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On the contrary, there is definite ill-will on the part of Hungary towards her neighbours. Austria is soft towards the new nations which have arisen on the ruins of her empire, but Hungary is hard. To the Serb, the enmity of the Magyar is disconcerting.
The means adopted by the governments of Vienna and Budapest to nullify the plans of Serbian expansion were generally to maintain the political émiettement of the Serb race, the isolation of one group from another, the virtually enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale and their substitution by German colonists, and the encouragement of rivalry and discord between Roman Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb.
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.
In all the other Serb countries the families which naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or in exile, as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of international importance.
He said no one but an enemy of the Serb people would do so, and threatened to denounce me to his uncle. Leaving Berani I plunged into Albanian territory. This land, fondly called by the Serbs "Stara Srbija," Old Serbia, was in point of fact Serb only for a short period.
A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us which is unusual in Montenegro but continued the favourite Serb recreation of spitting.
It was a sanctuary both for Roman Catholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and sometimes acted as intermediary on behalf of its co-religionists with the Turkish authorities, with whom it wielded great influence. Intellectually also it was a sort of Serb oasis, and the only place during the Middle Ages where Serbian literature was able to flourish.
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 Tsar ordered King Nikola to yield.
I asked, "What is the Serb army like?" They roared with laughter. "Oni chuvahjuf svinje Gospodjitza!" 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.
An affable old Turk, seedy in appearance, but extremely entertaining, owned to six languages, not counting others of which he had only a smattering. Serb he didn't count as he said he could only talk on easy subjects in that tongue. It is very humiliating, that sort of thing, it is liable to lower the opinion of one's own intelligence. We kept late hours, too, at Reinwein's, we couldn't help it.
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