Chapter VI: Introduction: The Tragedy of a Frontier (4)

It may be that when von Thurn also gratified a reasonable ambition of the Orthodox Church he was moved by the idea that the Roman Catholic Church of the Croats might thus to some extent be counteracted; he may, on the other hand, have been impelled by altruistic motives when he authorized the establishment of an Orthodox bishopric. Under Venice the Church had not been recognized; and after having several times almost succeeded in obtaining their bishop, a _modus vivendi_ was at last reached in 1797, with the consent of the Senate and perhaps of Rome. Under this arrangement the Orthodox were free to profess their religion, but the Senate officially ignored their separation from the Roman Church; their priests had to obtain their rights from the Catholic bishops and allow the Catholic priests to cull certain of their legitimate revenues. And this, although the Orthodox formed one-half of the dioceses of Scardona and [vS]ibenik, and two-thirds of that of Bocche di Cattaro. They were not more backward than the rest of the population. Von Thurn--who, they thought, knew nothing of the circumstances--was informed by them that the see of Dalmatia was vacant and that they had elected the Archmandrite Simeon Ivcovi['c], a man universally esteemed for his prudence and wisdom. They begged von Thurn to confirm this election, and he did so.

AND BY FATHERLY LEGISLATION

But von Thurn seems to have relied largely on the gratitude which this neglected province would feel for the introduction of Austrian improvements. The happy-go-lucky Venetian methods were no longer to disfigure the country. Those people were logical indeed who did not care for a government which did not care for them. No such reproach should be levelled against the Austrian Government, if he could avoid it; for in Dalmatia it would now be by the side of its new subjects from their getting up in the morning until they lay them down at night. Henceforward there would be a set of reasonable rules for everything, and if anyone remarked that this was too much in the spirit of the late Joseph II. who made the Kingdom of Prussia his model--what more excellent model could one imagine? Those people who had hitherto been troubled in their minds because they did not know how many flower-pots they might instal outside their windows, to those people it would be a boon to have a new list of detailed and complete regulations as to every aspect of this matter. People who had until now been nervous lest they would be punished if they started lotteries at Zadar, all these people would be glad to know that lotteries were legal if each person who manipulated one paid for the upkeep of a hundred lanterns in the streets. People had been bastinadoed in the past, not knowing if they would be smitten hard or gently; but the Austrian Government was far too civilized to leave such matters in the hands of chance. With regard to those who persisted in public smoking, von Thurn probably borrowed the rules which Baron Codelli, the mayor of Ljubljana, was elaborating at this time. "In the streets of the town and the suburbs," says the Baron, "smoking has become of late a general practice. The pleasure of smoking tobacco, which its partisans can sufficiently enjoy in their abodes, by the river and in the fields, makes them forget what is seemly, and, moreover, they disregard the peril that may arise from conflagrations, especially when their pipes are not shut. Several fires, due to this pipe-smoking, which is contrary to the police regulations, have not sufficed to lead the culprits back to the respect and precaution which they should preserve for the goods and property of their fellow-citizens. To satisfy the general well-being and to satisfy the police with regard to fires, it is forbidden to smoke tobacco, and especially cigars, in the streets and squares of this town and the suburbs, with the penalty of losing the pipe if a police-agent catches anyone with it in his mouth, and in the case of a repeated offence the penalty will be more serious."

IN SERBIA THE PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

This system of tutelage may have had its irksome moments; the Turkish rule in Serbia was such that any people with blood in their veins were bound to rebel. Sooner or later a race like the Serbs, who lived always with the songs of their old heroes and who gloried in their heiduks, were sure to dash themselves against this alien master. Kara George had seen that the Serbs in the Banat were prosperous, while in Serbia they were obliged to stand and watch the janissaries come back to the pashalik of Belgrade, though the Turks had sworn this should not be. Then the match was set to the fire--in January 1804 the Da-Hi, the chiefs of the janissaries, after having slain Mustapha Pasha, the enlightened Turkish Governor, who was known affectionately as "the mother of the Serbs," cut off the heads of a number of Serbian leaders; seventy-two of them on pikes were made into an awful avenue of trees. But even as the snowstorms beat against these Serbian heads, so Kara George and his companions from [vS]umadija, the heart of Serbia, flung themselves against the janissaries and vanquished them. This was what the Serbs had started out to do, and so for the moment Constantinople had been content to look on. However, when the Sultan was told that his unruly vassals had seized the whole of [vS]umadija and the departments of Valjevo and Pojarevac, he sent against them the Pasha of Bosnia, who demanded that they should lay down their arms. But now the Serbs had seen what some day they might struggle to--the liberation of their country. They had climbed a few steps up the stony path, they would not let themselves be lured back to the plain. Let Austria or some other one of the Great Powers guarantee their rights. The Pasha would not hear of it, and so these few undaunted men resolved to fight the Turkish Empire. An army came at once to stamp them out, and at Ivancovac they scattered it. From now they would fight on alone.[37] Their leader was the sort of man they wanted, a brave heiduk who was never weary, who had taken up one day a large rock and had flung it down a precipice, and who would do the same, they fancied, to a follower of his, if he saw fit.... The Serbs were left to fight alone, but the Great Powers took an interest in their future. We find in a report from the French Ambassador in Petrograd to his Minister of Foreign Affairs (No. 261 in the "Excerpts from the Paris Archives relating to the history of the first Serbian Insurrection," collected [Belgrade, 1904] by Dr. Michael Gavrilovi['c], now the Minister in London) that the treaty of alliance stipulated for Russia to have Moldavia, Bessarabia, Vallachia and Bulgaria; France to have Albania, part of Bosnia, Morea and Candia; Austria to have Croatia and part of Bosnia; while Serbia was to be independent and given to a prince of the House of Austria or to any other foreign prince who married a Russian Grand Duchess. According to another scheme which the Ambassador forwarded, Austria was to have Serbia in complete possession as an Austrian province, and Croatia to belong to Austria or France, as Napoleon might decide.... Serbia had to fight alone, and unluckily her ranks were anything but closed. The lack of education brought about some childish jealousies, such as that of Mladen Milanovi['c], who was ordered by Kara George to go to the relief of the Heiduk Veliko at Negotin, where 18,000 Turks were besieging him. "He may help himself!" quoth Mladen. "_His_ praise is sung to him at his table by ten singers, _mine_ is not. Let him hold out by himself, the _hero_." Veliko sent word to say that at the New Year (when Kara George and his chieftains were wont to meet in consultation) he would inquire as to how the country was being governed. But before then he was dead--shot by the Turks, who recognized him while he was going the rounds; and after five days his troops, in despair, made their escape across a morass and scattered.

