The Balkan Peninsula Part 2

There was, however, a period of comparative peace. Roumania, though discontented, decided to bide her time. Her prince was crowned king with a crown made from the metal of Turkish cannon taken at Plevna. That was the only hint that she gave of keeping in mind the greatness of her services which had been so poorly rewarded.

Montenegro, whilst deprived of the great and the well-deserved expansion which the Treaty of San Stefano offered, had some benefit from the Treaty of Berlin. The area of the kingdom was doubled and it won access to the Adriatic. A little later the harbour of Dulcigno was ceded to Montenegro by Turkey under pressure from the Powers, and she was left with only one notable grievance, that of being shut off from Serbia by the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, which Austria secured for Turkey, apparently with the idea of one day seizing it on her way down to Salonica.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Chusseau Flaviens_

KING FERDINAND OF BULGARIA]

Serbia increased her territory by one-fourth under the Treaty of Berlin, but was not allowed to extend towards the Adriatic, and, nurturing as she did a dream of reviving the old Serbian Empire, was but poorly satisfied.

Bulgaria, if it had not been for the promises of the Treaty of San Stefano, might have been fairly content with the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin. She had been the first nation in the Balkans to yield to the Turks. She had allowed her sons to act as mercenary soldiers to aid the Turks against other Christians: and during the period of oppression she had suffered less than any from the rigours of the invader, had protested less than any by force of arms. Yet now she was given freedom as a gift won largely by the sacrifices of others. But, though having the most reason to be content, Bulgaria was the least contented of all the Balkan States. The restless ambition of the people guiding her destinies was manifested in an internal revolution which displaced the first prince (Alexander of Battenberg) and put on the throne the present king (Ferdinand of Coburg). Bulgaria, too, repudiated the friendly tutelage which Russia wished to exercise over her destinies.

The territorial settlement made by the Berlin Treaty was first broken by Bulgaria. That treaty had cut the ethnological Bulgaria into two, leaving the southern half as a separate province under the name of Eastern Rumelia. In 1885 Eastern Rumelia was annexed to Bulgaria with the glad consent of its inhabitants, but in spite of the wishes of Russia. Serbia saw in this the threat of a Bulgarian hegemony in the Balkans, and demanded some territorial compensation for herself. This was refused. War followed. The Bulgarians were victorious at the Battle of Slivnitza, an achievement which was in great measure due to the organising ability of Prince Alexander. The victory secured Rumelia for Bulgaria. But no sense of grat.i.tude to Prince Alexander survived, and the Russian intrigue which secured his abdication and flight was undoubtedly aided by a large section of the Bulgarian people.

Stambouloff, a peasant leader of the Bulgarians and its greatest personality since the War of Liberation, was faithful to Alexander, but was not able to save him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Underwood & Underwood_

KING FERDINAND'S BODYGUARD]

The Bulgarian throne after Alexander's abdication was offered to the King of Roumania. The acceptance of the offer would possibly have led to a real Balkan Federation. The united power of Roumania and Bulgaria, exercised wisely, could have gently pressed the other Balkan peoples into a union. That, however, would have suited the aims neither of Russia nor of Austria, the two Empires which guided the destinies of the Balkans, chiefly in the light of their own selfish ends. The Roumanian king refused the throne of Bulgaria, and in 1887 Prince Ferdinand of Coburg became Prince of the State. It was not long before he fell out with Stambouloff, the able but personally unamenable patriot who chiefly had made modern Bulgaria. In the conflict between the two Prince Ferdinand proved the stronger. Stambouloff was dismissed from office, and in 1895 was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the streets of Sofia. No attempt was made to punish his murderers.

