It is a strange Desire to seeke Power and to lose Libertie. . . . The standing is slippery, and the Regresse is either a Downefall, or at least an Eclipse. Which is a Melancholy Thing.—BACON.

I went to Serbia as a tourist, but, thanks to the misdirected energy of the Serb police, was made aware for the first time of the unseen forces which were at work in the Balkans. What these forces were we must now consider. Since the end of the seventeenth century Russia and Austria had competed for expansion into the Balkans. Each had gone to war nominally, "to free Christians from the Turkish yoke," but actually in order to annex these populations themselves. Each, by promoting risings in Turkish territory and by financing rival Balkan sovereigns, had silently and ceaselessly worked towards the same goal.

In the great game Montenegro, as we have seen, hall been Russia's pawn since the days when Peter the Great sent his Envoy to Vladika Danilo. Montenegro had become Russia's outpost in the West. Russia was Montenegro's God—and her paymaster. "The dog barks for him that feeds him!" says an Albanian proverb. Montenegro barked, and bit too, at Russia's behest.

Serbia throughout the nineteenth century was rent by the ceaseless blood-feud between the Karageorgevitches and the Obrenovitches, a history bloody as that of the Turkish Sultans, the results of which are not yet over—one that has so largely influenced the fate of yet unborn generations that we must understand its outlines in order to follow modern events.

Serbia, at the end of the eighteenth century, was bitterly oppressed, not so much by the Turkish Government, as by the Jannisaries, the insolent and all powerful military organization which had broken loose from restraint and was now a danger to the Turkish Empire. The Jannisaries actually elected their own chiefs and were semi-independent. And of all the Jannisaries of the Empire none were more opposed to the Sultan than those of Belgrade. Their commanders called themselves Dahis and aimed at complete government of the province.

It is a singular fact, and one which should be emphasized, that the Jannisaries were themselves to a very large extent, of Balkan origin. Their ancestors had been either forcibly converted or had, as was not infrequent, voluntarily adopted Islam. The Moslem Serb was a far greater persecutor of the Christian Serb than was the Turk. We find that the leading Dahis of Belgrade hailed from Focha in the Herzegovina.

Sultan Selim in, terrified of the growing power of these Jannisaries, sided with his Christian subjects, sent troops against them, and forcibly evicted them from Belgrade. A Turkish Pasha, Hadji Mustafa, was appointed as Governor, whose rule was so just and beneficent that the land was soon at peace and the grateful Serbs called him "Srpska Majka"—the Serbian Mother.

But the Jannisaries had retired only as far as Widin which was commanded by the brigand leader Pasvanoglu, whose savage hordes were devastating the country-side in defiance of the Government. Together they attacked the Serbs. Hadji Mustafa, true to his trust, organized the Serbs to resist. The Serbs were now by no means untrained to war, for many had served in the Austrian Army during the late campaigns against the Turks. But the spectacle of a Turkish Pasha inciting Christian rayah against an army of Moslems aroused the wrath of the Faithful throughout the Empire. They demanded the deposition of Hadji Mustafa and the re-admission of the Jannisaries to Belgrade. The Sultan was unable to resist and the Jannisaries returned. Thirsting to avenge the humiliation of their forced retirement they assassinated Hadji Mustafa, seized power, and to prevent a further Serb rising, fell upon the Serb villages and murdered numbers of the headmen. By so doing they precipitated what they wished to prevent.

The Serbs rose in mass and called Karageorge, grandfather of the present King Peter of Serbia, to be their leader. He refused at first, saying that his violent temper would cause him to kill without taking council first. But he was told that the times called for violence. Born of peasant stock about 1765, his upbringing was crudely savage; his ferocity was shown from the first.

In 1787 a panic seized the peasants when an Austrian attack upon the Turks was expected. To save themselves and their flocks from the approaching Turkish army they fled in crowds, hurrying to cross the Save and finding safety in Austria. George's father was very reluctant to go, and on reaching the river would not cross it. George, in a blind fury, refusing either to stay himself and make terms with the Turks, or to leave his father behind, snatched the pistol from his sash and shot the old man down. Then, shouting to a comrade to give his father a death-blow, for he was still writhing, George hurried on, leaving behind him a few cattle to pay for the burial and the funeral feast.

On his return later to Serbia he took to the mountains for some time as a heyduk or brigand.

Such was the man called on to lead the Serbs. Rough and completely uneducated, he yet possessed that strange power of influencing men which constitutes a born leader. His practice as a heyduk and a natural capacity for strategy enabled him for long to wage successful guerrilla warfare, which baffled the Turks. The dense forests and the roadless mountains were natural fortresses of which he made full use.

Alternating with astonishing outbursts of energy and ferocity, were periods of sullen silence during which he sat for days without speaking, gnawing his nails. That there was a strain of insanity in his genius appears certain—an insanity which has reappeared in his great-grandson and namesake who, subject to similar fits of loss of control, used to terrorise the populace by galloping furiously through village streets, and was finally forced to abdicate his right to the throne in March 1909, after the brutal murder of his valet. A case worth the study of students of heredity.

A contemporary of old Karageorge thus describes him:

"His bold forehead bound with a tress of black hair gave him a look rather Asiatic than European. . . . This man was one of the bold creations of wild countries and troublous times—beings of impetuous courage, iron strength, original talent and doubtful morality."

The might of his personality overcame all obstacles. He appealed to Russia for aid, and a Russian Minister was sent to Serbia along with money and men. He freed and ruled over a large tract of land. But his rule was not much milder than that of the Jannisaries, and his harsh tyranny made him many enemies. When his wrath was once aroused it was unrestrainable, and he struck down and killed many of his own followers. Discontent arose and spread.

The Serbs divided into many parties, each with rival leaders. Russia, who had supported Karageorge, was now herself engaged in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. The Russian regiment which had been quartered at Belgrade, left the country. The turn of the Turks had now come. They attacked the Serbs in force. With no aid from without to be hoped for, the country was in greater danger than ever. But even common danger, as history has again and again shown, does not suffice to cure that fatal Slav weakness—the tendency to split into rival parties led by jealous chieftains. There was no union among the Serb forces now, at the very hour when it was most needed. And for some never explained reason Karageorge failed to appear.

His Voyvodas struggled with the foe and were beaten back and suddenly, in October 1813, Karageorge, the chosen leader of the Serbian people, fled into Austria with a few followers, without even having struck a blow.

This tragic and most fatal failure was due in all probability, to a mental collapse to which his unstable and unbalanced nature would be peculiarly liable.

The Austrians promptly interned both him and his men in fortresses, but released them at the intercession of Russia, and they retired into Bessarabia.

Meanwhile, his place was taken by Milosh Obrenovitch, also a peasant, who led the Serb rising of 1815 with such success that he was recognized as ruler, under Turkish suzerainty, of a considerable territory. And as a ruler, moreover, with hereditary rights.

It is said that Russia never forgave the Obrenovitches that they were appointed by the Sultan and not by herself. Scarcely was Milosh well established when Karageorge returned from his long absence.

The break-up of the Turkish Empire had begun. The Greeks were in a ferment. Russia supported them. The Hetairia had been formed and a plan was afoot for a great simultaneous rising of Greeks and Serbs and Roumanians. Karageorge was to be one of its leaders.

But Milosh was in power, id did not mean to relinquish it. And he dreamed already of wide empire. He examined the question with sangfroid and decided that if the Greek revolution succeeded in its hopes, an Empire would be reborn in the East which would regard Serbia as its province and might be more dangerous than the Turk. Did not the Greeks, in the fourteenth century, call the Turks to Europe to fight the "Tsar of Macedonia who loves Christ?" Milosh remained faithful to the Turk, saying "Let us remain in Turkey and profit by her mistakes." He suppressed all pro-Greek action, executed twenty pro-Greek conspirators, and exposed their bodies at the roadside, and—in an evil hour for Serbia—had Karageorge assassinated and sent his head to the Pasha.

From that day onward the feud between the two houses raged with ever increasing fury. Until to-day every ruler of Serbia has been either exiled, murdered, or has had his life attempted.

"Family tradition comes first" says Vladan Georgevitch. "All the families of Serbia have, from the beginning, been followers of either the Karageorgevitches or the Obrenovitches." As time went on, the Obrenovitches became the choice of Austria, while Russia supported the Karageorges, and the puppets jigged as the Great Powers pulled the wires.

Milosh's subjects revolted against his intolerable tyranny and exiled him in 1839. His son Michel succeeded him, a cultivated man who strove to introduce Austrian educational methods. He was evicted in 1842, and the Karageorges again swung into power. Alexander, father of King Petar, was put on the throne, only in his turn to be chased out in 1858. And old Milosh came back and died in 1860 —fortunately for himself perhaps—for he was the same old Milosh, and his renewed tyranny was again provoking wrath.

Serbia had now come to a parting of the ways. There was a Prince of either line, and each had already occupied the throne. Michel Obrenovitch was re-elected. All agree that he was the most enlightened Prince that had as yet occupied the throne, but the blood of old Black George was unavenged, and Michel paid the penalty. He and his cousin, Madame Constantinovitch, and his aide-de-camp were all assassinated on June 10, 1868, in the Park near Belgrade. So set were the murderers on fulfilling their task that they hacked their victim's body with forty wounds. The complicity of Alexander Karageorgevitch and his son Petar—now King —was proved. The plot was engineered by means of Alexander's lawyer, Radovanovitch. The Shkupstina hastily summoned demanded the extradition of the two Karageorgevitches of Austria, whither they had fled, and failing to obtain it outlawed them and all their house for ever and ever, and declared their property forfeit to the State. Fifteen accomplices arrested in Serbia were found guilty and executed with a barbarity which roused European indignation. We can scarcely doubt what would have been the fate of the two principals had they fallen into Serb hands. The grotesque fact remains that it is to Austria that King Petar owes not only his crown, but his life!

It was an odd fate that thirty years afterwards gave me an introduction to a relative of one of the conspirators, and almost caused a fight to take place over me at Kraljevo.

The Karageorgevitches having been exiled by the unanimous vote of the Shkupstina for ever—till next time—Milan, cousin of the murdered Michel, succeeded him on the throne at the age of fourteen. And there was a Regency till 1872.

Milan was a handsome dashing fellow with not too much brain—a typical, boastful, immoral Serb officer.

As a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, in which, however, he displayed little military skill, Serbia was raised from a principality to a Kingdom.

Russia at this time showed little or no interest in Serbia. She was devoting all her energy and diplomacy to the creation of a big Bulgaria, which should ultimately serve her as a land-bridge to the coveted Constantinople. She had no use then for Serbia, and was no friend of the Obrenovitches, and in the Treaty of San Stefano dealt so scurvily by Serbia that Prince Milan opposed the Treaty and said he would defend Nish against Russian troops if necessary.

At the Berlin Congress, Milan called for and obtained a good deal more land than Russia had allotted him—territory which was, in fact, Bulgar and Albanian. He, moreover, made a Convention with Austria by which the frontiers and dynasty of Serbia were guaranteed. One of those many "scraps of paper" which fill the World's Waste Paper Basket.

It was now plain that Milan, if allowed to gain more power, would be an obstacle to Pan-slavism in the Balkans.

The claims of the disinherited and exiled Petar Karageorgevitch began to be talked of. Nikola Pashitch, hereafter to be connected with a long series of crimes, now appears on the scenes. Of Macedonian origin, he soon became one of Russia's tools, and was leader of the so-called Radical party, though "pro-Russian" would be a more descriptive title. It was "radical" only in the sense that it was bent on rooting up any that opposed it. Things began to move. In 1883 Prince Nikola married his daughter to Petar Karageorgevitch, and that same year a revolt in favour of Petar broke out at the garrison town of Zaitshar. Oddly enough it was at Zaitshar in 1902 that I was most pestered by the officers to declare whom I thought should ascend the Serbian throne should Alexander die childless. By that time I was wary and put them off by saying "The Prince of Wales!"

I have often wondered how many of those suspicious and swaggering officers were among those who next year flung the yet palpitating bodies of Alexander and Draga from the Konak windows while the Russian Minister looked on.

The revolt of 1883 was quickly crushed and Pashitch, along with some other conspirators, fled into Bulgaria for protection. Others were arrested in Serbia and executed. The pro-Russian movement was checked for a time.

Pashitch owed his life to Bulgaria, and not on this occasion only. His subsequent conduct to that land has not been marked with gratitude.

t Petar Plamenatz never ceased quibbling over the French translation of the terms, and inciting the tribesmen to quite impossible demands. Repeated messages brought me varying dates for the commencement of hostilities. Montenegro meant war. But Montenegro could not wage it alone. Which Power was shoving her? I was fairly certain that Bulgaria and Montenegro had some sort of an engagement, and learnt later I was right.

Baron de Kruyff, Dutch correspondent and head of the Foreign Journalists Society which visited Podgoritza in 1911, told me that when he left Montenegro in June (1911) King Nikola, on hearing he was going to Sofia, asked him to convey a letter thither, addressed to a private individual, and to open it on crossing the frontier. On doing so he found it contained another addressed to King Ferdinand, with instructions to deliver it into the King's hands. He had an audience, and did so. The letter contained the first proposals for a Bulgar-Montenegrin agreement, by means of which each monarch should aid the other to achieve his ambitions, and Nikola hoped to reign at Prizren. King Ferdinand favoured de Kruyff with a long audience, and asked him to convey the reply. De Kruyff objected that his sudden return to Cetinje without obvious reason would excite suspicion. It was therefore arranged that he should meet Popovitch as Montenegrin envoy in Trieste. Which he did. I wonder if Russia knew this? I fancy not.

Russia was now working for a Balkan Alliance, which, though primarily directed against Austria, had for its ultimate goal the acquisition of Constantinople. Nicholas II of Russia, like Nikola I of Montenegro, was obsessed with a city. Russia was recuperating rapidly. She was financed by France, and sure of military aid. She had entangled England. The secular enmity of the Balkan peoples was the one weak spot in her plan. To amend this she transferred Hartwig, Russian Minister in Teheran, to Belgrade.

He had successfully worked the ruin of Persia. He was now to compass that of Turkey. Hartwig was a man to stick at nothing. Dr. Dillon tells us that his methods were so abominable that even the Russian Foreign Office protested. "People asked how he dared oppose the Foreign Office on which he depended. The answer was that he was encouraged, and put up to it by the Tsar. When at last M. Izvolsky extracted permission to recall the rebellious minister, Nicholas II decorated him, and told him that his was the only policy Russia could pursue with dignity and profit. . . . Thereupon he entrusted Hartwig with the most important post in the Balkans."

De Schelking, secretary to the Russian Legation in Berlin, gives a picture of Hartwig's immense influence: "Shortly after his arrival in Belgrade, Hartwig created a most exceptional position for himself. The King, Prince Alexander, Pashitch, none of these made any decisions without consulting him first. . . . Every morning his study was besieged by Serbian statesmen who came to ask advice" (The Game of Diplomacy). It is amusing to compare de Schelking's account with an order from Pashitch, November 14, 1912: "Take notice: Our Ministers in Foreign lands are to be informed that Hartwig has not visited the King, and that he comes to the Foreign Office less than any of the other Ministers." According to de Schelking he had no need to visit anybody. But I fancy Kings Ferdinand and Nikola made their plans without consulting him. Nor can they be blamed for so doing.

