THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE ALLIES
To those who knew the centuries-old hatred and race rivalry between
Greece and Servia and Bulgaria in the Balkan Peninsula, an alliance for
the purpose of liberating Macedonia seemed impossible. The Ottoman
Government had a sense of security which seemed to be justifiable.
They had known how to keep alive and intensify racial hatred in
European Turkey, and believed that they were immune from concerted
attack because the Balkan States would never be able to agree as to the
division of spoils after a successful war.
The history of the ten years of rivalry between bands, which had
nullified the efforts of the Powers to "reform" Macedonia by installing
a _gendarmerie_ under European control, had taught the diplomats that
they had working against the pacification of Macedonia not only the
Ottoman authorities, but also the native Christian population and the
neighbouring emancipated countries. They were ready to believe the
astute Hussein Hilmy pasha, Vali of Macedonia, when he said: "I am
ruling over an insane asylum. Were the Turkish flag withdrawn, {320}
they would fly at each other's throats, and instead of reform, you
would have anarchy."
If the Balkan States had realized how completely and how easily they
were going to overthrow the military power of Turkey, they probably
would not have attempted it. This seems paradoxical, but it is true
all the same.
The Allies did not anticipate more than the holding of the Ottoman
forces in check and the occupation of the frontiers and of the upper
valleys of the Vardar and Struma. Greece felt that she would be
rewarded by a slight rectification of boundary in Thessaly and Epirus,
if only the war would settle the status of Crete and result in an
autonomous _régime_ for the Ægean Islands. At the most, the Balkan
States hoped to force upon Turkey the autonomy of Macedonia under a
Christian governor. So jealous was each of the possibility of
another's gaining control of Macedonia that this solution would have
satisfied them more than the complete disappearance of Turkish rule.
Both hopes and fears as to Macedonia were envisaged rather in
connection with each other than in connection with the Turks.
Between Servia and Bulgaria there was a definite treaty, signed on
March 13, 1912, which defined future spheres of influence in upper
Macedonia. But Greece had no agreement either with Bulgaria or Servia.
The events of October, 1912, astonished the whole world. No such
sudden and complete collapse of the Ottoman power in Europe was dreamed
of. I {321} have already spoken of how fearful the European
Chancelleries were of an Ottoman victory. Had they not been so morally
certain of Turkey's triumph they would never have sent to the
belligerents their famous--and in the light of subsequent events
ridiculous--joint note concerning the _status quo_.
But if the Great Powers were unprepared for the succession of Balkan
triumphs, the allies were much more astonished at what they were able
to accomplish. Kirk Kilissé and Lulé Burgas gave Thrace to Bulgaria.
Kumanovo opened up the valley of the Vardar to the Servians, while the
Greeks marched straight to Salonika without serious opposition.
The victories of the Servians and Greeks, so easily won, were to the
Bulgarians a calamity which overshadowed their own striking military
successes. They had spilled much blood and wasted their strength in
the conquest of Thrace which they did not want, while their allies--but
rivals for all that--were in possession of Macedonia, the _Bulgaria
irredenta_. To be encircling Adrianople and besieging Constantinople,
cities in which they had only secondary interest, while the Servians
attacked Monastir and the Greeks were settling themselves comfortably
in Salonika, was the irony of fate for those who felt that others were
reaping the fruits for which they had made so great and so admirable a
sacrifice.
When we come to judge dispassionately the folly of Bulgaria in
provoking a war with her comrades in arms, and the seemingly amazing
greed for land which it revealed, we must remember that the Bulgarians
felt that they had accomplished everything {322} to receive nothing.
Salonika and not Adrianople was the city of their dreams. Macedonia
and not Thrace was the country which they had taken arms to liberate.
The Ægean Sea and not the extension of their Black Sea littoral formed
the substantial and logical economic background to the appeal of race
which led them to insist so strongly in gathering under their
sovereignty all the elements of the Bulgarian people. European writers
have not been able to understand how little importance the Bulgarians
attached to their territorial acquisitions in Thrace, and of how little
interest it was for them to acquire new possessions in which there were
so few Bulgarians.
