The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely
separated, engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had
no opportunity for interchange of views. Each must be held responsible,
therefore, for his own section alone. If there be any discrepancies in
our writings (it is not unlikely in so disputed a field of history) we
can only regret an unfortunate result of the circumstances. Owing to
rapid change in the relations of our country to the several Balkan
peoples, the tone of a section written earlier may differ from that of
another written later. It may be well to state that the sections on
Serbia and Bulgaria were finished before the decisive Balkan
developments of the past two months. Those on Greece and Rumania
represent only a little later stage of the evolution. That on Turkey,
compiled between one mission abroad and another, was the latest to be
finished.
If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and
foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about
any Balkan people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be
fighting to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and
interwoven in some intimate way with our history. That any one of them
is arrayed against us to-day is not to be laid entirely or chiefly at
its own door. They are all fine peoples who have not obtained their
proper places in the sun. The best of the Osmanli nation, the Anatolian
peasantry, has yet to make its physical and moral qualities felt under
civilized conditions. As for the rest—the Serbs and the Bulgars, who
have enjoyed brief moments of barbaric glory in their past, have still
to find themselves in that future which shall be to the Slav. The
Greeks, who were old when we were not as yet, are younger now than we.
They are as incalculable a factor in a political forecast as another
Chosen Race, the Jews. Their past is the world’s glory: the present in
the Near East is theirs more than any people’s: the future—despite the
laws of corporate being and decline, dare we say they will have no part
in it? Of Rumania what are we to think? Her mixed people has had the
start of the Balkan Slavs in modern civilization, and evidently her
boundaries must grow wider yet. But the limits of her possible
expansion are easier to set than those of the rest.
We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history,
whether of the East or the West, is mostly a record of bloodshedding
and cruelty; and the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in
most parts of the Balkans, and is not yet over in some parts. There are
certain things salutary to bear in mind when we think or speak of any
part of that country to-day. First, that less than two hundred years
ago, England had its highwaymen on all roads, and its smuggler dens and
caravans, Scotland its caterans, and Ireland its moonlighters. Second,
that religious fervour has rarely mitigated and generally increased our
own savagery. Thirdly, that our own policy in Balkan matters has been
none too wise, especially of late. In permitting the Treaty of Bucarest
three years ago, we were parties to making much of the trouble that has
ensued, and will ensue again. If we have not been able to write about
the Near East under existing circumstances altogether _sine ira et
studio_, we have tried to remember that each of its peoples has a case.