THE TREATY OF BUKAREST
When the delegates from the various important capitals reached Bukarest
on July 30th, the armies were still fighting. Everyone, however,
seemed anxious to come to an understanding as soon as possible. The
first session of the delegates was held on the afternoon of July 30th.
Premier Pasitch for Servia and Premier Venizelos for Greece were
present. But Premier Daneff, who had so wanted the war, did not have
the manhood to face its consequences. The Bulgarians were represented
in Bukarest by no outstanding leader, either political or military.
Premier Majoresco of Rumania presided over the conference. The first
necessity was the decision for an armistice. A suspension of arms was
agreed upon to begin upon August 1st at noon. On August 4th the
armistice was extended for three days to August 8th.
In the conference of Bukarest, Bulgaria, naturally, stood by herself.
It was necessary, if there was to be peace, that her delegates should
come to an understanding as to the sacrifices she was willing to make
with each of her neighbours separately. {344} Consequently the
important decisions were made in committee meetings. The general
assembly of delegates had little else to do than to ratify the
concessions wrung from Bulgaria in turn by each of the opponents.
Rarely have peace delegates been put in a more painful position than
the men whom Bulgaria sent to Bukarest. It will always be an open
question as to whether the military situation of Bulgaria on the 31st
of July, as regards Servia and Greece, was retrievable. But the
presence of a Rumanian army in Bulgaria made absolutely impossible the
continuance of the war. Consequently there was nothing for Bulgaria to
do but to yield to the demands of Greece and Servia. The only check
upon the Servian and Greek delegates was the determination of Rumania
not to see Bulgaria too greatly weakened. She had entered into line to
gain her bit of territory in the south of the Dobrudja. But she had
also in mind the prevention of Bulgarian hegemony in the Balkan
Peninsula, and she did not propose to see this hegemony go elsewhere.
This explains the favourable terms which Bulgaria received.
The Bulgarian and Rumanian delegates quickly agreed upon a frontier to
present to the meeting of August 4th. By this, the first of the
protocols, Bulgaria ceded to Rumania all her territory north of a line
from the Danube, above Turtukaia, to the end of the Black Sea, south of
Ekrene. In addition, she bound herself to dismantle the present
fortresses and promised not to construct forts at Rustchuk, Schumla,
and the country between and for twenty kilometres around Baltchik.
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On August 6th, the protocol with Servia was presented. The Servian
frontier was to start at a line drawn from the summit of Patarika on
the old frontier, and to follow the watershed between the Vardar and
the Struma to the Greek-Bulgarian frontier, with the exception of the
upper valley of the Strumnitza which remained Servian territory.
The following day the protocol with Greece was presented. The
Greek-Bulgarian frontier was to run from the crest of Belashitcha to
the mouth of the River Mesta on the Ægean Sea. Bulgaria formally
agreed to waive all pretensions to Crete. The protocol with the Greeks
was the only one over which the Bulgarians made a resolute stand. When
they signed this protocol, they stated that the accord was only because
they had taken notice of the notes which Austria-Hungary and Russia
presented to the conference, to the effect that in their ratification
they would reserve for future discussion the inclusion of Kavalla in
Greek territory.
The Bulgarians insisted on a clause guaranteeing autonomy for churches
and schools in the condominium of liberated territories. Servia
opposed this demand mildly, and Greece strongly. They were right. The
question of national propaganda through churches and schools had done
more to arouse and keep alive racial hatred in Macedonia than any other
cause. If there were to be a lasting peace, nothing could be more
unwise than the continuance of the propaganda which had plunged
Macedonia into such terrible confusion.
Rumania, however, secured in the Treaty of {346} Bukarest from each of
the States what they had been unwilling to grant each other. Rumania
imposed upon Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia, the obligation of granting
autonomy to the Kutzo-Wallachian churches, and assent to the creation
of bishoprics subsidized by the Rumanian Government.
A rather amusing incident occurred on August 5th by the proposition of
the United States Government through its Minister at Bukarest, that a
provision be embodied in the treaty according full religious liberties
in transferred territories. The ignorance of American diplomacy, so
frequently to be deplored, never made a greater blunder than this. It
showed how completely the American State Department and its advisors on
Near Eastern affairs had misunderstood the Macedonian question. Quite
rightly, the consideration even of this request was rejected as
superfluous. Mr. Venizelos administered a well-deserved rebuke when he
said that religious liberty, in the right sense of the word, was
understood through the extension of each country's constitution over
the territories acquired.
