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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Balkans, by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Balkans
+       A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
+
+Author: Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+Release Date: March 26, 2004 [eBook #11716]
+[Most recently updated: May 27, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Andy Schmitt and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS ***
+
+
+
+
+The Balkans
+A HISTORY OF BULGARIA—SERBIA—GREECE—RUMANIA—TURKEY
+
+BY NEVILL FORBES, ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE, D. MITRANY, D.G. HOGARTH
+
+
+Contents
+
+ PREFACE
+ BULGARIA AND SERBIA. By NEVILL FORBES.
+ 1. Introductory
+ 2. The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times 400 B.C.— A.D. 500
+ 3. The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A.D. 500-650
+
+ BULGARIA.
+ 4. The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula, 600-700
+ 5. The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity, 700-893
+ 6. The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire, 893-972
+ 7. The Rise and Fall of ‘Western Bulgaria’ and the Greek Supremacy, 963-1186
+ 8. The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1186-1258
+ 9. The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse, 1258-1393
+ 10. The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation, 1393-1878
+ 11. The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86
+ 12. The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 1886-1908
+ 13. The Kingdom, 1908-13
+
+ SERBIA.
+ 14. The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy, 650-1168
+ 15. The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian Independence, 1168-1496
+ 16. The Turkish Dominion, 1496-1796
+ 17. The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and Miloš Obrenović (1815-30): 1796-1830
+ 18. The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia, 1830-1903
+ 19. Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary, 1903-8
+ 20. Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars, 1908-13
+
+ GREECE. By ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.
+ 1. From Ancient to Modern Greece
+ 2. The Awakening of the Nation
+ 3. The Consolidation of the State
+
+ RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS. By D. MITRANY
+ 1. Introduction
+ 2. Formation of the Rumanian Nation
+ 3. The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities
+ 4. The Phanariote Rule
+ 5. Modern Period to 1866
+ 6. Contemporary Period: Internal Development
+ 7. Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs
+ 8. Rumania and the Present War
+
+ TURKEY. By D. G. HOGARTH
+ 1. Origin of the Osmanlis
+ 2. Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom
+ 3. Heritage and Expansion of the Byzantine Empire
+ 4. Shrinkage and Retreat
+ 5. Revival
+ 6. Relapse
+ 7. Revolution
+ 8. The Balkan War
+ 9. The Future
+
+ INDEX
+
+
+
+
+MAPS
+
+The Balkan Peninsula: Ethnological
+The Balkan Peninsula
+The Ottoman Empire
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely
+separated, engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had
+no opportunity for interchange of views. Each must be held responsible,
+therefore, for his own section alone. If there be any discrepancies in
+our writings (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. It may be well to state that the sections on
+Serbia and Bulgaria were finished before the decisive Balkan
+developments of the past two months. Those on Greece and Rumania
+represent only a little later stage of the evolution. That on Turkey,
+compiled between one mission abroad and another, was the latest to be
+finished.
+
+If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and
+foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about
+any Balkan people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be
+fighting to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and
+interwoven in some intimate way with our history. That any one of them
+is arrayed against us to-day is not to be laid entirely or chiefly at
+its own door. They are all fine peoples who have not obtained their
+proper places in the sun. The best of the Osmanli nation, the Anatolian
+peasantry, has yet to make its physical and moral qualities felt under
+civilized conditions. As for the rest—the Serbs and the Bulgars, who
+have enjoyed brief moments of barbaric glory in their past, have still
+to find themselves in that future which shall be to the Slav. The
+Greeks, who were old when we were not as yet, are younger now than we.
+They are as incalculable a factor in a political forecast as another
+Chosen Race, the Jews. Their past is the world’s glory: the present in
+the Near East is theirs more than any people’s: the future—despite the
+laws of corporate being and decline, dare we say they will have no part
+in it? Of Rumania what are we to think? Her mixed people has had the
+start of the Balkan Slavs in modern civilization, and evidently her
+boundaries must grow wider yet. But the limits of her possible
+expansion are easier to set than those of the rest.
+
+We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history,
+whether of the East or the West, is mostly a record of bloodshedding
+and cruelty; and the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in
+most parts of the Balkans, and is not yet over in some parts. There are
+certain things salutary to bear in mind when we think or speak of any
+part of that country to-day. First, that less than two hundred years
+ago, England had its highwaymen on all roads, and its smuggler dens and
+caravans, Scotland its caterans, and Ireland its moonlighters. Second,
+that religious fervour has rarely mitigated and generally increased 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 write about
+the Near East under existing circumstances altogether _sine ira et
+studio_, we have tried to remember that each of its peoples has a case.
+
+D.G. HOGARTH.
+
+
+_November_, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+BULGARIA AND SERBIA
+
+
+
+
+1
+_Introductory_
+
+
+The whole of what may be called the trunk or _massif_ 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 the
+Adriatic) and the lake of Scutari in the west, through lakes Okhrida
+and Prespa (in Macedonia) to the outskirts of Salonika and thence to
+Midia on the shores of the Black Sea, 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 the west, and the
+Slovenes in the extreme north-west, between Trieste and the Save; these
+nationalities compose the southern branch of the Slavonic race. The
+other inhabitants 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 are to be found in varying quantities
+within the limits of the Slav territory roughly outlined above, but
+greater numbers of them are outside it; on the other hand, there are a
+considerable number of Serbs living north of the rivers Save and
+Danube, in southern Hungary. Details of the ethnic distribution and
+boundaries will of course be gone into more 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 gastronomers to denote a dish, the principal characteristic of
+which is that its component parts are mixed up into quite inextricable
+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 in number, inhabiting the Austrian provinces of
+Carinthia and Carniola, have never been able to form a political state,
+though, with the growth of Trieste as a great port and the persistent
+efforts of Germany to make her influence if not her flag supreme on the
+shores of the Adriatic, this small people has from its geographical
+position and from its anti-German (and anti-Italian) attitude achieved
+considerable notoriety and some importance.
+
+Of the Bulgars and Serbs it may be said that at the present moment the
+former control the eastern, and the latter, in alliance with the
+Greeks, the western half of the peninsula. It has always been the
+ambition of each of these three nationalities to dominate the whole, an
+ambition which has caused endless waste of blood and money and untold
+misery. If the question were to be settled purely on ethnical
+considerations, 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 in origin, and would thus undoubtedly
+attain the hegemony of the peninsula, while the centre of gravity of
+the Serbian nation would, as is ethnically just, move north-westwards.
+Political considerations, however, have until now always been against
+this solution of the difficulty, and, even if it solved in this sense,
+there would still remain 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
+lines virtually impossible. It is curious that the Slavs, though
+masters of the interior of the peninsula and of parts of its eastern
+and western coasts, have never made the shores of the Aegean (the White
+Sea, as they call it) or the cities on them their own. The Adriatic is
+the only sea on the shore of which any Slavonic race has ever made its
+home. In view of this difficulty, namely, the interior of the peninsula
+being Slavonic while the coastal fringe is Greek, and of the
+approximately equal numerical strength of all three nations, it is
+almost inevitable that the ultimate solution of the problem and
+delimitation of political boundaries will have to be effected by means
+of territorial compromise. It can only be hoped that this ultimate
+compromise will be agreed upon by the three countries concerned, and
+will be more equitable than that which was forced on them by Rumania in
+1913 and laid down in the Treaty of Bucarest of that year.
+
+If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is made between them,
+the road to the East, which from the point of view of the Germanic
+powers lies through Serbia, will sooner or later inevitably be forced
+open, and the independence, first 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. If the Balkan League could be reconstituted,
+Germany and Austria would never reach Salonika or Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+2
+_The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times_
+400 B.C.–A.D. 500.
+
+
+In the earlier historical times the whole of the eastern part of the
+Balkan peninsula between the Danube and the Aegean was known as
+Thracia, while the western part (north of the forty-first degree of
+latitude) was termed Illyricum; the lower basin of the river Vardar
+(the classical Axius) was called Macedonia. A number of the tribal and
+personal names of the early Illyrians and Thracians have been
+preserved. Philip of Macedonia subdued Thrace in the fourth century
+B.C. and in 342 founded the city of Philippopolis. Alexander’s first
+campaign was devoted to securing control of the peninsula, but 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 Belgrade was known until the seventh century A.D.
+by its Celtic name of Singidunum. Naissus, the modern Nish, is also
+possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230 B.C. that Rome came into
+contact with Illyricum, owing to the piratical proclivities of its
+inhabitants, but for a long time it only controlled 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 run in several parallel and almost unbroken lines the
+whole length of the shore of the Adriatic and have always formed an
+effective barrier to invasion from the west. The interior was only very
+gradually subdued by the Romans after Macedonia had been occupied by
+them in 146 B.C. Throughout the first century B.C. conflicts raged with
+varying fortune between the invaders and all the native races living
+between the Adriatic and the Danube. They were attacked both from
+Aquileia in the north and from Macedonia in the south, 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 of that of Bulgaria between the
+Danube and the Balkan range (the classical Haemus), became an imperial
+province, and twenty 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 between the Save and the Adriatic, and Pannonia
+lay between the Danube and the Save. In 107 A.D. the Emperor Trajan
+conquered the Dacians beyond the lower Danube, and organized a province
+of Dacia out of territory roughly equivalent to the modern Wallachia
+and Transylvania, This trans-Danubian territory did not remain attached
+to the empire for more than a hundred and fifty years; but within the
+river line a vast belt of country, stretching from the head of the
+Adriatic to the mouths of the Danube on the Black Sea, was Romanized
+through and through. The Emperor Trajan has been called the Charlemagne
+of the Balkan peninsula; all remains are attributed to him (he was
+nicknamed the Wallflower by Constantine the Great), and his reign
+marked the zenith of Roman power in this part of the world. The Balkan
+peninsula enjoyed the benefits of Roman civilization for three
+centuries, from the first to the fourth, but from the second century
+onwards the attitude of the Romans was defensive rather than offensive.
+The war against the 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 251 the Emperor
+Decius was killed in battle against them near Odessus on the Black Sea
+(the modern Varna). The Goths reached the outskirts of Thessalonica
+(Salonika), but were defeated by the Emperor Claudius at Naissus (Nish)
+in 269; shortly afterwards, however, the Emperor Aurelian had
+definitively to relinquish Dacia to them. The Emperor Diocletian, a
+native of Dalmatia, who reigned from 284 to 305, carried out a
+redistribution of the imperial provinces. Pannonia and western Illyria,
+or Dalmatia, were assigned to the prefecture of Italy, Thrace to that
+of the Orient, while the whole centre of the peninsula, from the Danube
+to the Peloponnese, constituted the prefecture of Illyria, with
+Thessalonica as capital. The territory to the north of the Danube
+having been lost, what is now western Bulgaria was renamed Dacia, while
+Moesia, the modern kingdom of Serbia, was made very much smaller.
+Praevalis, or the southern part of Dalmatia, approximately the modern
+Montenegro and Albania, was detached from that province and added to
+the prefecture of Illyria. In this way the boundary between the
+province of Dalmatia and the Balkan peninsula proper ran from near the
+lake of Scutari in the south to the river Drinus (the modern Drina),
+whose course it followed till the Save was reached in the north.
+
+An event of far-reaching importance in the following century was the
+elevation by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium
+into the imperial city of Constantinople in 325. This century also
+witnessed the arrival of the Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed
+the Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper and the Dniester, in 375, and the
+Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the modern Rumania, moved
+southwards in sympathy with this event. The Emperor Valens lost his
+life fighting against these Goths in 378 at the great battle of
+Adrianople (a city established in Thrace by 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 devastated the entire peninsula, after
+which they proceeded to Italy. After the death of the Emperor
+Theodosius the empire was divided, never to be joined into one whole
+again. The dividing line followed that, already mentioned, which
+separated the prefecture of Italy from those of Illyria and the Orient,
+that is to say, it began in the south, on the shore of the Adriatic
+near the Bocche di Cattaro, and went due north along the valley of the
+Drina till the confluence of that river with the Save. It will be seen
+that this division had 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 provinces to 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. Its extent is proved by the
+fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly, and their language
+very largely, defended from those of the legions and colonies of the
+Emperor Trajan.
+
+Latin influence, shipping, colonization, and art were always supreme on
+the eastern shores of the Adriatic, just as 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 vocabulary is derived;
+though driven southwards by the Romans and northwards by the Greeks,
+they have remained in their mountain fastnesses to this day, impervious
+to any of the civilizations to which they have been exposed.
+
+Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula very early;
+Macedonia and Dalmatia were the parts where it was first established,
+and it took some time to penetrate into the interior. During the reign
+of Diocletian numerous martyrs suffered for the faith in the Danubian
+provinces, but with the accession of Constantine the Great persecution
+came to an end. As soon, however, as the Christians were left alone,
+they started persecuting each other, and during the fourth century 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 Theiss; they devastated the Balkan
+peninsula, in spite of the tribute which they had levied on
+Constantinople in return for their promise 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, where he remained till he transferred the sphere
+of his activities to Italy ten years later. Towards the end of the
+fifth century Huns of various kinds returned to the lower Danube and
+devastated the peninsula several times, penetrating as far as Epirus
+and Thessaly.
+
+
+
+
+3
+_The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula_, A.D. 500–650
+
+
+The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security
+and prosperity during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into
+barbarism as a result of these endless invasions; the walled towns,
+such as Salonika and Constantinople, were the only safe places, and the
+country became waste and desolate. The process continued unabated
+throughout the three following centuries, and one is driven to one of
+two conclusions, either that these lands must have possessed very
+extraordinary powers of recuperation to make it worth while for
+invaders to pillage them so frequently, or, what is more probable,
+there can have been after some time little left to plunder, and
+consequently the Byzantine historians’ accounts of enormous drives of
+prisoners and booty are much exaggerated. It is impossible to count the
+number of times the tide of invasion and devastation swept southwards
+over the unfortunate peninsula. The emperors and their generals did
+what they could by means of defensive works on the frontiers, of
+punitive expeditions, and of trying to set the various hordes of
+barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they had at the same
+time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain, it is
+not surprising that they were not more successful. The growing riches
+of Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for the
+wild men from the east and north, and unfortunately the Greek citizens
+were more inclined to spend their energy in theological disputes and
+their leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other
+to the defence of their country. It was only by dint of paying them
+huge sums of money that the invaders were kept away from the coast. The
+departure of the Huns and the Goths had made the way for fresh series
+of unwelcome visitors. In the sixth century the Slavs appear for the
+first time. From their original homes which were immediately north 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 in Dacia, north of the Danube, in the previous
+century, but they are first mentioned as having crossed that river
+during the reign of the Emperor Justin I (518-27). They were a
+loosely-knit congeries of tribes without any single leader or central
+authority; some say they merely possessed the instinct of anarchy,
+others that they were permeated with the ideals of democracy. What is
+certain is that amongst them neither leadership nor initiative was
+developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and organisation. The
+Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians, were only welded into
+anything approaching unity by the comparatively much smaller number of
+Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came and took charge of their
+affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of themselves
+able to form a united community, conscious of its aim and capable of
+persevering in its attainment.
+
+The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company
+of the Avars, a terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns,
+were of Asiatic (Turkish or Mongol) origin. These invasions became more
+frequent during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-65), and
+culminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all the invaders on
+Constantinople under a certain Zabergan, which was brilliantly defeated
+by the veteran Byzantine general Belisarius. 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 their warlike 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; that is
+to say, 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 Danube, the 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 military energies of
+Constantinople were diverted to Persia, so that the invaders of the
+Balkan peninsula had the field very much to themselves. It was during
+this time that the power of the Avars reached its height. They were
+masters of all the country up to the walls of Adrianople and Salonika,
+though they did not settle there. The peninsula seems to have been
+colonized by Slavs, who penetrated right down into Greece; but the
+Avars were throughout this time, both in politics and in war, the
+directing and dominating force. During another Persian war, which broke
+out in 622 and entailed the prolonged absence of the emperor from
+Constantinople, the Avars, not satisfied with the tribute extorted from
+the Greeks, made an alliance against them with the Persians, and in 626
+collected a large army of Slavs and Asiatics and attacked
+Constantinople both by land and sea from the European side, while the
+Persians threatened it from Asia. But the walls of the city and the
+ships of the Greeks proved invincible, 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 downfall became 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 unostentatiously proceeding; by the
+middle of the seventh century it was complete. The main streams of
+Slavonic immigration moved southwards and westwards. The first covered
+the whole of the country between the Danube and the Balkan range,
+overflowed into Macedonia, and filtered down into Greece. Southern
+Thrace in the east and Albania in the west were comparatively little
+affected, and in these districts the indigenous population maintained
+itself. The coasts of the Aegean and the great cities on or near them
+were too strongly held by the Greeks to be affected, and those Slavs
+who penetrated into Greece itself were soon absorbed by the local
+populations. The still stronger Slavonic stream, which moved westwards
+and turned up north-westwards, overran the whole country down to the
+shores of the Adriatic and as far as the sources of the Save and Drave
+in the Alps. From that point in the west to the shores of the Black Sea
+in the east became one solid mass of Slavs, and has remained so ever
+since. The few Slavs who were left north of the Danube in Dacia were
+gradually assimilated by the inhabitants of that province, who were 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 words of Slavonic origin
+contained in the Rumanian language.
+
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA ETHNOLOGICAL]
+
+Place-names are a good index of the extent and strength of the tide of
+Slav immigration. All along the coast, from the mouth of the Danube to
+the head of the Adriatic, the Greek and Roman names have been retained
+though places have often been given alternative names by the Slavonic
+settlers. Thrace, especially the south-eastern part, and Albania have
+the fewest Slavonic place-names. In Macedonia and Lower Moesia
+(Bulgaria) very few classical names have survived, while in Upper
+Moesia (Serbia) and the interior of Dalmatia (Bosnia, Hercegovina, and
+Montenegro) they have entirely disappeared. The Slavs themselves,
+though their tribal names were known, were until the ninth century
+usually called collectively S(k)lavini ([Greek: Sklabaenoi]) by the
+Greeks, and all the inland parts of the peninsula were for long termed
+by them ‘the S(k)lavonias’ ([Greek: Sklabiniai]).
+
+During the seventh century, dating from the defeat of the Slavs and
+Avars before the walls of Constantinople in 626 and the final triumph
+of the emperor over the Persians in 628, the influence and power of the
+Greeks began to reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north
+as the Danube; this process was coincident with the decline of the
+might of the Avars. It was the custom of the astute Byzantine diplomacy
+to look on and speak of lands which had been occupied by the various
+barbarian invaders as grants made to them through the generosity of the
+emperor; by this means, by dint also of lavishing titles and
+substantial incomes to the invaders’ chiefs, by making the most of
+their mutual jealousies, and also by enlisting regiments of Slavonic
+mercenaries in the imperial armies, the supremacy of Constantinople was
+regained far more effectively than it could have been by the continual
+and exhausting use of force.
+
+
+
+
+BULGARIA
+
+
+
+
+4
+_The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,_ 600–700
+
+
+The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed
+all their movements until their final establishment there in the
+seventh century, are involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by
+name in classical and Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes
+to the north of the Black Sea amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has
+been assumed by some that at the end of the fifth and throughout the
+sixth century they were associated first with the Huns and later with
+the Avars and Slavs in the various incursions into and invasions of the
+eastern empire which have already been enumerated. It is the tendency
+of Bulgarian historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the
+history of Russia only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the
+antiquity of their own and to claim as early a date as possible for the
+authentic appearance of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of
+the Balkan theatre. They are also unwilling to admit that they were
+anticipated by the Slavs; they prefer to think that the Slavs only
+insinuated themselves there thanks to the energy of the Bulgars’
+offensive against the Greeks, and that as soon as the Bulgars had
+leisure to look about them they found all the best places already
+occupied by the anarchic Slavs.
+
+Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were
+or were not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept
+westwards into Europe with little intermission throughout the fifth and
+sixth centuries, but even if they were, they do not seem to have
+settled down as early as that anywhere south of the Danube; it seems
+certain that they did not do so until the seventh century, and
+therefore that the Slavs were definitely installed in the Balkan
+peninsula a whole century before the Bulgars crossed the Danube for
+good.
+
+The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like
+the Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from eastern
+Asia, of the stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of all these
+peoples was to move westwards from Asia into Europe, and this they did
+at considerable and irregular intervals, though in alarming and
+apparently inexhaustible numbers, roughly from the fourth till the
+fourteenth centuries. The distance was great, but the journey, thanks
+to the flat, grassy, treeless, and well-watered character of the
+steppes of southern Russia which they had to cross, was easy. They
+often halted for considerable periods by the way, and some never moved
+further westwards than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in
+large numbers on the Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it
+is presumed 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 Tartar
+immigrants from Asia and eventually were consolidated into the powerful
+kingdom of Kazan, which was only crushed by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552.
+According to Bulgarian historians, the basins of the rivers Volga and
+Don and the steppes of eastern Russia proved too confined a space for
+the legitimate development of Bulgarian energy, and expansion to the
+west was decided on. A large number of Bulgars therefore detached
+themselves and began to move south-westwards. During the sixth century
+they seem to have been settled in the country to the north of the Black
+Sea, forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria. It is very doubtful
+whether the Bulgars did take part, as they are supposed to have done,
+in the ambitious but unsuccessful attack on Constantinople in 559 under
+Zabergan, chief of another Tartar tribe; but it is fairly certain that
+they did in the equally formidable but equally unsuccessful attacks by
+the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609 and Constantinople in 626.
+
+During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh
+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
+the Bulgars grew as 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 joined forces with what was
+left of the Avars, and there the Bulgars maintained themselves till
+they were obliterated by 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 at 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 that year
+the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.
+
+The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not
+known, but what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process,
+by which the Franks in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous
+indigenous population 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 subject nationality, that beyond a
+few personal names no traces of the language of the Bulgars have
+survived. Modern Bulgarian, except for the Turkish words introduced
+into it later during the Ottoman rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so the
+Bulgarian nationality; as is so often the case with mongrel 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 Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity_,
+700–893
+
+
+From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have
+given their name the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks,
+and ever since both peoples have looked on one another as natural and
+hereditary enemies. The Bulgars, like all the barbarians who had
+preceded them, were fascinated by the honey-pot of Constantinople, 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 Greeks or else amongst
+themselves. At times a diversion was caused by the Bulgars taking the
+part of the Greeks, as in 718, when they ‘delivered’ Constantinople, at
+the invocation 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 anarchy of the many, which the
+Bulgars found when they arrived, and which their first few autocratic
+rulers had been able to control, was replaced by an anarchy of the few.
+Prince succeeded prince, war followed war, at the will of the feudal
+nobles. This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks,
+who lavishly subsidized the rival factions.
+
+At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined
+forces with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the
+Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards
+towards the Danube. In this the Bulgars were completely successful
+under the leadership of one Krum, whom, in the elation of victory, they
+promptly elected to the throne. Krum was a far more capable ruler than
+they had bargained for, and he not only united all the Bulgars north
+and south of the Danube into one dominion, but also forcibly repressed
+the whims of the nobles and re-established the autocracy and the
+hereditary monarchy. Having finished with his enemies in the north, he
+turned his attention to the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he
+captured from them the important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica,
+known to the Slavs as Sredets), which is to-day the capital of
+Bulgaria. The loss of this city was a blow to the Greeks, because it
+was a great centre of commerce and also the point at which the
+commercial and strategic highways of the peninsula met and crossed. The
+Emperor Nikiphóros, who wished to take his revenge and recover his lost
+property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars and lost his life in the
+Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at Mesembria (the modern
+Misivria) in 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum appeared before the
+capital, where he nearly lost his life in an ambush while negotiating
+for peace. During preparations for a final assault on Constantinople he
+died suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to have introduced
+civilisation into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power and gave
+it some of the more essential organs of government. He framed a code of
+laws remarkable for their rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary in
+such a community and beneficial in its effect. He repressed civil
+strife, and by this means made possible the reawakening of commerce and
+agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity, founded in 822 the
+city of Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav), situated in
+eastern Bulgaria, between Varna and Silistria, which was the capital
+until 972.
+
+The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed
+the definitive conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It
+is within this period also that fell the activities of the two great
+‘Slavonic’ missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and Methodius,
+who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders
+of their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into
+Bulgaria (or Moesia, as it was then) long before the arrival 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 was brought 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 the Church was at
+this time still nominally one, yet the rivalry between Rome and
+Constantinople had already become acute, and the struggle for spheres
+of spiritual influence had begun. It was in the year 863 that the
+Prince of Moravia, anxious to introduce Christianity into his country
+in a form intelligible to his subjects, addressed himself to the
+Emperor Michael III for help. Rome could not provide any suitable
+missionaries with knowledge of Slavonic languages, and the German, or
+more exactly the Bavarian, hierarchy with which Rome entrusted the
+spiritual welfare of the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia used its greater
+local knowledge for political and not religious ends. The Germans
+exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order completely to
+dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter were only
+allowed to see the Church through Teutonic 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 composed the Slavonic alphabet which is
+to-day used throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and in
+many parts of Austria-Hungary and translated the gospels into Slavonic;
+it is for this reason that they are regarded with such veneration by
+all members of the Eastern Church. Their mission proved the greatest
+success (it must be remembered that at this time the various Slavonic
+tongues were probably less dissimilar than they are now), and the two
+brothers were warmly welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, 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; St. Cyril died in 869 and St.
+Methodius in 885; subsequent Popes, notably Stephen V, were not so
+benevolent to the Slavonic cause; the machinations of the German
+hierarchy (which included, even in those days, the falsification of
+documents) were irresistible, and finally the invasion of the Magyars,
+in 893, destroyed what was left of the Slavonic Church in Moravia. The
+missionary brothers had probably passed through Bulgaria on their way
+north in 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 subjects to do the
+same. Even when he had enforced his will on them at the price of
+numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at
+the beginning of his difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to
+welcome Bulgaria into the fold, but they had no wish to set up an
+independent Church and hierarchy 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 the basileus
+derived from the Church of Constantinople; he also admired the pomp of
+ecclesiastical ceremony, and wished to have a patriarch of his own to
+crown him and a hierarchy of his own to serve him. Finding the Greeks
+unresponsive, he turned to Rome, and Pope Nicholas I sent him two
+bishops to superintend the ecclesiastical affairs of Bulgaria till the
+investiture of Boris at the hands of the Holy See could be arranged.
+These bishops set 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
+independent Church their enthusiasm abated and they were recalled to
+Rome in 867.
+
+Adrian II proved no more sympathetic, and in 870, during the reign of
+the Emperor Basil I, it was decided without more ado that the Bulgarian
+Church should be directly under the Bishop of Constantinople, on the
+ground that the kingdom of Boris was a vassal-state of the basileus,
+and that from the Byzantine point of view, as opposed to that of Rome,
+the State came first and the Church next. The Moravian Gorazd, a
+disciple of Methodius, was appointed Metropolitan, and at his death he
+was succeeded by his fellow countryman and co-disciple Clement, who by
+means of the construction of numerous churches and monasteries did a
+great deal for the propagation of light and learning in Bulgaria. The
+definite subjection of the Bulgarian Church to that of Byzantium was an
+important and far-reaching event. Boris has been reproached with
+submitting himself and his country to Greek influence, but in those
+days it was either Constantinople or Rome (there was no third way); and
+in view of the proximity of Constantinople and the glamour which its
+civilization cast all over the Balkans, it is not surprising that the
+Greeks carried the day.
+
+
+
+
+6
+_The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire_, 893–972
+
+
+During the reign of Simeon, second son of Boris, which lasted from 893
+to 927, Bulgaria reached a very high level of power and prosperity.
+Simeon, called the Great, is looked on by Bulgarians as their most
+capable monarch and his reign as the most brilliant period of their
+history. He had spent his childhood at Constantinople and been educated
+there, and he became such an admirer of Greek civilization that he was
+nicknamed _Hèmiargos_. His instructors had done their work so well that
+Simeon remained spellbound by the glamour of Constantinople throughout
+his life, and, although he might have laid the foundations of a solid
+empire in the Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and to
+be recognized as basileus—an ambition which was not to be fulfilled.
+His first campaign against the Greeks was not very 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 Pechenegs, 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
+(894-913), the internal development of Bulgaria made great strides. The
+administration was properly organized, commerce was encouraged, and
+agriculture flourished. In the wars against the Greeks which occupied
+his last years he was more successful, and inflicted a severe defeat on
+them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917; but he was still unable to
+get from them what he wanted, and at last, in 921, he was obliged to
+proclaim himself _basileus_ and _autocratōr_ of all Bulgars and Greeks,
+a title which nobody else recognized. He reappeared before
+Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more than the
+customary devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a solemn
+reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were clever
+enough to prevent the Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their return
+journey, and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was anxious
+to see them and enter into direct relations with Rome. In the same year
+Simeon tried to make an alliance with the Arabs, but the ambassadors of
+the latter were intercepted by the Greeks, who made it worth their
+while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.
+
+In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort against Constantinople and
+as a preliminary he ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. When, however, he
+arrived before the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate,
+and he entered into negotiations, which, as 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 subjected most of the
+eastern part of Serbia to his rule. From all this it can be seen that
+he was no diplomat, though not lacking in enterprise and ambition. The
+fact was that while he made his kingdom too powerful for the Greeks to
+subdue (indeed they were compelled to pay him tribute), yet
+Constantinople 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 south of
+the Danube and east of the rivers Morava and Ibar in Serbia and of the
+Drin in Albania. The Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence
+in Bulgaria during his reign, and works of theology grew like
+mushrooms. This was the only kind of literature that was ever popular
+in Bulgaria, and although it is usual to throw contempt on the literary
+achievements of Constantinople, we should know but little of Bulgaria
+were it not for the Greek historians.
+
+Simeon died in 927, and his son Peter, who succeeded him, was a lover
+of peace and comfort; he married a Byzantine princess, and during his
+reign (927-69) Greek influence grew ever stronger, in spite of several
+revolts on the part of the Bulgar nobles, while the capital Preslav
+became a miniature Constantinople. In 927 Rome recognized the kingdom
+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 _archōn_ or prince (_knyaz_ in Bulgarian), which was
+the utmost title allowed to any foreign sovereign. It was not until 945
+that they recognized Peter as _basileus_, the unique title possessed by
+their own emperors and till then never granted to any one else. Peter’s
+reign was one of misfortune for his country both at home and abroad. In
+931 the Serbs broke loose under their leader Časlav, whom Simeon had
+captured but who effected his escape, and asserted their independence.
+In 963 a formidable revolt under one Shishman undermined the whole
+state fabric. He managed to subtract Macedonia and all western
+Bulgaria, including Sofia and Vidin, from Peter’s rule, and proclaimed
+himself independent _tsar (tsar_ or _caesar_ was a title often accorded
+by Byzantium to relatives of the emperor or to distinguished men of
+Greek or other nationality, and though it was originally the equivalent
+of the highest title, it had long since ceased to be so: the emperor’s
+designations were _basileus_ and _autocratōr_). From this time there
+were two Bulgarias—eastern and western. The eastern half was now little
+more than a Byzantine province, and the western became the centre of
+national life and the focus of national aspirations.
+
+Another factor which militated against the internal progress of
+Bulgaria was the spread of the Bogomil heresy in the tenth century.
+This remarkable doctrine, founded on 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 rest
+a man of uncertain identity, who made Philippopolis the centre of his
+activity. Its principal features were of a negative character, and
+consequently it was very difficult successfully to apply force against
+them. The Bogomils recognized the authority neither of Church nor of
+State; the validity neither of oaths nor of human laws. They refused to
+pay taxes, to fight, or to obey; they sanctioned theft, but looked upon
+any kind of punishment as unjustifiable; they discountenanced marriage
+and were strict vegetarians. Naturally a heresy so alarming in its
+individualism shook to its foundations the not very firmly established
+Bulgarian society. Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in spite of all
+persecutions, and its popularity amongst the Bulgarians, and indeed
+amongst all the Slavs of the peninsula, is without doubt partly
+explained by political reasons. The hierarchy of the Greek Church,
+which supported the ruling classes of the country and lent them
+authority at the same time that it increased its own, was antipathetic
+to the Slavs, and the Bogomil heresy drew much strength from its
+nationalistic colouring and from the appeal which it made to the
+character of the Balkan Slavs, who have always been intolerant of
+government by the Church. But neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical
+authorities were able to cope with the problem; indeed they were apt to
+minimize its importance, and the heresy was never eradicated till the
+arrival on the scene of Islam, which proved as attractive to the
+schismatics as the well-regulated Orthodox Church had been the reverse.
+
+The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a great recrudescence
+of the power of Constantinople under the Emperor Nikiphóros Phokas, who
+wrested Cyprus and Crete from the Arabs and inaugurated an era of
+prosperity for the eastern empire, giving it a new lease of vigorous
+and combative life. Wishing to reassert the Greek supremacy in the
+Balkan peninsula his first act was to refuse any further payment of
+tribute to the Bulgarians as 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 more assured he secured the co-operation of
+the Russians under Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev; this potentate’s mother
+Olga had visited Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (though her
+son and the bulk of the population were still ardent heathens), and
+commercial intercourse between Russia and Constantinople by means of
+the Dnieper and the Black Sea was at that time lively. Svyatoslav did
+not want pressing, and arriving with an army of 10,000 men in boats,
+overcame northern Bulgaria in a few days (967); they were helped by
+Shishman and the western Bulgars, who did not mind at what price Peter
+and the eastern Bulgars were crushed. Svyatoslav was recalled to Russia
+in 968 to defend his home from attacks by the Tartar Pechenegs, but
+that done, he made up his mind to return to Bulgaria, lured by its
+riches and by the hope of the eventual possession of Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor Nikiphóros was by now aware of the danger he had
+imprudently conjured up, and made a futile alliance with eastern
+Bulgaria; but in January 969 Peter of Bulgaria died, and in December of
+the same year Nikiphóros was murdered by the ambitious Armenian John
+Tzimisces,[1] who thereupon became emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the
+field clear of his enemies, returned in 970, and in March of that year
+sacked and occupied Philippopolis. The Emperor John Tzimisces, who was
+even abler both as general and as diplomat than his predecessor,
+quietly pushed forward 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 he stormed, massacring many of the
+garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and his remaining troops escaped to
+Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the Danube, where again,
+however, they were besieged and defeated by the indefatigable emperor.
+At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians being allowed to go
+free on condition of the complete evacuation of Bulgaria and a gift of
+corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at the hands of the
+Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev. The triumph of the Greeks
+was complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much left of
+the earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two
+mighty iron vessels on the top of it. Eastern Bulgaria (i.e. Moesia and
+Thrace) ceased to exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John
+Tzimisces made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, followed by the
+two sons of Peter of Bulgaria on foot; the elder was deprived of his
+regal attributes and created _magistros_, the younger was made a
+eunuch.
+
+[Footnote 1: John the Little.]
+
+
+
+
+7
+_The Rise and Fall of ‘Western Bulgaria’ and the Greek Supremacy_,
+963–1186
+
+
+Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither
+that the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the
+victory of the Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in
+Macedonia, where the apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital.
+Western Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania,
+southern and eastern Serbia, and the westernmost parts of modern
+Bulgaria. It was from this district that numerous anti-Hellenic revolts
+were directed after the death of the Emperor John Tzimisces in 976.
+These culminated during the reign of Samuel (977-1014), one of the sons
+of Shishman. He was as capable and energetic, as unscrupulous and
+inhuman, as the situation he was called upon to fill demanded. He began
+by assassinating all his relations and nobles who resented his desire
+to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was recognized as _tsar_ by the
+Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to fight the Greeks, the only
+possible occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler. The
+emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was brave and
+patriotic but young and inexperienced. In his early campaigns Samuel
+carried all before him; he reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985,
+Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II near Sofia the same year. Later
+he conquered Albania and the southern parts of Serbia and what is now
+Montenegro and Hercegovina. In 996 he threatened Salonika, but first of
+all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese; here he was
+followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and completely
+overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.
+
+From that year (996) his fortune changed; the Greeks reoccupied
+northern Bulgaria, in 999, and also recovered Thessaly and parts of
+Macedonia. The Bulgars were subjected to almost annual attacks on the
+part of Basil II; the country was ruined and could not long hold out.
+The final disaster occurred in 1014, when Basil II utterly defeated his
+inveterate foe in a pass near Seres in Macedonia. Samuel escaped to
+Prilip, but when he beheld the return of 15,000 of his troops who had
+been captured and blinded by the Greeks he died of syncope. Basil II,
+known as Bulgaroctonus, or Bulgar-killer, went from victory to victory,
+and finally occupied the Bulgarian capital of Okhrida in 1016. Western
+Bulgaria came to an end, as had eastern Bulgaria in 972, the remaining
+members of the royal family followed the emperor to the Bosphorus to
+enjoy comfortable captivity, and the triumph of Constantinople was
+complete.
+
+From 1018 to 1186 Bulgaria had no existence as an independent state;
+Basil II, although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general
+treatment of the Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a
+protectorate than as a possession. But after his death Greek rule
+became much more oppressive. The Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972
+established at Okhrida) was reduced to an archbishopric, and in 1025
+the see was given to a Greek, who lost no time in eliminating the
+Bulgarian element from positions of importance throughout his diocese.
+Many of the nobles were transplanted to Constantinople, where their
+opposition was numbed by the bestowal of honours. During the eleventh
+century the peninsula was invaded frequently by the Tartar Pechenegs
+and Kumans, whose aid was invoked both by Greeks and Bulgars; the
+result of these incursions was not always favourable to those who had
+promoted them; the barbarians invariably stayed longer and did more
+damage 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 peninsula became ever
+more variegated. To the Tartar settlers were added colonies of
+Armenians and Vlakhs by various emperors. The last touch was given by
+the arrival of the Normans in 1081 and the passage of the crusaders in
+1096. The wholesale depredations of the latter naturally made the
+inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula anything but sympathetically
+disposed towards their cause. One of the results of all this turmoil
+and of the heavy hand of the Greeks was a great increase in the
+vitality of the Bogomil heresy already referred to; it became a refuge
+for patriotism and an outlet for its expression. The Emperor Alexis
+Comnenus instituted a bitter persecution of it, which only led to its
+growth and rapid propagation westwards into Serbia from its centre
+Philippopolis.
+
+The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian monarchy by the
+Greeks was of course that the nation itself was totally lacking in
+cohesion and organization, and could only achieve any lasting success
+when an exceptionally gifted ruler managed to discount the centrifugal
+tendencies of the feudal nobles, as Simeon and Samuel had done. Other
+discouraging factors wore the permeation of the Church and State by
+Byzantine influence, the lack of a large 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.
+
+
+
+
+8
+_The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire,_ 1186–1258
+
+
+From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the
+brevity of which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature
+of the events that crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the
+Greeks culminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars, which had its
+centre in Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northern Bulgaria—a position
+of great natural strength and strategic importance, 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 Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the archbishop
+Basil, who crowned one of them, called John Asen, as _tsar_ in Tirnovo
+in 1186. Their first efforts against the Greeks were not successful,
+but securing the support of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and
+of the Crusaders in 1189 they became more so; but there was life in the
+Greeks yet, and victory alternated with defeat. John Asen I was
+assassinated in 1196 and was succeeded after many internal discords and
+murders by his relative Kaloian or Pretty John. This cruel and
+unscrupulous though determined ruler soon made an end of all his
+enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such success abroad that
+Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions. Moreover, he
+re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture of the
+Greeks, and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized
+Kaloian as _tsar_ of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de
+Bougrie, in the words of Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and
+they were both duly consecrated and crowned by the papal legate at
+Tirnovo in 1204. The French, who had just established themselves in
+Constantinople during the 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 1207 his career was cut short; he was murdered while
+besieging Salonika by one of his generals who was a friend of his wife.
+After eleven years of further anarchy he was succeeded by John Asen II.
+During the reign of this monarch, which lasted from 1218 till 1241,
+Bulgaria reached the zenith of its power. He was the most enlightened
+ruler the country had had, and he not only waged war successfully
+abroad but also put an end 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 capital at Tirnovo, which city he
+considerably embellished and enlarged.
+
+Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one
+French. The first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them,
+named Theodore, who had proclaimed himself _basileus_ at Okhrida in
+1223. Thereupon he annexed the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly,
+and Epirus to his dominions, and made Theodore’s brother Manuel, who
+had married one of his daughters, viceroy, established at Salonika.
+Another of his daughters had married Stephen Vladislav, who was King of
+Serbia from 1233-43, and a third married Theodore, son of the Emperor
+John III, who reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter, after being
+sought in marriage by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife for
+the Emperor Baldwin II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour
+of the daughter of the King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the
+mind of John Asen II and threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with
+whom he concluded an alliance in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the
+Emperor John III, were, however, utterly defeated by the French under
+the walls of Constantinople in 1236, and the Bulgarian ruler, who had
+no wish to see 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 the French in 1237, the
+Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him with
+excommunication; he went so far as 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 brother-in-law
+the King of Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin II, to
+whose help against the Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace in
+1239. While besieging the Greeks with indifferent success, he learned
+of the death of his wife and his eldest son from plague, and
+incontinently returned to Tirnovo, giving up the war and restoring his
+daughter to her lonely husband. This adaptable monarch died a natural
+death in 1241, and the three rulers of his family who succeeded him,
+whose reigns filled the period 1241-58, managed to undo all the
+constructive work of their immediate predecessors. Province after
+province was lost and internal anarchy increased. This remarkable
+dynasty came to an inglorious end in 1258, when its last representative
+was murdered by his own nobles, and from this time onwards Bulgaria was
+only a shadow of its former self.
+
+
+
+
+9
+_The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse,_ 1258–1393
+
+
+From 1258 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have continued flickering
+until its final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period
+it never had any voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan
+peninsula. Owing to the fact that no ruler emerged capable of keeping
+the distracted country in order, there was a regular _chassé-croisé_ of
+rival princelets, an unceasing tale of political 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 the virtual disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the
+profit of the surrounding states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist
+supremacy. It is especially remarkable for the complete ascendancy
+which Serbia gained in the Balkan peninsula.
+
+A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the
+Bulgarian throne from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of
+John Asen II. After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in
+1261, the Hungarians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with
+the Greeks against Constantine; the latter called the Tartars of
+southern Russia, at this time at 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 the Bulgarian 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
+affairs. Constantine was followed by a series of upstart rulers, whose
+activities were cut short by the victories of King Uroš II of Serbia
+(1282-1321), who conquered all Macedonia and wrested it from the
+Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the Golden Horde swept over Hungary and
+Bulgaria, but it was from the south that the clouds were rolling up
+which not much later were to burst over the peninsula. In 1308 the
+Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in 1326 established
+themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was 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 order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his death
+in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married the
+daughter of Uroš II of Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with the
+Greeks against his brother-in-law Stephen Uroš III and dispatched his
+wife to her home. During the war which ensued the unwonted allies were
+utterly routed by the Serbs at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.
+
+From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of
+Tartar origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia’s greatest ruler,
+Stephen Dušan; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his
+suzerain, and from thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia.
+Meanwhile the Turkish storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the
+Hellespont in 1356, and Murad I made Adrianople his capital in 1366.
+After the death of John Alexander in 1365 the Hungarians invaded
+northern Bulgaria, and his successor invoked the help of the Turks
+against them and also against the Greeks. This was the beginning of the
+end. The Serbs, during an absence of the Sultan in Asia, undertook an
+offensive, but were defeated by the Turks near Adrianople in 1371, who
+captured Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs formed a huge southern
+Slav alliance, in which the Bulgarians refused to join, but, after a
+temporary success against the Turks in 1387, they were vanquished by
+them as the result of treachery at the famous battle of Kosovo in 1389.
+Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on the Danube in 1388 and
+destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling the Patriarch
+Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into the hands
+of the Turks, 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 the subjection of Rumania in 1394
+and the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western
+Europe under Sigismund, King of Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the
+Turkish conquest was complete, though the battle of Varna was not
+fought till 1444, nor Constantinople entered till 1453.
+
+
+
+
+10
+_The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation,_ 1393–1878
+
+
+From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no
+history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy.
+National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days
+for national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and
+most people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have
+many excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst
+others; it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too
+much cannot be said in praise of Mohammedan civilization. Who does not
+prefer the minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the architecture of
+Budapest, notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern Europe? On
+the other hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought
+prosperity or happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed
+they submerged their identity in the religion of their conquerors), or
+that its Influence was either vivifying or generally popular.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Turkish names for Constantinople and Adrianople.]
+
+To the races they conquered the Turks offered two alternatives—serfdom
+or Turkdom; those who could not bring themselves to accept either of
+these had either to emigrate or take to brigandage and outlawry in the
+mountains. The Turks literally overlaid the European nationalities of
+the Balkan peninsula for five hundred years, and from their own point
+of view and from that of military history this was undoubtedly a very
+splendid achievement; it was more than the Greeks or Romans had ever
+done. From the point of view of humanitarianism also it is beyond a
+doubt that much less human blood was spilt in the Balkan peninsula
+during the five hundred years of Turkish rule than during the five
+hundred years of Christian rule which preceded them; indeed it would
+have been difficult to spill more. It is also a pure illusion to think
+of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or cruel; they are just as
+good-natured and good-humoured as anybody else; it is only when their
+military or religious passions are aroused that they become more
+reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks who
+taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan peninsula; the latter
+had nothing to learn in this respect.
+
+In spite of all this, however, from the point of view of the Slavs of
+Bulgaria and Serbia, Turkish rule was synonymous with suffocation. If
+the Turks were all that their greatest admirers think them the history
+of the Balkan peninsula in the nineteenth century would have been very
+different from what it has been, namely, one perpetual series of
+anti-Turkish revolts.
+
+Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the most completely
+crushed and effaced. The Greeks by their ubiquity, their brains, and
+their money were soon able to make the Turkish storm drive their own
+windmill; the Rumanians were somewhat sheltered by the Danube and also
+by their distance 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 afforded them some protection. Bulgaria was
+simply annihilated, and its population, already far from homogeneous,
+was still further varied by numerous Turkish and other Tartar colonies.
+
+For the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the last Balkan
+state to emancipate itself; for these reasons also it is the least
+trammelled by prejudices and by what are considered national
+predilections and racial affinities, while its heterogeneous
+composition makes it vigorous and enterprising. The treatment of the
+Christians by the Turks was by no means always the same; generally
+speaking, it grew worse as the power of the Sultan grew less. During
+the fifteenth century they were allowed to practise their religion and
+all their vocations in comparative liberty and peace. But from the
+sixteenth century onwards the control of the Sultan declined, power
+became decentralized, the Ottoman Empire grew ever more anarchic and
+the rule of the provincial governors more despotic.
+
+But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the only enemies and oppressors
+of the Bulgars. The rôle played by the Greeks in Bulgaria during the
+Turkish dominion was almost 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 1767 the Bulgarians were under
+the Greco-Bulgarian Patriarchate of Okhrida, an organization in which
+all posts, from the highest to the lowest, had to be bought from the
+Turkish administration at exorbitant and ever-rising prices; the
+Phanariote Greeks (so called because they originated in the Phanar
+quarter at Constantinople) were the only ones who could afford those of
+the higher posts, with the result that the Church was controlled from
+Constantinople. In 1767 the independent patriarchates were abolished,
+and from that date the religious control of the Greeks was as complete
+as the political control of the Turks. The Greeks did all they could to
+obliterate the last traces of Bulgarian nationality which 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, that the individual hatred of Greeks and Bulgars of each
+other has 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 not until the
+eighteenth century, 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 first asserted in Rumania after the Treaty of
+Kuchuk-Kainardji, in 1774. It was only the Napoleonic war in 1812 that
+prevented the Russians from extending their territory south of the
+Danube, whither it already stretched. Serbia was partially free by
+1826, and Greece achieved complete independence in 1830, when the
+Russian troops, in order to coerce the Turks, occupied part of Bulgaria
+and advanced as far as 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 by wholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia and
+importations of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts. The
+Crimean War and the short-sighted championship of Turkey by the western
+European powers checked considerably the development at which Russia
+aimed. Moldavia and Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the
+semi-protectorate 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 Hohenzollern, came to rule over the country,
+the first sign of German influence in the Near East; at this time
+Rumania still acknowledged the supremacy of the Sultan.
+
+During the first half of the nineteenth century there took place a
+considerable intellectual renascence in Bulgaria, a movement fostered
+by wealthy Bulgarian merchants of Bucarest and Odessa. In 1829 a
+history of Bulgaria was published by a native of that country in
+Moscow; in 1835 the first school was established in Bulgaria, and many
+others soon followed. It must be remembered that not only was nothing
+known at that time about Bulgaria and its inhabitants in other
+countries, but the Bulgars had themselves to be taught who they were.
+The Bulgarian people in Bulgaria consisted entirely of peasants; there
+was no Bulgarian upper or middle or ‘intelligent’ or professional
+class; those enlightened Bulgars who existed were domiciled in other
+countries; the Church was in the hands of the Greeks, who vied with the
+Turks in suppressing Bulgarian nationality.
+
+The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the
+enlightenment and emancipation of Bulgaria were dissimilar in
+composition and in aim; the members of the former were more intent on
+educational and religious reform, and aimed at the gradual and peaceful
+regeneration of their country by these means; the latter wished to
+effect the immediate political emancipation of Bulgaria by violent and,
+if necessary, warlike means.
+
+It was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first. In 1856 the
+Porte had promised religious reforms tending to the appointment of
+Bulgarian bishops and the recognition of the Bulgarian language in
+Church and school. But these not 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 year an attempt was
+made to bring the Church of Bulgaria under that of Rome, but, owing to
+Russian opposition, proved abortive. In 1870, the growing agitation
+having at last alarmed 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 notable was that of 1875,
+instigated by Stambulóv, the future dictator, in sympathy with the
+outbreak in Montenegro, Hercegovina, and Bosnia of that year; the
+result of this and of similar movements in 1876 was the series of
+notorious Bulgarian massacres in that year. The indignation of Europe
+was aroused and concerted representations were urgently made at
+Constantinople. Midhat Pasha disarmed his opponents by summarily
+introducing the British constitution into Turkey, but, needless to say,
+Bulgaria’s lot was not improved by this specious device. Russia had,
+however, steadily been making her preparations, and, Turkey having
+refused to discontinue hostilities against Montenegro, on April 24,
+1877, war was declared by the Emperor Alexander II, whose patience had
+become exhausted; he was joined by Prince Charles of Rumania, who saw
+that by doing so he would be rewarded by the complete emancipation of
+his country, then still a vassal-state of Turkey, and its erection into
+a kingdom. At the beginning of the war all went well for the Russians
+and Rumanians, who were soon joined by large numbers of Bulgarian
+insurgents; the Turkish forces were scattered all over the peninsula.
+The committee of Bucarest transformed itself into a provisional
+government, but the Russians, who had undertaken to liberate the
+country, naturally had to keep its administration 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 resistance rapidly
+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,
+Ignatiyev dictated the terms of the Treaty of San 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 just, 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 autonomous province, tributary to Turkey; southern
+Bulgaria, fancifully termed Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the name always
+given by the Turks to the whole Balkan peninsula), was to have
+autonomous administration under a Christian governor appointed by the
+Porte; Macedonia was left to Turkey; and the Dobrudja, between the
+Danube and the Black Sea, was adjudged to Rumania.
+
+
+
+
+11
+_The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878–86_
+
+
+The relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians were better
+before the liberation of the latter by the former than after; this may
+seem unjust, because Bulgaria could never have freed herself so
+decisively and rapidly alone, and Russia was the only power in whose
+interest it was to free her from the Turks, and who could translate
+that interest 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.
+
+What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in
+those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected
+Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and
+treasure which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected
+its gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence
+in all the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria
+was no doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of
+expressing its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most
+people who have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action
+or been put under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its
+right to an independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe
+writers that Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of
+Bulgaria, but this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of
+the Balkan peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the
+Russian Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and
+vigorous national block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an
+independent state, was an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is
+quite possible for Russia to obtain possession or control of
+Constantinople without owning all the intervening littoral.
+
+That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of
+Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was
+just as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The
+eventual result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered
+the sphere of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather
+calculation, a contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at
+the time, and whose full meaning, even if it had, would not have been
+grasped by them.
+
+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 its
+monuments of theological literature. Nevertheless, they have never been
+enthusiastic Pan-Slavists, any more than the Dutch have ever been
+ardent Pan-Germans; it is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the
+one people as it is of the other. The Bulgarians indeed think
+themselves superior to the Slavs by reason of the warlike and glorious
+traditions of the Tartar tribe that gave them their name and infused
+the Asiatic element into their race, thus endowing them with greater
+stability, energy, and consistency than is possessed by purely Slav
+peoples. These latter, on the other hand, and notably the Serbians, for
+the same reason affect contempt for the mixture of blood and for what
+they consider the Mongol characteristics of the Bulgarians. What is
+certain is that between Bulgarians and Germans (including German
+Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed that elemental,
+ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between German
+(and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from the
+Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in
+which the Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in
+Austria-Hungary and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment
+of the purely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared. The
+reason is that with the growth of the Serb national movement, from 1903
+onwards, Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly
+well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to neutralize the
+possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.
+
+It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which
+had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been
+steadily on the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced
+Bulgaria to half the size that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the
+Treaty of San Stefano, 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
+conditions, 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 its cereals are in central and western
+Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is infinitesimal.
+Politically, both 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 first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions.
+Both Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of
+Berlin. Russian influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy
+controlled the organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic
+constitution was arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the
+successful government of their country by the quite inexperienced
+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 religion and in politics. The choice fell on
+Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew of the Empress of Russia, who
+had taken part in the campaign of the Russian army. Prince Alexander
+was conscientious, energetic, and enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat,
+and from the outset his honesty precluded his success. From the very
+first he failed to keep on good terms with Russia or its
+representatives, who at that time were still numerous in Bulgaria,
+while he was helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary government.
+The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father Alexander II in
+1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which he
+successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of
+Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September
+1883); this procedure discomfited 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 of the country had been going on for some
+time, and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis
+suddenly proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly
+announced his approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city
+on September 21. Russia frowned on 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
+compensation for Bulgaria’s aggrandisement; it must be remembered that
+it was Bismarck who, by the Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined
+Serbia to its inadequate limits of those day.
+
+On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia,
+which is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. 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 the Bulgarians
+were completely victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took
+Pirot in Serbia on November 27, 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. Prince Alexander’s position did not
+improve after this, indeed it would have needed a much more skilful
+navigator to steer through the many currents which eddied round him. A
+strong Russophile party formed itself in the army; on the night of
+August 21, 1886, some officers of this party, who were the most capable
+in the Bulgarian army, appeared at Sofia, forced Alexander to resign,
+and abducted him; they put him on board his yacht on the Danube and
+escorted him 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 26 he found himself
+at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this _coup d’état_ found that
+it was not at all popular in the country. A counter-revolution, headed
+by the statesman Stambulóv, was immediately initiated, and on September
+3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst tumultuous applause.
+Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor Alexander III
+forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for
+good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in Austria,
+in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was
+constituted, at the head of which was Stambulóv.
+
+
+
+
+12
+_The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,_ 1886–1908
+
+
+Stambulóv was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was of humble origin. He took
+part in the insurrection of 1876 and in the war of liberation, and in
+1884 became president of the Sóbraniye (Parliament). From 1886 till
+1894 he was virtually dictator of Bulgaria. He was intensely patriotic
+and also personally ambitious, determined, energetic, ruthlessly cruel
+and unscrupulous, but incapable of deceit; these qualities were
+apparent in his powerful and grim expression of face, while his manner
+inspired the weak with terror and the strongest with respect. His
+policy in general was directed against Russia. At the general election
+held in October 1886 he had all his important opponents imprisoned
+beforehand, while armed sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters from
+approaching the ballot-boxes. Out of 522 elected deputies, there were
+470 supporters of Stambulóv. This implied the complete suppression of
+the Russophile party and led to a rupture with St. Petersburg.
+
+Whatever were Stambulóv’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. But once having started on this path he
+found it difficult to stop, 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 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
+Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined
+great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extreme prudence,
+astuteness, and patience; he was a consummate diplomat. The election of
+this prince was viewed with great disfavour by Russia, and for fear of
+offending the Emperor Alexander III 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 suzerain,
+the Sultan Abdul Hamid. He wisely left all power in the hands of the
+unattractive and to him, unsympathetic prime minister, Stambulóv, till
+he himself felt secure in his position, and till the dictator should
+have made himself thoroughly hated. Ferdinand’s clever and wealthy
+mother cast a beneficent and civilizing glow around him, smoothing away
+many difficulties by her womanly tact and philanthropic activity, and,
+thanks to his 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 Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma.
+In May 1894, as a result of a social misadventure in which he became
+involved, Stambulóv sent in his resignation, confidently expecting a
+refusal. To his mortification it was accepted; thereupon he initiated a
+violent press campaign, but his halo had faded, and on July 15 he was
+savagely attacked in the street by unknown men, who afterwards escaped,
+and he died three days later. So intense were the emotions of the
+people that his grave had to be guarded by the military for two months.
+In November 1894 followed the death of the Emperor Alexander III, and
+as a result of this double event the road to a reconciliation with
+Russia was opened. Meanwhile the German Emperor, 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 Russia were still further improved
+by the rebaptism of the infant Crown Prince Boris according to the
+rites of the eastern Church, in February 1896, and a couple of years
+later Ferdinand and his wife and child paid a highly successful state
+visit to Peterhof. In September 1902 a memorial church was erected by
+the Emperor Nicholas II at the Shipka Pass, and later an equestrian
+statue of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II was placed opposite the House
+of Parliament in Sofia.
+
+Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishing material
+progress. Railways were built, exports increased, and the general
+condition of the country greatly improved. It is the fashion to compare
+the wonderful advance made by Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of
+its new existence with the very much slower progress made by Serbia
+during a much longer period. This is insisted on especially by
+publicists in Austria-Hungary and Germany, but it is forgotten that
+even before the last Balkan war the geographical position of Bulgaria
+with its seaboard was much more favourable to its economic development
+than that of Serbia, which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by
+Turkish and Austro-Hungarian territory; moreover, Bulgaria being double
+the size of the Serbia of those days, had far greater resources upon
+which to draw.
+
+From 1894 onwards Ferdinand’s power in his own country and his
+influence abroad had been steadily growing. He always appreciated the
+value of railways, and became almost as great a traveller as the German
+Emperor. His estates in the south of Hungary constantly required his
+attention, and he was a frequent visitor in Vienna. The German Emperor,
+though he could not help admiring Ferdinand’s success, was always a
+little afraid of him; he felt that Ferdinand’s gifts were so similar to
+his own that he would be unable to count on him in an emergency.
+Moreover, it was difficult to reconcile Ferdinand’s ambitions in
+extreme south-eastern Europe with his own. Ferdinand’s relations with
+Vienna, on the other hand, and especially with the late Archduke
+Francis Ferdinand, were both cordial and intimate.
+
+The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably
+in Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of
+1902-3 anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of
+terror, and, also the unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia
+since the accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused
+uneasiness in Sofia, no less than in Vienna and Budapest. The Young
+Turkish revolution of July 1908, and the triumph of the Committee of
+Union and Progress, disarmed the critics of Turkey who wished to make
+the forcible introduction of reforms a pretext for their interference;
+but the potential rejuvenation of the Ottoman Empire which it
+foreshadowed indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action.
+In September, after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in
+eastern Roumelia (which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia
+Cabinet seized the line with a military force on the plea of political
+necessity. At the same time Ferdinand, 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 at
+Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at Tirnovo, the ancient capital,
+Ferdinand proclaimed the complete independence of Bulgaria and eastern
+Rumelia under himself as King (_Tsar_ in Bulgarian), and on October 7
+Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the
+two Turkish provinces administered by it since 1879, nominally under
+Turkish suzerainty.
+
+
+
+
+13
+_The Kingdom_, 1908–13
+
+
+(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)
+
+The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the
+Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The
+Macedonian question was extremely complicated; it started on the
+assumption that the disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding
+throughout the nineteenth century, would eventually be completed, and
+the question was how in this eventuality to satisfy the territorial
+claims of the three neighbouring countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and
+Greece, claims both historical and ethnological, 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 modern form do not go
+farther back than 1885, when the ease with which eastern Rumelia (i.e.
+southern Bulgaria) threw off the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously
+united with the semi-independent principality of northern Bulgaria
+affected the imagination of the Balkan statesmen. From that time Sofia
+began to cast longing eyes on Macedonia, the whole of which was claimed
+as ‘unredeemed Bulgaria’, and Stambulóv’s last 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 blow
+for the Greek Patriarchate at Constantinople.
+
+Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin, article 23 of
+which stipulated for reforms in that province; but in those days the
+Balkan States were too young and weak to worry themselves or the
+European powers over the troubles of their co-religionists in Turkey;
+their hands were more than full setting their own houses in some sort
+of order, and it was in nobody’s interest to reform Macedonia, so
+article 23 remained the expression of a philanthropic sentiment. This
+indifference on the part of Europe left the 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 Macedonia increased, 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 which it engendered was the following: The population of
+Macedonia was nowhere, except in the immediate vicinity of the borders
+of these three countries, either purely Bulgar or purely Greek or
+purely Serb; most of the towns contained a percentage of at least two
+of these nationalities, not to mention the Turks (who after all were
+still the owners of the country by right of conquest), Albanians,
+Tartars, Rumanians (Vlakhs), and others; the city of Salonika was and
+is almost purely Jewish, while in the country districts Turkish,
+Albanian, Greek, Bulgar, and Serb villages were inextricably confused.
+Generally speaking, the coastal strip was mainly Greek (the coast
+itself purely so), the interior mainly Slav. The problem was for each
+country to peg out as large a claim as possible, and so effectively, by
+any means in their power, to make the majority of the population
+contained in that claim acknowledge itself to be Bulgar, or Serb, or
+Greek, that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire was over, each part of
+Macedonia would automatically fall into the arms of its respective
+deliverers. The game was played through the appropriate media of
+churches and schools, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had first
+of all to be enlightened as to who they were, or rather as to who they
+were told they had got to consider themselves, while the Church, as
+always, conveniently covered a multitude of political aims; when those
+methods flagged, a bomb would be thrown at, let us say, a Turkish
+official by an _agent provocateur_ of one of the three players,
+inevitably resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent Christians
+by 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 of Macedonia, including
+Salonika and all the Aegean coast (except Chalcidice), Okhrida, and
+Monastir; Greece claimed all southern Macedonia, and Serbia parts of
+northern and central Macedonia known as Old Serbia. The crux of the
+whole 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 irreconcilable conflict with those of its rivals.
+The importance of this point was greatly emphasized by the existence of
+the 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, just as in the north
+it was already, to its bitter cost, at the mercy of Austria-Hungary.
+Nevertheless, Bulgarian propaganda had been so effectual that Serbia
+and Greece never expected they would eventually be able to join hands
+so easily and successfully as they afterwards did.
+
+The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a factor. This people,
+though small in numbers, was formidable in character, and had never
+been effectually subdued by the Turks. They would have been glad to
+have a boundary contiguous with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had no
+quarrel) as a support against their hereditary enemies, Serbs in 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. It is the Slav population of Macedonia that has engendered
+so much heat and caused so much blood to be spilt. The dispute as to
+whether it is rather Serb or Bulgar has caused interminable and most
+bitter controversy. The truth is that it _was_ neither the one nor the
+other, but that, the ethnological and linguistic missionaries of
+Bulgaria having been first in the field, a majority of the Macedonian
+Slavs had been so long and so persistently told that they were Bulgars,
+that after a few years Bulgaria could, with some truth, claim that this
+fact was so.
+
+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, which originally belonged to the same southern Slav
+stock, but remained a primitive neutral Slav type. If the Serbs had
+been first in the field instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian Slavs
+could just as easily have been made into Serbs, sufficiently 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
+_-off, -yeff_) on to the names of all the male inhabitants, and to make
+it Serb it is only necessary to add further the syllable _-ich, -ov_
+and _-ovich_ being respectively the equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian
+of our termination _-son,_ e. g. _Ivanov_ in Bulgarian, and _Jovanovit_
+in Serbian = _Johnson_.
+
+In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists,
+suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh
+shepherds, who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia
+with their herds since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not
+possibly ever be annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in
+order to justify Rumania in claiming eventual territorial compensation
+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 must at this point be
+quite briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two ‘most
+interested powers’, who as far back as the eighteenth century had
+divided the Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and
+west, came to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of
+affairs in Turkey; but it never reached a conclusive stage and
+consequently was never applied. The Macedonian 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 December 1902, but was
+not successful in restoring order. In October 1903 the Emperor Nicholas
+II and the Emperor of Austria, with their foreign ministers, met at
+Mürzsteg, in Styria, and elaborated a more definite plan of reform
+known as the Mürzsteg programme, the drastic terms of which had 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. Owing
+to the procrastination of the Porte and to the extreme complexity of
+the financial measures which had to be elaborated in connexion with
+this scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations 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 position in regard to
+this question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and
+France had no territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost
+to secure reform not only in the _vilayets_ of Macedonia, but also in
+the realm of Ottoman finance. Italy’s interest centred in Albania,
+whose eventual fate, for geographical and strategic reasons, could not
+leave it indifferent. Austria-Hungary’s only care was by any means to
+prevent the aggrandizement of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and
+Montenegro, so as to secure the control, if not the possession, of the
+routes to Salonika, if necessary over the prostrate bodies of those two
+countries which defiantly barred Germanic progress towards the East.
+Russia was already fatally absorbed in the Far Eastern adventure, and,
+moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878, been losing influence at
+Constantinople, where before its word had been law; the Treaty of
+Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia had ever since
+that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors 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 choice of its
+representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in Turkey was
+not grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the credit
+of the German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the triumphal
+journey 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 Bieberstein,
+who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It was German policy to flatter,
+support, and encourage Turkey in every possible way, to refrain from
+taking part with the other powers in the invidious and perennial
+occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to give
+as much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked
+for. Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a
+district assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in
+the naval demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany
+naturally encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge,
+and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere,
+and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of
+chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really
+braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into
+practice, Germany alone was responsible.
+
+The blow which King Ferdinand had inflicted on the prestige of the
+Young Turks in October 1908, by proclaiming his independence, naturally
+lent lustre to the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. Serbia, baffled by the
+simultaneous Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and
+maddened by the elevation of Bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom (its
+material progress had hitherto been discounted in Serbian eyes by the
+fact that it was a mere vassal principality), seemed about to be
+crushed by the two iron pots jostling it on either side. Its
+international position was at that time such that it could expect no
+help or encouragement from western Europe, while the events of 1909
+(cf. p. 144) showed that Russia was not then in a position to render
+active assistance. Greece, also screaming aloud for compensation, was
+told by its friends amongst the great powers that if it made a noise it
+would get nothing, but that if it behaved like a good child it might
+some day be given Krete. Meanwhile Russia, rudely awakened by the
+events of 1908 to the real state of affairs in the Near East, beginning
+to realize the growth of German influence at Constantinople, and seeing
+the unmistakable resuscitation of Austria-Hungary as a great power,
+made manifest by the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, temporarily
+reasserted its influence in Bulgaria. From the moment when Baron
+Aehrenthal announced his chimerical scheme of an Austrian railway
+through the _Sandjak_ of Novi Pazar in January 1908— everybody knows
+that the railway already built through Serbia along the Morava valley
+is the only commercially remunerative and strategically practicable
+road from Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest to Salonika and
+Constantinople—Russia realized that the days of the Mürzsteg programme
+were over, that henceforward it was to be a struggle between Slav and
+Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople and the dominion of the Near
+East, and that something must be 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 put an 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 Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized
+tribute, owed to its ex-suzerain the Sultan, by very easy instalments
+to Russia instead.
+
+The immediate effects of the Young Turk revolution amongst the Balkan
+States, and the events, watched benevolently by Russia, which led to
+the formation of the Balkan League, when it was joyfully realized that
+neither the setting-up of parliamentary government, nor even the
+overthrow of Abdul Hamid, implied the commencement of the millennium in
+Macedonia and Thrace, have been described elsewhere (pp. 141, 148).
+King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos are generally credited with the
+inception and realisation of the League, though it was so secretly and
+skilfully concerted that it is not yet possible correctly to apportion
+praise for the remarkable achievement. Bulgaria is a very democratic
+country, but King Ferdinand, owing to his sagacity, patience, and
+experience, and also thanks to his influential dynastic connexions and
+propensity for travel, has always been virtually his own foreign
+minister; in spite of the fact that he is a large feudal Hungarian
+landlord, and has temperamental leanings towards the Central European
+Empires, it is quite credible that King Ferdinand devoted all his
+undeniable talents and great energy to the formation of the League when
+he saw that the moment had come for Bulgaria to realize its destiny at
+Turkey’s expense, and that, if the other three Balkan States could be
+induced to come to the same wise decision, it would be so much the
+better for all of them. That Russia could do anything else than
+whole-heartedly welcome the formation of the Balkan League was
+absolutely impossible. Pan-Slavism had long since ceased to be the
+force it was, and nobody in Russia dreamed of or desired the
+incorporation of any Balkan territory in the Russian Empire. It is
+possible to control Constantinople without possessing the Balkans, and
+Russia could only rejoice if a Greco-Slavonic league should destroy the
+power of the Turks and thereby make impossible the further advance of
+the Germanic powers eastward.
+
+That Russia was ever in the least jealous of the military successes 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 happened to be in Russia during the winter of 1912-13.
+
+The years 1908 to 1912 were outwardly uneventful in Bulgaria, though a
+great deal of quiet work was done in increasing the efficiency of the
+army, and the material prosperity of the country showed no falling off.
+Relations with the other Balkan States, especially with Serbia and
+Montenegro, improved considerably, and there was ample room for such
+improvement. This was outwardly marked by frequent visits paid to each
+other by members of the several royal families of the three Slavonic
+kingdoms of the Balkans. In May 1912 agreements for the eventual
+delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in the event
+of war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bulgaria 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 territories
+separated by the large Bulgarian wedge which was to be driven between
+them. The exact future line of demarcation between Serbian and
+Bulgarian territory was to be left to arbitration. The possible
+creation of an independent Albania was not contemplated.
+
+In August 1912 the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Ferdinand’s arrival
+in Bulgaria was celebrated with much rejoicing at the ancient capital
+of Tirnovo, and was marred only by the news of the terrible massacre of
+Bulgars by Turks at Kochana in Macedonia; this event, however,
+opportune though mournful, tended considerably to increase the volume
+of the wave of patriotism which swept through the country. Later in the
+same month Count Berchtold startled Europe with his ‘progressive
+decentralization’ scheme of reform for Macedonia. The manner in which
+this event led to the final arrangements for the declaration of war on
+Turkey by the four Balkan States is given in full elsewhere (cf. p.
+151).
+
+The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray, and the autumn
+manoeuvres had permitted the concentration unobserved of a considerable
+portion of it, ready to strike when the time came. Mobilisation was
+ordered on September 30, 1912. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on
+Turkey. On October 13 Bulgaria, with the other Balkan States, replied
+to the remonstrances of Russia and Austria by declaring that its
+patience was at length exhausted, and that the sword alone was able to
+enforce proper treatment of the Christian populations in European
+Turkey. On October 17 Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and unexpected
+conclusion of peace with Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on
+Bulgaria and Serbia, and on October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a
+sentimental exhortation to his people to liberate their
+fellow-countrymen, who were still groaning under the Crescent.
+
+The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was
+about 180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to
+oppose the Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was
+considered by the Turks to be the most important theatre of war, yet
+the proximity of the Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople made it
+necessary to retain a large number of troops in Thrace. On October 19
+the Bulgarians took the frontier town of Mustafa Pasha. On October 24
+they defeated the Turks at Kirk-Kilissé (or Lozengrad), further east.
+From October 28 to November 2 raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas,
+which resulted in a complete and brilliant victory of the Bulgarians
+over the Turks. The defeat and humiliation of the Turks was as rapid
+and thorough in Thrace as it had been in Macedonia, and by the middle
+of November the remains of the Turkish army were entrenched behind the
+impregnable lines of Chataldja, 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 brilliant and lightning
+campaign, refrained from storming the lines of Chataldja, an operation
+which could not fail to involve losses such as the Bulgarian nation was
+scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the armistice was
+signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months led,
+however, to 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 assistance Serbia, being able to
+spare troops from Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy
+siege artillery, an arm which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913,
+the fortress surrendered to the allied armies.
+
+The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that
+year, fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous
+Enos-Midia line, running between these two places situated on the
+shores respectively of the Aegean and the Black Sea. This delimitation
+would have given Bulgaria possession of Adrianople. But meanwhile
+Greece 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 the creation of the independent
+state of Albania, determined to retain possession of all that part of
+Macedonia, including the whole valley of the Vardar with its important
+railway, which they had conquered, and thus secure their common
+frontier. In May 1913 a military convention was concluded between them,
+and the Balkan League, the relations between the members of which had
+been becoming more strained ever since January, finally dissolved.
+Bulgaria, outraged by this callous disregard of the agreements as to
+the partition of Macedonia signed a year previously by itself and its
+ex-allies, did not wait for the result of the arbitration which was
+actually proceeding in Russia, but in an access of indignation rushed
+to arms.
+
+This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the night of June 30,
+1913, by a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in
+its undoing. In order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern
+and northern frontiers were denuded of troops. But the totally
+unforeseen happened. The Serbs were victorious, defeating the Bulgars
+in 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 end of July the campaign was over and Bulgaria
+had to submit to fate.
+
+By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest, which was concluded on August
+10, 1913, Bulgaria obtained a considerable part of Thrace and eastern
+Macedonia, including a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of
+Dedeagach, but it was forced to ‘compensate’ Rumania with a slice of
+its richest province (the districts of Dobrich and Silistria in
+north-eastern Bulgaria), and it lost central Macedonia, a great part of
+which it would certainly have been awarded by Russia’s arbitration. On
+September 22, 1913, the Treaty of Constantinople was signed by Bulgaria
+and Turkey; by its terms Turkey retained possession of Adrianople and
+of a far larger part of Thrace than its series of ignominious defeats
+in the autumn of 1912 entitled it to.
+
+In the fatal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia which caused the
+disruption of the Balkan League, led to the tragic second Balkan war of
+July 1913, and naturally left behind the bitterest feelings, it is
+difficult to apportion the blame. Both Serbia and Bulgaria were
+undoubtedly at fault in the choice of the methods by which they sought
+to adjust their difference, but the real guilt is to be found neither
+in Sofia nor in Belgrade, but in Vicuna and Budapest. The Balkan League
+barred the way of the Germanic Powers to the East; its disruption
+weakened Bulgaria and again placed Serbia at the mercy of the Dual
+Monarchy. After these trying and unremunerative experiences it is not
+astonishing that the Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler should
+have retired to the remote interior of their shell.
+
+
+_Explanation of Serbian orthography_
+
+c = ts
+č = ch (as in _church_)
+ć = ” ” ” but softer
+š = sh
+ž = zh (as z in _azure_)
+gj = g (as in _George_)
+j = y
+
+
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA]
+
+
+
+
+SERBIA
+
+
+
+
+14
+_The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy_, 650–1168
+
+
+The manner of the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula, of that
+of the Bulgars, and of the formation of the Bulgarian nationality has
+already been described (cf. p. 26). The installation of the Slavs in
+the lands between the Danube, the Aegean, and the Adriatic was
+completed by about A.D. 650. In the second half of the seventh century
+the Bulgars settled themselves in the eastern half of the peninsula and
+became absorbed by the Slavs there, and from that time the nationality
+of the Slavs in the western half began 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 (or
+Croatians), and Slovenes. The Serbs, much the most numerous of the
+three, occupied roughly the modern kingdom of Serbia (including Old
+Serbia and northern Macedonia), Montenegro, and most of Bosnia,
+Hercegovina, and Dalmatia; the Croats occupied the more western parts
+of these last three territories and Croatia; the Slovenes occupied the
+modern Carniola and southern Carinthia. Needless to say, none of these
+geographical designations existed in those days except Dalmatia, on the
+coast of which the Latin influence and nomenclature maintained itself.
+The Slovenes, whose language is closely akin to but not identical with
+Serbian (or Croatian), even to-day only number one and a half million,
+and do not enter into this narrative, as they have never played any
+political rôle in the Balkan peninsula.
+
+The Serbs and the Croats were, as 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 the Serbo-Croatian race has always been divided into two. It is
+only within the last few years that a movement has taken place, the
+object of which is to reunite Serbs and Croats into one nation and
+eventually into one state. The movement originated in Serbia, the Serbs
+maintaining that they and the Croats are one people because they speak
+the same language, and that racial and linguistic unity outweighs
+religious divergence. A very large number of Croats agree with the
+Serbs in this and support their views, but a minority for long
+obstinately insisted that there was a racial as well as a religious
+difference, and that fusion was impossible. The former based their
+argument on facts, the latter theirs on prejudice, which is notoriously
+difficult to overcome. Latterly the movement in favour of fusion grew
+very much stronger among the Croats, and together with that in Serbia
+resulted in the Pan-Serb agitation which, gave the pretext for the
+opening of hostilities in July 1914.
+
+The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, _jug_, pronounced yug, =
+_south_ in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croats, and also includes
+Slovenes; it is only used with reference to the Bulgarians from the
+point of view of philology (the group of South Slavonic languages
+including Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; the East Slavonic,
+Russian; and the West Slavonic, Polish and Bohemian).
+
+In the history of the Serbs and Croats, or of the Serbo-Croatian race,
+several factors of a general nature have first to be considered, which
+have influenced its whole development. Of these, the physical nature of
+the country in which they settled, between the Danube and Save and the
+Adriatic, is one of the most important. It is almost everywhere
+mountainous, and though the mountains themselves never attain as much
+as 10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the whole country with an
+intricate network and have always formed an obstacle to easy
+communication between the various parts of it. The result of this has
+been twofold. In the first place it has, generally speaking, been a
+protection against foreign penetration and conquest, and in so far was
+beneficial. Bulgaria, further east, is, on the whole, less mountainous,
+in spite of the Balkan range which stretches the whole length of it;
+for this reason, and also on account of its geographical position, any
+invaders coming from the north or north-east, especially if aiming at
+Constantinople or Salonika, were bound to sweep over it. The great
+immemorial highway from the north-west to the Balkan peninsula crosses
+the Danube at Belgrade and follows the valley of the Morava to Nish;
+thence it branches off eastwards, going through Sofia and again
+crossing all Bulgaria to reach Constantinople, while the route to
+Salonika follows the Morava southwards from Nish and crosses the
+watershed into 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 the Morava and the Adriatic,
+which is really the home of the Serb race.
+
+In the second place, while it has undoubtedly been a protection to the
+Serb race, it has also been a source of weakness. It has prevented a
+welding together of the people into one whole, has facilitated the rise
+of numerous political units at various times, and generally favoured
+the dissipation of the national strength, and militated against
+national organization and cohesion. In the course of history this
+process has been emphasized rather than diminished, and to-day the Serb
+race is split up into six political divisions, while Bulgaria, except
+for those Bulgars claimed as ‘unredeemed’ beyond the frontier, presents
+a united whole. It is only within the last thirty years, with the
+gradual improvement of communications (obstructed to an incredible
+extent by the Austro-Hungarian government) and the spread of education,
+that the Serbs in the different countries which they inhabit have
+become fully conscious of their essential identity and racial unity.
+
+No less important than the physical aspect of their country on the
+development of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the
+middle of it from south to north there had been drawn a line of
+division more than two centuries before their arrival. Artificial
+boundaries are proverbially ephemeral, but this one has lasted
+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; at the division of the Roman Empire into East and
+West it was again followed, and it formed the boundary between the
+dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly the same as the
+present political boundary between Montenegro and Hercegovina, between
+the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from the Adriatic to the
+river Save right across the Serb territory. The Serbo-Croatian race
+unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by the line that
+divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the Eastern
+Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had
+consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into
+the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of
+the country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it
+is difficult to be accurate.
+
+The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the
+Bulgars in the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present
+political frontier between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north
+from the mouth of the river Timok on the southern bank of the Danube
+and going southwards slightly east of Pirot, is ethnographically
+approximately correct till it reaches the newly acquired and
+much-disputed territories in Macedonia, and represents fairly
+accurately the line that has divided the two nationalities ever since
+they were first differentiated in the seventh century. In the confused
+state of Balkan politics in the Middle Ages the political influence of
+Bulgaria often extended west of this line and included Nish and the
+Morava valley, while at other times that of Serbia extended east of it.
+The dialects spoken in these frontier districts represent a
+transitional stage between the two languages; each of the two peoples
+naturally considers them more akin to its own, and resents the fact
+that any of them should be included in the territory of the other.
+Further south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the Turkish
+conquest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in the
+times of Simeon, Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian,
+especially during the height of Serbian power in the fourteenth
+century, while intermittently it had been a province of the Greek
+Empire, which always claimed it as its own. On historical grounds,
+therefore, each of the three nations can claim possession of Macedonia.
+From an ethnographic point of view the Slav population of Macedonia
+(there were always and are still many non-Slav elements) was originally
+the same as that in 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-European or Aryan 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 mountainous
+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 dominion
+neither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia, and the
+Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all been pure Slavs, 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 Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the Macedonian
+Slavs would have become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further
+development of the Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap.
+13).
+
+The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east,
+where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they
+were the Greeks and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river
+Save and on the west by the Adriatic. They were split up into a number
+of tribes, each of which was headed by a chief called in Serbian
+_župan_ and in Greek _archōn_. Whenever any one of these managed,
+either by skill or by good fortune, to extend his power over a few of
+the neighbouring districts he was termed _veliki_ (=great) _župan_.
+From the beginning of their history, which is roughly put at A.D. 650,
+until A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign domination. Their
+suzerains were nominally always the Greek emperors, who had ‘granted’
+them the land they had taken, and whenever the emperor happened to be
+energetic and powerful, as were Basil I (the Macedonian, 867-86), John
+Tzimisces (969-76), Basil II (976-1025), and Manuel Comnenus (1143-80),
+the Greek supremacy was very real. At those times again when Bulgaria
+was very powerful, under Simeon (893-927), Samuel (977-1014), and John
+Asen II (1218-41), many of the more easterly and southerly Serbs came
+under Bulgarian rule, though it is instructive to notice that the Serbs
+themselves do not recognize the West Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of
+Samuel to have been a Bulgarian state. The Bulgars, however, at no time
+brought all the Serb lands under their sway.
+
+Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned,
+some Serb princeling would try to form a political state on a more
+ambitious scale, but the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the
+Serbs reverted to their favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst
+themselves. Such wore the attempts of Časlav, who had been made captive
+by Simeon of Bulgaria, escaped after his death, and ruled over a large
+part of central Serbia till 960, and later of Bodin, whose father,
+Michael, was even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII; Bodin formed
+a state near the coast, in the Zeta river district (now Montenegro),
+and ruled there from 1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the
+country peopled by the Serbs was split into a number of tiny
+principalities always at war with one another. Generally speaking, this
+country gradually became divided into two main geographical divisions:
+(1) the _Pomorje_, or country _by the sea_, which included most of the
+modern Montenegro and the southern halves of Hercegovina and Dalmatia,
+and (2) the _Zagorje_, or country _behind the hills_, 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 _Pomorje_ and the Save; to the
+north of the _Pomorje_ and _Zagorje_ lay Croatia. Besides their
+neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and west played an
+important part in Serbian history even in those early days.
+
+Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power
+of the Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a
+great impression on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, _kral_
+or _korol_, is derived directly from his name), and his son Louis
+conquered the Serbs settled in the country between the rivers Save and
+Drave. This is commemorated in the name of the mass of hill which lies
+between the Danube and the Save, in eastern Slavonia, and is to this
+day known as _Fruška Gora_, or French Hill. The Serbs and Bulgars
+fought against the Franks, and while the Bulgars held their own, the
+Serbs were beaten, and those who did not like the rule of the
+new-comers had to migrate southwards across the Save; at the same time
+the Serbs between the rivers Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were
+subjected by the Bulgars. With the arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth
+century, a wall was raised between the Serbs and central and western
+Europe on land. Croatia and Slavonia (between the Save and the Drave)
+were gradually drawn into the orbit of the Hungarian state, and in
+1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia was absorbed by Hungary
+and has formed part of that country ever since. Hungary, aiming at an
+outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected most of Dalmatia and
+parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily growing in power
+throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had secured control
+of all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part of the
+coast. All the cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of
+Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic.
+
+In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth
+centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped
+themselves into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which
+had been Caslav’s centre and is considered the birth-place of the
+Serbian state (this district, with the town of Ras as its centre,
+included the south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and
+what was the Turkish _sandjak_ or province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on
+the coast (the modern Montenegro); and (3) Bosnia, so called after the
+river Bosna, which runs through it. Bosnia, which roughly corresponded
+to the modern province of that name, became independent in the second
+half of the tenth century, and was never after that incorporated in the
+Serbian state. At times it fell under Hungarian influence; in the
+twelfth century, during the reign of Manuel Comnenus, who was
+victorious over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all other Serb territories,
+had to acknowledge the supremacy of Constantinople.
+
+It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied
+territory which, while the Church was still one, was divided between
+two dioceses, Italy and Dacia, and when the Church itself was divided,
+in the eleventh century, was torn apart between the two beliefs. The
+dividing line between the jurisdictions of Rome and Constantinople ran
+from north to south through Bosnia, but naturally there has always been
+a certain vagueness about the extent of their respective jurisdictions.
+In later years the terms Croat and Roman 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. The loyalty of the
+Croatians to Austria-Hungary has been largely owing to the influence of
+Roman Catholicism.
+
+During the first centuries of Serbian history Christianity made slow
+progress in the western half of the Balkan peninsula. The Dalmatian
+coast was always under the influence of Rome, but the interior was long
+pagan. It is doubtful whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf.