In 1908 Bulgaria shook off the last shred of dependence to Turkey. The bold action was the crown of a clever diplomatic intrigue by Prince Ferdinand. Since the murder of Stambouloff the Prince had been sedulously cultivating in public the friendship of Russia: but that had not prevented him carrying to a great pitch of mutual confidence a secret understanding with Austria. The Austrian Empire was anxious to annex formally the districts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which it had long been in occupation. Objection to this would surely have come from Russia; but Russia was impotent for the time being after the disastrous war with j.a.pan. Just as surely it would come from Serbia which would see thus definitely pa.s.s over to the one Power, which she had reason to fear, a section of Slav-inhabited country clearly connected to the Serbs by racial ties. Serbia, it might be expected, would have the support of France and England as well as Russia. For Bulgaria the offer to neutralise Serbia made to Austria all the difference between an action which was a little risky and an action which had no risk at all.

Bulgaria supported Austria in the annexation, and, as was to have been expected, Serbia found protest impossible, since Russia, France, and England swallowed the affront to treaty obligations to which they were parties. It was Bulgaria's reward to have the support of the Triple Alliance in throwing off all fealty and tribute to the Sublime Porte.

Prince Ferdinand became the Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria.

Nor was that the end of Bulgarian ambition. The "big" Bulgaria of the San Stefano treaty floated before the eyes of her rulers constantly, and she began to prepare for a war against Turkey, of which the prize should be Thrace and Macedonia. An obstacle in Macedonia was not only that the Turks were in occupation, but that the Greeks considered themselves ent.i.tled to the reversion of the estate. Rivalry between the three nations was responsible for the Macedonian horrors, which went on from year to year, and made one district of the Balkans a veritable h.e.l.l on earth. These horrors have been set at the door of the "Unspeakable Turk." The Turk has quite enough to answer for in the many hideous crimes which he has undoubtedly committed. It is not quite just to hold him wholly responsible for the terrible state of Macedonia during the last few years. Greek and Bulgarian were alike interested in making it appear to the world that Turkish rule in Macedonia was impossible. To effect this they insisted that rapine and ma.s.sacre should become normal.

If the Turk did not wish for ma.s.sacres he was stirred up to ma.s.sacres.

Christian pastors were not prevented by their Christian faith from murders of their own people, if it could be certain that the Turks would have the discredit of them. Side by side with the atrocities which were committed by Turks against Christians and Christians against Turks, the two sets of warring Christians, the Bulgarian Exarchates and the Greek Patriarchates, attacked one another with a fiendish relentlessness, which equalled the most able efforts of the Turks in the way of rape, murder, and robbery.

In excuse for part of this, _i.e._ that part which stirred up the Turks to atrocities even when they wished to be peaceful, there could be pleaded the good object of striving for the end of all Turkish rule in Christian districts of the Balkans. The excuse will serve this far: that without a doubt a Christian community cannot be governed justly by the Turk, and the very strongest of steps are warranted to put an end to Turkish domination of a district largely inhabited by Christians. But no consideration, even that of exterminating Turkish rule, could justify all the Christian atrocities perpetrated in Macedonia: and there is certainly no shadow of an excuse for the atrocities with which Bulgarian sought to score against Greek and Greek against Bulgarian. The era of those atrocities has not yet closed. The Turk has been driven from Macedonia, but Greek and Bulgarian continue their feud. For the time the Greek is in the ascendant, whilst the Bulgarian broods over a revenge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULGARIAN INFANTRY]

CHAPTER IV

THE WARS OF 1912-13

By 1912, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro had contrived, in spite of any past quarrels, in spite of the mutual jealousies even then being displayed in the recurring Macedonian ma.s.sacres, of Christians by Christians as well as by Turks, to arrive at a sufficient degree of unity to allow them to make war jointly on Turkey. Bulgaria and Serbia concluded an offensive and defensive alliance, arranging for all contingencies and providing for the division of the spoils which it was hoped to win from the Turks. Between Bulgaria and Greece there was no such definite alliance, but a military convention only. The division of the spoil after the war was left to future determination, both Greek and Bulgarian probably having it clearly in his head that he would have all his own way after the war or fight the issue out subsequently. A later Punch cartoon put this peculiarity of a Balkan alliance with pretty satire. Greece and Serbia were discussing what they should do with the spoils they were then winning from Bulgaria. "Of course we shall fight for them. Are we not allies?" said one of the partners.