THE MONTENEGRIN AUTHORITIES ARE OTHERWISE ENGAGED

There was no use in looking to the Montenegrin mountains, for that rallying-point of all the Serbs was in the midst of very delicate business. One year before the rising of Kara George, in 1803, the Montenegrin warriors had profited from the fact that they were fighting nobody and they had made a few reforms in their own country. The Bishop, Peter I., convoked an assembly at which the tribal chiefs approved of a Code and of the imposition of a tax, for State requirements. It was also decided to have a court of justice, the members of which should be elected by the people. Thus it will be seen that the patriarchal system still prevailed, and though the Bishop was regarded by the outside world--by the Turk whom with varying fortunes he was perpetually fighting, and by the Russian Tzar, whom he had visited at intervals from the time when Peter the Great called on the Montenegrins in 1711 to work with him in rescuing, if it was God's will, those Orthodox Christians who were oppressed by the yoke of the heathen--though the Bishop was regarded both by friend and foe as the sovereign of Montenegro, yet it was only round him that the tribal chiefs gathered as being the guardian of their religion, while the people, represented by their tribal chiefs, remained the real sovereign. If Kara George had risen one year earlier they would have flown immediately to help him--as, indeed, they did help him at a later period--they would have postponed, without a moment's hesitation, the establishing of Code and tax and court of justice. But in 1804 they found themselves in a most awkward situation. Since the death of the Tzar Paul the Russians had appeared to be indifferent to Montenegro, and for three years the annual subsidy of a thousand sequins had not been paid. This omission was made use of by the French Consul at Dubrovnik, who with the aid of a Dubrovnik priest, one Dolci, set himself to wean the Montenegrins from their Russian friendship. Fonton, Russia's Consul at Dubrovnik, demanded the sequestration and the scrutiny of Dolci's papers; the demand was rejected, and when force was tried Dolci leaped at the examiner's throat. It was proved that he was in the pay of France and the Montenegrins were obliged to disavow him. This exasperated the Bishop, who threatened to cut off Dolci's ears, but relented and only gave him a hundred blows with a stick and ordered him to be imprisoned in a monastery. The second half of Dolci's punishment was thought by many at the time to be unwise, as he might talk. And they were gladdened when they heard, soon afterwards, of his decease, though whether they were right in praising their bishop for this consummation we do not know. At all events, the hapless Dolci had not lived in vain, for Russia now resumed her good relations with the mountaineers, and she inaugurated them by paying the three thousand sequins.

The Treaty of Pressburg in 1805 allotted Dalmatia to Napoleon. A few months afterwards his armies landed on the coast. Although the high command and certain regiments were French, a large part of the force consisted of Italians, Germans, Spaniards and Dutchmen. The scheme Napoleon entertained was to secure for himself the gates of the Balkans and Albania, incidentally to take the Ionian Islands in the rear, with the great purpose of securing the roads to Constantinople; thence to India.

NAPOLEON FAVOURS THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

The provinces of Dalmatia and Istria were placed under the government of Milan, in their towns were hoisted the Italian colours; but if to Napoleon these lands were chiefly stepping-stones to India, he did not long stay in ignorance regarding their inhabitants. His representative, Vincenzo Dandolo, was a Venetian who, on account of his democratic principles, had been expelled in 1799 and had sought refuge in France. We will therefore not repeat the epithets he uses when he writes about the late Venetian overseas regime. But Napoleon had no cause to be prejudiced in favour of the Yugoslavs. His origin was Italian. His daughter reigned in Italy. And if he had disapproved of Dandolo starting at Zadar in 1806 an official newspaper--the _Regio dalmato: Kraljski dalmatin_, written partly in Italian, partly in Serbo-Croat--he would very soon have stopped the paper and Dandolo's career. But, on the contrary, this paper (the first one to be written at all in Serbo-Croat) was followed by the planning of secondary schools at Zadar, [vS]ibenik, Trogir, Split, Makarska and the island of Hvar, twenty-nine elementary schools for boys and fourteen for girls, two academies at Zadar and Split, four seminaries for the education of priests and eight industrial schools. And in these the Serbo-Croatian language was to be largely employed.

Kara George had no leisure in which to learn to read and write. Another Turkish army, formed in Bosnia, had to be encountered near [vS]abac in 1806. It was routed, and on this occasion the Serbian cavalry was led with great distinction by a priest, Luka Lazarevi['c]. Yet another Turkish army suffered the same fate.

