The first effect of the European fiat regarding an independent Albania
was the recoil of Servia against Bulgaria. Confronted by the _force
majeure_ of the Great Powers which stopped her advance to the Adriatic,
Servia turned her anxious regard toward the Gulf of Saloniki and the
Aegean Sea. Already her victorious armies had occupied Macedonia from
the Albanian frontier eastward beyond the Vardar River to Strumnitza,
Istib, and Kochana, and southward below Monastir and Ghevgheli, where
they touched the boundary of the {71} Greek occupation of Southern
Macedonia. An agreement with the Greeks, who held the city of Saloniki
and its hinterland as well as the whole Chalcidician Peninsula, would
ensure Servia an outlet to the sea. And the merchants of
Saloniki--mostly the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in the
fifteenth century--were shrewd enough to recognize the advantage to
their city of securing the commerce of Servia, especially as they were
destined to lose, in consequence of hostile tariffs certain to be
established by the conquerors, a considerable portion of the trade
which had formerly flowed to them without let or hindrance from a large
section of European Turkey. The government of Greece was equally
favorably disposed to this programme; for, in the first place, it was
to its interest to cultivate friendly relations with Servia, in view of
possible embroilments with Bulgaria; and, in the second place, it had
to countercheck the game of those who wanted either to make Saloniki a
free city or to {72} incorporate it in a Big Bulgaria, and who were
using with some effect the argument that the annexation of the city to
Greece meant the throttling of its trade and the annihilation of its
prosperity. The interests of the city of Saloniki, the interests of
Greece, and the interests of Servia all combined to demand the free
flow of Servian trade by way of Saloniki. And if no other power
obtained jurisdiction over any Macedonian territory through which that
trade passed, it would be easy for the Greek and Servian governments to
come to an understanding.