THE FUTURE OF THE BALKANS
We have seen that a blood-mist has hung over the Balkans during all the
centuries that history knows. Nature set up there lists for the great
contests of races--on the path from the cold north of Europe to the warm
south; on the path from Asia to Europe; and each great campaign left
behind it shreds of devastated peoples. These shreds of peoples dwelling
in the Balkans to-day have a blood-thirst as an inescapable heritage.
Turk, Bulgar, Serb, Roumanian, Greek--they may hold the peace for a
time, and some may try to think that they are friends with others; but
all have something of hate or fear or contempt for the others, and all
prepare in peace for the next fight.
The Fates making the Balkan Peninsula the battle-ground of empires and
races, the field of last stands, the refuge of residual fragments of
peoples, imposed upon it its bloody tradition. Under other conditions,
Serb or Bulgar or Greek or Turk or Roumanian left to themselves might
have made happier history. For all these races can be human, reasonable,
companionable. I have seen something of all of them in following a
Balkan campaign as a war correspondent (not following always as the
sheltered guest of an army, but forcing a solitary path through the
peasant population), and in watching the wonderful acrobatic lying of a
Balkan Peace Conference have seen thus the best and the worst of them. I
have been an unofficial member of a Bulgarian court-martial; the guest
of a dozen and more Bulgarian and Serbian army outposts, dependent often
for food and shelter on the kindness of peasant soldiers; for days have
held at the mercy of Balkan peasants my life and my property; have been
mistaken for a wandering Turk twice, and have never suffered violence,
rudeness, or the loss of a pennyworth. For the peasants, the commonfolk
of all the Balkan peoples, I have come thus to a hearty liking; their
priests and politicians (with a few exceptions), a different feeling.
Knowing that the massacre is the national sport in many districts of
the Balkans; that at the outbreak of the 1912 war the death-rate by
violence actually decreased in some quarters because the killing was
systematised a little and put under a sort of regulation; that always
Turks and Exarchate Christians and Patriarchate Christians are plotting
against one another new raids and murders, still I maintain that, if
left to themselves, if freed from the prompting of priests and
politicians the Balkan peasants of any race are quite decent folk. So I
wish heartily that there was fair reason to hope for peace and happiness
for them. Is there fair reason? To that question a study of the races
and the personalities can give clues for an answer.
[Illustration: _Underwood & Underwood_
ALBANIAN TRIBESMEN]
The Bulgarian is dour, dull, a little greedy, honest, very industrious.
He is almost as much a Turk as a Slav. (I was told that during the
Turkish occupation a Bulgarian mother finding herself with child after
violence by a Turk brought up the child with her family, whilst a
Serbian mother under the same circumstances killed the infant at birth.)
The Bulgarian is very moral, marrying at an early age.
The Bulgarian peasant soldiers were very honest and loyal. At Mustapha
Pasha one night, being short of food, I tried to get bread at the
military bakery (all bread and flour having been requisitioned for the
army). I offered a soldier up to five francs for a loaf without tempting
him to sell it. Finally I had to get bread as a charity by declaring
that I was actually in want of it for food. Later, travelling between
Silivri and Chatalja, I encountered four Bulgarian foot soldiers who had
become separated from their regiment and were starving. They asked for
food and I gave them all I could spare, enough for two meals. One of the
men produced a purse and took out some coppers wishing to pay.
Travelling across Thrace (then in Bulgarian occupation), I often put up
at some military post, being invited to become a member of the little
mess--usually an official or two and four or five non-commissioned
officers. Nearly always I had the same experience, that I was made free
of the stewed goat and rice, or the dish of eggs and flour, or the bread
and cheese of the Bulgarians, and when I wished to add from my stores
chocolate and biscuits and dates, just a scrap or two would be taken. I
could see the men's eyes hungering for the delicacies, but nothing would
induce them to take anything material from my stores.
The Bulgarian peasant soldier and officer I found, in short, to be a
gentleman. Yet nationally Bulgaria is not "a gentleman," and has come to
its present sorry state, I believe, largely on that account. The old
Bulgarian aristocracy was exterminated by the Turks. The surviving
Bulgarian peasantry has not yet been able to produce another
aristocracy. It is the more cunning rather than the more worthy son of
the peasant who wins to a sort of an education--often abroad--and
becomes the lawyer, politician, official. In very many cases he carries
with him into a higher stratum of society few of his peasant virtues and
all of his peasant faults. He gets an overweening pride in his own
acuteness. He becomes arrogant, "too-clever-by-half," and intrigue
teaches him cruelty. I can contrast vividly two Bulgarian types in a
noted diplomat, who fancied himself a Bismarck and had about the wits of
an office boy, and an old peasant captain with whom I travelled from
Kirk Kilisse to Chorlu. Generalising, the "leading men" in Bulgaria are
of a poor type (there are exceptions), the leading priests of a still
poorer type; the people themselves are a sound people, and when the
ambitious among them contrive to preserve their peasant virtues through
the ordeal of education they will become a great people.
The Bulgarian did not seem to me naturally cruel. All the time that I
was with the main army I saw no trace of outrage or cruelty. I did see
several instances of curt and merciful justice.
I arrived one night at the Tchundra River alone, having gone forward
from my ox cart because the miserable Macedonian driver and the still
more miserable Bulgarian servant I had (I suspect he was in training for
the diplomatic service) could not be induced to do a fair day's march. A
vedette outpost of five men held the bridge. They took me--as I judged
from their gestures rather than from their language, of which I
understood only one word, "Turc"--for a Turk. But they let me stay
unmolested at their camp fire for an hour until an officer who spoke
French appeared. I could give several similar instances. Never did I
feel nervous in the least when making my way alone through the country
in Bulgarian occupation (most of the time I was alone, for after a while
I dropped my Macedonian and my Bulgarian servant).
[Illustration: _See page_ 190
GREEK INFANTRY]
The Turk I found disappointing. I had pictured a romantic individual
with a Circassian harem, a stable of Arab steeds, and a fierce and
warlike manner. I found the Turk to be rather a shabby individual;
monogamous usually (but with the free and easy ideas as to his rights
over Christian women which are almost consequent upon his philosophy of
life, and cause most of the trouble when the Turk lives by the side of a
Christian population); much addicted to sweetmeats--his shops were full
of Scotch lollies and English biscuits. Certainly most of the Turks I
have encountered were prisoners or dwelling in conquered country. But,
making all allowance for that, the traditional fiery Turk of martial
fame no longer exists, I should say, in European Turkey. The Turkish
prisoners in the hands of the Bulgarians seemed to be glad to have
arrived at a fate which meant regular food. In old Bulgaria I found
Turks living quite contentedly under Christian rule, and in many cases
following menial occupations. The boot-blacks in the streets were Turks,
the porters were Turks.
