ATTEMPTS AT REFORM IN MACEDONIA
The first object of the organization which Grueff and Deltcheff set about forming was to remedy this evil. In each village they established a local committee, composed of the more intelligent villagers, whose function it should be to take the place of the Turkish courts. The members of these secret tribunals were elected democratically by the villagers themselves. Later on they elected local delegates to provincial committees, which acted as courts of higher appeal, to which a defendant on trial might appeal should he feel that local sentiment was prejudiced against him. Later on, when these committees spread all over the country, yearly congresses were held, the first of which drew up a constitution for what was nothing less than a secret provisional government for the underground republic of Macedonia. Such was the beginning and the first purposes of the famous Macedonian Committee, so called because authority was always vested in the hands of committees, rather than with individuals, so strong was the democratic sentiment of the people.
The next thing was to get rid of the brigands. To accomplish that the provincial committees organized and maintained armed bands, which patrolled the mountains of the territory assigned to them. Numbering all the way from ten men to fifty each, these bands protected the villages from the bandits and even hunted them down. And, naturally, when the terrorist bands of the Greek Church became active, they were confronted by the armed bands of the committee.
It is notable that when the existence of the Macedonian Committee and its small local armed forces first became known to the outside world, it was not the Turkish Government which showed most animosity. In fact, for a long time the Turks rather treated the committee much as they had treated the brigands; that is, let them alone, so long as they did not cross their path, and the committee did not set out to molest the Turks.
It was the Greek Church, and the Greek and Serbian Governments that became most excited. Both the Greeks and the Serbians had been making every effort to arouse a "spirit of nationalism" of their own brand among the Macedonians. The committee was distinctly going to counteract their influence and efforts by arousing a spirit of nationality among the Macedonians which was neither Serbian nor Bulgarian nor Greek. And when the Bulgarian Government understood this thoroughly it showed itself equally unfriendly. For Prince Ferdinand and his clique dreamed of the Greater Bulgaria which they should rule. They wanted no autonomous Macedonia; even less did they want an independent Macedonia.
It was along in the later nineties that the Macedonian Committee began assuming such proportions as to attract the attention of the Balkan Governments. They began preparations for counteracting its influence, even for its destruction. So they organized armed bands, commanded by army officers "on furlough," or, in some cases, by the very brigand chiefs whom the committee had driven out. These bands were sent across the frontier to "arouse the national spirit" among the peasants.
From the very first the Bulgarian bands fought the forces of the committee as did the Greeks. Neither ever penetrated very far into the country from their respective frontiers, for the peasants were opposed to them and would not feed them, though they had plenty of money and did succeed in bribing some. They did, however, do a great deal of damage among the villages near the frontiers and, instead of arousing any national spirit, only planted a deep hatred in the hearts of the Macedonians for their respective governments. But of the three forces, Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian, the Bulgars and Greeks were by far the most ferocious. The Serbs were inclined to fight fair, attacking only the committee's bands and such villages as sheltered them. The Greeks and Bulgars knew no such restrictions. They burned whole villages, massacred whole communities, including women and children, and frequently outraged women. And wherever they left their bloody marks behind, there they also left theofficial seal of their master, rudely drawn on rocks or charred timbers—a bishop's miter and cross.
Between the committee's armed forces and the propagandist bands sent over by Prince Ferdinand's Government there were open hostilities. The peasants complained to the committee that some of Ferdinand's band leaders, those who had formerly been brigands, were beginning to resort to their old practices, though now they described their robberies as "contributions to the cause of the revolution." The Macedonians fought Bulgars as bitterly and fiercely as they fought Greeks and Serbs. For months a bloody war was waged in the mountain forests of northern Macedonia. The committee's forces had the support of the population. The invaders had the advantage of a bigger supply of arms and ammunition, and that finally told. Little by little the bands of the committee were driven back. And just at that juncture an authority of the organization, the Executive Committee, was betrayed by a Greek spy. These leaders, who had charge of the organization's funds, were arrested and imprisoned. Without funds the bands in the field were cut off from further supplies of arms and ammunition, which had been supplied in large part by illicit Greek and Turkish traders.
Only two leaders, and less than a hundred armed men, were left in northern Macedonia to resist the further advance of the Bulgarian propagandists.
In 1901 a Macedonian leader, whose headquarters were in Thrace and in the country east of the Struma, of the name of Yani Sandanski, who later became prominent in connection with the Young Turk movement, kidnapped the American missionary, Miss Ellen Stone, and held her for a ransom of $60,000. His desperate venture succeeded. The ransom was paid, arms and ammunition were bought in large quantities, and his committee was able to meet the Bulgarian propagandists with stronger forces than ever in the country east of the Struma. The committee had men in plenty.
The Miss Stone episode, however, had given the Macedonian situation a great deal of publicity in the Bulgarian press, andthe Bulgarian public began protesting. Thousands of students in Bulgaria were Macedonians; others were government officials. Thousands also were prospering merchants. Popular demonstrations against Ferdinand's policy were reported all over the country, and finally he was compelled to withdraw his armed forces from Macedonia. Thus was his first intrigue in that direction defeated.
