4-5" Ofnttiell HniuBtaitg Utbrarg 3tl;aca, Keai Hark BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Si - "SB DATE DUE JUN -2 2005 JAN 2 2 2007 DR 45.8631920'"""" """"^ Balkans 3 1924 028 563 561 PI Cornell University J Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028563561 THE BALKANS A LABORATORY OF HISTORY BY WILLIAM M. SLOANE Membnofthe American Academy of Arts and Letters; Seth Low Professor of Hiitory in Columbia University; Author The French War and the Rtvolution; Napoleon Bonaparte; A History; French Revolution and Religious Rcfonn, etc, REVISED AND ENLARGED THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI ■rrsTT Copyright, 1914, 1920, by WILLIAM M. SLOANE Printed March, 1914. Reprinted June, 1914; October, 1914 Reviled end Reprinted May, igao CONTENTS Chapter I TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS What is broadly designated as the Balkan peninsula. A racial mu- seum, 3. Fall of the Byzantine empire, 4. Turkish advance checked, 5. Extent of Turldsh invasion and rule. Patriciate stripped of dignity and power, 6. Alternatives offered by victorious Islam, 7. Ottoman, founder of power and fame of his Une, 8. A season of chaos, p. Outburst of violence and riot, 10. Apogee and decay of Turkish power. Characteristics of the Turlash soldiery, n. The organization of the Janissaries, 12. Turkish administration, 13. Balkan States before 1453, 14. The rise and reign of intrigue, 15. Efforts at unity in Christendom neutralized by petty jealousies, 16. The Turk in European politics. All Western nations compelled to make treaties with the Porte, 17. Napoleon's seizure of Egypt, 18. Chapter II TURKISH RULE UNDER ABDUL HAMID Misconceptions concerning Turkey, 23. Comparative value of travel studies, 24. Some Turkish sketches — a. Personal, 25; 6. Official, 28. Claim of Abdul Hamid to be the successor of Mohammed, 29. The Turk as a financier, 30. A customs incident, 31. The subtle Oriental mind, 32. Misconceptions as to current terms. The subject popu- lations of Turkey, 33. Definite statement needed. The struggle for nationality, 34. Agitation produces restUts of a constructive kind, 35. Mysteries of the situation, 36. The Greek rayahs, 37. A general conviction relative to Greece, 38. Modem Greek, 39. Albania. Slavic uprising, 40. Macedonia, 41. Turkey in Mace- donia, 42. Lines of division in Macedonia, 43. The game of Euro- pean politics, 44. Abdul Hamid, 45. Aversion of the Shiite Persians, 46. Contradictions noted in regard to true Turkish rule, 48. Balkan conflagration, 49. Primitive conceptions of finance and adminis- tration in the Balkan States, 51. Chapter III THE BALKAN PEOPLES (i) Historical survey. The Thracians, SS- The Scythians. The Illyrians, 56. Early immigration. The era of chieftains, 57. Philip II, $8. Coming of the Romans. Interweaving of Greek and Roman influence, S9- Developments in Greece after the battle of Actium. Political instincts of the Greeks, 60. Rome in North Europe, 61. The Thracians after Trajan's death, 63. Differentiation of the Goths iv CONTENTS on the north shore of the Euxine. The Visigoth migration, 64. The Byzantine emperor Anastasius. The Avar invasion, 65. The Slavs. The Bulgars, 66. Czar Stephen Dushan, 67. The Turks. (2) Racial characteristics: Turk, 68; Slav, Servian, 69; Montenegrin, Bul- garian, 70; WaUach, 73; Albanian, 75; Gypsy and Jew, 79. Chapter IV I. THE BALKAN NATIONS Purpose of chapter. Environment and civilization, 83. The play of politics, 84. Pretext for overthrow of a rude and corrupt despotism, 85. Young Turkey at the helm, 86. The so-called new Turkey. The call of the clan, or racial antagonism, 87. Optimistic Europe, 88. Nicholas of Montenegro. Physical facts and figures, 89. Latest determinations of state-science, 90. Montenegrin aim and aspira- tion. Guerilla warfare of Stephen, 91. Intimacy existing between Danilo Petrowich and Czar Peter the Great, 92. Thirty years of peace, 95. The Montenegrin country and people, 97. Bitter pov- erty not keenly felt by people of Montenegro, 98. Grecian aims and influences, 99. Ten successive peoples settling portions of Hellas, 100. Greeks in Asia who are fanatical Moslems, loi. Sub- ordination of the Servian Church. 102. The climax of Phanariote rule, 103. Greek uprisings, 104. The blood of the martyrs the seed of the church, 105. Grecian independence, 106. Grecian consolidation, 108. Prince Alfred the choice of the people, 109. Social life in the Balkans, no. Features of the public morals. III. Pros- Serity within the borders of Greece, 112. Influence of Germany I Greece, 113. Motto of King George, 114. Chapter V II. THE BALKAN NATIONS The Russian idea, 117. Disintegration and decay of Turkey during the Napoleonic epoch, 118. Birth of Rumania, 119. Cousa acknowl- edged as Alexander John I, Sovereign Prince of Rtunania, 120. Nattire proves an enemy to his plan of reform, 120. Rumanian origins, 133. Rumania in war, 123. Social and economic organization of Ru- mania, 125. Bulgarian beginnings, 136, Religious secession, 137. Accession and reign of Alexander, 128. Accession and reign of Ferdinand, 130. Court and people, 131. Sophia, 132. The rise of Servia, 133. Servian vicissitudes, 135. Reign of Milosh, 136. Revolt led by him, 137. Militant Michael and Alexander. Second reigns of Milosh and Michael, 138. The "Great Servia" idea, 139. Milan IV, 140. Alexander I, 141. King Peter. General character- istics of Servia, 142. Religion as yet largely superstition, 143. The passion for control a species of imperial insanity, 144. Chapter VI THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Turkish apathy and corruption, 147. Feebleness and futility of the Powers, 148. Balkan conditions: (i) Servia; (3) Montenegro, 149; (3) Bulgaria; (4) Greece, 150. Population and finance. Plight of CONTENTS the Powers, 151. Germany and Austria-Hungary, 152. The Yoiuig Turk Party, 153. Bulgaria technically a vassal state, 154. Sparks before the fire, 155. Crete votes to unite with Greece, 156. Fanning the flame, 157. Young Turks possessed of the courage of their con- victions, 158. Italy adds fuel, 159. What Italy had feared, 160. The situation at Constantinople, 161. The Balkans ablaze, 162. Progress of the war, 163. The sacrifices of Greece, 164. Success of the Allies, 165. Efforts for peace, 166. Progress of negotiations, 167. Rumania's valuation of herself, 168. Proposition submitted by London ambassadors, 169. Second stage of the war, 170. Indica- tions of exhaustion, 171. Partial and temporary peace, 172. Discord among the Allies, 173. The armistice of Bulair, 174. The question of apportioning surrendered territories, 175. Expenditures of Ger- many and Russia for military equipment, 176. The panic on the Berlin Exchange, 177. The final terms of settlement, 178. The treaty of Constantinople. The new Albania, 179. Chapter VII THE FORMATION OF THE BALKAN ALLIANCE The principle of nationality, 183. Futile efforts toward alliance, 184. The visit of Tricoupis to Belgrade, i8s. Twenty years of diplomacy, 186. Balkan jealousy and strife. Turkey prepares the way, 188. The Young Turk movement military in character, 189. The political phe- nomenon of 1910. Dismay of the Young Turks, 190. A common suffer- ing unites the Balkans, 192. Arrangement of the Young Turks with Rumania, 193. Rumanian policy, 194. Greece and Bulgaria in concert, 19s. Suggestions of full alliance, ig6. Greco-Bulgarian treaty, 197. Bulgaria-Servian treaty, 198. Russian influence, 199. Principal in- dustry of Servia, 200. Content of Serbo-Bulgarian treaty, 201. The military conventions. Montenegro joins, 202. Formation of the Balkan alUance, 204. Chapter VIII NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS IN THE SECOND WAR Racial strength and influence, 207. The folly of Pan-Slavism illus- trated, 208. Macedonian characteristics, 210. The completed parti- tion of Turkey in Europe, 211. The plight of Albania and Macedonia, 212. Lawlessness in Macedonia, 214. Conditions in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, 215. Naivetd of the Balkan claim of "Christian," 216. Atrocities of the war, 217. Facts proclaimed to the world, 218. Intellectual and moral corruption, 219. Facsimile letters of Greek soldiers published at Sophia, 221. Indications of the national temper. The secret treaty called a conspiracy, 224. A disheartening conclusion, 225. Sir Edward Grey's declaration before Parliament, 226. The right to be judged justly, 227. The Powers and the treaty of peace, 228. Questions evaded by the statesmen assembled at London. Bulgaria's mistake, 229. Auton- omy for Macedonia, 230. Why Greece opposed autonomy for all Macedonia, 231. . Enter Rumania, 232. The duty of a statesman, 333. Servia and Greece, 234. Difficulty of being just to Greece, 235. file Greek komitadjis, 237. Summary, 238. vi CONTENTS Chapter IX THE SIX POWERS AND THE BALKAN WARS Attitude and temper of the Powers, 241. Agreements, 242. Creating a nation, 243. The jEgean Islands, 245. Dividing the spoil, or treaties of London and Bucharest, 346. "Nationality" of the treaty not that of Balkan peoples, 248. The term "nationality" in the Balkan states, 349. Remarkable confusions in the Beilkans, 350- The author's experiences as a traveler, 25a. Public opinion as to the Balkan situation. Russia, 253. Austria-Hungary, 354. Servia, 356. Italy, Germany, 258. France, 359- Great Britain, 260. As to Mohammedan powers in general, 261. Will wild Europe hear and heed? 262. Looking into the future, 263. Islam in the Balkans. 264. Islam in Asia, 367. The spirit of absolute equality i>ermeating Mohammedanism, 369. Chapter X HOPES AND FEARS The peace propaganda, 273. Encouraging facts. Common origins in the Balkans, 274. Elements of disunion, 375. Cause of quarrels in the Balkan States, 276. Possible advance in nationality, 377. An armed peace, 378. Delicate relations of the Powers, 279. Efforts to promote a better and milder state of feeling between Great Britain and Germany, 280. Sources of disturbance revealed, 381. An act of tremendous significance, 383. "United States of Europe," 284. Some tentative conclusions, 285. The burdens to be borne by Servia, 287. The task of Bulgaria severe, 288. A period of re- cuperation required by Greece, 290. The conclusion of the whole matter, 293. Chapter XI DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE GREAT WAR Former standards discredited, 395. The ideal behind the facts, 396. The state as a corporation, 396. False patriotism, 397. Politics and sentiment, 398. British policy in the Near East, 399. Land and religion the bases of misrule, 300. "Amelioration" a hoUow plea, 301. Britain abandons protectorate of Turkey, 302. Russian influence diseistrous, 303. HohenzoUem and Hapsburg, 303, 304. Germany and the Orient, 304. Nature of German influence, 305. Turkey and her new protector, 306. Chapter XII THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST Dissensions in Islam, 309. German aspirations checked, 310. Dreams of the Young Turks, 311. Bane of political alliances, 312. Russian CONTENTS vii conspiracies and hopes, 313. Bulgarian greed, 314. Antipodal in- terests in Greece, 313- Diplomatic conflict over Bulgaria, 316. Failure of Western diplomacy, 317. The control of the Adriatic, 318. Its geography. 319- Chapter XIII ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS AND IDEALS The Jugo-Slav question, 323. Italian hostility, 324. The Jugo-Slavs and self-government, 325. Germany secures Bulgarian aid, 326. The land route and Macedonia, 327. The elimination of Servia, 327. Turkey holds the portal of Asia, 328. Tragic fate of Servia, 329. Unstable equilibrium in Greek poUtics, 330. The fiasco of royalty in Albania, 331. Relapse into anarchy, 332. Chapter XIV THE PROBLEMS OF ITALIAN STATESMEN Cross purposes of Allied navies, 333. German control of the Straits, 336. Failure of the Dardanelles Expedition, 337. Tampering with a treaty, 337, 338. Disastrous kingship in Bulgaria, 338, 339. The specter of Bulgarian empire, 340. German diplomacy checked by Salonica Expedition, 341. Italy's dilemma, 342. Italy, Servia, Al- bania, 343. The Montenegrin protectorate, 344. Public opinion in Italy clarified, 344, 345. Final reciprocity between Italy and France, 346. Incomplete union of Italy with Western Powers, 346. Chapter XV THE BALKAN PROBLEM OF TO-DAY Chastening of the Balkan States, 349. Their discontent heightened, 350. Intervention from the West, 350. The new map, 351. An- tagonism of Greece and Italy, 352. Possible division of leadership between Germany and Italy, 353. Restraints on anarchy, 354. Continuity of strife, 355. Probability of long peace, 355, 356. Ex- pansion of the Balkan problem, 356. Military successes and reverses, 3S7. Italy joins the Entente, 358. Rumania crushed, 359. German outrages and American responsibilities, 359, 360. Chapter XVI THE GREAT WAR AND THE BALKAN PROBLEM Russia crushed, Italy humiliated, 363. Disruption of Russia and Ru- mania, 364. German drives, naval and military, 364, 365. Crisis of the struggle, 365. Decisive victories, 366. Italy turns and over- whelms her enemy, 366. Bulgaria and Turkey sue for peace; then Germany, 367. The terrible problems of peace, 367, 368. Demorali- zation of Eastern Europe, 368. Peace negotiations transform leaders, 369. viii CONTENTS Chapter XVII TREATY OF VERSAILLES Secrecy of the negotiations, 373. Obstacles and disappointments, 374. Europe not enthusiastic, 375. Conspicuous merits of the treaty, 376. DifBculties not insuperable, ^76, 377. Considerate treatment of minorities, 378. Criminal mmorities and justice, 379. Minority tyranny, 379. The pillars of civilization, 380. Appendix 381 Index 401 Maps The Balkan States, showing boundaries existing before the war Facing page 3 The Balkan States, showing boundaries agreed upon by Bulgaria and Servia in secret treaty Facing page 19S The Balkan States, showing boundaries adopted Pacing page 247 PREFACE Between the years 1903 and 1910 the author made three fairly extended journeys in lands which had once been a part of the Turkish empire. What he was able as a mere tourist to observe appeared to have value as a specimen of history in the making. In the matter of civilization it was the past in the pres- ent, a social and semipolitical system projected three centuries forward. Wildest Europe was more pic- turesque and instructive than our own Mid West had ever been because the frontier of its barbarism and civilization is not only densely populated but also, more than that, by Caucasians. Neither the yellow, red, nor black man is anywhere a problem. Somewhat impulsively these observations of a traveler were set down, as opportunity served, and later they were published at intervals in the Political Science Quarterly. Two years later, the present pub- lishers requested permission to collect and publish these papers in a small book. The editors of the review and the author willingly assented. The Balkan Wars, however, intervened ; the articles were no longer up to date, new knowledge was brought to light; and not only the weightiest facts but even minor happenings acquired unsuspected significance. To both publisher and author it seemed best to postpone publication for a time and abide the result of the military and diplo- matic events which were occurring in swift succession. Of the original articles little remains, for the text has been substantially rewritten. The plan imposed by ix X PREFACE the original design requires, however, certain repeti- tions which the reader is asked to excuse for the sake of clearness. It was therefore without apology, but with a full sense of their imperfection and incompleteness, that the author laid the results of his observation and in- vestigation before the public. However the ultimate decision may turn in the Balkans, this book contains most, if not all, that will be generally known for some time. It strives, moreover, to state the political, social, and religious problems of the hour as the Balkan States must face them. In prophecy it does not indulge because the experi- ments making in the historical laboratory are abso- lutely without previous indication or trial, and the elements entering in are difficult beyond measure to test and define. Should, however, the outcome be a second federation of the young Balkan States, includ- ing all six, even a temporary federation of some sta- bility, a new epoch of European history will have begun. The fate of Constantinople and the Straits will be in its hands. There will be forced upon west- ern Europe some kind of closer union for protection against a hostile invasion of inferior civilization com- posed of Slavic stock, Greek Catholicism, and Oriental government. Incidentally, Islam and its system will disappear entirely from Europe, and the Mohammedan peoples in Asia and Africa become the subjects of a bipartite Christendom. Pan-Slavism will be relegated indefinitely to the limbo of other phantasms evoked for dynastic purposes. W. M. S. Princeton, March 15, 1914. PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION The events of six years have rendered the Balkan problem more pivotal and perplexing than ever. Upon the behavior of these retarded but progressing peoples depend in large measure the hopes of a distracted world for enduring peace. The revisions and addi- tions herewith presented should emphasize this rather bewildering truth. W. M. S. January, 1920. n I TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS ■V--, .i^^. 1 i (■ r ■ ' . ' TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS The whole of southeastern Europe, the lands in A Racial which dwell Hungarians, Croatians, Dalmatians, Museum Servians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Greeks, and European Turks, has at one time or an- other, for longer or shorter periods, been under the sway of the Ottoman Turks, and has therefore for those periods been styled, politically, Turkey in Europe. Geographically considered, the territories of these peoples are comprised in the Balkans or the Bal- kan peninsula, a broad and comprehensive designation, which, though loose, is historically very useful. As time is measured in history these great domains were very recently under an Asiatic despotism and display throughout their extent certain surviving characteris- tics of its disastrous sway. While the boundaries of Turkey in Europe have steadily been receding to the eastward until now they are under the very walls of Constantinople, yet in the states which have been established in the Balkans there remain a few Asiatic Turks and many European converts to Islam who are Turkish in sympathy and religious allegiance. The southeastern portion of Europe is thus an ethnological museum, and what with the neighboring ethnic stocks of Asia Minor a trained observer was able very recently within a few brief hours to dis- tinguish among those who crossed the Galata bridge 3 4 THE BALKANS in Constantinople rq)resentatives of thirty-eight dif- ferent so-called nationalities. This word means per- sons belonging to loose unions of blood-related clans and tribes, which differ from each other in origin, in- stitutions, habits, garb, and to a considerable extent in both religion and language. All these are found in greater or less proportion amid the inhabitants of Con- stantinople and its suburbs. Such variations mean, of course, successive strata of population and settlement due to conquest, or immigration, or merchandising, or missionary enterprise, or even mere temporary resi- dence for some reason or another. But the Balkan States as a whole are inhabited by the South Slavs with an intermixture of Magyars, Bulgarians, Wal- lachs, Albanians, and Greeks. An account of their origin and distribution will be given in a following chapter. Fall of Opinions differ widely about every detail of the de- Byzantine cline and fall of the East Roman, or Byzantine, empire. Emp e •^g g^j.g j^Qj. ^j. ^jj (.grtain, except in a very general way, as to the races, at least in their proportionate distribu- tion, which inhabited its European territories, and while we justly characterize its administration as a pure despotism, we know with accuracy nothing about its workings except that, in general, the details corre- spond to those of Roman administration under Diocle- tian and Constantine the Great. But we do know that there was a continuous change, a devolution which weakened every activity of the state, deprived it of all offensive strength, and rendered its powers of re- sistance inefficient. Its disintegration began as early as the eleventh century, when the Seljuke Turks, a Mongolian horde from Central Asia, gained a foothold in Asia Minor, established themselves at Iconium as TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 5 their capital, and began the forcible conversion of the surrounding populations to Mohammedanism. It was 1 46 1, four centuries later, when David, the last so- called "Roman" ruler, yielded Trapezunt to the Otto- man Turks. Thereafter there was not a trace of "Roman," then synonymous with Greek, power in Asia; the name alone survived in that of the Greek- speaking population, the Romaike, a people already commingled in blood with the numerous Christian Slavs who had settled among them, and destined to become more and more a mixed race, preserving, how- ever, as a bond of union, the cult of the Greek Church and the use of the Greek language. Under Justinian (527-565) the Roman power ex- Turkish tended from Persia to Portugal on all shores of the AdTance Mediterranean except where the Franks commanded Checked the mouth of the Rhone; by the year 1000, though retaining Italy south of Naples, it was limited on the west by the Adriatic, and on the north by the Danube and the Euxine. Thereafter Turkish invaders in Asia from the eastward and the Latins (Venetians, Lom- bards, Dutch, and French) from the westward ren- dered its strength less and less considerable, its existence more and more precarious. It is therefore questionable whether the Turkish advance was an oc- cupation or a conquest. One thing is sure, that when they met their first really vigorous and well-organized Western foe under John Sobieski, less than two hun- dred and fifty years ago, their advance was checked ; the tide of their victories at once began to ebb. Hun- gary cast off their yoke with little difficulty, in spite of almost internecine civil wars, in 1699; Servia followed the example a century later; Greece and Montenegro within the memory of our fathers, and in our own day THE BALKANS Extent of Turkish Invasion and Rule Rumania and Bulgaria have secured real indepen- dence; to Albania has been promised a high degree of autonomy. Yet such a bald summary would leave a false irn- pression of Turkish history and requires some illumi- nation. The East Roman emperor regarded himself as in the line of succession from all the Roman emperors, but he spoke Greek and was a fanatical Christian of the Greek rite. He asserted the supremacy of state over church, but was crowned and anointed by the Greek patriarch, was set apart as an Oriental despot, was shut in by a pompous ceremonial and etiquette, and was exhibited as a demigod in gorgeous attire. He was at all times protected by a mercenary body- guard and surrounded by sycophants and ingenious flatterers, who exercised such political and military power as by his will survived, to their own advantage and that of influential court favorites. All survivals of West Roman institutions, such as the Consulate and Senate, were early emasculated ; even the Patriciate was stripped of dignity and power, and the cities were de- prived of all their liberties. The number of office- holders was proportionately enormous at the outset and steadily increased to the end. Through these, every single one of whom was directly dependent on the emperor, as he believed — on some courtier as a matter of fact — a feeble, ineffectual, and finally op- pressive administration was carried on. The members of this service were divided into several ranks and dignities, each with separate privileges, income, style, garb, and title. Every province had a governor, or statholder, with whom an assessor, or legal official, was associated in the management of the courts. The taxes were farmed, these two chief officials being TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 7 bound to the regular payment of enormous sums to the emperor, whose treasury was ahke, with no pre- tence of distinction, imperial, fiscal, and personal. Besides, there were local taxes of grinding severity, levied without pity. What with perpetual rebellions and foreign wars, what with the terrific expense of maintaining mercenary fleets and armies, what with the lavish provision of games and feasts to propitiate the populace of the capital city or cities, there was no chance for Justinian's great law system to protect anybody or anything. There was some patriotism, much personal courage ; there were instances of unself- ish devotion, and at intervals were found many men of high personal character to give a certain relief to the dull, sorry level of social, political, and economic debauchery. But between the ruler and the ruled there was an awful gulf which neither cared to bridge, such was the sodden inertia of the system. The incoming Turks were devout Moslems. Victo- rious, Islam from the outset offered three alternatives to its conquered foes : believe, pay tribute, or die. As the conquerors rolled in resistless flood ever farther and farther toward the west, they killed many ; many more, the great majority of the working classes, pre- served their Christian faith, foimd life sweet, and paid. Their tribute was no larger, their treatment no more merciless than before. A certain considerable propor- tion of the great proprietors and upper classes, hith- erto of the Greek confession but without much re- ligion except a ritual, accepted the faith of the con- querors and identified themselves with the new tyranny as they had with the old. The Turks who entered Europe were never very numerous relatively; they were courageous explorers and fighters, and after con- 8 THE BALKANS quest they substituted themselves for the Byzantine administrators and perpetuated the same oppressive system. Only now, the ruler had a faith which re- garded the professing Christian as a dog, a hog, a chattel of the vilest type. The immense Christian population beneath him were thenceforth for centu- ries designated as the herd, the rayahs. Their treat- ment by the Turkish rulers was ever more leveling, ever more brutalizing; and the fiber of their Christian character, never morally very tough, was steadily re- laxed until the weapons of the weak, deceit and false- hood, practiced almost without interruption, genera- tion after generation, left no place in the spiritual arsenal for manly or Christian virtues, except those of a certain dogged industry and traditional fidelity, largely exercised under the compulsion of self- preservation. The earliest, or Seljuke, Turks had confined their warlike activities to Asia and were content to consol- idate their power in four different centers under as many lines or families of leaders. They were at the climax of their power about the end of the eleventh century, controlling virtually all of Asia Minor and those parts of Persia where they first appear in his- torical tradition. There seem to have been at least three migrations of them from their original seats. Still another Turkish stock, small in number but fierce and capable, came into prominence during the follow- ing century, the Oghusians. These steadily encroached on the rule of the Seljukes, and finally a certain Erto- grul, son of Soleiman Khan, planted himself and his people firmly in northern Phrygia. It was his son Osman, Othman, or Ottoman, who founded the power and the fame of his line; and the son of Othman, TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 9 Orchan, reduced Bithynia and Moesia to complete subjection. Establishing himself at Broussa as his capital, he crossed the Hellespont, captured Gallipolis on the European shore and made ready to attack the East Romans at the heart of their government. Murad I, his successor, with an army which he organ- ized on a sound and permanent basis, extended the Ottoman dominions to both Caramania in the east and Thracia in the west. He perished in 1389 on the hard-fought field of battle (Kossowo Polje or Amsel- feld), where the Servians were utterly routed. So far, the Turkish expansion was, in appearance at least, a real conquest, a series of victories over stubborn foes. These foes, however, were neither united nor organ- ized, as were the invaders. Seven years later Bajazet I, son of Murad, having overrun both Greece and Wal- lachia, was summoned to meet a coahtion of the Chris- tian powers under Sigismund of Hungary at Nikopo- lis. There was a desperate battle, and the Turks were victorious, but to no avail; Tamerlane swept in with his Mongols, defeated Bajazet at Angora in 1402 and threw him into prison, where he soon died. There were then eleven successive years of chaos before one of his four sons, Mahomet, succeeded in recon- structing Turkish power. Having done so, he kept the peace for eight years of recuperation. Murad II inaugurated another career of conquest and expansion : Thessalonica, Corinth, Patras, and part of Albania fell into his hands. But in the latter country he could not overcome the resistance of Scander Beg, fought inde- cisive battles with him, and was utterly defeated by Hunyadi, Prince of Transylvania, at Nissa in 1443. He conquered at Varna in 1444, and again at Kossowa in 1448, however, leaving a substantial, united force. lo THE BALKANS political and military to his son, the great Mahomet II, styled the Conqueror. He it was who crushed the East Roman empire, captured Constantinople in 1453 and made it the Turkish metropolis, thus establishing Turkey as a European power and opening a new epoch in European history. Six years later he turned Servia into a Turkish province (1459), and in further cam- paigns reduced to Turkish possession the island of Lesbos (1462), the most of Bosnia (1463), all of the Peloponnesus (1479) and Trapezunt (1461). Five years later he subdued the stubborn Caramanians (1466) and after another breathing space reduced the Tatars of Crimea to subjection (1475). Still another five years later he landed an army in Italy, captured Otranto, and died in 1481. His dynasty and his people were sated for a time with conquest. Bajazet II reigned in outward peace for a generation, although the palace cabals, the jeal- ousies of princes, and the rivalry of factions exhibited the inherent weakness of every Oriental ^despotism, whether Moslem or Christian. It was an outburst of violence and riot in the palace precincts which put his son Selim I on the throne. The scenes enacted were almost identical with those familiar in Byzantine an- nals, or in Saint Petersburg when Paul was murdered and Alexander I ascended the throne little more than a hundred years ago. The sequel, too, was parallel ; the public attention was drawn from home disgrace to foreign conquest. It was Selim who hurled the Per- sians across the Tigris, abased the proud Mamelukes in the conquest of Syria and Egypt, and transmitted to his successors the title and spiritual supremacy of the Caliphate. Soleiman II ascended the throne in 1519, two years later reduced the Hungarian frontier TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS ii fortress of Belgrade, annihilated the Hungarian army at Mohacs, and after another eastern campaign estab- lished his power at Ofen, the Hungarian capital, in 1529, declaring the kingdom of Hungary to be a vas- sal state. Here his fortunes began to wane. Dream- ing of an advance into Germany, he besieged Vienna, but was driven off. In 1533 he concluded a peace which restored most of Hungary to semi-independence on condition of her paying a moderate tribute. But King Ferdinand of Austria revolted at the price and in 1 541 war was renewed, the Turk was victorious and Hungary became a Turkish province. Meantime Soleiman had wrested from the Knights of Saint John the island of Rhodes; from Persia Tabris, Van, and Mosool, together with the feudal suzerainty of Georgia. His fleets conquered and reduced to terrified sub- jection all the Barbary States and many of the Vene- tian possessions in the ^Egean. The Turkish corsairs were feared in Spain and were not unknown on the African shores of the Atlantic ; they even penetrated to the Indian Ocean. Soleiman died in 1 566 on an expe- dition against a rebellious Hungarian city and left the Turkish power at its apogee, to begin its decay under the reign of a weakling successor, his son Selim II, and a century thereafter to accelerate the almost un- broken process of its fall. No one has ever questioned the physical courage of Characteris- the Turkish soldiery. Since their first appearance in tics of the history the Turkish forces, men and officers up to ^Jirkish the highest rank, have been brave and resourceful on " *^ the battlefield; in tactics and strategy the case is far different. But to a very high degree, the success of Turkish arms in action was from the outset due to the famous corps of the Janissaries, a body of soldiery 12 THE BALKANS upon whose system of recruiting and organization that amazing military engine, Napoleon's Guard, appears to have been in a measure founded. The Janissaries were a corps of men separated in childhood from their relatives, trained to habits of discipline and unques- tioning obedience, inured to hardship, pampered only in their vanity and pride of place. They had no family ties and no attachments of any sort except to each other; their commanding officers were humored with gratifications of money and rich uniforms; to all ranks was permitted every license which did not weaken their bodies or render effeminate their minds. Almost exclusively they were the sons of Christian captives; in other words, they were not Turks at all, but Greeks or Greek Slavs. The corps was at times, of course, a menace to constituted authority, being con- scious of its strength and importance, but generally throughout its history it proved a trustworthy prop to the authority of the despot from whose hand it was fed. Through various vicissitudes it lasted to 1826. In a broad generalization it may be said that the Turks owed their success as conquerors to the offspring of those who were conquered. The idea of such a corps was not, however, original; the Varangian guard of the Byzantine emperors, though widely different in constitution and organization, was nevertheless a body of struck and selected men, proud in its efficiency, devoted to its officers ; and being stationed so far from the Western lands whence it was recruited, it knew no allegiance except to its commanders and their chief, the emperor. What was original in the organization of the Janissaries was the source of supply and the uses to which it was put as a model and stimulus to the whole army. TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 13 The administration of the Ottoman empire, more- Turkish over, was in the main intrusted to men who were Admlnistrt- neither Turks nor even Moslems. The aristocratic quarter of Constantinople was Phanar, where dwelt the wealthy, refined, and adroit Greeks of the capital. From among these shrewd and wily Phanariotes the Sultans selected their viceroys and administrators for most of the difficult posts. As conquerors (and at the outset) the Turks knew only nations as the units of administration ; these nations were encouraged to keep their own organization, because it was much easier for the busy invaders to deal with a few leaders than with the vast horde of natives. To each Patriarch, Vicar, or Grand Rabbi and his advisers, suitable place and station were assigned in the capital, and the source of authority was thus easily accessible. Beneath the far- reaching results of the sparse Turkish immigration still lay fallow the fact and the idea of Byzantium: there was the Greek Church in all the ramifications of its ecclesiastical order; and to the Moslem, religion, aside from material interest, was the strongest conceiv- able bond of nationality, as, indeed, was then and still remains the case with the devout Greek Catholic. This administrative system was a crude novelty, invented and operated because the court religion was not that of the masses, and, further, because there were secta- rian divisions among these : three of the Greek Ortho- dox Church, two of the Armenian Gregorian Church, one each of the Roman Catholics and Jews. When, later, there came into being Reformed Congrega- tions — American, German, English, and Greek — ^these were nominally regulated according to the same sys- tem. In one sense Turkish Islam has been tolerant in the widest extent — from necessity. Without some 14 THE BALKANS degree of contentment among its Christian subjects there would have been no revenues. But along with religious tolerance there was and is among orthodox Mohammedans a social intolerance of the most of- fensive sort. The contempt of the Moslem for the Christian is inexpressible. Occidental influences, how- ever, began early to modify Mohammedanism, a re- ligion which had been engendered with the schism of Shiites and Sunnites; such sectarian tendencies were speedily developed wherever it was established. The Eastern Roman empire had intimate friendly rela- tions with the Western Caliphate, and vice versa; but with the fall of Constantinople an enormous inter- action with Occidental Christendom was inaugurated on the political and social side. For this the Phana- riotes furnished not merely men and measures and channels of communication but also favoring influences. Balkan States The story of the Balkan States of to-day antecedent Before 1453 to 1453 is not in the scientific sense really historical. Their institutions, laws, organization, leaders, all have human interest, but they did not affect in any way the great central current of that history which explains the conditions of to-day — except in one regard: as the memory of Byzantium first stirred the modern Greeks to a revival of patriotism, so that of Czar Simeon's Bulgarian empire in the ninth century was a spur to the Bulgarians in the nineteenth ; and that of Stephen Dushan's Servian empire in the fourteenth is the pride of the new Servia. These vague, far-dis- tant historic traditions of the Balkans echo down through the centuries, profoundly stir patriotic emo- tions, arouse national aspirations and are incentives to action. So far, the story of the Balkans before the TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 15 fifteenth century may be called historic, but that term can be correctly employed only from the date when the Ottoman empire became a European power. There is no sense of the word in which the sue- The Rise cessive renascence periods of Western Europe can be "»* Reign called political. Feudalism was a social and economic Intngue system, the city commonwealths were mercantile con- cerns ; the so-called kingdoms were unrelated aggrega- tions of town and country units with no organic cormection; Christianity in the fifteenth century had relapsed into paganism, and paganism of a rather degraded sort at that. The fall of Constantinople, the steady conquering advance of Islam against Christen- dom, the catastrophe of Rome, profoundly affected Western Europe and recalled the days of Charles Mar- tel. There was burning indignation, and fierce debate and bitter lamentation. But there was no manly resolve followed by virile armament and resolute resistance. On the contrary, the Ottoman successes dazzled and hypnotized the Christian powers. Craft and guile were the weapons of the cringing weak. The Sublime Porte — such was the climax of swollen Oriental phraseology — became the resort and the jousting ring of diplomacy: the kings of Europe, its Popes and doges and emperors, were there represented by their most adroit and habile ministers. The fortunes of the Western world hung on the palace plots, and the suc- cesses of reigning favorites in securing the nod or wink of favor from some Moslem Padishah — lord of lords — with the sobriquet of Splendid, or Magnifi- cent, or Conqueror. Our word "Sultan" is not theirs. The establishment of Venetian, French, and Span- ish power in parts of the Byzantine empire had, of course, already drawn the Balkan peninsula somewhat i6 THE BALKANS into the sphere of Western politics when Constantino- ple fell into Turkish hands. The further advance of the conquerors accentuated European rivalries; Ven- ice, Spain, with the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope entered into the Holy League of 1495 to check and turn back the oncoming Moslem tide. In vain ; Venice was a despotic oligarchy and had no strong and settled policy. Losing Cyprus and the Peloponnesus, it cringed to the Sultan. Maximilian I, distracted by troubles internal and external, laid before the allies at Cambrai in 15 17 a plan for the partition of Turkey, but the empire could raise neither soldiers nor funds to pay them, and the Hungarian nobles made terms with the Sultan, while both Austria and Bavaria lay wide open and unprotected against foreign invasion. Francis I, "the most Christian King" of France, with the support of all who feared the empire, concluded the treaty of 1535 with the Porte which made his na- tion the "most favored," and Venice paid contributions for the further strengthening of the Sultan's forces. Poland, under Sigismund II, and Russia, rising into a congruous and powerful nationality under Ivan the Terrible, were the only doughty foes of the Turks, who now had not only France but England as allies ; both were irreconcilable enemies of the Hapsburgs in Spain and Austria. Such petty jealousies neutralized every effort at unity in Christendom, and the Popes, weak- ened in their spiritual supremacy by their unimportant secular power and their moral laxity as Italian prince- lets, were helpless to arouse Europe for organized action. Both Gregory X and Sixtus V exerted unsuc- cessful efforts ; already the Reformation movement was in full swing and ecclesiasticism was daily more powerless. TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 17 Thereafter the Ottoman empire, whether vigorous The Turk in or feeble, was an integral part of the European state- European system, an element to be reckoned with in maintaining ^^^^^* the balance of power; especially after the treaty of Westphalia, which recognized the secular as predom- inant over the ecclesiastical forces in its unstable equilibrium. In its largest sense — spiritual, political, and econom- ical — the world movement has in historic times been dependent upon the reciprocity of Orient and Occident in their exchange of relations. With the Porte all western nations, France at their head, were compelled to make treaties regulating religious and commercial affairs. From successive Sultans were secured, not of right but of grace, the concessions under which Latin Christianity could maintain its establishments within their realms, the so-called Capitulations. The diplo- matic privileges of extra-territoriality and consular courts to protect resident Europeans of the west from the injurious administration of the Moslem law were likewise granted by the Padishah as favors. The Turkish successes of 1737-39 made diplomacy an inter- esting game, for Russia had now become for Turkey a waiting, watchful foe; the situation was parallel to that of Greece with Persia, Rome with Carthage and Parthia, medieval Christendom with Arabic Islam. Russia's aims have throughout been clear enough : she desired the key to her own door; claiming as the em- bodiment of Greek Christianity to be the successor of Byzantium, she wanted Constantinople; the admitted incorporation of Slavic power, she wanted the hegem- ony of the Slavic world. This end she had in the main pursued without external help : once she has had Austrian military aid against the Turks, but when a i8 THE BALKANS plan to divide Turkey in Europe between the two powers was laid before her it was filed away in dusty archives. Between her and her goal lay an obstacle difiScult to surmount — two hostile nations: Hungary, the wondrous Magyar state, and Rumania, a rising power claiming to be Latin. By sea she was checked through Great Britain's vigilant guard of her Oriental trade through the Mediterranean. Napoleon's seizure of Egypt was abhorrent, of course, to Russia, nor could the Sultan accept him as the chosen saviour of waning Turkish power; he seemed greatly to resemble a wolf in sheep's clothing. Thus England and Russia drew together, while the latter began to encourage and support both Servia and Mon- tenegro in order to maintain some influence in the Balkans. She even lent a hand to Greece, and England made common cause; while France stepped into the arena as an abettor. All three were under the compul- sion of popular s)Tnpathy with the oppressed. In vain and too late, Austria saw the mistake in her policy and was long a helpless observer, until circumstances over which she had little control gave her Bosnia and the Herzegovina. It was a strange spectacle when Me- hemet Ali of Egypt, asserting a sovereignty on the Nile and in Syria, threatened the existence of Turkey, and the speedy supplanting of a weak by a strong Moslem power at Constantinople. Russia was forced to support her sedulous foe, while both France and England sided with the rebel to secure their Egyptian interests. The Czar obtained in compensation for his help an obligation from the Sultan to close the Dar- danelles against Russian foes; thereupon he assumed the protectorate of Greek Christians in Palestine, as France had that of the Latins since the treaty of TURKEY AND EUROPEAN POLITICS 19 Francis I, and so by religious influence Russian polit- ical influence became paramount in the Balkans. The Crimean War released Turkey from her bondage to a certain extent; French influence gained the ascend- ency at Constantinople once again. As the second French empire waned, Russia's scheming, never re- mitted for an instant, secured once more a ground for intervention in behalf of the downtrodden rayahs, and the swift campaigns of Ignatieff with Rumanian aid as a determinative element of success were followed by the attempted dictation of a treaty at San Stefano almost within sight of Constantinople, which would have completely dismembered Turkey's European pos- sessions. The great powers would not tolerate such high-handed procedure; the theatrical statesman then premier of Great Britain, Disraeli, sent a fleet through the Dardanelles and transported Indian troops to the Mediterranean. The Treaty of Berlin followed in 1878; made only to be violated, it has since steadily and gradually fallen into desuetude, and the latest events have remitted it to the rummage chamber of antiquated public charters. II TURKISH RULE UNDER ABDUL HAMID 21 II TURKISH RULE UNDER ABDUL HAMID What our grandfathers and fathers called Turkey in Misconcep- Europe was governed much as the Turkey in Europe of *'°'>^ ^•"'* ten years ago was still governed. It was bounded by ^"^^ Austria, Russia, the Black Sea, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, the Dardanelles, the ^gean, Ionian, and Adriatic Seas. At that time the study of geography was strangely embryonic and imperfect. School chil- dren had spread before them maps upon which there were splashes of vivid color and unflinching lines of black which marked national boundaries. It is no exaggeration to say that the passing generation had in its youth little conception but that the homogeneity of nationality with which they were familiar at home was to be found within the territories represented by each of these dividing lines. If it was England for the English and France for the French and so on, why not Turkey for the Turks ? Starting from this deep- seated conviction, a few of the better educated and more intelligent read such delightful books of travel in Turkey and the Orient as Byron and Kinglake had rendered attractive and fashionable. Even from the perusal of them, there survived a general impression that within the Ottoman empire there were ruling Turks who were Mohammedans and gentlemen; that the aristocracy was fairly refined and likewise Mo- hammedan ; and that there was otherwise a huge plebe- ian mob separated in refinement and culture from the rest by an impassable chasm. «3 24 THE BALKANS Comparative Value of Travel Studies For this and other reasons, there was crass ig- norance of the situation among those who twenty years ago constituted the overwhelming majority of Western nations throughout the Western world; Byzantium and the migrations of peoples in Eastern Europe were matters either of the vaguest knowledge or, more com- monly, of total ignorance. They were not aware that Turkey in Europe, entire, and Turkey in Asia, in part, were populated by peoples who, whatever they might be, were not Turks at all, having no slightest relation with their masters in blood, religion, institutions, or aspirations. It is a humiliating fact that, even in the highest Western civilization, somehow the man on the street, the person who babbles about anything and everything, really forms that self-styled public opinion with which intelligence is in perpetual warfare. It is but a very short time since that kind of public opinion thought the question of Turkey to be no question at all. Why, of course, the Turks should have Turkey ; certainly ; what business is it of others to meddle with a man in his own home ? There seems to be a general agreement that travel is a highly commendable form both of recreation and study. In this impression there is some truth, but in reality there are only two kinds of observation by in- telligent travelers which have real value for intelli- gent readers. Foreigners who live long in any land and make a careful study of its conditions, of its peo- ple, of its institutions and politics, probably produce the literature of travel which has the highest intrinsic value. Nevertheless, long residence among any people, particularly among Orientals, blunts original national character and conviction, diminishes the keenness of observation, and results in a subtle form of assimila- HAMIDIAN RULE 25 tion. Hence therefore the impressions of a mere tour- ist, wandering leisurely from place to place, coming little in contact with the people, but using his eyes and his judgment with the vigor of the person fresh from home and soon to return thither, have a value all their own, which is possibly quite as high as that in more elaborate studies. For this reason the author ventures to give some account of what, in the capacity of a tour- ist under the Hamidian regime, he himself saw and heard. Were it possible to give an exact reproduction of the impressions received by one making, as it were, a bound from the heart of the West into the heart of the Hither East, much would be made clear which is certainly even yet very dim to the great mass of edu- cated people, whose only travels are those of the fireside. If the population of what was ten years ago called Some Turkey in Europe was, as is hkely, about six millions, J^'^'f'' _ less than a third were Turks ; and in those vast regions personal once under Turkish sway, the lands of Greece, Bosnia, the Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, and Rumania, there are virtually no Turks at all. They can live only as they find dumb, servile human cattle to herd, drive, and slaughter. They never forget that they came from the upland steppes of Asia; they have always been careful, when possible, to bury their dead across the Bosporus in the soil of Asia. From Asia they came, to Asia they return with little regret ; and being a totally unhistoric people, it is doubtful whether centuries of European abode would in their future tradition be much more than a tale of Scheherezade. Of the primitive folk-stocks the Turk has retained nearly all the virtues, and they are many — so many as to make a normal Turkish gentleman a most agree- 26 THE BALKANS able and even lovable person. With his womankind uncontaminated by Western notions ; with his faith in Islam — a faith not native but acquired and inherited — undisturbed either by Arabic mysticism or Occidental casuistry ; with his pride of official rank and garb fully gratified or with scope for his unquestioned and oft- proven ability as a soldier, the Turk exhibits many fine qualities. It matters not that his salary as an official is never paid; there is the land of "baksheesh*' or bribery always open. It matters not that the shelter which we call his house is bare, rickety or in disrepair; is he not naturally a dweller in booths or tents? It matters not that his towns are filthy and unwhole- some, that disease and death stalk abroad; his hour will strike only when fate ordains, as it would anyway. It matters not that there is plenty to-day and want to-morrow; such are the vicissitudes of life. If it rains, we are wet, that is all, but if the sun shines let us enjoy it; when battle is raging let us fight too, so Allah wills, and so on through the long range of hu- man conditions and conduct. To apprehend a resignation that verges on apathy we must reverse almost every concept we have; in order to understand and do justice to the Turk we need a fourth dimension. He is our antipodes. But he is domestic, hospitable within his possibilities, companion- able, interested in you and in such life as touches his interests; he has a dignity, a repose, a pleasant way which are delightful. Above all, strange as it may sound at first, he can be, for reasons of expediency, the most tolerant of all human beings. There were in Tur- key more faiths, sects, denominations, and religions, more license in profession and behavior, than in any other territorial expanse of equal size. If only the HAMIDIAN RULE 27 adherents of these various cults pay, often and enough, and if only they do not in act, word, or precept subvert existing rule and order, nothing else matters at all. Islam is the most democratic of all natural religions ; there are no orders, no priestly intermediation, no governors, no hierarchy of any sort. The naturally independent temper of the Turk is thus confirmed by his faith. There is the caliph, the Padishah, the em- bodiment of theocratic power; and then there are all the rest, exalted or humbled, enriched or impoverished, preserved or destroyed, kept alive or killed, regulated in every relation of life by a power and conditions that affect all alike ; birth, inheritance, fealty, no such mere accident counts in life at all. Tolerant and democratic — both, in a contemptuous sort of way — the Turk is also in ordinary life a kindly, gentle soul. His women- folk are under no compulsion or discipline, he is generous to the very utmost; his slaves are scarcely aware of their bondage, so easy is the yoke. With divorce dependent upon his whim and accomplished by his own unfettered will, provided he can repay the wife's dowry, the rearrangement of do- mestic relations is so easy that social conditions are scarcely disturbed. A disordered mind makes its un- happy owner a public charge; beggars are humored, tolerated, and supported by alms, especially the halt, the maimed, and the blind; before their banishment, the dogs of Constantinople drove ladies from the side- walks and made vehicles swerve by their sluggish inertia. Easy indifference and a liberal soul combine to make Turkish life a thing apart; a sort of genial inefficiency permeates it all. Yet beneath it is the vol- cano of indiscipline. Guile and the oiled feather first ; then, if thwarted, fury and recklessness. Smooth 28 THE BALKANS promises with perpetual delay; then performance un der compulsion with the Parthian arrows of atrocious bloodshed. b. Official Some such characterization, however imperfect, is essential to any grasp of the first principles of Turkish rule. In the apogee of its extent and greatness, those who immigrated and seated themselves as the mighty were, as was explained, in a minority, much as were the conquering Teutons in the western provinces of the Roman empire. In the exercise of a fanaticism, both physical and spiritual, they simply took what they found. The people on the soil were reduced to a dead level of peasant boorishness; the ruling class stripped land and people of all they dared to take without de- stroying the wellspring of supply. The arbitrary childishness of Turkish behavior to-day is probably a fair sample of what it always has been. After years of contact with Western ways they have, to be sure, acquired something of European shiftiness and du- plicity, but it has served to strengthen their own naif rascality. My dragoman tells the customs inspector not to tumble the contents of my trunk; the police inspector discreetly turns his eye another way; the trunk is closed, and in a few moments the official comes trotting to receive his "gift," which he divides with him of the blind eye. This is the whole system in miniature : the feint of honesty, the practice of roguery, a pretense of knowl- edge, the crassest ignorance in fact. The Ottoman empire has army, navy, police, treasury, foreign office, and all the paraphernalia of administration, internal and external. From beginning to end the whole ma- chinery is an empty form, a mill that grinds no grist ; and the palace clique or camarilla or kitchen cabinet, or HAMIDIAN RULE 29 a so-called "committee" of malcontents, or a harem intrigue, or the Sultan's wish determines the course of all affairs. A parliament met once under Abdul Hamid, was adjourned, and for the ensuing thirty years never met again until the latest revolution estab- Hshed or claimed to establish the semblance of another legislature. There was once again a paper constitution and a constitutional monarch — in name, as is all the rest. Warships floated, but their inefficiency was notorious and ridiculous. When the United States grew restless in the demand for an indemnity due for the destruction of American property, a cruiser was ordered from an American shipyard; it arrived and anchored in the Golden Horn, where it ended its effi- ciency in peace ; the published price contented the Turks and seemed, somehow, to cover the indemnity to us. As is well known, Abdul Hamid, probably the last real Moslem Sultan, caliph, or Padishah, as he was styled, rarely left the inclosure of his royal borough, known as the Yildiz Kiosk. Within its carefully guarded, spacious inclosures, in its palaces and gardens he abode. Thence he reigned and ruled ; and, claiming to be the successor of Mohammed, he performed public worship at the ceremony of the selamlik in a pompous procession and recession to and from the near-by mosque which he built for the purpose. Impressive as a spectacle, the selamlik was also impressive as a historic act, for in it Abdul Hamid appealed to the millions and millions of Islam as perpetuating its power and its system. He had not a single attribute which entitled him to arrogate the headship of Islam to himself, and millions of the faithful refused their fealty. But many millions more passively accepted his lordship and admitted the sanctity of decrees issued 30 THE BALKANS by his religious vice-regent, the sheik-ul-lslam. It was therefore an awful thing when a miscreant found his way into the very heart of Yildiz Kiosk and, during the selamlik, flung a bomb, the dastardly weapon of anarchy. But the thing did happen, and the momen- tous question arose as to how dynamite had been smug- gled into the empire. What actually occurred sounds like a joke ; but with a few other examples it may serve, being a fact, to illustrate what manner of men then ruled at Constantinople. For years a British merchant had been importing and selling fireproof safes. A new consignment was in a ship just arriving. He was summoned to the cus- toms stores to "open" them, for a wily official had guessed and suggested that the dreadful explosive had been concealed in these safes, and that more might be found in the newer ones. The owner appeared, glad to comply, and threw open wide the doors. The matter was not so simple; "opening" meant displaying the packing between the steel walls; and so with sledge and chisel the whole consignment was destroyed, and there was no redress. The familiar finance where the lender gives fifty, and the poor, eager borrower writes a hundred in the bond was long employed by the great usurers of the West when Turkey wanted a loan. Neither principal nor interest being paid, a result fore- seen by the original parties, the various countries of Europe intervened in Turkish finance to "readjust" the debt for the creditors, a class of unsuspecting investors upon whom the obligations had been unloaded by the negotiators. So there existed in Constantinople a board of highly paid gentlemen, all but one from the West, who took a certain proportion of the customs into their own hands for paying interest and refunding principal. HAMIDIAN RULE 31 Compared with those in our own American Utopia, the customs dues in Turkey are (or rather were) trifling, averaging about eleven per cent. To the Porte, looking abroad at the triumphs of protection elsewhere, it seemed desirable to fill the official purses by raising the tarifif an average of three per cent more. There was a mighty deliberation in all the state depart- ments of the Occident. At last the measure was per- mitted, since the coffers of the commission in charge of the public debt would also profit thereby. But many, many papers must first be signed in the ends of the earth before the law promulgated by the Sultan could be operative. The ambassadors of the Western powers deliberated day by day on the adminis- trative measures. Meantime the Sultan received an invoice for glassware purchased in France, and to be used at Yildiz. No duty, of course, was to be paid on that. A high official, chief of the secret police, was sent to enter it. His mission was promptly and suc- cessfully discharged, but not merely his original mis- sion; the great man, finding at the receipt of custom a large amount of money which the collector had re- ceived in the regular way for dues, carried off not only the imported service of glassware, which was his mas- ter's, but the money, too, which was also, as he con- sidered, his rriaster's and was, moreover, greatly needed at Yildiz. The news of this characteristic behavior swiftly reached the meeting-place of the ambassadors ; and the British representative, who was the latest signatory of the new tariff, hastened to the wharf and, finding the news true, at once withdrew the precious sign- manual which gave Great Britain's consent. Conster- nation seized the high officers of his Ottoman majesty ; 32 THE BALKANS why such supercilious behavior, such needless fuss about details? But they yielded, and the vital nego- tiation was at last resumed, with administrative ar- rangements to preclude the repetition of such naif proceedings by the Turks in Turkey. Why multiply instances? A professor entering Turkey from Greece has his Persian powder confiscated as an explosive; a trading firm sending into Asia Minor for eggs is sud- denly confronted with total loss because, while the permit for eggs is correct, that for wood, the material of the cases, is not. And so on and so on. It is vital that the degrees granted by the American school of medicine at Beirut should have official sanc- tion. No trouble whatever to get the imperial decree ; but the members of the commission were Turks of rank, and as such might not easily pass from place to place. Every year it was a matter of complicated ne- gotiation by the American ambassador to secure for these officials the right to proceed on the business for which they have been duly and legally designated by their august and all-powerful master. It is very hard to believe that the machinery of Oriental government is as simple on the surface or as intricate in its work- ings as it appears, merely by reason of incapacity. The subtle Oriental mind secures some advantage in its efforts, or apparent efforts, to apply worn-out schemes to new conditions. At any rate, Turkish rule sur- vived expectation by half a century, and it was its very absurdity, with the aid of a more or less perfidious rivalry among the great powers of the West, which seemed likely to perpetuate it indefinitely at Constanti- nople and in Asia Minor. Comprehension of the Oriental question by western peoples is further impeded by their total failure to Terms HAMIDIAN RULE 33 grasp the meaning of current terms, in particular the Misconception terms "nation" and "Christian," as employed in the *^,^f""*"* Balkan peninsula and in Asia Minor. There are large numbers of Europeans in both : some, as we have men- tioned, are there for religious purposes, as mission- aries, others for purely secular reasons, chiefly com- mercial. While there seems no real hostility whatever between these two European groups, yet they see things from a different point of view and have widely vary- ing opinions about many matters. The latter class, with no exception, as far as known to me and several other travelers whom I have consulted, considers the ruling Turk vastly superior to the so-called Christian peoples over whom he rules. Appearances are that way. In general, like all tyrants, whether patriarchal, theocratic, or merely personal, he is more human than those whom he oppresses. His victims must have time for recuperation before regeneration comes. We need not go far for a parallel. The Ashkenazi Jew, so called, whether he be really an Israelite or not, which is doubtful, when first emancipated from the horrid cruelties inflicted on his race in central Europe for centuries, continues, sometimes for a generation or two, the unpleasant practices by which he mitigated his bondage ; but he finally becomes as little of a pre- suming parvenu as men of other blood, and as often exhibits the highest virtues of social life. This ex- ample is all around us. The subject populations of Turkey were still styled rayahs ; age after age they had been held in bondage, sometimes easy, generally most oppressive. Bond slaves find the practice of noble qualities extremely difficult. Most rayahs kept the faith of their fathers, many followed the example of their wealthier kin and 34 THE BALKANS sought, as elsewhere told, to mitigate their hard lot by professing Islam. In all the provinces once or still under the Sultan there are some Mohammedans, and in a few there are many, who have not a drop of Turk- ish or Arabian blood in their veins, being pure Aryans, or Japhetites, or Javanes, or whatever adjective best describes them. In the Herzegovina and Bosnia to- gether they number about half a million. Though most carefully and considerately treated, they demand that their religious head shall be appointed from Constanti- nople, thus refusing incorporation in the European system. The Mohammedans of Asiatic stock, Turks or Arabs, have mostly returned to the land whence their fathers came. The question of superiority can therefore be answered only by comparing those who were once rayahs, but are now independent self-rulers, with those who still rule in unemancipated lands, rulers with rulers. Of the result in the case of Bulgaria and Rumania there cannot be a question. Bosnia and the Herzegovina were under Austria's iron hand; Servia, though longer practiced in liberty, inherited peculiar conditions and horrified the world by the savage out- burst of her unbridled wrath against a faithless king. The European peoples once subject to Turkey are therefore not of necessity Christian either by profes- sion or practice, however widely they differ in many respects from the Turks. Moreover, they designate themselves as nations, using that word in a sense of their own — a sense similar to that in which it was used in central Europe during the Middle Ages. "Nation- alities" would be a better expression. It is sometimes and rather cleverly said that Amer- for Nationality ica is New Europe. In whatever respects that may be true, in one there is an antipodal contrast. We are Definite Statement Needed The Struggle HAMIDIAN RULE 35 busy making, out of many widely different elements, a great nation, unilingual and homogeneous. Europe, having passed that way in the unification of France, Germany, and Italy, is now returning on its footsteps, and the passion for little nationalities is exhibited on every side. We are all familiar with the Irish question; we note with wondering interest the revived study of the Celtic tongue in Great Britain and the emphasis on institutions of another age. In Belgium the Flemish stock struggles for its language as never before. In Provence the revival of Provencal literature, so long cherished, is now followed by a blind struggle against total assimilation and by a demand for a measure of local independence in the interest of local industry. Throughout what was the Austro-Hungarian mon- archy every one of the eighteen or more petty nation- alities has been asserting its right to live for and rule itself. The question of Sicily gives the house of Savoy at Rome much to consider, and separatism in the Ger- man empire furnished themes for its journalists. Everywhere on the continent of Europe it is the same story, while simultaneously there is a growing nation- alist agitation both in Egypt and India. This is the movement which brought Rumania, Bulgaria, and Servia into a more or less independent life; it is the movement which was long surging throughout Turkey in Europe and created the burning question in Mace- donia, whence came, as of old, the bitter cry, "Come over and help us." This in a high degree was the cause of the Balkan wars. There is no use in describing the whole stir and struggle for nationality as senseless, a common desig- nation which perfectly describes it to many minds. It is not senseless ; the agitation is real, has produced vital 36 THE BALKANS results of a constructive kind, and in our day underlay outbreaks of bloodshed and horrid cruelty in lands that are fair, among people who are innocent, capable, and urged onward by noble instincts. The dispersion of peoples, each with its own language, is represented in the scriptural account as a curse laid on men for high treason against Almighty God. Europe is doing its utmost to perpetuate the curse and make it lie heavy on millions of innocent men. Were science and its votaries modest, did theories affect the academic world solely, small harm would be done by self-appointed teachers. But ill-considered, unproven doctrines, by dint of itera- tion, are made to succeed each other as accepted rules of human conduct. Among many others the theoretical reconstruction of the Aryans, of the Turanians and of the various subdivisions of the same, has been distorted from a useful hypothesis into a maxim of moral guid- ance. Out of it have sprung the baneful all-Slav, all- German, all-anything movements — devices one and all of dynastic land-grabbers eager to use an unselfish and romantic sentiment for their selfish ends. No man knows at this hour what is a Greco-Roman, a Celt, a Teuton, or a Slav. The philologists know the languages and language groups, but no man of standing has ever dared assert that the use of a language proves the blood in the veins of its user. The movements of peoples, the origin of races, the transitions from type to type or the persistence of type — all these are mysteries. But men behave as if they were as concrete and usable as the multiplication table. In Western Europe there were types so strongly developed that at least there was some excuse for the common error. But when the doctrine spread east- ward into less educated societies, it began to work and HAMIDIAN RULE 37 is working havoc with the gains of civilization. To use among such men and women phrases which con- tain the words "nation," "people," "patriotism," "his- tory," etc., is to sow the whirlwind. When we read that the Rumanians are Latins; that the Bulgarians and the Servians are Slavs of different nationality; that Macedonians are Bulgarians or Servians, accord- ing to the opinion of this or that writer, or that they are Greek, as Greece contends, we get the common coin of diplomatic exchange; but it is spurious and counterfeit if passed as historical truth. There was little interest as to the nationalities of The Greek the rayahs while Turkish rule was strong. They were R«y»l»s nearly all Christians of the Byzantine type, those in Europe at least, and were hence regarded as one peo- ple ; for Oriental theocracy cannot conceive of nation- ality apart from religion. They themselves knew the differences in their origins and in such traditions as they had : some were Slavs, some Vlachs, and some Albanians ; some had the blood of Trajan's legionaries in their veins, whatever that was. But they felt more deeply than they thought ; the hardships of their com- mon lot and the common worship of their church gave them a stronger sense of unity than of disunity; they were all non-Moslems, all rayahs, and in a sense all Greeks. Moreover, as explained in another connec- tion, among the most useful servants of the Sultans were the old Greek Byzantine families who lived at Constantinople in the quarter of Phanar. These Pha- nariotes were invaluable as administrators and diplo- mats; resourceful, guileful, smooth, elegant, refined; and for their precious services they received great re- wards. They were the Greeks par excellence ; and, run- ning to and fro within the empire, to and fro without. 