The Cemetery of Four Empires

We stood on the forward deck of the Sirio as she slipped southward, through the placid waters of the Adriatic, at twenty knots an hour. Less than a league away the Balkan mountains, savage, mysterious, forbidding, rose in a rocky rampart against the eastern sky.

“Did it ever occur to you,” remarked the Italian officer who stood beside me, a noted historian in his own land, “that four great empires have died as a result of their lust for domination over the wretched lands which lie beyond those mountains? Austria coveted Serbia—and the empire of the Hapsburgs is in fragments now. Russia, seeing her influence in the peninsula imperiled, hastened to the support of her fellow Slavs—but Russia has gone down in red ruin, and the Romanoffs are dead. Germany, seeking a gateway to the warm water, and a highway to the East, seized on the excuse thus offered to launch her waiting armies—and the empire reared by the Hohenzollerns is bankrupt and broken. Turkey fought to retain her hold on such European territory as still remained under the crescent banner. To-day a postmortem is about to be held on the Turkish Empire and the House of Osman. Think of it! Four great empires, four ancient dynasties, lie buried over there in the Balkans. It is something more than a range of mountains at which we are looking; it is the wall of a cemetery.”

Rada di Antivari is a U-shaped bay, the color of a turquoise, from whose shores the Montenegrin mountains rise in tiers, like the seats of an arena. We put in there unexpectedly because a bora, sweeping suddenly down from the northwest, had lashed the Adriatic into an ugly mood and our destroyer, whose decks were almost as near the water as those of a submarine running awash, was not a craft that one would choose for comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of the largest mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the Sirio had scarcely poked her sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the second syllable, so that it rhymes with “discovery”) by the name of harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. There were three other Italian destroyers in the harbor but, instead of being moored snugly alongside the quay, they were strung out in a semblance of battle formation, so that their deck-guns, from which the canvas muzzle-covers had been removed, could sweep the rocky heights above and around them. A string of signal-flags broke out from our masthead and was answered in like fashion by the flag-ship of the flotilla, after which formal exchange of greetings our wireless began to crackle and splutter in an animated explanation of our unexpected appearance. Our hawsers had scarcely been made fast before a launch left the flag-ship and came plowing toward us, a knot of white-uniformed officers in the stern. From the blue rug with the Italian arms, which, as I could see through my glasses, was draped over the stern-sheets, I deduced that the commander of the flotilla was paying us a visit.

“You have come at rather an unfortunate moment,” he said after the introductions were over. “Last night we were fired on by Jugoslavs on the mountainside over there,” indicating the heights across the harbor. “In fact, the firing has just ceased. There must have been a thousand of them or more, judging from the flashes. But I hope that madame will not be alarmed, for she is really quite safe. They are firing at long range, and the only danger is from a stray bullet. Still, it is most embarrassing. On madame’s account I am sorry.”

His manner was that of a host apologizing to a guest because the children of the family have measles and at the same time attempting to convince the guest that measles are hardly ever contagious. I relieved his quite obvious embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. Powell much preferred taking chances with snipers’ bullets to the discomfort of a destroyer in an ugly sea; and that, having journeyed six thousand miles for the express purpose of seeing what was happening in the Balkans, we would be disappointed if nothing happened at all.

When I left Paris for the Adriatic I carried with me the impression, as the result of conversations with members of the various peace delegations, that the people of Montenegro were almost unanimously in favor of annexation to Serbia, thereby becoming a part of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But before I had spent twenty-four hours in Montenegro itself I discovered that on the subject of the political future of their little country the Montenegrins are very far from being of the same mind. And, being a simple, primitive folk, and strong believers in the superiority of the bullet to the ballot, instead of sitting down and arguing the matter, they take cover behind a convenient rock and, when their political opponents pass by, take pot-shots at them.