It should be obvious by this time that the Macedonian Committee was the key to the whole Balkan problem, in so far as it was an internal problem at least. All the little states surrounding Macedonia wanted to grab her, and Macedonia did not want to be grabbed by any of them. In their selfish greed the governing cliques of all the little states absolutely disregarded the will of the people of Macedonia. In their efforts they were only reviving the old hatreds and creating new ones. Little wonder that the Turks sat back and refrained from interfering too actively. Meanwhile the people of Europe, seeing that the Balkan Christians fought more among themselves than they fought the Turks, believed they were only barbarians, little dreaming that the fight was not so much between Turk and Christian, as between Democracy and Imperialism; the democracy of the Macedonians against the imperialistic ambitions of the selfish little states around them. This point should be realized and emphasized, for this fight culminated in the next big act of the Balkan drama; the rise of Young Turkey.
If the little Balkan States were opposed to the Macedonian Committee, for the very same reason Russia and Austria were opposed, though to these two powers it was not so vital a matter. For the present they, with the rest of Europe were maintaining thestatus quo. For a number of years Russia had been busy in another quarter in the Far East, and had not much thought to give to the Balkans. Then came her defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1905 and her hopes of emerging on the open sea in that direction were effectually doomed. Austria, too, was willing to defer the realization of her ambitions, so long as Russia made no move. Yet both realized that they must do battle for their interests in the Balkans.
In 1903 the Macedonian Committee, rendered desperate by the pressure of the Greek, Bulgar, and Serbian propagandists, as well as by the Turks, who were beginning to take more active measures against the "comitlara," or "committee people," as they called the revolutionists, precipitated an uprising in the Monastir district, under the leadership of Damyan Grueff, Deltcheff having been killed by soldiers some time previous. The object was not so much a successful revolution as to create a crisis in the Balkan problem; to disturb thestatus quoof the European statesmen. For, as Grueff expressed it, "horror with an end is better than horror without an end."
The uprising was suppressed with the customary Turkish severity, though not with such atrocities as had occurred in Bulgaria twenty-eight years previously. Nor did the burning of hundreds of villages ruffle the European statesmen. A conference of the powers was indeed called and an attempt made to institute such reforms as had been contemplated by the XXIII Article of the Berlin Treaty, which included foreign police officers, in command of the Turkish police in Macedonia. Each of the powers did indeed send some officers down there, but they had little more influence than so many tourists. After the uprising the same old situation continued. The Greek Church was now making desperate attempts to overrun Macedonia with its terrorist bands and Ferdinand started another intrigue on behalf of Bulgarian propaganda which came near proving more fatal to the committee than any of the Greek attacks.
Ferdinand, through a young Macedonian who had been an officer in his army and was now an active member of the committee, Boris Sarafoff, began a propaganda of bribery within the organization itself. By this means he hoped to work up a majority within the committee in favor of annexation with Bulgaria.
At this juncture Yani Sandanski reappeared on the scene. Grueff had recently been killed in a skirmish with soldiers. Sandanski sent one of his men down into Sofia, where Sarafoff was conferring with Ferdinand at the time, and had him shotdown in the streets of the capital. At the same time he sent an open message to Ferdinand, warning the prince that if he continued his interference in Macedonia's internal affairs, he would share the fate of Sarafoff. That ended Ferdinand's second intrigue in Macedonia. Sandanski, who was now the recognized leader of the Macedonian organization, was of course outlawed in Bulgaria. But the time was presently to come when Ferdinand would seek his friendship most humbly.
It must not be supposed that the Macedo-Slovenes, though they formed an overpowering majority in the membership of the committee, were the only ones who were discontented with the rule of Abdul Hamid. The Vlachs of Macedonia stood solidly beside the Macedo-Slovenes. In the beginning some Greeks, too, had joined, but as the Greek Church excommunicated all who enrolled under the banner of the committee, and, moreover, as excommunication meant certain assassination, those few Greeks who really felt sympathy for the cause of a free Macedonia found it expedient to remain quiet.
The Mohammedans, however, though they did belong to the ruling race and had more reason to hold aloof than the Greeks, were by no means solidly against the committee. Whole communities of them, too, joined, or at least offered shelter and comfort to the armed bands of the committee. The Albanians especially were sympathetic, and great numbers of them were active in the work.
But the discontent of the Turks with the Government was more fully represented in a movement of separate origin. Young Turkish men had been going abroad to study in foreign universities for a generation past and had begun imbibing advanced ideas. They returned and began spreading those ideas among their followers at home. Finally they too organized, and this was the beginning of the Young Turk party.
The Young Turks had aims that differed very little from those of the committee. They wanted a constitutional Turkey, under which all the subjects of the sultan should be allowed to enjoy equal rights, regardless of creed or race. Many of them were, in fact, in favor of a republic. It was not long before theirleaders came in contact with the leaders of the committee. And for some years they worked quietly together. The Young Turks, it should be remembered, were especially active in the army.[Back to Contents]
CRISIS IN TURKEY
Then, suddenly, in 1908, occurred what was probably the most alarming event that had yet happened, from the point of view of Austria and Russia. The sultan had decided to begin taking more severe measures with the Young Turks, with the result that he precipitated a crisis. Enver Bey and Niazi Bey, two of the Young Turk leaders, openly revolted in Monastir and took to the near-by mountains, calling on all Turkish subjects to support them. The revolt spread rapidly. The Young Turks captured the city of Monastir and then the garrison at Saloniki handed that city over to them. The sultan, seeing that the whole army was against him, suddenly decided to temporize and finally agreed to proclaim a constitution for Turkey.
