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These preparations went on through the winter. Montenegro's protests, to Europe, of her innocence were lies which were black even for diplomacy, As for the interview which Prince Danilo gave to the Morning Post, it was a shameless tissue of falsehoods.
They looked on the Bulgars as foreigners, and despised the Serbs. Montenegro's attitude was shown by Petar Plamenatz, who arrived for a week's visit as special Commissioner for Montenegro just in time for the opening ceremony, when I had done the whole preliminary work of arranging the show. Lord Fitzmaurice invited all the Balkan representatives to lunch. I translated the invitation to Petar.
The Prince has a small palace just beyond the town, and spends the coldest winter months here, where he escapes the rigours of the climate in Cetinje. The fact speaks for the ever forward striving spirit which has animated Montenegro's rulers since its very foundation, and which only the rigours of pitiless warfare have hindered.
Was this, then, Antivari, Montenegro's important seaport and the bone of contention with Austria? Right well has Austria maintained its control of this little port. One large house is that of the Austrian Vice-Consul, who lives in solitary state, watching everyone who passes through the port. Opposite, on the further horn of the bay, lies Spizza, an Austrian military station.
I gathered, in fact, that an attack on the Turk had been planned, and now with this revolution on their hands the Serbs would be able to do nothing. In the town, however, I met the nephew of Voyvoda Gavro, then Montenegro's Minister for Foreign Affairs a decadent type of youth on vacation from Constantinople, where he was at college.
After all had partaken of Señor Montenegro's enforced liberality, we repaired to the launch, accompanied by almost the entire population of Misamis, and amidst a shrill chorus of "Hasta la vista," and "Adios," we steamed back to the Burnside, whose twinkling lights shone out dimly against the evening sky.
Whatever the heads of the land knew, the rank and file had confidently expected Russian intervention. Only by dragging in Austria could Russia's hand be forced. The Serbs endeavoured to goad Austria into action. News reached us that they had imprisoned and maltreated Prochaska, the Austrian Consul in Prizren, and Montenegro's delight and expectation were immense.
They had roused fierce anger, too, by publicly flogging some offenders, a punishment regarded in Albania as so shameful and humiliating that it bred sympathy for the victim and hatred for the inflicter. Has it, perhaps, the same result in India and Egypt? Our next news was that Montenegro's feelings were woefully hurt.
In days of old the priest was King, Obedient to his nod, Man rushed to slay his brother man As sacrifice to God. THE events seen by the casual traveller are meaningless if he knows not what went before. They are mere sentences from the middle of a book he has not read. Before going further we must therefore tell briefly of Montenegro's past.
But because, during my travels in Jugoslavia, I heard King Nicholas repeatedly denounced by Serbian officials with far more bitterness than they employed toward their late enemies and oppressors, the Hapsburgs, I was frankly eager for an opportunity to form my own opinions about Montenegro's aged ruler.
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