CHAPTER XI

SUMMARY OF POLITICAL HISTORY

From the preceding narration of the political histories of Europe's

nations during the last half century there stand out very clearly

two facts. All the bigger countries and even one or two of the

smaller ones displayed a strong desire for expansion and the

gratification of this desire resulted in a crude form of

international cooperation between various groups of nations, crude

because each separate nation at all times was guided primarily by

its own interests and demanded cooperation on the part of some other

nation or nations much more readily than it was willing to grant

cooperation to its ally or allies.

The motive of this desire for expansion, it is true, was in all cases

chiefly an economic need. But the very fact that the various efforts at

expansion, at least in their early stages, found almost always popular

approval, shows that there usually was a secondary motive, a desire for

aggrandizement. For it is very rare, indeed, that public opinion

possesses sufficient foresight to either appreciate or be guided by

economic necessities, while undertakings which can be made to appeal to

the sentiments of jealousy, of nationalism, and of rivalry, readily find

public support. The second of these--nationalism--especially was

reawakened and in many an instance grew into chauvinism, endangering

frequently the peace of the world. This, in a way, was very remarkable;

for hand in hand with the increase of nationalism went an increase of

internationalism to a degree that never before had been achieved in the

history of the world. Indeed, for a considerable period it looked as if

the world nations were rapidly approaching that happy state when war

would be unnecessary because a peaceful method of adjusting

international difficulties had been found and had been universally

adopted. Whether the Great War of 1914 has destroyed all that was

accomplished in the years preceding to make peace lasting, or whether it

was only one of the obstacles in the path of this revolutionary

undertaking, remains to be seen.

The international cooperation of which we have just spoken was, of

course, nothing new. For treaties have been signed and alliances

have been concluded between nations ever since they have been

developed far enough to be capable of definite, deliberate political

efforts. But never before have treaties and alliances been so

plentiful or gone so far, and only rarely have they resulted in such

a definite alignment of the European nations into two groups. The

inception of this policy the world owes to the great modern German

statesman, Bismarck. It was through his efforts that the Triple

Alliance was created soon after the Franco-Prussian War and after

the foundation of the new German Empire which chose as its

companions Austria-Hungary and Italy. That Bismarck built well then

is clearly shown by the wonderful progress that Germany especially

has been able to make since the Triple Alliance was founded and

insured European peace for a long period of years. But that either

he did not build well enough for all exigencies or else that his

successors were not as capable as he, is shown equally clearly by

the fact that at the most crucial moment in Germany's modern history

one member of the Triple Alliance, Italy, deserted. The second group

of European nations, in a way, was the logical result of the first,

for the latter, as it were, left high and dry on the sea of

international cooperation the three powerful countries of England,

France, and Russia. At the time of the formation of the Triple

Alliance France, of course, was disabled through its defeat by

Germany to such an extent that alliances were, at least temporarily,

out of the question. Its wonderfully quick recovery soon changed

that, however, and resulted in very definite efforts on the part of

French statesmen to form a defensive alliance which would insure

France from any aggressiveness on the part of the Triple Alliance.

This finally brought about the Franco-Russian Alliance. That Russia

was available then was due to the fact that Germany's old intimacy

with its eastern neighbor had received a serious setback when it

chose Austria as its ally. For, though Austria and Russia had once

been friends and for a short time even allies, conditions had

changed and in modern times the interests of the two countries had

become so conflicting that an alliance was entirely out of the

question.

After France and Russia had gotten together it was not long before

England found it necessary to choose between these two international

groups. That in spite of its close racial relation to the Germanic

countries it preferred the Gallo-Slavic combination, was due to a

number of reasons. In the first place it was found easier to adjust

whatever conflicts there were between England on the one side and

France and Russia on the other than those in existence between

England and Germany. In the second place English modern culture was

clearly more interested in and more influenced by French than by

German achievements. And last, but not least, an alliance between

Germany and England became impossible, because in such an alliance

neither country would have gracefully yielded the leadership to the

other, whereas in an Anglo-Franco-Russian concert all England had to

do was to signify its willingness to join and the leadership was

England's without question or contest. It was England, then, which

gave up its international isolation later than any of the others.

But it did not lose thereby; for just as its Franco-Russian alliance

assured to it cooperation against the Triple Alliance, if such

cooperation was needed, it secured to itself protection for its

immense Far Eastern interests by an alliance with the new world

power of the Far East, Japan.

The outbreak of the war of 1914, then, saw these two great groups of

nations: The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy,

and the Quadruple Entente of England, France, Russia and Japan. To

foretell the result of the gigantic struggle in international

relations is obviously impossible. Its end may bring a revival of

internationalism on a greater scale than ever before, it may result

in a new and severe separatism, it may cause a rearrangement of the

present alliances or it may simply mean a return to the _status quo_

of August, 1914.

PART II--THE BALKANS

CHAPTER XII

THE BALKAN PEOPLES

While it is of course impossible to assign the causes of the Great

War to any one circumstance, there can be no doubt that at least one

of the chief causes may be found in that snarl of diplomatic

intrigues, whose setting has been the Balkans peninsula. There is

not a close student of European history and politics who has not

predicted the "Great European War." Indeed, it required no special

powers of prophecy to foresee that this constantly smoldering, and

sometimes blazing corner of Europe, would one day burst into a

sweeping conflagration. The chief cause of this constant turmoil and

conflict in the Balkans lay in its geographical relation to the

expansion plan of Austria and Germany and all the other European

states, the Balkans being the gate and roadway to the Orient. The

first essential to an understanding of the situation is a general

knowledge of the races and nations that inhabit this portion of the

European Continent.

As the reader of ancient history knows, it was within this territory

that the Macedon of Philip and Alexander was situated, their capital

being not far from the present city of Saloniki. Then came the great

eastern Roman Empire, which later developed into the Byzantine

Empire, whose inhabitants were the degenerated descendants of the

ancient Greeks. Western Rome was constantly threatened by the

northern barbarian tribes, so the Greek emperors of Byzantium were

in perpetual conflict with barbarian hordes that pressed down on

them from the north, more than once driving them within the walls of

their capital, the present Constantinople.

These northern barbarians were wild Slavic tribes which had come out

of the steppes of Russia and swept down the Balkan peninsula,

penetrating as far as Mt. Olympus itself. After them came a tribe of

Asiatic origin, the Volgars, so called because they had for a period

inhabited the banks of the Volga, and they first conquered and then

mixed with the Slavs who lived in that section which is now

Bulgaria.

And finally came the Moslem Turks, who first conquered Asia Minor

from the degenerated Greeks, then took Constantinople from them in

1453. After that the Turks swept up the entire Balkan peninsula,

conquering all except that little mountainous corner up against the

Adriatic, which is now Montenegro, and subjugating all the peoples,

Greeks and Slavs alike. Nor did the Turkish conquest stop here; it

swept onward, up into Europe, and was not definitely checked until

it had advanced as far as Vienna itself. Then the tide turned, and

little by little the Turks were driven back, until now they are on

the very verge of being forced across the Bosphorus. And as the

Turkish flood ebbed, the Balkan peoples gradually emerged, one after

another springing up into independent nationalities.

Now the two great forces that had been driving back the Turks during

the centuries were the Austrians and the Russians. And though these

two great Christian powers fought against the same enemy, there

gradually arose between them a bitter jealousy. Each was determined

that the Turk should be driven out of Europe, but each realized that

their two paths after the retreating Turk must soon converge in the

Balkan peninsula. Neither cared anything for the Christian peoples

who had been and were being oppressed by the Turks; that they were

freed from this oppression was merely incidental, though it was the

pretext for much of the warfare during this long period. But each of

these two great powers coveted the Balkan peninsula. To Austria

Saloniki would be an excellent seaport opening out on the

Mediterranean, for the Adriatic was dominated by Italy. Russia, on

her part, had her eyes on the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which

would offer her an opening into the Mediterranean, to which she had

no access at all. Added to that, the people of the Balkans were

Slavs, blood kindred of the Russians, and could speedily be made

into loyal subjects of the czar. Such was the situation which

gradually evolved; which became more and more acute as the Turks

retreated into the Balkan peninsula proper, across the Danube. And

the first of the two grim powers to lead the pursuit down into the

peninsula was Russia in 1877, when she hurled her armies over the

Danube to "liberate" the Bulgars. From then on the Balkan problem

demanded the most serious attention of European diplomats.

[Illustration: Balkan States Before the First Balkan War.]

But the Balkan peoples that emerged, as the Turkish flood receded,

were very different from those that had been engulfed four centuries

previously. The Greeks had accepted the conquest, they bent rather

than broke. Therefore the Turks had granted them special privileges.

Their church and its clergy were spared and even given full

spiritual authority over the other Christian peoples. But the Slavs

fought stubbornly, not giving way until all their leaders were

slain, and what culture they possessed was thoroughly wiped out. The

Bulgars suffered especially, because they dwelt in the less

mountainous regions of the peninsula. The Serbians could,

occasionally, take refuge in the mountains of Montenegro, where

their traditions and national spirit smoldered through the darker

periods.

Just how many there were of these various peoples in the Balkans

when Russia invaded the peninsula nearly forty years ago can only be

left to surmise. In no country in the world has the question of

population caused so much bitter dispute as in the Balkans. Because

of racial and national jealousies, census figures have been

deliberately padded and falsified by church and state alike. This is

especially true of that part of the peninsula (Thrace and Macedonia)

which was still under Turkish rule when the First Balkan War broke

out in 1912. Only in what were then Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria

proper were genuine census enumerations made.

Bulgaria claims to have had a population in 1910 of about 4,337,000,

this being increased by half a million after the two wars. Serbia

reported 2,900,000 in 1910, the new territory increasing this by

more than 1,500,000. In Greece the population was 2,730,000 before

the wars and then became 4,400,000. Little Montenegro contributed

another 800,000 Serbs. In Albania the population has been estimated

roughly at 800,000. Add all these figures together, and the result

is the total population of the Balkan peninsula proper, less that

which covers what was still Turkish territory when the present war

broke out.

It is in the proportionate numbers of the various races and

nationalities, however, that the greatest confusion and uncertainty

exists. Nowhere in the world is there such an intermingling of

various and differing peoples. Here official figures are especially

misleading, and should be considered only within the boundaries of

Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece as they were before the Balkan wars.

For the peninsula as a whole the testimony or the reports of

impartial foreigners who have traveled through the country is likely

to be far more trustworthy.

The consensus of opinion would indicate that along the seacoast the

Greeks predominate, and that they are also numerous in the large

towns and cities. In the interior they are not found much north of

Saloniki, and even in that city the majority of the population is

Jewish. As traders, as the business elements in the cities, however,

they are found even up in Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria.

In the interior there can be no doubt that the Slavs are in the vast

majority over all the other peoples. The names of the smallest

villages, as indicated on Austrian maps, the most trustworthy that

have been made, are obviously Slavic. Down through Thrace, almost to

Constantinople, over to a few miles outside Saloniki, sweeping over

almost into the mountains of Albania, up to Montenegro, the people

are Slavic.

The Slavs, again, are subdivided into two families: Serbs and

Bulgars. And here it is more difficult to distinguish the dividing

line, for although there is a marked difference between the

characteristics of the two peoples, both physical and temperamental,

so nearly alike are their languages that speech forms no sure guide

to distinguishing, especially in Macedonia, where dialects vary with

a day's travel. The trend of popular feeling seems the only guide.

The main population west of the Struma and nearly up to Saloniki are

Serb, descendants of the Serbs, who were the inhabitants of the old

Serb Kingdom and Empire in that region. In Thrace and east of the

Struma the people are Bulgars.

Next to the Slavs in importance come the Turks, but these are nowhere

found in a solid mass; they are scattered all over the peninsula, and

even up into Bosnia and Herzegovina in Austria. Nowhere are they more

numerous than in northern Bulgaria, along the banks of the Danube, and

in the seaport cities on the Black Sea--Varna and Bourgas. The

Bulgarian census figures give their number as about half a million in

Bulgaria proper--about a seventh of the total population. Bulgaria,

though she suffered most from the oppression and fanatical outbursts

of the Turks in the old days, has always been the most tolerant.

Because of this there was comparatively little emigration of the

Turkish population after freedom gave the Christian majority control.

Serbia reports only about 14,000 in her territory, but this is

probably an underestimate. Down in Macedonia and southern Thrace the

Turkish element is naturally very strong, increasing in mass toward

Constantinople.