In November of 1908 elections were held for the new Parliament and all the various nationalities were given an opportunity to send in their deputies.
But Abdul Hamid was not going to accept the new régime without another effort to regain his old control. The following winter, after the Parliament had met, he gathered together his old supporters and, having made sure that he could count on the loyalty of the garrison in Constantinople, suddenly abolished all that he had proclaimed and declared the old régime restored.
Then Mahmud Shevket Pasha, the military leader of the Young Turks, established himself in Macedonia and called on all the people to support him.
The events which followed will ever rank as among the most dramatic and picturesque of recent Turkish history. First of all the fighting bands of the committee, which had already laiddown their arms, reorganized again and came down from the mountains to join Shevket's army. At their head marched Yani Sandanski, the leader of the committee and the hated enemy of Prince Ferdinand. The comitajis, however, were not the only ones to respond. When Shevket finally began to march on the capital, he had in his army whole brigades of Greeks, Jews, Vlachs as well as Turks and Bulgars.
When this army finally appeared outside the gates of Constantinople, the sultan and his soldiers realized that all was lost, but it was now too late to temporize again. A large force was sent in to disarm the garrison and to drag Abdul Hamid off his throne. And at the very head of that force, together with a hundred of his best men, marched Yani Sandanski, the abductor of Miss Stone, the slayer of Prince Ferdinand's chief conspirator in Macedonia, Boris Sarafoff, the brigand chief who represented the people of Macedonia, but had been outlawed in every Balkan State. What could be more symbolical of the partnership between the Macedonia Committee and Young Turkey than that Yani Sandanski should be one of those who were to drag Abdul Hamid off his throne and send him a prisoner to Saloniki?
At that moment, and for some months after, it looked indeed as though this union of previously antagonistic elements in European Turkey would effectually balk all the intrigues, not only of the little Balkan States, but of Austria and Russia as well. Nothing could have been more disappointing to the tribe of diplomats than this unexpected turn of events.
Undoubtedly most of the Young Turk leaders were sincere and really wished to establish a new Ottoman Empire based on a broad citizenship of all its peoples and the elimination of religious and racial differences from politics. Many of them were out-and-out Socialists, as was Yani Sandanski himself, who saw far-off visions of a great European, if not a world, confederation which should banish war entirely from the earth.
But unfortunately Young Turkey had a bigger task on its hands than it could swing. The Mohammedans of Macedonia and Thrace had been won over to its progressive ideas. But the people of Islam on the other side of the Bosphorus had yetto be heard from. And when they did make their voices heard, it was not in favor of recognizing the giaours as their political equals.
Perhaps, even, if left to itself, Turkey, under the guidance of the new and younger elements, might eventually have emerged triumphant against the dark forces of fanaticism and reaction. But it was not to have that opportunity. The solidarity of all the Turkish subjects, especially in European Turkey, would be nothing less than a calamity to all the Balkan States. There would be no "oppressed" brothers to rescue, consequently no pretext for that territorial expansion which they had all counted on to take place some day in the future. There could be no Greater Hellas, a Byzantine Empire reestablished, with Constantinople as its capital; there could be no Greater Bulgaria, with Czar Ferdinand as its ruler. Russia, too, when her opportunity came to take Constantinople, would come, not as a liberator of the Macedonian Slavs, but as an invading enemy. And Austria would find her pathway to Saloniki blocked by a stronger Turkey than she had counted upon. All these powers were against the success of Young Turkey. But they did not stand shoulder to shoulder against it. Between the Balkan States and the two big powers was another division of interest quite as deep. It was the rivalry of the wolves and the bears.
The Young Turks' revolution may definitely be considered the first jar to thestatus quo, as established by the Treaty of Berlin, to be followed in quick succession by other similar shocks, which were presently to culminate in its complete upset and the present war. Turkey herself had broken the compact to remain quiescent, to stand pat. With the exception of the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, there had been no changes during those twenty-nine years.
The next event in the chain happened almost immediately. Hardly had the revolution in Turkey occurred when Austria, who had, by the terms of the Berlin Treaty, been simply administrating the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed them without any ceremony. In actual fact this was merely making theory conform to the practical situation, but it put the YoungTurks in an awkward predicament. The old régime under Abdul Hamid would not have been able to do more than accept, and that was what the Young Turks were compelled to do, handicapped as they were by the confusion attending their own affairs at home. But it roused the anger of the conservative Turks, and they somehow attributed it to the new régime.
And at almost the same moment, as though to increase the irritation, Prince Ferdinand kicked over another theory—that his principality was under the suzerainty of the sultan—and declared himself king, or as he called himself, czar of the independent kingdom of the Bulgars and of all Bulgars elsewhere. Practically it meant nothing more than that he was making faces at the new régime in Turkey, but it served the purpose of irritating the masses of Islam.
But if the act of Austria in annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina irritated the Turks, it almost maddened the Serbians, who had no cards to play in this little game of diplomacy just at that moment. Serbia, like all her neighbors, had her dreams of empire; she aspired not only to the possession of Macedonia, but to the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, because of Serb population. Their annexation by Austria meant to Serbia that there could now be no rearrangement. And it meant, too, that Austria was still determined to work her way south, down to Saloniki, when time and opportunity were ripe. It was, in fact, as much of a threat to Serbia as to the Turks.
