Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle | Page 3

race by the Powers at the Berlin Congress.
To me it sounded then fantastic--operatic. I had yet to learn that the
opera bouffe of the Balkans is written in blood and that those who are
dead when the curtain falls, never come to life again.
So much for Montenegro. We returned after a run to Trebinje, Serajevo
and Mostar, to the Dalmatian coast and Trieste.
First impressions are vivid. There is a certain interest in the fact that I
recorded Spalato in my diary as the first Slav town on our way south
from Trieste and that my letter thence was dated Spljet, the Slav form
of the name.
The one pre-eminently Italian town of Dalmatia is Zara. From Zara
south, the language becomes more and more Slav. But the Slav
speaking peasants that flock to market are by no means the same in
physical type as the South Slavs of the Bosnian Hinterland. It is
obvious that they are of other blood. They are known as Morlachs, that
is Sea Vlachs, and historically are in all probability descendants of the
pre-Slav native population which, together with the Roman colonists,
fled coast ward before the inrush of the Slav invaders of the seventh
century. Latin culture clung along the coast and was reinforced later by

the Venetians. And a Latin dialect was spoken until recent times, dying
out on the island of Veglio at the end of the nineteenth century. The
Slavizing process which has steadily gone on is due, partly to natural
pressure coastward of the Slav masses of the Hinterland and partly to
artificial means.
Austria, who ever since the break-up of the Holy Roman Empire, had
recognized Italy as a possible danger, had mitigated this by drawing
Italy into the Triple Alliance. But she was well aware that fear of
France, not love of Austria, made Italy take this step. Therefore to
reduce the danger of a strong Italia Irredenta on the east of Adria she
encouraged Atavism against Italianism, regarding the ignorant and
incoherent Slavs as less dangerous than the industrious and scientific
Italians. Similarly, England decided that the half-barbarous Russians
were less likely to be commercial rivals than the industrious and
scientific Germans, and sided with Russia.
Future historians will judge the wisdom of these decisions.
During the fourteen years in which I went up and down the coast, the
Slavizing process in Dalmatia visibly progressed, until the
German-Austrians began to realize that they were "warming a viper,"
and to feel nervous. Almost yearly there were more zones in which no
photographs might be taken and more forts were built.
Having picked up the thread of the Balkans the next thing was to learn
a Balkan language, for in 1900 scarcely a soul in Montenegro spoke
aught but Serb. Nor was any dictionary of the language to be bought at
Cetinje. The one bookshop of Montenegro was carefully supervised by
the Prince, who saw to it that the people should read nothing likely to
disturb their ideas, and the literature obtainable was mainly old national
ballads and the poetical works of the Prince and his father, Grand Voy
voda Mirko.
In London in 1900 it was nearly impossible to find a teacher of Serb,
and a New Testament from the Bible Society was the only book
available. Finally a Pole--a political refugee from Russia and a student
of all Slav languages--undertook to teach me. English he knew none,

and but little German and had been but a few weeks in England.
I asked for his first impressions. His reply was unexpected. What
surprised him most was that the English thought Russia a Great Power
and were even afraid of her. I explained that Russia was a monster
ready to spring on our Indian frontier--that she possessed untold wealth
and countless hordes. He laughed scornfully. In halting German he said
"Russia is nothing--nothing. The wealth is underground. They have not
the sense to get it. Their Army is large, but it is rotten. All Russia is
rotten. If there is a war the Russian Army will be--will be--" he
stammered for a word--"will be like this!" He snatched up a piece of
waste paper, crumpled it and flung it contemptuously into the waste
paper basket.
I never forgot the gesture. Later, when folk foretold Japan's certain
defeat if she tackled the monster, and in 1914 talked crazily of "the
Russian steam-roller" I saw only that crumpled rag of paper flying into
the basket. By that time I had seen too much of the Slav to trust him in
any capacity. But this is anticipating.
CHAPTER TWO
MONTENEGRO AND HER RULERS
In days of old the priest was King, Obedient to his nod, Man rushed to
slay his brother man As sacrifice to God.
THE events seen by the