The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 / Third Edition

good will of the Great Powers toward herself or to their rising jealousy of Bulgaria she was not stripped of her e

ut through the Dardanelles and along the Aegean littoral to the mouth of the Maritza River. To that extent the Great Powers may be said to have re-established the Turks once more in Europe from which they had been pract

the Allies should divide amon

ITIONS OF

refused to withdraw her troops from Central Macedonia, which the treaty had marked for reversion to Bulgaria. In consequence the relations between the governments and peoples of Servia and Bulgaria were dangerously strained. The Bulgarians denounced the Servians

ivers-and especially the quadrilateral marked by Kavala and Orphani on the coast and Seres and Drama on the line of railway from Saloniki to Adrianople. They had one advantage over the Bulgarians: their troops could be employed to secure extensions of territory for the Hellenic kingdom at a time when Bulgaria still needed the bulk of her forces to fight the Turks at Chataldja and Adrianople. Hence the Greeks occupied to

nd the Bulgarian army. The secular mutual enmities and animosities of the Greeks and Bulgarians, which self-interest had suppressed long enough to enable the Balkan Allies to make European Turkey their own, burst forth with redoubled violence under the stimulus of the imperious dema

CAUSE OF

potent was the dislocation of the plans of the Allies by the creation of an independent Albania. This new kingdo

littoral was under the dominion of Austria-Hungary and Italy, for though Montenegro and European Turkey were their maritime neighbors neither of them had any naval strength. Naturally these two dominant powers desired that after the close of the Balkan war they should not be in a worse position in the Adriatic than heretofore. But if Servia were allowed to expand westward to the Adriatic, their supremacy might in the future be challenged. For Servia might enter into special relations with her great sister Slav state, Russia, or a confederation might be formed embracing all the Balkan states between the Black Sea and the Adriatic: and, in either event, Austria-Hungary and Italy would no longer enjoy the unchallenged supremacy on the Adriatic coasts which

ERVIA TOWAR

ensure Servia an outlet to the sea. And the merchants of Saloniki-mostly the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century-were shrewd enough to recognize the advantage to their city of securing the commerce of Servia, especially as they were destined to lose, in consequence of hostile tariffs certain to be established by the conquerors, a considerable portion of the trade which had formerly flowed to them without let or hindrance from a large section of European Turkey. The government of Greece was equally favorably disposed to this programme; for, in the first place, it was to its interest to cultivate friendly relations with Servia, in view of possible embroilme

RESTR

hrida on the borders of Albania and running northeastward across the Vardar River a few miles above Veles and thence, following the same general direction, through Ovcepolje and Egri Palanka to Golema Vreh on the frontier of Bulgaria-a terminus some twenty miles southeast of the meeting point of Servia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria. During the war with Turkey the Servian armies had paid no attentio

es with the Ottoman Empire was to occupy all European Turkey south of Servia between the prolongation of that boundary line and the new Kingdom of Albania till they met the Hellenic army advancing northward under Crown Prince Constan

PLE OF

overnments. Servia, withdrawn behind the Ochrida-Golema Vreh line in accordance with the terms of the treaty, would at any rate have nothing to say about the matter. And, although the Bulgarian government never communicated, officially or unofficially, its own views to Greece or Servia, I believe we should not make much mistake in asserting that a line drawn from Ochrida to Saloni

t they would not tolerate the driving of a Bulgarian wedge between New Servia and New Greece. Bulgaria, on the other hand, was inexorable in her demands on Servia for the fulfilment of the terms of the Treaty of Partition. At the same time she worried the Greek government about the future of Saloniki, and that at a time when the Greek people were criticizing Mr. Venizelos for having allowed the Bulgarians to occupy regions in Macedonia an

IM OF B

iki and its hinterland) had been occupied by the military forces of Bulgaria. Why then was Bulgaria so insistent on getting beyond

a very diminutive principality. But the Bulgarians, from the palace down to the meanest hut, have always been animated by that racial and national idea. The annexation of Eastern Roumelia in 1885 was a great step in the direction of its realization. And it was to carry that programme to completion that Bulgaria made war against Turkey in 1912. Her primary object was the liberation of the Bulgarians in Macedonia and their incorporation in a Great Bulgaria. And the Treaty of Partition with Servia seemed, in the event of victory over Turkey, to afford

