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Updated: May 24, 2025
Suleiman's campaign was planned on the idea of a triple attack on the heart of Montenegro, by himself from Krstaz, Ali Saib from Spuz, and Mehemet Ali, my old friend in Crete, from Kolashin via the upper Moratsha, the three armies to meet at Danilograd.
The day after our trip to Kolashin the rain set in again, and we passed nearly a fortnight more at the convent before the weather broke and I was able to set out, taking with me a gang of men to make the roads passable for my horse, so much had the rains wrought havoc with the face of the land.
We found the voivode of the province, Peiovich, at Aluga, with his headquarters in the schoolhouse, and keeping a lookout for the Turks, who menaced an invasion from Kolashin, a band of them having just attempted to pass the Tara, which bounds the plain on the north, but being driven back with loss.
The Turks came from Kolashin by a road which debouches into the valley by a steep descent of about five hundred feet, and they had crowned the heights and planted their battery before the clans could gather, since these had been scattered along a line of thirty or forty miles, uncertain what point would be attacked.
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.
We reconnoitred Kolashin, and found it an almost open fortress, which was commanded by hills around, and so near that it could be made untenable by rifle fire, which could have been poured in from both sides of the river that ran by it, which, though then a swollen torrent, was under ordinary conditions fordable anywhere.
The object of my excursion was the ancient convent of Dobrilovina, then the advanced post towards Kolashin, the Turkish station in Old Servia, and the point from which all invasions from the east entered Montenegro; and the ride was by far the most interesting of all that I made in the two principalities.
For several days the two armies watched each other, each waiting for the offensive of the other, until one morning found the plain covered with a fog so dense that the combatants could not see each other one hundred yards away, when the Montenegrins made an attack so furious that the Turks retreated and took refuge across the Tara and withdrew to Kolashin, abandoning the movement and the attempt to relieve Niksich.
The rest of the Albanians continued their flight to Kolashin, the panic involving the regulars, who insisted on returning, and, in spite of all remonstrances of the officers, went back. The hegumenos, Mitrofan Banovich, whose name deserves record as well as any I heard of in this land of heroes, introduced to me the captain of the Moratsha battalion, who had taken part in the fight.
Jovo Martinovitch, the Serdar at Kolashin, was delighted to hear of the Ipek expedition, but admitted frankly that he had not dared propose it himself. Voyvoda Lakitch, he said, was well informed and no doubt knew the moment at which it could be safely attempted. Every place I passed through was of opinion something was about to happen soon. Next year the route to Gusinje would be open.
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