The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1916-01-12
/ ANOTHER LITTLR STATES
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Montenegro sees ahead of it the
fate that has already been imposed
on Belgium, Poland, and Serbia. II
is one more Of the minor states des-
tined to be crushed between the up
per and neither millstones of war
ring neighbors. If it survives as an
organized community it will be with
numbers so reduced and its country
so devastated that rehabilitation will
be well-nigh impossible.
Yet il the western world knew
Montenegro as well as it knows
Switzerland, there would be much Of
that same sympathy and sentiment
Of guardianship for the little Balkan
state that has always gone out to
the Alpine people whom Caesar
fought and to whom, as the Hell
vetti, he paid high tribute. The
Montenegrins are yet primitive,
while the Swiss have become highly
civilized and institutionalized. But
the fiber is the same. Willingness
to pay any price for the boon of
freedom has been the characters
tic Of both.
The Montenegrins are a branch
Of the Serbian race which long
stood between Europe and the Turk
ish assault. When over 500 years
ago Serbian power was overthrow,
the Montenegrins retired to their
mountains and continued the strug-
gle; maintaining ever since SUBJ
stantial independence, though until
a generation ago always claimed as
tributary to the Ottoman empire. In
proportion to their numbers, they
have done greater service in pro-
tecting Occidental civilization from
the Turk than any other people.
In the Middle Ages they were
supported-by the power of old Venice
against the Turks; and a dispatch
from Rome today tells of Italian
concern lest they may now be
crushed, and their stronghold on the
eastern side of the Adriatic become
an Austrian base against Italy. Thus
does history repeat itself. The fast
nesses Of Montenegrin mountains
are strategically as important today
in the conflict between the two great
Mediterranean peninsulas as they
were before America had been dis
covered.
Montenegro is about the area of
Connecticut; but it is a forbidding
land. 1t is almost entirely noun
famous, with bits of valley here and
there. It's peaks ascend to 5000
feet. Composed of a curiously por-
Gus rock, its soil will not hold water,
and the rivers have an uncanny way
of disappearing into chasms, to flow
in subteranean channels sometimes
for many miles, and reappearing
again. Sometimes a river will dis
cover a new hole that it may drop
into, or under pressure of floods, a
new vent from which it may force
a way from its subterranean chan
mel to the surface.
Physically big, powerful, and
splendidly formed, the Montenegrins
are simple, superstitious, devout in
their way, given to feuds, adherents
of the Greek church, and for more
than two centuries allied to Russia.
A rudimentary sort of education is
compulsory as to the men; the
women receive little education, but
are revered as womankind is in few
other lands.
The end and aim of Montenegro
for centuries was to fight the Turks.
Only a handful in numbers-they
counted about 225,OO0 at the begin
ming of the present century-the
men are all soldiers, dedicated to the
ancient hatred of the Turk and the
more modern feud with Austria.
Their religious and racial ties to
Russia, together with their logical
community of interest with Italy in
opposing Austrian aggressions in
the eastern Adriatic, have made
them a sort of diplomatic hyphen
between Italy and Russia. This cir
cumstance has more than once in
their history given them an import
ance far beyond the seeming signifi-
canoe of their numbers and power.
Even today, a Montenegro prin-
cess is the beloved Queen Helena of
Italy.
A poor people, though a proud, the
Montenegrins of the rural districts
live in little stone cabins, usually
with a single door and a solitary
window. They have a government
under which the King is nearly a
despot; but the despotism is benevo-
lent, and the people devotedly loyal
to the King, as he always is to them.
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