Meanwhile the Young Turks continued with their attempt to establish democracy in Constantinople. During the winter of 1908-9 the first Parliament met. And naturally, the deputies representing the backward and fanatical Mussulmans of Asia were in the majority, so that in the very beginning it became obvious that democracy itself was going to defeat its own ends. The reactionary elements, being in a majority in the empire as a whole, it was only natural that their representatives in the Parliament should be in a majority.
In the spring of 1910 there was a violent uprising of the more fanatical Albanian tribes, who resisted the efforts of the new Government to disarm the whole of the population, which wasundertaken as a first step toward establishing that law and order which had never yet been known in the empire and which the committee had organized to establish, within the limits of its own communities, at least. The schools, too, were taken out of the hands of the priests of the respective peoples and put under the control of a Ministry of Education, and this roused bitter resentment on the part of the Greeks, who, unlike the Serbs and Bulgars, are under the complete domination of their church.
Under the influence of the reactionary elements that had gained majority control through the Parliament, the old repressive measures began gradually to be reestablished. To Sandanski and his colleagues it soon became evident that their fond hopes of a truly democratic Turkish Empire was not to be realized. It was not under a constitutional Turkey that the Macedonians would be accorded civic justice; that could only be accomplished through a Macedonia enjoying home rule, whether as an independent state or under the mere suzerainty of the sultan. This was the state of mind toward which the Macedonians were tending when the next serious event began developing.[Back to Contents]
FORMATION OF THE BALKAN LEAGUE
Even to a school child it must have been obvious all along that the solution of the whole Balkan trouble, from an internal point of view, at least, lay in a union of all the peoples and the establishment of one great nation, or federation of nations. Such a power, capable of putting two million soldiers into the field, would not only be able to push the Turk out of Europe, but it would be such an obstacle to the aggressive ambitions of Russia and Austria that either would think twice before attempting to overcome it by force.
This solution had been suggested at various times by various Balkan statesmen during the past twenty years, statesmen withbroader visions than most of their colleagues. Stambuloff had been one of them. But such a union, or confederation, while it might prove of great benefit to the general population, would mean a complete end to the ambitions indulged in by the various Balkan monarchs and their cliques. Each hoped to build a great empire which should include all the rest as inferior possessions. Thus their selfish ambitions stood in the way of the only feasible plan for a true remedy for the political ills of the people.
But the new régime in Turkey seemed likely to put an end to their imperial ambitions anyhow. The Young Turks were spending huge amounts of money in equipping their army with modern guns and the admission of Christians into the army was increasing its size too. Within a few years Turkey would be in such a state of preparedness, from a military point of view, as to make the task of driving her out of Europe forever impossible. For each state had been building up its army for years past with this ultimate end in view.
The time had come to act. It was now or never. The Balkan States must bury their mutual jealousies, temporarily at least, and form a temporary alliance with the object of defeating the Turks before it should be too late. For the time being the spoils could be divided equally. Later on each might find an opportunity to force rearrangements. Such an alliance might temporarily suspend, but it would not end, the individual ambitions of each governing clique. The idea may not have presented itself so cynically to the man who first conceived it, but that was the spirit in which it was later on acceded to by the Governments of the states concerned.
It seems now to be generally conceded that it was the Prime Minister of Greece, Eleutheorios Venizelos, to whom the credit belongs for having initiated this new move. Of all the Balkan statesmen, not omitting the monarchs, Venizelos stands out prominently not only as the most able, but as being by far the most liberal and as possessed of the broadest vision. Toleration has been the keynote to all his utterances and actions. He seems to have been the one man of them all who, without ceasing to be a Greek, has been able to rise above the atmosphere of pettyjealousy, greed, and hatred that pervades the politics of the Balkan States, especially in their mutual relations.
Though Italian by blood extraction, descendant of the old Dukes of Athens, Venizelos is a Cretan by birth. Beginning his public career in his native island as a "brigand" insurgent against Turkish power, he finally became the leader of his people, being Prime Minister of the Cretan Government in 1909.
In that year, shortly after the revolution of the Young Turks, there had also been a revolution in Greece, though not of so progressive a character. The "Military League," composed of the army officers, had been organized and began to institute certain reforms that should end the corruption and inefficiency that had been characteristic of Greek politics. The members of the league being military men, were also modest enough to realize their unfitness to undertake the task unaided, so they called upon Venizelos to take charge, he being then the cleanest Greek in politics. This task he assumed, as prime minister, with such ability and effectiveness that he at once became the most popular man in Greece. Among other things he undertook a complete reorganization of the army under the supervision of foreign officers.
In April of 1911 Venizelos, through a British journalist, sent an unofficial note to the Bulgarian Government suggesting an alliance against Turkey. Five months later negotiations were also commenced with Serbia, where a Serbo-Bulgarian alliance was suggested. But for a while nothing definite was done, until suddenly the bigger powers began showing signs of action. Italy, the ally of Austria, declared war on Turkey in September, 1911, with the avowed purpose of possessing herself of Tripoli.
This hurried the Balkan States. In March, 1912, Serbia and Bulgaria signed a treaty of alliance. In April Greece and Bulgaria signed a similar treaty, and a fortnight later Serbia and Greece signed another document which made the Balkan League complete, Montenegro acting in agreement with Serbia.
