"
CHAPTER XXVII
THE INSURRECTION IN HERZEGOVINA
I have anticipated the events of the year, but this illustration of
the character of the little people whose tenacity and courage put
their mark on European history during the subsequent three years will
help to give significance to the story. Without being undiplomatically
frank, on the one hand, or attempting to conceal his r?le on the
other, the Prince allowed me to see that everything depended on
Montenegrin action, and that he, to a certain extent, must permit
his people to follow their sympathies. The young men went in groups
without any pretense of organization, with their rifles and yataghans,
and, when the opportunity offered, took part in any pending skirmish,
and then came home, to be replaced by others. To have forbidden this
would have made the people mutinous, and the Dalmatians, though under
the authority of Austria, were no more closely held to neutrality than
the Montenegrins. The Austrian Slavs could not be permitted to be more
patriotic than the Montenegrin; and the Prince, after having attempted
to quiet the former by sending old Peko Pavlovich to bring them to
reason, and found that the matter could not be settled in that way,
allowed Peko to take a band of young men into Herzegovina and assume
the direction of the insurrection.
There was nothing more to be learned in Montenegro that belonged to
war correspondence, and I went back to Cattaro.
Pages:
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159