Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle Part 6

The revolt of 1883 was quickly crushed and Pas.h.i.tch, along with some other conspirators, fled into Bulgaria for protection. Others were arrested in Serbia and executed. The pro-Russian movement was checked for a time.

Pas.h.i.tch owed his life to Bulgaria, and not on this occasion only.

His subsequent conduct to that land has not been marked with grat.i.tude.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE GREAT SERBIAN IDEA

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."--SCOTT.

The Great Serbian Idea--the scheme for the reconstruction of Tsar Dushan's mediaeval Empire--now began to sprout and germinate. In truth that Empire had been constructed by Dushan by means of mercenary armies, partly German, by aid of which he temporarily subdued Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgars and Greeks. And he paid those armies by means of the silver mines, worked largely by Italians.

Great Serbia was an incoherent ma.s.s of different and hostile races, and it broke to pieces immediately on his death. But five centuries of Turkish rule in no way modified the hate which one Balkan race bore for another. Each, on gaining freedom, had but one idea--to overthrow and rule the other. Milosh Obrenovitch had already begun to toy with the Great Serbian Idea when he refused to support the Greeks in their struggle for freedom. The success of the wars of 1876-77 raised fresh ambitions.

But now there were two possible heads for Great Serbia--Milan Obrenovitch, who had been raised to kingship, and who owed his position to Austria; and Nikola Petrovitch, recognized as Prince of an independent land, and "the only friend" of the Tsar of All the Russias. The bitter rivalry, not yet extinct, between the two branches of the Serb race--Serbia and Montenegro--now began.

One thing the Serb people have never forgotten and that is that in Dushan's reign Bulgaria was Serbia's va.s.sal. The reconstruction simultaneously of Big Bulgaria and Great Serbia is impossible. And neither race has as yet admitted that a middle course is the safest.

The Zaitshar affair had shown King Milan pretty clearly that the blood of the murdered Karageorge still howled for vengeance. His position was further complicated by the fact that his beautiful Russian wife, Natalie, was an ardent supporter of the plans of her Fatherland.

He made a bold bid for popularity. Filled with exaggerated ideas of his own prowess, and flushed by victories over the Turks, he rushed to begin reconstructing Great Serbia by attacking Bulgaria, which, though newly formed, had already shown signs of consolidating and becoming a stumbling block in Serbia's path to glory. The declaration of war was immensely popular. Had Milan succeeded, the fate of the Obrenovitches might have been very different. But he and his army were so badly beaten that only swift intervention by Austria saved Serbia from destruction.

Pas.h.i.tch, it should be noted, remained in Bulgaria during this war, and in fact owed his life to that country which he has since done so much to ruin.

The pieces on the Balkan chessboard then stood thus: A Serbia which was the most bitter enemy of Bulgaria and whose King was Austrophile.

A violently pro-Russian Montenegro, filled with contempt for the beaten Serbs, and ruled by a Prince who regarded himself confidently as the G.o.d-appointed restorer of Great Serbia, and who was openly supporting his new son-in-law, the rival claimant to the Serb throne.

The throne of Serbia, never too stable, now rocked badly. King Milan declared that Pan-Slavism was the enemy of Serbia and he was certainly right. For in those days it would have simply meant complete domination by Russia--the great predatory power whose maw has never yet been filled.

He pardoned Pas.h.i.tch, thinking possibly it was better to come to terms with him than to have him plotting in an enemy country, Pas.h.i.tch returned as head of the Radical party and Serbia became a hot-bed of foul and unscrupulous intrigue into which we need not dig now.

Between the partisans of Russia and Austria, Serbia was nearly torn in half. After incessant quarrels with his Russian wife, Milan in 1888 divorced her--more or less irregularly--and in the following year threw up the game and abdicated in favour of his only legitimate child, the ill-fated Alexander who was then but fourteen.

Torn this way and that by his parents' quarrels, brought up in the notoriously corrupt court of Belgrade and by nature, according to the accounts of those who knew him, of but poor mental calibre, Alexander is, perhaps, to be as much pitied as blamed. His nerves, so Mr. Chedo Miyatovitch told me, never recovered from the shock of a boating accident when young. He was the last and decadent scion of the Obrenovitches and was marked down from his accession.

