Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle Part 24

That Italy was mixed in the affair appeared a little later. Red signal lights were seen flas.h.i.+ng to the insurgents from a house in Durazzo by many persons, among them the British Vice-Consul.

Lieutenant Fabius, of the Dutch gendai'merie, entered the house and caught an Italian officer, Colonel Muricchio, red-lamp-handed. Again no trial was allowed. It was pleaded that the Capitulations had not been abrogated! And the officer was released. We may blame Wied for incompetency, but only a man of unusual force of character and intimate knowledge of the land could have made headway against the Powers combined against him.

All this I learnt from members of the International Control, from the Dutch officers, from the Albanians, from the American Missionaries, and from some private individuals.

That the rising was planned and the ammunition embezzled by Essad and his gang hardly admits of doubt.

On June 8, 1914, I reached Trieste. Here our vice-consul, M.

Salvari, himself an Albanian, was very anxious about the situation.

I had intended going to Scutari, but he begged me to go to Durazzo, where I arrived on June 11th. On board the boat I met Mr John Corbett, who had lately been in South Albania, and said it was nonsense of the Greeks to pretend no Greek troops had remained there as he had seen parties of them in many places, and had seen money being collected in Corfu to aid Zographos's enterprise. Durazzo was crammed with people of all races. Fighting had ceased, but a large force of armed men was some miles outside the town and negotiations were going on. Dr. Dillon, the well-known correspondent, was there, and his strong Russian proclivities caused much anxiety, more especially as he and his young wife had been staying with Essad shortly before his arrest. The Russian agents were suspected of taking active part in the anti-Wied intrigues, and the correspondent of the Birzhevije Viedomosti was in Durazzo and on friendly terms with Dr. Dillon. The Russian, Olghinsky, I had met in Andrijevitza in 1912, when the Montenegrins were making ready for the Balkan war.

He then complained to me freely of the apathy of the Russians, and said he and his paper were doing all they could to rouse the country to war. His paper (Birzhevije Viedomosti) had already, in March 1914, blown the war trumpet loudly:

"Until now the Russian plan of military operations had a defensive character; to-day it is known that the Russian army will, on the other hand, play an active part. . . . Our artillery possesses guns which are in no respect inferior to foreign models. Our coast and fortification guns are even superior to those of other states. Our artillery will no longer have to complain of want of ammunition. The teachings of the past have fallen on fruitful soil. Military automobile service has reached a high degree of perfection . . . all our military units have telephonic appliances."

More details are given, and the writer says: "It is important that Russian public opinion be conscious that the country is prepared for all possibilities." Yougourieff had given October as the date when "we should be ready for our great war." The Birzhevije Viedomosti said all was ready in March. To find Dr. Dillon, an avowed partisan of Russia, in company with a correspondent of Birzhevije Viedomosti, supporting Essad in Durazzo, was a sinister omen. He protested Essad's innocence to me, but had no proof to offer save that Essad was in bed when arrested, and that no doc.u.mentary evidence was found. The first proved only that the rising was not timed for that night. The second was valueless in a land where few could write and messages go from mouth to mouth. Subsequent events have proved that Essad, as we suspected, was a Serb agent.

During the following days very bad news came from the South.

Eye-witnesses gave evidence of the Greeks' atrocities. It was generally believed that as Italy was determined to keep the Greek islands, she was conniving at the Greeks finding compensation at Albania's expense.

At the house of Dom Nikola Kaciorri, a plucky little Catholic priest, I found an Orthodox Albanian priest from Meljani, near Leskoviki, who told how the Greeks had burnt his village and ordered all those who belonged to the Orthodox Church to come along with them, using force to make them, and falling on those who refused.

They had driven a number along before them, including his wife and children, whom he could not rescue. He told how the Greeks had given the inhabitants of Odrichan permission to return to it, and had then fallen on them and slaughtered them. Mr. Lamb ascertained that this man's wife and children were alive, but the Greeks refused to give them up.

Almost as soon as I arrived I was invited to have an audience with the Princess of Wied. She was very friendly, and much distressed by the web of intrigue in which she found herself tied. I regretted that she and the Prince had fallen into the wrong hands, and begged her to go to Valona or Scutari, and at once start a tour through the land. I offered to go with her, and a.s.sured her safe conduct, saying all misunderstanding would have been avoided had she and the Prince made such a journey on arrival. She said she had wished to, but that Essad always advised against it. I spoke to her of the Russo-Serbo-French-Italian combine, and said the Albanians wanted none of it, and that she could yet have the whole country on her side But she continually quoted the advice of. Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania, till I had to say: "Yes, ma'am. But Albania is not Roumania. Here you will do much better by appealing direct to the people." I left promising to support her to the best of my ability.

