THE LAST TRAIL
Late in September, when the snows began to fall upon the Balkans, the
insurgents called a conference, and Damian Grueff, the supreme chief,
and many of the high chiefs of the Internal Revolutionary Committee,
met on Bigla Dagh. About six hundred committajis were gathered with the
voivodas. A triple line of sentinels cordoned the mountain, and for ten
miles in every direction outposts watched the roads.
The fighting season was over. The revolution had not accomplished its
purpose; all it had brought about was a beggarly extension of the
Austro-Russian reforms. But there was no use continuing to fight. The
peasants were beginning to return to their villages--or the sites of
them--and what arms they still possessed had better be taken from them
and stored in safe hiding-places for another year.
The organisation was reduced to a winter status, Damian Grueff
remaining in active command of some sixty bands of a thousand men in
all. The other insurgents were parolled until summoned again.
The committajis had hoped that the ‘general rising’--or, rather, the
suppression which they foresaw for it--would cause the Powers of
Europe to make Macedonia autonomous. They put most of their faith in
the sympathy of Great Britain, and in this they made no mistake--though
Great Britain has tried for a long time to sympathise with the Turks.
At the wanton suppression of the feeble rising it was the British
Government that advocated the delivery of the province from Turkish
control. Austria and Russia, on the contrary, and especially Russia,
urged upon the Turkish Government the necessity of a rapid and thorough
repression of the rising, and warned Bulgaria early and often against
entering into the conflict.
It was announced during the revolution that the Russian Czar and the
Austrian Emperor would meet, together with their Foreign Ministers,
at Murzsteg; and to this conference the Bulgarians attached much hope
until it was declared from Vienna and St. Petersburg that the interview
of the Emperors would in no way alter their Macedonian programme.
The programme was altered, however, as a compromise with Lord
Lansdowne. The British Foreign Minister, with support from the
Governments of Italy and France, proposed to the Austrian and Russian
Foreign Ministers, while at Murzsteg, that Macedonia be placed under
the control of a governor-general independent of the Sultan and
responsible to the Powers alone. The Austro-Russian alliance objected
to this, but, in spite of previous declarations to the contrary, agreed
to extend their scheme of reforms.
The Murzsteg programme, as the new scheme is known, provided for
the appointment of two civil agents, one Austrian and one Russian,
to ‘assist’ Hilmi Pasha; for the appointment of foreign officers to
reform the Turkish gendarmerie; and for taxation, financial, and other
reforms. The two most interested Powers would have employed only
Austrian and Russian officers to reorganise the Turkish gendarmerie,
but Italy and Great Britain insisted on participating in this work, and
each of them, as well as France, sent a contingent of five officers and
a chief to Turkey. Germany, in consideration of the Sultan, who opposed
this reform desperately, declined to detail a staff.
The Russian civil agents (the first was withdrawn) have both been men
with Russian ideas of government. The Austrians (the first of whom
died) have been without sufficient support from Vienna. Hilmi Pasha
remains absolute governor of the Rumelian provinces, and the second
Austro-Russian programme remains at this writing, April 1906, little
more effective than the first. Except in the district of Drama, where
the British officers operate, there is little change in the condition
of Macedonia. Soldiers and civil officials, left unpaid, continue
their work of plunder and extortion, murders are numerous, and minor
massacres take place from time to time; the insurgents maintain
their organisation, skeleton bands continue to roam the country, and
occasionally fights occur.
During 1905 Lord Lansdowne again pressed for effective measures of
reform. The Italian and French Governments again gave him some
support. Towards the end of the year Austria and Russia ‘invited’ the
other Powers to participate in an international naval demonstration to
wrest from the Sultan financial autonomy for Macedonia. The British
Foreign Office at once agreed to participate, and proposed that the
demonstration should exact also effective reforms in the judicial
administration of Macedonia, but the two most interested Powers again
opposed whole-hearted measures. Germany advised the Sultan to accede,
but would send no ships.