The alleged object of Hartwig's Balkan alliance was to protect the Balkan peoples from further annexation. It was, however, difficult to unite Bulgaria and Serbia, and would have been harder yet had King Ferdinand known that Russia had already told Serbia that she had no use for a Big Bulgaria. Perhaps neither the Serbo-Bulgar nor the Bulgar-Greek alliances would have been effected, but for the co-operation of Mr. J. B. Bourchier, whose honesty was beyond all doubt, and who was trusted where a Balkan envoy would not have been. He too, unfortunately, was unaware that Bulgaria's fate was already sealed by Russia, and that England was too deeply tangled in Russian intrigue to be able to stand for justice.

The Serbo-Bulgar alliance was signed on February 29, 1912, and was to be in force till December 1920. The two parties were "unconditionally and without reservation to mutually aid each other with all the forces of the State if one or more other States should attack one of these countries" and "to support one another with all force should any one of the Great Powers make the attempt to forcibly acquire even temporarily any territory situate in the Balkans, and at present under Turkish suzerainty." Russia meant none but herself to put a finger in the Balkan pie.

Russia seems to have been doubtful about Montenegro, for the Serb minister in Petersburg reports (February 17, 1912): "As regards the visit of the King of Montenegro, and as regards Austro-Hungarian relations . . . in pursuance of what was intended King Nikola was given some energetic counsel to pursue a quiet line of conduct, and not to let himself in for any adventures." Serbia now was on very friendly terms with the Greeks and helping them to kill Bulgar komitadjis in Macedonia. Montenegro, feeling secure in her arrangements with Bulgaria, was induced to declare alliance with Serbia. The Bulgar-Greek alliance, the hardest to make, was finally negotiated.

These things were all secret, but the air was tense with them. We were told we should know definitely if it were peace or war when King Nikola returned from Petersburg in February. Prince Danilo at the same time went to Sofia. We were told to be ready for war in April. Gavrilovitch, who was Serb Minister at Cetinje, came to Scutari with young M. Cambon, a significant combination, and was visibly relieved when I told him I was doing all I could to keep peace in the mountains Serbia, as we know now, was acting strictly as Russia's tool, as shown by official documents, and Russia wished to postpone the Balkan crash till she was ready. But having made the Balkan Alliance, it took the bit in its teeth. Daily I saw Montenegro shoving towards war, and the Turks steadily fortifying Scutari.

On March 10th Petar Plamenatz was suddenly transferred to Constantinople, and replaced by Jovan Jovitchevitch, who naively said he had been instructed to ask me for maps and information. Petar went to Constantinople, as he afterwards boasted, for the express purpose of declaring war. "Ma guerre a moi!" he called it. "Car c'est moi qui l'a fait."

At the last moment, when war was seething, Hadji Avdil, Minister of the Interior, started with a Reform Commission through Turkey. But he only precipitated the end. A narrow-minded man, filled with inordinate conceit of his own importance, he passed with difficulty through Kosovo vilayet and arrived in Scutari on March 10th. Instead of pacifying the excited Maltsors, he refused to meet them on any terms which they considered safe. And he left matters far worse than he found them. That he, too, expected war was evident, for he appointed the military commandant Hussein Riza as Vali.

The Albanians of Kosovo again rose in revolt. Ise Boletin again led them. They triumphed everywhere, and this time entered Uskub, where their conduct was admitted to have been exemplary by the Foreign Consuls. The Turks, finding that the Albanians were about to march on Monastir, called a truce, and agreed to recognize the four vilayets of Janina, Scutari, Kosovo, and part of Monastir, as an autonomous Albanian province. The immediate result of the Albanian victory was the overthrow of the chauvinistic Young Turk party and the appointment of a more moderate Cabinet. The effect of this coup on the Balkans was electric. Each Balkan State had pegged out for itself a slice of Albania. Delenda est Albania was the one point on which they agreed. Heedless of Russia, they hastened to make war before Albania should have time to consolidate.

War preparations hurried on. Montenegro worked upon the discontent caused by Hadji Avdil. King Nikola had returned from Russia, but had not fixed the date of war as we had expected. I thought perhaps Italy was shoving, in order to assist her war in Tripoli, which still dragged on. But in a few weeks' visit to Rome I had a long talk with San Giuliano, and perceived clearly that Italy was not urging Montenegro.

There seemed but one possible explanation, and that was that an understanding had been come to between Greece and Bulgaria, and that Montenegro therefore felt certain of the co-operation of the whole of the Bulgar army. In Rome, Popovitch, the Montenegrin Minister, had told me, when announcing that General Martinovitch had been made War Minister: "This means war."

Returned to Scutari, I went straight to the Greek consul and in the middle of a chat on nothing particular, asked: "A propos, Monsieur, is it true your Government has signed a treaty of alliance with Bulgaria against Turkey!" The poor little man almost leapt from his chair. "Mademoiselle!" he stammered, "you are surely aware there are things political of which one may not speak." I begged him to say no more. More was unnecessary. War I knew was now certain. The secret alliance had, in fact, been signed on May 16th.

Next day a frontier fight took place, provoked by Montenegro. It lasted seven hours. Every one cried: "It is war!" The Montenegrin Consul was greatly agitated. He knew what his country was doing, and cried: "Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, I hope you will not write a book for five years! You know too much."

To avoid being besieged in Scutari I left for Podgoritza at once, and found Podgoritza so certain of war that I was begged to stay and see the first shot fired. Why war was then postponed I never made out. Perhaps Montenegro had to wait for Bulgaria.

Cetinje also expected war, and asked me to collect funds for the wounded. The King begged me to prevent the Maltsors rising yet, which showed me he again intended to make a tool of them. Kol Mirashi, one of the pluckiest of the Maltsor patriots, told me they all knew this, and meant to rise at once to show Europe they were fighting for independence, and not for Montenegro.

I said: "Why not keep quiet and develop autonomy?" He replied:
"Impossible. The Montenegrin-Austrian plan is now complete, and will
soon be in motion. We must act independently. King Nikola went to
Russia for help. They refused him. So he has joined with Austria."

The Russian visit had been a fiasco. Lazar Mioushkovitch, who, with Dushan Gregovitch, had accompanied the King, told me: "It was terrible." Dushan Gregovitch—good looking, and remarkable rather for high stakes at bridge than common-sense—rashly allowed himself to be interviewed. Montenegro's grandiose schemes for conquest appeared next day in the papers. "The Tsar was furious. He threatened us even with annihilation! The King told him Dushan was known to be a liar, but it was of no use. It is finished! We have no more to expect from Russia!"

But war preparations hurried on. And some of the Bank employees told me that the King had raised a loan in Vienna "in order to start an Agricultural Bank!" They smiled.

Montenegro now tried to force the Turks to declare war by provoking two bad frontier fights near Kolashin and Andrijevitza, each time burning several Turkish blockhouses, and going far over the frontier. The Powers ordered the recall of the Montenegrin troops on August 5th, or they would have occupied the whole Berani district. I went to Andrijevitza on August 27th and stayed there a month. The big guns had already been taken up and were on the frontier, and ammunition was widely distributed, not only to Montenegrins, but also to the Serbs from Turkish territory, who came over the border at night. General Yanko Vukotitch was in command. There was a hospital full of wounded, and Andrijevitza was furious with the Government for having broken faith. They had been promised assistance, and had expected this fight to be followed at once by war. The whole district was strongly anti-Petrovitch, and in close touch with Serbia. Veshovitch, the frontier commandant, even said— when I suggested that a declaration of war might be followed by the re-occupation of the Sanjak by Austria, and a possible attack on Montenegro: "What then? Anything would be better than the Government we have down there!" and pointed Cetinjewards. Jovan Plamenatz assured me emphatically that Austria would not attack them. And he counted for certain on Bulgar support. The Turks, however, displayed great restraint, and did not declare war. Veshovitch then told me that as neither the efforts of Bulgaria nor Montenegro could force them to it, Montenegro herself would begin. He had bombs ready to spring another Turkish blockhouse, and so soon as he had finished the big bread-oven for the army would do so, and cross the border. Sniping, as I saw myself, was already going on daily.

A strange tale has been circulated that Montenegro mobilized but four days before war broke out. The above facts show this to be quite a mistake. Montenegro had been preparing over a year, and could have begun in July.

I hastened to Cetinje to tell Count de Salis what was happening. He replied that the Powers were doing nothing useful, and he feared it was now too late.

I went to the Russia Institut. It was October 3rd. Sofia Petrovna was happy and excited at the prospect of war; foretold the end of the Turk and the triumph of the Holy Orthodox Church, to which she was heart and soul passionately attached. While we were discussing the situation, in hurried Yougourieff, one of the Russian officers attached to the Legation, and superintending the Military Cadet School financed by Russia, who, though she was no longer supporting Nikola, was actively training young Montenegrins as cannon-fodder.

He stopped short on seeing me; hesitated; said something in Russian.
Seeing I was de trop, I rose to go. Sofia Petrovna bade me stay.
"Mademoiselle," she said, "knows the whole political situation. You
can speak before her."

He asked me doubtfully: "Will you promise not to send off what I say to a newspaper?" I promised.

He sat down and began hotly in French to Sofia: "The Montenegrins are absolutely mad! You must use all your influence to stop them. They must not make this war! We have already told them so most severely. They are mad, I tell you—we cannot and must not have war now."

Sofia disagreed vehemently. All was ready. Things could not go on like this. "But I tell you," said Yougourieff excitedly, "absolutely there must be no Balkan war without Russia. And we are not ready." Sofia persisted: "My friend—we shall intervene. We said we would not in 1877—and we did. We shall now."

He became very serious. "I tell you this is not 1877. We cannot intervene. Unless Austria intervenes, which God forbid, we have no excuse for war. And nothing is yet ready. We are working as fast as possible, but there is much yet to do. These people must wait!" He was in deadly earnest, and plainly speaking the truth.

I asked quite suddenly: "And when will you be ready, Monsieur?"

"In two years from now, Mademoiselle, we shall be absolutely ready for our great war!"

It was October 3rd, 1912. Russia began her great war on August 1, 1914. Yougourieff was only two months out. No wonder he made me promise not to publish his remarks.

We learn now, from a report by Gruitch, Serbian Minister in London, September 8, 1911, to the Serbian Foreign Office, that the date was known to others as well. Speaking of the agreement about Morocco, he says: "The agreement has one result, that war will be postponed three or four years. . . . Both France and her allies are of opinion that the war—even at the expense of great sacrifice, must be postponed to a later time, that it to say, until the year 1914-15" (see Bogitchevitch, xi). No wonder that Gavrilovitch and young Cambon approved of my peace policy, and that Yougourieff was emphatic.

I went to General Yanko Vukotitch's house. Rakia was flowing. He, madame, his secretary, and others were in high feather. Yanko explained the plan of campaign to me. He was to lead the main division to Prizren. The two other divisions under Brigadier Boshkovitch and General Martinovitch, were to attack Scutari, and, having taken it, to join the triumphant Yanko at Prizren. No mention was made of when the other Balkan States were to come in. Bulgarian support was certain. Madame Yanko begged me to go with her husband and photograph his entry into Prizren.

The whole campaign, it appeared, was expected only to last a few weeks, and only 150 beds had been made ready at the hospital. The Montenegrins honestly believed that theirs was the finest army for its size in Europe.

General Martinovitch told me to go off to Podgoritza if I wanted to see the first shot fired. When I arrived there on October 6th all was ready and waiting. Another proof that the "four days' mobilization" tale is an error.

King Nikola had made up his outstanding quarrel with his relatives, and the Royal Voyvodas, Marko, Sharko, Bozho, and Gjuro all arrived. On the night of the 8th all sang: "Let me see Prizren!"

There was wild excitement. No one mentioned the Serbs. I asked, "What is the Serb army like?" They roared with laughter. "Oni chuvahjuf svinje Gospodjitza!" (They are swineherds, lady!) Next morning at 8 a.m. Prince Petar fired a gun into a Turkish camp across the frontier.

The tale of the war has already been told. Here only a few significant facts need telling.

Montenegro expected by rushing the first into war to occupy all the coveted districts, including Prizren, before Serbia was ready. Bulgaria would beat back the Turks, and Ferdinand and Nikita share the bulk of the peninsula. The Montenegrins recked nothing of the Serbs, but they miserably miscalculated. The Serbs reached Prizren before they did.

It is possible that Bulgaria and Montenegro, in fact, forced on the war. Both knew they would gain nothing by waiting for Russia. And if two of the Balkan States insisted on war the other two were bound to come in.

Montenegro's plan failed. Her first startling successes were due to the fact that the Maltsor risings had largely cleared the way for her. But as the Montenegrins began at once to treat Albanian territory as their own, and even loot Catholic Albanian houses, tension between the Maltsors and Montenegrins arose and increased. The Maltsors flung away the Montenegrin caps dealt out to them, withdrew in numbers, and soon consulted me as to whether they should attack the Montenegrins in the rear and cut them off. I begged them not to, as I then believed in the honesty of the Powers, and thought Albania would get justice. I regret it now.

South Albania also perceived that the self-styled "liberators" who poured in from Greece were but brigands intent on gain and murder, and on November 28, 1912, Ismail Kemal, who was in Constantinople when war broke out, managed with difficulty to return to his native town Valona, where he hoisted the National flag, proclaimed the independence of Albania, and formed a provisional government. It was hoped that by thus showing that Albania wanted freedom, and detached herself completely from the Turks, she would be respected by Europe. For the Balkan Allies had stated they were at war only with the Turks.

Official notification of Albania's resolve was sent to the Powers, and the Albanians hoped for sympathy, for it was they who in fact had aimed the first blow at Young Turk tyranny. The Greeks and Montenegrins and Serbs, far from sympathizing with Albania's wish for freedom, were incensed by it. The Greeks blockaded Valona, and cut the telegraph. The yacht of the Duc le Monpensier, however, ran the blockade, and took off Ismail Kemal, Gurikuchi, and that gallant chieftain Isa Boletin. He had fought on the side of the Serb till he saw what Serb victory would mean. The three pleaded their cause in the capitals of Europe. Europe meanwhile seethed with intrigue.

Russia's plans were overset by the premature outbreak of the Balkan war. But she was bent on getting all she could out of it for her side, and dragged France along with her. At the beginning of the Italy-Tripoli war, Izvolsky had written: "We must even now not only concern ourselves with the best means of preserving peace and order in the Balkans, but also with the matter of extracting the greatest possible advantage to ourselves from coming events."

The Powers called a Conference of Ambassadors in London to try to arrange a Balkan settlement. The Russian Ambassador in London reports, February 25, 1913, that England wishes peace and a compromise. Of France he states that M. Cambon "has directed himself in reality entirely to me. . . . When I recall his conversations and . . . add the attitude of Poincare, the thought comes to me that of all the Powers, France is the only one which, not to say that it wishes war, yet would look on it with least regret. . . . The disposition of France offers us on the one hand a guarantee, but on the other it must not happen that the war breaks out on account of interests more French than Russian, and in any case not under circumstances more favourable to France than to Russia."

The Conference inevitably became a struggle by Russia to obtain all possible lands for her proteges regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. Possession of land for a short time in the Middle Ages was given as reason for handing it over now.

"We might as justly claim Calais," I said to a Podgoritza schoolmaster, "for it was ours at the same time!"

"Why don't you," said he. "You have a navy?"

Sir Edward Grey, in the interests of justice, stood out against Slav rapacity, but Russia insisted on having either Scutari or Djakovo for the Slavs; though Djakovo, a town of between two and three thousand houses, contained but one hundred Serb families. Nor was there a single Serb village near it. All were Albanian Moslems or Catholics, but they were offered up as a living sacrifice on the altar of Russia's ambitions.