RUSSIA AND BRITAIN OPPOSE HIM ON THE ADRIATIC

It was not to be thought that France would be left tranquil on the Adriatic. Russia did not incommode her very greatly. After Kotor (Cattaro) had been delivered to the Muscovites by an Italian, the Marquis Ghislieri (who had concealed until that moment his antagonism to the French for having been removed by them from his Bologna home), the Russians made themselves obnoxious to a small extent upon the islands. They summoned the people of Hvar to recognize the Tzar as their overlord, and when the people declined to do so, the Russians bombarded them. For Dubrovnik this conflict between Russia and France was embarrassing; she wrote to Sankovski, the Russian Commissary, that if he exceeded his powers she would have recourse to the Tzar, "her beloved protector." But when in the summer of that year, 1806, she was besieged for twenty days, the French were in occupation of the town, while the Russians with their Montenegrin friends were trying to dislodge them. It is said that before the garrison was relieved, by the arrival of another French force, there had been so much damage done to the Republic's ancient walls and palaces and other buildings that the loss, to mention only the pecuniary loss, amounted to eighteen million francs. After the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 the British undertook, and more effectively, those operations in the Adriatic which the Russians now abandoned. They tried to burn at Triest the Russian vessels which had been ceded to France, and for a few years they had command of the Adriatic, keeping sometimes as many as twenty-two ships in those waters, while the French are said to have had at no time more than seven frigates.

The old Republic was dissolved; but many other questions weighed upon Napoleon. It was the Austrian Emperor and not he whom many people in Dalmatia held to be their lawful monarch, for the Habsburg was the heir of the Croatian Kings. And so while England had the sea in her possession, Austria had the salt-lands of the isle of Pago, and the populace on the Quarnero Islands took the rudders off the boats which were to carry food to Zadar. The Austrians advanced on Split, with ordinary troops and volunteers. At Hvar the people kept Napoleon's birthday with apparent enthusiasm; on the next day they revolted and hoisted the Austrian flag. Then the peasants seized the town and for three days indulged in pillage, burning amongst other things the valuable libraries of those who favoured France.

ILLYRIA, NAPOLEON'S GREAT WORK FOR THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

With the Treaty of Schoenbrunn Napoleon secured possession of Carniola, the Austrian part of Istria, Croatia, the military frontiers from the Save to the sea, and also certain districts of Carinthia, Styria and Tirol. Now at last the Adriatic littoral, with large tracts of the interior, was united under one hand. We may note that Eugene Beauharnais in vain entreated that the frontier for the Slovenes should, on account of strategic necessities, be drawn to the east of the Isonzo, but Napoleon did not hesitate to make that river the boundary between the two countries, as it was between the two races. Mazzini in 1860 shared this opinion, which he had also maintained in 1831, in his book _The Rights of Man_, that Slavs and Italians should be divided by this river. And in 1860 Cavour expressed himself to the same effect in a letter to Laurent Valerio.

"Mes braves Croates," says Napoleon in his Memoirs; and for what he did in this Illyria, the forerunner of our Yugoslavia, they must be always thankful. Never had these people had such able administrators, such sympathetic governors. They governed it too much as if it were a part of France, but they were doing their utmost to understand the people and their customs. General Marmont acquired an excellent knowledge of the Serbo-Croat language; he intended to introduce the national tongue into all the public offices. But this naturally could not be carried through without an intervening period, and unluckily Marmont so far excelled his compatriots as a linguist, that when the newspaper _Telegraphe officiel des Provinces Illyriennes_ appeared at Ljubljana, the capital (under the brilliant editorship of Charles Nodier, who came out from France for that purpose), and it was announced that there would be French, German, Italian and Slav articles, the latter do not appear to have been published. Illyria was under the influence of its neighbours, Italian, German and Hungarian, with regard to the spoken and still more with regard to the written language. A fundamental necessity was that the country should have one common language. Under French influence Joachim Stulli brought out his _Vocabulario italiano-illyrico-latino_ in 1810, and at Triest in 1812 Star[vc]evi['c] published his new Illyrian grammar. There was visible in these works an aspiration that some day the Yugoslavs would be united in one country and with various dialects, and the proviso that for public affairs and for schools and literature the so-called "[vS]to" dialect, the most widely spread and the most perfect, should be given preference. If Napoleon had not fallen, his Illyria would no doubt have gradually attracted to herself the other Yugoslav provinces that still were under the Austrian, Hungarian or Turk; and in this way one of the great thorns would have been taken out of Europe's side. There was an official, Marcel de Serres, on Napoleon's staff, who was exclusively concerned with Yugoslav affairs; and it is probable that with a closer knowledge of the people there would have been less insistence on the radical reforms which were sometimes ill-adapted to the country and were often hated vehemently by the persons whom they shook out of their age-long comatose condition. Napoleon would have modified the methods of recruiting had he known how much resentment his conscription was arousing. Venice had obtained most faithful soldiers; this was one of the few trades that she permitted, but she had never said they were obliged to serve. Napoleon's system caused great numbers of desertions, while the men who stayed had little discipline and looked for opportunities to join the enemy. Perhaps in time the nobles would have been resigned to losing, if not all, at any rate a portion of their privileges; and the Catholic clergy would have moderated their strong views against the gaoler of Pius VII., the champion of liberal and emancipated France, the master of Dandolo, who wanted to reduce the number of bishoprics, oblige candidates for the priesthood to learn certain lay subjects and regulate the funds in the possession of the Orders, with the purpose of assisting the indigent clergy and benevolent institutions--much would have been forgiven by the clergy to the man who brought about national union.