* * * * *
After the conference on Bigla Dagh, the voivodas, with their bands,
separated, bound in different directions on various missions. Boris
Sarafoff, with ninety men, dropped south from Bigla Dagh around Florina
to convey news of the revolution’s end to certain other bands, and
to gather arms from the peasants. The band were destined ultimately
to return to Bulgaria, 120 miles away; but they were doomed to cover
several times this distance, spending thirty-four days, on the march
back to the free land.
They now avoided encounters with the Turks, travelled by night and
rested by day. At the limit of each revolutionary district the band
were met by a guide, who conducted them on to the next. They found the
local organisations, disarmed the ‘irregulars,’ and secreted the rifles
and munitions. They dropped almost due south, passing along the crest
of the mountain range to the east of Lake Presba, which Bakhtiar
Pasha’s forces were then ‘driving’; but Sarafoff, with several other
bands, slipped through and proceeded in safety down around Florina,
then up across the Monastir-Salonica railway, and north by a zigzag
trail past Prelip to the Vardar above Kuprili.
[Illustration: THE MACEDONIAN.]
At the side of the Vardar runs the railway from Servia to Salonica,
utilising the cuts the water has made in centuries of flow through the
mountains. At every mile-post along the railway was a military camp or
a blockhouse. Here was the first failure of the organisation.
The local guide did not appear at the appointed meeting-place, and the
band waited in vain. What happened to the peasant was never known, but
shortly after the appointed hour several voices were heard. Lest the
party who were approaching should be Turks, the insurgents took the
precaution to remain silent.
The voices became distinct, and the insurgents were relieved to hear
the Bulgarian tongue. One of Sarafoff’s lieutenants, named Detcheff,
also an ex-Bulgarian officer, was sent out to meet the newcomers. A
call of ‘Halt!’ was heard, and in quick succession the crack of several
rifles. Detcheff did not return.
The number of the enemy was evidently small, and they took themselves
off hurriedly in the direction they had come. The band were much
attached to Detcheff, and hotheads among the men were for following the
Turks; but Sarafoff, seeing the folly and danger of this, led them off
at once towards the river, travelling fast to escape possible trackers.
It was difficult marching in the dark without a man who knew the
ground, and the insurgents dared not light a match to look at a map.
Suddenly the band came to the edge of a yawning chasm. A stout rope
which they carried was unrolled and slung around a tree, both ends
trailing down the precipice. Two by two, one on each line of the rope,
the men dropped down to a watercourse below. Then one end of the rope
was pulled, and the other went up around the tree, and fell. The rope
had to be saved.
The insurgents arrived at the river before morning, but did not dare
to cross without a survey. They laid themselves down on an elevation
covered with a thick growth of shrub, speaking only in whispers
throughout the next day. It was a tantalising day, for every half-hour
a patrol of Asiatic or Albanian soldiers would pass at a languid
pace--and an enticing range--along the railway below. The hiding-place
of the band overlooked the river and the railway for about a mile in
each direction, and, with the aid of Austrian military maps, Sarafoff
planned his crossing and the route to be taken thereafter.
To the south, about half a mile away, was a camp of half a dozen
tents guarding a bridge; to the north, about a quarter of a mile, was
another, of tents and brush huts. Almost immediately below the band was
a narrow, walled waterway which carried flood-water from the mountain,
down under the tracks into the river. The waterway was now dry.
The night train passed south about nine o’clock. Then the Turks relaxed
their vigilance. And there was about two hours left before the moon
rose. As soon as the puff of the engine had died away in the distance,
two strong swimmers descended to the river with the rope and fastened
it securely from one shore to the other. This done, they returned and
informed the chief, and one by one the men climbed down through the
culvert and launched out into the stream. Arriving on the opposite
bank, they scurried into the woods. Four of the men, more fastidious
than the others, took off their clothes to make the passage, and
attempted to hold them, with their guns, over their heads. The Vardar
is not very deep, but its current is terrific, and all four, finding
that they needed both hands to the rope, lost their clothes. This
quartet arrived at the point of reassembling dressed in cartridge
belts; but they had saved these, their guns and dynamite bombs. Very
like Kipling’s warriors who ‘took Lungtungpen naked!’ The other men
suppressed their laughter at the discomfited group only because of the
dangerous proximity of the camp to the north, and made up between them
costumes for the shivering four.
