There was not in the other Southern Slav lands much consolation for
the National party. In Bosnia the French Revolution and the Serbian
wars of independence had an unfortunate effect, for in 1831 the
Muhammedan Serbs of that province, under the leadership of Hussein
Bey, the captain of Grada[vc]ac, began a holy war against the "giaour
Sultan," because Mahmud thought it timely to promulgate a few reforms.
Hussein assumed the title of "The Dragon of Bosnia"; and if it had not
been for several other Moslem potentates who were not only inimical to
the Sultan but to the Dragon and to each other, it would have taken
the Sultan's army more than five years to assert itself. In 1839 the
Sultan's representative at Gulhane had orders to reform the
administration, and this time the chief of the indignant begs was Ali
Pasha Rizvanbegovi['c], a powerful personage in Herzegovina. The
revolt was, after a good deal of bloodshed, suppressed by Omar Pasha,
who was determined to break once and for all the arrogance of the
Bosnian aristocracy. Hundreds of begs were executed, drowned in the
Bosna or taken in chains to Constantinople. But all these transactions
did nothing to improve the lot of the raia. They had been roundly told
in 1832 by His Apostolic Majesty that any one of those Christians "who
persist in venturing to raise the banner of revolt" would be sent back
from the Imperial and Royal frontier. After all there was a courtesy
which monarchs must maintain towards each other.