+chap. 5) actually passed through Serb territory, but in the tenth
+century their teachings and writings were certainly current there. At
+the time of the division of the Churches all the Serb lands except the
+Dalmatian coast, Croatia, and western Bosnia, were faithful to
+Constantinople, and the Greek hierarchy obtained complete control of
+the ecclesiastical administration. The elaborate organisation and
+opulent 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, 6), a much
+more primitive and democratic form of Christianity, already familiar in
+the East as the Manichaean heresy, took hold of the Serbs’ imagination
+and made as rapid and disquieting progress in their country as it had
+already done in the neighbouring Bulgaria; inasmuch as the Greek
+hierarchy considered this teaching to be socialistic, subversive, and
+highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical supremacy of Constantinople, all
+of which indeed it was, adherence to it became amongst the Serbs a
+direct expression of patriotism.
+
+
+
+
+15
+_The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian
+Independence_, 1168–1496
+
+
+From 1168 the power of the Serbs, or rather of the central Serb state
+of Raska, and the extent of its territory gradually but steadily
+increased. This was outwardly expressed in the firm establishment on
+the throne of the national Nemanja dynasty, which can claim the credit
+of having by its energy, skill, and good fortune fashioned the most
+imposing and formidable state the Serb race has ever known. This
+dynasty ruled the country uninterruptedly, but not without many
+quarrels, feuds, and rivalries amongst its various members, from 1168
+until 1371, when it became extinct.
+
+There were several external factors which at this time favoured the
+rise of the Serbian state. Byzantium and the Greek Empire, to which the
+Emperor Manuel Comnenus had by 1168 restored some measure of its former
+greatness and splendour, regaining temporary control, after a long war
+with Hungary, even over Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, after this date
+began definitively to decline, and after the troublous times of the
+fourth crusade (1204), when for sixty years a Latin empire was
+established on the Bosphorus, never again recovered as a Christian
+state the position in the Balkan peninsula which it had so long
+enjoyed. Bulgaria, too, after the meteoric glory of its second empire
+under the Asen dynasty (1186-1258), quite went to pieces, the eastern
+and northern parts falling under Tartar, the southern under Greek
+influence, while the western districts fell to Serbia. In the north, on
+the other hand, Hungary was becoming a dangerous and ambitious
+neighbour. During the thirteenth century, it is true, the attention of
+the Magyars was diverted by the irruption into and devastation of their
+country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia, the Tartars, who wrought
+great havoc and even penetrated as far as the Adriatic coast.
+Nevertheless Hungary was always a 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 objects of the Magyars were twofold—to attain the hegemony of the
+Balkan peninsula by conquering all the still independent Serb
+territories, and to bring the peninsula within the pale of Rome. They
+were not successful in either of these objects, partly because their
+wars with the Serbian rulers always failed to reach a decision, partly
+because their plans conflicted with those of the powerful Venetian
+republic. The relations between Venice and Serbia were always most
+cordial, as their ambitions did not clash; those of Venice were not
+continental, while those of Serbia were never maritime. The
+semi-independent Slavonic city-republic of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in
+Serbian) played a very important part throughout this period. It was
+under Venetian supremacy, but was self-governing and had a large fleet
+of its own. It was the great place of exchange between Serbia and
+western Europe, and was really the meeting-place of East and West. Its
+relations with Serbia were by no means always peaceful; it was a
+Naboth’s vineyard for the 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 home during the Middle Ages of a
+flourishing school of Serbian literature, which was inspired by that of
+Italy. The influence of Italian civilization and of the Italian Church
+was naturally strong in the Serb province, much of which was under
+Venetian rule; the reason for this was that communication by sea with
+Italy was easier and safer than that by land with Serbia. The long,
+formidable ranges of limestone mountains which divide the Serbian
+interior from the Adriatic in almost unbroken and parallel lines have
+always been a barrier to 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 Serbian Empire.
+
+The first of the Nemanja dynasty was Stephen, whose title was still
+only _Veliki Župan_; he extended Serb territory southwards at the
+expense of the Greeks, especially after the death of Manuel Comnenus in
+1180. He also persecuted the Bogomils, who took refuge in large numbers
+in the adjacent Serb state of Bosnia. Like many other Serbian rulers,
+he abdicated in later life in favour of his younger son, Stephen,
+called Nemanjié (= Nemanya’s son), and himself became a monk (1196),
+travelling for this purpose to Mount Athos, the great monastic centre
+and home of theological learning of the Eastern Church. There he saw
+his youngest son, who some years previously had also journeyed thither
+and entered a monastery, taking the name of Sava.
+
+It was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sort of memorial
+church, for the welfare of his own soul, before his death, and to
+decorate and endow it lavishly. Stephen and his son together
+superintended the erection in this sense of the church and monastery of
+Hilandar on Mount Athos, which became a famous centre of Serbian church
+life. Stephen died shortly after the completion of the building in
+1199, and was buried in it, but in 1207 he was reinterred in the
+monastery of Studenica, in Serbia, also founded by him.
+
+The reign of Stephen Nernanjić (1196-1223) opened with a quarrel
+between him and his elder brother, who not unnaturally felt he ought to
+have succeeded his father; the Bulgarians profited by this and seized a
+large part of eastern Serbia, including Belgrade, Nish, Prizren, and
+Skoplje. This, together with the fall of Constantinople and the
+establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204, alarmed the Serbs and
+brought about a reconciliation between the brothers, and in 1207 Sava
+returned to Serbia to organise the Church on national lines. In 1219 he
+journeyed to Nicaea and extracted from the Emperor Theodore Lascaris,
+who had fallen on evil days, the concession for the establishment of an
+autonomous national Serbian Church, independent of the Patriarch of
+Constantinople. Sava himself was at the head of the new institution. In
+1220 he solemnly crowned his brother King _(Kralj)_ of Serbia, the
+natural consequence of his activities in the previous year. For this
+reason Stephen Nemanjić is called ‘The First-Crowned’. He was succeeded
+in 1223 by his son Stephen Radoslav, and he in turn was deposed by his
+brother Stephen Vladislav in 1233. Both these were crowned by Sava, and
+Vladislav married the daughter of Tsar John Asen II, under whom
+Bulgaria was then at the height of her power. Sava journeyed to
+Palestine, and on his return paid a visit to the Bulgarian court at
+Tirnovo, where he died in 1236. His body was brought to Serbia and
+buried in the monastery of Mileševo, built by Vladislav. This extremely
+able churchman and politician, who did a great deal for the peaceful
+development of his country, was canonized and is regarded as the patron
+saint of Serbia.
+
+The reign of Vladislav’s son and successor, Stephen Uroš I (1242-76),
+was characterized by economic development and the strengthening of the
+internal administration. In external affairs he made no conquests, but
+defeated a combination of the Bulgarians with Ragusa against him, and
+after the war the Bulgarian ruler married his daughter. In his wars
+against Hungary he was unsuccessful, and the Magyars remained in
+possession of a large part of northern Serbia. In 1276 he was deposed
+by his son, Stephen Dragutin, who in his turn, after an unsuccessful
+war against the Greeks, again masters of Constantinople since 1261, was
+deposed and succeeded by his brother, Stephen Uroš II, named Milutin,
+in 1282. This king ruled from 1282 till 1321, and during his reign the
+country made very great material progress; its mineral wealth
+especially, which included gold and silver mines, began to be
+exploited. He extended the boundaries of his kingdom in the north,
+making the Danube and the Save the frontier. The usual revolt against
+paternal authority was made by his son Stephen, but was unsuccessful,
+and the rebel was banished to Constantinople.
+
+It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons,
+and the inevitable consequence of this system was the series of
+provincial rebellions which occurred in almost every reign. When the
+revolt succeeded, the father (or brother) was granted in his turn a
+small appanage. In this case it was the son who was exiled, but he was
+recalled in 1319 and a reconciliation took place. Milutin died in 1321
+and was succeeded by his son, Stephen Uroš III, who reigned till 1331.
+He is known as Stephen Dečanski, after the memorial church which he
+built at Dečani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great
+defeat of the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia
+in 1330. The following year his son, Stephen Dušan, rebelled against
+him and deposed him. Stephen Dušan, who reigned from 1331 till 1355,
+was Serbia’s greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its
+utmost limits. Provincial and family revolts and petty local disputes
+with such places as Ragusa became a thing of the past, and he undertook
+conquest on a grand scale. Between 1331 and 1344 he subjected all
+Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful to keep on
+good terms with Ragusa and with Hungary, then under Charles Robert. He
+married the sister of the Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign
+Bulgaria was completely under Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil
+war which had become perennial at Constantinople, and the weakening of
+the Greek Empire in face of the growing power of the Turks, no doubt to
+some extent explain the facility and rapidity of his conquests;
+nevertheless his power was very formidable, and his success inspired
+considerable alarm in western Europe. This was increased when, in 1345,
+he proclaimed his country an empire. He first called together a special
+Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an archbishopric, whose
+centre was then at Peć (in Montenegro, Ipek in Turkish), was proclaimed
+a Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as Patriarch; then this
+prelate, together with the Bulgarian Patriarch, Simeon, and Nicholas,
+Archbishop of Okhrida, crowned Stephen Tsar of the Serbs, Bulgars, and
+Greeks. Upon this the Patriarch of Constantinople gave himself the vain
+satisfaction of anathematizing the whole of Serbia, as a punishment for
+this insubordination.
+
+In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI, persuaded King Louis of Hungary 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 conquered the southern half of Dalmatia, and extended
+his empire as far north as the river Cetina. In 1354 Stephen Dušan
+himself approached the Pope, offering to acknowledge his spiritual
+supremacy, if he would support him against the Hungarians and the
+Turks. The Pope sent him an embassy, but eventually Stephen could not
+agree to the papal conditions, and concluded an alliance, of greater
+practical utility, with the Venetians. In 1355, however, he suddenly
+died, at the age of forty-six, and thus the further development and
+aggrandisement of his country was prematurely arrested.
+
+Stephen Dušan made a great impression on his contemporaries, both by
+his imposing personal appearance and by his undoubted wisdom and
+ability. He was especially a great legislator, and his remarkable code
+of laws, compiled in 1349 and enlarged in 1354, is, outside his own
+country, his greatest title to fame. During Stephen Dušan’s reign the
+political centre of Serbia, which had for many years gradually tended
+to shift southwards towards Macedonia, was at Skoplje (Üsküb in
+Turkish), which he made his capital. Stephen Dušan’s empire extended
+from the Adriatic in the west to the river Maritsa in the east, from
+the Save and Danube in the north to the Aegean; it included all the
+modern kingdoms of Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and most of Greece,
+Dalmatia as far north as the river Cetina, as well as 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. It did
+not include the cities of Salonika or Ragusa, nor any considerable part
+of the modern kingdom of Bulgaria, nor Bosnia, Croatia, North Dalmatia,
+nor Slavonia (between the Save and Drave), ethnologically all purely
+Serb lands. From the point of view of nationality, therefore, its
+boundaries were far from ideal.
+
+Stephen Dušan was succeeded by his son, known as Tsar Uroš, but he was
+as weak as his father had been strong. Almost as soon as 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 at this juncture was
+fatal, as a far more formidable foe than the ruler’s rebellious
+relations was advancing against it. The Turkish conquests were
+proceeding apace; they had taken Gallipoli 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 in 1351,
+met them again on the Maritsa river in 1371, and were completely
+defeated. Several of the upstart princes who had been pulling Stephen
+Dušan’s empire to pieces perished, and Tsar Uroš only survived the
+battle of the Maritsa two months; he was unmarried, and with him died
+the Nemanja dynasty and the Serbian Empire.
+
+After this disaster the unity of the Serbian state was completely
+destroyed, and it has never since been restored in the same measure.
+
+That part of the country to the south of Skoplje fell completely under
+Turkish control; it was here that the famous national hero, Marko
+Kraljević (or King’s son), renowned for his prowess, ruled as a vassal
+prince and mercenary soldier of the Turks; his father was one of the
+rebel princes who fell at the battle of the river Maritsa in 1371.
+North of Skoplje, Serbia, with Kruševac as a new political centre,
+continued to lead an independent but precarious existence, much reduced
+in size and glory, under a native ruler, Prince Lazar; all the
+conquests of Stephen Dušan were lost, and the important coastal
+province of Zeta, which later developed into Montenegro, had broken
+away and proclaimed its autonomy directly after the death of Tsar Uroš.
+
+In 1375 a formal reconciliation was effected with the Patriarch of
+Constantinople; the ban placed on the Serbian Church in 1352 was
+removed and the independence of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (Ipek)
+recognised. Meanwhile neither Greeks, Bulgars, nor Serbs were allowed
+any peace by the Turks.
+
+In 1389 was fought the great battle of Kosovo Polje, or the Field of
+Blackbirds, a large plain in Old Serbia, at the southern end of which
+is Skoplje. At this battle Serbian armies from all the Serb lands,
+including Bosnia, joined together in defence of their country for the
+last time. The issue of the battle was for some time in doubt, but was
+decided by the treachery and flight at the critical moment of one of
+the Serb leaders, Vuk Branković, son-in-law of Prince Lazar, with a
+large number of troops. Another dramatic incident was the murder of
+Sultan Murad in his tent by another Serbian leader, Miloš Obilić, 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 to the Sultan’s presence and proved his patriotism by
+killing him. The momentary dismay was put an end to by the energetic
+conduct of Bayezid, son of Murad, who rallied the Turkish troops and
+ultimately inflicted total defeat on the Serbians. From the effects of
+this battle Serbia never recovered; Prince Lazar was captured and
+executed; his wife, Princess Milica, had to give her daughter to
+Bayezid in marriage, whose son thus ultimately claimed possession of
+Serbia by right of inheritance. Princess Milica and her son Stephen
+continued to live at Kruševac, but Serbia was already a tributary of
+Turkey. In the north, Hungary profited by the course of events and
+occupied Belgrade and all northern Serbia, but in 1396 the Turks
+defeated the Magyars severely at the battle of Nikopolis, on the
+Danube, making the Serbs under Stephen fight on the Turkish side.
+Stephen also had to help Sultan Bajazet against the Tartars, and fought
+at the battle of Angora, in 1402, when Tamerlane captured Bayezid.
+
+After Stephen returned to Serbia he made an alliance with Hungary,
+which gave him back Belgrade and northern Serbia; it was at this time
+(1403) that Belgrade first became the capital, the political centre
+having in the course of fifty years moved from the Vardar to the
+Danube. The disorders which followed the defeat of Bayezid gave some
+respite to the Serbs, but Sultan Murad II (1421-51) again took up arms
+against him, and invaded Serbia as far as Kruševac.
+
+At the death of Stephen (Lazarević), in 1427, he was succeeded as
+_Despot_ by his nephew, George Branković; but the Sultan, claiming
+Serbia as his own, immediately declared war on him. The Serbian ruler
+had to abandon Belgrade to the Magyars, and Nish and Kruševac to the
+Turks. He then built and fortified the town of Smederevo (or Semendria)
+lower down on the Danube, in 1428, and made this his capital. 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. Later George Branković made another alliance with Hungary,
+and in 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi, defeated the Turks and
+liberated the whole of Serbia as far as the Adriatic, though he
+remained a tributary of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars
+broke the treaty of peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched
+against them under their Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the
+disastrous battle of Varna, on the Black Sea, where the king lost his
+life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died and was succeeded by the Sultan
+Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured Constantinople (Adrianople had
+until then been the Turkish capital); in 1456 his armies were besieging
+Belgrade, but were defeated by John Hunyadi, who, unfortunately for the
+Serbs, died of the plague shortly afterwards. George Branković died the
+same year, and at his death general disorder spread over the country.
+The Turks profited by this, overran the whole of Serbia, and in 1459
+captured Smederevo, the last Serbian stronghold.
+
+Meanwhile Bosnia had been for nearly a hundred years enjoying a false
+security as an independent Serb kingdom. Its rulers had hitherto been
+known by the title of _Ban_, and were all vassals of the King of
+Hungary; but in 1377 Ban Tvrtko profited by the embarrassments of his
+suzerain in Poland and proclaimed himself king, the neighbouring
+kingdom of Serbia having, after 1371, ceased to exist, and was duly
+crowned in Saint Sava’s monastery of Mileševo. The internal history of
+the kingdom was even more turbulent than had been that of Serbia. To
+the endemic troubles of succession and alternating alliances and wars
+with foreign powers were added those of confession. Bosnia was always a
+no man’s land as regards religion; it was where the Eastern and Western
+Churches met, and consequently the rivalry between them there was
+always, as it is now, intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too,
+early took root in Bosnia and became extremely popular; it was the
+obvious refuge for those who did not care to become involved in the
+strife of the Churches. One of the kings of Bosnia, Stephen Thomas, who
+reigned from 1444 till 1461, was himself a Bogomil, and when at the
+insistence 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, to the lands of one
+Stephen, who sheltered them, proclaimed his independence of Bosnia, and
+on the strength of the fact that Saint Sava’s monastery of Mileševo was
+in his territory, announced himself Herzog, or Duke (in Serbian Herceg,
+though the real Serb equivalent is _Vojvoda_) of Saint Sava, ever since
+when (1448) that territory has been called Hercegovina. In spite of
+many promises, neither the Pope nor the King of Hungary did anything to
+help Bosnia when the Turks began to invade the country after their
+final subjection of Serbia in 1459. In 1463 they invaded Bosnia and
+pursued, captured, and slew the last king; their conquest of the
+country was complete and rapid. A great exodus of the Serb population
+took place to the south, west, and north; but large numbers, especially
+of the landowning class, embraced the faith of their conquerors in
+order to retain possession of their property. In 1482 a similar fate
+befell Hercegovina. Albania had already been conquered after stubborn
+resistance in 1478. There remained only the mountainous coastal
+province of Zeta, which had been an independent principality ever since
+1371. Just as inland Serbia had perished between the Turkish hammer and
+the Hungarian anvil, so maritime Serbia was crushed between Turkey and
+Venice, only its insignificance and inaccessibility giving it a longer
+lease of independent life. Ivan Crnojević, one of the last independent
+rulers of Zeta, who had to fly to Italy in 1480, abandoning his
+capital, Žabljak, to the Turks, returned in 1481, when the death of
+Sultan Mohammed temporarily raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and
+founded Cetinje and made it his capital. His son George, who succeeded
+him and ruled from 1490 till 1496, is famous as having set up the first
+Serbian printing-press there. Its activities were naturally not
+encouraged by the Turkish conquest, but it was of great importance to
+the national Serbian Church, for which books were printed with it.
+
+In 1496, Venice having wisely made peace with the Sultan some years
+previously, this last independent scrap of Serb territory was finally
+incorporated in the Turkish dominions. At the end of the fifteenth
+century the Turks were masters of all the Serb lands except Croatia,
+Slavonia, and parts of Dalmatia, which belonged to Hungary, and the
+Dalmatian coast and islands, which were Venetian. The Turkish conquest
+of Serbia, which began in 1371 at the battle of the Maritsa, and was
+rendered inevitable by the battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389, thus took a
+hundred and twenty-five years to complete.
+
+
+
+
+16
+_The Turkish Dominion_, 1496–1796
+
+
+The lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was different from that of
+their neighbours the Bulgars; and though it was certainly not enviable,
+it was undoubtedly better. The Turks for various reasons never
+succeeded in subduing Serbia and the various Serb lands as completely
+as they had subdued, or rather annihilated, Bulgaria. The Serbs were
+spread over a far larger extent of territory than were the Bulgars,
+they were further removed from the Turkish centre, and the wooded and
+mountainous nature of their country facilitated even more than in the
+case of Bulgaria the formation of bands of brigands and rebels and
+militated against its systematic policing by the Turks. The number of
+centres of national life, Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and
+Montenegro, to take them in the chronological order of their conquest
+by the Turks, had been notoriously a source of weakness to the Serbian
+state, as is still the case to-day, but at the same time made it more
+difficult for the Turks to stamp out the national consciousness. What
+still further contributed to this difficulty was the fact that many
+Serbs escaped the oppression of Turkish rule by emigrating to 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 and Hungary. It had begun already after the final subjection
+of Serbia proper and Bosnia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463, but after
+the fall of Belgrade, which was the outpost of Hungary against the
+Turks, in 1521, and the battle of Mohacs, in 1526, when the Turks
+completely defeated the Magyars, it assumed great proportions. As the
+Turks pushed their conquests further north, the Serbs migrated before
+them; later 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 Bačka
+(the country between the Theiss and Danube), and in Baranya (between
+the Danube and the Drave). All this part of southern Hungary and
+Croatia was formed by the Austrians into a military borderland against
+Turkey, and the Croats and immigrant Serbs were organized as military
+colonists with special privileges, on the analogy of the Cossacks in
+southern Russia and Poland. In Dalmatia the Serbs played a similar rôle
+in the service of Venice, which, like Austria-Hungary, was frequently
+at war with the Turks. During the sixteenth century Ragusa enjoyed its
+greatest prosperity; it paid tribute to the Sultan, was under his
+protection, and never rebelled. It had a quasi monopoly of the trade of
+the entire Balkan peninsula. It was a sanctuary both for Roman Catholic
+Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and sometimes acted as intermediary on
+behalf of its co-religionists with the Turkish authorities, with whom
+it wielded great influence. Intellectually also it was a sort of Serb
+oasis, and the only place during the Middle Ages where Serbian
+literature was able to flourish.
+
+Montenegro during the sixteenth century formed part of the Turkish
+province of Scutari. Here, as well as in Serbia proper, northern
+Macedonia (known after the removal northwards of the political centre,
+in the fourteenth century, as Old Serbia), Bosnia, and Hercegovina, the
+Turkish rule was firmest, but not harshest, during the first half of
+the sixteenth century, when the power of the Ottoman Empire was at its
+height. Soon after the fall of Smederevo, in 1459, the Patriarchate of
+Peć (Ipek) was abolished, the Serbian Church lost its independence, was
+merged in the Greco-Bulgar Archbishopric of Okhrida (in southern
+Macedonia), and fell completely under the control of the Greeks. In
+1557, however, through the influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb
+nationality, the Patriarchate of Peć was revived. The revival of this
+centre of national life was momentous; through its agency the Serbian
+monasteries were restored, ecclesiastical books printed, and priests
+educated, and more fortunate than the Bulgarian national Church, which
+remained under Greek management, it was able to focus the national
+enthusiasms and aspirations and keep alive with hope the flame of
+nationality amongst those Serbs who had not 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 of Lepanto (1571). But the
+seventeenth century saw a revival of Turkish power; Krete was added to
+their empire, and in 1683 they very nearly captured Vienna. In the war
+which followed their repulse, and in which the victorious Austrians
+penetrated as far south as Skoplje, the Serbs took part against the
+Turks; but when later the Austrians were obliged to retire, the Serbs,
+who had risen against the Turks at the bidding of their Patriarch Arsen
+III, had to suffer terrible reprisals at their hands, with the result
+that another wholesale emigration, with the Patriarch at its head, took
+place into the Austro-Hungarian military borderland. This time it was
+the very heart of Serbia which was abandoned, namely, Old Serbia and
+northern Macedonia, including Peć and Prizren. The vacant Patriarchate
+was for a time filled by a Greek, and the Albanians, many of whom were
+Mohammedans and therefore Turcophil, spread northwards and eastwards
+into lands that had been Serb since the seventh century. From the end
+of the seventeenth century, however, the Turkish power began
+unmistakably to wane. The Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) left the Turks
+still in possession of Syrmia (between the Danube and Save) and the
+Banat (north of the Danube), but during the reign of the Emperor
+Charles VI their retreat was accelerated. In 1717 Prince Eugen of Savoy
+captured Belgrade, then, as now, a bulwark of the Balkan peninsula
+against invasion from the north, and by the Treaty of Passarowitz
+(Požarevac, on the Danube), in 1718, Turkey not only retreated
+definitively south of the Danube and the Save, but left a large part of
+northern Serbia in Austrian hands. By the same treaty Venice secured
+possession of the whole of Dalmatia, where it had already gained
+territory by the Treaty of Curlowitz in 1699.
+
+But the Serbs soon found out that alien populations fare little better
+under Christian rule, when they are not of the same confession as their
+rulers, than under Mohammedan. The Orthodox Serbs in Dalmatia suffered
+thenceforward from relentless persecution at the hands of the Roman
+Catholics. In Austria-Hungary too, and in that part of Serbia occupied
+by the Austrians after 1718, the Serbs discovered that the Austrians,
+when they had beaten the Turks largely by the help of Serbian levies,
+were very different from the Austrians who had encouraged the Serbs to
+settle in their country and form military colonies on their frontiers
+to protect them from Turkish invasion. The privileges promised them
+when their help had been necessary were disregarded as soon as their
+services could be dispensed with. Austrian rule soon became more
+oppressive than Turkish, and to the Serbs’ other woes was now added
+religious persecution. The result of all this was that a
+counter-emigration set in and the Serbs actually began to 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 Eugen no longer led them, and though the Serbs were again
+persuaded by their Patriarch, Arsen IV, to rise against the Turks, they
+only did so half-heartedly. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Austria
+had to withdraw north of the Save and Danube, evacuating all northern
+Serbia in favour of the Turks. From this time onwards the lot of the
+Serbs, both in Austria-Hungary and in Turkey, went rapidly from bad to
+worse. The Turks, as the power of their empire declined, and in return
+for the numerous Serb revolts, had recourse to measures of severe
+repression; amongst others was that of the final abolition of the
+Patriarchate of Peé in 1766, whereupon the control of the Serbian
+Church in Turkey passed entirely into the hands of the Greek
+Patriarchate of Constantinople.
+
+The Austrian Government similarly, perceiving now for the first time
+the elements of danger which the resuscitation of the Serbian
+nationality would contain for the rule of the Hapsburgs, embarked on a
+systematic persecution of the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary and
+Slavonia. During the reign of Maria Theresa (1740-80), whose policy was
+to conciliate the Magyars, the military frontier zone was abolished, a
+series of repressive measures was passed against those Serbs who
+refused to become Roman Catholics, and the Serbian nationality was
+refused official recognition. The consequence of this persecution was a
+series of revolts which were all quelled with due severity, 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 II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their
+treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the
+beginning of the eighteenth century Montenegro began to assume greater
+importance in the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of
+the Serbs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed
+part of the Turkish dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible
+nature of its mountain fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very
+forcibly asserted. It was ruled by a prince-bishop, and its religious
+independence thus connoted a certain secular freedom of thought if not
+of action. In the seventeenth century warlike encounters between the
+Turks 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 Montenegro was often rather civil in
+character, being caused by the ill-feeling which existed between the
+numerous Montenegrins who had become Mohammedans and those who remained
+faithful to their national Church. In the course of the eighteenth
+century the rôle which fell to Montenegro became more important. In all
+the other Serb countries the families which naturally took a leading
+part in affairs were either extinct or in exile, as in Serbia, or had
+become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and purposes Turkish,
+as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great earthquake in
+1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of international
+importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had survived both a
+greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all, the ancient
+Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a number of at
+any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families; these
+families naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as destined
+to play an important part in the resistance to and the eventual
+overthrow of the Turkish dominion. The prince-bishop had to be
+consecrated by the Patriarch of Peć, and in 1700 Patriarch Arsen III
+consecrated one Daniel, of the house (which has been ever since then
+and is now still the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of
+Petrović-Njegoš, to this office, after he had been elected to it by the
+council of notables at Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in
+the north, and precluded from participating with them in the wars
+between Austria and Turkey by the intervening block of Bosnia, which
+though Serb by nationality was solidly Mohammedan and therefore
+pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks independently of the
+other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his anti-Turkish
+policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to the south
+and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians, he
+developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that
+friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb
+principality on the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent
+feature of eastern European politics ever since. This intimacy did not
+prevent the Turks giving Montenegro many hard blows whenever they had
+the time or energy to do so, and did not ensure any special protective
+clauses in favour of the mountain state whenever the various treaties
+between Russia and Turkey were concluded. Its effect was rather
+psychological and financial. From the time when the _Vladika_ (=
+Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the Great, in 1714, the rulers of
+Montenegro often made pilgrimages to the Russian capital, and were
+always sure of finding sympathy as well as pecuniary if not armed
+support. Bishops in the Orthodox Church are compulsorily celibate, and
+the succession in Montenegro always descended from uncle to nephew.
+When Peter I Petrović-Njegoš succeeded, in 1782, the Patriarchate of
+Peć was no more, so he had to get permission from the Austrian Emperor
+Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan of Karlovci
+(Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.
+
+About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and
+Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils
+between them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at
+the same time (1788) in the district of Šumadija, in Serbia, by a
+number of Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain
+Captain Koča, after whom the whole war is called Kočina Krajina
+(=Koča’s country), another, yet the Austrians were on the whole
+unsuccessful, and on the death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was
+concluded between Austria and Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which
+Turkey retained the whole of Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube
+remained the frontier between the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of
+Montenegro had joined in the fray and had fared better, inflicting some
+unpleasant defeats on the Turks under their bishop, Peter I. These
+culminated in two battles in 1796 (the Montenegrins, not being
+mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued fighting), in which the
+Turks were driven back to Scutari. With this triumph, which the Emperor
+Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the Prince-Bishop Peter, the
+independence of the modern state of Montenegro, the first Serb people
+to recover its liberty, was _de facto_ established.
+
+
+
+
+17
+_The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George_ (1804–13) _and Miloš
+Obrenović_ (1815–30): 1796–1830
+
+
+The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its
+establishment as an independent state were matters of much slower and
+more arduous accomplishment than were the same processes in the other
+Balkan countries. One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar
+geographical position was cut off from outside help. It was easy for
+the western powers to help Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to
+help Rumania and, later, Bulgaria directly with its army, because
+communication between them was easy. But Serbia on the one hand was
+separated from the sea, first by Dalmatia, which was always in foreign
+possession, and then by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and the _sandjak_ (or
+province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically
+Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence owing to their large
+Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro, also cut off from
+the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in self-defence, though
+it gave Serbia all the support which its size permitted. Communication,
+on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too difficult to
+permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to bear
+upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia
+were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to be
+traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards
+through Turkish territory. The only country which could have helped
+Serbia was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do
+so, the Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to
+retard the Serbian cause. As a result of all this Serbia, in her long
+struggle against the Turks, had to rely principally on its own
+resources, though Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent
+country from disaster.
+
+Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation and development of
+modern Serbia has been the proneness of its people to internal
+dissension. There was no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the
+country would naturally devolve after the first successful revolution
+against Turkish rule, there was not even any aristocracy left, and no
+foreign ruler was ever asked for by the Serbs or was ever imposed on
+them by the other nations as in the case of Greece, Rumania, and
+Bulgaria. On the other hand the rising against Turkey was a rising of
+the whole people, and it was almost inevitable that as soon as some
+measure of independence was gained the unity the Serbs had shown when
+fighting against their oppressors should dissolve and be replaced by
+bitter rivalries and disputes amongst the various local leaders who had
+become prominent during the rebellion.
+
+These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves
+into a blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjević and the
+Obrenović, a quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against
+the progress of the Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.
+
+The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political
+independence of Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible,
+its economic development and material prosperity. Until recent years
+Austria-Hungary and Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in
+such a position that whenever Serbia either demurred at its neighbours’
+tariffs or wished to retaliate by means of its own, the screw was
+immediately applied and economic strangulation threatened. Rumania and
+Bulgaria economically could never be 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 their
+neighbours’ live stock and cereals, when their first business is to
+sell their own, while the cost of transit of imports from western
+Europe through those countries is prohibitive.
+
+After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia
+remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the
+authority of the Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real
+power was wielded by local Turkish officials, who exploited the
+country, looked on it as their own property, and enjoyed
+semi-independence. Their exactions and cruelties were worse than had
+been those of the Turks in the old days, and it was against them and
+their troops, not against those of the Sultan, that the first battles
+in the Serbian war of independence were fought. It was during the year
+1803 that the Serbian leaders first made definite plans for the rising
+which eventually took place in the following year. The ringleader was
+George Petrović, known as Black George, or Kara-George, and amongst his
+confederates was Miloš Obrenović. The centre of the conspiracy was at
+Topola, in the district of Šumadija in central Serbia (between the
+Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place of Kara-George. The
+first two years of fighting between the Serbians and, first, the
+provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan’s forces, fully rewarded
+the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of 1807 they
+had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided efforts
+and captured the towns of Požarevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and Šabac.
+The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening of
+diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time
+the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to
+threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he
+gave the Serbs financial assistance and commended their cause to the
+especial care of his ambassador at Constantinople.
+
+In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the
+Peace of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and
+the Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several
+successes against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two
+following years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the
+Serbian leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence
+which prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the
+Serbs again fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with
+better fortune. In 1811 Kara-George was elected _Gospodar_, or
+sovereign, by a popular assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish
+province. At the end of that year the Russians completely defeated the
+Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria, and, if all had gone well, Serbia might
+there and then have achieved complete independence.
+
+But Napoleon was already preparing his invasion and Russia had to
+conclude peace with Turkey in a hurry, which necessarily implied that
+the Sultan obtained unduly favourable terms. In the Treaty of Bucarest
+between the two countries signed in May 1812, the Serbs were indeed
+mentioned, and promised vague internal autonomy and a general amnesty,
+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 Serbs in
+Serbia had to withdraw. Negotiations between the Turks and the Serbs
+for the regulation of their position were continued throughout 1812,
+but finally the Turks refused all their claims and conditions and,
+seeing the European powers preoccupied with their own affairs, invaded
+the country from Bosnia in the west, and also from the east and south,
+in August 1813. The Serbs, left entirely to their own resources,
+succumbed before the superior forces of the Turks, and by the beginning
+of October the latter were again masters of the whole country and in
+possession of Belgrade. Meanwhile Kara-George, broken in health and
+unable to cope with the difficulties of the situation, which demanded
+successful strategy both against the overwhelming forces of the Turks
+in the field and against the intrigues of his enemies at home, somewhat
+ignominiously fled across the river to Semlin in Hungary, and was duly
+incarcerated by the Austrian authorities.
+
+The news of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipsic (October 1813) arrived just
+after that of the re-occupation of Belgrade by the Turks, damped
+_feu-de-joie_ which they were firing at Constantinople, and made them
+rather more conciliatory and lenient to the Serbian rebels. But this
+attitude did not last long, and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh
+efforts to regain their short-lived liberty. The Congress of Vienna met
+in the autumn of 1814, and during its whole course Serbian emissaries
+gave the Russian envoys no peace. But with the return of Napoleon to
+France in the spring of 1815 and the break-up of the Congress, all that
+Russia could do was, through its ambassador at Constantinople, to
+threaten invasion unless the Turks left the Serbs alone. Nevertheless,
+conditions in Serbia became so intolerable that another rebellion soon
+took shape, this time under Miloš Obrenović. 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 not temporize, and his arbitrary
+methods of enforcing discipline and his ungovernable temper had made
+him many enemies. While the credit for the first Serbian revolt
+(1804-13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly to him, the second revolt owed
+its more lasting success to the skill of Miloš Obrenović. The fighting
+started at Takovo, the home of the Obrenović family, in April 1815, and
+after many astonishing successes against the Turks, including the
+capture of the towns of Rudnik, Čačak, Požarevac, and Kraljevo, was all
+over by July of the same year. The Turks were ready with large armies
+in the west in Bosnia, and also south of the Morava river, to continue
+the campaign and crush the rebellion, but the news of the final defeat
+of Napoleon, and the knowledge that Russia would soon have time again
+to devote attention to the Balkans, withheld their appetites for
+revenge, and negotiations with the successful rebels were initiated.
+During the whole of this period, from 1813 onwards, Miloš Obrenović, as
+head of a district, was an official of the Sultan in Serbia, and it was
+one of his principles never to break irreparably with the Turks, 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 1815
+onwards he himself personally conducted negotiations in the name of his
+people with the various pashas who were deputed to deal with him. While
+these negotiations went on and the armistice was in force, he was
+confronted, or rather harassed from behind, by a series of revolts
+against his growing authority on the part of his jealous compatriots.
+
+In June 1817 Kara-George, who had been in Russia after being released
+by the Austrians in 1814, returned surreptitiously to Serbia,
+encouraged by the brighter aspect which affairs in his country seemed
+to be assuming. But the return of his most dangerous rival was as
+unwelcome to Miloš as it was to the Turkish authorities at Belgrade,
+and, measures having been concerted between them, Kara-George was
+murdered on July 26,1817, and the first act in the blood-feud between
+the two families thus committed. In November of the same year a
+_skupština_, or national assembly, was held at Belgrade, and Miloš
+Obrenović, whose position was already thoroughly assured, was elected
+hereditary prince (_knez_) of the country.
+
+Meanwhile events of considerable importance for the future of 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 the hands of Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797,
+when the Venetian republic was extinguished by Napoleon. The Bocche di
+Cuttaro, a harbour both strategically 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
+the successful rebellion of the Montenegrins against the Turks.
+
+By the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria Dalmatia became
+French in 1805. But the Montenegrins, supported by the Russians,
+resisted the new owners and occupied the Bocche; at the Peace of Tilsit
+in 1807, however, this important place was assigned to France by
+Russia, and Montenegro had to submit to its loss. In 1806 the French
+occupied Ragusa, and in 1808 abolished the independence of the ancient
+Serb city-republic. In 1812 the Montenegrins, helped by the Russians
+and British, again expelled the French and reoccupied Cattaro; but
+Austria was by now fully alive to the meaning this harbour would have
+once it was in the possession of Montenegro, and after the Congress of
+Vienna in 1815 took definitive possession of it as well as of all the
+rest of Dalmatia, thus effecting the complete exclusion of the Serb
+race for all political and commercial purposes from the Adriatic, its
+most natural and obvious means of communication with western Europe.
+
+Though Miloš had been elected prince by his own people, it was long
+before he was recognized as such by the Porte. His efforts for the
+regularization of his position entailed endless negotiations in
+Constantinople; these were enlivened by frequent anti-Obrenović revolts
+in Serbia, all of which Miloš successfully quelled. The revolution in
+Greece in 1821 threw the Serbian question from the international point
+of view into the shade, but the Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded his
+brother Alexander I on the Russian throne in 1825, soon showed that he
+took a lively and active interest in Balkan affairs. Pan-Slavism had
+scarcely become fashionable in those days, and it was still rather as
+the protector of its co-religionists under the Crescent that Russia
+intervened. In 1826 Russian and Turkish delegates met at Akerman in
+Bessarabia, and in September of that year signed a convention by which
+the Russian protectorate over the Serbs was recognized, the Serbs were
+granted internal autonomy, the right to trade and erect churches,
+schools, and printing-presses, and the Turks were forbidden to live in
+Serbia except in eight garrison towns; the garrisons were to be
+Turkish, and tribute was still to be paid to the Sultan as suzerain.
+These concessions, announced by Prince Miloš to his people at a special
+_skupština_ held at Kragujevac in 1827, evoked great enthusiasm, but
+the urgency of the Greek question again delayed their fulfilment. After
+the battle of Navarino on October 20, 1827, in which the British,
+French, and Russian fleets defeated the Turkish, the Turks became
+obstinate and refused to carry out the stipulations of the Convention
+of Akerman in favour of Serbia. Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey
+in April 1828, and the Russian armies crossed the Danube and the
+Balkans and marched on Constantinople.
+
+Peace was concluded at Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey agreed to carry
+out immediately all the stipulations of the Treaty of Bucarest (1812)
+and the Convention of Akerman (1826). The details took some time to
+settle, but in November 1830 the _hatti-sherif_ of the Sultan,
+acknowledging Miloš as hereditary prince of Serbia, was publicly read
+in Belgrade. All the concessions already promised were duly granted,
+and Serbia became virtually independent, but still tributary to the
+Sultan. Its territory included most of the northern part of the modern
+kingdom of Serbia, between the rivers Drina, Save, Danube, and Timok,
+but not the districts of Nish, Vranja, and Pirot. Turkey still retained
+Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, which
+separated Serbia from Montenegro, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).
+
+
+
+
+18
+_The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia,_ 1830–1903
+
+
+During his rule of Serbia, which lasted virtually from 1817 till 1839,
+Prince Miloš did a very great deal for the welfare of his country. He
+emancipated the Serbian Church from the trammels of the Greek
+Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1831, from which date onwards it was
+ruled by a Metropolitan of Serb nationality, resident at Belgrade. He
+encouraged the trade of the country, a great deal of which he held in
+his own hands; he was in fact a sort of prototype of those modern
+Balkan business-kings of whom King George of Greece and King Carol of
+Rumania were the most notable examples. He raised an army and put it on
+a permanent footing, and organized the construction of roads, schools,
+and churches. He was, however, an autocratic ruler of the old school,
+and he had no inclination to share the power for the attainment of
+which he had laboured so many years and gone through so much. From his
+definite installation as hereditary prince discontent at his arbitrary
+methods of government amongst his ex-equals increased, and after
+several revolts he was forced eventually to grant a 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 at Constantinople, and while he was there the situation in
+Serbia became still more serious. After his return he was, after
+several years of delay and of growing unpopularity, compelled to agree
+to another constitution which was forced on him, paradoxically enough,
+by the joint efforts of the Tsar and of the Sultan, who seemed to take
+an unnatural pleasure in supporting the democratic Serbians against
+their successful colleague in autocracy, who had done so much for his
+turbulent subjects. Serbia even in those days was essentially and
+uncompromisingly democratic, but even so Miloš obstinately refused to
+carry out the provisions of the constitution or in any way to submit to
+a curtailment of his power, and in 1839 he left his ungrateful
+principality and took refuge in Rumania, where he possessed an estate,
+abdicating in favour of his elder son Milan. This Prince Milan, known
+as Obrenović II, was seriously ill at the time of his accession, and
+died within a month of it. He was succeeded by his younger brother
+Michael, known as Obrenović III, 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 has ever had. His
+first reign (1840-2), however, did not open well. He inaugurated it by
+paying a state visit to Constantinople, but the Sultan only recognized
+him as elective prince and insisted on his having two advisers approved
+and appointed by 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, Vučić, and, though Michael’s rule was
+not as arbitrary as his father’s, he had to bow to the popular will
+which supported Vučić and cross the river to Semlin. After a stormy
+interval, during which the Emperor Nicholas I tried to intervene in
+favour of Michael, Alexander Karagjorgjević, son of Kara-George, was
+elected prince (1843). No sooner was this representative of the rival
+dynasty installed, however, than rebellions in favour of Michael
+occurred. These were thrown into the shade by the events of 1848, In
+that memorable year of revolutions the Magyars rose against Austria and
+the Serbs in southern Hungary rose against the Magyars. Prince
+Alexander resolved to send military help to his oppressed countrymen
+north of the Save and Danube, and, though the insurgents were
+unsuccessful, Prince Alexander gained in popularity amongst the Serbs
+by the line of action he had taken. During the Crimean War, on the
+other hand, Serbia remained strictly neutral, to the annoyance of the
+Tsar; at the Congress of Paris (1856) the exclusive protectorate of
+Russia was replaced by one of all the powers, and Russian influence in
+the western Balkans was thereby weakened. Prince Alexander’s prudence,
+moreover, cost him his popularity, and in 1858 he in his turn had to
+bid farewell to his difficult countrymen.
+
+In December of the same year the veteran Prince Miloš Obrenović I was
+recalled to power as hereditary prince. His activities during his
+second reign were directed against Turkish influence, which was still
+strong, and he made efforts to have the Turkish populations removed
+from the eight garrison towns, including Belgrade, where they still
+lived in spite of the fact that their emigration had been stipulated
+for in 1830. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to carry out his
+plans, for he fell ill at Topchider, the summer palace near Belgrade,
+in the autumn of 1860, and died a few days afterwards. He was again
+succeeded by his son Michael Obrenović III, who was already thirty-six
+years of age. This able prince’s second reign was brilliantly
+successful, and it was a disaster for which his foolish countrymen had
+to pay dearly, when, by their fault, it was prematurely cut short in
+1868. His first act was with the consent of a specially summoned
+_skupština_ to abolish the law by which he could only appoint and
+remove his counsellers with the approval of the Porte. Next he set
+about the organization and establishment of a regular army of 30,000
+men. In 1862 an anti-Turkish rebellion broke out amongst the Serbs in
+Hercegovina (still, with Bosnia, a Turkish province), and the Porte,
+accusing Prince Michael of complicity, made warlike preparations
+against him.
+
+Events, however, were precipitated in such a way that, without waiting
+for the opening of hostilities, the Turkish general in command of the
+fortress of Belgrade turned his guns on the city; this provoked the
+intervention of the powers at Constantinople, and the entire civilian
+Turkish population had to quit the country (in accordance with the
+stipulations of 1830), only Turkish garrisons remaining in the
+fortresses of Šabac, Belgrade, Smederevo, and Kladovo, along the
+northern river frontier, still theoretically the boundary of the
+Sultan’s dominions. After this success Prince Michael continued his
+military preparations in order to obtain final possession of the
+fortresses when a suitable occasion should arise. This occurred in
+1866, when Austria was engaged in the struggle with Prussia, and the
+policy of Great Britain became less Turcophil than it had hitherto
+been. On April 6, 1867, the four fortresses, which had been in Serbian
+possession from 1804 to 1813, but had since then been garrisoned by the
+Turks, were delivered over to Serbia and the last Turkish soldier left
+Serbian soil without a shot having been fired. Though Serbia after this
+was still a vassal state, being tributary to the Sultan, these further
+steps on the road to complete independence were a great triumph,
+especially for Prince Michael personally. But this very triumph
+actuated his political opponents amongst his own countrymen, amongst
+whom were undoubtedly adherents of the rival dynasty, to revenge, and
+blind to the interests of their people they foolishly and most brutally
+murdered this extremely capable and conscientious prince in the deer
+park near Topchider on June 10, 1868. The opponents of the Obrenović
+dynasty were, however, baulked in their plans, and a cousin of the late
+prince was elected to the vacant and difficult position. This ruler,
+known as Milan Obrenović IV, who was only fourteen years of age at the
+time of his accession (1868), was of a very different character from
+his predecessor. The first thing that happened during his minority was
+the substitution of the constitution of 1838 by another one which was
+meant to give the prince and the national assembly much more power, but
+which, eventually, made the ministers supreme.
+
+The prince came of age in 1872 when he was eighteen, and he soon showed
+that the potential pleasures to be derived from his position were far
+more attractive to him than the fulfilment of its obvious duties. He
+found much to occupy him in Vienna and Paris and but little in
+Belgrade. At the same time the Serb people had lost, largely by its 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 last of many) broke out amongst the Serbs of Bosnia
+and Hercegovina, and all the efforts of the Turks to quell it 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 Serbia was joined by Montenegro. The country was,
+however, not materially prepared for war, the expected sympathetic
+risings in other parts of Turkey either did not take place or failed,
+and the Turks turned their whole army on to Serbia, with the result
+that in October the Serbs had to appeal to the Tsar for help and an
+armistice was arranged, which lasted till February 1877. During the
+winter a conference was held in Constantinople to devise means for
+alleviating the lot of the Christians in Turkey, and a peace was
+arranged between Turkey and Serbia whereby the _status quo ante_ was
+restored. But after the conference the heart of Turkey was again
+hardened and the stipulations in favour of the Christians were not
+carried out.
+
+In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey (cf. chap. 10), and in the autumn
+of the same year Serbia joined in. This time the armies of Prince Milan
+were more successful, and conquered and occupied the whole of southern
+Serbia including the towns and districts of Nish, Pirot, Vranja, and
+Leskovac, Montenegro, which had not been included in the peace of the
+previous winter, but had been fighting desperately and continuously
+against the Turks ever since it had begun actively to help the Serb
+rebels of Hercegovina in 1875, had a series of successes, as a result
+of which it obtained possession of the important localities of Nikšić,
+Podgorica, Budua, Antivari, and Dulcigno, the last three on the shore
+of the Adriatic. By the Treaty of San Stefano the future interests of
+both Serbia and Montenegro were jeopardised by the creation of a Great
+Bulgaria, but that would not have mattered if in return they had been
+given control of the purely Serb provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+which ethnically they can claim just as legitimately as Bulgaria claims
+most of Macedonia. The Treaty of San Stefano was, however, soon
+replaced by that of Berlin. By its terms both Serbia and Montenegro
+achieved complete independence and the former ceased to be a tributary
+state of Turkey. The Serbs were given the districts of southern Serbia
+which they had occupied, and which are all ethnically Serb except
+Pirot, the population of which is a sort of cross between Serb and
+Bulgar. The Serbs also undertook to build a railway through their
+country to the Turkish and Bulgarian frontiers. Montenegro was nearly
+doubled in size, receiving the districts of Nikšić, Podgorica, and
+others; certain places in the interior the Turks and Albanians
+absolutely refused to surrender, and to compensate for these Montenegro
+was given a strip of coast with the townlets of Antivari and Dulcigno.
+The memory of Gladstone, who specially espoused Montenegro’s cause in
+this matter, is held in the greatest reverence in the brave little
+mountain country, but unfortunately the ports themselves are
+economically absolutely useless. Budua, higher up the Dalmatian coast,
+which would have been of some use, was handed over to Austria, to which
+country, already possessed of Cattaro and all the rest of Dalmatia, it
+was quite superfluous. Greatest tragedy of all for the future of the
+Serb race, the administration of Bosnia and Hercegovina was handed over
+‘temporarily’ to Austria-Hungary, and Austrian garrisons were quartered
+throughout those two provinces, which they were able to occupy only
+after the most bitter armed opposition on the part of the inhabitants,
+and also in the Turkish _sandjak_ or province of Novi-Pazar, the
+ancient Raska and cradle of the Serb state; this strip of mountainous
+territory under Turkish administrative and Austrian military control
+was thus converted into a fortified wedge which effectually kept the
+two independent Serb states of Serbia and Montenegro apart. After all
+these events the Serbs had to set to work to put their enlarged house
+in order. But the building of railways and schools and the organization
+of the services cost a lot of money, and as public economy is not a
+Serbian virtue the debt grew rapidly. In 1882 Serbia proclaimed itself
+a kingdom and was duly recognized by the other nations. But King Milan
+did not learn to manage the affairs of his country any better as time
+went on. He was too weak to stand alone, and having freed himself from
+Turkey he threw himself into the arms of Austria, with which country he
+concluded a secret military convention. In 1885, when Bulgaria and
+‘Eastern Rumelia’ successfully coalesced and Bulgaria thereby received
+a considerable increase of territory and power, the Serbs, prompted by
+jealousy, 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 disastrous battle of Slivnitsa (cf. chap. II);
+Austria had to intervene to save its victim, and Serbia got nothing for
+its trouble but a large increase of debt and a considerable decrease of
+military reputation. In addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate
+in his conjugal relations; his wife, the beautiful Queen Natalie, was a
+Russian, and as he himself had Austrian sympathies, they could scarcely
+be expected to agree on politics. But the strife between them extended
+from the sphere of international to that of personal sympathies and
+antipathies. King Milan was promiscuous in affairs of the heart and
+Queen Natalie was jealous. Scenes of domestic discord were frequent and
+violent, and the effect of this atmosphere 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 subjects
+with all his failings, lost his hold on the country after the
+unfortunate war of 1885, and the partisans of the rival dynasty began
+to be hopeful once more. In 1888 King Milan gave Serbia a very much
+more liberal constitution, by which the ministers were for the first
+time made really responsible to the _skupština_ or national assembly,
+replacing that of 1869, and the following year, worried by his
+political and domestic failures, discredited and unpopular both at 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. Ristić, with a radical ministry under M.
+Pašić, an extremely able and patriotic statesman of pro-Russian
+sympathies, who ever since he first became prominent in 1877 had been
+growing in power and influence. But trouble did not cease with the
+abdication of King Milan. He and his wife played Box and Cox at
+Belgrade for the next four years, quarrelling and being reconciled,
+intriguing and fighting round the throne and person of their son. At
+last both parents agreed to leave the country and give the unfortunate
+youth a chance. King Milan settled in Vienna, Queen Natalie in
+Biarritz. In 1893 King Alexander suddenly declared himself of age and
+arrested all his ministers and regents one evening while they were
+dining with him. The next year he abrogated the constitution of 1888,
+under which party warfare in the Serbian parliament had been bitter and
+uninterrupted, obstructing any real progress, and restored that of
+1869. Ever since 1889 (the date of the accession of the German Emperor)
+Berlin had taken more interest in Serbian affairs, and it has been
+alleged that it was William II who, through the wife of the Rumanian
+minister at his court, who was sister of Queen Natalie, influenced King
+Alexander in his abrupt and ill-judged decisions. It was certainly
+German policy to weaken and discredit Serbia and to further Austrian
+influence at Belgrade at the expense of that of Russia. King Milan
+returned for a time to Belgrade in 1897, and the reaction, favourable
+to Austria, which had begun in 1894, increased during his presence and
+under the ministry of Dr. Vladan Gjorgjević, which lasted from 1897
+till 1900. This state of repression caused unrest throughout the
+country. All its energies were absorbed in fruitless political party
+strife, and no material or moral progress was possible. King Alexander,
+distracted, solitary, and helpless 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 relaxation to see his
+mother at Biarritz, he fell violently in love with her lady in waiting,
+Madame Draga Mašin, the divorced wife of a Serbian officer. Her
+somewhat equivocal past was in King Alexander’s eyes quite eclipsed by
+her great beauty and her wit, which had not been impaired by conjugal
+infelicity. Although she was thirty-two, and he only twenty-four, he
+determined to marry her, and the desperate opposition of his parents,
+his army, his ministers, and his people, based principally on the fact
+that the woman was known to be incapable of child-birth, only
+precipitated the accomplishment of his intention. This unfortunate and
+headstrong action on the part of the young king, who, though deficient
+in tact and intuition, had plenty of energy and was by no means stupid,
+might have been forgiven him by his people if, as was at first thought
+possible, it had restored internal peace and prosperity in the country
+and thereby enabled it to prepare itself to take a part in the solution
+o£ those foreign questions which vitally affected Serb interests and
+were already looming on the horizon. But it did not. In 1901 King
+Alexander granted another constitution and for a time attempted to work
+with a coalition ministry; but this failed, and a term of reaction with
+pro-Austrian tendencies, which were favoured by the king and queen, set
+in. This reaction, combined with the growing disorganization of the
+finances and the general sense of the discredit and failure which the
+follies of its rulers had during the last thirty years brought on the
+country; completely undermined the position of the dynasty and made a
+catastrophe inevitable. This occurred, as is well known, on June 10,
+1903, when, as the result of a military conspiracy, King Alexander, the
+last of the Obrenović dynasty, his wife, and her male relatives were
+murdered. This crime was purely political, and it is absurd to gloss it
+over or to explain it merely as the result of the family feud between
+the two dynasties. That came to an end in 1868, when the murder of
+Kara-George in 1817 by the agency of Miloš Obrenović was avenged by the
+lunatic assassination of the brilliant Prince Michael Obrenović III. It
+is no exaggeration to say that, from the point of view of the Serbian
+patriot, the only salvation of his country in 1903 lay in getting rid
+of the Obrenović dynasty, which had become pro-Austrian, had no longer
+the great gifts possessed by its earlier members, and undoubtedly by
+its vagaries hindered the progress of Serbia both in internal and
+external politics. The assassination was unfortunately carried out with
+unnecessary cruelty, and it is this fact that made such a bad
+impression and for so long militated against Serbia in western Europe;
+but it must be remembered that civilization in the Balkans, where
+political murder, far from being a product of the five hundred years of
+Turkish dominion, has always been endemic, is not on the same level in
+many respects as it is in the rest of Europe. Life is one of the
+commodities which are still cheap in backward countries.
+
+Although King Alexander and his wife can in no sense be said to have
+deserved the awful fate that befell them, it is equally true that had
+any other course been adopted, such as 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, it
+was long before things in any sense settled down. As for the alleged
+complicity of the rival dynasty in the crime, it is well established
+that that did not exist. It was no secret to anybody interested in
+Serbian affairs that something catastrophic was about to happen, and
+when the tragedy occurred it was natural to appeal to the alternative
+native dynasty to step into the breach. But the head of that dynasty
+was in no way responsible for the plot, still less for the manner in
+which it was carried out, and it was only after much natural hesitation
+and in the face of his strong disinclination that Prince Peter
+Karagjorgjević was induced to accept the by no means enviable, easy, or
+profitable task of guiding Serbia’s destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903
+was a source neither of glory nor of riches, and it was notoriously no
+sinecure.
+
+After the tragedy, the democratic constitution of 1888 was first of all
+restored, and then Prince Peter Karagjorgjević, grandson of
+Kara-George, the leader of the first Serbian insurrection of 1804-13,
+who was at that time fifty-nine years of age, was unanimously elected
+king. He had married in 1883 a daughter of Prince Nicholas of
+Montenegro and sister of the future Queen of Italy, but she had been
+dead already some years at the time of his accession, leaving him with
+a family of two sons and a daughter.
+
+
+
+
+19
+_Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary,_ 1903–8
+
+
+It was inevitable that, 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 to live down the results. Other
+powers, especially those of western Europe, looked coldly on Serbia and
+were in no hurry to resume diplomatic intercourse, still less to offer
+diplomatic support. The question of the punishment and exile of the
+conspirators was almost impossible of solution, and only time was able
+to obliterate the resentment caused by the whole affair. In Serbia
+itself a great change took place. The new sovereign, though he laboured
+under the greatest possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable
+behaviour, modesty, tact, and strictly constitutional rule, was able to
+withdraw the court of Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it
+had become used. The public finances began to be reorganized, commerce
+began to improve in spite of endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary,
+and attention was again diverted from home to foreign politics. With
+the gradual spread of education and increase of communication, and the
+growth of national self-consciousness amongst the Serbs and Croats of
+Austria-Hungary and the two independent Serb states, a new movement for
+the closer intercourse amongst the various branches of the Serb race
+for south Slav unity, as it was called, gradually began to take shape.
+At the same time a more definitely political agitation started in
+Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating position of economic
+bondage in which the country was held by Austria-Hungary, and was
+roughly justified by the indisputable argument: ‘Serbia must expand or
+die.’ Expansion at the cost of Turkey seemed hopeless, because even the
+acquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a large alien population and
+no maritime outlet. It was towards the Adriatic that the gaze of the
+Serbs was directed, to the coast which was ethnically Serbian and could
+legitimately be considered a heritage of the Serb race.
+
+Macedonia was also taken into account, schools and armed bands began
+their educative activity amongst those inhabitants of the unhappy
+province who were Serb, or who lived in places where Serbs had lived,
+or who with sufficient persuasion could be induced to call themselves
+Serb; but the principal stream of propaganda was directed westwards
+into Bosnia and Hercegovina. The antagonism between Christian and
+Mohammedan, Serb and Turk, was never so bitter as between Christian and
+Christian, Serb and German or Magyar, and the Serbs were clever enough
+to see that Bosnia and Hercegovina, from every point of view, was to
+them worth ten Macedonias, though it would he ten times more difficult
+to obtain. Bosnia and Hercegovina, though containing three confessions,
+were ethnically homogeneous, and it was realised that these two
+provinces were as important to Serbia and Montenegro as the rest of
+Italy had been to Piedmont.
+
+It must at this time be recalled in what an extraordinary way the Serb
+race had fortuitously been broken up into a number of quite arbitrary
+political divisions. Dalmatia (three per cent. of the population of
+which is Italian and all the rest Serb or Croat, preponderatingly Serb
+and Orthodox in the south and preponderating Croat or Roman Catholic in
+the north) was a province of Austria and sent deputies to the
+Reichsrath at Vienna; at the same time it was territorially isolated
+from Austria and had no direct railway connexion with any country
+except a narrow-gauge line into Bosnia. Croatia and Slavonia,
+preponderatingly Roman Catholic, were lands of the Hungarian crown, and
+though they had a provincial pseudo-autonomous diet at Agram, the
+capital of Croatia, they sent deputies to the Hungarian parliament at
+Budapest. Thus what had in the Middle Ages been known as the triune
+kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, with a total Serbo-Croat
+population of three millions, was divided between Austria and Hungary.
+
+Further, there were about 700,000 Serbs and Croats in the south of
+Hungary proper, cast and north of the Danube, known as the Banat and
+Bačka, a district which during the eighteenth and early nineteenth
+centuries was the hearth and home of Serb literature and education, but
+which later waned in importance in that respect as independent Serbia
+grew. These Serbs were directly dependent on Budapest, the only
+autonomy they possessed being ecclesiastical. Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+still nominally Turkish provinces, with a Slav population of nearly two
+million (850,000 Orthodox Serbs, 650,000 Mohammedan Serbs, and the rest
+Roman Catholics), were to all intents and purposes already imperial
+lands of Austria-Hungary, with a purely military and police
+administration; the shadow of Turkish sovereignty provided sufficient
+excuse to the _de facto_ owners of these provinces not to grant the
+inhabitants parliamentary government or even genuine provincial
+autonomy. The Serbs in Serbia numbered nearly three millions, those in
+Montenegro about a quarter of a million; while in Turkey, in what was
+known as Old Serbia (the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pasar between Serbia and
+Montenegro and the vilayet of Korovo), and in parts of northern and
+central Macedonia, there were scattered another half million. These
+last, of course, had no voice at all in the management of their own
+affairs. Those in Montenegro lived under the patriarchal autocracy of
+Prince Nicholas, who had succeeded his uncle, Prince Danilo, in 1860,
+at 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 restless with the restricted possibilities of a career
+which the mountain principality offered them, and in latter years
+migrated in large numbers to North and South America, whither
+emigration from Dalmatia and Croatia too had already readied serious
+proportions. The Serbs in Serbia were the only ones who could claim to
+be free, but even this was a freedom entirely dependent on the economic
+malevolence of Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Cut up in this way by the
+hand of fate into such a number of helpless fragments, it was
+inevitable that the Serb race, if it possessed any vitality, should
+attempt, at any cost, to piece some if not all of them together and
+form an ethnical whole which, economically and politically, should be
+master of its own destinies. It was equally inevitable that the policy
+of Austria-Hungary should be to anticipate or definitively render any
+such attempt impossible, because obviously the formation of a large
+south Slav state, by cutting off Austria from the Adriatic and
+eliminating from the dual monarchy all the valuable territory between
+the Dalmatian coast and the river Drave, would seriously jeopardize its
+position as a great power; it must be remembered, also, that
+Austria-Hungary, far from decomposing, as it was commonly assumed was
+happening, had been enormously increasing in vitality ever since 1878.
+
+The means adopted by the governments of Vienna and Budapest to nullify
+the plans of Serbian expansion were generally to maintain the political
+_émiettement_ of the Serb race, the isolation of one group from
+another, the virtually enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale
+and their substitution by German colonists, and the encouragement of
+rivalry and discord between Roman Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb. No
+railways were allowed to be built in Dalmatia, communication between
+Agram and any other parts of the monarchy except Fiume or Budapest was
+rendered almost impossible; Bosnia and Hercegovina were shut off into a
+watertight compartment and endowed with a national flag composed of the
+inspiring colours of brown and buff; it was made impossible for Serbs
+to visit Montenegro or for Montenegrins to visit Serbia except via
+Fiume, entailing the bestowal of several pounds on the Hungarian state
+steamers and railways. As for the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, it was
+turned into a veritable Tibet, and a legend was spread abroad that if
+any foreigner ventured there he would be surely murdered by Turkish
+brigands; meanwhile it was full of Viennese ladies giving picnics and
+dances and tennis parties 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 more enjoyable by the construction of
+railways, roads, and hotels. At the same time this was not a work of
+pure philanthropy, and the emigration statistics are a good indication
+of the joy with which the Bosnian peasants paid for an annual influx of
+admiring tourists. In spite of all these disadvantages, however, the
+Serbo-Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary could not be deprived of all
+the benefits of living within a large and prosperous customs union,
+while being made to pay for all the expenses of the elaborate imperial
+administration and services; and the spread of education, even under
+the Hapsburg régime, began to tell in time. Simultaneously with the
+agitation which emanated from Serbia and was directed towards the
+advancement, by means of schools and religious and literary propaganda,
+of Serbian influence in Bosnia and Hercegovina, a movement started in
+Dalmatia and Croatia for the closer union of those two provinces. About
+1906 the two movements found expression in the formation of the
+Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb coalition party, composed of those elements
+in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia which favoured closer union between
+the various groups of the Serb race scattered throughout those
+provinces, as well as in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Hercegovina, and
+Turkey. Owing to the circumstances already described, it was impossible
+for the representatives of the Serb race to voice their aspirations
+unanimously in any one parliament, and the work of the coalition,
+except in the provincial diet at Agram, consisted mostly of conducting
+press campaigns and spreading propaganda throughout those provinces.
+The most important thing about the coalition was that it buried
+religious antagonism and put unity of race above difference of belief.
+In this way it came into conflict with the ultramontane Croat party at
+Agram, which wished to incorporate Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia
+with Croatia and create a third purely Roman Catholic Slav state in the
+empire, on a level with Austria and Hungary; also to a lesser extent
+with the intransigent Serbs of Belgrade, who affected to ignore Croatia
+and Roman Catholicism, and only dreamed of bringing Bosnia,
+Hercegovina, and as much of Dalmatia as they could under their own
+rule; and finally it had to overcome the hostility of the Mohammedan
+Serbs of Bosnia, who disliked all Christians equally, could only with
+the greatest difficulty be persuaded that they were really Serbs and
+not Turks, and honestly cared for nothing but Islam and Turkish coffee,
+thus considerably facilitating the germanization of the two provinces.
+The coalition was wisely inclined to postpone the programme of final
+political settlement, and aimed immediately at the removal of the
+material and moral barriers placed between the Serbs of the various
+provinces of Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia and Hercegovina. If they
+had been sure of adequate guarantees they would probably have agreed to
+the inclusion of _all_ Serbs and Croats within the monarchy, because
+the constitution of all Serbs and Croats in an independent state (not
+necessarily a kingdom) without it implied the then problematic
+contingencies of a European war and the disruption of Austria-Hungary.
+Considering the manifold handicaps under which Serbia and its cause
+suffered, the considerable success which its propaganda met with in
+Bosnia and Hercegovina and other parts of Austria-Hungary, from 1903
+till 1908, is a proof, not only of the energy and earnestness of its
+promoters and of the vitality of the Serbian people, but also, if any
+were needed, of the extreme unpopularity of the Hapsburg régime in the
+southern Slav provinces of the dual monarchy. Serbia had no help from
+outside. Russia was entangled in the Far East and then in the
+revolution, and though the new dynasty was approved in St. Petersburg
+Russian sympathy with Serbia was at that time only lukewarm. Relations
+with Austria-Hungary were of course always strained; only one single
+line of railway connected the two countries, and as Austria-Hungary was
+the only profitable market, for geographical reasons, for Serbian
+products, Serbia could be brought to its knees at any moment by the
+commercial closing of the frontier. It was a symbol of the economic
+vassalage of Serbia and Montenegro that the postage between both of
+these countries and any part of Austria-Hungary was ten centimes, that
+for letters between Serbia and Montenegro, which had to make the long
+détour through Austrian territory, was twenty-five. But though this
+opened the Serbian markets to Austria, it also incidentally opened
+Bosnia, when the censor could be circumvented to propaganda by pamphlet
+and correspondence. Intercourse with western Europe was restricted by
+distance, and, owing to dynastic reasons, diplomatic relations were
+altogether suspended for several years between this country and Serbia.
+The Balkan States Exhibition held in London during the summer of 1907,
+to encourage trade between Great Britain and the Balkans, was hardly a
+success. Italy and Serbia had nothing in common. With Montenegro even,
+despite the fact that King Peter was Prince Nicholas’s son-in-law,
+relations were bad. It was felt in Serbia that Prince Nicholas’s
+autocratic rule acted as a brake on the legitimate development of the
+national consciousness, and Montenegrin students who visited Belgrade
+returned to their homes full of 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
+enjoy the special favour as well as the financial support of the
+Russian court, and which, looked on throughout Europe as a picturesque
+and harmless institution, it would have been dangerous, as it was quite
+unnecessary, to touch.
+
+Serbia was thus left entirely to its own resources in the great
+propagandist activity which filled the years 1903 to 1908. The
+financial means at its disposal were exiguous in the extreme,
+especially when compared with the enormous sums lavished annually by
+the Austrian and German governments on their secret political services,
+so that the efforts of its agents cannot be ascribed to cupidity. Also
+it must be admitted that the kingdom of Serbia, with its capital
+Belgrade, thanks to the internal chaos and dynastic scandals of the
+previous forty years, resulting in superficial dilapidation,
+intellectual stagnation, and general poverty, lacked the material as
+well as the moral glamour which a successful Piedmont should possess.
+Nobody could deny, for instance, that, with all its natural advantages,
+Belgrade was at first sight not nearly such an attractive centre as
+Agram or Sarajevo, or that the qualities which the Serbs of Serbia had
+displayed since their emancipation were hardly such as to command the
+unstinted confidence and admiration of their as yet unredeemed
+compatriots. Nevertheless the Serbian propaganda in favour of what was
+really a Pan-Serb movement met with great success, especially in
+Bosnia, Hercegovina, 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 conflicts with the government at Budapest.
+Both the one movement and the other naturally evoked great alarm and
+emotion in the Austrian and Hungarian capitals, as they were seen to be
+genuinely popular and also potentially, if not actually, separatist in
+character. In October 1906 Baron Achrenthal succeeded Count Goluchowski
+as Minister for Foreign Affairs at Vienna, and very soon initiated a
+more vigorous and incidentally anti-Slav foreign policy than his
+predecessor. What was now looked on as the Serbian danger had in the
+eyes of Vienna assumed such proportions that the time for decisive
+action was considered to have arrived. In January 1908 Baron Achrenthal
+announced his scheme for a continuation of the Bosnian railway system
+through the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar to link 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 international
+commerce, while the engineering difficulties were such that the cost of
+construction would have been prohibitive. But the possibilities which
+this move indicated, the palpable evidence it contained of the
+notorious _Drang nach Osten_ of the Germanic powers towards Salonika
+and Constantinople, were quite sufficient to fill the ministries of
+Europe, and especially those of Russia, with extreme uneasiness. The
+immediate result of this was that concerted action between Russia and
+Austria-Hungary in the Balkans was thenceforward impossible, and the
+Mürzsteg programme, after a short and precarious existence, came to an
+untimely end (cf. chap. 12). Serbia and Montenegro, face to face with
+this new danger which threatened permanently to separate their
+territories, were beside themselves, and immediately parried with the
+project, hardly more practicable in view of their international credit,
+of a Danube-Adriatic railway. In July 1908 the nerves of Europe were
+still further tried by the Young Turk revolution in Constantinople. The
+imminence of this movement was known to Austro-German diplomacy, and
+doubtless this knowledge, as well as the fear of the Pan-Serb movement,
+prompted the Austrian foreign minister to take steps towards the
+definitive regularization of his country’s position in Bosnia and
+Hercegovina—provinces whose suzerain was still the Sultan of Turkey.
+The effect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan States was as any one
+who visited them at that time can testify, both pathetic and intensely
+humorous. The permanent chaos of the Turkish empire, and the process of
+watching for years its gradual but inevitable decomposition, had
+created amongst the neighbouring states an atmosphere of excited
+anticipation, which was really the breath of their nostrils; it had
+stimulated them during the endless Macedonian insurrections to commit
+the most awful outrages against each other’s nationals and then lay the
+blame at the door of the unfortunate Turk; and if the Turk should
+really regenerate himself, not only would their occupation be gone, but
+the heavily-discounted legacies would assuredly elude their grasp. At
+the same time, since the whole policy of exhibiting and exploiting the
+horrors of Macedonia, and of organizing guerilla bands and provoking
+intervention, was based on the refusal of the Turks to grant reforms,
+as soon as the ultra-liberal constitution of Midhat Pasha, which, had
+been withdrawn after a brief and unsuccessful run in 1876, was restored
+by the Young Turks, there was nothing left for the Balkan States to do
+but to applaud with as much enthusiasm as they could simulate. The
+emotions experienced by the Balkan peoples during that summer, beneath
+the smiles which they had to assume, were exhausting even for southern
+temperaments. Bulgaria, with its characteristic matter-of-factness, was
+the first to adjust itself to the new and trying situation in which the
+only certainty was that something decisive had got to be done with all
+possible celerity. On October 5, 1908, Prince Ferdinand sprang on an
+astonished continent the news that he renounced the Turkish suzerainty
+(ever since 1878 the Bulgarian principality had been a tributary and
+vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, and therefore, with all its
+astonishingly rapid progress and material prosperity, a subject for
+commiseration in the kingdoms of Serbia and Greece) and proclaimed the
+independence of Bulgaria, with himself, as Tsar of the Bulgars, at its
+head. Europe had not recovered from this shock, still less Belgrade and
+Athens, when, two days later. Baron Aehrenthal announced the formal
+annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Emperor Francis Joseph.
+Whereas most people had virtually forgotten the Treaty of Berlin and
+had come to look on Austria as just as permanently settled in these two
+provinces as was Great Britain in Egypt and Cyprus, yet the formal
+breach of the stipulations of that treaty on Austria’s part, by
+annexing the provinces without notice to or consultation with the other
+parties concerned, gave the excuse for a somewhat ridiculous hue and
+cry on the part of the other powers, and especially on that of Russia.
+The effect of these blows from right and left on Serbia was literally
+paralysing. When Belgrade recovered the use of its organs, it started
+to scream for war and revenue, and initiated an international crisis
+from which Europe did not recover till the following year. Meanwhile,
+almost unobserved by the peoples of Serbia 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 its garrisons from the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, thus
+evacuating the long-coveted corridor which was the one thing above all
+else necessary to Serbia and Montenegro for the realization of their
+plans.
+
+
+
+
+20
+_Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars,_ 1908–13 (cf. Chap,
+13)
+
+
+The winter of 1908-9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia’s fortunes. The
+successive _coups_ and _faits accomplis_ carried out by Austria,
+Turkey, and Bulgaria during 1908 seemed destined to destroy for good
+the Serbian plans for expansion in any direction whatever, and if these
+could not be realized then Serbia must die of suffocation. It was also
+well understood that for all the martial ardour displayed in Belgrade
+the army was in no condition to take the field any more than was the
+treasury to bear the cost of a campaign; Russia had not yet recovered
+from the Japanese War followed by the revolution, and indeed everything
+pointed to the certainty that if Serbia indulged in hostilities against
+Austria-Hungary it would perish ignominiously and alone. The worst of
+it was that neither Serbia nor Montenegro had any legal claim to Bosnia
+and Hercegovina: they had been deluding themselves with the hope that
+their ethnical identity with the people of these provinces, supported
+by the effects of their propaganda, would induce a compassionate and
+generous Europe at least to insist on their being given a part of the
+coveted territory, and thus give Serbia access to the coast, when the
+ambiguous position of these two valuable provinces, still nominally
+Turkish but already virtually Austrian, came to be finally regularized.
+As a matter of fact, ever since Bismarck, Gorchakóv, and Beaconsfield
+had put Austria-Hungary in their possession in 1878, no one had
+seriously thought that the Dual Monarchy would ever voluntarily retire
+from one inch of the territory which had been conquered and occupied at
+such cost, and those who noticed it were astonished at the evacuation
+by it of the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar. At the same time Baron Achrenthal
+little foresaw what a hornet’s nest he would bring about his ears by
+the tactless method in which the annexation was carried out. The first
+effect was to provoke a complete boycott of Austro-Hungarian goods and
+trading vessels throughout the Ottoman Empire, which was so harmful to
+the Austrian export trade that in January 1909 Count Achrenthal had to
+indemnify Turkey with the sum of £2,500,000 for his technically stolen
+property. Further, the attitude of Russia and Serbia throughout the
+whole winter remained so provocative and threatening that, although war
+was generally considered improbable, the Austrian army had to be kept
+on a war footing, which involved great expense and much popular
+discontent. The grave external crisis was only solved at the end of
+March 1909; Germany had had to deliver a veiled ultimatum at St.
+Petersburg, the result of which was the rescue of Austria-Hungary from
+an awkward situation by the much-advertised appearance of its faithful
+ally in shining armour. Simultaneously Serbia had to eat humble pie and
+declare, with complete absence of truth, that the annexation of Bosnia
+and Hercegovina had not affected its interests.
+
+Meanwhile the internal complications in the southern Slav provinces of
+Austria-Hungary were growing formidable. Ever since the summer of 1908
+arrests 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 of this
+agitation in order to justify abroad the pressing need for the formal
+annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina. The fact was that, though
+immediate danger to the monarchy as a result of the Pan-Serb agitation
+was known not to exist, yet in the interests of Austrian foreign
+policy, the Serbs had to be compromised in the eyes of Europe, the
+Croato-Serb coalition within the Dual Monarchy had to be destroyed to
+gratify Budapest in particular, and the religious and political discord
+between Croat and Serb, on which the foundation of the power of
+Austria-Hungary, and especially that of Hungary, in the south rested,
+and which was in a fair way of being eliminated through the efforts of
+the coalition, had to be revived by some means or other. It is not
+possible here to go into the details of the notorious Agram high
+treason trial, which was the outcome of all this. It suffices to say
+that it was a monstrous travesty of justice which lasted from March
+till October 1909, and though it resulted in the ostensible destruction
+of the coalition and the imprisonment of many of its members, it
+defeated its own ends, as it merely fanned the flame of nationalistic
+feeling against Vienna and Budapest, and Croatia has ever since had to
+be governed virtually by martial law. This was followed in December
+1909 by the even more famous Friedjung trial. In March 1909 Count
+Achrenthal had begun in Vienna a violent press campaign against Serbia,
+accusing the Serbian Government and dynasty of complicity in the
+concoction of nefarious designs and conspiracies against the integrity
+of Austria-Hungary. This campaign was thought to be the means of
+foreshadowing and justifying the immediate military occupation of
+Serbia. Unfortunately its instigator had not been sufficiently
+particular as to the choice of his tools and his methods of using them.
+Among the contributors of the highly tendencious articles was the
+well-known historian Dr. Friedjung, who made extensive use of documents
+supplied him by the Vienna Foreign Office. His accusations immediately
+provoked an action for libel on the part of three leaders of the
+Croato-Serb coalition who were implicated, in December 1909. The trial,
+which was highly sensational, resulted in the complete vindication and
+rehabilitation both of those three Austrian subjects in the eyes of the
+whole of Austria-Hungary and of the Belgrade Foreign Office in those of
+Europe; the documents on which the charges were based were proven to be
+partly forgeries, partly falsified, and partly stolen by various
+disreputable secret political agents of the Austrian Foreign Office,
+and one of the principal Serbian ‘conspirators’, a professor of
+Belgrade University, proved that he was in Berlin at the time when he
+had been accused of presiding over a revolutionary meeting at Belgrade.
+But it also resulted in the latter discrediting of Count Achrenthal as
+a diplomat and of the methods by which he conducted the business of the
+Austrian Foreign Office, and involved his country in the expenditure of
+countless millions which it could ill afford.
+
+There never was any doubt that a subversive agitation had been going
+on, and that it emanated in part from Serbia, but the Serbian Foreign
+Office, under the able management of Dr. Milovanović and Dr.
+Spalajković (one of the principal witnesses at the Friedjung trial),
+was far too clever to allow any of its members, or indeed any
+responsible person in Serbia, to be concerned in it, and the brilliant
+way in which the clumsy and foolish charges were refuted redounded
+greatly to the credit of the Serbian Government. Count Achrenthal had
+overreached himself, and moreover the wind had already been taken out
+of his sails by the public recantation on Serbia’s part of its
+pretensions to Bosnia, which, as already mentioned, took place at the
+end of March 1909, and by the simultaneous termination of the
+international crisis marked by Russia’s acquiescence in the _fait
+accompli_ of the annexation. At the same time the Serbian Crown Prince
+George, King Peter’s elder son, who had been the leader of the
+chauvinist war-party in Serbia, and was somewhat theatrical in
+demeanour and irresponsible in character, renounced his rights of
+succession in favour of his younger brother Prince Alexander, a much
+steadier and more talented young man. It is certain that when he
+realized how things were going to develop Count Achrenthal tried to
+hush up the whole incident, but it was too late, and Dr. Friedjung
+insisted on doing what he could to save his reputation as a historian.
+In the end he was made the principal scapegoat, though the press of
+Vienna voiced its opinion of the Austrian Foreign Office in no measured
+tones, saying, amongst other things, that if the conductors of its
+diplomacy must use forgeries, they might at any rate secure good ones.
+Eventually a compromise was arranged, after the defendant had clearly
+lost his case, owing to pressure being brought to bear from outside,
+and the Serbian Government refrained from carrying out its threat of
+having the whole question threshed out before the Hague Tribunal.
+
+The cumulative effect of all these exciting and trying experiences was
+the growth of a distinctly more sympathetic feeling towards Serbia in
+Europe at large, and especially a rallying of all the elements
+throughout the Serb and Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary, except the
+extreme clericals of Agram, to the Serbian cause; briefly, the effect
+was the exact opposite of that desired by Vienna and Budapest.
+Meanwhile events had been happening elsewhere which revived the
+drooping interest and flagging hopes of Serbia in the development of
+foreign affairs. The attainment of power by the Young Turks and the
+introduction of parliamentary government had brought no improvement to
+the internal condition of the Ottoman Empire, and the Balkan peoples
+made no effort to conceal their satisfaction at the failure 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 service and
+obligatory payment of taxes caused a revolution in Albania, where such
+innovations were not at all appreciated. From 1909 till 1911 there was
+a state of perpetual warfare in Albania, with which the Young Turks, in
+spite of cruel reprisals, were unable to cope, until, in the summer of
+that year, Austria threatened to intervene unless order were restored;
+some sort of settlement was patched up, and an amnesty was granted to
+the rebels by the new Sultan. This unfortunate man, after being
+rendered almost half-witted by having been for the greater part of his
+life kept a prisoner by his brother the tyrant Abdul Hamid, was now the
+captive of the Young Turks, and had been compelled by them to make as
+triumphal a progress as fears for his personal safety would allow
+through the provinces of European Turkey. But it was obvious to Balkan
+statesmen that Turkey was only changed in name, and that, if its
+threatened regeneration had slightly postponed their plans for its
+partition amongst themselves, the ultimate consummation of these plans
+must be pursued with, if possible, even greater energy and expedition
+than before. It was also seen by the more perspicacious of them that
+the methods hitherto adopted must in future be radically altered. A
+rejuvenated though unreformed Turkey, bent on self-preservation, could
+not be despised, and it was understood that if the revolutionary bands
+of the three Christian nations (Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria) were to
+continue indefinitely to cut each others’ throats in Macedonia the
+tables might conceivably be turned on them.
+
+From 1909 onwards a series of phenomena occurred in the Balkans which
+ought to have given warning to the Turks, whose survival in Europe had
+been due solely to the fact that the Balkan States had never been able
+to unite. In the autumn of 1909 King Ferdinand of Bulgaria met Crown
+Prince Alexander of Serbia and made an expedition in his company to
+Mount Kopaonik in Serbia, renowned for the beauty of its flora. This
+must have struck those who remembered the bitter feelings which had
+existed between the two countries for years and had been intensified by
+the events of 1908. Bulgaria had looked on Serbia’s failures with
+persistent contempt, while Serbia had watched Bulgaria’s successful
+progress with speechless jealousy, and the memory of Slivnitsa was not
+yet obliterated. In the summer of 1910 Prince Nicholas of Montenegro
+celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his reign and his golden
+wedding. The festivities were attended by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria
+and the Crown Prince Boris, by the Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and
+his sister, grandchildren of Prince Nicholas, by his two daughters the
+Queen of Italy and the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, and by their
+husbands, King Victor Emmanuel and the Grand Duke Nicholas. The
+happiness of the venerable ruler, who was as respected throughout
+Europe as he was feared throughout his principality, was at the same
+time completed by his recognition as king by all the governments and
+sovereigns of the continent. The hopes that he would simultaneously
+introduce a more liberal form of government amongst his own people were
+unfortunately disappointed.
+
+The year 1911, it need scarcely be recalled, was extremely fateful for
+the whole of Europe. The growing restlessness and irritability
+manifested by the German Empire began to make all the other governments
+feel exceedingly uneasy. The French expedition to Fez in April was
+followed by the Anglo-Franco-German crisis of July; war was avoided,
+and France was recognized as virtually master of Morocco, but the
+soreness of the diplomatic defeat rendered Germany a still more trying
+neighbour than it had been before. The first repercussion was the war
+which broke out in September 1911 between Italy and Turkey for the
+possession of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, which Italy, with its usual
+insight, saw was vital to its position as a Mediterranean power and
+therefore determined to acquire before any other power had time or
+courage to do so. In the Balkans this was a year of observation and
+preparation. Serbia, taught by the bitter lesson of 1908 not to be
+caught again unprepared, had spent much money and care on its army
+during the last few years and had brought it to a much higher state of
+efficiency. In Austria-Hungary careful observers wore aware that
+something was afoot and that the gaze of Serbia, which from 1903 till
+1908 had been directed westwards to Bosnia and the Adriatic, had since
+1908 been fixed on Macedonia and the Aegean. The actual formation of
+the Balkan League by King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos may not have been
+known, but it was realized that action of some sort on the part of the
+Balkan States was imminent, and that something must be done to
+forestall it. In February 1912 Count Aehrenthal died, and was succeeded
+by Count Berchtold as Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs. In
+August of the same year this minister unexpectedly announced his new
+and startling proposals for the introduction of reforms in Macedonia,
+which nobody in the Balkans who had any material interest in the fate
+of that province genuinely desired at that moment; the motto of the new
+scheme was ‘progressive decentralization’, blessed words which soothed
+the great powers as much as they alarmed the Balkan Governments. But
+already in May 1912 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between
+Bulgaria and Serbia had been concluded, limiting their respective zones
+of influence in the territory which they hoped to conquer. It was, to
+any one who has any knowledge of Balkan history, incredible that the
+various Governments had been able to come to any agreement at all. That
+arrived at by Bulgaria and Serbia divided Macedonia between them in
+such a way that Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia with Monastir
+and Okhrida, and Serbia northern Macedonia or Old Serbia; there was an
+indeterminate zone between the two spheres, including Skoplje (Üsküb,
+in Turkish), the exact division of which it was agreed to leave to
+arbitration at a subsequent date.
