THE TRAIL OF THE INSURGENT
The Consuls and two newspaper correspondents cordoned at the storm
centre received comprehensive and accurate reports of what was
happening in the surrounding country through a secret emissary of
the revolutionary committee. This envoy extraordinary, pleading his
cause before the foreign representatives at a hostile capital, was
a man of nerve, resource, and careful judgment, as well he had to
be. Besides his other accomplishments, he had a knowledge of three
European languages, French, German, and Italian, and was therefore
able to translate the official insurgent reports from the original
Bulgarian into languages understood of the Consuls. The contents of
these periodical papers were a record of recent activities on the part
of both insurgents and Turks. Combats and massacres were located, and
where possible the numbers of killed and wounded were given. The final
report was a summary of the summer’s work. It announced the razing,
partial or entire, of 120 villages, and stated that 60,000 peasants
in the vilayet of Monastir were homeless. Illustrating the report was
a map which had been drafted by a skilled hand and manifolded by
machine; a key in the corner explained the meanings of the different
intensities of colour in which the villages were marked, from white,
indicating total escape, to black, total effacement.
The dissemination of such information during the ‘general rising’
defeated the designs of the lawful administration, and, of course, the
Turkish police were hard on the trail of the enemy in their midst.
Hitherto it had been the practice of the Governor-General (who, like
us, had left Uskub for more active fields) to inform foreign consuls
only of such serious disorders as he could not hope to keep from
them. Until now the number of casualties on the Turkish side in any
single combat had been limited to ‘three killed and two wounded,’ and
the Imperial Ottoman reports invariably defeated the ‘brigands.’ Now
the limit of losses had to be raised, because of consular scepticism
as to their accuracy, but still no record of defeat at the hands of
the insurgents was ever permitted. Insurgent bands seldom numbered
more than a hundred; nevertheless, his Excellency Hilmi Pasha would
occasionally announce a loss to them of several hundreds. Invariably
such a ‘destruction of brigands’ proved on unofficial information
to be a massacre of non-combatants. It annoyed the chief officer of
reforms exceedingly that foreign consuls and correspondents should give
credence to the reports of the insurgents in preference to those of his
office. His worry, however, was only on the score of effect in Europe;
the tacit implication as to his veracity disturbed his excellency
indeed very little.
A square-jawed Servian of some six-and-twenty years, dressed as a
European with the exception of the fez, entered the Hôtel Belgrade
for a cup of coffee--one act which never attracts suspicion. The café
of the distinguished hostelry was otherwise deserted except for the
Englishman and me. The stranger seated himself near us, looked us over
while he sipped his coffee, then addressed us cautiously.
‘You are English correspondents?’ he inquired in a low voice in German.
‘We are,’ said my comprehending companion.
‘I have a confidential communication to make. Will you take me to your
room?’
We went to the Englishman’s room, and the Servian explained his
mission; whereupon he opened the door and called in a boy, not over
fifteen, clad in a Greek gabardine, and carrying a basket of eggs.
This was our first meeting with the agent of the revolutionary
committee. Of course, the papers meant for us were among the eggs.
For many weeks thereafter the envoy extraordinary and his youthful
first secretary delivered the incriminating documents, but seldom twice
in the same manner.
One day we received a message asking us to meet the insurgent at a
certain house within the hour; the case was imperative. We made our way
to the place indicated, and there received the revolutionist’s report
with the map already mentioned. The man apologised for being unable
to bring his final paper to us, and continued, ‘I must not be seen in
the street to-day. They have my brother. They came to the house this
morning while I was out and took him. The boy found me, and warned me
not to return. For me it is fortunate that my work here is done.’
We never saw the Servian committaji again, and do not know that he
eluded his pursuers; perhaps they were too close on his trail.
Monastir was thronged with Turkish warriors, Albanians, Anatolians,
and European Turks, soldiers and bashi-bazouks, hale men and halt men;
a one-armed soldier and a hump-backed dwarf carried guns, Turk and
Turk alike. The vast barracks was overcrowded, tents stretched across
the parade ground, otherwise seldom utilised, and climbed high up the
mountain behind the caserne. The military hospital was surrounded
by tents. A certain subdued delight fills the breast of the gentle
Turk, and renders the combative Albanian loyal to the Padisha, when
the native _rajah_ gives cause for castigation. There is glory for
Mohamed in the despatch of an infidel, and material profit in the
plunder reaped.[6] Nearly a hundred thousand Albanian and Turkish
soldiers were crowded into the Monastir vilayet to ‘repress’ the ‘armed
insurrection,’ and such resident Mohamedans as were not called to the
colours sharpened their yataghans and joined unorganised in the work of
the army.