I had a Turkish driver for five days once from Kirk Kilisse to Mustapha
Pasha. The first hour of our acquaintance he won my heart by telling me
(through an interpreter) that since his horses had been requisitioned by
the Bulgarians, he had not been able to get proper food for them, and he
embraced his ponies, which were really in rather good condition. I
applauded the noble Turk and his love for horses, and bought tobacco for
him which he welcomed with tears of joy, as he had been without it for
long. The horses carried the cart a gallant thirty miles that day, and
we camped at a burned-out village. Mr. Turk set himself to enjoy a smoke
over the fire. My own supper I prepared, and gave him some to eke out
his bread and cheese, and then told him to water and feed the horses.
Because the well was 400 yards away and the tobacco was sweet and the
fire comforting, the Turk had no wish to do this, but was ready to let
them go through the night without food or water. I had to threaten to
flog him (and to start to do it) before he would attend to the horses.
Yet after that incident I slept in the cart without a thought that the
Turk would consider himself offended and cut my throat. As a matter of
fact the touch of the whip did not rankle with him, and at Mustapha
Pasha when, the journey ended, I gave him a little money for himself,
Mr. Turk prostrated himself in gratitude.
I believe that the warlike virtues have died out of the Turk in Europe.
Of other nation-making and nation-maintaining qualities he has none. In
all Turkey from the borders of Bulgaria to the lines of Chatalja, I
found no roads, no street lamps, no drainage, no water supply (I was not
in Adrianople). Except for a few agricultural peasants I found nowhere
the Turk doing any useful work. In a characteristic Turkish town the
shops were kept by Greeks, the industries carried on by Greeks,
Macedonians, and Bulgarians. The Turk was the tax-collector, the
official, the soldier, and did none of these things well. That acute
observer of the Turkish character, Mr. L. March Phillips, in his book
_In the Desert_ upholds that the Turk is impossible as a civilising
force:
Or, for a third example, come to the craggy hills of Southern
Albania, and mix, if but for half an hour, with the armed
shepherds, as wild and intractable as their own crags, or as the
gaunt dogs which guard their flocks from the wolves, and whose
attentions to strangers you are apt to find such a nuisance. You
will understand from the first glance at the men more of the
interminable Balkan difficulty than newspapers and books can ever
teach you. These are the fellows who swoop down from their peaks on
the mixed races of the plains and carry fire and slaughter through
village and valley. Their natural aptitude for fighting and
foraging, for bearing things with a strong hand, for cowing the
weak and feeble, for vindicating the old "might is right" theory,
is written all over them. You see it in their gait, glance, walk,
and manner, you hear it in every accent of their voice, you feel it
in their individuality and presence.
These are specimens of the Moslem type, the type that stops short
at the virile virtues, that makes the best host and worst neighbour
in the world, that has many splendid qualities to recommend it, but
to which all that makes life profound and inexhaustible is a dead
letter. It is the most strongly marked and salient type I have ever
met with. There is the Moslem walk, the Moslem scowl, the Moslem
courtesy, the Moslem dignity, the Moslem carriage and attitudes and
features, the Moslem composure, and the Moslem fury. All these
traits and characteristics, inspired by the same temper, expressing
the same ideal, conspire to depict a figure so notable that you
must be a dull observer indeed if you cannot pick him out from a
mixed crowd as you would pick out a Chinaman in the London streets.
Some people say it is the religion that creates the type. "There,"
they say of Mohammedanism, "is a religion that breeds men." It
would be truer, I think, to say that Mohammedanism recommends
itself to men at a certain stage of their development, and has for
that stage a natural affinity. Every race goes through a time when
the virile estimate of life and the splendour of self-assertion
seem the finest things possible. It is at this time it is open to
the attack of El Islam. The Moslem religion answers all its needs
at this stage, and lays good hold of it, and having once laid hold
of it, it sanctifies the ideas belonging to this stage, and so
tends to restrict the race to it. There is no instance on record of
a people having embraced Mohammedanism and afterwards achieving a
complete, or what gives promise of ever becoming a complete,
civilisation.
During my stay in the Balkans I found no certain evidence of Turkish
cruelty. There was plenty of evidence offered by the Bulgarians, but it
usually smelt of the lamp of some patriotic journalist of Sofia. Once
near Mustapha Pasha--when all the war correspondents were cooped up
under strict censorship, prevented from seeing any of the operations
around Adrianople--the Bulgarians found it necessary to burn a village
for strategic reasons. The chance was offered to the Press photographers
of seeing this, if it were represented in their pictures as the
atrocious burning of a village by the Turks. I believe that the offer
was accepted by some. The "atrocities" by Turks, regularly recorded by
the Bulgarian Press Bureau were, as far as the main theatre of
operations was concerned, founded on similar evidence. During its first
phase I believe that the war was very humanely conducted on all sides.
In Macedonia, of course, there were some deplorable atrocities, but I
believe the normal massacre conditions there were rather bettered than
otherwise by the outbreak of war.
To sum up the Turk, I do not think he will survive for long in Europe.
As a matter of hard fact there really are not many real Turks left in
Europe.
The Serbian, with his highlander the Montenegrin, is a far more engaging
personality than the Bulgarian. He lacks the stubborn, dour courage of
his neighbour, but he has more _élan_. In military life the Bulgarian
would supply incomparable infantry, the Serbians be superior in
artillery and cavalry. In social life the Serbian is convivial and
hospitable. Whilst the Bulgarian wishes to go to bed early that he may
get up early and push the road he is making along a little farther, the
Serbian will keep you at his dinner-table drinking and singing until far
into the morning. He is not troubling about a road.
When the Serbian army came to help the Bulgarians in the siege of
Adrianople, the contrast between the two armies and the two camps was
great. The Serbian men were smarter, better equipped, their quarters
cleaner, and from their mess tents would come by night the sound of
revelry. One might imagine Roundheads and Cavaliers camping side by
side.
