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In 1812 the Montenegrins, helped by the Russians and British, again expelled the French and reoccupied Cattaro; but Austria was by now fully alive to the meaning this harbour would have once it was in the possession of Montenegro, and after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 took definitive possession of it as well as of all the rest of Dalmatia, thus effecting the complete exclusion of the Serb race for all political and commercial purposes from the Adriatic, its most natural and obvious means of communication with western Europe.
An artificial creation with unnatural boundaries, it is a grave question whether this so-called state can either manage its own affairs or live in peace with its Serb and Greek neighbors. If Prince William of Wied is unable to cope with these difficulties, Italy and Austria-Hungary may think it necessary to intervene in Albania.
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 cumulative effect of all these exciting and trying experiences was the growth of a distinctly more sympathetic feeling towards Serbia in Europe at large, and especially a rallying of all the elements throughout the Serb and Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary, except the extreme clericals of Agram, to the Serbian cause; briefly, the effect was the exact opposite of that desired by Vienna and Budapest.
This dividing line, drawn first by the Emperor Diocletian, has been described on p. 14; at the division of the Roman Empire into East and West it was again followed, and it formed the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly the same as the present political boundary between Montenegro and Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory.
He was champing, as the Government were commandeering the wireless company's motor cars right and left using them to cart benzine; and now they were going to send a refugee Serb officer's family to Podgoritza in his motor, leaving him sitting. We spent the next morning waiting for the motor, not knowing if it would arrive or no.
The other Serbs sprang forward to finish the Russian officer with the usual ugly dagger which Serbian robbers always carry. The body of the dead Serb, however, formed a complete shield, and this, coupled with the fact that we all thought the colonel dead, saved him from mutilation.
He further promised to put the remainder of his life to the exclusive service of King Alexander and his country, and ends with, "Long live the hope of the Serb nation, your Majesty our Lord and King Alexander!" signed, "The most sincere and devoted servant of the House of Obrenovitch and the throne of your Majesty, Nikola Pashitch." This amazing telegram caused consternation in Russia.
A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, it has sometimes seemed to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he is in the wrong.
The Southern Slav question, as has already been argued in an earlier chapter, can only be treated satisfactorily as an organic whole; and it may be taken for granted that Austria-Hungary, in the event of victory, will annex the two independent Serb kingdoms, and unite the whole Serbo-Croat race under Habsburg rule.
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