She struck me as honest, intelligent, and very well-meaning. She would have made a good Queen for the country had she been given a chance, and might have done as much for it as did Carmen Sylva for Roumania.

That same day Mr. Lamb told me that the inhabitants of three Moslem villages, Nenati, Mercati, and Konispoli, recently burnt by the Greeks, had sent to beg help, and asked me if I would go and investigate.

That night, June 12th, came a fresh development. The Dutch gendarmerie arrested Gjurashkovitch, the Montenegrin, who had still been allowed to function as Mayor of the town, to which he had been appointed in Turkish times. Again Albania's enemies stood up for him. His brother was dragoman to the Russian commissioner; Russia claimed him as under her protection, and raised the old cry of "Capitulations." He, too, was released. The thing was becoming a farce. The Prince was unable to try any suspect. The Italian papers raised choruses of blame against the Dutch gendarmerie, which at that time was very honestly trying to do its duty. The Prince, who was like a large, good-natured St. Bernard dog, yapped and snapped at all round, completely confused by the din, yielded each time, and so soon alienated the sympathy of the Dutch officers, who, as more than one of them complained to me, got into trouble on his behalf and then received no support.

News arrived that Osman Bali, one of the two men reported to have a.s.sa.s.sinated Hussein Riza in Scutari, had been seen among the insurgents, and was probably this time also acting for Essad. The Italians put in a demand that Lieutenant Fabius, who had arrested the Italian Colonel Muricchio, should apologize. This Fabius very properly refused to do, and many of us supported him. I had known him during the Balkan war, and found him a very honest boy. Italy then demanded his dismissal. But this time the Prince stood firm.

Fachinetti, the Italian correspondent, whom I had known well during the war of 1912-13, was also in Durazzo. In the Balkan war he had warmly taken the part of the Albanians, and had worked with me. Now he knew I should not approve his doings, and he kept out of my way, dodging whenever he saw me coming. Crajevsky, too, was not pleased to see me. He was now more pro-Slav even than the Russians, and as he had been more Turk than the Turks only two years before, he must have known that his volte face was, to me, rather comical. And he is the kind of man that does not like being thought funny.

Colonel Thompson, who was commanding the Dutch gendarmes, met me and told me that he was going to =give an ultimatum to the insurgents in the next few days, and asked me to call at eleven next morning and talk the matter over with him. I never did. That night things seemed shaky. I overheard Fachinetti, whose room was next mine, tell the landlord to knock him up if anything happened. So I did very little undressing, thinking he was probably behind some plot. I put my boots handy, and laid down as I was, for a bit of sleep, and jumped up to the sound of rifle fire as the landlord banged on Fachinetti's door. Sharp firing sounded close. I dashed out so soon as I could lace my boots, and went down to the entrance of the town where Fabius was in great haste serving out ammunition from the depot there. He begged me not to go out towards the scene of the fight, as he suspected the Italians, and wanted to give an order that no foreigner should leave the town. Up rushed the Italians, greatly excited, and were headed back by Fabius. I told them I, too, was forbidden to go, and we sent them back. We got the artillery ammunition on donkeys and sent it up the hill. Dutch and Austrian officers were to serve the guns. A wounded Albanian, crying feebly "Rrnoft Mbreti" (Long live the King), was carried by on a stretcher, and one of the bearers whispered to Fabius: "Thompson is. .h.i.t. I fear he is dead." To lose the commander in the first hour of the fight was a terrible blow. Fabius begged me to tell no one. Later, Arthur Moore, The Times correspondent, came and told how poor Thompson had been struck down and died almost immediately in his arms in a hut by the wayside.

Too many battle books have been written of late, so I will not describe the fighting In the afternoon. I was under cover behind a bank on the top of the hill with Mr. Corbett when the Prince came up on horseback with a small suite. He dismounted and climbed the bank, a tall, lean man, worn and anxious, with a yellow-white face as from a touch of fever. We called to him he had better take cover as the bullets came over pretty often. He looked dazed and stupefied. I said: "A bullet has just cut down that plant, Sir!" pointing to one close by. He roused himself, mounted, and rode away. Our side soon got the upper hand, and all danger of the town being rushed seemed over.