38 THE BALKANS they impressed upon all that if there were a second race destined to restore the empire of Grecian Rome, they, their co-religionists, those who spoke their tongue, were the coming people. Hence, within the memory of men still living it was the general conviction that a greater Greece would one day hold all Turkey in Europe, and that the light of Greek civilization, rekindled in Attica and on the Peloponnesus, would shoot northward to enlist the whole Greek Church within Turkish boundaries in the "great idea," to wit, the restoration of Byzantium in new and regenerate form. This, though it is now stoutly denied, is still the "great idea" of that portion of Turkey first to be emancipated, namely, the present kingdom of Greece, whose inhabitants speak a reno- vated Greek or Romaic, live on the ideals of ancient Greece, and have with set purpose forgotten the Albanian, Slavic, or other blood that flows in their veins. Coming from the West, travelers differ widely about the advance of modern Greece in Western civili- zation ; but one familiar with the Orient, and coming to Greece from that quarter, realizes the enormous progress which the little population of about three millions has made in unifying, elevating, and purify- ing itself for the task it has set itself. So recently as 19 1 2 it might have been truly asserted that the Greek government had made nothing but tactical mistakes, and that Greece had gathered no fruit from her national regeneration. But she bided her time, and the agitations among the Christian populations still left to Turkey in Europe were attributed in large measure, and in all likelihood correctly, to supplies of Greek men and money. What and who are these modern Greeks ? The ques- HAMIDIAN RULE 39 tion will be answered at greater length in another place. Modem For the present a paragraph must suffice. The most Oweks skeptical investigators admit that in most of them is some blood transmitted from ancient Greece, and that there is a proportion of Greek descent in Greece about equal to that of Anglo-Saxon descent in America. For the rest the modem Greeks are either Albanian or Slav or Vlach. Besides the Greeks in Greece there are other Greeks who far outnumber them. They are found on all the coasts of the Ottoman empire; Crete and the other islands, until very lately under Turkish sover- eignty, have no other inhabitants important in num- bers ; they are numerous in Asia Minor, in Syria, and in Egypt. That they have a national type and a na- tional character is undoubted, and they themselves estimate their numbers at nine millions. This is at best an approximation and, as will be explained later, something of an exaggeration. For the most part these Greeks are faithful adherents of the Greek Cath- olic Church. While domiciled elsewhere, they remain passionate in devotion to the Greece they style Hellas, the modem kingdom whose people are called Hel- lenes; and, being masters of commerce and finance, many of them have gained enormous fortunes, from which they pour great sums into Athens particularly, but into Greece generally, for public buildings and en- dowments. To the outer barbarians who later deluged it, the East Roman empire, Greek as it was in speech and character, was known as Rome or Rom or Roum. The language spoken there has never ceased to be spoken. After eighteen hundred years of devolution or evolution, according to the point of view, it is still spoken by these millions, and, for the reason just given, it is by them called Romaic, to distinguish it from the 40 THE BALKANS Hellenic, which means either pure old Greek, or the modern written language of educated Greeks in Greece, a language really renovated and cultivated by enrich- ment from classical Greek. In this remodeling, modem Greek resembles modern Norwegian. The passion for nationality, equally strong in the extreme northwest and southeast of Europe, has in both had recourse to the same means for securing apartness and distinction. Albania At first sight it seems very curious that the national costume of modern Greece was adopted or adapted from that of a stock not Greek at all, a little folk the most remarkable of the European continent, namely, the Albanians, a people, as far as we know, absolutely without any close, or at least calculable, affinity with any other, whether of race, speech, or institutions; still using the oldest known European language; re- taining, without unity of religion, habitat or manners, a unity of nature, appearance, arid character which sets them absolutely apart from the surrounding popula- tions, with whom they mingle freely but do not coalesce. The explanation is that in a high sense they are the makers of modern Greece. Slavic But if modern Greece owes much to the Albanians, Uprising it seems as if her ambition were quenched, her destiny thwarted, by the rejuvenescence of another folk-stock which is not even approximately indigenous, but with- in historic times has come from afar. It is called Slavic because it uses a Slavic tongue, a language which the immigrant nomads brought with them and gradu- ally forced upon populations which had known Roman culture. These populations were in a measure Aryan, that is, related in speech and structure to other Euro- peans, but with them was intermingled generously a middle Asiatic race called Bulgars. These elements HAMIDIAN RULE 41 gradually melted into one stem, which now comprises Servians, Illyrians, Croatians, Bosnians, Herzego- vinians, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Bulgarians. The two districts of Moldavia and Wallachia, which form the present kingdom of Rumania, were not en- tirely engulfed by the wandering hordes of Slavs ; at least they retained the form of a Romance language, and in many districts they kept their Roman-Dacian blood fairly pure. Surrounded on all sides by Slav- speaking peoples, they have not escaped Slavic in- fluences in vocabulary and social qualities, but they are as pure a race as any other not a recently mixed one, as are Turks, English, Americans, and their own Bul- garian neighbors. Hence all the woes and sorrow and cruelty in Mace- Macedonia donia. This situation has indefinitely postponed the restoration of New Byzantium, the erection of a Greek imperial structure with its administrative center on the Bosporus. Its immediate result, however, was and is the heartbreaking situation of the people who dwell in the vales on the southern slopes of the Rhodope Mountains. The population of Macedonia is even more heterogeneous than that of the lands east or west. Here are all the Slavic stocks, or, rather, here is the collective stock, for the lines of division are most un- certain, some Macedonians tending toward Greece, some toward Servia, some toward Bulgaria. More- over, though their language is sufficiently unitary, yet agitators and propagandists note the slightest local differences as a basis for determining whether the communities be Serb or Bulgar or possibly Greek, for in some of the communes a Romaic vocabulary be- clouds the origin of the stock. The individuals thus differentiated, as we explain in the sequel, are not very 42 THE BALKANS firmly anchored in what they call their nationalities : a Bulgar of the exarchate, for example, who finds diffi- culty to-day in understanding the neighboring Serb of the patriarchate, may for an adequate consideration be Serb or Greek to-morrow. The situation may at any moment be reversed by a change of conditions, and the change is sometimes kaleidoscopic. Turkey in The Sublime Porte again and again promised such Macedonia reform in the administration of Macedonia as would secure stability and peace. It promised anything the powers demanded as often as they demanded. Why not? There was no intention of performance, and there would not be the slightest possibility of perform- ance, even if there were the best possible will. Besides the Slavs, Servian or Bulgarian, the Greeks and the Albanians, there is a great contingent of Vlachs, some in Epirus, some in Thessaly, many in Macedonia. These mysterious people claim to be Rumanians ; they speak a Rumanian dialect, strongly impregnated, how- ever, with words and constructions taken from contig- uous peoples. They are industrious and thrifty, but they are scheming, and are regarded with anxious sus- picion by their neighbors. On the questions which so agitate the world around them, their attitude is enigmatical; but, like all the rest, they are far from resigned and obedient to Turkish rule in any degree. In the main, they, like the Albanians, lean toward the Greeks, although, again as in Albania, there is a mi- nority party otherwise disposed. Although widely different in habits, some of them living in villages while many are nomadic herdsmen, there is no ques- tion as to their essential unity. This distracted country, therefore, is almost an an- thropological museum ; only, the specimens are shown HAMIDIAN RULE 43 in a chaotic mechanical mixture, not in orderly ar- rangement. Encouraged by the example of the three Danubian kingdoms, and especially by the experience of that anomalous portion of Bulgaria known as Rumelia, which fell off from Turkey with no battles except those of words, the natives of Macedonia long for deliverance, for entrance into the promised land of self-administration. Over the former borders there were Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece: all beckoning, all lusting for increase of territory, wealth, and popula- tion. Of the three, Bulgaria had in Abdul Hamid's time the advantage. It began to woo soonest; its language has certain suffixes like those used in Mace- donia ; it has a church using Slavic in its services and taking no minutest direction from the Turkish capital ; and, above all, it had, in the year 1910, an army be- lieved to be of high morale, thoroughly equipped and drilled, quite ready for a coup like that which made Rumelia Bulgarian. On the other hand, Greece had the money, and those who know Macedonia best have asserted that most of the agitation was due to unscrupulous bands that are half bandit, set on foot and supported by Greek cash. Servia kept her movement of agitation going, but her home affairs were a serious detriment to her ambitions. Seven years ago the ablest Servian writer was con- tending that there are in Macedonia lines of division, racial, territorial and linguistic, and that the rivals should end their rivalry by a tripartite division, each taking its own. Meantime Turkey, under the wily Abdul Hamid, the one most accomplished opportunist in politics, had really nothing to do except to foment race hatred and division between Christians, continu- ing as of yore to collect heavy taxes where resistance 44 THE BALKANS was either spasmodic, unorganized, or thwarted by the internal dissension of the communes. There was cruelty and bloodshed and anarchy; the nominal ad- ministration probably abetted it all, certainly did not stop it; but the prime movers were the agitators, either native or imported. As was said before, Turkey could not keep a single promise of reform if she would, and would not if she could. Divide et impera. The Servian bands, the Bulgarian bands, the Greek bands entered Macedonia and worked their will on the natives and on each other; the Turk still collected his taxes, and possibly all the more easily because of the unrest and recurrent anarchy. Abdul Hamid appeared to understand fairly well the game of European politics. Such extraordinary per- formances as took place within the Austro-Hungarian empire could not escape his notice. German against Slav and Magyar, Magyar against Slav and German and Rumanian, dire dissensions, even among the Slavs themselves, all in the sacred name of church, or nation, or language, or race, or whatever it may be — such a mess of centrifugal forces apparently made an Austria- Hungary far from strong for external affairs. Yet the destiny of the "eastern realm," which is what Oester- reich means, was, in the minds of many both with- out and within it, down the Danube. Russia was never idle in the use of Pan-Slavism for her purposes, and by far the largest number of inhabitants in the Danube valley are Slavs. There was and long continued to be a Slavic society, claiming an immense member- ship, of which the president was a Roman (not Greek) Catholic Russian general, continuously wooing these populations in Russia's interest. Its agents fulminated for years in books and papers against the sorrowful HAMIDIAN RULE 45 effects of the "sauerkraut and sausage" civilization forced by Austria on the long-suffering Herzego- vinians and Bosnians. Then there were the three quasi-independent kingdoms, which heartily detested one another, but finally did federate against Turkey and might even do so once more against all pre- dominance in the Danube valley and their peninsula generally. These were the nearer cares of Sultan Abdul Hamid, but he prided himself on his intimate acquaint- ance with the international jealousies of the powers further west, being firmly convinced that the very exist- ence of Turkey in Europe, since 1877, was due to his tact and nice discrimination. He was keenly aware of what public opinion in the West could accomplish, and of how it was formed. But he was also convinced that, constitutional government being everywhere a name and a form, the true Turk is less of a hypocrite in his absolutism than the head of any monarchical democracy. Abdul Hamid himself was a contradiction, utterly Abdul Hamid inconsistent and incomprehensible to the Western mind, and likewise, as far as our information goes, to the Oriental mind. On the one hand, his interest ap- peared to be mainly European, and he made on occa- sion a great show of the very slender Western culture which he possessed. He mustered all his charm for those who represented the West, made desired conces- sions with the most graceful manner, appointed the friends of his friends to pleasant and lucrative posi- tions in the Ottoman service, emphasized the position of his empire as a European state, and carefully at- tended to the question of alliances. After having been, as was his father, almost under the tutelage of Great 46 THE BALKANS Britain and her remarkable ambassador Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, he then turned and vented his bitterness upon that power when Egypt was occupied : finally he concluded that Germany and the German emperor were most likely to perpetuate his sway, at least for a few years, over what was left of European Turkey. Yet, for perfect play in such a game, much is needed which either willfully or ignorantly he left undone and did not attempt. His real life was in the other and true side of his character. Privately he was most at- tentive to the Moslem traditions and to the practice of polygamy ; and the seat of Turkish power was under his tarboosh, not in the divan of his ministers nor in the great administrative departments, whose palaces form a feature of the capital city. In the palace and almost to the exclusion of the anxious patriot proud of Turkey's past, eager for her well-being and desirous to reform a rotten administration, there appeared from time to time the willful, impatient, crafty, timid tyrant of Oriental tradition. Mewed up for all the days of the year, except perhaps half a dozen, behind the in- closures of Yildiz, he made all his public appearances in connection with the faith and practice of Islam. Though his ultimate fate seemed to depend on the Oc- cident, his prestige, as he well knew, depended on the Orient. He had not a single claim to be caliph, being neither Arab nor lineally descended from the Prophet nor chosen by the Mohammedan world; yet by dint of assumption and agitation he was so recognized by a majority of the orthodox. The Shiite Persians, of course, loathe the Sunnite orthodox, whether the Sultan be caliph or no, because they prevented the just succession of Ali, the Prophet's adopted son, in the Caliphate; but the agents of the HAMIDIAN RULE 47 usurping Turk were found everywhere else throughout the Moslem world working in the interest of Pan- Islamism, with the Sultan as caliph and recognized head. In India, Central Asia, and China, in Java and in Africa, even in southern Russia, they moved the faithful to enthusiasm for the Sultan as the successor of Mohammed. This was his anchor to windward, and it gave him a strong mooring. It was not forgotten by him that both Great Britain and France have in- numerable subjects, fanatic Mohammedans, who would see in violence, or even in a slight to the Sultan, a sacri- legious act against their cherished faith. It was for this reason that the weekly prayer which Abdul Hamid made in his own modest, personal mosque of Yildiz was the occasion of a ceremony, alike military and reli- gious, devised and performed to impress the whole world of Islam. In this half hour's performance he was not the exquisite European who had traveled, who knows men and lands, who identifies himself with the general welfare of Europe and the West; he was the theocratic ruler over the fate and fortunes of millions upon millions of the world's elect, who alone have life, light, and immortality, who are sure of a world to come which dwarfs to vanishing the world that is. It is trite to observe that no man can be double, no man can be the inscrutable Asiatic despot and the genial constitutional ruler of the West ; yet during the selam- lik, surrounded by a living wall of choice troops thou- sands in number, Abdul Hamid made his effort at the former role. As his fine equipage dashed past the visiting tourist who had secured admission to the in- closure by the kindness of the ambassador, there was seen, sitting on the front seat, facing his Sultan, the highest official of the empire. In the place of honor 48 THE BALKANS was a man of purest Turkish type, with curtained and mystical eye, prominent nose, and a full mouth, with hair and moustaches dyed a blue-black, with square shoulders that felt the weight of care, suspicion, and craft, but bore it doggedly — a man who claimed from the nations, peoples, and tribes of the empire the obe- dience due to an absolute master, from all Moham- medans wherever found the reverence due to the repre- sentative of the Prophet. The onlooker got but a glimpse, of course, but it was a most impressive mo- ment. In the devotion of approach to the throne of Allah, the Padishah sat impassive while the imperial coachmen urged the splendid steeds ; when he emerged from the house of prayer he took the reins in his own imperial hands, while his well-trained horses whirled him and his two attendants back to the palace and the harem. This was the last of the contradictions noted in re- gard to true Turkish rule. Viewed logically in the light of homely common sense, the maintenance of such a system was utterly preposterous. When it is realized that Christians, of churches both orthodox and schismatic, were oppressed by unbelievers, that the holiest spots of Christian ground were in the keeping of infidels, that savagery and barbarism were fostered and perpetuated, and hideous cruelties practiced through- out this empire, that day and night the cries of the in- nocent, outraged and brutally murdered, ascended to heaven from lands otherwise beautiful and prosperous, and that all this was going on under and by virtue of European guarantees — no wonder that earnest men and women throughout Christendom assailed the ears of their rulers and cried in despair, "How long, how long?" This, however, is the obverse of the shield ; the HAMIDIAN RULE 49 reverse is quite different. Whatever was the case a few years since — and no one now doubts that Turkish sol- diers were then the criminal brutes — in the latest years of Hamidian rule everything was changed; the brigands who rendered Macedonia a hell on earth, were outlaws, supported and instigated by the self- styled "patriots" of one or other of the three bordering Balkan States, while, under pressure from the Euro- pean concert, Turkish troops make some outward show of repressing the disorder. Time and the chapter of accidents were the last resource of European states- men regarding Turkey in Europe. It long seemed vital to peace and the balance of power elsewhere that the realm of the Sultan should be kept intact. But European diplomacy suddenly saw a new and Balkan alarming vision, the great light of a general Balkan Conflagration conflagration. Le.ss than eight years ago it would have seemed preposterous that four Balkan States should be permitted to wage open war for the possession or partition of Macedonia, that the area of desolation and oppression would thus be indefinitely extended in time and space. Yet their clandestine confederation and the ensuing war has had no other end or aim. The atrocities of Macedonia, it must not be forgot- ten, were mainly the work of Christians. They were determined to force either European intervention or a Balkan war, and in the latter desperate adventure they were successful. In the summer of 1907 the Porte de- clared officially, and probably truthfully, that it knew of a hundred Greek bands, each numbering thirty and upward, financed by an Athens committee and com- manded by Greek officers in disguise. The Serbs brought similar charges against Bulgaria, and vice versa, with Greece reiterating like indictments against 50 THE BALKANS both. Europe was willing to risk neither horn of the dilemma. The foremost interests of the West in the Hither East were commercial and missionary. Both were jeopardized by the possibility of any other rule over Turkish lands than the misrule which existed. The Slavic ideas of nationality do not include missions, either Roman or Protestant. Under the Hamidian regime these missions had a certain standing and pro- tection. And no sooner has a new state been organized in the Balkans than the commercial door, open under Turkish control, was closed in the face of all the great trading nations, to be opened only on the basis of pref- erence in some form or another. England, America, and Germany, therefore, had every selfish inducement to reform and perpetuate rather than to revolutionize the existing system, not only of Turkey in Asia but of Turkey in Europe. If the worst should come to the worst, as was thought and even proposed, trial might be made in Macedonia, as it had been made in the Lebanon and Syria, of a Turkish governor responsible to the powers through their ambassadors at Constanti- nople. Of course this would have been the assumption by the powers of almost complete responsibility, but it seemed a preferable alternative to that of opening the sluiceways of international rivalry among the Balkan States. These states — Rumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, and Montenegro — were, as has been remarked, most in- teresting political specimens, well worth a careful study as instances of the past in the present, of peoples work- ing out in the twentieth century and in the Orient prob- lems almost identical with those which occupied the West some two or three centuries ago. Neither in- dividually nor collectively did they seem ripe to as- HAMIDIAN RULE 51 sume any further obligations than the weighty ones which already oppressed them. Their primitive con- ceptions of finance and administration, above all of international relations — indeed, even their rudimen- tary notions of what a state and a nation is — could one and all be enlarged and matured only by experience. They were not ready, as the event has proved, to solve the world problem of Constantinople and determine the destiny of the Levant. But they believed them- selves to be, and had the presumption to make the effort. Their failure was due to their imperfect, al- most rudimentary, development, as can be understood only by the patient consideration of their evolution. Ill THE BALKAN PEOPLES S3 Ill THE BALKAN PEOPLES Of prehistoric man in the Balkan peninsula, little is known except from a few excavations, which make us famihar with his rude buildings, his graves, his orna- ments, and some utensils that have withstood the ravages of perhaps thirty-five centuries. The dawn of history reveals the Illyrians on the Adriatic, the Thra- cians to the eastward south of the Danube, and the Scythians north of that river. If, as is held, the primitive peoples were round- headed and of the Mediterranean type, the Thracians, of whom we have portraits in relief carved in stone, were of the North-European type. Their headdress, body garments, and trousers were elaborate in fold and design, the legs being clad either in wide, flowing panta- loons that hung in carefully arranged creases, or else in tight-fitting garments, equally elaborate in creasing and giving the effect of the leggings familiar to us as puttees. The garb of the Rumanian and some of the Servian peasants to-day is but a slight modification of the Thracian clothing combined with the Roman tunic. The ancient and modern footgear are identical, a sort of laced moccasin, styled, in the Slavic tongue, opan- kas. The elaborate Thracian hair-dressing also sur- vives. Among the Thracian stocks were the Trojans, Dacians, and Getians, the Phrygians, Moesians, and Lydians. They were a numerous and mighty people, penetrating the Balkans as far as Boeotia and Attica, whence they were expelled by the lonians. 55 (i) Historical Survey Tlie Thracians 56 THE BALKANS Th9 The word "Scythians" is frequently used to desig- Scythions nate those Mongolians who overran northern India, but the great and powerful people here under consid- eration were, like the Thracians, a North-European stock who came, according to the latest indications, from the Baltic. They were a fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde-haired race, which, driven from its seats by the advancing Germans, moved southward into the heart of Europe and thence southeastward, coming into con- tact with the Thracians at many points. Their cloth- ing consisted of tunic, trousers, and shoes somewhat like those described but widely different in important respects, as can be seen from the monuments. They carried bow, sword, and lance, were daring horsemen, steed and rider being sometimes incased in rough armor. Of their many stems the Parthians seem to have been the most important. They were not akin to either Finns or Turks. As they are portrayed in sculp- ture, and from the remains found in their excavated graves, they were clearly a northern folk. Experts de- clare their customs to have resembled those of ancient Germans, including the blood-covenant, the deification and worship of the war-god in the form of a sword, the sacrifice of horses, the drinking from skulls, and the use of twigs and beef-collops in augury. Similar, also, was their savagery in battle. The Of the third and possibly most important immigrant Dlyrians stock, the Illyrians, much less is known. They were Indo-European, they came from the north, and they completely occupied what to-day is Servia, Croatia, Dalmatia, and northern Italy. Many contend that they partially settled the entire Balkan peninsula, but there is no proof. The names of about a dozen Illyrian tribes occur in classical literature, the Venetians, lapy- THE BALKAN PEOPLES 57 gians, and Liburnians being the most important. Their southward movement appears to have been arrested by the fact that the southern end of the pen- insula was already occupied by an earlier people, the Hellenes or Greeks. This earliest traceable immigration of settlers into Early the Balkan peninsula occurred probably about three Immigration thousand years before our era. The immigrants, we repeat, were of Aryan or Indo-European stock, de- scendants of Japhet. They came from the north and occupied, more or less completely, what we call to-day Transylvania, Rumania, and the entire country south of the line drawn from the head of the Adriatic east- ward to the mouths of the Danube. Crossing the Bos- porus, they spread over much of Asia Minor likewise. As classical antiquity knew them, Thracians, Scy- thians, Illyrians, Epirotes, Trojans, Phrygians, My- sians, Paphlagonians, and Armenians, one and all they were so split into clans and tribes that they never formed a national unity, as this word is now under- stood, nor played a role in history. The Persians overran the lands of all these stocks The Era of as far as Adrianople in the valley of the Maritza ; the Chieftains Athenians compelled their obedience in spite of stub- born resistance and guerilla warfare, at least on the shore lands where fleets could operate. During the fifth century before Christ there was established and maintained by a series of powerful chieftains a gov- ernment which reduced to subjection its neighboring kinsfolk, who were tribes of rude hunters, living by rapine and plunder, compelled their obedience, and enforced primitive law. This was the dynasty of the Odryses ; its seat was the Maritza valley and its most powerful monarch was King Teres. The dynasty was S8 THE BALKANS overthrown in B. C. 383 by a clan chieftain of the same blood, known as Kotys. At his hands the Athenians suffered repeated defeats. The day of his dynasty was short, and tribal rivalries overthrew what semblance of government there was. Then appeared on the scene another conqueror, who, like his predecessors and contemporaries, had founded a kingship, but further south in Macedonia, where the dynasty of Macedon, so eminent in history, had been established. This was Phihp II. His will was so strong and his discipline so severe that troops of the Thracian-IUyrian stock proved invaluable to his de- scendant, Alexander the Great, the world-conqueror of the epoch. This strange youth, possessing alike all the primitive virtues and all the primitive vices of his race, their zeal, their faith, and their energy on the one hand, their self-indulgence, their fury, and their recklessness on the other, this commanding genius was by the intel- lectual training of Aristotle so imbued with Greek culture that his military triumphs carried a high Hel- lenic civilization into all the lands which came under his sway. When the master died and his generals established themselves as kings in various parts of his empire, the upper Balkan peoples threw off all restraint, reverted to their original clan system, and so weakened them- selves and their resources that when, a century later, the Celts appeared in what are now Bosnia and the Herzegovina, no effectual resistance to the new Aryan invaders could be made. Many of the earlier settlers fled before them and founded south of the Narenta a government of some stability ; the rest were oppressed almost to annihilation. But the lordship of the Celts was brief, for, after THE BALKAN PEOPLES 59 the second Punic War, Roman legions appeared on the Coming of scene. The process of conquest was hard and weary. **'* Romans Finally in B. C. 167 King Genthios, who ruled south of the Narenta, was defeated and captured. A loose con- federacy of the clans, dwelling north of that river and known as Dalmatians, had been formed to repel the Romans and proved to be an even more stubborn foe ; it was not until B. C. 156 that the resistance of these tribes was overcome by L. Scipio, the propraetor of lUyria, and their lands incorporated into the Roman province of that name. The resistance of the Pan- nonians and Dalmatians was not entirely crushed until some six years after our era. Simultaneously, Lucullus and Crassus had overrun the eastern stock and com- bined the lands between the Danube, the Balkan Mountains, and the Black Sea into the province of Moesia. The Roman conquerors at both extremities of the peninsula, keenly alive to the importance of easy transportation, kept persistently building their famous military and commercial highways; they like- wise taught the peoples how to wrest wealth from their fields and mines, and how to enjoy it by the adoption of Roman manners and culture. The Greeks lost their political independence when in Interweaving B. C. 146 Mummius conquered Corinth. Their politi- of Greek and cal activities were not in the least diminished by that jj^^^^ fact. Their country became the base of operations alike for the tremendous struggles of Rome in the conquest of the Orient, as well as for the civil wars which masked the death throes of the Roman common- wealth and the rise of the Roman empire. The in- fluence of Greece had been great throughout the period of the republic ; in politics, literature, and all the arts of refined living she gained and retained the mastery. 6o THE BALKANS Her pupil was, however, prominent in war, in jurispru- dence, and in administration — and that to the last. But in the theory, art, and practice of both social and political life Rome was Hellenized, to the menace of all the severe and primitive Roman qualities which had made her supreme. After the battle of Actium, Greece was incorporated into the empire as the province of Achaia. Her soil had been ravaged by the perpetual warfare of a cen- tury; her population, unable to support itself by agriculture, flocked to the towns in immense numbers to seek and find employment, while the impoverished few who remained on the land became a. tenant peasantry. It was an age of elegant, luxurious living; the townsfolk throve on the industries contributing to such an existence; those in whose hands great country estates had accumulated spent little time at home, and the countryfolk steadily degenerated into rude drudges and boors under the exactions of hire- ling managers. The coast towns and some of the inland cities cultivated the applied arts in manufac- tures, exporting exquisite products into all lands ; and their Roman masters used every effort to promote such a commerce. It was in the cities that the political instincts of the Greeks still found room for activity, and by the means above indicated they retained their leadership in thought from the Atlantic to the eastern frontiers of Roman power. The university at Athens surpassed in brilliancy those of Rome, Alexandria, and Mar- seilles, attracting students from all parts of the empire. The conquerors were at first disposed to severity of rule and ruthlessly exploited the Greek sources of wealth for themselves. In time, however, the closer THE BALKAN PEOPLES 6i interchange of relations created a better understanding and induced a milder administration. Society grew more dignified under Roman influences, family life purer; and Christianity established woman in a po- sition of responsibility where she could exert her grace and charm without licentiousness. By the third century of our era, the Greek passion for beauty and for science had spread far and near into the primitive lands of the east. Caracalla gave Roman citizenship to all the freemen of the empire, thus diminishing its value, to be sure, but nevertheless creating a certain unity of culture thereby. And finally, when, with the inroads of barbarous peoples, Italy ceased to be para- mount in influence, Rome being absorbed in the strug- gle for self-preservation, the rise of Byzantium se- cured an almost complete ascendancy for Greece in the eastern portions of the civilized world. What the eminent emperors in Rome, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, had begun, namely, the further- ance of literature and the fine arts by imperial support, was continued by those who ruled at Constantinople as a matter of course, as a part of their official prerogative and duty. This action was so progressive and efficient that at last Athens was forced to yield her palm of leadership in culture to the city on the Bosporus. While the southern portions of Eastern Europe Rome in were thus more or less completely Hellenized by the North Europe intellectual power of Athens and Byzantium, the case was far different in the northern ones. As has been seen in another connection, there is a wide divergence of opinion as to the ethnic character of the people known to-day as Rumanians. The name indicates to those who bear it a Roman descent, as the language they speak is unquestionably of Roman origin in its 62 THE BALKANS essential quality. To the contention of Latin birth, neither history nor anthropology giv6s decisive sup- port; quite the contrary. The so-called historic evi- dence is altogether indirect, and amounts to a claim that in a period of a hundred and sixty years, sparse Roman settlers, whose very existence is doubtful, mod- ified the native population so far as to create a new race. Anthropology is as helpless as history. In Mol- davia the majority are short-headed, in Wallachia, the reverse; in both the majority have clear-cut features, yet many are Roman-nosed, while quite as many have noses and lips of the Mongolian type. The mass have brown hair, but a quarter of them black ; three per cent are blonde, two per cent red-haired. The brows of all are broad, and their eye-cavities large; three quarters are dark-eyed. Among the other quarter the eyes are gray, with here and there blue ones. Such indications afford no satisfactory solution. But that, antecedent to the third century of our era, Roman influence was there paramount admits of no question. The west Thracians were as thoroughly Romanized as those to the east were Hellenized. Dacia had cultivated the Roman style to the exclusion of all other influences; from among Trajan's legionaries who annihilated the ])ower of King Decibalus, and his later Roman colo- nists there may have survived powerful leaders. In any case there was a combination of all the eleriients into a new people, using a language molded into Roman form; this tongue, still spoken, is, however, now blended with a substantial intermixture of Slavic, Turkish, and Persian forms, words, and expressions. The Rumanians have even borrowed words and ex- pressions from the Magyars, the Albanians, and the Russians. The use of such a tongue no more proves THE BALKAN PEOPLES 63 the Latin descent of the users than that of EngHsh by the various elements of the United States indi- cates the Anglo-Saxon descent of them all. After Trajan's death these semi-Romanized Thra- cians could no longer be held in subjection ; during his short reign of three years, Maximin, himself a Thra- cian who had risen from the ranks to the purple, main- tained a semblance of order among his kinsfolk, but to the natural restlessness of the people was now added a new cause of disturbance. The Goths had settled on the northern shore of the Euxine, the Vandals had boldly entered the province, and from the great plains further beyond was pouring out a flood of humanity which pressed hard upon both from behind, breaking through in places and emptying itself into the valley of thie Danube. Hadrian was forced (270-275) to with- draw his troops to the right bank of that great river and rename the province Ripuarian Dacia. The left shore to the north was thus lost to the empire, but some of the Romans and much of the Romanized popu- lation continued to dwell there. These and the traders kept the prevalent low Latin a living tongue. About the year 450 the Huns, and a century later the Avars, permeated the land, until finally there was a mechanical mixture of races, peoples, and tongues in which the old order was utterly disintegrated and the way pre- pared for the latest inundation, that of the Slavs, whose very name. Slave, indicates the contempt in which they were long held. That descendants of Thracians, Scythians, and Illy- rians, of Greeks and Romans too, still survive in the Balkan peninsula no one doubts. How numerous, how free from miscegenation with later immigrant peo- ples is, of course, a question still to be answered. 64 THE BALKANS if at all, by anthropological and linguistic studies more thorough than any hitherto undertaken. At present there is the widest difference in hypotheses and de- ductions, as numerous, fleeting, and unsubstantial as moths flitting around a candle. For example, the ancient Greeks believed that a fabulous people whom they styled Pelasgians had preceded them in their homes, but had been driven back into the northwestern snow-capped mountains. Accordingly, there is some fine writing to-day about surviving direct descendants of the Pelasgians. There is no credulity like that of the inchoate, undeveloped, self-styled historical litera- ture produced within thirty years by writers from or in the Balkan States. The Visigoth Slowly the great horde of Goths on the north shore Migration of the Euxine had differentiated itself into two stocks, somewhat different in character and widely different in their historical career; the west, or Visigoths, and the east, or Ostrogoths. The next important migration into the Balkan peninsula was that of the Visigoths under Alaric, who actually settled in the central por- tion of it in 382, in 395 threatened Constanti- nople and pressed on into Epirus and Hellas. It is to the ruthless occupation of the mainland by bar- barians that the islands of Hellas owe to this day their almost homogeneous Greek population, descendants of the Greeks who nearly fourteen centuries ago fled be- fore this Germanic invasion. In time the invaders were more or less Hellenized and established them- selves in Epirus as vassals of the emperors at Constantinople. Restless and uncertain as was their temperament, they soon began to fear lest they should be further absorbed into Byzantium, and at last with- drew across the Adriatic to their kindred in Italy. THE BALKAN PEOPLES 65 During the period of their settlement in that peninsula they destroyed the art treasures of the country most ruthlessly, and the process which they began was con- tinued by the Huns, who poured their Mongolian flood along the same highway of nations. These in turn were followed by the Ostrogoths under Theodoric, who laid waste the Peloponnesus, and by the Vandals, who perpetrated every form of theft and destruction along the Greek coast line; whatever was left after this de- vastating process substantially disappeared under the rule of the Bulgars, who in 517 ravaged Epirus and Thessaly as far as Thermopylae. The Byzantine emperor Anastasius sought to pro- tect his capital behind the wall stretching from Pro- pontis to the Euxine, a line of defense so often men- tioned in this latest period, and abandoned all his un- happy provinces to their fate. He and his successor, Justin, were utterly paralyzed when the Slavs, abiding their time on the south shore of the Danube, began a further advance and established many permanent col- onies in the districts deserted by their former inhabi- tants. Justinian, however (527-565), was a man of different temper, and while he left the Slavic colonists already established in their new seats, yet he inaugu- rated a system of fortifications on the Danube and in the interior of his empire which checked any further inroads. The last quarter of the sixth century is marked by The Avar the further invasion of the peninsula by the Avars, a Invasion people of extremely warlike nature. Coming from their previous home between the Caspian and the Sea of Azov, they had occupied the valley of the Theiss, whence for two and a half centuries they terrorized all their neighbors. They now pushed forward into the 66 THE BALKANS east Roman empire and found their advantage some- times in supporting the emperor, sometimes in strengthening the Slavic invasion. They, too, succeeded in estabhshing settlements at various places in Greece, but, in the main, the result of all this confusion was the greater and greater preponderance of the Slav ele- ment. At the beginning of the sixth century there were more Avars to the north of the Danube than beyond it, and more Slavs to the south than on the other side. The Slavs Pliny, in the first century of our era, makes mention of the Slavs, and in their legendary lore the emperor Trajan occupies so important a position that many have thought there must have been some contact of a peaceful nature between him and the Slavic tribes. Inasmuch as Slavic folklore expresses nothing but kindness and admiration for the Roman powers, which were afterwards their bitterest enemies, their kindly relations may have continued to the end of the fourth century. Traces of prehistorical Slav mi- grations and settlements have been found clear across Europe as far as Hanover, but the Germans forced them back over the Elbe. Their primitive seat appears to have been the banks of the Dnieper River in what is known to-day as southern Russia. A prevailing hypothesis makes them descendants of, or close kin to, the Scythians, but so commingled with the race stocks just mentioned that they appear to be a composite race. TheBulgars The Bulgars, whose seats had been on the lower Volga, were nearest in kin to the Turks. From the time of their earhest appearance they, too, assimilated themselves, and very closely, with the nomads about them, and it was Bulgarized Slavs who founded the empire which included the lands of the Danube, Wal- THE BALKAN PEOPLES ey lachia, with a part of Hungary, as well as their own territory — a mighty empire which lasted for over three centuries (702-1014). During their ascendancy three peoples of unknown descent — the Hungarians, a Ugrian-Turcoman folk from Asia, and two Turkish stocks, the Patzinakians and the Cumanians — entered the districts north of the Danube. It was into the very heart of the vast Slavic territory that the Hungarians drove themselves like a wedge ; and for generations the northern and southern groups lived in different en- vironments and under different conditions — a fact which created and perpetuated substantial variations. In type, language, and even in basic institutions they are perhaps as much differentiated as the Spanish from the Portuguese, much less than the Italians and Span- ish or any other two of the Romance peoples. It was the south Slavs who were first discernible in the Bal- kans during the sixth century. In the seventh they began to settle westward of the Bulgarians, occupying the Roman province of Moesia, and it was there that they first received the contemptuous name which they still bear, that of Servians, Slaves. In the eighth cen- tury they accepted Christianity, and thence, down to the eleventh century they were at best a protectorate, and more often a dependency of Byzantium. There- upon, separate stocks began successively and success- fully to assert independence, and in 1165 they were united under a dynasty which in 1222 was recognized by both the Pope and by the emperor of Constanti- nople. They developed a civilization which was quite remarkable; and under the Czar Stephen Dushan (1330-1335) the empire embraced, in addition to its original domains, Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, Bul- garia, and northern Greece. This great Servian con- 68 THE BALKANS The Turks (a) Racial Characteris- tics Turk queror reached the very gates of Constantinople with a summons to surrender, but there he died; and his lands, united only by his imperious will, fell apart, a prey to warring ambitions. It was in 1453 that Ma- homet II, the great Osman Turk, mentioned in another connection, after capturing Constantinople, marched onward with his invincible horde and soon brought all the Balkans under Turkish sway, a grind- ing tyranny that lasted nearly four centuries. With the appearance in the Balkan peninsula of the Turks, an outline of whose career has already been given, the long roll-call of national and race elements in that distracted portion of Europe is completed. Not one of these elements has remained entirely pure. Of those considered, four have admitted alien strains, and the same is true of their languages and institutions ; yet all survive, and all hold fast to their traditions, and all look forward to the restoration of their ancient domin- ion and glory. The situation is complicated by the strife of confession; Islam with Christianity — alas! a divided Christianity — the adherents of the Greek Church, at least among the masses, regarding those of the Roman confession as utter outcasts, and vice versa. Both churches are overlaid with superstitions, and with intolerance, with dogmatic and rituahstic corruptions; but the only wonder is that after so many centuries of oppression, abuse, and degradation the common folk are not worse than they are. Briefly to characterize these variegated stocks is dif- ficult, but a few indications may be given, The Turk is of middle stature, strongly Asiatic in type, and dis- posed to obesity. In character he is serious, courteous, hospitable, and brave, but fanatical to the verge of brutality. His ethnic composition is fairly displayed THE BALKAN PEOPLES 69 in the ingredients of his speech, the original forms and vocabulary of which are overlaid with a mixture of Slavic, Greek, Romanic, Spanish, Persian, and Arabic elements. These last two predominate, especially in the scanty literature of the language. The Slavs of the peninsula are generally designated Slav as Serbo-Croats. They number at least nine millions. They are a powerful race, tall and yet sturdy, with heads so domelike and short as to attract the attention of the most casual observer. The Servians are Greek Catholics and use the Cyrillic alphabet. The Croats are almost exclusively Roman Catholics. Almost all of the so-called Turks of Bosnia and the Herzegovina are Mohammedan Slavs. The districts of the Austro- Hungarian monarchy known as Croatia, Carniola, Bosnia, the Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Istria are peopled almost exclusively by Serbo-Croats, and there are many of them in Hungary, as well as in both Trieste and Fiume. Servia proper is, of course, almost exclusively theirs, as too is little Montenegro, and there are likewise many in Bulgaria and even in Rumania, in Macedonia, and in Albania. While they vary widely in religion, in costume, and to a certain extent in habits, they speak the same language and are indisputably homogeneous in race. Their language is relatively pure, purer than their original mixed blood. Ages of oppression did not leave the Servian charac- Servian ter unharmed. Those who professed Islam, in terror, became in time thorough Moslems and so remained. These were the great land-owners who constituted what may be, with reserve, styled the aristocratic class. They retain, as they firmly believe, the native virtues of their stock, and upon these they have engrafted those which spring from Moslem morality. The great 70 THE BALKANS mass of the peasantry, true to its Christian faith, but oppressed by the taxation which approached the bound- ary of confiscation, slowly became secretive and finally tricky, lazy, and untrustworthy. Their religion could not counteract the degradation of their slavery, and the comparatively short period of their emancipation has not yet sufficed to put them into even the middle rank of stalwart manliness, except as soldiers. The life of Belgrade is in many respects sadly debased, the Servians proper being an ignorant peasantry with no leadership from an upper class, and, like all others in their condition, more receptive to the vices than to the virtues of Western civilization. Montenegrin The Montenegrins have as yet come little in con- tact with modem movements and shine, therefore, in the possession of many primitive virtues. The Croa- tians have improved greatly under the Austro-Hun- garian rule, in which they shared ; and the Dalmatians, still primitive in many respects, have profited much by their close contact with the refined city life in that row of beautiful towns which were once the ornament of Venetia and still retain in a high measure the refine- ment of Italian life. For the most part, the south Slav, the Serbo-Croat, is a man of the fields, though his women do more of the burdensome work of tillage than elsewhere in the world. Few are devoted to trade, industry, or commerce, but these few seem fairly successful. Such exploitation of the great mineral and forest wealth in their country as there is — it is as yet inconsiderable — appears to be in the hands of foreigners, who obtain concessions with difficulty and are not over secure in their possession. Bulgarian The Bulgarians, like others among the strata of the great confused ethnic mass accumulated by the proc- THE BALKAN PEOPLES 71 esses just described, were brought into the fold of the Greek Catholic Church. After the fall of Constanti- nople many of them became Mohammedans and are known as Pomaks, but the proportion was smaller than in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. These Pomaks have not yet returned to the Greek communion; there sur- vive also many real Turks who may emigrate but are not likely to be converted.* Iteration makes impres- sion, and it cannot be too often repeated that in im- portant times and circumstances creed has determined nationality to the exclusion of all else. It does so still in the disdainful Turkish mind, the "millet," or faith- unit, being likewise a Turkish unit of administration. Thus for ages the Greek Christians were considered both an ecclesiastical and a political unit. The Slavs, once under Turkish rule, held in abomination such a concept; they have been the intermediary through which the antipodal notion has prevailed : language has been associated with creed as the test of nationality. Bulgaria is struggling to emphasize slight differences — differences which seem negligible to curious outsiders, such, for example, as the place of the article, or rather particle, prefixed or suffixed, or the use of Old Slavic in the service book of the church, or the designation of an ecclesiastical overseer as Exarch instead of Patriarch; not only struggling, but almost exhausting itself in the struggle to make these serve as a sanction for a nationality ambitious to control the Balkan penin- sula. In this, the un-Aryan, central Asiatic origin of the people reveals itself ; the tribal concept is the stirp which, running under the surface, sends up hardy shoots at unexpected intervals. The notion of a nation- 1 Some estimates place the Moslem population of the new Bulgaria as high as 450,000. The patriots hope for the re>conversion of the Pomaks, who are full- blooded Bulgarians; more dispassionate obaervera are very doubtful. 72 THE BALKANS ality, based on both language and creed, Bulgaria has observed to the exclusion of every other; Servia, on the other hand, emphasizes blood and social institutions as the basis for determining nationality. It also has a national church, but the Servian Church recognizes the patriarch at Constantinople as superior to its own hier- archical head, while the Bulgarian Church stops with its own exarch and knows no superior. These Volga- rians, or Bulgarians, originally an Altaic horde, which overran large portions of the Balkan peninsula as nomads do, were driven back by the Bosnians, Ser- vians, Albanians, and Turks into the districts which their descendants occupy, districts then, as even yet, settled to a considerable extent by south Slavs. These they subjugated; but, as so often occurs when a lower overcomes a higher civilization, the conquerors adopted the religion, manners, and speech of the conquered. They began at once to merge with the earlier people and so inaugurated a process which made the Bulgarian of to-day a Greek Catholic, which gave him a pure Slavic tongue with only trifling modifications. The Bulgarian can assert a separate nationality only in his history, in slight physical traces of Altaic origin and in a slender vocabulary of Altaic words now embodied in the speech of the country. The Bulgarians number about four millions. They occupy Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, which together until the outbreak of the war formed their kingdom; they have many kinsfolk in Macedonia, to the east of Albania, and some thousands in Rumania. They are of medium height and powerful build ; their heads are neither short nor long, but of a middle type quite their own, and they have oval faces with rather high cheek bones. In the northern districts a few of them exhibit THE BALKAN PEOPLES 73 a fairly strong Asiatic type, almost Mongolian ; to the southward they are more and more purely Slav. Their character is very unlike that of the Servians and Rumanians. Disposed as they are to quick surges of passion and prompt revenge, they are also intelligent, laborious, and thrifty. Like the Servians, they are a peasant folk, but both their farming and gardening are admirable, which cannot be said of the Servians. They cling to their picturesque garb, and the women's cos- tumes glow with rich color and effective though coarse embroideries. Scattered far and near over the Balkans is a very Wallach enigmatical folk. They are irreclaimably nomadic, liv- ing mainly by the produce of small herds of goats or sheep. In Macedonia, Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria their little bands are everywhere found on the moun- tainsides and upland pastures. Investigators have counted twenty-two different designations by which they are known. The generally accepted name in anthropology is that of Aromunes — goat wanderers — but they are most widely known as Vlachs or Wal- lachs, sometimes as Kutzovlachs. Six hundred years ago they were exactly as they are to-day. They have not advanced a single step toward a higher civilization, having neither settled habitations nor even the most primitive agriculture. In the countries through which they wander repeated efforts have been made to subdue their vagabond propensities, and at wide intervals of time and space a small proportion has been established in villages, but the vast majority still roam as before. Their racial unity cannot be doubted. In the first place, they have a physical type of their own; middle stature, round faces, coarse but regular features, straight noses, large, full mouths, brownish yellow skins and, for the 74 THE BALKANS most part, black hair. The women are most unlovely and are careless in their attire — flowing, coarse gar- ments of skins and rough woollen stuff. Though cau- tious and suspicious, when reassured they are lively, good-natured, and hospitable. Secondly, they all speak the same language, the Rumanian. They speak it, of course, with variations, and these extend so far that in Rumania, Hungary, the Bukowina, Russia, and some parts of Bulgaria and Carniola, their speech is called "Dacian Rumanian"; in Macedonia, northern Greece, Epirus, Albania, Servia, Bosnia, and other parts of Bulgaria it is styled "Arumanian ;" in Istria and round Fiume, "Istrorumanian" • and finally to the north of Salonica, "Meglen." But these variations do not prevent the intercourse of all the stocks with each other, and the language, though composite, is a unit. Its three basic elements are, in the order of importance: Dacian, Latin, and Bul- garian, with a very considerable intermixture of Greek, Turkish, and Hungarian. Their garb is sub- stantially identical, too, in all places, and utterly differ- ent from that of those among whom they mingle. Both men and women wear woolen jackets, pelisses of fur or skin, embroidered shirts (those of the males short, of the females long) over drawers and trousers, with laced sandals of leather, and leggings; the headdress is generally a fur cap, sometimes peaked, sometimes flat. They have the same skill as had the ancient Thra- cians in folds and plaits, and their passion for color produces a revel of shrieking contrasts. Sometimes the women wear felt hats, flat or tall, sometimes hoods with ribbon streamers, or again no headdress at all, in which case their hair is drawn straight back and plaited. They are still a prehistoric folk, living like THE BALKAN PEOPLES 75 Troglodytes, using hand mills and clay ovens. They squat in sitting, shake the head in affirmation, and nod in negation. This extraordinary stock is, of course, most numer- ous in Rumania itself, the kingdom formed from the one-time Turkish provinces of Moldavia and Walla- chia and now including the Dobrudja. Within this kingdom and in Hungary much has been accomplished in raising the living standard from that of the nomads who dwell without. Village life has been established, a firm government inaugurated, education regulated and improved, agriculture introduced. The land was from immemorial times in the possession of feudal owners, and the aristocratic families still give direction to the life and customs of the peasantry. For the most part they have been under Russian influence for generations, and have north Slavic blood in their veins, as well as north Slavic ideas in their minds. With great pride in the Roman origin which they claim, they turned after their emancipation away from Rus- sian influence and the Turkish yoke toward French sources of culture. The refinements of French life have been widely introduced among them — in some cases and in certain ways to the advancement of a real civilization, in other ways and degrees to excesses due to moral unripeness. The Albanians ! This extraordinary folk is the rid- Albanian die, the puzzle, the mystery of both science and politics in southeasten Europe. They populate a district of most uncertain boundaries, broadly styled Albania, almost to the exclusion of any other race element; within its limits Slavs are very rare and Slavism is detested. Some Albanians are Roman Catholics and despise Greek orthodoxy, alike that of the Slavs on 76 THE BALKANS their borders and that of their kinsfolk in Greece; many more are Moslems and loathe Christianity. There are north Albanians having very little inter- course with south Albanians. Within the uncertain boundaries of Albania they number but a quarter of a million, all told ; it is likely that there are ninety thou- sand more in Greece, Italy, and elsewhere. In matters social and political they appear to represent a develop- ment arrested centuries ago, if not in prehistoric times. They are in the tribal stage, in some places in the patriarchal. They have the point of honor developed to the verge of absurdity, and each carries on his person a small arsenal of arms and ammunition. They shave their heads close, except for one untonsured circle on the crown; here is left the traditional hair plume which is the badge of their nationality. They wear gaudy and embroidered garments, which are often neither clean nor whole, and they strut the earth like lords. They have been called the armed children of Europe. Yet they are admirable as tillers of the soil, obsti- nate in the defense of their rights, courageous as few others, passionate in their patriotism, loyal to their chiefs, and hospitable to strangers who learn and observe their ways. They are of middle stature and spare frame, lithe and active, and are in almost equal proportion blonde and brunette. They regard them- selves as one people because they have one territory and one language, one tradition, and, as they believe, one origin. The Skumbi River divides the Ghegs of the north from the Toscs of the south; and though the dialects of the two differ so widely as to make inter- course difficult, yet the differences are those of forms and expression, not of grammar and vocabulary. The THE BALKAN PEOPLES 77 language is made up of very diverse elements. Of the 5,140 principal words, about one half are importations ; 1,420 are Rumanian, 1,180 Turkish, 840 Greek, and 540 Slav; less than 400 are taken to be of ancient Illyrian origin. The name "Albanian" was given to them by the ancient Byzantines. Their designation for themselves is "Skipitari" — the eagle's brood. Among the Ghegs there are living about equal numbers of Mohamme- dans and Roman Catholics, but the former are the aristocracy, haughty and exclusive, living like Scottish clans in their mountain fastnesses. The Toscs, on the other hand, entertain many Greek and Vlach settlers within their territory, and live on friendly terms with their neighbors. They are partly Moslems, partly Greek Catholics. The Ghegs have furnished the two national heroes: Scander Beg (1467) and Prenk-Bib- Doda; but the latter, after brilliant feats of arms as patriot, was drawn into the service of the Sultan and lost caste. While the Ghegs are renowned for their independence and warlike temper, the Toscs have furnished the warrior best known in our day as the Greek hero, Marco Bozzaris, who, with his Suliote band, did noble work for the liberation of the Greeks. The generally accepted hypothesis as to the origin of the Albanians is that when the Thracians were driven from their seats they migrated westward, com- mingled with the Illyrians in the fastnesses of the Albanian Alps, an inaccessible, defensible range of majestic snow-capped peaks and narrow vales, where eventually a few Goths and some Serbo-Croats gained admission, and that the resultant of all these elements is the persistent, primitive, obdurate Albanian people. Their nearest kin are to be found in certain districts 78 THE BALKANS of the Herzegovina, where in type, garb, and character a few communities strongly resemble the Albanians. These recognize a degree of relationship, but are slowly being absorbed into the somewhat higher civilization which arose under Austrian rule. Although there are three confessed religious authorities, yet the Roman Catholic Albanians notori- ously behave as they please without reference to the Pope, while Greeks and Moslems are alike indifferent to Caliph or patriarch. The obedience of all Alba- nians to any authority is dubious. They defied the Congress of Berlin, refusing to Servia and Monte- negro the districts and towns of their land assigned by that august body to those states. They long pre- ferred the slack reign of Turkish rule because for them that rule was hardly more than nominal. Now and then an army from Constantinople would best them for a time, but they were restless under control and made trouble when not left to themselves. The old Hamidian regime grossly abused its little power, but it was so feeble that it dared not impinge deeply on the tribal self-government. The Young Turks, in the effort to bring Albania into their constitutional regime, em- ployed military force, but they succeeded only in ex- asperating the clans, especially the Mirdites and Malli- sores of north Albania, into a resistance that could be broken only by extermination. The Albanians are superbly built, active and endur- ing, ready alike for peace or for war, with excellent qualities of heart and mind. Roughly, the territory they assert as their own corresponds to the Epirus of ancient Greece. It is needless to say that learning and culture have made no greater progress in this province than they had in the days of King Pyrrhus. So hope- THE BALKAN PEOPLES 79 less was the effort of the Young Turks that, under pres- sure from the Great Powers, the Constantinople authorities were forced to abandon their scheme of amalgamation. The wild tribes of the north secured all their demands; in the south almost equal conces- sions were made, and Albania felt itself nearer to a united and half-sovereign independence than ever be- 1 fore. The bulwark of Turkey against Slav encroach- ments was thus outwardly maintained up to the out- break of the war, but only by the reversal of the widely heralded policy of "Turkification." There are two other unorganized elements of the Gypsy and Balkan peninsula which, although not numerous rela- J*'' tively, are actually so busy and pervasive that they are everywhere in evidence. The Gypsies are tinkers and metal workers. Generally, they are nomadic, but in Servia, Bosnia, and the Dobrudja there are numerous villages in which they regularly dwell, for the greater part of the year at least. Ragged, unkempt, filthy, im- portunate, they play an important role in necessary occupations which the natives disdain. Finally there are the Jews, almost exclusively of the Ashkenazi branch — peddlers, shopkeepers, money-lenders or, eu- phemistically, bankers. They are sternly orthodox in their inflexible ritual and dogmatic and mysterious in their business transactions. For the most part, they speak the Yiddish dialect of German and Hebrew, a tongue unfamiliar to those among whom they live. They are hated and feared; and, in Rumania, where they are very numerous, they are in some places and at some times savagely persecuted. The superstitious, ig- norant folk, made to suffer at the hands of the Jews for their unthrift and recklessness in money matters, are easily roused to fury. In Constantinople and in Sa- 8o THE BALKANS lonica, and to a less degree in rural Macedonia, there are colonies of Sephardim, or Spanish-Portuguese Is- raelites, whose characteristics are entirely diflferent from those of the Ashkenazi, and who generally are respected, often admired, by those among whom they live. rv I. THE BALKAN NATIONS 8l IV I. THE BALKAN NATIONS /, The wild world of to-day is not Western America, Purpose of but southeastern Europe and the confines of Asia. It Chapter has, we trust, been made sufficiently clear that one of the causes for its lamentable backwardness is its de- ^^^iifective and arrested social development, which, for the / most part, is that of the early patriarchal state. Where it appears economically more advanced, the fact may be traced to a benevolent and concealed despotism, or at best to a half theocratic clanship or tribal form of government under some exceptional leader. The pur- pose of this chapter is rapidly and somewhat superfi- cially to examine the nature of the monarchies that have been established as centers of order. It is, of course, a platitude that in this vast area of Environment territory, utterly unknown to the majority of intel- ^*^ ligent men from the West, physical geography, as elsewhere, determines to a high degree the social struc- ture of the inhabitants. Nowhere is the relation between man and his habitat closer; nowhere is politics more sternly conditioned by natural resources and climate. If there is ever to be a high civilization in the Balkan peninsula, it must, for this reason, be of a sort unfamiliar to modern Europeans, not as yet dimly apprehended by its own inhabitants, and de- manding for generations to come charitable and con- siderate treatment from those enjoying a higher civili- zation without; a patient, parental behavior from the 83 Civilization 84 THE BALKANS native statesmen who strive to guide the evolution from virithin. Before the onslaught of the Allies upon Turkey there was perpetual friction, there were fre- quent clashes with those who claimed authority, and there was much bloodshed. While elsewhere there was the hush of armed peace, among the tribesmen of Morocco and the clansmen of the Balkans there was the babble of tongues, the shouting of captains, the violence of barbarism, the menace of a spreading con- flagration, which shocked the Western world as an anachronism. Warfare, so scientific in the equilib- rium of its forces elsewhere, was there primitive and brutal. The chaos, it was widely believed, was due to the inflaming of local passions, of tribal jealousy by foreign agents, as part of the game of world politics played by the Western powers. The Play of To what extent the great powers are responsible, Politics only history, as written long hence, can determine. For instance, we are to-day fully aware of the three!' widely different policies which made a united Italy. ! These were respectively exemplified in the work of Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi, and though, as we get a longer perspective, we see how their efforts con- verged to one result, it is clear that their aims were widely at variance. Again, the transformations in Cuba and Mexico have, in a large measure, been due, as is generally believed, to the work of daring ad- venturers, backed by private capital, unscrupulously concealing their motives behind such slogans as pa- triotism and liberty, choosing for their seat of war the frontier of a powerful and jealous nation, so that a temporarily constituted authority might be menaced with intervention and serve merely as a transition to annexation by the stronger power. THE BALKAN NATIONS 85 With affairs in Morocco we have strictly nothing to do, but attention should be called in this connection to the skill with which the policing of the frontier has been made by France the pretext for the overthrow of a rude and corrupt despotism. The game in that part of the world, as played by the Great Powers just before and since the Algeciras Conference, has been a sort of double dummy with the cards open on the board. In some mysterious way, not one, but all of the players win. Germany secured a slice of the French Congo to widen her possessions in the Cameroons; France, a protectorate over Morocco, rounding out her vast colo- nial empire in northwestern Africa ; Spain recognition as a power and an enlargement of her African pos- sessions; Great Britain the open door. For that de- sirable end there were interminable negotiations, emphasized by the presence of a warship here and of an army there, and the equipment of a fleet somewhere else; but there was no overt war. Something similar was going on between the spring of 191 1 and the autumn of 1912 in the Balkans; in miniature, perhaps, but still on a sufficient scale to make Young Turkey shiver, to compel the mobiliza- tion of armies, and to force the new government in Constantinople to fulfill some few of the many promises it made when, three years earlier, Abdul Hamid had been unseated and sent a prisoner to Salonica. The earlier regime has been sufficiently described; the anxious complots of Abdul Hamid, his espionage, bribery, peculations, poses, tergiversations, and hypoc- risies seemed, when the writer was a second time in the Balkans, to be working as well, if not better, than ever. The sudden overthrow of the despot was the work of men who, having long lived, as previously 86 THE BALKANS remarked, in Western Europe, at Paris, or elsewhere — but unfortunately in self-contained groups, misappre- hending entirely the aims and methods of European statecraft — believed they had found in the superficial observation of their surroundings, and in the per- spective of distance from home, a solution for all the woes of Turkey. Remarking what slender influence was exerted in the West by religious, confessional, and even race distinctions, they conceived the possibility of melting together Moslems of every sect, Christians of all denominations, and races of every variety within the boundaries of Turkey, into a type citizen, a Turk. These were to be tolerant one of the other, were to cooperate in the creation of a modern nation, naturally under the leadership of the Turkish Moslem minority, and thus perpetuate the Ottoman empire. Young They had an elaborate plan. The first step was to '^urkeyat secure the cooperation of an army, composed, they thought, of first-class material, and trained, they be- lieved, by the best German teachers. Succeeding in this, they accomplished a coup d'etat as theatrical and ruthless as any known to history. Thereupon they set up what they called, and what did have some re- semblance to, a constitutional government — elections, parliament, checks on the crown and its functions, administrative, judicial, and military. For a few months there was the outward semblance of free insti- tutions. During that period of deceitful calm there was no change, however, in race prejudice, nor in the wild nature of the human beings, who still sought each his own advantage in the destruction of others; who cultivated each his own traditions to the detes- tation of everyone else's ; who had learned to despise order, because the price of order had been the endur- theHelm THE BALKAN NATIONS 87 ance of an oppressive and savagely enforced rule, under commands given in ignorance and sanctioned by brutality. Nor was there any change perceptible in the methods of administration; there were only promises. The army had made the so-called New Turkey ; the generals were masters of the country. Founded on force, this new government must appeal to force at every crisis. There was no perceptible effort to promote true re- form. It was frankly asserted in private circles, it could even be read between the lines of the newspapers, that the greater the apparent change in Turkey, the more persistent was its identity. It was sneeringly repeated on every side that the only single change was that for the white (silver) baksheesh, the new authorities had substituted the yellow (gold). To get anything done required ten times the secret service money necessary under Abdul Hamid, for the simple reason that there was a division of powers, and the oil in the can of bribery had more pivots to lubricate than before. Fleet and army equipment, foreign relations, constitutional adaptation, anything and everything ex- cept internal reform, occupied the attention of Con- stantinople and of the newspaper correspondents kept there to supply news to the Western world. The single vital problem, that of Turkey's local and tribal affairs, remained untouched. The old disintegrating ideals were, after the revolu- The Call of tion, more lively in action than ever. The six millions f»« Clan, ot of Romaic-speaking Greeks planned, plotted, and ^f|*' . furnished money as before for their "great idea" of an Bonism enlarged Hellas and the restoration of Byzantium. The Moslem Arabs of the great desert peninsula on the Red Sea demanded governors who were not licensed 88 THE BALKANS robbers, and a caliph who should be an Arab Moslem, not a Turkish half-Giaour. The Macedonians called for an end of rapine and murder. The Serbo-Croats agitated more than ever for a Great Servia. Bul- garia was keenly alive to the possibility of enlarging her borders and her prestige in the disorders which her statesmen foresaw. She, from one side, and Greece, from the other, kept dispatching their guerilla bands into Macedonia, incessantly troubling the racial and confessional waters of that distracted land. Monte- negro had deep-laid schemes for an advance into Al- bania. Rumania alone appeared quiescent, but she, too, was brooding a plan, but lately revealed, for aggrandizement; she, too, had her agents in Mace- donia, knitting up with her interests those of the wild Vlachs scattered throughout various parts of that province. All this was known at Constantinople, and was peevishly attributed to the activities of secret Rus- sian agents. The Government, feebly constituted, though backed by an obedient army, could not supply the menstruum to dissolve all these mutually repellent elements into even an inchoate nationality. Optimistic The only really interesting phenomenon of the time Europe ^as the curious confidence of optimists throughout Europe. They seemed actually to believe that the Bal- kan question had been settled for many years by this effort to "Turkify" Turkey in Europe. The German and Austro-Hungarian writers naturally were the most confident, and summoned their economic hosts to the rich trade banquet set before them. The economic struggle for southeastern Europe with its magnificent mineral and agricultural resources was to be renewed with vigor. As if to justify their confidence, the trade of German lands with all the Balkan kingdoms revived THE BALKAN NATIONS 89 for a time in a most satisfactory way. Hungary was not quite so successful as Germany and Austria; hav- ing on her hands a problem similar to Turkey's and almost equally exasperating — the "Magyarization" of recalcitrant Germans, Rumanians, Slavs, Jews, and Gypsies within her borders. The few who did not share this optimism were not disappointed when, beginning with the early spring of 191 1, the race volcano exploded once again and the political earth began to quake. The origin, and in part at least, the continuance of that seismic storm were ascribed by many to the reviving ambition of a ruler who, moved by dynastic reasons, and permitted by other dynasties, had but lately changed his style of prince to that of king, Nicholas of Montenegro. The direct occasion for the incipient warfare has been mentioned ; it was the discontent of the Albanian tribes who had hitherto been his bitter foes. They could not, and would not, endure the humiliations put upon them in the inchoate efforts made in their bleak and dreary home to Turkify them. How bleak and how dreary not only their country. Physical but that of Montenegro is, cannot be imagined ; in this ^**^*s "^"^ case, as in few others, seeing is believing. The north- ** *^ ern portion of Albania and the western half of Monte- negro is a country that seems to have been cursed with barrenness. It is purely alpine, and alpine of that wilderness type known as "karst," cragged limestone weathered black. To one who has never seen the "Black Mountains" words cannot describe the forbidding, awe-inspiring nakedness of the "karst." Yet every- where among these rocks is human society of primi- tive type. As the earth fires cooled, they left here and there little, irregular, volcanic funnels, varying in 90 THE BALKANS breadth from fifty to five hundred feet. These, either by natural attrition and mold formation, or by artificial filling with earth, painfully gathered by hand from the interstices of the rock, or by both means, are now fairly full of soil which, were sun and temperature more gracious, would yield fair little crops. On the lower levels, indeed, there grow the better grains and fruits, but on the inclement mountain sides there are to be seen only a kind of buckwheat, potatoes, and the coarser hay grasses. Elsewhere than in these pockets there are scattered blades of grass, scrubby bush growth of several varie- ties, with an occasional growth of undaunted dwarf beech or birch, and sometimes a real tree. Here and there in this wilderness are vales of fertile soil, but as yet these are forest thickets or malarial marshes. Less frequent are stretches, a few miles long, where the tillage is admirable. The extent of these karst regions is very great; they begin as far westward as Carniola and appear at frequent intervals in great ex- panses over the whole of Europe south of the Danube ; but it is in Montenegro and upper Albania that the dismal supremacy of "karst" is undisputed either by nature or by man. Each successive district of Albania southward is more fertile and better tilled, but in all of them the social conditions are primitive. Our latest state-science has determined that moun- tain ranges, and not river channels, form proper bound- ary lines. Such slopes and summits as we have de- scribed are not only a frontier, but are a naturally fortified and garrisoned frontier. The nomad herds- men who range them are born soldiers, and each carries in his capacious belt his own arsenal of weapons and ammunition. THE BALKAN NATIONS 91 It may seem utterly absurd and ridiculous that a Montenegro: kingdom so tiny and likewise so infertile, with a Aim and population no larger than a good-sized town, should Aspiration have aspired to Servian leadership; but an aspirant it was, and for reasons which can only be explained by some account of its scanty annals. In the fourteenth century, the little district between Cattaro on the Adri- atic and the high-lying lake of Scutari, some forty miles distant in the bosom of the Albanian Alps, was known, from the name of the stream which waters and drains it, as the principality of Zeta, and was a de- pendency of the great Servian empire, its few in- habitants being pure Servians then as they are to-day. When the great Servia was overrun by the Turks the conquerors barely penetrated to these mountain fast- nesses, and in this Chernagora, or Black Mountain, principality there was a semi-independent line of chief- tains, at once bishops and secular princes, under whom the defense was defiantly successful against all efforts at subjugation. In the fifteenth century a conspicuous warrior fixed on the land the then already current name, which seems destined to permanency on the lips of its people, Cher- nagora, Monte Negro — Black Mountains. This Stephen founded, in 1465, the cloister which later was the nucleus of the capital city, Cettigne, formed an alliance with Venice, and, in triumphant guerilla war- fare, drove the Turks before his companies and scat- tered their forces wherever they appeared as invaders. His great nephew was the famous Scander Beg, a pervert to Islam, who, for a period, ruled as Turkish viceroy ; but heathen rule was intolerable to the Chris- tian folk with its tradition of heroic victory over Mos- lem foes, and in 15 16 the bishop (Vladika) Vavil 92 THE BALKANS headed a successful revolt. It was, however, as sepa- rate clans and not as a nation, that the people repulsed their hated foes ; and for a time there was a reversion to blood feuds, personal and tribal. Nothing but the renewed and powerful attack of the Turks could unite them; and the Moslem advance seemed irresistible until in the person of another bishop-prince (Danilo, 1697-1735) a barbaric bond of union was formed and every non-Christian in the land was on a preconcerted signal seized and killed. It was a rude retribution — the Montenegrin vespers of 171 1. Thereupon this Danilo Petrowich, son of Peter, entered into relations of closest intimacy with another ruler of the iron hand. Czar Peter the Great, relations which, for historic and sentimental reasons, have never been broken by the successors of either. With Tur- key's embittered foe on the other side, the then still powerful commonwealth of Venice, he also fonned an alliance, joined ranks with hers and conducted a vic- torious campaign against the Crescent. He then made the episcopate hereditary in his line, the family of Nyegosh, but intrusted the secular authority to a governor who was to be second in position. This worked so ill that for a time, over fifty years (1625- 1681), the governor was the superior, winning the re- spect and uniting the hearts of the warlike clans on the Black Mountains. But Peter I ended this insubordination, and, a hard- hitting prelate himself, led the Montenegrin forces against the Porte in the campaigns of 1788-1791, de- feating the great Pasha Kara-Mahmoud at Krusa. In the fifteen long years of peace which ensued he proved as capable in administration as he had been in war, unified his people by tactful diplomacy, and in 1798 THE BALKAN NATIONS 93 promulgated a code of laws. But the affair of Monte- negrin men is war; and wherever Russian armies fought there were the fierce mountaineers, generally under the vladika-woiwode, or bishop-prince. Peter I and his soldiers won glory in 1808 against the French in Ragusa; in 1813-1814, with the help of English men-of-war, he captured Cattaro from the same foe; but at the end of the Napoleonic wars he was forced by the treaty of Vienna to abandon his longed-for ac- cess to the sea and surrender it to Austria. His people so adored him that on his death he was canonized. Peter II was a no less amazing personage; a poet, priest, warrior, and administrator, enforcing the law, creating a legislature, ordering the machinery of state and inaugurating a school system. He was likewise the greatest poet who ever has sung in the Servian tongue. His nephew, Danilo I, was his successor. While Peter II had abolished the office of governor, the new ruler reversed the action; he resigned the dignity of bishop and announced himself as a secular prince ; the style he assumed, with the assent of Russia, was prince and lord of Montenegro and the Burda. This prince was a great statesman. In the nine years of his reign, 1851-1860, he crushed out the clan feuds, extirpated the vendetta, reformed the code and its administration, introduced the taxation of land, and established universal military service. The day was passing swiftly, alike of chieftains and hero-worship, of hereditary war-power and of particularism. The value of Danilo's reforms was twice proven; once when, in 1852, the Turks threatened invasion and were with- held by the protest of Austria, and again in 1858, when they were soundly beaten at Grahovo. On the first occasion it was the prince's gigantic strength of mind 94 THE BALKANS and body which set on foot a formidable army and led Austria to intervene ; on the second, it was the prowess of an army actually made and trained by him that won the battle against Omar Pasha and a superior force. Such masterful men make embittered foes, and he was assassinated by one of his own subjects, but not before a boundary line between Montenegro and Turkey, satisfactory except in one small district, had been surveyed and established. His nephew, Nicholas, was his successor. Bom in 1841, educated in Trieste and Paris, he was called at the age of nineteen to a tremendous task : the Herze- govina had risen in revolt against Turkey, the Montenegrins were lending aid, and two famous Tur- kish generals, Omar and Derwish, were at the gates of Cettigne. The situation was too critical for rash ad- venture, and peace had to be made at Scutari, as the Powers willed. But by this time it was evident that the good will of Montenegro was of the first im- portance to Turkey ; and Sultan Abdul Aziz not merely settled the existing boundary trouble but gave Nicholas access to the sea by the cession of Novosella. There followed twelve years of peace and of internal organi- zation; but when, in 1876, Servia declared war against Turkey, the fighting spirit of the still wild moun- taineers was too strong to be checked, and the Monte- negrin forces took the field. Repulsed in their first encounter, they won two suc- cessive victories of the first importance, at Vucido and on the Fundina, both of which fields were bitterly con- tested. Russia intervened to end the conflict for her own reasons, but Montenegro felt assured of additions to her territory as indemnity. This the great powers, in the conference of 1877, refused, and Montenegro took THE BALKAN NATIONS 95 the field alone. Turkey sent her two most renowned generals, Soleiman and AH Saib, at the head of power- ful armies, to annihilate the little state. There were ten days of stubborn conflict before the Turks were forced back into Albania. At once Nicholas passed on, conquered the town and fortress of Nikshich ( Sep- tember eighth), captured Spush, in January, 1878, and stormed the medieval fortress of Antivari on the Adri- atic. Such military triumphs could not be overlooked, and by the Treaty of Berlin not only was the territory of Montenegro more than doubled, but her complete independence was formally recognized. Her recent boundaries were fixed by an exchange with Turkey, welcome to both parties. The Porte regained a part of Albania, essential to the strength of the Turkish fron- tier; Nicholas secured another stretch of coast land, including the one-time robber nest and fine harbor of Dulcigno. All nations have struggled with boundary questions due to ignorance of geography and imper- fect surveying; one such remained unsettled between Turkey and Montenegro. For thirty years there was peace in those rude borders. The miniature capital of Cettigne has a cer- tain number of good public edifices and three embas- sies lodged in stately buildings. But its broad streets are flanked with low, one-story village houses, small and primitive. The only conspicuous shops are those of the tailors, whose windows are a revel of gold galloon and gay colors. The splendor of Monte- negrin costume is exhibited in the stately saunterings of the men on the public squares. With the consent of the powers, Nicholas, as stated, crowned himself a king. His consort was a model wife, mother, and queen, and the modest state of his home did not shock 96 THE BALKANS the still primitive peasantry who were his subjects. He improved every department of pubUc life and service, especially in the creation of an active legis- lature, of