Just here, however, was the rub. The secret treaty of March, 1912,
providing for the offensive and defensive alliance of Bulgaria and
Servia against the Ottoman Empire regulated, in case of victory, the
division of the conquered territory between the Allies. And the
extreme limit, on the south and east, of Turkish territory assigned
to Servia by this treaty was fixed by a line starting from Ochrida
on the borders of Albania and running northeastward across the
Vardar River a few miles above Veles and thence, following the same
general direction, through Ovcepolje and Egri Palanka to Golema Vreh
on the frontier of Bulgaria--a terminus some twenty miles southeast
of the meeting point of Servia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria. During the
war with Turkey the Servian armies had paid no attention to the
Ochrida-Golema Vreh line. The great victory over the Turks at
Kumanovo, by which the Slav defeat at Kossovo five hundred years
earlier was avenged, was, it is true, won at a point north of the
line in question. But the subsequent victories of Prilip and
Monastir were gained to the south of it--far, indeed, into the heart
of the Macedonian territory recognized by the treaty as Bulgarian.
If you look at a map you will see that the boundary between Servia
and Bulgaria, starting from the Danube, runs in a slightly
undulating line due south. Now what the military forces of King
Peter did during the war of the Balkan states with the Ottoman
Empire was to occupy all European Turkey south of Servia between the
prolongation of that boundary line and the new Kingdom of Albania
till they met the Hellenic army advancing northward under Crown
Prince Constantine, when the two governments agreed on a common
boundary for New Servia and New Greece along a line starting from
Lake Presba and running eastward between Monastir and Florina to the
Vardar River a little to the south of Ghevgheli.