About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils between them.  Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the same time (1788) in the district of [)S]umadija, in Serbia, by a number of Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Ko[)c]a, after whom the whole war is called Ko[)c]ina Krajina (=Ko[)c]a’s country), another, yet the Austrians were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was concluded between Austria and Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which Turkey retained the whole of Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube remained the frontier between the two countries.  Meanwhile the Serbs of Montenegro had joined in the fray and had fared better, inflicting some unpleasant defeats on the Turks under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated in two battles in 1796 (the Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari.  With this triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro, the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was de facto established.

17

The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and Milo[)s] Obrenovi[’c] (1815-30):  1796-1830

The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment as an independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous accomplishment than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries.  One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position was cut off from outside help.  It was easy for the western powers to help Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to help Rumania and, later, Bulgaria directly with its army, because communication between them was easy.  But Serbia on the one hand was separated from the sea, first by Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and then by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and the sandjak (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population.  The energies of Montenegro, also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size permitted.  Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to bear upon the Turks from that quarter.  Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to be traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards through Turkish territory.  The only country which could have helped Serbia was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do so, the Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to retard the Serbian cause.  As a result of all this Serbia, in her long struggle against the Turks, had to rely principally on its own resources, though Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent country from disaster.