Anyone who travelled about this time along the road from Scutari down to the port of San Giovanni di Medua would inevitably meet with processions of ancient cabs, ox-wagons and what not, laden with all kinds of military equipment. Some of these supplies had come direct from Italy, while others had been seized from the Italians near Valona. The detachment of Italian soldiers at San Giovanni, and the much larger detachment at Scutari, may have looked with mixed feelings at some of these commodities, but on the other hand they may have thought, with General Bencivenga,[74]that it was good business—"un buon affare"—in exchange for Valona to obtain a solid and secure friendship with the Albanians. Roads, as he pointed out, lead from Albania to the heart of Serbia, and for that reason a true brotherhood of arms between Italians and Albanians was, in case of hostilities, enormously to be desired. And so the Italians stationed at Scutari, under Captain Pericone of the Navy, may have felt that it was well that all those cannon captured from their countrymen were in such a good condition. They would now be turned by the Albanians against the hateful Yugoslavs. ["Italy is the one Power in Europe," says her advocate, Mr. H. E. Goad, in theFortnightly Review(May 1922), "that is most obviously and most consistently working for peace and conciliation in every field."] ... A further supply of military material is said to have reached the Albanians from Gabriele d'Annunzio in thes.s.Knin. To the Irish, the Egyptians and the Turks the poet-filibuster had merely sent greetings. Some onemay have told him that even the most lyrical greeting would not be valued by the Albanians half as much as a shipload of munitions.
For a considerable time the more intelligent Italians had noticed that these two Balkan peoples were disposed to live in amicable terms with one another. Traditions that are so powerful with an illiterate people—under five per thousand of the Albanians who have stayed in their own country can read and write—numerous traditions speak of friendship with the Serbs: Lek, the great legislator, was related to Serbian princes; Skanderbeg was an ally of the Serbs; "Most of the celebrated leaders of northern Albania and Montenegro," says Miss Durham, "seem to have been of mixed Serbian-Albanian blood"; Mustapha Vezir Bushatli strove together with Prince Miloš against the Turks, and the same cause united the Serbian authorities to the famous Vezir Mahmud Begović of Peć. A primitive people like the Albanians admire the warlike attributes beyond all others, and the exploits of the Serbian army in the European War inclined the hearts of the Albanians towards their neighbours. Some of them remembered at this juncture that their great-grandfathers or grandfathers had only become Albanian after having accepted the Muhammedan religion; now the old ikons were taken from their hiding-places. And there was, in fact, between the two Balkan people a spirit of cordiality which gave terrible umbrage to the Italians. So they took the necessary steps: many of the Catholic priests had been in Austria's pay, and these now became the pensioners of Italy. Monsignor Sereggi, the Metropolitan, used to be anti-Turk but, as was evident when in 1911 he negotiated with Montenegro, he is not personally anti-Slav. Yet he must have money for his clergy, for his seminary, and so forth. His friendship would be easily, one fancies, transferred from Rome to Belgrade if the Serbs are willing to provide the cash—and nobody can blame him. Leo Freund, who had been Vienna's secret agent and a great friend of Monsignor Bumçi, the Albanian bishop, was succeeded by an Italian. But, of course, the new almoner did not confine his gifts to those of his own faith. Many of the leading Moslems were in receipt of a monthlysalary, and this was not so serious a burden for the Italians as one might suppose, since Albania is a poor country, and with no Austrian competition you found quite prominent personages deigning to accept a rather miserable wage. "And do you think," I asked of Musa Yuka, the courteous mayor of Scutari, "that those mountain tribes are being paid?" "Well," he said, "I think that it is not improbable." ... At the time of the Bosnian annexation crisis the Serbs had as their Minister of Finance the sagacious Patchoù. The War Minister, a General, was strongly in favour of an instant declaration of war, and the Premier suggested that the matter should be discussed. He turned to the Minister of Finance and asked him whether he had sufficient money for such an undertaking. Patchoù shook his head. "But our men are patriots! They will go without bread, they will go without everything!" exclaimed the General. "The horses and mules are not patriots," said Patchoù, "and if you want them to march you'll have to feed them." The Albanians were so little inclined to go to war with Yugoslavia that the Italians had, in various ways, to feed them nearly all. And what did the Albanians think of these intrigues? At any rate, what did they say? "Italy," quoth Professor Chimigò,[75]a prominent Albanian who teaches at Bologna, "Italy is always respected and esteemed as a great nation.... The Albanian Government," said he, "has charged me to declare in public that Albania does not regard herself as victorious against Italy, but is convinced that the Italians, in withdrawing their troops from Valona, were obeying a sentiment of goodness and generosity." Such words would be likely to bring more plentiful supplies from Rome. And fortunately the Italians did not seem to suffer, like the Serbs, from any scruples as to the propriety of taking active steps against another "Allied and Associated Power." When Zena Beg Riza Beg of Djakovica came in the year 1919 to his brother-in-law Ahmed Beg Mati, one of the Albanian leaders, he told him that the Belgrade Government, in pursuance of their policy "The Balkans for the Balkan peoples," would be glad if the Italians could be oustedfrom Albania. Zena Beg returned with a request for money, guns and so forth; but they were not sent.
Ahmed Beg and Zena Beg are patriotic young Albanian noblemen of ancient family and great possessions. But Zena Beg has the advantage of living in Yugoslavia, outside the atmosphere of corruption which is darkening his native land. Ahmed Beg, who in 1920 was Minister of the Interior, Minister of War, Governor of Scutari and Director (in mufti) of the military operations against the Yugoslavs, did not accept Italian bribes, but he was surrounded by those who did, and thus the gentle and industrious young man was being led to work against his own country's interests. With him at Scutari was another of the six Ministers of the Tirana Government, in the person of the venerable Moslem priest Kadri, Minister of Justice, and one of the four Regents, Monsignor Bumçi. There was about it all an Oriental odour of the less desirable kind, which caused some observers to say that when Albania obtains her independence she will be a bad imitation of the old Turkey—a little Turkey without the external graces. When the thoughtful greybeard Kadri went limping down the main street, a protecting gendarme dawdled behind him, smoking a cigarette; but this endearing nonchalance was absent from the methods of government: any Albanian whose opinions did not coincide with those of the authorities could only express them at his peril. [Blood-vengeance is, to some extent, being deposed by party-vengeance—this having originated in the time of Wied, when the politicians were divided into Nationalists and Essadists, after which they became Italophils and Austrophils, who now have been succeeded by Italophils (who ask for an Italian mandate) and Serbophils and Grecophils (who desire that these countries should have no mandate, but should act in a friendly spirit towards an independent Albania). Meanwhile the Italophils, nearly all of them on Italy's pay-roll, were, till a few months ago, in the ascendant, and their attitude towards the other party was relentless.] One Alush Ljocha, for example, said that he thought it would be well if Yugoslavia and Albania lived on friendly terms with one another. Because of this—the Government having adopted otherideas—his house at Scutari was burned,[76]and when we were discussing the matter at the palace of the Metropolitan, Monsignor Sereggi, I found that His Grace was emphatically in accord with a fiery Franciscan poet, Father Fichta, with the more placid Monsignor Bumçi, and with two other ecclesiastics who were present. "We did well to burn his house, very well, I say!" exclaimed Father Fichta, "because Alush is only a private person and he has no business to concern himself with foreign countries." Of course, when Father Fichta made his comments on foreign countries it was not as a private person but as a responsible editor. Thus in thePosta e Shqypnisduring the War he denounced Clemenceau and Lloyd George as such foes of humanity that their proper destination was a cage of wild beasts, and, after having visited France during 1919 as secretary to the sincere and credulous Bumçi, he contributed anti-French and, I believe, anti-English poems to theEpopea Shqyptare.