Montenegro meanwhile was very bitter. Yanko had failed to take Prizren. The population railed against the Government. The King had never recovered popularity since the bomb affair. Some of the condemned were still in prison.

Had Prizren been taken, things would have been very different. All Montenegro had been trained from childhood to sing: "Onward, onward, let me see Prizren!" and though the town consisted of nearly four thousand Albanian houses and but 950 Serb ones, Prizren had become a sort of insanity with them. Not only Prizren was not taken by Montenegro, but Scutari was not either. The population now turned with savage desire on Scutari, about which previously little had been said.

It had been believed that Constantinople would soon fall, and that the four Crown princes would enter it in state. Though how they could have been so simple as to think Russia would permit this, it is hard to understand.

The cry rose: "Russia helped us in 1877, why does she not come forward now?" Whatever the heads of the land knew, the rank and file had confidently expected Russian intervention.

Only by dragging in Austria could Russia's hand be forced. The Serbs endeavoured to goad Austria into action. News reached us that they had imprisoned and maltreated Prochaska, the Austrian Consul in Prizren, and Montenegro's delight and expectation were immense. His nose, said the Montenegrins, should be cut off just as though he were a Turk. Prochaska was, in fact, a brother Slav, a Czech, a capable man, whom I had met in 1908. Austria, it was confidently asserted at the inn dinner table, would be forced to fight—or for ever hide disgraced. Yanko Vukotitch's secretary, who had been up at Prizren, described to me with the greatest gusto what happened: "Oh, if you could but have seen what the officers did to Prochasko! They rolled him on the ground, spat in his face, tore the Austrian flag, did all that you can imagine that is most dirty upon him! Austria will never dare tell the world what we did to her consul. All Europe would laugh at her, and she would have to declare war."

"But why was this done?" I asked.

"Because he asked some dirty Albanians to his consulate."

"But a consul has the right to ask whom he pleases to his consulate.
It was his duty also to protect the Catholics."

"Very well. This is to teach Austria we have no need of her consuls. Austria is finished!" He, as all the Montenegrins, was furious at any attempt to save the Albanians from extirpation. All those who would not be Slavized were to be killed.

Austria would have been fully justified in making war on Serbia. And as Russia was not ready, and the Serbs engaged with the Turks, then was the moment to do it. But Germany was strong for peace. "Berlin had applied itself, above all, to calm the exasperation and desire for intervention at the Ballplatz," says Baron Beyens, Belgian Minister in Berlin. "The Archduke Ferdinand stated at Berlin that Austria had come to the end of the concessions it could make to its neighbour. The Emperor and his councillors showered upon him, none the less, counsels of moderation, which William II when conducting his guest to the railway station summarized in these expressive words: "Above all, no folly (pas de betises). . . . But to lead Austria to show itself more tractable, as it is believed here the Imperial Government has succeeded in doing, is not enough to pacify the conflict. It yet remains to bend the obstinate resistance of Serbia, and to effect a diminution of her demands. There was a rumour last week in the European Chancellories that M. Sasonov had ceased to struggle against the Court party, which wishes to drag Russia into war, though the soil of the Empire is undermined with revolution and military preparations are yet insufficient."

Prochaska, after some weeks of imprisonment, was released. Austria humbled her pride and accepted an apology. Prochaska was compensated and bound to secrecy. As my informant had foretold, Austria dared not tell her humiliation.

In Montenegro this produced a howl of contempt. Austria was finished; you could do what you pleased with her with impunity; the next war would be with Austria. Montenegro, on her side, thought well to insult her. Perhaps one more stab would make her fight, and then hurrah for Russia and Constantinople!

From the conquered districts came piteous reports of the hideous cruelties which Serb and Montenegrin alike were committing on the Albanian populations. Far from concealing their deeds, the conquerors boasted of them. A Serb officer nearly choked with laughter over his beer, as he told how his men had bayoneted the women and children of Ljuma. And one of the Petrovitches boasted to me that in two years no one in the conquered lands would dare speak "that dirty language" (Albanian). Moslem men were given the choice of baptism or death, and shot down. The women were unveiled, and they and the children driven to church and baptized. "In one generation we shall thus Serbize the lot!" they said. And later evidence proved that these reports were true. No Turk ever treated Armenian worse than did the two Serb peoples treat the Albanians in the name of the Holy Orthodox Church. Stanko Markovitch, Governor of Podgoritza, forbade the giving of any food to the starving people of the burnt villages, and told me flatly that they were doomed to die. Podgoritza exclaimed he was a fool to tell me this: "Now she will denounce us in England and America, too!" But they did not deny it. News came from Djakovo that Father Palitch, a plucky Franciscan, whom I had met there in 1908, had been bayoneted to death for refusing to make the sign of the cross in Orthodox fashion. The account of his death, given by Moslems and Catholics alike, was denied by the Montenegrin Government. Austria rightly insisted on an examination, for, as a Catholic, he was under her protection. This was made by a commission under Mgr. Miedia, Bishop of Prizren. Father Palitch's body was exhumed. It was proved that he was killed by bayonets, and the tale of the Montenegrins that he had been shot when trying to escape was devoid of foundation, there being no gunshot wounds in the body. The case was gone into fully. Austria a second time accepted apology and certain compensations, and failed to respond to provocation. No Russian intervention could now be expected. But the Slavs continued to cry: "Death to Albania," and it was the clear duty of Austria, and should have been also of Italy, to save it. The organ of the Serb Black Hand, Piemont, advocated the slaughter of all the inhabitants of Scutari, to punish them for having dared to resist. War, as is always the case, had aroused the worst passions of this—at best—semi-civilized race. But the Powers realized that Russia's unbridled greed on behalf of her Serb proteges must be checked.

Scutari was a town of 35,000 Albanian inhabitants. Montenegro was ordered by the Powers to withdraw from Scutari, and Serbia from Scutari and Durazzo. The Powers sent a naval demonstration, and prepared a collective Note. The Tsar ordered King Nikola to yield. But while he spoke publicly, the representatives of France and Russia did all they could to impede the delivery of the Note till too late, in order to give the Montenegrins time to acquire by fraud what they could not take by force. King Nikola and many of his subjects went about swearing aloud that if they did not get all they wanted they would set the whole of Europe on fire, and the combined Serb and Montenegrin armies would take Vienna.

The plans for the taking of Scutari by fraud had probably been long laid. In February came news that the gallant commander of Scutari, Hussein Riza Bey, had been murdered-and his place taken by the notorious Essad Pasha. Essad had been servant of the Old Turk, and then member of the Committee of Union and Progress. He aimed solely at power for himself, and now became servant of the Slav. Hussein Riza, seeing no help could be expected from the Turks, and determined not to yield the town to the Slavs, decided to hand it over to the Albanians. On his mother's side he was of Albanian blood. His plan was to communicate with all the tribesmen, and to arrange that they should fall on the besieging army in the rear while he and his army made a simultaneous sortie. He hoped thus to cut up the Montenegrin army and save the town. One of the Franciscan fathers and another man were to steal through the lines at night and arrange that the tribesmen should attack when Hussein Riza hoisted the Albanian flag on the citadel. That night after Hussein Riza had supped with Essad, he was shot dead a few yards away from the house by two men disguised as women. Osman Bali and Mehmed Kavaja, both servants of Essad, boasted afterwards they had done the deed. The town crier proclaimed that nothing was to be said about the murder and Essad, who was second, now took command, and soon entered into communication with the Montenegrins. As he knew only Turkish and Albanian, the letters went through the hands of the dragoman of the Italian consulate.

Italy played an oddly double game. She was bound by Treaty to assist Austria to preserve the integrity of Albania. But she did not object to King Nikola—father of the Queen of Italy—taking the town if he could. Italy was striving for influence in Montenegro, out of hatred of Austria, and failed to see that the South Slav, not the German-Austrian, was her real danger.

While France and Russia delayed matters, Petar Plamenatz drew up terms with Essad. Provided he evacuated the town in time for Montenegro to occupy it before the Powers could stop it, he was to leave with all honours, and a large supply of arms and food. He was also to aid the Serbs to reach Durazzo later, and as a reward was to be recognized as ruler in his own district of Tirana. A vile enough plot.

In order to deceive Europe, the Montenegrin Government telegraphed everywhere an account of a huge fight, in which Scutari had been taken, and thousands of Montenegrins wounded. But it was such a lie that they dared not give it either to The Times' correspondent or to me.

Essad withdrew. The Montenegrins entered without firing a shot. Thus was Scutari betrayed to her enemy. That the plot was known to the Italian Legation is clear, for the Italian war correspondents had the information from the Legation and hurried to the spot the day before.

King Nikola having obtained the town, tried to effect a bargain with
Austria by offering the Lovtchen in exchange for it. But I fancy the
Powers burked this.

The war was over. All through I used to say to myself: "War is so obscene, so degrading, so devoid of one redeeming spark, that it is quite impossible there can ever be a war in West Europe." This was the one thing that consoled me in the whole bestial experience. War brings out all that is foulest in the human race, and the most disgusting animal ferocity poses as a virtue. As for the Balkan Slav and his vaunted Christianity, it seemed to me all civilization should rise and restrain him from further brutality.

Of the saving of Scutari by the arrival of International forces under Admiral Sir Cecil Burney I have told elsewhere, and of the months of relief work in the villages burnt by Serb and Montenegrin, who had destroyed nearly every olive and fruit tree, and devastated the land.

But even when their army of saviours arrived the luckless Scutarenes were ordered to make no demonstration, and had to lay aside the flowers and flags they were joyfully preparing. In return for their obedience, their enemies reported in the papers that the "naval force was received without interest or enthusiasm."

The Montenegrins left, after having burnt and pillaged nearly a third of the bazar as vengeance.

At Podgoritza, where I went to fetch my store of relief stuff, I was set on by a number of officials at the parcel office. Furious at losing Scutari, they swore they would retake it and take Bosnia, too. I told them not to talk so foolishly. They cried: "We—the Serb people—have beaten the Turk. We are now a danger to Europe. We shall take what we please. The Serbs will go to Vienna. We shall go to Serajevo. We have the whole of the Russian army with us. If you do not believe it—you will see. We shall begin in Bosnia!" This was in May 1913. Yougourieff, by the way, was delighted at the capture of Scutari, and told me that the fait accompli could not be upset. "Except by accomplishing another," I said. The French and Italian legations, too, were indecently elated.

The Great Serbia party explained its plans freely. King Ferdinand was to be assassinated, and Bulgaria be suzerain to Serbia. There was to be war with Austria. Any one in Great Serbia's path was to be "removed." A friend, who was doing relief work at Uskub, told me that there the Serb officers talked incessantly of their next war with Austria, and were savagely extirpating the Bulgarian and Albanian populations from the newly annexed districts.

As for M. Krajewsky, the French Consul, he now "outjuggered" the Jugoslavs. "Never," he declared, "would France allow independent Albania to exist." The Russian Consul Miller, on the contrary, said he had written the strongest possible report against Montenegro to his Government, saying "that the Montenegrins by their disgraceful conduct in war had forfeited all right to it." His report did much to save the town.

The Dalmatian doctor, who had cured me of my long illness in 1910, was also most emphatically anti-Serb and Montenegrin, though a Slav himself, declaring them to be a set of savages who should not be allowed to take Albanian lands. This was the more noteworthy, as he had previously been by no means pro-Albanian.

On June 12th Mr. Nevinson arrived with Mr. Erickson, an American\ missionary who had done much work in Albania, and on the 15th we started to ride through the country to learn the state of things. As little has been written of Albania at this period I give a rsume of my diary.

June 15th.—Rode to Alessio, past the villages burnt by the Serbs.
Found the Albanian flag flying on the bridge of Alessio, and
Albanian guards. Town dead, inn ruined. District patrolled by Ded
Soko's men. Perfect order. Heard tales of Serb brutality to
prisoners.

Tuesday, 17th.—Provisional government of Kruja welcomed us in grand old house. The government, with old Kadi at its head, hoped anxiously for appointment of a Prince. Full of fear of Essad. Told sad tale of suffering. When war began they determined not to help the Turks, and declared independence in November, hoping thus to escape complications and take no part in the war. When the vanguard of the Serb army arrived they believed that, as there were no Serbs in the district, there was no danger. It is pathetic to note that the luckless Albanians at first believed that the Serbs and Montenegrins spoke truth when they said the war was in order to liberate their brethren. That whole districts of solid Albanian population would be seized, did not occur to them. They sat up all night and made bread for the Serb army, and treated them as guests. Later, they found their mistake. The Serbs treated them as conquered. . . . People were arrested by the wayside and hanged without trial. Three women were brought from villages to Kruja and hanged there. In all fifty quite innocent people suffered. The two Serb officers responsible for these atrocities were Dragoslav Voinovitch (artillery) and Dragoljub Petrovitch (infantry). . . . Left Kruja. Stopped at wattled shed for coffee. Han burnt by Serbs. Folk gathered and told how Serbs had swooped on village, robbed and arrested innocent people, taken them to Kruja and hanged them. All said they had expected the Serbs to be allies and not foes.

At Tirana (18th) we visited Essad Pasha, and were struck with the number of troops in the town. Essad explained they would leave by a Turkish transport. He spoke with contempt of Ismail Kemal and the provisional governmental Liter, at the house of Avdi bey, a number of refugees from Dibra arrived and told of the sufferings in the villages annexed by the Serbs. They asserted five hundred burnt-out destitute persons had been prevented by the Serbs from receiving help from the agent of the Macedonian Relief Committee. We arranged to send maize.

At Durazzo folk were very nervous about Essad Pasha, who alone had an armed force and was said to be in constant communication with the Greek Bishop at Duiazzo, a notorious intriguer.

The Italian consul reported: "Perfect order prevails, but the delay of the Powers must make for unsettlement." This, alas, was what certain Powers intended. At the time the journey had the glory of a plunge into a freed land rejoicing in liberty won after centuries of anguish.

At Kavaia and Pekinj we heard of the massacre of prisoners by the Serbs and the relief of the people that the invaders had gone, they hoped, for ever.

At Elbasan admirable order was being kept by Akif Pasha. Here we heard how the Serbs had imprisoned Albanian patriots. All hoped a Prince would soon come and suppress Essad, who was feared as a possible danger. The Americans were buying land and planning a big college, to which the people looked forward as a means for national regeneration. Parents were already refusing to send children to the Greek school, in spite of the fulminations of the Greek priest.

A young man arrived from Starovo and told how he and two others had been taken prisoners by the Serbs and offered their lives for a heavy ransom. Only he had enough to pay. Both the others were killed. A rumour came that the Serbs and Bulgars had begun to fight for the possession of Monastir. It had been allotted by agreement to Bulgaria, but the Serbs were in possession and refused to yield it. We decided to push on to Ochrida to learn what was happening.

Arrived at Stiuga we found Serb officers in possession. We had left free Albania and were in a conquered land under military rule. They at once started "propaganda," and had the impudence to say that the dialect of Struga was as pure Serb as that of Belgrade. But an officer bent on annexation will say anything. Poor old Jovan Golubovitch, the innkeeper at Podgoritza, was a native of Struga, and was known always as Jovan Bulgar.