The last man to cross the stream loosened the rope at the other side,
and two others pulled him over; and the ‘trek’ was immediately renewed.
Before day dawned, the insurgents drew up at a sheepfold on a
mountain-side. The barking of the dogs woke the old shepherd, who,
discovering the nature of his guests, roused his sheep and drove them
out; and the insurgents crept in under the low brush roofs on to the
warm straw. The insurgents took two sheep and roasted them whole for
their evening meal.
One morning, by accident, the band lay down to rest within two hundred
yards of a vast camp of soldiers. At sunset, the Mohamedans offered up
the three evening cheers for their Padisha, and the insurgents uttered
three curses upon ‘his Sultanic Majesty.’
It had come to be known to the Turks that Sarafoff was making his way
to the Bulgarian border; a reward was offered for his head, and cavalry
patrols were sent out to intercept him. But it was not difficult to
elude these, for the cavalry could not leave the roads; and it broke
the monotony of the days in hiding to watch the patrols pass on the
highways below.
It is generally with the bands to fight or not to fight; but sometimes
they are surprised by the Turks. Sarafoff and his band succeeded in
eluding the troops until they arrived in the neighbourhood of a little
town named Bouff, where, being worn out with a week’s hard marching,
they elected to rest for thirty-six hours.
The first day was uneventful, but as the second began to dawn on the
heights one of the pickets, a boy of fourteen, rushed into camp with
the news that the Turks were entering the little valley in which the
insurgents were camped. The boy had hardly delivered this news when a
picket from the summit of the ridge to the east rushed in breathless,
and announced that soldiers were climbing the slope on his side. And
from various other points soon came sentries with similar information.
The insurgents were about their chief in an instant to hear his
command. Sarafoff had studied the lie of the land overnight, and it
required but a moment for him to decide upon his plan of battle.
The band were occupying the base of a narrow ‘dip,’ one end of which
was closed by an insurmountable wall of sheer stone, and the other
now blocked by probably two hundred Turkish soldiers. Another body of
Turks, perhaps three hundred strong, were already coming over one of
the two mountain crests. The other slope--the only way of escape open
to the band--was so steep as to be impossible of ascent except by aid
of the low bush that covered it. The surprise was complete, and the
trap was tight.
There was a huge rock, lodged half-way up the open mountain-side,
which would offer some protection. Sarafoff picked eight men from his
band and started for this boulder, leaving the others, in charge of a
lieutenant, to lie low in the bushes until he and his party attained
the eminence. By climbing fast and taking the shelter of the shrubs,
the nine men got to the rock with the loss of but one of their number.
Not until then did they return the fire of the Turks, now descending
the opposite slope. As soon as the main body of the band heard the fire
of their comrades, they scattered, and started to pick their way up
around the rock to the summit of the peak. It took them two hours to
make the ascent, and during this time some of the Turks wound around
to the right of Sarafoff’s position on the boulder, and a few got far
above him to his left. Between these two raking fires the place would
have been untenable had not the insurgents above kept these parties
of Turks replenishing their numbers every minute. When the Turks
succeeded in picking off three more of Sarafoff’s men, leaving him now
but four--though all of the other insurgents had not yet reached the
point of the peak--he vacated the boulder. The four men scattered, as
the others had done, and scurried up the ascent. All five succeeded
in gaining the little fort at the top, and, without waiting to take
breath, dropped beside the main body, and took up the fusillade which
these had already begun.
While waiting for Sarafoff, the band had been surrounded. The heights
were a mass of broken boulders which afforded protection to their
enemies as well as to the insurgents. Only one spot, to the south,
was smooth and bare, and this space the Turkish commander took the
precaution not to occupy, for two reasons. First, his men would have
been picked off as fast as they filled it, and the sacrifice evidently
did not appear to him to be necessary; secondly, the opening acted as
a bait for the hard-pressed insurgents, tempting them into the passage,
on each side of which soldiers were massed in strong force. Sarafoff
surmised that this was a trap, and, while realising the hopelessness of
his position, chose to fight it out where the lives of the band would
cost the Turks dearest.