"I have been told," I said, "by an intelligent Albanian who was educated at Robert College at Constantinople that the greatest hope for the country lies, in his opinion, in the increase of American schools, such as that one at Elbasan and the admirable institution at Samakoff in Bulgaria, where the Americans—in order not to be accused of proselytism—teach everything except religion."
"If I had my own way," cried Fichta, "I would shut up these irreligious American schools. Religion is the base of the social life of this country."
"And you and the Muhammedans," I asked, "do you think that your co-operation has a good prospect of enduring? With a country of no more than one and a half million inhabitants it is essential that you should be united."
"God in Heaven! Who can tolerate such things?" exclaimed the Metropolitan. That very corpulent old gentleman was bouncing with rage on his sofa. "Is itnot horrible," he cried in Italian, "that this man should dare to come to my house and make propaganda against us?"
"Really, sir, I am astonished," said Monsignor Bumçi, reproachfully, in French, "that you should ask such a question." [It was answered a few weeks later, when Halim Beg Derala and Zena Beg—who, being outside Albania, were free to utter non-Governmental opinions—said that they had not the slightest doubt but that the friendship between the fanatic Moslem and the fanatic Catholic would come to an end and each of them would again in the first place think of his religion, so that, as heretofore, they would regard themselves as Turkish and Latin people rather than as Albanian. This foible does not apply to the Orthodox Albanians of the South, who are more patriotic.] "I am astonished," said the Monsignor, "that you should question our friendship with the Moslem. They have been the domineering party, but all that is finished, and we are the best of friends. See, they have chosen me to be one of the Regents![77]Our Government of all the three religions is very good, and," said he, as he thumped the arm of his chair, "it insists on the Albanians obtaining justice in spite of our enemies."
It chanced that I had met Father Achikou, Doctor of Theology and Philosophy, in the Franciscan church. Because his brother had had occasion to kill an editor in self-defence, this, perhaps the most enlightened, member of the Albanian Catholic clergy, had been compelled to remain for eight months in the church and its precincts, seeing that the Government was powerless to guarantee that he would not be overtaken by that national curse, the blood-vengeance.
"Well, one cannot praise the custom of blood-vengeance," said the Monsignor.
"You spoke," I said, "of your Government insisting on justice for the Albanians."
And some time after this Professor Achikou and another prominent young priest were deported to Italy and, I believe, interned in that country.... With their fate we may compare that of Dom Ndoc Nikai, a priestwhose anti-Slav paper, theBessa Shqyptare, is alleged to exist on its Italian subsidy, and Father Paul Doday, whom Italy insisted on installing as Provincial of all the Franciscans (after vetoing at Rome the appointment of Father Vincent Prênnushi, whom nearly all the Franciscans in Albania had voted for). Father Doday, it is interesting to note, is of Slav nationality, for he comes from Janjevo in Kossovo, but he studied in Italy, and has abandoned the ways of his ancestors. This town of some 500 houses, inhabited by Slavs from Dalmatia and a few Saxons who are now entirely Slavicized, still retains a costume that resembles the Dalmatian, as also a rather defective Dalmatian dialect. The Austrians for thirty years endeavoured to Albanize them, but the people resisted this and boycotted the church and school. The priest Lazar, who defended their Slav national conscience, was persecuted and forced to flee to Serbia—he is now Mayor of Janjevo. It usually happened, by the way, that the priests of this Catholic town came from Dalmatia; but the Slav idea could bridge over the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, so that if no Catholic priest was available his place would be taken by an Orthodox priest from a neighbouring village. Only a few of the natives are anti-nationalists, having been brought up, like Father Doday, in some Italian or Austrian seminary. There are in Albania to-day about ten such priests who come from Janjevo.... How well this Father Doday has served his masters may be seen in the case of the Franciscan priest in Shala, who, with the whole population of armed Catholics, resisted the Italian advance of 1920. Together with Lieut. Lek Marashi he organized komitadjis in Shala and elsewhere, his purpose being to liberate his country from the Italians. Since these latter could do nothing else against him they compelled the Bishop of Pulati to punish him; however, all that the Bishop did was to tell the patriot priest to go away. But Father Doday was more willing to work for the Italians; he excommunicated his fellow-countryman, on the ground that he would not come to Scutari, where his life would have been in danger.
4. THE STATE OF ALBANIAN CULTURE
But, you may say, one cannot in fairness expect the new Albanian Government to achieve in so short a time what the Serbian Government has effected among the Albanians of Kossovo, who are being persuaded to relinquish their devastating custom of blood-vengeance. Prior to March 1921, over 400 of its devotees and of brigands had given themselves up in Kossovo—turning away from the old days when, as one of them expressed it, "a shot from my rifle was heard at a distance of three hours' travel"; one of the most eminent among them disdained to surrender to a local authority and made his way to Belgrade, where he presented himself one afternoon to the astonished officials at the Ministry of the Interior. "After all," as Miss Durham has written, "the most important fact in northern Albania is blood-vengeance." What we must set out to probe is whether the Albanians, if they are left to themselves, will be able after a time to administer their country in a reasonably satisfactory manner.... Their culture is admittedly a very low one. In the realm of art a few love-songs and several proverbs were all that Consul Hahn could collect for his monumental work,[78]though his researches, which lasted for years, took him all over the country. One of these love-songs, a piece of six lines, will give some idea of their æsthetic value; a lover, standing outside the house of his lady, invites her to come out to him immediately; he threatens that if she disobeys him he will have his hair cut in the Western style, nay more, he will have it washed and then he will return, howling like a dog. Consul Hahn's summing up of the Albanians, by the way, stated that the social life of Cæsar'sBellum Gallicumwas applicable to the tribes which now inhabit southern Albania, those of the north not being equal to so high a standard. Yastrebow, the well-known Russian Consul-General, tells us of the villages of Retsch and Tschidna, where in winter men and women clothe themselves with rags, in summer with no rags—so that in the warmer months a visitor, presumably, in order notto shock the natives, would take the precaution of depositing his clothes in some convenient cavern. On the other hand, when the ladies in waiting on the Princess of Wied drove out in low-cut dresses, it being warm weather, the people of Durazzo were scandalized at what they called the terrible behaviour of their Prince's harem. These mountain people live on maize and milk and cheese—salt is unknown to them. Baron Nopsca is regarded by the few educated Albanians as the most competent foreign observer. He knew the language well and travelled everywhere. One custom he relates of the Merturi is the sprinkling of ashes on a spot where they suspect that treasure is buried; on the next morning they look to see what animal has left on the ashes the print of its feet, and this tells them what sacrifice the guardian of the treasure demands—sheep or hen or human being. Miss Durham says that human excrement and water is the sole emetic known to the Albanians; it is used in all cases of poisoning. But the Albanian's death is most frequently brought about by gun-shot. "In Toplana," as they say, "people are killed like pigs"—42 per cent. of the adults, according to Nopsca, dying a violent death. "It was her good government and her orderliness that obtained for her her admission to the League of Nations," said the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., in theMorning Postof November 29, 1921. And the enthusiastic President of the Anglo-Albanian Society is modest enough to refrain from telling us how much she was indebted to his own championship. The evil eye is feared in Albania more than syphilis or typhus. Siebertz[79]mentions a favourite remedy, which is to spit at the patient. A ceremonial spitting is also used by anyone who sees two people engaged in close conversation; very likely they are plotting against the third party, and by his timely expectoration their wicked plans will be upset.
