a confirmation of that of 1913, some new departures have been made
or are in prospect; and these relate almost wholly to the problem of
Greek irredentism. For if Roumanian or Serbian national unity could be
attained chiefly by the acquisition of former Austrian and Hungarian
territories, the question of Greek national unity involves primarily
further changes of territory in the Balkans.
It has been estimated by Mr. Venizelos that the Hellenic nation today
comprises over eight million people, of whom only 55% live in the
kingdom of Greece. Of the rest about one million are widely dispersed
all over the world; nearly two millions reside in Asia Minor and
Cyprus--lands outside the scope of this survey; there are 100,000 in
the Dodecanesus, those Aegean islands which Italy certainly should,
and probably will, transfer to Greece. There remain, as unredeemed
Greek populations in the Balkans, about 731,000 people in Thrace and
at Constantinople, and about 151,000 in Northern Epirus and Southern
Albania. All told, Greece hopes to liberate about two millions of her
kinsmen as a result of the War, and to bring it about that at least
75% of the race, that portion which is gathered in the lands about the
Aegean, should live united in the Hellenic kingdom.
On the northwest Greece lays claims to that territory which she calls
Northern Epirus and which her opponents call Southern Albania: a
territory which she fought for in 1912-13, but which the Powers at
that time, under Austro-Italian influence, awarded to Albania. This
district contains two important towns, Koritza and Argyrocastro, and a
total population of about 120,000 Orthodox Christians and 80-100,000
Mohammedans. It seems to be fairly well agreed that the Mohammedans are
and feel themselves to be Albanians, and that most of the Christians
also speak Albanian in their homes as their mother tongue. The Greeks
claim however, that these Christian Epirotes read and write only Greek
and are really bilingual; that by their religion, culture, historic
traditions, and their ardent Hellenic patriotism today, they are
essentially Greeks, and belong to Greece by the same right as Alsace
and Lorraine to France. All of this the Albanian spokesmen, of course,
strenuously deny. They maintain that this is a thoroughly and devotedly
Albanian population, whose separation from the rest of the Shkypetars
would be among the most glaring of the many mutilations that this
much-tried nation has had to endure.
Nothing is more difficult than to ascertain the sentiments of a
population among whom such a thing as a genuinely free election has
never been known, propaganda and terrorism are the most common things
in the world, and the rifle has hitherto been the principal means
of settling questions. Albanian nationalism is so new and Albanian
education so much a novelty of yesterday that perhaps the Albanians
have never had a fair chance. At any rate, the balance of evidence
so far seems to favor the Greeks. Almost all the schools in the
contested area are Greek; the predominance of the pro-Greek element
in the intellectual and economic life of the country can scarcely be
disputed; the manifestations of Greek sentiment, especially at Koritza,
have been impressive; and most impressive of all, perhaps, was the
uprising of the Northern Epirotes in 1913, when Europe tried to place
them under Albanian rule and then found itself unable to make them
submit to it. At all events, the Paris Conference did not arrive at an
agreement about this question. While the British and French advocated
transferring all of Northern Epirus to Greece, the Italians stood out
for leaving it to Albania, and the Americans advocated a compromise
solution, which would have ceded the southern, Argyrocastro district
to Greece, while leaving to Albania the northern district of Koritza,
which some people have called the intellectual centre of Albanian
nationalism.
Albania is menaced with some other losses. There has been talk of
forming her northern territories into a separate autonomous province
under the protection of Yugo-Slavia. Something might be said for this
project from the economic standpoint, since, through the control of
the Drin valley and the ports at its mouth, Serbia would obtain the
only relatively easy outlet to the sea south of Fiume. The Drin valley
has usually been taken as the western starting-point in plans for an
Adriatic-Transbalkan railway. But from every other standpoint, the
project in question seems objectionable in the extreme. Whatever may
be the case in Epirus, no one can claim that the North Albanians are
devotees of Serbian culture or have any feelings towards the Serbs
save ancient and bitter hostility. One could hardly think of a more
successful device for creating a permanent storm centre in the Balkans.
A more certain territorial loss to Albania is that of the port of
Avlona, which Italy occupied in 1914, and which she assuredly will be
allowed to keep. After all, her possession of it is no more unnatural
than England’s position at Gibraltar or our own at Panama. Furthermore,
it is probable that Italy will receive some kind of mandate from the
Allies or from the League of Nations to supervise Albania. It is pretty
generally admitted, even by the Albanians themselves, that this nascent
and terribly backward state needs a protector; and since our government
has been unable to assume that rôle, as the Albanians would have
preferred to see us do, both we and they can scarcely object to Italy’s
undertaking it.
