FROM BELGRADE (I)

A personal friendship with Bishop Nicholas of Zicca brought the gift of his rooms in the Patriarchia, opposite
the Cathedral. Nicholas, better known during the war years as Father Nicholas Velimirovic, being on a
mission to the United States, his simple white-walled rooms hung with bright-coloured ikons were free, and
could be a home for a wanderer in an over-crowded city. Kostya Lukovic, who during the war graduated at
Cambridge, treated me as if I were the England to whom he could repay the gratitude he owed for our
hospitality to him. Dr. Yannic, also known to us in England, then a priest, now temporarily secretary to the
Constituent Assembly, was also very kind. A recommendation from Balugdic, the Minister at Athens, opened
many doors and obtained a separate carriage for me at night on some wild trains. Archimandrites and Abbots
entertained me lavishly at the shrines of the Frushta Gora. It can therefore be said that the Serbs know how to
treat an Englishman well when he passes through their country. Salutations therefore, and thanks! They fought

like lions, and they suffered as none others suffered in Europe's terrible ordeal. A Serbian spark at Sarajevo
fired the arsenal of European militarism, and a common ungenerous thought sometimes blames the spark
instead of blaming the recklessness of those who allowed Europe to be enkindled. And there used to be some
who could not forget Serbia's dynastic history. But that has been forgiven, and Serbia has purchased a good
name by a shedding of blood and a national unhappiness unparalleled in the war. People said, "Serbia is no
more, Serbia can never be again." Yet after complete loss of country to the most malevolent of foes, and after
the agony of Corfu, behold still Serbia fighting. And was it not the vigour of Serbia's reconstituted army in
1918 which, under Misió and a French Marshal, struck the critical blow at the Bulgar which ruined the whole
German confederation--brought about the surrender of Bulgaria and Austria, and led infallibly to the
Armistice! Whatever happens in the new political turmoil, Serbia has won our admiration and gratitude in the
West.
The impression which one obtains in passing through the towns and villages of Macedonia is very painful.
Ghevgeli, on the Greek frontier, and such places, remind one of the shattered areas of Western Europe. You
realize, if you did not do so before, that the deadly disease of war ravaged this empty country as greedily as it
did the fullness of Flanders and France. Ruin stares from thousands of lost homes, and from many you realize
the inhabitants have been destroyed also. There is recovery. Like convalescent maimed creatures, Skoplye and
Nish creep into the sunlight and show signs of animation. Not nearly so many fields are ploughed as in
Bulgaria. Why? Because the labouring hands are lost. You see many jolly, laughing Turks in Skoplye. They
can laugh. Their manhood survives plentifully, but death has gleaned in every Serbian family down there. The
trains go at a snail's pace through Serbia. One day we went all day and part of the night at an average of five
kilometres the hour. In Bulgaria and Greece the trains go slowly, but they are express compared with the
trains from Ghevgeli to Skoplye. The reason is because the permanent way has been almost ruined and will
need years of work upon it, and all bridges have been blown up. The train halts now and then, and then most
fearfully budges forward, scarcely moves, budges, budges upon temporary wooden structures of bridges, and
the workmen down below seem veritably holding the bridges up whilst the trains go over them.
You stop hours at little villages, the exhausted and damaged engines surrendered to Serbia by her ex-enemies
being hopelessly out of repair and always in trouble. And in these villages you see the bare-footed war-waifs,
skulking about in bits of old ruins, children who have lost father and mother and kith and kin, the kind care at
best of American relief societies. There is said to be no actual want anywhere in Serbia now, but no nation ever had so many orphans.
At Belgrade, despite many foreign elements, the most constant impression is one of a multiplied body politic.
Belgrade is said to have more cripples than any other capital of Europe. And Berlin comes second. It is a
one-eyed city, a city of one-legged men, a city of men with beetling brows and contracted eyes, a city of
unrelenting cobble-stones and broken houses.
