170 SERVIA, AUSTRIA, TURKEY, AND RUSSIA. 



To do the Radicals of Servia justice, the accession of Kara- 

 Georgevic to the throne would have caused considerable dissatis- 

 faction, for they did not wish to effect any change of rulers, but to 

 abolish rulers altogether — in fact what they aimed at was not a 

 Restoration, but a Revolution. 



In 1883, Russia received two diplomatic checks, the one in Bul- 

 garia, and the other in Servia : the former when Prince Alexander 

 determined to reign as a constitutional Prince and to dispense with 

 Russian advisers, and the latter, by the defeat of the Panslavist 

 agitation, when they appealed to arms to overturn the Throne of 

 King Milan. Had they succeeded in overturning the Throne they 

 would not only have enthroned the Kara-Georgevics dynasty, but 

 they would have reduced Servia to the humiliating position of 

 dependence upon Russia. 



It is because the Servians have ever been a brave and independ- 

 ent race, because they bear upon their standards the proud words, 

 "The East for the Eastern people," that Russia endeavoured to 

 resist her upward path to independence. 



The Government of St. Petersburg have for their policy : " Not 

 the East for Eastern people, but the East must either be subject to 

 Russia, or become the prey to endless strife and discord." 



The Christians of the East are gradually opening their eyes to 

 the designs of Russia. A Federation of free Balkan States may 

 belong to the politics of the future, but it will assuredly come ; and 

 when that day arrives, and when the Slavs of the South are no longer 

 divided ' by petty jealousies, and ancient feuds are forgotten, then 

 there will be in the Balkan Peninsula, tranquillity and concord. 



The Russian Government have always looked on the Servians, 

 Montenegrins, and Bulgarians as pawns, to be moved at will on 

 the political chessboard. It has regarded the Balkan Peninsula 

 as its own preserve, and has done its best to keep it isolated from 

 the rest of Europe. The other great Powers have only too effect- 

 ually played into the hands of Russia, but at the Berlin Congress 

 in 1878 a sounder policy ^ffa.s established, for the independence of 

 Servia was recognised. Freed from the last trammels of Turkish 

 rule, Servia was able to carry out the construction of railways, the 

 establishment of a national Constitution and of a national literature, 

 each of which great reforms being condemned by Russia, on the 

 ground that railways in Servia would connect the Balkan Peninsula 

 with Western civilisation, open outlets for her commerce, and would 

 play into the hands of Austria ; and she declared against a nation a 



