Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/621

 wars, it seems not uncommon to find the slain among the Turks exceeding the gross number of the highland heroes arrayed against them. Great is the glory of the Swiss in their Burgundian wars for freedom; but can it be matched with the exploits of the bishops of Montenegro and their martial flocks? Once more the heart of the little nation relieves itself in song.

The seraskier wrote to Danilo: "Send me your paltry tribute, and three of your best warriors for hostages. Refuse, and I will lay waste the land from the Morea to the salt-sea with fire and sword, and will seize you alive, and put you to death by torture." As he read this letter the vladika wept bitterly. He summoned the heads of communities to Cettinjé. Some said, "Give them the tax;" but others, "Give them our stones." … They determined that they would fight to the last man. They swore with one accord that all they would give the Turk should be the bullet-rain of their muskets.

And thus continues the tale. Three Montenegrins went down to the Turkish encampment by night, and traversed the slumbering masses just as, in the tenth Iliad, Odusseus and Diomed moved amid the sleeping allies of Troy. Vuko, one of the three, said to his comrades: "Go you back; I abide here to serve the cause." They returned to Cettinjé, and said: "So many are the Turks, that, had we three all been pounded into salt, we should not be enough to salt a supper for them." How this recalls the oldest census in the world, the census of Homer, who says: "Were the Achaians divided into parties of ten, and every Trojan employed in serving them with wine, one for each party, many a ten would lack a wine-server." But, not to terrify their friends, they added that this vast host was but a host of cripples. So the people heard mass, received the benediction of their vladika, and then set out upon the errand of victory or death. Vuko had induced the enemy to rest by the Vladinia, on the plea that they would not find water between that stream and Cettinjé. Here, before dawn, came down on them the bullet-rain. They were slaughtered through three days of flight; and the bard concludes: "O my Serbian brothers, and all ye in whose breast beats the heart of liberty, be glad; for never will the ancient freedom perish, so long as we still hold our little Tsernagora!"

The very next year, the Turks assembled one hundred and twenty thousand of their best troops for the purpose of crushing the mountaineers, whose numbers fell within the satirical description applied by Tigranes to the Romans: "Too many for an embassy, too few for an army." But even this was not enough of precaution. Thirty-seven head men of Montenegro, who had proceeded to the Turkish camp to negotiate with the commander, were basely seized and put to death. The Turks now ventured to assail a force one-tenth of its own numbers and deprived of its leaders. They burned the monastery, they carried thousands of women and children into slavery, and then, without attempting to hold the country, they marched off to the Morea, while the men of Tsernagora descended from their rocky fastnesses and rebuilt their villages. They powerfully befriended Austria and Venice in the war they were then waging, and, as was too commonly the case, were left in the lurch by their allies at the peace of Passarowitz in 1719. The Turks accordingly made bold to attack them in 1722 with twenty thousand men under Hussein Pasha. One thousand Montenegrins took this general prisoner, and utterly discomfited his army. In 1727, another Turkish invasion was similarly defeated. In 1732, Topal Osman Pasha marched against the Piperi, who had joined them, with thirty thousand men, but had to fly with the loss of his camp and baggage. In 1735 the heroic Danilo passed into his rest, after half a century of toil and glory.

These may be taken as specimens of the military history of Montenegro. Time does not permit me to dwell on what is perhaps the most curious case of personation in all history, that of Stiepan Mali, who for many years together passed himself off upon the mountaineers as being Peter III. of Russia, the unfortunate husband of Catherine, and, in that character, partially obtained their obedience. But the presence of a prince reputed to be Russian naturally stimulated the Porte. Again Montenegro was invaded in 1768 by an army variously estimated at sixty-seven thousand, one hundred thousand, and even one hundred and eighty thousand men. Their force of ten thousand to twelve thousand was, as ever, ready for fight; but the Venetians, timorously obeying the Porte, prohibited the entry of munitions of war. Utter ruin seemed now at 