Having glanced at what the Serbs have done in such a very short
time--most of the years since 1913 being years of war--to win the
gratitude of their Albanian fellow-subjects, we shall, in following a
possible frontier between Yugoslavia and the Albanians, at any rate
believe that many Albanians of those thus coming under Yugoslav rule
would regard the change, as well they may, with equanimity. Suppose,
then, that the frontier were to run along the watershed at the top of
the mountain range to the west of Lake Ochrida. The people living to the
east of this line in that district would acknowledge their Serbian
origin. Thence passing to the neighbourhood of the village of Lin and
from there in a northwesterly direction, so as to include in Yugoslavia
the Golo Brdo, the so-called Bald Mountains, whose thirty villages are
inhabited by Islamized Serbs who only speak, with very rare exceptions,
the Serbian language, one may say that not only would their inclusion in
Yugoslavia be beneficial to these people, but that they would accept it
with alacrity. No very deep impression has been made upon them by the
religion to which, not long ago, they were converted. In the Golo Brdo
it was in great measure due to the Greek Church which, about the middle
of the nineteenth century, left the region without a single priest, so
that children of the age of eight had not been christened, and the
people in disgust went over to Islam. Near Ochrida, some of them were
asked whether they frequented the mosque.
"Never," they replied.
"What is your religion?"
"Well, it is very strange," they told us, "but we have none."
"What religion did you formerly have?"
"Well, we don't know."
Their priest roams the mountains with his gun, and there has been a
tendency, since a man in this position received his salary from the
State, for many to persuade the mufti to appoint them, irrespective of
whether they could read or write. The devout Moslem is, to the
exclusion of everything else, a Moslem; but in these districts, where
the faith was assumed in a moment of pique or as a protection, and where
the Muhammedan clergy has been so negligent, the people are gladly
cultivating their Christian relatives. In the district of Suva Rieka one
hears of conversions to Christianity, and the functionaries bring no
pressure to bear, unlike the misguided Montenegrin officials who in 1912
rode into Pe['c], the old Patriarchate, and wanted in their delight to
have everyone immediately to adopt the Orthodox faith. Now the
authorities, with greater wisdom, do not interfere in these matters.
They know that Yugoslavia will have no enemy in that house in the
village of Brod, between Tetovo and Prizren, where two brothers are
living together, of whom one went over to Islam. They know that the
Muhammedan Krasnichi of Albania are proclaiming their kinship with the
great Montenegrin clan of Vasojevi['c], that the Gashi are calling to
the Piperi and the Berishi to the Ku[vc]i. The new cordiality will be
impaired neither by the differences of religion nor by the similarity of
costume. The average Albanian of Djakovica would not be any fonder of an
Orthodox fellow-citizen if the latter continues to wear the Albanian
dress which was generally adopted about a hundred years ago, and the
Vasojevi['c] may please themselves as to the wearing of a costume which
they once found so useful in the Middle Ages. They happened to be for
ten days in the Hoti country for the purpose of wiping out a blood
affair, and when they were about to fall into the Hoti's hands they
shouted, "What do you want with us? We are Kastrati!" The Kastrati, to
whom these Albanian-clad people were led, confirmed the statement, so
that the Vasojevi['c] earned for themselves the nickname of
Kastratovi['c].
From the Golo Brdo the best frontier would pass north-eastwards to the
Black Drin and along that river until it is joined by the White Drin.
This is a poor country whose inhabitants are, for the most part,
Moslemized Serbs. About a hundred men are now engaged in excavating the
very finely decorated Serbian church at Pi[vs]kopalja on the Drin--much
to the edification of the local Moslems. This church of their ancestors
was covered in during the Middle Ages in order to conceal it from the
Turks. Too often the natives' present occupation is brigandage; but from
of old they have had economic relations with Prizren, to which old town
of vine-arched, narrow, winding streets and picturesque bazaars these
countryfolk have been accustomed to come every week. These Moslems (of
whom there are some 100,000 in the department of Prizren, with 13,000
Orthodox and 3000 Catholics) used to detest the Christians on account of
their religion, although half of the Moslems could speak nothing but
Serbian. The Serbs, it must be admitted, were not always blameless; in
the early nineties, for example, they suspended a pig's head outside the
mosque. And the amenities of Prizren were complicated by the hostility
between Orthodox and Catholic. This was largely due to the fact that, by
the intervention of the French Consul after the Crimean War, the
Catholics--descendants of Ragusan emigrants of the Middle Ages--had
secured the former Orthodox church of St. Demetrius, in which church, by
the way, the services had come to be held in Albanian. When the Vatican,
in the second half of the nineteenth century, sent a Serbian priest, the
congregation had become so thoroughly Albanized that after a year he had
to leave. The propaganda of Austria, Italy and Russia did nothing
towards persuading the three religions of Prizren to regard each other
in a more amicable fashion; while Italy and Austria gave exclusive
assistance to the Catholics, whom they found in such distress that,
forty years ago, most of them went barefoot, the presence of the Russian
Consul was of such importance to the Orthodox that their position at
Prizren was better than in their old patriarchal town of Pe['c].