The Allies did not fraternise. For that I blamed the Bulgarians. The
positions in regard to the Serbian aid at Adrianople, as I understood
it, was this: that originally the Bulgarians engaged to help the
Serbians in their campaign, but this was found not to be necessary: that
the Bulgarians, later, asked for aid against Adrianople, and it was
promptly given without any conditions being imposed, though there then
already existed in the Serbian mind a desire to modify the territorial
partition arrangement they had with Bulgaria and this request for aid
might have been taken as a good opportunity for raising that question. I
believe those to be the facts, but since in Balkan diplomacy it is
always a matter of finding out the truth of comparing and weighing and
deducing from a series of lies, I cannot state them with absolute
certainty. If they are true, the Serbians behaved like gentlemen in not
raising against an ally an awkward question at a time when help was
asked. Quite certainly the Bulgarian authorities behaved like boors to
their Serbian friends. Things were made as unpleasant as was reasonably
possible for them in all kinds of niggling ways around Adrianople. The
Serbians behaved well under great provocation.
During the first sessions of the Balkan Peace Conference I had
opportunities of observing the same good behaviour on the part of the
Serbians. Bulgarian diplomacy was, as usual, very exasperating. It was
not only that Bulgaria was insisting on having the hide, horn, and hoofs
of Turkey, but also on rubbing salt into her bare carcase. The Turkish
delegates approached the Serbians--whose territorial demands as far as
Turkey was concerned were satisfied, but who had a pending controversy
with the Bulgarians--hoping to get some moral support against Bulgaria
and being prepared to offer something in return. The Serbian attitude
was sharply loyal, to stand by Bulgaria absolutely in regard to the
Turkish frontier. Serbians have not been always popular in Great
Britain, I know; but I am not alone among those who have come into
recent contact with Balkan affairs who found them to be the best of the
Balkan peoples.
[Illustration: _See page_ 194
PODGORICA, UPON THE ALBANIAN FRONTIER]
The Greek is even more engaging and hospitable than the Serbian; but his
fluent, flexible, subtle nature does not inspire full confidence. At
the outset of the last Balkan war there was one thing that all were sure
of: that the Greeks would not fight. All were wrong. The Greeks did
exceedingly well in the field, even allowing that they sometimes shaped
their campaign quite as much by considerations of jealousy of their
allies as of hostility to the common enemy. But it is a fact that the
Greek has usually more stomach for politics than for fighting, and that
his subtle nature allows him to live comfortably in a state of
subjection, which would irk a more robust mind. He is by instinct a
trader: and a trader is not an uncompromising patriot as a rule.
The Greeks live side by side with the Turks in Turkey with fair comfort.
At Kirk Kilisse, after the Bulgarian occupation, a deputation came to me
from the Greeks to assure me that they would much prefer to live under
the Turk than under the Bulgar: and asking that England should be urged
to support autonomy for Thrace. Well, the Turks are back at Kirk
Kilisse, and I suppose my Greek friends are happy. Eloquent, courteous,
kind folk they were. I stayed in the house of one for some days, and
will remember always the gracious kindness of the man and his wife. I
had to leave one morning at four to catch a troop train which would
carry me a few miles towards the front. The couple were up and had a
fire and tea ready for me. As I had a fever at the time, and a long
laborious journey ahead, the whole Greek race seemed good that morning.
Later at Chorlu after I had got permission from the military commandant
to go forward to Chatalja, and he had helped me to hire a cart and
horses and to stock up my provisions, the permission was withdrawn
because Bashi-Bazouks were raiding along the line of communication. I
might go later, he said, when a body of troops was moving. I objected
that time was precious; and I had my revolver, and there was the driver.
"Ah," he said sweetly, "he is a Greek. He will run away."
After that manner the Bulgarians always spoke of the Greeks. In this
case the Bulgarian was possibly right. I finally coaxed permission to go
forward, on condition that I took a patrol of one Bulgarian soldier, and
I was allowed to borrow a rifle and some ammunition. We met no
Bashi-Bazouks: but whilst the Bulgarian palpably was quite content to
enter into a plan to give the Bashi-Bazouks a chance of showing
themselves at nightfall, the Greek liked the adventure not at all.
(Perhaps on the whole he was justified. But I was desperately eager for
a "story," and with the Turkish regulars running away so consistently,
to encounter irregulars suggested no real danger.)
On that journey, at a little village which I cannot name between Silivri
and Chatalja, the population was largely Greek. Some of the Greeks,
after the Turks had fled before the Bulgarians, had discarded the fez
and were wearing Bulgarian caps. Others held to the fez, but had marked
on it with white chalk a cross. I formed the opinion that if by the
fortune of war the Turks came back, those crosses would be rubbed out.
The Greek can be very pliant undoubtedly, when he is in contact with a
dominant people. The other side to his character--that of a hot-headed,
argumentative, boisterous Donnybrook Fair patriotism--is developed in
his own country where it is fed with memories of the historic greatness
of his race.
The Roumanian--the fourth national type in the Balkans to which I shall
refer--very closely resembles the Greek in most respects. Like the
Greeks the Roumanians are subtle, flexible, engaging. They are a
singularly good-looking race, and Roumanian girls are sought after in
marriage a great deal. A Serbian politician explaining to me what he
called "a nice national balance," pointed out that the Serbians rather
despised trade and finance. The Roumanian, therefore, came into Serbia
to make money as shopkeeper and financier. Then the young Serbian man
married the rich Roumanian's daughter and thus the Serbian money was
still kept in the country.
The instinct for trade has a very marked effect on the politics of the
Balkans. The Serbian has no love for trade: the Montenegrin despises it
quite. The Greek and the Roumanian are very keen traders with an
inclination to escape from manual work as soon as they can. The
Bulgarian is a trader and also fond of productive industry. So "as two
of a trade never agree," neither Greek nor Roumanian can get on as well
with the Bulgarian as with the Serbian.
