terrified of them. . . . I dare not tell you morer but I may say Ljuma (an Albanian tribe) no longer exists. There is nothing but corpses and ashes." A Franciscan, who went there, told me of the bodies of the poor little bayoneted babies. "There are villages of 100, 150, 200 houses where there is literally not a single man. We collect them in parties of forty to fifty and bayonet them to the last one," The paper says it cannot publish the details, "they are too heart-rending."

Nothing could make the luckless refugees believe that the Powers had really given them to the Serbs. They asked piteously when the Prince was coming to drive the Serbs out. And still the Powers did nothing. Some Bulgars among the refugees told that life under the Serbs was impossible. The only time they had been free from persecution was when the Serb army was busy fighting the Bulgar army.

It was feared the Serbs would descend on Elbasan, and I carried away a whole mule-load of valuables to save them from being pillaged, and rode with it across country without an escort or weapon. I learnt from the refugees that twenty-six villages had been wholly or partially burnt and pillaged by the Serbs. Few of the refugees had any weapons. I reported all this in vain in Scutari. Not a Power would move. The Serbs, grown impudent, then entered strictly Albanian territory in defiance of the International forces, and camped in Mirdita while the Montenegrins devastated the Gashi and Krasnichi tribes.

At last the Commission for delimiting the northern frontier started. The Russian, troubled doubtless by a guilty conscience, had feared to start without a strong military escort, and lack of forage made this impossible. Hence much delay. Our military attache from Rome represented England, but it was reported that France and Russia were out to grab all they could for the Serbs, regardless of the nationality of the population, and were furious whenever he protested, for, as England belonged to the Entente, they considered it his duty to support them on every point, regardless of fact and justice.

More attacks of the Serbs on the Albanians in the annexed lands brought more misery. "October 21st.--Thousands of refugees arriving from Djakovo and neighbourhood. Victims of Montenegro." My position was indescribably painful, for I had no funds left, and women came to me crying: "If you will not feed my child, throw it in the river. I cannot see it starve."

I decided to return to England after three and a half years' absence, to try and rouse help and action there.

And I said goodbye with sorrow to Scutari, beautiful and sorrowing, which had been my most kind home for so long.

On arriving in London I packed up the Gold Medal given me by King Nikola and returned it to him, stating that I had often expressed surprise at persons who accepted decorations from Abdul Hamid, and that now I knew that he and his subjects were even more cruel than the Turk I would not keep his blood-stained medal any longer. I communicated this to the English and Austrian Press. The order of St. Sava given me by King Petar of Serbia, I decided to keep a little longer till some peculiarly flagrant case should occur, and this I expected soon.

So apparently did Austria, who, exasperated by the repeated outrages of the Serbs, and aware of the activity of Hartwig at Belgrade, realized she was marked down as Russia's next victim on the proscribed list, and that the hour was arriving when she must kill or be killed.

Austria's position was now perilous. Russia had come to an agreement with Japan, and had her hands free for the Near East. Hartwig was pre-eminent in Belgrade. Roumania had been roped in, and had dealt the stab in the back to Bulgaria, which had assured the Serbo-Greek victory. Bulgaria was "put in the corner." France, the financier of the Near East, refused her a loan. Italy it is true, took Tripoli with the consent of the Powers, and France, tied as she was to Russia, could not object. But she viewed with great jealousy any increase of Italian power on the Mediterranean, and began therefore to build up Greece as a naval counterpoise.

When Bulgaria approached Paris for a loan, Greece protested: "Do not finance our most hated rivals." France refused the loan. Bulgaria turned to England, who looked very favourably on the plan, recognizing Bulgaria's industry and capability. Those who are in a position to know, state that almost the whole sum had been arranged for when France heard of the transaction and requested that England, as a member of the Entente, would not finance a loan that France had thought fit to refuse. England drew back, and Bulgaria had to go to Germany for the necessary money. Russia had no use for Bulgaria. Therefore France had none. And England, or the section of it bitted and bridled by The Times, went the way it was driven. Or, perhaps, like a certain animal, was induced that way by dangled carrots. The Times' supplements, full of praise of Tsardom, must have cost some one a pretty penny. Meanwhile Russia was assuring the Serbs that the Balkan war was but a first step, and that Bosnia and the Herzegovina would soon be theirs. Ristitch, Serb Minister at Bucarest, states on November 13, 1912: "The Ministers of France and Russia advise, as friends of Serbia, that we should not 'go the limit' as regards the question of an outlet on the Adriatic. ... It would be better that Serbia . . . should strengthen herself and await with as great a degree of preparation as possible the important events which must soon make their appearance among the Great Powers."

December 27, 1912.--The Serb Minister in Petersburg telegraphs: "The Minister for Foreign Affairs replied that in view of our successes he had confidence in our strength, and believed we could give a shock to Austria. For that reason we should feel satisfied with what we were to receive and consider it as a temporary haltingplace. . . . The future remained to us. . . . Bulgaria, meantime, would bring her ethnic mission to a close." Small wonder that in May 1913 the Montenegrins boasted to me: "We, the Serb nation, are a danger to Europe. We have all the Russian army with us, and shall take what we choose." Small wonder, too, that Austria, realizing she must soon fight for her very existence against a very strong combine, approached Italy in September 1913 and asked what would be her attitude in case of an Austrian war with Serbia. Italy, who was already dabbling with the Entente, though nominally a member of the Triple Alliance, replied: "Such a war would be a most dangerous adventure." Austria knew then that Italy could not be reckoned on.

We now slide into 1914, and Yougourieff's date, for "our great war" approaches. Russian preparations went on apace, and France, under Russian pressure, extended her term of military service to three years.