tina, Mitrovitza, and the plain of
Kosovo. Here it seemed obvious that the new regime must fail. The
Serbs everywhere were in very much of a minority, and their headmen
--the Bishop of Prizren, the Archimandrite of Grachanitza, the
master of the Serb theological school at Prizren, and others frankly
lamented the Turkish revolution, and looked on it only as a
frustration of all their schemes. A well-governed Turkey was the
last thing they wished for, as it would prevent the creation of
Great Serbia. Prizren itself was so overwhelmingly Albanian that the
Serbian College, with its students brought even from Montenegro and
other non-Turk lands, seemed ridiculously artificial.

Nor were the Albanians any longer pleased about the revolution. They
meant to accept nothing that would bring them further under Turkish
power. As for the Turkish authorities, they were still under the
magic of the blessed word "Constitution," and in order that
foreigners should be so too, sent gendarmes ahead to prepare a group
of "peasants rejoicing under the Constitution" at Djakova, ready for
the arrival of some French delegates.

I was back in Scutari when, on October 5th, came the startling news
that Ferdinand of Bulgaria had proclaimed himself Tsar of
independent Bulgaria. This confirmed the Christians of the town in
their rooted belief that all that was going on was arranged by the
Great Powers for the purpose of entirely overthrowing the Turk.

Tuesday, October 6th, the Austrian attache had supper with me, and
was bubbling with excitement. He had a great piece of news, but it
might not yet be told. I was to try and guess< He would tell me so
soon as possible. Wednesday and Thursday passed, and on Friday
early, in rushed my old Marko crying: "War is declared by Serbia,
Russia, Montenegro, and Turkey against Austria!" Why, he did not
know. Running out to learn, I met the attache beaming: "We have
annexed Bosnia and the Herzegovina!" he said. "Then you have done a
dashed silly thing!" said I. He was greatly surprised, and promised
to come to dinner with me and fight it out. I went to the
Montenegrin Consulate and found Petar Plamenatz almost in tears with
a red-hot proclamation of Prince Nikola's in his hands, calling on
all Serbs of all countries to unite and denounce the breaking of the
Berlin Treaty, and laying great stress on the fact that all his
ancestors were buried in the Herzegovina, which was now seized by
Austria. Petar was of opi