According to the Serbo-Bulgarian agreement, should the Turks be defeated, Bulgaria was to take the whole of the territory south and east of the Rhodope Mountains and the Struma River, while Serbia was to take that north of the Shar Mountains, includingOld Serbia and Kossovo. The rest, comprising all of Macedonia, was to be established as an independent state. Should this, for any reason, be impossible, a line was to be drawn from the point at which the Bulgarian, Serbian, and Turkish frontiers met, a little northwest of Kustendil, to Struga at the north end of Lake Ochrida, leaving Kratovo, Veles, Monastir, and Ochrida to Bulgaria, all purely Slav districts, while the Czar of Russia was to act as arbitrator with regard to the rest of the region, including Kumanovo, Uskub, Krushevo, and Dibra. To this was added a clause by which Bulgaria agreed to send 200,000 men to the support of Serbia should Austria threaten her.
The agreement with Greece did not definitely provide for her share, but it was understood she should have Epirus in southern Albania, Crete, what islands in the Ægean her naval forces might capture, and a slice of the Ægean seacoast where the population was mostly Greek. Montenegro was to have what she could take from the Turkish forces in her vicinity. Albania was not mentioned, but it was understood that Serbia was to obtain her outlet on the Adriatic.
The clause in the agreement between Serbia and Bulgaria, providing for an independent Macedonia, is especially significant. It was inserted for the special consideration of Sandanski and the other Macedonian committee leaders.
Shortly after the committee had made common cause with the Young Turks, an attempt had been made to assassinate Sandanski in Saloniki. And although it did not succeed, the attempt did not serve to warm the hearts of the Macedonians toward King Ferdinand. None but he could have had any interest in Sandanski's death at that time.
But by the summer of 1912 the Macedonians were pretty well disillusioned regarding a constitutional Turkey. Many of the old leaders had taken to the hills again, determined to take up the old fight where they had left off. Even that fight seemed more hopeless than ever, for the Turkish army was now being speedily reorganized and rendered more effective, which meant that the pursuit of the guerrilla bands would be more deadly than it had ever been under the old régime.
How the knowledge of the clause providing for an independent Macedonia was conveyed to them is not recorded, but that Sandanski and his colleagues were approached by the Bulgarian agents cannot be doubted. Certain it is that just before hostilities broke out the blood feud between Ferdinand and Sandanski had been put aside, and Sandanski, the slayer of Sarafoff, the outlawed bandit, walked through the streets of Sofia unmolested. And when the war did actually break out, Sandanski was leading some thousands of his Macedonian comitajis against the Turks in the Razlog district, which he conquered and turned over to the Bulgarian authorities when they came there to establish a civil government.
The league, having been established, was now anxious to begin operations as soon as possible, for the reason that beginning hostilities against Turkey while she was still at war with Italy would put the latter in the position of being their ally. But that was just a position in which Italy, as an ally of Austria, did not wish to find herself. So when it became evident that the Balkan league had been formed and meant to take action, Italy and Turkey both hastened to arrange terms of peace, the former to save herself from an awkward situation, the latter so that she might give her full attention to the new danger.[Back to Contents]
FIRST AND SECOND BALKAN WARS
The war finally broke out on September 30, 1912, precipitated by Montenegro before the other members of the league were quite ready. The wonderful victories of the Serbian and Bulgarian armies were the surprise and wonder of the world at the time. The Bulgarians were victorious at Lule Burges, and the Serbians at Kumanovo. The Greeks advanced as far as Saloniki, while their fleet bottled up the ships of the Turks in the Dardanelles. Finally the Bulgarians swept the Turks in Thrace intoConstantinople and were battering down the gates of the capital itself. The Serbians marched an army over the mountains to Durazzo on the Adriatic, and the Montenegrins took Scutari. And by the following spring Turkey was suing for peace, which was finally brought about by the Treaty of London on May 30, 1913.
But the very success of the Balkan allies opened up new dangers of deep gravity. And now Austria, who had not quite dared to attack Serbia during the hostilities, saw an opportunity whereby she might defeat the league by opening up the dangers engendered by their very success. Had it not been for her intrigues there would have been no Second Balkan War. But she hated Serbia and was already determined on her destruction.
Largely because of the determined stand taken by Austria in the London conference, Albania was made an independent principality, Serbia was denied her longed-for outlet on the Adriatic, Greece was deprived of Epirus, and Montenegro had to give up Scutari, the taking of which cost her so much blood.
Now it had also happened that the operations of the various armies of the Balkan allies had been in territories different from what had at first been anticipated. The Turks had put up their main fight down in Thrace, leaving the greater area of Macedonia comparatively undefended. Thus the Bulgarians, while doing the heaviest fighting, had been concentrated in a small territory, hammering away at the main forces of the Turks, while the Serbian and Greek armies had been able to overrun much larger territories with comparative ease. Thus Bulgaria, though she had done most of the fighting and had lost the heaviest, occupied only a broad pathway from her own southern frontier, down through Thrace to Constantinople, while Serbia occupied most of Macedonia, and Greece was in possession of Saloniki.
Greece and Serbia, and especially Serbia, having been cheated of most of the territory they had counted on annexing by the Treaty of London, now demanded a revision of the treaties by which they had gone into the war. Moreover, the Treaty of London confirmed them in the possession of the territory they now occupied.
The bitterest feelings were at once rekindled. Both sides had grievances. Serbia maintained that at the conference in London Bulgaria had failed to back up her claim for Albania. Therefore she was entitled to compensation in Macedonia. Bulgaria asserted that Macedonia was inhabited by Bulgars who did not wish to become Serbian subjects.
