CHAPTER II

DUST IN THE EYES OF EUROPE

How spies work in Bosnia—Secret agents dog the stranger’s footsteps—My own experience—Fighting the spy with his own weapons—To “nobble” the foreigner—How an unfavourable book was purchased by the Austrian Government—Bribery of Press correspondents—A country worse than Russia—Some suggested reforms—The secret policy of Austria in the Balkans.

Spies are a necessity to autocratic Governments. Their business is to prevent the execution of plots, to discover all secrets affecting the security of the Prince or the State, and to supply information which may be used with advantage in diplomacy by their employers.

In Bosnia one of the largest items in the national expenditure is the sum expended upon espionage. Here, however, its character is very different from that described above. Its agents have no work in connection with political plots, for the crushed and humiliated people are far too feeble to conspire against the State. Their nefarious work is simply to spread intimidation and suspicion among the inhabitants, and to put them in defiance one against the other—indeed, to promote disorder, so that the force of Austria may be consolidated upon them.

This secret stirring up of internal strife by Austria is part of her policy, not only in Bosnia but in Servia and other parts of the Balkans. In the kingdom of Servia she is especially active to-day. Indeed, her unscrupulous methods are well illustrated by what occurred on the assassination of King Alexander and Queen Draga. Instantly after the assassination Austria mobilised her troops in all the garrisons on the Servian frontier, at Semlin, Pancsova, and Neusatz, with orders to enter Servian territory on the first sign of trouble. At the same time there was sent into Belgrade a perfect army of _agents provocateurs_—police spies, all of them—who promenaded the town crying to the crowd, “Come on! Come on! Let us wreck and demolish the Embassy of Austria, the supporters of the dynasty of Obrenovitch!”

The Servian people, fortunately, hesitated, though they all had good cause to make a demonstration against their bitterest enemies. Then the Minister of the Interior intervened, and put military guards at all the Legations. The agitators were arrested, and at their trial were proved beyond doubt to be actual agents of Austria, sent there to create disorder and so allow the Austrian troops to enter Servia!

And as such, with a strong protest to Vienna, they were ignominiously expelled.

In Sarayevo one half of the population is paid to spy upon the other half. Ask any man in Bosnia or in Herzegovina his opinion of his neighbour, and he will tell you to beware of him, as “he is a spy, and will denounce you to the authorities.” Ask the accused about his accuser, and he will tell you exactly the same thing. The whole place simply swarms with secret agents. In the country, peasants are given cows in payment for information about their neighbours, which is, of course, very often false. Stories are manufactured for the sake of reward. Expense is nothing. Agents follow you everywhere—in the town, in the country, and even beyond the frontier.

Oh yes! Bosnia, with all her natural beauties of scenery, is a truly delightful place under the present régime. The Government have their spies in private houses in the guise of domestics—for, by preference, they employ women and priests. Every pavement in the towns carries a spy, therefore silence here is certainly golden. The spy system is more complete and elaborate than either in Russia or in France, and a good deal more costly—all energies being devoted against the unfortunate Serbs.

In such an oppressed and persecuted country it goes without saying that the stranger is well looked after. From the moment I crossed the frontier of Herzegovina, to the moment I left Slavonia at Zimony, I was never lost sight of. Perhaps because I was known to be the bearer of Government despatches, I was suspected of being a British agent in disguise. My passport was never asked for until I desired to leave Austrian territory and cross the Save to Belgrade, yet with the marvellous secret system I was, while in Bosnia, a marked man. Each time I strolled in the streets of Mostar or of Sarayevo, a spy dogged my footsteps—sometimes a man, sometimes a woman—and my every movement was carefully noted.

A gentleman, apparently staying in the hotel and speaking excellent French, volunteered to be my guide about Sarayevo. He was a pleasant, nonchalant fellow, and represented himself to be a commercial traveller. I accepted his kind offices, well knowing him to be a spy, and was rather amused at the idea of the authorities providing me gratuitously with such an excellent cicerone. Wherever I went, so also did he. By all kinds of clever ruses he endeavoured to discover the reason of my visit; and I, in order to aggravate him, managed to elude his questions and so increase his suspicions. In my travels in various out-of-the-world corners of the Continent I have had a wide experience of spies and their ways, therefore I set myself to puzzle my inquisitive friend by adopting the self-same methods as he himself was adopting.

