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T H E B A L K A N S
A HISTORY OF
BULGARIA SERB IA GREECE
RUMANIA TURKEY
OXFORD UN IVERS ITY PRE S S
LONDON E DINB URGH GLAS GOW NEW Y ORKTORONTO ME LB OURNE B OMB AYHUMPHREY MILFORD
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERS ITY
1832. l
TH E B A L K A N S
A H ISTORY OF
BULGAR IA SER B IA GREECE
RUMAN IA TURKEY .
NEV ILL FORBES,ARNOLD J . TOYNBEE
D. MITRANY,D. G. HOGARTH
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRES S
I 915
PRINTE D IN E NGLANDAT THE OXF ORD UNIVE RS ITY PRE S S
PRE FACE
THE authors Of this volume have not worked in conjunction . W idely separat ed, eng ag ed on other dut ies
,and
pressed for time, we have had no opportunity for interchangeof views . Each must be held responsible
,therefore
,for his
own section alone . If there be any discrepancies in ourwritings (it is not unlikely in so disputed a field of history)we can only regret an unfortunate result of the circumstances . Owing to rapid change in the relations Of our
country to the several Balkan peoples,the tone of a section
written earlier may differ from that Of another written later .I t may be well to state that the sections on Serbia andBulgaria were finished before the decisive Balkan developments of the pas t two months . Those on Greece andRumania represent only a little later stage of the evolution .
That on Turkey,compiled between one mission abroad and
another,was the lates t to be finished .
If our sympathies are not all the same,nor given equally
to friends and foes,none of us would find it possible to
indite a Hymn of Hate about any Balkan people . Everyone of these peoples
,on whatever side he be fighting to-day
,
has a past worthy of more than our respect and interwovenin some intimate way with our history . That any one of
them is arrayed against us to-day is no t to be laid entirelyor chiefly at its own door . They are all fine peoples whohave not obtained their proper places in the sun . The bestof the Osmanli nation
,the Anatolian peasantry
,has yet to
make its physical and moral qualities felt under civilizedconditions . As for the rest—the Serbs and the Bulgars, whohave enj oyed brief moments of barbaric glory in their pa st,
6 Preface
have still to find themselves in that future which shall be tothe Slav . The Greeks, who were old when we were not asyet
,are younger now than we . They are a s incalculable
a factor in a political forecast a s another Chosen Race, theJews . Their past is the world’s glory : the present in theNear East is theirs more than any people’s : the futuredespite the laws Of corporate being and decline
,dare we say
they will have no part in it Of Rumania what are we tothink Her mixed people has had the start Of the BalkanSlavs in modern civilization
,and evidently her boundaries
must grow wider yet . But the limits Of her possible expansion are easier to se t than those Of the rest .We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples .Mediaeval history
,whether of the East or the West
,i s
mostly a record of bloodshedding and cruelty ; and theMiddle Age has been prolonged to our own time in mostparts of the Balkans
,and is not yet over in some parts .
There are certain things salutary to bear in mind when wethink or speak Of any part of that country to-day . First
,
that less than two hundred years ag o, England had itshighwaymen on all roads
,and its smuggler dens and caravans
,
Scotland its caterans,and Ireland its moonlighters . Second
,
that religious fervour has rarely mitigated and generallyincreased our own savagery . Thirdly
,that our own policy
in Balkan matters has been none too wise,especially Of late .
In permitting the Treaty of Bucarest three years ago,we
were parties to making much of the trouble that has ensued,
and will ensue again . If we have not been able to writeabout the Near East under existing circumstances altogethersine im e t studio
,we have tried to remember that each Of
its peoples has a case .D . G . HOGARTH .
November,1915
CONTENTS
PAGEBULGARIA AND SERBIA . By NEV ILL FORB E S .
1 . Introductory2 . The Ba lkan Peninsula in Clas sica l Time s
, 400 B . C .—A . D . 500
3. The Arriva l of the S lavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A . D . goo
650
BU LGAR IA .
The A rrival of the Bulgars in the Ba lkan Peninsula ,600-700
The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of
Chri s tiani ty, 700
—893The Ri se and Fall of the Firs t Bulgarian Empire , 893 972The Rise and Fa ll of ‘We stern Bulgaria ’
and the GreekSupremacy
, 963—1 186
The Rise and Fa ll of the Second Bulgarian Empire , 1 186
1 2 58
The Serbian Supremacy and the Fina l Collapse , 1 2 58—1393The Turki sh Dominion and the Emancipation , 1393
—1878The Afte rmath
,and Prince Alexander of Battenb erg,
1 878—86
The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of SaxeCoburg
,1886—1908
The Kingdom,1908
—13
SERB IA .
The Serb s under Foreign Supremacy, 650—1 168The Ri se and Fal l of the Serbian Empire and the Exti nction
of Serbian Independence , 1 168—1496The Turki sh Dominion , 1496—1796The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George ( 1804—13) andMilo§ Ob renovic’ (18 15 1796
—1830The Throe s of Regenera tion : Independent S erbia , 1830
I 903
Serbia,Mont enegro , and the Serbo-Croats in Austria
Hungary,1903
—8Serbia and Montenegro
,and the two Balkan Wars , 1908 13
8 ContentsPAGE
GREECE . By ARNOLD J . TOY NB EE .1 . From Ancient to Modern Gre ece2 . The Awakening of the Nat ion3. The Consolidat ion of the State
RUMANIA : HER HISTORY AND POLITICS; By D . MITRANY .
1 . Introduct ion2 . Formation of the Rumanian Nation3. The Foundat ion and Deve lopment of the Rumanian
Prin cipali ti esThe Phanariote RuleModern Period t o 1866
4
56. Contemporary Period : Interna l D eve lopment7 . Contemporary Period Foreign Affairs8. Rumania and the Pre sen t W ar
TURKEY. By D . G . HOGARTH1 . Origin of the Osman li s2 . Expansion of the Osmanli KingdomHeri tage and Expan sion of the Byzantine EmpireShrinkage and RetreatReviva lRe lapseRevolut ionThe Balkan W ar
9. The Future
INDEX
OO
\1
Gun
-pt»
MAPS
The Ba lkan Peninsula : Ethnologi ca lThe Balkan PeninsulaThe Ottoman Empire
BULGARIA AND SERB IA
I ntroductoryTHE whole of the Balkan peninsula
,bounded on the north
by the rivers Save and Danube,on the west by the Adriatic
,
on the east by the Black Sea,and on the south by a very
irregular line running from Antivari (on the coast of theAdriatic) and the lake Of Scutari in the west, through lakesOkhrida and Prespa (in Macedonia) to the outskirts of
Salonika and thence to Midia on the shores of the BlackSea
,following the coast of the Aegean Sea some miles
inland,is preponderatingly inhabited by Slavs . These Slavs
are the Bulgarians in the east and centre,the Serbs and
Croats (or Serbians and Croatians or Serbo—Croats) in thewest
,and
,in the extreme north-west
,between Trieste and
Laibach,the Slovenes
,which three nationalities compose
the southern branch of the Slavonic race . The otherinhabitants of the Balkan peninsula are
,to the south of the
Slavs,the Albanians in the west
,the Greeks in the centre
and south,and the Turks in the south-east
,and
,to the
north,the Rumanians . All four Of these nationalities a re to
be found in varying quantities within the limits of the Slavterritory roughly outlined above
,but greater numbers Of
them are outside it ; on the other hand,there are a con
siderab le number of Serbs living north of the rivers Saveand Danube
,in southern Hungary . Details of the ethnic
distribution and boundaries will of course be gone into more
10 The B alkan Peninsula
fully later ; meanwhile attention may be called to the significant fact that the name Of Macedonia
,the heart Of the
Balkan peninsula,has been long used by the French gastro
nomers to denote a dish, the principal characteristic ofwhich is that its component parts are mixed up into quiteinextricable confusion .
Of the three Slavonic nationalities already mentioned,
the two first,the Bulgarians and the Serbo—Croats
,occupy
a much greater Space,geographically and historically
,than
the third . The Slovenes, barely one and a half million innumber
,inhabiting the Austrian provinces Of Carinthia and
Carniola,have never been able to form a political s tate
,
though,with the growth of Trieste as a great port and the
persistent efforts Of Germany to make her influence if nother flag supreme on the shores of the Adriatic
,this small
people has from its geographical position and from its anti ~
German (and anti-I talian) a ttitude achieved considerablenotoriety and some importance .
Of the Bulgars and Serbs i t may be said that a t thepresent moment the former control the eastern
,and the
la tter,in alliance with the Greeks
,the western half of the
peninsula . I t has always been the ambition of each Of thesethree nationalities to dominate the whole
,an ambition which
has caused endless waste of blood and money and untoldmisery . If the question were to be settled purely on ethnicalconsiderations
,Bulgaria would acquire the greater part of
the interior of Macedonia,the most numerous of the dozen
nationalities of which is Bulgarian in sentiment if not inorigin
,and would thus undoubtedly attain the hegemony
of the peninsula,while the centre of gravity of the Serbian
nation would,as is ethnically j ust
,move north-westwards .
Political considerations,however
,have until now always been
I ntroductory I I
against this solution of the diffi culty,and
,even if it were
solved in this sense,there would still rema1n the problem
of the Greek nationality,whose distribution along all the
coasts of the Aegean,both European and Asiatic
,makes
a delimitation of the Greek state on purely ethnical linesvirtually impossible . I t is curious that the Slavs
,though at
several times,a s indeed now
,masters of the interior of the
peninsula,have never made the shores of the Aegean (the
White Sea,a s they call i t) or the cities on them their own .
The Adriatic is the only sea on the shore of which anySlavonic race has ever made its home . In view of thisdifficulty
,namely
,the interior of the peninsula being
Slavonic while the coas tal fringe is Greek,and Of the
approximately equal numerical strength of all three nations ,i t is almost inevitable that the ultimate solution of theproblem and delimitation of political boundaries will haveto be effected by means of territorial compromise . I t canonly be hoped that this ultimate compromise will be agreedupon by the three countries concerned
,and will be more
equitable than tha t which was forced on them by Rumaniain 1913 and laid down in the Treaty Of Bucarest of thatyear .If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is madebetween them
,the road to the East
,which from the point
Of view Of the Germanic powers lies through Serbia,will
sooner or la ter inevitably be forced Open,and the indepen
dence,firs t of Serbia
,Montenegro
,and Albania
,and later
of Bulgaria and Greece,will disappear
,de facto if not in
appearance,and both materially and morally they will become
the slaves of the central empires . I f the Balkan Leaguecould be reconstituted
,Germany and Austria would never
reach Salonika or Constantinople .
1 2 The Balkan Peninsula
The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times400 B . C .
-A .D . 500 .
IN the earlier historical times the whole of the easternpart of the Balkan peninsula between the Danube and theAegean was known as Thracia
,while the western part (north
o f the forty—first degree of latitude) was termed Illyricumthe lower basin of the river Vardar (the classical Axius) wascalled Macedonia . A number of the tribal and personalnames of the early Illyrians and Thracians have been preserved . Philip of Macedonia subdued Thrace in the fourthcentury B . c . and in 342 founded the city of Philippopolis.Alexander preferred making himself an empire in Asia tosecuring control of the peninsula
,and during the third
century B . c . Thrace was invaded from the north and laid
waste by the Celts,who had already visited Illyria . The
Celts vanished by the end of that century,leaving a few
place-names to mark their passage . The city of Belgradewas known until the seventh century A . D . by its Celtic nameOf Singidunum . Naissus
,the modern Nish
,is also possibly
of Celtic origin . I t was towards 2 30 B C . that Rome cameinto contact with Illyricum
,owing to the piratical pro
clivities of its inhabitants,but for a long time it only con
trolled the Dalmatian coast,so called after the Delmati or
Dalmati,an Illyrian tribe . The reason for this was the
formidable character Of the mountains of Illyria, which runin several parallel and almost unbroken lines the wholelength of the shore of the Adriatic and have always formedan effective barrier to invasion from the west . The interior
The Classical A g e I 3
was only very gradually subdued by the Romans after Macedonia had been occupied by them in B . 0. Throughoutthe firs t century B . C . conflicts raged with varying fortunebetween the invadersand all the native races living betweenthe Adriatic and the Danube . They were attacked bothfrom Aquileia in the north and from Macedonia in thesouth
,but it was not till the early years of our era that the
Danube became the frontier of the Roman Empire .In the year A . D . 6 Moesia
,which included a large part
of the modern kingdom of Serbia and the northern half ofthat of Bulgaria between the Danube and the Balkan range
(the classical Haemus) , became an imperial province, andtwenty years later Thrace
,the country between the Balkan
range and the Aegean,was incorporated in the empire
,and
was made a province by the Emperor Claudius in A . D . 46.
The province of Illyricum or Dalmatia stretched betweenthe Save and the Adriatic
,and Pannonia lay between the
Danube and the Save . In 107 A . D . the Emperor Traj anconquered the Dacians beyond the lower Danube
,and
organized a province of Dacia out of territory roughlyequivalent to the modern Wallachia and Transylvania .This t rans-Danubian territory did not remain a ttachedto the empire for more than a hundred and fifty years ;but within the river line a vast belt of country, s tretchingfrom the head of the Adriatic to the mouths of the Danubeon the Black Sea
,was Romanized through and through .
The Emperor Traj an has been called the Charlemagne of theBalkan peninsula ; all remains are attributed to him (he wasnicknamed the Wallflower by Constantine the Great) , and hisreign marked the zenith of Roman power in this part of theworld . The Balkan peninsula enj oyed the benefits of Romancivilization for three centuries
,from the firs t to the fourth
,
14 The Balkan Peninsula
but from the second century onwards the attitude of theRomans was defensive rather than Off ensive . The war agains tthe Marcomanni under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
,in the
second half of this century,was the turning-point . Rome was
still victorious,but no territory was added to the empire .
The third century saw the southward movement of the Germanic peoples
,who took the place of the Celts . The Goths
invaded the peninsula,and in 2 51 the Emperor Decius was
killed in battle against them near Odessus on the Black Sea
(the modern Varna) . The Goths reached the outskirts ofThessalonica (Salonik a) , but were defeated by the EmperorClaudius a t Naissus (Nish) in 2 69 shortly afterwards
,how
ever,the Emperor Aurelian had definitively to relinquish
Dacia to them . The Emperor Diocletian,a native of
Dalmatia,who reigned from 2 84. to 305, carried out a redis
t ribut ion of the imperial provinces . Pannonia and westernIllyria
,or Dalmatia
,were assigned to the prefec ture of I taly
,
Thrace to that of the Orient,while the whole centre of
the peninsula,from the Danube to the Peloponnese
,con
s tituted the prefecture of I llyria,with Thessalonica a s
capital . The territory to the north of the Danube havingbeen lost
,what is now western Bulgaria was renamed Dacia
,
whi le Moesia,the modern kingdom of Serbia
,was made
very much smaller . Praevalis,or the southern part of
Dalmatia,approximately the modern Montenegro and Al
bania,was detached from that province and added to the
prefecture of Illyria . In this way the boundary betweenthe province of Dalmatia and the Balkan peninsula properran from near the lake of Scutari in the south to the riverDrinus (the modern Drina) , whose course it followed till the
Save was reached in the north .
An event of far-reaching importance in the following
The Classical Ag e 15
century was the elevation by Constantine the Great of theGreek colony of Byzantium into the imperial city of Con
stant inOple in 32 5. This century also witnessed the arrivalof the Huns in Europe from Asia . They overwhelmed theOstrogoths
,between the Dnieper and the Dniester
,in 375,
and the Visigoths,s ettled in Transylvania and the modern
Rumania,moved southwards in sympathy with this event .
The Emperor Valens los t his life fighting against these Gothsin 378 at the great battle of Adrianople (a city establishedin Thrace bv the Emperor Hadrian in the second century) .His successor
,the Emperor Theodosius
,placated them with
gifts and made them guardians of the northern frontier,but
at his death,in 395, they overran and devasta ted the entire
peninsula,after which they proceeded to I taly. After
the death of the Emperor Theodosius the empire wasdivided
,never to be j oined into one whole again . The
dividing line followed that,already mentioned
,which
separated the prefecture of I taly from those of I llyria andthe Orient
,that is to say, i t began in the south, on the
shore of the Adriatic near the Bocche di Cattaro, and wentdue north along the valley of the Drlna till the confluenceof that river with the S ave . I t will be seen tha t this divisionhad consequences which have lasted to the present day .
Generally speaking,the Western Empire was Latin in
language and character,while the Eastern was Greek
,
though owing to the importance of the Danubian provincesto Rome from the military point of view
,and the lively
intercourse maintained between them,Latin influence in
them was for a long time stronger than Greek . I ts extentis proved by the fact that the people of modern Rumania arepartly
,and their language very largely
,descended from those
of the legions and colonies of the Emperor Traj an .
1 6 The Balkan Peninsula
Latin influence, shipping , colonization , and art werealways supreme on the eastern shores of the Adriatic , j usta s were those of Greece on the shores of the Black Sea .
The Albanians even, descendants of the ancient Illyrians ,were affected by the supremacy of the Latin language, from
which no less than a quarter of their own meagre vocabularyis derived ; though driven southwards by the Romans andnorthwards by the Greeks
,they have remained in their
mountain fa stnesses to this day,impervious to any of the
civilizations to which they have been exposed .
Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula veryearly ; Macedonia and Dalmatia were the parts where itwas firs t established
,and it took some time to penetrate
into the interior . During the reign of Diocletian numerousmartyrs suff ered for the faith in the Danubian provinces
,
but with the accession of Constantine the Great persecutioncame to an end . As soon
,however
,a s the Christians were
left alone,they started persecuting each other
,and during
the fourth centurv the Arian controversy re-echoed throughout the peninsula .
In the fifth century the Huns moved from the shores of
the Black Sea to the plains of the Danube and the Theis sthey devastated the Balkan penmsula
,in Spite of the tribute
which they had levied on Constantinople in return for theirpromise of peace . After the death of Attila
,in 453, they
again retreated to Asia,and during the second half of the
century the Goths were once more supreme in the peninsula .
Theodoric occupied Singidunum (Belgrade) in 471 and ,after plundering Macedonia and Greece
,settled in Novae
(the modern Svishtov) , on the lower Danube, in 483, wherehe remained till he transferred the sphere of his activitiesto I taly ten years later . Towards the end of the fifth century
The Balkan Peninsula
a ttraction for the wild men from the east and north,and
unfortunately the Greek citizens were more inclined tospend their energy in theological disputes and their leisurein the circus than to devote either the one or the otherto the defence of their country . I t was only by dint ofpaying them huge sums of money that the invaders werekept away from the coast . The departure of the Huns andthe Goths had made the way for fresh series of unwelcomevisitors . In the sixth century the Slavs appear for the firs ttime . From their original homes which were immedia telynorth of the Carpathians
,in Galicia and Poland
,but may
also have included parts of the modern Hungary,they moved
southwards and south-eastwards . They were presumably inDacia
,north of the Danube
,in the previous century
,but
they are firs t mentioned a s having crossed that river duringthe reign of the Emperor j ustin I (518 They werea loosely-knit congeries of tribes without any single leaderor central authority ; some say they merely possessed theinstinct of anarchy
,others that they were permeated with
the ideals of democracy. What is certain is that amongstthem neither leadership nor initiative was developed
,and
that they lacked both cohesion and organization. TheEastern Slavs
,the ancestors of the Russians
,were only
welded into anything approaching unity by the compara
t ively much smaller number of Scandinavian (Varangian)adventurers who came and took charge of their aff airs a tKiev . Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of themselves able to form a united community
,conscious of its
aim and capable of persevering in its a ttainment .The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but
in the company of the Avars,a terrible and j ustly dreaded
nation,who
,like the Huns
,were of Asiatic (Turkish or
The A rrival of the Slavs 19
Mongol) origin . These invasions became more frequentduring the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (52 7 andculminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all theinvaders on Constantinople under a certain Zab e rg an, which
was brilli antly defeated by the veteran Byzantine generalBelisarius . The Avars were a nomad tribe
,and the horse
was their natural means of locomotion . The Slavs,on the
other hand,moved about on foot
,and seem to have been
used as infantry by the more masterful Asiatics in theirwarlike expeditions . Generally Speaking
,the Avars
,who
must have been infinitely less numerous than the Slavs,were
settled in Hungary,where Attila and the Huns had been
settled a little more than a century previously ; tha t is tosay, they were north of the Danube
,though they were
always overrunning into Upper Moesia,the modern Serbia .
The Slavs,whose numbers were Without doubt very large
,
gradually settled all over the country south of the Danubethe rural parts of which
,as a result of incessant invasion
and retreat,had become waste and empty. During the
second half of the sixth century all the mili tary energies of
Constantinople were diverted to Persia,so that the invaders
of the Balkan peninsula had the field very much to themselves . I t was during this time that the power of the Avarsreached its height . They were masters of all the countryup to the walls of Adrianople and Salonika
,though they
did not settle there . The peninsula seems to have beencolonized by Slavs
,who penetrated right down into Greece ;
but the Avars were throughout this t ime,both in politic s
and in war,the directing and dominating force . During
another Persian war,which broke out in 62 2 and entailed
the prolonged absence of the emperor from Constantinople,the Avars
,not satisfied with the tribute extorted from the
B 2
2 0 The Balkan Peninsula
Greeks,made an alliance against them with the Persians
,
and in 62 6 collected a large army of Slavs and Asiatics andattacked Constantinople bo th by land and sea from theEuropean side
,while the Persians threatened it from Asia .
But the walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks provedinvincible
,and
,quarrels breaking out between the Slavs and
the Avars,both had to save themselves in ignominious
and precipitate retreat .After this nothing more was heard of the Avars in the
Balkan peninsula,though their power was only finally
crushed by Charlemagne in 799. In Russia their downfallbecame proverbial
,being crystallized in the saying
,they
perished like Avars The Slavs,on the other hand
,
remained . Throughout these stormy times their penetration of the Balkan peninsula had been peacefully if unost entat iously proceeding by the middle of the seventh centuryit was complete . The main streams of Slavonic immigrationmoved southwards and westwards . The firs t covered thewhole of the country between the Danube and the Balkanrange
,overfiowed into Macedonia
,and filtered down into
Greece . Southern Thrace in the east and Albania in thewest were comparatively little affected
,and in these dis tricts
the indigenous population maintained itself . The co asts ofthe Aegean and the great cities on or near them were toostrongly held by the Greeks to be affected
,and those Slavs
who penetrated into Greece itself were soon absorbed bythe local popula tions . The still stronger Slavonic s tream
,
which moved westwards and turned up north—westwards,
overran the whole country down to the shores of theAdriatic and a s far as the sources of the Save and Dravein the Alps . From that point in the west to the shores ofthe Black Sea in the east became one solid mass of Slavs,
The A rrival of the Slavs 2 1
and has remained so ever since . The few Slavs who wereleft north of the Danube in Dacia were gradually assimila tedby the inhabitants of that province
,whowere the descendants
of the Roman soldiers and colonists,and the ancestors of
the modern Rumanians,but the fact that Slavonic influence
there was strong is shown by the large number of wordsof Slavonic origin contained in the Rumanian language .Place-names are a good index of the extent and strengthof the tide of Slav immigration . All along the coast
,from
the mouth of the Danube to the head of the Adria tic,the
Greek and Roman names have been retained though placeshave often been given alternative names by the Slavonicsettlers . Thrace
,especially the south-eastern part
,and
Albania have the fewest Slavonic place-names . InMacedoniaand Lower Moesia (Bulgaria) very few classical names havesurvived
,while in Upper Moesia (Serbia) and the interior
of Dalmatia (Bosnia , Hercegovina , and Montenegro) theyhave entirely disappeared . The Slavs themselves
,though
their tribal names were known,were until the ninth century
usually called collectively S (k)lavini (Ea a ol) by theGreeks
,and all the inland parts of the peninsula were for
long termed by them the S (k) lavoniasDuring the seventh century
,dating from the defea t of
the Slavs and Avars before the walls of Constantinople in626 and the final triumph of the emperor over the Persiansin 62 8
,the influence and power of the Greeks began to
reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north as theDanube ; this process was coincident with the decline of
the might of the Avars . I t was the custom of the astuteByzantine diplomacy to look on and speak of lands whichhad been occupied by the various barbarian invaders as
grants made to them through the generosity of the emperor
2 2 The Balkan Peninsula
by this means,by dint also of lavishing titles and substantial
incomes t o the invaders’ chiefs,by making the mo st of their
mutual j ealousies,and also by enlisting regiments of Slavonic
mercenaries in the imperial armies,the supremacy of Con
stant inOple was regained far more effectively than it couldhave been by the continual and exhausting use of force .
2 4 Bulgaria
mission throughout the fifth and sixth centuries,but even
if they were,they do not seem t o have settled down as
early as that anywhere south o f the Danube ; i t seemscertain that they did not do so until the seventh century
,
and therefore that the Slavs were definitely installed in theBalkan peninsula a whole century before the Bulgars crossedthe Danube for good .
The Bulgars,like the Huns and the Avars who preceded
them and like the Magyars and the Turks who followedthem
,were a tribe from eastern Asia
,of the stock known as
Mongol or Tartar . The tendency of all these peoples wasto move westwards from Asia into Europe
,and this they
did at considerable and irregular intervals,though in alarm
ing and apparently inexhaustible numbers,roughly from the
fourth till the fourteenth centuries . The distance was great,
but the j ourney,thanks to the flat
,grassy
,treeless
,and well
watered character of the steppes of southern Russia whichthey had to cross
,was easy . They often halted for con
side rab le periods b y the way, and some never moved furtherwestwards than Russia . Thus at one time the Bulgars settledin large numbers on the Volga
,near its confluence with the
Kama,and it is p resumed that they were well established
there in the fifth century . They formed a community of
considerable strength and importance,known as Great or
White Bulgaria . These Bulgars fused with later Tartarimmigrants from Asia and eventually were consolidated intothe powerful kingdom of Kazan
,which was only crushed
by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552 . According to Bulgarianhistorians
,the basins of the rivers Volga and Don and the
steppes of eastern Russia proved t oo confined a space forthe legitimate development of Bulgarian energy
,and expan
s ion to the west was decided on . A large number of Bulgars
The A rrival of the Bulgars 2 5
therefore detached themselves and began to move southwestwards . During the sixth century they seem to havebeen. settled in the country to the north of the Black Sea
,
forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria . I t is verydoubtful whether the Bulgars did take part
,as they are
supposed t o have done,in the ambitious but unsuccessful
a ttack on Constantinople in 559 under Zab e rg an,chief o f
ano ther Tartar tribe ; but it is fairly certain that they didin the equally formidable but equally unsuccessful attacksby the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609 and Constant inople in 62 6 .
During the last quarter of the Sixth and the first of theseventh century the various branches of the Bulgar nation ,stretching from the Volga to the Danube
,were consolidated
and kept in control by their prince Kubrat,who eventually
fought on behalf of the Greeks against the Avars,and was
actually baptized in Constantinople . The power of theBulgars grew a s that of the Avars declined
,but at the death
of Kubrat , in 638, his realm was divided amongst his sons .One of these established himself in Pannonia
,where he
j oined forces with what was left of the Avars,and there
the Bulgars maintained themselves till they were obliteratedby the irruption of the Magyars in 893. Another son,
Asparukh,or Isperikh
,settled in Bessarabia
,between the
rivers Prut and Dniester,in 640, and some years later passed
southwards . After desultory warfare with Constantinople,
from 660 onwards,his successor finally overcame the Greeks
,
who were a t that time at war with the Arabs,captured
Varna,and definitely established himself between the
Danube and the Balkan range in the year 679. From thatyear the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the e asternempire .
2 6 Bulgaria
The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of theDanube are no t known
,but what happened to them is
notorious . The well-known process , by which the Franksin Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenouspopulation which they had conquered
,was repeated, and
the Bulgars became fused with the Slavs . So complete was
the fusion,and so preponderating the influence of the sub
j ect nationality, that beyond a few personal names no tracesof the language of the Bulgars have survived . ModernBulgarian
,excep t for the Turkish words introduced into it
later during the Ottoman rule,is purely Slavonic . No t so
the Bulgarian nationality ; as is so often the case withmongrel products
,this race
,compared with the Serbs , who
are purely Slav,has shown considerably greater virility,
cohesion,and driving-power
,though it must be conceded
that its problems have been infinitely simpler .
5
The E arly Years of Bulgaria and the I ntroductionof Chris tianity , 700—893 .
FROM the time of their es tablishment in the country towhich they have given their name the Bulgars becamea thorn in the side of the Greeks
,and ever since both
peoples have looked on one another as natural and hereditaryenemies . The Bulgars
,like all the barbarians who had pre
ceded them,were fascinated by the honey-pot of Con
stant inOple , and,though they never succeeded in taking it
,
they never grew tired of making the attempt .For two hundred years after the death of Asparukh
,in
661,the Bulgars were perpetually fighting either against the
E arly Years and Christianity 2 7
Greeks or else amongst themselves . At times a diversionwas caused by the Bulgars taking the part of the Greeks ,as in 718,
.
when they delivered ’ Constantinople, a t theinvocation of the Emperor Leo
,from the Arabs
,who were
besieging it . From about this time the Bulgarian monarchy,which had been hereditary, became elective, and the anarchyof the many
,which the Bulgars found when they arrived
,
and which their firs t few autocratic rulers had been able t ocontrol
,was replaced by an anarchy o f the few . Prince
succeeded prince,war followed war
,a t the will of the feudal
nobles . This internal strife was naturally profitable to th eGreeks
,who lavishly subsidized the rival factions .
At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south ofthe Danube j oined forces with those to the north in theefforts of the latter against the Avars
,who
,beaten by
Charlemagne,were again pressing south-eastwards towards
the Danube . In this the Bulgars were completely successfulunder the leadership of one Krum
,whom
,in the elation of
victory , they promptly elected to the throne . Krum wasa far more capable ruler than they had bargained for
,and
he not only united all the Bulgars north and south of theDanube into one dominion
,but also forcibly repressed the
whims of the nobles and re-established the autocracy andthe hereditary monarchy. Having finished with his enemiesin the north
,he turned his a ttention to the Greeks
,with
no less success . In 809 he cap tured from them the importantcity of Sofia (the Roman Sardica, known to the Slavs a sSredets) , which is to—day the capital of Bulgaria . The lossof this city was a blow to the Greeks
,because it was a great
centre of commerce and also the point a t which the commercial and stra tegic highways of the peninsula met and
crossed . The Emperor Nikiphéros, who wished to take his
2 8 Bulgaria
revenge and recover his lost property,was totally defeated
by the Bulgars and lost his life in the Balkan passes in 81 1 .
After further victories,a t Mesemb ria (the modern Misivria)
in 8 1 2 and Adrianople in 8 13, Krum appeared before thecapital
,where he nearly lost his life in an ambush while
negotiating for peace . During preparations for a final assaulton Constantinople he died suddenly in 8 15. Though Krumcannot be said to have introduced civilization into Bulgaria
,
he at any rate increased its power and gave it some of themore essential organs of government . He framed a code oflaws remarkable for their rigour
,which was undoubtedly
necessary in such a community and beneficial in its effect .He repressed civil s trife
,and by this means made possible
the reawakening of commerce and agriculture . His suc
cessor,of uncertain identity
,founded in 82 2 the city of
Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav) , situated ineastern Bulgaria
,between Varna and Silist ria
,which was the
capital until 972 .
The reign of Prince Boris (852—88) is remarkable becauseit w itnessed the definitive conversion to Christianity of
Bulgaria and her ruler . I t i s within this period also thatfell the activities of the two great Slavonic missionariesand apostles
,the brothers Cyril and Methodius
,who are
looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders
of their civilization . Christianity had of course penetratedinto Bulgaria (or Moesia , a s it was then) long before thearrival of the Slavs and Bulgars
,but the influx of one horde
of barbarians after another was naturally not propitious to
its growth . The conversion of Boris in 865, which wasbrought about largely by the influence of his sister
,who
had spent many years in Constantinople as a captive,was
a triumph for Greek influence and for Byzantium . Though
E arly Years and Christianity 2 9
the Church was a t this time still nominally one,yet the
rivalry between Rome and Constantinople had alreadybecome acute
,and the struggle for spheres of spiritual
influence had begun . I t was in the year 863 that the Princeof Moravia
,anxious to introduce Christianity into his
country in a form intelligible t o his subj ects,addressed
himself to the Emperor Michael I I I for help . Rome couldnot provide any suitable missionaries with knowledge of
Slavonic languages,and the German
,or more exactly the
Bavarian,hierarchy with which Rome entrusted the spiritua l
welfare of the Slavs of Mo ravia and Pannonia used itsgreater local knowledge for political and not religious ends .The Germans exploited their ecclesiastical infiuence
i
in ordercompletely to dominate the Slavs politically
,and as a result
the latter were only allowed to see the Church throughTeutonic glasses .In answer to this appeal the emperor sent the two brothers
Cyril and Methodius,who were Greeks of Salonika and had
considerable knowledge of Slavonic languages . They com
posed the Slavonic alphabet which is to-day used throughoutRussia
,Bulgaria
,Serbia
,and Montenegro
,and in many
parts of Austria-Hungary,and translated the gospels into
Slavonic ; i t is for this reason that theyare regarded withsuch veneration by all members of the Eastern Church .
Their mission proved the greatest success (it must beremembered that at this time the various Slavonic tongueswere probably less dissimila r than they are now) , and thetwo brothers were warmly welcomed in Rome by PopeAdrian I I
,who formally consented to the use
,for the benefit
of the Slavs,of the Slavonic liturgy (a remarkable concession ,
confirmed by Pope John VIII) . This triumph, however,was short-lived ; S t . Cyril died in 869 and St . Methodius
30 Bulgaria
in 885 ; subsequent Popes, notably S tephen V,were not so
benevolent t o the Slavonic cause ; the machinations of theGerman hierarchy (which included, even in those days , thefalsification of documents) were irresistible, and finally theinvasion of the Magyars
,in 893, destroyed what was left o f
the Slavonic Church in Moravia . The missionary brothershad probably passed through Bulgaria on their way northin 863, but without halting . Many of their disciples
,driven
from the Moravian kingdom by the Germans,came south
and took refuge in Bulgaria in 886,and there carried on in
more favourable circumstances the teachings of their masters .Prince Boris had found it easier to adopt Christianity himself than to induce all his subj ects to do the same . Evenwhen he had enforced his will on them at the price of
numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles,he found himself
only a t the beginning of his difficulties . The Greeks hadbeen glad enough to welcome Bulgaria into the fold
,but
they had no wish to set up an independent Church andhierarchy to rival their own . Boris
,on the other hand
,
though no doubt full of genuine Spiritual ardour,was above
all impressed with the authority and prestige which thebasileus derived from the Church of Constantinople ; healso admired the pomp of ecclesiastical ceremony
,and wished
to have a patriarch of his own to crown him and a hierarchyof his own to serve him . Finding the Greeks unresponsive
,
he turned to Rome,and Pope Nicholas I sent him mo
bishops to superintend the ecclesiastical affairs of Bulgariatill the investiture of Boris at the hands of the Holy Seecould be arranged . These bishops se t to work with a will ,substituted the Latin for the Greek rite
,and brought
Bulgaria completely under Roman influence . But when it
was discovered that Boris was aiming at the erection of an
32 Bulgaria
his reign as the most brilliant period of their history . Hehad spent his childhood at Constantinople and been educatedthere
,and he became such an admirer of Greek civilization
that he was nicknamed H2miarg or . His instructors had donetheir work so well that Simeon remained Spellbound by theglamour of Constantinople throughout his life
,and
,although
he might have laid the foundations of a solid empire in theBalkans
,hi s one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and
to be recognized as basileus— ah ambition which was not tobe fulfilled . His firs t campaign against the Greeks was notvery fruitful
,because the latter summoned the Magyars
,
already settled in Hungary,to their aid and they attacked
Simeon from the north . Simeon in return called the
Pecheneg s, another fierce Tartar tribe,to his aid
,but this
merely resulted in their definite establishment in Rumania .
During the twenty years of peace,which strange to say
filled the middle of his reign (894 the internal development of Bulgaria made great strides . The administrationwas properly organized
,commerce was encouraged
,and
agriculture flourished . In the wars against the Greeks whichoccupied his las t years he was more successful
,and inflicted
a severe defea t on them at Anchialo (the modern Ah iolu)in 917 ; but he was still unable to get from them what hewanted
,and at last
,in 92 1 , he was obliged to proclaim
himself barileur and autocra tor of all Bulgars and Greeks,
a title which nobody else recognized . He reappeared beforeConstantinople the same year
,but effected nothing more
than the customary devastation of the suburbs .i
The year
92 3 witnessed a solemn reconciliation between Rome andConstantinople the Greeks were clever enough to preventthe Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their return j ourney
,
and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon,who was
First Bulgarian Empire,893—972 33
anxious to see them and enter into direc t relations withRome . In the same year Simeon tried to make an alliancewith the Arabs
,but the ambassadors of the latter were
intercep ted by the Greeks,who made it worth their while
not to continue the j ourney to Bulgaria .
In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort againstConstantinople and as a preliminary he ravaged Macedoniaand Thrace . When
,however
,he arrived before the city the
walls and the catapults made him hesitate,and he entered
into negotiations,which
,a s usual
,petered out and brought
him no adequate reward for all his hopes and preparations .In the west his arms were more successful
,and he subj ected
most of the eastern part of Serbia to his rule . From allthis i t can be seen that he was no diplomat
,though not
lacking in enterprise and ambition . The fact was that whilehe made his kingdom too powerful for the Greeks to subdue
(indeed they were compelled t o pay him tribute) , yet Constant inOple with its impregnable walls, well—organized army,powerful fleet
,and cunning and experienced statesmen, was
too hard a nut for him to crack .
Simeon extended the boundaries of his country considerably
,and his dominion included most of the interior of the
Balkan peninsula sou th of the Danube and east of the riversMorava and Ib ar in Serbia and of the Drin in Albania .The Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence inBulgaria during his reign
,and works of theology grew like
mushrooms . This was the only kind of literature that wasever popular in Bulgaria
,and although it is usual to throw
contempt on the literary achievements of Constantinople,we Should know but little of B ulgaria were it not for theGreek historians .Simeon died in 92 7, and his son Peter
,who succeeded
C
34 Bulgaria
him,was a lover of p eace and comfort he married a Byzan
tine princess,and during his reign (92 7—69) Greek influence
grew ever stronger,in spite of several revolts on the part
of the Bulgar nobles , while the capital Preslav became aminiature Constantinople . In 92 7 Rome recognized thekingdom and patriarchate of Bulgaria
,and Peter was duly
crowned by the Papal legate . This was viewed with disfavour by the Greeks
,and they Still called Peter only archon
or prince (knyaz. in Bulgarian) , which was the utmost titleallowed to any foreign sovereign . I t was not until 945 thatthey recognized Peter a s basileus
,the unique title possessed
by their own emperors and till then never granted to anyone else . Peter’s reign was one of misfortune for his countryboth at home and abroad . In 931 the Serbs broke loos eunder their leader Ca slav
,whom Simeon had captured but
who effected his escape,and asserted their independence .
In 963 a formidable revolt under one Shishman underminedthe whole state fabric . He managed to subtrac t Macedoniaand all western Bulgaria
,including Sofia and Vidin
,from
Peter’s rule,and proclaimed himself independent trar (trar
or onerar was a title often accorded by Byzantium to relative sof the emperor or to dis tinguished men of Greek or othernationality
,and though it was originally the equivalent o f
the highes t title,it ha d long since ceased to be so : the
emperor’s designations were barileur and autocra tor) . Fromthis time there were two Bulgarias— eastern and western .
The eastern half was now little more than a Byzantineprovince
,and the western became the centre of national
l ife and the focus of national a spirations .Another factor which militated against the internal pro
gress of Bulgaria was the spread of the Bogomil heresy inthe tenth century. This remarkable doctrine
,founded on
First Bulgarian Empire,893
-972 35
the dualism of the Paulicians,who had become an important
political force in the eastern empire,was preached in the
Balkan peninsula by one Jeremiah Bogomil,for the res t
a man of uncertain identity,who made Philippopolis the
centre of his activity. I ts principal features were of a negative character
,and consequently it was verv difficult success
fully to apply force agains t them . The Bogomils recognizedthe authority neither of Church nor of S tate ; the validityneither of oaths nor of human laws . They refused to paytaxes
,to fight
,or to obey ; they sanctioned theft, but
looked upon any kind of punishment as unj ustifiable ; theydiscountenanced marriage and were stric t vegetarians .Naturally a heresy so alarming in it s individualism shookto its foundations the not very firmly es tablished Bulgariansociety . Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in Spite of allpersecutions
,and its popularity amongst the Bulgarians
,and
indeed amongst all the Slavs of the peninsula,is without
doubt partly explained by political rea sons . The hiera rchyof the Greek Church
,which supported the ruling classes of
the country and lent them authority at the same time tha tit increased its own
,was antipathetic to the Slavs , and the
Bogomil heresy drew much strength from its nationalisticcolouring and from the appeal which it made to the charac te rof the Balkan Slavs
,who have always been intolerant of
government by the Church . But neither the civil nor theecclesiastical authorities were able to cope with the problemindeed they were ap t to minimize its importanc e
,and the
heresy was never eradicated till the arrival on the scene ofIslam
,which proved as attractive to the schismatics a s the
well-regula ted Orthodox Church had been the reverse .The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a grea trecrudescence of the power o f Constantinople under the
c 2
36 Bulgaria
Emperor Nikiphoros Phokas, who wrest ed Cyprus and Cretefrom the Arabs and inaugurated an era of prosperity forthe eastern empire
,giving it a new lea se of vigorous and
combative life . Wishing to reassert the Greek supremacyin the Balkan peninsula his first act was to refuse any furtherpayment of tribute to the Bulgarians a s from 966 his next
was to initiate a campaign against them,but in order to
make his own success in this enterprise less costly and moreassured he secured the co-operation of the Russians underSvyatoslav
,Prince of Kiev ; this potentate
’s mother Olgahad visited Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (thoughher son and the bulk of the population were still ardentheathens) , and commercial intercourse between Russia andConstantinople by means of the Dnieper and the Black Sea
was a t that time lively. Svyatoslav did not want pressing,
and arriving with an army of men in boats,over
came northern Bulgaria in a few days they werehelped by Shishman and the western Bulgars
,who did not
mind at what price Peter and the eastern Bulgars werecrushed . Svya toslav was recalled to Russia in 968 to defendhis home from attacks by the Tartar Pe cheneg s, but thatdone
,he made up his mind to return to Bulga ria
,lured by
its riches and by the hope of the eventual possession of
Constantinople .
The Emperor Nikiphéros was by now aware of the dangerhe had imprudently conj ured up
,and made a futile alliance
with eastern Bulgaria but in January 969 Peter of Bulgariadied
,and in December of the same year Nikiphéros was
murdered by the ambitious Armenian John Tzimisces,
1 who
thereupon became emperor . Svya toslav,seeing the field
clear of his enemies,returned in 970, and in March of tha t
13
John the Lit t le .
Firs t Bulgarian Empire,893
—972 37
year sacked and occupied Philippopolis . The Emperor John
Tzimisces, who was even abler both as general and a sdiplomat than his predecessor
,quietly pushed for ward his
warlike preparations,and did not meet the Russians till the
autumn,when he completely defeated them at Arcadiopolis
(the modern Lule-Burgas) . The Russians retired north of
the Balkan range,but the Greeks followed them . John
Tzimisces besieged them in the capital Preslav, which hestormed
,massacring many of the garrison
,in April 972 .
Svyatoslav and his remaining troops escaped to Silist ria (theDurostorum of Traj an) on the Danube, where again, however
,they were besieged and defeated by the indefatigable
emperor . At last peace was made in July 972 , the Russiansbeing allowed to go free on condition of the completeevacuation of Bulgaria and a gift o f corn the adventurousSvyatoslav lost his life a t the hands of the Pecheneg s whilemaking his way back to Kiev . The triumph of the Greekswas complete
,and it can be imagined that there was not
much left of the earthenware Bulgaria after the violentcollision of these two mighty iron vessels on the top of it .Eastern Bulgaria (i . e . Moesia and Thrace) ceased to exis t ,becoming a purely Greek province ; John Tzimisces madehis triumphal entry into Constantinople
,followed by the
two sons of Peter of Bulgaria on foot the elder was deprivedof his regal attributes and created rnag irtror, the youngerwas made a eunuch .
38 Bulgaria
The Rise and Fall of‘Western Bulgaria ’
and
the Greek Supremacy, 963
—1 1 86
MEANWH ILE western Bulgaria had not been touched , andit was thither that the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removedfrom Silist ria after the victory of the Greeks
,settling firs t in
Sofia and then in Okhrida in Macedonia,where the aposta te
Shishman had eventually made his capital . Western Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Alb ama
,
southern and eastern Serbia,and the westernmost parts of
modern Bulgaria . I t was from this dis trict that numerousanti-Hellenic revolts were directed after the death of theEmperor John Tzimisces in 976. These culminated duringthe reign of Samuel (977 one of the sons of Shishman . He was as capable and energetic
,as unscrupulous
and inhuman,as the situation he was calléd upon to fill
demanded . He began by assassinating all his relations andnobles who resented his desire to re establish the absolutemonarchy
,was recognized as trar by the Holy See of Rome
in 98 1 , and then began to fight the Greeks,the only possible
occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler . Theemperor at that time was Basil I I (976—102 who was braveand patriotic but young and inexperienced . In his earlycampaigns Samuel carried all before him he reconquerednorthern Bulgaria in 985, Thessaly in 986, and defea tedBasil I I near Sofia the same year . Later he conqueredAlbania and the s outhern parts of Serbia and what is nowMontenegro and Hercegovina . In 996 he threatenedSalonika
,.
b ut first of all embarked on an expedition againstthe Peloponnese ; here he was followed by the Greek general,
40 Bulgaria
both by Greeks and Bulgars ; the result of these incursionswas not always favourable to tho se who had promoted
them the barbarians invariably s tayed longer and did moredamage than had been bargained for
,and usually left some
of their number behind as unwelcome settlers .In this way the ethnological map of the Balkan peninsulabecame ever more variegated . To the Tartar settlers wereadded colonies of Armenians and Vlakhs by various emperors .The last touch was given by the arrival of the Normansin 108 1 and the passage of the crusaders in 1096. The
wholesale depredations of the latter naturally made the
inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula anything but sym
pathetically dispo sed towards their cause . One of theresults of all this turmo il and of the heavy hand of the Greekswas a great increase in the vitality of the Bogomil heresyalready referred to ; i t became a refuge for patriotism andan outlet for its expression . The Emperor Alexis Comnenusinstituted a bitter persecution of it
,which only led to its
growth and rapid propagation westwards into Serbia fromits centre Philippopolis .The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian
monarchy by the Greeks was of course that the nation itselfwas totally lacking in cohesion and organization
,and could
only achieve any lasting success when an exceptionally giftedruler managed to discount the centrifugal tendencies of thefeudal nobles
,a s Simeon and Samuel had done . Other
discouraging factors were the permeation of the Churchand S tate by Byzantme influence
,the lack of a la rge standing
army,the spread of the anarchic Bogomil heresy
,and the
fact that the bulk of the Slav population had no desire
for foreign adventure or national aggrandizement .
Second Bulgarian Empire , 1 1 86—1 2 58 41
8
The Rise and Fall of the Second BulgarianEmpire
,1 1 86—1 2 58
FROM 1 186 to 1 2 58 Bulgaria experienced temporaryresuscitation
,the brevity of which was more than com
pensat ed for by the stirring nature of the events thatcrowded it . The exactions and oppressions of the Greeksculminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars
,which
had its centre in Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northernBulgaria—a position of great natural s trength and strategicimportance
,commanding the outlets of several of the most
important passes over the Balkan range . This revolt coincided
with the growing weakness of the eastern empire,which
,
surrounded on all sides by aggressive enemies- Kumans,
Saracens,Turks
,and Normans—was sickening for one of the
severe illnesses which preceded its dissolution . The revolt
was headed by two brothers who were Vlakh or Rumanianshepherds
,and was blessed by the archbishop Basil
,who
crowned one of them,called John Asen
,as trar in Tirnovo
in 1 186 . Their first efforts against the Greeks were notsuccessful
,but securing the support of the Serbs under
Stephen Nemanj a in 1 188 and of the Crusaders in 1 189they became more so ; but there was life in the Greeksyet
,and victory alternated with defea t . John Asen I was
assassinated in 1 196 and was succeeded after many internaldiscords and murders by his relative Kaloian or Pretty John .
This cruel and unscrupulous though determined ruler soonmade an end of all his enemies a t home
,and in eight years
achieved such success abroad that Bulgaria almost regained itsformer proportions . Moreover
,he re-established relations
42 Bulgaria
with Rome,to the great discomfiture of the Greeks,
and after some negotiations Pope Innocent I I I recognizedKaloian a s trar of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquiee t de Boug rie , in the words of Villehardouin) , with Basila s p rimate
,and they were both duly consecra ted and crowned
by the papal legate at Tirnovo in 1 2 04. The French, whohad j ust established themselves in Constantinople duringthe fourth crusade
,imprudently made an enemy of Kaloian
instead of a friend,and with the aid of the Tartar Kumans
he defeated them several times,capturing and brutally
murdering Baldwin I . But in 1 2 07 his career was cut shorthe was murdered while besieging Salonika by one of hisgenerals who was a friend of his wife . After eleven years
of further anarchy he was succeeded by John Asen I I .
During the reign of this monarch,which lasted from 1 2 18
till 1 241 , Bulgaria reached the zenith of it s power . Hewas the most enlightened ruler the country had had
,and
he not only waged war successfully abroad but also put anend to the internal confusion
,restored the possibility of
carrying on agriculture and commerce,and encouraged the
foundation of numerous schools and monasteries . He maintained the tradition of his family by making his capitala t Tirnovo
,which city he considerably embellished and
enlarged .
Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperorsand one French . The firs t act of John Asen I I was to getrid of one of them
,named Theodore
,who had proclaimed
himself basileus a t Okhrida in 1 2 2 3. Thereupon he annexedthe whole of Thrace
,Macedonia
,Thessaly
,and Epirus to
his dominions,and made Theodore’s brother Manuel
,who
had married one of his daughters,V iceroy
,established a t
Salonika . Another of his daughters had married S tephen
Second Bulgarian Empire,1 1 86—1 2 58 43
Vladislav,who was King of Serbia from 1 2 33
—43, and a third
married Theodore,son of the Emperor John I I I
,who
reigned a t Nicaea,in 1 2 35. This daughter
,after being
sought in marriage by the French barons a t Constantinopleas a wife for the Emperor Baldwin I I
,a minor
,was then
summarily rej ected in favour of the daughter of the Kingof Jerusalem ; this affront rankled in the mind of JohnAsen I I and threw him into the arms of the Greeks
,with
whom he concluded an alliance in 1 2 34. John Asen I I andhis ally
,the Emperor John I I I
,were
,however
,utterly
defeated by the French under the walls of Constantinoplein 1 2 36, and the Bulgarian ruler, who had no wish to se e
the Greeks re-established there,began to doubt the wisdom
of his alliance . Other Bulgarian tsars had been unscrupulous ,but the whole foreign policy of this one pivoted on treachery .
He deserted the Greeks and made an alliance with theFrench in 1 2 37, the Pope Gregory IX,
a great Hellenophob e ,
having threatened him with excommunication he went sofar a s to force his daughter to relinquish her Greek husband .
The following year,however
,he again changed over to the
Greeks ; then again fear of the Pope and of his brotherin-law the King of Hungary brought him back to the sideof Baldwin II
,to whose help agains t the Greeks he went
with a large army into Thrace in 1 2 39. While besiegingthe Greeks with indifferent success
,he learned of the death
of his wife and his eldest son from plague , and incontinentlyreturned to Tirnovo
,giving up the war and restoring his
daughter to her lonely husband . This adaptable monarchdied a natural death in 1 241 , and the three rulers of hisfamily who succeeded him
,whose reigns filled the period
1 241—58, managed to undo all the constructive work of their
immediate predecessors . Province after province was los t
44 Bulgari
and internal anarchy increased . This remarkable dynastycame to an inglorious end in 1 2 58, when its last repre
sentative was murdered by his own nobles , and from thistime onwards Bulgaria was only a shadow of its former self .
9
The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse,
1 2 58—1 393
FROM 1 2 58 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have con
t inued flickering until its final extinction as a state in 1393,
but during this period it never had any voice in controllingthe destinies of the Balkan peninsula . Owing to the factthat no ruler emerged capable of keeping the distracted
count rv in order, there was a regular charré-croire of rivalprincelets
,an unceasing tale of poli tical marriages and
murders,conspiracies and revolts of feudal nobles all over
the country,and perpetual ebb and flow of the boundaries
of the warring principalities which tore the fabric of Bulgaria to pieces amongst them . From the point of view of
foreign politics this period is characterized generally by thevirtual disappearance of Bulgarian independence to theprofit of the surrounding states
,who enj oyed a sort of
rotat ivist supremacy . I t is especially remarkable for thecomplete ascendancy which Serbia gained in the Balkanpeninsula .
A Serb,Constantine
,grandson of Stephen Nemanj a,
occupied the Bulgarian throne from 1 2 58 to 1 2 77, andmarried the granddaughter of John Asen I I . After the fallof the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1 2 61
,the Hun
g arians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with the
Serbian S uprernacy,1 2 58
—1393 45
Greeks against Constantine ; the latter called the Tartarsof southern Russia
,at this time a t the height of their power
,
to his help and was victorious,but as a result of his diplomacy
the Tartars henceforward played an important part in theBulgarian welter . Then Constantine married
,as his second
wife,the daughter of the Greek emperor
,and thus again
gave Constantinople a voice in his country’s affalrs. Con
stant ine was followed by a series of upstart rulers,whose
activities were cut short by the victories of King U roS I Iof Serbia (1 2 82 who conquered all Macedonia andwrested it from the Bulgars . In 1 2 85 the Tartars of theGolden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria
,but it wa s
from the south that the clouds were rolling up which no t
much later were to burst over the peninsula . In 1308 theTurks appeared on the Sea of Marmora
,and in 1326 estab
lished themselves a t Brussa . From 1 295 to 132 2 Bulgariawas presided over by a nobleman of Vidin
,Svetoslav
,who
,
unmolested by the Greeks,grown thoughtful in view of
the approach of the Turks,was able to maintain rather
more o rder than his subj ects were accustomed to . Afterhis death in 132 2 chaos again supervened . One of hissuccessors had married the daughter of Uros I I of Serbia
,
but suddenly made an alliance with the Greeks against hisbrother-in-law Stephen Uros I I I and dispatched his wife
to her home . During the war which ensued the unwontedallies were utterly routed by the Serbs a t Kustendil inMacedonia in 1330 .
From 1331 to 1365 Bulgariawas under one John Alexander,a noble of Tartar origin
,whose sister became the wife of
Serbia’s great est ruler, Stephen Dusan ; John Alexander,moreover
,recognized Stephen a s his suzerain
,and from
thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia . Mean
46 Bulgaria
while the Turkish storm was gathering fast ; Suleimancrossed the Hellespont in 1356, and Murad I made Adrianoplehis capital in 1361 . After the death of John Alexander in1365 the Hungarians invaded northern Bulgaria , and hissuccessor invoked the help of the Turks against them andalso against the Greeks . This was the beginning of the end .
The Serbs,during an absence of the Sultan in Asia
,under
took an offensive,but were defeated by the Turks near
Adrianople in 1 371 , who captured Sofia in 1382 . Afterthis the Serbs formed a huge southern Slav alliance
,in which
the Bulgarians refused to j oin,but
,after a temporary success
against the Turks in 1387, they were vanquished by themas the result of treachery at the famous battle of Kosovoin 1389. Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on theDanube in 1388 and destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovoin 1393, exiling the Patriarch Euthymus to Macedonia .
Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into the hands of theTurks
,and its church into those of the Greeks . Many
Bulgars adopted Islam,and their descendants are the Pomaks
or Bulgarian Mohammedans of the present day . With thesubj ection of Rumania in 1394 and the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western Europe underSigismund
,King of Hungary
,a t Nikopolis in 1396 the
Turkish conquest was complete,though the battle of Varna
was not fought till 1444, nor Constantinople entered till1453
48 Bulgaria
a doubt that much less human blood was spilt in the Balkanpeninsula during the five hundred years of Turkish rulethan during the five hundred years of Chris tian rule whichpreceded them indeed it would have been difficult to Spillmore . I t is also a pure illusion to think of the Turks a sexcep tionally brutal or cruel they are j ust as good—naturedand good-humoured a s anybody else ; it is only when theirmilitary or religious passions are aroused that they becomemore reckless and ferocious than other people . I t was notthe Turks who taught cruelty to the Christians of theBalkan peninsula ; the latter had nothing to learn in thisrespect .In spite of all this
,however
,from the point of view of
the Slavs of Bulgaria and Serbia,Turkish rule was synonymous
with suffoca tion . I f the Turks were all that their greatestadmirers think them the history of the Balkan peninsula inthe nineteenth century would have been very different fromwhat it has been
,namely
,one perpetual series of anti
Turkish revolts .Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the mostcompletely crushed and effaced . The Greeks by theirubiquity
,their bra ins
,and their money were soon able to
make the Turkish storm drive their own windmill ; theRumanians were somewhat sheltered by the Danube and
also by their dis tance from Constantinople ; the Serbs also
were not so exposed to the full blast of the Turkish wrath ,and the inaccessibility of much of their country affordedthem some protection . Bulgaria was simply annihilated,and its population
,already far from homogeneous
,was still
further varied by numerous Turkish and other Tartar
coniesFor the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the
Turkish Dominion,1 393
—1878 49
last Balkan state to emancipate itself for these reasons alsoit is the least trammelled by prej udices and by what areconsidered national predilections and racial affinities
,while
its heterogeneous composition makes it vigorous and enterprising . The treatment of the Christians by the Turks wasby no means always the same ; generally speaking, it grewworse as the power of the Sultan grew less . During thefifteenth century they were allowed to practise their religionand all their vocations in comparative lib erty and peace .
But from the sixteenth century onwards the control of theSultan declined
,power became decentralized
,the Ottoman
Empire grew ever more anarchic and the rule of the provincial governors more deSpotic .
t But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the onlyenemies and Oppressors of the Bulgars . The rOle played bythe Greeks in Bulgaria during the Turkish dominion wasalmost as important as that of the Turks themselves . The
contempt of the Turks for the Christians,and especially for
their religion,was so great that they prudently left the
management of it to them,knowing that it would keep
them occupied in mutual altercation . From 1393 till 1767the Bulgarians were under the Greco—Bulgarian Patriarchateof Okhrida
,an organization m which all posts
,from the
highest to the lowest,had to be bought from the Turkish
administration at exorbitant and ever-rising prices ; thePhanariote Greeks (so called because they originated in thePhanar quarter a t Constantinople) were the only ones whocould afford those of the higher posts
,with the result that
the Church was controlled from Constantinople . In 1767the independent patriarchates were abolished
,and from that
date the religious control of the Greeks was a s complete asthe political control of the Turks . The Greeks did all they1832 .1 D
50 Bulgaria
could to obliterate the las t traces of Bulgarian nationalitywhich had survived in the Church
,and this explains a fact
which must never be forgotten,which had its origin in the
remote past,but grew more pronounced at this period
,tha t
the individual hatred of Greeks and Bulgars of each otherhas always been far more intense than their collective hatred
of the Turks .Ever Since the marriage of the Tsar Ivan III with the niece
of the last Greek Emperor,in 1472 , Russia had considered
itself the trustee of the eastern Christians,the defender of the
Orthodox Church,and the direct heir of the glory and
prestige of Constantinople it was no t until the eighteenthcentury
,however
,after the consolidation of the Russian state
,
that the Balkan Christians were championed and the eventual possession of Constantinople was seriously considered .
Russian influence was firs t asserted in Rumania after theTreaty of Kuchuk-Kainardj i, in 1774. I t was only theNapoleonic war in 18 1 2 that prevented the Russians fromextending their territory south of the Danube
,whither it
already stretched . Serbia was partially free by 1826,and
Greece achieved complete independence in 1830, when theRussian troops
,in order to coerce the Turks
,occupied part
of Bulgaria and advanced as far a s Adrianople . Bulgaria,
being nearer to and more easily repressed by Constantinople,
had to wait,and tentative revolts made about this time
were put down with much bloodshed and were followed bywholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia and import at ions of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts . TheCrimean War and the short-sighted championship of Turkeyby the western European powers checked considerably thedevelopment at which Russia aimed . Moldavia and Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the semi-protectorate
Turkish Dominion ,1 393
—1 878 51
which Russia had long exercised over them,and in 1861
formed themselves into the united state of Rumania . In
1866 a German prince, Charles of Hohenzo llern, came torule over the country
,the first Sign of German influence
in the Near East a t this time Rumania still acknowledgedthe supremacy of the Sultan .
During the first half of the nineteenth century there tookplace a considerable intellectual renascence in Bulgaria
,
a movement fostered by wealthy Bulgarian merchants of
Bucarest and Odessa . In 1829 a history of Bulgaria waspublished by a native of that country in Moscow in 1835the firs t school was established in Bulgaria
,and many others
soon followed . I t must be remembered that not only wasnothing known at that time about Bulgaria and its imb abitants in other countries
,but the Bulgars had themselves to
be taught who they were . The Bulgarian people in Bulgariaconsisted entirely of peasants there was no Bulgarian upperor middle or ‘intelligent or professional class thoseenlightened Bulgars who exis ted were domiciled in othercountries ; the Church was in the hands of the Greeks, whovied with the Turks in suppressing Bulgarian nationality .
The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the enlightenment and emancipation of Bulgariawere dissimilar in composition and in aim ; the membersof the former were more intent on educational and religiousreform
,and aimed at the gradual and peaceful regeneration
of their country by these means the latter wished to effec tthe immediate political emancipation of Bulgaria by violentand
,if necessary
,warlike means .
I t was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first .In 1856 the Porte had promised religious reforms tendingto the appointment of Bulgarian bishops and the recognition
D 2
52 Bulgaria
of the Bulgarian language in Church and school . But theseno t being carried through
,the Bulgarians took the matter
into their own hands,and in 1860 refused any longer to
recognize the Patriarch of Constantinople . The same yearan attempt was made to bring the Church of Bulgaria underthat of Rome
,but
,owing to Russian Oppo sition
,proved
abortive . In 1870, the growing agitation having at lastalarmed the Turks
,the Bulgarian Exarchate was established .
The Bulgarian Church was made free and national and was
to be under an Exarch who should reside at Constantinople
(Bulgaria being still a Turkish province) . The Greeks,
conscious what a blow this would be to their supremacy,
managed for a Short while to stave off the evil day,but in
1872 the Exarch was triumphantly installed in ConstantinOple , where he resided till 1908 .
