l66 SERVIA, AUSTRIA, TURKEY, AND RUSSIA. 



This Commission soon drafted the New Constitution for Servia„ 

 which generally decreed individual liberty, and freedom of the Press ;. 

 placed all religious sects on an equal footing ; granted the suffrage to 

 all men paying 15 francs a year in taxes; rendered all classes of 

 the community eligible to serve as Deputies ; provided for the 

 establishment of only one Legislative Chamber, three fourths of 

 whose members were to be elected, while the remaining fourth 

 to consist of Councillors of State, Bishops, Judges, and retired 

 Generals. 



It left to the King the prerogative of declaring War and of making. 

 Peace, and of summoning or dissolving the Skuptschina at his- 

 pleasure. 



The Russian enemies of King Milan, were determined that matters, 

 should not be peaceably settled, as it was desired, between the 

 King and his subjects, if they could help it, and the question with 

 them was, whether the Radical leaders should take their instructions, 

 from Russia, from Austria, or from the King of Servia. The 

 leaders of the Radicals M. M. Gruitch, Horvatovich and Pirotchanatz. 

 were no friends to the King, for the two former were opposed to 

 Austria, and they took their stand on the ground that so long as. 

 Austria occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, the extension of the 

 Servian territory by Austrian help or approval was impossible, 

 and that only by the alliance of Russia, could the Empire of 

 Stephen Dooshan " the Mighty," be realised. 



The Liberals and Radicals of Servia, on the other hand, turned to- 

 Prince N icholas of Montenegro and to his son-in-law Kara-Georgevitch^ 

 the Pretender to the Servian Throne, to precipitate the struggle,, 

 backed by the power of Russia, for the restoration of the Servian 

 Empire, to its ancient position, from the Danube to the Egean Sea. 



The Panslavists of Russia encouraged this vain ambition by induc- 

 ing their allies in Servia to believe that if King Milan were deposed, 

 and the Obrenovitch Dynasty overthrown, Servia, Bulgaria, and 

 Montenegro, united under the Dynasty of Kara-Georgevitch would 

 join with Russia in the tremendous task of breaking up the Austro- 

 Hungarian Empire, and re-establishing a great Slav Empire in the 

 South-east of Europe ; but they left out of the calculation or ignored 

 the probability that Austria and her European Allies might probably 

 defeat Russia, in this bold enterprise. 



King Milan was swayed by the conviction that the one ambition 

 of Russia was to depose him from the Throne and to overthrow the 

 dynastry of Obrenovitch, and that the Radical and Liberal leaders. 



