The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 Part 4

"The practical conclusion is that neither Greeks, Servians, nor Bulgarians have a right to claim Central Macedonia. The fact that they all do so shows how weak each claim must be."

Yet it was Bulgaria's intransigent a.s.sertion of her claim to Central Macedonia which led to the war between the Allies.

It will be instructive to consider the att.i.tude of each of the governments concerned on the eve of the conflict. I hope I am in a position correctly to report it. Certainly I had unusual opportunities to learn it. For besides the official position I held in Athens during the entire course of both Balkan wars I visited the {91} Balkan states in June and was accorded the privilege of discussing the then pending crisis with the prime ministers of Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria. It would of course be improper to quote them; nay more, I feel myself under special obligation sacredly to respect the confidence they reposed in me. But the frank disclosures they made in these conversations gave me a point of view for the comprehension of the situation and the estimate of facts which I have found simply invaluable. And if Mr. Venizelos in Athens, or Mr. Maioresco in Bukarest, or Mr. Pas.h.i.tch in Belgrade, or Dr. Daneff, who is no longer prime minister of Bulgaria, should ever chance to read what I am saying, I hope each will feel that I have fairly and impartially presented the att.i.tude which their respective governments had taken at this critical moment on the vital issue then confronting them.

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THE ATt.i.tUDE OF SERVIA

I have already indicated the situation of Servia. Compelled by the Great Powers to withdraw her troops from Albania, after they had triumphantly made their way to the Adriatic, she was now requested by Bulgaria to evacuate Central Macedonia up to the Ochrida-Golema Vreh line in accordance with the terms of the treaty between the two countries which was ratified in March, 1912. The Servian government believed that for the loss of Albania, which the treaty a.s.sumed would be annexed to Servia, they were ent.i.tled to compensation in Macedonia.

And if now, instead of compensation for the loss of an outlet on the Adriatic, they were to withdraw their forces from Central Macedonia and allow Bulgaria to establish herself between New Servia and New Greece, they would block their own way to Saloniki, which was the only prospect now left of a Servian outlet to the sea. Nor was this the whole {93} story by any means. The army, which comprised all able-bodied Servians, was in possession of Central Macedonia; and the military leaders, with the usual professional bias in favor of imperialism, dictated their expansionist views to the government at Belgrade. If Bulgaria would not voluntarily grant compensation for the loss of Albania, the Servian people were ready to take it by force. They had also a direct claim against Bulgaria. They had sent 60,000 soldiers to the siege of Adrianople, which the Bulgarians had hitherto failed to capture. And the Servians were now asking, in bitter irony, whether they had gone to war solely for the benefit of Bulgaria; whether besides helping her to win all Thrace and Eastern Macedonia they were now to present her with Central Macedonia, and that at a time when the European Concert had stripped them of the expected prize of Albania with its much desired Adriatic littoral! This argument was graphically presented on a map of which I secured a {94} copy in Belgrade. The legend on this map reads as follows:

"Territories occupied by Servia 55,000 square miles. Servia cedes to her allies in the east and south 3,800 square miles. Servia cedes to Albania 15,200 square miles. Servia retains 36,000 square miles.

Territories occupied by Bulgaria to Enos-Midia, 51,200 square miles.

The Bulgarians demand from the Servians still 10,240 square miles.

According to Bulgarian pretensions Bulgaria should get 61,520 square miles and Servia only 25,760!"

PROPOSED REVISION OF TREATY AND ARBITRATION

When the treaty between Servia and Bulgaria was negotiated, it seems to have been a.s.sumed that the theatre of a war with Turkey would be Macedonia and that Thrace--the country from the Mesta to the Black Sea--would remain intact to Turkey. And if the rest of Turkey in Europe up to the Adriatic {95} were conquered by the two Allies, the Ochrida-Golema Vreh line would make a fairly equitable division between them of the spoils of war. But with Albania denied to Servia and Thrace occupied by Bulgaria, conditions had wholly changed. The Servian government declared that the changed conditions had abrogated the Treaty of Part.i.tion and that it was for the two governments now to adjust themselves to the logic of events! On May 28 Mr. Pas.h.i.tch, the Servian prime minister, formally demanded a revision of the treaty. A personal interview with the Bulgarian prime minister, Mr. Gueshoff, followed on June 2 at Tsaribrod. And Mr. Gueshoff accepted Mr.

