Chapter 18

Very few schools were opened; for example the Vasojevi['c], who are the most numerous tribe not only of Montenegro but of all the Serbian lands, had to content themselves with one school, built in 1882. In 1869 there was established a seminary with three classes, that was afterwards converted into a high-school of four classes; but both of these were frequently closed, the true reason being that the Russian subsidies given for the school were spent on the various needs of Nikita's Court. (By the way, at one time when Montenegro had this one high-school and one hospital the three sons of Nikita were in possession of ten palaces.) In 1869 the Russian Empress caused a girls' college to be opened at Cetinje. It was one of the best institutions in the whole Peninsula; many Serb and Yugoslav girls, in addition to the Montenegrins, gathered at Cetinje. This college was the centre from which education and modern ideas spread out to the remotest corners of Montenegro; in 1913 it was obliged to close--the Court had long been looking at it with a very jaundiced eye.... Russia, Serbia, Italy, France and even Turkey offered free education to a certain number of young Montenegrins. But only the sons of the favoured families were able to get passports to go abroad; there was scarcely anything Nikita feared as much as education.... And if one asks why no patriot could be found to kill this prince one is given two reasons, the first being that his semi-secret treaty with the Austrians provided that they should come into Montenegro if he were killed, and secondly, because of the old-time custom of vicarious punishment. In 1856, for instance, Nikita's father attacked the Po[vc]ara Ku[vc]i, burned their houses, and is reputed to have slain more than 550 children, women and old men, including the septuagenarian grandfather of Tomo Oraovac, on the ground that these people had set up a kind of republic, independent both of Montenegro and of the Sultan and declined to pay the former any taxes. These measures were taken against them in the summer when most of the men were with their herds in the mountains. Three children survived. The Great Powers protested, consuls were sent and ultimately the Po[vc]ara Ku[vc]i, who had always helped the Montenegrins against the Turks, consented to pay taxes. It was for these reasons that Nikita was never assassinated.

