Bulgaria Part 9

Poor as were her acquisitions of territory compared with her hopes from the war, Bulgaria at least won a free outlet to the open sea. Her ports on the Black Sea were always felt to be of limited use, because traffic to and from them had to pa.s.s through the Dardanelles and was therefore at the mercy of Turkey in case of war. But now Bulgaria has free access to the Aegean Sea, and though without a good port has a possible port there.

Considerations of strategic position and of territorial acquisition are, however, of minor importance in considering Bulgaria's future. It is in the character of the Bulgarian race and the conditions of life encouraging the growth of that st.u.r.dy character in which the hopes of that future are bound up. The young Bulgarian is born usually in the country, and usually also as one of a large family. Here is an interesting table--compiled before the war--showing at once the proportion of urban and rural population and the prevalence of large families in Bulgaria:

------------------------------------------------------------------ Number of such Number of such Number of Families. Number of Families. Members of -------------------- Members of -------------------- Families. In the Families. In the In Towns. Country. In Towns. Country. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1 19,299 11,807 11 737 11,506 2 22,311 25,035 12 340 7,570 3 28,182 45,747 13 180 4,853 4 29,732 66,554 14 79 3,446 5 27,884 82,771 15 44 2,187 6 21,746 83,635 16 39 1,499 7 13,636 69,216 17 16 1,069 8 7,619 48,218 18 14 786 9 3,646 30,756 19 8 528 10 1,757 19,005 20 1 368 ------------------------------------------------------------------

The Bulgarian infant in the beginning of life will have no handicap of artificial feeding. The "feeding bottle" is practically unknown in his country. From the very early age of three this Bulgarian infant may begin to go to school. Primary education is obligatory. The infant schools are for the preparation of the children for the primary schools.

Infants between the ages of three and five years are admitted in the lower divisions, and those between five and six in the higher division.

They are taught games, songs, drawing, manual work, and simple arithmetic. The teaching in these schools is entrusted exclusively to school mistresses.

The proclaimed object of the primary school is "to give the future citizen a moral education, to develop him physically, and to give him the most indispensable knowledge." The studies last four years. The school year begins on September 1 and lasts, in the towns, until June 25, and in the villages until the beginning of May. Thus the whole summer and part of the autumn is exempt from school duties--a wise exemption in an agricultural community where the children, and perhaps some of the teachers, have to work in the fields. The subjects taught include morals, catechism, Bulgarian and ancient Bulgarian history, civic instruction, geography, arithmetic, natural history, drawing, singing, gymnastics, manual work (for boys), and embroidery (for girls).

Every parish or village of more than fifty houses must have at least one primary school. The hamlets and villages of less than fifty houses are considered, for educational purposes, as parishes.

The enactment rendering public instruction obligatory extends to all children between the ages of six and twelve. The only temporary or permanent exception allowed by the law is in favour of children physically or intellectually unfit. Disobedience to the law is punished by fines.

Ordinary education ceases with the primary schools or with the private schools for Mohammedans and Jews which the Bulgarian law allows to be maintained. The cost to the State of the education of each child at these schools is less than 1 a year, of which the State provides rather more than half, the communes the other half.

Thus the young Bulgarian gets a fairly sound start in life, so far as schooling is concerned, if he intends to go on the land or to follow an industrial occupation. If he, or she, has greater ambitions, there are gymnasia for boys and high schools for girls. At these gymnasia the subjects of instruction are religious knowledge, Bulgarian, French, German, Russian, Latin and Greek languages, history, geography and civic instruction, arithmetic, geometry and geometrical drawing, algebra, descriptive geometry, physics, chemistry, natural science, psychology, logic and ethics, and gymnastics. The subjects of instruction at the girls' high schools include most of those mentioned above and also hygiene and the rearing of children, domestic economy, embroidery, music and singing. There are further special pedagogical schools for the training of teachers, and there is a University at Sofia having chairs for Historico-Philological, Physico-Mathematical, and legal courses.

This University is beginning to take the place of foreign universities for the training of young Bulgaria for public life. The training is narrower but, on the whole, probably better from a national point of view. Only the more seasoned minds of a young nation should be submitted to the test of foreign study.

