Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

by Rebecca West

  From Yanina the King flew to Jerusalem, whence the falcon had flown to Kossovo with the message from the Mother of God. There he was joined by General Simovitch and some of his Ministers, who also had flown from Nikshitch. Two others were shot down during their flight; and some, including Matchek, were trapped in their homes and are in prison. Later the King and his Ministers flew out of Asia across Africa to Lisbon, and then to London, where they now await peace and the reconstitution of their state. They have come to the West not as unfortunate petitioners but as benefactors; for the resistance they had made against Germany had given Great Britain a valuable respite. The Germans, it is now known, had meant to use their forces in Bulgaria not against Yugoslavia but against Turkey, as a preliminary step to an attack on Russia. This step should have been taken in March, to coincide with the coup d‘état of Raschid Ali in Iraq and the German penetration of Syria, and Russia should have been attacked in May by an enemy which already held the subjugated Near East. But the unexpected resistance of Yugoslavia diverted the German forces in Bulgaria from East to West, and prolonged the German advance through Greece until the coup d’état in Iraq had been suppressed and the English preparations for the invasion of Syria were well under way. Thus the attack on Russia was postponed for a month, and then had to be a frontal attack, delivered without the advantages Germany would have derived from the subjugation of the Near East. The South Slavs had achieved another stage in their paradoxical destiny. They who were among the last to accept Christianity are the last to preserve it in the morning strength of its magic. They who were among the last to achieve order and gentleness are the last legatees of the Byzantine Empire in its law and magnificence. In this war, as in the one before it, they have made out of their defeats great victories, which have preserved the powerful empires that were their allies from the shame of becoming weak like themselves. Now, in this hour when their King is in exile and their hearths are defiled by swine, their state seems as a rock in a shifting world; and all over Europe the sorrowful find comfort in thinking on their history, though it passes from woe to woe. For the news that Hitler had been defied by Yugoslavia travelled like sunshine over the countries which he had devoured and humiliated, promising spring. In Marseille some people picked flowers from their gardens and others ordered wreaths from the florists, and they carried them down to the Cannebière. The police guessed what they meant to do, and would not let them go along the street. But there were trams passing by, and they boarded them. The tramdrivers drove very slowly, and the people were able to throw down their flowers on the spot where King Alexander of Yugoslavia had been killed.

  Bibliography

  Bibliographical Note

  I do not propose to give a complete list of the sources I have consulted for the purposes of these volumes, for two reasons.

  One is the consideration of space. So many issues are raised by any study of the Balkans that the student has to cast his nets far and wide. To gain any insight into the South Slav mind it is necessary to have a clear picture of both the Byzantine Empire and its legacy to the modern world. I have therefore consulted Gibbon, Bury, Norman Baynes, G. P. Baker, C. Chapman, Stephen Runciman, Diehl, Schlumberger, Iorga, and others, for enlightenment on the first of these subjects, and Dean Stanley, Neale, Adeney, Hore, Harnack, R. Janin, d‘Herbigny, Battifol, Salaville, Arsenev, Berdyaev, Darzad, and others, for enlightenment on the other. But many of these writers deal with material only indirectly connected with the Balkans, and the citation of them would confuse and irritate any reader who tried too quickly to trace the connection. To take but one example, I have found Mr L. G. Browne’s The Eclipse of Christianity in Asia invaluable; but only because his exposition of how Christianity was forgotten in Asia opened my eyes to the process by which it was preserved in the Balkans. In the same way, I have found that nearly all books I have read about the Austrian or Ottoman Empire have proved useful; but a list of them would not disclose the reason why. I have also hesitated to burden these pages with references that would be at once unimportant and obvious. There are a few paragraphs in this book which refer to Mithraism; the authorities to which I referred were, inevitably, Cumont, and the Cambridge Ancient History. In such cases, where few would want to follow such a by-path, and full directions could be found in any library catalogue, I have let the matter go.

  The other reason for curtailing the list is the peculiar character of the literature which deals with the Balkans. A large proportion of it is propaganda bought and paid for by the great powers. An even larger proportion represents a sour controversy between birds of two different feathers, persons who do not like oppression and cruelty and persons who do, both content to beat their wings in the empyrean of ignorance. I have deliberately omitted from this book all but the briefest mention of the battle over the ‘Eastern question’ which raged in nineteenth-century England. I have wanted to give a picture of the reality of South Slav life; and the picture of Turkey in Europe given by the English controversialists was usually entirely subjective. It is to be hoped that some expert historian will at some future date deal with this curious example of the difficulty humanity experiences in acquiring information about itself. When whole periods have been seduced into such fantasies, it is only to be expected that individual authors have succumbed.

