But without pretending to cast a horoscope, certain significant facts
may be mentioned in a concluding word. If the Balkan states are left
to themselves, if they are permitted to settle their own affairs
without the intervention of the Great Powers, there is no reason why
the existing relations between Greece, Servia, Montenegro, and
Roumania, founded as they are on mutual interest, should not continue;
and if they continue, peace will be assured in spite of Bulgaria's cry
for revenge and readjustment. The danger lies in the influence of the
{127} Great Powers with their varying attractions and repulsions.
France, Germany, and Great Britain, disconnected with the Balkans and
remote from them, are not likely to exert much direct individual
influence. But their connections with the Triple Alliance and the
Triple Entente would not leave them altogether free to take isolated
action. And two other members of those European groups--Russia and
Austria-Hungary--have long been vitally interested in the Balkan
question; while the opposition to Servian annexation on the Adriatic
littoral and of Greek annexation in Epirus now for the first time
reveals the deep concern of Italy in the same question.
The Serbs are Slavs. And the unhappy relations between Servia and
Austria-Hungary have always intensified their pro-Russian proclivities.
The Roumanians are a Romance people, like the French and Italians, and
they have hitherto been regarded as a Balkan extension of the Triple
Alliance. The attitude of {128} Austria-Hungary, however, during the
Balkan wars has caused a cooling of Roumanian friendship, so that its
transference to Russia is no longer inconceivable or even improbable.
Greece desires to be independent of both groups of the European system,
but the action of Italy in regard to Northern Epirus and in regard to
Rhodes and the Dodecanese has produced a feeling of irritation and
resentment among the Greeks which nothing is likely to allay or even
greatly alleviate. Bulgaria in the past has carried her desire to live
an independent national life to the point of hostility to Russia, but
since Stambuloff's time she has shown more natural sentiments towards
her great Slav sister and liberator. Whether the desire of revenge
against Servia (and Greece) will once more draw her toward
Austria-Hungary only time can disclose.
In any event it will take a long time for all the Balkan states to
recover from the terrible exhaustion of the two wars of 1912 and 1913.
{129} Their financial resources have been depleted; their male
population has been decimated. Necessity, therefore, is likely to
co-operate with the community of interest established by the Treaty of
Bukarest in the maintenance of conditions of stable equilibrium in the
Balkans. Of course the peace-compelling forces operative in the Balkan
states themselves might be counter-acted by hostile activities on the
part of some of the Great Powers. And there is one danger-point for
which the Great Powers themselves are solely responsible. This, as I
have already explained, is Albania. An artificial creation with
unnatural boundaries, it is a grave question whether this so-called
state can either manage its own affairs or live in peace with its Serb
and Greek neighbors. At this moment the Greeks of Epirus (whom the
Great Powers have transferred to Albania) are resisting to the death
incorporation in a state which outrages their deepest and holiest
sentiments of religion, race, nationality, and humane {130}
civilization. On the other hand the Hoti and Gruda tribes on the north
fiercely resent annexation to Montenegro (which the Great Powers have
decreed) and threaten to summon to their support other Malissori tribes
with whom they have had a defensive alliance for several centuries. If
Prince William of Wied is unable to cope with these difficulties, Italy
and Austria-Hungary may think it necessary to intervene in Albania.
But the intervention of either would almost certainly provoke
compensatory action on the part of other European Powers, especially
Russia.
One can only hope that the Great Powers may have wisdom granted to them
to find a peaceful solution of the embarrassing problem which they have
created in setting up the new state of Albania. That the Albanians
themselves will have an opportunity to develop their own national
independence I find it impossible to believe. Yet I heard in the
summer of 1913 at Valona from the lips of Ismail Kemal Bey, {131} the
head of the provisional government, a most impressive statement of his
hopes and aspirations for an independent Albania and his faith and
confidence in its future, in which he claimed to voice the sentiments
of the Albanian people. But, as I have already explained, I think it
doubtful whether under the most favorable external circumstances the
Albanians are at present qualified to establish and maintain an
independent state. And their destiny is so inextricably entangled with
the ambitions of some of the Great Powers that the experiment stands no
chance of getting a fair trial. I heartily wish the circumstances were
other than they are. For as an American I sympathize with the
aspirations of all struggling nationalities to be free and independent.
And my interest in Albania is deepened, as the interest of all
Americans must be deepened, by the fact that a large number of
Albanians have now found a home in the United States.
{133}