To return to the subject of Greek claims--the main object of Mr.
Venizelos’ diplomacy at Paris was the question of Thrace. This was
a double-barrelled problem, for it referred both to the territory
which fell to Bulgaria in 1913, which we call Western Thrace, and to
Eastern Thrace, which means all that is left of Turkey in Europe except
Constantinople.
Here again we are in a region of statistical chaos and ethnographic
nightmares. The racial problems of Thrace are as bad as those of
Macedonia--worse in fact, since they are so new and unfamiliar.
We know in a general way that throughout both the Thraces Turks,
Greeks, and to a less extent Bulgarians are scattered about with a
promiscuity that almost defies analysis or conclusions. The racial
statistics available--the Turkish census of 1910, the Greek Patriarch’s
statistical estimates of 1912, and the Bulgarian census in Western
Thrace for 1914--make it a point never to agree on a single item.
Religious factors add to the confusion. In Western Thrace there is a
large population called the Pomaks: people who are probably Bulgarian
in race and speech, but who are Moslems in religion and in their
_Weltanschauung_. Ought they to be counted as sterling Bulgarian
patriots, as people at Sofia maintain; or rather as Turks, as
Constantinople and Athens consider them? Finally, after all the wars,
migrations, and massacres of the last eight years, one may well doubt
whether any of the three censuses mentioned could claim to represent
the existing situation, even assuming that they were honestly made in
the first place.
At all events, one point in this chaos is tolerably clear. In Eastern
Thrace the Greeks have the best claim on the basis of nationality,
if one takes as the criterion the situation before the Balkan Wars.
Speaking very roughly, they may then have numbered about 400,000, as
against some 250,000 Turks and only about 50,000 Bulgarians. Not only
did the Greeks hold virtually the entire coast, even on the side of
the Black Sea; but in the interior they formed the matrix of this
strange agglomeration, in which the Turkish and Bulgarian enclaves were
embedded.
In Western Thrace the question is more difficult. The answer to it
depends on whose statistics one thinks least unreliable, and largely
on whether one counts the Pomaks as Bulgars or Turks. The Pomaks are
rather less known to us than the tribes of Central Africa; but if
one may judge of their sentiments today by what little is known of
their behavior in the past, one would hesitate to put them down as
Bulgarians. At any rate, one is faced here by Mr. Venizelos’ estimates:
a total population of about 400,000, made up of 285,000 Turks, 70,000
Greeks, and 59,000 Bulgarians; and, on the other side, the Bulgarian
census purporting to show 210,000 Turks, 185,000 Bulgarians (including
70,000 Pomaks) and only 32,000 Greeks. In fact the latest Bulgarian
estimates do not admit the existence of any Greeks at all here: which
leaves one free to make any one of several unpleasant conjectures as
to what the Bulgars have done with them. A slight Greek majority over
the Bulgarians is claimed by the one side, then; and a large Bulgarian
preponderance is claimed by the other.
The question also has an economic and a political aspect. If Bulgaria
is deprived of Western Thrace, she will be shut off from the Aegean
Sea, which certainly forms her shortest and most natural outlet to the
Western world. It is true, as the Greeks point out, that Bulgaria has
several ports on the Black Sea, and as the Straits are surely going to
be placed under international control and freely opened to all nations,
Bulgaria will not be cut off from external communications. Moreover,
Greece is willing to offer her special commercial rights, to be defined
by the Powers, in certain Greek ports on the Aegean. But this quite
naturally does not satisfy the Bulgars. They maintain that if they were
to be deprived of their one direct and secure access to the open sea,
this would be a disaster and an affront from which their people would
never recover.
This raises, of course, the political question. From the standpoint
of nationality, it would seem only just to award Eastern Thrace to
Greece, and perhaps at least the southern half of Western Thrace as
well. The Greeks ardently desire this, both for the sake of liberating
their kinsmen, and also, doubtless, in order to build a bridge towards
Constantinople, the glittering prize of the future, which is always
dangling before Greek eyes. But beyond this narrow isthmus of Hellenism
along the north Aegean coast, there would always be the lowering
Bulgarian giant, thirsting to recover what he considers to be the key
to his house. Whatever be the rights and wrongs in the case, a very
severe strain is being put upon Bulgaria’s self-control by the present
settlement of the Macedonian question. If, in addition, Bulgaria were
to be permanently stripped of the territory she already possesses on
the Aegean, the resulting dangers to the peace of the Balkans would be
obvious.