This continued for a couple of days, when he gave me up and disappeared. After that I was watched by two agents, who kept me always under close surveillance. I was more amused than annoyed, yet I confess I entertained constant anxiety regarding the confidential despatches that were in my possession, to be handed over to the King’s Messenger on his way from Constantinople to London at the earliest moment.

The traveller can only reach Sarayevo from three points: from the north from Bosnche-Brod or Banja-Louka, and from the south by Metkovitch. The local authorities of these three places know each traveller who passes, and to the stranger’s compartment there enters a pleasant person of engaging manner, who becomes his fellow-traveller, whiles away the tedious hours, explains the objects of interest along the route, and at the same time discovers a good deal about the new-comer. The secret agent will discourse upon the peace of the country, the prosperity of the people, the impartiality of the administration, and the rapid strides of progress being made on every hand. Meanwhile, news of the stranger has been telegraphed to Sarayevo, and when the polite traveller has parted from the stranger, the latter at once falls under a strict surveillance, of which he never dreams.

Should you let drop the remark that you have come to Bosnia to study the conditions of the country, then the attention paid to you will be prodigious. Kind friends, overflowing with information, will be your guides everywhere: they will conduct you to visit the authorities; they will pay for your cabs, give you luncheons at restaurants, and accompany you of an evening even to the door of your bedroom, until you will think the country a veritable El Dorado. Strangers who come to study are, of course, dangerous to the Administration, and therefore are carefully watched, and treated with unsurpassing generosity. Spies surround him, and the people, knowing those spies by sight, fear to approach him. In some cases a peasant or a citizen has approached a stranger and told him some plain truths—the truths I have learnt and written in these pages—and for doing so has invariably been sent to prison. These lessons have borne fruit, for nowadays nothing in the world will induce the Bosnian peasant to talk to a stranger. He is far too afraid.

If any serious criticism of Bosnian administration is published abroad, the authorities always seek to immediately purchase and suppress it, and many are the sums yearly paid in blackmail to unscrupulous writers who, knowing the truth, threaten to make exposure. I will give a case in point. Not very long ago there was in Prague published a brochure severely criticising the Bosnian policy, giving a description of the maladministration, and pointing out the disastrous state of the finances. A copy of this fell into the hands of M. Stakievitch, late director of the administration of the Bosnian local Government, and at that moment _en congé_. He at once apprised the local Government, who immediately sent Dr. Berx to Prague, with orders to suppress the publication of the book at all costs. The Government, after some brief negotiations, paid the sum of 100,000 florins (200,000 fcs.) for the destruction of the book and the silence of its author upon the state of Bosnian finance!

Then on the return of Dr. Berx no fewer than forty functionaries were arrested on charges of having given information to the author. Is not this sufficiently significant? Every newspaper in Bosnia and Herzegovina is well subsidised, and in return is compelled to chant the praises of the administration of the local Government, while all correspondents of foreign journals are equally the recipient of money from the State. In Bosnia the foreign newspaper correspondent lives well and grows fat.

Thus does Austria throw dust in the eyes of Europe.

With religion persecuted, education at a standstill, and the Press either gagged or suborned, Austria is slowly carrying out her policy of crushing the Serbs. In Bosnia you have no right to pray, no right to think; you must blindly obey and laud with flattery the very talons outstretched to rend you. It is a land where justice is a farce, where lies are told as truths, where the police persecute and murder, where the poor are oppressed, where the official grows wealthy, and where no man is secure from the false denunciation of spies eager for reward.

Should it be permitted in this twentieth century to one European people to crush another European people under the false pretext of civilisation? The Bosnians are neither negroes nor red-skins, but a civilised religious race, part of the great Serb nation, with the same right to live, the same right to religion, liberty, and to justice as the canting hypocrites of Vienna themselves. Why should they be exterminated?

So careful is the local Government of Bosnia not to allow the truth to leak out that up to the present little has been heard in Europe of the plain, unvarnished facts I have here put forward. But it is a subject that will come before the public ere long, and then we shall see if the Powers will still stand by and allow the destruction of a people who do not merit the hatred of their master.

