To this end committees, in Moscow and in Petrograd, deliberated;
newspapers and pamphlets spread their views; agile agents propagated
them throughout the Balkans, calling on the Bulgars and the Bosniaks
to rise, promising aggrandizements to Serbia and Montenegro, spurring
on the fiery Cretans to make their revolt of 1866. All promised well.
There was to be a Balkan federation formed at the expense of Austria
and the Porte: Serbia would receive the Voivodina and Bosnia,
Montenegro would acquire Herzegovina, the Croats would at least annex
Dalmatia, and the Slovenes and the Bulgars would come naturally into
this united Yugoslavia, under Michael's sceptre. He was at the time
not only in most cordial relations with the Bulgars, but in 1867 he
began _pourparlers_ to ally himself with Greece, and he made overtures
to the new sovereign of Roumania, Charles of Hohenzollern. And after
this plan also had been nullified by Michael's death, the Russians
still continued with their task, but now they had to deal with a
convalescent Austria. It came to pass that the Bulgars found
themselves in Russia's sphere, the Serbs in that of Austria. The
little countries were thus violently pulled apart, and naturally each
of them began to stretch their hands out to the neighbouring Slavs who
were in servitude, but yet they managed to keep hand in hand with one
another. The young men, such as Karaveloff and Tzankoff, whom Prince
Michael sent to Western Europe to be educated, the young Bulgarian
priests who had studied in that branch of the Belgrade seminary which
Prince Michael opened for them, and all the Serbs and Bulgars who
considered their two countries knew that, for political and economic
reasons, they must not be kept apart. But there was always a Great
Power to frustrate these designs. Yet even after they had been flung
at each other in the fratricidal days of 1885, even after their
attempt in 1905 to found a Customs union had been vetoed, even after
some of their so-called _intelligentsia_ had done what injury they
could by harping on the limitations from which they naturally, like
the older peoples, are not exempt--nevertheless, as it was seen in
1912, when the demonstrations of delight in Belgrade and in Sofia were
touching, they are only too glad to fulfil their destiny. Since 1912
that misguided _intelligentsia_ has been given a large store of fresh
ammunition. They will go on firing and firing, while the people,
including the real _intelligentsia_, will be better engaged.