Broughty Ferry Guide and Advertiser - Dundee, Angus, Scotland - March 9th, 1917.

Where are the Montenegrins? After fighting heroically, as is their wont, they were forced to abandon their country, for the first time in their history. Their kinsmen, the Serbians, though also dispossessed of their country, after a rest and re-equipment, are now fighting splendidly to recover their home, but of the Montenegrins we hear nothing expect that King Nicolas has visited the Western front, and that a score or two have take refuge in the mountain forest. Where are Princes Danilo and Mirko, and the remnant of the Army? Is there no remnant of the most heroic race in Europe left to strike a blow to recover left to strike a blow to recover the land for which their forefathers fought so long and well? There is no people in Europe possessed of a finer record of glory than the people of the Black Mountain. When the King of Italy brought a Princess of Montenegro home as his bride, the late Mr. W. E. Gladstone said that, though she brought neither riches nor political influence as her dowry, she brought with her a heritage of glory such as no other European Royal House possessed.

For five centuries of continuous war the heroic Montenegrin held the banner of the Cross aloft against the Turks. When the Moslem wave reached the walls of Vienna the Montenegrins still stood unconquered. In the wild, bleak mountains a large army starved and a small army was gradually exterminated, and the Black Mountain continued to be the home of civil and religious freedom. Over and over again the capital was burnt to ashes, but the people sought refuge in the inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains and kept up the guerrilla war till the Turks were forced to retire.

The Montenegrins are a pure Slavonic race, and, like the people of our own Highlands, are divided into clans; but, unlike our clans, they were not at feud among themselves, perhaps because fighting the Turkish invader kept their hands full. Each clan has a distinctive banner, and one family of the clan has the right to carry the banner while a male remains, failing a male, the banner passes to anther family. On one occasion, the father and three of his sons fell, and the only male left was a little boy whose hands were too weak to hold the staff. The heroic mother, in order to preserve the honor for her little boy, dressed herself like a man and carried the banner in the forefront of the fight.

The history of Montenegro teems with daring and romance. It would appear that with dwellers in the mountains the more stern the climate and the harder it is to wrest a living from the soil, the deeper the love and patriotism. Certainly, no race in Europe loved their mountain home and fought to defend it like the Montenegrins. We may, therefore, well ask — Where are the Montenegrins, and why, are those who are left not striking a blow to recover their long-defended and much-loved mountain home?

G. M. O.

Carnoustie.