THE GREAT STROSSMAYER

While the Serbs of Serbia and Montenegro no longer placed any trust in their princes, they had good cause to give more and more of their confidence to Strossmayer, who remained for more than half a century at Djakovo and never, on account of Magyar opposition, became a prince of the Church. He saw that the Star[vc]evi['c] policy with respect to Bosnia was a retrograde step, since it was causing the Serbs of that province, who until the occupation had been on good terms with the Catholic minority and the Serbs of Croatia--about 40 per cent. of the population--to stand very much aloof from the Croats. This state of things was naturally very pleasing to the Magyar imperialist Ban, Count Khuen-Héderváry, whereas Strossmayer's Yugoslav idea would have, owing to the intermingling of the two religions, a particularly favourable ground in Bosnia. It may be that Leo XIII.'s conception of drawing back the Slavs to Rome will remain a dream, but his and Strossmayer's policy of an alliance would have been a blessing to the Yugoslavs, and primarily in such provinces as Bosnia and Croatia. Negotiations were begun in 1882, between Strossmayer and the Serbian Government, with a view to establishing a Concordat. Serbia's Roman Catholic subjects--who, by the way, were not very numerous--would be placed under a patriotic priest depending not on Austria-Hungary but directly on Rome. And thus the fence between them and their Orthodox kindred would be gradually broken down. It would be foolish to assert that Strossmayer and his fellow-workers were able to make all the Yugoslavs dismiss their religious differences and remember their national affinities. Orthodox and Catholic Slav have for so long been divided that their approach to one another must often be slow and is liable to be interrupted by the manoeuvres of third parties. The Austrians were pretty successful, just before and during the Great War, in setting the Catholic and Orthodox Bosniak at each other's throat, and this antagonism will endure for a while in remote districts, such as in a certain village of the Sandjak where one found, in the summer of 1919, that the Catholic chief official and his wife were compelled to dismiss their Orthodox maid, since the villagers would not allow her to continue to serve in a Catholic house. But Strossmayer's statesmanship went a long way towards breaking down these barriers. "I have had to set my face against your mission," said von Khevenhüller, the Austro-Hungarian Minister, to Father Tondini when this Italian Barnabite, in whom Strossmayer had every confidence, came to Belgrade. "It is one of our principles, inherited from Schwarzenberg and Metternich," said the Minister, "that we should exercise a sort of control over the Serbian Catholics by having them under the jurisdiction of an Austrian Bishop." When Strossmayer visited Belgrade, for the purpose of conducting confirmations, he was driven at once, amid the booming of cannon, to the royal palace. And if the negotiations were allowed to drag it was obviously not due to any Orthodox fanaticism. Talking of fanaticism, one had instances in Bosnia and in Slavonia, not long ago, of Catholic priests who discarded Strossmayer and endeavoured to get their flock to use a different pronunciation from that of the Orthodox. It was because he strove to bring them together that the great bishop was so heartily disliked in Vienna and Pest. It had been decided in 1883 that, unless he made his political submission, he was to be interned at the Trappist monastery of Banjaluka. But if he were no longer in a position to spend the great resources of the bishopric--to say nothing of the removal of his personal influence--the Cause would have suffered enormously. Therefore he listened to the prayers of his friends and submitted. "Be glad," said he to Radi['c], the Croat patriot--"be glad that you are not a priest." His successful efforts to bring about the moral and intellectual awakening of the Yugoslavs were most unpopular in those two capitals. But on the wide Slavonian lands and far beyond them one would find the sturdy farmers imitating his new methods--his own estate was so large that he paid 35,000 florins a year in taxes. The tall, thin prelate might be walking with you in his garden, telling you with simple eloquence--and in Latin, for choice--how much he regretted that Doellinger had not submitted, as did his adored Dupanloup, to the dogma of Papal Infallibility, when one of those painted carts would rattle round the corner and in two minutes this father of his people would be deep in a technical discussion with the peasant as to which of the episcopal stallions or bulls he should borrow for the improvement of his stock. When Strossmayer consecrated the cathedral which he had built at Djakovo he exclaimed that in the hour of his departure from this world his last prayer would be for the union of his people. "Almighty everlasting God," he cried, "have mercy upon my brave people and unite them!" As a very old man, verging on the nineties, with brilliant eyes peering out from under a great forehead and physically so fragile that in walking from one room to another he had to put his arm round my neck, he was still in every direction working to this end. Six months earlier, in June 1903, Khuen-Héderváry had been recalled and, after his twenty years of oppression, the young men of Croatia, Catholic and Orthodox, in harmony with the Slovenes, were forming the Serbo-Croat Coalition. This was a great step in the direction of the Yugoslavia which Strossmayer did not live to see.

RELIGIOUS DISPUTES BETWEEN SERBS AND ROUMANIANS

Between Serbs and Roumanians of the Banat an ecclesiastical dispute was on the horizon. The Roumanian Orthodox body had suffered a severe loss through the Uniate Church, which captured many of the old Orthodox places of worship. Thus the famous little church of Huniadora, whose frescoes have been so glowingly described by Mr. Walter Crane, fell into their hands. This occurred in many cases at the wish of a small part of the congregation--and this part might consist of gipsies--whereupon the majority would be obliged to build themselves another church. The Greek Catholic Uniate Church was apt to lose its national Roumanian colouring and admit the Magyar language, which was occasionally resented by the faithful. Thus, as the Bishop of Caransebes (now the Metropolitan of Roumania) told me, there came into a church at Tergul, near Moros-Varshahel, a woman with a basket of eggs. When she perceived that she could not understand the language that was being used she put down her basket and uttered a loud curse, "May thunder and lightning strike this church!" she cried. And after the service had begun in a church near Grosswardein the wife of a clergyman pulled the priest's beard, while other ladies tore off his robes. Nevertheless this Uniate Church continued to exist and it was natural that the Orthodox Roumanians should seek in some way to compensate themselves for their losses. They had, as we have mentioned above,[59] been given hospitality by the Serbian Church and given the use of a monastery for the education of their priests. They now suggested that it would be well if the Serbs handed over to them a number of the Banat monasteries, and when the Serbs declined they started a great lawsuit at Buda-Pest. Professor Iorga, the historian, told me that he thought his countrymen were justified in that these monasteries were originally neither Serbian nor Roumanian, but Roman Catholic, being erected, in pursuance of their propaganda, by the French dynasty which the Hungarians had over them in the fourteenth century. Their nomenclature, said the Professor, is neither Serb nor Roumanian, they had no privileges from Serb or Roumanian princes and he believed that they only passed to the Serbs after having been abandoned by the Catholics. A line on p. 145, vol. i., of the _Monumenta Vaticana Hungariæ_ (Buda-Pest, 1887):

