I returned to Montenegro in the following June, after the diplomacy of Europe had vainly and discordantly discussed mediation all the winter. An armistice had suspended hostilities, but the Turks continued the concentration of troops on the frontiers of the principality, north and south, and refused the conditions of the Prince for a peaceful solution. Everything waited for the acceptance by Servia of the programme for the war which was to be declared by the principalities against Turkey. The official declaration of war took place on the 2d of July, and on the 3d the Prince set out with flying banners for the conquest of the Herzegovina. My orders being to remain in touch with the telegraph, I had to resign the pleasure of the campaign, and I passed the time in studying up accessories. The Prince started directly for Mostar, accompanied by the Austrian military attaché, Colonel Thoemel, one of the most intensely anti-Montenegrin Austrian officials I ever met. If the Austrian government had intended to inflict on the Prince the most humiliating censor in its service, and make the relations between the governments as bad as possible, they could not have chosen an agent more effective than Thoemel. In his hatred of Montenegro and enjoyment of the _fortiter in re_, he entirely threw off the _suaviter in modo_. He enjoyed intensely every petty humiliation he could inflict on the Prince, who, with the greatest tact, never noticed his rudeness. The maintenance of good relations with Austria tasked the Prince's diplomacy to the utmost. As I saw nothing of the campaign, I will dispose of it by saying that, when the Prince had nearly reached Mostar, the colonel informed him officially that if he took Mostar he would be driven out of it by the Austrian army, and, after a slight skirmish on the hills commanding the city, the Prince took the road towards Trebinje. Meanwhile the operations on the southern frontier, under the direction of the amiable and competent Bozo Petrovich, remained for my observation.