We visited the uniquely interesting fishtraps on the Drin, built like a prehistoric lake-village. These, said our Serb escort, would be a source of great wealth when modernized. "But," we objected, "perhaps this will not be yours. The question has to be arbitrated." They retorted they would accept no arbitration, and cared nothing for agreements. What Serbia had taken, Serbia would keep. The Bulgars should never recover one kilometre.

Friday, 27th.—At Ochrida—after ten years. Town most melancholy. A tablet on the big plane tree commemorates the "liberation" of the town. But there are no signs of joy. Even in 1904, after the Bulgar revolution and under Turkish military rule, the town was not so dead and hopeless as now under the Serb. All seems crushed beneath an iron heel. Then the Bulgar population hoped for union with Bulgaria. Now the Serb was dominant. The Bulgar school was closed, and soldiers were at the door. The Bulgar churches were shut, and their priests had disappeared. So had the bishop. Some people recognized me. An old woman rushed up and told me things were worse than under the Turk, but we dared make few enquiries lest our informants should suffer. Only the great lake was the same as before in its marvellous beauty. I felt like a ghost among the shadows of all we had striven for ten years ago.

The bazar, once full of Moslems, was half deserted. The intransigence of the Serb officers was here as blatant as at Struga. They were eagerly waiting the declaration of war on Bulgaria. And would accept no form of arbitration that did not give all to themselves. We spoke strongly of the wickedness of fighting their allies. They said they cared for no treaty, and meant to fight—the sooner the better. All they had taken they would soon Serbize. They —the military—had the power, and would do what they chose.

That the policy was a deliberate one we now know from published documents.

On February 4, 1913, the Serb Minister at Petersburg telegraphed: "the Minister for Foreign Affairs told me Serbia was the only state in the Balkans in which Russia had confidence, and that Russia would do everything for Serbia." Serbia felt quite safe in tearing up her Bulgarian "scrap of paper." The Serb officers were, in fact, most explicit, and told us they had all their plans laid and expected soon to be back in Durazzo, and to keep it.

So set were they on fighting Bulgaria that had the Bulgars waited but a few hours the Serbs would probably have saved them the trouble of firing the first shot. The whole guilt rests with Serbia, for it was she who broke her pledged word and threw down the glove.

Kosovo Day was a melancholy spectacle. Nothing is more dolorous than a people forced "to rejoice" by an army of occupation. All shops are shut, and the population summoned to church to celebrate the "freeing" of the land. Once how pleased I should have been. Now I have seen and know too much! The people of Ochrida had to officially rejoice that their nationality was destroyed, though it had survived some six centuries of the Turk.

At Pogradech we again found the Serbs. Here the whole population is Albanian. There was no doubt of their sentiments. They asked anxiously as to the fate of their town, and dreaded lest the Serb occupation should be permanent. Wanted news of free Albania, and asked when the Prince would arrive. At the han, when paying for my horse, I asked for Turkish money as change, for we were leaving the Serb zone. The hanjee and those in the inn burst into sudden joy: "Ah, she too does not want anything Serb!" I was alarmed lest a prowling Serb should overhear and make them pay dearly for patriotism.

We arrived at Koritza on June 30th and found it "in a state of great tension." "Persons afraid of arrest. A sort of silent terror in the air. Great Greek propaganda going on, and Greek troops everywhere. People called on us and said many wished to come, but dared not. They prayed us to save Koritza. Called on the Commandant, Colonel Condoulis, to whom Mr. Nevinson had an introduction." I learnt what a mistake the Americans had made in 1903, when they put the mission under Austrian instead of English protection. The Greeks now, in consequence, pretended that the Albanian school was an Austrian school, and declared there was no Albanian movement. The Albanian Nationalists, on the other hand, were in bitter trouble, for, through the years of Turkish rule, they had with danger and toil kept this school "the beacon light," open. They now found the Greek more oppressive than the Turk. The American missionaries had been expelled from the town at twenty-four hours' notice. The school was closed. The Turkish troops had behaved well in the town, and never entered a private house. The Greeks had shown themselves as conquerors bent on pillage, and behaved with cruelty and violence.

Colonel Condoulis did not even pretend to be out for anything but wholesale annexation. He showed on a map frontiers which should include even Tepeleni. I exclaimed, horrified: "But that is half Albania!" Condoulis did not deny it. He merely said: "There is a French proverb which says—appetite comes with eating. We have eaten; now we must eat more and more." I replied: "Monsieur, those that eat too much get bellyache." Which annoyed him.

I have met few things more repulsive than a military man bent on conquest, for lust of conquest brings a man lower than the beasts. The beasts eat for hunger. Condoulis wished to eat for sheer greed. May the day come when such men will be looked On as mad dogs to be destroyed painlessly before they have time to inflict misery upon peoples.

What with the Serbs at Ochrida and tijle Greeks at Kctitza, I began to regret that I had ever wished to send the Turk from Europe. While he was there, there was yet hope. These "Christian" conquerors were a hundredfold worse.

They showed their devilry by arranging a meeting that should cause
Mr. Nevinson to write to his paper that Koritza wished to be Greek.
The arrival of a well-known journalist was a chance to be exploited.

Unluckily for Condoulis, we were not in the Balkans for the first time. The visit arranged for us at the Bishop's therefore missed fire. We found his Grace seated at a table, at which there were some fourteen local shopkeepers, who, when told to do so by the Bishop, stated to us that they wanted to be Greek. It would, indeed, have needed some courage to say in the presence of Greek officials that they did not want to be Greek! "You see," said our guide, "the Christians of Koritza want to be Greek!"

We were trotted off to the house of an old Moslem, who also replied obediently. What else could the poor man do?

An unarmed population faced with a big army is helpless. Many an English village would declare itself Choctaw if five thousand armed men bade it do so—or be extirpated.

We lunched with Condoulis, and learnt that the Greeks were as anxious to fight the Bulgars as were the Serbs. "Death to Bulgaria" was their cry. Not a metre of land to be ceded to those "cochons de Bulgares." "We went," they said, "willingly to fight the Turk. We go with ten times more joy to fight the Bulgars; they are our worst enemies." And they would listen to no remonstrance. So strong were they on this that I could only think Greece and Serbia had a secret understanding on the subject, and that Greece, like Serbia, knew that Russia had no use for a Big Bulgaria. And so indeed it was.

The Greeks next invited us to a mass meeting, which was to be held to ascertain the wishes of the population. We accepted, and on returning to our quarters learnt that Greek soldiers and priests were going from house to house ordering every one to attend the meeting and close their shops. It was intended to make use of us, for the women were told to come and hear what an Englishwoman had to say to them. The Greek authorities, aware that we knew no Greek, would have been able to interpret bogus messages from us.

We decided, therefore, to arrive so late as not to be put on the platform and made use of, and went for a walk lest an officer be sent to fetch us. One was—but we had already left. We arrived late at the meeting. Surrounded by Greek military, the populace had had to consent to the sending of a telegram to the Ambassadors' Conference in London, stating that Koritza voted unanimously for Greece.

So soon as it was dark, people came to visit us. Sixty Moslems outside the town sent an emissary to know if they could speak with us. We dared do nothing that would subject them to arrest. We had heard too much of the fate of prisoners. We were prayed to send a counter telegram to London, but there was no nearer telegraph station than Berat. The wire controlled by the Greeks was, of course, useless. The crisis was acute, and the prayers of the Koritzans pressing. We gave up our plan of travelling further South, and started for Berat so soon as mules and guide could be prepared.

The Greek authorities prepared a strange pantomime at Moskopol, our first halting-place. They sent up overnight a number of people who danced out to meet us like stage peasants, crying: "Welcome to a Greek town!" Moskopol is, in fact, inhabited by Vlachs and Albanians. The imported gang went everywhere with us to try to prevent our discovering this fact. It was clear they were imported, for they seemed to be in the town for the first time. One spoke Albanian to a woman as we passed. I asked how he had learnt it. He replied: "From my mother."

"Then you are half Albanian," I said.

"No," he answered, much vexed. "My mother is Greek, but there were no Greek schools when she was young, poor woman, so she never learnt to speak [i.e. she only knew Albanian] properly!" This is a fair sample of Greek propaganda. We reached Berat, and were received with great enthusiasm. The telegram was sent, and, we hope, helped to save Koritza. At Valona, where our journey ended, we met a number of refugees from Chameria, splendid mountain men, who had been till now under local autonomy with their own old Albanian law. They were threatened with Greek annexation, and prayed us piteously to save their Fatherland.

We visited the Albanian provisional government. A small assembly in a poor house. But it represented the hopes of a little nation. Its members were earnest and anxious. War had broken out between Serbo-Greek against Bulgar. They feared that Bulgaria could not stand against the combined forces, and the victory of Greek and Serb would spell ruin for Albania.

I returned to Scutari and resumed relief work. Things were going badly. The Powers who wished to ruin Albania had arranged that the international control should not have jurisdiction beyond ten kilometres from the town, and gave no signs of appointing any form of government for the country, nor recognizing a native one.

The two gallant tribes of Hoti and Gruda begged hard not to be included in Montenegro.

In Montenegro I learnt there was disgust at having been dragged into the second Balkan war Montenegro could not refuse to take part as, then, if the Serbs won, she would lose all her war-spoils. I noted in my diary: "The Powers are making a damned mess of everything by their shilly-shally. . . . What rot it is for five Powers to be spending the Lord knows what on these warships, admirals, soldiers, etc. hanging about Scutari while the people up-country are dying of hunger." The suffering in the burnt villages was terrible. People were cooking grass for their starving children, and the death-rate from diarrhoea was high. Anything the Belgians suffered in 1914 was child's play in comparison. Meanwhile Roumania entered into the second Balkan war and stabbed Bulgaria in the back. History records few dirtier actions, nor need we waste pity on Roumania for the punishment which has since fallen upon her.

That the destruction of Bulgaria was early planned by Greek and Serb seems likely, for, as early as April, the Serb Minister at Bucarest proposed a Serbo-Roumanian alliance against Bulgaria, and the Serbian General staff began fortifying Ovtchepolje. Bulgaria fell, and the Treaty of Bucarest was signed on August 10, 1913. Albania was deadly anxious. The victorious Serbs and Greeks were drunk with blood, and thirsted for hers, too. And still the Powers made no move to send a Prince.

At the end of August I went up to the Shala mountains, where refugees from the Gusinje district seized by Montenegro, came in misery; survivors of the massacres which, in the name of Christianity, were going on. I examined witnesses. Four battalions of Montenegrins were carrying on a reign of terror. Moslems were given choice of baptism or death. Praying in Moslem form was forbidden. Men were slaughtered, and their wives unveiled and baptised, and in some cases violated as well. I was prayed to ask the King of England, who has many Moslem subjects, to save these hapless Moslems from extinction.

To Scutari came similar news of the hideous cruelty, by means of which Great Serbia was being created. An Ipek man, well educated and of high standing, told of what happened there: "Every day the telal cried in the streets 'To-day the Government will shoot ten (or more) men!' No one knew which men they would be, or why they were shot. They were stood in a trench, which was to be their grave. Twelve soldiers fired, and as the victims fell the earth was shovelled over them, whether living or dead. Baptisms were forced by torture. Men were plunged into the ice-cold river, and then half roasted till they cried for mercy. And conversion to Christianity was the price." Many, terrorized into baptism, came to me. One man with tears in his eyes assured me he had consented only to save his wife and children, but that he felt now that he was defiled and wished he were dead.

The International forces did nothing. They had no jurisdiction outside Scutari.

Unfortunately, also, the British staff knew no language but English, and the most reliable dragomans knew only French, Italian, or German. England was thus more heavily handicapped than the representatives of the other Powers, and the Albanians asked with wonder: "Are there, then, no schools in England?" And, in general, Scutari's high idea of European civilization shrivelled and shrank.

By the end of September the conduct of the Serbs in the Dibra district was so bad that the maddened populace, profiting by a moment when the garrison was reduced, revolted, drove out the Serbs and retook Ochrida, where they were welcomed by both Bulgars and Albanians. As I wrote at the time: "It is criminal of the Powers to delay the frontier commissions. Both Serb and Montenegrin are working to clear off the Albanians from the debatable districts so as to show a Slav majority to the Commission." The ill-timed revolt gave them a chance of doing this. The Serbs fell on the Gostivar district, burning the villages with petroleum, and throwing such people as could not escape, back into the flames with their bayonets. An urgent appeal for bandages and medicaments came from Elbasan, into which refugees were pouring. Our naval force was not allowed to supply any, but I begged two cases of stores from the Italian consulate and started across country to Elbasan to the horror of the International control, who had the idea that travelling in Albania was dangerous. As I soon got beyond their zone they could not interfere. At Tirana and at Elbasan I found thousands of destitute creatures pouring in, footsore and exhausted. Their accounts of Serb brutality up-country was amply confirmed by a letter of a Serb in the Radnitchke Novina (see Carnegie Report): "My dear friend," writes a Serb soldier, "appalling things are going on. I am terrified of them. . . . I dare not tell you morer but I may say Ljuma (an Albanian tribe) no longer exists. There is nothing but corpses and ashes." A Franciscan, who went there, told me of the bodies of the poor little bayoneted babies. "There are villages of 100, 150, 200 houses where there is literally not a single man. We collect them in parties of forty to fifty and bayonet them to the last one," The paper says it cannot publish the details, "they are too heart-rending."

Nothing could make the luckless refugees believe that the Powers had really given them to the Serbs. They asked piteously when the Prince was coming to drive the Serbs out. And still the Powers did nothing. Some Bulgars among the refugees told that life under the Serbs was impossible. The only time they had been free from persecution was when the Serb army was busy fighting the Bulgar army.

It was feared the Serbs would descend on Elbasan, and I carried away a whole mule-load of valuables to save them from being pillaged, and rode with it across country without an escort or weapon. I learnt from the refugees that twenty-six villages had been wholly or partially burnt and pillaged by the Serbs. Few of the refugees had any weapons. I reported all this in vain in Scutari. Not a Power would move. The Serbs, grown impudent, then entered strictly Albanian territory in defiance of the International forces, and camped in Mirdita while the Montenegrins devastated the Gashi and Krasnichi tribes.

At last the Commission for delimiting the northern frontier started. The Russian, troubled doubtless by a guilty conscience, had feared to start without a strong military escort, and lack of forage made this impossible. Hence much delay. Our military attache from Rome represented England, but it was reported that France and Russia were out to grab all they could for the Serbs, regardless of the nationality of the population, and were furious whenever he protested, for, as England belonged to the Entente, they considered it his duty to support them on every point, regardless of fact and justice.

More attacks of the Serbs on the Albanians in the annexed lands brought more misery. "October 21st.—Thousands of refugees arriving from Djakovo and neighbourhood. Victims of Montenegro." My position was indescribably painful, for I had no funds left, and women came to me crying: "If you will not feed my child, throw it in the river. I cannot see it starve."

I decided to return to England after three and a half years' absence, to try and rouse help and action there.

And I said goodbye with sorrow to Scutari, beautiful and sorrowing, which had been my most kind home for so long.

On arriving in London I packed up the Gold Medal given me by King Nikola and returned it to him, stating that I had often expressed surprise at persons who accepted decorations from Abdul Hamid, and that now I knew that he and his subjects were even more cruel than the Turk I would not keep his blood-stained medal any longer. I communicated this to the English and Austrian Press. The order of St. Sava given me by King Petar of Serbia, I decided to keep a little longer till some peculiarly flagrant case should occur, and this I expected soon.

