One of the first results of this victory was the invasion, by Serb and
Montenegrin troops, of Bosnia. They succeeded in penetrating to within
a few miles of Sarajevo, and there they were held up not only by the
encircling forts but by the scarcity of their ammunition, for the
Russian supplies had not yet come through. "Your Royal Highness," said
a corporal one day to Prince George, the impetuous young man who had
resigned his position as heir to the throne and was at this moment far
more congenially occupied as the chief of an irregular band in the
mountains, "we have no more ammunition," said the corporal. "Each man
has a knife?" asked George. The corporal nodded. "Then let us go on."
The Prince has a great wound across his breast, from one side to the
other. He is very much the descendant of Kara George; he dislikes
making a secret of his opinions. King Peter, who was present at the
inauguration of the Belgrade synagogue, always refrained from entering
the Roman Catholic Church, since it was included in the buildings of
the Austrian Legation. His elder son was not averse, when relations
were strained, from taking an enthusiastic part in anti-Austrian
demonstrations, so that the Austrians were delighted to spread a
report that this ebullient youth had killed his orderly and must be
set aside from the succession. The truth was that George happened to
catch this orderly reading a private letter of his; in a sudden fit of
rage he struck him a blow, even as Kara George would have
done--unluckily the man rolled down some steps and from the resulting
injuries he died. A good many Austrian and German writers have said
that George is mad; he is certainly less fitted to govern Yugoslavia
than is Alexander, his brother. One remembers George, so dark and lean
and hawk-eyed, traversing the broad Danube at Belgrade in a most
original fashion; as the blocks of ice swept along he made his horse
leap from one of them to another. And one thinks of that more patient
prince, Alexander, poring for hours over papers of State, gazing up a
little wearily through his glasses, wondering for month after month
whether the crisis between Government and Opposition in Yugoslavia
will ever be solved. George will seek relaxation in driving a
motor-car as if the Serbian roads were a racing track; Alexander's
relaxation is to hear a new musical play, then to go home and repeat
the whole score by heart on his piano.
All through the War Alexander, the Prince Regent--for King Peter felt
himself, on account of his age and his rheumatism, unequal to anything
save the personal encouragement of his soldiers in the
trenches[84]--throughout the War Alexander was with his army. In his
eloquent proclamations one sees the student; on the battlefield he
conquered his shyness. And now he is a truly democratic King, at whose
table very often is some non-commissioned officer or private whose
acquaintance he has made in the War. He asked the man to come and see
him one day in Belgrade, so that the royal adjutants are always busy
with this stream of warriors. The men are well aware that their own
peasant costume, with the sandals, is admissible at Court--even at a
ball you see some fine old peasant, who is perhaps a deputy (and who
does not, like a certain Polish Minister of recent years, remove his
white collar before entering the Chamber). You can see him in his
thick brown homespun with black braiding, breeches very baggy at the
seat and closely fitting round the legs; as he comes in he knocks the
snow from off his sandals, and strides, perfectly at ease, across the
Turkish carpets. With such a man the King loves greatly to go hunting;
last winter in the Rudnik region the inhabitants were being plagued by
wolves, so the King went down there with some officers and peasants.
Though he is so short-sighted that he constantly wears glasses--if you
met him casually you would suppose that this keen-faced young officer
was probably a writer of military books--though he is short-sighted he
is one of the best shots in Europe. On the Slovenian mountains he has
brought down many chamois and, before he succeeded, at a summer resort
in Serbia he was always first at target practice. Nor is he less
skilled at cards, particularly bridge. He gathers round him the best
players in the town. Such are his relaxations after the long round of
audiences and hours of other work. During the day he will have very
likely undertaken to pay the expenses from his own pocket of another
Serbian student, at home or abroad. So many of them are his
pensioners. And it may be said without flattery that in the pursuit of
knowledge he affords them an example. His subjects number about 14
millions, but when in conversation I happened to allude to a remote
border village, his subsequent remarks made me wonder whether he had
just been reading an article about the chequered history of that
little place. He is, in fact, like his late grandfather of Montenegro,
the father of his people. But they have different ideas about the
duties of a father; and while Nikita's laugh was pretty grim, the
deep whole-hearted laugh of Alexander takes you into the sincere
recesses of the man.
During the Bosnian offensive there was launched an expedition over the
Save into the goodly land of Syrmia, one of those Yugoslav provinces
of which the Austro-Hungarian Empire was to be stripped. This
expedition had a varying success, for the assault that was attempted
in the neighbourhood of Mitrovica was not skilfully conducted; and the
Serbian army, for the first time in the War, was worsted. Then troops
in Bosnia, just before the grand attack on Sarajevo, were thrown into
confusion by an order from the Montenegrin King who, without vouching
any reason, called his army back. The Serbian troops had no other
course than to retreat as well; and their enemies delivered, all the
rest of September and throughout October, a tremendous thrust against
the army that was shielding Valjevo. The Serbs, who were lamentably
short of arms, munition, clothing and every sort of hospital
equipment, did not care to think of the approach of winter. They
hurled themselves against the Austrian swarms--and up to this period
they had lost, in dead and seriously wounded, more than 130,000 men.