During the retreat the attitude of the Montenegrin dynasty remained highly equivocal, and the key position of Mount Lov seen was surrendered to the Austrians almost without a struggle. Parlia ment voted unanimously in favour of holding out to the end with Serbia, but the king negotiated on his own initiative without authorization from his Government, and on Jan. 1916 addressed a telegram of submission to Francis Joseph. Failing to obtain the terms which he had hoped, he and his family, with the premier fled to Italy. During the next two years his second son, Prince Mirko, intrigued in Vienna and was connected with various Austrophil projects for a vassal Yugoslav state under the Petrovi6 dynasty; he died in 1918 in an Austrian sanatorium. Meanwhile, King Nicholas resided in France and tried to silence criticism from the Left by making Radovie his premier. But when the latter advocated the formal proclamation of union and a simultaneous abdication of Nicholas and Peter in favour of the Prince Regent Alexander, Nicholas threw himself definitely into the arms of the anti-unionists, and by the end of the war found his court reduced to a tiny clique of personal dependents and adventurers.
the death of Nicholas the royal title fell into abeyance, as Crown Prince Danilo did not wish to assume it and his nephew Michael was a minor.
The long strain of war increased the already chronic misery tenfold, and acute discontent was aroused by the bad administra tion, favouritism and centralist tendencies of Belgrade. There were numerous cases of brigandage and party vengeance which were conveniently misrepresented abroad as a movement for in dependence. In 1924, however, a marked improvement began. In the summer of 1925 King Alexander paid his first official visit to Montenegro, and the remains of his great-great-grand-uncle the Vladika Peter (the greatest of Serbian poets) were transferred to a mausoleum built at the king's expense on the summit of Loveen by the Dalmatian sculptor MegtroviC. (See YUGOSLAVIA.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-See Coquelle, Histoire du Montenegro (Paris, 1895) ; R. Wyon and G. France, The Black of the Black Mountain 0910 ; T. Boiovk and Jovan Djonovk, Grim Gora i Napredni Pokret (Montenegro and the Progressive Movement) (Belgrade, 0910 ; T. Boiovk and Jovan Djonovk, Crna Gora i Napredni Il Montenegro nella guerra europea (1917) ; L. Bresse, Le Montenegro Inconnu (Paris, 1920) ; Le Bulletin Montenegrin (Paris, 1916-18) ; N. Saulk, Crna Gora (Belgrade, 1924) ; articles by Miugkovk, Plamenac and other leading Montenegrins in Nova Evropa of Zagreb.