Of the minor race divisions the Albanians deserve first mention, not

only because of their number, but because of their being more

concentrated within a certain territory, which gives them some

political significance. Though they have certain fine primitive

qualities, they are not much higher in the scale of intelligence and

civilization than were our North American Indians in the early days

of our history. It is supposed that they are the direct descendants

of the ancient Illyrians; if this be so, they have certainly not

developed at all in the past two thousand years. The majority have

long since accepted the Mohammedan faith of the Turks, but they

differ markedly from the Turks in that they are rough in their

manners, less fanatical in matters of religion, though violently

prejudiced against all their Christian neighbors. Steady work of any

kind is their horror. As a fighting force they can give much

trouble, but they are not yet sufficiently developed to form a

nation.

Next to the Albanians come the Jews. These differ very much from the

Jews known to us in our American cities. They are the direct

descendants of the Jews who were driven out of Spain by Torquemada

during the Spanish Inquisition, and found refuge under the

protection of the sultan. They still speak a curious old obsolete

Spanish that can be understood by a Mexican or a Spaniard quite

easily. The special privileges and the life of comparative ease

which they enjoyed under Ottoman rule seems to have weakened them,

for among them are not found the men of marked ability in the fields

of art, science, and philosophy that may be found among the German

or the Russian Jews. In Bulgaria, where the Government has given

them equal rights with its Christian citizens, they number about

40,000, nearly all of them being engaged in small commercial

pursuits. Farther south they increase in number. In Saloniki, now a

Greek city, they form a huge majority of the total population--about

100,000 out of a mixed population of 175,000.

The Wallachs or Vlachs are another considerable portion of the

Balkan population, especially in the mountain regions. They are

generally considered as Rumanians, and have enjoyed the special

protection of the Rumanian diplomatic agents in Turkey, but they

differ somewhat from the Rumanians in Rumania proper. A gentle,

peaceful people, most of them are engaged in pastoral pursuits,

tending their flocks up in the mountains in the summer and coming

down into the lowlands in the winter. In some places they have

settled down to a civic life, as in Bersa, a town not far out of

Saloniki along the Monastir railroad, where the majority of the

population is Wallachian. It is said that their dialect is the

nearest approach to a survival of the ancient Latin of any spoken

tongue, from which it is deduced that they are the descendants of

the Roman colonists that were sent by Rome into this country when it

was under her rule.

Another scattered element are the Gypsies; they are especially

numerous in Bulgaria and Serbia. These people are the lowest in

their standard of living and culture of all the Balkan races. All of

them speak Turkish, but their natural tongue differs from any other

Balkan dialect. Among themselves they are known as "Copts," which

would rather indicate a comparatively recent Egyptian origin.

However, as they are absolutely of no significance, either

politically or in any other sense, they need not be considered

further.

Rumania, though not properly a Balkan State, has played some part in

Balkan politics. The Danube forms not only a political, but a

natural boundary, between Bulgaria and Rumania. Along either of

their respective banks the population is solidly Bulgarian or

Rumanian; there has been comparatively little mixing. Though Rumania

boasts of a distinct cultured class, and her larger cities,

especially Bucharest, present all the physical appearances of a

higher order of civilization, on account of the longer period of

independence enjoyed from the Turk, it is doubtful if the Rumanian

people as a whole possess the hardy qualities of the Serbians and

Bulgars. At any rate the level of education among the peasantry is

much lower. In race the Rumanians are of Latin blood with some

admixture of Slavic. As has been stated elsewhere, they extend as a

people up into Transylvania and Bukowina in Austria, and into the

Russian province of Bessarabia.

As will now be seen, the Slavs, including both Bulgars and Serbs,

form the predominating element in the Balkans. Yet, in spite of the

similarity between their speech, they differ strongly in

temperament, as has already been stated. Possibly it is because of

the mixture of Asiatic blood in the Bulgars. The Bulgar, slow,

heavy, inclined to be morose and suspicious of all strangers, does

not give so pleasant a first impression. The Serb is light-hearted,

inclined to be frivolous, and is much more adaptable. Give the

Bulgar a patch of ground and he will immediately plant vegetables;

the Serb will devote at least some of it to flowers. Then will come

the Greek trader and make a fatter profit out of the product of

their toil than either of them.

But what is of especial political significance, in considering these

various Balkan peoples, is the mutual distrust and hatred that

exists between them, sown and sedulously fostered by outside powers.

For had they been able to weld themselves into one people, one

nation, they would have been able to withstand the aggressive

intentions of both Austria and Russia, presented a solid front to

both those powers, and able to maintain the independence and peace

in the Balkans, and, very possibly, no great war at present.

The Turk is universally hated, but he is not despised. Except when

his fanaticism is aroused there is no better neighbor than the Turk,

he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much

inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover,

he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor

is he at all underhand--he never makes a good spy.

The Greek, and more especially the Greek who lives on Turkish soil,

has not possessed these qualities. He has accepted and bent to the

Turk, and in his rôle of a willing slave, he has played a very

questionable part toward the other Christian peoples. However, there

is a political reason for his unpopularity.

On account of his acceptance of Turkish rule the Greek was allowed

special privileges. The Turks acknowledged the Greek Church as the

representative of all the Christian peoples under their rule. This

gave the patriarch of the Greek Church not only a spiritual but a

temporal authority over the Bulgars and the Serbs, as well as over

his own people, a power which was backed by Turkish troops.

Putting aside those frantic outbursts of barbarity against the

Christian inhabitants of his country, of which the Turk has

frequently been guilty, yet never has he been so oppressive as the

Greek patriarch. Given power over the Slav population, the patriarch

used it to its limit. Not only did he tax them oppressively to

support a church with which they had no sympathy, but he used all

efforts to stamp out every little spark of national feeling that had

survived the centuries of Turkish rule. He forced Greek teachers on

their children, and finally he made it a crime for any Slav to be

heard speaking his own tongue. It was the aim to make all Turkish

Christians into Greeks, and to attain this end no means was too

severe. Later, some years before the liberation of Bulgaria, the

sultan gave the Bulgars the right to establish a church of their

own. And then, when he could no longer employ Turkish troops to

force adherence to his church, the patriarch did not hesitate to

organize secret bands of terrorists to take their place. And this

policy was followed up until just before the First Balkan War, then

resumed with renewed ferocity afterward in the territory acquired

after the Second Balkan War.

Between the Serbs and the Bulgars the hatred may be very intense at

this present moment on account of the Second Balkan War and because

King Ferdinand, helped by Austria and Germany, has at last

accomplished his long-prepared ambition to crush Serbia. When Bulgar

meets Serb they naturally fraternize. The prejudice between them is

really artificial. It has been partly created and wholly fanned into

flame by the governing cliques for political reasons. In fact, it

may be said that all these hatreds would gradually die out were it

not for the artificial irritation that has been kept up by the

governing cliques of the respective states. The fact that they could

all combine against the Turks in the First Balkan War seems evidence

enough that union is not impossible, if only the various kings and

their supporters would suppress their personal ambitions and greed

and consider the welfare of their respective people as of the first

importance.

CHAPTER XIII

BULGARIA

The present war is the logical sequel of the successive scenes of

the drama enacted in the Balkan theatre. And though original causes

may be found still farther back in history, by beginning with the

liberation of Bulgaria, the whole story may be fairly well unfolded.

All students of Balkan history are fairly well agreed on the point

that the Treaty of Berlin is responsible for most of the troubles

that have come since.

At that time in 1877 Turkey still controlled all of the Balkan

Peninsula except Greece, including Bosnia, Herzegovina, and

Rumania. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro, however, were only

nominally part of Turkey, since they were allowed to have their own

ruling princes and enjoyed almost complete independence. The Bulgars

were still governed by Turkish pashas, and were in no way allowed to

participate in their own government.

For many years there had been revolutionary activities among them,

whose aim was to prepare and stir up the peasants to active revolt

against the rule of the Turks. It was part of Russia's policy to

encourage these conspirators, for a strong revolutionary uprising

might always be the opportunity for intervention and ultimate

annexation.

In the spring of 1876 a slight uprising took place under the

leadership of some schoolmasters, some of whom had been educated in

Russia and had there imbibed the Panslavist idea: the ultimate union

of all Slavs under the autocracy of the czar.

At first the uprising attracted little attention; it had occurred

down in southern Rumania, not far from Philippopolis. Nor did its

suppression at first attract notice, until MacGhan, the American

correspondent of an English newspaper, went down to the scene of the

troubles and began sending in reports to his paper, and as the

European public read these descriptions in the British newspaper,

their indignation rose and presently swept all over Europe in a

storm of fury against the Turks.

These were what afterward became known as the Bulgarian atrocities.

The villagers of Batak had been preparing for some days to join the

insurrection when a force of bashi-bazouks, Turkish irregulars,

under the command of Achmet Agha and Mohammed Agha arrived at the

place. On the two Turkish leaders giving their word of honor that no

harm should come to them, the villagers surrendered. No sooner had

they laid down their arms than a general massacre of the whole

population began; not only the men, but women and children were

tortured, outraged, and hacked to pieces. When a British commission

appeared on the scene two months later to investigate, the little

village church was still piled up to the windows with the corpses of

those that had fled there for sanctuary. Skulls with gray hairs

still attached to them, tresses which had once adorned the heads of

young girls, and the rotting limbs of small children were mingled in

one gruesome heap. It is said that the Ottoman High Commissioner,

who was sent by the Turkish Government with the British commission

to investigate, on beholding this sight, turned to one of the

perpetrators who was present and asked him how much Russia had paid

him for a deed which, as he phrased it, would be "the beginning of

the end of the Ottoman Empire." The Turkish Government evidently did

not share this pessimistic view, for it decorated the two Turks who

had led the bashi-bazouks in the massacre.

It presently developed that Batak was not an isolated example. Mr.

Baring of the British commission estimated that the total number of

Bulgars slaughtered in that district during the month of May must

have been 12,000. In Batak 5,000 out of a population of 7,000 had

been killed.

Never was Europe more aroused. Mr. Gladstone's famous pamphlet,

denouncing the Turkish administration in its European provinces,

went through edition after edition. Lord Derby, on behalf of the

British Government, telegraphed that "any renewal of the outrages

would be more fatal to the Turkish Government than the loss of a

battle." Bulgaria, which had been forgotten for centuries, became a

household word. All over the world swept a fierce popular demand

that the Turk be immediately driven out of Europe.

Here was Russia's opportunity. In the face of this world-wide

popular sentiment the policy of the European powers, especially of

Austria, that Russia should not be allowed to acquire more Turkish

territory, could not very well be enforced. The Austrian diplomat

who would object to Russia hurrying to the aid of the outraged

Bulgars, her own blood kindred, would have been mobbed in his own

country. The hearts of people were so moved that they forgot the

dark intrigues of diplomats.

So in the following spring Russia declared war against Turkey, and

Rumania taking this opportunity to declare her complete

independence, sent an army into the field to aid the Russians. The

Bulgars, unorganized and untrained as they were, also gave what aid

they could, especially in the storming of Shipka Pass, through

which the invaders burst out into the plains of Thrace and advanced

triumphantly on to the gates of Constantinople. Then the Turks cried

for terms, and the famous Treaty of San Stefano, drawn up in the

small town by that name just outside the Turkish capital, was the

result.

By this treaty there would have been created the "Greater Bulgaria,"

of which the Bulgarians have been dreaming of and fighting for ever

since. The Bulgaria of the San Stefano Treaty would have cut the

European territories of the sultan in two, and thus effectively

dismembered the Ottoman Empire. In addition to a coast line on the

Black Sea extending a little farther north, and considerably farther

south than Bulgaria now possesses, she would have had a frontage on

the Ægean Sea. Practically all of Macedonia, over to the lakes of

Ochrida and Prespa, and down to near Saloniki, would have been

included; the Vardar and the Struma would have been Bulgarian

streams from their sources to their mouths.

But by this time the great popular indignation against the Turks had

spent itself and the diplomatic machinery of the powers began

revolving again. England, who had protested against the Bulgarian

atrocities strongest, was the first to veto the plan that was to

give all the Bulgarians their independence of Turkey. To Lord

Beaconsfield, Disraeli, himself one of a race which has suffered

oppression for centuries, and then prime minister of Great Britain,

belongs the honor of being the first diplomat to set in motion that

intervention by the powers which was to give the Bulgars of

Macedonia back into the hands of the Turks.

There was a conference of the powers in Berlin, and there it was

decided that the Treaty of San Stefano must be revised. The reason

was that it was feared that Bulgaria would become merely a Russian

province; that through Bulgaria Russia would all but have her hands

on the Bosphorus, the aim of all her ambitions. So the Treaty of San

Stefano was torn up and the Treaty of Berlin was substituted in its

place.

