led into Austria with a few followers, without even
having struck a blow.

This tragic and most fatal failure was due in all probability, to a
mental collapse to which his unstable and unbalanced nature would be
peculiarly liable.

The Austrians promptly interned both him and his men in fortresses,
but released them at the intercession of Russia, and they retired
into Bessarabia.

Meanwhile, his place was taken by Milosh Obrenovitch, also a
peasant, who led the Serb rising of 1815 with such success that he
was recognized as ruler, under Turkish suzerainty, of a considerable
territory. And as a ruler, moreover, with hereditary rights.

It is said that Russia never forgave the Obrenovitches that they
were appointed by the Sultan and not by herself. Scarcely was Milosh
well established when Karageorge returned from his long absence.

The break-up of the Turkish Empire had begun. The Greeks were in a
ferment. Russia supported them. The Hetairia had been formed and a
plan was afoot for a great simultaneous rising of Greeks and Serbs
and Roumanians. Karageorge was to be one of its leaders.

But Milosh was in power, id did not mean to relinquish it. And he
dreamed already of wide empire. He examined the question with
sangfroid and decided that if the Greek revolution succeeded in its
hopes, an Empire would be reborn in the East which would regard
Serbia as its province and might be more dangerous than the Turk.
Did not the Greeks, in the fourteenth century, call the Turks to
Europe to fight the "Tsar of Macedonia who loves Christ?" Milosh
remained faithful to the Turk, saying "Let us remain in Turkey and
profit by her mistakes." He suppressed all pro-Greek action,
executed twenty pro-Greek conspirators, and exposed their bodies at
the roadside, and--in an evil hour for Serbia--had Karageorge
assassinated and sent his head to the Pasha.

From that day onward the feud between the two houses raged with ever
increasing fury. Until to-day every ruler of Serbia has been either
exiled, murdered, or has had his life attempted.

"Family tradition comes first" says Vladan Georgevitch. "All the
families of Serbia have, from the beginning, been followers of
either the Karageorgevitches or the Obrenovitches." As time went on,
the Obrenovitches became the choice of Austria, while Russia
supported the Karageorges, and the puppets jigged as the Great
Powers pulled the wires.

Milosh's subjects revolted against his intolerable tyra