The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—TurkeyHogarth, D. G. (David George)
History
The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
Hogarth, D. G. (David George)
Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
The news of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipsic (October 1813) arrived just
after that of the re-occupation of Belgrade by the Turks, damped
_feu-de-joie_ which they were firing at Constantinople, and made them
rather more conciliatory and lenient to the Serbian rebels. But this
attitude did not last long, and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh
efforts to regain their short-lived liberty. The Congress of Vienna met
in the autumn of 1814, and during its whole course Serbian emissaries
gave the Russian envoys no peace. But with the return of Napoleon to
France in the spring of 1815 and the break-up of the Congress, all that
Russia could do was, through its ambassador at Constantinople, to
threaten invasion unless the Turks left the Serbs alone. Nevertheless,
conditions in Serbia became so intolerable that another rebellion soon
took shape, this time under Miloš Obrenović. This leader was no less
patriotic than his rival, Kara-George, but he was far more able and a
consummate diplomat. Kara-George had possessed indomitable courage,
energy, and will-power, but he could not temporize, and his arbitrary
methods of enforcing discipline and his ungovernable temper had made
him many enemies. While the credit for the first Serbian revolt
(1804-13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly to him, the second revolt owed
its more lasting success to the skill of Miloš Obrenović. The fighting
started at Takovo, the home of the Obrenović family, in April 1815, and
after many astonishing successes against the Turks, including the
capture of the towns of Rudnik, Čačak, Požarevac, and Kraljevo, was all
over by July of the same year. The Turks were ready with large armies
in the west in Bosnia, and also south of the Morava river, to continue
the campaign and crush the rebellion, but the news of the final defeat
of Napoleon, and the knowledge that Russia would soon have time again
to devote attention to the Balkans, withheld their appetites for
revenge, and negotiations with the successful rebels were initiated.
During the whole of this period, from 1813 onwards, Miloš Obrenović, as
head of a district, was an official of the Sultan in Serbia, and it was
one of his principles never to break irreparably with the Turks, who
were still suzerains of the country. At the same time, owing to his
skill and initiative he was recognized as the only real leader of the
movement for independence. From the cessation of the rebellion in 1815
onwards he himself personally conducted negotiations in the name of his
people with the various pashas who were deputed to deal with him. While
these negotiations went on and the armistice was in force, he was
confronted, or rather harassed from behind, by a series of revolts
against his growing authority on the part of his jealous compatriots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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