BY

REV. W. DENTON, M.A.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

§ 1. Geography.

BEFORE giving the results of my personal observations, and some account of my excursions in Servia, it will be convenient to say a few words on the geography and history of this country and people, and thus avoid the continual digressions which would otherwise be necessary for the information of the general reader. This is the more requisite, as Servia is neither co-extensive with the residence of the Servian people, nor with the boundaries of the Servian empire of the middle ages. Indeed, the bulk of the Serbs are resident in Hungary, and are the subjects of Austria. This has arisen either from the conquest of territory, as, for instance, of that portion of the kingdom of Hungary which lies between the two rivers the Save and the Drave, or by the immigration of people from Servia flying before the armies, and seeking to escape from the oppression, of the Turks. The bounds of the ancient Servian empire extended from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, and included Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Ragusa,¹ and Dalmatia, as well as Croatia, in which countries, indeed, the chief historical monuments and the tombs of the earlier Servian kings and heroes must be sought. The present principality of Servia, however, is of far smaller extent, and is situated on the south bank of the Save and of the Danube, which separate it both from that part of Hungary which is comprehended in Slavonia and the Banat, and also from Wallachia. These countries lie on its northern boundary. On the west it is divided from Bosnia by the river Drina, which has its source in the mountains of Montenegro and the Herzegovina, and running north, falls into the Save near Mitrowitza.² On the east it is bounded by Bulgaria and partly by Wallachia, and on the south by Albania and by other districts of Roumelia.³

On the north and west the frontiers of Servia are marked by natural and well-defined boundaries; but on the south, and partly on the east, the line of the frontier is ill defined, ‘and for a considerable distance is an wholly imaginary one, so that on the side of Turkey it possesses no natural means of defence. The outline of the country is that of right-angled triangle, the base of which is uppermost, and rests upon the Danube. It lies between the forty-third and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, and the seventeenth and twenty-first degrees of east longitude (Greenwich). In extent the country is about 190 miles at its widest part from east to west, and about 120 from the northern base to the apex of the triangle on the south.

On the south-eastern frontier the Servian Morava receives the waters of the Ibar, and, after passing by Ushitza, Tschatohat, and Kruschewatz,⁴ unites itself to another stream, called from the country within which it has its source the Bulgarian Morava. These two streams form the Great Morava, which, running through the whole of Servia, separates it into two almost equal parts, and ‘falls into the Danube near Semandria.⁵ This river is navigable for vessels of a light draught of water as far as Kjuprija, or Tchuprija,⁶ about sixty miles from its mouth. The Government of Servia, however, is at this moment engaged in the preliminary steps for the improvement of the present navigable channel, by removing the impediments which past neglect and times of confusion have suffered to accumulate in the bed of the river, and by making the river available for boats and small vessels to a greater distance from its outlet. Nothing will so greatly facilitate the intercourse between the towns on the Danube and the interior of this fertile country as this contemplated measure. At present all articles of commerce, howsoever bulky—cotton from Turkey, rock-salt from Wallachia, grain, wine, and other agricultural produce, iron, copper, charcoal, coal, and the other productions of the mines and mountains of Servia—are carried on the heavy waggons of the country by the tedious and expensive means of land carriage, thus greatly increasing the cost of the goods to the consumer. These waggons, starting
from Belgrade or from Semandria, are to be met with at all times of the day, in parties of five or six, toiling along the roads which have recently been made from both these towns. These roads unite near Skobal,⁷ and from thence run along the left bank of the Morava to the ferry near Orasch, and from that point follow the right bank of the river by Swilainatz⁸ to Kjuprija and the borders of Turkey.

Several small streams fall into the Morava in its course to the Danube; of these the chief is the Jassenitza, which joins the Morava on the left bank near Hassan-pasha-palanka,⁹ and the Ressava, which falls into the same river near Swilainatz, Besides these affluents of the Morava, the Milawa, the Timok, and the Pek, run through the eastern half of Servia, and the Dobratcha and the Kolubara through the western portion. The country on the whole is well watered, though in addition to the natural streams and rivers the traveller will occasionally meet with artificial watercourses made by the Romans during their occupation of Maesia, by which the fields at a distance from a river are still irrigated. The watersshed of these various streams are ranges of hills rather than mountains, and the valleys between these are very fertile, and the pasturages swarm with cattle. Indeed, though Servia abounds in wild mountain scenery, yet this arises for the most part from the number of detached conical mountains rising from the plains and low grounds and from irregular groups of hills, rather than from lofty mountain ranges. On the Bosnian frontier, however, the country becomes more rugged and mountainous; and not far from the Bulgarian border on the east the Carpathian range crosses the Danube from Hungary, and forming, with its bluffs of limestone and its precipices of porphyry, what are known by the name of the Iron Gates of the Danube, spreads itself out on the Servian side of the river into
ridges which cross and recross in the wildest confusion. Whilst these mountains give great picturesqueness to the scenery, they make the country in this part very abrupt and inaccessible. In some parts of the country the hills and mountains are still covered with dense forests, mostly of oak and ash, of beech and birch; and where these have been cleared, the slopes of the hills are green with vineyards and with fields of Indian corn.