Until ten o’clock the Turks, certain of success, made no attempt
to storm the position. They had taken up secure places behind
rocks, and keeping up a desultory firing, they awaited the arrival
of reinforcements, for which they had sent to a near-by town. The
reinforcements came--for the sake of speed, in the shape of cavalry
and artillery. The cavalry could not get into action because of the
roughness of the ground, and was deployed as a patrol to prevent any
other band which might be in the neighbourhood from coming to the
relief of Sarafoff. The artillery could not be brought into close
quarters for the same reason, but it was posted on an eminence quite
within range.
Shortly before noon the cannon opened fire. The target was rather small
and decidedly indefinite, and for nearly an hour the shells went over
or fell short of the insurgent position; but when the artillerymen
finally succeeded in getting the range, the flying splinters of shell
and stone meant certain death to anyone who dared to put his head
above the rocks. The insurgent fire slackened under this hail, and
the Turkish commander, evidently supposing that the band had been
materially reduced in number, ordered an assault from all sides. The
cannon fire was discontinued for fear of working slaughter among the
charging soldiers, and the Turks came forward to the attack, dodging
from rock to rock, and closing in on all sides--except in the space
purposely left open. Sarafoff ordered half of his men to lay down their
guns and prepare their dynamite, and cautioned the others to make
every rifle shot strike its mark. He himself, expecting a hand-to-hand
encounter at the last, laid aside his gun, drew his sword, and strapped
it to his hand. The riflemen did their work well. Turks fell on every
side; but on they came! When the foremost of them got to within twenty
yards of the little fort, the insurgents began to throw their bombs.
The Turks have a terror of the dynamite bomb, and these ‘infernal
machines’ checked their advance for a time. At a lull in the din there
were repeated shouts from the Turks in Bulgarian (which many of them
speak), ‘Lay down your arms and surrender, Sarafoff! the Padisha is
good, and will surely pardon you!’ But the leader had no thought of
allowing himself and his men to fall alive into the hands of the Turks;
his knowledge of how they respect promises to ‘infidels’ precluded any
idea of his accepting the tempting offer.
It was now after one o’clock. If the band could hold out until
nightfall, there was a slight chance for some of them to cut their way
through the Turkish lines with bombs; but the Turks would certainly
make any sacrifice to storm the position before dark--the great
Sarafoff was cordoned and would not have another opportunity to escape.
The day was inclement, and thick, black clouds hung over many of the
mountains. Perhaps the Turks longed for one of these to break from its
hold on another peak, and float over to this, for they abated their
fire when a dense, all-enveloping wreath followed this course. Sarafoff
judged that they would storm his shelter in the protecting mist, and
laid his plans accordingly. At the moment that the blackness was
complete, the insurgents began again to cast their dynamite, and kept a
zone about their little fortress hot with exploding shells. The Turks
waited until this cannonade should conclude; but while they waited,
all the insurgents dispersed except Sarafoff and fifteen of his men,
and, each acting for himself, dashed for the open space left by the
Turks with such precision. A pistol was loaded for each of the wounded
men who could not escape, in order that they might blow out their own
brains; and then, lighting the last half-dozen bombs with long fuses,
to hold off the Turks yet a few minutes, Sarafoff gave to the men who
had stayed with him the order to fix bayonets and follow those who had
gone before.
When night fell, less than fifty men of the original ninety gathered
together in the dense forest on the far side of the mountain appointed
as the place of meeting. They were blackened from smoke, and down some
of the drawn and haggard faces streaks of blood were trickling. Their
throats were parched, and they were famished with hunger, and a few of
them were off their heads with fatigue and excitement, and had to be
gagged.
They all lay as quiet as mice throughout the night, and the next day
two of the most innocent-looking members of the band, stripped of their
insurgent paraphernalia, and in the garb of ordinary peasants, went
down into Bouff for food.
