Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle Part 3

One error of judgment which has largely helped to thwart Prince Nikola's hopes is the fact that, alarmed lest foreign luxury should make his sons discontented with their stony fatherland, he would not send them abroad to be educated. They were taught at home by a tutor who was an able man enough, but the future ruler of even a tiny realm needs a wider experience and training. He further made the fatal mistake of bringing them up as Princes apart from the people, whereas he himself had played with village children. As a result they grew up with exaggerated ideas of their own importance, devoid of discipline and ignorant of all things most needful for a successful ruler in a poor land. They had all the vices of Princes and none of their virtues.

It was a tragic error with tragic consequences. Nikola came to the throne as a mediaeval chieftain in a yet mediaeval land. To succeed in his ambitions, and he was then amply justified in believing that he would succeed, it was needful to train up a successor fit to rule in the twentieth century.

The gates of time were of a sudden flung open. In the s.p.a.ce of a few years something like five centuries poured over the land. Nikola stood on the rocks with his sons hoping to escape the devastating torrent. But there was no way of escape. They must swim with the stream of time--or drown.

Nor does it now seem likely that one of his immediate descendants will ever rule Great Serbia.

They failed to take the "tide in the affairs of men" and their golden dream has been swept, into the Never-Never Land. It is bitter tragedy to end life as a failure.

CHAPTER THREE.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LAND AND PEOPLE

In 1901 I visited Montenegro and went down the lake to Scutari.

Scutari captured me at once. It had colour, life, art. Its people were friendly and industrious and did not spend all their time drinking rakia and swaggering up and down the street as at Cetinje.

There was something very human about them and of all things I wanted to go into the Albanian mountains. But our Consul there was but just arrived. He consulted his Austrian colleague and as Austria was then keeping the mountains as its own preserve, he replied, emphatically, that the journey was impossible for me.

No particular political crisis was happening, but there were rumours of a certain Kastrioti in Paris who claimed descent from the great Skenderbeg and his possible arrival as Prince of Albania roused a certain excitement in Albanian b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Hopes of independence were already spoken of in hushed whispers.

In Montenegro Great Serbia was the talk, and I was shewn crude prints of the heroes of old, on many a cottage wall. And some flashlights on Montenegrin character showed vividly the different mentality of the Balkans.

The new British Vice-Consul for Scutari came up to Cetinje on business, for the British Minister had left owing to ill-health. The Montenegrins did not like the new Vice-Consul and seriously consulted me as to the possibility of having him exchanged for another. I was extremely surprised. "But why do you not like him?" I asked. "Because he does not like us," was the confident reply. "But he has only been here a week," I urged. "How can he know yet whether he likes you or not? In any case what does it matter. It is not necessary to like a Consul."

"But yes!" came the horrified reply.

"How is it not necessary? One must either love or hate!"

One must either love or hate. There is no medium. It was Dushan Gregovitch that spoke.

Lazar Mioushkovitch flashed the next beam on the national character.

Some tourists arrived and, at the lunch table, talked with Lazar.

One was a clergyman. He told how Canon McColl during the Turko-Russian War of 1877 had reported having seen severed heads on poles, and how all England, including Punch, had jeered at him for thinking such a thing possible in Europe in the nineteenth century.

Mioushkovitch was sadly puzzled. "But how, I ask you, could he fail to see severed heads in a war? The cutting off of heads in fact--I see nothing remarkable in that!" Then, seeing the expression of the reverend gentleman's face, he added quickly: "But when it comes to teaching the children to stick cigarettes in the mouths--there I agree with you, it is a bit too strong!" (c'est un peu fort ca!) There was a sudden silence. The Near East had, in fact, momentarily undraped itself.

Last came the days when we daily expected to hear that the Queen of Italy had given birth to a son and heir. A gun was made ready to fire twenty-one shots. Candles were prepared to light in every window. The flags waited to be unfurled. We all sat at lunch in the hotel. The door flew open and a perianik (royal guard) entered. He spoke a few words to Monsieur Piguet, the Prince's tutor. Piguet excused himself and left the room.

After some interval he returned, heaved a heavy sigh, and in a voice of deep depression, said to the Diplomatic table: Eh bien Messieurs --nous avons une fille! It was appalling. No one in Montenegro, it would appear, had thought such a catastrophe even possible. To the Montenegrin the birth of a daughter was a misfortune. "You feed your son for yourself. You feed your daughter for another man." Faced with this mediaeval point of view the Diplomatic circle was struck dumb. Till the British Consul said bravely: "I don't care what the etiquette is! I won't condole with him." And the tension was relieved.

No guns were fired, no candles lighted. Cetinje tried to look as though nothing at all had happened.

One member of the Round Table at this time needs mention. Count Louis Voynovitch from Ragusa was staying in Cetinje to draw up a new code of laws. This clever adventurer was looked on with some jealousy by the Montenegrins and much favoured by the Royal Family whom he amused with anecdotes and jokes.

It was said he was to be permanently Minister of Justice, but he left Montenegro rather suddenly over, it was said, a cherchez la femme affair. He then went to Bulgaria as tutor, I believe, to the young Princes, and afterwards held a post in Serbia.

And he returned again to Montenegro and represented Montenegro at the Amba.s.sadors Conference in London during the Balkan War of 1912-13. He was reputed to be deep dipped in every intrigue of the Balkans and in Jugoslavia we may some day hear of him again.

Nothing else now worth recording occurred in my 1901 holiday. Next year was a full one.

