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)
Thus tragically ended poor King Nikola's life's ambition and his
golden dream. Mirko, whom he would fain have seen on the throne of
Serbia, died in Austria in 1918. The records of Danilo and Petar are
such that they are not likely to succeed their father. Prince Danilo
in vain refused the spiritual headship of the land. No Petrovitch
seems destined to be followed by his son, though their dynasty is
the older, and their hands are not so stained with murder as those
of the rival dynasty.
Nikola is not wholly blameworthy. Powers stronger and more crafty
than he, planned Great Serbia and ruthlessly ruled him out of it. No
reinforcements came to him; no troops to help him hold the Lovtchen.
Russia was once his god--and she forsook him.
The Montenegrin opinion of the Serajevo murders is corroborated by
several facts. The Serb students refuged in London had post cards
printed of the murderer Princip, on which he was described as a
national hero! One said to me: "Yes, it is a pity so many people
were killed. But you see the plan quite succeeded, and Great Serbia
has been made." He seemed to think it the object of the war. Another
told a friend of mine that bombthrowing had been taught at Shabatz,
and a Serbian officer boasted to Lady Boyle, when she was doing
Serbian relief work, that he was one of the men who taught the
murderers to shoot. He took their photographs from his pocket, and
called on her to admire how well he had taught them.
The bombs used, like those prepared for King Nikola, came from
Kraguyevatz. The assassins told in great detail at their trial that
they had been supplied with weapons, and taught to use them, by a
Serbian railway employe, Ciganovitch, and by Major Tankositch the
komitadji trainer He was a well-known komitadji himself, and a
member of the Narodna Odbrana and of the Black Hand. And he was in
constant touch with the Belgrade students at the Zelenom Vjencu
eating-house. A Serb student, who himself had frequented this place,
told me that Princip was chosen because he was so far advanced in
tuberculosis he could not live long in any case. He saw him just
before he left for Serajevo, looking very ill indeed. He described
that when the news of the murders arrived three hundred Bosnian
students rushed through Belgrade shouting and singing, and led by a
Montenegrin playing the gusle.
"But did not the police stop them?" I asked.
"No, why should they?"
"And were no arrests then made?"
"Oh, no." This corroborates the official letter of Chevalier von
Storck of the Austrian Legation in Belgrade, who wrote (see the
Austrian Red Book) on June 30th to Vienna:
"I have addressed to M. Gruitch, secretary to the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, the question appropriate to the moment, to enquire
what measures the police have already taken, or intend to take, to
follow up the traces of the crime which are notoriously spread
through Serbia. He replies that up till now the police have not
occupied themselves with the affair."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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