Michael in those few years had displayed such qualities that he might
have united with his country Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria and
Macedonia. His statesmanship, which made such a result seem very
possible, may have induced some jealous partisans of the rival
Karageorgevi['c] dynasty to murder him; the same reasons would have
been sufficient for Austria. And Austria had given her formal consent
to a diplomatic plan for the solution of the Bosnian question, whereby
Michael was to administer the two distracted provinces as the Sultan's
mandatory. The decapitation of the begs by Omar Pasha had by no means
marked the dawn of a new era for the peasant. From 1856 till 1859 the
country was in a condition of such anarchy, with pashas tyrannizing
here and there, with villages obliged to take as their protector some
marauding ruffian who had settled in their midst, with young men
taking to the hills, that finally a conference was summoned, at
Austria's instigation, in Constantinople, and of this the upshot was
that the abuses practised hitherto by the great landlords were all
sanctioned if they would inaugurate no new ones. The Franciscan monks,
beloved by the people, had kept alive the people's hope that something
would be done for them; they could not stop the people from attempting
to obtain it by ill-organized revolts. From time to time there would
be a concerted movement; thus Luka Vukalovi['c] in 1862 fired his own
Herzegovina and also the Bocche di Cattaro, weapons and volunteers
came from Montenegro, and Vukalovi['c] was recognized by Turkey as the
military and civil head of an autonomous Herzegovina. But he was
subsequently forced to fly to Serbia, while the Turks had such
success against the Montenegrins that the Great Powers had to
intervene. And that was one of the most fruitful of the insurrections.
When the news was spread that Michael would arrive there were great
popular rejoicings. Christians and Muhammedans were busy, till the
time of his assassination, preparing for his solemn entry.