Absurd as it may sound, there are not a few Albanian apologists who lay the entire blame upon the Turks. They assert—and it is true—that Constantinople left this distant province so completely almost to its own devices that the suzerain might just as well not have existed.A few Turkish officials lived in the towns, in the country they showed themselves when they were furtively travelling through it; and the chief officials, such as the Vali of Scutari, were wont to be Albanians. And, being left by the Turks to evolve their own salvation, they turned Albania into a region of utter darkness—at any rate, they did practically nothing to shake off the barbarism which they had inherited. They have certain alluring attributes, such as their unpolluted mediæval ideas on the sanctity of guests and the punctilious maintenance of their honour,[80]their readiness to die for freedom as well as for a quarrel about a sheep, and their not infrequent personal magnetism. They are very abstemious, their morals are pure, they have certain mental qualities, as yet undeveloped, and they are thrifty. But "they are so devoid of both originality and unity," says Sir Charles Eliot,[81]that acutest of observers, "that it is vain to seek for anything in politics, art, religion, literature or customs to which the name Albanian can be properly applied as denoting something common to the Albanian race."
The apologists, such as Miss Durham, argue that the other Balkan peoples suffered from a good deal of internal tumult after they had set themselves up as independent countries. And it is submitted that the Albanians would gradually develop the same national spirit as theirneighbours. But there are as yet, Miss Durham must acknowledge, very few signs that this will ever come to pass.
"We are Albanians," said Monsignor Bumçi, "we ask for Albania! We demand it! Surely you can see that we are all marching together, men from all parts of Albania, marching against the Yugoslavs. I say we are united."
And some miles from Scutari a part of the Albanian army was returning from a foray into Yugoslavia. When they came into the territory of a certain tribe they were compelled, by way of toll, to surrender their booty. Such incidents occurred in several places, so that obviously the conditions still prevail that were described in 1905 by Karl Steinmetz,[82]an Austrian engineer who learned the language and travelled through the country in the disguise of a Franciscan monk. "The tribes cannot conceive the idea of a higher unity," says he in one of his valuable books. [So that in attempting to build up the new State these tribal institutions should be used as much as possible. Except in the towns, which play a relatively small part in the country's life, the voting should be by tribes.] "How could a Nikaj and a Shala meet," says he, "except for mutual destruction? Will a Mirdite for a nice word give up his bandit expeditions to the plain? The local antagonisms are as yet far too great." More often than not you would find that the Albanians regard each other as at the time of the Balkan War, when, for example, a Serbian cavalry officer took the village of Puka and asked the mayor to lead him to the neighbouring village of Duci. His worship consented, but after walking on ahead for half an hour he stopped. "We are now midway between the two villages," he said, "and I can go no farther." "Unless you continue," said the captain, "I shall be obliged to have you shot." "Nukahaile[I don't care]," said the Albanian. "It is all the same to me whether I am killed by you or by the men of Duci, and I certainly shall be killed if I show myself there."
"We are all united, Catholic and Moslem. It is splendid!" said Monsignor Bumçi. "And we are not byany means fanatical—with us it is the country first and our religion afterwards."
Certainly the Shqyptar is not so good a churchman as we have sometimes been led to believe. Prenk Bib Doda is said to have cherished the precepts of the Catholic Church with such devotion that he could not bring himself to institute divorce proceedings against his childless wife. We are told that his mother was animated with similar scruples, and that, to solve this awkward question the old lady one day seized a rifle and shot her daughter-in-law dead. There is not more truth in this tale than in that of the brigands who, on a certain Friday, overpowered and slew a caravan of merchants between Dibra and Prizren. On examining their spoil they are said to have discovered a large amount of meat, but, as it was Friday, to have refrained from consuming it. Prenk Bib Doda was, as a matter of fact, impotent; and his widow, Lucia Bib Doda, survives him.... One agrees with Monsignor Bumçi that the Albanian is not altogether so blindly a supporter of his Church as we have been told, and his murderous intentions against a neighbouring tribe will be not at all diminished if they happen to profess the same religion as himself.
"Anyone can see," quoth the Monsignor, "that the Government is dear to us. Men are coming from all over the country, anxious to execute its wishes and to be enrolled against the Yugoslav."
Yes, we saw numbers of men tramping up to Scutari, from boys to septuagenarians. They were going to fight—it pleased them enormously. But if the Tirana Government had ordered them to go back and work on their fields, if it had asked them to take some precautions against the ravages of syphilis, if it had expressed the hope that they would no longer sell their women for an old Martini, or that the village prefects would pay some regard to sanitary matters—in the whole of Albania, says Siebertz, there is only onew.c.—then they would have laughed at this Government which tried to lay a hand on their ancestral liberties.
"The end of it all is," said the Monsignor, "we are Albanians. We demand the independence of our country."
"As a Latin," writes Professor Katarani,[83]"I was fire and flame for Albania.... But after a few months I was forced not only to change my views about them, but to regret all that I had written in theMattinoand theTribuna.... They are not a people, but tribes ... they are against every principle of public officials, they live the most primitive lives. I who know Albania from end to end, who have sacrificed myself for that country, am absolutely convinced that there could be no greater misfortune than if, in its present state, it were given autonomy or independence. Otherwise I confess that an Albania free from any foreign Power would be to the interest of Italy." And he concludes by saying that the Albanians have done nothing to deserve an independent State. It is well known that in the Albanian Societies that after May 1913 were engaged at Constantinople and Sofia, at Rome and Vienna, in striving for the independence of the country it was not the Albanians themselves who had the chief word. Those who were initiated into secret Balkan policies were aware that Albania was the domain with which Article 7 of the old Triple Alliance was concerned.... The fiery Albanian patriot, Basri Bey, Prince of Dukagjin, also agrees that in the beginning an independent Albania would be productive of anarchy. "I greatly regret to acknowledge it," says he,[84]"but Albania is, so to speak, the classic type of a country which has never had a real government." Nevertheless, he is strongly in favour of independence, his reasons being because Albania is "at the same time the old mother and the youngest daughter of the Balkans." This flamboyant prince and doctor and deputy who denounces both Essad Pasha and his nephew Ahmed Beg Mati, has got his own panacea for the country, which is a Turkish army of occupation commanded by a French general. Basri Bey seems to confirm the remarks of his more enlightened co-religionists, Halim Beg Derala and Zena Beg, for whereas the Moslems can claim no more than a rather larger third of the inhabitants, he calmly assumes that the whole countryis Moslem. Albania, he says, is now more than ever attached to Turkey, for the attachment is purely moral. ... The influence of this gentleman seems to be confined to Dibra, but he has a good opinion of his own importance. In 1915, in the days of the greatness of Essad Pasha, he set up a Government at Dibra with himself as Prime Minister and Essad Pasha as his Minister of the Interior! There does not seem to be much justification for Basri Bey to call himself a prince. He is a Pomak, for his ancestors were Bulgars who accepted Islam. His father was an official of the Turkish Government at Philippopolis.
Father Fichta told me that his countrymen would do very well indeed if they could import from other parts of Europe financial help, technicians and judges. Some years ago the Turks settled to send two judges to Scutari; then the Albanians would no longer be able to charge them with not administering the law, so that each man was obliged to take it into his own hands. "It is entirely your fault," said the Albanians, "that we are driven to adopt the method of blood-vengeance." So thoroughly did they adopt it that the assassinations in the region of Prizren, Djakovica and Peć amounted, according to Glück, to a total of about six hundred a year. The Turks therefore sent a couple of judges to Scutari, and on the day after their arrival they were murdered.
What memory have the Albanians of their own great men? One sultry afternoon, as we were driving in a mule cart from the quaint town of Alessio, the driver lashed his mule with a long stick; but after half a mile of this, the animal applied a hind-leg sharply to the driver's mouth. He roared and fell back in our arms and bled profusely and was doctored by the fierce gendarme, who put a handful of tobacco on the wound, so that the driver had to keep his mouth shut. For the remainder of the afternoon our mule went at a walking pace, and presently, to while away the time, we begged the gendarme and a merchant of Alessio, who was travelling with us, to repeat the song of some old hero, such as Skanderbeg. They stared—their mouths were also shut. And finally the gendarme said he knew a hero-song. Itdealt with Zeph, a man with sheep, and Mark who stole them. "Give me back my sheep," said Zeph. "No, no!" said Mark. "Beware!" said Zeph. And one day, as he hid behind a wall, he fired at Mark and slew him. "That is the song," said the gendarme, "about the hero Zeph."
