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)
Colonel Thompson, who was commanding the Dutch gendarmes, met me and
told me that he was going to =give an ultimatum to the insurgents in
the next few days, and asked me to call at eleven next morning and
talk the matter over with him. I never did. That night things seemed
shaky. I overheard Fachinetti, whose room was next mine, tell the
landlord to knock him up if anything happened. So I did very little
undressing, thinking he was probably behind some plot. I put my
boots handy, and laid down as I was, for a bit of sleep, and jumped
up to the sound of rifle fire as the landlord banged on Fachinetti's
door. Sharp firing sounded close. I dashed out so soon as I could
lace my boots, and went down to the entrance of the town where
Fabius was in great haste serving out ammunition from the depot
there. He begged me not to go out towards the scene of the fight, as
he suspected the Italians, and wanted to give an order that no
foreigner should leave the town. Up rushed the Italians, greatly
excited, and were headed back by Fabius. I told them I, too, was
forbidden to go, and we sent them back. We got the artillery
ammunition on donkeys and sent it up the hill. Dutch and Austrian
officers were to serve the guns. A wounded Albanian, crying feebly
"Rrnoft Mbreti" (Long live the King), was carried by on a stretcher,
and one of the bearers whispered to Fabius: "Thompson is hit. I fear
he is dead." To lose the commander in the first hour of the fight
was a terrible blow. Fabius begged me to tell no one. Later, Arthur
Moore, The Times correspondent, came and told how poor Thompson had
been struck down and died almost immediately in his arms in a hut by
the wayside.
Too many battle books have been written of late, so I will not
describe the fighting In the afternoon. I was under cover behind a
bank on the top of the hill with Mr. Corbett when the Prince came up
on horseback with a small suite. He dismounted and climbed the bank,
a tall, lean man, worn and anxious, with a yellow-white face as from
a touch of fever. We called to him he had better take cover as the
bullets came over pretty often. He looked dazed and stupefied. I
said: "A bullet has just cut down that plant, Sir!" pointing to one
close by. He roused himself, mounted, and rode away. Our side soon
got the upper hand, and all danger of the town being rushed seemed
over.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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