For some such reasons, and since the ethnographic situation in Western
Thrace was so uncertain, the American representatives at Paris, as is
well known, stood out against the attribution of this territory to
Greece. Finally, a compromise was arranged by which, in the treaty of
Neuilly, Bulgaria was made simply to cede the disputed territory to
the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. What they will do with
it remains, apparently, still unsettled. It may pass to Greece; it
may ultimately be restored to Bulgaria; conceivably it may be joined
to Eastern Thrace to form an internationally controlled autonomous
state. In any case, this is likely to remain one of the danger-zones of
Eastern Europe.
The fate of Eastern Thrace is still awaiting the conclusion
of peace with Turkey and the settlement of the far greater
problem--Constantinople. That most tantalizing of questions has gone
through some astonishing phases since 1913. Seven years ago the Bulgar
was thundering at the lines of Chatalja, and Tsar Ferdinand was said
to be ordering the diadem with which he was to be crowned in St.
Sophia. Five years ago the Russian solution was at last accepted by
England and France, though those states for a century had seemed to
believe that the establishment of the Muscovites on the Bosporus would
mean the end of everything. Then after the collapse of Russia and of
Turkey people talked only of sending the Turk “bag and baggage” back to
Asia and of establishing a small international state on the straits,
with the United States as mandatory. This project seems now to be
beyond the range of possibilities. The next best plan would seem to
be to install the Greeks, who from the standpoint of history and of
population statistics have at least as good a right to be there as the
Turks, and from the standpoint of their general utility in the world
an infinitely better right. But the news dispatches of the last month
foreshadow that the drama will end with an anti-climax. Since England
and France are each unwilling to allow the other to control this
coveted position, since both are rather sceptical of Greece’s present
fitness for so responsible a rôle, and England moreover is disquieted
by certain possible repercussions in India and elsewhere, it now seems
to be agreed that the Sultan is to remain in Constantinople. Once more,
the Turk is to make good his claim to having nine lives, and from the
old cause--the rivalries of the Christians. There will doubtless be
elaborate arrangements about neutralizing and internationalizing the
straits, and the Sultan will issue whole batches of paper reforms; but
I fear that many people will be inclined to echo the words of the late
President Roosevelt, that (after the close of the War), “it would be a
betrayal of civilization to leave the Turks in Europe.”
* * * * *
I do not wish, however, to end upon a note of pessimism. Whatever
mistakes may have been made in connection with the territorial problems
of Eastern Europe--and some mistakes were inevitable, in view of the
tremendous multiplicity and complexity of the problems raised--the
general outcome represents an immense gain for the cause of liberty and
nationality. The dream which haunted Mazzini and so many other liberals
of fifty years ago--the transformation of the four great despotisms
of Eastern Europe--Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Turkey--into a world
of free, self-determining national states--has now been in large part
realized. The unification of Italy, delayed for half a century, is
now virtually finished; and from the Baltic to the Aegean there has
been built up a tier of national states, which may perhaps set a check
upon any recrudescence of Pan-Germanism, and which some people have
called ‘the new bulwark of liberty in the East.’ Of course, fears are
expressed as to ‘the Balkanization of Eastern Europe.’ But if that
charge implies a disintegration of the older units into a large number
of small and permanently feeble states, the complaint is scarcely well
founded. After all, in the area considered in these lectures, only
two really new states have been created. In the main, the effort has
been to round out older ones so as to make their political frontiers
coincide with their ethnographic ones, to unite rather than to
divide. As a result we have Poland, with about thirty million people;
Czecho-Slovakia with twelve to thirteen millions; Roumania with fifteen
millions; Yugo-Slavia with twelve to thirteen millions; Greece, which
may attain six to seven millions;--results which scarcely fit in with
the charge of Balkanization.
Whatever mistakes there may have been, whatever selfish interests have
occasionally come unpleasantly to light, I think it may be justly
affirmed that on no similar occasion in the past has so earnest and
systematic an effort been made to settle territorial questions on the
basis, not of the interests or the convenience of the Great Powers, but
of the rights and aspirations of the peoples directly concerned; that
the Peace Conference at Paris has liberated and unified more nations
than any previous European congress, or all the congresses of the last
century taken together; and that the principle of nationality has never
before won so sweeping and signal a victory.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
In view of the fact that most of the numerous ethnographic maps of
the Balkan Peninsula are works of propaganda or else are copied from
earlier works so that they often have no independent value, it is
a not inessential precaution to consult the article by Haardt von
Hartenturm, “Die Kartographie der Balkanhalbinsel im 19. Jht.,”
in the _Mitteilungen des k. k. Militär-geographischen Instituts_,
xxi, Vienna, 1901. The later maps are enumerated by Jovan Cvijić
in his article, “Die ethnographische Abgrenzung der Völker auf der
Balkanhalbinsel,” in _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, 1913 (i).