One peculiarity of the vegetation of Servia will not fail to be noticed by an English traveller. Though this country lies so far to the south and east of Great Britain, the vegetation is almost entirely English. The banks skirting the roads which wind through the forests are carpeted with the wild strawberry, and the open glades which run into the woods abound with the wild raspberry. The thin soil on the steep sides of many of the hills is covered with the whortleberry. The weeds and wild flowers of the fields also are those which are commonly met with in England—violets and daisies, pansies and spurge, primroses and oxlips, forget-me-nots and speed-wells, orchises of all shades and wild garlick, meadow-saffron and the cuckoo-lower, or ragged robin. The hedges are powdered with the honeysuckle and the clematis, and fringed with yellow broom, with bramble-bushes, dog-roses, and the white and black thorn. Trees, indeed, that are comparatively rare in England are here met with in profusion, The wild pear and cherry, the plum and the apple, may be seen in great numbers in the woods; the acacia and the labumum, are met with by the sides of the roads, and lilac trees abound on the hill sides.

The vine is said to have been introduced into Servia during the time of the occupation of the Romans, and in the reign of the Emperor Probus.¹⁰ Vineyards are very common throughout the country; and the vines which cover the slopes of the hills, especially in the neighbourhood of Semandria, Posharawats, Negotin, and Manassia,¹¹ yield a very good wine, which is retailed at the little inns of this country at about threepence a pint, but may be purchased wholesale of the growers at not more than twopence’a quart. In the interior of Servia the cottages stand in the midst of small orchards of cherry, plum, apple, and pear trees, Tho fruits of the two latter are dried and exported in large quantities, whilst from the plum the favourite brandy of the country, slivovitza, is distilled. Another article of commerce of great value consists of the acorns of a particular species of oak. Large quantities of these acorns are exported for the purpose of tanning and dying leather; whilst latterly a large tract of mountain country has been rented by a Jewish merchant for the purpose of making charcoal for exportation. Unfortunately, the want of a port on the Adriatic, and the jealousy of Austria, which has prevented the construction of a railway from Sissek to Fiume,¹² practically close Servia to the markets of Western Europe, and make her extensive forests and rich soil comparatively valueless.

Notwithstanding the disadvantage, however, arising from the want of a port on the Adriatic, the wealth of Servia has hitherto consisted almost entirely in her forests. Not, however, in the noble oaks of ample girth and towering height, from which the largest navies might be constructed, but which, for want of a market, are rotting on the mountain side, or are cut down for fuel by any one who needs a fire, but in the countless herds of pigs which are fed on the acorns which cover the ground for miles. ‘These pigs are driven in herds into Hungary, and there find a ready sale at what is far below their value, but at a sum which yields an ample profit to the proprietors, Latterly a Frenchman has settled in Servia, and has built a fine villa near Belgrade out of the profits which he has derived from curing the flesh of these pigs, and exporting it to all parts of Europe.

The forests of Servia abound in such game as is usually met with in England—hares, stags, and foxes. In the recesses of the forests the wild boar may also be found, and tho wild cat is said occasionally to be seen, A few bears still remain on the tops of some of the hills, but these, unless the winter prove very severe, and their usual fare is altogether unattainable, never venture near the villages, nor show themselves to man. In autumn Bruin is occasionally seen shaking the wild plum-tree for his favourite food, and a stray pig or two are no doubt carried off at times to appease his hunger, but beyond this he is rarely heard of. The wolf, again, is almost as rare as the boar, and would long since have been numbered amongst the extinct animals of this part of Europe, but for the facilities offered to his crossing from Austria when the Danube is frozen over, which generally happens every third or fourth year. “The wolf” said a Servian gentleman to me, “would long ago have disappeared, if the Austrian Government could trust its subjects with fire-arms: they all come over to us from Austria.” Wild fowl abound in the islands and on the low grounds which border on the Danube: the ortolan, the quail and the snipe are common on the downs; large flights of wild pigeons are scared from the trees as the traveller makes his way through the forests ; whilst those who like nobler but less profitable game, will find it in the hawks, the vultures, and, especially, in the eagles, which are very commonly seen hovering over the thickets of the forest, or along the courses of the streams, in quest of food. The rivers are equally prolific, and the sturgeon of the Danube is a dainty and common dish in all the towns which are situated on the banks of that river. Smaller fish—carp, perch, trout, and other fresh-water fish—are taken from the preserves and from the numerous small streams of the interior.