By this new document, which was in force practically up until the

First Balkan War, Bulgaria was created an "autonomous and tributary

principality under the suzerainty of his Imperial Majesty the

Sultan"; its limits were defined to be the Balkans on the south,

eastern Rumelia being thus excluded from it; the Danube on the

north, the Black Sea from just south of Mangalia to near Cape Emineh

on the east, and Serbia on the west from the point where the Timok

River joins the Danube to the point at which the two principalities

and Macedonia should meet. Thus were not only the Bulgars of eastern

Rumelia and Macedonia separated from their kinsmen in the new

principality, but the district of Pirot was handed over to Serbia,

who had participated in both wars of 1876 and of 1877-78. Austria's

share in the spoils was Bosnia and Herzegovina, though ostensibly

these two provinces were only to be under her temporary

administration. The Berlin Treaty also provided for certain reforms

of the Turkish Government in the Macedonian provinces, but as these

were never carried out, and were never expected to be carried out by

either the Turkish or European statesmen concerned, these

provisions, known as "Article XXIII of the Treaty of Berlin," need

not be described. This article was a mere sop thrown to whatever

might be left of that public opinion which had thundered through

Europe a year previously. Macedonia was handed back body and soul to

Turkey, to be done with as she pleased. Herein was the cause of all

the trouble that was to follow; one of the chief causes of the

present Great War.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Russia's motives had

been entirely or even largely altruistic. The powers had expressed

the fear that a greater Bulgaria would gradually become part of the

Russian Empire. There can be no doubt that Russia thought so too.

All her later actions point to that fact. The only mistake, and this

was shared by all who participated in the Treaty of Berlin alike,

was the assumption that Bulgaria herself would allow this to be

done. It only developed later what a stiff-necked people the Bulgars

could be.

Bulgaria, as Prince Bismarck expressed it, had been put into the

saddle. Her next task was to learn to ride. Under the rule of the

Turks there had been no opportunity to acquire political or

administrative experience; all the public offices had been filled by

Turks or Greeks. All the natural leaders of the people having been

killed off by Turks and Greeks alike for centuries, the Bulgars that

emerged into independence in 1878 were essentially a nation of

peasants. There were very few of them who could read or write; there

were no printed Bulgarian books. Small wonder if all Europe and

Russia thought that these people would not be able to govern

themselves.

Until the Government of the new little nation could be organized and

a ruler chosen, a Russian prince was left in the country, with a

Russian army to support him to maintain order. And he acted indeed

as though he were governing a Russian province. He gave the

Bulgarians a taste of what real Russian authority might be like, and

they did not like it. This was Russia's first mistake in her

capacity as guide through the first difficulties of self-government.

Eventually, however, a General Assembly was called, a constitution

drafted and the first ruler was selected. The choice fell on Prince

Alexander of Battenberg, a nephew of the Russian Czar Alexander II.

At the time of his election he was only twenty-two years of age, and

lived as a simple military officer in the barracks of Potsdam in

Germany. It is said that he asked the advice of Bismarck, when his

election first became known to him, as to whether he should accept,

and that Bismarck replied, "at least, a reign in Bulgaria will

always be a pleasant reminiscence." Bismarck was one of those who

had drafted the Treaty of Berlin and had no faith in the stability

of any possible government the Bulgars could organize for

themselves. On July 9, 1879, Prince Alexander took the oath to the

constitution at Tirnovo. A week later the Russian army of occupation

evacuated the country.

But if the Russian soldiers had left the country there were still

plenty of Russians left in Bulgaria. The president of the council,

the minister of war, the chief of police, the governor of Sofia, the

capital, and 300 superior officers in the Bulgarian army that was

presently organized, were all Russians. The Russian agent, M.

Hitrovo, cleverly worked on the national dread of Austria, and

tried to play the part of a British political resident at the court

of an Indian prince.

This continued until 1883, when suddenly Prince Alexander dismissed

all his Russian advisers, and Bulgarians were established in their

places. Naturally, Russia was enraged. By this time Alexander's

uncle, the Czar of Russia, had died, and Czar Alexander III, his

cousin, was now ruler of Russia.

One night not long after the dismissal of the Russian advisers two

Russian generals, Skobeleff and Kaulbars, arrived at the palace and

demanded an audience of the prince. The sentry refused them

admittance, and when they attempted to force their way past him the

soldier drew his side arm and threatened to strike them down. The

guard was called; a carriage which stood at the palace gates and

from which the two Russian generals had alighted was searched, and

evidence was discovered that the prince was to have been kidnapped

to the Danube, thence over into Russia. Proclamations announcing

Alexander's expulsion from Bulgaria, and the formation of a

provisional government under the two leading conspirators, proved

conclusively the complicity of Russia. Thanks to the support that he

received from the Bulgarian officers about him, Alexander was saved

and the plot was exposed to Russia's humiliation. Also, it showed

the Bulgars to what measures Russia would resort to force her will

upon them.

CHAPTER XIV

WAR WITH SERBIA

Meanwhile down in Eastern Rumelia the bitter disappointment caused

by the separation of the two Bulgarias by the Treaty of Berlin had

increased. On the morning of September 18, 1885, as Gavril Pasha,

the Turkish governor, was quietly sipping his coffee in his home in

Philippopolis a group of Bulgarian officers rushed in and took him

prisoner. The pasha yielded to superior force; without the shedding

of a drop of blood the revolutionists took possession. Union with

Bulgaria was proclaimed. Prince Alexander, fearing the international

complications that might follow, hesitated, but his Bulgarian

advisers insisted, so on September 20 he issued a proclamation

announcing himself as "Prince of North and South Bulgaria."

Naturally, in the commotion among the diplomats which followed, it

might be supposed that those who had drafted the Treaty of Berlin

would insist on its being observed, and that Russia would welcome

the Greater Bulgaria she had planned at San Stefano. But just the

contrary happened. England, now under the guidance of Gladstone,

threatened a naval demonstration before the Dardanelles if Turkey

interfered. Russia, on her part, was furious; she pressed Turkey to

march an army up into south Bulgaria. Turkey, however, had no desire

to be interviewed by the British ships.

Thus Russia and England had changed places in their attitude toward

Bulgaria. Both had realized that they had made a mistake seven years

previously; that Bulgaria herself would have a word to say as to

whether she was to become a Russian province. Having failed to

persuade Turkey to take military steps to bring Eastern Rumelia back

under her rule, Russia now turned to Serbia. Greece and Serbia were

also furious that Bulgaria should suddenly acquire territory without

their having a share in it, thus making her the biggest nation of

the Balkans. So Serbia and Russia intrigued together. The result was

that, like the proverbial bolt out of a clear sky, Serbia hurled a

declaration of war at Bulgaria and began marching her army across

the frontier toward Sofia.

The Bulgarian army was in Eastern Rumelia at the time, expecting

trouble from the Turks. When the news came that the Serbians were

attacking them from the rear, they began rushing up north. They

packed themselves into the box cars on the railroad like dried fish,

and they clung to the tops like insects. Meanwhile the people of

Belgrade toasted their sovereign, King Milan, as "King of Serbia and

Macedonia."

Three days later the Serbian army was well on the road over the

frontier toward the Bulgarian capital. Suddenly, at Slivnitza, a

small town just over the frontier, the Bulgars burst down on them.

At their head rushed a brigade of 3,000 Macedonian "brigands,"

natives of that territory that the Treaty of Berlin had cut off from

Bulgaria. With the Bulgarian army was also a corps of 6,000

Mohammedan volunteers who rushed into the battle with as much

enthusiasm as their Christian fellows. At that moment Bulgaria

reaped the benefits of the tolerance she had shown the Mohammedan

population during the seven years of her independence. They were now

good Bulgarian citizens.

The war with Serbia lasted just three days. At the end of that time

the Serbians were flying, a panic-stricken mob, back across the

frontier toward Belgrade, the Bulgars at their heels. At their head,

in the midst of the flying bullets, rode Prince Alexander. The war

was won in spite of the fact that all the Russian officers, acting

on secret instruction from home, had resigned on the day before the

battle.

The Bulgarian army had already advanced to and occupied Pirot, and

was preparing to continue on to Belgrade, when Count Khevenhüller,

the Austrian Minister to Serbia, arrived at Bulgarian headquarters

and informed Prince Alexander that if the Bulgarians continued their

advance the Serbians would be joined by Austrian troops. The prince

yielded to superior force, and in March, 1886, a treaty of peace was

signed at Bucharest. Serbia did not cede a single yard of territory,

nor did she pay one cent of indemnity. Not only Russia, but Austria,

was beginning to fear Bulgaria; neither wanted a really formidable

power in the Balkans. But at any rate the union with Eastern Rumelia

was accomplished and remained a fact.

Again Russian intrigue had failed; again Bulgaria had not only shown

her capacity for managing her own affairs, but she had also shown

that her soldiers could fight. All Europe was surprised. It was not

supposed that the army of this little nation, whose people only

eight years ago had been all slaves, could meet trained troops in

action.

Russia now made immediately another mistake in attributing her

humiliation to Prince Alexander, the good-natured boy who was

supposed to rule Bulgaria. She was now determined to be revenged on

him. Nor did the Russian agents wait long before taking action.

Peace had hardly been declared between Bulgaria and Serbia when they

began laying their plans.

A rumor having been spread that the Serbians were going to resume

their attack, all the troops were taken out of Sofia and sent away

toward the frontier. Then a regiment, on which the conspirators, the

Russian agents and some Bulgarian officers whom they had bribed,

felt they could count, was smuggled into the capital. At two o'clock

in the morning on August 21, 1886, the Bulgarian officers in the pay

of the conspirators rushed into the palace, forced the prince at the

point of a revolver to sign his own abdication, then kidnapped him

in a carriage, taking him off to the Danube, where he was put on

board of a boat under heavy guard and taken to Russia.

Meanwhile the conspirators, among whom was the metropolitan of the

Bulgarian Church, Clement, issued a proclamation establishing

themselves as the provisional government, and assuring the people

that it would have the hearty support of the "Little White Father"

in St. Petersburg.

This proclamation had hardly been launched when Stambuloff, the

Speaker of the National Assembly, issued another proclamation, in

his official capacity, in which he declared the metropolitan,

Clement, and the other known conspirators outlaws, and appealed to

the Bulgarian people to defend the independence of their Government.

And the people did rise to his support, all over the country, so

decidedly and with so much enthusiasm that the members of the

provisional government fled. Thereupon Stambuloff and two other

officials of the National Assembly assumed control of the Government

until the prince could be found. Telegrams were sent all over

Europe, and finally the Russian authorities were obliged to set the

prince free, whereupon he reappeared in Lemberg, whence he returned

to Bulgaria.

But the experience had apparently thoroughly frightened the prince.

On landing at Rustchuk on the Danube, he sent a telegram to the

czar, saying: "Russia gave me my crown; I am ready to return it to

her sovereign." So on September 7, in spite of the protests of

Stambuloff and the other members of the Government, he abdicated in

earnest and next day he left Bulgaria forever.

CHAPTER XV

WORK OF STAMBULOFF

A delegation was then sent wandering around Europe for another

sovereign, and after much difficulty the final choice fell on Prince

Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose mother, Princess Clementine,

was the granddaughter of King Louis Philippe, his father being an

Austrian nobleman of large means. On August 14, 1887, he took the

oath and was installed on the throne which he still occupies, though

now as king. He immediately did what made him ever afterward

bitterly hated by the Russian Government, namely, requested

Stambuloff, he who had uncovered Russia's latest intrigue and

conspiracy, to become prime minister, a post which he occupied for

the next seven years, constantly fighting Russian influence.

Stephen Stambuloff, the son of an innkeeper, born in 1854, and one

of the early revolutionary agitators among his own people, has often

been referred to as the "Bismarck of the Balkans." He was,

undoubtedly, the biggest statesman that the Balkans has yet

produced, unless time shall decide that Venizelos is another such as

he.

In the hands of Stambuloff Prince Ferdinand was nothing but a

puppet, and so he continued for some years, until he became

acquainted with the language, customs, and mental qualities of his

people. Then the two fell out. But to the end Stambuloff was the

real ruler, and under his guidance Bulgaria made that progress, both

in military organization and in education, which was the surprise of

the world when the First Balkan War broke out. It now dawned on

Russia that it was Bulgaria herself that was opposed to her

intrigues and not the princes who happened to occupy her throne. And

the leader of the Bulgarians was undoubtedly Stambuloff, a peasant

himself and the son of a peasant. His downfall must be brought

about.