Balkans After the Second Balkan War.
Balkans After the Second Balkan War.
At this juncture Austria again appeared on the scene and whispered in Bulgaria's ear that she should take what she wanted by force of arms; was not her army equal to the armies of Greece and Serbia combined? Meanwhile she, Austria, would see that there was no intervention from the outside. This was one motive that drove Bulgaria into the Second Balkan War.
For the past generation Macedonian boys had been coming up into Bulgaria. Many had gone back to Macedonia, but the majority had remained and settled in Bulgaria. Hundreds of them had entered the army and many of them had acquired high rank. Others, again, had entered the Government service, and dozens had been sent to the National Assembly by Bulgarian constituencies. And several, among them Ghenadieff, had become ministers in the cabinet.
To a still greater extent Macedonians have poured into Serbia. During the past hundred years, ever since the pashalic of Belgrade became free from the Turks, thousands of Macedonians have come up into Serbia for education and a life. They entered the army, Parliament, and every department of state, in large numbers, they became educationalists and swelled the ranks of commerce. Among the members of the Serb Cabinet during this war born in Macedonia are: the Prime Minister Nikola Pashich, from Tetovo; Dr. Lazar Patchou, Minister of Finance, from Monastir; Nicola Stefanovich, Cabinet Minister at the war's outbreak, from Navrovo; Kosta Stoyanovich, former Minister of Commerce, from Monastir; General Dimitriye Tzintzar-Markovich, from Ochrida; General Lazar Lazarevich, from Moskopolye, Monastir; former Prime Minister Milan Christich, the Serb Minister Plenipotentiary in Rome; Michael Ristich; former Prime Minister Dr. Vladam Georgevich; Svetolick Popovich, from Uskub; Under-Secretary of State for Public Works, Petar Popovich,from Prilep; Head of Public Works, Professor Lazarevich, from Ghevgheli; Professor Alexich, from Kumanovo; General Lazar Petrovich, from Bashino Selo; Veles, and many others. The names of the distinguished and prominent Macedonians in army, state, and education services, and those in trade and other useful occupations in Serbia fill a considerable space in the Post Office Directory.
The ambition of the Coburg King Ferdinand, since his coming to Bulgaria, has steadily aimed at the conquest and annexation of neighboring countries with the view of forming for himself an extended state. In this idea Bulgaria has been developed by him on linesde factotending toward creating rather a feudal domain than a free, modern constitutional state. He encouraged a large number of political parties which could be easily played one against another, duplicating somewhat the Hapsburg principle as applied in the Austrian system of counterbalancing the various nationalities; the educational system was not developed to the extent nor along lines to produce a truly free and powerful people evidenced by the large number of young men and women students finding it necessary to go for higher education to the American Roberts College at Constantinople.
Ferdinand, always supported by Austria, with whom he has always been in secret alliance, has devoted large sums to anti-Serb and anti-Greek propaganda in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and throughout the world, preparing for the day when his designs of conquest could be carried into effect.
As the First Balkan War drew to a finish, when King Ferdinand's grip had hardly closed on the golden prize of that war, Adrianople, which the Serbs helped their Bulgar brothers to conquer, and whose Turkish commander and his staff, as fate decreed, were actually captured by the Serbs and handed over by them to the Bulgarians, Ferdinand turned his army westward to attack the Serbs, leaving Adrianople and Thracia, rich territory which the Bulgars had just reconquered at such cost of blood and which was confirmed to Bulgaria by the Treaty of London, to fall back unprotected into the hands of the Turks.
On the night of June 29, 1913, without any declaration of war, the Bulgarian army suddenly attacked the Serbians and Greeks all along the line, over 250 miles in length. Apparently General Savoff, the Bulgarian commander, had taken the initiative upon himself, for all that night and the next day the Government in Sofia kept sending telegrams ordering the operations to cease.
All through July the fighting continued, and the battles were far more bloody than those that had been fought with the Turks in the first war. In the south the Bulgarians were decidedly beaten, but this was because they had counted on holding the Greeks back with only 70,000 men.
The main fighting was on the Bregalnitza River, between the Serbians and the Bulgarians. Here the Bulgarians also suffered a reverse. And the Serbians were suffering losses that they could less afford than the Bulgarians. Whether the Bulgarians might eventually have won out, as their lines were contracted and the Greeks were drawn away from their base at Saloniki, was a military question that was not to be decided. For at this juncture Rumania took unexpected action. She suddenly on July 10 began an invasion of Bulgaria from the north, and by the end of the month her cavalry screens were within twenty miles of the Bulgarian capital. The Turks, too, had recrossed the frontier and were once more in possession of Adrianople, which the small Bulgarian garrison surrendered without resistance. Literally the armies of all her neighbors were invading Bulgaria. Further resistance was useless. On July 31, after just one month of fighting, an armistice was signed, and representatives from all the belligerents met in Bucharest to negotiate terms of peace. On August 10 the Treaty of Bucharest was finally signed.