NAPOLEON'S SCHEMES ARE ROUGHLY INTERRUPTED

The transactions of the British at Vis (Lissa) were such as to make the people of Illyria very discontented with Napoleon, not so much on account of his mischance at sea, as of the disagreeable effects thereof upon themselves. The British blockade had ruined the local merchant service, while the consequent state of a province which had necessarily to be revictualled by sea was compared with the flourishing fortunes of Vis. Before the British definitely occupied that island with its glorious harbour--21/2 kilometres in length by 1 kilometre in breadth--they had to secure themselves by two naval engagements. In October 1810 the French-Italian attack was nearly successful, and in the following March came the great fight when Dubourdieu pitted himself against Commodore Hoste. Not counting a few smaller ships, the French had four frigates, each armed with 44 guns, and two corvettes of 32 guns. The British had the _Amphion_ and the _Cerberus_, each armed with 60 guns, the _Active_ with 44 and the _Volage_ with 22. The Italians having slow ships, arrived late, but fought very well. What lost Dubourdieu his chances was the separation of his squadron, which allowed the British to engage them one after another. Dubourdieu on the _Favorite_, his captain and two lieutenants were killed; the captain of the _Flore_ lost an arm; the captain of the _Bellona_ had both legs amputated, and died on the next day; Pasqualijo, captain of the _Corona_, wished to surrender his sword to Hoste, but as he had fought so nobly Hoste refused to take it. Pasqualijo was removed to Malta, and after a few months set at liberty. On the British side the losses were also severe. Most of the crew of the _Amphion_ were either killed or wounded, Hoste being among the latter. Of 254 on board the _Cerberus_ only 26 were untouched. It is said that the French and Italians had about 200 killed and 500 wounded. Dubourdieu's fault was merely an excess of intrepidity; the French have called a cruiser after him. Their opinion at the time, according to their historians,[38] was that the British were superior in officers and men and ships--constant cruising on the Adriatic had brought them near perfection. Among the incidents recorded is that of one of the _Amphion's_ cadets who was doing police work at the fort; in despair at being out of the battle he swam to his ship. A fusillade from the _Favorite_ put some shot in his leg. On reaching the _Amphion_ he was bandaged and went to his post. His name was Farell or Farewell.... After this the British made themselves at home upon that mountainous, rich isle of palm-trees and vineyards that were praised of old by Agatharchides. Sir G. D. Robertson, the Governor, had two companies of the 35th Regiment, besides Swiss, Corsican and Calabrian contingents. There was great prosperity. Sometimes a hundred corsairs would be in the harbour, waiting for a favourable wind. On their return they would have splendid cargoes, and the goods which cost so little were sold at absurd prices. Rent was high, there were not shops enough for the tailors, carpenters, goldsmiths, pastry-cooks who landed there, chiefly from Italy; the people therefore pulled old boats on to the shore and lived in them. There one could buy the best Turkish tobacco, and cigars were advertised as "the finest cigars for gentlemen and ladies." Italian and Dalmatian smugglers flocked to Vis in search of goods, and even French officers could sometimes not resist wearing the cool garments from the East Indies. In two years the population increased from four to eleven thousand.

Illyria's enemies on land were also aided by the British. In 1813, when the Austrians, under General Tomassich, penetrated into the Illyrian provinces, the Croat inhabitants threw in their lot with them. They and the British surrounded Zadar, which fell after a siege of six weeks. At Dubrovnik--whose merchantmen she had mostly captured or sunk--England assisted the population, nobles and commoners, in a revolt against the French. One object of the citizens was to restore the Republic, but in a democratic form.

THE MONTENEGRIN BISHOP INCITES AGAINST HIM

However, in the first days of 1814 the Austrians arrived and the French, in their reduced condition, could hold out no longer. 1813 had been a fatal year for Napoleon. The Montenegrin Bishop had addressed a stirring appeal to the Bocchesi and others in September. "Slavs!" he wrote. "Glorious and illustrious population of the Bocche di Cattaro, of Dubrovnik and Dalmatia! Behold the moment to seize arms against the destroyer of Europe, the universal foe who has attacked your religion, ruined your churches.... He has put his taxes on the blood of your veins and even on the corpses of your parents! What injustices has he not committed?... Behold the hour of vengeance.... Croatia is delivered, and Carniola, Triest, Istria, Rieka and Zengg. What else do you wait for, O valiant Slavs of Dalmatia, of Dubrovnik and of Kotor? By land the army of the Emperor of Austria, by sea that of the King of England enter Dalmatia. They have taken Zadar and have arrived at Makarska." ... [The Austrians, as a matter of fact, entered Dalmatia a month after this proclamation was issued. The Bishop has allowed the prophet in him to prevail over the chronicler.] "I am there," he continues, "with my Montenegrins, ready to go where peril has to be faced. The glory of the traitor Bonaparte has remained at Moscow and Smolensk: no longer need we tremble before the Tyrant....

"Given at our Headquarters at Budva, 12/24 September 1813.

PETER, Bishop."

