The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12): The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12): The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne
World War, 1914-1918
The Montenegrins are born fighters and die fighters. From one end
to the other Montenegro is one wilderness of mountain crags and
towering precipices, traversed only by foot trails. Here and there
a shelf of level soil may be found, just enough to enable people
to grow their own necessities. The capital of this rocky domain,
high up among the crags and overlooking the Adriatic, is Cettinje,
which was to be stormed and conquered by the Teutons. The main
street, about 150 yards long, comprising two-thirds of the town,
is so broad that three or four carriages may be driven abreast
down the length of it. It is composed entirely of one and two story
cottages. A few short streets branch off at right angles, and in
these is all of Cettinje that is not comprised in the main street.
The king inhabited a modest-looking, brown edifice with a small
garden attached. Overlooking the capital is Mt. Lovcen, on top
of which the Montenegrins planted guns to defend any attack that
might be made against them.
South of Montenegro and north of Greece lies another country of
instinctive fighters. It is similar in physical aspect, but very
different in its population. This is the land of the Albanians,
whom the Turks conquered by force of arms, like all the rest of
the Balkan peninsula. They are a distinct race by themselves; it
is supposed that they are the descendants of the ancient Illyrians,
those wild tribes of whom the ancient Greeks wrote. Nor is this
unlikely, for in such a country as theirs the inhabitants are most
likely to remain pure from generation to generation.
Returning for a few moments to Belgrade, we now may resume our
course down the ancient highway toward Saloniki. Down the Morava
Valley passes the railroad, after which it passes within a few
miles of the Bulgarian frontier, near Kustendil; dangerously near
the frontier of a possible enemy, but especially perilous in this
war in which the Serbians would naturally endeavor to retreat toward
her ally, Greece.
Just below Vranya the railroad enters what was, before the two
Balkan Wars, the Turkish territory of Macedonia. This region down
to within sixty miles of Saloniki was reconquered from the Turks by
the Serbs, having been Serb inhabited since early in the Christian
era as shown by historical record. As early as 950 Constantin
Porphyrogenitus writes of its inhabitants as Serbs, from whom,
he says, the town of Serbia on the Bistritza River near Saloniki
took its name. Throughout this region there are so many mountain
ranges that it would be impossible to name them all. Nowhere has
blood been more continuously shed than here, and nowhere in Europe
is the scenery more beautiful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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