THE BALKAN UNION AGAINST

TURKEY

BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL

IT would be an easier task to explain the scarcely permissible. The word Balkan

intricacies of the tariff than to make means mountain, or mountain-pass, and is clear in all its complexities the Macedonian justly applied to a peninsula almost the entire problem which is the center of the Balkan surface of which is crumpled up into a series war question. Pared down to its core, it is of ridges so numerous and irregular that it result of rivalries among Bulgarians, is impossible to reduce them to definite mounServians, Greeks, and Montenegrins, who are tain ranges or systems. Lying north of the severally striving, by both education and Danube (though possessing some territory, intimidation, to obtain ascendancy in Mace- called the Dobrudja, on the southern bank donia, the population of which is composed of near the mouth) and therefore not in the all four races in varying proportions and Balkans at all, is Rumania, a peaceable, prosinextricably mixed. Churches have been the perous, fertile, and exceedingly well governed most powerful political engines in this long- kingdom formed by the union of the two standing dispute, the raw, primeval passions older principalities of Wallachia and Molof the Balkan peoples having found their davia. Rumania has always kept aloof from bitterest expression under the cloak of religion. the perennial Balkan disputes and regards The scene of the present hostilities covers with a good deal of contempt her turbulent the whole of that part of Europe lying south and quarrelsome neighbors. Lying squarely of the Danube which is usually called the across the line of a Russian advance on Balkan Peninsula a convenient though Turkey, occupying a position of great stratevague expression which is generally assumed gic importance on the flank of Austriato include Rumania, though, geographically Hungary, and possessing an admirably speaking, this extension of the term is equipped and highly efficient army, Rumania

unquestionably holds the balance of power official Turkish names of the various districts in the Balkans. In the present complications of European Turkey are generally replaced by she has thus far carefully refrained from older and more historical designations.

taking any part.

The

northern portion of the Adriatic littoral below Montenegro is commonly called Albania (though no such political division exists) and the southern part above Greece, Epirus. The district immediately south of Servia, including the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, is called Old Servia, and that between Adrianople and the Egean, Thrace. The term Macedonia is most correctly applied to the region north and west of Salonica, stretching from the Greek to the Bulgarian frontiers, but of recent years it has been so extended that the phrase "Macedonian question" is now taken to mean all the problems created by the existence of Turkey in Europe.

Immediately south of Rumania, on the other bank of the Danube, is the four-yearold kingdom of Bulgaria, formed by the union of the principality of Bulgaria and the former Turkish province of Eastern Rumelia. Should Rumania throw in her lot with Turkey, as is possible, though scarcely probable, Bulgaria would thus find herself in an extremely uncomfortable position, being sandwiched between two hostile nations. To the west of Bulgaria, and, like it, bounded on the north by the Danube, is the kingdom of Servia, a country having an area equal to that of New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Of all the Balkan nations, Servia occupies the most To comprehend the present situation, it dangerous position, for she lies across Aus- must be understood that the population of tria's path to the Egean, and to the Egean, Macedonia is composed in about equal parts sooner or later, Austria intends to go. A of Greeks and Slavs (Bulgarians and Serbs) Slavonic population, whose language is strongly tinctured with Albanians, the Turks either Servian or closely akin to it, occupy being in a decided minority. Greeks, BulBosnia and Herzegovina, those two provinces garians, Serbs, and Albanians each consider lying between Servia and the Adriatic, which themselves the only rightful heirs to MaceAustria, four years ago, formally annexed. Below them lies the tiny kingdom of Montenegro, about three-fourths the size of Connecticut, completely hemmed in by Turkey on the south and by Austria on the north, and with its few miles of seacoast at the mercy of Austrian guns. The extreme southern part of the Balkan peninsula is occupied by Greece, or, to give it its proper name, the Kingdom of Hellas, having an area, a comparatively small part of which is cultivated, about equal to that of West Virginia.