But let us get back to the young Bulgarian who is going on the land. At the age of twelve he leaves school and henceforth devotes himself wholly, instead of partly, to work on his father's farm. He begins, too, to be introduced to the work of the village commune, though he may not take any part in its control for some time yet. With great care the makers of the Bulgarian Const.i.tution have tried to guarantee the independence of the communes. The central government must take no part in the administration of the communes, nor maintain any agents of its own to interfere with their affairs. The commune, which forms the basis of the State fabric, enjoys thus a complete autonomy. It is the smallest unit in the administrative organisation of the country. Every district is subdivided into communes, which are either urban or rural. Every Bulgarian subject must belong to a commune and figure in its registers, or else he is a vagrant and punishable as such. The commune is governed by a Mayor and Council, and at the age of twenty-five the Bulgarian is eligible to become a councillor. Not only is the commune the organ of local government, but it has much to do with the control of the land affairs of this nation of peasant proprietors.

At nineteen the Bulgarian youth, at seventeen the Bulgarian girl are marriageable, and their parents set about the work of mating them as quickly as possible. Marriages are almost always arranged by the parents, and it is not usual for husband and wife to come from different communes. After marriage the Bulgarian wife is supposed to devote herself exclusively to family life and not to wish for any social life.

There is an almost _harem_ system of seclusion, but--except that the Bulgarian is monogamous in theory and generally in practice, whilst the Turk is polygamous in theory and usually monogamous by force of circ.u.mstances, since he cannot afford more than one wife--the Bulgarian idea of home life shows evidence of Turkish influences.

The Bulgarian civil law gives to the Church complete control of the matters of marriage and divorce. Divorce is allowed on various grounds, but is not common. Adultery does not of itself entail the dissolution of marriage. The party which has been found guilty of adultery is not allowed to marry the partner in guilt. The custody of the children, in case of divorce, is given to the innocent party, except when the children are below the age of five years, in which case they are left with the mother. Mutual consent of the married is not a ground for divorce. All marriages contracted in opposition to the canon laws are considered null. The Diocesan Council is the sole competent authority to judge affairs of divorce, its decisions being submitted to the approval of a metropolitan bishop.

I think Gibbon was responsible in the first instance for ascribing to the Bulgarians a low moral character. But all the evidence that came under my notice suggested that the Bulgarians were exceptionally virtuous.

In their hospitals I found no cases of disease arising from vice. In their camps they had no women followers. I pa.s.sed through many villages which their troops had traversed, and never observed any evidence of women having been interfered with.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BULGARIAN FARM]

The young Bulgarian, married--without much romance in the wooing, but perhaps none the less happily married for that according to his ideas--tilling his little farm, joins now in the main current of the national life. He is exceedingly industrious, rising early and working late. His food is frugal--whole-meal bread, hard cheese, soft cheese (which is like rank b.u.t.ter), vegetables, very occasionally meat and eggs. From his Turk cousins he has acquired a love of sweetmeats, and so for his treats lollies and cakes are essential. But also he is a Slav and likes a gla.s.s of _vodka_ on Sundays and feast days. He is very sober, however, and drunkenness is rare. His chief drink is water, with now and again tea made in the Russian fashion, or coffee made in the Turkish fashion. At the village _cafes_ these are the chief refreshments--_vodka_, tea and coffee. But a light beer is also brewed in Bulgaria, and drunk by the inhabitants.

Both as regards food and drink, however, the Bulgarians' habits are usually governed by an intense frugality. The country gives no very rich return to the peasant. He almost invariably marries young and has a large family. The household budget thus leaves very little margin over from the strictly necessary food-expenses. That margin the Bulgarian prefers in the main to save rather than to dissipate. The Bulgarian is economical, not to say grasping. He dreams always of getting a little richer. In his combination of the instincts of a cultivator and of a trader he resembles a great deal the French Norman peasantry.

The duties of national defence make heavy demands on the national industry in Bulgaria. Training for military service is universal and compulsory. There is no hope at all that there will be any lightening of military burdens for some time to come, since the 1914 wars have left Bulgaria in a position which the national pride refuses to accept as final. The burdens are borne cheerfully. The patience of the Bulgarian peasant soldiery during the awful campaigns of 1913 and 1914 was heroic, and their steadiness in the field showed how well they had profited by their training.

