DAGGER-STROKE V. DIPLOMACY

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 62 (Supplement)

DAGGER-STROKE V. DIPLOMACY

In Servia the briefest revolution on record took place recently. At four in the early grey of morning a small boat containing four conspirators arrived at a certain spot on a river’s bank close to the frontier. The four landed, and one arrayed himself in a magnificent military officer's uniform. "Men, am ■ a Servian General. Follow me i ’ the frontier guards were boldly ordered. They obeyed; the party marched to the Custom House, and there the Treasury Guard, similarly imposed upon added • itself to the ranks. “Now to the Town Hall' 5 ' At the Town Hall were many firemen. Some at once rallied to the new banner; others refused. The ‘•General" made an impassioned speech, but still a number of his hearers held out. “Get ready ! Fire!" came the com- : maud, and the obstinate ones dropped, j Truly the revolution was in full swing! j “The Gendarmes I’’ Their headquarters ■ were reached, the place surrounded, and ; the men directed to fall into line with the others; A few did so; others derided ! the order. Again came the ominous , “Get ready!'" But two of the gendarmes had managed to escape from a window, and a minute later their captain, re- ; volver in hand, strode up. “'Who are : you ?” he cried, and a bullet answered him, being however, turned aside by striking liis pocket-book. Instantly he returned the fire, and the “General” fell, mortally wounded. Their leader gone, his followers laid down their arms. The rising was quelled, and the captain’s shot saved probably hundreds of : lives and much diplomatic complica- ; tion. !

“There are times.” once declared a j famous minister, “when a stroke of the , dagger is worth more than all diplomacy.” Dagger-strokfe or pistol-shot, | desperate expedients though they be. have before now, in special circuni-. stances, and when administered precisely at the critical Moment-, sometimes relieved the world of much trouble. ! Methods to be. of course, strongly deprecated, they have yet on occasion averted worse disasters. Eastern Europe to-day contains whole provinces that owe their dearly cheru.hed wild freedom to the fierce stab of some political assassin or the sure aim of the very thor- j eugh-going “patriot.” In Montenegro, : for instance, children are told of the :

valour of one daring chieftain who liid for ten days in a tree in order to shoot an official who was to pass by on his way to sign a treaty handing that district over to another country. The official fell shot through the temple; and the statesmen of the threatened land were, by the treaty never being concluded, relieved of the responsibility of having to advise their people, as a last resom’ce, and fight for independence. “If we can manage to slay their governor here, the Turks will be in fear, and the Mussulman movement be checked,” was the sentiment that prevailed in another part of the near East where, at that period, the presence of the Crescent was a sign for war. A noted brigand undertook the task. At nighttime he entered the doomed governor’s house, stole past the drowsy guards, and as his sleeping victim gave one cry, plunged a jagged dagger into his heart. Escape from the grounds being impossible, the assassin buried himself in a heap of freshly made cement being used for building a new guard-house, breathing through a straw held between his lips. When the search relaxed friends smuggled him away, it is said with his hair burned off by the lime in the composition that had concealed him. Forced thus to recognise the untamable spirit of the people, the next governor appointed was a man who they themselves were willing should rule them.

In the same restless quarter of tiie globe, a rascally but powerful chief, who had behind him all the ruffians and swashbucklers in the land, until recently held sway. Faction fights had been going on for years between the Macedonians and the Turks, and statesmen on both sides were literally at their wit’s end as to what to do, when the difficulty was simply solved for them. Some one nursing a grudge against the chief shot him, and his party, having thus lost their leader, lias at last settled down for a spell of that peace that no amount of statecraft could ever have brought about. India can tell of much history made in the same violent way. A mighty Khan arrived at a conquered town to append his signature to a measure detested by the people. Shrewd councillors, forseeing much trouble ahead, advised him not to promulgate the decree, but the Khan was bent upon having his own way. That very night a band of fearless Malirattas, disguised as

beggars, entered the place, and one of them lept upon the Khan as he lay in bed, cut off his right hand, and escaped. For some days the Khan was ill, but when he recovered, taught a terrible lesson, he consented to change liis mind. The knife had prevailed where diplomacy pleaded in vain.

Actuated by such fierce political motives, the men who perform these deeds sometimes adopt expedients of most daring ingenuity. Once, when trouble had arisen in the Deccan, and rival par- | ties, though their accredited spokes- i men, had failed to come to terms, a 1 bold tribesman resolved to himself end the matter to the advantage of his compatriots. He would slay the Pretender who had arisen. Outside the fort- wherein that Pretender lived in presumed safety, the man looked up at tiie high walls almost in despair. Then he caught a great lizard of a certain kind common there. He tied a rope to its body, and flung the creature over the parapet. On the other side the big lizard clung so closely to the wall, that, knife between teeth, the man was able to climb the rope. He stabbed the Pretender dead: thus cutting the Gordian knot that diplomacy had failed to untie, and, be it whispered, also earning the secret gratitude of ourselves. • In some hot-lieadod communities the knife may be regarded as being quite part of the political machine. In one district of a certain South American state a native was boasting that in so many years they had had so many local governors. And of the last nine, seven had met death by the dagger. The comment was made, “Two were more lucky, then!” “I don’t know,” returned the native thoughtfully. “We’re handier with the knife here, so I’d as soon be stabbed as shot.”—“Cassell’s Saturday Journal.”