Pas.h.i.tch's suggestion (which originated with Mr. Venizelos, the Greek prime minister) of a conference of representatives of the four Allies at St. Petersburg. For it should be added that, in the Treaty of Part.i.tion, the Czar had been named as arbiter in case of any territorial dispute between the two parties.

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What followed in the next few days has never been clearly disclosed.

But it was of transcendent importance. I have always thought that if Mr. Gueshoff, one of the authors of the Balkan Alliance, had been allowed like Mr. Venizelos and Mr. Pas.h.i.tch, to finish his work, there would have been no war between the Allies. I did not enjoy the personal acquaintance of Mr. Gueshoff, but I regarded him as a wise statesman of moderate views, who was disposed to make reasonable concessions for the sake of peace. But a whole nation in arms, flushed with the sense of victory, is always dangerous to the authority of civil government. If Mr. Gueshoff was ready to arrange some accommodation with Mr. Pas.h.i.tch, the military party in Bulgaria was all the more insistent in its demands on Servia for the evacuation of Central Macedonia. Even in Servia Mr. Pas.h.i.tch had great difficulty in repressing the jingo ardor of the army, whose bellicose spirit was believed to find expression in the att.i.tude {97} of the Crown Prince.

But the provocation in Bulgaria was greater, because, when all was said and done, Servia was actually violating an agreement with Bulgaria to which she had solemnly set her name. Possibly the military party gained the ear of King Ferdinand. Certainly it was reported that he was consulting with leaders of the opposition. Presumably they were all dissatisfied with the conciliatory att.i.tude which Mr. Gueshoff had shown in the Tsaribrod conference. Whatever the expiation, Mr.

Gueshoff resigned on June 9.

DELAY AND OPPOSITION OF BULGARIA

On that very day the Czar summoned the Kings of Bulgaria and Servia to submit their disputes to his decision. While this demand was based on a specific provision of the Servo-Bulgarian treaty, His Majesty also urged it on the ground of devotion to the Slav cause. This pro-Slav argument provoked much criticism in Austro-Hungarian circles which {98} resented bitterly the a.s.sumption of Slav hegemony in Balkan affairs.

However, on June 12 Bulgaria and Servia accepted Russian arbitration.

But the terms were not agreed upon. While Mr. Venizelos and Mr.

Pas.h.i.tch impatiently awaited the summons to St. Petersburg they could get no definite information of the intentions of the Bulgarian government. And the rivalry of Austria-Hungary and Russia for predominance in the Balkans was never more intense than at this critical moment.

On June 14 Dr. Daneff was appointed prime minister in succession to Mr.

Gueshoff. He had represented Bulgaria in the London Peace Conference where his aggressive and uncompromising att.i.tude had perturbed his fellow delegates from the other Balkan states and provoked some criticism in the European press. He was known as a Russophil. And he seems now to have got a.s.surance from Russia that she would maintain the Bulgarian view of the treaty with Servia, although she {99} had at one time favored the Servian demand for an extensive revision of it.

Certainly Dr. Daneff voiced the views and sentiments of the Bulgarian army and nation. I was in Sofia the week before the outbreak of the war between the Allies. And the two points on which everybody insisted were, first, that Servia must be compelled to observe the Treaty of Part.i.tion, and, secondly, that Central Macedonia must be annexed to Bulgaria. For these things all Bulgarians were ready to fight. And flushed with their great victories over the main army of Turkey they believed it would be an easy task to overpower the forces of Servia and Greece. For the Greeks they entertained a sort of contempt; and as for the Servians, had they not already defeated them completely at Slivnitza in 1886? Men high in the military service of the nation a.s.sured me that the Bulgarian army would be in Belgrade in eight days after war was declared. The Greeks too would quickly be driven out of Saloniki. The idea of {100} a conference to decide the territorial question in dispute between the Allies found no favor in any quarter.