From the very beginning of his reign Ferdinand had not been

recognized by the Russian Government. As he began to feel himself

more secure in his throne he began to work for this recognition, as

well as for the favor of all the reigning monarchs of Europe. With

this end in view he began intriguing, and as an intriguer, Ferdinand

is the cleverest of all the Balkan monarchs. Thus it was that he

finally dismissed Stambuloff from office on May 31, 1894, an act

which he found all the easier because Stambuloff had made many

enemies among his own people by his brusque, almost brutal, ways.

But in spite of the wave of unpopularity that happened to be

sweeping over him at the time, there could be no doubt that a man of

Stambuloff's abilities would again rise to power. Only one thing

could prevent that. And that one thing was brought to pass by his

enemies. In the evening of July 15, 1895, as he was driving home

from his club, three men sprang up on his carriage and literally

hacked him to pieces. Thus ended the comparatively short career of

the man who had most to do with defeating Russian intrigues in

Bulgaria. His murderers, though identified, were never arrested or

punished, and found safe refuge in Russia.

But for all that his enemies gained by his death, Stambuloff might

as well have continued to live. One of the strongest political

parties in Bulgaria is still named after him, and bases its appeal

on his policies. And ever after every Bulgarian who knows the short

history of his country has hated the Russian Government, though this

sentiment does not include the Russian people. In fact, nowhere in

all Europe have Russian political exiles found more secure refuge

than in Bulgaria, where they are received with hearty welcome, and

the abler ones of them offered Government employment. As an

instance: the national university in Sofia was founded by a Russian

scholar upon the invitation of the Bulgarian Government. Had this

same Russian scholar dared to cross over the Russian frontier he

would have been arrested immediately, and, if not hung, have been

sent into exile to Siberia. Again and again Russia has demanded that

certain notable refugees living in Bulgaria be delivered up to her,

but always Bulgaria has refused. The Bulgars love the Russian

people; they hate the Russian autocracy.

Meanwhile important events were developing down in Macedonia. The

people throughout this region, with the exception of the few Greeks

along the sea shores, had been bitterly disappointed by the Treaty

of Berlin, which delivered them back into the hands of the Turks. It

soon became obvious that even the reforms promised by the XXIII

Article of that document were to remain meaningless; the Turkish

Government did not even pretend to put them into effect.

During this period many young Macedonian peasant boys crossed the

frontier over into free Bulgaria, where the excellent schools being

established offered them opportunity to obtain an education that had

never before been available to Bulgars. These young fellows returned

to Macedonia unobtrusively and quietly by exerting their influence

on the peasants. At first they merely instructed them in reading and

writing; then they inaugurated evening gatherings where things of

the outside world were discussed. Two of the most prominent of these

young educators were Damyan Grueff and Gotze Deltcheff, now

worshipped by the common peasants as the martyr heroes of their

movement for freedom.

It was Grueff and Deltcheff who first gave these early efforts a

definite turn. They began organizing the villagers into societies

whose object was distinctly revolutionary. But during all their

careers neither of these two men advocated union with Bulgaria.

Later on, as will be shown, they became bitterly opposed to that

idea, as did all of their followers and disciples. They wanted to

create a program for their organization which should be acceptable

to all the people of Macedonia; Greeks, Serbs, Vlachs and even

Mohammedans, as well as Bulgars. So they preached the idea of

"Macedonia for the Macedonians;" Macedonia to be either an entirely

separate nation by itself, or an autonomous state, under Turkish

suzerainty.

Their organization had a more immediate purpose, however. And that

was to establish some sort of order in the midst of Turkish

anarchy. The trouble with the Turkish rule was not that it ruled too

much, but that it ruled too little. Brigands, both Mohammedan and

Christian, ranged the mountain regions, preying on the poor

peasants. Turkish troops made no special efforts to check them.

Turkish courts were so corrupt that justice was a joke. Though there

was a tendency on the part of the courts to favor their own people,

all other things being equal, still that was not the chief grievance

of the Macedonian peasants. The trouble was that the courts could

always be bought and a case always went against the poor man,

whether he was Christian or Mohammedan. And finally, in some

sections of Macedonia, especially down around Monastir, toward the

Greek frontier, the Greek Church was still enjoying the same

authority over Bulgar communities that it had once enjoyed up in

Bulgaria. To add to this trouble, the Greek patriarch was again

attempting to push his propaganda all over the country, employing

armed bands to terrorize the villagers into declaring themselves

Greeks. This, of course, was a campaign carried on in conjunction

with the Greek Government, which wished to Hellenize Macedonia

against the day when Turkey should be driven out, so that it could

lay claim to the country on the strength of "blood kindred."

Over and over again the Bulgar communities sent delegations to the

Turkish padisha complaining of these evils, but no measures were

ever taken to remedy them. The brigands continued unmolested, the

courts remained corrupt and as for curtailing the power of the Greek

Church, that was distinctly against the policy of the sultan. With

the Bulgars in overwhelming majority, he considered it wise to

confer his privileges on the fewer Greeks, thus to rouse a mutual

hatred between the two peoples, so they should not join together and

make common cause against him.

CHAPTER XVI

ATTEMPTS AT REFORM IN MACEDONIA

The first object of the organization which Grueff and Deltcheff set

about forming was to remedy this evil. In each village they

established a local committee, composed of the more intelligent

villagers, whose function it should be to take the place of the

Turkish courts. The members of these secret tribunals were elected

democratically by the villagers themselves. Later on they elected

local delegates to provincial committees, which acted as courts of

higher appeal, to which a defendant on trial might appeal should he

feel that local sentiment was prejudiced against him. Later on, when

these committees spread all over the country, yearly congresses were

held, the first of which drew up a constitution for what was nothing

less than a secret provisional government for the underground

republic of Macedonia. Such was the beginning and the first purposes

of the famous Macedonian Committee, so called because authority was

always vested in the hands of committees, rather than with

individuals, so strong was the democratic sentiment of the people.

The next thing was to get rid of the brigands. To accomplish that

the provincial committees organized and maintained armed bands,

which patrolled the mountains of the territory assigned to them.

Numbering all the way from ten men to fifty each, these bands

protected the villages from the bandits and even hunted them down.

And, naturally, when the terrorist bands of the Greek Church became

active, they were confronted by the armed bands of the committee.

It is notable that when the existence of the Macedonian Committee

and its small local armed forces first became known to the outside

world, it was not the Turkish Government which showed most

animosity. In fact, for a long time the Turks rather treated the

committee much as they had treated the brigands; that is, let them

alone, so long as they did not cross their path, and the committee

did not set out to molest the Turks.

It was the Greek Church, and the Greek and Serbian Governments that

became most excited. Both the Greeks and the Serbians had been

making every effort to arouse a "spirit of nationalism" of their own

brand among the Macedonians. The committee was distinctly going to

counteract their influence and efforts by arousing a spirit of

nationality among the Macedonians which was neither Serbian nor

Bulgarian nor Greek. And when the Bulgarian Government understood

this thoroughly it showed itself equally unfriendly. For Prince

Ferdinand and his clique dreamed of the Greater Bulgaria which they

should rule. They wanted no autonomous Macedonia; even less did they

want an independent Macedonia.

It was along in the later nineties that the Macedonian Committee

began assuming such proportions as to attract the attention of the

Balkan Governments. They began preparations for counteracting its

influence, even for its destruction. So they organized armed bands,

commanded by army officers "on furlough," or, in some cases, by the

very brigand chiefs whom the committee had driven out. These bands

were sent across the frontier to "arouse the national spirit" among

the peasants.

From the very first the Bulgarian bands fought the forces of the

committee as did the Greeks. Neither ever penetrated very far into

the country from their respective frontiers, for the peasants were

opposed to them and would not feed them, though they had plenty of

money and did succeed in bribing some. They did, however, do a great

deal of damage among the villages near the frontiers and, instead of

arousing any national spirit, only planted a deep hatred in the

hearts of the Macedonians for their respective governments. But of

the three forces, Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian, the Bulgars and

Greeks were by far the most ferocious. The Serbs were inclined to

fight fair, attacking only the committee's bands and such villages

as sheltered them. The Greeks and Bulgars knew no such restrictions.

They burned whole villages, massacred whole communities, including

women and children, and frequently outraged women. And wherever they

left their bloody marks behind, there they also left the official

seal of their master, rudely drawn on rocks or charred timbers--a

bishop's miter and cross.

Between the committee's armed forces and the propagandist bands sent

over by Prince Ferdinand's Government there were open hostilities.

The peasants complained to the committee that some of Ferdinand's

band leaders, those who had formerly been brigands, were beginning

to resort to their old practices, though now they described their

robberies as "contributions to the cause of the revolution." The

Macedonians fought Bulgars as bitterly and fiercely as they fought

Greeks and Serbs. For months a bloody war was waged in the mountain

forests of northern Macedonia. The committee's forces had the

support of the population. The invaders had the advantage of a

bigger supply of arms and ammunition, and that finally told. Little

by little the bands of the committee were driven back. And just at

that juncture an authority of the organization, the Executive

Committee, was betrayed by a Greek spy. These leaders, who had

charge of the organization's funds, were arrested and imprisoned.

Without funds the bands in the field were cut off from further

supplies of arms and ammunition, which had been supplied in large

part by illicit Greek and Turkish traders.

Only two leaders, and less than a hundred armed men, were left in

northern Macedonia to resist the further advance of the Bulgarian

propagandists.

In 1901 a Macedonian leader, whose headquarters were in Thrace and

in the country east of the Struma, of the name of Yani Sandanski,

who later became prominent in connection with the Young Turk

movement, kidnapped the American missionary, Miss Ellen Stone, and

held her for a ransom of $60,000. His desperate venture succeeded.

The ransom was paid, arms and ammunition were bought in large

quantities, and his committee was able to meet the Bulgarian

propagandists with stronger forces than ever in the country east of

the Struma. The committee had men in plenty.

The Miss Stone episode, however, had given the Macedonian situation

a great deal of publicity in the Bulgarian press, and the Bulgarian

public began protesting. Thousands of students in Bulgaria were

Macedonians; others were government officials. Thousands also were

prospering merchants. Popular demonstrations against Ferdinand's

policy were reported all over the country, and finally he was

compelled to withdraw his armed forces from Macedonia. Thus was his

first intrigue in that direction defeated.

It should be obvious by this time that the Macedonian Committee was

the key to the whole Balkan problem, in so far as it was an internal

problem at least. All the little states surrounding Macedonia wanted

to grab her, and Macedonia did not want to be grabbed by any of

them. In their selfish greed the governing cliques of all the little

states absolutely disregarded the will of the people of Macedonia.

In their efforts they were only reviving the old hatreds and

creating new ones. Little wonder that the Turks sat back and

refrained from interfering too actively. Meanwhile the people of

Europe, seeing that the Balkan Christians fought more among

themselves than they fought the Turks, believed they were only

barbarians, little dreaming that the fight was not so much between

Turk and Christian, as between Democracy and Imperialism; the

democracy of the Macedonians against the imperialistic ambitions of

the selfish little states around them. This point should be realized

and emphasized, for this fight culminated in the next big act of the

Balkan drama; the rise of Young Turkey.

If the little Balkan States were opposed to the Macedonian

Committee, for the very same reason Russia and Austria were opposed,

though to these two powers it was not so vital a matter. For the

present they, with the rest of Europe were maintaining the _status

quo_. For a number of years Russia had been busy in another quarter

in the Far East, and had not much thought to give to the Balkans.

Then came her defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1905 and her

hopes of emerging on the open sea in that direction were effectually

doomed. Austria, too, was willing to defer the realization of her

ambitions, so long as Russia made no move. Yet both realized that

they must do battle for their interests in the Balkans.

In 1903 the Macedonian Committee, rendered desperate by the pressure

of the Greek, Bulgar, and Serbian propagandists, as well as by the

Turks, who were beginning to take more active measures against the

"comitlara," or "committee people," as they called the revolutionists,

precipitated an uprising in the Monastir district, under the

leadership of Damyan Grueff, Deltcheff having been killed by soldiers

some time previous. The object was not so much a successful revolution

as to create a crisis in the Balkan problem; to disturb the _status

quo_ of the European statesmen. For, as Grueff expressed it, "horror

with an end is better than horror without an end."