Bosnia and Herzegovina are both rich countries; the soil is productive, the inhabitants are intelligent and apt in agriculture, industry, and commerce. The provinces are capable of moral and material expansion, if such were permitted, and there is no reason why the whole country should not be peaceable and prosperous.

Save André Barre, scarcely a writer has up to to-day had the courage to frankly criticise the rule of His Imperial and Royal Majesty the Emperor of Austria. So carefully are the facts concealed by the local authorities—who adopt the self-same tactics of Russia before the uprising—that strangers going to Bosnia see or hear practically nothing, and what they do see is all rose-tinted. What I have written here is, however, based upon my own observations, and upon what was told and proved to me by responsible persons in Mostar and Sarayevo, men who, living under the persecution of police and Government, risked their liberty in speaking with me. I have therefore put the facts plainly, in order that the English reading public may form their own conclusions.

The reforms urgently needed are many.

From the religious point of view, what is required is effective liberty of conscience, liberty of the cult, and the autonomy of the Serb Orthodox Church. From the moral point of view, the religions and customs of the different nationalities in Bosnia should be respected, liberty of education should be given as well as liberty of speech and liberty of the Press.

Regarded from an economic point of view, an immediate solution of the agrarian question is required; a readjustment of the unjust taxes; the establishment of schools of agriculture, as in Servia and Bulgaria; liberty of commerce and industry; and the establishment of poor-relief and poor-houses.

Many reforms are also required in the Administration. The citizens of the two countries should be eligible for employment in public offices; the public functionaries should be replaced by a more educated class; the police force should be purged and diminished; the costly spy system should be entirely abolished; a less corrupt justice should be introduced, and economy effected in the present wasted finances.

Yet how can one hope for reforms from a nation like Austria, who is working daily and unscrupulously to crush and exterminate the unfortunate Serbs under their rule, with one aim and one policy, namely, to extend their territory south through Novi-Bazar and Macedonia in order to obtain the port of Salonica?

Under the Treaty of Berlin the Powers have a right to interfere. If they would check Austria’s advances southward they should step in at once and claim, in the name of civilisation and humanity, justice for poor persecuted Bosnia. If half a dozen African negroes are maltreated by a Belgian rubber-hunter we throw up our hands in pious horror, lift our eyes heavenward, the papers are flooded with “atrocities,” often manufactured, and questions are asked in the House. Yet when we have here a whole country being vigorously and secretly crushed under our very noses, by a Power who intends to be one of our rivals in the East, we turn our heads in the opposite direction. Austria, we say, is a Christian country, and can do no wrong!

Go to the Balkans, and you will see what I have seen. You will then realise the clever, subtle influence of Austrian agents in Montenegro—where they persuade the pride of the country to emigrate, themselves paying the expenses, and thus sap the nation of its future population; in Northern Albania, where the priests in Austrian pay never cease to descant upon the benefits of Austrian rule; in Servia, where they are ever stirring strife; in Bulgaria, where their spies are ever active; and in Macedonia, where they secretly encourage the Greek bands to massacre the Bulgars.

Thus over the whole of the Balkans Austria has spread forth her wings, and her dark, threatening shadow is now across everything. The Austrian policy, shown so very plainly to all who travel in the Balkans, is to compete with Germany and become the paramount Power in the Peninsula, and obtain Montenegro, Albania, and Macedonia for herself, together with the much-coveted port of Salonica. From this latter point she already has a railway—constructed by the late Baron Hirsch—through Usküb, and joining the main Vienna-Constantinople line at Nisch, in Servia. Therefore part of the policy is to lay hold of the kingdom of Servia—though under the present régime there, and with a Government so firmly established as it is, there is, I think, very little to fear in this latter. Fortunately, Servia knows how to take care of herself.

Such is the programme of Austria—one of extermination and extension. And with these facts in view, indisputable to every traveller, surely it is in the interests of the Powers to remain no longer indifferent to the state of affairs in Bosnia.

Is it possible that the prophetic words of the Russian delegate Gortchakoff, speaking at the Berlin Congress, will ever come true, as so many of his prophecies have done?

He said, “The tomb of Austria is in the Balkans.”

SERVIA