Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/624

 military fame of the country was thoroughly maintained, under admirable leaders, though as usual with inferior arms and numbers. During the Crimean struggle, he maintained the formal neutrality of his country, though it cost him a civil war, and nearly caused the severance of Berda from the ancient Montenegro. In May 1858, his brother Mirko revived and rivalled at Grabovo all the old military glories of Tsernagora. Having no artillery, and very inferior arms, the Montenegrins swept down from the hill upon the gunners of the Turks, and destroyed them. In this battle the Ottoman force, enclosed in a basin or corrie, without power of retreat, displayed a desperate valor, for which on most other occasions they have not been by any means so remarkable. Nor was their numerical superiority so manifold as it commonly had been. They were defeated with the loss of several thousand lives, fourteen guns, colors, baggage, and munitions. From the bodies of many dead were taken English as well as French medals, obviously granted for the Crimean war, which were seen by Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby among the collection of trophies at Cettinjé. The victory of Grabovo produced a great excitement among the rayahs of Turkey. But the great powers of Europe came to the help of the Porte and its huge empire against the lilliputian state, that is scarcely a speck upon its map. It had to abide a diplomatic verdict. A commission, sitting at Constantinople, accorded to it the advantage of establishing in principle the delimitation of its frontiers, and in 1859 admitted its envoy, notwithstanding the protest of Ali Pasha, to take part in its deliberations. But the powers had in 1857 determined at Paris that, in return for some small accretion, and for access to the sea, Montenegro should definitively acknowledge the suzerainty of the Porte. Her refusal was positive, despite the wishes of the prince. It was to French not British advocacy that she seems to have owed a declaration of May i858, which acknowledged the independence of the Black Mountain.

In August 1860, Prince Danilo was shot on the quay of Cattaro. The assassin was prompted by a motive of private revenge, for which different grounds are assigned. Like his predecessors, he lived and died a hero. In what estimation he was held, let Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby testify.

On his death his body had been carried up the mountain, and deposited in a church. For many weeks afterwards, as they tell us, this church was filled, morning, noon, and all night through, by his people, men, women, and children; and stalwart warriors were, as of old, dissolved in tears.

Danilo was succeeded by his nephew Nikita, the present prince of Montenegro. He had not at his accession completed his nineteenth year. It is characteristic of the principality that his own father Mirko, the victor of Grabovo, contentedly gave way to him. Goptchevitch, the brother of his aunt, Princess Darinka, acquaints us that he set out with two fixed ideas — the first, to prosecute the civilizing work among his people; the second, to liberate the sister Serbian lands still in servitude. This writer appears disposed, in regard to the present sovereign, rather to play the part of critic than of eulogist; but ascribes to him great merit in his political conduct and in the prosecution of social reforms. Soon after his accession, Montenegro was worsted, after a long resistance, in a war with Turkey. She had been driven to her crags, when diplomatic mediation brought about a settlement. It was then proved that an empire of thirty-five million could gain the advantage against a tribe under two hundred thousand. Only, however, when she could concentrate against it all or nearly all her forces; when she had a general, not a Turk, of the ability of Omar Pasha; when she had reformed her whole armament by means of European loans; and when Montenegro had but her old muskets and old ways. Since then a great change has taken place. The army has been organized in thirty battalions, eight hundred strong; and now for the first time we hear of an endeavor to establish a certain strength of cavalry. The fighting men are reckoned at thirty-five thousand; but the military age begins at twelve. The obligation for offensive service runs only from seventeen; but it appears that the zeal of patriotism carries the people while yet boys into the ranks. The force available for general operations, between seventeen and fifty, amounts to twenty-four thousand. The arms have been greatly improved, two-thirds having breechloaders, all (as is stated) revolvers, and most of them carrying the handschar. During the war from July to October, 1876, we heard much of 