When they got to the village, they found it had been visited with the
vengeance of the Turks. On returning to garrison, the Turkish soldiers
passed through Bouff and murdered a few old men and defenceless women
whom they found there (the other inhabitants being still in the
mountains). They fired many of the houses and pillaged the town, and
there was very little of anything valuable left. There was much coarse,
uncooked flour scattered about, and some Indian corn, and of these
commodities the two insurgents collected as much as they could carry
and returned to their comrades.
At nightfall of the day after the fight the band resumed their march.
The insurgents filed out of the woods in a long, single line, the local
guide leading, and made their way to the edge of the next revolutionary
district, where the chief thereof was awaiting them. They replenished
their spent supply of ammunition from the secret stores of the
villagers in the mountains, and proceeded on their way. Their course
now was to the north-east, and they made tracks for their destination
as straight as the Turkish camps and patrols would permit, arriving
without further adventure at the friendly frontier.
The Turkish guard would certainly be on the watch for the band, so the
leader decided to cross the border close to one of the smaller posts,
where, he judged, the patrols would be less active, not expecting such
audacity. He selected a passing place within earshot of a blockhouse,
which could be seen plainly in the moonlight. A sentinel sat in Turkish
fashion before the door, wailing a doleful dirge through his nose,
a way Turkish sentinels have. To the time of the Turk’s music the
insurgent band filed over the border, guns loaded and cocked, bayonets
fixed, and arrived in Kustendil, whence to Sofia their march was a
triumphant procession.
* * * * *
I received orders late one evening to proceed at once to Sofia
and prepare to accompany the Bulgarian army, which was mobilising
on the Turkish frontier. I was glad to get this order, and obeyed
instructions, though I knew there would be no war. The British Consul
then secured a _passavant_ for me, by which I was described as a man of
a round figure and black moustaches. In a civilised country my identity
would have been challenged, but the instrument passed me over the
Turkish border.
The streets of Sofia were crowded with committajis, in brown uniforms,
fur caps, white woollen leggings, and sandals. They were mostly members
of General Tzoncheff’s committee who had fought along the Struma.
Later, bands from Grueff’s organisation began to arrive. There were
several leaders who had been prominent in the revolution. I sought
the count again, and, with my old interpreter, spent many hours among
the insurgents. They were generally to be found at the cheaper cafés,
sitting over the rough tables recounting their adventures. It was at a
café that I got the story of Sarafoff’s Trail.
These soldiers of fortune had become indifferent to everything but
revolution. They did not care how they looked or what they did, and a
worse gang of beggars I never saw. Pride had flown. Work! Not they.
They are hunters of men.
[Illustration: COMMITTAJIS OFF DUTY.]
APPENDIX
THE MACEDONIAN COMMITTEES
The following information regarding the Macedonian Committees was
contained in a letter from General Tzoncheff to me. There are some
eliminations, but no alterations in the text.--F. M.
‘The beginning of the revolutionary movement goes back to the years
1893-94, but its real, substantial work began from 1895. At this
time there were already two organisations--one in Macedonia, which
was revolutionary; the other in Bulgaria, which was legal, open
organisation.
‘By the very nature of things the legal organisation in Bulgaria
became the representative of the Macedonian cause before Europe. In
accordance with the revolutionary organisation, the legal one worked up
the well-known principles for an autonomy, which were proclaimed by a
memorandum to the Powers and to the Press in 1896.
‘The revolutionary work was carried on by the two organisations in
harmony until the year 1901, each organisation acting in its sphere
for the same object. Though separated in their way of action, the two
organisations were, in fact, one and the same. The members of the one
passed into the other, as the needs and the circumstances dictated.
All the Macedonian leaders have belonged and participated to the two
organisations. Thus Deltcheff from 1899 to 1901 worked conjointly and
signed the resolutions of the High Macedonian Committee under the
presidency of Boris Sarafoff, who was chosen by us.