Then, too, the powerful elements which had pushed Bulgaria into the war
with Turkey, and had contributed so greatly to her successes, were of
Macedonian origin. In Sofia, the Macedonians are numerically, as well
as financially and politically, very strong. I had a revelation of
this, such as the compilation of statistics cannot give, on the day
after the massacre of Kotchana. The newspapers called upon all the
Macedonians in Sofia to put out flags tied with crêpe. In the main
streets of the city, it seemed as if every second house was that of a
Macedonian. To these people, ardent and powerful patriots, Macedonia
was home. It had been the dream of their lives to unite the regions
from which they had come--once emancipated from the Turks--to the
mother country. From childhood, they had been taught to look towards
the Rhodope Mountains as the hills from which should come their help.
Is it any wonder then, that, after the striking victories {323} of
their arms, there should be a feeling of insanity--for it was
that--when they saw the dreams of a lifetime about to vanish?
But the mischief of the matter, as a Scotchman would say, was that
Greeks and Servians felt the same way about the same places.
Populations had been mixed for centuries. At some time or other in
past history each of the three peoples had had successful dynasties to
spread their sovereignty over exactly the same territories. Each then
could evoke the same historical memories, each the same past of
suffering, each the same present of hopes, and the same prayers of the
emancipated towards Sofia and Athens and Belgrade.
After the occupation of Salonika by the Greeks, the Bulgarian ambitions
to break the power of Turkey were not the same as they had been before.
Had Salonika been occupied two weeks earlier, there might not have been
a Lulé Burgas. An armistice was hurriedly concluded. During the
trying period of negotiations in London, and during the whole of the
second part of the war, the jealousies of the allies had been awakened
one against the other. Between Greeks and Bulgarians, it had been keen
since the very first moment that the Greek army entered Macedonia. The
crisis between Servia and Bulgaria did not become acute until Servia
saw her way blocked to the Adriatic by the absurd attempt to create a
free Albania. Then she naturally began to insist that the treaty of
partition which she had signed with Bulgaria could not be carried out
by her. In vain she appealed to the sense of justice of the
Bulgarians. {324} The treaty had been signed on the understanding that
Albania would fall under the sphere of Servian aggrandizement. Nor, on
the other hand, had it been contested that Thrace would belong to
Bulgaria. If the treaty were carried out, Bulgaria would get
everything and Servia nothing. Servia also reminded the Bulgarians of
the loyal aid that had been given them in the reduction of Adrianople.
But Bulgaria held to her pound of flesh.
Under the circumstances of the division of territory, Bulgaria's claim
to cross the Vardar and go as far as Monastir and Okrida, would not
only have given her possession of a fortress from which she could
dominate both Servia and Greece, but would have put another state
between Servia and Salonika. Bulgaria was, in fact, demanding
everything as far as Servia was concerned. Servia cannot be blamed
then for coming to an understanding with Greece, even if it were for
support in the violation of a treaty. For where does history give us
the example of a nation holding to a treaty when it was against her
interest to do so?
After their return from London, the Premiers Venizelos and Pasitch made
an offensive and defensive alliance for ten years against the Bulgarian
aspirations. In this alliance, concluded at Athens shortly after King
George's death, the frontiers were definitely settled. In the
negotiations, Greece showed the same desire to have everything for
herself which Bulgaria was displaying. Finally she agreed to allow
Servia to keep Monastir. Without this concession, Servia would have
fared as badly {325} at the hands of Greece as at the hands of
Bulgaria. It is only because Greece feared that Servia might be driven
to combine with Bulgaria against her, that the frontier in this
agreement was drawn south of Monastir. The Greek army officers opposed
strongly this concession, but Venizelos was wise enough to see that the
maintenance of Greek claims to Monastir might result in the loss of
Salonika. The Serbo-Greek alliance was not made public until the
middle of June. Bulgaria had also been making overtures to Greece, and
at the end of May had expressed her willingness to waive her claim to
Salonika in return for Greek support against Servia. Venizelos,
already bound to Servia, was honourable enough to refuse this
proposition.
But the military reputation of Bulgaria was still so strong in
Bulgarian diplomacy that Servia and Greece were anxious to arrive, if
possible, at an arrangement without war. Venizelos proposed a meeting
at Salonika. Bulgaria declined. Then Venizelos and Pasitch together
proposed the arbitration of the Czar. Bulgaria at the first seemed to
receive this proposition favourably, but stipulated that it would be
only for the disputed matter in her treaty with Servia. At this
moment, the Russian Czar sent a moving appeal to the Balkan States to
avoid the horrors of a fratricidal war. Bulgaria then agreed to send,
together with her Allies, delegates to a conference at Petrograd.