DISASTER FOR NAPOLEON AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

1813 was a fatal year for Napoleon and for this first attempt to build a Yugoslavia. It was a fatal year for the first effort to construct again a Serbian State. Burning with the hope of liberation, no less than four Serbian armies had assembled and advanced victoriously against the Turk. One of the most outstanding episodes was the heroic death of Stephen Sindjelini['c] at T[vs]egar, near to Ni[vs]. As he was in a hopeless case, no reinforcements having come, he told his men that they must die, but as the Turks outnumbered them so more of these must perish than of Christians. He waited till the Turks pressed closely round him and then fired the magazine. In vengeance for this deed the Turks piled up a pyramid of Serbian soldiers' heads; they called it Tchele-Koula (Tower of Skulls), and for many years it was at Ni[vs] a veritable Turkish monument. King Milan built a wall around it; afterwards it was removed. And so the Serbs continued their long fight. It seemed to some of them that the authority of Kara George had grown excessive. They convoked a national assembly, which decided to set up a Ministry of six and a tribunal. Kara George was--in agreement with his Ministers--to nominate the prefects of the various departments. While the Serbs were settling these internal matters, Russia made her peace in 1812 with Turkey. As for Serbia, it was arranged that the new fortresses would be demolished and the towns be occupied by Turkish garrisons. Thus all that Serbia had won, and at the cost of so much blood, would now be stolen from her. Once again did Kara George and his companions take the field, but this time they were overpowered. Many fled to Hungary, among them Kara George, and were imprisoned. Others stayed in Serbia, and of these a great many were slaughtered by the Turks. They say that sixty were impaled on each side of the road which enters Belgrade, among them priests and monks, whose bodies were consumed by dogs.

But Illyria and Serbia lived as inspirations.

* * * * *

Nearly thirty years after the Austrians came back to Illyria they, at the request of the Sultan, forbade the use of that name, except as one of their Emperor's string of titles. Turkish susceptibilities were not ruffled if he chose to call himself King of Illyria. Was he not also King of Jerusalem? There had been anxiety at Constantinople as to the effect which the name of Napoleon's province was producing on the Slavs of Bosnia. Considering the Austrian policy, this was not a glittering diplomatic triumph for the Turks. Had they approached the Austrians much earlier it is improbable that they would have been met with any very strenuous refusal. In their own phrase, a phrase that was used by Osman Pasha when he heard of the violent disputes between the Russians and Roumanians as to which of them had been the first to batter the defences down and take by storm the mighty Plevna--"Any pig," said he, "can walk in at an open door."

AUSTRIA'S REPRESSIVE POLICY

Another item of Austria's policy which it would not have been difficult to foretell was her refusal to countenance the union of Dalmatia and Croatia. Von Thurn's idea of favouring the harmless Italianized party was thought very admirable and was now once more put into action. This party was very much concerned to keep its head above water; the rising tide of nationalism and equality and of other pernicious French notions made as much appeal to them as they did to Metternich. What he stood out against, they also hated; for the national spirit, fostered by the union of the two Slav provinces, would swamp them. If Dalmatia, on the other hand, remained autonomous they would be much more likely to survive. So they became autonomists.

A fair number of those who for economical or social reasons gave themselves out as belonging to this little autonomous party were unable to speak Italian, being less cultivated than many of those who continued to be patriotic Serbo-Croats. But as Italian now became the language of the schools and offices, of the law-courts and of public life generally, these autonomous persons hastened to learn it.

THE WORK OF VUK KARA[vZ]I['C]

But now we hear the steps of other Southern Slavs whose mission is to call the people to their own language and to make the language worthy of the people. With the encumbrances that in the centuries had so disfigured it, the archaisms and the pseudo-classicisms, it would never come to pass that one great Serbian nation would be formed. And that is what Vuk Kara[vz]i['c], throughout his life, was aiming at. While Milo[vs] Obrenovi['c] in Serbia took up the arms which Kara George had dropped, and used some others of his own, Vuk Kara[vz]i['c] was tramping with his wooden leg round Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia and Bulgaria, Syrmia and the Banat. He longs to find out where his country lies and, having found his people, to use their own language as the spoken and the written language of the nation. For this purpose he had to reform the Cyrillic alphabet, as it contained, like Russian and Bulgarian, letters that are not pronounced; and the Serbian produced by him is a purely phonetic language. He had, of course, his enemies, particularly in the clergy, who were the most important class. What he was doing with the Palaeo-Slav displeased them hugely. Here was he trying to substitute what they called "a language of ox-herds" for that one which had not alone a venerable tradition but was the hall-mark of their superiority. A certain Dr. Haji['c] wrote a monograph in which he demonstrated most emphatically that it was the enviable happiness of the Serbian people to have no grammar. It was hinted by some other opponents of Vuk that he might well be an Austrian agent, who, in order to disturb the people, was now raising questions of a most contentious nature, which had previously not been thought of. But when the great philologist died in 1861 in Vienna he had long been recognized as one of the most ardent patriots. His three volumes of national songs excited the enthusiasm of Jacob Grimm, who rushed off to learn this new language, and with essays and letters to reveal it to Goethe. Translators, commentators, expounders and editors flocked from all sides, and Vuk was regarded as Serbia incarnate.