+
+The Macedonian theatre of war was by common consent regarded as the
+most important, and Bulgaria here promised Serbia the assistance of
+100,000 men. The Turks meanwhile were aware that all was not what it
+seemed beyond the frontiers, and in August 1912 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 awful sufferings of their compatriots under
+Turkish misrule, gradually became exhausted. On September 28 the four
+Balkan Governments informed Russia that the Balkan League was an
+accomplished fact, and on the 30th the representatives of all four
+signed the alliance, and mobilization was ordered in Greece, Bulgaria,
+and Serbia. The population of Montenegro was habitually on a war
+footing, and it was left to the mountain kingdom from its
+geographically favourable position to open hostilities. On October 8
+Montenegro declared war on Turkey, and after a series of brilliant
+successes along the frontier its forces settled down to the wearisome
+and arduous siege of Scutari with its impregnable sentinel, Mount
+Taraboš, converted into a modern fortress; the unaccustomed nature of
+these tasks, to which the Montenegrin troops, used to the adventures of
+irregular warfare, were little suited, tried the valour and patience of
+the intrepid mountaineers to the utmost. By that time Europe was in a
+ferment, and both Russia and Austria, amazed at having the initiative
+in the regulation of Balkan affairs 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 that the offer of
+outside assistance and advice had come too late, and that they had
+decided themselves to redress the intolerable and secular wrongs of
+their long-suffering compatriots in Macedonia by force of arms. To
+their dismay a treaty of peace was signed at Lausanne about the same
+time between Turkey and Italy, which power, it had been hoped, would
+have distracted Turkey’s attention by a continuance of hostilities in
+northern Africa, and at any rate immobilized the Turkish fleet.
+Encouraged by this success Turkey boldly declared war on Bulgaria and
+Serbia on October 17, hoping to frighten Greece and detach it from the
+league; but on the 18th the Greek Government replied by declaring war
+on Turkey, thus completing the necessary formalities. The Turks were
+confident of an early and easy victory, and hoped to reach Sofia, not
+from Constantinople and Thrace, but pushing up north-eastwards from
+Macedonia. The rapid offensive of the Serbian army, however, took them
+by surprise, and they were completely overwhelmed at the battle of
+Kumanovo in northern Macedonia on October 23-4, 1912. On the 31st King
+Peter made his triumphal entry into Skoplje (ex-Üsküb), the ancient
+capital of Serbia under Tsar Stephen Dušan in the fourteenth century.
+From there the Serbian army pursued the Turks southward, and at the
+battles of Prilep (November 5) and Monastir (November 19), after
+encountering the most stubborn opposition, finally put an end to their
+resistance in this part of the theatre of war. On November 9 the Greeks
+entered Salonika.
+
+Meanwhile other divisions of the Serbian army had joined hands with the
+Montenegrins, and occupied almost without opposition the long-coveted
+_sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar (the ancient Serb Raška), to the inexpressible
+rage of Austria-Hungary, which had evacuated it in 1908 in favour of
+its rightful owner, Turkey. At the same time a Serbian expeditionary
+corps marched right through Albania, braving great hardships on the
+way, and on November 30 occupied Durazzo, thus securing at last a
+foothold on the Adriatic. Besides all this, Serbia, in fulfilment of
+its treaty obligations, dispatched 50,000 splendidly equipped men,
+together with a quantity of heavy siege artillery, to help the
+Bulgarians at the siege of Adrianople. On December 3 an armistice was
+signed between the belligerents, with the condition that the three
+besieged Turkish fortresses of Adrianople, Scutari, and Yanina must not
+be re-victualled, and on December 16, 1912, peace negotiations were
+opened between representatives of the belligerent countries in London.
+Meanwhile the Germanic powers, dismayed by the unexpected victories of
+the Balkan armies and humiliated by the crushing defeats in the field
+of the German-trained Turkish army, had since the beginning of November
+been doing everything in their power to support their client Turkey and
+prevent its final extinction and at the same time the blighting of
+their ambitions eventually to acquire the Empire of the Near East.
+During the conference in London between the plenipotentiaries of the
+belligerents, parallel meetings took place between the representatives
+of the great powers, whose relations with each other were strained and
+difficult in the extreme. The Turkish envoys prolonged the
+negotiations, as was their custom; they naturally were unwilling to
+concede their European provinces to the despised and hated Greek and
+Slavonic conquerors, but the delays implied growing hardships for their
+besieged and starving garrisons in Thrace, Epirus, and Albania. On
+January 23, 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 object of interrupting the
+negotiations and staking all on the result of a final battle. As a
+result of these events, and of the palpable disingenuousness of the
+Turks in continuing the negotiations in London, the Balkan delegates on
+January 29 broke them off, and on February 3, 1913, hostilities were
+resumed. At length, after a siege of nearly five months, Adrianople,
+supplied with infinitely better artillery than the allies possessed,
+was taken by the combined Serbian and Bulgarian forces on March 26,
+1913. The Serbian troops at Adrianople captured 17,010 Turkish
+prisoners, 190 guns, and the Turkish commander himself, Shukri Pasha.
+
+At the outbreak of the war in the autumn of 1912 the Balkan States had
+observed all the conventions, disavowing designs of territorial
+aggrandizement and proclaiming their resolve merely to obtain
+guarantees for the better treatment of the Christian inhabitants of
+Macedonia; the powers, for their part, duly admonished the naughty
+children of south-eastern Europe to the effect that no alteration of
+the territorial _status quo ante_ would under any circumstances be
+tolerated. During the negotiations in London, interrupted in January,
+and resumed in the spring of 1913 after the fall of Adrianople, it was
+soon made clear that in spite of all these magniloquent declarations
+nothing would be as it had been before. Throughout the winter
+Austria-Hungary had been mobilizing troops and massing them along the
+frontiers of Serbia and Montenegro, any increase in the size of which
+countries meant a crushing blow to the designs of the Germanic powers
+and the end to all the dreams embodied in the phrase ‘Drang nach Osten’
+(‘pushing eastwards’).
+
+In the spring of 1913 Serbia and Montenegro, instead 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
+_sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, of 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 than Austria could
+stand, and at the renewed conference of London it was decided that they
+must retire. In the interests of nationality, in which the Balkan
+States themselves undertook the war, it was desirable that at any rate
+an attempt should be made to create an independent state of Albania,
+though no one who knew the local conditions felt confident as to its
+ultimate career. Its creation assuaged the consciences of the Liberal
+Government in Great Britain and at the same time admirably suited the
+strategic plans of Austria-Hungary. It left that country a loophole for
+future diplomatic efforts to disturb the peace of south-eastern Europe,
+and, with its own army in Bosnia and its political agents and irregular
+troops in Albania, Serbia and Montenegro, even though enlarged as it
+was generally recognized they must be, would be held in a vice and
+could be threatened and bullied from the south now as well as from the
+north whenever it was in the interests of Vienna and Budapest to apply
+the screw. The independence of Albania was declared at the conference
+of London on May 30, 1913. Scutari was included in it as being a purely
+Albanian town, and King Nicholas and his army, after enjoying its
+coveted flesh-pots for a few halcyon weeks, had, to their
+mortification, to retire to the barren fastnesses of the Black
+Mountain. Serbia, frustrated by Austria in its attempts, generally
+recognized as legitimate, to obtain even a commercial outlet on the
+Adriatic, naturally again diverted its aims southwards to Salonika. The
+Greeks were already in possession of this important city and seaport,
+as well as of the whole of southern Macedonia. The Serbs were in
+possession of central and northern Macedonia, including Monastir and
+Okhrida, which they had at great sacrifices conquered from the Turks.
+It had been agreed that Bulgaria, as its share of the spoils, should
+have all central Macedonia, with Monastir and Okhrida, although on
+ethnical grounds the Bulgarians have only very slightly better claim to
+the country and towns west of the Vardar than any of the other Balkan
+nationalities. But at the time that the agreement had been concluded it
+had been calculated in Greece and Serbia that Albania, far from being
+made independent, would be divided between them, and that Serbia,
+assured of a strip of coast on the Adriatic, would have no interest in
+the control of the river Vardar and of the railway which follows its
+course connecting the interior of Serbia with the port of Salonika.
+Greece and Serbia had no ground whatever for quarrel and no cause for
+mutual distrust, and they were determined, for political and commercial
+reasons, to have a considerable extent of frontier from west to east in
+common. The creation of an independent Albania completely altered the
+situation. If Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia and thus secure
+a frontier from north to south in common with the newly-formed state of
+Albania, then Greece would be at the mercy of its hereditary enemies
+the Bulgars and Arnauts (Albanians) as it had previously been at the
+mercy of the Turks, while Serbia would have two frontiers between
+itself and the sea instead of one, as before, and its complete economic
+strangulation would be rendered inevitable and rapid. Bulgaria for its
+own part naturally refused to waive its claim to central Macedonia,
+well knowing that the master of the Vardar valley is master of the
+Balkan peninsula. The first repercussion of the ephemeral treaty of
+London of May 30, 1913, which created Albania and shut out Serbia from
+the Adriatic, was, therefore, as the diplomacy of the Germanic powers
+had all along intended it should be, the beginning of a feud between
+Greece and Serbia on the one hand, and Bulgaria on the other, the
+disruption of the Balkan League and the salvation, for the ultimate
+benefit of Germany, of what was left of Turkey in Europe.
+
+The dispute as to the exact division of the conquered territory in
+Macedonia between Serbia and Bulgaria had, as arranged, been referred
+to arbitration, and, the Tsar of Russia having been chosen as judge,
+the matter was being threshed out in St. Petersburg during June 1913.
+Meanwhile Bulgaria, determined to make good its claim to the chestnuts
+which Greece and Serbia had pulled out of the Turkish fire, was
+secretly collecting troops along its temporary south-western
+frontier[1] with the object, in approved Germanic fashion, 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 at any rate assisting him in the task.
+
+[Footnote 1: This was formed by the stream Zletovska, a tributary of
+the river Bregalnica, which in its turn falls into the Vardar on its
+left or eastern bank about 40 miles south of Skoplje (Üsküb).]
+
+On the other hand, the relations between Bulgaria and its two allies
+had been noticeably growing worse ever since January 1913; Bulgaria
+felt aggrieved that, in spite of its great sacrifices, it had not been
+able to occupy so much territory as Greece and Serbia, and the fact
+that Adrianople was taken with Serbian help did not improve the feeling
+between the two Slav nations. The growth of Bulgarian animosity put
+Greece and Serbia on their guard, and, well knowing the direction which
+an eventual attack would take, these two countries on June 2, 1913,
+signed a military convention and made all the necessary dispositions
+for resisting any aggression on Bulgaria’s part. At one o’clock in the
+morning of June 30 the Bulgarians, without provocation, without
+declaration of war, and without warning, crossed the Bregalnica (a
+tributary of the Vardar) and attacked the Serbs. A most violent battle
+ensued which lasted for several days; at some points the Bulgarians,
+thanks to the suddenness of their offensive, were temporarily
+successful, but gradually the Serbs regained the upper hand and by July
+1 the Bulgarians were beaten. The losses were very heavy on both sides,
+but the final issue was a complete triumph for the Serbian army.
+Slivnitsa was avenged by the battle of the Bregalnica, just as Kosovo
+was by that of Kumanovo. After a triumphant campaign of one month, in
+which the Serbs were joined by the Greeks, Bulgaria had to bow to the
+inevitable. The Rumanian army had invaded northern Bulgaria, bent on
+maintaining the Balkan equilibrium and on securing compensation for
+having observed neutrality during the war of 1912-13, and famine
+reigned at Sofia. A conference was arranged at Bucarest, and the treaty
+of that name was signed there on August 10, 1913. By the terms of this
+treaty Serbia retained the whole of northern and central Macedonia,
+including Monastir and Okhrida, and the famous _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar
+was divided between Serbia and Montenegro. Some districts of
+east-central Macedonia, which were genuinely Bulgarian, were included
+in Serbian territory, as Serbia naturally did not wish, after the
+disquieting and costly experience of June and July 1913, to give the
+Bulgarians another chance of separating Greek from Serbian territory by
+a fresh surprise attack, and the further the Bulgarians could be kept
+from the Vardar river and railway the less likelihood there was of
+this. The state of feeling in the Germanic capitals and in Budapest
+after this ignominious defeat of their protégé Bulgaria and after this
+fresh triumph of the despised and hated Serbians can be imagined.
+Bitterly disappointed first at seeing the Turks vanquished by the
+Balkan League—their greatest admirers could not even claim that the
+Turks had had any ‘moral’ victories—their chagrin, when they saw the
+Bulgarians trounced by the Serbians, knew no bounds. That the secretly
+prepared attack on Serbia by Bulgaria was planned in Vienna and
+Budapest there is no doubt. That Bulgaria was justified in feeling
+disappointment and resentment at the result of the first Balkan War no
+one denies, but the method chosen to redress its wrongs could only have
+been suggested by the Germanic school of diplomacy.
+
+In Serbia and Montenegro the result of the two successive Balkan Wars,
+though these had exhausted the material resources of the two countries,
+was a justifiable return of national self-confidence and rejoicing such
+as the people, humiliated and impoverished as it had habitually been by
+its internal and external troubles, had not known for very many years.
+At last Serbia and Montenegro had joined hands. At last Old Serbia was
+restored to the free kingdom. At last Skoplje, the mediaeval capital of
+Tsar Stephen Dušan, was again in Serbian territory. At last one of the
+most important portions of unredeemed Serbia had been reclaimed.
+Amongst the Serbs and Croats of Bosnia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia,
+Slavonia, and southern Hungary the effect of the Serbian victories was
+electrifying. Military prowess 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 Serbian peasant soldiers
+immediately imparted a heroic glow to the country whose very name, at
+any rate in central Europe, had become a byword, and a synonym for
+failure; Belgrade became the cynosure and the rallying-centre of the
+whole Serbo-Croatian race. But Vienna and Budapest could only lose
+courage and presence of mind for the moment, and the undeniable success
+of the Serbian arms merely sharpened their appetite for revenge. In
+August 1913 Austria-Hungary, as is now known, secretly prepared an
+aggression on Serbia, but was restrained, partly by the refusal of
+Italy to grant its approval of such action, partly because the
+preparations of Germany at that time were not complete. The fortunate
+Albanian question provided, for the time being, a more convenient rod
+with which to beat Serbia. Some Serbian troops had remained in
+possession of certain frontier towns and districts which were included
+in the territory of the infant state of Albania pending the final
+settlement of the frontiers by a commission. On October 18, 1913,
+Austria addressed an ultimatum to Serbia to evacuate these, as its
+continued occupation of them caused offence and disquiet to the Dual
+Monarchy. Serbia meekly obeyed. Thus passed away the last rumble of the
+storms which had filled the years 1912-13 in south-eastern Europe.
+
+The credulous believed that the Treaty of Bucarest had at last brought
+peace to that distracted part of the world. Those who knew their
+central Europe realized that Berlin had only forced Vienna to acquiesce
+in the Treaty of Bucarest because the time had not yet come. But come
+what might, Serbia and Montenegro, by having linked up their territory
+and by forming a mountain barrier from the Danube to the Adriatic, made
+it far more difficult for the invader to push his way through to the
+East than it would have been before the battles of Kumanovo and
+Bregalnica.
+
+
+
+
+GREECE
+
+
+
+
+1
+_From Ancient to Modern Greece_
+
+
+The name of Greece has two entirely different associations in our
+minds. Sometimes it calls up a wonderful literature enshrined in a
+‘dead language’, and exquisite works of a vanished art recovered by the
+spade; at other times it is connected with the currant-trade returns
+quoted on the financial page of our newspapers or with the ‘Balance of
+Power’ discussed in their leading articles. Ancient and Modern Greece
+both mean much to us, but usually we are content to accept them as
+independent phenomena, and we seldom pause to wonder whether there is
+any deeper connexion between them than their name. It is the purpose of
+these pages to ask and give some answer to this question.
+
+The thought that his own Greece might perish, to be succeeded by
+another Greece after the lapse of more than two thousand years, would
+have caused an Ancient Greek surprise. In the middle of the fifth
+century B.C., Ancient Greek civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous
+and secure. A generation before, it had flung back the onset of a
+political power which combined all the momentum of all the other
+contemporary civilizations in the world; and the victory had proved not
+merely the superiority of Greek arms—the Spartan spearman and the
+Athenian galley—but the superior vitality of Greek politics—the
+self-governing, self-sufficing city-state. In these cities a wonderful
+culture had burst into flower—an art expressing itself with equal
+mastery in architecture, sculpture, and drama, a science which ranged
+from the most practical medicine to the most abstract mathematics, and
+a philosophy which blended art, science, and religion into an
+ever-developing and ever more harmonious view of the universe. A
+civilization so brilliant and so versatile as this seemed to have an
+infinite future before it, yet even here death lurked in ambush.
+
+When the cities ranged themselves in rival camps, and squandered their
+strength on the struggle for predominance, the historian of the
+Peloponnesian war could already picture Athens and Sparta in ruins,[1]
+and the catastrophe began to warp the soul of Plato before he had
+carried Greek philosophy to its zenith. This internecine strife of free
+communities was checked within a century by the imposition of a single
+military autocracy over them all, and Alexander the Great crowned his
+father Philip’s work by winning new worlds for Hellenism from the
+Danube to the Ganges and from the Oxus to the Nile. The city-state and
+its culture were to be propagated under his aegis, but this vision
+vanished with Alexander’s death, and Macedonian militarism proved a
+disappointment. The feuds of these crowned condottieri harassed the
+cities more sorely than their own quarrels, and their arms could not
+even preserve the Hellenic heritage against 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 had seen, Rome conquered all
+the coasts of the Mediterranean. Greek city and Greek dynast went down
+before her, and the political sceptre passed irrevocably from the
+Hellenic nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Thucydides, Book I, chap. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 264-146 B.C.]
+
+Yet this political abdication seemed to open for Hellenic culture a
+future more brilliant and assured than ever. Rome could organize as
+well as conquer. She accepted the city-state as the municipal unit of
+the Roman Empire, thrust back the Oriental behind the Euphrates, and
+promoted the Hellenization of all the lands between this river-frontier
+and the Balkans with much greater intensity than the Macedonian
+imperialists. Her political conquests were still further
+counterbalanced by her spiritual surrender, and Hellenism was the soul
+of the new Latin culture which Rome created, and which advanced with
+Roman government over the vast untutored provinces of the west and
+north, bringing them, too, within the orbit of Hellenic civilization.
+Under the shadow of the Roman Empire, Plutarch, the mirror of
+Hellenism, could dwell in peace in his little city-state of Chaeronea,
+and reflect in his writings all the achievements of the Hellenic spirit
+as an ensample to an apparently endless posterity.
+
+Yet the days of Hellenic culture were also numbered. Even Plutarch
+lived[1] to look down from the rocky citadel of Chaeronea upon Teutonic
+raiders wasting the Kephisos vale, and for more than three centuries
+successive hordes of Goths searched out and ravaged the furthest
+corners of European Greece. Then the current set westward to sweep
+away[2] the Roman administration in the Latin provinces, and Hellenism
+seemed to have been granted a reprieve. The Greek city-state of
+Byzantium on the Black Sea Straits had been transformed into the Roman
+administrative centre of Constantinople, and from this capital the
+Emperor Justinian in the sixth century A.D. still governed and defended
+the whole Greek-speaking world. But this political glamour only threw
+the symptoms of inward dissolution into sharper relief. Within the
+framework of the Empire the municipal liberty of the city-state had
+been stifled and extinguished by the waxing jungle of bureaucracy, and
+the spiritual culture which the city-state fostered, and which was more
+essential to Hellenism than any political institutions, had been part
+ejected, part exploited, and wholly compromised by a new gospel from
+the east.
+
+[Footnote 1: About A.D. 100]
+
+[Footnote 2: A.D. 404-476]
+
+While the Oriental had been compelled by Rome to draw his political
+frontier at the Euphrates, and had failed so far to cross the
+river-line, he had maintained his cultural independence within sight of
+the Mediterranean. In the hill country of Judah, overlooking the high
+road between Antioch and Alexandria, the two chief foci of Hellenism in
+the east which the Macedonians had founded, and which had grown to
+maturity under the aegis of Rome, there dwelt a little Semitic
+community which had defied all efforts of Greek or Roman to assimilate
+it, and had finally given birth to a world religion about the time that
+a Roman punitive expedition razed its holy city of Jerusalem to the
+ground.[1] Christianity was charged with an incalculable force, which
+shot like an electric current from one end of the Roman Empire to the
+other. The highly-organized society of its adherents measured its
+strength in several sharp conflicts with the Imperial administration,
+from which it emerged victorious, and it was proclaimed the official
+religious organization of the Empire by the very emperor that founded
+Constantinople.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 70.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Constantine the Great recognized Christianity in A.D. 313
+and founded Constantinople in A.D. 328.]
+
+The established Christian Church took the best energies of Hellenism
+into its service. The Greek intellectuals ceased to become lecturers
+and professors, to find a more human and practical career in the
+bishop’s office. The Nicene Creed, drafted by an ‘oecumenical’
+conference of bishops under the auspices of Constantine himself,[1] was
+the last notable formulation of Ancient Greek philosophy. The cathedral
+of Aya Sophia, with which Justinian adorned Constantinople, was the
+last original creation of Ancient Greek art.[2] The same Justinian
+closed the University of Athens, which had educated the world for nine
+hundred years and more, since Plato founded his college in the Academy.
+Six recalcitrant professors went into exile for their spiritual
+freedom, but they found the devout Zoroastrianism of the Persian court
+as unsympathetic as the devout Christianity of the Roman. Their
+humiliating return and recantation broke the ‘Golden Chain’ of Hellenic
+thought for ever.
+
+Hellenism was thus expiring from its own inanition, when the inevitable
+avalanche overwhelmed it from without. In the seventh century A.D.
+there was another religious eruption in the Semitic world, this time in
+the heart of Arabia, where Hellenism had hardly penetrated, and under
+the impetus of Islam the Oriental burst his bounds again after a
+thousand years. Syria was reft away from the Empire, and Egypt, and
+North Africa as far as the Atlantic, and their political severance
+meant their cultural loss to Greek civilization. Between the Koran and
+Hellenism no fusion was possible. Christianity had taken Hellenism
+captive, but Islam gave it no quarter, and the priceless library of
+Alexandria is said to have been condemned by the caliph’s order to feed
+the furnaces of the public baths.
+
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 325.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Completed A.D. 538.]
+
+While Hellenism was thus cut short in the east, a mortal blow was
+struck at its heart from the north. The Teuton had raided and passed
+on, but the lands he had depopulated were now invaded by immigrants who
+had come to stay. As soon as the last Goth and Lombard had gone west of
+the Isonzo, the Slavs poured in from the north-eastern plains of Europe
+through the Moravian gap, crossed the Danube somewhere near the site of
+Vienna, and drifted down along the eastern face of the Alps upon the
+Adriatic littoral. Rebuffed by the sea-board, the Slavonic migration
+was next deflected east, and filtered through the Bosnian mountains,
+scattering the Latin-speaking provincials before it to left and right,
+until it 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 burst out with irresistible force in all
+directions, eastward across the Maritsa basin till it reached the Black
+Sea, and southward down the Vardar to the shores of the Aegean.
+
+Beneath this Slavonic flood the Greek race in Europe was engulfed. A
+few fortified cities held out, Adrianople on the Maritsa continued to
+cover Constantinople; Salonika at the mouth of the Vardar survived a
+two hundred years siege; while further south Athens, Korinth, and
+Patras escaped extinction. But the tide of invasion surged around their
+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 penetration is witnessed to
+this day by the Slavonic names which still cling to at least a third of
+the villages, rivers, and mountains in European Greece, and are found
+in the most remote as well as in the most accessible quarters of the
+land.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: For example: Tsimova and Panitsa in the Tainaron peninsula
+(Maina); Tsoupana and Khrysapha in Lakonia; Dhimitzana, Karytena, and
+Andhritsena in the centre of Peloponnesos, and Vostitsa on its north
+coast; Dobrena and Kaprena in Boiotia; Vonitza on the Gulf of Arta;
+Kardhitsa in the Thessalian plain.]
+
+With the coming of the Slavs darkness descends like a curtain upon
+Greek history. We catch glimpses of Arab hosts ranging across Anatolia
+at will and gazing at Slavonic hordes across the narrow Bosphorus. But
+always the Imperial fleet patrols the waters between, and always the
+triple defences of Constantinople defy the assailant. Then after about
+two centuries the floods subside, the gloom disperses, and the Greek
+world emerges into view once more. But the spectacle before us is
+unfamiliar, and most of the old landmarks have been swept away.
+
+By the middle of the ninth century A.D., the Imperial Government had
+reduced the Peloponnesos to order again, and found itself in the
+presence of three peoples. The greater part of the land was occupied by
+‘Romaioi’—normal, loyal, Christian subjects of the empire—but in the
+hilly country between Eurotas, Taygetos, and the sea, two Slavonic
+tribes still maintained themselves in defiant savagery and worshipped
+their Slavonic gods, while beyond them the peninsula of Tainaron, now
+known as Maina, sheltered communities which still clung to the pagan
+name of Hellene and knew no other gods but Zeus, Athena, and Apollo.
+Hellene and Slav need not concern us. They were a vanishing minority,
+and the Imperial Government was more successful in obliterating their
+individuality than in making them contribute to its exchequer. The
+future lay with the Romaioi.
+
+The speech of these Romaioi was not the speech of Rome. ‘Romaikà,’ as
+it is still called popularly in the country-side, is a development of
+the ‘koinè’ or ‘current’ dialect of Ancient Greek, in which the
+Septuagint and the New Testament are written. The vogue of these books
+after the triumph of Christianity and the oncoming of the Dark Age,
+when they were the sole intellectual sustenance of the people, gave the
+idiom in which they were composed an exclusive prevalence. Except in
+Tzakonia—the iron-bound coast between Cape Malea and Nauplia Bay—all
+other dialects of Ancient Greek became extinct, and the varieties of
+the modern language are all differentiations of the ‘koinè’, along
+geographical lines which in no way correspond with those which divided
+Doric from Ionian. Yet though Romaic is descended from the ‘koinè’, it
+is almost as far removed from it as modern Italian is from the language
+of St. Augustine or Cicero. Ancient Greek possessed a pitch-accent
+only, which allowed the quantitative values of syllables to be measured
+against one another, and even to form the basis of a metrical system.
+In Romaic the pitch-accent has transformed itself into a stress-accent
+almost as violent as the English, which has destroyed all quantitative
+relation between accented and unaccented syllables, often wearing away
+the latter altogether at the termination of words, and always
+impoverishing their vowel sounds. In the ninth century A.D. this new
+enunciation was giving rise to a new poetical technique founded upon
+accent and rhyme, which first essayed itself in folk-songs and
+ballads,[1] and has since experimented in the same variety of forms as
+English poetry.
+
+[Footnote 1: The earliest products of the modern technique were called
+‘city’ verses, because they originated in Constantinople, which has
+remained ‘the city’ _par excellence_ for the Romaic Greek ever since
+the Dark Age made it the asylum of his civilization.]
+
+These humble beginnings of a new literature were supplemented by the
+rudiments of a new art. Any visitor at Athens who looks at the three
+tiny churches [1] built in this period of first revival, and compares
+them with the rare pre-Norman churches of England, will find the same
+promise of vitality in the Greek architecture as in his own. The
+material—worked blocks of marble pillaged from ancient monuments,
+alternating with courses of contemporary brick—produces a completely
+new aesthetic effect upon the eye; and the structure—a grouping of
+lesser cupolas round a central dome— is the very antithesis of the
+‘upright-and-horizontal’ style which confronts him in ruins upon the
+Akropolis.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Old Metropolitan, the Kapnikaria, and St. Theodore.]
+
+These first achievements of Romaic architecture speak by implication of
+the characteristic difference between the Romaios and the Hellene. The
+linguistic and the aesthetic change were as nothing compared to the
+change in religion, for while the Hellene had been a pagan, the Romaios
+was essentially a member of the Christian Church. Yet this new and
+determining characteristic was already fortified by tradition. The
+Church triumphant had swiftly perfected its organisation on the model
+of the Imperial bureaucracy. Every Romaios owed ecclesiastical
+allegiance, through a hierarchy of bishops and metropolitans, to a
+supreme patriarch at Constantinople, and in the ninth century this
+administrative segregation of the imperial from the west-European
+Church had borne its inevitable fruit in a dogmatic divergence, and
+ripened into a schism between the Orthodox Christianity of the east on
+the one hand and the Catholicism of the Latin world on the other.
+
+The Orthodox Church exercised an important cultural influence over its
+Romaic adherents. The official language of its scriptures, creeds, and
+ritual had never ceased to be the Ancient Greek ‘koinè’ and by keeping
+the Romaios familiar with this otherwise obsolete tongue it kept him in
+touch with the unsurpassable literature of his Ancient Greek
+predecessors. The vast body of Hellenic literature had perished 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 greatest
+authors’ greatest works had been preserved, and now that the stress was
+relieved, the wreckage of the remainder was sedulously garnered in
+anthologies, abridgements, and encyclopaedias. The rising monasteries
+offered a safe harbourage both for these compilations and for such
+originals as survived unimpaired, and in their libraries they were
+henceforth studied, cherished, and above all recopied with more or less
+systematic care.
+
+The Orthodox Church was thus a potent link between past and present,
+but the most direct link of all was the political survival of the
+Empire. Here, too, many landmarks had been swept away. The marvellous
+system of Roman Law had proved too subtle and complex for a world in
+the throes of dissolution. Within a century of its final codification
+by Justinian’s commissioners) it had begun to fall into disuse, and was
+now replaced by more summary legislation, which was as deeply imbued
+with Mosaic principles as the literary language with the Hebraisms of
+the New Testament, and bristled with barbarous applications of the _Lex
+Talionis_. The administrative organization instituted by Augustus and
+elaborated by Diocletian had likewise disappeared, and the army-corps
+districts were the only territorial units that outlasted the Dark Age.
+Yet the tradition of order lived on. The army itself preserved Roman
+discipline and technique to a remarkable degree, and the military
+districts were already becoming the basis for a reconstituted civil
+government. The wealth of Latin technicalities incorporated in the
+Greek style of ninth-century officialdom witnesses to this continuity
+with the past and to the consequent political superiority of the Romaic
+Empire over contemporary western Europe.
+
+Within the Imperial frontiers the Romaic race was offered an apparently
+secure field for its future development. In the Balkan peninsula the
+Slav had been expelled or assimilated to the south of a line stretching
+from Avlona to Salonika. East of Salonika the empire still controlled
+little more in Europe than the ports of the littoral, and a military
+highway linking them with each other and with Constantinople. But
+beyond the Bosphorus the frontier included the whole body of Anatolia
+as far as Taurus and Euphrates, and here was the centre of gravity both
+of the Romaic state and of the Romaic nation.
+
+A new Greek nation had in fact come into being, and it found itself in
+touch with new neighbours, whom the Ancient Greek had never known.
+Eastward lay the Armenians, reviving, like the Greeks, after the ebb of
+the Arab flood, and the Arabs themselves, quiescent within their
+natural bounds and transfusing the wisdom of Aristotle and Hippokrates
+into their native culture. Both these peoples were sundered from the
+Orthodox Greek by religion[1] as well as by language, but a number of
+nationalities established on his opposite flank had been evangelized
+from Constantinople and followed the Orthodox patriarch in his schism
+with Rome. The most important neighbour of the Empire in this quarter
+was the Bulgarian kingdom, which covered all the Balkan hinterland from
+the Danube and the Black Sea to the barrier-fortresses of Adrianople
+and Salonika. It had been founded by a conquering caste of non-Slavonic
+nomads from the trans-Danubian steppes, but these were completely
+absorbed in the Slavonic population which they had endowed with their
+name and had preserved by political consolidation from the fate of
+their brethren further south. This Bulgarian state included a large
+‘Vlach’ element descended from those Latin-speaking provincials whom
+the Slavs had pushed before them in their original migration; while the
+main body of the ‘Rumans’, whom the same thrust of invasion had driven
+leftwards across the Danube, had established itself in the mountains of
+Transylvania, and was just beginning to push down into the Wallachian
+and Moldavian plains. 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, as far westward as the Adriatic coast. Beyond, the heathen
+Magyars had pressed into the Danubian plains like a wedge, and cut off
+the Orthodox world from the Latin-Teutonic Christendom of the west; but
+it looked as though the two divisions of Europe were embarked upon the
+same course of development. Both were evolving a system of
+strongly-knit nationalities, neither wholly interdependent nor wholly
+self-sufficient, but linked together in their individual growth by the
+ties of common culture and religion. In both the darkness was passing.
+The future of civilization seemed once more assured, and in the
+Orthodox world the new Greek nation seemed destined to play the leading
+part.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Armenians split off from the Catholic Church four
+centuries before the schism between the Roman and Orthodox sections of
+the latter.]
+
+His cultural and political heritage from his ancient predecessors gave
+the Romaic Greek in this period of revival an inestimable advantage
+over his cruder neighbours, and his superiority declared itself in an
+expansion of the Romaic Empire. In the latter half of the tenth century
+A.D. the nest of Arab pirates from Spain, which had established itself
+in Krete and terrorized the Aegean, was exterminated by the Emperor
+Nikiphóros Phokas, and on the eastern marches Antioch was gathered
+within the frontier at the Arabs’ expense, and advanced posts pushed
+across Euphrates. In the first half of the eleventh century Basil,
+‘Slayer of the Bulgars’, destroyed the Balkan kingdom after a
+generation of bitter warfare, and brought the whole interior of the
+peninsula under the sway of Constantinople. His successors turned their
+attention to the cast again, and attracted one Armenian principality
+after another within the Imperial protectorate. Nor was the revival
+confined to politics. The conversion of the Russians about A.D. 1000
+opened a boundless hinterland to the Orthodox Church, and any one who
+glances at a series of Greek ivory carvings or studies Greek history
+from the original sources, will here encounter a literary and artistic
+renaissance remarkable enough to explain the fascination which the
+barbarous Russian and the outlandish Armenian found in Constantinople.
+Yet this renaissance had hardly set in before it was paralysed by an
+unexpected blow, which arrested the development of Modern Greece for
+seven centuries.
+
+Modern, like Ancient, Greece was assailed in her infancy by a conqueror
+from the east, and, unlike Ancient Greece, she succumbed. Turkish
+nomads from the central Asiatic steppes had been drifting into the
+Moslem world as the vigour of the Arabs waned. First they came as
+slaves, then as mercenaries, until at last, in the eleventh century,
+the clan of Seljuk grasped with a strong hand the political dominion of
+Islam. As champions of the caliph the Turkish sultans disputed the
+infidels encroachment on the Moslem border. They challenged the Romaic
+Empire’s progress in Armenia, and in A.D. 1071—five years after the
+Norman founded at Hastings the strong government which has been the
+making of England—the Seljuk Turk shattered at the battle of Melasgerd
+that heritage of strong government which had promised so much to
+Greece.
+
+Melasgerd opened the way to Anatolia. The Arab could make no lodgement
+there, but in the central steppe of the temperate plateau the Turk
+found a miniature reproduction of his original environment. Tribe after
+tribe crossed the Oxus, to make the long pilgrimage to these new
+marches which their race had won for Islam on the west, and the
+civilization developed in the country by fifteen centuries of intensive
+and undisturbed Hellenization was completely blotted out. The cities
+wore isolated from one another till their commerce fell into decay. The
+elaborately cultivated lands around them were left fallow till they
+were good for nothing but the pasturage which was all that the nomad
+required. The only monuments of architecture that have survived in
+Anatolia above ground are the imposing khans or fortified rest-houses
+built by the Seljuk sultans themselves after the consolidation of their
+rule, and they are the best witnesses of the vigorous barbarism by
+which Romaic culture was effaced. The vitality of the Turk was indeed
+unquestionable. He imposed his language and religion upon the native
+Anatolian peasantry, as the Greek had imposed his before him, and in
+time adopted their sedentary life, though too late to repair the
+mischief his own nomadism had wrought. Turk and Anatolian coalesced
+into one people; every mountain, river, lake, bridge, and village in
+the country took on a Turkish name, and a new nation was established
+for ever in the heart of the Romaic world, which nourished itself on
+the life-blood of the Empire and was to prove the supreme enemy, of the
+race.
+
+This sequel to Melasgerd sealed the Empire’s doom. Robbed of its
+Anatolian governing class and its Anatolian territorial army, it ceased
+to be self-sufficient, and the defenders it attracted from the west
+were at least as destructive as its eastern foes. The brutal régime of
+the Turks in the pilgrimage places of Syria had roused a storm of
+indignation in Latin Europe, and a cloud gathered in the west once
+more. It was heralded by adventurers from Normandy, who had first
+served the Romaic Government as mercenaries in southern Italy and then
+expelled their employers, about the time of Melasgerd, from their last
+foothold in the peninsula. Raids across the straits of Otranto carried
+the Normans up to the walls of Salonika, their fleets equipped in
+Sicily scoured the Aegean, and, before the eleventh century was out,
+they had followed up these reconnoitring expeditions by conducting
+Latin Christendom on its first crusade. The crusaders assembled at
+Constantinople, and the Imperial Government was relieved when the flood
+rolled on and spent itself further east. But one wave was followed by
+another, and the Empire itself succumbed to the fourth. In A.D. 1204,
+Constantinople was stormed by a Venetian flotilla and the crusading
+host it conveyed on board, and more treasures of Ancient Hellenism were
+destroyed in the sack of its hitherto inviolate citadel than had ever
+perished by the hand of Arab or Slav.
+
+With the fall of the capital the Empire dissolved in chaos, Venice and
+Genoa, the Italian trading cities whose fortune had been made by the
+crusades, now usurped the naval control of the Mediterranean which the
+Empire had exercised since Nikiphóros pacified Krete. They seized all
+strategical points of vantage on the Aegean coasts, and founded an
+‘extra-territorial’ community at Pera across the Golden Horn, to
+monopolize the trade of Constantinople with the Black Sea. The Latins
+failed to retain their hold on Constantinople itself, for the puppet
+emperors of their own race whom they enthroned there were evicted
+within a century by Romaic dynasts, who clung to such fragments of
+Anatolia as had escaped the Turk. But the Latin dominion was less
+ephemeral in the southernmost Romaic provinces of Europe. The Latins’
+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 another in
+bewildering succession, while the French princes of Achaia were at feud
+with their kindred vassals in the west of the Peloponnesos whenever
+they were not resisting the encroachments of Romaic despots in the
+south and east. To complete the anarchy, the non-Romaic peoples in the
+interior of the Balkan peninsula had taken the fall of Constantinople
+as a signal to throw off the Imperial yoke. In the hinterland of the
+capital the Bulgars had reconstituted their kingdom. The
+Romance-speaking Vlachs of Pindus moved down into the Thessalian
+plains. The aboriginal Albanians, who with their back to the Adriatic
+had kept the Slavs at bay, asserted their vitality and sent out
+migratory swarms to the south, which entered the service of the warring
+princelets and by their prowess won broad lands in every part of
+continental Greece, where Albanian place-names are to this day only
+less common than Slavonic. South-eastern Europe was again in the throes
+of social dissolution, and the convulsions continued till they were
+stilled impartially by the numbing hand of their ultimate author the
+Turk.
+
+[Footnote 1: e.g. Klemoutsi, Glarentsa (Clarence) and Gastouni—villages
+of the currant district in Peloponnesos—and Sant-Omeri, the mountain
+that overlooks them.]
+
+The Seljuk sultanate in Anatolia, shaken by the crusades, had gone the
+way of all oriental empires to make room for one of its fractions,
+which showed a most un-oriental faculty of organic growth. This was the
+extreme march on the north-western rim of the Anatolian plateau,
+overlooking the Asiatic littoral of the Sea of Marmora. It had been
+founded by one of those Turkish chiefs who migrated with their clans
+from beyond the Oxus; and it was consolidated by Othman his son, who
+extended his kingdom to the cities on the coast and invested his
+subjects with his own name. In 1355 the Narrows of Gallipoli passed
+into Ottoman hands, and opened a bridge to unexpected conquests in
+Europe. Serbia and Bulgaria collapsed at the first attack, and the
+hosts which marched to liberate them from Hungary and from France only
+ministered to Ottoman prestige by their disastrous discomfiture. Before
+the close of the fourteenth century the Ottoman sultan had transferred
+his capital to Adrianople, and had become immeasurably the strongest
+power in the Balkan peninsula.
+
+After that the end came quickly. At Constantinople the Romaic dynasty
+of Palaiologos had upheld a semblance of the Empire for more than a
+century after the Latin was expelled. But in 1453 the Imperial city
+fell before the assault of Sultan Mohammed; and before his death the
+conqueror eliminated all the other Romaic and Latin principalities from
+Peloponnesos to Trebizond, which had survived as enclaves to mar the
+uniformity of the Ottoman domain. Under his successors the tide of
+Ottoman conquest rolled on for half a century more over south-eastern
+Europe, till it 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 St. John.[2]
+The Romaic race, which had been split into so many fragments during the
+dissolution of the Empire, was reunited again in the sixteenth century
+under the common yoke of the Turk.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1526.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1522.]
+
+Even in the Dark Age, Greece had hardly been reduced to so desperate a
+condition as now. Through the Dark Age the Greek cities had maintained
+a continuous life, but Mohammed II depopulated Constantinople to
+repeople it with a Turkish majority from Anatolia. Greek commerce would
+naturally have benefited by the ejection of the Italians from the
+Levant, had not the Ottoman Government given asylum simultaneously to
+the Jews expelled from Spain. These Sephardim established themselves at
+Constantinople, Salonika, and all the other commercial centres of the
+Ottoman dominion, and their superiority in numbers and industry made
+them more formidable urban rivals of the 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. The sultan’s fiscal demands were the
+least 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 capitation-tax levied by
+the sultan on his Christian subjects, the greater efficiency and
+security of his government probably compensated for the additional
+charge. The vitality of Greece was chiefly sapped by the ruthless
+military organization of the Ottoman state. The bulk of the Ottoman
+army was drawn from a feudal cavalry, bound to service, as in the
+mediaeval Latin world, in return for fiefs or ‘timaria’ assigned to
+them by their sovereign; and many beys and agas have bequeathed their
+names in perpetuity to the richest villages on the Messenian and
+Thessalian plains, to remind the modern peasant that his Christian
+ancestors once tilled the soil as serfs of a Moslem timariot. But the
+sultan, unlike his western contemporaries, was not content with
+irregular troops, and the serf-communes of Greece had to deliver up a
+fifth of their male children every fourth year to be trained at
+Constantinople as professional soldiers and fanatical Moslems. This
+corps of ‘Janissaries’[1] was founded in the third generation of the
+Ottoman dynasty, and was the essential instrument of its military
+success. One race has never appropriated and exploited the vitality of
+another in so direct or so brutal a fashion, and the institution of
+‘tribute-children’, so long as it lasted, effectually prevented any
+recovery of the Greek nation from the untimely blows which had stricken
+it down.
+
+[Footnote 1: Yeni Asker—New soldiery.]
+
+
+
+
+2
+_The Awakening of the Nation_
+
+
+During the two centuries that followed the Ottoman conquest of
+Constantinople, the Greek race was in serious danger of annihilation.
+Its life-blood was steadily absorbed into the conquering
+community—quite regularly by the compulsory tribute of children and
+spasmodically by the voluntary conversion of individual households. The
+rich apostasized, because too heavy a material sacrifice was imposed
+upon them by loyalty to their national religion; the destitute, 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 spared by the Ottoman Government in order to facilitate its
+own political system—by bringing the peasant, through the hierarchy of
+priest, bishop, and patriarch, under the moral control of the new
+Moslem master whom the ecclesiastics henceforth served.
+
+The scale on which wholesale apostasy was possible is shown by the case
+of Krete, which was conquered by the Turks from Venice just after these
+two centuries had closed, and was in fact the last permanent addition
+to the Turkish Empire. No urban or feudal settlers of Turkish blood
+were imported into the island. To this day the uniform speech of all
+Kretans is their native Greek. And yet the progressive conversion of
+whole clans and villages had transferred at least 20 per cent. of the
+population to the Moslem ranks before the Ottoman connexion was severed
+again in 1897.
+
+The survival of the Greek nationality did not depend on any efforts of
+the Greeks themselves. They were indeed no 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 the Ottoman state, and, as the two centuries drew to a close, that
+state entered upon a phase of transformation and of consequent
+weakness.
+
+The Ottoman organism has always displayed (and never more conspicuously
+than at the present moment) a much greater stability and vitality than
+any of its oriental predecessors. There was a vein of genius in its
+creators, and its youthful expansion permeated it with so much European
+blood that it became partly Europeanized in its inner
+tissues—sufficiently to partake, at any rate, in that faculty of
+indefinite organic growth which has so far revealed itself in European
+life. This acquired force has carried it on since the time when the
+impetus of its original institutions became spent—a time when purely
+oriental monarchies fall to pieces, and when Turkey herself hesitated
+between reconstruction and dissolution. That critical period began for
+her with the latter half of the seventeenth century, and incidentally
+opened new opportunities of life to her subject Greeks.
+
+Substantial relief from their burdens—the primary though negative
+condition of national revival—accrued to the Greek peasantry from the
+decay of Ottoman militarism in all its branches. The Turkish feudal
+aristocracy, which had replaced the landed nobility of the Romaic
+Empire in Anatolia and established itself on the choicest lands in
+conquered Europe, was beginning to decline in strength. We have seen
+that it failed to implant itself in Krete, and its numbers were already
+stationary elsewhere. The Greek peasant slowly began to regain ground
+upon his Moslem lord, and he profited further by the degeneration of
+the janissary corps at the heart of the empire.
+
+The janissaries had started as a militant, almost monastic body,
+condemned to celibacy, and recruited exclusively from the Christian
+tribute-children. But in 1566 they extorted the privilege of legal
+marriage for themselves, and of admittance into the corps for the sons
+of their wedlock. The next century completed their transformation from
+a standing army into a hereditary urban militia—an armed and privileged
+_bourgeoisie_, rapidly increasing in numbers and correspondingly
+jealous of extraneous candidates for the coveted vacancies in their
+ranks. They gradually succeeded in abolishing the enrolment of
+Christian recruits altogether, and the last regular levy of children
+for that purpose was made in 1676. Vested interests at Constantinople
+had freed the helpless peasant from the most crushing burden of all.
+
+At the same moment the contemporary tendency in western Europe towards
+bureaucratic centralization began to extend itself to the Ottoman
+Empire. Its exponents were the brothers Achmet and Mustapha Köprili,
+who held the grand-vizierate in succession. They laid the foundations
+of a centralized administration, and, since the unadaptable Turk
+offered no promising material for their policy, they sought their
+instruments in the subject race. The continental Greeks were too
+effectively crushed to aspire beyond the preservation of their own
+existence; but the islands had been less sorely tried, and Khios, which
+had enjoyed over two centuries[1] of prosperity under the rule of a
+Genoese chartered company, and exchanged it for Ottoman sovereignty
+under peculiarly lenient conditions, could still supply Achmet a
+century later with officials of the intelligence and education he
+required, Khiots were the first to fill the new offices of ‘Dragoman of
+the Porte’ (secretary of state) and ‘Dragoman of the Fleet’ (civil
+complement of the Turkish capitan-pasha); and they took care in their
+turn to staff the subordinate posts of their administration with a host
+of pushing friends and dependants. The Dragoman of the Fleet wielded
+the fiscal, and thereby in effect the political, authority over the
+Greek islands in the Aegean; but this was not the highest power to
+which the new Greek bureaucracy attained. Towards the beginning of the
+eighteenth century Moldavia and Wallachia—the two ‘Danubian Provinces’
+now united in the kingdom of Rumania—were placed in charge of Greek
+officials with the rank of voivode or prince, and with practically
+sovereign power within their delegated dominions. A Danubian
+principality became the reward of a successful dragoman’s career, and
+these high posts were rapidly monopolized by a close ring of official
+families, who exercised their immense patronage in favour of their
+race, and congregated round the Greek patriarch in the ‘Phanari’,[2]
+the Constantinopolitan slum assigned him for his residence by Mohammed
+the Conqueror.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1346-1566.]
+
+[Footnote 2: ‘Lighthouse-quarter.’]
+
+The alliance of this parvenu ‘Phanariot’ aristocracy with the
+conservative Orthodox Church was not unnatural, for the Church itself
+had greatly extended its political power under Ottoman suzerainty. The
+Ottoman Government hardly regarded its Christian subjects as integral
+members of the state, and was content to leave their civil government
+in the hands of their spiritual pastors to an extent the Romaic
+emperors would never have tolerated. It allowed the Patriarchate at
+Constantinople to become its official intermediary with the Greek race,
+and it further extended the Greek patriarch’s authority over the other
+conquered populations of Orthodox faith—Bulgars, Rumans, and
+Serbs—which had never been incorporated in the ecclesiastical or
+political organization of the Romaic Empire, but which learnt under
+Ottoman rule to receive their priests and bishops from the Greek
+ecclesiastics of the capital, and even to call themselves by the Romaic
+name. In 1691 Mustapha Köprili recognized and confirmed the rights of
+all Christian subjects of the Sultan by a general organic law.
+
+Mustapha’s ‘New Ordinance’ was dictated by the reverses which
+Christians beyond the frontier were inflicting upon the Ottoman arms,
+for pressure from without had followed hard upon disintegration within.
+Achmet’s pyrrhic triumph over Candia in 1669 was followed in 1683 by
+his brother Mustapha’s disastrous discomfiture before the walls of
+Vienna, and these two sieges marked the turn of the Ottoman 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 ‘Ionian’ chain of islands—
+Corfù, Cefalonia, Zante, and Cerigo—which 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 Greek race 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, it effectively broke the Ottoman tradition, and left behind it
+a system of communal self-government among the Peloponnesian Greeks
+which the returning Turk was too feeble to sweep away. The Turks gained
+nothing by the rapid downfall 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 in Russia,
+which had been reorganized towards the turn of the century by Peter the
+Great with a radical energy undreamed of by any Turkish Köprili, and
+which found its destiny in opposition to the Ottoman Empire. The new
+Orthodox power regarded itself as the heir of the Romaic Empire from
+which it had received its first Christianity and culture. It aspired to
+repay the Romaic race in adversity by championing it against its Moslem
+oppressors, and sought its own reward in a maritime outlet on the Black
+Sea. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia repeatedly
+made war on Turkey, either with or without the co-operation of Austria;
+but the decisive bout in the struggle was the war of 1769-74. A Russian
+fleet appeared in the Mediterranean, raised an insurrection in
+Peloponnesos, and destroyed the Turkish squadron in battle. The Russian
+armies were still more successful on the steppes, and the Treaty of
+Kutchuk Kainardji not only left the whole north coast of the Black Sea
+in Russia’s possession, but contained an international sanction for the
+rights of the sultan’s Orthodox subjects. In 1783 a supplementary
+commercial treaty extorted for the Ottoman Greeks the right to trade
+under the Russian flag. The territorial sovereignty of Turkey in the
+Aegean remained intact, but the Russian guarantee gave the Greek race a
+more substantial security than the shadowy ordinance of Mustapha
+Köprili. The paralysing prestige of the Porte was broken, and Greek
+eyes were henceforth turned in hope towards Petersburg.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1699-1718.]
+
+By the end of the eighteenth century the condition of the Greeks had in
+fact changed remarkably for the better, and the French and English
+travellers who now began to visit the Ottoman Empire brought away the
+impression that a critical change in its internal equilibrium was at
+hand. The Napoleonic wars had just extinguished the Venetian Republic
+and swept the Ionian Islands into the struggle between England and
+France for the mastery of the Mediterranean. England had fortified
+herself in Cefalonia and Zante, France in Corfù, and interest centred
+on the opposite mainland, where Ali Pasha of Yannina maintained a
+formidable neutrality towards either power.
+
+The career of Ali marked that phase in the decline of an Oriental
+empire when the task of strong government becomes too difficult for the
+central authority and is carried on by independent satraps with greater
+efficiency in their more limited sphere. Ali governed the Adriatic
+hinterland with practically sovereign power, and compelled the sultan
+for some years to invest his sons with the pashaliks of Thessaly and
+Peloponnesos. The greater part of the Greek race thus came in some
+degree under his control, and his policy towards it clearly reflected
+the transition from the old to the new. He waged far more effective war
+than the distant sultan upon local liberties, and, though the
+elimination of the feudal Turkish landowner was pure gain to the
+Greeks, they suffered themselves from the loss of traditional
+privileges which the original Ottoman conquest had left intact. The
+Armatoli, a local Christian militia who kept order in the mountainous
+mainland north of Peloponnesos where 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 Aspropotarno, which had never been inscribed on the
+taxation-rolls of the Romaic or the Ottoman treasury, 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 became as essentially Greek in character as the Phanariot
+régime beyond the Danube. Ali was a Moslem and an Albanian, but the
+Orthodox Greeks were in a majority among his subjects, and he knew how
+to take advantage of their abilities. His business was conducted by
+Greek secretaries in the Greek tongue, and Yannina, his capital, was a
+Greek city. European visitors to Yannina (for every one began the
+Levantine tour by paying his respects to Ali) were struck by the
+enterprise and intelligence of its citizens. The doctors were
+competent, because they had taken their education in Italy or France;
+the merchants were prosperous, because they had established members of
+their family at Odessa, Trieste, or even Hamburg, as permanent agents
+of their firm. A new Greek _bourgeoisie_ had arisen, in close contact
+with the professional life of western Europe, and equally responsive to
+the new philosophical and political ideas that were being propagated by
+the French Revolution.
+
+This intellectual ferment was the most striking change of all. Since
+the sack of Constantinople in 1204, Greek culture had retired into the
+monasteries—inaccessible fastnesses where the monks lived much the same
+life as the clansmen of Suli or Agrapha. Megaspélaion, the great cave
+quarried in the wall of a precipitous Peloponnesian ravine; Metéora,
+suspended on half a dozen isolated pinnacles of rock in Thessaly, where
+the only access was by pulley or rope-ladder; ‘Ayon Oros’, the
+confederation of monasteries great and small upon the
+mountain-promontory of Athos—these succeeded in preserving a shadow of
+the old tradition, at the cost of isolation from all humane influences
+that might have kept their spiritual inheritance alive. Their spirit
+was mediaeval, ecclesiastical, and as barren as their sheltering rocks;
+and the new intellectual disciples of Europe turned to the monasteries
+in vain. The biggest ruin on Athos is a boys’ school planned in the
+eighteenth century to meet the educational needs of all the Orthodox in
+the Ottoman Empire, and wrecked on the reefs of monastic obscurantism.
+But its founder, the Corfiot scholar Evyénios Voulgáris, did not
+hesitate to break with the past. He put his own educational ideas into
+practice at Yannina and Constantinople, and contributed to the great
+achievement of his contemporary, the Khiot Adhamandios Koráis, who
+settled in Paris and there evolved a literary adaptation of the Romaic
+patois to supersede the lifeless travesty of Attic style traditionally
+affected by ecclesiastical penmen. But the renaissance was not confined
+to Greeks abroad. The school on Athos failed, but others established
+themselves before the close of the eighteenth century in the people’s
+midst, even in the smaller towns and the remoter villages. The still
+flourishing secondary school of Dhimitzána, in the heart of
+Peloponnesos, began its existence in this period, and the national
+revival found expression in a new name. Its prophets repudiated the
+‘Romaic’ name, with its associations of ignorance and oppression, and
+taught their pupils to think of themselves as ‘Hellenes’ and to claim
+in their own right the intellectual and political liberty of the
+Ancient Greeks.
+
+This spiritual ‘Hellenism’, however, was only one manifestation of
+returning vitality, and was ultimately due to the concrete economic
+development with which it went hand 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 in a
+penetrating way upon their countrymen at home. A mountain village like
+Ambelakia in Thessaly found a regular market for its dyed goods in
+Germany, and the commercial treaty of 1783 between Turkey and Russia
+encouraged communities which could make nothing of the land to turn
+their attention to the sea. Galaxhidi, a village on the northern shore
+of the Korinthian Gulf, whose only asset was its natural harbour, and
+Hydhra, Spetza, and Psarà, 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 they exploited to the full. The
+whitewashed houses of solid stone, rising tier above tier up the naked
+limestone mountainside, still testify to the prosperity which chance
+thus suddenly brought to the Hydhriots and their fellow islanders, and
+did not withdraw again till it had enabled them to play a decisive part
+in their nation’s history.
+
+Their ships were small, but they were home-built, skilfully navigated,
+and profitably employed in the carrying trade of the Mediterranean
+ports. Their economic life was based 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 profit of each voyage; but
+their political organization was oligarchical—an executive council
+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 seafaring
+islands on the eve of the modern Greek Revolution were an exact
+reproduction of the Aigina, Korinth, and Athens which repelled the
+Persian from Ancient Greece. The germs of a new national life were thus
+springing up among the Greeks in every direction— in mercantile
+colonies scattered over the world from Odessa to Alexandria and from
+Smyrna to Trieste; among Phanariot princes in the Danubian Provinces
+and their ecclesiastical colleagues at Constantinople; in the islands
+of the Aegean and the Ionian chain, and upon the mountains of Suli and
+Agrapha. But the ambitions this national revival aroused were even
+greater than the reality itself. The leaders of the movement did not
+merely aspire to liberate the Greek nation from the Turkish yoke. They
+were conscious of the assimilative power their nationality possessed.
+The Suliots, for example, were an immigrant Albanian tribe, who had
+learnt to speak Greek from the Greek peasants over whom they
+tyrannized. The Hydhriot and Spetziot islanders were Albanians too, who
+had even clung to their primitive language during the two generations
+since they took up their present abode, but had become none the less
+firmly linked to their Greek-speaking neighbours in Peloponnesos by
+their common fellowship in the Orthodox Church. The numerous Albanian
+colonies settled up and down the Greek continent were at least as Greek
+in feeling as they. And why should not the same prove true of the
+Bulgarian population, in the Balkans, who had belonged from the
+beginning to the Orthodox Church, and had latterly been brought by
+improvident Ottoman policy within the Greek patriarch’s fold? Or why
+should not the Greek administrators beyond the Danube imbue their Ruman
+subjects with a sound Hellenic sentiment? In fact, the prophets of
+Hellenism did not so much desire to extricate the Greek nation from the
+Ottoman Empire as to make it the ruling element in the empire itself by
+ejecting the Moslem Turks from their privileged position and
+assimilating all populations of Orthodox faith. These dreams took shape
+in the foundation of a secret society—the ‘Philikì Hetairía’ or ‘League
+of Friends’—which established itself at Odessa in 1814 with the
+connivence of the Russian police, and opened a campaign of propaganda
+in anticipation of an opportunity to strike.
+
+The initiative came from the Ottoman Government itself. At the weakest
+moment in its history the empire found in Sultan Mahmud a ruler of
+peculiar strength, who saw that the only hope of overcoming his dangers
+lay in meeting them half-way. The national movement of Hellenism was
+gathering momentum in the background, but it was screened by the
+personal ambitions of Ali of Yannina, and Mahmud reckoned to forestall
+both enemies by quickly striking Ali down.
+
+In the winter of 1819-20 Ali was outlawed, and in the spring the
+invasion of his territories began. Both the Moslem combatants enlisted
+Christian Armatoli, and all continental Greece was under arms. By the
+end of the summer Ali’s outlying strongholds had fallen, his armies
+were driven in, and he himself was closely invested in Yannina; but
+with autumn a deadlock set in, and the sultan’s reckoning was thrown
+out. In November 1820 the veteran soldier Khurshid was appointed to the
+pashalik of Peloponnesos to hold the Greeks in check and close accounts
+with Ali. In March 1821, after five months spent in organizing his
+province, Khurshid felt secure enough to leave it for the Yannina
+lines. But he was mistaken; for within a month of his departure
+Peloponnesos was ablaze.
+
+The ‘Philikì Hetairía’ had decided to act, and the Peloponnesians
+responded enthusiastically to the signal. In the north Germanòs,
+metropolitan bishop of Patras, rallied the insurgents at the monastery
+of Megaspélaion, and unfurled the monastic altar-cloth as a national
+standard. In the south the peninsula of Maina, which had been the
+latest refuge of ancient Hellenism, was now the first to welcome the
+new, and to throw off the shadowy allegiance it had paid for a thousand
+years to Romaic archonts and Ottoman capitan-pashas. Led by Petros
+Mavromichalis, the chief of the leading clan, the Mainates issued from
+their mountains. This was in April, and by the middle of May all the
+open country had been swept clear, and the hosts joined hands before
+Tripolitza, which was the seat of Ottoman government at the central
+point of the province. The Turkish garrison attacked, but was heavily
+defeated at Valtetzi by the tactical skill of Theodore Kolokotrónis the
+‘klepht’, who had become experienced in guerrilla warfare through his
+alternate professions of brigand and gendarme—a career that had
+increased its possibilities as the Ottoman system decayed. After
+Kolokotrónis’s victory, the Greeks kept Tripolitza under a close
+blockade. Early in October it fell amid frightful scenes of pillage and
+massacre, and Ottoman dominion in the Peloponnesos fell with it. On
+January 22, 1822, Korinth, the key to the isthmus, passed into the
+Greeks’ hands, and only four fortresses—Nauplia, Patras, Koron, and
+Modhon—still held out within it against Greek investment. Not a Turk
+survived in the Peloponnesos beyond their walls, for the slaughter at
+Tripolitza was only the most terrible instance of what happened
+wherever a Moslem colony was found. In Peloponnesos, at any rate, the
+revolution had been grimly successful.
+
+There had also been successes at sea. The merchant marine of the Greek
+islands had suffered grievously from the fall of Napoleon and the
+settlement at Vienna, which, by restoring normal conditions of trade,
+had destroyed their abnormal monopoly. The revolution offered new
+opportunities for profitable venture, and in April 1821 Hydhra, Spetza
+and Psarà hastened to send a privateering fleet to sea. As soon as the
+fleet crossed the Aegean, Samos rid itself of the Turks. At the
+beginning of June the rickety Ottoman squadron issued from the
+Dardanelles, but it was chased back by the islanders under the lee of
+Mitylini. Memories of Russian naval tactics in 1770 led the Psariots to
+experiment in fire-ships, and one of the two Turkish ships of the line
+fell a victim to this attack. 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 fairly launched, and in
+the first panic the threatened Moslems began reprisals of an equally
+general kind. In the larger Turkish cities there were massacres of
+Christian minorities, and the Government lent countenance to them by
+murdering its own principal Christian official Gregorios, the Greek
+patriarch at Constantinople, on April 22, 1821. But Sultan Mahmud
+quickly recovered himself. He saw that his empire 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
+distant sparks with all his energy, before concentrating his force at
+leisure upon the main conflagration.
+
+This policy was justified by the event. On March 6 the ‘Philikì
+Hetairia’ at Odessa had opened its own operations in grandiose style by
+sending a filibustering expedition across the Russo-Turkish frontier
+under command of Prince Alexander Hypsilantis, a Phanariot in the
+Russian service. Hypsilantis played for a general revolt of the Ruman
+population in the Danubian Principalities and a declaration of war
+against Turkey on the part of Russia. But the Rumans had no desire to
+assist the Greek bureaucrats who oppressed them, and the Tsar Alexander
+had been converted by the experiences of 1812-13 to a pacifistic
+respect for the _status quo_. Prince Hypsilantis was driven
+ignominiously to internment across the Austrian frontier, little more
+than a hundred days after his expedition began; and his fiasco assured
+the Ottoman Government of two encouraging facts—that the revolution
+would not carry away the whole Orthodox population but would at any
+rate confine itself to the Greeks; and that the struggle against it
+would be fought out for the present, at least, without foreign
+intervention.
+
+In the other direction, however, rebellion was spreading northward from
+Peloponnesos to continental Greece. Galaxídhi revolted in April, and
+was followed in June by Mesolonghi—a prosperous town of fishermen,
+impregnably situated in the midst of the lagoons at the mouth of the
+Aspropotamo, beyond the narrows of the Korinthian Gulf. By the end of
+the month, north-western Greece was free as far as the outposts of
+Khurshid Pasha beyond the Gulf of Arta.
+
+Further eastward, again, in the mountains between the Gulf of Korinth
+and the river Elládha (Sperkheiòs), the Armatoli of Ali’s faction had
+held their ground, and gladly joined the revolution on the initiative
+of their captains Dhiakos and Odhyssèvs. But the movement found its
+limits. The Turkish garrison of Athens obstinately held out during the
+winter of 1821-2, and the Moslems of Negrepont (Euboía) maintained
+their mastery in the island. In Agrapha they likewise held their own,
+and, after one severely punished raid, the Agraphiot Armatoli were
+induced to re-enter the sultan’s service on liberal terms. The Vlachs
+in the gorges of the Aspropotamo were pacified with equal success; and
+Dramali, Khurshid’s lieutenant, who guarded the communications between
+the army investing Yannina and its base at Constantinople, was easily
+able to crush all symptoms of revolt in Thessaly from his head-quarters
+at Lárissa. Still further east, the autonomous Greek villages on the
+mountainous promontories of Khalkidhiki had revolted in May, in
+conjunction with the well-supplied and massively fortified monasteries
+of the ‘Ayon Oros’; but the Pasha of Salonika called down the South
+Slavonic Moslem landowners from the interior, sacked the villages, and
+amnestied the monastic confederation on condition of establishing a
+Turkish garrison in their midst and confiscating their arms. The monks’
+compliance was assisted by the excommunication under which the new
+patriarch at Constantinople had placed all the insurgents by the
+sultan’s command.
+
+The movement was thus successfully localised on the European continent,
+and further afield it was still more easily cut short. After the
+withdrawal of the Turkish squadron, the Greek fleet had to look on at
+the systematic destruction of Kydhonies,[1] a flourishing Greek
+industrial town on the mainland opposite Mitylini which had been
+founded under the sultan’s auspices only forty years before. All that
+the islanders could do was to take off the survivors in their boats;
+and when they dispersed to their ports in autumn, the Ottoman ships
+came out again from the Dardanelles, sailed round Peloponnesos into the
+Korinthian Gulf, and destroyed Galaxídhi. A still greater catastrophe
+followed the reopening of naval operations next spring. In March 1822
+the Samians landed a force on Khios and besieged the Turkish garrison,
+which was relieved after three weeks by the arrival of the Ottoman
+fleet. A month later the Greek fleet 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 this
+the Ottoman fleet fled back as 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 at the
+destruction of Kydhonies the season before. In the following summer,
+again, the same fate befell Trikéri, a maritime community on the Gulf
+of Volo which had gained its freedom when the rest of Thessaly stirred
+in vain; and so in 1823 the revolution found itself confined on sea, as
+well as on land, to the focus where it had originated in April 1821.
+
+[Footnote 1: Turkish Aivali.]
+
+This isolation was a practical triumph for Sultan Mahmud. The
+maintenance of the Ottoman Empire on the basis of Moslem ascendancy was
+thereby assured; but it remained to be seen whether the isolated area
+could now be restored to the _status quo_ in which the rest of his
+dominions had been retained.
+
+During the whole season of 1821 the army of Khurshid had been held
+before Yannina. But in February 1822 Yannina fell, Ali was slain, his
+treasure seized, and his troops disbanded. The Ottoman forces were
+liberated for a counterattack on Peloponnesos. Already in April
+Khurshid broke up his camp at Lárissa, and his lieutenant Dramali was
+given command of the new expedition towards the south. He crossed the
+Sperkheiòs at the beginning of July with an army of twenty thousand
+men.[1] Athens had capitulated to Odhyssèvs ten days before; but it had
+kept open the road for Dramali, and north-eastern Greece fell without
+resistance into his hands. The citadel of Korinth surrendered as tamely
+as the open country, and he was master of the isthmus before the end of
+the month. Nauplia meanwhile had been treating with its besiegers for
+terms, and would have surrendered to the Greeks already if they had not
+driven their bargain so hard. Dramali hurried on southward into the
+plain to the fortress’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 experienced direction of Kolokotrónis, the Greeks from their
+hill-fastnesses ringed round the plain of Argos and scaled up every
+issue. Dramali’s supplies ran out. An attempt of his vanguard to break
+through again towards the north was bloodily repulsed, and he barely
+succeeded two days later in extricating 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 at Korinth, and Khurshid was
+executed by the sultan’s command. The invasion of Peloponnesos had
+broken down, and nothing could avert the fall of Nauplia. The Ottoman
+fleet hovered for one September week in the offing, but Kanaris’s
+fire-ships took another ship of the line in toll at the roadsteads of
+Tenedos before it safely regained the Dardanelles. The garrison of
+Nauplia capitulated in December, on condition of personal security and
+liberty, and the captain of a British frigate, which arrived on the
+spot, took measures that the compact should be observed instead of
+being broken by the customary massacre. But the strongest fortress in
+Peloponnesos was now in Greek hands.
+
+[Footnote 1: Including a strong contingent of Moslem Slavs—Bulgarian
+Pomaks from the Aegean hinterland and Serbian Bosniaks from the
+Adriatic.]
+
+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 strong sultan was just as formidable to the
+Suliots as a strong pasha, so they swelled their ranks by enfranchising
+their peasant-serfs, and made common cause with their old enemy in his
+adversity. Now that Ali was destroyed, the Suliots found themselves in
+a precarious position, and turned to the Greeks for aid. But on July 16
+the Greek advance was checked by a severe defeat at 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 to advance in turn
+towards the south. On November 6 he actually laid siege to Mesolonghi,
+but here his experiences were as discomfiting as Dramali’s. He could
+not keep open his communications, and after heavy losses retreated
+again to Arta in January 1823.
+
+[Footnote 1: He was a renegade officer of Ali’s.]
+
+In 1823 the struggle seemed to be lapsing into stalemate. The liberated
+Peloponnesos had failed to propagate the revolution through the
+remainder of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Government had equally
+failed to reconquer the 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 he penetrated no further than Anatolikòn—the Mesolonghiots’
+outpost village at the head of the lagoons—and the campaign was only
+memorable for the heroic death of Marko Botzaris the Suliot in a night
+attack upon the Ottoman camp. At sea, the two fleets indulged in
+desultory cruises without an encounter, for the Turks were still timid
+and incompetent, while the growing insubordination and dissension on
+the Greek ships made concerted action there, too, impossible. By the
+end of the season it was clear that the struggle could only
+definitively be decided by the intervention of a third party on one
+side or the other—unless the Greeks brought their own ruin upon
+themselves.
+
+This indeed was not unlikely to happen; for the new house of Hellenism
+had hardly arisen before it became desperately divided against itself.
+The vitality of the national movement resided entirely in the local
+communes. It was they that had found the fighting men, kept them armed
+and supplied, and by spontaneous co-operation expelled the Turk from
+Peloponnesos. But if the co-operation was to be permanent it must have
+a central organization, and with the erection of this superstructure
+the troubles began. As early as June 1821 a ‘Peloponnesian Senate’ was
+constituted and at once monopolized by the ‘Primates’, the propertied
+class that had been responsible for the communal taxes under the Romaic
+and Ottoman régimes and was allowed to control the communal government
+in return. About the same time two Phanariot princes threw in their lot
+with the revolution— Alexander Mavrokordatos and Demetrius, the more
+estimable brother of the futile Alexander Hypsilantis. Both were
+saturated with the most recent European political theory, and they
+committed the peasants and seamen of the liberated districts to an
+ambitious constitutionalism. In December 1821 a ‘National Assembly’ met
+at Epidauros, passed an elaborate organic law, and elected
+Mavrokordatos first president of the Hellenic Republic.
+
+The struggle for life and death in 1822 had staved off the internal
+crisis, but the Peloponnesian Senate remained obstinately recalcitrant
+towards the National Government in defence of its own vested interests;
+and the insubordination of the fleet in 1823 was of one piece with the
+political faction which broke out as soon as the immediate danger from
+without was removed.
+
+Towards the end of 1823 European ‘Philhellenes’ began to arrive in
+Greece. In those dark days of reaction that followed Waterloo,
+self-liberated Hellas seemed the one bright spot on the continent; but
+the idealists who came to offer her their services were confronted with
+a sorry spectacle. The people were indifferent to their leaders, and
+the leaders at variance among themselves. The gentlemanly Phanariots
+had fallen into the background. Mavrokordatos only retained influence
+in north-western Greece. In Peloponnesos the Primates were
+all-powerful, and Kolokotrónis the klepht was meditating a popular
+dictatorship at their expense. In the north-east the adventurer
+Odhyssévs had won a virtual dictatorship already, and was suspected of
+intrigue with the Turks; and all this factious dissension rankled into
+civil war as soon as the contraction of a loan in Great Britain had
+invested the political control of the Hellenic Republic with a
+prospective value in cash. The first civil war was fought between
+Kolokotrónis on the one side and the Primates of Hydhra and
+Peloponnesos on the other; but the issue was decided against
+Kolokotrónis by the adhesion to the coalition of Kolettis the Vlach,
+once physician to Mukhtar Pasha, the son of Ali, and now political
+agent for all the northern Armatoli in the national service. The
+fighting lasted from November 1823 to June 1824, and was followed by
+another outbreak in November of the latter year, when the victors
+quarrelled over the spoils, and the Primates were worsted in turn by
+the islanders and the Armatoli. The nonentity Kondouriottis of Hydhra
+finally emerged as President of Greece, with the sharp-witted Kolettis
+as his principal wire-puller, but the disturbances did not cease till
+the last instalment of the loan had been received and squandered and
+there was no more spoil to fight for.
+
+Meanwhile, Sultan Mahmud had been better employed. Resolved to avert
+stalemate by the only possible means, he had applied in the course of
+1823 to Mohammed Ali Pasha of Egypt, a more formidable, though more
+distant, satrap than Ali of Yannina himself. Mohammed Ali had a
+standing army and navy organized on the European model. He had also a
+son Ibrahim, who knew how to manoeuvre them, and was ambitious of a
+kingdom. Mahmud hired the father’s troops and the son’s generalship for
+the re-conquest of Peloponnesos, under engagement to invest Ibrahim
+with the pashalik as soon as he should effectively make it his own. By
+this stroke of diplomacy a potential rebel was turned into a willing
+ally, and the preparations for the Egyptian expedition went forward
+busily through the winter of 1823-4.
+
+The plan of campaign was systematically carried out. During the season
+of respite the Greek islanders had harried the coasts and commerce of
+Anatolia and Syria at will. The first task was to deprive them of their
+outposts in the Aegean, and an advanced squadron of the Egyptian fleet
+accordingly destroyed the community of Kasos in June 1824, while the
+Ottoman squadron sallied out of the Dardanelles a month later and dealt
+out equal measure to Psarà. The two main flotillas then effected a
+junction off Rhodes; and, though the crippled Greek fleet still
+ventured pluckily to confront them, it could not prevent Ibrahim from
+casting anchor safely in Soudha Bay and landing his army to winter in
+Krete. In February 1825 he transferred these troops with equal impunity
+to the fortress of Modhon, which was still held for the sultan by an
+Ottoman garrison. The fire-ships of Hydhra came to harry his fleet too
+late, and on land the Greek forces were impotent against his trained
+soldiers. The Government in vain promoted Kolokotrónis from captivity
+to commandership-in-chief. The whole south-western half of Peloponnesos
+passed into Ibrahim’s hands, and in June 1825 he even penetrated as far
+as the mills of Lerna on the eastern coast, a few miles south of Argos
+itself.
+
+At the same time the Ottoman army of the west moved south again under a
+new commander, Rashid Pasha of Yannina, and laid final siege on April
+27 to Mesolonghi, just a year after Byron had died of fever within its
+walls. The Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frail
+mud-bastions, and they more than held their own in the amphibious
+warfare of the lagoons. The struggle was chequered by the continual
+coming and going of the Greek and Ottoman fleets. They were indeed the
+decisive factor; for without the supporting squadron Rashid would have
+found himself in the same straits as his predecessors at the approach
+of autumn, while the slackness of the islanders in keeping the sea
+allowed Mesolonghi to be isolated in January 1826. The rest was
+accomplished by the arrival of Ibrahim on the scene. His heavy
+batteries opened fire in February; his gunboats secured command of the
+lagoons, and forced Anatolikòn to capitulate in March. In April
+provisions in Mesolonghi itself gave out, and, scorning surrender, the
+garrison—men, women, and children together— made a general sortie on
+the night of April 22. Four thousand fell, three thousand were taken,
+and two thousand won through. It was a glorious end for Mesolonghi, but
+it left the enemy in possession of all north-western Greece.
+
+The situation was going from bad to worse. Ibrahim returned to
+Peloponnesos, and steadily pushed forward his front, ravaging as
+steadily as he went. Rashid, after pacifying the north-west, moved on
+to the north-eastern districts, where the national cause had been
+shaken by the final treachery and speedy assassination of Odhyssèvs.
+Siege was laid to Athens in June, and the Greek Government enlisted in
+vain the military experience of its Philhellenes. Fabvier held the
+Akropolis, but Generalissimo Sir Richard Church was heavily defeated in
+the spring of 1827 in an attempt to relieve him from the Attic coast;
+Grand Admiral Cochrane saw his fleet sail home for want of payment in
+advance, when he summoned it for review at Poros; and Karaiskakis, the
+Greek captain of Armatoli, was killed in a skirmish during his more
+successful efforts to harass Rashid’s communications by land. On June
+5, 1827, the Greek garrison of the Akropolis marched out on terms.
+
+It looked as if the Greek effort after independence would be completely
+crushed, and as if Sultan Mahmud would succeed in getting his empire
+under control. In September 1826 he had rid it at last of the mischief
+at its centre by blowing up the janissaries in their barracks at
+Constantinople. Turkey seemed almost to have weathered the storm when
+she was suddenly overborne by further intervention on the other side.
+
+Tsar Alexander, the vaccillator, died in November 1825, and was
+succeeded by his son Nicholas I, as strong a character and as active a
+will as Sultan Mahmud himself. Nicholas approached the Greek question
+without any disinclination towards a Turkish war; and both Great
+Britain and France found an immediate interest in removing a ground of
+provocation which might lead to such a rude disturbance of the European
+‘Balance of Power’. On July 6, 1827, a month after Athens surrendered,
+the three powers concluded a treaty for the pacification of Greece, in
+which they bound over both belligerent parties to accept an armistice
+under pain of military coercion. An allied squadron appeared off
+Navarino Bay to enforce this policy upon the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet
+which lay united there, and the intrusion of the allied admirals into
+the bay itself precipitated on October 20 a violent naval battle in
+which the Moslem flotilla was destroyed. The die was cast; and in April
+1828 the Russian and Ottoman Governments drifted into a formal war,
+which brought Russian armies across the Danube as far as Adrianople,
+and set the Ottoman Empire at bay for the defence of its capital.
+Thanks to Mahmud’s reorganization, the empire did not succumb to this
+assault; but it had no more strength to spare for the subjugation of
+Greece. The Greeks had no longer to reckon with the sultan as a
+military factor; and in August 1828 they wore relieved of Ibrahim’s
+presence as well, by the disembarkation of 14,000 French troops in
+Peloponnesos to superintend the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces. In
+March 1829 the three powers delimited the Greek frontier. The line ran
+east and west from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, and assigned
+to the new state no more and no less territory than the districts that
+had effectively asserted their independence against the sultan in 1821.
+This settlement was the only one possible under the circumstances; but
+it was essentially transitory, for it neglected the natural line of
+nationality altogether, and left a numerical majority of the Greek
+race, as well as the most important centres of its life, under the old
+régime of servitude.
+
+Even the liberated area was not at the end of its troubles. In the
+spring of 1827, when they committed themselves into the hands of their
+foreign patrons, the Greeks had found a new president for the republic
+in John Kapodistrias, an intimate of Alexander the tsar. Kapodistrias
+was a Corfiote count, with a Venetian education and a career in the
+Russian diplomatic service, and no one could have been more
+fantastically unsuitable for the task of reconstructing the country to
+which he was called. Kapodistrias’ ideal was the _fin-de-siècle_
+‘police-state’; but ‘official circles’ did not exist in Greece, and he
+had no acquaintance with the peasants and sailors whom he hoped to
+redeem by bureaucracy. He instituted a hierarchically centralized
+administration which made the abortive constitution of Mavrokordatos
+seem sober by comparison; he trampled on the liberty of the rising
+press, which was the most hopeful educational influence in the country;
+and he created superfluous ministerial portfolios for his untalented
+brothers. In fact he reglamented Greece from his palace at Aigina like
+a divinely appointed autocrat, from his arrival in January 1828 till
+the summer of 1831, when he provoked the Hydhriots to open rebellion,
+and commissioned the Russian squadron in attendance to quell them by a
+naval action, with the result that Poros was sacked by the President’s
+regular army and the national fleet was completely destroyed. After
+that, he attempted to rule as a military dictator, and fell foul of the
+Mavromichalis of Maina. The Mainates knew better how to deal with the
+‘police-state’ than the Hydhriots; and on October 9, 1831, Kapodistrias
+was assassinated in Nauplia, at the church door, by two representatives
+of the Mavromichalis clan.
+
+The country lapsed into utter anarchy. Peloponnesians and Armatoli,
+Kolokotronists and Kolettists, alternately appointed and deposed
+subservient national assemblies and governing commissions by naked
+violence, which culminated in a gratuitous and disastrous attack upon
+the French troops stationed in Peloponnesos for their common
+protection. The three powers realized that it was idle to liberate
+Greece from Ottoman government unless they found her another in its
+place. They decided on monarchy, and offered 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 in July 1832 the sultan recognized the sovereign independence
+of the kingdom of Hellas in consideration of a cash indemnity; and in
+February 1833, just a year after the first overtures had been made, the
+appointed king arrived at Nauplia with a decorative Bavarian staff and
+a substantial loan from the allies.
+
+
+
+
+3
+_The Consolidation of the State_
+
+
+Half the story of Greece is told. We have watched the nation awake and
+put forth its newly-found strength in a great war of independence, and
+we have followed the course of the struggle to its result—the
+foundation of the kingdom of Hellas.
+
+It is impossible to close this chapter of Greek history without a sense
+of disappointment. The spirit of Greece had travailed, and only a
+principality was born, which gathered within its frontiers scarcely
+one-third of the race, and turned for its government to a foreign
+administration which had no bond of tradition or affinity with the
+population it was to rule. And yet something had been achieved. An
+oasis had been wrested from the Turkish wilderness, in which Hellenism
+could henceforth work out its own salvation untrammelled, and extend
+its borders little by little, until it brought within them at last the
+whole of its destined heritage. The fleeting glamour of dawn had
+passed, but it had brought the steady light of day, in which the work
+begun could be carried out soberly and indefatigably to its conclusion.
+The new kingdom, in fact, if it fulfilled its mission, might become the
+political nucleus and the spiritual ensample of a permanently awakened
+nation—an ‘education of Hellas’ such as Pericles hoped to see Athens
+become in the greatest days of Ancient Greece.
+
+When, therefore, we turn to the history of the kingdom, our
+disappointment is all the more intense, for in the first fifty years of
+its existence there is little development to record. In 1882 King
+Otto’s principality presented much the same melancholy spectacle as it
+did in 1833, when he landed in Nauplia Bay, except that Otto himself
+had left the scene. His Bavarian staff belonged to that reactionary
+generation that followed the overthrow of Napoleon in Europe, and
+attempted, heedless of Kapodistrias’ fiasco, to impose on Greece the
+bureaucracy of the _ancien régime_. The Bavarians’ work was entirely
+destructive. The local liberties which had grown up under the Ottoman
+dominion and been the very life of the national revival, were
+effectively repressed. Hydhriot and Spetziot, Suliot and Mainate,
+forfeited their characteristic individuality, but none of the benefits
+of orderly and uniform government were realized. The canker of
+brigandage defied all efforts to root it out, and in spite of the loans
+with which the royal government was supplied by the protecting powers,
+the public finance was subject 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 1843. 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
+to Dane, yet the afflictions continued. In 1882 King George had been
+nineteen years on the throne[1] without any happier fortune than his
+predecessor’s. It is true that the frontiers of the kingdom had been
+somewhat extended. Great Britain had presented the new sovereign with
+the Ionian Islands as an inaugural gift, and the Berlin Conference had
+recently added the province of Thessaly. Yet the major part of the
+Greek race still awaited liberation from the Turkish yoke, and regarded
+the national kingdom, chronically incapacitated by the twin plagues of
+brigandage and bankruptcy, with increasing disillusionment. The kingdom
+of Hellas seemed to have failed in its mission altogether.
+
+[Footnote 1: King George, like King Otto, was only seventeen years old
+when he received his crown.]
+
+What was the explanation of this failure? It was that the very nature
+of the mission paralysed the state from taking the steps essential to
+its accomplishment. The phenomenon has been, unhappily, only too
+familiar in the Nearer East, and any one who travelled in the Balkans
+in 1882, or even so recently as 1912, must at once have become aware of
+it.
+
+Until a nation has completely vindicated its right to exist, it is hard
+for it to settle down and make its life worth living. We nations of
+western Europe (before disaster fell upon us) had learnt to take our
+existence for granted, and ‘Politics’ for us had come to mean an
+organized effort to improve the internal economy of our community. But
+a foreigner who picked up a Greek newspaper would have found in it none
+of 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 been monopolized by foreign politics, and in
+the cafes he would have heard the latest oscillation in the
+international balance of power canvassed with the same intense and
+minute interest that Englishmen in a railway-carriage would have been
+devoting to Old Age Pensions, National Health Insurance, or Land
+Valuation. He would have been amazed by a display of intimate knowledge
+such as no British quidnunc could have mustered if he had happened to
+stumble across these intricacies of international competition, and the
+conversation would always have terminated in the same unanswered but
+inconscionable challenge to the future: ‘When will the oppressed
+majority of our race escape the Turkish yoke? If the Ottoman dominion
+is destroyed, what redistribution of its provinces will follow? Shall
+we then achieve our national unity, or will our Balkan neighbours
+encroach upon the inheritance which is justly ours?’