Meanwhile revolutionary outbreaks began to increase,but
were always put down with great rigour . The most notablewas that of 1 875, instig ated by Stamb ulOv, the futuredic tator
,in sympathy with the outbreak in Montenegro
,
Hercegovina,and Bosnia of that year ; the result of this
and of similar movements in 1 876 was the series of notoriousBulgarian massacres in that year . The indignation of
Europe was aroused and concerted representations wereurgently made at Constantinople . Midhat Pasha disarmedhis Opponents by summarily introducing the British const itut ion into Turkey
,but
,needless to say, Bulgaria
’s lot wasnot improved by this specious device . Russia had , however,s teadily been making her prepara tions
,and
,Turkey having
refused to discontinue hostilities against Montenegro,on
April 24, 1877,warwas declared by the Emperor Alexander I I,
whose patience had become exhausted ; he was j oined byPrince Charles of Rumania
,who saw that by doing so he
Turkish Dominion,1 393
—1 878 53
would be rewarded by the complete emancipation of hiscountry
,then Still a vassal-state of Turkey
,and its erection
into a kingdom . At the beginning of the war all went wellfor the Russians and Rumanians
,who were soon j oined by
large numbers of Bulgarian insurgents the Turkish forceswere scattered all over the peninsula . The committee ofBucarest transformed itself into a provisional government
,
but the Russians,who had undertaken to liberate the
country,naturally had to keep its a dministration temporarily
in their own hands,and refused their recognition . The
Turks,alarmed at the early victories of the Russians
,brought
up better generals and troops,and defeated the Russians
at Plevna in July . They failed,however
,to dislodge them
from the important and famous Shipka Pass in August,and
after this they became demoralized and their resis tancerapidly weakened . The Russians
,helped by the Bulgarians
and Rumanians,fought throughout the summer with the
greatest gallantry ; they took Plevna , after a three months’
siege,in December
,occupied Sofia and Philippopolis in
January 1878, and pushed forward to the walls of Constantinople .
The Turks were at their last gasp,and at Adrianople
,in
March 1878, Ig nat iyev dictated the terms of the Treaty ofSan Stefano
,by which a principality of Bulgaria
,under the
nominal suzerainty of the Sultan,was created, stretching
from the Danube to the Aegean,and from the Black Sea
to Albania,including all Macedonia and leaving to the Turks
only the district between Constantinople and Adrianople,
Chalcidice,and the town of Salonika Bulgaria would thus
have regained the dimensions it possessed under Tsar Simeon
nine hundred and fifty years previously .
This treaty,which on ethnological grounds was tolerably
54 Bulgaria
j ust,alarmed the other powers
,especially Great Britain and
Germany,who thought they perceived in it the foundations
of Russian hegemony in the Balkans,while it would
,if put
into execution,have blighted the aspirations of Greece and
Serbia . The Treaty of Berlin,inspired by Bismarck and
Lord Salisbury,anxious to defend
,the former
,the interests
of (ostensibly) Austria—Hungary, the latter (shortsightedly)those of Turkey
,replaced it in July 1878 . By its terms
Bulgaria was cut into three parts ; northern Bulgaria ,between the Danube and the Balkans
,was made an auto
nomous province,tributary to Turkey ; southern Bulgaria ,
fancifully termed Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the namealways given by the Turks to the whole Balkan peninsula) ,was to have autonomous administration under a Christiangovernor appointed by the Porte ; Macedonia was left t oTurkey ; and the Dob rudj a, between the Danube and theBlack Sea
,was adj udged to Rumania .
I I
The Af termath, and Prince A lexander ofBattenberg
,1 878
—86
THE relations between the Russians and the Bulgarianswere better before the liberation of the latter by the formerthan after ; this may seem unj ust , because Bulgaria could
never have freed herself so decisively and rapidly alone, andRussia was the only power in whose interest it was to freeher from the Turks
,and who could translate that interes t
so promptly into action nevertheless,the laws controlling
the relationships of states and nationalities being much the
same as those which control the relationships of individuals,
it was only to be expected .
56 Bulgaria
The Bulgarians,whatever the origin and the ingredients of
their nationality,are by language a purely Slavonic people ;
their ancestors were the pioneers of Slavonic civilization as
expressed in it s monuments of theological literature . Never
theless,they have never been enthusiastic Pan-Slavists
,any
more than the Dutch have ever been ardent Pan-Germansi t is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the one peopleas it is of the other . The Bulgarians indeed think themselves superior to the Slavs by reason of the warlike andglorious traditions of the Tartar tribe that gave them theirname and infused the Asiatic element into their race, thusendowing them with greater stability
,energy
,and consis
teney than is possessed by purely Slav peoples . These latter,
on the other hand, and notably the Serbians, for the samereason affect contempt for the mixture of blood and for
what they consider the Mongol characteris tics of the Bul
g arians. What is certain is that between Bulgarians andGermans (including German Austrians and Magyars) therehas never existed that elemental
,ineradicable
,and insur
mountable antipathy which exists between German (andMagyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous ,from the Baltic to the Adriatic nothing is more remarkablethan the way in which the Bulgarian people has beenflattered, stud ied, and courted in Austria-Hungary andGermany, during the last decade, to the detriment of thepurely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared .
The reason is that with the growth of the Serb nationalmovement, from 1903 onwards, Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly well-justified fear ofthe Serb race, and sought to neutralize the possible effectof its growing power by any possible means .I t is not too much to say
,in summing up
,that Russian
The Aftermath, 1 878—86 57
influence,which had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up
till 1877—8, has Since been steadily on the decline Germanyand Austria-Hungary
,who reduced Bulgaria to half the size
that Count Ig natiyev had made it by the Treaty of SanStefano
,reaped the benefit
,especially the commercial benefit
,
of the war which Russia had waged . Intellectually,and
especially as regards the replenishment and renovation of
the Bulgarian language,which
,in spite of numerous Turkish
words introduced during the Ottoman rule,is essentially
Slavonic both in substance and form,Russian influence was
especially powerful,and has to a certain extent maintained
itself. Economically,owing partly to geographical con
dit ions,both the Danube and the main oriental railway
linking Bulgaria directly with Budapest and Vienna,partly
to the fact that Bulgaria’s best customers for it s cerealsare in central and western Europe
,the connexion between
Bulgaria and Russia is infinitesimal . Politically,bo th Russia
and Bulgaria aiming at the same thing,the possession of
Constantinople and the hegemony of the Balkan peninsula,
their relations were bound to be difficult .The firs t Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under tryingcondi tions . Both Russian and Bulgarian hopes had beendashed by the Treaty of Berlin . Russian influence was st illparamount
,however
,and the V iceroy controlled the organ
ization of the adm inistration . An ultra-democratic constitu
tion was arranged for,a fact obviously not conducive to
the successful government of their country by the quiteinexperienced Bulgarians . For a ruler recourse had inevitably to be had to the rabbit-warren of Germanic princes,who were still ingenuously considered neutral both in religionand in politics . The choice fell on Prince Alexander of
Battenberg,nephew of the Empress of Russia
,who had
58 Bulgaria
taken part in the campaign of the Russian army . PrinceAlexander was conscientious, energetic , and enthusiastic , buthe was no diplomat , and from the outset his honesty precluded his success . From the very firs t he failed to keep
on good terms with Russia or it s representatives,who a t
that time were still numerous in Bulgaria,while he was
helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary government .The Emperor Alexander I I I , who succeeded his fatherAlexander I I in 188 1
,recommended him to insist on being
made dictato r,which he successfully did . But when he
found that this only meant an increase of Russian influence
he reverted to parliamentary government (in Septemberthis procedure discomfit ed the representatives of
Russia,discredited him with the Emperor
,and threw him
back into the vortex of party warfare,from which he never
extricated himself .Meanwhile the question of eastern Rumelia
,or rather
southern Bulgaria,still a Turkish province
,began to loom .
A vigorous agitation for the reunion of the two parts ofthe country had been going on for some time
,and on
September 18,1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis sud
denly proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, whosolemnly announced his approval a t Tirnovo and t rium
phantly entered their city on September 2 1 Russia frownedon this independence of spirit . Serbia
,under King Milan
,
and instigated by Austria,inaugurated the policy which has
so often been followed Since,and claimed territorial com
pensat ion for Bulgaria’s aggrandizement it must be remem
bered that it was Bismarck who,by the Treaty of Berlin
,
had arbitrarily confined Serbia to its inadequate limits ofthose days .
On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began
The Aftermath,1 878
—8 6 59
to march on Sofia , which is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarianfrontier . Prince Alexander
,the bulk of whose army was
on the Turkish frontier,boldly took up the challenge . On
November 18 took place the battle of Slivnitsa,a small
town about twenty miles north—west of Sofia, in which theBulgarians were completely victorious . Prince Alexander
,
after hard fighting,took Pirot in Serbia on November 2 7,
having refused King Milan’s request for an armistice,and
was marching on Nish,when Austria intervened
,and
threatened to send troops into Serbia unless fighting ceased .
Bulgaria had to obey,and on March 3, 1886, a barren treaty
of peace was imposed on the belligerents at Bucarest . PrinceAlexander’s position did not improve after this
,indeed it
would have needed a much more skilful navigator to steerthrough the many currents which eddied round him . Astrong Russophile party formed itself in the army ; on thenight of August 2 1
,1886
,some officers of this party, who
were the most capable in the Bulgarian army,appeared a t
Sofia,forced Alexander to resign
,and abducted him they
put him on board his yacht on the Danube and escortedhim to the Russian town of Reni
,in Bessarabia ; telegraphic
orders came from St . Petersburg,in answer to inquiries,
that he could proceed with haste to western Europe,and
on August 2 6 he found himself a t Lemberg . But thosewho had carried out this coup d
’e'
tat found that it was nota t all popular in the country . A counter-revolution, headedby the sta tesman St amb ulOv
,was immediately initiated
,and
on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidsttumultuous applause . Nevertheles s his position was hopeless ; the Emperor Alexander I I I forced him to abdicate,and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for good, to theregret of the maj ority of the people . He died in Austria ,
60 Bulgari
in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year . At his departurea regency was constituted, at the head of which was
StambulOV .
I Z
The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand ofSaxe-Coburg
,1 886—1908
STAM BULOV was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was ofhumble origin . He took part in the insurrection of 1876
and in the war of liberation,and in 1884 became president
of the SOb raniye (Parliament) . From 1886 till 1894 he wasvirtually dictator of Bulgaria . He was intensely patrioticand also personally ambitious , determined, energetic , ruthlessly cruel and unscrupulous
,but incapable of deceit these
qualities were apparent in his powerful and grim expression offace
,while his manner inspired the weak w ith terror and the
strongest with respect . His policy in general was di rectedagainst Russia . At the general election held in October1886 he had all his important Opponents imprisoned beforehand
,while armed sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters
from approaching the ballot-boxes . Out of 52 2 electeddeputies
,there were 470 supporters of S tamb ulOv . This
implied the complete suppression of the Russophile partyand led to a rupture with St . Petersburg .
Whatever were S tamb ulOv’s methods
,and few would deny
that they were harsh,there is no doubt that something of
the sort was necessary to restore order in the country . Butonce having started on this path he found it difficult tostop
,and his tyrannical bearing
,combined with the delay
in finding a prince,soon made him unpopular . There were
several revolutionary outbreaks directed against him,but
The Regeneration,1 886—1908 61
these were all crushed . At length the,at that time not
particularly alluring,throne of Bulgaria was filled by Prince
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,who was born in 1861 and was
the son of the gifted Princess Clémentine of BourbonOrleans
,daughter of Louis-Philippe . This young man com
b ined great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extremeprudence
,a s tuteness
,and patience ; he was a consummate
diplomat . The election of this prince was viewed with greatdisfavour by Russia
,and for fear of offending the Emperor
Alexander I I I none of the European powers recognized him .
Ferdinand,unabashed
,cheerfully installed himself in Sofia
with his mother in July 1886,and took care to make the
peace with his suzera in,the Sultan Abdul Hamid . He
wisely left all power in the hands of the unattractive andto him
,unsympathetic prime minis ter
,Stamb ulév , till he
himself felt secure in his position,and till the dic tator
should have made himself thoroughly hated . Ferdinand’sclever and wealthy mother cast a b eneficent and civilizingglow around him
,smoothing away many diflicult ies by her
womanly tact and philanthrOpic activity, and , thanks tohis influential connexions in the courts of Europe and his
attitude of calm expectancy,his prestige in his own country
rapidly increased . In 1893 he married Princess MarieLouise of Bourbon-Parma . In May 1894, as a result ofa social misadventure in which he became involved
,Stam
b ulOv sent in his resignation,confidently expecting a refusal .
To his mortificat ion it was accepted thereupon he initiateda violent press campaign
,but his halo had faded , and on
July 15 he was savagely attacked in the Street by unknownmen
,who afterwards escaped
,and he died three days later.
So intense were the emotions of the people that his gravehad to be guarded by the military for two months . In
62 Bulgaria
November 1894 followed the death of the Emperor AlexanderI II
,and as a result of this double event the road to a recon
cilia tion with Russia was opened . Meanwhile the GermanEmperor
,who was on good terms with Princess Clémentine,
had paved the way for Ferdinand at Vienna , and when,in March 1896, the Sultan recognized him as Prince of
Bulgaria and Governor-General of eastern Rumelia,his
international position was assured . Relations with Russiawere still further improved by the rebaptism of the infantCrown Prince Boris according to the rites of the easternChurch
,in February 1896, and a couple of years later
Ferdinand and his wife and child paid a highly successfulstate visit to Peterhof . In September 1902 a memorialchurch was erected by the Emperor Nicholas I I at theShipka Pass
,and later an equestrian sta tue of the Tsar
Liberator Alexander I I was placed oppos1te the House of
Parliament in Sofia .
Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishingmaterial progress . Railways were built
,exports increased
,
and the general condition of the country greatly improved .
I t is the fashion to compare the wonderful advance madeby Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of it s new existencewith the very much Slower progress made by Serbia duringa much longer period . This is insisted on especially bypublicists in Austria-Hungary and Germany
,but it is for
gotten that even befo re the las t Balkan war the geographicalposition of Bulgaria with it s seaboard was much morefavourable to its economic development than that of Serbia
,
which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by Turkishand Austro-Hungarian territory ; moreover, Bulgaria beingdouble the size of the Serbia of those days
,had far greater
resources upon which to draw .
64 Bulgaria
with his second wife,the Protestant Princess Eleonora of
Reuss,whom he had married in March of that year, was
received with regal honours by the Emperor of Austria a t
Budapest . On October 5, 1908, a t Tirnovo, the ancientc apital
,Ferdinand proclaimed the complete independence
of Bulgaria and eastern Rumelia under himself as King
(Tsar in Bulgarian) , and on October 7 Austria-Hungaryannounced the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina , thetwo Turkish provinces administered by it since 1879, stillnominally under Turkish suzeraintv.
13
The K ingdom,1908
—1 3
(cf . Chaps . 14, 2 0)
THE events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908hinge on the Macedonian question
,which has not till now
been mentioned . The Macedonian question was extremelycomplicated ; it started on the assumption that the disintegration of Turkey
,which had been proceeding through
out the nineteenth century,would eventually be completed
,
and the question was how in this eventuality to satisfy theterritorial claims of the three neighbouring countries
,Bul
garia,Serbia
,and Greece
,claims both historical and e thno
logical,based on the numbers and distribution of their
unredeemed compatriots in Macedonia,and at the same
time avoid causing the armed interference of Europe .
The beginnings of the Macedonian question in its modernform do not g o farther back than 1885, when the ease withwhich eastern Rumelia (i . e . southern Bulgaria) threw off
the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously united with the
The K ingdom,1908
—1 3 65
semi—independent principality of northern Bulgaria affectedthe imagination of the Balkan statesmen . From that timeSofia began to cast longing eyes on Macedonia
,the whole
of which was claimed as unredeemed Bulgaria and S tambulév
’s las t success in 1894 was to obtain from Turkey the
consent to the establishment of two bishops of the Bulgarian
(Exarchist) Church in Macedonia, which was a heavy blowfor the Greek Patriarchate at Constantinople .
Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin,article 2 3 of which stipulated for reforms in that provincebut in those days the Balkan States were too young and weakto worry themselves or the European powers over thetroubles of their co-religionists in Turkey ; their handswere more than full setting their own houses in some sortof order
,and it was in nobody’s interest to reform Mace
donia,so article 2 3 remained the expression of a philanthrOpic
sentiment . This indifference on the part of Europe leftthe door open for the Balkan States
,as soon as they had
energy to spare,to initiate their campaign for extending
their spheres of influence in Macedonia .
From 1894 onwards Bulgarian propaganda in Macedoniaincreased
,and the Bulgarians were soon followed by Greeks
and Serbians . The reason for this passionate pegging out
of claims and the bitter rivalry of the three nations whichit engendered was the following The population of Macedonia was nowhere
,except in the immedi ate vicinity of the
borders of these three countries,either purely Bulgar or
purely Greek or purelv Serb most of the towns contained
a percentage of at least two of these nationalities, not tomention the Turks (who after all were still the owners ofthe country by right of conquest) , Albanians , Tartars,Rumanians (Vlakhs) , and others ; the city of Salonika was
E
66 Bulgaria
and i s almost purely Jewish, while in the country districtsTurkish
,Albanian
,Greek
,Bulgar
,and Serb villages were
inextricably confused . Generally speaking, the coastal s tripwas mainly Greek (the coast itself purely so) , the interiormainly Slav . The problem was for each country to peg out
as large a claim as possible,and so eff ectively
,by any means
in their power,to make the maj ority of the population
contained in that claim acknowledge itself to be Bulgar, orSerb
,or Greek
,that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire
was over, each part of Macedonia would automatically fallinto the arms of its respective deliverers . The game wasplayed through the appropriate media of churches andschools
, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had firstof all to be enlightened as to who they were
,or rather as
to who they were told they had g ot to consider themselves,while the Church
,as always
,conveniently covered a multi
tude of political aims when those methods flagged,a bomb
would be thrown at,let us say, a Turkish official by an
ag ent provocateur of one of the three players,inevitably
resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent Christiansby the ostensibly brutal but really equally innocent Turks
,
and an outcry in the European press .Bulgaria was first in the field and had a considerable start
of the other two rivals . The Bulgars claimed the whole ofMacedonia , including Salonika and all the Aegean coast
(except Chalcidice) , Okhrida, and Monastir Greece claimedall southern Macedonia
,and Serbia parts of northern and
central Macedonia known as Old Serbia . The crux of theWhole problem was
,and is
,that the claims of Serbia and
Greece do not clash,while that of Bulgaria
,driving a thick
wedge between Greece and Serbia,and thus giving Bulgaria
the undoubted hegemony of the peninsula came into irre
The K ingdom,1 908
—1 3 67
concilab le conflic t with those of its rivals . The importanceof this point was greatly emphasized by the existence ofthe Nish-Salonika railway
,which is Serbia’s only direct outlet
to the sea,and runs through Macedonia from north to south
,
following the right or western bank of the river Vardar .Should Bulgaria straddle that
,Serbia would be economically
at its mercy,j ust as in the north it was already
,to I t S bitter
cost,at the mercy of Austria-Hungary . Nevertheless
,Bul
garian propaganda had been so effectual that Serbia andGreece never expected they would eventually be able to
join 4
hands so easily and successfully as they afterwards did .
The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a fac tor .This people
,though small in numbers
,was formidable in
character,and had never been eff ectually subdued by the
Turks . They would have been glad to have a boundarycontiguous with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had noquarrel) as a support against their hereditary enemies, Serb sin the north and Greeks in the south
,who were more than
inclined to encroach on their territory . The population of
Macedonia,being still under Turkish rule
,was uneducated
and ignorant needless to say it had no national consciousness
,though this was less true of the Greeks than of the
Slavs . I t is the Slav population of Macedonia tha t hasengendered so much heat and caused so much blood to bespilt . The dispute as to whether it is rather Serb or Bulgarhas caused interminable and most bitter controversy . Thetruth is that it was neither the one nor the other
,but that
,
the ethnological and linguistic missionaries of Bulgaria havingbeen first in the field
,a maj ority of the Macedonian Slavs
had been so long and so persistently told that they wereBulgars, that after a few years Bulgaria could, with sometruth , claim that this fact was so .
E 2
68 Bulgaria
Macedonia had been successively under Greek , Bulgar ,and Serb
,before Turkish
,rule
,but the Macedonian Slavs
had,under the last
,been so cut off both from Bulgars and
Serbs,that ethnologically and linguistically they did not
develop the characteristics of either of these two races , whichoriginally belonged to the same southern Slav stock, butremained a primitive neutral Slav type . If the Serbs hadbeen first in the field instead of the Bulgars
,the Macedonian
Slavs could j ust as easily have been made into Serbs , suffi
ciently plausibly to convince the most knowing expert . The
well-known recipe for making a Macedonian Slav village
Bulgar is to add -ov or -ev (pronounced -o_z% -
yefi) on to
the names of all the male inhabitants , and to make it Serbit is only necessary to add further the syllable -icb , -ov and-ovieb being respectively the equivalent in Bulgarian andSerbian of our termination -son
,e . g . I vanov in Bulgarian ,
and ffovanovié in Serb ian=ffobnson.
In addition to these three nations Rumania also enteredthe lists
,suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of
the Vlakh shepherds,who had probably wandered with
unconcern about Macedonia with their herds since Romantimes . As their vague pastures could not possibly ever beannexed to Rumania
,their case was merely used in order
to j ustify Rumania in claiming eventual territorial com
pensat ion elsewhere at the final day of reckoning . Meanwhile
,their existence as a separate and authentic nationality
in Turkey was officially recognized by the Porte in 1906 .
The stages of the Macedonian question up to 1908 mustat this point be quite briefly enumerated . Russia andAustria-Hungary
,the two most interested powers who
as far back as the eighteenth century had divided theBalkans into their respective Spheres of interest
,east and
The K ingdom,1908
-13 69
west,came to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final
settlement of affairs in Turkey ; but it never reached a con
e lusive stage and consequently was never applied . TheMacedonian chaos meanwhile grew steadily worse, and the
serious insurrections of 1902—3, followed by the customary
reprisals,thoroughly alarmed the powers . Hilmi Pasha had
been appointed Inspector-General of Macedonia in Decemher 1902 , but was not successful in restoring order . InOctober 1903 the Emperor Nicholas I I and the Emperor ofAustria
,with their foreign minis ters
,met at Mii rzst eg , in
Styria,and elaborated a more definite plan of reform known
as the Miirzst eg programme, the drastic terms of whichhad been largely inspired by Lord Lansdowne
,then British
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the principal feature
was the institution of an international gendarmerie,the
whole of Macedonia being divided up into five districts to
be apportioned among the several great powers . Owingto the procrastination of the Porte and to the extremecomplexity of the financial measures which had to beelaborated in connexion with this scheme of reforms
,the
last of the negotia tions was not completed,nor the whole
series ratified,until April 1907, though the gendarmerie
officers had arrived in Macedonia in February 1904.
At this point again it is necessary to recall the positionin regard to this question of the various nations concerned .
Great Britain and France had no territorial s take in Turkeyproper
,and did their utmost to secure reform not only in
the vilaye ts of Macedonia, but also in the realm of Ottomanfinance . I taly’s interes t centred in Albania
,whose eventual
fate, for geographical and strategic reasons, could not leaveit indifferent . Austria-Hungary’s only care was by anymeans to prevent the aggrandizement of the Serb nationality
70 Bulgaria
and of Serbia and Montenegro,so as to secure the control ,
if no t the possession, of the routes to Salonika , if necessaryover the prostrate bodies o f those two countries whichdefiantly barred Germanic progress towards the East . Russiawas already fatally absorbed in the Far Eastern adventure ,and
,moreover
,had
,ever since the war of 1878, been losing
influence a t Constantinople,where before its word had been
law ; the Treaty of Berlin had dealt a blow a t Russianprestige
,and Russia had ever since that date been singularly
b adly served by it s ambas sadors to the Porte,who were
always either too old or too easy-going . Germany,on the
other hand,had been exceptionally fortunate or prudent
in the choic e of its representatives . The general trend ofGerman diplomacy in Turkey was not grasped until verymuch later
,a fact which redounds to the credit of the
German ambassadors a t Constantinople . Ever since thetriumphal j ourney of William II to the Bosphorus in 1889,
German influence,under the able guidance of Baron von
Radowitz,steadily increased . This culminated in the régime
of the late Baron Marschall von Biebers tein,who was ambas
sador from 1897 to 191 2 . I t was German policy to flatter,
support,and encourage Turkey in every possible way
,to
refrain from taking part with the other powers in theinvidious and perennial occupation of pressing reforms onAbdul Hamid
,and
,above all
,to give as much pocket-money
to Turkey and its extravagant ruler a s they asked for .Germany
,for instance
,refused to send officers or to have
a district assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined totake part in the naval demonstration off Mitylene in 1905.
This attitude of Germany naturally encouraged the Portein its policy of delay and subterfuge
,and Turkey soon came
to . look on Germany as its only strong,sincere
,and dis
72 Bulgaria
and stra tegically practicable road from Berlin, Vienna,and Budapest to Salonika and Constantinople—Russiarealized that the days of the Murzsteg programme wereover
,that henceforward it was to be a struggle between
Slav and Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople andthe dominion of the Near East, and that something mustb e done to retrieve the position in the Balkans which it
was losing . After Baron Aehrenthal, in January 1909, had
mollified the Young Turks by an indemnity, and thus putan end to the boycott
,Russia in February of the same year
liquidated the remains of the old Turkish war indemnity
of 1878 still due to itself by skilfully arranging that Bulgariashould pay off it s capitalized tribute
,owed to it s ex—suzerain
the Sultan,by very easy instalments to Russia instead .
The immedi ate eff ects of the Young Turk revolutionamongst the Balkan S tates
,and the events
,watched b enevo
lently by Russia , which led to the formation of the BalkanLeague
,when i t was j oyfully realized that neither the
setting-up of parliamentary government,nor even the over
throw of Abdul Hamid,implied the commencement of the
millennium in Macedonia and Thrace,have been described
elsewhere (pp . 141 , King Ferdinand and M . V enezelos
a re generally credited with the inception and realization of
the League, though it was so secretly and skilfully concertedthat it is not yet possible correctly to apportion praise forthe remarkable achievement . Bulgaria is a very democraticcountry, but King Ferdinand, owing to his sagacity, patience,and experience, and also thanks to his influential dynasticconnexions and propensity for travel
,has always been
virtually his own foreign minister ; in spite of the fac t tha the is a large f euda l Hungarian landlord
,and has tempera
mental leanings towards the Central European Empires,i t
The K ingdom,1908
—1 3 73
i s quite credible that King Ferdinand devoted all hisundeniable talents and great energy to the formation of
the League when he saw that the moment had come forBulgaria to realize it s destiny a t Turkey’s expense
,and
that,if the other three Balkan S tates could be induced to
come to the same wise decision,i t would be so much the
better for all of them . That Russia could do anything elsethan whole-heartedly welcome the formation of the BalkanLeague was absolutely impossible. Pan-Slavism had longsince ceased to be the force it was, and nobody in Russiadreamed of or desired the incorporation of any Balkanterritory in the Russian Empire . I t is possible to controlConstantinople without posses sing the Balkans
,and Russia
could only rej oic e if a Greco-Slavonic league should destroythe power of the Turks and thereby make irnpossib le thefurther a dvance of the Germanic powers eas tward .
That Russia was ever in the lea s t j ealous of the mili tarysuccesses of the league
,which caused such gnashing of teeth
in Berlin,Vienna
,and Budapest
,is a mischievous fiction
,
the emptiness of which was evident to any one who happenedto be in Russia during the winter of 1912—13.
The years 1908 to 191 2 were outwardly uneventful inBulgaria
,though a grea t deal of quiet work was done in
increasing the efliciency of the army,and the material
prosperity of the country showed no falling off . R elationswith the other Balkan S tates
,especially with Serbia and
Montenegro,improved considerably
,and there was ample
room for such improvement . This was outwardly markedby frequent visits paid to each other by members of theseveral royal families of the three Slavonic kingdoms of theBalkans . In May 191 2 agreements for the eventual delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in the
74 Bulgaria
event of war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia , andBulgaria and Greece . The most controversial district was,of course
,Macedonia . Bulgaria claimed central Macedonia ,
with Monastir and Okhrida,which was the lion’s share, on
ethnical grounds which have been already discussed,and it
was expected that Greece and Serbia,by obtaining other
acquisitions elsewhere,would consent to have their terri
tories separated by the large Bulgarian wedge which was tobe driven between them . The exact future line of demarcation between Serbian and Bulgarian territory was to be leftto arbitration . The possible crea tion of an independent
Albania was not contemplated .
In August 191 2 the twenty-fifth anniversary of KingFerdinand’s arrival in Bulgaria was celebrated with muchrej oicing at the ancient capital o f Tirnovo
,and was marred
only by the news of the terrible massacre of Bulgars byTurks a t Kochana in Macedonia this event
,however
,
opportune though mournful,tended considerably to increase
the volume of the wave of patriotism which swept throughthe country . Later in the same month Count Berchtoldstartled Europe with his progressive decentraliza tionscheme of reform for ~Macedonia . The manner in whichthis event led to the final arrangements for the declarationof war on Turkey by the four Balkan States is given in fullelsewhere (cf . p .
The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray,and
the autumn manoeuvres had permitted the concentrationunobserved of a considerable portion of i t
,ready to strike
when the t ime came . Mobilization was ordered on September 30, 191 2 . On October 8 Montenegro declared waron Turkey . On October 13 Bulgaria, with the other Balkan
States , replied to the remonstrances of Russia and Austria
The K ingdom,1 908
—1 3 75
by declaring that it s patience was a t length exhausted,and
tha t the sword alone was able to enforce proper treatmentof the Christian populations in European Turkey . On
October 17 Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and un
expected conclusion of peace with I taly after the Libyanwar
,declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia
,and on October 1 8
King Ferdinand addressed a sentimental exhortation to hispeople to libera te their fellow-countrymen who were stillgroaning under the Crescent .The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians
in Thrace was about and they had almost exactlythe same number wherewith to oppose the Serbians inMacedonia ; for, although Macedonia was considered bythe Turks to be the most important theatre of war
,yet the
proximity of the Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople madei t necessary to retain a large number of troops in Thrace .On October 19 the Bulgarians took the frontier town ofMustafa Pasha . On October 24 they defeated the Turks
a t Kirk—Kilisse (or Lozengrad) , further east . From October2 8 to November 2 raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas ,which resulted in a complete and brilliant vic tory of theBulgarians over the Turks . The defea t and humiliation of
the Turks was a s rapid and thorough in Thrace as it hadbeen in Macedonia
,and by the middle of November the
remains of the Turkish army were entrenched behind theimpregnable lines of Chataldj a
,while a large garrison was
shut up in Adrianople,which had been invested by the end
of October . The Bulgarian army,somewhat exhausted by
this brill iant and lightning campaign,refrained from storm
ing the lines of Chataldj a,an Operation which could not fail
to involve losses such as the Bulgarian nation was scarcelyin a position to bear
,and on December 3 the armistice was
76 Bulgaria
signed . The negotiations conducted in London for two
months led,however
,t o no result
,and on February 3, 1913,
hostilities were resumed . These,for the Bulgarians, resolved
themselves into the more energetic prosecution of the siege of
Adrianople,which had not been raised during the armistice .
To their assis tance S erbia , being able to Spare troop s fromMacedonia
,sent men and a quanti ty of heavy siege
artillery,an arm which the Bulgarians lacked . On March 2 6,
1913, the fortres s surrendered to the alli ed armies .The Conference of London
,which took place during the
Spring of that year, fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundaryby drawing the famous Enos-Midia line
,running between
these two places situated on the shores respectively of theAegean and the Black Sea . This delimitation would havegiven Bulgaria possession of Adrianople . But meanwhileGreece and especially Serbia
,which latter country had been
compelled to withdraw from the Adriatic coast by Austria,
and was further precluded from ever returning there by thecreation of the independent state of Albania
,determined to
retain possession of all that part of Macedonia,including
the whole valley of the Vardar with it s important ra ilway,which they had conquered
,and thus secure their common
frontier . In May 1913 a mili tary convention was concludedbetween them ,
and the Balkan League,the relations between
the members of which had been becoming more strainedever S ince January, finally dissolved . Bulgaria
,outraged by
this callous disregard of the agreements as to the partitionof Macedonia signed a year previously by itself and its
ex-alli es,did not wait for the result of the arbitra tion which
was actually proceeding in Russia,but in an access of
indignation rushed to arms .
This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the
The K ingdom,1 908
—1 3 77
night of June 30, 1913, by a sudden a ttack on the Serbianarmy in Macedonia
,resulted in it s undoing . In order to
defeat the S erbs and Greeks the south-eastern and northernfrontiers were denuded of t 100ps. But the totally unforeseen
happened . The Serbs were victorious,defeating the Bulgars
i n Macedonia,the Turks
,seeing Thrace empty of Bulgarian
troops,re-occupied Adrianople
,and the Rumanian army
,
determined to see fair play before it was too late,invaded
Bulgaria from the north and marched on Sofia . By the endof July the campaign was over and Bulgari a had to submitto fate .
By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest,which was
concluded on August 10,1913, Bulgaria obtained a con
side rab le part of Thrace and eastern Macedonia,including
a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of Dedeagach
,but i t was forced to
‘compensate ’ Rumania witha slice of i ts richest province (the districts of Dobrichand Silist ria in north-eastern Bulgaria) , and it lost centralMacedonia
,a great part of which it would certainly have
been awarded by Russia’s a rbitra tion . On September 2 2,
1913, the Treaty of Constantinople was Signed by Bulgaria
and Turkey ; by it s terms Turkey retained possession of
Adrianople and of a far larger part of Thrace than its seriesof ignominious defea ts in the autumn o f 191 2 entitled it to .
In the fa tal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia whichcaused the disruption of the Balkan League
,led to the tragic
second Balkan war of July 1913, and naturally left behindthe bitteres t feelings
,i t i s difficult to apportion the blame .
Both Serbia and Bulgaria were undoubtedly a t fault in thechoice of the methods by which they sought to adj ust theirdiff erence
,but the real guilt i s to be found neither in Sofia
nor in Belgrade, but in Vienna and Budapes t . The Balkan
78 Bulgaria
League barred the way of the Germanic Powers to theEast ; it s disruption weakened B ulgaria and again placedSerbia at the mercy of the Dual Monarchy . After thesetrying and unremunerative experiences it is not a stonishingtha t the Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler shouldhave retired to the remote interior of their shell .
Explanation of S erbian orthog raphy128
ch (as in church)b ut softer
Sh
zh (as z in az ure )
g (as in Georg e )
SERB IA
I 4
The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy , 650—1 168
THE manner of the a rrival of the Slavs in the Balkanpeninsula
,of that of the Bulgars
,and of the formation of
the Bulgarian nationality has already been described (cf .
p . The installation of the Slavs in the lands betweenthe Danube
,the Aegean
,and the Adriatic was completed
by about A . D . 650. In the second half of the seventh centurythe Bulgars settled themselves in the eastern half of thepeninsula and became absorbed by the Slavs there, and fromthat time the nationality of the Slavs in the western halfbegan to be more clearly defined . These latter
,split up
into a number of tribes,gradually grouped themselves into
three main divisions : Serbs (or Serbians) , Croats (orCroatians) , and Slovenes . The Serbs
,much the most
numerous of the three,occupied roughly the modern king
dom of Serbia (including Old Serbia and northern Macedonia) , Montenegro, and most of Bosnia , Hercegovina , andDalmatia ; the Croats occupied the more western partsof thes e las t three territories and Croatia ; the Slovenesoccupied the modern Carniola and southern Carinthi a .Needless to say, none of these geographical designationsexisted in those days excep t Dalmatia
,on the coas t of which
the Latin influence and nomencla ture maintained itself.The
“
Slovenes,whose language is closely akin t o but not
identical with Serbian (orCroatian) , even to-day only number
80 Serbia
one and a half million, and do not enter into this narra tive ,as they have never played any political rOle in the Balkanpeninsula .The Serb s and the Croats were
,a s regards race and
language,originally one people
,the two names having merely
geographical signification . In course of time,for various
reasons connected with religion and politics,the distinction
was emphasized, and from a historical point of view theSerbo-Croatian race has always been divided into two . I ti s only within the las t few years that a movement ha s takenplace
,the obj ect of which is to reunite Serb s and Croat s
into one nation and eventually into one sta te . The movement originated in Serbia
,the S erb s mainta ining that they
and the Croats are one people because they Speak the samelanguage
,and tha t racial and linguistic unity outweighs
religious divergence . A very large number of Croats agreewith the Serb s in this and support their views
,but a minority
for long obstinately insis ted that there was a racial a s wella s a religious difference
,and tha t fusion was impossible .
The former based their argument on facts,the latter theirs
on prej udice,which is notoriously diffi cult to overcome .
Latterly the movement in favour of fusion grew very muchstronger among the Croats
,and together with that in Serbia
resulted in the Pan—Serb agitation which gave the pretextfor the Opening of hostilities in July 1914 .
The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, j ug , pronounced yug ,= soutb in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croa ts ,and usually includes Slovenes it is only used with referenceto the Bulgarians from the point of view of philology (thegroup of South Slavonic languages including Bulgarian,Serbo-Croatian and Slovene ; the East S lavonic , Russian ; andthe West Slavonic, Polish and Bohemian) .
Foreign Supremacy , 650—1 1 68 81
In the history of the S erbs and Croats,or of the Serbo
Croatian race,several factors of a general nature have firs t
to be considered,which have influenced it s whole develop
ment . Of these,the physical nature of the country in which
they settled,between the Danube and Save and the Adriatic
,
i s one of the most important . I t is almost everywheremountainous
,and though the mountains themselves never
a ttain a s much as feet in height,yet they cover the
whole country with an intrica te network and have alwaysformed an obstacle to easy communication between thevarious parts of i t . The result of this ha s been twofold .
In the first place it has,generally speaking
,been a protection
agains t foreign penetration and conquest,and in so fa r was
beneficial . Bulgaria,further east
,i s,on the whole , les s
mountainous,in Spite of the Balkan range which Stretches
the whole length of i t for this reason,and also on account
of i ts geographical position,any invaders coming from the
north or north-east,especially if aiming a t Constantinople
or Salonika , were bound to. sweep over it . The grea timmemorial highway from the north-west to the Balkanpeninsula crosses the Danube at Belgrade and follows thevalley of the Morava to Nish ; thence it branches off eastwards
,going through Sofia and again cross1ng all Bulgaria
to reach Constantinople,while the route to Salonika follows
the Morava southwards from Nish and crosses the watershedinto the valley of the Vardar
,which flows into the Aegean .
But even this road,following the course of the rivers Morava
and Vardar,only went through the fringe of Serb territory,
and left untouched the vast mountain region between theMorava and the Adriatic
,which is really the home of the
Serb race .In the second place
,while it has undoubtedly been a pro
82 Serbia
t ect ion to the Serb race , it has also been a source of weakness .I t has prevented a welding together of the people into onewhole
,has facilitated the rise of numerous political units a t
various times,and generally favoured the dissipation of the
national s trength,and militated against national organization
and cohesion . In the course of his tory this process ha s beenemphasized rather than diminished
,and to-day the S erb
race i s Split up into six political divisions,while Bulgaria
,
excep t for those Bulgars claimed as unredeemed beyondthe frontier
,presents a united whole . I t is only within the
la s t thirty years,with the gradual improvement of com
municat ions (obstructed to an incredible extent by theAustro-Hungarian government) and the spread of education ,that the Serbs in the different countries which they inhabithave become fully conscious of their es sential identity andracial unity .
N0 les s important than the physical a spect of their countryon the development of the Serbs has been the fact thatright through the middle of i t from south to north therehad been drawn a line of division more than two centurie sbefore their arrival . Artificial bounda rie s are proverbiallyephemeral , but this one has la sted throughout the centuries ,and it has been baneful to the Serbs . This dividing line
,
drawn first by the Emperor Diocletian,has been described
on p . 14 ; a t the division of the Roman Empire intoEast and West i t was again followed
,and it formed the
boundary between the dioceses o f I taly and Dacia ; theline is roughly the same as the present political boundarybetween Montenegro and Hercegovina
,between the king
dom of Serbia and Bosnia i t s tretched from the Adria ticto the river S ave right across the Serb territory . TheSerbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country tha t
Foreign Supremacy , 650—1 168 83
was cut in two by the line that divides East from West , andseparates Constantinople and the Eastern Church fromRome and the Western . This curious accident has hadconsequences fatal to the unity of the race
,since i t has
played into the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours . As to the extent of the country occupied by theSerbs a t the beginning of their history it is diffi cult to be
accurate .
The boundary between the Serbs in the west of thepeninsula and the Bulgars in the east has always beena matter of dispute . The present political frontier betweenSerbia and Bulgaria
,starting in the north from the mouth
of the river Tirnok on the southern bank of the Danube andgoing southwards slightly ea st of Pirot
,is ethnographically
approximately correc t till it reaches the newly acquiredand much-disputed territories in Macedonia
,and represents
fairly accurately the line that has divided the two nationalit ies ever since they were firs t differentiated in the seventhcentury . In the confused state of Balkan politic s in theMiddle Ages the political influence of Bulgaria oftenextended west of this line and included Nish and theMorava valley
,while a t other times that of Serbia extended
east of it . The dialects Spoken in these frontier dist r1ctsrepresent a transitional s tage between the two languages ;each of the two peoples naturally considers them more akinto its own
,and resents the fac t tha t any of them should be
included in the territory of the other . Further south,in
Macedonia,conditions are simila r . Before the Turkish con
quest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule,
a s in the times of Simeon,Samuel
,and John Asen I I
,
sometimes under Serbian,especially during the height of
Serbian power in the fourteenth century,while inter
F 2
84 Serbia
mit t ently it had been a province of the Greek Empirewhich always claimed it a s it s own . On historical grounds
,
therefore,each of the three nations can claim possession of
Macedonia . From an ethnographic point of V iew the Slavpopulation of Macedonia (there were always and are stillmany non-Slav elements) was originally the same as tha tin the other parts of the peninsula
,and probably more akin
to the Serbs,who are pure Slavs
,than to the Slavs of
Bulgaria,who coalesced with their Asiatic conquerors . In
course of time,however
,Bulgarian influences
,owing to the
several periods when the Bulgars ruled the country,began
to make headway . The Albanians also (an Indo-EuropeanorAryan race
,but not of the Greek
,Latin
,or Slav families) ,
who,as a result of all the invasions of the Balkan peninsula
,
had been driven southwards into the inaccessible moun
tainous country now known as Albania,began‘ to spread
northwards and eastwards again during the Turkish dominion
,pushing back the Serbs from the territory where
they had long been settled . During the Turkish dominionneither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia
,
and the Macedonian Slavs , who had first of all been pureSlavs
,like the Serbs
,then been several times under Bulgar
,
and finally under Serb influence,were left to themselves
,
and the process of differentiation between Serb and Bulgarin Macedonia
,by which in time the Macedonian Slavs
would have become either Serb s or Bulgars,ceased . The
further development of the Macedonian question is trea tedelsewhere (cf . chap .
The Serbs,who had no permanent or well-defined frontier
in the east , where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or inthe south
,where they were the Greeks and Albanians
,were
protected on the north by the river S ave and on the west
86 Serbia
a s ta te near the coast,in the Zeta river dis trict (now Monte
negro) , and ruled there from 1081 to 1 101 . But a s a rule thewhole of the country peopled by the Serb s was Split intoa number of tiny principalities always a t war with oneanother . Generally speaking
,this country gradually became
divided into two main geographical divisions (1) thePornorj e, or country by the sea
,which included most of
the modern Montenegro and the southern halves of Herce
g ovina and Dalmatia , and (2 ) the Zag orj e, or country behindthe b ills
,which included most of the modern Bosnia
,the
western half of the modern kingdom of Serbia,and the
northern portions of Montenegro and Hercegovina,covering
all the country between the Pomorj e and the Save to thenorth of the Pomorj e and Zag orj e lay Croatia . Besidestheir neighbours in the east and south
,those in the north
and west played an important part in Serbian his tory evenin those early days .Towards the end o f the eighth century
,after the decline
of the power of the Avars,Charlemagne extended his con
quests eastwards (he made a great impression on the mindsof the Slavs
,whose word for king
,kral or korol
,i s derived
directly from his name) , and his son Louis conquered theSerb s settled in the country between the rivers S ave andDrave . This is commemorated in the name of the mass ofhill which lies between the Danube and the Save
,in eastern
Slavonia,and is to this day known as Frufka Gora, or French
Hill . The S erb s and Bulgars fought against the Franks,and
while the Bulgars held their own,the Serb s were beaten
,
and those who did not like the rule of the new-comers hadto migrate southwards across the Save ; a t the same timethe Serb s between the rivers Morava and Timok (easternSerbia) were subj ected by the Bulgars . With the arrival
Foreign Supremacy,650
—1 1 68 87
o f the Magyars,in the ninth century
,a wall was raised
between the Serb s and central and western Europe onland . Croatia and Slavonia (between the Save and theDrave) were gradually drawn into the orbit of the Hungarianstate
,and in 1 102
,on the death of it s own ruler
,Croatia
was absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of thatcountry ever S ince . Hungary
,a iming a t an outlet on the
Adriatic,a t the same time subj ected most of Dalmatia and
parts of Bosnia . In the west Venice had been steadilygrowing in power throughout the tenth century
,and by
the end of i t had secured control o f all the islands off
Dalmatia and of a considerable part of the coast . All thecities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of
Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic .
In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventhand twelfth centuries
,three political centres came into
prominence and shaped themselves into larger territorialunits . These were (1) Raska , which had been Caslav
’s
centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian state
(this dis tric t, with the town of Ras a s it s centre,included
the south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbiaand what was the Turkish sandj ak or province of NoviPazar) (2 ) Zeta , on the coas t (the modern Montenegro)and (3) Bosnia , so called after the river Bosna
,which runs
through it . Bosnia,which roughly corresponded t o the
modern province of tha t name,became independent in the
second half of the tenth century, and was never after tha tincorporated in the Serbian sta te . At times it fell underHungarian influence ; in the twelfth century, during thereign of Manuel Comnenus
,who was victorious over the
Magyars,Bosnia
,l ike all other Serb territories, had to
acknowledge the supremacy of Constantinople.
88 Serbia
I t has already been indicated that the Serb s and Croatsoccupied territory which
,while the Church was s till one
,
was divided between two dioceses,I taly and Dacia
,and
when the Church itself was divided, in the eleventh century,was torn apart between the two beliefs . The dividing linebetween the j urisdictions of Rome and Constantinople ranfrom north to south through Bosnia
,but naturally there has
always been a certain vagueness about the extent of theirrespective j urisdictions . In later years the terms Croa t andRoman Catholic on the one hand
,and Serb and Orthodox on
the other,became interchangeable . Hercegovina and eastern
Bosnia have always been predominantly Orthodox,Dalmatia
and western Bosnia predominantly Roman Catholic . Theloyalty of the Croatians to Austria-Hungary has been largelyowing to the influence of Roman Catholicism .
During the firs t centuries of S erbian history Chris tianitymade slow progress in the western half of the Balkanpeninsula . The Dalmatian coast was always under theinfluence of Rome
,but the interior was long pagan . I t i s
doubtful whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf .chap . 5) ac tually passed through Serb territory, but in thetenth century their teachings and writings were certainlycurrent there . At the time of the division of the Churchesall the Serb lands excep t the Dalmatian coast
,Croatia
,and
western Bosnia,were faithful to Constantinople
,and the
Greek hierarchy obtained complete contro l of the ecclesi
astical administration . The elaborate organiza tion andopulent character of the Eastern Church was
,however
,
especially in the hands of the Greeks,not congenial to the
Serbs,and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries the
Bogomil heresy (cf . chap . a much more primitive anddemocratic form of Christianity
,already familiar in the East
Foreign Supremacy , 650—1 168
a s the Manichaean heresy,took hold of the Serbs’ imagina
tion and made a s rapid and disquieting progress in theircountry as it ha d already done in the neighbouring Bulgariainasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teachingto be socialistic
,subversive
,and highly dangerous to the
ecclesiastical supremacy of Constantinople,all of which
indeed it was,adherence to i t became amongst the Serb s
a direct expression of patriotism .
15
The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and theExtinction of Serbian Independence , 1 168—1496
FROM 1 168 the power o f the Serbs,or rather of the central
S erb sta te of Raska,and the extent of it s territory gradually
but steadily increased . This wa s outwardly expressed in thefirm establishment on the
,throne of the national Nemanj a
dynasty,which can claim the credi t o f having by its energy
,
skill,and good fortune fashioned the most imposing and
formidable s tate the Serb race has ever known . Thisdynasty ruled the country uninterruptedly
,but not wi thout
many quarrels,feuds
,and rivalrie s amongst it s various
members,from 1 168 until 1371 , when it became extinct .
There were several external factors which at this timefavoured the rise of the Serbian sta te . Byzantium and theGreek Empire
,to which the Emperor Manuel Comnenus
had by 1 168 restored some measure of it s former greatnes sand splendour
,regaining temporary contro l
,after a long
war with Hungary,even over Dalmatia
,Croatia
,and
Bo snia , after this date began definitively to decline , andafter the troublous times of the fourth crusade when
90 Serbia
for sixty years a Latin empire was established on the B os
phorus, never again recovered a s a Christian state the
posmon in the Balkan peninsula which it had so long enj oyed .
Bulgaria,too
,after the meteoric glory of its second empire
under the Asen dynasty (1 186—1 2 quite went to pieces ,the eastern and northern parts falling under Tartar
,the
southern under Greek influence,while the western district s
fell t o Serbia . In the north,on the other hand
,Hungary
was becoming a dangerous and ambitious neighbour . Duringthe thirteenth century
,i t is true
,the attention of the
Magyars was diverted by the irruption into and devastationof their country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia
,the
Tartars,who wrought grea t havoc and even penetrated a s
far a s the Adriatic coast . Nevertheles s Hungary was alwaysa menace to Serbia Croatia
,Slavonia
,and the interior of
Dalmatia,all purely Serb territories
,belonged to the
Hungarian crown,and Bosnia was under the supremacy of
the Magyars,though nominally independent .
The obj ects of the Magyars were twofold—to attain thehegemony of the Balkan peninsula by conquering all thestill independent Serb territories
,and to bring the peninsula
within the pale of Rome . They were not successful in eithero f these obj ects
, partly because their wars with the Serbianrulers always failed to reach a decision
,partly because their
plans conflicted with those of the powerful Venetianrepublic . The relations between Venice and S erbia werealways most cordial
,a s their ambitions did no t clash those
of Venice were not continental,while those of Serbia were
never maritime . The semi—independent Slavonic Cityrepublic of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in Serbian) playeda very important part throughout this period . I t was underVenetian supremacy, but was self-governing and had a large
Serbian Empire,1 1 68—1496 91
fleet of its own . I t was the great place of exchange betweenSerbia and western Europe
,and was really the meeting
place of East and West . I ts relations with Serbia were byno means always peaceful ; i t was a Naboth
’s vineyard forthe rulers and people of the inland kingdom
,and it was
never incorporated within their dominions . Ragusa and
the other cities of the Dalmatian coast were the homeduring the Middle Ages of a flourishing school of S erbianliterature
,which was inspired by that of I taly . The influence
of I talian civilization and of the I talian Church was naturallys trong in the Serb province
,much of which was under
Venetian rule the reason for this was that communicationby sea with I taly was easier and safer than that by land withSerbia . The long
,formidable ranges of limestone mountains
which divide the Serbian interior from the Adriatic inalmost unbroken and parallel lines have always been a barrierto the extension of Serb power to the coast
,and an obstacle
to free commercial intercourse . Nevertheless Ragusa was
a great trade centre,and one of the factors which most
contributed to the economic strength of the SerbianEmpire .
The first of the Nemanj a dynasty was S tephen , whosetitle was s till only VelikiZupan he extended Serb territorysouthwards a t the expense of the Greeks
,especially after the
death of Manuel Comnenus in 1 180 . He also persecutedthe Bogomils
,who took refuge in large numbers in the
adj acent Serb s tate of Bosnia . Like many other Serbianrulers
,he abdicated in later life in favour o f his younger son,
S tephen,called Nemanj ié Nemanya
’s son) , and himself
became a monk travelling for this purpose to MountAthos
,the grea t monastic centre and home o f theological
learning of the Eastern Church . There he saw his youngest
92 Serbia
son, who some years previously had also j ourneyed thitherand entered a monastery
,taking the name of Sava .
I t was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sortof memorial church
,for the welfare of his own soul
,before
his death,and to decorate and endow it lavishly . S tephen
and his son together superintended the erection in this senseof the church and monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos ,which became a famous centre of S erbian church life .S tephen died shortly after the completion of the buildingin 1 199, andwas buried in it , but in 1 207 he was reinterred inthe monastery of S tudenica
,in Serbia
,also founded by him .
The reign of S tephen Nemanj ié (1 196—1 2 2 3) opened witha quarrel between him and his elder brother
,who not um
naturally felt he ought to have succeeded his father ; theBulgarians profited by this and seized a large part o f easternSerbia
,including Belgrade
,Nish
,Prizren
,and Skoplj e . This
,
together with the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in 1 2 04, alarmed the Serbs andbrought about a reconcilia tion between the brothers
,and
in 1 2 07 Sava returned to Serbia to organize the Church on
national lines . In 1 2 19 he j ourneyed to Nicaea and extractedfrom the Emperor Theodore Lascaris
,who had fallen on
evil days,the concession for the es tablishment of an aut ono
mous national S erbian Church,independent of the Patriarch
of Constantinople . Sava himself was a t the head of the newinstitution . In 1 2 2 0 he solemnly crowned his brother King
(Kralf) o f Serbia , the natural consequence of his activitiesi n the previous year . For this reason Stephen Nemanj ié i scalled The Firs t-Crowned ’
. He was succeeded in 1 2 2 3 byhis son S tephen Radoslav
,and he in turn was deposed by
his brother S tephen Vladislav in 1 2 33. Both these werecrowned by Sava , and Vladislav married the daughter o f
94 Serbia
was the series of provincial rebellions which occurred inalmost every reign . When the revolt succeeded
,the father
(or brother) was granted in hi s turn a small appanage . Inthis ca se it was the son who was exiled
,but he was recalled
i n 1319 and a reconciliation took place . Milut in died in132 1 and was succeeded by his son
,S tephen Uro§ I I I
,who
reigned till 1331 . He is known as S tephen Deéanski,after
the memorial church which he buil t a t DeEani in westernSerbia . His reign was signalized by a great defea t of thecombined Bulgarians and Greeks a t Kustendi l in Macedoniain 1330 . The following year his son
,S tephen DuSan
,
rebelled against him and deposed him . S tephen DuSan,who
reigned from 1331 till 1 355, was Serbia’s greates t ruler
,and
under him the country reached its utmost limits . Provincialand family revolts and petty local disputes with such placesa s Ragusa became a thing of the past
,and he undertook
conquest on a grand scale . Between 1331 and 1344 hesubj ected all Macedonia
,Albania
,Thessaly
,and Epirus .
He was careful to keep on good terms with Ragusa and withHungary
,then under Charles Robert . He married the
sister of the Bulgarian ruler,and during his reign Bulgaria
was completely under Serbian supremacy . The anarchyand civil warwhich had become perennial a t Constantinople
,
and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of the growing power o f the Turks
,no doubt to some extent explain
the facili ty and rap idi ty of hi s conquest s ; nevertheles s hispower was very formidable
,and his success inspired consider
able ala rm in western Europe . This was increased when,
in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire . He firs tcalled together a special Church council
,a t whi ch the
S erbian Church,an archbishopric
,whose centre was then
a t Pee (in Montenegro, Ipek in Turki sh) , was procla imed a
Serbian Empire,1 168—1496 95
Patriarchate,with Archbishop Joannice a s Patriarch ; then
this prelate,together with the Bulgarian Patriarch
,S imeon
,
and Nichola s,Archbishop of Okhrida
,crowned S tephen
Tsar of the Serbs, Bulgars , and Greeks . Upon this thePatriarch of Constantinople gave himself the vain satisfactionof anathematizing the whole of Serbia
,as a punishment for
this insubordination .
In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI , persuaded King Louis ofHungary to undertake a crusade against Serbia in the name
of Catholicism ,but Stephen defeated him and re-established
his frontier along the Save and Danube . Later he conqueredthe southern half of Dalm atia
,and extended his empire a s
far north a s the river . Cetina . In 1354 S tephen DuSan
himself approached the Pope,offering to acknowledge hi s
spiritual supremacy,if he would support him against the
Hungarians and the Turks . The Pope sent him an embassy,
but eventually S tephen could not agree to the papal conditions
,and concluded an alliance
,of greater practical utili ty
,
with the Venetians . In 1355, however, he suddenly died ,a t the age of forty-six
,and thus the further development
and aggrandizement of his country was prematurelyarrested .
S tephen DuSan made a great impression on his contem
poraries, both by his imposing personal appearance and by hisundoubted wisdom and abili ty . He was especially a greatlegislator
,and his remarkable code of laws
,compiled in 1349
and enlarged in 1354, i s , outside his own country, his greates ttitle to fame . During Stephen DuSan
’s reign the political
centre of Serbia,which had for many years gradually tended
to shift southwards towardsMacedonia,was a t Skoplj e (Uskub
in Turkish) , which he made his capital . Stephen DuSan’s
empire extended from the Adriatic in the west to the river
96 Serbia
Maritsa in the east,from the Save and Danube in the north
to the Aegean ; i t included all the modern kingdoms ofSerbia
,Montenegro
,Albania
,and most of Greece
,Dalmatia
a s far north as the river Cetina,a s well a s the fertile Morava
valley,with Nish and Belgrade—the whole eastern part of
Serbia,which had for long been under either Bulgar or
Magyar control . I t did not include the cities of Salonika orRagusa
,nor any considerable part of the modern kingdom
of Bulgaria,nor Bosnia
,Croatia
,North Dalmatia
,nor
Slavonia (between the Save and Drave) , ethnologically allpurely Serb lands . From the point of view of nationality
,
therefore,i t s boundaries were far from ideal .
S tephen DuSan was succeeded by his son,known a s Tsar
U roS,but he was a s weak as his fa ther had been strong .
Almost a s soon a s he succeeded to the throne,disorders
,
rebellions,and dissensions broke out and the empire rapidly
fell to pieces . With Serbia,as with Bulgaria
,the empire
entirely hinged on the personality of one man,and when he
was gone chaos returned . Such an event for Serbia a t thisj uncture was fa tal
,a s a far more formidable foe than the
ruler’s rebellious relations was advancing against it . TheTurkish conquests were proceeding apace ; they had takenGallipoli in 1354 and Demotika and Adrianople in 1361 .
The Serbs,who had already had an unsuccessful brush with
the advance guard of the new invaders near Demotika in1351 , met them again on the Maritsa river in 1371 , and werecomp letely defeated . Several of the upstart princes whohad been pulling Stephen DuSan
’s empire to pieces perished
,
and Tsar Uro§ only survived the battle of the Maritsa twomonths he was unmarried
,and with him died the Nemanj a
dynasty and the Serbian Empire .After ’this disaster the unity of the Serbian sta te was
98 Serbia
leader,MiloS Obilic, who, accused of treachery by his own
countrymen,vowed he would prove his good faith
,went
over to the Turks and,pretending to be a traitor, gained
admission t o the Sultan’s presence and proved his patriotismby killing him . The momentary dismay was put an end toby the energetic conduct of B aj aze t , son of Murad , who
rallied the Turkish tr00ps and ultimately inflicted totaldefea t on the Serbians . From the effects of this battleS erbia never recovered ; Prince Lazar was captured andexecuted ; his wife, Princess Milica , had to give her daughterto Baj aze t in marriage, whose son thus ultimately claimedpossession of Serbia by righ
\t of inheritance . Princess Milicaand her son S tephen continued to live a t KruSevac
,but
Serbia was already a tributary of Turkey . In the north ,Hungary profited. by the course of events and occupiedBelgrade and all northern Serbia
,but in 1396 the Turks
defeated the Magyars severely a t the battle of Nikopolis,on
the Danube,making the Serb s under S tephen fight on the
Turkish side . Stephen also had to help Sultan Baj aze tagainst the Tartars
,and fought a t the battle of Angora
,in
1402 , when Tamerlane captured Bajaze t .
After S tephen returned to Serbia he made an alliancewith Hungary
,which gave him back Belgrade and northern
Serbia i t was a t this time (1403) that Belgrade firs t becamethe capital
,the political centre having in the course of fifty
years moved from the Vardar to the Danube . The disorderswhich followed the defeat of B aj aze t gave some respite tothe Serbs
,but Sultan Murad I I (142 1—51) again took up
arms against him,and invaded Serbia a s far a s KruSevac .
At the death of S tephen (Lazarevic) , in 142 7, he wassucceeded as Despot by his nephew,
George B rankovic’ ; butthe Sultan
,claiming Serbia a s his own
,immediately declared
Serbian Empire,1 168—1496 99
war on him . The Serbian ruler had to abandon Belgradeto the Magyars
,and Nish and KruSevac to the Turks . He
then built and fortified the town of Smederevo (or Semendria) lower down on the Danube , in 142 8, and made this hiscapital . He gave his daughter in marriage to the Sultan
,
but in spite of this war soon broke out again,and in 1441
the Turks were masters of nearly the whole of Serbia . LaterGeorge B rankovié made another alliance with Hungary, andin 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi
,defeated the Turks
and l iberated the whole of Serbia a s far a s the Adriatic ,though he remained a tributary of the Sultan . The sameyear
,however
,the Magyars broke the treaty of peace j ust
concluded with the Turks,and marched against them under
their Polish king,Ladisla s this ended in the disa strous
battle of Varna,on the Black Sea
,where the king lost his life .
In 1451 Sultan Murad I I died and was succeeded by theSultan Mohame t . In 1453 this sultan cap tured ConstantinOple (Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital)in 1456 his armies were besieging Belgrade , but were defea tedby John Hunyadi
,who
,unfortunately for the Serbs
,died of
the plague shortly afterwards . George Brankovic’ died the
same year,and a t his death general disorder spread over the
country . The Turks profited by this,overran the whole of
Serbia,and in 1459 captured Smederevo , the la s t S erbian
S tronghold .
Meanwhile Bo snia had been for nearly a hundred yearsenj oying a false security as an independent Serb kingdom .
I t s rulers had hitherto been known by the title of B an,and
were all vassals of the King of Hungary ; but in 1377 B an
Tvrtko profited by the embarra ssments of his suzerain inPoland and proclaimed himself king
,the neighbouring
kingdom of Serbia having,a fter 1371 , ceased to exis t, and
G 2
1 00 Serbia
was duly crowned in Saint Sava’s monastery of MileSevo .