The Roumanian national polity differs greatly from the Greek, though the
two racial types are very similar. Whilst Greece has a stormy and
disorderly democracy, Roumania is ruled practically by an oligarchy--an
oligarchy which during the past twelve months has won to an achievement
which would have delighted the old Florentine Republic. Without losing a
soldier, almost without spending a crown, Roumania has won a great tract
of territory and established herself as the paramount power of the
Balkans. It was a victory of unscrupulous and patient resoluteness which
is a classic of its kind, and it was made possible by the oligarchic
system of Roumania. The Montenegrin does not need to be considered
separately: he is the "Highlander" of the Serbian and shares Serbian
language, customs, and character with such modifications as the
conditions of his mountain life impose. But the Albanian, the largely
Mohammedan mountain type to which the jealousies of Europe have agreed
to give a separate nationality and a separate kingdom, calls for some
attention. The Albanian is the wildest of the Balkan types, and his
country the most primitive. It has had no period of civilisation, and
can hardly be said to promise to have. Its existence as a nation in 1914
was due to the fact that the German Powers wished to have a footing in
the Balkans for intrigue. "The creation of Albania dealt a death-blow
to the Balkan League," said a cynical Austrian diplomatist recently. He
was right: and the creation of Albania undertaken at the instance of
Austria had no other purpose from the first, though it was disguised
under the plea of anxiety for the national rights of the Albanians, wild
catamarans of the hills, odd specimens of whom one may encounter in many
parts of the Balkans acting as dragomans. The Albanian has many savage
virtues. He is a picturesque fellow as he swaggers about with a
silver-decorated armoury stuck in his waist-belt: and he is truly
faithful to a master. But he has not the barest elements of a national
organisation; and the Austrian Prince of Albania did not find a single
house within all his dominion which would satisfy the housing needs of a
respectable London clerk.
Describing the march across Albania to the Adriatic coast during the
recent war a Serbian officer wrote:
It is only by travelling as we did that real facts can be learned.
We who had only known the Turks by hearsay had a certain respect
for them. At present I feel but contempt and disgust. To think that
they should have held these lands for five hundred years, and kept
them absolutely wild and uncultivated! Prishtina, Jakovitsa, and
Prizrend are in every respect behind Mirigevo [a village some
miles outside Belgrade]. There are neither bridges nor roads, nor
decent dwellings to be met with in the Sanjak. Of the dirt I cannot
trust myself to speak. The "Ujumat" (Prefecture) of Prizrend,
residence of the Mutessarif, is in such a filthy condition that I
could not sit there for more than five minutes together. All around
the sofras (tables) were rags, remnants of food, tufts of dogs'
hair, etc., for these ate and slept with their masters....
The people are humble, cowed, moving out-of-doors rarely, and then
huddled together like a herd of cattle.... The peasants run to kiss
our hands, and bow down to the ground, but they are too frightened
to give a sensible answer to a plain question. They speak Serbian,
it is true, and cross themselves as Christians, but otherwise bear
little resemblance to our peasant folk. They have lived no better
than their masters, for themselves and their pigs share the same
apartment! If the pigs were let loose the Turks were sure to kill
them, so they were hidden indoors. The first use they made of the
liberty we gave them was to hunt the pigs into the open air, and
how the poor beasts enjoyed it! One could not help laughing at
their antics as they chased each other, while the children ran to
keep them from escaping to the woods. But the cows and oxen defy
description. They are like our calves, only the shape is queer. I
saw no vegetables anywhere. The staple diet is maize. From our
frontier to the sea it is the same tale of misery, helplessness,
and dirt. In Prizrend, after every rainfall, the people drink muddy
water in which none of our soldiers would care to wash. When we
boiled it a thick scum came on the top, which we skimmed off! This
is the water used by a town of 40,000 citizens; and really one felt
that authorities like the Turks should not be allowed to live any
longer. Now we feel that it is a disgrace to us to have delayed so
long in coming to the deliverance of our brothers in bondage just
outside our doors. Better late than never.
As for the independence of Albania, it would be a comical, if it
were not a sinister, idea. Whoever speaks of a national sense in
these savage hordes is either untruthful or ignorant. The Serbians
of this region make no distinction, as we do, between the Turks and
the Mohammedan Albanians. I could not get them to understand that
the latter were in reality brethren of the Christian Albanians with
whom they live in amity. I pointed out that these Mohammedans could
not speak a word of Turkish, but that did not help. The Serbians
insist that they are Turks all the same. And for all practical
purposes they are right. The Christian Albanians are called by
their race brethren "Catholics," and are hated and persecuted by
them just as the Serbians are hated and persecuted. The "Catholics"
loathe the Mohammedans and deny that they are of the same
nationality. But the fact remains that they speak the same
language. The Catholics welcomed us with joy, rendered us every
possible service, and often refused to accept payment. They are
eager to assist in our operations, acted as scouts for us, and
brought us precious information. Sometimes they acted on their own
initiative, captured, and killed their Mohammedan co-nationalists
without first consulting us.... The priests are the most
embittered. These jealous "fratres" told us they longed for a
Christian Government, and that the project of a united Albania was
insensate.... Ismail Kemal's proclamation has irritated the priests
about here. They will not for a moment consider a union with the
Mohammedan tribes or submission to a Moslem leader like Ismail. On
the other hand, if we evacuate this country, a terrible fate awaits
the Catholics....
Here I have made acquaintance with the Montenegrin troops, rather
different from ours! They get leave to go home and see after their
wives and children whenever they ask it, and lax discipline does
not seem to affect their heroism. They fight like lions, but do
nothing else except shoot birds and fish in the interval. Every
ship that touches here is greeted with a volley, though ammunition
is sometimes scarce, but the Montenegrin can better spare bread
than shot. He will do nothing but fight, and ships often remain
unladen here for days, because there are few Albanians in the place
to do the work. My soldiers carry sacks and burdens of all kinds to
and from the ships, and the Montenegrins laugh at them and say: "Is
that how you fight, Brother Shumadinats?" [Shumadia is a forest in
the centre of the Kingdom of Serbia.] They are amused to see our
men one day unshaven; they are most particular themselves to shave
each day whatever happens. The priests alone wear a beard, for they
are not supposed to fight.... The Montenegrin soldiers' wives come
once a week to look after their husbands, wash the linen, and help
to clean up....
There is, of course, a certain amount of Serb intolerance in that
letter, but it represents on the whole the truth.
So much for the different nations of the Balkans. The personalities of
the Peninsula might provide a happy solution for the problems which the
conflict of these mutually antipathetic racial elements create: for
there is no fact more clear than that the general interest of the
countries could best be served by a wise policy of compromise and
co-operation, bringing its different elements together as the Swiss were
brought together by a geographical rather than a racial reason. But
unfortunately there are no personalities alike honest in outlook and
great in power.