Though but few efforts, and those inconsiderable and desultory, have been made to discover the hidden riches of the mountain ranges and hills of Servia, yet the mineral wealth of the country is known to be very large. Gold, silver, and iron mines were worked in the time of the Romans. The two former metals are not found at present, or at least are met with in such inconsiderable quantities as not to repay the cost of working the mines. The iron of Servia, however, yields to none in the world for the purity and the quantity of metal found in the ore. In addition to this there are mines of sulphur near Maidanpek, and seams of coal are worked in various parts of the country from Dobra to Ravanitza, near the frontier of Turkey, and close to the point at which the Morava first becomes navigable. The coal which has been brought from the workings at Dobra, though they have been sunk scarcely more than twenty yards from the surface, has been pronounced by English coal viewers equal to Newcastle coal. From the same workings fireclay may be procured to any amount. Add to this mines of copper and lead, together with large quantities of saltpetre and gypsum, and some idea may be formed of the vast mineral and material riches of a country as yet almost unexplored. At present the manufactures of Servia are in their infancy, but no country in Europe of the same extent offers so fair a field for the profitable employment of skill and capital.

The chief towns of Servia are—(1) Belgrade, the present capital, the Singidunum of the Romans, situated at the junction of the Save with the Danube, the seat of the Government and the residence of the prince; (2) Semandria, or Smederevo, at the confluence of the little river Jessava with the Danube, and a little to the west of the mouth of the Morava; (3) Schabatz a commercial city of importance, situated on the Save ; (4) Ushitza, in the interior of the country, and not far from the frontier of Bosnia; (5) Kragujewats, formerly the seat of Government, in the centre of the country, a short distance from the left bank of the Morava.¹³ Here are situated the Government powder-mills, the cannon foundry, and the arsenal for the army. In addition to these large towns there are several thriving and busy though smaller towns to be found in Servia, such as Posharewats, Waljewo, Hassan-pasha-palanka, Tschatchat, Kjuprija, Kruschewatz, Negotin, on the frontier of Bulgaria, and Losnitza, on the opposite borders of Bosnia.

§ 2 History.

The present principality of Servia is almost coextensive with the Roman province of Moesia Superior. The original inhabitants of this country, or at least the first of whom we have any historical notice, were tribes of Thracians, With these were mingled large bodies of Gauls, who, after the defeat of Brennus (B.C. 277), settled in Moesia. About two hundred years afterwards (B.C. 75), a Roman army for the first time penetrated into the country, which, however, was not completely subjugated until nearly half a century afterwards (B.C. 29), At the end of the fourth century of the Christian era the Ostro-Goths, who were flying from the victorious armies of the Huns, obtained permission of the Emperor Vallens to settle in Moesia ; and about the middle of the seventh century the Serbians, a Sclavonic tribe, entered Moesia, and giving their own name to the country, of which they took forcible possession, at length founded the kingdom of Servia. For the use of the Ostro-Goths, or Moeso-Goths as they were called, from the name of the province in which they had settled, Ulphilas had in the fourth century translated the Holy Scriptures into the Gothic languages.

In the ninth century we find the conquerors of these Goths, the Servians, a Christian people and members of the Eastern Church, possessing a vernacular liturgy which still survives, and joining in the worship of God under the direction of priests of their own race, and in spiritual matters ruled over by native bishops, elected in accordance with a grant from the Patriarch of Constantinople from their own native priesthood. From this mixture of various races the language of Servia, though purely Sclavonic, has obtained a character peculiar to itself It is considered by the greatest philologists to be the best and most harmonious of the Sclavonic dialects, and because of its softness it has been sometimes called the Italian Sclavonic. Niebuhr, indeed, no mean authority, considered the language of Servia the most perfect in grammatical structure of any of the languages of modern Europe.