So apparently did Austria, who, exasperated by the repeated outrages of the Serbs, and aware of the activity of Hartwig at Belgrade, realized she was marked down as Russia's next victim on the proscribed list, and that the hour was arriving when she must kill or be killed.

Austria's position was now perilous. Russia had come to an agreement with Japan, and had her hands free for the Near East. Hartwig was pre-eminent in Belgrade. Roumania had been roped in, and had dealt the stab in the back to Bulgaria, which had assured the Serbo-Greek victory. Bulgaria was "put in the corner." France, the financier of the Near East, refused her a loan. Italy it is true, took Tripoli with the consent of the Powers, and France, tied as she was to Russia, could not object. But she viewed with great jealousy any increase of Italian power on the Mediterranean, and began therefore to build up Greece as a naval counterpoise.

When Bulgaria approached Paris for a loan, Greece protested: "Do not finance our most hated rivals." France refused the loan. Bulgaria turned to England, who looked very favourably on the plan, recognizing Bulgaria's industry and capability. Those who are in a position to know, state that almost the whole sum had been arranged for when France heard of the transaction and requested that England, as a member of the Entente, would not finance a loan that France had thought fit to refuse. England drew back, and Bulgaria had to go to Germany for the necessary money. Russia had no use for Bulgaria. Therefore France had none. And England, or the section of it bitted and bridled by The Times, went the way it was driven. Or, perhaps, like a certain animal, was induced that way by dangled carrots. The Times' supplements, full of praise of Tsardom, must have cost some one a pretty penny. Meanwhile Russia was assuring the Serbs that the Balkan war was but a first step, and that Bosnia and the Herzegovina would soon be theirs. Ristitch, Serb Minister at Bucarest, states on November 13, 1912: "The Ministers of France and Russia advise, as friends of Serbia, that we should not 'go the limit' as regards the question of an outlet on the Adriatic. … It would be better that Serbia . . . should strengthen herself and await with as great a degree of preparation as possible the important events which must soon make their appearance among the Great Powers."

December 27, 1912.—The Serb Minister in Petersburg telegraphs: "The Minister for Foreign Affairs replied that in view of our successes he had confidence in our strength, and believed we could give a shock to Austria. For that reason we should feel satisfied with what we were to receive and consider it as a temporary haltingplace. . . . The future remained to us. . . . Bulgaria, meantime, would bring her ethnic mission to a close." Small wonder that in May 1913 the Montenegrins boasted to me: "We, the Serb nation, are a danger to Europe. We have all the Russian army with us, and shall take what we choose." Small wonder, too, that Austria, realizing she must soon fight for her very existence against a very strong combine, approached Italy in September 1913 and asked what would be her attitude in case of an Austrian war with Serbia. Italy, who was already dabbling with the Entente, though nominally a member of the Triple Alliance, replied: "Such a war would be a most dangerous adventure." Austria knew then that Italy could not be reckoned on.

We now slide into 1914, and Yougourieff's date, for "our great war" approaches. Russian preparations went on apace, and France, under Russian pressure, extended her term of military service to three years.

CHAPTER TWENTY. 1914

DURING the winter of 1913-14 I gathered funds for Albania, and the American missionaries worked hard at feeding the refugees of Gostivar and Dibra. General Phillips, in command at Scutari, did all his funds would allow for the refugees there, but reported that the Serbs' victims were dying of hunger in the Gashi mountains at the rate of twenty a day. But the Mansion House refused to start a fund. Mr. Willard Howard took cinema photographs of the starving people in their burnt ruins, hoping to rouse public feeling against the Serbs and stop their further war plans.

At the Foreign Office I begged protection for the Balkan Moslems, who were being barbarously exterminated, and stated that until it was seen that the Balkan conquerors were capable of just rule, the Capitulations should remain in force. Those with whom I spoke admitted that the consular reports from Uskub and Monastir were very bad, but that it was not advisable to publish them. In truth, we were hopelessly tied to Russia and could say nothing about her pet lambs, even though the truth of the accusations had been proved up to the hilt by the Carnegie Report. The laws signed by King Petar in October 1913 for the purpose of crushing the annexed regions are alone enough in their barbarity to condemn Serbia. They are published in the Carnegie Report, which should be read by all interested in forming a just and lasting Balkan peace.

It was also made clear by the Carnegie Commission that the accusation that the atrocities were planned and carried out by the Serb "Black Hand" society were true. Damian Popovitch, the leader of the regicides, led the massacres of Kosovo. All was part of a prearranged Great Serbian plan. "The Serbs," I overheard two Montenegrins say in the inn at Rijeka, "are right. They put these gentry (non-Serb population) to the sword as they go, and clean the land." As the Black Hand was a "government within a government," and unofficial, Belgrade could always pretend to be ignorant of its doings. Both the Tsrna Ruka (Black Hand) and larodna Odbrana (National Defence) societies had a free hand. The Carnegie Report tells: "The population at Uskub called their station the Black House, from the name of the League itself, The Black Hand. The worst crimes were committed by this organization, known to all the world, and under powerful protection. It was of distinct advantage to the regular government to have under its hand an irresponsible power like this, which soon became all powerful, and could be disowned if necessary. . . . Our records are full of depositions which throw light on the activities of these legalized brigands. Each town had its captain. . . . Where complaints were made to the regular authorities they pretended to know nothing, or, if the person were obscure, punished him. If he were a personage, as for example the Archbishop of Veles, the bands were sent from the town down to the villages, only to be replaced immediately by bands from Uskub."

In February 1914 I received a letter from Monastir, from my former dragoman of 1904. Since then he had worked for years for a well-known Greek firm in India, and returned invalided home to Monastir just before the first Balkan war broke out From him I had heard of the first joy of the populace when the Turkish army fled before the invading Serb, and then of the speedy revulsion of feeling when they found that the Serb came not as a liberator, but as a conqueror. In January 1914 he wrote: "Hardly a year has elapsed since Monastir fell into Servian hands, and this very short period has been enough to turn it into a desert city." And he detailed the reasons.

In February, 1914, he wrote: "I write from Monastir, or I should say Bitoli, for there is no city of the name of Monastir in the vast Serbian Empire whose Emperor, Peter Karageorgevitch is daily wheting (sic) his sword sharp in order to be able to inflict a death-blow on the old Austrian Emperor. The conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the creation of a vast and powerful Serbian Empire, even mightier than that of Dushan, is occupying the minds of all army men. . . . Travelling from Salonika to Monastir one is struck with the fewness of the passengers . . . where have all these people gone? The average number does not exceed ten, against hundreds in Turkish times. It is roughly estimated twenty thousand persons have emigrated from Monastir. . . . Taxes are tremendous; this city must pay a war tax of 1,000,000 francs. We see we have only exchanged a bad rule for a worse rule. This amount will go to the War Office, for in Serbia the army has twofold duties—to rule and to fight. There is hardly any other country in the world where military men have concentrated such a great power in their hands. The King and the civil authorities, needs must comply with the wishes of the officers. The Serbian officer has no respect for any one, and Albanian subjects, natives of Elbasan and Koritza, are enlisted by force in the army. And when Mr. ——- interfered on behalf of a man from Koritza, saying that they compelled people to complain to the foreign consuls, the recruiting officer replied: 'We shall imprison every blessed man who steps over the threshold of a consulate. You mean to say you will go to that big idiot the British consul. That fool of a consul must think himself very lucky for England is a friendly power, otherwise we would have killed him!'" He had, in fact, reported their conduct, and they seem to have been aware of this. The letter continues: "You cannot but pity us who are ruled by such men. . . . The only thing they are interested in is to collect taxes and to send gendarmes from house to house telling people that if they do not send their children to Serbian schools they will be punished. Of vino and beer they drink abundance. 'Bozhe, Bozhe, bez vino ne se mozhe!' . . . Corruption in all branches of the administration Is the essence of Serbian rule."

This picture, corroborating as it does the Carnegie Report of the "government within a government," is the more valuable, as it is evident that early in 1914 the writer had heard the plans for a "death-blow to the Austrian Emperor" discussed. Possibly his death and not that of his heir was first intended. The Serbs seem to have been so sure of Entente support that even the adverse reports of a consul had no terrors for them.

It was the last letter I had from the writer. He is dead, the bright and honest boy who used to discuss endlessly to me the happy land that Macedonia would be if once "freed from the Turk." From Montenegro news was no better. I learnt of the boycott of the Albanian population of Podgoritza—the people who, in fact, carried on most of the trade of Montenegro, and heard: "As to the Moslems there is a regular exodus of them from the 'liberated' country. Four thousand have gone, four thousand five hundred are in process of going, and two to three thousand more are to go as soon as possible." The unfortunate tribes of Hoti and Gruda been handed over to Montenegro and devastated.

It was reported that Prince Mirko was out of his mind, and Princess
Natalie had definitely left him and claimed the children
—Montenegro's only heirs.

Meanwhile the Powers could not longer delay the election of a Prince for Albania.

The combined efforts of France and Russia had whittled down Albania to nearly half her size, and had made a very cruel frontier, whereby all the populations of a wide mountain tract were cut off from their market town, Djakovo. The Dibra refugees were still camped in Albania, and the Prince hoped for as a Messiah still did not come. Prince Arthur of Connaught was the desire of the Albanians. "Give us even your King's youngest son," they said, "and we shall be safe. No one will dare attack us."

Essad now insisted on being a member of the provisional government. All feared him. None wanted him. He started a government of his own at Durazzo. In February the British and German Commissioners went there. Sir Harry Lamb worked hard on Albania's behalf, and did all he could to establish her safely. "The Albanians," he once said to me, "are the only Balkan race which ever tells the truth." He and the German tried to persuade Essad to resign, but he refused, and as he had an armed force at his command, the Commission' thought it risky to press him. He undertook to meet the Commission later at Valona. Ismail Kemal asked the Commission to take over the government till a Prince should arrive, and resigned. Essad then was induced to resign by being promised he should be president of the delegation which was to meet the newly-elected Prince, of Wied. After months of squabbling the Powers in their united wisdom had chosen this man. Why, it is hard to see. The feelings of the Albanians were not considered. Even Sir Edward Grey said: "The primary thing was to preserve agreement between the Powers themselves." The infant state of Albania was to be flung to the wolves to save its elders.

It was decided that Albania should be governed by a Prince elected by the Powers; that it should enjoy perpetual neutrality under the collective guarantee of the Powers, and that these six Powers should be represented in Albania by an International Commission, with one Albanian on it. Dutch officers were to train the gendarmerie. On paper it looked well. But France raised Albania's worst enemy, Krajevsky, from Vice-consul to International Commissioner. France was represented thus by a Levantine Slav. Italy, too, selected a Levantine, Aliotti, to carry out her schemes at Durazzo. Only England and Germany were acting honestly.

Essad Pasha began to move soon. He demanded that the provisional government should be removed to Durazzo, where it would be in his power, and where he had two partners, the Montenegrin Gjurashkovitch and the Greek bishop. The International Commission chose Valona as its seat.

Meanwhile Scutari was ruled by the International force separately. The Powers had thus given two international governments to Albania. One with plenty of force and very limited jurisdiction, and the other with wide jurisdiction and no force. And there was also the little provisional Albanian government. The Prince was an officer with a limited military mind, and without experience of the Near East. His one qualification for the post was that he was "the nephew of his aunt," Carmen Sylva of Roumania, and she pressed his candidature. The true reason for his unanimous selection was probably that the Powers who had planned Albania's destruction knew him to be a man of little ability, and therefore the more easily to be got rid of. France and Russia were combined to overthrow him, even while agreeing to his election.

When Greece and Bulgaria were respectively liberated and put under a foreign Prince, he was given in each case sufficient military force to maintain order till a native army should be organized. In the case of Albania it was arranged that he should be provided with no armed force—otherwise he would be difficult to evict. The International forces in Scutari were to squat there and look on. Essad Pasha was the agent of the Italians, Serbs, and French, and intrigued, so soon as the Prince was appointed, to obtain power over him. He bargained to be one of those who went to invite the Prince to Albania, and, accompanied by a party of Albanians, many of them better men than himself, he went to Neu Wied. How he contrived to worm himself into the Prince's confidence is a mystery. But he did, and in a luckless moment for the Prince, induced him to make Durazzo his capital. There he would be completely in the hands of Essad. He was welcomed at Durazzo by rejoicing Albanians, who knew nothing of the sinister plots of the Powers. But his fate was already sealed. The tale of William of Wied is among the most sordid that the Powers have woven.

Only an extremely able man could have forced his way through the mesh of intrigue which surrounded him. Already, in February, he had been warned in Austria to have no dealings with Essad. The "end soon began."

A Prince having been appointed, the Powers notified the Greeks they must evacuate South Albania within the limits drawn by the Frontier Commission. Members of this Commission told of the amazing series of tricks by which Greek agents had tried to hoodwink them. Wherever the Greeks had a school they dragged out a cartload of little children bidden to sing or shout in Greek. They tried to steer the Commission away from places which knew no Greek, and in one place actually shut up the women in a house for they could speak nothing but Albanian. Greek soldiers, while pretending to tell people not to make a noise, threatened them with punishment if they did not shout for Greece. They even imported Greeks, and dumped them on the path of the Commission. And ordered people, under threat of flogging, to paint their houses blue and white—the Greek colours. But they overacted the part so badly that in many cases they succeeded only in disgusting the Commissioners. At Borova a number of school children were sent to play in front of the house where the Commission was, and ordered to speak Greek only. Signor Labia, the Italian commissioner, threw out a handful of coppers. In their rush to pick up the money the poor children forgot their orders, and disputed aloud in their mother tongue—Albanian, to the amusement of the Commission, which, disgusted by these tricks, drew a frontier which gave the Albanians less than they had hoped for, but very much more than the Greeks had intended. These hastened to make another grab at the land, and sent Zographos, formerly Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs, and a gang of Greek officials to South Albania to claim it as Greek, and appoint themselves as the "Provisional Government of Epirus." A Greek colonel was made War Minister to this so-called government, and a Greek member of Parliament, Karapanos, was its Minister for Foreign Affairs. An American called Duncan, who had a Greek wife and went about dressed mainly in bath towels, collected much money, incited the people to resist Wied, armed them, and urged them to a fratricidal war. The Greek Government denied all connection with this "provisional government," just as the Serb Government has always denied responsibility for and knowledge of the deeds of the Black Hand.

At the command of the Powers the Greek regular army was obliged to evacuate the occupied districts. It departed from Koritza, but left a so-called hospital of wounded "not fit to be moved," and joined it to the Greek frontier by a telephone. Much of the army, however, remained in out-of-the-way spots, removing and concealing their insignia, so that the Greek Government might be able to deny that they were soldiers.

Formally the Greeks handed over Koritza to the Dutch gendarmerie officers under the International Control, on March 1, 1914. Had the Powers meant honestly by Albania they would have sent a force to clear the land of the lurking Greek bands of soldiery. But in spite of several questions asked in the House of Commons, Cretan and Greek komitadjis continued to land at Santa Quaranta, the Greek Government persistently denying all knowledge. "There are none so blind as those that won't see."

Such was the state of things when Prince zu Wied landed at Durazzo on March 7th. Had he at once made a journey throughout his domain, gone to Koritza via Berat and Elbasan, and claimed it as his, he might have triumphed. But it was Essad's business, as agent of Albania's enemies, to keep the Prince in Durazzo till the plans for his eviction were matured.

