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 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 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.
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 counteracted 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 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,
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.