This latter article is accompanied by the author’s own ethnographic
map of the Peninsula, which represents the conclusions of the most
eminent and one of the most moderate of Serbian scholars. Professor
Cvijić has published another map of the same character in the
_Geographical Review_, May, 1918.
A large Bulgarian work obviously designed for propagandist purposes
is the atlas of forty maps, accompanied by explanatory text, entitled
_The Bulgarians in their Historical, Ethnographical, and Political
Frontiers_, published at Berlin in 1917, in German, French, English,
and Russian, by a group of scholars headed by D. Rizoff. (Cf. the
critical observations on this work by Professor Beliċ, _Les Cartes
ethnographiques au service de la propagande bulgare_. Paris, 1918.)
A similar historic and ethnographic atlas for Roumania has been
referred to in the bibliography for Chapter VII.
The geography of the Peninsula is described by Jovan Cvijić, _La
Péninsule balkanique, géographie humaine_, Paris, 1918; and Marion
Newbigin, _Geographical Aspects of Balkan Problems in their Relation
to the Great European War_, 2d impression, London, 1915.
From the mass of excellent historical works dealing with the Balkans,
one would commend especially: N. Forbes, A. J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany,
and D. G. Hogarth: _The Balkans, a History of Bulgaria, Serbia,
Greece, Rumania, Turkey_, Oxford, 1915; J. A. R. Marriott, _The
Eastern Question, an Historical Study in European Diplomacy_, Oxford,
1917; R. W. Seton-Watson, The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans,
London, 1917; and (Baron) L. H. C. Courtney (editor), _Nationalism and
War in the Near East, by a Diplomatist_. Oxford, 1916.
The aspirations, claims, and policy of Bulgaria have received their
most moderate and candid presentation from “Historicus,” _Bulgaria and
her Neighbors_, New York, 1917; and G. C. Logio, _Bulgaria: Problems
and Politics_, New York, 1919.
There is a fairly detailed map showing the new frontiers of Bulgaria
as fixed by the treaty of Neuilly in the _Geographical Journal_,
February, 1920.
On the situation and claims of Greece, see Charles Vellay,
_L’Irrédentisme hellénique_, Paris, 1913; and “Polybius,” _Greece
before the Conference_, London, 1919.
The literature of the Macedonian question is enormous. Among
pre-War works on the subject by impartial outsiders, one would name
especially: Victor Bérard, _La Turquie et l’hellénisme contemporain_,
Paris, 1896, and _La Macédoine_, Paris, 1897; H. N. Brailsford,
_Macedonia, its Races and their Future_, London, 1906; and G.
Amadori-Virgilj, _La Questione rumeliota_, vol. i, Bitonto, 1908 (also
very useful on Albania and Epirus). The Bulgarian claims to Macedonia
are set forth notably by “A. Ofeikov” (pseudonym for Šopov), _La
Macédoine au point de vue ethnographique, historique et philologique_,
Philippopolis, 1887; S. Radeff, _La Macédoine et la renaissance
bulgare au XIXᵉ siècle_, Sofia, 1918; and V. Sís, _Mazedonien, eine
Studie über Geographie, Geschichte, Volkskunde ..._, Zurich, 1918. The
Serbian point of view is presented by T. R. Georgevitch, _Macedonia_,
London, 1918; Jovan Cvijić, _Questions balkaniques_, Paris, 1916; and
A. Belić, _La Macédoine, études ethnographiques et politiques_, Paris,
1919. For the Greek side of the case, see M. Paillares, _L’Imbroglio
macédonien_, Paris, 1907; and S. P. Phocas-Cosmetatos, _La Macédoine,
son passé et son présent_, Paris, 1919.
Regarding the Dobrudja question, the Roumanian claims are set forth
by N. P. Comnène, _La Dobrogea: essai historique, économique,
ethnographique, et politique_, Paris, 1918; and the Bulgarian
standpoint is upheld by A. Ishirkov, _Les Bulgares en Dobrudja; aperçu
historique et ethnographique_, Berne, 1919.
On the question of Northern Epirus (or Southern Albania) one may
consult, for the Greek side, N. J. Cassavetes, _The Question of
Northern Epirus at the Peace Conference_, Boston, 1919; and R. Puaux,
_The Sorrows of Epirus_, London, 1918. The Albanian point of view in
this and other questions is set forth by C. A. Chekrezi, _Albania Past
and Present_, New York, 1919; C. A. Dako, _Albania, the Master Key
to the Near East_, Boston, 1919; and in the _Memorandum submitted by
the Albanian Delegation to the Peace Conference_ (published by the
Association for International Conciliation, American Branch, New York,
1919: no. 138 of their series).
