United States or Svalbard and Jan Mayen ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Turks desired particularly to subdue this people in the outset of the campaign, as their territory commanded the upper road from Podgoritza to Danilograd, and hostilities commenced with an attack on them. While waiting I made the acquaintance of Marko, whom I found to be one of the most interesting characters I met in Montenegro.
At Podgoritza I was received by the Governor Spiro Popovitch and taken for a drive round the town. I arrived at Cetinje in time for dinner and appeared in my usual corner. Mr. Shipley and Count Bollati hailed me at once saying that they thought I was about due. Where had I been? "Ipek," said I. The effect on the diplomatic table was even more startling than upon Montenegro.
Podgoritza was their first experience of a khan, those oriental substitutes for hotels, and it was a deceptively good khan, indeed it was not a khan at all, it was an inn; it provided meals, it had a kind of bar, or at any rate a row of bottles and glasses, it possessed an upper floor with rooms, separate rooms, opening on to a gallery.
G , an Englishwoman, from the hospital at Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a half-inch holiday from the razor.
I saw him some months later, and he told me that when the great sortie from Podgoritza to relieve Medun came in view of the blockading force, though at a distance of several miles, his men declared that they could not fight that immense army, which filled the valley with its numbers and had the appearance of a force many times greater than their own.
At every halt for rest in the midday heat, or a cup of black coffee to stimulate me for another two or three hours on horse and on foot the Serbian murders were the one topic. Boshko, my guide, with the latest news from Podgoritza was in great request and a proud man. Everywhere the crime was approved.
No Turk ever treated Armenian worse than did the two Serb peoples treat the Albanians in the name of the Holy Orthodox Church. Stanko Markovitch, Governor of Podgoritza, forbade the giving of any food to the starving people of the burnt villages, and told me flatly that they were doomed to die.
Either make war or demobilize the country could not stand the strain. I was warned not to trust Stanko Markovitch, the Governor of Podgoritza, a sinister figure enough, who had been raised suddenly to this height from being master in a primary school, for "services rendered." "The King's poisoner," said folk. "Beware!"
The hospital was intended for Ipek, but for some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores over, except in small quantities.
That Austria should try to take advantage of the complication was but natural. Among the accused who got crushingly heavy sentences of imprisonment in irons was Radovitch, since well known as one of Nikola's fiercest opponents. He was known as a "Clubashi," and as an engineer had built the prison at Podgoritza, to which he was now doomed.
Word Of The Day