THE METHODS OF SERBIA'S MILO[vS]

One naturally judges a country of which one is ignorant by the little which one knows about the private life of its ruler. And it was fortunate for Serbia's reputation that Prince Milo[vs] had a Vuk to throw a shadow over him. Kara George had been a hero, Milo[vs] called himself a statesman. Anyhow, he walked in crooked paths, although the murders that he was accused of are now said to be not proven--with the exception of Archbishop Nik[vc]i['c], one of his critics, and another prominent man whom he requested the Pasha to have strangled. Kara George--one finds in many books--was done away with when he came back to renew the fight against the Turks; most people say that Milo[vs], his arch-rival, had him murdered in his sleep. All that one knows for certain is that the assassin was a man in the employ of one of Milo[vs]'s prefects. As for Milo[vs] sending the head to the Sultan, it is pointed out that as the Sultan's vassal he could not do otherwise. But the stories of his wife, the strong-minded Princess Liubica, are acknowledged to be true--how she would cry out to the warriors, if they seemed to waver, that they were but women, and how this induced them to attack again; how she would cook her husband's meals and wait on him; how when she discovered that any other lady had found favour in the Prince's sight she slew her, and retired into the mountains until her husband was appeased or had discovered a new lady. The court etiquette of that period was under the baneful influence of Turkey. Milo[vs] used to live in Turkish houses--some of them are extant to this day--he gave audience as a Turkish pasha, seated amid cushions on the floor, his room was hung with captured Turkish flags, and on his head he wore a turban. It was often rumoured that when he had gained sufficient money he would not continue to forbid the working of the Serbian salt-mines, lest the profits of his own mines in Roumania should diminish; and it is not creditable that he should have made his subjects pay their contributions to the Turkish Tribute in the currency of Austria, while he would forward it in Turkish currency--of course less valuable--and keep the difference. He also tried to monopolize the swine trade, the most lucrative in the country; he seized whatever he coveted--lands, mills and houses--and even burned down a part of Belgrade in order to build a new Custom-House, whose takings would flow into his pocket. "Am I not the chief," he said, "the Gospodar, and shall I not do what I like with my own?" But he was a real Prince. After the Peace of Adrianople in 1829 an edict was issued by the Sultan, which recognized Serbia as an independent principality, with Milo[vs] as hereditary prince. He organized a standing army and built roads and schools and churches. He abolished, in 1833, the old Turkish system of land-tenure and introduced that peasant proprietorship which causes the Serbs, down to this day, to go into battle in defence of their own lands. In 1836 he offered the bishopric of [vS]abac to the famous Bulgarian monk, Neophyte Rilski, who wrote the first Bulgarian grammar and translated the New Testament, of which the first edition was burned by the Greek Church at Constantinople, while the second edition sold to the then enormous extent of 30,000 copies. The modest monk, who was born in 1793 and died in 1881, preferred the life of a student and teacher;[39] he therefore declined an offer which was so creditable to him who made it.... Yet in spite of Milo[vs]'s great services to his country he had his detractors. It was one of them, perhaps, who painted the portrait that one usually sees of him--an incongruous portrait, because the uniform is most correct--he is holding in his hand the Serbian military headgear, not a turban--but the face, with its serpent-like moustaches, high cheek-bones and black eyes, looks more like that of a Tartar than anything else. Those who did not care for Milo[vs] said that it was barbarism not to let the laws be put in writing; but to this he never would consent. In 1835 he announced in the official Gazette (_Novine Srpski_) that he was the "only master"; he set about gaining for his country the interest of foreign Powers. England, which in 1837 sent Colonel Hodges as her agent to Belgrade, was for having Serbia placed under the protection of the Great Powers. Constitutional England was backing Milo[vs] and his despotism, while, on the other hand, Russia and Turkey came out, to their own surprise, as champions of a constitution. They demanded that the power of Milo[vs] should be limited by something which they euphemistically called "an organic regulation." Finally, there was imposed on him a Senate consisting of members appointed for life, but when this body asked him to account for the manner in which he had spent the public funds the Prince found that he could not allow himself to be so hampered and, in 1839, he abdicated. ("If," he once said, "if Charles X. of France had understood how to govern as I myself did in Serbia, he would never have lost his throne.") Vut[vc]i['c], his arch-enemy, flung a stone after him into the Save. "You will not return," he cried, "until a stone can float on these waters!" "I shall die as Serbia's ruler!" shouted Milo[vs]. (And when he ultimately did come back Vut[vc]i['c] was cast into prison, where he died mysteriously--Milo[vs] refusing the Turks permission to examine the body.)