Meanwhile, within the town, the Italians did all they could to create a panic. They built rubbishy barricades, and annoyed me by making one across the street near the hotel door. I pulled it down so as to be able to get in and out easily. The officer was very angry. I explained that the town was not his to barricade, and if it were it was no good to build a barricade there, as men behind it could only fire into the house opposite. Which made him the more angry, because it was true, and the thing a mere dummy to scare people. So sure were the Italians that they were 'going to get the town taken this time that the correspondents wrote gory accounts of its capture and the slaughter of the inhabitants, and sent them to Italy, where they were published. I do not now believe in Italian correspondents every time.

The Russians were as bad as the Italians. They, too, hoped for the fall of the town.

The Russian secretary was a typical ultra-neurotic Slav. Could not exist, he told me, without operas, ballets, and "stir tout des Emotions." Was horribly vexed that the Albanian Nationalist party proved so strong, and that Albania had not yet been overthrown. In order to keep himself alive meanwhile in this miserable hole he tried to get people to play bridge with him for as high stakes as possible. And this did not suffice him. He told me that having run through all the sensations of life he thought of committing suicide.

"Why don't you, then, Monsieur?" I asked enthusiastically. "No one will regret you. Suicide yourself, I beg you, quickly!" Which so infuriated him that I dare say he is alive still. It roused him to an attack on the English, who, he said, were ruining civilization by the way they treated the Jews. I retorted by hoping that the terrible accounts we had had of Jewish pogroms were exaggerated.

"Exaggerated!" cried he. "You may believe everything you have heard.

Nothing is bad enough or too bad for those brutes."

"You have no right," said I, "to speak so of any human beings."

"Human beings!" cried he. "What you English must learn is that they are not human beings. They are bugs, and must be cr-r-rushed."

This is a mere detail. But what sort of peace can be expected when men such as this are in the diplomatic service helping to pull the strings?

At night the heat was terrible. The motionless air was shrill with mosquitoes from the fever swamps. The Italian forces were camped just under my window and he stench of unwashed men and sweaty uniforms penetrated the miserable garret I slept in with suffocating acridity. I lay awake for hours thinking of the fate of thousands of human beings dependent on such men as Petar Karageorgevitch, with his blood-stained hands; his h.o.a.ry father-in-law, Nikola, weaving spider webs; the decadent Russian, fanatical and cruel; the Levantine Slav, agent of France; the Italians like a pack in full cry with the victim in sight; the Greek Varata.s.si mainly playing bridge, but plotting behind the scenes with the Greek bishop, and probably with Essad too. All bent on war, and meaning to have it in some form.

Only Mr. Lamb and the German commissioner were playing straight. On 16th H.M.S. Defence and Admiral Troubridge arrived. Fighting went on, on and off, for the next few days. The Russian correspondent chuckled indecently over the Albanian wounded. On the 20th a deputation of townsfolk went to try and make terms with the insurgents. From the messages they brought it was clear that the luckless Albanians without the town were being used as cat's paw by more than one Power. A truce was called, and the insurgents asked to give up their arms and leaders. They replied they would yield their arms, but not their leaders. Who the leaders were remained a mystery.

While the armistice lasted at Durazzo the insurgents began to march to other places. No other town was armed. The people in vain asked what it was all about, and what the Powers wanted them to do. The Russian Vice-consul at Valona sent messages about to say that the Powers would be very angry if they fought on the side of Wied, The Albanians did not want to fight each other. Towns at once surrendered to the insurgents. The police changed their badges and business went on as usual. The populace did not want civil war, and continued to believe that the Powers would keep their promises. News then came that the Greeks were ma.s.sing on the frontier ready to again fall on Koritza.

The insurgents now sent a message into Durazzo that they wanted to parley with an Englishman. They believed in England. General Phillips came from Scutari and went to meet them. He reported that the leaders were certainly not Albanians, and that they had refused to give their names. One was a Greek priest.

The game of the Greeks, then, was to incite the Moslems to ask for a Moslem ruler. With this in view they blackened Wied as an "anti-Moslem," hoping thus to split Albania and more easily destroy it.

One of the chief spokesmen said to General Phillips: "In England there is a Liberal Government. Many of you do not like it, but you must accept it because it is the will of the majority. We are the majority here, and we will have a Moslem Prince." This man the General "believed to be a Young Turk leader disguised." He asked why they objected to Wied, and they replied: "Because he is against our religion!" which was entirely untrue. And they added that they could easily take Durazzo because they knew that the international battles.h.i.+ps off the coast had orders not to fire. In the end General Phillips made a strong appeal to them to cease this foolish warfare and accept Wied as the choice of Europe.

The Albanian crowd, he reported, appeared to agree and to be anxious to come to terms. But the five foreign leaders stuck out. And the ignorant crowd which believed that by following these leaders they would regain Dibra and other districts finally refused to come to terms.

