spared the horrors of a third
war within two years. But King Nicholas's conception of what constituted
loyalty and honor was different from Constantine's. Instead of accepting
the extensive territorial compensations offered by the Austrian envoy if
Montenegro would remain neutral, King Nicholas wired to the Serbian
Premier, M. Pachitch: "_Serbia may rely on the brotherly and
unconditional support of Montenegro in this moment, on which depends the
fate of the Serbian nation, as well as on any other occasion_," and took
the field at the head of 40,000 troops--all the men able to bear arms in
the little kingdom.

It has been repeatedly asserted by his enemies that King Nicholas sold
out to the Austrians and that, therefore, he deserves neither sympathy
nor consideration. As to this I have no _direct_ knowledge. How could I?
But, after talking with nearly all of the leading actors in the
Montenegrin drama, it is my personal belief that the King, though guilty
of many indiscretions and errors of policy, did not betray his people.
I am not ignorant of the King's shortcomings in other respects. But in
this case I believe that he has been grossly maligned. If he did sell
out he drove an extremely poor bargain, for he is living in exile, in
extremely straitened circumstances, his only luxury a car which the
French Government loans him. It is difficult to believe that, had he
been a traitor to the Allied cause, the British, French, and Italian
governments would continue to recognize him, to pay him subventions, and
to treat him as a ruling sovereign. Certain American diplomats have told
me that they were convinced that the King had a secret understanding
with Austria, though they admitted quite frankly that their convictions
were based on suspicions which they could not prove. To offset this, a
very exalted personage, whose name for obvious reasons I cannot mention,
but whose integrity and whose sources of information are beyond
question, has given me his word that, to his personal knowledge,
Nicholas had neither a treaty nor a secret understanding with the enemy.

"The propaganda against him had been so insidious and successful,
however," my informant concluded, "that even his own soldiers were
convinced that he had sold out to Austria and when the King attempted to
rally them as they were falling back from the positions on Mount
Lovtchen they jeered in his face, shouting that he had betrayed them.
Yet I, who was on the spot an