Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-12-02
MONTENEGRO.
Why Smallest State Of Europe Leads
in Balkan Trouble.
(Pittsburg Gazette-Times)

why SMALLEST State OF europe LEAD!
4 in Balkan Trouble.
(Pittsburg Gazette Times)
Montenegro is just a little spot or
the map of Europe-3.6O0 square
miles: 1t is little larger than Del
aware and a little smaller than Con-
/ necticut. 1t has no army worth
/ speaking of. and the entire population
is about 100000. How a state
of such dininutive dimensions
a shepherd people dwelling up
on bleak and bare hills, could
raise so much of rumpus in the
European concert as it has done dur
ing the present Balkan trouble Is al
first hard to understand. But it be-
comes clear as one glances at the
racial traits and the past history OF
the tiny principality which has been
ruled by one prince. Nikita or Mich
olas. for forty-eight years.
The Montenegrins have always been
desperate fighters. During the middle
ages they formed tribe of the Ser
Wan race, but when the Turks in 1883
crushed the Servian power the Mon
tenegrins kept up the fight. Retiring to
their mountain Businesses they deffed
the Turks, keeping up a perpetual
guerilla warfare during all the
centuries that the Turks kept Europe
in terror The republic of Venice re-
ceived powerful aid from these hardy
mountaineers in It's wars against the
| Ottomans, and in 1895 the Montene-
grins administered such CALLING de-
feat to the Turks that they were
rarely molested thenceforth. except
when the Turks made reprisals for
marauiing expeditions. In their Black
mountains--M Montenegro means black
| mountain. tho it is supposed that
| Crnojevic, the BLACK Prince gave
his name to the country rather than
that is was derived from the color Of
the rocks--in their Black mountains
these Highland clans Of the Adriatic
have laughed at pashas and sultans.
Gladstone said of this people that
they would have risen to world wide
and immortal fame had there been. a
Scot to tell the marvels Of their his
tory or a Byron to spend and be spent
on their behalf.
To show how highly the Montene-
grins, poorest and least powerful of
European nations, are thought of, it is
only necessary to recall one fact =
Elena, the daughter of Prince Nikita,
is the queen Of Italy. Car Alexander
III. spoke Of Montenegro as "Russia's
only ally" 1t is not unlikely that
scions of the Montenegrin royal line
will sit upon more than one of Eu
ropes thrones within the next quarter
century. Indeed it would have been
FnS. 1o 1uh Rn1lranS nnn111a-
ton II the good gray Prince Nikita
had been given the Servian crown
after the Obrenovitch dynasty had
been wiped out.
Nillita is a ruler whose methods re-
mind one of the Old Testament days
and ways. rather than the twentieth
century Europe. He is now nearly
10 years old but robust as an oak
and good apparently for another de-
cade. Under a tree near his palace he
sits and judges his people with pa
triarchial absolutism. His word is the
supreme law, altho there is a state
council of eight members, half Of
whom he selects, while the other
half are elected by the men Of military
age. AS the total state revenue
amounts to only S250.0OO a year there
is no chance and little temptation for
grafters.
Aside from this, the Montenegrins
are not built that way. Perhaps no 9TH
er people in Europe have so clean
record. Crime is almost unknown
among them. Theft is unheard Of
drunkenness is extremely rare. One
town official, in making his annual re-
IL ,11v fx,n !, 4
been in prison, and their crime had
been-teling ghost stories. which he
considered dangerous to morality.
Physically the Montenegrins are
giants; temperamentally they are ex-
citable and violent Their life in the
open, following the vocation of shep-
herds-there are 100000 sheep and
goats in the country, more than dou-
BILE the number of inhabitants = has
made them hardy and healthy. No
wonder they despise and defy the
weakling races of more favored lands;
no wonder they are ready to fight
either Turk or Austrian. The clash of
battle is their native element. They
have no foreign trade to lose: their
chief export, aside from dried fish, be-
ing insect powder. They can count up
on Italys sympathy and aid, for is not
Queen Elena the daughter of their
Gospodare? Russia too, is apt to help
them and encourage them, for they
have always been ready to help Russia
ana the czar is the head of their
church.
Perhaps these facts will make 1t
easier to understand why a country
whose population is no larger than
that of Jersey City would defy the
mighty Francis Joseph, who can mo-
Ailize an army of 100000 men.