"Item Stephanus Sacerdos de Beesd solvit I fertonem"

appeared to lend colour to this view, for the name Beesd might have been slavized into Besdin and this might be the record of a payment made, between 1332 and 1337, to the Pope. It is only fair to say that the learned Magyar Jesuit who presides over the episcopal library at Gjula Fehérvár (Alba Julia in Roumanian) did no more than say that these surmises were possible. He was, as a matter of fact, much more interested in the political situation and in another book, the oldest printed Bible in Roumanian (of 1582 and in Slav characters) which, as he pointed out with half a sigh, was published by one Magyar through the liberality of another. The charming Bishop of Caransebes, as he sat with me one Sunday morning in his rose garden, did not receive Professor Iorga's idea with approbation. The Professor, he thought, was too fond of originality and he himself preferred to claim some of the monasteries on equitable instead of on historical grounds. They were founded after all, he said, for the people of the Banat and of those a majority were now Roumanian. (But in Caras-Severin, the chief stronghold of his countrymen, there are no ancient monasteries with the exception of some ruins. The Roumanians are not ostentatiously religious; they do not take kindly to the building of churches and in their portion of the Banat one usually finds churches of wood, some of these being 150 years old.) But another librarian, this time a German at Ver[vs]ac, poured cold water on Professor Iorga. Only one Roman Catholic religious house, he said, was founded by that French dynasty in the Banat and this was at Egres, near the Maro[vs], where the wife of Louis of Anjou built a church which remained Catholic and is now in ruins. The monastery of Besdin was founded in 1539 and a Serb-Slav psaltery which is kept there has, on p. 270, the following words: "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So that all people shall know when a beginning was made to build the monastery of Besdin. It was begun in the year 7058 from the creation of the world, that is 1539 from the Birth of Christ ... Joseph Milutinovi['c], archimandrate, built it, and his monks and the Christians helped him. Written by me: Leontic Bogojevi['c], administrator and monk." Beesd and Besdin, said the librarian, are from the same root, signifying that which has no bottom, an abyss, and the marshes in the Banat are numerous. The Beesd of the above citation is, said the librarian, a place between the rivers Temes and Berzava; Catholics were there in the fourteenth century, but the founders were Slavs. The burly archimandrate of Besdin, whose constitution had withstood twenty-seven years of marshes and mosquitoes, was extremely scornful of his adversaries' pretensions. "They wanted to prove that they built it! Not one stone, not a single stone! Then they argued that something was due to them as they had paid a part of the church taxes. We had invited them!" ... Most of the Serbs acknowledge that their monasteries in the Voivodina, as elsewhere, are not under present conditions as meritorious as in the Middle Ages when the people from twenty or thirty villages would meet there and listen to the blind guslar-player. Sometimes one of their few monks is a man of erudition, such as the well-known Bishop Nicholai Velimirovi['c] or Ruvarac the great historian, who in thirty years freed his monastery from debt and left large sums for charities. On the other hand we have the archimandrate Radi['c], who ruled several monasteries in succession; he never drove with less than four horses in his carriage and he drove so recklessly that between eight and sixteen horses were rendered worthless every year. The Radical party desired, after paying fixed salaries to the archimandrates and monks, to give two-thirds of the rest to clerical funds and one-third to schools. But the Austro-Hungarian Government had an understanding with the clerical party and prevented the public from exercising any control over these funds. The twenty-seven monasteries in the Voivodina, Syrmia and Croatia could have supported three Universities, so richly endowed are they with lands; the Roumanians did in fact with some of the revenues of their one monastery of Hodosh maintain the Arad seminary. There is no knowing what other monasteries the Roumanians would have secured if the Great War had not intervened, for the Pest judges knew every morning which of the two litigant countries their own country happened to prefer.

