Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-11-17
MONTENEGRO.
why the Turkish Commanders OBJ
jecE TO Campaigning There.
Correspondence of the Phil
adelphia Press

Constantinople Correspondence of the Phil
adelph1a Press.
If there is anything that a Turk
ish commander hates more than
anything else it is to conduct a cam
| paign against the Montenegrins.
The chances are ten to one he will
lose what reputation he may have
gained. To penetrate into Monte
negro defiles upon defiles must be
traversed, where masses of men
may be arrested at every hundred
yards by barricades ofrock that can
not be battered down by cannon,
and must be stormed in the face of
a heavy fire, with the risk of being
crushed by powders of rock heaved
down from the heights above. Ev-
cry inch of ground is contested.
Sometimes thousands of men are
slain in a single battle, and then
when an intrenchment is carried by
storm there is another in sight which
opens its guns in the rear of the vic
tors, Obliging them to throw up de
fensive works. From besigers they
become beSieged. Unless a cOntin-
uouS tide of re-enforcements keeps
pouring in as they force their way
their original numbers will gradu-
ally melt away. When the obiec-
tive point is attained, / mean the
Montenegrin capital, Cettinje, it is a
barren conquest. 1t is a miserable
village of rude, stone houses on a
narrow plain among the SUBMITS of
the mountains, overlooked by lofty
ridges. Not a human being will be
found there to welcome the invad-
ers. When winter comes, storm
and mud envelop for whole days
this savage spot; the snow falls with
out intermissiOn for a week at a
time, and the cold is so intense
that the water in the houses freezes
into solid ice. None but the Monte
negrins can support such climate,
or fix their homes in such an inhos-
pitable region. They live there be-
cause, like the eagle, they find free
dom on the mountain heights. |
Among the Businesses of nature,
amid rock, sterility, tempest and
cold, they breathe the air of liberty.
No languid air effeminates their
moral or physical natures. The |
character of the scenery around |
them and the difficulties of the life |
with which they have to contend |
embolden their hearts, indurate |
their flames, and accEstom them to |
self-denial and to resignation to their
lot. 1t inspires them, also, with a /
love of liberty and hatred of OPP
preston. Whether they live ON the |
chance of gains of the chase, the
boarded frugality of their sparse
harvest, or on the wild roots of the
earth, men, women and children
alike they thank God for what He
sends them, and would rather suffer
and perish in thesolitudes, six thous-
and feet above the sea level,
than descend to the plains and
become the slaves of the Turk. Lit
tie glory is to be gained in fighting
such a people, and even if you
should overcome them, the whole
civilized world cries out against you
and awards more praise to the de-
feated mountaineers than to their
Suleiman Pasha, be-
fore he left Montenegro, strewed its
and gorges with about 80, 900
of his slain soldiers, and he achiev-
ed nothing toward the subjection of
the country. Mehemet Ali will go
there with less force than has ever
led against Montenegro, with no hope
Of being re-enfoFced, perhaps, by
Bashi-Bazouk, and other
He will be responsible
for all the atrocities they may COM
nit, while they will demoralize the
regular troops by the example of
hair inCIt hOrdinatiOn