I was through the war of 1912 as war correspondent for the London _Morning Post_, and followed the fortunes of the main Bulgarian army in the Thracian campaign. In this book I do not intend to attempt a history of the war but will give some impressions of it which, whilst not neglecting any of the chief facts in any part of the theatre of operations, will naturally be mainly based on observations with the Bulgarians.

First, with regard to the political side of the war, one could not but be struck by the exceedingly careful preparation that the Bulgarians had made for the struggle. It was no unexpected or sudden war. They had known for some time that war was inevitable, having made up their minds for a considerable time that the wrongs of their fellow-nationals in Macedonia and Thrace would have to be righted by force of arms. Attempts on the part of the Powers to enforce reforms in the Christian Provinces of Turkey had, in the opinion of the Bulgars, been absolute failures, and they had done their best to make them failures, wishing for a destroyed Turkey not a reformed Turkey. In their opinion there was nothing to hope for except armed intervention on their part against Turkey. And, believing that, they had made most careful preparation extending over several years for the struggle. That preparation was in every sense admirable. For instance, it had extended, so far as I could gather, from informants in Bulgaria, to this degree: that they formed military camps in winter for the training of their troops. Thus they did not train solely in the most favourable time of the year for manuvres, but in the unfavourable weather too, in case that time should prove the best for their war. The excellence of their artillery arm, and the proof of the scientific training of their officers, prove to what extent their training beforehand had gone.

When war became inevitable, the Balkan League having been formed, and the time being ripe for the war, Bulgaria in particular, and the Balkan States in general, were quite determined that war should be. The Turks at this time were inclined to make reforms and concessions; they had an inclination to ease the pressure on their Christian subjects in the Christian provinces. Perhaps knowing--perhaps not knowing--that they were unready for war themselves, but feeling that the Balkan States were preparing for war, the Turks were undoubtedly willing to make great concessions. But whatever concessions the Turks might have offered, war would still have taken place. I do not think one need offer any harsh criticism about the Balkan nations for coming to that decision. If you have made your preparation for war--perhaps a very expensive preparation, perhaps a preparation which has involved very great commitments apart from expense--it is not reasonable to suppose that at the last moment you will consent to desist from making that war. The line which you may have been prepared to take before you made your preparations you may not be prepared to take after the preparations have been made. And, as the Turks found out afterwards, the terms which were offered to them before the outbreak of the war were not the same terms as would be listened to after that event.

To a pro-Turk it all will seem a little unscrupulous. But it is after the true fashion of diplomacy or warlike enterprise. The simple position was that Turkey was obviously a decadent Power; that her territories were envied and that if there had not been a real grievance (there was a real grievance) one would have been manufactured to justify a war of spoliation. It not being necessary to manufacture a grievance, the existing one was carefully nursed and stimulated: and when the ripe time came for war the unreal pretext that war was the alternative to reform and could be avoided by reform was put forward. No reform would have stopped the war just as no "reform" would stop, say, San Marino attacking the British Empire if she wanted something which the British Empire has got and felt that she could get it by an attack.

I do not think that the Balkan League would have withdrawn from the war supposing the Turks before the outbreak of the war had offered autonomy of the Christian provinces. I was informed in very high quarters, and I believe profoundly, that if the Turks had offered so much at that time the war would still have taken place.

There is another interesting lesson to be gleaned from the political side of this war. At the outset, the Powers, when endeavouring to prevent hostilities, made an announcement that, whatever the result of the war, no territorial benefit would be allowed to any of the partic.i.p.ants; that is to say, the Balkan States were informed, on the authority of all Europe, that if they did go to war, and if they won victories they would be allowed no fruits from those victories. The Balkan States recognised, as I think all sensible people must recognise, that a victorious army makes its own laws. They treated this _caveat_ which was issued by the Powers of Europe as a matter to be politely set aside; and ignored it.