Mr. Lamb also made a vain attempt to obtain the names of these leaders, and they obstinately refused to come into Durazzo to discuss terms with the Commissioners and the Prince. Nor would they permit any delegates to come. The Mirdite and Maltsor reinforcements who arrived were all reluctant to fight. "We are not in blood with these people," they said, "Why should we fight them?" We had a number of the enemy wounded in our hospitals along with our own men.

They were most grateful for the care bestowed upon "them, and bore no ill-will at all. It was sadly true that these poor people were being killed and wounded, offered as human sacrifices at the altar of the rival ambitions of the Entente and the Central Powers.

The Breslau, since notorious, and a Russian wars.h.i.+p now arrived.

There were many Germans, both military and civilian, in the town, and the Germans and English worked together in the hospital. The surgeon, from the Russian wars.h.i.+p, claimed the right to work in the English hospital as a member of the Entente. But as he proposed to give an anaesthetic to a man whose arm we had promised not to amputate, and then to take it off, we got rid of him in spite of his protests that a promise to "an animal like that" did not count.

I took my meals very often with the Germans, and we discussed often the danger caused to Europe by the Anglo-Russian Alliance. I said that though I believed Russia was heading for war I was sure we should not support her, and we drank to a speedy Anglo-German alliance. They were disgusted with Wied's folly, and said the Kaiser had been reluctant to appoint him, but had been over-persuaded by Carmen Sylva. They took me on board the Breslau, where I was received with great cordiality, and the captain, who took me on to the bridge, said his s.h.i.+p for her size was one of the fastest.

On Sunday, June 28th, I was having tea with Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, when we saw Admiral Troubridge climbing the hill towards us. He came into the house very hot, and said almost at once: "I have come to tell you our wireless has picked up a bit of a message. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been murdered at Serajevo. Just that!"

My first idea was: "They have done what they said they would last year. They have begun in Bosnia."

I said to Mr. Lamb: "This means war, doesn't it?"

He replied: "Not necessarily." And seemed surprised. His manner rea.s.sured me. But unless very strong pressure were brought to bear, I could not see how war between the Slavs and Austria could be avoided, for "we the Russian army with us" was part of the programme.

No official confirmation of the news came till next day.

That the Serbo-Greek combine expected to have more than the Russian army to support it seemed shown by a remarkable letter the insurgent leaders wrote to Berat, advising the town to surrender, because "we are supported by the Triple Entente." Berat, however, refused to surrender.

The insurgents sent a message to Durazzo that they were willing to be ruled by the International Commissioners if Wied were dismissed.

Terrible rumours came as to what was happening at Koritza. A force of Albanians went to its defence, led by Dutch officers. Greeks were pouring in over the border. At the same time it was said that Essad was returning to Tirana via Serbia, and meant to proclaim himself as Prince. No one wanted him.

On July 11th came a telegram from Berat. "With heart full of grief I send the bad news that Koritza, after two days' fight, has fallen into the hands of the enemy. More than fifty thousand people are coming away. Take measures for these unfortunates. The Greek army is spreading on all sides, killing, and burning, and turning into ashes every Albanian place it enters."

The Albanians were aghast. The Nationalists had all trusted Wied and the Powers. Without artillery and short of ammunition, with no trained army and no officers save the Dutchmen, they had done their best. The "insurrection" had been engineered by Albania's enemies for the express purpose, among others, of giving a door by which the Greeks could enter. Not until the Greeks began the wholesale destruction of Moslems and their villages, accompanied by every kind of atrocity, did the luckless Moslems of Tirana realize how they had been tricked.

On July 13th I went at Mr. Lamb's request to Valona to examine into the number and condition of the refugees. I have no s.p.a.ce to describe the horrors of the next few weeks. The Dutch officers, who had flung away their uniforms and bolted down to Valona in civilian dress before the Greek onrush, gave terrible accounts of the ma.s.s of struggling refugees in their flight across the mountains; the dead and dying children en route; the aged falling by the wayside; the jam of desperate creatures in a pa.s.s; the hideous cruelties of the advancing Greeks. It had been impossible, said the Dutch officers, to hold Koritza with irregular troops against an army with artillery. The Greeks burned as they advanced, and burnt Tepelcni and all the villages near it.

The refugees crawled into Valona in the last stages of exhaustion, thousands and thousands of them, and lay about under the trees in all the surrounding country. Food and shelter there was none. The heat was overwhelming. I look back on it as a nightmare of agony. In a century of repentance the Greeks cannot expiate the abominable crime of those weeks.