For this Bulgarian nation, so frugal, industrious, persevering and courageous there must be a splendid future. It has all the essential elements of greatness and must overcome in time the misfortunes of the past. If but the Fates will shield Bulgaria for a time from the desperate policy of attempting any new war of revenge or of enterprise, her growing economic strength, her superiority in industry and in application to other peoples of the Peninsula will in time a.s.sert themselves, and give her a strong position in the Balkans.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EUROPE

As this book goes to the press there is again war in the Balkans. It is only a little war certainly, as yet confined within the limits of the "autonomous State" of Albania, that quaint creation of the ambitions of Austria and Italy, which in its foundation suggested the custom of one of the old Fiji cannibal tribes--that of keeping alive and fattening a victim whom it was intended to eat. Austria desires the Adriatic sh.o.r.e of the Balkan Peninsula: so does Italy. They cannot agree either to fight out the issue now or to abandon their conflicting ambitions; and they have been responsible for creating "independent Albania," which one of them hopes to devour up in the near future when the other one is in difficulties. This war, small as it now is, threatens, however, to spread to a great one; and though the danger may pa.s.s away now for the moment, it is certain that one near day Albania will be the cause of another Balkan war: for it is to kindle that war that she has been brought into existence. Even to-day the position is immediately threatening. The creation of Albania gave to Montenegro, to Servia, and to Greece a serious disappointment. In particular was it a blow to Montenegro, whose heroic little people had through centuries borne the chief brunt of the fighting against the Turk:

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails, They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales Their headlong pa.s.ses, but his footstep fails, And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight Before their dauntless hundreds, in p.r.o.ne flight By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales.

O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, Great Tsernogora! never since thine own Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.[2]

[2] Tennyson's well-known sonnet.

By the creation of Albania Montenegro was debarred from any great territorial gain out of the part.i.tion of the Turks' old estate in the Balkans, and was shut back on her mountains, as it seemed irrevocably.

Servia and Greece were left with almost as serious grievances. Albania therefore is a constant source of temptation to a war of enterprise on the part of three of the Balkan nations, and the war only awaits a favourable opportunity to break out: a pretext for it can always be supplied at a day's notice by some border collision with the wild and lawless Albanian clans. Should the war in Albania spread to her neighbours, Bulgaria, outraged and mortified by the Treaty of Bucharest and again robbed and humiliated by Turkish encroachments on her powerlessness after that Treaty, in all probability will seize the opportunity to make a war of requital on some one of her neighbours, and the Balkan Peninsula will then be again drenched in blood. There will be again a cry of shocked horror from Western Europe as to these "quarrelsome and bloodthirsty" Balkan peoples. But in fair play and justice there is more reason for the little Balkan peoples to be shocked and horrified at the cold-blooded policy of the Great Powers who, for their own ends, create conditions which make peace in the Balkans impossible.

The truth is that these little shreds of peoples, in the blood-soaked Peninsula which destiny marked out to be the great battle-ground of races, have been used as p.a.w.ns in the great game of European diplomacy ever since the fall of Napoleon. It will be recalled that one of the earlier dreams of that ambitious genius was to enter the service of the Sublime Porte and reorganise the power of Turkey. The crumbling away of the power of the Turkish Empire, which had given centuries of anxiety to Christian Europe, was at that time apparent. A great genius might then have restored the fighting power and the prestige of Islam. But Napoleon turned to other work and Turkey went on decaying. There soon arose a question as to who should be the legatee of the "Sick Man of Europe,"

and legacy hunters, some fawning, some clamorous, gathered at his bedside. To some of these it soon occurred that there would be wisdom in hastening the process of division, and that a means to do this was to question the moral right of the Turk to the Christian provinces over which he ruled. In the state of public feeling in Europe at the time it was most convenient to question this right on the ground of the religious intolerance of the Turk.

Without joining the party of the "pro-Turks" it is clear that that ground was more of a pretext than a reality. The Turk is not a religious persecutor to anything like the extent to which the Christian has been a religious persecutor. On coming into Europe he never sought, for example, to destroy the Greek Church, and I do not think that there is any clear evidence that Turkish misrule was founded at any period on intolerance carried to the degree of murder for faith's sake. The fault rather of the Porte's rule was the dreadful corruption and incompetence of the Turk as an administrator and the Turkish ideas of the status of women-folk--ideas which gave to Moslem women rights derived from their Moslem men-relatives, but regarded Christian women as if they were cattle without owners. I think that it was the adoption by European Powers of religion as a pretext for interfering in the Balkans which has been largely responsible for the religious bitterness there. It would make the situation more clear and give a better hope for the future if Western Europe would frankly recognise that the fervid interest taken in the Balkan Peninsula for about a century has had no other reason generally than territory-hunger.