What the Serbs of the Banat had, in the political world, to contend against may be illustrated by some incidents of the career of Dr. Svetozar Mileti['c], who after having been a deputy for twenty-five years was charged with high treason for having sent volunteers into Serbia at the time of the Serbo-Turkish War; even if this was true it can scarcely be said to have constituted high treason against Hungary. The witnesses against him were two forgers, released _ad hoc_ from prison, his own witnesses were hundreds. He was condemned to six years' imprisonment, at the expiration of which he was in such a state that he had to be transferred to an asylum, where he died. The pitiful dodges of the dominating Magyar minority are by this time well enough known; it was their argument that certain villages, say ten miles from a town, had to give their votes in that town, while intervening villages of other nationalities were obliged to present themselves at a booth twenty miles in another direction, because if such methods had not been employed then the more ancient and more reputable Magyar culture would have been entirely swamped by the wicked non-Magyars. Thus the three million Slovaks in Hungary were represented at Buda-Pest by three deputies.[60] "Hungary," says the delicious Aubrey Herbert, M.P., in the _Oxford Hungarian Review_ (June 1922), "Hungary was situated amongst reactionary neighbours, and any loosening of her hold upon the non-Magyar population threatened her very existence. The path of spectacular liberalism was closed to her...." The ballot was supposed to be secret in the towns, where the Magyars could hope to exercise an appropriate control; but even in the towns they thought it more advisable to take no risks. Some of the dead were permitted to vote; but only if they were faithful Magyar dead. And in Dr. Mileti['c]'s constituency no arrangements were made to ferry the living--on the large lake of Mutniatsa the boats were hidden and the voters were compelled to swim across.

* * * * *

Although a great many of his subjects charged Prince Milan with preferring his own and the dynasty's interests to those of the State, they should have taken into account that the Berlin Congress had left their country in a more than difficult economic and political situation. Not only were Serbia and Montenegro kept apart, but in the intervening territory, the Sandjak of Novi Bazar, permission was given to Austria-Hungary, of which she soon availed herself, to establish garrisons. Serbia was now almost encircled by the Austrians and there remained only two inconvenient routes for the exportation of her products to other countries: down the Danube, with the very high tariffs imposed by the Berlin Congress, or by the line to Salonica, which was in the hands of Austrian capitalists and ran through Turkish territory. Therefore Serbia's independence, political and economic, existed at Austria's pleasure; and this must be remembered in extenuation of the secret Treaty[61] (June 23, 1881) whereby the Serbs bound themselves for ten years to abstain from any propaganda or other activity against the Habsburgs and to make no political treaties with other Powers without the knowledge and consent of Vienna. Nor were any foreign troops or volunteers to be allowed into Serbian territory. In return for this the Emperor undertook to recognize Prince Milan as King whensoever he might be pleased to assume that dignity (as he did on March 6, 1882), to protect his dynasty from the Karageorgevi['c] and to favour his acquisition of as much as possible of the valley of the Vardar. The grateful Prince affirmed this Treaty (on October 24, 1881) by a still more emphatic declaration by which he appears to have constituted himself a vassal of the Emperor. This infuriated the young politicians whose radical ideas, mostly imbibed at Paris and Geneva, were not balanced by the moral and social discipline which is the fruit of an advanced civilization. As a result Serbia was given over to chaos.... When Prince Alexander of Battenberg aquiesced in his Bulgars annexing eastern Roumelia it was said that he was violating the Berlin Treaty, but it is now known[62] that, in spite of the 1879 Treaty, this union had been foreseen and approved by Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1881. Nevertheless Austria, which hoped to embroil and enfeeble the two Slav States, urged Milan to declare war against the Bulgars, and this he did the more willingly as he fancied that it would divert from him the enmity of so many of his subjects; but this war was such an unpopular enterprise that the King did not dare to mobilize fully, and with his available forces indifferently equipped and badly led, the upshot was that the Bulgars were victorious. While Austria had thus been the Serb's evil genius, Russia, by withdrawing all her officers from Bulgaria, again acted in a manner which seemed scarcely to allow her and others, in 1915, to denounce the Bulgars for their ingratitude. (The Russians, as a subsequent Russian Minister at Sofia relates,[63] so completely mishandled the situation in the early days of Bulgaria's freedom that they had only themselves to blame for the invitation to Ferdinand of Coburg which was made with the express purpose of thwarting Russian aggression.)

THE BURDEN OF THE OBRENOVI['C]