He started by placing the government in the hands of the Radical party
and by showing that his own position would be strictly that of a
constitutional monarch. Numerous reforms were undertaken with respect
to the finances, the exploitation of the country's resources and the
reorganizing of the army, which had been debilitated by intrigue and
corruption. So many tasks had simultaneously to be accomplished that
the greatest Serbophil may have despaired, since the national
qualities do not, as yet, include much power of organization. Is it
not astonishing, therefore, that in a few years so much was done?--the
army, for example, becoming so closely identified with the people that
high Obrenovi['c] officers felt that it was unpatriotic to perpetuate
these dynastic divisions, and gradually they resolved to offer their
swords to the State. More than one General whose abilities in the
Great War gained him a high British decoration had once been
conspicuous for his enmity to the Karageorgevi['c]. With regard to
Serbia's international standing we have the fact that in 1899-1900 it
was impossible to arrange a loan of 40 millions at Vienna even though
the entire railway system was offered as a guarantee; in a few years
various loans, with relatively easy terms, were contracted for amounts
of 90, 110 and 150 millions. One saw the peasant, who a short time
before had sold his harvest while it was still green (zeleno) to the
local usurer (hence called the "Zelenac"), now demanding every day by
telegram _via_ Belgrade or Smederevo the market prices at Antwerp. In
1895 Serbia had sunk to such depths that a Dalmatian leader said
openly to a German journalist that the Yugoslav idea could only be
realized by Bulgaria; in 1910 the "Narodna Odbrana" (or Organization
for National Defence), that was not, as the Austrians alleged, a
nursery for murderers but a patriotic body--it no doubt reminded the
people of their brothers in Macedonia, the Voivodina and Bosnia, but
at the same time urged them to cultivate the land more rationally, to
visit the doctor rather than some old woman, to dress, sleep and eat
in accordance with hygiene, and to take steps against illiteracy--in
1910 the efforts of the "Narodna Odbrana" had had such success that an
inquiry, in which the French participated, found that out of a hundred
recruits from a backward region 61 per cent. could read and write, 99
per cent. had some knowledge of the battle of Kossovo and the reign
of Du[vs]an, while 82 per cent. could enumerate the provinces
inhabited by their unredeemed brothers. The rise of Serbia was due to
the happy direction that was now given to the virile spirit of the
people; standing back to back in their own land, they were soon able
to arouse the despondent hearts of their countrymen who languished
under various tyrannies outside the national frontiers.
Those who in Old Serbia acknowledged their Serbian nationality were
the constant victims of Albanian intolerance. One massacre followed
another--that people which, according to some of its present
champions, is mild and noble and misunderstood, with a particular
aptitude for silver-work and embroidery--Miss Edith Durham asks that
this poor nation should not be robbed of its country, its one
ewe-lamb, which they love intensely and which, to everyone's
admiration, they defend with great heroism; one cannot expect her, the
Secretary of the Anglo-Albanian Committee, to refer to the numerous
lambs, etc., which the Albanians, armed with machine guns, carried off
in 1919 from a Serbian monastery near Tetovo; and in 1903 the
Albanians, waiving their mildness, appear to have been more
conspicuous in attacking others than in defending themselves. The
monks of the old Serbian patriarchate of Pe['c] were obliged to have
Moslem and Albanian attendants, and it does not strike one as heroic
when the monks themselves were murdered, so that the great monastery
of De[vc]ani had perforce to be served by Russian monks from Mt.
Athos. Far distant, indeed, was the day when those Albanians, who
called themselves, after a river, the Fani, went to the assistance of
Du[vs]an. They had been brought to a temporary standstill by the
swollen waters of the Drin--"but," exclaimed one of their chieftains,
"for a hero every day is good." They crossed the river and Du[vs]an
gave them the name of Mirditi, by which they are still known, "mir
dit" signifying in their language "good day." Not only were the Serbs
compelled to don Albanian raiment--the Orthodox priest who ministers
to Djakovica had, in 1903, to put aside his Serbian head-dress on
leaving his quarter of the town; when making an official visit his
head-dress was Greek and always in the surrounding country it was
Albanian. Mr. Brailsford found, in June 1903, that the Serb peasants
were tenants at will, exposed to every caprice of their Albanian
conquerors; both at Pe['c], he says, and at Djakovica there was no law
and no court of justice. In 1903 at Muerzsteg, near Vienna, Francis
Joseph and the Tzar concluded their Macedonian reform scheme, this
rather futile arrangement paying, as one might suppose, not much
deference to the Serbs. In Bosnia also and in southern Hungary the
Serbs were in a humiliating position.
But the Serbs in the little kingdom strove manfully to put their own
house in order and to encourage their brethren. What is known as the
"Pig War" was waged, with astonishing success, against the Austrian
Empire; by sending her live-stock and meat overland to Salonica, her
cereals down the Danube, Serbia managed to break down the barriers
behind which the Austrians had intended to control her economic life.
The measures adopted by Stojanovi['c], the Minister of Commerce, were
confirmed by the Skup[vs]tina and enthusiastically supported by the
whole people, regardless of the accompanying privations or of any
bribes held out by the Austrians. Thus when the Austrians reduced the
fares on their well-equipped Save and Danube vessels, these were still
boycotted in favour of the Serbian boats. One morning at [vS]abac a
civil servant had embarked on the Austrian ship, while everybody else
was crowding on to the much smaller, slower and less cleanly Serbian
rival. The civil servant was being vigorously hissed, when he shouted
across to his compatriots that as he was an official he had a free
pass and he thought it a good plan to make the Austrians consume,
simply for him, a certain amount of coal.... The young men of the
_intelligentsia_ were not idle. [vZ]erjav for the Slovenes, Krisman
for the Croats, Yovanovi['c] and Ne[vs]i['c] for the Serbs, were
eagerly at work to bring about the union of the Southern Slavs. They
had some sympathizers in Bulgaria, but that country was too much
oppressed by Ferdinand and the Germanic influence. Both [vZ]erjav and
Krisman were destined to become Ministers in the South Slav
Parliament, which of course does not yet include Bulgaria.
Ne[vs]i['c], who was the diplomat of the Serbian movement, became
Consul at Pri[vs]tina, took part in the Balkan War, for instance at
the siege of Scutari, as an artillery officer, and after some years
found himself inside the town as Yugoslav Envoy. He is now Minister at
Tirana, a delicate post which could not be in better hands. Ljuba
Yovanovi['c] was the idealist whose work was to arouse his
fellow-countrymen by articles and poems. In the war against Bulgaria
he was wounded and in hospital contracted cholera. On the day of his
death he wrote to a brother of Ne[vs]i['c], now one of Belgrade's
leading lawyers; he was utterly grieved, he said, that brother-Slavs
should have shed each other's blood, but he was certain that the day
of union would come.