ear.

I.

MONTENEGRO's first and only king as just died in exile in his eightieth He died poor in the world's oods at least so his friends assert, erhaps to refute the charge that he etrayed and sold his fatherland. However, his life was extraordinarily ich in experience and adventure, end his personality was one of the ost interesting in Europe.

He was born in 1842 and the little ouse where he saw the light of day ill remains. The old king used to bend three or four weeks each immer in its modest rooms.

Danilo II. was assassinated in 1860.

he recalls them. He raised his little principality from anarchy and barbarism to the standing of a modern state. He converted the hamlet of Cetinje into a tidy little city. He saw his territories and the number of his subjects quadrupled. His fellowcountrymen, with their gift for poetry and song, will immortalize their old Nicholas, the Prince who constantly wore the national costume, who knew every man of them personally, who every Sunday dispensed patriarchal justice under the historic elm in front of his palace. He was a man to whom they bowed in return to his bows. He was not only their supreme judge and ruler, but their physician, their poet, their orator, their commanderin-chief, their postmaster, their theater director, their chief engineer, and architect, and their minister of finance. He combined in his person practically all of the activities of the state.

He was a man of rare gifts, of profound knowledge of his fellowmen, of keen understanding, of thorough education. His political instinct was infallible, his memory was astounding. He was a tireless worker. During his entire active life, he spent fourteen hours a day at his desk. He personally kept track of everything. If you, a foreigner, registered at the Royal Hotel of his capital, he knew your name ten minutes later. If you were not able to get

a stamp at the Post Office, he would get it for you. He kept all stamps of more than ten-cent denomination in his private safe. He had you brought over to his little palace, and if you wore a frock coat, he gave you a formal reception in his throne room and bestowed an order on you.

He edited his nation's newspaper, Glas Crnogorca, and composed patriotic metrical dramas such as the Balkanska Carica (the Empress of the Balkans.) He wrote his country's national hymn expressing the longing of the mountain shepherd for the meadows of the lowlands far below:

After fighting the Turks for three years, from 1875 to 1878, he was able at last to lead his falcons' (heroes) to the sea, and to win a permanent foothold on the coast by the peace of San Stefano.

be sure, he was not permitted to keep a navy or even to grant rights of anchorage to foreign war ships; Austria looked out for that. But he clung successfully to the other sea rights so reluctantly granted at Berlin.

Let us add, in order to put Balkan wars in their true proportions, that during these three years of fighting with the Turks his principality lost altogether only a thousand men, though it thereby extended its sway for the first time over Turks and Albanians, as well as brother Slavs. The Montenegrins hate these foreigners bitterly, but their prince personally favored and protected them, although he could not prevent entirely their ill-treatment.

For only in appearance was he the unlimited master of his country. Montenegro had fought for centuries the larger nations which surround it. It had never submitted permanently to a foreign yoke. Its people pride themselves with being

the only South Slav race, except the Croats, which has not received a drop of Turkish blood into its veins. During centuries of partisan warfare with their hereditary enemy, the Turk, the nation was brutalized. Its men wore necklaces of Turkish noses, and became callous to horrible cruelties. At the same time, it acquired the discipline and virtues of a warrior race, and a tribe of 'sword nobles' sprang up, which gave the country many distinguished names. So the Royal House is only first among equals. In the battle of Grahovo in 1862, nine princes of the ruling clan fell. These noble families furnished the prince with councillors and body guards and also, occasionally, with rebels ready and able to defy the power of their master. On the whole, however, the old nobility remained devotedly loyal to its chief. But the young students, who came back from Belgrade University dreaming passionately of a greater Serbia, were his open and bitter enemies.

Nicholas tried to form a class of educated bureaucrats. Every autocratic ruler needs such men. But he wished the rank and file of the nation to remain in the innocence of ignorance. More than that, he did not want them to become too rich. In his effort to keep them in a state of wholesome poverty, Nicholas adopted a different policy from that of other monarchs of his class. He derived more bountiful revenues from the subsidies paid him by intriguing governments-Russia, Italy, and Austria-than he could possibly have procured by scientific taxation and industrial development. He did not need to dicker over these subsidies with his parliament. But this foreign bounty would have ceased, if the Prince could not exhibit visible evi

dences of national distress. Thousands and thousands of Montenegrins were forced to earn their bread abroad, in Constantinople and America. The Prince gave them no opportunity to prosper at home. To tell the truth, such a policy is needed in a nest where you breed 'falcons.' Sordid labor would have spoiled your Montenegrin warrior and dishonored him. He works only when he is out of sight, in some foreign country.