Now it is important that full justice should be done to Bulgaria. As against Servia, if Servia had stood alone, she might have appealed to the sanct.i.ty and inviolability of treaties. Circ.u.mstances had indeed changed since the treaty was negotiated. But was that a good reason, Bulgaria might have asked, why she should be excluded from Central Macedonia which the treaty guaranteed to her? Was that a good reason why she should not emanc.i.p.ate her Macedonian brethren for whose sake she had waged a b.l.o.o.d.y and costly war with Turkey? The Bulgarians saw nothing in the problem but their treaty with Servia and apparently cared for no territorial compensation without Central Macedonia.

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BULGARIA'S UNCOMPROMISING POLICY

The Bulgarians were blind to all facts and considerations but the abstract terms of the treaty with Servia. It was a fact, however, that the war against Turkey had been fought by four Allies. It was a fact that the Ottoman government had ceded European Turkey (except Albania) to these four Allies. No two of the Allies could divide between themselves the common possession. A division made by the four Allies might contravene the terms of a treaty which existed between any two of the Allies prior to the outbreak of the war. In any event it was for the four Allies together to effect a distribution of the territory ceded to them by Turkey. For that purpose a conference was an essential organ. How otherwise could the four nations reach any agreement? Yet the Bulgarians--army, government, and nation--were obsessed by the fixed idea that Bulgaria enjoyed not only a primacy in this {102} matter but a sort of sovereign monopoly by virtue of which it was her right and privilege to determine how much of the common spoils she should a.s.sign Servia (with whom she had an ante-bellum treaty), and, after Servia had been eliminated, how much she could spare to Greece (with whom no treaty of part.i.tion existed), and, when Greece had been disposed of, whether any crumbs could be flung to Montenegro, who had indeed very little to hope for from the Bulgarian government. And so Bulgaria opposed a conference of the four prime ministers though a conference was the natural, obvious, and necessary method of disposing of the common business pressing upon them.

The att.i.tude of Bulgaria left no alternative but war. Yet the Bulgarian government failed to reckon the cost of war. Was it not madness for Bulgaria to force war upon Greece, Servia, and Montenegro on the west at a time when Roumania was making demands for territorial compensation on the north and Turkey was {103} sure to seize the occasion to win back territory which Bulgaria had just wrested from her on the south? Never was a government blinder to the significant facts of a critical situation. All circ.u.mstances conspired to prescribe peace as the manifest policy for Bulgaria, yet nearly every step taken by the government was provocative of war. The Bulgarian army had covered itself with glory in the victorious campaign against the Moslem. A large part of European Turkey was already in Bulgarian hands. To imperil that glory and those possessions by the risk of a new war, when the country was exhausted and new enemies lay in wait, was as foolish as it was criminal. That way madness lay. Yet that way the policy pursued by the Bulgarian government infallibly led. Must we a.s.sume that there is some ground for suspecting that Austria-Hungary was inciting Bulgaria to war? We must leave it to history to answer.

If the result was a terrible disaster, that was only the old Greek Nemesis of the {104} G.o.ds for the outraged principles of reason and moderation.