My preconceived opinions about political conditions in Montenegro were largely based on the knowledge that shortly after the signing of the Armistice a Montenegrin National Assembly, so called, had met at Podgoritza, and, after declaring itself in favor of the deposition of King Nicholas and the Petrovitch dynasty, which has ruled in Montenegro since William of Orange sat on the throne of England, voted for the union of Montenegro with the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Just how representative of the real sentiments of the nation was this assembly I do not know, but that the sentiment in favor of such a surrender of Montenegrin independence is far from being overwhelming would seem to be proved by the fact that the Serbs, in order to hold the territory thus given to them, have found it necessary to install a Serbian military governor in Cetinje, to replace by Serbs all the Montenegrin prefects, to raise a special gendarmerie recruited from men who are known to be friendly to Serbia and officered by Serbs, and to occupy this sister-state, which, it is alleged, requested union with Serbia of its own free will, with two battalions of Serbian infantry. If Montenegrin sentiment for the union is as overwhelming as Belgrade claims, then it seems to me that the Serbs are acting in a rather high-handed fashion.

I talked with a good many people while I was in Montenegro, and I was especially careful not to meet them through the medium of either Serbs or Italians. From these conversations I learned that the Montenegrins are divided into three factions. The first of these, and the smallest, desires the return of the King. It represents the old conservative element and is composed of the men who have fought under him in many wars. The second faction, which is the noisiest and at present holds the reins of power, advocates the annexation of Montenegro to Serbia and the deposition of King Nicholas in favor of the Serbian Prince-Regent Alexander. The third party, which, though it has no means of making its desires known, is, I am inclined to believe, the largest, and which numbers among its supporters the most level-headed and far-seeing men in the country, while frankly distrustful of Serbian ambitions and unwilling to submit to Serbian dictatorship, possesses sufficient vision to recognize the political and commercial advantages which would accrue to Montenegro were she to become an equal partner in a confederation of those Jugoslav countries which claim the same racial origin. Most thoughtful Montenegrins have always been in favor of a union of all the southern Slavs, along the general lines, perhaps, of the Germanic Confederation, but this must not be interpreted as implying that they are in favor of a union merely of Montenegro with Serbia, which would mean the absorption of the smaller country by the larger one. They are determined that, if such a confederation is brought about, Serbia shall not occupy the dictatorial position which Prussia did in Germany, and that the Karageorgevitches shall not play a rôle analogous to that of the Hohenzollerns. Montenegro, remember, threw off the Turkish yoke a century and three-quarters before Serbia was able to achieve her liberty, and the patriotic among her people feel that this hard-won, long-held independence should not lightly be thrown away.

It is not generally known, perhaps, that, when Austria declared war on Serbia in August, 1914, an offensive and defensive alliance already existed between Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro. We know how highly Greece valued her signature to that treaty. Montenegro, with an area two-thirds that of New Jersey, and a population less than that of Milwaukee, could easily have used her weakness as an excuse for standing aside, like Greece. Very likely Austria would not have molested her and the little country would have been spared the horrors of a third war within two years. But King Nicholas’s conception of what constituted loyalty and honor was different from Constantine’s. Instead of accepting the extensive territorial compensations offered by the Austrian envoy if Montenegro would remain neutral, King Nicholas wired to the Serbian Premier, M. Pachitch: “Serbia may rely on the brotherly and unconditional support of Montenegro in this moment, on which depends the fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion,” and took the field at the head of 40,000 troops—all the men able to bear arms in the little kingdom.

It has been repeatedly asserted by his enemies that King Nicholas sold out to the Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves neither sympathy nor consideration. As to this I have no direct knowledge. How could I? But, after talking with nearly all of the leading actors in the Montenegrin drama, it is my personal belief that the King, though guilty of many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not betray his people. I am not ignorant of the King’s shortcomings in other respects. But in this case I believe that he has been grossly maligned. If he did sell out he drove an extremely poor bargain, for he is living in exile, in extremely straitened circumstances, his only luxury a car which the French Government loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had he been a traitor to the Allied cause, the British, French, and Italian governments would continue to recognize him, to pay him subventions, and to treat him as a ruling sovereign. Certain American diplomats have told me that they were convinced that the King had a secret understanding with Austria, though they admitted quite frankly that their convictions were based on suspicions which they could not prove. To offset this, a very exalted personage, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention, but whose integrity and whose sources of information are beyond question, has given me his word that, to his personal knowledge, Nicholas had neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with the enemy.