Nowadays, with Austrian and Russian propaganda deleted, there is only
that of the Italians, whose proposal to create an independent Albania
(under Italian protection) was at first applauded by some simple folk in
1919. The Moslem took to accepting Italian money and then honourably
informing the Yugoslav authorities that they had been appointed as
agents of Italy; they offered to capture the Franciscan priests with
whose help the Italians were trying to secure the Catholics; and as for
the cash, it seems mostly to have been spent in a convivial fashion by
the Moslems and the Serbs together. This friendship appears likely to
continue, for the Serbian authorities, so far from countenancing such
pranks as that of the pig's head, do not even propose to reconsecrate
their ancient church of Petka. When this building was made into a
mosque, the Moslem still permitted the Christian women to come and pray
there, while if a Christian man was sick they let him leave a jar of
water in the mosque all night, so that it might acquire certain
medicinal properties. It is the intention of the Serbs not to restore
the church to Christian worship, but to turn it into a museum.
With the frontier then being drawn along the Drin, towards the Adriatic,
the famous villages of Plav and Gusinje would definitely pass to
Yugoslavia, in accordance with the wishes of a deputation sent by them
to Belgrade in 1919. The well-meaning British champions of Gusinje, who
maintain that this village is furiously antagonistic to the Slav and is
ready to struggle to the uttermost rather than be incorporated in a Slav
kingdom, these champions do not, I think, draw a sufficient distinction
between Montenegro and Yugoslavia. Plav, with its mostly Christian
population, and Gusinje, where the Moslem preponderates, refused at the
time of the Berlin Congress to be given to Montenegro, with which they
had certain local quarrels. Nicholas reported to the Powers which had
awarded him these places that they were obdurate, for which reason he
was given in their stead a much-desired strip of coast, down to
Dulcigno, and nothing could have suited that astute monarch better.
Nikita--to call him by his familiar name--imagined that the two villages
would eventually fall to Montenegro, because of the formidable mountains
which divide them from the rest of Albania; the road from Gusinje to
Scutari is very long and very arduous. When Montenegro succeeded in
capturing Plav in 1912, a certain Muhammedan priest of that place joined
the Orthodox Church and was appointed a major in the Montenegrin army.
He acted as the president of a court-martial, and in that capacity is
reputed to have hanged or shot, some say, as many as five hundred of his
former parishioners, because they declined to be baptized. He told them
that their ancestors were all Serbs, and that therefore they should
follow his example. Since the Montenegrins did not restrain this
over-zealous man, the villagers were naturally not in favour of that
country. Montenegro had a very small number of good officials, owing to
Nikita's peculiar management which, in considering his favourites, did
not regard illiteracy as a bar to the highest administrative or judicial
post.... The people of Plav and Gusinje have, on the other hand, no
hostility against Serbia. In November 1918 a detachment of thirty Serbs
was stationed at Gusinje, what time certain Italian agents put it into
the shallow minds of some Albanians that Albania desired to be
independent under Italian protection. Nothing happened when a Serbian
force came from Mitrovica, except that these agents and a few of their
tools--be it noted that perhaps half the population is ignorant of the
Albanian language--withdrew to the Rugovo district, where they tried to
induce the people to fly with them, so that the world would hear how
iniquitously the Serbs had acted. Those of Rugovo refused to accompany
them; in consequence of which there was a fight, some houses were
burned, some women and cattle were seized. And afterwards the men of
Rugovo repaired to Gusinje and exacted a vengeance which, the most
Serbophobe person will admit, had nothing to do with the Serbs. The
luckless village of Gusinje was again laid waste in 1919 by the
Montenegrins, but this came to pass as the result of the Montenegrin
clan of Vasojevi['c] having their property ravaged by some Albanian
marauders who were prompted by the same Great Power. The Vasojevi['c]
believed that this evil deed was done by the men of Gusinje, so that
they destroyed their houses. When the facts were explained to them, the
Vasojevi['c] said that they were prepared to rebuild the village. And
now Plav and Gusinje, who ask for Serbian and not Montenegrin officials,
recognize that it is impossible for them to live except in union with
Yugoslavia.... Miss Durham's wrath concerning an affair which happened
during 1919 in this region shows to what lengths a partisan will go. She
complained with great bitterness that the Serbs had actually arrested a
British officer whose purpose it was to make investigations.
