But this arrangement between Greece and Servia would leave no territory
for Bulgaria in Central and Western Macedonia! Yet Servia had solemnly
bound herself by treaty not to ask for any Turkish territory below the
Ochrida-Golema Vreh line. There was no {75} similar treaty with
Greece, but Bulgaria regarded the northern frontier of New Greece as a
matter for adjustment between the two governments. Servia, withdrawn
behind the Ochrida-Golema Vreh line in accordance with the terms of the
treaty, would at any rate have nothing to say about the matter. And,
although the Bulgarian government never communicated, officially or
unofficially, its own views to Greece or Servia, I believe we should
not make much mistake in asserting that a line drawn from Ochrida to
Saloniki (which Bulgaria in spite of the Greek occupation continued to
claim) would roughly represent the limit of its voluntary concession.
Now if you imagine a base line drawn from Saloniki to Goletna Vreh, you
have an equilateral triangle resting on Ochrida as apex. And this
equilateral triangle represents approximately what Bulgaria claimed in
the western half of Macedonia as her own.
The war between the Allies was fought over the possession of this
triangle. The larger {76} portion of it had in the war against Turkey
been occupied by the forces of Servia; and the nation, inflamed by the
military spirit of the army, had made up its mind that, treaty or no
treaty, it should not be evacuated. On the south, especially above
Vodena, the Greeks had occupied a section of the fatal triangle. And
the two governments had decided that they would not tolerate the
driving of a Bulgarian wedge between New Servia and New Greece.
Bulgaria, on the other hand, was inexorable in her demands on Servia
for the fulfilment of the terms of the Treaty of Partition. At the
same time she worried the Greek government about the future of
Saloniki, and that at a time when the Greek people were criticizing Mr.
Venizelos for having allowed the Bulgarians to occupy regions in
Macedonia and Thrace inhabited by Greeks, notably Seres, Drama, and
Kavala, and the adjacent country between the Struma and the Mesta.
These were additional causes of dissension between the Allies. But the
primary {77} disruptive force was the attraction, the incompatible
attraction, exerted on them all by that central Macedonian triangle
whose apex rested on the ruins of Czar Samuel's palace at Ochrida and
whose base extended from Saloniki to Golema Vreh.