KING NICHOLAS SCHEMING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 97, 14 October 1911, Page 12

KING NICHOLAS SCHEMING

(Foreign Correspondent Chicago Tribune). Europe is watching the slow brewing of a war, from which no self-respecting Power, say the optimists, will abstain. It will cost £2,000,(100,'000 (according to the estimate of the late economist, Blocli), and find employment for 8,000,000 men. At least, so the same optimists ' alliim. If the war materialises to the full measure they hope for, all Europe will ibe at work. (ircat Britain, France, Russia, the Balkan States, Austria, Germany, Italy and, naturally, the Ottoman Empire, for the Ottoman Empire is, as usual, the cause of this scare, which the serious say is much graver than the tiff over Agadir. Whether the war will end tihe Ottoman Empire, or mend it, is doubtful, but people who know their history remember the dictum of the- conquering Mahomet 11. to the Venetian, Seccina. "We Ottomans came into Europe against all Christendom, and it will take all Christendom to put us out." For the Ottomans this is an omen unusually favorable, for the Balkan problem which to-day threatens Armageddon is due not to the unity but to ; the disunion of Christendom. ALBANIAN ROW ONLY A PRETEXT. Nominally, all that is at issue js the demand for concessions by a small rebellious Albanian tribe, the Mallssores, and they have been pacified temporarily; but everyone who follows Balkan politics closely knows that the Malissores are but a pawn in the centurylong chess game between Austria, Russia and the Christian nationalities of the East.

The Mallisores, who for several months defied Turkey—mostly by running away from her troops—are in themselves insignificant. They number 100,000, and have not more than 3000 fighting men . These are good men, being Albanians by race; their native blood-thirstiness is by no means overcome by their devotion to the Greek Orthodox faith. The Albanian Malissores, in fact, resemble exactly the true Albania Albanians, who are Moslems in their affection for bloodshed and rapine, which they carry almost to virtuosity. They are cut-throats, invested with a certain redeeming picturesqueness; and the depth of their turpitude is evidenced best by the fact that they lived delightedly under Abdul Hamid 11., and only have begun to give'trouble under the relatively civilised Young Turks. The reasons why the Malissor has been in rebellion against Turkey are at first sight confused; but the essential reason is that the Hamidian freedom is passing away. Under Abdul Hamid all men, so long as they stood, by the Padishah, were allowed to misconduct themselves peacefully; and the Albanians (both Moslems and Christians), as Pretorians of Hamid: ism, had a most delectable time. NEW POLICY OF YOUNG TURKS. With the Young Turks things are different. The Young Turks want to break the independence of the mountaineers, as the first Hanoverians in England wanted to break the power of the Scottish Highland clans. They require not only that the murderous Malissores shall cease murdering, but that the untaxed Malissores shall henceforth pay taxes. And they demand many other things, reasonable and unreasonable.

When last June Sultan Mahomet made his triumphal progress to the Plain of Kossovo, he promised the Albanians many agreeable things. Nothing came of it, so far as the Malissores were concerned. The Sultan has now under Shevkct Pasha at least 60,000 excellent soldiers in Malisia and on the Montenegrin frontier; but the Malissores, helped by the impassable mountains and the unpleasant Montenegrins, have been too much for Torgut, and all that has happened so far is a chain of negotiations. Torgut gave the Malissores till July 15 to surrender and return home; and made them a lot of promises, of which these are the chief: The Malissor tribesmen should serve as soldiers only at home or in Constantinople; their "Bairakters," or chiefs, should get snug administrative posts, (where they can steal decently); taxation, would be lenient and measured according to the Malissores' poverty; surrendered weapons should be consigned to a vast store, each rifle, pistol, sword, dagger and poison bottle being labelled with the Malissor owner's name. On proving that "he has need of it professionally" the Malissor would be allowed to take it out; the Turks would make educational concessions and build roads; employment would be found for the penniless, and destitute refugees, when they return home, would be supported at Turkish cost.