The internal histo ry of the kingdom was even more turbulentthan had been that of Serbia . To the endemic troubles ofsuccession and alternating alliances and wars with foreignpowers were added those of confession . Bosnia was alwaysa no man’s land a s regards religion it was where theEastern and Western Churches met
,and consequently the
rivalry between them there was always,a s it i s now
,intense
and bitter . The Bogomil heresy,too
,early took root in
Bosnia and became extremely popular ; i t was the obviousrefuge for those who did not care to become involved in thes trife of the Churches . One of the kings of Bosnia
,S tephen
Thomas,who reigned from 1444 till 1461 , was himself
a Bogomil,and when at the insis tence of the Pope and of
the King of Hungary,whose friendship he was anxious to
retain,he renounced his heresy
,became ostensibly a Roman
Catholic,and began to persecute the Bogomils
,he brought
about a revolution . The rebels fled to the south of Bosnia ,t o the lands of one S tephen
,who sheltered them
,proclaimed
his independence of Bosnia,and on the strength of the fact
that S aint S ava’s monastery ofMileSevo was in his territory,announced himself Herzog
,or Duke (in Serbian Herceg,
though the real S erb equivalent i s Voj voda) of Saint Sava ,ever since when (1448) that territory has been called Herce
g ovina. In spite of many promises, neither the Pope nor the
King of Hungary did anything to help Bosnia when theTurks began to invade the country after their final subj eetion of S erbia in 1459. In 1463 they invaded Bosnia andpursued
,captured
,and slew the las t king ; their conques t
of the country was complete and rapid . A great exodus ofthe Serb population took place t o the south
,west
,and north
but l arge numbers,especially of the landowning class
,
1 02 Serbia
1 6
The Turkish Dominion,1496
- 1796
THE lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was diff erentfrom that of their neighbours the Bulgars ; and though i twas certainly not enviable
,i t was undoubtedly better . The
Turks for various reasons never succeeded in subduing Serbiaand the various Serb lands a s completely as they hadsubdued
,or rather annihilated
,Bulgaria . The Serbs were
Spread over a far larger extent of territory than were theBulgars
,they were further removed from the Turkish centre
,
and the wooded and mountainous nature of their countryfacilitated even more than in the case of Bulgaria theformation of bands of brigands and rebels and militatedagainst it s systematic policing by the Turks . The numberof centres of national life
,Serbia proper
,Bosnia
,Herce
g ovina, and Montenegro,to take them in the chronological
order of their conques t by the Turks,had been noto riously
a source of weakness to the Serbian state,a s i s still the case
to-day,but at the same time made it more difli cult for the
Turks to stamp out the national consciousness . What stillfurther contributed to this difficulty was the fac t that manySerb s escaped the oppression of Turkish rule by emigratingto the neighbouring provinces
,where they found people of
their own race and language,even though of a different
faith . The tide of emigration flowed in two directions ,westwards into Dalmatia and northwards into Slavonia andHungary . I t had begun already after the final subj ection
of Serbia proper and Bo snia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463,
but after the fall of Belgrade, which was the outpost o f
Hungary against the Turks,in 1 52 1 , and the battle of
Turkish Dominion,1496
—1796 103
Mohacs,in 152 6, when the Turks completely defeated the
Magyars,it assumed great proportions . As the Turks pushe d
their conquests further north,the Serb s migrated before them ;
la ter on,as the Turks receded
,large Serb colonies sprang up
all over southern Hungary,in the Banat (the country north
of the Danube and east of the Theiss) , in Syrmia (or Srem ,
in Serbian,the extreme eastern part of Slavonia
,between
the Save and the Danube) , in Backa (the country b etween the Theiss and Danube) , and in Baranya (betweenthe Danube and the Drave) . All this part of southernHungary and Croatia was formed by the Austrians intoa military borderland agains t Turkey
,and the Croats and
immigrant Serbs were organized a s milita ry colonists wi thSpecial privileges
,on the analogy of the Cossacks in southern
Russia and Poland . In Dalmatia the Serbs played a similarrOle in the service of Venice, which , like Austria-Hungary,was frequently at war with the Turks . During the sixteenthcentury Ragusa enj oyed it s greates t prosperity ; i t paidtribute to the Sultan
,was under his protection
,and never
rebelled . I t had a quasi monopoly o f the trade of the entireBalkan peninsula . I t was a sanctuary both for RomanCatholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs
,and sometimes
acted as intermediary on behalf of it s co-relig 10n1st s withthe Turkish authorities
,withwhom it wielded great influence.
Intellectually also i t was a sort of Serb oasis,and the only
place during the Middle Ages where Serbian literature was0 flourish .
nt eneg ro during the sixteenth century formed part ofthe Turkish province of Scutari . Here
,a s well a s in Serbia
proper,northern Macedonia (known after the removal north
wards of the political centre,in the fourteenth century
,a s
Old Serbia) , Bosnia , and Hercegovina , the Turkish rule was
104 Serbia
firmest,but not harshest
,during the firs t half of the sixteenth
century,when the power of the Ottoman Empire was a t
i ts height . Soon after the fall of Smederevo , in 1459, thePatriarchate of Pee (Ipek) was abolished, the Serbian Churchlost it s independence
,was merged in the Greco-Bulgar
Archbishopric of Okhrida (in southern Macedonia) , and fellcompletely under the control of the Greeks . In 1557,
however,through the influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb
nationality,the Patriarchate of Peé was revived . The
revival of this centre of national life was momentousthrough its agency the Serbian monasteries were restored
,
ecclesiastical books printed,and priests educated
,and
,more
fortunate than the Bulgarian national Church,which re
mained under Greek management,it was able to focus the
national enthusiasms and aspira tions and keep alive withhope the flame of nationality amongst those Serbs who hadnot emigrated .
Already,in the second half of the sixteenth century
,people
began to think that Turkey’s days in Europe were numbered,
and they were encouraged in this illusion by the battle ofLepanto But the seventeenth century saw a revivalof Turkish power ; Krete was added to their empire , andin 1683 they very nearly captured Vienna . In the warwhich followed their repulse
,and in which the victorious
Austrians penetrated as far south a s Skoplj e,the Serbs took
part against the Turks but when later the Austrians wereobliged to retire
,the Serbs
,who had risen against the Turks
a t the bidding of their Pa triarch Arsen I I I , had to sufferterrible reprisals a t their hands
,with the result that ano ther
wholesale emigration,with the Patriarch a t its head
,took
place into the Austro-Hungarian military borderland . Thistime it was the very heart of Serbia which was abandoned ,
106 Serbia
privileges promised them when their help had been necessarywere disregarded as soon a s their services could be dispensedwith . Austrian rule soon became more oppressive thanTurkish
,and to the Serbs’ other woes was now added
religious persecution . The result o f all this was thata counter-emigration se t in and the Serbs actually beganto return to their old homes in Turkey . Another war
between Austria-Hungary and Turkey broke out in 1737,
in which the Austrians were unsuccessful . Prince Eugenno longer led them
,and though the Serbs were again per
suaded by their Patriarch,Arsen IV
,to rise against the Turks
,
they only did so half-heartedly . By the Trea ty of Belgrade ,in 1739, Austria had to withdraw north o f the Save andDanube
,evacuating all northern Serbia in favour of the
Turks . From this time onwards the lo t of the Serbs,both
in Austria-Hungary and in Turkey,went rapidly from bad
t o worse . The Turks,a s the power of their empire declined ,
and in return for the numerous Serb revolts,had recourse
to measures of s evere repression ; among'
s t others was tha tof the final abolition of the Patriarchate of Peé in 1766,
whereupon the control of the Serbian Church in Turkeypassed entirely into the hands of the Greek Patriarchate ofConstantinople .
The Austrian Government similarly,perceiving now for
the first time the elements of dang er which the resuscitation of the Serbian nationality would contain for therule of the Hapsburgs
,embarked on a systematic per
secu t ion of the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary andSlavonia . During the reign of Maria Theresa (1740whose policy was to concilia te the Magyars
,the military
frontier zone was abolished,a series of repressive measures
was passed against those Serbs who refused to become ,
Turkish Dominion ,1496
—1 796 1 07
Roman Catholics,and the Serbian nationality was refused
official recognition . The consequence of this persecutionwas a series of revolt s which were all quelled with dueseverity
,and finally the emigration of a hundred thousand
Serbs to southern Russia,where they founded New Serbia
in 1752—3.
During the reigns of Joseph I I (1780—90) and Leopold I I
(1790—2 ) their treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved . From the beginning of the eighteenthcentury Montenegro began to assume greater importancein the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of
the Serbs . During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriesi t had formed part of the Turkish dominions
,though
,thanks
to the inaccessible nature of it s mountain fas tnesses,Turkish
authority was never very forcibly asserted . I t was ruled bya prince-bishop
,and its religious independence thus con
noted a certain secular freedom of thought if no t of action .
In the seventeenth century warlike encounters between theTurks and the Montenegrins increased in frequency
,and
the latter tried to enlist the help of Venice on their side,
but with indifferent success . The fighting in Montenegrowas often rather civil in character
,being caused by the
ill-feeling which exis ted between the numerous Monteneg rins who had become Mohammedans and those who
remained faithful to their national Church . In the courseof the eighteenth century the rOle which fell to Montenegrobecame more important . In all the other S erb countriesthe families which naturally took a leading part in aff airswere either extinct or in exile
,a s in Serbia
,or had become
Mohammedan,and therefore to all intents and purposes
Turkish,a s in Bosnia and Hercegovina . Ragusa
,since the
great earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and
108 Serbia
was no longer of international importance . In Montenegro ,on the other hand
,there had survived both a greater inde
pendence of Spirit (Montenegro was, after all, the ancientZeta
,and had always been a centre of national life) and
a number of a t any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocraticS erb families these families naturally looked on themselvesand on their bishop a s destined to play an important partin the resis tance to and the eventual overthrow of theTurkish dominion . The prince-bishop had to be consecra tedby the Patriarch of Peé
,and in 1700 Patriarch Arsen I I I
consecra ted one Daniel,of the house (which has been ever since
then and is now s till the reigning dynasty of Montenegro)of Pe t rovié-Nj eg oS, to this offi ce , after he had been electedto i t by the council of notables a t Cetinj e . Montenegro ,isola ted from the Serbs in the north
,and precluded from
participating with them in the wars between Austria andTurkey by the intervening block of Bosnia
,which though
Serb by nationality was solidly Mohammedan and thereforepro-Turkish
,carried on it s feuds with the Turks indepen
dently of the other Serbs . But when Peter the Grea tinitiated his anti-Turkish poli cy
,and
,in combination with
the expansion of Russia to the south and west , began tochampion the cause of the Balkan Christians , he developedintercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation o f
that friendship between the vast Russian Empire and thetiny S erb principality on the Adriatic which has beena quaint and persis tent feature of eastern European politicsever since . This intimacy did not prevent the Turks givingMontenegro many hard blows whenever they had the timeor energy to do so
,and did not ensure any special protective
clauses in favour of the mountain s tate whenever the varioustrea ties between Russia and Turkey were concluded . I ts
1 10 Serbia
the Prince-Bishop Peter,the independence of the modern
sta te of Montenegro,the firs t Serb people to recover it s
liberty,was defacto established .
I 7
The Liberation of Serbia under K ara-George(1 804—13 ) and Milos Obrenovié (1 8 15—30)
1 796—1 830
THE libera tion of Serbia from the Turkish dominion andi ts e stablishment a s "an independent state were matters ofmuch slower and more arduous accomplishment than werethe same processes in the other Balkan countries . One reasonfor this was tha t S erbia by its peculia r geographical position
was cut off from outside help . I t was easy for the westernpowers to help Greece w ith their fleets
,and for Russia to
help Rumania and,la ter
,Bulgaria directly with its a rmy
,
because communication between them was easy . But Serbiaon the one hand was separa ted from the sea
,firs t byDalmatia
,
which was always in foreign possession,and then by Bosnia
,
Hercegovina,and the sandj ak (or province) of Novi-Pazar,
all of which territories,though ethnically Serb
,were s trong
holds of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population . The energies of Montenegro , also cu toff from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey
,were absorbed in
self-defence,though it gave Serbia all the support which
its size permitted . Communica tion,on the other hand
,
between Russia and Serbia,was too difficult to permit of
milita ry help being rapidly and effectively brought to bearupon the Turks from that quarter . Bessarabia
,Wallachia
,
and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control,and
Liberation,1 796
—1 830 1 1 1
either they had to be traversed or the Danube had to benavigated from its mouth upwards through Turkish territory . The only country which could have helped Serbia
was Austria,but as i t was against their bes t interests
to do so,the Austrians naturally did all they could not to
a dvance,but to retard the Serbian cause . As a result of
all this S erbia,in her long struggle against the Turks
,had
to rely principally on it s own resources,though Russian
diplomacy several times s aved the renascent country from
disa ster .Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation anddevelopment of modern Serbia has been the proneness ofi t s people to internal dissension . There was no nationaldynasty on whom the leadership of the country wouldnaturally devolve after the firs t successful revolution againstTurkish rule
,there was not even any aris tocracy left
,and
no foreign ruler was ever asked for by the Serbs or was everimposed on them by the other nations a s in the ca se of
Greece,Rumania
,and Bulgaria . On the o ther hand the
rising agains t Turkey was a rising of the whole people,and
i t was almost inevitable tha t a s soon a s some measure o f
i ndependence was gained the unity the Serbs had shownwhen fighting against their Oppressors should dissolve and bereplaced by bitter rivalries and disputes amongst the variouslocal leaders who had become prominent during the rebellion .
These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolvedthemselves into a blood—feud between two families, theKarag j org j evié and the Ob renovié, a quarrel that filledSerbian history and mili tated against the progress of theSerb people throughout the nineteenth century .
The same reasons which restricted the growth of thepolitical independence of Serbia have also impeded
,or
1 2 Serbia
rather made impossible,it s economic development and
material prosperity . Until recent years Austria-Hungaryand Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in sucha position that whenever Serbia either demurred at it sneighbours’ tariff s or wi shed to retaliate by means of its own ,the screw was immediately applied and economic strangulation threatened . Rumania and Bulgaria economically couldnever b e of help to Serbia
,because the products and the
requirements of all three are identical,and Rumania and
Bulgaria cannot be expected to facilitate the sale of theirneighbours’ live stock and cereals
,when their firs t busines s
is t o sell their own,while the cost of transi t of imports from
western Europ e through those countries is prohibitive .
After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already ment ioned
,S erbia remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for
some years . Meanwhile the authority of the Sultan in Serbiawas growing ever weaker and the real power was wielded bylocal Turkish offi cials
,who exploited the country
,looked on
i t as their own property, and enj oyed semi-independence .Their exactions and cruelties were worse than had beenthose o f the Turks in the old days
,and it was against them
and their troop s,not agains t those of the Sultan
,that the first
battles in the Serbian war of independence were fought .
I t wa s during the year 1803 that the Serbian leaders firstmade definite plans for the rising which eventually tookplace in the following year . The ringleader was GeorgePetrovic
,known a s Black George
,or Kara-George
,and
amongst his confedera tes was MiloS Ob renovié. The centreof the conspiracy was a t Topola
,in the district of Sumadij a
in central S erbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers) ,the native place of Kara-George . The firs t two years offighting between the S erbians and
,firs t
,the provincial
1 14 Serbia
countries signed in May 1 8 1 2,the Serb s were indeed men
t ioned, and promised vague internal autonomy and a generalamnesty
,but all the fortified towns they had captured were
to be returned to the Turks,and the few Russian troops
who had been helping the Serb s in Serbia had to withdraw .
Negotiations between the Turks and the Serbs for theregulation of their position were continued throughout I 81 2
,
but finally the Turks refused all their claims and conditionsand
,seeing the European powers preoccupied with their
own aff airs, invaded the country from Bosnia in the west ,and also from the east and south
,in August 18 13. The
Serbs,left entirely to their own resources
,succumbed before
the superior forces of the Turks,and by the beginning o f
October the latter were again masters of the whole countryand in possession of Belgrade . Meanwhile Kara-George
,
broken in health and unable to cope with the difficultiesof the situation
,which demanded successful strategy both
against the overwhelming forces of the Turks in the fieldand against the intrigues of his enemies a t home
,somewhat
ignominiously fled across the river to Semlin in Hungary,
and was duly incarcerated by the Austrian authorities .The news of Napoleon’s defea t a t Leipsic (October 1 8 13)arrived j ust after tha t of the re-occupation of Belgrade bythe Turks
,damped thef eu-de-j oie which they were firing a t
Constantinople,and made them rather more concilia tory
and lenient to the Serbian rebels . But this a ttitude did notlas t long
,and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh efforts
to regain their short-lived liberty . The Congress of Viennamet in the autumn of 1 814, and during it s whole courseSerbian emissaries gave the Russian envoys no peace . Butwith the return of Napoleon to France in the Spring of 18 15and the break-up of the Congress
,all that Russia could do
Liberation,1 796
—1830 1 15
was, through its ambassador at Constantinople, to threateninvasion unless the Turks left the Serbs alone . Nevertheles s
,
conditions in Serbia became so intolerable that anotherrebellion soon took shape
,this time underMiloS Ob renovié.
This leader was no less patriotic than his rival,Kara-George
,
but he was far more able and a consummate diplomat .Kara-George had possessed indomitable courage
,energy
,
and will-power,but he could no t temporize
,and his arbitrary
methods of enforcing discipline and his ungovernable temperhad made him many enemies . While the credit for the firs tSerbian revolt (1804—13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly tohim
,the second revolt owed it s more la sting success to the
skill of M iloS Ob renovié. The fighting started a t Takovo,
the home of the Ob renovié family, in April 18 15, and aftermany astonishing successes against the Turks
,including the
capture of the towns of Rudnik,Caéak
,Poi arevac
,and
Kralj evo,was all over by July of the same year . The Turks
were ready with large armies in the west in Bo snia,and also
south of the Morava river,to continue the campaign and
crush the rebellion,but the news of the final defea t of
Napoleon,and the knowledge that Russia would soon have
time again to devote attention t o the Balkans,withheld
their appetites for revenge,and negotia tions with the
successful rebels were initiated . During the whole of thisperiod
,from 1813 onwards , M iloS Ob renovié, as head of
a dis tric t,was an official of the Sultan in Serbia , and it wa s
one of his prmcrples never to break irreparably with theTurks
,who were still suzerains of the country . At the same
time,owing to his skill and initiative he was recognized as
the only real leader of the movement for independence .
From the cessation of the rebellion in 1 8 15 onwards hehimself personally conducted negotiations in the name of
H 2
1 1 6 Serbia
his people with the various pa shas who were deputed to
deal with him . While these negotiations went on and thearmistice was in force, he was confronted, or rather harassedfrom behind
,by a series of revolts agains t his growing
authority on the part of his j ealous compatriots .In June 18 17 Kara-George , who had been in Russia after
being released by the Austrians in 18 14, returned surrep
t it iously to Serbia , encouraged by the brighter a spect whichaff airs in his country seemed to be assuming . But thereturn of his most dangerous rival was as unwelcome toMilo§ as i t was to the Turkish authorities a t Belgrade, and,measures having been concerted between them
,Kara-George
was murdered on July 2 6,1817, and the first ac t in the blood
feud between the two families thus committed . In November of the same year a skupftina, or national a ssembly, washeld a t Belgra de, and Milos Ob renovié, whose position wasalrea dy thoroughly a ssured
,was elected hereditary prince
(knez ) of the country .
Meanwhile events of considerable importance for thefuture o f the Serb race had been happening elsewhere .Dalmatia
,the whole of which had been in the possession of
Venice since the Treaty of Carlowitz in 1699, passed into thehands of Austria by the Trea ty of Campo Formio in 1797,
when the Venetian republic was extinguished by Napoleon .
The Bocche di Cattaro,a harbour both s trategically and
commercially of immense value,which had in the old days
belonged to the Serb principality of Zeta or Montenegro,
and is its only natural outlet on the Adriatic,likewise became
Venetian in 1699 and Austrian in 1797, one year after thesuccessful rebellion of the Montenegrins against the Turks .By the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria
Dalmatia became French in 1805. But the Montenegrins ,
1 1 8 Serbia
right to trade and erect churches,schools
,and printing
presses,and the Turks were forbidden to live in Serbia
excep t in eight garrison towns ; the garrisons were to beTurkish
,and tribute was s till to be paid to the Sultan a s
suzerain . These concessions,announced by Prince MiloS to
his people a t a Special skups'tina held at Kraguj evac in 182 7,
evoked great enthusiasm,but the urgency of the Greek
question again delayed their fulfilment . After the battle of
Navarino on October 2 0,1 82 7, in which the British, French ,
and Russian fleets defeated the Turkish,the Turks became
obstinate and refused to carry out the stipulations of theConvention of Akerman in favour of Serbia . ThereuponRussia declared war on Turkey in April 1 82 8
,and the
Russian armies crossed the Danube and the Balkans andmarched on Constantinople .Peace wa s concluded a t Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey
agreed to carry out immediately all the stipulations of theTreaty of Bucarest (18 1 2 ) and the Convention of Akerman
The details took some time to settle,but in Novem
ber 1830 the b atti—sberif of the Sultan,acknowledging
l\/Iilo§ a s hereditary prince of Serbia,was publicly read in
Belgrade . All the concessions already promised were dulygranted
,and Serbia became virtually independent
,but still
tributary to the Sultan . I t s territory included most of thenorthern part of the modern kingdom of Serb ia
,
l
b e twe en the
rivers Drina,Save
,Danube
,and Timok
,but not the districts
o f Nish,Vranj a
,and Pirot . Turkey still retained Bosnia
and Hercegovina,Macedonia
,the sandj ak of Novi-Pazar,
which separa ted Serbia from Montenegro,and Old Serbia
(northern Macedonia) .
R egeneration, 1830
—1903
1 8
The Throes of Regeneration : I ndependent Serbia ,1830
- 1903
DURING his rule of Serbia,which la sted virtually from
18 17 till 1839, Prince MiloS did a very grea t deal for thewelfare of his country . He emancipated the Serbian Churchfrom the trammels of the Greek Patriarchate of ConstantinOple in 1831 , from which date onwards it was ruled bya Metropolitan of Serb nationality
,resident a t Belgrade .
He encouraged the trade of the country,a great deal of
which he held in his own hands ; he was in fac t a sort ofprototype of those modern Balkan business-kings of whomKing George of Greece and King Carol of Rumania werethe most notable examples . He raised an army and put i ton a permanent footing
,and organized the construction of
roads,schools
,and churches . He was
,however
,an auto
cratic ruler of the old school,and he had no inclination to
share the power for the a ttainment of which he had labouredso many years and gone through so much . From his definiteinstallation a s heredita ry prince discontent a t his a rbitrarymethods of government amongst his ex-equals increased,and after several revolts he was forced eventually to granta constitution in 1835. This
,however
,remained a dead
letter,and things went on as before . Later in the same
year he paid a prolonged visit to his suzerain a t ConstantinOple , and while he was there the situation in Serbia becamestill more serious . After his return he was, after severalyears of delay and of growing unpopularity
,compelled to
agree to another constitution which was forced on him,
paradoxically enough,by the j oint efforts of the Tsar and
2 0 Serbia
of the Sultan,who seemed to take an unnatural plea sure
in supporting the democratic S erbians against their successfulcolleague in autocracy
,who had done so much for his
turbulent subj ects . Serbia even in those days wa s essentiallyand uncompromisingly democratic
,but even so MiloS ob st i
ma tely refused to carry out the provisions of the constitutionor in any way to submit to a curtailment of his power, andin 1839 he left his ungrateful principality and took refugein Rumania
,where he possessed an estate
,abdicating in
favour of his elder son‘
Milan . This Prince Milan , knownas Ob renovié I I
,was seriously ill a t the time of his accession ,
and died within a month of i t . He was succeeded by hisyounger brother Michael
,known as Ob renovié I I I , who
was then only sixteen years of age . This prince,though
young,had a good head on his shoulders
,and eventually
proved the most gifted ruler modern Serbia ha s ever had .
His firs t reign (1840 however,did not Open well . He
inaugurated it by paying a s ta te visi t to Constantinople,
but the Sultan only recognized him as elective prince andinsisted on his having two a dvisers approved and appointedby the Porte . Michael on his return showed his determination to have nothing to do with them
,but this led to
a rebellion headed by one of them,Vut
‘fié
,and
,though
Michael’s rule was not as arbitrary a s his fa ther’s,he had to
b ow to the popular will which supported Vuéié and cross theriver to Semlin . After a s tormy interval
,during which the
Emperor Nichola s I tried to intervene in favour ofMichael,
Alexander Karag jorg j evié, son of Kara-George,was elected
prince No sooner was this representative of therival dynasty installed
,however
,than rebellions in favour
of Michael occurred . These were thrown into the shadeby the events of 1848 . In that memorable year of revolu
1 2 2 Serbia
sellors with the approval of the Porte . Next he se t abou tthe organiza tion and establishment of a regular army o f
men . In 1862 an anti-Turkish rebellion broke outamongst the Serb s in Hercegovina (s till, with Bosnia ,a Turkish province) , and the Porte, accusing Prince Michael
of complicity, made warlike preparations against him .
Events,however
,were precipita ted in such a way that
,
without waiting for the opening of hostilities,the Turkish
general in command of the fortres s of Belgrade turned hisguns on the city ; this provoked the intervention of thepowers a t Constantinople
,and the entire civilian Turkish
population had to quit the country (in accordance with thestipulations of only Turkish garrisons remaining inthe fortresses of Sabac , Belgrade, Smederevo , and Kladovo,along the northern river frontier
,still theoretically the
boundary of the Sultan’s dominions . After this succes sPrince Michael continued his military preparations in orderto ob tain final possession of the fortresses when a suitableoccasion should arise . This occurred in 1 866
,when Austria
wa s engaged in the s truggle with Prussia,and the policy
of Grea t Britain became lessTurc0phil than it had hithertobeen . On April 6
,1867, the four fortres ses, which had been
in Serbian posses sion from 1804 t o 18 13, but had since thenbeen garrisoned by the Turks
,were delivered over to Serbia
and the la s t Turkish soldier left S erbian soil without a shothaving been fired . Though Serbia after this was s till a vassals ta te, being tributary to the Sultan , these further step s onthe road to complete independence were a great triumph
,
especially for Prince Michael personally . But this verytriumph actuated his political opponents amongst his owncountrymen
,amongst
'whom were undoubtedly adherentsof the rival dynasty
,to revenge
,and blind to the interest s
R egeneration ,1 830
—1903 1 2 3
of their people they foolishly and most brutally murderedthis extremely capable and conscientious prince in the deerpark near Topchider on June 10, 1868 . The opponents o fthe Ob renovié dynasty were
,however
,baulked in their
plans,and a cousin of the late prince was elected to the
vacant and diflicult position . This ruler,known as Milan
Ob renovic’ IV
,who was only fourteen years o f age a t the
time of his accession was of a very diff erent characterfrom his predecessor . The firs t thing that happened duringhis minority wa s the substitution of the constitution of 1838by another one which was meant to give the prince and thenational as sembly much more power
,but which
,eventually
,
made the minis ters supreme .
The prince came of age in 1872 when he was eighteen ,and he soon Showed that the potential pleasures t o bederived from his position were far more attractive to himthan the fulfilment of i ts obvious duties . He found muchto occupy him in Vienna and Paris and but little in Belgrade .At the same time the Serb people had lost
,largely by it s
own faults,much of the respect and sympathy which it had
acquired in Europe during Prince Michael’s reign . In 1875
a formidable anti-Turkish insurrection (the la s t of many)broke out amongst the Serbs o f Bosnia and Hercegovina
,
and all the efforts of the Turks to quell i t were unavailing .
In June 1876 Prince Milan was forced by the pressure of
public opinion to declare war on Turkey in support of the‘unredeemed ’ Serbs of Bosnia
,and S erbia was j oined by
Montenegro . The country was, however, no t materiallyprepared for war
,the expected sympathetic risings in other
parts of Turkey either did no t take place or failed,and the
Turks turned their whole army on to Serbia,with the result
that in October the Serb s had to appeal to the Tsar for
1 2 4 Serbia
help and an armistice was arranged,which las ted till
February 1877. During the winter a conference was heldin Constantinople to devise means for alleviating the lo tof the Christians in Turkey
,and a peace was arranged
between Turkey and Serbia whereby the status guo ante was
res tored . But after the conference the heart of Turkey
was again hardened and the stipulations in favour of theChris tians were not carried out .
In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey (cf . chap . andin the autumn of the same year Serbia j oined in . Thistime the armies of Prince Milan were more successful
,and
conquered and occupied the whole of southern Serbiaincluding the towns and dis tricts of Nish
,Pirot
,Vranj a
,
and Leskovac . Montenegro,which had not been included
in the peace of the previous winter,but had been fighting
despera tely and continuously against the Turks ever sincei t had begun actively to help the S erb rebels of Hercegovinain 1875, had a series of successes, a s a result of which itobtained posses sion of the important localities of NikSié,
Podgorica,Budua
,Antivari
,and Dulcigno
,the la s t three
on,the shore of the Adriatic . By the Treaty of S an S tefano
the future interests of both Serbia and Montenegro werej eopardized by the creation of a Great Bulgaria
,but that
would not have mattered if in return they had been givencontrol of the purely Serb provinces of Bosnia and Herce
g ovina, which ethnically they can claim j ust a s legitimatelyas Bulgaria claims most of Macedonia . The Treaty of SanS tefano was
,however
,soon replaced by that of Berlin .
By its terms both Serbia and Montenegro achieved completeindependence and the former ceased to be a tributary s ta teof Turkey . The Serb s were given the di stricts of southernS erbia which they had occupied
,and which are all ethnically
1 2 6 Serbia
grew rapidly . In 1882 Serbia proclaimed itself a kingdomand was duly recognized by the other nations . But KingMilan did no t learn t o manage the aff airs of his countryany better a s time went on . He was t oo weak to standalone
,and having freed himself from Turkey he threw him
self into the arms of Austria,with which country he con
cluded a secret military convention . In 1885, when Bulgariaand Eastern Rumelia successfully coalesced and Bulgariathereby received a considerable increase of territory andpower
,the Serbs
,prompted by j ealousy
,began to grow
restless,and King Milan
,at the instigation of Austria
,
foolishly declared war on Prince Alexander of Battenberg .
This speedily ended in the disa s trous battle of Slivnitsa
(cf . chap . Austria had to intervene to save its victim,
and Serbia got nothing for it s trouble but a large increaseo f debt and a considerable decrease of military reputation .
In addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate in hisconj ugal relations ; his wife , the beautiful Queen Natalie,was a Russian
,and a s he himself had Austrian sympathies
,
they could scarcely be expected to agree on politics . Butthe strife between them extended from the sphere of international to that of personal sympathies and antipathies .King Milan was promiscuous in aff airs of the heart andQueen Natalie was j ealous . Scenes of domestic discordwere frequent and violent
,and the effect of this a tmosphere
on the character of their only child Alexander,who was
born in 1876, was naturally bad .
The king,who had for some years been very popular
with his subj ect s with all his failings,los t his hold on the
country after the unfortunate war of 1885, and the partisansof the rival dynasty began to be hopeful once more . In1 888 King Milan gave Serbia a very much more liberal
R egeneration ,1 830
—1903 1 2 7
constitution,by which the ministers were for the first time
made really responsible to the skups'tina or national assembly
,
replacing that of 1869, and the following year, worried by
his political and domestic fa ilures , discredited and unpopularboth a t home and abroad
,he resigned in favour of his son
Alexander,then aged thirteen . This boy
,who had been
brought up in what may be called a permanent storm-centre,
both domestic and political,was placed under a regency
,
which included M . Rist ié, with a radical ministry underM . PaSié
,an extremely able and patriotic statesman of
Russian sympathies, who ever since he first became prominentin 1877 had been growing in power and influence . Buttrouble did no t cease with the abdica tion of King Milan .
He and his wife played Box and Cox a t Belgrade for thenext four years
,quarrelling and being reconciled
,intriguing
and fighting round the throne and person of their son . Atlast both parents agreed to leave the country and give theunfortunate youth a chance . King Milan settled in Vienna
,
Queen Natalie in Biarritz . In 1893 King Alexander suddenlydeclared himself of age and arrested all his ministers andregents one evening while they were dining with him . Thenext year he abrogated the constitution of 1888, underwhich party warfare in the Serbian parliament had beenbitter and uninterrupted
,obstructing any real progress
,and
restored that of 1869. Ever since 1 889 (the date of theaccession of the German Emperor) Berlin had taken moreinteres t in Serbian affairs
,and it has been alleged tha t it
was William I I who,through thé wife of the Rumanian
minister at his court,who was sis ter of Queen Natalie
,
influenced King Alexander in his abrupt and ill-j udgeddecisions . I t was certainly German policy to weaken and
discredit S erbia and to further Austrian influence a t Belgrade
2 8 Serbia
a t the expense of that of Russia . King Milan returned fora time to Belgrade in 1897, and the reaction, favourableto Austria
,which had begun in 1894, increased during his
7presence and under the ministry of Dr . Vladan Gjorg j evié,which lasted from 1897 till 1900 . This s tate of repressioncaused unrest throughout the country . All its energies wereabsorbed in fruitless political party strife, and no materialor moral progres s was possible . King Alexander
,distracted
,
soli tary,and helples s in the midst of this unending welter of
political intrigue,committed an extremely imprudent act in
the summer of 1900 . Having gone for much-needed relaxationto se e his mother a t Biarritz
,he fell violently in love with her
la dy in waiting,Madame Draga MaSin
,the divorced wife of
a Serbian officer . Her somewhat equivocal pas t was in KingAlexander’s eyes quite eclip sed by her great beauty and herwit
,which had not been impaired by conj ugal infelicity .
Although she was thirty-two,and he only twenty-four
,he
determined to marry her, and the despera te opposition of hisparents
,his army
,his ministers
,and his people
,based princi
pally ou the fac t that the woman was known to be incapable
of child-birth , only precipita ted the accomplishment of hisintention . This unfortunate and headstrong action on thepart of the young king, who , though deficient in tac t andintuition
,had plenty of energy and was by no means s tupid
,
might have been forgiven him by his people if,a s was a t
firs t thought possible,i t had restored internal peace and
prosperity in the country and thereby enabled it to preparei tself to take a part in the solution of those foreign questionswhich vitally aff ected Serb interests and were already loomingon the horizon . But it did not . In 1901 King Alexandergranted another constitution and for a time a ttempted to
work with a coalition ministry but this failed,and a term of
130 Serbia
Although King Alexander and his wife can in no sensebe said to have deserved the awful fa te that befell them ,
i t is equally true that had any other course been adopted,
such a s deposition and exile,the wire-pulling and intriguing
from outside,which had already done the country so much
harm,would have become infinitely worse . Even so
,i t was
long before things in any sense settled down . As for thealleged complicity of the rival dynasty in the crime, i t i swell es tablished that that did not exis t . I t was no secretto anybody interested in Serbian affairs that somethingcatastrophic was about to happen
,and when the tragedy
occurred it was natural to appeal to the alternative nativedynasty to step into the breach . But the head of thatdynasty was in no way responsible for the plot , s till les sfor the manner in which it was carried out
,and I t was only
after much natural hesita tion and in the face of his strongdisinclination that Prince Peter Karag jorg j evié was inducedto accep t the by no means enviable
,ea sy
,or profitable ta sk
of guiding S erbia’s destiny . The Serbian throne in 1903was a source neither of glory nor of riches
,and it was
notoriously no sinecure .
Af ter the tragedy,the democratic constitution of 1888
was firs t of all restored,and then Prince Peter Karag j org
j evié, grandson of Kara-George, the leader of the firs tS erbian insurrection of 1804
—13, who was a t that timefifty
-nine years of age,was unanimously elec ted king . He
had married in 1 883 a daughter of Prince Nichola s of
Montenegro and si ster of the future Queen of I taly,but
she had been dead already some years a t the time of his
accession, leaving him with a family of two sons and adaughter.
Serbia and its N eighbours,1903
—8 1 31
I 9
Serbia,Montenegro
,and the Serbo-Croats in
Austria-Hungary,1903
—8
IT was inevitable tha t,after the sensation which such an
event could not fail to cause in twentieth-century Europe,
It should take the country where it occurred some time tolive down the results . Other powers
,especially those o f
western Europe,looked coldly on Serbia and were in no
hurry to resume diplomatic intercourse,s till less to offer
diplomatic support . The question of the punishment andexile of the conspirators was almost impossible of solution
,
and only time was able to oblitera te the resentment causedby the whole affair . In Serbia i tself a great change tookplace . The new sovereign , though he laboured under thegreates t possible disa dvantages
,by his irreproachable b e
haviour,modesty
,tact
,and s tric tly constitutional rule
,was
able to withdraw the court of Belgrade from the tryinglimelight to which it had become used . The public financesbegan to be reorganized , commerce began to improve inSpite of endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, andattention was again diverted from home t o foreign politic s .With the gradual spread of education and increase of communication, and the growth of national self-consciousnes samongst the Serbs and Croats of Austria-Hungary and thetwo independent Serb S tates
,a new movement for the closer
intercourse amongst the various branches of the Serb racefor south Slav unity
,a s it was called, gra dually began to take
shape . At the same time a more definitely political agita tionstarted in Serbia
,largely inspired by the humili ating position
1 2
1 32 Serbia
of economic bondage in which the country was held byAustria-Hungary
,and was roughly j ustified by the indis
putab le argument S erbia must expand or die .
’ Expansiona t the cost of Turkey seemed hopeless, because even theacquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a large alienpopulation and no maritime outlet . I t was towards theAdriatic that the gaze of the S erbs was directed
,to the coast
which was ethnically S erbian and could legitimately beconsidered a heritage of the Serb race .
Macedonia was also taken into account , schools and armedbands began their educative activity amongst those inhab itants of the unhappy province who were Serb , or who livedin places where Serb s had lived , or who with sufficientpersuasion could be induced to call themselves S erb but theprincipal stream of propaganda was directed westwards intoBosnia and Hercegovina . The antagonism between Chris tianand Mohammedan
,Serb and Turk
,was never so bitter
a s between Christian and Christian,Serb and German or
Magyar,and the S erbs were clever enough to see that
Bosnia and Hercegovina,from every point of view
, was tothem worth ten Macedonias
,though it would b e ten times
more difficult to obtain . Bosnia and Hercegovina,though
containing three confessions,were ethnically homogeneous
,
and it was realized that these two provinces were as important to S erbia and Montenegro as the rest of I taly had been
to Piedmont .I t must a t this time be recalled in what an extraordinary
way the S erb race had fortuitously been broken up intoa number of quite arbitrary political divisions . Dalmatia
(three per cent . of the popula tion of which is I talian and allthe rest Serb or Croat
,preponderatingly Serb and Orthodox
in the south and preponderatingly Croat or Roman Catholic
34 Serbia
and Montenegro and the vilayet of Kosovo) , and in partsof northern and central Macedonia
,there were sca ttered
another half million . These las t,of course
,had no voice a t
all in the management of their own affairs . Those in Montenegro lived under the patriarchal autocracy of PrinceNichola s
,who had succeeded his uncle
,Prince Danilo, in
1860,a t the age of nineteen . Though no other form of
government could have turned the barren rocks of Montenegro into fertile pastures
,many of the people grew restles s
with the restricted possibili ties of a career which the mountain principality offered them
,and in latter years migrated
in l arge numbers to North and' South America,whither
emigration from Dalmatia and Croatia t oo had alreadyreached serious proportions . The Serb s in Serbia were theonly ones who could claim to be free
,but even this was
a freedom entirely dependent on the economic malevolenceof Austria-Hungary and Turkey . Cut up in this way bythe hand of fate into such a number of helpless fragments ,i t was inevitable that the Serb race
,if i t possessed any
vitali ty,should attempt
,a t any cost
,to piece some if not all
of them together and form an ethnical whole which , economically and politically
,should be master of it s own destinies .
I t was equally inevitable that the policy o f Austria-Hungary‘
hould be to ant icipat e'
or definitively render any such attemptimpossible
,because obviously the formation of a large south
Slav s ta te,by cutting off Austria from the Adriatic and
eliminating from the dual monarchy all the valuableterritory between the Dalmatian coast and the river Drave
,
would seriously j eopardize it s position as a great power ; i tmust be remembered
,also
,that Austria-Hungary
,fa r from
decomposing,a s it was commonly assumed was happening
,
had been enormously increasing in vitality ever since 1878 .
Serbia and its N eighbours,1903
—8 1 35
The means a dop ted by the governments of Vienna andBudapes t to nullify the plans of S erbian expansion weregenerally to maintain the political érniettement o f the Serbrace
,the isolation of one group from another
,the virtually
enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale and theirsubstitution by German colonists
,and the encouragement
of rivalry and discord between Roman Catholic Croat andOrthodox Serb . No railways were allowed to be built inDalmatia
,communication between Agram and any other
parts of the monarchy excep t Fiume or Budapes t wasrendered almost impossible ; Bosnia and Hercegovina wereshut off into a watertight compartment and endowed witha national flag composed of the inspiring colours of brown andbuff ; i t was made impossible for Serbs to visit Montenegroor for Montenegrins to visit Serbia excep t via Fiume ,entailing the bestowal of several pounds on the Hungarians tate steamers and railways . As for the sandj ak of NoviPazar
,i t was turned into a veritable Tibet
,and a legend was
spread abroad tha t if any foreigner ventured there he wouldbe surely murdered by Turkish brigands meanwhile it wasfull of Viennes e ladies giving picnic s and dances and tennisparties to the wasp-waisted officers of the Austrian garrison .
Bosnia and Hercegovina,on the other hand
,became the
model touring provinces of Austria-Hungary,and no one
can deny that their great natural beauties were made moreenj oyable by the construction of railways
,roads
,and hotels .
At the same time this was not a work of pure philanthropy,and the emigration sta tistic s a re a good indication of thej oy with which the Bosnian peasant s paid for an annualinflux of admiring tourists . In Spite of all these disa dvantages,however
,the Serbo-Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary
could not be deprived of all the benefits of living within
136 Serbia
a large and prosperous customs union,while being made t o
pay for all the expenses of the elaborate imperial administration and services ; and the spread of education , even under theHapsburg régime
,began to tell in time . Simultaneously with
the agitation which emanated from Serbia and was directedtowards the advancement
,by means of schools and religious
and literary propaganda , of Serbian influence in Bosnia andHercegovina
,a movement started in Dalmatia and Croatia
for the closer union of those two provinces . About 1906 thetwo movements found expression in the formation of theSerbo-Croat or Croato—Serb coalition party
,composed of
those elements in Dalmatia,Croatia
,and Slavonia which
favoured closer union between the various group s of theS erb race scattered throughout those provinces
,as well a s in
S erbia , Montenegro, Bosnia , Hercegovina , and Turkey .
Owing to the circumstances alrea dy described,i t was impos
s ible for the representatives of the Serb race to voice theira spirations unanimously in any one parliament, and the workof the coalition
,excep t in the provincial diet a t Agram
,
consis ted mostly of condricting press campaigns and spreading propaganda throughout these provinces . The mostimportant thing about the coalition was tha t i t buriedreligious antagonism and put unity of race above diff erenceof belief . In this way it came into conflic t with the ult ramon
tane Croat party a t Agram,which wished to incorporate
Bosnia,Hercegovina
,and Dalmat la with Croatia and create
a third purely Roman Catholic Slav s tate in the empire,on
a level with Austria and Hungary ; also to a lesser exten twith the intransigent Serb s of Belgrade
,who affected to
ignore Croatia and Roman Catholicism,and only dreamed
of bringing Bosnia,Hercegovina
,and a s much of Dalmatia
as they could under their own rule ; and finally it had to
138 Serbia
brought to its knees a t any moment by the commercialclosing of the frontier . I t was a symbol of the economicvassalage of S erbia and Montenegro that the postagebetween both of these countries and any part of AustriaHungary was ten centimes
,tha t for letters between Serbia
and Montenegro,which had to make the long détour
through Austrian territory,was twenty-hy e . But though
this Opened the Serbian markets to Austria,i t also inciden
tally opened Bosnia,when the censor/
could be circumventedto propaganda by pamphlet and correspondence . Intercourse with western Europe was restricted by distance
,and
,
owing to dynastic rea sons,diplomatic relations were alto
gether suspended for s everal years between thi s country andSerbia . The Balkan S ta tes Exhibition held in London duringthe summer of 1907, to encourage trade between Grea tBrita in and the Balkans
, was hardly a success . I taly andSerbia had nothing in common . With Montenegro even
,
despite the fact tha t King Peter was Prince Nicholas’s sonin-law
,relations were bad . I t was felt in Serbia that Prince
Nicholas’s autocratic rule acted a s a brake on the legitimate
development of the national consciousness,and Montenegrin
s tudents who visited Belgrade returned to their homes fullof wild and unsuitable ideas . However
,the revolutionary
tendencies,which some of them undoubtedly developed
,had
no fatal results to the reigning dynasty,which continued as
before to enj oy the special favour a s well as the financial support of the Russian court
,and which
,looked on throughout
7 Europe as a picturesque and harmless institution,i t would
have been dangerous,as i t was quite unnecessary
,to touch .
Serbia was thus left entirely to it s own resources in thegrea t propagandis t activity which filled the years 1903 to
1908. The financial means a t its disposal were exiguous
Serbia and its N eighbours, 1903
- 8 139
in the extreme,especially when compared with the enormous
sums lavished annually by the Austrian and German governments on their s ecret political services
,so that the efforts of
i ts agents cannot be a scribed to cupidity . Also it must beadmitted tha t the kingdom of Serbia
,with it s capita l
Belgrade,thanks to the internal chaos and dynastic scandals
of the previous forty years,resulting in superficial dilapida
tion,intellectual s tagnation
,and general poverty
,lacked the
material a s well a s the moral glamour which a successfulPiedmont Should posses s . Nobody could deny
,for ins tance
,
that,with all it s natural a dvantages
,Belgrade was a t firs t
s ight no t nearly such an attractive centre a s Agram or
Saraj evo,or tha t the qualities which the Serb s of Serbia had
displayed since their emancipation were hardly such a s tocommand the unstinted confidence and admiration of theira s yet unredeemed compatriot s . Nevertheles s the Serbianpropaganda in favour o f what was really a Pan-Serb movement met with grea t succe s s
,especially in Bosnia
,Herce
g ovina, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia) .Simultaneously the work of the Serbo-Croat coalition in
Dalmatia,Croatia
,and Slavonia made considerable progress
in spite of clerical Opposition and desperate confl ic t s withthe government a t Budapest . Both the one movement andthe other naturally evoked grea t alarm and emotion in theAust rlan and Hungarian capitals
,as they were seen to be
genuinely popular and also potentially,if not actually
,
s epara tis t in character . In October 1906 Baron Aehrenthal
succeeded Count Goluchowski asMinis ter for Foreign Affairsa t Vienna
,and very soon initia ted a more vigorous and
incidentally anti-Slav foreign policy than his predecessor .What was now looked on as the Serbian danger had in theeyes of Vienna assumed such proportions that the time for
140 Serbia
decisive action was considered to have arrived . In January
l 99_8_ ,
Bar0nA ehr enthal announced his scheme for a continuation of the Bosnian railway system through the sandj ak of
Nov1—Peiz8f to k up with the Turkish railways In Macedonia . This plan was particularly foolish in conception
,
because,the Bosnian railways being narrow and the Turkish
normal gauge,the line would have been useless for inter
national commerce,while the engineering difficulties were
such ‘tha t the cost of construction would have been prohib i
t ive . But the possibilities which this move indicated,the
palpable evidence it contained of the notorious Drang naeb
Osten of the Germanic powers towards S alonika and Constant inOple , were quite sufficient to fill the ministries of
Europe,and especially those of Russia
,with extreme
uneasiness . The immediate result of this was that concertedaction between Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkanswas thenceforward impossible
,and theM iirzst eg programme ,
after a short and precarious existence,came to an untimely
end (cf . chap . Serbia and Montenegro,face to face
with this new danger which threatened permanently tosepara te their territories
,were beside themselves
,and imme
diat ely parried with the proj ec t , hardly more practicable inview of their international credit
,of a Danube-Adriatic
railway . In July 1908 the nerves of Europe were still furthertried by the Young Turk revolution in Constantinople .
The imminence o f this movement was known to AustroGerman diplomacy
,and doubtles s this knowledge
,a s well as
the fear of the Pan-Serb movement,prompted the Austrian
foreign minister to take s teps towards the definitive regularizat ion of his country’s position in Bosnia and Hercegovina—provinces whose suzerain was s till the Sultan of Turkey .
The eff ect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan S ta tes was,
142 Serbia
prosperity,a subj ect for commisera tion in the kingdoms
of S erbia and Greece) and proclaimed the independence ofBulgaria
,with himself
,as Tsar of the Bulgars
,a t it s head .
Europe had not recovered from this shock,s till les s Belgrade
and Athens,when
,two days later
,Baron Aehrenthal
announced the formal annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina
bythe Emperor Francis Joseph . Wherea s most people hadvirtually forgotten the Treaty of Berlin and had come tolook on Austria a s j us t as permanently settled in these twoprovinces a s was Great Britain in Egypt and Cyprus
,yet
the formal breach of the s tipula tions of that trea ty on
Austria’s part,by annexing the provinces without notice to
or consultation with the other p arties concerned,gave the
excuse for a somewhat ridiculous hue and cry on the par t
of the other powers , and especially on that of Russia . Theeffect of these blows from right and left on Serbia wasliterally paralysing . When Belgrade recovered the use of it sorgans
,i t started to scream for war and revenge
,and
initiated an international crisis from which Europe did notrecover till the following year . Meanwhile
,almost unob
served by the peoples of S erbia and Montenegro,Austria
had,in order to reconcile the Turks with the loss of their
provinces,good-naturedly
,but from the Austrian point of
view short-sightedly,withdrawn i t s garrisons from the
sandj ak of Novi-Pazar,thus evacuating the long-coveted
corridor which was the one thing above all els e necessary toSerbia and Montenegro for the realization of their plans .
Serbia and Montenegro , and the two BalkanWars
,1908
—13 (cf . Chap . 1 3)
THE winter of 1908—9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia’sfortunes . The successive coups and faits accomplis carriedout by Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria during 1908 seemeddestined to destroy for good the Serbian plans for expansionin any direction whatever
,and if these could no t be realized
then Serbia must die of suffocation . I t was also well understood that for all the martial a rdour displayed in Belgradethe army was in no condition to take the field any morethan was the treasury to bear the cost o f a campaign ;Russia had not yet recovered from the JapaneseWar followedby the revolution
,and indeed everything pointed to the
certainty that if Serbia indulged in hostilities againstAustria-Hungary it would perish ignominiously and alone .
The wors t of i t was that neither Serbia nor Montenegrohad any legal claim to Bosnia and Hercegovina they hadbeen deluding themselves with the hope that their ethnicalidentity with the people of these provinces, supported bythe effects of their propaganda
,would induce a compas
sionat e and generous Europe at lea s t to insis t on their beinggiven a part of the coveted territory
,and thus give Serbia
a ccess to the coas t,when the ambiguous position of these
two valuable provinces,s till nominally Turkish but already
virtually Austrian,came to be finally regularized . As
a matter of fact,ever since Bismarck
,Gorchakov
,and
B eaconsfield had put Austria-Hungary in their possession in1 878, no one had seriously thought that the Dual Monarchywould ever voluntarily retire from one inch of the territory
144 Serbia
which had been conquered and occupied at such cost,and
those who noticed it were a stonished at the evacuation byi t of the sandj ak of Novi-Paza r . At the same time Baron
Aehrenthal little fo resaw what a hornet’s nes t he wouldbring about his ears by the tactles s method in which theannexation was carried out . The firs t effect was to provokea complete boycott of Austro-Hungarian goods and tradingvessels throughout the Ottoman Empire
,whi ch was so
harmful to the Austrian export trade that in January 1909Count Aehrenthal had to indemnify Turkey with the sumo f
J£2 ,500,ooo for his technically stolen property. Further,
the attitude of Russia and Serbia throughout the wholewinter remained so provocative and threatening that ,although war was generally considered improbable
,the
Austrian army had to be kep t on a war footing, whichinvolved great expense and much popular discontent . Thegrave external crisis was only solved a t the end of March
1909 ; Germany had had to deliver a veiled ultimatum atS t . Petersburg
,the result of which was the rescue of Austria
Hungary from an awkward situation by the much-a dvertisedappearance of its faithful ally in shining armour . Simul
t aneously Serbia had to eat humble pie and declare , withcomplete absence of truth
,that the annexation of Bosnia
and Hercegovina had not affected it s interests .Meanwhile the internal complica tions in the southernSlav provinces of Austria-Hungary were growing formidable .
Ever since the summer of 1908 arrest s had been going on
among the members of the Croato-Serb coalition,who were
accused of favouring the subversive Pan-Serb movement .The press of Austria-Hungary magnified the importance ofthi s agita tion in order to j ustify abroa d the pressing needfor the formal annexation of Bosnia and Herceg ovma. The
146 Serbia
use of documents supplied him by the Vienna ForeignOffi ce . His accusations immediately provoked an action forlibel on the part of three leaders of the Croato-Serb coalitionwho were implicated , in December 1909. The trial
,which
was highly sensational, resulted in the complete vindicationand rehabilita tion both of those three Austrian subj ects inthe eyes of the whole of Austria-Hungary and of the BelgradeForeign Office in those of Europe the documents on whichthe charges were based were proved to be partly forgeries
,
partly falsified,and partly stolen by various disreputable
secret political agents of the Austrian Foreign Offi ce,and
one o f the principal Serbian conspira tors a professor ofBelgrade University
,proved that he was in Berlin a t the
time when he had been accused of presiding over a revolut ionary meeting at Belgrade . But it also resulted in theutter discrediting of Count Aehrenthal a s a diplomat andof the methods by which he conducted the business of theAustrian Foreign Office
,and involved his country in the
expenditure of countles s millions which it could ill afford .
There never was any doubt that a subversive agitationhad been going on
,and that i t emanated in part from
Serbia,but the S erbian Foreign Office , under the able
management o f Dr . Milovanovic’ and Dr . Spalajkovié (oneof the principal witnesses a t the Friedjung trial) , was fa rtoo clever to allow any of it s members
,or indeed any respon
s ible person in Serbia,to be concerned in it
,and the brilliant
way in which the clumsy and foolish charges were refutedredounded greatly to the credit of the Serbian Government .Count Aehrenthal had overreached himself
,and moreover
the wind had already been taken out of his sails by thepubli c recanta tion on Serbia’s part of i t s pretensions toBosnia
,which
,as already mentioned
,took place a t the end
Balkan Wars, 1908
—13 147
of March 1909, and by the simultaneous termination of theinternational crisi s marked by Russia’s acquiescence in thefait accompli of the annexation . At the same time theSerbian Crown Prince George
,King Peter’s elder son
, who
had been the leader of the chauvinis t war-party in Serbia,
and was somewhat theatrical in demeanour and irresponsiblein character
,renounced his rights of succession in favour
of his younger brother Prince Al exander,a m uch steadier
and more talented young man. It is certain tha t when herealized how things were going to develop Count Aehrenthaltried to hush up the whole incident
,but i t was t oo la te
,
and Dr . Friedjung insisted on doing what he could to savehis reputation as a historian . In the end he was made theprincipal scapegoat
,though the press of Vienna voiced its
Opinion of the Austrian Foreign Offi ce in no measured tones,
saying,amongst other things
,that if the conductors of its
diplomacy must use forgeries,they might a t any ra te secure
good ones . Eventually a compromise was arranged,after
the defendant had clearly lost his case,owing to pressure
being brought to hear from outside,and the Serbian Govern
ment refrained from carrying out it s threa t of having thewhole question threshed out before the Hague Tribunal .The cumulative effect of all these exciting and trying
experiences was the growth of a distinctly more sympatheticfeeling towards Serbia in Europe a t large, and especiallya rallying of all the elements throughout the Serb and Croa tprovinces of Austria-Hungary
,excep t the extreme clericals
of Agram,t o the Serbian cause ; briefly, the eff ect was the
exact Opposite of that desired by Vienna and Budapest .Meanwhile events had been happening elsewhere whichrevived the drooping interest and flagging hopes of Serbiain the development of foreign aff airs . The attainment of
x 2
148 Serbia
power by the Young Turks and the introduction of parliamentary government had brought no improvement to theinternal condition of the Ottoman Empire
,and the Balkan
peoples made no effort to conceal their satisfaction a t thefailure of the revolution to bring about reform by magic .
The counter-revolution of April 1909 and the accession of
the Sultan Mohammed V made things no better . In Macedonia
,and especially in Albania
,they had been going from
bad to worse . The introduction of universal military serviceand obligatory payment of taxes caused a revolution inAlbania
,where such innovations were not a t all appreciated .
From 1909 till 191 1 there was a s tate of perpetual warfare
in Albania , with which the Young Turks , in spite of cruelreprisals
,were unable to cope
,until
,in the summer of that
year,Austria threatened to intervene unless order were
restored ; some sort o f settlement was patched up,and an
amnesty was granted to the rebels by the new Sultan . Thisunfortunate man, after being rendered almost half-wittedby having been for the greater part of his life kept a prisonerby his brother the tyrant Abdul Hamid
, was now the captive
of the Young Turks, and had been compelled by them tomake a s triumphal a progress as fears for his personal safetywould allow through the provinces of European Turkey .
But it wa s obvious to Balkan statesmen tha t Turkey wa sonly changed 111 name
,and that
,if it s threatened regenera
tion had slightly postponed their plans for it s partitionamongst themselves
,the ultimate consummation of these
plans must be pursued with,if possible
,even grea ter energy
and expedition than before . I t was also seen by the moreperspicacious of them that the methods hitherto a doptedmust in future be radi cally altered . A rej uvenated thoughunreformed Turkey
,bent on self-preservation
,could not
150 r m
a more liberal form of government amongst his own people
were unfortunately disappointed .
The year 191 1 , i t need scarcely be recalled, was extremelyfateful for the whole of Europe . The growing restlessnes sand i rritability manifes ted by the German Empire beganto make all the other governments feel exceedingly uneasy .
The French expedition to Fez in April wa s followed by theAnglo-Franco-German crisi s of July war was avoided
,and
France was recognized a s virtually master of Morocco, butthe soreness of the diplomatic defea t rendered Germanya s till more trying neighbour than i t had been before . Thefirs t repercussion was the war which broke out in Sep tember191 1 between I taly and Turkey for the possessron of Tripoliand Cyrenaica
,which I taly
,with its usual insight
,saw was
vital to its position as a Mediterranean power and thereforedetermined to acquire before any other power had time or
courage to do so . In the Balkans this was a year of observation and prepara tion . Serbia
,taught by the bitter lesson
of 1908 not to be caught again unprepared, had spent muchmoney and care on it s a rmy during the la s t few years andhad brought it to a much higher state of efli ciency. InAustria-Hungary careful ob servers were aware tha t something was a foot and tha t the gaze of Serbia
,which from
1903 till 1908 had been directed westwards to Bosnia andthe Adria tic
,had since 1908 been fixed on Macedonia and
the Aegean . The actual formation of the Balk an Leagueby King F erdinand and M . V enezelos may not have beenknown
,but it was realized that action of some sort on the
part of the Balkan S tates was imminent,and that something
must b e done to forestall i t . In February 191 2 CountAehrenthal died
,and was succeeded by Count Berchtold
as Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs . In
Balkan Wars , 1908—13 151
August of the same year this minis ter unexpectedly an
nounced his new and s tartling prOposals for the introductionof reforms in Macedonia
,which nobody in the Balkans who
had any material interes t in the fa te of tha t provincegenuinely desired a t that moment ; the motto of the newscheme was ‘progressive decentralization ’
,blessed words
which soothed the great powers as much a s they alarmedthe Balkan Governments . But already in May 191 2 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgariaand Serbia had been concluded
,limiting their respective
zones of influence in the territory which they hoped toconquer . I t was
,to any one who has any knowledge of
Balkan history,incredible that the various Governments had
been able to come to any agreement a t all. That a rriveda t by Bulgaria and Serbia divided Macedonia between themin such a way tha t Bulgaria should obtain central Macedoniawith Monastir and Okhrida
,and Serbia northern Mace
donia 01 Old Serbia ; there was an indeterminate zonebetween the two Spheres
,including Skoplj e (Uskiib
,in
Turki sh) , the exact division of which it was agreed to leaveto arbitra tion a t a sub sequent date .The Macedonian theatre of war was by common consentregarded a s the mos t important
,and Bulgaria here promised
Serbia the assistance of men . The Turks meanwhilewere aware that all was no t what it seemed beyond thefrontiers
,and in August 191 2 began collecting troops in
Thrace,ostensibly for manoeuvres . During the month of
September the patience of the four Governments of Greece,Bulgaria
,Serbia
,and Montenegro
,which had for years with
the utmost self-control been passively watching the awfulsuff erings of their compatriot s under Turkish misrule,gradually became exhausted . On September 2 8 the four
152 Serbia
Balkan Governments informed Russia tha t the Balkan Leaguewas an accomplished fact, and on the 3oth the repre
sentat ives of all four signed the alliance, and mobilization
was ordered in Greece,Bulgaria
,and Serbia . The popula
tion of Montenegro was habitually on a war footing,and
i t wa s left to the mountain kingdom from its geographicallyfavourable position to Open hostilities . On October 8Montenegro declared war on Turkey
,and after a series of
brilliant successes along the frontier it s forces settled downto the wearisome and arduous siege of Scutari with it simpregnable sentinel
,Mount Tarab oS
,converted into a
modern fortres s ; the unaccustomed nature of these ta sks,
to which the Montenegrin tr00ps,used to the a dventures
of irregular warfare,were lit tle suited
,tried the valour and
patience of the intrepid mountaineers to the utmost . Bytha t time Europe wa s in a ferment
,and both Russia and
Austria,amazed a t having the initiative in the regulation
o f Balkan aff a irs wrested from them,showered on the Balkan
capitals threats and protests,which for once in a way were
neglected .
On October 13 Greece , Bulgaria , and Serbia replied tha tthe offer of outside a ssis tance and advice had come too la te
,
and tha t they had decided themselves to redress the intolerable and secular wrongs of their long-suff ering compatriots
in Macedonia by force of arms . To their dismay a treatyof peace wa s signed a t Lausanne about the same timebetween Turkey and I taly
,which power
,i t had been hoped
,
would have distracted Turkey’s a ttention by a continuanceof hostilities in northern Africa
,and a t any rate immobilized
the Turkish fleet . Encouraged by this success Turkey boldlydecla red war on Bulgaria and Serbia on October 17, hopingto frighten Greece and detach it from the league ; but on
154 Serbia
and Yanina must not be re-victualled, and on December 16,191 2 , peace negotiations were Opened between representat ives of the belligerent countries in London . Meanwhilethe Germanic powers
,dismayed by the unexpected victories
of the Balkan armies and humiliated by the crushing defeat sin the field of the German-trained Turkish army
,had since
the beginning of November been doing everything in theirpower to support their client Turkey and prevent it s finalextinction and a t the same time the blighting of theirambitions eventually to acquire the Empire of the NearEast . During the conference in London between the pleni
potentiaries of the belligerents,parallel meetings took place
between the representatives of the great powers , whoserelations with each other were strained and diflicult in theextreme . The Turkish envoys prolonged the negotiations
,
a s was their custom ; they naturally were unwilling toconcede their European provinces to the despised and hatedGreek and Slavonic conquerors
,but the delays implied
growing hardship s for their besieged and starving garrisonsin Thrace
,Epirus
,and Albania . On January 2 3, 1913,
a quasi-revolution occurred in the Turkish army,headed by
Enver Bey and other Young Turk partisans,and approved
by the Austrian and German embassies,with the obj ect of
interrupting the negotiations and s taking all on the resultof a final battle. As a result of these events
,and of the
palpable disingenuousness of the Turks in continuing thenegotiations in London
,the Balkan delegates on January 29
broke them o ff,and on February 3, 1913, hostili ties were
resumed . At length,after a Siege o f nearly five months
,
Adrianople,supplied with infinitely better artillery than
the allies posses sed,was taken by the combined Serbian and
Bulgarian forces on March 2 6,1913. The Serbian t100ps
Balkan Wars,1 908
—13 155
a t Adrianople captured Turkish prisoners,190 guns ,
and the Turkish commander himself,Shukri Pasha .