Political experience seems to show that if a nation, under any circ.u.mstances, wishes its international rights to be respected, it must be ready to fight for them. There is proof from contemporary history in the respective fates of Switzerland and Korea. Both nations once stood in very much the same position internationally; that their independence was, in a sense, guaranteed. Korea's independence was guaranteed by both the United States and Great Britain. But the independence of Korea has now vanished. Korea could not fight for herself, and n.o.body was going to fight for a nation which could not fight for herself. The independence of Switzerland is maintained because Switzerland would be a very th.o.r.n.y problem for any Power in search of territory to tackle. In case of an attack on Switzerland, that country would be able to help herself and her friends.

On the opposite side of the argument, we see the Balkan League entering upon a desperate war, warned that they would be allowed no territorial advantage from that war, but engaging upon it because they recognised that a victorious army makes its own laws.

It was of wonderful value to the Bulgarian generals entering upon this war that the whole Bulgarian nation was filled with the martial spirit--was, in a sense, wrapped up in the colours. Every male Bulgarian citizen was trained to the use of arms. Every Bulgarian citizen of fighting age was engaged either at the front or on the lines of communication. Before the war, every Bulgarian man, being a soldier, was under a soldier's honour; and the preliminaries of the war, the preparations for mobilisation in particular, were carried out with a degree of secrecy that, I think, astonished every Court and every Military Department in Europe. The secret was so well kept that one of the diplomatists in Roumania left for a holiday three days before the declaration of war, feeling certain that there was to be no war.

Bulgaria is not governed altogether autocratically, but is a very free democracy in some respects. It has a newspaper Press that, on ordinary matters, for delightful irresponsibility, might be matched in London.

Yet not a single whisper of what the nation was designing and planning leaked abroad. Because the whole nation was a soldier, and the whole nation was under a soldier's honour, secrecy could be kept. No one abroad knew anything, either from the babbling of "Pro-Turks," or from the newspapers, that a great campaign was being designed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Topical Press_

BULGARIAN TROOPS LEAVING SOFIA]

The Secret Service of Bulgaria before the war evidently had been excellent. They seemed to know all that was necessary to know about the country in which they were going to fight. This very complete knowledge of theirs was in part responsible for the arrangements which were made between the Balkan Allies for carrying on the war. The Bulgarian people had made up their minds to do the lion's share of the work, and to have the lion's share of the spoils. They knew quite definitely the state of corruption to which the Turkish nation had come. When I reached Sofia, the Bulgarians told me they were going to be in Constantinople three weeks after the declaration of war. That was the view that they took of the possibilities of the campaign. And they kept their programme as far as Chatalja fairly closely.

The view of the Bulgarians as to the ultimate result of the war, and what they had designed should be the division of spoil after the war, I gathered from various cla.s.ses in Bulgaria, speaking not only with politicians but with bankers, trading people, and others. They concluded that the Turk was going to be driven out of Europe, at any rate, as far as Constantinople. They considered that Constantinople was too great a prize for the Bulgarian nation, or for the Balkan States, and that Constantinople would be left as an international city, to be governed by a commission of the Great Powers. Bulgaria was, then, to have practically all Turkey-in-Europe--the province of Thrace, and a large part of Macedonia as far as the city of Salonica. Constantinople was to be left, with a small territory, as an international city, and the Bulgarian boundary was to stretch as far as Salonica. Salonica, they admitted, was desired very much by the Bulgarians, and also very much by the Greeks; and the Bulgarian idea in regard to Salonica before the war was that it would be best to make it a free Balkan city, governed by all the Balkan States in common, and a free port for all the Balkan States.