Much has been written concerning the intrigues of European Powers at
Bukarest during the ten days of the conference which made a new map for
the Balkan Peninsula. It will be many years, if ever, before these
intrigues are brought to light. Therefore we cannot discuss the
question of the pressure which was brought to bear upon Rumania, upon
Bulgaria, and upon Servia and Greece to determine the partition of
territories. Germany looked with alarm upon the possibility of a
durable {347} settlement. Austria was determined that Bulgaria and
Servia should not become reconciled.
Austria-Hungary and Russia, though for different reasons, were right in
their attitude toward the matter of Greece's claim upon Kavalla.
Greece would have done well had she been content to leave to Bulgaria a
larger littoral on the Ægean Sea, and the port which is absolutely
essential for the proper economic development of the _hinterland_
attributed to her. By taking her pound of flesh, the Greeks only
exposed themselves to future dangers. The laws of economics are
inexorable. Bulgaria cannot allow herself to think sincerely about
peace until her portion of Macedonia, by the inclusion of Kavalla, is
logically complete. It would have been better politics for Greece to
have shown herself magnanimous on this point. As George Sand has so
aptly said: "It is not philanthropy, but our own interest, which leads
us sometimes to do good to men in order that they may be prevented in
the future from doing harm to us."
When we come to look back upon the second Balkan war, and have traced
out the sad consequences and the continued unrest which followed the
Treaty of Bukarest, it is possible that Servia's responsibility may be
considered as great, if not greater, than that of Bulgaria in bringing
about the strife between the allies. In our sympathy with the inherent
justice of Servia's claim for adequate territorial compensation for
what she had suffered for, and what she had contributed to, the Turkish
_débâcle_ in Europe, we are apt to overlook three {348} indisputable
facts: that Servia repudiated a solemn treaty with Bulgaria, on the
basis of which Bulgaria had agreed to the alliance against Turkey; that
the territories granted to Servia, _south of the line which she had
sworn not to pass in her territorial claims_, and a portion of those in
the "contested zone" of her treaty with Bulgaria, were beyond any
shadow of doubt inhabited by Bulgarians; and that since these
territories were ceded to her she has not, as was tacitly understood at
Bukarest, extended to them the guarantees and privileges of the Servian
constitution.
The Treaty of Bukarest, so far as the disputed territories allotted to
Servia are concerned, has created a situation analogous to that of
Alsace and Lorraine after the Treaty of Frankfort. And Servia started
in to cope with it by following Prussian methods. What Servians of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia have suffered from Austrian rule,
free Servia is inflicting upon the Bulgarians who became her subjects
after the second Balkan war.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the population of
Macedonia, as a whole, of whatever race or creed, would welcome to-day
a return to the Ottoman rule of Abdul Hamid. The Turkish
"constitutional _régime_" was worse than Abdul Hamid, the war of
"liberation" worse than the Young Turks, and the present disposition of
territories satisfies none. Poor Macedonia!
After the disastrous and humiliating losses at Bukarest, Bulgaria still
had her former vanquished foe to reckon with. The Turks were again at
Adrianople {349} and Kirk Kilissé. Thrace was once more in her power.
The Treaty of Bukarest, while attributing Thrace to Bulgaria on the
basis of the Treaty of London, actually said nothing whatever about it.
Nor were there any promises of aid in helping Bulgaria to get back
again what she had lost, without a struggle, by her folly and treachery.
A new war by Bulgaria alone in her weakened military condition and with
her empty treasury, to drive once more the Turks back south of the
Enos-Midia line, was impossible. Bulgaria appealed to the
chancelleries of Europe to help her in taking possession of the
Thracian territory ceded to her at London. The Powers made one of
their futile overtures to Turkey, requesting that she accept the treaty
which she had signed a few months before.
But no one could blame the Turks for having taken advantage of
Bulgarian folly. Who could expect them to meekly withdraw behind the
Enos-Midia line? Bulgaria could get no support in applying the
argument of force.
In the end, the victors of Lulé Burgas had to go to Constantinople and
make overtures directly to the Sublime Porte. They fared very badly.
The Enos-Midia line was drawn, but it took a curve northward from the
Black Sea and westward across the Maritza in such a way that the Turks
obtained not only Adrianople, but also Kirk Kilissé and Demotica. The
Bulgarians were not even masters of the one railway leading to
Dedeagatch, their sole port on the Ægean Sea.
The year 1913 for Bulgaria will remain the most {350} bitter one of her
history. She had to learn the lesson that the life of nations, as well
as of individuals, is one of give as well as take, and that compromise
is the basis of sound statesmanship. Who wants all, generally gets
nothing.
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