When Turkey began showing signs of falling to pieces, Russia made an early claim to the succession of "the Sick Man's" estate. Russia wanted a warm water-port; and her territories would have been nicely rounded off by the acquisition of Turkey in Europe. These were the real reasons, not publicly expressed, for her Balkan policy. Less real reasons, kept in the foreground, were that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was at Constantinople, that Russia was the kinsman of the Slav populations in the Balkans, and that her duty and right was to liberate co-religionists who were suffering from religious persecution.

Great Britain was the great obstacle to the desire of Russia to march down upon Constantinople. Her real objection was that with Russia on the Bosphorus the control of the Mediterranean might pa.s.s into the hands of the rival who seemed to wish to dispute with her for the mastery of India. Her expressed reasons had some vague declarations about the "chivalry of the Turk." Austria developed her ambition to suzerainty over the Balkan Peninsula mainly on the strength of a claim to be the heir of the old Holy Roman Empire, and as such possessing an hereditary right to rule over the old seat of that Empire in the East. Italy was forced into a Balkan policy by the impossibility of allowing a rival Power to settle on the other side of the Adriatic, threatening her whole east coast. Germany and France came into Balkan politics chiefly as allies of Powers with more direct interests, although both have now fears and hopes regarding the Asiatic dominions of the Sublime Porte and shape their Balkan policy accordingly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A YOUNG WOMAN OF THE ROUSTCHOUK DISTRICT]

The way in which, by the Congress of Berlin, the Treaty of San Stefano was changed ill.u.s.trated well the fact that, as regards the Balkan Peninsula, Europe was far more concerned to advance the ambitions of the Western Powers than to ameliorate the condition of the Near Eastern peoples under Turkish government. The other Powers' jealousy of Russia vetoed the creation of the big Bulgaria suggested then, because it was feared that Bulgarian grat.i.tude to the Power which had been responsible for her liberation would make the new kingdom a mere appanage of Russia. When it was manifest afterwards that Bulgarian grat.i.tude was not of that high and disinterested quality, and that the young Bulgarian nation was, though semi-Eastern in origin, sufficiently European to play for her own hand, and her own hand only, in national affairs, Europe had a spasm of remorse and approved when Bulgaria took advantage of a Turkish misfortune to gather to herself Eastern Roumelia. The only Power that objected to that acquisition was Russia. Her eagerness for a big Bulgaria had faded away with the knowledge that Bulgaria, big or little, was not inclined to submit to dictation in national affairs from Russia.

The position after the Treaty of Berlin in the Balkans was this: four virtually independent small nations held old Turkish provinces, and each desired eagerly, and claimed on historical grounds, extensions of their territory at the expense of the Turk or at the expense of one another.

Each was tempted to try the means to its end of intrigue with one of the great Powers. These Powers, still keeping in view their own ambitions, looked upon and treated the Balkan States as instruments to be used or to be discarded without reference to the happiness of the Balkans and with sole reference to the "European situation." Put a group of hungry and badly trained boys in a cake-shop; set over them as a Board of Appeal unjust, selfish, and intriguing masters; and you may not expect peace. That has been for nearly a century the position in the Balkans.

The Balkan League between Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, and Montenegro, formed about 1912, offered the first steady hope of a peaceful settlement in the peninsula. There was the beginning there of a movement which might have developed on the lines of the Swiss Federation and grown to a Balkan Power in which the Slav element and the Graeco-Roman element could have combined, in spite of differences of language and of religion. The fact that Roumania stood out of the League was the first unfavourable circ.u.mstance. True, Roumania is not a Balkan State in the strict sense of the word, but her national destiny is clearly to be either a partner with the Balkan States or the humble friend of one of the great Powers on her borders. This fact is recognised now, and for the time being Roumania is actually the head of a loose Balkan combination formed in 1913.