  Hence there are a number of books I have consulted which I have omitted from my bibliography because I could not conscientiously mention them without comment so adverse as to be libellous. Under this head falls the work of a writer universally recognized as an authority on the Balkans. I trust that the publication of this book still leaves me in a position to say that a major inaccuracy on every page seems to me too many; and besides inaccuracies that spring from a desire to exalt one Balkan race above another this author commits many which are due simply to disregard for fact. It is hard to forgive a writer who includes in the same volume a panegyric on a certain eighteenth-century Balkan ruler and a polemic against him, written under the delusion that he was two different persons. There are several other authors whom I have rejected on similar counts.

  Other writers I have rejected, who, though not so inaccurate by nature, repeat inaccuracies which have been invented by others for political motives. There is, for example, a persistent legend that the Sarajevo attentat was planned and executed with the connivance of the Russian General Staff, through the instrumentality of ‘Apis’ and the Russian Military Attache in Belgrade, General Artamanoff. This Russian complicity is alleged in Herr In der Mauer’s Die Jugoslavie einst und jetzt (Johannes Gunther Verlag, Leipzig und Wien, 1936); and Mr M. W. Fodor, the respected Hungarian writer, in South of Hitler (Allen & Unwin, 1938) states, ’With the cognisance of the Russian General Staff (with whom Dombrievitch was in contact through the medium of the Russian Military Attaché, General Artamanoff) the murder of the Archduke was carried out on June 28, 1914.‘ I have asked Mr Fodor for the evidence for his statement, but he only replied that ’these facts were generally known.‘ But no eye witness has come forward and no document has ever been found that bears out this theory; and I understand that the Bolsheviks, with a free run of the relevant archives, have never discovered an atom of evidence in support of it. The time element, as Professor Seton-Watson has pointed out in his Sarajevo, makes it highly improbable. I leave readers to judge if the Russian General Staff, or ’Apis,‘ when attempting to involve the Russian General Staff in a European war, would have relied on the naïve group of conspirators Mr Stephen Graham has described with such admirable accuracy in St. Vitus’ Day. But nonsense like this Russian legend is scattered through a great many books, particularly if the writer is of Austrian or German origin. A conspicuous recent example is Otto Strasser’s A History of My Own Times, all of whose references to Balkan history are wildly inaccurate. A particularly absurd passage accuses on the most grotesque grounds the late Svetozar Privitchevitch of complicity in the Sarajevo attentat. Professor Gilbert Murray or Mr Justice Frankfurter would not be a less likely criminal.

 
; The following works are those which I think the reader will find the most directly relevant among those I have consulted for the purposes of this work:

  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by E. Gibbon. London, 1896.

  Les Invasions Barbares by Ferdinand Lot. Payot, 1937. (An exposition of highly important material, absolutely necessary to the understanding of modern European history.)

  History of the Byzantine Empire by A. A. Vasilev. University of Wisconsin, 1928. (This is faintly tinted with a Russian pro-Bulgarian bias, which, with Slav persistence, is brought to bear on events now remote by centuries.)

  Histoire de Constantinople jusqu‘à la fin de l’empire, Tr. sur les Originals grecs de Monsieur Cousin. (4 vols.) 1672-4. (It is time some British scholar imitated this enterprise, which is an extraordinary feat. It translates the histories of Agathias, Anna Comnena, Cantacuzenus, Ducas, Leo, Menander, St Nicephorus, Nicephorus Bryennius, Nicetas, Pachymeres, Procopius, Theophylactus Simocatta.)

  Byzantine Civilisation by Steven Runciman. Arnold, 1933; Longmans, 1933. (An admirable study.)

  The Byzantine Achievement by Robert Byron. Routledge, 1929; Knopf, 1929. (The author, whose death by enemy action all his friends and readers must deplore, wrote this when he was under twenty-five, and it is a remarkable effort. It forms a wholesome corrective to the nonsense that used to be talked about the decadence of Byzantium.)