an improved judiciary, and of an efficient educational system. The crown prince Danilo led to the altar the daughter of an opulent Trieste mer- chant. His other children married into royal houses, and dynastic politics were long of the first importance east of the Leitha River and the Adriatic. The old friendship with Russia had been further strengthened, and the most conspicuous evidence of her bounties is still to be found in the capital. The foreign language cultivated and spoken in Cettigne is Italian — a significant fact, as is the use by polite society of French in Bucharest, and, for the most part, of German in both Sophia and Belgrade. While in cen- tral Europe English is the foreign tongue most af- fected, it proves of little service to the traveler to the eastward, whether north or south, though most culti- vated Russians can speak it if they will. I have dwelt at some length on Montenegro as I did on Albania. Until 191 1 they stood in armed defiance; one the bulwark of Slavism on the south, the other Turkey's rock of defense to the northwest. For a short time the two peoples were warm friends. Those parts of Albania once Turkish and mainly Mohamme- dan, assigned to Nicholas by the Treaty of Berlin, or taken in exchange, were content under Montenegrin rule; the wildest clansmen of the Albanian Alps were kindly entreated when they rose in rebellion and, de- feated, were refugees across the Montenegrin border. Strange and unforeseen rearrangement of relations ! What was the cause? The drawing together was not a permanent one; merely a sign of the coming era in THE BALKAN NATIONS 97 Turkish politics. In any case there, on an imaginary line across the great lake of Scutari, is certainly what has proven to be the weather-corner of European poli- tics. Is it astonishing that Montenegro aspired to leadership in the great Servian movement? The territory of Montenegro comprises about The thirty-four hundred square miles, and its inhabitants Montenegrin number two hundred and seventy thousand. The west- °*"Y^ ^ ern part to the banks of the river Zeta — Chernagora, Black Mountains, proper — is the bleak "karst," or waterless rocky-mountain land already described; the snow-capped Lortshen is nearly six thousand feet high. The eastern or Burda district is mountainous, too, but fertile and well watered; it contains the Dormitor, a peak eight thousand feet in height ; within it are superb primitive forests and much wild, luxuriant vegetation. A third portion, southward and toward the sea, is semi- tropical and superbly fertile, awaiting only the canali- zation of the Boyanna River, outlet of the lake of Scutari, to be one among the garden spots of the world, as will likewise be the left or Albanian bank, so admirable is the tillage of the Albanian population on both. The wine and tobacco of certain districts are renowned. This tiny and still indigent people of Montenegro has worked some miracles. There is already built a system of excellent highways on which motor post coaches run, and more such roads are surveyed ; there are thirty post and twenty-four telegraph offices with nearly five hundred miles of telegraph line. In the capi- tal are two high schools, one for boys and one for girls, and a normal school; and scattered throughout the country in convenient places are eighty primary schools. Two newspapers are printed in the national 98 THE BALKANS printing office in Cettigne, and a second printer is established in Nikshich. The army system makes every male a soldier from sixteen to sixty-two, and military service is compulsory during a portion of every year. The king had a bodyguard of one hundred professional soldiers. The constitutional system, con- ceded by the prince in 1905, worked with such impulse as a sovereign, virtually absolute, could give to it ; and that was considerable. The exports were to the value of about four hundred thousand dollars, and the im- ports a million. The visitor to Montenegro has a sense of its bitter poverty, which the people themselves do not feel. As was said of Greece, the estimate of the tourist depends on his point of view ; amid the wild surrounding peo- ples Montenegro is in a state of advanced civilization, a model and a stimulus. But a Montenegrin country home! Four stone walls and a roof, thatch or slate, with no chimneys, the smoke oozing out through every cranny of the eaves, the unglazed windows and open doors. Within is a clay floor, with smoldering embers in the middle, and wide couches round about: the cattle are in a lean-to at the end, with their hoard of manure cherished like the treasure it is. Some houses are better, some worse than this faithful description, but the average is very low. The men in stately, though soiled garb, give orders and march with warrior mien ; the women powerfully accomplish the work of house, byre, and field, with a minimum of assistance from their lords. The physique of the adults is fine and their vigor great, although they suffer sadly from rheu- matism. The religious instincts are primitive and their church feeling intolerant. Their minds dwell on tradition and song, on the mighty deeds of their ances- THE BALKAN NATIONS 99 try, and their tempers are easily fired to warlike energy. They are temperate in food, and, for the most part, in drink; hospitable, polite, and obliging. The best judges declare that the stranger, male or female, is safe in body and estate in the remotest districts, though others are not of this opinion. To a rude peas- antry like this, the meanest house in Cettigne with chimneys, glass windows, tight doors, and plastered walls seems a palace in comparison with their own hovels. The self-complacency mirrored on the faces of the dwellers in the capital is charming. On the southern frontier of Montenegro are the Grecian Aims Albanians, who have secured at the hands of a Euro- ^^ influence pean conference the final delimitation of their fron- tiers by an international commission. North and south and beyond lie the districts which are already partly Greek and destined apparently to become entirely so. Modern Greece owes much to the Albanians, who, during the years of their revolt against Turkey, came frequently, though spasmodically, to assist in their struggle for liberty. So grateful were the Greeks that, as previously told, they adopted as their national cos- tume the picturesque garb of their allies. It is rather a shock to one familiar with the remains of classical antiquity and sculptures representing the exquisite garments which its refined taste provided alike for the men and women of ancient Greece, to come upon the Greek of to-day in the half-barbaric holiday dress, which his forefathers adopted and which seems des- tined to hold its own. The tasseled tarboosh, the ruffled shirt, the gaudy jacket, the swelling fustanella, or kilt, with its hundreds of folds of soiled linen, the woollen hose, and the feet clad in Oriental, heelless shoes, turned up at the toes and adorned with a ball of wool- 100 THE BALKANS len yarn — this combination, picturesque enough in itself, does not appear exactly to express the ancestry which the Greeks of to-day claim for themselves. When writing earlier of their origins it was narrated that the inhabitants of the ^gean Isles, of some portions of the Peloponnesus, and of a few districts upon the mainland of Hellas, might well claim a fairly unmixed ancestry; but it was likewise explained how large an admixture of other race stocks there must necessarily be among them. We have enumerated no fewer than ten successive peoples overrunning and settling more or less completely portions of Hellas. After prehistoric man came the first migrations of Thracians, Scythians, and Illyrians; then successively of Celts, of Romans, of Goths, Vandals, and Huns, of Avars, Bulgars, Slavs and Turks. Nevertheless, the ages have done a marvelous work of amalgamation, and the modern Greek may probably claim to be a Greek quite as much as the Romance peoples of Europe claim to be either Celtic or Roman. They themselves, as previously stated, estimate their numbers in Greece proper and in the Levant, including Constantinople, at nine millions; their bitterest foes admit that in the Balkan peninsula alone they number six. The probability is that this should be increased by one, and that elsewhere there are a million more. In the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean they are shrewd and successful merchants, and many of them have amassed enormous fortunes, which, as we have said, they liberally distribute for the promotion of Greek interests, both in the smaller and greater Hellas. But their agricultural capacities are limited and somewhat inferior. In Greece proper there are numbers of Albanians, possibly some tens of thou- THE BALKAN NATIONS loi sands, who have retained their language and their original character, altogether avoiding intermarriage with the Greeks ; yet they feel themselves as Greek as their neighbors. In one respect only are these colonist Albanians and the native Greeks completely united; they are nearly all of the orthodox Greek confession, which, in the parts of Europe with which we are dealing, is a powerful bond. Of course, there are other ties, especially the common tradition of bitter hatred for the Turks, inasmuch as they are both descendants of the men who suffered from Turkish oppression at its worst. They have also in common — and this is perhaps the strongest tie — the omnipresent "Great Idea," the restoration of the Byzantine empire with Constantinople once more as its capital. A certain rather small portion of the Greeks in Asia and Crete were, and very few still are, fanatical Mos- lems ; of these many use the Turkish language, written in Greek characters. This fact does not altogether alienate them from their nearer or remoter kinsfolk, neither the millions in the Levant nor the hundreds of thousands in America. The islands, we repeat, includ- ing Crete and the others so lately under Turkish sovereignty, have no other inhabitants, important in numbers, than Greeks. This must not be forgotten because it makes the ultimate settlement of their fate most difficult. Those who go to and fro in that part of the world, immediately discover the undoubted national type and national character. Every people has a right to be judged from its own standpoint. The Greeks, having really created the Greek Church, retained, when all else was lost, their passionate devotion for what was the one remaining outward expression of their national unity. The con- I02 THE BALKANS querors of Constantinople, never very sure of their position in a Christian world, followed in the adminis- tration of their conquests the hne of least resistance. The Greek patriarch at Constantinople, throughout a long succession of four centuries, was always a facile tool in the hands of the Sultans who appointed him. His power was alike ecclesiastical and civil. The Greek quarters of the city became the administrative center of European Turkey. Contemptuous Islam could see only its own face reflected in other social systems ; for it the communities professing the Greek faith, what- ever their race or origin, were Greeks. Scattered from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, these communities were therefore administered as a nation, or nations, through the Greek patriarch by means of Phanariote agents, who, according to the manner of Oriental tyranny, were unrestrained by their masters and kept in office as long as the required taxes were paid into the Sultan's treasury. Many, if not all of these agents, enriched themselves, lived in great state, and frequently combined to resist the Sultan's decrees in their own interests. It was, therefore, not difficult for them, within the limits of their administrative districts, to subordinate everything to Greek interest. The rather stupid Slavic peoples, stupid at least in comparison with the wily Greek, were overridden and crushed into dull indifference, until they frequently professed them- selves Greeks in sheer despair. By Phanariote influence the Servian Church in 1766 and the Bulgarian a year later were subordinated to the patriarchate at Constantinople. In Bulgaria the popular speech almost disappeared from use, except in the houses of the lowly or in the privacy of the better classes ; in church and school the only permitted THE BALKAN NATIONS 103 language was Greek. As late as the middle of the eighteenth century there were Hellenic schools even in villages where not a single Greek resided. To assert any position whatever, it was necessary to feel, to think, and to speak hke a Greek ; "Bulgar" and "vul- gar" were synonymous. The Servians were more tena- cious, but the Bulgarians abroad, as well as at home, posed as anything but Bulgarians. It was only in a few peasant huts that the hereditary hatred for Greece and for the Greek Church was outspoken, being espe- cially bitter against the Greek clergy, who virtually purchased from their superiors the positions which they held, and exacted the price of their simony from the poor wretches whose spiritual guides they pro- fessed to be. As if to obliterate any possible retention by Bulgarians of national character, even the literary remains of the one-time powerful Bulgarian empire, preserved in cloisters or in the patriarchate library at Tirnovo, were committed to the flames. There sur- vived but a few popular romances and spoken tradi- tion; from these uncertain sources a monk of Mount Athos in 1762 committed to writing what purported to be a Slovene-Bulgarian history. Probably, however, the climax of Phanariote rule was reached in two provinces known to us as Wal- lachia and Moldavia, now united to form the kingdom of Rumania. In those principalities, which were in a sense frontier lands, the administrators received from the Sultan both official titles and most extended powers. Their seats were firmer than elsewhere in the Ottoman empire. For that reason, great numbers of their com- patriots followed in their train across the Danube, colonized the most fertile districts, and exercised so beneficent an influence upon the half -barbarous native I04 THE BALKANS population that they inaugurated a process of assimila- tion which made those principalities more Greek than any others, except those of Greece proper. Most of the Phanariote voivodes, or princes, were able and admir- able men ; they founded Greek schools, introduced the use of the Greek language, provided instruction in Greek philosophy, and generally elevated the life of the towns to a high level of Hellenic civihzation. But the Rumanians, like the native Servians, were stubborn in retaining their speech and institutions, so that even where the Phanariote rule (disregarding a few noto- rious and shocking exceptions) was generally excel- lent, it was probably the least acceptable. Greek Such considerations as these explain the pertinacity Uprisings with which the true Hellenes cherished in their hearts what seems to so many the insane idea of a restored Byzantium. It was the mainspring of the rebelHon which culminated in 1830 by the recognition of their independence. The church had never suffered to grow dormant the idea of restoring to its members their political liberties. Their innate capacity for trade and for administration kept them in high places. Furnished with abundant means, they sent their youth to be educated in Western lands. As early as 1796 men thus educated began to agitate. At the Congress of Vienna many plenipotentiaries were won to the Hellenic cause by Kapo d'lstrias, president of the Greek society in Athens known as the Hetairia. This association moved upon a plane rather too high for the common Greeks, and a similar one for the plain people was founded in 1814. Its leaders proclaimed that they aimed not merely at the emancipation of Greece, but at the restoration of Byzantium, an idea which, for a hundred years, has appeared utterly fanciful. THE BALKAN NATIONS 105 So effectual were the agitations of both these societies that Russia, the ever-present and persistently embittered foe of Turkey, began in 182 1 to heed their call. Trusting to the Czar's personal interest and privately expressed sympathies, Alexander Ypsilanti, son of a Wallachian hospodar or Grand Duke, collected a band of followers in southern Russia, marched over the frontier into Jassy, and issued a proclamation call- ing his kinsfolk to arms. The action was too precipi- tate. The foreign relations of Russia compelled her openly to disapprove of the movement. Undismayed, Nicholas Ypsilanti, the brother of Alexander, took up the banner and, in spite of every discouragement, dis- union, desertion, and treason, succeeded in raising a still larger body of Greeks and Greek sympathizers. The two Pashas of Silistria and Braila collected a force for the national defense, and utterly destroyed the rebel army on the nineteenth of June. Alexander sought protection on Hungarian soil, where his exile lasted for more than six years, and was ended only by the intercession of the Czar Nicholas. But in this case the blood of the martyrs was literally the seed of the church. The word "Ypsilanti" aroused enthusiasm among all lovers of liberty through- out the Western world, and an American city which bears the name is perhaps their most enduring monu- ment. The Greeks themselves were aroused to unprec- edented energy, and rebellion broke out in the Pelopon- nesus almost immediately. The Turks were thoroughly frightened ; there was inaugurated that series of shock- ing and atrocious outrages which have been, and still are, a dark blot upon Balkan history. In mad fury, the most frightful and bloody revenge was taken upon all who had participated in the uprising, and the io6 THE BALKANS wholesale massacres of the Greeks in the island of Chios roused Europe to a pitch of enthusiasm for the Greek cause, which, in the long run, proved its most valuable asset. A flotilla of armed fishing smacks and a few larger ships, under Kanaris, annihilated the Turkish fleet in the ^gean. The Mainotes surrounded the Turkish troops, drove them into Tripolitza, in- vested the town, and finally captured it. The first na- tional Greek Assembly met on New Year's Day, 1822. Lord Byron published his amazing verse, and together with William Miiller, in Germany, fanned the phil- hellenic sentiment of Western Europe. For some three years the irregular Greek bands were successful in their encounters with their oppressors. The Sultan, in his despair, sought help from Mehemet Ali in Egypt, bribing the insubordinate viceroy with the promise of Crete and the Peloponnesus. Before his disciplined ranks the Greeks could make no stand ; the seat of war was turned into a scene of torture, of rapine, and ruthless bloodshed; volunteers from Western Europe, who, in their enthusiasm, had joined the ranks of the wild Greeks, were fellow victims in the common butch- ery ; Lord Byron perished at Missolonghi and the phil- hellenists of the civilized world, those of England and France in particular, began to demand intervention. Grecian Europe was weary of the Metternich system. On Independence December i, 1825, Alexander of Russia died, and his successor, Nicholas I, was hostile to the Austrian leadership. Canning took the decisive step, and the Duke of Wellington, under his instructions, negotiated an agreement at Saint Petersburg for the autonomy of Greece as a state tributary to the Ottoman empire. The French were, perhaps, the most enthusiastic phil- hellenes of Europe; their government was forced to THE BALKAN NATIONS 107 join the movement. A fleet consisting of war vessels belonging to different powers was assembled within Greek waters. The battle of Navarino, on October 20, 1827, was begun probably by an accident, but it re- sulted in the annihilation of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet. Who was to reap the advantages of this unde- sired and perplexing victory? The philhellenic coalition fell apart; Kapo d'lstrias, president of the Greek Assembly, was believed to be under Russian influence ; a French army drove the Turkish and Egyp- tain force out of the Peloponnesus. Canning was dead ; England, under new leadership, was jealous of both powers, and for a short period sided with the Sultan against Greece — particularly after the outbreak of the war between Russia and Turkey in 1828. The Rus- sians had pressed forward and were under the walls of Adrianople, where they dictated the peace of Septem- ber 14, 1829. By its terms the Porte agreed to cede certain Asiatic lands, to raze several fortifications in Wallachia, and to accept the terms of an international conference held in London regarding Greece. On February 3, 1830, the Powers declared the independ- ence of Greece, and on April 24 the Sultan recognized it. Meantime Greek armed forces had met with great success in Greece itself, a success which created jealousy and suspicion among the various leaders and threatened to undo the work of the past eight years. The Greek Assembly, however, under pressure from without, selected as king of the new little state Leopold of Saxe Coburg. It was not amazing that he declined. Incipient civil war was raging in Greece; Admiral Miaulis had virtually destroyed the fleet of his own country for personal reasons ; and Kapo d'lstrias was assassinated by fellow patriots at Nauplia. Thereupon io8 THE BALKANS the London Conference declared Greece a hereditary monarchy and the crown was offered to Otto of Bava- ria, son of King Lewis I, a most ardent philhellene. Grecian The subsequent history of Greece is a story of its Consolidation consolidation. King Otto made his formal entry into Nauplia, the then capital, on February 7, 1833. His people were splintered into factions, barbarized by their long guerilla warfare; the country was even more dis- tracted by the machinations of foreign diplomacy; Austria, in particular, then, as for the most part since, being more favorable to the integrity of Turkey than to the establishment of strong Christian powers on her eastward frontier. In 1835 the capital was transferred to Athens; in 1837 a university was established there, and in 1841 a national bank; in 1850 the Greek Church was emancipated from the control of the patriarch at Constantinople. When the Crimean War broke out, in 1853, the Greeks naturally hoped for an expansion of their territories in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Epirus, and under Greek guidance fires of rebellion were kindled in all three provinces. Great Britain and France united in dispatching a fleet to the Piraeus with a virtual command that such agitation should immedi- ately cease; they were not ready for the dismember- ment of Turkey at the hands of Russia. This diplomatic rebuff intensified the feeling of dis- taste for the German bureaucratic rule of the king. Otto, moreover, was of necessity influenced to a high degree by the pressure of European diplomacy, while his people thought him utterly indifferent to their cherished plan of national aggrandizement. During his absence on a visit to a remote district of the Pelopon- nesus, a provisional government was organized at Athens without his knowledge, and declared the throne THE BALKAN NATIONS 109 vacant. He returned, under protest, in 1862 to his native land. The choice of the people for the succession was the second son of Queen Victoria, Prince Alfred. But this was counter to the agreement between the three pro- tecting powers, and accordingly, in 1863, the Danish Prince William was chosen, who ascended the throne as George I, king of the Hellenes, in 1863. Not long afterward Great Britain ceded to Greece the Ionian Isles, but in spite of such an increase of territory, the struggle for consolidation and financial independence was for a considerable time bitter and not very success- ful. When, in 1866, Crete rose in rebellion, it obtained money, arms, and troops from the mainland. For three years Turkey seemed to hold its own, and in 1869 a European conference compelled Greece to refrain from further activity ; Crete remained a part of the Ottoman empire down to the events of these latest days. Until within a very short period of time the Greek population showed little capacity for constitutional government. Ministries rose and fell with a rapidity that indicated a public feeling not marked by self-restraint ; and there was an absence of financial ability, which was distress- ing and created great uneasiness throughout Europe. It was found necessary to put Greek finances under foreign control, and amid the ever recurring disorders in Servia and at Constantinople Greece showed such a lack of common sense in its politics and of self- restraint in its administration, that its best friends began to despair of its ultimate success. But all this was changed, as if by miracle, when the nation became aware of the movements in Turkey, which were sure to result in so general a disintegration of the Ottoman power, that nothing but stern discipline no THE BALKANS and rigid self-control, calmness amid social storm, could enable it to seize its opportunity and insure that enlargement of the national borders which they felt certain would result in national stability. Social Life in The social order familiar to the West has three strata the Balkans — a patrician class, a burgher and farmer class, a labor class ; these, at least in America, are in perpetual flux, men and families passing easily from one to the other. Although they have comparatively little permanency, they are nevertheless continuously in grinding opposi- tion to each other, the victory being at one time with this, again with that. It seems a most beneficent arrangement, because of the perpetual vigilance, the imperious self-restraint, the wholesale discipline re- quired to rise to and maintain a position; the fittest have every chance, the unfit find relief in agitation. In the Balkans there is among the indigenous population at any moment, in any place except the largest towns, not one of these social factors; all, whether farmers, mechanics, traders, or herdsmen, are confused into one dead level of peasantry and hand labor. Those who emerge as popular representatives to run what is called a constitutional government do not and cannot bring their family environment with them ; it is not suited for publicity, pure and simple as it may be. Officers of state and army dress and appear like their kind else- where, but the atmosphere of refinement does not envelope them and control them. Even the dynasties, which the masterful people, through their chiefs and in conjunction with the dy- nastic powers, have mechanically set to rule over them, possess no court circle in the proper sense. There is no controlling influence of woman in her indispensable role of social arbiter. Whether a mere worldling or THE BALKAN NATIONS iii noble in a spiritual aspiration, the Western woman is in every walk of life an uplifting power command- ing good manners and decency, outwardly at least; and obscure immorality is not so degrading to the world as flaunting vice. Where for ages the great were Moslems and the harem was the sphere of femi- nine activity, while the Christian, the petty worker, employed his women as beasts of burden, the totality of female eclipse was disastrous ; and the small folk who now compose almost exclusively the Balkan popula- tions have not recovered from its effects. The public morals are not merely without the regulating checks of social influence, but too often they exhibit the license of a harlotry which has injected itself into the lives of certain controlling men. To what has just been said there are superb exceptions ; but without mention of the humiliating truth that the Balkan man holds the Bal- kan woman in low esteem, everything that shocks and grieves, in certain events which are notorious, is utterly incomprehensible. This would not be true if the dynastic influences were strong and pure. The stage of development which the Balkan peoples have reached demands a person and a family as a standard. In one case, at least, the influences of the ruling house are strong and impure ; in another, pure but weak; in a third, entirely negative as yet; and only in one are they a combination of strength and purity such as furnishes an elevating example to a peasant folk and gives them a rallying point for a national patriotism. George, the late king of the Hellenes, was elected to his office December 22, 1862, and but for his assas- sination would have celebrated his fifty-year jubilee in 1912. A Danish prince himself, his queen was a 112 THE BALKANS Russian princess. Their progeny is numerous; both sons and daughters have admirable characters; the family life has been a shining example; and Constan- tine, the deposed king, a nephew of Queen Alexandra and a brother-in-law of ex-Emperor William II, dis- played many qualities which fitted him for his place. Father and son applied themselves, in the ' main, to the duties of their rank with diligence and ability. Their government, with one exceptional moment, later to be noticed, was constitutional ; and while the modern Greeks display much of the mercurial, turbulent temper of the ancients, yet, nevertheless, in this half century important advance has been made, partly by their mistakes, partly by their own initiative due to bitter lessons, partly under the tutelage of that upper class of governments we call the Great Powers. The only conspicuous failure has been noted. It is in the conduct of finance, which was so wasteful that a commission of the public debt, now established and composed of foreigners, became essential. But, on the other hand, there was peace, good order, and much prosperity within the borders of Greece, while her sons without amassed and poured treasures, great, even when measured by Western standards, into her educational coffers. Approached from the west, Athens disappoints many visitors; but to those coming from the east and considering the low estate of all lands once or now Turkish, the state both of the capital city and of the country as a whole is amazing in what it is, and promises. Both army and navy, small as they are, were reorganized and rendered efficient, and it is a tribute to national disci- pline that the behests of other governments which forbade their annexation of Crete and other Greek THE BALKAN NATIONS 113 islands were so long obeyed. The cries of the oppressed wrung the hearts of their compatriots, but these abided their time with wonderful self-restraint, content with a complete reform, in Crete at least, under the guidance of Prince George. Even a casual observer could note the enormous influence of Germany in Greece, intellectually and morally. Greek statesmen, on occasions, when speak- ing of German culture, art, and science, indulged in a turgid rhetoric, which does not ring sincere, but be- neath the exaggeration of their language there is much truth. It was not without result that ex-Emperor Wil- liam spent part of every year in Corfu, that German scholars ransacked Greek territories in the interest of art and history, and that Greek armaments were modeled, albeit in miniature, upon those of Germany. Yet when all this is said, it remains true that Greek royalty was in itself and until lately rather an orna- ment than an ingrafted growth on a national life. If the dynasty maintains itself for a generation or two longer, its influence will grow stronger in geomet- rical ratio. If Germany were, next to the United States, the worst (or best) hated of the great nations, efforts to undermine her influence and its supports will never cease. There were times when the legs of the throne tottered; but King George went far to realize his motto — "My power rests on the love of my people." The revival of dynastic influence in Europe was for a time striking and unmistakable. Throughout these latest wars, republican France has been true to her traditions of philhellenism and her support, moral and material, has been invaluable to Greece. But Constantine was far more effusive when visiting 114 THE BALKANS at Berlin than in Paris. The prospective heir to the Rumanian throne, Carol, son of the crown prince, was at twenty years of age betrothed to a Russian grand duchess, while his sister at twenty-one was announced as the coming bride of George, crown prince of Greece. From the dynastic point of view there are three state systems in Europe — Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Protestant. They keep fairly distinct, but Prot- estant princesses become Greek and even Roman Catholic in their marriages, and a common interest as well as common blood combines all three. There continues to be a determined effort to bring dynastic influences to bear in uplifting the civilization of the Christian Balkan states. V II. THE BALKAN NATIONS "5 V II. THE BALKAN NATIONS "Great Ideas," we repeat, have long played an The Russian almost determinative role in Eastern Europe. The Idea "great idea" of Russia demanded for her the suc- cessorship to Byzantium, ecclesiastically as well as politically. Her cherished passion for the acquisition of Constantinople was not merely economic, but senti- mental and religious. Being the foremost Slavic nation, her Byzantium would be Slavic. She has there- fore always had a double aversion — that to Turkey, of which such frequent mention has been made, but like- wise, as emerges from the various considerations pre- sented in these pages, to Greece and the Greeks as well as to Rumania and the Rumanians. Both these peoples have an enormous admixture of Slavic blood in their veins, but neither has Slavic aspirations; those of Rumania are Latin and Roman, those of Greece, Byzantine and Greek. There is no question more acute in that part of the world than the degree of influence which Russia hoped to exert, and is expected to exert, either by an appeal to kinship, or by diplomacy, or by secret agitations, or by open warfare upon the various countries of Eastern Europe. To a high degree the Treaty of Kutschuk-Kainardje (1774) long remained a pubhc charter in the Hither East. It established Russia not merely as the protector of the Danubian principalities, but, what was far more important, of all the Greek Christians in the Ottoman empire. Somewhat later the great Cath- 117 n8 THE BALKANS arine of Russia and the enlightened Joseph of Austria joined hands to realize immediately the establishment of a new Byzantium with Catharine's grandson, Con- stantine, as the ruhng monarch. Austria was to have Bosnia and Servia; Russia the Crimea and Otchakoflf; the Danubian principalities were to have a real inde- pendence under an orthodox ruler. Throughout the Napoleonic epoch Russia and Austria were otherwise engaged, and for Turkey in Europe the period was one of disintegration and decay. Robber chieftains ravaged its territories at will and established virtually independent powers in its princi- pal towns. One of these, a Bosnian Mohammedan, Osman Pasvanoglu, collected so many Turks, Bul- garians, and Albanians about his standard that he even threatened to overthrow the Sultan. His star rose ever higher until 1806, and his devastating con- quests extended across the Danube into Wallachia. It was Russia who crushed him and thus further strengthened her influence in the principalities. It may be said that Wallachia was substantially a Rus- sian province as late as 1812, and that in Moldavia, Austria, preponderant at the close of the eighteenth century because of her relations with the Porte, was compelled to withdraw from both the Bukowina and the Dobrudja before the combined assaults of Russia and the Servians in 1810. What might have happened may be guessed; but when Napoleon began his preparations for his march on Moscow, Russia made speedy terms with her foes in the peace of Bucharest, 18 12, securing the fertile and splendid province of Bessarabia. Servia obtained from Turkey amnesty for her rebels and the right at least to local self- government. THE BALKAN NATIONS 119 These facts explain the enormous influence of Russia in both the Danubian principalities, and what has previously been said of the Greek uprising makes clear that the Porte could no longer intrust the adminis- tration of those districts to Phanariote voivodes. In 1822 Ghika was made chief administrator of Wal- lachia, and Sturdza of Moldavia. Both were able men and conscientious; both made Herculean efforts to introduce necessary reforms and improve in every respect the condition of the populations; but Russia looked on with deep concern, fearing the rise of an independent national feeling within two provinces con- taining a people so closely related, if not in language, at least in institutions and interests. She could not contemplate the aggregation on her frontiers of even moderate forces unsympathetic with her ambitions. Until 1833 the real ruler of both principalities was the Russian general, Kisseleff, commander of the protect- ing Russian forces, who actually promulgated a sort of liberal charter, although the nominal suzerainty was still in the Porte. It was by his influence that both Ghika and Sturdza lost all hold upon their place and all their influence upon the people. When the insurrec- tion sympathetic with Greek movements broke out, Turkish and Russian troops combined to suppress it. By 1849 the old conditions were virtually restored; in both principalities new voivodes were inaugurated, and for a space of four years their efforts to relieve the general misery of the people met with fair success. But when in 1853 the operations of the Crimean Birth of War began, Russia overran and temporarily adminis- Rumania tered both principalities; and in 1854 the Austrians beset them in order to prevent Russia's advance upon the Balkans. By the treaty of Paris (1856) both I20 THE BALKANS were again restored to Turkish suzerainty and placed under the protection of the great powers. Both re- ceived new rulers, and at last it dawned upon the inhabitants of both that in their union there might be some degree of security and some hope of peace. So overwhelming was the tide of feeling that it could not be restrained, and on February 17, 1859, a national assembly of Wallachians elected as their prince Alexander Cousa, who had already been chosen by a similar assembly to be Prince of Moldavia, thus creat- ing the embryo of a new kingdom. Napoleon III, contemplating war with Austria to emancipate Italy and to maintain the balance of power in Western Europe, discerned in this newborn "Latin" land of Rumania a possible ally, and by his influence the Sultan Abdul Medjid, on December 2, 1861, acknowledged Cousa as Alexander John I, Sovereign Prince of Rumania. Once again Russian influence attempted to thwart the creation of a Rumanian nationality, being exerted through the channel of great Russian landowners in both principalities, the boyars, who intervened and meddled with internal affairs at every possible juncture. On May 14, 1864, Cousa, keenly alive to the procedures of French politics, organized his own coup d'etat and promulgated a Napoleonic constitution providing for two chambers. He had been so faithful to the best interests of his realm that he enjoyed an almost boundless popularity. His success was therefore apparently complete, and the new administration was set going in all its depart- ments. But nature proved an implacable enemy to his plan of reform. In 1865 the harvests failed completely, and this, in a country almost purely agricultural, meant THE BALKAN NATIONS 121 famine. The introduction of the new system, though far from finished, had already cost enormous sums, and financial embarrassment intensified the general wretchedness. A conspiracy was formed, which, on the twenty-second of February, by the aid of the army, forced his resignation, and a provisional gov- ernment immediately offered the throne to Philip of Flanders, brother of the king of Belgium. That prince fortunately declined; and on April 14, 1866, the second choice fell upon Prince Charles of Hohen- zollern-Sigmaringen, a choice bitterly distasteful to both Austria and France. But Charles was fearless and did not hesitate to accept a very difficult and onerous task, especially for a German prince — that of upbuilding a would-be Latin state of no great size in population or extent of territory, in the very heart of hostile Slavic populations, and with the moral support of but a single great European power. As Carol I, he piloted his ship of state through many devious channels and through many devastating storms, and somehow managed to create both in his people and in other lands the firm conviction that Rumanian nationality is viable. Moreover, the moral support of Germany had neces- sarily to be of a very uncertain sort, for while dy- nastic politics still played their part in Europe, as we have said, yet it is, in this case, a very minor one in- deed. When it was considered how very distant was the relationship between the German emperor and the Rumanian king, it will be seen that Germany's interest in Rumania, if based upon that alone, would have to be purely sentimental. The Rumanian nation boasts an origin far different from that of the Germans. This question of their origin appears, even in the 122 THE BALKANS Rumanian light of the latest investigations, to be insoluble. They Origins have a very definite theory as to who they are and whence they came, but the cold light of science shows gaps in their reasoning; indeed, is seems to show that the foundation is unsafe. It is an accepted principle among ethnographers that language is a will-o'-the wisp in their prehistoric investigations, unless used merely as confirmatory evidence. Their own con- viction, to wit, that they are the direct descendants of Roman legionaries and of the Coloni of old Dacia Trajana, is untenable. In the first place, Vopiscus declares that Aurelian withdrew the Roman soldiery across the Danube out of old Dacia, and abandoned the province; in the second place, there is a period of a thousand years, which furnishes no evidence that Roman Coloni existed north of the Danube at all; finally, place names are the most persistent archaeo- logical records and of Rumanian place names, virtually none are of Latin origin. The great weight of authority is for regarding the present population as a back surge from Dacia Aureliana (Bulgaria and Servia) occurring toward the end of the twelfth century. Stated in another way, the Rumanians may have had an original ancestry of Romanized Thra- cians, which, in time, absorbed from the Slovenians so much of their speech and their blood that they became more than half Slavs. For this there is very considerable evidence in their folklore and folk poetry, which, according to Emil Fischer, an ethnolo- gist, who lives and works among them, displays both Slavic and Romance temperament. He finds alike the wild passion and brooding melancholy of the true Slav commingled in almost equal proportions with the Roman's sound, yet sensitive grasp on reality. THE BALKAN NATIONS 123 We have thus briefly resumed what was said in another connection in order to explain why Rumania has no overpowering, all-mastering ambition like those of Greece, Bulgaria, and Servia. Of course they have most serious problems of their own. A large propor- tion of their kinsfolk reside across the Carpathians in Hungarian lands, where for long they were ruth- lessly Magyarized. They are bitterly discontented that Russia forced upon them the exchange of fertile Bessarabia for the swampy, dreary Dobrudja. Rumania was at peace from 1877 to 1913. Their Rumania share in the Russian-Turkish war forms the most in War brilliant chapter of their history. Already, out of the most unpromising material, the Hohenzollern prince had created an excellent army. At the beginning of the war the nation was between two fires ; the Turks still regarded both provinces as vassal states; the Rus- sians looked upon Rumanians as their natural auxili- aries. The choice between the two interests was far from easy. The friendship of Russia was by no means unselfish. She had deliberately selected Ru- mania's territory as the scene of her impending con- flict with Turkey. It was the firm conviction of most Rumanians that their ultimate doom was annexation to the dreaded empire of the north, and, in particular, they were well aware that one of their most cherished possessions, Bessarabia, was to Russia a Naboth's vineyard. Accordingly, a convention was negotiated, permitting the Russian armies to pass, with guarantee that no unfriendly act should be committed by the way. The marching officers were keen observers, and noted, with some dismay, the enormous increase of Rimiania's military strength during the eleven years 124 THE BALKANS of the new administration. Of incorporating such a force under their own command there could be no question. The Hohenzollern prince held himself ready for the event, whatever it might be, unhindered and uncontrolled by either belligerent. The Russians had met with a stubborn and unexpected resistance on their march toward Constantinople, and at Plevna they found themselves in a desperate plight. On August 5, 1877, the Grand Duke Nicholas, grasping at the last straw, telegraphed Prince Charles: "Come to our help; cross the Danube where you choose, under any conditions you care to make, but come and come quickly; we are surrounded by the Turks." With thirty-five thousand admirably equipped and well- disciplined men, and a hundred and eight efficient cannons, the Rumanians advanced victoriously through Calif atu, Nikopolis, Rahoba, and Smordanu. Before Plevna, Prince Charles and his men distinguished themselves in the storm of its most powerful fort, de- termined the final outcome of the great struggle, and actually captured Osman Pasha, the Turkish com- mander-in-chief. These successes were, of course, bought at an immense cost of life and property, but the price did not seem too high for the glory that had been won and its effect in consolidating the Rumanian nation; but when peace was dictated at San Stefano, and when later the plenipotentiaries met in Berlin, Rumania's reward was only the measure of the con- tempt which Russia felt for her. Her sovereignty obtained recognition, but she lost her most pleasant and valuable province. For this the compensation of the worthless Dobrudja was an insult. This painful experience was stamped with European approval in the capital of Germany. By this time THE BALKAN NATIONS 125 Charles and his poetess consort, now king and queen of an independent state, had made themselves type Rumanians; they had organized a modest court, the influence of which has always been profound and be- neficent. The monarch had performed the double task of discovering the deeply hidden wellsprings of national life among his subjects and of developing them into a vigorous stream of national activities. This new nation, emphasizing its Latin origins, Social and began, as if in defiance both of Slavic and Germanic Economic culture, to cultivate more than ever the Latin style. •*fP*"^*s _ T, • , • i- • i- ... of Rumania Its social organization is, of course, aristocratic, since the great landowners have at least the dignity belong- ing to large estates, yet democratic Paris is the Mecca of its pilgrimages, and the French manner reigns su- preme at Bucharest, whether in army, in society, or in literature and art. The capital city has three recognizable rings of growth : the outer is mean, rural, rough, and somewhat Turkish even now ; the next is an interesting transition toward a higher style of life; and the inner nucleus is a small "city of light," like its exemplar — startling in its beauty, style, and brilliancy. In this constitution of its parts Bucharest is a microcosm of the country as a whole; at first sight unorganized, disconnected, a mechanical mixture of unrelated parts. But this, when closely considered, is in itself a characteristic quality ; a long soaking of the refractory materials is required before disintegration sets in, or reintegration can commence. Yet the integration is there. This fact is largely the work of a government making and admin- istering laws adapted to the conditions of its people, establishing and conducting a system of education quite above the average of Eastern Europe; ruling 126 THE BALKANS firmly very disparate populations; showing a brave front to its mighty neighbor on the north and its restless rival on the south ; content with the nationality in sight, and eschewing the general Balkan tendency of dwelling mainly on the grandeur of a past, some- how to be reproduced in a visionary, dreamy future. Under the most discouraging conditions, and from beginnings which were the most unpromising possible, the court, the aristocracy, and the administration of Rumania have already met and solved many problems which appeared to be insoluble. It seems likely that even the two most pressing and terrific questions de- manding an answer will sooner or later find one: that of land tenure and that of the reactionary Jew usurer — questions which are a menace to the cohesion of national elements, which are a riddle to Western minds judging a far-off land from the standpoint of Western civilization, questions which must be examined on the spot to have even a glimpse of their meaning revealed. The relations between a brutalized peas- antry and the rather overrefined absentee landlords are so strained as at times to threaten all orderly living throughout the kingdom. The Jew usurer is a parasite of terrible energy, threatening, in hundreds of communities, the utter extinction of enterprise and energy among the populations. Bulgarian The most recent events have focused the attention Beginnings of all Western peoples upon Bulgaria. At the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century of our era Bulgaria enjoyed a short period of inde- pendence, but by the end of the thirteenth century it was a Servian who was Czar of the Bulgars. In close alliance, the Serbs and Bulgars joined Charles I of Anjou, for the overthrow of Byzantium. Soon after THE BALKAN NATIONS 127 there was a fresh migration of Tatars into Bulgarian lands, and before their assaults, the enfeebled Bulgaria ^yas crushed. As far as there was a Slavic organiza- tion in the peninsula, Servia now assumed and kept the hegemony, until at last all semblance of Bulgarian power disappeared before the crushing victories of Sultan Murad. As was previously related, there seemed for centuries to be no Bulgarians, and least of all a Bulgaria. Longer than any other ethnic stock they groaned under the oppression of the Turkish yoke. The first symptom of reviving spirit may be observed in their literature. As early as the first quarter of the nineteenth century Bulgarian schools began to reappear. They were supplied by the efforts of Bulgarian merchants in foreign lands with fairly good textbooks. Then came the author, previously mentioned, who wrote what purported to be a Bulga- rian history. In 1844 there appeared the first Bulgarian periodical. From beginning to end, this intellectual uprising was directed against the Pha- nariotes and the aspirations of the panhellenists. On Easter Day, i860, the Bulgarians resident in Religious Constantinople summoned sufficient courage to commit Secession a daring act, and declared the secession of the Bulgarian Church from the control of the Greek patriarchate. So terrified were these ecclesiastical rebels by their own daring that a large number of Bulgarians actually con- templated union with the Roman Church. It was soon evident, however, that they could not carry the mass of their people with them. Already the Pope had named an archbishop for the united Bulgarian Church, but his life was not safe from the moment he began his activities, and he finally fled. So extensive were these disturbances that on February 28, 1870, the 128 THE BALKANS Accession and Reign of Alexander Porte intervened, and founded the Bulgarian exarchate, whose high priest was to be chosen by the people and confirmed by the Sultan. Ecclesiastical was to be followed by civil and political independence. What with the decline and fall of Turkey, the con- flicting ambitions of Russia and Austria-Hungary, Bulgarian aspirations were conditioned almost com- pletely by internal affairs. At the outset the pres- sure of Russia upon and her influence in the territories where Bulgarians lived were paramount. It was really by her impulse that on April 29, 1879, a national assembly of Bulgarians declared a conditional and partial independence, the establishment of a princi- pality, and chose a nephew of the Russian Czar, Prince Alexander of Battenberg, to be the first oc- cupant of the princely throne. His seat was so uneasy, party strife was so savage, the general temper of factions so uncertain, that on May 9, 188 1, the prince declared he would abandon his task, were he not endowed with extraordinary powers for the creation of an orderly government. Two months later his con- ditions were accepted by the assembly. It was immediately manifest that Russia's intention was gradually to turn Bulgaria into a province of her own. The storms of factional politics raged more fiercely than ever, and amid them there appeared the beginnings of two real parties, radical and conser- vative. Under a radical ministry there was organized among an intoxicated and overelated population the Pan- Bulgarian agitation, whose workings have in this latest struggle proven so disastrous to the normal evolution of a Bulgarian nation. This movement, of course, aimed primarily at the immediate incorporation of all East Rumelia, which was peopled by Bulgarians THE BALKAN NATIONS 129 almost exclusively, and also of Macedonia, in part at least, into the rising Bulgarian kingdom. It was so far successful that in 1885 the Bulgarians of East Rumelia rose. Alexander appeared at Philippopolis, and declared the union of the province with Bulgaria proper. It has never been clear how far Russia shared in these movements, nor how she viewed an evolution over which she had but little control ; but the neighbor state of Servia saw in them a menace to the Balkan balance of power, and divined, what was the truth, that Bulgarian ambitions aimed at the immediate hegemony of the whole peninsula. Accordingly, the worthless Servian King Milan declared war, and within a fortnight saw his forces, if not annihilated, at least utterly humiliated. Austria intervened, and a peace was signed at Bucharest on March 3, 1886, which virtually restored the status quo ante, except that Alexander was appointed governor-general of East Rumelia. The personality of Prince Alexander does not appear to have been conciliatory, and he was a foreigner, representative at that, as many Bulgarians felt in their newly awakened national consciousness, of Russian influence aiming to thwart their ulterior ambitions. In the night of August 20, 1886, the Konak, or residence, of the prince was surrounded by Bulgarian soldiers, under the command of the highest Bulgarian officers, and Alexander was escorted, with- out ceremony, into Russian territory, whence later he was permitted to make his way to Lemberg, in Aus- trian Poland. Such a ruler was a broken reed, and though another Bulgarian party gained the overhand and sought to recall him, yet Russia felt him to be a weak support, and on the seventh of September he 130 THE BALKANS Accession and Reign of Ferdinand abdicated finally. The national assembly chose Prince Waldemar of Denmark for the succession on Septem- ber the seventh, but he had no inclination for the task set before him, and politely refused the invitation. The house of Saxe Coburg has had a wonderful history, furnishing, as it did, from its insignificant political pov^er, a series of most successful royalties. Kings and empresses, princes of the highest degree, its leading members, have cherished boundless ambition, and their ambitions have been realized by the use of their abundant private wealth and the exercise of their daring characteristics. It was to one of these. Prince Ferdinand, that Bulgaria now turned. The national assembly offered to him the reversion of their little throne, and on July 7, 1887, he entered upon the per- formance of his duties. From among the peasant people had arisen a man endowed with great political insight, whose name was Stambulofif. To him Russian interference was intolerable; he desired complete independence for his country; he realized that the national evolution must be slow and self-disciplined; and it was under his leadership that Prince Ferdinand began to reign, and, indeed, to rule, as far as Stambuloff's policies were his own. It must not be forgotten that from first to last we have been dealing with peoples who have barely entered upon the highroad of civilization. Whatever may be thought of Russian standards in the conduct of foreign affairs and in the administration of internal ones, no one can deny that for the furtherance of her plans she has never hesitated to adopt whatever methods seemed expedient and efficient among those she desired to influence. Stambulofif was assassinated on July 15, 1895, and immediately Prince Ferdinand, THE BALKAN NATIONS 131 forced, as he believed, to adopt an opportunist policy, entered into more friendly relations with Petro- grad. He was then permitted to consoHdate the two portions of Bulgaria, to have himself crowned Czar of the Bulgarians in their ancient capital city, and while his day as Bulgarian king was destined to be ignomini- ous, yet he has exhibited certain very remarkable qualities. The court at Sophia seems to exert but little power Court and in securing widespread and permeating influences of People refinement throughout the country at large. This is no reflection upon its members, for the Bulgarians are an obdurate folk, a peasant people with peasant faults and peasant virtues. Turbulent scenes occur in their national assembly, and frequently arouse a suspicion elsewhere that government is insecure. They are, however, not much worse, though perhaps more fre- quent, than those which occur in the great capitals of the Western world, at Westminster or in Washington, not to mention Paris or Vienna. The Bulgarians are a testy folk, quick to cry out, quick to act; the influ- ence of American ideas in Bulgaria has been and re- mains enormous, thanks to the American seats of learning on the Bosporus. As might be expected, these ideas have been exaggerated and warped until Bulgarian notions of liberty, rights, and equality are often grotesque. No wonder! Liberty under the severe restraint of law is not an initial, but a final state of mind in free government. The best-informed out- siders, however, long believed and said that, on the whole, the dynasty has suited the people over whom it reigns, that the court in the main has set a good example ; that if the father may not be a devoted and devout Greek Catholic of the national church, the son 132 THE BALKANS and heir-apparent Boris is ;^ that careful consideration is shown for the Bulgarian temper; that the constitu- tional development of politics is not hindered by the meddling of the executives to any important degree. Sophia If Bucharest be a type of Rumania, Sophia is no less so of Bulgaria. There is a palace, and there are other solid buildings, also a few modern streets; but the city has no pronounced architectural type. There are great avenues and an extended network of street-car lines; but the promise is greater than the fulfillment. There is an old, unkempt Turkish district not yet de- stroyed ; there are gypsies squatted in unsavory settle- ments on the outskirts of the town, and these exhibit their unspeakable squalor without shame in the thor- oughfares. Sophia is a city of the future. It was not without regard to the future that it was chosen to be the capital, for its site is not far distant from the then existing southern frontier : in order to be central, Macedonia in great part was to be secured. It is but a short time since the future seemed near. The process of trans- formation went swiftly forward, alike as to the per- sonalities of the Bulgarian people, their institutions, and their material expression in dress and housing. Nowhere in the Balkan peninsula is the visitor so tempted to feel that he is in the laboratory of history, where experiments are being made, some with, some without, success. Of other Bulgarian towns so much cannot be said ; they remain strangely quiescent in the rudeness to which Turkish rule reduced them. In spite of the latest events, it must be admitted that of 'Baptized a Roman, he was at two years of age lebaptized a Greek Catholic. When his father finally broke with the Czar and allied himself with the Central Powers in 1915, the crown prince reentered the Roman Church and aspired to the hand of an Austrian archduchess. THE BALKAN NATIONS 133 all the Balkan armies, the Bulgarian was and is the best in organization, morale, and personnel ; and where there are garrisons improvement in the towns is notice- able. The frightful humiliations to which in the early sum- mer of 1913 both nation and army were subjected have been due to a type of insubordination which might perhaps be expected in so young a country ; the insubordination, namely, of a prime minister and a commander-in-chief to the plain dictates of common sense; their feeble yielding to a vague and lurid national ambition, and their adoption in warfare of a brutal and barbaric system of retaliatory cruelties, which, it must be confessed, had largely been evolved by the three sets of Bulgarian, Servian, and Greek komitadjis active for so many years in the disgraceful horrors which have given Macedonia so sad a renown. Throughout the country generally the life of the people is the life of well-tilled fields and simple, peace- ful villages. Education of the common sort is only fair; that of the higher type is scarcely more than embryonic. The fine designations of the Western world are used for their institutions of learning, but they do not connote even approximately the same things. The sum of the whole matter is that Bulgaria, though a child in its qualities, often very naughty, and as yet with Httle discipline, would be a very fine child indeed and full of promise if it could only rub its eyes and see distinctly how wild has been its cherished ideal, the "Great Idea" of the Greater Bulgaria. The first of the nationalities whose territories had TheBiseof been overrun by Turkey which successfully emanci- Servia pated itself from Turkish rule was, of course, Hun- gary. The story of the struggle is a curious one. 134 THE BALKANS Sometimes the resistance was well organized and determined ; at others there existed between conquered and conquerors a kind of half-armed peace, some districts rejoicing in their native rulers, while their immediate neighbors endured Turkish administration as best they might. When the long struggle ended, the recognized boundary of Turkey in Europe to the westward was the river Save. Where that splendid river unites its flood with the still more majestic Danube lay the great frontier fortress of Belgrade. The great bluff upon which it stands lent itself com- pletely in the days of rather primitive warfare to the erection of a well-nigh impregnable fortress, com- parable in the splendor of its situation only with that of Quebec. Behind this lay the land of Servia, in- habited by people more typically south Slav than any others; though converted to Christianity under Cyril and Methodius, their civil institutions had not ma- terially changed since the primitive days of heathen- dom. The separate clans had each a patriarchal government, being ruled according to the law of seniority, struggling perpetually for supremacy one with the other, until at last a certain Stephen estab- lished a type of monarchy known in their tongue as the Zupanate. By the vote of heads of famihes, one was chosen as the first among equals, to coordinate, control, and defend the common interests of the larger community. These elder stocks have often been called an aristocracy, but they were not in the modern sense of the term. The monarchy itself was only nominal, since the limitations put upon it by the many peasant proprietors, speaking for their respective communes, reduced it in time of peace to substantial inactivity. In the thirteenth century the Servian Church was THE BALKAN NATIONS 135 still controlled by a Roman archbishop. It was the same Stephen I Nemanya, who subordinated it to the Greek patriarchate, instituting for Servia an arch- bishopric with his own son as the first Oriental occu- pant of the place. His official style was Sava, and his residence was Zica, where Servian kings should there- after be crowned. Twelve bishoprics were likewise instituted, each with a Servian bishop. About the middle of the thirteenth century the Servian Church was recognized as independent, and a hundred years later the great Stephen Dushan raised the archbishop to the dignity of Patriarch. As between this church, with its spiritual power, and the now self-assertive kingship, there was no difference of policy; on the contrary, almost an identity of purpose. In hke measure with the rise of church and state, the suc- cessive Patriarchs had become patricians, and the patricians successfully asserted for themselves the privileges of nobles. Royalty with its associated clergy and nobility constituted, of course, a very small ruling class. All other Servians were serfs, living in a dead level of humble servitude, ignorant, stupid, and dumb. This was the Servia which for five centuries main- Servian tained a certain identity and unity, in spite of Byzan- Vicissitudes tine and Turkish dominion. Its power rose and fell in exact proportion to the personal character of its ruler. The feeble government of Byzantium had serious troubles alternately with Servia and Bulgaria; just as, alternately, one of the two sister states was more powerful than another. The climax of Servian strength was reached under Stephen Dushan in the fourteenth century, the depth of its humiliation under the conquering Sultan Murad. Its further fortunes were comparable only to those of Bulgaria, already 136 THE BALKANS mentioned; but Servia was institutionally stronger than the sister people. Its clan system was more deeply embedded in popular feeling; it preserved a higher degree of ecclesiastical individuality; its folk- lore was richer, and while it probably had no such literary efflorescence as had Bulgaria under Simeon, yet there was a literary tradition and a body of eccle- siastical literature, which aided in perpetuating a national continuity. Just in proportion as Turkish rule was maintained with increasing difficulty by a steadily declining cen- tral power, did the local Turkish administration be- come more oppressive, ruthless, and intolerable. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Servians were menaced with extinction, so brutal had the des- perate Turkish officials become. It was, therefore, like the turning of the crushed worm when, in 1804, a movement for self-protection was feebly organized and an appeal was made to arms. The insurgents had no thought of liberation at the outset; they wanted some guarantee for personal and material security. Naturally, Russia remarked the uprising with interest ; being encouraged in its Pan-Slavic designs by the ex- pansion of Servian rebellion, and ever ready to take advantage of Turkish weakness. The peace of Bucha- rest in 181 2 provided Servia with a measure of in- ternal and financial autonomy; the old frowning fortresses, however, Belgrade included, remained in the hands of Turkish garrisons. Reign of No sooner had Servian efforts been crowned with Milosb ^j^jg measure of success than factional quarrels im- posed upon suffering Servia the unhappy conditions under which it has ever since labored. The leaders of the insurrection were partly of noble origin, or at least THE BALKAN NATIONS 137 boasted a family tree reaching back to the days of Servia's glory, and partly able men sprung from the stock of serfs and peasants. Of the latter, the most commanding personage was Black George (Kara- george) ; of the former Milosh Obrenovich. Russia's attention being absorbed by the Napoleonic invasion, the Turks began to wreak a bloody vengeance upon the unhappy Servians. The peasant leaders fled over the border into Austria, and finally found refuge in Russia. On the other hand, on Palm Sunday, April II, 1815, Milosh, who had concealed himself at home, appeared at Takovo with the old royal standard of Servia, inaugurated another revolt, made a successful resistance to the enfeebled Turks, dictated his own terms, and on November 6, 181 7, promulgated, with the consent of Ali Pasha, the Turkish governor, an autonomous constitution. Meantime Karageorge had returned, and manifestly with the intention of sharing in the new organization of his country. Under the auspices of Milosh and the Turks he was assassinated. Reference has been made to the interaction of the successful Greek uprising and the attempted emanci- pation of other Balkan peoples. However turbulent and unruly the Greeks were in the early stages of their liberation, they were nevertheless at heart inclined to constitutional government, and a constitutional mon- archy was finally founded by them with no great diffi- culty. In this respect the Servian temperament was quite antipodal. As has so frequently been noticed in peoples tem- peramentally and radically democratic, institutions vacillate between poorly organized local rule and gen- eral tyranny. No sooner were the Napoleonic wars ended than Russia renewed her attentions to Servia. 138 THE BALKANS Milan and Michael and Alexander For this reason partly, and partly because Turkish garrisons were still in Seryian citadels, Milosh assumed the style and state of an Oriental despot, ruling with- out the semblance of constitutional government, with- out once referring his measures to a national assembly. There were occasional movements of protest, but such rebellions were pitilessly crushed, and often with much bloodshed. The democratic feeling of the Servians, therefore, was forced to organize itself in secret, and in this, with Russian aid, it was successful. Curi- ously enough, the Porte, when aware, as it soon was, of the incipient rebellion, favored it as efficiently as did Russia. By the combined action of these three agencies, what was called a "statute" was laboriously formulated, the substance of which was that if Milosh would not cooperate with a National Assembly, at least his powers must be regulated by a senate. This was promulgated in 1838; Milosh accepted the inevitable, and took an oath of adhesion to this ustav, as the ex- pression of the popular will. He abdicated, however, in 1839, was succeeded by his son Milan, who died a few weeks after ascending the throne, and was in turn succeeded by his apparently worthless brother, Michael ni, who was compelled to abdicate in 1842. The National Assembly, or Skupchina, proceeded to the election of a successor. Weary for the moment of the Obrenovich aristocrats, it chose the son of Black George, Alexander Karageorgevich. He proved a fairly successful ruler, but fretted under Russian influ- ence until, at the time of the Hungarian revolution in 1848, he furnished a corps of volunteers to aid Austria in suppressing the revolt, and took his cue in public affairs almost completely from Vienna. Between the senate, created by the statute of 1838, THE BALKAN NATIONS 139 and the National Assembly, there was little unity of Second purpose. The former was self-assertive, and in the ,/!^° . . . ,. , , , . ^, • 1 1- Milosn ana mam mchned to the support of the Obrenovich Ime. Michael In 1858 Alexander came to an open rupture with the senate, was deposed, and when the new Skupchina met, it most unwisely recalled the octogenarian Milosh to the throne. For two years he ruled with willful ruth- lessness, and in i860 was succeeded a second time by his son, Michael III, who thus also came a second time to the throne. In the eight years of his admin- istration he proved wiser than was expected, and im- portant political changes took place in Servia : for the senate was substituted a council of state ; a constitution guaranteed a meeting of the Skupchina at least once in three years; a general obligatory mihtary service was introduced; and there was a substantial period of national recuperation. Many young Servians had been sent westward for their education; these were now returning, and in their young manhood began to share in the political Hfe of what seemed a rising nationality. They, however, cherished too fondly the "Great Servia" idea, and by them was organized a more or less secret association, whose aim was the creation at an early date of a Servia, including Bosnia and the Herzegovina, arrayed in pronounced hostility against the power of Hungary across the Danube. It was the events which were taking place in Rumania that inter- rupted these activities, alike of the prince and his people. There was absolute unanimity of feeling in Belgrade that the Turkish garrisons must be driven out of Servia, too; street brawls between Turks and Servians became frequent, and finally Turkish cannon hurled shot and shell from the lofty fortress upon the houses and streets of the city below. Representatives I40 THE BALKANS of the Powers met in Constantinople; by Austria's insistency the Porte was brought first to evacuate Belgrade, and finally the other fortresses. On March 6, 1867, the last Turkish companies marched over the frontier out of Servia. Milan IV Left thus in complete control of their own affairs, the Servians displayed once more to a puzzled world the cleft between two irreconcilable factions. The supporters of the Karageorgevich line in part, together with some who hoped to secure privileges they had lost under constitutional government, conspired together and assassinated Michael in the park of Topshider near Belgrade on June 29, 1868. There was but one surviving member of the Obrenovich line, a young student in Paris, and he was called to the throne as Milan IV, reigning from 1868 until 1889. The defeat of the Servians in their short war with Bulgaria was perhaps a perfectly honorable one, but it was a sorry counterpart to the victories they had so recently won in Turkey. Nish, Pirot, and Turn they had incorporated into Servia and plumed themselves upon their warlike spirit; but less than ten years later the most important of these towns had been surren- dered to the Bulgarians, and they would have been overwhelmed except for the intervention of Austria. What with these humiliations and the shameful quar- rels about the throne and in the rival claimant families, there was no possibility of a healthy evolution. Their finances were shockingly mismanaged; they had no respect for their rulers; to the traveler it seemed as if languor was their most striking quality. A kind of sullen discontent was mirrored in their faces, and they brooded ineffectually over the dismemberment of their nationality : indifferent to their own regeneration, THE BALKAN NATIONS 141 they were deeply concerned about the hundred thou- sands of Serbs in Hungaria, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Old Servia, with whom no organic union seemed possible, and who, moreover, were not enthusiastic for the leadership of a Servia branded with so many disgraceful scars. The events of Milan's reign do not, therefore, con- Alexander I stitute a brilliant chapter in Servian history. His hold upon the people was steadily relaxed, yet he neverthe- less succeeded in securing from the Skupchina a con- stitution of a still more modern type than that which it had previously adopted. On March 6, 1889, he voluntarily abdicated in favor of his son, Alexander I, still a mere boy. When the heir ascended his shaky throne the plots and counterplots of Russia and Austria-Hungary were steadily undermining the small remainder of national morality; indeed, there was no national force, moral or otherwise. Perpetual efforts were made to amend the situation by amending the constitution. The young king chose as his consort a woman whose beauty and charm had hitherto adorned only the basest stratum of gay society. Ashamed of their queen, the ministers and their sovereign became entangled in backstairs conspiracy and debased, theatrical politics. It is less than twenty years since the king, the queen, the queen's brother, two ministers of state and fifty other persons were brutally murdered in the palace of Belgrade; and the woman's corpse, flung from a window onto the grassy terrace bordering the main street, lay for hours and hours for the baser sort to gloat over, until the ambassador of a foreign power, whether from a sense of guilty complicity or from compassionate humanity, intervened to give it decent burial. Whatever indictments may be brought 142 THE BALKANS against the private and public lives of Alexander and Draga, last of the Obrenovich line — and weighty ones would lie against them — the deed was one of shame, engendered in disgraceful conspiracy by those who lusted for power at any cost. Peter The rival Karageorgevich line came to the throne in the person of the latest monarch, King Peter; and after such an interval, down to the opening of the great war, when masses were at last sometimes said over the unmarked graves of his predecessors, no one had lifted up a voice to say that the latter state of the unhappy land was better than the former. Somehow, time alone did not produce oblivion; and when, after such an interval, arrangements were made only ten years ago for an official visit of the Servian king to Vienna, it proved a happy evasion of what high- minded people stigmatized as a scandal, politics or no politics, that the Emperor Francis Joseph caught a heavy cold, which at his advanced age was a sufficient excuse for the postponement of the call. We cannot recollect that any personage within or without the Servian kingdom entertained even a dim suspicion of the true Servian nature, a nature which under chastise- ment has renewed its courage, and in many hard- fought battlefields has exhibited an unsuspected capac- ity for discipline. General After a hundred years Belgrade remained a com- Characteris- monplace, unthrifty town with a provincial Austrian, ^'^^ rather than Servian, impress. The heir to the throne was a dissipated youth of no character. The king's daughter, educated at a foreign court, was married to a Russian scion of royalty; but the rehabilitation of Servian royalty among the reigning houses of Europe had sadly halted. Corruption in public life was a wide- THE BALKAN NATIONS 143 spread disease, and where money bribery was mini- mized, place bribery stalked unabashed. As long as a British ministry could see no shame in the proposition to confer a title in exchange for a vote in Parliament, it is unfair to besmirch even Servian public life on this account ; yet at Belgrade the trade of politics has been on a level unknown elsewhere, unless it be at Constan- tinople. The overthrow of one king and the setting- up of another was a matter of money, and it was the Russian ambassador in Belgrade who provided the needed funds. The whole conspiracy has been pa- tiently traced to its sources and outlined in all its de- tails : there is not a step for which the documentary evidence cannot be produced. Public opinion there, as elsewhere, refuses to fix the guilt of bloodshed in high places and on great names, where national policies are concerned. Slowly but surely, at Belgrade, the red-handed criminals have one by one paid the penalties of a scandalous, unclean, shocking series of crimes. Those who profited were kept sternly under the ban, whatever diplomacy de- manded in the face of accomplished facts. No wonder that of all Balkan lands, poor Servia has been the least advanced, that her training in school and army was as embryonic as her visions were prepos- terous. Being at the mercy of a single great state, with no outlet or inlet uncontrolled by others, her economic plight has been sad; but it neither explains nor palliates her deplorable moral plight. Religion is as yet largely superstition; social organization of a modern sort barely exists, and her leaders stimulate national ambition with the exhibit of political toys and the emphasis of primitive manners as the cohesive force for a great empire! They appeared to be and 144 THE BALKANS in a measure still are a peasant folk poisoned by the virus of a showy civilization for which they have no receptivity. Their agriculture is rude, their manu- factures inchoate, their natural resources of lumber and mines in the hands of foreign exploiters. Noth- ing but the abandonment of false gods could restore the pristine virtues of which they boast. This is the land which by reason of its name and its language aspires to leadership and control in the creation of the Greater Servia. The passion for this ideal among all Ser bo-Croats is a species of imperial insanity. The Servians of little Servia expound it in their newspapers, they set it forth in their school- books, nourishing their young on wind ; it is the stock in trade of the demagogue, the theme of the rhymer, the subject of baby talk and cradle song. VI THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 145 VI THE REVOLUTION OF I908 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES* The outline of tyrannical methods given in a pre- Turkish vious chapter sufficiently indicates the character of Apathy and Oriental despotism as practiced by Abdul Hamid. Corruption Kitchen cabinets had substituted terror and spying for paternal government; farmers of the taxes had re- duced the Christian peoples to despair in the provinces and had even driven the few agricultural Turks into a dull, fatalistic apathy by the same process of exaction. There was an army, but it was neither clad, fed, nor paid. Under German instruction it had been drilled into what was believed and proved to be an efficient fighting machine, although this conviction was based rather on the native courage and fatalistic doggedness of the Turkish peasantry than upon any proof of their military efficiency. The international commission, provided for in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin, met and made suggestions for reforms in the European Vilayets which Turkey had been permitted to retain. The Turkish government would not ratify this so-called law, remained utterly passive, and shrewdly relied upon the reciprocal jealousies of the great powers as a guarantee against their active enforcement of their wishes. Of the then inchoate nationalities in the Balkans (Albanians were not then so considered), the Macedonians alone had •See Political Science Quarterly, March, 1913, PP- 9S-133, Profetsor S. P. Duggan. 