The uprising was suppressed with the customary Turkish severity,

though not with such atrocities as had occurred in Bulgaria

twenty-eight years previously. Nor did the burning of hundreds of

villages ruffle the European statesmen. A conference of the powers

was indeed called and an attempt made to institute such reforms as

had been contemplated by the XXIII Article of the Berlin Treaty,

which included foreign police officers, in command of the Turkish

police in Macedonia. Each of the powers did indeed send some

officers down there, but they had little more influence than so many

tourists. After the uprising the same old situation continued. The

Greek Church was now making desperate attempts to overrun Macedonia

with its terrorist bands and Ferdinand started another intrigue on

behalf of Bulgarian propaganda which came near proving more fatal to

the committee than any of the Greek attacks.

Ferdinand, through a young Macedonian who had been an officer in his

army and was now an active member of the committee, Boris Sarafoff,

began a propaganda of bribery within the organization itself. By

this means he hoped to work up a majority within the committee in

favor of annexation with Bulgaria.

At this juncture Yani Sandanski reappeared on the scene. Grueff had

recently been killed in a skirmish with soldiers. Sandanski sent one

of his men down into Sofia, where Sarafoff was conferring with

Ferdinand at the time, and had him shot down in the streets of the

capital. At the same time he sent an open message to Ferdinand,

warning the prince that if he continued his interference in

Macedonia's internal affairs, he would share the fate of Sarafoff.

That ended Ferdinand's second intrigue in Macedonia. Sandanski, who

was now the recognized leader of the Macedonian organization, was of

course outlawed in Bulgaria. But the time was presently to come when

Ferdinand would seek his friendship most humbly.

It must not be supposed that the Macedo-Slovenes, though they formed

an overpowering majority in the membership of the committee, were

the only ones who were discontented with the rule of Abdul Hamid.

The Vlachs of Macedonia stood solidly beside the Macedo-Slovenes. In

the beginning some Greeks, too, had joined, but as the Greek Church

excommunicated all who enrolled under the banner of the committee,

and, moreover, as excommunication meant certain assassination, those

few Greeks who really felt sympathy for the cause of a free

Macedonia found it expedient to remain quiet.

The Mohammedans, however, though they did belong to the ruling race

and had more reason to hold aloof than the Greeks, were by no means

solidly against the committee. Whole communities of them, too,

joined, or at least offered shelter and comfort to the armed bands

of the committee. The Albanians especially were sympathetic, and

great numbers of them were active in the work.

But the discontent of the Turks with the Government was more fully

represented in a movement of separate origin. Young Turkish men had

been going abroad to study in foreign universities for a generation

past and had begun imbibing advanced ideas. They returned and began

spreading those ideas among their followers at home. Finally they

too organized, and this was the beginning of the Young Turk party.

The Young Turks had aims that differed very little from those of the

committee. They wanted a constitutional Turkey, under which all the

subjects of the sultan should be allowed to enjoy equal rights,

regardless of creed or race. Many of them were, in fact, in favor of

a republic. It was not long before their leaders came in contact

with the leaders of the committee. And for some years they worked

quietly together. The Young Turks, it should be remembered, were

especially active in the army.

CHAPTER XVII

CRISIS IN TURKEY

Then, suddenly, in 1908, occurred what was probably the most

alarming event that had yet happened, from the point of view of

Austria and Russia. The sultan had decided to begin taking more

severe measures with the Young Turks, with the result that he

precipitated a crisis. Enver Bey and Niazi Bey, two of the Young

Turk leaders, openly revolted in Monastir and took to the near-by

mountains, calling on all Turkish subjects to support them. The

revolt spread rapidly. The Young Turks captured the city of Monastir

and then the garrison at Saloniki handed that city over to them. The

sultan, seeing that the whole army was against him, suddenly decided

to temporize and finally agreed to proclaim a constitution for

Turkey.

In November of 1908 elections were held for the new Parliament and

all the various nationalities were given an opportunity to send in

their deputies.

But Abdul Hamid was not going to accept the new régime without

another effort to regain his old control. The following winter,

after the Parliament had met, he gathered together his old

supporters and, having made sure that he could count on the loyalty

of the garrison in Constantinople, suddenly abolished all that he

had proclaimed and declared the old régime restored.

Then Mahmud Shevket Pasha, the military leader of the Young Turks,

established himself in Macedonia and called on all the people to

support him.

The events which followed will ever rank as among the most dramatic

and picturesque of recent Turkish history. First of all the fighting

bands of the committee, which had already laid down their arms,

reorganized again and came down from the mountains to join Shevket's

army. At their head marched Yani Sandanski, the leader of the

committee and the hated enemy of Prince Ferdinand. The comitajis,

however, were not the only ones to respond. When Shevket finally

began to march on the capital, he had in his army whole brigades of

Greeks, Jews, Vlachs as well as Turks and Bulgars.

When this army finally appeared outside the gates of Constantinople,

the sultan and his soldiers realized that all was lost, but it was

now too late to temporize again. A large force was sent in to disarm

the garrison and to drag Abdul Hamid off his throne. And at the very

head of that force, together with a hundred of his best men, marched

Yani Sandanski, the abductor of Miss Stone, the slayer of Prince

Ferdinand's chief conspirator in Macedonia, Boris Sarafoff, the

brigand chief who represented the people of Macedonia, but had been

outlawed in every Balkan State. What could be more symbolical of the

partnership between the Macedonia Committee and Young Turkey than

that Yani Sandanski should be one of those who were to drag Abdul

Hamid off his throne and send him a prisoner to Saloniki?

At that moment, and for some months after, it looked indeed as

though this union of previously antagonistic elements in European

Turkey would effectually balk all the intrigues, not only of the

little Balkan States, but of Austria and Russia as well. Nothing

could have been more disappointing to the tribe of diplomats than

this unexpected turn of events.

Undoubtedly most of the Young Turk leaders were sincere and really

wished to establish a new Ottoman Empire based on a broad

citizenship of all its peoples and the elimination of religious and

racial differences from politics. Many of them were out-and-out

Socialists, as was Yani Sandanski himself, who saw far-off visions

of a great European, if not a world, confederation which should

banish war entirely from the earth.

But unfortunately Young Turkey had a bigger task on its hands than

it could swing. The Mohammedans of Macedonia and Thrace had been won

over to its progressive ideas. But the people of Islam on the other

side of the Bosphorus had yet to be heard from. And when they did

make their voices heard, it was not in favor of recognizing the

giaours as their political equals.

Perhaps, even, if left to itself, Turkey, under the guidance of the

new and younger elements, might eventually have emerged triumphant

against the dark forces of fanaticism and reaction. But it was not

to have that opportunity. The solidarity of all the Turkish

subjects, especially in European Turkey, would be nothing less than

a calamity to all the Balkan States. There would be no "oppressed"

brothers to rescue, consequently no pretext for that territorial

expansion which they had all counted on to take place some day in

the future. There could be no Greater Hellas, a Byzantine Empire

reestablished, with Constantinople as its capital; there could be no

Greater Bulgaria, with Czar Ferdinand as its ruler. Russia, too,

when her opportunity came to take Constantinople, would come, not as

a liberator of the Macedonian Slavs, but as an invading enemy. And

Austria would find her pathway to Saloniki blocked by a stronger

Turkey than she had counted upon. All these powers were against the

success of Young Turkey. But they did not stand shoulder to shoulder

against it. Between the Balkan States and the two big powers was

another division of interest quite as deep. It was the rivalry of

the wolves and the bears.

The Young Turks' revolution may definitely be considered the first

jar to the _status quo_, as established by the Treaty of Berlin, to

be followed in quick succession by other similar shocks, which were

presently to culminate in its complete upset and the present war.

Turkey herself had broken the compact to remain quiescent, to stand

pat. With the exception of the union of Eastern Rumelia with

Bulgaria, there had been no changes during those twenty-nine years.

The next event in the chain happened almost immediately. Hardly had

the revolution in Turkey occurred when Austria, who had, by the

terms of the Berlin Treaty, been simply administrating the two

provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed them without any

ceremony. In actual fact this was merely making theory conform to

the practical situation, but it put the Young Turks in an awkward

predicament. The old régime under Abdul Hamid would not have been

able to do more than accept, and that was what the Young Turks were

compelled to do, handicapped as they were by the confusion attending

their own affairs at home. But it roused the anger of the

conservative Turks, and they somehow attributed it to the new

régime.

And at almost the same moment, as though to increase the irritation,

Prince Ferdinand kicked over another theory--that his principality

was under the suzerainty of the sultan--and declared himself king,

or as he called himself, czar of the independent kingdom of the

Bulgars and of all Bulgars elsewhere. Practically it meant nothing

more than that he was making faces at the new régime in Turkey, but

it served the purpose of irritating the masses of Islam.

But if the act of Austria in annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina

irritated the Turks, it almost maddened the Serbians, who had no

cards to play in this little game of diplomacy just at that moment.

Serbia, like all her neighbors, had her dreams of empire; she

aspired not only to the possession of Macedonia, but to the

provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, because of Serb

population. Their annexation by Austria meant to Serbia that there

could now be no rearrangement. And it meant, too, that Austria was

still determined to work her way south, down to Saloniki, when time

and opportunity were ripe. It was, in fact, as much of a threat to

Serbia as to the Turks.

Meanwhile the Young Turks continued with their attempt to establish

democracy in Constantinople. During the winter of 1908-9 the first

Parliament met. And naturally, the deputies representing the

backward and fanatical Mussulmans of Asia were in the majority, so

that in the very beginning it became obvious that democracy itself

was going to defeat its own ends. The reactionary elements, being in

a majority in the empire as a whole, it was only natural that their

representatives in the Parliament should be in a majority.

In the spring of 1910 there was a violent uprising of the more

fanatical Albanian tribes, who resisted the efforts of the new

Government to disarm the whole of the population, which was

undertaken as a first step toward establishing that law and order

which had never yet been known in the empire and which the committee

had organized to establish, within the limits of its own

communities, at least. The schools, too, were taken out of the hands

of the priests of the respective peoples and put under the control

of a Ministry of Education, and this roused bitter resentment on the

part of the Greeks, who, unlike the Serbs and Bulgars, are under the

complete domination of their church.

Under the influence of the reactionary elements that had gained

majority control through the Parliament, the old repressive measures

began gradually to be reestablished. To Sandanski and his colleagues

it soon became evident that their fond hopes of a truly democratic

Turkish Empire was not to be realized. It was not under a

constitutional Turkey that the Macedonians would be accorded civic

justice; that could only be accomplished through a Macedonia

enjoying home rule, whether as an independent state or under the

mere suzerainty of the sultan. This was the state of mind toward

which the Macedonians were tending when the next serious event began

developing.

CHAPTER XVIII

FORMATION OF THE BALKAN LEAGUE

Even to a school child it must have been obvious all along that the

solution of the whole Balkan trouble, from an internal point of

view, at least, lay in a union of all the peoples and the

establishment of one great nation, or federation of nations. Such a

power, capable of putting two million soldiers into the field, would

not only be able to push the Turk out of Europe, but it would be

such an obstacle to the aggressive ambitions of Russia and Austria

that either would think twice before attempting to overcome it by

force.

This solution had been suggested at various times by various Balkan

statesmen during the past twenty years, statesmen with broader

visions than most of their colleagues. Stambuloff had been one of

them. But such a union, or confederation, while it might prove of

great benefit to the general population, would mean a complete end

to the ambitions indulged in by the various Balkan monarchs and

their cliques. Each hoped to build a great empire which should

include all the rest as inferior possessions. Thus their selfish

ambitions stood in the way of the only feasible plan for a true

remedy for the political ills of the people.

But the new régime in Turkey seemed likely to put an end to their

imperial ambitions anyhow. The Young Turks were spending huge

amounts of money in equipping their army with modern guns and the

admission of Christians into the army was increasing its size too.

Within a few years Turkey would be in such a state of preparedness,

from a military point of view, as to make the task of driving her

out of Europe forever impossible. For each state had been building

up its army for years past with this ultimate end in view.

The time had come to act. It was now or never. The Balkan States

must bury their mutual jealousies, temporarily at least, and form a

temporary alliance with the object of defeating the Turks before it

should be too late. For the time being the spoils could be divided

equally. Later on each might find an opportunity to force

rearrangements. Such an alliance might temporarily suspend, but it

would not end, the individual ambitions of each governing clique.

The idea may not have presented itself so cynically to the man who

first conceived it, but that was the spirit in which it was later on

acceded to by the Governments of the states concerned.