CHAPTER FOUR.

SERBIA AND THE WAY THERE

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is bold as a lion."

Twice had I visited Montenegro and had heard much of Great Serbia.

Of the past as seen by Serb eyes I read in any number of cheap pink and blue ballad books. As for the present, big Montenegrins in the most decorative national dress in Europe, swaggered up and down the main street of Cetinje, consumed unlimited black coffee and rakia and discussed the glorious days when all Serbs should again be united under Gospodar Nikita. But that they were taking any active steps to create this earthly paradise I had then no idea.

My 1902 holiday was due. I decided to go further afield and see Serbia itself, but to go first to Montenegro where I might obtain information and introductions. No one in England could tell me anything and only one recent book on the subject could be found.

This was of no consequence for the real joy of travel begins with the plunge into the unknown and in 1902 it was still possible to find this joy in Europe. From Whittaker's Almanac I learnt that all pa.s.sports must be visaed at the Serbian Legation and thither I hastened.

I had never travelled without a pa.s.sport, for accidents may always happen and even so near home as Paris ident.i.ty papers may be useful.

But I had never before sought a special visa.

Light-heartedly, therefore, I rang the Legation bell and cheerfully offered the youth, who admitted me, the pa.s.sport with a request for a visa. He told me to wait; and wait I did until--though not quite new to the Near East I began to wonder what overwhelming world-politics were detaining the Serbian Minister. Persons peeped at me cautiously through the half-open door and darted back when I looked round. Finally, I was summoned into M. Militchevitch's presence.

Stiffly he asked why I wanted to go to Serbia. My reply, that having visited Montenegro I now proposed seeing other Serb lands, did not please him at all. I made things worse by enlarging on my Montenegrin experiences for I had no idea then of the fact that there is nothing one Slav State hates so much as another Slav State, and truly thought to please him.

He persisted in wanting "definite information." "What do you want to do there?"

"Travel and sketch and photograph and collect curios."

He suggested sternly that there were other lands in Europe where all this could be done.

His att.i.tude was incomprehensible to me, who then knew foreign lands only as places which received tourists with open arms and hotels gaping for guests. He, on the other hand, found me quite as incomprehensible for, like many another Balkan man, he could conceive of no travel without a political object.

And I was quite unaware that the murders upon which Great Serbia was to be built were even then being plotted.

Point-blank, I asked, "Is travelling in Serbia so very dangerous then?"

The shot told. "Not at all!" said he hastily.

"Then why may I not go?"

After more argle-bargle he consented to give me the visa on condition I went straight to the British Consul at Belgrade and did nothing without his advice. He signed, remarking that he took no responsibility. I paid and left triumphant, all unaware of the hornet's nest I was now free to enter.

Of Serb politics I knew at that time little beyond the fact that King Alexander was unpopular owing to an unfortunate marriage and the still more unfortunate attempt of Queen Draga to plant a false heir upon the country by pretending pregnancy; that his father's career had been melodramatic and that the history of Serbia for the whole period of her independence had been one long blood-feud between the rival dynasties of Karageorge and Obrenovitch, neither of which seemed popular in Montenegro. Off I went to Cetinje and told various people my plan for seeing Serbia. Rather to my surprise no one offered me introductions, but having been repeatedly told that the Montenegrins were the cream of the Serb nation, and would lead Serbia to glory I believed that the mere mention of Montenegro and my acquaintance with it would suffice to a.s.sure me a welcome.

Near the door of the Monastery of Cetinje is the grave of one of the Karageorgevitches and the priest who showed it me told that the families Petrovitch and Karageorgevitch had been on very friendly terms. Prince Nikola had married his daughter Zorka to Petar Karageorgevitch, the rival claimant to the Serbian throne, in 1883; that the young couple had lived in Cetinje and their three children were born there; but that, after Zorka's death in 1890, father-in-law and son-in-law had fallen out badly about money matters and Petar had been seen no more in Montenegro. The fact that the present Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia was born in Cetinje is of some interest now, when he is attempting to seize his grandfather's throne--but more of this later. In 1902 it was still undreamed of.

Only Count Bollati, then Italian Minister to Montenegro, took any active interest in my plans. Le bon Dieu, he said, "has created you expressly to travel in the Balkans." He loathed Cetinje and explained he had accepted it only as one degree better than Buenos Ayres because nearer to Rome. "Nothing bites you," he continued; "everything bites me. Your method of seeing lands is undoubtedly the best, but I am satisfied with what I see from the windows of the best hotel." Nor, unfortunately, was Count Bollati in any way unique in his tastes a fact which may have affected the politics of Europe.

He had held a diplomatic post in Belgrade and was very curious to know how I should fare. "Sooner you than I!" he laughed, and meanwhile sketched me a route through the chief towns and told me his first experience in the land.

It was at a court ball, given by the gay and das.h.i.+ng King Milan. The salon was awhirl with dancers when-click--something fell to the ground near the Count's feet. A lady's jewel doubtless. He stooped and picked up a revolver cartridge. Laughing, he showed it to an aide-de-camp near him, who saw no joke in the matter and referred it to King Milan, who turned white and looked gravely anxious. And Bollati for the first time realized the Balkans. Before I left Cetinje it was officially announced that the marriage of Prince Mirko (Prince Nikola's second son) with Mademoiselle Natalie Constantinovitch had been fixed for July 12 O.S. (1902), and the faire parts were sent to the Corps Diplomatique.