147 148 THE BALKANS Feebleness and Futility of the Powers received no measure of autonomy from the Treaty of Berlin. They regarded with hungry eyes the surround- ing peoples who had. At the risk of repetition it must be recalled that while Macedonian villages con- tained for the most part people claiming to be of a single nationality, to wit, Turkish or Greek or Servian or Bulgarian, yet in each district there were villages of each variety; and that under the hideous compulsion of the komitadjis a village might be Greek one day and Bulgarian the next, or vice versa. While this "conver- sion" was due in the main to the exercise of shock- ing cruelties, yet so lacerated had the human fiber become, so hungry and so destitute the women and children, that shrewd bribery frequently served the same purpose. In 1903 Austria-Hungary and Russia sent represen- tatives to Mtirzteg on October the ninth, and these well-meaning gentlemen proceeded to draw up a pro- gram for the regeneration of bleeding Macedonia. Personal representatives of these two great powers were to supervise on the spot the carrying out of re- forms; there was to be a body of mounted military police under the control of some foreign general with an associated staff of officers selected by the great powers. Two years later provision was made by representatives of France, Germany, Russia, and Italy for a series of financial reforms. These had a specious appearance, but the agents of reform had no backing whatever from the Turkish officials, who were just as sullen and inactive as ever. There was only one result of all this futility : authentic news of massa- cre and outrage did penetrate to the Western world. In 1907 Austria-Hungary accepted as compensation for the abandonment of such pretense a concession to THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 149 connect her railway lines in Bosnia with the Turkish one from Monastir to Salonica across the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar. Russia exhibited no feeling of outrage at this procedure, and matters went on as before. Re- ports from the new agents resident in Macedonia were, however, specific ; British opinion was greatly stirred ; and in 1908 the Czar and King Edward VII met at Reval, where a fairly elaborate program for efficient supervision and compulsion of the recalcitrant Turkish authority was devised. It is possible that the menace of the Reval program was one of the causes working for the overthrow of Abdul Hamid. This is not very likely, although it may have quickened the march of events. We have already recounted the palace scandals of Balkan Belgrade. For five years thereafter Servian politics Conditions had no consistency and the nation drifted without effi- * cient leadership. The concession to Austria-Hungary for her Novi-Bazar railway outraged the Servians, for it rendered even more complete the possibility of domination by the Dual Monarchy in economic matters. Their hope of annexing that district in order to be conterminous with the Serbs of Monte- negro vanished. On the dark pall which seemed set- tling upon Servia there was but one light-ray — a com- mercial arrangement concluded in 1906 with Bulgaria, whereby in the last resort she could find an outlet down the Danube and through Bulgarian harbors into the Black Sea. The state of Servian opinion at this juncture may be described as one of desperation. Quite otherwise was that of her neighbor Montenegro, (a) Monto- whose advances in many directions had rendered its negro people, after a prolonged period of peace, quite as eager for warlike advance as ever before in its history. ISO THE BALKANS (3)Bulg«ri« As to Bulgaria, she possessed a double advantage over the other minor states of the Balkans. The founders of the new Bulgaria had been educated in large numbers at Robert College, the American institu- tion of learning at Constantinople, where they had been taught at least the principles of common honesty in public finance, the practice of which had kept her, in marked contrast to both Servia and Greece, mis- tress of her own purse and independent of foreign financial control. While taxation was not unduly heavy, its proceeds were honestly used to create an efficient army, to improve all the means of transporta- tion throughout the kingdom and, to a certain extent, in the upbuilding of an educational system. It was in this last regard that they experienced the greatest trouble, partly because of fanaticism in the Greek Church, partly because of the perfervid zeal for politics among the young, and partly because young Bulgarians, like old ones, are extremely restive under the exercise of stern discipline in civil affairs. Natu- rally, the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey were strained; those with Greece were scarcely better be- cause of their rivalry in the Macedonian brutalities. (4)Greec« The plight of Greece in 1908 seemed outwardly sorry enough. Political factions had made consistent government impossible. Greek finances were in the iron hand of a foreign commission, and so thoroughly senseless had been the proclamation of Greek ambi- tions that the world looked on in puzzled wonder. Her attempts to "convert" the Rumanian Vlachs with- in her borders had exasperated Rumania until there was no semblance of diplomatic intercourse with her, while that with Bulgaria was scarcely better, because of the favor received by the Greek bands in Mace- THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 151 donia at the hands of the Turkish authorities. Crete was clamoring for annexation, but the powers forced the unhappy little kingdom to maintain the status quo. At this time the relative populations of the Balkan Population States in Europe were about as follows: Of Turkey, «»<»Knaace out of a total of thirty-five millions, about six; of Bul- garia, over four ; of Rumania, about seven ; of Servia, nearly three; of Greece, two and a half; and of Monte- negro, a quarter of a million. Their public debts were respectively in the same order: Six hundred million dollars, a hundred and two, two hundred and fifty-six, a hundred and thirty-five, a hundred and thirty-eight, and a million and a quarter dollars. When, however, it comes to estimating the revenues, the situation is quite different. Turkey had about a hundred and thirty- eight millions; Bulgaria, thirty-six millions; Servia, twenty-eight millions; Greece, twenty-nine millions; and Montenegro less than ten thousand dollars. Matters might have been worse in Turkey and Ser- Plight of the via and in Greece, but they were sufficiently bad to Pow«» render the great powers of the West extremely timid. The old legend of Turkey as a sick man, whose heirs were waiting to divide his fortune, might be precipi- tated into reality at any moment. Russia had been^ brought to_the- verge of inanition by her war with Japan. No one feared her, and in the Balkans her prestige was at the lowest ebb. Great Britain has in India and Egypt so many millions of Moslem subjects, and her commercial interests are .so extended, that for long years she had done little at Constantinople but give advice and exert moral pressure. Indeed, so jeal- ous is her control of the Mediterranean that it was her influence which kept Crete in the balance between the Porte and Greece. France, too, was utterly impotent. 152 THE BALKANS After Great Britain she had become, through the enor- mous expansion of her African colonial empire, the ruler of more Mohammedan subjects than any other power; moreover, she was entangled in the web of Moroccan difficulties. Her financial institutions had loaned millions of dollars in the Balkan peninsula, and with her thrifty peasants in possession of the ballot, and consequently of political power, her foreign policy had become almost entirely economic and mercantile. Italy, though a member of the Triple Alliance and awake to the necessities of reform in Macedonia, was rendered inactive by her own double problem, to the southward in Africa, and to the eastward across the Adriatic. For some time the bitterness between her and Austria-Hungary had been enhanced by rivalry for the control of the eastern shore of the Adriatic. There had developed as the almost pivotal principle of her foreign policy the determination that that shore should be kept in weak hands. Thousands of Albanians in- habit Italy, and in all this seething furnace of sordid, petty politics the Albanians at home, the Albanians in Greece, and the Albanians in Italy were beginning to ask, "If a Macedonian nationality is to emerge from all these troubles, why not an Albanian?" With an Albania created, so to speak, under the Italian aegis, Italy's position across the narrow sea would be greatly strengthened. Of Germany and Austria-Hungary we may speak in this connection as of a single great power, so thorough was their understanding and so unified were their interests. From the Ottoman government at Constantinople they had secured immense privilege. The latter already held Bosnia and the Herzegovina, and was expecting an outlet to the-fEgean, with possibly THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 153 a joint occupation of the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar with Turkey. This would further weaken the Pan-Slavic movement, and effectually quench the Servian ambi- tions for a boundary conterminous with Montenegro. The former, on the other hand, the stronger partner in the coalition, had maintained at Constantinople an ambassador, Marshall von Bieberstein, so shrewd that he virtually nullified British influence at the Porte. He wooed Abdul Hamid openly by the imperial visit of William II to Constantinople, and had finally ob- tained a series of railway concessions in Asia Minor which actually bade fair to put the shortest highway between Great Britain and her Indian empire into Ger- man hands. To show how enthusiastic the Ottoman empire was in its German sympathy, as late as June, 1908, Turkish subjects in the Far East were trans- ferred from the protectorate of France to that of Germany. For long years there had resided in Paris a number The Young of Turks who, associating almost exclusively with Turk P^^y each other, had finally evolved a chimerical idea that Turkey could, under proper guidance, ignore its past and emerge like a butterfly from the chrysalis sud- denly and instantly into sistership with the European powers. No one doubts their sincerity, but everyone did doubt their capacity. It was, therefore, an event more startling than the sound of the firebell by night when a so-called Committee of Union and Progress, having secretly wooed the Turkish army stationed in the Balkan provinces, persuaded its generals to march upon Constantinople, depose and imprison Abdul Ha- mid, and mete out retrospective justice under lynch law to all Turkish notables who had supported the Hamidian regime. This revolution began on July 24, 154 THE BALKANS 1908, and within a few days the Young Turk idealists of Western Europe were at the helm of affairs in their own land in the extreme east of that continent. In the retrospect of a few years, with its doleful tale of failure and humiliation, it is hard to realize the elation of spirit felt not only at Constantinople, but through- out the Western world, by honest idealists who be- lieved that a regenerated and constitutional Turkey was not only possible, but in the process of formation. After ten years of quiescence, British diplomacy at Constantinople suddenly regained its ascendancy. The British ambassador was the most popular figure on the streets of the city; a British admiral began the reor- ganization of the fleet; a British agent assumed the task of rehabilitating the finances; and a British en- gineer was put in charge of the public works. So swift and specious was the immediate advance that all European authorities felt forced to behave as if the gain were permanent. Not only the civil and military officials of foreign powers, but the komitadji bands alike disappeared from Macedonia, being with- drawn so that order might be restored under constitu- tional government. Religious liberty and racial equality were terms no longer essential, because every inhabitant of the Ottoman empire was to become a loyal Ottoman citizen. There was to be an obliteration of race and religious antipathy; there was to be an introduction of legal reforms so radical as to insure the equality of Christians before the courts and in the military services by land and by sea; the ballot was to be free. Throughout the pleasant summer months of that year there was a period of general re- joicing and complete inactivity. As yet, Bulgaria was technically a vassal state, bound Fire THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 155 to pay an annual tribute to the Sultan. For years no Sparks one had considered the technicality as otherwise than ^*'°" **•• a farce, but when the new government at Constan- tinople, late in September, summoned the resident diplomats to a banquet, they deliberately overlooked the Bulgarian agent, who was not technically a diplo- matist. Within a fortnight Bulgaria declared her complete independence, and when a strike broke out on the Oriental railway, in Rumelia, Bulgaria restored order and assumed the control of all Turkish railways within its boundaries. It likewise denounced the sys- tem of capitulations as no longer operative in Eastern Rumelia. This high-handed procedure was mildly dep- recated by the great powers as a breach of the Treaty of Berlin, but Bulgaria retorted that she had not been a party to that compact. With the fringes of that public charter thus muti- lated, Austria-Hungary almost simultaneously an- nounced to the world that her protectorate of Bosnia and the Herzegovina had ceased, and that those provinces were now an integral part of the dual mon- archy. The Treaty of Berlin, violated from the begin- ning by each of its signatories, according to their respective interests, had virtually ceased to exist. The two provinces, solidly populated by Slavs, had re- garded the Young Turk Revolution as a guarantee of their own freedom and of the full electoral rights which under the Austrian protectorate they had never enjoyed. For this reason they had begun an agitation and announced their aspirations as loyal subjects of the Sultan to be represented in the parliament at Constanti- nople. This precipitated the annexation. Russia and Great Britain were indignant and remonstrated with Austria-Hungary. To their joint note the Austro- IS6 THE BALKANS Hungarian foreign minister, Aehrenthal, gave answer that no limitation had been set to the Austro-Hunga- rian occupation of the provinces, either as to time or to control ; that his country had made enormous sacrifices for the improvement of the provinces; that their an- nexation was a settled matter, never to be submitted to a European congress. On March 22, 1909, Ger- many notified Russia that if her consent were not given, Servia, having mobilized its army and called out its reserves to back a claim for territorial compen- sation, would immediately be invaded by Austro- Hungarian troops. Through the channel by which this information was conveyed there rang an imperious note ; Russia submitted ; Italy was bound by the Triple Alliance ; England and France were pacific ; all talk of a European conference ceased. Crete thought its opportunity had come, and voted its union with Greece. This little folk, however, had so often endured serious castigation at the hands of the Powers, that it humbly asked for their sanction, which was disallowed by them immediately. Here, then, was the Young Turk government, pro- claiming the unity of the Ottoman empire, at once and disastrously stripped of two great vassal territories and menaced with the loss of a third. They dared not fight Bulgaria with arms, and least of all Austria-Hungary. As regards the latter power, recourse was had to a com- plete boycott of her wares ; a boycott so complete that it entailed enormous losses, amply retrieved, however, by exploiting the natural resources of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. In order to end the boycott, Austria finally paid eleven million dollars as compensation for church property and other lands claimed by the Porte within these two provinces; and it was likewise a THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 157 clever move of the Young Turks to levy heavy customs on goods from Eastern Rumelia, hitherto free from that exaction because it was nominally a tributary province. Bulgaria therefore agreed to an indemnity of sixteen million dollars payment partly for the rail- way and partly as compensation for the tribute technically due to the Sultan. The new Turkish government defied Greece in the matter of Cretan annexation, but gave formal assent to the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by the dual monarchy and recognized the independence of Bulgaria. Although the central doctrine of Islam is resigna- Fanning the tion, yet from the days of Mohammed onward there ^'a^ie have been in every Mohammedan state a party of prog- ress and a party of reaction. The blindly fanatical, reactionary adherents of their religion were bitterly opposed to a political situation antagonistic to the precepts of the Koran. In particular, the half-savage Kurds rose in a blind fury ; there was a hideous mas- sacre of Christians in Asia Minor, and the Arabs in Ye- men threatened secession from the empire. Among the rank and file of the Turkish soldiery there was, it is said, great murmuring. They could fight for a cause in harmony with their faith, but the Europeanized Turks who were leading this disastrous movement made no pretense of being faithful to the rehgion of Islam as the lower classes understood it. On April 13, 1909, there was an effort to oust the Committee of Union and Progress from power. Mahmud Shefket Pasha marched swiftly into the city with twenty-five thousand men at his back and crushed all opposition, establishing a military government and showing no regard for the constitution. The general himself became minister of war. 158 THE BALKANS Educated in Germany, he intrusted the reorganization of the army to a distinguished German officer, von der Golz, and thereafter the military power was in intimate relations with the Triple Alliance. Young Turkey, nominally constitutional rulers, in reality a mere annex of the army, slowly assumed the same atti- tude. Fearing the partition of Persia between Russia and Great Britain, they sent troops to the Persian frontier in order to prevent encroachments on their own boundaries. Both the great powers concerned exhibited impatience and remonstrated against the action. Manifestly, too. Great Britain and France sympathized with the Cretan people in its desire for annexation with Greece. These facts went far to alienate the Young Turks from the Triple Entente; and financial ruin stared them in the face, since no assistance was to be had from any one of its three members. Without the assent of the public-debt ad- ministration there could be no increase in customs duties. Of the powers represented in that body, Aus- tria-Hungary and Germany had combined to permit an increase of the tariff in 1910; and had assented to heavy taxes upon alien merchants. Both of them assumed a disinterested attitude in the Cretan matter, and Marshall regained by a skillful use of these facts the position of influence which he had occupied under the Hamidian regime. Rumania and Turkey, for rea- sons previously given, were embittered against Greece, and in proportion as Greece and Bulgaria seemed to draw together it appeared essential that they, too, should make common cause against a power hostile to both, which was assuming portentous dimensions. It must be said of the Young Turks that at least they had the courage of their convictions. Not for THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 159 one instant did they relax the effort to centralize government authority; and the ruthless process of Turkification throughout the empire went steadily forward. Kurds, Arabs, and Albanians were recal- citrant because of their respective but primitive civil constitutions; the Macedonians were infuriated as they saw their hope of autonomy disappear. It will be recalled that Turkification, in itself an absurdity, was always initially thwarted by the fact that the Ottoman empire, in so far as it had an organization, was a church ruling other churches, and unfamiliar with the concept of true nationality in its most rudimen- tary form. The effort to strip the Christian communi- ties of the bitterness accumulated during five centuries of oppression within a few weeks was worse than futile — it was incendiary. It was the cause of the rebellion in Albania which destroyed the Turkish bulwark against the Slavs; it brought about the renascence of race patriotism among the Albanians; it ended in humiliating surrender. Forced to grant an amnesty, the Young Turk government yielded every one of twelve radical demands formulated by the rebel Al- banians. This process, moreover, as we have else- where said, kindled the conflagration of revolt in Macedonia. The cup of their humiliation ran over when one of Italy Adds the great powers preempted its share in the disintegra- ^«l tion of the Ottoman empire. On September 28, 191 1, Italy announced to a somewhat startled world that she was about to occupy Tripoli and the Cyrenaica; and she promptly made good the menace of her proclama- tion by transporting an army into Africa. The signifi- cance of this act for the government at Constan- tinople has not been fully understood. These were the i6o THE BALKANS only two remaining purely Mohammedan provinces of the Turkish empire. What does a Caliph amount to who has no believers over whom he may preside with- out the intervention of heretical states? Islam knows no distinction between civil and spiritual power; a spiritual sovereign with no secular authority is to a faithful Moslem a simple absurdity. The wayfaring man could understand, and did, that this situation had been created under Young Turkish rule. Throughout the confines of Mohammedanism there was murmur- ing and much discussion as to whether the Padishah at Constantinople were fit to be the spiritual head of the true believers. Islam as a system alike of spiritual and secular control was reduced to its deepest humilia- tion. Nothing so degrading had occurred throughout its long history. Italy had feared lest the annexation by Austria- Hungary of Bosnia and the Herzegovina would dimin- ish, and perhaps annihilate the influence in Albania she had so dexterously inaugurated and increased. Her emigrant population could find no place of settlement except under foreign control. In the Treaty of Berlin, when other powers had enriched themselves territori- ally,^ she had received nothing. The time seemed ripe to proclaim her position as a truly great power by demanding a share in the partition of Africa which had been so diligently carried on now these many years by England, France, and Germany. The minis- ter for foreign affairs of Austria-Hungary demanded and obtained the assurance that Italy's operations should not extend to the Balkans, and thereafter every European state regarded Italy's procedure with ap- parent indifference. Turkey could not dispatch troops by land to Tripoli because Egypt was in the possession THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 161 of Great Britain, nor could it send them by transport ships, for it had no navy to protect them. The best the party in power could do was to dispatch an able general, Enver Bey, to organize the resistance of the scanty Turkish garrisons and the brave but undisci- plined Arabs. What Turkey actually accomplished was an unpleas- ant surprise to Italy. It so protracted the struggle as to involve Italian finances seriously. It destroyed the important trade of the Italians with the cities of Asia Minor. In short, it so crippled the government at Rome that the Italian fleet was sent to occupy twelve northern islands of the ^gean and to threaten the Dardanelles in the hope of intimidating the Porte. At once the Dardanelles was closed to all ships; the door was locked in the face of Russia; the neutral com- merce of the world suffered serious damage; and exasperation among the Western peoples succeeded to apparent indifference. With the sense of having at least done its best, and under the moral pressure of Europe, Turkey opened negotiations for peace in July, 1912, and on October 15 the treaty of Lausanne was signed by the two powers ; the Porte renouncing its sovereignty over Tripoli and Cyrenaica, and provision being made for the exercise of the Sultan's religious authority among the African Moslems. The -(Egean Islands were on the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Africa to be restored to Turkey under guarantees for reform in the treatment of their Christian inhabi- tants. The situation at Constantinople had become more The perplexing than ever. The best Turks seemed stupe- Situation fied and withdrew from all active participation in '* Constanti- affairs. The governing Committee of Union and "°^* Ablaze 162 THE BALKANS Progress was now composed of professional politi- cians. Familiar with their task, its members, partly by- thorough organization, partly by intimidation, secured in April, 1912, a majority of faithful adherents in the Chamber; a majority, however, which did not repre- sent public opinion, and was therefore inefficient from the outset. In July the government fell and made way for a new political group, known as the "Party of Liberal Accord." Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha assembled a group of excellent men as a ministry. The Balkans The new government immediately proceeded to punish the leaders in a riot, which had occurred in December, 191 1, at Ishtib and had eventuated in a terrible massacre of Christians. Almost instantly, early in August, another atrocity of the same sort was perpetrated upon the Bulgarians at Kochana. The new ministry was thwarted in its admirable purpose to bring these latest offenders to justice and carry out a policy of strong conciliation by a chamber which had now grown hostile. Members of the opposition party returned to power. Guerilla fighting began on the frontiers of both Montenegro and Bulgaria. There- upon news of the Balkan Alliance reached Constanti- nople.^ In the crisis thus precipitated, Kiamil Pasha, the only preeminent figure in Turkish affairs com- manding general confidence, became Grand Vizier. On October first Bulgaria mobilized its troops; the other Balkan States did likewise; and by the eighth of October there was an army of a half million foes along the north and of a hundred thousand along the south. The government at Constantinople confiscated all war * For the fuller treatment of a diplomatlo achievement so unexpected and significant as to create panic throughout the Eastern world, see pp. 183 et sqq. THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 163 material which they thought belonged to the Allies, and seized a hundred Greek merchant vessels. Western Europe, of course, did not remain in entire ignorance. There was a general consensus of opinion that the inevitable struggle must be localized: T^iistnaT- HunpuT^avowed her intention of protecting her inter- . ests in the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, and put on foot a great army along the Danube. Russia was exasper- ated, and arrayed her forces upon the Galician frontier. There was real danger of a general European con- flagration, but France succeeded in preventing the out- break of any actual hostility between the great powers. Under its leadership their several governments agreed : first, to condemn any belligerent action; second, in case it could not be prevented, to permit no modifica- tion of existing territorial boundaries; third, to take efficient action for securing reforms necessary to the welfare of the Christians of European Turkey. These were embodied in a joint note presented at Belgrade, Sophia, Athens, and Cettigne on October eighth; in consequence Montenegro immediately and defiantly declared war against Turkey. This precipitancy was attributed to Russian influence. The other Balkan states presented on the fourteenth an ultimatum to the Porte demanding autonomy for Macedonia, Christian governors for the Christian Vilayets, the withdrawal of Turkish troops and the substitution of local militia. The answer of Turkey was the declaration of war against Bulgaria and Servia on October 17, 1912; and thereupon Greece declared war against Turkey. The course of the war displayed no carefully studied Progress of strategic plan, at least as far as the Turks were con- the War cerned. After its preliminary stages, hostilities cen- tered about the three great fortified places of Scutari, i64 THE BALKjVNS Janina, and Adrianople. Elsewhere, the Turkish armies displayed little resisting power, to the intense mortification of Germany, which had supplied them with war material and had trained them to what was believed to be a high degree of efficiency; but in these three places the Turkish resistance was superb, com- manding the unwilling admiration even of their foes. In the result it was clear that, accidental as had been this development, it had really exhausted the resources of the Allies. At the close of hostilities, experts ex- pressed the opinion that General Savoff had made the Bulgarian army "the finest fighting engine of its size in Europe." The Bulgarian people for ten years had concentrated all its passionate effort to be ready for the inevitable struggle. Possibly the sacrifices of the Greeks were even more remarkable. The little land had secretly accumulated a very substantial reserve of war funds. From Crete it had accepted as prime minister Venezelos, admittedly a man of the highest power as a statesman. From France it obtained a general, a number of staff officers, and the necessary artillery and equipment. As if by special grace, financial administration became thrifty and excellent. It was under Greek auspices that com- parative union of purpose and action had been secured. The Servia of 19 12 was far different from the Servia of 1888. Like other travelers I had been disposed, in view of court and government scandals, to despise the Servian morale and to belittle the fighting strength of the Servians; yet, when tested, the Servian army was found efficient. Her politicians had been sobered, her court chastened, and her recuperation completed. She, too, had somehow found or saved sufficient money to refit her offensive power. As to Montenegro, enough THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 165 has been said. There is no question of people and army; these are one. Their munition, although some- what antiquated, was more complete than had been expected ; indeed, it was remarkable that a land so poor had accumulated war supplies at all. The Allies had four armies, numbering in all seven Success of hundred thousand men; Turkey had barely half the *!»© Allies number. It is now claimed that the reforms of von der Golz had been in the main theoretical and not actual ; that the Young Turk government had rewarded its supporters by substituting young politicians for the former experienced officers. We hear that their sys- tem of transportation was contemptible, their commis- sariat worthless, and the troops themselves half starved. This may be true, but it is curious that Europe thought quite otherwise until, within three weeks after the declaration of war, Turkish military strength had almost vanished from consideration, ex- cept within the great fortresses. The theater of the war was, of course, for some time the mountain dis- tricts by reason of which the Balkan peninsula is designated as it is; the word "Balkan" meaning "mountains." The Greeks, Bulgarians, and Servians alike pushed forward through the frontier passes of the various mountain ranges into Thrace, Macedonia, Old Servia, Thessaly, and Epirus. The ensuing en- gagements were naturally and necessarily of minor dimensions, resulting in an apparently prearranged unbroken withdrawal of the Turks. This lasted for a week, when to the westward the Servians and a part of the Bulgarians pushed onward in four columns in order to gain touch with Montenegro. While the northern army of the Allies captured Prishtina, push- ing slowly and with difficulty onward, the southern i66 THE BALKANS army had even greater difficulty in reaching Kuma- novo, where a junction was to be effected. They met with stubborn resistance from Turkish columns, with which they fought steadily and successfully for three days, from the twenty-first to the twenty-fourth of October. Again the Turks slowly withdrew, and the way to a junction of the three allied armies was opened. Ueskub and Koprulu were occupied, and soon after there was a successful advance upon the all-important harbor city of Salonica from the north. Meanwhile the Greeks had successfully pushed onward through Thessaly and were upon the edge of the plain in which Salonica stands. The Bulgarians were approaching through the valleys of the Druma and Mesta and had cut the railway line between Salonica and Constanti- nople. In this way the Turkish army of the west was separated from that of the east. Everything depended upon the result of the struggle before Constantinople between the main armies of Turkey and her foes. The Bulgarians advanced in separate columns with a front stretching from Tirnovo to the Maritza River. This was a necessary risk, but the adventure succeeded. They passed the mountain range successfully, and met the Turkish enemy at Kirk-Kilisseh. Again the Turks drew off and the Bulgarians invested Adrianople. The principal Turkish force, after several days of fierce though desultory fighting about Liile-Burgas, lasting from the twenty-ninth of October to the second of November, withdrew for a last stand behind the lines of Chataldja. Efforts for This seemed to France the proper moment for Peace European intervention, on the basis of recognizing the political changes wrought by the war, and guarantee- THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 167 ing the Turkish sovereignty in Constantinople with a small bordering territory to the westward. The Powers could not agree. Before December first, the Servians had defied Austria-Hungary and occupied Durazzo on the Adriatic. The Greeks justly claimed to have cap- tured Salonica on November 8, although a vanguard of Bulgarians arriving on the ninth insisted on being ad- mitted as part of the garrison. The Chataldja lines withstood Bulgarian assaults on November 17 and 18 and held firm. All parties by this time began to feel the strain, and on December third an armistice was signed as between Turkey on the one side, Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro on the other, Greece refusing its signa- ture because as yet Janina, invested by its forces, had not fallen, nor had the Greek fleet been able to occupy the islands of the ^gean. A Peace Conference com- posed of representatives of all the belligerents met at London on December thirteenth. The proposals of the Allies and the counter proposals of the Turks exhibited so wide a difference of feeling that the ensuing debates were utterly aside from the mark and almost absurd. Nevertheless, when on New Year's Day, 1913, the Turkish delegates presented what they called an irre- ducible minimum, their terms still seemed to the Allies quite as impossible as before, suggesting as they did a virtual dissolution of the alliance and oflFering inade- quate concessions of territory. In fact, Turkey ap- peared to the Western world rather like an Oriental merchant haggling in a bazaar than like a serious negotiator. Should the new Ottoman empire still retain Adrian- Progress of ople, which the Turks regarded as their Holy City and Negotiations the Bulgarians as an indispensable frontier fortress? Could Turkey be permitted to retain the Greek islands 1 68 THE BALKANS of Imbros, Tenedos, and Lemnos because she held them essential to the protection of the Dardanelles, and others such as Mitylene because she thought them a part of Asiatic Turkey? Apparently, too, the Balkan Allies had agreed to "partition" Albania among them- selves. Austria-Hungary with the moral support of Italy imperatively demanded that the doubtful bound- aries of that land should be settled and that some kind of autonomy should be given in recognition of its inchoate nationality. How should the European usurers who had loaned money to the Ottoman empire on the security of its former possessions apportion to the enlarged Balkan States the respective shares of the obligations they should assume ? Finally, what was to become of the railway lines, nominally belonging to the Turkish government, in reality to Austro-Hun- garian companies, who held their obligations ? In view of the very delicate nature of the Balkan alliance, these questions were really of appalling importance, a fact well understood by the Turkish delegates in the Peace Conference. The sequel proved how shrewd and un- scrupulous they were in the use of these centrifugal forces. Throughout the month of January they prac- ticed dilatory tactics, and the war went on. Turkish forces repulsed all the attacks upon the Chataldja lines, upon the fortresses of Adrianople, Janina, and Scutari. Public opinion in Constantinople became defiant. The ministry of Kiamil, aware that the Balkan Allies were exhausting their resources, struggled to allay the rising war spirit. Rumania scouts the idea that she is a Balkan State, holding herself vastly superior in all respects to her Slav neighbors on both sides. She had long demanded what she called the rectification of her Bulgarian THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 169 frontier. In other words, her military preparations being now complete, she was awaiting a propitious moment to demand from Bulgaria both Silistria, as an indispensable frontier fortress, and Varna, as a desir- able harbor on the Euxine. What was the extent of her land greed did not actually appear. Simultaneously with the sessions of the peace negotiators in London were held meetings of the ambassadors to Great Britain from the great powers. During their con- ferences, Austria-Hungary, as the frontier state of civilized Europe, made very insistent demands. Servia should have no harbor on the Adriatic. The war cry of the Allies was "The Balkan peninsula for the Bal- kan peoples." Very well ; the Albanians are a Balkan people; why should they be put under Slav dominion if Slavs were to be freed from that of the Turks? Accordingly, the principle, at least, of Albanian auton- omy and Albanian nationality was admitted, with the single modification that in some way Servia should receive on the Adriatic a free harbor and unrestrained use of a railway connection with it. Naturally, all these dilatory and contradictory recommendations let loose a flood of discussion. Feel- ing rose so high in the Balkan States, and, indeed, throughout Europe, that finally the ambassadors in London proposed that the corresponding ambassadors at Constantinople should bring pressure to bear upon the Porte for the conclusion of peace. In pursuance of this recommendation, a collective note was written and presented on January 17, 19 13, advising the ces- sion of Adrianople to the Allies and the reference to the Powers of what would be the ultimate disposition of the Mgean Islands. With proper caution the min- istry summoned the Grand Council of the Ottoman I70 THE BALKANS empire, and on January twenty-second that august body accepted the "advice" so imperiously given. Young Turkey was furious, and the very next morn- ing Enver Bey, who had successfully engineered the latest revolution, who had covered himself with glory in Tripoli, and was the darHng of the Young Turks, headed a mob and demanded the resignation of Kiamil and his colleagues. A new ministry was formed with Mahmud Shefket Pasha as Grand Vizier. To this ministry a week was granted for formulating a reply to the collective note. Meantime, all the belligerents had been resting on their arms during a very uneasy armistice. The new Turkish ministry could come to no agreement, and on January 29 the peace representa- tives of the Balkan States at London denounced the armistice and ordered the resumption of hostilities on February 3. This action produced immediate results. On the first of February the Grand Vizier replied to the collective note that Turkey would accede to the proposition about the ^gean Islands, but demanded that the portion of Adrianople on the left bank of the Maritza River, containing the Turkish sanctuaries and a Turkish population, should remain Turkish. Two days later the representatives of Great Britain and Germany at Sophia, the latter in rather peremptory language, urged upon the Bulgarian government the acceptance of this offer. To this they replied that the Turkish communication was only another subterfuge in the long game of procrastination, which had already lasted two months, atid that very evening the bombard- ment of Adrianople was renewed. Second Stage This marked the second stage of the war between of the War Turkey and the Balkan Allies. From the military point of view it was quite different from the first. The THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 171 chief strength of both parties was concentrated on either side of the Chataldja Hnes. There the opposing forces remained, jealously observing one the other, manifestly in a state of considerable exhaustion. For tactical reasons the Bulgarians retreated a short dis- tance from their previous position. To the chief com- manders of both hostile forces a direct frontal attack seemed impossible, and what movements there were tended toward the execution, if opportunity should present, of flank movements, the Allies with a view to advancing toward Constantinople, the Turks toward Adrianople. Persistent and continuous efforts were made by Turkey to land fresh forces in the harbor cities along the coasts of the Black Sea and on the shores of the Sea of Marmora ; the almost misci-oscopic navy of Bulgaria and the larger, better-equipped, and more efficient sea power of Greece rendered these ef- forts completely futile. Neither could the Turks sur- round the Bulgarians nor did the Bulgarians succeed in occupying the peninsula of Gallipoli. About all these movements there was an air of lassi- tude, characteristic of exhaustion. The siege opera- tions, however, were energetic in the highest degree, and after a superb and heroic resistance Adrianople fell on the twenty-sixth of March. Two weeks earlier Janina, beset by the Greeks after a series of minor victories in Epirus, had opened its gates to the con- querors. The surviving fragments of Turkish military power in the west surrendered on the Lake of Ochrida, although they were much diminished in number by the withdrawal of many bands under Djavid into Albania. Scutari had displayed powers of resistance which al- most paralyzed the Servian and Montenegrin forces for a time; but the gallant garrison, threatened with 172 THE BALKANS starvation, finally marched out with all the honors of war. Whether or not the surrender was entirely in good faith is a mooted question. Many beheved there was a secret bargain with certain leaders among the besieged. King Nicholas entered and celebrated the Greek Easter festival within the fortifications amid the ruins of the town, but his tenure of the place which he announced to be the future capital of Montenegro and his exultation were of short duration. The Allies were now in possession of all Turkey in Europe west of the Chataldja lines, but the insistence of Austria that some kind of national existence should be secured for Albania, rendered imperative an international occupation of Scutari, and it was a crestfallen monarch who, as gracefully as he might, handed over the fruits of his hard-earned victory to a composite force of marines under the command of a British admiral. As we have indicated, the movements of the Balkan fleets were of considerable importance, but they were not marked by any tactical regularity, and had absolutely no connection with the military movements by land. Partial and All Europe had lived throughout these portions of Temporary j-jig ^y^r in a state of nervous uneasiness lest the West- ern powers should be drawn to a greater or less degree into hostile relations with each other. Indeed, at one juncture, both Russia and Austria-Hungary mobilized a considerable portion of their respective armies, but their reciprocal fears were allayed by the dispositions of the ambassadorial conferences in London, and by the acquiescence of the Balkan plenipotentiaries at the same capital in a peace which fixed the western bound- ary of Turkey in Europe by a line extending more or less irregularly from Enos, a village on the ^gean, to Midia, a town on the Black Sea. In this temporary Peace THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 173 peace the question of the yEgean Islands, alike those which command the entrance to the Dardanelles and those so close to the shores of Asia Minor that they virtually dominate it strategically, was left unsettled. It was understood that the Balkan States had already agreed as to the division among themselves of all the Ottoman possessions in Europe. This was true, had the Albanian question not been opened as it was. If there were to be a semi-autonomous Albania, all previ- ous calculations were overthrown, and the apple of dis- cord was flung into the very midst of an alliance formed with difficulty, marked by mutual suspicion, and existing, even under the most favorable circum- stances, in unstable equilibrium. Accordingly, on the conclusion of this so-called Discord peace, marking the end of the second stage of the war, vj?""^ not one of the Balkan powers began to disarm. Quite the contrary; they put forth spasmodic, and in some cases efficient, efforts to increase their military power. Were Bulgaria to retain all the lands marked by her for annexation before the outbreak of the war, she would have a territorial aggrandizement completely oversetting the Balkan balance of power; while, if Al- bania were to be withdrawn from the respective shares of Greece, Montenegro, and Servia, their expectations of enlargement would be bitterly disappointed, at least as to degree. Whether wittingly or not, Bulgaria left upon an observant world an impression of dictatorial arrogance. It was she who had furnished for the conflict, as her people firmly believed, the most efficient army, had borne the fiercest brunt of battle, and who ought therefore to secure the largest share in the booty. Suddenly Rumania unmasked her plans. She ap- peared to herself and others in the light of a Balkan 174 THE BALKANS arbitrator. With a shrewd though selfish policy, and managed by a wise, experienced band of statesmen, headed by a trusted sovereign, she was also backed by a superb army. It was perfectly clear that she would not permit the readjustment of frontiers so as to leave herself without such compensations as to insure at least her equality in the Balkan balance of power. The tension after the so-called peace was like that of a live electric wire, and it could only be a question whether in the third stage of Balkan struggles the larger Europe could again refrain from intervention and leave the ultimate decision in the hands of the weary but not discouraged combatants. On the nineteenth of April the armistice of Bulair had been signed by Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia. Scutari had fallen into the hands of Montenegro on the twenty-third; the truce had then become general and thereupon hostilities between Turkey and the Bal- kan allies came to an end, at least for the time being. It has already been explained that for her own particu- lar reasons Austria-Hungary made the creation of an autonomous Albania a basic condition of the ultimate settlement. Throughout Russia the fall of Scutari had created an almost universal enthusiasm, while, on the other hand, the powers of Western and Central Europe demanded, and secured, almost instantly, the evacua- tion of the town by the Montenegrins. On the fourteenth of May representatives of the Six Powers took possession of the place on behalf of the inchoate principality of Albania. Thus, and thus only, was it possible to prevent the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Austria-Hungary. Shortly after, delegates from the states engaged in the war met at London and opened a second conference. Under the pressure of THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 175 the Six Great Powers, exercised in a cogent warning by Sir Edward Grey, an agreement was reached and a treaty signed on the thirtieth of that month. Turkey was to surrender Crete and all the continental land west of the Enos-Midia line. The delimitation of Al- bania and the question of the ^gean Islands were to be the affair of the Powers, and financial questions were to be adjusted by an international commission, which would be summoned in due time to meet at Paris. Immediately thereafter, however, the question of how to apportion the surrendered territories among the victors became acute. Bulgaria was persistent in claiming most of Macedonia, including Salonica and Monastir; Servia clamored for that greater share of Macedonia which the Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of March 13, 1912, had allotted to her; Greece avowed her right to both Salonica and Kavala on the basis of conquest ; Rumania demanded from Bulgaria, as compensation for her neutrality, a cession of important territories in order to secure a strategic frontier. So alarming was the state of public opinion in each of these states that the Czar proposed to mediate. He met with a chilling repulse, and Bulgaria, encouraged, as is generally be- lieved, by Austro-Hungarian influence, gradually re- newed hostilities not only with her one-time allies but with Turkey and Rumania as well. There were con- flicts with the Greeks in the neighborhood of Panghaion and a three days' battle at Slatovo with the Servians. This was on the thirtieth of June. Five days later diplomatic relations with Greece and Servia were suspended, and Montenegro declared war against Bulgaria. Her example was followed by Rumania on the tenth, and the Turks advanced on Adrianople, reoc- cupying it on the twenty-second of July. 178 THE BALKANS Bulgaria, 156,000; Turkey, 150,000. These appalling losses were of soldiers in the ranks. It is not possible, even approximately, to estimate those who died from outrage, massacre, and disease. For military purposes, the maintenance and mobilization of armies, and the distribution of war materials, these countries expended about one and a half billion dollars. The economic disaster consequent upon losses in commerce, manu- factures, and agriculture cannot possibly be repre- sented in figures. These wars, as we have explained, were ostensibly, and we are fain to believe, in a measure, really under- taken to emancipate from the horrors of Turkish mis- government the kinsfolk of the various nationalities. Beyond any peradventure they turned almost immedi- ately into a freebooting expedition to despoil Turkey; their close was marked by the most shocking exhibi- tion of greed and violence in the distribution of the spoils.^ Furthermore, the final terms of settlement, as laid down in the treaty of Bucharest on August 10, paid little regard to the "nationalities" of the inhabitants living on the various lands apportioned to the combat- ants. A glance at a good ethnographic map will show that Rumania, by the extension of her southeastern frontier, acquired many new subjects, a majority of whom were Turks; that Bulgaria under compulsion abandoned great numbers of those whom she had loudly declared to be her kinsfolk in Kotchana and Radovisht to Servia on the one side, and on the other to Greece a great slice of Macedonia, including 1 A Few Lessons Taught by the Balkan War, by Alfred H. Friend, published in the International Conciliation Series. THE REVOLUTION OF 1908 179 Salonica and Kavala, which presumably swarmed with so-called Bulgarians. The Greeks had to be content when their kinspeople in Monastir were assigned to Servia, while Servia granted to Montenegro, as has been told, about one half of the coveted Sanjak of Novi-Bazar with its Servian population. By the treaty of Constantinople the line between Turkey and Bulgaria, the two contracting powers, was arranged partly with reference to the mandate of the great powers concerning the Enos-Midia Hne, but by substantial deviations at both ends and in such a way as to keep Adrianople under Turkish rule. Bulgaria could not even secure control of the railway connec- tions with the one new port on the JEgtan which she had acquired, and incurred serious losses in establish- ing her authority over the portion of Thrace allotted to her. There is a sense in which the new Albania may be considered almost a joke. A recent traveler in Epirus declares the Albanian nation to be a myth. Its inhabi- tants roundly and persistently declare themselves to be Greeks. Even the Mussulmans of that land permit no one to call them Albanians, asserting their undiluted Hellenic character. The next generation of their descendants, it is declared, await only a sufficient inducement on the part of the Greek government to become orthodox Greek Christians, as their remote ancestors were. The international commissions have been steadily at work determining the frontiers and announce their work as completed, but the guerilla warfare directed against the Servians did not until within a doubtful recent limit stop for a moment, if, indeed, it ever will, and there is probably no greater hotbed of Hellenism than Koritza, which has been i8o THE BALKANS assigned to Albania. When, finally, the frontiers shall have been not only definitely surveyed, but ac- cepted, it vi^ill take years of constant, watchful inter- vention on the part of the Western powers to maintain anything like order, and the moral effect of trampling under foot the whole doctrine of nationality, for which war was ostensibly waged, will be deplorable. The Hoti and Gruda tribes of the north have refused to acknowledge Montenegrin sovereignty, and the town of Tuzi has been seized and occupied by the Malissores. When Servia finally crossed the northern border and captured a chieftain of the Albanian marauders, Aus- tria-Hungary presented an ultimatum at Belgrade de- manding the prompt withdrawal of Servian troops behind their own frontier and Servia acquiesced. For a time there was a provisional "republic," styling itself a government, at Avlona, and a native Albanian "king" reigning at Durazzo, while a British admiral governed Scutari. An attempt in January, 1914, to create a throne for a Turkish prince was thwarted by the joint military action of the Great Powers and the vigilance of Italy. The International Commission of Control had its seat at Avlona. There were six members, representing the Six Great Powers, which by corre- spondence finally agreed upon Prince William Fred- erick of Wied, a German Protestant and a nephew of Queen Elizabeth of Rumania, as the first ruler of the autonomous Albania, yet to be. His subjects com- prised not only Mussulmans but Catholic Christians, both Greek and Roman. Regarding the dignity of such a throne without enthusiasm, he entered upon his task with a full comprehension of the problem, and displayed great firmness. But all his conscientious effort proved utterly vain. VII THE FORMATION OF THE BALKAN ALLIANCE l8i VII THE FORMATION OF THE BALKAN ALLIANCE* The states of the Balkan peninsula are, as we have The Principle probably made clear in the preceding chapters, still in *** Nationality the condition of political apprentices. Certain of the prominent principles of European politics they have grasped with a firmness which amounts in many cases to foolish obstinacy. For example, they have a fanati- cal regard for what they call "the principle of national- ity," a principle not well understood even in Western Europe, and by them based upon preposterous assump- tions. They likewise know only too well the whole sad story of the Balance-of-Power doctrine in Western Europe, and its corollary, the idea of Compensation ; of Constitutions they are continuously prating in a way which makes perfectly clear that the alphabet of consti- tutional government has not yet been learned by them. In preceding chapters, the difficulties which lie athwart the formation of a permanent Balkan alliance have presented themselves in every connection. In one of his admirable political studies, James Bryce, after a comprehensive examination, made ap- parently upon the spot, of the Balkan peoples, sug- gested that there was but one possible solution of the problem as to how Turkish tyranny and oppression were to be ended definitely in Europe. He spoke of a federation including all the then independent and semi- ■Compare a series of articles in the London Times published between June 6 and i6, 1913. 183 i84 THE BALKANS Futile Efforts Toward AUiance independent young states, which could both throw off the Turkish yoke and if cemented by reciprocal good will could best solve the problem of Constanti- nople. We propose to outline as accurately as the infor- mation obtainable will permit how the temporary federation for this purpose was secured. After the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, and the adoption of those principles for international con- trol known as the Treaty of Berlin, suggestions of alliance secured some slight attention even in the Balkan States. The Treaty of Berlin utterly ignored the so-called principle of nationality. At the time, and since, the leaders in each of those states sought diligently some basis for lines of national demarcation. In the case of Rumania, as we have seen, it was not difficult to find them, and, in a way, the Greek nation was likewise discernible; but when it came to distinguishing Servians from Croats, to deter- mining exactly what the Bulgarian was and where he dwelled ; when, further, it came to settling the question of how Rumanians and Kutzovlachs who did not live within the kingdom of Rumania were to be treated by the other race elements, there appeared powerful and uncontrollable centrifugal forces. Servia has not produced many statesmen. One of the few, Ristitch, suggested that a reformed and con- stitutional Turkey might cooperate with Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia in a confederation for the im- provement of conditions which had become intolerable. King Charles of Rumania and Prince Alexander of Bulgaria expressed some interest in such a project. When, however, Eastern Rumelia rose in revolt in 1885 and was substantially incorporated in a Bulgaria quite different in dimensions from that contemplated by the FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 185 Treaty of Berlin, neither Servia nor Greece would any longer entertain the idea. Bulgaria, thus aggrandized, was already a menace to the balance of power in the Balkans, and both these states demanded compensation. As we have seen, Milan, the king of Servia, supported by Austria-Hungary, actually went to war with Bul- garia, but suffered a humiliating defeat at its hands. The powers of Western Europe joined in a naval demonstration against Greece in order to quench her ambitions, and Russia, by means of her secret agents at Sophia, brought about the fall of Prince Alexander. Thereafter, for a considerable time, the situation was exactly reversed as regarded the exercise of Russian influence in the Balkans. Stambuloff, the Bulgarian prime minister, resisted the Czar's influence success- fully, while Servia became his creature. The feeling between these two states was therefore even more em- bittered than hitherto. Austria-Hungary gave at least her moral support to Ferdinand, the new prince of Bulgaria. It seemed as if the idea of a Balkan alliance could be nothing more than a dream. In 1 89 1, however, Tricoupis, the well-known Greek statesman, paid a personal visit to both Belgrade and Sophia in the hope of reviving the idea and securing military support for a campaign against Turkey. Naturally, the question of dividing what remained of Turkey in Europe among the three was uppermost in the minds of all. With characteristic insight, he had convinced himself that, in the case of an attack upon the Ottoman power, the Western nations would not interfere. He must likewise have had a secret under- standing of Rumania's policy of isolation, for he did not visit Bucharest. At both Belgrade and Sophia he thoroughly discussed the principle of mutual concession i86 THE BALKANS Twenty Years of Diplomacy when the time should be ripe for the partition of the Turkish possessions. This principle, however, remained and is likely always to remain very hazy in the minds of all who are influential in the conduct of Balkan affairs. At that time there was a comphcation of cir- cumstances which perhaps justified the exaggerated and blustering patriotism of all four governments. Ferdinand felt that for the consolidation of his power any adventurous policy would be very dangerous. At any rate, the facts came to the knowledge of the Porte and were by it made sufficiently public to prevent any further agitation of the plan. For twenty years the scheme of a Balkan federation remained in abeyance. The shrewdest observers ex- pressed the opinion that such an alliance was impos- sible. The guerilla bands of Greece, Servia, and Bul- garia ravaged Macedonia throughout all its borders. Mutual envy and spite were kept at fever heat by the perpetual agitations for securing money and men for this nefarious warfare in all three of the states. There was no sense, no reason in the procedure; merely a wild, vague conception that when the inevitable climax should come, the partition would be made on the prin- ciple that the more national bandits the greater the national share of the booty. Throughout this period of twenty years, diplomacy was degraded almost to the level of conspiracy. Men- tion has been made of the "Great Ideas" entertained by the respective nations of Eastern Europe. Among these, as has been said, that of Russia is her succession to the influence and power of Byzantium as the all- inclusive Greek empire. Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, has had a history so extraordinary that her chief aim was to prevent what may be called Greek and FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 187 Slavic aggression upon the eastern frontier of the Hapsburg lands. Her general policy, therefore, has been to create dissensions among the various Slavic stocks, to embitter their relations one with the other, and to prevent whatever strength there might be in union. Any combination, however temporary or pre- posterous, which was hostile to Russian pretenses, was sure to find powerful support with the authorities at Vienna and Buda-Pesth. Accordingly, this period of outward peace was really one of fierce diplomatic war- fare. While the inner history of the time has been care- fully concealed, yet there seems no doubt that, when in 1897 Greece entered upon a period of foolish warfare with Turkey, Russia and Austria-Hungary combined to prevent Servia and Bulgaria from joining in the hostilities. The most recent events seem to prove that Rumania had some secret understanding, probably with Servia, whereby she was, if necessary, to attack Bulgaria and secure in compensation a considerable portion of Eastern Rumelia. Whatever the reasons, Bulgaria rejected overtures from Greece for a portion of Macedonia with a harbor on the ^gean. Russia and Austria-Hungary were harmonious for the mo- ment in preventing Bulgaria from joining the federa- tion, and in keeping active the Bulgarian policy of friendship with Turkey. Utterly futile was the effort, the origin of which is not clear, to secure in 1901 some arrangement between Greece and Rumania. King Charles and the late King George were for some time visitors together at an Austrian watering place on the Adriatic. A body of Rumanian students organized a tour to Athens, where they were warmly welcomed. It is inconceivable that there should have been any seri- ous statesmanship concerned in such a movement. i88 THE BALKANS Balkan Jealousy and Strife Turkey Prepares the Way The effort for reform in Macedonian conditions under a combined Austro-Russian control was equally futile. The emissaries of Abdul Hamid ranged the province and intensified the conflict of races and creeds. The Greek komitadjis, or bandits, became more and more numerous. Their special aim was to complete the process, begun in 1903, of "converting" the Vlach settlements, and in the autumn of 1905 the diplomatic relations between Greece and Rumania came to an end. Bulgaria began to persecute the Greeks within her borders, and, in short, Macedonia was turned into a hell on earth. In 1905 there was talk of a customs union between Servia and Bulgaria, but it remained empty talk. As late as 191 1, therefore, intelligent visitors to that distracted portion of Eastern Europe could see no light in the darkness. The rivalries of Russia and Austria-Hungary, the contemptuous tyranny of Turkey, the half-barbarous tribal conflicts, the barbaric rage shown by the Balkan powers to each other — these created a situation which was the despair alike of wild and of civilized Europe. Curiously enough, it was out of darkest Turkey that the partial solution of the problem came. The Young Turk Revolution was based upon a chimera, but a most glittering and attractive one. Promising liberty, justice, and equality for all, it would, if suc- cessful, regenerate Turkey in Europe, make possible the long-since abandoned conception of a peaceful federation between the Balkan States, with Turkey as one of its important members, and produce, at all events, a period for recuperation and reflection. In all the extraordinary story of Turkish rule over Christian peoples there is no series of events so en- lightening, from an historical point of view, as those FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 189 which constituted the so-called Young Turk Revolu- tion. It was the effort of the vanishing race and religion to assume the garb of Western constitutional government and thereby retain, for a time at least, its ascendancy over the Christian subject races, to ward off for a period the menace of European intervention, and to abolish the capitulations which had hitherto secured some degree of tolerance to Christian nation- alities within the Ottoman empire. The Young Turk movement, it must be remem- bered, was essentially military in its character. Based solely and entirely on military power, it was an alliance of so-called statesmen with an ignorant soldiery, in reality of scheming politicians with a uniformed, fanatical Moslem peasantry. Neverthe- less, in the glamor of its earliest stages, the more enlightened sentiment of the Balkan powers began to assert itself. In 1908 Bulgaria had proclaimed her absolute independence and thereby put a considerable strain upon her relations with jealous neighbors; but when Austria-Hungary formally proclaimed to the world her annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, the two purely Slavic states of the peninsula, Servia and Montenegro, began to tremble for their very exist- ence, and relations which had been rendered hostile almost to the point of rupture, partly by the dynastic scandals at Belgrade and partly by the machinations of radicals in Cettigne, were slowly renewed in the face of the common foe. Both these states mobilized their armies and agreed on the terms of a military conven- tion. The apparent ease with which two governments, so long posing as deadly foes, laid aside their ani- mosity and combined for self-preservation may fairly be regarded as a sign of the times. I90 THE BALKANS The next strange and unexpected political phenom- enon occurred in 1910, when the Albanians, keenly alive to the success of other populations round about, began to assert their nationality, and thereby threatened the further disintegration of Turkey. Young Turkey regarded the movement with great uneasiness. Hitherto the devout Albanian Moslems had been an impregnable barrier against Slav aggres- sion from the north. The movement for nationality in Albania was a menace to the very existence of Tur- key in Europe, and the revolt was accordingly sup- pressed without pity or mercy wherever Turkish troops could march. But into the mountain fastnesses occupied by the two wildest clans, those known as the Mirdites and Mallissores, troops could not penetrate in regular military formation. Those wild tribes, moreover, were Christians and members of the Roman Church. Along the frontier line between them and Montenegro they made a brave stand for what they called their liberties, but in a comparatively short time their scanty resources were exhausted, and they threw themselves upon the mercy of little Montenegro, a land of Slavs who professed Christianity of the Greek form. What was perhaps still more amazing, these fanatical Greek Christians received the equally fanati- cal Roman Christians with kindness, afforded them protection, and, at great cost, supplied them with the necessities of life. The Young Turks were naturally dismayed, but in Albania proper they had nevertheless outwardly restored peace. It was a peace like that described by Tacitus — the peace of a desert. The population was disarmed, and the new Sultan made a royal progress, stimulating the religious zeal of the people, as he and FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 191 his followers vainly supposed, by the pompous cere- monies known as the selamlik. Entirely content with their success in pacifying Albania, the Young Turks resolved upon a similar treatment of Macedonia. The public has been very well informed as to what hap- pened in Albania, but there has been a conspiracy of silence on the part of the great powers as regards the events of that terrible period in Macedonia. As yet, not one of the consular reports has been published by any government of Western Europe, and, what is still more extraordinary, the entire European press has seemed to combine to prevent the publication of any letters from its correspondents. Whatever the facts, the result was that the Christian races of Macedonia began to act in harmony. They forced their prelates of high and low degree, those professing allegiance to the Greek patriarch, as well as to the Exarch of Bulgaria, into a kind of political leadership. Another miracle had been wrought, and even amid the Greek peasants of southern Macedonia, there was formed the conviction that the cause of Bulgarians and Servians within the posses- sions of Turkey in Europe was really their own. King Nicholas of Montenegro had invited King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and the crown princes of Servia and Greece as well, to celebrate his jubilee with him at Cettigne, and they came — which was another proof that public opinion throughout the Balkan States was at least embryonic and liable to develop. Very shortly afterward it leaked out that should Turkey and Bul- garia renew hostilities, the army of Rumania would cooperate with that of Turkey. What would happen in other parts of the Balkans should Bulgaria be de- feated by a combination of Young Turkey and Rumania? As the best authority (Bouchier) has de- 192 THE BALKANS A Common Suffering Unites the Balkans dared, this was the moment when the instinct of self- preservation was awakened. The revolution at Constantinople, therefore, was indirectly the cause of the truce between the Christian nationalities, especially those of Bulgaria and Greece, which seemed to give promise of a gradual reconcilia- tion. Since the opening of this century the condition of Macedonia could only be likened to that of a primi- tive giant, lacerated and bound, at times seemingly in its death throes, yet recuperating its strength in every short interval of hostile lassitude. In 1903 the state of affairs appeared so bad that it could not be worse. In 1910, after the revolution of 1908 had ended the administration of Hamidian Turkey, matters were at least as bad, if not worse, but (this time it was due to the grim determination of the Young Turk administrators to obliterate all feeling of nationality in its population and enforce the doctrine of Turkish citizenship without regard to race or religion, and to the ruthlessness with which all resist- ance was overwhelmed. Diverse as are the race elements in Macedonia, yet famine and rapine have been, to a certain extent, elements in the amalgama- tion. To preserve their children alive, and their families from violation, even the village leaders were disposed in their extreme discouragement to submis- sion. It is said that Abdul Hamid, hearing in his enforced retirement of the conditions, chuckled vindic- tively and prophesied the ultimate destruction of Young Turkey, when Greeks and Bulgarians should be even partially reconciled. It was the climax of their common sufferings which brought about just that degree of reconciliation which was necessary to ruin Young Turkey. FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 193 In consequence of their arrangement with Rumania, the Young Turks began in the early winter of 1910- 191 1 to assemble along the Greek and Bulgarian fron- tiers masses of soldiers brought from Asia Minor. This appears to have been in part merely a threat to prevent Bulgaria from urging further the junction of the Bulgarian and Macedonian railway systems. Bulgaria and Greece had alike prolonged /their railways to their respective frontiers, but Turkey, controlling the con- nection with Central Europe, had stubbornly refused any connection of these railway lines with its own. To that hour Athens had no railway connection with Europe. The junction will, of course, be made at the earliest possible moment; work has already begun. Simultaneously, the question of Crete, whose in- habitants were determined upon annexation with the kingdom of the Hellenes, had become acute. Tur- key, trusting in the European concert to prevent the further disintegration of her territory, inaugurated an almost complete boycott of Greek commerce in Salonica, and the Greeks, within or without the kingdom, felt the sting, alike of their humiliation and their money losses, to such a degree that the powerful organization known as the Military League began to revolt against the pacific policy of the Greek govern- ment. The unquestioned leadership of Hellenic agitation in Crete was in the hands of Venezelos. This remark- able man was persuaded by the discontented at Athens to come thither for consultation. Within a few months he had so impressed both King George and the politi- cal leaders in Greece with his good judgment and his administrative power that a general agreement was reached whereby Turkey was, at least temporarily, to 194 THE BALKANS be conciliated, in order that the Greek army might be reorganized and the navy refitted antecedent to any offensive movement. Venezelos undertook to form a new government, and became the foremost Greek of his time. Almost simultaneously GueshoflF, a com- manding figure in Bulgarian affairs, had advocated, in a powerful and widely read speech, a similar policy for Bulgaria. King Ferdinand and his people felt the force of the reasoning, and he was called to form a government which would carry out his plan. Rumanian policy has, of course, been chiefly determined by the fact that its border is Russia. For the same reason there has always been more or less mystery about her attitude in the politics of Eastern Europe. During the negotiations with Turkey, Bra- tiano had been prime minister at Bucharest, the expo- nent of vigorous military measures to secure for his country compensation offsetting the enlargement of Bulgaria's borders. Naturally, his vigorous foreign policy had reacted, and not in a conciliatory way, upon the internal politics of the kingdom, and in January, 191 1, being unable to control his government any longer, he resigned. For the moment Rumania was eliminated from the question to be considered by Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia. Venezelos and Gues- hoff were just proceeding to make overtures at Con- stantinople when suddenly their plans were completely thwarted by a violent agitation in the Turkish press, which regarded the appointment of a Cretan rebel as Greek premier in the light of an insult to Turkey. In consequence, the entire Greek boycott became more harassing. The murders of Christian leaders in Macedonia increased in number, and all pretense of treating Macedonia with moderation was abandoned. FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 195 Already, in 1910, the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Aflfairs had warned the Young Turks of the imminent danger, and had made perfectly clear to the Grand Vizier that their policies would inevitably pro- duce a Balkan alliance : it was, indeed, at the very mo- ment when the Turkish newspapers were breathing fire and slaughter that he expostulated with the Young Turk government in terms which could not be disre- garded. Deferentially and hypocritically, the govern- ment pretended to woo the Greek patriarch and publicly announced an inchoate understanding ; but the deeds of their agents in the harbor cities and in Macedonia continued to be quite as hostile as before. Professions therefore produced no effect upon Greek sentiment. At the two extremities of the Ottoman empire, in Yemen and the Albanian mountains, insurrection grew more determined, while the temper in Macedonia became alike more rebellious and more hopeful. Venezelos then formally proposed to the Bulgarian Greece and government that the two powers should cooperate in Bulgaria in the pressure exerted on the Porte, in the efforts of the ecclesiastical authorities at Constantinople, which were working in harmony, and in making such representa- tions to Western Europe as would secure the assist- ance of the Powers. This document was presented at Sophia in April, 191 1. Brief and to tlae point, it proposed common action for the defense of the Chris- tians in Turkey and eventually a defensive alliance, should Turkey attack either of the two contracting parties. This step was taken with the full knowledge and approval of King George, but in such secrecy, that no outsider, not even a Greek, was aware of the fact. This secrecy was as complete at Sophia as at Athens, and it was not until after weeks, when a 196 THE BALKANS Suggestions ofFuU Alliance diplomatic basis for negotiation had to be established, that even members of the Greek and Bulgarian govern- ments were informed. Bulgaria was very slow to act. King Ferdinand was a farseeing and extremely cau- tious ruler. Whatever Macedonian peasants claiming to be Bulgarians might feel with regard to their fellow peasants claiming to be Greeks, the authorities at Sophia were slow to accept the sincerity of official Greek professions. Moreover, the Bulgarian government had unlimited confidence in its own army and dis- trusted the efficiency of the Greek armaments. To be sure, Venezelos had already secured French and British instructors for the Greek forces by land and sea, but Bulgaria, trained and armed under German guidance, was disposed to be contemptuous and adopted a passive attitude. The only indication of her tendency was given when, in August, the Bulgarian Parliament, sitting at Timovo, amended the Constitu- tion in a way to invest the Crown with enlarged powers of treaty-making. There was also more fre- quent intercourse between subjects of the two nations. Bulgarian students visited Athens and were kindly en- treated; the Bulgarian Exarch, the Armenian and Chaldean patriarchs united for the first time in modem history to make a joint representation at Constanti- nople concerning the rights of Christian communities in Turkey. Into this entangled skein of affairs there entered a further element of confusion when war broke out between Italy and Turkey. King Nicholas promptly proposed immediate mobilization to all his fellow sovereigns in the Balkans. Turkey was forced to consolidate her armies on the Greek and Bulgarian frontiers, and it was not until Italy promised to re- FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 197 spect the situation in the peninsula, that peace was momentarily assured. The efifect, however, upon the Balkan States was noteworthy. While the Greco-Bul- garian proposition was apparently held in suspense, the government at Sophia made advances to that at Belgrade. This was in November, 191 1, and early in 1912, on February 2, the crown princes of all the Balkan States assembled in Sophia to celebrate the coming of age of Prince Boris, the Bulgarian heir apparent. The Bulgarian prime minister had intended that this demonstration should be understood, as it was, to be an indication of an inchoate alliance. On May 29 the Greco-Bulgarian treaty was signed Greco- at Sophia by Gueshoflf and the Greek ambassador, Bulgarian both declaring that the two kingdoms firmly desired **^ peace. The document states that this object can best be reached by a defensive alliance, by the creation of political equality among the different nationalities in Turkey, and by the careful observation of treaty rights. To this end the two nations would cooperate to promote correct relations with the Porte and to consolidate the good will already existing between Greeks and Bulga- rians in Turkey. Furthermore, the two powers agreed that if either was attacked by Turkey, they would aid each other with their entire forces, and conclude peace only by reciprocal agreement. Both states were to use their influence to the uttermost with their kindred popula- tions in Macedonia for securing a peaceful solution of their previous animosities, and offer active recipro- cal assistance in order that they might conjointly impress on Turkey and the great powers alike the importance of such representations as were made to assure the performance of treaty obligations. FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 199 gation or passive indifference was not clear, but Turkey was a less dreaded foe than the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and hostility to Turkey was confined in the main to an exhibition, mainly upon paper and in the school textbooks, of how important the Servian ele- ment in western Macedonia should be considered. Among the many visions of Russian statesmen, Russian there was that of hegemony in a Pan-Slavic world. Influence Such a world must, of course, embrace both Bulgarians and Servians. Intermittently, therefore, Russian influ- ence had long been exerted to create harmony between the two states. Servia, of course, dreading Austro- Hungarian hostility, was naturally more heartily in- clined to such an understanding. For the Bulgarian patriot as for the Russian the real enemy was Turkey, and whether or no Austria-Hungary penetrated to Salo- nica on the ^Egean was a matter of small importance compared with Turkish maladministration to the south and east of Sophia. The Bulgarian plan had been to secure autonomy for Macedonia in the expectancy of eventual annexation. To Greece particularly, and to Servia in a high degree, such a prospect was most distasteful. Both demanded their share in the respec- tive spheres of influence of a tripartite Macedonia and sought to secure it in the guerilla warfare to which frequent reference has been made. It was in 1902 that, in the Shipka Pass, Russia exhibited the degree of her influence among South Slavs in a series of apparently spontaneous demon- strations made by them. In the following year, 1903, the revolt of Bulgarians in western Macedonia took the form of a succession of manifestations favorable to Russian aspirations. The Czar sought to inaugu- rate a substantial Serbo-Bulgarian understanding, but 200 THE BALKANS the effort was thwarted by a rumor which was pro- mulgated far and near, probably by Turkish agents, that what Russia wanted was such a readjustment as she had outlined in the treaty of San Stefano, which would have given even greater ascendancy to Bulgaria. King Peter and his advisers in Belgrade grew more and more suspicious. Large and numerous Servian bands were sent into Macedonia, where, for the most part, they cooperated with similar Greek ones. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 brought about no real change. The Bulgarians were still regarded as the most dangerous element in Macedonia; many churches, schools, and monasteries, which they claimed, were, in one way or another, put under Ser- vian control, and for three years Young Turkey and Servia were friendly to each other. The principal industry of Servia is the raising of swine. It was through Turkish territory that she was able to export her wares. In 1906 the tension with Austria-Hungary was such that the hostile dem- onstrations known as the Pig War resulted in the complete closing of the Austrian frontier. Matters reached a climax when Bulgaria seemed to approve the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In regard to this, however, there was a complete misunderstanding, be- cause King Ferdinand had declined to cooperate in the overthrow and extinction of Servian independence. It is clear, therefore, that something most remarkable occurred in securing Servian support for the Balkan alliance. The common gossip is that the revolution in feeling was the work of a Montenegrin princess, who had become the consort of a Russian grand duke, and had urged Isvolsky, the Russian minister, to make FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 201 friendly and attractive suggestions to Milovanovich, the Servian prime minister, as early as March, 1910. We have referred to the preliminary conversations Content at Sophia in 191 1. The definite proposition was the of Serbo- direct consequence of the Turco-Italian war, and j^^^^ formal negotiations were inaugurated almost immedi- ately at Sophia. These negotiations were likewise intended to be secret, but two Bulgarian statesmen and one Servian minister were admitted to the discus- sion; and, further, one Russian grand duke, present at Sophia when Prince Boris came of age, somehow learned what was going on. Accordingly, as might have been expected, some one of the initiated was indiscreet, and the Serbo-Bulgarian treaty was known to the world earlier than was that between Greece and Bulgaria, which actually preceded it in point of time. This treaty was almost identical with the other, except that it contained a series of territorial delimitations, provided there should be a conflict with Turkey and the event be a success. This addition was due to the greater military strength of Bulgaria and the desire of Servia to have a due share in the booty. It was the weak spot in the compact, because it endeavored to combine the Servian plan of partition with the Bulgarian scheme for Mace- donian autonomy. Old Servia and the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, lying between the Rhodope and Shar mountain ranges, were to be Servian; the territory south and east of the Rhodope and the Struma River was to be Bulgarian; what lay between was to be an autonomous Macedonia. Moreover, this treaty exhib- its some elements of distrust in the fact that, in order to render it more solemn, it was signed personally by both Servian and Bulgarian kings. 202 THE BALKANS The Military Conventions Montenegro Folns Within a comparatively short time the military arrangements between the three Balkan powers were completed, and had taken definite shape before the general mobilization of September, 30. Bulgaria was to mobilize 200,000 men; Servia 150,000 as a mini- mum. In fact, when their armies took the field they were twice these numbers. Anticipating that Macedo- nia would be the battlefield, Bulgaria was to dispatch 100,000 men into Thrace, and as many more to Mace- donia. Were Austria-Hungary to intervene, Bulgaria would send 200,000 men to Servia's aid, while Servia promised 100,000 for use against Turkey. Their anticipation was, of course, based upon reckoning which proved to be false; and subsequently, of neces- sity, the Servian and Bulgarian military staffs were compelled to draw up a series of conventions which abrogated the military arrangements of the treaty. As between Greece and Bulgaria, the military convention was signed on September 25, 1912, four months after that between Servia and Bulgaria, whereby Bulgaria undertook to put 300,000 men in the field and Greece 120,000. Should Turkey attack either, these forces were to be joined, although each power retained the right of forming and adopting its own plan of cam- paign. The Greek fleet was to control the ^gean, and prevent Turkey in Europe from drawing upon the resources of Turkey in Asia. The Balkan alliance was completed by the adhesion of Montenegro. Indeed, as early as 1888 King Nicholas had memorialized Russia on the subject of such an alliance. These representations were renewed by him in July, 191 1, before the outbreak of war be- tween Turkey and Italy, and, immediately thereafter, he made general proposals to his three stronger neigh- FORMATION OF BALKAN ALLIANCE 203 bors — Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece. From time to time slight advances were made, and finally his arrange- ments, purely defensive in nature at the outset, with each of the three powers, were completed during the summer of 1912. The only important reserve was in the treaty of alliance with Servia, wherein it was stipulated that there should be no combination of mili- tary forces and no joint occupation of any Turkish town or village. During the war with Turkey only one event gave umbrage to Montenegro — the march of the Servian troops on Allessio and Durazzo. The house of Nyegosch has seemingly sought to em- ulate the policy of the house of Savoy, with which it has now at least a marriage alliance, the queen of Italy being a Montenegrin princess. It was long ago said that Italy was taken leaf by leaf as a man eats an arti- choke. King Nicholas, therefore, regarded, as did his ministers, this latest conflict with Turkey as a means for the enlargement of Montenegrin territory. Since the days of Peter the Great, Montenegro had owed the considerable measure of independence it has enjoyed almost entirely to Russian patronage. By the Treaty of Berlin the kingdom had secured an outlet to the sea. What the Montenegrin Slavs be- lieved to be their natural boundaries were mutilated by the Austrian occupation of Dalmatia. In that direc- tion expansion was hopeless; it now seemed possible at the expense of Turkey. To quote again the highest Balkan authority, Bouchier, an English resident of Sophia : "The country had been at peace for thirty- four years, a period unprecedented in its history. The mountaineers were spoiling for a fight; their yata- gans were rusting in their scabbards; and the inter- vention of Europe, with a scheme of Macedonian 204 THE BALKANS reform, threatened to deprive them of their heart's desire. The liberation of the Macedonian rayahs was only a secondary consideration from the Montenegrin point of view ; the main object was to obtain a 'place in the sun,' and, in order to achieve it, King Nicholas determined to force the hand of his allies." Accord- ingly, he took the field in advance of them all and opened hostilities, without a formal declaration of war, by an advance on the Albanian frontier. There is, therefore, in the formation of the Balkan alliance much the same sort of historical evolution as underlies all important events, however startling they appear when announced to an unsuspecting world. What had been considered outside the range of human possibility had really come to pass. At the same time, even this short account of the evolution suffices to exhibit how powerful were the elements of dissension, both in national temper and interest. The real wonder is that the alliance lasted as long as it did, and was, during its short life, fairly efficient, and worked with as little friction as the outside world, at least, was able to observe.^ > The treaties and military convention as published by the Paris " Matin " are given in the appendix. VIII NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS IN THE SECOND WAR 305 Influence VIII NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS IN THE SECOND WAR Some time since, a careful statistician published a Racial series of tables to exhibit the relative growths attained f^*°^ "** within the limits of the nineteenth century by Anglo- Saxons, Latins, Slavs, and Teutons. Influence, as the word is used, means square miles of the earth's sur- face and numbers of dwellers therein, whatever their race or color, now under the sway of the four white race stocks. The increase of Anglo-Saxon power is nearly five times; of Latin, nearly four; of Slav, exactly four; and of Teuton, two and a half. The elements in this calculation are, of course, somewhat uncertain, but it does seem to be significant that, con- trary to general impression, Latin and Slav are not so far apart in their advance, while the Teuton is far behind, with the Anglo-Saxon an easy first. Con- sidering the apparent military superiority of the Teu- ton, and how amazingly prolific he is in comparison with his Western neighbors, the result in his case is surprising. But one thing emerges distinctly : that even Teuton civilization, high and militant as it appeared, had a ter- rific struggle for life on its eastern frontier in the ex- pansion of Slav power and numbers. The sovereign states of the Balkan peninsula so far enumerated are, with the exception of Greece, virtually Slavic, one and all; so, too, is the European portion of the one sovereign power still to be mentioned, Turkey itself — 207 2o8 THE BALKANS or (excluding Albania) what was known to late geo- graphical parlance as Thrace and Macedonia. Austria- Hungary had twenty-eight million Slavs within its borders — more than half its population; Prussia had probably six million and Russia about a hundred and fifty-five million Slavs; Turkey in Europe, with its ante-bellum extent of sixty-six thousand five hundred square miles, had a population under six million, and of these fully four miUion were Slavs. If anything appears to be manifest, it is that Eastern Europe, with a population overwhelmingly Slav — about two hun- dred million — is to be totally and entirely Slav ; that it is to be composed of a federation of Slav states, larger or smaller. The few Turks remaining must return to their earliest home or be annihilated. This is Pan- Slavism, and the notion has a possibility so attractive to the peoples of that stock as to make this remoter ideal a real force in European politics. But, closely examined, it is a chimera, and this is best exhibited in the case of Macedonia. The Folly of The term "Macedonia" is here uSed in its narrower Pan-SlaTism sense, excluding Albania. This leaves a territory of Illustrated about fifty thousand square miles, with a population of three million five hundred thousand, of whom possibly two hundred thousand are real Turks and perhaps as many more European Moslems. What the rest are has already been indicated: they are overwhelmingly Slavs — South Slavs. But what kind of Slavs? Bul- garian, Servian, or Greek? This knotty question has also already been broached in another connection; possibly a little, but only a very little, more light can be thrown upon it. From the times of earliest recorded history there has been in Macedonia the cry, "Come over and help THE SECOND WAR 209 us." No other land in Europe has suffered so con- tinuously from the desolation of battles, sieges, ravag- ings, burnings, forays. As has been remarked by one writer, it was a German Thirty Years' War prolonged to many, many centuries; the hand of every man against every other man, whether in state, province, village, or family. Pelasgians,' Greeks, Romans, By- zantines, Crusaders, Genoese, Venetians, Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Servians, Wallachs, Albanians, and Turks have overrun, devastated, settled, fled from, and turned back to its borders. What would otherwise be a garden — such are its splendid resources in soil, min- erals, rivers, forests, and pastures — has been kept almost a desolation. It could support in peace many, many times its present population; but peace seems further off than ever. Before the war bandits were derailing railway trains, Bulgarian bands were stir- ring up strife, robbers were holding European cap- tives for ransom, Albanian rangers were threatening the villagers and herdsmen, feeble Turkish authority was reveling, wherever it formed its camps, in harsh repression. What else was going on news gatherers did not discover ; but beyond a peradventure there was rapine and bloodshed to an extent which beggars ' description. Bouchier, so often mentioned as the very foremost authority among Englishmen in regard to the Balkans, a resident of Sophia, but well-known and welcomed at the other Balkan capitals, openly charged a newspaper conspiracy to suppress horrid truths which were known. His explanation was that the Jews of Europe and America, having secured con- trol of the most widely read newspapers, desired that the atrocities perpetrated by Young Turkey should not be known, at least not before the Turkification plan 2IO THE BALKANS had had a longer trial. Moslems against Christians, he asserted that the powerful Jewish influence has been historically and must be temperamentally with the former. Beyond a question the Slavs of Macedonia are Bul- garians, Servians, and Wallachs, but in most uncertain proportion. As far as- Pan-Slavic aspiration goes, it has so far been blocked by the fact that five Balkan monarchies of Slavic character, besides Turkey, were each simply lusting for the possession of the other Slavic land. Besides, these South Slavs are separated by the whole orb in religion, strongest as yet in those parts of all the social bonds : some are Roman, some Greek, and some Moslem. For the ruling Turk there was no distinction between Bulgar and Serb, Roman and Greek; all were, in his own elegant language, "hogs in a sty." Accordingly, his task under the new regime could be formulated much more simply than under the old. The latter taxed and tolerated; it ruled pitilessly, but made no effort at political con- version. Snarling curs when cowed are less danger- ous than conspiring rebels with civic recognition. The new regime purposed to tax and tolerate, but also to rule: and to give an unreconcilable peasantry an ostensible responsibility by further trituration in the mortar of administration with the pestle of compul- sion. Said a well-known Prussian monarch to one of his subjects "Love me, hang you; I command you to love me." Said Constantinople to the Macedonians, "Be Turks, hang you ; I command you to be Turks." Macedonian It was an amazing idea for a constitutional Sultan Characteris- to make a progress in Macedonia, exhibiting to its **''s population in his personal presence the reformation, or, rather, the revolution, of Turkish politics — ^and by THE SECOND WAR 211 what? By the selamlik, as earlier stated, the defiant ceremony which emphasizes as often as performed the reactionary nature of Ottoman rule. It must be con- fessed these strange constitutionalists had some ex- cuse: if the same Macedonian village could within the space of ten years be first Bulgarian and then Servian and then Greek, why not Turkish ? The fact of such easy conversion in the Macedonian communities is at- tested by the best possible evidence. Why not? Life is sweet, and home and harvest and subsistence, how- ever primitive and mean, are things to be desired. Bribery, too, is efficient in such communities. A French consul is reported as saying that with a few million francs he could make all Macedonia French. He would found schools and teach the children that all Macedonians were descendants of the French crusaders, who in the twelfth century had conquered and occupied Salonica. The nimble coin, simple bribery, would do the rest. What truths are spoken in bitter jest! In a very broad and loose sense the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 was the partition, or at least the completed partition, of Turkey in Europe among the peoples who dwelt in it, Macedonia alone excepted. Only one of the Powers made a direct gain in territory : Great Britain kept Cyprus and, thanks to the stupidity of her partners, has since taken Egypt. Had there been given to Macedonia a measure of the independence bestowed on the other Balkan States, or had her dis- tricts been divided among the new conterminous powers, the Turk would have departed from Europe altogether, as he has already in great measure. By nature a nomad, using his European house much as his forbears used an Asiatic tent, he has refused to re- 212 THE BALKANS main and obey where once he commanded; and pure Turks, not Moslem Slavs, have migrated over the Bosporus in vast numbers. But all the jealous European states represented at Berlin desired a weak and buffer power at Constantinople, and Macedonia paid the price. The solid profits pocketed by Great Britain long embittered the sister powers. Austria annexed the provinces intrusted to her administration and was content. She held them beneficently on the whole, and they enjoyed a measure of autonomy, while making great advances in social and economic lines. There was far less discontent than had been expected. But Macedonia, the beautiful martyr, and Albania, undaunted, untamed, the only bulwark against a further swell of the Slavic wave — what of them? The Plight of The work of Turkification began in Macedonian Albania and cities — Salonica, Monastir, and Ueskub. In them was Macedonia garrisoned the flower of the Turkish army created by Abdul Hamid, and the Young Turks won the troops for their plans. Terrorizing could go no further than it had gone; soon there would be no Macedonia to rule or tax. Europe would intervene and Ottoman rule in Europe, already burning low, would be extin- guished entirely. The revolution was accomplished and the will-o'-the-wisp began to dance. But the Al- banians were distrustful of marsh gas. Fed on prom- ises for a time, they found that nothing happened, not a single substantial gain for their cherished hopes ; the price of Albanian loyalty was not paid, there was not even earnest money. Tosks and Ghegs, Moslems and Christians, they grew restless and bitter. Finally, rebellion burst forth. The new Turkey knew no other methods of procedure than those of the old. The THE SECOND WAR 213 former conditions were bad, the latter worse. It was only by the united behests of Russia and Austria-Hun- gary that the conflagration was held in bounds, kept an internal Turkish question ; and that through whole- sale concessions which only emboldened the wild Alba- nians to demand more and more. It was the dread of extinction which forced Young Turkey to desist from utterly Turkifying Mahssores and Mirdites. Wildest, rudest of their blood, Roman Catholics at that, these Albanians rebelled; they fought and won; the Alba- nian was to wear his arms, perform his military service at home, have his own schools conducted in his own language, be ruled by Albanian, not Turkish officials — in short, secure his substantial autonomy as the price of refraining from further agitation or from making common cause with Montenegro, which in turn was assured of Servian support in case of trouble. As for Macedonia, her latter state was even then worse than the former : and equally wholesale conces- sion must be the order there as well. But Albania was a political person — composite of clans, stocks, and chieftains, but yet united — and there is a party of the second part to close a contract. In Macedonia there was no such artificial personage, and it was surely the intention of the partitioning states that none should be set up. The way out was not then in sight. The dilemma appeared to be either perpetual outrage ; or a European congress to make Turkish rule nominal, by setting up Christian governments like those in Crete and Syria or Egypt; or finally the outbreak of war — war of the Christian states against the one surviving Moslem power, and then possibly war among the Bal- kan States themselves over the division of spoils, since spoils for some one there must be. The hatred and dis- 214 THE BALKANS trust — not suspicion, but utter conviction of bad faith — felt for the Turkish government and the men in power by their Christian subjects rendered regenera- tion absolutely impossible under Turkish rule. The pleasant land of Macedonia could eight years since be seen only from the railway, except by the adventurous. Daring Europeans were waylaid and held for ransom by banditti almost within the suburbs of the cities; instances occurred as late as 191 1 near Salonica and Ueskub. The American public has nearly forgotten the capture of Miss Stone, the missionary, though it was less than twenty years ago that it took place; but the seizure of Professor Richter by Greek komitadjis is still recalled. Lives of the natives were being ruthlessly taken by the ruffians; those of cap- tured tourists were a valuable source of funds. This means of securing money would have been indefinitely extended had travelers been rash enough to penetrate further, even though their lives should be spared. In Albania it is doubtful whether for some time to come the life of a tourist would be safe for any reason in the hands of the fierce, untamed rangers. The railway line from Constantinople to Salonica is about six hundred miles in length, that from Salo- nica to Ueskub about four hundred. It is not long since the principal occupation of the Turkish army was the guarding of these railways and the protecting of road- way, bridges, tunnels, and trains ; passengers saw from their windows more soldiers than civilians. While there was hope for the fulfillment of the lavish promises made by the Young Turks, a relaxation of vigilance was possible ; but hope soon vanished and the operations of the bands were immediately renewed. Their forays were intermittent but frequent, and out' THE SECOND WAR 215 rages on the lines were numerous. There was every prospect that without mihtary protection the railways would soon again be unsafe. The general aspect of the country between stations was probably that of the remoter parts also: wilder- ness and thicket, with here and there sparse groups of tired peasants, cultivating enough land for subsistence, but with the discouraged air of those who sow where they may not reap. Discouragement is a word which utterly fails to express the Macedonian mind: the people lived in blank despair. It is doubtful whether they still have energy enough even to hope ; they cer- tainly have not enough for any efficient action. It is not very long since the writer had an opportu- nity to look at refugees from the villages of both northern and southern Macedonia: some in Sophia, orphan children for the most part, whose parents had been foully murdered either by Turkish soldiery or by the abandoned, infuriated komitadjis of various nationalities, others in Athens, families composed of husbands, wives, and children. The aspect of the poor souls was heartrending; lack-luster eyes, slack limbs, dragging movements, general indifference; utter worthlessness would be the first verdict. But it was amazing how quickly they responded to kindness, re- gaining their powers as rest and nourishment revived body and soul. But their physical recuperation is simpler and easier than their moral regeneration. Generations must probably elapse before manhood is revived, intelligence reawakened, and some initiative aroused. The state of Bosnia and the Herzegovina was never Conditions in as low as that of Macedonia, yet even in those prov- Bosniaandtho inces the evil quaUties engendered in the Christian "«"««<»'''>* 2l6 THE BALKANS Naivete of Balkan Claim of "Christians" population by cruelty and tyranny are far from being eradicated. Almost universally, the well-informed in those provinces express much hopelessness as to the improvement of the present conditions. The native Christians are charged with guile, effrontery, deceit, and idleness. As a dweller in the country said in conversation : "They are as idle as the dormouse, as bold as the bedbug, and as deceitful as three Galician Jews. These creatures," he continued, "could only be managed by the Turks, who understood them and trusted them not at all, enforcing a day's work for a day's pay, compelling every outward sign of deference and punishing delinquencies without mercy." Making all allowance for the exasperation of an employer — in- deed, the language quoted was evoked by a cringing, servile effort to collect a pittance for services never rendered — discounting all the exasperation produced by race hatred, there is yet certainly a large deposit of truth at the bottom. No wonder the tricky laborers are what they are described as being; probably the wretched Macedonians may be worse. Yet it makes little difference who perpetrated the foul wrong which degraded so many of God's noblest creatures; the problem was urgent and difficult. Alas, that the revolution at Constantinople, could do little, indeed worse than nothing, to improve anything; that events in Albania, even the latest, will probably aggravate the Macedonian situation to the limit ; and that the policies of the great powers seem to block any hope of progress. In the primitive days of the theater the stage-setting was so innocently naif that a rude boor needed only to declare that as he stood there he was a wall, and that as he held up his hand and opened his fingers in two groups this was the chink through which lovers, THE SECOND WAR 217 otherwise separated, might exchange their vows; the imagination of the onlookers suppHed all the rest and the deceit was utterly forgotten. We of the Western world are quite as naif as our ancestors of centuries ago in our consideration and judgment of the Balkan peoples. They have placed themselves in the center of the stage with a claim to represent a high civilization in revolt against a degraded one ; they have proclaimed to the world that they were Christians practicing Christian virtues, organizing under frightful discour- agements Christian civilizations. The nations of Europe have been disposed for their own purposes to accept these claims in measure, but it is no overstate- ment to say that the masses in our own country and in other Western nations have accepted them literally. For perhaps a decennium tourists who considered themselves adventurous have visited, to their great delight and to the furtherance of their education, many portions of the Balkan peninsula. Being one of them, the author has compared his own observations with those of others like himself, and found it, even after a certain degree of experience, impossible to think otherwise than well and kindly of the South Slav peoples. No wonder, therefore, that the general impression Atrocities of about them was what it was. The recent conflicts the War have caused terrible disillusionment. As far as regu- lar warfare was concerned, each of the Balkan nations was under the tutelage or followed the tradition of some Western power. The brief outline of the cam- paigns previously given, though a mere sketch, has made manifest that the decisive struggles were not those of well-ordered battlefields; even the sieges, which were in a measure decisive, have been conducted 2i8 THE BALKANS to a successful end by the exhibition of rude, personal, furious courage, rather than by a scientific cooperation of the forces engaged. But as far as the truth, difficult at all times and everywhere to secure, has been per- mitted to be told, despite the rigid censorship of both civilian officials and military officers of the various nationalities, it seems manifest that victories have been won with an exhibition of atrocious brutality, indicat- ing a desperate barbarism among the combatants. The atrocities practiced by Turks and Moslems at the be- ginning unquestionably set an awful example, but that these so-called Christians have perpetrated worse horrors no longer admits of any doubt. It is with sorrowful regret that we admit our disenchantment, especially in regard to Greece, where such brave begin- nings in the arts of peace, in the development of humane sentiment, and in the foundation of an endur- ing civilization have been made. Fury begets fury we must admit, and somewhere there was a beginning of horror. Whether efforts have been made by (enlightened leaders to check the frenzies of those in the ranks we cannot know. The awful truths consti- tute an indictment which lies not against any one of the combatants, but certainly against two to the high- est degree, and probably against the other; two as well. In their mutual recriminations, hard facts, probably exaggerated, but nevertheless facts, have been pro- claimed to the world by the highest royal, military, and civil officials. We have heard of children murdered, of women ravished, of men maimed; we have read about the gouging of eyes, the hewing of limbs, the slashing of faces; we are told of human beings saturated with oil and set on fire; of persons buried to the neck and abandoned to a slow death with THE SECOND WAR 219 basins of food and water before their eyes; of bags found by the wayside filled with women's ears that still contained the inexpensive earrings for whose sake the hurried ruffians had amputated them with swords ; we might add an almost endless catalogue of shame and crime, but it is needless. Such bestial license is attributed to the example of the lawless banditti, the execrable komitadjis; such atrocious deeds have been practiced for long years unchecked in the villages and districts for which the respective Balkan nations lusted ; and all this has been in the name of nationality. Our foremost English authority, to quote Mr. Bouchier once again, a personage kindly received not only at every court, as we have said, but in every household, either peasant or patrician, has published as his deliberate opinion that every one of the combat- ants has in greater or less degree been guilty of such atrocious excesses. That there are honorable, high-minded, humane Intellectual strata in the societies of all these people no one doubts ; *"'' Moral but, on the other hand, it does appear as if even ^"^^ **° they had indulged in pitiful fallacies, and had been con- taminated by the memory and repetition of phrases and deeds. Quite possibly, such charges may not be proven against the operations of regular soldiers, but like a band of demons the bloody guerillas hovered on the outskirts of every army; they proclaimed their law to be that of retaliation ; they declared that all was fair in war; they created chaos and anarchy on every side; it does appear as if they finally succeeded in finding support for the doctrine that what elsewhere under other conditions would be immoral, disgraceful, and shocking was then and there perhaps peculiar, but great, good, and grand. Their light became darkness ; 220 THE BALKANS their humanity became a perverse and criminal brutal- ity. Perhaps the most dreadful publication in this connection has been that of a translation made by the Greek poet, Paul Nirvana, from the rhapsodies of a Bulgarian writer, Ivan Arkudofif, w^ho, according to some reports, is a person favorably received in the highest Bulgarian circles. Here is a specimen : "Before the day-star marks the seventh degree above tlie horizon shall the sea of blood, which thy sword unseals, flow seven fathoms higher. Behold the aged cripple, who drags along his wretched, senile life to escape death and thy fury. Trample him under foot with iron heel; gouge out his dimming eyes, unworthy ever to mirror Bulgaria's grandeur .... "Why linger, young Bulgarian? Forward, ever forward ! "Softer than the flowery meads of spring is the carpet woven from the corpses of murdered women and boys. Refresh thy soul in the perfume of their youth, and then, tipsy with passion and heroism, strew flowers upon the earth, and march forth as if you were treading the velvet rugs of a palace." The Greek translator speaks with sneers of this Bul- garian Pindar, poet to the court; denounces him with execration and scorn. While as yet the Bulgarian retort has not been given entire to the world, and while one shudders at its possible content, considering the charges of murder, rapine, and desperate brutality already made against both Greeks and Turks, yet what this Bulgarian has written, he has written, and no primitive savagery, no desperate barbarism, no shred of the wildest war-song of primitive man has ever furnished anything comparable to it. The words and the spectacle are alike disheartening and repellent. THE SECOND WAR 221 During the last stage of the war Bulgaria was so hemmed in on every side that virtually all communica- tion with the outside world was temporarily shut off. No sooner, however, were treaties of peace signed and communication restored than the Bulgarians became aware that they were a subject of reprobation to the entire civilized West. They immediately organized a service of emissaries to go to and fro in America and Europe in order to present their version of what had actually occurred in regard to the atrocities with which they were charged. A Bulgarian officer challenged the well-known Frenchman of letters, whose pseudo- nym is Pierre Loti, to a duel because of what the writer had said and published in reprobation of Bul- garia's barbarism. The government at Sophia has likewise published and circulated two pamphlets containing letters in fac- simile of Greek soldiers of the Nineteenth Regiment, written from various camps to their homes and intercepted between the 14th and 27th of July, 1913. Short excerpts from two of these letters may fairly represent the substance of them all. A certain Philippos writes, on the nth of July: "This war has been very painful. We have burned all the villages abandoned by the Bulgarians. They burned the Greek villages and we the Bulgarian. They massacre, we massacre. And against all those of that dishonest nation who fell into our hands the Mannlicher rifle has done its work. Of the twelve hundred prisoners we took at Nigrita only forty-one remain in the prisons, and everywhere we have been we have not left a single root of this race." Another common soldier, Karka, on the 12th of July, 1913, indited these words : "By order of the king we burned all the Bui- 222 THE BALKANS garian villages because the Bulgarians burned the beautiful town of Seres, Nigrita, and several Greek villages. We have behaved much more cruelly than the Bulgarians, because we have violated all the young women we have seized." Other sentences which occur here and there in various epistles are as follows : "We have only taken a few prisoners, which we have killed ; such are our orders. I took five Bulgarians and a girl from Seres. The girl was killed and the Bulgarians also suffered. We picked out their eyes while they were still alive." Still a third: "It is impossible to describe what happens. God knows where this will end. The time has come for us to start eating one another." As a supplement to the text, there are given declarations from the inhabitants of the town of Seres, who describe their escape from Greek atrocities as miraculous, and also photographs of the victims showing ghastly wounds inflicted upon them by the Greek soldiery. These photographs are comparable only to such as might have been taken in the shambles of unskilled butchers. As, of course, was to be expected, these narratives have been stigmatized by the Greeks as awkward for- geries. Where the truth lies it is hard to discern, but certainly as yet even most dispassionate judges have been more severe in meting out just reprobation to Bulgaria than to Greece. The substance of the Bul- garian plea, official and unofficial, is for a suspension of judgment in view of anterior provocation. King Nicholas of Montenegro, it is declared by the pleaders, accompanied by the Greek, Servian, and Bulgarian ministers at his court, visited the hospitals in Tzetique, and found in one of them, lying beside a patient, a bag which on examination proved to contain noses cut THE SECOND WAR 223 from the faces of Turkish soldiers. This, of course, sounds like a counterplea for the bag of ears cut from Greek women for the sake of the little earrings which they still contained. Furthermore, a captive whose name was Beleff, one of those who had escaped from among the heaps of Bulgarians massacred in the town of Seres, bore testimony to the brutality and ruthless- ness with which the Greeks had treated their prisoners. He himself had six wounds, each of which would have been considered fatal. This again, though strictly true, is a "tu quoque" to the familiar Greek charges. In the same connection, however. Professor Mattheeff admits that under cruel provocation even Bulgarian regulars have not acted with self-restraint, and that the komitadji bands, each of which had some special wrong to avenge, have not clean hands in the matter of atrocious murder. He asks merely that Bulgarians should not be considered monsters, while the Greeks are held up as saints. This kind of pleading is familiar to all who have the slightest acquaintance among people of primitive civilization. To the rather childish excuse he adds the significant remark: "The Eastern question is as far from being solved as ever. . . . Our mistakes never merited such a humiliation, nor such a despoilment, one without precedent." The Greeks, he further declares, when withdrawing from territories once oc- cupied by them, but now assigned to Bulgaria, bum and destroy every vestige of property which had escaped destruction during the eight months' warfare, and announce to the world that this destruction is the work of the inhabitants who cannot endure the thought of living under Bulgarian rule. In another published plea Professor Stephanove denies that Bulgaria was 224 THE BALKANS the aggressor in the renewal of the Balkan wars. His colleague admits that quite possibly Bulgaria had not acted wisely in the renewal of hostilities! That although her cause was just, quite possibly she should not have exacted the letter of her bond! Such a parallel between two apologists indicates the national temper. No one dreams for a moment that the Bulgarians are, without exception, utter savages. What has previously been said sufficiently proves how marvelous has been the development of the people under leaders educated in the arts of peace. But, after all, in every nation, the foremost men, the best elements in the population, feel their responsibility in the behavior of the nation as a whole, and whatever may have been the sins of others, there is a profound impression throughout the Western world that the Bulgarian outrages were the most frightful perpe- trated, with the exception of those committed by the Turkish Bashi-bazooks ; and that during the conflict these outrages were well known at headquarters, and were not reprobated sufficiently even to mitigate them. Professor Stephanove calls the secret treaty con- cluded in May, 1913, between Turkey and Greece, a conspiracy. Bulgaria at the height of victory was not an inspiring spectacle. She permitted substantially no news to reach the outside world, and the little which did percolate through various channels to foreign ears led to the general behef that her conduct of the war was ruthless and that her victories were largely won by brutality. Add to that fact the further profound conviction that her guerilla bands were quite the most active and apparently the most desperate; further- more, that as time went by she mani f estly intended to reap where she had not sown, as, for instance, in the THE SECOND WAR 225 case of Salonica. Can we wonder that Rumania, Ser- via, and Greece saw in her a power destined, unless checked, to become dominant in the Balkans? Was there any fallacy in the reasoning that it would be better to curb that power at once than permit them- selves to be annihilated in the near future? In any case, an understanding was reached, whether honor- able or dishonorable, whereby Greece promised armed assistance to Turkey for the reoccupation of Adrian- ople in return for Turkish aid in the seizure of south- eastern Thrace by Greece. It was then that Rumania intervened, attacked Bulgaria in the rear, compelled a cessation of hostilities and eventually the disarmament of her southern neighbor. In the effort, therefore, to judge the situation dis- passionately we come to the disheartening conclusion that dishonor, atrocious brutality, and entire absence of chivalry have marked the conduct of the war by most, if not all, of the combatants. We might have been disposed to think Servia the most innocent, were it not that the commission of the Carnegie Peace Foundation in its efforts to secure the truth and enlighten public opinion far and near, and to stamp with authoritative if not final judgments the number- less rumors, met with such scanty courtesy in Belgrade at the hands of the Servians, who seemed utterly unwilling to give evidence sufficient to acquit them of very similar behavior. We cannot think that the choice of Professor Milyukoff to head that commission was entirely wise. It is true, indeed, that he is a man of high quality, thoroughly familiar with south Slavic conditions, and a genuine liberal. But he is neverthe- less a Russian and, therefore, subject to the suspicion, however unmerited, of sympathy with Bulgaria. The 226 THE BALKANS commission passed on under his leadership to Salonica, where it found more consideration at the hands of the Greeks. Sir Edward Grey emphatically declared before Parliament that Europe had not often, if ever, witnessed a more distressing spectacle than the pro- gressive events of these wars. Beginning on the plea of liberation, they became a struggle for conquest and ended as a war of extermination. This latest word, "extermination," was first used in southeastern Europe itself, and the British statesman hesitates to accept it as literally true. But alas! the more we knew the more we felt that all the conflicts have been no better than a human conflagration: that wars must be over. There seemed to be no physical strength or available property, real or personal, which had not been used up in the struggle. Corroborative evidence of this fact has just been published in a report from Ashmead Bartlett, whose name is a guarantee, both for his keenness as an obser- ver and the accuracy of his descriptions. He says: "I have been fifty kilometers beyond the Turkish advanced posts, and I am the first independent eye- witness who has visited these parts since the outbreak of the war. I have just seen sights and have been through experiences which I never wish to go through again. I have had deputations of the surviving inhabitants. Both Greeks and Mussulmans beg me with tears in their eyes to do something for them, to expose their wrongs to Europe, and to lay their cause before the Powers so that something may be done for them in the future. . . . The state of these districts west of the Maritza which I visited defies all descrip- tion. The country looks as if it had been swept by a THE SECOND WAR 227 terrible earthquake, or as if a horde of Huns under some modem Attila had made a clean sweep of every^ thing in their onward progress. . . . Again I can only repeat, let an impartial commission be sent out to investigate the truth of the charges I am obliged to make against the Bulgarian army. It is almost im- possible to believe one is living in the twentieth cen- tury with such evidences of man's ferocity all around. The experience is more like reading some chapter of ancient history describing the sweeping away of the decaying Roman empire by hordes of barbarians from the North; but in a telegram it is impossible to do justice to what I have seen." It is a maxim of justice that every person and all peoples have a right to be judged from the standpoint of their own position and culture. The more closely peoples in different stages of development have been brought in contact with each other and under observa- tion, therefore, by critical travelers alike of the upper and the lower strata from each and all the nations, the more severe has become the condemnation of the faults and vices of the foreigners. The Balkan peninsula has been properly called an historical labora- tory. Not only are scores of race elements there com- mingled, but the identical influences and similar manners which were at work further west three centuries ago are still dominant. It is, therefore, utterly unjust to regard the infernal and atrocious conduct of the Balkan peoples, which it distresses us even to mention, from the point of view of what is styled in our Western world humane war- fare. To the dispassionate observer it is manifest that these people, tottering as are their footsteps, unchas- tened as are their passions, childish as is their disci- 228 THE BALKANS The Powers and the Treaty of Peace pline, are nevertheless struggling forward along the path of progress. We dare not condone their faults nor mitigate any outraged estimate of their behavior, but we should and must offer them a helping hand. It is our bounden duty to lay upon them the rod of moral correction, and, above all, we should offer for this crude but nevertheless dawning civilization the type of example which far transcends in its influence either indignation or attempted tutelage. The alliance of the South Slavic powers was, of course, a mere temporary expedient ; but it worked for a time, and deserved more respect from those who were parties to it than was manifest in the shocking outburst of greed exhibited even before the boundary line of European Turkey had tentatively been fixed by the European conference, and the treaty of peace as between Turkey and the alliance signed by the plenipotentiaries. The concert between the great powers themselves was loyally maintained. When all the considerations, historic, economic, racial, and reli- gious, which have hung in the balance, are taken into account, it is amazing that a body of statesmen, sharply divided into two groups by the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, should, for the single reason of pre- serving peace, have been able to arrange what was at least something more than a truce, a temporary treaty. Retribution as regards nations is almost as certain as in the case of individuals. The repeated and defiant violations of the Treaty of Berlin within the first thirty years after it had been so carefully promul- gated as the public charter for all Europe did not pass unnoticed in Turkey or in the Balkan States. There was a day when men talked at least about the inviolability of treaties. For two generations THE SECOND WAR 229 past the great treaties have been made apparently only as prize fighters spar for wind and gain time by feints. Nevertheless, the statesmen assembled at London evaded the most difficult of all the questions arising from Turkish discomfiture: the question, to wit, of how the victorious Allies would divide among them- selves the conquered territory. One of them has declared that they "trusted, as all Europe and as all the world trusted, that this would be found to be a matter for mutual and friendly agreement between the parties concerned." Immediately before them, and under their very eyes, had been, in the meeting of the plenipotentiaries from the various states concerned in the war, a perfect example of Oriental diplomacy, procrastination, and guile. The ambassadors were indeed a trustful body, and their trust was the more simple in that they, they alone, were responsible for having injected into the already seething, boiling cal- dron of Balkan politics an absolute novelty ; the delimi- tation of Albania and the settlement of how far it should or could be self -governed, and of how far it should be a protectorate, and of whom. Enough has been said about Bulgaria to indicate Bulgaria's that little surprise was felt when it appeared that she Mistake proposed for herself the lion's share of the prey, which, as considering herself the lion in the onslaught, was hers by right. This was, for the time being at least, her undoing and the cause of her deepest humil- iation. She has never since the declaration of her independence found herself in a plight so sorry. It taxed all her powers, and to the very utmost, to meet the main forces of Turkey, which was her task in the war; and it was in a panting exhaustion that her troops 230 THE BALKANS entered Adrianople. Had she been in the hands of really able statesmen, and her troops been led by a wise commander-in-chief, she would have realized her incapacity, at least at the moment and for years to come, to make real the vision of a Great Bulgaria. Through the storm of recrimination it is hard to dis- cern how far Prime Minister Daneff and Commander- in-Chief Savofif represented public feeling or yielded to an irresistible public pressure, when they assumed an arrogant offensive against their recent allies and reopened the bloody strife. Whatever the case, great men would somehow have restrained the mob and by constitutional measures secured the necessary delay for recuperation. As it was, it is now manifest that in the mad venture Bulgaria could gain nothing and must lose much. Autonomy for Balkan statesmen, so called, are charged with being Macedonia utterly disingenuous ; and in support of the charge it is pointed out that Bulgaria's demand and policy as regards Macedonia is what is known as flying a kite. She naturally expects to cast oflf her sackcloth and ashes ; she still hopes for pity and protection from a Western world which so long admired her as a patient, powerful people, developing high qualities under first- class statesmanship ; what she still desires is exhibited in the proposals she has vainly struggled to enforce for the complete autonomy of Macedonia. There seems no doubt that, having secured so much, she would exert efforts to bring about with an autonomous Macedonia what previously happened with an autono- mous Rumelia. Having shown, on the whole, a higher capacity than any of the conterminous states for self- government, she obtained a hearing for the incessant iteration of a truth ; that the districts of Monastir and THE SECOND WAR 231 Ochrida were Bulgarian. About this there was such a perpetual clatter that Greece could get no hearing as to what was equally true, namely, that Chalcidice, Drama, and the whole shore line were Greek, except that the trading city of Salonica, with its wonderful harbor, is first Jewish and secondly Greek. From these considerations it is perfectly evident why Greece bitterly opposed autonomy for all Mace- donia, but urged it for the Greek-speaking districts of that province, a proposition quite as far from being disinterested as that of Bulgaria, inasmuch as when time and opportunity were ripe an autonomous Greek province would fall into the lap of Greece. Either proposition would simply have reproduced the old hor- rible conditions. Bulgarian bands would be making propaganda in such a Greek principality, and in an entire Macedonia the identical, unregenerate komitad- jis of Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia would be carrying on their fell work. Quite possibly, the fate of Salonica was a question by itself. There was made a suggestion that it should be jointly occupied and held by Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria; another that Bulgaria should occupy it and not possess it, being the only one of the three powers likely to develop sufficient strength to pro- tect it, and that in the long run she would seize and hold it anyhow. Then there were the questions of Ser- via's access to the Adriatic, of territorial compensation for Montenegro, and of the neutralization of possibly the most important sea channel of the Adriatic, namely, the Straits of Corfu between that island and the mainland. The situation contemplated in the Lon- don treaty, which sought to establish the Enos-Midia boundary line for Turkey, contemplated a state of things which within two months appeared as anti- 232 THE BALKANS quated as if the interval had been two centuries, so swift was the crumbling of Bulgarian power. The perpetual cry was "Peace, peace," but appar- ently there could be no peace until all the parties to this quarrel admitted their utter exhaustion and negotiated among themselves some patchwork containing pro- visions to which they would pay regard only as long as their exhaustion lasted. An English statesman admitted in Parliament that armed intervention by Great Britain was impossible. He dared not state, but he must have considered, that to compel peace, decency, and amicable relations among these semi- civilized peoples, intoxicated with Western ideas, utterly unsuited to them, ideas which stormed through their veins like poison, was chimerical. Enter This was the juncture where Rumania entered upon Rumania ^hg scene and invaded Bulgaria. Were a nation a personality, its neighbors might charge Rumania with a policy of cold, calculating selfishness. While wars were raging to the south, she was strengthening her finances, perfecting her military power, and consoli- dating public opinion within her borders. Her wily leaders were on the Balkan watch tower, viewing the southern horizon, keenly eager to seize the swiftly com- ing opportunity for aggrandizement — regulating the balance of Balkan power, they called it — by swooping down upon what they intended to be their share of a booty, in the capture of which they had not in the least assisted. The tendency, however, to speak of nations as if they were human personalities, has become the most subtle fallacy of modern life. Nations can feel human emotions collectively only in so far as they have common worldly and material interests. Devotion to a common form of Christianity is universal in the Bal- THE SECOND WAR 233 kans, but it has produced no Christian virtues in inter- national relations; quite the awful contrary. Neither spiritual nor aesthetic community of interest can allay material rivalries. It is the plain, unvarnished truth that a statesman's duty is to safeguard the material interests of his nation in the first instance; to remember that what does not grow is dead or dying; that the higher welfare of those whose interests he represents is a sequel to the peace and contentment which come from comfortable living. National afflictions, like human sorrow, are necessary for reproof and chastisement, but it is not the concern of statesmen or princes deliberately to provoke them. Viewed from this standpoint, Rumania's conduct has been marked by the highest degree of worldly wisdom and common sense. It is accepted as a fact, though as yet there is no proof, that at any time she would have joined hands with Bulgaria to "correct their common frontier" ; in other words, secure from Bulgaria an important cession of territory. Reproaches are heaped upon Bulgarian statesmen that they did not accept such an opportunity, yield to Rumania the desired piece of shore line on the Euxine, by her aid hold firmly the much more valuable lands won from Turkey, and then force upon both Greece and Servia a settlement equable to all, which would have forever laid the devilish spirits which have held Macedonia as a fief of Satan himself. Whether or hot the Rumanians are fine soldiers, their generals great strategists and tacticians, is of course uncertain, and therefore there is nothing to be said about the behavior either of them or of their kinsfolk, the wild Vlachs, amid the horrors of war. They were not called into activity and we know nothing of their 234 THE BALKANS possible behavior ; we only know that at the hands of the komitadjis their related tribes in Macedonia have suffered little molestation and have remained strangely passive. As once before, Albanian turbulence may at any time menace, if not disrupt, the bonds of Balkan peace. In October, 191 3, civil war was raging among the clansmen of the new nation. The provisional minister of war, Mufid, was marshaling the Turkish sympa^ thizers against the rebels under Essad, who unfurled the Austrian standard. Albanian emissaries were ap- pealing for support to their compatriots within Servian boundaries. The Servian government, convinced that this was the work of former foes, was preparing to reoccupy the strategic points she once held but aban- doned at the behest of Western Europe. Similar events have been recurring ever since. Servia and Thus far the most striking phenomenon of contem- Greece porary Balkan history is not the awakening of national consciousness in Albania, as many claim. Most cool observers believe that feeling, if not actually created, at least to have been artificially promoted by the two great powers of the Adriatic in order to secure the tenure of its eastern shore by feeble and quarreling little nations. Nor, it must be confessed, did Montenegro fulfill in the second war her early promise : her men have fought gallantly, her women have slaved uncomplain- ingly, but her achievement was, after all, slight. What military strength and personal courage could not ac- complish, the capture of Scutari, was, it is to be feared, brought about by a rather low conspiracy in part; in part by stolid endurance, and was concluded with a showy boastfulness that made the performance theatri- THE SECOND WAR 235 cal and tawdry. The central, outstanding, command- ing fact of the conflict has been the moral revival of both Servia and Greece. At no time were the Servian komitadjis as numerous or as vicious as those of the other powers, and the reactionary effect of komitadji brutalities was less than in Greece. Moreover, the peo- ple are vastly less impressionable and mercurial than the Greeks, being of pure Slav blood and having no intermixture of Mediterranean excitability and vivac- ity in their stock. They have not developed great statesmanship, and the blot of conspiracy still deprives their royal house of any luster ; nor have they developed any extraordinary military leadership. But they did show admirable powers of organization, cooperation, and self-restraint; they fought stubbornly and even gallantly; and their military leaders, if not brilliant, were at least very safe. The result of all this was to be the final emancipation of Servia from the galling economic tyranny of her neighbors, a substan- tial increase of territory, and a sobriety in the conduct of her affairs. Her temptation, of course, is the "Great Idea" of the Great Servia, but she has before her the awful warning of what happened to Bulgaria in the mad pursuit of the corresponding "Great Bul- garia" idea. It is difficult to be just to Greece. She owes her existence in a measure to the spirit of her own people, but in still higher degree to the philhellenism of the Western world. There have been epochs in her newer life when her conduct was altogether creditable, but there have been longer epochs where she has behaved like a naughty and irresponsible child, squandering her fortunes, jeopardizing her repute among the na- tions, boasting an enterprise which she did not possess, 236 THE BALKANS and generally perplexing the friends and lovers of a land felt to be consecrated in the history of thought, of culture, and of art. As if in the twinkling of an eye her peoples became grave; they formed and cherished a solemn purpose; they made immense sacrifices, and that without obser- vation, to accumulate a substantial war fund; they passed without civil war or anarchy through a con- stitutional revolution fomented by military circles ; they subjected themselves to the sternest discipline after its completion; they restored free government and knitted up a strong and working national organism. Thoroughly prepared and equipped in a measure dis- proportionate to their slender resources, alike by land and sea, they advanced on the outbreak of war to the fulfillment of the obligations they had assumed when the Balkan alliance was formed. Like their remote ancestors, they have always been a seafaring folk, and their new navy, tiny in comparison with others, effectually policed a great extent of waters, and won many victories which, though materially slight, were morally all-important. The base assassination of their king inspired them with a determination even more grim. There came to the throne an excellent ruler, familiar throughout his life with the qualities of his people, educated in the best traditions of royalty by his par- ents and his consort, and exhibiting substantial ca- pacity alike for statesmanship and for warfare. The so-called military revolution, a movement for produc- ing greater efficiency in both army and navy, inspired by the officers of both, originated in 1909 and was successfully concluded in 1910. For a time it actually suspended constitutional government. Neither Con- THE SECOND WAR 237 stantine nor his pleasure-loving brother was slow to learn tlie lessons it so thoroughly taught. The new king was a devoted soldier. But, what was more inter- esting still, the hour produced the man — the states- man of controlling, constructive power. From among the Greeks of Crete there was brought to Athens a statesman inferior to none now living and superior to most. It appeared as if the strength and wisdom of Venezelos had taken possession of all the millions, speaking modern Greek within and without the king- dom of the Hellenes. In the ministerial Cabinet, in the deliberations of diplomatists, and in the formation of national and international opinion alike, his has been a commanding figure. The regular troops of Greece throughout the war distinguished themselves by discipline and undaunted courage. The blot upon the good name of the nation was not created by na- tional temper or impulse. The Greek komitadjis have always been savage frontier banditti, lurking amid inaccessible cliffs, existing by murder and confiscation, and, in short, yielding in savagery to no others. That they have had some pecuniary assistance from individuals in the more civilized parts of Greece, from Greeks abroad, and quite possibly from agents of the Western powers, is the suspicion of great numbers. They have likewise enjoyed the sympathy of many sentimentalists among their own and other peoples, who could not possibly have been aware of their terrible deeds. For these reasons their romantic daring has had some retro- active effect in Greece itself. It was a matter for wonder and for some reflection when there began to emanate from Greek sources long telegraphic dispatches calling the attention of the civilized world 238 THE BALKANS to the atrocities permitted by Bulgaria. The question was, had the Greeks been practicing the guile for which of old they were renowned, and taking a leaf from the Bulgarian book? The agents they dispatched with much publicity to investigate the shameful deeds of others about which there was no question, might possibly have been better employed in investigating their own kinsfolk and ending forever the activities of both the Greek and the Turkish komitadjis along the frontiers of the northeast. Suminaiy But whatever sadness may be felt in this regard by those without, there is no doubt that Greece and Servia alike have seen a new light, cherish new hopes, and have become powerful rivals for the hegemony of the Balkans to either Bulgaria or Rumania. That Rumania's intervention in the role of arbiter, espe- cially in compelling peace, gives her a position of great eminence, must be unquestioned ; but Greece has the foremost statesman, Servia holds the most critical frontier post, Bulgaria claims the strongest powers of recuperation. Turkey has been eliminated as a political force in Europe, except in so far as her tenure of Constantinople and her spiritual leadership of the Moslem world must ever keep her in wardship to the balance of power in Western Europe. IX THE SIX POWERS AND THE BALKAN WARS 339 IX THE SIX POWERS AND THE BALKAN WARS "Le moment ou je parle est deja loin de moi," was Attitude and said of the swift movements in events a century ago by Temper of John Quincy Adams, in June, 1813. It seems highly '"^^^ Powers" probable that any essay in contemporary history may be antiquated before it is printed. In the perspective of a few years hence, however, the temper of the great powers will certainly be seen to have undergone in this epoch a marked change from that which it had exhibited in the previous one. Already many writers occupy themselves with discovering reasons why their relations one to another and collectively to the rest of the world were marked by so high a degree of self- restraint. Some insist that they were unready for war, or at least that they had not completed their arrangements for the increase of their armaments in a proportionate degree. Another opinion is that their dispassionate attitude was due to their fixed resolve not to allow any one of the Balkan powers or a federa- tion of them to acquire strength sufficient to entitle them to consideration as a seventh great power. While it is true that the so-called balance of power and the peace prevailing between the great nations were in a condition of very unstable equilibrium, yet the course of events justified the conviction that, as far as the pubHc opinion of Europe was concerned, a new humane spirit was everywhere manifest among the intelligent, intellectual, and thoughtful classes and 241 242 THE BALKANS sufficiently powerful to compel recognition: especially as the horrors of the struggle, growing ever more shocking, served for an awful example to the military and bellicose minority everywhere. In any case, we have heard on the highest authority that the Foreign Offices of London, Berlin, petrograd, Vienna, Rome, and Paris claimed to be of one mind as to the vital question of localizing the war. In this, throughout the long sessions of their ambassadors in Saint James's Palace, the two different sets of Allies seemed agreed. Agreements Their first care, of course, was to convince the general public that what had passed for axiomatic was utterly fallacious, namely, that should war break out in the Balkans, one or more of the great powers would of necessity be involved in it, and that the peace of all Europe might be endangered. This accomplished, they turned their attention to what issues were be- lieved to be of vital importance to them all. From their discussions there emerged the fact that unity of action could be secured only by a self-denying ordi- nance, and accordingly they agreed one and all that no one of them should make any effort to increase its territorial possessions in any part of the world.^ To both of the inevitable questions, questions without a satisfactory settlement of which agreement among all six was impossible, reference has frequently been made, namely, to the creation of a new minor state, Albania, and to the disposition of the ^Egean Islands. In no uncertain tones they gave the warring powers to understand that Constantinople, the Straits, and Asiatic Turkey were not to be involved in the field ■The world does move. The reader will oote in thia a temper utterly diflereat from that displayed at Berlin in 1878, SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 243 of operations; in other words, that whatever the out- come of the war, and however diminished her Euro- pean possessions might be, there was to be at the close a Turkey in Europe that should be the seat of power for the head of Islam ruling as caliph in the spiritual affairs of all Mohammedans, and as secular prince over the lands of Asia where a majority of the popu- lation were Turks. It is extremely difficult to bring into being a nation- Creating a ality which probably never existed, and would not Wation now be in existence except for the exigencies of Euro- pean politics. It was, therefore, the main work of the negotiators at London to secure unanimity as to the boundary lines of an Albania which was to be not merely a geographical expression, but an admin- istrative district sharply delimited without much refer- ence to what types of nationality composed its population. Perplexing in itself, this question was further complicated by that of emancipating Servia from the economic tyranny of her neighbors by secur- ing to her commerce free access to the Adriatic. This agreement was finally, in outline at least, substan- tially as follows : Albanian boundaries were to be fixed partly by the ambassadors themselves and partly by an international commission of inquiry studying on the spot the ethno- graphic frontiers. This work has been accomplished, and a suggestion has been made for that portion of their labors which relates to the south and south- eastern frontier, where a district of about fifteen thou- sand square miles was, according to their proposition, to be divided between Albania and Greece. The new state, when delimited by surveyors, would contain eight hundred and forty thousand inhabitants. Its area 244 THE BALKANS under the Ottoman empire, was divided into thirty-one kazas, or administrative districts, in ten of which there was no semblance of any Turkish control whatsoever. The wild clansmen of these last paid no taxes, regarded no laws, kept the peace as they were disposed, and practiced the vendetta to an extent more shocking than anywhere else in the world. As soon as the boun- daries were fixed, another international commission was at once established to take over, temporarily at least, the control of this strange people, heterogeneous in habits and religion, by means of a constabulary under officers chosen from some neutral power, as Sweden, Belgium, or Holland. Their procedure had, of course, to be determined by circumstances, and ac- cordingly success was very slight, the real power in the Albanian valleys being apparently that of Essad. Yet they hoped to renew a truce which is fondly believed already to exist among the tribes ; to pay all the blood- money considered due by the various parties ; to close each tribal area to the males of any other tribe which may at the moment be "owing blood" ; thus to termi- nate all existing feuds, and then to provide the funds necessary for the restoration of agriculture and trade. Such a system is far from giving even a complete autonomy to Albania, but it was intended that when order should have been restored, the great powers would fix upon a strong executive of their selection, promulgate a constitution, and inaugurate a govern- ment ; this would provide a semi-autonomy which is likely, considering the feeling of the population, to have a closer relation to the monarchy at Constantinople than to any other. Such artificial state-making, considered in itself, is not an impressive spectacle, but whatever the future SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 245 has in store, for the time heing at least, this agreement and this procedure claimed the dignity — yes, even the glory — of preserving the peace of Europe outside the Balkan peninsula. As regards the ^Egean Islands, the situation is, in The .ffigean some respects, quite as perplexing. Their inhabitants Islands are in overwhelming majority Romaic — that is, Greek, in the current use of the word. If the doctrine of nationality, which has been proclaimed from the house- top until the whole heart is sick, were to determine their fate, they would, one and all, be incorporated into the kingdom of the Hellenes; but some of them are the most important strategic positions of the East, commanding, as they do, the entrance to the Straits. A Turkey which could not control the Straits would be an absurdity. Others of the islands, as we have elsewhere stated, are so close to the shores of Asia Minor that to all intents and purposes they are Asiatic, and not European. The possession of them by another power would menace the existence of Turkish rule on the mainland. Certain of these islands, again, are held in pawn by the Italians, who seized them during their war with Turkey, ostensibly for purposes of negotia- tion, quite possibly, however, under pressure from the great numbers of Italians resident in the Levant, who dreamed that somehow and at some time Italian influ- ence might be restored where once it was dominant. By the treaty negotiated at Lausanne, between Turkey and Italy, these islands were to be restored to Turkish control as soon as Turkish military power disappeared from the Cyrenaica. In 1914, either of set purpose or for lack of transportation, the Cyrenaica had not been completely and literally evacuated, and consequently the islands held by Italy have not been restored, though 246 THE BALKANS Dividing the Spoil, or Treaties of London and Bucharest Turkey disavowed and placed "hors cadres" the offi- cers remaining in Tripoli. In spite of all the difficulties thus indicated, an agreement nevertheless was reached among the Great Powers. The principle having been formulated and solemnly accepted, the fate of all the islands, even those temporarily occupied by Italy, was a matter not of dual but general international concern; that the Great Powers must settle the question eventually, and that no one of them was to retain one of these islands for itself. This, although not so momentous a con- clusion as that concerning Albania, looked like good faith and harmonious agreement among all the Six Powers. Time alone could determine the strength of this agreement, but for the moment the guardianship of the islands and their ultimate disposal were the affairs of the European Concert. Justice seemed likely to be done in the end. It cannot be denied that a certain nervousness still existed. The treaty of London was supposed to have laid down the broad lines for the distribution of the huge territorial booty which the Balkan federation had wrested from Turkey. Quite the most important of its determinations was that of fixing the western boundary of Turkey in Europe; it selected what was known as the Enos-Midia line. Within the space of a few days, weeks at most, the federation was dis- solved, the parties to it were engaged in desperate warfare with each other, and Turkey, which had been on the defensive behind the Chataldja lines, was ad- vancing to the reconquest of her sacred city, Adriano- ple. Rumania was invading Bulgaria in order to "correct her frontier," that is, to secure some compensation in the Balkan settlement for the gains SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 247 of the three other Christian powers. Macedonia was again soaked with blood, and Thrace was devastated almost to the extinction of her re- sources, by those very powers who claimed to have been fighting for the regeneration of both. Recrim- ination is perfectly futile; how the treaty of London came to be violated is unimportant. Hostilities were now over and a second treaty, that of Bucharest, negotiated in August, was concluded among the Balkan kingdoms, while still a third was also nego- tiated between Bulgaria and Turkey. The original intentions expressed in the treaty of London were immediately set aside in order that what the Balkan powers considered best might become the basis for what at most was only an armed truce. Perhaps it would be more enduring than one based upon the treaty of London or even upon the treaty of Bucharest. The substance of the agreement reached was a shift- ing of the Turkish boundary to the north and west of the Enos-Midia line and giving it such a spinal curvature that it retained for Turkey Adrianople and Kirk-Kilisseh ; Bulgaria, which, in the pride of con- quest, had occupied and hoped to retain by far the largest portion of the conquered territory, was per- mitted to retain a little triangle on the Black Sea, and an area of about five thousand square miles in western Thrace with access to the ^gean. The substantive gains, gains of the very first importance in the expan- sion of power and territory, were those made by Servia and Greece. The indifference with which in the clos- ing negotiations Bulgaria had yielded one by one all the towns which were the scenes of her military glory to Turkish pretensions was a very dangerous symptom in- deed. Her people were not a prey lo discouragement. 