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 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Servia, withdrawn behind the Ochrida-Golema Vreh line in accordance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 Golema 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 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 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.