Four able and far-seeing men I have met in the Balkans: M. Nikolitch,
President of the Serbian Parliament; General Demetrieff, Commander of
the Third Army (which won the most notable Bulgarian victories), now
commanding a Russian army; M. Venizuelos, Prime Minister of Greece; M.
Take Jonescu, of the Roumanian Cabinet. All men of power, none seemingly
has sufficient strength to impose his will not alone on his own country,
but on the other Balkan States, and weld them into a Confederation which
would be held together by a sense of common interests and common
dangers.
King Ferdinand of Bulgaria has kept for years the centre of the Balkan
stage to the European onlooker; and is still a great enough figure to
give pause to those Bulgarian Nationalists who would exact from him
reprisal for the terrible misfortunes of their country. But he is a man
of audacity rather than of courage, and his ambition has been always
more personal than national--to be Czar of the Balkans rather than to be
the maker of a Balkan nation. Gifted with a great deal of diplomatic
ability and with a soaring imagination, King Ferdinand has a serious
obstacle in his personal timidity. To play a gambler's game one must be
prepared at times to take the great risk. But King Ferdinand has many
fears. He fears, for instance, infectious diseases morbidly, and the
thought of a germ in the track could turn him from the highest of
enterprises. Perhaps it was the fear of disease rather than of wounds
that kept him so much in the rear of his army during the 1912 campaign
against Turkey. But whatever the cause, his absence from the front
showed a serious weakness of character in a man who aspired to carve out
an empire for himself. The Bulgarian authorities, deceiving the Press
almost as assiduously for the purpose as for the false representation
that all the destruction of the Turkish forces was ascribable to the
Bulgarian arms, gave to Europe inspiriting pictures of His Majesty
following close on the heels of his soldiers in a military train which
served him as a palace. The fact was that the ambitious but timid king
kept very well to the rear, at Stara Zagora first and afterwards at Kirk
Kilisse, with a great entourage of secret police. And when armistice
negotiations were in progress he kept separate from his Cabinet as well
as from his army. Affable in manner, industrious, pertinacious, well
aware of the advantage of advertisement (my first meeting with His
Majesty was due to the fact that he mistook my map case for a camera,
and sent for me to photograph him while he stood on the bridge over the
Maritza at Mustapha Pasha), of high ability, King Ferdinand did great
things for his adopted country, but showed a fatal weakness of character
when he had drunk deep of the wine of success. It is the fashion to
blame him wholly now for the wild attack on Serbia and Greece. He may
have been in part the victim of his advisers' folly in that. But without
much doubt he could have vetoed the fatal move, if he had known his army
from personal observation, if he had been down to the lines at Chatalja,
and had looked closely into the besieging forces around Adrianople.
Common sense would have told him that the attack on his allies was
hopeless, if strength of character had not told him that it was wicked.
But he neither knew the facts nor understood the ethics of the position.
General Demetrieff, Commander of the Third Bulgarian Army, the victor of
Kirk Kilisse and of Lule Burgas, the reluctant attacker at Chatalja,
impressed me as a man of fine character. For some few days I was a
member of the officers' mess at Erminekioi, which was the headquarters
of the Staff before the lines of Chatalja, and had the chance of seeing
much of the general. He struck one as a frank, courageous man. He
answered questions truthfully or not at all, and was notably kind to the
very small group of correspondents who had got through to the front. His
personal staff worshipped him, and told with pride that most of the
staff work with him on the battle-field was under fire. When it was
clear that the attack at Chatalja had failed, General Demetrieff neither
attempted to tell falsehoods nor shut himself off from visitors. He
ascribed the cessation of the attack to the outbreak of cholera in the
Bulgarian lines (and the statement was probably in his mind not only the
truth but all the truth: in any case one could not expect him to
disclose the shortage of big gun ammunition): was avowedly disconsolate
but not in the least discouraged. I cannot imagine General Demetrieff
having any hand in the making of the second Balkan war against the
Serbians and Greeks, and think that the Bulgarians had in him a man of
honesty and courage as well as of great military skill. No other general
of the Bulgarian Army impressed me in the same way, certainly not
General Savoff.
Of the Bulgarian politicians, M. Gueshoff, Prime Minister at the
outbreak of the first war, and M. Daneff, chief Bulgarian delegate at
the Peace Conference and Prime Minister at the outbreak of the second
war, had the chief parts in the glories and tragedies of 1912-13. M.
Gueshoff seemed a well-meaning but weak man. He was fond of insisting
upon his English education and of advancing that as a proof of his
complete candour. I imagine that he played no directing part in the
drama of his country's sudden rise to power and more sudden fall, but
did just as his king directed, sometimes probably under protest. M.
Daneff was a more virile man, and his force of character, with little
guidance from experience, of liberal education, or from wise purpose,
had much to do with the downfall of Bulgaria. Of the Balkan Peace
Conference which met first in London in December 1912, M. Daneff
attempted from the outset to be dictator. He never lost a chance of
being rude to an opponent or fulsome to a supporter. He diplomatised by
pronunciamento and made a vigorous use of the minor newspaper Press with
the idea of overawing the chancelleries of Europe. I am sure that the
British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had nearly as much amusement
as chagrin from the incidents of the Conference. Just when the Turkish
delegates were being gently coaxed up to drink the hemlock, Bulgaria
would publicly dance a wild triumph of joy, and announce that the very
last drop had to be absorbed or Bulgaria would not be satisfied. When
the Turkish delegates were thus startled away and all the pressure of
European diplomacy was being brought to bear upon the Turkish Government
to bring them back to the point, Bulgaria threatened publicly to break
up the Conference and resume the war. Europe was given a short
time-limit in which to act.
M. Venizuelos, Prime Minister of Greece, has proved in his own country a
great capacity for good government and wise diplomacy. There was a
strong movement made at the outset of the Balkan Peace Conference to
have him appointed head of the Balkan delegation. Success in that would
have made the chances of peace better; and probably he had an
expectation of being chosen as being the senior in official rank of all
those present. But the jealousy and distrust of Greece was great: and M.
Venizuelos did not prove himself the man of genius who could overcome
the handicap which his nationality imposed. True, the task was almost
impossible. But still nearer to the impossible would it be now to unite
again the warring factions in the Balkans. M. Venizuelos, of the highest
talent though he be, will not be the maker of a Balkan Confederation.
