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I remembered four points: The Austrians' boast that they would be in Salonika by 1909; The Pasha of Plevlje's statement that Austria had more troops in the Sanjak than she was entitled to; The oft-repeated statement of Serb and Montenegrin that the Austrian gendarmerie officers superintending "reforms" in Macedonia smuggled in arms; That Serbs and Montenegrins were also arming and carrying on a sharp Great Serbian propaganda in Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and the Sanjak.
The Albanians were well aware that the so-called reforms meant ultimately the furtherance of Russia's pan-Slav schemes; that so long as even a handful of Serbs lived in a place Russia would claim it as Serb and enforce the claim to the best of her power; that the "reforms" meant, In fact, the introduction of Serb and Russian consulates, the erection of Serb schools and churches under Russian protection, the planting of Serb colonies and ultimate annexation.
We had the interesting advantage in that Gosdanovich understood all that they said as they talked Serb to each other, for they were a mixed company, and mostly of that race, and they supposed that he was a Russian and I an Englishman, and that both of us were ignorant of their language.
The Serb and the Greek differ in most essentials. The one is by habit and training a good soldier, a proverbial idler, an easygoing optimist endowed with genial temper and a happy-go-lucky nature, capable indeed of extremes, yet mostly inclined to the tolerant indifference that leaves things as they are; the other, whose martial qualities have vanished in the melting pot of time, has developed the defensive traits that come to the aid of all races who can no longer maintain their cause in the tented field.
Their ancestors had been either forcibly converted or had, as was not infrequent, voluntarily adopted Islam. The Moslem Serb was a far greater persecutor of the Christian Serb than was the Turk. We find that the leading Dahis of Belgrade hailed from Focha in the Herzegovina.
The depth of Serb aspirations in Bosnia has two obvious grounds on the one hand, pure national sentiment of the best kind; on the other, the urgent economic need for a seaboard, Serbia being the only inland country in Europe save Switzerland, and not enjoying the latter's favoured position in the immediate vicinity of great world-markets.
"Aeroplanes returning." Immediately every Serb and Austrian fled. The girl, Hardinge, and I were left alone. It was a false alarm. With the returning crowd came a large man, who was weeping. "Oh, my poor brother! oh, my poor brother! What have they done to thee? Why should this evil have befallen thee?" As we finished tying him up, Hardinge said, "Is it any good lying down?"
Here was one, chuckling and grinning at some of us in our attempts to mount the weird saddles and weirder steeds which had been provided. The Serb captain had a carriage, and another carriage took all our baggage, which had now sadly dwindled owing to the continued depredations of the police. We straggled out of the town and through the crowded bazaar, for it was a Saturday.
My Montenegrin guide showed anxiety also and begged me on no account to reveal his origin. From a little hill belonging to the Patriarchia I saw the widespread Turkish camp on the plain. The Igumen and the few monks and visitors gave me the Serb point of view. Because some six centuries ago the Sveti Kralj had been crowned in the church they regarded the land as rightfully and inalienably Serb.
The occupation of Bosnia led to the first real quarrels in modern times between Croat and Serb, for the former wanted Bosnia in Greater Croatia in order to have connection with Dalmatia; the latter wished it annexed to Greater Serbia, because it was Serbian. Magyar and German, further, quarreled as to the status of Bosnia and left it unsettled.
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