It seems now to be generally conceded that it was the Prime Minister

of Greece, Eleutheorios Venizelos, to whom the credit belongs for

having initiated this new move. Of all the Balkan statesmen, not

omitting the monarchs, Venizelos stands out prominently not only as

the most able, but as being by far the most liberal and as possessed

of the broadest vision. Toleration has been the keynote to all his

utterances and actions. He seems to have been the one man of them

all who, without ceasing to be a Greek, has been able to rise above

the atmosphere of petty jealousy, greed, and hatred that pervades

the politics of the Balkan States, especially in their mutual

relations.

Though Italian by blood extraction, descendant of the old Dukes of

Athens, Venizelos is a Cretan by birth. Beginning his public career

in his native island as a "brigand" insurgent against Turkish power,

he finally became the leader of his people, being Prime Minister of

the Cretan Government in 1909.

In that year, shortly after the revolution of the Young Turks, there

had also been a revolution in Greece, though not of so progressive a

character. The "Military League," composed of the army officers, had

been organized and began to institute certain reforms that should

end the corruption and inefficiency that had been characteristic of

Greek politics. The members of the league being military men, were

also modest enough to realize their unfitness to undertake the task

unaided, so they called upon Venizelos to take charge, he being then

the cleanest Greek in politics. This task he assumed, as prime

minister, with such ability and effectiveness that he at once became

the most popular man in Greece. Among other things he undertook a

complete reorganization of the army under the supervision of foreign

officers.

In April of 1911 Venizelos, through a British journalist, sent an

unofficial note to the Bulgarian Government suggesting an alliance

against Turkey. Five months later negotiations were also commenced

with Serbia, where a Serbo-Bulgarian alliance was suggested. But for

a while nothing definite was done, until suddenly the bigger powers

began showing signs of action. Italy, the ally of Austria, declared

war on Turkey in September, 1911, with the avowed purpose of

possessing herself of Tripoli.

This hurried the Balkan States. In March, 1912, Serbia and Bulgaria

signed a treaty of alliance. In April Greece and Bulgaria signed a

similar treaty, and a fortnight later Serbia and Greece signed

another document which made the Balkan League complete, Montenegro

acting in agreement with Serbia.

According to the Serbo-Bulgarian agreement, should the Turks be

defeated, Bulgaria was to take the whole of the territory south and

east of the Rhodope Mountains and the Struma River, while Serbia was

to take that north of the Shar Mountains, including Old Serbia and

Kossovo. The rest, comprising all of Macedonia, was to be

established as an independent state. Should this, for any reason, be

impossible, a line was to be drawn from the point at which the

Bulgarian, Serbian, and Turkish frontiers met, a little northwest of

Kustendil, to Struga at the north end of Lake Ochrida, leaving

Kratovo, Veles, Monastir, and Ochrida to Bulgaria, all purely Slav

districts, while the Czar of Russia was to act as arbitrator with

regard to the rest of the region, including Kumanovo, Uskub,

Krushevo, and Dibra. To this was added a clause by which Bulgaria

agreed to send 200,000 men to the support of Serbia should Austria

threaten her.

The agreement with Greece did not definitely provide for her share,

but it was understood she should have Epirus in southern Albania,

Crete, what islands in the Ægean her naval forces might capture, and

a slice of the Ægean seacoast where the population was mostly Greek.

Montenegro was to have what she could take from the Turkish forces

in her vicinity. Albania was not mentioned, but it was understood

that Serbia was to obtain her outlet on the Adriatic.

The clause in the agreement between Serbia and Bulgaria, providing

for an independent Macedonia, is especially significant. It was

inserted for the special consideration of Sandanski and the other

Macedonian committee leaders.

Shortly after the committee had made common cause with the Young

Turks, an attempt had been made to assassinate Sandanski in

Saloniki. And although it did not succeed, the attempt did not serve

to warm the hearts of the Macedonians toward King Ferdinand. None

but he could have had any interest in Sandanski's death at that

time.

But by the summer of 1912 the Macedonians were pretty well

disillusioned regarding a constitutional Turkey. Many of the old

leaders had taken to the hills again, determined to take up the old

fight where they had left off. Even that fight seemed more hopeless

than ever, for the Turkish army was now being speedily reorganized

and rendered more effective, which meant that the pursuit of the

guerrilla bands would be more deadly than it had ever been under the

old régime.

How the knowledge of the clause providing for an independent

Macedonia was conveyed to them is not recorded, but that Sandanski

and his colleagues were approached by the Bulgarian agents cannot be

doubted. Certain it is that just before hostilities broke out the

blood feud between Ferdinand and Sandanski had been put aside, and

Sandanski, the slayer of Sarafoff, the outlawed bandit, walked

through the streets of Sofia unmolested. And when the war did

actually break out, Sandanski was leading some thousands of his

Macedonian comitajis against the Turks in the Razlog district, which

he conquered and turned over to the Bulgarian authorities when they

came there to establish a civil government.

The league, having been established, was now anxious to begin

operations as soon as possible, for the reason that beginning

hostilities against Turkey while she was still at war with Italy

would put the latter in the position of being their ally. But that

was just a position in which Italy, as an ally of Austria, did not

wish to find herself. So when it became evident that the Balkan

league had been formed and meant to take action, Italy and Turkey

both hastened to arrange terms of peace, the former to save herself

from an awkward situation, the latter so that she might give her

full attention to the new danger.

CHAPTER XIX

FIRST AND SECOND BALKAN WARS

The war finally broke out on September 30, 1912, precipitated by

Montenegro before the other members of the league were quite ready.

The wonderful victories of the Serbian and Bulgarian armies were the

surprise and wonder of the world at the time. The Bulgarians were

victorious at Lule Burges, and the Serbians at Kumanovo. The Greeks

advanced as far as Saloniki, while their fleet bottled up the ships

of the Turks in the Dardanelles. Finally the Bulgarians swept the

Turks in Thrace into Constantinople and were battering down the

gates of the capital itself. The Serbians marched an army over the

mountains to Durazzo on the Adriatic, and the Montenegrins took

Scutari. And by the following spring Turkey was suing for peace,

which was finally brought about by the Treaty of London on May 30,

1913.

But the very success of the Balkan allies opened up new dangers of

deep gravity. And now Austria, who had not quite dared to attack

Serbia during the hostilities, saw an opportunity whereby she might

defeat the league by opening up the dangers engendered by their very

success. Had it not been for her intrigues there would have been no

Second Balkan War. But she hated Serbia and was already determined

on her destruction.

Largely because of the determined stand taken by Austria in the

London conference, Albania was made an independent principality,

Serbia was denied her longed-for outlet on the Adriatic, Greece was

deprived of Epirus, and Montenegro had to give up Scutari, the

taking of which cost her so much blood.

Now it had also happened that the operations of the various armies

of the Balkan allies had been in territories different from what had

at first been anticipated. The Turks had put up their main fight

down in Thrace, leaving the greater area of Macedonia comparatively

undefended. Thus the Bulgarians, while doing the heaviest fighting,

had been concentrated in a small territory, hammering away at the

main forces of the Turks, while the Serbian and Greek armies had

been able to overrun much larger territories with comparative ease.

Thus Bulgaria, though she had done most of the fighting and had lost

the heaviest, occupied only a broad pathway from her own southern

frontier, down through Thrace to Constantinople, while Serbia

occupied most of Macedonia, and Greece was in possession of

Saloniki.

Greece and Serbia, and especially Serbia, having been cheated of

most of the territory they had counted on annexing by the Treaty of

London, now demanded a revision of the treaties by which they had

gone into the war. Moreover, the Treaty of London confirmed them in

the possession of the territory they now occupied.

The bitterest feelings were at once rekindled. Both sides had

grievances. Serbia maintained that at the conference in London

Bulgaria had failed to back up her claim for Albania. Therefore she

was entitled to compensation in Macedonia. Bulgaria asserted that

Macedonia was inhabited by Bulgars who did not wish to become

Serbian subjects.

[Illustration: Balkans After the Second Balkan War.]

At this juncture Austria again appeared on the scene and whispered

in Bulgaria's ear that she should take what she wanted by force of

arms; was not her army equal to the armies of Greece and Serbia

combined? Meanwhile she, Austria, would see that there was no

intervention from the outside. This was one motive that drove

Bulgaria into the Second Balkan War.

For the past generation Macedonian boys had been coming up into

Bulgaria. Many had gone back to Macedonia, but the majority had

remained and settled in Bulgaria. Hundreds of them had entered the

army and many of them had acquired high rank. Others, again, had

entered the Government service, and dozens had been sent to the

National Assembly by Bulgarian constituencies. And several, among

them Ghenadieff, had become ministers in the cabinet.

To a still greater extent Macedonians have poured into Serbia.

During the past hundred years, ever since the pashalic of Belgrade

became free from the Turks, thousands of Macedonians have come up

into Serbia for education and a life. They entered the army,

Parliament, and every department of state, in large numbers, they

became educationalists and swelled the ranks of commerce. Among the

members of the Serb Cabinet during this war born in Macedonia are:

the Prime Minister Nikola Pashich, from Tetovo; Dr. Lazar Patchou,

Minister of Finance, from Monastir; Nicola Stefanovich, Cabinet

Minister at the war's outbreak, from Navrovo; Kosta Stoyanovich,

former Minister of Commerce, from Monastir; General Dimitriye

Tzintzar-Markovich, from Ochrida; General Lazar Lazarevich, from

Moskopolye, Monastir; former Prime Minister Milan Christich, the

Serb Minister Plenipotentiary in Rome; Michael Ristich; former Prime

Minister Dr. Vladam Georgevich; Svetolick Popovich, from Uskub;

Under-Secretary of State for Public Works, Petar Popovich, from

Prilep; Head of Public Works, Professor Lazarevich, from Ghevgheli;

Professor Alexich, from Kumanovo; General Lazar Petrovich, from

Bashino Selo; Veles, and many others. The names of the distinguished

and prominent Macedonians in army, state, and education services,

and those in trade and other useful occupations in Serbia fill a

considerable space in the Post Office Directory.

The ambition of the Coburg King Ferdinand, since his coming to

Bulgaria, has steadily aimed at the conquest and annexation of

neighboring countries with the view of forming for himself an

extended state. In this idea Bulgaria has been developed by him on

lines _de facto_ tending toward creating rather a feudal domain than

a free, modern constitutional state. He encouraged a large number of

political parties which could be easily played one against another,

duplicating somewhat the Hapsburg principle as applied in the

Austrian system of counterbalancing the various nationalities; the

educational system was not developed to the extent nor along lines

to produce a truly free and powerful people evidenced by the large

number of young men and women students finding it necessary to go

for higher education to the American Roberts College at

Constantinople.

Ferdinand, always supported by Austria, with whom he has always been

in secret alliance, has devoted large sums to anti-Serb and

anti-Greek propaganda in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and throughout the

world, preparing for the day when his designs of conquest could be

carried into effect.

As the First Balkan War drew to a finish, when King Ferdinand's grip

had hardly closed on the golden prize of that war, Adrianople, which

the Serbs helped their Bulgar brothers to conquer, and whose Turkish

commander and his staff, as fate decreed, were actually captured by

the Serbs and handed over by them to the Bulgarians, Ferdinand

turned his army westward to attack the Serbs, leaving Adrianople and

Thracia, rich territory which the Bulgars had just reconquered at

such cost of blood and which was confirmed to Bulgaria by the Treaty

of London, to fall back unprotected into the hands of the Turks.

On the night of June 29, 1913, without any declaration of war, the

Bulgarian army suddenly attacked the Serbians and Greeks all along

the line, over 250 miles in length. Apparently General Savoff, the

Bulgarian commander, had taken the initiative upon himself, for all

that night and the next day the Government in Sofia kept sending

telegrams ordering the operations to cease.

All through July the fighting continued, and the battles were far

more bloody than those that had been fought with the Turks in the

first war. In the south the Bulgarians were decidedly beaten, but

this was because they had counted on holding the Greeks back with

only 70,000 men.

The main fighting was on the Bregalnitza River, between the Serbians

and the Bulgarians. Here the Bulgarians also suffered a reverse. And

the Serbians were suffering losses that they could less afford than

the Bulgarians. Whether the Bulgarians might eventually have won

out, as their lines were contracted and the Greeks were drawn away

from their base at Saloniki, was a military question that was not to

be decided. For at this juncture Rumania took unexpected action. She

suddenly on July 10 began an invasion of Bulgaria from the north,

and by the end of the month her cavalry screens were within twenty

miles of the Bulgarian capital. The Turks, too, had recrossed the

frontier and were once more in possession of Adrianople, which the

small Bulgarian garrison surrendered without resistance. Literally

the armies of all her neighbors were invading Bulgaria. Further

resistance was useless. On July 31, after just one month of

fighting, an armistice was signed, and representatives from all the

belligerents met in Bucharest to negotiate terms of peace. On August

10 the Treaty of Bucharest was finally signed.