M. Nikolitch, President of the Serbian Parliament, is an amiable and
clever man with far more culture than is usual in the Balkans. He has
translated English classics into the Serbian tongue, and is an
industrious student of social and political philosophy. But he has
nothing of the brute force that is needed to control the warring
passions of the Balkan States. As the Minister of a Balkan Union to a
great Power he would be admirable, for he has tact and wit, and a
knowledge of the value of truth. When it was made plain that Austria was
to have her way and Serbia no territory on the Adriatic, the
disappointment of Serbia was bitter: and there was some special blame of
Great Britain that she "had not considered her obvious interests," and
brought this friendly little state to the sea. M. Nikolitch had the
diplomat's faculty of taking a defeat smilingly. "The most unhappy thing
about it," he said to me, "is that now Serbia will not have England on
her frontier." It was a neat touch to speak of the sea as British
territory.
There remains to be considered M. Take Jonescu, who is credited with the
chief share in the unscrupulous diplomacy which has made Roumania for
the while paramount in the Balkans. It was certainly a masterpiece of
Machiavellianism, applying the tenets of "The Prince" with cold
precision, and marks its author as the master mind of the Balkans
to-day. Give such a man a good soldier people to follow him and an
honest purpose, and a Balkan Confederation might be achieved, with some
further blood-letting perhaps. But it is not possible to believe that
the Roumanians, frivolous, pleasure-loving, untenacious, could impose
their will for long upon the coarser-fibred but more virile Slavs of the
Peninsula.
No, there is not a personality in the Balkans to-day at once forceful
enough, honest enough, and skilful enough to give the Peninsula a union
which would enable it by means of a bold decision now to ensure internal
peace and freedom from outside interference. A great man could build up
a greater Switzerland, perhaps, of the Slavs, the Greeks, and the
Roumanians in the Balkan Peninsula with Great Britain, Russia, and
France as joint sponsors for the freedom of the new Federation. But one
hardly dares to hope for such a happy ending to the long miserable story
of the Balkans.
INDEX
Adrian, Emperor, 89
Adrianople, 14, 65, 68
description of, 90
Turkish occupation of, 26
Adriatic coast, 150
Sea, 45
Aegean Islands, 62
Sea, 45
Alani, the, 10
Albania, 14, 17, 62
condition of, 194
Albanian character, 173, 193
massacres, 89
mountains, 152
Alexander of Battenberg. _See_ Alexander of Bulgaria
Alexander, King of Bulgaria, 47
abdication of, 48
Alexander the Great, 6
American war correspondents, 99
Amurath I., Sultan of Turkey, 27
Amurath II., Sultan of Turkey, 27
Architecture, 158
Arjenli, 131
Armenia, 6
Art, applied, 163, 164
modern, 164, 165
Arts and crafts, 162
Asia Minor, invasion of, 17
Asiatic invasions, 11, 12
Assyria, 6
Astrakhan, 9
Austria, 28
and Serbia's trade, 125
Austrian ambitions in the Balkans, 45, 46, 49
war correspondents, 99, 105
Autonomy of the Christian Provinces, 57
Bajayet, Sultan of Turkey, 27
Balkan Alliance, 18, 21, 45, 53, 55, 57, 59, 74, 174, 194
possibilities of, 82
Balkan casualties in the war, 87, 88
character, 124
Committee, the, 91
development, 174
diplomacy, 56, 57
disunion, 75-77, 79
mountains, 3, 151
Balkan Peace Conference, 1912, 75, 78, 80, 81, 176, 188
second phase, 84, 85
spokesman, 83
Balkan peasants, 176
peoples as linguists, 148
politicians, 176
priests, 176
statesmen, 78, 92
War of 1912, 46, 54, 107
War resumed, 84
women, 159
Baltic Sea, 4, 6
Banking, 168, 170
Bashi-Bazouks, 26, 39, 43, 190
Basil, the Bulgar-slayer, 14
Beetroot cultivation, 169
Belgrade, 16, 124, 146
siege of, 27
Bessarabia, 32
Birrell, Major E. T. F., R.A.M.C., 143
Bishop Babylas of Montenegro, 36
Black Sea, 3, 5, 120
littoral, 150
Blood-mist, the, 175
Bosnia, 39, 49
British Army Medical Detachment, 69
opinion, 83
Red Cross Hospital, 143
surgeons, 142
Bucharest, 30, 109
Buda-Pest, 109
Bulgaria, 13, 22, 37
an autonomous principality, 44
beaten, 88
boundaries of (1830), 44
foreign influences in, 97
government of, 40
liberation of, 30
under Serbian rule, 17
a Turkish province, 22, 25
and universal suffrage, 40
at war, 127, 128
_Bulgaria of To-day_, extract from, 23
Bulgarian ambitions, 61
aristocracy, 179
army of 1912, 41
atrocities, 43
atrocities in Macedonia, 51
autonomy, 40
blunders, 86, 87
censorship. _See_ Censorship
character, 177-180
church, 26
commissariat, 69-73, 128
crops, 168
diplomacy, 85-87, 188
diplomatic intrigues, 49
Exarchates, 52
finance, 64, 168
generals, 59
hegemony, 48
hospitals, 143
industry, 167
medical service, 138, 139
military tactics, 66-71
mobilisation, 59, 63, 134
peace negotiations, 79
peasants, 141
preparedness for war, 55, 127
Press Bureau, 185
revolt of 1875, 39, 47
Secret Service, 60
system of land tenures, 168
War of Liberation, 42
women, 135
Bulgars, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13
Buxton, Mr. Noel, M.P., 158
Byzantine art, 164
traditions, 164
Cafés, 160
Carpets, 164