More dangerous to the future of the Balkan League than the abstention of Roumania was the fact that it had to face the strong hostility of Austria, and therefore of the Triple Alliance; and it had hardly the warm sympathy of Russia and was not therefore strongly favoured by the Triple Entente. Great Britain, whose interests were all to be served and not hindered by the growth of a Balkan Power, was the only strong friend the Balkan League had; and her friendship was not strong enough to make her support a matter of definite national policy.

If Europe had had an unselfish interest in the Balkans it would have welcomed the Balkan League and made every effort to consolidate its unity. True, the Balkan League had as its first task the robbing of Turkey of her European provinces. But Turkey was herself in the position of a robber; and it had come to be a matter of practical agreement among the European Powers that the Christian provinces of Turkey would soon have to pa.s.s from under the rule of the Sublime Porte. The only question left was "how?" The Balkan League offered to answer that question in a way satisfactory to all unselfish interests. But the selfish interests of Europe were not served by the League. Austria, dreaming of one day marching down to the Aegean, saw that that hope would be shattered if a strong Balkan Federation held the Balkan Peninsula. Italy was afraid of another Power on the Adriatic--an unwise fear, because her true national policy should have welcomed a new check to Austria. Russia was not eager to welcome a Balkan Federation, in which possibly the Slav element would not predominate and which, in any case, would get to Constantinople inevitably in the course of events. A bevy of eager jealousies set to work to put obstacles in the path of the Balkan League. Those Powers which were friendly to it were mildly friendly; those which were hostile were relentlessly hostile.

It would be perhaps too much to say that if the European Powers had been benevolently neutral to the Balkan League it would have survived and set firm the foundations of a Balkan Federation. But it is reasonable to believe that an actively benevolent Europe, acting with firmness and impartiality and without seeking to serve any selfish aims, would have succeeded in keeping the League together and saving the series of fratricidal wars which began in 1913 and will be continued as soon as the present exhaustion has been relieved. Instead of an actively benevolent there was an actively malevolent Europe.

The plans of the Balkan League contemplated a division of the territory which is now Albania between Greece, Servia, and Montenegro. The decree of the Powers, issued because Austria made a "bluffing threat" of war if Servia were allowed territory on the Adriatic, was that Albania should be an independent kingdom. It had at the time no cities, no railways, no roads worthy of the name, no civilised organisation, no basis at all of national life. Several different racial types and religions found a shelter within its area. The only useful purpose that could be served by creating Albania as an independent State was to give the Balkan League a cause of disunion, and to provide a _pied-a-terre_ for Austria for future operations in the Balkans. If the "Holy Roman Empire" had abandoned all thought of getting to the Aegean there would have been no Albania.

The Balkan League was already very shaky when this bone of contention was thrown among its members. Servia, Montenegro, and Greece, now deprived of a share of their spoil, sought to obtain from Bulgaria, who was in the position, as it were, of residuary legatee, some concessions out of her share. Bulgaria, embittered at the time by the fact that Roumania had taken advantage of the situation to demand a territorial grant south of the Danube, was unwisely obstinate and would make no concession to any of her partners. The issue had to be fought out through a disastrous war in which Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece were bled further of their manhood, already sadly thinned in the war with Turkey.

The Albania which was the chief of the causes of that fratricidal war was duly const.i.tuted, and Prince William of Wied appointed Mpret or King. At once there was trouble on all the Albanian boundaries, but chiefly in the south, where the province of Epirus wished to be Greek and rose in revolt against the new Albanian Government. The effect of that revolt, which was generally successful, was that the Epirus district seems likely to win a measure of local government or Home Rule founded on the following chief conditions:

The country is divided into two administrative districts known as Koritza and Argyrocastro. These will be governed by two Prefects nominated by the Albanian Government. In all local councils the number of elected members is to be three in excess of the _ex officio_ members.

All existing Greek religious inst.i.tutions and privileges are to remain unaltered.

The Greek language is to be taught in the three first cla.s.ses of the popular schools, together with the Albanian language. In the schools of purely Greek communities only the Greek language will be taught.

The Greek language is to be recognised in matters of local administration and the Law Courts in the two districts.

The native Epirotes are to remain armed, and are to be incorporated in the _gendarmerie_ commanded by Dutch officers.

All other volunteers are to leave the country.