At the outbreak of the war in the autumn of 191 2 theBalkan S ta tes had observed all the conventions, disavowingdesigns of territorial aggrandizement and proclaiming theirresolve merely to obtain guarantees for the better trea tmentof the Christian inhabitants of Macedonia the powers
,for
their part,duly admonished the naughty children of south
eastern Europe to the eff ect tha t no altera tion of the territ orial status quo ante would under any circumstances be
tolera ted . During the negotiations in London,interrupted
in January,and resumed in the spring of 1913 after the fall
of Adrianople,i t was soon made clear that in Spite of all
these magniloquent declarations nothing would be as i t hadbeen before . Throughout the winter Austria-Hungary hadbeen mobilizing troop s and massing them along the frontiersof Serbia and Montenegro
,any increase in the size of which
countries meant a crushing blow to the designs of theGermanic powers and the end to all the dreams embodiedin the phrase Drang nach Osten pushing ea stwardsIn the Spring of 1913 Serbia and Montenegro, ins tead of
being defeated by the brave Turks,as had been confidently
predicted in Vienna and Berlin would be the case,found
themselves in possession of the sandj ak of Novi-Pazar, of
the northern and central Macedonia (including Old Serbia) ,and of the northern half of Albania . The presence of
Serbian troops on the shore of the Adriatic was more thanAustria could s tand
,and at the renewed conference of
London it was decided that they must retire . In theinterests of nationality
,in which the Balkan States them
selves undertook the war,i t was desirable that a t any rate
an attempt should be made to create an independent sta te
156 Serbia
of Albania , though no one who knew the local conditionsfelt confident a s to its ultimate career . I ts creation assuagedthe consciences of the Liberal Government in Great Britainand a t the same time admirably suited the strategic plansof Austria~ Hung ary. I t left tha t country a loophole forfuture diplomatic efforts to disturb the peace of southeastern Europe
,and
,with its own army in Bosnia and its
political agents and irregular troop s in Albania,Serbia and
Montenegro,even though enlarged a s i t was generally
recognized they must be,would be held in a vice and could
be threatened and bullied from the south now a s well a sfrom the north whenever i t was in the interests of Viennaand Budapes t to apply the screw . The independence o f
Albania was declared a t the conference of London on May 30,1913. Scutari was included in it a s being a purely Albaniantown
,and King Nichola s and his army
,after enj oying its
coveted flesh-pots for a few halcyon weeks,had
,to their
mort ificat ion, to retire to the barren fa stnesses of the BlackMountain . Serbia
,frustra ted by Austria in it s attempts
,
generally recognized a s legitimate,to ob tain even a com
mercial outlet on the Adriatic,naturally again diverted its
a ims southwards to S alonika . The Greeks were already inpossession of this important city and seaport , a s well as o f
the whole of southern Macedonia . The Serb s were inposses sion of central and northern Macedonia
,including
Monastir and Okhrida,which they had a t grea t sacrifices
conquered from the Turks . I t had been agreed tha t Bulgaria
,a s it s Share of the Spoils
,should have all central
Macedonia,with Monastir and Okhrida, although on ethnical
grounds the Bulgarians have only very slightly better claimto the country and towns west of the Vardar than any o f
the other Balkan nationalities . But a t the time tha t the
58 Serbia
territory in Macedonia between Serbia and Bulgaria had,
a s arranged,been referred to arbitration, and, the Tsar of
Russia having been chosen a s j udge,the matter was being
threshed out in S t . Petersburg during June 1913. Meanwhile Bulgaria
,determined to make good its claim to the
chestnuts which Greece and Serbia had pulled out of theTurkish fire
,was secretly collecting troop s along its tem
porary south-western frontier1 with the obj ect
,in approved
Germanic fa shion,of suddenly invading and occupying all
Macedonia,and
,by the presentation of an irrevocable fait
accompli, of relieving the arbitrator of his invidious duties
or a t any rate a ssisting him in the ta sk .
On the other hand, the rela tions between Bulgaria and
1ts two alli es had been noticeably growing worse ever sinceJanuary 1913 Bulgaria felt aggrieved tha t
,In sp ite of it s
great s acrifices,i t had not been able to occupy so much
territory as Greece and Serbia , and the fac t tha t Adrianoplewa s taken with S erbian help did not improve the feelingbetween the two Slav nations . The growth of Bulgariananimosity put Greece and Serbia on their guard , and, wellknowing the direction which an eventual a ttack would take
,
these two countries on June 2,1913, signed a military con
vent ion and made all the necessary dispositions for resistingany aggression on Bulgaria’s part . At one o’clock in themorning of June 30 the Bulgarians, without provocation ,w ithout declaration of war
,and without warning
,crossed the
B reg alnica (a tributary of the Vardar) and attacked theS erbs . A most violent battle ensued which lasted for severaldays a t some points the Bulgarians
,thanks to the sudden
1 Thi s was formed by the s tream Zletovsk a, a tributary of the
river B reg alnica, which in its turn falls into the Vardar on its left oreast ern bank about 40 miles south of Skop lje (Usk iib ) .
Balkan Wars , 1 908—1 3 59
ness of their offensive, were temporarily successful, butgradually the Serbs regained the upper hand and by July 1
the Bulgarians were beaten . The losses were very heavy onboth sides
,but the final issue was a complete triumph for
the Serbian army . Slivnitsa was avenged by the battle ofthe B reg alnica, j us t as Kosovo was by tha t o f Kumanovo .
After a triumphant campaign of one month,in which the
S erbs were j oined by the Greeks,Bulgaria had t o b ow to
the inevitable . The Rumanian army had invaded northernBulgaria
,bent on maintaining the Balkan equilibrium and
on securing compensa tion for having observed neutrali tyduring the war of 191 2
- 13, and famine reigned a t Sofia .A conference was arranged a t Bucarest, and the trea ty of
tha t name was s igned there on August 10,1913. By the
terms of this trea ty Serbia retained the whole of northernand central Macedonia
,including Monastir and Okhrida
,
and the famous sandj ak of Novi-Paza r was divided betweenS erbia and Montenegro . Some dis tricts of ea st-centralMacedonia
,which were genuinely Bulgarian
,were included
in Serbian territory,a s Serbia naturally did no t wish
,after
the disquieting and costly experience of June and July 1913,to give the Bulgarians another chance of separa ting Greekfrom Serbian territory by a fresh surpris e a ttack
,and the
further the Bulgarians could be kep t from the Vardar riverand railway the les s likelihood there was of this . The sta teof feeling in the Germanic capitals and in Budapes t afterthis ignominious defeat of their protégé Bulgaria and afterthis fresh triumph of the despised and hated Serbians canbe imagined . Bitterly disappointed firs t a t seeing the Turksvanquished by the Balkan League—their greates t admirerscould not even claim that the Turks had had any moral ’
victories—their chagrin,when they saw the Bulgarians
1 60 Serbia
trounced by the Serbians,knew no bounds . That the
secretly prepared attack on Serb ia by Bulgaria was plannedin Vienna and Budapest there i s no doub t . That Bulgaria
was j ustified in feeling disappointment and resentment a tthe result of the firs t Balkan War no one denies
,but the
method chosen to redress i t s wrongs could only have beensuggested by the Germanic school of diplomacy .
In Serbia and Montenegro the result of the two successiveBalkan Wars
,though these had exhausted the material
resources of the two countries,was a j ustifiable return of
national self-confidence and rej oicing such a s the people,
humiliated and impoverished a s i t had habitually been byit s internal and external troubles
,had not known for very
many years . At las t Serbia and Montenegro had j oinedhands . At las t Old Serbia was res tored to the free kingdom .
At las t Skoplj e,the mediaeval capital of Tsar S tephen
DuSan,was again in Serbian territory . At las t one of the
most important portions of unredeemed Serbia had beenreclaimed . Amongst the Serb s and Croats of Bosnia , Herceg ovina, Dalmatia , Croatia , Slavonia , and southern Hungarythe effect of the Serbian victories was electrifying . Militaryprowess had been the one quality with which they, and
indeed everybody else,had refused to credit the Serbians
of the kingdom , and the triumphs of the valiant Serbianpeasant soldiers immediately imparted a heroic glow to thecountry whose very name
,a t any rate in central Europe ,
had become a byword,and a synonym for failure Belgrade
b ecame the cynosure and the rallying-centre of the wholeSerbo—Croatian race . But Vienna and Budapest could onlylose courage and presence of mind for the moment , and theundeniable succes s of the Serbian arms merely sharpenedtheir appetite for revenge . In Angust 1913Austria-Hungary,
GREECE
From Ancient to Modern Greece
THE name of Greece ha s two entirely different associations in our minds . Sometimes it calls up a wonderfulliterature enshrined in a dead language ’
,and exquisite
works of a vanished art recovered by the spade ; a t other
times i t i s connected with the currant—trade returns quotedon the financial page of our newspapers or with the Balanceof Power discussed in their leading articles . Ancient andModern Greece both mean much to us
,but usually we are
content to accep t them a s independent phenomena,and we
seldom pause to wonder whether there is any deeper connexion between them than their name . I t is the purpose ofthe s e pages to ask and give some answer to this question .
The thought tha t his own Greece might perish , t o besucceeded by another Greece after the lapse of more thantwo thousand years
,would have caused an Ancient Greek
surprise . In the middle of the fifth century B . e .
,Ancient
Greek civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous and secure .
A generation before,i t had flung back the onset of a political
power which combined all the momentum of all the othercontemporary civilizations in the world ; and the victoryhad proved not merely the superIOrI ty of Greek arms—theSpartan spearman and the Athenian galley—but thesuperior vitality of Greek politic s—the self-governing
,self
sufficing city-state . In these cities a wonderful culture hadburst into flower—an art expressing itself with equal mastery
L 2
1 64 Greece
in architecture,sculpture
,and drama
,a science which
ranged from the most practical medicine to the most ab strac tmathematics
,and a philosophy which blended art
,science
,
and religion into an ever-developing and ever more harmonious view of the universe . A civilization so brilliantand so versatile a s this seemed to have an infinite futurebefore it
,yet even here death lurked in ambush .
When the cities ranged themselves in rival camps,and
squandered their s trength on the struggle for predominance,
the historian of the Peloponnesian war could already pictureAthens and Sparta in ruins
,
1 and the catastrophe began towarp the soul of Plato before he had carried Greek philosophyto its zenith . This internecine strife of free communitie swas checked within a century by the imposition of a singlemilitary autocracy over them all
,and Alexander the Great
crowned his fa ther Philip ’s work by winning new worlds forHellenism from the Danube to the Gaug es and from theOxus to the Nile . The city-state and its culture were to bepropagated under his aegis
,but this vision vanished with
Alexander’s death,and Macedonian militarism proved a
disappointment . The feuds of these crowned condottierihara ssed the cities more sorely than their own quarrels , andtheir arms could not even preserve the Hellenic heritageagainst external foes . The Oriental rallied and expelled
Hellenism again from the Asiatic hinterland, while the new
cloud of Rome was gathering in the west . In four generations 2 of the most devastating warfare the world hadseen
,Rome conquered all the coasts of the Mediterranean .
Greek city and Greek dynast went down before her, andthe political sceptre passed irrevocably from the Hellenic
nation .
1 Thucydide s , Book I , chap . I O.
22 64
-146 B . c .
1 66 Greece
threw the symptoms of inward dissolution into sharper relief .Within the framework of the empire the municipal libertyof the city-state had been stifled and extinguished by thewaxing j ungle of bureaucracy
,and the spiritual culture which
the city-s tate fostered,and which was more essential to
Hellenism than any political institutions,had been part
ej ected,part exploited
,and wholly compromised by a new
gospel from the east .While the Oriental had been compelled by Rome to draw
his political frontier a t the Euphrates,and had failed so far
to cross the river-line,he had maintained his cultural
independence within sight of the Mediterranean . In thehill country of Judah
,overlooking the high road between
Antioch and Alexandria,the two chief foci of Hellenism in
the eas t which the Macedonians had founded,and which
had grown to maturity under the aegis of Rome,there dwelt
a lit tle Semitic community which had defied all efforts ofGreek or Roman to assimilate it
,and had finally given birth
to a world religion about the time that a Roman punitiveexpedition razed it s holy city of Jerusalem to the ground .
1
Christianity wa s charged with an incalculable force,which
shot like an electric current from one end of the RomanEmpire to the other . The highly-organized society of i t sa dherents measrired it s s trength in several sharp conflict swith the imperial a dministration
,from which it emerged
V ictorious,and it was proclaimed the offi cial religious
organization of the empire by the very emperor tha t
founded Constant inOple .
2
The established Christian Church took the best energies
1A . D . 70 .
2 Constantine the Great recognized Christianity in A . D . 313 and
founded Constantinop le in A . D . 32 8.
From Ancient to Modern Greece 167
of Hellenism into its service . The Greek intellectuals ceasedto become lecturers and professors
,t o find a more human
and practical career in the bishop ’s oflice . The AthanasianCreed
,drafted by an oecumenical conference of bishops
under the auspices of Constantine himself,
1 was the la s tnotable formulation of Ancient Greek philosophy . The
ca thedral of Aya Sophia,with which Justinian adorned Con
stant inople , was the las t original creation of Ancient Greekart .2 The same Justinian closed the University of Athens
,
which had educated the world for nine hundred years andmore
,since Plato founded his college in the Academy.
Six recalcitrant professors went into exile for their Spiritualfreedom
,but they found the devout Zoroastrianism of the
Persian court a s unsympathetic as the devout Christianityof the Roman. Their humilia ting return and recantationbroke the Golden Chain of Hellenic thought for ever .Hellenism was thus expiring from it s own inanition, when
the inevitable avalanche overwhelmed it from without . Inthe seventh century A . D . there was another religious eruption
in the Semitic world,this time in the heart of Arabia , where
Hellenism ha d hardly penetrated,and under the impetu s
of I slam the Oriental burst his bounds again after a thousandyears . Syria was reft away from the Empire, and Egypt, andNorth Africa as fa r a s the Atlantic
,and their political
s everance meant their cultural los s to Greek civilization .
Between the Koran and Hellenism no fusion was possible .
Christianity had taken Hellenism captive, but I slam gavei t no quarter
,and the priceles s library of Alexandria is said
to have been condemned by the caliph’s order to feed thefurnaces of the public baths .While Hellenism was thus cut short in the eas t, a mortal
1 A . D'
. 325.2 Comp leted A . D . 538.
1 68 Greece
blow was struck a t its heart from the north . The Teutonhad raided and passed on
,but the lands he had depopula ted
were now invaded by immigrants who had come to stay .
As soon a s the las t Goth and Lombard had gone west of theI sonzo
,the Slavs poured in from the north-eastern plains of
Europe through the Moravian gap,crossed the Danube
somewhere near the Si te of Vienna,and drifted down along
the eastern face of the Alp s upon the Adriatic lit toral .Rebuffed by the sea-board
,the Slavonic migration was next
deflected east,and filtered through the Bosnian mountains
,
sca ttering the Latin—speaking provincials before i t to leftand right
,until i t debouched upon the broad basin of the
river Morava . In this concentration-area it gathered momentum during the earlier part of the seventh century A . D .
,
and then burs t out with irresistible force in all directions,east
ward across the Maritsa basin till i t reached the Black Sea,and
southward down the Vardar to the shores of the Aegean .
Beneath this Slavonic flood the Greek race in Europe wasengulfed . A few fortified cities held out . Adrianople on
the Maritsa continued to cover Constantinople ; Salonikaa t the mouth of the Vardar survived a two hundred yearss iege ; while further south Athens, Korinth , and Patra se scaped extinction . But the tide of invasion surged aroundtheir walls . The Slavs mastered all the open country
,and,
pressing across the Korinthian Gulf,established themselves
in Special force throughout the Peloponnesos . The thoroughness of their penetra tion i s witnessed to this day by theSlavonic names which still cling to at lea st a third of thevillages
,rivers
,and mountams In European Greece
,and are
found in the most remote a s well a s in the most accessiblequarters of the land .
1
1 For e xample : Tsimova and Panitsa in the Tainaron penin sula
1 70 Greece
is a development of the ‘koine or current ’ dialect o f
Ancient Greek,in which the S ep tuagint and the New
Testament are written . The vogue of these books after thetriumph of Christianity and the oncoming of the Dark Age,when they were t he sole intellectual sustenance of thepeople
,gave the idiom in which they were composed an
exclusive prevalence . Excep t in Tzakonia— the iron-boundcoast between Cape Malea and Nauplia Bay—all otherdialects of Ancient Greek became extinct
,and the varieties
of the modern language are all differentiations of the koine
along geographical lines which in no way correspond withthose which divided Doric from Ionian . Yet thoughRomaic is descended from the koine i t is almost as fa rremoved from it a s modern I talian is from the language of
S t . Augustine or Cicero . Ancient Greek possessed a pitchaccent only
,which allowed the quant i tat1ve values of
syllables to be measured against one another, and even toform the basis of a metrical system . In Romaic the pitchaccent ha s transformed itself into a stres s-accent almost as
violent a s the English,which has destroyed all quantitative
relation between accented and unaccented syllables, oftenwearing away the la tter altogether a t the termination of
words,and always impoverishing their vowel sounds . In
the ninth century A . D . this new enunciation was giving riseto a new poetical technique founded upon accent and rhyme ,which firs t essayed itself in folk-songs and ballads,1 and has
s ince experimented in the same variety of forms as Englishpoetry .
1 The earliest products of the modern techni que were ca lled ci tyverses , because they originated in Constantinop le , which ha s remainedthe city par excellence for the Romaic Greek ever since the Dark Ag emade it the a sylum of hi s civi lization .
From Ancient to Modern Greece 1 71
These humble beginnings of a new litera ture were supplement ed by the rudiments of a new art . Any visitor a tAthens who looks a t the three tiny churches 1 built in thisperiod of firs t revival
,and compares them with the rare
pre-Norman churches of England,will find the same promise
of vitality in the Greek architecture a s in his own . Thematerial—worked blocks of marble pillaged from ancientmonuments
,alternating with courses of contemporary brick
—produces a completely new aesthetic effect upon theeye ; and the structure—a grouping of lesser cupola s rounda central dome—is the very antithesis of the upright-andhorizontal ’ s tyle which confronts him in ruins upon theAkropolis .These firs t achievements of Romaic architecture speakby implica tion of the characteristic difference between theRomaios and the Hellene . The linguistic and the aestheticchange were as nothing compared to the change in religion
,
for while the Hellene had been a pagan , the Romaios wasessentially a member of the Christian Church . Yet thisnew and determining characteristic was already fortified bytradition . The Church triumphant had swiftly perfectedi t s organiza tion on the model of the Imperial bureaucracy .
Every Romaios owed ecclesia st ical allegiance, througha hierarchy of bishop s and metropolitans , to a supremepatriarch at Constantinople
,and in the ninth century this
a dministra tive segregation of the imperial from the westEuropean Church had borne its inevitable fruit in a dogmaticdivergence
,and ripened into a schism between the Orthodox
Christianity of the east on the one hand and the Catholicismof the Latin world on the other .The Orthodox Church exercised an important cultural
1 The Old Me tropo litan , the Kapnikaria, and S t. Theodore .
I 72 Greece
influence over it s Romaic adherents . The official languageo f i t s scriptures
,creeds
,and ritual had never ceased to be
the Ancient Greek ‘koine and by keeping the Romaios
familia r with this otherwise obsolete tongue it kep t him intouch with the unsurpassable litera ture of his Ancient Greekpredecessors . The vast body of Hellenic litera ture hadperished during the Dark Age
,when all the energies of the
race were absorbed by the momentary struggle for survival ;but about a third of the greates t authors’ greatest works hadbeen preserved
,and now tha t the s tres s was relieved, the
wreckage of the remainder wa s sedulously garnered inanthologies
,abridgements
,and encyclopaedias . The rising
monas teries off ered a safe harbourage both for these compilat ions and for such originals a s survived unimpaired, and intheir lib raries they were henceforth studied
,cherished, and
above all recopied with more or less systematic care .
The Orthodox Church was thus a potent link betweenpast and present
,but the most direc t link of all was the
political survival of the Empire . Here,too
,many landmarks
had been swept away . The marvellous system of RomanLaw had proved too sub tle and complex for a world in thethroes of dissolution . Within a century of its final codifica
t ion by Justinian’s commissioners,i t had begun to fall into
disuse,and was now replaced by more summary legislation,
which was as deeply imbued with Mosaic principles a s theliterary language with the Hebraisms of the New Testament,and bristled with barbarous applications of the Lex Talionis.
The administra tive organization instituted by Augustus andelaborated by Diocletian had likewise disappeared
,and the
army-corps dis tricts were the only territorial units tha toutla sted the Dark Age . Yet the tra dition of order lived on .
The army itself preserved Roman di scipline and technique
1 74 Greece
from the Danube and the Black Sea to the barrier-fortressesof Adrianople and Salonika . I t had been founded by a conquering caste of non-Slavonic nomads from the transDanubian steppes
,but these were completely absorbed in
the Slavonic population which they had endowed with theirname and had preserved by political consolidation from thefa te of their brethren further south . This Bulgarian s ta teincluded a large ‘Vlach ’ element descended from thoseLatin-speaking provincials Whom the Slavs had pushedbefore them in their original migration ; while the mainbody of the Rumans whom the same thrust of inva sionhad driven leftwards across the Danube
,had established
itself in the mountains of Transylvania,and was j us t
beginning to push down into the Wallachian and Moldavianplains . Like the Bulgars
,this Romance population had
chosen the Orthodox creed,and so had the purely Slavonic
Serbs,who had replaced the Rumans in the basin of the
Morava and the Bosnian hills,a s far westward a s the Adriatic
coast . Beyond,the heathen Magyars had pressed into the
Danubian plains like a wedge,and cu t off the Orthodox
world from the Latin-Teutonic Christendom of the west ;but i t Fooked a s though the two divisions of Europe wereembarked upon the same course of development . Bothwere evolving a system of s trongly-knit nationalities
,neither
wholly interdependent nor wholly self-sufficient,but linked
together in their individual growth by the ties of commonculture and religion. In both the darkness was passing .
The future of civiliza tion seemed once more assured,and
in the Orthodox world the newGreek nation seemed destinedto play the leading part .His cultural and political heritage from his ancientpredecessors gave the Romaic Greek in this period of revival
From Ancient to Modern Greece 1 75
an inestimable a dvantage over his cruder neighbours,and
his superiority declared itself in an expansion of the RomaicEmpire . In the latter half of the tenth century A. D . the nes t
of Arab pirates from Spain , which had established itself inKrete and terrorized the Aegean
,was exterminated by the
Emperor NikiphOros Phokas, and on the eastern marchesAntioch was gathered within the frontier a t the Arabs’
expense,and advanced post s pushed across Euphrates . In
the first half of the eleventh century Basil,Slayer of the
Bulgars destroyed the Balkan kingdom after a generationof bitter warfare, and brought the whole interior of the
peninsula under the sway of Constantinople . His successorsturned their attention to the eas t again
,and a ttracted one
Armenian principality after another within the imperialprotectora te . Nor was the revival confined to poli tics . Theconversion of the Russians about A . D . 1000 opened a boundless hinterland to the Orthodox Church
,and any one who
glances a t a series of Greek ivory carvings or S tudies Greekhistory from the original sources
,will here encounter a
l iterary and artistic renaissance remarkable enough t o
explain the fascination which the barbarous Russ1an and theoutlandish Armenian found in Constantinople . Yet thisrenais sance had hardly se t in before i t was paralysed by anunexpected blow
,which arrested the development ofModern
Greece for seven centuries .Modern
,like Ancient
,Greece was assa iled in her infancy by
a conqueror from the east,and
,unlike Ancient Greece
,she
succumbed . Turkish nomads from the central Asia ticsteppes had been drifting into the Moslem world as thevigour of the Arabs waned . Firs t they came as slaves
,then
as mercenaries,until a t la st
,in the eleventh century
,the
clan of Selj uk gr’
asped with a s trong hand the political
1 76 Greece
dominion of Islam . AS champions of the caliph the Turkishsultans disputed the infidels’ encroachment on the Moslemborder . They challenged the Romaic Empire’s progress inArmenia
,and in A . D . 1071
—five years after the Normanfounded a t Hastings the strong government which has beenthe making of England—the Selj uk Turk shattered at thebattle of Melasg erd tha t heritage of strong governmentwhich had promised so much to Greece .Melasg erd opened the way to Anatoli a . The Arab couldmake no lodgement there
,but in the central steppe of the
temperate plateau the Turk found a miniature reproduction
o f his original environment . Tribe after tribe crossed theOxus
,to make the long pilgrimage to these new marches
which their race had won for I slam on the west,and the
civilization developed in the country by fifteen centuries of
intensive and undisturbed Hellenization was completelyblotted out . The cities were isolated from one another tilltheir commerc e fell into decay . The elaborately cultivatedlands around them were left fallow till they were good fornothing but the pasturage which was all that the noma drequired . The only monuments of architecture that havesurvived in Anatolia above ground are the imposing khans
or fortified rest-houses built by the Selj uk sultans themselvesafter the consolidation of their rule
,and they are the best
witnesses of the vigorous barbarism by which Romaic culturewas effaced . The vitality of the Turk was indeed unques
t ionab le . He imposed his language and religion upon the
native Anatolian peasantry,a s the Greek had imposed his
before him,and in time adopted their sedentary life
,though
too late to repair the mischief hisown nomadism hadwrought .Turk and Anatolian coalesced into one people ; everymountain
,river
,lake
,bridge
,and village in the country took
1 78 Greece
control of theMediterranean which the Empire had exerciseds ince NikiphOros pacified Krete . They seized all strategicalpoints of vantage on the Aegean coasts, and founded anextra-territorial ’ community at Pera across the GoldenHorn
,to monopolize the trade of Constantinople with the
Black Sea . The Latins failed to retain their hold on Con
stant inople itself, for the puppet emperors of their own racewhom they enthroned there were evicted within a centuryby Romaic dynasts
,who clung to such fragments of Anatolia
as had escaped the Turk . But the Latin dominion was lessephemeral in the southernmost Romaic provinces of Europe .Their castles
,more conspicuous than the relics of Hellas
,
still crown many high hills in Greece,and their French
tongue has added another strain to the varied nomenclature
of the country .
1 Yet there also pandemonium prevailed .
Burgundian barons,Catalan condottieri
,and Florentine
bankers snatched the Duchy of Athens from one anotherin bewildering succession
,while the French princes of Achaia
were a t feud with their kindred vassals in the west of thePeloponnesos whenever they were not resisting the encroachments of Romaic despots in the south and east . To completethe anarchy
,the non-Romaic peoples in the interior of the
Balkan peninsula had taken the fall of Constantinople asa signal to throw off the imperial yoke . In the hinterlandof the capital the Bulgars had reconstituted their kingdom .
The Romance-speaking Vlachs of Pindus moved down intothe Thessalian plains . The aboriginal Albanians
,who had
kept the Slavs a t baywith theirback to the Adriatic,a sserted
their vitality and sent out migratory swarms to the south,
1e . g . K lemoutsi
,Glaren tsa (C laren ce) and Gas touni—V i llage s of the
currant di s trict in Pe loponne sos—and Sant-Omeri,the mountain that
overlooks them ,
From Ancient to Modern Greece 179
which entered the service of the warring princelets and bytheir prowess won broad lands in every part of continentalGreece
,where Albanian place-names are to this day only
less common than Slavonic . South-eastern Europe was againin the throes of social dissolution , and the convulsions con
t inued till they were stilled impartially by the numbinghand of their ultimate author the Turk .
The Selj uk sultanate in Anatolia,shaken by the crusades
,
had gone the way of all oriental empires to make room forone of it s fractions
,which showed a most un-oriental faculty
of organic growth . This was the extreme march on thenorth-western rim of the Anatolian pla teau
,overlooking the
Asiatic li t toral of the Sea of Marmora . I t had been foundedby one of those Turkish chiefs who migrated with theirclans from beyond the Oxus ; and it was consolidated byOthman his son
,who extended his kingdom to the cities
on the coas t and invested his subj ects with his own name .
In 1355 the Narrows of Gallipoli passed into Ottomanhands
,and opened a bridge to unexpected conquests in
Europe . Serbia and Bulgaria collapsed at the first a ttack,
and the hosts which marched to libera te them from Hungaryand from France only ministered to Ottoman prestige by
their disastrous discomfiture . Before the close of the fourt eenth century the Ottoman sultan had transferred his
capital to Adrianople,and had become immeasurably the
s tronges t power in the Balkan peninsula .
After that the end came quickly . At Constantinople theRomaic dynasty of Palaiolog os had upheld a semblance of
the Empire for more than a century after the Latin wasexpelled . But in 1453 the imperial city fell before theassault of Sultan Mohammed ; and before his death theconqueror eliminated all the other Romaic and Latin
M 2
1 80 Greece
principalities from Peloponnesos to Trebizond,which had
survived as enclaves to mar the uniformity of the Ottomandomain . Under his successors the tide of Ottoman conquestrolled on for half a century more over south-eastern Europe ,till i t was stayed on land beneath the ramparts of Vienna
,
1
and culminated on sea,after the systematic reduction of
the Venetian strongholds,in the capture of Rhodes from
the Knights of S t . John .
2 The Romaic race,which had been
Split into so many fragments during the dissolution of theEmpire
,was reunited again in the sixteenth century under
the common yoke of the Turk .
Even in the Dark Age, Greece had hardly been reducedto so desperate a condition a s now . Through the DarkAge the Greek cities had maintained a continuous life
,but
Mohammed I I depopulated Constantinople to repeople i twith a Turkish maj ority from Anatolia . Greek commercewould naturally have benefited by the ej ection of theI talians from the Levant
,had not the Ottoman Government
given asylum simultaneously to the Jews expelled fromSpain . These Sephardim established themselves a t Constantinople , Salonika , and all the other commercial centres
of the Ottoman dominion, and their superiority in numbersand industry made them more formidable urban rivals ofthe Greeks than the Venetians and Genoese had ever been .
Ousted from the towns,the Greek race depended for its
preservation on the peasantry,yet Greece had never suffered
worse rural Oppression than under the Ottoman régime . Thesultan’s fiscal demands were the leas t part of the burden .
The paralysing land-tax,collected in kind by irresponsible
middlemen, was an inheritance from the Romaic Empire,
and though it was now reinforced by the special capitation1152 6.
2152 2 .
1 82 Greece
into the conquering community— quite regularly by the
compulsory tribute of children and spasmodically by thevoluntary conversion of individual households . The rich
apost asized, because too heavy a material sacrifice was im
posed upon them by loyalty to their national religion thedestitute
,because they could not fail to improve their
prospects by adhering to the privileged faith . Even the
surviving organization of the Church had only been sparedby the Ottoman Government in order to facilitate it s ownpolitical system -b y bringing the peasant , through thehierarchy of priest
,bishop
,and patriarch
,under the moral
control of the new Moslem master whom the ecclesiasticshenceforth served .
The scale on whi ch wholesale apostasy was possible isshown by the case of Krete
,which was conquered by the
Turks from Venice j ust after these two centuries had closed,
and was in fact the las t permanent addition to the TurkishEmpire . No urban or feudal settlers of Turkish blood wereimported into the island . To this day the uniform speechof all Kre tans is their native Greek . And yet the pro
g ressive conversion of whole clans and villages had transferred at least 2 0 per cent . of the population t o the Moslemrank s before the Ottoman connexion was severed again in1897.
The survival of the Greek nationality did not depend on
any efforts of the Greeks themselves . They were indeedno longer capable of effort
,but‘ lay passive under the hand
of the Turk,like the paralysed quarry of some beast of prey .
Their fate was conditional upon the development of theOttoman state , and , as the two centuries drew to a close
,
that s tate entered upon a phase of transformation and of
consequent weakness .
The Awakening of the N ation 1 83
The Ottoman organism has always displayed (and nevermore conspicuously than a t the present moment) a muchgreater Stability and vitality than any of it s oriental predecessors. There was a vein of genius in its creato rs
,and
i ts youthful expansion permeated it with so much Europeanblood that i t became partly Europeanized in I t s Innertissues—sufficiently to partake
,a t any rate
,in that faculty
of indefinite organic growth which has so fa r revealed itselfin European life . This acquired force has carried it on
since the time when the impetus of it s original institutionsbecame spent—a time when purely oriental monarchies fallto pieces
,and when Turkey herself hesita ted between recon
struction and dissolution . That critical period began for herwith the latter half of the seventeenth century
,and inciden
tally opened new opportunities of life to her subj ec t Greeks .Substantial relief from their burdens—the primary though
negative condition of national revival—accrued to the Greekpeasantry from the decay of Ottoman militarism in all
its branches . The Turkish feudal aristocracy, which hadreplaced the landed nobility of the Romaic Empire inAnatolia and established itself on the choices t lands inconquered Europe
,was beginning to decline in strength .
We have seen that it failed to implant itself in Krete , andits numbers were already stationary elsewhere . The Greekpeasant slowly began to regain ground upon his Moslemlord
,and he profited further by the degeneration of the
j anissary corps a t the heart of the empire .
The j anissaries had started as a militant,almost monastic
body,condemned to celibacy
,and recruited exclusively from
the Christian tribute-children . But in 1566 they extortedthe privilege of legal marriage for themselves
,and of admit
tance into the corps for the sons of their wedlock . The
1 84 Greece
next century completed their transformation from a standingarmy into a hereditary urban militia—an armed and privileg ed bourg eoisie, rapidly increasing in numbers and corre
8ponding ly j ealous of extraneous candidates for the covetedvacancies in their ranks . They gradually succeeded inabolishing the enrolment of Christian recruits altogether,and the las t regular levy o f children for that purpose wasmade in 1676 . Vested interests a t Constantinople had freedthe helpless peasant from the most crushing burden of all .At the same moment the contemporary tendency in
western Europe towards bureaucratic centralization beganto extend itself to the Ottoman Empire . I t s exponentswere the brothers Achme t and Mustapha KOprili, whoheld the grand-vizierate in succession . They laid thefoundations of a centralized administration, and, since theunadaptable Turk offered no promising material for theirpolicy
,they sought their instruments in the subj ec t race .
The continental Greeks were too effectively crushed toaspire beyond the preservation of their own existence butthe islands had been less sorely tried
,and Khios
,which had
enj oyed over two centuries 1 of pro sp erity under the rule ofa Genoese chartered company
,and exchanged it for Ottoman
sovereignty under peculiarly lenient conditions,could s till
supply Achme t a century later with offi cials of the intellig ence and education he required . Khiots were the firs tto fill the new offices of Dragoman of the Porte (secretaryof state) and Dragoman of the Fleet (civil complementof the Turkish capitan-pasha) ; and they took care in theirturn to s taff the subordinate posts of their a dminis trationwith a host of pushing friends and dependants . The
Dragoman of the Fleet wielded the fi scal,and thereby in
11346
-1566.
1 86 Greece
to call themselves by the Romaic name . In 1691 Mustapha
KOprili recognized and confirmed the rights of all Christiansubj ects of the Sultan by a general organic law .
Mustapha’s New Ordinance was dictated by the reverses
which Christians beyond the frontier were inflicting uponthe Ottoman arms
,for pressure from without had followed
hard upon disintegration within . Achme t’s pyrrhic triumph
over Candia in 1669 was followed in 1683 by his brotherMustapha
’s disastrous discomfiture before the walls of
Vienna,and these two sieges marked the turn of the Otto
man tide . The ebb was slow,yet the ascendancy henceforth
lay with Turkey’s Christian neighbours,and they began to
cut short her frontiers on every side .The Venetians had never lost hold upon the ‘Ionianchain of islands—Corfu
, Cefalonia, Zante , and Cerigowhich flank the western coast of Greece
,and in 1685 they
embarked on an offensive on the mainland,which won them
undisputed possession of Peloponnesos for twenty years .1
Venice was far nearer than Turkey to her dissolution,and
spent the last spasm of her energy on this ephemeral conquest . Yet she had maintained the contact of the Greekrace with western Europe during the two centuries of
despair,and the interlude of her rule in Peloponnesos was
a fitting culmination to her work ; for, brief though it was ,i t eff ectively broke the Ottoman tradition
,and left behind
it a system of communal self-government among the Pelo
ponnesian Greeks which the returning Turk was too feebleto sweep away . The Turks gained nothing by the rapiddownfall of Venice
,for Austria as rapidly stepped into her
place,and pressed with fresh vigour the attack from the
north-west . North-eastward,too
,a new enemy had arisen
11699
-17 18.
The Awakening of the Nation 87
in Russia , which had been reorganized towards the turn of
the century by Peter the Great with a radical energyundreamed of by any Turkish Koprili, and which foundit s destiny in Opposition to the Ottoman Empire . The newOrthodox power regarded itself as the heir of the RomaicEmpire from which it had received its first Christianity and
culture . I t a spired to repay the Romaic race in adversityby championing it against it s Moslem oppressors
,and sought
it s own reward in a maritime outlet on the Black Sea .From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russiarepeatedly made war on Turkey
,either with or without the
co-operation of Austria ; but the decisive bout in thestruggle was the war of 1769—74. A Russian fleet appearedin the Mediterranean
,raised an insurrect ion in Peloponnesos
,
and destroyed the Turkish squadron in battle . The Russianarmies were still more successful on the steppes
,and the
Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardj i not only left the whole northcoast of the Black Sea in Russia’s possession
,but contained
an international sanction for the rights of the sultan’sOrthodox subj ects . In 1783 a supplementary commercialtreaty extorted for the Ottoman Greeks the right to tradeunder the Russian flag . The territorial sovereignty ofTurkeyin the Aegean remained intact
,but the Russian guarantee
gave the Greek race a more substantial security than theshadowy ordinance of Mustapha KOprili. The paralysingprestige of the Porte was broken
,and Greek eyes were
henceforth turned in hope towards Petersburg .
By the end of the eighteenth century the condition ofthe Greeks had in fac t changed remarkably for the better
,
and the French and English travellers who now began tovisit the Ottoman Empire brought away the impression thata critical change in its internal equilibrium was at hand .
1 88 Greece
The Napoleonic wars had j ust extinguished the VenetianRepublic and swept the Ionian I slands into the strugglebetween England and France for the mastery of theMedit e r
ramean . England had fortified herself in Cefalonia and
Zante,France in Corfu
,and interest centred on the opposite
mainland,where Ali Pasha of Yannina maintained a formid
able neutrality towards either power .
The career of Ali marked that phase in the decline of anOriental empire when the task of strong governmentbecomes too difficult for the central authority and is carriedon by independent satraps with greater efficiency in theirmore limited sphere . Ali governed the Adriatic hinterland
with practically sovereign power, and compelled the sultanfor some years to invest his sons with the pashaliks ofThessaly and Peloponnesos . The greater part of the Greekrace thus -came in some degree under his control
,and his
policy towards it clearly reflected the transition from theold to the new . He waged far more effective war than thedis tant sultan upon local liberties
,and
,though the elimina
tion of the feudal Turkish landowner was pure gain to theGreeks
,they suff ered themselves from the loss of traditional
privileges which the original Ottoman conquest had leftintact . The Armatoli
,a local Christian militia who kep t
order in the mountainous mainland north of Peloponnesoswhere Turkish feudatories were rare
,were either dispersed
by Ali or enrolled in his regular army . And he was ruthless in the extermination of recalcitrant communities
,like
Agrapha on the Aspropotamo,which had never been in
scribed on the taxation-rolls of the Romaic or the Ottomantreasury, or Suli, a robber clan ensconced in the mountains
immediately west of Ali’s capital . On the other hand,the
administration of these pacified and consolidated dominions
190 Greece
EurOpe turned to the monasteries in vain . The biggestruin on Athos is a boys’ school planned in the eighteenthcentury to meet the educational needs of all the Orthodoxin the Ottoman Empire
,and wrecked on the reefs of monastic
obscurantism . But its founder, the Corfiot scholar Evyénios
Voulg aris, did not hesitate to break with the past . He put
his own educational ideas into practice at Yannina and Con
stant inople , and contributed to the great achievement of
his contemporary,the Khiot Adhamandios Korais
,who
settled in Paris and there evolved a literary adaptation of
the Romaic patois to supersede the lifeles s travesty of Attics tyle traditionally affected by ecclesiastical penmen . Butthe renaissance was not confined to Greeks abroad . Theschool on Athos failed
,but others established themselve s
before the close of the eighteenth century in the people’smidst
,even in the smaller towns and the remoter villages .
The still flourishing secondary school of Dhimitzana,in the
heart of Peloponnesos,began it s existence in this p eriod
,
and the national revival found expression in a new. name .
I ts prophets repudia ted the Romaic name,with it s
a ssociations of ignorance and Oppression,and taught their
pupils to think of themselves a s Hellenes and to claim intheir own right the intellectual and political liberty of theAncient Greeks .This spiritual Hellenism however
,was only one mani
festat ion of returning vitality,and was ultimately due t o
the concrete economic development with which it wenthand in hand . The Greeks
,who had found culture in
western Europe, had come there for trade, and their commercial no less than their intellectual activity reacted ina penetrating way upon their countrymen at home . Amountain village like Ambelakia in Thessaly found a regular
The Awakening of the Nation 191
market for its dyed goods in Germany, and the commercialtreaty of 1783 between Turkey and Russia encouraged com
munit ies whi ch could make nothing of the land to turntheir attention to the sea. Galaxhidi
,a village on the
northern shore of the Korinthian Gulf, whose only asset
was it s natural harbour, and Hydhra, Spe tza, and Psarai ,three barren little islands in the Aegean
,had begun to lay
the foundations of a merchant marine,when Napoleon’s
boycott and the British blockade,which left no neutral flag
but the Ottoman in the Mediterranean,presented the Greek
shipmen that sailed under it with an opportunity theyexploited to the full . The whitewashed houses of solidstone
,rising tier above tier up the naked limestone mountain
side,s till testify to the prosperity which chance thus sud
denly brought to the Hydhriot s and their fellow islanders,and did not withdraw again till it had enabled them to playa decisive part in their nation’s his tory .
Their ship s were small,but they were home-built
,skil
fully navigated,and profitably employed in the carrying
trade of the Mediterranean ports . Their economic life wasbased on co-operation
,for the sailors
,as well as the captain
and owner of the ship,who were generally the same person
,
took shares in the outlay and profi t of each voyage ; buttheir political organization was oligarchical—an executivecouncil elected by and from the owners of the shipping .
Feud and intrigue were rife between family and family,
class and class,and between the native community and the
resident aliens,without seriously affecting the vigour and
enterprise of the commonwealth as a whole . These sea
faring islands on the eve of the modern Greek Revolutionwere an exact reproduction of the Aigina
,Korinth
,and
Athens which.
repelled the Persian from Ancient Greece .
192 Greece
The germs of a new national life were thus springing upamong the Greeks in every direction—in mercantile coloniesscattered over the world from Odessa to Alexandria and
from Smyrna to Tries te ; among Phanariot princes in theDanubian Provinces and their ecclesiastical colleagues a tConstantinople ; in the islands of the Aegean and theIonian chain
,and upon the mountains of Suli and Agrapha .
But the ambitions this national revival a roused were evengreater
i
than the reality itself . The leaders of the movementdid not merely aspire to liberate the Greek nation from theTurkish yoke . They were conscious of the assimilativepower their nationality possessed . The Sulio t s
,for example
,
were an immigrant Albanian tribe,who had learnt to speak
Greek from the Greek peasants over whom they tyrannized .
The Hydhriot and Spetzio t s islanders were Albanians too,
who had even clung to their primitive language during thetwo generations since they took up their present abode
,but
had become none the less firmly linked to their Greekspeaking neighbours in Peloponnesos by their commonfellowship in the Orthodox Church . The numerous Albaniancolonies settled up and down the Greek continent were a tleas t a s Greek in feeling a s they . And why should not thesame prove true of the Bulgarian population in the Balkans
,
who had belonged from the beginning to the OrthodoxChurch , and had latterly b een brought by improvidentOttoman policy within the Greek patriarch’s fold Or whyshould not the Greek administrators beyond the Danubeimbue their Ruman subj ects with a sound Hellenic sentiment I In fact, the prophets of Hellenism did no t so muchdesire to extricate the Greek nation from the OttomanEmpire as to make it the ruling element in the empireitself by ej ecting the Moslem Turks from their privileged
1 94 Greece
the insurgents a t the monastery of Meg asPélaion ,and
unfurled the monastic altar-cloth as a national standard .
In the south the peninsula of Maina , which had been thela tes t refuge of ancient Hellenism ,
was now the first towelcome the new
,and to throw off the shadowy allegiance
it had paid for a thousand years to Romaic archont s andOttoman capitan-pashas . Led by Petros Mavromichalis
,
the chief of the leading clan, the Mainates issued from theirmountains . This was in April, and by the middle of Mayall the open country had been swept clear
,and the hosts
j oined hands before Tripolitza,which was the seat of Otto
man government a t the central point of the province . TheTurkish garrison attacked
,but was heavily defea ted at Val
t e tzi by the tactical skill of Theodore Koloko trénis theklepht who had become experienced in guerrilla warfarethrough his alternate professions of .b rig and and gendarme
a career that had increased its possibilities a s the Ottomansystem decayed . After Kolokot rénis
’s victory
,the Greeks
kept Tripolitza under a close blockade . Early in Octoberi t fell amid frightful scenes of pillage and massacre
,and
Ottoman dominion in the Peloponnesos fell with it . OnJanuary 2 2
,182 2
,Korinth
,the key to the isthmus
,passed
into the Greeks’ hands,and only four fortresses—Nauplia
,
Patras,Koron
,and Modhon—s till held out within it against
Greek investment . Not a Turk survived in the Peloponnesosbeyond their walls
,for the slaughter a t Tripolitza was only
the most terrible instance of what happened wherevera Moslem colony was found . In Peloponnesos
,a t any rate
,
the revolution hado
b een grimly successful .There had also been successes a t sea. The merchantmarine of the Greek islands had suff ered grievously fromthe fall of Napoleon and the settlement a t Vienna
,which
,
The Awakening of the Nation 195
by restoring normal conditions of trade,had destroyed their
abnormal monopo ly . The revolution offered new Oppor
tunit ies for profitable venture, and in April 182 1 Hydhra,Spe tza and Psara hastened to send aprivateering fleet tosea . As soon a s the fleet crossed the Aegean
,Samos rid
itself of the Turks . At the beginning of June the ricketyOttoman squadron is sued from the Dardanelles
,but it was
chased back by the islanders under the lee of Mitylini .
Memories of Russian naval tactic s in 1770 led the Psariot s toexperiment in fire-ship s
,and one of the two Turkish Ship s
of the line fell a victim to this a ttack . Within a week of
setting sail,the diminished Turkish squadron was back again
in the Dardanelles,and the islanders were left with the
command of the sea.
The general Christian revolution thus seemed fairlylaunched
,and in the firs t panic the threatened Moslems
began reprisals of an equally general kind . In the largerTurkish cities there were massacres of Christian minorities
,
and the Government lent countenance to them by murderingits own principal Christian ofli cial Gregorios
,the Greek
patriarch a t Constantinople,on April 2 2
,182 1 . But Sultan
Mahmud quickly recovered himself . He saw that hisempire could not survive a racial war
,and determined to
prevent the present revolt from assuming such a character .His plan was to localize it by stamping out the more distantsparks with all his energy
,before concentra ting his force
at leisure upon the main conflag rat ion .
This policy was j ustified by the event . On March 6 thePhiliki Hetairia a t Odessa had opened it s own Operationsin grandio se style by sending a filib ust ering expedition acrossthe Russo-Turkish frontier under command of PrinceAlexander Hypsilant is, a Phanario t in the Russian service .
N Z
196 Greece
Hypsilant is played for a general revolt of the Rumanpopulation in the Danubian Principali ties and a declara tion
of war against Turkey on the part of Russia . But theRumans had no desire to assis t the Greek bureaucra ts whooppressed them
,and the Tsar Alexander had been converted
by the experiences of 181 2—13 to a pacifist ic respect for thestatus guo. Prince Hypsilant is was driven ignominiously tointernment across the Austrian frontier
,little more than
a hundred days after his expedition began ; and his fiascoa ssured the Ottoman Government of two encouraging facts-that the revolution would not carry away the wholeOrthodox population but would a t any rate confine itselfto the Greeks ; and that the struggle against it wouldbe fought out for the present , a t leas t, without fore lg nintervention .
In the other direction,however
,rebellion was spreading
northward from Peloponnesos to continental Greece .
Galaxidhi revolted in April, and was followed in June byMesolonghi—a prosperous town of fi shermen
,impregnably
situated in the midst of the lagoons a t the mouth Of the
ASprOpo tamo,beyond the narrows of the Korinthian Gulf .
By the end of the month,north-western Greece was free
a s far a s the outposts of Khurshid Pasha beyond the Gulf
of Arta .
Further eastward,again
,in the mountains between the
Gulf of Korinth and the river Elladha (SperkheiOs) , theArmatoli of Ali’s faction had held their ground
,and gladly
j oined the revolution on the initiative of their captainsDhiakos and Odhyssevs. But the movement found it s limits .The Turkish garrison of Athens obstinately held out duringthe winter of 182 1—2
,and the Mo slems of Neg repont
(Eub oia) maintained their mastery in the Island . In
198 Greece
the reopening of naval Operations next spring . In March
182 2 the Samians landed a force on Khios and besieged theTurkish garrison
,which was relieved after three weeks by
the arrival of the Ottoman fleet . A month la ter the Greekfleet likewise appeared on the scene
,and on June 18 a
Psariot captain,Constantine Kanaris
,actually destroyed the
Ottoman flag -ship by a daring fire-ship attack . Upon thisthe Ottoman fleet fled back a s usual to the Dardanelles ;yet the only consequence was the complete devastation
,in
revenge,of helpless Khios . The long-shielded prosperity
of the island was remorselessly destroyed,the people were
either enslaved or massacred,and the victorious fleet had
to stand by as passively this time as a t the destruction of
Kydhonies the season before . In the following summer,
aga1n,the same fate befell Trikeri
,a maritime community
on the Gulf of Volo which had gained it s freedom whenthe rest of Thessaly stirred in vain ; and so in 1 82 3 therevolution found itself confined on sea
,a s well as on land
,
to the focus where i t had originated in April 182 1 .
This isolation was a practical triumph for Sultan Mahmud . The maintenance of the Ottoman Empire on thebasis of Moslem ascendancy was thereby assured ; but I tremained to be seen whether the isolated area could now berestored to the status guo in which the rest of his dominionshad been retained .
Durmg the whole season of 182 1 the army of Khurshidhad been held before Yannina . But in February 182 2
Yannina fell, Ali was slain, his trea sure seized, and his troop sdisbanded . The Ottoman forces were liberated for a countera ttack on Peloponnesos . Already in April Khurshid brokeup his camp at Leirissa, and his lieutenant Dramali was givencommand of the new expedition towards the south . He
The Awakening of the N ation 1 99
crossed the Spe rkheiOs a t the beginning of July with anarmy of twenty thousand men .
1 Athens had capitulated toOdhyssévs ten days before ; but it had kept open the roadfor Dramali
,and north-eastern Greece fell without resistance
into his hands . The c1tadel of Korinth surrendered as
tamely a s the Open country,and he was master of the
isthmus before the end of the month . Nauplia meanwhilehad been treating w ith it s besiegers for terms
,and would
have surrendered to the Greeks already if they had notdriven their bargain so hard . Dramali hurried on southwardinto the plain t o the fortres s’s relief
,raised the siege
,occupied
the town of Argos,and scattered the Greek forces into the
hills . But the citadel of Argos held out against him,and
the positions were rapidly reversed . Under the experienceddirection of Kolokot rénis, the Greeks from their hill-fa stnesses ringed round the plain of Argos and sealed up everyis sue . Dramali
’s supplies ran out . An attempt of his van
guard to break through again towards the north was bloodilyrepulsed
,and he barely succeeded two days la ter in ext ricat
ing the main body in a demoralized condition,with the loss
of all his baggage-train . The Turkish army melted away.
Dramali was happy to die a t Korinth,and Khurshid was
executed by the sultan’s command . The invasion of Pelo
ponnesos had broken down, and nothing could avert thefall of Nauplia . The Ottoman fleet hovered for one September week in the ofling , but Kanaris
’s fire-ship s took
another ship of the line in toll a t the roadsteads of Tenedosbefore i t safely rega ined the Dardanelles . The garrison o f
Nauplia capitulated in December, on condition of personalsecurity and liberty
,and the captain of a British frigate
,
1 Including a strong cont ingen t of Mos lem S lavs—Bulgarian Pomaksfrom the Aegean hin terland and Se rbian Bosniaks from the Adriatic.
Gr eece
which arrived on the Spot,took measures that the compact
should be observed instea d of being broken by the customarymassacre . But the strongest fortress in Peloponnesos was
now in Greek hands .In the north-west the season had not passed so well .
When the Turks invested Ali in Yannina,they repatriated
the Suliot exiles in their native mountains . But a strongsultan was j us t a s formidable to the Suliot s as a s trongpasha
,so they swelled their ranks by
.
enfranchising theirpeasant-serfs
,and made common cause with their old enemy
in his a dversity . Now that Ali was destroyed,the Suliot s
found themselves in a precarious position,and turned to
the Greeks for aid . But on July 16 the Greek advance waschecked by a severe defeat a t Petta in the plain of Arta .
In September the Suliots evacuated their impregnable fortresses in return for a subsidy and a safe-conduct
,and Omer
Vrioni,the Ottoman commander in the west
,
1 was free toa dvance in turn towards the south . On November 6 heactually laid siege to Mesolonghi
,but here his experiences
were as discomfit ing a s Dramali’s. He could not keep open
his communications,and after heavy losses retreated again
to Arta in January 182 3.
In 182 3 the struggle seemed to be lapsing into stalemate .The libera ted Peloponnesos had failed to propagate therevolution through the remainder of the Ottoman Empirethe Ottoman Government had equally fa iled to reconquerthe Peloponnesos by military invasion . This season’s operations only seemed to emphasize the deadlock . The Ottoman commander in the west raised an auxiliary force of
Moslem and Catholic clansmen from northern Albania,
and attempted to reach Mesolonghi once more . But he1 He was a renegade officer of Ali’s .
2 02 Greece
constitutionalism . In December 182 1 a National Assemblymet at Epidauros, passed an elaborate organic law, andelected Mavrokordatos firs t president of the Hellenic
Republic .
The struggle for life and death in 182 2 had staved off
the internal crisis,but the Peloponnesian Senate remained
obstinately recalcitrant towards the National Government in
defence of i ts own vested interests and the insubordination
of the fleet in 182 3 was of one piece with the politicalfaction which broke out as soon a s the immedia te dangerfrom without was removed .
Towards the end of 182 3 European Philhellenes beganto arrive in Greece . In those dark days of reaction thatfollowed Waterloo
,self-libera ted Hella s seemed the one
bright spot on the continent ; but the idealists who came tooffer her their services were confronted with a sorry Spectacle .The people were indifferent to their leaders
,and the leaders
a t variance among themselves . The gentlemanly Phanariot shad fallen into the background . Mavrokordatos onlyretained influence in north-western Greece . In Peloponnesos the Primates were all-powerful
,and Kolokot rOnis the
klepht was meditating a popular dicta torship at theirexpense . In the north-east the adventurer Odhyssévs hadwon a virtual dictatorship already
,and was suspected of
intrigue with the Turks ; and all this factious dissensionrankled into civil war as soon a s the contraction o f a loan inGreat Britain had invested the political control of theHellenic Republic with a prospective value in cash . Thefirs t civil war was fought between Kolokotrénis on the oneside and the Primates of Hydhra and Peloponnesos on theother ; but the issue was decided against Kolokotrénis bythe adhesion to the coalition of Kole t t is the Vlach
,once
The Awakening of the Nation 2 03
physician to Mukhtar Pasha,the son of Ali
,and now political
agent for all the northern Armatoli in the national serv ice .The fighting lasted from November 182 3 to June 1 824, andwas followed by another outbreak in November of the latteryear, when the victors quarrelled over the spoils, and thePrimates were worsted in turn by the islanders and theArmatoli . The nonentity Kondourio t t is of Hydhra finallyemerged as President of Greece
,with the sharp-witted
Kole t t is as his principal wire-puller,but the disturbances
di d no t cease till the las t instalment of the loan had beenreceived and squandered and there was no more spoil tofight for.
Meanwhile,Sultan Mahmud had been better employed .
Resolved to avert stalemate by the only possible means,he
had applied in the course of 182 3 to Mohammed Ali Pashaof Egypt
,a more formidable
,though more distant
,satrap
than Ali of Yannina himself . Mohammed Ali had a standingarmy and navy organized on the European model . He hadalso a son Ibrahim
,who knew how to manoeuvre them ,
and
was ambitious of a kingdom . Mahmud hired the father’stroop s and the son’s generalship for the re-conques t of
Peloponnesos,under engagement to inves t Ibrahim with
the pashalik a s soon as he should effectively make it his own .
By this s troke of diplomacy a potential rebel was turnedinto a willing ally
,and the preparations for the Egyptian ex
pedition went forward busily through the winter of 182 3—4 .
The plan of campaign was systematically carried ou t .
During the sea son of respite the Greek islanders had harriedthe coasts and commerce of Anatolia and Syria at will . Thefirs t task was to deprive them of their outposts in the Aegean ,and an advanced squadron of the Egyptian fleet accordinglydestroyed the communi ty of Kasos in June 1824, while the
2 04 Greece
Ottoman squadron sallied out of the Dardanelles a monthla ter and dealt out equal measure to Psara . The two mainflot illas then effected a j unction off Rhodes ; and, thoughthe crippled Greek fleet s till ventured pluckily to confrontthem
,i t could no t prevent Ibrahim from casting anchor
s afely in Soudha Bay and landing his army to winter in Krete .
In February 182 5 he transferred these troop s with equalimpunity to the fortress of Modhon
,which was still held
for the sultan by an Ottoman garrison . The fire-ship s ofHydhra came to harry his fleet too late, and on land theGreek forces were impotent against his trained soldiers .The Government in vain promoted Kolokotrénis f romcaptivity to commandership-in-chief . The whole southwestern half of Peloponnesos passed into Ibrahim’s hands
,
and in June 1 82 5 he even penetra ted as far as the mills ofLerna on the eastern coast
,a few miles south of Argos itself.
At the same time the Ottoman army of the west movedsouth again under a new commander
,Rashid Pasha of
Yannina,and laid final siege on April 2 7 to Mesolonghi ,
j ust a year after Byron had died of fever within it s walls .The Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frailmud-bastions
,and they more than held their own in the
amphi bious warfare of the lagoons . The struggle waschequered by the continual coming and going of the Greekand Ottoman fleets . They were indeed the decisive factorfor without the supporting squadron Rashid would havefound himself in the same straits as his predecessors a t theapproach of autumn
,while the slacknes s of the islanders in
keeping the sea allowed Mesolonghi to be isolated in January182 6. The rest was accomplished by the arrival of Ibrahimon the scene . His heavy batteries opened fire in Februaryhis gunboats secured command of the lagoons, and forced
2 06 Greece
Tsar Alexander,the vaccillator, died in November 182 5,
and was succeeded by his son Nicholas I , a s strong a characterand as active a will a s Sultan Mahmud himself. Nicholasapproached the Greek question without any disinclinationtowards a Turkish war and both Great Britain and Francefound an immediate interest in removing a ground of provocation which might lea d to such a rude disturbance of theEuropean Balance of Power On July 6
,182 7, a month
after Athens surrendered,the three powers concluded a
treaty for the pacificat ion of Greece,in which they bound
over both belligerent parties to accept an armistice underpain of mili tary coercion . An allied squadron appeared off
Navarino Bay to enforce this policy upon the Ottoman andEgyptian fleet which lay united there
,and the intrusion of
the allied admirals into the bay itself precipitated on
October 2 0 a violent naval battle in which the Moslemflotilla was destroyed . The die was cast and in April 182 8the Russian and Ottoman Governments drifted into a formal
war,which brought Russian armies across the Danube as
far a s Adrianople,and se t the Ottoman Empire at bay for
the defence of its capital . Thanks to Mahmud’s reorganization
,the empire did no t succumb to this assault but it had
no more strength to spare for the subj ugation of Greece .
The Greeks had no longer to reckon with the sultan a sa military factor and in August 182 8 they were relieved ofIbrahim ’s presence as well
,by the disembarkation of
French troops in Peloponnesos to superintend the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces . In March 1829 the threepowers delimited the Greek frontier . The line ran east andwest from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta
,and a ssigned
to the "new state no more and no less territory than thedistricts that had effectively asserted their independence
The Awakening of the N ation 2 07
against the sultan in 182 1 . This settlement was the only
one possible under the circumstances but it was essentiallytransitory
,for i t neglected the natural line of nationality
altogether,and left a numerical maj ority of the Greek race
,
as well as the most important centres of it s li fe, under the
old régime of servitude .
Even the liberated area wa s not a t the end of its troubles .In the Spring of 182 7, when they committed themselvesinto the hands of their foreign patrons
,the Greeks had
found a new president for the republic in John Kapodist rias,
an intimate of Alexander the tsar . Kapodistrias was a
Corfiot e count, with a Venetian education and a career inthe Russian diplomatic service, and no one could have beenmore fantastically unsuitable for the task of reconstructing thecountry to which -he was called . Kapodist rias
’ ideal was
thefin-de-siécle police-state but official circles did notexis t in Greece
,and he had no acquaintance with the
peasants and sailors whom he hoped to redeem by bureaucracy . He instituted a hierarchically centralized adminis
tration which made the abortive constitution of Mavro
kordatos seem sober by comparison ; he trampled on theliberty of the rising press
,which was the most hopeful
educational influence in the country ; and he createdsuperfluous ministerial portfolios for his untalented brothers .In fact he reg lament ed Greece from his palace at Aiginalike a divinely appointed autocra t
,from his arrival in
January 182 8 till the summer of 1831 , when he provoked the
Hydhriot s to Open rebellion, and commissioned the Russiansquadron in attendance to quell them by a naval action
,
with the result that Poros was sacked by the President’sregular army and the national fleet was completely destroyed .
After that,he attempted to rule a s a military dictator
,and
2 08 Greece
fell foul of the Mavromichalis of Maina . The Mainatesknew better how to deal with the police-s tate than the
Hydhrio t s ; and on October 9, 1 831 , Kapodistrias was
assassinated in Nauplia,a t the church door
,by two repre
sentat ive s of the Mavromichalis clan .
The country lapsed into utter anarchy . Peloponnesiansand Armatoli
,Koloko tronist s and Kole t t ist s, alternately
appointed and deposed subservient national a ssemblies andgoverning commissions by naked violence
,which culminated
in a gratuitous and disastrous attack upon the French troopsstationed in Peloponnesos for their common protection .
The three powers realized that i t was idle to libera te Greecefrom Ottoman government unless they found her anotherin it s place . They decided on monarchy
,and off ered the
crown,in February 1832 , to Prince Otto , a younger son of
the King of Bavaria . The negotiations dragged on many
months longer than Greece could afford to wait . But inJuly 1832 the sultan recognized the sovereign independenceof the kingdom of Hellas in consideration of a cash indemnity ;and in February 1833, j ust a year after the
“
firs t overtureshad been made
,the appointed king arrived a t Nauplia with
a decorative Bavarian staff and a substantial loan from theallies .