As a result of the Second Balkan War Bulgaria was left in a much worse position than she was in after the first war. First of all she had to give a slice of her Danubian territory to Rumania, as her price for entering the war. Then she had to return part of Thrace, including Adrianople, to the Turks. Serbia retained southeastern Macedonia, and Greece kept Saloniki and its hinterland for fifty miles inward, including Kavala, the natural economic outlet for Bulgaria on the Ægean.[Back to Contents]
ASSASSINATION OF FRANZ FERDINAND—AUSTRIA'S ULTIMATUM
It was the boast of the greater European powers, during the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, and after, that the "conflagration in the Balkans had been localized"—i.e., that none of the western nations would be involved in the complications growing out of the trouble in the Balkans. The conflagration in the mountainous peninsula had been "localized," it was true; but the smouldering fire that remained after the Balkan Wars was to flare forth, during the summer of 1914, to spread over Europe from the Shetland Islands to Crete in one grand flame, and to drop sparks on the remaining four continents. That smouldering fire was the doctrine known as Greater Serbianism, sometimes wrongly spoken of as Pan-Serbianism.
As during the nineteenth century one after another the Balkan States gained independence from Turkish sovereignty and the germ of what is called Nationalism was born in them, each looked about to see in what direction its boundaries might be extended. The appetite of Nationalism, with these small states as with the greater countries, demanded that under the flag of a given nation must be gathered all the peoples of that nation; if some of them dwell in foreign lands those lands must be conquered; if foreigners live within the borders of the country those foreigners must be "ironed out"—the crushing machinery of despotic government must be brought into use to force them to adopt the language, literature, traditions, and religion of thenation which considered them alien. And the appetite of Nationalism demanded one thing more—that the political boundaries of a nation conform with the "natural boundaries" as they seemed to be delimited by mountains, rivers, and coasts.
The kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro had shown symptoms of Nationalism long before the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913; when they emerged from those wars with their territories almost doubled the idea took even greater hold on them. As Turkish sovereignty and influence became less feared, Austrian dominance replaced them.
Austria did nothing to allay this fear; she stood as a Teutonic bulwark between a growing Slavic menace (in Serbia and Montenegro) on the south and the already formidable Slavic menace (Russia) on the east. In her provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were transformed from protectorates to integral parts of the Austrian Empire in 1908, there dwelt thousands of peasants who were of Serbian nationality; in more concise terms they were of the same racial stock as the Serbians. After Serbian prestige rose as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 these Serbian subjects of Austria desired more than ever to be a part of the Slav kingdom; this desire was shared by the leading factions in Serbia itself; the doctrine of "Greater Serbia" demanded that the aims of the desire be materialized. Besides, the "natural boundaries" of Serbia seemed to take in the greater part, if not all, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for they stretched along the eastern shores of the Adriatic and shut Serbia and Montenegro off from that sea.
Propaganda began to spread throughout Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, reminding the Serbs in all three places that they must work to bring themselves under one government, and that government their own; they were urged to keep up their efforts to standardize their religion, their speech, their traditions; they were called upon, by this same propaganda, to substitute Austria for Turkey as the object of national Serbian hate.
But Austria, too, had the disease of Nationalism, and she had been engaged since 1908 in "ironing out" the Serbs within her borders. Thus great friction was engendered, and when, onJune 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the crown prince and his morganatic wife visited the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, they and the officials of the city and province knew that the lives of the pair were in danger from Serbian intrigue.
The archduke had gone to Bosnia on his first visit to take charge of military maneuvers there, and before he left the Austrian capital the Serbian minister had expressed doubt as to the wisdom of the visit, telling the court that the Serbian population in Bosnia might make unfavorable demonstrations. The fears of the Serbian minister proved to be well founded; Sarajevo displayed many Serbian flags on the day of his arrival. The archduke's party, in automobiles, proceeded to the Town Hall after leaving the railway station, passing through crowded streets. The city officials were gathered at the Town Hall to give him an official welcome. A bomb, hurled from a roof, fell into the archduke's car; he caught it and threw it to the pavement, where it exploded, doing no damage to either him or his wife, but injuring two adjutants in the car following. One Gabrinovics, a Serbian from Trebinje, was arrested as the assailant.
The archduke proceeded to the Town Hall, and after berating the city officials listened to the speeches of welcome. As he and his wife were departing a Serbian student, named Prinzip, who was later arrested, rushed out from the crowd and fired point-blank at the couple with a revolver. Both were hit a number of times and died some hours later from their wounds.
Great excitement immediately prevailed in Sofia and Vienna, and in Berlin and St. Petersburg to a lesser degree. What retribution would Austria demand? The Austrian press openly avowed that the plot on the archduke's life had been hatched in official circles in Serbia, and the Austrian Government made no attempt to suppress these statements. One hour after the tragedy had taken place it had assumed an official and international complexion.
A punitive war against Serbia was immediately urged in Vienna. On June 29, 1914, anti-Serbian riots broke out in Bosnia, Sarajevo was put under martial law, and the bodies of the assassinated couple began the mournful journey to Vienna.On July 2, 1914, Prinzip confessed that he had apprised the Pan-Serbian Union of his attempt to kill the archduke, and on the same day the first intimation came that the matter was considered a serious one in Germany—the kaiser became "diplomatically ill." Then, for twenty days there was an outward calm in the capitals of Europe, but behind the scenes the diplomats were at work; the great question was how far Russia would go in defending her Slavic sister state against the impending demands of Austria.