248 THE BALKANS ITationality in the Treaty, or in the Balkans nor were they dazed by the strokes of misfortune. They were awaiting the hour, sure to strike, when they could return to the struggle not only for national ag- grandizement but for revenge. The treaty of Bucharest was criticized sharply and declared to be unworkable because it paid little or no attention to the much vaunted doctrine of nationality. Should the reader have an opportunity to consult Kie- pert's or any good ethnographic map of the Balkans, he will perceive that the distribution of so-called nationalities is such that scattered groups of one lie upon a fairly solid background of another; that the lines of demarcation, even where they are continuous, are so contorted as to make anything like reasonable frontiers on that basis out of the question and impos- sible. It is my own firm conviction that national assertiveness, that institutional differences, even that traditions, are almost entirely artificial in the Balkans and the work of paid agents faithfully serving dynas- ties or governments whose interest it is to divide and rule. The press campaigns of the last few years have been very skillfully conducted, and leave one to imagine the still greater skill with which agitations on the spot are carried on. It has been reiterated until we believe it, that the Christian population of Thrace is almost entirely Greek, and that under Bulgarian rule the cruelties have been even more horrid than they were under Turkish control. But a letter has been recently published from a trustworthy witness, riding at that time far and near from village to village throughout eastern Thrace but westward of the Enos- Midia line. Most of these villages were smoldering heaps of embers, the Turks having burned them in their retreat. The surviving Christians he found SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 249 assembled in Demotika, Kirk-Kilisseh, Lule-Burgas, Bunar Hissar, and similar places. For the most part he lodged with Greeks. He heard no complaints and saw no sign of ill-treatment. The populations — Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Jews — lived peacefully together on the best of terms. The Greek shopkeepers charged exorbitant prices for their wares, but they were honestly paid by the Bulgarian troops. Racial and religious tolerance characterized the occu- pation by Bulgarians of the country. There were even left behind a few Turks who seemed to have no cause whatever for complaint. The term "nationality" in the Balkan States is, as there used, a word almost meaningless to us, and the word "ethnographic" is scarcely less so. In earlier pages we were at some pains to describe the processes of trituration, commingling, and almost hydraulic pressure, whereby the oldest nationalities had van- ished under Turkish rule. At this hour the most patriotic Greeks bear Slavic names; but language, as we know, is no criterion, for the Bulgars are not Slavs. Another careful traveler, a long resident in the Balkans, published an indignant letter when King Ferdinand proclaimed the city of Monastir to be a part of unredeemed Bulgaria. Basing his indignation upon statistics taken by himself, he strove to show that barely one half of the population were even construc- tively Bulgarians. In another connection we have endeavored to exhibit on the best of testimony the state of things in Macedonia as one which renders absurd and ridiculous any claim throughout that land to any nationality, except that to the sorely degraded one of Macedonian. Every visitor to the Balkan States would admit that 250 THE BALKANS at the respective capitals and in the districts which surround them there are sufficient differences to con- stitute something hke a recognizable nationality : such differences as, for instance, would be perfectly mani- fest to a traveler, passing by rail from Stuttgart to Bern, between the Germans of Wurtemberg and Switzerland. The German of Berlin is not the Ger- man of Munich, nor the German of Munich the Ger- man of Stuttgart, nor of Bern; but they are all alike Germans. In the case of the Bernese, there is a per- fectly manifest pride in a nationality which is alike German, French, and Italian. In the same way the Alsatian of Strassburg, German by blood, in language and even, to a high degree, in institutions and laws, shows the effect of the two centuries of French rule and influence. Such considerations, although all com- parisons halt, nevertheless throw some light upon the distinctions which can be observed as between Monte- negro, Servia, and Bulgaria. Did there exist in those countries a large middle or burgher class, it is quite possible that the differences between them in speech, blood, and character, almost insignificant as they are, could be further emphasized and enlarged so as to create inchoate nationalities, as we use that word in the West; but the overwhelming majority of the peo- ple in all three, wherever they reside, are peasants; the patriotism which stirs them to frenzy is recent and highly artificial and, as one of the bits of testi- mony we have cited avers, when circumstances throw them together under common conditions they are con- scious of little difference between themselves, instinc- tively feeling their brotherhood even with Greeks and Rumanians speaking widely different languages. Such confusions are the more remarkable because SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 251 the climatic variations throughout the Balkans are not such as easily transform race stocks and confound them one with the other. The process of assimilating all types of humanity goes on from year to year with- out rest or cessation within the boundaries of the United States. One reason is the willingness, even eagerness, with which its population yield to what may be called broadly American influences. Exactly the reverse is true in the Balkans, and the disuniting influences within the Christian lands which were once Turkish are strengthened and promoted with an iron will and an unyielding purpose, which is the motive power that really underlies all the recent commotions. Whether these incipient states are viable or not, time alone can determine. As yet they have all the marks of turbulent youth, even of petulant childhood : their eruptive diseases are loathsome. Not one of them has hitherto exhibited a moral standard notice- ably higher than that of the others. They have dis- regarded the treaty of London and the treaty of Bu- charest, and an agreement between Rumania and Bulgaria made at Petrograd, and their own alliance under which they fought side by side — disregarded them all with an absence of principle most dishearten- ing and distressing. We confess to our shame that the higher civilizations of the West have on many occasions set them a bad example, but bad example is no excuse for utter dissoluteness; especially when, as is the case with all these peoples, they profess with a fanaticism unknown in Central and Western Europe a form of Christianity, the precepts of which appar- ently make no impression upon behavior. Greek Christianity, like orthodox Judaism, is very largely an affair of ritualism, and it is greatly to be feared 252 THE BALKANS that the repetitions of their prayer book, the compli- cated functions and elaborate crossings, genuflections, and anointings are, as far as public matters go, utterly vain. My own experiences as a traveler, I repeat, were mainly such as would endear the unsophisticated masses of these countries to any sympathetic observer of mankind. The simple lives of the peasantry, their plain living, their frank manners, their picturesque customs, their occupation in the fields, their wonder- ful fruit orchards, and, in Bulgaria, their boundless rose gardens which yield the priceless Attar, the sleek and comfortabe cattle, the smiling valleys — all this combines into a most pleasing composite impression. On the other hand, even the slightest acquaintance with city life appears to transform such folk into an unrecognizable product that cannot elsewhere be seen. There is no organized society in our sense of the term. The influence of woman is utterly insignificant ; one strains the vision to note chivalric manners. There is a recklessness in many matters, both private and personal, a greed for place and office, an aimlessness of walk and conversation, a lounging indolence, a friction and a creaking; the town seems not a home but, in short, a perplexing melting-pot of unbridled human passion. You felt that nothing but war was needed to exhibit on the great stage of the world the barbaric, unripe genius of people playing a role to which they were not trained. It is a sad business, setting a boy to do a man's work : and correct modern warfare is the work, sorry and sad to be sure, but the work of men who are not in a state of pupilage, not amateurs, but professionals and expert. From what we have said it seems to be manifest SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 253 that of public opinion in the ordinary sense there is Public little or none in any of the Balkan States, with per- Op^«»» »«• *» , , .,,■'. f r^ , • Balkan haps the possible exception of Greece, where, m con- situation nection with the so-called military revolution men- tioned above, there was a very fine exhibition indeed of a sane and safe public opinion. Even in the West- em world it is not easy to find the seat of public opinion. The advanced democracy of the globe has made such an effort extremely difficult, but it is not uninteresting to summarize, as far as possible, the questions which, as far as the nations are at all inter- ested in the Balkan question, are discussed more or less on the street and in the newspapers. The government organs of imperial Russia ex- Russia hibited a rather unusual restraint in their utterances. We were left in doubt whether there was any definite opinion at Petrograd as to whether Russia gained or lost in prestige and moral power by the temporary settlement as far as it was then reached. Her special proteges were Bulgaria and Montenegro; although, of course, she felt herself in a very high sense the patron and protector of the Greek Church in general, and of its Slavic members in particular. Montenegro made almost negligible gains in the settle- ment and felt herself profoundly humiliated because compelled to abandon Scutari and look on while it became the capital city of a people naturally hostile, and that, too, at a distance of only a few miles on the great inland lake which she had proposed to make entirely her own, as it already was in part. Bulgaria felt herself in a position of intolerable humiliation, and whatever may have been the relations between Sophia and Petrograd, Rumania appears to have established more advantageous ones, securing, as 254 THE BALKANS she did, a substantial and valuable addition to her territories apparently with Russia's assent. Then, furthermore, there was a curious crossing of pur- poses between Paris and Petrograd, firm allies as France and Russia were. In pretension to Byzantine leadership, Greece is the avowed rival of Russia, yet nevertheless the moral support of France throughout the struggle has been given to Greece and in the felici- tations over the event of the war, the newspapers of Athens and of Paris have vied with each other in such compliments and mutual congratulations as are familiar and usual in the intercourse of Mediterranean peoples. Exactly how much they mean is difficult for others to understand. Austria- Iteration and reiteration are necessary to enforce Hungary at a distance the fact of extreme tension all along the frontier line between Slavs and Germans. Even the avowed pacifist would be considerate and thoughtful if he realized that Germany and the German peoples in the widest sense believe themselves engaged in a never-ending struggle for the supremacy of a higher over a lower civilization. The German empire was on the whole so loyal to its various state governments, so intelligent in its apprehension of historical problems, and so enormously powerful in its armaments that its feeling in regard to its eastern neighbor was, though somewhat apprehensive, generally one of calm assur- ance. The case was far otherwise with the dual mon- archy of Austria-Hungary. Its only bond of union was the stanch loyalty of strangely divergent peoples to the house of Hapsburg. In order that this personal union might find some outward expression and create political efficiency, the Hapsburg monarchy had already become, what its style indicated, dual. The SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 255 emperor of Austria was the king of Hungary, and the relations of these two otherwise independent states were minimized almost to the point of breaking. The figures of the Slavic populations in this dual monarchy have elsewhere been given. They are proportionately so large that an imperious demand already was heard for a federate Slavic monarchy within the limits of the existing monarchy, at least as independent and auton- omous as the Hungarian — united with Austria and Hungary only by a common sovereign and a common control of finance and military service in so far as they affect foreign relations. These Austro-Hun- garian Slavs, especially in Croatia and Dalmatia, have shown a very disturbing sympathy with the aspirations of Servia. The reigning house of the monarchy was German. The most populous city, Vienna, was Ger- man. The powerful aristocracy which was the bulwark of the Hapsburg throne is in the main German, al- though the magnates of Hungary were not one wiiit less loyal, nor inferior in wealth to those of German Aus- tria. Whether or not the German power in the mon- archy could maintain itself was a very serious question. For long periods paramount and haughty, it had been humiliated at least into an equality with that of the other elements, and many thought its force to be steadily diminishing. At home, within their own boun- daries, the Austro-German men of power and influence were strangely reticent. Abroad, in traveling, they ex- pressed without any reserves a sense of the most pro- found discouragement. It is no exaggeration to say that millions of German Austrians desired incorpora- tion with the German empire. Had it not been for the moral support of Germany, Austria-Hungary would necessarily have played a 256 THE BALKANS very inferior role in the affairs of the Hither East. With it, she made a bold stand, exhibited a brave front, and secured enough throughout the conduct of the two wars to save her face and enhance somewhat her pres- tige. The relations of the dual monarchy with the German empire were for a time less warm than usual, even chilly. The Austro-Hungarians expected stronger support in their Adriatic politics. But the friendship once more improved, as the results grew more discernible. Albania had been created, Dalmatian and Croatian discontents had been suppressed, and the Slavic movement generally appeared to have made losses rather than gains, especially since the finest branch of the Slav Austrians, the Bohemians, made such sorry work of the finances intrusted to their charge, in fact, bankrupted their so-called kingdom in part, and its great capital of Prague almost completely. Serria Whence had come the moral and financial support of Servia remains mysterious. Of all the Slavic peo- ples the Servians have so far been personally and publicly the most improvident. Servian banking is little more than pawnbroking. There has recently been published by a Frenchman, resident for many years in Servia and conversant with Servian affairs from long participation in them, a very valuable study, one item of which throws a strange light upon the recklessness of the people. It had degenerated, as far as the government was concerned, largely into a police state. The Servian burgher found his chief occupation, therefore, not in politics, not in commercial and in- dustrial enterprises of stability, but in discounting the future. The writer gives the single instance of a bank in the important city of Nisch which was founded some ten years ago by two partners with a capital of SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 257' six hundred dollars. With that security they bor- rowed about half as much more and opened their doors to lend money at twelve per cent discount. They soon capitalized the institution at one hundred thou- sand dollars. Of these shares half were retained in the treasury and half had been bought by the public. The bank owned a handsome countinghouse, and its business expanded by leaps and bounds. Every bor- rower who had desired a loan of one hundred dollars gave his note, properly indorsed by some friend, as security. He then received seventy dollars in cash and thirty dollars in stock, the par value of the shares being ten dollars. As our author remarks, this is far from a solitary instance; the passion for borrowing was a cancer which slowly ate out the vitals of the Servian organism. These and similar charges have never been denied, and with such a temper and such slack habits of finance it is quite possiible that some portion of the national loans were easily negotiated among Servians themselves. But even if this were so, what could be so raised would be utterly insuffi- cient, and there must have been a system of borrow- ing in other lands which has not been generally known to the public. Every wild guess has been made: that there was actually a secret understanding between the bankers of Consitantinople and Belgrade, that the ever-vigilant Russia secretly provided funds, that am- munition and guns were secured on credit — in short, nothing seems too monstrous for the gullibility of yel- low journalism. The plain fact is that we know noth- ing and can express only amazement at Servia's achievements. Long hence it will doubtless appear that Turkey and the Young Turks were diplomatically fishing in troubled waters from beginning to end at 258 THE BALKANS Belgrade, as well as in other Balkan capitals, eating the bread of humility secretly in their desperate efforts to retain the semblance of the Turkish empire. Even superficial observers suspected that these struggles produced some effect in Rumania. Whoever vi^as the backer of Servia, it assuredly was no one hostile to Austria-Hungary, The western frontier of Servia had not advanced an inch and it was even yet uncertain how she was to be given the prom- ised commercial access to the Adriatic. That important portion of the Mediterranean was still controlled by Austria-Hungary and Italy. Italy too, as we recall, still occupied the islands in the ^gean, which she has held as a guarantee for the treaty of Lausanne. Italy This, of course, gives Italy an advantageous posi- tion from which to negotiate, especially if the border skirmishes between Servia and Albania develop into more important warfare ; or even if Servia, stimulated by Turkey's successful recalcitrancy, should attempt to secure a boundary including certain small districts it claimed alike at London and at Bucharest, but which were not yielded to her. In the general belligerency of the last years Italy has gained much. It is not merely that she has secured a substantial portion of the north African shore lands. She has consolidated her nationality and exhibited its power in such a way as to command respect from the other five great powers. Germany The German empire seized the occasion enormously to strengthen its military forces alike by land and sea. Probably the whole world better understands this policy in consequence of the Balkan wars; cer- tainly Germany herself secured a clear vision of the fact that the most serious menace to her civiliza- SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 259 tion lay along her eastern frontier. She would not be warlike in the sense of seeking a quarrel. The great warlord had proven himself for twenty-five years to be the great peacelord of the European world. It was not the tradition of the Hohenzollerns to expand for the sake of expansion, but it had been throughout the long and not entirely inglorious history of the family their unbroken effort to consolidate German lands and German populations for German welfare; to defend what had been won; to create a majestic organism; and to assert the place of Germany among the great reciprocal forces, the powerful interacting influences of the modern world. We had no reason to believe that there had been any change in this impressive policy. This seemed more probable in proportion as the barbaric and atrocious excesses of Slavs exposed in glaring exactness not so much what they desire the warfare to be in which they engage, as what with their temperament and nature it necessarily must be. The German empire was so far absolutely loyal to the self-denying ordinance passed when the representa- tives of the Six Powers first met at London. If Germany was, as she was, well aware that her France resources must be husbanded as a bulwark against uncertain conditions and impending menace to the eastward, France, with the brilliant galaxy of states- men then controlling her destinies, was equally im- pressed with her own enormous task in reducing Mo- rocco to even partial subjection and consolidating a colonial empire which, in the forty-odd years since the Franco-Prussian War, had become so vast as to be unwieldy, being a source of enormous expense to the home government and producing, at least as yet, scanty returns for the national treasury. She, too, had 26o THE BALKANS been entirely loyal to her earliest engagements; but, believing herself by tradition and sympathy deeply concerned in the progress of Greece, she had not hesitated to cheer on that nation, to rejoice in its victories and to take great satisfaction in the evidences of self -restrained power which it was furnishing to the world. Great Britain But, after all, the most majestic organization throughout the events we are considering was that of Great Britain. It was the host of the ambassadors' conference, and likewise of the Balkan plenipoten- tiaries; and it was fortunate in having as foreign minister Sir Edward Grey, a man of sound under- standing, of strong convictions, of thorough knowl- edge, of versatile capacity, who, throughout his guidance of those difficult negotiations carried on in London, enjoyed not only the undivided support of his own party, but also a generous abstinence from ob- struction on the part of the Conservatives. It may be said that he commanded the confidence and had the backing of the British nation and empire undivided; and that likewise in a high degree his was the leading part in the councils of all Europe. The England which gave him unstinted approval was not the Eng- land which in 1878 had seized Cyprus and occupied Egypt. There was no thought of territorial aggran- dizement at the expense of any other people. For that reason the utterances of the government at West- minster were doubly weighty. They were character- ized throughout by the confidence and sobriety which arise only from fixed determinations and readiness for action. This accounts for the ever-growing influ- ence of the British ambassador at Constantinople, for the rather strange but admirable attitude of Berlin SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 261 which put an advanced German hberal, Prince Lich- nowsky, as successor to Marshall von Bieberstein at the Court of Saint James, and indicated a wiUingness for cooperation that was considered magnanimous in view of what seemed the dazed suspicions which the British had so long entertained regarding German policy — suspicions only too well founded. Great weight, therefore, may be placed upon the declarations of Sir Edward Grey. His voice was considered almost, if not entirely, to express Euro- pean sentiment. In order, therefore, to grasp the effects of the Balkan wars upon Europe at large, we may safely rely upon some of his most important authoritative and official public statements. In no un- certain tones he uttered a solemn warning to Turkey in which he said, "That her failure to accept the advice of the Powers as regards her western frontier is almost sure to bring on the Turkish government disastrous consequences, either in the shape of financial distress or of armed intervention from which no one can defend her." The one essential feature of her new western boundary must be, he declared, that the line should possess strategic strength.^ As to Mohammedan powers in general. Great Brit- ain will in the future, as in the past, assume for itself the assurance that the "rational sentiments and reli- gious feelings of Mohammedan subjects within her dominions shall be respected and have full scope." As a corollary to this. Great Britain can be neither intolerant nor aggressive regarding any Mussulman power. "But under no circumstances could we pro- tect Mohammedan powers, as such, from the conse- quences of their own behavior." "To suppose that >The delimitation as arranged at Constantinople appears exactly the opposite. 262 THE BALKANS we can undertake the protection of, and are bound to regulate our European policy so as to side with a Mussulman power when that Mussulman power re- jects the advice given to it — that is not a claim which we can admit." As to the question of intervention, he made on several occasions the very trenchant remark that any other than armed intervention would be impossible, and that to go to war for the sake of preventing war is an absurdity and a contradiction in terms. Will wad All these are brief and weighty utterances, yet they EixropeHear did not entirely dispel nervousness or distrust. Pro- andHeed? crastination is the essential vice of the Orient. The lapse of time creates new interests and new cur- rents of feeling. Wild Europe has long heard the admonition of civilized Europe given with great show of importance and empty emphasis to Turkey. Throughout generations these instructions have been utterly disregarded and secretly ridiculed. When, now, the admonitions of the great powers were ad- dressed no longer to Mohammedans, but to professing Christians, the question naturally arose. Do they signify anything more than before? Already the new masters of the Balkan peninsula have given an ex- ample of their intolerance and fanaticism in the treat- ment of western missionaries at Avlona. America is far away, as distance is reckoned, from all the scenes of Balkan horrors. American travelers are for the most part utterly ignorant of the language, institu- tions, and temper of the Balkan peoples. We have not, therefore, from lack of data, profoundly consid- ered hitherto the effect upon American interests, either religious, industrial, or commercial, of the expulsion of the Turks and the annihilation of Turkish rule in SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 263 those parts of the world, but, dispassionately consid- ered, every one of them is more endangered every hour. Peering into the future through the smoke of in- cendiarism, with senses blunted by the cries of the helpless, the moans of the wounded, and the awful sights of mutilated corpses, of crippled and disfigured survivors, the man would have been rash indeed who would venture upon prediction. Yet America has long had peace upon her own frontiers ; her experiences were for a generation utterly foreign to any like those which have molested the safety and health, moral or physical, of European nations. But with the Spanish War all was changed. While comparisons are dan- gerous, yet, judging from that conflict, and from the history of Mexico, there appears to be probable and possible for the western powers of Europe only one final outcome in the Balkan States; perhaps also for us, in the settlement of intolerable conditions be- tween our frontier and the canal strip. Already we have seen in those lands what began as an ordered warfare degenerate into brutal, reckless, and guerilla conflicts. We have seen a war of enfranchisement quickly transformed into a war of conquest, and then into a struggle without quarter, a conflict of life and death for the extermination of one and measurably both combatants. We have seen lands, already rav- aged, devastated and delivered to a desert solitude, plowed once more with bullets and bayonets and har-- rowed by the small arms of ghoulish banditti. We have seen great districts abandoned and their few surviving inhabitants huddled in squalor and famine behind the fortifications thrown up to defend towns. Finally, we have seen the barbarous perpetrators of 264 THE BALKANS all these outrages frankly and shamelessly confessing the misery, the famine, the hunger, and the thirst among their victims, those who were weak and help- less to combat the vain ambitions and mad passions of their leaders. On the other hand we have seen malefactors high in place denying their deeds and holding out their hands with prayers for assistance to alleviate the misery they have wrought. All our hearts were wrung and our purses were opened and our charities were abundant, but whatever can be done in this way can be but temporary. In the long run, there as here, it seems as if nothing short of abso- lute exhaustion, an exhaustion which is still far distant, could secure a remedy of any efficiency for such shock- ing social diseases. Hat in hand, the wild peoples of both Europe and America will have to make a piteous plea for peaceful intervention. Utterly incapable of self-restraint and of self-government, they will have to ask for the restoration of order under foreign lead- ers; for a well-organized constabulary under officers who can command obedience and exercise some degree of control until the rod of correction has done its work and made the memory of punishment a wholesome, permanent preventive for passionate excess. Iilamlnthe According to the latest authorities, there are still Balkans left in the Balkans two million Moslems, of whom it is reckoned that at least a million are Turks. Had Bulgaria been able to make good her earliest claims, there would have been within her boundary about half a million of these "aliens." The principal city of Bosnia is Sarayevo. At the present hour it is a curious conglomeration of a modern and somewhat impressive German city along with a half -regenerated Turkish town. There are impor- SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 265 tant Roman Catholic churches, a very stately Greek church, and a number of mosques, one of which, the Husref-Bey, is large and impressive, dating from the sixteenth century. It was with the utmost difficulty that I got into anything like friendly relations with its chief administrator, who suspected that, after all asseverations to the contrary, his visitor was but an Austrian emissary. Some pertinacity, and the exhibi- tion of a slight familiarity with the Koran, finally, however, rendered him communicative. He said that the Moslems of Bosnia were, on the whole, fairly con- tent ; that their institutions, religious life, and traditions received kindly consideration from the Austrian authorities. It may be well to interject here that the one- time Turkish provinces of the Herzegovina and Bosnia were a joint possession, belonging neither to Hungary nor to Austria, but administered from Vienna in the interests of both — an undivided imperial domain of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Under the tolerant rule which they enjoyed, these Slavic Mohammedans had a local government, liberty of the press and of speech, fair representation, and made no complaints of undue restriction or persecution of any form. Their kindly treatment by Austria-Hungary was, of course, well known to all Moslems in. Europe, and probably for that reason those who live within the boundaries of the native Christian states expect in the final settlement a "modus vivendi" for themselves similar to that which their coreligionists enjoy in the districts already under Christian rule. Montenegro likewise practiced a broad and kindly tolerance in deal- ing with her few Albanian subjects of the Moham- medan faith. There is nothing about which Europeans differ 266 THE BALKANS more than about the character of the comparatively few Turks still remaining to the west of the Bos- porus and the 'Straits. Many indulge in unmeas- ured encomiums, while others find no language in which to describe their backwardness and worthless- ness. Apparently, this is due to two causes : first, the degree in which the so-called Turks of certain locali- ties have intemiingled with Christians and the charac- ter of the Christians with whom they have inter- mingled ; in the second place, to the temperament and disposition of the observer. Probably the numbers of really pure Turks now in existence might be meas- ured in terms of five figures ; the rest are the descend- ants of men who carried away as captives great num- bers — some think millions — of Christian women, who, immured in harems, were the mothers of vast numbers who consider themselves Turks and possess the Turk- ish type. The many Christian families which, male and female, became Moslems in order to escape the devas- tations of the Turkish soldiery centuries ago, inter- married, moreover, with the conquering hordes. The result of these admixtures of Christian blood is by many believed to have a determinative character in the various types of Turks found in different places. An eyewitness in the valley of Asia Minor watered by the river Pactolus, has assured me that the thou- sands of fugitives from Europe taking refuge in that district are people of a delightful character, indus- trious, thrifty, responsive to kind treatment and to discipline ; the horrible mutilations inflicted upon them by the soldiery of the Christian powers in Europe they endure with patience and fortitude. By their frank, pleasant, democratic spirit of mutual self-help they recommend themselves most highly to Euro- SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 267 peans. They are excellent excavators in the splendid American enterprise at Sardis, they are indispensable in the harvest fields, they are fond of their little gar- dens, of running waters, of nature in her gentle moods, and even of poetry. Among them a most distinguished Orientalist has discovered a considerable proportion who speak a Turkish language fairly pure, and who are sufficiently intelligent to give in that tongue thrilling accounts of their sufferings at the hands of komitadjis in Thrace and Macedonia. The descriptions already given of Turkish settle- islam in Asia ments in Europe apply with double force to their towns and homes in Asia. The houses, for the most part frame, covered and lined with wood, are kept in no repair. The streets reek with filth. The only scavengers were the half-wild dogs which, because of their usefulness, enjoyed a strange immunity and license. The bazaars deal in such wares as would com- mend themselves to only the humblest dwellers in West- ern cities — cheap fabrics, worthless knicknacks, and a few commodities for the support of life. There is some exhibition from time to time, and spasmodically, of energy and enterprise, but it is shown almost entirely by Greeks and Jews, or a few European Slavs. Their agriculture is in a deplorable state of backwardness, their forests have been so ravaged that the rainfall is untrustworthy and their water supply for the raising of stock or for irrigation insufficient. There are a few railway lines in Asia Minor — one, formerly owned by Germans, running from Scutari, opposite Constantinople, on to Konia (the anci«nt Iconium), which is in the process of extension to Bagdad and possibly further. From one of its stations, 268 THE BALKANS about half way on the total length of the line, there starts a branch, built and controlled by the French, which runs to Smyrna. There is also a railway from Magnesia to Pandora, on the Sea of Marmora, and finally the English have built and managed a line east- ward from Smyrna through Ephesus, which will eventually connect with the German system. The best authorities affirm that these railways have in no way changed the character of the districts through which they run ; that there is no revival of enterprise or trade and no increase of population in consequence of them. The manufacture of opium has come almost to a stand- still because of the restrictions upon its sale. As is well known, considerable numbers of Turks, Syrians, and Asiatic Greeks have emigrated to the United States in recent years. A small proportion of them have returned to their native seats and exhibit on their own shores in Asia, in some slight degree, the enter- prise which they have had awakened here. American mission stations are scattered here and there and make some headway against the dullness, apathy, and ignorance of the populations round about. The purpose of such remarks about Asia Minor is to indicate why the Turkish armies, about which much has been said, proved the broken reed which they were. Because of the character and physique of those drafted into their ranks they had no endurance. Quite contrary to the facts is the widespread error which imagines the existence of Turkish populations in Asia from which efficient recruits can be drawn. There was no source of supply among the Turks in Asia from which the armies then fighting about Con- stantinople and along the Thracian or Macedonian coasts can be adequately recruited. The Turkish SIX POWERS AND BALKAN WARS 269 empire, as it will be in fact, may be an empire main- tained by European diplomacy. But shorn of its European possessions, it will be a rickety structure, destitute of the props and stays upon which it has hitherto rested. The best Asiatic Turks assert that their land can be regenerated only by administration through gendarmerie and constabulary composed per- haps of natives but officered and disciplined by trained soldiers from Western lands. Something has already been said about the spirit of absolute equality which permeates Mohamme- danism, about the entire absence of rank and caste in worship, society, or trade. Not only is this characteristic of the cult itself, and of all who devoutly practice it, but it is especially and pecul" iarly a Turkish quality. Even when the rank and file of the Turkish army submitted to discipline and suf- fered itself to be drilled and trained, when there was a semblance of organization and fighting spirit, there were no fixed distinctions of rank between officers and men. The officers were exactly like the men them- selves; they commanded obedience only because of expediency, much as the preachers and administrators of the mosques secure a semblance of order and enjoy some respect because of their native ability. It is credibly said that during the recent wars the Turks confronting the Hellenic troops had no conception of how to handle the splendid cannons, guns, and war munitions which they had purchased in great quanti- ties; and that their first experience in making use of them was the sorry, awkward bustling of stolid dreamers when brought to some realizing sense of danger by the whistling of Greek shells and the rattling of Greek machine guns. Whatever prestige 270 THE BALKANS the Turks of a generation ago gained at Plevna has been utterly dispelled; even the tenacity with which they held Adrianople and the smart return to the Maritza valley after the disarmament of Bulgaria can- not restore it. X HOPES AND FEARS 871 HOPES AND FEARS The peace movement has in recent years assumed The Peace dimensions which half a century ago would have Propaganda been considered utterly Utopian. Indeed, it has gone so far that its advocates have themselves become moral challengers and wordy combatants. They have stig- matized as not merely brutal but as utterly uncivilized all display of force and every settlement of inter- national difficulties except that of reference to courts. To them all questions of international relations have become alike legal and justiciable. Moved by un- questionable zeal and supplied with ample funds, their tracts flutter into our countinghouses and workrooms, on the wings of every mail delivery. They denounce all armaments and find no other safeguard for the amity of nations than in the virtues which so far have been those of a highly trained and sternly dis- ciplined personality. The analogy between indi- viduals and organized society is so attractive that it has been extended to cover the entire field of social activities. We are almost persuaded that there is a national conscience in the same sense in which there is a personal one. It is a brilliant and shining goal, for which all men of good will and high principle must ever strive. Yet the virtue of self-restraint is rare in natural persons, and, even in them, easily de- generates into pusillanimity. Many of our worthy pacifists have suffered pro- 273 274 THE BALKANS Encouragiing Facts found discouragement in the contemporary history of Eastern Europe, but there are, nevertheless, rea- sons for great encouragement, not to say for elation, when we consider the course of events during a half century. We must be struck by the fact that for over forty years there had been no armed con- flicts between the really advanced nations, and that throughout a period of nearly two years, rife with possible reasons for disagreement; yes, even for con- sidering and offensively upholding the point of honor between them, they not merely entered into self-deny- ing agreements, but likewise observed them for long with a conscientious faithfulness hitherto unknown in international dealings. They showed not merely a fine self-restraint, but exhibited a patience regarding their unruly wards which has afforded a superb ex- ample alike to the contestants in the Balkan wars themselves, to us, and to our posterity. Common Enough has been said in the previous chapters to Origins in the indicate how uncertain is the so-called nationality of the Balkan States. When we ask ourselves in this day and generation what is requisite for the constitu- tion of a nation we are sorely puzzled to find any satisfactory answer. We know that all the old ideas have been relegated to the chambers of memory. There are powerful and, in a sense, homogeneous states which have no singleness of origin, whose citi- zens are not descended from a common ancestry, and who have no common unity of tradition. Indeed, the passion for expansion has produced strong and vigor- ous nations which are the most amazing congeries of unrelated parts, all living harmoniously under single central governments. In these nations there is no unity of speech, for struggles, to secure the use of one Balkans HOPES AND FEARS 275 language by all their citizens prove to be a source of friction and difficulty ; or, even worse, a cause of dan- gerous disunion and revolt. Nor is there in con- temporary national lives any true unity or equality in institutions and the administration of the laws. With knowledge more or less imperfect of such undisputed facts, there is in Eastern Europe a great race stock which does possess some consciousness of common origin and is nevertheless divided hopelessly into the great sections of north and south Slavs. Having made the most careful inquiries from intelligent sources, the writer is convinced that there is a unity of language among all Slavs unsuspected by the great majority, even of scholars. A Russian diplomat long in the service, and stationed for the most part in Slavic lands outside of Russia, vigorously asserted that a patient, slow-speaking, born Slav of any stock can, in conversation with any other born Slav, both under- stand and be understood, which is not true of the different peoples who call themselves Teutons or of those who are styled Latins. Aside from unity of origin, tradition, and speech, the Slavs have a further unity in the matter of religious faith and ecclesiastical organization. The observer must feel a sense of dismay when, Elements of further, he beholds the south Slav portion of this Disunion great race stock, more unified in these respects than any other, embittered against the Slavic north; and itself hopelessly shattered into petty political organi- zations, eager to emphasize differences rather than to preserve correspondences. It is customary for those who attach a somewhat sacrosanct meaning to the word "republic" to declare these evils the result of dynastic conspiracies. Such talk is not merely 276 THE BALKANS untrue, it is stupid. Our readers will have observed that every Balkan dynasty, except that of little Monte- negro and the blood-stained Obrenovitches of Servia, reigned because of agreements among the great foreign nations of Europe, and was tolerated by its subjects just in proportion as it identified itself with their in- terests and what they call their patriotism. It will be only in the next generation of reigning Balkan sovereigns, if the dynasties maintain themselves so long, that the respective Balkan peoples will feel themselves to have native rulers. The quarrels of these little states are due to a cause which lies deeper, namely, the stage of civiliza- tion which they have respectively reached. To an unsuspected degree they are still in the clan stage of government. It is not political considerations which mold their history, except in an inchoate form; with them patriotism is a matter of personal like or dislike for a leader, an affair of reciprocal interests, of enthu- siasm for chieftains of some sort, for men who may be merely petty local leaders. The rare exceptions are those who possess the gifts which fascinate the multi- tude, the large agglomerations of local units. There are great tracts of the Balkan peninsula where still the controlling institution is that of the vendetta. It is by reason of that curse of primitive man that the king of Servia sits on his throne. There are other districts within which local government in some degree con- cerns itself with the welfare of all who live under its limited control. There are still others where there is something like a perception of that welfare which is common not to tens nor even hundreds but to millions of like-minded people ; where there can be noted a hazy perception of real government, but where, as yet, this HOPES AND FEARS 277 perception exercises little influence, and where the cur- rents of what can be called only by anticipation public opinion still find their principal strength and direction in the personal guidance and interest of leaders who are not much more than tribal heroes. It can easily be understood how embryonic were the nationalities formed by the combinations of such clan leaders and their followers. But it is a mis- leading analogy to draw the parallel so attractive to those concerned of the formative process whereby the nations of Central and Western Europe came into being through the combinations of various feudal units. Feudalism, although in no sense a political system, was nevertheless a very powerful and highly organized social one; and in no way comparable in its social organization to clanship. The nationalities and states in southeastern Europe Posiible have, nevertheless, an organic germ within them, and Advance in their evolution may be much more rapid hereafter "'»*«"'»v than it has been in the past. Political forces, like natural ones, have no fixed fate, and operate much more swiftly at one time than another. Certainly, Rumania, barely sixty years old, is much nearer to being a nation than Servia. During the space of more than an entire century Servia's progress toward real nationality was negligible, and it was only within these very latest years that she became conscious of national responsibility and behaved with the gravity of a people which sees its duty and contrives to do it. There is a sense in which every one of these nation- alities is artificial. That of Albania is little more than a paper structure, erected on paper for the con- venience of other nations. Throughout the course of history there has been no more puzzling phenomenon 278 THE BALKANS in the ineffective human laboratories of the Balkans than that presented at the present hour within the arbitrary boundaries fixed for what is heralded as a coming state. We can hardly believe that such a state will ever be more than a convenient administrative district kept together by pressure from without and ruled with no other sanction than that of unbending and stern application of foreign force. Even if it be freely admitted as a fact that else- where petty local communities were perpetually flying at each other's throats throughout a long period, and that within two or three generations there has been comparative peace within their increasing borders, yet we have been eyewitnesses of the fact that the rela- tions between those larger communities are no better ordered than they were between the smaller. Wild Europe has continued to be wild Europe, with the single difference that the contestants were brigands of a larger growth. AnAnned The enormous increase in military strength on the Peace part of the south Slavs, however divided among them- selves they may be, accompanied by a similar steady growth of military strength among the north Slavs, has produced the conviction in Germanic Europe that no peace on its eastern frontier is possible, except an armed peace, a peace enforced by sheer brute strength against a lower civilization which manifests .its growing pains in such fierce strife as that of the last years. Americans can very easily realize the situ- ation of both Germany and German Austria if they figure to themselves a similar neighbor upon contigu- ous territory in a like state of semicivilization, but able to call within a few days a well-armed, equipped, and drilled army numbered by the hundred thousand HOPES AND FEARS 279 into the field. Throughout our history we have felt, as civilized Europe has, and have proved by action, as the European powers have latterly done, that our neighbors to the south must, if possible, be permitted to fight out their own quarrels; but we have also felt that, if necessary, they must be brought to book by armed force and compelled, under military sanc- tions, to cease from murder and rapine, to exercise at least so much self-discipline that orderly rela- tions might be maintained with them. As we have remarked in another connection, the armaments of the European world have been increased to an appalling extent solely and entirely because of the menace which is believed to exist in the possible and even probable exercise of the force accumulated in the Balkans for the purpose of these latest wars. Were we their close neighbors, nothing could shake our conviction that the only peace possible was an armed one. We have previously used their own word "extermination." How near an approach to that dreadful goal has been made is displayed in the figures of a Bulgarian census taken in the first weeks of January, 1914. In the territories assigned to them the adult males numbered 702,000 before the outbreak of hostilities; at their close there remained alive only 300,501 ! And the subsequent five years ? The relations of European powers to each other Delicate are, of course, many sided. Throughout the strictly Relations of Balkan wars there was, as repeatedly noted, real ™o Powers unity of all the Six Great Powers to delimit the field of hostilities and confine the fighting to the territories of the combatants. But they had other and very im- portant relations which occupied and continue to occupy the strained attention of their statesmen. The 28o THE BALKANS Triple Entente was wooing Spain; the notion of a common Mediterranean policy for those dwelling on the shores of the Mediterranean manifested itself in an imperious way, and the whole question of Medi- terranean control was thrown into the forum of pub- lic debate. The interests of Great Britain in that matter have not changed and are widely different from those of France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Russia. Meanwhile, the Triple Alliance was regarding with complacency the better understanding and closer union between the three Scandinavian powers, and was successfully cultivating their good will. The efforts made to promote a better and milder state of feeling between Great Britain and Germany were for long almost Herculean. There were some temporary results, but they were totally disproportionate to the exertions made. The most that can be said is that on both sides hysterical and unreasoning bitterness was momentarily allayed, and that the wisest and calmest public opinion in both nations regarded with interest and approval every effort to create some degree of cordiality. We heard very much at this distance about the proposal for a naval holiday, that is, for a tem- porary cessation of the waste and extravagance involved in the rivalry for overwhelming sea power. Yet, in our enthusiasm for a suspension of war prepa- rations, we needed the reminder that in a small but important way Greece, having been successful dur- ing the Balkan wars in her naval policy, had seen her very existence as a nation once again thrown into the balance by Turkey's purchase of a dread- nought, that her prime minister, Venezelos, had made the round of the European Cabinets asking that HOPES AND FEARS 281 they forbid the renewal by Turkey of hostilities either by land or sea; and, incidentally, that a sop might be found for the unreasoning exaltation of his fellow countrymen by leaving, at least for a time, Greek garrisons in the Greek towns within the lines desig- nated as the frontier of Albania. Now, nothing could be easier than to command peace by sea between Greece and Turkey; but who shall issue the mandate, and who shall profit by commanding such a cessation of arms ? Italy and Austria-Hungary, without attract- ing much attention, were steadily increasing their naval power with a view to just such an emergency; and the increase of existing naval power in any direction de- mands a general readjustment and produces a nervous uneasiness in the nations hitherto accustomed to be supreme in that regard. Close examination of the relations between the Bal- kan powers and the Triple Alliance revealed sources of disturbance which, though momentarily sealed, might easily be reopened. When Austria-Hungary demanded a revision by the Six Powers of the treaty of Bucharest which distributed the spoils and was signed by representatives of all tlie Balkan States, except Turkey, on August 10, 191 3, it was her trusted ally and bulwark, Germany, which thwarted the plan and announced its emphatic approval of the treaty. This was due to a widespread and firm conviction that Emperor William had given to his brother-in- law, King Constantine, convincing reasons for moder- ation in the demands of Greece on the one side and had enforced similar considerations with his Hohen- zollern relative, the king of Rumania, on the other. It -was without question highly significant that in reply to the emperor's congratulatory dispatch King Carol 282 THE BALKANS of Rumania expressed thanks for services rendered. In order to soothe Austro-Hungarian susceptibihties it was necessary at a later date for the emperor to protest anew a loyal friendship for his faithful ally, Austria-Hungary. Italy supported Austria-Hungary in her demand that Scutari be included in Albania, and this was an act of tremendous significance, because the much- loved consort of King Victor Emmanuel is the daugh- ter of King Nicholas of Montenegro, and tempera- mentally a devoted patriot — a fine, public-spirited woman alike as regards the land of her birth and that of her adoption. Naturally enough, some slight jealousy of Austro-Hungarian influence in the new Albania had been felt throughout every rank of the Italian people. This uneasiness was further height- ened when it was known that the excitable and mer- curial population of Triest, the new queen of the Adriatic, the metropolis of "Italia Irridenta," had taken this opportunity to make anti-Italian demon- strations before the Italian consulate. How far the temper thus created was likely to influence Italy's course regarding the iEgean Islands she had seized from Turkey and still holds in pawn could not then be known. But what was thought and felt in the nervous, hypersensitive chancelleries of the European capitals was manifested in a British note to the Powers issued in the first weeks of 1914. Ostensibly this note was to soothe the exasperation of both Italy and Austria-Hungary regarding the south Albanian frontier and the work of the commis- sion which was to have been completed on November 30, 19 1 3, but had been delayed for more than a month. -In reality, it appears as if its weightiest paragraphs HOPES AND FEARS 283 were those dealing with the question of the JEgean Islands held respectively by Greece and Italy. The note suggests the retention by Greece of all the islands it had occupied, except the two at the mouth of the Dardanelles, Imbros and Tenedos, always with the understanding that she fortify none of them nor make any one a naval base. It further emphasizes and repeats the categorical assurances given by the Italian government that on the conclusion of peace with Tur- key it would evacuate the islands it had seized. It calls attention to the fact that while Turkey had not trans- ported from Tripolitan soil every remnant of its army, nevertheless it had disavowed and placed "hors cadres" the officers there remaining, and that the treaty of Lausanne had thus acquired full validity. The time, therefore, was ripe for settlement. When these islands were restored to Turkey they should, ac- cording to the suggestion of the note, receive some form of autonomous government. This proposition was manifestly intended to placate all the Mediter- ranean powers, including Turkey and Italy. The Italians have been, during the period of their occupa- tion, untiring in the improvement of their temporary possessions, especially in organizing and developing the resources, long untouched but considerable, which still exist in those Elysian spots, notably in Rhodes. Inasmuch as the respective members in each of the two threefold arrangements or understandings, by whichever name they are known, sedulously and care- fully watch each other in regard to the strength of their available military armaments by land or by sea, it is manifest that these semifederal unions could not have been renewed from time to time as they were unless the situation were fairly satisfactory. Of course 284 THE BALKANS "United States of Europe" the readjustments of internal politics in each and all have much to do with their foreign affairs. By means of an elaborate diplomatic system, however, each power thoroughly understands the situation as regards every other; not merely in matters of public knowledge but, oftentimes, through their confessed system of espionage, in matters intended to be kept secret. We may reasonably conclude, therefore, that, on the whole, the situation was considered fairly satisfactory. The equilibrium was quite as stable as any that had existed for two generations. The good habit of peaceful negotiation without recourse either to force or to courts of arbitration had been crystallized so far as to give great promise for the future. The good habit of referring acute difficulties to the cool deliberations of an international court was not so well established, although promising beginnings had been made. Idealists have long dis- cussed the possibility of a "United States of Europe." While such a federation is far from realization in the sense attached generally to the idea connoted by those words, yet lovers of peace ought to realize that, as far as the Six Powers are concerned, much had been accomplished during those recent years toward furnishing a practical and striking example of what a more perfect union would be able to do for the advancement of mankind. It is not the dream of a visionary that such an initial unstable equilibrium may become more and more stable and trustworthy as Western Europe is confronted with the difficult situ- ation which exists in the eastern portion of that continent. It seems like a categorical imperative that the higher civilization should unite all its forces, alike for possible conflict and for the peaceful uphft HOPES AND FEARS 285 of a great mass of humanity emerging from dark- ness. In the endeavor to draw from the facts that had Some recently come under observation some conclusions re- J*°** . garding that which we did not know, we, in 1914, ap- peared justified in believing that should there be a new outbreak in the Balkan States during the near future, the Six Powers would again adopt the policy of patient waiting, which had proved, in spite of its patent faults, on the whole, satisfactory to all concerned. The result, of course, would be a more complete exhaus- tion of every one of the Balkan powers, including Turkey. At any rate, there was no longer any excuse for federation against Turkey and the renewal of hostilities on that basis. What seemed much more likely was the transfer of the antiquated occidental doctrine of "balance" from western to southeastern Europe. This would result in creating two jealous and hostile federations for the preservation on the one side of what had already been gained by the members of one : and, on the other side, the prevention of further aggression to increase their gains by the nations who had profited, as was felt, far beyond their deserts. It was not absurd to conceive at least of Greece and Servia, with possibly Rumania and Montenegro, form- ing a league to assure, by means of a long or compar- atively long cessation of warfare, the consolidation of their power in the conquered territories definitely ap- portioned to them at Bucharest. But it is a matter of no great importance how separate understandings may be reached among the Balkan powers. It is a matter of the first importance that they have already contem- plated them and that in their primitive historical labo- ratory the experiences and experiments of older nations 286 THE BALKANS may be tried for their purposes. Should there be formed two fairly stable federations, it would not be so utterly impossible that out of the two one should even- tually arise that could be consummated in no other way. Considering the strength the Balkan powers have ex- hibited, and the fact that four of them proved the efficiency of federation even for so short a time, it must, since 191 8, be finally revealed to them that only by closer and longer federation can they present a re- spectable front toward Central Europe and assert the right to determine for themselves their final destinies. Each of these states has quite enough to do within its own frontiers to exhaust every effort they could possibly exert for thirty years to come. While Francis Joseph was the sovereign of Austria-Hungary there could be no question of division in his monarchy; not even an effective demand, as was shown, for its trans- formation from a dual to a triple one, having its Slav population organized into a state with relations to the crown similar to those which Hungary now maintains. But for the great war, when the aged ruler was gath- ered to his fathers the worst that could have happened would have been something of that sprt, because the centrifugal forces of disintegration would have been counteracted by pressure from without. It would, therefore, have been the task of Rumanian statesmen to curb the lively but uncertain aspirations of their people to enlarge the kingdom so that it may comprise within still greater frontiers all who claim to be Rumanians, including the great number which inhabited Transyl- vania under the Dual Monarchy. Nor will it be en- tirely easy to pacify her new subjects within the strate- gic frontier to the south, which she has recently ac- quired. Most of them are Turks and Moslems, while HOPES AND FEARS 287 many are patriotic Bulgarians. It will be a matter of enormous expense to fortify this new frontier, to estab- lish and enlarge her Black Sea commerce, to strengthen her already redoubtable army, and secure better rela- tions with her powerful neighbor on the north. The burdens which Servia must carry for years to come are even heavier. She had nearly doubled the extent of her territory, and victory in 1918 further enlarged it : to her lot it has fallen to regenerate the greater part of Macedonia, whose tribulations, already described, have almost completed the long process of annihilating all her resources, human and physical. The rich pasture lands are still there, but on the north they are held by Mohammedan Albanians, and in the south by Christian Bulgarians. The people of Novi- Bazar are Servian Moslems whose social station and organization make them as difficult of assimilation as the Albanians. Servia claims, of course, that the so- called Bulgarians of Macedonia are Bulgarized Serbs, who, if left undisturbed to her training, will in ten or fifteen years become enthusiastic Servians. In the meanwhile she has first to outlaw the komitadjis and bring the members of those cruel bands to trial and punishment; she has to lay before the exhausted villagers of Macedonia the choice between Servian and Bulgarian nationality, and more than all else, she has to lay the foundations for a permanent economic prosperity, by means of new transportation lines. She expects, when the Greek railway system is finally con- nected by way of Larissa and Salonica with that of the north, and when her own lines are put into satisfactory condition, that great numbers of tourists from the west will at least behold her natural beauties from car windows, and particularly that Rumanian commerce 288 THE BALKANS will use the new trunk line for easier access to the Mediterranean, and that thus by a substantial growth of freight and passenger traffic she will enormously increase her material prosperity. In case of permanent union with Montenegro she would have direct access to the Adriatic through Antivari and Dulcigno. The neglected fields of Macedonia must also be restored to tillage, what are still smoking ruins must once again be rebuilt for human habitation, and a more vigorous administration than she has hitherto practiced must be created and set in operation. In short, there must be a moral regeneration of her people on the civic side equal to that which it has undergone on the military. These are labors of Hercules. We can only hope that they can be performed by those to whom they are intrusted. The task of Bulgaria is equally severe. Above all else, her courage must be resuscitated and her very life restored. Her exhaustion is more complete than that of any other of the recent combatants. What is possibly the most distasteful of all her endeavors will be the cultivation of helpful relations on one side with Jugo-Slavia and on the other with her ruthless and embittered enemy Turkey. To win and keep the friendship of these states seems her only resource against further depredations. The Italian people, in spite of the creation of Albania, are dissatisfied with the settlement made at Versailles and seem determined to prevent the solidification of existing conditions. They are afraid of the new and larger Servia. It is accused of secretly supporting Albanian disturbers on one of the Servian frontiers, while on the other quarantine regu- lations and their enforcement are made as exasperating as possible. HOPES AND FEARS 289 Necessity laughs at theory : how far the antiquated principle of nationality, based on creed and language, has been disregarded appears from the map. The delimitation contemplated in the treaty of Versailles scouted it entirely, as the sketch line shows. The boundaries fixed in 1914 paid somewhat more atten- tion to it, but still very httle. The frontier between Turkey and Bulgaria was virtually the Enos Midia line. In the northern portions of this segment the inhabitants are Bulgarians; but in the southern they are Greeks, almost exclusively so on the ^gean. By confession most of the people are Moslems, indeed overwhelm- ingly so. The slight gain of Bulgaria on the Euxine was the valley of the Galadschio River with the port of Agathopoli : the population is Bulgarian and Christian in the main. The more substantial enlargement by the annexation of western Thrace to the south of the ^gean coast from the mouth of the Maritza to that of the Mesta ; and by the acquisition also of the inland valleys of the Mesta and Struma Rivers with the town of Strumnitza presents a very serious problem. Within these limits are numerous Greeks and some Turks : the people of northeastern Macedonia are Bulgarians and Christians eager to amalgamate with their kins- folk. But the problem of the four hundred thousand Pomaks, Moslem Bulgarians of western Thrace, is most serious; their fanaticism is excessive, and thirty years ago they perpetrated the most frightful atrocities on their Christian kinsfolk. They stand now an un- solved enigma, and might, under contingencies easily imagined, largely neutralize the advantage gained by Bulgaria in securing an outlet to the TEgean. Many consider that Greece requires a period of 290 THE BALKANS recuperation quite as extended as that essential both to Bulgaria and Turkey. She has to maintain her preeminence by sea; she has to fortify and garrison the long and unscientific frontier recently acquired. In Salonica she has the most coveted harbor of the JEgean; more than half of its one hundred and sev- enty-five thousand inhabitants are Spanish Jews not possible to be Hellenized; and were it not for tlie probable financial assistance of her kinsfolk living else- where than in the enlarged Hellas, the possibility of assimilation would appear desperate. On the mainland she has southern Epirus, but is forced to leave within the Servian frontier large num- bers of her compatriots and withdraw her garrisons from their towns. This is likely to prove a cause of unceasing turmoil and an exasperation sure to arouse intermittent outbreaks of violence. She secures the hand-shaped peninsula of Chalcidice and the Macedo- nian shore. Her boundary begins east of Corfu, in- cludes the Vozintza watershed, the entire Wistritza valley, and the inland south of Monastir. The inhab- itants of these districts are largely Greek Christians, but there are many Moslem Vlachs on the uplands, numerous Greek Moslems in various communities, and a substantial number of both Albanians and Turks. By the contemplated disposal of the ^Egean islands she becomes an insular and of necessity a maritime power to an extent greater than ever. In Crete she has the key to the ^Egean. She will add to the many islands she already possesses Chios, Mitylene, Lemnos, Samo- thrace, and Tenedos, perhaps. Samos will maintain its autonomy and Thasos remains under Egyptian sway. Italian aspirations are momentarily quenched, but they are not annihilated. The tension in Asia HOPES AND FEARS 291 regarding the Greek city of Smyrna with both Turkey and Italy is such that in it there is still another standing menace to the peaceful solution of the troubles existing in the expansion of Hellenic power. The reverse of this dreary outline, however, is to be found in the very helplessness of the Balkan powers. Like boys who have fought it out, they have a wholesome mutual respect one for the other, and their wounds, though not mortal, ache and will take long to heal. All the rest of Europe is weary of its increasing armaments. The experience which the great powers have so recently had, makes for better acquaintance among them and their peoples; for a higher degree of self-respect, and for the continuation of the general equilibrium, which, however nice in its adjustment, nevertheless exists. The problem of Turkey in Europe is largely solved. To permit any renewal of a warfare likely to disturb or destroy the existing solution would demand on the part of all other nations a still further burden of taxation and of in- tolerable extravagance for armies and fleets. The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be that this cannot and will not be permitted. The Balkan fires are likely to be banked for an age to come ; the alembics are shattered, the instruments of precision, as they were considered, are racked and untrustworthy, the ghosts evoked by the witches' cauldron of their inept politics have been relegated to the limbo of extinction. In particular the dogma that nationahty, ecclesiasticism, and consanguinity are the foundations of political effi- ciency has been discredited. XI DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE GREAT WAR 293 XI DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE GREAT WAR The war which really began on June 28, 1914, when the Hapsburg heir apparent and his morganatic wife were assassinated by a fanatical Slav at Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and which convulsed Europe and the world during four years, was in essence a Balkan war. The Balkan question was alike the occasion and the cause of the horror: quite the most sordid fight for plunder throughout eastern Eu- Former rope since the divisions of Poland in the eighteenth Standards century. It has been the negation of our Western ^'^credited civilization, so called, a cataclysm scarcely less appall- ing than the fall of Rome. The gods of reason and natural science we had worshiped, as we builded, have proven to be false gods, and hereafter, as thereafter, must not only be erected a new structure, but there must be laid new foundations in all the moral sciences regarding society, politics, and the conduct of life. Another groping age has set in. When Great Britain entered the struggle it was ostensibly in defense of Belgium. Her propaganda was masterly, and millions came to believe that she was fighting for the noblest ideals of liberty. It oc- curred to few that such language is utterly vague, and that there are those who want liberty to be some- thing else than that of free Britons; millions, who have a totally different conception of the blessed word "liberty" than to live under even a "beneficent" pro- 295 296 THE BALKANS The Ideal tectorate of any single power, whether by land or sea. Behind the There is a liberty of the state as well as of the man *'^*^ within the state. But the militant and triumphant plea of Athens against Sparta, of naval benevolence against military despotism, of man versus the state, of a despicable German imperialism supplanting a lofty Anglo-Saxon disinterestedness — this, which at first was a specious plea and was so perversely iterated and so adroitly embroidered, proved at last to be a stalwart fact. For all that, the real source of the world iniquity was so muddied and clogged in the general mind that even yet few seriously consider it. No corporation of any sort can as such possess a soul or exercise the choice which indicates virtue or vice. The totality of corporate virtue is self-interest. A corporation of corporations, what we call a trust, is even less personal, and is therefore selfish in the highest degree. Both must fulfill their purpose or dissolve; whether it be money-making, or protection against unscrupulous legislation, or control, or the The State as advancement of literature, science, and the fine arts. aCoiporation fo stand by and resign the right of way, to waive opportunity for the benefit of others, to obhterate in- terest for generosity — all these are exquisite virtues in the individual, but absurdities when we are manag- ing the material affairs of others. Within the hmits of the moral law and his own conscience an official and a director must find a corporate interest his highest concern. This is equally true of the state and its direc- tors, although as a corporation the state is unique, separate and apart from all other corporations or social organizations; for it alone is sovereign, that is, responsible for its action only to other sovereign states. To the individual component parts of the state, DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR 297 subjects or citizens, the officials are responsible; even on the divine-right theory of kings, a dogma meaning nothing more than that possession of office is nine out of ten points of the law, witness the divine order which makes me king, or president, or Caesar, or high- est officer of any kind. This plea resembles the iterated and reiterated pleas of various nations, especially when at war, that theirs is the only true civilization, that they are fighting with their backs to the wall for humanity and lofty ideals, that their self-interest is merely another name for the welfare of all mankind. This is exactly the type of patriotism which Samuel Johnson stigmatized as the last refuge of a scoundrel. The ruling statesmen and politicians of every government under the sun pro- claim this as the guiding star of their policies. In the case of many there is a sincere conviction that their claim is just, that they hold place and emolument by False the divine right of justice. They feel that they de- Patriotism serve their eminence and recite what they have done as a proof of what they will do. There are also many who are self-deceived and others who are hypocritical in their political piety. But there are many more who love power, enjoy self-importance, and consider office as an end and not a means. No sooner is there erected an organization to preserve and maintain the common weal or general good than there arises a great class determined to use this government for personal ends. With shrewdness and persistency they preach a gospel, speciously good, beautiful and true, behind which they conceal material prosperity for certain great in- terests. Such have been respectively the various "good tidings," the gospel of free trade in Great Britain and of protection in America. Each has been used to 298 THE BALKANS create the enormous fortunes in both lands which are a menace to society and thwart aHke legal and social justice. Jhese remarks are preliminary to repeating once again the assertion that the Balkan peninsula has been for over a century a bone of contention among the western powers of Europe, prating about the regenera- tion of Turkey, but eager to seize each for itself the enormous material advantage of exploiting the re- sources of those unhappy lands. That a rather ro- mantic passion throughout England and France pro- duced upon the respective governments of the West Politics and an irresistible pressure to emancipate Greece from Sentiment Turkish misrule does not controvert this fact. The movement known as philhellenism was in 1830 almost as potent politically as the evangelical revival of the later sixties, which in the sequel compelled British rulers to take action about the Balkan atrocities of 1877. Back of all political action is always to be found a dogma, some article of faith which is suffi- ciently self-evident and poignant to mold a policy and create for it the sanction of armed force. When the Congress of Vienna recreated a dynastic Europe, and the system of overweighting the safety valve on the boiler of the Revolution found compulsory acceptance among the dynasts, there was only one great power which could formulate a diplomatic policy regarding Turkey in Europe and maintain it. That was Eng- land ; her mouthpiece was Pitt and her slogan was : "Britannia rules the waves." The policy was to keep a feeble and moribund government in nominal control of the Levant, so that there could be no flank attack on the highway from London to Bombay. This, of course, was defiance to Russia, claiming as the modem DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR 299 leader of Greek Catholicism the heirship of the Byzan- tine empire, its territories, traditions, and waters. But the condition of Russia after the Napoleonic wars was one of unstable equilibrium. Her unwieldy mass could with the utmost difficulty be kept in motion by her inadequate brain power and corrupt adminis- trative system: the Polish and other ethnic questions, the unquenched temper of revolutionary Hberalism among the small intellectual minority, and, above all, her harassing economic questions, absorbed all her feeble energies in the field of internal politics. France British was sufficiently occupied in regaining her position as Policy in the a great power in the west, and while there was a Near East rising Prussia there was still no Germany, as there was likewise no Italy. Spain was absorbed in the wretched wrangles of factional efforts for the supre- macy of the most contemptible dynasty so far known in European history. The entire diplomatic interest of western Europe in the Balkan peninsula must, there- fore, hinge on the policies of Great Britain for the fifty years from 1830 onward. While Russia con- sidered Turkey the sick man whose heritage was ripe for transmission, the demise had not occurred, and it was believed that restorative measures would post- pone the end until no one or even two of the Great Powers could expand and disturb the European bal- ance of power or menace the thoroughfare of Anglo- Indian commerce. But it was one thing for statesmen to plan and quite another to secure the backing of the English people. The great evangelical movement was already in full swing, particularly the zeal for foreign mis- sions was at its height. There were missionaries at different points in the Balkans, and the abominations 300 THE BALKANS Basis of Misrule of Oriental tyranny seem to have been described fully and graphically in their letters. In a sense the question of agricultural labor was the basis of mis- rule. There were comparatively few Turks in the Balkan peninsula and the Slavic Mussulmans of high Land and degree, the great landed proprietors, were ruthless in Religion the their dealings with the Christian laborers of their own blood. Between the Mussulman Slav and the Mussulman Turk there is a striking contrast. The Turkish gentleman and the Turkish peasant are, when not aroused to passion, pleasant, kindly souls, as all who have been in contact with them are aware. When they are aroused their primitive brutality comes to the surface in appalling exhibitions of atrocious reckless- ness. But the friction between Slavic Moslem and Slavic Christian is never ending, and the former has been a grim, watchful, untiring oppressor, successfully quenching in the oppressed, through generation after generation, a very large measure of what we fondly believe to be Christian virtue, in particular truthful- ness and honesty. With only the example of his superiors before him, the Christian peasant of the guerilla bands can also be atrocious to an awful extent. As early as the first fifties there were questionings in Great Britain about the horrors of life in the Turkish empire. The Crimean war was a warning against inquisitiveness. English intelligence was fully aware that Russia's ostensible plea for the right to protect Greek Christians in Turkey, as France did those of the Roman rite, was a mere pretext. The war was a phase of the struggle to prevent Russia from fore- closing the mortgage and seizing the heritage of Turkey. The role played by Great Britain in the struggle was barely respectable, and the peace ne- DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR 301 gotiated at its close made inactivity imperative for a "Ameliora- time. Yet a sop must be throw^n to Cerberus, and it *»o°" * was found in the promise of Lord Stratford de ^°"'"' ^'*'' Redcliffe, shrewdest and keenest of ambassadors, that under his predominant influence at Constantinople, the treatment of all Christians would be ameliorated, as the price for the protection of the Porte against the wolfish greed of Russia or of France. For twenty years there prevailed behind this screen of "ameliora- tion" the same unspeakable conditions as before. It was not until 1877 that the affairs of western Europe permitted British statesmen to consider Turkey's con- tempt for her promises, which, indeed, were made not to be kept as such, and had been impossible of fulfillment when made, or thereafter. The summons to action came in the wholesale massacres of Bul- garians, the notorious "atrocities" which clarified the opinion of the British people. There could be no further dalliance with Oriental deception and cruelty. Accordingly, the British government saw a great light: permissively, under its pressure, there was formed in the Balkans an embryo of Bulgarian nation- ality and in England the embryo of a new policy. The evolution of this doctrine required a period of no less than twenty years. For the first time it was an- nounced in 1896 as controlling British policy. The various Balkan peoples, including the resurrected Bul- garia, were declared with a statesman's hyperbole to be exhibiting powers of self-government which en- couraged Lord Salisbury to accept the views formu- lated much earlier under Gladstone's influence. They were contained in the formula — "The Balkans for the .. . Balkan peoples." By this time Great Britain had Protectorate secured a firm hold on Egypt in the purchase of of Turkey 302 THE BALKANS Ismail's great block of Suez Canal shares, and by the suppression of the Araby rebelUon. France, too, had renounced her share of the Nile "condominium." A feeble power in control of the Levant was no longer considered indispensable to the control of India: by way of Gibraltar, Malta, and the Suez Canal, the highway for commercial and military intercourse was safely open and, with ample sea-power, easily de- fensible. In consequence Great Britain could and did renounce absolutely the protectorate of any part or all of the Turkish empire. The new Balkan States were encouraged to solidify and integrate themselves. Controlling the great land highway between the west and the hither east, they might thwart — in what seemed an inevitable federation — all efforts of either Austria-Hungary or Russia to partition and annex Turkish territories. Had not a "stable" public charter for all Europe been written in the terms of the treaty of Berlin? That charter virtually confirmed Great Britain in the possession of Cyprus and Egypt, and secured the dual monarchy in its hold on Bosnia- Herzegovina, essential to its Balkan frontier. From such information as I could gather just before the war and such observations as I could make at that time the prospects of Russia seemed to herself far better than they outwardly appeared to others. In religion she was close kin to all the South Slavs; the style and workings of her tortuous and ruthless diplomacy were entirely familiar and not wholly dis- tasteful to the peoples affected. To them hfe was still more than money, food, or raiment, and they loved the game. To her influence and activity the brutal murders of Alexander and Draga in Belgrade were attributed on evidence, but little short of conclusive, DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR 303 and the restored Karageorgevitch dynasty proved her Russian servile tool. The agonies of Servian ruptures and Influence dismemberment have been due to their subserviency D'sastrous to Russia. The fanning into a blaze, by King Peter, of the smoldering Great Servia movement unques- tionably applied the fire to the fuse which sent Francis Ferdinand to his last account, and kindled the muffled and stifled animosities of Europe into the flame of devastating war. While the origin of the short-lived Balkan Federation is still, as we have elsewhere re- marked, somewhat uncertain, yet the fact itself was a Russian success, in so far as thereby Turkey was weakened and its hold on Constantinople relaxed. Should it prove to be the case that there was any con- nection between the simultaneous mobilization of the Russian army and the Austro-Hungarian humiliation in the assassination of her heir apparent, Petrograd will have to bear its share of guilt in the transition from diplomatic to military conflict. It is charged, but not proven, that there was a per- sonal understanding between William II and Francis Ferdinand as to their respective shares in the advance of the Hapsburgs down the Danube, that advance which Bismarck, in his Frankfort days, had already pointed out as inevitable, just as soon as Prussia had constructed a Germany of which Austria would not be a part. The German empire was to be the force behind the Hapsburgs and would incorporate German Austria; while the two sons of the archduke by his morganatic wife, considered to be of royal blood in the customary law of Hungary, though not in that of Austria, would eventually be, the one king of a greater Eohen- Poland, the other his father's successor as king of zollernand Hungary and the Slavic Hapsburg lands, increased Hapsburg 304 THE BALKANS Gennany and the Orient by Servia and Montenegro, as well as Bosnia and the Herzegovina! This widespread rumor shrewdly em- bodies several truths : the ambitions of a clever woman not born to the purple, the fact that whoever was the spouse of Hungary's king would by its laws be the queen, the value of a great bulwark behind Istria and Dalmatia as a basis for further expansion, the con- siderable movement of three years earlier toward a Triple Austro-Hungarian-Slavic crown for the Haps- burg dynasty, and numerous other, though petty con- siderations of misleading mendacity. What it utterly fails to embody is the determinative consideration that the balance in the German empire between Catholic and Protestant factions would by such a plan be ex- actly reversed, a thing intolerable to Hohenzollern thought. So far as Germany thinks in terms of world politics the central concept is that which was long since elucidated in magisterial style by Hegel; that throughout history the life of the world had been created and fostered by the reciprocity of Orient and Occident in every form of intercourse — religious, philosophical, and commercial. Immediate touch with the Orient Germany never had, but her statesmen and thinkers have always hoped to secure it. Nowhere has the cult of intimacy with the Orient in every form of study and research been more ardently pursued. In particular the origin, nature, and destiny of Islam have been subjects of investigation for more than a century. Most Germans can learn much of any lan- guage, though few, very few, succeed in making even a modern tongue their own. They are indefatigable and persistent in the use of what they acquire, and attain a complacency in the misuse of foreign tongues DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR 305 which underlies the monumental blunders in form, and too often in meaning, which they make in translations or original use. The case is the same with Turkish and Arabic as with French and English, and many misconceptions have thus arisen in their Oriental deal- ings. But nevertheless there are more Germans with a considerable outfit of foreign languages than there are Englishmen or French. What they have is quite sufficient for merchandising and in the Hither East their agents had in 1914 almost supplanted those of the westernmost nation of Europe. When, therefore, England resigned the protectorate of Turkey there were patriotic German agents either of the empire or of Austria strewn abundantly over all of what had once been Turkey, either in Europe or in Asia. Even the ubiquitous Yiddish-speaking Jew proved a valuable interpreter for strangers and trav- elers ; for Yiddish is German patois written in Hebrew letters and commingled with some Hebrew words. Moreover, the German adventurer seems to have a Nature of quality of dangerous assimilation when he settles and German enters into concubinage or marriage with the native ^™'**™* woman. Less than six years ago there was a bitter controversy in Berlin as to whether the children of Germans born of native mothers in German colonies were German subjects in any sense. Reading the pros and cons, it seems as if the German settler made little effort to elevate his environment, and was smugly content to sink into the slothful ease of a southern climate and a barbaric people. To be sure, Great Britain has likewise had the terrible Eurasian question on its hands, but the Eurasian, though inferior to the pure Caucasian, is a better human product than the Eurafrican, or the Euramarkan of South America. 