  La Civilisation serbe au moyen âge by Konstantin Jirechek, tr. 1920. (A brief work of the greatest importance.)

  Geschichte der Serbei by Konstantin Jirechek. Gotha, 1911-18

  Christianity in the Balkans by M. Spinka. The American Society of Church History, 1933. (This is a work of considerable historical importance, covering ground till now neglected.)

  Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. IV. (Very poor. Although it was planned by Professor Bury, the level of the whole volume is disappointing. But it gathers the facts, or rather approximations of the facts, in a single volume, and can be used as a basis for further study.)

  The Servian People by Prince and Princess Lazarovitch Hrbelianovitch. T. Werner Laurie, 1914. (This book is artless in appearance, but is actually extremely able.)

  History of Serbia by H. W. Temperley. G. Bell, 1917. (A very useful book.)

  Serbia by L. F. Waring. Home University Library, 1917

  Serbia of the Serbians by Cheddo Miyatovitch. Pitman, 1915

  History of Servia and the Servian Revolution by Leopold von Ranke, Tr. Mrs A. Kerr.

  The Lives of the Serbian Saints by Voyeslav Yanitch and C. Patrick Hankey. Macmillan, New York, 1921

  Kossovo; a translation of the heroic songs of the Serbs by Helen Rootham. Blackwell, 1920

  The Ballads of Marko Kralyevitch by D. H. Lowe. Cambridge University Press, 1922

  Yugoslav Popular Ballads by Dragutin Subotitch. Cambridge University Press, 1932

  L‘Histoire de Dalmatie by L. de Voinovitch (-1918). Hachette, 1934. (A brilliant study.)

  Dalmatia, the Quarnero and Istria, with Cettinje and the Isle of Grado by Sir T. G. Jackson. Oxford, 1887. (A classic work to be read by everyone about to visit Dalmatia, both for its historical and its architectural studies.)

  Memoires du duc de Raguse (le maréchal Marmont).

  Geschichte von Venedig: I.Band bis zum Tode Enrico Dandalos, Gotha, 1905; II.Band, Die Blüte bis 1516, Gotha, 1920; III.Band, der Niedergang, Stuttgart, 1934, by H. Kretschmayr.

  Travels in Dalmatia and Montenegro; History of Dalmatia by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, 1848

  Architecture of Diocletian’s Palace at Spalato by Robert Adam

  Through Bosnia and Herzegovina on Foot during the Insurrection, 1875, with Historical Review of Bosnia, etc., 1876 by Sir Arthur Evans. Longman

  Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey in Europe by Miss Muir Mackenzie and Miss Irby. Bell & Daldy, 1867 (This is an admirable work, indispensable to the student of the Balkans.)

  Turkey in Europe by Sir Charles Eliot under the pseudonym ‘Odysseus.’ (A key work. Sir Charles Eliot was one of the finest minds of his time, and a writer of beautiful and restrained prose. It must, however, be remembered that at the end of his life he became a Buddhist, and an inability to appreciate the Christian contribution to civilisation affects his view of the Turkish invasion.)

  Sarajevo by R. W. Seton-Watson. Hutchinson, 1927. (An admirable work, which ought to be read by those who have swallowed whole Professor B. Sidney Fay’s Origins of the World War. Macmillan, 1928; revised 1931. Professor Fay’s bias can be judged by the fact that he contributed a preface to the English edition of Apis und Este, the first novel of Bruno Brehm’s venomous anti-Slav trilogy.)

  L‘Attentat de Sarajevo by Albert Mousset. Payot, 1930 (The report of the trial.)

  St. Vitus’ Day by Stephen Graham. Benn, 1930; Appleton, 1931. (An account, fictional in appearance, but faithful to fact, of the Sarajevo conspirators.)

  La Serbie d‘hier et de demain by N. Stoyanovitch, 1917

  La Crise bosniaque (1908-9), 2 vols., by M. Nintchitch. Alfred Costes, 1937

  The Annexation of Bosnia by Bernadotte Schmitt. Cambridge, 1937

  The Great Powers and the Balkans (1875-78) by M. D. Stoyanovitch. Cambridge University Press, 1938

  A Royal Tragedy by Cheddo Miyatovitch

  The Southern Slav Question and the Hapsburg Monarchy by R. W. Seton-Watson, 1911

  The Hapsburg Monarchy by H. Wickham Steed. Constable, 1913

  The Reign of the Emperor Franz Josef by Karl Tschuppik. G. Bell, 1930. (Published in America as Francis Joseph I; the Downfall of an Empire by Karl Tschuppik. Harcourt, 1930.)