Vladan Georgevitch, who was Prime Minister of Serbia from 1897 till 1900, in his book The End of a Dynasty, throws much light on the events that led up to the final catastrophe. It is highly significant that after its publication he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, not for libel or false statements, but "on a charge of having acted injuriously to Serbia by publishing State secrets." His account is therefore in all probability correct. He begins by relating Prince Alexander's visit to Montenegro shortly after the termination of the Regency. Here the astute Prince Nikola tried to persuade him to marry Princess Xenia. Princess Zorka was dead; Prince Nikola had quarrelled rather badly with his son-in-law, Petar Karageorgevitch, and, it would appear, meant to lose no chance of obtaining a matrimonial alliance with any and every possible claimant to the Serbian throne. Alexander would not consent to the match, and stated that his object in visiting Montenegro was to bring about a political alliance between that country and Serbia in order to defend Serb schools and churches in Turkish territory and generally protect Serb interests. This Nikola refused unless the said lands were definitely part.i.tioned into "spheres of interest"

and Prizren were included in his own. He was already determined to occupy the throne of Stefan Dushan. The two ministers who accompanied Alexander supported this claim. "I tell you," says Alexander, "these two men when with me at Cetinje acted not as Ministers of mine, but as Ministers of the Prince of Montenegro." He denounced such a division of the territory and the negotiations broke off. The visit to Montenegro was a failure.

Some years afterwards in Montenegro I was told triumphantly that the match would not have been at all suitable for Princess Xenia and that her father had refused it on the grounds that "no King of Serbia has yet died except by murder, or in exile." But the death of Alexander was then already planned--though I of course did not know it--and Alexander's version of the affair is more probably correct.

In 1897 the nets began to close round the wretched youth. Russia made up her long quarrel with Bulgaria and enlisted a new foe to the Obrenovitches--Prince Ferdinand. She had long refused to recognize this astute and capable Prince who was rapidly raising Bulgaria to an important position in the Balkans, and now decided to make use of him. The benefits might be mutual, for without Russian support Ferdinand could not hope to reconstruct the Big Bulgaria of the Middle Ages. Russia cynically used either Bulgaria or Serbia as best suited her purpose at the moment. In August of the same year Russia further strengthened her position by her alliance with France, who at once obediently ranged herself against the Obrenovitches.

In the following October, Alexander appointed Vladan Georgevitch Prime Minister, and bade him form a Government. The merits or demerits of this Government we need not trouble about. What is of interest is that it was at once attacked by the French Press. The Temps accused Vladan of secret understandings with Goluchowsky and Kallay, before forming it. The Courier de Soir thought that "such a policy is the result of the Triple Alliance and is an offence to the balance of Europe." Serbia apparently was to be used as the determining weight on the European scales. La Souverainte went farther and said boldly: "The moment has come when Tsar Nicholas should show the same firmness of character as his father showed to the Battenburg and Coburg in Bulgaria!" The Nova Vremya declared "that the new Government clearly meant to bring Serbia into economic dependence on Austria-Hungary."

And most of the newspapers of Europe announced the fact that the Tsar had granted an audience to Prince Petar Karageorgevitch and had conversed with him on the critical state of Serbia. Vladan then recommended to Alexander the rash plan of inviting General von der Golte to xmdertake the reform of the Serb Army as he had done that of Turkey. The plan pleased von der Goltz, but was dropped in consequence of the violent anti-Serb campaign which it aroused in the French Press. The Serb Minister in Paris, Garashanin, tried to buy some of the French papers, but had to report to his Government that this was impossible so long as Serbia was hostile to Russia.

France was paying the Russian piper--but it was the piper that called the tune. The Russo-French policy of ringing in the Central Powers was already aimed at.

The wretched Alexander, not knowing whom to trust, nor where to turn, then begged his exiled father to return from Austria and take command of the army. Milan did so and Russia was more than ever furious.

Warnings were now frequently received that Russia was planning the deaths of both Milan and Alexander. One such warning was sent by the Berlin Foreign Office.

In May 1898 Nikola Pas.h.i.tch, who had been working an anti-Obrenovitch propaganda in Bulgaria, was again in Serbia, and led the Radical party in the general elections. The Government, however, won by a large majority.

His work in Bulgaria seems to have been effective for in June the Serb Minister to Sofia sent in a very important report to his Government:

1. That Russia was determined that Milan should leave Serbia.

2. That Prince Ferdinand was willing to support Russia in this way by any means--even bad ones.

3. That the Princes of Montenegro and Bulgaria were co-operating.

Shortly afterwards Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Nikola of Montenegro, the Russian Minister and the Bulgarian diplomatic agent to Cetinje all met at Abbazia. And Ferdinand is reported to have promised Nikola the support of his army to overthrow the Obrenovitches with a view to finally uniting Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and the Herzegovina into one state with Nikola as head. Nikola began to sow the ground by starting a newspaper which attacked Austrian policy in Bosnia severely.

This is a most important turning point in Balkan history, and we shall see many results.

