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Magnificent France, throttled Belgium, England willing but not yet ready, devastated Serbia, looked to us for sympathy and help, and all the sympathy they got came from private persons in America, and of help there was none. Meanwhile, the Germans undermined and gangrened the American people.
On his death in 1356, leaving no heir capable of ruling the heterogeneous empire he had thrown together in the twenty years of his reign, the rival feudal chieftains of Serbia fought with each other for power and the empire was soon torn to pieces. Albania split off from the mass almost at once, and was a separate principality under the Balsha chiefs.
Though Serbia had been the first to be attacked by the Central Powers when the world war began, the end of the first year's fighting was to find her still unconquered, though she had passed through ordeals quite as severe as those suffered by Belgium.
It was when those who knew began to discuss the question of where Great Britain was to find the military force to make good Grey's pledge to Serbia that the Dardanelles campaign came in for hot criticism. It was known that few, if any, fully trained troops were available in England for a fresh campaign.
Indeed, as matters ultimately worked out, it was France who found the bulk of the force that was hurried to Saloniki when Bulgaria declared war on Serbia and joined in the Austro-German attack upon the Balkan kingdom. Later, under French pressure, England withdrew 40,000 of her troops from the western front and rushed them off to Saloniki, but much too late to succor Serbia.
Nikita had shown plainly that he regarded the event as a very important step in Serb history. And he wanted me to go to Belgrade. But to me the situation was rather obscure. I knew Montenegro was unpopular in Serbia. Perhaps Nikita did not. For purposes of their own the Montenegrins had risked my life according to their own statements by sending me to Ipek.
At the same time a more definitely political agitation started in Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating position of economic bondage in which the country was held by Austria-Hungary, and was roughly justified by the indisputable argument: 'Serbia must expand or die. Expansion at the cost of Turkey seemed hopeless, because even the acquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a large alien population and no maritime outlet.
And so the initial character of the war changed within a few weeks: it developed into a conflict between international democracy on the one hand and international autocracy on the other hand. It was then when the question of Serbia sank into comparative insignificance that the Russian autocrats realized that they had enlisted on the wrong side.
And in the Inter-Allied commission Bulgaria is to have a representative, while Serbia, Greece, and Rumania, a part of whose stolen property the commission has to recover, will have none. A comparison between the indulgence lavished upon Bulgaria and the severity displayed toward Rumania is calculated to disconcert the stanchest friends of the Supreme Council.
It would be premature to discuss the exact forms which the new State would assume; but when the time comes it will be found that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia-Slavonia, Istria and Carniola, will acclaim their liberation at the hands of free Serbia and Montenegro.
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