t until all the interned Montenegrins
had come back from Austria and Hungary, may be reminded of Nikita's Red
Cross parcels which these prisoners had refused to take. Moreover,
certain of them were elected, after their arrival, as vacancies
occurred, and they were also represented among the dozen deputies whom
the Skup[vs]tina chose for the Belgrade Parliament. No disorders
happened during the elections, the best available men were chosen--76 of
them having enjoyed a university education. It is worthy of remark that
while 20 of the Podgorica deputies had sat in Nikita's former
parliaments, another 150 of these ex-deputies survive, and yet out of
the total number of past and present deputies (_i.e._ over 300), only 15
declared for a kind of autonomy, but were in favour of Yugoslav union.
The Metropolitan of Cetinje, the Bishops and five of the six pre-war
Premiers gave their unreserved support to the new regime. With them was
the Queen's brother, the Voivoda Stephen Vukoti['c], a grand-looking
personage who has remained all his life a poor man; he was questioned by
General Franchet d'Esperey as to whether he had also voted against his
brother-in-law. "If I had seven heads and on each of them a crown,"
answered the Voivoda, "I would give them all for the union of the
Southern Slavs." ... Where was the opposition to Yugoslavia? "The Black
Mountain," said Nikita at Neuilly--"the Black Mountain, as well as her
national King, has always pursued the same path, the only one leading to
the realization of our sacred ideal--that of National Unity." One might
object that a national King should really not have written to his
daughter Xenia on October 19, 1918, that he would propose a republic for
all the Serbs and Yugoslavs, with the abdication of the two kings and
the two dynasties. He added that the Serbs were not ripe for a republic,
but that in advanced circles his suggestion would be enthusiastically
received, and in a short time he would reap the benefit. "That," he
wrote, "is my impression--it may be that I am wrong--but I do not know
what else I can do." And a truly national King--but the world, as
Sophocles remarked, is full of wonders, and nothing is more wonderful
than man--a truly national King should not have supported those twenty
Montenegrins who in the summer of 1919 assembled at the monastery of
De[vc]ani with the design of establishing a Bol[vs]evik republic. Before
the Yugoslav troops could reach the spot these men