rms
were successful everywhere--penetrated far into the Herzegovina;
took Podgoritza, Nikshitch and Antivari. When the victorious
Russians drew up the Treaty of San Stefano at the very gates of
Constantinople Prince Nikola, "the Tsar's only friend," received
liberal treatment, and Serbia, suspected of Austrian leanings, but
scant recognition.

The Treaty of Berlin reversed this. England was especially
anti-Russian and, represented by Lord Beaconsfield and Lord
Salisbury, insisted on entrusting the bulk of Montenegro's conquests
in the Herzegovina to Austrian administration. "The Tsar's only
friend" was regarded with suspicion. Montenegro was unfortunately
compensated mainly with Albanian territory. It was a great
injustice. The Albanians had made just as stubborn a fight for their
nationality as had the Montenegrins, and had never lost local
autonomy. They resisted violently and prevented Montenegro from
occupying either Plava, Gusinje or Tuzi. The Powers tried to make up
by an even worse act of injustice. Mr. Gladstone, having little or
no personal experience of the Orthodox Church, was possessed of an
extraordinary admiration for it, and, filled with the erroneous idea
that every Moslem was a Turk, he was in favour of giving Dulcigno, a
wholly Albanian town, to Montenegro in place of the other three. It
was a peculiarly unjust and cruel decision. Even in the days of the
Serb Kings Dulcigno had kept its autonomy and at one time coined its
own money. All old travellers state the spoken language was
Albanian. The Montenegrins could not take it and had no claim to it.
A naval demonstration of the Powers forced it to surrender, perhaps
one of the biggest acts of bullying of which the Powers have as yet
been guilty.

Albanian Dulcigno was handed over to its hereditary foe. The
strength of its purely Albanian nature is shown by the fact that
whereas in Nikshitch, Podgoritza, and Spuzh the Moslems, Serbs and
Albanians, were stripped of all their property and expelled
wholesale to starve as very many did--the Montenegrins did not dare
interfere with the large and hostile population of Dulcigno and have
in no way succeeded in Slavizing it: The Dulcigniotes still ask for
re-union with Albania.

Montenegro was recognized by the Treaty of Berlin for the first time
as an independent Principality, and Serbia, in 1880, was raised to a
Kingdom. To Prince Nikola and his Montenegrins who had refused to
recognize Prince Milan as le