Then the frontier of Greece was to extend very much to the north, and Greece was to be allowed all the Aegean Islands. The Serbian frontier was to extend to the eastward and the southward, and what is now the autonomous province of Albania (the creation of which has been insisted on by the Powers) was to be divided between Montenegro and Servia.

That division would have left the Bulgarians with the greatest spoil of the war. They would have had entry on to the Sea of Marmora; they would have controlled, perhaps, one side of the Dardanelles (but I believe they thought that the Dardanelles might also be left to a commission of the Powers). It needed great confidence and exact knowledge as to the state of the Turkish Army to allow plans of that sort to have been not only formed, but to be generally talked about.

It must be tragical now for a patriotic Bulgarian to compare these high antic.i.p.ations with the actual results of the war, and to reflect that at one time he had three-fourths of his hopes secure and then sacrificed all by straining after the remainder.

The Bulgarian mobilisation--effected after lengthy preparation with perfect success and complete secrecy--was a triumph of military achievement. It emphasises a point often urged, that when a whole nation is wrapt up in the colours, when every citizen is a soldier and taught the code of patriotic honour of the soldier--then at a time of crisis, spies, grumblers, critics are impossible. Bulgaria, as I have said, is very democratic. Unlike Roumania, where a landed aristocracy survived Turkish rule, the whole nation is of peasants or the sons and grandsons of peasants. The n.o.bles, the wealthy, the intellectuals were exterminated by the Turk. Yet the strategy of the war suffered nothing from the democracy of the people. They acted with a unity, a secrecy, and a loyalty to the flag that no despotism could rival.

The mobilisation was effected on very slender resources. Official statistics--perhaps for a reason--are silent regarding the growth of railway material since 1909. But in that year there were only 155 locomotives in the country. As soon as war was antic.i.p.ated these provident and determined people set to ama.s.sing railway material, and one railway official, without giving exact figures, talked of locomotives being added by "fifties" at a time. I doubt that. But perhaps there were between 200 and 225 locomotives in Bulgaria in October 1912, though one military attache gave me the figure at 193. It was a slender stock, in any case, on which to move 350,000 men and to keep them in supplies. But the people contributed all their horses, mules, and oxen to the war fund. Soldiers were willing and able to walk great distances, and within a few days all the armies were over the frontier.

The Bulgarians, by the way, began the war with a _moratorium_. (The week of the declaration of hostilities, meeting some personages notable in European finance, they ridiculed for this reason the idea of the war being anything but a dismal failure from the point of view of the Balkan States.) It was necessary to win in a hurry if they were to win at all.

They could take the field only because of the magnificent spirit of their population. They could not keep the field indefinitely under any circ.u.mstances.

The main line of communication was through Yamboli, and here the chief force was ma.s.sed whilst exploratory work was carried on towards Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse. I believe that originally the capture of Adrianople was the first grand object of the campaign, and that a modification was made later either for political or military reasons, or for a mixture of both. Up to the point at which Adrianople was invested from the north, Kirk Kilisse captured, and the cavalry sent raiding south-west to attack the Turk's lines of communication and to feel for his field army, an excellent plan of campaign was followed. If the main Bulgarian army had then swung over from Kirk Kilisse and had made a resolute--and, under the circ.u.mstances, almost certainly victorious--effort to rush Adrianople the natural course, from a military point of view, would have been followed. The one risk involved was that the Turkish field army would come up from the south and force a battle under the walls of Adrianople, aided by a sortie from the garrison. But the experience of Kirk Kilisse and the following battles argued against this. There would have been, one may judge, ample time allowed to subdue Adrianople with an army flushed by its success at Kirk Kilisse, operating against a garrison thoroughly despondent at the moment.