Mr. J. D. Bourchier, whose knowledge of Bulgarian affairs is unrivalled, has further told me that not only did Montenegro and Bulgaria work together for a long while, but Bulgaria also supplied Montenegro with much money--she was, in fact, another of the many States who have put money into Montenegro--and lost it.

Things soon began to move. Prince Nikola got in touch with the Radical party in Serbia and they began to prepare the downfall of the Obrenovitches.

Bulgaria refortified her Serbian frontier. The Narodni Listy of Prague described Prince Nikola as the only true Serb upon a throne.

King Alexander proposed at this time to visit Queen Victoria, but was informed by Lord Salisbury that Her Majesty's health had already obliged her to decline other visits and she was therefore unable to receive him.

The Serb Government then complained that Queen Victoria had conferred a high Order on Prince Nikola, who was but a va.s.sal of Russia, and had given nothing to the King of Serbia. Some papers even declared she had shown preference to Nikola precisely on account of his pro-Russian tendencies.

Russia showed her feelings plainly. The Tsar at a reception spoke sharply to the Serbian Minister and ignored the new Serbian military attache who had come to be presented.

Tension between Serbia and Montenegro was now acute. Large numbers of Montenegrins had been emigrating into Serbia attracted by the better livelihood to be obtained. The Serb Government in October 1898 formally notified Montenegro that this immigration must cease.

No more land was available for Montenegrins.

The Magyar Orsyagu went so far as to say "Montenegrin agents wander over Serbia with their propaganda and Serbia has therefore forbidden the further settlement of Montenegrins in Serbia." Pas.h.i.tch again came to the fore and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for publishing an offensive letter to the ex-King Milan. And in November a plot, alleged to be Bulgaro-Montenegrin, against Milan, was discovered.

Russia was furious that Milan, in spite of these warnings, remained in Serbia.

And in July 1899 he was fired at and slightly wounded. Milan insisted on martial law being proclaimed and many arrests were made.

The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was a young Bosnian--Knezhevitch. The Times spoke of the conspiracy as a Rus...o...b..lgarian one. It is stated to have been planned in Bucarest by a.r.s.ene Karageorgevitch and a Russian agent.

Pas.h.i.tch, who since 1888 had been in close connection with the Karageorges, was accused of complicity and Milan insisted on his execution. His guilt was by no means proved and he was finally sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but at once pardoned by Alexander. In reply he telegraphed, "I hasten in a moment so happy and so solemn for my family, to lay before your Majesty my sincere and humble grat.i.tude for the very great mercy which you, Sire, have shown me from the height of your throne. I declare to you, Sire, that I will, in future . . . give my whole soul to strengthening that order in the State which your Majesty introduced in 1897, from which, thanks to your distinguished father, King Milan, as commander-in-Chief of the Army, the country has derived so much benefit." He further promised to put the remainder of his life to the exclusive service of King Alexander and his country, and ends with, "Long live the hope of the Serb nation, your Majesty our Lord and King Alexander!" signed, "The most sincere and devoted servant of the House of Obrenovitch and the throne of your Majesty, Nikola Pas.h.i.tch." This amazing telegram caused consternation in Russia. And well it might. The annals of crime scarcely contain a more gross example of perjury.

We now enter upon the last act of the sordid drama. For several years Alexander had kept a mistress, Madame Draga Maschin, nee Lungevitza, the widow of a Serbian officer. She was a handsome woman, considerably older than Alexander, and possessed such a hold over him that the more credulous of the Serbs--including an ex-Minister to the Court at St. James's--believed that she had bewitched him by means of a spell made by a gypsy woman who had chopped some of Draga's hair fine and made a mixture which she put into Alexander's food. Only by magic, I have been a.s.sured, could such results have been obtained. Alexander "was crazy about her."

The Serbs are not particular about morals by any means. But this liaison was a national misfortune Especially to all supporters of the Obrenovitches. Not only under these circ.u.mstances could there be no legitimate heir to the throne but a matrimonial alliance with one of the Great Powers was desired by the country. By 1899 the situation had become acute. The spectacle of Alexander waiting in the street till Draga chose to admit him was a national scandal.

He was repeatedly approached on the subject, both by his father and the nation, but Draga held him in a firm grip. Enmeshed as he knew he was in hostile intrigues, surrounded by spies and traitors, and himself a fool at best, maybe the luckless youth regarded her indeed as the one human creature for whom he had any affection or trust. Be that as it may Alexander, under her influence, promised his father and Vladan Georgevitch that he would marry if a suitable match could be arranged. He persuaded them to leave the country to visit a foreign Court with this object, and so soon as they had gone he publicly and formally announced his betrothal to Draga, and informed his father of the fact by letter. Milan, horrified, replied that the dynasty would not survive the blow, and that even a mere lieutenant would scorn such a match.