3
The Consolidation of the State
HALF the sto’ry of Greece is told . We have watched thenation awake and put forth its newly-found strength ina great war of independence
,and we have followed the
course of the struggle to its result—the foundation of thekingdom of Hellas .
2 10 Greece
repressed . Hydhrio t and Spe tziot , Sulio t and Mainate,for
fe it ed their characteris tic individuality, but none of thebenefits of orderly and uniform government were realized .
The canker of b r1g andag e defied all efforts to root i t out ,and in spite of the loans with which the royal government
was supplied by the protecting powers,the public finance
was subj ect to periodical breakdowns . In 1837 King Otto ,now of age
,took the government into his own hands
,only
to have it taken out of them again by a revolution in 1 843.
Thereafter he reigned as a constitutional monarch,but he
never reconciled himself to the position,and in 1862
a second revolution drove him into exile,a scapegoat for
the afflictions of his kingdom . Bavarian then gave place toDane
,yet the afllic tions continued . In 1882 King George
had been nineteen years on the throne 1 without any happierfortune than his predecessor’s . I t is true that the frontiersof the kingdom had been somewhat extended . Grea tBritain had presented the new sovereign with the IonianI slands a s an inaugural gift
,and the Berlin Conference had
recently added the province of Thessaly . Yet the majo r partof the Greek race still awaited liberation from the Turkishyoke
,and regarded the national kingdom
,chronically incapa
citat ed by the twin plagues of brigandage and bankruptcy,
with increasing disillusionment . The kingdom of Hellass eemed to have failed in its mission altogether .What was the explanation of this failure I t was tha tthe very nature of the mission paralysed the sta te fromtaking the steps essential to its accomplishment . Thephenomenon has been
,unhappily
,only too familiar in the
Nearer East,and any one who travelled in the Balkans in
1 King George , like King Otto , was on ly s eventeen years old whenhe re ce ived hi s crown .
The Consolidation of the State 2 1 1
1 882,or even so recently a s 191 2 , must at once have become
aware of it .Until a nation has completely vindicated i ts right to exis t
,
i t is hard for it to settle down and make its life worth living .
We nations of western Europe (before disa ster fell upon us)had learnt t o take our existence for granted , and Politicsfor us had come to mean an o rganized effort t o improve theinternal economy of our community . But a foreigner whopicked up a Greek newspaper would have found in i t noneof the matter with which he was familiar in his own
,no
discussion of financial policy,economic development
,or
social reconstruction . The news-columns would have beenmonopolized by foreign politics
,and in the cafés he would
have heard the latest oscilla tion in the international balance
of power canvassed w ith the same intense and minuteinterest that Englishmen in a railway-carriage would havebeen devoting t o Old Age Pensions
,National Health Insur
ance,or Land Valuation . He would have been amazed by
a display of intimate knowledge such a s no British quidnunccould have mustered if he had happened to stumble acrossthese intricacies of international competition
,and the con
versation would always have terminated in the same un
answered but inconscionable challenge to the future : When
will the oppressed maj ority o f our race escape the Turkishyoke If the Ottoman dominion is destroyed
,what redis
t rib ut ion of it s provinces will follow 1 Shall we then achieveour national unity
,or will our Balkan neighbours encroach
upon the inheritance which is j ustly oursThis preoccupation with events beyond the frontiers was
no t caused by any lack of vital problems within them . Thearmy was the most conspicuous obj ect of public activity
,
but it was no t an aggressive speculation, o r an investment
0 2
2 1 2 Greece
o f national profits deliberately calcula ted t o bring in one
day a larger return . I t was a necessity o f life,and its
efficiency was barely maintained out of the national poverty .
In fact,it was almost the only public utility with which the
nation could afford to provide itself,and the traveller from
Great Britain would have been amazed aga in at the miserables tate of all reproductive public works . The railways were
few and far between , their routes roundabout, and theirrolling-stock scanty
,so that trains were both rare and slow .
Wheel-roads were no commoner a fea ture in Greece thanrailways are here
,and such stretches a s had been constructed
had often never come into use,because they had j ust failed
to reach their goal or were still waiting for their bridges,
so that they were simply falling into decay and convertingthe outlay of capital upon them into a dead loss . ThePeiraeus was the only port in the country where steamerscould come alongside a quay
,and discharge their cargoes
directly on shore . Elsewhere,the vessel must anchor many
cables’ lengths ou t,and depend on the slow and expensive
services of lighters,for lack of pier construction and dredging
Operations . For example,Kalamata
,the economic outlet
for the richest part of Peloponnesos,and the fifth largest
port in the kingdom,
1 was and still remains a mere openroadstead
,where all ships that call are kep t a t a distance
by the silt from a mountain torrent,and so placed in im
minent danger of being driven,by the first storm
,upon
the rocks of a neighbouring peninsula .
These grave shortcomings were doubtles s due in part tothe geographical character of the country
,though it was
clear,from what had actually been accomplished
,that it
would have been both possible and profitable to attempt1 The four chief p ort s being Peiraeus
,Patras
,Syra
,and Volos .
2 14 Greece
i t s future,and its actions paralysed by it s hopes . Perhaps
a nation with more power of application and less of imagination would have schooled itself to the thought that thesesordid
,obtrusive details were the key t o the splendours of
the future,and would have devoted itself to the systematic
amelioration of the cramped area which it had alreadysecured for i t s own . This i s what Bulgaria managed todo during her short but wonderful period of internal growthbetween the Berlin Treaty of 1878 and the declaration of
war against Turkey in 191 2 . But Bulgaria,thanks to her
geographical situation,was from the outset freer from the
tentacles of the Turkish octopus than Greece had contrived
t o make herself by her fifty years’ start,while her tempera
mentally sober ambitions were no t inflamed by such pasttraditions a s Greece had inherited
,not altogether to her
advantage . Be that a s it may,Greece
,whether by fault or
misfortune,had failed during this half-century to apply
herself successfully to the cure of her defect s and theexploitation of her assets
,though she did not lack leaders
s trong-minded enough t o summon her to the dull businessof the present . Her history during the succeeding generation was a struggle between the parties of the Present andthe Future
,and the unceasing discomfi ture of the former
is typified in the tragedy of Trikoupis, the greatest modernGreek statesman before the advent of V enezelos.
Trikoupis came into power in 1 882,j ust after the acquisi
tion of the rich agricultural province of Thessaly under theTreaty of Berlin had given the kingdom a fresh start . Therewere no such continuous area s of good arable land withinthe original frontiers
,and such rare patches a s there were
had been desola ted by those eight years of savage warfare 1
1182 1—2 8.
The Consolidation of the State 2 1 5
which had been the price of liberty . The population hadbeen swept away by wholesale massacres of racial minoritiesin every district ; the dearth of industrious hands hadallowed the torrents to play havoc with the cultivationterraces on the mountain s10pes ; and the Spectre of malaria ,always lying in wait for it s opportunity
,had claimed the
waterlogged plains for its own . During the fifty years ofs tagnation little attempt had been made to cope with theevil
,until now i t seemed almost past remedy.
I f,however; the surface of the land offered little prospect
of wealth for the moment,there were considerable trea sures
to be found beneath it . A metalliferous belt runs downthe whole eas t coast of the Greek mainland
,cropping up
again in many of the Aegean islands,and some of the o res
,
of which there is a grea t variety,are rare and valuable .
The lack of transit facilities i s partly remedied by the fac tthat wo rkable veins often li e near enough to the sea for theproduce to be carried s traight from mine to ship , by anendless-chain system of overhead trolleys ; so that , oncecapital is secured for installing the plant and opening themine
,profitable Operations can be carried on irrespective
o f the general economic condition of the country. Trikoupis
saw how much potential wealth was locked up in thesemineral seams . -The problem was how to attract the capita lnecessary to tap it . The nucleus round which have accumulat ed those immense masses of mobilized capital that arethe l ife—blood of modern European industry and commerce ,was originally derived from the surplus profits of agriculture .
But a country that finds itself reduced,like Greece in the
nineteenth century,t o a s ta te of agricultural bankruptcy, has
obviously failed t o save any surplus in the process , so tha ti t is unable to provide from it s own pocket the minimum
2 1 6 Greece
outlay it so urgently needs in order to open for itself somenew activity . If i t is to obtain a fresh start on other lines,i t must secure the co—operation of the foreign investor
,and
the capitalis t with a ready market for his money will onlyput it into enterprises where he has some guarantee of it s
safety . There was little doubt that the minerals of Greecewould well repay extraction ; the uncertain element was theGreek nation itself . The burning question of national unitymight b reak out a t any moment into a blaze of war
,and
,
in the probable case of disas ter,involve the whole country
and all interests connected with it in economic as well a spolitical ruin . Western Europe would not commit itself toGreek mining enterprise
,unless i t felt confident that the
statesman responsible for the government of Greece wouldand could restrain his country from its instinctive impulsetowards political a dventure .
The great merit of Trikoupis was tha t he managed toinspire this confidence . Greece owes most of the wheelroads
,railways
,and mines of which she can now boast to
the dozen years of his more or less consecutive a dministration . But the roads are unfinished
,the railway-network
incomplete,the mines exploited only to a fraction of their
capacity,because the forces ag alnst Trikoupis were in the
end too strong for him . I t may be that his eye too rigidlyfollowed the foreign investor’s point of view
,and that by
adopting a more conciliatory attitude towards the nationalideal
,he might have strengthened his position a t home
without impairing his reputation abroad ; but his positionwas really made impo ssible by a force quite beyond hiscontrol
,the irresponsible and often intolerable behaviour
which Turkey,under whatever régime
,has always practised
towards foreign powers,and especially towards those Balkan
2 1 8 Greece
This comparative stagnation was broken at last by theYoung Turk pronunciarniento at Salonika in 1908, which produced such momentous repercussions all through the NearerEast . The Young Turks had struck in order to forestallthe dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
,but the Opportunity
was seized by every restive element within it to extricateitself
,if possible
,from the Turkish coils . Now
,j ust as in
1897, Greece was directly aff ected by the action of theGreek population in Krete . As a result of the revolt of
1896—7, Krete had been constituted an autonomous state
subj ect to Ottoman suzerainty,autonomy and suzerainty
alike being guaranteed by four great powers . Prince Georgeof Greece
,a son of the King of the Hellenes
,had been
placed a t the head of the autonomous government a s highcommissioner ; but his autocratic tendency caused greatdiscontent among the free-spirited Kre tans
,who had no t
rid themselves of the Turkish régime in order to forfeittheir independence again in another fashion . Dissensionculminated in 1906, when the leaders of the opposition tookto the mountains
,and obtained such support and success in
the guerrilla fighting that followed,that they forced Prince
George to tender his resignation . He was succeeded as highcommissioner by Zaimis
,another citizen of the Greek king
dom,who inaugurated a more constitutional régime
,and
in 1908 the K re tans believed that the moment for realizingthe national ideal had come . They proclaimed their union
with Greece,and elected deputies to the Parliament a t
Athens . But the guarantor powers carried out their obligations by promptly sending a combined naval expedition
,
which hauled down the Greek flag a t Canea,and prevented
the deputies from embarking for Peiraeus . This apparentlypedantic insis tence upon the status guo was extremely
The Consolidation of the State 2 1 9
exasperating to Greek nationalism . I t produced a fermentin the kingdom
,which grew steadily for nine months
,and
vented itself in July 1909 in the coup d’eta t of the Mili tary
League ’
,a second-hand imitation of the Turkish Com
mit t ee o f Union and Progress ’. The royal family was
cavalierly treated,and constitutional government superseded
by a j unta of offi cers . But a t this point the policy of thefour powers towards Krete was j ustified . Turkey knew welltha t she had lost Krete in 1897, but she could still exploither suzerainty to prevent Greece from gaining new strengthby the annexation of the island . The Young Turks hadseized the reins of government
,not to modify the policy
of the Porte,but to intensify it s chauvinism
,and they
accordingly intimated tha t they would consider any violation of their suze ram rights over Krete a casus belli againstGreece . Greece
,without army or allies
,was obviously not
in a position to incur another war,and the ‘Military
League ’ thus found that it had reached the end of it stether . There ensued a deadlock of another eight months ,only enlivened by a naval mutiny
,during which the country
lay paralysed,with no programme whatsoever before it .
Then the man demanded by the situation appearedunexpectedly from the centre of disturbance
,Krete .
V enezelos s tarted life a s a successful advocate a t Canea .
He entered Kre tan politic s in the struggle for const itu
t ionalism,and distinguished himself in the successful revolu
tion of 1906, of which he was the soul . Naturally,he
became one of the leading s tatesmen under Zaimis’ régime ,and he further dis tinguished himself by resolutely opposingthe ‘Unionist agitation as premature
,and yet retaining
his hold over a people whose paramount political preoccupation was their national unity . The crisis o f 1908
—9
2 2 0 Greece
brought him into close relations with the government ofthe Greek kingdom ; and the king , who had gauged hiscalibre
,now took the patriotic step of calling in the man
who had expelled his son from Krete,to put his own house
in order . I t speaks much for both men that they workedtogether in harmony from the beginning . Upon the royalinvitation Venezelos exchanged Kre tan for Greek citizenship
,and took in hand the Military League After short
negotiations,he persuaded it to dissolve in favour of a
national convention,which was able to meet in March 1910 .
Thus Greece became a constitutional country once more,
and V enezelos the firs t premier of the new era . Duringfive years of continuous oflice he was to prove himself thegood genius of his country . When he resigned his post inApril 1915, he left the work of consolidating the nationals tate on the verge of completion
,and it will be his
country’s loss i f he is baulked of achievement . Resultsspeak for themselves
,and the remainder of this pamphlet
will be little more than a record of his statesmanship butbefore we pass on to review his deeds
,we must say a word
about the character to which they are due . In March 191 2
the time came for the firs t general election since V enezeloshad taken office . Two years’ experience of his administration had already won him such popularity and prestige
,tha t
the old party groups,purely personal followings infected
with all the corruption,j ingoism
,and insincerity of the dark
fifteen years,leagued themselves in a desperate effort to cas t
him out . Corruption on a grand scale was attempted,but
V enezelos’ success a t the polls was sweeping . The writer
happened to be spending‘ that month in Krete . TheKre tans had, of course, elected deputies in good time tothe parliament a t Athens
,and once more the foreign war
2 2 2 Greece
Patras,on account of the number of criminals wanted by
the government who were lurking in that region a s outlaw s .In August 191 2 an inquiry concerning this danger was met
with a smile : Oh , yes , it was so ,’ said the gendarme
,but
since then V enezelos has come . He amnestied every one
out ” for minor offences,and then caught the “ really
bad ones so there are no outlaws in Akarnania now .
’ Andhe spoke the truth . You could wander all about the forestsand mountains without mo lestation .
So far V enezelos had devoted himself to internal reconstruction
,after the precedent of Trikoupis, but he was not
the man to desert the national idea . The army and navy
were reorganized by French and B ritish missions,and when
the opportunity appeared,he was ready to take full advan
tage of it . In the autumn of 191 2 , Turkey had been fora year a t war with I taly her finances had suff ered a heavydrain
,and the Italian command of the sea not only locked
up her best t100ps in Tripoli,but interrupted such important
lines of communication between her Asia tic and Europeanprovinces a s the direct route by sea from Smyrna to Salonika
,
and the devious sea-passage thence round Greece t o Scutari,
which was the only alternative for Turkish troop s to runningthe gauntlet of the Albanian mountaineers . Clearly theBalkan nations could find no better moment for s triking theblow to settle that implacable preliminary question of
national unity which had dogged them all since their birth .
Their only chance of success,however
,was to strike in
concert,for Turkey
,handicapped though she was
,could
still easily outmatch them singly . Unless they could com
promise between their conflicting claims,they would have
to let this common opportunity for making them good slipby altogether .
The Consolidation of the State 2 2 3
Of the four states concerned,two
,Serbia and Monte
negro,were of the same South—Slavonic nationality, and had
been drawn into complete accord with each other since theformal annexation of Bosnia by Austria—Hungary in 1908,
which struck a hard blow at their common national idea,
while neither of them had any conflic ting claims with Greece,
s ince the Greek and South-Slavonic nationalities are at nopoint geographically in contact . With Bulgaria , a nationof Slavonic speech and culture, though not wholly Slavonicin origin
,Serbia had quarrelled for years over the ultimate
destiny of the Uskiib district in north-western Macedonia,
which was still subj ect to Turkey ; but in the summer of191 2 the two s ta tes compromised in a secret treaty upontheir respective territo rial ambitions
,and agreed to refer
the fate o f one debatable s trip to the arbitration of Russia,
after their already proj ected war with Turkey had beencarried through . There was a more formidable conflic t ofinterests between Bulgaria and Greece . These two nationalit ies are conterminous over a very wide extent of territory
,
s tretching from the Black Sea on the east to the inlandLake of Okhrida on the west
,and there is a t no point
a sharp dividing line between them . The Greek elementtends t o predominate towards the coast and the Bulgartowards the interio r
,but there are broad zones where Greek
and Bulgar villages are inextricably interspersed,while purely
Greek towns are o ften isolated in the midst of purely Bulgarrural districts . Even if the racial areas could be plottedout on a large-scale map
,i t was clear that no political
frontier could be drawn t o follow their convolutions,and
that Greece and Bulgaria could only divide the spoils byboth making up their minds to give and take . The actuallines this necessary compromise would follow,
obviously
2 2 4 Greece
depended on the degree of the allies’ succes s against Turkeyin the common war that was yet to be fought
,and V enezelos
rose to the occasion . He had the courage t o offer Bulgariathe Greek alliance without stipulating for any definiteminimum share in the common conquests
,and the tac t to
induce her to accept i t on the same terms . Greece andBulgaria agreed to shelve all territorial questions till thewar had been brought to a successful close ; and with thenegotiation of this understanding (another case in which
V enezelos achieved what Trikoupis had attempted only tofail) the Balkan League was complete .
The events that followed are common knowledge . TheBalkan allies opened the campaign in October
,and the
Turks collap sed before an impetuous a ttack . The Bulgarianscrumpled up the Ottoman field armies in Thrace a t theterrific battle of Lule Burgas the Serbians disposed of theforces in the Macedonian interior
,while the Greeks effected
a j unction with the Serbians from the south,and cut their
way through to Salonika . Within two months of thedeclaration of war
,the Turks on land had been driven out
of the open altogether behind the shelter of the Chataldj aand Gallipoli lines
,and only three fortresses—Adrianople
,
Yannina , and Scutari— held out further to the west . Theirnavy, closely blockaded by the Greek fleet within theDardanelles
,had to look on passively a t the successive
occupation of the Aegean Islands by Greek landing—parties .With the winter came negotiations
,during which an
armistice reigned a t Adrianople and Scutari,while the
Greeks pursued the siege of Yannina and the Dardanellesblockade . The negotiations proved abortive
,and the result
of the renewed hostilities j ustified the action of the Balkanplenipotentiaries in breaking them off . By the spring of
2 2 6 Greece
without including as well a certain hinterland inhabitedmainly by Bulgarians . The cession of this was the returna sked for by V enezelos, and he reduced it to a minimumby abstaining from pressing the quite well-founded claims
of Greece in the Monastir dis trict, which lay further inland
s till .But V enezelos’ concilia tory proposals met with no response
from the Bulgarian Government,which was in an all or
nothing mood . I t swallowed V enezelos’ gift of Thrace,
and then proceeded to exploit the Bulgar hinterland of
Salonika as a pretext for demanding the latter city a s well .This uncompromising attitude made agreement impossible
,
and it was aggravated by the aggressive action of the Bulgarian troops in the occupied territory, who persistentlyendeavoured to steal ground from the Greek forces facingthem . In May there was serious fighting to the ea st of theS truma
,and peace was only restored with difliculty. Bul
garian relations with Serbia were becoming strained a t thesame time
,though in this case Bulgaria had more j ustice
on her side . Serbia maintained that the veto imposed byAustria upon her expansion to the Adriatic
,in coincidence
with Bulgaria’s unexpected gains on the Maritsa to whichSerbian arms had contributed
,invalidated the secret treaty
o f the previous summer, and she announced her intention
of retaining the Monastir district and the line o f the Salonikarailway as far a s the future frontier of Greece . Bulgaria
,
on the other hand,shut her eyes to Serbia ’s necessity for
an untrammelled economic outlet to one sea-board or theother
,and took her stand on her strictly legal treaty—rights .
However the balance of j ustice inclined,a lasting settlement
could only have been reached by mutual forbearance andgoodwill ; but Bulgaria put herself hopelessly in the wrong
The Consolidation of the State 2 2 7
towards both her allies by a treacherous night-a ttack uponthem all along the line
,a t the end of June 1913. This
disastrous act was the work of a single political party, whichhas since been condemned by most sections of Bulgarianpublic opinion ; but the punishment , if not the responsib ility for the crime, fell upon the whole nation . Greeceand Serbia had already been drawn into an understandingby their common danger . They now declared war agains tBulgaria in concert . The counter-strokes of their armiesmet with success
,and the intervention of Rumania made
Bulgaria’s discomfi ture certain .
The results of the one month’s war were regis tered in theTreaty of Bucarest . Many of it s provisions were unhappily
,
though naturally,inspired by the spiri t of revenge ; but the
Greek premier,a t any rate
,showed a statesmanlike self
restraint in the negotia tions . V enezelos advocated thecourse of taking no more after the war than had beendemanded before it . He desired to leave Bulgaria a broadzone of Aegean littoral between the Struma and Maritsarivers
,including ports capable of s atisfying Bulgaria
’s p ressingneed for an outle t towards the south . But
,in the exasperated
s tate o f public feeling,even V enezelos’ prestige failed to
carry through his policy in its full moderation . King Georgehad j us t been a ssassinated in his year o f j ubilee
,in the streets
of the long-desired Salonika and King Constantine,his son
,
flushed by the victory of Kilkish and encouraged by theMachiavellian diplomacy of his Hohenzollern brother-inlaw
,insis ted on carrying the new Greek frontier a s far eas t
a s the river Mesta,and depriving Bulgaria of Kavala
,the
natural harbour for the whole Bulgarian hinterland in theupper basins of the Mesta and S truma .
I t is true that Greece did not exact a s much as she might
P 2
2 8 Greece
have done . Bulgaria was still allowed to possess herself ofa coastal s trip east of the Mesta
,containing the tolerable
harbours of Porto Lagos and Dedeag atch , which had beenoccupied during hostilities by the Greek fleet
,and thus her
need for an Aegean outlet was not left unsatisfied altogether ;while Greece on her part was cleverly shielded for thefuture from those drawbacks involved in immediate contactwith Turkish territory
,which she had so often experienced
in the past . I t is also true that the Kavala district is ofgrea t economic value in itself— it produces the better partof the Turkish Régie tobacco crop—and that on groundso f nat IOnality alone Bulgaria has no claim to this prize, sincethe tobacco-growing peasantry is almost exclusively Greek
or Turk,while the Greek element ha s been extensively
reinforced during the las t two years by refugees fromAnatolia and Thrace .
Nevertheless,i t is already clear that V enezelos’ j udgement
was the better . The settlement at the close of the present
war may even yet bring Bulgaria reparation in manyquarters . I f the Ruman and South Slavonic populationsa t present included in the complexus of Austria—Hungaryare freed from their imprisonment and united with theSerbian and Rumanian national s tates
,Bulgaria may con
ceivab ly recover from the latter those Bulgarian lands whichthe Treaty of Bucarest made over to them in central Macedonia and the Dob rudj a, while it would be still more fea sibleto oust the Turk again from Adrianople
,where he slipped
back in the hour of Bulgaria’s prostration and has succeededin maintaining himself ever since . Yet no amount of com
p ensat ion in other directions and no abstrac t considerationfor the national principle will induce Bulgaria to renounceher claim on Greek Kavala . Access to this district is vital
2 30 Greece
momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea—power . Thusi t happened that the arrival of the Goeben and B reslaua t the Dardanelles in August 1914 led Turkey to reopenpromptly certain questions concerning the Aegean . Theislands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population
,but
their respective geographical positions and political fortunesdiff erentiate them into several groups .I . The Cyclades in the south-west
,half submerged van
guards of mountain ranges in continental Greece,have
formed part of the modern kingdom from its birth,and
their status has never since been called into question .
2 . Krete,the largest of all Greek islands
,has been dealt
with already . She enj oyed autonomy under Turkish suzerainty for fiftéen years before the Balkan War, and a t itsoutbreak she once more proclaimed her union with Greece .
This time a t las t her action was legalized,when Turkey
expressly abandoned her suzerain rights by a clause in theTreaty of London .
3. During the war itself,the Greek navy occupied
a number of i slands which had remained till then underthe more direct government of Turkey . The parties to theTreaty of London agreed to leave their destiny to the decision
of the powers,and the latter a ssigned them all to Greece
,
with the exception of Imbros and Tenedos which commandstrategically the mouth of the Dardanelles .The islands thus secured to Greece fall in turn intoseveral sub -groups .Two of these are (a) Thasos , Samothraki, and Lemnos,
off the European coast,and (b) Samos and its satellite
Nikaria,immediately off the west coast of Anatolia ; and
these five islands seem definitely to have been given up byTurkey for lost . The European group is well beyond therange of her present frontiers ; while S amos, though it
The Consolidation of the State 2 31
adj oins the Turkish mainland,does not mask the outlet
from any considerable port,and had moreover for many
years possessed the same privileged autonomy as Krete,so
tha t the Ottoman Government did not acutely feel it sfinal severance .
(c) A third group consist s of M itylini and Khios,1 andconcerning this pair Greece and Turkey have so fa r comet o no understanding . The Turks pointed out that thelittoral off which these islands lie contains not only the mostindispensable ports of Anatolia but also the larges t enclavesof Greek population on the Asiatic mainland
,and they
declared that the o ccupation of this group by Greecemenaced the sovereignty of the Porte in its home territory .
See they said,how the two islands flank both sides of
the sea-passage to Smyrna,the terminus of all the railways
which penetrate the Anatolian interior,while Mitylini barri
cades Aivali and Edremid as well . As soon as the GreekGovernment has converted the harbours of these islandsinto naval bases
,Anatolia will be subj ec t t o a perpetual
Greek blockade,and this violent intimida tion of the Turkish
people will be reinforced by an insidious propaganda amongthe disloyal Greek elements in our midst . ’ Accordingly theTurks refused to recognize the award of the powers , anddemanded the re-establi shment of Ottoman sovereignty inMitylini and Khios , under guarantee of an autonomy after
the precedent of Krete and Samos .To these arguments and demands the Greeks replied that,next to Krete
,these are the two largest, most wealthy, and
most populous Greek islands in the Aegean ; that theirinhabitants ardently desire union with the national king
dom ; and that the Greek Government would hesitate to
use them as a basis for economic coercion and nationalistic1 Including its famous sate lli te Psara.
2 32 Greece
propaganda agains t Turkey, if only because the commerce
of western Anatolia is almost exclusively in the hands of the
Greek element on the Asiatic continent . Greek interestswere presumably bound up with the economic prosperity andpolitical consolidation of Turkey in Asia
,and the Anatolian
Greeks would merely have been alienated from their com
patriots by any such impolitic machinations . Greek sovereig nty in Mitylini and Khios the Greeks maintained
,
does not threaten Turkish sovereignty on the Continent .But the restoration of Turkish suzerainty over the islandswould most seriously endanger the liberty of their inhab i
tants for Turkish promises are notoriously valueless,excep t
when they are endorsed by the guarantee of some physicallys tronger power . ’
Negotia tions were conducted between Greece and Turkeyfrom these respective points of V iew without leading to anyresult
,and the two standpoints were in fact irreconcilable
,
s ince either power required the other to leave vital nationalinterests a t the mercy of an ancient enemy
,without under
taking to make corresponding sacrifices itself . The problemprobably would never have been solved by compromise ; butmeanwhile the s ituation has been entirely transformed bythe participation of Turkey in the European War
,and the
i ssue between Greece and Turkey,like the is sue between
Greece and Bulgaria,has been merged in the general
problem of the European settlement .The Balkan War of 191 2 doomed the Ottoman power inEurope
,but left it s Asiatic future unimpaired . By making
war against the Quadruple Entente,Turkey has s taked her
existence on both continents,and is threatened with political
extinction if the Central Powers succumb in the struggle .In this event Greece will no longer have to accommodateher reg ime in the liberated islands to the susceptibilities of
2 34 Greece
these,though formerly the property of Turkey
,are now in
the hands of other European powers .
(a) The firs t of tho se in question are the Sporades, a chainof islands off the Anatolian co as t which continues the lineo f Mitylini, Khios , and Samos towards the south—east, andincludes Kos
,Patmos
,Astypalia, Karpathos , Kasos
,and
,
above all,Rhodes . The Sporades were occupied by I taly
during her war with Turkey in 191 1—1 2
,and she stipulated
in the Peace of Lausanne that she should retain them asa pledge until the las t Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had beenwithdrawn
,a fter which she would make them over again
t o the Porte . The continued unrest in Tripoli may or
may not have been due to Turkish intrigues,but in any
case it deferred the evacuation of the islands by I taly untilthe S ituation was transformed here also by the successiveintervention of both powers in the European War . Theconsequent lapse of the Treaty of Lausanne simplifies thes tatus of the Sporades
,but it is doubtful what effect it will
have upon their destiny . In language and political sympathytheir inhabitants are a s completely Greek a s all the otheri slanders of the Aegean
,and if the Quadruple Entente ha s
made the principle of nationality its own,I taly i s morally
bound,now that the Sporades are a t her free disposal
,to
satisfy their national a spirations by consenting to their unionwith the kingdom of Greece . On the other hand
,the pro
spect ive dissolution of the Ottoman Empire has increased
I taly’s s take in this quarter . In the event of a partition ,the whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fallwithin the I talian sphere
,which will start from the Gulf
of Iskanderun,include the districts o f Adana and Adalia ,
and march with the new Anatolian provinces of Greecealong the line of the river M ende re . This continentaldomain and the adj acent islands are geographically com
The Consolidation of the State 2 35
plementary to one another, and i t i s possible that I taly mayfor strategical reasons insis t on retaining the Sporades inperpetuity if she realizes her ambitions on the continent .This solution would be less i deal than the other
,but Greece
would be wise to reconcile herself to it,a s I taly has recon
ciled herself to the incorporation of Corsica in France ; forby submitting frankly to this detraction from her nationalunity She would give her brethren in the Sporades the bestopportunity of developing their national individuali ty un
trammelled under a friendly Italian suzerainty .
(b) The advance-guard of the Greek race that inhabitsthe great island o f Cyprus has been subj ec t to Britishgovernment since 1 878 , when the provisional occupation ofthe island by Grea t Britain under a contrac t similar to thatof Lausanne was negotia ted in a secret agreement betweenGreat Britain and Turkey on the eve of the Conference a tBerlin . The condition of evacuation was in this ca se thewithdrawal of Russia from Kars , and here likewise it neverbecame Operative till it was abrogated by the outbreak of
war . Cyprus,like the Sporades
,i s now a t the disposal of
it s de facto possessor,and on November 5, 1914, i t was
annexed to the British Empire . But whatever decision I talymay take
,i t i s to be hoped that our own government a t
any rate will not be influenced exclusively by strategicalconsiderations
,but will proclaim an intention of allowing
Cyprus ultimately to realize its national a spirations by unionwith Greece .
1
The whole population of the island is Greek in language,
while under an excellent British administration it s politicalconsciousness has been awakened
,and has expressed itself
1 Since the above was writ t en,thi s inten t ion
,under a certain condi
t ion , has definite ly been expre ssed .
2 36 Greece
in a growing desire for national unity among the Christianmaj ority . I t is true tha t in Cyprus, as in Krete
,there is
a considerable Greek—speaking minority of Moslems 1 whoprefer the status quo but
,since the barrier of language is
absent,their antipathy to union may not prove permanent .
However important the retention of Cyprus may be toGreat Britain from the strategical point o f view
,we shall
find that even in the balance of material interests i t i s notwo rth the pric e of alienating the sympathy of an awakenedand otherwise consolidated nation .
This ra ther detailed review of problems in the islandsand Anatolia brings out the fac t tha t Greek nationalism isnot an artificial conception of theorists
,but a real force
which impels the most sca ttered and down-trodden populations of Greek speech to t ravail unceasingly for politicalunity within the national s tate . Yet by far the most s trikingexample of this a ttrac tive power in Hellenism is the historyof it in Epirus 2
The Epirot s are a popula tion of Albanian race,and they
still Speak an Albanian dialec t in their homes ; while thewomen and children , a t any rate , often know no otherlanguage . But somewhat over a century ag o the politicalorganism created by the remarkable personality of Ali Pashain the hinterland of the Adria tic coast
,and the relations
of Great Britain and France with this new principality inthe course of their s truggle for the Mediterranean
,began
to awaken in the Epirot s a desire for civilization . TheirAlbanian origin opened to them no prospects
,for the race
had neither a literature nor a common historical tradition
1 In Cyprus about 2 2 per cen t .2 The name coined to include the di s trict s of Himarra
,Argyrokastro
,
and K oritsa‘i .
2 38 Greece
commercial communit l es of Alexandria and Constant lnople
while,if he s tays a t home
,i t s till affords him a link with the
life of civilized Europe through the medium of the ubi
quitous Greek newspaper .1 The Epirot ha s thus become
Greek in soul,for he has reached the conception of a national
life more liberal than the isolated exis tence of his nativevillage through the avenue of Greek culture . Hellenismand nationality have become for him identical ideas ; andwhen a t la s t the hour of deliverance s truck
,he welcomed
the Greek a rmies that marched into his country from thesouth and the ea st
,after the fall of Yannina in the spring
o f 1913, with the same enthusiasm with which all theenslaved popula tions of native Greek dialect greeted theconsummation of a century’s hopes .The Greek troop s arrived only j ust in time
,for the
Hellenism of the Epiro t s had been terribly proved bymurderous a ttacks from their Moslem neighbours on thenorth . The latter speak a variety of the same Albaniantongue
,but were differentia ted by a creed which a ssimila ted
them to the ruling race . They had been superior to theirChristian kinsmen by the weight of numbers and the possession of a rms
,which under the Ottoman régime were the
monopoly of the Mo slem . At last,however
,the yoke of
oppres sion was broken and the Greek occupation seemeda harbinger o f security for the future . Unluckily
,however
,
Epirus was of interest to others besides it s own inhabitants .I t occupies an important geographical position fac ing theextreme heel of I taly
,j us t below the narrowes t point in
the neck o f the Adria tic,and the I talian Government
insi sted that the country should be included in the newly
1 There i s s t i ll pract ically no l i terature printed in the Albanianlanguage .
The Consolidation of the State 2 39
erected principality of Albania , which the powers hadreserved the right t o delimit in concert by a provision inthe Treaty of London .
I taly gave two reasons for her demand . First,she declared
i t incompatible with her own vital interests that both shoresof the strait between Corfu and the mainland should passinto the hands of the same power
,because the combination
o f both coasts and the channel between them offered a sitefor a naval base that might dominate the mouth of theAdria tic . Secondly
,she maintained tha t the native Albanian
speech o f the Epiro t s proved their Albanian nationality, andthat i t was unj us t t o the new Albanian s ta te to excludefrom it the most prosperous and civilized branch of theAlbanian nation . Neither argument is cogent .The firs t argument could easily be met by the neutralization o f the Corfus traits
,
1 and it is also considerablyweakenedby the fac t tha t the position which really commands themouth of the Adriatic from the ea stern side is not the Co rfuchannel beyond i t but the magnificent bay of Avlona j u st
within it s narrowest sec tion , and this i s aMoslem distric tto which the Epiro t s have never laid claim ,
and which
would therefore In any case fall within the Albanian frontier .
The second argument is almo s t ludicrous . The destiny of
Epirus is no t primarily the concern of the other Albanians,
o r for tha t matter of the Greeks , but of the Epiro t s themselves
,and it is hard to se e how their nationality can be
defined excep t in terms o f their own conscious and expressed
desire ; for a nation is simply a group of men inspired bya common will to co -operate for certain purposes
,and cannot
be brought into existence by the external manipulation o f
1 Corfu i t se lf i s neu t rali zed a lready by the agreement under whichGreat Bri tain tran sfe rred the Ionian Is land s to Gre e ce in 1 863.
2 40 Greece
any Specific obj ective factors,but solely by the inward sub
j ect ive impulse o f it s constituents . I t was a travesty of
j us tice to put the Orthodox Epiro t s a t the mercy of a Mos
lem maj ority (which had been massacring them the yearbefore) on the ground tha t they happened to speak thesame l anguage . The hardship was aggravated by the fac tthat all the routes connecting Epirus with the outer worldrun through Yannina and S alonika
,from which the new
frontier sundered her ; while great natural barriers separateher from Avlona and Durazzo
,with which the same frontier
so ironically signalled her union .
The award of the powers roused great indignation inGreece
,but V enezelos was strong enough to secure that
i t should scrupulously be respected ; and the‘correc t
a ttitude which he inflexib ly maintained has finally wonits reward . As soon a s the decision of the powers wasannounced
,the Epiro t s determined to help themselves .
They raised a militia,and asserted their independence so
successfully,that they compelled the Prince of Wied
,the
firs t (and perhap s the las t) ruler of the new‘Albania to
give them home rule in matters of police and education,
and to recognize Greek a s the official language for theirlocal administra tion . They ensured observance of this compact by the maintenance of their troop s under arms . Somatters continued
,until a rebellion among his Moslem
subj ect s and the outbreak of the European War in thesummer of 1914 obliged the prince to depart , leavingAlbania to its natural s tate of anarchy . The anarchy mighthave restored every canton and village to the old s tate of
contented isolation,had it not been for the religious hatred
between the Moslems and the Epirot s, which , with theremoval of all external control
,began to vent itself in an
242 Greece
depreciate modern Hellenism chiefly because it s ambitiousdenomination rather ludicrously challenges comparison witha vanished glory
,while any one who has s tudied it s rise
must perceive that i t has lit tle more claim than westernEurope itself to be the peculiar heir of ancient Greek culture .
And yet this Hellenism o f recent growth has a genuinevitality of it s own . I t displays a remarkable power o f
a ssimilating alien elements and inspiring them to an activepursuit of i ts ideals
,and it s allegiance supplants all others
in the hearts of those exposed to it s charm . The Epiro t sare not the only Albanians who have been Hellenized . Inthe heart of central Greece and Peloponnesos
,on the plain
of Argos,and in the suburbs of Athens
,there are still
Albanian enclaves,derived from those successive migra tions
between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries butthey have so entirely forgotten their origin that the villagers
,
when questioned,can only repea t We can’t say why we
happen to speak “ Arvanitika but we are Greeks likeeverybody else .
’ The Vlachs again,a Romance-speaking
tribe of nomadic shepherds who have wandered a s far southa s Akarnania and the shores of the Korinthian Gulf
,are
settling down there to the agricultural life of the Greekvillage
,so tha t Hellenism stands to them for the transition
to a higher social phase . Their s till migratory brethren inthe northern ranges of Pindus a re already Hellenes inpolitical sympathy
,
1 and are moving under Greek influencetowards the same social evolution . In dis tant Cappadocia
,
a t the root of the Anatolian peninsula,the Orthodox Greek
population,submerged beneath the Turkish flood more than
1 Gre ece owed her nava l supremacy in 1912—13 to the new crui ser
Georg ios A verof , named aft er a Vlach millionaire who made hi s fortunein the Greek colony at Alexandria and left a legacy for the ship’s cons t ruction at hi s dea th .
The Consolidation of the State
eight centuries ago,has retained little individuality excep t
in its religion,and nothing of it s native speech but a garbled
vocabulary embedded in a Turkified syntax . Yet even thisdwindling rear-guard has been overtaken j ust in time bythe returning current of national life
,bringing with it the
Greek school,and with the school a community of outlook
with Hellenism the world over . Whatever the fa te o f
eastern Anatolia may be,the Greek element is now assured
a prominent part in i ts future .
These,moreover
,are the peripheries of the Greek world ;
and a t it s centre the impulse towards union in the nationals ta te reaches a passionate intensity . Aren ’t you better offa s you are l travellers used to ask in Krete during the era ofautonomy .
‘I f you get your “Union ”
,you will have to
do two years’ military service instead of one year’s trainingin the militia
,and will be taxed up to half as much again .
’
‘We have thought of that,
’ the Kre tans would reply, butwhat does i t matter
,if we are united with Greece 3
On this unity modern Hellenism has concentrated it sefforts
,and after nearly a century of ineffective endeavour
i t has been brought by the sta tesmanship of V enezelos
within s ight of its goal . Our review of outstanding problemsreveals indeed the inconclusiveness of the settlement imposeda t Bucarest ; but this only Witnesses to the wisdom of theGreek nation in reaffirming it s confidence in V enezelos a tthe present j uncture
,and recalling him to power to crown
the work which he has so brilliantly carried through . UnderV enezelos
’ guidance we cannot doub t tha t the heart’s desireof Hellenism will be accomplished a t the impending European settlement by the final consolidation of the Hellenicnational s tate .1
1 Thi s paragraph, again , ha s b een sup erseded by the drama t ic turnof event s but the wri ter has le ft it unaltered , for the end i s not yet .
Q Z
244 Greece
Yet however a ttrac tive the sincerity of such nationalism
may be,political unity is only a negative achievement . The
history of a nation must be j udged rather by the positivecontent of it s ideals and the positive results which it a ttains ,and herein the Hellenic revival displays certain grave shortcomings
.The internal paralysis of social and economic life
has already been noted and a scribed to the urgency of thepreliminary question but we must now add to this thegrowing embitterment which has poisoned the relations ofGreece with her B alkan neighbours during the crises throughwhich the preliminary question has been worked out toi ts solution . Now that this solution is a t hand, will Hel
lenism prove capable of ca sting out these two evils , andadap t itself with strength renewed to the new phase of
development tha t lies before i t i‘
The northern territories acquired in 1913will give a muchgreater impetus t o economic progres s than Thessaly gavea generation ago for the Macedonian lit toral west aswell a seast of the S truma produces a considerable proportion of theTurkish Régie tobacco
,while the pine-forest s of Pindus
,i f
j udiciously exploited,will go far to remedy the present de
ficiency of home-grown timber, even if they do not providequantities sufficient for export abroad . I f we take intoaccount the currant-crop of the Peloponnesian plain-landswhich already almost monopolizes the wo rld-market
,the rare
ores of the south-eastern mountains and the Archipelago,and
the vintages which scientific treatment might bring intocompetition with the wines of the Peninsula and France
,we
can see that Greece ha s many sources of material p rosperitywithin her reach
,if only she applies her libera ted energy
to their development . Yet these a re all of them specializedproducts
,and Greece will never export any staple commodity
246 Greece
to an increasing extent , and the south—east will absorb inturn increasing quantities of manufactured plant fromcentral Europe for the development of it s own naturalresources . The two area s will become parties in a vasteconomic nexus
,and
,as in all business transactions
,each
will try to get the best of the continually intensified bargaining . This is Why co operation is so
‘essential to thefuture well-being of the Balkan S ta tes . I solated individuallyand mutually competitive as they are a t present
,they must
succumb to the economic ascendancy of Vienna and Berlina s inevitably as unorganized
,unskilled labourers fall under
the thraldom of a well-equipped capitalis t . Central Europewill have in any event an enormous initial superiority overthe Balkans in wealth
,population
,and business experience ;
and the Balkan peoples can only hope to hold their own in
this perilous but essential intercourse with a stronger neighbour
,if they take more active and delibera te s teps towards
co-operation among themselves, and find in railway convent ions the basis for a Balkan zollverein . A zollvereinshould be the firs t goal of Balkan statesmanship in the newphase of history that i s Opening for Europe ; but economicrelations on this scale involve the political facto r
,and the
Balkans will not be able to deal with their great neighbourson equal terms till the zollverein has ripened into a federation . The alternative is subj ection
,both political and
economic ; and neither the exhaustion of the Centra l Powersin the present struggle nor the individual consolidation of
the Balkan S tates in the subsequent settlement will sufficeby themselves to avert it in the end .
The awakening of the nation and the consolidation of
the state,which we have traced in these pages
,must accord
ing ly lead on to the confederation of the Balkans, if all that
The Consolidation of the State 247
has been so painfully won is not to perish again Withoutresult ; and we are confronted with the question : WillBalkan nationalism rise to the occasion and transcend itselfMany Spectators of recent his tory will dismis s the sug
gestion a s Utopian . Nationality they will say, revealedi ts elf firs t a s a constructive force
,and Europe s taked its
future upon it ; but now that we are committed to it, i thas developed a sinis ter destructiveness which we cannotremedy . Nationality brought the Balkan S tates into beingand led them to final victory over the Turk in 191 2 , onlyto set them tearing one another to pieces again in 1913.
In the present ca ta strophe the curse of the Balkans hasdescended upon the whole of Europe
,and laid bare unsus
p ect ed dep ths of chaotic hatred ; yet Balkan antagonismsS till remain more ineradicable than ours . The cure fornationality is forgetfulness
,but Balkan nationalism is rooted
altogether in the pas t . The Balkan peoples have sufferedone shattering experience in common—the Turk
,and the
waters of Ottoman Oppression that have gone over theirsouls have not been waters of Lethe . They have enduredlong centuries of spiritual exile by the passionate remembrance of their S ion
,and when they have vindicated their
heritage a t la s t,and returned to build up the walls of their
city and the temple of their national god,they have resented
each other’s neighbourhood as the repatria ted Jew resentedthe Samaritan . The Greek dreams with sullen intensi ty ofa golden age before the Bulgar was found in the land
,and
the challenge implied in the revival of the Hellenic name,
so fa r from being a superficial vanity, i s the dominantcharacteris tic of the nationalism which has adop ted it fori ts title . Modern Hellenism brea thes the inconscionable
spiri t of the émig ré.
’
2 48 Greece
This i s only too true . The faith that has carried them
to national unity will suflice neither the Greeks nor anyother Balkan people for the new era that has dawned uponthem
,and the future would look dark indeed
,but for
a s trange and incalculable leaven,which is already potently
a t work in the land .
S ince the Opening of the present century, the chaotic ,unneighbourly races of south-eastern Europe
,whom nothing
had united before but the common impress of the Turk ,have begun to share another experience in common
America . From the Slovak villages in the Carpathians tothe Greek villages in the Laconian hills they have beencrossing the Atlantic in their thousands
,to become dockers
and navvies,boot-blacks and waiters
,confectioners and
barbers in Chicago,S t . Louis
,Omaha
,and all the other
cities that have Sprung up like magic to welcome theimmigrant on the hospitable plains of the Middle West .The intoxica tion of his new environment stimulates all thela tent industry and vitality of the Balkan peasant
,and he
abandons himself whole-heartedly to American life ye t hedoes no t relinquish the national tradition in which he grewup . In America work brings wealth
,and the Greek or
Slovak soon worship s his God in a finer church and readshis l anguage in a better-printed newspaper than he everenj oyed in his native village . The surplus flows home inremittances of such abundance that they are s teadily raisingthe cost of living in the Balkans themselves
,or
,in other
words, the standard of material civilization and sooner orla ter the immigrant goes the way of his money orders
,for
home-sickness, if not a mobilization order, exerts it s compulsion before half a dozen years a re out .I t i s a s trange experience to spend a night in some remote
2 50 Greece
Bulgar on Balkan ground,he may remember that he has
once dwelt with him in fra ternity a t Omaha or S t . Louisor Chicago . This is the gospel of Americanism ,
and unlikeHellenism
,which spread downwards from the patriarch’s
residence and the merchant’s counting-house,i t i s being
preached in all the villages of the land by the least prej udicedand most enterprising of their sons (for it i s these whoanswer America ’s call) ; and spreading upward from thepeasant towards the professor in the university and thepolitician in parliament .Will this new leaven conquer
,and cast out the s tale
leaven o f Hellenism before it sours the loaf ? Commonsense is mighty
,but whether i t shall prevail in Greece and
the Balkans and Europe lies on the knees of the gods .
RUMANIA : HER HISTORY AND
POLITICS
I ntroductionTHE problem of the
o
orig in and formation of the Rumaniannation ha s always provided matter for keen disputationamong historians
,and the theories which have been advanced
are widely divergent . Some of these discussions have beenundertaken solely for political rea sons
,and in such cases
exis ting data prove conveniently adap table . This ela s tictreatment o f the his torical da ta is facilita ted by-the fac ttha t a long and important period affecting the formationand the development of the Rumanian nation (2 70—1 2 2 0)has bequeathed practically no contemporary evidence . Bylinking up
,however
,what is known antecedent to that
period with the precise data available regarding the yearsfollowing it
,and by checking the inferred results with
what little evidence exis ts respecting the obscure epoch o f
Rumanian his tory,i t has been possible to reconstruct
,almost
to a certainty,the evolution of the Rumanians during the
lVIiddle Ages .A discussion of the varying theories would be out of
proportion,and out of place
,in this essay . Nor is i t possible
to give t o any extent a detailed description of the epicstruggle which the Rumanians c arried on for centuriesagains t the Turks . I shall have to deal, therefore, on broadlines
,with the his torical facts—laying greater s tres s only
2 52 Rumania
upon the three fundamental epochs of Rumanian his to rythe formation of the Rumanian nation ; it s initial ca stinginto a national polity (foundation of the Rumanian princi
palit ies) ; and it s final evolution into the actual unitaryS ta te ; and shall then pass on to conSider the more recentinternal and external development of Rumania
,and her
present a ttitude .
2
Formation of the Rumanian N ationAB OUT the fifth century B . c .
,when the population of
the Balkan-Carpathian region consis ted of various tribe sbelonging to the Indo-European family
,the northern por
tion of the Balkan peninsula was conquered by the Thraciansand the Illyrians . The Thracians spread north and south
,
and a branch of their race,the Dacians
,crossed the Danube.
The latter es tablished themselves on both sides of the Car
pathian ranges , in the region which now comprises theprovinces of Olt enia (Rumania) , and Banat and Transylvania
(Hungary) . The Dacian Empire expanded till it s boundariestouched upon those of the Roman Empire . The Romanprovince of Moesia (between the Danube and the Balkans)fell before it s armies
,and the campaign tha t ensued was so
successful that the Dacians were able to compel Rome toan alliance .
Two expeditions undertaken against Dacia by the EmperorTraj an (98—1 17) released Rome from these ignominiousobligations
,and brought Dacia under Roman rule (A . D .
Before his second expedition Traj an erected a stone bridgeover the Danube
,the remains of which can still be seen a t
Turnu-Severin,a short dis tance below the point where the
2 54 Rumania
afforded,however
,by a number of articles made of gold
found in 1837 at Petroasa (Moldavia) , and now in the
National Museum at Bucarest .After the Goths came the Huns (375—45 under Attila
,
the Avars (566 bo th of Mongolian race , and the
Gepidae (453 of Gothic race—all savage,bloodthirsty
raiders,passing and repassing over the Rumanian regions ,
pillaging and burning everywhere . To avoid destructionthe Daco-Roman population withdrew more and more intothe inaccessible wooded regions of the mountains
,and a s a
result were in nowise influenced by contac twith the invaders .But with the coming of the Slavs
,who settled in the
Balkan peninsula about the beginning of the seventh century,
certain fundamental changes took place in the ethnicalconditions prevailing on the Danube . The Rumanians weres epara ted from the Romans
,followmg the occupation by
the Slavs of the Roman provinces between the Adria tic andthe Black Sea . Such part of the popula tion a s was notannihilated during the raids of the Avars was taken intocaptivity
,or compelled to retire southwards towards modern
Macedonia and northwards towards the Dacian regions .Parts of the Rumanian country became dependent uponthe new sta te founded between the Balkans and the Danubein 679 by the Bulgarians , a people of Turanian origin , whoformerly inhabited the regions north of the Black Seabetween the Volga and the mouth of the Danube .
After the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity
(864) the Slovenian language was introduced into theirChurch , and afterwards also into the Church o f the alreadypolitically dependent Rumanian provinces .1 This finally
1 The Rumanians north and south of the Danube embraced the
Chri st ian faith after its introduction into the Roman Empire by Con
Formation of the Rumanian N ation 2 55
severed the Daco-Rumanians from the Latin world . Theformer remained for a long time under Slav influence
, the
extent of which is shown by the large number of words ofSlav origin contained in the Rumanian language
,especially
in geographical and agricultural terminology .
The coming of the Hungarians (a people of Mongolianrace) about the end of the ninth century put an end tothe Bulgarian domination in Dacia . Wh ile a few of theexisting Rumanian duchies were subdued by S tephen theSaint
,the first King o f Hungary (995 the ‘land o f
the Vlakhs ’
(Terra B lacorum) , in the south-eastern part
o fTransylvania , enj oyed under the Hungarian kings a certaindegree of national autonomy . The Hungarian chroniclessp eak of the Vlakhs a s ‘former colonists of the RomansThe ethnological influence of the Hungarians upon theRumanian population has been practically nil . They foundthe Rumanian nation firmly established
,race and language
,
and the la tter remained pure of Magyarisms,even in Tran
sylvania . Indeed,i t is easy to prove—and it is only what
might be expected,seeing tha t the Rumanians had attained
a higher sta te of civiliza tion than the Hungarian invaderstha t the Hungarians were largely influenced by the DacoRomans . They adopted Latin as their oflicial language
,
they copied many o f the institutions and customs of theRumanians
,and recruited a large number of their nobles
from among the Rumanian nobility,which was already
established on a feudal basis when the Hungarians arrived .
A great number of the Rumanian nobles and freemen
stan tine the Grea t wi th Latin as re ligious language and theirchurch organization under the ru le of Rome . A Chri s tian basi lica,dat ing from that period
,has been di scovered by the Rumanian archaeo
log ist , Tocilescu, at Adam K lissi (Dobrogea) .
2 56 Rumania
were,however
,inimical to the new masters
,and migrated
to the regions across the mountains . This the Hungariansused as a pretext for bringing part s of Rumania under theirdomination
,and they were only prevented from further
extending it by the coming of the Tartars the la s tpeople o f Mongolian origin to harry these regions . TheHungarians maintained themselves
,however
,in the parts
which they had already occupied,until the la tter were
united into the principality of the Rumanian landTo sum up : The Rumanians a re living to-day where
fifteen centuries ago their ancestors were living . The posse ssion of the regions on the Lower Danube passed from one
nation to another,but none endangered the Rumanian
nation as a national entity . The water passes,the stones
remain the hordes of the migration period, detachedfrom their native soil
,disappeared as mist before the sun .
But the Roman element bent their heads while the S tormpassed over them
,clinging to the old places until the advent
o f happier days,when they were able to s tand up and
s tretch their limbs .’ 1
3
The Foundation and Development of theRumanian Principalities
THE firs t a ttempt to organize itself into a political entity
wasmade by the Rumanian nation in the thirteenth century,
when,under the impulse of the disaff ected nobles coming
from Hungary,the two principalities of Muntenia (Moun
tain Land) , commonly known as Wallachia , and Moldaviacame into being . The existence of Rumanians on both
1 Traugott Tamm, Uber den Ursprung der Ruma'
nen, Bonn, 1891 .
2 58 Rumania
The rudimentary political formations which alreadyexisted before the foundation of the principalities wereswept away by the invasion of the Tartars
,who destroyed
all t race of constituted authority in the plains below theCarpathians . In consequence the immigrants from Transylvania did not encounter any resistance, and were evenable to impose obedience upon the na tive population
,
though coming rather as refugees than a s conquerors .These new-comers were mostly nobles (boyards) . Theiremigration deprived the masses of the Rumanian population
of Transylvania of all moral and political support—especiallyas a part of the nobility had already been won over by theirHungarian masters—and with time the masses fell intos ervitude . On the other hand the immigrating nobless trengthened and secured the predominance of their cla s sin the s tates which were to be founded . In both cases the
s1tuat 10n of the peasantry became worse, and we have,curiously enough
,the same social fac t brought about by
apparently contrary causes .
Though the Rumanians seem to have contributed butlittle
,up to the nineteenth century, to the advance of
civilization,their part in European history is nevertheles s
a glorious one,and if les s apparent
,perhaps of more funda
mental importance . By shedding their blood in the s truggleagainst the Ottoman invasion
,they
,together with the other
peoples of Oriental Europe,procured that security which
the dense fores t . Towards sunset , just when a succes sful Shot from hi sb ow had s truck and ki lled the animal , he emerged at a point from whichthe whole panorama of Moldavia was unfolded before hi s as toni shedeyes . Deeply moved by the beauty of thi s fair country
,he resolved to
found a state there . I t i s in commemoration of this even t that Moldaviab ears the head of a wild bi son on her banner.
Foundation of Rumanian Principalities 2 59
alone made possible the development of western civilization .
Their merit,like tha t of all with whom they fought
,i s
no t to have vanquished time and again the followers ofMohammed
,who always ended by gaining the upper hand
,
but rather to have resisted with unparalleled energy,
perseverance,and bravery the terrible Ottoman invaders
,
making them pay for each step advanced such a heavyprice
,tha t their resources were drained
,they were unable
to ca rry on the fight,and thus their power came to an end 1
From the phalanx o f Christian warriors s tand out thenames of a few who were the bravest of a time when bravery
was common but while it i s a t lea s t due tha t more tributethan a mere mention of their names should be paid to thepatriot princes who fought in life-long conflic t againstTurkish domination
,Space does not permit me to give more
than the briefes t summary of the wars which for centuriestroubled the country .
I t wa s in 1389, when Mircea the Old was Prince ofWallachia
,tha t the united Balkan nations a ttempted for
the firs t time to check Ottoman invasion . The battle of
Kosovo,however
,was lost
,and Mircea had to consent to
pay tribute to the Turks . For a short space after thebattle o f Rovine where Mircea defea ted an invadingTurkish army
,the country had peace, until Turkish victories
under the Sultan Mohammed resulted , in 141 1 , in furthersubmissions to tribute .
I t i s worthy of mention that i t was on this basis of tributethat the relations between Turkey and Rumania resteduntil 1877, the Rumanian provinces becoming a t no timewhat Hungary was for a century and a half
,namely
,a Turkish
prov1nce .
1 Xenopol, op . cit .,i . 2 66.
R 2
2 60 Rumania
In a battle arising following his frustra tion—bymeans notunconnected with his name—of a Turkish plot againsthis person
,Vlad the Impaler (1458—62 ) completely defeated
the Turks under Mohammed I I but an unfortunate feudagainst S tephen the Great
,Prince of Moldavia
,put an end
to the reign of Vlad—a fierce but j us t prince .A period of the most lamentable decadence followed
,
during which Turkish domination prevailed more and morein the country . During an interval of twenty-five years
(152 1—46) no les s than eleven princes succeeded one another
on the throne of Muntenia , whils t of the nineteen princes
who ruled during the la s t three-quarters of the S ixteenthcentury
,only two died a natural death while still reigning .
In Moldavia also internal struggles were weakening thecountry . Not powerful enough to do away with one
another,the various a spirants to the throne contented
themselves with occupying and ruling over parts of thep rovince . Between 1443
—7 there were no less than three
princes reigning simultaneously,whils t one of them
,
Peter I I I,los t and regained the throne three times .
Forforty-seven years (1457—1504) S tephen theGreat foughtfor the independence of Moldavia . At Racova
,in 1475, he
annihilated an Ottoman a rmy in a victory considered thegreatest ever secured by the Cros s against I slam . The Shahof Persia
,Uzun Hasan
,who was also fighting the Turks
,
offered him an alliance,urging him at the same time to
induce all the Christian princes to unite with the Persiansagainst the common foe . These princes
,a s well a s Pope
S ixtus IV,gave him great praise but when S tephen asked
from them assistance in men and money,not only did he
receive none,but Vladislav
,King of Hungary
,conspired
with his brother Albert,King of Poland
,to conquer and
2 62 Rumania
emperor condemned him and a Greek in Austria’s service,
General Basta , had him sabred : as though it were fatedthat all the enemies of the Rumanian race
,the Magyar
,
the German,and the Greek
,should unite to dip their
hands in the blood of the Latin hero .
’ 1 The union of theRumanian lands which he realized did not la st long ; but i tgave form and substance to the idea which was from thatday onward to be the ideal of the Rumanian nation .
The fundamental”
cause of all the sufferings of theRumanian principalities was the hybrid ‘hereditary-elective ’
system of succession to the throne, which prevailed also inmost of the neighbouring countries . All members of theprincely family were eligible for the succession ; but theright of selecting among them lay with an assembly com
posed of the higher nobility and clergy . All was well ifa prince left only one successor . But if there were several
,
even if illegitimate children,claiming the right to rule,
then each endeavoured to gain over the nobility withpromises
,sometimes
,moreover
,seeking the support of
neighbouring countries . This system rendered easier and
hastened the establishment of Turkish domination ; and
corruption and intrigues,in which the Sultan’s harem had
a share,became capital fac tors in the choice and election
of the ruler .Economically and intellectually all this was disas trous .
The Rumanians were an agricultural people . The numerousclass of small freeholders (moshneni and razeshi) , not beingable to pay the exorbitant t axes
,often had their lands
confisca ted by the princes . Often,too
,no t being able to
support themselves,they sold their property and their
very selves to the big landowners . Nor did the nobles1 Alfred Rambaud
,Introduction to Xenopol, op . cit . , i . xix .
Foundation of Rumanian Principalities 2 63
fare better . Formerly free,quasi-feudal warriors
,seeking
fortune in reward for services rendered to their prince,they
were often subj ected to coercive trea tment on his partnow tha t the throne depended upon the goodwill of
influential p ersonages a t Constantinople . Various civiloffices were created a t court
,either necessita ted by the
extension o f the rela tions of the country or intended tosatisfy some favourite of the prince . Sources of socialposition and great material benefit
,these offices were
coveted greedily by the boyards,and those who obtained
none could only hope to cheat fortune by doing their bestto undermine the position of the prince .
4
The Phanariote Rule
THESE offi ces very presently fell to the lot of the Phanario t es (Greek merchants and bankers Inhabiting the quarterof Phanar) , who had in some way or another assis ted theprinces to their thrones
,these being now practically put
up to auction in Constantinople . AS a natural consequenceof such a sta te of a ff airs the thoughts of the Rumanianprinces turned to Russia as a possible supporter agains tOttoman oppression . A formal alliance was entered intoin 171 1 with Tsar Peter the Grea t , but a j oint militaryaction agains t the Turks failed
,the Tsar returned to Russia ,
and the Porte threatened to transform Moldavia , in orderto s ecure he r against incipient Russian influence
,into a
Turkish province with a pasha as adminis trator . Thenobles were preparing to leave the country
,and the people
to retire into the mountains,a s their ancestors had done
2 64 Rumania
in times of danger . I t is not to be wondered a t that,under
the menace of losing their autonomy,the Rumanians
welcomed the nomination of the dragoman of the Porte,
Nicholas Mavrocordato , though he was a Greek . The peoplegreeted with j oy the accession of the firs t Phanariote to thethrone of the principality of Moldavia 1
Knowledge of foreign languages had enabled the Phanario t e s t o obtain important diplomatic positions a t Constantinople , and they ended by acquiring the thrones of theRumanian principalities a s a recompense for their s ervices .But they had to pay for i t
,and to make matters more
profi table the Turks devised the ingenious method of transferring the princes from one province to another
,each
transference being considered as a new nomination . From
1730 to 1741 the two reigning princes interchanged thronesin this way three times . They acquired the throne by gold ,and they could only keep it by gold . All dep ended upon
how much they were able to squeeze out of the country .