The International Control Commissioners handed over their authority to the Prince, and he, to the general dismay of the Albanians, appointed Essad War Minister, thus putting the armaments into his hands.

All this news seemed to me very bad. I was detained in London. My book on the war, The Struggle for Scutari, was finished, but my publisher was bent on keeping it for the autumn publishing season. I stood out for immediate publication in May. He said: "You know nothing about publishing." I said: "You do not know the state of the Near East. Anything may happen by October."

I offered to risk having no payment at all for it. It came out in May, and the thing that happened before October (Yougourieff's date) was bigger than even the shouts of the Montenegrins in 1913 had led me to expect.

Meanwhile the Greek "wounded" at Koritza telephoned for medical comforts, and the Greek Bishop sprang his plot. The "medicine" arrived in the form of armed bands and weapons. The Greek "wounded," the Bishop's servants, and a band of Grecophile students made an attack within the town on the night of April 11th, and the bands of lurking Greek soldiers attacked from without. Koritza was taken by surprise, was not well armed, and had but fifty newly trained gendarmes, commanded by the Dutch officers. Nevertheless the town put up a gallant resistance. Reinforcements arrived, and the Albanians "rushed" the house of the Bishop and carried him off a prisoner to Elbasan, along with a number of Greek soldiers, who readily gave their names and regiments, and told of the orders they had received. They had long been kept in readiness on the frontier. The Greek Government, as usual, declared the men must all be deserters, over which it had no control, which, at best, was a poor compliment to the Greek army, and did not explain how the "deserters" became possessed of artillery and ammunition.

The Greeks, furious at being beaten out of Koritza, avenged themselves on their retreat by committing outrages and burning villages. The Albanians drove back the Greeks to Argyrokastro, and would have chased them over the border had not the Greek General Papoulias come to the aid of his compatriots with large reinforcements and artillery. The Greek Government still "knew nothing" about the actions of its officers.

It is to be hoped that a future League of Nations will be in readiness to investigate at once similar occurrences, and that "ignorance" on the part of a government shall not be accepted as innocence without full inquiry. In this case the Albanians had no tribunal before which to present their case. The invading Greeks burnt and sacked numbers of villages, and destroyed the town of Leskoviki, committing at the same time terrible atrocities.

The International Commissioners went to Corfu to meet the Greeks and arrange peace. The Greeks were told to evacuate the district delimited by the Frontier Commission, and certain privileges were accorded to the very few Greeks it contained.

I learnt from Dr. Totirtoulis and others the following facts about the so-called "Epirote" government of Zographos. The plan was made in Paris, for, as Krajevsky had declaimed, France did not mean Albania to exist. The Greeks brought some Greeks from America and presented them to Cambon, and, it is believed, to Sir Edward Grey also, saying that they were "Epirotes." The Greek society in Paris was a strong one, and pushed them. Cambon, in November, advised them to form an independent government, which was done, as we have shown. Mr. Lamb (now Sir Harry) told me that at Corfu he told Zographos to his face that most of his "Epirotes" were Cretans, and that the mere fact that a Greek ex-minister of Foreign Affairs was running this "independent government" and trying to dictate terms, was enough in itself to "give the whole show away," but for the fact that certain Powers were determined not to see.

The Albanians in the defence of their land had been much hampered by shortage of ammunition, though quantities had been sent from Durazzo. It never reached Koritza, for Essad, who was Minister of War, diverted if for his own purposes. He was in league with the Serbo-Greek combine, and did not mean the Albanians of the South to win. He was hated by all the South for his conduct when commanding gendarmerie in Janina, and also for betraying Scutari. He knew that a victory for the South meant ruin for him.

A rumour rose soon that the ammunition had gone up to Essad's town, Tirana, and that there was unrest at Shiak, a village on the road leading there. Mr. Lamb and the German commissioner hastened to Durazzo. The foul play over the munitions convinced the Nationalist Albanians that Essad was brewing mischief. Unless he was preparing a coup against the Prince, he could have no need of a private munition store. Information was given to the Prince, who had him arrested by the Dutch gendarmes and a band of Nationalists on the night of May 18th. A few shots were fired amid shouts of "Down with the tyrant." He was arrested by the Dutch officer in command, and taken first to the palace, and then to the Austrian battleship Szigetvar. Essad was, as most folk knew, the agent of the combine against Austria and Germany. Italy was ready to partition Albania between the Greeks and Serbs, rather than let Austria gain power there. Now she has realized that the Slav is her enemy, but then, in May 1914, she was furious at Essad's arrest, and demanded his release. The correct course was to try and, if guilty, execute him. But trial would have meant conviction, and Italy would not hear of it. The Italian and Austrian battleships cleared for action, though the Powers had neutralized the Albanian coast. For twenty-four hours the position was precarious, but Austria once more swallowed her pride and yielded—this time to Italy. The Prince surrendered Essad to the Italians on condition that he did not return to Albania. With amazing effrontery the Italians took him to Rome and feted him in such a way as to make it clear they were rewarding him for his action.

Italy's conduct as a member of the Triple Alliance was in the highest degree insulting to her allies, and can be explained only by supposing that for the sake of the Adriatic she was ready to stab them on the first opportunity.

It was soon plain that the report of a prepared rising was true.
Armed men were concentrating at Shiak on the road to Tirana.

The ignorant Moslem inhabitants had been told that the Prince meant to abolish Islam and promote incestuous marriages, and bidden to demand his immediate withdrawal. There were also the mass of refugees from Dibra and Gostivar. They had passed the winter wretchedly enough, and were told that if they would combine and drive out Wied the Serbs would restore to them their lost lands. In vain the American missionaries warned them not to believe this. Dibra was their one hope and desire.

A party of armed men, led by one of the Dutch officers, went to parley with the insurgents, and took a machine gun. Unluckily, Captain Saar was ignorant of local customs. He and his party were unduly nervous, for when an Albanian has given his "besa" (peace oath) he keeps it. Alarmed unnecessarily, he ordered his men to fire at a group of three armed men. One escaped, fled to Shiak, and spread the alarm that the Prince had begun to massacre Moslems. A number of people rushed to aid the Shiak men, and a fight took place. How much foreign influence was behind it all it is hard to say. That Italy was not unconcerned in it seems proved by the fact that the Italian representative at Durazzo at once hurried to convince the Prince that he was in imminent danger, and persuaded him to go on board an Italian battleship. The Italians may have believed that the plot, engineered by Essad, was sure of success. Other members of the International Control persuaded the Prince to return to land. But by his flight he had hopelessly compromised his position.

That Italy was mixed in the affair appeared a little later. Red signal lights were seen flashing to the insurgents from a house in Durazzo by many persons, among them the British Vice-Consul. Lieutenant Fabius, of the Dutch gendai'merie, entered the house and caught an Italian officer, Colonel Muricchio, red-lamp-handed. Again no trial was allowed. It was pleaded that the Capitulations had not been abrogated! And the officer was released. We may blame Wied for incompetency, but only a man of unusual force of character and intimate knowledge of the land could have made headway against the Powers combined against him.

All this I learnt from members of the International Control, from the Dutch officers, from the Albanians, from the American Missionaries, and from some private individuals.

That the rising was planned and the ammunition embezzled by Essad and his gang hardly admits of doubt.

On June 8, 1914, I reached Trieste. Here our vice-consul, M. Salvari, himself an Albanian, was very anxious about the situation. I had intended going to Scutari, but he begged me to go to Durazzo, where I arrived on June 11th. On board the boat I met Mr John Corbett, who had lately been in South Albania, and said it was nonsense of the Greeks to pretend no Greek troops had remained there as he had seen parties of them in many places, and had seen money being collected in Corfu to aid Zographos's enterprise. Durazzo was crammed with people of all races. Fighting had ceased, but a large force of armed men was some miles outside the town and negotiations were going on. Dr. Dillon, the well-known correspondent, was there, and his strong Russian proclivities caused much anxiety, more especially as he and his young wife had been staying with Essad shortly before his arrest. The Russian agents were suspected of taking active part in the anti-Wied intrigues, and the correspondent of the Birzhevije Viedomosti was in Durazzo and on friendly terms with Dr. Dillon. The Russian, Olghinsky, I had met in Andrijevitza in 1912, when the Montenegrins were making ready for the Balkan war. He then complained to me freely of the apathy of the Russians, and said he and his paper were doing all they could to rouse the country to war. His paper (Birzhevije Viedomosti) had already, in March 1914, blown the war trumpet loudly:

"Until now the Russian plan of military operations had a defensive character; to-day it is known that the Russian army will, on the other hand, play an active part. . . . Our artillery possesses guns which are in no respect inferior to foreign models. Our coast and fortification guns are even superior to those of other states. Our artillery will no longer have to complain of want of ammunition. The teachings of the past have fallen on fruitful soil. Military automobile service has reached a high degree of perfection . . . all our military units have telephonic appliances."

More details are given, and the writer says: "It is important that Russian public opinion be conscious that the country is prepared for all possibilities." Yougourieff had given October as the date when "we should be ready for our great war." The Birzhevije Viedomosti said all was ready in March. To find Dr. Dillon, an avowed partisan of Russia, in company with a correspondent of Birzhevije Viedomosti, supporting Essad in Durazzo, was a sinister omen. He protested Essad's innocence to me, but had no proof to offer save that Essad was in bed when arrested, and that no documentary evidence was found. The first proved only that the rising was not timed for that night. The second was valueless in a land where few could write and messages go from mouth to mouth. Subsequent events have proved that Essad, as we suspected, was a Serb agent.

During the following days very bad news came from the South. Eye-witnesses gave evidence of the Greeks' atrocities. It was generally believed that as Italy was determined to keep the Greek islands, she was conniving at the Greeks finding compensation at Albania's expense.

At the house of Dom Nikola Kaciorri, a plucky little Catholic priest, I found an Orthodox Albanian priest from Meljani, near Leskoviki, who told how the Greeks had burnt his village and ordered all those who belonged to the Orthodox Church to come along with them, using force to make them, and falling on those who refused. They had driven a number along before them, including his wife and children, whom he could not rescue. He told how the Greeks had given the inhabitants of Odrichan permission to return to it, and had then fallen on them and slaughtered them. Mr. Lamb ascertained that this man's wife and children were alive, but the Greeks refused to give them up.

Almost as soon as I arrived I was invited to have an audience with the Princess of Wied. She was very friendly, and much distressed by the web of intrigue in which she found herself tied. I regretted that she and the Prince had fallen into the wrong hands, and begged her to go to Valona or Scutari, and at once start a tour through the land. I offered to go with her, and assured her safe conduct, saying all misunderstanding would have been avoided had she and the Prince made such a journey on arrival. She said she had wished to, but that Essad always advised against it. I spoke to her of the Russo-Serbo-French-Italian combine, and said the Albanians wanted none of it, and that she could yet have the whole country on her side But she continually quoted the advice of. Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania, till I had to say: "Yes, ma'am. But Albania is not Roumania. Here you will do much better by appealing direct to the people." I left promising to support her to the best of my ability. She struck me as honest, intelligent, and very well-meaning. She would have made a good Queen for the country had she been given a chance, and might have done as much for it as did Carmen Sylva for Roumania.

That same day Mr. Lamb told me that the inhabitants of three Moslem villages, Nenati, Mercati, and Konispoli, recently burnt by the Greeks, had sent to beg help, and asked me if I would go and investigate.

That night, June 12th, came a fresh development. The Dutch gendarmerie arrested Gjurashkovitch, the Montenegrin, who had still been allowed to function as Mayor of the town, to which he had been appointed in Turkish times. Again Albania's enemies stood up for him. His brother was dragoman to the Russian commissioner; Russia claimed him as under her protection, and raised the old cry of "Capitulations." He, too, was released. The thing was becoming a farce. The Prince was unable to try any suspect. The Italian papers raised choruses of blame against the Dutch gendarmerie, which at that time was very honestly trying to do its duty. The Prince, who was like a large, good-natured St. Bernard dog, yapped and snapped at all round, completely confused by the din, yielded each time, and so soon alienated the sympathy of the Dutch officers, who, as more than one of them complained to me, got into trouble on his behalf and then received no support.

News arrived that Osman Bali, one of the two men reported to have assassinated Hussein Riza in Scutari, had been seen among the insurgents, and was probably this time also acting for Essad. The Italians put in a demand that Lieutenant Fabius, who had arrested the Italian Colonel Muricchio, should apologize. This Fabius very properly refused to do, and many of us supported him. I had known him during the Balkan war, and found him a very honest boy. Italy then demanded his dismissal. But this time the Prince stood firm.

Fachinetti, the Italian correspondent, whom I had known well during the war of 1912-13, was also in Durazzo. In the Balkan war he had warmly taken the part of the Albanians, and had worked with me. Now he knew I should not approve his doings, and he kept out of my way, dodging whenever he saw me coming. Crajevsky, too, was not pleased to see me. He was now more pro-Slav even than the Russians, and as he had been more Turk than the Turks only two years before, he must have known that his volte face was, to me, rather comical. And he is the kind of man that does not like being thought funny.

Colonel Thompson, who was commanding the Dutch gendarmes, met me and told me that he was going to =give an ultimatum to the insurgents in the next few days, and asked me to call at eleven next morning and talk the matter over with him. I never did. That night things seemed shaky. I overheard Fachinetti, whose room was next mine, tell the landlord to knock him up if anything happened. So I did very little undressing, thinking he was probably behind some plot. I put my boots handy, and laid down as I was, for a bit of sleep, and jumped up to the sound of rifle fire as the landlord banged on Fachinetti's door. Sharp firing sounded close. I dashed out so soon as I could lace my boots, and went down to the entrance of the town where Fabius was in great haste serving out ammunition from the depot there. He begged me not to go out towards the scene of the fight, as he suspected the Italians, and wanted to give an order that no foreigner should leave the town. Up rushed the Italians, greatly excited, and were headed back by Fabius. I told them I, too, was forbidden to go, and we sent them back. We got the artillery ammunition on donkeys and sent it up the hill. Dutch and Austrian officers were to serve the guns. A wounded Albanian, crying feebly "Rrnoft Mbreti" (Long live the King), was carried by on a stretcher, and one of the bearers whispered to Fabius: "Thompson is hit. I fear he is dead." To lose the commander in the first hour of the fight was a terrible blow. Fabius begged me to tell no one. Later, Arthur Moore, The Times correspondent, came and told how poor Thompson had been struck down and died almost immediately in his arms in a hut by the wayside.

Too many battle books have been written of late, so I will not describe the fighting In the afternoon. I was under cover behind a bank on the top of the hill with Mr. Corbett when the Prince came up on horseback with a small suite. He dismounted and climbed the bank, a tall, lean man, worn and anxious, with a yellow-white face as from a touch of fever. We called to him he had better take cover as the bullets came over pretty often. He looked dazed and stupefied. I said: "A bullet has just cut down that plant, Sir!" pointing to one close by. He roused himself, mounted, and rode away. Our side soon got the upper hand, and all danger of the town being rushed seemed over.

Meanwhile, within the town, the Italians did all they could to create a panic. They built rubbishy barricades, and annoyed me by making one across the street near the hotel door. I pulled it down so as to be able to get in and out easily. The officer was very angry. I explained that the town was not his to barricade, and if it were it was no good to build a barricade there, as men behind it could only fire into the house opposite. Which made him the more angry, because it was true, and the thing a mere dummy to scare people. So sure were the Italians that they were 'going to get the town taken this time that the correspondents wrote gory accounts of its capture and the slaughter of the inhabitants, and sent them to Italy, where they were published. I do not now believe in Italian correspondents every time.

