ia, as some
have stated, should have planned the coup is very improbable. For
one thing, its object was to strengthen Serbia by joining the two
states under one dynasty. Not even Sofia Petrovna nor Lobatcheff,
both red-hot believers in Holy Russia and haters of Austria, ever
even suggested to me that Austria was the cause: they ascribed it
all to Nikola's own folly, and were pro-Serb. That Austria should
try to take advantage of the complication was but natural.

Among the accused who got crushingly heavy sentences of imprisonment
in irons was Radovitch, since well known as one of Nikola's fiercest
opponents. He was known as a "Clubashi," and as an engineer had
built the prison at Podgoritza, to which he was now doomed. "My God,
why did I build cells like this?" is said to have been his cry on
entering, for the prison was inhuman in its arrangements.

"True or false," I noted in my diary at the time, "the charge
against the Crown Prince George of Serbia will probably split Serbia
and Montenegro. ... I hope old Nikola's reign won't end in fiasco."

By the time the trial was ended much else had happened. In June King
Edward and the Tsar had met at Reval. England and Russia had indeed
"agreed." And things were acute in Morocco. The junior staff of the
Austrian consulate chaffed me, and asked when we meant to fight
Germany. I declared "Never." My friend the attache assured me that
if we went on in the way we were going we should be obliged to have
military conscription. The Macedonian question now was acute.
England was believed to have arranged with Russia to take active
steps in Turkey. We discussed it endlessly. The attache used to dine
with me, and we agreed that our respective countries were guilty. If
the Powers wished, they could establish order easily. No Power
wanted order. Each was seeking its own interests. Never has there
been more hypocritical humbug talked by both great and small Powers
than over Macedonia. They handed moral letters about law and order
to the Turk with one hand, and with the other distributed
revolutionary funds to effectually prevent the establishment of
either. Each group preferred to burn up the whole place rather than
let the other get a bit of it.

The ethics of the situation were illustrated by Lobatcheff, who
asked me whether I thought Montenegro safe for tourists. On my
replying that I had had no difficulties, he told me that a Czech had
very recently been murdered there for his m