ds. Its inhabitants, they asseverated, were their brethren

PAGANDA IN

vians in Turkey have no independent church but recognize the patriarchate they are often, as opposed to Bulgarians, called Greeks. Race, being thus merged in religion-in something that rests on the human will and not on physical characteristics fixed by nature-can in that part of the world be changed as easily as religion. A Macedonian may be a Greek to-day, a Bulgarian to-morrow, and a Servian next day. We h

iritual and educational jurisdiction over the members of the Orthodox Church in Macedonia. The opposition of the Bulgarians led, as we have already seen, to the establishment in 1870 of the exarchate, that is, of an independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church with the exarch at its head. The Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia demanded the appointment of bishops to conduct churches and schools under the authority of the exarchate. In 1891 the Porte conceded Bul

f the people of Servia had been in the direction of Bosnia and Herzegovina; but after these provinces were assigned to Austria by the Treaty of Berlin, a marked change of attitude occurred in the Servian government and nation. They now claimed as Servian the Slavonic population of Macedonia which hitherto Bulgaria had cultivated as her own. The course of politics in Bulgaria, notab

opoly in Macedonia. Greek efforts too were for a time almost paralyzed in consequence of the disastrous issue of the Greco-Turkish war in

ACTS AND

in the domain soon to drop from the paralyzed hand of the Turk. The bishops may have been good shepherds of their flocks, but the primary qualification for the office was, I imagine, the gift of aggressive political leadership. The Turkish government now favored one nationality and now another as the interests of the moment seemed to suggest. With an impish delight in playing off Slav against Greek and Servian against Bulgarian, its action on applications for bishop

hools, in which bishops and churches and schools are created and maintained by a propaganda conducted by competing external powers, and in which the results of the propagand

he coast region between the Struma and the Mesta is also predominantly Greek. Eastern Macedonia to the north of the line of Seres and Drama and south of the Kingdom of Bulgaria is generally Bulgarian. On the n

ERVATIONS AN

lf in Uskub. Through the courtesy of the Servian authorities I was permitted to ride on the first military train which left the city. Descending at Veles I drove across Central Macedonia by way of Prilip to Monastir, spending the first night, for lack of a bet

s Greek and as a rule the colony is prosperous. This is especially true in Monastir, which is a stronghold of Greek influence. But while half the population of Monastir is Mohammedan the so-called Bulgarians form the majority of the Christian population, though both Servians and Rou

ow eyes, and straight black hair-which characterize the subjects of King Ferdinand can be seen-I myself have seen them-as far west as Ochrida, they may also be found all over Northern Servia as far as Belgrade though the Servian physical type is entirely different. There is no fixed connection between the anthropological unit and the linguistic or political unit. Furthermore, while there are well-marked groups who call themselves Serbs or Bulgarians there is a larger population not so clearly di

sion is that neither

ht to claim Central M

hows how weak ea

intransigent assertion

led to the war b

pending crisis with the prime ministers of Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria. It would of course be improper to quote them; nay more, I feel myself under special obligation sacredly to respect the confidence they reposed in me. But the frank disclosures they made in these conversations gave me a point of view for the comprehension of the situation and the estimate of facts which I have found simply

ITUDE O

eir forces from Central Macedonia and allow Bulgaria to establish herself between New Servia and New Greece, they would block their own way to Saloniki, which was the only prospect now left of a Servian outlet to the sea. Nor was this the whole story by any means. The army, which comprised all able-bodied Servians, was in possession of Central Macedonia; and the military leaders, with the usual professional bias in favor of imperialism, dictated their expansionist views to the government at Belgrade. If Bulgaria would not voluntarily grant compensation for the loss of Albania, the Servian people were ready to take it by force. They had als

15,200 square miles. Servia retains 36,000 square miles. Territories occupied by Bulgaria to Enos-Midia, 51,200 square miles. The Bulgarians deman

ION OF TREATY

ils of war. But with Albania denied to Servia and Thrace occupied by Bulgaria, conditions had wholly changed. The Servian government declared that the changed conditions had abrogated the Treaty of Partition and that it was for the two governments now to adjust themselves to the logic of events! On May 28 Mr. Pashitch, the Servian prime minister, formally demanded a revision of the treaty. A personal interview with

But a whole nation in arms, flushed with the sense of victory, is always dangerous to the authority of civil government. If Mr. Gueshoff was ready to arrange some accommodation with Mr. Pashitch, the military party in Bulgaria was all the more insistent in its demands on Servia for the evacuation of Central Macedonia. Even in Servia Mr. Pashitch had great difficulty in repressing the jingo ardor of the army, whose bellicose spirit was believed to find expression in the attitude of the Crown Prince.