To whatever state of culture the Albanians may climb, I think it will be generally agreed that some régime other than unaided independence must, in the meantime, be established there. One hears of those who argue that Albania should forthwith be for the Albanians, because they are a gifted and a very ancient people. They are not more gifted than the Basques, and their antiquity is not more wonderful. Nor do they stand on a higher level of culture with respect to their neighbours than do the Basques as compared with theirs. Not many tears are shed by the Basques or by anyone else because those interesting men are all the subjects of France or Spain.
5. A METHOD THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN TRIED IN ALBANIA
If only the Albanian question would be taken in hand by humanitarians.... Here you have one and a half million of wild children.... Build them schools and roads, police their country—they themselves agree that the savage atmosphere in the northern mountains was radically altered by the Austrians when they occupied that country during the War. One has heard of numerous philanthropic societies in Great Britain whose object has been more remote and less deserving; if some such society would turn to Albania, their educational and economic labours might, after a time, be made self-supporting by the permission to exploit—of course, with due regard to Albania's future—the forests and mines. "To be master in Albania," says M. Gabriel Hanotaux, "one would have to dislodge the inhabitants from their eyries"—(another French statesman has used a less exalted simile: "Albania," M. Briand once said, "is an international lavatory")—and it goes without saying that any corporation which undertakes to civilize theShqyptart would need to bring in a military force, on similar lines to the Swedishgendarmeriein Persia. The Swedes, in fact, who are a military nation, might be glad to accept this mandate; the expenses could be met by an international fund. A certain number of Albanians would be admitted to thegendarmerie; and the more unruly natives would be dealt with as they were, for everybody's good, by Austria.... The Yugoslavs would then be delighted to accept the 1913 frontier, which is also what the Albanians ask for; and Yugoslavs, Italians and Greeks would all retire from Albania. There is really no need for the Italians to demand Valona or Saseno, the island which lies in front of it. The Italian naval experts know very well that the possession of Pola, Lussin and Lagosta would not be made more valuable by the addition of an Albanian base.
6. THE ATTRACTION OF YUGOSLAVIA
But as Europe has not arrived at some such solution, and since the Albanian Government has been prematurely recognized by the Powers, then while the Albanians are engaged in the stormy process of working out their own salvation, it is only fair that Yugoslavia should be given a good defensive frontier. The 1913 frontier is only possible if the Albanians are pacific, but as it has now been thought wise to set up an unaided and independent Albanian State there is nothing more certain than the turmoil of which its borders will be the scene, and this will be so whether the Italians do or do not come to the Albanians' assistance. What hope is there of even a relative tranquillity on the Albanian border when so many of the natives, preferring Yugoslav rule to that of their own countrymen, will be waging a civil war? That this preference is fairly widespread one could see in 1920 by the number of refugees on the Yugoslav side of the frontier. [Of course, a large number of Albanians also fled to Scutari and elsewhere from the districts lately occupied by the Yugoslav army. In both cases the refugees were moved sometimes by hopes for a brighterfuture, sometimes by fears which were caused by their clouded past. To speak first of those who fled on account of a guilty conscience, it is evident that these were more numerous among the refugees in Albania than among those in Yugoslavia, for it was the Yugoslav authorities and not the Albanian who extended their sway. Mr. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., wrote[85]"that in the North the Yugoslavs had destroyed more than 120 Albanian villages." It would have been interesting if he had given us their names, because the Yugoslavs appear to have set about it so thoroughly that one cannot find anything like that number on the Austrian maps, which are the best pre-war maps for those regions. The Anglo-Albanian Society tells the British public, in November, 1920, of the 30,000 destitute refugees in Albania, and in such a way that the cause of their exodus is ascribed, without more ado, to the terrible Yugoslav. But as the names are known of a good many Albanians who did not wait for the Yugoslav army, on account of past troubles between themselves and Yugoslavs, as also between themselves and other Albanians, it would have been as well if the Anglo-Albanian Society had reminded the public that all who fly in those parts are not angels. It would, on the other hand, be just as rash to sing the undiluted praise of those Albanians who, at odds with the Tirana Government, thought it opportune to leave their native land; but one can safely say, I think, that among these wanderers there was a larger proportion of laudable men....] Yugoslavia attracts the Albanians for more than one reason—not so much because the ancestors of many of these Muhammedan Albanians were, and not so long ago, Christians, as because inclusion in Yugoslavia would be to their economic advantage—Scutari can scarcely exist without the Yugoslav hinterland, while the people of the mountains are longing for that railway which the Yugoslavs will only build over land which is moderately immune from depredation. Other causes which have made so many of the borderland Albanians—to speak only of them—turn their eyes to Yugoslavia are the admiration which any primitive people feels for military prowess and the knowledge ofwhat has taken place in the Prizren-Peć-Djakovica region since it came into possession of the Serbs in 1913. Let us in the first place see what sentiments are now entertained by the Albanian natives of that region towards their rulers. It goes without saying that these sentiments are perfectly well known to those Albanians who live outside the Yugoslav frontier.
Well, at Suva Rieka, near Prizren, for example, I found that all the Muhammedan inhabitants of Serbian origin are aware that they used to celebrate the Serbian national custom of "Slava," still keep up the Serbian Christmas Eve customs and often practise the old Christian nine days' wailing for the dead. Some of us may think that this new pro-Serbian tendency is rather on account of utilitarian reasons; the great thing is that it should exist. With rare exceptions, the people of Suva Rieka used to live by plunder; now they are sending their children to the Serbian school, at any rate the boys, and for the study of religion the authorities have made arrangements with a local Moslem. It is to be regretted that Miss Edith Durham, whose writings were so pleasant in the days before she became a more uncompromising pro-Albanian than most of the Albanian leaders, says that if these children go to Serbian schools it merely shows to what lengths of coercion the Serbs will resort. In 1912-1913 Serbian and Montenegrin officers seem to have told her that severe measures would be employed against any recalcitrant Albanian parent who might decline to send his son to school. Assuming that these officers were not young subalterns, that they were quite sober and that they were not rudely "pulling Miss Durham's leg," it may be urged that even if the children be driven to school at the point of the bayonet, such conduct would compare favourably with that of the Albanians towards the Serbs in Turkish times. Talking of coercion, I suppose that the progress in agricultural methods which one sees around Prizren is only further evidence of Serbian tyranny. Thegendarmerieon the country roads is composed largely of Muhammedan Albanians—doubtless the Serbs have coerced them by some horrible threats. And if Miss Durham were to hear that Ramadan (néStojan) Stefanović of the village ofMusotisti had decided to return to the Orthodox faith to which his brothers George and Ilja had been more faithful than himself—such variegated families are not uncommon—I believe, though I may be doing her an injustice, that her first impulse would be to write to the papers in drastic denunciation of the Serbian authorities. They have, like most of us, sufficient to regret—for example, the person whom they sent to Peć, when they wanted the land to be distributed, was King Peter's Master of the Horse. He was thoroughly unsuitable, and caused a great deal of dissatisfaction.