The princes soon became past mast efs in the art of spoliation .
They put taxes upon chimneys,and the s tarving peasants
pulled their cottages down and went to live in mountaincaves they taxed the animals
,and the peasants preferred
to kill the few beast s they possessed . But this often provedno remedy
,for we are told that the Prince Constantin
Mavrocordato , having prescribed a tax on domestic animalsa t a time when an epidemic had broken out amongst them
,
ordered the tax to be levied on the carca sses . The administ rat ive régime during the Phanariote period was, in general,l ittle els e than organized brigandage
,
’ says Xenopol.2 In
fac t the Phanariote rule was instinct with corruption,luxury
,and intrigue . Though individually some of them
1 Xenopol, op . cit . , 11. 138.
1 Ibid . ,op . cit .
, 11. 308.
2 66 Rumania
s ta rted about the same time by the ennobled peasant ,Tudor Vladimirescu , for the emancipation of the lowerclasses
,soon acquired
,therefore
,an anti-Greek tendency .
Vladimirescu was a ssassinated a t the instigation of theGreeks the la tter were completely checked by the Turks ,who
,grown suspicious after the Greek rising and confronted
with the energetic a ttitude of the Rumanian nobili ty,consented in 182 2 to the nomination of two native boyards ,
Jonit za S turdza and Gregory Ghica , recommended bytheir countrymen
,a s princes o f Moldavia and Wallachia .
The iniquitous system of the throne to the highest bidder
had come to an end .
The period which marks the decline of Greek influencein the Rumanian principalities also marks the growth of
Russian influence ; the firs t meant economic exploitation,
the second was a serious menace to the very existence of theRumanian nation . But if Russia s eemed a possible futuredanger
,Turkey w ith its Phanariote follow ing was a certain
and immediate menace . When,therefore
,a t the outbreak
o f the conflic t with Turkey in 1 82 8 the Russians once morepassed the Pruth
,the country welcomed them . Indeed
,
the Rumanian boyards,who after the rising of 1 82 1 and
the Turkish occupation had taken refuge in Transylvania,
had even more than once invited Russian intervention .
1
Hopes and fears alike were realized . By the Trea ty of
Adrianople (1829) the rights of Turkey a s suzerain werel imited to the exaction of a monetary tribute and the right
of investiture of the princes,one important innovation
being that these la s t were to be elected by national a ssembliesfor life . But
,on the other hand
,a Russian protectora te
1 See P. Eliade,H istoire de l
’
E sprit Public en Roumanie, i , p . 167e t seq .
Modern Period to 1 866 2 67
was established,and the provinces remained in Russian
military occupation up to 1834, pending the payment ofthe war indemnity by Turkey . The ultimate aim of Russiamay be open to discussion . Her immediate aim was tomake Russian influence paramount in the prmcrpalit ies ;
this being the only possible explanation of the anomalousfac t that
,pending the payment of the war indemnity
,
Russia herself was occupying the provinces whose autonomyshe had but now forcibly retrieved from Turkey . TheReg lement Organique, the new constitutional law given t o
the principalities by their Russian governor,Count Kisseleff,
truly reflected the tendency . From the administra tivepoint of view it was meant to make for progress from thepolitical point of view it was meant to bind the two princi
palit ie s to the will of the Tsar . The personal charm ofCount Kissele ff seemed to have established a s it were anunbreakable link between Russians and Rumanians . Butwhen he left the country in 1834 the liking for Russiapassed away to be replaced finally by the two sentimentswhich always most swayed the Rumanian heart : love for
t heir country,and affection towards France
French culture had been introduced into the principalitiesby the Phanariote princes who
,as dragomans of the Porte,
had to know the language,and usually employed French
secretaries for themselves and French tutors for theirchildren . With the Russian occupation a fresh impetus was
given to French culture,which was pre-eminent in Russia
a t the time ; and the Russian ofli cials,not speaking the
language of the country,generally employed French in
their relations with the Rumanian authorities , French beingalready widely spoken in Rumania . The contact withFrench civilization
,a t an epoch when the Rumanians were
2 68 Rumania
s triving to free themselves from Turkish,Greek
,and
Russian political influence,roused in them the sleeping
Latin spiri t,and the younger generation , in constantly
increasing numbers,flocked to Paris in search of new forms
of civilization and political life . At this turning-point intheir history the Rumanians felt themselves drawn towardsFrance
,no less by racial aflinity than by the liberal ideas
to which tha t country had so passionately given herselfduring several decades .By the Treaty of Adrianople the Black Sea was Opened
to the commercial vessels of all nations . This made forthe rapid economic development of the principalities byproviding an outle t for their agricultural produce
,the chief
source of their wealth . I t also brought them nearer towestern Europe
,which began to be interested In a nation
whose spiri t centuries of suff erings had failed to break .
Poli tical,literary
,and economic events thus prepared the
ground for the Rumanian Renascence,and when in 1848
the great revolution broke out,i t spread a t once over the
Rumanian countries,where the dawn of freedom had been
struggling to break S ince 182 1 . The Rumanians o f Transylvania rose aga inst the tyranny of the Magyars those ofMoldavia and Muntenia against the Oppressive influence ofRussia . The movement under the gallant
,but inexperienced
,
leadership of a few pat rlot s, who , significantly enough, hadalmost all been educated in France
, was, however, soonchecked in the principalities by the j oint action of Russianand Turkish forces which remained in occupation of thecountry . Many privileges were lost (Convention of B altaLiman
,May 1
,1849) but the revolution had quickened
the national sentiment of the younger generation in allclas ses of society
,and the expa triated leaders
,dispersed
2 70 Rumania
powers,i t was recognized indirectly tha t the suzerainty
was merely a nominal one . Article 2 3 o f the trea ty,by
providing tha t the administration of the principalities wasto be on a national basis
,implicitly pointed to the idea of
union,a s the organization of one principality independently
of the other would not have been national . But a s the maina rgument of Turkey and Austria was tha t the Rumaniansthemselves did no t desire the unlon
,I t was decided to
convene in both principalities sp ecial a ssemblies (divansad boc) representing all cla sses of the population
,whose
wishes‘
were to be embodied,by a European commission
,
in a report for consideration by the Congres s .To understand the a rgument of the two powers concernedand the decision to which it led
,i t must be borne in mind
that the principalities were in the occupa tion of an Austrianarmy
,which had replaced the Russian armies withdrawn
in 1 854, and tha t the elections for the assemblies were tobe presided over by Turkish commissaries . Indeed
,the
l atter,in collaboration with the Austrian consuls
,so success
fully doctored the election lists ,1 tha t the idea of unionmight once more have fallen through , had it not been forthe invaluable a s sis tance which Napoleon I I I gave theRumanian countries . As Turkish policy was relying mainlyon England’s support
,Napoleon brought about a personal
meeting with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,a t Osborne
(August the result of which was a compromiseNapoleon agreed to defer for the time being the idea of an
1 The edifying correspondence between the Porte and its commissaryVorg oridés regarding the arrangements for the Rumanian e le ction s fe llinto the hands of Rumanian poli ticians
,and caused a great sensation
when it app eared in L’Etoile da Danube
,published in Brussels by
Rumanian émigrés .
Modern Period to 1866 2 71
effective union of the two principalities,England under
taking,on the other hand , to make the Porte cancel the
previous elections,and proceed to new ones after revision
of the electoral lis t s . The corrup t Austrian and Turkishinfluence on the old elections was bes t demonstra ted bythe fact tha t only three of the total of eighty-four old
members succeeded in securing re-election . The assembliesmet and proclaimed a s imperatively necessary to the futurewelfare of the provinces
,their union
,
‘for no frontierdivides us
,and everything tends to bring us closer
,and
nothing to separa te us,save the ill-will of those who desire
to see us disunited and weak further,a foreign hereditary
dynasty,because the accession to the throne of princes
chosen from amongst u s ha s been a constant pretext forfo reign interference
,and the throne has been the cause of
unending feud among‘
the great families of this countryMoreover
,if the union of the two principalities was to be
accomplished under a native prince,i t i s obvious that the
competition would have become doubly keen ; not toSpeak of the j ealousies likely to be a roused between Mol
davians and Munt enians.
Such were the indisputable wishes of the Rumanians,
based on knowledge of men and facts,and arising out of the
desire to see their country well s ta rted on the high road of
progress . But Europe had called for the expression of thesewishes only to get the question shelved for the moment
,
as In 1856 everybody was anxious for a peace which Shoulda t all cost s be speedy . Consequently
,when a second
Congres s met in Par is,in May 1 858, three months of dis
cussion and the sincere efforts of France only resulted in
a‘hyb rid s tructure entitled the‘United Principalities ’
These were to have a common legislation,a common army
,
2 72 Rumania
and a central committee composed of representatives ofbo th assemblies for the discussion of common aff airs ; butwere to continue to form two s epara te S tates
,with inde
pendent legislative and executive institutions,each having
to elec t a prince of Rumanian descent for life .
Disappointed in their hopes and reasonable expecta tions,
the Rumanians adop ted the principle of help yourself andGod will help you and proceeded to the election of theirrulers . Several candidates competed in Moldavia . To avoida Split vote the name of an outsider was put forward theday before the election
,and on January 17, 1859, Colonel
Alexander Ioan Cuza wa s unanimously elected . In Wallachia the outlook was very uncertain when the as semblymet
,amid great popular excitement
,on February 5. The
few patriot s who had realized tha t the powers , seeking onlytheir own interest s , were consciously and of se t purposehampering the emancipation of a long-suffe rmg nation,
pu t forth and urged the election o f Cuza,and the a ssembly
unanimously adopted this sp irited suggestion . By thismaster-stroke the Rumanians had quietly accomplished thereform which was an indispensable condition towardsa ssuring a better future . The political moment wa spropitious . I taly’s milita ry preparation prevented Austriafrom intervening
,and
,a s usual when confronted with an
accomplished fact,the great powers and Turkey finished by
offi cially recognizing the action of the principalities InDecember 1 861 . The central comm1ss10n was a t onceabolished
,the two a ssemblies and cabinets merged into
one,and Bucarest became the capital of the new s tate
RumaniaIf the unsympathetic attitude of the powers had any
good result,i t was to bring home for the moment to the
2 74 Rumania
ber 13, More important still,a s affecting funda
mentally the social s tructure of the country, was the Rural
Law (promulgated on August 2 6, which had been thecause of the conflic t between Cuza and the various politicalfactions
,the Liberals clamouring for more thorough reforms
,
the Conservatives denouncing Cuza’s proj ec t a s revolu
t ionary. As the peasant question is the most importantproblem left for Rumania to solve
,and a s I believe that
,in
a broad sense,i t has a considerable bearing upon the present
political situation in tha t country,i t may no t be out of
place here to devote a little space to i t s consideration .
Originally the peasant lived in the village communitya s a free land-owner . He paid a certain due (one-tenth of
his produce and three days’ labour yearly) to his leader
(cneaz ) a s recompense for his leadership in peace and war.
The latter,moreover
,solely enj oyed the privilege of carrying
on the occupations of miller and innkeeper,and the peasant
was compelled to mill with him . When after the foundationof the principalities the upper cla s s wa s es tablished on
a feudal basis,the peasantry were subj ected to constantly
increasing burdens . Impoverished and having in manycases los t their land
,the peasants were also deprived a t the
end of the sixteenth century of their freedom of movement .By that time the cneaz, from being the leader of thecommunity
,had become the actual lord of the village
,and
his wealth was estimated by the number of villages heposses sed . The peasant owners paid their dues to him inlabour and in kind . Those peasants who owned no land werehis s erfs
,passing wi th the land from master to master .
Under the Turkish domination the Rumanian provincesbecame the granary of the Ottoman Empire . The value ofland rose quickly
,as did also the taxes . To meet these
Modern Period to 1 866 2 75
taxes—from the payment of which the boyards (the descendant s of the cneazi) were exempt—the peasant ownershad frequently to sacrifice their lands while
,greedy after
the increased benefits,the boyards used all possible means
to acquire more land for themselves . With the increaseof their lands they needed more labour
,and they obtained
permission from the ruler not only to exact increased labourdues from the peasantry
,but also to determine the amount of
work that should be done in a day. This was effected insuch a way that the peasants had
,in fact
,to serve three and
four times the number of days due .
The power to acquire more land from the freeholders,
and to increase the amount of labour due by the peasants,
was characteristic of the legislation of the eighteenthcentury . By a decree of Prince Moruzi, in 1805, the lordswere for the firs t time empowered to res erve to their ownuse part of the esta te
,namely
,one-fourth of the meadow
land,and this privilege was extended in 182 8 to the use of
one-third of the arable land . The remaining two-thirds
were reserved for the peasants, every young married couplebeing entitled to a certain amount of land, in proportion tothe number of t rac tion animals they owned . When theTrea ty of Adrianople of 1829 opened the western marketsto Rumanian corn
,in which markets fa r higher prices were
obtainable than from the Turks,Rumanian agriculture
received an extraordinary impetus . Henceforth the efforts
of the boyards were directed towards lessening the amount
of land to which the peasants were entitled . By the Rég lement Org anique they succeeded in reducing such land tohalf its previous area
,a t the same time maintaining and
exacting from the peasant his dues in full . I t is in the sameAct that there appears for the first time the fraudulent
s 2
2 76 Rumania
title ‘lords of the land though the boyards had no exclusive right of property : they had the use of one-third of
the estate,and a right to a due in labour and in kind from
the peasant holders,present or prospective
,of the other
two-thirds .With a view to ensuring
,on the one hand
,greater economic
freedom to the land-owners,and
,on the other
,s ecurity for
the peasants from the enslaving domination of the uppercla ss
,the rural law of 1864 proclaimed the peasant-tenants
full proprietors of their holdings,and the land—owners
full proprietors of the remainder of the esta te . The originalintention of creating common land was no t carried out inthe Bill . The peasant’s holding in arable land being small
,
he not infrequently ploughed his p asture,and
,a s a conse
quence , had either to give up keeping beasts , or pay a highprice to the land-owners for pas turage . Dues in labourand in kind were abolished
,the land-owners receiving an
indemnity which was to be refunded to the state by thepeasants in instalments within a period of fifteen years .This reform is characteristic of much of the legislation of
Cuza : despotically pursuing the realization of some idealreform
,without adequate s tudy of and adaptation to social
c ircumst ances,his law s provided no practical solution of
the problem with which they dealt . In this ca se,for example
,
the reform benefited the upper clas s solely,although
generally considered a boon to the peasantry . Of ancientright two-thirds of the esta te were reserved for the peasantsbut the new law gave them possession of no mo re than thestrip they were holding
,which barely sufficed to provide
them with the mere necessaries of life . The remainder upto two-thirds of the estate went a s a gift
,with full pro
prie torship , to the boyard . For the exemption of their
2 78 Rumania
rural question is,i t i s enough to state that peasant risings
occurred in 1888, 1889, 1894, 1900, and 1907 ; that newdistributions of land took place in 188 1 and 1 889 ; tha t landwas promised to the peasants a s well a t the time of thecampaign of 1877 a s a t that of 1913 and tha t more or les shappily conceived measures concerning rural questions havebeen passed in almost every parliamentary session . Thegeneral tendency of such legisla tion partook of the ‘freecontrac t na ture
,though owing to the social condition of
the peasantry the acts in question had to embody protectivemeasures providing for a maximum rent for arable and
pasture land,and a minimum wage for the peasant labourer .
Solutions have been suggested in profusion . That asolution is possible no one can doubt . One writer
,basing
his arguments on official s tatistic s which Show that the daysof employment in 1905 averaged only ninety-one for eachpeasant
,claims that only the introduction of circula ting
capital and the creation of new branches of activity can
bring about a change . The suggested remedy may be Opento discussion ; but our author is undoubtedly right when ,a sking himself why this solution has not yet been attempted,he says Our country is governed a t present by an agrarianclas s . Her whole power rests in her ownership of theland
,our only wealth . The introduction of circula ting
capital would result in the di sintegration of that wealth,in
the loss of it s unique quality,and
,as a consequence
,In the
social decline of its possessors .’ 1 This is the fundamentalevil which prevents any solution of the rural question .
A small cla ss of politicians,with the complicity of a large
a rmy of covetous and unscrupulous oflicials,live in oriental
indolence out of the sufferings of four-fifths of the Rumanian1 St. Ant im, Cbestiunea S ociala’ in Romdnia, 1908, p . 2 14.
Modern Period to 1 866 2 79
nation . Though elementary education is compulsory, morethan 60 per cent . of the popu la tion are still illiterate, mainlyon account of the inadequacy of the educational budget .Justice is a myth for the peasant . Of political rights he is
,
in fac t,absolutely deprived . The large maj ority
,and by
far the sane s t part o f the Rumanian nation,are thus fraudu
lentlykept outside the political and social life of the country .
I t is no wonder,therefore
,tha t the few who have wilfully
failed to lift the Rumanian peasant ou t of the thraldom of
his misery have also wilfully failed in their duty of preventingthe Transylvanian peasant from dying for the caus e of hismerciles s Oppressor .
Contemporary Period I nternal DevelopmentIN order to obviat e internal dis turbances or external
interference,the leaders of the movement which had
dethroned Prince Cuza caused parliament to proclaim,on
the day of Cuza’s abdication, Count Philip of Flanders
the father of King Albert of Belgium—Prince of Rumania .
The off er was,however
,not accep ted
,a s neither France nor
Russia favoured the prOposal. Meanwhile a conference hadmet again in Paris a t the instance of Turkey and vetoed theelection of a foreign prince . But events of deeper importance were ripening in Europe
,and the Rumanian politicians
rightly surmised that the powers would not enforce theirprotes ts if a candidate were found who was likely to securethe support of Napoleon I I I
,then schoolmaster of
European diplomacy . This candidate was found in theperson of Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
,
second son of the head of the elder branch of the Hohen
2 80 Rumania
zollerns (Catholic and non-reigning) . Prince Carol was
cousin to the King of Prussia, and rela ted through hisgrandmother to the Bonaparte family . He could cousequently count upon the support of France and Prussia ,while the political s ituation fortunately secured him fromthe opposition of Russia
,whose relations with Prussia were
a t the time friendly,and also from that of Austria
,whom
Bismarck proposed to keep busy for some time to comeThe la tter must have viewed with no little s atisfaction the
prOpect of a Hohenzollern occupying the throne of Rumaniaa t this j uncture ; and Prince Carol , allowing himself t o beinfluenced by the I ron Chancellor’s advice
,answered the
call of the Rumanian nation,which had proclaimed him
3 Carol I,Hereditary Prince of Rumania Travelling
s ecretly with a small retinue,the prince second cla s s
,his
suite firs t,Prince Carol descended the Danube on an
Austrian Steamer,and landed on May 8 a t Turnu-S everin ,
the very place where,nearly eighteen centuries b efore
,the
Emperor Traj an had alighted and founded the Rumaniannation .
By independent and energetic action,by a conscious
neglec t of the will of the powers,which only a young
constitutional polity would have dared,by an active and
unselfi sh patriotism,Rumania had a t la st chosen and secured
a s her ruler the foreign prince who alone had a chance ofputting a stop to intrigues from within and from without .And the Rumanians had been extremely fortunate in theirhasty and not quite independent choice . A prince of Latinorigin would probably have been more warmly welcomedto the hearts of the Rumanian people ; but after so manyyears of political disorder
,corrup t administra tion
,and
arbitrary rule,a prince possessed of the German spirit of
2 82 Rumania
Prince Carol,no t being suffi ciently well acquainted with
the conditions of the country nor possessing a s yet muchinfluence with the governing clas s
,had no t been in a position
to influence a t their inception the provisions of the extremelyliberal constitution passed only a few weeks after his acces ~
sion to the throne . The new constitution,which resembled
that of Belgium more nearly than any other,was framed
by a constituent assembly elec ted on universal suffrage,
and, excep t for Slight modifications introduced in 1 879 and1 884, i s in vigour to-day . I t entrusts the executive to theking and his ministers
,the la tter alone being responsible for
the act s of the government .1 The legislative power isvested in the king and two assemblies—a senate and achamber—the in1t1at1ve res ting with any one of the three .
2
The budget and the yearly bill s fixing the strength of thea rmy, however, must firs t b e passed by the Chamber . Theagreement of the two Chambers and the sanction of theking are necessary before any bill becomes law . The kingconvenes
,adj ourns
,and dissolves parliament . He promul
gates the laws and is invested with the right of absoluteveto . The constitution proclaims the inviolabili ty of domicile, the liberty of the press and of assembly, and absolute
1 There are at present nine department s : Interior, Foreign Affairs ,Finance
,War
,Education and Re ligion , Domains and Agricu lture ,
Public Works,Jus ti ce
,and Industry and Commerce . The Pre siden t of
the Cabine t i s Prime Mini ster, wi th or wi thout portfolio.
2 All citizens of full ag e paying taxe s , wi th various exemp tion s , aree lectors
,vot ing according to di strict s and census . In the case of the
i lliterate coun try inhabi tants,wi th an income from land of le s s than £ 1 2
a year,
fifty of them choose one de legate having one vote in the parliamentary e le ct ion . The profe ssoria l counci l of the two universitie s ofJas sy and Bucarest send one member each to the Senate , the he ir tothe throne and the eight bishops being members by right .
Contemporary Period : I nternal Development 2 83
liberty of creed and religion,in so fa r as it s forms of cele
bration do not come into conflic t with public order anddecency . I t recognizes no distinction of clas s and privilege ;all the citizens Share equally rights and duties within thelaw . Education is free in the sta te schools
,and elementary
education compulsory wherever s ta te schools exis t . Individual liberty and property are guaranteed ; but onlyRumanian citizens can acquire rural property . Militaryservic e is compulsory
,entailing two years in the infantry
,
three years in the cavalry and artillery,one year in all a rms
for those having completed their studies as far as theuniversity s tage . Capital punishment does not exist
,excep t
for military offences in time of war.
The state religion is Greek Orthodox . Up to 1864 theRumanian Church was subordinate to the Patriarchate of
Constantinople . In tha t year it was proclaimed independent
,national
,and autocephalous
,though this change was
not recognized by the Patriarchate till 1885, while thes eculariza tion of the property of the monasteries put anend defacto to the influence of the Greek clergy . Religiousquestions of a dogmatic nature are settled by the HolySynod of Bucarest
,composed of the two metropolitans of
Bucares t and Jassy and the eight bishop s ; the Ministerfor Education
,with whom the adminis trative part of the
Church rests,having only a delibera tive vote . The main
t enance of the Church and of the clergy is included in thegeneral budget of the country
,the ministers being sta te
officials (Law of
Religion has never played an Important part in Rumaniannational life
,and was generally limited to merely external
practices . This may be a ttributed largely to the fact tha ta s the Slavonic language had been used in the Church since
2 84 Rumania
the ninth century and then was superseded by Greek upto the nineteenth century
,the clergy was foreign, and was
neither in a position nor did it endeavour to acquire aspiritual influence over the Rumanian peasant . There is
no record whatever in Rumanian history of any religiousfeuds or dissensions . The religious passivity remainedunstirred even during the domination of the Turks, whocontented themselves with treating the unbelievers withcontempt, and squeezing a s much money a s possible out ofthem . Cuza having made no provision for the clergy whenhe converted the wealth of the monas teries to the sta te,they were left for thirty years in complete destitution, andremained as a consequence outside the general intellec tualdevelopment of the country . Though the situation has
much improved since the Law of 1 893, which incorporatedthe priests with the other officials of the Government
,the
clergy,recruited largely from among the rural population
,
are still grea tly inferior to the Rumanian priests of Bucovinaand Transylvania . Most of them take up Holy orders a sa profession : I have known several country parsons whowere thorough atheists . ’ 1
However difficult his ta sk,Prince Carol never deviated
from the s trictly constitutional path : his opponents werefree to condemn the prince’s opinions he never gave themthe chance o f questioning his integrity .
Prince Carol relied upon the position in which his originand family alliances placed him in his relations with foreignrulers to secure him the respec t of his new subj ect s .Such considerations impressed the Rumanians . Nor couldthey fail to be aware of the diff erences between the
previously elected princes and the present dynasty, and1 R. Roset ti , Pentru cc s-ou rdsculat fdranii, 1907, p . 600.
2 86 Rumania
taken an important part in the revolutionary movementsof 1 848 and in that which led to the deposition of Cuza)were advocating reforms hardly practicable even in an
established democracy ; the Conservatives (led by LascarCatargiu) were s triving to stem the flood of ideal liberalmeasures on which all sense o f reality wa s being carriedaway .
1 In little more than a year there were four diff erentCabinets
,not to mention numerous changes in individual
m inisters . Between the two extreme tendencies PrinceCarol had to strive constantly to preserve unity of direction
,
he himself being the only stable element in that everunstable country .
’ I t was not without many untowardincidents that he succeeded . His person was the subj ec tof more than one unscrupulous attack by politicians inopposition
,who did not hesitate to exploit the German
origin and the German sympathies of the prince in orderto inflame the masses . These internal conflic ts entered uponan acute phase at the time of the Franco-German conflic to f 1 870 . Whilst
,to satisfy public opinion
,the Foreign
Secretary of the time,M . P . P . Carp
,had to declare in
parliament,that ‘wherever the colours of France are
waving,there are our interests and sympathies the prince
wrote to the King of Prussia a ssuring him that his sympathies will always b e where the black and white banner i swaving In these so s trained circumstances a section of
the population of Bucarest allowed i tself to be drawn intoanti—German s treet riots . Disheartened and despairing of
ever being able to do anything for that beautiful countrywhose people neither know how to govern themselves nor
1 A few years ag o a group of poli ticians , mainly of the old Conservativeparty
,de tached themse lve s and be came the Conservat ive-Democratic
party under the leadership of M . Take Ionescu.
Contemporary Period : I nternal Development 2 87
will allow themselves to be governed the prince decided
to abdica te .So strong was the feeling in parliament roused by the
prince’s decision that one of his most inveterate opponentsnow declared that i t would be an act of high treason for theprince to desert the country a t such a crisi s . We have aninkling of what might have resulted in the letter writtenby the Emperor of Austria to Prince Carol a t the time
,
a s suring him that ‘my Government will eagerly seize anyOpportunity which presents it self to prove by deeds theinterest i t takes in a country connected by so many bondst o my empire Nothing but the efforts of Lasca r Catargiuand the sound patriotism of a few s tatesmen saved the country from what would have been a real misfortune . Thepeople were well aware of this
,and cheers la sting several
minutes greeted tha t portion of the message from the thronewhich conveyed to the new parliament the decision of theprince to continue reigning .
The situation was considerably strengthened duringa period o f five years ’ Conservative rule . Prince Carol’shigh principles and the dignified example of his privatelife secured for him the increasing respect of politicians ofall colours ; while his s tatesmanlike qualities, his patienceand perseverance
,soon procured him an unlimited influence
in the affairs of the state . This was made the more possiblefrom the fact that
,on account of the political ignorance of
the masses , and of the varied influence exercised on theelectorate by the highly centralized adminis tration
,no
Rumanian Government ever fails to obtain a maj ori ty a tan election . Any sta tesman can undertake to form a Cabinetif the king a ssents to a dissolution of parliament . Between
the German system , where the emperor chooses the minis ters
2 88 Rumania
independently of parliament,and the English system
,
where the members of the executive are indicated by theelectora te through the medium of parliament
,independently
o f the Crown,the Rumanian system takes a middle path .
Neither the crown,nor the electora te
,nor parliament
possesses exclusive power in this direction . The Governmentis not , generally speaking, defeated either by the electora teor by parliament . I t is the Crown which has the finaldecision in the changes of régime
,and upon the king fall s
the delica te task of interpreting the Significance of politicalo r popular movements . The system—which comes neares tto that of Spain—undoubtedly has it s advantages in a youngand turbulent polity
,by enabling it s most stable element,
the king,to ensure a continuous and harmoniou s policy .
But it also makes the results dangerously dependent on thequality of tha t same elem en t . Under the leadership of
King Carol i t was an undoubted succes s the progress madeby the country from an economic
,financial
,and military
point of view during the la st half-century is really enormous .I ts position was furthermore s trengthened by the proclamation of its independence
,by the final settlement of the
dynastic question,
1 and by its elevation on May 10,1 88 1
,to
the rank of kingdom,when upon the head of the firs t King of
Rumania was placed a crown of s teel made from one of theguns captured before Plevna from an enemy centuries old .
From the point of view of internal politic s p rogress ha sbeen less s atisfactory . The various reforms once achieved
,
1 In the absence of direct de scendant s and according to the cons titution, Prince Ferdinand (born second son of King Carol’s e lderbrother
,was named He ir Apparent to the Rumanian throne . He
married in 1892 Prince s s Marie of Coburg, and following the death of
King Carol last year,he acceded to the throne as Ferdinand I .
2 90 Rumania
Addressing himself,in 1871 , to the Rumanian rep t e
sentat ive a t the Porte, the Austrian ambassador, von
Prokesch-Osten, remarked :‘I f Prince Carol manages to
pull through without outside help,and make Rumania
governable,i t will b e the greatest tour deforce I have ever
witnessed in my diplomatic career of more than half a cen
tury. It will be nothing less than a conj uring trick .
’ KingCarol succeeded ; and only those acquainted with Rumanianaffairs can appreciate the truth o f the ambassador’s words .
7
Contemporary Period Foreign Af airs
UP to 1866 Rumanian foreign poli tics may be said to havebeen non-existent . The offensive or defensive alliancesagains t the Turks concluded by the Rumanian rulers withneighbouring princes during the Middle Ages were not
made in pursuance of any definite policy,but merely t o
meet the moment’s need . With the establishment of
Turkish suzerainty Rumania became a pawn In the foreignpolitics of the neighbouring empires
,and we find her
repeatedly included in their proj ects of acquisition,par
tition,or compensation (as, for instance, when she was put
forward as eventual compensation to Poland for the territories los t by that country in the firs t partition) .
1 Rumaniamay be considered fortunate in not having lost more thanBucovina to Austria Bessarabia to Russia and
,
temporarily,to Austria the region between the Danube and
the Aluta,called Olt enia (lost by the Treaty of Passarowitz,
1718 recovered by the Treaty of Belgrade,
1 S ee Albert Sore l,Tb e E astern Question in the E ighteenth Century
(Engl . 1898, p . 14 1 , 147, &c.
Contemporary Period Foreign Af airs 2 91
While her geographical position made of Rumania thecynosure of many covetous eyes, it a t the same time savedher from individual attack by exciting countervailingj ealousies . Moreover
,the powers came at last to consider
her a necessa ry rampart to the Ottoman Empire,whose
dissolution all desired but none dared attempt . Austria andRussia
,looking to the future
,were continually competing
for paramount influence in Rumania . though it is no t
possible to determine where their policy of acquisition endedand that of influence began .
The position of the principalities became more secureafter the Paris Congress of 1858, which placed them underthe collective guarantee of the great powers but this fact
,
and the maintenance of Turkish suzerainty,coupled with
their own weakness,debarred them from any independence
in their foreign relations .A sudden change took place with the accession of PrinceCarol a Hohenzollern prince related to the King of Prussiaand to Napoleon I I I could not be treated like one of thenative boyards . The situation called for the more delicacyof treatment by the powers in view of the possibility of hisbeing able to better those internal conditions which madeRumania uninteresting a s a factor in international politics .In fact
,the prince’s personality assured for Rumania a status
which she could otherwise have attained only with time,by
a political,economic
,and milita ry consolidation of her home
affairs and the prince does not fail to remark in his notesthat the attentions lavished upon him by other sovereignswere meant rather for the Hohenzollern prince than forthe Prince of Rumania .
\Many years later even , after thewar of 1878, while the Russians were still south of theDanube with their lines of communication running through
T 2
2 92 Rumania
Rumania,Bratianu begged of the prince to give up a pro
j e ct ed j ourney on account of the diffi culties which might atany moment arise
,and said : Only the presence of your
Royal Highness keeps them "the Russians"a t a respectfuldis tance .
’ I t was but natural under these circumstancesthat the conduct of foreign affairs should have devolvedalmost exclusive ly on the prince . The ascendancy whichhis high personal character
,his political and diplomatic skill
,
his military capacity procured for him over the Rumanians tatesmen made this s ituation a lasting one indeed itbecame almost a tradition . Rumania’s foreign policy Since1866 may be said . therefore, to have been King Carol
’s policy .
Whether one agrees with it or not,no one can deny with any
sincerity that it was inspired by the interests of the country,a s the monarch saw them . Rebuking Bismarck’s unfairattitude towards Rumania in a question concerning Germaninvestors
,Prince Carol writes to his father in 1875 I have
to put Rumania’s interests above those of Germany . Mypath is plainly mapped out
,and I must follow it unflinching ly,
whatever the weather . ’
Prince Carol was a thorough German,and a s such naturally
favoured the expansion of German influence among his newsubj ects . But if he desired Rumania to follow in the wake ofGerman foreign policy
,i t was because of his unshaken faith
in the future of his native country,because he considered
that Rumania had nothing to fear from Germany,whilst it
was all in the interest of that country to see Rumania strongand firmly established . At the same time
,acting on the
advice of Bismarck, he did not fail to work toward a betterunderstanding with RuSSIa
,
‘who might become as wella reliable friend as a dangerous enemy to the Rumanian
s tate ’. The sympathy shown him by Napoleon I II was not
2 94 Rumania
crescendo of suggestion,Austria’s new foreign secretary,
Count Andrassy,drifted at length to the point by plainly
declaring not long afterwards that Rumania is not so um
important that one should deprecate an alliance with herPrince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm
intention of shaking off the Turkish suzerainty at the firs topportunity
,and not unnaturally he counted upon Ger
many’s support to that end . He and his country were
bitterly disappointed,therefore
,when Bismarck appealed
directly to the Porte for the settlement of a diff erencebetween the Rumanian Government and a German companyentrusted with the construction of the Rumanian railwaysthe more so a s the Paris Convention had expressly forbiddenany Turkish interference in Rumania
’s internal affairs . I tthus became increasingly evident that Rumania could not
break away from Russia,the coming power in the East . The
eyes of Russia were steadfastly fixed on Constantinople byj oining her
,Rumania had the best chance of gaining her
independence ; by not doing so,she ran the risk of being
trodden upon by Russia on her way to Byzantium . Butthough resolved to co-Operate with Russia in any eventualaction in the Balkans
,Prince Carol skilfully avoided deliver
ing himself blindfold into her hands by deliberately cuttinghimself away from the other guaranteeing powers . To theconference which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876to settle Balkan affairs he addressed the demand that shouldwar break out between one of the guaranteeing powers andTurkey, Rumania
’s line of conduct Should be dictated,and
her neutrality and rights guaranteed,by the other powers
This dérnarcbe failed . The powers had accepted the invitation to the conference a s one accepts an invitation to
visit a dying man . Nobody had any illusions on the possi
Contemporary Period Foreign Af airs 2 95
b ility of averting war,least of a ll the two powers principally
interested . In November 1876 Ali Bey and M . de Nelidovarrived simultaneously and secretly in Bucarest to soundRumania as to an arrangement with their respective countries, Turkey and Russia . In opposition to hi s father andCount Andrassy
,who counselled neutrality and the with
drawal of the Rumanian army into the mountains,and in
sympathy with Bismarck’s advice,Prince Carol concluded
a Convention with Russia on April 16, 1877. Rumaniapromised to the Russian army ‘free passage throughRumanian territory and the trea tment due to a friendlya rmy whilst Russia undertook to respect Rumania’spolitical rights
,a s well as to maintain and defend her actual
integrity It is pretty certain wrote Prince Carol to hisfa ther
,tha t this will not be to the liking of most of the
great powers ; but as they neither can nor will offer usanything
,we cannot do otherwise than pass them by .
A successful Russian campaign will free us from the nominaldependency upon Turkey
,and Europe will never allow
Russia to take her place .
’
On April 2 3 the Russian armies passed the Pruth . An
offer of active participation by the Rumanian forces in the
forthcoming campaign was rej ected by the Tsar, whohaughtily declared that Russia had no need for the co
operation of the Rumanian army and that ‘it was onlyunder the auspices of the Russian forces that the foundationof Rumania’s future destinies could b e la id Rumania wasto keep quiet and accept in the end what Russia would deignto give her, or, to b e more correct, take from her . Afte ra few successful encounters
,however
,the Tsar’s soldiersme t
with serious defeats before Plevna,and persistent appeals
we re now urged for the part 1c1pat10n of the Rumanian army
2 96 Rumania
in the military operations . The moment had come forRumania to bargain for her interests . But Prince Carolrefused to make capital out of the serious position of theRussians ; he led his army across the Danube and, a t theexpress desire of the Tsar
,took over the supreme command
of the united forces before Plevna . After a glorious b ut
terrible s truggle Plevna,followed at short intervals by other
strongholds,fell
,the peace preliminaries were signed, and
Prince Carol returned to Bucarest a t the head of his victorious army .
Notwithstanding the flattering words in which the TsarSpoke of the Rumanian share in the success of the campaign,Russia did not admit Rumania to the Peace Conference . Bythe Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878) Rumania
’s inde
pendence was recognized ; Russia obtained from Turkeythe Dobrogea and the delta of the Danube, reserving forherself the right to exchange these territories against thethree southern districts of Bessarabia
,restored to Rumania
by the Treaty of Paris,1856. This stipulation was by no
means a surprise to Rumania . Russia’s intention to recoverBessarabia was well known to the Government, who hoped,however
,that the demand would not be pressed after the
effective a ssis tance rendered by the Rumanian army .
‘If
thi s be not a ground for the extension of our territory,it is
surely none for its diminution,’ remarked Cogalniceanu at
the Berlin Congre ss . Moreover,besides the promises of the
Tsar, there was the Convention of the previous year,which
,
in exchange for nothing more than free passage for theRussian armies
,guaranteed Rumania’s integrity. But upon
this stipulation Gorchakov put the j esuitical constructionthat, the Convention being concluded in view of a war tob e waged against Turkey
,i t was only agains t Turkey tha t
98 Rumania
Russia with regard to them,she would not wage war for the
sake of Rumania .’ Indeed,an understanding came about
,
and an indiscretion enabled the Globe to make its tenorpublic early in June 1878. The Government of her Britannic Maj esty it said
,considers that i t will feel itself bound
to express it s deep regret should Russia persist in demandingthe retrocession of Bessarabia . England’s interes t in thisquestion is not such
,however
,as to j ustify her taking upon
he rself alone the responsibility of Opposing the intendedexchange .’ So Bessarabia was lost
,Rumania receiving
instead Dobrogea with the delta of the Danube . But as thenewly created s tate of Bulgaria was a t the time little elsethan a detached Russian province
,Russia
,alone amongst the
powers,Opposed and succeeded in preventing the demarca
tion to the new Rumanian province of a strategically soundfrontier . Finally
,to the exasperation of the Rumanians
,the
Congress made the recognition of Rumania ’s independence
contingent upon the abolition of Article 7 of the Constitution—which denied to non-Christians the right of becomingRumanian citizens—and the emancipation of the RumanianJews .1
I t was only after innumerable difficulties and hardship sthat
,a t the beginning of 1880
,Rumania secured recognition
of an independence which she owed to nobody but herself.
1 Rumania only part ially gave way to thi s in trusion of the powersinto her internal affairs . The prohi bi tion was aboli shed ; but onlyindividual natura lization was made pos sible , and that by special A ctof Parliament. Only a very small proportion of the Jewi sh populationhas s ince been natura lized . The J ewi sh que s tion in Rumania i s umdoubtedly a very serious one ; b ut the matte r i s too con t roversial tob e dealt with in a few line s without ri sking misrepresentation or doingan injus t ice to one or other of the partie s . For which reason it has notbeen included in thi s e s say .
Contemporary Period : Foreign Af airs 2 99
Whils t Russia was opposing Rumania a t every opportunityin the European conferences and commissions, she was a tpains to Show herself more amenable in tete-d-tete, andapproached Rumania with favourable prOposals. RatherRussia a s foe than guardian
,
’ wrote Prince Carol to his
father ; and these words indicate an important turningpoint in Rumania ’s foreign policy .
In wresting Bessarabia from Rumania merely as a Sop to
her own pride,and to make an end of all that was enacted
by the Treaty of Paris,1856, Russia made a serious political
blunder . By insis ting that Austria should share in the
partition of Poland,Frederick the Great had skilfully pre
vented her from remaining the one country towards whichthe Poles would naturally have turned for deliverance .
Such an Opportunity was los t by Russia through her shortsighted policy in Bessarabia—that of remaining the naturalally of Rumania against Rumania’s natural foe
,Austria
Hungary .
Rumania had neither hi storical,geographi cal
,nor any
important ethnographi cal points of contact with the region
south of the Danube ; the aims of a future policy couldonly have embraced neighbouring tracts of foreign territoryinhabited by Rumanians . Whereas up to the date of theBerlin Congre s s such tracts were confined to AustriaHungary
,by that Congress a similar Sphere of attraction for
Rumanian aspirations was created in Russia .
1 The interests
of a peaceful development demanded that Rumania shouldmaintain friendly relations with both the powers s trivingfor domination in the Near East ; i t was a vital necessity
1 I t i s probable that thi s consideration had much to do wi th th ereadines s wi th which Bismarck supported the demands of hi s goodfriend, Gorchakov.
300 Rumania
for her,however
,to be able to rely upon the effective
support of a t leas t one of them in a case of emergency .
Russia’s conduct had aroused a deep feeling of bitternessand mistrust in Rumania
,and every lessening of her influence
was a step in Austria’s favour . Secondary considerationstended to intensify this on the one hand lay the fact thatthrough Russia’s interposition Rumania had no defendable
frontier against Bulgaria on the other hand was the greatlystrengthened position created for Austria by her alliancewith Germany
,in whose future Prince Carol had the utmost
confidence .Germany’s a ttitude towards Rumania had been curiously
hostile during these events but when Prince Carol’s fatherspoke of thi s to the German Emperor, the latter showedgenuine astonishment : Bismarck had obviously not takenthe emperor completely into his confidence . When
,a few
days later,Sturdza had an interview with Bismarck a t the
latter’s invitation,the German Chancellor discovered once
more that Rumania had nothing to expect from Russia .Indeed
,Rumania’s position between Russia and the new
Slav state south of the Danube might prove dangerous,were
she not to seek protection and assistance from her twonatural friends France and Germany . And
,with his
usual liberality when baiting his policy with false hopes,
Bismarck went on to say that Turkey is falling to piecesnobody can resuscitate her Rumania has an important rOleto fulfil
,but for this she must be wise
,cautious
,and strong
This new attitude was the natural counterpart of the changewhich was a t that time making itself felt in Russo-Germanrela tions . While a Franco-Russian alliance was propoundedby Gorchakov in an interview with a French j ournalis t
,
Bismarck and Andrassy signed in Gaste in the trea ty which
302 Rumania
1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country ; to
a greater extent to the increasing influence of'
Germaneducation
,
1 and the economic and financial supremacywhich the benevolent passivity of England and Franceenabled Germany to acquire but above all to the personalinfluence of King Carol . Germany, he considered, was a tthe beginning of her development and needed
,above all
,
peace ; as Rumania was in the same position the wisestpolicy was to follow Germany, neglecting impracticablenational ideals . King Carol outlined his views clearly in aninterview which he had in Vienna with the Emperor FranzJoseph in 1883 No nation consents to be bereaved of it spolitical a spirations
,and those of the Rumanians are con
stan tly kept at fever heat by Magyar Oppression . But this
was no real obstacle to a friendly understanding betweenthe two neighbouring states .’
Such was the position when the Balk an peoples rose in191 2 to sever the last ties which bound them to the decadentTurkish Empire . King Carol
,who had
,sword in hand
, won
the independence of his country,could have no obj ection
to such a desire for emancipation . Nor to the Balkan Leagueitself
,unfortunately so ephemeral ; for by the firs t year of
his reign he had already approached the Greek Governmentwith proposals toward such a league
,and toward freeing the
Balkans from the undesirable interference of the powers .2
I t is true that Rumania,like all the other sta tes
,had not
foreseen the radical changes which were to take place,and
1 Many prominent s tate smen like S turdza,Maiorescu
,Carp
,&c .
, we re
educat ed in Germany, whereas the s chool e stablished by the Germancommuni ty (E vang elische K naben und R ealschule) , and which i s underthe dire ct cont rol of the German Mini s try of Education
,i s attended by
more pupils than any other s chool in Bucares t .
2 S ee Augenzeuge , op . cit .
,i . 178.
Contemporary Period Foreign Af airs 303
which considerably affected her position in the Near East .But she was safe as long as the s itua tion was one of stableequilibrium and the league remained in existence . Rumaniawill only b e menaced by a real danger when a Great Bulgariacomes into existence
,
’ remarked Prince Carol to Bismarckin 1880
,and Bulgaria had done nothing since to allay
Rumanian suspicions . On the contrary,Bulgarian official
publications regarded the Dobrogea as a Bulgari a Irredentaand a t the outset of the first Balkan war a certain section ofthe Bulga rian press speculated upon the Bulgarian characte r ofthe Dobrogea . To safeguard herself against such aspirations
,
Rumania demanded a rectification of her vicious frontier ?
The formation of the Balkan League had meant a seriousblow to the Central Powers’ policy of peaceful penetra tion .
A second and more serious blow was dealt them by thecollap se of Turkey . For a century men have been labouringto solve the Eastern Question. On the day when it shall beconsidered solved
,Europe will inevitably witness the pro
pounding of the Austrian Question .
’ 3 To prevent this,and
to keep open a route to the East,Austro—German intrigues
se t to work and succeeded in‘ driving Bulgaria to fight fortheir interests . From the beginning
,
’ wrote the inspiredReichspost, we knew of the formation of the Balkan Alliance
,
and we se t ourselves to break it .’ (Quarterly Review,April
1915, p .
‘Previously to the Serbo-Bulgarian WarPrince Furst enb erg "then Austria
’s representa tive in Bucare st"negotiated with Maiorescu "Rumanian Prime Minister1 Manual for M ilitary R ecruits of all A rms , Sofia
,191 1 , publi shed
by order of the Bulgarian W ar Offi ce .
2 I t was broadly the frontier origina lly intended for her by th e BerlinCongre s s of 1 878 tha t Rumania ob tained by th e trea ty of Bucare s t in1913.
3 Albert Sore l, op . cit .,p . 2 66.
304 Rumania
and Foreign Secretary"and offered him ,in exchange for the
Bulgarian territory demanded by Rumania,a portion of
Serbian territory,in the certain case of a Bulgarian victory .
’
(H . von B iilow,Deutschland
,Osterreicb-Ung arn, und die
B alkanstaaten,Hamburg
,Signor Giolitti told the
Italian Chamber (December 2 , 1914) that on August 9, 1913,the day before the signing of the Peace of Bucarest , Austriaintimated her intention of attacking Serbia
,and was only
dissuaded by the influence of I taly and Germany . Onemore instance of Austrian double-dealing may be quoted .
At the sitting of August 8, 1913, of the Bucarest PeaceConference
,M . Maiorescu announced that the Austro
Hungarian Government had notified its intention to submitthe question of Kavala
,together with other questions, to
a revision,whatever the decision of the Conference on this
point may be . ’ (Rumanian Foreign Office , Le‘Traité de
Paix de B ucarest, 1913, p .
The natural counter-effect of that action was the detachment of Rumania from the Central Powers . Rumania hadleft Bulgaria in no doubt that she intended to intervene incase of an armed conflict between the Balkan States ; and
as she had entered upon a closer union with Germany against
a Bulgaria subj ected to Russian influence, so she now turnedto Russia as a guard against a Bulgaria under Germaninfluence . This breaking away from the traditional policyof adj utancy-in-waiting to the Central Powers was indicatedby the visit of Prince Ferdinand—now King of Rumaniato Petrograd
,and the even more significant visit which
Tsar Nichola s afterwards paid to the late King Carol a tConstanza . Time has been too short
,however
,for those
new relations so to shape themselves as to exercise a notableinfluence upon Rumania ’s present attitude .
306 Rumania
part of the Habsburg monarchy,with which it was incor
porat ed a s early a s 1775. The political situation of theRumanian principalities at the time
,and the absence of
a national cultural movement,left the detached population
exposed to Germanization,and la ter t o the Slav influence
of the rapidly expanding Ruthene element . That languageand national characteristics have
,nevertheless
,not been lost
is due to the fact that the Rumanian population of Bucovinais peashnt almost to a man—a cla ss little amenable tochanges of civilization .
This also applies largely to Bessarabia,which
,first los t In
181 2,was incorporated with Rumania in 1856, and finally
detached in 1878 . The few Rumanians belonging to thelanded class were won over by the new masters . But whilethe Rumanian population was denied any cultural andliterary activities of its own, the reactionary attitude of theRussian Government towards education has enabled theRumanian peasants to preserve their customs amd theirlanguage . At the same time their resultant ignorance haskept them outside the sphere of intellectual influence of themother country .
The Rumanians who live in sca ttered colonies south of
the Danube are the descendants of those who took refuge inthese regions during the ninth and tenth centuries from the1nvasions of the Huns . Generally known as Kutzo-Vlacks
,
or,among themselves
,a s Aromuni
,they are—a s even
Weigand,who undoubtedly has Bulgarophil leanings
,
recognizes—the most intelligent and best educated of theinhabitants of Macedonia . In 1905 the Rumanian Government secured from the Porte offi cial recognition of theirs eparate cultural and religious organizations on a nationalbasis . Exposed as they are to Greek influence
,it will be
Rumania and the Present War 307
difficult to prevent their final as similation with tha t people .
The interest taken in them of la te by the Rumanian Govern
ment arose out of the necessity to s ecure them against panHellenic propaganda
,and to preserve one of the factors
entitling Rumania to participate in the settlement of Balk an
affairs .I have sketched elsewhere the early history of the Ruma
nians of Transylvania , the cradle of the Rumanian nation .
As already mentioned,part of the Rumanian nobility of
Hungary went over to the Magyars, the remainder migratingover the mountains . Debarred from the support of thenoble class
,the Rumanian peasantrylost its state of autonomy,
which changed into one of serfdom to the soil upon whichthey toiled . Desperate risings in 1324, 1437, 1514, 1600 , and
1784 tended to ease the Hungarian oppression, which up tothe nineteenth century s trove primarily after a political andreligious hegemony . But the Magyars having failed in 1848in their attempt to free themselves from Austrian domination (defeated with the assistance of a Russian army at
Villag os, mainly on account of the fidelity of the othernationalities to the Austrian Crown
,they henceforth directed
their efforts towards strengthening their own position byforcible assimilation of those nationalities . This they wereable to do
,however
,only after KOnig g réitz , when a weakened
Austria had to give way to Hungarian demands . In 1867the Dual MonarOhy was established
,and Transylvania
,
which up to then formed a separate duchy enj oying fullpolitical rights
,was incorporated with the new Hungarian
kingdom . The Magyars were handicapped in their im
perialist ambitions by their numerical inferiority .
’
As thenext best means to their end
,therefore
,they resorted to
political and national oppression,class despotism
,and a
U 2
308 Rumania
complete disregard of the principles of liberty and humanity .
1
Hung arianwasmade compulsory inthe administration , evenin districts where the bulk of the population did no t under
stand that language . In villages completely inhabited byRumanians so-called S tate schools were founded, in whichonly Hungarian was to be spoken
,and all children upwards
of three years of age had to attend them . The electoralregulations were drawn up in such a manner that theRumanians of Transylvania
,though ten times more numerous
than the Magyars,sent a far smaller number than do the
latter to the National Assembly . To quash all protesta Special press law was introduced for Transylvania . Butthe Rumanian j ournalists being usually acquitted by thej uries a new regulation prescribed that press off ences shouldbe tried only at Kluj (Klausenburg) —the sole Transylvaniantown with a predominating Hungarian population—a
measure which was in fundamental contradiction to theprinciples of j ustice ? In 1892 the Rumanian grievances wereembodied in a memorandum which was to have been presented to the emperor by a deputation . An audience was
,
however, refused, and at the instance of the HungarianGovernment the members of the deputation were sentencedto long terms of imprisonment for having plotted againstthe unity of the Magyar state .1 The Rumanians inhabit mainly the province s of Tran sylvania
,
Banat , Crishiana, and Maramuresh . They represent 462 p er cen t . of
the total population of thes e provinces , the Magyars 32 5 per cent .
,the
Germans 1 15 p er cent .
,and the Serbs 45 per cent . The se figure s are
taken from ofli cial Hungarian s tati s tics,and it may there fore b e as sumed
that the Rumanian p e rcentage represent s a minimum .
2 Over a p eriod of 2 2 years ( 1886—1908) 850 journali sts were charged,
367 of whom were Rumanians ; the sentences totalling 2 16 years ofimpri sonmen t , the fine s amounting to c .
310 Rumania
was such a Situation quite unforeseen, nor had any plan o f
action been preconceived to meet it,but it was in Rumania ’s
case a situation unique from the number of conflictingconsiderations and influences at work within it . S till underthe waning influence of the thirty years quasi-alliancewith Austria
,Rumania was not yet acclimatized to her
new relations with Russia . Notwithstanding the inbornsympathy with and admiration for France
,the Rumanians
could not be blind to Germany’s military power . Theenthusiasm that would have sided with France for France’ssake was faced by the influence of German finance . Sympathy with Serbia existed side by side with suspicion of
Bulgaria . Popular sentiment clashed with the views of theking and the bright vision of the principle of nationalitywas darkened by the shadow of Russia as despot of theNear East .One fact in the situation stood out from the rest , namely,
the unexpected Opportunity of redeeming that half of theRumanian nation which was still under foreign rule ; the moreso a s one of the parties in the conflic t had given the principleof nationality a prominent place in its programme . Butthe fact that bo th Austria-Hungary and Russia had a largeRumanian population among their subj ects rendered a purelynational policy impossible
,and Rumania could do nothing
but weigh which issue off ered her the greater advantage .Three ways lay Open complete neutrality
,active partici
pat ion on the Side of the Central Powers,or common cause
with the Triple Entente . Complete neutrality was advocat ed by a few who had the country’s material securitymost a t heart
,and also
,a s a pis aller
,by those who realized
that the1r op in ion that Rumania should make common causewith the Central Powers had no prospect of being acted upon .
Rumania and the Present War
That King Carol favoured the idea of a j oint action withGermany is likely enough
,for such a policy was in keeping
with his faith in the power of the German Empire . Moreover
,he undoubtedly viewed with sa tisfaction the possi
b ility of regaining Bessarabia,the loss of which must have
been bitterly felt by the victor of Plevna . Such a policywould have met with the approval of many Rumanianstatesmen
,notably of M . Carp
,sometime leader of the
Conservative party and Prime Minister of M . Maiorescu,
ex-Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary,who presided a t
the Bucarest Conference of 1913 of M . Marghiloman,till
recently leader of the Conservative party,to name only the
more important . M . Carp,the political aris tocra t who had
retired from public life a few years previously, and hadprofessed a lifelong contempt for the Press and all hisworks himself started a daily paper (Moldova) which heintended should expound his views . Well—known writersl ike M . Radu Rosetti wrote 1 espousing the cause favouredby the king
,though not for the king’s reasons Carol had
faith in Germany,the Rumanians mistrusted Russia . They
saw no advantage in the dismemberment of Austria,the
most powerful check to Russia’s plans in the Near East .They dreaded the idea of seeing Russia on the Bosphorus
,
as rendering illusory Rumania’s splendid position a t themouth of the Danube . For not only is a cheap waterwayabsolutely necessary for the bulky products forming thechief exports of Rumania ; but these very products, corn ,
petroleum,and timber
,also form the chief exports of
Russia,who
,by a §troke of the pen , may rule Rumania out
of competition , should she fa il to appreciate the political1 S ee R . Rose t ti
,Russian Politics at W ork in zb e Rumanian Countries
,
fact s compiled from French offi cial documen t s,Bucare s t
,1914 .
31 2 Rumania
leadership of Petrograd . Paris and Rome were, no doubt,beloved sisters ; but Sofia , Moscow,
and Budapest werenext-door neighbours to be reckoned with .
Those who held views opposed to these,confident in the
righteousness of the Allies’ cause and in their final victory,advocated immediate intervention
,and to that end made
the most of the two sentiments which animated publicopinion interes t in the fa te of the Transylvanians , andsympathy with France . They contended that thougha purely national policy was no t possible
,the difference
between Transylvania and Bessarabia in area and in numberand quality of the population was such that no hesitationwas admissible . The possession of Transylvania was assuredif the Allies were successful ; whereas Russia would soonrecover if defeated
,and would regain Bessarabia by force
of arms,or have it once more presented to her by a Congres s
anxious to soothe her sentiment de dignité blessée ARumania enlarged in size and population had a betterchance of successfully withstanding any eventual pressurefrom the north
,and it was clear that any attempt against
her independence would be bound to develop into a Europeanquestion . Rumania could not forget what she owed toFrance and if circumstances had made the Transylvanianquestion one a laquelle on pense touj ours e t dont on ne
parle j amais the greater was the duty,now that a favour
able Opportunity had arisen,to help the brethren across the
mountains . I t was also a duty to fight for right and civilization, proclaimed M . Take Ionescu
,the exponent of pro
g ressive ideas in Rumanian politics and he,together with
the prominent Conservative statesman,M . Filip escu
,who
loathes the idea of the Rumanians being dominated by theinferior Magyars
,are the leaders of the interventionist
314 Rumania
the service dealing with mountain warfare . On the otherhand
,a continuous line of fortifications running from
Galatz to Focshani formed,together with the lower reaches
of the Danube, a s trong barrier against a ttack from the north .
Rumania’s geographical position is such that a successfuloff ensive from Hungary could soon penetrate to the capital
,
and by cutting the country in two could completely paralys eits organization . Such arguments acquired a magnifiedimportance in the light of the failure of the negotiationswith Bulgaria
,and found many a willing ear in a country
governed by a heavily involved landed class,and depending
almost exclusively in its banking organization upon Germanand Austrian capital .From the point of V iew of practical politics only the issue
of the conflict will determine the wisdom or otherwise o f
Rumania ’s a ttitude . But,though it is p erhaps out of place
to enlarge upon it here,i t i s impossible not to speak of the
moral aspect of the course adopted . By giving heed to theunspoken appeal from Transylvania the Rumanian nationalspirit would have been quickened
,and the people braced to
a wholesome sacrifice . Many were the wistful glances ca sttowards the Carpathians by the subj ect Rumanians
,a s they
were being led away to fight for their Oppressors ; but ,wilfully unmindful
,the leaders of the Rumanian sta te
buried their noses in their ledgers,oblivious of the fact that
in these times of internationalism a will in common,with
a spirations in common,is the very life-blood of nationality.
That sentiment ought not to enter into politic s is an argument untenable In a country which has yet to see it s nationala spirations fulfilled
,and which makes of these a spirations
definite claims . No Rumanian statesman can contend thatpossession of Transylvania i s necessary to the existence of
Rumania and the Present”
War 315
the Rumanian state . What they can maintain is tha tdeliverance from Magyar Oppression is vi tal to the existenceo f the Transylvanians . The right to advance such a claimgrows out of their very duty o f watching over the safety of
the subj ect Rumanians . When there are squabbles in thehousehold of my brother-in-law
,
’ said the late Ioan Bratianuwhen speaking on the Transylvanian question
,
‘it i s noaff air of mine but when he raises a knife agains t his wife,i t is not merely my right to intervene, i t i s my duty .
’ I t is
diflicult to account for the obliquity of vision shown by somany Rumanian politicians . ‘The whole policy of sucha state "having a large compatriot population living in closeproximity under foreign domination"must be primarilyinfluenced by anxiety as to the fate of their brothers
,and
by the duty of emancipating them,
’afli rms one of the most
ardent of Rumanian nationalis t ora tors and he goes on toassure us that if Rumania waits
,i t i s not from hesitation a s
to her duty,but simply in order tha t She may discharge it
more completely 1 Meantime,while Rumania waits
,
regiments composed almost completely of Transylvanianshave been repeatedly and of set purpose placed in the forefront of the battle
,and as often annihilated . Such could
never be the simple-hearted Rumanian peasant’s conceptionof his duty
,and here
,a s in so many other ca ses in the present
conflict,the nation at la rge must not be j udged by the policy
of the few who hold the reins .Rumania’s claims to Transylvania are not of an historica l
nature . They are founded upon the numerical superiorityof the subj ect Rumanians in Transylvania
,that is upon the
principle of nationality and are morally strengthened by
1Quarterly R eview
,London
,April
,1915, p . 449—50 .
31 6 Rumania
the trea tment the Transylvanians suffer a t the hands of the
Magyars . By its passivity,however
,the Rumanian Govern
ment has sacrificed the prime factor of the principle ofnationality to the a ttainment of an obj ect in itself subordinat e to tha t factor that is
,i t ha s s acrificed the people
in order to make more sure of the land In this way theRumanian Government has entered upon a policy of acquisi
tion ; a policy whi ch Rumania is too weak to pursue saveunder the patronage of one or a group of great powers ;a policy unfortunate inasmuch as i t will deprive her of
freedom of action in her external politics . Her policy will,
1n I ts consequences,certainly react to the detriment of the
position acquired by the country two years ago, whenindependent action made her arbiter not only among thesmaller Balkan States
,but also among those and her lat e
suzerain,Turkey.
Such,indeed
,must inevitably be the fate of Balkan
politics in general . Passing from Turkish domination tonominal Turkish suzerainty
,and thence to independence
within the sphere of influence of a power or group of powers,
this gradual emancipation of the states of south-easternEurope found its highest expression in the Balkan League .
The war against Turkey was in effect a rebellion against thepolitical tutelage of the powers . But this emancip ationwas short—lived . By their greed the Balkan States againopened up a way to the intrusion of foreign diplomacy
,and
even, a s we now see,of foreign troops . The first Balkan war
marked the zenith of Balkan political emancipation ; thesecond Balkan war was the firs t act in the tragic debdcle outof which the present situation developed . The int ervabetween August 1913 (Peace of Bucarest) and August 1914was merely an armistic e during which Bulgaria and Turkey
31 8 Rumania
feelings . When,a s the outcome of the present false s1tuat10n,
sooner or later the dynastic power breaks,i t will then be for
the powers who are now fighting for better principles not toimpose their own views upon the peoples , or to place theirown princes upon the vacant thrones . Rather must theysee that the small nations of the Near East are given a chanceto develop in peace and according to their proper ideals ;that they be not again subj ected to the disintegratinginfluence of European diplomacy ; and that, above all, tothe nations in common
,irrespective of their present a ttitude
,
there should be a j ust application of the principle of
nationality
TURKEY
TURKEY i s no better name for the Osmanli dominion orany part of i t than Normandy would be for Great Britain .
