energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of
1807 they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided
efforts and captured the towns of Po[)z]arevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and
[)S]abac. The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening
of diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time
the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to
threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he gave
the Serbs financial assistance and commended their cause to the especial
care of his ambassador at Constantinople.

In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace
of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the
Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes
against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following
years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian
leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence which
prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again
fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with better fortune.
In 1811 Kara-George was elected _Gospodar_, or sovereign, by a popular
assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish province. At the end of that
year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria,
and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then have achieved
complete independence.

But Napoleon was already preparing his invasion and Russia had to conclude
peace with Turkey in a hurry, which necessarily implied that the Sultan
obtained unduly favourable terms. In the Treaty of Bucarest between the
two countries signed in May 1812, the Serbs were indeed mentioned, and
promised vague internal autonomy and a general amnesty, but all the
fortified towns they had captured were to be returned to the Turks, and
the few Russian troops who had been helping the Serbs in Serbia had to
withdraw. Negotiations between the Turks and the Serbs for the regulation
of their position were continued throughout 1812, but finally the Turks
refused all their claims and conditions and, seeing the European powers
preoccupied with their own affairs, invaded the country from Bosnia in the
west, and also from the east and south, in August 1813. The Serbs, left
entirely to their own resources, succumbed before the superior forces of
the Turks, and by the beginning of Oc