During the declining years of the Roman empire the increasing power of the rulers of Servia, and the ever-enlarging boundaries of the territory which they governed, were objects of disquiet to the emperors at Constantinople, and the occasion of frequent wars, which weakened still more the decaying empire of the East, and was one of the main causes of the success of the Turkish hordes, which were soon destined to overrun and to conquer both these states. Whilst the power and he territories of the Roman emperors were dwindling, the power of the ruler of Servia and the bounds of the country over which he ruled were continually increasing, until at length, in the middle of the fourteenth century, the authority of Stephen Dushan was acknowledged from the Adriatic to the Black Sea; and amongst the countries which obeyed his commands were Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Bulgaria. This prince assumed the imperial title, and his alliance and support were sought by the most powerful sovereigns of Europe. The reign of this great monarch (A.D. 1333—1366) was the most glorious period of Servian history. It was the glory, however, that precedes decay. The son and immediate successor of Stephen Dushan lost the whole of Roumelia to the Sultan, and after his time the limits of Servia were gradually circumscribed.

For a short time after the conquest of Roumelia the two powers of Servia and Turkey maintained friendly, or at least pacific relations, The respective rulers of these countries, moreover, sought their wives in the family of the neighbouring sovereign, and the relationship of the Sultan and of the Prince of Servia was usually that of brothers in-law. When, however, the strength of the Sultan had become consolidated, and the submission of his European territory seemed assured, the systematic encroachments of the Ottoman power and the extension of its territory in all directions gave just alarm to the Prince and the people of Servia. At length, by an alliance
in 1389 between the Servians and the Hungarians, a determined effort was made to resist the progress of the Mahometan arms. Under the Knes Lazarus, the ruling prince of Servia, a battle was fought on the plains of Kossova in Albania, which decided the fate of the country. By the treachery of one of the great commanders of the Servian army, the Turks succeeded in gaining a victory and in totally destroying the whole confederate force. Lazarus himself was taken prisoner, and in revenge for the death of the Sultan, Amurath the Second, was killed by the Turks.

After the death of Knes Lazarus the Mussulman armies overran Servia and penetrated into Hungary. The subjugation of the former country was complete; since although the form of an independent monarchy was for a short time preserved, and Servia was still governed by one of its native princes, yet the whole country was made tributary to the Porte, until, in the middle of the fifteenth century, even the outward form of independence was lost, and Servia became in name as well as in reality a province of Turkey. The fortress of Belgrade, however, strong by its natural position and through the facility with which assistance could be procured from Hungary, resisted the arms of the Sultan, and until 1522 was held by a Christian garrison. At length in that year the last remains of the ancient Servian empire was captured by Solyman the Great, and for nearly two centuries the Turks remained masters of the fortress. In 1717 Prince Eugene of Savoy, at the head of an Austrian army, besieged and captured Belgrade, and overran the whole of Servia, and in the next year this country was formally ceded by the Turks to Austria. In the war, however, between Turkey and Austria, in 1739, the former reoccupied the country; and by the treaty of peace which followed, the possession of Belgrade was guaranteed to the Turks, In 1788 an Austrian army, under Marshal Loudon, retook Belgrade, which, however, was restored to Turkey in 1791 by the treaty of peace at Szistova.

During these successive occupations of Servia by the armies of Austria and Turkey, the condition of the inhabitants remained on the whole much the same; the petty persecutions of the Austrian Government, and the rapacity of its troops, made many of the Servians, especially those of the richer and the more influential class, even prefer the yoke and the capricious cruelty of the Mussulmans to the persistent and vexatious tyranny of the Christian Government. Indeed, the readiness with which the Turks overran Servia is attributed to the discovery which was made by the Servians, that it was the intention of their Hungarian allies to compel the whole nation to apostatize from the Eastern Church, to adopt the Roman ritual, and to acknowledge the supremacy of the Papal See. Submission to the Porte seemed to hold out the promise of at least the tacit exercise of the worship prescribed by the orthodox Church, whilst union with Hungary as certainly entailed an active persecution, or a forcible subjection to the hated ritual and supremacy of Rome. Of the two the Servians preferred that yoke the terrors of which were then unknown, and which they were therefore excusable in considering the least of the evils which threatened them.