As a result of the Second Balkan War Bulgaria was left in a much

worse position than she was in after the first war. First of all she

had to give a slice of her Danubian territory to Rumania, as her

price for entering the war. Then she had to return part of Thrace,

including Adrianople, to the Turks. Serbia retained southeastern

Macedonia, and Greece kept Saloniki and its hinterland for fifty

miles inward, including Kavala, the natural economic outlet for

Bulgaria on the Ægean.

PART III--DIRECT CAUSES OF THE WAR

CHAPTER XX

ASSASSINATION OF FRANZ FERDINAND--AUSTRIA'S ULTIMATUM

It was the boast of the greater European powers, during the Balkan

Wars of 1912 and 1913, and after, that the "conflagration in the

Balkans had been localized"--i.e., that none of the western nations

would be involved in the complications growing out of the trouble in

the Balkans. The conflagration in the mountainous peninsula had been

"localized," it was true; but the smouldering fire that remained

after the Balkan Wars was to flare forth, during the summer of 1914,

to spread over Europe from the Shetland Islands to Crete in one

grand flame, and to drop sparks on the remaining four continents.

That smouldering fire was the doctrine known as Greater Serbianism,

sometimes wrongly spoken of as Pan-Serbianism.

As during the nineteenth century one after another the Balkan States

gained independence from Turkish sovereignty and the germ of what is

called Nationalism was born in them, each looked about to see in

what direction its boundaries might be extended. The appetite of

Nationalism, with these small states as with the greater countries,

demanded that under the flag of a given nation must be gathered all

the peoples of that nation; if some of them dwell in foreign lands

those lands must be conquered; if foreigners live within the borders

of the country those foreigners must be "ironed out"--the crushing

machinery of despotic government must be brought into use to force

them to adopt the language, literature, traditions, and religion of

the nation which considered them alien. And the appetite of

Nationalism demanded one thing more--that the political boundaries

of a nation conform with the "natural boundaries" as they seemed to

be delimited by mountains, rivers, and coasts.

The kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro had shown symptoms of

Nationalism long before the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913; when they

emerged from those wars with their territories almost doubled the

idea took even greater hold on them. As Turkish sovereignty and

influence became less feared, Austrian dominance replaced them.

Austria did nothing to allay this fear; she stood as a Teutonic

bulwark between a growing Slavic menace (in Serbia and Montenegro)

on the south and the already formidable Slavic menace (Russia) on

the east. In her provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were

transformed from protectorates to integral parts of the Austrian

Empire in 1908, there dwelt thousands of peasants who were of

Serbian nationality; in more concise terms they were of the same

racial stock as the Serbians. After Serbian prestige rose as a

result of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 these Serbian subjects of

Austria desired more than ever to be a part of the Slav kingdom;

this desire was shared by the leading factions in Serbia itself; the

doctrine of "Greater Serbia" demanded that the aims of the desire be

materialized. Besides, the "natural boundaries" of Serbia seemed to

take in the greater part, if not all, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for

they stretched along the eastern shores of the Adriatic and shut

Serbia and Montenegro off from that sea.

Propaganda began to spread throughout Serbia and Bosnia and

Herzegovina, reminding the Serbs in all three places that they must

work to bring themselves under one government, and that government

their own; they were urged to keep up their efforts to standardize

their religion, their speech, their traditions; they were called

upon, by this same propaganda, to substitute Austria for Turkey as

the object of national Serbian hate.

But Austria, too, had the disease of Nationalism, and she had been

engaged since 1908 in "ironing out" the Serbs within her borders.

Thus great friction was engendered, and when, on June 28, 1914, the

Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the crown prince and his morganatic wife

visited the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, they and the officials of the

city and province knew that the lives of the pair were in danger

from Serbian intrigue.

The archduke had gone to Bosnia on his first visit to take charge of

military maneuvers there, and before he left the Austrian capital

the Serbian minister had expressed doubt as to the wisdom of the

visit, telling the court that the Serbian population in Bosnia might

make unfavorable demonstrations. The fears of the Serbian minister

proved to be well founded; Sarajevo displayed many Serbian flags on

the day of his arrival. The archduke's party, in automobiles,

proceeded to the Town Hall after leaving the railway station,

passing through crowded streets. The city officials were gathered at

the Town Hall to give him an official welcome. A bomb, hurled from a

roof, fell into the archduke's car; he caught it and threw it to the

pavement, where it exploded, doing no damage to either him or his

wife, but injuring two adjutants in the car following. One

Gabrinovics, a Serbian from Trebinje, was arrested as the assailant.

The archduke proceeded to the Town Hall, and after berating the city

officials listened to the speeches of welcome. As he and his wife

were departing a Serbian student, named Prinzip, who was later

arrested, rushed out from the crowd and fired point-blank at the

couple with a revolver. Both were hit a number of times and died

some hours later from their wounds.

Great excitement immediately prevailed in Sofia and Vienna, and in

Berlin and St. Petersburg to a lesser degree. What retribution would

Austria demand? The Austrian press openly avowed that the plot on

the archduke's life had been hatched in official circles in Serbia,

and the Austrian Government made no attempt to suppress these

statements. One hour after the tragedy had taken place it had

assumed an official and international complexion.

A punitive war against Serbia was immediately urged in Vienna. On

June 29, 1914, anti-Serbian riots broke out in Bosnia, Sarajevo was

put under martial law, and the bodies of the assassinated couple

began the mournful journey to Vienna. On July 2, 1914, Prinzip

confessed that he had apprised the Pan-Serbian Union of his attempt

to kill the archduke, and on the same day the first intimation came

that the matter was considered a serious one in Germany--the kaiser

became "diplomatically ill." Then, for twenty days there was an

outward calm in the capitals of Europe, but behind the scenes the

diplomats were at work; the great question was how far Russia would

go in defending her Slavic sister state against the impending

demands of Austria.

These demands were made public in a note which Austria sent to

Serbia on July 23, 1914. Serbia was given till 6 p. m., July 25,

1914, to comply with the ultimatum, which read as follows:

"On March 31, 1909, the Royal Serbian Minister in Vienna, on the

instructions of the Serbian Government, made the following

statements to the Imperial and Royal Government:

"'Serbia recognizes that the _fait accompli_ regarding Bosnia has

not affected her rights, and consequently she will conform to the

decisions that the powers will take in conformity with Article XXV

of the Treaty of Berlin. At the same time that Serbia submits to the

advice of the powers she undertakes to renounce the attitude of

protest and opposition which she has adopted since October last. She

undertakes on the other hand to modify the direction of her policy

with regard to Austria-Hungary and to live in future on good

neighborly terms with the latter.'

"The history of recent years, and in particular the painful events

on June 28 last, have shown the existence in Serbia of subversive

movement with the object of detaching a part of Austria-Hungary from

the monarchy. The movement which had its birth under the eyes of the

Serbian Government, has had consequences on both sides of the

Serbian frontier in the shape of acts of terrorism and a series of

outrages and murders.

"Far from carrying out the formal undertakings contained in the

declaration of March 31, 1909, the Royal Serbian Government has done

nothing to repress these movements. It has permitted the criminal

machinations of various societies and associations, and has

tolerated unrestrained language on the part of the press, apologies

for the perpetrators of outrage and the participation of officers

and functionaries in subversive agitation. It has permitted an

unwholesome propaganda in public instruction. In short, it has

permitted all the manifestations which have incited the Serbian

population to hatred of the monarchy and contempt of its

institutions.

"This culpable tolerance of the Royal Serbian Government had not

ceased at the moment when the events of June 28 last proved its

fatal consequences to the whole world.

"It results from the depositions and confessions of the criminal

perpetrators of the outrage of June 28 that the Sarajevo

assassinations were hatched in Belgrade, that the arms and

explosives with which the murderers were provided had been given to

them by Serbian officers and functionaries belonging to the Narodna

Obrava, and, finally, that the passage into Bosnia of the criminals

and their arms was organized and effected by the chiefs of the

Serbian Frontier Service.

"The above-mentioned results of the magisterial investigation do not

permit the Austro-Hungarian Government to pursue any longer the

attitude of expectant forbearance which it has maintained for years

in face of the machinations hatched in Belgrade and thence

propagated in the territories of the monarchy. These results, on the

contrary, impose on it the duty of putting an end to intrigues which

form a perpetual menace to the tranquility of the monarchy.

"To achieve this end the Imperial and Royal Government sees itself

compelled to demand from the Serbian Government a formal assurance

that it condemns this dangerous propaganda against the monarchy and

the territories belonging to it, and that the Royal Serbian

Government shall no longer permit these machinations and this

criminal and perverse propaganda.

"In order to give a formal character to this undertaking the Royal

Serbian Government shall publish on the front page of its official

journal for July 26 the following declaration:

"'The Royal Government of Serbia condemns the propaganda directed

against Austria-Hungary, i. e., the ensemble of tendencies of which

the final aim is to detach from Austro-Hungarian monarchy

territories belonging to it, and it sincerely deplores the fatal

consequences of these criminal proceedings.

"'The Royal Government regrets that Serbian officers and

functionaries participated in the above-mentioned propaganda and

thus compromised the good, neighborly relations to which the Royal

Government was solemnly pledged by its declaration of March 31,

1909. The Royal Government, which disapproves and repudiates all

idea of interfering or attempt to interfere with the destinies of

the inhabitants of any part whatsoever of Austria-Hungary, considers

it its duty formally to warn officers and functionaries, and the

whole population of the kingdom, that henceforward it will proceed

with the utmost rigor against persons who may be guilty of such

machinations, which it will use all its efforts to anticipate and

suppress.'

"The Royal Serbian Government further undertakes:

"1. To suppress any publications which incite to hatred and contempt

of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the general tendency of which

is directed against its territorial integrity.

"2. To dissolve immediately the society styled Narodna Obrava, to

confiscate all its means of propaganda, and to proceed in the same

manner against other societies and their branches which are addicted

to propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The Royal

Government shall take the necessary measures to prevent the

societies dissolved from continuing their activity under another

name and form.

"3. To eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia,

not only as regards the teaching body, but also as regards the

methods of instruction, everything that serves or might serve to

foment the propaganda against Austria-Hungary.

"4. To remove from the military service and from the Administration

in general all officers and functionaries guilty of propaganda

against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, whose names and deeds the

Austro-Hungarian Government reserves to itself the right of

communicating to the Royal Government.

"5. To accept the collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the

Austro-Hungarian Government in the suppression of the subversive

movement directed against the territorial integrity of the

monarchy.

"6. To take judicial proceedings against accessories to the plot

of June 28 who are on Serbian territory. Delegates of the

Austro-Hungarian Government will take part in the investigation

relating thereto.

"7. To proceed without delay to the arrest of Major Voija Tankositch

and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a Serbian state

employee, who have been compromised by the results of the

magisterial inquiry at Sarajevo.

"8. To prevent by effective measures the cooperation of the Serbian

authorities in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the

frontier, and to dismiss and punish severely officials of the

frontier service at Schabatz and Loznica guilty of having assisted

the perpetrators of the Sarajevo crime by facilitating the passage

of the frontier for them.

"9. To furnish the Austro-Hungarian Government with explanations

regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian officials, both

in Serbia and abroad, who, notwithstanding their official position,

did not hesitate after the crime of June 28 to express themselves in

interviews in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government,

and finally;

"10. To notify the Austro-Hungarian Government without delay of the

execution of the measures comprised under the preceding heads.

"The Austro-Hungarian Government expects the reply of the Serbian

Government at the latest by six o'clock on Saturday evening, July

26, 1914."

[Illustration: Austria, 1815-1914.]

CHAPTER XXI

SERBIA'S REPLY

Because this note was so specific in its demands it is best to give

in full the Serbian reply to it, which was issued within the period

set by the Austro-Hungarian note. The Serbian answer in full was as

follows:

"The Royal Serbian Government has received the communication of the

Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government, and it is persuaded

that its reply will remove all misunderstanding tending to threaten

or to prejudice the friendly and neighborly relations between the

Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the kingdom of Serbia.

"The Royal Government is aware that the protests made both at the

tribune of the National Skupshtina (the Serbian legislative body)

and in the declarations and the acts of responsible representatives

of the state--protests which were cut short by the declaration of

the Serbian Government made on March 18--have not been renewed

toward the great neighboring monarchy on any occasion and that since

this time, both on the part of the Royal Governments which have

followed on one another, and on the part of their organs, no attempt

has been made with the purpose of changing the political and

judicial state of things in this respect.