The Serbs are human beings and are not immune from error; and Miss
Durham is so determined to expose them that if all her charges were
dealt with from Belgrade it would necessitate the appointment of one or
two more officials. But in this particular case she is not the sole
accuser. A Captain Willett Cunnington--who, according to the President
of the Anglo-Albanian Society, the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., has
several years' intimate experience of Albania--said in the _New
Statesman_ that in consequence of what occurred to Captain Brodie the
Serbian Government was compelled to apologize abjectly. Now I happen to
be very well acquainted with the stalwart Pouni[vs]a Ra[vc]i['c], the
Montenegrin who arrested Brodie. Albanians have told me that
Pouni[vs]a's knowledge of the north and north-west of their country is
not a matter of villages but of houses. And he has always observed the
customs which prevail in those houses, so that when he is known to be
approaching, the people who live at a distance of many hours will come
to meet him, whether for the pure delight of discharging their firearms
to his greater glory or for the purpose of seeking his advice. It is not
because he has studied jurisprudence in Paris that they respect him in
that bitter region, but because he does not disregard the laws that
govern the wild hearts on both sides of the frontier. Yet I suppose
Captain Brodie had never heard of him--poor Captain Brodie! unconscious
of the great good luck which had brought him into the presence of this
man who could have made his journey much more pleasant for himself and
vastly more profitable for his superiors.
This is what Pouni[vs]a Ra[vc]i['c] told me:
"At the end of January and the beginning of February 1919, we were
having a certain amount of trouble in the Gusinje and Plav district,
where I was acting as delegate of the Belgrade Government. Travellers
were being murdered, telephone wires were being cut, and so forth. In
those parts, which I have known for so many years, it is a good deal
easier to ascertain a criminal's name than to seize him, and I had not
captured these malefactors when one day I had a message to say that a
European Commission was approaching. Later on I was told that
thirty-nine of its members were Albanians. I ordered my lieutenant to
find out whether they were from our territory, in which case they were
to be disarmed and brought to me; or from Albania, in which event they
were to be received politely. A quarter of an hour after this I was told
that they were all well-known brigands from our State, and there was one
specially notorious person, Djer Doucha, who in 1912 was converted to
Christianity and was made a gendarme at the court of King Nicholas; in
1915, after the Austrian invasion, he was reconverted to Islam and
became a sergeant of _gendarmerie_. In that position he killed fifty or
sixty Serbs and Montenegrins, to say nothing of his other acts of
violence. In 1918, for instance, he murdered seven school-children whom
he met on the road.
"I had some urgent business at Plav," continued Ra[vc]i['c], "and there
all these people were brought before me. In addition to the thirty-nine
Albanians there were three men in British uniforms. I was acquainted
with one of them, a certain Perola, a Catholic of Pe['c], a former
Austrian agent who had committed many crimes against the Serbs and had
lately escaped from the prison at Pe['c]. One of the other two said that
he was Captain Brodie, whom the London Government had sent as their
delegate for Albania and Montenegro. I suppose the third man was his
British orderly; I never heard him speak. But Brodie said many things.
One of them (which was quite true) was that his Government had not yet
recognized the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He demanded the
instant release of his companions. 'Do you know who they are?' said I.
'That is no concern of yours,' said he. 'Well,' said I, 'they are
criminals, and it is for the judges to say whether or not they are to be
liberated.' 'I protest,' he exclaimed, 'in the name of England, against
their arrest!' 'And I thank you,' said I, 'in the name of the Serbian
police, for having brought them here.' 'You are a savage, a barbarous
nation!' said he, 'and you don't deserve to be free and independent.'