There was a time at the rather gloomy town of Djakovica, when, owing to the blood-vengeance, the Merturi were unable for eight years to enter the place; now they come in, merely to gaze at the Serbian major who is in command. Halim Beg Derala, the aristocratic and wealthy ex-mayor, who as a pastime used to plan an occasional robbery in Turkish days, told me—he speaks a little French, in addition to Albanian, Turkish, Serbian and Greek—that citizens were often unable to leave their houses for two months at a time,[86]and although every house was provisioned for a siege, yet one frequently had to manage without bread. Now the candid-eyed, fair-bearded priest rides out with Ljuba Kujundjić, the erstwhile leader of komitadji, in order to negotiate with the Albanian Zeph Voglia, at that personage's own request, for his surrender to the Serb authorities. Zeph has written from a forest that he feels uneasy, because he owes sixteen blood-vengeances. He asks that his affairs may be settled by the law, and those sixteen pursuing countrymen of his have signified that this will meet their views, since in the first place the Serbs are disinterested in the matters between them, and, secondly, the Serbian penalties are not so mild as theirs, not permitting that a murder shall be expiated by the paymentof a moderate sum or that a guilty party may absent himself for three years and suffer no further loss than the devastation of his house. Another sphere in which the Serbs have gained Albanian sympathies is with regard to the disputed ownership of land. Even as the Moors have been in the habit of handing down, from father to son, the key of some Sevillan house that vanished centuries ago, the Montenegrins, more fortunate, have been appearing with the ancient title-deeds of lands that now are in Albanian possession. According to Serbian law it is the oldest document which prevails. And the Albanians are generously compensated.... Those who, with the highest motives, advocate "Albania for the Albanians," may argue that the mediæval activities of Riza Beg and Bairam Beg Zur—whose adherents started shooting at each other every evening after six o'clock in the refuse-laden streets of Djakovica—would have been concluded and would not have been continued by their sons even if the Serbs had not appeared. Let them, before proclaiming the modern reasonableness of the Albanians, recollect that in 1919 the Moslem Bosniak ex-prisoners required on the average three months in order to traverse central Albania, the country of their co-religionists. From village to village the Bosniaks made their way, earning a little and then being plundered at the next place. Eighty per cent. of this population believe, in their fanaticism, that the Sultan will again unfurl over them his flag and that the world will ultimately be converted to Muhammed. And if, entertaining such ideas, they are so rigorous towards their fellow-Moslems, what prospect is there that this 80 per cent. will assist the Orthodox and Catholic Albanians in building up a State? Their ferocity, in fact, is so profound that it thrives on a diet which is chiefly of milk.... Perhaps a day will come when the Albanian will submit to be ruled by a member of another tribe, when local politics will engage his attention less than the silver, iron, copper, arsenic and water-power of his country. Perhaps the day will come. Midway between Djakovica and the monastery of Dečani there stand two large houses side by side. In 1909 a man belonging to one of them slew four men of the other house, and on account of this he fled beyondthe Drin, together with thirteen other men of his family. There is no knowing how long these refugees would have stayed away if that part of the country had not come under Serbian rule, but in 1919 negotiations were set on foot which—to the satisfaction of the members of the other house—would enable the thirteen innocent refugees to return, while the criminal would be arrested.
As evidence of the cordiality now prevailing between Albanian and Serb in Yugoslavia, one may mention those cases where the Albanians in 1919 entered into a bond that for six months they would exact no blood-vengeance from their fellow-countrymen; the number of these debts which hitherto had been regarded as debts of honour was very considerable, for they were not only incurred by assassination but could also be in payment of a mere scowl or of your wife, from within the house, having heard the voice of another man raised in song. The Serbian authorities are hoping confidently that the Albanians who have thus for a season placed themselves under the law will be ready in the future to pledge themselves. They are beginning to see that in a place the size of Djakovica it should be possible to make a wheel, that one should be able to find a shop whose contents are worth more than 100 francs, that the breed of their cattle, of their sheep and goats and horses could be vastly improved, that if their land were sanely treated it could be rendered much more fertile, and that their system of fruit cultivation is absurdly primitive.... And with Djakovica and the whole region of Kossovo being treated as we have shown by the Yugoslavs I think it will be almost as great a surprise to the reader as it was to the local population when he learns that in a memorandum of April 26, 1921, the Tirana Government complained to the League of Nations that the Yugoslav civil and military officials were behaving in a very pitiless fashion towards the Albanians. Certainly they have not as yet established Albanian schools, but they propose to do so when there is accommodation and when teachers are available; and then, maybe, to the disgust of Miss Durham, Mr. Herbert, etc., the Albanians of the district will, with an eye to the future, prefer to visit the Yugoslav schools.
7. RELIGIOUS AND OTHER MATTERS IN THE BORDER REGION
Having glanced at what the Serbs have done in such a very short time—most of the years since 1913 being years of war—to win the gratitude of their Albanian fellow-subjects, we shall, in following a possible frontier between Yugoslavia and the Albanians, at any rate believe that many Albanians of those thus coming under Yugoslav rule would regard the change, as well they may, with equanimity. Suppose, then, that the frontier were to run along the watershed at the top of the mountain range to the west of Lake Ochrida. The people living to the east of this line in that district would acknowledge their Serbian origin. Thence passing to the neighbourhood of the village of Lin and from there in a northwesterly direction, so as to include in Yugoslavia the Golo Brdo, the so-called Bald Mountains, whose thirty villages are inhabited by Islamized Serbs who only speak, with very rare exceptions, the Serbian language, one may say that not only would their inclusion in Yugoslavia be beneficial to these people, but that they would accept it with alacrity. No very deep impression has been made upon them by the religion to which, not long ago, they were converted. In the Golo Brdo it was in great measure due to the Greek Church which, about the middle of the nineteenth century, left the region without a single priest, so that children of the age of eight had not been christened, and the people in disgust went over to Islam. Near Ochrida, some of them were asked whether they frequented the mosque.
"Never," they replied.
"What is your religion?"
"Well, it is very strange," they told us, "but we have none."
"What religion did you formerly have?"
"Well, we don't know."
Their priest roams the mountains with his gun, and there has been a tendency, since a man in this position received his salary from the State, for many to persuade the mufti to appoint them, irrespective of whether they could read or write. The devout Moslem is, to theexclusion of everything else, a Moslem; but in these districts, where the faith was assumed in a moment of pique or as a protection, and where the Muhammedan clergy has been so negligent, the people are gladly cultivating their Christian relatives. In the district of Suva Rieka one hears of conversions to Christianity, and the functionaries bring no pressure to bear, unlike the misguided Montenegrin officials who in 1912 rode into Peć, the old Patriarchate, and wanted in their delight to have everyone immediately to adopt the Orthodox faith. Now the authorities, with greater wisdom, do not interfere in these matters. They know that Yugoslavia will have no enemy in that house in the village of Brod, between Tetovo and Prizren, where two brothers are living together, of whom one went over to Islam. They know that the Muhammedan Krasnichi of Albania are proclaiming their kinship with the great Montenegrin clan of Vasojević, that the Gashi are calling to the Piperi and the Berishi to the Kuči. The new cordiality will be impaired neither by the differences of religion nor by the similarity of costume. The average Albanian of Djakovica would not be any fonder of an Orthodox fellow-citizen if the latter continues to wear the Albanian dress which was generally adopted about a hundred years ago, and the Vasojević may please themselves as to the wearing of a costume which they once found so useful in the Middle Ages. They happened to be for ten days in the Hoti country for the purpose of wiping out a blood affair, and when they were about to fall into the Hoti's hands they shouted, "What do you want with us? We are Kastrati!" The Kastrati, to whom these Albanian-clad people were led, confirmed the statement, so that the Vasojević earned for themselves the nickname of Kastratović.