OPPOSITION

lav argument provoked much criticism in Austro-Hungarian circles which resented bitterly the assumption of Slav hegemony in Balkan affairs. However, on June 12 Bulgaria and Servia accepted Russian arbitration. But the terms were not agreed upon. While Mr. Venizelos and Mr.

nsive revision of it. Certainly Dr. Daneff voiced the views and sentiments of the Bulgarian army and nation. I was in Sofia the week before the outbreak of the war between the Allies. And the two points on which everybody insisted were, first, that Servia must be compelled to observe the Treaty of Partition, and, secondly, that Central Macedonia must be annexed to Bulgaria. For these things all Bulgarians were ready to fight. And flushed with their great victories over the main army of Turkey they believed it would b

reaty was negotiated. But was that a good reason, Bulgaria might have asked, why she should be excluded from Central Macedonia which the treaty guaranteed to her? Was that a good reason why she should not emancipate her Macedon

UNCOMPROM

f the war. In any event it was for the four Allies together to effect a distribution of the territory ceded to them by Turkey. For that purpose a conference was an essential organ. How otherwise could the four nations reach any agreement? Yet the Bulgarians-army, government, and nation-were obsessed by the fixed idea that Bulgaria enjoyed not only a primacy in this matter but a sort of sovereign monopoly by virtue of which it was her right and privilege to determine how much of the common spoils she should assi

significant facts of a critical situation. All circumstances conspired to prescribe peace as the manifest policy for Bulgaria, yet nearly every step taken by the government was provocative of war. The Bulgarian army had covered itself with glory in the victorious campaign against the Moslem. A large part of European Turkey was already in Bulgarian hands. To imperil that glory and those possessions by the risk of a new war, when the country was exha

ATORY SPIRI

of conciliation toward Bulgaria. He made concessions, not only in Thrace but in Eastern Macedonia, for which he was bitterly criticized on the ground of sacrificing vital Greek interests to Bulgaria. He recognized, as his critics refused to do, that the Balkan question could not be settled on ethnological principles alone; one had to take account also of geographical necessities. He saw that the Greeks in Thrace must be handed over to Bulgaria. He demanded only the Macedonian territory which the Greek forces had actually occupied, including Saloniki with an adequate hinterland. As the attitude of Bulgaria became more uncompromising, as she pushed her army of occupation further westward, Mr. Venizelos was even ready to make the River Struma the eastern boundary of New Greece, and to abandon to Bulgaria the Aegean Httoral between the Struma and the Mesta Rivers including Greek c

BEGINS HO

llowing evening to attack the Servians "most vigorously along the whole front." On the following afternoon, the 29th, General Savoff issued another order to the army commanders giving further instructions for attacks on the Servians and Greeks, including an attack on Saloniki, stating that these attacks were taking place "without any official declaration of war," and that they were undertaken in order to accustom the Bulgarian army to regard their former allies as enemies, to hasten the activities of the Russian government, to compel the former allies to be more conciliatory, and

oumania seized Silistria at midnight, July 10. Meanwhile the Servian and Greek forces were fighting the Bulgarians hard at Kilkis, Doiran, and other points between the Vardar and the Struma. And, as if Bulgaria had not enemies enough on her back already, the Turkish Army on July 12 left the Chataldja fortifications,

dds. Dr. Daneff resigned on July 15. And the ne

S OF

ly all the Macedonian lands she had already occupied but extended her domain on the Aegean littoral as far east as the mouth of the Mesta and away into the interior as far above Seres and Drama as they are from the sea,-thus establishing the northern frontier of New Greece from Lake Presba (near the eastern boundary of Albania) on a northward-ascending line pas

minus on the Aegean. But the two termini were connected by a curved line which after following the Maritza River to a point between Sufli and Dimotika then swung in a semicircle well beyond Adrianople to Bulgaria and the Black S

TUDE OF

e northeastern corner of Bulgaria, from Turtukai on the Danube to Baltchik on the Black Sea. And this territory, even some miles beyond that lin

rian delegate. But the Roumanian government persisted in pressing the claim, and the Powers finally decided to mediate, with the result that the city of Silistria and the immediately adjoining territory were assigned to Roumania. Neither state was

ong the Allies, if she had been content with annexing the portion of European Turkey which she held under military occupation, New Bulgaria would have contained a greater area and a larger population than Roumania. The Roumanians claim, accordingly, that the course they pursued was dictated by a legitimate and vital national inte

mers. They are found especially in the mountains and valleys between Thessaly and Albania. They are generally favorable to the Greek cause. Most of them speak Greek as well as Roumanian; and they are all devoted members of the Greek Orthodox

ania asked, should she be excluded from participation in the arrangement? She did not, it is true, join the Allies in fighting the common Moslem oppressor. But she maintained a benevolent neutrality. And since Macedonia is not conterminous with Roumania, she was not seeking to annex any portion

thless self-interest. It was Bulgaria who appealed to arms and she now had to pay the penalty. Her losses enriched all her neighbors. What Lord Baco