+
+This preoccupation with events beyond the frontiers was not caused by
+any lack of vital problems within them. The army was the most
+conspicuous object of public activity, but it was not an aggressive
+speculation, or an investment of national profits deliberately
+calculated to bring in one day a larger return. It was a necessity of
+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 again at the miserable state of all
+reproductive public works. The railways were few and far between, their
+routes roundabout, and their rolling-stock scanty, so that trains were
+both rare and slow. Wheel-roads were no commoner a feature in Greece
+than railways are here, and such stretches as had been constructed had
+often never come into use, because they had just failed to reach their
+goal or were still waiting for their bridges, so that they were simply
+falling into decay and converting the outlay of capital upon them into
+a dead loss. The Peiraeus was the only port in the country where
+steamers could come alongside a quay, and discharge their cargoes
+directly on shore. Elsewhere, the vessel must anchor many cables’
+lengths out, 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
+open roadstead, where all ships that call are kept at a distance by the
+silt from a mountain torrent, and so placed in imminent danger of being
+driven, by the first storm, upon the rocks of a neighbouring peninsula.
+
+[Footnote 1: The four chief ports being Peiraeus, Patras, Syra, and
+Volos.]
+
+These grave shortcomings were doubtless due in part to the 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 attempt much more, if the nation’s energy could have been secured
+for the work. But it is hard to tinker at details when you are kept in
+a perpetual fever by a question of life and death, and the great
+preliminary questions of national unity and self-government remained
+still unsettled.
+
+Before these supreme problems all other interests paled, for they were
+no will-o’-the-wisps of theoretical politics. It needs a long political
+education to appreciate abstract ideas, and the Greeks were still in
+their political infancy, but the realization of Greater Greece implied
+for them the satisfaction of all their concrete needs at once.
+
+So long as the _status quo_ endured, they were isolated from the rest
+of Europe by an unbroken band of Turkish territory, stretching from the
+Aegean to the Adriatic Sea. What was the use of overcoming great
+engineering difficulties to build a line of European gauge from Athens
+right up to the northern frontier, if Turkey refused to sanction the
+construction of the tiny section that must pass through her territory
+between the Greek railhead and the actual terminus of the European
+system at Salonika? Or if, even supposing she withdrew her veto, she
+would have it in her power to bring pressure on Greece at any moment by
+threatening to sever communications along this vital artery? So long as
+Turkey was there, Greece was practically an island, and her only
+communication with continental Europe lay through her ports. But what
+use to improve the ports, when the recovery of Salonika, the fairest
+object of the national dreams, would ultimately change the country’s
+economic centre of gravity, and make her maritime as well as her
+overland commerce flow along quite other channels than the present?
+
+Thus the Greek nation’s present was overshadowed by its future, and its
+actions paralysed by its hopes. Perhaps a nation with more power of
+application and less of imagination would have schooled itself to the
+thought that these sordid, obtrusive details were the key to the
+splendours of the future, and would have devoted itself to the
+systematic amelioration of the cramped area which it had already
+secured for its own. This is what Bulgaria managed to do during her
+short but wonderful period of internal growth between the Berlin Treaty
+of 1878 and the declaration of war against Turkey in 1912. But
+Bulgaria, thanks to her geographical situation, was from the outset
+freer from the tentacles of the Turkish octopus than Greece had
+contrived to make herself by her fifty years’ start, while her
+temperamentally sober ambitions were not inflamed by such past
+traditions as Greece had inherited, not altogether to her advantage. Be
+that as it may, Greece, whether by fault or misfortune, had failed
+during this half-century to apply herself successfully to the cure of
+her defects and the exploitation of her assets, though she did not lack
+leaders strong-minded enough to summon her to the dull business of the
+present. Her history during the succeeding generation was a struggle
+between the parties of the Present and the Future, and the unceasing
+discomfiture of the former is typified in the tragedy of Trikoupis, the
+greatest modern Greek statesman before the advent of Venezelos.
+
+Trikoupis came into power in 1882, just after the acquisition of the
+rich agricultural province of Thessaly under the Treaty of Berlin had
+given the kingdom a fresh start. There were no such continuous areas of
+good arable land within the original frontiers, and such rare patches
+as there were had been desolated by those eight years of savage
+warfare[1] which had been the price of liberty. The population had been
+swept away by wholesale massacres of racial minorities in every
+district; the dearth of industrious hands had allowed the torrents to
+play havoc with the cultivation-terraces on the mountain slopes; and
+the spectre of malaria, always lying in wait for its opportunity, had
+claimed the waterlogged plains for its own. During the fifty years of
+stagnation little attempt had been made to cope with the evil, until
+now it seemed almost past remedy.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1821-28]
+
+If, however, the surface of the land offered little prospect of wealth
+for the moment, there were considerable treasures to be found beneath
+it. A metalliferous bolt runs down the whole east coast of the Greek
+mainland, cropping up again in many of the Aegean islands, and some of
+the ores, of which there is a great variety, are rare and valuable. The
+lack of transit facilities is partly remedied by the fact that workable
+veins often lie near enough to the sea for the produce to be carried
+straight from mine to ship, by an endless-chain system of overhead
+trolleys; so that, once capital is secured for installing the plant and
+opening the mine, profitable operations can be carried on irrespective
+of the general economic condition of the country. Trikoupis saw how
+much potential wealth was locked up in these mineral seams. The problem
+was how to attract the capital necessary to tap it. The nucleus round
+which have accumulated those immense masses of mobilised capital that
+are the life-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, to a state of agricultural bankruptcy, has obviously failed to
+save any surplus in the process, so that it is unable to provide from
+its own pocket the minimum outlay it so urgently needs in order to open
+for itself some new activity. If it is to obtain a fresh start on other
+lines, it must secure the co-operation of the foreign investor, and the
+capitalist with a ready market for his money will only put it into
+enterprises where he has some guarantee of its safety. There was little
+doubt that the minerals of Greece would well repay extraction; the
+uncertain element was the Greek nation itself. The burning question of
+national unity might break out at any moment into a blaze of war, and,
+in the probable case of disaster, involve the whole country and all
+interests connected with it in economic as well as political ruin.
+Western Europe would not commit itself to Greek mining enterprise,
+unless it felt confident that the statesman responsible for the
+government of Greece would and could restrain his country from its
+instinctive impulse towards political adventure.
+
+The great merit of Trikoupis was that he managed to inspire 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 administration. But the roads are unfinished, the
+railway-network incomplete, the mines exploited only to a fraction of
+their capacity, because the forces against Trikoupis were in the end
+too strong for him. It may be that his eye too rigidly followed the
+foreign investor’s point of view, and that by adopting a more
+conciliatory attitude towards the national ideal, he might have
+strengthened his position at home without impairing his reputation
+abroad; but his position was really made impossible by a force quite
+beyond his control, the irresponsible and often intolerable behaviour
+which Turkey, under whatever régime, has always practised towards
+foreign powers, and especially towards those Balkan states which have
+won their freedom in her despite, while perforce abandoning a large
+proportion of their race to the protracted outrage of Turkish
+misgovernment.
+
+Several times over the Porte, by wanton insults to Greece, wrecked the
+efforts of Trikoupis to establish good relations between the two
+governments, and played the game of the chauvinist party led by
+Trikoupis’ rival, Deliyannis. Deliyannis’ tenures of office were always
+brief, but during them he contrived to undo most of the work
+accomplished by Trikoupis in the previous intervals. A particularly
+tense ‘incident’ with Turkey put him in power in 1893, with a strong
+enough backing from the country to warrant a general mobilization. The
+sole result was the ruin of Greek credit. Trikoupis was hastily
+recalled to office by the king, but too late. He found himself unable
+to retrieve the ruin, and retired altogether from politics in 1895,
+dying abroad next year in voluntary exile and enforced disillusionment.
+
+With the removal of Trikoupis from the helm, Greece ran straight upon
+the rocks. A disastrous war with Turkey was precipitated in 1897 by
+events in Krete. It brought the immediate _débâcle_ of the army and the
+reoccupation of Thessaly for a year by Turkish troops, while its final
+penalties were the cession of the chief strategical positions along the
+northern frontier and the imposition of an international commission of
+control over the Greek finances, in view of the complete national
+bankruptcy entailed by the war. The fifteen years that followed 1895
+were almost the blackest period in modern Greek history; yet the time
+was not altogether lost, and such events as the draining of the
+Kopais-basin by a British company, and its conversion from a malarious
+swamp into a rich agricultural area, marked a perceptible economic
+advance.
+
+This comparative stagnation was broken at last by the Young Turk
+_pronunciamiento_ at Salonika in 1908, which produced such momentous
+repercussions all through the Nearer East. The Young Turks had struck
+in order to forestall the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, but the
+opportunity was seized by every restive element within it to extricate
+itself, if possible, from the Turkish coils. Now, just as in 1897,
+Greece was directly affected by the action of the Greek population in
+Krete. As a result of the revolt of 1896-7, Krete had been constituted
+an autonomous state subject to Ottoman suzerainty, autonomy and
+suzerainty alike being guaranteed by four great powers. Prince George
+of Greece, a son of the King of the Hellenes, had been placed at the
+head of the autonomous government as high commissioner; but his
+autocratic tendency caused great discontent among the free-spirited
+Kretans, who had not rid themselves of the Turkish régime in order to
+forfeit their independence again in another fashion. Dissension
+culminated in 1906, when the leaders of the opposition took to 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 high commissioner by Zaimis, another
+citizen of the Greek kingdom, who inaugurated a more constitutional
+régime, and in 1908 the Kretans believed that the moment for realizing
+the national ideal had come. They proclaimed their union with Greece,
+and elected deputies to the Parliament at Athens. But the guarantor
+powers carried out their obligations by promptly sending a combined
+naval expedition, which hauled down the Greek flag at Canea, and
+prevented the deputies from embarking for Peiraeus. This apparently
+pedantic insistence upon the _status quo_ was extremely exasperating to
+Greek nationalism. It produced a ferment in the kingdom, which grew
+steadily for nine months, and vented itself in July 1909 in the _coup
+d’état_ of the ‘Military League’, a second-hand imitation of the
+Turkish ‘Committee of Union and Progress’. The royal family was
+cavalierly treated, and constitutional government superseded by a junta
+of officers. But at this point the policy of the four powers towards
+Krete was justified. Turkey knew well that she had lost Krete in 1897,
+but she could still exploit her suzerainty to prevent Greece from
+gaining new strength by the annexation of the island. The Young Turks
+had seized the reins of government, not to modify the policy of the
+Porte, but to intensify its chauvinism, and they accordingly intimated
+that they would consider any violation of their suzerain rights over
+Krete a _casus belli_ against Greece. 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 its tether. 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 appeared unexpectedly from the
+centre of disturbance, Krete. Venezelos started life as a successful
+advocate at Canea. He entered Kretan politics in the struggle for
+constitutionalism, and distinguished himself in the successful
+revolution of 1906, of which he was the soul. Naturally, he became one
+of the leading statesmen under Zaimis’ régime, and he further
+distinguished himself by resolutely opposing the ‘Unionist’ agitation
+as premature, and yet retaining his hold over a people whose paramount
+political preoccupation was their national unity. The crisis of 1908-9
+brought him into close relations with the government of the Greek
+kingdom; and the king, who had gauged his calibre, now took the
+patriotic step of calling in the man who had expelled his son from
+Krete, to put his own house in order. It speaks much for both men that
+they worked together in harmony from the beginning. Upon the royal
+invitation Venezelos exchanged Kretan 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 Venezelos
+the first premier of the new era. During five years of continuous
+office he was to prove himself the good genius of his country. When he
+resigned his post in April 1915, he left the work of consolidating the
+national state on the verge of completion, and it will be his country’s
+loss if he is baulked of achievement. Results speak for themselves, and
+the remainder of this pamphlet will be little more than a record of his
+statesmanship; but before we pass on to review his deeds, we must say a
+word about the character to which they are due. In March 1912 the time
+came for the first general election since Venezelos had taken office.
+Two years’ experience of his administration had already won him such
+popularity and prestige, that the old party groups, purely personal
+followings infected with all the corruption, jingoism, and insincerity
+of the dark fifteen years, leagued themselves in a desperate effort to
+cast him out. Corruption on a grand scale was attempted, but Venezelos’
+success at the polls was sweeping. The writer happened to be spending
+that month in Krete. The Kretans had, of course, elected deputies in
+good time to the parliament at Athens, and once more the foreign
+warships stopped them in the act of boarding the steamer for Peiraeus,
+while Venezelos, who was still responsible for the Greek Government
+till the new parliament met, had declared with characteristic frankness
+that the attendance of the Kretan deputies could not possibly be
+sanctioned, an opening of which his opponents did not fail to take
+advantage. Meanwhile, every one in Krete was awaiting news of the
+polling in the kingdom. They might have been expected to feel, at any
+rate, lukewarmly towards a man who had actually taken office on the
+programme of deferring their cherished ‘union’ indefinitely; but, on
+the contrary, they greeted his triumph with enormous enthusiasm. Their
+feeling was explained by the comment of an innkeeper. ‘Venezelos!’ he
+said: ‘Why, he is a man who can say “No”. He won’t stand any nonsense.
+If you try to get round him, he’ll put you in irons.’ And clearly he
+had hit the mark. Venezelos would in any case have done well, because
+he is a clever man with an excellent power of judgement; but acuteness
+is a common Greek virtue, and if he has done brilliantly, it is because
+he has the added touch of genius required to make the Greek take ‘No’
+for an answer, a quality, very rare indeed in the nation, which
+explains the dramatic contrast between his success and Trikoupis’
+failure. Greece has been fortunate indeed in finding the right man at
+the crucial hour.
+
+In the winter of 1911-12 and the succeeding summer, the foreign
+traveller met innumerable results of Venezelos’ activity in every part
+of the country, and all gave evidence of the same thing: a sane
+judgement and its inflexible execution. For instance, a resident in
+Greece had needed an escort of soldiers four years before, when he made
+an expedition into the wild country north-west of the Gulf of Patras,
+on account of the number of criminals ‘wanted’ by the government who
+were lurking in that region as outlaws. In August 1912 an inquiry
+concerning this danger was met with a smile: ‘Oh, yes, it was so,’ said
+the gendarme, ‘but since then Venezelos 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.’ And he spoke the truth. You
+could wander all about the forests and mountains without molestation.
+
+So far Venezelos 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 British
+missions, and when the opportunity appeared, he was ready to take full
+advantage of it. In the autumn of 1912, Turkey had been for a year at
+war with Italy; her finances had suffered a heavy drain, and the
+Italian command of the sea not only locked up her best troops in
+Tripoli, but interrupted such important lines of communication between
+her Asiatic and European provinces as the direct route by sea from
+Smyrna to Salonika, and the devious sea-passage thence round Greece to
+Scutari, which was the only alternative for Turkish troops to running
+the gauntlet of the Albanian mountaineers. Clearly the Balkan nations
+could find no better moment for striking the blow 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 compromise between
+their conflicting claims, they would have to let this common
+opportunity for making them good slip by altogether.
+
+Of the four states concerned, two, Serbia and Montenegro, were of the
+same South-Slavonic nationality, and had been drawn into complete
+accord with each other since the formal annexation of Bosnia by
+Austria-Hungary in 1908, which struck a hard blow at their common
+national idea, while neither of them had any conflicting claims with
+Greece, since the Greek and South-Slavonic nationalities are at no
+point geographically in contact. With Bulgaria, a nation of Slavonic
+speech and culture, though not wholly Slavonic in origin, Serbia had
+quarrelled for years over the ultimate destiny of the Üsküb district in
+north-western Macedonia, which was still subject to Turkey; but in the
+summer of 1912 the two states compromised in a secret treaty upon their
+respective territorial ambitions, and agreed to refer the fate of one
+debatable strip to the arbitration of Russia, after their already
+projected war with Turkey had been carried through. There was a more
+formidable conflict of interests between Bulgaria and Greece. These two
+nationalities are conterminous over a very wide extent of territory,
+stretching from the Black Sea on the east to the inland Lake of Okhrida
+on the west, and there is at no point a sharp dividing line between
+them. The Greek element tends to predominate towards the coast and the
+Bulgar towards the interior, but there are broad zones where Greek and
+Bulgar villages are inextricably interspersed, while purely Greek towns
+are often isolated in the midst of purely Bulgar rural districts. Even
+if the racial areas could be plotted out on a large-scale map, it was
+clear that no political frontier could be drawn to follow their
+convolutions, and that Greece and Bulgaria could only divide the spoils
+by both making up their minds to give and take. The actual lines this
+necessary compromise would follow, obviously depended on the degree of
+the allies’ success against Turkey in the common war that was yet to be
+fought, and Venezelos rose to the occasion. He had the courage to offer
+Bulgaria the Greek alliance without stipulating for any definite
+minimum share in the common conquests, and the tact to induce her to
+accept it on the same terms. Greece and Bulgaria agreed to shelve all
+territorial questions till the war had been brought to a successful
+close; and with the negotiation of this understanding (another case in
+which Venezelos achieved what Trikoupis had attempted only to fail) the
+Balkan League was complete.
+
+The events that followed are common knowledge. The Balkan allies opened
+the campaign in October, and the Turks collapsed before an impetuous
+attack. The Bulgarians crumpled up the Ottoman field armies in Thrace
+at the terrific battle of Lule Burgas; the Serbians disposed of the
+forces in the Macedonian interior, while the Greeks effected a junction
+with the Serbians from the south, and cut their way through to
+Salonika. Within two months of the declaration of war, the Turks on
+land had been driven out of the open altogether behind the shelter of
+the Chataldja and Gallipoli lines, and only three
+fortresses—Adrianople, Yannina, and Scutari—held out further to the
+west. Their navy, closely blockaded by the Greek fleet within the
+Dardanelles, had to look on passively at the successive occupation of
+the Aegean Islands by Greek landing-parties. With the winter came
+negotiations, during which an armistice reigned at Adrianople and
+Scutari, while the Greeks pursued the siege of Yannina and the
+Dardanelles blockade. The negotiations proved abortive, and the result
+of the renewed hostilities justified the action of the Balkan
+plenipotentiaries in breaking them off. By the spring of 1913 the three
+fortresses had fallen, and, under the treaty finally signed at London,
+Turkey ceded to the Balkan League, as a whole, all her European
+territories west of a line drawn from Ainos on the Aegean to Midía on
+the Black Sea, including Adrianople and the lower basin of the river
+Maritsa.
+
+The time had now come for Greece and Bulgaria to settle their account,
+and the unexpected extent of the common gains ought to have facilitated
+their division. The territory in question included the whole north
+coast of the Aegean and its immediate hinterland, and Venezelos
+proposed to consider it in two sections. (1) The eastern section,
+conveniently known as Thrace, consisted of the lower basin of the
+Maritsa. As far as Adrianople the population was Bulgar, but south of
+that city it was succeeded by a Greek element, with a considerable
+sprinkling of Turkish settlements, as far as the sea. Geographically,
+however, the whole district is intimately connected with Bulgaria, and
+the railway that follows the course of the Maritsa down to the port of
+Dedeagatch offers a much-needed economic outlet for large regions
+already within the Bulgarian frontier. Venezelos, then, was prepared to
+resign all Greek claims to the eastern section, in return for a
+corresponding concession by Bulgaria in the west. (2) The western
+section, consisting of the lower basins of the Vardar and Struma, lay
+in the immediate neighbourhood of the former frontier of Greece; but
+the Greek population of Salonika,[1] and the coast-districts east of
+it, could not be brought within the Greek frontier without including as
+well a certain hinterland inhabited mainly by Bulgarians. The cession
+of this was the return asked for by Venezelos, and he reduced it to a
+minimum by abstaining from pressing the quite well-founded claims of
+Greece in the Monastir district, which lay further inland still.
+
+[Footnote 1: The predominant element within the walls of Salonika
+itself is neither Greek nor Bulgarian, but consists of about 80,000 of
+those Spanish-speaking Jews who settled in Turkey as refugees during
+the sixteenth century.]
+
+But Venezelos’ conciliatory proposals met with no response from the
+Bulgarian Government, which was in an ‘all or nothing’ mood. It
+swallowed Venezelos’ gift of Thrace, and then proceeded to exploit the
+Bulgar hinterland of Salonika as a pretext for demanding the latter
+city as well. This uncompromising attitude made agreement impossible,
+and it was aggravated by the aggressive action of the Bulgarian troops
+in the occupied territory, who persistently endeavoured to steal ground
+from the Greek forces facing them. In May there was serious fighting to
+the east of the Struma, and peace was only restored with difficulty.
+Bulgarian relations with Serbia were becoming strained at the same
+time, though in this case Bulgaria had more justice on her side. Serbia
+maintained that the veto imposed by Austria upon her expansion to the
+Adriatic, in coincidence with Bulgaria’s unexpected gains on the
+Maritsa to which Serbian arms had contributed, invalidated the secret
+treaty of the previous summer, and she announced her intention of
+retaining the Monastir district and the line of the Salonika railway as
+far as 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 the other, and took her stand on her strictly legal
+treaty-rights. However the balance of justice inclined, a lasting
+settlement could only have been reached by mutual forbearance and
+goodwill; but Bulgaria put herself hopelessly in the wrong towards both
+her allies by a treacherous night-attack upon them all along the line,
+at the end of June 1913. This disastrous act was the work of a single
+political party, which has since been condemned by most sections of
+Bulgarian public opinion; but the punishment, if not the responsibility
+for the crime, fell upon the whole nation. Greece and Serbia had
+already been drawn into an understanding by their common danger. They
+now declared war against Bulgaria in concert. The counter-strokes of
+their armies met with success, and the intervention of Rumania made
+Bulgaria’s discomfiture certain.
+
+The results of the one month’s war were registered in the Treaty of
+Bucarest. Many of its provisions were unhappily, though naturally,
+inspired by the spirit of revenge; but the Greek premier, at any rate,
+showed a statesmanlike self-restraint in the negotiations. Venezelos
+advocated the course of taking no more after the war than had been
+demanded before it. He desired to leave Bulgaria a broad zone of Aegean
+littoral between the Struma and Maritsa rivers, including ports capable
+of satisfying Bulgaria’s pressing need for an outlet towards the south.
+But, in the exasperated state of public feeling, even Venezelos’
+prestige failed to carry through his policy in its full moderation.
+King George had just been assassinated in his year of jubilee, in the
+streets of the long-desired Salonika; and King Constantine, his son,
+flushed by the victory of Kilkish and encouraged by the Machiavellian
+diplomacy of his Hohenzollern brother-in-law, insisted on carrying the
+new Greek frontier as far east as the river Mesta, and depriving
+Bulgaria of Kavala, the natural harbour for the whole Bulgarian
+hinterland in the upper basins of the Mesta and Struma.
+
+It is true that Greece did not exact as much as she might have done.
+Bulgaria was still allowed to possess herself of a coastal strip east
+of the Mesta, containing the tolerable harbours of Porto Lagos and
+Dedeagatch, which had been occupied 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 the
+future from those drawbacks involved in immediate contact with Turkish
+territory, which she had so often experienced in the past. It is also
+true that the Kavala district is of great economic value in itself—it
+produces the better part of the Turkish Régie tobacco crop—and that on
+grounds of nationality alone Bulgaria has no claim to this prize, since
+the tobacco-growing peasantry is almost exclusively Greek or Turk,
+while the Greek element has been extensively reinforced during the last
+two years by refugees from Anatolia and Thrace.
+
+Nevertheless, it is already clear that Venezelos’ judgement was the
+better. The settlement at the close of the present war may even yet
+bring Bulgaria reparation in many quarters. If the Ruman and South
+Slavonic populations at present included in the complexus of
+Austria-Hungary are freed from their imprisonment and united with the
+Serbian and Rumanian national states, Bulgaria may conceivably recover
+from the latter those Bulgarian lands which the Treaty of Bucarest made
+over to them in central Macedonia and the Dobrudja, while it would be
+still more feasible to oust the Turk again from Adrianople, where he
+slipped back in the hour of Bulgaria’s prostration and has succeeded in
+maintaining himself ever since. Yet no amount of compensation in other
+directions and no abstract consideration for the national principle
+will induce Bulgaria to renounce her claim on Greek Kavala. Access to
+this district is vital to Bulgaria from the geographical point of view,
+and she will not be satisfied here with such rights as Serbia enjoys at
+Salonika—free use of the port and free traffic along a railway
+connecting it with her own hinterland. Her heart is set on complete
+territorial ownership, and she will not compose her feud with Greece
+until she has had her way.
+
+So long, therefore, as the question of Kavala remains unsettled, Greece
+will not be able to put the preliminary problem of ‘national
+consolidation’ behind her, and enter upon the long-deferred chapter of
+‘internal development’. To accomplish once for all this vital
+transition, Venezelos is taking the helm again into his hands, and it
+is his evident intention to close the Greek account with Bulgaria just
+as Serbia and Rumania hope to close theirs with the same state—by a
+bold territorial concession conditional upon adequate territorial
+compensation elsewhere.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The above paragraph betrays its own date; for, since it
+was written, the intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the Central
+Powers has deferred indefinitely the hope of a settlement based upon
+mutual agreement.]
+
+The possibility of such compensation is offered by certain outstanding
+problems directly dependent upon the issue of the European conflict,
+and we must glance briefly at these before passing on to consider the
+new chapter of internal history that is opening for the Greek nation.
+
+The problems in question are principally concerned with the ownership
+of islands.
+
+The integrity of a land-frontier is guaranteed by the whole strength of
+the nation included within it, and can only be modified by a struggle
+for existence with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by
+their geographical nature constitute independent political units,
+easily detached from or incorporated with larger domains, according to
+the momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea-power. Thus it happened
+that the arrival of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ at the Dardanelles in
+August 1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly certain questions concerning
+the Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population,
+but their respective geographical positions and political fortunes
+differentiate them into several groups.
+
+1. The Cyclades in the south-west, half submerged vanguards 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 enjoyed autonomy under Turkish suzerainty for fifteen
+years before the Balkan War, and at its outbreak she once more
+proclaimed her union with Greece. This time at last her action was
+legalized, when Turkey expressly abandoned her suzerain rights by a
+clause in the Treaty of London.
+
+3. During the war itself, the Greek navy occupied a number of islands
+which had remained till then under the more direct government of
+Turkey, The parties to the Treaty of London agreed to leave their
+destiny to the decision of the powers, and the latter assigned them all
+to Greece, with the exception of Imbros and Tenedos which command
+strategically the mouth of the Dardanelles.
+
+The islands thus secured to Greece fall in turn into several
+sub-groups.
+
+Two of these are _(a)_ Thasos, Samothraki, and Lemnos, off the European
+coast, and _(b)_ Samos and its satellite Nikarià, immediately off the
+west coast of Anatolia; and these five islands seem definitely to have
+been given up by Turkey for lost. The European group is well beyond the
+range of her present frontiers; while Samos, though it adjoins 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 that the Ottoman Government did not acutely feel its final
+severance.
+
+_(c)_ A third group consists of Mitylini and Khios,[1] and concerning
+this pair Greece and Turkey have so far come to no understanding. The
+Turks pointed out that the littoral off which these islands lie
+contains not only the most indispensable ports of Anatolia but also the
+largest enclaves of Greek population on the Asiatic mainland, and they
+declared that the occupation of this group by Greece menaced 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 barricades Aivali and Edremid as well. As soon as the
+Greek Government has converted the harbours of these islands into naval
+bases, Anatolia will be subject to a perpetual Greek blockade, and this
+violent intimidation of the Turkish people will be reinforced by an
+insidious propaganda among the disloyal Greek elements in our midst.’
+Accordingly the Turks refused to recognize the award of the powers, and
+demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman sovereignty in Mitylini and
+Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy after the precedent of Krete and
+Samos.
+
+[Footnote 1: Including its famous satellite Psarà.]
+
+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 their inhabitants ardently desire union
+with the national kingdom; and that the Greek Government would hesitate
+to use them as a basis for economic coercion and nationalistic
+propaganda against Turkey, if only because the commerce of western
+Anatolia is almost exclusively in the hands of the Greek element on the
+Asiatic continent. Greek interests were presumably bound up with the
+economic prosperity and political consolidation of Turkey in Asia, and
+the Anatolian Greeks would merely have been alienated from their
+compatriots by any such impolitic machinations. ‘Greek sovereignty in
+Mitylini and Khios’, the Greeks maintained, ‘does not threaten Turkish
+sovereignty on the Continent. But the restoration of Turkish suzerainty
+over the islands would most seriously endanger the liberty of their
+inhabitants; for Turkish promises are notoriously valueless, except
+when they are endorsed by the guarantee of some physically stronger
+power.’
+
+Negotiations were conducted between Greece and Turkey from these
+respective points of view without leading to any result, and the two
+standpoints were in fact irreconcilable, since either power required
+the other to leave vital national interests at the mercy of an ancient
+enemy, without undertaking to make corresponding sacrifices itself. The
+problem probably would never have been solved by compromise; but
+meanwhile the situation has been entirely transformed by the
+participation of Turkey in the European War, and the issue between
+Greece and Turkey, like the issue between Greece and Bulgaria, has been
+merged in the general problem of the European settlement.
+
+The Balkan War of 1912 doomed the Ottoman power in Europe, but left its
+Asiatic future unimpaired. By making war against the Quadruple Entente,
+Turkey has staked 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 accommodate her
+régime in the liberated islands to the susceptibilities of a Turkey
+consolidated on the opposite mainland, but will be able to stretch out
+her hand over the Anatolian coast and its hinterland, and compensate
+herself richly in this quarter for the territorial sacrifices which may
+still be necessary to a lasting understanding with her Bulgarian
+neighbour.
+
+The shores that dominate the Dardanelles will naturally remain beyond
+her grasp, but she may expect to establish herself on the western
+littoral from a point as far north as Mount Ida and the plain of
+Edremid. The Greek coast-town of Aivali will be hers, and the still
+more important focus of Greek commerce and civilization at Smyrna;
+while she will push her dominion along the railways that radiate from
+Smyrna towards the interior. South-eastward, Aidin will be hers in the
+valley of the Mendere (Maiandros). Due eastward she will re-baptize the
+glistening city of Ala Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia,
+under which it held out heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin
+had become the capital of a Moslem principality and the Turkish
+avalanche had rolled past it to the sea. Maybe she will follow the
+railway still further inland, and plant her flag on the Black Castle of
+Afiun, the natural railway-centre of Anatolia high up on the innermost
+plateau. All this and more was once Hellenic ground, and the Turkish
+incomer, for all his vitality, has never been able here to obliterate
+the older culture or assimilate the earlier population. In this western
+region Turkish villages are still interspersed with Greek, and under
+the government of compatriots the unconquerable minority would
+inevitably reassert itself by the peaceful weapons of its superior
+energy and intelligence.
+
+4. If Greece realizes these aspirations through Venezelos’
+statesmanship, she will have settled in conjunction her outstanding
+accounts with both Bulgaria and Turkey; but a fourth group of islands
+still remains for consideration, and these, though formerly the
+property of Turkey, are now in the hands of other European powers.
+
+_(a)_ The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of
+islands off the Anatolian coast which continues the line of Mitylini,
+Khios, and Samos towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos,
+Astypalià, Karpathos, Kasos, and, above all, Rhodes. The Sporades were
+occupied by Italy during her war with Turkey in 1911-12, and she
+stipulated in the Peace of Lausanne that she should retain them as a
+pledge until the last Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had been withdrawn,
+after which she would make them over again to 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 Italy
+until the situation was transformed here also by the successive
+intervention of both powers in the European War. The consequent lapse
+of the Treaty of Lausanne simplifies the status of the Sporades, but it
+is doubtful what effect it will have upon their destiny. In language
+and political sympathy their inhabitants are as completely Greek as all
+the other islanders of the Aegean, and if the Quadruple Entente has
+made the principle of nationality its own, Italy is morally bound, now
+that the Sporades are at her free disposal, to satisfy their national
+aspirations by consenting to their union with the kingdom of Greece. On
+the other hand, the prospective dissolution of the Ottoman Empire has
+increased Italy’s stake in this quarter. In the event of a partition,
+the whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fall within the
+Italian sphere, which will start from the Gulf of Iskanderun, include
+the districts of Adana and Adalia, and march with the new Anatolian
+provinces of Greece along the line of the river Mendere. This
+continental domain and the adjacent islands are geographically
+complementary to one another, and it is possible that Italy may for
+strategical reasons insist on retaining the Sporades in perpetuity if
+she realizes her ambitions on the continent. This solution would be
+less ideal than the other, but Greece would be wise to reconcile
+herself to it, as Italy has reconciled herself to the incorporation of
+Corsica in France; for by submitting frankly to this detraction from
+her national unity she would give her brethren in the Sporades the best
+opportunity of developing their national individuality untrammelled
+under a friendly Italian suzerainty.
+
+_(b)_ The advance-guard of the Greek race that inhabits the great
+island of Cyprus has been subject to British government since 1878,
+when the provisional occupation of the island by Great Britain under a
+contract similar to that of Lausanne was negotiated in a secret
+agreement between Great Britain and Turkey on the eve of the Conference
+at Berlin. The condition of evacuation was in this case the withdrawal
+of Russia from Kars, and here likewise it never became operative till
+it was abrogated by the outbreak of war. Cyprus, like the Sporades, is
+now at the disposal of its _de facto_ possessor, and on November 5,
+1914, it was annexed to the British Empire. But whatever decision Italy
+may take, it is to be hoped that our own government at any rate will
+not be influenced exclusively by strategical considerations, but will
+proclaim an intention of allowing Cyprus ultimately to realize its
+national aspirations by union with Greece.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, this intention, under a
+certain condition, has definitely been expressed.]
+
+The whole population of the island is Greek in language, while under an
+excellent British administration its political consciousness has been
+awakened, and has expressed itself in a growing desire for national
+unity among the Christian majority. It is true that in Cyprus, as in
+Krete, there is a considerable Greek-speaking minority of Moslems[1]
+who prefer 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 to Great Britain from the
+strategical point of view, we shall find that even in the balance of
+material interests it is not worth the price of alienating the sympathy
+of an awakened and otherwise consolidated nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: In Cyprus about 22 per cent.]
+
+This rather detailed review of problems in the islands and Anatolia
+brings out the fact that Greek nationalism is not an artificial
+conception of theorists, but a real force which impels the most
+scattered and down-trodden populations of Greek speech to travail
+unceasingly for political unity within the national state. Yet by far
+the most striking example of this attractive power in Hellenism is the
+history of it in ‘Epirus’.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The name coined to include the districts of Himarra,
+Argyrokastro, and Koritsà.]
+
+The Epirots are a population of Albanian race, and they still speak an
+Albanian dialect in their homes; while the women and children, at any
+rate, often know no other language. But somewhat over a century ago the
+political organism created by the remarkable personality of Ali Pasha
+in the hinterland of the Adriatic coast, and the relations of Great
+Britain and France with this new principality in the course of their
+struggle for the Mediterranean, began to awaken in the Epirots a desire
+for civilization. Their Albanian origin opened to them no prospects,
+for the race had neither a literature nor a common historical
+tradition; and they accordingly turned to the Greeks, with whom they
+were linked in religion by membership of the Orthodox Church, and in
+politics by subjection to Ali’s Government at Yannina, which had
+adopted Greek as its official language.
+
+They had appealed to the right quarter; for we have seen how Greek
+culture accumulated a store of latent energy under the Turkish yoke,
+and was expending it at this very period in a vigorous national
+revival. The partially successful War of Liberation in the ‘twenties of
+the nineteenth century was only the political manifestation of the new
+life. It has expressed itself more typically in a steady and universal
+enthusiasm for education, which throughout the subsequent generations
+of political stagnation has always opened to individual Greeks
+commercial and professional careers of the greatest brilliance, and
+often led them to spend the fortunes so acquired in endowing the nation
+with further educational opportunities. Public spirit is a Greek
+virtue. There are few villages which do not possess monuments of their
+successful sons, and a school is an even commoner gift than a church;
+while the State has supplemented the individual benefactor to an extent
+remarkable where public resources are so slender. The school-house, in
+fact, is generally the most prominent and substantial building in a
+Greek village, and the advantage offered to the Epirots by a
+_rapprochement_ with the Greeks is concretely symbolized by the Greek
+schools established to-day in generous numbers throughout their
+country.
+
+For the Epirot boy the school is the door to the future. The language
+he learns there makes him the member of a nation, and opens to him a
+world wide enough to employ all the talent and energy he may possess,
+if he seeks his fortune at Patras or Peiraeus, or in the great Greek
+commercial communities of Alexandria and Constantinople; while, if he
+stays at home, it still affords him a link with the life of civilized
+Europe through the medium of the ubiquitous Greek newspaper.[1] The
+Epirot has thus become Greek in soul, for he has reached the conception
+of a national life more liberal than the isolated existence of his
+native village through the avenue of Greek culture. ‘Hellenism’ and
+nationality have become for him identical ideas; and when at last the
+hour of deliverance struck, he welcomed the Greek armies that marched
+into his country from the south and the east, after the fall of Yannina
+in the spring of 1913, with the same enthusiasm with which all the
+enslaved populations of native Greek dialect greeted the consummation
+of a century’s hopes.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is still practically no literature printed in the
+Albanian language.]
+
+The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the ‘Hellenism’ of the
+Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem
+neighbours on the north. The latter speak a variety of the same
+Albanian tongue, but were differentiated by a creed which assimilated
+them to the ruling race. They had been superior to their Christian
+kinsmen by the weight of numbers and the possession of arms, which
+under the Ottoman régime were the monopoly of the Moslem. At last,
+however, the yoke of oppression was broken and the Greek occupation
+seemed a harbinger of security for the future. Unluckily, however,
+Epirus was of interest to others besides its own inhabitants. It
+occupies an important geographical position facing the extreme heel of
+Italy, just below the narrowest point in the neck of the Adriatic, and
+the Italian Government insisted that the country should be included in
+the newly erected principality of Albania, which the powers had
+reserved the right to delimit in concert by a provision in the Treaty
+of London.
+
+Italy gave two reasons for her demand. First, she declared it
+incompatible with her own vital interests that both shores of the
+strait between Corfù and the mainland should pass into the hands of the
+same power, because the combination of both coasts and the channel
+between them offered a site for a naval base that might dominate the
+mouth of the Adriatic. Secondly, she maintained that the native
+Albanian speech of the Epirots proved their Albanian nationality, and
+that it was unjust to the new Albanian state to exclude from it the
+most prosperous and civilized branch of the Albanian nation. Neither
+argument is cogent.
+
+The first argument could easily be met by the neutralization of the
+Corfù straits,[1] and it is also considerably weakened by the fact that
+the position which really commands the mouth of the Adriatic from the
+eastern side is not the Corfù channel beyond it but the magnificent bay
+of Avlona just within its narrowest section, and this is a Moslem
+district to which the Epirots have never laid claim, and which would
+therefore in any case fall within the Albanian frontier. The second
+argument is almost ludicrous. The destiny of Epirus is not primarily
+the concern of the other Albanians, of for that matter of the Greeks,
+but of the Epirots themselves, and it is hard to see how their
+nationality can be defined except in terms of their own conscious and
+expressed desire; for a nation is simply a group of men inspired by a
+common will to co-operate for certain purposes, and cannot be brought
+into existence by the external manipulation of any specific objective
+factors, but solely by the inward subjective impulse of its
+constituents. It was a travesty of justice to put the Orthodox Epirots
+at the mercy of a Moslem majority (which had been massacring them the
+year before) on the ground that they happened to speak the same
+language. The hardship was aggravated by the fact that all the routes
+connecting Epirus with the outer world run through Yannina and
+Salonika, from which the new frontier sundered her; while great natural
+barriers separate her from Avlona and Durazzo, with which the same
+frontier so ironically signalled her union.
+
+[Footnote 1: Corfù itself is neutralized already by the agreement under
+which Great Britain transferred the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863.]
+
+The award of the powers roused great indignation in Greece, but
+Venezelos was strong enough to secure that it should scrupulously be
+respected; and the ‘correct attitude’ which he inflexibly maintained
+has finally won its reward. As soon as the decision of the powers was
+announced, the Epirots determined to help themselves. They raised a
+militia, and asserted their independence so successfully, that they
+compelled the Prince of Wied, the first (and perhaps the last) ruler of
+the new ‘Albania’, to give them home rule in matters of police and
+education, and to recognise Greek as the official language for their
+local administration. They ensured observance of this compact by the
+maintenance of their troops under arms. So matters continued, until a
+rebellion among his Moslem subjects and the outbreak of the European
+War in the summer of 1914 obliged the prince to depart, leaving Albania
+to its natural state of anarchy. The anarchy might have restored every
+canton and village to the old state of contented isolation, had it not
+been for the religious hatred between the Moslems and the Epirots,
+which, with the removal of all external control, began to vent itself
+in an aggressive assault of the former upon the latter, and entailed
+much needless misery in the autumn months.
+
+The reoccupation of Epirus by Greek troops had now become a matter of
+life and death to its inhabitants, and in October 1914 Venezelos took
+the inevitable step, after serving due notice upon all the signatories
+to the Treaty of London. Thanks in part to the absorption of the powers
+in more momentous business, but perhaps even in a greater degree to the
+confidence which the Greek premier had justly won by his previous
+handling of the question, this action was accomplished without protest
+or opposition. Since then Epirus has remained sheltered from the
+vicissitudes of civil war within and punitive expeditions from without,
+to which the unhappy remnant of Albania has been incessantly exposed;
+and we may prophesy that the Epiroi, unlike their repudiated brethren
+of Moslem or Catholic faith, have really seen the last of their
+troubles. Even Italy, from whom they had most to fear, has obtained
+such a satisfactory material guarantee by the occupation on her own
+part of Avlona, that she is as unlikely to demand the evacuation of
+Epirus by Greece as she is to withdraw her own force from her long
+coveted strategical base on the eastern shore of the Adriatic. In
+Avlona and Epirus the former rivals are settling down to a neighbourly
+contact, and there is no reason to doubt that the _de facto_ line of
+demarcation between them will develop into a permanent and officially
+recognized frontier. The problem of Epirus, though not, unfortunately,
+that of Albania, may be regarded as definitely closed.
+
+The reclamation of Epirus is perhaps the most honourable achievement of
+the Greek national revival, but it is by no means an isolated
+phenomenon. Western Europe is apt to depreciate modern ‘Hellenism’,
+chiefly because its ambitious denomination rather ludicrously
+challenges comparison with a vanished glory, while any one who has
+studied its rise must perceive that it has little more claim than
+western Europe itself to be the peculiar heir of ancient Greek culture.
+And yet this Hellenism of recent growth has a genuine vitality of its
+own. It displays a remarkable power of assimilating alien elements and
+inspiring them to an active pursuit of its ideals, and its allegiance
+supplants all others in the hearts of those exposed to its charm. The
+Epirots are not the only Albanians who have been Hellenized. In the
+heart of central Greece and Peloponnesus, on the plain of Argos, and in
+the suburbs of Athens, there are still Albanian enclaves, derived from
+those successive migrations between the fourteenth and the eighteenth
+centuries; but they have so entirely forgotten their origin that the
+villagers, when questioned, can only repeat: ‘We can’t say why we
+happen to speak “Arvanitikà”, but we are Greeks like everybody else.’
+The Vlachs again, a Romance-speaking tribe of nomadic shepherds who
+have wandered as far south as Akarnania and the shores of the
+Korinthian Gulf, are settling down there to the agricultural life of
+the Greek village, so that Hellenism stands to them for the transition
+to a higher social phase. Their still migratory brethren in the
+northern ranges of Pindus are already ‘Hellenes’ in political
+sympathy,[1] and are moving under Greek influence towards the same
+social evolution. In distant Cappadocia, at the root of the Anatolian
+peninsula, the Orthodox Greek population, submerged beneath the Turkish
+flood more than eight centuries ago, has retained little individuality
+except in its religion, and nothing of its native speech but a garbled
+vocabulary embedded in a Turkified syntax. Yet even this dwindling
+rear-guard has been overtaken just in time by the 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 fate
+of eastern Anatolia may be, the Greek element is now assured a
+prominent part in its future.
+
+[Footnote 1: Greece owed her naval supremacy in 1912-13 to the new
+cruiser _Georgios Averof_, named after a Vlach millionaire who made his
+fortune in the Greek colony at Alexandria and left a legacy for the
+ship’s construction at his death.]
+
+These, moreover, are the peripheries of the Greek world; and at its
+centre the impulse towards union in the national state readies a
+passionate intensity. ‘Aren’t you better off as you are?’ travellers
+used to ask in Krete during the era of autonomy. ‘If you get your
+“Union”, you will have to do two years’ military service instead of one
+year’s training in the militia, and will be taxed up to half as much
+again.’ ‘We have thought of that,’ the Kretans would reply, ‘but what
+does it matter, if we are united with Greece?’
+
+On this unity modern Hellenism has concentrated its efforts, and after
+nearly a century of ineffective endeavour it has been brought by the
+statesmanship of Venezelos within sight of its goal. Our review of
+outstanding problems reveals indeed the inconclusiveness of the
+settlement imposed at Bucarest; but this only witnesses to the wisdom
+of the Greek nation in reaffirming its confidence in Venezelos at the
+present juncture, and recalling him to power to crown the work which he
+has so brilliantly carried through. Under Venezelos’ guidance we cannot
+doubt that the heart’s desire of Hellenism will be accomplished at the
+impending European settlement by the final consolidation of the
+Hellenic national state.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This paragraph, again, has been superseded by the dramatic
+turn of events; but the writer has left it unaltered, for the end is
+not yet.]
+
+Yet however attractive the sincerity of such nationalism may be,
+political unity is only a negative achievement. The history of a nation
+must be judged rather by the positive content of its ideals and the
+positive results which it attains, and herein the Hellenic revival
+displays certain grave shortcomings. The internal paralysis of social
+and economic life has already been noted and ascribed to the urgency of
+the ‘preliminary question’; but we must now add to this the growing
+embitterment which has poisoned the relations of Greece with her Balkan
+neighbours during the crises through which the ‘preliminary question’
+has been worked out to its solution. Now that this solution is at hand,
+will Hellenism prove capable of casting out these two evils, and adapt
+itself with strength renewed to the new phase of development that lies
+before it?
+
+The northern territories acquired in 1913 will give a much greater
+impetus to economic progress than Thessaly gave a generation ago; for
+the Macedonian littoral west as well as east of the Struma produces a
+considerable proportion of the Turkish Régie tobacco, while the
+pine-forests of Pindus, if judiciously exploited, will go far to remedy
+the present deficiency of home-grown timber, even if they do not
+provide quantities sufficient for export abroad. If we take into
+account the currant-crop of the Peloponnesian plain-lands which already
+almost monopolizes the world-market, the rare ores of the south-eastern
+mountains and the Archipelago, and the vintages which scientific
+treatment might bring into competition with the wines of the Peninsula
+and France, we can see that Greece has many sources of material
+prosperity within her reach, if only she applies her liberated energy
+to their development. Yet these are all of them specialized products,
+and Greece will never export any staple commodity to rival the grain
+which Rumania sends in such quantities to central Europe already, and
+which Bulgaria will begin to send within a few years’ time. Even the
+consolidated Greek kingdom will be too small in area and too little
+compact in geographical outline to constitute an independent economic
+unit, and the ultimate economic interests of the country demand
+co-operation in some organization more comprehensive than the political
+molecule of the national state.
+
+Such an association should embrace the Balkans in their widest extent—
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Carpathians to the
+Aegean; for, in sharp contrast to the inextricable chaos of its
+linguistic and ecclesiastical divisions, the region constitutes
+economically a homogeneous and indivisible whole, in which none of the
+parts can divest themselves of their mutual interdependence. Greece,
+for example, has secured at last her direct link with the railway
+system of the European continent, but for free transit beyond her own
+frontier she still depends on Serbia’s good-will, just, as Serbia
+depends on hers for an outlet to the Aegean at Salonika. The two states
+have provided for their respective interests by a joint proprietorship
+of the section of railway between Salonika and Belgrade; and similar
+railway problems will doubtless bring Rumania to terms with Serbia for
+access to the Adriatic, and both with Bulgaria for rights of way to
+Constantinople and the Anatolian hinterland beyond. These common
+commercial arteries of the Balkans take no account of racial or
+political frontiers, but link the region as a whole with other regions
+in a common economic relation.
+
+South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a
+special degree. The industries of central Europe will draw upon the raw
+products of the south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east
+will absorb in turn increasing quantities of manufactured plant from
+central Europe for the development of its own natural resources. The
+two areas will become parties in a vast economic 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 the
+future well-being of the Balkan States. Isolated individually and
+mutually competitive as they are at present, they must succumb to the
+economic ascendancy of Vienna and Berlin as inevitably as unorganized,
+unskilled labourers fall under the thraldom of a well-equipped
+capitalist. Central Europe will have in any event an enormous initial
+superiority over the 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 deliberate steps towards co-operation among
+themselves, and find in railway conventions the basis for a Balkan
+zollverein. A zollverein should be the first goal of Balkan
+statesmanship in the new phase of history that is opening for Europe;
+but economic relations on this scale involve the political factor, and
+the Balkans will not be able to deal with their great neighbours on
+equal terms till the zollverein has ripened into a federation. The
+alternative is subjection, both political and economic; and neither the
+exhaustion of the Central Powers in the present struggle nor the
+individual consolidation of the Balkan States in the subsequent
+settlement will suffice by 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 accordingly lead on to the
+confederation of the Balkans, if all that has been so painfully won is
+not to perish again without result; and we are confronted with the
+question: Will Balkan nationalism rise to the occasion and transcend
+itself?
+
+Many spectators of recent history will dismiss the suggestion as
+Utopian. ‘Nationality’, they will say, ‘revealed itself first as a
+constructive force, and Europe staked its future upon it; but now that
+we are committed to it, it has developed a sinister destructiveness
+which we cannot remedy. Nationality brought the Balkan States into
+being and led them to final victory over the Turk in 1912, only to set
+them tearing one another to pieces again in 1913. In the present
+catastrophe the curse of the Balkans has descended upon the whole of
+Europe, and laid bare unsuspected depths of chaotic hatred; yet Balkan
+antagonisms still remain more ineradicable than ours. The cure for
+nationality is forgetfulness, but Balkan nationalism is rooted
+altogether in the past. The Balkan peoples have suffered one shattering
+experience in common—the Turk, and the waters of Ottoman oppression
+that have gone over their souls have not been waters of Lethe. They
+have endured long centuries of spiritual exile by the passionate
+remembrance of their Sion, and when they have vindicated their heritage
+at last, 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 repatriated Jew resented the Samaritan. The Greek
+dreams with sullen intensity of a golden age before the Bulgar was
+found in the land, and the challenge implied in the revival of the
+Hellenic name, so far from being a superficial vanity, is the dominant
+characteristic of the nationalism which has adopted it for its title.
+Modern Hellenism breathes the inconscionable spirit of the _émigré_.’
+
+This is only too true. The faith that has carried them to national
+unity will suffice neither the Greeks nor any other Balkan people for
+the new era that has dawned upon them, and the future would look dark
+indeed, but for a strange and incalculable leaven, which is already
+potently at work in the land.
+
+Since 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 to the
+Greek villages in the Laconian hills they have been crossing the
+Atlantic in their thousands, to become dockers and navvies, boot-blacks
+and waiters, confectioners and barbers in Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha,
+and all the other cities that have sprung up like magic to welcome the
+immigrant to the hospitable plains of the Middle West. The intoxication
+of his new environment stimulates all the latent industry and vitality
+of the Balkan peasant, and he abandons himself whole-heartedly to
+American life; yet he does not relinquish the national tradition in
+which he grew up. In America work brings wealth, and the Greek or
+Slovak soon worships his God in a finer church and reads his language
+in a better-printed newspaper than he ever enjoyed in his native
+village. The surplus flows home in remittances of such abundance that
+they are steadily raising the cost of living in the Balkans themselves,
+or, in other words, the standard of material civilization; and sooner
+or later the immigrant goes the way of his money orders, for
+home-sickness, if not a mobilization order, exerts its compulsion
+before half a dozen years are out.
+
+It is a strange experience to spend a night in some remote
+mountain-village of Greece, and see Americanism and Hellenism face to
+face. Hellenism is represented by the village schoolmaster. He wears a
+black coat, talks a little French, and can probably read Homer; but his
+longest journey has been to the normal school at Athens, and it has not
+altered his belief that the ikon in the neighbouring monastery was made
+by St. Luke and the Bulgar beyond the mountains by the Devil. On the
+other side of you sits the returned emigrant, chattering irrepressibly
+in his queer version of the ‘American language’, and showing you the
+newspapers which are mailed to him every fortnight from the States. His
+clean linen collar and his well-made American boots are conspicuous
+upon him, and he will deprecate on your behalf and his own the
+discomfort and squalor of his native surroundings. His home-coming has
+been a disillusionment, but it is a creative phenomenon; and if any one
+can set Greece upon a new path it is he. He is transforming her
+material life by his American savings, for they are accumulating into a
+capital widely distributed in native hands, which will dispense the
+nation from pawning its richest mines and vineyards to the European
+exploiter, and enable it to carry on their development on its own
+account at this critical juncture when European sources of capital are
+cut off for an indefinite period by the disaster of the European War.
+The emigrant will give Greece all Trikoupis dreamed of, but his
+greatest gift to his country will be his American point of view. In the
+West he has learnt that men of every language and religion can live in
+the same city and work at the same shops and sheds and mills and
+switch-yards without desecrating each other’s churches or even
+suppressing each other’s newspapers, not to speak of cutting each
+other’s throats; and when next he meets Albanian or Bulgar on Balkan
+ground, he may remember that he has once dwelt with him in fraternity
+at Omaha or St. Louis or Chicago. This is the gospel of Americanism,
+and unlike Hellenism, which spread downwards from the patriarch’s
+residence and the merchant’s counting-house, it is being preached in
+all the villages of the land by the least prejudiced and most
+enterprising of their sons (for it is these who answer America’s call);
+and spreading upward from the peasant towards the professor in the
+university and the politician in parliament.
+
+Will this new leaven conquer, and cast out the stale leaven of
+Hellenism before it sours the loaf? Common sense is mighty, but whether
+it shall prevail in Greece and the Balkans and Europe lies on the knees
+of the gods.
+
+
+
+
+RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS
+
+
+
+
+1
+_Introduction_
+
+
+The problem of the origin and formation of the Rumanian nation has
+always provided matter for keen disputation among historians, and the
+theories which have been advanced are widely divergent. Some of these
+discussions have been undertaken solely for political reasons, and in
+such cases existing data prove conveniently adaptable. This elastic
+treatment of the historical data is facilitated by the fact that a long
+and important period affecting the formation and the development of the
+Rumanian nation (270-1220) has bequeathed practically no contemporary
+evidence. By linking up, however, what is known antecedent to that
+period with the precise data available regarding the following it, and
+by checking the inferred results with what little evidence exists
+respecting the obscure epoch of Rumanian history, it has been possible
+to reconstruct, almost to a certainty, the evolution of the Rumanians
+during the Middle Ages.
+
+A discussion of the varying theories would be out of proportion, and
+out of place, in this essay. Nor is it possible to give to any extent a
+detailed description of the epic struggle which the Rumanians carried
+on for centuries against the Turks. I shall have to deal, therefore, on
+broad lines, with the historical facts—laying greater stress only upon
+the three fundamental epochs of Rumanian history: the formation of the
+Rumanian nation; its initial casting into a national polity (foundation
+of the Rumanian principalities); and its final evolution into the
+actual unitary State; and shall then pass on to consider the more
+recent internal and external development of Rumania, and her present
+attitude.
+
+
+
+
+2
+_Formation of the Rumanian Nation_
+
+
+About the fifth century B.C., when the population of the
+Balkan-Carpathian region consisted of various tribes belonging to the
+Indo-European family, the northern portion of the Balkan peninsula was
+conquered by the Thracians and the Illyrians. The Thracians spread
+north and south, and a branch of their race, the Dacians, crossed the
+Danube. The latter established themselves on both sides of the
+Carpathian ranges, in the region which now comprises the provinces of
+Oltenia (Rumania), and Banat and Transylvania (Hungary). The Dacian
+Empire expanded till its boundaries touched upon those of the Roman
+Empire. The Roman province of Moesia (between the Danube and the
+Balkans) fell before its armies, and the campaign that ensued was so
+successful that the Dacians were able to compel Rome to an alliance.
+
+Two expeditions undertaken against Dacia by the Emperor Trajan (98-117)
+released Rome from these ignominious obligations, and brought Dacia
+under Roman rule (A.D. 106). Before his second expedition Trajan
+erected a stone bridge over the Danube, the remains of which can still
+be seen at Turnu-Severin, a short distance below the point where the
+Danube enters Rumanian territory. Trajan celebrated his victory by
+erecting at Adam Klissi (in the province of Dobrogea) the recently
+discovered _Tropaeum Traiani_, and in Rome the celebrated ‘Trajan’s
+Column’, depicting in marble reliefs various episodes of the Dacian
+wars.
+
+The new Roman province was limited to the regions originally inhabited
+by the Dacians, and a strong garrison, estimated by historians at
+25,000 men, was left to guard it. Numerous colonists from all parts of
+the Roman Empire were brought here as settlers, and what remained of
+the Dacian population completely amalgamated with them. The new
+province quickly developed under the impulse of Roman civilization, of
+which numerous inscriptions and other archaeological remains are
+evidence. It became one of the most flourishing dependencies of the
+Roman Empire, and was spoken of as _Dacia Felix_.
+
+About a century and a half later hordes of barbarian invaders, coming
+from the north and east, swept over the country. Under the strain of
+those incursions the Roman legions withdrew by degrees into Moesia, and
+in A.D. 271 Dacia was finally evacuated. But the colonists remained,
+retiring into the Carpathians, where they lived forgotten of history.
+
+The most powerful of these invaders were the Goths (271-375), who,
+coming from the shores of the Baltic, had shortly before settled north
+of the Black Sea. Unaccustomed to mountain life, they did not penetrate
+beyond the plains between the Carpathians and the Dnjester. They had
+consequently but little intercourse with the Daco-Roman population, and
+the total absence in the Rumanian language and in Rumanian place-names
+of words of Gothic origin indicates that their stay had no influence
+upon country or population. Material evidence of their occupation is
+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 (375-453), under Attila, the Avars
+(566-799), both of Mongolian race, and the Gepidae (453-566), of Gothic
+race—all savage, bloodthirsty raiders, passing and repassing over the
+Rumanian regions, pillaging and burning everywhere. To avoid
+destruction the Daco-Roman population withdrew more and more into the
+inaccessible wooded regions of the mountains, and as a result were in
+no wise influenced by contact with 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 ethnical conditions prevailing on the Danube. The
+Rumanians were separated from the Romans, following the occupation by
+the Slavs of the Roman provinces between the Adriatic and the Black
+Sea. Such part of the population as was not annihilated during the
+raids of the Avars was taken into captivity, or compelled to retire
+southwards towards modern Macedonia and northwards towards the Dacian
+regions.
+
+Parts of the Rumanian country became dependent upon the new state
+founded between the Balkans and the Danube in 679 by the Bulgarians, a
+people of Turanian origin, who formerly inhabited the regions north of
+the Black Sea between the Volga and the mouth of the Danube.
+
+After the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity (864) the
+Slovenian language was introduced into their Church, and afterwards
+also into the Church of the already politically dependent Rumanian
+provinces.[1] This finally severed the Daco-Rumanians from the Latin
+world. The former remained for a long time under Slav influence, the
+extent of which is shown by the large number of words of Slav origin
+contained in the Rumanian language, especially in geographical and
+agricultural terminology.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians north and south of the Danube embraced the
+Christian faith after its introduction into the Roman Empire by
+Constantine the Great (325), with Latin as religious language and their
+church organization under the rule of Rome. A Christian basilica,
+dating from that period, has been discovered by the Rumanian;
+archaeologist, Tocilescu, at Adam Klissi (Dobrogea).]
+
+The coming of the Hungarians (a people of Mongolian race) about the end
+of the ninth century put an end to the Bulgarian domination in Dacia.
+While a few of the existing Rumanian duchies were subdued by Stephen
+the Saint, the first King of Hungary (995-1038), the ‘land of the
+Vlakhs’ (_Terra Blacorum_), in the south-eastern part of Transylvania,
+enjoyed under the Hungarian kings a certain degree of national
+autonomy. The Hungarian chronicles speak of the Vlakhs as ‘former
+colonists of the Romans’. The ethnological influence of the Hungarians
+upon the Rumanian population has been practically nil. They found the
+Rumanian nation firmly established, race and language, and the latter
+remained pure of Magyarisms, even in Transylvania. Indeed, it is easy
+to prove—and it is only what might be expected, seeing that the
+Rumanians had attained a higher state of civilization than the
+Hungarian invaders—that the Hungarians were largely influenced by the
+Daco-Romans. They adopted Latin as their official language, they copied
+many of the institutions and customs of the Rumanians, 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 were, however,
+inimical to the new masters, and migrated to the regions across the
+mountains. This the Hungarians used as a pretext for bringing parts of
+Rumania under their domination, and they were only prevented from
+further extending it by the coming of the Tartars (1241), the last
+people of Mongolian origin to harry these regions. The Hungarians
+maintained themselves, however, in the parts which they had already
+occupied, until the latter were united into the principality of the
+‘Rumanian land’.
+
+To sum up: ‘The Rumanians are living to-day where fifteen centuries ago
+their ancestors were living. The possession 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, detached from their native
+soil, disappeared as mist before the sun. But the Roman element bent
+their heads while the storm passed over them, clinging to the old
+places until the advent of happier days, when they were able to stand
+up and stretch their limbs.’[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Traugott Tamm, _Über den Ursprung der Rumänen,_, Bonn,
+1891.]
+
+
+
+
+3
+_The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities_
+
+
+The first attempt to organize itself into a political entity was made
+by the Rumanian nation in the thirteenth century, when, under the
+impulse of the disaffected nobles coming from Hungary, the two
+principalities of ‘Muntenia’ (Mountain Land), commonly known as
+Wallachia and ‘Moldavia’, came into being. The existence of Rumanians
+on both sides of the Carpathians long before Wallachia was founded is
+corroborated by contemporary chroniclers. We find evidence of it in as
+distant a source as the _History of the Mongols,_ of the Persian
+chronicler, Rashid Al-Din, who, describing the invasion of the Tartars,
+says: ‘In the middle of spring (1240) the princes (Mongols or Tartars)
+crossed the mountains in order to enter the country of the Bulares
+(Bulgarians) and of the Bashguirds (Hungarians). Orda, who was marching
+to the right, passed through the country of the Haute (Olt), where
+Bazarambam met him with an army, but was beaten. Boudgek crossed the
+mountains to enter the Kara-Ulak, and defeated the Ulak (Vlakh)
+people.’[1] Kara-Ulak means Black Wallachia; Bazarambam is certainly
+the corrupted name of the Ban Bassarab, who ruled as vassal of Hungary
+over the province of Oltenia, and whose dynasty founded the
+principality of Muntenia. The early history of this principality was
+marked by efforts to free it from Hungarian domination, a natural
+development of the desire for emancipation which impelled the Rumanians
+to migrate from the subdued provinces in Hungary.
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, _Histoire des Roumains,_ Paris, 1896, i, 168.]
+
+The foundation of Moldavia dates from after the retreat of the Tartars,
+who had occupied the country for a century (1241-1345). They were
+driven out by an expedition under Hungarian leadership, with the aid of
+Rumanians from the province of Maramuresh. It was the latter who then
+founded the principality of Moldavia under the suzerainty of Hungary,
+the chroniclers mentioning as its first ruler the Voivod Dragosh.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The legend as to the foundation of Moldavia tells us that
+Dragosh, when hunting one day in the mountains, was pursuing a bison
+through the dense forest. Towards sunset, just when a successful shot
+from his bow had struck and killed the animal, he emerged at a point
+from which the whole panorama of Moldavia was unfolded before his
+astonished eyes. Deeply moved by the beauty of this fair country, he
+resolved to found a state there. It is in commemoration of this event
+that Moldavia bears the head of a wild bison on her banner.]
+
+The rudimentary political formations which already existed before the
+foundation of the principalities were swept away by the invasion of the
+Tartars, who destroyed all trace of constituted authority in the plains
+below the Carpathians. In consequence the immigrants from Transylvania
+did not encounter any resistance, and were even able to impose
+obedience upon the native population, though coming rather as refugees
+than as conquerors. These new-comers were mostly nobles (boyards).
+Their emigration deprived the masses of the Rumanian population of
+Transylvania of all moral and political support—especially as a part of
+the nobility had already been won over by their Hungarian masters—and
+with time the masses fell into servitude. On the other hand the
+immigrating nobles strengthened and secured the predominance of their
+class in the states which were to be founded. In both cases the
+situation of the peasantry became worse, and we have, curiously enough,
+the same social fact brought about by apparently contrary causes.
+
+Though the Rumanians seem to have contributed but little, up to the
+nineteenth century, to the advance of civilization, their part in
+European history is nevertheless a glorious one, and if less apparent,
+perhaps of more fundamental importance. By shedding their blood in the
+struggle against the Ottoman invasion, they, together with the other
+peoples of Oriental Europe, procured that security which alone made
+possible the development of western civilization. Their merit, like
+that of all with whom they fought, ‘is not to have vanquished time and
+again the followers of Mohammed, 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 heavy price, that their resources
+were drained, they were unable to carry on the fight, and thus their
+power came to an end’.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., i. 266.]
+
+From the phalanx of Christian warriors stand out the names of a few who
+were the bravest of a time when bravery was common; but while it is at
+least due that more tribute than a mere mention of their names should
+be paid to the patriot princes who fought in life-long conflict against
+Turkish domination, space does not permit me to give more than the
+briefest summary of the wars which for centuries troubled the country.
+
+It was in 1389, when Mircea the Old was Prince of Wallachia, that the
+united Balkan nations attempted for the first 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 the battle
+of Rovine (1398), where Mircea defeated an invading Turkish army, the
+country had peace, until Turkish victories under the Sultan Mohammed
+resulted, in 1411, in further submissions to tribute.
+
+It is worthy of mention that it was on the basis of tribute that the
+relations between Turkey and Rumania rested until 1877, the Rumanian
+provinces becoming at no time what Hungary was for a century and a
+half, namely, a Turkish province.
+
+In a battle arising following his frustration—by means not unconnected
+with his name—of a Turkish plot against his person, Vlad the Impaler
+(1458-62) completely defeated the Turks under Mohammed II; but an
+unfortunate feud against Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, put an
+end to the reign of Vlad—a fierce but just prince.
+
+A period of the most lamentable decadence followed, during which
+Turkish domination prevailed more and more in the country. During an
+interval of twenty-five years (1521-46) no less than eleven princes
+succeeded one another on the throne of Muntenia, whilst of the nineteen
+princes who ruled during the last three-quarters of the sixteenth
+century, only two died a natural death while still reigning.
+
+In Moldavia also internal struggles were weakening the country. Not
+powerful enough to do away with one another, the various aspirants to
+the throne contented themselves with occupying and ruling over parts of
+the province. Between 1443-7 there were no less than three princes
+reigning simultaneously, whilst one of them, Peter III, lost and
+regained the throne three times.
+
+For forty-seven years (1457-1504) Stephen the Great fought for the
+independence of Moldavia. At Racova, in 1475, he annihilated an Ottoman
+army in a victory considered the greatest ever secured by the Cross
+against Islam. The Shah of 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 Persians against the
+common foe. These princes, as well as Pope Sixtus IV, gave him great
+praise; but when Stephen 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 divide Moldavia
+between them. A Polish army entered the country, but was utterly
+destroyed by Stephen in the forest of Kosmin.
+
+Having had the opportunity of judging at its right value the friendship
+of the Christian princes, on his death-bed Stephen advised his son
+Bogdan to make voluntary submission to the Turks. Thus Moldavia, like
+Wallachia, came under Turkish suzerainty.
+
+For many years after Stephen’s death the Turks exploited the Rumanian
+countries shamelessly, the very candidates for the throne having to pay
+great sums for Turkish support. The country groaned under the resultant
+taxation and the promiscuousness of the tribute exacted till, in 1572,
+John the Terrible ascended the Moldavian throne. This prince refused to
+pay tribute, and repeatedly defeated the Turks. An army of 100,000 men
+advanced against John; but his cavalry, composed of nobles not
+over-loyal to a prince having the peasant cause so much at heart,
+deserted to the enemy, with the result that, after a gallant and
+prolonged resistance, he suffered defeat.
+
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Muntenia (1593-1601), was the last of the
+Vlakhs to stand up against Turkish aggression. This prince not only
+succeeded in crushing a Turkish army sent against him, but he invaded
+Transylvania, whose prince had leanings towards Turkey, pushed further
+into Moldavia, and succeeded in bringing the three Rumanian countries
+under his rule. Michael is described in the documents of the time as
+‘Prince of the whole land of Hungro-Wallachia, of Transylvania, and of
+Moldavia’. He ruled for eight years. ‘It was not the Turkish sword
+which put an end to the exploits of Michael the Brave. The Magyars of
+Transylvania betrayed him; the German emperor condemned him; and a
+Greek in Austria’s service, General Basta, had him sabred: as though it
+were fated that 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 the Rumanian lands which he realized
+did not last long; but it gave form and substance to the idea which was
+from that day onward to be the ideal of the Rumanian nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Alfred Rumbaud, Introduction to Xenopol, op, cit., i.
+xix.]
+
+The fundamental cause of all the sufferings of the Rumanian
+principalities was the hybrid ‘hereditary-elective’ system of
+succession to the throne, which prevailed also in most of the
+neighbouring countries. All members of the princely family were
+eligible for the succession; but the right of selecting among them lay
+with an assembly composed of the higher nobility and clergy. All was
+well if a 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 with promises, 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 factors in the choice and election of the ruler.
+
+Economically and intellectually all this was disastrous. The Rumanians
+were an agricultural people. The numerous class of small freeholders
+(moshneni and razeshi), not being able to pay the exorbitant taxes,
+often had their lands confiscated by the princes. Often, too, not being
+able to support themselves, they sold their property and their very
+selves to the big landowners. Nor did the nobles fare better. Formerly
+free, quasi-feudal warriors, seeking fortune in reward for services
+rendered to their prince, they were often subjected to coercive
+treatment on his part now that the throne depended upon the goodwill of
+influential personages at Constantinople. Various civil offices were
+created at court, either necessitated by the extension of the relations
+of the country or intended to satisfy some favourite of the prince.
+Sources of social position 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 best to undermine the
+position of the prince.
+
+
+
+
+4
+_The Phanariote Rule_
+
+
+These offices very presently fell to the lot of the Phanariotes (Greek
+merchants and bankers inhabiting the quarter of Phanar), who had in
+some way or another assisted the princes to their thrones, these being
+now practically put up to auction in Constantinople. As a natural
+consequence of such a state of affairs the thoughts of the Rumanian
+princes turned to Russia as a possible supporter against Ottoman
+oppression. A formal alliance was entered into in 1711 with Tsar Peter
+the Great, but a joint military action against the Turks failed, the
+Tsar returned to Russia, and the Porte threatened to transform
+Moldavia, in order to secure her against incipient Russian influence,
+into a Turkish province with a pasha as administrator. The nobles were
+preparing to leave the country, and the people to retire into the
+mountains, as their ancestors had done in times of danger. It is not to
+be wondered at 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 people greeted with
+joy the accession of the first Phanariote to the throne of the
+principality of Moldavia’[1] (1711).
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., ii. 138]
+
+Knowledge of foreign languages had enabled the Phanariotes to obtain
+important diplomatic positions at Constantinople, and they ended by
+acquiring the thrones of the Rumanian principalities as a recompense
+for their services. But they had to pay for it, and to make matters
+more profitable 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 thrones in this way three times. They acquired the
+throne by gold, and they could only keep it by gold. All depended upon
+how much they wore able to squeeze out of the country. The princes soon
+became past masters in the art of spoliation. They put taxes upon
+chimneys, and the starving peasants pulled their cottages down and went
+to live in mountain caves; they taxed the animals, and the peasants
+preferred to kill the few beasts they possessed. But this often proved
+no remedy, for we are told that the Prince Constantin Mavrocordato,
+having prescribed a tax on domestic animals at a time when an epidemic
+had broken out amongst them, ordered the tax to be levied on the
+carcasses. ‘The Administrative régime during the Phanariote period was,
+in general, little else than organized brigandage,’ says Xenopol[1]. In
+fact the Phanariote rule was instinct with corruption, luxury, and
+intrigue. Though individually some of them may not deserve blame, yet
+considering what the Phanariotes took out of the country, what they
+introduced into it, and to what extent they prevented its development,
+their era was the most calamitous in Rumanian history.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid, op. cit., ii. 308]
+
+The war of 1768 between Russia and Turkey gave the former power a vague
+protectorate over the Rumanian provinces (Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji).
+In 1774 Austria acquired from the Turks, by false promises, the
+northern part of Moldavia, the pleasant land of Bucovina. During the
+new conflict between Turkey and Russia, the Russian armies occupied and
+battened upon the Rumanian provinces for six years. Though they had
+again to abandon their intention of making the Danube the southern
+boundary of their empire—to which Napoleon had agreed by the secret
+treaty with Tsar Alexander (Erfurt, September 27, 1808)—they obtained
+from Turkey the cession of Bessarabia (Treaty of Bucarest, May 28,
+1812), together with that part of Moldavia lying between the Dnjester
+and the Pruth, the Russians afterwards giving to the whole region the
+name of Bessarabia.
+
+
+
+
+5
+_Modern Period to 1866_
+
+
+In 1821 the Greek revolution, striving to create an independent Greece,
+broke out on Rumanian ground, supported by the princes of Moldavia and
+Muntenia. Of this support the Rumanians strongly disapproved, for, if
+successful, the movement would have strengthened the obnoxious Greek
+domination; If unsuccessful, the Turks were sure to take a terrible
+revenge for the assistance given by the Rumanian countries. The
+movement, which was started about the same time by the ennobled
+peasant, Tudor Vladimirescu, for the emancipation of the lower classes,
+soon acquired, therefore, an anti-Greek tendency. Vladimirescu was
+assassinated at the instigation of the Greeks; the latter were
+completely checked by the Turks, who, grown suspicious after the Greek
+rising and confronted with the energetic attitude of the Rumanian
+nobility, consented in 1822 to the nomination of two native boyards,
+Jonitza Sturdza and Gregory Ghica, recommended by their countrymen, as
+princes of 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 influence in the Rumanian
+principalities also marks the growth of Russian influence; the first
+meant economic exploitation, the second was a serious menace to the
+very existence of the Rumanian nation. But if Russia seemed a possible
+future danger, Turkey with its Phanariote following was a certain and
+immediate menace. When, therefore, at the outbreak of the conflict with
+Turkey in 1828 the Russians once more passed the Pruth, the country
+welcomed them. Indeed, the Rumanian boyards, who after the rising of
+1821 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 Treaty of Adrianople (1829) the rights of
+Turkey as suzerain were limited to the exaction of a monetary tribute
+and the right of investiture of the princes, one important innovation
+being that these last were to be elected by national assemblies for
+life. But, on the other hand, a Russian protectorate was established,
+and the provinces remained in Russian military occupation up to 1834,
+pending the payment of the war indemnity by Turkey. The ultimate aim of
+Russia may be open to discussion. Her immediate aim was to make Russian
+influence paramount in the principalities; this being the only possible
+explanation of the anomalous fact that, pending the payment of the war
+indemnity, Russia herself was occupying the provinces whose autonomy
+she had but now forcibly retrieved from Turkey. The _Règlement
+Organique_, the new constitutional law given to the principalities by
+their Russian governor, Count Kisseleff, truly reflected the tendency.
+From the administrative point of view it was meant to make for
+progress; from the political point of view it was meant to bind the two
+principalities to the will of the Tsar. The personal charm of Count
+Kisseleff seemed to have established as it were an unbreakable link
+between Russians and Rumanians. But when he left the country in 1834
+‘the liking for Russia passed away to be replaced finally by the two
+sentiments which always most swayed the Rumanian heart: love for their
+country, and affection towards France’.
+
+[Footnote 1: Sec P. Eliade, _Histoire de l’Esprit Public en Roumanie_,
+i, p. 167 et seq.]
+
+French culture had been introduced into the principalities by 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 their children. With the Russian occupation a fresh
+impetus was given to French culture, which was pre-eminent in Russia at
+the time; and the Russian officials, not speaking the language of the
+country, generally employed French in their relations with the Rumanian
+authorities, French being already widely spoken in Rumania. The contact
+with French civilization, at an epoch when the Rumanians were striving
+to free themselves from Turkish, Greek, and Russian political
+influence, roused in them the sleeping Latin spirit, 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 in their history the Rumanians felt themselves drawn
+towards France, no less by racial affinity than by the liberal ideas to
+which that country had so passionately given herself during several
+decades.
+
+By the Treaty of Adrianople the Black Sea was opened to the commercial
+vessels of all nations. This made for the rapid economic development of
+the principalities by providing an outlet for their agricultural
+produce, the chief source of their wealth. It also brought them nearer
+to western Europe, which began to be interested in a nation whose
+spirit centuries of sufferings had failed to break. Political,
+literary, and economic events thus prepared the ground for the Rumanian
+Renascence, and when in 1848 the great revolution broke out, it spread
+at once over the Rumanian countries, where the dawn of freedom had been
+struggling to break since 1821. The Rumanians of Transylvania rose
+against the tyranny of the Magyars; those of Moldavia and Muntenia
+against the oppressive influence of Russia. The movement under the
+gallant, but inexperienced, leadership of a few patriots, who,
+significantly enough, had almost all been educated in France, was,
+however, soon checked in the principalities by the joint action of
+Russian and Turkish forces which remained in occupation of the country.
+Many privileges were lost (Convention of Balta Liman, May 1, 1849); but
+the revolution had quickened the national sentiment of the younger
+generation in all classes of society, and the expatriated leaders,
+dispersed throughout the great capitals of Europe, strenuously set to
+work to publish abroad the righteous cause of their country. In this
+they received the enthusiastic and invaluable assistance of Edgar
+Quinet, Michelet, Saint-Marc Girardin, and others.
+
+This propaganda had the fortune to be contemporaneous and in agreement
+with the political events leading to the Crimean War, which was entered
+upon to check the designs of Russia. A logical consequence was the
+idea, raised at the Paris Congress of 1856, of the union of the
+Rumanian principalities as a barrier to Russian expansion. This idea
+found a powerful supporter in Napoleon III, ever a staunch upholder of
+the principle of nationality. But at the Congress the unexpected
+happened. Russia favoured the idea of union, ‘to swallow the two
+principalities at a gulp,’ as a contemporary diplomatist maliciously
+suggested; while Austria opposed it strongly. So, inconceivably enough,
+did Turkey, whose attitude, as the French ambassador at Constantinople,
+Thouvenel, put it, ‘was less influenced by the opposition of Austria
+than by the approval of Russia’.[1] Great Britain also threw in her
+weight with the powers which opposed the idea of union, following her
+traditional policy of preserving the European equilibrium. The treaty
+of March 30, 1856, re-incorporated with Moldavia the southern part of
+Bessarabia, including the delta of the Danube, abolished the Russian
+protectorate, but confirmed the suzerainty of Turkey—not unnaturally,
+since the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had been the prime motive of
+the war. By prohibiting Turkey, however, from entering Rumanian
+territory, save with the consent of the great powers, it was recognized
+indirectly that the suzerainty was merely a nominal one. Article 23 of
+the treaty, by providing that the administration of the principalities
+was to be on a national basis, implicitly pointed to the idea of union,
+as the organization of one principality independently of the other
+would not have been national. But as the main argument of Turkey and
+Austria was that the Rumanians themselves did not desire the union, it
+was decided to convene in both principalities special assemblies
+(divans _ad hoc_) representing all classes of the population, whose
+wishes were to be embodied, by a European commission, in a report for
+consideration by the Congress.
+
+[Footnote 1: A. Xenopol, _Unionistii si Separatistii_ (Paper read
+before the Rumanian Academy), 1909.]
+
+To understand the argument of the two powers concerned and the decision
+to which it led, it must be borne in mind that the principalities were
+in the occupation of an Austrian army, which had replaced the Russian
+armies withdrawn in 1854, and that the elections for the assemblies
+were to be presided over by Turkish commissaries. Indeed, the latter,
+in collaboration with the Austrian consuls, so successfully doctored
+the election lists,[1] that the idea of union might once more have
+fallen through, had it not been for the invaluable assistance which
+Napoleon III gave the Rumanian countries. As Turkish policy was relying
+mainly on England’s support, Napoleon brought about a personal meeting
+with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, at Osborne (August 1857), the
+result of which was a compromise: Napoleon agreed to defer for the time
+being the idea of an effective union of the two principalities, England
+undertaking, on the other hand, to make the Porte cancel the previous
+elections, and proceed to new ones after revision of the electoral
+lists. The corrupt Austrian and Turkish influence on the old elections
+was best demonstrated by the fact that only three of the total of
+eighty-four old members succeeded in securing re-election. The
+assemblies met and proclaimed as imperatively necessary to the future
+welfare of the provinces, their union, ‘for no frontier divides us, and
+everything tends to bring us closer, and nothing to separate 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 us has been a constant pretext
+for foreign interference, and the throne has been the cause of unending
+feud among the great families of this country’. Moreover, if the union
+of the two principalities was to be accomplished under a native prince,
+it is obvious that the competition would have become doubly keen; not
+to speak of the jealousies likely to be arousal between Moldavians and
+Muntenians.
+
+[Footnote 1: The edifying correspondence between the Porte and its
+commissary Vorgoridès regarding the arrangements for the Rumanian
+elections fell into the hands of Rumanian politicians, and caused a
+great sensation when it appeared in _L’Etoile du Danube_, published in
+Brussels by Rumanian _émigrés_.]
+
+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 started on the high road of progress. But Europe had called for
+the expression of these wishes only to get the question shelved for the
+moment, as in 1856 everybody was anxious for a peace which should at
+all costs be speedy. Consequently, when a second Congress met in Paris,
+in May 1858, three months of discussion and the sincere efforts of
+France only resulted in a hybrid structure entitled the ‘United
+Principalities’. These were to have a common legislation, a common
+army, and a central committee composed of representatives of both
+assemblies for the discussion of common affairs; but were to continue
+to form two separate states, with independent legislative and executive
+institutions, each having to elect a prince of Rumanian descent for
+life.
+
+Disappointed in their hopes and reasonable expectations, the Rumanians
+adopted the principle of ‘help yourself and God will help you’, and
+proceeded to the election of their rulers. Several candidates competed
+in Moldavia. To avoid a split vote the name of an outsider was put
+forward the day before the election, and on January 17, 1859, Colonel
+Alexander Ioan Cuza was unanimously elected. In Wallachia the outlook
+was very uncertain when the assembly met, amid great popular
+excitement, on February 5. The few patriots who had realized that the
+powers, seeking only their own interests, were consciously and of set
+purpose hampering the emancipation of a long-suffering nation, put
+forth and urged the election of Cuza, and the assembly unanimously
+adopted this spirited suggestion. By this master-stroke the Rumanians
+had quietly accomplished the reform which was an indispensable
+condition towards assuring a better future. The political moment was
+propitious. Italy’s military preparation prevented Austria from
+intervening, and, as usual when confronted with an accomplished fact,
+the great powers and Turkey finished by officially recognizing the
+action of the principalities in December 1861. The central commission
+was at once abolished, the two assemblies and cabinets merged into one,
+and Bucarest became the capital of the new state ‘Rumania’.
+
+If the unsympathetic attitude of the powers had any good result, it was
+to bring home for the moment to the Rumanians the necessity for
+national unity. When the danger passed, however, the wisdom which it
+had evoked followed suit. Cuza cherished the hope of realizing various
+ideal reforms. Confronted with strong opposition, he did not hesitate
+to override the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly (May
+2, 1864) and arrogating to himself the right, till the formation of a
+new Chamber, to issue decrees which had all the force of law. He thus
+gave a dangerous example to the budding constitutional polity;
+political passions were let loose, and a plot organized by the
+Opposition led to the forced abdication of Cuza on February 23, 1866.
+The prince left the country for ever a few days later. No disturbance
+whatever took place, not one drop of blood was shed.
+
+A series of laws, mostly adapted from French models, was introduced by
+Cuza. Under the Education Act of 1864 all degrees of education were
+free, and elementary education compulsory. A large number of special
+and technical schools were founded, as well as two universities, one at
+Jassy (1860) and one at Bucarest (1864). After the _coup d’état_ of
+1864 universal suffrage was introduced, largely as an attempt to
+‘swamp’ the fractious political parties with the peasant vote; while at
+the same time a ‘senate’ was created as a ‘moderating assembly’ which,
+composed as it was of members by right and members nominated by the
+prince, by its very nature increased the influence of the crown. The
+chief reforms concerned the rural question. Firstly, Cuza and his
+minister, Cogalniceanu, secularized and converted to the state the
+domains of the monasteries, which during the long period of Greek
+influence had acquired one-fifth of the total area of the land, and
+were completely in the hands of the Greek clergy (Law of December 13,
+1863). More important still, as affecting fundamentally the social
+structure of the country, was the Rural Law (promulgated on August 26,
+1864), which had been the cause of the conflict between Cuza and the
+various political factions, the Liberals clamouring for more thorough
+reforms, the Conservatives denouncing Cuza’s project as revolutionary.
+As the peasant question is the most important problem left for Rumania
+to solve, and as I believe that, in a broad sense, it has a
+considerable bearing upon the present political situation in that
+country, it may not be out of place here to devote a little space to
+its consideration.
+
+Originally the peasant lived in the village community as a free
+land-owner. He paid a certain due (one-tenth of his produce and three
+days’ labour yearly) to his leader (_cneaz_) as recompense for his
+leadership in peace and war. The latter, moreover, solely enjoyed the
+privilege of carrying on the occupations of miller and innkeeper, and
+the peasant was compelled to mill with him. When after the foundation
+of the principalities the upper class was established on a feudal
+basis, the peasantry were subjected to constantly increasing burdens.
+Impoverished and having in many cases lost their land, the peasants
+were also deprived at the end of the sixteenth century of their freedom
+of movement. By that time the cneaz, from being the leader of the
+community, had become the actual lord of the village, and his wealth
+was estimated by the number of villages he possessed. The peasant
+owners paid their dues to him in labour and in kind. Those peasants who
+owned no land were his serfs, passing with the land from master to
+master.
