Volume II Part 6 (1/2)

CHAPTER xxxI

RUSSIAN INTERVENTION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF 1877

With the return of spring I resuinning of April, the situation was one whichinterests, to yield to the conditions on which peace could have been preserved

Montenegro held a position stronger than that of the year before, and the Prince, under diploinally insisted on, except two, viz, the recognition of the independence of the Kutchi and the repatriation of the refugees frouarantees for their tranquillity This latter was a _sine qua non_ of the restoration of Montenegro to its original condition, for the principality was supporting on the slender basis of its always insufficient means a population al falish charity was, as it always is, large, but the retention of the refugees pern aid They were destitute not oods, to an extent that made them as helpless as children, for there was no more work to be done in the principality than the women were accustomed to do in war time

Russia declared war on the 25th of April, and the English agent left four days later, warmly saluted by the Prince, who had found in him a true and disinterested friend Jonine's animosity towards Monson was intense, and as the former, as Russian plenipotentiary, considered hiive direction to the diplomacy of Cettinje, he was furious over the evident favor hich Monson was regarded by the Prince, who often followed his advice It was a sore point with the Montenegrins, from the Prince down, that Jonine was so officious in his intervention even in military advice, where he had not the least corins resented the dictation of the Russian staff, even where it had every reason to urge its own views of the operations On the occasion of the next birthday of the Czar, which was as usual celebrated in Montenegro by a diplomatic and official dinner, the Prince refused to co Duby to preside Jonine was extre to his dictatorial ways The Austrian representative had an opening to great influence which he ht have seized if he had been a man of tact, but he was ostentatiously hostile to the Prince and the Montenegrin cause Monson, on the other hand, and Greene, the English consul at Scutari, exerted their influence in every way for the principality, and but for therain fro the armistice and had been maliciously delayed by the authorities at Scutari as they cah the Boyana, would probably have been stopped at the critical moment by the outbreak of hostilities

The news of the declaration of war by Russia produced immense enthusiasm in the principality, and the people now felt that they were in a position to fight out with the Turks the quarrel of four hundred years With the Prince and his staff, I went to the new headquarters at Orealuk, where he had a little villa nearly oritza The southern frontier was held by the division of ”Bozo” (Bozidar) Petrovich on the west of the Zeta, and on the east by that of the hts over Spuz They were opposed by Ali Saib Pasha and two or three subordinate generals On the north, at Krstaz, was Vucotich, the father-in-law of the Prince, a brave ood adist the Montenegrins were indebted for the egregious failure of the northern defense This failure at one n, from which the ability of Bozo saved it

Sulein, had replaced Mukhtar, and had spent threehis troops for the Montenegrin a offered ideal positions for a defense by such a force as the Montenegrin,--brave, good shots, and absolutely obedient to orders; and the best nable if properly defended

So the Prince went to Ostrog, and the northern army took position on the plain of Niksich, the advance posts being connected with headquarters at Ostrog by telegraph, and I took up reat ability, Suleia, and debouched in the plain near Niksich before the Montenegrin army could reach Plamnitza, where the valley of the Zeta and our position at Ostrog were to be defended, and if Suleiht have taken us all in our quarters The rin coave us to believe that the Turks were kept at bay, until we found that they were actually in Niksich, and there was not a single battalion to serve as bodyguard to the Prince at Ostrog

Sia, the army of Ali Saib attacked on the south; but, defeated ed to relinquish the effort to rad, where, if united, they would have held the principality by the throat

The reports of the fight froet the details of the victory, of which he had given raph a summary account, and I arrived at his headquarters at Plana, overlooking the Turkishan invitation to pass the night and see the operations of the next day Until I arrived at his cae of the Duga, nor of the relief of Niksich; but I had not been with hies on the northern slopes of the heights that commanded the head of the valley of the Zeta, which connects the plains of Niksich and Podgoritza and divides Montenegro into two provinces, anciently two principalities,--the Berdas and the Czernagora or Black Mountain This conflagration showed that Suleihts, and would have no rad Sulein was planned on the idea of a triple attack on the heart of Montenegro, by himself from Krstaz, Ali Saib from Spuz, and Mehemet Ali, my old friend in Crete, from Kolashi+n via the upper Moratsha, the three arrad Ali Saib and Meheh before I left Plana in the ht out under ain

I started for a leisurely ride back to Ostrog, and half way there itive who told me that the Turks were at the convent, and the Prince retreating on the western side of the valley Another half hour and I should have been in the hands of the irregulars, ere skir, as they followed the eastern side, the two ar the crest of the raded to Plana, and thence, by the urgent counsels of Bozo, to Cettinje, as the position was critical, and the caht take an unexpected turn and make my escape ihting to cover the distance I had made in three hours' leisurely ride, and reached the plain of Spuz so exhausted and decianize it before he could reat disaster, possibly the surrender of his whole arrin commander He had abandoned all his communications with Niksich, like Sherman at Atlanta in the American war, and had to depend on what he carried with hi

Vucotich, instead of intrenching himself with his main force in the woods in front of Sulei to let hih he was strong enough to have stopped him and starved hie of the Bjelopawlitze At this lish consul at Scutari, Mr Greene, came to Cettinje and visited the camp of Suleiman, in which visit I wished to imitate him, but he warned me that it would be probably a fatal call, as I would not have been allowed to return Mr Greene gave a, in which the Turkish general described the Montenegrin attacks as displaying a courage he had never before witnessed They charged the solid Turkish squares, and, grappling the soldiers, atterin loss was 800 killed The ammunition was bad, and the mountaineers often threw their rifles away and attacked with the cold steel The average advance of the Turks was about a mile a day