‘In 1901 the harmony was destroyed. Sarafoff and the other members
of the committee, including Deltcheff, encouraged by the extreme
popularity of the cause, gave a revolutionary impulse to the legal
organisation in Bulgaria by acts which were very compromising. The
murder of the Rumanian professor, Michailyano, in Bucharest, and other
deeds brought Bulgaria to the verge of a war with Rumania. The public
opinion in the principality, in the Balkan States, and in Europe was
excited. We asked Sarafoff and the other members of the committee to
retire, and thus to save the situation. But Sarafoff could not at that
time realise how grave the situation was, and refused to quit the
committee. Several intrigues were invented with the object to represent
the split as of a character of fundamental principal differences. New
elements, chiefly the extremists or the anarchical current, supported
Sarafoff. The Bulgarian Government, under the pressure of the European
diplomacy, especially of the Russian, gave its full support to the
disunion in the organisation.
‘The union between the different revolutionary currents brought
about during the last insurrection was again broken up. Now we
have three revolutionary currents--ours, Damian Groueff’s, and the
so-called anarchical current at the head of which stand B. Sarafoff,
Sandansky, and others. With the current of Damian Groueff we have
not any fundamental differences, but much with the anarchical. This
last current is not at all a disciplined organisation; its members
act nearly independently. Some of them--for instance, Sandansky and
Tchernopeeff--during the last two years have made deeds in Macedonia
which have brought great calamities on the population and have
alienated the sympathies of the civilised world. Their aim is to throw
terror and anarchy in the country and make life impossible for the
inhabitants. Lacking discipline and well-defined objects, their members
often go to extremes, which are very injurious to the cause of the
Macedonians.
‘During the last months efforts were made for an understanding between
us and Groueff. The foundations for the understanding are even laid
down. If these efforts succeed fully, we hope then to have a strong
revolutionary organisation which will be able to put down all the
pernicious and demoralising elements in the Macedonian movement
and use all its power to attain the object and the desire of the
Macedonians--establishment in the country (of) a civilised government
and administration, which will open to its inhabitants a free field for
progress, civilisation, and economical prosperity.
‘The immediate object is not and will not be an insurrection. In the
first place the present political situation in Europe is unfavourable
for such an action; and in the second place our interest dictates
that time and freedom should be given to the Powers to fulfil their
promise for a good government, and, if they fail, that the Christian
world should see that this failure is not due to the Macedonians, but
to the ineffective measures of the diplomacy. And then to tighten the
organisation and to give a strong impulse to the movement, so as to be
ready for another struggle, when the political situation permits and if
the reforms fail.’
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I am indebted to Mr. Smyth-Lyte for this section of the narrative.
[2] A foreign-made metal coin, worth about a farthing.
[3] A Turkish term denoting civilians, in contradistinction from
soldiers.
[4] The number is probably an error of public crier Mecho.
[5] By ‘Odysseus.’
[6] An inscription on the blade of a yataghan possessed by the author
reads: ‘Open the door to me in both worlds.’
[7] The figures were given me by Boris Sarafoff.
[8] Not all the munitions of war secretly brought into the country came
through Bulgaria. Certain insurgent leaders who spoke Greek without a
foreign accent worked in Greece, purchasing arms with the connivance
of the Greek authorities under the pretext that they were leaders of
Greek bands, hostile to the Bulgarians; and much dynamite was imported
through the Turkish Custom-house at Salonica.
[9] Beside this record of the Turks stands a most dastardly deed on
the part of the insurgents. Retiring from Nevaska a party of them
laid a diligent trail to a spot in the mountains where they carefully
prepared a lunch, poisoning the _Mastica_ with arsenic, and leaving
several bottles of it on the ground, to appear as if the band had left
hurriedly at the approach of the Turks. This was told me in person by
Tchakalaroff, the voivoda who led the band.
[10] The italics are the author’s.
[11] I have lost the name.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Extensive research revealed that the Map of the Balkans does not exist
in this edition of this book.
The list on page 82 is described as a partial list; items 7 and 8 have
apparently been excluded and do not appear in any available edition
of this book.
The city of Prilep is referred to as Prelip in this book and the
original spelling has been retained.
Damian Grueff is sometimes referred to as Damien Grueff in the
original. His actual name, Damian Grueff, has been standardized in
this eBook.
In Chapter V, paragraph 3, the chemical symbol for water is depicted
as H_{2}O.