Very little has yet been published on the question of Thrace. The most
useful compendium of maps, statistics, and historical and ethnographic
data about it is _The Question of Thrace: Greeks, Bulgars, and Turks_,
by J. Saxon Mills and M. G. Chrussachi, London, 1919 (primarily based
on Bulgarian data, used to refute Bulgarian claims).
On the problem of the Straits, the best treatment--both historical and
analytical--is probably to be found in the recent volume by Coleman
Philippson and Noel Buxton, _The Question of the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles_, London, 1917. A brief but excellent essay is A. C.
Coolidge’s _Claimants to Constantinople_, Cambridge, Mass., 1917.
The London _Times_ of May 12, 1920, contains a rather full account of
the terms of the treaty of peace with Turkey, which have just been
officially presented to the Ottoman government. These proposed terms
have been given out too late to be considered in the text of the
present volume.
[Illustration:
VI
MAP OF THE BALKANS]
INDEX
Aabenraa, 42.
Adrianople, 266.
Adriatic question, the, 225, 244-262.
Adriatic Sea, the, 206, 225, 268.
Adriatic territories, 213, 244-262, 280f.
Adriatic-Transbalkan railway, proposed, 280.
Aegean Sea, the, 266, 268, 278, 283, 284, 287.
Africa, 9.
Agram, 248, 257.
Albania, 265, 278-281, 290.
Albanians, 268, 278-281.
Albert of Hohenzollern, first duke of Prussia (1525-68), 162.
Alexander Karageorgevich, prince regent of Serbia, 269f.
Alexandria, 182.
Alföld, plain of the, 231, 232.
Alpine racial type, the, 16, 86, 87, 119.
Alps, the, 20, 211, 222, 225, 244, 268.
Alsace, 12, 16, 76, 77, 78f., 87, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 101, 117,
119, 120, 123, 133.
_See_ Alsace-Lorraine.
Alsace-Lorraine, 17, 29, 75-116, 132, 134, 136, 139, 150, 187, 267,
279.
American Geographical Society, the, 23.
Amsterdam, 63.
Anarchy, 5f., 204.
Antwerp, 54, 62, 63, 65.
Arc de Triomphe, the, 4.
Argyrocastro, 278, 280.
Armenia, 226.
Armenians, 166.
Arndt, E. M., 118.
Arva, 188, 213.
Asia, 9, 210, 285.
Asia Minor, 15, 17, 278.
Athens, 282.
Augustus Caesar, 201.
Aulard, F. A., 138.
‘Ausonian Republic,’ 247.
Austria, 3, 11, 33, 38, 39, 67, 91, 93, 94, 159, 171, 201-229, 244,
246, 250, 256, 270, 277, 287.
Austria-Hungary, 6, 14, 17, 188-191, 203-210, 248, 265.
Austrian Netherlands, the, 52.
Austrian Silesia, 158, 212, 216, 219.
Autonomy, 106, 207, 238, 280, 285.
Avlona, 281.
Baden, 12, 76, 121, 122, 123.
Bagdad, 242.
Baker, R. S., 34.
Balkans, the, 15, 17, 20, 238, 245, 263-290.
Balkan wars, the, of 1912-13, 263f., 265f., 267, 282, 285.
Ballad literature, of the Macedonian Slavs, 270.
Baltic provinces, the, 17.
Baltic Sea, the, 157, 159, 161, 162, 164, 167, 178, 179, 180, 181,
287.
Banat of Temesvár, the, 240.
Barker, J. E., quoted, 202.
Baruch, B. M., 24.
Basel, 122.
Basque region, the, 90.
Bas-Rhin, department of the, 114.
Bavaria, 79, 121, 124, 132, 144.
Belfort, 104, 105.
Belgian Congo, the, 71.
Belgium, 11, 48-73, 90, 93, 121, 122, 131.
Belgrade, 240, 248, 277.
Belleau Wood, 5.
_Bellum omnium contra omnes_, 205.
Benson, W. S., 25.
Berlin, 140, 145, 191, 192, 207;
congress of (1878), 9, 267.
Bernhoft, H. A., 42.
Bessarabia, 276.
Birkenfeld, principality of, 124.
Bismarck, Prince Otto, 38f., 101, 153, 154;
quoted, 100, 212.
Black Sea, the, 167, 238, 268, 276, 282, 283.
Blockade, problems of, 5.
Böcking, family, 137.
Böcking, H., 136, 151.
Bohemia, 18f., 93, 211, 212, 213-222, 223.