I t is a mediaeval error of nomencla ture sanctioned by longusage in foreign mouths
,but without any equivalent in the
vernacular of the Osmanlis themselves . The real ‘Turkeyis Turkestan
,and the real Turks are the Turcomans . The
Osmanlis a re the lea st typical Turks surviving . Only a verysmall proportion of them have any strain of Turkish blood
,
and this is diluted till i t is rarely perceptible In their physio
g nomy and if environment ra ther than blood is to be heldresponsible for racial fea tures
,i t can only be said that the
territory occupied by the Osmanlis i s as unlike the homelandof the true Turks as i t can well be
,and is quite unsuited to
typically Turkish li fe and manners .While of course it would be absurd to propose a t this time
of day any change in the terms by which the civilized worldunanimously designates the Osmanlis and their dominion
,i t
i s well to insis t on their incorrectness,because
,like most
erroneous names,they have bred erroneous beliefs . Thanks
in the main to them,the Ottoman power is supposed to
have originated in an overwhelming Invas ion of Asia Minorby immense numbers of Central Asiatic migrants
,who
,in
tent,like the early Arab armies
,ou offering to Asia firs t and
Europe second the choice of aposta sy or death,absorbed or
annihilated almost all the previous populations,and swep t
fo rward into the Balkans as single-minded apostles of I slam .
I f the composition and the aims of the Osmanlis had been
32 0 Turkey
these,i t would pass all understanding how they contrived
,
within a century of their appearance on the western scene,to
establish in North-west Asia and South—east Europe themost civilized and best-ordered state of their time . Who
,
then,are the Osmanlis in reality What have they to do
with true Turks i‘and in virtue of what innate qualities didthey found and consolidate their power
I
Origin of the OsmanlisW E hear of Turks first from Chinese sources . They were
then the inhabitants,strong and predatory
,of the Altai plains
and valleys but later on,about the sixth century A .D .
,they
are found firmly established in what i s still called Turkestan,
and pushing westwards towards the Caspian Sea . Somewhatmore than another century passes
,and
,reached by a mis
sionary faith of West Asia,they come ou t of the Far Eastern
darkness into a dim light of western history . One Boj a,lord
o f Kashgar and K b an of what the Chinese knew as the peopleo fThu-Kiu—probably the same name as Turk —embracedI slam and forced it on his Mazdeist subj ect s but otherTurkish tribes
,notably the powerful U ighurs
,remained
intolerant of the new dispensation,and expelled the Thu
Kiu en masse from their holding in Turkestan into Persia .
Here they distributed themselves in detached hordes overthe north and centre . At this day
,in some parts of Persia
,
e .g . Azerbaij an,Turks make the bulk of the population
besides supplying the reigning dynasty of the whole kingdom .
For the Shahs of the Kaj ar house are not I ranian,but purely
Turkish .
This , i t should be observed, was the western limit o f
32 2 Turkey
fall upon Bagdad , Syria , Egypt , and Asia Minor . This firs tconquest was little better than a raid, so brief was theresultant tenure of those lands : but a century later two
dispossessed nephews of Melek Shah of Persia se t out ona military adventure which had more la sting consequences .Penetrating with a small following into Asia Minor
,they
seized Konia,and instituted there a kingdom nominally
feudatory t o the Grand Selj uk of Persia,but in reality
independent and destined to la st about two centuries .
Though numerically weak,their forces
,recruited from that
professional soldier clas s which had bolstered up the AbbasidEmpire and formed the Selj ukian kingdoms of Persia andSyria
,were superior to any Byzantine troops that could be
arrayed in southern or central Asia Minor . They constitutedindeed the only compact body of fighting men seen in theseregions for some generations . I t found reinforcement fromthe scattered Turki groups introduced already
,as we have
seen,into the country ; and even from native Christians ,
who,descended from the Iconoclasts of two centuries before ,
found the rule o f Mo slem image-haters more congenial,
a s it was certainly more effective,than that of Byzantine
emperors . The creed of the Selj uks was Islam of an I raniantype . Of Incarnationis t co lour
,i t repudiated the dour
illiberal spirit of the early Arabian apostles which latter-daySunnite orthodoxy has revived . Accordingly its professors
,
backed by an eff ective force and offering security and
privilege,quickly won over the aborigines—Lycaonians,
Phrygians,Cappadocians
,and Cilicians—and welded them
into a nation,leaving only a few detached communities here
and there to cherish any allegiance to Byzantine Christianity .
In the event,the population o f quite two-thirds of the
Anatolian peninsula had already identified itself with a ruling
Origin of the Osmanlis 32 3
Turki cas te before,early in the thirteenth century
,fresh
Turks appeared on the scene— those Turks who were tofound the Ottoman Empire .
They entered Asia Minor much as the earlier Turcomanshad entered it—a small body of nomadic adventurers
,thrown
o ff by the larger body of Turks settled in Persia to seek newpastures west of the Euphrates . There are divers legendsabout the firs t appearance and establishment of these part icula r Turks : but all agree tha t they were of inconsiderablenumber—not above four hundred families a t most . Driftingin by way of Armenia , they pressed gradually westward fromErzerum in hope of finding some unoccupied country whichwould prove both element and fertile . Byzantine influence
was then a t a very low ebb . With Constantinople itself inLatin hands
,the Greekwrit ran only along the north Anatolian
coast,ruled from two separa te centres
,I snik (Nicaea) and
Trebizond and the Selj uk kingdom was not in realitymuch more vigorous . Though apparently without a rival
,
i t was subsisting by consent , on the prestige o f its past,
rather than on ac tual power . The moment of its dissolutionwas approaching
,and the Anatolian peninsula
,two-thirds
I slamized,b u t ill-organized and very loosely knit
,was
becoming once more a fair field for any adventurer able tocommand a small compac t force .
The newly come Turks were invited finally to settle onthe extreme north-western fringe of the Selj uk territory—ina region so near Nicaea tha t their sword would be a bettertitle to it than any which the feudal authority of Koniacould confer . In fac t i t was a deb atable land
,an angle
pushed up between the lake plain of Nicaea on the onehand and the plain of Brusa on the other
,and divided from
each by not lofty heights . Yenishehr,it s chief town
,which
x 2
324 Turkey
became the Osmanli chief Ertog rul’s residence , lies, a s the
crow fl ies,a good deal less than fifty miles from the Sea of
Marmora,and not a hundred miles from Constantinople
i tself . Here Ertog rul was to be a Warden of the Marches,
to hold his territory for the Selj uk and extend it for himselfa t the expense of Nicaea if he could . If he won through
,so
much the better for Sultan Alaed-din ; if he failed, vile
damnum .
’
Hardly were his tribesmen settled,however
,among
the Bithynians and Greeks o f Yenishehr,before the Selj uk
collapse became a fact . The Tartar s torm,ridden by
Jenghis Khan,which had overwhelmed Central Asia
,spent
its l as t force on the kingdom o f Konia,and
,withdrawing
,
l eft the Selj uks bankrupt of force and prestige and Anatolia
without an overlord . The feudatories were free every
where to make or mar themselves , and they spent the lasthalf of the thirteenth century in fighting for whatever mightbe saved from the Selj uk wreck before it foundered for everabout 1300 A . D . In the south
,the centre
,and the east of
the peninsula,where I slam had long rooted itself as the
popular social system,various Turki emirates established
themselves on a purely Moslem basis—certain of these,
like the Danishmand emirate of Cappadocia,being restora
t ions of tribal j uris dictions which had existed before theimposition of Selj uk overlordship .
In the extreme north-west,however
,where the mass
of society was s till Christian and held itself Greek,no
Turkish potentate could either revive a pre-Selj ukiansta tus or S imply carry on a Seljukian system in minia ture .
I f he was to preserve independence a t all,he must rely
on a society which was not yet Moslem and form acoalition with the ‘Greeks ’
,into whom the recent
32 6 Turkey
earlier in Egypt,and now masters where they had been
bondmen . I t is not indeed for nothing that Osman’sla tes t successor
,and all who hold by him ,
distinguish themselves from other peoples by his name . They are Osmanlis
(or by a European use of the more correc t form O thman ,Ottomans because they derived their being a s a nation
and derive their national s trength,not so much from central
Asia a s from the blend of Turk and Greek which Osmanpromoted among his people . This Greek strain has oftenbeen reinforced since his day and mingled with otherCaucasian strains .I t was left to Orkhan to round off this Turco—Grecian
realm in Byzantine Asia by the capture firs t of I smid
(Nicomedia) and then of I snik (Nicaea) ; and with this lastacquisition the nucleus of a self-sufli cient sovereign state wascomplete . After the peaceful ab sorption of the emirate ofKarasi, which added west central Asia Minor almost a s farsouth as the Hermus
,the Osmanli ruled in 1338 a dominion
of greater area than that of the Greek emperor,whose
capital and coast s now looked across to Ottoman shores allthe way from the Bosphorus to the Hellespont .
2
Expansion of the Osmanli K ingdomIF the new state was to expand by conquest
,its line of
a dvance was already foreshadowed . For the present,it could
hardly break back into Asia Minor,occupied a s this was by
Moslem principalities sanctioned by the same tradition a si tself, namely, the prestige of the Selj uks . To a ttack thesewould be to sin against I slam . But in front lay a rich butweak Christian state, the centre of the civiliza tion to which
Expansion of the Osmanli K ingdom 32 7
the popular element in the Osmanli society belonged . AS
inevitably a s the state of Nicaea had desired,won
,and
transferred itself to,Constantinople
,so did the Osmanli state
of Brusa yearn towards the same goal ; and it needed noinvita tion from a Greek to dispose an Ottoman sultan topush over to the European shore .Such an invitation
,however
,did in fact precede the firs t
Osmanli crossing in force . In 1345 John Cantacazene solicitedhelp of Orkhan against the menace of Dushan
,the Serb .
Twelve years later came a second invita tion . Orkhan’s son
,
Suleiman,this time ferried a large army over the Hellespont
,
and,by taking and holding Gallipoli and Rodosto
,secured
a passage from continen t to continent,which the Ottomans
would never again let g o .
Such invitations,though they neither prompted the
extension of the Osmanli realm into Europe nor sensiblyprecipita ted it
,did nevertheles s divert the course of the
Ottoman arms and reprieve the Greek empire till Timurand his Tartars could come on the scene and , all unconsciously, secure i t a further respite . But for these diversionsthere is little doubt Constantinople would have passed intoOttoman hands nearly a century earlier than the historicdate o f i t s fall . The Osmanli armies
,thus led aside to make
the Serb s and not the Greeks of Europe their firs t obj ective,became involved a t once in a tangle of Balkan affairs fromwhich they only extricated themselves after forty years ofincessant fighting in almost every part of the peninsulaexcept the domain of the Greek emperor . This warfare
,
which in no way advanced the proper aims of the lords ofBrusa and Nicaea
, not only profited the Greek emperorby relieving him o f concern about his land frontier but alsoused up strength which might have made head against the
32 8 Turkey
Tartars . Constantinople then, a s now,was detached from
the Balkans . The Osmanlis,had they possessed themselves
o f i t,might well have let the latter be for a long time
to come . Instead,they had to battle
,with the help now
of one section of the Balkan peoples , now of another,till forced to make an end of all their feuds and treacheriesby annexations after the vic tories of Kosovo in 1389 and
Nikopolis in 1396.
Nor was this all . They became involved also with certainpeoples of the main continent of Europe
,whose interest s or
sympathies had been affected by those long and sanguinaryB alkanwars.There was already bad blood and to spare betweenthe Osmanlis on the one hand
,and Hungarians
,Poles, and
I talianV ene tians on the other,long before any second Oppor
tunity to a ttack Constantinople occurred and the Osmanliswere in for that age-long struggle to secure a ‘scientificfrontier beyond the Danube
,whence the Adriatic on the
one flank and the Euxine on the other could be commanded ,which was to make Ottoman history down to the eighteenthcentury and spell ruin in the end .
I t is a vulgar error to suppose that the Osmanlis se t out
for Europe,in the sp111t of Arab apostles
,to force their creed
and dominion on all the world . Both in Asia and Europe,from firs t to la st
,their expeditions and conquests have been
inspired palpably by motives similar to those active amongthe Christian powers
,namely
,desire for political security
and the command of commercial area s . Such wars a s theOttoman sultans
,once they were established a t Constanti
nople , didwage again and again with knightly orders or withI talian republic s would have been undertaken
,and fought
with the same persistence,by any Greek emperor who felt
himself s trong enough . Even those Asiatic campaigns,
330 Turkey
number at least a s many Christian as Moslem subj ects,and
to depend a s much on the firs t a s on the las t . No t only hadthe professional Osmanli soldiery
,the Janissaries
,continued
to be recruited from the children of native Christian races,
but contingents of adult native warriors,who still professed
Christianity,had been invited or had offered themselves
to fight Osmanli battles—even those'
waged against men ofthe True Faith in Asia . A considerable body of ChristianSerb s had stood up in Murad
’s line at the battle of Konia in
138 1 , before the treachery of another body of the same racegave him the victory eight years later a t Kosovo . So littledid the Osmanli sta te model itself on the earlier caliphial
empires and so naturally did it lean towards the Roman or
Byzantine imperial type .
And j ust because it had come to be in Europe and of
Europe,it was able to survive the terrible disa ster of Angora
in 1402 . Though the Osmanli army was annihilated byTimur
,and an Osmanli sultan
,for the firs t and la st time in
his tory,remained in the hands of the foe
,the a dministrative
machinery of the Osmanli s tate was not paralysed. A new
ruler was proclaimed at Adrianople,and the European part
of the realm held firm . The moment tha t the Tartarsbegan to give ground
,the Osmanlis began to recover it .
In les s than twenty years they s tood again in Asia a s theywere before Timur’s a ttack
,and secure for the time on the
east,could return to restore their prestige in the west
,
where the Tartar vic tory had bred unrest and brought boththe Hungarians and the Venetians on the Balkan scene .
Their success was once more rapid and astonishing : Salonikapassed once and for all into Ottoman hands : the Frankseigneurs and the despots of Greece were alike humbled ;and although Murad I I failed to crush the Albanian
,Skan
E xpansion of the Osmanli K ingdom 331
derb ey, he worsted his most dangerous foe , John Hunyadi,with the help of Wallach treachery a t the second battle ofKosovo . At his death
,three years later
,he left the Balkans
quiet and the field clear for his successor to proceed withthe long deferred but inevitable enterprise of a ttacking alltha t was left of Greek empire
,the district and city of
Constantinople .
The doom of New Rome was fulfilled within two years .In the end it passed easily enough into the hands of those whoalready had been in possession of it s proper empire for acentury or more . Historians have made more of this fallof Constantinople in 1453 than contempora ry Opinion seemst o have made of it . No prince in Europe was moved to
any action by it s peril,except
,very half-heartedly
,the Doge .
Venice could no t feel quite indifferen t to the prospect ofthe main part of that empire
,which
,while in Greek hands
,
had been her most serious commercial competitor,passing
into the stronger hands of the Osmanlis . Once in Constant inople , the latter, long a land power only, would bebound to concern themselves with the sea also . TheVenetians made no effort worthy of their apprehensions
,
though these were indeed exceedingly well founded ; for,a s all the world knows
,to the sea the Osmanlis did a t once
betake themselves . In les s than thirty years theywere rangingall the eastern Mediterranean and laying siege to Rhodes
,
the stronghold of one of their most dangerous competitors,
the Knights Hospitallers .In this consequence consis t s the chief historic importance
of the Osmanli cap ture of Constantinople . For no otherreason can it be called an epoch-marking event . If i t
guaranteed the Empire of the Eas t against passing into anywestern hands , for example, those of Venice or Genoa
,i t
332 Turkey
did not affect the balance of power between Christendomand Islam for the strength of the former had long ceasedto reside at all in Constantinople . The last Greek emperordied a martyr
,but not a champion .
3
H eritage and Expansion of Byzantine EmpireON the morrow of his victory
,Mohammed the Conqueror
took pains to make it clear that his introduction of a new
heaven did not entail a new earth . AS little as might bewould be changed . He had displaced a Palaeologus by anOsmanli only in order that an empire long in fact OsmanliShould henceforth be so also de j ure . Therefore he confirmedthe pre-existing Oecumenical patriarch in his functions andthe Byzantine Greeks in their privileges
,renewed the rights
s ecured to Christian foreigners by the Greek emperors , andproclaimed that
,for his accession to the throne
,there should
not be made a Moslem the more or a Christian the less .Moreover
,during the thirty years left to him of life
,Moham
med devoted himself to precisely those ta sks which would
have fallen to a Greek emperor desirous of restoringByzantine power . He thrust back Latins wherever theywere encroaching on the Greek sphere
,a s were the Venetians
of the Morea,the Hospitallers of Rhodes
,and the Genoese of
the Crimea and he rounded off the proper Byzantineholding by annexing
,in Europe
,all the Balkan peninsula
excep t the impracticable Black Mountain,the Albanian
highlands,and the Hungarian fortress of Belgrade and
,in
Asia,what had remained independent in the Anatolian
peninsula,the emira tes of Karamania and Cappadocia .
Before Mohammed died in 148 1 the Osmanli Turco
334 Turkey
Europe or in Asia , and better than it was a t the moment infeudal Christendom . The Osmanli military organizationwas reputed the best in the world , and it s fame attractedadventurous spirit s from all over Europe to learn war in thefirst school o f the age . Ottoman armies
,i t i s worth
while to remember, were the only ones then attended byefficient medical and commissaria t services , and may be saidto have int roduced to Europe these alleviations of the horrors
of war.
Had the immedia te successors of Mohammed been content—or
,rather
,had they been able—to remain within his
boundaries,they would have robbed Ottoman history of one
century of sinister brilliance, but might have postponed formany centuries the subsequent sordid decay for the seeds
of this were undoubtedly sown by the three grea t sultans
who followed the taker o f Constantinople . Their ambitionsor their necessities led to a great increase of the profe ss ioual army which would entail many evils in time to come .
Among these were praetorianism in the capital and thegreat provincial towns subj ection of land and peasantry tomilitary seigneurs
,who gradually detached themselves from
the central control ; wars undertaken abroad for no betterreason than the employment of soldiery feared a t home ;consequent expansion of the territorial empire beyondthe administrative capacity of the central government development of the tribute-children system of recruiting intoa scourge of the rayas and a continual offence to neighbour
ing s tates , and the supplementing of that system by acceptance o f any and every alien outlaw who might off er himselffor service : la stly, revival of the dormant crusading spiri t ofEurope, which reacted on the Osmanlis, begetting in them
H eritage and Expansion of Byzantine Empire 335
an Arabian fanaticism and disposing them to revert to theobscurantis t Spirit of the earlies t Moslems . To sum thematter up in other words the omnipotence and indiscipline
of the Janissaries ; the contumacy of Dere Beys Lords
of the Valleys ,’who maintained a feudal independence) and
of provincial governors ; the concentration of the offi cialmind on things military and religious
,to the exclusion of
other interests ; the degradation and embitterment of theChristian elements in the empire ; the perpetual financial
embarrassment of the government with its inevitableconsequence of oppression and neglect of the governed andthe constant provocation in Christendom of a hostility which
was always la tent and recurrently active—all these evils,
which combined to push the empire nearer and nearer toruin from the seventeenth century onwards
,can be traced
to the brilliant epoch of Osmanli history associa tedwith the names o f Bayezid I I
,Selim I
,and Suleiman the
Magnificent .At the same time Fate
,ra ther than any sultan
,must be
blamed . I t was impossible to forgo some further extension
of the empire,and very diffi cult to arrest extension a t
any satisfactory s tatic point . For one thing,a s has been
pointed out already,there were important territorie s in
the proper Byzantine Sphere s till unredeemed at thedeath of Mohammed . Rhodes
,Krete
,and Cyprus
,whose
possession carried with it something like superior controlo f the Levantine trade
,were in Latin hands . Austrian
as well a s Venetian occupation of the best harbours wasvirtually closing the Adria tic to the masters of the Balkans .Nor could the inner lands of the Peninsula b e quite securelyheld while the great fortress of Belgrade
,with the passage
o f the Danube, remained in Hungarian keeping . Further
336 Turkey
more,the Black Sea
,which all masters of the Bosphorus
have desired to make a Byzantine lake,was in dispute
with the Wallachs and the Poles ; and, in the reign o f
Mohammed’s successor,a cloud no bigger than a man’s
hand came up above its northern horizon—the harbinger
of the Muscovite .
AS for the Asiatic part of the Byzantine sphere,there was
only one little corner in the south—east to be rounded off tobring all the Anatolian peninsula under the Osmanli . Butthat corner
,the Cilician plain
,promised trouble
,since it was
held by another I slamic power,that of the Egyptian Mame
lukes,which
,claiming to be a t least equal to the Osmanli
,
possessed vitality much below its pretensions . The t emp tation to poach on it was s trong
,and any lord of Constantinople
who once gave way to this , would find himself led on toassume control of all coasts of the easternmost Levant
,
and then to push into inland Asia in quest of a scientificfrontier a t their back —perilous and costly enterprise whichRome had essayed again and again and had to renouncein the end . Bayezid I I took the first step by summoningthe Mameluke to evacuate certain forts near Tarsus
,and
expelling his garrisons vi et armis. Cilicia passed to theOsmanli ; but for the moment he pushed no farther . Bayezid,who was under the obligation always to lead his a rmy inperson
,could make but one campaign at a time ; and
a need in Europe was the more pressing . In quittingCilicia
,however
,he left open a new question in
Ottoman politics—the Asiatic continental question— andindicated to his successor a line of lea st resistance onwhich to advance . Nor would this be his only dangerons legacy . The prolonged and repeated raids intoAdriatic lands
,as fa r north a s Carniola and Carinthia
,with
338 Turkey
was a new thing,fraught with dire possibilities from tha t
day forward . I t marked the supersession of the Byzantineor European ideal by the Asiatic in Osmanli policy
,and
introduced a phase of Ottoman history which has enduredt o our own time .
The inevitable process was continued in the next reign .
Almost all the military glories o f Suleiman—known to contemporary Europe a s the Magnificent and often held byhistorians the greates t of Osmanli sultans -made for weakening
,not strengthening
,the empire . His earlies t Operations
indeed , the captures of Rhodes from the Knights and ofBelgra de and Sabac from the Hungarians
,expressed a legi
timate Byzantine policy ; and the siege o f Malta,one o f
his lates t ventures,might also be defended a s a measure
taken in the true interests of Byzantine commerce . Butthe most brilliant and momentous of his achievements bredevils for which military prestige and the material profit sto be gained from the Oppression o f an irreconcilablepopulation were inadequate compensa tion . This was theconques t o f Hungary . I t would result in Buda and itskingdom remaining Ottoman territory for a century anda half
,and in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia
abiding under the Ottoman shadow even longer,
and
passing for all time out of the central European into theBalkan sphere ; but also it would result in the Osmanlipower finding itself on a weak frontier face to face a t las twith a really s trong Christian race
,the Germanic
,before
which,s ince it could not advance
,i t would have ultimately
t o withdraw and in the rousing o f Europe to a sense of it scommon danger from Moslem activity . Suleiman’s failureto take Vienna more than made good the panic which hadfollowed on his victory at Mohacs . I t was felt tha t the
H eritage and E xpansion of Byzantine Empire 339
Moslem,now that he had failed against the bulwark of
central Europe,was to go no farther, and tha t the hour
of revenge was near .I t was nearer than perhaps was expected . Ottoman
capacity to administer the overgrown empire in Europeand Asia was strained already almo s t to breaking-point
,and
it was in recognition of this fact that Suleiman made thegrea t effort to reorganize his imperial system
,which has
earned him his honourable title o f El K anun,the Regulator .
But if he could reset and cleanse the wheels of the administ rat ive machine
,he could no t increase it s capacity . New
blood was beginning to fail fo r_ , the governing clas s j us t a sthe demands on i t became greater . No longer could i t bemanned exclusively from the Christian born . Two centuries
of recruiting in the Balkans and West Asia had sapped thei rresources . Even the Janissaries were not now all tributechildren Their own sons , free men Moslem born , beganto be admitted to the ranks . This change was a vitalinfringement of the old principle of Osmanli rule
,tha t all
the higher administrative and milita ry functions should bevested in slaves of the imperial household
,directly dependent
on the sultan himself ; and once breached , this principlecould not but give way more and more . The descendantsof imperial slaves
,free-born Moslems
,but barred from
the glo ry and profit s of their fathers ’ function,had gradually
become a very numerous clas s o f country gentlemen distributed over all parts o f the empire
,and a very malcontent
one . Though it was s till subservient,it s dis satisfaction a t
exclrision from the central administra tion was soon to Showi tself partly in assaults on the time-honoured system
,partly
in a ssumption o f local j urisdic tion,which would develop
into provincial independence .Y 2
340 Turkey
The overgrowth of his empire further compelled Suleimanto divide the standing army
,in order tha t more than one
imperial force might take the field a t a time . Unable tolead all his armIe s In person
,he elected
,in the latter part
of his reign,to lead none
,and for the firs t time left the
Janissaries to march without a sultan to war. Remaininghimself a t the centre
,he initia ted a fashion which would
encourage Osmanli sultans to l apse into half-hidden beings,
whom their subj ects would gradually invest with religiouscharacter . Under these conditions the ruler
,the governing
clas s (its power grew with this devolution) , the dominantpopulation of the state
,and the s tate itself all grew more
fanatically Moslem .
In the early years of the seventeenth century,Ahmed I
being on the throne,the Ottoman Empire embraced the
widest territorial a rea which it was ever to cover at anyone moment . In what may be called the proper Byzantinefield
,Cyprus had been recovered and Krete alone stood out .
Outside that field,Hungary on the north and Yemen (since
Selim’s conquest in 1516) on the south were the frontierprovinces
,and the Ottoman flag had been carried not only
to the Persian Gulf but also far upon the Iranian plateau,
in the long wars of Murad I I I,which culminated in 1588
with the occupation of Tabriz and half Azerbaij an .
4
Shrinkage and Retreat
THE fringes of this vast empire, however, none too surelyheld
,were already Involving it in insoluble difli cult ie s
and imminent dangers . On the one hand,in Asia
,i t had
been found impossible to establish military fie fs in Arabia ,
S hri n age and R etreat 341
K urdistan , or anywhere eas t of it , on the system which hadsecured the Osmanli tenure elsewhere . On the other hand
,
in Europe,a s we have seen
,the empire had a very unsat is
factory frontier,beyond which a s trong people not only se t
limits to further progress but was prepared to dispute theground already gained . In a treaty signed a t Sitvatorok,in 1606
,the Osmanli sultan was forced to acknowledge
definitely the absolute and equal sovereignty of his northernneighbour
,Austria and although
,les s than a century later
,
Vienna would be attacked once more,there was never again
to be serious prospect of an extension of the empire inthe direction of central Europe .
Moreover,however appearances might be maintained on
the frontiers,the heart of the empire had begun patently
to fail . The history of the next two centuries,the seven
t eenth and eighteenth,i s one long record of praetorian
tumults a t home ; and ever more rarely will these be com
pensat ed by military successes abroad . The firs t of thesecenturies had not half elap sed ere the Janissaries had takenthe l ives of two sultans
,and brought the Grand Vezie rat e
to such a perilous pass tha t no ordinary holder of i t,unless
backed by some very powerful Albanian or other tribalinfluence
,could hOpe to save his credit or even his life .
During this period indeed no Osmanli of the older stocksever exercised real control of affairs . I t was only amongthe more recently assimilated elements
,such as the Albanian ,
the Slavonic,or the Greek
,tha t men of the requisite character
and vigour could be found . The rally which marked thelatter half of the seventeenth century was entirely the worko f Albanians or of other generals and admii'als
,none o f
whom had had a Moslem grandfather . Marked by thelas t Osmanli conquest made a t the expense of Europe
342 Turkey
that of Krete ; by the definite subj ugation of Wallachia ;by the second siege of Vienna by the recovery o f th e Moreafrom Venice and finally by an honourable arrangement withAustria about the Danube frontier— it is all to be creditedto the Kuprili dynasty of Albanian veziers
,which con
Spicuously outshone the contemporary sovereigns of thedynasty o f Osman
,the best o f them
,Mohammed IV
,no t
excepted . I t was,however
,no more than a rally ; for
greater danger already threatened from another quarter .Agreement had not been reached with Austria a t Carlowitz, in 1699, before a new and baleful planet swam intothe Osmanli sky.
I t was,this time
,no central European power, to which ,
a t the worst,all tha t lay north o f the proper Byzantine
sphere might be abandoned ; b ilt a claimant for part of
that sphere itself,perhap s even for the very heart of it .
Russia,s eeking an economic outlet
,had sapped her way
south to the Euxine sho re,and was on the point of challeng
ing the Osmanli right to tha t sea . The contest wouldinvolve a vital issue ; and if the Porte did no t yet grasp thisfac t
,others had grasped it . The famous ‘Testament of
Peter the Grea t may or may not be a genuine document ;but
,in either case
,i t “proves that certain view s about the
necessary policy of Russia in the Byzantine area,which
became commonplaces o f western political thinkers a s theeighteenth century advanced
,were already familiar to east
European minds in ' the earlier part o f that century .
Battle was not long in being j oined . In the event,i t would
co st Russia about sixty years o f s trenuous effort to reducethe Byzantine power of the Osmanlis to a condition littlebetter than that in which Osman had found the Byzantinepower of the Greeks four centuries befo re . During the first
344 Turkey
was the heyday of the Anatolian feudal families—of such asthe Chapanog hlus o f Yuzg ad , whose sway stretched fromPontus to Cilicia
,right across the base of the peninsula
,or
the Karamanog hlus of Magnesia , Bergama , and Aidin , whoruled a s much territory a s the former emirs of Kara s andSarukhan
,and were recognized by the representatives of
the great trading companies a s wielding the only effectiveauthority in Smyrna . The wide and rich regions controlledby such families u sually contributed neither an asper to thesultan’s trea sury nor a man to the imperial armies .On no mountain of either Europe or Asia—and mountains
formed a large part of the Ottoman empire in both— did theimperial writ run . Macedonia and Albania were obedientonly to their local beys, and so far had gone the devolutionof Serbia and Bosnia to Janissary aghas
,feudal beys
,and the
B eylerb ey of Rumili,tha t these provinces hardly concerned
themselves more with the capital . The late sultan,Mus
tapha I I I,had lost almost the las t remnant of his subj ect s ’
respect,not so much by the ill success of his mutinou s
armies a s by his deprecia tion of the imperial coinage . Hehad died bankrup t of prestige
,leaving no visible a ss et s to
his successor . What might become of the latter no one inthe empire appeared to care . As in 1453, i t waited otherlords .
5
RevivalIT has been waiting , nevertheles s, ever since—waiting for
much more than a century ; and perhap s the end is noteven yet . Why
,then
,have expectations not only within
but w ithout the empire been so greatly a t fault How came
R evival 345
Montesquieu,Burke
,and o ther confident prophets since
their time to be so signally mistaken There were severalco—operating causes
,but one paramount . Constantinople
was no longer,a s in 1453, a matter of concern only to itself,
it s immediate neighbours,and certain trading republic s of
I taly . I t had become involved with the commercial interes tsof a far wider circle
,in particular of the grea t trading peoples
of western Europe,the British
,the French
,and the Dutch ,
and with the political interes ts of the Germanic and Russiannations . None of these could be indifferent to a revolutionin its fortunes
,and least of all to it s passing
,not to a power
out of Asia,but to a rival power among themselves . Europe
was already in labour with the doctrine of the Balance of
Power . The bantling would not be born a t Vienna till earlyin the century to come : but even before the end of theeighteenth century it could be foreseen tha t it s life wouldbe bound up with the maintenance of Constantinople inindependence of any one of the parent powers—tha t is
,with
the prolongation of the Osmanli phase of it s imperial fortunes .This doctrine
,consistently acted upon by Europe
,has been
the sheet anchor o f the O ttoman empire for a century .
Even to this day its Moslem dynasty has never been withoutone powerful Chris tian champion or another .There were
,however
,some thi rty years s till to elapse a fter
S elim ’s accession before tha t doctrine wa s fully born andha d her hands been free
,Russia might well have been in
secure po ssession of the Byzantine throne long before 18 15.
For, internally, the Osmanli s tate went from bad to worse .
The tumultuous insubordination of the Janissaries becamean ever greater scandal . Never in all the long history of
their riots was their record for the years 1807—9 equalled oreven approached . Never before
,also
,had the provinc es been
346 Turkey
so utterly ou t o f hand . This was the era of Je zzar theButcher a t Acre
,o f the rise o f M eheme t Ali in Egyp t
,of
Ali Pasha in Epirus,and o f Pasvanoghlu a t Vidin . When
Mahmud IIwas thrust,in 1809, on to the throne, he certainly
began his reign with no more personal authority and no moreimperial prestige or j urisdiction than the las t Greek emperorhad enjoyed on his accession in 1448 .
The grea t European war,however
,which had been raging
intermittently for nearly twenty years,had saved Mahmud
an empire to which he could succeed in name and try to givesubstance . Whatever the Osmanlis suffered during that war
,
i t undoubtedly kep t them in Constantinople . Temporaryloss of Egypt and the small damage done by the Britisha ttack on Constantinople in 1807 were a small price to payfor the diversion of Russia ’s main energies to other thanByzantine fields
,and for the assurance
,made doubly sure
when the grea t enemy did again a ttack,that she would no t
be allowed to settle the account alone . Whatever Napoleonmay have planned and signed a t Tilsit
,the aegis o f France
was consistently opposed to the enemies of the Osmanlisdown to the clo se of the Napoleonic age .
Thus it c ame about that those thirty perilous yearspassed without the expected catas trophe . There was s tilla successor o f Osman reigning in Constantinople when thegrea t Christian powers
,met in conclave a t Vienna
,half
unconsciously guaranteed the continued existence of theOsmanli Empire simply by leaving it ou t of account instriking a Balance o f Power in Europe . I t s European territory, with the capital within it, was of quite enough impo rtance to disturb seriously the nice adj ustment agreed atVienna and
,therefo re
,while any one’s henceforth t o take
or l eave, i t would become always some one’s to guard .
348 Turkey
seigneurs,tribal chiefs
,and irresponsible oflice rs the sub
st itut ion of direc t collection for tax-farming and the
substitution o f administration by bureaucra ts for adminis
t rat ion by household officers— these, the chief reformscarried through under Mahmud , were all anti-Byzantine .
They did no t cause the Osmanli s tate to be born anew,but
,
a t leas t,they went far to purge it of original sin .
That Mahmud and his advisers could carry through suchreforms a t all in so old a body politic i s remarkable : thatthey carried them through amid the events of his reign isalmost miraculous . One affront after another was put onthe Sultan
,one blow after another was struck a t his empire .
Inspired by echoes of the French Revolution and by Napoleon’s recognition o f the rights of nationalities
,first the
Serbs and then the Greeks seized moments of Ottoman disorder to rise in revolt agains t their local lords . The firs t
,
who had risen under Selim I I I , achieved, under Mahmud ,autonomy
,but not independence
,nothing remaining to the
sultan as before excep t the fortres s of Belgrade with five otherstrongholds . The second
,who began with no higher hopes
than the Serbs,were encouraged
,by the better acquaintance
and keener sympathy of Europe,to fight their way out to
complete freedom . The Morea and central Greece passedout of the empire
,the firs t provinces so t o pass Since the
Osmanli loss of Hungary . Yet it was in the middle of tha tfatal struggle that Mahmud settled for ever with the Janissaries
,and during all it s course he was settling one after
another with the Dere BeysWhen he had thus sacrificed the flower of his pro
fessional troops and had hardly had time to replace thelocal governments of the provinces by anything much betterthan general anarchy
,he found himself faced by a Russian
Revival 349
a ssault . His raw levie s fought a s no other raw levies thanthe Turkish can
,and
,helped by manifestations o f j ealousy
by the other powers,s taved off the capture of Constanti
nople , which , a t one moment,seemed about to take place
a t la st . But he had to accep t humiliating terms,amounting
virtually,to a cession of the Black Sea . Mahmud recognized
tha t such a price he must pay for crossing the broad streambetween Byzantinism and Nationalism
,and kep t on his way.
Finally came a blow at the hands of one o f his own
household and creed . Meheme t Ali o f Egypt,who had
faithfully fought his sovereign’s ba ttles in Arabia and theMorea
,held his services ill requited and his claim to be
increased beyond other pashas ignored,and proceeded to
take what had not been granted . He went farther thanhe had intended—more than half-way across Asia Mino rafter the imperial a rmies had suffered three signal
defeats,before he extorted what he had desired at firs t
and in the end , after very brief enj oyment , he had t o
resign all again t o the mandate,no t of his sovereign
,but
of certain European powers who commanded his seas .Mahmud
,however
,who lived neither to see himself saved
by the g iaour fleets,nor even to hear of his la tes t defeat
,had
gone forward with the reorganiza tion of the central andprovincial administration
,undismayed by Meheme t Ali’s
contumacy or the insistence of Russia a t the gate of theBosphorus .As news arrived from time to time in the west of Mah
mud’s disa sters,i t was customary t o prophesy the imminent
dissolution o f his empire . We,however
,looking backward
now,can see tha t by its lo sses the Osmanli s tate in reality
grew stronger . Each of it s humilia tions pledged somepower o r group of powers mo re deeply to support it and
350 Turkey
befo re Mahmud died,he had reason to believe that
,so long
a s the European Concert should ensue the Balance of Power,
his dynasty would no t be expelled from Constantinople .
His belief has been j ustified . At every fresh crisis of Ottoman fortunes
,and especially after every fresh Russian attack
,
foreign protection has unfailingly been extended to his
success ors .I t was not
,however
,only in virtue o f the increasing
solicitude of the powers on its behalf tha t during the ninet e enth century the empire was growing and would growstronger
,but also in virtue of certain assets within itself .
First among these ranked the resources o f i ts Asiatic territories
,which
,a s the European lands diminished
,became
more and mo re nearly identified with the empire . When,
having got rid of the old army,Mahmud imposed service
on all his Moslem subj ec ts (in theory, but in effect only on theOsmanlis
,not the Arabs
,Kurds
,or other half assimilated
nomads and hillmen) , i t meant more than a similar measurewould have meant in a Chris tian empire . For
,the life of
Islam being war, milita ry service binds Moslems together and
t o their chiefs a s i t binds men under no other dispensa tion ;therefore Mahmud
,so fa r a s he was able to enfo rce his
decree,created not merely a national army but a nation . His
success was most Immediate and complete in Anatolia,the
homeland of the Osmanlis . There,however
,i t was a ttained
only by the previous reduction of those feudal families which,
for many generations,had arrogated to themselves the levying
and control of local forces . Hence,as in Constantinople
with the Janissaries,so in the provinces with the Dere Beys
,
destruction o f a drastic order had to precede construction,
and more of Mahmud’s reign had to be devoted to theformer than remained for the la tter .
352 Turkey
suzerainty in name . To j udge how far the shrinkage of theOsmanli European empire has been compensated by expan
sion of it s Asiatic , one has only to compare the political s tateof Kurdistan
,as it was a t the end of the eighteenth century
,
and as it has been in our own time .
I t is impossible to believe that the Greek Empire,however
buttressed and protected by foreign powers,could ever have
reconstituted itself after falling so low a s it fell in thefourteenth century and as the Osmanli Empire fell in theeighteenth ; and it i s clear that the latter must s till havepossessed latent Springs of vitality
,deficient in the former.
What can these have been 3 I t is worth while to try toanswer this question a t the present j uncture
,since those
springs,if they existed a hundred years ago
,can hardly now
be dry .
In the firs t place it had its predominant creed . Thishad acted a s I slam acts everywhere
,a s a very s trong
social bond,uniting the vas t maj ority of subj ects in all
districts except certain parts of the European empire,in
instinctive loyalty to the person of the padishah,whatever
might be felt about his government . Thus had it acted withspecial eflicacy in Asia Mino r, whose inhabitants the Osmanliemperors
,unlike the Greek
,had always been a t some pains
to attach to themselves . The Sultan,therefore
,could still
count on general support from the population of his empire’sheart
,and had a t his disposal the resources of a country
which no administra tion,however improvident or malign
,
has ever been able to exhaust .In the second place the Osmanli Turks however fallen
away from the virtues of their ancestors,had no t los t either
the will to power or their capacity for governing undermilitary law . I f they had never succeeded in learning to
rule a s civilians they had no t forgotten how to rule a ssoldiers .In the third place the sultanate of S tamboul had retained
a vague but valuable prestige,based partly on past history
,
partly on its pretension to religious influence throughouta much larger area than it s proper dominions ; and the conservative population of the la tter was in great measure veryimperfectly informed of it s sovereign ’s actual position .
In the fourth and las t place,among the populations on
whose loyalty the Osmanli sultan could make good his claim,
were several s trong unexhausted elements,especially in
Anatolia . There are few more vigorous and enduringpeoples than the peasants of the central plateau of AsiaMinor
,north
,east
,and south . With this rock of defence
to stand upon,the sultan could draw also on the strength
of other more distant races , les s firmly attached to himself,but not less vigorous
,such
,for example
,as the Albanians
of his European mountains and the Kurds of his Asia tic .
However decadent might be the Turco-Grecian Osmanli
(he , unfortunately, had the lion’s share of office) , those other
elements had suff ered no decline in physical or mentaldevelopment . Indeed
,one cannot be among them now
w ithout feeling that their day i s not only no t gone , but i sstill
,for the most part
,yet to be .
Such were latent assets of the Osmanli Empire,appre
ciat ed imperfectly by the prophets o f i ts dissolution .
Thanks to them,tha t empire continued no t only to hold
together throughout the nineteenth century but,in some
measure,to consolidate itself . Even when the protective
fence,se t up by European powers about it
,was violated
,
a s by Russia s everal times—in 1829, in 1854, and in 1 877
the nation,which Mahmud had made
,always proved
183 2 1Z
354 Turkey
capable of s tout enough resistance to delay the enemytill European diplomacy
,however slow of movement
,could
come to it s a id,and ultimately to dispose the victor to
accept terms consistent with it s continued existence . I t was
an existence,of course
,of suff erance
,but one which grew
better a ssured the longer i t las ted . By an irony of theOsmanli position
,the worse the empire was adminis
t e red,the stronger became its international guarantee . No
better example can be cited than the eff ect of it s financialfollies . When national bankruptcy
,long contemplated by
i ts Government,supervened at last
,the sultan had nothing
more to fear from Europe . He became,ipso facto, the
cherished protégé of every power whose nationals had lenthis country money .
Considering the magnitude of the change which Mahmudinstituted
,the stage a t which he left i t
,and the character
of the society in which it had t o be carried out,i t was
unfortunate that he Should have been followed on the throneby two well-meaning weaklings
,of whom the firs t was
a voluptuary,the second a fantastic spendthrift of doubtful
sanity . Mahmud , a s has been said , being occupied for thegreater part of his reign in destroying the old order
,had
been able to reconstruct little more than a framework . Hisoperations had been almost entirely forcible— of a kindunderstood by and congenial to the Osmanli character— and
partly by circumstances but more by his natural sympathies,
he had been identified from firs t t o la st with military enterprises . Though he was known to contemplate the eventualsupremacy of civil law,
and the equality of all sorts and condit ions of his subj ects befo re it
,he did nothing to open this
vista to public view . Consequently he encountered little
356 Turkey
thus—that is,both the ‘Old Turks ’ and the moderate
Liberals ; and , further, to change for the worse the spirit
in which the new machine of government was being workedand in which fresh developments of i t would be accepted .
To his credit,however
,Abdul Mej id went on with
admlnl strat ive reform . The organization of the army intocorps—the foundation of the existing system—and theimposition of five years’ s ervice on all subj ect s of the empire
(in theory which an Albanian rising caused to be imper
fectly realized in fact) , belong t o the early part of his reigna s do also
,on the civil s ide
,the institution of responsible
councils of s tate and formation of minis tries,and much
provision for secondary education . To his latest years i sto b e credited the codification of the civil law . He hadthe advantage of some dozen initial years of comparativesecurity from external foes
,after the Syrian question had
been settled in his favour by Great Britain and her alliedpowers a t the cheap price of a guarantee of hereditarysuccession to the house of Meheme t Ali . Thanks to thesame support
,war w ith Persia was avoided and war with
Russia postponed .
But the provinces,even if quiet (which some of them ,
e . g . the Lebanon in the early ‘forties were not) , provedfar from content . I f the form of Osmanli governmenthad changed greatly
,i ts spiri t had changed l ittle
,and
defective communications militated against the responsib ility of officials to the centre . Money was scarce
,and
the paper currency—an ill-omened device of Mahmud’swas depreciated
,distrusted
,and regarded a s an imperial
betrayal of confidence . Finally,the hostility of Russia
,
notoriously unabated,and the encouragement of aspiring
rayas credited to her and other foreign powers made bad
Revival 357
blood between creeds and encouraged Opposition to theexecution of the pro-Christian Tanzimat . When Chris tianturbulence a t las t brought on
,in 1854, the Russian attack
which developed into the Crimean W ar,and Christian
allies,though they frustra ted that a ttack
,made a peace
by which the Osmanlis gained nothing , the latter were in
no mood to welcome the repetition of the Tanzimat,which
Abdul Me j id consented to embody in the Treaty of Paris .The reign closed amid turbulence and humiliationsmassacre and bombardment at Jidda , massacre and FrancoBritish coercion in Syria—from all of which the sultantook refuge with women and wine
,to meet in 1861 a
drunkard’s end .
His successor,Abdul Aziz
,had much the same intentions
,
the same civilian sympathies,the same policy of EurOpeaniza
tion,and a different
,but more fatal
,weakness of character .
He was,perhaps
,never wholly sane ; but his aberration,
a t firs t a ttested only by an exalted conviction of his divinecharacter and inability to do wrong
,excited little attention
until it began to issue in fantastic expenditure . By an ironyo f history
,he is the one Osmanli sultan upon the roll of our
Order of the Garter,the right to place a b anne r in St .Geo rge’s
Chapel having been offered to this Allah-possessed caliphon the occasion of his visi t to the West in 1867 .
Despite the good intentions of Abdul Aziz himself—a ss incere as can be credited to a disordered brain—and despitemore than one minister of outstanding ability, reform andalmost everything else in the empire went to the bad inthis unhappy reign . The administra tion settled down to
lifeles s routine and lapsed into corrup tion : the nationalarmy was starved : the depreciation of the currency grewworse a s the revenue declined and the sultan’s household
358 Turkey
and personal extravagance increased . Encouraged by theinertia of the imperial Government , the Christians of theEuropean provinces waxed bold . Though Montenegro wasseverely handled for contumacy
,the Serbs were able to
cover their penultimate stage towards freedom by forcing in
1 867 the withdrawal of the la st Ottoman garrisons fromtheir fortresses . Krete stood at bay for three years and allbut won her liberty . Bosnia rose in arms
,but divided
against herself . Pregnant with graver trouble than these,Bulgaria showed signs of waking from long sleep . In 1870
she obtained recognition a s a nationality in the OttomanEmpire
,her Church being detached from the control of
the Oecumenical Patriarch of the Greeks and placed underan Exarch . Presently
,her peasantry growing ever more
restive,passed from protes t to revolt against the Circassian
refugee-colonists with whom the Porte was flooding theland . The sultan
,in an evil hour
,for lack of trained troops
,
let l oose irregulars on the villages,and the Bulgarian atro
cities,which they committed in 1 875, sowed a fa tal harvest
for his successor t o reap . His own time was almost fulfilled .
The following spring a dozen high ofli cials,with the assent
of the Sheikh-ul-I slam and the active dissent of no one,
took Abdul Aziz from his throne to a prison,wherein two
days l a ter he perished,probably by his own hand . A puppet
reigned three months a s Murad V,and then
,a t the bidding
o f the same king-makers whom his uncle had obeyed,left
the throne free for his brother Abdul Hamid,a man of
aff airs and ability,who was to be the most conspicuous
,or
ra ther,the most notorious Osmanli sultan since Suleiman .
360 Turkey
representative institutions . The new sultan,hardly
settled on his unea sy throne,could not deny those who had
deposed his two predecessors,and
,shrewdly aware tha t
rip e fact s would not be long in getting the better of immature ideas
,accepted . A parliament was summoned ; an
electora te,with only the haziest notions of what it was
about,went through the form of sending representatives t o
Constantinople ; and the sittings were inaugurated by aspeech from the throne
,framed on the most approved
Britannic model,the deputies
,i t i s said
,j ostling and crowd
ing the while to sit , a s many as possible, on the right, whichthey understood was always the side of powers that b e .
I t is true this extemporized chamber never had a chance .The Russians crossed the Pruth before i t had done muchmore than verify its powers
,and the thoughts and energies
of the Osmanlis were soon occupied with the most severeand disa strous struggle in which the empire had everengaged . But it is equally certain that it could not haveturned to account any chance i t might have had . Oncemore the ‘young men in a hurry ’ had snatched at theend of an evolution hardly begun
,without taking into
account the immaturity of Osmanli society in politicaleducation and political capacity . After suspension duringthe war
,the parliament was dissolved unregretted
,and its
creator was tried for his life,and banished . In failing ,
however,Midhat left bad to become so much worse tha t
the next reformers would inevitably have a more convincedpublic opinion behind them
,and he had virtually destroyed
the power of Mahmud’s bureaucracy . I f the only immediate eff ect was the substitution of an unlimited autocracy,the Osmanli peoples would be able thenceforward to ascribetheir misfortunes to a single person
,medita te attack on
R elapse 361
a single position , and dream o f realizing some day an idealwhich had been definitely formulated .
The Russian onslaught, which began in both Europe andAsia in the Spring of 1877, had been brought on
,after
a fashion become customary,by movements in the Slavonic
provinces of the Ottoman Empire and in Rumania ; and
the latter province,now independent in all but name and
,
in defiance of Ottoman protests,disposing of a regular army
,
j oined the invader . In campaigns la sting a little less thana year
,the Osmanli Empire was brought nearer to passing
than ever before,and it was in a suburb of Constantinople
itself that the final armistice was arranged . But action byrival powers
,both before the peace and in the revision of
i t a t Berlin,gave fresh assurance that the end would not be
suff ered to come yet ; and, moreover, through the longseries of disasters
,much latent s trength of the empire and
its peoples had been revealed .
When that empire had emerged,Shorn of several provinces
—in Europe,of Rumania
,Serbia
,and northern Greece
,with
Bulgaria also well on the road they had travelled to emancipation
,and in Asia
,of a broad slice of Caucasia—Abdul Hamid
cut his losses,and
,under the new guarantee of the Berlin
Treaty,took heart to try his hand at reviving Osmanli power .
He and his advisers had their idea,the contrary of the idea
of Midhat and all the sultans since Mahmud . The empiremust be made
,not more European
,but more Asia tic . In
the development of I slamic spirit to pan-Islamic unity it
would find new strength ; and towards this end in the earlyeighties
,while he was yet comparatively young , with
intelligence unclouded and courage sufli cient , Abdul Hamidpatiently se t himself . In Asia
,naturally sympathetic to
autocracy,and the home of the faith of his fathers , he se t
362 Turkey
on foot 3 pan-I slamic propaganda . He exalted his caliphate ;he wooed the Arabs
,and he plotted with extraneous Moslem
‘
against whatever foreign government they might have t o
endure .
I t cannot be denied that this idea was based on the logicof facts
,and
,if i t could be realized
,promised better than
Midhat ’s for escape from shameful dependence . Indeed,Abdul Hamid
,an autocra t bent on remaining one
, couldhardly have acted upon any other . By far the greater partof the territorial empire remaining to him lay in Asia .
The little left in Europe would obviously soon be reducedto less . The Balkan lands were waking, or already awake, toa sense of separate nationality
,and what chance did the
Osmanli element,les s progressive than any
,stand in them i
The acceptance of the Ottoman power into the Concert ofEurope
,though formally notified to Abdul Me j id, had
proved an empty thing . In that galley there was no placefor a sultan except as a dependent or a slave . As an Asiaticpower
,however
,exerting temporal sway over some eighteen
million bodies and religious influence over many times moresouls
,the Osmanli caliph might command a place in the sun .
The result belied these hopes . Abdul Hamid’s failure wasowed in the main to fact s independent of his personalityor s tatecraft . The expansion of I slam over an immensegeographical a rea and among peoples living in incompatibles tages of sophistication
,under most diverse political and
social conditions,has probably made any universal caliphial
authority for ever impossible . The original idea of thecaliphate, like tha t of the j ehad or holy war of the faithful
,
presupposed tha t allMoslemswere under governments of theirown creed
,and
,perhaps
,under one government . Moreover
,if
such a caliph were ever to be again,an Osmanli sultan would
364 Turkey
was a t pains to make no European friend , in the latter hefell mo re and more under the influence of Germany, which ,almost from the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm I I
,began t o
prepare a southward way for future use,and alone of the
powers,never browbea t the sultan .
Internally,the empire passed more and more under the
government of the imperial household . Defeated by the Sheergeographical difficulty of controlling directly an area so vastand inadequately equipped with means of communication
,
Abdul Hamid soon relaxed the spasmodic efforts of his earlyyears to better the condition of his subj ects ; and , uncontrolledand demoralized by the national disgrace
,the administration
went from bad to much worse . Ministers irresponsible ;ofli cials without sense of public obligation ; venality in allranks ; universal suspicion and delation ; violent remedies ,such a s the Armenian massacres of 1894, for diseases duet o neglect ; the peasantry, whether Moslem or Christian
,
but especially Christian,forced ultimately to liquidate all
accounts ; impoverishment of the whole empire by theimprovidence and Oppression of the central power- suchphrasing of the conventional results of Palace governmentexpresses inadequately the fruit s of Yildiz under AbdulHamid I I .Pari passu with this disorder of central and provinciala dministration increased the foreign encroachments onthe empire . The nation saw not only rapid multiplicationof concessions and hypothecations to aliens
,and of alien per
sons themselves installed in i ts mids t under extra-territorialimmunity from its laws
,secured by the capitulations
,but
also whole provinces sequestered,administered independently
of the sultan’s government,and prepared for eventual
alienation . Egypt,Tunisia
,Eastern Rumelia
,Krete—these
Relapse 365
had all been withdrawn from Ottoman control since theBerlin settlement
,and now Macedonia seemed to be going
the same way. Bitter to swallow a s the other losses hadbeen—pills thinly sugared with a guarantee of suzeraintythe loss of M
i
ace donia would be more bitter s till ; for, if itwere withdrawn from Ottoman use and profi t
,Albania would
follow and so would the command of the north Aegeanand the Adriatic shores while an ancient Moslem population would remain at Chris tian mercy .
I t was partly Ottoman fault,partly the fault of circum
stances beyond Ottoman control,tha t this dis tric t had
become a scandal and a reproach . In the days of Osmanligreatnes s Macedonia had been neglected in favour of
provinces to the north,which were richer and more nearly
related to the ways into central Europe . When more
attention began to be paid to it by the Government,i t had
already become a cockpit for the new-born Christiannationalities
,which had been developed on the north
,eas t
,
and south . These were using every weapon,material and
Spiritual,to secure preponderance in it s society
,and had
created chronic disorder which the Ottoman administrationnow weakly encouraged to save itself trouble , now violentlydragooned . Already the powers had not only proposedautonomy for i t
,but begun to control its police and i ts
finance . This was the la s t straw . The public opinionwhich had slowly been forming for thirty years gained thearmy
,and Midhat ’s seed came to fruit .
By an irony of fa te Macedonia not only supplied thespectacle which exasperated the army to revolt
,but by it s
very disorder made the preparation of that revolt possiblefor it was due to local limitations of Ottoman sovereigntythat the chief promoters of revolution were able to conspire
366 Turkey
in safety . By another irony,two of the few progressive
measures ever encouraged by Abdul Hamid contributed tohis undoing . If he had not sent young oflicers to be trainedabroad
,the army
,the one Ottoman institution never allowed
wholly to decay,would have remained outside the conspiracy .
If he had never promoted the construction of railways,a s
he began to do after 1897, the Salonika army could havehad no such influence on affairs in Constantinople a s itexerted in 1908 and again in 1909. As it was
,the sultan
,
a t a mandate from Resna in Macedonia,re-enacted Midhat ’s
Constitution,and
,a year later
,saw an army from Salonika
arrive to uphold that Constitution against the reaction hehad fostered
,and to send him
,dethroned and captive
,to
the place whence itself had come .
7
RevolutionLOO K ING back on this revolution across seven years of
its consequences,we se e plainly enough that i t was inspired
far les s by desire for humane progress than by Shame ofOsmanli military decline . The Liberty
,Equality
,Frater
nity programme which it s authors put forward (a civilianminority among them
,sincerely enough) , Europe accepted,
and the populace of the empire acted upon for a moment,
did not express the motive of the movement or eventuallyguide its course . The essence of that movement wasmilitant nationalism . The empire was to be regenerated
,no t
by humanizing it but by O t tomanizing i t . The Osmanli,
the man of the sword,was the type to which all others
,who
wished to be of the nation,were to conform . Such as did
no t so wish must be eliminated by the res t .
368 Turkey
generations to come,lay the one hope of realizing the pan
Ottoman idea and educating the resultant nation t o selfgovernment . That end
,however
,it was impossible to
realize under the circumstances in which past history hadinvolved the Ottoman Empire . There was t oo much badblood between different elements of i t s society whichOsmanli rulers had been labouring for centuries ra ther tokeep apart than to unite and certain important elements
,
both Moslem and Christian,had already developed too
mature ideas of separate nationality . With all it s defects,
however,the new order did undoubtedly rest on a wider
basis than the old,and its organization was better conceived
and executed . I t retained some of the sympathy of Europewhich it s beginnings had excited
,and the western powers
,
regarding its representative institutions a s earnests of goodgovernment
,however ill they might work a t the first
,were
disposed to give i t every chance .
Unfortunately the Young Turks were in a hurry to bringon their millennium
,and careles s of certain neighbouring
powers,not formidable individually but to be reckonedwith
if united,to whom the prospect of regenerated Osmanlis
a ssimilating their nationals could not be welcome . Had theYoung Turks been content to put their policy o f Ottomanizat ion in the background for awhile
,had they made
no more than a Show of accepting local dis tinctions of creedand politics
,keeping in the meantime a tight rein on the
Old Turks,they might long have avoided the union of those
neighbours,and been in a better position to resis t
,Should
that union eventually be arrayed against themselves .But a considerable and energetic element among them
belonged to the nervous Levantine type of Osmanli,which
is a s l ittle minded to compromise a s any Old Turk,though
R evolution 369
from a different motive . I t elected to deal drastically anda t once with Macedonia
,the peculia r obj ec t not only of
European solicitude but also of the interest of Bulgaria,
Serbia,and Greece . If ever a province required delicate
handling it was this . I t did no t get it . The interestedneighbours
,each beset by fugitives of it s oppressed nationals
,
protested only to be ignored or browbeaten . They drewtowards one another ; old feuds and j ealousies were put onone side and at las t
,in the summer of 191 2 , a Holy League
o f Balkan States,inspired by Venezelos
,the new Kre tan
Prime Minister of Greece,and by Ferdinand of Bulgaria
,
was formed wi th a view to common action against theoppressor of Greek
,Serbian
,and Bulgarian nationals in
Macedonia . Montenegro,always spoiling for a fight
,was
deputed to fire the train,and a t the approach of autumn
the firs t Balkan war blazed up .
8
Balkan WarTHE course of the s truggle i s described elsewhere in thisvolume . I ts event illustrates the danger of an alliancesucceeding beyond the expectat lons In which it wa s formed .
The constituent powers had looked for a s tiff s truggle withthe Ottoman armies
,but for final success suffi cient to enable
them,a t the best
,to divide Macedonia among themselves
,
a t the worst,t o secure its autonomy under international
guarantee . Neither they nor any one else expected suchan Ottoman collapse a s was in store . Their moment of
a ttack was better cho sen than they knew . The OsmanliWar Offi ce was caught fairly in the middle Of the stream .
Fighting during the revolution,subsequently agains t
A a
370 Turkey
Albanians and other recalcitrant provincials,and la tterly
against the—
I talians,who had snatched a t Tripoli the
year before,had reduced the Niz am
,-the first l ine of
troops,far below strength . The Redif , the second line,
had received hardly more training,thanks to the dis
organization of Abdul Hamid’s la st years and of the firs tyears of the new order
,than the Mustafuz , the third and
la st line . Armament,auxiliary services
,and the like had
been disorganized prepara tory to a scheme for thoroughreorganization
,which had been carried
,a s yet
,but a very
little way . A foreign (German) element , introd uced intothe command
,had had time to impair the old spirit of
Ottoman soldiers,but not to create a new one . The armies
sent against the Bulgarians in Thrace were so many mobs o fvarious arms ; those which met the Serbs, a little better ;those which Opposed the Greeks
,a lit tle worse .
I t followed that the Bulgarians,who had proposed to do
no more in Thrace than block Adrianople and immobilizethe Constantinople forces
,were carried by their own
momentum right down to Chataldj a,and there and at
Adrianople had to prosecute siege operations when theyought to have been marching to Kavala and Salonika . TheSerbs , after hard fighting
,broke through no t only Into
Macedonia but into Albania,and reached the Adria tic
,but
warned off this by the powers,consoled themselves with the
occupation of much more Macedonian territory than theconcerted plans of the allies had foreseen . The Greeks
,
instead of hard contests for the Haliacmon Valley andEpirus—their proper I rredenta— pushed such weak forcesbefore them that they g o t through to S alonika j ust in timeto fo restall a Bulgarian column . Ottoman collapse was
complete everywhere,except on the Chataldj a front . I t
372 Turkey
of the Osmanlis, had almost eff aced the sense o f Osmanlidisgrace
,and s tood to the general credit of the Committee
and the individual credit of it s military leader, Enver Bey .
The loss of some thousands of soldiers and much materialwas compensated by an invaluable lesson in the faultiness ofthe military system
,and especially the Redif organization .
The waywas now clearer than before for re-making the army
on the best European model , the German . The campaignhad not been long, nor, as wars go, costly to wage . In thepeace Turkey gained a new lease of life from the powers
,and
,
proflig ate that she was,the promise of more millions of
foreign money .
Over and above all this an a dvantage,which she ra ted
above international guarantees,was secured to her—the
prospective support of the strongest military power inEurope . The succes s of S erbia so menaced GermanoAustrian plans for the penetration of the Balkans
,that the
Central Powers were bound to woo Turkey even morelavishly than before
,and to seek alliance where they had
been content with influence . In a strong Turkey residedall their hope of saving from the Slavs the way to theMediterranean . They had kep t this policy in view for morethan twenty years
,and in a hundred ways
,by introduction
of Germans into the military organization,promotion of
German financial enterpris e,pushing of German commerce
,
pressure on behalf of German concessions which wouldentail provincial influence (for example , the constructiono f a transcontinental railway In Asia) , those powers had beenmanifesting their interes t in Turkey with ever-increasingsolicitude . Now they must a ttach her to themselves withhoops of s teel and
,with her help
,a s soon a s might be
,try
t o recas t the Balk an situation .
Balkan War 373
The experience of the recent war and the prospect inthe future made continuance and accentuation of militarygovernment in the Ottoman Empire inevitable . TheCommittee
,which had made its way back to power by
violent methods,now suppressed it s own Constitution almost
a s completely a s Abdul Hamid had suppressed Midhat ’sparliament . Re-organization of the milita ry personnel
,
accumulation of war material,strengthening of defences
,
provision of arsenals,dockyards
,and ships
,together with
devices for obtaining money to pay for all these things,
make Ottoman history for the years 191 2—14. The bondwith Germany was drawn tighter . More German instructors were invited
,more German engineers commissioned
,
more munitions of war paid for in French gold . By 1914 i tha d become so evident that the Osmanlis must array themselves with Austro-Germany in any European war
,tha t one
wonders why a moment’s cre dit was ever given t o theirprotestations of neutrality when tha t war came a t la s t inAugust 1914 . Turkey then needed other three months tocomplete her firs t line of defences and mobilize . These wereallowed to her
,and in the la te autumn she entered the field
agains t Great Britain,France
,and Russia
,armed with
German guns,led by German offi cers
,and fed with German
gold .
