Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle

Years Of Balkan Tangle, by
Durham M. Edith

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Title: Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle
Author: Durham M. Edith
Release Date: October 30, 2006 [EBook #19669]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY
YEARS OF BALKAN TANGLE ***

TWENTY YEARS OF BALKAN TANGLE BY M. EDITH
DURHAM.
AUTHOR OF THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS, HIGH ALBANIA,
THE STRUGGLE FOR SCUTARI, ETC.

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40

MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1
First published 1920
(All rights reserved)
PREFACE
"And let men beware how they neglect and suffer Matter of Trouble to
be prepared; for no Man can forbid the Sparke nor tell whence it
come." BACON.
MINE is but a tale of small straws; but of small straws carefully
collected. And small straws show whence the wind blows. There are
currents and cross currents which may make a whirlwind.
For this reason the tale of the plots and counterplots through which I
lived in my many years of Balkan travel, seems worth the telling.
Events which were incomprehensible at the time have since been
illumined by later developments, and I myself am surprised to find how
accurately small facts noted in my diaries, fit in with official
revelations.
Every detail, every new point of view, may help the future history in
calmer days than these, to a just understanding of the world catastrophe.
It is with this hope that I record the main facts of the scenes I witnessed
and in which I sometimes played a part.
M. E. DURHAM.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1.
PICKING UP THE THREADS

CHAPTER 2.
MONTENEGRO AND HER RULERS
CHAPTER 3.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LAND AND PEOPLE
CHAPTER 4.
SERBIA AND THE WAY THERE
CHAPTER 5.
WHAT WAS BEHIND IT ALL
CHAPTER 6.
THE GREAT SERBIAN IDEA
CHAPTER 7.
1903 AND WHAT HAPPENED
CHAPTER 8.
MACEDONIA 1903-1904
CHAPTER 9.
ALBANIA
CHAPTER 10.
MURDER WILL OUT
CHAPTER 11.

1905
CHAPTER 12.
BOSNIA AND THE HERZEGOVINA
CHAPTER 13.
BOSNIA IN 1906. THE PLOT THICKENS
CHAPTER 14.
1907
CHAPTER 15.
1908: A FATEFUL YEAR
CHAPTER 16.
1909.
CHAPTER 17.
1910
CHAPTER 18.
1911 AND THE INSURRECTION OF THE CATHOLICS
CHAPTER 19.
1912. THE FIRST DROPS OF THE THUNDERSTORM
CHAPTER 20.
1914.

CHAPTER 21.
THE YEARS OF THE WAR INDEX.

TWENTY YEARS OF BALKAN TANGLE
CHAPTER ONE
PICKING UP THE THREADS
It was in Cetinje in August, 1900, that I first picked up a thread of the
Balkan tangle, little thinking how deeply enmeshed I should later
become, and still less how this tangle would ultimately affect the whole
world. Chance, or the Fates, took me Near Eastward. Completely
exhausted by constant attendance on an invalid relative, the future
stretched before me as endless years of grey monotony, and escape
seemed hopeless. The doctor who insisted upon my having two months'
holiday every year was kinder than he knew. "Take them in quite a new
place," he said. "Get right away no matter where, so long as the change
is complete."
Along with a friend I boarded an Austrian Lloyd steamer at Trieste, and
with high hopes but weakened health, started for the ports of the
Eastern Adriatic.
Threading the maze of mauve islets set in that incomparably blue and
dazzling sea; touching every day at ancient towns where strange
tongues were spoken and yet stranger garments worn, I began to feel
that life after all might be worth living and the fascination of the Near
East took hold of me.
A British Consul, bound to Asia Minor, leaned over the bulwark and
drew a long breath of satisfaction. "We are in the East!" he said. "Can't
you smell it? I feel I am going home. You are in the East so soon as
you cross Adria." He added tentatively: "People don't understand.
When you go back to England they say, 'How glad you must be to get

home!' They made me spend most of my leave on a house-boat on the
Thames, and of all the infernal things. ...
"I laughed. I did not care if I never saw England again. . . .
"You won't ever go back again now, will you?" he asked whimsically,
after learning whence I came. "I must," said I, sadly. "Oh don't," said
he; "tell them you can't, and just wander about the East." He
transshipped shortly and disappeared, one of many passing travellers
with whom one is for a few moments on common ground. Our voyage
ended at