Kirk Kilisse, it must be noted in pa.s.sing, was a vastly overrated fortress. The Turks, I believe, valued it highly. The Bulgarians triumphantly quoted a German opinion that it could withstand a German army for three months. As a matter of fact, whilst it was a valuable base for an enterprising field army, surrounded as it was by natural features of great strength, it was not a real fortress at all. Still, the moral effect of its capture was great, and on the flood of that success the Bulgarian army could have entered Adrianople if it had been willing to make the necessary great sacrifice of infantry.

A second sound--and more enterprising, and therefore probably better course--was that which I thought at the time was being followed, to pursue the Turks fleeing from Kirk Kilisse, to search out their field army, give it a thrashing, and then swing back to subdue Adrianople. But neither of these courses was followed. Kirk Kilisse was not followed up vigorously in the first instance. After its capture the Bulgarian army rested three days. During that time the fleeing Turks had won back some of their courage, had come back in their tracks, recovered many of the guns they had abandoned, and the battles of Ivankeui and Yanina--battles in which the Bulgarian losses were very heavy--were necessary to do over again work which had been already once accomplished. This criticism must be read in the light of the fact that I am totally ignorant of the transport position in the Bulgarian Third Army at the time. General Demetrieff had made a wonderful dash over the wild country between Yamboli and Kirk Kilisse, carrying an army over a track which took a military attache six days to traverse on horseback, and a hospital train seven days to traverse by ox wagon. He might at the time have been seriously short of ammunition, though Kirk Kilisse renewed his food and forage supplies.

After three days the Bulgarians moved on. Ivankeui and Yanina were won, and the pursuit continued until Lule Burgas, where the Turkish army in the field was decisively defeated and driven with great slaughter towards Chorlu, where its second stand was expected. That expectation was not realised. The flight continued to Chatalja. This was the turning-point of the campaign. Up to now the Bulgarian success had been complete. If now Adrianople had been made the main objective, with a small "holding" force left at Chorlu, the entry into Constantinople would possibly have been realised. But the decision was made to "mask"

Adrianople and to push on with all available force towards Constantinople.

In considering this decision it is easy to be misled by giving Adrianople merely the value of a fortress in the rear, holding a garrison capable of some offensive, necessitating the detachment of a large holding force. But that was not the position. Actually Adrianople straddled the only practical line of communication for effective operations against the enemy's capital. The railway from Bulgaria to Constantinople pa.s.sed through Adrianople. Excepting that line of railway, there was no other railroad, and there was no other carriage road, one might say, for the Turk did not build roads. Once across the Turkish frontier there were tracks, not roads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL DEMETRIEFF, THE CONQUEROR AT LULE BURGAS]

The effect of leaving Adrianople in the hands of the enemy was that supplies for the army in the field coming from Bulgaria could travel by one of two routes. They could come through Yamboli to Kirk Kilisse, or they could come through Novi Zagora to Mustapha Pasha by railway, and then to Kirk Kilisse around Adrianople. From Kirk Kilisse to the rail-head at Seleniki, close to Chatalja, they could come not by railway, but by a tramway, a very limited railway. If Adrianople had fallen, the railway would have been open. The Bulgarian railway services had, I think, something over 100 powerful locomotives at the outset of the war, and whilst it was a single line in places, it was an effective line right down to as near Constantinople as they could get.

But, Adrianople being in the hands of the enemy, supplies coming from Yamboli had to travel to Kirk Kilisse by track, mostly by bullock wagon, and that journey took five, six, or seven days. The British Army Medical Detachment, travelling over that road, took seven days. If one took the other road you got to Mustapha Pasha comfortably by railway. And then it was necessary to use bullock or horse transport from Mustapha Pasha to Kirk Kilisse. That journey I took twice; once with an ox wagon, and afterwards with a set of fast horses, and the least period for that journey was five days. From Kirk Kilisse there was a line of light railway joining the main line. But on that line the Bulgarians had only six engines, and, I think, thirty-two carriages; so that, for practical purposes, the railway was of very little use indeed past Mustapha Pasha.