"The Imperial and Royal Government has made no representations save

concerning a scholastic book regarding which the Imperial and Royal

Government has received an entirely satisfactory explanation. Serbia

has repeatedly given proofs of her pacific and moderate policy during

the Balkan crises, and it is thanks to Serbia and the sacrifice she

made exclusively in the interest of the peace of Europe that this

peace has been preserved. The Royal Government cannot be held

responsible for manifestations of a private nature, such as newspaper

articles and the peaceful work of societies--manifestations which

occur in almost all countries as a matter of course, and which, as a

general rule, escape official control--all the less in that the Royal

Government when solving a whole series of questions which came up

between Serbia and Austria-Hungary has displayed a great readiness to

treat prevenance, and in this way succeeded in settling the greater

number to the advantage of the progress of the two neighboring

countries.

"It is for this reason that the Royal Government has been painfully

surprised by the statements according to which persons of the

Kingdom of Serbia are said to have taken part in the preparation of

the outrage committed at Sarajevo. It expected that it would be

invited to collaborate in the investigation of everything bearing on

this crime, and it was ready to prove by its actions its entire

correctness to take steps against all persons with regard to whom

communications had been made to it, thus acquiescing in the desire

of the Imperial and Royal Government.

"The Royal Government is disposed to hand over to the courts any

Serbian subject, without regard to his situation and rank, for whose

complicity in the crime of Sarajevo it shall have been furnished

with proofs, and especially it engages itself to have published on

the front page of the official journal of July 13-26 the following

announcement:

"'The Royal Serbian Government condemns all propaganda directed

against Austria-Hungary, that is to say, all tendencies as a whole

of which the ultimate object is to detach from the Austro-Hungarian

monarchy territories which form part of it, and it sincerely

deplores the fatal consequences of these criminal actions. The Royal

Government regrets that Serbian officers and officials should,

according to the communication of the Imperial and Royal Government,

have participated in the above-mentioned propaganda, thereby

compromising the good neighborly relations to which the Royal

Government solemnly pledged itself by its declaration of March 31,

1909. The Government, which disapproves and repudiates any idea or

attempt to interfere in the destinies of the inhabitants of any part

of Austria-Hungary whatsoever, considers it its duty to utter a

formal warning to the officers, the officials, and the whole

population of the kingdom that henceforth it will proceed with the

utmost rigor against persons who render themselves guilty of such

actions, which it will use all its force to prevent and repress.'

"This announcement shall be brought to the cognizance of the Royal

army by an order of the day issued in the name of his Majesty the

King by H. R. H. the Crown Prince Alexander, and shall be published

in the next official bulletin of the army.

"1. The Royal Government engages itself, furthermore, to lay before

the next meeting of the Skupshtina an amendment to the press law,

punishing in the severest manner incitements to hate and contempt of

the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and also all publications of which

the general tendency is directed against the territorial integrity

of the monarchy. It undertakes at the forthcoming revision of the

constitution to introduce an amendment whereby the above

publications may be confiscated, which is at present forbidden by

the terms of Article XXII of the constitution.

"2. The Government does not possess any proof, nor does the note of

the Imperial and Royal Government furnish such, that the Society

Narodna Obrana and other similar societies have up to the present

committed any criminal acts of this kind through the instrumentality

of one of their members. Nevertheless, the Royal Government will

accept the demand of the Imperial and Royal Government and will

dissolve the Narodna Obrana Society and any other society which

shall agitate against Austria-Hungary.

"3. The Royal Serbian Government engages itself to eliminate without

delay for public instruction in Serbia everything which aids or

might aid in fomenting the propaganda against Austria-Hungary when

the Imperial and Royal Government furnishes facts and proofs of this

propaganda.

"4. The Royal Government also agrees to remove from the military

service (all persons) whom the judicial inquiry proves to have been

guilty of acts directed against the integrity of the territory of

the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and it expects the Imperial and Royal

Government to communicate at an ulterior date the names and the

deeds of these officers and officials for the purposes of the

proceedings which will have to be taken.

"5. The Royal Government must confess that it is not quite clear as

to the sense and object of the demands of the Imperial and Royal

Government that Serbia should undertake to accept on her territory

the collaboration of delegates of the Imperial and Royal Government,

but it declares that it will admit whatever collaboration which may

be in accord with the principles of international law and criminal

procedure, as well as with good neighborly relations.

"6. The Royal Government, as goes without saying, considers it to be

its duty to open an inquiry against all those who are, or shall

eventually prove to have been, involved in the plot of June 28, and

who are in Serbian territory. As to the participation at this

investigation of agents of the Austro-Hungarian authorities

delegated for this purpose by the Imperial and Royal Government, the

Royal Government cannot accept this demand, for it would be a

violation of the constitution and of the law of criminal procedure.

Nevertheless, in concrete cases it might be found possible to

communicate the results of the investigation in question to the

Austro-Hungarian representatives.

"7. On the very evening that the note was handed in the Royal

Government arrested Major Voija Tankositch. As for Milan

Ciganovitch, who is a subject of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and

who until June 15 was employed as a beginner in the administration

of the railways, it has not yet been possible to (arrest) him. In

view of the ultimate inquiry the Imperial and Royal Government is

requested to have the goodness to communicate in the usual form as

soon as possible the presumptions of guilt, as well as the eventual

proofs of guilt, against these persons which have been collected up

to the present in the investigations at Sarajevo.

"8. The Serbian Government will strengthen and extend the measures

taken to prevent the illicit traffic of arms and explosives across

the frontier. It goes without saying that it will immediately order

an investigation and will severely punish the frontier officials

along the line Schabatz-Losnitza who have been lacking in their

duties and who allowed the authors of the crime of Sarajevo to pass.

"9. The Royal Government will willingly give explanations regarding

the remarks made in interviews by its officials, both in Serbia and

abroad, after the attempt, and which, according to the statement of

the Imperial and Royal Government, were hostile toward the monarchy,

as soon as the Imperial and Royal Government has (forwarded) it the

passages in question of these remarks and as soon as it has shown

that the remarks made were really made by the officials regarding

whom the Royal Government itself will see about collecting proofs.

[Illustration: Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria and King of

Hungary.]

"10. The Royal Government will inform the Imperial and Royal

Government of the execution of the measures comprised in the

preceding points, in so far as that has not already been done by the

present note, as soon as such measure has been ordered and executed.

"In the event of the Imperial and Royal Government considering that

it is to the common interest not to precipitate the solution of this

question, it is ready, as always, to accept a pacific understanding,

either by referring this question to the decision of The Hague

International Tribunal or to the great powers which took part in the

drawing up of the declaration made by the Serbian Government on

March 18-31, 1909."

CHAPTER XXII

DIPLOMATIC EXCHANGES

This reply from Serbia was not deemed satisfactory by Austria-Hungary

and relations with Serbia were immediately broken off. On the

following day, July 26, 1914, "diplomatic conversations," the object

of which was to smooth over the differences between Austria-Hungary

and Serbia, took place in Berlin, St. Petersburg and Vienna between

representatives of the three nations whose capitals these were.

Austria-Hungary sent to the various governments the following

"circular note" on July 27, 1914:

"The object of the Serbian note is to create the false impression

that the Serbian Government is prepared in great measure to comply

with our demands.

"As a matter of fact, however, Serbia's note is filled with the

spirit of dishonesty, which clearly lets it be seen that the Serbian

Government is not seriously determined to put an end to the culpable

tolerance it hitherto has extended to intrigues against the

Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

"The Serbian note contains such far-reaching reservations and

limitations not only regarding the general principles of our Action,

but also in regard to the individual claims we have put forward,

that the concessions actually made by Serbia become insignificant.

"In particular, our demand for the participation of the

Austro-Hungarian authorities in investigations to detect accomplices

in the conspiracy on Serbian territory has been rejected, while our

request that measures be taken against that section of the Serbian

press hostile to Austria-Hungary has been declined, and our wish

that the Serbian Government take the necessary measures to prevent

the dissolved Austrophobe associations continuing their activity

under another name and under another form has not even been

considered.

"Since the claims in the Austro-Hungarian note of July 23, regard

being had to the attitude hitherto adopted by Serbia, represent the

minimum of what is necessary for the establishment of permanent

peace with the southeastern monarchy, the Serbian answer must be

regarded as unsatisfactory.

"That the Serbian Government itself is conscious that its note is

not acceptable to us is proved by the circumstances that it proposes

at the end of the note to submit the dispute to arbitration--an

invitation which is thrown into its proper light by the fact that

three hours before handing in the note, a few minutes before the

expiration of the time limit, the mobilization of the Serbian army

took place."

The Great powers were not willing to go to war without first trying

mediation between the two kingdoms in southeastern Europe, and even

Russia, which was known to be a potential ally of Serbia, showed a

disposition to use diplomacy before force. When the demands made by

Austria-Hungary in her note of July 25, 1914, became known in the

Russian capital, the following note was immediately telegraphed to

Vienna:

"The communication [the circular note quoted above] made by

Austria-Hungary to the powers the day after the presentation of the

ultimatum at Belgrade leaves a period to the powers which is quite

insufficient to enable them to take any steps which might help to

smooth away the difficulties that have arisen.

"In order to prevent the consequences, equally incalculable and

fatal to all the powers, which may result from the course of action

followed by the Austro-Hungarian Government, it seems to us to be

above all essential that the period allowed for the Serbian reply

should be extended. Austria-Hungary, having declared her readiness

to inform the powers of the results of the inquiry upon which the

Imperial and Royal Government base their accusations, should equally

allow them sufficient time to study them.

"In this case, if the powers were convinced that certain of the

Austrian demands were well founded, they would be in a position to

offer advice to the Serbian Government.

"A refusal to prolong the term of the ultimatum would render

nugatory the proposals made by the Austro-Hungarian Government to

the powers, and would be in contradiction to the very bases of

international relations."

A copy of this note was at the same time sent to London with the

addenda: "M. Sazonoff (Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs) hopes

that his Britannic Majesty's Government will share the point of view

set forth above, and he trusts that Sir E. Grey will see his way to

furnish similar instructions to the British Ambassador at Vienna."

But on the same day, July 25, 1914, the Government at Vienna

informed the powers that the note to Serbia was not an ultimatum; it

was merely a démarche, and in it Austria had threatened to start

military preparations, not operations. The requested delay,

therefore, was not granted. That day was eventful in London, too,

for the Foreign Office was notified by the German Ambassador that

though Germany had not been apprised beforehand of the contents of

Austria's note to Serbia, the German nation would nevertheless stand

by its ally. "The German Ambassador read to me," said Sir Edward

Grey in a telegram to the British Ambassador at Vienna, "a telegram

from the German Foreign Office saying that his Government had not

known beforehand, and had had no more than other powers to do with

the stiff terms of the Austrian note to Serbia, but that once she

had launched the note, Austria could not draw back." Prince

Lichnowsky (German Ambassador at London) said, however, that "if

what I contemplated was mediation between Austria and Russia,

Austria might be able with dignity to accept it." He expressed

himself as personally favorable to this suggestion.

"I concurred in his observation, and said that I felt I had no title

to intervene between Austria and Serbia, but as soon as the question

became one as between Austria and Russia, the peace of Europe was

affected, in which we must all take a hand.

"I impressed upon the ambassador that, in the event of Russian and

Austrian mobilization, the participation of Germany would be

essential to any diplomatic peace. Alone we could do nothing. The

German Government agreed with my suggestion, to tell the French

Government that I thought it the right thing to act upon it."

On July 26, 1914, the Russian Ambassador at Berlin informed the

German Government that he was instructed to state that any

annexation by Austria-Hungary of Serbian territory would not be

looked upon by Russia with indifference. The German Emperor, who had

been away from Berlin, returned hastily to the capital. As the

crisis approached the British Government once more attempted to have

the matters in dispute settled by mediation. The following telegram

was dispatched from Downing Street to the British Ambassadors at

Paris and Rome: "London, Foreign Office, July 26, 1914. Would

Minister of Foreign Affairs be disposed to instruct ambassador here

to join with representatives of France, Italy, and Germany, and

myself to meet here in conference immediately for the purpose of

discovering an issue which would prevent complications? You should

ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs whether he would do this. If so,

when bringing the above suggestions to the notice of the Governments

to which they are accredited, representatives of Belgrade, Vienna,

and St. Petersburg, could be authorized to request that all active

military operations should be suspended pending results of the

conference."