donia and each of them has for years past been engaged in strengthening their claims in their own peculiar way. Bulgaria bases its claim to Macedonia on the fact that, from 893 to 1277 it was almost wholly under the sway of the old Bulgarian czars, and that a majority of the present inhabitants of the region are of Bulgarian blood or sympathies. The Servians point to the fact that the great Servian czar, Dushan, who reigned from 1336 to 1356, included all Macedonia in his vast dominions, calling himself "Czar of In the center of this ring of Balkan king- Macedonia and Monarch of the Serbs, doms lie the territories which comprise Greeks, Bulgars, the coast and western European Turkey. They are officially di- parts." They also assert that that portion vided into six provinces or vilayets: Scutari, of Macedonia known as Old Servia is largely Janina, Kossovo, Monastir, Salonica, and Adrianople, besides Constantinople and its environs, which have a separate administration, while the little tongue of Turkish territory lying between Servia and Montenegro, and forming, as it were, a causeway between the Austrian province of Bosnia and the Turkish province of Kossovo, is known as the Sanjak (sub-province) of Novi-Bazar. This bit of mountain land, scarcely half the size of the State of Connecticut, forms the real crux of the Balkan situation, for through it, when she is fully prepared, Austria intends to make her way to Salonica, and on it, for the benefit of the Balkan states, she has already placed a sign: "No trespassing per

inhabited by people of their own race, and that they will consent to no scheme for the partition of Macedonia that does not provide for handing this district at least over to them. From a purely historical standpoint, the Greek claim to Macedonia is by far the strongest, for Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon included all of Macedonia within their empires centuries before Bulgaria or Servia were ever heard of, and the population of Macedonia-so the Greeks will tell you-is overwhelmingly Hellenic to-day.

As a result of this racial rivalry, the Balkan nations, particularly the Greeks and Turks, have for more than twenty years waged a bloody warfare in Macedonia by means of

6Sarajevo BELGRADE

(The shaded sections are Macedonia and Novi-Bazar)

slipping into Macedonia from the south, have Government has made but little effort to murdered every Bulgarian on whom they bring this intolerable state of affairs to an could lay their hands, destroyed the crops of end, shrewdly perceiving that as long as the the Bulgarian inhabitants, chopped down various Christian races were engaged in fighttheir orchards, and burned their villages. ing each other they could not combine Then the Bulgarian bands, sweeping down against the Turks. At intervals, however, through the northern passes, would retaliate the Turks, exasperated beyond endurance, by committing precisely the same atrocities would take a hand in their turn, and woe to on the Greek inhabitants of Macedonia, the the Christian, be he Bulgar, Greek, or Serb, operations of both factions being character- who fell into their hands. From my own ized by fiendish cruelty and wholesale de- investigations in Macedonia, however, I struction of property. As a rule the Turkish think it safe to say that, in recent years at

!

least, for every atrocity the Turks have com- the sudden appearance in Europe of a new
mitted in Macedonia, the Greeks, Bulgarians and most formidable corporate power-the
and Serbs have committed four. These guer- Balkan Confederation. Despairing of obtain-
rilla campaigns in Macedonia were planned ing the partition of Macedonia through Euro-
solely in the hope that the horrors which pean intervention, and tardily appreciating
they caused would compel the Powers to that the game they had been playing was as
intervene, the Greeks believing that in the foolish as it was wicked they suddenly de-
event of such an intervention Macedonia cided that the only hope of getting what they
would be turned over to them, while the were after lay in their joining forces, a union
Bulgarians were equally confident that they which has been effected with a secrecy and
would receive the prize. It will be seen, celerity almost unexampled in the history of
therefore, that the cry of humanity, so European diplomacy. Whether the, allied
powerful in 1877, when the Turks themselves kingdoms are sufficiently powerful to defeat
were the chief actors in the Macedonian the Turk is, however, a matter of grave
tragedy, has been practically taken away doubt. Even if they should succeed in doing
from the Christians by the horrible atrocities so, it is almost a certainty that they will not
perpetrated by both Greeks and Bulgars in be permitted by the Powers to annex a foot
recent years.
of Turkish soil.

Now the remarkable thing about the pres- The most dangerous factor in the present ent situation is that the four Balkan king- conflict is Bulgaria. The Russian General, doms, which have hitherto been at each Kuropatkin, attending the maneuvers of the other's throats, have suddenly and secretly Bulgarian army some years ago, by way of formed a combination-pooled their interests being complimentary, remarked that the in Macedonia, as it were and have evidently Bulgarians were the Japanese of the Near come to an agreement that, if they are vic- East. They have never forgotten that retorious in the hazardous adventure on which mark. Like the Japanese, they take themthey are embarking, they will share the selves very seriously, and like them again, profits between them. We have, therefore, they firmly believe that they have a large