You go into the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and the door-keeper cannot write; you go to the Foreign
Office and are shown about laboriously by a one-legged man. In fact, the one-legged man might be taken as
the type and symbol of the new Serbia. In commerce it is as in politics. Shop windows are one-third full of
goods, the most ill-assorted goods, mostly coming through the old channels from Austria and Germany. There
has not been enough energy left in the nation to find the means of making new trade connexions--as for
instance, with England. A curious anomaly, surely, that there should be a glut of our own products on the
home market whilst in Serbia, even taking our exchange into account, prices range much higher. Thus politics
and trade. You see the new recruits of the conscripted army struggling along in sixes and sevens, men of all
shapes and sizes apparently in one shape and size of war boot, causing such sufferings to young men. There
are no feather-bed soldiers here. In the schools and universities, however, you see the rare earnestness of the
Slav.
Such is Serbia. And if Germany had won it would have been impossible to have seen her even in as fair terms
as that. But some one outside of the machine has intervened and the dead has come to life. Serbia still lives.
One has to show a difference between Serbia and Jugo-Slavia, or the Kingdom of Serbs, Hrvats,[1] and
Slovenes, "S.H.S." as it is commonly called. The new country is three times as large as the old one, and the
two new parts of Croatia and Slovenia are well-built, fruitful, prosperous, with all the glamour of Austrian
civilization resting on them. On the one side of the old frontier the wild homelessness of the mountains, on the
other side park-like country, model towns, and broad, fruitful plains. Hard-bitten, bookless Serbs, and
softened bookish Croats. As a responsibility of the peace Serbia has taken over large tracts of smitten Austria.
Looking at the new territory, one might reckon it a rich spoil of war. But comparing Serbia as she is with this
ex-Austria, one cannot but be struck with the disparity between them.
Croats and Slovenes are Slav by race, but strongly Austrian by education. They were glad to come into the
new confederation and escape some of the penalties of defeated Austria. But once they were definitely
absorbed into the new State they did not feel so comfortable. The vanity and quarrelsomeness of the Slav soon
began to speak. They hated Austria. But modern Austrian civilization was a comfortable and well-oiled
machine. The Slavs derived enormous material benefits from their citizenship of the Austrian empire. Here
despite all the feuds was a well-kept home of nations.
Left to themselves the Croats would not have made a better State than the Slavs usually make. But it is easy
for them to imagine that the good schools, good trains and railway service, and good municipal
administration, and the rest, were due to their own genius and not to that of the German.
Between Serbia and the new territories stands Belgrade, the capital of the whole. It is strikingly situated on the
cliffs above the winding Save which glimmers like silver in the evening. From the shell-splintered fortress one
looks forth over the vast fruitful plain that was southernmost Austria. Here the Kaiser had a seat made for
himself in 1915 that he might look homeward in the evening. Thus he turned his back on the Balkans and his
scheme of the world.
Belgrade below the fortress wall is extensive but poor. Its tired main street stretches out a long way with
flabby houses on each side of its cobbled wildness. There are as yet no buildings corresponding to the dignity
of a great capital. The old Parliament House is a little place like a town-school, the temporary one is a
converted whitewashed barracks; the Cathedral is a parish church on a site suitable for a mighty edifice; the Moscow Hotel looks like a seaside boarding establishment; the Franco-Serbian Bank is housed in a place
which might pass for an old clothes warehouse in Whitechapel. There is a pleasant little white stone
Post-office. But the Foreign Office, the Education Office, and other Government Departments are in buildings
that might well be blocks of flats or pensions kept by respectable widows.
The population, if we rule out the Austrians, is mostly "the peasant come to town"--a proletarian crowd,
though not governed by proletarians but by a small educated class plus an obedient army. You can see by the
women that it is a peasant people--not a jumper or a short skirt in the whole of Belgrade. They are quiet-eyed
and modest. The Serbs are much harder than the Russians, and bear deeper in their souls the marks of their
historic chains. A tortured look in the face and a certain dreadful impassivity of countenance are not
uncommon. There is a mixture of geniuses and of people who have not yet begun to live. They have their
Mestrovic, Velimirovic, Petronievic. Is there not in London a certain M---- made not for our civilization but
for two or three grades higher in world development. Of those who have not yet begun to live many are
suspicious, violent, melancholy, with little instinct for making life more or fuller, for living and letting live; in
business unenterprising and indisposed for work. The Serbs are potentially gifted for literature, art, and
thought; they are sincere and real in temperament, but despite their efforts probably not gifted for modern
civilization as we know it.
