One day in 1862 the Turks, who still were in the Belgrade fortress,
started, for some foolish reason, to bombard the town. Prince Michael
in the subsequent negotiations showed that he had qualities one could
not but respect. Still he was unsuccessful (until 1867) in obtaining
the removal of the Turkish garrisons--Great Britain, fearing Russian
influence, and Austria, hostile to the total independence of the
Serbs, supported Turkey. And Michael governed with so firm a hand that
there were many who believed that the material improvement he was
introducing, schools of agriculture, schools of forestry and what not,
could be just as well inaugurated by the far more sympathetic Prince
Nikita. And when in 1866 Michael and Nikita made a grand convention
for the union of the Serbs in Serbia and in Montenegro, and Nikita
undertook to step aside, if necessary, so that all the independent
Serbs might be united under Michael's sceptre, then indeed the
Omladina talked of him with rapture. And Nikita made allusions to this
"grand refusal" all his life and with a face of honest pride. He
never mentioned anything about clause 3, which was not published. By
that clause Nikita was to be Prince Michael's heir, in case he had no
son. There was not much likelihood that he would have one, for the
Hungarian wife from whom he was divorced[46] had given him no
children, and the girl with whom he was overpoweringly in love was a
cousin, whom the Church, because of their relationship, prevented him
from marrying. It was with this girl that the Prince was always said
to have been walking in the park near Belgrade on June 10, 1868, when
he was mysteriously murdered.[47] After Michael's death the
Skupština, not acting in accordance with the secret clause, placed
on the throne a grandson (?) of a brother of Prince Miloš, who was
a minor and the nearest in the order of succession. By this time the
_Omladina_ had perceived that in the character of their romantic
prince lay certain lamentable traits. The friendship, which he had
inherited, with Russia he continued, and the Russian Court rewarded
him in no half-hearted fashion. When the Italians proposed in 1866
that he and they should share the Bocche di Cattaro, he said the
moment was not opportune; the Austrians for this bestowed on him a
pension which they paid until the outbreak of the World War. One could
understand, of course, that Nikita did not wish to rouse the enmity of
Austria; it must have hurt him to refrain from going to the Bocche,
where the population was most Slav and had endured a great deal for
the cause, but other men were hurt by his acceptance of the pension.
FOR THEY KNOW NEITHER NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO NOR MICHAEL OF SERBIA
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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