From the Golo Brdo the best frontier would pass north-eastwards to the Black Drin and along that river until it is joined by the White Drin. This is a poor country whose inhabitants are, for the most part, Moslemized Serbs. About a hundred men are now engaged in excavating the very finely decorated Serbian church at Piškopalja on the Drin—much to the edification of the local Moslems. This church of their ancestors wascovered in during the Middle Ages in order to conceal it from the Turks. Too often the natives' present occupation is brigandage; but from of old they have had economic relations with Prizren, to which old town of vine-arched, narrow, winding streets and picturesque bazaars these countryfolk have been accustomed to come every week. These Moslems (of whom there are some 100,000 in the department of Prizren, with 13,000 Orthodox and 3000 Catholics) used to detest the Christians on account of their religion, although half of the Moslems could speak nothing but Serbian. The Serbs, it must be admitted, were not always blameless; in the early nineties, for example, they suspended a pig's head outside the mosque. And the amenities of Prizren were complicated by the hostility between Orthodox and Catholic. This was largely due to the fact that, by the intervention of the French Consul after the Crimean War, the Catholics—descendants of Ragusan emigrants of the Middle Ages—had secured the former Orthodox church of St. Demetrius, in which church, by the way, the services had come to be held in Albanian. When the Vatican, in the second half of the nineteenth century, sent a Serbian priest, the congregation had become so thoroughly Albanized that after a year he had to leave. The propaganda of Austria, Italy and Russia did nothing towards persuading the three religions of Prizren to regard each other in a more amicable fashion; while Italy and Austria gave exclusive assistance to the Catholics, whom they found in such distress that, forty years ago, most of them went barefoot, the presence of the Russian Consul was of such importance to the Orthodox that their position at Prizren was better than in their old patriarchal town of Peć. Nowadays, with Austrian and Russian propaganda deleted, there is only that of the Italians, whose proposal to create an independent Albania (under Italian protection) was at first applauded by some simple folk in 1919. The Moslem took to accepting Italian money and then honourably informing the Yugoslav authorities that they had been appointed as agents of Italy; they offered to capture the Franciscan priests with whose help the Italians were trying to secure the Catholics; and as for the cash, it seems mostly to have been spent in aconvivial fashion by the Moslems and the Serbs together. This friendship appears likely to continue, for the Serbian authorities, so far from countenancing such pranks as that of the pig's head, do not even propose to reconsecrate their ancient church of Petka. When this building was made into a mosque, the Moslem still permitted the Christian women to come and pray there, while if a Christian man was sick they let him leave a jar of water in the mosque all night, so that it might acquire certain medicinal properties. It is the intention of the Serbs not to restore the church to Christian worship, but to turn it into a museum.
With the frontier then being drawn along the Drin, towards the Adriatic, the famous villages of Plav and Gusinje would definitely pass to Yugoslavia, in accordance with the wishes of a deputation sent by them to Belgrade in 1919. The well-meaning British champions of Gusinje, who maintain that this village is furiously antagonistic to the Slav and is ready to struggle to the uttermost rather than be incorporated in a Slav kingdom, these champions do not, I think, draw a sufficient distinction between Montenegro and Yugoslavia. Plav, with its mostly Christian population, and Gusinje, where the Moslem preponderates, refused at the time of the Berlin Congress to be given to Montenegro, with which they had certain local quarrels. Nicholas reported to the Powers which had awarded him these places that they were obdurate, for which reason he was given in their stead a much-desired strip of coast, down to Dulcigno, and nothing could have suited that astute monarch better. Nikita—to call him by his familiar name—imagined that the two villages would eventually fall to Montenegro, because of the formidable mountains which divide them from the rest of Albania; the road from Gusinje to Scutari is very long and very arduous. When Montenegro succeeded in capturing Plav in 1912, a certain Muhammedan priest of that place joined the Orthodox Church and was appointed a major in the Montenegrin army. He acted as the president of a court-martial, and in that capacity is reputed to have hanged or shot, some say, as many as five hundred of his former parishioners, because they declined to be baptized. Hetold them that their ancestors were all Serbs, and that therefore they should follow his example. Since the Montenegrins did not restrain this over-zealous man, the villagers were naturally not in favour of that country. Montenegro had a very small number of good officials, owing to Nikita's peculiar management which, in considering his favourites, did not regard illiteracy as a bar to the highest administrative or judicial post.... The people of Plav and Gusinje have, on the other hand, no hostility against Serbia. In November 1918 a detachment of thirty Serbs was stationed at Gusinje, what time certain Italian agents put it into the shallow minds of some Albanians that Albania desired to be independent under Italian protection. Nothing happened when a Serbian force came from Mitrovica, except that these agents and a few of their tools—be it noted that perhaps half the population is ignorant of the Albanian language—withdrew to the Rugovo district, where they tried to induce the people to fly with them, so that the world would hear how iniquitously the Serbs had acted. Those of Rugovo refused to accompany them; in consequence of which there was a fight, some houses were burned, some women and cattle were seized. And afterwards the men of Rugovo repaired to Gusinje and exacted a vengeance which, the most Serbophobe person will admit, had nothing to do with the Serbs. The luckless village of Gusinje was again laid waste in 1919 by the Montenegrins, but this came to pass as the result of the Montenegrin clan of Vasojević having their property ravaged by some Albanian marauders who were prompted by the same Great Power. The Vasojević believed that this evil deed was done by the men of Gusinje, so that they destroyed their houses. When the facts were explained to them, the Vasojević said that they were prepared to rebuild the village. And now Plav and Gusinje, who ask for Serbian and not Montenegrin officials, recognize that it is impossible for them to live except in union with Yugoslavia.... Miss Durham's wrath concerning an affair which happened during 1919 in this region shows to what lengths a partisan will go. She complained with great bitterness that the Serbs had actually arrested a British officer whose purpose it was to make investigations.
The Serbs are human beings and are not immune from error; and Miss Durham is so determined to expose them that if all her charges were dealt with from Belgrade it would necessitate the appointment of one or two more officials. But in this particular case she is not the sole accuser. A Captain Willett Cunnington—who, according to the President of the Anglo-Albanian Society, the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., has several years' intimate experience of Albania—said in theNew Statesmanthat in consequence of what occurred to Captain Brodie the Serbian Government was compelled to apologize abjectly. Now I happen to be very well acquainted with the stalwart Pouniša Račić, the Montenegrin who arrested Brodie. Albanians have told me that Pouniša's knowledge of the north and north-west of their country is not a matter of villages but of houses. And he has always observed the customs which prevail in those houses, so that when he is known to be approaching, the people who live at a distance of many hours will come to meet him, whether for the pure delight of discharging their firearms to his greater glory or for the purpose of seeking his advice. It is not because he has studied jurisprudence in Paris that they respect him in that bitter region, but because he does not disregard the laws that govern the wild hearts on both sides of the frontier. Yet I suppose Captain Brodie had never heard of him—poor Captain Brodie! unconscious of the great good luck which had brought him into the presence of this man who could have made his journey much more pleasant for himself and vastly more profitable for his superiors.
This is what Pouniša Račić told me:
"At the end of January and the beginning of February 1919, we were having a certain amount of trouble in the Gusinje and Plav district, where I was acting as delegate of the Belgrade Government. Travellers were being murdered, telephone wires were being cut, and so forth. In those parts, which I have known for so many years, it is a good deal easier to ascertain a criminal's name than to seize him, and I had not captured these malefactors when one day I had a message to say that a European Commission wasapproaching. Later on I was told that thirty-nine of its members were Albanians. I ordered my lieutenant to find out whether they were from our territory, in which case they were to be disarmed and brought to me; or from Albania, in which event they were to be received politely. A quarter of an hour after this I was told that they were all well-known brigands from our State, and there was one specially notorious person, Djer Doucha, who in 1912 was converted to Christianity and was made a gendarme at the court of King Nicholas; in 1915, after the Austrian invasion, he was reconverted to Islam and became a sergeant ofgendarmerie. In that position he killed fifty or sixty Serbs and Montenegrins, to say nothing of his other acts of violence. In 1918, for instance, he murdered seven school-children whom he met on the road.