With this force on the warpath the town became quiet. Such Bulgarians
as had not gone to the mountains became Greeks or Servians, and for
a time the race disappeared from the streets. Greeks and Vlachs also
kept close to their houses, and some days only soldiers selling plunder
held the market place. The army commandeered the better pack-animals
and teams as they appeared on the streets, paying for them in paper
promises--in consequence whereof all fit animals were soon kept
stabled. Honest toil ceased, and only the labour of the struggle
continued. In the early morning, before the town stirred, detachments
of troops started for the mountains with many pack-ponies, each laden
with four ample tins of petroleum. At night, when Monastir was still
again, the pack-ponies came back--bringing in the wounded of the Turks.
The revolutionary committee had declared the ‘general rising’ of
the peasants with less than ten thousand rifles of all patterns,[7]
a meagre force with which to contest the Ottoman authority, and a
poor result for the price that had been paid in men and morals. The
insurgents had been gathering arms for several years. Many murders
had been committed in Macedonia in the forced collection of levied
assessments, and some had taken place in Bulgaria; many massacres of
innocent peasants had been brought about in the Turkish search for
arms; many insurgents had given their lives fetching the arms from
friendly and hostile frontiers.[8]
The high chiefs of the committee never expected to defeat the Turks
with their inadequate force of untrained peasants; their purpose was to
provoke the Sultan to set his soldiers upon the Christians. They were
willing to pay the lives of many thousands of their brother Macedonians
for the accomplishment of their desire--the country’s autonomy. They
were fanatics. The Turks called them Christian fanatics, but it was
not only the insurgents who were frenzied; probably 40,000 men, women,
and children, the entire population of many villages, went to the
mountains unarmed. This was the general rising. And all the Bulgarians
who remained in their villages, and many other Macedonians, gave their
whole sympathy to the cause of the committajis.
The revolution was declared in the vilayet of Monastir, among other
reasons, because of a specific design upon the Greek communities. You
have seen in a previous chapter how the Turks at repression recognised
no difference between Greeks and Bulgarians, massacring both alike,
even though the Greek clergy had some assurance that Bulgarians alone
would be ‘repressed.’ The insurgents understood the Turk better. They
laid deliberate plans to draw him down upon the communities of hostile
politics. By capturing lightly garrisoned towns whose inhabitants
adhered to the Greek Church, putting the Turkish soldiers to death,
they drew the Turks in force to the retaking of these places, whence
they (the insurgents) would cautiously withdraw, leaving the ‘Greeks’
to the vengeance of the Mohamedans. They argued that measure must
be met by measure; Greek priests converted by threatening Bulgarian
peasants with the Turk.
A storm of protest came from Athens, directed chiefly against one
Bakhtiar Pasha, simultaneously commander of the most bloodthirsty body
of soldiers and the most rapacious band of bashi-bazouks, who put to
the sword and the torch both exarchist and patriarchist community.
With the support of ambassadors of the Powers, the Greek Minister at
Constantinople demanded the immediate relief of this general from
his command ‘in the interest and honour of the Turkish army’; and
the Sultan, always tractable under pressure, promised to punish the
offending pasha. Forthwith the deviceful monarch despatched a special
messenger from Constantinople to Monastir, bearing congratulations and
the Order of the Mijidieh in diamonds for Bakhtiar the Brave.
But there came a day when Abdul Hamid kept a promise. Two ‘Greek’
towns, Nevaska and Klissura, were captured by insurgents and the
Turkish garrison put to death. Some time elapsed before the Turks
saw fit to retake the towns, and during the interval the Sultan was
persuaded not ‘to further alienate Greek sympathies.’
[Illustration: A TURKISH BAND LEAVING MONASTIR.]
[Illustration: BASHI-BAZOUKS.]
At the approach of a strong body of Turks the insurgents retired, and
the soldiers entered the town in military order, blades sheathed, and
leading no asses laden with petroleum.[9]
But massacre and the burning of villages continued, and refugees
entered Monastir in large numbers, some coming in alone, others
travelling in companies. Several hundred women and children who arrived
from Smelivo, one of Bakhtiar’s ‘victories,’ were driven back from
Monastir by troops, though without further reduction of their numbers.
The news of this came to the Consuls in a very few hours, and the
Austrian, who was most active, visited the Governor-General at once and
protested; whereupon the survivors of Smelivo were allowed to enter
Monastir.