Caucasus, the, 9
Censorship, the, 94, 98, 100, 101, 115, 121
humours of the, 100
the second, 102
Cettinje, 35
Charles, King of Roumania, 39, 41
Chatalja, 61, 68, 117
Cherson, 5
Chersonesos, 5
Choleraic dysentery, 133, 138
Chorlu, 68
Churches. _See_ Architecture
Congress of Berlin, 44, 45
Constantinople, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 20, 26, 43, 61, 62, 137
fall of, 27, 89, 90
Cotton-spinning, 171
_Credit Foncier_ system, 169, 171
Cretan excavations, 4
Crimean War, 32, 38, 107
Crusaders, the, 20
Cyrillic characters, 35
Dacians, 6, 7
Daneff, M., 202
Danilo I., King of Montenegro, 33
Danube, 2, 3, 7, 28, 146
Dardanelles, the, 62
Decius the elder, 8
Decius the younger, 8
Demetrieff, General, 67, 136, 198, 201
Disease, ravages of, 140
Dnieper River, 5
Dniester River, 5
Don Cossacks, 15
Don River, 3
Dual Monarchy, problems of, 28
Dulcigno, 46
Durazzo, 14
Eastern Church, 16
Eastern Rumelia, 48
Egyptian influences, 4
Embroideries, 164
Emigration, 166
English war correspondents, 99
Enos, 88
Ermenikioi, 136, 138, 201
Eski Sagrah, 96, 97
Eski Zagora, 20
European capital, 174
diplomacy, 39, 40
diplomacy and Roumania, 85
finance, 64
policy, 50, 55
policy in 1912-13, 45
Powers, interest of, 96
Powers, intervention of, 58
Euxine, 6
Exarchate Christians, 177
Ferdinand, Czar of Bulgaria, 47, 49, 50, 108, 152, 154
his character, 198-201
Ferdinand of Coburg. _See_ Ferdinand of Bulgaria
Filimer, King of the Goths, 9
Finno-ugric tribe, 3
Forty Holy Martyrs of Bulgaria, 14
Fratricidal war, 87
Frederick Barbarossa, 16
French war correspondents, 99
Gallipoli, Peninsula of, 75
Geographical position, 1
Gepidae, 11
German Powers, 193
German war correspondents, 99
Getae. _See_ Dacians
Goths, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 20
invasions of, 75
Greco-Bulgarian disunion, 79
_entente_, 76
Greco-Turkish wars, 107
Greece, 37
Greek atrocities in Macedonia, 51
character, 188-191
church, 22
civilisation, 4
coast, 150
diplomacy, 93
Empire, 2, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20
Empire, fall of, 21
governors in Roumania, 31
official report, 76
Patriarchates, 52
patriotism, 167
Prime Minister. _See_ Venizuelos
traditions, 164
war of independence, 82
Greeks, 3
Grey, Sir Edward, 85, 203
Grivica Redoubt, 41
Gueshoff, M., 202
Guttones. _See_ Goths
Haskovo, province of, 168
Health resorts, 153
Herodotus, 5
Herzegovina, 39, 49
History, Early, 3, 4
Hodgkin, Mr. T., 5
Hospital services, 141, 142
Hungarians, 11, 13, 28
Huns, 4, 7, 11, 13
invasions of, 9, 75
origin of, 9, 10
"International Socialist," 132
Ionian letter-forms, 5
Istros, 5
Italian Peninsula, 1
war correspondents, 99
Ivan the Black, of Montenegro, 35
Ivankeui, battle of, 67
Janina, 75
Japanese censorship, 98
Jirecek, 2
John Asên, Czar of Bulgaria, 14
John Hunyad, 27
John Paleologos, Emperor of Greece, 21
Jonescu, M. Take, 198, 205
Jostoff, Colonel, 138
Journalism, 108-110
"Kara George." _See_ Petrovic
Kirk Kilisse, 42, 65, 139
Korea, 58
Kossova, 21
battle of, 27, 33
Kustendil, 168
Kustendjix, 5
Lazar, King of Serbia, 27
Levant, the, 4, 5
Liberation, progress since the, 165
Lithuania, 5
Lombards, 8, 11
London Morning Post, 54, 100
"Lord Salisbury's principle," 93
Lule Burgas, 68
battle of, 72
Macedonia, 44, 74
atrocities in, 51, 52, 53
Empire of, 6
massacres in, 51, 89
Marcianople. _See_ Schumla
Mariano Bolizza, 36
Maritza River, 90
Marmora, Sea of, 62, 120, 150
"Mass at St. Sofia," 146
Massacre, the national sport, 177
Medicinal springs, 153
Mediterranean littoral, 2
Sea, 4
Michael, Czar of Bulgaria, 15
Michael the Brave, of Roumania, 30
Midhat Pasha, 169, 170
Midia, 88
Military attachés, 105, 107
Milosh Obrenovic of Serbia, 38
Mineral resources in Serbia, 172
Minoan civilisation, 2
Moesia, 3
Mohammedanism, 24
Moldavia, 13, 29, 38
Montenegrin character, 173, 193
printing press, 35, 36
resistance of Turks, 34, 35
war with Austria, 35
war with Turkey, 35
Montenegro, 17, 28, 32, 33, 37, 46
Montenegro, government of, 33
_Morning Post_, the. _See_ London
Mount Athos, monastery of, 16
Music, national, 163
Napoleon, 17, 34
Napoleonic strategy, 113
wars, 32
Near East, the, 107
Near Eastern character, 78
Neytchef, Dr., 131
Nicolaieff, General, 42
Niemen River, 5
Nikolitch, M., 198, 204
Nish, 43, 125, 126
Nordic tribes, 4
Norman knights, 13
Normans, 4
Northern invasions, 13
peoples, 2
North Sea, 4
Nova Sagora, 135
Novi-Bazar, 46
Odessa, 5
Odessos, 5
Olbia, 5
Old Serbia, 74
Oriental Express, 156
Ostrogoths, 7
Ottoman. _See_ Turks
Ox wagons, 130, 131
Patriarchate Christians, 177
Peace Conference. _See under_ Balkan
Peace of Bucharest, 88
Peace of London, 85, 88
Persians, 11
Peter the Great of Russia, 34
Petrovic, George, 29, 37
Philip of Macedon, 6
Philippopolis, 8, 44
capture of, 20
Phillip, Roman Emperor, 8
Pig-raising, 171
Pirot, 43
Plevna, 41, 46
Pomaks, 22
Prehistoric state, 2
Press influence, 83, 84
Protective tariff, 171
_Punch_ cartoon, 54
Religious proselytising, 30
Rhodopes, the, 151, 152, 158
Roads, 167
Roman Church, 16
civilisation, 8
Empire, 1, 2, 89, 168
Roman Empire, decline of, 7
fall of, 8
traditions, 164
Romans, 4, 7
Rose cultivation, 169
