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At Podgoritza I was received by the Governor Spiro Popovitch and taken for a drive round the town. I arrived at Cetinje in time for dinner and appeared in my usual corner. Mr. Shipley and Count Bollati hailed me at once saying that they thought I was about due. Where had I been? "Ipek," said I. The effect on the diplomatic table was even more startling than upon Montenegro.
Nor, unfortunately, was Count Bollati in any way unique in his tastes a fact which may have affected the politics of Europe. He had held a diplomatic post in Belgrade and was very curious to know how I should fare. "Sooner you than I!" he laughed, and meanwhile sketched me a route through the chief towns and told me his first experience in the land.
It is very good for them. But I wonder that they put up with it." Both gentlemen commented on the grim matter-of-factness of the telegrams. "Business carried on usual during the alterations," said Bollati.
Bollati, the Italian Ambassador, was a great admirer of Germany; he spoke German well and did everything possible to keep Italy out of war with her former Allies in the Triple Alliance. Spain was represented by Polo de Bernabe, who now represents the interests of the United States in Germany, as well as those of France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia and Roumania.
The tourist table was occupied solely by my sister and myself; the diplomatic one solely by Mr. Shipley, who was temporarily representing England, and Count Bollati, the Italian Minister. Dinner passed in complete silence. I was aching to have the opinion of the exalted persons at the other table on the startling news, but dared not broach so delicate a subject. The end came however.
The fact that the present Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia was born in Cetinje is of some interest now, when he is attempting to seize his grandfather's throne but more of this later. In 1902 it was still undreamed of. Only Count Bollati, then Italian Minister to Montenegro, took any active interest in my plans. Le bon Dieu, he said, "has created you expressly to travel in the Balkans."
His blood was badly curdled by the fact that when he was in Belgrade he was well acquainted with Colonel Mashin, the ill-fated Draga's brother-in-law, who according to the telegrams had finished her off with a hatchet. "And I have shaken hands with him!" said Bollati, disgustedly. Mr.
And Bollati for the first time realized the Balkans. The bride was cousin to King Alexander Obrenovitch who had no direct heir. Failing one, she was one of the nearest relations to the Obrenovitch dynasty. The astute Prince Nikola, having married a daughter to the Karageorge claimant to the throne, now strove to make assurance doubly sure by marrying a son to a possible rival candidate.
The servants withdrew and Count Bollati turned to me and said suddenly: "Now, Mademoiselle, you know these countries What do you think of the situation?" "Petar Karageorgevitch will be made King." "People here all say it will be Mirko," said Mr. Shipley. Count Bollati maintained it would be a republic. I told them the facts I had learned in Serbia, and said that Petar was practically a certainty.
And, in fact, there is good reason to suppose that both he and the German Foreign Office did cherish that hope or delusion. They had bluffed Russia off in 1908. They had the dangerous idea that they might bluff her off again. In this connection Baron Beyens records a conversation with his colleague, M. Bollati, the Italian Ambassador at Berlin, in which the latter took the view that
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