So long as the authority of the Sultan was respected by the various subordinate officers who were appointed to administer the affairs of the conquered province, and whilst the orders of the central Government at Constantinople were faithfully executed, the condition of the Christians in Servia, though hard, was not however intolerable. Though all freedom of worship was denied them, yet they were able to meet in caves of the mountains, and in the deep solitude of the forests; and in some villages a mean hovel was even tacitly permitted to exist, and to be used for the rites of Christian worship. The hard lot of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, has at all times arisen from the fact that the central authority at Constantinople has but little real authority throughout the empire of Turkey. It is the petty tyranny of the village officials, sharpened by personal hatred, which has instigated those acts of atrocity to which, both in former times, and still more at the present day, the Christians in Turkey are subjected.

In the days of a nation’s greatness justice and even magnanimity towards a subject race are virtues which are possible; these, however, are rarely found to exist in the time of a nation’s decay.

Nover were the Christians throughout Turkey exposed to acts of more atrocious cruelty than at the present day, when the Mahometan power is kept alive merely by the mutual distrust of the great powers of Europe. How the conscription is made, provided only that the due number of recruits are obtained, how the taxes are levied, provided only that the proper amount is paid into the treasury, and what is the sum total of the plunder which the pasha of an unquiet province, or the cadi of an insignificant village may extort from those subject to their authority, are matters of supreme indiference to the Porte. The Sultan exerts no authority, except over the farmers of taxes, or over the great officers of state; and the actual constitution of Turkey presents itself to the poor rayah in all the worst features of an oligarchy of democrats, in which the will of the Sultan is crossed or controlled by tho interest and the passions of the lowest officers of the Government, and by the malignant fanaticism of the mob of the faithful.

Thus it was not the stern severity of the central despot, but the petty tyranny of a government by anarchy, which at length, after nearly four centuries of submission, drove the Servian people to that revolt which, about thirty years ago, terminated in the public recognition of their independence. At the close of the last century, the pashas of Widdin and Belgrade were in Servia the representatives of the Sultan, to whom, however, they yielded only a nominal obedience. Under these pashas, turbulent troops of mutinous janissaries robbed and insulted the unfortunate inhabitants. To their lust the wives and daughters of the Servians were at all times compelled to yield, and the normal privilege of the meanest of the Turkish soldiers subjected every woman throughout Servia to his licentious will. The mother of the present reigning prince was on one occasion obliged to resort to a sordid disguise and a filthy attire, in order to escape from this degradation. Cruelties the most atrocious were daily resorted to, in order to obtain possession of the property of the peasants and the person of their wives; whilst to every remonstrance which reached the Court of Constantinople, the excuse which was made, that such deeds were committed not by the direction or even by the will of the central power, but in defiance of its wishes, was perfectly true. The authority of the Government of Turkey, indeed, was powerless to control the passions of its agents, and was content with escaping, if possible, from the knowledge of their excesses.

Finding at length that no redress was to be obtained from their rulers, the Servians sought it by means of their own arms, The oppression exercised by the Turks had filled the most inaccessible part of the country and the recesses of the forests with bands of wronged and desperate men, who obtained their subsistence and avenged their wrongs by the plunder and the slaughter of the Turkish officials. At length the increasing sufferings of the people in every part of Servia added such numbers and gave such importance to these bands of exiles, that they conceived the design of delivering their ‘country ; and in Kara, or Black George, they were fortunate in obtaining a chieftain whose skill and energy gave a definite aim and consistency to the desultory efforts of the half-robber, half-patriot guerillas.

The general insurrection of the Servian people dates from the year 1804, In the month of January, 1806, little more than a twelvemonth from the beginning of the revolt, the peasants under the command of Kara George numbered ten thousand; and with this force, during the summer of that year, he totally defeated the army of the Pasha of Bosnia, checked the advance of another large army under the command of the Pasha of Scutari, and took Belgrade. After a struggle of eight years, with varying fortune at times, but on the whole with a steady advance, Kara George, in 1812, succeeded in achieving the independence of his country.¹⁴ The campaign of Napoleon against Russia in 1813, however, and the support which he afforded to Turkey, enabled the Porte for a time to reconquer the country and to crush the liberties of the Servians, and ten years darkened by scones of the most fiendish revenge ensued, by the war of extermination which ensued has not yet been recovered.

New modes of torture and strange instruments of cruelty were now invented. Christian prisoners were hurled against the walls of resisting fortresses by catapults constructed for that purpose; infants were thrown into scalding water in the presence of their mothers, in derision of the rite of baptism; and the esplanade which slopes from the walls of the citadel of Belgrade was for months covered with a succession of corpses of the Servian patriots who had been impaled, and who had died after days of lingering and agonizing suffering. The waste of population caused by these massacres and by the war of extermination which ensued has not yet been recovered.