As regards Belgrade, when prosperity returns we may see the growth of a fine new city, not a complete
town-planned Austrian city, supplied as it were whole and in every part from a department store, but
something expressive of a new people. All these buildings we look upon to-day are bound to pass into
obscurity. The rising pillars of the Skupstchina, Serbia's new Parliament House at the foot of Kossovo Street,
point to the future of some great new State.
The Croats say "When you go to Zagreb you will see the difference. Ah, there is a city; there is civilization."
They kiss their hands to show what they mean. The Croats are Home Rulers. Like the Irish, they are
Catholics. Some of them look forward to the transfer of the capital to Zagreb, and the changing of the letters
of the kingdom to H.S.S. and putting Hrvats first. Croats insist on the title Jugo-Slavia; Serbs are inclined to
drop it and revert to the name Serbia. The Germans during the war are said to have promised the Croats to
form the German counterpart of the Allies' idea of Jugo-Slavia, and had Germany and Austria won, a new
constituent of Central Europe was to have been inaugurated with its capital of Zagreb. The name Jugo-Slavia
was familiar to the Croats and popular with them before the Serbs adopted it. The Croats think that because
they are more educated than the Serbs they should be the dominant party in the government of the new State.
The quarrel is aggravated by religious difference, Croats being Roman Catholics and Serbs Orthodox. A
number of the separatist leaders, the chief of whom is Radic, an ex-bookseller, languish in gaol. These are
evidently self-centred people. If they think that Europe would tolerate another independent Slav State with
passports, frontiers, tariffs, armies, and the rest, surely they are mad. And if on the other hand, they would like
to revert to ruined Austria and have the value of all their money reduced ten times, surely they are not very
sane. Or if they think that they who suffered little should reap the major benefits of the war-victory, they are
certainly pitiable egoists.
What is lacking in the new State is goodwill and the spirit of co-operation. Serbia is terribly hampered by lack
of loyalty in her constituent elements. There is an impression of great uncertainty and instability. The general
bad health of Europe shows sharply at Belgrade. The cost of living is irrationally high. There is something of
the atmosphere of Russia in 1916. Beggars swarm about the restaurants and cafés. Cabmen, hawkers, and the
poor hold one up for absurd prices. The shops have odd sets of goods which seldom correspond to one's
desires. The value of the dinar fluctuates violently, and offers golden opportunities to the many speculators.
The commonest trade-establishments are small banks and bucket-shops; they range in fours and fives before
the eyes. The Government is very poor, and never feels out of financial difficulties. "We are always faced
with bankruptcy in three months," said Dr. Yannic in conversation. The Government has been very hospitable
to the Russians, of whom it has almost 60,000 on its hands. It feeds them and tries to place them where they
can do work. It treated with Wrangel for the establishment of 20,000 Cossacks to be planted along the marches of Albania, and would have loved to have them, but has not as yet been able to take them for lack of
money. Serbia has done more for Russia than any other nation.
"We've received not a mark of the indemnity," says M. Ribor, the chairman of the Constituent Assembly.
"And we do not receive financial aid. On the other hand, is not France financing Hungary--the eternal
potential enemy of Jugo-Slavia?"
There is no certainty about the attitude of France and England. England is felt to have cooled a little towards
Serbia. France is a source of bewilderment. The decoration of Belgrade with the Cross of the Legion of
Honour was accepted in very good part, and the French Marshal who brought it was lauded to the skies. But
the after-thought was, when he went away--What did he come for? Was it not perhaps to flatter Serbia into
undertaking a part in some new war, perhaps against the German, perhaps against the Soviets?