All the while, Premier Gueshoff of Bulgaria had been struggling for
peace against the pressure and the intrigues of the Macedonian party at
Sofia. {326} They looked upon the idea of a Petrograd conference as
the betrayal of Macedonians and Bulgarians by the mother country.
Unable to maintain his position, Gueshoff resigned. His withdrawal
ruined Bulgaria, for he was replaced by M. Daneff, who was heart and
soul with the Macedonian party. A period of waiting followed. But
from this moment war seemed inevitable to those who knew the feeling on
both sides. Daneff and his friends did not hesitate. They would not
listen to reason. They believed that they had the power to force
Greece and Servia to a peace very nearly on their own terms. Public
opinion was behind them, for news was continually coming to Sofia of
Greek and Servian oppression of Bulgarians in the region between
Monastir and Salonika. These stories of unspeakable cruelty, which
were afterwards established to be true by the Carnegie Commission, had
much to do with making possible the second war.
It was not difficult for the Macedonian party at Sofia to precipitate
hostilities. The Bulgarian general staff, in spite of the caution that
should have imposed itself upon them by the consideration of the
exhausting campaign in the winter, felt certain of their ability to
defeat the Servians and Greeks combined. Then, too, the army on the
frontiers, in which there was a large element--perhaps twenty per
cent.--of Macedonians, had already engaged in serious conflicts with
the Greeks.
In fact, frontier skirmishes had begun in April. The affair of Nigrita
was really a battle. After these outbreaks, Bulgarian and Greek
officers had {327} been compelled to establish a neutral zone in order
to prevent the new war from beginning of itself. At the end of May,
there had been fighting in the Panghaeon district, east of the river
Strymon. The Bulgarian staff had wanted to prevent the Greeks from
being in a position to cut the railway from Serres to Drama. In the
beginning of June, Bulgarian coast patrols had fired on the _Averoff_.
By the end of June, the Bulgarian outposts were not far from Salonika.
The first Bulgarian plan was to seize suddenly Salonika, which would
thus cut off the Greek army from its base of supplies and its
advantageous communication by sea with Greece. There were nearly one
thousand five hundred Bulgarian soldiers in Salonika under the command
of General Hassapsieff. How many _comitadjis_ had been introduced into
the city no one knows. I was there during the last week of June, and
saw many Bulgarian peasants, big strapping fellows, who seemed to have
no occupation. When I visited the Bulgarian company, which was
quartered in the historic mosque of St. Sophia, two days before their
destruction, they seemed to me to be absolutely sure of their position.
At this moment, the atmosphere among the few Bulgarians in Salonika was
that of complete confidence.
Among the Greeks, a spirit of excitement and of apprehension made them
realize the gravity and the dangers of the events which were so soon to
follow. Perfect confidence, while highly recommended by the theorists,
does not seem to win wars. Nervousness, {328} on the other hand, makes
an army alert, and ready to exert all the greater effort, from the fact
that it feels it needs that effort. In all the wars with which this
book deals this has been true,--Italian confidence in 1911, Turkish
confidence in 1912, Bulgarian confidence in 1913, and German confidence
in 1914.
On the 29th of June, when I left Salonika to go to Albania, it was the
opinion of the Greek officers in Salonika that the war--which they
viewed with apprehension--would be averted by the conference at
Petrograd. When I got on my steamship, the first man I met was
Sandansky, who had become famous a decade before by the capture of Miss
Stone, an American missionary. He had embarked on this Austrian Lloyd
steamer at Kavalla, with the expectation of slipping ashore at
Salonika, if possible, to prepare the way for the triumphal entry of
the Bulgarian army. But he was only able to look sorrowfully out on
the city, for the police were waiting to arrest him. What bitter
thoughts he must have had when he saw the Bulgarian flag, which he had
planted there with his own hands, waving from the minaret of St.
Sophia, and he unable to organize its defence! A week later I saw
Sandansky at a café in Valona. The war had then started, and he was
probably trying to persuade the Albanians to enter the struggle and to
take the Servians in the rear.
{330}