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Updated: September 21, 2025
The conquest of Serbia had left Montenegro an unprotected oasis surrounded by enemy territory; and Italy, which alone might have defended the Black Mountain, was unable or disinclined to make the effort. Lovtchen fell on 10 January, and the Austrians occupied Cettinje three days later.
Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly delivered his message to the Count. We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk dress on.
The little world about Cettinje has changed so much since this my first visit there, and was so little known then by the outer world, that my experiences there will be to the present day like those which one might have in a perished social organization.
"Bah!" said one of the secretaries who sat writing on the mat beside the bimbashi, "I can kill twenty such men as that with a stick, and should like to do it such rubbish as they are I should like to send them all to the devil." "So should I," replied the other. Then one of them suggested that, though I was evidently a stranger, he felt sure he had seen Gosdanovich in Cettinje.
"Never forget a face," he said, "never forget its name. That is the secret of popularity." He was very anxious that we should go to Cettinje and to Scutari. He kindly promised to see about it, to arrange for our horses and to have our passage telegraphed before us. At Podgoritza he said a government motor-car should wait for us.
The flooded state of the country and unfordable rivers forbade the trip to Wassoivich, and I was obliged, to my great regret, to relinquish it and to go back to Cettinje, having lost nearly three weeks in the rain at Moratsha.
Next day outside the world was white and silent, the snow covering the little city and its intrigues with a thick whitewash. The minister was the kindest of hosts and could not do enough for us during our stay. Cettinje had not changed much. The hotel-keeper showed an intense and violent anxiety to leave Montenegro.
An Austrian journalist, accompanying the invading forces when they took possession of the king's palace in Cettinje, described the interior decorations as follows: "In the reception room two great oil paintings occupied the positions of honor. One was that of the Emperor of Austria and the other was that of the Queen of Hungary.
We were to see the War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the English minister, and to inspect the town. Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins have half covered it with Cettinje. It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way.
A well-known English nurse was managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They demurred his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did nothing.
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