Part 8 (2/2)

A Turkish officer and some Nizams were quartered at the monastery, but the few monks and students there seemed oddly enough to have more faith in a guard of Moslem Albanians who lived near. They were expecting shortly the arrival of Russian monks from Mount Athos.

Russia was, in fact, planting Russian subjects there for the express purpose of making an excuse for intervention. The young Turkish officer was very civil to me and offered to give me a military escort to enable me to return to Montenegro by another route. My disguised Montenegrin guide who was pledged to hand me over safe and sound to Voyvoda Lakitch at Andrijevitza signalled to me in great anxiety. Each day he remained on Turkish territory he risked detection and the loss of his life.

I returned therefore to the Patriarchia, recovered my pa.s.sport from the Pasha and was given by him a mounted gendarme to ride with me as far as Berani. This fellow, a cheery Moslem Bosniak, loaded his rifle and kept a sharp look out. And a second gendarme accompanied us till we were through the pa.s.s. And both vowed that a few months ago they wouldn't have come with less than thirty men; Albanians behind every rock and piff paff, a bullet in your living heart before you knew where you were. They wondered much that I had made the journey with only one old zaptieh. Still more, that I had been allowed to come at all.

Berani received me with enthusiasm. Nor had my cheery Turkish gendarme an idea that my guide was a Montenegrin till he took off his fez at the frontier. Then the gendarme slapped his thigh, roared with laughter and treated it as a good joke.

The said guide's relief on being once more in his own territory showed clearly what the risks had been for him.

Andrijevitza gave us quite an ovation. Countless questions as to the number and position of the Turkish Army were poured out. My guide had fulfilled his task. I was reckoned a hero. What hold the Voyvoda had over the Kaimmakam of Berani I never ascertained. But it was the Voyvoda's letter to the Kaimmakam that got me over the border. All that I gathered was that I had been made use of for political purposes and successfully come through what every one considered a very dangerous enterprise. The same people who had urged me to go now addressed me as ”one that could look death in the eyes.”

Had I met death, what explanation would they have offered to the questions that must have cropped up over the death of a British subject?

A number of schoolmasters had gathered in Andrijevitza for their holidays. Many of them were educated in Belgrade and these were especially of the opinion that the murder of Alexander and Draga was a splendid thing for Serbia, and when I said it might bring misfortune were not at all pleased. Even persons who at first said the murder was horrible now said since it was done it was well done.

The Voyvoda and the Kapetan told me that every country in Europe had accepted King Petar except England and that the Serb Minister had been sent from London. ”England,” they declared, ”has often been our enemy.” They hoped that good, however, would result from my journey.

The whole of my return to Cetinje was a sort of triumphal progress.

Jovo Martinovitch, the Serdar at Kolas.h.i.+n, was delighted to hear of the Ipek expedition, but admitted frankly that he had not dared propose it himself. Voyvoda Lakitch, he said, was well informed and no doubt knew the moment at which it could be safely attempted.

Every place I pa.s.sed through was of opinion something was about to happen soon. Next year the route to Gusinje would be open. At Podgoritza I was received by the Governor Spiro Popovitch and taken for a drive round the town.

I arrived at Cetinje in time for dinner and appeared in my usual corner. Mr. s.h.i.+pley and Count Bollati hailed me at once saying that they thought I was about due. Where had I been? ”Ipek,” said I.

The effect on the diplomatic table was even more startling than upon Montenegro. ”But the route is closed!” said every one. I a.s.sured them I had nevertheless been through it, and Mr. s.h.i.+pley said if he had had any idea I was going to attempt such a thing he would have telegraphed all over the place and stopped it. At the same time he admitted, ”I rather thought you were up to something,” and gave me a piece of excellent advice, which I have always followed, which was ”Never consult a British representative if you want to make a risky journey.” Really, he was quite pleased about it and crowed over the rest of the diplomatic table, that the British could get to places that n.o.body else could. I received a note next morning from the Bulgarian diplomatic agent praying for an interview.

He had not been long in Cetinje, but later became one of the best known Balkan politicians. For he was Monsieur Rizoff, who, as Bulgar Minister at Berlin, played a considerable part in the Balkan politics of the great war.