THE SLAV SOUL OF CROATIA

His democracy, in spite of his agrarian reforms, was very far from that of Vuk, and far from that of a young noble of Croatia, Ljudevit Gaj, who one evening in the drawing-room of Count Dra[vs]kovi['c]--the same Count Dra[vs]kovi['c] who wrote in German, for such was the spirit of the time, his Exhortation to Croatian Maidens that they should be truly Croatian--well, in this gentleman's house at Zagreb Ljudevit Gaj recites some verses he has written for a dowager. They are in Slav. The audience is inclined to be amused. Of course they know something of the language because, like Anastasius Gruen in the Slovene country, they talk it to the servants. But among themselves in Croatia the upper classes prefer to use Latin. There is no doubt, as Count Louis Voinovi['c], a Yugoslav poet, has said, that this pursuit of Latin brought into the Slav world much that is indispensable in modern thought. It created among them an atmosphere of social courtesy, which, according to Saint Francis of Assisi, is the sister of Charity. It has humanized the Slav world and furnished it thus with formidable weapons. But, on the other hand, it cast a veil over the differences between the nations and caused people to be blind to their own national genius. The Croat nobility, with few exceptions, were at this time so much in harmony with the Magyar magnates, so anxious to prevent their peasants from hearing the Marseillaise, that they would, if need be, learn the Magyar language. But to use Slav in a drawing-room! This was a new idea. They smiled good-naturedly; but Gaj, with some other young men, some priests and some savants, founded a literary brotherhood that was to become famous under the name of "Danica." Famous also is an image he conceived. "The Southern Slavs," said he, in his programme of 1836, "are as a triangular lyre whose extremities are at Scutari, Villach and Varna." He said there was a time when the strings of this lyre resounded with harmonious sounds, but that the winds in their fury have torn them. Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Croatia, Slavonia, Montenegro, Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria and Southern Hungary are these broken strings, which it is necessary to repair. Let the people in these lands, he said, forget their religious differences and remember that they are the children of one mother. Let them write the same language. Gaj thus aimed at bringing Vuk's reforms to bear upon the Latin characters with which the Serbo-Croat language is written in Croatia. Before his party was victorious it had to vanquish most determined opposition. Pamphlet was hurled against pamphlet, grammar against grammar, Gaj and his men had to overcome not only those who were the guardians of tradition, but all those who thought it natural and proper that in syntax there should be some difference between the Croat and the Serb. Yet now the philologists are out and the poets; their business takes them between the legs of the Great Powers, where they sometimes come to grief, but they are striking all those fetters from their nation. Peter Preradovi['c] is born in the Military Frontier and he dies an Austrian General. At the beginning of his distinguished career he could speak nothing but German, and it was in emotional German poetry that he first expressed himself. But afterwards, carried away by the new winds that were cleansing the Croat language and sweeping from it the reproach of being a mere jargon for the servants, he became in his "Putnik" (The Traveller) and "Braca" (The Brothers) the greatest poet of the Croats. It is noteworthy that when this Austrian General writes a drama he takes for his hero the old legendary hero of the Serbs, Marko Kraljevi['c]. The Ban of Croatia, Ivan Mazurani['c], is a Latin poet in his youth; but when this high official too comes under the stirring influence of Gaj he dedicates himself to his own people and composes in "The Death of Smail Aga"[40] a poem that among Serbian-speaking people has become so much the property of all that the poet has been lost in the shadow of his own work. Peasants who sing fragments of it as they toil in the fields, and the minstrel, the guslar, who chants it for them of an evening, believe that it is, like their folk-songs, the anonymous production of the Serbian people.

THE MAGYARS AND CROATIA'S PORT

With the General and the Ban there is the Bishop, Joseph George Strossmayer, one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century. But before he became Bishop of Djakovo he saw the Government suppress those aspirations which he laboured for throughout his life. The Austrian Government had presented Gaj, in recognition of his literary work, with a diamond ring; but when they saw that his Illyrian programme persisted in aiming at the union of Croatia and Dalmatia, then at last they vetoed his Illyrianism and the word Illyria. His friends thereupon called themselves the "National party," which was in the Croatian Diet more numerous than the "Magyarones," who--many of them unprogressive landlords--stood for the most absolute union with Hungary. The National party demanded that Rieka, which was still "separatum sacrae regni Hungariae adnexum corpus," should be united with the rest of Croatia; but the Magyars would naturally not let their one small port be taken from them. Those among the Magyars who consented to discuss the matter with the Croats said that if indeed they had purloined one Croat port (for they confessed that 350 kilometres separate Rieka from the nearest place in Hungary), yet the Croatians could afford to treat them with generosity, since they possessed at least two other ports, Bakar and Zengg, that were every bit as good. It was quite true that till Rieka was connected by the railway to the valleys of the Save, the Drave and the Danube, she had no advantage over Zengg and Bakar. None of these are natural ports: at Rieka there is no protecting island, Zengg and Bakar are available for small ships only, and behind all three there is a barrier of mountains. All of them, moreover, suffer from the visitations of the bora, which blows from the north sometimes for weeks on end. Having pointed out their own necessities and all these limitations, the Magyars stayed at Rieka. But they cast about them for some means by which the inconvenient Croats could be countered, and of course the simplest plan was to protect, as Austria was doing in Dalmatia, that small party of the Slavs on whom the presence of a few Italians at Rieka and their knowledge of this language and perhaps their education at some school in Italy had made such a profound impression that they wished no longer to be looked upon as Slavs--and some of them quite honestly thought that they were not Slavs. Of such was the Autonomist party, whose sole purpose was to flourish at Rieka in alliance with Hungarians and to keep Rieka a free Hungarian town. Perhaps the Magyars had no choice of methods, but it does not look magnanimous to plant yourself in some one else's house and then proceed to make conspiracies with a disgruntled child. They succoured the Autonomists in every way. For instance, the Croats had, as elsewhere on the coast, been so unjustly kept from having schools. The two or three schools in existence were for those who turned their back on national ambitions and cultivated modern Italian, even as the nobles up at Zagreb had cultivated Latin. Now in 1838 the Croats of Rieka, who--it is needless to say--were much the more numerous part of the population, thought that Gaj's wonderful educational movement, which was spreading far and wide, should not find Rieka unresponsive. So they asked that the Croatian language should be taught, as well as the Italian, in the local schools. "This was the first attempt," says Mr. Edoardo Susmel,[41] who is, I gather, a schoolmaster or an ex-schoolmaster at Rieka. "But the people of Rieka," he says, "always with admirable tenacity resisted the brute force with which the Croats wanted to impose on the Italian city the rights of him who is strongest. The city arose as one man against this first attack and the schools remained Italian."