+
+Under the Turkish domination the Rumanian provinces became the granary
+of the Ottoman Empire. The value of land rose quickly, as did also the
+taxes. To meet these taxes—from the payment of which the boyards (the
+descendants of the cneazi) were exempt—the peasant owners had
+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 increase of their lands they needed more labour,
+and they obtained permission from the ruler not only to exact increased
+labour dues from the peasantry, but also to determine the amount of
+work that should be done in a day. This was effected in such 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 eighteenth century. By a decree of Prince Moruzi, in
+1805, the lords were for the first time empowered to reserve to their
+own use part of the estate, namely, one-fourth of the meadow land, and
+this privilege was extended in 1828 to the use of one-third of the
+arable land. The remaining two-thirds were reserved for the peasants,
+every young married couple being entitled to a certain amount of land,
+in proportion to the number of traction animals they owned. When the
+Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 opened the western markets to Rumanian
+corn, in which markets far 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
+_Règlement Organique_ they succeeded in reducing such land to half its
+previous area, at the same time maintaining and exacting from the
+peasant his dues in full. It is in the same Act that there appears for
+the first time the fraudulent 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, security for the peasants from the
+enslaving domination of the upper class, 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 estate. The
+original intention of creating common land was not carried out in the
+Bill. The peasant’s holding in arable land being small, he not
+infrequently ploughed his pasture, and, as a consequence, had either to
+give up keeping beasts, or pay a high price to the land-owners for
+pasturage. Dues in labour and in kind were abolished, the land-owners
+receiving an indemnity which was to be refunded to the state by the
+peasants 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 ideal reform, without adequate study
+of and adaptation to social circumstances, his laws provided no
+practical solution of the problem with which they dealt. In this case,
+for example, the reform benefited the upper class solely, although
+generally considered a boon to the peasantry. Of ancient right
+two-thirds of the estate were reserved for the peasants; but the new
+law gave them possession of no more than the strip they were holding,
+which barely sufficed to provide them with the mere necessaries of
+life. The remainder up to two-thirds of the estate went as a gift, with
+full proprietorship; to the boyard. For the exemption of their dues in
+kind and in labour, the peasants had to pay an indemnity, whereas the
+right of their sons to receive at their marriage a piece of land in
+proportion to the number of traction animals they possessed was lost
+without compensation. Consequently, the younger peasants had to sell
+their labour, contracting for periods of a year and upwards, and became
+a much easier prey to the spoliation of the upper class than when they
+had at least a strip of land on which to build a hut, and from which to
+procure their daily bread; the more so as the country had no industry
+which could compete with agriculture in the labour market. An
+investigation undertaken by the Home Office showed that out of 1,265
+labour contracts for 1906, chosen at random, only 39.7 per cent, were
+concluded at customary wages; the others were lower in varying degrees,
+13.2 per cent. of the cases showing wages upwards of 75 per cent. below
+the usual rates.
+
+Under these conditions of poverty and economic serfdom the peasantry
+was not able to participate in the enormous development of Rumanian
+agriculture, which had resulted from increased political security and
+the establishment of an extensive network of railways. While the
+boyards found an increasing attraction in politics, a new class of
+middlemen came into existence, renting the land from the boyards for
+periods varying generally from three to five years. Owing to the
+resultant competition, rents increased considerably, while conservative
+methods of cultivation kept production stationary. Whereas the big
+cultivator obtained higher prices to balance the increased cost of
+production, the peasant, who produced for his own consumption, could
+only face such increase by a corresponding decrease in the amount of
+food consumed. To show how much alive the rural question is, it is
+enough to state that peasant risings occurred in 1888, 1889, 1894,
+1900, and 1907; that new distributions of land took place in 1881 and
+1889; that land was promised to the peasants as well at the time of the
+campaign of 1877 as at that of 1913; and that more or less happily
+conceived measures concerning rural questions have been passed in
+almost every parliamentary session. The general tendency of such
+legislation partook of the ‘free contract’ nature, though owing to the
+social condition of the peasantry the acts in question had to embody
+protective measures 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 a solution is possible
+no one can doubt. One writer, basing his arguments on official
+statistics which show that the days of employment in 1905 averaged only
+ninety-one for each peasant, claims that only the introduction of
+circulating capital and the creation of new branches of activity can
+bring about a change. The suggested remedy may be open to discussion;
+but our author is undoubtedly right when, asking himself why this
+solution has not yet been attempted, he says: ‘Our country is governed
+at present by an agrarian class…. Her whole power rests in her
+ownership of the land, our only wealth. The introduction of circulating
+capital would result in the disintegration of that wealth, in the loss
+of its unique quality, and, as a consequence, in the social decline of
+its possessors.’[1] This is the fundamental evil which prevents any
+solution of the rural question. A small class of politicians, with the
+complicity of a large army of covetous and unscrupulous officials, live
+in oriental indolence out of the sufferings of four-fifths of the
+Rumanian nation. Though elementary education is compulsory, more than
+60 per cent. of the population are still illiterate, mainly on account
+of the inadequacy of the educational budget. Justice is a myth for the
+peasant. Of political rights he is, in fact, absolutely deprived. The
+large majority, and by far the sanest part of the Rumanian nation, are
+thus fraudulently kept outside the political and social life of the
+country. It is not surmising too much, therefore, to say that the
+opportunity of emancipating the Transylvanians would not have been
+wilfully neglected, had that part of the Rumanian nation in which the
+old spirit still survives had any choice in the determination of their
+own fate.
+
+[Footnote 1: St. Antim, _Cbestiunea Socială în România,_ 1908, p. 214.]
+
+
+
+
+6
+_Contemporary Period: Internal Development_
+
+
+In order to obviate internal disturbances 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 offer was, however, not accepted, as neither France nor Russia
+favoured the proposal. Meanwhile a conference had met again in Paris at
+the instance of Turkey and vetoed the election 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 their
+protests if a candidate were found who was likely to secure the support
+of Napoleon III, then ‘schoolmaster’ of European diplomacy. This
+candidate was found in the person of Prince Carol of
+Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, second son of the head of the elder branch of
+the Hohenzollerns (Catholic and non-reigning). Prince Carol was cousin
+to the King of Prussia, and related through his grandmother to the
+Bonaparte family. He could consequently count upon the support of
+France and Prussia, while the political situation fortunately secured
+him from the opposition of Russia, whose relations with Prussia were at
+the time friendly, and also from that of Austria, whom Bismarck
+proposed to ‘keep busy for some time to come’. The latter must have
+viewed with no little satisfaction the prospect of a Hohenzollern
+occupying the throne of Rumania at this juncture; and Prince Carol,
+allowing himself to be influenced by the Iron Chancellor’s advice,
+answered the call of the Rumanian nation, which had proclaimed him as
+‘Carol I, Hereditary Prince of Rumania’. Travelling secretly with a
+small retinue, the prince second class, his suite first, Prince Carol
+descended the Danube on an Austrian steamer, and landed on May 8 at
+Turnu-Severin, the very place where, nearly eighteen centuries before,
+the Emperor Trajan had alighted and founded the Rumanian nation.
+
+By independent and energetic action, by a conscious neglect of the will
+of the powers, which only a young constitutional polity would have
+dared, by an active and unselfish patriotism, Rumania had at last
+chosen and secured as her ruler the foreign prince who alone had a
+chance of putting a stop to intrigues from within and from without. And
+the Rumanians had been extremely fortunate in their hasty and not quite
+independent choice. A prince of Latin origin would probably have been
+more warmly welcomed to the hearts of the Rumanian people; but after so
+many years of political disorder, corrupt administration, and arbitrary
+rule, a prince possessed of the German spirit of discipline and order
+was best fitted to command respect and impose obedience and sobriety of
+principle upon the Rumanian politicians.
+
+Prince Carol’s task was no easy one. The journal compiled by the
+provisional government, which held the reins for the period elapsing
+between the abdication of Cuza and the accession of Prince Carol,
+depicts in the darkest colours the economic situation to which the
+faults, the waste, the negligence, and short-sightedness of the
+previous régime had reduced the country, ‘the government being in the
+humiliating position of having brought disastrous and intolerable
+hardship alike upon its creditors, its servants, its pensioners, and
+its soldiers’.[1] Reforms were badly needed, and the treasury had
+nothing in hand but debts. To increase the income of the state was
+difficult, for the country was poor and not economically independent.
+Under the Paris Convention of 1858, Rumania remained bound, to her
+detriment, by the commercial treaties of her suzerain, Turkey, the
+powers not being willing to lose the privileges they enjoyed under the
+Turkish capitulations. Moreover, she was specially excluded from the
+arrangement of 1860, which allowed Turkey to increase her import taxes.
+The inheritance of ultra-liberal measures from the previous regime made
+it difficult to cope with the unruly spirit of the nation. Any attempt
+at change in this direction would have savoured of despotism to the
+people, who, having at last won the right to speak aloud, believed that
+to clamour against anything that meant ‘rule’ was the only real and
+full assertion of liberty. And the dissatisfied were always certain of
+finding a sympathetic ear and an open purse in the Chancellories of
+Vienna and St. Petersburg.
+
+[Footnote 1: D.A. Sturdza, _Treizeci de ani de Domnie ai Regelui
+Carol,_ 1900, i.82.]
+
+Prince Carol, not being sufficiently well acquainted with the
+conditions of the country nor possessing as yet much influence with the
+governing class, had not been in a position to influence at their
+inception the provisions of the extremely liberal constitution passed
+only a few weeks after his accession to the throne. The new
+constitution, which resembled that of Belgium more nearly than any
+other, was framed by a constituent assembly elected on universal
+suffrage, and, except for slight modifications introduced in 1879 and
+1884, is in vigour to-day. It entrusts the executive to the king and
+his ministers, the latter alone being responsible for the acts of the
+government.[1] The legislative power is vested in the king and two
+assemblies—a senate and a chamber—the initiative resting with any one
+of the three.[2] The budget and the yearly bills fixing the strength of
+the army, however, must first be passed by the Chamber. The agreement
+of the two Chambers and the sanction of the king are necessary before
+any bill becomes law. The king convenes, adjourns, and dissolves
+parliament. He promulgates the laws and is invested with the right of
+absolute veto. The constitution proclaims the inviolability of
+domicile, the liberty of the press and of assembly, and absolute
+liberty of creed and religion, in so far as its forms of celebration do
+not come into conflict with public order and decency. It recognizes no
+distinction of class and privilege; all the citizens share equally
+rights and duties within the law. Education is free in the state
+schools, and elementary education compulsory wherever state schools
+exist. Individual liberty and property are guaranteed; but only
+Rumanian citizens can acquire rural property. Military service is
+compulsory, entailing two years in the infantry, three years in the
+cavalry and artillery, one year in all arms for those having completed
+their studies as far as the university stage. Capital punishment does
+not exist, except for military offences in time of war.
+
+[Footnote 1: There are at present nine departments: Interior, Foreign
+Affairs, Finance, War, Education and Religion, Domains and Agriculture,
+Public Works, Justice, and Industry and Commerce. The President of the
+Cabinet is Prime Minister, with or without portfolio.]
+
+[Footnote 2: All citizens of full age paying taxes, with various
+exemptions, are electors, voting according to districts and census. In
+the case of the illiterate country inhabitants, with an income from
+land of less than £12 a year, fifty of them choose one delegate having
+one vote in the parliamentary election. The professorial council of the
+two universities of Jassy and Bucarest send one member each to the
+Senate, the heir to the throne and the eight bishops being members by
+right.]
+
+The state religion is Greek Orthodox. Up to 1864 the Rumanian Church
+was subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In that year it
+was proclaimed independent, national, and autocephalous, though this
+change was not recognized by the Patriarchate till 1885, while the
+secularization of the property of the monasteries put an end _de facto_
+to the influence of the Greek clergy. Religious questions of a dogmatic
+nature are settled by the Holy Synod of Bucarest, composed of the two
+metropolitans of Bucarest and Jassy and the eight bishops; the Minister
+for Education, with whom the administrative part of the Church rests,
+having only a deliberative vote. The maintenance of the Church and of
+the clergy is included in the general budget of the country, the
+ministers being state officials (Law of 1893).
+
+Religion has never played an important part in Rumanian national life,
+and was generally limited to merely external practices. This may be
+attributed largely to the fact that as the Slavonic language had been
+used in the Church since the ninth century and then was superseded by
+Greek up to the nineteenth century, the clergy was foreign, and was
+neither in a position nor did it endeavour to acquire a spiritual
+influence over the Rumanian peasant. There is no record whatever in
+Rumanian history of any religious feuds or dissensions. The religious
+passivity remained unstirred even during the domination of the Turks,
+who contented themselves with treating the unbelievers with contempt,
+and squeezing as much money as possible out of them. Cuza having made
+no provision for the clergy when he converted the wealth of the
+monasteries to the state, they were left for thirty years in complete
+destitution, and remained as a consequence outside the general
+intellectual development of the country. Though the situation has much
+improved since the Law of 1893, which incorporated the priests with the
+other officials of the Government, the clergy, recruited largely from
+among the rural population, are still greatly inferior to the Rumanian
+priests of Bucovina and Transylvania. Most of them take up Holy orders
+as a profession: ‘I have known several country parsons who were
+thorough atheists.’[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: R. Rosetti, _Pentru ce s-au răsculat țăranii_, 1907, p.
+600]
+
+However difficult his task, Prince Carol never deviated from the
+strictly constitutional path: his opponents were free to condemn the
+prince’s opinions; he never gave them the chance of questioning his
+integrity.
+
+Prince Carol relied upon the position in which his origin and family
+alliances placed him in his relations with foreign rulers to secure him
+the respect of his new subjects. Such considerations impressed the
+Rumanians. Nor could they fail to be aware of ‘the differences between
+the previously elected princes and the present dynasty, and the
+improved position which the country owed to the latter’.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Augenzeuge, _Aus dem Leben König Karls von Rumănien,
+1894-1900,_ iii. 177.]
+
+To inculcate the Rumanians with the spirit of discipline the prince
+took in hand with energy and pursued untiringly, in spite of all
+obstacles, the organization of the army. A reliable and well-organized
+armed force was the best security against internal trouble-mongers, and
+the best argument in international relations, as subsequent events
+amply proved.
+
+The Rumanian political parties were at the outset personal parties,
+supporting one or other of the candidates to the throne. When Greek
+influence, emanating from Constantinople, began to make itself felt, in
+the seventeenth century, a national party arose for the purpose of
+opposing it. This party counted upon the support of one of the
+neighbouring powers, and its various groups were known accordingly as
+the Austrian, the Russian, &c., parties. With the election of Cuza the
+external danger diminished, and the politicians divided upon principles
+of internal reform. Cuza not being in agreement with either party, they
+united to depose him, keeping truce during the period preceding the
+accession of Prince Carol, when grave external dangers wore
+threatening, and presiding in a coalition ministry at the introduction
+of the new constitution of 1866. But this done, the truce was broken.
+Political strife again awoke with all the more vigour for having been
+temporarily suppressed.
+
+The reforms which it became needful to introduce gave opportunity for
+the development of strong divergence of views between the political
+parties. The Liberals—the Red Party, as they were called at the
+time—(led by C.A. Rosetti and Ioan Bratianu, both strong Mazzinists,
+both having taken an important part in the revolutionary movements of
+1848 and in that which led to the deposition of Cuza) were advocating
+reforms hardly practicable even in an established democracy; the
+Conservatives (led by Lascar Catargiu) were striving to stem the flood
+of ideal liberal measures on which all sense of reality was being
+carried away.[1] In little more than a year there were four different
+Cabinets, not to mention numerous changes in individual ministers.
+‘Between the two extreme tendencies Prince Carol had to strive
+constantly to preserve unity of direction, he himself being the only
+stable element in that ever unstable country.’ It was not without many
+untoward incidents that he succeeded. His person was the subject of
+more than one unscrupulous attack by politicians in opposition, who did
+not hesitate to exploit the German origin and the German sympathies of
+the prince in order to inflame the masses. These internal conflicts
+entered upon an acute phase at the time of the Franco-German conflict
+of 1870. 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 assuring him that ‘his
+sympathies will always be where the black and white banner is waving’.
+In these so strained circumstances a section of the population of
+Bucarest allowed itself to be drawn into anti-German street riots.
+Disheartened and despairing of ever being able to do anything for that
+‘beautiful country’, whose people ‘neither know how to govern
+themselves nor will allow themselves to be governed’, the prince
+decided to abdicate.
+
+[Footnote 1: A few years ago a group of politicians, mainly of the old
+Conservative party, detached themselves and became the
+Conservative-Democratic party under the leadership of M. Take Ionescu.]
+
+So strong was the feeling in parliament roused by the prince’s decision
+that one of his most inveterate opponents now declared that it would be
+an act of high treason for the prince to desert the country at such a
+crisis. We have an inkling of what might have resulted in the letter
+written by the Emperor of Austria to Prince Carol at the time, assuring
+him that ‘my Government will eagerly seize any opportunity which
+presents itself to prove by deeds the interest it takes in a country
+connected by so many bonds to my empire’. Nothing but the efforts of
+Lascar Catargiu and the sound patriotism of a few statesmen saved the
+country from what would have been a real misfortune. The people were
+well aware of this, and cheers lasting several minutes greeted that
+portion of the message from the throne which conveyed to the new
+parliament the decision of the prince to continue reigning.
+
+The situation was considerably strengthened during a period of five
+years’ Conservative rule. Prince Carol’s high principles and the
+dignified example of his private life secured for him the increasing
+respect of politicians of all colours; while his statesmanlike
+qualities, his patience and perseverance, soon procured him an
+unlimited influence in the affairs of the state. This was made the more
+possible from the fact that, on account of the political ignorance of
+the masses, and of the varied influence exercised on the electorate by
+the highly centralized administration, no Rumanian Government ever
+fails to obtain a majority at an election. Any statesman can undertake
+to form a Cabinet if the king assents to a dissolution of parliament.
+Between the German system, where the emperor chooses the ministers
+independently of parliament, and the English system, where the members
+of the executive are indicated by the electorate through the medium of
+parliament, independently of the Crown, the Rumanian system takes a
+middle path. Neither the crown, nor the electorate, nor parliament
+possesses exclusive power in this direction. The Government is not,
+generally speaking, defeated either by the electorate or by parliament.
+It is the Crown which has the final decision in the changes of régime,
+and upon the king falls the delicate task of interpreting the
+significance of political or popular movements. The system—which comes
+nearest to that of Spain—undoubtedly has its advantages in a young and
+turbulent polity, by enabling its most stable element, the king, to
+ensure a continuous and harmonious policy. But it also makes the
+results dangerously dependent on the quality of that same element.
+Under the leadership of King Carol it was an undoubted success; the
+progress made by the country from an economic, financial, and military
+point of view during the last half-century is really enormous. Its
+position was furthermore strengthened by the proclamation of its
+independence, by the final settlement of the dynastic question,[1] and
+by its elevation on May 10, 1881, to the rank of kingdom, when upon the
+head of the first King of Rumania was placed a crown of steel made from
+one of the guns captured before Plevna from an enemy centuries old.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the absence of direct descendants and according to the
+constitution, Prince Ferdinand (born 1865), second son of King Carol’s
+elder brother, was named Heir Apparent to the Rumanian throne. He
+married in 1892 Princess Marie of Coburg, and following the death of
+King Carol in 1914, he acceded to the throne as Ferdinand I.]
+
+From the point of view of internal politics progress has been less
+satisfactory. The various reforms once achieved, the differences of
+principle between the political parties degenerated into mere
+opportunism, the Opposition opposing, the Government disposing. The
+parties, and especially the various groups within the parties, are
+generally known by the names of their leaders, these denominations not
+implying any definite political principle or Government programme. It
+is, moreover, far from edifying that the personal element should so
+frequently distort political discussion. ‘The introduction of modern
+forms of state organization has not been followed by the
+democratization of all social institutions…. The masses of the people
+have remained all but completely outside political life. Not only are
+we yet far from government of the people by the people, but our
+liberties, though deeply graven on the facade of our constitution, have
+not permeated everyday life nor even stirred in the consciousness of
+the people.’[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: C. Stere, _Social-democratizm sau Poporanizm_, Jassy.]
+
+It is strange that King Carol, who had the welfare of the people
+sincerely at heart, should not have used his influence to bring about a
+solution of the rural question; but this may perhaps be explained by
+the fact that, from Cuza’s experience, he anticipated opposition from
+all political factions. It would almost seem as if, by a tacit
+understanding, and anxious to establish Rumania’s international
+position, King Carol gave his ministers a free hand in the rural
+question, reserving for himself an equally free hand in foreign
+affairs. This seems borne out by the fact that, in the four volumes in
+which an ‘eyewitness’, making use of the king’s private correspondence
+and personal notes, has minutely described the first fifteen years of
+the reign, the peasant question is entirely ignored.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The ‘eyewitness’ was Dr. Schaeffer, formerly tutor to
+Prince Carol.]
+
+Addressing himself, in 1871, to the Rumanian representative at the
+Porte, the Austrian ambassador, von Prokesch-Osten, remarked: ‘If
+Prince Carol manages to pull through without outside help, and make
+Rumania governable, it will be the greatest _tour de force_ I have ever
+witnessed in my diplomatic career of more than half a century. It will
+be nothing less than a conjuring trick.’ King Carol succeeded; and only
+those acquainted with Rumanian affairs can appreciate the truth of the
+ambassador’s words.
+
+
+
+
+7
+_Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs_
+
+
+Up to 1866 Rumanian foreign politics may be said to have been
+non-existent. The offensive or defensive alliances against the Turks
+concluded by the Rumanian rulers with neighbouring princes during the
+Middle Ages were not made in pursuance of any definite policy, but
+merely to meet the moment’s need. With the establishment of Turkish
+suzerainty Rumania became a pawn in the foreign politics of the
+neighbouring empires, and we find her repeatedly included in their
+projects of acquisition, partition, or compensation (as, for instance,
+when she was put forward as eventual compensation to Poland for the
+territories lost by that country in the first partition).[1] Rumania
+may be considered fortunate in not having lost more than Bucovina to
+Austria (1775), Bessarabia to Russia (1812), and, temporarily, to
+Austria the region between the Danube and the Aluta, called Oltenia
+(lost by the Treaty of Passarowitz, 1718; recovered by the Treaty of
+Belgrade, 1739).
+
+[Footnote 1: See Albert Sorel, _The Eastern Question in the Eighteenth
+Century_ (Engl. ed.), 1898, pp. 141, 147 &c.]
+
+While her geographical position made of Rumania the cynosure of many
+covetous eyes, it at the same time saved her from individual attack by
+exciting countervailing jealousies. Moreover, the powers came at last
+to consider her a necessary rampart to the Ottoman Empire, whose
+dissolution all desired but none dared attempt. Austria and Russia,
+looking to the future, were continually competing for paramount
+influence in Rumania, though it is not possible to determine where
+their policy of acquisition ended and that of influence began.
+
+The position of the principalities became more secure after the Paris
+Congress of 1858, which placed them under the 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 Prince Carol; a
+Hohenzollern prince related to the King of Prussia and to Napoleon III
+could not be treated like one of the native boyards. The situation
+called for the more delicacy of treatment by the powers in view of the
+possibility of his being able to better those internal conditions which
+made Rumania ‘uninteresting’ as 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 military consolidation of her home affairs; and the prince does not
+fail to remark in his notes that the attentions lavished upon him by
+other sovereigns were meant rather for the Hohenzollern prince than for
+the Prince of Rumania. Many years later even, after the war of 1878,
+while the Russians were still south of the Danube with their lines of
+communication running through Rumania, Bratianu begged of the prince to
+give up a projected journey on account of the difficulties which might
+at any moment arise, and said: ‘Only the presence of your Royal
+Highness keeps them [the Russians] at a respectful distance.’ It was
+but natural under these circumstances that the conduct of foreign
+affairs should have devolved almost exclusively on the prince. The
+ascendancy which his high personal character, his political and
+diplomatic skill, his military capacity procured for him over the
+Rumanian statesmen made this situation a lasting one; indeed it became
+almost a tradition. Rumania’s foreign policy since 1866 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, as the monarch saw them. Rebuking Bismarck’s
+unfair attitude towards Rumania in a question concerning German
+investors, Prince Carol writes to his father in 1875: ‘I have to put
+Rumania’s interests above those of Germany. My path is plainly mapped
+out, and I must follow It unflinchingly, whatever the weather.’
+
+Prince Carol was a thorough German, and as such naturally favoured the
+expansion of German influence among his new subjects. But if he desired
+Rumania to follow in the wake of German foreign policy, it 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 strong and firmly
+established. At the same time, acting on the advice of Bismarck, he did
+not fail to work toward a better understanding with Russia, ‘who might
+become as well a reliable friend as a dangerous enemy to the Rumanian
+state’. The sympathy shown him by Napoleon III was not always shared by
+the French statesmen,[1] and the unfriendly attitude of the French
+ambassador in Constantinople caused Prince Carol to remark that ‘M. de
+Moustier is considered a better Turk than the Grand Turk himself’.
+Under the circumstances a possible alliance between France and Russia,
+giving the latter a free hand in the Near East, would have proved a
+grave danger to Rumania; ‘it was, consequently, a skilful, if imperious
+act, to enter voluntarily, and without detriment to the existing
+friendly relations with France, within the Russian sphere of influence,
+and not to wait till compelled to do so.’
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 15, 1866, article by
+Eugène Forcade.]
+
+The campaigns of 1866 and 1870 having finally established Prussia’s
+supremacy in the German world, Bismarck modified his attitude towards
+Austria. In an interview with the Austrian Foreign Secretary, Count
+Beust (Gastein, October 1871), he broached for the first time the
+question of an alliance and, touching upon the eventual dissolution of
+the Ottoman Empire, ‘obligingly remarked that one could not conceive of
+a great power not making of its faculty for expansion a vital
+question’.[2] Quite in keeping with that change were the counsels
+henceforth tendered to Prince Carol. Early that year Bismarck wrote of
+his sorrow at having been forced to the conclusion that Rumania had
+nothing to expect from Russia, while Prince Anthony, Prince Carol’s
+father and faithful adviser, wrote soon after the above interview
+(November 1871), that ‘under certain circumstances it would seem a
+sound policy for Rumania to rely upon the support of Austria’.
+Persevering in this 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 unimportant that
+one should deprecate an alliance with her’.
+
+[Footnote 2: Gabriel Hanotaux, _La Guerre des Balkans et l’Europe_
+(Beust, Mémoires), Paris, 1914, p. 297.]
+
+Prince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm intention of shaking
+off the Turkish suzerainty at the first opportunity, and not
+unnaturally he counted upon Germany’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 difference between the
+Rumanian Government and a German company entrusted with the
+construction of the Rumanian railways; the more so as the Paris
+Convention had expressly forbidden any Turkish interference in
+Rumania’s internal affairs. It thus 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: by joining
+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. But though resolved to co-operate with Russia in any
+eventual action in the Balkans, Prince Carol skilfully avoided
+delivering himself blindfold into her hands by deliberately cutting
+himself away from the other guaranteeing powers. To the conference
+which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876 to settle Balkan affairs
+he addressed the demand that ‘should war break out between one of the
+guaranteeing powers and Turkey, Rumania’s line of conduct should be
+dictated, and her neutrality and rights guaranteed, by the other
+powers’. This _démarche_ failed. The powers had accepted the invitation
+to the conference as one accepts an invitation to visit a dying man.
+Nobody had any illusions on the possibility of averting war, least of
+all the two powers principally interested. In November 1876 Ali Bey and
+M. de Nelidov arrived simultaneously and secretly in Bucarest to sound
+Rumania as to an arrangement with their respective countries, Turkey
+and Russia. In opposition to his father and Count Andrassy, who
+counselled neutrality and the withdrawal 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. Rumania promised
+to the Russian army ‘free passage through Rumanian territory and the
+treatment due to a friendly army’; whilst Russia undertook to respect
+Rumania’s political rights, as well as ‘to maintain and defend her
+actual integrity’. ‘It is pretty certain’, wrote Prince Carol to his
+father, ‘that this will not be to the liking of most of the great
+powers; but as they neither can nor will offer us anything, we cannot
+do otherwise than pass them by. A successful Russian campaign will free
+us from the nominal dependency upon Turkey, and Europe will never allow
+Russia to take her place.’
+
+On April 23 the Russian armies passed the Pruth. An offer of active
+participation by the Rumanian forces in the forthcoming campaign was
+rejected by the Tsar, who haughtily declared that ‘Russia had no need
+for the cooperation of the Rumanian army’, and that ‘it was only under
+the auspices of the Russian forces that the foundation of Rumania’s
+future destinies could be laid’. Rumania was to keep quiet and accept
+in the end what Russia would deign to give her, or, to be more correct,
+take from her. After a few successful encounters, however, the Tsar’s
+soldiers met with serious defeats before Plevna, and persistent appeals
+were now urged for the participation of the Rumanian army in the
+military operations. The moment had come for Rumania to bargain for her
+interests. But Prince Carol refused to make capital out of the serious
+position of the Russians; he led his army across the Danube and, at the
+express desire of the Tsar, took over the supreme command of the united
+forces before Plevna. After a glorious but terrible struggle Plevna,
+followed at short intervals by other strongholds, fell, the peace
+preliminaries were signed, and Prince Carol returned to Bucarest at the
+head of his victorious army.
+
+Notwithstanding the flattering words in which the Tsar spoke of the
+Rumanian share in the success of the campaign, Russia did not admit
+Rumania to the Peace Conference. By the Treaty of San Stefano (March
+3,1878) Rumania’s independence was recognized; Russia obtained from
+Turkey the Dobrudja and the delta of the Danube, reserving for herself
+the right to exchange these territories against the three 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 recover Bessarabia was well known to the Government, who
+hoped, however, that the demand would not be pressed after the
+effective assistance rendered by the Rumanian army. ‘If this be not a
+ground for the extension of our territory, it is surely none for its
+diminution,’ remarked Cogalniceanu at the Berlin Congress. 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 the Russian armies, guaranteed Rumania’s integrity. But upon this
+stipulation Gorchakov put the jesuitical construction that, the
+Convention being concluded in view of a war to be waged against Turkey,
+it was only against Turkey that Russia undertook to guarantee Rumania’s
+integrity; as to herself, she was not in the least bound by that
+arrangement. And should Rumania dare to protest against, or oppose the
+action of the Russian Government, ‘the Tsar will order that Rumania be
+occupied and the Rumanian army disarmed’. ‘The army which fought at
+Plevna’, replied Prince Carol through his minister, ‘may well be
+destroyed, but never disarmed.’
+
+There was one last hope left to Rumania: that the Congress which met in
+Berlin in June 1878 for the purpose of revising the Treaty of San
+Stefano, would prevent such an injustice. But Bismarck was anxious that
+no ‘sentiment de dignité blessée’ should rankle in Russia’s future
+policy; the French representative, Waddington, was ‘above all a
+practical man’; Corti, the Italian delegate, was ‘nearly rude’ to the
+Rumanian delegates; while Lord Beaconsfield, England’s envoy, receiving
+the Rumanian delegates privately, had nothing to say but that ‘in
+politics the best services are often rewarded with ingratitude’. Russia
+strongly opposed even the idea that the Rumanian delegates should be
+allowed to put their case before the Congress, and consent was obtained
+only with difficulty after Lord Salisbury had ironically remarked that
+‘having heard the representatives of Greece, which was claiming foreign
+provinces, it would be but fair to listen also to the representatives
+of a country which was only seeking to retain what was its own’.
+Shortly before, Lord Salisbury, speaking in London to the Rumanian
+special envoy, Callimaki Catargiu, had assured him of England’s
+sympathy and of her effective assistance in case either of war or of a
+Congress. ‘But to be quite candid he must add that there are questions
+of more concern to England, and should she be able to come to an
+understanding with 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 tenor public early in June
+1878. ‘The Government of her Britannic Majesty’, it said, ‘considers
+that it will feel itself bound to express its deep regret should Russia
+persist in demanding the retrocession of Bessarabia…. England’s
+interest in this question is not such, however, as to justify her
+taking upon herself alone the responsibility of opposing the intended
+exchange.’ So Bessarabia was lost, Rumania receiving instead Dobrudja
+with the delta of the Danube. But as the newly created state of
+Bulgaria was at the time little else than a detached Russian province,
+Russia, alone amongst the powers, opposed and succeeded in preventing
+the demarcation to the new Rumanian province of a strategically sound
+frontier. 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 becoming Rumanian citizens—and the
+emancipation of the Rumanian Jews.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rumania only partially gave way to this intrusion of the
+powers into her internal affairs. The prohibition was abolished; but
+only individual naturalization was made possible, and that by special
+Act of Parliament. Only a very small proportion of the Jewish
+population has since been naturalized. The Jewish question in Rumania
+is undoubtedly a very serious one; but the matter is too controversial
+to be dealt with in a few lines without risking misrepresentation or
+doing an injustice to one or other of the parties. For which reason it
+has not been included in this essay.]
+
+It was only after innumerable difficulties and hardships that, at the
+beginning of 1880, Rumania secured recognition of an independence which
+she owed to nobody but herself. Whilst Russia was opposing Rumania at
+every opportunity in the European conferences and commissions, she was
+at pains to show herself more amenable in _tête-à-tête_, and approached
+Rumania with favourable proposals. ‘Rather Russia as foe than
+guardian,’ wrote Prince Carol to his father; and these words indicate
+an important turning-point 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 insisting that
+Austria should share in the partition of Poland, Frederick the Great
+had skilfully prevented her from remaining the one country towards
+which the Poles would naturally have turned for deliverance. Such an
+opportunity was lost by Russia through her short-sighted policy in
+Bessarabia—that of remaining the natural ally of Rumania against
+Rumania’s natural foe, Austria-Hungary.
+
+Rumania had neither historical, geographical, nor any important
+ethnographical points of contact with the region south of the Danube;
+the aims of a future policy could only have embraced neighbouring
+tracts of foreign territory inhabited by Rumanians. Whereas up to the
+date of the Berlin Congress such tracts were confined to
+Austria-Hungary, 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 should maintain friendly
+relations with both the powers striving for domination in the Near
+East; it was a vital necessity for her, however, to be able to rely
+upon the effective support of at least one of them in a case of
+emergency. Russia’s conduct had aroused a deep feeling of bitterness
+and mistrust in Rumania, and every lessening of her influence was a
+step in Austria’s favour. Secondary considerations tended to intensify
+this: on the one hand lay the fact that through Russia’s interposition
+Rumania had no defendable frontier against Bulgaria; on the other hand
+was the greatly strengthened position created for Austria by her
+alliance with Germany, in whose future Prince Carol had the utmost
+confidence.
+
+[Footnote 1: It is probable that this confederation had much to do with
+the readiness with which Bismarck supported the demands of his good
+friend, Gorchakov.]
+
+Germany’s attitude towards Rumania had been curiously hostile during
+these events; but when Prince Carol’s father spoke of this to the
+German Emperor, the latter showed genuine astonishment: Bismarck had
+obviously not taken the emperor completely into his confidence. When, a
+few days later, Sturdza had an interview with Bismarck at 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 two
+‘natural 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 pieces; nobody can resuscitate her; Rumania has
+an important role to fulfil, but for this she must be wise, cautious,
+and strong’. This new attitude was the natural counterpart of the
+change which was at that time making itself felt in Russo-German
+relations. While a Franco-Russian alliance was propounded by Gorchakov
+in an interview with a French journalist, Bismarck and Andrassy signed
+in Gastein the treaty which allied Austria to Germany (September 1879).
+As Rumania’s interests were identical with those of Austria—wrote Count
+Andrassy privately to Prince Carol a few months later—namely, to
+prevent the fusion of the northern and the southern Slavs, she had only
+to express her willingness to become at a given moment the third party
+in the compact. In 1883 King Carol accepted a secret treaty of
+defensive alliance from Austria. In return for promises relating to
+future political partitions in the Balkans, the monarch pledged himself
+to oppose all developments likely to speed the democratic evolution, of
+Rumania. Though the treaty was never submitted to parliament for
+ratification, and notwithstanding a tariff war and a serious difference
+with Austria on the question of control of the Danube navigation,
+Rumania was, till the Balkan wars, a faithful ‘sleeping partner’ of the
+Triple Alliance.
+
+All through that externally quiet period a marked discrepancy existed
+and developed between that line of policy and the trend of public
+opinion. The interest of the Rumanians within the kingdom centred
+increasingly on their brethren in Transylvania, the solution of whose
+hard case inspired most of the popular national movements. Not on
+account of the political despotism of the Magyars, for that of the
+Russians was in no way behind it. But whilst the Rumanians of
+Bessarabia were, with few exceptions, illiterate peasants, in
+Transylvania there was a solidly established and spirited middle class,
+whose protests kept pace with the oppressive measures. Many of them—and
+of necessity the more turbulent—migrated to Rumania, and there kept
+alive the ‘Transylvanian Question’. That the country’s foreign policy
+has nevertheless constantly supported the Central Powers is due, to
+some extent, to the fact that the generation most deeply impressed by
+the events of 1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country; to
+a greater extent to the increasing influence of German education,[1]
+and the economic and financial supremacy which the benevolent passivity
+of England and France enabled Germany to acquire; but above all to the
+personal influence of King Carol. Germany, he considered, was at the
+beginning of her development and needed, above all, peace; as Rumania
+was in the same position the wisest policy was to follow Germany,
+neglecting impracticable national ideals. King Carol outlined his views
+clearly in an interview which he had in Vienna with the Emperor Franz
+Joseph in 1883: ‘No nation consents to be bereaved of its political
+aspirations, and those of the Rumanians are constantly kept at fever
+heat by Magyar oppression. But this was no real obstacle to a friendly
+understanding between the two neighbouring states.’
+
+[Footnote 1: Many prominent statesmen like Sturdza, Maiorescu, Carp,
+&c. were educated in Germany, whereas the school established by the
+German community (_Evangelische Knaben und Realschule_), and which it
+under the direct control of the German Ministry of Education, is
+attended by more pupils than any other school in Bucarest.]
+
+Such was the position when the Balkan peoples rose in 1912 to sever the
+last ties which bound them to the decadent Turkish Empire. King Carol,
+who had, sword in hand, won the independence of his country, could have
+no objection to such a desire for emancipation. Nor to the Balkan
+League itself, unfortunately so ephemeral; for by the first year of his
+reign he had already approached the Greek Government with proposals
+toward such a league, and toward freeing the Balkans from the
+undesirable interference of the powers.[1] It is true that Rumania,
+like all the other states, had not foreseen the radical changes which
+were to take place, and which considerably affected her position in the
+Near East. But she was safe as long as the situation was one of stable
+equilibrium and the league remained in existence. ‘Rumania will only be
+menaced by a real danger when a Great Bulgaria comes into existence,’
+remarked Prince Carol to Bismarck in 1880, and Bulgaria had done
+nothing since to allay Rumanian suspicions. On the contrary, the
+proviso of the Berlin Convention that all fortifications along the
+Rumania frontier should be razed to the ground had not been carried out
+by the Bulgarian Government. Bulgarian official publications regarded
+the Dobrudja as a ‘Bulgaria Irredenta’, and at the outset of the first
+Balkan war a certain section of the Bulgarian press speculated upon the
+Bulgarian character of the Dobrudja.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Augenzeuge, op. cit., i. 178]
+
+The Balkan League having proclaimed, however, that their action did not
+involve any territorial changes, and the maintenance of the _status
+quo_ having been insisted upon by the European Concert, Rumania
+declared that she would remain neutral. All this jugglery of mutual
+assurances broke down with the unexpected rout of the Turks; the
+formula ‘the Balkans to the Balkan peoples’ made its appearance, upon
+which Bulgaria was at once notified that Rumania would insist upon the
+question of the Dobrudja frontier being included in any fundamental
+alteration of the Berlin Convention. The Bulgarian Premier, M. Danev,
+concurred in this point of view, but his conduct of the subsequent
+London negotiations was so ‘diplomatic’ that their only result was to
+strain the patience of the Rumanian Government and public opinion to
+breaking point. Nevertheless, the Rumanian Government agreed that the
+point in dispute should be submitted to a conference of the
+representatives of the great powers in St. Petersburg, and later
+accepted the decision of that conference, though the country considered
+it highly unsatisfactory.
+
+The formation of the Balkan League, and especially the collapse of
+Turkey, had meant a serious blow to the Central Powers’ policy of
+peaceful penetration. Moreover, ‘for a century men have been labouring
+to solve the Eastern. Question. On the day when it shall be considered
+solved, Europe will inevitably witness the propounding of the Austrian
+Question.’[1] To prevent this and to keep open a route to the East
+Austro-German diplomacy set to work, and having engineered the creation
+of Albania succeeded in barring Serbia’s way to the Adriatic; Serbia
+was thus forced to seek an outlet in the south, where her interests
+were doomed to clash with Bulgarian aspirations. The atmosphere grew
+threatening. In anticipation of a conflict with Bulgaria, Greece and
+Serbia sought an alliance with Rumania. The offer was declined; but, in
+accordance with the policy which Bucarest had already made quite clear
+to Sofia, the Rumanian army was ordered to enter Bulgaria immediately
+that country attacked her former allies. The Rumanians advanced
+unopposed to within a few miles of Sofia, and in order to save the
+capital Bulgaria declared her willingness to comply with their claims.
+Rumania having refused, however, to conclude a separate peace, Bulgaria
+had to give way, and the Balkan premiers met in conference at Bucarest
+to discuss terms. The circumstances were not auspicious. The way in
+which Bulgaria had conducted previous negotiations, and especially the
+attack upon her former allies, had exasperated the Rumanians and the
+Balkan peoples, and the pressure of public opinion hindered from the
+outset a fair consideration of the Bulgarian point of view. Moreover,
+cholera was making great ravages in the ranks of the various armies,
+and, what threatened to be even more destructive, several great powers
+were looking for a crack in the door to put their tails through, as the
+Rumanian saying runs. So anxious were the Balkan statesmen to avoid any
+such interference that they agreed between themselves to a short time
+limit: on a certain day, and by a certain hour, peace was to be
+concluded, or hostilities were to start afresh. The treaty was signed
+on August 10, 1913, Rumania obtaining the line
+Turtukai-Dobrich-Balchik, this being the line already demanded by her
+at the time of the London negotiations. The demand was put forth
+originally as a security against the avowed ambitions of Bulgaria; it
+was a strategical necessity, but at the same time a political mistake
+from the point of view of future relations. The Treaty of Bucarest,
+imperfect arrangement as it was, had nevertheless a great historical
+significance. ‘Without complicating the discussion of our interests,
+which we are best in a position to understand, by the consideration of
+other foreign, interests,’ remarked the President of the Conference,
+‘we shall have established for the first time by ourselves peace and
+harmony amongst our peoples.’ Dynastic interests and impatient
+ambitions, however, completely subverted this momentous step towards a
+satisfactory solution of the Eastern Question.
+
+[Footnote 1: Albert Sorel, op, cit., p. 266.]
+
+The natural counter-effect of the diplomatic activity of the Central
+Powers was a change in Rumanian policy. Rumania considered the
+maintenance of the Balkan equilibrium a vital question, and as she had
+entered upon a closer union with Germany against a Bulgaria subjected
+to Russian influence, so she now turned to Russia as a guard against a
+Bulgaria under German influence. This breaking away from the
+‘traditional’ policy of adjutancy-in-waiting to the Central Powers was
+indicated by the visit of Prince Ferdinand—now King of Rumania—to St.
+Petersburg, and the even more significant visit which Tsar Nicholas
+afterwards paid to the late King Carol at Constanza. Time has been too
+short, however, for those new relations so to shape themselves as to
+exercise a notable influence upon Rumania’s present attitude.
+
+
+
+
+8
+_Rumania and the Present War_
+
+
+_(a) The Rumanians outside the Kingdom_
+
+The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is
+the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside
+Rumanian territory. As the available official statistics generally show
+political bias it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly
+speaking there are about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter
+of a million in Bucovina, three and a half millions in Hungary, while
+something above half a million form scattered colonies in Bulgaria,
+Serbia, and Macedonia. All these live in more or less close proximity
+to the Rumanian frontiers.
+
+That these Rumanian elements have maintained their nationality is due
+to purely intrinsic causes. We have seen that the independence of
+Rumania in her foreign relations had only recently been established,
+since when the king, the factor most influential in foreign politics,
+had discouraged nationalist tendencies, lest the country’s internal
+development might be compromised by friction with neighbouring states.
+The Government exerted its influence against any active expression of
+the national feeling, and the few ‘nationalists’ and the ‘League for
+the cultural unity of all Rumanians’ had been, as a consequence, driven
+to seek a justification for their existence in antisemitic agitation.
+
+The above circumstances had little influence upon the situation in
+Bucovina. This province forms an integral part of the Habsburg
+monarchy, with which it was incorporated as early as 1775. The
+political situation of the Rumanian principalities at the time, and the
+absence of a national cultural movement, left the detached population
+exposed to Germanization, and later to the Slav influence of the
+rapidly expanding Ruthene element. That language and national
+characteristics have, nevertheless, not been lost is due to the fact
+that the Rumanian population of Bucovina is peasant almost to a man—a
+class little amenable to changes of civilization.
+
+This also applies largely to Bessarabia, which, first lost in 1812, was
+incorporated with Rumania in 1856, and finally detached in 1878. The
+few Rumanians belonging to the landed class were won over by the new
+masters. But while the Rumanian population was denied any cultural and
+literary activities of its own, the reactionary attitude of the Russian
+Government towards education has enabled the Rumanian peasants to
+preserve their customs and their language. At the same time their
+resultant ignorance has kept them outside the sphere of intellectual
+influence of the mother country.
+
+The Rumanians who live in scattered colonies south of the Danube are
+the descendants of those who took refuge in these regions during the
+ninth and tenth centuries from the invasions of the Huns. Generally
+known as Kutzo-Vlakhs, or, among themselves, as Aromuni, they are—as
+even Weigand, who undoubtedly has Bulgarophil leanings, recognizes—the
+most intelligent and best educated of the inhabitants of Macedonia. In
+1905 the Rumanian Government secured from the Porte official
+recognition of their separate cultural and religious organizations on a
+national basis. Exposed as they are to Greek influence, it will be
+difficult to prevent their final assimilation with that people. The
+interest taken in them of late by the Rumanian Government arose out of
+the necessity to secure them against pan-Hellenic propaganda, and to
+preserve one of the factors entitling Rumania to participate in the
+settlement of Balkan affairs.
+
+I have sketched elsewhere the early history of the Rumanians 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 migrating over the mountains. Debarred from the support of
+the noble class, the Rumanian peasantry lost its state of autonomy,
+which changed into one of serfdom to the soil upon which they toiled.
+Desperate risings in 1324, 1437, 1514, 1600, and 1784 tended to case
+the Hungarian oppression, which up to the nineteenth century strove
+primarily after a political and religious hegemony. But the Magyars
+having failed in 1848 in their attempt to free themselves from Austrian
+domination (defeated with the assistance of a Russian army at Villagos,
+1849), mainly on account of the fidelity of the other nationalities to
+the Austrian Crown, they henceforth directed their efforts towards
+strengthening their own position by forcible assimilation of those
+nationalities. This they were able to do, however, only after
+Königgrätz, when a weakened Austria had to give way to Hungarian
+demands. In 1867 the Dual Monarchy was established, and Transylvania,
+which up to then formed a separate duchy enjoying full political
+rights, was incorporated with the new Hungarian kingdom. The Magyars
+were handicapped in their imperialist ambitions by their numerical
+inferiority. As the next best means to their end, therefore, they
+resorted to political and national oppression, class despotism, and a
+complete disregard of the principles of liberty and humanity.[1]
+Hungarian was made compulsory in the administration, even in districts
+where the bulk of the population did not understand that language. In
+villages completely inhabited by Rumanians so-called ‘State’ schools
+were founded, in which only Hungarian was to be spoken, and all
+children upwards of three years of age had to attend them. The
+electoral regulations were drawn up in such a manner that the Rumanians
+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 protest a special press law was introduced for Transylvania.
+But the Rumanian journalists being usually acquitted by the juries a
+new regulation prescribed that press offences should be tried only at
+Kluj (Klausenburg)—the sole Transylvanian town with a predominating
+Hungarian population—a measure which was in fundamental contradiction
+to the principles of justice.[2] In 1892 the Rumanian grievances were
+embodied 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 Hungarian Government the members of the deputation were
+sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for having plotted against the
+unity of the Magyar state.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians inhabit mainly the province of Transylvania,
+Banat, Crishiana, and Maramuresh. They represent 46.2 per cent. of the
+total population of these provinces, the Magyars 32.5 per cent., the
+Germans 11.5 per cent., and the Serbs 4.5 per cent. These figured are
+taken from official Hungarian statistics, and it may therefore be
+assumed that the Rumanian percentage represents a minimum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Over a period of 22 years (1886-1908) 850 journalists were
+charged, 367 of whom were Rumanians; the sentences totalling 216 years
+of imprisonment, the fines amounting to Fcs. 138,000.]
+
+Notwithstanding these disabilities the Rumanians of Transylvania
+enjoyed a long period of comparative social and economic liberty at a
+time when Turkish and Phanariote domination was hampering all progress
+in Rumania. Office under the Government growing increasingly difficult
+to obtain, the Rumanians in Transylvania turned largely to commercial
+and the open professions, and, as a result, a powerful middle class now
+exists. In their clergy, both of the Orthodox and the Uniate
+Church—which last, while conducting its ritual in the vernacular,
+recognizes papal supremacy— the Rumanians have always found strong
+moral support, while the national struggle tends to unite the various
+classes. The Rumanians of Hungary form by far the sanest element in the
+Rumanian nation. From the Rumanians within the kingdom they have
+received little beside sympathy. The important part played by the
+country at the Peace of Bucarest, and her detachment from
+Austria-Hungary, must necessarily have stimulated the national
+consciousness of the Transylvanians; while at the same time all hope
+for betterment from within must have ceased at the death of Archduke
+Francis Ferdinand, an avowed friend of the long-suffering
+nationalities. It is, therefore, no mere matter of conjecture that the
+passive attitude of the Rumanian Government at the beginning of the
+present conflict must have been a bitter disappointment to them.
+
+_(b) Rumania’s Attitude_
+
+The tragic development of the crisis in the summer of 1914 threw
+Rumania into a vortex of unexpected hopes and fears. Aspirations till
+then considered little else than Utopian became tangible possibilities,
+while, as suddenly, dangers deemed far off loomed large and near. Not
+only was such a situation quite unforeseen, nor had any plan of action
+been preconceived to meet it, but it was in Rumania’s case a situation
+unique from the number of conflicting considerations and influences at
+work within it. Still under the waning influence of the thirty years
+quasi-alliance with Austria, Rumania was not yet acclimatized to her
+new relations with Russia. Notwithstanding the inborn sympathy with and
+admiration for France, the Rumanians could not be blind to Germany’s
+military power. The enthusiasm that would have sided with France for
+France’s sake 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 the king; and the bright vision of
+the ‘principle of nationality’ was darkened by the shadow of Russia as
+despot of the Near East.
+
+One fact in the situation stood out from the rest, namely, the
+unexpected opportunity of redeeming that half of the Rumanian nation
+which was still under foreign rule; the more so as one of the parties
+in the conflict had given the ‘principle of nationality’ a prominent
+place in its programme. But the fact that both Austria-Hungary and
+Russia had a large Rumanian population among their subjects rendered a
+purely national policy impossible, and Rumania could do nothing but
+weigh which issue offered her the greater advantage.
+
+Three ways lay open: complete neutrality, active participation on the
+side of the Central Powers, or common cause with the Triple Entente.
+Complete neutrality was advocated by a few who had the country’s
+material security most at heart, and also, as a _pis aller_, by those
+who realized that their opinion that Rumania should make common cause
+with the Central Powers had no prospect of being acted upon.
+
+That King Carol favoured the idea of a joint action with Germany 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
+satisfaction the possibility of regaining Bessarabia, the loss of which
+must have been bitterly felt by the victor of Plevna. Such a policy
+would have met with the approval of many Rumanian statesmen, notably of
+M. Sturdza, sometime leader of the Liberal party and Prime Minister; of
+M. Carp, sometime leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister;
+of M. Maiorescu, ex-Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, who presided
+at the Bucarest Conference of 1913; of M. Marghiloman, till recently
+leader of the Conservative party, to name only the more important. M.
+Sturdza, the old statesman who had been one of King Carol’s chief
+coadjutors in the making of modern Rumania, and who had severed for
+many years his connexion with active politics, again took up his pen to
+raise a word of warning. M. Carp, the political aristocrat who had
+retired from public life a few years previously, and had professed a
+lifelong contempt for the ‘Press and all its works’, himself started a
+daily paper (_Moldova_) which, he intended should expound his views.
+Well-known writers like M. Radu Rosetti wrote[1] espousing the cause
+favoured by 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 at
+the mouth of the Danube. For not only is a cheap waterway absolutely
+necessary for the bulky products forming the chief exports of Rumania;
+but these very products, corn, petroleum, and timber, also form the
+chief exports of Russia, who, by a stroke of the pen, may rule Rumania
+out of competition, should she fail to appreciate the political
+leadership of Petrograd. Paris and Rome were, no doubt, beloved
+sisters; but Sofia, Moscow, and Budapest were next-door neighbours to
+be reckoned with.
+
+[Footnote 1: See R. Rosetti, _Russian Politics at Work in the Rumanian
+Countries_, facts compiled from French official documents, Bucarest,
+1914.]
+
+Those who held views opposed to those, 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 public opinion: interest in the fate of the Transylvanians,
+and sympathy with France. They contended that though a purely national
+policy was not possible, the difference between Transylvania and
+Bessarabia in area and in number and quality of the population was such
+that no hesitation was admissible. The possession of Transylvania was
+assured if the Allies were successful; whereas Russia would soon
+recover if defeated, and would regain Bessarabia by force of arms, or
+have it once more presented to her by a Congress anxious to soothe her
+‘sentiment de dignité blessée’. A Rumania enlarged in size and
+population had a better chance of successfully withstanding any
+eventual pressure from the north, and it was clear that any attempt
+against her independence would be bound to develop into a European
+question. Rumania could not forget what she owed to France; and if
+circumstances had made the Transylvanian question one ‘à laquelle on
+pense toujours et dont on ne parle jamais’, the greater was the duty,
+now that a favourable opportunity had arisen, to help the brethren
+across the mountains. It was also a duty to fight for right and
+civilization, proclaimed M. Take Ionescu, the exponent of progressive
+ideas in Rumanian politics; and he, together with the prominent
+Conservative statesman, M. Filipescu, who loathes the idea of the
+Rumanians being dominated by the inferior Magyars, are the leaders of
+the interventionist movement. It was due to M. Filipescu’s activity,
+especially, that M. Marghiloman was forced by his own party to resign
+his position as leader on account of his Austrophil sentiments—an event
+unparalleled in Rumanian politics.
+
+These were the two main currents of opinion which met in conflict at
+the Crown Council—a committee _ad hoc_ consisting of the Cabinet and
+the leaders of the Opposition—summoned by the king early in August
+1914, when Rumania’s neutrality was decided upon. The great influence
+which the Crown can always wield under the Rumanian political system
+was rendered the more potent in the present case by the fact that the
+Premier, M. Bratianu, is above all a practical man, and the Liberal
+Cabinet over which he presides one of the most colourless the country
+ever had: a Cabinet weak to the point of being incapable of realizing
+its own weakness and the imperative necessity at this fateful moment of
+placing the helm in the hands of a national ministry. M. Bratianu
+considered that Rumania was too exposed, and had suffered too much in
+the past for the sake of other countries, to enter now upon such an
+adventure without ample guarantees. There would always be time for her
+to come in. This policy of opportunism he was able to justify by
+powerful argument. The supply of war material for the Rumanian army had
+been completely in the hands of German and Austrian arsenals, and
+especially in those of Krupp. For obvious reasons Rumania could no
+longer rely upon that source; indeed, Germany was actually detaining
+contracts for war and sanitary material placed with her before the
+outbreak of the war. There was the further consideration that, owing to
+the nature of Rumania’s foreign policy in the past, no due attention
+had been given to the defence of the Carpathians, nor to those branches
+of the service dealing with mountain warfare. On the other hand, a
+continuous line of fortifications running from Galatz to Focshani
+formed, together with the lower reaches of the Danube, a strong barrier
+against attack from the north. Rumania’s geographical position is such
+that a successful offensive from Hungary could soon penetrate to the
+capital, and by cutting the country in two could completely paralyse
+its organization. Such arguments acquired a magnified importance in the
+light of the failure of the negotiations with 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
+German and Austrian capital.
+
+From the point of view of practical politics only the issue of the
+conflict will determine the wisdom or otherwise of Rumania’s attitude.
+But, though it is perhaps out of place to enlarge upon it here, it is
+impossible not to speak of the moral aspect of the course adopted. By
+giving heed to the unspoken appeal from Transylvania the Rumanian
+national spirit would have been quickened, and the people braced to a
+wholesome sacrifice. Many were the wistful glances cast towards the
+Carpathians by the subject Rumanians, as they were being led away to
+fight for their oppressors; but, wilfully unmindful, the leaders of the
+Rumanian state buried their noses in their ledgers, oblivious of the
+fact that in these times of internationalism a will in common, with
+aspirations in common, is the very life-blood of nationality. That
+sentiment ought not to enter into politics is an argument untenable in
+a country which has yet to see its national aspirations fulfilled, and
+which makes of these aspirations definite claims. No Rumanian statesman
+can contend that possession of Transylvania is necessary to the
+existence of the Rumanian state. What they can maintain is that
+deliverance from Magyar oppression is vital to the existence of the
+Transylvanians. The right to advance such a claim grows out of their
+very duty of watching over the safety of the subject Rumanians. ‘When
+there are squabbles in the household of my brother-in-law,’ said the
+late Ioan Bratianu when speaking on the Transylvanian question, ‘it is
+no affair of mine; but when he raises a knife against his wife, it is
+not merely my right to intervene, it is my duty.’ It is difficult to
+account for the obliquity of vision shown by so many Rumanian
+politicians. ‘The whole policy of such a state [having a large
+compatriot population living in close proximity under foreign
+domination] must be primarily influenced by anxiety as to the fate of
+their brothers, and by the duty of emancipating them,’ affirms one of
+the most ardent of Rumanian nationalist orators; and he goes on to
+assure us that ‘if Rumania waits, it is not from hesitation as to her
+duty, but simply in order that she may discharge it more
+completely’.[1] Meantime, while Rumania waits, regiments composed
+almost completely of Transylvanians have 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
+conception of his duty, and here, as in so many other cases in the
+present conflict, the nation at large must not be judged by the policy
+of the few who hold the reins.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Quarterly Review_, London, April, 1915, pp. 449-50.]
+
+Rumania’s claims to Transylvania are not of an historical nature. They
+are founded upon the numerical superiority of the subject Rumanians in
+Transylvania, that is upon the ‘principle of nationality’, and are
+morally strengthened by the treatment the Transylvanians suffer at the
+hands of the Magyars. By its passivity, however, the Rumanian
+Government has sacrificed the prime factor of the ‘principle of
+nationality’ to the attainment of an object in itself subordinate to
+that factor; that is, it has sacrificed the ‘people’ in order to make
+more sure of the ‘land’. In this way the Rumanian Government has
+entered upon a policy of acquisition; a policy which Rumania is too
+weak to pursue save under the patronage of one or a group of great
+powers; a policy unfortunate inasmuch as it will deprive her of freedom
+of action in her external politics. Her policy will, in its
+consequences, certainly react to the detriment of the position acquired
+by the country two years ago, when independent action made her arbiter
+not only among the smaller Balkan States, but also among those and her
+late suzerain, Turkey.
+
+Such, indeed, must inevitably be the fate of Balkan politics in
+general. Passing from Turkish domination to nominal 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-eastern Europe found its highest expression in the Balkan League.
+The war against Turkey was in effect a rebellion against the political
+tutelage of the powers. But this emancipation was short-lived. By their
+greed the Balkan States again opened up a way to the intrusion of
+foreign diplomacy, and even, as we now see, of foreign troops. The
+first Balkan war marked the zenith of Balkan political emancipation;
+the second Balkan war was the first act in the tragic _débâcle_ out of
+which the present situation developed. The interval between August 1913
+(Peace of Bucarest) and August 1914 was merely an armistice during
+which Bulgaria and Turkey recovered their breath, and German and
+Austrian diplomacy had time to find a pretext for war on its own
+account.
+
+‘Exhausted but not vanquished we have had to furl our glorious
+standards in order to await better days,’ said Ferdinand of Bulgaria to
+his soldiers after the conclusion of the Peace of Bucarest; and
+Budapest, Vienna, and Berlin have no doubt done their best to keep this
+spirit of revenge alive and to prevent a renascence of the Balkan
+Alliance. They have succeeded. They have done more: they have succeeded
+in causing the ‘principle of nationality’—that idea which involves the
+disruption of Austria—to be stifled by the very people whom it was
+meant to save. For whilst the German peoples are united in this
+conflict, the majority of the southern Slavs, in fighting the German
+battles, are fighting to perpetuate the political servitude of the
+subject races of Austria-Hungary.
+
+However suspicious Rumania may be of Russia, however bitter the
+quarrels between Bulgars, Greeks, and Serbs, it is not, nor can it ever
+be natural, that peoples who have groaned under Turkish despotism for
+centuries should, after only one year of complete liberation, join
+hands with an old and dreaded enemy not only against their fellow
+sufferers, but even against those who came ‘to die that they may live’.
+These are the Dead Sea fruits of dynastic policy. Called to the thrones
+of the small states of the Near East for the purpose of creating order
+and peace, the German dynasties have overstepped their function and
+abused the power entrusted to them. As long as, in normal times,
+political activities were confined to the diplomatic arena there was no
+peril of rousing the masses out of their ignorant indolence; but, when
+times are abnormal, it is a different and a dangerous thing to march
+these peoples against their most intimate feelings. When, as the
+outcome of the present false situation, sooner or later the dynastic
+power breaks, it will then be for the powers who are now fighting for
+better principles not to impose their own views upon the peoples, or to
+place their own princes upon the vacant thrones. Rather must they see
+that the small nations of the Near East are given a chance to develop
+in peace and according to their proper ideals; that they be not again
+subjected to the disintegrating influence of European diplomacy; and
+that, above all, to the nations in common, irrespective of their
+present attitude, there should be a just application of the ‘principle
+of nationality’.
+
+
+
+
+TURKEY
+
+
+Turkey is no better name for the Osmanli dominion or any part of it
+than Normandy would be for Great Britain. It is a mediaeval error of
+nomenclature sanctioned by long usage in foreign mouths, but without
+any equivalent in the vernacular of the Osmanlis themselves. The real
+‘Turkey’ is Turkestan, and the real Turks are the Turcomans. The
+Osmanlis are the least typical Turks surviving. Only a very small
+proportion of them have any strain of Turkish blood, and this is
+diluted till it is rarely perceptible in their physiognomy: and if
+environment rather than blood is to be held responsible for racial
+features, it can only be said that the territory occupied by the
+Osmanlis is as unlike the homeland of the true Turks as it can well be,
+and is quite unsuited to typically Turkish life and manners.
+
+While of course it would be absurd to propose at this time of day any
+change in the terms by which the civilized world unanimously designates
+the Osmanlis and their dominion, it is well to insist 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 invasion of Asia Minor
+by immense numbers of Central Asiatic migrants, who, intent, like the
+early Arab armies, on offering to Asia first and Europe second the
+choice of apostasy or death, absorbed or annihilated almost all the
+previous populations, and swept forward into the Balkans as
+single-minded apostles of Islam. If the composition and the aims of the
+Osmanlis had been these, it 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 the most
+civilized and best-ordered state of their time. Who, then, are the
+Osmanlis in reality? What have they to do with true Turks? and in
+virtue of what innate qualities did they found and consolidate their
+power?
+
+
+
+
+1
+_Origin of the Osmanlis_
+
+
+We 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 is still called Turkestan, and pushing westwards
+towards the Caspian Sea. Somewhat more than another century passes,
+and, reached by a missionary faith of West Asia, they come out of the
+Far Eastern darkness into a dim light of western history. One Boja,
+lord of Kashgar and Khan of what the Chinese knew as the people of
+Thu-Kiu—probably the same name as ‘Turk’—embraced Islam and forced it
+on his Mazdeist subjects; but other Turkish tribes, notably the
+powerful Uighurs, 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 over the
+north and centre. At this day, in some parts of Persia, e.g.
+Azerbaijan, Turks make the bulk of the population besides supplying the
+reigning dynasty of the whole kingdom. For the Shahs of the Kajar house
+are not Iranian, but purely Turkish.
+
+This, it should be observed, was the western limit of Turkish expansion
+in the mass. Azerbaijan is the nearest region to us in which Turki
+blood predominates, and the westernmost province of the true Turk
+homeland. All Turks who have passed thence into Hither Asia have come
+in comparatively small detachments, as minorities to alien majorities.
+They have invaded as groups of nomads seeking vacant pasturage, or as
+bands of military adventurers who, first offering their swords to
+princes of the elder peoples, have subsequently, on several occasions
+and in several localities, imposed themselves on their former masters.
+To the first category belong all those Turcoman, Avshar, Yuruk, and
+other Turki tribes, which filtered over the Euphrates into unoccupied
+or sparsely inhabited parts of Syria and Asia Minor from the seventh
+century onwards, and survive to this day in isolated patches,
+distinguished from the mass of the local populations, partly by an
+ineradicable instinct for nomadic life, partly by retention of the
+pre-Islamic beliefs and practices of the first immigrants. In the
+second category—military adventurers—fall, for example, the Turkish
+praetorians who made and unmade not less than four caliphs at Bagdad in
+the ninth century, and that bold _condottiere_, Ahmed ibn Tulun, who
+captured a throne at Cairo. Even Christian emperors availed themselves
+of these stout fighters. Theophilus of Constantinople anticipated the
+Ottoman invasion of Europe by some five hundred years when he
+established Vardariote Turks in Macedonia.
+
+The most important members of the second category, however, were the
+Seljuks. Like the earlier Thu-Kiu, they were pushed out of Turkestan
+late in the tenth century to found a power in Persia. Here, in
+Khorasan, the mass of the horde settled and remained: and it was only a
+comparatively small section which went on westward as military
+adventurers to fall upon Bagdad, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. This
+first conquest was little better than a raid, so brief was the
+resultant tenure; but a century later two dispossessed nephews of Melek
+Shah of Persia set out on a military adventure which had more lasting
+consequences. Penetrating with, a small following into Asia Minor, they
+seized Konia, and instituted there a kingdom nominally feudatory to the
+Grand Seljuk of Persia, but in reality independent and destined to last
+about two centuries. Though numerically weak, their forces, recruited
+from the professional soldier class which had bolstered up the Abbasid
+Empire and formed the Seljukian kingdoms of Persia and Syria, were
+superior to any Byzantine troops that could be arrayed in southern or
+central Asia Minor. They constituted indeed the only compact body of
+fighting men seen in these regions for some generations. It found
+reinforcement from the 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
+of Moslem image-haters more congenial, as it was certainly more
+effective, than that of Byzantine emperors. The creed of the Seljuks
+was Islam of an Iranian type. Of Incarnationist colour, it repudiated
+the dour illiberal spirit of the early Arabian apostles which
+latter-day Sunnite orthodoxy has revived. Accordingly its professors,
+backed by an effective 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 allegiance to Byzantine
+Christianity. In the event, the population of quite two-thirds of the
+Anatolian peninsula had already identified itself with a ruling Turki
+caste before, early in the thirteenth century, fresh Turks appeared on
+the scene—those Turks who were to found the Ottoman Empire.
+
+They entered Asia Minor much as the earlier Turcomans had entered it—a
+small body of nomadic adventurers, thrown off by the larger body of
+Turks settled in Persia to seek new pastures west of the Euphrates.
+There are divers legends about the first appearance and establishment
+of these particular Turks: but all agree that they were of
+inconsiderable number— not above four hundred families at most.
+Drifting in by way of Armenia, they pressed gradually westward from
+Erzerum in hope of finding some unoccupied country which would prove
+both element and fertile. Byzantine influence was then at a very low
+ebb. With Constantinople itself in Latin hands, the Greek writ ran only
+along the north Anatolian coast, ruled from two separate centres, Isnik
+(Nicaea) and Trebizond: and the Seljuk kingdom was run in reality much
+more vigorous. Though apparently without a rival, it was subsisting by
+consent, on the prestige of its past, rather than on actual power. The
+moment of its dissolution was approaching, and the Anatolian peninsula,
+two-thirds Islamized, but ill-organised and very loosely knit, was
+becoming once more a fair field for any adventurer able to command a
+small compact force.
+
+The newly come Turks were invited finally to settle on the extreme
+north-western fringe of the Seljuk territory—in a region so near Nicaea
+that their sword would be a better title to it than any which the
+feudal authority of Konia could confer. In fact it was a debatable
+land, an angle pushed up between the lake plain of Nicaea on the one
+hand and the plain of Brusa on the other, and divided from each by not
+lofty heights, Yenishehr, its chief town, which became the Osmanli
+chief Ertogrul’s residence, lies, as the crow flies, a good deal less
+than fifty miles from the Sea of Marmora, and not a hundred miles from
+Constantinople itself. Here Ertogrul was to be a Warden of the Marches,
+to hold his territory for the Seljuk and extend it for himself at the
+expense of Nicaea if he could. If he won through, so much the better
+for Sultan Alaeddin; if he failed, _vile damnum!_
+
+Hardly were his tribesmen settled, however, among the Bithynians and
+Greeks of Yenishehr, before the Seljuk collapse became a fact. The
+Tartar storm, ridden by Jenghis Khan, which had overwhelmed Central
+Asia, spent its last force on the kingdom of Konia, and, withdrawing,
+left the Seljuks bankrupt of force and prestige and Anatolia without an
+overlord. The feudatories were free everywhere to make or mar
+themselves, and they spent the last half of the thirteenth century in
+fighting for whatever might be saved from the Seljuk wreck before it
+foundered for ever about 1300 A.D. In the south, the centre, and the
+east of the peninsula, where Islam 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 restorations of tribal jurisdictions which had
+existed before the imposition of Seljuk overlordship.
+
+In the extreme north-west, however, where the mass of society was still
+Christian and held itself Greek, no Turkish, potentate could either
+revive a pre-Seljukian status or simply carry on a Seljukian system in
+miniature. If he was to preserve independence at all, he must rely on a
+society which was not yet Moslem and form a coalition with the
+‘Greeks’, into whom the recent recovery of Constantinople from the
+Latins had put fresh heart. Osman, who had succeeded Ertogrul in 1288,
+recognized where his only possible chance of continued dominion and
+future aggrandizement lay. He turned to the Greeks, as an element of
+vitality and numerical strength to be absorbed into his nascent state,
+and applied himself unremittingly to winning over and identifying with
+himself the Greek feudal seigneurs in his territory or about its
+frontiers. Some of these, like Michael, lord of Harmankaya, readily
+enough stood in with the vigorous Turk and became Moslems. Others, as
+the new state gained momentum, found themselves obliged to accept it or
+be crushed. There are to this day Greek communities in the Brusa
+district jealously guarding privileges which date from compacts made
+with their seigneurs by Osman and his son Orkhan.
+
+It was not till the Seljuk kingdom was finally extinguished, in or
+about 1300 A.D. that Osman assumed at Yenishehr the style and title of
+a sultan. Acknowledged from Afium Kara Hissar, in northern Phrygia, to
+the Bithynian coast of the Marmora, beside whose waters his standards
+had already been displayed, he lived on to see Brusa fall to his son
+Orkhan, in 1326, and become the new capital. Though Nicaea still held
+out, Osman died virtual lord of the Asiatic Greeks; and marrying his
+son to a Christian girl, the famous Nilufer, after whom the river of
+Brusa is still named, he laid on Christian foundations the strength of
+his dynasty and his state. The first regiment of professional Ottoman
+soldiery was recruited by him and embodied later by Orkhan, his son,
+from Greek and other Christian-born youths, who, forced to apostatize,
+were educated as Imperial slaves in imitation of the Mamelukes,
+constituted more than a century earlier in Egypt, and now masters where
+they had been bondmen. It is not indeed for nothing that Osman’s latest
+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 correct form Othman, ‘Ottomans’), because they derived their being
+as a nation and derive their national strength, not so much from
+central Asia as from the blend of Turk and Greek which Osman promoted
+among his people. This Greek strain has often been reinforced since his
+day and mingled with other Caucasian strains.
+
+It was left to Orkhan to round off this Turco-Grecian realm in
+Byzantine Asia by the capture first of Ismid (Nicomedia) and then of
+Isnik (Nicaea); and with this last acquisition the nucleus of a
+self-sufficient sovereign state was complete. After the peaceful
+absorption of the emirate of Karasi, which added west central Asia
+Minor almost as far south as the Hermus, the Osmanli ruled in 1338 a
+dominion of greater area than that of the Greek emperor, whose capital
+and coasts now looked across to Ottoman shores all the way from the
+Bosphorus to the Hellespont.
+
+
+
+
+2
+_Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom_
+
+
+If the new state was to expand by conquest, its line of advance was
+already foreshadowed. For the present, it could hardly break back into
+Asia Minor, occupied as this was by Moslem principalities sanctioned by
+the same tradition as itself, namely, the prestige of the Seljuks. To
+attack these would be to sin against Islam. But in front lay a rich but
+weak Christian state, the centre of the civilization to which the
+popular element in the Osmanli society belonged. As inevitably as 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 no invitation from a Greek to dispose an
+Ottoman sultan to push over to the European shore.
+
+Such an invitation, however, did in fact precede the first Osmanli
+crossing in force. In 1345 John Cantacuzene solicited help of Orkhan
+against the menace of Dushan, the Serb. Twelve years later came a
+second invitation. 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 continent to continent, which the
+Ottomans would never again let go.
+
+Such invitations, though they neither prompted the extension of the
+Osmanli realm into Europe nor sensibly precipitated it, did
+nevertheless divert the course of the Ottoman arms and reprieve the
+Greek empire till Timur and his Tartars could come on the scene and,
+all unconsciously, secure it a further respite. But for these
+diversions there is little doubt Constantinople would have passed into
+Ottoman hands nearly a century earlier than the historic date of its
+fall. The Osmanli armies, thus led aside to make the Serbs and not the
+Greeks of Europe their first objective, became involved at once in a
+tangle of Balkan affairs from which they only extricated themselves
+after forty years of incessant fighting in almost every part of the
+peninsula except the domain of the Greek emperor. This warfare, which
+in no way advanced the proper aims of the lords of Brusa and Nicaea,
+not only profited the Greek emperor by relieving him of concern about
+his land frontier but also used up strength which might have made head
+against the Tartars. Constantinople then, as now, was detached from the
+Balkans. The Osmanlis, had they possessed themselves of it, 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 treacheries
+by annexations after the victories of Kosovo in 1389 and Nikopolis in
+1396.
+
+Nor was this all. They became involved also with certain peoples of the
+main continent of Europe, whose interests or sympathies had been
+affected by those long and sanguinary Balkan wars. There was already
+bad blood and to spare between the Osmanlis on the one hand, and
+Hungarians, Poles, and Italian Venetians on the other, long before any
+second opportunity to attack Constantinople occurred: and the Osmanlis
+were in for that age-long struggle to secure a ‘scientific frontier’
+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 eighteenth century and spell ruin in the end.
+
+It is a vulgar error to suppose that the Osmanlis set out for Europe,
+in the spirit of Arab apostles, to force their creed and dominion on
+all the world. Both in Asia and Europe, from first to last, their
+expeditions and conquests have been inspired palpably by motives
+similar to those active among the Christian powers, namely, desire for
+political security and the command of commercial areas. Such wars as
+the Ottoman sultans, once they were established at Constantinople, did
+wage again and again with knightly orders or with Italian republics
+would have been undertaken, and fought with the same persistence, by
+any Greek emperor who felt himself strong enough. Even the Asiatic
+campaigns, which Selim I and some of his successors, down to the end of
+the seventeenth century, would undertake, were planned and carried out
+from similar motives. Their object was to secure the eastern basin of
+the Mediterranean by the establishment of some strong frontier against
+Iran, out of which had come more than once forces threatening the
+destruction of Ottoman power. It does not, of course, in any respect
+disprove their purpose that, in the event, this object was never
+attained, and that an unsatisfactory Turco-Persian border still
+illustrates at this day the failures of Selim I and Mohammed IV.
+
+By the opening of the fifteenth century, when, all unlooked for, a most
+terrible Tartar storm was about to break upon western Asia, the Osmanli
+realm had grown considerably, not only in Europe by conquest, but also
+in Asia by the peaceful effect of marriages and heritages. Indeed it
+now comprised scarcely less of the Anatolian peninsula than the last
+Seljuks had held, that is to say, the whole of the north as far as the
+Halys river beyond Angora, the central plateau to beyond Konia, and all
+the western coast-lands. The only emirs not tributary were those of
+Karamania, Cappadocia, and Pontus, that is of the southern and eastern
+fringes; and one detached fragment of Greek power survived in the
+last-named country, the kingdom of Trebizond. As for Europe, it had
+become the main scene of Osmanli operations, and now contained the
+administrative capital, Adrianople, though Brusu kept a sentimental
+primacy. Sultan Murad, who some years after his succession in 1359 had
+definitely transferred the centre of political gravity to Thrace, was
+nevertheless carried to the Bithynian capital for burial, Bulgaria,
+Serbia, and districts of both Bosnia and Macedonia were now integral
+parts of an empire which had come to number at least as many Christian
+as Moslem subjects, and to depend as much on the first as on the last.
+Not only had the 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 of the True Faith in Asia.
+A considerable body of Christian Serbs had stood up in Murad’s line at
+the battle of Konia in 1381, before the treachery of another body of
+the same race gave him the victory eight years later at Kosovo. So
+little did the Osmanli state model itself on the earlier caliphial
+empires and so naturally did it lean towards the Roman or Byzantine
+imperial type.
+
+And just because it had come to be in Europe and of Europe, it was able
+to survive the terrible disaster of Angora in 1402. Though the Osmanli
+army was annihilated by Timur, and an Osmanli sultan, for the first and
+last time in history, remained in the hands of the foe, the
+administrative machinery of the Osmanli state was not paralysed. A new
+ruler was proclaimed at Adrianople, and the European part of the realm
+held firm. The moment that the Tartars began to give ground, the
+Osmanlis began to recover it. In less than twenty years they stood
+again in Asia as they were before Timur’s attack, and secure for the
+time on the east, could return to restore their prestige in the west,
+where the Tartar victory had bred unrest and brought both the
+Hungarians and the Venetians on the Balkan scene. Their success was
+once more rapid and astonishing: Salonika passed once and for all into
+Ottoman hands: the Frank seigneurs and the despots of Greece were alike
+humbled; and although Murad II failed to crush the Albanian,
+Skanderbey, he worsted his most dangerous foe, John Hunyadi, with the
+help of Wallach treachery at the second battle of Kosovo. At his death,
+three years later, he left the Balkans quiet and the field clear for
+his successor to proceed with the long deferred but inevitable
+enterprise of attacking all that 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 who already had been in
+possession of its proper empire for a century or more. Historians have
+made more of this fall of Constantinople in 1453 than contemporary
+opinion seems to have made of it. No prince in Europe was moved to any
+action by its peril, except, very half-heartedly, the Doge. Venice
+could not feel quite indifferent to the prospect of the 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 Constantinople, the latter, long a land power only, would be
+bound to concern themselves with the sea also. The Venetians made no
+effort worthy of their apprehensions, though these were indeed
+exceedingly well founded; for, as all the world knows, to the sea the
+Osmanlis did at once betake themselves. In less than thirty years they
+were ranging all the eastern Mediterranean and laying siege to Rhodes,
+the stronghold of one of their most dangerous competitors, the Knights
+Hospitallers.
+
+In this consequence consists the chief historic importance of the
+Osmanli capture of Constantinople. For no other reason can it he called
+an epoch-marking event. If it guaranteed the Empire of the East against
+passing into any western hands, for example, those of Venice or Genoa,
+it did not affect the balance of power between Christendom and Islam;
+for the strength of the former had long ceased to reside at all in
+Constantinople. The last Greek emperor died a martyr, but not a
+champion.
+
+
+
+
+3
+_Heritage and Expansion of Byzantine Empire_
+
+
+On 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 be would be changed. He had displaced a
+Palaeologus by an Osmanli only in order that an empire long in fact
+Osmanli should henceforth be so also _de jure_. Therefore he confirmed
+the pre-existing Oecumenical patriarch in his functions and the
+Byzantine Greeks in their privileges, renewed the rights secured to
+Christian foreigners by the Greek emperors, and proclaimed 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, Mohammed devoted himself to precisely those tasks which would
+have fallen to a Greek emperor desirous of restoring Byzantine power.
+He thrust back Latins wherever they were encroaching on the Greek
+sphere, as were the Venetians of the Morea, the Hospitallers of Rhodes,
+and the Genoese of the Crimea: and he rounded off the proper Byzantine
+holding by annexing, in Europe, all the Balkan peninsula except 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 emirates of Karamania and Cappadocia.
+
+Before Mohammed died in 1481 the Osmanli Turco-Grecian nation may be
+said to have come into its own. It was lord _de facto et de jure belli_
+of the eastern or Greek Empire, that is of all territories and seas
+grouped geographically round Constantinople as a centre, with only a
+few exceptions unredeemed, of which the most notable were the islands
+of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Krete, still in Latin hands. Needless to say,
+the Osmanlis themselves differed greatly from their imperial
+predecessors. Their official speech, their official creed, their family
+system were all foreign to Europe, and many of their ideas of
+government had been learned in the past from Persia and China, or were
+derived from the original tribal organization of the true Turks. But if
+they were neither more nor less Asiatics than the contemporary
+Russians, they were quite as much Europeans as many of the Greek
+emperors had been—those of the Isaurian dynasty, for instance. They had
+given no evidence as yet of a fanatical Moslem spirit—this was to be
+bred in them by subsequent experiences—and their official creed had
+governed their policy hardly more than does ours in India or Egypt.
+Mohammed the Conqueror had not only shown marked favour to Christians,
+whether his _rayas_ or not, but encouraged letters and the arts in a
+very un-Arabian spirit. Did he not have himself portrayed by Gentile
+Bellini? The higher offices of state, both civil and military, were
+confided (and would continue so to be for a century to come) almost
+exclusively to men of Christian origin. Commerce was encouraged, and
+western traders recognized that their facilities were greater now than
+they had been under Greek rule. The Venetians, for example, enjoyed in
+perfect liberty a virtual monopoly of the Aegean and Euxine trade. The
+social condition of the peasantry seems to have been better than it had
+been under Greek seigneurs, whether in Europe or in Asia, and better
+than it was at the moment in feudal Christendom. The Osmanli military
+organization was reputed the best in the world, and its fame attracted
+adventurous spirits from all over Europe to learn war in the first
+school of the age. Ottoman armies, it is worth while to remember, were
+the only ones then attended by efficient medical and commissariat
+services, and may be said to have introduced to Europe these
+alleviations of the horrors of war.
+
+Had the immediate 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 for many centuries the subsequent sordid decay; for the seeds
+of this were undoubtedly sown by the three great sultans who followed
+the taker of Constantinople. Their ambitions or their necessities led
+to a great increase of the professional army which would entail many
+evils in time to come. Among these were praetorianism in the capital
+and the great provincial towns; subjection of land and peasantry to
+military seigneurs, who gradually detached themselves from the central
+control; wars undertaken abroad for no better reason than the
+employment of soldiery feared at home; consequent expansion of the
+territorial empire beyond the administrative capacity of the central
+government; development of the ‘tribute-children’ system of recruiting
+into a scourge of the _rayas_ and a continual offence to neighbouring
+states, and the supplementing of that system by acceptance of any and
+every alien outlaw who might offer himself for service: lastly, revival
+of the dormant crusading spirit of Europe, which reacted on the
+Osmanlis, begetting in them an Arabian fanaticism and disposing them to
+revert to the obscurantist spirit of the earliest Moslems. To sum the
+matter 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 official mind on things military and religious, to
+the exclusion of other interests; the degradation and embitterment of
+the Christian elements in the empire; the perpetual financial
+embarrassment of the government with its inevitable consequence of
+oppression and neglect of the governed; and the constant provocation in
+Christendom of a hostility which was always latent and recurrently
+active— all these evils, which combined to push the empire nearer and
+nearer to ruin from the seventeenth century onwards, can be traced to
+the brilliant epoch of Osmanli history associated with the names of
+Bayezid II, Selim I, and Suleiman the Magnificent.
+
+At the same time Fate, rather than any sultan, must be blamed. It was
+impossible to forgo some further extension of the empire, and very
+difficult to arrest extension at any satisfactory static point. For one
+thing, as has been pointed out already, there were important
+territories in the proper Byzantine sphere still unredeemed at the
+death of Mohammed. Rhodes, Krete, and Cyprus, whose possession carried
+with it something like superior control of the Levantine trade, were in
+Latin hands. Austrian as well as Venetian occupation of the best
+harbours was virtually closing the Adriatic to the masters of the
+Balkans. Nor could the inner lands of the Peninsula be quite securely
+held while the great fortress of Belgrade, with the passage of the
+Danube, remained in Hungarian keeping, Furthermore, 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
+of 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 to bring all the
+Anatolian peninsula under the Osmanli. But that corner, the Cilician
+plain, promised trouble, since it was held by another Islamic power,
+that of the Egyptian Mamelukes, which, claiming to be at least equal to
+the Osmanli, possessed vitality much below its pretensions. The
+temptation to poach on it was strong, and any lord of Constantinople
+who once gave way to this, would find himself led on to assume control
+of all coasts of the easternmost Levant, and then to push into inland
+Asia in quest of a scientific frontier at their back—perilous and
+costly enterprise which Rome had essayed again and again and had to
+renounce in the end. Bayezid II took the first step by summoning the
+Mameluke to evacuate certain forts near Tarsus, and expelling his
+garrisons _vi et armis_. Cilicia passed to the Osmanli; but for the
+moment he pushed no farther. Bayezid, who was under the obligation
+always to lead his army in person, could make but one campaign at a
+time; and a need in Europe was the more pressing. In quitting Cilicia,
+however, he left open a new question in Ottoman politics—the Asiatic
+continental question—and indicated to his successor a line of least
+resistance on which to advance. Nor would this be his only dangerous
+legacy. The prolonged and repeated raids into Adriatic lands, as far
+north as Carniola and Carinthia, with which the rest of Bayezid’s reign
+was occupied, brought Ottoman militarism at last to a point, whose
+eventual attainment might have been foreseen any time in the past
+century— the point at which, strong in the possession of a new arm,
+artillery, it would assume control of the state.