So aited for the next news froeneration It was supposed that Sulei on Cettinje by Rieka, and all the fighting es on that side evacuated In this state of painful expectation the news arrived of the passage of the Danube by the Russian army, and the recall of Suleiman and his army for the defense of the principalities The relief in Cettinje rose to jubilation, and we all returned to our habitual life

The Prince, freed froood earnest, and, with the diplomatic representatives and the Russian staff, we returned and pitched our ca (Studenitzi), which supplied us with an abundance of water, but within cannon shot of the fortress, the shells fro in the plain a few hundred yards beyond us and bursting harmlessly If the Turks had understood howitzer practice they could have dropped their shells araze, and the women who came with their husbands' rations could not reach us without passing within gunshot of the outlying trenches of the Turks, and I have seen a file of thee loaf of bread on her head, and the bullets fro her step or paying the least attention to the danger This is the habit of the Montenegrin woraced by a display of fear, no o down to the trenches where their husbands were lying for days together, during which tiht the rations every five days, and they always took the opportunity to discuss the affairs of the household deliberately, though under fire, and walk away as unconcernedly

But our quarters at Studenitzi were not to the taste of the attaches who took no part in the fighting, and we broke cae of the plain, all the time under the fire of the artillery of the fortress The Montenegrin artillery was brought up, and one by one the little forts which studded the in of the broad expanse were taken The first attacked held out till the shells penetrated its thin walls, and then surrendered unconditionally The garrison, twenty or ht to the headquarters, and we all turned out to see thehtened they were, and, through an Albanian friend who interpreted for me, I offered them coffee They looked at me with a surprise in their eyes like that of a wild deer taken in a trap, and resigned to its fate, knowing that escape was impossible; and when they had drunk the coffee they asked if ere going to decapitate them now When I assured them that there was no more question of their decapitation than of mine, and that they were perfectly safe, they broke into a discordant jubilation like that of a children's school let loose; life had nothing ive them They had no desire to be sent back to their battalions, and they stayed with us, drawing the pay and rations they should have had, and rarely got, when under their own flag

The scene our camp presented was one to be found probably under no other sky than that which spread over us in the highlands of Montenegro The tents of the Prince, the chiefs, and the attaches were pitched in a circle, in the centre of which at night was a huge camp-fire, round which we sat and listened to stories or discussions, or to the Servian epics sung by the Prince's bard, to the accouzla_, to which the assembly listened in a silence made impressive by the tears of the hardened old warriors, most of whom knew the pathetic record by heart, and never ceased to ith patriotic pride at the legends of the heroic defense, the rout of Kossovo, and the fall of the great empire, of which they were the only representatives who had never yielded to the rule of the Turk Substitute for the rocky ridge which forround of the scene the Dardanelles, and the fleet drawn up on the shore before Troy, and you have a parallel such as no other country in our tihtfall, and no sentries or outposts were placed on either side at night; and now and then a long-range skirrin brave, tired of the o out between the lines and challenge any Mussulman to come out and try his proith a Christian One pope, Milo, a hero of the earlier war, rode up and down before the Turkish outposts, repeating every day his challenge, and at last the Turks hid a squad of sharpshooters where he used to ride, and brought him doith a treacherous volley, then cut off his head and sent it in to the Prince

Our guns were not heavy enough to cope with those of the fortress, and so we passed the ti the redoubts thrown up on the little hillocks around the town, alternating these operations with an occasional assault of one of the nearest of theot impatient for soovernuns, sixteen and thirty-two bronze rifled breech-loaders, the heaviest we had being ten-pound uns, Krupp steel, breech-loading twelve-pounders The Russian guns were landed on the Dalmatian coast below Budua and carried across the narrow strip of Austrian territory which separated Montenegro from the sea, between two lines of Austrian troops, lest some indiscreet traveler should reveal the violation of neutrality, and were brought to Niksich, about forty rins over a roadlesspossible

CHAPTER xxxII

A JOURNEY INTO THE BERDAS

Pending the arrival of the guns, I explored the more remote and by no traveler hitherto visited section of the Berdas, charged by the Russian Red Cross and the English coold ast the wounded and fale _perianik_ (one of the Prince's bodyguard) and reat plains of the northeastern provinces, thendivision from Kolashi+n, intended to effect a diversion for the relief of Niksich Clihts which make a rim like the wall of a crater round the plain of Niksich, I reached a table-land _(planina)_ which rolls away to the frontier I made my first halt at the monastery of Zupa, situated in a lovely valley where the fertility of the land supports a considerable population, and where the Russians had established a hospital Nothing could exceed the kindness and hueons There was one poor patient who had received a ball in the ed in the neck and caused a suppuration, involving an artery, which burst into the wound The carotid was tied, but the operation failed to stop the he each other every quarter of an hour in holding a pledget of lint on the wound, in a determined effort to save the man's life if it were physically possible The hospital was admirably conducted

In this beautiful valley I waited several days, wandering aeons and other ga of su no apprehension of personal danger where there was no fighting population Approaching a village curiously intent, I discovered an old woer, armed, and with no co, ”The Turks! The Turks!” and calling the boys to the defense, and in a jiffy the whole village was up in alarm I ran as fast as I could in the direction of the monastery, conscious that every boy in the valley had some old pistol, and would not even ask the questions I could not answer before ie

Life is of no account in such circumstances, and the explanation would have been ain without my interpreter while in that country