This constant begging for subsidies made the country and its king a joke throughout Europe. No one took him seriously. People called him 'Nikita,' a meaningless variation of his name's diminutive. A thousand fictitious beggars' tricks were attributed to him by international gossip, but that was hardly necessary. Nicholas invented enough genuine schemes to fill a chapter.

For many years, he kept an Arab pony, which his modest princess drove about in a basket pony cart. Finally the pony died, and Nicholas conceived a desire for two fine coach horses. The Royal and Imperial Embassy in Cetinje hastened to convey the King's desire to certain authorities who might gratify it, in fact to the Emperor of Austria himself, who kept a famous stud at Lipizza. at Lipizza. Kaiser Franz Josef at once sent a span of beautiful steeds to Cattaro. A royal gift ought to be delivered in perfect condition, and one of the horses might be injured on shipboard. Therefore three horses were sent. They all arrived at Cetinje, as chance would have it, in perfect shape, and two were duly delivered to Nicholas. However, he had learned that there was a third, and secured that too by representing to the Austrian commissioned to deliver them, that one of those he had received had gone lame

in the royal stable. in the royal stable. However, he did not return the lame horse.

Here is another. Nicholas once urgently needed money. He sent some his of men down to the Austrian town of Ragusa, and bombarded them with postal orders from Cetinje. These were all paid by the Austrian post office, and Nikita's agents returned home with their booty. However, the Montenegrin post office never settled its account with the Austrian post office for these orders.

The boundary line between Montenegro and Herzegovina runs through the desolate wild Carso, where it was an easy matter to overlook its existence even in broad daylight. This naturally encouraged constant boundary episodes and smuggling enterprises. The Vienna Foreign Office generally settled them, without making any difficulties, by small payments to their neighbor. Nicholas was always the one to profit by such incidents. If they did not Occur spontaneously, he had them produced to order. Finally an energetic 'Royal and Imperial' boundary official, wearied of the incessant friction and writing back and forth, ordered his officers to shoot the next offenders on sight, saying that he would assume all responsibility. From that moment, perfect law and order prevailed as far as his jurisdiction extended. Another boundary official played a shrewd trick. He showed Prince Nicholas the range chart of Fort Wermatsch. The Prince noted a little red cross on it. The officer replied with a smile, 'Yes, that is Your Highness' palace. It happens to be within range of our guns.'

The greatest day in Nicholas' life was when Tsar Alexander III., at Petrograd, lifted his glass and drank the health of his royal guest as his

'devoted friend and cousin.' Up to the last day of his political career, Nicholas kept that toast framed, hanging in his office, side by side with another framed document by which the Emperor of Austria-to counteract the effect of the Petrograd toast-appointed the King of Montenegro honorary colonel of the 55th Infantry Regiment.

Yes that was a great day, indeed! The Tsar thereby conferred full royal legitimacy upon the House of Nicholas. The old Prince did not get along well with his sons. Not one of them was an honor to the dynasty. However, his daughters did better. The oldest of them married a pretender without prospects. The second became the bride of the Grand Duke Peter Nikolaievich, and acquired great influence in the Russian court. Another daughter married the Duke of Leuchtenberg, and later the Archduke Nicholas; and still another married one of the Battenbergs. The fairest of them all, and her father's favorite, Helena, wedded the King of Italy. Three of the ten daughters died early in life, and the two youngest, still unmarried, accompanied their father into exile.

Subsidies continued to pour a constantly richer stream into the royal treasury. Nicholas drew closer to Russia. It was not until after his daughter became Queen of Italy, that this country began to present him with mountain batteries. Eventually, the old King became nominally an enemy of Austria, but this was only on the surface.