+
+Bayezid’s seed was harvested by Selim. First in a long series of
+praetorian creatures which would end only with the destroyer of the
+praetorians themselves three centuries later, he owed his elevation to
+a Janissary revolt, and all the eight bloody years of his reign were to
+be punctuated by Janissary tumults. To keep his creators in any sort of
+order and contentment he had no choice but to make war from his first
+year to his last. When he died, in 1520, the Ottoman Empire had been
+swelled to almost as wide limits in Asia and Africa as it has ever
+attained since his day. Syria, Armenia, great part of Kurdistan,
+northern Mesopotamia, part of Arabia, and last, but not least, Egypt,
+were forced to acknowledge Osmanli suzerainty, and for the first time
+an Osmanli sultan had proclaimed himself caliph. True that neither by
+his birth nor by the manner of his appointment did Selim satisfy the
+orthodox caliphial tradition; but, besides his acquisition of certain
+venerated relics of the Prophet, such as the _Sanjak i-sherif_ or holy
+standard, and besides a yet more important acquisition—the control of
+the holy cities of the faith— he could base a claim on the unquestioned
+fact that the office was vacant, and the equally certain fact that he
+was the most powerful Moslem prince in the world. Purists might deny
+him if they dared: the vulgar Sunni mind was impressed and disposed to
+accept. The main importance, however, of Selim’s assumption of the
+caliphate was that it consecrated Osmanli militarism to a religious
+end—to the original programme of Islam. This was a new thing, fraught
+with dire possibilities from that day forward. It marked the
+supersession of the Byzantine or European ideal by the Asiatic in
+Osmanli policy, and introduced a phase of Ottoman history which has
+endured to our own time.
+
+The inevitable process was continued in the next reign. Almost all the
+military glories of Suleiman—known to contemporary Europe as ‘the
+Magnificent’ and often held by historians the greatest of Osmanli
+sultans— made for weakening, not strengthening, the empire. His
+earliest operations indeed, the captures of Rhodes from the Knights and
+of Belgrade and Šabac from the Hungarians, expressed a legitimate
+Byzantine policy; and the siege of Malta, one of his latest ventures,
+might also be defended as a measure taken in the true interests of
+Byzantine commerce. But the most brilliant and momentous of his
+achievements bred evils for which military prestige and the material
+profits to be gained from the oppression of an irreconcilable
+population were inadequate compensation. This was the conquest of
+Hungary. It would result in Buda and its kingdom remaining Ottoman
+territory for a century and a 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 the Balkan
+sphere; but also it would result in the Osmanli power finding itself on
+a weak frontier face to face at last with a really strong Christian
+race, the Germanic, before which, since it could not advance, it would
+have ultimately to withdraw; and in the rousing of Europe to a sense of
+its common danger from Moslem activity. Suleiman’s failure to take
+Vienna more than made good the panic which had followed on his victory
+at Mohacs. It was felt that the Moslem, now that he had failed against
+the bulwark of central Europe, was to go no farther, and that the hour
+of revenge was near.
+
+[Illustration: The Ottoman Empire (Except the Arabian and African
+provinces)]
+
+It was nearer than perhaps was expected. Ottoman capacity to administer
+the overgrown empire in Europe and Asia was strained already almost to
+breaking-point, and it was in recognition of this fact that Suleiman
+made the great effort to reorganize his imperial system, which has
+earned him his honourable title of _El Kanun_, the Regulator. But if he
+could reset and cleanse the wheels of the administrative machine, he
+could not increase its capacity. New blood was beginning to fail for
+the governing class just as the demands on it became greater. No longer
+could it be manned exclusively from the Christian born. Two centuries
+of recruiting in the Balkans and West Asia had sapped their resources.
+Even the Janissaries were not now all ‘tribute-children’. Their own
+sons, free men Moslem born, began to be admitted to the ranks. This
+change was a vital infringement of the old principle of Osmanli rule,
+that all the higher administrative and military functions should be
+vested in slaves of the imperial household, directly dependent on the
+sultan himself; and once breached, this principle could not but give
+way more and more. The descendants of imperial slaves, free-born
+Moslems, but barred from the glory and profits of their fathers’
+function, had gradually become a very numerous class of country
+gentlemen distributed over all parts of the empire, and a very
+malcontent one. Though it was still subservient, its dissatisfaction at
+exclusion from the central administration was soon to show itself
+partly in assaults on the time-honoured system, partly in assumption of
+local jurisdiction, which would develop into provincial independence.
+
+The overgrowth of his empire further compelled Suleiman to divide the
+standing army, in order that more than one imperial force might take
+the field at a time. Unable to lead all his armies in person, he
+elected, in the latter part of his reign, to lead none, and for the
+first time left the Janissaries to march without a sultan to war.
+Remaining himself at the centre, he initiated a fashion which would
+encourage Osmanli sultans to lapse into half-hidden beings, whom their
+subjects would gradually invest with religious character. Under these
+conditions the ruler, the governing class (its power grew with this
+devolution), the dominant population of the state, and the state 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 area which
+it was ever to cover at any one moment. In what may be called the
+proper Byzantine field, 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 frontier provinces, 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 III, which
+culminated in 1588 with the occupation of Tabriz and half Azerbaijan.
+
+
+
+
+4
+_Shrinkage and Retreat_
+
+
+The fringes of this vast empire, however, none too surely held, were
+already involving it in insoluble difficulties and imminent dangers. On
+the one hand, in Asia, it had been found impossible to establish
+military fiefs in Arabia, Kurdistan, or anywhere east of it, on the
+system which had secured the Osmanli tenure elsewhere. On the other
+hand, in Europe, as we have seen, the empire had a very unsatisfactory
+frontier, beyond which a strong people not only set limits to further
+progress but was prepared to dispute the ground already gained. In a
+treaty signed at Sitvatorok, in 1606, the Osmanli sultan was forced to
+acknowledge definitely the absolute and equal sovereignty of his
+northern neighbour, Austria; and although, less than a century later,
+Vienna would be attacked once more, there was never again to be serious
+prospect of an extension of the empire in the 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 seventeenth and eighteenth, is one long record of
+praetorian tumults at home; and ever more rarely will these be
+compensated by military successes abroad. The first of these centuries
+had not half elapsed ere the Janissaries had taken the lives of two
+sultans, and brought the Grand Vizierate to such a perilous pass that
+no ordinary holder of it, unless backed by some very powerful Albanian
+or other tribal influence, could hope to save his credit or even his
+life. During this period indeed no Osmanli of the older stocks ever
+exercised real control of affairs. It was only among the more recently
+assimilated elements, such as the Albanian, the Slavonic, or the Greek,
+that men of the requisite character and vigour could be found. The
+rally which marked the latter half of the seventeenth century was
+entirely the work of Albanians or of other generals and admirals, none
+of whom had had a Moslem grandfather. Marked by the last Osmanli
+conquest made at the expense of Europe—that of Krete; by the definite
+subjugation of Wallachia; by the second siege of Vienna; by the
+recovery of the Morea from Venice; and finally by an honourable
+arrangement with Austria about the Danube frontier—it is all to be
+credited to the Kuprili ‘dynasty’ of Albanian viziers, which
+conspicuously outshone the contemporary sovereigns of the dynasty of
+Osman, the best of them, Mohammed IV, not excepted. It was, however, no
+more than a rally; for greater danger already threatened from another
+quarter. Agreement had not been reached with Austria at Carlowitz, in
+1699, before a new and baleful planet swam into the Osmanli sky.
+
+It was, this time, no central European power, to which, at the worst,
+all that lay north of the proper Byzantine sphere might be abandoned;
+but a claimant for part of that sphere itself, perhaps even for the
+very heart of it. Russia, seeking an economic outlet, had sapped her
+way south to the Euxine shore, and was on the point of challenging the
+Osmanli right to that sea. The contest would involve a vital issue; and
+if the Porte did not yet grasp this fact, others had grasped it. The
+famous ‘Testament of Peter the Great’ may or may not be a genuine
+document; but, in either case, it proves that certain views about the
+necessary policy of Russia in the Byzantine area, which became
+commonplaces of western political thinkers as the eighteenth century
+advanced, were already familiar to east European minds in the earlier
+part of that century.
+
+Battle was not long in being joined. In the event, it would cost Russia
+about sixty years of strenuous effort to reduce the Byzantine power of
+the Osmanlis to a condition little better than that in which Osman had
+found the Byzantine power of the Greeks four centuries before. During
+the first two-thirds of this period the contest was waged not
+unequally. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Sultan Mahmud I appeared
+for a moment even to have gained the whole issue, Russia agreeing to
+her own exclusion from the Black Sea, and from interference in the
+Danubian principalities. But the success could not be sustained.
+Repeated effort was rapidly exhausting Osmanli strength, sapped as it
+was by increasing internal disease: and when a crisis arrived with the
+accession of the Empress Catherine, it proved too weak to meet it.
+During the ten years following 1764 Osmanli hold on the Black Sea was
+lost irretrievably. After the destruction of the fleet at Chesme the
+Crimea became untenable and was abandoned to the brief mercies of
+Russia: and with a veiled Russian protectorate established in the
+Danubian principalities, and an open Russian occupation in Morean
+ports, Constantinople had lost once more her own seas. When Selim III
+was set on a tottering throne, in 1787, the wheel of Byzantine destiny
+seemed to have come again almost full circle: and the world was
+expecting a Muscovite succession to that empire which had acknowledged
+already the Roman, the Greek, and the Osmanli.
+
+Certainly history looked like repeating itself. As in the fourteenth
+century, so in the eighteenth, the imperial provinces, having shaken
+off almost all control of the capital, were administering themselves,
+and happier for doing so. Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Trebizond
+acknowledged adventurers as virtually independent lords. Asia Minor, in
+general, was being controlled, in like disregard of imperial majesty,
+by a group of ‘Dere Beys’, descended, in different districts, from
+tribal chieftains or privileged tax-farmers, or, often, from both. The
+latter part of the eighteenth century was the heyday of the Anatolian
+feudal families—of such as the Chapanoghlus of Yuzgad, whose sway
+stretched from Pontus to Cilicia, right across the base of the
+peninsula, or the Karamanoghlus of Magnesia, Bergama, and Aidin, who
+ruled as much territory as the former emirs of Karasi and Sarukhan, and
+were recognized by the representatives of the great trading companies
+as wielding the only effective authority in Smyrna. The wide and rich
+regions controlled by such families usually contributed neither an
+_asper_ to the sultan’s treasury 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 the imperial writ run. Macedonia
+and Albania were obedient only to their local beys, and so far had gone
+the devolution of Serbia and Bosnia to Janissary aghas, feudal beys,
+and the Beylerbey of Rumili, that these provinces hardly concerned
+themselves more with the capital. The late sultan, Mustapha III, had
+lost almost the last remnant of his subjects’ respect, not so much by
+the ill success of his mutinous armies as by his depreciation of the
+imperial coinage. He had died bankrupt of prestige, leaving no visible
+assets to his successor. What might become of the latter no one in the
+empire appeared to care. As in 1453, it waited other lords.
+
+
+
+
+5
+_Revival_
+
+
+It has been waiting, nevertheless, ever since—waiting for much more
+than a century; and perhaps the end is not even yet. Why, then, have
+expectations not only within but without the empire been so greatly at
+fault? How came Montesquieu, Burke, and other confident prophets since
+their time to be so signally mistaken? There were several co-operating
+causes, but one paramount. Constantinople was no longer, as in 1453, a
+matter of concern only to itself, its immediate neighbours, and certain
+trading republics of Italy. It had become involved with the commercial
+interests of a far wider circle, in particular of the great trading
+peoples of western Europe, the British, the French, and the Dutch, and
+with the political interests of the Germanic and Russian nations. None
+of these could be indifferent to a revolution in its fortunes, and
+least of all to its 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 at Vienna till
+early in the century to come: but even before the end of the eighteenth
+century it could be foreseen that its life would be bound up with the
+maintenance of Constantinople in independence of any one of the parent
+powers—that is, with the prolongation of the Osmanli phase of its
+imperial fortunes. This doctrine, consistently acted upon by Europe,
+has been the sheet anchor of the Ottoman empire for a century. Even to
+this day its Moslem dynasty has never been without one powerful
+Christian champion or another.
+
+There were, however, some thirty years still to elapse after Selim’s
+accession before that doctrine was fully born: and had her hands been
+free, Russia might well have been in secure possession of the Byzantine
+throne long before 1815. For, internally, the Osmanli state went from
+bad to worse. The tumultuous insubordination of the Janissaries became
+an ever greater scandal. Never in all the long history of their riots
+was their record for the years 1807-9 equalled or even approached.
+Never before, also, had the provinces been so utterly out of hand. This
+was the era of Jezzar the Butcher at Acre, of the rise of Mehemet Ali
+in Egypt, of Ali Pasha in Epirus, and of Pasvanoghlu at Vidin. When
+Mahmud II was thrust on to the throne in 1809, he certainly began his
+reign with no more personal authority and no more imperial prestige or
+jurisdiction than the last Greek emperor had enjoyed on his accession
+in 1448.
+
+The great 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 give substance. Whatever the Osmanlis
+suffered during that war, it undoubtedly kept them in Constantinople.
+Temporary loss of Egypt and the small damage done by the British attack
+on Constantinople in 1807 were a small price to pay for the diversion
+of Russia’s main energies to other than Byzantine fields, and for the
+assurance, made doubly sure when the great enemy did again attack, that
+she would not be allowed to settle the account alone. Whatever Napoleon
+may have planned and signed at Tilsit, the aegis of France was
+consistently opposed to the enemies of the Osmanlis down to the close
+of the Napoleonic age.
+
+Thus it came about that those thirty perilous years passed without the
+expected catastrophe. There was still a successor of Osman reigning in
+Constantinople when the great Christian powers, met in conclave at
+Vienna, half unconsciously guaranteed the continued existence of the
+Osmanli Empire simply by leaving it out of account in striking a
+Balance of Power in Europe. Its European territory, with the capital
+within it, was of quite enough importance to disturb seriously the nice
+adjustment agreed at Vienna; and, therefore, while any one’s henceforth
+to take or leave, it would become always some one’s to guard. A few
+years had yet to pass before the phrase, the Maintenance of the
+Integrity of the Ottoman Empire, would be a watchword of European
+diplomacy: but, whether formulated thus or not, that principle became a
+sure rock of defence for the Osmanli Empire on the birthday of the
+doctrine of the Balance of Power.
+
+Secure from destruction by any foes but those of his own household, as
+none knew better than he, the reigning Osmanli was scheming to regain
+the independence and dignity of his forefathers. Himself a creature of
+the Janissaries, Mahmud had plotted the abolition of his creators from
+the first year of his reign, but making a too precipitate effort after
+the conclusion of peace with Russia, had ignominiously failed and
+fallen into worse bondage than ever. Now, better assured of his
+imperial position and supported by leading men of all classes among his
+subjects, he returned not only to his original enterprise but to
+schemes for removing other checks on the power of the sovereign which
+had come into being in the last two centuries—notably the feudal
+independence of the Dere Beys, and the irresponsibility of provincial
+governors.
+
+Probably Mahmud II—if he is to be credited with personal initiation of
+the reforms always associated with his name—was not conscious of any
+purpose more revolutionary than that of becoming master in his own
+house, as his ancestors had been. What he ultimately accomplished,
+however, was something of much greater and more lasting moment to the
+Osmanli state. It was nothing less than the elimination of the most
+Byzantine features in its constitution and government. The substitution
+of national forces for mercenary praetorians: the substitution of
+direct imperial government of the provinces for devolution to
+seigneurs, tribal chiefs, and irresponsible officers: the substitution
+of direct collection for tax-farming: and the substitution of
+administration by bureaucrats for administration by household
+officers—these, the chief reforms carried through under Mahmud, were
+all anti-Byzantine. They did not cause the Osmanli state to be born
+anew, but, at least, they went far to purge it of original sin.
+
+That Mahmud and his advisers could carry through such reforms at all in
+so old a body politic is remarkable: that they carried them through
+amid the events of his reign is almost miraculous. One affront after
+another was put on the Sultan, one blow after another was struck at his
+empire. Inspired by echoes of the French Revolution and by Napoleon’s
+recognition of the rights of nationalities, first the Serbs and then
+the Greeks seized moments of Ottoman disorder to rise in revolt against
+their local lords. The first, who had risen under Selim III, achieved,
+under Mahmud, autonomy, but not independence, nothing remaining to the
+sultan as before except the fortress of Belgrade with five other
+strongholds. 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 passed out of the empire, the first provinces so to pass
+since the Osmanli loss of Hungary. Yet it was in the middle of that
+fatal struggle that Mahmud settled for ever with the Janissaries, and
+during all its course he was settling one after another with the Dere
+Beys!
+
+When he had thus sacrificed the flower of his professional troops and
+had hardly had time to replace the local governments of the provinces
+by anything much better than general anarchy, he found himself faced by
+a Russian assault. His raw levies fought as no other raw levies than
+the Turkish can, and, helped by manifestations of jealousy by the other
+powers, staved off the capture of Constantinople, which, at one moment,
+seemed about to take place at last. But he had to accept humiliating
+terms, amounting virtually, to a cession of the Black Sea. Mahmud
+recognized that such a price he must pay for crossing the broad stream
+between Byzantinism and Nationalism, and kept on his way.
+
+Finally came a blow at the hands of one of his own household and creed.
+Mehemet Ali of Egypt, who had faithfully fought his sovereign’s battles
+in Arabia and the Morea, 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 than he had intended—more than
+half-way across Asia Minor—after the imperial armies had suffered three
+signal defeats, before he extorted what he had desired at first: and in
+the end, after very brief enjoyment, he had to resign all again to the
+mandate, not of his sovereign, but of certain European powers who
+commanded his seas. Mahmud, however, who lived neither to see himself
+saved by the _giaur_ fleets, nor even to hear of his latest defeat, had
+gone forward with the reorganization of the central and provincial
+administration, undismayed by Mehemet Ali’s contumacy or the insistence
+of Russia at the gate of the Bosphorus.
+
+As news arrived from time to time in the west of Mahmud’s disasters, it
+was customary to prophesy the imminent dissolution of his empire. We,
+however, looking backward now, can see that by its losses the Osmanli
+state in reality grew stronger. Each of its humiliations pledged some
+power or group of powers more deeply to support it: and before Mahmud
+died, he had reason to believe that, so long as the European Concert
+should ensue the Balance of Power, his dynasty would not be expelled
+from Constantinople. His belief has been justified. At every fresh
+crisis of Ottoman fortunes, and especially after every fresh Russian
+attack, foreign protection has unfailingly been extended to his
+successors.
+
+It was not, however, only in virtue of the increasing solicitude of the
+powers on its behalf that during the nineteenth century the empire was
+growing and would grow stronger, but also in virtue of certain assets
+within itself. First among these ranked the resources of its Asiatic
+territories, which, as the European lands diminished, became more and
+more nearly identified with the empire. When, having got rid of the old
+army, Mahmud imposed service on all his Moslem subjects, in theory, but
+in effect only on the Osmanlis (not the Arabs, Kurds, or other half
+assimilated nomads and hillmen), it meant more than a similar measure
+would have meant in a Christian empire. For, the life of Islam being
+war, military service binds Moslems together and to their chiefs as it
+binds men under no other dispensation; therefore Mahmud, so far as he
+was able to enforce 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, it was attained 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 of a drastic order had to
+precede construction, and more of Mahmud’s reign had to be devoted to
+the former than remained for the latter.
+
+He did, however, live to see not only the germ of a nation emerge from
+chaos, but also the framework of an organization for governing it well
+or ill. The centralized bureaucracy which he succeeded in initiating
+was, of course, wretchedly imperfect both in constitution and
+equipment. But it promised to promote the end he had in view and no
+other, inasmuch as, being the only existent machine of government, it
+derived any effective power it had from himself alone. Dependent on
+Stambul, it served to turn thither the eyes and prayers of the
+provincials. The naturally submissive and peaceful population of Asia
+Minor quickly accustomed itself to look beyond the dismantled
+strongholds of its fallen beys. As for the rest— contumacious and
+bellicose beys and sheikhs of Kurdish hills and Syrian steppes—their
+hour of surrender was yet to come.
+
+The eventual product of Mahmud’s persistency was the ‘Turkey’ we have
+seen in our own time—that Turkey irretrievably Asiatic in spirit under
+a semi-European system of administration, which has governed
+despotically in the interests of one creed and one class, with
+slipshod, makeshift methods, but has always governed, and little by
+little has extended its range. Knowing its imperfections and its
+weakness, we have watched with amazement its hand feeling forward none
+the less towards one remote frontier district after another, painfully
+but surely getting its grip, and at last closing on Turcoman chiefs and
+Kurdish beys, first in the Anatolian and Cilician hills, then in the
+mountains of Armenia, finally in the wildest Alps of the Persian
+borderland. We have marked its stealthy movement into the steppes and
+deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia— now drawn back, now pushed
+farther till it has reached and held regions over which Mahmud could
+claim nothing but a suzerainty in name. To judge how far the shrinkage
+of the Osmanli European empire has been compensated by expansion of its
+Asiatic, one has only to compare the political state of Kurdistan, as
+it was at the end of the eighteenth century, and as it has been in our
+own time.
+
+It is impossible to believe that the Greek Empire, however buttressed
+and protected by foreign powers, could ever have reconstituted itself
+after falling so low as it fell in the fourteenth century and as the
+Osmanli Empire fell in the eighteenth; and it is clear that the latter
+must still have possessed latent springs of vitality, deficient in the
+former. What can these have been? It is worth while to try to answer
+this question at the present juncture, since those springs, if they
+existed a hundred years ago, can hardly now be dry.
+
+In the first place it had its predominant creed. This had acted as
+Islam acts everywhere, as a very strong social bond, uniting the vast
+majority of subjects 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 with
+special efficacy in Asia Minor, whose inhabitants the Osmanli emperors,
+unlike the Greek, had always been at some pains to attach to
+themselves. The sultan, therefore, could still count on general support
+from the population of his empire’s heart, and had at his disposal the
+resources of a country which no administration, 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 not lost either ‘the will to power’ or
+their capacity for governing under military law. If they had never
+succeeded in learning to rule as civilians they had not forgotten how
+to rule as soldiers.
+
+In the third place the sultanate of Stambul had retained a vague but
+valuable prestige, based partly on past history, partly on its
+pretension to religious influence throughout a much larger area than
+its proper dominions; and the conservative population of the latter was
+in great measure very imperfectly informed of its sovereign’s actual
+position.
+
+In the fourth and last place, among the populations on whose loyalty
+the Osmanli sultan could make good his claim, were several strong
+unexhausted elements, especially in Anatolia. There are few more
+vigorous and enduring peoples than the peasants of the central plateau
+of Asia Minor, 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, less firmly attached to himself, but not less vigorous,
+such, for example, as the Albanians of his European mountains and the
+Kurds of his Asiatic. However decadent might be the Turco-Grecian
+Osmanli (he, unfortunately, had the lion’s share of office), those
+other elements had suffered no decline in physical or mental
+development. Indeed, one cannot be among them now without feeling that
+their day is not only not gone, but is still, for the most part, yet to
+be.
+
+Such were latent assets of the Osmanli Empire, appreciated imperfectly
+by the prophets of its dissolution. Thanks to them, that empire
+continued not only to hold together throughout the nineteenth century
+but, in some measure, to consolidate itself. Even when the protective
+fence, set up by European powers about it, was violated, as by Russia
+several times—in 1829, in 1854, and in 1877—the nation, which Mahmud
+had made, always proved capable of stout enough resistance to delay the
+enemy till European diplomacy, however slow of movement, could come to
+its aid, and ultimately to dispose the victor to accept terms
+consistent with its continued existence. It was an existence, of
+course, of sufferance, but one which grew better assured the longer it
+lasted. By an irony of the Osmanli position, the worse the empire was
+administered, the stronger became its international guarantee. No
+better example can be cited than the effect of its financial follies.
+When national bankruptcy, long contemplated by its 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 lent his country money.
+
+Considering the magnitude of the change which Mahmud instituted, the
+stage at which he left it, and the character of the society in which it
+had to be carried out, it was unfortunate that he should have been
+followed on the throne by two well-meaning weaklings, of whom the first
+was a voluptuary, the second a fantastic spendthrift of doubtful
+sanity. Mahmud, as has been said, being occupied for the greater part
+of his reign in destroying the old order, had been able to reconstruct
+little more than a framework. His operations had been almost entirely
+forcible—of a kind understood by and congenial to the Osmanli
+character—and partly by circumstances but more by his natural
+sympathies, he had been identified from first to last with military
+enterprises. Though he was known to contemplate the eventual supremacy
+of civil law, and the equality of all sorts and conditions of his
+subjects before it, he did nothing to open this vista to public view.
+Consequently he encountered little or no factious opposition. Very few
+held briefs for either the Janissaries or the Dere Beys; and fewer
+regretted them when they were gone. Osmanli society identified itself
+with the new army and accepted the consequent reform of the central or
+provincial administration. Nothing in these changes seemed to affect
+Islam or the privileged position of Moslems in the empire.
+
+It was quite another matter when Abdul Mejid, in the beginning of his
+reign, promulgated an imperial decree—the famous Tanzimat or Hatti
+Sherif of Gulkhaneh—which, amid many excellent and popular provisions
+for the continued reform of the administration, proclaimed the equality
+of Christian and Moslem subjects in service, in reward, and before the
+law. The new sultan, essentially a civilian and a man of easy-going
+temperament, had been induced to believe that the end of an evolution,
+which had only just begun, could be anticipated _per saltum_, and that
+he and all his subjects would live happily together ever after. His
+counsellors had been partly politicians, who for various reasons, good
+and bad, wished to gain West European sympathy for their country,
+involved in potential bondage to Russia since the Treaty of Unkiar
+Skelessi (1833), and recently afflicted by Ibrahim Pasha’s victory at
+Nizib; and they looked to Great Britain to get them out of the Syrian
+mess. Partly also Abdul Mejid had been influenced by enthusiasts, who
+set more store by ideas or the phrases in which they were expressed,
+than by the evidence of facts. There were then, as since, ‘young men in
+a hurry’ among the more Europeanized Osmanlis. The net result of the
+sultan’s precipitancy was to set against himself and his policy all who
+wished that such it consummation of the reform process might never come
+and all who knew it would never come, if snatched at 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
+worked and in which fresh developments of it would be accepted.
+
+To his credit, however, Abdul Mejid went on with administrative reform.
+The organization of the army into corps—the foundation of the existing
+system—and the imposition of five years’ service on all subjects of the
+empire (in theory which an Albanian rising caused to be imperfectly
+realized in fact), belong to the early part of his reign; as do also,
+on the civil side, the institution of responsible councils of state and
+formation of ministries, and much provision for secondary education. To
+his latest years is to be credited the codification of the civil law.
+He had the advantage of some dozen initial years of comparative
+security from external foes, after the Syrian question had been settled
+in his favour by Great Britain and her allied powers at the cheap price
+of a guarantee of hereditary succession to the house of Mehemet Ali.
+Thanks to the same support, war with 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), proved far from content. If the form
+of Osmanli government had changed greatly, its spirit had changed
+little, and defective communications militated against the
+responsibility of officials to the centre. Money was scarce, and the
+paper currency—an ill-omened device of Mahmud’s—was depreciated,
+distrusted, and regarded as 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 blood between creeds and encouraged opposition to the
+execution of the pro-Christian Tanzimat. When Christian turbulence at
+last brought on, in 1854, the Russian attack which developed into the
+Crimean War, and Christian allies, though they frustrated that attack,
+made a peace by which the Osmanlis gained nothing, the latter were in
+no mood to welcome the repetition of the Tanzimat, which Abdul Mejid
+consented to embody in the Treaty of Paris. The reign closed amid
+turbulence and humiliations—massacre and bombardment at Jidda, massacre
+and Franco-British coercion in Syria—from all of which the sultan took
+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 Europeanization, and a
+different, but more fatal, weakness of character. He was, perhaps,
+never wholly sane; but his aberration, at first attested only by an
+exalted conviction of his divine character and inability to do wrong,
+excited little attention until it began to issue in fantastic
+expenditure. By an irony of history, he is the one Osmanli sultan upon
+the roll of our Order of the Garter, the right to place a banner in St,
+George’s Chapel having been offered to this Allah-possessed caliph on
+the occasion of his visit to the West in 1867.
+
+Despite the good intentions of Abdul Aziz himself—as sincere as can be
+credited to a disordered brain—-and despite more than one minister of
+outstanding ability, reform and almost everything else in the empire
+went to the bad in this unhappy reign. The administration settled down
+to lifeless routine and lapsed into corruption: the national army was
+starved: the depreciation of the currency grew worse as the revenue
+declined and the sultan’s household and personal extravagance
+increased. Encouraged by the inertia of the imperial Government, the
+Christians of the European provinces waxed bold. Though Montenegro was
+severely handled for contumacy, the Serbs were able to cover their
+penultimate stage towards freedom by forcing in 1867 the withdrawal of
+the last Ottoman garrisons from their fortresses. Krete stood at bay
+for three years and all but 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 as a nationality in the Ottoman Empire, her Church being
+detached from the control of the Oecumenical Patriarch of the Greeks
+and placed under an Exarch. Presently, her peasantry growing ever more
+restive, passed from protest to revolt against the Circassian
+refugee-colonists with whom the Porte was flooding the land. The
+sultan, in an evil hour, for lack of trained troops, let loose
+irregulars on the villages, and the Bulgarian atrocities, which they
+committed in 1875, sowed a fatal harvest for his successor to reap. His
+own time was almost fulfilled. The following spring a dozen high
+officials, with the assent of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the active
+dissent of no one, took Abdul Aziz from his throne to a prison, wherein
+two days later he perished, probably by his own hand. A puppet reigned
+three months as Murad V, and then, at the bidding of the same
+king-makers whom his uncle had obeyed, left the throne free for his
+brother Abdul Hamid, a man of affairs and ability, who was to be the
+most conspicuous, or rather, the most notorious Osmanli sultan since
+Suleiman.
+
+
+
+
+6
+_Relapse_
+
+
+The new sultan, who had not expected his throne, found his realm in
+perilous case. Nominally sovereign and a member of the Concert of
+Europe, he was in reality a semi-neutralized dependant, existing, as an
+undischarged bankrupt, on sufferance of the powers. Should the Concert
+be dissolved, or even divided, and any one of its members be left free
+to foreclose its Ottoman mortgages, the empire would be at an end.
+Internally it was in many parts in open revolt, in all the rest
+stagnant and slowly rotting. The thrice-foiled claimant to its
+succession, who six years before had denounced the Black Sea clause of
+the Treaty of Paris and so freed its hands for offence, was manifestly
+preparing a fresh assault. Something drastic must be done; but what?
+
+This danger of the empire’s international situation, and also the
+disgrace of it, had been evident for some time past to those who had
+any just appreciation of affairs; and in the educated class, at any
+rate, something like a public opinion, very apprehensive and very much
+ashamed, had struggled into being. The discovery of a leader in Midhat
+Pasha, former governor-general of Bagdad, and a king-maker of recent
+notoriety, induced the party of this opinion to take precipitate
+action. Murad had been deposed in August. Before the year was out
+Midhat presented himself before Abdul Hamid with a formal demand for
+the promulgation of a Constitution, proposing not only to put into
+execution the pious hopes of the two Hatti Sherifs of Abdul Mejid but
+also to limit the sovereign and govern the empire by representative
+institutions. The new sultan, hardly settled on his uneasy throne,
+could not deny those who had deposed his two predecessors, and,
+shrewdly aware that ripe facts would not be long in getting the better
+of immature ideas, accepted. A parliament was summoned; an electorate,
+with only the haziest notions of what it was about, went through the
+form of sending representatives to Constantinople; and the sittings
+were inaugurated by a speech from the throne, framed on the most
+approved Britannic model, the deputies, it is said, jostling and
+crowding the while to sit, as many as possible, on the right, which
+they understood was always the side of powers that be.
+
+It is true this extemporized chamber never had a chance. The Russians
+crossed the Pruth before it had done much more than verify its powers,
+and the thoughts and energies of the Osmanlis were soon occupied with
+the most severe and disastrous struggle in which the empire had ever
+engaged. But it is equally certain that it could not have turned to
+account any chance it might have had. Once more the ‘young men in a
+hurry’ had snatched at the end of an evolution hardly begun, without
+taking into account the immaturity of Osmanli society in political
+education and political capacity. After suspension during the 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 that the next reformers would inevitably have a more
+convinced public opinion behind them, and he had virtually destroyed
+the power of Mahmud’s bureaucracy. If the only immediate effect was the
+substitution of an unlimited autocracy, the Osmanli peoples would be
+able thenceforward to ascribe their misfortunes to a single person,
+meditate attack, on a single position, and dream of realizing some day
+an ideal which had been definitely formulated.
+
+The Russian onslaught, which began in both Europe and Asia 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, joined
+the invader. In campaigns lasting a little less than a 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 by rival powers, both before the peace and in the
+revision of it at Berlin, gave fresh assurance that the end would not
+be suffered to come yet; and, moreover, through the long series of
+disasters, much latent strength 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 empire must be made, not
+more European, but more Asiatic. In the development of Islamic spirit
+to pan-Islamic unity it would find new strength; and towards this end
+in the early eighties, while he was yet comparatively young, with
+intelligence unclouded and courage sufficient, Abdul Hamid patiently
+set himself. In Asia, naturally sympathetic to autocracy, and the home
+of the faith of his fathers, he set on foot a pan-Islamic propaganda.
+He exalted his caliphate; he wooed the Arabs, and he plotted with
+extraneous Moslems against whatever foreign government they might have
+to endure.
+
+It cannot be denied that this idea was based on the logic of facts,
+and, if it could be realized, promised better than Midhat’s for escape
+from shameful dependence. Indeed, Abdul Hamid, an autocrat bent on
+remaining one, could hardly have acted upon any other. By far the
+greater part of the territorial empire remaining to him lay in Asia.
+The little left in Europe would obviously soon be reduced to less. The
+Balkan lands were waking, or already awake, to a sense of separate
+nationality, and what chance did the Osmanli element, less progressive
+than any, stand in them? The acceptance of the Ottoman power into the
+Concert of Europe, though formally notified to Abdul Mejid, had proved
+an empty thing. In that galley there was no place for a sultan except
+as a dependent or a slave. As an Asiatic power, however, exerting
+temporal sway over some eighteen million bodies and religious influence
+over many times more souls, the Osmanli caliph might command a place in
+the sun.
+
+The result belied these hopes. Abdul Hamid’s failure was owed in the
+main to facts independent of his personality or statecraft. The
+expansion of Islam over an immense geographical area and among peoples
+living in incompatible stages of sophistication, under most diverse
+political and social conditions, has probably made any universal
+caliphial authority for ever impossible. The original idea of the
+caliphate, like that of the _jehad_ or holy war of the faithful,
+presupposed that all Moslems were under governments of their own creed,
+and, perhaps, under one government. Moreover, if such a caliph were
+ever to be again, an Osmanli sultan would not be a strong candidate.
+Apart from the disqualification of his blood, he being not of the
+Prophet’s tribe nor even an Arab, he is lord of a state irretrievably
+compromised in purist eyes (as Wahabis and Senussis have testified once
+and again) by its Byzantine heritage of necessary relations with
+infidels. Abdul Hamid’s predecessors for two centuries or more had been
+at no pains to infuse reality into their nominal leadership of the
+faithful. To call a real caliphate out of so long abeyance could hardly
+have been effected even by a bold soldier, who appealed to the general
+imagination of Moslems; and certainly was beyond the power of a timid
+civilian.
+
+When Abdul Hamid had played this card and failed, he had no other; and
+his natural pusillanimity and shiftiness induced him to withdraw ever
+more into the depths of his palace, and there use his intelligence in
+exploiting this shameful dependence of his country on foreign powers.
+Unable or unwilling to encourage national resistance, he consoled
+himself, as a weak malcontent will, by setting one power against
+another, pin-pricking the stronger and blustering to the weaker. The
+history of his reign is a long record of protests and surrenders to the
+great in big matters, as to Great Britain in the matter of Egypt in
+1881, to Russia in that of Eastern Rumelia in 1885, to France on the
+question of the Constantinople quays and other claims, and to all the
+powers in 1881 in the matter of the financial control. Between times he
+put in such pin-pricks as he could, removing his neighbours’ landmarks
+in the Aden _hinterland_ or the Sinaitic peninsula. He succeeded,
+however, in keeping his empire out of a foreign war with any power for
+about thirty years, with the single exception of a brief conflict with
+Greece in 1897. While in the first half of his reign he was at pains to
+make no European friend, in the latter he fell more and more under the
+influence of Germany, which, almost from the accession of Kaiser
+Wilhelm II, began to prepare a southward way for future use, and alone
+of the powers, never browbeat the sultan.
+
+Internally, the empire passed more and more under the government of the
+imperial household. Defeated by the sheer geographical difficulty of
+controlling directly an area so vast and inadequately equipped with
+means of communication, Abdul Hamid soon relaxed the spasmodic efforts
+of his early years to better the condition of his subjects; and,
+uncontrolled and demoralized by the national disgrace, the
+administration went from bad to much worse. Ministers irresponsible;
+officials without sense of public obligation; venality in all ranks;
+universal suspicion and delation; violent remedies, such as the
+Armenian massacres of 1894, for diseases due to neglect; the peasantry,
+whether Moslem or Christian, but especially Christian, forced
+ultimately to liquidate all accounts; impoverishment of the whole
+empire by the improvidence and oppression of the central power— such
+phrasing of the conventional results of ‘Palace’ government expresses
+inadequately the fruits of Yildiz under Abdul Hamid II.
+
+_Pari passu_ with this disorder of central and provincial
+administration increased the foreign encroachments on the empire. The
+nation saw not only rapid multiplication of concessions and
+hypothecations to aliens, and of alien persons themselves installed in
+its midst under extra-territorial immunity 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 had all been
+withdrawn from Ottoman control since the Berlin settlement, and now
+Macedonia seemed to be going the same way. Bitter to swallow as the
+other losses had been—pills thinly sugared with a guarantee of
+suzerainty—the loss of Macedonia would be more bitter still; for, if it
+were withdrawn from Ottoman use and profit, Albania would follow and so
+would the command of the north Aegean and the Adriatic shores; while an
+ancient Moslem population would remain at Christian mercy.
+
+It was partly Ottoman fault, partly the fault of circumstances beyond
+Ottoman control, that this district had become a scandal and a
+reproach. In the days of Osmanli greatness 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, it had already become a cockpit for
+the new-born Christian nationalities, which had been developed on the
+north, east, and south. These were using every weapon, material and
+spiritual, to secure preponderance in its society, and had created
+chronic disorder which the Ottoman administration now weakly encouraged
+to save itself trouble, now violently dragooned. Already the powers had
+not only proposed autonomy for it, but begun to control its police and
+its finance. This was the last straw. The public opinion which had
+slowly been forming for thirty years gained the army, and Midhat’s seed
+came to fruit.
+
+By an irony of fate Macedonia not only supplied the spectacle which
+exasperated the army to revolt, but by its very disorder made the
+preparation of that revolt possible; for it was due to local
+limitations of Ottoman sovereignty that the chief promoters of
+revolution were able to conspire in safety. By another irony, two of
+the few progressive measures ever encouraged by Abdul Hamid contributed
+to his undoing. If he had not sent young officers to be trained abroad,
+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, as he began to do after 1897, the
+Salonika army could have had no such influence on affairs in
+Constantinople as it exerted in 1908 and again in 1909. As it was, the
+sultan, at 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 he had fostered, and to
+send him, dethroned and captive, to the place whence itself had come.
+
+
+
+
+7
+_Revolution_
+
+
+Looking back on this revolution across seven years of its consequences,
+we see plainly enough that it was inspired far less by desire for
+humane progress than by shame of Osmanli military decline. The
+‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ programme which its authors put forward
+(a civilian minority 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 eventually guide its course. The essence
+of that movement was militant nationalism. The empire was to be
+regenerated, not by humanizing it but by Ottomanizing it. 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 not so wish must be
+eliminated by the rest.
+
+The revolutionary Committee in Salonika, called ‘of Union and
+Progress’, held up its cards at first, but by 1910 events had forced
+its hand on the table. The definite annexation of Bosnia and
+Hercegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908, and the declaration of
+independence and assumption of the title Tsar by the ruler of Bulgaria,
+since they were the price to be paid by the revolutionaries for a
+success largely made in Germany, were opposed officially only _pro
+forma_; but when uninformed opinion in the empire was exasperated
+thereby against Christendom, the Committee, to appease reactionaries,
+had to give premature proof of pan-Osmanli and pro-Moslem intentions by
+taking drastic action against _rayas_. The Greeks of the empire, never
+without suspicions, had failed to testify the same enthusiasm for
+Ottoman fraternity which others, e.g. the Armenians, had shown; now
+they resumed their separatist attitude, and made it clear that they
+still aspired, not to Ottoman, but to Hellenic nationality. Nor were
+even the Moslems of the empire unanimous for fraternity among
+themselves. The Arab-speaking societies complained of
+under-representation in the councils and offices of the state, and made
+no secret of their intention not to be assimilated by the Turk-speaking
+Osmanlis. To all suggestions, however, of local home-rule and
+conciliation of particularist societies in the empire, the Committee
+was deaf. Without union, it believed in no progress, and by union it
+understood the assimilation of all societies in the empire to the
+Osmanli.
+
+Logic was on the side of the Committee in its choice of both end and
+means. In pan-Ottomanism, if it could be effected, lay certainly the
+single chance of restoring Osmanli independence and power to anything
+like the position they had once held. In rule by a militarist oligarchy
+for some generations to come, lay the one hope of realizing the
+pan-Ottoman idea and educating the resultant nation to self-government.
+That end, however, it was impossible to realize under the circumstances
+in which past history had involved the Ottoman Empire. There was too
+much bad blood between different elements of its society which Osmanli
+rulers had been labouring for centuries rather to keep apart than to
+unite; and certain important elements, both Moslem and Christian, had
+already developed too mature ideas of separate nationality. With all
+its defects, however, the new order did undoubtedly rest on a wider
+basis than the old, and its organization was better conceived and
+executed. It retained some of the sympathy of Europe which its
+beginnings had excited, and the western powers, regarding its
+representative institutions as earnests of good government, however ill
+they might work at the first, were disposed to give it every chance.
+
+Unfortunately the Young Turks were in a hurry to bring on their
+millennium, and careless of certain neighbouring powers, not formidable
+individually but to be reckoned with if united, to whom the prospect of
+regenerated Osmanlis assimilating their nationals could not be welcome.
+Had the Young Turks been content to put their policy of Ottomanization
+in the background for awhile, had they made no more than a show of
+accepting local distinctions of creed and 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 resist,
+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 as little minded to
+compromise as any Old Turk, though from a different motive. It elected
+to deal drastically and at once with Macedonia, the peculiar object 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. It did not get it. The interested neighbours, each beset by
+fugitives of its oppressed nationals, protested only to be ignored or
+browbeaten. They drew towards one another; old feuds and jealousies
+were put on one side; and at last, in the summer of 1912, a Holy League
+of Balkan States, inspired by Venezelos, the new Kretan Prime Minister
+of Greece, and by Ferdinand of Bulgaria, was formed with a view to
+common action against the oppressor of Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian
+nationals in Macedonia. Montenegro, always spoiling for a fight, was
+deputed to fire the train, and at the approach of autumn the first
+Balkan war blazed up.
+
+
+
+
+8
+_Balkan War_
+
+
+The course of the struggle is described elsewhere in this volume. Its
+event illustrates the danger of an alliance succeeding beyond the
+expectations in which it was formed. The constituent powers had looked
+for a stiff struggle with the Ottoman armies, but for final success
+sufficient to enable them, at the best, to divide Macedonia among
+themselves, at the worst, to secure its autonomy under international
+guarantee. Neither they nor any one else expected such an Ottoman
+collapse as was in store. Their moment of attack was better chosen than
+they knew. The Osmanli War Office was caught fairly in the middle of
+the stream. Fighting during the revolution, subsequently against
+Albanians and other recalcitrant provincials, and latterly against the
+Italians, who had snatched at Tripoli the year before, had reduced the
+_Nizam_, the first line of troops, far below strength. The _Redif_, the
+second line, had received hardly more training, thanks to the
+disorganization of Abdul Hamid’s last years and of the first years of
+the new order, than the _Mustafuz_, the third and last line. Armament,
+auxiliary services, and the like had been disorganized preparatory to a
+scheme for thorough reorganization, which had been carried, as yet, but
+a very little way. A foreign (German) element, introduced into the
+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 of various arms; those which met the Serbs, a
+little better; those which opposed the Greeks, a little worse.
+
+It followed that the Bulgarians, who had proposed to do no more in
+Thrace than block Adrianople and immobilize the Constantinople forces,
+were carried by their own momentum right down to Chataldja, and there
+and at Adrianople had to prosecute siege operations when they ought to
+have been marching to Kavala and Salonika. The Serbs, after hard
+fighting, broke through not only into Macedonia but into Albania, and
+reached the Adriatic, but warned off this by the powers, consoled
+themselves with the occupation of much more Macedonian territory than
+the concerted plans of the allies had foreseen. The Greeks, instead of
+hard contests for the Haliacmon Valley and Epirus—their proper
+Irredenta—pushed such weak forces before them that they got through to
+Salonika just in time to forestall a Bulgarian column. Ottoman collapse
+was complete everywhere, except on the Chataldja front. It remained to
+divide the spoil. Serbia might not have Adriatic Albania, and therefore
+wanted as much Macedonia as she had actually overrun. Greece wanted the
+rest of Macedonia and had virtually got it. Remained Bulgaria who, with
+more of Thrace than she wanted, found herself almost entirely crowded
+out of Macedonia, the common objective of all.
+
+Faced with division _ex post facto_, the allies found their _a priori_
+agreement would not resolve the situation. Bulgaria, the predominant
+partner and the most aggrieved, would neither recognize the others’
+rights of possession nor honestly submit her claims to the only
+possible arbiter, the Tsar of Russia. Finding herself one against two,
+she tried a _coup de main_ on both fronts, failed, and brought on a
+second Balkan war, in which a new determining factor, Rumania,
+intervened at a critical moment to decide the issue against her. The
+Ottoman armies recovered nearly all they had lost in eastern and
+central Thrace, including Adrianople, almost without firing a shot, and
+were not ill pleased to be quit of a desperate situation at the price
+of Macedonia, Albania, and western Thrace.
+
+Defeated and impoverished, the Ottoman power came out of the war
+clinging to a mere remnant of its European empire—one single mutilated
+province which did not pay its way. With the lost territories had gone
+about one-eighth of the whole population and one-tenth of the total
+imperial revenue. But when these heavy losses had been cut, there was
+nothing more of a serious nature to put to debit, but a little even to
+credit. Ottoman prestige had suffered but slightly in the eyes of the
+people. The obstinate and successful defence of the Chataldja lines and
+the subsequent recovery of eastern Thrace with Adrianople, the first
+European seat of the Osmanlis, had almost effaced the sense of Osmanli
+disgrace, and stood to the general credit of the Committee and the
+individual credit of its military leader, Enver Bey. The loss of some
+thousands of soldiers and much material was compensated by an
+invaluable lesson in the faultiness of the military system, and
+especially the _Redif_ organization. The way was now clearer than
+before for re-making the army on the best European model, the German.
+The campaign had not been long, nor, as wars go, costly to wage. In the
+peace Turkey gained a new lease of life from the powers, and,
+profligate that she was, the promise of more millions of foreign money.
+
+Over and above all this an advantage, which she rated above
+international guarantees, was secured to her—the prospective support of
+the strongest military power in Europe. The success of Serbia so
+menaced Germano-Austrian plans for the penetration of the Balkans, that
+the Central Powers were bound to woo Turkey even more lavishly than
+before, and to seek alliance where they had been content with
+influence. In a strong Turkey resided all their hope of saving from the
+Slavs the way to the Mediterranean. They had kept this policy in view
+for more than twenty years, and in a hundred ways, by introduction of
+Germans into the military organization, promotion of German financial
+enterprise, pushing of German commerce, pressure on behalf of German
+concessions which would entail provincial influence (for example, the
+construction of a transcontinental railway in Asia), those powers had
+been manifesting their interest in Turkey with ever-increasing
+solicitude. Now they must attach her to themselves with hoops of steel
+and, with her help, as soon as might be, try to recast the Balkan
+situation.
+
+The experience of the recent war and the prospect in the future made
+continuance and accentuation of military government in the Ottoman
+Empire inevitable. The Committee, which had made its way back to power
+by violent methods, now suppressed its own Constitution almost as
+completely as Abdul Hamid had suppressed Midhat’s parliament.
+Re-organization of the military 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 1912-14. The bond with
+Germany was drawn lighter. More German instructors were invited, more
+German engineers commissioned, more munitions of war paid for in French
+gold. By 1914 it had become so evident that the Osmanlis must array
+themselves with Austro-Germany in any European war, that one wonders
+why a moment’s credit was ever given to their protestations of
+neutrality when that war came at last in August 1914. Turkey then
+needed other three months to complete her first line of defences and
+mobilize. These were allowed to her, and in the late autumn she entered
+the field against Great Britain, France, and Russia, armed with German
+guns, led by German officers, 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 the Ottoman Empire has lost
+what had been for a century its chief security for continued existence.
+Its fate now depends on that of two European powers which are at war
+with the rest of the former Concert. Among the last named are Turkey’s
+two principal creditors, holding together about seventy-five per cent.
+of her public debt. In the event of the defeat of her friends, these
+creditors will be free to foreclose, the debtor being certainly in no
+position to meet her obligations. Allied with Christian powers, the
+Osmanli caliph has proved no more able than his predecessors to unite
+Islam in his defence; but, for what his title is worth, Mohammed V is
+still caliph, no rival claim having been put forward. The loyalty of
+the empire remains where it was, pending victory or defeat, the
+provinces being slow to realize, and still slower to resent, the
+disastrous economic state to which the war is reducing them.
+
+The present struggle may leave the Osmanli Empire in one of three
+situations: (1) member of a victorious alliance, reinforced, enlarged,
+and lightened of financial burdens, as the wages of its sin; (2) member
+of a defeated alliance, bound to pay the price of blood in loss of
+territory, or independence, or even existence; (3) party to a
+compromise under which its territorial empire might conceivably remain
+Ottoman, but under even stricter European tutelage than of old.
+
+The first alternative it would be idle to discuss, for the result of
+conditions so novel are impossible to foresee. Nor, indeed, when
+immediate events are so doubtful an at the present moment, is it
+profitable to attempt 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 the
+disposal of the empire may lie.
+
+The influence of the Osmanlis in their empire to-day resides in three
+things: first, in their possession of Constantinople; second, in the
+sultan’s caliphate and his guardianship of the holy cities of Islam;
+third, in certain qualities of Osmanli character, notably ‘will to
+power’ and courage in the field.
+
+What Constantinople means for the Osmanlis is implied in that name
+_Roum_ by which the western dominions of the Turks have been known ever
+since the Seljuks won Asia Minor. Apart from the prestige of their own
+early conquests, the Osmanlis inherited, and in a measure retain in the
+Near East, the traditional prestige of the greatest empire which ever
+held it. They stand not only for their own past but also for whatever
+still lives of the prestige of Rome. Theirs is still the repute of the
+imperial people _par excellence_, chosen and called to rule.
+
+That this repute should continue, after the sweeping victories of
+Semites and subsequent centuries of Ottoman retreat before other heirs
+of Rome, is a paradox to be explained only by the fact that a large
+part of the population of the Near East remains at this day in about
+the same stage of civilization and knowledge as in the time of, say,
+Heraclius. The Osmanlis, be it remembered, were and are foreigners in a
+great part of their Asiatic empire equally with the Greeks of Byzantium
+or the Romans of Italy; and their establishment in Constantinople
+nearly five centuries ago did not mean to the indigenous peoples of the
+Near East what it meant to Europe—a victory of the East over the
+West—so much as a continuation of immemorial ‘Roman’ dominion still
+exercised from the same imperial centre. Since Rome first spread its
+shadow over the Near East, many men of many races, whose variety was
+imperfectly realised, if realised at all, by the peasants of Asia
+Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, have ruled in its name; the
+Osmanlis, whose governmental system was in part the Byzantine, made but
+one more change which meant the same old thing. The peasants know, of
+course, about those Semitic victories; but they know also that if the
+Semite has had his day of triumph and imposed, as was right and proper,
+his God and his Prophet on Roum—even on all mankind as many believed,
+and some may be found in remoter regions who still believe—he has
+returned to his own place south of Taurus; and still Roum is Roum,
+natural indefeasible Lord of the World.
+
+Such a belief is dying now, of course; but it dies slowly and hard. It
+still constitutes a real asset of the Osmanlis, and will not cease to
+have value until they lose Constantinople. On the possession of the old
+imperial city it depends for whatever vitality it has. You may
+demonstrate, as you will, and as many publicists have done since the
+Balkan War and before, what and how great economic, political, and
+social advantages 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 could concentrate Moslems where their co-religionists are
+already the great majority, and so have done with the everlasting
+friction and weakness entailed in jurisdiction over preponderant
+Christian elements. Here they might throw off the remnants of their
+Byzantinism as a garment and, no longer forced to face two ways, live
+and govern with single minds as the Asiatics they are.
+
+Vain illusion, as Osmanli imperialists know! It is their empire that
+would fall away as a garment so soon as the Near East realized that
+they no longer ruled in the Imperial City. Enver Pasha and the
+Committee were amply justified in straining the resources of the
+Ottoman Empire to cracking-point, not merely to retain Constantinople
+but also to recover Adrianople and a territory in Europe large enough
+to bulk as Roum. Nothing that happened in that war made so greatly for
+the continuation of the old order in Asiatic Turkey as the reoccupation
+of Adrianople. The one occasion on which Europeans in Syria had reason
+to expect a general explosion was when premature rumours of the entry
+of the Bulgarian army into Stambul gained currency for a few hours.
+That explosion, had the news proved true or not been contradicted in
+time, would have been a panic-stricken, ungovernable impulse of
+anarchy—of men conscious that an old world had passed away and ignorant
+what conceivable new world could come to be.
+
+But the perilous moment passed, to be succeeded by general diffusion of
+a belief that the inevitable catastrophe was 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 national
+organizations and nationalist journals sprang to life at Beirut and
+elsewhere. The revival of Arab empire was 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 beyond Chataldja: the Balkan States were at war among
+themselves: finally, Adrianople had been re-occupied. And all was as in
+the beginning. Budding life withered in the Arab movement, and the Near
+East settled down once more in the persistent shadow of Roum.
+
+Such is the first element in Osmanli prestige, doomed to disappear the
+moment that the Ottoman state relinquishes Europe. Meanwhile there it
+is for what it is worth; and it is actually worth a tradition of
+submission, natural and honourable, to a race of superior destiny,
+which is instinctive in some millions of savage simple hearts.
+
+
+What of the second element? The religious prestige of the Ottoman power
+as the repository of caliphial authority and trustee for Islam in the
+Holy Land of Arabia, is an asset almost impossible to estimate. Would a
+death struggle of the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world? Would
+the Moslems of India, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, and Malaya take up
+arms for the Ottoman sultan as caliph? Nothing but the event will prove
+that they would. Jehad, or Holy War, is an obsolescent weapon difficult
+and dangerous for Young Turks to wield: difficult because their own
+Islamic sincerity is suspect and they are taking the field now as
+clients of _giaur_ peoples; dangerous because the Ottoman nation itself
+includes numerous Christian elements, indispensable to its economy.
+
+Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can count on its religious
+prestige appealing widely, overriding counteracting sentiments, and, if
+it rouses to action, rousing the most dangerous temper of all. It is
+futile to ignore the caliph because he is not of the Koreish, and owes
+his dignity to a sixteenth-century transfer. These facts are either
+unknown or not borne in mind by half the Sunnites on whom he might
+call, and weigh far less with the other half than his hereditary
+dominion over the Holy Cities, sanctioned by the prescription of nearly
+four centuries.
+
+One thing can be foretold with certainty. The religious prestige of an
+Ottoman sultan, who had definitely lost control of the Holy Places,
+would cease as quickly and utterly as the secular prestige of one who
+had evacuated Constantinople: and since the loss of the latter would
+probably precipitate an Arab revolt, and cut off the Hejaz, the
+religious element in Ottoman prestige may be said to depend on
+Constantinople as much as the secular. All the more reason why the
+Committee of Union and Progress should not have accepted that
+well-meant advice of European publicists! A successful revolt of the
+Arab-speaking provinces would indeed sound the death-knell of the
+Ottoman Empire. No other event would be so immediately and surely
+catastrophic.
+
+
+The third element in Osmanli prestige, inherent qualities of the
+Osmanli ‘Turk’ himself, will be admitted by every one who knows him and
+his history. To say that he has the ‘will to power’ is not, however, to
+say that he has an aptitude for government. He wishes to govern others;
+his will to do so imposes itself on peoples who have not the same will;
+they give way to him and he governs them indifferently, though often
+better than they can govern themselves. For example, bad as, according
+to our standards, Turkish government is, native Arab government, when
+not in tutelage to Europeans, has generally proved itself worse, when
+tried in the Ottoman area in modern times. Where it is of a purely
+Bedawi barbaric type, as in the emirates of central Arabia, it does
+well enough; but if the population be contaminated ever so little with
+non-Arab elements, practices, or ideas, Arab administration seems
+incapable of producing effective government. It has had chances in the
+Holy Cities at intervals, and for longer periods in the Yemen. But a
+European, long resident in the latter country, who has groaned under
+Turkish administration, where it has always been most oppressive, bore
+witness that the rule of the native Imam only served to replace
+oppressive government by oppressive anarchy.
+
+As for the Osmanli’s courage as a fighting man, that has often been
+exemplified, and never better than in the Gallipoli peninsula. It is
+admitted. The European and Anatolian Osmanlis yield little one to the
+other in this virtue; but the palm, if awarded at all, must be given to
+the levies from northern and central Asia Minor.
+
+
+If Constantinople should be lost, the Arab-speaking parts of the empire
+would in all likelihood break away, carrying the Holy Cities with them.
+When the constant risk of this consummation, with the cataclysmic
+nature of its consequences is considered, one marvels why the
+Committee, which has shown no mean understanding of some conditions
+essential to Osmanli empire, should have done so little hitherto to
+conciliate Arab susceptibilities. Neither in the constitution of the
+parliament nor in the higher commands of the army have the
+Arab-speaking peoples been given anything like their fair share; and
+loudly and insistently have they protested. Perhaps the Committee,
+whose leading members are of a markedly Europeanized type, understands
+Asia less well than Europe. Certainly its programme of Ottomanization,
+elaborated by military ex-attachés, by Jew bankers and officials from
+Salonika, and by doctors, lawyers, and other _intellectuels_ fresh from
+Paris, was conceived on lines which offered the pure Asiatic very
+little scope. The free and equal Osmanlis were all to take their cue
+from men of the Byzantine sort which the European provinces, and
+especially the city of Constantinople, breed. After the revolution,
+nothing in Turkey struck one so much as the apparition on the top of
+things everywhere of a type of Osmanli who has the characteristic
+qualities of the Levantine Greek. Young officers, controlling their
+elders, only needed a change of uniform to pass in an Athenian crowd.
+Spare and dapper officials, presiding in seats of authority over Kurds
+and Arabs, reminded one of Greek journalists. Osmanli journalists
+themselves treated one to rhodomontades punctuated with restless
+gesticulation, which revived memories of Athenian cafés in war-time. It
+was the Byzantine triumphing over the Asiatic; and the most Asiatic
+elements in the empire were the least likely to meet with the
+appreciation or sympathy of the Byzantines.
+
+Are the Arab-speaking peoples, therefore, likely to revolt, or be
+successful in splitting the Ottoman Empire, if they do? The present
+writer would like to say, in parenthesis, that, in his opinion, this
+consummation of the empire is not devoutly to be wished. The
+substitution of Arab administration for Osmanli would necessarily
+entail European tutelage of the parts of the Arab-speaking area in
+which powers, like ourselves, have vital interests—Syria, for example,
+southern Mesopotamia, and, probably, Hejaz. The last 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
+loth to see him dismissed.
+
+An Arab revolt, however, might break out whether the Triple Entente
+desired its success or not. What chance of success would it have? The
+peoples of the Arab part of the Ottoman Empire are a congeries of
+differing races, creeds, sects, and social systems, with no common bond
+except language. The physical character of their land 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 (not
+to mention a large Jewish element), the cleavage being more abrupt than
+in western Turkey and the tradition and actual spirit of mutual enmity
+more separative. Further, each of those main creed-divisions is
+subdivided. Even Islam in this region includes a number of incompatible
+sects, such as the Ansariye, the Metawali, and the Druses in the Syrian
+mountains, Shiite Arabs on the Gulf coast and the Persian border, with
+pagan Kurds and Yezidis in the latter 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. It is
+almost impossible to imagine the inhabitants of Syria concerting a
+common plan or taking common action. The only elements among them which
+have shown any political sense or capacity for political organization
+are Christian. The Maronites of the Lebanon are most conspicuous among
+these; but neither their numbers nor their traditional relations with
+their neighbours qualify them to form the nucleus of a free united
+Syria. The ‘Arab Movement’ up to the present has consisted in little
+more than talk and journalese. It has not developed any considerable
+organization to meet that stable efficient organization which the
+Committee of Union and Progress has directed throughout the Ottoman
+dominions.
+
+As for the rest of the empire, Asia Minor will stand by the Osmanli
+cause, even if Europe and Constantinople, and even if the Holy Places
+and all the Arab-speaking provinces be lost. Its allegiance does not
+depend on either the tradition of Roum or the caliphate, but on
+essential unity with the Osmanli nation. Asia Minor is the nation.
+There, prepared equally by Byzantine domination and by Seljukian
+influence, the great mass of the people long ago identified itself
+insensibly and completely with the tradition and hope of the Osmanlis.
+The subsequent occupation of the Byzantine capital by the heirs of the
+Byzantine system, and their still later assumption of caliphial
+responsibility, were not needed to cement the union. Even a military
+occupation by Russia or by another strong power would not detach
+Anatolia from the Osmanli unity; for a thing cannot be detached from
+itself. But, of course, that occupation might after long years cause
+the unity itself to cease to be.
+
+Such an occupation, however, would probably not be seriously resisted
+or subsequently rebelled against by the Moslem majority in Asia Minor,
+supposing Osmanli armaments to have been crushed. The Anatolian
+population is a sober, labouring peasantry, essentially agricultural
+and wedded to the soil. The levies for Yemen and Europe, which have
+gone far to deplete and exhaust it of recent years, were composed of
+men who fought to order and without imagination, steadily and
+faithfully, as their fathers had fought. They have no lust for war, no
+Arabian tradition of fighting for its own sake, and little, if any,
+fanaticism. Attempts to inspire Anatolian troops with religious rage in
+the Balkan War were failures. They were asked to fight in too modern a
+way under too many Teutonic officers. The result illustrated a prophecy
+ascribed to Ghasri Mukhtar Pasha. When German instructors were first
+introduced into Turkey, he foretold that they would be the end of the
+Ottoman army. No, these Anatolians desire nothing better than to follow
+their plough-oxen, and live their common village life, under any master
+who will let them be.
+
+Elements of the Christian minority, however, Armenian and Greek, would
+give trouble with their developed ideas of nationality and
+irrepressible tendency to ‘Europize’. They would present, indeed,
+problems of which at present one cannot foresee the solution. It seems
+inevitable that an autonomous Armenia, like an autonomous Poland, must
+be constituted ere long; but where? There is no geographical unit of
+the Ottoman area in which Armenians are the majority. If they cluster
+more thickly in the vilayets of Angora, Sivas, Erzerum, Kharput, and
+Van, i.e. in easternmost Asia Minor, than elsewhere, and form a village
+people of the soil, they are consistently a minority in any large
+administrative district. Numerous, too, in the trans-Tauric vilayets of
+Adana and Aleppo, the seat 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 in Constantinople,
+could be induced to concentrate in a reconstituted Armenia (which is
+doubtful, seeing how addicted they are to general commerce and what may
+be called parasitic life), they could not fill out both the Greater and
+the Lesser Armenias of history, in sufficient strength to overbear the
+Osmanli and Kurdish elements. The widest area which might he
+constituted an autonomous Armenia with good prospect of
+self-sufficiency would be the present Russian province, where the
+head-quarters of 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 ordinance,
+she would have to police her new Armenia very strongly for some years;
+for an acute Kurdish problem would confront it, and no concentration of
+nationals could be looked for from the Armenia Irredenta of Diarbekr,
+Urfa, Aleppo, Aintab, Marash, Adana, Kaisariyeh, Sivas, Angora, and
+Trebizond (not to mention farther and more foreign towns), until public
+security was assured in what for generations has been a cockpit. The
+Kurd is, of course, an Indo-European as much as the Armenian, and
+rarely a true Moslem; but it would be a very long time indeed before
+these facts reconciled him to the domination of the race which he has
+plundered for three centuries. Most of the Osmanlis of eastern Asia
+Minor are descendants of converted Armenians; but their assimilation
+would be slow and doubtful. Islam, more rapidly and completely than any
+other creed, extinguishes racial sympathies and groups its adherents
+anew.
+
+The Anatolian Greeks are less numerous but not less difficult 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 serious difficulty to a lord of the interior. But those in the
+western river-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 at Athens has long concerned them more
+than what happens at Constantinople; and with Greece occupying the
+islands in the daily view of many of them, they are coming to regard
+themselves more and more every day as citizens of Graecia Irredenta.
+What is to be done with these? What, in particular, with Smyrna, the
+second city of the Ottoman Empire and the first of ‘Magna Graecia’? Its
+three and a half hundred thousand souls include the largest Greek urban
+population resident in any one city. Shall it be united to Greece?
+Greece herself might well hesitate. It would prove a very irksome
+possession, involving her in all sorts of continental difficulties and
+risks. There is no good frontier inland for such an _enclave_. It could
+hardly be held without the rest of westernmost Asia, from Caria to the
+Dardanelles, and in this region the great majority of the population is
+Moslem of old stocks, devotedly attached both to their faith and to the
+Osmanli tradition.
+
+The present writer, however, is not among the prophets. He has but
+tried to set forth what may delay and what may precipitate the collapse
+of an empire, whose doom has been long foreseen, often planned,
+invariably postponed; and, further, to indicate some difficulties
+which, being bound to confront heirs of the Osmanlis, will be better
+met the better they are understood before the final agony—If this is,
+indeed, to be!
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abbasid Empire,
+Abdul Aziz, Sultan,
+Abdul Hamid, Sultan,
+Abdul Mejid, Sultan,
+Achaia,
+Achmet III: _see_ Ahmed III.
+Adalia,
+Adana,
+Aden,
+Adhamandios Koráis,
+Adrianople,
+  captured by the Turks (1361),
+  captured by Serbians and Bulgarians (1913),
+  first European seat of the Osmanlis,
+  foundation of,
+  Peace and Treaty of (1829),
+  restored to Turkey (1913),
+  Russians before (1878),
+  siege of (1912-13),
+Adriatic, the,
+Aegean, the,
+  islands of,
+  trade of,
+Aehrenthal, Baron and Count,
+Afium Kara Hissar,
+Agram (Zagreb), capital of Croatia,
+Agram high treason trial, the,
+Agrapha, clansmen of,
+Ahiolu (Anchialo),
+Ahmed I, Sultan,
+Ahmed III, Sultan,
+Ahmed ibn Tulun,
+Aidin,
+Aintab,
+Aigina,
+Ainos, _See also_ Enos.
+Aivali, _See also_ Kydhonies.
+Akarnania,
+Akerman, Convention of (1826),
+Alaeddin, Sultan,
+Ala Shehr (Philadelphia),
+Albania,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  conquest of, by the Turks,
+  during the Slav immigration,
+  in classical times,
+  made independent,
+  revolts against Young Turks,
+  under the Turks,
+Albanian language, the,
+Albanians, the,
+  migrations of,
+Aleppo,
+Alexander the Great,
+Alexander I, King of Serbia (1889-1903),
+Alexander I, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander II, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander III, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander, Crown Prince of Serbia,
+Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria (1879-85),
+Alexander Karagjorgjević, Prince of Serbia (1843-58),
+Alexandria,
+Alexis Comnenus, the Emperor,
+Ali Pasha,
+Ambelakia,
+America, effect of emigration from south-eastern Europe to,
+Anatolia, the Turks and,
+  character of the population,
+  feudal families,
+Anatolikón,
+  captured by the Turks (1825),
+Andrassy, Count,
+Angora,
+  battle of (1402),
+Arabia, Turkish prestige in,
+  and the Turks,
+  movement of, in the direction of revolt,
+Arabs and Anatolia,
+  and Bulgars,
+  and Islam,
+Arcadiopolis: _see_ Lule-Burgas.
+Argos,
+Arian controversy, the,
+Armatoli, or Christian militia,
+Armenians, the,
+  character of the,
+  massacres of (1894),
+Arnauts: _see_ Albanians.
+Arta, Gulf of,
+  plain of,
+Asen dynasty, the,
+Asia Minor, Turks in,
+Asparukh (Bulgar prince),
+Aspropotamo, the,
+Astypalià,
+Athens,
+  Duchy of,
+  University of,
+  siege of (1821-2),
+  (1827),
+Athos, Mount,
+Attila,
+Austerlitz, battle of (1805),
+Austria-Hungary and the Adriatic,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and Serbia, relations between,
+  and the Serbs,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  and Turkey, relations between,
+    wars between,
+  annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,
+  occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,
+  relations with the Balkan League,
+  relations with Rumania,
+  Ruman and South Slavonic populations in,
+Austrian politics in Rumania,
+Austrians and Serbs, relations between,
+  and Turks,
+Avars, the: their invasion of the Balkan peninsula with the Slavs,
+  their war with the Bulgars,
+Avlona,
+  bay of,
+Avshar tribe,
+‘Ayon Oros’,
+Azerbaijan,
+
+Bačka,
+Bagdad,
+‘Balance of Power’, the,
+Balkan League, the,
+  formation of the,
+  dissolution of the,
+Balkan peninsula, the, annexation of, by Mohammed II,
+  control of,
+  economic unity of,
+  German policy in,
+  nationalism in,
+  Slav inhabitants of,
+  Turkish power in,
+  under Roman rule,
+Balkan States, relations between the,
+  zollverein,
+Balkan war, the first (1912-13),
+  the second (June 1913),
+Banat, the,
+Baranya,
+Basil I, the Emperor,
+Basil II, the Emperor,
+  ‘Slayer of the Bulgars’,
+Bassarab, dynasty of,
+Bayezid I, Sultan,
+Bayezid II, Sultan,
+Beaconsfield, Earl of,
+Beirut,
+Belgrade,
+  capital of Serbia,
+  captured by the Serbs (1807),
+  captured by the Turks (1521),
+   (1813),
+  its Celtic name,
+  Treaty of (1739),
+Belisarius,
+Berchtold, Count,
+Bergama,
+Berlin,
+  Congress of (1878),
+  Treaty of (1878),
+Bessarabia, Bulgars in, 25,
+  lost(1812),
+  regained (1856),
+  lost again (1878),
+  importance with regard to present situation,
+Bieberstein, Duron Marschall von,
+Bismarck,
+Bitolj: _see_ Monastir.
+Black Castle of Afiun,
+Black Sea,
+  Russian exclusion from,
+Bogomil heresy, the,
+Boja, lord of Kashgar,
+Boris, Bulgar prince (852-88),
+Boris, Crown Prince of Bulgaria,
+Bosnia, annexation of,
+  independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks,
+  in relation to the other Serb territories,
+  its Slavonic population,
+  relations of, with Hungary,
+  revolts in, against Turkey,
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule,
+  under Turkish rule,
+Bosphorus, the,
+Botzaris, Marko,
+Branković, George,
+Branković, Vuk,
+Bratianu, Ioan (father),
+  (son),
+Bregalnica, battle of the (1913),
+Brusa,
+Bucarest, Committee of,
+  Peace Conference (1913),
+  Treaty of (1812),
+    (1913),
+Bucovina, acquisition by Austria,
+  Rumanians in,
+Buda,
+Budapest, in relation to the Serbo-Croats,
+Budua,
+Bulgaria, declaration of independence by, and assumption of title Tsar
+by its ruler,
+  conflicting interests with Greece,
+  early wars between, and the Greeks,
+  geographical position of,
+  growth of,
+  intervention on the side of the Central Powers in the European War,
+  its division into eastern and western,
+    extent of western,
+  in the two Balkan wars (1912-13),
+  its early relations with Rome,
+  its relations with Russia,
+  obtains recognition as a nationality in the Ottoman Empire,
+  of Slav speech and culture,
+  place of, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  Turkish atrocities in,
+Bulgaria and Rumania,
+Bulgaria and Serbia, contrasted,
+  the agreement between,
+  wars between (1885, 1913),
+Bulgaria and Turkey, relations between,
+Bulgarian bishoprics in Macedonia,
+  Church, early vicissitudes of the,
+    claims and propaganda in Macedonia,
+  Exarchist Church, the,
+  literature,
+  monarchy, origins of the,
+Bulgarians, general distribution of,
+  their attitude to the Slavs and the Germans,
+Bulgarians and Serbians, contrast between,
+Bulgars, the, their origin,
+  their advance westwards and then southwards into the Balkan
+  peninsula,
+  their absorption by the Slavs,
+  north of the Danube,
+  adherents of the Orthodox Church,
+Burke, Edmund,
+Byron, Lord,
+Byzantine Christianity,
+  commerce,
+  diplomacy, its attitude towards the Slav and other invaders,
+  Empire,
+    heritage and expansion of, by the Turks,
+Byzantium, ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,
+  decline of,
+  Greek colony of,
+  Roman administrative centre,
+
+Cairo,
+Caliphate, the,
+Campo Formio, Treaty of (1797),
+Candia, siege of,
+Canea,
+Cantucuzene, John,
+Cape Malea,
+Cappadocia,
+Caria,
+Carinthia,
+Carlowitz, Treaty of (1699),
+Carniola,
+Carol, Prince of Rumania,
+    his accession,
+    joins Russia against Turkey,
+    intention to abdicate,
+    proclaimed king,
+  King,
+    and the Balkans,
+    personal points,
+Carp, P.P.,
+Carpathian mountains, the,
+Catargiu, Lascar,
+Catherine, Empress,
+Cattaro, Bocche di,
+Caucasia,
+Cefalonia,
+Celts, the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Cerigo,
+Cetina river (Dalmatia),
+Cetinje,
+Chaeronea,
+Charlemagne, crushes the Avars,
+Charles VI, Emperor of Austria,
+Charles, Prince and King of Rumania: _see_ Carol.
+Časlav, revolts against Bulgars,
+Chataldja, lines of,
+Chesme, destruction of Turkish fleet in,
+Chios: _see_ Khios.
+Christianity,
+  in the Balkan peninsula in classical times,
+  introduced into Bulgaria,
+  introduced amongst the Serbs,
+Christians, their treatment by the Turks,
+Church, division of the, affects the Serbs and Croats,
+Church, Generalissimo Sir Richard,
+Churches, rivalry of the eastern and western,
+Cilicia,
+Claudius, the Emperor,
+Coalition, Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb, the,
+Cochrane, Grand Admiral,
+Cogalniceanu, M.,
+Comnenus: _see_ Alexis _and_ Manuel.
+Concert of Europe,
+Constantine the Great,
+Constantine, King of Greece,
+Constantine, ruler of Bulgaria,
+Constantinople,
+  and the Serbian Church,
+  ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,
+  cathedral of Aya Sophia,
+  commercial interests of,
+  decline of,
+  defences of,
+  ecclesiastical influence of,
+  fall of (1204),
+    (1453),
+  its position at the beginning of the barbarian invasions,
+  made an imperial city,
+  Patriarchate at,
+  ‘Phanari’, the,
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Rome,
+Constitution, Rumanian,
+Corfù,
+Corinth: _see_ Korinth.
+Crete: _see_ Krete.
+Crimea, abandoned to Russia,
+Crimean War, the,
+Croatia,
+  absorbed by Hungary,
+  position of, in relation to the Serb territories,
+Croato-Serb unity, movement in favour of,
+Croats, Crotians,
+  general distribution of,
+  their origin,
+Croats and Serbs, difference between,
+Crusaders, the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Crusades; the first; the fourth,
+Cuza, Prince of Rumania,
+Cyclades, the,
+Cyprus,
+  in Latin hands,
+  in Ottoman hands,
+  under the British,
+Cyrenaica,
+Cyril, St.,
+Cyrillic alphabet, the,
+
+Dacia,
+  subjection to, and abandonment by, the Romans,
+Dacians,
+  settlement in Carpathian regions,
+  wars with Rome,
+Dalmatia,
+  acquired by Austria-Hungary,
+  and Venice,
+  in classical times,
+  in relation to other Serb territories,
+  its Slavonic population,
+  relations of, with Hungary,
+Daniel, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
+Danilo, Prince of Montenegro,
+Danube, the,
+  as frontier of Roman Empire,
+Danube _(continued)_:
+  Bulgars cross the,
+  Slavs cross the,
+Danubian principalities, Russian protectorate in,
+Dardanelles, the,
+Decius, the Emperor,
+Dedeagach,
+Deliyannis,
+Demotika,
+Dhimitzána,
+Diocletian, the Emperor, his redistribution of the imperial provinces,
+Dnieper, the,
+Dniester, the,
+Dobrudja,
+  acquisition by Rumania,
+  Bulgarian aspirations in regard to,
+Draga, Queen-Consort of Serbia,
+Dramali,
+Drave, the,
+Drina, the,
+Dubrovnik: _see_ Ragusa.
+Dulcigno (Ulcinj),
+Durazzo,
+Durostorum: _see_ Silistria.
+Dushan: _see_ Stephen Dušan.
+
+Eastern Church, the,
+Eastern Slavs; _see_ Russians.
+Edremid,
+Egypt,
+Egyptian expedition (1823-4),
+Enos-Midia line, the,
+Enver Bey,
+Epirus,
+  power of Hellenism in,
+Ertogrul, Osmanli chief,
+Erzerum,
+Eugen, Prince, of Savoy,
+Euphrates, the,
+Euxine trade,
+Evyénios Voulgáris,
+Exarchist Church, the,
+
+Fabvier,
+Ferdinand, Prince and King of Bulgaria (1886-),
+  his relations with foreign powers,
+Ferdinand, King of Rumania,
+Filipescu, Nicholas,
+Fiume (Rjeka),
+France,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,
+  and the Turks,
+  relations with Rumania,
+French, the,
+  in the Balkan peninsula,
+  in Dalmatia,
+  in Morocco,
+  influence in Rumania,
+French Revolution
+  and the rights of nationalities,
+Friedjung, Dr., and the accusation against Serbia,
+
+Galaxidhi,
+Galicia,
+Gallipoli,
+Genoese,
+George, Crown Prince of Serbia,
+George,
+  King of Greece,
+  assassination of,
+George, Prince of Greece,
+German diplomacy at Constantinople,
+  influence in the Near East,
+  influence in Rumania,
+  influence in Turkey,
+German Empire, restlessness of,
+German hierarchy, early struggles of, against Slavonic liturgy,
+Germanic peoples, southward movement of,
+Germanòs, metropolitan bishop of Patrae,
+Germany and the Turkish frontier,
+  efforts to reach the Adriatic,
+  its expansion eastward,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and Russia, relations between,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  relations with Rumania,
+  revolutions promoted by,
+Gjorgjević, Dr. V.,
+Golden Horn,
+Goluchowski, Count,
+Gorazd,
+Gorchakov, Prince,
+Goths, invasion of the,
+Great Britain and the Balkan States, relations between,
+  and Egypt,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Syria,
+  and the Ionian Islands,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  loan to Greece,
+  occupation of Cyprus,
+Greece, anarchy in,
+  ancient,
+  and Macedonia,
+  and Russia,
+  and Serbia,
+  and the adjacent islands,
+  and the Christian religion,
+  and the first Balkan war,
+  and the Ionian Islands,
+  and the Orthodox Church,
+  and the Slav migration,
+  brigandage in,
+  conflict of interests with Bulgaria,
+  conquest of, by the Turks,
+  delimitation of the frontier (1829),
+  dispute with Italy as to possession of Epirus,
+  effect of the French Revolution on,
+  invasion of, by Goths,
+  land-tax,
+  loans to,
+  local liberties,
+  ‘Military League’ of 1909,
+  minerals of,
+  monarchy established, and its results,
+  ‘National Assembly’,
+  oppressive relations with Turkey, and efforts for liberation,
+  revolutions in 1843 and 1862.
+  territorial contact with Turkey.
+  ‘tribute-children’ for Turkish army from.
+  war with Turkey (1828); (1897); (1912).
+Greek agriculture.
+  anti-Greek movement in Rumania.
+  army.
+  art and architecture.
+  ascendancy in Bulgaria.
+  _bourgeoisie_.
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia.
+  coalition with the Seljuks.
+  commerce and economic progress.
+  dialects of Ancient Greece.
+  education.
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula.
+  influence in Bulgaria.
+  influence in Rumania.
+  language in Rumanian Church.
+  literature.
+  monastic culture.
+  nationalism.
+  national religion.
+  navy.
+  officials tinder the Turks.
+  Patriarch.
+  public finance.
+  public spirit.
+  public works.
+  railways.
+  renaissance.
+  shipping.
+  unity.
+Greek Empire, decline of.
+Greek hierarchy, in Bulgaria, the.
+Greeks, Anatolian.
+  Byzantine.
+  general distribution of.
+  Ottoman.
+  their attitude with regard to the barbarian invasions.
+Gregorios, Greek Patriarch at Constantinople.
+Gulkhaneh.
+
+Hadrian, the Emperor.
+Haliacmon Valley.
+Halys river.
+Hasa.
+Hatti Sherif.
+Hejaz.
+Hellenic culture and civilization.
+Hellenic Republic.
+Hellespont, the.
+Hercegovina.
+  annexation of, by Austria-Hungary.
+  its Slavonic population.
+  origin and independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks.
+  revolts in, against Turkey.
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule.
+  under Turkish rule.
+Hilmi Pasha.
+Hungarians.
+  and the Turks.
+  invade the Balkan peninsula.
+Hungary,
+  and the Balkan peninsula,
+  and the Serbo-Croats,
+  and the Serbs,
+  and Turkey, wars between,
+  conquest of, by Suleiman I,
+  growth of,
+  loss of, by the Turks,
+  Slavs in,
+Huns, arrival of the, in Europe,
+  their origin,
+  settled in Hungary,
+Hunyadi, John,
+Hydhra and the Hydhriots,
+Hypsilantis, Prince Alexander,
+  Prince Demetrius,
+
+Ibar, the,
+Ibrahim Pasha,
+Ida, Mount,
+Ignatiyev, Count,
+Illyria, Celtic invasion of,
+  prefecture of,
+  Roman conquest of,
+Illyrians, the,
+Imbros,
+Ionescu, Take,
+Ionian islands,
+  presented to Greece by Great Britain,
+Ipek: _see_ Peć
+Iran,
+Iskanderoun, Gulf of,
+Italian influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+  trading cities,
+Italy, and the Macedonian question,
+  and the possession of Epirus,
+  diocese of,
+  prefecture of,
+  war with Turkey (1911-12),
+Ivan III, Tsar of Russia,
+Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia,
+
+Jehad, or Holy War,
+Jenghis Khan,
+Jerusalem,
+Jews, at Constantinople,
+  in Rumania,
+  in Turkey,
+Jezzar the Butcher,
+Jidda,
+John Alexander, ruler of Bulgaria,
+John Asen I, Bulgar Tsar (1186-96),
+John Asen II, Bulgar Tsar (1218-41),
+John Tzimisces, the Emperor,
+John the Terrible, Prince of Moldavia,
+Joseph II, Emperor of Austria,
+Judah,
+Jugo-Slav(ia),
+Justin I, the Emperor,
+Justinian I, the Emperor,
+
+Kaisariyeh,
+Kalamata,
+Kaloian, Bulgar Tsar (1196-1207),
+Kama, Bulgars on the,
+Kanaris, Constantine,
+Kapodistrias, John,
+Kara-George (Petrović),
+Karagjorgjević (sc. family of Kara-George) dynasty, the,
+Karaiskakis,
+Karamania,
+Karasi,
+Karlovci (Carlowitz, Karlowitz),
+Karpathos,
+Kasos;
+  destruction of (1824),
+Kavala,
+Kazan,
+Khalkidhiki,
+Kharput,
+  siege of (1822),
+Khorasan,
+Khurshid Pasha,
+Kiev,
+Kilkish, Greek victory at,
+Kirk-Kilissé, battle of,
+Kisseleff, Count,
+Kladovo,
+Knights Hospitallers of St. John,
+Kochana,
+Kolettis,
+Kolokotrónis, Theodore,
+Kondouriottis,
+Konia,
+  battle of,
+Kopais basin, draining of,
+Korinth,
+  surrender of (1822),
+Korinthian Gulf,
+Kos,
+Kosovo, vilayet of,
+Kosovo Polje, battle of,
+Kraljević, Marko: _see_ Marko K.