THE CONCILIATORY SPIRIT OF GREECE

Those principles, thanks to the conciliatory spirit of Mr. Venizelos, the prime minister, and the steady support of King Constantine, who was also commander-in-chief, were loyally followed in Greece. A few days after the declaration of war against the Ottoman Empire, into which Greece was precipitately hastened by the unexpected action of Servia and Bulgaria, the Greek foreign minister addressed a communication to the Allies on the subject of the division of conquered territory. He traced the line of Greek claims, as based on ethnological grounds, and added that, as he foresaw difficulties in the way of a direct adjustment, he thought the disputed points should be submitted to arbitration. But months followed months without bringing from Bulgaria any clear reply to this just and reasonable proposal of the Greek {105} government. Nevertheless, Mr. Venizelos persisted in his att.i.tude of conciliation toward Bulgaria. He made concessions, not only in Thrace but in Eastern Macedonia, for which he was bitterly criticized on the ground of sacrificing vital Greek interests to Bulgaria. He recognized, as his critics refused to do, that the Balkan question could not be settled on ethnological principles alone; one had to take account also of geographical necessities. He saw that the Greeks in Thrace must be handed over to Bulgaria. He demanded only the Macedonian territory which the Greek forces had actually occupied, including Saloniki with an adequate hinterland. As the att.i.tude of Bulgaria became more uncompromising, as she pushed her army of occupation further westward, Mr. Venizelos was even ready to make the River Struma the eastern boundary of New Greece, and to abandon to Bulgaria the Aegean littoral between the Struma and the Mesta Rivers including Greek cities like Kavala, {106} Seres, and Drama. But these new concessions of Mr. Venizelos were in danger of alienating from him the support of the Greek nation without yielding anything in return from Bulgaria. The outbreak of the war between the Allies saved him from a difficult political position. Yet against that war Mr.

Venizelos strove resolutely to the end. And when in despite of all his efforts war came, he was justified in saying, as he did say to the national parliament, that the Greeks had the right to present themselves before the civilized world with head erect because this new war which was bathing with blood the Balkan Peninsula had not been provoked by Greece or brought about by the demand of Greece to receive satisfaction for all her ethnological claims. And this position in which he had placed his country was, he proudly declared, a "moral capital" of the greatest value.

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BULGARIA BEGINS HOSTILITIES

Bulgaria's belated acceptance of Russian arbitration was not destined to establish peace. Yet Dr. Daneff, the prime minister, who received me on June 27 and talked freely of the Balkan situation (perhaps the more freely because in this conversation it transpired that we had been fellow students together at the University of Heidelberg), decided on June 28 not to go to war with the Allies. Yet that very evening at eight o'clock, unknown to Dr. Daneff, an order in cipher and marked "very urgent" was issued by General Savoff to the commander of the fourth army directing him on the following evening to attack the Servians "most vigorously along the whole front." On the following afternoon, the 29th, General Savoff issued another order to the army commanders giving further instructions for attacks on the Servians and Greeks, including an attack on Saloniki, stating that these attacks were {108} taking place "without any official declaration of war," and that they were undertaken in order to accustom the Bulgarian army to regard their former allies as enemies, to hasten the activities of the Russian government, to compel the former allies to be more conciliatory, and to secure new territories for Bulgaria! Who was responsible for this deplorable lack of harmony between the civil government and the military authorities has not yet been officially disclosed. Did General Savoff act on his own responsibility? Or is there any truth in the charge that King Ferdinand after a long consultation with the Austro-Hungarian Minister instructed the General to issue the order? Dr. Daneff knew nothing of it, and though he made every effort to stop the resulting hostilities, the dogs of war had been let loose and could not now be torn from one another's throats.

There had been sporadic fighting in Macedonia between the Allies for some months past. Greece and Servia had concluded an anti-Bulgarian {109} alliance on June 1. They also entered into a convention with Roumania by which that power agreed to intervene in case of war between the late Allies. And war having been declared, Roumania seized Silistria at midnight, July 10. Meanwhile the Servian and Greek forces were fighting the Bulgarians hard at Kilkis, Doiran, and other points between the Varclar and the Struma. And, as if Bulgaria had not enemies enough on her back already, the Turkish Army on July 12 left the Chataldja fortifications, crossed the Enos-Midia line, and in less than two weeks, with Enver Bey at its head, re-occupied Adrianople.