Suspicion is a marked characteristic of political life in Belgrade, suspicion and fear. They are afraid of the
Croat for his separatism, of the Magyar for his malevolence, of the French for their intrigues, of the Russians
for their numbers and their superior gifts, of the Austrians for their commercial enterprise. Secret agents
abound, and are evidently excellent. An enormous amount of information is collected--information too
disquieting and too voluminous to be coped with.
The Serbs, however, have evidently tried hard to accommodate all talents and all opinions in the new State. In
the new Constitution complete freedom of religion is being guaranteed to all sects; the monarchy will be
strictly constitutional; and all political ideas except separatism and Bolshevism will be tolerated. Regarding
Bolshevism the Serbs have taken a strong line. It is a criminal offence, and propagandists are liable to swift
arrest. No discrimination of any kind will be made against subjects of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and
Slovenes on the ground of race.
Serbia by herself has not a large educated class. She has not enough of her own to administer Jugoslavia, and
consequently she looks naturally to the employment of the Croat and Slovene educated class, and also to the
refugee Russians. Many Russian professors in exile have found posts; Russian engineers and technicians are
readily accepted in the hope that their services may be used. In the Ministry and in the Government offices the
other races are amply represented. Ribor himself, the Speaker of the Constituent Assembly, is a Croat. The
previous obligations of the Austrian Government have in many cases been taken over. Those who received
pensions or subsidies from Austria are provided for by Serbia. Not that that always gives content.
A characteristic case is that of Kossor, the well-known dramatist, an Austrian Croat. In the Austrian style he
received a State subsidy of three hundred crowns in encouragement of his talent. The Serbs have continued
that, and given him the equivalent in dinars. But he is attached to the Art Department of the Ministry of
Education and has to put in an appearance every day--a duty which goes a long way to stultify one's
inspirations.
Kossor is characteristically unhappy in Belgrade. The cobblestones have a psychological effect on the soul.
He feels restricted, and would like to travel: especially would he like to return to England, for which, like
many others who were refugees among us, he retains the warmest feelings.
The English in Belgrade are inclined to say that all the Serbian students who went to England returned atheists
and Bolshevists. A personal impression is, however, contrary. S---- and Y---- who took their bachelorates of
divinity at Oxford, and Lukovic, who graduated at Cambridge, are warmly devoted to England, and stand for
our culture where by far the most of the young educated people are frankly ignorant or entirely misinformed
regarding England and England's ideals. Whatever trouble we took and whatever we spent on giving
education to Serbian boys in England was not misapplied and will bear a good fruit of friendship by and by.
That the students of new Belgrade are free-thinkers, and chased Dr. Mott from the lecture hall is not of much
importance--students usually do behave in that way nowadays. A university of students all believers would be edifying if it were not amusing. The modern way to real belief and understanding lies through denial and
agnosticism and free-thinking of all kinds, and Serbia is in a state of transit from peasant Christianity to
modern positive Christianity. Her need is for well-guided transitional education. There is no bridge from the
simple piety of the peasant to instructed belief. The peasant marches to a precipice and then falls headlong
into atheism. Strangely enough, the Church even when it realizes this danger seems unable to build the bridge.
Its only remedy is to try and stop the march of the peasant. This is dangerous, for in time the peasant can then
push his obstruction also over the precipice.
"If only we were as strong spiritually as we are militarily and economically I should feel happy about Serbia,"
says Bishop Nicholas on his return from America. But Jugo-Slavia--one must think of the whole new State--is
not strong in any way yet. Her strength is very great and mysterious but is still potential. Some day In the
future perhaps five years hence, or ten, if Jugo-Slavia still holds together, we shall have a great State here with
Belgrade as a worthy capital. Austria will have moved south. There are at least prospects of enormous
commercial prosperity, and on that basis the Arts will surely flourish. All depends on the Slavs holding
together and forgetting their differences. The Spirit will blow where it listeth, and one day it will be with
Serbia and on another it will be gone.