3o6 THE BALKANS Now, the Balkans and Asia Minor offer no such problem because, outside of a minority Turkish stock, the bulk of the natives are Caucasians; Slavs in Eu- rope, Shemitic Arabs by origin in Asia. Interest, occasion, and readiness all pointed the way for the penetration of Germanism into the Balkans and Asia Minor. Turkey in its last gasp could find no other protector for its integrity. There were reciprocal advantages of the highest importance in the under- standing reached between the Hohenzollern and Otto- man empires. XII THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 307 XII THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST Of all existing states the British empire has the largest number of Mohammedan subjects, with the French Colonial empire not so very far behind. The protectorate of Turkey carried with it, in a sense, the protectorate of Islam and of its head the Moslem Caliph, which the Padishah, or Sultan, of Turkey claims to be. Should the Christian protector of Tur- key secure even measurably the control of Moslem policy, it would menace the ascendancy of British and French control over their millions of Mussulman sub- jects. In theory that is. We think of Islam as a homogeneous system. Quite the contrary is the case. The subtle Oriental mind is essentially sectarian, and since the death of the prophet his followers have been rent and torn by schism; not merely the great schism Discussion! of Shiites and Sunnites, but many minor ones, ten in Islam at least, of almost equal importance. Peoples in the tribal stage unite easily for an onslaught, but they dissolve quite as easily after either defeat or victory, particularly in their internecine quarrels over the division of spoils. The fact that only a single Moham- medan state of importance preserves even a semblance of sovereignty is a sufficient commentary on the politi- cal capacity of Moslems. They are incapable of per- manent and efficient organization. Bigoted and fanati- cal, they can be roused to a mad frenzy by their reli- gious guides, but the fury quickly passes. Even a 309 3IO THE BALKANS Germaa Aspirations Checked Mahdi in the heart of Africa controls his savage hordes of black fellows but for a brief interval. The menace to British and French control of Moslem sub- jects consists, therefore, in the ability to create and perpetuate rebellious unrest; such a state of mind dis- integrates authority. The steady, stealthy penetration of Asia Minor by German agents, the famous journey of the emperor, the accumulation of diplomatic influence at the Porte were processes long antedating 1908. There were many concessions, major and minor, to German pro- moters, there seemed a personal understanding be- tween Abdul Hamid and William 11 : German interests in Turkey, as elsewhere in the backward portions of the globe, seemed to thrive apace under foreign con- trol. It would have been supposed that such an up- heaval as the Turkish revolution of 1908, the counter- revolution and its suppression, the formation of the temporary Balkan league, and the two succeeding Bal- kan wars would have been not only a calamity for, but a crushing disaster to, German aspirations in the hither East. Ingenious writers had discovered a close affinity between official German Protestantism and official Turkish Mohammedanism. Both were analyzed into a militant deism ; both were proven to be vastly more con- cerned for the state than the man. The wily Abdul Hamid and the wily William II could, therefore, on that common platform pool their interests, while the Greek Christian natives of the remaining Turkish terri- tories in Europe could pay the price. But with a wave of the wand, Turkey in Europe almost ceased to exist, Abdul Hamid was an outcast, and the Balkan States were taking their own fate into their own hands. Was this about-face spontaneous, or was it the work of THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 311 Western diplomacy, determined to checkmate German moves on the board? Some day, a distant one probably, we shall know the truth. For the present we must reason from what we do know to what we do not know. From the earliest days of Islam religious mysticism and fanaticism have been in bitter conflict with agnostic latitudinarianism. The former has tended to asceticism, the latter to voluptuous self-indulgence. The Young Turk party was really the product of the latter, though among its most influential members were scores of cold, calcu- lating, and ruthless men, infected by conceptions of the state imbibed in Paris from the free-thinking French statesmen at the head of French affairs since the organization of the present republic. These men, styled Young Turks in the jargon of the hour, had Dreams of conceived of a renovated Turkey, with a government ^® ^'""'S based on military power like that at Paris, with sub- jects of all confessions politically homogeneous and loyal, and an imperial control over the still widely scattered but immense Turkish domains. There was to be a really powerful, close-knit, political and mili- tary organization, enforcing a definite policy with the same sanctions as those of the West : patriotism, self- interest, and force. Turkish lands were no longer to be eaten like an artichoke, leaf by leaf, either in the formation of minor autonomous states or by annexa- tion to existing ones. History knows no more strik- ing instance of visionary delusion. Almost their first move was a stupendous blunder, the holding of a selamlik by the new Sultan on the confines of Albania and Macedonia, whereby the large Christian minority of that particular district was moved to sullen fury. The Syrians of the Lebanon, the Arabs of Yemen, 312 THE BALKANS the Armenians around Ararat, the Albanians and Macedonians, and in particular the Greeks of Con- stantinople; Smyrna and the Levant, all were instantly in a mood of defiant expectancy; nor were they de- ceived. Between the would-be rulers and the about- to-be-ruled every insult was bandied until rancorous talk led to atrocious behavior. Young Turks decided that military force, ruthlessly applied, seconded by local fanaticism, could create a Turkish nationality and strengthen Islam. In such a chaos Western diplomacy proved absurdly futile. There followed the Balkan wars, and mas- sacres in Armenia of unprecedented extent. The cumulation of horror upon horror stirred but mildly the public opinion of Christendom, because the powers of Christendom were absorbed in the question of which was to profit most when anarchjr had done its worst. There was a total eclipse of that flaming Chris- tian virtue, so active in the nineteenllh century, when now helpless and harmless noncombatants were trampled under foot by shameless bandits, under whatever name. The curse of our day is its unprin- Bane of cipled political alliances, which are exactly as harmful Political in politics as the corporations of corporations, known Alliance ^g trusts, are in national or personal economics. In- deed, they are more so, because while each contains in itself the seeds of dissolution, yet during their ac- tivities they have no superior sovereignty as corpora- tions have. Were there a lively public opinion in support of righteousness, there would be some check, but protestors are few and feeble when national glory is involved. Ours is a day of lavish philanthropy, of generous sentiment, but of scanty and weak convic- tion, whether in the assertion of principle or in self- THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 313 sacrifice, or in battle for the weak. The strong fight in our Western world; in the Eastern strength and passion crush the feeble. Hence, as it seems, since 1908 the process of securing Turkish homogeneity by murder has been unchecked. Diplomacy talks, but Turkish patriots know there will be no vigorous action. It was Russia which first entered on the scene of Turkish devastation, as we have said, and for some time many felt that, as usual, she had been at the bottom of Turkish upheavals in order to unseat the Teutonic influence which was dominant on both sides of the Bosporus. It was pointed out that the dynastic intrigue had begun in little Montenegro, that Servia would naturally be the preferential heir as a virtual Russian protectorate, and that Teutonic ambitions were totally thwarted. At the close of the second Balkan War there was in all this considerable veri- similitude. The treaty of Bucharest was beyond per- Russian adventure a diplomatic victory for the Entente powers. Conspiracies Rumania, posing in peace time as the intellectual vassal of France, and successfully affirming itself as an armed arbitrator at the close of the fighting, might well be a firm reliance against the renewal of German machinations for supremacy in the Balkans. To the world at large this appeared a certainty. But this was thinking of eastern politics in western terms. Western diplomacy is tortuous, chiefly because of human frailty in those who conduct it; eastern diplo- macy uses the same language, has the same instability of personal ambitions, and in addition what can only be emphasized by perpetual iteration, the alertness as to how the antipodal interests of western and central Europe are to be maintained or weakened by force of arms. There is really no wavering on matters of 314 THE BALKANS principle at Athens, Sophia, Belgrade or Bucharest: they vacillated as to which contestant for supremacy was rising or falling in the balance of events. To-day Rumania veers toward the Western Allies, to-morrow toward the central, simply because, after the Balkan manner, she desires to be found with the victors — and the same is true in all the Balkan states. How fallible their judgment is appears in every crisis. Servia was the victim of her choice. She had agreed with Bulgaria as to the division of spoils, but the claims of Greece were antagonistic. The two Bulgarian closest allies fell out because of Bulgaria's greed. Greed There was a determination on her part to seize a terri- tory which would give Bulgaria the hegemony in the peninsula and leave Servia no access to the Adri- atic. It was momentarily her undoing. Her neighbors turned savagely upon her. She lost most of her gains, and her sullen temper gave German diplomacy its chance. The British Cabinet was not well informed, and cherished the illusion that what they considered self-interest would control Bulgaria, lead her to forget the humiliation, made doubly galling because due to her own rashness; and that by promises of repairing losses, by a terrific drive against the German lines in the west, and by pressure from the side of Greece, the key state, as Bulgaria is, could be brought to re- integrate the Balkan federation. The Allied drive of August, 1915, on the western front failed for lack of reserves; the Teutonic armies were not to strike down Russian prestige through the punishment of Servia; and the treatment of Greece at the hands of Great Britain, unexplained and inexplicable, probably spread distrust of the Allies throughout all classes of Bulgarians. She would neither join the Entente, THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 315 remain neutral, nor make advances to renew the federation. The barrier athwart German ambition to secure the highway to Constantinople and across Asia Minor to the Persian gulf was temporarily re- moved. The dynasties of Rumania, Sophia, and Athens were all German — Hohenzollern, Coburg, and Danish-HohenzoUern. While dynastic politics have ceased to be determinative they still play an important role. Justice never has been done to King Constantine of Greece, whose consort was the masterful sister of Wilham II, a circumstance which rendered him sus- pect to the British. To understand his attitude it must be recalled that classical Greece was an island empire and that Venizelos is a Cretan. The Greece of the "Great Idea" is, however, Byzantium, and King Con- stantine was a trained soldier, with a thorough compre- hension of army movements by land, and more inter- ested in troops than in fleets. From the nature of her Antipodal coasts and her island possessions Greece is vastly Interests in more vulnerable by sea than by land, and her largest economic interests are commercial and mercantile. Her trade in the Levant, her chief source of income, is, of course, dependent on her shipping. It appears to many, if not a majority, of her people that her natural aUiance is with Great Britain, still ruler of the seas. The king apparently desired earnestly to be king of all his people, but there are the two widely divergent interests of the traders and the military expansionists who were determined to retain southern Epirus and Salonica. Such a duplex country differs only in degree from every country that is really alive because everywhere divergent policies take form and hold. But while the Greeks of the town are thor- Greece 3i6 THE BALKANS oughly civilized, those of the fields and mountains have not as yet risen far above the level of other peasants in the Balkan peninsula. Clanship still holds sway and the corresponding feuds with their ruthless bar- barity make central control excessively difficult, if not impossible. That the king temporarily repressed the powerful Venizelos was a proof of unexpected strength in the crown and its wearer. Moreover, the London correspondent of the leading Paris newspaper assev- erated, without refutation or contradiction, that twice Greece offered to cooperate with Great Britain against the Turks, once at the opening of the Dardanelles fiasco, and again, when Bulgaria seemed to English diplomacy in a state of hesitancy, that Constantine proposed to dispatch troops across Bulgarian territory directly against the Chatalja lines. Whatever may be the final judgment of history as to the mongrel British Cabinet intrusted with her destinies in the most critical moment of her long his- tory, on these two occasions it suffered from hallucina- tions, and felt assured that Bulgaria either voluntarily or in fear of an expedition against Salonica would either remain neutral or declare for the western powers. There is high authority for believing that, for a modest subsidy in cash, five million dollars, and the desired territorial expansion, Bulgaria could have Diplomatic been won, and that a qualified agent was sent to Lon- Conflict over (Jqjj ^^^ Paris to negotiate. Why the offer was re- gana fused is not clear. Probably Germany, well informed and closer at hand, gave more money and stronger assurances for future expansion. Of all French statesmen quite the most irreconcilable has been M. Delcasse. It is a striking coincidence that he was discredited and retired from office shortly after the THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 317 date which journalists have assigned for this negotia- tion. When we contemplate the successive fiascos — Antwerp, the Dardanelles, Salonica, East Africa— we are disposed to the severest censure of those who planned them; but on the susceptibilities of allies no one can reckon. Each may hereafter be excused when their respective jealousies shall have been revealed as at the moment strong enough to thwart the best laid schemes. What no one doubts is that German pre- science, morbidly quickened, generally foresaw and somehow or another for a long time thwarted the plans of British, French, and Russian diplomacy. What Rumania acquired without battle in the treaty of Bucharest, to wit: Silistria, with a firmer hold on the Dobrudja, could not become a permanent possession, should Bulgaria recover her vigor. They would have to be disgorged, and if compensation were demanded, it could only be, as has since been arranged at Paris, by a reoccupation of Bessarabia at Russia's expense. Perhaps diplomacy backed by force has settled the seething cauldron by its alchemistic power : if so, we must reiterate what we have reiterated — it had to be a Balkan diplomacy, and whichever of the antagonistic alliances could during the war oflFer most was sure to win. There was no question of principle at stake, not even a question of nationality. Careful FaUure of study of an ethnographic map to-day will confirm what ^estern always was true and continues true: that so-called *P'"''"*y national groups — in other words, clans and race- stocks — are so strewn around throughout the Balkans, are in such separated localities or overlap in such con- fusion, that the old talk about territorial divisions corresponding accurately to nationalities became not only futile but ridiculous and absurd. It was in the 3i8 THE BALKANS event a question of carving the fowl for partition no matter whether the meat be dark or white, whether it be the hver, wing, or the side-bone. Had the French and British Cabinets met the Bulgarian demands, the ghastly horror of Montenegrin and Servian devasta- tion might have been averted : had they firmly grasped the hand which Constantine held out, Greece might have been true to the letter of her treaty with Servia and the so-called "nationality" of Albania might have played a role in the settlement. The darkly mysterious relations of Italy and Germany might have been suffi- ciently illuminated to make possible the formation of a valuable public opinion. The Control Some things we do know. The struggle between of Adriatic Austria-Hungary and Italy was just as sordid as the rest of the various struggles; it was a wrestling for the material control of the Adriatic. Austria consid- ered Trieste, and Hungary-Croatia regarded Fiume as their maritime jewels, their respective harbor cities, the gateways for their commerce to the high seas. Situated but a few miles apart in physical dis- tance, they are zenith and nadir in feeling. The ver- nacular of the former is mainly Italian, of the latter mainly Croatian. Some German is correlated to the Italian in Trieste, some Hungarian to the Italian and Slavic Croatian in Fiume. While there are many excellent harbors on the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts, immediately behind both is the tremendous wall of the Dinaric Alps, which so far are flanked by short railways to the interior and not pierced. The long line from Ragusa to Sarajevo in Bosnia is a piece of superb mountain engineering, but it is narrow gauge and single track. For Austria, therefore, her control from the border of Venetia all around the northern and THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 319 eastern shores to the Montenegrin frontier was a matter of hfe and death. This eastern shore Une was Roman and Venetian: its historic monuments are among the lovehest and the grandest in the world : in the towns are many Itahan-speaking people, but the overwhelming bulk of the population is Slav. It be- longed administratively not to Hungary but to Cis- Lithia or Austria. Further south the mountain masses approach the shore more closely; Montenegro had a few miles of coast with the neglected and almost worthless harbors of Antivari and Dulcigno; then came the shore line of what were once the Turkish provinces of Monastir and Janina (now Albania), less than two hundred miles long. If there is to be an Albania, it will have several harbors, notably those of Durazzo and Avlona. A feeble state at best, the Dual Monarchy aimed to be its protector, while Italy, at least the Italian Irredentists, aimed and still aim at nothing less than incorporating the whole foreshore of Istria and Dalmatia into the kingdom of Italy and at the exercise of a strong protectorate over both Montenegro and Albania. XIII ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS AND IDEALS 321 XIII ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS AND IDEALS We have explained in previous chapters what must here be recalled. The Italian or western shore of the Adriatic is in the main flat and sandy, with two good and three tolerable harbors, all artificial; the eastern shore is rocky and guarded by scores of islands, with many natural harbors which can be improved at slight expense. The land-locked gulf of Cattaro is com- parable for size, safety, and commodity to the bay of New York. It is, moreover, unsurpassed for natural grandeur and beauty. The one salient fact about the eastern shore from a political point of view is that ten million Slavs dwell either on or immediately be- hind it. The Slovenes of the Trieste districts were seemingly loyal to Austria, and bitterly hostile to the Italians among whom they live. By sheer force of natural generation they have been crowding their enemies out. Of the Croats and Servians, close kin, but differing in religious confession; and about the dream of a Great Servia controlling the eastern side of the Adriatic ; also of the reactions thereby initiated, complots which led to the assassination of Francis Ferdinand, enough has been said. At this distance it seems as if the Dual Monarchy could have averted The Jugo- disaster by creating (as a protectorate) a state similar Slav to that of which Servia dreamed, comprising at least Q'lcstion Bosnia and Herzegovina, possibly, southern Dalmatia. But observant travelers know well the difficulties of 323 324 THE BALKANS such a plan; the backward populations, turbulent, jealous, visionary, have displayed no capacity for self- government in any degree, not even those of Servia itself. With the entrance of Italy into the war the Austrian-Slav soldiers could be counted on to fight gallantly, as they did, against Italian pretensions and Italian aggressions. Their zeal was heightened when Italy Hostility seized Avlona, only forty miles across from Brindisi. It was this fact, their southern advance, which jeopar- dized the whole Italian policy, while German-Hun- garian armies were released to fight Russia. Not unnaturally the Hapsburg monarchy was elated by the very thought of extending its Adriatic boundary as far as Greece, of dividing Servia with Bulgaria and reaching out for Salonica in the Mgea.n. This would have completed her Balkan control. Such an intoxicating concept was, of course, visionary; but central to a peace with even a few durable elements in it is the settlement of the Balkan question. Italy has increased the difficulties a thousand fold. Moreover, she had created a mortal enemy in a Greece which, as regards hostility to her, is united and bitter. Rhodes with the twelve isles, the Dode- kanesus, desires incorporation in Greece; so too do the people of southern Epirus. It was partly because of Italy having thwarted both aspirations after her peace with Turkey, the terms of which she has never fulfilled, that Greece withheld support from Servia and that her king could check his minister, Venizelos, successful as he had so far been in rallying the nation to the support of the western allies. The entente nations must retain Avlona and Salonica as a basis for future land operations or lose all in the eastern theater of war. Moreover, where is consistency? If ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS 325 France and Belgium have a right to liberty and self- Thejugo- determination, so have the South Slavs; and Italy l'^^^*"** gains nothing, indeed, loses her standing as a power, Govenunent if she endeavors to assert one political morality for herself and her associates, while making force synony- mous with right in regard to her foes. It is tall talk to say, as is iterated and reiterated, that permanent peace can be secured in the nearer East by the inde- pendence of the various Balkan peoples, and by that alone : so far the rivalries of those peoples have effec- tually prevented any delimitation of states on reason- able lines, while the internal anarchy, which marks their affairs, is an invitation to intervention which the greedy powers of the Concert, including Italy, have not had the self-control to decline. We Americans understand this well because of the clamor for inter- vention to the south of our frontier which arises when- ever anarchy approaches our border. Mexico is not a whit more wild than southeastern Europe; nor are the wily rulers of the former any more adroit than the politicians of the latter. The public men of the Balkans have a simple prin- ciple when forming alliances : to strengthen the strong, assist the victor, be present at the climax, and take their reward. The folly of the Antwerp expedition was an almost exact parallel to the ill-fated Walcheren expedition of a hundred years earlier; it would seem strange if British statesmen no longer study their own history. The glittering absurdity of the Dardanelles naval adventure in March, 1915, even with the supple- mentary enterprise of landing an expeditionary army in June, were facts not lost in Bulgarian conscious- ness : determination seems to have been reached on the failure of the attempted "drive" against the Ger- 326 THE BALKANS Germany Secures Bulgarian Aid mans in the west, but a short time later. Had Con- stantinople been captured in April when the Russians were in the Carpathians, German diplomacy would probably have failed; for all the Balkan states were nicely poised ready to jump with the cat in either direction. The Straits would have been opened for the import in abundance of the munitions and supplies so sorely needed in the Carpathians by Russia. A defeat of the Turks on the Bosporus would have set free for use elsewhere all her troops in the Caucasus. The Central Allies were and had been dilatory. The Goeben and Breslau, German warships of great size and efficiency, had entered the Black Sea, but the Straits were not fortified ; and had all the details been accurately studied, the British and French gallantry would not have ended in hecatombs of butchered sol- diery. As matters actually were, Turkey, though holding the ground, was panting and exhausted. Ger- many saw that relief must reach her or plans for east- ward advance be indefinitely postponed. She seemed to have chosen the opportune moment to raise her bid with one hand, while menacing with the other the vacillating Ferdinand of Bulgaria; her diplomacy backed by threats momentarily won the day. The land route through Europe to the Indies seems in these days of applied science even more available than the sea route, so far controlled by Great Britain. It runs through Servian and Bulgarian lands. What Bulgaria felt she must do to "strengthen the strong" seemed plain. She could not remain neutral, for she was not powerful enough, hence her attack on Servia ; for the same reason Greece's refusal to come to Servia's aid. The terms of the Western Allies seemed definite. They would demand at once, as a minimum ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS 327 from Greece, a modified neutrality yielding the right to occupy Salonica and use it as a base ; and eventually territorial concessions. They would also demand as trading capital Macedonia; the whole of it and noth- ing less, since the failure of Bulgaria before Con- The Land stantinople left the question still open. Macedonia Route and and the Macedonian idea dominate the councils of Sophia, chosen as a capital because it would be cen- trally located after the hoped for incorporation of Macedonia in the kingdom. Should the Western Allies come to terms with Bulgaria on the basis of this greater Bulgaria, wielding an unquestioned hegemony in the Balkans, they would temporarily at least have a protectorate over the land route eastward because an aggrandized Bulgaria could not maintain itself without powerful moral and material support. Reach- ing from the Black Sea to the MgQ&n, its frontiers alike by land and sea would be very vulnerable. These swollen ambitions of Bulgaria correspond in extent and quality to those of Greece, Servia, and Italy. But in the Balkan peninsula there is not room for the Greater Greece, the Greater Servia and the Greater Bulgaria. What can the last of the three, Bulgaria, learn from experience? Her rulers must recall their recent bargains. In the process of turning the treaty of Berlin into a scrap of paper, binding on nobody, despised by everybody, Bulgarian statesmen secured a recognition of inde- pendence when the Dual Monarchy turned occupation The into possession by the annexation of Bosnia-Herze- Elimination govina. Thereupon "Czar" Ferdinand of Bulgaria *** Servia paid a long visit to Vienna. The "Ball-Platz" foreign office, unable to wrest Servia from the enchantments of Russia, was planning her elimination from the 328 THE BALKANS Turkey Holds the Portal of Asia problem. Bulgaria had conquered Servia in 1885, and had been angered by her in 1913. With this sequence of events in mind it is easy to see that in the Hapsburg policy Bulgaria was substituted for Servia. Some sort of a diplomatic understanding is claimed to have been reached as early as June, 19 13, between the major and the minor powers. This was defiance to Russian aspirations. Students will recall the mediaeval changes of alliance which took place several centuries earlier. Bulgaria seemed thus to have secured her interest on the west, in spite of her humiliation in war; without a shadow of rancor she turned to the bruised and humbled Turkey on the east. The treaty of Bucharest virtually assigned Macedonia to Servia, while Salonica and Cavalla, the great har- bors of the Mediterranean, went to Greece, thus over- setting the balance of power and leaving Macedonia in her age-long pitiful plight as the apple of discord. Though Turkey was relegated to the portal of Asia, she still had the portal, the Thracian end of the through railway line and the ferry to Asia Minor. From Tur- key Bulgaria sought and obtained an advantageous rectification of frontier in the Maritza Valley, together with control of the Dedeagatch strip of railway. Ap- parently she considered this the price of an armed neutrality, for she was to mobilize her army on Sep- tember 22, 191 5, simultaneously with the ratification of the agreements; that for the cession of territory a day earlier, on September 21. The Turkish delegates raised some slight objections and Bulgaria seemed loath to conclude the bargain. The sequence of events was as follows : on the twenty-second the mobilization order was issued and that night the arrangement for the changed boundary was signed; while the railway ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS 329 was to be transferred at once, the ceded territory was to be handed over six days later, on the twenty-seventh, when Bulgarian mobilization would be complete. These were five anxious days in Europe. Out- wardly Bulgaria had long coquetted with both belliger- ents; and secretly, even when bound by treaty obli- gation, she still appeared as irresolute as ever. The Western Allies were tricked, for they held Servia in the leash and forbade her to attack Bulgaria. Her army was at the height of its efficiency, and hand-to- hand with her neighbor there could have been no sparing of the armed neutral. The creature of Russia, badgered into servility, Servia was reserved to be the Tragic Fate victim of the military onset in preparation by the Cen- of Servia tral Powers; and, whatever the final outcome, her fate has been more tragic than even she with her blood-stained and faithless rulers deserved. Con- structively at least the assassin of his rival predecessor. King Peter in his sere old age paid an awful penalty for subserviency to Russian ambitions. A fugitive exile, an unwelcome guest in every refuge, he was a victim of retributive justice, which to an emotional world appeared cruel and brutal. The official rupture between the Western Allies and Bulgaria did not take place until October 5, so masterly was the diplomacy of Germany; and when it did take place, the army to crush Servian resistance and open the iron road across the Balkans for the central power was ready for its ruthless work. On October 7 a German-Austrian force estimated at three hundred thousand crossed the Servian frontier and crushed all resistance. Greece and Rumania looked on and maintained a nominal armed neutrality. Their reasons have been previously outlined. 330 THE BALKANS Unstable Equilibrium in Greek Politics Under the pressure of King Constantine's influence Venizelos and his Cabinet fell on October 7. The Cretan statesman had secured in the general elections of the previous June a majority of fifty-six in an assembly of three hundred and sixteen numbers. It was his conviction that Greece was bound by treaty obligations to aid Servia if invaded. He had mobilized the Greek army on September 23, and the Western Allies promised to land one hundred and fifty thou- sand men at Salonica. But, ere this latter force ar- rived, there was a revulsion of feeling in Greece and public opinion forced a formal protest against the violation of Greek neutrality. Nevertheless, the landing was successfully effected, and so inscrutable was the popular attitude that the chamber gave the premier a majority of forty in a vote of confidence. For all that the king persisted, and a new Cabinet was formed under Zaimis, with a conditional promise of support from Venizelos. Thereupon Great Britain offered Cyprus, as the price of Greek intervention on her behalf, and when this was refused Venizelos and his followers abandoned the government. The Cabinet fell and was replaced by one which managed to main- tain the status of partial neutrality under the king's guidance. This position of unstable equilibrium did not, however, prevent the strengthening of Greek rule in the districts of Epirus adjacent to its nominal frontier. It must be emphasized that a kingdom of Albania with a national population and fixed boun- daries has never existed except on paper and in the minds of diplomats. The delimitations fixed by the international commission were distasteful to every neighbor, Montenegro, Servia, and Greece. Each maintained its frontier agitations, but Greece was the ITALIAN ASPIRATIONS 331 most active of all three. The Albanian situation, there- fore, soon became worse than ever. Prince William of Wied was selected as prince or Mpret (king) by the powers in 1913. He arrived with his family at Durazzo, designated as the capital city, on March 7, 1914. The country was, as ever, in its normal state of anarchy, and a portion was in avowed rebellion. The Commission of Control was able to subdue a few unimportant uprisings, but the insurgents demanded the new king's abdication, and in a succes- sion of outbursts each clash of arms was worse than the previous one. Finally, Prince William appealed for aid to the European Concert, but all its members The Fiasco were fully occupied with the approaching conflict, and o* Royalty in no help was forthcoming. The so-called "state" re- Albania turned to its condition of utter confusion, and on Sep- tember 3, 19 14, Prince William abandoned his task. At once there assembled a conference of clan chief- tains, styling itself a senate, and late in September it named for the vacant throne Burhan-Eddin, a son of Abdul Hamid's. Antecedent to the assertion of control by the powers, a provisional government had bc^n in precarious existence under Essed Pasha, the first selection (by Prince William) for minister of war and of the interior. He however, after acting for two months, preferred to revolt, and was deported. To him Burhan-Eddin was most uncongenial; un- thinkable as a superior and a ruler. Collecting, there- fore, several thousand volunteer troops, he entered Durazzo and had himself named president of the Pro- visional Government. The utterly heterogeneous ele- ments were again divided and there was further revolt with guerilla warfare. Albania under the Turkish yoke, or under the pro- 332 THE BALKANS tectorate of the powers, or nominally free, is just the same Albania, wild, intractable, impulsive, with the charm of primitive barbarism, but an absurdity as a nation in our sense of the word. When Asquith visited Rome in early April, 191 6, he saw both king and pope. What was discussed is a matter of conjec- ture. In immediate sequence, however, General Zup- peli, the Italian minister of war, was dismissed. The failure of Italy to give substantial assistance to the Western Allies in the Balkan campaign was by the public prints assigned as the cause, probably with truth. The thorniest path into the Balkan interior, if path it may be called, is the rude trail over mountains, through gorges, amid thickets, and across raging torrents, which is styled the road through Albania. It is not very strange that the Italian Cabinet spared its soldiery. XIV THE PROBLEMS OF ITALIAN STATESMEN 333 XIV THE PROBLEMS OF ITALIAN STATESMEN On the tenth of August, 1914, the Goeben and Breslau had entered the Dardanelles by the favor and intrigue of Enver Bey. Next day, under instruction from Sir Edward Grey, Beaumont, British charge, was to demand their disarmament or their dismissal; but meantime the Turkish government bought them both and a dispatch which crossed Sir Edward Grey's informed him to that effect. The two war ships strewed mines far and near. On the nineteenth Sir Cross- Louis Mallet, the ambassador, informed London that purposes of the Germans were in complete control, and asked for Allied Navies a fleet. The French Admiral Bone de Lapeyrere, chief in command of the combined Allies' naval force in the Western Mediterranean, had early warned his British colleague, subordinate for the time; but, for what were styled "technical reasons," not made public, the English fleet at Malta had done nothing, but was now dispatched in response to Sir Louis Mallet's request. The one golden opportunity for the exercise of sea- power to end the war then and there was lost. The joint military and naval cooperation of the Allies, at heart still mistrustful and jealous of each other, was then, as even with a united army command it has been ever since, conspicuous by absence. But the three "mediocrities," as at the time they were designated, Grey, Poincare, and Sazonoff, ap- peared to be masters in myopic dilly-dally. Bound by secret engagements, they appeared what they were 335 336 THE BALKANS not. Their representatives united in a weak effort to conciliate the Ottoman government by a promise to abolish the Capitulations, that set of decrees wrested from successive Padishahs, which for nearly six cen- turies had made possible the residence of Christians under a Moslem system. As a corollary to this rash and extreme proposition they added a guarantee of independence, with the entirety of Turkish territory! And this in the face of Italy's occupation of the Mgean German Islands, the Dodekanesos! Of this unprecedented Control of diplomatic hallucination and its explanation in treaties Straits j.jjgjj ggcret the evidence has since been published, shamefacedly enough, but clearly, in official papers of the Ball-Platz. With two majestic dreadnoughts in the Straits manned and captained by Germans such talk was the merest fooling. Delcasse returned to office in Paris on August 26, 19 14, to find the water- way from the Euxine to the Mgean under German control. As the Young Turks put it, they were hiring Germany to protect them against Russia, and paying the price. Such a Russian fleet as there was on the Black Sea was rendered utterly impotent. Yet it was not until November 5 that Great Britain formally de- clared war and incorporated in the empire Cyprus, which she had occupied and held since before the treaty of Berlin ; in that document the fact was legal- ized; the incorporation, like that of Bosnia and the Herzegovina into Austria-Hungary, was the logical sequence of occupation. On November 15, 191 5, Winston Churchill, to whom the British attribute the supreme merit of hav- ing assembled and kept on a war footing the greatest fleet ever seen by human eyes, declared in Parliament that the ill-fated Dardanelles expedition to secure con- ITALIAN PROBLEMS 337 Failure of the Dardanelles Expedition trol of the Straits was a "legitimate war gamble." Gamble indeed ! Time was the essence of the matter, and the Central Powers had lost not a moment; Tur- key's belligerency, the shambles of Gallipoli, of Anzac sacrifice, of strangled Servia; the crushing of Monte- negro, the successful "kingship" of Constantine in thwarting Venizelos, the Bulgarian accession to the Teutonic league, the hesitancy of Rumania — what a record of sequelae to the wretched procrastination of France and England! It was a contemptuous sneer with which Constantine declined to bind Greece to "a fixed and irrevocable program," while himself in igno- rance of it, the program, namely, which the Allies presumably had drawn up for themselves; if, indeed, their bickerings had so far permitted a definition of plans and harmonious united action to support such plans. The treaty of Bucharest was largely the work of west European diplomacy, favorable on the whole to Russia's aspirations for Balkan hegemony. The suc- cessive gnawings at its provisions by Bulgarian guile we have already noted. But had the Allies continued their moral sanction, the observance of its provisions would eventually have secured a Balkan balance of power and would have rendered possible in the distant future a Balkan federation. Since Salisbury's with- drawal of British protection from Turkey this was ardently desired by England as a bulwark against a German land highway from central Europe to the Hither East. Such a federation would, however, utterly thwart the Russian plans to possess Constanti- nople and control the Straits. In an evil hour the Allies Tampering began a "revision" of the treaty of Bucharest which with a Treaty turned it into a "scrap of paper." The Balkan federa- 338 THE BALKANS Disastrous Kingship in Bulgaria tion was to be set up prematurely and rashly, Russia trusting to the chapter of accidents for opportunity to extend her existing protectorate of Servia and Monte- negro over the entire Balkan peninsula. This was private and even "hugger-mugger" politics, not states- manship at all. It could only result in a third Balkan war. With the shrewd and wily Ferdinand of Bul- garia, confident in his reconstructed army, eager to bear the brunt of such a struggle, Germany felt she could well afford, like England, to engage in a "legiti- mate war gamble." In order to crush Servia, the head and front of Russia's offending, there was no need to divert any large force from either the northeastern or western fronts. Through Servia lay the highway to the ^gean, through Bulgaria that to the Straits. The outcome has been related. Ferdinand of Bulgaria showed himself throughout by turns adroit, wily, and dull. From the day of his accession to the beginning of the second Balkan war he made few and those immaterial blunders. With the same blood coursing in his veins as that of the British Prince Consort Albert; of Edward VII; of Leopold, Belgian king and Congo vampire, he long appeared to be a shrewd schemer for his national and dynastic interests; but he made a sorry blunder when he began the inter-Balkan struggle for leadership. The campaign was brief and bloody, the patronizing menace by Rumania at the close was offensively humiliating, the advantage gained by Greece and Servia was intolerably exasperating. Crowned with the laurels of victory once again, once again he as- sumed a mysterious air. Indisposed to be a vassal, either to Russia or to Austria-Hungary, he had re- vived the bitterness of Greek hatred and was con- ITALIAN PROBLEMS 339 temptuous of the Rumania which had humbled his country. The Rumanian Hohenzollerns lost moral leadership in the abrogation of their treaty by revision. The invasion of Servia began on the sixth of October, 1915. In something over two months Servia as a kingdom was obliterated, and its blood-stained king was a refugee at the Servian consulate in Salonica. The invaders — Austrians, Bulgars, Germans, and Turks — were on the Greek frontier, where on Decem- ber 12 they halted. Why did they do so? Why not press onward and prevent any landing of Allied troops in Salonica? The Allies, permissively violating Greek neutrality and fortifying themselves in Salonica, might make the place impregnable and checkmate King Con- stantine in his contest with Venizelos. Three hundred thousand French and English soldiers planted firmly in a modern fortress would seemingly hold the balance of military power in the Balkans, despite the Dar- danelles fiasco. It finally appears that the cause of delay was the attitude of the Bulgarians, who in the acquisition of long-coveted portions, almost the whole of Macedonia, had secured a greater territory than earlier they had even dreamed of. Their prestige not only restored but increased, Ferdinand and William II held the historic interview at Nish in January, 1916. We have referred to the nebulous pact of Konopisht, a reputed arrangement between the emperor of Germany and the Hapsburg heir-apparent providing kingdoms for the latter's sons. If ever the plan was formed, the assassinations of Sarajevo blotted out its remem- brance. Was the Coburg Ferdinand to be the substi- tute for the Hapsburg one ? Perhaps. His heir, Boris, having been trained in Greek Orthodoxy had already 340 THE BALKANS The Specter of Bulgarian Empire abjured that confession for the Roman and was to marry an Austrian archduchess. If the guess have any validity, how would the Hohenzollern Ferdinand reigning at Bucharest and his Coburg consort regard the dizzy elevation of Bulgaria to leadership in the Balkans? Consanguinity may be jealous in any rela- tion, either as friend or foe ; it was not, in their case, a mild jealousy of their neighbor's fending of? attack from one enemy to give friendly aid against others: it was a mortal feud in embryo. A Bulgaria extend- ing from Albania to the Golden Horn was a menacing specter; it would and could be nothing less than a Balkan empire. We know that, in October and No- vember, 1915, a rupture in the Western Alliance was imminent, the German party at Petrograd exerting an enormous influence. The monk Rasputin, for the time all powerful as the mystical confessor of the Czar (there was always such a weird influence about the superstitious Romanoff court), had recently been assassinated because he was reputed to be an opponent of the war, the liberal factions were frantic at the renewal of tyrannical repression on the plea of neces- sity, and the terrified Sazonoff was publishing threaten- ing interviews. The one really able, though danger- ous, diplomat of France, Delcasse, again resigned, but now in despair, with a broken spirit. The Nish inter- view between the German and Bulgarian monarchs, with its probable content, and the results following as a climax to Balkan dissensions, compelled that so-called diplomatic and military harmony generally supposed to have been secured in the three councils held at Paris, Calais, and London. We are credibly informed that the French generals were all for strengthening their western lines, while ITALIAN PROBLEMS 34i the British pleaded for abandoning the Balkans in order to secure Syria against a Turkish advance on Egypt, but that Lloyd-George and Briand successfully combined to force the expedition of Salonica, recog- nizing and elucidating the categorical imperative not German of a European, but a world-wide view of strategy. ^^^°^^^l^ Should the Balkans become a German protectorate, g^i^'jjj^ and trains be established in permanency between Ber- Ej^e^ition lin and Constantinople, with the vista of Bagdad on a further through line of railway communication, what about the safety of Teheran, Suez, and even India, from the inroads of German traders carrying German civilization? And where then would be the security of either Russian, British or French colonial empire? The doctrine of an eastward German push would be not dogma but fact. Such was the irrefrag- able argument which led to the landing of French and British armies on October 5, 191 5, at Salonica, and a call of check to the further advance of the Central Powers including Bulgaria, their latest ally. Whether or not the move was a checkmate to the so far success- ful diplomacy of Germany in the Balkans long re- mained doubtful, and only proved so when determined by the appeal to arms. Servia was very soon after- ward utterly humiliated, indeed, almost destroyed, and the Berlin-Constantinople express began running. Yet well intrenched on its flank was that great land force, backed by a great sea force ; Greece under com- pulsion submitted to the fate of Belgium, a temporary eclipse of her sovereignty; and a new balance of power in the Balkans slowly supplemented the old. The total absence of Italy from all participation in this flank menace called forth much shallow criticism. The explanation of her apparently illogical supineness 342 THE BALKANS begins to appear. The island Greece of Venizelos aimed at the reestablishment of the classical system and the classical "thalassocraty," or sea trade of the Mediterranean; the continental Greece of the king's party aimed at the restoration of Byzantium. The latter policy menaces Italian influence on the eastern Adriatic shore, the former its enormous influence Italy's throughout the Levant. Her sorely perplexed states- DUemma men can meet the demands of the popular clamor on neither side. From June 4, 1878, to November 5, 1914, Britain held Cyprus in pawn from Turkey; on that date she declared war on the Ottoman power, her former ally against Russia, followed the Austrian example of annexation and proffered it as a bribe to Greece, thus smothering one of Italy's aspirations, what her masses regarded as one of their several "sacred interests." Watchful waiting was the only possible Italian policy as regards the Western Allies. It is not impossible to conjecture, at least vaguely, why military sacrifices were not made in Albania, why neither troops nor ships were sent to Salonica. The unprecedented voyages of Teutonic submarines around past Gibraltar and their destructive work in the Medi- terranean were almost coincident. The downfall of Servia, the Bulgarian victories, the formal yielding up of her neutrality by Greece to the Allies, and her rejection of Cyprus seemed to clarify the public opinion of Italy. For her the foe was Austria-Hungary, not Germany; at France she continued to look askance; for the rape of Tunis, as she considers it, cannot be forgotten, nor did she contemplate with equanimity a Mediterranean in the control of Anglo-Saxons or Teutons. One thing the peoples of southern Europe have in common: the ITALIAN PROBLEMS 343 littoral feeling, that the Mediterranean shores and the sea-borne local traffic should be in their hands and regulated by them. The subject has been widely agitated in their press; but between the German mili- tary and the British naval powers other considerations have been preponderant. It was on December i, 191 Si that the Italian Cabinet publicly laid claim to con- Italy, Servia, sistency in its policies, central to which was the Albania "intense" effort to conserve Balkan nationalities! To the furtherance of this effort they renewed the agree- ment of solidarity with the Allies! This somewhat amazing statement meant that they would join in the restoration of Servia, vitally necessary as they held to their very existence as a great power, because she was the barricade athwart the extension of Teutonic power. Furthermore, it asserted that the independ- ence of Albania was a matter of the gravest impor- tance for Italy. One of the principal bases for Italy's political action is the strategic defense of the Adriatic in order to secure a balance of power which would compensate her for "the unfavorable configuration of our eastern shore line." What this meant has been explained, namely, the overthrow of Austrian rule all around the Adriatic, at least as far as Cattaro; with the rest, Albania in name, a protectorate as far as the boundary of Greece. Of Montenegro, its rise, its evolution and its latest condition an account has previously been given. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy was a great builder of superb highways, especially in the mountains. That which connects Cattaro with Cetinje is the doorway to Montenegro. It was a feat of arms long to be remembered in the annals of both countries, whereby the commanding heights of the gloomy Lorcen moun- 344 THE BALKANS The tains were wrested from the Montenegro defenders Montenegrin and the dreary httle land was well-nigh crushed. The Protectorate ggizure by the invaders of the capital, the capture of Scutari, capital of northern Albania, the occupation of Antivari and the march on Durazzo are now mat- ters of historical record. By the treaty of BerHn (§ 29) Montenegro, as a price for territorial ag- grandizement, was to arrange with the Dual Monarchy for the construction and maintenance of a road and railway across its new acquisitions; and while the Montenegrin ports and waters were closed to all war vessels it was to the consuls of Austria-Hungary (not Italy) that the protection of the Montenegrin mer- chant flag was intrusted. In order to mitigate this humiliation Italy seized the occasion of Bosnian an- nexation in 1909 to use her right as a member of the Triple AUiance which had provided for concerted action regarding any modification of Balkan condi- tions, and secured from Austria-Hungary the renuncia- tion of all the special rights in Montenegro secured to her in the treaty of Berlin. This was considered by Italy a declaration of her independence both within and without the Triple Alliance. She felt herself emancipated from all obli- gations except those of her own "holy self-interest," as the phrase was formulated in discussion. This fact of diplomatic skirmish and victory in Austrian rela- tions was the reconnaissance which led to the actual engagement ; war, formal and real, with Austria-Hun- gary, but neither actual nor ceremonial war with Ger- many. But such an attitude could not well be preserved in the face of actualities. The dynastic ties between the royal families of Italy and Montenegro are the closest possible, for the queen of the former is the Public Opinion io Italy Clarified ITALIAN PROBLEMS 345 daughter of Montenegro's king. It wounds Italian pride to see her queen so humiliated. The crushing of Servia seemed to have rendered Italian policy across the Adriatic utterly nugatory. Finally it dawned on the ItaUans, the people as well as its government, that, since Austria-Hungary for the while proved a redoubt- able antagonist, her hopes and ambitions in every quar- ter have a rather crumbling foundation while she plays her game in war and diplomacy alone, sanctified as her selfishness may be. Dividing alike the Pan-Ger- mans and the South Slavs, she had secured from the Western Allies in the spring of 191 5 the main com- munications with the Adriatic, of Servia, of the Croats and of Montenegro ; in other words, the shore line for which all had been struggling. So far she had gained in policy but at the price of bitter enmity. When even Albania was secured, as she fondly hoped, by the seizure of Avlona, the sudden and terrible reversal came; the Austro-Hungarians appeared at Durazzo and the Greek Parliament admitted deputies from South Albania as the representatives of Northern Epirus! King Nicholas was an exile in Lyons, and the remnants of the Servian army were in Corfu, while the royal Peter was a fugitive in the Servian Consulate at Salonica. The pretentious move of Bul- garia's sovereign toward the Central Alliance fore- shadowed a Bulgarian Constantinople ! The king and emperor at Nish were meeting in harmony, toasting Constantine the Great, a Byzantium restored to neither Greek nor Russian empire but to the Bulgarian ! The meanest intellect could interpret this. States- ^^ men and generals of the Western Allies met in Rome : ge^Jgn ^ the Italian premier, Salandro, announced that neigh- naiy and bors (France and Italy) had rediscovered each other! France 346 THE BALKANS Incomplete Union of Italy with Western Powers and the French premier (Briand) replied : "Among our enemies the coordination of effort is dictated and imposed by their very geographical conditions. In the camp of the Allies such coordination could only be the result of a higher inspiration and of a deliberate will, conscious of its duties in the service of the noblest ideals." Sacred "self-interest" had been absorbed, as far as Italy was concerned, into a still more sacred union* Yet the union was only partial, because there was no declaration of war with Germany; all that was done was the announcement of a cessation of German im- ports over the Saint Gotthard railway, which was still, as before, a neutralized, international highway under a joint control and guarantee of Germany, Switzer- land, and Italy. Possibly the next step was to be a total rupture of relations with Germany and active warfare, but it was not likely; German-Italian rela- tions were so complex and perplexing because of their reciprocal interdependence that war between the two nations was to be a very last resort. Harmony of policy and action among the Allies, including Italy, w^as, however, proclaimed. Yet the extent to which Italian troops and warships had actually participated in the work of the British and French at Salonica is even yet not definitely known. The sober and sympa- thetic examination of Italy's problem exhibits its many-sidedness. Not every nation, not even Italy, can ^ rank among the greatest powers ; there must be degrees of inferiority and superiority. In reality Italian policy is no more presumptuous than any other, the methods of her government no more tortuous, and the frank- ness of her selfishness commands a certain respect from the ingenuous mind. XV THE BALKAN PROBLEM OF TO-DAY 347 XV THE BALKAN PROBLEM OF TO-DAY The results of the Great War throughout south- eastern Europe have been partly beneficent and partly disastrous. The various inchoate and half-civilized states have acquired a high degree of self-knowledge. The Bulgarians with their "great idea" found them- selves relegated by implacable destiny to Thrace as their field of operations under the Balkan league; whereas all their hopes had been centered on Mace- donia. When at last, breathless and impoverished, they beheld their dream of Balkan leadership dissi- Chastening pated, they realized that victory in the field may be "^ Balkan defeat in council, and that expediency is as poor a guide in the conduct of public as it is of private affairs. In the expulsion and repudiation of their dynasty they have shown symptoms of chastened conscientious- ness. To Greece has come neither restoration of Byzantium nor of an island empire in the Levant. Nor is Servia, with all her heroism, undisputed in her hegemony of the South Slavs; there remains a Montenegro, likewise an Albania, both reduced to a pulpy shapelessness, but as lively in aspiration as ever. The role of land-grabber and bully which Rumania endeavored to play in defiance of the peace council suffices to exhibit her to herself in the glass and to the world as just one of the Balkan flock like any other. Then to this Balkan congeries of pseudo-nationali- ties have been added Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, Jugo- 349 3SO THE BALKANS Their Discontent Heiglitened Intervention from the West Slavia, and Poland; makeshift states composed of individuals with no political sense or experience, utterly distrustful and jealous of each other; with a mechanical but not chemical cohesion, partly tribal, partly military; neither differentiated nor articulated into social classes; smarting one and all under the humiliation of defeat and unsatisfied ambition. My latest informants, just returned from observation tours, all agree that with the possible exception of Greece, every self-styled nation east of the Adriatic is sullen, hungry, and rapacious. These are the shadows on the southeast European landscape; north- ward in what was Russia there have been thunder clouds, crashes and deluges of inhumanity, behind which, in this connection, it is not necessary to pene- trate except to say that the alarm and confusion to the southward is heightened by them. Should we reckon the portion of the Great War waged in the Balkans as the Third Balkan War? In aim and character it was, although a majority of the troops engaged first and last were not native, being in that peninsula an expeditionary force from western Europe under French and German generals; Great Britain and her soldiery were simultaneously engaged in the Levant, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia. The peace conference made a gallant and sincere effort to cope with the intricacies of pseudo-nationality and the clashings of race ambitions. The results were outwardly a fair and just regard for all concerned; that is, from the international and pragmatic stand- point. Yet the decisions of the conference create sub- stantially the following situation : Russia, weltering in the shambles of radical bestiality and racked by the THE BALKAN PROBLEM 351 tortures of civil war, is, in the petty, inefficient, and exasperating futilities of foreign intervention, left to work out her own salvation; Poland, with a govern- ment ostensibly civil, but really military, with a people The New hungry, and sensitive to exacerbation, believes herself Map menaced by border enemies and domestic schemers; Czecho-Slovakia, soundest in political sense of them all, is nervously apprehensive of German conspiracies to compel economic subserviency. Not one of these feels easy about the assigned boundaries which make very shadowy the paths of access to an ocean highway, ice-free the year around : nor, as mere surveyors' lines include or exclude them, about substantive groups of discontented nationals, assigned to a sovereignty they consider foreign. Next in order* of consideration comes the Jugo-Slav state, composed, first, of all the Slavs of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Croatia, and Istria, almost exclusively Roman Catholic ; together, secondly, with those of Servia, Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Bosnia, Greek Catholics, with rare exceptions. Hither- to confessional antipathy has rendered cohesion im- possible. Can it be allayed in the interest of the fetish, nationality? The national traditions of the two, re- cent and early, are likewise different; it was to the Croatian leader, Jellachich, that the Hapsburgs owed the prolongation of their dynasty, always a ruthless oppressor of the Greek Christians: Servians and Montenegrins, Bosnians and Herzegovinians. The centrifugal influences in Jugo-Slavia are further heightened by the fact that their united military force is led by the great field marshal Borevitch, so lately an Austrian commander, gallantly controlling Italians on the Isonzo at the head of an Austro-Slavic force. Finally, the new maps of Europe assign to Jugo- 352 THE BALKANS Slavia a onetime province of Hungary, the Banat, claimed by Rumania in the interest of race and na- tionahty. Should Jugo-Slavia fight Italy for Dalmatia, she will have Rumania at once on her rear-end flank, as fixed in purpose on possession of the Banat as Jugo-Slavia is on that of Dalmatia. Iteration rivets elusive truth: Bulgaria was utterly stupefied when forced to fight in Thrace, while all her longing was for Macedonia. It was for Macedonia that in 19 13 and 191 5 she began hostilities with Servia. Embittered and discredited by the settlements of the Antagonism Peace Conference; restless therefore, and sore, Greece of Greece disputes the dispositions in Thrace. Should Bulgaria ^ by arms or diplomacy secure Monastir, the hold of Greece on Salonica and the Greek districts of Mace- donia would be seriously jeopardized. The mandatory relation of Italy to South Albania and Epirus; her unyielding grip on the Twelve Islands, and her foot- hold at AdaHa in Asia Minor are each and all intoler- able to Greek pride and aspirations. If the cauldron of conspiracy and bushwhacking should begin to boil, then certainly it would be Greece, and Servia or Jugo- Slavia, if Montenegro merge its identity therein, against the rest of the Balkans. At once Italian fleets would menace the coasts of Greece and open fire unless forced to inaction by a League of Nations. From such a kettle would emerge either indefinite banditry or the humiliation of Greece — neither of which is thinkable. It is unthinkable because indubitably both Italy and Rumania would draw toward some understanding with the Central Powers. German ascendancy in Russia is a thing foredoomed because of propinquity; when oil and water are thrown into juxtaposition, the THE BALKAN PROBLEM 353 law of gravitation makes one rise and the other fall. At peace with both Italy and Rumania, Poland would be stalemated, and the eastern Europe which lies athwart the exploitation of northern and central Asia would be stoutly arrayed under German hegemony against the western powers. The Fiume situation and the maintenance of the peace by American marines at Trau, where a similar complot was festering, were indications of the temper and recklessness which created, have long maintained, and will perpetuate what is quite as problematic a situation in eastern Europe as it was before the Great War. The Balkan Possible problem still remains the problem of Europe and West- Division of ern civilization. Unless the sternest repressive meas- |,gtween ures are taken, our peace is nothing but a truce of Germany brief duration. The alternatives of high-handed force and Italy to consoHdate our gains, or of indefinite localized Balkan warfare, or of rekindling the general world- conflagration, each and all are appalling. With Ger- many in moral and economic control of the North Slavs and Italy of the South Slavs, with Hungary and Poland reduced to impotence, the indefinite main- tenance of British control in Persia and Mesopotamia, as well as of French supremacy in Syria, are both inevitable. What is America to do? Is the policy of reciprocal extermination by Turks, Kurds, and Armenians to be given full sway and the Near East, certainly, the world generally in all probability, to be a human shambles without any moderating or control- ling influence ? Soberly considered such writing appears alarmist, but, in the light of what is now passing or has just transpired, it is not. While the Moscovites, or Great Russians, are about fifty per cent Finnish in blood, yet 354 THE BALKANS they are Slavic in temperament; and behold the anarchy in which they revel! The arts of advanced civilization are not their affair, and behind a disguise Restraintson of German-Jew philosophy, they behave like the worst Anarchy products of human devolution. Their kinsfolk, much purer in Slavic stock, Baltics, Lithuanians, White and Little Russians, who cumulatively outnumber them, have for two long weary years battled in every form of warfare, organized and unorganized, for an ascend- ancy which it seemed might bring in an order, differ- ent, indeed, from pure bestiality, but based on another form of autocracy, a ruthless oligarchy. Distasteful as the truth may be, order and decency and stable government among Russian Slavs will eventually emerge as it has hitherto and elsewhere among primi- tive folk from the firm hand of a conqueror. We have seen and experienced the disa^sters, social and economic, incident to Slav-Russian "self-determina- tion" ( ?) Within the year 1918 they had one so-called Russian government each at Archangel, Samara, and Ufa; four at Omsk, one at Lake Baikal, and one at Harbin ! — laughable, if it were not so deplorable. The year 1919 produced no better results, although the vile debauch of Sovietism somewhat spent itself. The plight of Slavic Poland also has been sorry enough. What destroyed her in the eighteenth century at the hands of Russia, Prussia, and Austria was the political paralysis incident to the great gulf between two social classes, proprietors and peasants, whose embittered quarrels reduced her to something worse than helplessness, to a European incubus. The identi- cal chasm has opened again, and there is no community of feeling or action except as Polish troops have fought or are still threatening Czecho-Slovakia, Ukrainia, THE BALKAN PROBLEM 355 Lithuania, and Germany on its respective frontiers; the unity which results from common exasperation against similar predatory populations on arbitrary frontiers easily dissolves in a medium of domestic strife. We could also recite similar unedifying tales about Finland and Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-Slavia, about Servia, Rumania, and Bulgaria, about Greece, Turkey, and Syria; and worst of all, about Hungary. Within the assigned borders of them all is embittered Continuity of domestic strife, on all their frontiers defiant challeng- ^^^^ ing and the intermittent clash of arms. At the close of 1919 it was possible, fourteen months after the Armistice, to count twenty-three so-called "wars." With the chaff and straw of humanity tossed about by every wind of doctrinaire absurdity as taught by frothy radicals, with the tinder and flint in such hands, say, rather, the savage bow and spindle to evoke the spark from rotten wood, there is nothing whatever alarmist in the statements made, except such alarm as is felt when we see the flickerings of torches in the hands of would-be incendiaries. Social or political, such fiends are human vermin, to be interned or else exterminated in the sacred name of civilization. Substantially, this is the Balkan problem as the terms of peace create and condition it. Its resem- blance to what it was at the close of the second Balkan war is marked almost to identity except that the size has more than doubled in territorial dimensions, and the nationalistic intensity of the new factors has mani- folded the strain. Like hysteria among individuals. Probability the fury of perfervid nationality spreads to absurd of Long limits among peoples. The method of history neces- ^®**" sarily inverts deduction, because the instances forming any set of historical premises are so few. In any other 3S6 THE BALKANS Expansion of the Balkan Problem discipline we would predict a speedy renewal of war among the two-folded "Balkans" with considerable assurance. But the conditions immediately antecedent to the existing problem, when fairly enumerated, point the other way after all, despite the inherent backward- ness of Slavs collectively and individually, whether of the northern or the southern stocks. To recapture the historical thread a brief retrospect is necessary. When the kingship of William of Wied came to a definite conclusion in Albania, wild disorder broke loose, focused mainly, though not entirely, about Essad Pasha at Tirana. On December 25, 1914, Italy occupied Avlona and sent a fleet to Durazzo. Greece, under an arrangement never published, withdrew a guard vessel from Avlona and reoccupied Epirus with her land forces. The efforts of an Anglo-French fleet, comprising some fifty vessels, to force the Dar- danelles had proved futile as against the Turkish land forces; and a mixed army of French and British troops was assembled in what Great Britain had just proclaimed the Sultanate of Egypt. This army was brought over and landed at Gallipoli. The ensuing carnage was awful, but the Turks held firm for sub- stantially a year, when the enterprise of the Western powers was totally abandoned. Regarded at the time as a disgraceful failure, subsequent events have modi- fied that judgment. Bulgaria and Greece, convinced that ultimate victory would perch on the Central ban- ners, deserted the cause of the Allies, the former definitively, the latter in a temporizing way until con- vinced of the contrary. The dismemberment of the Ottoman empire was renewed by Italy in 191 1, and continued by the Balkan wars of 19 12 and 19 13, by the partial rupture of Egypt from it in 1913, and by THE BALKAN PROBLEM 357 the attempted formation of an autonomous Albania. Seemingly arrested by the Turkish alliance with the Central Powers and now with Bulgaria, it was really expedited and completed by the Dardanelles failure of the Allies; which, likewise, kept the Turkish forces from Syria, the Suez Canal, and Egypt. It was just one more instance of twofold military disaster le^ading to political victory. While the Great War on its western front until the end of 1914 resulted in substantial failure for the German powers, it was far otherwise to the east, where Russia, immediately victorious, was at last soundly thrashed, as too was Servia. When Turkey and Bul- garia joined hands with the Central Powers it looked dark indeed for the Allies. The year 19 15 was darker still. The Germans made substantial gains by a trench Military warfare designated "nibbling" in the west, while the Successes terrific raids and battles of Hindenburg and Macken- !.._-„-_ sen in the east forced back the still unbroken Russian line, for a loss of sixty-five thousand square miles. What with such a staggering blow and the awful failure of the Allies on the Dardanelles there was little to relieve the gloom. The line from Berlin to Constantinople was, as said, complete. Recalling the superb Servian victory over Austria in August, 191 4, which restored to Servia her capital, it was a dizzy transformation and reverse when the immense force of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria descended on their prey in October, 1915, virtually annihilated the Servian armies, and occupied not only the desolated land itself, but its little neighbor Montenegro as well. The Anglo- French force at Salonica started northward to Servia's aid, but was driven back in humiliation to its fortifica- tions. 