"I had some urgent business at Plav," continued Račić, "and there all these people were brought before me. In addition to the thirty-nine Albanians there were three men in British uniforms. I was acquainted with one of them, a certain Perola, a Catholic of Peć, a former Austrian agent who had committed many crimes against the Serbs and had lately escaped from the prison at Peć. One of the other two said that he was Captain Brodie, whom the London Government had sent as their delegate for Albania and Montenegro. I suppose the third man was his British orderly; I never heard him speak. But Brodie said many things. One of them (which was quite true) was that his Government had not yet recognized the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He demanded the instant release of his companions. 'Do you know who they are?' said I. 'That is no concern of yours,' said he. 'Well,' said I, 'they are criminals, and it is for the judges to say whether or not they are to be liberated.' 'I protest,' he exclaimed, 'in the name of England, against their arrest!' 'And I thank you,' said I, 'in the name of the Serbian police, for having brought them here.' 'You are a savage, a barbarous nation!' said he, 'and you don't deserve to be free and independent.' 'Sir,' said I, 'if you are an Englishman you should know that we are your allies, that you and we have shed our blood for the commoncause. We love England very much, and I am very surprised to hear a British officer speak in this way.' Again he demanded to be set free, he and all his people, so that he could continue his mission; but I told him that after what I had heard from him and what I had seen of his escort, I could not permit him to go on to other villages unless he could show me an authorization from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Belgrade. 'I do not recognize the Belgrade Government,' said he. 'Whom, then,' I asked, 'do you regard as the legitimate ruler of this country?' 'King Nicholas,' said he, 'and the Government of Montenegro.' So I advised him to get a visa from King Nicholas and to come back to perform his mission, when that visa would be honoured. 'Anyhow,' said he, 'the people of these parts are against Serbia.' Thereupon I sent for the chief men and told them to say quite candidly in front of this Englishman what they wanted. There were five Moslems, including Islam and Abdi Beg Rejepagić (the leading family) and Ismael Omeragić, also two Christians, of whom I remember Staniča Turković. 'Long live Serbia!' they shouted. 'Death to Nicholas and the Albanians!' On hearing this Captain Brodie was discontented; he told me that I was a savage and did not know how to esteem an Englishman. 'I esteem you very much,' said I, 'and because he is wearing a British uniform I won't arrest this interpreter of yours.' (By the way, Perola was not acting as interpreter in our conversation, as the captain and I were talking French.) 'He used to be an Austrian agent,' said I. 'You are a liar!' cried Brodie; 'I know this man; he was nothing of the sort.' I remained calm, but I told him that he must not speak to me again in such a way. I asked him how long he had known Perola, who had got away from our prison a month ago. 'I have known him for a month,' said Brodie. 'And now,' said I, 'will you please show me your documents?' 'I have none,' said he, 'and I do not require any, as I am a British officer.' 'But I have read in the papers,' said I, 'that your people arrested and shot several persons who were wearing the uniform of a British officer. If you have no documents to prove that you are not a spy and that you are a British officer I shall have to arrestyou.' Then he showed me one with some Italian words on it, I think a permission to go somewhere on the Piave front. 'From now,' said I, 'you are arrested; no one can come to you and you cannot leave this house. Prepare yourself to start to-morrow or the day after, if you are tired, for Peć, and perhaps Skoplje, so that you may prove your identity.' He protested, and declared that he must see the people in the neighbouring villages. 'If you are a real Englishman,' said I, 'I could not allow you to go by yourself, since there are many Moslems in these parts who have been excited against England by their hodjas, owing to your war with Turkey. They might kill you, and I would be held responsible; so that even if you had the necessary documents I could only let you go if precautions were taken to guard you. I am sorry,' said I, 'that you should have spoken as you have done against the Serbs; in fact, it seems to me that you are doing a disservice to England, and that here in this village I am serving her more truly.' 'I decline to go to Peć,' said Brodie; 'I want to go to Scutari.' 'You must go to Peć,' said I. He said that I could telephone concerning him either to the Belgrade Government or to the General at Cetinje. 'Unfortunately,' said I, 'it is these people who are with you who cut the telephone wires two days ago.' After this I appointed a guard for him. I gave him my room, with soldiers to serve him, to keep the room warm and bring him whatever food we had. [Observe that the above-mentioned Captain Willett Cunnington wrote in theNew Statesmanthat Brodie was treated with "gross indignity."] 'Three horses were got ready,' said Račić in conclusion, 'and on these they rode to Peć, accompanied by a guard, both to prevent them from escaping and from coming to harm.'"[87]
In its old Albanian days the village of Gusinje was perhaps the most inaccessible spot in Europe—it was rarely possible for anyone to obtain permission to approachit. Even to Miss Durham, friend of the Albanians, this people sent a decided refusal. But now, under the guidance of the Yugoslav authorities, they have abandoned these boorish ways; Miss Durham could go there at any time, but maybe the village no longer attracts her.
8. A DIGRESSION ON TWO RIVAL ALBANIAN AUTHORITIES
[We have more than once alluded to the writings of Miss Durham, since very few British authors have dealt with Albania, and she has come to be regarded as a trustworthy expert. But the flagrant partiality of her latest book (Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle; London, 1920), which, moreover, is written with great bitterness, will make the public turn, I hope, to Sir Charles Eliot, who is a vastly better cicerone. The present ambassador in Japan is, of course, one of the foremost men of this generation. His Balkan studies are as supremely competent as his monumental work on British Nudibranchiate Mollusca, published by the Ray Society when Sir Charles, having resigned the Governorship of East Africa, was Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University. Equally admired are his researches into Chinese linguistics and his monograph, the first in the language, on that most obscure subject, Finnish grammar.[88]Will it be believed that in her account of the Balkan tangle Miss Durham does not quote Sir Charles Eliot, but Mr. Horatio Bottomley? It seems that Mr. Bottomley has not devoted much attention to the Balkans, since in November 1920 he poured the vials of his wrath upon the Serbs, who, according to his "latest reports from Montenegro," had destroyed no less than 4000 Montenegrin houses in the district ofDibra, a place which lies some 75 miles by road from the land of the Black Mountain and probably does not possess more than two or three Montenegrin houses; but he flings hard words against the Serbs, and that is good enough for Miss Durham. On the other hand, Sir Charles Eliot, who has travelled largely in Albania, wrote the simple facts about that people and they are obnoxious to this lady. "It is not surprising to find that there is no history of Albania, for there is no union between North and South, or between the different northern tribes and the different southern Beys," said he in 1900, and such a people does not undergo a fundamental change in twenty years. "Only two names," says Eliot, "those of Skanderbeg and Ali Pasha of Janina, emerge from the confusion of justly unrecorded tribal quarrels.... Albania presents nothing but oppositions—North against South, tribe against tribe, Bey against Bey." (According to Miss Durham they are all aflame with the desire to form a nation.) "Even family ties seem to be somewhat weak," says Sir Charles, "for since European influence has diminished the African slave-trade, Albanians have taken to selling their female children to supply the want of negroes." (The Albanians are "enterprising and industrious," says Miss Durham.) "In many ways," says Eliot, "they are in Europe what the Kurds are in Asia. Both are wild and lawless tribes who inflict much damage on decent Turks and Christians alike. Both might be easily brought to reason by the exhibition of a little firmness.... Albanian patriotism is not a home product—had they ever been ready to combine against the Turk there seems to be no reason why they should not have preserved the same kind of independence as Montenegro; but from the first some of the tribes and clans endeavoured to secure an advantage over the others by siding with the invaders—papers and books on the national movement are written at Bucharest, Brussels and various Italian towns, but they are not read at Scutari or Janina. The stock grievance of this literature is that the Turks will not allow Albanian to be taught in the schools, and endeavour to ignore the existence of the language; but though the complaint is well-founded, I doubt if the mass of the people have muchfeeling on the subject." ... Those who are rash enough to assert, because Miss Durham says so, that in the last two decades the Albanians have made a progress of several centuries may be recommended to the testimony of Brailsford[89](1906), of Katarani (1913), and of the Italian Press which, after the retreat of their army to Valona, published in 1920 the most ghastly particulars of what befell the hapless officers and men who were captured by the Albanians.
