SERVIA, AUSTRIA, TURKEY, AND RUSSIA. 1 49 



conscience of the civilised world during the dark days of the expiring 

 rule of the Turks in that ill-fated province of Bulgaria, but they 

 were intensified fourfold by the barbarism of the earlier centuries of 

 Turkish misrule. 



And it is a remarkable, but no less an undoubted historic fact, 

 that notwithstanding the cruelty of their barbarous oppressors, 

 Austria and Turkey, endured for four centuries without any ray of 

 hope for redress, or of any intervention of civilised Europe, outraged 

 by these atrocious horrors, that the Servian nation survived ; that 

 their ceaseless energy and indomitable spirit, unsubdued and uncon- 

 quered, rose with majestic force, and won, eventually, for that heroic 

 people a great and glorious victory over all their foes, whether of the 

 Austrian, the Russian, or the Ottoman power; a noble victory in 

 favour of an emancipated Servia, and of a dearly-won national inde- 

 pendence. 



The history of that remarkable struggle, with its strange fluctua- 

 tions of victory and defeat, constitutes a memorable record, worthy 

 of being held in everlasting remembrance by the descendants of the 

 entire Servian race, because it proves unmistakably, that this struggle 

 was victorious in proportion only, as they were separated from the 

 treacherous and false alliance of Austrian intervention, or Russian 

 guardianship, and relied solely on their instinctive yearnings for 

 deliverance from the thraldom of their oppressors, and put forth 

 their own strength, unassisted from without, for its glorious achieve- 

 ment. 



An outline, briefly traced, of the successive steps which led up to 

 that memorable triumph will be necessary, as well as of interest, to 

 appreciate fully the precarious position of Servia at the present time. 

 We have seen how for nearly four centuries, from 1356 to 

 17 1 7, the Turks remained masters of the position ; how under their 

 atrocious rule, whenever and wherever administered, Servia suffered, 

 not so much from the central authority at Constantinople, but from 

 the petty tyranny of the officers of the Government, the Pashas of the 

 provinces and their officials ; how, under these Pashas, turbulent 

 troops robbed and insulted the unfortunate inhabitants, and cruelties 

 the most atrocious were perpetrated from motives of plunder and 

 passion, whilst to every remonstrance which reached Constantinople, 

 the excuse was made that such deeds were committed, not by the 

 direction or the sanction of the Ottoman Porte, but in defiance of its 

 wishes, though whether from powerlessness or connivance the Porte 

 made no attempt to check, or to punish the miscreants. 