“The propaganda against him had been so insidious and successful, however,” my informant concluded, “that even his own soldiers were convinced that he had sold out to Austria and when the King attempted to rally them as they were falling back from the positions on Mount Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that he had betrayed them. Yet I, who was on the spot and who am familiar with all the facts, give you my personal assurance that he had not.”

Nor did the King give up his sword to the Austrian commander at Grahovo, as was reported in the European press. When, with three-quarters of his country overrun by the Austrians, his chief of staff, Colonel Pierre Pechitch of the Serbian Army, reported “Henceforth all resistance and all fighting against the enemy is impossible. There is no chance of the situation improving,” King Nicholas, in the words of Baron Sonnino, then Italian Foreign Minister, “preferred to withdraw into exile rather than sign a separate peace.”

I may be wrong in my conclusions, of course; the cabinet ministers and the ambassadors and the generals in whose honor and truthfulness I believe may have deliberately deceived me, but, after a most painstaking and conscientious investigation, I am convinced that we have been misinformed and blinded by a propaganda against King Nicholas and his people which has rarely been equaled in audacity of untruth and dexterity of misrepresentation. To employ the methods used by certain Balkan politicians in their attempted elimination of Montenegro as an independent nation even Tammany Hall would be ashamed.

When, upon the occupation of Montenegro by the Austrians, the King fled to France and established his government at Neuilly, near Paris—just as the fugitive Serbian Government was established at Corfu and the Belgian at Le Havre—England, France, and Italy entered into an agreement to pay him a subvention, for the maintenance of himself and his government, until such time as the status of Montenegro was definitely settled by the Peace Conference. England ceased paying her share of this subvention early in the spring of 1919. When, a few weeks later, it was announced that King Nicholas was preparing to go to Italy to visit his daughter, Queen Elena, the French Minister to the court of Montenegro bluntly informed him that the French Government regarded his proposed visit to Italy as the first step toward his return to Montenegro, and that, should he cross the French frontier, France would immediately break off diplomatic relations with Montenegro and cease paying her share of the subvention. This would seem to bear out the assertion, which I heard everywhere in the Balkans, that France is bending every effort toward building up a strong Jugoslavia in order to offset Italy’s territorial and commercial ambitions in the peninsula. The French indignantly repudiate the suggestion that they are coercing the Montenegrin King.

“How absurd!” exclaimed the officials with whom I talked. “We holding King Nicholas a prisoner? The idea is preposterous. So far as France is concerned, he can return to Montenegro whenever he chooses.”

Still, their protestations were not entirely convincing. Their attitude reminded me of the millionaire whose daughter, it was rumored, had eloped with the family chauffeur.

“Sure, she can marry him if she wants to,” he told the reporters. “I have no objection. She is free, white, and twenty-one. But if she does marry him I’ll stop her allowance, cut her out of my will, and never speak to her again.”

Because it has been my privilege to know many sovereigns and because I have been honored with the confidence of several of them, I have become to a certain extent immune from the spell which seems to be exercised upon the commoner by personal contact with the Lord’s anointed. Save when I have had some definite mission to accomplish, I have never had any overwhelming desire “to grasp the hand that shook the hand of John L. Sullivan.” To me it seems an impertinence to take the time of busy men merely for the sake of being able to boast about it afterward to your friends. But because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I heard King Nicholas repeatedly denounced by Serbian officials with far more bitterness than they employed toward their late enemies and oppressors, the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager for an opportunity to form my own opinions about Montenegro’s aged ruler. The opportunity came when, upon my return to Paris, I was informed that the King wished to meet me, he being desirous, I suppose, of talking with one who had come so recently from his own country.