Bulgaria was powerless to stop the further advance of the Turks, nor had she forces to send against the Roumanians who marched unopposed through the neighboring country till Sofia itself was within their power.

No nation could stand up against such fearful odds. Dr. Daneff resigned on July 15. {110} And the new ministry had to make the best terms it could.

TERMS OF PEACE

A Peace Conference met at Bukarest on July 28, and peace was signed on August 10. By this Treaty of Bukarest Servia secured not only all that part of Macedonia already under her occupation but gained also an eastward extension beyond the Doiran-Istib-Kochana line into purely Bulgarian territory. Greece fared still better under the treaty; for it gave her not only all the Macedonian lands she had already occupied but extended her domain on the Aegean littoral as far east as the mouth of the Mesta and away into the interior as far above Seres and Drama as they are from the sea,--thus establishing the northern frontier of New Greece from Lake Presba (near the eastern boundary of Albania) on a northward-ascending line past Ghevgheli and Doiran to Kainchal in Thrace on the other {111} side of the Mesta River. This a.s.signment of territory conquered from Turkey had the effect of shutting out Bulgaria from the Western Aegean; and the littoral left to Bulgaria between the Mesta River and the Turkish boundary has no harbor of any consequence but Dedeagach, which is much inferior to Kavala.

The new Turkish boundary was arranged by negotiations between the Bulgarian and Ottoman governments. The terminus on the Black Sea was pushed north from Midia almost up to the southern boundary of Bulgaria.

Enos remained the terminus on the Aegean. But the two termini were connected by a curved line which after following the Maritza River to a point between Sufli and Dimotika then swung in a semicircle well beyond Adrianople to Bulgaria and the Black Sea. Thus Bulgaria was compelled to cede back to the Asiatic enemy not only Adrianople but the battlefields of Kirk Kilisse, Lule Burgas, and Chorlu on which {112} her brave soldiers had won such magnificent victories over the Moslems.

THE ATt.i.tUDE OF ROUMANIA

The Treaty of Bukarest marked the predominance of Roumania in Balkan affairs. And of course Roumania had her own reward. She had long coveted the northeastern corner of Bulgaria, from Turtukai on the Danube to Baltchik on the Black Sea. And this territory, even some miles beyond that line, Bulgaria was now compelled to cede to her by the treaty. It is a fertile area with a population of some 300,000 souls, many of whom are Turks.

The claim of Roumania to compensation for her neutrality during the first Balkan war was severely criticized by the independent press of western Europe. It was first put forward in the London Peace Conference, but rejected by Dr. Daneff, the Bulgarian delegate. But the Roumanian government persisted in pressing the claim, and the Powers finally decided to {113} mediate, with the result that the city of Silistria and the immediately adjoining territory were a.s.signed to Roumania. Neither state was satisfied with the award and the second Balkan war broke out before the transfer had been effected. This gave Roumania the opportunity to enforce her original claim, and, despite the advice of Austria-Hungary, she used it, as we have already seen.

The Roumanian government justifies its position in this matter by two considerations. In the first place, as Roumania was larger and more populous than any of the Balkan states, the Roumanian nation could not sit still with folded arms while Bulgaria wrested this pre-eminence from her. And if Bulgaria had not precipitated a war among the Allies, if she had been content with annexing the portion of European Turkey which she held under military occupation, New Bulgaria would have contained a greater area and a larger population than Roumania. The Roumanians claim, {114} accordingly, that the course they pursued was dictated by a legitimate and vital national interest. And, in the second place, as Greeks, Servians, and Bulgarians based their respective claims to Macedonian territory on the racial character of the inhabitants, Roumania a.s.serted that the presence of a large Roumanian (or Vlach) population in that disputed region gave her an equally valid claim to a share in the common estate.

In all Macedonia there may be some 100,000 Vlachs, though Roumanian officials put the number much higher. Many of them are highland shepherds; others engage in transportation with trains of horses or mules; those in the lowlands are good farmers. They are found especially in the mountains and valleys between Thessaly and Albania.