Anyone but a Malissor would be pleased to get Mich easy terms. But the Malissores refused to accept them, and the Turks had to extend the term for surrender and offer some modifications before the terms were considered. OZAR NICHOLAS WANTS WAR. The fact is that the Malissores do not really want peace, because they are the servants of much more powerful masters, whose interests lie in war. The nearest of these masters' is his Majesty, Czar Nicholas Petrovitch Niegoch, sovereign of Montenegro, whose sole hope of a happy and glorious death is a general break-up in the Balkans. The grim old warrior has occupied the throne of Montenegro for one and fifty glorious years, all of which have meant profits for the kingdom of the Black Mountain.

He has risen dn life. During his childhood his father, Danilo, was not even recognised as Morabenegiro's prince. That recognition was given first in 1852. Not until 1900 did the present ambitious prince call himself "royal highness," and not until last year did he follow the example of Bulgarian Ferdinand and take the title Czar, which, by the. by, means king, and not emperor. Nicholas of Montenegro is a warrior and dreamer, but he is not a diplomatist; and it was not until two of his daughters married Russian grand dukes and a third an Italian king that he was swept off the warrior's- solid feet into dangerous international intrigues. Russia is his evil genius. Russian Nicholas on his big throne poses as protector of Montenegrin Nicholas on his little throne, and presents him yearly with ancient guns, rifles that are not good enough for Russians, and even an occasional rouble. And' Russia's Minister at Cettinje, ami other Russian schemers, try to persuade Nicholas that he has a mission as cliief of the Servian race. For the Montenegrins- are pure Serbs, and far superior to the Serbs of Servia proper, to whom mere chance has given a much biwger slice of land. D

TWO SERB STATES UNFRIENDLY. The two Servian States are in bad relations.. When Nicholas took the title of king he offended King Peter Karageorgevitch, who naturally looks on himself as the only real Servian King. Big Nicholas despises his frightened Kara-georgevitc-h cousin- and has .half an idea (not ill founded, either) that when the next Konsk rebellion breaks out in Belgrade the malcontent Cerbs will summon him to rule over them, and thus unite the two Serb kingdoms. This would he an excellent thing, but there are difficulties in the way. One is that Servia

and Monti-negro are cut in twain by li" irvinTveniiig Turkish Sandjak of Xovi-Ba/.aar, which was given l into Austii'a'H military occupation by the Berlin treaty, ami was restored to Turkey in KKKS. The Sandjak has a large Servian population., ami if once got hold of would unite the two Servian States, Nicholas' theory is that if war breaks out in the Balkans lie will get this Samljak; ami he reasons rightly that at the worst lie will get nothing aiid lose nothing, far the Turks, if victorious, could not take barrel* Bonitien-egro, and Europe would not let them if they tried.

War, then, is what Xieholts is aiming at; and if he could only get the support of Russia, he would break across' the fron it-re to-morrow. The prizes to- be gained—Mie leadership' of all the Servians—is worth trying for, because it means not only leadership in the Balkans, hut far beyond them. The Servian people is-, after the Russian and Polish, the most extended skv race in Europe. It covers Servia, Montenegro, mucli of Turkey in Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, a considerable fringe of Hungary, and the Hungarian Inmate of Croatia, with the important harbor of Fiuinc. IF SERVIANS COULD UNITE. 'Under a capable leader the Servian nation could! be welded' into a powerful State. This presupposes trouble, not merely in Turkey, but ako in Austria, where half the Serbs dwell. Trouble in Turkey, trouble in Austria-Hungary, trouble everywhere is what is wanted by the old mountaineer who rules in Oettinje. And 1 that is why, subsidised with Russian gold, he himself subsidised the rebellious Malissores, who he hoped would fight until a general war ensues, and then upon the ruins of Turkey and Austria he could rear the Greater Servia of which he dreams.

All of which reasoning would be irresistibly convincing if every man had the valiant heart of Nicholas at Cettinje. But Nicholas is not a fool, and he knows that with 30,000 mountain warriors, brave as they are, 'he cannot face the might of reorganised Turkey—which, if left alone by other enemies—could march a million men into his rock capital. Nicholas, in short, knows- that everything depends on the big empire. And this is a fatal link in liis otherwise flawles chain of reasoning.

The aim of the Czar of Russia and of his St. Petersburg advisors generally is not to make war, but to foil the Young Turks' attempt to consolidate the Ottoman Empire; to keep up irritation in the Balkans, and either to destroy Turkey by slow abrasion, or at least to keep her in the abject conditions of the Hanvidian regime,