Let the British public henceforth go to Sir Charles Eliot and not to this emotional lady for its picture of the unchanged Shqyptar. She reveals to us that more than one person in the Balkans said that her knowledge of those countries is enormous; she has knocked about the western Balkans and picked up a good deal of material, but her knowledge has its limitations: for example, she makes the old howler of ascribing Macedonian origin to Pašić, though his grandfather came not from Tetovo in Macedonia but from near Teteven in what is now Bulgaria. Miss Durham plumes herself for having sent back to Belgrade the Order of St. Sava, and seeing that it is bestowed for learning she did well. But even if her acquaintance with Balkan affairs were more adequate—her diagnosis of the Macedonian racial problem is extremely rough and ready—all the writings of Miss Durham are so warped with hatred for the Slav that they must be very carefully approached. Because she thinks it will incline her readers towards the Albanians she says[90]that they were early converts to Christianity. She omits to mention that the Moslem, on arriving in the Balkans, was able to spread his religion much more easily in Albania than anywhere else; and again, in the seventeenth century, when Constantinople offered many lucrative posts to the Moslem there occurred in Albania a great wave of apostasy. Miss Durham speaks with pride of the Albanians who during the Great War fought in the French, Italian and American ranks. Would it not be more straightforward if she added that large numbers were enrolled in the Austro-Hungarian army andgendarmerie? The special task of the latter wasto dislodge from their mountain fastnesses those Montenegrins who continued to carry on a desperate guerilla warfare against the invader. To pretend that the Albanian has earned the freedom of his country by his glorious exploits in the War is an absurdity. He is a mediæval fellow, much more anxious to have a head to bash than to ascertain whom it belongs to. The Slavs have not always treated their raw neighbours with indulgence; in the Balkan War, when their army marched through Albania to the sea some very discreditable incidents occurred, whatever may have been the provocation they received from the sniping natives and however great be the excuse of their own state of nerves. Yet the first stone should be flung by that army of Western Europe which, in its passage through the territory of a treacherous and savage people, has done nothing which it would not willingly forget. And seriously to argue that the Slavs are of an almost undiluted blackness, while the Albanians are endearing creatures, is to take what anti-feminists would call a feminist view of history. Miss Durham tells us that some years ago she stood upon a height with an Albanian abbot and promised him that she would do all that lay in her power to bring a knowledge of Albania to the English. The worthy abbot may have glanced at her uneasily, but noticing her rapt expression reassured himself. And she appears to have believed that England, eagerly absorbing what she told them of this people, would in August 1914 make her policy depend on their convenience. But to Miss Durham's horror and amazement, Great Britain turned aside from this clear and honourable duty. She entered the War as an ally of the Slav, bringing "shame and disgust" upon Miss Durham. "After that," says she, "I really did not care what happened. The cup of my humiliation was full."]
9. WHAT FACES THE YUGOSLAVS
It is not as if Serbia never made mistakes in dealing with the Albanians. The Sultan used to govern them by sending in one year an army against them, and in the next year asking for no recruits or taxes. The Montenegrins,of whom the older generation was bored when it had no man to shoot at, used to be on very neighbourly terms with them. Both these systems the Albanians could understand. But they did not know why the Belgrade Government in 1878—and it was a mistaken policy—should expel a number of Albanians from the newly-won zones, thrusting them across the frontier and putting in their place a number of Serbs who were settled in Old Serbia. The twofold folly of this plan was not grasped at the moment; but for several years the Serbian frontier districts were regularly invaded and plundered. The following years of Turkish misrule, and especially the young Turkish policy of treacherous force, which resulted in Albanian risings every year, may possibly have caused many Albanians to be honestly glad when the Balkan War brought the Serbs into their country. But of these Albanians not a few would rejoice because they hoped that with the help of the Serbian army it would be possible to slay the members of some adjacent tribe against whom they happened to have a feud. Perhaps the Serbs were so eager to bathe their horses in the Adriatic that they did not notice such trifles as the destruction of a ford, this having been done to prevent a visit from undesirable neighbours. One might have imagined that Serbia, being well known as a land of small peasant proprietors—where there is even a law which forbids a peasant's house from being sold over his head; he is, under any circumstances, assured of so much as will enable him to eke out a livelihood—one would have thought that the Albaniančifčija, who is nothing more than a slave of the feudal chief, would have rejoiced at the arrival of a liberator; and indeed, while the Serbian troops were in Albania the peasant refused to give his lord the customary third or half of what the land produced, and after the departure of the Serbs he was unapproachable for tax-collectors. Who knows whether this social readjustment, so auspiciously begun, might not have made Albania wipe out her grievances against the Serbs and remember only that in the Imperial days of Dušan, even if he was not of the most ancient Balkan race, there was prosperity and happiness where now is desolation; busy merchants in the seaport towns of Albania, which noware ruins; ships sailing in from Venice with the luxuries of all the world and taking back with them all those good things, a half of which Albania has forgotten how to make? And after that there had been times of friendship with the Serb—Dositej Obradović, the philologist (one of those amiable persons who invented for the Albanians an alphabet), tells us, for instance, how in his travels through Albania he was assured by natives that they and the Serbs lived together as if they were members of one family, while the Kući in eastern Montenegro had, by a gradual process of assimilation, become transformed from Catholic Albanians into Orthodox Montenegrins. It is told that in the wondrous hours when thečifčijagloried in the soil he was about to win, even the notoriously wild Klementi, filled with hunger for the land, ran down from their fastnesses. But, most unfortunately, at that moment the Great Powers decided that Albania was to be an autonomous, hereditary State. This interrupted the movement towards reconciliation with Serbia; and even now the Serbs will be told by many encouraging people that in their efforts to win the regard of Albanians they have an impossible task, that if some of them take a step towards you one day they will rush back a dozen on the day after. These people will repeat the legend that the Albanians have an invincible hatred for the Slavs; but the Albanians have not forgotten how, in the course of the Middle Ages, they were willingly open to Slav penetration—the Serbian language reached to beyond Alessio, the small Albanian dynasties intermarried with Slav ruling families, so that they preferred to speak Serbian, and down to this day two-thirds of the place-names of northern Albania are of Slav origin. One of the most important documents in this connection is a letter from the town of Dubrovnik to the Emperor Sigismund in the year 1434. They inform the Emperor that Andria Topia, lord of the Albanian coast, has secretaries who know nothing but the Serbian language and alphabet. Thus when the Emperor sends him letters in Latin he is obliged to have them translated elsewhere, and the contents of the Imperial letters are not kept secret. So the Emperor was forced to write to Topia in Serbian.... Long memories are not always inconvenient, and Albanianmemories are long because, until recent years, all that they knew came from tradition—Austria and Italy had not yet become so concerned about Albanian education that (forgetting their own illiterates in Bosnia and Calabria) the two Allies waved into existence boys' and girls' schools up and down the country; so desirous were they that these founts of knowledge should be patronized that both Italians and Austrians were prepared to pay good money and eke a supply of garments and a gaily-coloured picture of King or Emperor, as the case might be; and with respect to the cash, not only was each willing to pay but to pay more than the other. Yet the Albanian is most mindful of tradition, and he is aware that his approach to the Slav in the Middle Ages was blocked by the inopportune arrival of the Turks; it is in the nature of man that the Albanian was more impressed by the brilliant young States of the early princes, with that barbarically sumptuous residence at Scutari (the Catholics of Scutari also being in the diocese of Antivari, which was under Serb domination) than, centuries later, when he found himself confronted with the pitiable population of Old Serbia.