  Letzte Jahrzehnte einer Grossmacht by R. Sieghart, 1932

  Aus Meiner Dienstzeit by Field-Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf

  Franz Ferdinand, Erzherzog by T. von Sosnosky, 1920

  Das Ende der Dynastie Obrenovitch by P. F. Bresnitz, 1899. (Written by a rogue called Georgevitch, who was at one time Prime Minister of Serbia. A fascinating piece of scoundrelism.)

  The Servian Tragedy, with impressions of Macedonia by Herbert Vivian, 1904

  Macedonia, Its Races and Their Future by H. N. Brailsford, 1906

  The Serbs, Guardians of the Gates by R. G. Laffan. Oxford, 1918

  The Birth of Yugoslavia by Henry Baerlein. Parsons, 1922

  Alexander of Yugoslavia by Stephen Graham. Cassell, 1938; Yale University Press, 1939

  The Native’s Return by Louis Adamic. Gollancz, 1934; Harper, 1934. (A study by a Slovene who had emigrated to America. It is written from the Communist point of view of that date, and is lively and interesting, particularly in passages that relate to Slovenia. But the picture of the country as a whole is over-simplified, and, oddly enough, although strongly pro-Croat greatly irritated the Croats by what they thought to be its expatriate, non-Slav attitude.)

  Balkan Holiday by David Footman. Heinemann, 1935; Ryerson Press, 1935. (This is an entertaining travel book, designed to amuse, but it is full of knowledge and good sense.)

  L‘Itinéraire de Yougoslavie by A. T’Serstevens. Grasset, 1938

  Profane Pilgrimage by L. Fielding Edwards. Duckworth, 1938

  A Wayfarer in Yugoslavia by L. Fielding Edwards. Methuen, 1939; McBride, 1939

  Undeclared War by Elizabeth Wiskemann. Constable, 1939. (A very able presentation of the situation of Yugoslavia immediately before the war.)

  Living Space by Stoyan Pribitchevitch. Heinemann, 1940. (Published in America as World without End by P. B. Stoyan [Stoyan Pribitchevitch]. Reynal, 1939.) (One of the most useful books written in late years. It is a survey of the Balkans, with particular reference to the Yugoslavs, by a young Liberal, the son of Svetozar Pribitchevitch, whom King Alexander drove into exile.)

  The Soul of Yugoslavia by H. D. Harrison. Hodder & Stoughton, 1941. (I include this because it is a work full of information by a reliable journalist who was a resident for some years in Belgrade, but it appeared too late for me to consult it.)

  Much of the material for th
is book I have derived from conversations with individual Yugoslavs, either during this journey or during a later and longer visit. Some of these conversations I have reproduced, and some I have not, either because the information imparted was of more interest than the way it was imparted, or for reasons of discretion. I would, for example, like to reproduce the testimony of the officer to whom Tankositch said, at a time when it cannot have seemed specially advisable to make that statement, ‘We told nobody about the young men from Sarajevo, nobody at all’; but he detested the deed, and would greatly have disliked his involuntary association with it to be disclosed. I have therefore allowed his information to colour my views without defining it. But I had hoped to acknowledge the help of all these friends. This is, however, not possible at present. All the people I mention in this book are now either dead or living in a state of misery as yet impossible for us to the West to imagine. Not one of them, except Gerda and the yellow-haired monk in Dechani, can have escaped. If I were to name any of my friends this might add a last extravagance to their sufferings.

  I would like to express my gratitude for help in the preparation of this book to His Excellence, the Yugoslav Minister, Dr Soubbotich, and his wife, Dr Anna Soubbotich; to Dr Dragutin Subotitch of the School of Slavonic Studies; to Miss Vera Javarek; to Mrs Catherine Brown—a very heavy debt, this; to Miss Elizabeth Wiskemann; to Mr Jan Boissevain; Mr David Footman; to Mr Peter Brown; to Mrs Rudoi; and to Greta Wood. I cannot find the words to convey what I owe to Margaret Hodges, who has typed most of the manuscript, read the proofs, and enabled me to get the book to the press in spite of the distraction caused by a long and incapacitating illness.