Roumania, 7, 13, 22, 29, 37
Greek governors in, 31
an independent principality, 32
King of, 48, 49
liberation of, 30, 31
Russian garrison in, 32
subjugation of, 2
a Turkish province, 29
Roumanian character, 191, 192
diplomacy, 92
independence, 38
war correspondents, 105
women, 160
Roumanians, 3
Runes, 5
Russian ambitions in the Balkans, 44, 45, 49
garrison in Roumania, 32
hospital at Kirk Kilisse, 143
intrigue in Bulgaria, 48
liberators of Bulgaria, 25
Power, 31
war correspondents, 99
Russo-Japanese War, effect of, 50
Russo-Roumanian alliance, 31
Russo-Turkish War of 1828, 32
of 1877, 41, 43, 170
Salonica, 46, 62, 76, 79
Sanitary arrangements, absence of, 140, 141, 142
Saracens, 4, 12, 20
Savoff, General, 117, 202
Schumla, 8
Scutari, 74, 75
Scythia, 5, 8, 9
Seaside resorts, 150, 151
Sebastopol, 5
Seleniki, 129
Semitic invasions, 4
Serbia, 15, 17, 26, 37
as a European Power, 16
local government in, 172
Turkish garrisons withdrawn, 38
a Turkish province, 27
Serbian character, 186-188
contest for liberty, 38
diplomacy, 93
emigration to Austria, 28
Empire, 33
Empire, fall of, 27
forests, 172
Highlanders, 33
increase of territory, 46
liberation, 37
mineral resources, 172
mountains, 151
trade, Austria and, 125
women, 172
Serbians, 3, 4, 9
Serbo-Hungarian Alliance, 27
Servians. _See_ Serbians
Shipka Pass, 42, 129
Silistria, 168
Simeon of Bulgaria, 163
Slav traditions, 164
Slavs, 3, 4
Slivnitza, battle of, 48
Sofia, 61, 145
the Military College, 42
Southern Slav Art Exhibition, 165
Stambouloff, 48
assassination of, 49
Stara Zagora, 42
Stephen Dushan, King of Serbia, 16, 17, 26, 162
Stephen the Great, of Moldavia, 30
Sweden, 6, 9
Switzerland, 58
Tapestries, 164
Tartars, 4, 11, 13
Tchobanoff, Lieutenant-Colonel, 131
Tchorlu, 42
Tchundra River, 90
Teutonic knights, 13
Theodore Komnenus, Czar of Greece, 14
Thessaly, 2
Thrace, 2, 8, 44, 51
an autonomous, 80
Thracian campaign, 54
plain, 154
Thraco-Dacians, 3
Thraco-Illyrians, 3
Thraco-Macedonians, 3
Tirnova, 44
Church of the Forty Martyrs, 14
Tobacco cultivation, 168
Tourist possibilities, 151, 152
Trade, Early, 5
Trajan, 7
Transylvania, 30
Travel facilities, 155-158
risks, 161
Treaty of Adrianople (1830), 44
Treaty of Berlin, 38, 45, 46
Treaty of Bucharest (1913), 17, 171
Treaty of London, 174
Treaty of Paris (1856), 32, 38, 39
Treaty of San Stefano, 43, 44, 46, 47, 50
Trenches, 145
Triple Alliance, the, 50
Turco-Russian wars, 107
Turkey-in-Europe, 61
Turkish Army, 106
atrocities, 19, 26, 29, 31, 52
character, 181-186
corruption, 61
cruelty, 185
delegates at the Conference, 188
domination in Bulgaria, 23, 24, 25
entrenchments, 137
invasion, first, 15
occupation, 17, 20, 158
offer of reform, 56
Power in Europe, decline of, 45
prisoners, 136
procrastination at the Peace Conference, 81, 84
rally, 88
rule in Bulgaria, end of, 26
rule in Serbia, 28
spy incident, 133
tyranny, 24
villages, 138
Turks, 3, 4, 13
before Vienna, 21
Turnu-Severin, 7
Tyras, 5
Unity of Balkans. _See_ Balkan Alliance
Valerius, Emperor, 89
Vandals, 7
Varna, 5
Venetians, 16
Venice 34
Venizuelos, M., 83, 198, 203, 204
Vienna, 109
siege of, 21
Villages, the, 154
Visigoths, 7
Vistula River, 5
Vlad the Impaler, of Wallachia, 30
Volga River, 3
Volgars. _See_ Bulgars
Vranga, 43
Wallachia, 13, 29
Wallachians. _See_ Roumanians
War correspondent, the, 98, 99, 102, 103, 107, 126, 185
advice to, 110
new school, 107, 108, 113
passing of the, 122
a personal record, 116
War of Liberation, 85
Winter sports, 152
Yamboli, 42, 65, 69
Yanina, battle of, 67
Zablack, 35
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of Oxford.
ALEXIS ALADIN, Ex-member of the Russian Duma.
PAUL HAMELIUS, D. és L., Professor of English Literature in the
University of Liège.
J. H. LONGFORD, B.A., Professor of Japanese in the University of London.
R. W. SETON-WATSON, D. Litt., New College, Oxford; Author of _The
Southern Slav Question_, etc.
SIDNEY LOW, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford, Lecturer on Imperial and
Colonial History, King's College, London University; Author of _The
Governance of England_, _A Vision of India_, etc.
Edited, with an Introduction and Appendix, by SIDNEY LOW
_Crown 8vo._ Price =2/6= net _Cloth._
(_By post_, 2/10)
"No student, or even casual lover of books, and certainly no
patriot, should hesitate to read this remarkable little
volume."--_Daily Express._
"A valuable supplement to the books relating to the negotiations
preceding the war and to the campaign itself."--_Aberdeen Journal._
Published by A. & C. BLACK, Ltd., 4, 5, & 6 Soho Square, London, W.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Both "Serbia" and "Servia", "country-side" and "countryside" are found
in this text.
At p. 54, the phrase "I was through the war" may be an error for "I went
through the war", but has been left unchanged.
There is only one typo: "howevre" (on p. 21) has been changed to
"however".
Four words in the index have a different spelling from that used in the
text. Kossovo, Nova Zagora, Chorlu and Zablak are indexed as "Kossova",
"Nova Sagora", "Tchorlu" and "Zablack" respectively. These spellings
have been left unchanged.