He was a Macedonian Bulgar born at Resna, a typical Bulgar in build and cast of countenance, and a shrewd and clever intriguer. His excitement over my journey was great and he wanted every possible detail as to what were the Turkish forces and where they were situated. I told him that I understood a rising was planned. And he told me quite frankly that all was being prepared and a rising was to break out in Macedonia so soon as the crops were harvested.

I gathered that Rizoff himself was deeply mixed in the plot, an idea which was confirmed later on. For among the papers captured on a Bulgar comitadgi, Doreff, was a letter signed Grasdoff, describing his attempts to import arms through Montenegro, a plan he found impossible owing to the opposition of the Albanians in the territories that must be pa.s.sed through. He visited Cetinje and reports: ”I have spoken with M. Rizoff. With regard to the pa.s.sage of men and munitions through Montenegro . . . even at the risk of losing his post he is disposed to give his a.s.sistance. But owing to the great difficulty the plan would meet in Albania we must renounce it. M. Rizoff hopes to be transferred soon to Belgrade. M. Rizoff having met M. Milakoff (PMilukoff) at Abbazia, has decided to continue the preparations for the organization until public opinion is convinced of the inutility of the (Turkish) reforms or until the term fixed--October 1905.” Rizoff, in his talk with me, seemed hopeful of inducing European intervention.

Desultory fighting between Bulgar bands and Turkish troops had been going on in Macedonia throughout the year and many Bulgar peasants had fled from Macedonia into Bulgaria where fresh bands were prepared. A bad fight had taken place near Uskub, the Slav peasants of which were then recognized as Bulgars. But the Serbo-Bulgar struggle for Uskub--which, in truth, was then mainly Albanian--had begun.

Throughout Turkish territory, Greek, Serb and Bulgar pegged out their claims by the appointment of Bishops. Once a Bishop was successfully planted, a school with Serb, Greek or Bulgar masters at once sprang up and under the protection of one Great Power or another a fresh propaganda was started.

Every time a Bishop was moved by one side, it meant ”Check to your King!” for the other. English Bishops talked piously of, and even prayed for ”our Christian brethren of the Balkans,” happily unaware that their Christian brethren were solely engaged in planning ma.s.sacres or betraying the priests of a rival nationality to the Turks.

Serbia had just triumphantly cried ”Check” to Bulgaria. In 1902 the Bishop of Uskub had died. The Serbs had had no Bishop in Turkish territory since the destruction of the Serb Bishopric of Ipek in 1766, which was the work of the Greek Patriarch rather than of the Turk. They now put in a claim. The Russian Vjedomosti published a learned article on the Ipek episcopate. The Porte regarded with dread the increasing power of the Bulgars. So did the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople. He of 1766 had aimed at the destruction of Slavdom. He of 1902 thought Serbia far less dangerous than Bulgaria. Firmilian was duly consecrated in June, 1902--a small straw showing that Russia had begun to blow Serbwards. She began to see she could not afford to have a powerful Bulgaria between herself and Constantinople.

At Cetinje I gathered that my jpurney to Ipek was mysteriously connected with ”something” that was going to happen, and was interested to find that though the populace still heartily approved of the murder of Alexander and were filled with anger and dismay at England's rupture of diplomatic relations, the mighty of the land had realized that in public at any rate, it was as well to moderate their transports. King Nikola had been interviewed by several British and other journalists, had looked down his nose, lamented the wickedness of the Serbs and a.s.sured his interviewers that the Montenegrins were a far more virtuous people. Montenegro posed as the good boy of the Serb race, and as the gentlemen in question had not been present either at the thanksgiving in the church nor the gala performance at the Zetski Dom, they accepted the statement.

Interviewing is, in fact, as yet the most efficient method by which journalism can spread erroneous reports.

I returned to London and read shortly afterwards in The Times that Macedonian troubles had settled down and recollecting that at Ipek I had learnt they had not yet begun I wrote and told The Times so. But it was far too well informed to print this statement. Had it not withdrawn its correspondent? And, as Rizoff had told me, a general Bulgar rising broke out all through Macedonia in August.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MACEDONIA, 1903-1904

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