Prelude
HISTORY is the supreme dramatist. And while she flings across a world-wide stage her multitudes of blind actors without a cue, she may he working somewhere, obscurely, upon a simple theme for the apparent chaos, even as the playwright clears the action for a greater scene by studying the puppets on a tabletop. The Balkan mountains were the tabletop of History. There began, in 1914, a mighty play. The plots and personages are truly Shakespearean, disclosing in strange combination the elements of Lear, Othello and Macbeth. Montenegro is Cordelia, the disinherited daughter. But in place of the hateful two, she has to face a careless, cold or spiteful sisterhood of nations—her own allies, a little more than kin and less than kind.
THE curtain rises! Moving through deep shadows, a woman washing her hands. Is it one of the sisters? No, Lady Macbeth! and Lady Macbeth is Serbia! She walks by the shores of the Adriatic and seeks to cleanse the stain of blood from her guilty fingers. But they will not come clean, though she lave them in the seven seas.
The measure of evil is not yet full. Send for
I ago, the devil that loves a lie for its own sake.
Let him distil the drops of jealousy, fear, distrust
and hatred. And as the cup that should be a
loving cup goes round the board, watch the poison
work its malign effects. The face of Pity hardens
to a sneer. Justice turns aside to listen to the
whispers of Policy.
BUT this is no mimic scene from which the spectators may go home to quiet sleep and forgetfulness. We are the actors as well as the audience. We are the accomplices of the crimes committed in our presence. It is against the peace of all men that the murderer lifts his hand. No victim dies alone. Macbeth hath murdered sleep.
If we let Serbia and her accomplices finally kill the stricken sovereignty of Montenegro we strengthen every hand that strikes at the security of the world. If we let the Balkan lie pass for truth, we are undermining the foundations of our own freedom.
It cannot he. It must not he. The end is not yet. There is still breath in a dying nation and we can save her.