Twenty Years of Balkan TangleDurham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
History
Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle
Durham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel; Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
At Podgoritza, where I went to fetch my store of relief stuff, I was
set on by a number of officials at the parcel office. Furious at
losing Scutari, they swore they would retake it and take Bosnia,
too. I told them not to talk so foolishly. They cried: "We--the Serb
people--have beaten the Turk. We are now a danger to Europe. We
shall take what we please. The Serbs will go to Vienna. We shall go
to Serajevo. We have the whole of the Russian army with us. If you
do not believe it--you will see. We shall begin in Bosnia!" This
was in May 1913. Yougourieff, by the way, was delighted at the
capture of Scutari, and told me that the fait accompli could not be
upset. "Except by accomplishing another," I said. The French and
Italian legations, too, were indecently elated.
The Great Serbia party explained its plans freely. King Ferdinand
was to be assassinated, and Bulgaria be suzerain to Serbia. There
was to be war with Austria. Any one in Great Serbia's path was to be
"removed." A friend, who was doing relief work at Uskub, told me
that there the Serb officers talked incessantly of their next war
with Austria, and were savagely extirpating the Bulgarian and
Albanian populations from the newly annexed districts.
As for M. Krajewsky, the French Consul, he now "outjuggered" the
Jugoslavs. "Never," he declared, "would France allow independent
Albania to exist." The Russian Consul Miller, on the contrary, said
he had written the strongest possible report against Montenegro to
his Government, saying "that the Montenegrins by their disgraceful
conduct in war had forfeited all right to it." His report did much
to save the town.
The Dalmatian doctor, who had cured me of my long illness in 1910,
was also most emphatically anti-Serb and Montenegrin, though a Slav
himself, declaring them to be a set of savages who should not be
allowed to take Albanian lands. This was the more noteworthy, as he
had previously been by no means pro-Albanian.
On June 12th Mr. Nevinson arrived with Mr. Erickson, an American\
missionary who had done much work in Albania, and on the 15th we
started to ride through the country to learn the state of things. As
little has been written of Albania at this period I give a rsume of
my diary.
June 15th.--Rode to Alessio, past the villages burnt by the Serbs.
Found the Albanian flag flying on the bridge of Alessio, and
Albanian guards. Town dead, inn ruined. District patrolled by Ded
Soko's men. Perfect order. Heard tales of Serb brutality to
prisoners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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