_Following is an editorial article from the semi-official newspaper
Patris of Athens of Dec. 12, (25,) 1914._
With Bulgaria not one of the Balkan States can come to any
understanding. The neighboring Balkan peoples, at least the
Christians, cannot agree with them--not because they are lacking good
intentions, but because the Bulgarians in their demands are
unreasonable, unjust, insatiable, monstrous, and treacherous; because
the Bulgarians always demand the impossible; because they are pursuing
profits at the expense of third parties, whom they invite to cede
rights obtained by sacrifices and based on the right of war; because,
while they can demand compensations at the expense of a non-Christian
neighbor--to which no one would object--they turn on their
co-religionists, struggling to take away from them what they lawfully
and with sacrifices have acquired.
On account of this policy of the Bulgarians, not one of the Christian
peoples of the Balkan Peninsula believes in the possibility of an
understanding with them. That, also, is Rumania's position.
Accordingly it should be unnecessary to deny the news from Sofia
announcing the attainment of an alleged Rumano-Bulgarian
rapprochement. In order to reach this understanding, the Bulgarians
would not confine themselves to the rules of present Rumano-Bulgarian
practice, which in itself is a question of secondary importance.
The Bulgarians turn eager eyes to the whole of Dobrondja, which might
perhaps be the dowry of the royal Rumano-Bulgarian match so impudently
heralded in Sofia, although the whole thing was a monstrous lie,
without any appearance of respect for the family affairs of the royal
throne of Rumania.
But, as in our own case, neither the Servians can cede even an acre of
land to Bulgaria nor Rumania give back Dobrudja, because all of these
territories belong to their present owners by right of war. For the
same reason the Serbo-Bulgarian relations failed a month ago; likewise
no ground was found for an understanding between Bulgaria and Greece;
and for the same reason the negotiations between Rumania and Bulgaria
are failing today.
The Bulgarians have turned from one to another of the peoples of the
Balkans in order to cheat them. But this attempt, made once too often,
at length has failed. But will this final failure bring to reason the
hotheads of Sofia? After the cruel disappointment they received at the
hands of Rumania, the Bulgarian politicians must understand that
whatever is won by war by war only is given back. No one is so stupid
as to give them willingly his dominions.
Do they wish to take them? Let them come. Let them declare war.
Because so long as they are not doing this, and so long as they
persist in their present methods, they are offering the spectacle of a
childish if not a demented people.