D REWARD OF

9, I saw encamped across the street from my hotel in Uskub 15,000 of these Montenegrin soldiers who had arrived only a day or two before by train from Mitrowitza, into which they had marched across Novi Bazar. Tall, lithe, daring, with countenances bespeaking clean lives, they looked as fine a body of men as on

Nicholas, a genuinely Homeric Father of his People. But forces of an economic, social, and political character are already at work tending to draw it into closer union with Servia, and the Balkan wars have given a great impetus to these forces. A united Serb state, with an Adriatic littoral which would include the harbors o

BLEM OF

rt. On the north while Scutari was retained for Albania through the insistence of Austria-Hungary, Russian influence was strong enough to secure the Albanian centres of Ipek and Djakova and Prisrend, as well as Dibra on the east, for the allied Serb states. This was a sort of compensation to Servia for her loss of an Adriatic outlet at a time

toward Lake Presba, so that the cities of Tepeleni and Koritza were included in the Greek area. But Italy protested that the Greek occupation of territory on both sides of the Straits of Corfu would menace the control of the Adriatic and insisted that the boundary between Al

he inhabitants of the north, who are called Ghegs, are divided into numerous tribes whose principal occupation is fighting with one another under a system of perpetual blood-feuds and inextinguishable vendettas. There are no tribes in the south, but the people, who are known as Tosks, live under territorial magnates called beys, who are practically the absolute rulers of their districts. The country as a whole is a strange farrago of survivals of primitive conditions. And it is not only without art and literature, but without manufactures or trade or even agricult

ns, who for the rest, are not in a condition to administer or maintain it. The state was establis

N ISLANDS

by the Turkish officers and troops) has given great dissatisfaction in Turkey, where it is declared it would be better to have a war with Greece than cede certain islands especially Chios and Mitylene. The question of the disposition of the islands had, however, been committed by Turkey to the Great Powers in the Treaty of London. And Turkish unofficial condemnation of the action of the Powers now creates a dangerous situation. Mr. Venizelos declared not long ago, with the en

CONST

he loyal support of his people. When before has a Prince taken supreme command of a nation's army and in the few months pre

: ma

Peninsula after th

OF TH

for Greece 68,000, for Servia 71,000, for Bulgaria 156,000, and for Turkey about the same as for Bulgaria. The losses in treasure were as colossal as in blood. Only rough computations are possible. But the direct military expenditures ar

no longer a European Power. For the first time in more than five centuries, therefore, conditions of stable equilibrium are now possible for the Christian nations of the

RE OF TH

ntinue; and if they continue, peace will be assured in spite of Bulgaria's cry for revenge and readjustment. The danger lies in the influence of the Great Powers with their varying attractions and repulsions. France, Germany, and Great Britain, disconnected with the Balkans and remote from them, are not likely to exert much direct individual influence. But their connections with the Triple Allian

oumanian friendship, so that its transference to Russia is no longer inconceivable or even improbable. Greece desires to be independent of both groups of the European system, but the action of Italy in regard to Northern Epirus and in regard to Rhodes and the Dodecanese has produced a feeling of irritation and resentment among the Greeks which nothing is likely to allay or ev

the Balkan states to recover from the terrib

ponsible. This, as I have already explained, is Albania. An artificial creation with unnatural boundaries, it is a grave question whether this so-called state can either manage its own affairs or live in peace with its Serb and Greek neighbors. At this moment the Greeks of Epirus (whom the Great Powers have transferred to Albania) are resisting to the death incorporation in a state which outrages their deepest and holiest sentiments of religion, race, nationality, and humane civilization. On the other hand the Hoti

t impressive statement of his hopes and aspirations for an independent Albania and his faith and confidence in its future, in which he claimed to voice the sentiments of the Albanian people. But, as I have already explained, I think it doubtful whether under the most favorable external circumstances the Albanians are at present qualified to establish and maintain an independent state. And their destiny is so inextricably entangled with the amb