+Krete,
+  conquest of, by Turks,
+  intervention of the powers and constituted an autonomous state,
+  speech of,
+Krum (Bulgar prince),
+Kruševac,
+Kubrat (Bulgar prince),
+Kumanovo, battle of (1912),
+Kumans, the Tartar,
+Kurdistan,
+Kurds, the,
+Kutchuk Kainardji, Treaty of,
+Kydhonies, destruction of,
+
+Laibach (Ljubljana),
+Lansdowne, Marquess of,
+Lárissa,
+Latin Empire at Constantinople, the,
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+Lausanne, Treaty of (1912),
+Lazar (Serbian Prince),
+‘League of Friends’,
+Leipsic, battle of (1813),
+Lemnos,
+Leo, the Emperor,
+Leopold II, Emperor of Austria,
+Lepanto, battle of (1571),
+Lerna,
+Leskovac,
+Levant, the,
+  commerce of,
+Libyan war (1911-12),
+Lombards, the,
+London, Conference of (1912-13),
+  Treaty of (1913),
+Louis, conquers the Serbs,
+Lule-Burgas,
+  battle of (1912),
+
+Macedonia,
+  anarchy in,
+  defeat of the Turks by the Serbians in,
+  establishment of Turks in,
+  general characteristics of, in classical times,
+  inhabitants of,
+  revolt in,
+  place-names in,
+Macedonian question, the,
+  Slavs, the,
+Magnesia,
+Magyars, the,
+  their irruption into Europe,
+  growing power and ambitions of the,
+  influence upon the Rumanians,
+Mahmud I, Sultan,
+Mahmud II, Sultan,
+Maina,
+Maiorescu, Titu
+Malasgerd, battle of,
+Malta, siege of,
+Mamelukes, Egyptian,
+Manichaean heresy, the,
+Manuel Comnenus, the Emperor,
+Marash,
+Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor,
+Marghiloman, Alexander,
+Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria,
+Maritsa, the,
+  battle of,
+Marko Kraljević,
+Marmora, Sea of,
+Mavrokordatos, Alexander,
+Mavromichalis clan,
+Mavromichalis, Petros,
+Mediterranean, the,
+Megaspélaion,
+Mehemet Ali: _see_ Mohammed Ali.
+Melek Shah, of Persia,
+Mendere (Maiandros),
+Mesolonghi,
+Mesopotamia,
+Messenia,
+Mesta,
+Metéora,
+Methodius, St.,
+Michael Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia (1840-2, 1860-8),
+Michael III, the Emperor,
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia,
+Midhat Pasha and representative institutions in Turkey,
+Media,
+Milan Obrenović II, Prince of Serbia (1839),
+Milan Obrenović IV, Prince and King of Serbia (1868-89),
+Mileševo, monastery of,
+Milica, Princess,
+Military colonies, Austro-Hungarian, of Serbs against Turkey,
+Miloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia (1817-39, 1858-60),
+Milovanović, Dr.,
+Mircea the Old, Prince of Wallachia,
+Misivria (Mesembria),
+Mitylini,
+Modhon,
+Mohacs, battle of,
+Mohammed II, Sultan,
+Mohammed IV, Sultan,
+Mohammed V, Sultan,
+Mohammed Ali Pasha, of Egypt,
+Mohammedan influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+Mohammedan Serbs, of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the,
+Moldavia,
+  foundation of,
+Monastir (Bitolj, in Serbian),
+  battle of (1912),
+Montenegro,
+  achieves its independence,
+  and the Balkan League,
+  autonomous,
+  becomes a kingdom,
+  conquered by the Turks,
+  during the Napoleonic wars,
+  in the Balkan war (1912-13),
+  position of, amongst the other Serb territories,
+  relations with Russia,
+  revolt in,
+  under Turkish rule,
+  war with Turkey,
+Montesquieu,
+Morava, the,
+Moravia, its conversion to Christianity,
+Morea: _see_ Peloponnesos.
+Morocco crisis, the,
+Moslems,
+Mukhtar Pasha,
+Muntenia (Wallachia), foundation of,
+Murad I, Sultan, murder of,
+Murad II, Sultan,
+Murad III, Sultan,
+Murad V, Sultan,
+Murzsteg programme of reforms, the,
+Mustapha II, Sultan,
+Mustapha III, Sultan,
+
+Naissus: _see_ Nish.
+Napoleon I,
+Napoleon III, and Rumania,
+Natalie, Queen-Consort of Serbia,
+Nationalism,
+Nauplia,
+  fall of (1822),
+Nauplia Bay,
+Navarino, battle of (1827),
+Negrepont,
+Nemanja dynasty, the,
+Nicaea,
+Nicholas I, Prince and King of Montenegro (1860-),
+Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia,
+Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia,
+Nicomedia,
+Nikarià, 230.
+Nikiphóros Phokas, the Emperor,
+Nikopolis,
+  battle of,
+Nikšić,
+Nilufer,
+Nish (Naissus, Niš),
+  Celtic origin,
+  Goths defeated at,
+  Bulgarians march on,
+  geographical position of,
+Nish-Salonika railway,
+Nizib,
+Normans, the,
+Novae: _see_ Svishtov.
+Novi Pazar, Sandjak of,
+  occupied by Austria-Hungary,
+  evacuated by Austria-Hungary,
+  occupied by Serbia and Montenegro,
+
+Obilić, Miloš,
+Obrenović dynasty, the,
+Odessa,
+  Committee of,
+Odhyssèus,
+Oecumenical Patriarch, the,
+Okhrida,
+  Archbishopric and Patriarchate of,
+  Lake of,
+Old Serbia (northern Macedonia),
+Orient, prefecture of the,
+Orkhan,
+Orthodox Church: _see_ Eastern Church.
+Osman (Othman), Sultan,
+Osmanli: _see_ Turkey _and_ Turks.
+Ostrogoths, the,
+Otranto, straits of,
+Otto, Prince, of Bavaria, King of Greece,
+  driven into exile,
+Ottoman Empire: _see_ Turkey.
+Ouchy, Treaty of: _see_ Lausanne, Treaty of.
+Oxus,
+
+Palaiologos, Romaic dynasty of,
+Pannonia,
+  Bulgars in,
+Pan-Serb movement, the
+Pan-Slavism,
+Paris, Congress of (1856),
+  Convention (1858),
+  Treaty of (1856),
+Paša, M,
+Passarowitz, Treaty of,
+Pasvanoghlu,
+Patmos,
+Patras,
+  Gulf of,
+Paul, Emperor of Russia,
+Paulicians, the,
+Peć (Ipek, in Turkish), patriarchate of,
+Pechenegs, the Tartar,
+Petraeus,
+‘Peloponnesian Senate’,
+Peloponnesos (Morea),
+Pera,
+Persia and the Turks,
+  at war with Constantinople,
+  Grand Seljuk of,
+Persian Gulf,
+Peter the Great,
+  ‘Testament’ of,
+Peter, Bulgar Tsar (927-69)
+Peter I, King of Serbia (1903),
+Peter I, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
+Petrović-Njegoš, dynasty of,
+Petta, battle of,
+Phanariote Greeks, the, _See_ Greek officials under the
+                 Turks, _and_ Turkey, Phanariot régime.
+‘Philhellenes’,
+‘Philikì Hetairia’,
+Philip, Count of Flanders,
+Philip of Macedonia,
+Philippopolis, Bogomil centre,
+  foundation of,
+  revolts against Turks,
+Pindus,
+Pirot,
+Place-names, the distribution of classical, indigenous, and
+                         Slavonic, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Plevna, siege of,
+Podgorica,
+Poland,
+Pontus,
+Popes, attitude of the, towards the Slavonic liturgy,
+Poros,
+Porto Lagos,
+Požarevac,
+Preslav, Bulgarian capital,
+Prespa,
+Pressburg, Treaty of (1805),
+Prilep, battle of (1912),
+‘Primates’, the,
+Prizren,
+Prussia and Austria, war between (1866),
+Psarà,
+
+Radowitz, Baron von,
+Ragusa (Dubrovnik, in Serbian), its relations with the Serbian
+state,
+  prosperity of, under Turkish rule,
+  decline of,
+Railways in the Balkan peninsula,
+Rashid Pasha,
+Raška, centre of Serb state,
+Règlement Organique,
+Religious divisions in the Balkan peninsula,
+Resna, in Macedonia,
+Rhodes,
+  siege of,
+Ristić, M.,
+Rodosto,
+Romaic architecture,
+  government,
+  language,
+‘Romaioi’,
+Roman Catholicism in the Balkan peninsula,
+Roman Empire,
+Roman law,
+Rome, its conquest of the Balkan peninsula,
+  relations of, with Bulgaria,
+  relations of, with Serbia,
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Constantinople,
+Rosetti, C.A.,
+Rovine, battle of,
+Rumania and the Balkan peninsula,
+  and the second Balkan war(1913),
+  and Bulgaria,
+  and the Russo-Turkish war (1877),
+  anti-Greek movement in,
+  anti-Russian revolution in,
+  commerce of,
+  convention with Russia (1877),
+  dynastic question in,
+  education in,
+  influences at work in,
+  military situation,
+  nationalist activity in,
+  neutrality of,
+  origins of,
+  Patriarch’s authority in,
+  peasantry of,
+  Phanariotes in,
+  political parties in,
+  politics of, internal,
+  relations with Russia,
+  religion and Church in,
+  Roman civilization, influence in,
+  rural question in,
+  Russian influence in; politics in,
+  struggle for independence,
+  territorial gains,
+  territorial losses,
+  Turkish rule in,
+  Upper class in (cneazi, boyards),
+    origins of,
+    social evolution of,
+    economic and political supremacy,
+Rumanian army,
+  claims in Macedonia,
+  principalities, foundation of,
+    union of,
+    revolt (1822),
+Rumanians, early evidences of,
+  in Bessarabia,
+  in Bucovina,
+  in Hungary,
+  in Macedonia,
+Rumelia, Eastern,
+Russia and Bulgaria,
+  and Greece,
+  and Montenegro,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Serbia,
+  and Turkey,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  Bulgars in,
+  commercial treaty with Turkey (1783),
+  convention with Rumania (1877),
+  conversion to Christianity,
+  occupation of Kars,
+  re-organization under Peter the Great,
+  wars with Turkey (1769-84),
+    (1787),
+    (1807),
+    (1828),
+    (1877-8),
+    (1914-15),
+Russian diplomacy at Constantinople,
+  influence in Bulgaria,
+  invasion of Balkan peninsula,
+  relations with the Balkan Christians,
+  relations with the Balkan League,
+Russians, the, comparison of,
+  with the Southern Slavs,
+  _see_ Slavs, the Eastern,
+
+Šabac (Shabatz),
+Salisbury, Lord,
+Salonika,
+Salonika-Nish railway, the,
+Samos,
+Samothraki,
+Samuel, Tsar of western Bulgaria (977-1014),
+San Stefano, Treaty of (1878),
+Saracens, the,
+Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia,
+Sava, St.,
+Save, the,
+Scutari (di Albania), Skodra,
+Selim I, Sultan,
+Selim III, Sultan,
+Seljuks, the,
+Semendria: _see_ Smederevo.
+Semites, the,
+Serb migrations,
+  national life, centres of,
+  political centres,
+  race, home of the,
+  territories, divisions of the,
+Serbia and Austria-Hungary, relations between,
+  and Bulgaria, contrasted,
+  the agreement between,
+  and Macedonia,
+  and Russia, relations between,
+  and the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+  and the Balkan League,
+  and Turkey,
+  dissensions in,
+  geography of,
+  Patriarch’s authority in,
+  the barrier to German expansion eastwards,
+  Turkish conquest of,
+  wars with Turkey (1875-7),
+Serbian Church, the,
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia,
+  Empire, its extent under Stephen Dušan,
+  literature,
+  nation, centre of gravity of,
+  principality, its extent in 1830,
+Serbo-Bulgarian war (1885),
+  (1913),
+Serbo-Croat nationality, formation of the,
+Serbo-Croat unity, movement in favour of,
+Serbo-Croats, general distribution of,
+Serbs, defeat Bulgars and Greeks,
+  distribution of the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  general distribution of the,
+  north of the Danube,
+  outside the boundaries of the Serb state,
+  religious persecution of,
+  revolt against Bulgaria,
+  revolt against the Magyars,
+  revolts against Turkey,
+  their attitude towards the Germans,
+Serbs and Croats, difference between,
+Shabatz: _see_ Šabac.
+Shipka Pass,
+Shishman, revolts against Bulgaria,
+Sicily,
+Silistria,
+Simeon the Great, Bulgar Tsar (893-927),
+Singidunum: _see_ Belgrade.
+Sitvatorok, Treaty of,
+Sivas,
+Skanderbey,
+Skodra: _see_ Scutari.
+Skoplje (Üsküb, in Turkish),
+Slav influence in Rumania,
+Slavonia,
+  absorbed by Hungary,
+Slavonic immigration, the streams of, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  languages, the, use of, in Rumanian Church,
+  liturgy, the, southern, nationalities,
+Slavs, maritime,
+  method of their migration southwards into the Balkan peninsula
+  migration, in the seventh century,
+  their lack of cohesion,
+  their attacks on Salonika and Constantinople with the Avars,
+  their original home,
+  their settlement south of the Danube,
+  the Balkan, their attitude towards the Church, under Turkish rule,
+  the Eastern (Russians),
+  the Southern, general distribution of,
+  the Western,
+Slivnitsa, battle of (1885),
+Slovenes, the,
+Smederevo (Semendria),
+Smyrna,
+Sofia, captured by the Bulgars from the Greeks, captured by the Turks,
+Soudha Bay,
+Southern Slav nationalities, the,
+Spain, Jews expelled from,
+Spalajković, Dr.,
+Spetza,
+Sporades, the,
+Srem: _see_ Syrmia.
+Stambul,
+Sultanate of,
+Stambulov,
+Stephen Dragutin,
+Stephen Dušan, King of Serbia(1331-45), Tsar of Serbs, Bulgars, and
+Greeks (1345-55),
+Stephen (Lazarević), Serbian Prince,
+Stephen Nemanja, _veliki župan_,
+Stephen Nemanjić, King of Serbia (1196-1223), the First-Crowned,
+Stephen Radoslav, King of Serbia (1223-33),
+Stephen Uroš I, King of Serbia (1242-76),
+Stephen Uroš II (Milutin), King of Serbia (1282-1321),
+Stephen Uroš III (Dećanski), King of Serbia (1321-31),
+Stephen Vladislav, King of Serbia (1233-42),
+Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia,
+Struma, the,
+Suleiman I, Sultan (the Magnificent),
+Suli, clansmen of,
+Šumadija,
+Svetoslav, ruler of Bulgaria,
+Svishtov,
+Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev,
+Syria,
+Syrian question, the,
+Syrmia,
+
+Tabriz,
+Tanzimat, the,
+Taraboš, Mount,
+Tarsus,
+Tartar invasion, the,
+Tartars of the Golden Horde,
+Tenedos,
+Teutons, the,
+Thasos,
+Theodore Lascaris, the Emperor,
+Theodoric,
+Theodosius, the Emperor,
+Theophilus of Constantinople,
+Thessaly,
+Thrace,
+Thu-Kiu, people of,
+Tilsit, peace of (1807),
+Timok, the,
+Timur,
+Tirnovo, centre and capital of second Bulgarian empire,
+Trajan, the Emperor, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  his conquest of Dacia,
+Transylvania,
+Trebizond,
+Trieste,
+Trikéri, destruction of,
+Trikoupis, Greek statesman,
+Tripoli,
+Tripolitza,
+Tunisia,
+Turcomans, the,
+Turkestan,
+Turkey: administrative systems,
+  and the Armenian massacres (1894),
+  and the Balkans,
+  and Bulgaria,
+  and the Bulgarian atrocities,
+  and Greece,
+  and the islands of southeastern Europe,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Russia,
+  and Serbia,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the suzerainty of Krete,
+  Christians in, position of,
+  codification of the civil law,
+  commercial treaties,
+  Committee of Union and Progress,
+  conquests in Europe,
+    in Asia,
+    of the Balkan peninsula,
+  decline and losses of territory in Europe and Asia,
+  ‘Dere Beys’,
+  Dragoman, office of, 184, 185,
+  expansion: of the Osmanli kingdom,
+    of the Byzantine Empire,
+    extent of the empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+    territorial expansion in Asia,
+  feudal aristocracy of,
+  financial embarrassments and public debt,
+  frontier beyond the Danube,
+  German influence in,
+  Grand Vizierate,
+  military organization,
+    soldiery recruited from Christian races,
+    ‘tribute-children’ system of recruiting,
+  name of,
+  pan-Islamic propaganda under Abdul Hamul,
+  pan-Ottomanism,
+  Phanariot régime,
+  praetorians,
+  railway construction, effect of,
+  reforms in,
+  representative institutions inaugurated,
+  revival and relapse in the nineteenth century,
+  revolution of 1910,
+  war in the Balkans (1912),
+  war with Great Britain, France, and Russia (1914-15),
+  wars with Greece (1821),
+    (1897),
+    (1912),
+  war with Italy (1911-12),
+  wars with Russia (1769-74),
+    (1787),
+    (1807),
+    (1828),
+    (1877-8),
+    (1914-15),
+  wars with Serbia (1875-7),
+  Young Turks, the,
+Turkish conquests in Europe,
+  fleet,
+  janissaries,
+Turks (Osmanlis), entry into Europe,
+  general distribution of,
+  nomadic tribes of,
+  origin of,
+  vitality and inherent qualities of the,
+Tzakonia,
+
+Uighurs, Turkish tribe,
+Unkiar Skelessi, Treaty of (1833),
+Uroš, King of Serbia: _see_ Stephen Uroš.
+Uroš, Serbian Tsar (1355-71),
+Üskub: _see_ Skoplje,
+
+Valens, the Emperor,
+Valtetzi, battle of,
+Van,
+Vardar, the,
+Varna,
+  battle of (1444),
+  captured by the Bulgars,
+Venezelos, E., Kretan and Greek statesman,
+  his part in the Kretan revolution,
+  becomes premier of Greece,
+  work as a constructive statesman,
+  the formation of the Balkan League,
+  his proposals to Bulgaria for settlement of claims,
+  his handling of the problem of Epirus,
+  results of his statesmanship,
+Venice and the Venetian Republic,
+Victoria, Queen of England,
+Vienna,
+  besieged by the Turks (1526),
+    (1683),
+  Congress of (1814),
+  in relation to the Serbo-Croats: _see_ Budapest.
+Visigoths, the,
+Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia,
+Vlakhs, the,
+Volga, Bulgars of the,
+Volo, Gulf of,
+Vranja,
+Vrioni, Omer,
+
+Wallachia,
+  advent of the Turks in,
+  subjugation of, by the Turks,
+Wied, Prince of,
+William II, German Emperor,
+
+Yannina,
+Yantra, the,
+Yemen,
+Yenishehr,
+Yuruk tribe,
+Yuzgad,
+
+Zabergan,
+Zaimis, high commissioner of Krete,
+Zante,
+Zeta, the, river and district,
+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Balkans, by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth</title>
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Balkans, by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Balkans<br />
+  A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 26, 2004 [eBook #11716]<br />
+[Most recently updated: May 27, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Andy Schmitt and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS ***</div>
+
+<h1>The Balkans</h1>
+
+<h3>A HISTORY OF BULGARIA&mdash;SERBIA&mdash;GREECE&mdash;RUMANIA&mdash;TURKEY</h3>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">BY NEVILL FORBES, ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE, D. MITRANY, D.G. HOGARTH</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap00">PREFACE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part01"><b>BULGARIA AND SERBIA. By NEVILL FORBES.</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">1. Introductory</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">2. The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times 400 B.C.&mdash; A.D. 500</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">3. The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A.D. 500-650</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part02"><b>BULGARIA.</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">4. The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula, 600-700</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">5. The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity, 700-893</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">6. The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire, 893-972</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">7. The Rise and Fall of &lsquo;Western Bulgaria&rsquo; and the Greek Supremacy, 963-1186</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">8. The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1186-1258</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">9. The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse, 1258-1393</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">10. The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation, 1393-1878</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">11. The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">12. The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 1886-1908</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">13. The Kingdom, 1908-13</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part03"><b>SERBIA.</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">14. The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy, 650-1168</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">15. The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian Independence, 1168-1496</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">16. The Turkish Dominion, 1496-1796</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">17. The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and Miloš Obrenović (1815-30): 1796-1830</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">18. The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia, 1830-1903</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">19. Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary, 1903-8</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">20. Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars, 1908-13</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part04"><b>GREECE. By ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">1. From Ancient to Modern Greece</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">2. The Awakening of the Nation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">3. The Consolidation of the State</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part05"><b>RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS. By D. MITRANY</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">1. Introduction</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">2. Formation of the Rumanian Nation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">3. The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">4. The Phanariote Rule</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">5. Modern Period to 1866</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">6. Contemporary Period: Internal Development</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">7. Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap31">8. Rumania and the Present War</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part06"><b>TURKEY. By D. G. HOGARTH</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap32">1. Origin of the Osmanlis</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap33">2. Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap34">3. Heritage and Expansion of the Byzantine Empire</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap35">4. Shrinkage and Retreat</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap36">5. Revival</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap37">6. Relapse</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap38">7. Revolution</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap39">8. The Balkan War</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap40">9. The Future</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap41"><b>INDEX</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<h2>MAPS</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td>The Balkan Peninsula: Ethnological</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>The Balkan Peninsula</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>The Ottoman Empire</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap00"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely separated,
+engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had no opportunity for
+interchange of views. Each must be held responsible, therefore, for his own
+section alone. If there be any discrepancies in our writings (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. It may be well to state that the
+sections on Serbia and Bulgaria were finished before the decisive Balkan
+developments of the past two months. Those on Greece and Rumania represent only
+a little later stage of the evolution. That on Turkey, compiled between one
+mission abroad and another, was the latest to be finished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and foes,
+none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about any Balkan
+people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be fighting to-day, has
+a past worthy of more than our respect and interwoven in some intimate way with
+our history. That any one of them is arrayed against us to-day is not to be
+laid entirely or chiefly at its own door. They are all fine peoples who have
+not obtained their proper places in the sun. The best of the Osmanli nation,
+the Anatolian peasantry, has yet to make its physical and moral qualities felt
+under civilized conditions. As for the rest&mdash;the Serbs and the Bulgars,
+who have enjoyed brief moments of barbaric glory in their past, have still to
+find themselves in that future which shall be to the Slav. The Greeks, who were
+old when we were not as yet, are younger now than we. They are as incalculable
+a factor in a political forecast as another Chosen Race, the Jews. Their past
+is the world&rsquo;s glory: the present in the Near East is theirs more than
+any people&rsquo;s: the future&mdash;despite the laws of corporate being and
+decline, dare we say they will have no part in it? Of Rumania what are we to
+think? Her mixed people has had the start of the Balkan Slavs in modern
+civilization, and evidently her boundaries must grow wider yet. But the limits
+of her possible expansion are easier to set than those of the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history, whether
+of the East or the West, is mostly a record of bloodshedding and cruelty; and
+the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in most parts of the Balkans,
+and is not yet over in some parts. There are certain things salutary to bear in
+mind when we think or speak of any part of that country to-day. First, that
+less than two hundred years ago, England had its highwaymen on all roads, and
+its smuggler dens and caravans, Scotland its caterans, and Ireland its
+moonlighters. Second, that religious fervour has rarely mitigated and generally
+increased 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 write about the Near East
+under existing circumstances altogether <i>sine ira et studio</i>, we have
+tried to remember that each of its peoples has a case.
+</p>
+
+<h5>D.G. HOGARTH.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>November</i>, 1915.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part01"></a>BULGARIA AND SERBIA</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>1<br/>
+<i>Introductory</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The whole of what may be called the trunk or <i>massif</i> 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 the Adriatic) and the
+lake of Scutari in the west, through lakes Okhrida and Prespa (in Macedonia) to
+the outskirts of Salonika and thence to Midia on the shores of the Black Sea,
+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 the west, and
+the Slovenes in the extreme north-west, between Trieste and the Save; these
+nationalities compose the southern branch of the Slavonic race. The other
+inhabitants 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
+are to be found in varying quantities within the limits of the Slav territory
+roughly outlined above, but greater numbers of them are outside it; on the
+other hand, there are a considerable number of Serbs living north of the rivers
+Save and Danube, in southern Hungary. Details of the ethnic distribution and
+boundaries will of course be gone into more 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 gastronomers to denote a
+dish, the principal characteristic of which is that its component parts are
+mixed up into quite inextricable confusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+in number, inhabiting the Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Carniola, have
+never been able to form a political state, though, with the growth of Trieste
+as a great port and the persistent efforts of Germany to make her influence if
+not her flag supreme on the shores of the Adriatic, this small people has from
+its geographical position and from its anti-German (and anti-Italian) attitude
+achieved considerable notoriety and some importance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the Bulgars and Serbs it may be said that at the present moment the former
+control the eastern, and the latter, in alliance with the Greeks, the western
+half of the peninsula. It has always been the ambition of each of these three
+nationalities to dominate the whole, an ambition which has caused endless waste
+of blood and money and untold misery. If the question were to be settled purely
+on ethnical considerations, 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 in origin, and would thus undoubtedly attain the
+hegemony of the peninsula, while the centre of gravity of the Serbian nation
+would, as is ethnically just, move north-westwards. Political considerations,
+however, have until now always been against this solution of the difficulty,
+and, even if it solved in this sense, there would still remain 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 lines virtually impossible. It is curious that the Slavs, though
+masters of the interior of the peninsula and of parts of its eastern and
+western coasts, have never made the shores of the Aegean (the White Sea, as
+they call it) or the cities on them their own. The Adriatic is the only sea on
+the shore of which any Slavonic race has ever made its home. In view of this
+difficulty, namely, the interior of the peninsula being Slavonic while the
+coastal fringe is Greek, and of the approximately equal numerical strength of
+all three nations, it is almost inevitable that the ultimate solution of the
+problem and delimitation of political boundaries will have to be effected by
+means of territorial compromise. It can only be hoped that this ultimate
+compromise will be agreed upon by the three countries concerned, and will be
+more equitable than that which was forced on them by Rumania in 1913 and laid
+down in the Treaty of Bucarest of that year.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is made between them, the
+road to the East, which from the point of view of the Germanic powers lies
+through Serbia, will sooner or later inevitably be forced open, and the
+independence, first of Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania, and later of Bulgaria
+and Greece, will disappear, <i>de facto</i> if not in appearance, and both
+materially and morally they will become the slaves of the central empires. If
+the Balkan League could be reconstituted, Germany and Austria would never reach
+Salonika or Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>2<br/>
+<i>The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times</i><br/>
+400 B.C.–A.D. 500.</h2>
+
+<p>
+In the earlier historical times the whole of the eastern part of the Balkan
+peninsula between the Danube and the Aegean was known as Thracia, while the
+western part (north of the forty-first degree of latitude) was termed
+Illyricum; the lower basin of the river Vardar (the classical Axius) was called
+Macedonia. A number of the tribal and personal names of the early Illyrians and
+Thracians have been preserved. Philip of Macedonia subdued Thrace in the fourth
+century B.C. and in 342 founded the city of Philippopolis. Alexander&rsquo;s
+first campaign was devoted to securing control of the peninsula, but 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 Belgrade
+was known until the seventh century A.D. by its Celtic name of Singidunum.
+Naissus, the modern Nish, is also possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230
+B.C. that Rome came into contact with Illyricum, owing to the piratical
+proclivities of its inhabitants, but for a long time it only controlled 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
+run in several parallel and almost unbroken lines the whole length of the shore
+of the Adriatic and have always formed an effective barrier to invasion from
+the west. The interior was only very gradually subdued by the Romans after
+Macedonia had been occupied by them in 146 B.C. Throughout the first century
+B.C. conflicts raged with varying fortune between the invaders and all the
+native races living between the Adriatic and the Danube. They were attacked
+both from Aquileia in the north and from Macedonia in the south, but it was not
+till the early years of our era that the Danube became the frontier of the
+Roman Empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the year A.D. 6 Moesia, which included a large part of the modern kingdom of
+Serbia and the northern half of that of Bulgaria between the Danube and the
+Balkan range (the classical Haemus), became an imperial province, and twenty
+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 between the Save and
+the Adriatic, and Pannonia lay between the Danube and the Save. In 107 A.D. the
+Emperor Trajan conquered the Dacians beyond the lower Danube, and organized a
+province of Dacia out of territory roughly equivalent to the modern Wallachia
+and Transylvania, This trans-Danubian territory did not remain attached to the
+empire for more than a hundred and fifty years; but within the river line a
+vast belt of country, stretching from the head of the Adriatic to the mouths of
+the Danube on the Black Sea, was Romanized through and through. The Emperor
+Trajan has been called the Charlemagne of the Balkan peninsula; all remains are
+attributed to him (he was nicknamed the Wallflower by Constantine the Great),
+and his reign marked the zenith of Roman power in this part of the world. The
+Balkan peninsula enjoyed the benefits of Roman civilization for three
+centuries, from the first to the fourth, but from the second century onwards
+the attitude of the Romans was defensive rather than offensive. The war against
+the 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 251 the Emperor Decius was killed in battle against them near
+Odessus on the Black Sea (the modern Varna). The Goths reached the outskirts of
+Thessalonica (Salonika), but were defeated by the Emperor Claudius at Naissus
+(Nish) in 269; shortly afterwards, however, the Emperor Aurelian had
+definitively to relinquish Dacia to them. The Emperor Diocletian, a native of
+Dalmatia, who reigned from 284 to 305, carried out a redistribution of the
+imperial provinces. Pannonia and western Illyria, or Dalmatia, were assigned to
+the prefecture of Italy, Thrace to that of the Orient, while the whole centre
+of the peninsula, from the Danube to the Peloponnese, constituted the
+prefecture of Illyria, with Thessalonica as capital. The territory to the north
+of the Danube having been lost, what is now western Bulgaria was renamed Dacia,
+while Moesia, the modern kingdom of Serbia, was made very much smaller.
+Praevalis, or the southern part of Dalmatia, approximately the modern
+Montenegro and Albania, was detached from that province and added to the
+prefecture of Illyria. In this way the boundary between the province of
+Dalmatia and the Balkan peninsula proper ran from near the lake of Scutari in
+the south to the river Drinus (the modern Drina), whose course it followed till
+the Save was reached in the north.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An event of far-reaching importance in the following century was the elevation
+by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium into the imperial
+city of Constantinople in 325. This century also witnessed the arrival of the
+Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed the Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper
+and the Dniester, in 375, and the Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the
+modern Rumania, moved southwards in sympathy with this event. The Emperor
+Valens lost his life fighting against these Goths in 378 at the great battle of
+Adrianople (a city established in Thrace by 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 devastated the entire peninsula, after which they proceeded to
+Italy. After the death of the Emperor Theodosius the empire was divided, never
+to be joined into one whole again. The dividing line followed that, already
+mentioned, which separated the prefecture of Italy from those of Illyria and
+the Orient, that is to say, it began in the south, on the shore of the Adriatic
+near the Bocche di Cattaro, and went due north along the valley of the Drina
+till the confluence of that river with the Save. It will be seen that this
+division had 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 provinces to
+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.
+Its extent is proved by the fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly,
+and their language very largely, defended from those of the legions and
+colonies of the Emperor Trajan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Latin influence, shipping, colonization, and art were always supreme on the
+eastern shores of the Adriatic, just as 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 vocabulary is derived; though driven southwards by
+the Romans and northwards by the Greeks, they have remained in their mountain
+fastnesses to this day, impervious to any of the civilizations to which they
+have been exposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula very early; Macedonia and
+Dalmatia were the parts where it was first established, and it took some time
+to penetrate into the interior. During the reign of Diocletian numerous martyrs
+suffered for the faith in the Danubian provinces, but with the accession of
+Constantine the Great persecution came to an end. As soon, however, as the
+Christians were left alone, they started persecuting each other, and during the
+fourth century the Arian controversy re-echoed throughout the peninsula.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the fifth century the Huns moved from the shores of the Black Sea to the
+plains of the Danube and the Theiss; they devastated the Balkan peninsula, in
+spite of the tribute which they had levied on Constantinople in return for
+their promise 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, where he remained till he transferred the sphere
+of his activities to Italy ten years later. Towards the end of the fifth
+century Huns of various kinds returned to the lower Danube and devastated the
+peninsula several times, penetrating as far as Epirus and Thessaly.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>3<br/>
+<i>The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula</i>, A.D. 500–650</h2>
+
+<p>
+The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security and
+prosperity during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into barbarism as a
+result of these endless invasions; the walled towns, such as Salonika and
+Constantinople, were the only safe places, and the country became waste and
+desolate. The process continued unabated throughout the three following
+centuries, and one is driven to one of two conclusions, either that these lands
+must have possessed very extraordinary powers of recuperation to make it worth
+while for invaders to pillage them so frequently, or, what is more probable,
+there can have been after some time little left to plunder, and consequently
+the Byzantine historians&rsquo; accounts of enormous drives of prisoners and
+booty are much exaggerated. It is impossible to count the number of times the
+tide of invasion and devastation swept southwards over the unfortunate
+peninsula. The emperors and their generals did what they could by means of
+defensive works on the frontiers, of punitive expeditions, and of trying to set
+the various hordes of barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they
+had at the same time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain,
+it is not surprising that they were not more successful. The growing riches of
+Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for the wild men
+from the east and north, and unfortunately the Greek citizens were more
+inclined to spend their energy in theological disputes and their leisure in the
+circus than to devote either the one or the other to the defence of their
+country. It was only by dint of paying them huge sums of money that the
+invaders were kept away from the coast. The departure of the Huns and the Goths
+had made the way for fresh series of unwelcome visitors. In the sixth century
+the Slavs appear for the first time. From their original homes which were
+immediately north 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 in Dacia, north of the Danube, in the
+previous century, but they are first mentioned as having crossed that river
+during the reign of the Emperor Justin I (518-27). They were a loosely-knit
+congeries of tribes without any single leader or central authority; some say
+they merely possessed the instinct of anarchy, others that they were permeated
+with the ideals of democracy. What is certain is that amongst them neither
+leadership nor initiative was developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and
+organisation. The Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians, were only
+welded into anything approaching unity by the comparatively much smaller number
+of Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came and took charge of their
+affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of themselves able to
+form a united community, conscious of its aim and capable of persevering in its
+attainment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company of the
+Avars, a terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns, were of
+Asiatic (Turkish or Mongol) origin. These invasions became more frequent during
+the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-65), and culminated in 559 in a great
+combined attack of all the invaders on Constantinople under a certain Zabergan,
+which was brilliantly defeated by the veteran Byzantine general Belisarius. 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 their warlike 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; that is to say, 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 Danube, the 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 military energies of
+Constantinople were diverted to Persia, so that the invaders of the Balkan
+peninsula had the field very much to themselves. It was during this time that
+the power of the Avars reached its height. They were masters of all the country
+up to the walls of Adrianople and Salonika, though they did not settle there.
+The peninsula seems to have been colonized by Slavs, who penetrated right down
+into Greece; but the Avars were throughout this time, both in politics and in
+war, the directing and dominating force. During another Persian war, which
+broke out in 622 and entailed the prolonged absence of the emperor from
+Constantinople, the Avars, not satisfied with the tribute extorted from the
+Greeks, made an alliance against them with the Persians, and in 626 collected a
+large army of Slavs and Asiatics and attacked Constantinople both by land and
+sea from the European side, while the Persians threatened it from Asia. But the
+walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks proved invincible, and, quarrels
+breaking out between the Slavs and the Avars, both had to save themselves in
+ignominious and precipitate retreat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+downfall became proverbial, being crystallized in the saying, &lsquo;they
+perished like Avars&rsquo;. The Slavs, on the other hand, remained. Throughout
+these stormy times their penetration of the Balkan peninsula had been
+peacefully if unostentatiously proceeding; by the middle of the seventh century
+it was complete. The main streams of Slavonic immigration moved southwards and
+westwards. The first covered the whole of the country between the Danube and
+the Balkan range, overflowed into Macedonia, and filtered down into Greece.
+Southern Thrace in the east and Albania in the west were comparatively little
+affected, and in these districts the indigenous population maintained itself.
+The coasts of the Aegean and the great cities on or near them were too strongly
+held by the Greeks to be affected, and those Slavs who penetrated into Greece
+itself were soon absorbed by the local populations. The still stronger Slavonic
+stream, which moved westwards and turned up north-westwards, overran the whole
+country down to the shores of the Adriatic and as far as the sources of the
+Save and Drave in the Alps. From that point in the west to the shores of the
+Black Sea in the east became one solid mass of Slavs, and has remained so ever
+since. The few Slavs who were left north of the Danube in Dacia were gradually
+assimilated by the inhabitants of that province, who were 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 words of Slavonic origin contained in the Rumanian language.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA ETHNOLOGICAL]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Place-names are a good index of the extent and strength of the tide of Slav
+immigration. All along the coast, from the mouth of the Danube to the head of
+the Adriatic, the Greek and Roman names have been retained though places have
+often been given alternative names by the Slavonic settlers. Thrace, especially
+the south-eastern part, and Albania have the fewest Slavonic place-names. In
+Macedonia and Lower Moesia (Bulgaria) very few classical names have survived,
+while in Upper Moesia (Serbia) and the interior of Dalmatia (Bosnia,
+Hercegovina, and Montenegro) they have entirely disappeared. The Slavs
+themselves, though their tribal names were known, were until the ninth century
+usually called collectively S(k)lavini ([Greek: Sklabaenoi]) by the Greeks, and
+all the inland parts of the peninsula were for long termed by them &lsquo;the
+S(k)lavonias&rsquo; ([Greek: Sklabiniai]).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the seventh century, dating from the defeat of the Slavs and Avars
+before the walls of Constantinople in 626 and the final triumph of the emperor
+over the Persians in 628, the influence and power of the Greeks began to
+reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north as the Danube; this
+process was coincident with the decline of the might of the Avars. It was the
+custom of the astute Byzantine diplomacy to look on and speak of lands which
+had been occupied by the various barbarian invaders as grants made to them
+through the generosity of the emperor; by this means, by dint also of lavishing
+titles and substantial incomes to the invaders&rsquo; chiefs, by making the
+most of their mutual jealousies, and also by enlisting regiments of Slavonic
+mercenaries in the imperial armies, the supremacy of Constantinople was
+regained far more effectively than it could have been by the continual and
+exhausting use of force.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part02"></a>BULGARIA</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>4<br/>
+<i>The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,</i> 600–700</h2>
+
+<p>
+The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed all their
+movements until their final establishment there in the seventh century, are
+involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by name in classical and
+Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes to the north of the Black Sea
+amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has been assumed by some that at the end
+of the fifth and throughout the sixth century they were associated first with
+the Huns and later with the Avars and Slavs in the various incursions into and
+invasions of the eastern empire which have already been enumerated. It is the
+tendency of Bulgarian historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the
+history of Russia only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the
+antiquity of their own and to claim as early a date as possible for the
+authentic appearance of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of the
+Balkan theatre. They are also unwilling to admit that they were anticipated by
+the Slavs; they prefer to think that the Slavs only insinuated themselves there
+thanks to the energy of the Bulgars&rsquo; offensive against the Greeks, and
+that as soon as the Bulgars had leisure to look about them they found all the
+best places already occupied by the anarchic Slavs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were or were
+not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept westwards into Europe
+with little intermission throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, but even if
+they were, they do not seem to have settled down as early as that anywhere
+south of the Danube; it seems certain that they did not do so until the seventh
+century, and therefore that the Slavs were definitely installed in the Balkan
+peninsula a whole century before the Bulgars crossed the Danube for good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like the
+Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from eastern Asia, of the
+stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of all these peoples was to move
+westwards from Asia into Europe, and this they did at considerable and
+irregular intervals, though in alarming and apparently inexhaustible numbers,
+roughly from the fourth till the fourteenth centuries. The distance was great,
+but the journey, thanks to the flat, grassy, treeless, and well-watered
+character of the steppes of southern Russia which they had to cross, was easy.
+They often halted for considerable periods by the way, and some never moved
+further westwards than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in large
+numbers on the Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it is presumed
+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 Tartar immigrants from Asia and
+eventually were consolidated into the powerful kingdom of Kazan, which was only
+crushed by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552. According to Bulgarian historians, the
+basins of the rivers Volga and Don and the steppes of eastern Russia proved too
+confined a space for the legitimate development of Bulgarian energy, and
+expansion to the west was decided on. A large number of Bulgars therefore
+detached themselves and began to move south-westwards. During the sixth century
+they seem to have been settled in the country to the north of the Black Sea,
+forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria. It is very doubtful whether the
+Bulgars did take part, as they are supposed to have done, in the ambitious but
+unsuccessful attack on Constantinople in 559 under Zabergan, chief of another
+Tartar tribe; but it is fairly certain that they did in the equally formidable
+but equally unsuccessful attacks by the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609
+and Constantinople in 626.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh 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 the Bulgars grew as 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 joined forces with what was
+left of the Avars, and there the Bulgars maintained themselves till they were
+obliterated by 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 at 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 that year the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not known, but
+what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process, by which the Franks
+in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenous population 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 subject
+nationality, that beyond a few personal names no traces of the language of the
+Bulgars have survived. Modern Bulgarian, except for the Turkish words
+introduced into it later during the Ottoman rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so
+the Bulgarian nationality; as is so often the case with mongrel 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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>5<br/>
+<i>The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity</i>,
+700–893</h2>
+
+<p>
+From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have given
+their name the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks, and ever since
+both peoples have looked on one another as natural and hereditary enemies. The
+Bulgars, like all the barbarians who had preceded them, were fascinated by the
+honey-pot of Constantinople, and, though they never succeeded in taking it,
+they never grew tired of making the attempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two hundred years after the death of Asparukh, in 661, the Bulgars were
+perpetually fighting either against the Greeks or else amongst themselves. At
+times a diversion was caused by the Bulgars taking the part of the Greeks, as
+in 718, when they &lsquo;delivered&rsquo; Constantinople, at the invocation 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
+anarchy of the many, which the Bulgars found when they arrived, and which their
+first few autocratic rulers had been able to control, was replaced by an
+anarchy of the few. Prince succeeded prince, war followed war, at the will of
+the feudal nobles. This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks,
+who lavishly subsidized the rival factions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined forces
+with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the Avars, who,
+beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards towards the Danube.
+In this the Bulgars were completely successful under the leadership of one
+Krum, whom, in the elation of victory, they promptly elected to the throne.
+Krum was a far more capable ruler than they had bargained for, and he not only
+united all the Bulgars north and south of the Danube into one dominion, but
+also forcibly repressed the whims of the nobles and re-established the
+autocracy and the hereditary monarchy. Having finished with his enemies in the
+north, he turned his attention to the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he
+captured from them the important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica, known to the
+Slavs as Sredets), which is to-day the capital of Bulgaria. The loss of this
+city was a blow to the Greeks, because it was a great centre of commerce and
+also the point at which the commercial and strategic highways of the peninsula
+met and crossed. The Emperor Nikiphóros, who wished to take his revenge and
+recover his lost property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars and lost his
+life in the Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at Mesembria (the
+modern Misivria) in 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum appeared before the
+capital, where he nearly lost his life in an ambush while negotiating for
+peace. During preparations for a final assault on Constantinople he died
+suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to have introduced civilisation
+into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power and gave it some of the more
+essential organs of government. He framed a code of laws remarkable for their
+rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary in such a community and beneficial in
+its effect. He repressed civil strife, and by this means made possible the
+reawakening of commerce and agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity,
+founded in 822 the city of Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav),
+situated in eastern Bulgaria, between Varna and Silistria, which was the
+capital until 972.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed the
+definitive conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It is within
+this period also that fell the activities of the two great
+&lsquo;Slavonic&rsquo; missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and
+Methodius, who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the
+founders of their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into
+Bulgaria (or Moesia, as it was then) long before the arrival 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 was brought
+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 the Church was at this time still nominally one, yet the
+rivalry between Rome and Constantinople had already become acute, and the
+struggle for spheres of spiritual influence had begun. It was in the year 863
+that the Prince of Moravia, anxious to introduce Christianity into his country
+in a form intelligible to his subjects, addressed himself to the Emperor
+Michael III for help. Rome could not provide any suitable missionaries with
+knowledge of Slavonic languages, and the German, or more exactly the Bavarian,
+hierarchy with which Rome entrusted the spiritual welfare of the Slavs of
+Moravia and Pannonia used its greater local knowledge for political and not
+religious ends. The Germans exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order
+completely to dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter were
+only allowed to see the Church through Teutonic glasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 composed the Slavonic alphabet which is to-day used throughout
+Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and in many parts of Austria-Hungary
+and translated the gospels into Slavonic; it is for this reason that they are
+regarded with such veneration by all members of the Eastern Church. Their
+mission proved the greatest success (it must be remembered that at this time
+the various Slavonic tongues were probably less dissimilar than they are now),
+and the two brothers were warmly welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, 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; St. Cyril died in 869 and St. Methodius in 885;
+subsequent Popes, notably Stephen V, were not so benevolent to the Slavonic
+cause; the machinations of the German hierarchy (which included, even in those
+days, the falsification of documents) were irresistible, and finally the
+invasion of the Magyars, in 893, destroyed what was left of the Slavonic Church
+in Moravia. The missionary brothers had probably passed through Bulgaria on
+their way north in 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 subjects to do the same. Even when
+he had enforced his will on them at the price of numerous executions of
+recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at the beginning of his
+difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to welcome Bulgaria into the
+fold, but they had no wish to set up an independent Church and hierarchy 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
+the basileus derived from the Church of Constantinople; he also admired the
+pomp of ecclesiastical ceremony, and wished to have a patriarch of his own to
+crown him and a hierarchy of his own to serve him. Finding the Greeks
+unresponsive, he turned to Rome, and Pope Nicholas I sent him two bishops to
+superintend the ecclesiastical affairs of Bulgaria till the investiture of
+Boris at the hands of the Holy See could be arranged. These bishops set 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 independent Church their enthusiasm abated and
+they were recalled to Rome in 867.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adrian II proved no more sympathetic, and in 870, during the reign of the
+Emperor Basil I, it was decided without more ado that the Bulgarian Church
+should be directly under the Bishop of Constantinople, on the ground that the
+kingdom of Boris was a vassal-state of the basileus, and that from the
+Byzantine point of view, as opposed to that of Rome, the State came first and
+the Church next. The Moravian Gorazd, a disciple of Methodius, was appointed
+Metropolitan, and at his death he was succeeded by his fellow countryman and
+co-disciple Clement, who by means of the construction of numerous churches and
+monasteries did a great deal for the propagation of light and learning in
+Bulgaria. The definite subjection of the Bulgarian Church to that of Byzantium
+was an important and far-reaching event. Boris has been reproached with
+submitting himself and his country to Greek influence, but in those days it was
+either Constantinople or Rome (there was no third way); and in view of the
+proximity of Constantinople and the glamour which its civilization cast all
+over the Balkans, it is not surprising that the Greeks carried the day.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>6<br/>
+<i>The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire</i>, 893–972</h2>
+
+<p>
+During the reign of Simeon, second son of Boris, which lasted from 893 to 927,
+Bulgaria reached a very high level of power and prosperity. Simeon, called the
+Great, is looked on by Bulgarians as their most capable monarch and his reign
+as the most brilliant period of their history. He had spent his childhood at
+Constantinople and been educated there, and he became such an admirer of Greek
+civilization that he was nicknamed <i>Hèmiargos</i>. His instructors had done
+their work so well that Simeon remained spellbound by the glamour of
+Constantinople throughout his life, and, although he might have laid the
+foundations of a solid empire in the Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer
+Byzantium and to be recognized as basileus&mdash;an ambition which was not to
+be fulfilled. His first campaign against the Greeks was not very 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
+Pechenegs, 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 (894-913), the internal
+development of Bulgaria made great strides. The administration was properly
+organized, commerce was encouraged, and agriculture flourished. In the wars
+against the Greeks which occupied his last years he was more successful, and
+inflicted a severe defeat on them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917; but
+he was still unable to get from them what he wanted, and at last, in 921, he
+was obliged to proclaim himself <i>basileus</i> and <i>autocratōr</i> of all
+Bulgars and Greeks, a title which nobody else recognized. He reappeared before
+Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more than the customary
+devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a solemn reconciliation
+between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were clever enough to prevent the
+Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their return journey, and thereby
+administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was anxious to see them and enter into
+direct relations with Rome. In the same year Simeon tried to make an alliance
+with the Arabs, but the ambassadors of the latter were intercepted by the
+Greeks, who made it worth their while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort against Constantinople and as a
+preliminary he ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. When, however, he arrived before
+the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate, and he entered into
+negotiations, which, as 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 subjected most of the eastern part of Serbia to his rule. From all this
+it can be seen that he was no diplomat, though not lacking in enterprise and
+ambition. The fact was that while he made his kingdom too powerful for the
+Greeks to subdue (indeed they were compelled to pay him tribute), yet
+Constantinople with its impregnable walls, well-organized army, powerful fleet,
+and cunning and experienced statesmen, was too hard a nut for him to crack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simeon extended the boundaries of his country considerably, and his dominion
+included most of the interior of the Balkan peninsula south of the Danube and
+east of the rivers Morava and Ibar in Serbia and of the Drin in Albania. The
+Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence in Bulgaria during his reign,
+and works of theology grew like mushrooms. This was the only kind of literature
+that was ever popular in Bulgaria, and although it is usual to throw contempt
+on the literary achievements of Constantinople, we should know but little of
+Bulgaria were it not for the Greek historians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simeon died in 927, and his son Peter, who succeeded him, was a lover of peace
+and comfort; he married a Byzantine princess, and during his reign (927-69)
+Greek influence grew ever stronger, in spite of several revolts on the part of
+the Bulgar nobles, while the capital Preslav became a miniature Constantinople.
+In 927 Rome recognized the kingdom 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 <i>archōn</i> or prince (<i>knyaz</i> in
+Bulgarian), which was the utmost title allowed to any foreign sovereign. It was
+not until 945 that they recognized Peter as <i>basileus</i>, the unique title
+possessed by their own emperors and till then never granted to any one else.
+Peter&rsquo;s reign was one of misfortune for his country both at home and
+abroad. In 931 the Serbs broke loose under their leader Časlav, whom Simeon had
+captured but who effected his escape, and asserted their independence. In 963 a
+formidable revolt under one Shishman undermined the whole state fabric. He
+managed to subtract Macedonia and all western Bulgaria, including Sofia and
+Vidin, from Peter&rsquo;s rule, and proclaimed himself independent <i>tsar
+(tsar</i> or <i>caesar</i> was a title often accorded by Byzantium to relatives
+of the emperor or to distinguished men of Greek or other nationality, and
+though it was originally the equivalent of the highest title, it had long since
+ceased to be so: the emperor&rsquo;s designations were <i>basileus</i> and
+<i>autocratōr</i>). From this time there were two Bulgarias&mdash;eastern and
+western. The eastern half was now little more than a Byzantine province, and
+the western became the centre of national life and the focus of national
+aspirations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another factor which militated against the internal progress of Bulgaria was
+the spread of the Bogomil heresy in the tenth century. This remarkable
+doctrine, founded on 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 rest a man of uncertain identity, who made
+Philippopolis the centre of his activity. Its principal features were of a
+negative character, and consequently it was very difficult successfully to
+apply force against them. The Bogomils recognized the authority neither of
+Church nor of State; the validity neither of oaths nor of human laws. They
+refused to pay taxes, to fight, or to obey; they sanctioned theft, but looked
+upon any kind of punishment as unjustifiable; they discountenanced marriage and
+were strict vegetarians. Naturally a heresy so alarming in its individualism
+shook to its foundations the not very firmly established Bulgarian society.
+Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in spite of all persecutions, and its
+popularity amongst the Bulgarians, and indeed amongst all the Slavs of the
+peninsula, is without doubt partly explained by political reasons. The
+hierarchy of the Greek Church, which supported the ruling classes of the
+country and lent them authority at the same time that it increased its own, was
+antipathetic to the Slavs, and the Bogomil heresy drew much strength from its
+nationalistic colouring and from the appeal which it made to the character of
+the Balkan Slavs, who have always been intolerant of government by the Church.
+But neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical authorities were able to cope with
+the problem; indeed they were apt to minimize its importance, and the heresy
+was never eradicated till the arrival on the scene of Islam, which proved as
+attractive to the schismatics as the well-regulated Orthodox Church had been
+the reverse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a great recrudescence of the
+power of Constantinople under the Emperor Nikiphóros Phokas, who wrested Cyprus
+and Crete from the Arabs and inaugurated an era of prosperity for the eastern
+empire, giving it a new lease of vigorous and combative life. Wishing to
+reassert the Greek supremacy in the Balkan peninsula his first act was to
+refuse any further payment of tribute to the Bulgarians as 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 more assured he secured the co-operation of
+the Russians under Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev; this potentate&rsquo;s mother
+Olga had visited Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (though her son and
+the bulk of the population were still ardent heathens), and commercial
+intercourse between Russia and Constantinople by means of the Dnieper and the
+Black Sea was at that time lively. Svyatoslav did not want pressing, and
+arriving with an army of 10,000 men in boats, overcame northern Bulgaria in a
+few days (967); they were helped by Shishman and the western Bulgars, who did
+not mind at what price Peter and the eastern Bulgars were crushed. Svyatoslav
+was recalled to Russia in 968 to defend his home from attacks by the Tartar
+Pechenegs, but that done, he made up his mind to return to Bulgaria, lured by
+its riches and by the hope of the eventual possession of Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Emperor Nikiphóros was by now aware of the danger he had imprudently
+conjured up, and made a futile alliance with eastern Bulgaria; but in January
+969 Peter of Bulgaria died, and in December of the same year Nikiphóros was
+murdered by the ambitious Armenian John Tzimisces,[1] who thereupon became
+emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the field clear of his enemies, returned in 970,
+and in March of that year sacked and occupied Philippopolis. The Emperor John
+Tzimisces, who was even abler both as general and as diplomat than his
+predecessor, quietly pushed forward 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 he stormed, massacring many of the garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and
+his remaining troops escaped to Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the
+Danube, where again, however, they were besieged and defeated by the
+indefatigable emperor. At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians being
+allowed to go free on condition of the complete evacuation of Bulgaria and a
+gift of corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at the hands of the
+Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev. The triumph of the Greeks was
+complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much left of the
+earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two mighty iron
+vessels on the top of it. Eastern Bulgaria (i.e. Moesia and Thrace) ceased to
+exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John Tzimisces made his triumphal
+entry into Constantinople, followed by the two sons of Peter of Bulgaria on
+foot; the elder was deprived of his regal attributes and created
+<i>magistros</i>, the younger was made a eunuch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: John the Little.]
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>7<br/>
+<i>The Rise and Fall of &lsquo;Western Bulgaria&rsquo; and the Greek
+Supremacy</i>, 963–1186</h2>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither that the
+Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the victory of the
+Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in Macedonia, where the
+apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital. Western Bulgaria included
+Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania, southern and eastern Serbia, and the
+westernmost parts of modern Bulgaria. It was from this district that numerous
+anti-Hellenic revolts were directed after the death of the Emperor John
+Tzimisces in 976. These culminated during the reign of Samuel (977-1014), one
+of the sons of Shishman. He was as capable and energetic, as unscrupulous and
+inhuman, as the situation he was called upon to fill demanded. He began by
+assassinating all his relations and nobles who resented his desire to
+re-establish the absolute monarchy, was recognized as <i>tsar</i> by the Holy
+See of Rome in 981, and then began to fight the Greeks, the only possible
+occupation for any self-respecting Bulgarian ruler. The emperor at that time
+was Basil II (976-1025), who was brave and patriotic but young and
+inexperienced. In his early campaigns Samuel carried all before him; he
+reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985, Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II
+near Sofia the same year. Later he conquered Albania and the southern parts of
+Serbia and what is now Montenegro and Hercegovina. In 996 he threatened
+Salonika, but first of all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese;
+here he was followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and
+completely overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that year (996) his fortune changed; the Greeks reoccupied northern
+Bulgaria, in 999, and also recovered Thessaly and parts of Macedonia. The
+Bulgars were subjected to almost annual attacks on the part of Basil II; the
+country was ruined and could not long hold out. The final disaster occurred in
+1014, when Basil II utterly defeated his inveterate foe in a pass near Seres in
+Macedonia. Samuel escaped to Prilip, but when he beheld the return of 15,000 of
+his troops who had been captured and blinded by the Greeks he died of syncope.
+Basil II, known as Bulgaroctonus, or Bulgar-killer, went from victory to
+victory, and finally occupied the Bulgarian capital of Okhrida in 1016. Western
+Bulgaria came to an end, as had eastern Bulgaria in 972, the remaining members
+of the royal family followed the emperor to the Bosphorus to enjoy comfortable
+captivity, and the triumph of Constantinople was complete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From 1018 to 1186 Bulgaria had no existence as an independent state; Basil II,
+although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general treatment of the
+Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a protectorate than as a
+possession. But after his death Greek rule became much more oppressive. The
+Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972 established at Okhrida) was reduced to an
+archbishopric, and in 1025 the see was given to a Greek, who lost no time in
+eliminating the Bulgarian element from positions of importance throughout his
+diocese. Many of the nobles were transplanted to Constantinople, where their
+opposition was numbed by the bestowal of honours. During the eleventh century
+the peninsula was invaded frequently by the Tartar Pechenegs and Kumans, whose
+aid was invoked both by Greeks and Bulgars; the result of these incursions was
+not always favourable to those who had promoted them; the barbarians invariably
+stayed longer and did more damage than had been bargained for, and usually left
+some of their number behind as unwelcome settlers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this way the ethnological map of the Balkan peninsula became ever more
+variegated. To the Tartar settlers were added colonies of Armenians and Vlakhs
+by various emperors. The last touch was given by the arrival of the Normans in
+1081 and the passage of the crusaders in 1096. The wholesale depredations of
+the latter naturally made the inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula anything but
+sympathetically disposed towards their cause. One of the results of all this
+turmoil and of the heavy hand of the Greeks was a great increase in the
+vitality of the Bogomil heresy already referred to; it became a refuge for
+patriotism and an outlet for its expression. The Emperor Alexis Comnenus
+instituted a bitter persecution of it, which only led to its growth and rapid
+propagation westwards into Serbia from its centre Philippopolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian monarchy by the Greeks
+was of course that the nation itself was totally lacking in cohesion and
+organization, and could only achieve any lasting success when an exceptionally
+gifted ruler managed to discount the centrifugal tendencies of the feudal
+nobles, as Simeon and Samuel had done. Other discouraging factors wore the
+permeation of the Church and State by Byzantine influence, the lack of a large
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>8<br/>
+<i>The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire,</i> 1186–1258</h2>
+
+<p>
+From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the brevity of
+which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature of the events that
+crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the Greeks culminated in a revolt
+on the part of the Bulgars, which had its centre in Tirnovo on the river Yantra
+in northern Bulgaria&mdash;a position of great natural strength and strategic
+importance, 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&mdash;Kumans, Saracens, Turks, and Normans&mdash;was sickening for one
+of the severe illnesses which preceded its dissolution. The revolt was headed
+by two brothers who were Vlakh or Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the
+archbishop Basil, who crowned one of them, called John Asen, as <i>tsar</i> in
+Tirnovo in 1186. Their first efforts against the Greeks were not successful,
+but securing the support of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and of the
+Crusaders in 1189 they became more so; but there was life in the Greeks yet,
+and victory alternated with defeat. John Asen I was assassinated in 1196 and
+was succeeded after many internal discords and murders by his relative Kaloian
+or Pretty John. This cruel and unscrupulous though determined ruler soon made
+an end of all his enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such success
+abroad that Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions. Moreover, he
+re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture of the Greeks,
+and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized Kaloian as <i>tsar</i>
+of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de Bougrie, in the words of
+Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and they were both duly consecrated and
+crowned by the papal legate at Tirnovo in 1204. The French, who had just
+established themselves in Constantinople during the 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 1207 his career was cut short; he was murdered while besieging
+Salonika by one of his generals who was a friend of his wife. After eleven
+years of further anarchy he was succeeded by John Asen II. During the reign of
+this monarch, which lasted from 1218 till 1241, Bulgaria reached the zenith of
+its power. He was the most enlightened ruler the country had had, and he not
+only waged war successfully abroad but also put an end 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 capital at Tirnovo, which
+city he considerably embellished and enlarged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one French. The
+first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them, named Theodore, who
+had proclaimed himself <i>basileus</i> at Okhrida in 1223. Thereupon he annexed
+the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus to his dominions, and made
+Theodore&rsquo;s brother Manuel, who had married one of his daughters, viceroy,
+established at Salonika. Another of his daughters had married Stephen
+Vladislav, who was King of Serbia from 1233-43, and a third married Theodore,
+son of the Emperor John III, who reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter,
+after being sought in marriage by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife
+for the Emperor Baldwin II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour of
+the daughter of the King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the mind of John
+Asen II and threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with whom he concluded an
+alliance in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the Emperor John III, were,
+however, utterly defeated by the French under the walls of Constantinople in
+1236, and the Bulgarian ruler, who had no wish to see 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 the French in 1237,
+the Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him with
+excommunication; he went so far as 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 brother-in-law the King of
+Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin II, to whose help against the
+Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace in 1239. While besieging the
+Greeks with indifferent success, he learned of the death of his wife and his
+eldest son from plague, and incontinently returned to Tirnovo, giving up the
+war and restoring his daughter to her lonely husband. This adaptable monarch
+died a natural death in 1241, and the three rulers of his family who succeeded
+him, whose reigns filled the period 1241-58, managed to undo all the
+constructive work of their immediate predecessors. Province after province was
+lost and internal anarchy increased. This remarkable dynasty came to an
+inglorious end in 1258, when its last representative was murdered by his own
+nobles, and from this time onwards Bulgaria was only a shadow of its former
+self.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>9<br/>
+<i>The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse,</i> 1258–1393</h2>
+
+<p>
+From 1258 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have continued flickering until its
+final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period it never had any
+voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan peninsula. Owing to the fact
+that no ruler emerged capable of keeping the distracted country in order, there
+was a regular <i>chassé-croisé</i> of rival princelets, an unceasing tale of
+political 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
+the virtual disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the profit of the
+surrounding states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist supremacy. It is
+especially remarkable for the complete ascendancy which Serbia gained in the
+Balkan peninsula.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the Bulgarian throne
+from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of John Asen II. After the
+fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261, the Hungarians, already
+masters of Transylvania, combined with the Greeks against Constantine; the
+latter called the Tartars of southern Russia, at this time at 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 the Bulgarian welter. Then
+Constantine married, as his second wife, the daughter of the Greek emperor, and
+thus again gave Constantinople a voice in his country&rsquo;s affairs.
+Constantine was followed by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were
+cut short by the victories of King Uroš II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered
+all Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the
+Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south that
+the clouds were rolling up which not much later were to burst over the
+peninsula. In 1308 the Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in 1326
+established themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was 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 order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his death in 1322 chaos
+again supervened. One of his successors had married the daughter of Uroš II of
+Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with the Greeks against his
+brother-in-law Stephen Uroš III and dispatched his wife to her home. During the
+war which ensued the unwonted allies were utterly routed by the Serbs at
+Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of Tartar
+origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia&rsquo;s greatest ruler, Stephen
+Dušan; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his suzerain, and from
+thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia. Meanwhile the Turkish
+storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the Hellespont in 1356, and Murad I
+made Adrianople his capital in 1366. After the death of John Alexander in 1365
+the Hungarians invaded northern Bulgaria, and his successor invoked the help of
+the Turks against them and also against the Greeks. This was the beginning of
+the end. The Serbs, during an absence of the Sultan in Asia, undertook an
+offensive, but were defeated by the Turks near Adrianople in 1371, who captured
+Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs formed a huge southern Slav alliance, in
+which the Bulgarians refused to join, but, after a temporary success against
+the Turks in 1387, they were vanquished by them as the result of treachery at
+the famous battle of Kosovo in 1389. Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on
+the Danube in 1388 and destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling
+the Patriarch Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into the
+hands of the Turks, 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 the subjection of Rumania in 1394 and the defeat of an
+improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western Europe under Sigismund, King of
+Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the Turkish conquest was complete, though the
+battle of Varna was not fought till 1444, nor Constantinople entered till 1453.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>10<br/>
+<i>The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation,</i> 1393–1878</h2>
+
+<p>
+From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no history,
+but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy. National life was
+completely paralysed, and what stood in those days for national consciousness
+was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and most people are now reasonable
+enough to admit, that the Turks have many excellent qualities, religious
+fervour and military ardour amongst others; it is also undeniable that from an
+aesthetic point of view too much cannot be said in praise of Mohammedan
+civilization. Who does not prefer the minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the
+architecture of Budapest, notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern
+Europe? On the other hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought
+prosperity or happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed they
+submerged their identity in the religion of their conquerors), or that its
+Influence was either vivifying or generally popular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The Turkish names for Constantinople and Adrianople.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the races they conquered the Turks offered two alternatives&mdash;serfdom or
+Turkdom; those who could not bring themselves to accept either of these had
+either to emigrate or take to brigandage and outlawry in the mountains. The
+Turks literally overlaid the European nationalities of the Balkan peninsula for
+five hundred years, and from their own point of view and from that of military
+history this was undoubtedly a very splendid achievement; it was more than the
+Greeks or Romans had ever done. From the point of view of humanitarianism also
+it is beyond a doubt that much less human blood was spilt in the Balkan
+peninsula during the five hundred years of Turkish rule than during the five
+hundred years of Christian rule which preceded them; indeed it would have been
+difficult to spill more. It is also a pure illusion to think of the Turks as
+exceptionally brutal or cruel; they are just as good-natured and good-humoured
+as anybody else; it is only when their military or religious passions are
+aroused that they become more reckless and ferocious than other people. It was
+not the Turks who taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan peninsula; the
+latter had nothing to learn in this respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of all this, however, from the point of view of the Slavs of Bulgaria
+and Serbia, Turkish rule was synonymous with suffocation. If the Turks were all
+that their greatest admirers think them the history of the Balkan peninsula in
+the nineteenth century would have been very different from what it has been,
+namely, one perpetual series of anti-Turkish revolts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the most completely crushed and
+effaced. The Greeks by their ubiquity, their brains, and their money were soon
+able to make the Turkish storm drive their own windmill; the Rumanians were
+somewhat sheltered by the Danube and also by their distance 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 afforded them
+some protection. Bulgaria was simply annihilated, and its population, already
+far from homogeneous, was still further varied by numerous Turkish and other
+Tartar colonies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the last Balkan state to
+emancipate itself; for these reasons also it is the least trammelled by
+prejudices and by what are considered national predilections and racial
+affinities, while its heterogeneous composition makes it vigorous and
+enterprising. The treatment of the Christians by the Turks was by no means
+always the same; generally speaking, it grew worse as the power of the Sultan
+grew less. During the fifteenth century they were allowed to practise their
+religion and all their vocations in comparative liberty and peace. But from the
+sixteenth century onwards the control of the Sultan declined, power became
+decentralized, the Ottoman Empire grew ever more anarchic and the rule of the
+provincial governors more despotic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the only enemies and oppressors of the
+Bulgars. The rôle played by the Greeks in Bulgaria during the Turkish dominion
+was almost 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 1767 the Bulgarians were
+under the Greco-Bulgarian Patriarchate of Okhrida, an organization in which all
+posts, from the highest to the lowest, had to be bought from the Turkish
+administration at exorbitant and ever-rising prices; the Phanariote Greeks (so
+called because they originated in the Phanar quarter at Constantinople) were
+the only ones who could afford those of the higher posts, with the result that
+the Church was controlled from Constantinople. In 1767 the independent
+patriarchates were abolished, and from that date the religious control of the
+Greeks was as complete as the political control of the Turks. The Greeks did
+all they could to obliterate the last traces of Bulgarian nationality which 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, that the individual hatred of Greeks and Bulgars of each other has
+always been far more intense than their collective hatred of the Turks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 not until the eighteenth century,
+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 first asserted in Rumania after the
+Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, in 1774. It was only the Napoleonic war in 1812
+that prevented the Russians from extending their territory south of the Danube,
+whither it already stretched. Serbia was partially free by 1826, and Greece
+achieved complete independence in 1830, when the Russian troops, in order to
+coerce the Turks, occupied part of Bulgaria and advanced as far as 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 by wholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia
+and importations of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts. The Crimean
+War and the short-sighted championship of Turkey by the western European powers
+checked considerably the development at which Russia aimed. Moldavia and
+Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the semi-protectorate 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 Hohenzollern, came to rule over
+the country, the first sign of German influence in the Near East; at this time
+Rumania still acknowledged the supremacy of the Sultan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the first half of the nineteenth century there took place a considerable
+intellectual renascence in Bulgaria, a movement fostered by wealthy Bulgarian
+merchants of Bucarest and Odessa. In 1829 a history of Bulgaria was published
+by a native of that country in Moscow; in 1835 the first school was established
+in Bulgaria, and many others soon followed. It must be remembered that not only
+was nothing known at that time about Bulgaria and its inhabitants in other
+countries, but the Bulgars had themselves to be taught who they were. The
+Bulgarian people in Bulgaria consisted entirely of peasants; there was no
+Bulgarian upper or middle or &lsquo;intelligent&rsquo; or professional class;
+those enlightened Bulgars who existed were domiciled in other countries; the
+Church was in the hands of the Greeks, who vied with the Turks in suppressing
+Bulgarian nationality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the enlightenment and
+emancipation of Bulgaria were dissimilar in composition and in aim; the members
+of the former were more intent on educational and religious reform, and aimed
+at the gradual and peaceful regeneration of their country by these means; the
+latter wished to effect the immediate political emancipation of Bulgaria by
+violent and, if necessary, warlike means.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first. In 1856 the Porte
+had promised religious reforms tending to the appointment of Bulgarian bishops
+and the recognition of the Bulgarian language in Church and school. But these
+not 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 year an attempt was made to bring the Church of Bulgaria under that of
+Rome, but, owing to Russian opposition, proved abortive. In 1870, the growing
+agitation having at last alarmed 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile revolutionary outbreaks began to increase, but were always put down
+with great rigour. The most notable was that of 1875, instigated by Stambulóv,
+the future dictator, in sympathy with the outbreak in Montenegro, Hercegovina,
+and Bosnia of that year; the result of this and of similar movements in 1876
+was the series of notorious Bulgarian massacres in that year. The indignation
+of Europe was aroused and concerted representations were urgently made at
+Constantinople. Midhat Pasha disarmed his opponents by summarily introducing
+the British constitution into Turkey, but, needless to say, Bulgaria&rsquo;s
+lot was not improved by this specious device. Russia had, however, steadily
+been making her preparations, and, Turkey having refused to discontinue
+hostilities against Montenegro, on April 24, 1877, war was declared by the
+Emperor Alexander II, whose patience had become exhausted; he was joined by
+Prince Charles of Rumania, who saw that by doing so he would be rewarded by the
+complete emancipation of his country, then still a vassal-state of Turkey, and
+its erection into a kingdom. At the beginning of the war all went well for the
+Russians and Rumanians, who were soon joined by large numbers of Bulgarian
+insurgents; the Turkish forces were scattered all over the peninsula. The
+committee of Bucarest transformed itself into a provisional government, but the
+Russians, who had undertaken to liberate the country, naturally had to keep its
+administration 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 resistance rapidly weakened.
+The Russians, helped by the Bulgarians and Rumanians, fought throughout the
+summer with the greatest gallantry; they took Plevna, after a three
+months&rsquo; siege, in December, occupied Sofia and Philippopolis in January
+1878, and pushed forward to the walls of Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Turks were at their last gasp, and at Adrianople, in March 1878, Ignatiyev
+dictated the terms of the Treaty of San 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This treaty, which on ethnological grounds was tolerably just, 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 autonomous province, tributary to Turkey; southern
+Bulgaria, fancifully termed Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the name always given
+by the Turks to the whole Balkan peninsula), was to have autonomous
+administration under a Christian governor appointed by the Porte; Macedonia was
+left to Turkey; and the Dobrudja, between the Danube and the Black Sea, was
+adjudged to Rumania.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>11<br/>
+<i>The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878–86</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians were better before the
+liberation of the latter by the former than after; this may seem unjust,
+because Bulgaria could never have freed herself so decisively and rapidly
+alone, and Russia was the only power in whose interest it was to free her from
+the Turks, and who could translate that interest 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in those
+between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected Bulgaria to be
+grateful for the really large amount of blood and treasure which its liberation
+had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected its gratitude to take the form of
+docility and a general acquiescence in all the suggestions and wishes expressed
+by its liberator. Bulgaria was no doubt deeply grateful, but never had the
+slightest intention of expressing its gratitude in the desired way; on the
+contrary, like most people who have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed
+freedom of action or been put under an obligation, it appeared touchy and
+jealous of its right to an independent judgement. It is often assumed by
+Russophobe writers that Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province
+of Bulgaria, but this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of the
+Balkan peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the Russian
+Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and vigorous national
+block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an independent state, was an
+insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is quite possible for Russia to
+obtain possession or control of Constantinople without owning all the
+intervening littoral.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of
+Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was just as
+natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The eventual result of
+this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered the sphere of Austrian and
+ultimately of German influence or rather calculation, a contingency probably
+not foreseen by its statesmen at the time, and whose full meaning, even if it
+had, would not have been grasped by them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 its monuments of theological literature.
+Nevertheless, they have never been enthusiastic Pan-Slavists, any more than the
+Dutch have ever been ardent Pan-Germans; it is as unreasonable to expect such a
+thing of the one people as it is of the other. The Bulgarians indeed think
+themselves superior to the Slavs by reason of the warlike and glorious
+traditions of the Tartar tribe that gave them their name and infused the
+Asiatic element into their race, thus endowing them with greater stability,
+energy, and consistency than is possessed by purely Slav peoples. These latter,
+on the other hand, and notably the Serbians, for the same reason affect
+contempt for the mixture of blood and for what they consider the Mongol
+characteristics of the Bulgarians. What is certain is that between Bulgarians
+and Germans (including German Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed
+that elemental, ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between
+German (and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from the
+Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in which the
+Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in Austria-Hungary
+and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment of the purely Slav Serb
+race with whom it is always compared. The reason is that with the growth of the
+Serb national movement, from 1903 onwards, Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an
+instinctive and perfectly well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to
+neutralize the possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which had
+been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been steadily on
+the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced Bulgaria to half the size
+that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the Treaty of San Stefano, 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 conditions, both
+the Danube and the main oriental railway linking Bulgaria directly with
+Budapest and Vienna, partly to the fact that Bulgaria&rsquo;s best customers
+for its cereals are in central and western Europe, the connexion between
+Bulgaria and Russia is infinitesimal. Politically, both 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions. Both
+Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of Berlin. Russian
+influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy controlled the
+organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic constitution was
+arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the successful government of
+their country by the quite inexperienced 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 religion and in politics. The choice
+fell on Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew of the Empress of Russia, who
+had taken part in the campaign of the Russian army. Prince Alexander was
+conscientious, energetic, and enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat, and from
+the outset his honesty precluded his success. From the very first he failed to
+keep on good terms with Russia or its representatives, who at that time were
+still numerous in Bulgaria, while he was helpless to stem the ravages of
+parliamentary government. The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father
+Alexander II in 1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which
+he successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of
+Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September 1883);
+this procedure discomfited 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 of the country had been going on for some time, and on September 18,
+1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis suddenly proclaimed the union under
+Prince Alexander, who solemnly announced his approval at Tirnovo and
+triumphantly entered their city on September 21. Russia frowned on 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 compensation for Bulgaria&rsquo;s aggrandisement; it must be
+remembered that it was Bismarck who, by the Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily
+confined Serbia to its inadequate limits of those day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia, which is
+not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. 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 the Bulgarians were completely victorious. Prince Alexander,
+after hard fighting, took Pirot in Serbia on November 27, having refused King
+Milan&rsquo;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. Prince Alexander&rsquo;s position did
+not improve after this, indeed it would have needed a much more skilful
+navigator to steer through the many currents which eddied round him. A strong
+Russophile party formed itself in the army; on the night of August 21, 1886,
+some officers of this party, who were the most capable in the Bulgarian army,
+appeared at Sofia, forced Alexander to resign, and abducted him; they put him
+on board his yacht on the Danube and escorted him 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 26
+he found himself at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this <i>coup
+d&rsquo;état</i> found that it was not at all popular in the country. A
+counter-revolution, headed by the statesman Stambulóv, was immediately
+initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst
+tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor
+Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left
+Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in
+Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was
+constituted, at the head of which was Stambulóv.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>12<br/>
+<i>The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,</i> 1886–1908</h2>
+
+<p>
+Stambulóv was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was of humble origin. He took part in
+the insurrection of 1876 and in the war of liberation, and in 1884 became
+president of the Sóbraniye (Parliament). From 1886 till 1894 he was virtually
+dictator of Bulgaria. He was intensely patriotic and also personally ambitious,
+determined, energetic, ruthlessly cruel and unscrupulous, but incapable of
+deceit; these qualities were apparent in his powerful and grim expression of
+face, while his manner inspired the weak with terror and the strongest with
+respect. His policy in general was directed against Russia. At the general
+election held in October 1886 he had all his important opponents imprisoned
+beforehand, while armed sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters from
+approaching the ballot-boxes. Out of 522 elected deputies, there were 470
+supporters of Stambulóv. This implied the complete suppression of the
+Russophile party and led to a rupture with St. Petersburg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whatever were Stambulóv&rsquo;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. But once having started on this path he found it
+difficult to stop, 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 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 Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. This young
+man combined great ambition and tenacity of purpose with extreme prudence,
+astuteness, and patience; he was a consummate diplomat. The election of this
+prince was viewed with great disfavour by Russia, and for fear of offending the
+Emperor Alexander III none of the European powers recognized him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferdinand, unabashed, cheerfully installed himself in Sofia with his mother in
+July 1886, and took care to make the peace with his suzerain, the Sultan Abdul
+Hamid. He wisely left all power in the hands of the unattractive and to him,
+unsympathetic prime minister, Stambulóv, till he himself felt secure in his
+position, and till the dictator should have made himself thoroughly hated.
+Ferdinand&rsquo;s clever and wealthy mother cast a beneficent and civilizing
+glow around him, smoothing away many difficulties by her womanly tact and
+philanthropic activity, and, thanks to his 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 Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma.
+In May 1894, as a result of a social misadventure in which he became involved,
+Stambulóv sent in his resignation, confidently expecting a refusal. To his
+mortification it was accepted; thereupon he initiated a violent press campaign,
+but his halo had faded, and on July 15 he was savagely attacked in the street
+by unknown men, who afterwards escaped, and he died three days later. So
+intense were the emotions of the people that his grave had to be guarded by the
+military for two months. In November 1894 followed the death of the Emperor
+Alexander III, and as a result of this double event the road to a
+reconciliation with Russia was opened. Meanwhile the German Emperor, 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 Russia were still further improved by the rebaptism of the
+infant Crown Prince Boris according to the rites of the eastern Church, in
+February 1896, and a couple of years later Ferdinand and his wife and child
+paid a highly successful state visit to Peterhof. In September 1902 a memorial
+church was erected by the Emperor Nicholas II at the Shipka Pass, and later an
+equestrian statue of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II was placed opposite the
+House of Parliament in Sofia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishing material progress.
+Railways were built, exports increased, and the general condition of the
+country greatly improved. It is the fashion to compare the wonderful advance
+made by Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of its new existence with the
+very much slower progress made by Serbia during a much longer period. This is
+insisted on especially by publicists in Austria-Hungary and Germany, but it is
+forgotten that even before the last Balkan war the geographical position of
+Bulgaria with its seaboard was much more favourable to its economic development
+than that of Serbia, which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by Turkish and
+Austro-Hungarian territory; moreover, Bulgaria being double the size of the
+Serbia of those days, had far greater resources upon which to draw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From 1894 onwards Ferdinand&rsquo;s power in his own country and his influence
+abroad had been steadily growing. He always appreciated the value of railways,
+and became almost as great a traveller as the German Emperor. His estates in
+the south of Hungary constantly required his attention, and he was a frequent
+visitor in Vienna. The German Emperor, though he could not help admiring
+Ferdinand&rsquo;s success, was always a little afraid of him; he felt that
+Ferdinand&rsquo;s gifts were so similar to his own that he would be unable to
+count on him in an emergency. Moreover, it was difficult to reconcile
+Ferdinand&rsquo;s ambitions in extreme south-eastern Europe with his own.
+Ferdinand&rsquo;s relations with Vienna, on the other hand, and especially with
+the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand, were both cordial and intimate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably in
+Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of 1902-3
+anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of terror, and, also the
+unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia since the accession of the
+Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused uneasiness in Sofia, no less than in
+Vienna and Budapest. The Young Turkish revolution of July 1908, and the triumph
+of the Committee of Union and Progress, disarmed the critics of Turkey who
+wished to make the forcible introduction of reforms a pretext for their
+interference; but the potential rejuvenation of the Ottoman Empire which it
+foreshadowed indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action. In
+September, after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in eastern Roumelia
+(which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia Cabinet seized the line with a
+military force on the plea of political necessity. At the same time Ferdinand,
+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 at Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at Tirnovo, the ancient capital,
+Ferdinand proclaimed the complete independence of Bulgaria and eastern Rumelia
+under himself as King (<i>Tsar</i> in Bulgarian), and on October 7
+Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the two
+Turkish provinces administered by it since 1879, nominally under Turkish
+suzerainty.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>13<br/>
+<i>The Kingdom</i>, 1908–13</h2>
+
+<p>
+(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the
+Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The Macedonian
+question was extremely complicated; it started on the assumption that the
+disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding throughout the nineteenth
+century, would eventually be completed, and the question was how in this
+eventuality to satisfy the territorial claims of the three neighbouring
+countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, claims both historical and
+ethnological, based on the numbers and distribution of their
+&lsquo;unredeemed&rsquo; compatriots in Macedonia, and at the same time avoid
+causing the armed interference of Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The beginnings of the Macedonian question in its modern form do not go farther
+back than 1885, when the ease with which eastern Rumelia (i.e. southern
+Bulgaria) threw off the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously united with the
+semi-independent principality of northern Bulgaria affected the imagination of
+the Balkan statesmen. From that time Sofia began to cast longing eyes on
+Macedonia, the whole of which was claimed as &lsquo;unredeemed Bulgaria&rsquo;,
+and Stambulóv&rsquo;s last 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 blow for the Greek Patriarchate at
+Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin, article 23 of which
+stipulated for reforms in that province; but in those days the Balkan States
+were too young and weak to worry themselves or the European powers over the
+troubles of their co-religionists in Turkey; their hands were more than full
+setting their own houses in some sort of order, and it was in nobody&rsquo;s
+interest to reform Macedonia, so article 23 remained the expression of a
+philanthropic sentiment. This indifference on the part of Europe left the 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From 1894 onwards Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia increased, 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
+which it engendered was the following: The population of Macedonia was nowhere,
+except in the immediate vicinity of the borders of these three countries,
+either purely Bulgar or purely Greek or purely Serb; most of the towns
+contained a percentage of at least two of these nationalities, not to mention
+the Turks (who after all were still the owners of the country by right of
+conquest), Albanians, Tartars, Rumanians (Vlakhs), and others; the city of
+Salonika was and is almost purely Jewish, while in the country districts
+Turkish, Albanian, Greek, Bulgar, and Serb villages were inextricably confused.
+Generally speaking, the coastal strip was mainly Greek (the coast itself purely
+so), the interior mainly Slav. The problem was for each country to peg out as
+large a claim as possible, and so effectively, by any means in their power, to
+make the majority of the population contained in that claim acknowledge itself
+to be Bulgar, or Serb, or Greek, that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire was
+over, each part of Macedonia would automatically fall into the arms of its
+respective deliverers. The game was played through the appropriate media of
+churches and schools, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had first of all
+to be enlightened as to who they were, or rather as to who they were told they
+had got to consider themselves, while the Church, as always, conveniently
+covered a multitude of political aims; when those methods flagged, a bomb would
+be thrown at, let us say, a Turkish official by an <i>agent provocateur</i> of
+one of the three players, inevitably resulting in the necessary massacre of
+innocent Christians by the ostensibly brutal but really equally innocent Turks,
+and an outcry in the European press.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bulgaria was first in the field and had a considerable start of the other two
+rivals. The Bulgars claimed the whole of Macedonia, including Salonika and all
+the Aegean coast (except Chalcidice), Okhrida, and Monastir; Greece claimed all
+southern Macedonia, and Serbia parts of northern and central Macedonia known as
+Old Serbia. The crux of the whole 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 irreconcilable conflict with those of its rivals. The
+importance of this point was greatly emphasized by the existence of the
+Nish-Salonika railway, which is Serbia&rsquo;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, just as in the north it was already, to its bitter
+cost, at the mercy of Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless, Bulgarian propaganda had
+been so effectual that Serbia and Greece never expected they would eventually
+be able to join hands so easily and successfully as they afterwards did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a factor. This people, though
+small in numbers, was formidable in character, and had never been effectually
+subdued by the Turks. They would have been glad to have a boundary contiguous
+with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had no quarrel) as a support against
+their hereditary enemies, Serbs in 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. It is the Slav population of Macedonia that has engendered so much
+heat and caused so much blood to be spilt. The dispute as to whether it is
+rather Serb or Bulgar has caused interminable and most bitter controversy. The
+truth is that it <i>was</i> neither the one nor the other, but that, the
+ethnological and linguistic missionaries of Bulgaria having been first in the
+field, a majority of the Macedonian Slavs had been so long and so persistently
+told that they were Bulgars, that after a few years Bulgaria could, with some
+truth, claim that this fact was so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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, which originally belonged to
+the same southern Slav stock, but remained a primitive neutral Slav type. If
+the Serbs had been first in the field instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian
+Slavs could just as easily have been made into Serbs, sufficiently plausibly to
+convince the most knowing expert. The well-known recipe for making a Macedonian
+Slav village Bulgar is to add <i>-ov</i> or <i>-ev</i> (pronounced <i>-off,
+-yeff</i>) on to the names of all the male inhabitants, and to make it Serb it
+is only necessary to add further the syllable <i>-ich, -ov</i> and
+<i>-ovich</i> being respectively the equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian of our
+termination <i>-son,</i> e. g. <i>Ivanov</i> in Bulgarian, and <i>Jovanovit</i>
+in Serbian = <i>Johnson</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists, suddenly
+horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh shepherds, who had
+probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia with their herds since Roman
+times. As their vague pastures could not possibly ever be annexed to Rumania,
+their case was merely used in order to justify Rumania in claiming eventual
+territorial compensation 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stages of the Macedonian question up to 1908 must at this point be quite
+briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two &lsquo;most interested
+powers&rsquo;, who as far back as the eighteenth century had divided the
+Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and west, came to an
+agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of affairs in Turkey; but it
+never reached a conclusive stage and consequently was never applied. The
+Macedonian 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 December 1902,
+but was not successful in restoring order. In October 1903 the Emperor Nicholas
+II and the Emperor of Austria, with their foreign ministers, met at Mürzsteg,
+in Styria, and elaborated a more definite plan of reform known as the Mürzsteg
+programme, the drastic terms of which had 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. Owing to the procrastination of the Porte and to the
+extreme complexity of the financial measures which had to be elaborated in
+connexion with this scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations was not
+completed, nor the whole series ratified, until April 1907, though the
+gendarmerie officers had arrived in Macedonia in February 1904.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point again it is necessary to recall the position in regard to this
+question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and France had no
+territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost to secure reform not
+only in the <i>vilayets</i> of Macedonia, but also in the realm of Ottoman
+finance. Italy&rsquo;s interest centred in Albania, whose eventual fate, for
+geographical and strategic reasons, could not leave it indifferent.