The Russians were as bad as the Italians. They, too, hoped for the fall of the town.

The Russian secretary was a typical ultra-neurotic Slav. Could not exist, he told me, without operas, ballets, and "stir tout des Emotions." Was horribly vexed that the Albanian Nationalist party proved so strong, and that Albania had not yet been overthrown. In order to keep himself alive meanwhile in this miserable hole he tried to get people to play bridge with him for as high stakes as possible. And this did not suffice him. He told me that having run through all the sensations of life he thought of committing suicide.

"Why don't you, then, Monsieur?" I asked enthusiastically. "No one will regret you. Suicide yourself, I beg you, quickly!" Which so infuriated him that I dare say he is alive still. It roused him to an attack on the English, who, he said, were ruining civilization by the way they treated the Jews. I retorted by hoping that the terrible accounts we had had of Jewish pogroms were exaggerated. "Exaggerated!" cried he. "You may believe everything you have heard. Nothing is bad enough or too bad for those brutes."

"You have no right," said I, "to speak so of any human beings."

"Human beings!" cried he. "What you English must learn is that they are not human beings. They are bugs, and must be cr-r-rushed."

This is a mere detail. But what sort of peace can be expected when men such as this are in the diplomatic service helping to pull the strings?

At night the heat was terrible. The motionless air was shrill with mosquitoes from the fever swamps. The Italian forces were camped just under my window and he stench of unwashed men and sweaty uniforms penetrated the miserable garret I slept in with suffocating acridity. I lay awake for hours thinking of the fate of thousands of human beings dependent on such men as Petar Karageorgevitch, with his blood-stained hands; his hoary father-in-law, Nikola, weaving spider webs; the decadent Russian, fanatical and cruel; the Levantine Slav, agent of France; the Italians like a pack in full cry with the victim in sight; the Greek Varatassi mainly playing bridge, but plotting behind the scenes with the Greek bishop, and probably with Essad too. All bent on war, and meaning to have it in some form.

Only Mr. Lamb and the German commissioner were playing straight. On 16th H.M.S. Defence and Admiral Troubridge arrived. Fighting went on, on and off, for the next few days. The Russian correspondent chuckled indecently over the Albanian wounded. On the 20th a deputation of townsfolk went to try and make terms with the insurgents. From the messages they brought it was clear that the luckless Albanians without the town were being used as cat's paw by more than one Power. A truce was called, and the insurgents asked to give up their arms and leaders. They replied they would yield their arms, but not their leaders. Who the leaders were remained a mystery.

While the armistice lasted at Durazzo the insurgents began to march to other places. No other town was armed. The people in vain asked what it was all about, and what the Powers wanted them to do. The Russian Vice-consul at Valona sent messages about to say that the Powers would be very angry if they fought on the side of Wied, The Albanians did not want to fight each other. Towns at once surrendered to the insurgents. The police changed their badges and business went on as usual. The populace did not want civil war, and continued to believe that the Powers would keep their promises. News then came that the Greeks were massing on the frontier ready to again fall on Koritza.

The insurgents now sent a message into Durazzo that they wanted to parley with an Englishman. They believed in England. General Phillips came from Scutari and went to meet them. He reported that the leaders were certainly not Albanians, and that they had refused to give their names. One was a Greek priest.

The game of the Greeks, then, was to incite the Moslems to ask for a Moslem ruler. With this in view they blackened Wied as an "anti-Moslem," hoping thus to split Albania and more easily destroy it.

One of the chief spokesmen said to General Phillips: "In England there is a Liberal Government. Many of you do not like it, but you must accept it because it is the will of the majority. We are the majority here, and we will have a Moslem Prince." This man the General "believed to be a Young Turk leader disguised." He asked why they objected to Wied, and they replied: "Because he is against our religion!" which was entirely untrue. And they added that they could easily take Durazzo because they knew that the international battleships off the coast had orders not to fire. In the end General Phillips made a strong appeal to them to cease this foolish warfare and accept Wied as the choice of Europe.

The Albanian crowd, he reported, appeared to agree and to be anxious to come to terms. But the five foreign leaders stuck out. And the ignorant crowd which believed that by following these leaders they would regain Dibra and other districts finally refused to come to terms.

Mr. Lamb also made a vain attempt to obtain the names of these leaders, and they obstinately refused to come into Durazzo to discuss terms with the Commissioners and the Prince. Nor would they permit any delegates to come. The Mirdite and Maltsor reinforcements who arrived were all reluctant to fight. "We are not in blood with these people," they said, "Why should we fight them?" We had a number of the enemy wounded in our hospitals along with our own men. They were most grateful for the care bestowed upon "them, and bore no ill-will at all. It was sadly true that these poor people were being killed and wounded, offered as human sacrifices at the altar of the rival ambitions of the Entente and the Central Powers.

The Breslau, since notorious, and a Russian warship now arrived. There were many Germans, both military and civilian, in the town, and the Germans and English worked together in the hospital. The surgeon, from the Russian warship, claimed the right to work in the English hospital as a member of the Entente. But as he proposed to give an anaesthetic to a man whose arm we had promised not to amputate, and then to take it off, we got rid of him in spite of his protests that a promise to "an animal like that" did not count.

I took my meals very often with the Germans, and we discussed often the danger caused to Europe by the Anglo-Russian Alliance. I said that though I believed Russia was heading for war I was sure we should not support her, and we drank to a speedy Anglo-German alliance. They were disgusted with Wied's folly, and said the Kaiser had been reluctant to appoint him, but had been over-persuaded by Carmen Sylva. They took me on board the Breslau, where I was received with great cordiality, and the captain, who took me on to the bridge, said his ship for her size was one of the fastest.

On Sunday, June 28th, I was having tea with Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, when we saw Admiral Troubridge climbing the hill towards us. He came into the house very hot, and said almost at once: "I have come to tell you our wireless has picked up a bit of a message. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been murdered at Serajevo. Just that!"

My first idea was: "They have done what they said they would last year. They have begun in Bosnia."

I said to Mr. Lamb: "This means war, doesn't it?"

He replied: "Not necessarily." And seemed surprised. His manner reassured me. But unless very strong pressure were brought to bear, I could not see how war between the Slavs and Austria could be avoided, for "we the Russian army with us" was part of the programme.

No official confirmation of the news came till next day.

That the Serbo-Greek combine expected to have more than the Russian army to support it seemed shown by a remarkable letter the insurgent leaders wrote to Berat, advising the town to surrender, because "we are supported by the Triple Entente." Berat, however, refused to surrender.

The insurgents sent a message to Durazzo that they were willing to be ruled by the International Commissioners if Wied were dismissed.

Terrible rumours came as to what was happening at Koritza. A force of Albanians went to its defence, led by Dutch officers. Greeks were pouring in over the border. At the same time it was said that Essad was returning to Tirana via Serbia, and meant to proclaim himself as Prince. No one wanted him.

On July 11th came a telegram from Berat. "With heart full of grief I send the bad news that Koritza, after two days' fight, has fallen into the hands of the enemy. More than fifty thousand people are coming away. Take measures for these unfortunates. The Greek army is spreading on all sides, killing, and burning, and turning into ashes every Albanian place it enters."

The Albanians were aghast. The Nationalists had all trusted Wied and the Powers. Without artillery and short of ammunition, with no trained army and no officers save the Dutchmen, they had done their best. The "insurrection" had been engineered by Albania's enemies for the express purpose, among others, of giving a door by which the Greeks could enter. Not until the Greeks began the wholesale destruction of Moslems and their villages, accompanied by every kind of atrocity, did the luckless Moslems of Tirana realize how they had been tricked.

On July 13th I went at Mr. Lamb's request to Valona to examine into the number and condition of the refugees. I have no space to describe the horrors of the next few weeks. The Dutch officers, who had flung away their uniforms and bolted down to Valona in civilian dress before the Greek onrush, gave terrible accounts of the mass of struggling refugees in their flight across the mountains; the dead and dying children en route; the aged falling by the wayside; the jam of desperate creatures in a pass; the hideous cruelties of the advancing Greeks. It had been impossible, said the Dutch officers, to hold Koritza with irregular troops against an army with artillery. The Greeks burned as they advanced, and burnt Tepelcni and all the villages near it.

The refugees crawled into Valona in the last stages of exhaustion, thousands and thousands of them, and lay about under the trees in all the surrounding country. Food and shelter there was none. The heat was overwhelming. I look back on it as a nightmare of agony. In a century of repentance the Greeks cannot expiate the abominable crime of those weeks.

Mr. Lamb telegraphed to appoint me as English representative on an international relief committee, which consisted of the Italian and Austrian Consuls, the Russian Vice-Consul, and some of the Albanian headmen.

I proposed at our first meeting that we should report to our respective Governments that an international naval demonstration off Athens should be at once made to stop this scandalous state of things, and save the miserable victims of the Greeks.

The Russian was indignant; the other two consuls looked at their boots, and said they would get into trouble if they did so; the Albanians were delighted. The Austrian, an old friend of mine, told me in private I was right, and only international intervention would have any effect.

All Valona was Nationalist. Even the little children shouted: "Rrnoft Mbreti!" (Note.—The spelling Mpret was invented by The Times for reasons of its own.) The luckless refugees hoped that the Prince, as a sort of supernatural power, would arrive with an army, drive out the Greeks, and restore them to their homes. Numbers of Bektashi dervishes were among them, reverend white-robed men, who prayed me to send a special petition from them to King George, who has so many Moslem subjects. Their rich monasteries especially had been set on and pillaged by the andartis, and Greek fanaticism would, they said, wipe out Bektashism from the land.

The place was a hell of misery. We dealt out maize flour and bread in tiny rations. It was all we could do. There were by now at least seventy thousand in and around Valona, 'more between Berat and Valona, and more always crawling in.

One ray of hope came. On July 27th it was rumoured that Austria had declared war on Serbia. A sort of gasp =of relief ran through the starving, miserable refugees. A great Power, they hoped, was now coming to their Rescue. All were aware that they owed their misery to the Greco-Serb combine. All knew of the martyrs of Fostivar and of Kosovo. I shall never forget the inspired enthusiasm with which one of the headmen of Valona cried, as he raised his hands to heaven: "God is about to avenge the innocent! The Serbs will be punished for their crimes!" He was an Ipek man, and knew too well what those crimes were.

A letter came to me from England from a man versed in military matters, suggesting a line of attack, and urging the Albanians to hasten at once to Kosovo and take the Serbs in the rear, should Austria attack in the front. No official news of any kind or sort came through. The Italian consul had no news, the Austrian none since the news that the Serajevo murderers had confessed that they and their bombs had come from Belgrade, and the latter had been supplied by a Serbian officer, and that the Belgrade papers approved the crime. To me it appeared that the affair was similar to the attempt on King Nikola in 1907. I said: "I suppose Russia is mixed up in this?" The Consul said: "Probably. We shall insist on a very complete investigation as to all the guilty parties."

Meanwhile, it was daily clearer that the refugees could not remain in the terrible heat and fever-laden atmosphere of the Valona plains. They were doomed to die in that case. Small-pox as well as malaria had broken out. It was barely possible to feed the poor creatures, let alone give them quinine. One lump of bread per head per day was all we could manage. I laughed bitterly later on when I was called on to sympathize with Belgians who, after a short though uncomfortable journey, had arrived in England and were living like fighting cocks.

At the last meeting of the Relief Committee we decided we must try and move them to higher land. The question was, where was the Greek army? Could any of the refugees return in safety to their burnt villages, or, at least, cut the corn that must now be ripe? The three consuls said it was impossible for them to spy the Greek position as, if caught, they would get into political trouble. Nor could Albanians be sent, for fear of starting fighting and bringing the Greeks down on Valona.

I therefore volunteered to go myself, if provided with a guide to take me up to the limit held by the Albanians. Ernst Gorlitz, a very friendly youth, of whom I had seen a good deal, and who was acting as correspondent to the Deutsches Tages Zefamg, came at the last minute and asked if he might accompany me, and I gladly consented, as he would be another witness. We started early on July 31st. Neither of us had the least idea of what was going on outside. It was a terrible ride. All along the track were camps of miserable beings, who hailed us as angels come to save them. Poor young Gorlitz, who had never done refugee work, was almost broken down by it. He cried at intervals: "It is the work of Huns—Huns. We must expose the Greeks to all Europe." At Skozi we found an almost desperate Kaimmakam trying to cope with 7,000 refugees in most miserable condition. He warned us to be careful, as the Greeks were not far off, and were still burning villages. We promised to make a united appeal in Berlin and in London, and do all we could to rouse European indignation. Gfirlitz was so upset he could not sleep, and looked bad when we started at dawn next day. We reached the last Albanian outpost beyond Thembla, and there left our horses. Gorlitz and I then scrambled along the mountain till on the opposite side of a deep valley we could see clearly with his field-glasses the camp of the Greek outposts, their tents and the men in khaki uniforms. It was a regular camp with military tents, and completely refuted the Greek lie that "Epirote insurgents" and not Greek regulars were concerned.

We had attained our object. All the mountain side was covered with black patches. The fields of the standing corn we had hoped to reap, the Greeks had burnt to ensure the starvation of the population. It was growing late. To advance further would mean we could not get back that night. We might also be arrested and detained too long to be able to act efficiently. We decided to return to Thembla, and next day make a forced ride to Valona. Starting about 5 a.m. we arrived tired and dirty at Balona rather after 8 p.m., and dismounted at my inn. Gorlitz said he would sup with me. Returning to the dining-room after a "wash and brush up," I found him collapsed with his head in his arms on the table. "What is the matter? Are you ill?" I asked anxiously. He looked up with horror on his face, and half-stunned.

"Russia has mobilized, and we have mobilized, too. They have all gone!" he said. I was thunderstruck. All the Germans had left Valona. Possibly the steamboat service would cease. Gorlitz was in despair, as if he could not get away he might be reckoned a deserter.

"And I shall never see my father again," he said. "He is on the Russian frontier. They will have killed him before I can get back." We went to the post office the first thing next morning, but as the boats from Trieste had stopped running, his remittance from his paper had not arrived, and never would arrive. The Austrian consul could advance no money, having barely enough for his own subjects.

A Thessalian liner was due that night, and might be the last boat up. There was no time to lose, so I paid Gorlitz's fare and gave him enough to see him through. Neither of us having an idea of what was happening, I saw him off at the port, with best wishes for Germany's rapid victory over Russia and an Anglo-German alliance. "As for us," I assured him, "you may be certain we shall side with the assassins." He left. Mr. Moore, of The Times, passing Valona on his way to Salonika, dropped at the quay a hasty scribbled note for me. "Nothing but a miracle can now stop the biggest war in history. Clear out while you can, or you will be cut off, money and food. Please take this seriously." I took it to the Austrian consulate. The Italian was there. Neither had any news. If I left, I wanted to go to Austria. But unless a gunboat came for the consul that was not now possible. Neither of them had any idea England would be dragged in, and assured me I should be all right anywhere. I asked the Italian point-blank: "Are you going to war as Austria's ally?" He replied: "The Triple Alliance is a secret one. I do not know its terms. But I have my own ideas about them. My opinion is that we are not obliged to fight, and in that case we certainly shall not." A letter arrived from Mr. Lamb at Durazzo, asking me to find the kavas of the British Embassy at Constantinople, who, with his family, was among the refugees burnt out by the Greeks, and send them on to Constantinople! by the first possible boat. No mention of war or warning.