9
The Future
TURKEY ’S situation,therefore
,in general terms has become
this . With the dissolution of the Concert of Europe theOttoman Empire has lost what had been for a century itschief securi ty for continued existence . I ts fa te now depends
374 Turkey
on that of two European powers which are a t war with the
rest o f the former Concert . Among the la st named are
Turkey’s two principal creditors , holding together aboutseventy—five per cent . of her public debt . In the event ofthe defea t of her friends
,these creditors will be free to
foreclose,the debtor being certainly in no position t o meet
her obligations . Allied with Chris tian powers,the Osmanli
caliph has proved no more able than his predecessors tounite I slam in his defence ; but, for what his title i s worth,Mohammed V is s till caliph
,no rival claim having been put
forward . The loyalty of the empire remains where it was,
pending victory or defea t,the provinces being slow to realize
,
and still slower t o resent,the disastrous economic state to
which the war is reducing them .
The present S truggle may leave the Osmanli Empire inone of three situations (1) member of a victorious alliance,reinforced
,enlarged
,and lightened of financial burdens
,a s
the wages of its sin; (2 ) member of a defeated alliance, boundto pay the price of blood in loss of territory
,or independence
,
o r even existence (3) party to a compromise under whichits territorial empire might conceivably remain Ottoman
,
but under even stricter European tutelage than of old .
The firs t alternative i t would be i dle to discuss,for the
result of conditions so novel are impossible to foresee . Nor,
indeed,when immedia te events are so doubtful as a t the
present moment,i s i t profitable to a ttempt to forecast the
ultimate result of any of the alternatives . Should , however,either the second or the third become fact
,certain general
truths about the Osmanlis will govern the consequences ;and these must be borne in mind by any in whose hands thedisposal of the empire may lie .
The influence of the Osmanlis in their empire to-day
376 Turkey
Minor,Syria
,Mesopotamia
,and Egypt
,have ruled in its
name ; the Osmanlis , whose governmental system was inpart the Byzantine
,made but one more change which
meant the same old thing . The pea sants know,of course,
about those Semitic victories ; but they know also that ifthe Semite has had his day of triumph and imposed, a s wasright and proper
,his God and his Prophet on Roum—even
on all mankind a s many believed, and some may be foundin remoter regions who s till believe— he has returned to hisown place south of Taurus ; and still Roum is Roum ,
naturalindefeasible Lord of the World .
Such a belief i s dying now,of course but i t dies slowly
and hard . I t s till constitutes a real a sset of the Osmanlis ,and will not cease to have value until they lose ConstantinOple . On the possession of the old imperial city i t dependsfor whatever vitality i t has. You may demonstrate, a s youwill
,and a s many publicist s have done since the Balkan
War and before,what and how great economic , political,
and social a dvantages would accrue to the Osmanlis,if they
could bring themselves to transfer their capital to Asia .
Here they would be rid of Rumelia,which costs
,and will
always cost them,more than
'
it yields . Here they couldconcentrate Moslems where their co—religionists a re alreadythe grea t maj ority
,and so have done with the everlasting
friction and weakness entailed in j urisdiction over preponderant Chris tian elements . Here they might throwoff the remnants of their Byzantinism as a garment and
,no
longer forced to face two ways,live and govern with single
minds as the Asia tics they are .
Vain illusion,a s Osmanli imperialist s know " I t is their
empire that would fall away a s a garment so soon a s theNear East realized that they no longer ruled in the Imperial
The Future 377
City . Enver Pasha and the Committee were amply j ustifiedin straining the resources of the Ottoman Empire to crackingpoint
,not merely to retain Constantinople but also to
recover Adrianople and a territory in Europe large enoughto bulk as Roum . Nothing tha t happened in that war madeso greatly for the continuation of the old order in AsiaticTurkey as the reoccupation of Adrianople . The one occas ion on which Europeans in Syria had reason to expecta general explosion was when premature rumours of theentry of the Bulgarian army into S tamboul gained currencyfor a few hours . That explosion , had the news proved trueor not been contradicted in time, would have been a panics tricken
,ungovernable impulse of anarchy —of men conscious
tha t an old world had passed away and ignorant what conce ivab le new world could come to be .
But the perilous moment passed,to be succeeded by
general diffusion of a belief that the inevitable cata strophewas only postponed . In the breathing—time allowed
,Arabs
,
Kurds,and Armenians discussed and planned together revolt
from the moribund Osmanli,and
,separately
,the mutual
massacre and plundering of one another . Arab nationalo rganiza tions and nationalis t j ournals sprang to life a t Beirutand elsewhere . The revival o f Arab empire wa s talked of
,
and names of possible capitals and kings were bandied about .One Arab province
,the Hasa
,actually broke away . Then men
began to say that the Bulgarians would not advance beyondChataldj a the Balkan S tates were a t war among themselvesfinally, Adrianople had been re-occupied . And all wa s asin the beginning . Budding life withered in the Arabmovement , and the Near East settled down once more inthe persistent shadow o f Roum .
Such is the firs t element in Osmanli prestige,doomed to
378 Turkey
disappear the moment that the Ottoman state relinquishesEurope . Meanwhile there i t is for what it i s worth and iti s actually worth a tradition of submission , natural andhonourable
,to a race of superior destiny
,which is instinctive
in some millions of s avage simple hearts .
What of the second element The religious prestige ofthe Ottoman power a s the repository of caliphial authority
and trustee for I slam in the Holy Land of Arabia , i s anasset almost impossible to estimate . Would a death struggleof the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world 1 Wouldthe Moslems of India
,Afghanistan
,Turkestan
,China
,and
Malaya take up arms for the Ottoman sultan a s caliph ?No thing but the event will prove tha t they would . Jehad,orHolyWar
,i s an ob solescent
'
weapon diffi cult and dangerousfor Young Turks to wield diflicult because their own
I slamic sincerity i s suspec t and they are taking the field nowas clients of g iaour peoples ; dangerous because the Ottomannation itself includes numerous Christian elements
,indis
pensable to it s economy .
Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can counton it s religious prestige appealing widely
,overriding counter
acting sentiments,and
,if i t rouses to action
,rousing the
most dangerou s temper of all . I t is futile to ignore thecaliph because he is not of the Koreish
,and owes his dignity
to a sixteenth-century transfer . These facts aunknown or not borne in mind by half the Sunnites on whomhe might call
,and weigh far less with the other half than his
heredi ta ry dominion over the Holy Cities,s anctioned by the
prescrip tion of nearly four centuries .One thing can be foretold with certainty . The religious
prestige of an Ottoman sultan,who had definitely lost
380 Turkey
groaned under Turkish adminis tra tion,where it has always
been most Oppressive,bore witness tha t the rule of the
native ‘Imam only served to replace oppressive government by oppressive anarchy .
As for the Osmanli’s courage a s a fight ing'
man,that ha s
often been exemplified,and never better than in the Gallipoli
peninsula . I t i s admitted . The European and AnatolianOsmanli s yield little one to the other in this virtue but thepalm
,if awarded a t all
,must be given to the levies from
northern and central Asia Minor .
If Constantinople should be lost, the Arab-speaking partsof the empire would in all likelihood break away, carryingthe Holy Cities with them . When the constant risk of thisconsummation
,with the cataclysmic na ture of i t s con
sequences i s considered,one marvels why the Committee
,
which has shown no mean understanding of some conditionsessential to Osmanli empire, should have done so littlehitherto to concilia te Arab susceptibilities . Neither in theconstitution of the parliament nor in the higher commandso f the army have the Arab-speaking peoples been givenanything like their fa ir share ; and loudly and insistentlyhave they protested . Perhap s the Committee
,whose leading
members are of a markedly Europeanized type,understands
Asia les s well than Europe . Certainly it s programme ofOttomanization
,elaborated by military ex-a ttach
'
és,by Jew
bankers and officials from Salonika , and by doctors , lawyers,and other intellectuels fresh from ParIs, was conceived on lineswhich offerred the pure Asiatic very little scope . The free andequal Osmanlis were all to take their cue from men of theByzantine sort which the European provinces
,and especially
the city of Constantinople,breed . After the revolution ,
The Future 381
nothing in Turkey struck one so much as the apparition on
the top of things everywhere of a type of Osmanli who hasthe characteristic qualities of the Levantine Greek . Youngofficers
,controlling their elders
,only needed a change of
uniform to pass in an Athenian crowd . Spare and dapperoflicials
,presiding in seats of authority over Kurds and Arabs
,
reminded one of Greek j ournalist s . Osmanli j ournalist sthemselves treated one to rhodomontades punctuated withrestles s gesticulation
,which revived memories of Athenian
cafés in war-time . I t was the Byzantine triumphing overthe Asiatic ; and the most Asiatic elements in the empirewere the leas t likely to meet with the appreciation or
sympathy of the former .Are the Arab—Speaking peoples
,therefore
,likely to revolt
,
or be successful in Splitting the Ottoman Empire,if they
do i The present writer would like to say, in parenthesis ,that
,in his Opinion
,this consummation o f the empire is no t
devoutly to be wished . The substitution of Arab adminis
t rat ion for Osmanli would necessarily entail Europeantutelage of the parts of the Arab-Speaking area in whichpowers
,like ourselves
,have vital interes ts—Syria
,for
example,southern Mesopotamia
,and
,probably
,Hej az .
The la st named,in particular
,would involve us ' in so
ticklish and thankless a task,that one can only be thankful
for the Turkish caretaker there to-day,and 10th to se e him
dismissed .
An Arab revolt,however
,might break out whether
the Triple Entente desired its success or not . Wh a t chanceo f succes s would it have ? The peoples of the Arab parto f the Ottoman Empire are a congeries of differing races
,
creeds , sects , and social sys tems , with no common bondexcep t language . The physical character of their land
382 Turkey
compels a good third of them to be nomadic,predatory
barbarians,feared by the other two-thirds . The settled
folk are divided into Moslem and Christian (no t to mentiona l arge Jewish element) , the cleavage being more abruptthan in western Turkey and the tradition and actual spirit
of mutual enmity more separative . Further,each of these
main creed-divisions i s subdivided . Even I slam in thisregion includes a number of incompatible sects
,such as the
Ansariye , the Me tawali,
and the Druses in the Syrianmountains
,Shiite Arab s on the Gulf coas t and the Persian
border,with pagan Kurds and Yezidis in the la tter region
and north Mesopotamia . As for the Christians,their
divisions are notorious,most of these being subdivided again
into two or more hostile communions apiece . I t i s almostimpossible to imagine the inhabitants o f Syria concertinga common plan or taking common action . The only elementsamong them which have shown any political sense or capacityfor political organization are Christian . The Maronites ofthe Lebanon are most conspicuous among these ; butneither their numbers nor their traditional relations withtheir neighbours qualify them to form the nucleus of a freeunited Syria . The Arab Movement up to the presenthas consisted in little more than talk and j ournalese . I thas not developed any considerable organization to meetthat s table efficient organization which the Committee of
Union and Progress has directed throughout the Ottomandominions .As for the res t of the empire
,Asia Minor will s tand by
the Osmanli cause,even if Europe and Constantinople
,and
even if the Holy Places and all the Arab—speaking provincesbe lost . I t s allegiance does no t depend on either the tradition of Roum or the caliphate
,but on essential unity with
384 Turkey
Elements of the Chris tian minority, however, Armenianand Greek
,would give trouble w ith their developed ideas
of nationality and irrepressible tendency to ‘Europize’.
They would present,indeed
,problems of which a t present
one cannot foresee the solution . I t seems inevitable thatan autonomous Armenia
,like an autonomous Poland, must
be constituted ere long ; but where 1 There i s no g eog raphical unit of the Ottoman area in which Armenians are themaj ority . I f they cluster more thickly in the vilayets ofAngo ra
,Sivas
,Erzerum
,Kharput
,and Van
,i . e . in eastern
most Asia Minor,than elsewhere
,and form a village people
o f the soil,they are consistently a minority in any large
administra tive distric t . Numerous,too
,in the trans
Tauric vilayets of Adana and Aleppo,the sea t of their most
recent independence,they are townsmen in the main
,and
not an essential element of the agricultural population .
Even if a considerable proportion of the Armenians,now
dispersed through towns of western Asia Minor and inConstantinople
,could be induced to concentra te in a recon
s tituted Armenia (which is doubtful , seeing how addictedthey are to general commerce and what may be calledpara sitic life) , they could not fill ou t both the Greater andthe Lesser Armenia s of history
,in suffi cient s trength to
overbear the Osmanli and Kurdish elements . The wides tarea which might be constituted an autonomous Armeniawith good prospec t of self-sufficiency would be the presentRussian province
,where the head—quarters o f the national
religion lie,with the addition of the provinces of Erzerum ,
Van,and Kharput .
But,if Russia had brought herself to make a self-denying
o rdinance,she would have to police her new Armenia very
strongly for some years ; for an acute Kurdish problem
The Future 385
would confront i t,and no concentra tion of nationals could
be looked for from the Armenia Irredenta of Diarbekr,Urfa
,
Aleppo,Aintab
,Marash
,Adana
,Kaisariyeh , Sivas , Angora ,
and Trebizond (no t to mention farther and more foreigntowns) , until public security was a ssured in what for generations ha s been a cockpit . The Kurd is, of course, an IndoEuropean as much as the Armenian
,and rarely a true
Moslem ; but i t would be a very long time indeed beforethese facts reconciled him to the domination of the racewhich he has plundered for three centuries . Most of theOsmanlis of eastern Asia Minor are descendants of convertedArmenians but their assimilation would be slow anddoubtful . I slam
,more rapidly and completely than any
other creed,extinguishes racial sympathies and groups its
adherents anew .
The Anatolian Greeks are less numerous but not les sdiflicult to provide for . The scattered groups of them on
the plateau—in Cappadocia,Pontus
,the Konia district
and on the eastward coast-lands would offer no seriousdifficulty to a lord of the interior . But those in the westernriver-basins from Isbarta to the Marmora
,and those on the
western and north-western littorals,are of a more advanced
and cohesive political character,imbued with nationalism
,
intimate with their independent nationals,and actively
interested in Hellenic national politics . What happens a tAthens has long concerned them more than what happens a tConstantinople and with Greece occupying the islands inthe daily V iew of many of them
,they are coming to regard
themselves more and more every day as citizens of Graecia
I rredenta . What is to b e done with these ? What , inparticular
,with Smyrna
,the second city of the Ottoman
Empire and the firs t of Magna Graecia I t s three and
B b
386 Turkey
a half hundred thousand souls include the largest Greekurban population resident in any one city . Shall it be unitedto Greece Greece herself might well hesitate . I t wouldprove a very irksome possession
,involving her In all sorts of
continental difficulties and ri sks . There is no good frontierinland for such an enclave . I t could hardly be held withoutthe rest of westernmost Asia
,from Caria to the Dardanelles
,
and in this region the great maj ority of the popula tioni s Moslem of old s tocks
,devotedly attached both to their
faith and to the Osmanli tradition .
The present writer,however
,i s not among the prophets .
He has but tried to se t forth what may delay and what mayprecipitate the collapse of an empire
,whose doom has been
long foreseen,often planned
,invariably postponed ; and,
further,to indicate some diffi culties which
,being bound to
confront heirs of the Osmanlis,will b e better met the better
they are understood before the final agony—if this is,indeed
,
to be
388 I ndex
Alexander I , King of Serbia(1889 12 6.
Alexander I , Emperor of Rus sia,
Alexander I I,Emperor of Rus sia
,
52 ) 58°
Alexander I I I,Emperor of RussIa
,
58—62 .
Alexander, Crown Prince of Serbia,147, 149°
Alexander of Battenberg,Prince
of Bulgaria (1 879 57—60 .
Alexander K arag j org j evic , Princeof Se rbia ( 1843 1 2 0
,12 1 .
Alexandria, 166, 167,Alexi s Comnenus , the Emperor,40 .
Ali Pasha,188
,189, 193, 196, 198,
Amb elakia,190 .
America,eff e ct of emigration from
south-eas t ern Europe to,2 48
50 .
Anatolia,the Turks and
,169, 173,
1767 177, 1791 183) 2 03:2 30—4: 2 361 2 42 : 2 43: 2 45:
32 2
35chaiiact er of the population
, 383.
feudal fami lie s , 344 .
Anatolikon, 2 0 1 .
Andras sy, Count , 2 94, 2 95, 300,
30 1 .
Angora, 32 9: 3841 385°
bat t le of 330 .
Arabia,Turkish pre s tige in
, 378
82 .
and the Turks, 337. 340, 349.
—82 o
movement of, in the dire ction of
revolt , 377—83.
Arab s and Anato lia,169, 173, 175,
176.
and Bulgars , 33.
and I slam ,167 .
Arcadiopoli s : see Lule-Burgas .Argos
,199, 2 04, 2 42 .
Arian controversy,the
,16.
Armatoli, or Chri stian mi litia, 188,193, 196 I 97) 2 031 2 05) 2 08Armenians , the , 175, 176,
charact er of the, 384 .
massacre s of 364 .
Arnaut s : see Albanian s .Arta
,Gulf of
,plain of,2 00 .
Asen dynas ty, the, 4 1—4, 83, 85, 90.
Asia Minor,Turks in
, 319, 32 1-3,
382Asparukh (Bulgar prince) , 2 5.
A spropotamo,the
,196, 197.
A stypalia, 2 34 .
Athen s,168
,17 1 , 2 42 , 249, 385.
Duchy of,178.
University of,167 .
siege of (182 1 196, 199 ;2 05, 2 06.
Athos,Mount
, 91 , 92 , 189, 190 .
At t i la,16
,19.
Au s t erli tz,bat t le of 1 13.
Aus tria-Hungary and the Adriatic,
1 16,1 17, 134.
and the Macedonian que stion,69—72 .
and Serbia , re lation s between ,I I I
,12 6 —
49, 159and the Serbs , 105
—7, 131
—42 ,
and the Trea ty of Berlin, 54, 57.
and Turkey,re lation s be tween,
144 ; wars b e twe en , 105—9.
annexation of Bosnia and Herceg ovina by, 142—4, 2 2 3, 367 .
occupation of Bosnia and Hercesom e1 b y. 1 2 5. 133. I 35
—7.
re lat ions with the BalkanLeague , 1 1 , 77, 78, 152 .
re lations with Rumania , 2 93,2 94: 30 1 7 302 : 304Ruman and South S lavoni cpopulations in, 2 2 8.
I ndex
Aus t rian poli tics in Rumania , 2 69,2 70 , 2 72 , 2 80
,2 85, 2 87, 2 91 ,
Aus trian s and S erbs,
relation sbe tween
,105, 106.
and Turks, 34 1 , 342 .
Avars,the . their invasion of the
Balkan peninsula wi th the
S lavs,18—2 0 ; their war wi th
the Bulgars,2 5, 2 7.
Avlona,173, 2 40 , 2 4 1 .
bay of,2 39.
Avshar tribe, 32 1 .
Ayon Oro s 189, 197.
Azerbaijan, 32 0, 32 1 , 340 .
B aék a, 103, 133.
Bagdad, 32 1 , 32 2 .
B aj aze t , Sultan : see Bayezid .
Balance of Power ’
,the
,163, 2 06,
Balkan League,the
,I I .
format ion of th e, 72—4, 150 , 151 ,
2 2 2—51 369di s solution of the
,Balkan peninsula,th e
,ann exation
of,by Mohammed I I
, 332 .
con trol of, 10 , 157 .
e conomic iinity of,244 5.
German poli cy in, 372 .
nationali sm in, 362 .
S lav inhabitant s of, 9, 79
—86.
Turki sh power in , 179, 32 7, 32 8,3301 331 ~
under Roman ru le,13.
Balkan State s,re lat ions be tween
the. 7% f 4,
r49-51 ~
zollverein,246.
Balkan war,the firs t (1912
74—7 I ; thesecond (Jun e 76
—8,
155Banat,th e
,103, 105, 133.
Baranya,103.
Basi l I , the Emperor, 31 , 85.
Basi l I I, the Emperor, 38, 39, 85S layer of the Bulgars 175.
389
B assarab , dynasty of, 2 57 .
Baye zid I,Su ltan
, 98 .
Baye zid II,Sultan
, 335—7 .
B eaconsfield,Earl of
,143, 2 97 .
Be irat, 377 .
Belgrade.8 1
, 335capi ta l of Serbia , 98, 99, 1 18
,
12 1,
cap tured by the Serb s1 13.
cap tured by the Turks1 14.
its Ce ltic name,1 2 .
Be li sarius,19.
Berchtold,Coun t
, 74, 150 .
Bergama, 344 .
Berlin,246 .
Congre s s ofTreaty 01 541 57: 65)124: 2 147 36 1 1 365°
Be s sarabia , Bulgars in , 2 5, 50 .
lost regained2 69 ; lo st again 2 96
-9 .
importance wi th regard to
pre sent situation , 2 99, 31 12 .
Bieberstein,Baron Marschall von
,
70 .
Bismarck, 54, 143, 2 80, 2 92 , 2 93,
2 94: 2 95: 2 971 2 99 n 3 300Bitolj : see Monastir.
Black Cast le of Ahun,2 33.
Black S ea, 187,
Rus sian exclusion from , 343.
Bogomil here sy,th e
, 34, 35, 40,88
,Boja,lord of Kashgar
, 32 0 .
Bori s,Bulgar prince (852
2 8—31 .
Bori s,Crown Prince of Bulgaria,
149Bosnia,annexation of
,64, 7 1,
,
I 4z
independence of,and conque s t
of,by the Turks
, 99, 100 .
in re lation to th e other Serb
390 I ndex
Bosnia (continued)t erritorie s
,86
,87, 90, 107, I 10,
—42 .
it s S lavonic population, 79, 133.
re lations of,wi th Hungary, 87,
o .
re
gvolt s in, again s t Turkey, 52 ,1 2 3. 358
under Austro-Hungarian rule,
—42 .
under Turkish rule,107, 108
,
1 10,1 18
,Bosphorus,the
,169, 173, 32 6,
349;B otzari s
,Marko
,2 0 1 .
B rank ovié, George , 98, 99.
Brankovic, Vuk , 97 .
Brat ianu,Joan (father) , 2 85, 315
(son) , 313B reg alnica, bat t le of the
1 58 159.
Brusa. 32 3. 32 5. 32 7, 32 9Bucare st
,Commi t tee of
, 51 .
Peace Conference 304.
Treaty of 1 13, 1 14, 1 18
2 65 ; u, 77. I S9
—6 I
2 2 7, 303 n .
Bucovina,acqui sition by Austria,
2 65.
Rumanians in, 305.
Buda, 338.
Budape st,in relation to the S erbo
Cr
gatsmu -
7,I 5Budua
,12 4, 1 2 5.
Bulgaria,declaration of indepen
dence by,and a s sump tion of
t i t le Tsar by its ru ler,64, 14 1,
367:conflict ing intere sts W i th Greece ,2 2 3—91 2 33:
early wars be twe en , and the
Gre eks,2 5, 2 7
—8, 32 .
geographi cal posi tion of,13, 14,
8 1—3, I 73. I 74growth of, 2 14.
intervention on the side of the
Bu lgaria (continued)Centra l Powe rs in the EuropeanW ar
, 2 2 9.
it s divi sion in to eastern and
we stern, 34, 37 ; extent of
we stern , 38 85.
in the two Balkan wars (191 2150
-611 3691 3701
its early rela tion s wi th Rome,
30—1 .
it s re lat ions wi th Rus sia, 54—7.
ob tain s recognition as a nationa lity in the Ottoman Empire
,
358
of S lav speech and culture,2 2 3.
place of,in the Ba lkan peninsula
,
—6.
Turkish atrocitie s in, 358.
Bulgaria and Rumania,2 98, 300,
30374: 314
0Bulgaria and Serbia,contra s ted
,
48, 62 , 82 .
the agreement between , 73, 74,wars be tween ( 1885, 58,
59. 76—8
.12 6
.I 49. I S8
—60
Bulgaria and Turkey, re lationsbe tween, 72 , 73, 14 1,
Bulgarian bishoprics in Macedonia,65Church
,early vici s situde s of the ,
30—1 claims and propaganda
in Macedonia,65
-8, 74, 83
—5,
—6o, 369.
Exarchi st Church, the , 52 , 65,,
358li terature, 33.
monarchy,origin s o f the , 2 7—8.
Bulgarians,genera l di stribution
of, 9, I o , 83.
their at titude to the S lavs andthe Germans , 56.
Bulgarians and Serbian s , contras tbetween, 56.
392 I ndex
Claudius,the Emperor, 13, 14 .
Coali tion,Serbo-Croat or Croato
Serb,the
,136—40 , 144
—7 .
Cochrane,Grand Admiral
, 2 05.
Cogalniceanu,M.
, 2 73, 2 96.
Comnenus : see Alexis and Manue l.Concert of Europe, 350 , 359, 362 ,373)
Cons tantine the Great,
13, 166,
167.
Con stantine,King of Greece
,2 2 7 .
Constantine,ruler of Bulgaria, 44,
45°
Constantinople, 1 1,
168,
175,178—8 1
,190 , 2 05, 245, 32 5,
32 7, 346, 350, 360 , 36 1, 366,-5
and the Serbian Church, 92 , 95,
104, 1 19.
ascendancy of,over Bulgaria,
35cathedra l of Aya Sophia
,167 .
commercia l intere sts of,
2 38,
de cli ne of,89.
de fence s of,169, 32 8, 331, 333,
3433349;e ccle siastical influence of
, 33,
fall of 177, 178, 189 ;
46, 99, I 79,l tS posit ion at the beginning ofthe barbarian invasions , 17, 2 5.
made an imperial ci ty,165, 166,
170, 32 3.
Patriarchate at,171 , 185, 195,
197.
Phanari the, 185.
spiritua l riva lry of,with Rome
,
2 9732,88
,173.
Consti tution,Rumanian
, 2 73, 2 82 ,2 87, 2 98, 30 1 n .
Corfu,186
,188
,2 39.
Corinth see Korin th .Crete : see Kret e .
Crimea,abandoned to Rus sia
, 343.
Crimean War,the , 50, 12 1 .
Croatia,absorbed by Hungary
,87,
902133posi tion of
,m relat1on to the
Serb t e rritorie s,86
,132—4 .
Croato-Serb unity,movement in
favour of,80
,131—42 , 144
—7 .
Croat s,Croatians
,genera l distrib u
t ion of, 9, 132
—4 .
their origin , 79.
Croat s and Serbs , diff erence b etween
, 80, 82 , 88.
Crusaders,the
,i n the Balkan
peninsula, 40—4 .
Crusade s,179 the firs t
,177 the
fourth, 42 , 89.
Cuza,Prince of Rumania, 2 72—4,
Cyclade s,the
,2 30 .
Cyprus,m Latin hands , 333, 335.
in Ottoman hands, 340 .
under the Briti sh, 32 6, 32 7.
Cyrenai ca, 1 50 .
Cyri l,S t .
, 2 8—9, 88.
Cyri llic alphabet,the
,2 9.
Dacia,13, 18, 82 , 88.
subj ect ion to,
and abandonmen t by, the Romans , 2 52 , 2 53.
Dacians,sett lement ln Carpathian
regions , 2 52 .
wars wi th Rome , 2 52 .
Dalmatia,acquired by Austria
Hungary, “71 1 2 51 132 3 I 33and Venice
,10 1
,103, 105, 1 16.
in clas sica l times , 1 2—1 6.
in re lation to other Serb territories , 86—8, 10 1
,1 17, 12 5,
its S lavonic population , 79, 132 .
re lations of, with Hungary, 90,10 1 .
Danie l, Prince-Bishop of Mon
t eneg ro, 108.
Dani lo,Prince of Montenegro, 134.
Danube , the , 9, 1 2 ,a s fron tier of Roman Empire,13
I ndex
Danube (continued)Bulgars cros s the
,2 4.
S lavs cros s the,1 8
,168.
Danubian principa litie s,Russian
pro tectorate in , 343.
Dardane lle s,th e
,195, 197
—9, 2 04,
De c1us,the Empe ror, 14.
Dedeagach, 77, 2 2 5, 2 2 8.
De liyanni s,2 17.
Deme trius,2 0 1 .
Demotika, 96.
Dhimit zana,190 .
Diocle tian, the Emperor,hi s
redi stribution of the imperia lprovince s
,14.
Dnieper, the , 15.
Dnies ter, the , 13, 15.
Dob rudj a,acquisition byRumania,2 96, 2 98Bulgarian aspiratl ons in regard
to,Draga, Queen
-Consort of Serbia,
12 8—30 .
Dramali,197—9, 2 0 1 .
Drave,tl1e
,86, 1 18.
Drina,the
,14—15, 1 18.
Dubrovnik : see Ragusa .
Dulci gno (Ulcinj ) , 1 24, 1 2 5.
Durazzo,153, 2 40 .
Durostorum : see Silistria.
Dusan, 32 7 .
Easte rn Church, the , 88, 106.
Eastern S lavs see Rus sians .Edremia, 2 31 , 2 33.
iEgypt
Egyptian expedi tion (182 32 03
-6.
Enos-Midia line,the
, 76.
Enver B ey, 1541 372 1 377°
Epirus, 370 .
power of Hellen ism 1n,2 36—4 1 .
E rtog rul, Osmanli chi ef, 324, 32 5.
Erzerum , 384 .
Eugen, Prince , of Savoy, 105, 106.
3€K3
Euphrate s,the, 165, 166, 175, 32 1 ,
32 3.
Euxine trade, 333
Evyénios V oulg érl s, 190 .
Exarchi s t Church,the
, 52 , 65.
Fab vier,2 05.
Ferdinand,Prince and King of
Bulgaria (1886 6 1—78, 14 1 ,I49, 150, 317;hi s re lations W ith foreign powe rs ,6 1—4 .
Ferdinand,King of Rumania,
2 88 n .
, 304 .
Fi lipe scu , Nicholas , 312 , 313.
Fiume (Rjeka) , 135.
France and the Macedonian que stion , 69—7 1 .
and the st ruggle for Greek independence , 2 06, 2 08, 2 2 2 .
and the s truggle for the Mediter
ranean,188, 2 36 .
and th e Turks , 179, 363.
re lations with Rumania , 2 69,2 7 1 ) 2 93) 2 97 °
French , the , in the Ba lkan peninsu la, 4 1—4 .
in Da lmatia,1 16
,1 17.
in Morocco,150 .
influence in Rumania, 2 67, 2 68,French Revolution and the rights
of nationa li tie s , 348.
Friedjung , Dr.,and the accusation
agains t Serbia, 145—7.
Furs tenbe rg,Prince
, 303.
Galaxidhi,196, 197.
Ga licia,18.
Gallipoli, 961 I 791 2 243 32 7 ) 380 '
Genoe se,180
,184 .
George,Crown Prince of Serbia,
147 .
George,King of Greece , 1 19, 2 10,
2 18,2 2 0 as sassination of
,2 2 7.
George , Prince of Greece , 2 18,2 2 0 .
394 I ndex
German diplomacy at Cons tant inople , 70 .
influence in the Near Eas t , 51 ,54, 7o , 7r
—61influence in Rumania
,
2 92 7 2 931 30 1 ) 302 1 31314 .
influence in Turkey, 364, 370,Ge rman Empire , re s t le s sne s s of
,
150 .
German hierarchy,early s truggle s
of, agains t S lavonic li turgy, 2 930 .
Ge rmanic people s , southwardmovement of,14 .
Germanos,me tropolitan bi shop of
Patras,193.
Germany and the Turkish fronti er,effort s to reach the Adriatic, 10 .
its expansion eas twards,1 1 .
and the Macedonian que stion,70-1 .
and Russia, re lations b etween,
144 .
and the Treaty of Berlin , 54, 57,143.
re lat ion s with Rumania , 2 86,
2 92 1 2 941 300 1 304revolution s promoted by, 367.
Gj org j evic'
,Dr. V .
,1 2 8.
Go lden Horn , 178.
Goluchowski, Count , 139.
Gorazd, 31 .
Gorchakov,Prince
,143, 2 96, 300 .
Goths , invasion of the , 14- 16
,165
168.
Great Britain and the BalkanS tates , re lations be tween , 54,
and Egyp t ,0363.
and Rumania, 2 69, 2 70, 2 97—8.
and Syria, 355, 356
and the Ionian Is lands,and the Macedonian question,69-7 1 .
Great Bri tain (continued)and the s truggle for Gre ekindependence
, 2 06, 2 08, 2 2 2 .
and the s truggle for the Mediter
ranean,188
,191 , 2 36.
and the Treaty of B erlin, 54, 143.
loan to Greece, 2 02 .
occupat ion of Cyprus, 2 35, 2 36.
Greece , anarchy in, 2 08.
ancient,163 if .
and Macedonia, 369, 37 1 .
and Ru ssia,187.
and Serbia,245.
and the adjacen t islands, 2 2 9—36,385, 386
and the Christian reli gion, 166,167, 170, 17 1 .
and the firs t Balkan war, 370,
37 1 .
and the Ioman I slands,2 39.
and the Orthodox Church,17 1 5
185) 1891 192 ) I 93;and the S lav migration
,168
,169.
brigandage in, 2 10, 2 2 2 .
confli ct of interests wi th B ulgaria
,2 2 3—9.
conque st of,by th e Turks , 180—3.
de limi tation of the frontier2 06 .
di sput e with Italy a s to possession of Epirus
,2 38
—4 1 .
effe ct of the French Revolutionon
,189.
invasion of,by Goths
,165.
land-tax,180
,181 .
loan s to,2 08
,2 10 .
loca l liberties , 2 09, 2 10 .
Military League of 1909, 2 19,2 2 0 .
minera ls of, 2 16.
monarchy e s tab lished, and its
re sults,2 08 ff .
Nationa l As semb ly ’
, 2 02 .
oppres sive re lation s wi th Turk ey, and efforts for li beration ,180
,182—5, 188, 192 2 13,
2 143 2 2 8) 2 38:32 63 32 7: 348°
396 I ndex
Hungary, 340 .
and the Balkan p eninsula, 90,
and the Serbo-Croat s , 87 .
and the Serbs, 93, 95, 98
—100,
102
and Turkey,wars between, 99,
102 .
conque st of,by Suleiman I
, 338.
growth o f, 90, 98.
los s of,by the Turks , 348.
S lavs in, 9, 87 .
Huns,arriva l of the
,in Europe
,
15—16.
their origin,18.
sett led in Hungary, 19.
Hunyadi,John
, 99, 331 .
Hydhra and the Hydhriots, 191 ,
Hypsilan tis, Prince Alexander,195, 196, 2 0 1 .
Ib ar,the
, 33.
Ibrahim Pasha, 2 03
—6, 355.
Ida,Mount
,2 33.
Ig natiyev , Coun t , 53, 57.
Illyria, Ce ltic invasion of,12 .
prefecture of,14.
Roman conquest of,1 2 .
Illyrians,the
,12 .
Imbros,2 30 .
Ionian Islands , 186,
188,
192 ;presented to Gree ce by GreatBritain
, 2 10 , 2 39.
Ipek : see Pec'
.
Iran, 32 9.
I skanderoun,Gulf of
,2 34.
Italian influence in the Balkanpen insula
, 91 .
trading citie s,177.
Italy,and the Macedonian ques
tion,69, 75, 138.
and the posse ssion of Epirus,
2 38—4 1 .
dioce se of,82
,88.
pre fecture of,14.
Ita ly (continued)war wi th Turkey (191 1 75,150 3 152 1 2 2 2 ) 2 347 2 35Ivan I II
,Tsar of Rus s1a
, 50 .
Ivan IV,Tsar of Russia
,2 4 .
Jehad,or Holy W ar
, 362 , 378.
Jenghi s Khan, 324 .
Je rusalem,1 66.
Jews,at Constantinople
,180 .
in Rumania,2 98 n .
in Turkey, 2 2 5.
J ezzar the Butcher, 346.
Jidda, 357.
0John Alexander,ruler of Bulgaria
,
45John AsenI,B ulg arTsar 1 186
4 1 .
John Asen I I,Bulgar Tsar ( 1 2 18
42 74,83, 85, 93John Tzimi sces, the Emperor, 36—8,
8
Johns the Terrible,Prince of
Moldavia,2 6 1 .
Joseph I I,Emperor of Austria
,
107, 109.
Judah,166 .
Jugo 80,131—47, 160 .
Jus tin I,the Emperor
,18.
Justinian I,the Emperor
,19,
165
K aisariyeh , 385.
Kalamata, 2 12 .
Kaloian,Bulgar Tsar ( 1 196
4 1 , 42 °
Kama,Bu lgars on the
,2 4.
Kanari s,Constantine
,198.
K apodistrias, John , 2 07—9.
Kara-George (Pe trovic) , 109, 1 12—6,K arag j org j evic
'
(sc. family of
Kara-George) dynasty,
the,
1 1 1,12 0, 130 .
Karai skaki s,2 05.
K aramania, 32 9, 332 .
Karasi, 32 6.
.Ituiex:
Karlovci (Carlowi tz , Karlowitz) ,Karpathos
,2 34 .
K asos,2 34 5 des truction of
2 03.
Kavala,2 2 7
—9, 370 .
Kazan, 2 4 .
Kha lkidhiki,197.
Kharput, 384.
Khios,1 84, 2 32 , 2 34.
siege of 198.
Khorasan, 32 1 .
Khurshi d Pasha,193, 196
—9.
Kiev,18
, 36, 37 .
Kilkish,Greek victory at
,2 2 7.
Kirk-Kilis se,bat t le of
, 75.
Kisseleff,Count
,2 67.
Kladovo,1 2 2 .
Knigh t s Hospitalle rs of S t . John,
Koehama, 74 .
K ole t tis,2 02
,2 03, 2 08.
K olok otrénis,Theodore
,194, 199,
K ondouriot tis,2 03.
Konia, 32 2
—4, 32 9, 385.
bat t le of, 330 .
K opais basin, draining of, 2 17.
Korin th,168.
surrender of 199.
K orinthian Gulf,
191 , 196, 197,2 42 .
K os, 2 34 .
Kosovo,vilaye t of, 134 .
Kosovo Polje,batt le of
, 46, 97, 98,I 9 I
n2 59a 32 8> 330 1 331 °
K ralj ev m'
,Marko see Marko K.
Kre te, 7 1 ) I 75) 1781 2 04 ) 333, 335)
340 7 3583conques t of, by Turks , 182 , 183,342 °
intervention of the powers andconst itu ted an autonomouss tate
,2 17
—19, 2 30, 2 31 , 2 43,
364.
speech of,182
,2 36 .
Krum (Bulgar prince) , 2 7—8.
Efl97
K ru§evac, 97—9.
Kubrat (Bulgar prince) , 2 5.
Kumanovo , batt le of 153,159.
Kuman s,the Tartar
, 39, 4 1 .
Kurdi s tan, 337, 34 1 , 352 .
Kurds,the
, 353) 377) 38 11
Ku tchuk K ainardj i , Treaty of,
187 .
Kydhonies, de s truction of,
197,198.
Laibach (Ljubljana) , 9.
Lansdowne , Marque s s of, 69.
Lari s sa,197, 198.
Latin Empire at Constan t inople,
the, 43) 90 9 92 1 178 ) 179°
influence in the Ba lkan peninsula
,15—1 6
,2 1
,172 , 173, 178.
Lausanne,Treaty of 152 ,
2 34 ) 2 35°
Lazar (Serbian Prince) , 97, 98.
League of Friends 193, 195.
Leipsic,bat t le of 1 14.
Lemnos,2 30 .
Leo,the Emperor, 2 7.
Leopold I I,Emperor of Austria
,
107.
Lepanto,batt le of 104.
Lerna,2 04 .
Le skovac, 1 24 .
Levant,the
, 336.
commerce of, 180 , 335.
Libyan war (191 1 75, 150 .
Lombards,the
,168.
London,Conference of (1912
Treaty Of I 57 ) 2 2 51 2 30,2 39a 2 4 1 °
Loui s,conquers the Serbs , 86.
Lu le-Burgas, 37 .
batt le of 75, 2 24.
Macedonia, 9) 10
) 53i 54a 79a 83184, 1 18, 132 , 14 1 , 151
—9, 164
—6,
2 2 3) 2 2 81 244 ) 3441 37 1 °
398 I ndex
Macedon ia (continued)anarchy in, 63.
defeat of the Turks by the
Se rbians in,2 24 .
e stabli shment of Turks in, 32 1,
32 9general characterist ics of, i n
classica l time s,12 .
inhabitants of,
10,65—8
,83,
84revolt in
, 365, 366, 369—7 1 .
place names in,2 1 .
Macedonian que st ion,the
,64—74,
76, 84, 132 , 140—2
,156—9.
S lavs,the
,67, 68, 83, 84, 132 .
Magne sia, 344 .
Magyars , the , the ir irrup t ion intoEurope,2 51 303 87 ) I 74 "
growing power and ambitionsof the
, 90 .
influence upon the Rumanians,
2 55.
Mahmud I,Sultan
, 343.
Mahmud I I,Sultan
,193, 195, 198,
2 037 2 059 3547
o356, 360 .
Maina,169, 194, 2 08, 2 10 .
Maiorescu,Titu
, 303, 304, 31 1 .
Malasg erd, ba t t le of,176, 177.
Malta,s iege of
, 338.
Mameluke s,Egyp tian
, 336.
Manichaean here sy,the
,89.
Manue l Comnenus,the Emperor
,
85, 87,Marash, 385.
Marcus Aurelius,the Emperor
,14 .
Marghiloman,Alexander
, 31 1, 313.
Maria Theresa,Empres s of Aus
t ria,106.
Marit sa,th e
,2 2 5, 2 2 7.
bat t le of, 46, 96.
Marko K ralj evié, 97.
Marmora,S ea of
,179, 324 .
Mavrok ordatos,Alexander
,2 0 1,
2 02,2 07 .
Mavromichalis clan,2 08.
Mavromichalis,Petros
,194 .
Mediterranean,the
,164, 166, 178,
Meg aspélaion, 189, 194 .
Meheme t Ali : see Mohammed Ali .Me lek Shah
,of Persia
, 32 2 .
Mendere (Maiandros) , 2 33, 2 34.
Mesolonghi,196, 2 00
,2 0 1
, 2 04,2 05.
Mesoémtamla
a 3371 3431 351 1 376,3 1 .
Mes senia,18 1 .
Mes ta,2 2 8.
Me teora,189.
Me thodius,S t .
,2 8—30 , 88.
Michae l Ob renovic' I II , Prince of
S erb k1 (1840 —3,
1 2
Michagel I II , the Emperor, 2 9.
Michae l the Brave,Prince of
Wallachia, 2 6 1 .
Midhat Pasha and repre sentat ivein stitutions in Turkey
, 52 , 14 1 ,
3593 360 ) 36 1, 362 ) 3651 366,
373Midia, 9, 76, 2 2 5.
Milan Ob renovic’ I I
,Prince of
Serbia 1 2 0 .
Milan Ob renovié IV, Prince and
King of Serbia (18681 2 3—7 .
Milesevo,monas tery of
, 93, 100 .
Milica,Prince s s
, 98.
Military colonie s,Au stro -Hun
garian,of Serbs agains t Turkey,
103—5.
Milos Ob renov1c I , Prince of
Serbia (18 17—39, 1858 1 12,
1 15Milovanovic,Dr.
,146.
Mircea the Old,Prince of Wal
lachia,2 59.
Misivria (Mesemb ria) , 2 8.
Mitylini, 197, 2 31 , 2 32 , 2 34.
Modhon,2 04 .
Mohacs,bat t le of
,103, 338.
Mohammed I I, Sultan , 179, 180,
332—6 .
400 I ndex
Nish-Salonika rai lway, 67, 72 , 157 ,159
Ni z1b, 355.
Normans,the
, 40 , 4 1 , 177.
Novae see Svishtov.Novi Pazar
,Sandjak of
,
occupied by Austria-Hungary,—5.
evacuated by Aus tria-Hungary,142 1
_I 443 I S3°
occupied by Serb1a and Mon
t eneg ro, I S3: I 55: 159°
Obilic',Milos
, 98.
Ob renovié dynasty, the , 1 1 1,1 2 9,
130 .
Odessa,192 , 193, 195.
Commi t tee of, 51 .
Odhyssévs, 199, 2 02 , 2 05.
Oecumenica l Patriarch,the
, 332 ,
358.
Okhrida, 9, 3
8,
151 .
Archbishopric and Patriarchateof, 49, 104Lake of
, 2 2 3.
Old Serbia (northern Macedonia) ,Orient , prefe cture of the , 14 .
Orthodox Church : see Ea s ternChurch .
Osman (Othman) , Sultan, 179,
Osmanli see Turkey and Turks .Ostrogoths
,th e
,15.
Otranto,s trait s of
,177.
Ot to,Prince
,of Bavaria
,King of
Greece, 2 08, 2 09 ; driven in toexile
,2 10.
Ottoman Empire see Turkey.Ouchy, Treaty of : see Lausanne
,
Treaty ofOxus
,179.
Palaiolog os, Romaic dynas ty of,
179.
Pannonia,13, 14, 2 5.
Bulgars in,2 5.
Pan-Serb movement,the
,80
,136,
—7.
Pan-Slavism, 73, 1 17.
Pari s,Congre ss of 12 1 .
Convention 2 7 1 , 2 81,
2 91 .
Treaty of 2 69, 357,
359°
Pasié,M.
,1 2 7.
Passarowitz , Treaty of, 105.
Pasvanog hlu, 346.
Patmos,2 34 .
Patras,168
,2 37.
Gulf of,2 2 2 .
Paul,Emperor of Rus sia, 109.
Paulicians,the
, 35.
Peé (Ipek, in Turkish) ,patriarchateof
, 94, 97, 104—6
,108
,109.
Pe cheneg s , the Tartar, 32 , 36, 37,39°
Peiraeus,2 12
,2 18
,2 2 1 , 2 37.
Pe loponne sian Senat e 2 01 , 2 02 .
Pe loponne sos (Morea) , 14, 168, 169,178, 180
,186
,188
,189, 190,
192—4, 196, 198
—2 05, 2 08, 242 ,
Pera,178.
Persia and the Turks , 32 0-3, 356.
at war wi th Cons tantinople ,19—2 0 .
Grand Seljuk of, 32 2 .
Persian Gulf, 340 .
Pe te r the Great,108
,109, 187.
Te stament of, 342 .
Pe ter,Bulgar Tsar (92 7 33,
34°
Peter I , King of Serbia (1903Pe ter I
,Prince-Bishop of Monte
negro,109.
Petrovic-Nj eg os, dynas ty of,108
,
10
Pe t ta,
9b at tle of
,2 00 .
Phanariote Greeks , the , 49.
Philhe llene s 2 02,2 05.
Philik i He tairia ’
,193, 195.
Phi lip,Coun t of Flanders , 2 79.
.I tuiex:
Phi lip of Macedonia, 12 .
Philippopoli s,Bogomi l centre
, 35,40 .
foundation of,12 .
revolt s agains t Turks, 58.
Pindus,178, 2 42 , 2 44 .
Pirot,
1 18,12 4, 1 2 5.
Place-name s,the di s tribution of
clas sical,indigenous
,and S la
vonic,in the Balkan peninsula
,
2 1 .
Plevna,s iege of
, 53, 2 95, 2 96.
Podgorica,1 24, 12 5.
Poland,18
, 99, 336 .
Pontus, 329, 344, 385.
Pope s , attitude of the , towardsthe Slavonic liturgy
,2 9—30 .
Poros,2 05.
Porto Lagos,2 2 8.
Poi arevac,105, 1 13.
Preslav,Bulgarian capital
,2 8
, 34,
37°
Prespa, 9.
Pre s sburg,Treaty of 1 16.
Prilep,bat t le of 153.
Primates the,2 0 1 .
Prizren,105.
Prussia and Aus tria, war be tween
1 2 2 .
Psara,191, 2 04, 2 31 .
Radowitz,Baron von
,.70 .
Ragusa (Dubrovnik, i n Serbian) ,its re lat ions wi th the SerbianS ta te
, 90: 91: 93) 94a 96prosperity of,
under Turkishrule
,103.
decline of,107, 1 17 .
Rai lways in the Balkan peninsula,
Rashi d Pasha,2 04, 2 05.
Ra§ka , centre of Serb s tate,87, 89,
Reglemen t Organique,2 67, 2 75.
Re ligious divi sion s in the Balkanpeninsula
,135.
Re sna,in Macedonia
, 366.
401
Rh9 des, 2 34, 332 . 333, 335.s iege of, 338.
Ristié, M.
,12 7.
Rodosto, 32 7 .
Romaic archi tecture,17 1 .
governmen t,177—8 1
,183, 185,
language , 169, 170 , 190 .
Romaioi 169—76.
Roman Catholici sm in the Balkanpeninsula
,88
, 90, 135, 166, 167,17 1 , 172 .
Roman Empire,
15, 82 , 164—7,
169, 172 , 375Roman law,172 .
Rome,its conque s t of the Balkan
peninsula, 12—14 .
re lations of,with Bulgaria
, 32—4,
38, 4 1—3
re lat ions of,wi th Serbia
,85, 90,
5.
sgiritual rivalry of,wi th Con
stantinople , 2 9—32 , 88, 90 .
Rose t ti,C . A .
,2 85.
Rovine,bat t le of
,2 59.
Rumania and the Ba lkan peninsu la
,1 1 .
and the se cond Balkanwar(19177, I S97 2 27, 37 1 °
and Bulgaria, 2 29, 2 98, 300 ,
303—4: 3 I 4°
and the Russo-Turkish war
ant i-Greek movemen t in , 2 65,2 66.
anti-Russian revolution in,2 68.
commerce of,2 45.
convention with Rus sia2 95,dynastic que s tion in
,2 60
,2 62
,
2 64, 2 66, 2 7 1 , 2 80 , 2 88.
education in,2 73, 2 79, 2 83.
influence s at work in, 310 , 314 .
mi litary situat ion, 313
—4 .
nationalis t activi ty in,2 66
,2 68
,
30 19 39 51 315°
neutra lity of, 313.
402 I ndex
Rumania (continued)origins of, 15, 2 1 , 174, 185, 2 2 8.
Patriarch’s authority in, 185.
peasantry of, 2 58, 2 62 , 2 74—9.
Phanariote s in,2 63, 2 64, 2 67.
politica l partie s in, 2 74, 2 85,2 86 n .
,2 89.
politics of,interna l
,2 73, 2 78,
2 81 , 2 86, 2 87—9.
re lations wi th Rus sia, 2 92—6
,
300: 304: 31 1 °
religion and Church in,2 54 n .
,
2 73, 2 83.
0Roman civilization, influence in,
2 53: 2 54rura l question in, 274, 2 89.
Russian influence in,2 63, 2 65
poli tics in,2 65, 2 67, 2 68
s truggle for 1ndependence , 2 68ff ,territoria l gains , 2 98, 303 n .
territorial losse s , 2 65, 2 90 , 2 98.
Turkish ruleo
in,2 61—4, 2 70, 2 84 .
Upper clas s in (cneazi, boyards),origins of
,2 55, socia l
evolution of,2 58,
2 7 1 ; economic and polit icalsupremacy
,2 75—8
,2 89, 314.
Rumanian army,2 83, 2 85.
claims in Macedonia, 68.
principa li tie s,foundation of
,
2 56 ; union of,2 69, 2 7 1 , 2 72 .
revolt 196.
Rumanians,early evidence s of, 9,
2 1:2 55: 2 57°
in Bes sarabia, 306.
in Bucovina, 305.
in Hungary,2 55, 2 68, 30 1, 302 ,
,307, 3 I4
—6in Macedonia
,2 54, 306.
Rume lia,Eastern
, 54, 58, 64, 12 6,
Russia and Bulgaria, 54—7, 2 2 3.
and Greece,1 87.
and Montenegro, 108,109, 1 16,
1 17.
Rus sia (continued)and Rumania
,2 92—6
, 300, 304,
31 1 .
and Serbia,1 10
,1 13, 1 24, 137,
and Turkey,108
,109, 1 17, 187,
I 96 342 , 343, 345 so , 353,363, 37 I 383
and the Macedonian que st ion,
69-73, I 4o
and the struggle for Greek independence , 2 06.
Bulgars in,2 4.
commercial t reaty wi th Turkey(1789 1
,
conventionW ithRumania (12 95>
conversmn to Christiani ty,175.
occupation of Kars,2 35.
re-organizat ion under Pe ter theGreat
,1 87.
wars wi th Turkey (1769187 ; 109 ; I I 3 ;
1 2 4, 2 06 ; (18771 2 4: 1 2 5: 36 1 5
( I 9I 4—IS) , 373Russmn diplomacy at Cons tanti
nople , 70 .
influence in Bulgaria, 54—78 .
invasion of Balkan peninsula,
36y371 52 ‘
4 °
re lat ion s with the Balkan Chri st ians
, 50, 1 17.
re lat ions with the Ba lkanLeague
, 73, 152 .
Russians,
the,
comparison of,
wi th the Southern S lavs,18.
see Slavs,the Eastern .
Sabac (Shab atz) , 1 13, 12 2, 338.
Sa li sbury,Lord
,2 97 .
Salonika, 168,173, 174, 177, 180
,
197, 2 13, 2 18, 2 2 2 , 2 24—7, 2 2 9,
2 45: 3303 366: 367: 370 °
Salonika-Ni sh rai lway,the
,67, 72 ,
157, I S9°
Samos,195, 2 30, 2 31, 2 34.
404 I ndex
Shi shman,
revolt s agains t B ul
,
g afl a, 341 36: 38°
Sici ly,177.
S ilistria, 37.
Simeon the Great,Bulgar Tsar
(893 31—4 , 83
Singidunum see Be lgrade .
Sitvatorok,Treaty of
, 34 1 .
Sivas, 384, 385.
Skanderb ey, 330—1 .
Sk odra : see Scu tari .Skoplj e (U sk iib , in Turkish) , 95,97: 151 1 1531 2 2 3°
S lav influence in Rumania, 2 54 .
S lavonia,86
,103.
absorbed by Hungary, 87, 90,I 33
Slavonic immigration,the s treams
of,in the Ba lkan peninsula
, 2 0,
173.
language s,the , 80 ; use of
,in
Rumanian Church,2 54, 2 83.
liturgy,the
,2 9—30 .
southern,nationa li tie s
,10
,
S lavs,maritime
,1 1 .
method of their migrationsouthwards into the Ba lkanpeninsula
,18—2 2 .
migration,in the s eventh cen
tury,
174 .
their lack of cohesion , 18.
their attacks on Salonika and
Cons tantinople with the Avars,
19.
their origina l home,18.
their se t t lement south of the
Danube, 79.
the Balkan,their at ti tude to
wards the Church, 35 ; under
Turki sh rule, 47 .
the Eas tern (Russians) , 18,80.
the Southern,18
,80 ; genera l
di s tribution of, 9—1 1
,17—2 2 ,
79—86.
the We s tern, 80.
S livnit sa,battle of 59, 12 6,
159.
S lovene s,the
, 9, 10, 79.
Smederevo (Semendria) , 99, 104,
Smyi
éna
,192 1 2 2 2 : 2 31: 2 33: 344:
3 5°
Sofia, cap tured by the Bulgarsfrom the Greeks
, 2 7.
cap tured by the Turks, 46.
Soudha Bay, 2 04 .
Southern S lav nationalitie s,the
,
80 .
Spain,Jews expe lled from
,180
,
2 2 5.
Spalajk ov1c , Dr.
,146.
Spe tza, 191 , 192 , 2 10 .
Sporade s,the
,2 34, 2 35.
Srem : see Syrmia.
Stamboul, 351 , 377.
Sultanat e of, 353.
S tamb ulov, 52 , 59
—61,65.
S tephen Drag utin, 93.
S tephen Du§an,King of Serbia
(1331 Tsar of Serbs , B ulgars,
and Greeks (1345Stephen SerbianPrince
, 98.
S tephen Nemanj a, veliki fz'
upan,4 1: 44: 91 °
Stephen Nemanj ié, King of Serbia(1 196—1 2 2 3) ,the Firs t-Crowned,91 .
S tephen Radoslav,King of Serbia
(m s 92
Stephen Uro§ I,King of Serbia
( 1242 93Stephen Uro§ I I (Mi lutin) , King
of Serbia ( 1 2 82 93, 94 .
Stephen Uros I I I (Decanski) , Kingof Serbia (132 1 45, 94.
Stephen Vladi s lav,King of Serbia
02 33 42 :431 92 : 93°
Stephen the Great , Prince of
Moldavia,2 60 .
Struma,the
, 2 2 5, 2 2 7.
Sule iman I,Sultan (‘the Magni
ficent) , 32 5, 335, 338, 339, 346
I ndex
Suli , clansmen of,188
,189, 192 ,
v
Sumadija,109, 1 12 .
Sve toslav, ruler of Bulgaria, 45.
Svishtov,16
,109.
Svyatoslav,Prince of Kiev, 36,
37°
Syria,I 67> 2 °3a 32 1 1 32 2 1 337a 343a
Syrian Ques t ion , the , 355, 356, 357 .
Syrmia,103, 105.
Tabriz, 340 .
Tanzimat,the
, 355, 357.
Tarab os,Mount
,152 .
Tarsus, 336
Tartar invasion,the
,
32 7—9°
Tartars of the Golden Horde, 45.
Tenedos,2 30 .
Teutons,the
,168.
Thasos,2 30 .
Theodore Lascaris, the Emperor,43: 92 °
Theodoric,16.
Theodosius,the Emperor
,15.
Theophi lus of Cons tantinople, 32 1 .
The s saly,178, 18 1
,188—90, 197,
198, 2 14, 2 17, 2 44.
Thrace, 2 24
—6,2 2 8
, 32 9, 370, 37 1 .
Thu-Kiu,people of
, 32 0 , 32 1 .
Ti lsit,peace of 1 13, 1 17,
346
Timok,the
,83, 86, 1 18.
Timur, 32 7, 330.
Tirnovo,
centre and capita l of
se cond Bulgarian empire, 4 1—4,
46 64, 74, 93.
Traj an, the Emperor,
in the
Balkan peninsula,13.
hi s conques t of Dacia,2 52 .
Tran sylvania, 13.
Trebizond,180, 32 3, 32 9,
Trie s te, 9, 10 , 192 .
Trikéri,des truct ion of
,198.
Trik oupis, Gre ek s tate sman, 2 14
405
Tripoli, 150, 2 2 2 , 2 34, 370 .
Tripoli tza,194 .
Tuni sia, 364
Turcomans,the
, 319, 32 1, 32 3,
35‘Turke s tan
, 319, 32 0, 32 1 .
Turkey : admini strat ive sys tems,
I 83, I 84, 339, 340, 34 I , 343,347, 348, 351 , 355, 356, 357,360, 364.
and the Armenian massacre s364 .
and the Ba lkans, 45
—9, 2 2 5,
32 7, 32 8, 330 , 33I o
and Bulgaria, 72 , 73,
I4 Iand the Bulgarian atrocities
,
358.
and Greece,
176, 180, 182—5188
,192 fl .
,2 13, 2 14, 2 16, 2 17
and the i slands of southeastern Europe
,2 30—6.
and Rumania, 2 6 1
—4, 2 70 , 2 84.
and Russia,
187, 342 , 343
345
3 3and Serbia
,12 2 , 179, 32 7, 329,
and the s truggle for Greek independence , 190
—2 08.
and the suzerainty of Kre te,
2 18,2 19.
Chri s tian s in,posi tion of
, 49100
,102—6
,1 24, 18 1—7, 195
197, 2 38, 32 2 , 324—7, 330
342
3 4codification of the Civi l Law,
356
commercral treat ie s,187, 191 .
Commi t tee of Union and Pro
gre s s,2 19, 372 , 373, 377
—86,
382 .
conque s ts in Europ e, 46, 96
—10 1,
32 6—40 ; in Asia, 362 ; of the
Ba lkan peninsula, 45 9.
406 I ndex
Turkey (continued)de cline and los ses of terri toryin Europe and Asia
,187, 188
,
I 94: 2 2 51 2 59) 2 66)2 69) 2 94 )
,
2 96, 340-4, 36 1
, 364, 365, 37 IDe re Beys 335, 343, 347, 348,
350 : 355°
Dragoman,offi ce of
,184, 185.
expansion of the Osman likingdom
, 32 6—32 ; of the
Byzantine Empire , 332-40 ;
extent of the empire in the
sixteenth and seven teenth centuries
, 337, 340 ; t erritorialexpan sion in Asia, 362 .
feudal ari stocracy of, 1 83.
financial embarrassmen t s and
public deb t, 335, 354
-7, 364,
374fron tier beyond the Danube ,32 8, 34 I , 342
German influence in, 364, 370,
Grand Vizi erate,184, 34 1 , 342 .
military organi zat ion , 1 8 1,183,
I 84, 330 , 334, 337, 339, 340,
350 , 357, 370 , 372 , 373, 383 ;soldie ry re cruited from Chri st ian race s
,197, 330, 339 tri
bute-chi ldren ’ sys tem of re
crmtmg . I 8 I—3, 334, 339
name of, 319.
pan-Islamic propaganda under
Abdu l Hamid, 36 1 , 362 , 363.
pan-Ot tomani sm
, 367, 368.
Phanariot régime,185, 189, 192 ,
prae torian s, 32 1 ) 334: 337) 34 1 3
347rai lway cons truct ion
,e ff e ct of
,
366.
reforms in,64—9, 140
—2 , 148,
347—8
representative institutions ln
aug urated, 359, 360 .
reviva l and re lapse in the
nineteenth century, 344—66.
Turkey (continued)revolut ion of 1910 , 366
—9.
war in the Balkans 2 24,2 32 ,
,
2 69—73
war W i th Great Britain,France
,
and Rus sia (1914 2 32 , 373.
wars wi th Gree ce 2 37 ;2 17 , 363 2 2 4.
war W i th I taly ( 191 1 2 2 2 ,
2 34wars W i th Rus sia ( 1769I 87 ; u s:
I 2 41 2 06 5 (18771 24 ) 1 2 5: 360 1 36 1 5 (1914373°
wars W i th Serbia (1875 12 3,1 2 4 .
Young Turks,the
,63, 7 1 , 72 ,
Turki sh conque s t s in Europe,
179—82 .
flee t,197, 198, 199, 2 0 1 , 2 04,
jani s saries,18 1
,183, 184, 2 05,
330: 335) 337: 339—4 1: 344,
Turks (Osmanlis) , en try into94 ) 32 7 fi '
genera l dis tribut ion of, 9.
nomadic tribe s of,175, 176.
origin of, 319
—2 6.
vitali ty and inherent qualitie sOf the
,176 ) 1831 352 ) 3537 36 1:
374tgo o
Tzak onia,170 .
Uighurs,Turki sh tribe, 32 0 .
Unkiar Sk elessi,Treaty of
355°
Uro§,King of Serbia see Stephen
Uro§ .
Uroé,Serbian Tsar (1355 96,
97°
Uskub see Skoplj e .
Valen s,the Emperor, 15.
Valtetzi, batt le of,194.
