Montenegro Reconciled?

Montenegro Reconciled?

Four years ago Montenegro was joined to Yugo-Slavia/- Ever since, Montenegrin Nationalists have grown weaker as they protested the union. Last week they were considered to have become so impotent that King Alexander and Queen Marie of Yugo-Slavia be--believed it safe to visit Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro.

They set forth in a carriage, smartly drawn by six white horses. At a village, the seat of King Alexander's predecessors, an old nurse gave him a blessing. Queen Marie, diplomatically attired in a Montenegrin national costume, sparkled with good humor beside her husband and evinced no sign of mistrusting the people.

As the cavalcade clattered into Cetinje, massed crowds lined the streets. Would they accept their new ruler, or would a shot, a knife, a bomb express the hatred of unwilling subjects for their lord? It was a ticklish moment. Steel-nerved, the smiling royalties awaited what was to come. Then suddenly their people knelt and poured forth the ancient greeting of Montenegrin subjects to a Montenegrin King: "Lo, thou art our heavenly sun, our wish, our happiness and our sharp sword."

The entrance became a triumph! Whenever the royal carriage halted, the people assembled and danced their native folk dance, the kole. Delighted peasants capered and cried out that the good old times had come again. That night Alexander and Marie slept tranquilly in the royal castle, uninhabited since the exile of the Petrovich dynasty. A glimmer of rejoicing and good will had lifted the lowering cloud of the Balkans for an instant.

/-After the War a plebiscite was held among Montenegrins, and as a result they were joined in 1921 to Yugo-Slavia (i.e. "South Slavia", officially "The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes"). Montenegrin Nationalists have opposed this action, declaring the plebiscite "illegal and unfairly conducted."