Valona was in huge enthusiasm over the news that Belgrade was attacked. "Now the Serbs and Russians and Austrians will have their own affairs to attend to, and will leave us in peace!" they cried.

August 4th, the fatal day, I spent hunting up the family of the kavas, and doing relief work.

August 5th I went to the bank and found a sort of panic. Orders had come to close in two days. That meant no more cash for relief work or anything. I asked for all the gold he had, and the manager let me draw almost all the balance of my relief fund, which I distributed, and 30 pounds for myself. More he could not give. The Italian consul said an Italian coasting-boat would touch that night, and that as it was impossible for me to go to Austria I had better take the kavas' family to Brindisi and there tranship them, see the British consul, and learn what was happening. If things were all right, I could return and make fresh arrangements for the relief work. Without money it was useless to stay, as the whole of the mass of wretched sufferers would come to me for help, which I could not give. And at 10 p.m. I left for Brindisi. Shortly before the boat started an American came on board and shouted: "They've got news at the consulates that your people are in it, too." But I did not take it at all seriously.

Only next day at the British consulate, after I had transhipped my proteges and been examined for small-pox by the doctor—for I was from an infected area—did I learn to my amazement that not only had Great Britain declared war, but to my shame and disgust had done so on the side of the Slav. After that I really did not care what happened. The cup of my humiliation was full.

No more help could be got for the refugees. It was no use to go back. The difficulty was indeed to go anywhere. I wondered which flag would fly in Valona next time I saw it—the Austrian or the Italian.

Had I had enough money I should have gone to the Pacific islands, or anywhere out of the dirty squabbles of Europe. As it was, the only thing to do was to clear out of Italy lest she should be drawn in by the Triple Alliance. A White Star liner chartered to take off British tourists, who were swarming down from the Tyrol and South Germany, took about a thousand of us from Genoa on August 13th.

It was years since I had been with a large crowd of English. They seemed to me a strange race. To me the boat was the acme of comfort, and coolness, and cleanliness. But the bulk of my compatriots thought they were roughing it. I thought of the seventy thousand houseless creatures under the sun and the rain, starving on a daily bread dole—and these people wanted two or three courses for breakfast. None of them had seen war. None knew what a burnt village or a rotting corpse, or a living man with his abdomen shot through was like. None had the faintest idea of the thing that had happened. Many would have liked, I believe, to throw me overboard when I said that the war would last two years for certain, and how many more I did not know. When I told them that Russia would crumple like wet brown paper, they said I ought to be ashamed of myself. Nor when I added that I expected to live to see England fighting the Russians would they believe me.

And I saw the steamer as typical of England. Masses and masses of blind people, wilfully blind, who had never even troubled to try and find out whither they were going, but filled with an overwhelming conceit. Some even genuinely believed the war would be nearly over by the time we reached Liverpool. I could not help hoping we should meet my friend the Breslau, just to bring them up against facts. "If these are the English" I used to say to myself, "what an hell of a mess there will be before this is finished." And the war lasted more than two years, and we have already fought the Russians.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE YEARS OF THE WAR

THE first thing I did in London was to send back to King Petav the Order of St Sava he had bestowed upon me, with a letter telling him I had heard the attack upon Austria freely discussed the previous year, and that I considered him and his people guilty of the greatest crime in history.

I will add here only a few notes on some of the events of the next few years which concerned the lands we have been considering. First, I ascertained that in Cetinje the Archduke's murder was accepted unhesitatingly as Serb work. None even suggested that any one else had been responsible, and it was thought rather a good way of showing patriotism. Montenegro desiring, like many greater Powers, to obtain territory, declared war and occupied the strip of land between the bay of Trieste and Antivari, which the Austrians evacuated almost at once. Prince Petar led the Montenegrin force, and to the pain and surprise of the Great Serbian party they found that such was the reputation of the Montenegrin army that a very large part of the Serb population fled along with the Austrians without waiting to be "liberated." Even the Orthodox priest of Spizza fled, and the lot of those who remained was not too happy. Being liberated by Montenegrins is a painful process. Montenegrin troops also crossed the Bosnian frontier, but did not get far, and failed to carry out their boast that they were going to Serajevo.

When the great Russian retreat was taking place Montenegro began to waver. Without Russia it was believed that the war must collapse. Petar Plamenatz, though he had every belief in the British navy, had none in the army. Peace was expected to ensue shortly. Montenegro came to some arrangement with Austria, which enabled her to shift her troops and occupy Scutari in the summer of 1915. A detachment of the "Wounded Allies" society, which hastened to Montenegro, found "neither wounded nor allies," so some of its members reported.

The mountain Albanians strongly resisted the Montenegrin advance, but Scutari had been disarmed by the International Control, and was easily taken.

The Serbs also anticipated peace, and concentrated forces in such a position as also to be able to enter and occupy Albanian territory.

In April 1915, as we learnt later, the Powers who had guaranteed Albania's independence, bought Italy's intervention by promising her Albania's best port, Valona, and by the same secret Treaty bound her over not to object should "France, Russia, and Great Britain desire to distribute among Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece the northern and southern portions of Albania." The Powers who rushed to war over the violation of the Belgian Treaty, thus themselves tore up their Treaty with Albania. Secrets usually leak out. Serbia got wind of the Treaty in a garbled form two months later, and believed that the whole coast down to and including Durazzo was promised to Italy. Therefore, when it was yet possible to win Bulgaria's support by giving her her "Alsace-Lorraine", Macedonia, the Serbs refused. "If," said Prince Alexander to my informant, "I am to lose land in the west, I will yield none in the east."

Another evil result was, that as we had planned the destruction of North Albania, we could not call upon its help. In the autumn of 1915 I received a telegram from Sir Edward Grey suggesting that I and some others who knew the land should go to North Albania and recruit the tribesmen on our side. The frontier could thus have been held, and the Serbian debacle prevented in all probability. But to do this it was necessary to guarantee to the Albanians the independence of their land, and to this Russia and France, it would appear, refused consent. And the plan was dropped. The Serbs fled over the mountains, where the Albanians, who had suffered much at their hands two years previously, could have destroyed them, but trusting to the honour of England and the Allies they let them pass and even fed them.

In Montenegro the news of Serbia's defeat caused no undue grief. One man's misfortune is another's luck. Montenegro might now become top-dog.

I Was in Egypt when a Reuter telegram announced that the Austrians had taken the Lovtchen, occupied Cetinje, and appointed as Mayor "the Bulgarian Vuletitch." I guessed at once this was my old friend Vulco of the Grand Hotel. His son-in-law, Rizoff, who had had to leave Rome, where he was working a pro-German propaganda, was now Bulgarian Minister at Berlin. There was something truly Balkanic in the surrender of Cetinje, arranged by the Grand Hotel and his son-in law, which appealed to my sense of humour. I soon learnt my guess was true. The Fates willed that I should meet a Montenegrin official. Last time we met during the Balkan war I had vituperated him about the cutting off of noses. Now in a strange land we were old friends.

"Tell me," said I, "what happened? The Austrians cannot really have taken the Lovtchen. One does not march troops up two thousand feet of rocks under guns, when one can walk in by the back door." Cheerfully he replied:

"Gospodjitza, you have been up the Lovtchen yourself. It is not worth while lying to you. Frankly, we welcomed the Austrians, even with enthusiasm. A small detachment on the road had not been warned, and fired. Otherwise nothing occurred. Yes, Vuko is Mayor! All your old friends remain, Yanko Vukotitch, and all! Only the King and suite left. Mirko, as you know, remains." Here he burst out laughing. "He is tuberculous, you know, and will go to Vienna to consult a doctor! The King told Petar to remain, too, but it bored him, and he came away afterwards. Mon Dieu, but the King was angry with him. You know our Montenegrins. They are funny dogs. When those at Antivari heard that the Austrians had arrived in Cetinje, they pillaged the palace of Prince Danilo. But before the house of the Austrian consul they put a guard. A good fellow this consul, is he not? For me this war is the struggle of the Slav and the Teuton for the only unexploited lands in Europe. We always knew it would come. But in the past we have never reckoned that England will range herself with Russia and permit her to take Constantinople. That would mean the end of Roumania, of Bulgaria, of Serbia, of us, and of you, too, Gospodjitza, if you are not careful. Therefore we ranged ourselves with Austria. Those who have travelled in Austria know that the Slavs there are richer, better educated, and better off in every way than we poor devils of Serbia and Montenegro. In return for the taxes they pay they get roads, schools—what you will. Our taxes all run out of the breeches pockets of those Two Families (Petrovitch and Karageorgevitch). The war is not ended, but I can tell you those Two Families will go and never return. Our King is in France. If the French want a king, they may keep him!"

"And who is responsible for killing the Archduke?"

"Who knows? It was done certainly by some of those mad students of Belgrade. You remember how they tried to kill King Nikola? Well! The Serbs wanted war. Now they have got it let us hope they are content. Politics, as you know, are all cochonnerie. As for me, I have had enough, and I wash my hands of them."

His account squares with others. The Greek Minister in Cetinje, who, as a neutral remained there, related that not long after King Nikola left Montenegro a telegram from Vienna arrived inviting him to stay. Prince Danilo was already abroad when the crisis arose. Serbia as well as Montenegro made an attempt to come to terms with Austria in 1915, it would appear, from an unsigned convention, a copy of which has been lately reported to have been found in the archives at Vienna. It would account for the fact that in spite of the advice of more than one English authority, they persisted in making no preparation for the further defence of their country, and disposed their troops only for an advance into Albania.

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."

The consummate impudence of which remark needs no comment. The planners of the crime had indeed Intended to bury their traces, as they supplied the wretched boys each with a tube of cyanide of potassium, which he was to take immediately after doing the deed. An Instruction they did not follow.

The attitude of the Serb Government was precisely the same as that it adopted in 1907 with regard to the Cetinje affair. It "knew nothing," and made no inquiry. Nor, during the whole three weeks that elapsed before the ultimatum, did the Serb Government do anything to clear up the matter and mitigate Austria's just anger. One can only deduce that war was expected and intended.

The military party was in the ascendant, and did as it chose. There was great tension between it and the Government, and already before the murders Prince Alexander had been selected to replace his father as Regent.

"In order," according to Bogitchevitch, "to postpone the inevitable conflict (between the two parties) and that responsibility for present events should be evaded, and in order perhaps that he might not have to assume responsibility for future events, King Petar retired from government and entrusted the Regency to the Crown Prince." He adds: "Can any one who knows Serb conditions, even partially, believe that the Government knew nothing of the conspiratory activities of certain circles of officers and komitadjis in Bosnia, and that it knew nothing of the preparatory measures in Serbia for the attentat on the Austrian royal couple?"

The Government, he adds, carried its nonchalance to "such an extent that Pashitch did not remain in Belgrade, and the Austrian ultimatum had to be handed to the Minister of Finance, who temporarily replaced him."

Documents obtained by Mr. Bottomley from the Serbian legation in
London show that its members were aware of the plot. Time, the
revealer of all secrets, will one day unveil the whole of this one.
Meanwhile, I am glad that the Order of St. Sava is not in my house.

Time will show, too, whether the Serb is to be top-dog in Jugoslavia, or whether, after all these oceans of blood that have been spilt and the untold misery, we shall arrive at an arrangement which could have been obtained by patience and Trialism.

The Teuton for the time is broken, and the Slav is loosed. Whether for better or worse time again will show.

It remains to consider Albania. When I left it in 1914 folk said: "Now that the Powers are busy fighting each other they will leave us free to manage our own affairs." The International forces left almost at once. The Defence left Durazzo before war was declared. The Prince of Wied left on September 3rd. And the former insurgents wrote and begged him to return.

Essad Pasha then arrived at Durazzo, and was publicly embraced by Alliotti the Italian. Most of the International Commission left. Krajevsky remained, and with the aid of French money tried to establish Essad as Prince in vain. Essad, however, levied custom dues, and with that and the French money was wealthy, and withdrew to Salonika, where he tried to pose as an exiled monarch, but failed to raise an Albanian army. He never dared return to Albania but lived in luxury in Paris on his ill-gotten wealth till he was assassinated on June 15th by an Albanian student.

On December 25th the Italians landed suddenly at Valona under pretence of protecting it from the Greeks.

All now made ready to tear Albania to pieces, in spite of the International guarantee. The Montenegrins seized Scutari in 1915. The Serbs hurried to take Durazzo. But then came the Austrian attack. Caught in a bad position, the Serbs had had to fly to Scutari with the Austrians after them. In consequence the Allies evacuated Scutari, and left the Albanians to their fate. Had the Allies resolutely forbidden the Montenegrins to seize Scutari in 1915, and enlisted the Albanian tribesmen, guaranteeing their independence and the restoration of at least a portion of their lost land, the Serbian debacle might have been saved, and the results been very different. Such a plan was proposed by the Foreign Office, and I and some others asked to enlist the men. But Russia and, I believe, France vetoed it. Consequently the Bulgars and Austrians took and held most of north and central Albania till the armistice.

In the south King Constantine's troops seized Albania and used it as a line of communication with the Austrian army till the Italians pressed down from Valeria to evict them, and the French advanced from Salonika to Koritza, which they found guarded by armed Albanians. These gladly admitted the French on condition the whole district was recognized as Albanian. The French Government agreed, and on December 11, 1916, Colonel Descouins proclaimed the Koritza district an Albani Republic, and hoisted the Albanian flag amid great popular rejoicing. A government was speedily organized, and a great number of Albanian schools opened, and filled, throughout the new Republic, which included two hundred thousand souls, and flourished till Greece joined the Allies. Trouble then began, as the Greeks demanded Koritza as part of their price for "coming in." And to placate Greece, Greek schools, which had been closed, were re-opened. The dismay of Albania, who had trusted in the promises of the French, was great.

But hope rose strongly when President Wilson proclaimed to the world his gospel of self-determination and the rights of small nations. Seldom has a politician inspired greater hope and belief. All secret treaties, it was believed, would be laid aside, and a Peace of the peoples would result.

Nor was it till the eve of the Peace Conference, when France showed her enmity by trying to prevent the representation of Albania in Paris, that the Albanians took alarm. An Albanian delegation was at last accepted, only to be told that the Secret Treaty of 1915 held good, and the Powers that prated of justice and the inviolability of Treaties now desired to partition Albania among her worst foes.

Against this Albania appealed, and is appealing, and her fate is yet in the balance. French, Italian, and Serb troops have occupied the land ever since the Armistice. Every possible obstacle has been thrown in Albania's way by those who wish her destruction. The Albanians have elected, last January, a Government of their own, and the Powers have refused to recognize it. The British Government, in order to stifle Albania's cries, have withdrawn both the British representatives from Albania, General Phillips and Mr. Morton Eden. Both are friends of Albania's independence, and General Phillips reported that the Albanian Government was working remarkably well. Albania now has no means of communicating with the outer world, save through those who wish her destruction—Greece, Italy and Jugoslavia. All three are working to overthrow the Albanian Government. At the moment of going to press the Serbs have made a wanton attack on North Albania from three points. But they will not kill the spirit of the Albanian people, who have resisted denationalization for a thousand years, and who beg only for the right to take their place in the Balkans and live in freedom and harmony with their neighbours, and who now at the time of going to press are fighting bravely for Liberty.

I will not write Finis, for the tale of the Balkan tangle does not end here.