Part 6 (1/2)

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 kings.h.i.+p, 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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.