These demands were made public in a note which Austria sent to Serbia on July 23, 1914. Serbia was given till 6 p. m., July 25, 1914, to comply with the ultimatum, which read as follows:
"On March 31, 1909, the Royal Serbian Minister in Vienna, on the instructions of the Serbian Government, made the following statements to the Imperial and Royal Government:
"'Serbia recognizes that thefait accompliregarding Bosnia has not affected her rights, and consequently she will conform to the decisions that the powers will take in conformity with Article XXV of the Treaty of Berlin. At the same time that Serbia submits to the advice of the powers she undertakes to renounce the attitude of protest and opposition which she has adopted since October last. She undertakes on the other hand to modify the direction of her policy with regard to Austria-Hungary and to live in future on good neighborly terms with the latter.'
"The history of recent years, and in particular the painful events on June 28 last, have shown the existence in Serbia of subversive movement with the object of detaching a part of Austria-Hungary from the monarchy. The movement which had its birth under the eyes of the Serbian Government, has had consequences on both sides of the Serbian frontier in the shape of acts of terrorism and a series of outrages and murders.
"Far from carrying out the formal undertakings contained in the declaration of March 31, 1909, the Royal Serbian Government has done nothing to repress these movements. It has permitted the criminal machinations of various societies and associations, and has tolerated unrestrained language on the part of the press, apologies for the perpetrators of outrage and the participation of officers and functionaries in subversive agitation.It has permitted an unwholesome propaganda in public instruction. In short, it has permitted all the manifestations which have incited the Serbian population to hatred of the monarchy and contempt of its institutions.
"This culpable tolerance of the Royal Serbian Government had not ceased at the moment when the events of June 28 last proved its fatal consequences to the whole world.
"It results from the depositions and confessions of the criminal perpetrators of the outrage of June 28 that the Sarajevo assassinations were hatched in Belgrade, that the arms and explosives with which the murderers were provided had been given to them by Serbian officers and functionaries belonging to the Narodna Obrava, and, finally, that the passage into Bosnia of the criminals and their arms was organized and effected by the chiefs of the Serbian Frontier Service.
"The above-mentioned results of the magisterial investigation do not permit the Austro-Hungarian Government to pursue any longer the attitude of expectant forbearance which it has maintained for years in face of the machinations hatched in Belgrade and thence propagated in the territories of the monarchy. These results, on the contrary, impose on it the duty of putting an end to intrigues which form a perpetual menace to the tranquility of the monarchy.
"To achieve this end the Imperial and Royal Government sees itself compelled to demand from the Serbian Government a formal assurance that it condemns this dangerous propaganda against the monarchy and the territories belonging to it, and that the Royal Serbian Government shall no longer permit these machinations and this criminal and perverse propaganda.
"In order to give a formal character to this undertaking the Royal Serbian Government shall publish on the front page of its official journal for July 26 the following declaration:
"'The Royal Government of Serbia condemns the propaganda directed against Austria-Hungary, i. e., the ensemble of tendencies of which the final aim is to detach from Austro-Hungarian monarchy territories belonging to it, and it sincerely deplores the fatal consequences of these criminal proceedings.
"'The Royal Government regrets that Serbian officers and functionaries participated in the above-mentioned propaganda and thus compromised the good, neighborly relations to which the Royal Government was solemnly pledged by its declaration of March 31, 1909. The Royal Government, which disapproves and repudiates all idea of interfering or attempt to interfere with the destinies of the inhabitants of any part whatsoever of Austria-Hungary, considers it its duty formally to warn officers and functionaries, and the whole population of the kingdom, that henceforward it will proceed with the utmost rigor against persons who may be guilty of such machinations, which it will use all its efforts to anticipate and suppress.'
"The Royal Serbian Government further undertakes:
"1. To suppress any publications which incite to hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the general tendency of which is directed against its territorial integrity.
"2. To dissolve immediately the society styled Narodna Obrava, to confiscate all its means of propaganda, and to proceed in the same manner against other societies and their branches which are addicted to propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The Royal Government shall take the necessary measures to prevent the societies dissolved from continuing their activity under another name and form.
"3. To eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia, not only as regards the teaching body, but also as regards the methods of instruction, everything that serves or might serve to foment the propaganda against Austria-Hungary.
"4. To remove from the military service and from the Administration in general all officers and functionaries guilty of propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, whose names and deeds the Austro-Hungarian Government reserves to itself the right of communicating to the Royal Government.
"5. To accept the collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the Austro-Hungarian Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the territorial integrity of the monarchy.
"6. To take judicial proceedings against accessories to the plot of June 28 who are on Serbian territory. Delegates of the Austro-Hungarian Government will take part in the investigation relating thereto.
"7. To proceed without delay to the arrest of Major Voija Tankositch and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a Serbian state employee, who have been compromised by the results of the magisterial inquiry at Sarajevo.
"8. To prevent by effective measures the cooperation of the Serbian authorities in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, and to dismiss and punish severely officials of the frontier service at Schabatz and Loznica guilty of having assisted the perpetrators of the Sarajevo crime by facilitating the passage of the frontier for them.
"9. To furnish the Austro-Hungarian Government with explanations regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian officials, both in Serbia and abroad, who, notwithstanding their official position, did not hesitate after the crime of June 28 to express themselves in interviews in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government, and finally;
"10. To notify the Austro-Hungarian Government without delay of the execution of the measures comprised under the preceding heads.
"The Austro-Hungarian Government expects the reply of the Serbian Government at the latest by six o'clock on Saturday evening, July 26, 1914."[Back to Contents]