358 THE BALKANS The situation would have been utterly desperate ex- cept that the shocking destruction of the Lusitania had set Americans to thinking very soberly about the desperado nation running amuck on sea and land. Was it to terrorize the globe? Perhaps, but the antipodes were alert : all the German colonies had been captured by the troops of Japan, France, and South Africa re- spectively; and Italy, having at the outset denounced the war as one of aggression, and having refused all aid Italy Joins or countenance in its prosecution, now in May finally (he Entente emerged from her neutrality. Just when the Russians were utterly worsted she joined the western powers, threw her armies to her frontiers, and released the French troops of the southeast border for active serv- ice on the western front. There were many interlock- ing considerations back of the Italian resolve. First there was the popular demand to incorporate adjacent Italian lands with the kingdom; then there was the latent bitterness against Austrian presumption of Adriatic control; and finally, the very definite lust to become a world power, at the expense of Turkey mainly, but partially of trans-Adriatic and Levantine territories claimed by Greece. In these two last ambi- tions she was to find embittered hostility on the part of the Jugo-Slavs. Should the three elements of Jugo- slavia: Slovene, Croat, and Servian, fuse into har- monious unity, the new state would be a redoubtable foe. But all indications are the other way, that in the one subdivision of the South-Slavic stock there are three peoples, alike unwilling to blend, and even to compromise with each other. At the opening of 191 6 not only were Belgium and northern France in the hands of Vandal and Hun, but in the Balkans three powers were virtually obliter- THE BALKAN PROBLEM 359 ated, namely, Servia, Montenegro, and Albania. Sub- stantially the whole peninsula was in Germanic thrall. The terrific onslaught of the Germans at Verdun failed, the Russians met with partial success against Austria, and Rumania joined the Allies with a view to annexing Transylvania. Mackensen and Falken- hayn assaulted and conquered nearly half the kingdom, Rumania and the strip of territories under German control de- Crushed bouching at Constantinople was temporarily broadened by about one third. On May 31 the German high seas fleet advanced into the open and challenged that of Great Britain off Jutland. The material gains and losses of each side are still in dispute, but morally it was a British victory, for the Germans took refuge in their harbors and never reappeared again except to surrender. With the Allied fleets virtually in complete control of all the high seas, the situation in the eastern Mediterranean was such that the adhesion of Greece to the Allied cause, despite her bitterness toward Italy, became inevitable. Thenceforth the commercial and island elements in Greek politics were preponderant under Venizelos. By this time. Great Britain, as well as France, was performing feats of heroism by land as well as by sea, which were rendered possible by the awakening of a superb British moral sense; national, colonial, and imperial. In a world cause, now involving, to the mind of the plainest wayfarer, the highest principles of liberty and justice, where was America to stand? The answer, unduly long in coming, reverberated when finally given with stupendous volume around the globe. So far, with inconceivable fatuity, Germany had outraged every interest of America, spiritual and national, ap- parently with impunity : there was not a national right 36o THE BALKANS German Outrages and American Responsibili- ties which by secret conspiracy and open defiance she had not transgressed and trampled on. The record of factories burned, of vessels sunk, of noncombatant lives taken, of agreements to dismember the Union, of insulting language and piratical submarine warfare, does not belong here except that in consequence we, finally, in 191 7, entered the war. When as a first onset against the foe our destroyer fleet crossed the ocean, our admirals found to their horror and dismay that three months more, perhaps weeks, of submarine de- struction would starve out the Allies and force sur- render to Germany ; because France and England could not build destroyers fast enough to cope with the sub- marine menace. Washington was undismayed, and America's preparations for land attack went forward in dimensions and speed unparalleled so far in history, while our destroyers under British guidance completed a force sufficient to cope with the menace of defeat by sea. With the participation of our country in the Great War and the decisive influence exerted thereon in fact and in morale by millions of undaunted and well-disciplined American youth swiftly transported three thousand miles to the continent of Europe, we have here nothing to do, except as overwhelming victory gave us preponderance in European councils and loaded us with awful responsibilities in both mak- ing and enforcing peace. XVI THE BALKANS AND THE GREAT WAR 361 XVI THE BALKANS AND THE GREAT WAR Whatever may finally emerge from the Russian Revolution of 191 7, one thing is as certain as anything earthly can be: that there will be no restoration of the Russian empire as it once was, and that, as pre- viously explained, what we call the Balkan problem has been enormously complicated and enlarged by it. Germany assumed a waiting attitude in the east, re- taining only troops enough on that front to hold its Russia gains, hoping by the use of the rest on the southern Cruslied and western fronts to reach a favorable decision. It ^^ .,, was a surprise when almost immediately they evacu- ated more than a thousand square miles of French territory, and when still further the Allies made sub- stantial local gains throughout the year (191 7) at Arras, on the Aisne and in Flanders. On the other hand, the Austro-German army, reen forced from the eastern front, won a momentous battle in Italy and occupied four thousand square miles of Italian terri- tory. Russian and Italian calamities went far to de- moralize the cause of liberty. The Berlin and Bagdad plan of Germany was a challenge to Britain's Indian empire, and the British effort in Mesopotamia was as futile in its beginnings as that of Italy on her northern front. But the reverse of Kut-el-Amara was turned to victory by Maude's expedition of 19 17, which seized Bagdad and by the victories of Allenby in Palestine, which rendered the 363 364 THE BALKANS Disruption of Russia and Rumania Gennan Drives, Naval and MiUtaiy Suez Canal safe from Turkish attack. These decisive gains were, however, remote from Europe. Germany still held on the western front; Italy was humiliated; the Russian menace to the Central Powers was re- moved; and the close of 191 7 saw the Alhes as de- pressed as the Germans were jubilant. In particular, the Balkan situation was as favorable for the latter as they could desire. The armistice with the Russian revolutionists signed at Brest-Li tovsk on December 15, 1917, resulted on March 3, 1918, in the so-called peace of that name, which stripped Russia of half a million square miles, a population of sixty-five million, and arranged for an enormous money indemnity; not all, but much of which was paid. It deprived Russia of more than a third of her industries together with three quarters of her coal and iron. A few weeks afterward similar terms were dictated to Rumania. The whole world looked on aghast; was this the fate in store for other powers should Germany prove victorious? The highwayman had taken down his mask, for his victim was at his mercy. The direful fate of Servia and Montenegro and Albania and Rumania was appar- ently to be that, not alone of the Balkans, but of all eastern Europe, and even Asia. It is no wonder that the Germans hoped against hope. Many there were among their students of grand strategy who had already understood, humanly speaking, that their failure either to reach the Channel coast or seize Paris had nullified the original plan of campaign, and that the war was really lost after the first reverses in the west. But the vast majority were undaunted, civilians and military, putting their faith in their piratical submarines and the German god of battles. As we have seen, the unrestricted piracy was BALKANS AND THE GREAT WAR 365 more nearly successful than the world at large even dreamed of. On March 21, 1918, the greatest land offensive of all times was therefore launched by Ger- many as a pendant to that by water. For nine months it seemed to meet with similar success. It was under the heart-breaking crush of defeat that at last a unity of allied military command was reached, due in a measure to the initial step taken by the American com- mander-in-chief. For two months the advantage remained with the Germans. But the enormous gains they made cost frightfully, because of the undaunted courage alike of British and French. When, therefore, the moral and material forces of the United States were thrown with grim determina- tion into the scale against the conspiracy of Central Europe, the balance was reversed; from May 28 to June 2 at Cantigny ; on June 4 at Chateau-Thierry and Neuilly Wood ; on the sixth and seventh at Torchy, and then at Belleau Wood, American troops gave a good ac- count of themselves. On the ninth the Germans, be- tween Montdidier and Noyon, checked the French center and drove it back, and on the fifteenth they began their final push which succeeded in opening strategically several lines direct to Paris. Their goal seemed to be within reach. This was the crisis of the Crisis of the land struggle. It was then that the American assist- Struggle ance proved decisive. On the eighteenth Foch with French and American divisions assumed the offensive and by the twenty-first, the second battle of the Marne had delivered Paris. Thirty per cent of the troops in that engagement were Americans. To them, with reenforcements, was committed the advance between the Argonne Forest and the Meuse. It was a Hercu- lean task, but it was accomplished; while west of the 366 THE BALKANS Decisive Victories Italy Turns and Overwhelms Her Enemy Argonne, the French pushed on and on to Soissons and beyond. Other detachments of French, British, Italians, Bel- gians, and Portuguese maintained similar offensives all the way westward from Soissons to the Channel. To the end of September battles were continuous and thrusts deadly. Between September 12 and 13 Ameri- can troops eliminated the Saint Mihiel salient of the German line, and by the end of the month the Germans were refugees behind the Hindenburg trenches. On September 26 began the Allied assault with a decisive advance of French and Americans on the east, of British and Belgians on the west. On October 8 three British armies, in one of which was an American corps, with one army of the French, smashed the Hindenburg line between Saint Quentin and Cambrai, the greatest military achievement of British history. By the six- teenth the Germans had abandoned the Belgian coast. With untiring assiduity and success our Americans pushed northward and eastward down the Meuse, crossing it with great eclat; they then crowned their achievement by capturing Stenay and so arrived before Sedan, whence the Germans fled. It is impossible in contemporary history to establish the exact order of cause and effect. But the unbroken successes of Foch's armies and the absolute certainty that Germany would not only be flung back into her own territories, but would probably be invaded as well, appears to have given the final touches to a complete regeneration of Italian morale, while utterly disheartening the Hapsburg empire. Just a year after the disastrous rout of Italy at Caporetto on the Isonzo, in October, 19 17, she reversed the situation com- pletely; first defeating her foe, and then turning its BALKANS AND THE GREAT WAR 367 defeat into a panic, capturing prisoners by the hundred thousand and munitions without limit. There was no more glorious feat of arms from the beginning to the end of the world war. Meantime, Allenby had entered Jerusalem in Decem- ber, 1917; he then completed a brilliant campaign against the Turks, annihilating their forces and seizing Damascus on October i, 1918. A few days later the French fleet seized Beirut ; thereupon Aleppo and very shortly Horns, were taken; the Turkish dominion of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia was at an end. Synchronous with these tremendous events were others equally pregnant. Under D'Esperey, a French Bulgaria general who had won renown in the first battle of the "°* Ttffkey Marne, a motley force of French, British, Greek, p "^ ^ Servian, and Italian troops made a heroic and success- Germany ful advance northward from Salonica and broke the Bulgarian lines. An armistice concluded with that country on September 19 was in reality an uncondi- tional surrender. This was the beginning of the end. Turkey and Austria at once sued for a similar armis- tice. That with the former was concluded on October 31 ; with the latter, on November 4. A week later came the decisive close of hostilities in the west by the accept- ance of the Allies' terms on the part of Germany and the bursting forth of revolutionary flames in all the lands which had composed the Central Alliance. The peace delegates in Paris and Versailles were, therefore, confronted with problems such as no similar body ever had faced. Throughout the course of the war the internal politics of each and every nation had been so compounded of economic, social, and propa- gandist elements as to compel a complete transforma- tion of procedure by politicians and statesmen. The 368 THE BALKANS of Peace The Terrible spy and secret service systems of each power were Problems so expanded and elaborated as to make the dealings of man with man, in normal ways well-nigh impossi- ble. Suspicion and distrust rendered the integration of national action excessively difficult. What with capitalistic greed in the planning of war loans, and the supplying of munitions; what with the subter- raneous plottings of propagandists; what with the unprincipled ambitions of dealers and middle men; what with the defiant "stand and deliver" of so-called labor unions and transportation workers in the con- spiracy of perpetual strikes, ostensibly to meet the high cost of living and really to secure means for the cost of high living, it seemed as if the harvest field were ripe for the ghastly reapers of anarchism, blood- thirsty desperadoes. They were not slow, with noth- ing to lose materially, and with possible social bur- glaries on every hand, to cast morality, religion, and decency into the discard and practice every bestiality. These wicked and devilish hordes found willing leaders, such as they are, and while their operations were world-wide, the east of Europe, north and south, with ignorant, undisciplined populations, unlimited in numbers, were selected as the most productive field for their infernal activities. The fine-sounding maxims of democracy as to the inherent rights of man as man, as to the rights of nationalities regarding self-deter- mination, as to race, language, and physical geog- raphy as predetermining freedom and liberty, in short, the whole vocabulary of abstractions and phrases which were empty commonplaces in the West, con- noted to eastern Europe concrete reality, a system of government workable by the most inexperienced and clumsy populace. What the war had failed to bestow Demoraliza- tion of Eastern Europe BALKANS AND THE GREAT WAR 369 on them they believed could be grasped in the eruptions of social revolution. The phase did not last long, so inhuman and ruthless was the tyranny of self- appointed rulers, except in Muscovite Russia, where opportunity for extortion and murder, seized by the forelock, enabled the emancipators of a dull populace, besotted with alcoholic intemperance, to turn on their tools, employ a pillaging, unruly soldiery, and defy the rest of the Russian peoples for some years. The gen- eral resultant of extreme brutishness has been to dis- credit the whole concept of proletariat rule. Yet the influences of such agitations were very per- plexing at the peace table. The radicals of one decen- nium are the conservatives of the next. The three commanding figures in Paris, in the period of their rise to eminence, were each and all known to public life as progressive to the verge of radicalism. The odor of political reconstruction still hung around their names; they held office as ultra-liberals, and it was to such majorities that they had appealed for the mandate which made them national representatives. For all that, advanced middle Hfe had exerted its usual effect upon the effervescence of early defiance Peace to things as a long evolution had made them. With Negotiatiom responsibility comes caution, and the central figure, J^'*^sfonn posing both as constitutional President and pseudo- premier of a nonexistent ministry, had shown himself the most inconsistent statesman of the age : trans- formed from a pacifist to an organizer of war, from an academic theorist, to a practical leader of the older style, from an uneasy neutral to a whole-hearted na- tional war leader. The nation he led and claimed to represent was something quite different from the minority which, by a technicality of the constitution, 370 THE BALKANS had made him President for the first of his terms. As to the British and French representatives, they were more chameleon-like in their political hues than our own. XVII THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 371 XVII THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES Given, therefore, such conditions in the internal politics of the Great Powers, and such wavering, not to say fluctuating, in the policies of men dependent for influence and weight upon the popular opinion of their respective constituencies, it is almost miraculous that they accomplished what they did in the peace treaty. An open covenant openly discussed and com- pleted, an agreement of democratic peoples reached in the bright light of publicity, it was not: indeed, as Lord Bryce said, the proceedings were shrouded in impenetrable mystery. Compromise and international trading by secret diplomacy characterizes its verbiage, while two totally antipodal contracts are intertangled to the confusion of both — a treaty enforcing stern Secrecy conditions of peace, and a tripartite alliance, offensive <>* ^^ and defensive, supported by a score of minor powers. Negotiations Against what? The former foe? Not at all, but against the clearly foreseen disorders sure to arise in nationalities and in chaotic states, commanded to walk an international political highway, before their swad- dling bands have been removed and ere they have learned even to crawl the floors of internal administra- tion. Working in secret, they struggled for a sem- blance of rainbow publicity; professed republicans, they handled all delicate matters by tortuous diplomacy and exchanges of interest; avowed democrats, there was a unity of command and leadership such as auto- 373 374 THE BALKANS Obstacles and Disap- pointments crats never enjoyed. The world was nonplussed by the apparent disregard of every high principle of a peace-making truly ancillary to a warfare waged for lofty principles of equality among men of noble aspi- rations. It turned out that, as at Vienna a century earlier, each organic unit demanded that its own sovereignty and its own collective rights should be judged by itself and no other power. So it was give and take, bargain and compromise, swap and trade, as far as we have had any insight into the proceedings. With democracy proclaimed as the panacea of human ills by statesmen and demagogues alike, with the turbulence of socialistic agitation to discredit a democracy which has claimed and exercised the control of top and bottom social strata by the middle or hated "bourgeoisie," in its own interest, above all with the thunder cloud of inchoate and insurgent, half or alto- gether barbarous, nationalities looming on the Eastern horizon, the paper is more remarkable for what it does than for what it does not contain. To each of the allied nations the treaty was a disappointment, and to no one was the League of Nations intertwined with it a source of unalloyed satisfaction. In particular, the compulsion which our Senate considered had been put upon it to ratify the peace, to enter a league which seems seriously to lame national sovereignty, and to accept responsibility for order among turbulent peoples of the near, yet to us far distant, East by one and the same act, created a fierce partisan exas- peration. The Balkan problem in all its intricacies and the Oriental questions involved in it, nauseate a people accustomed to isolation from remote foreign interests, except in trade and the intercourse of peace. Beyond the Atlantic, Great Britain is far from THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 375 satisfied even by the enormous advantages obtained through the annihilation of German sea power and temporary paralysis of German rivalry in manufac- tures and commerce. She too desires an isolation like that which she once enjoyed in the absolute supremacy of her sea power. The social and economic questions of her internal affairs, like and yet unlike those of the Europe not United States, appear to her as paramount for ten Enthusiastic years to come. She has little enthusiasm for the league ; indeed, at this distance, she appears indifferent to and disdainful of it, but eager for the peace, having ratified the treaty as a whole and resumed lively com- mercial intercourse with her foe. So also has France. Her sacrifices have been proportionately far greater than those of Great Britain, and her contempt — it amounts to that — for the League is proven by the treaties negotiated with Great Britain and America as the only approach to a guarantee against the re- newed aggressions of Germany, both possible and likely at no distant date, after that country shall have secured the stability she so earnestly and assiduously labors to secure. Italy, as has been explained pre- viously, is even less content than France because her possibly natural but certainly inordinate claims in the trans-Adriatic Balkans, the Levant and Asia Minor have been disallowed in a measure which wounds her pride. Amidst these alarms, largely due to what is learn- edly called the after-war psychosis of peoples and indi- viduals — in other words, their overstrained state of mind — ^the conspicuous merits of the Treaty of Ver- sailles have been sadly obscured. The outstanding fact is that more than forty millions, approximately forty- two, of human beings who considered themselves 376 THE BALKANS the Treaty oppressed subjects of alien powers have been liberated from the foreign yoke. It was the never-ceasing agitations of these peoples, beginning as far back as the Crimean War, which were both the indirect and direct cause of the war. The first to secure liberty, union, and sovereignty were the Italians; the Balkan ferments resulted in the conditional sovereignty of Conspicuous Greece, Servia, Rumania, and Bulgaria. The Balkan Merits of wars of which we have earlier given a brief accoimt, alike when confined to their own peninsula by pressure from the Great Powers and also after the Great Powers had plunged themselves and the Balkan states anew in frightful hostilities, were each and all ani- mated by the zeal of subject peoples for liberty, union, and self-government. Self-determination meant and means the enjoyment of race and national traditions, of language, laws, and institutions essential to the pursuit of prosperity and happiness. In the delimita- tion of states and their territories by the Treaty of Versailles this liberation and emancipation has been considered pivotal to enduring peace and has been in very large measure secured. To be sure, there are, as boundaries are drawn, several instances of "irredemption," to borrow the Italian phrase. There are the Germans of the Saar district virtually consigned to France, those of Danzig and Upper Silesia placed in a novel, strange and un- stable relation to Poland, of the German Tyrol under Italian sovereignty, which is likewise asserted for the Jugo-Slavs of Fiume and Dalmatia, and lastly of the numerous German communities in the heart of Bohemia and Czecho-Slovakia. The Rumanians stub- bornly hold Magyars and some Germans under their sway. Other minor instances of "irredemption" there Difficulties not Insuperable THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 377 are, but all sink into utter insignificance in comparison with the Shan Tung decision, overmeticulous in admit- ting the correct and technical niceties of Japanese claims. Long familiarity with such injustices has led the world to condone them, hitherto in direct oppo- sition to the "redemption" claims of perfect "nation- ality." The interest of peace, as is asserted, demands easily defensible strategic frontiers and buffer states or "marks," as they were called in mediaeval times, be- tween those frontiers and the possible foe. To polit- icasters, or petty politicians of the international sort, such sources of friction forecast a speedy renewal of hostilities, especially if the suggested mandates prove exasperating to the wild nations over which they are exercised. Sounder and calmer judgment takes a dia- metrically opposite view. To compare the Congress of Vienna and its temporizing decisions with that at Paris and its constructive provisions, is to compare the Satyr with Hyperion, so enlightened and prudent are the latter. Their inherent justice lies in the fact that whatever minor inaptitude characterizes them, the peoples are their own masters, that majorities rule, and that a close approximation to nationality in na- tional territories has been found. There are sure to be quarrels, but if they are strongly repressed for a generation as they can be, use and habit will produce even in wild Europe the orderly life they have pro- duced in the lands of Western civilization. Indeed, Western civilization, based on self-deter- mination, on majority rule, and on democratic states of mind, is very largely dependent on a high consider- ation for minorities and their perpetual agitations. Within the American Union seven States, with a total population of about three and a half millions, secure 378 THE BALKANS Considerate from the rest, a hundred and six millions, unwilling con- ^eatmentof cessions which preserve the public peace; the politics Minorities ^^ ^^^ British realm turn largely on the Irish question; even highly centralized France has her regional com- promises to deal with at every step. Instances can be multiplied indefinitely. For the democratic majority in every land it must be said that they deal tenderly, almost to the verge of stultification, with the trouble- makers, who are continuously parading grievances, real or imaginary, which they hold up for commisera- tion like a boy with a sore finger. Similar tenderness emancipated majorities are sure to exercise hereafter; under durance nice consideration was impossible. Each of the great and stable Powers must accept the same foreign burden as they have borne in domestic matters; and, if they do, unselfishly and whole-heart- edly, the Treaty of Versailles will long remain the public charter, not merely of the Western world, but of the globe. It is, like all things human, imperfect and incomplete, but it was the best under the circum- stances. It can, with skillful handling, and general international good will, collective and individual, be made a pillar of the higher life. There is one minority, however, which must be treated as we treat criminals, for it is composed of criminals; criminals so desperate and so pernicious in their activities, that they must be regarded as utter outlaws, to be restrained and convinced, if possible, by reason, or otherwise to be exterminated by permanent confinement or the murderer's fate. Socialism in its mildest forms, the speciously so-called academic or philosophic, is the enemy of democracy. There is no such thing as a social democrat. No substance can be simultaneously hot and cold, sweet and sour, light and THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES 379 dark; no system of government can be socialistic and Criminal democratic, not even a blending of the two: because Minorities the former, disguise it as you may, rests on minority Justice rule, on that of inferiority over superiority, on class tyranny, and the shrinkage of personal liberty to the vanishing point. During two years elsewhere and here, moderate socialism has been discredited in the continuous elaboration and logical expansion of its basic doctrines into anarchistic propaganda and crimi- nal behavior. The tyranny of a proletariat minority in Russia Minority and contiguous lands has perpetrated more out- y"'"'^ rageous wickedness than this distracted world at its worst ever saw before. It is a devilish ingenuity with which it puts a reckless minority in possession of a basic industry by demagogic agitation, and stops the circulation of life blood by hindrance or stoppage of transportation. And at last, the lust of the licen- tious weak emboldens them, even in America, to massacre as well as robbery. Disregard and contempt for property eventuates now, as ever, in like feeling for decency and for life itself. Toward such minori- ties, majorities can feel and show but one form of consideration, to wit, a justice as stern and uncompro- mising as is the injustice which they have too often and in too many places enthroned by brute force and by indifference to even the feeblest morality. From the Balkan problem, time and primitive hu- manity are already eliminating socialistic terrorism; our western world, easy-going and fatalistic, may yet have to learn from the political turbulence of south- eastern Europe that the very cement of social order is the sanctity of property. In the last analysis Chris- tendom on its purely secular side has secured its enor- 38o THE BALKANS The Pillars of mous gains by the gifts and foundations of the faithful Civilization jn tj,g endowment of churches, schools, and eleemosy- nary institutions for assistance to the sick and weak of every sort. Socialism would confiscate them all, scouting religion as a vast lie imposed on human credulity by the strong for the oppression of the weak. The pillars of Christendom remain as they always were and will be: church, state, and family. Social- ism would, as a minimum, weaken and undermine them all; as a maximum, it would pull down all three pillars, and, amid ensuing ruin, grope for a brutish materialistic and sensual self-indulgence. Cooperative production, distribution, and all the fine phrases of reformers have been suddenly turned into the vernacu- lar of bandits. We must cry, "To arms!" family, state, and church; the church above all must resume its militant character and put on alike the spiritual and secular armor, the whole armor of God and of man. Not peace, but a sword! until once more the powers of darkness are cowed and return to the gulf from the fiery heart of which they have been cast up to do the works of the prince of darkness for a time. APPENDIX 381 APPENDIX Traits d'Amitie et d'AlliaHce Enlre le Royaume de Bulgarie Et le Royaume de Serbie S. M. Ferdinand 1", roi des Bulgares, et S. M. Pierre I", f©i de Serbie, penetres de la conviction de la communaute d'interets et de la similitude des destinees de leurs Ktats et des deux peuples fr^res, bulgare et serbe, et decides a defendre solidaire- ment, avec des forces communes, ces interets et a s'efforcer de les mener a bonne fin, sont convenus de ce qui suit: Article premier Le royaume de Bulgarie et le royaume de Serbie se garantis- sent mutuellement leur independance politique et I'integritd de leur territoire, en s'engageant d'une maniere absolue et sans restriction d'aucune sorte a se porte reciproquement secpurs, avec la totalite de leurs forces, dans tout cas ou I'un des deux royaumes serait attaque par un ou plusieurs Etats. Art. 2 Les deux parties contractantes s'engagent de meme a se porter mutuellement secours, avec la totality de leurs forces, au cas ou I'une quelconque des grandes puissances tenterait de s'an- nexer, ou d'occuper, ou de prendre possession avec ses troupes, meme provisoirement, de n'importe quelle partie des territoires de la peninsula des Balkans se trouvant actuellement sous la domination turque, si I'une des parties contractantes estime ce fait contraire i ses interets vitaux et constituant un casus belli. Art. 3 Les deux parties contractantes s'engagent a ne conclure la paix que conjointement et apres entente prdalable. Art. 4 Une convention militaire sera conclue a I'eflfet d'assurer I'execution du present traite d'une maniere complete et le plus 383 384 APPENDIX oonforme au but poursuivi. Cette convention stipulera aussi bien tout ce qu'il y aura lieu d'entreprendre de part et d'autre en cas de guerre, que tout ce qui, ayant trait 4 I'organisation militaire, la dislocation et la mobilisation des troupes, les rap- ports des hauts commandements, devra etre etabli, des le temps de paix, pour la preparation et la bonne conduite de la guerre. La convention militaire fera partie integrante du present traite. Son elaboration devra commencer au plus tard quinze jours apres la signature du present traite et etre termin6e dans le delai suivant de deux mois. Art. s Le present traits et la convention militaire seront en vigueur du jour de leur signature jusqu'au 31 decembre 1920 inclusive- ment. lis ne pourront etre proroges au dela de ce delai qu'apres une entente compldmentaire, expressement sanctionnee, des deux parties contractantes. Toutefois, au cas oil au jour de I'expiration du traite et de la convention militaire, les deux parties se trouveraient etre en guerre oil sans avoir liquide encore la situation resultant de la guerre, le traite et la con- vention seront maintenus en vigueur jusqu'a la signature de la paix ou a la liquidation de I'etat de choses amene par la guerre. Art. 6 Le present traite sera etabli en deux exemplaires uniformes, rediges tous les deux en lang^e serbe et bulgare. II sera signc par les souverains et les ministres des affaires etrangeres des deux Etats. La convention militaire, ^galeraent en deux exem- plaires rediges en bulgare et en serbe, sera signee par les sou- verains, les ministres des affaires etrangeres et les plenipoten- tiaires militaires speciaux. Art. 7 Le present traite et la convention militaire ne pourront etre publics ou communiques a d'autres Etats qu'apres entente prealable des deux parties contractantes, et ce conjointement et simultanement. Une entente prealable sera de meme necessaire pour I'admis- sion d'un tiers Etat dans I'alliance. Fait d Sofia, le 29 fevrier 1912 APPENDIX 385 Annexe secrite au traitl d'amitii et d'alUance entre le royaume de Bulgarie et le royaume de Serbie Article premier Au cas ou des troubles interieurs, de nature i mettre en danger les interets nationaux ou d'Etat des parties contractantes ou de I'une d'elles, survenaient en Turquie, comme au cas ou des difficultes interieures ou exterieures avec lesquelles la Turquie se verrait aux prises mettraient en cause le maintien du statu quo dans la peninsule des Balkans, celle des deux parties con- tractantes qui aboutirait la premiere si la conviction qu'une action militaire doit etre engagee de ce fait s'adressera, par une proposition motivee, i I'autre partie qui sera tenue d'entrer im- mediatement dans un echange de vues, et si elle ne tombe pas d'accord avec son alliee, de lui donner une reponse motivee. Si une entente en vue d'une action intervient, cette entente devra etre communiquee a la Russie, et au cas oix cette puis- sance ne s'y opposerait pas, Taction sera engagee, conformement a Tentente etablie et en s'inspirant en tout des sentiments de solidarite et de communaute d'interets. Dans le cas contraire — soit si une entente n'intervient pas — les deux Etats feront appel a I'opinion de la Russie, laquelle opinion sera, si et dans la mesure dans laquelle la Russie se prononcera, obligatoire pour les deux parties. Au cas ou la Russie s'abstenant de donner son opinion et I'entente entre les deux parties contractantes ne pouvant, meme apres cela, etre obtenue, celle des deux parties qui est pour une action decide d'engager cette derniere a elle seule et 4 ses risques, I'autre partie sera tenue d'observer une neutralite amicale vis-a-vis de son alliee, de proceder sur-le-champ i une mobilisation dans les limites prevues par la convention militaire et de se porter, avec toutes ses forces, au secours de son alliee, si un tiers Etat prenait le parti de la Turquie. Art. 2 Tous les accroissements territoriaux qui seraient realises par une action commune dans le sens des articles premier et second du traite et de I'article premier de la presente annexe secrete, tombent sous la domination commune (condominium) des deux 386 APPENDIX etats allies. Leur liquidation aura lieu sans retard, dans un delai maximum de trois mois apres le retablissement de la paix, et sur les bases suivantes: La Serbie reconnait a la Bulgarie le droit sur les territoires a Test des Rhodope et de la riviere Strouma; la Bulgarie recon- nait le droit de la Serbie sur ceux situes au nord et i I'ouest du Char-Planina. Quant aux territoires compris entre le Char, les Rhodope, la mer Egee et le lac d'Ochrida, si les deux parties acquierent la conviction que leur organisation en province autonome dis- tincte est impossible en vue des interets comrauns des natio- nalites bulgare et serbe ou pour d'autres raisons d'ordre in- terieur ou exterieur, il sera dispose de ces territoires conform^- ment aux stipulations ci-dessous: La Serbie s'engage a ne formuler aucune revendication en ce qui concerne les territoires situes au dela de la ligne tracee sur la carte ci-annexee et qui, ayant son point de depart 4 la frontiere turco-bulgare, au mont Golem (au nord de Kr. Palanka) suit la direction generale du sud-ouest jusqu'au lac d'Ochrida, en passant par le mont Kitka; entre les villages de Metejevo et Podarji-Kon, par le sommet a I'est du village Ne- rav, en suivant la ligne de partage des eaux jusqu'au sommet 1. 000 au nord du village de Baschtevo, entre les villages de Liubentzi et Petarlitza, par le sommet Ostritch i.ooo (Lissetz- Planina), le sommet 1.050 entre les villages de Dratch et Opila, par les villages de Talichmantzi et Jivalevo, le som- met 1.050, le sommet l.ooo, le village Kichali, la ligne principale de partage des eaux Gradichte-Planina jusqu'au sommet Gorich- te, vers le sommet 1.023, suivant ensuite la ligne de partage des eaux entre les villages Ivankovtzi et Loghintzi, par Vetersko et Sopot sur le Vardar. Traversant le Vardar, elle suit les cretes vers le sommet 2.550 et jusqu'a la montagne Petropole, par la ligne de partage des eaux de cette montagne entre les villages de Krapa et Barbares jusqu'au sommet 1.200, entre les villages de Yakryenovo et Drenovo, jusqu'au mont Tchesma (1.254), par la ligne de partage des eaux des montagnes Baba- Planina et Krouchka-Tepessi, entre les villages de Salp et Tzerske, jusqu'au sommet de la Protoyska-Planina, a Test du village de Belitza, par Brejani, jusqu'au sommet 1.200 (Ilinska- Planina), par la ligne de partage des eaux passant par le som- met 1.330 jusqu'au sommet 1.217 et entre les villages de Livoichta APPENDIX 387 et Gorentzi jusqu'au lac d'Ochrida pres du monastfere de Gabovtzi. La Bulgarie s'engage a accepter cette frontiere si S. M. I'em- pereur de Russie, qui sera sollicite d'etre I'arbitre supreme en cette question, se prononce en faveur de cette ligne. II va de soi que les deux parties contractantes s'engagent a accepter comme frontiere definitive la ligne que S. M. I'em- pereur de Russie, dans les limites susindiquees, aurait trouvee correspondre le plus aux droits et aux interets des deux parties. Art. 3 Copie du traite et de la presente annexe secrete sera commu- nique conjointement au gouvernement imperial de Russie, qui sera prie en meme temps d'en prendre acte, de faire preuve de bienveillance a I'egard des buts qu'ils poursuivent, et de prier S. M. I'empereur de Russie de daigner accepter et approuver les attributions designees pour sa personne et son gouvernement, par les clauses de ces deux actes. Art. 4 Tout diflFerend qui surgirait touchant I'interpretation et I'exe- cution d'une quelconque des clauses du traite, de la presente annexe secrete et de la convention militaire sera soumis a la decision definitive de la Russie, des lors que I'une des deux parties aura declare qu'elle estime impossible une entente par des pourparlers directs. Art. 5 Aucune des dispositions de la presente annexe secrete ne pourra etre publiee ou comrauniquee a un autre Etat sans une entente prealable des deux parties et I'assentiment de la Russie. Fait d Sofia, le 29 fevrier 1912 Convention Militaire Entre le Royaume de Bulgarie et le Royaume de Serhie Conformement a I'esprit et sur la base de I'article 3 du traite d'amitie et d'alliance entre le royaume de Bulgarie et le royaume de Serbie et afin de mieux assurer la conduite de la guerre avec succes et la realisation plus complete des buts que I'alliance a en vue, les deux parties contractantes conviennent des stipula- 388 APPENDIX tions ci-dessous, qui auront en tout meme force et valeur que les dispositions du traite lui-meme. Article premier Le royaume de Bulgarie et le royaume d? Serbte s'engagent, dans les cas prevus par les articles i et 2 du traits d'alliance et par I'article i de I'annexe secrete a ce traiti, a se porter mutuellement secours, la Bulgarie avec une force arniee qui ne devra pas etre inferieure a deux cent mille combattants et la Serbie avec une force d'au moins cent cinquante mille com- battants, en mesure aussi bien de combattre a la frontiere que de prendre part a des operations militaires hors du territoire national. Dans ce nombre ne sauraient etre compris ni les combattants de formations surnumeraires, ni ceux du troisieme ban serbe, ni les troupes territoriales bulgares. Ce contingent de combattants devra etre rendu k la frontiere ou au dela des frontieres de son territoire national — dans la direction ou il devra etre dirige suivant les causes et le but de la guerre, et d'apres le developpement des operations militaires— au plus tard le 2i* jour apres la declaration de la guerre ou la communication de I'Etat alli6 que la casus foederis s'est pro- duit. Toutefois, meme avant I'expiration de ce delai, les deux parties considereront corame leur devoir d'alUee — et si cela est conforme a la nature des operations militaires et peut contribuer a Tissue favorable de la guerre — d'envoyer, meme partiellement et dans les limites de la mobilisation et de la concentration, leurs troupes sur le champ de bataille des le septieme jour a partir de la declaration de la guerre ou de la survenance du casus fcederis. Art. 2 Si la Roumanie attaque la Bulgarie, la Serbie est fenue de lui declarer imm^diatement la guerre et de diriger contre elle ses forces, d'au moins cent mille combattants, soit sur le moyen Danube, soit sur le theatre d'operations de la Dobroudja. Au cas ou la Turquie attaquerait la Bulgarie, la Serbie s'engage i pen^trer en Turquie et a distraire de ses troupes mobilisees, cent mille combattants au moins pour les diriger sur le theatre d'operations du Vardar. Si la Serbie se trouve etre a ce moment seule ou conjointe- raent avec la Bulgarie, deji en guerre avec un tiers Etat, elle APPENDIX 389 engagera contre la Roumanie ou la Turquie toutes les troupes dont elle conservera la libre disposition. Art. 3 Si I'Autriche-Hongrie attaque la Serbie, la Bulgarie est tenue de declarer immediatement la guerre a I'Autriche-Hongrie et de diriger ses troupes, d'au moins deux cent milk combattants, en Serbie, de telle sorte que, unies a Tarmee serbe, elles operent soit offensivement, soit defensivement, contre I'Autriche-Hongrie. La meme obligation incombera a la Bulgarie vis-a-vis de la Serbie au cas o\x I'Autriche-Hongrie, sous quelque pretexte que ce soit, d'accord ou sans le consentement de la Turquie, fait penetrer ses troupes dans le sandjak de Novi-Bazar et que par suite la Serbie lui declare la guerre ou, pour la defense de ses interets, dirige ses troupes dans le sandjak et par la provo- que un conflit arme entre elle et I'Autriche-Hongrie. Au cas oil la Turquie attaquerait la Serbie, la Bulgarie s'engage i franchir immediatement la frontiere turque et 4 prelever sur ses troupes, mobilisees conforraement a I'article premier de la presente convention, une armee forte d'au moins cent mille combattants, qui sera dirigee sur le theatre d'opera- tions du Vardar. Si la Roumanie attaque la Serbie, la Bulgarie est tenue d'atta- quer les troupes roumaines des qu'elles auront penetre, en traversant le Danube, sur le territoire serbe. Si la Bulgarie, dans I'un quelconque des cas envisages par le present article, se trouve deja, seule ou conjointement avec la Serbie, en guerre avec un tiers Etat, elle est tenue de porter au secours de la Serbie toutes les troupes dont elle conserverait la libre disposition. Art. 4 Si la Bulgarie et la Serbie, suivant une entente prealable, declarent la guerre a la Turquie, I'une et I'autre seront tenues, s'il n'en est dispose autrement par un arrangement special, de prelever sur leurs troupes, mobilisees conformement a I'article premier de la presente convention, et de diriger sur le theatre d'operations du Vardar une armee d'au moins cent mille com- battants. Art. S Au cas ou I'une des parties contractantes declarerait la guerre a un tiers Etat sans entente prealable et sans le consentement de 390 APPENDIX I'autre partie contractante, cette derniere sera deliee des obliga- tions privues a I'article premier de la presente convention, mais sera tenue d'observer, pendant la duree de la guerre une neu- tralite amicale vis-a-vis de son alliee, ainsi que de mobiliser sans retard une force d'au moins cinquante mille combattants qui sera concentree de maniere a assurer au mieux la liberte des mouvements, de son alliee. Art. 6 En cas de gfuerre conjointe, aucune des parties contractantes ne pourra conclure avec I'ennemi d'armistice plus long que 24 heures, sans tine entente prealable et sans le consentement de I'autre partie. Une entente prealable et par ^crit sera de meme necessatre pour que des pourparlers de paix puissent etre engages et un traite de paix signe. Art. 7 Pendant la dur^e de la guerre, les troupes de chacune des parties contractantes seront commandees et toutes leurs opera- tions seront dirigees par leurs propres commandements. Lorsque des corps de troupes appartenant aux armees des deux Etats opereront contre un meme objectif, le commandement commun sera pris, pour des unites de meme importance, par le chef le plus ancien en grade, et pour des unites d'importance differente par le chef le plus ancien au point de vue du com- mandement exerce. Lorsqu'une ou plusieurs armees distinctes appartenant a une des parties contractantes seront mises a la disposition de I'autre partie, elles se trouveront sous les ordres de leurs propres commandants qui, pour la conduite strategique des operations, seront soumis au commandant en chef de I'armee a la disposi- tion de laquelle elles sont mises. En cas de guerre conjointe contre la Turquie, le commande- ment en chef sur le theatre d'operations du Vardar appartiendra k la Serbie si I'armee principale serbe opere sur ce theatre et si elle est numeriquement plus forte que les troupes bulgares sur ce theatre conformement a I'article 4 de la presente conven- tion. Toutefois si I'armee principale serbe n'opere pas sur ce theatre et lorsqu'elle y sera numeriquement plus faible que les troupes bulgares, le commandement en chef sur ce theatre appartiendra a la Bulgarie. APPENDIX 391 Art. 8 Au cas ou les troupes des deux parties contractantes se trouveraient placees sous les ordres d'un meme commandant, tous les ordres et loutes les prescriptions se rapportant a la conduite strategique des operations tactiques communes seront redigees dans les deux langues — en bulgare et en serbe. Art. 9 En ce qui conceme le ravitaillement et les subsistances en general, le logement, le service medical, le transport des blesses et malades ou I'inhumation des morts, le transport du materiel de guerre et autres objets similaires, I'armee de chacune des parties contractantes jouira des memes droits et facilites sur le territoire de I'autre partie et par les memes precedes que les troupes de cette derniere partie, conformement aux lois et regies locales. Toutes les autorites locales doivent, dans le meme but, preter leur appui aux troupes alliees. Le payement de toutes les subsistances sera rdgle par chaque partie pour son compte aux prix locaux, de preference en especes et dans des cas exceptionnels contre bons delivres specialement. Le transport des troupes et de tout le materiel de guerre, subsistances et autres objets en chemin de fer et les frais y relatifs seront k la charge de la partie sur le territoire de laquelle ce transport a lieu. Art. id Les trophecs appartiennent 4 I'arm^e qui les aura pris. Dans le cas ou la prise a lieu par I'eflfet d'un combrt en com- mun sur le meme terrain, les deux armies partageront les tro- phees proportionnellement aux forces des combattants qui y auront directement participe. Art. II Durant la guerre, chaque partie contractante aura un delegui dans I'etat-major du commandement en chef ou dans les com- mandements des armees, lesquels delegrues entretiendront les Uens entre les deux armees sous tous les rapports. 392 APPENDIX Art. 12 Les operations strategiques et les cas qui ne sont pas prevus, ainsi que les contestations qui pourraient surgir seront regies d'un comraun accord par les deux commandements en chef. Art. 13 Les chefs des etats-majors des armees alliees s'entendront, immediatement apres la conclusion de la presente convention, sur la distribution des troupes mobilisees d'apres I'article premier de cette convention et leur groupement dans la zone de concentration dans les cas exposes ci-dessus, sur les routes qui devront etre reparees ou construites de nouveau en vue de la concentration rapide sur la frontiere et les operations ulterieures. Art. 14 La presente convention sera en vigueur a partir du jour de sa signature et durera tant qu'aura force le traite d'amitie et d'alliance auquel elle est annexee a titre de partie integrante. Arrangement entre les Stats-majors de Bulgarie et de Serbie Conformement a I'article 13 de la convention militaire exist- ant entre le royaume de Bulgarie et le royaume de Serbie, les delegues designes par les deux parties ont, sur la base des plans d'operations respectifs, convenu de ce qui suit: Au cas d'une guerre entre la Bulgarie et la Serbie d'une part et la Turquie de V autre: Dans I'hypothese ou la principale armee turque serait con- centree dans la region d'Uskub, Koumanovo, Kratovo, Kotchani, Veles, les troupes alliees destinees a agir sur le th6atre d'opera- tions du Vardar seront reparties comme suit: I* Une armee serbe de deux divisions marchera, par le Kara- Dagh, sur Uskub. Cette armee formera I'aile droite des troupes alliees ; 2* Une armee serbe de cinq divisions d'infanterie et une division de cavalerie avancera, par la valine de la Moravitza et de la Ptchinia, sur le front Koumanovo-Kratovo. Cette armee constituera le centre des troupes alliees avec la mission d'operer de front contre I'ennemi; APPENDIX 393 3* Une armee bulgare de trois divisions formera I'aile gauche des troupes alliees, avec la mission d'operer contre I'aile droite et sur les derrieres de Tenneini, dans les directions de Kustendil- Egri-Palanka-Uskub ct Kustendil-Tzarivo-S^lo-Kotchani. 4° Les deux chefs d'etat-major general reconnaitront ensemble la region entre Kusteridil et Vrania, et si cette reconnaissance demontre le possibilite d'employer de grandes masses dans la direction Kustendil-Egri-Palanka-Uskub, les deux divisions serbes destinies a operer, par le Kara-Dagh, contre Uskub, seront, si la situation generale le permet, employees a renforcer I'aile gauche des troupes alliees et seront concentrees a cet eflfet pres de Kustendil. 5° Pour couvrir le flanc droit des troupes alliees, le chef d'etat-major de I'armee serbe disposera a sa convenance des trois divisions restantes du deuxieme ban. 6' Le chef d'etat-major de I'armee bulgare s'engage a agir pour la prompte mise en etat de la route de Bossilegrad a Vlas- sina. 7° Si la situation exige le renforcement des troupes bulgares sur le theatre d'operations de la Maritza et si, pour le theatre d'operations du Vardar, toutes les troupes ci-dessus enumerees ne sont point indispensables, les unites necessaires seront trans- portees de ce dernier theatre d'operations sur celui de la Maritza. A I'inverse, si la situation exige le renforcement des troupes alliees sur le theatre d'operations du Vardar et si le maintien de toutes les troupes designees pour les operations sur le theatre de la Maritza n'est pas indispensable, les unites necessaires seront transportees de ce theatre sur celui du Vardar. Annexe Les deux itats-majors generaux s'engagent: a) A echanger tous leurs renseignements sur les armees des pays limitrophes; 6) A se procurer mutuellement le nombre voulu d'exemplaires de tous les reglements, instructions, cartes, etc., tant ofHciels que secrets; c) A envoyer chacun dans I'amiee alliee un certain nombre d'officiers charges de se familiariser avec son organisation et d'en etudier la langue, conformement a I'art. II de la convention militaire. d) Les chefs d'6tat-major des armees serbe et bulgare se 394 APPENDIX rencontreront chaque automne pour se mettre au courant de la situation g^n6rale et pour introduire dans les arrangements conclus les modifications rendues necessaires par les change- ments de la situation. Varna, 19 juin 1912 General R. Poutnik, General Fitcheff. Traiti d' Alliance Defensive Entre la Bulgarie et la Grece Considerant que les deux royaumes d6sirent fermement la conservation de la paix dans la peninsule balkanique et peuvent, par une alliance defensive solide, mieux repondre a ce besoin: Osnsiderant, dans ce meme ordre d'idees, que la coexistence pacifique des differentes nationalites en Turquie, sur la base id'une egalite politique reelle et veritable et le respect des droits decoulant des traites ou autrement concedes aux nationalites chretiennes de I'erapire, constituent des conditions necessaires pour la consolidation de I'etat de choses en Orient; Considerant enfin qu'une cooperation des deux royaumes, dans le sens indiqu6, est de nature, dans I'interet meme de leurs bons rapports avec I'empire ottoman, k faciliter et i corroborer I'entente des elements grec et bulgare en Turquie; Le gouvernement de Sa Majeste le roi des Bulg^res et le gouvernement de Sa Majeste le roi des Hellenes, se promettant de ne pas donner une tendance agressive quelconque a leur accord purement defensif et ayant resolu de condure une alli- ance de paix et de protection reciproque dans les termes ci-des- sous indiques, ont nomme pour leus plenipotentiaires. . . Lesquels, apres avoir echange leurs pleins pouvoirs, ont arret£ ce qui suit: Article premier Si, contrairement au sincere desir des deux hautes parties contractantes, et en depit d'une attitude de leur gouvernement evitant tout acte d'agression et toute provocation vis-4-vJs de I'empire ottoman, I'un des deux Etats venait a etrc attaque par la Turquie, soit dans son territoire, soit par une atteintc sys- tematique aux droits decoulant des traites ou des principes fondamentaux du droit des gens, les deux hautes parties con- APPENDIX 395 tractantes sont tenues a se preter reciproquement secours avec la totalite de leurs forces armees et par suite i ne conclure la patx que conjointement et d'accord. Art. 2 Les deux hautes parties contractantes se promettent mutuelle- ment, d'un cote d'user de leur influence morale aupres de leurs congeneres en Turquie afin qu'ils contribuent sincerement a la coexistence pacifique des elements constituant la population de I'empire, et de I'autre cote de se preter une assistance reciproque et de marcher d'accord, dans toute action, aupres du gouver- nement ottoman ou aupres des grandes puissances, qui aurait pour but d'obtenir ou d'assurer la realisation des droits decoulant des traites ou autrement concedes aux nationalites grecque et bulgare, I'application de I'egalite politique et des garanties con- stitutionnelles. Art. 3 Le present traite aura une duree de trois ans a partir du jour dc sa signature et sera renouvele tacitement pour une annee sauf denonciation. Sa denonciation doit etre notifiee au moins six mois avant I'expiration de la troisieme annee a partir de la si- gnature du traite. Art. 4 Le present traite sera garde secret. II ne pourra etre commu- nique a une tierce puissance soit integralement, soit en partie, ni divulgue en partie ou en tout qu'avec le consentement des deux hautes parties contractantes. Le present trait6 sera ratifi^ le plus tot que faire se pourra. Les ratifications seront echangees a Sofia (ou a Athenes). En foi de quoi, les plenipotentiaires respectifs ont signe le present traite et y ont appose leurs cachets. Fait d Sofia, en double expidition, le i6 mai igi2 I. E. GuficHOFF, D. Panas. DiCLARATlON L'article i" ne se rapporte notamment pas au cas ou une guerre viendrait a eclater entre la Grece et la Turquie par suite de I'admission dans le Parlement grec des deputes cretois contre la volonte du gouvernement ottoman; dans ce cas, la Bulgarie n'est tenue qu'a garder vis-a-vis de la Grece une neutralite bien- 396 APPENDIX veillante. Et comme la liquidation de la crise des affaires d'Orient, nee des evenements de 1908, aussi quant a la question cretoise, correspond a I'interet general, et est meme de nature, sans troubler I'equilibre dans la peninsule balkanique, a y con- solider dans I'interet de la paix la situation internationale, la Bulgaria (independamment des engagements assumes par le present traite) promet de ne gener d'aucune fagon une action eventuelle de la Grece qui tendrait a la solution de cette ques- tion. I. E. GuECHOFF, D. Panas. Conventio'n Militaire S. M. le roi des Bulgares et S. M. le roi des Hellenes, desirant completer par une convention militaire le traite d'alliance de- fensive conclu a Sofia le 16 mai 1912 entre le royaume de Bul- garie et le royaume de Grece, ont, dans ce but, nomme pour leurs plenipotentiaires : Sa Majeste le roi des Bulgares : Son Exc. M. Iv. Ev. Guechoff, etc., etc. Sa Majeste le roi des Hellenes: Son Exc. M. D. Panas, etc., etc. Lesquels apres s'etre communique leurs pleins pouvoirs trouves en bonne et due forme, sent convenus de ce qui suit: Article premier Dans le cas ou, conformement aux obligations decoulant du traite d'alliance defensive conclu a Sofia le 16 mai 1912 entre la Bulgarie et la Grece, la Grece interviendrait militaireraent contre la Turquie dans une guerre bulgaro-turque, ou bien la Bulgarie contre la Turquie dans une gfuerre turco-grecque, les deux Etats, bulgare et grec, s'engagent a se preter mutuellement secours, soit la Grece avec un effectif atteignant au minimum cent vingt mille hommes, et la Bulgarie avec un effectif d'au moins trois cent mille hommes; ces forces devront etre aptes aussi bien a entrer en campagne sur la frontiere qu'a prendre part a des operations militaires en dehors des limites du terri- toire national. APPENDIX 397 Les troupes susindiquees devront etre concentrees a la fron- tiere et a meme de la franchir au plus tard le vingtieme jour qui aura suivi la mobilisation ou I'avis donne par Tune des parties contractantes que le casus foederis s'est produit. Art. 2 Au cas ou la Grece viendrait a etre attaquee par la Turquie, la Bulgarie s'engage a declarer la guerre a cette derniere puis- sance et a entrer en campagne contre elle avec I'ensemble de ses forces, fixee?, au terme de I'article premier, a un minimum de trois cent mille hommes, en conformant ses operations mili- taires au plan elabore par I'etat-major bulgare. Au cas oii la Bulgarie viendrait a etre attaquee par la Turquie, la Grece s'engage a declarer la guerre a cette derniere puis- sance et a entrer en campagne contre elle avec I'ensemble de ses forces, fixees, aux termes de I'article premier, a un minimum de cent vingt mille hommes, en conformant ses operations mili- taires au plan elabore par I'etat-major grec. L'objectif principal de la flotte hellenique devra toutefois etre de se rendre maitresse de la mer Egee et d'interrompre les communications par cette voie entre I'Asie-Mineure et la Turquie d'Europe. Dans les cas prevus aux deux paragraphes precedents, la Bulgarie s'engage a operer offensivement avec une partie im- portante de son armee contre les forces turques concentrees dans la region des vilayets de Kossovo, Monastir et Salonique. Si la Serbie, en vertu de ses accords avec la Bulgarie, prend part a la guerre, la Bulgarie pourra disposer de la totalite de ses forces militaires en Thrace, mais dans ce cas elle prend par le present acte I'engagement envers la Grece que des forces mili- taires serbes d'un effectif d'au moins cent vingt mille combat- tants opereront offensivement contre les forces turques concen- trees dans la region des trois vilayets susmentionnes. Art. 3 Si la Bulgarie et la Grece, aux termes d'une entente prealable, declarent la guerre a la Turquie, elks sont I'une et I'autre tenues — 4 moins qu'il n'en soit dispose autrement par un accord special — de faire entrer en campagne les effectifs prevus a I'article premier de la presente convention. 398 APPENDIX Les dispositions de deux derniers paragraphes de I'article 2 soRt dans ce cas aussi applicables. Art. 4 Au cas oil I'un des gouvernements contractants declarerait la guerre a un Etat autre que la Turquie, sans una entente prealable et sans le consentement de I'autre gouvernement, ce dernier est delie des obligations exposees a I'article premier, mais reste neanmoins tenu d'observer, pendant toute la duree de la guerre, une neutralite amicale a I'egafd de son allie. Art. S En cas de guerre conjointe, aucun des Etats allies ne pourra conclure d'armistice d'une duree superieure a vingt-quatre heu- res, sans une entente prealable et sans le consentement de I'autre Etat allie. L'entente des deux parties contractantes, contenu dans un accord 6crit, sera de meme necessaire pour que I'une d'elles puisse engager des negociations en vue de la paix ou conclure un traite de paix. Art. 6 Dans le cas ou la Bulgaria et la Grece ayant mobilise leurs forces armees ou etant entrees en campag^e, la Grece se verrait obligee de regler la question cretoise suivant les vceux des popu- lations de rile et serait pour cela attaquee par la Turquie, la Bulgarie s'engage a se porter a son secours, conformement a I'article premier de la presente convention. Art. 7 Les chefs d'etat-major general des armees bulgare et grecque devront se renseigner mutuellement et en temps opportun sur leurs plans d'operations en cas d'une guerre. lis devront en outre faire connaitre tous les ans les modifications apportees a ces plans du fait de circonstances nouvelles. Art. 8 La presente convention deviendra obligatoire pour les deux parties contractantes sitot apres avoir ete signee; elle demeurera en vigueur pendant toute la duree du traite d'alliance defensive APPENDIX 399 du i6 mai 1912, auquel elle est incorpor£e i titre de partie integrante. Fait d SoHa, en double exemflaire, le 22 septembre 1912 I. E. GufiCHOFF, General Fitcheff. D. Panas, J. P. MiTAXES, capUaine. INDEX 401 INDEX Abdul Hamid, secluded life of, 29; refused recognition by millions, 29; cited, 4^; an accompUshed opportunist in politics, 43; cares of, 45; bitterness of toward Great Britain, 46; unseated and sent a prisoner to Salonica, 85; Oriental despotism practiced by, 147; friendly to William II, 310 Abdul Medjid, cited, 120 Adams, John Quincy, quoted, 241 Adrianople, invested by Bul- garians, i65; keeping of un- der Turkish rule, 179, 247 Adriatic, western shore of, 323 iEgean Isles, different peoples occupying the, 100; impor- tance of Greek inhabitants in, loi; perplexing situation relative to, 245; held by Italy, 282 Albanians, no question as to their essential imity, 42; a riddle, 75; generally accepted hypothesis of origin of, 77; independent of religion in personal conduct, 78; physical and mental characteristics of, 78; language and original character retained by, loi; nationality asserted by, 190 Alexander I of Servia, consort chosen by, 141; assassinated, 141; penalties paid by mur- derers of, 143; referred to, 302 Alexander I of Russia, enthrone- ment of, 10; death of, 106 Alexander the Great, effect of his triumphs on the con- quered, 58 Alexander Ypsilanti, proclama- tion issued by, 105 Alfred, Prince, chosen to suc- ceed King Otto of Greece, 109 Algeciras Conference, cited, 85 Ah, just succession of prevented, 46 Ali Saib, celebrated Turkish general, defeated, 95 Allenby, General, in Palestine, 363; enters Jerusalem, 367 AlHed drive of August, 1915, 314 Allies, success of, 165; war cry of, 169; all Turkey in Europe in possession of, 172; discord among the, 173; Western, terms of, 326; general offensive by, 366 Alps, Dinaric, 318 America, being made unilingual and homogeneous, 35; en- trance of into the war, 359, 360; good work of troops of ,365 Anastasius, defeated by the Slavs, 65 Armament, some figures rela- tive to, 176 Armistice of Bulair, signing of. 174 . , Aryans, cited, 34; theoretical reconstruction of, 36; term defined, 40 Ascendency of British control, menace to, 309 Ashkenazi Jew, the, cruelties in- flicted upon, 33 Asia Minor, ethnic stocks of, 3; massacre of Christians in, 157; railway lines in, 267; pen- etration of by German agents, 310 Aspirations and ideals, Italian, Asquith, visit of to Rome, 332 Athens, two views of, 112 Austria-Hungary, annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina 403 404 INDEX by, 189; discussed, 254; strug- gle of with Italy, 318 Austria sues for armistice, 367 Avlona, seized by Italy, 324, 345, 356 Bajazet I, defeat and exile of, 9 Bajazet II, reign of described, 10 Balkan Alliance, formation of, 183; believed once to be im- possible, 186; military ar- rangements of, 202 Balkan Federation, 303 Balkan peninsula, composition of, 3; prehistoric man in the, 55; earliest traceable immigra- tion of settlers into, 57; an important migration into, 64; invasion of the by Avars, 65; principle of nationality in, 183 Balkan peoples, stage of de- velopment reached by, iii; twenty years of diplomacy among, 186; united by com- mon suffering, 192; peninsula a bone of contention, 298; independence of, discussed, 325; policy of public men, 325 Balkan problem of to-day, the, 349 Balkans, the, and the Great War, 363 Balkan States, by whom in- habited, 4; of to-day, story of, 14; revival of trade in, 88; populations of, 151; appor- tionment of surrendered ter- ritories an acute question in, 175; the term "nationality" in, 249; Islam in the, 264; nationality of uncertain, 274; elements of disunion in, 275; possible advance of in nation- ality, 277; armed peace in, 278; missionaries in, 299; the new, 302 Balkan War, second, 313 Bartlett, Ashmead, quoted, 226 Belgium, Great Britain's appar- ent defense of, 295 Belgrade, palace scandals of, 142 Berlin: panic on exchange, 177; controversy in regarding chil- dren, 305; treaty of, 336, 344 Bismarck, cited, 303 Bon6 de Lapeyrire, Admiral, 335 Bouchier, quoted, 203; cited, 209, 219 Briand, Premier, quoted, 346 Bryce, Lord, suggestion of, 183, 373 Bucharest, the treaty of, 309, 313. 317. 328, 337 "Bulgar," synonymous with "vulgar," 103 Bulgaria, armistice concluded with, 367; only permitted lan- guage in churdi and school in, 102; literaiy remains of burned, 103; Prince Ferdi- nand made ruler of, 130; court and people discussed, 131, 132; advantage possessed by, 150; independence de- clared by, 155; task faced by, 388; final abdication of Alex- ander as ruler of, 130; ruler- ship of offered to and declined by Prince Waldemar of Den- mark, 130 Bulgarian Church, secession of from control of Greek pa- triarchate in Constantinople, 127 Bulgarian nationality, 301 Bulgars, Asiatic race called the, 40; nearest kin to the Ttirks, 66; founders of a mighty em- pire, 67; attached to Greek Catholic Church, 71; ambi- tions to control the Balkan peninsula, 71; originally an Altaic horde, 72; physique described, 72; regarded as a dangerous element in Mace- donia, 200 Burhan-Eddin, 331 Byron, Lord, amazing verse of, 106; death of, 106 Cabinet, British, not well in- formed, 314 INDEX 405 Canning, decisive step taken by, 106; death of, 107 Capitulations, cited, 17 Carnegie Peace Foundation, cited, 225 Carol, King, cited, 281 Cavour, cited, 84 Central Allies, 326 Cettigne, capital of Montene- gro, described, 95; foreign language spoken in, 96 Charles of Hohenzollem-Sig- maringen. Prince, chosen king of Rumania, 121 Chieftains, government estab- lished and maintained by, 57; overthrown, 58 Christians, Byzantine type of, 37 Churchill, Winston, 336 Clanship, 316 Colonies, German, captured, 358 Commission of Control, 331 Committee of Union and Prog- ress, accomplishments of, 153; attempt to destroy power of, 157; composition of, 161 Concert, Powers of the, 325; ap- pealed to by Prince William of Wied, 331 Conflagration, European, danger of, 163 Congress of Vienna, cited, 104, 298, 377 Constantine of Greece, King, cited, 281; referred to, 315; proposition made by, 316 Constantine the Great, cited, 4 Constantinople, under Ottoman rule, 3; nationalities in, 4; fall of, 15; class of officials ruling at, and an example, 30; con- querors of never sure of their position in Christian world, 102; Greek patriarch at,' 102; ascendancy regained by, 154; highway to, 315 Corporation, a, qualities of, 296 Cousa, acknowledged as Alex- ander John I, 120 Crete, rebellion of, 109; union with Greece voted by, 156 Crimean War, beginning of, 119; a warning against inquisitive- ness, 300; referred to, 376 Cuba, cause of transformations in, 84 Customs system of Turks, an- alyzed, 28 Czar Peter the Great, victori- ous alliance formed by, 92 Czar Simeon, cited, 14 Czar Stephen Dushan, cited, 14; achievements and death of, 68; climax of Servian strength reached under, 135 Daneff, prime minister, cited, 230 Danilo I of Montenegro, great accomplishments of, 93; de- feat of Omar Pasha by, 94; assassinated by one of his own subjects, 94 Dardanelles, closing of, 161; fiasco, the, 316, 325 David, last so-called "Roman'' ruler, cited, 5 Decibaius, King, power of an- nihilated, 62 Delcass6 M., 316, 336, 340 Derwish, Turkish general, cited, 94 Devastation, Turkish, 313; Mon- tenigran, 318 Diocletian, cited, 4 Diplomacy, European, awak- ened, 49; before the great war, 29s; Western, futility of, 312; German, given a chance, 314; Balkan, 317 Disraeli, action of, 19 Draga, death of, 141; referred to, 302 Dual Monarchy, domination of in economic matters, 149; cited, 286; referred to, 319, 323. 327 East Roman, or Byzantine, em- pire, fall of, 4; other names applied to, 39; language of, 39 East Rumelia, move to incor- 4o6 INDEX porate with Bulgaria, 128; Prince Alexander appointed governor-general of, 129 Egypt, 301 Emperor, East Roman, de- scribed, 6; his form of gov- ernment, 7 England, evangelical movement, in, 299 Enver Bey, action of, 169 Europe, southeastern, national- ities of, 3; an ethnological museum, 3; described, 83; Western, types strongly de- veloped in, 36 Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 338 Feudalism, a social and eco- nomic system, 15 Fiume, 318, 353 Foch, General, 365; success of his armies, 366 France, discussed, 259, 299 Francis I, treaty concluded by, 16 Francis Joseph, cited, 286 Friction between Moslem and Christian, 300 Garibaldi, cited, 84 Genthios, King, defeated and captured, 59 George, late king of the Hel- lenes, discussed, iii Germanism, penetration of into the Balkans, 306 Germany, discussed, 258; bal- ance in between Catholic and Protestant factions, 304 Ghegs, the, national heroes fur- nished by, 77 Ghika, reform efforts of, 119 Gladstone, William E., 301 Goths, settlement of, 63; in Albanian Alps, 77 Grand Council of the Ottoman empire, summoning of, 169 Great Britain, profits pocketed by, 212; discussed, 260; en- trance of into the great war, 295; specious plea of, 296; slogan of, 298; role played by in Crimean War, 300; pro- tectorate over Turkish em- pire renounced by, 302; war formally declared by, 336; not satisfied with annihilation of Germany's sea power, 375 "Great Idea," defined, 38; the common tie of colonist Al- banians and native Greeks, loi; determinative role of in Eastern Europe, 117; cited, 186, 235 "Great Servia" idea, the, 139; movement, the, 303; dream of a, 323 Great war, the, beginning of, 295 Greco-Bulgarian treaty, state- ment of, 197 Greece, progress of, 38; tacti- cal mistakes made bj^, 38; modem, why called Slavic, 40; varying elements of popula- tion comprising, 41; becomes the province of Achaia, 60; the effect of Roman influence on, 6i; Roman citizenship conferred on all freemen, 61; independence of declared by Powers, 107; declared a hered- itary monarchy by London Conference, 108; story of con- solidation of, 108; present peace and good order in, 1 12 ; German influence seen in, 113; plight of in 1908, 150; of the "Great Idea," 315 Greek Assembly, the, first meet- ing of, 106; Iflng selected by, 107 Greek Church, the, 5; ramifica- tions of its ecclesiastical order, 13; created by Greeks, loi Greeks, modem, from whom descended, 38; loss of political independence of the, 59; as- sisted by Albania in struggle for liberty, 99; dress of, 99; wholesale massacres of in island of Chios, 106; perse- cuted by Bulgaria, 188 INDEX 407 Gregory X, cited, 16 Grey, Sir Edward, cited, 174; declaration of, 226; action of, ^335 Gueshoflf, policy of, 194 Gypsies, the, generally nomadic, 79 Hapsburgs, cited, 16, 303, 324; policy of, 328 Hegel, cited, 304 Hellenes, a dierished idea of, 104 Hindenburg line smashed, 366 Hohenzollems, the Rumanian, 399 Holy League, purpose of, 16 Hostilities in West, close of, 367 Hun, Belgium and northern France in hands of, 358 Hungarians, entrance of into Slavic territory, 67; remark- able civilization developed by, 67 Himgaiy emancipated from Turkish rule, 133 Hunyadi, victories of, 9 IgnatieS, campaigns of, cited, 19 Indies, land route to the, 326 Interest, diplomatic, of western Europe, 299 International Commission of Control, composition of, 180 Invaders, Turkish, in Asia, 5 Ionian Isles, ceded to Greece by Great Britain, 109 lonians, cited, 55 Islam, not a homogeneous sys- tem, 309 Italy, Tripoli, and Cyrenaica occupied by, 159; fears of, 160; entrance of into the war, 324 Ivan the Terrible, cited, 16 Janissaries, described, 12 Japhetites, cited, 34 Javanes, cited, 34 Jews, the, cited, 13; those of Ashkenazi branch hated and feared, 79; those of Sephar- dim branch generally re- spected, 80 Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 297 Justinian, extension of Roman power under, 5; system of fortifications inaugurated by, 65 Kanaris, victory of, 106 Kapo d'lstrias, plenipotentiaries won to Greek cause by, 104; belief concerning, 107; assas- sinated by fellow patriots, 107 Karageorge, assassination of, 137 Karageorgevich, Alexander, cho- sen ruler of Servia, 138; de- posed, 139; dynasty, 303 King Peter, 303 Labor unions, methods of, 368 Land offensive, greatest in world's history, launched by Germans, 365 Leopold of Saxe Coburg, se- lected as king of Greece and declines, 107 Levant, the, destiny of, 51; Greece's trade in, 315 Lewis I, King, cited, 108 Littmann, Professor, cited, 267 Lloyd-George, 341 London Conference, action of relative to Greece, 108 Lusitania, destruction of, 358 Macedonia, woes and sorrows and cruelties in, 41; hetero- geneous population of, 41; lines of division in, 43; atroc- ities in mainly the work of Christians, 49; demands an end of rapine and miurder, 88; program for regeneration of, 148; futile efforts for reform in, 188; harmony among Christian races in, 191; mur- ders of Christian leaders in, 194; revolt of Bulgarians in, 199; lawlessness in, 214; de- 4o8 INDEX scription of refugees from, 215; autonomy in opposed by Greece, 231; discussed, 327 Mahomet II, East Roman em- pire crushed by, 10; further victories and death of, 10 MaUet, Sir Louis, 335 Marne, second battle of the, 365 Marshal von Bieberstein, Brit- ish influence nullified by, 153 Martel, Charles, cited, 15 Massacres in Armenia, 312 Maude, General, victory of, 363 Maximilian I, plan of for par- tition of Turkey, 16 Mazzini, cited, 84 "Mediocrities," the three, 335 Mehemet Ali of Egjrpt, exist- ence of Turkey threatened by, 18; help of sought by Sultan, 106 Metternich system, Europe weary of, 106 Mexico, transformations in, 84 Miaulis, Admiral, own fleet destroyed by, 107 MUan, king of Servia, war de- clared by, 129 Milan IV, reign of, 140; abdi- cation of, 141 Milyukoff, Professor, cited, 225 Mohammedanism, modified by Occidental influences, 14; spirit of equality in, 269; ad- herents of in British empire, 309 Montenegrins, possessed of primitive virtues, 70 Monastir and Janina, 319 Montenegro, physical features of, 89; aim and aspiration of, 91; good will of important to Turkey, 94; area and popula- tion of, 97; industries in, 97; army system of, 98; slight achievements of, 234; dis- cussed, 343 Morocco, cited, 85 Moslem law, protection from injurious administration of, 17 Moslem power at Constanti- nople, 18 Muller, William, influence of in Germany, io5 Murad I, cited, 9; death of, 9 Murad II, victories of, 9 Mussulmans, Slavic, 300 Napoleon, march of to Moscow, 118 Napoleon III, discernment of, 120 Napoleonic epoch, condition of Turkey during, 118 Nationality, Slavic ideas of, 50 Navarino, battle of, 107 New Byzantium, restoration of postponed, 41 Nicholas of Montenegro, reviv- ing ambition of, 89; task faced by, 94; peace acquired by, 94; victories of, 95 Nicholas I of Russia, hostile to Austrian leadership, 106; re- ferred to, 340 Nicholas Ypsilanti, army of destroyed, 105 Obrenovich, Milosh, revolt in- augurated by, 137; abdica- tion of, 138; recalled to throne, 139 Oghusians, cited, 8 Omar, Turkish general, cited, 94 Orchan, cited, 9 Oriental mind, essentially sec- tarian, 309 Osman, Othman, or Ottoman, founder of his line, cited, 8 Otto of Bavaria, crown of Greece offered to, 108; his throne declared vacant while absent, 109 Ottoman empire, administra- tion of the, 13; integral part of European state system, 17; ignorance of conditions prev- alent in twenty years ago, 24; dismemberment of, 356 INDEX 409 Pan-Slavism, folly of illustrated, 208 Parliament, Greek, 345 Paris, delivered, 365 Parthians, cited, 56 Pasha Kara-Mahmoud, defeat of by Peter I, 92 Paul, murder of in Saint Peters- burg referred to, 10 Peace movement, dimensions assumed by, 273 Peace, partial accomplishment of, 172; terms of, as related to the Balkan problem, 355; delegates in Paris and Ver- sailles, 367 Pelasgians, a fabulous people, cited, 64 Peoples, European, once subject to Turkey, 34 Peter of Servia, King, en- thronement of, 142; fate of, 329 Peter II of Montenegro, an amazing personage, 93 Phanar, a quarter of Constan- tinople, cited, 37 Phanariotes, qualities of, 37 Philanthopy, day of lavish, 312 Philhellenism, 298 Philip of Flanders, throne of Rumania offered to and de- clined by, 121 Philip II of Macedonia, strong will of, 58 Pitt, William, referred to, 298 Pliny, Slavs mentioned by, 66 Poland, Slavic, plight of, 354 Polish question, the, 299 Political alliances, unprincipled, 312 "Powers," the, attitude and temper of, 241; agreements of, 242; deHcate relations of, 279 Prenk-Bib-Doda, cited, 77 Prussia, 299 Punic War, the second, cited, 59 Railway, strip of Dedeagatch, 328 Rasputin, the Monk, 340 Rayahs, little interested in na- tionalities of, 37 Reformation, the, cited, 16 Ristitch, Servian statesman, sug- gestion of, 184 Roman empire, rise of the, 59 Rumania, present kingdom of, 41; plan of for aggrandize- ment, 88; provinces united to form, 103; brilliant chapter in history of, 123; at war, 124; capital city of described, 125; social and economic ques- tions solved by, 126 Rumanian, garb of, 55; diver- gence of opinion as to ethnic character of the, 61; physical differences noted, 62 Rumelia, portion of Bulgaria known as, 43 Russia, aims of, 17; wanted Constantinople, 17; Napo- leon's seizure of Egypt ab- horrent to, 18; forced to suij- port Turkey, 18; Czar of, his assutnption of protectorate over Greek Christians in Pal- estine, 18; political influence of in the Balkans, 19; the persistently embittered foe of Turkey, 105; British defiance of, 298; unstable equilibrium of, 299 Russian empire cannot be re- stored, 363 Salonica, landing of French and British armies at, 341 Salisbury, Lord, 301 San Stefano, treaty of, cited, 19 Sarajevo, tragedy at, 295 Savoff, General, cited, 164, 230 Scander Beg, cited, 9; a na- tional hero, 77; intolerable rule of, 91 Scipio, L., victory of over Dal- matians, 59 Scutari, entrance of by King Nicholas, 171; possession taken by the Six Powers, 174 4IO INDEX Scythians, what the word desig- nates, 56 Secret treaty, called a con- spiracy, 224 SelanJik, the, nattire of, 29 SeUm I, cited, 10 Selim II, cited, 11 Seljuke Turks, settlement of in Asia Minor, 4; discussed, 8 Serbo-Bulgarian treaty, provi- sion of, 201 Serbo-Croats, general designa- tion of Slavs, 69; physical qualities noted, 69; improve- ment of under Austro-Hun- garian rule, 70; in Albanian Alps, 77 Servian Church, subordinated to patriarchate at Constantino- ple, 102; recognized as inde- pendent, 135 Servia, rise of, 133, 134; fac- tional quarrels in, 136; defeat of by Bulgaria, 140; corrup- tion in public life in, 142; statesmen produced by, 184; principal industry of, 200; biardens to be borne by, 287; victim of a bad choice, 314; conquered by Bulgaria, 328; crushed by German-Austrian force, 329; utter humiliation of, 341; armies of virtually annihilated, 357; direful fate °f' 364 Shiite Persians, the, aversion of to Sunnite orthodox, 46 Sigismund II, cited, 16 Sixtus V, cited, 16 Slovenes, the, 323 Sobieski, John, cited, 5 Socialism, enemy of democracy, 378 Soleiman II, military successes of, 1 1 ; death of, 1 1 Soleiman Khan, cited, 8 Soleiman, renowned Turkish general, repulsed, 95 Spain, 299 Stambuloff, rise of, 130; assas- sination of, 130 State, the, sovereignty of, 296 Statesmen, problems of Italian, 335 Stephanove, Professor, quoted, 224 Stephen, guerilla warfare of, 91 Stone, Miss, capture of, 214 Straits, the, not fortified, 326 Stratford de Redclyffe, Lord, cited, 46, 301 Sturdza, improvements sought by, 119 Sublime Porte, the, sobriquet of, 15; promises maiie by, 42 Suez Canal, 302 Sultan Abdul Aziz, boundary settled by, 94 Sultans, concessions secured from, 17 Teutons, the conquering, 28 Third Balkan War, the, 350 Thracians, the, described, 55 Trajan, death of, cited, 63 Transylvania, cited, 286 Treaties made with the Porte, 17 Treaty of Berlin, made only to be violated, 19; parts of Albania ceded by to Nicho- las, 96; cited, 147, 148, 155, 160, 184, 185, 203, 211 Treaty of Bucharest, terms of settlement of, 178; cited, 247; criticism of, 248 Treaty of Constantinople, line established by, 179 Treaty of Kutschtik-Kainardje, what it established, 1 17 Treaty of Lausanne, signing of, 161; disposition of /Egean Isles by, 245; full validity acquired by, 283 Treaty of London, determina- tions of, 246; original inten- tions of largely set aside, 247 Treaty of Paris, restorations of, 119 Treaty of peace, the, 228 Treaty of Versailles, the, 373, 378 INDEX 411 Trench warfare of Germans, 357 Tricoupis, Greek statesman, hope of, 185 Triple Alliance, cited, 152, 158, 228, 280, 281 Triple Entente, cited, 158, 228, 344 Tiu-anians, cited, 36 Tiu-key, Russia a watchfvil foe of, 17; released from bondage by Crimean War, 19; in Europe, former boundaries of, 23; subject populations of, 33; decline and fall of, 128; declaration of war by, 163; the sick man, 299; promises of, 301; German interests in, 310 Turkification, process of, 159; cited, 209; work of begun in Macedonia, 212; where forced to desist from, 213 Turkish gentlemen, characteris- tics of, 300 Turkish rule, survival of, 32 Turks, courageous explorers and fighters, 7; supplant Byzan- tine administrators in Europe, 8; virtues retained by, 25; fine quaUties exhibited by, 26; characteristics of, 26; women- folk of, 27; divorce among, 27; treatment of beggars by, 27; childish behavior of, 28; ap- pearance of the, in Balkan peninsula, 68; racial quaUties of, 68; sue for armistice, 367 Tyranny, Oriental, abominations of, 299 United States, process of as- similating all types of hu- manity in, 251 "United States of Europe," a, suggested by idealists, 284 University of Athens, brilliancy of the, 60 Venezelos, good judgrnent of, 193 ; proposition submitted by. 19s; eflforts of for peace, 280; referred to, 315; repressed by King Constantine, 316; fall of Cabinet of, 330; referred to, 337, 339. 342 , , Verdun, terrific onslaught of Germans at, 359 Victoria, Queen, cited, 109 Vlachs, a contingent in Mace- donia, 42; called also Wal- lachs and Kutzovlachs, vaga- bond tendencies of, physical characteristics of, 73; distinc- tive dress of, 74 War, cause of in the Balkans, 35; second stage of, 170; be- tween Italy and Turkey, 196; latest, national characteris- tics in, 207; conditions before the, 209; atrocities of, 217- 223 War loans, capitalistic greed in planning, 368 "Wars," twenty-three so-called in 1918, 355 Wellington, Diike of, agree- ment negotiated by, 106 Westphalia, treaty of, cited, 17 West, social order famihar to, no; German reverses in the, 364 Western Alliance, 340 Western Allies tricked by Bul- garia, 329; meeting of states- men and generals of in Rome, 345 Western civilization, discussed, 377 Western front, failure of Ger- man powers on, 357 William, Emperor, of Germany, cited, 113, 303, 310, 315, 339 William Frederick of Wied, Prince, chosen ruler of au- tonomous Albania, 180, re- ferred to, 356, 331 WUUam, Prince, of Denmark, chosen king of the Hellenes, 109 412 INDEX World movement, pendent upon, 17 what de- Young Turks, hopeless effort of, 78; mobilization of armies by, 85; elaborate plan of, 86; reverses of, 156; amnesty granted by, 159; revolution of based on chimera, 188; suppression of atrocities per- petrated by, 209; renovated Turkey conceived by, 311 ; decision reached by, 312 Young Turk Revolution, how regarded, 155; no real change wrought by, 200 Zaimis, head of new Cabinet, 330 Zuppeli, General, dismissal of, 332 iJii1ii;iiliiJi;!t!i:|;!|ii1ll!!l!lUl)fWilllllHli!llilllil!l'lll: JMItltliHlhliilMUtHJltillHUtHitllUltilfliiliili