All these atrocities, however, instead of breaking the spirit of the nation, at length aroused it to a more determined effort to recover that independence which for a short time it had enjoyed. Under Prince Milosh, one of the commanders of Kara George, and the father of the reigning prince, the whole country rose in tumultuous insurrection. After a struggle protracted for several years this revolt was successful, and by 1826 the whole of Servia was not only virtually freed from Turkish rule, but that freedom was confirmed by public treaties,¹⁵ and by the Hatti-cherif of the Sultan. By this latter instrument, the whole internal administration of the country was left in the hands of the native authorities, subject to the suzerainty of the Porte, and the succession to the government was made hereditary in the family of Prince Milosh. Unfortunately, by the intervention of the great Powers of Europe, which had passively witnessed the efforts of the Servians to rid themselves of their Turkish oppressors, it was stipulated
that six places in Servia should receive garrisons of Turkish soldiers. These troops, however, were to possess no authority beyond the walls of the garrisons; and it was expressly provided that they should not live in the interior of the country. By a firman in 1833, those Turks who still possessed property in any other places than the six fortresses were ordered to sell their possessions and either to leave the country or to take up their residence within the fortifications. The same firman provides that all duties of police shall be executed by the Servian civil authorities. Both the Treaty of Akerman and the Hatti-cherif which was issued subsequently, have, however, been evaded in this respect, and the present complications in Servia and the bombardment of Belgrade are the results of a disregard for these stipulations.¹⁶

In 1839, the unpopularity of Prince Milosh, which increased after he had obtained supreme power, led to his abdication. He was succeeded by his eldest son Milan, who, however, at the downfall of his father, was in a dying state, and was never, it is said, informed of the event which had made him, at least nominally, the head of the state. At his death, his younger brother Michel succeeded. In 1842, however, he was compelled to follow the example of his father, and to quit the country. In his room, Prince Alexander Kara Georgovitch, the son of the popular hero and liberator of Servia, ascended the throne. Although this act of the nation was ratified by the Porte, and although the Government of Turkey regarded the accession of Prince Alexander with approbation, yet the succession was not confirmed to his children. It was evident that the Sultan was anxious to annul the concession which had been made in a moment of danger.

For a time the rule of Prince Alexander appears to have been popular, and the country made great advances in internal improvements under his wise direction. The suspicion at length of undue subserviency to Austria, together with a too exclusive preference alleged to be shown towards the relatives of his wife, in the distribution of places of trust and authority, soon destroyed this popularity; and in December, 1858, the Skouptchina, or general assembly of the national representatives, compelled him to abdicate, and immediately afterwards recalled Prince Milosh from his retirement at Bucharest. He again took possession of the reins of power, and, though in extreme old age, showed that he had not wholly lost the vigour of his youth. He survived his recal little more than a twelvemonth, and at his death in 1860, Prince Michel, his only surviving son, succeeded for the second time as hereditary Prince of Servia. On his accession to the supreme power he was proclaimed under the title of “Obrenovitch the Third, by the grace of God, and by the will of the Servian people, in accordance with the Imperial Hatti-cherif of 1830, and of the law of 1859, regulating the succession, hereditary Prince of Servia.”

1. Tran. note: Dubrovnik. ↩︎
2. Tran. note: Sremska Mitrovica. ↩︎
3. Tran. note: The name for the Ottoman possessions in Europe. ↩︎
4. Tran. note: Užice, Čačak and Kruševac. ↩︎
5. Tran. note: Smederevo. ↩︎
6. Tran. note: Ćuprija. ↩︎
7. Tran. note: Skobalj. ↩︎
8. Tran. note: Svilajnac. ↩︎
9. Tran. note: Veliko Orašje. ↩︎
10. Tran. note: Marcus Aurelius Probus, ruled 276-282, born in Sirmium, Pannonia Inferior, today Sremska Mitrovica. ↩︎
11. Tran. note: Požarevac, Negotin and Manasija monastery. ↩︎
12. Tran. note: Sisak to Rijeka. ↩︎
13. Tran. note: Šabac, Užice, Kragujevac. ↩︎
14. Auth. note: Confirmed by the Treaty of Bucharest, 25th May, 1812. ↩︎
15. Auth. note: By the Treaty of Akerman, 7th October, 1826. ↩︎
16. Tran. note: The bombardment of 5th/17th June, 1862. by the Ottoman crew of the Belgrade fortress, following the Čukur Fountain incident. ↩︎