The Magyars were not to be repressed so easily, and Ferdinand made promise after promise to the Croats and the Serbs if they would help to overcome this people. From Serbia itself came many volunteers to aid their brothers who were trying to throw off the Magyar yoke; they came with the connivance of Prince Alexander, in fact, he sent one of his generals to lead them. And a great many hasty Kossuth enthusiasts in Western Europe, knowing only that the Magyars, a chivalrous nation, had been in arms against the despotic Habsburgs, and that the Serbs and Croats had a considerable share in subduing them, could not find invective virulent enough for this abominable brood of hell, whose one desire it was to be a tyrant's executioners. They were denounced as having not the least conception of independence; for a people of a disposition so abandoned there was not the faintest hope of any future; and the day would come when these outrageous little nations would be wiped away. Had not the noble Kossuth spoken like a prophet when he asked disdainfully where was Croatia, for he could not find it on the map? In December the new Emperor, Francis Joseph, began to rule his variegated realm with justice. He confirmed the Serbian Patriarch and Voivoda, who had been chosen in the previous May, and he bestowed upon the Serbs of Syrmia and Bačka and the Banat a territory of their own, with their own organization and jurisdiction. Even a less extensive Serbian authority, namely, the Banat town of Velika Kikinda, with its ten dependent villages, raised its own taxes, had its own police and had the power of life and death. There was, indeed, a cloud which came across the Serbians' happiness when Čuplikac, the Voivoda, died suddenly. He was at Pančevo when he received from the Emperor the gracious edict and a box of cigars. No sooner had he mounted his horse, lit one of the cigars and uttered the word "Brother," than he fell down dead. As for the Croats, the Emperor made Jellačić governor of Dalmatia, which signified the union of that province to Croatia. HOW MONTENEGRO REFORMED HERSELF