One day a woman among the refugees went to Herr Kraal and asked him to
obtain the release of a son, whom she had thought dead, but had seen
alive in the custody of certain Turks. The Consul caused his dragoman
to ascertain where the boy was kept, and on learning the exact house,
he called on Hilmi Pasha and stated the case. His excellency was
horrified at such a charge against a Turk. For what purpose would a
Mohamedan steal a Christian child? The Consul gave the Governor-General
the location of the house, and threatened to send his dragoman and
kavasses to release the child unless the police were put to the job at
once. An Austrian dragoman accompanied the Turkish police; the boy was
found and restored to his mother.
There was a Greek in Monastir known as a professional redeemer
of stolen Christians. Through the instrumentality of the Greek
Vice-Consul, Jean Dragoumis, this curious character and I were brought
together. I ascertained from him that he had, in a period of twenty
years, participated in the rescue of seventeen of his compatriots. Most
of them were girls and women stolen by force or enticed from their
own homes by Mohamedans. The most recent instance of this fortunately
infrequent practice occurred, the native alleged, during our presence
in Monastir. Two small boys were brought into Monastir by a Turkish
soldier and ‘offered for sale on the market place’ along with other
plunder. A subscription was raised among some Greeks, according to
my informant, and the children were ‘purchased’ from the Turk for
four mijidiehs. ‘Since Herr Kraal has protested,’ said the rescuer of
Christians, ‘orders have been issued that no more stolen children
shall be brought into Monastir.’ Jean Dragoumis himself, a splendid
young Greek, interpreted for me on this occasion.
It is always difficult in Turkey to know just what is true and what
is false. Even the peasants will attempt, for one consideration
or another, to impose upon the stranger. Sometimes they invent
or embellish incidents simply for vain notoriety, and again with
deliberate intent to prejudice your sympathy. The refugees who came
into Monastir from the surrounding country told some terrible tales.
They told of dead lying unburied by the roadway, where they had been
shot for no other reason than their race--which was undoubtedly
true. They told in many instances of dogs gorging upon the unburied
dead--which is quite probable; the hungry, bread-fed dogs of Turkey
would devour any flesh. They told, in one case, of children having been
thrown alive into a burning lime-kiln--which is possible. They told of
women having been flayed alive--which I do not believe; it is not in
the Turk’s nature to inflict lingering torture.
My companion and I saw among the refugees in the Greek hospital a
woman whose shoulder had been almost severed from her body with a
single sword slash; another woman whose hand had been cut off with a
sabre--the arm, she said, had held her infant, which was hacked to
pieces at her feet. We saw a small boy who had been shot through the
head, and a small girl who had been stabbed in several places. These
were the most cruel of many cases in the hospital.
On one occasion we succeeded in entering the Turkish civil hospital,
where there were a number of wounded Bulgarians. In a women’s ward,
where bandaged heads and limbs were in plain evidence, the dutiful
doctor, a Greek, informed us that his patients were all suffering from
‘feminine complaints.’
‘But,’ we said, ‘some of them appear to be wounded.’
‘Oh, a few,’ replied the loyal servant of the Sultan, ‘must have
attempted to commit suicide. They were found with wounds.’
At the barred door of a prison ward, through which we could see
bandaged men, we were told, for variety, that this was the ‘accident’
ward. We inquired what comprised accidents.
‘Some fell out of trees, others amputated their own arms while cutting
wood.’ This deviceful M.D. was indeed worthy of the Sultan’s service.
Towards the close of the revolution a Turkish proclamation addressed to
the peasants in the mountains was placarded throughout the vilayet. It
read, in true Ottoman fashion, in part as follows:
[Illustration: TURKS ON THE MARCH.]
‘There is no need to mention how much his Imperial Majesty the Padisha,
our benefactor and enlightened master, desires the prosperity of
the country and the welfare of all his subjects without exception,
sacrificing sleep and quiet day and night, thinking how to perfect his
lofty purposes, and therefore commands the execution of certain
benefits. Everywhere courts are approved and established for the
preservation of the rights of the people; for the guarding of faithful
subjects and the execution of the laws bodies of police and gendarmes
are enlisted; for the saving of life and property guards are appointed;
for the spreading of education schools are opened; roads and bridges
are constructed for the people to carry food and merchandise; as also
are begun everywhere various other needed benefits, and for this end
part of the local income is apportioned.’
(‘I have the honour to transmit herewith a translation of the
proclamation to the Bulgarians,’ ran the official report of the British
Consul covering this document. ‘The list of reforms accomplished is
purely illusory!’)
‘But some evil-minded ones,’ continued the proclamation, ‘not wishing
the people to be benefited by these favours, and regarding only their
own selfish interest, deceive the inhabitants and commit various
repulsive transgressions. There is not the least ground for the
lies and assurances with which the Bulgarians are deceived. All the
civilised people of Europe and elsewhere regard with horror their
deeds, which destroy the peace of the land, and everywhere--with great
impatience--the suppression of these enemies to peace and order is
awaited. The Imperial Government observes with sorrow that many people
still rebel notwithstanding that until now, because of its great
mercy, it has proceeded with marked clemency toward the agitators.
