THE REVOLUTION IN SERVIA.
WE can see no reason to expect good from the revolu- tion in Servia. It was too violent, too bloodthirsty, too contemptuous of those laws, at once of morality and honour, which are acknowledged even by the semi-civilised to be necessary restraints. That the Obrenovitch dynasty had deserved deposition we are not concerned to deny. The late King throughout his reign behaved rather like a wilful child than an average Monarch, he was rapidly developing into a tyrant who brought his people nothing in compensation for his tyranny, and he had latterly surrendered all independence of will to a woman still more tyrannical than himself. Queen Draga may have had all the charm her admirers attribute to her, and certainly had enough to enslave her boyish husband; but she could. not endure resistance, she was dominated by an unscrupu- lous ambition, and her final plot—for it was a plot—to make her brother Nicodemus Lungevica, a man of no character, Heir-Presumptive to the throne without the consent of the people entirely justified the anger of her husband's sub- jects. The decree securing the succession to this officer was found in the Palace after the murders had been accomplished, and its promulgation would certainly have been an insult to, as well as an outrage on, the Servian people. It was natural, perhaps, that the Army should take the lead in expressing their indignation, though they might not have been so forward. had their salaries been paid; but the method adopted was inexcusable, not only in the eyes of all moralists, but of all clear-sighted politicians. The murders were needless outrages upon common decency. The officers were in possession of the capital and knew that they had the populace with them; the King and Queen between them had alienated all their friends ; and the soldiers had easy access, through accomplices, even to the interior of the Palace. There was nothing whatever to prevent the leaders of the revolt from arresting the King and Queen, locking them in a carriage, and sending them under escort to a fortress or beyond the frontier. The Skupshtina, as is now evident, would have confirmed all their acts, and they could. have forced without difficulty the election of Prince Peter. The peasants, it is clear, would not have risen, and there was in the State no other force capable of being roused to arms. Instead of taking that reasonable course, the officers, all of whom had sworn to be faithful to the dynasty and the King, indulged in a burst of sanguinary fury, hunted the wretched couple through the Palace, shot down the King, hacked the Queen to death with sabres, and finally, to convince their comrades that the bloody deed had been successfully accomplished, hurled their victims' bodies from a window on to the lawn below. There has not been such a scene in history since Jehu ordered the decent burial of Jezebel, not in pity or shame, but because she whom his followers had just murdered was of Royal descent. The Roman soldiery murdered Caesar after Caesar, and the history of the Middle Ages is full of assassinations ; but Romans and ruffian Princes alike spared women, who, bad or good, were, like Queen Drage, possessed. of no legal power, and therefore irresponsible. Slicing a woman to death for being over-persuasive is a, proceeding reserved for a Christian State and our day of gentleness and love. The death of Queen Draga, flushed with arrogance though she may have been, was a foul murder if ever there was one, and to sing a Te Deum over it a disgusting exhibition at once of callousness and superstition.
Whence are good consequences to flow from the deed? The Obrenovitches, it is true, are gone ; but the record of the Karageorgevitches is little cleaner than theirs, and they return to the throne they lost before in circum- stances which almost forbid them to be good rulers. Even if we admit, as we gladly should do, that King Peter had no previous knowledge of the long-plotted assassination, and expected only an emeute and an expulsion like that of Charles X., he is the nominee of the Army, and must per- force obey its orders. It is foolish to talk of the " unani- mous" vote of the Skupshtina, which knew that it was at the mercy of the troops, and. that the alternative to a prearranged. election must be a period of murderous anarchy, as if that could absolve the mutineers. Their success alone absolves them. A cry has gone up from all Europe that the murderers should be punished, if not the plotters ; but who is to punish them ? The Great Powers have refused to intervene. They could not intervene effectually without suspending their mutual jealousies, and, besides, they are afraid of a precedent which might bind them to interfere if a revolution occurred in a State capable of self-defence. On the other hand, what is the new King to do except issue an amnesty, formal or in- formal? He cannot execute the men to whom he owes his throne; and it he banishes them, their followers will all be his foes, open or concealed, and his fate may be that of his predecessor. He is not really protected by any ancient hold upon his people or any dynastic affinities. He is as little known to King Edward, for instance, as the Obrenovitch was. There is nothing for him to do except to be guided, for the present at all events, by the Praetorians of Belgrade, who have already shown what their notions of governing and of "preserving liberty" really are. Their sway will be at least as bad as that of the Obrenovitches, and will end, if history is any guide, either in another revolution or in a civil war, the troops in the interior growing jealous of. the ascendency of the troops in the capital. The example of successful mutiny is a dangerously atiiractive one, and there is, so far as we can see, no force in Servia which can reimpose permanent discipline on the Army. A victorious general might do it ; but who in that case is to be the enemy? The King will be forced, even in his own despite, to cling either to Russia or Austria, and Servia will some day or other be crushed by their collision or agreement to divide. The new King is said to be a man of some ability, and certainly he has persisted long in his pretensions ; but he is sixty, it is a heavy task to play the part of the Dukes of Savoy, and they had no internal treachery to dread.
The Servians seem to have thought the heir of Black George the only possible candidate for the throne ; but we doubt whether, if they were thinking of the safety of their State, they would. not have done better to look farther afield, and ask some cadet of an old. dynasty to accept their crown of thorns. That would have given their State a new foothold in Europe, and though it is considered unphilosophical to say so, would. probably have secured them a, safer ruler. There is some reason for the dynasts, or they would. not have remained at the top for a thousand years on end. We believe the reason is that they feel the obligation of restraints, which seem to adventurers things made to be broken through. The Government of the last Bourbon King of pies was one of the worst which ever existed in Europe, but when the courtiers discussed the propriety of " removing " Mr. Wreford, the correspondent of the Times, who was striking terrible blows at the dynasty, King Bomba, to their amazement, interposed a peremptory veto. "What right have we," said the King, "as against Wreford ? He is no subject of mine." There was the very essence of absolutism in the sentence ; but there was also something else, a restraining dignity which we should not have found in King Milan, who was the Neapolitan's intellectual superior. However that may be, the fact remains that of all the families which have reached thrones in the last hundred years, the Berna- dottes alone have succeeded, for they alone have not been intoxicated or dismayed by the position. It is forty years that a Prince from Denmark has been reigning in Greece, surely not an easy place to reign over, and his throne remained unshaken even by military defeat, and seems now as safe as ever. Charles of Roumania, too, is the strongest Sovereign in the Balkans, where strong Sovereigns are needed if there is to be any order at all. The inhabitants of those States have been inoculated with ferocity by three hundred years of Turkish rule, and it will take at least another century to beget in them the civilised horror of murder used as a political argument. It may, indeed, take even longer, for the great Courts do not see that an unpunished mutiny is a fatal precedent for their system, and the murderers of Queen Draga have already been pronounced at home heroic persons, who deserve well of their country and of the Archbishop of Belgrade.
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