'Sir,' said I, 'if you are an Englishman you should know that we are
your allies, that you and we have shed our blood for the common cause.
We love England very much, and I am very surprised to hear a British
officer speak in this way.' Again he demanded to be set free, he and all
his people, so that he could continue his mission; but I told him that
after what I had heard from him and what I had seen of his escort, I
could not permit him to go on to other villages unless he could show me
an authorization from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Belgrade. 'I do
not recognize the Belgrade Government,' said he. 'Whom, then,' I asked,
'do you regard as the legitimate ruler of this country?' 'King
Nicholas,' said he, 'and the Government of Montenegro.' So I advised him
to get a visa from King Nicholas and to come back to perform his
mission, when that visa would be honoured. 'Anyhow,' said he, 'the
people of these parts are against Serbia.' Thereupon I sent for the
chief men and told them to say quite candidly in front of this
Englishman what they wanted. There were five Moslems, including Islam
and Abdi Beg Rejepagi['c] (the leading family) and Ismael Omeragi['c],
also two Christians, of whom I remember Stani[vc]a Turkovi['c]. 'Long
live Serbia!' they shouted. 'Death to Nicholas and the Albanians!' On
hearing this Captain Brodie was discontented; he told me that I was a
savage and did not know how to esteem an Englishman. 'I esteem you very
much,' said I, 'and because he is wearing a British uniform I won't
arrest this interpreter of yours.' (By the way, Perola was not acting as
interpreter in our conversation, as the captain and I were talking
French.) 'He used to be an Austrian agent,' said I. 'You are a liar!'
cried Brodie; 'I know this man; he was nothing of the sort.' I remained
calm, but I told him that he must not speak to me again in such a way. I
asked him how long he had known Perola, who had got away from our prison
a month ago. 'I have known him for a month,' said Brodie. 'And now,'
said I, 'will you please show me your documents?' 'I have none,' said
he, 'and I do not require any, as I am a British officer.' 'But I have
read in the papers,' said I, 'that your people arrested and shot several
persons who were wearing the uniform of a British officer. If you have
no documents to prove that you are not a spy and that you are a British
officer I shall have to arrest you.' Then he showed me one with some
Italian words on it, I think a permission to go somewhere on the Piave
front. 'From now,' said I, 'you are arrested; no one can come to you and
you cannot leave this house. Prepare yourself to start to-morrow or the
day after, if you are tired, for Pe['c], and perhaps Skoplje, so that
you may prove your identity.' He protested, and declared that he must
see the people in the neighbouring villages. 'If you are a real
Englishman,' said I, 'I could not allow you to go by yourself, since
there are many Moslems in these parts who have been excited against
England by their hodjas, owing to your war with Turkey. They might kill
you, and I would be held responsible; so that even if you had the
necessary documents I could only let you go if precautions were taken to
guard you. I am sorry,' said I, 'that you should have spoken as you have
done against the Serbs; in fact, it seems to me that you are doing a
disservice to England, and that here in this village I am serving her
more truly.' 'I decline to go to Pe['c],' said Brodie; 'I want to go to
Scutari.' 'You must go to Pe['c],' said I. He said that I could
telephone concerning him either to the Belgrade Government or to the
General at Cetinje. 'Unfortunately,' said I, 'it is these people who are
with you who cut the telephone wires two days ago.' After this I
appointed a guard for him. I gave him my room, with soldiers to serve
him, to keep the room warm and bring him whatever food we had. [Observe
that the above-mentioned Captain Willett Cunnington wrote in the _New
Statesman_ that Brodie was treated with "gross indignity."] 'Three
horses were got ready,' said Ra[vc]i['c] in conclusion, 'and on these
they rode to Pe['c], accompanied by a guard, both to prevent them from
escaping and from coming to harm.'"[87]
In its old Albanian days the village of Gusinje was perhaps the most
inaccessible spot in Europe--it was rarely possible for anyone to obtain
permission to approach it. Even to Miss Durham, friend of the
Albanians, this people sent a decided refusal. But now, under the
guidance of the Yugoslav authorities, they have abandoned these boorish
ways; Miss Durham could go there at any time, but maybe the village no
longer attracts her.