On August 28, 1910, the Prince celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his reign by proclaiming himself King. That was the climax of his easy days as a ruler. Almost immediately, the clouds began to gather-the first haze

presaging the Balkan conflagration. The time had come when only Turkey stood in the way of the union of Montenegro with Serbia. If Turkey were destroyed by a Balkan war, would Montenegro be able to resist the stifling embraces of its stronger brother nation?

When the war began, Nicholas struck his blow eight days before his allies. It is certain that this was all arranged with them beforehand. That act was more than a mere stock jobbing incident. And yet Vienna could name the securities which Nicholas had received, could name his brokers, and could figure out his winnings. That was the degree of respect men felt for the King of Montenegro. He captured Skutari through a shrewd intrigue with Essad Pasha. But his profit from the deal was extorted from him. He had made a fatal miscalculation. Serbia not only defeated Turkey, but then turned around and whipped Bulgaria, thus expanding menacingly in all directions.

We are told that King Nicholas fought a bitter conflict with himself in the critical days of 1914, before he yielded to the pressure of his advisers and declared war against the old Emperor Franz Josef. A crisp order from Petrograd finally decided him. He knew that all. would not end well. In case Germany won, Austria would seize Mt. Lion and the neighboring heights, in order to render its naval base at Cattaro impregnable, and would thereby push its boundaries to within rifle shot of Cetinje. But were Germany defeated and Austria dismembered, then goodbye to Montenegro. Powerful Slav-Serbia would stifle its little brother in its embraces.

Late in 1915, when Mackensen had penetrated far into the Balkans, it

looked as if the safest gamble would be Austria. Nicholas made a separate peace with Franz Josef. His friends say Serbia forced him to it, in order to discredit him with the Entente and the South Slavs, and to attaint him with treason.

And, indeed, Austria's capture of Mt. Lion was one of the miracles of the war. Do you know its precipitous, almost over-hanging cliffs? Have you seen this bastion of Montenegro? It rises perpendicularly for 7,000 feet from the sea. Yet one winter day, on January 10, 1916, it was captured

almost without casualties. The AustroHungarian Reserve Division, which made the frontal attack, lost altogether seventy old men. If a choral union of 15,000 members had marched up the mountain with flags and music. in times of peace, it might easily have left as many as that behind.

Nicholas did not sell Mt. Lion. But the rumor that he had sold it received so much credence in Montenegro that this alone disheartened its defenders. 'Falcons' were no longer willing to stake their lives, certainly not for a King who had deceived them so many times, and for a dynasty whose degeneracy was advertised by its three worthless sons.

It was a good move for the Serbians thus to convict Montenegro of treachery. The fact that 30,000 war-wearied 'falcons' were thus put out of action counted for less in that country's calculations. 'Suppose the Montenegrins do permit the Austrians to disarm them! It is far more important for Serbia to discredit Nicholas before all the Slavs.' This, at least, is what the old King's defenders claim was Serbia's plan. There are only a few of the latter,-perhaps a thousand or so. His enemies charge him with outright treason.

However, Montenegro's independence, which the King fostered like a hot house plant, could not survive. It was always a half-starved child. The old King's grave covers not only his mortal remains, but also the remains of the little state he ruled.

II.

Anecdotes have overgrown the reputation and personality of the old King of Montenegro, as they have those of hardly any other character in history, except perhaps our own 'Old Fritz' and the Emperor Napoleon. In case of Nicholas, however, they relate to less edifying exploits than heroic campaigns and mighty conquests.

Among the countless more or less trustworthy stories of this kind, is one which relates how the Sultan once sent a pleasure yacht as a token of esteem to his 'beloved Nicholas.' When the Montenegrin ruler was inspecting the boat in Cattaro harbor, he was immensely taken with the fine silver service in the dining room, and prudently shipped it off at once under a strong guard to Cetinje. The next day, the Turkish dignitary who had accompanied the gift, was informed of the angry disappointment of the Prince at discovering that this service-'certainly without the knowledge of the mighty sovereign at Constantinople!'-was made of cheap China silver. There was an immense sensation, with much hurried telegraphing to Stamboul. The people of the Sultan's palace put their heads. together and laughed sarcastically among themselves. Finally Abdul Hamid, who knew his princely customer very well, presented the latter with a new silver service. After that date, the Royal Palace at Cetinje