But since the Government cannot coolly see the order of the country
destroyed and the peaceful population subjected to murders and other
evils, it categorically orders the commanders of the troops, wherever
they are sent, to disperse and kill _most severely_ the disturbers
and their followers who still remain in rebellion. Therefore, for the
last time, the Bulgarians who have been deceived and have left their
fireside and their trades are invited to return to their homes and
villages, and those who do not return and run towards the mercy of the
Imperial Government will be punished and _destroyed in the severest
fashion_.’[10]
The rebels did not run toward the mercy of the Imperial Government,
but many of them, because of their privations with the bands and the
approach of winter, began to return from the mountains to their homes
or the sites of them, seeking on all occasions to avoid the Turkish
troops. I heard an account of how in one instance a party of some
forty men and a hundred women and children received a message from a
detachment of the army promising them safety if they would return to
their village, and with this specific assurance they ventured back.
They were met on the way by the Turks, and the men were manacled and
marched away towards Florina, where, the Turks said, their names would
be recorded and they would then be set free. About half-way to town
they met a larger body of soldiers, commanded by a superior officer,
who demanded why Bulgarians had been made prisoners. No adequate reply
forthcoming, the ranking man gave orders that the peasants should be
put to death forthwith. The troops set upon the handcuffed men, slew
them, and decapitated their bodies. The headless bodies, so the story
goes, were thrown into the stream. What became of the heads none could
say.
(A photographer at Monastir has, in former years, taken many pictures
of Turkish soldiers and officers standing behind tables on which were
laid the battered heads of Bulgarians and other ‘brigands.’ But heads
are no longer brought into Monastir, and the photographer has been
forbidden to display all pictures of this nature. I was able, however,
to procure some.)
On a visit to Hilmi Pasha’s office soon after this incident I took
occasion to mention it to his excellency. He was completely ignorant of
the story, and asked me for details.
‘No, no, Monsieur Moore,’ he declared when I concluded; ‘none of the
Sultan’s men would do such a deed.’
‘But your excellency,’ I said, ‘I know that the Metropolitan of Florina
called on the kaimakam and requested him to have the bodies drawn out
of the water and buried. The main facts of the story cannot be denied.’
‘Where did you say the Bulgarians were from?’ asked the Governor.
I consulted my note-book and told him.
‘There is no such place.’
‘Perhaps I have not pronounced the name properly, but the act of
treachery remains,’ I contended.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Hilmi, ‘the town was ----;[11] I recollect now.
Monsieur Moore, Turks never lie. With your pronunciation and the
error in the figures you gave I did not recognise the affair. There
were sixty Bulgarians killed, not forty. But the deed was not one of
treachery; it happened two days before the Sultan granted pardon to the
rebels.’
The inspector-general volunteered some further information on other
affairs, notably that of Krushevo. At first the Turks contended that
the insurgents had burned and pillaged the Vlach town. Now Hilmi Pasha
informed me that bashi-bazouks had done the work. ‘The officers,’ he
said, ‘tried to keep them off the heels of the army, but they were
many, many, and while occupied fighting the insurgents the troops
could not prevent the bashi-bazouks from plundering. I have had thirty
bashi-bazouks arrested, and I have just received a report from one
of my officers stating that four thousand animals, which were driven
off by the bashi-bazouks, have been returned to the inhabitants of
Krushevo.’
This statement was both an important admission and an interesting
announcement, and I sent it at once to the _Times_, for which I was
now correspondent. But a few days later on visiting Krushevo I was
compelled to contradict his excellency’s information as to the
return of stolen cattle.
[Illustration: TURKISH TROOPS.]
In spite of the efforts of the authorities to suppress the news of
what was happening, and to gull the correspondents, we were able to
collect much valuable information, and through the Consular post to get
our despatches safely to the Servian frontier, whence they were wired
to London uncensored. When the Governor-General learned--_via_ London
and Constantinople--the nature of the reports the correspondents were
sending through, he was much disturbed, and sought to frighten us out
of the country. He sent a communication to Mr. McGregor informing him
that he had received a letter from the committajis announcing that they
intended to assassinate a British consul, a British correspondent,
or an American missionary. The Consul--I use his words--considered
this ‘a step taken by the authorities in order to cast suspicion
on the Bulgarians in the much more likely eventuality of a Turkish
outrage,’ and ‘consequently reminded Hilmi Pasha that, whatever the
nationality of anyone guilty of a crime against a British subject, the
responsibility of the Imperial Government will be the same.’