The conflict in the Croatian Diet between the National party and that of the Magyarones grew in violence. The latter, egged on from Buda-Pest, demanded in the most peremptory fashion that the Croat deputies should henceforward speak in Magyar instead of Latin. It was in the same year, 1843, that one of the deputies, Ivan Kukulejevi['c], made the first speech in Croatian. Szemere, a Magyar, cried out furiously that Croatia was a land which had been conquered by force of arms, and the Hungarian Parliament went so far as to pass a law which made the teaching of Magyar obligatory in Croatian schools and for the Croatian delegates in the Hungarian Diet. The Croats replied by petitioning the Emperor to separate their country completely from Hungary. Ferdinand V. wavered between the two sides; in 1843 he annulled the decisions of the Hungarian Parliament, and in 1844 he laid it down that in six years the Croats would have to adopt Magyar as their official language. It seemed as if the questions between Magyar and Croat could be settled by no other method than by war.

THE SULTAN REIGNS IN BOSNIA

There was not in the other Southern Slav lands much consolation for the National party. In Bosnia the French Revolution and the Serbian wars of independence had an unfortunate effect, for in 1831 the Muhammedan Serbs of that province, under the leadership of Hussein Bey, the captain of Grada[vc]ac, began a holy war against the "giaour Sultan," because Mahmud thought it timely to promulgate a few reforms. Hussein assumed the title of "The Dragon of Bosnia"; and if it had not been for several other Moslem potentates who were not only inimical to the Sultan but to the Dragon and to each other, it would have taken the Sultan's army more than five years to assert itself. In 1839 the Sultan's representative at Gulhane had orders to reform the administration, and this time the chief of the indignant begs was Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovi['c], a powerful personage in Herzegovina. The revolt was, after a good deal of bloodshed, suppressed by Omar Pasha, who was determined to break once and for all the arrogance of the Bosnian aristocracy. Hundreds of begs were executed, drowned in the Bosna or taken in chains to Constantinople. But all these transactions did nothing to improve the lot of the raia. They had been roundly told in 1832 by His Apostolic Majesty that any one of those Christians "who persist in venturing to raise the banner of revolt" would be sent back from the Imperial and Royal frontier. After all there was a courtesy which monarchs must maintain towards each other.

A SORRY PERIOD FOR THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

When the Croat National party looked at Serbia they saw a people torn in two by rival dynasties: Michael, the son of Milo[vs], had after a few years followed his father into exile, as he also could not grow accustomed to ruling with a Constitution. After him came Alexander, son of the assassinated Kara George. He was a cold, indifferent, slothful prince, and constantly the banished house of Obrenovi['c] was plotting to turn out this scion of the house of Kara George. But after sixteen years his people turned him out.... In the Banat the Serbs were going backward. For example, they were at the summit of their strength in Arad in the eighteenth century, and since then they had been unable to resist the German wave. Time was when Arad had a Serbian princess, the wife of blinded Bela; and they were much esteemed when from 1703-1711 the Serbian cavalry and infantry had fought so strenuously for Austria against the rebels. Afterwards the Austrians believed they could get on without the Serbs; they started to destroy their privileges and to persuade them to give up their Church--it was in consequence of this that many of the Serbs in Arad went to Russia. A certain Colonel Peter Szejadinac objected to the Austrian policy and came to Arad for the purpose of procuring some alleviation for the Serbs, but he was broken on the wheel. In Teme[vs]var the Serbs had also basked in glory. Until 1818 they had owned all but seventeen houses of the inner town; they had their own magistrature. Until 1860 they remained the wealthiest community, but here also there was an influx of Germans against which they could not stand.

SOME WHO TURN FROM POLITICS GROW PROSPEROUS

However, owing to this endless struggle which the Serbs of Hungary were waging, they developed their activity and energy. The land was rich, particularly Ba[vc]ka, and that province held the town of Novi Sad, which was not only prosperous but the home of learning. When Serbia was not in a position to devote herself to intellectual or to literary life, she was assisted always by the Serbs of Novi Sad. And thus in other parts of southern Hungary the Serb, by his continual efforts against other people, such as the industrious German, made to flower those aptitudes within himself which under Turkish domination had perforce been lying dormant.... It is no unusual thing in the Banat to find a Serbian farmer who is five or six times a millionaire in francs. And if, like a hearty one whom I found having lunch without a collar, they have no children, then they are even more anxious to build schools and churches and to support anything Serbian. This gentleman, who lived in his native place, had presented it with a very fine school, and then had gone there himself, to learn how to read and write.... The Serbs of southern Hungary took a most active part in the events of 1848. When they saw that a conflict with the Magyars was inevitable, owing to the new Hungarian Constitution which created an enormous and free Hungary, but only free for the Magyars--a State founded on a mixture of democratic and feudal principles, reserving always the chief places for the magnates, lay and ecclesiastic, while rejecting the idea of universal suffrage--then the Serbs of southern Hungary assembled at Karlovci at the beginning of May and conferred upon Archbishop Rajacsich the title of Patriarch, at the same time electing Colonel Stephen [vC]uplikac the voivoda or chief of the Serbian Voivodina, which was to comprise Syrmia, Baranja, Ba[vc]ka and a part of the Banat.

BUT THE CROATS STRIVE FOR POLITICAL LIBERTIES

The Croats, whose last traces of independence had been wiped out by the Magyars, rallied round Colonel Joseph Jella[vc]i['c]. In the resounding and statesmanlike phrases of his proclamation on March 11, Jella[vc]i['c] had declared that a grand purpose was before them. "It is to attain," said he, "the renascence of our people! Alone I can do nothing, if among the sons of one same mother there is not peace and understanding and fraternity."

"We are," exclaimed Gaj at a sitting of the Diet--"we are one nation! There are no more Serbs nor Croats!" One has been too apt to consider that the Croats armed themselves merely in defence of their own wrongs; their leaders anyhow looked far beyond.