+Austria-Hungary&rsquo;s only care was by any means to prevent the
+aggrandizement of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and Montenegro, so as to
+secure the control, if not the possession, of the routes to Salonika, if
+necessary over the prostrate bodies of those two countries which defiantly
+barred Germanic progress towards the East. Russia was already fatally absorbed
+in the Far Eastern adventure, and, moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878,
+been losing influence at Constantinople, where before its word had been law;
+the Treaty of Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia had ever
+since that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors 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 choice of its
+representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in Turkey was not
+grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the credit of the
+German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the triumphal journey 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 Bieberstein, who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It
+was German policy to flatter, support, and encourage Turkey in every possible
+way, to refrain from taking part with the other powers in the invidious and
+perennial occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to
+give as much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked
+for. Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a district
+assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in the naval
+demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany naturally
+encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey soon
+came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and disinterested friend
+in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia,
+after the other powers had really braced themselves to the thankless task of
+putting the reforms into practice, Germany alone was responsible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blow which King Ferdinand had inflicted on the prestige of the Young Turks
+in October 1908, by proclaiming his independence, naturally lent lustre to the
+Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. Serbia, baffled by the simultaneous Austrian
+annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and maddened by the elevation of Bulgaria
+to the rank of a kingdom (its material progress had hitherto been discounted in
+Serbian eyes by the fact that it was a mere vassal principality), seemed about
+to be crushed by the two iron pots jostling it on either side. Its
+international position was at that time such that it could expect no help or
+encouragement from western Europe, while the events of 1909 (cf. p. 144) showed
+that Russia was not then in a position to render active assistance. Greece,
+also screaming aloud for compensation, was told by its friends amongst the
+great powers that if it made a noise it would get nothing, but that if it
+behaved like a good child it might some day be given Krete. Meanwhile Russia,
+rudely awakened by the events of 1908 to the real state of affairs in the Near
+East, beginning to realize the growth of German influence at Constantinople,
+and seeing the unmistakable resuscitation of Austria-Hungary as a great power,
+made manifest by the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, temporarily
+reasserted its influence in Bulgaria. From the moment when Baron Aehrenthal
+announced his chimerical scheme of an Austrian railway through the
+<i>Sandjak</i> of Novi Pazar in January 1908&mdash; everybody knows that the
+railway already built through Serbia along the Morava valley is the only
+commercially remunerative and strategically practicable road from Berlin,
+Vienna, and Budapest to Salonika and Constantinople&mdash;Russia realized that
+the days of the Mürzsteg programme were over, that henceforward it was to be a
+struggle between Slav and Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople and the
+dominion of the Near East, and that something must be 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 put an 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
+Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized tribute, owed to its ex-suzerain the
+Sultan, by very easy instalments to Russia instead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The immediate effects of the Young Turk revolution amongst the Balkan States,
+and the events, watched benevolently by Russia, which led to the formation of
+the Balkan League, when it was joyfully realized that neither the setting-up of
+parliamentary government, nor even the overthrow of Abdul Hamid, implied the
+commencement of the millennium in Macedonia and Thrace, have been described
+elsewhere (pp. 141, 148). King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos are generally
+credited with the inception and realisation of the League, though it was so
+secretly and skilfully concerted that it is not yet possible correctly to
+apportion praise for the remarkable achievement. Bulgaria is a very democratic
+country, but King Ferdinand, owing to his sagacity, patience, and experience,
+and also thanks to his influential dynastic connexions and propensity for
+travel, has always been virtually his own foreign minister; in spite of the
+fact that he is a large feudal Hungarian landlord, and has temperamental
+leanings towards the Central European Empires, it is quite credible that King
+Ferdinand devoted all his undeniable talents and great energy to the formation
+of the League when he saw that the moment had come for Bulgaria to realize its
+destiny at Turkey&rsquo;s expense, and that, if the other three Balkan States
+could be induced to come to the same wise decision, it would be so much the
+better for all of them. That Russia could do anything else than whole-heartedly
+welcome the formation of the Balkan League was absolutely impossible.
+Pan-Slavism had long since ceased to be the force it was, and nobody in Russia
+dreamed of or desired the incorporation of any Balkan territory in the Russian
+Empire. It is possible to control Constantinople without possessing the
+Balkans, and Russia could only rejoice if a Greco-Slavonic league should
+destroy the power of the Turks and thereby make impossible the further advance
+of the Germanic powers eastward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That Russia was ever in the least jealous of the military successes 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
+happened to be in Russia during the winter of 1912-13.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The years 1908 to 1912 were outwardly uneventful in Bulgaria, though a great
+deal of quiet work was done in increasing the efficiency of the army, and the
+material prosperity of the country showed no falling off. Relations with the
+other Balkan States, especially with Serbia and Montenegro, improved
+considerably, and there was ample room for such improvement. This was outwardly
+marked by frequent visits paid to each other by members of the several royal
+families of the three Slavonic kingdoms of the Balkans. In May 1912 agreements
+for the eventual delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in
+the event of war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bulgaria and
+Greece. The most controversial district was, of course, Macedonia. Bulgaria
+claimed central Macedonia, with Monastir and Okhrida, which was the
+lion&rsquo;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 territories separated by the large
+Bulgarian wedge which was to be driven between them. The exact future line of
+demarcation between Serbian and Bulgarian territory was to be left to
+arbitration. The possible creation of an independent Albania was not
+contemplated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In August 1912 the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Ferdinand&rsquo;s arrival
+in Bulgaria was celebrated with much rejoicing at the ancient capital of
+Tirnovo, and was marred only by the news of the terrible massacre of Bulgars by
+Turks at Kochana in Macedonia; this event, however, opportune though mournful,
+tended considerably to increase the volume of the wave of patriotism which
+swept through the country. Later in the same month Count Berchtold startled
+Europe with his &lsquo;progressive decentralization&rsquo; scheme of reform for
+Macedonia. The manner in which this event led to the final arrangements for the
+declaration of war on Turkey by the four Balkan States is given in full
+elsewhere (cf. p. 151).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray, and the autumn manoeuvres
+had permitted the concentration unobserved of a considerable portion of it,
+ready to strike when the time came. Mobilisation was ordered on September 30,
+1912. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on Turkey. On October 13 Bulgaria,
+with the other Balkan States, replied to the remonstrances of Russia and
+Austria by declaring that its patience was at length exhausted, and that the
+sword alone was able to enforce proper treatment of the Christian populations
+in European Turkey. On October 17 Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and
+unexpected conclusion of peace with Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on
+Bulgaria and Serbia, and on October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a sentimental
+exhortation to his people to liberate their fellow-countrymen, who were still
+groaning under the Crescent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was about
+180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to oppose the
+Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was considered by the Turks to
+be the most important theatre of war, yet the proximity of the Bulgarian
+frontier to Constantinople made it necessary to retain a large number of troops
+in Thrace. On October 19 the Bulgarians took the frontier town of Mustafa
+Pasha. On October 24 they defeated the Turks at Kirk-Kilissé (or Lozengrad),
+further east. From October 28 to November 2 raged the terrific battle of
+Lule-Burgas, which resulted in a complete and brilliant victory of the
+Bulgarians over the Turks. The defeat and humiliation of the Turks was as rapid
+and thorough in Thrace as it had been in Macedonia, and by the middle of
+November the remains of the Turkish army were entrenched behind the impregnable
+lines of Chataldja, 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 brilliant and lightning campaign, refrained from storming the lines of
+Chataldja, an operation which could not fail to involve losses such as the
+Bulgarian nation was scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the
+armistice was signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months led,
+however, to 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 assistance Serbia, being able to spare troops from
+Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy siege artillery, an arm
+which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913, the fortress surrendered to the
+allied armies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that year,
+fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous Enos-Midia line,
+running between these two places situated on the shores respectively of the
+Aegean and the Black Sea. This delimitation would have given Bulgaria
+possession of Adrianople. But meanwhile Greece 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 the creation of
+the independent state of Albania, determined to retain possession of all that
+part of Macedonia, including the whole valley of the Vardar with its important
+railway, which they had conquered, and thus secure their common frontier. In
+May 1913 a military convention was concluded between them, and the Balkan
+League, the relations between the members of which had been becoming more
+strained ever since January, finally dissolved. Bulgaria, outraged by this
+callous disregard of the agreements as to the partition of Macedonia signed a
+year previously by itself and its ex-allies, did not wait for the result of the
+arbitration which was actually proceeding in Russia, but in an access of
+indignation rushed to arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the night of June 30, 1913, by
+a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in its undoing. In
+order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern and northern frontiers
+were denuded of troops. But the totally unforeseen happened. The Serbs were
+victorious, defeating the Bulgars in 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 end of July the campaign was over and Bulgaria had to
+submit to fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest, which was concluded on August 10, 1913,
+Bulgaria obtained a considerable part of Thrace and eastern Macedonia,
+including a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of Dedeagach, but it
+was forced to &lsquo;compensate&rsquo; Rumania with a slice of its richest
+province (the districts of Dobrich and Silistria in north-eastern Bulgaria),
+and it lost central Macedonia, a great part of which it would certainly have
+been awarded by Russia&rsquo;s arbitration. On September 22, 1913, the Treaty
+of Constantinople was signed by Bulgaria and Turkey; by its terms Turkey
+retained possession of Adrianople and of a far larger part of Thrace than its
+series of ignominious defeats in the autumn of 1912 entitled it to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the fatal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia which caused the disruption of
+the Balkan League, led to the tragic second Balkan war of July 1913, and
+naturally left behind the bitterest feelings, it is difficult to apportion the
+blame. Both Serbia and Bulgaria were undoubtedly at fault in the choice of the
+methods by which they sought to adjust their difference, but the real guilt is
+to be found neither in Sofia nor in Belgrade, but in Vicuna and Budapest. The
+Balkan League barred the way of the Germanic Powers to the East; its disruption
+weakened Bulgaria and again placed Serbia at the mercy of the Dual Monarchy.
+After these trying and unremunerative experiences it is not astonishing that
+the Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler should have retired to the remote
+interior of their shell.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+<i>Explanation of Serbian orthography</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+c = ts<br/>
+č = ch (as in <i>church</i>)<br/>
+ć = ” ” ” but softer<br/>
+š = sh<br/>
+ž = zh (as z in <i>azure</i>)<br/>
+gj = g (as in <i>George</i>)<br/>
+j = y
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA]
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part03"></a>SERBIA</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>14<br/>
+<i>The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy</i>, 650–1168</h2>
+
+<p>
+The manner of the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula, of that of the
+Bulgars, and of the formation of the Bulgarian nationality has already been
+described (cf. p. 26). The installation of the Slavs in the lands between the
+Danube, the Aegean, and the Adriatic was completed by about A.D. 650. In the
+second half of the seventh century the Bulgars settled themselves in the
+eastern half of the peninsula and became absorbed by the Slavs there, and from
+that time the nationality of the Slavs in the western half began 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 (or
+Croatians), and Slovenes. The Serbs, much the most numerous of the three,
+occupied roughly the modern kingdom of Serbia (including Old Serbia and
+northern Macedonia), Montenegro, and most of Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia;
+the Croats occupied the more western parts of these last three territories and
+Croatia; the Slovenes occupied the modern Carniola and southern Carinthia.
+Needless to say, none of these geographical designations existed in those days
+except Dalmatia, on the coast of which the Latin influence and nomenclature
+maintained itself. The Slovenes, whose language is closely akin to but not
+identical with Serbian (or Croatian), even to-day only number one and a half
+million, and do not enter into this narrative, as they have never played any
+political rôle in the Balkan peninsula.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Serbs and the Croats were, as 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 the Serbo-Croatian race has
+always been divided into two. It is only within the last few years that a
+movement has taken place, the object of which is to reunite Serbs and Croats
+into one nation and eventually into one state. The movement originated in
+Serbia, the Serbs maintaining that they and the Croats are one people because
+they speak the same language, and that racial and linguistic unity outweighs
+religious divergence. A very large number of Croats agree with the Serbs in
+this and support their views, but a minority for long obstinately insisted that
+there was a racial as well as a religious difference, and that fusion was
+impossible. The former based their argument on facts, the latter theirs on
+prejudice, which is notoriously difficult to overcome. Latterly the movement in
+favour of fusion grew very much stronger among the Croats, and together with
+that in Serbia resulted in the Pan-Serb agitation which, gave the pretext for
+the opening of hostilities in July 1914.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, <i>jug</i>, pronounced yug, =
+<i>south</i> in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croats, and also includes Slovenes;
+it is only used with reference to the Bulgarians from the point of view of
+philology (the group of South Slavonic languages including Bulgarian,
+Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; the East Slavonic, Russian; and the West Slavonic,
+Polish and Bohemian).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the history of the Serbs and Croats, or of the Serbo-Croatian race, several
+factors of a general nature have first to be considered, which have influenced
+its whole development. Of these, the physical nature of the country in which
+they settled, between the Danube and Save and the Adriatic, is one of the most
+important. It is almost everywhere mountainous, and though the mountains
+themselves never attain as much as 10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the
+whole country with an intricate network and have always formed an obstacle to
+easy communication between the various parts of it. The result of this has been
+twofold. In the first place it has, generally speaking, been a protection
+against foreign penetration and conquest, and in so far was beneficial.
+Bulgaria, further east, is, on the whole, less mountainous, in spite of the
+Balkan range which stretches the whole length of it; for this reason, and also
+on account of its geographical position, any invaders coming from the north or
+north-east, especially if aiming at Constantinople or Salonika, were bound to
+sweep over it. The great immemorial highway from the north-west to the Balkan
+peninsula crosses the Danube at Belgrade and follows the valley of the Morava
+to Nish; thence it branches off eastwards, going through Sofia and again
+crossing all Bulgaria to reach Constantinople, while the route to Salonika
+follows the Morava southwards from Nish and crosses the watershed into 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
+the Morava and the Adriatic, which is really the home of the Serb race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the second place, while it has undoubtedly been a protection to the Serb
+race, it has also been a source of weakness. It has prevented a welding
+together of the people into one whole, has facilitated the rise of numerous
+political units at various times, and generally favoured the dissipation of the
+national strength, and militated against national organization and cohesion. In
+the course of history this process has been emphasized rather than diminished,
+and to-day the Serb race is split up into six political divisions, while
+Bulgaria, except for those Bulgars claimed as &lsquo;unredeemed&rsquo; beyond
+the frontier, presents a united whole. It is only within the last thirty years,
+with the gradual improvement of communications (obstructed to an incredible
+extent by the Austro-Hungarian government) and the spread of education, that
+the Serbs in the different countries which they inhabit have become fully
+conscious of their essential identity and racial unity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No less important than the physical aspect of their country on the development
+of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the middle of it from south
+to north there had been drawn a line of division more than two centuries before
+their arrival. Artificial boundaries are proverbially ephemeral, but this one
+has lasted 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; at the division of the Roman Empire into East and West it was again
+followed, and it formed the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia;
+the line is roughly the same as the present political boundary between
+Montenegro and Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it
+stretched from the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory.
+The Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by
+the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the
+Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had
+consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the hands
+of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the country
+occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is difficult to be
+accurate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the Bulgars in
+the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present political frontier
+between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north from the mouth of the river
+Timok on the southern bank of the Danube and going southwards slightly east of
+Pirot, is ethnographically approximately correct till it reaches the newly
+acquired and much-disputed territories in Macedonia, and represents fairly
+accurately the line that has divided the two nationalities ever since they were
+first differentiated in the seventh century. In the confused state of Balkan
+politics in the Middle Ages the political influence of Bulgaria often extended
+west of this line and included Nish and the Morava valley, while at other times
+that of Serbia extended east of it. The dialects spoken in these frontier
+districts represent a transitional stage between the two languages; each of the
+two peoples naturally considers them more akin to its own, and resents the fact
+that any of them should be included in the territory of the other. Further
+south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the Turkish conquest
+Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in the times of Simeon,
+Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian, especially during the height
+of Serbian power in the fourteenth century, while intermittently it had been a
+province of the Greek Empire, which always claimed it as its own. On historical
+grounds, therefore, each of the three nations can claim possession of
+Macedonia. From an ethnographic point of view the Slav population of Macedonia
+(there were always and are still many non-Slav elements) was originally the
+same as that in 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-European or Aryan 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 mountainous
+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 dominion neither Serb nor Bulgar
+had any influence in Macedonia, and the Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all
+been pure Slavs, 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 Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the
+Macedonian Slavs would have become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further
+development of the Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap. 13).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east, where
+their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they were the Greeks
+and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river Save and on the west by
+the Adriatic. They were split up into a number of tribes, each of which was
+headed by a chief called in Serbian <i>župan</i> and in Greek <i>archōn</i>.
+Whenever any one of these managed, either by skill or by good fortune, to
+extend his power over a few of the neighbouring districts he was termed
+<i>veliki</i> (=great) <i>župan</i>. From the beginning of their history, which
+is roughly put at A.D. 650, until A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign
+domination. Their suzerains were nominally always the Greek emperors, who had
+&lsquo;granted&rsquo; them the land they had taken, and whenever the emperor
+happened to be energetic and powerful, as were Basil I (the Macedonian,
+867-86), John Tzimisces (969-76), Basil II (976-1025), and Manuel Comnenus
+(1143-80), the Greek supremacy was very real. At those times again when
+Bulgaria was very powerful, under Simeon (893-927), Samuel (977-1014), and John
+Asen II (1218-41), many of the more easterly and southerly Serbs came under
+Bulgarian rule, though it is instructive to notice that the Serbs themselves do
+not recognize the West Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of Samuel to have been a
+Bulgarian state. The Bulgars, however, at no time brought all the Serb lands
+under their sway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned, some Serb
+princeling would try to form a political state on a more ambitious scale, but
+the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the Serbs reverted to their
+favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst themselves. Such wore the attempts
+of Časlav, who had been made captive by Simeon of Bulgaria, escaped after his
+death, and ruled over a large part of central Serbia till 960, and later of
+Bodin, whose father, Michael, was even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII;
+Bodin formed a state near the coast, in the Zeta river district (now
+Montenegro), and ruled there from 1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the
+country peopled by the Serbs was split into a number of tiny principalities
+always at war with one another. Generally speaking, this country gradually
+became divided into two main geographical divisions: (1) the <i>Pomorje</i>, or
+country <i>by the sea</i>, which included most of the modern Montenegro and the
+southern halves of Hercegovina and Dalmatia, and (2) the <i>Zagorje</i>, or
+country <i>behind the hills</i>, 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 <i>Pomorje</i>
+and the Save; to the north of the <i>Pomorje</i> and <i>Zagorje</i> lay
+Croatia. Besides their neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and
+west played an important part in Serbian history even in those early days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power of the
+Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a great impression
+on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, <i>kral</i> or <i>korol</i>, is
+derived directly from his name), and his son Louis conquered the Serbs settled
+in the country between the rivers Save and Drave. This is commemorated in the
+name of the mass of hill which lies between the Danube and the Save, in eastern
+Slavonia, and is to this day known as <i>Fruška Gora</i>, or French Hill. The
+Serbs and Bulgars fought against the Franks, and while the Bulgars held their
+own, the Serbs were beaten, and those who did not like the rule of the
+new-comers had to migrate southwards across the Save; at the same time the
+Serbs between the rivers Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were subjected by
+the Bulgars. With the arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth century, a wall was
+raised between the Serbs and central and western Europe on land. Croatia and
+Slavonia (between the Save and the Drave) were gradually drawn into the orbit
+of the Hungarian state, and in 1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia was
+absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of that country ever since. Hungary,
+aiming at an outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected most of
+Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily growing in
+power throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had secured control of
+all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part of the coast. All the
+cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of Venice and she was
+mistress of the Adriatic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth
+centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped themselves
+into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which had been
+Caslav&rsquo;s centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian state
+(this district, with the town of Ras as its centre, included the south-western
+part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and what was the Turkish <i>sandjak</i> or
+province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on the coast (the modern Montenegro); and
+(3) Bosnia, so called after the river Bosna, which runs through it. Bosnia,
+which roughly corresponded to the modern province of that name, became
+independent in the second half of the tenth century, and was never after that
+incorporated in the Serbian state. At times it fell under Hungarian influence;
+in the twelfth century, during the reign of Manuel Comnenus, who was victorious
+over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all other Serb territories, had to acknowledge
+the supremacy of Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied territory
+which, while the Church was still one, was divided between two dioceses, Italy
+and Dacia, and when the Church itself was divided, in the eleventh century, was
+torn apart between the two beliefs. The dividing line between the jurisdictions
+of Rome and Constantinople ran from north to south through Bosnia, but
+naturally there has always been a certain vagueness about the extent of their
+respective jurisdictions. In later years the terms Croat and Roman 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. The loyalty of the
+Croatians to Austria-Hungary has been largely owing to the influence of Roman
+Catholicism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the first centuries of Serbian history Christianity made slow progress
+in the western half of the Balkan peninsula. The Dalmatian coast was always
+under the influence of Rome, but the interior was long pagan. It is doubtful
+whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf. chap. 5) actually passed through
+Serb territory, but in the tenth century their teachings and writings were
+certainly current there. At the time of the division of the Churches all the
+Serb lands except the Dalmatian coast, Croatia, and western Bosnia, were
+faithful to Constantinople, and the Greek hierarchy obtained complete control
+of the ecclesiastical administration. The elaborate organisation and opulent
+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, 6), a much more primitive and
+democratic form of Christianity, already familiar in the East as the Manichaean
+heresy, took hold of the Serbs&rsquo; imagination and made as rapid and
+disquieting progress in their country as it had already done in the
+neighbouring Bulgaria; inasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teaching
+to be socialistic, subversive, and highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical
+supremacy of Constantinople, all of which indeed it was, adherence to it became
+amongst the Serbs a direct expression of patriotism.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>15<br/>
+<i>The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian
+Independence</i>, 1168–1496</h2>
+
+<p>
+From 1168 the power of the Serbs, or rather of the central Serb state of Raska,
+and the extent of its territory gradually but steadily increased. This was
+outwardly expressed in the firm establishment on the throne of the national
+Nemanja dynasty, which can claim the credit of having by its energy, skill, and
+good fortune fashioned the most imposing and formidable state the Serb race has
+ever known. This dynasty ruled the country uninterruptedly, but not without
+many quarrels, feuds, and rivalries amongst its various members, from 1168
+until 1371, when it became extinct.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were several external factors which at this time favoured the rise of the
+Serbian state. Byzantium and the Greek Empire, to which the Emperor Manuel
+Comnenus had by 1168 restored some measure of its former greatness and
+splendour, regaining temporary control, after a long war with Hungary, even
+over Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, after this date began definitively to
+decline, and after the troublous times of the fourth crusade (1204), when for
+sixty years a Latin empire was established on the Bosphorus, never again
+recovered as a Christian state the position in the Balkan peninsula which it
+had so long enjoyed. Bulgaria, too, after the meteoric glory of its second
+empire under the Asen dynasty (1186-1258), quite went to pieces, the eastern
+and northern parts falling under Tartar, the southern under Greek influence,
+while the western districts fell to Serbia. In the north, on the other hand,
+Hungary was becoming a dangerous and ambitious neighbour. During the thirteenth
+century, it is true, the attention of the Magyars was diverted by the irruption
+into and devastation of their country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia, the
+Tartars, who wrought great havoc and even penetrated as far as the Adriatic
+coast. Nevertheless Hungary was always a 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The objects of the Magyars were twofold&mdash;to attain the hegemony of the
+Balkan peninsula by conquering all the still independent Serb territories, and
+to bring the peninsula within the pale of Rome. They were not successful in
+either of these objects, partly because their wars with the Serbian rulers
+always failed to reach a decision, partly because their plans conflicted with
+those of the powerful Venetian republic. The relations between Venice and
+Serbia were always most cordial, as their ambitions did not clash; those of
+Venice were not continental, while those of Serbia were never maritime. The
+semi-independent Slavonic city-republic of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in Serbian)
+played a very important part throughout this period. It was under Venetian
+supremacy, but was self-governing and had a large fleet of its own. It was the
+great place of exchange between Serbia and western Europe, and was really the
+meeting-place of East and West. Its relations with Serbia were by no means
+always peaceful; it was a Naboth&rsquo;s vineyard for the 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 home during the
+Middle Ages of a flourishing school of Serbian literature, which was inspired
+by that of Italy. The influence of Italian civilization and of the Italian
+Church was naturally strong in the Serb province, much of which was under
+Venetian rule; the reason for this was that communication by sea with Italy was
+easier and safer than that by land with Serbia. The long, formidable ranges of
+limestone mountains which divide the Serbian interior from the Adriatic in
+almost unbroken and parallel lines have always been a barrier to 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 Serbian Empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first of the Nemanja dynasty was Stephen, whose title was still only
+<i>Veliki Župan</i>; he extended Serb territory southwards at the expense of
+the Greeks, especially after the death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180. He also
+persecuted the Bogomils, who took refuge in large numbers in the adjacent Serb
+state of Bosnia. Like many other Serbian rulers, he abdicated in later life in
+favour of his younger son, Stephen, called Nemanjié (= Nemanya&rsquo;s son),
+and himself became a monk (1196), travelling for this purpose to Mount Athos,
+the great monastic centre and home of theological learning of the Eastern
+Church. There he saw his youngest son, who some years previously had also
+journeyed thither and entered a monastery, taking the name of Sava.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sort of memorial church,
+for the welfare of his own soul, before his death, and to decorate and endow it
+lavishly. Stephen and his son together superintended the erection in this sense
+of the church and monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos, which became a famous
+centre of Serbian church life. Stephen died shortly after the completion of the
+building in 1199, and was buried in it, but in 1207 he was reinterred in the
+monastery of Studenica, in Serbia, also founded by him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reign of Stephen Nernanjić (1196-1223) opened with a quarrel between him
+and his elder brother, who not unnaturally felt he ought to have succeeded his
+father; the Bulgarians profited by this and seized a large part of eastern
+Serbia, including Belgrade, Nish, Prizren, and Skoplje. This, together with the
+fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204,
+alarmed the Serbs and brought about a reconciliation between the brothers, and
+in 1207 Sava returned to Serbia to organise the Church on national lines. In
+1219 he journeyed to Nicaea and extracted from the Emperor Theodore Lascaris,
+who had fallen on evil days, the concession for the establishment of an
+autonomous national Serbian Church, independent of the Patriarch of
+Constantinople. Sava himself was at the head of the new institution. In 1220 he
+solemnly crowned his brother King <i>(Kralj)</i> of Serbia, the natural
+consequence of his activities in the previous year. For this reason Stephen
+Nemanjić is called &lsquo;The First-Crowned&rsquo;. He was succeeded in 1223 by
+his son Stephen Radoslav, and he in turn was deposed by his brother Stephen
+Vladislav in 1233. Both these were crowned by Sava, and Vladislav married the
+daughter of Tsar John Asen II, under whom Bulgaria was then at the height of
+her power. Sava journeyed to Palestine, and on his return paid a visit to the
+Bulgarian court at Tirnovo, where he died in 1236. His body was brought to
+Serbia and buried in the monastery of Mileševo, built by Vladislav. This
+extremely able churchman and politician, who did a great deal for the peaceful
+development of his country, was canonized and is regarded as the patron saint
+of Serbia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reign of Vladislav&rsquo;s son and successor, Stephen Uroš I (1242-76), was
+characterized by economic development and the strengthening of the internal
+administration. In external affairs he made no conquests, but defeated a
+combination of the Bulgarians with Ragusa against him, and after the war the
+Bulgarian ruler married his daughter. In his wars against Hungary he was
+unsuccessful, and the Magyars remained in possession of a large part of
+northern Serbia. In 1276 he was deposed by his son, Stephen Dragutin, who in
+his turn, after an unsuccessful war against the Greeks, again masters of
+Constantinople since 1261, was deposed and succeeded by his brother, Stephen
+Uroš II, named Milutin, in 1282. This king ruled from 1282 till 1321, and
+during his reign the country made very great material progress; its mineral
+wealth especially, which included gold and silver mines, began to be exploited.
+He extended the boundaries of his kingdom in the north, making the Danube and
+the Save the frontier. The usual revolt against paternal authority was made by
+his son Stephen, but was unsuccessful, and the rebel was banished to
+Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons, and the
+inevitable consequence of this system was the series of provincial rebellions
+which occurred in almost every reign. When the revolt succeeded, the father (or
+brother) was granted in his turn a small appanage. In this case it was the son
+who was exiled, but he was recalled in 1319 and a reconciliation took place.
+Milutin died in 1321 and was succeeded by his son, Stephen Uroš III, who
+reigned till 1331. He is known as Stephen Dečanski, after the memorial church
+which he built at Dečani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great
+defeat of the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.
+The following year his son, Stephen Dušan, rebelled against him and deposed
+him. Stephen Dušan, who reigned from 1331 till 1355, was Serbia&rsquo;s
+greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its utmost limits. Provincial
+and family revolts and petty local disputes with such places as Ragusa became a
+thing of the past, and he undertook conquest on a grand scale. Between 1331 and
+1344 he subjected all Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful
+to keep on good terms with Ragusa and with Hungary, then under Charles Robert.
+He married the sister of the Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign Bulgaria was
+completely under Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil war which had become
+perennial at Constantinople, and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of
+the growing power of the Turks, no doubt to some extent explain the facility
+and rapidity of his conquests; nevertheless his power was very formidable, and
+his success inspired considerable alarm in western Europe. This was increased
+when, in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire. He first called together a
+special Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an archbishopric, whose
+centre was then at Peć (in Montenegro, Ipek in Turkish), was proclaimed a
+Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as Patriarch; then this prelate,
+together with the Bulgarian Patriarch, Simeon, and Nicholas, Archbishop of
+Okhrida, crowned Stephen Tsar of the Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks. Upon this the
+Patriarch of Constantinople gave himself the vain satisfaction of
+anathematizing the whole of Serbia, as a punishment for this insubordination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI, persuaded King Louis of Hungary 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 conquered the
+southern half of Dalmatia, and extended his empire as far north as the river
+Cetina. In 1354 Stephen Dušan himself approached the Pope, offering to
+acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, if he would support him against the
+Hungarians and the Turks. The Pope sent him an embassy, but eventually Stephen
+could not agree to the papal conditions, and concluded an alliance, of greater
+practical utility, with the Venetians. In 1355, however, he suddenly died, at
+the age of forty-six, and thus the further development and aggrandisement of
+his country was prematurely arrested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stephen Dušan made a great impression on his contemporaries, both by his
+imposing personal appearance and by his undoubted wisdom and ability. He was
+especially a great legislator, and his remarkable code of laws, compiled in
+1349 and enlarged in 1354, is, outside his own country, his greatest title to
+fame. During Stephen Dušan&rsquo;s reign the political centre of Serbia, which
+had for many years gradually tended to shift southwards towards Macedonia, was
+at Skoplje (Üsküb in Turkish), which he made his capital. Stephen Dušan&rsquo;s
+empire extended from the Adriatic in the west to the river Maritsa in the east,
+from the Save and Danube in the north to the Aegean; it included all the modern
+kingdoms of Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and most of Greece, Dalmatia as far
+north as the river Cetina, as well as the fertile Morava valley, with Nish and
+Belgrade&mdash;the whole eastern part of Serbia, which had for long been under
+either Bulgar or Magyar control. It did not include the cities of Salonika or
+Ragusa, nor any considerable part of the modern kingdom of Bulgaria, nor
+Bosnia, Croatia, North Dalmatia, nor Slavonia (between the Save and Drave),
+ethnologically all purely Serb lands. From the point of view of nationality,
+therefore, its boundaries were far from ideal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stephen Dušan was succeeded by his son, known as Tsar Uroš, but he was as weak
+as his father had been strong. Almost as soon as 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 at this juncture was fatal, as a far more formidable foe than the
+ruler&rsquo;s rebellious relations was advancing against it. The Turkish
+conquests were proceeding apace; they had taken Gallipoli 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 in 1351, met them
+again on the Maritsa river in 1371, and were completely defeated. Several of
+the upstart princes who had been pulling Stephen Dušan&rsquo;s empire to pieces
+perished, and Tsar Uroš only survived the battle of the Maritsa two months; he
+was unmarried, and with him died the Nemanja dynasty and the Serbian Empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this disaster the unity of the Serbian state was completely destroyed,
+and it has never since been restored in the same measure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That part of the country to the south of Skoplje fell completely under Turkish
+control; it was here that the famous national hero, Marko Kraljević (or
+King&rsquo;s son), renowned for his prowess, ruled as a vassal prince and
+mercenary soldier of the Turks; his father was one of the rebel princes who
+fell at the battle of the river Maritsa in 1371. North of Skoplje, Serbia, with
+Kruševac as a new political centre, continued to lead an independent but
+precarious existence, much reduced in size and glory, under a native ruler,
+Prince Lazar; all the conquests of Stephen Dušan were lost, and the important
+coastal province of Zeta, which later developed into Montenegro, had broken
+away and proclaimed its autonomy directly after the death of Tsar Uroš.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1375 a formal reconciliation was effected with the Patriarch of
+Constantinople; the ban placed on the Serbian Church in 1352 was removed and
+the independence of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (Ipek) recognised.
+Meanwhile neither Greeks, Bulgars, nor Serbs were allowed any peace by the
+Turks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1389 was fought the great battle of Kosovo Polje, or the Field of
+Blackbirds, a large plain in Old Serbia, at the southern end of which is
+Skoplje. At this battle Serbian armies from all the Serb lands, including
+Bosnia, joined together in defence of their country for the last time. The
+issue of the battle was for some time in doubt, but was decided by the
+treachery and flight at the critical moment of one of the Serb leaders, Vuk
+Branković, son-in-law of Prince Lazar, with a large number of troops. Another
+dramatic incident was the murder of Sultan Murad in his tent by another Serbian
+leader, Miloš Obilić, 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 to the Sultan&rsquo;s presence and proved his
+patriotism by killing him. The momentary dismay was put an end to by the
+energetic conduct of Bayezid, son of Murad, who rallied the Turkish troops and
+ultimately inflicted total defeat on the Serbians. From the effects of this
+battle Serbia never recovered; Prince Lazar was captured and executed; his
+wife, Princess Milica, had to give her daughter to Bayezid in marriage, whose
+son thus ultimately claimed possession of Serbia by right of inheritance.
+Princess Milica and her son Stephen continued to live at Kruševac, but Serbia
+was already a tributary of Turkey. In the north, Hungary profited by the course
+of events and occupied Belgrade and all northern Serbia, but in 1396 the Turks
+defeated the Magyars severely at the battle of Nikopolis, on the Danube, making
+the Serbs under Stephen fight on the Turkish side. Stephen also had to help
+Sultan Bajazet against the Tartars, and fought at the battle of Angora, in
+1402, when Tamerlane captured Bayezid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After Stephen returned to Serbia he made an alliance with Hungary, which gave
+him back Belgrade and northern Serbia; it was at this time (1403) that Belgrade
+first became the capital, the political centre having in the course of fifty
+years moved from the Vardar to the Danube. The disorders which followed the
+defeat of Bayezid gave some respite to the Serbs, but Sultan Murad II (1421-51)
+again took up arms against him, and invaded Serbia as far as Kruševac.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the death of Stephen (Lazarević), in 1427, he was succeeded as <i>Despot</i>
+by his nephew, George Branković; but the Sultan, claiming Serbia as his own,
+immediately declared war on him. The Serbian ruler had to abandon Belgrade to
+the Magyars, and Nish and Kruševac to the Turks. He then built and fortified
+the town of Smederevo (or Semendria) lower down on the Danube, in 1428, and
+made this his capital. 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. Later George Branković made another alliance with
+Hungary, and in 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi, defeated the Turks and
+liberated the whole of Serbia as far as the Adriatic, though he remained a
+tributary of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars broke the treaty
+of peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched against them under their
+Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the disastrous battle of Varna, on the
+Black Sea, where the king lost his life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died and was
+succeeded by the Sultan Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured Constantinople
+(Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital); in 1456 his armies were
+besieging Belgrade, but were defeated by John Hunyadi, who, unfortunately for
+the Serbs, died of the plague shortly afterwards. George Branković died the
+same year, and at his death general disorder spread over the country. The Turks
+profited by this, overran the whole of Serbia, and in 1459 captured Smederevo,
+the last Serbian stronghold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Bosnia had been for nearly a hundred years enjoying a false security
+as an independent Serb kingdom. Its rulers had hitherto been known by the title
+of <i>Ban</i>, and were all vassals of the King of Hungary; but in 1377 Ban
+Tvrtko profited by the embarrassments of his suzerain in Poland and proclaimed
+himself king, the neighbouring kingdom of Serbia having, after 1371, ceased to
+exist, and was duly crowned in Saint Sava&rsquo;s monastery of Mileševo. The
+internal history of the kingdom was even more turbulent than had been that of
+Serbia. To the endemic troubles of succession and alternating alliances and
+wars with foreign powers were added those of confession. Bosnia was always a no
+man&rsquo;s land as regards religion; it was where the Eastern and Western
+Churches met, and consequently the rivalry between them there was always, as it
+is now, intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too, early took root in Bosnia
+and became extremely popular; it was the obvious refuge for those who did not
+care to become involved in the strife of the Churches. One of the kings of
+Bosnia, Stephen Thomas, who reigned from 1444 till 1461, was himself a Bogomil,
+and when at the insistence 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, to the lands of one
+Stephen, who sheltered them, proclaimed his independence of Bosnia, and on the
+strength of the fact that Saint Sava&rsquo;s monastery of Mileševo was in his
+territory, announced himself Herzog, or Duke (in Serbian Herceg, though the
+real Serb equivalent is <i>Vojvoda</i>) of Saint Sava, ever since when (1448)
+that territory has been called Hercegovina. In spite of many promises, neither
+the Pope nor the King of Hungary did anything to help Bosnia when the Turks
+began to invade the country after their final subjection of Serbia in 1459. In
+1463 they invaded Bosnia and pursued, captured, and slew the last king; their
+conquest of the country was complete and rapid. A great exodus of the Serb
+population took place to the south, west, and north; but large numbers,
+especially of the landowning class, embraced the faith of their conquerors in
+order to retain possession of their property. In 1482 a similar fate befell
+Hercegovina. Albania had already been conquered after stubborn resistance in
+1478. There remained only the mountainous coastal province of Zeta, which had
+been an independent principality ever since 1371. Just as inland Serbia had
+perished between the Turkish hammer and the Hungarian anvil, so maritime Serbia
+was crushed between Turkey and Venice, only its insignificance and
+inaccessibility giving it a longer lease of independent life. Ivan Crnojević,
+one of the last independent rulers of Zeta, who had to fly to Italy in 1480,
+abandoning his capital, Žabljak, to the Turks, returned in 1481, when the death
+of Sultan Mohammed temporarily raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and
+founded Cetinje and made it his capital. His son George, who succeeded him and
+ruled from 1490 till 1496, is famous as having set up the first Serbian
+printing-press there. Its activities were naturally not encouraged by the
+Turkish conquest, but it was of great importance to the national Serbian
+Church, for which books were printed with it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1496, Venice having wisely made peace with the Sultan some years previously,
+this last independent scrap of Serb territory was finally incorporated in the
+Turkish dominions. At the end of the fifteenth century the Turks were masters
+of all the Serb lands except Croatia, Slavonia, and parts of Dalmatia, which
+belonged to Hungary, and the Dalmatian coast and islands, which were Venetian.
+The Turkish conquest of Serbia, which began in 1371 at the battle of the
+Maritsa, and was rendered inevitable by the battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389,
+thus took a hundred and twenty-five years to complete.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>16<br/>
+<i>The Turkish Dominion</i>, 1496–1796</h2>
+
+<p>
+The lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was different from that of their
+neighbours the Bulgars; and though it was certainly not enviable, it was
+undoubtedly better. The Turks for various reasons never succeeded in subduing
+Serbia and the various Serb lands as completely as they had subdued, or rather
+annihilated, Bulgaria. The Serbs were spread over a far larger extent of
+territory than were the Bulgars, they were further removed from the Turkish
+centre, and the wooded and mountainous nature of their country facilitated even
+more than in the case of Bulgaria the formation of bands of brigands and rebels
+and militated against its systematic policing by the Turks. The number of
+centres of national life, Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and Montenegro,
+to take them in the chronological order of their conquest by the Turks, had
+been notoriously a source of weakness to the Serbian state, as is still the
+case to-day, but at the same time made it more difficult for the Turks to stamp
+out the national consciousness. What still further contributed to this
+difficulty was the fact that many Serbs escaped the oppression of Turkish rule
+by emigrating to 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
+and Hungary. It had begun already after the final subjection of Serbia proper
+and Bosnia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463, but after the fall of Belgrade, which
+was the outpost of Hungary against the Turks, in 1521, and the battle of
+Mohacs, in 1526, when the Turks completely defeated the Magyars, it assumed
+great proportions. As the Turks pushed their conquests further north, the Serbs
+migrated before them; later 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 Bačka (the
+country between the Theiss and Danube), and in Baranya (between the Danube and
+the Drave). All this part of southern Hungary and Croatia was formed by the
+Austrians into a military borderland against Turkey, and the Croats and
+immigrant Serbs were organized as military colonists with special privileges,
+on the analogy of the Cossacks in southern Russia and Poland. In Dalmatia the
+Serbs played a similar rôle in the service of Venice, which, like
+Austria-Hungary, was frequently at war with the Turks. During the sixteenth
+century Ragusa enjoyed its greatest prosperity; it paid tribute to the Sultan,
+was under his protection, and never rebelled. It had a quasi monopoly of the
+trade of the entire Balkan peninsula. It was a sanctuary both for Roman
+Catholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and sometimes acted as intermediary on
+behalf of its co-religionists with the Turkish authorities, with whom it
+wielded great influence. Intellectually also it was a sort of Serb oasis, and
+the only place during the Middle Ages where Serbian literature was able to
+flourish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Montenegro during the sixteenth century formed part of the Turkish province of
+Scutari. Here, as well as in Serbia proper, northern Macedonia (known after the
+removal northwards of the political centre, in the fourteenth century, as Old
+Serbia), Bosnia, and Hercegovina, the Turkish rule was firmest, but not
+harshest, during the first half of the sixteenth century, when the power of the
+Ottoman Empire was at its height. Soon after the fall of Smederevo, in 1459,
+the Patriarchate of Peć (Ipek) was abolished, the Serbian Church lost its
+independence, was merged in the Greco-Bulgar Archbishopric of Okhrida (in
+southern Macedonia), and fell completely under the control of the Greeks. In
+1557, however, through the influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb nationality, the
+Patriarchate of Peć was revived. The revival of this centre of national life
+was momentous; through its agency the Serbian monasteries were restored,
+ecclesiastical books printed, and priests educated, and more fortunate than the
+Bulgarian national Church, which remained under Greek management, it was able
+to focus the national enthusiasms and aspirations and keep alive with hope the
+flame of nationality amongst those Serbs who had not emigrated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Already, in the second half of the sixteenth century, people began to think
+that Turkey&rsquo;s days in Europe were numbered, and they were encouraged in
+this illusion by the battle of Lepanto (1571). But the seventeenth century saw
+a revival of Turkish power; Krete was added to their empire, and in 1683 they
+very nearly captured Vienna. In the war which followed their repulse, and in
+which the victorious Austrians penetrated as far south as Skoplje, the Serbs
+took part against the Turks; but when later the Austrians were obliged to
+retire, the Serbs, who had risen against the Turks at the bidding of their
+Patriarch Arsen III, had to suffer terrible reprisals at their hands, with the
+result that another wholesale emigration, with the Patriarch at its head, took
+place into the Austro-Hungarian military borderland. This time it was the very
+heart of Serbia which was abandoned, namely, Old Serbia and northern Macedonia,
+including Peć and Prizren. The vacant Patriarchate was for a time filled by a
+Greek, and the Albanians, many of whom were Mohammedans and therefore
+Turcophil, spread northwards and eastwards into lands that had been Serb since
+the seventh century. From the end of the seventeenth century, however, the
+Turkish power began unmistakably to wane. The Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) left
+the Turks still in possession of Syrmia (between the Danube and Save) and the
+Banat (north of the Danube), but during the reign of the Emperor Charles VI
+their retreat was accelerated. In 1717 Prince Eugen of Savoy captured Belgrade,
+then, as now, a bulwark of the Balkan peninsula against invasion from the
+north, and by the Treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac, on the Danube), in 1718,
+Turkey not only retreated definitively south of the Danube and the Save, but
+left a large part of northern Serbia in Austrian hands. By the same treaty
+Venice secured possession of the whole of Dalmatia, where it had already gained
+territory by the Treaty of Curlowitz in 1699.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Serbs soon found out that alien populations fare little better under
+Christian rule, when they are not of the same confession as their rulers, than
+under Mohammedan. The Orthodox Serbs in Dalmatia suffered thenceforward from
+relentless persecution at the hands of the Roman Catholics. In Austria-Hungary
+too, and in that part of Serbia occupied by the Austrians after 1718, the Serbs
+discovered that the Austrians, when they had beaten the Turks largely by the
+help of Serbian levies, were very different from the Austrians who had
+encouraged the Serbs to settle in their country and form military colonies on
+their frontiers to protect them from Turkish invasion. The privileges promised
+them when their help had been necessary were disregarded as soon as their
+services could be dispensed with. Austrian rule soon became more oppressive
+than Turkish, and to the Serbs&rsquo; other woes was now added religious
+persecution. The result of all this was that a counter-emigration set in and
+the Serbs actually began to 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 Eugen no longer led them, and though the Serbs were
+again persuaded by their Patriarch, Arsen IV, to rise against the Turks, they
+only did so half-heartedly. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Austria had to
+withdraw north of the Save and Danube, evacuating all northern Serbia in favour
+of the Turks. From this time onwards the lot of the Serbs, both in
+Austria-Hungary and in Turkey, went rapidly from bad to worse. The Turks, as
+the power of their empire declined, and in return for the numerous Serb
+revolts, had recourse to measures of severe repression; amongst others was that
+of the final abolition of the Patriarchate of Peé in 1766, whereupon the
+control of the Serbian Church in Turkey passed entirely into the hands of the
+Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Austrian Government similarly, perceiving now for the first time the
+elements of danger which the resuscitation of the Serbian nationality would
+contain for the rule of the Hapsburgs, embarked on a systematic persecution of
+the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary and Slavonia. During the reign of Maria
+Theresa (1740-80), whose policy was to conciliate the Magyars, the military
+frontier zone was abolished, a series of repressive measures was passed against
+those Serbs who refused to become Roman Catholics, and the Serbian nationality
+was refused official recognition. The consequence of this persecution was a
+series of revolts which were all quelled with due severity, and finally the
+emigration of a hundred thousand Serbs to southern Russia, where they founded
+New Serbia in 1752-3.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the reigns of Joseph II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their
+treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the beginning of
+the eighteenth century Montenegro began to assume greater importance in the
+extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of the Serbs. During the
+sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed part of the Turkish
+dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible nature of its mountain
+fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very forcibly asserted. It was ruled by
+a prince-bishop, and its religious independence thus connoted a certain secular
+freedom of thought if not of action. In the seventeenth century warlike
+encounters between the Turks 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 Montenegro was often rather civil in
+character, being caused by the ill-feeling which existed between the numerous
+Montenegrins who had become Mohammedans and those who remained faithful to
+their national Church. In the course of the eighteenth century the rôle which
+fell to Montenegro became more important. In all the other Serb countries the
+families which naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or
+in exile, as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents
+and purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great
+earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of
+international importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had survived
+both a greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all, the ancient
+Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a number of at any
+rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families; these families
+naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as destined to play an
+important part in the resistance to and the eventual overthrow of the Turkish
+dominion. The prince-bishop had to be consecrated by the Patriarch of Peć, and
+in 1700 Patriarch Arsen III consecrated one Daniel, of the house (which has
+been ever since then and is now still the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of
+Petrović-Njegoš, to this office, after he had been elected to it by the council
+of notables at Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and
+precluded from participating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey
+by the intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was
+solidly Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the
+Turks independently of the other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his
+anti-Turkish policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to the
+south and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians, he
+developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that
+friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb principality on
+the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent feature of eastern European
+politics ever since. This intimacy did not prevent the Turks giving Montenegro
+many hard blows whenever they had the time or energy to do so, and did not
+ensure any special protective clauses in favour of the mountain state whenever
+the various treaties between Russia and Turkey were concluded. Its effect was
+rather psychological and financial. From the time when the <i>Vladika</i> (=
+Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the Great, in 1714, the rulers of Montenegro
+often made pilgrimages to the Russian capital, and were always sure of finding
+sympathy as well as pecuniary if not armed support. Bishops in the Orthodox
+Church are compulsorily celibate, and the succession in Montenegro always
+descended from uncle to nephew. When Peter I Petrović-Njegoš succeeded, in
+1782, the Patriarchate of Peć was no more, so he had to get permission from the
+Austrian Emperor Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan of Karlovci
+(Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and
+Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils between
+them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the same time
+(1788) in the district of Šumadija, in Serbia, by a number of Serb patriots, of
+whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Koča, after whom the whole war
+is called Kočina Krajina (=Koča&rsquo;s country), another, yet the Austrians
+were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace
+was concluded between Austria and Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which
+Turkey retained the whole of Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube
+remained the frontier between the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of
+Montenegro had joined in the fray and had fared better, inflicting some
+unpleasant defeats on the Turks under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated
+in two battles in 1796 (the Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of
+peace, had continued fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari.
+With this triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating
+the Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro,
+the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was <i>de facto</i> established.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>17<br/>
+<i>The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George</i> (1804–13) <i>and Miloš
+Obrenović</i> (1815–30): 1796–1830</h2>
+
+<p>
+The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment as an
+independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous accomplishment
+than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries. One reason for this
+was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position was cut off from outside
+help. It was easy for the western powers to help Greece with their fleets, and
+for Russia to help Rumania and, later, Bulgaria directly with its army, because
+communication between them was easy. But Serbia on the one hand was separated
+from the sea, first by Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and
+then by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and the <i>sandjak</i> (or province) of
+Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds
+of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies
+of Montenegro, also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed
+in self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size
+permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too
+difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to
+bear upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were
+then still under Turkish control, and either they had to be traversed or the
+Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards through Turkish territory.
+The only country which could have helped Serbia was Austria, but as it was
+against their best interests to do so, the Austrians naturally did all they
+could not to advance, but to retard the Serbian cause. As a result of all this
+Serbia, in her long struggle against the Turks, had to rely principally on its
+own resources, though Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent
+country from disaster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation and development of modern
+Serbia has been the proneness of its people to internal dissension. There was
+no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the country would naturally
+devolve after the first successful revolution against Turkish rule, there was
+not even any aristocracy left, and no foreign ruler was ever asked for by the
+Serbs or was ever imposed on them by the other nations as in the case of
+Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria. On the other hand the rising against Turkey was
+a rising of the whole people, and it was almost inevitable that as soon as some
+measure of independence was gained the unity the Serbs had shown when fighting
+against their oppressors should dissolve and be replaced by bitter rivalries
+and disputes amongst the various local leaders who had become prominent during
+the rebellion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves into a
+blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjević and the Obrenović, a
+quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against the progress of the
+Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political independence of
+Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible, its economic development
+and material prosperity. Until recent years Austria-Hungary and Turkey between
+them held Serbia territorially in such a position that whenever Serbia either
+demurred at its neighbours&rsquo; tariffs or wished to retaliate by means of
+its own, the screw was immediately applied and economic strangulation
+threatened. Rumania and Bulgaria economically could never be 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 their
+neighbours&rsquo; live stock and cereals, when their first business is to sell
+their own, while the cost of transit of imports from western Europe through
+those countries is prohibitive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia remained in
+a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the authority of the
+Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real power was wielded by
+local Turkish officials, who exploited the country, looked on it as their own
+property, and enjoyed semi-independence. Their exactions and cruelties were
+worse than had been those of the Turks in the old days, and it was against them
+and their troops, not against those of the Sultan, that the first battles in
+the Serbian war of independence were fought. It was during the year 1803 that
+the Serbian leaders first made definite plans for the rising which eventually
+took place in the following year. The ringleader was George Petrović, known as
+Black George, or Kara-George, and amongst his confederates was Miloš Obrenović.
+The centre of the conspiracy was at Topola, in the district of Šumadija in
+central Serbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place of
+Kara-George. The first two years of fighting between the Serbians and, first,
+the provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan&rsquo;s forces, fully
+rewarded the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of 1807
+they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided efforts and
+captured the towns of Požarevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and Šabac. The year 1804
+is also notable as the date of the formal opening of diplomatic relations
+directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time the Emperor Alexander I was
+too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz
+took place in November 1805), but he gave the Serbs financial assistance and
+commended their cause to the especial care of his ambassador at Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace of
+Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the Russians and
+the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes against the Turks
+on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following years of peace that
+dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian leaders; fighting the Turks was
+the sole condition of existence which prevented them fighting each other. In
+1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again fought the Turks, at first without success,
+but later with better fortune. In 1811 Kara-George was elected <i>Gospodar</i>,
+or sovereign, by a popular assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish
+province. At the end of that year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at
+Rustchuk in Bulgaria, and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then
+have achieved complete independence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Napoleon was already preparing his invasion and Russia had to conclude
+peace with Turkey in a hurry, which necessarily implied that the Sultan
+obtained unduly favourable terms. In the Treaty of Bucarest between the two
+countries signed in May 1812, the Serbs were indeed mentioned, and promised
+vague internal autonomy and a general amnesty, 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 Serbs in Serbia had to withdraw. Negotiations between the
+Turks and the Serbs for the regulation of their position were continued
+throughout 1812, but finally the Turks refused all their claims and conditions
+and, seeing the European powers preoccupied with their own affairs, invaded the
+country from Bosnia in the west, and also from the east and south, in August
+1813. The Serbs, left entirely to their own resources, succumbed before the
+superior forces of the Turks, and by the beginning of October the latter were
+again masters of the whole country and in possession of Belgrade. Meanwhile
+Kara-George, broken in health and unable to cope with the difficulties of the
+situation, which demanded successful strategy both against the overwhelming
+forces of the Turks in the field and against the intrigues of his enemies at
+home, somewhat ignominiously fled across the river to Semlin in Hungary, and
+was duly incarcerated by the Austrian authorities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The news of Napoleon&rsquo;s defeat at Leipsic (October 1813) arrived just
+after that of the re-occupation of Belgrade by the Turks, damped
+<i>feu-de-joie</i> which they were firing at Constantinople, and made them
+rather more conciliatory and lenient to the Serbian rebels. But this attitude
+did not last long, and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh efforts to
+regain their short-lived liberty. The Congress of Vienna met in the autumn of
+1814, and during its whole course Serbian emissaries gave the Russian envoys no
+peace. But with the return of Napoleon to France in the spring of 1815 and the
+break-up of the Congress, all that Russia could do was, through its ambassador
+at Constantinople, to threaten invasion unless the Turks left the Serbs alone.
+Nevertheless, conditions in Serbia became so intolerable that another rebellion
+soon took shape, this time under Miloš Obrenović. 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 not temporize, and his arbitrary methods of enforcing
+discipline and his ungovernable temper had made him many enemies. While the
+credit for the first Serbian revolt (1804-13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly to
+him, the second revolt owed its more lasting success to the skill of Miloš
+Obrenović. The fighting started at Takovo, the home of the Obrenović family, in
+April 1815, and after many astonishing successes against the Turks, including
+the capture of the towns of Rudnik, Čačak, Požarevac, and Kraljevo, was all
+over by July of the same year. The Turks were ready with large armies in the
+west in Bosnia, and also south of the Morava river, to continue the campaign
+and crush the rebellion, but the news of the final defeat of Napoleon, and the
+knowledge that Russia would soon have time again to devote attention to the
+Balkans, withheld their appetites for revenge, and negotiations with the
+successful rebels were initiated. During the whole of this period, from 1813
+onwards, Miloš Obrenović, as head of a district, was an official of the Sultan
+in Serbia, and it was one of his principles never to break irreparably with the
+Turks, 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 1815 onwards he
+himself personally conducted negotiations in the name of his people with the
+various pashas who were deputed to deal with him. While these negotiations went
+on and the armistice was in force, he was confronted, or rather harassed from
+behind, by a series of revolts against his growing authority on the part of his
+jealous compatriots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In June 1817 Kara-George, who had been in Russia after being released by the
+Austrians in 1814, returned surreptitiously to Serbia, encouraged by the
+brighter aspect which affairs in his country seemed to be assuming. But the
+return of his most dangerous rival was as unwelcome to Miloš as it was to the
+Turkish authorities at Belgrade, and, measures having been concerted between
+them, Kara-George was murdered on July 26,1817, and the first act in the
+blood-feud between the two families thus committed. In November of the same
+year a <i>skupština</i>, or national assembly, was held at Belgrade, and Miloš
+Obrenović, whose position was already thoroughly assured, was elected
+hereditary prince (<i>knez</i>) of the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile events of considerable importance for the future of 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 the
+hands of Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, when the Venetian
+republic was extinguished by Napoleon. The Bocche di Cuttaro, a harbour both
+strategically 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 the successful rebellion of the Montenegrins against
+the Turks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria Dalmatia became French in
+1805. But the Montenegrins, supported by the Russians, resisted the new owners
+and occupied the Bocche; at the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, however, this
+important place was assigned to France by Russia, and Montenegro had to submit
+to its loss. In 1806 the French occupied Ragusa, and in 1808 abolished the
+independence of the ancient Serb city-republic. In 1812 the Montenegrins,
+helped by the Russians and British, again expelled the French and reoccupied
+Cattaro; but Austria was by now fully alive to the meaning this harbour would
+have once it was in the possession of Montenegro, and after the Congress of
+Vienna in 1815 took definitive possession of it as well as of all the rest of
+Dalmatia, thus effecting the complete exclusion of the Serb race for all
+political and commercial purposes from the Adriatic, its most natural and
+obvious means of communication with western Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though Miloš had been elected prince by his own people, it was long before he
+was recognized as such by the Porte. His efforts for the regularization of his
+position entailed endless negotiations in Constantinople; these were enlivened
+by frequent anti-Obrenović revolts in Serbia, all of which Miloš successfully
+quelled. The revolution in Greece in 1821 threw the Serbian question from the
+international point of view into the shade, but the Emperor Nicholas I, who
+succeeded his brother Alexander I on the Russian throne in 1825, soon showed
+that he took a lively and active interest in Balkan affairs. Pan-Slavism had
+scarcely become fashionable in those days, and it was still rather as the
+protector of its co-religionists under the Crescent that Russia intervened. In
+1826 Russian and Turkish delegates met at Akerman in Bessarabia, and in
+September of that year signed a convention by which the Russian protectorate
+over the Serbs was recognized, the Serbs were granted internal autonomy, the
+right to trade and erect churches, schools, and printing-presses, and the Turks
+were forbidden to live in Serbia except in eight garrison towns; the garrisons
+were to be Turkish, and tribute was still to be paid to the Sultan as suzerain.
+These concessions, announced by Prince Miloš to his people at a special
+<i>skupština</i> held at Kragujevac in 1827, evoked great enthusiasm, but the
+urgency of the Greek question again delayed their fulfilment. After the battle
+of Navarino on October 20, 1827, in which the British, French, and Russian
+fleets defeated the Turkish, the Turks became obstinate and refused to carry
+out the stipulations of the Convention of Akerman in favour of Serbia.
+Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey in April 1828, and the Russian armies
+crossed the Danube and the Balkans and marched on Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peace was concluded at Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey agreed to carry out
+immediately all the stipulations of the Treaty of Bucarest (1812) and the
+Convention of Akerman (1826). The details took some time to settle, but in
+November 1830 the <i>hatti-sherif</i> of the Sultan, acknowledging Miloš as
+hereditary prince of Serbia, was publicly read in Belgrade. All the concessions
+already promised were duly granted, and Serbia became virtually independent,
+but still tributary to the Sultan. Its territory included most of the northern
+part of the modern kingdom of Serbia, between the rivers Drina, Save, Danube,
+and Timok, but not the districts of Nish, Vranja, and Pirot. Turkey still
+retained Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, the <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar,
+which separated Serbia from Montenegro, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>18<br/>
+<i>The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia,</i> 1830–1903</h2>
+
+<p>
+During his rule of Serbia, which lasted virtually from 1817 till 1839, Prince
+Miloš did a very great deal for the welfare of his country. He emancipated the
+Serbian Church from the trammels of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in
+1831, from which date onwards it was ruled by a Metropolitan of Serb
+nationality, resident at Belgrade. He encouraged the trade of the country, a
+great deal of which he held in his own hands; he was in fact a sort of
+prototype of those modern Balkan business-kings of whom King George of Greece
+and King Carol of Rumania were the most notable examples. He raised an army and
+put it on a permanent footing, and organized the construction of roads,
+schools, and churches. He was, however, an autocratic ruler of the old school,
+and he had no inclination to share the power for the attainment of which he had
+laboured so many years and gone through so much. From his definite installation
+as hereditary prince discontent at his arbitrary methods of government amongst
+his ex-equals increased, and after several revolts he was forced eventually to
+grant a 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 at Constantinople, and while he was there the situation in Serbia
+became still more serious. After his return he was, after several years of
+delay and of growing unpopularity, compelled to agree to another constitution
+which was forced on him, paradoxically enough, by the joint efforts of the Tsar
+and of the Sultan, who seemed to take an unnatural pleasure in supporting the
+democratic Serbians against their successful colleague in autocracy, who had
+done so much for his turbulent subjects. Serbia even in those days was
+essentially and uncompromisingly democratic, but even so Miloš obstinately
+refused to carry out the provisions of the constitution or in any way to submit
+to a curtailment of his power, and in 1839 he left his ungrateful principality
+and took refuge in Rumania, where he possessed an estate, abdicating in favour
+of his elder son Milan. This Prince Milan, known as Obrenović II, was seriously
+ill at the time of his accession, and died within a month of it. He was
+succeeded by his younger brother Michael, known as Obrenović III, 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 has ever
+had. His first reign (1840-2), however, did not open well. He inaugurated it by
+paying a state visit to Constantinople, but the Sultan only recognized him as
+elective prince and insisted on his having two advisers approved and appointed
+by 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, Vučić, and,
+though Michael&rsquo;s rule was not as arbitrary as his father&rsquo;s, he had
+to bow to the popular will which supported Vučić and cross the river to Semlin.
+After a stormy interval, during which the Emperor Nicholas I tried to intervene
+in favour of Michael, Alexander Karagjorgjević, son of Kara-George, was elected
+prince (1843). No sooner was this representative of the rival dynasty
+installed, however, than rebellions in favour of Michael occurred. These were
+thrown into the shade by the events of 1848, In that memorable year of
+revolutions the Magyars rose against Austria and the Serbs in southern Hungary
+rose against the Magyars. Prince Alexander resolved to send military help to
+his oppressed countrymen north of the Save and Danube, and, though the
+insurgents were unsuccessful, Prince Alexander gained in popularity amongst the
+Serbs by the line of action he had taken. During the Crimean War, on the other
+hand, Serbia remained strictly neutral, to the annoyance of the Tsar; at the
+Congress of Paris (1856) the exclusive protectorate of Russia was replaced by
+one of all the powers, and Russian influence in the western Balkans was thereby
+weakened. Prince Alexander&rsquo;s prudence, moreover, cost him his popularity,
+and in 1858 he in his turn had to bid farewell to his difficult countrymen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In December of the same year the veteran Prince Miloš Obrenović I was recalled
+to power as hereditary prince. His activities during his second reign were
+directed against Turkish influence, which was still strong, and he made efforts
+to have the Turkish populations removed from the eight garrison towns,
+including Belgrade, where they still lived in spite of the fact that their
+emigration had been stipulated for in 1830. Unfortunately he did not live long
+enough to carry out his plans, for he fell ill at Topchider, the summer palace
+near Belgrade, in the autumn of 1860, and died a few days afterwards. He was
+again succeeded by his son Michael Obrenović III, who was already thirty-six
+years of age. This able prince&rsquo;s second reign was brilliantly successful,
+and it was a disaster for which his foolish countrymen had to pay dearly, when,
+by their fault, it was prematurely cut short in 1868. His first act was with
+the consent of a specially summoned <i>skupština</i> to abolish the law by
+which he could only appoint and remove his counsellers with the approval of the
+Porte. Next he set about the organization and establishment of a regular army
+of 30,000 men. In 1862 an anti-Turkish rebellion broke out amongst the Serbs in
+Hercegovina (still, with Bosnia, a Turkish province), and the Porte, accusing
+Prince Michael of complicity, made warlike preparations against him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Events, however, were precipitated in such a way that, without waiting for the
+opening of hostilities, the Turkish general in command of the fortress of
+Belgrade turned his guns on the city; this provoked the intervention of the
+powers at Constantinople, and the entire civilian Turkish population had to
+quit the country (in accordance with the stipulations of 1830), only Turkish
+garrisons remaining in the fortresses of Šabac, Belgrade, Smederevo, and
+Kladovo, along the northern river frontier, still theoretically the boundary of
+the Sultan&rsquo;s dominions. After this success Prince Michael continued his
+military preparations in order to obtain final possession of the fortresses
+when a suitable occasion should arise. This occurred in 1866, when Austria was
+engaged in the struggle with Prussia, and the policy of Great Britain became
+less Turcophil than it had hitherto been. On April 6, 1867, the four
+fortresses, which had been in Serbian possession from 1804 to 1813, but had
+since then been garrisoned by the Turks, were delivered over to Serbia and the
+last Turkish soldier left Serbian soil without a shot having been fired. Though
+Serbia after this was still a vassal state, being tributary to the Sultan,
+these further steps on the road to complete independence were a great triumph,
+especially for Prince Michael personally. But this very triumph actuated his
+political opponents amongst his own countrymen, amongst whom were undoubtedly
+adherents of the rival dynasty, to revenge, and blind to the interests of their
+people they foolishly and most brutally murdered this extremely capable and
+conscientious prince in the deer park near Topchider on June 10, 1868. The
+opponents of the Obrenović dynasty were, however, baulked in their plans, and a
+cousin of the late prince was elected to the vacant and difficult position.
+This ruler, known as Milan Obrenović IV, who was only fourteen years of age at
+the time of his accession (1868), was of a very different character from his
+predecessor. The first thing that happened during his minority was the
+substitution of the constitution of 1838 by another one which was meant to give
+the prince and the national assembly much more power, but which, eventually,
+made the ministers supreme.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prince came of age in 1872 when he was eighteen, and he soon showed that
+the potential pleasures to be derived from his position were far more
+attractive to him than the fulfilment of its obvious duties. He found much to
+occupy him in Vienna and Paris and but little in Belgrade. At the same time the
+Serb people had lost, largely by its own faults, much of the respect and
+sympathy which it had acquired in Europe during Prince Michael&rsquo;s reign.
+In 1875 a formidable anti-Turkish insurrection (the last of many) broke out
+amongst the Serbs of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and all the efforts of the Turks
+to quell it were unavailing. In June 1876 Prince Milan was forced by the
+pressure of public opinion to declare war on Turkey in support of the
+&lsquo;unredeemed&rsquo; Serbs of Bosnia, and Serbia was joined by Montenegro.
+The country was, however, not materially prepared for war, the expected
+sympathetic risings in other parts of Turkey either did not take place or
+failed, and the Turks turned their whole army on to Serbia, with the result
+that in October the Serbs had to appeal to the Tsar for help and an armistice
+was arranged, which lasted till February 1877. During the winter a conference
+was held in Constantinople to devise means for alleviating the lot of the
+Christians in Turkey, and a peace was arranged between Turkey and Serbia
+whereby the <i>status quo ante</i> was restored. But after the conference the
+heart of Turkey was again hardened and the stipulations in favour of the
+Christians were not carried out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey (cf. chap. 10), and in the autumn of the
+same year Serbia joined in. This time the armies of Prince Milan were more
+successful, and conquered and occupied the whole of southern Serbia including
+the towns and districts of Nish, Pirot, Vranja, and Leskovac, Montenegro, which
+had not been included in the peace of the previous winter, but had been
+fighting desperately and continuously against the Turks ever since it had begun
+actively to help the Serb rebels of Hercegovina in 1875, had a series of
+successes, as a result of which it obtained possession of the important
+localities of Nikšić, Podgorica, Budua, Antivari, and Dulcigno, the last three
+on the shore of the Adriatic. By the Treaty of San Stefano the future interests
+of both Serbia and Montenegro were jeopardised by the creation of a Great
+Bulgaria, but that would not have mattered if in return they had been given
+control of the purely Serb provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina, which
+ethnically they can claim just as legitimately as Bulgaria claims most of
+Macedonia. The Treaty of San Stefano was, however, soon replaced by that of
+Berlin. By its terms both Serbia and Montenegro achieved complete independence
+and the former ceased to be a tributary state of Turkey. The Serbs were given
+the districts of southern Serbia which they had occupied, and which are all
+ethnically Serb except Pirot, the population of which is a sort of cross
+between Serb and Bulgar. The Serbs also undertook to build a railway through
+their country to the Turkish and Bulgarian frontiers. Montenegro was nearly
+doubled in size, receiving the districts of Nikšić, Podgorica, and others;
+certain places in the interior the Turks and Albanians absolutely refused to
+surrender, and to compensate for these Montenegro was given a strip of coast
+with the townlets of Antivari and Dulcigno. The memory of Gladstone, who
+specially espoused Montenegro&rsquo;s cause in this matter, is held in the
+greatest reverence in the brave little mountain country, but unfortunately the
+ports themselves are economically absolutely useless. Budua, higher up the
+Dalmatian coast, which would have been of some use, was handed over to Austria,
+to which country, already possessed of Cattaro and all the rest of Dalmatia, it
+was quite superfluous. Greatest tragedy of all for the future of the Serb race,
+the administration of Bosnia and Hercegovina was handed over
+&lsquo;temporarily&rsquo; to Austria-Hungary, and Austrian garrisons were
+quartered throughout those two provinces, which they were able to occupy only
+after the most bitter armed opposition on the part of the inhabitants, and also
+in the Turkish <i>sandjak</i> or province of Novi-Pazar, the ancient Raska and
+cradle of the Serb state; this strip of mountainous territory under Turkish
+administrative and Austrian military control was thus converted into a
+fortified wedge which effectually kept the two independent Serb states of
+Serbia and Montenegro apart. After all these events the Serbs had to set to
+work to put their enlarged house in order. But the building of railways and
+schools and the organization of the services cost a lot of money, and as public
+economy is not a Serbian virtue the debt grew rapidly. In 1882 Serbia
+proclaimed itself a kingdom and was duly recognized by the other nations. But
+King Milan did not learn to manage the affairs of his country any better as
+time went on. He was too weak to stand alone, and having freed himself from
+Turkey he threw himself into the arms of Austria, with which country he
+concluded a secret military convention. In 1885, when Bulgaria and
+&lsquo;Eastern Rumelia&rsquo; successfully coalesced and Bulgaria thereby
+received a considerable increase of territory and power, the Serbs, prompted by
+jealousy, 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 disastrous battle of Slivnitsa (cf. chap. II); Austria
+had to intervene to save its victim, and Serbia got nothing for its trouble but
+a large increase of debt and a considerable decrease of military reputation. In
+addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate in his conjugal relations; his
+wife, the beautiful Queen Natalie, was a Russian, and as he himself had
+Austrian sympathies, they could scarcely be expected to agree on politics. But
+the strife between them extended from the sphere of international to that of
+personal sympathies and antipathies. King Milan was promiscuous in affairs of
+the heart and Queen Natalie was jealous. Scenes of domestic discord were
+frequent and violent, and the effect of this atmosphere on the character of
+their only child Alexander, who was born in 1876, was naturally bad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The king, who had for some years been very popular with, his subjects with all
+his failings, lost his hold on the country after the unfortunate war of 1885,
+and the partisans of the rival dynasty began to be hopeful once more. In 1888
+King Milan gave Serbia a very much more liberal constitution, by which the
+ministers were for the first time made really responsible to the
+<i>skupština</i> or national assembly, replacing that of 1869, and the
+following year, worried by his political and domestic failures, discredited and
+unpopular both at 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. Ristić, with a radical ministry under M. Pašić, an
+extremely able and patriotic statesman of pro-Russian sympathies, who ever
+since he first became prominent in 1877 had been growing in power and
+influence. But trouble did not cease with the abdication of King Milan. He and
+his wife played Box and Cox at Belgrade for the next four years, quarrelling
+and being reconciled, intriguing and fighting round the throne and person of
+their son. At last both parents agreed to leave the country and give the
+unfortunate youth a chance. King Milan settled in Vienna, Queen Natalie in
+Biarritz. In 1893 King Alexander suddenly declared himself of age and arrested
+all his ministers and regents one evening while they were dining with him. The
+next year he abrogated the constitution of 1888, under which party warfare in
+the Serbian parliament had been bitter and uninterrupted, obstructing any real
+progress, and restored that of 1869. Ever since 1889 (the date of the accession
+of the German Emperor) Berlin had taken more interest in Serbian affairs, and
+it has been alleged that it was William II who, through the wife of the
+Rumanian minister at his court, who was sister of Queen Natalie, influenced
+King Alexander in his abrupt and ill-judged decisions. It was certainly German
+policy to weaken and discredit Serbia and to further Austrian influence at
+Belgrade at the expense of that of Russia. King Milan returned for a time to
+Belgrade in 1897, and the reaction, favourable to Austria, which had begun in
+1894, increased during his presence and under the ministry of Dr. Vladan
+Gjorgjević, which lasted from 1897 till 1900. This state of repression caused
+unrest throughout the country. All its energies were absorbed in fruitless
+political party strife, and no material or moral progress was possible. King
+Alexander, distracted, solitary, and helpless 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 relaxation to see his mother at
+Biarritz, he fell violently in love with her lady in waiting, Madame Draga
+Mašin, the divorced wife of a Serbian officer. Her somewhat equivocal past was
+in King Alexander&rsquo;s eyes quite eclipsed by her great beauty and her wit,
+which had not been impaired by conjugal infelicity. Although she was
+thirty-two, and he only twenty-four, he determined to marry her, and the
+desperate opposition of his parents, his army, his ministers, and his people,
+based principally on the fact that the woman was known to be incapable of
+child-birth, only precipitated the accomplishment of his intention. This
+unfortunate and headstrong action on the part of the young king, who, though
+deficient in tact and intuition, had plenty of energy and was by no means
+stupid, might have been forgiven him by his people if, as was at first thought
+possible, it had restored internal peace and prosperity in the country and
+thereby enabled it to prepare itself to take a part in the solution o£ those
+foreign questions which vitally affected Serb interests and were already
+looming on the horizon. But it did not. In 1901 King Alexander granted another
+constitution and for a time attempted to work with a coalition ministry; but
+this failed, and a term of reaction with pro-Austrian tendencies, which were
+favoured by the king and queen, set in. This reaction, combined with the
+growing disorganization of the finances and the general sense of the discredit
+and failure which the follies of its rulers had during the last thirty years
+brought on the country; completely undermined the position of the dynasty and
+made a catastrophe inevitable. This occurred, as is well known, on June 10,
+1903, when, as the result of a military conspiracy, King Alexander, the last of
+the Obrenović dynasty, his wife, and her male relatives were murdered. This
+crime was purely political, and it is absurd to gloss it over or to explain it
+merely as the result of the family feud between the two dynasties. That came to
+an end in 1868, when the murder of Kara-George in 1817 by the agency of Miloš
+Obrenović was avenged by the lunatic assassination of the brilliant Prince
+Michael Obrenović III. It is no exaggeration to say that, from the point of
+view of the Serbian patriot, the only salvation of his country in 1903 lay in
+getting rid of the Obrenović dynasty, which had become pro-Austrian, had no
+longer the great gifts possessed by its earlier members, and undoubtedly by its
+vagaries hindered the progress of Serbia both in internal and external
+politics. The assassination was unfortunately carried out with unnecessary
+cruelty, and it is this fact that made such a bad impression and for so long
+militated against Serbia in western Europe; but it must be remembered that
+civilization in the Balkans, where political murder, far from being a product
+of the five hundred years of Turkish dominion, has always been endemic, is not
+on the same level in many respects as it is in the rest of Europe. Life is one
+of the commodities which are still cheap in backward countries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although King Alexander and his wife can in no sense be said to have deserved
+the awful fate that befell them, it is equally true that had any other course
+been adopted, such as 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, it was long before things in any sense
+settled down. As for the alleged complicity of the rival dynasty in the crime,
+it is well established that that did not exist. It was no secret to anybody
+interested in Serbian affairs that something catastrophic was about to happen,
+and when the tragedy occurred it was natural to appeal to the alternative
+native dynasty to step into the breach. But the head of that dynasty was in no
+way responsible for the plot, still less for the manner in which it was carried
+out, and it was only after much natural hesitation and in the face of his
+strong disinclination that Prince Peter Karagjorgjević was induced to accept
+the by no means enviable, easy, or profitable task of guiding Serbia&rsquo;s
+destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903 was a source neither of glory nor of
+riches, and it was notoriously no sinecure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the tragedy, the democratic constitution of 1888 was first of all
+restored, and then Prince Peter Karagjorgjević, grandson of Kara-George, the
+leader of the first Serbian insurrection of 1804-13, who was at that time
+fifty-nine years of age, was unanimously elected king. He had married in 1883 a
+daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and sister of the future Queen of
+Italy, but she had been dead already some years at the time of his accession,
+leaving him with a family of two sons and a daughter.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>19<br/>
+<i>Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary,</i> 1903–8</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was inevitable that, 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 to live down the results. Other powers, especially those of
+western Europe, looked coldly on Serbia and were in no hurry to resume
+diplomatic intercourse, still less to offer diplomatic support. The question of
+the punishment and exile of the conspirators was almost impossible of solution,
+and only time was able to obliterate the resentment caused by the whole affair.
+In Serbia itself a great change took place. The new sovereign, though he
+laboured under the greatest possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable
+behaviour, modesty, tact, and strictly constitutional rule, was able to
+withdraw the court of Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it had become
+used. The public finances began to be reorganized, commerce began to improve in
+spite of endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, and attention was again
+diverted from home to foreign politics. With the gradual spread of education
+and increase of communication, and the growth of national self-consciousness
+amongst the Serbs and Croats of Austria-Hungary and the two independent Serb
+states, a new movement for the closer intercourse amongst the various branches
+of the Serb race for south Slav unity, as it was called, gradually began to
+take shape. At the same time a more definitely political agitation started in
+Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating position of economic bondage in
+which the country was held by Austria-Hungary, and was roughly justified by the
+indisputable argument: &lsquo;Serbia must expand or die.&rsquo; Expansion at
+the cost of Turkey seemed hopeless, because even the acquisition of Macedonia
+would give Serbia a large alien population and no maritime outlet. It was
+towards the Adriatic that the gaze of the Serbs was directed, to the coast
+which was ethnically Serbian and could legitimately be considered a heritage of
+the Serb race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Macedonia was also taken into account, schools and armed bands began their
+educative activity amongst those inhabitants of the unhappy province who were
+Serb, or who lived in places where Serbs had lived, or who with sufficient
+persuasion could be induced to call themselves Serb; but the principal stream
+of propaganda was directed westwards into Bosnia and Hercegovina. The
+antagonism between Christian and Mohammedan, Serb and Turk, was never so bitter
+as between Christian and Christian, Serb and German or Magyar, and the Serbs
+were clever enough to see that Bosnia and Hercegovina, from every point of
+view, was to them worth ten Macedonias, though it would he ten times more
+difficult to obtain. Bosnia and Hercegovina, though containing three
+confessions, were ethnically homogeneous, and it was realised that these two
+provinces were as important to Serbia and Montenegro as the rest of Italy had
+been to Piedmont.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must at this time be recalled in what an extraordinary way the Serb race had
+fortuitously been broken up into a number of quite arbitrary political
+divisions. Dalmatia (three per cent. of the population of which is Italian and
+all the rest Serb or Croat, preponderatingly Serb and Orthodox in the south and
+preponderating Croat or Roman Catholic in the north) was a province of Austria
+and sent deputies to the Reichsrath at Vienna; at the same time it was
+territorially isolated from Austria and had no direct railway connexion with
+any country except a narrow-gauge line into Bosnia. Croatia and Slavonia,
+preponderatingly Roman Catholic, were lands of the Hungarian crown, and though
+they had a provincial pseudo-autonomous diet at Agram, the capital of Croatia,
+they sent deputies to the Hungarian parliament at Budapest. Thus what had in
+the Middle Ages been known as the triune kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and
+Dalmatia, with a total Serbo-Croat population of three millions, was divided
+between Austria and Hungary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further, there were about 700,000 Serbs and Croats in the south of Hungary
+proper, cast and north of the Danube, known as the Banat and Bačka, a district
+which during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was the hearth and
+home of Serb literature and education, but which later waned in importance in
+that respect as independent Serbia grew. These Serbs were directly dependent on
+Budapest, the only autonomy they possessed being ecclesiastical. Bosnia and
+Hercegovina, still nominally Turkish provinces, with a Slav population of
+nearly two million (850,000 Orthodox Serbs, 650,000 Mohammedan Serbs, and the
+rest Roman Catholics), were to all intents and purposes already imperial lands
+of Austria-Hungary, with a purely military and police administration; the
+shadow of Turkish sovereignty provided sufficient excuse to the <i>de facto</i>
+owners of these provinces not to grant the inhabitants parliamentary government
+or even genuine provincial autonomy. The Serbs in Serbia numbered nearly three
+millions, those in Montenegro about a quarter of a million; while in Turkey, in
+what was known as Old Serbia (the <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pasar between Serbia
+and Montenegro and the vilayet of Korovo), and in parts of northern and central
+Macedonia, there were scattered another half million. These last, of course,
+had no voice at all in the management of their own affairs. Those in Montenegro
+lived under the patriarchal autocracy of Prince Nicholas, who had succeeded his
+uncle, Prince Danilo, in 1860, at 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 restless with the restricted possibilities of
+a career which the mountain principality offered them, and in latter years
+migrated in large numbers to North and South America, whither emigration from
+Dalmatia and Croatia too had already readied serious proportions. The Serbs in
+Serbia were the only ones who could claim to be free, but even this was a
+freedom entirely dependent on the economic malevolence of Austria-Hungary and
+Turkey. Cut up in this way by the hand of fate into such a number of helpless
+fragments, it was inevitable that the Serb race, if it possessed any vitality,
+should attempt, at any cost, to piece some if not all of them together and form
+an ethnical whole which, economically and politically, should be master of its
+own destinies. It was equally inevitable that the policy of Austria-Hungary
+should be to anticipate or definitively render any such attempt impossible,
+because obviously the formation of a large south Slav state, by cutting off
+Austria from the Adriatic and eliminating from the dual monarchy all the
+valuable territory between the Dalmatian coast and the river Drave, would
+seriously jeopardize its position as a great power; it must be remembered,
+also, that Austria-Hungary, far from decomposing, as it was commonly assumed
+was happening, had been enormously increasing in vitality ever since 1878.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The means adopted by the governments of Vienna and Budapest to nullify the
+plans of Serbian expansion were generally to maintain the political
+<i>émiettement</i> of the Serb race, the isolation of one group from another,
+the virtually enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale and their
+substitution by German colonists, and the encouragement of rivalry and discord
+between Roman Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb. No railways were allowed to be
+built in Dalmatia, communication between Agram and any other parts of the
+monarchy except Fiume or Budapest was rendered almost impossible; Bosnia and
+Hercegovina were shut off into a watertight compartment and endowed with a
+national flag composed of the inspiring colours of brown and buff; it was made
+impossible for Serbs to visit Montenegro or for Montenegrins to visit Serbia
+except via Fiume, entailing the bestowal of several pounds on the Hungarian
+state steamers and railways. As for the <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar, it was
+turned into a veritable Tibet, and a legend was spread abroad that if any
+foreigner ventured there he would be surely murdered by Turkish brigands;
+meanwhile it was full of Viennese ladies giving picnics and dances and tennis
+parties 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 more enjoyable by the construction of railways, roads, and hotels. At the
+same time this was not a work of pure philanthropy, and the emigration
+statistics are a good indication of the joy with which the Bosnian peasants
+paid for an annual influx of admiring tourists. In spite of all these
+disadvantages, however, the Serbo-Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary could not
+be deprived of all the benefits of living within a large and prosperous customs
+union, while being made to pay for all the expenses of the elaborate imperial
+administration and services; and the spread of education, even under the
+Hapsburg régime, began to tell in time. Simultaneously with the agitation which
+emanated from Serbia and was directed towards the advancement, by means of
+schools and religious and literary propaganda, of Serbian influence in Bosnia
+and Hercegovina, a movement started in Dalmatia and Croatia for the closer
+union of those two provinces. About 1906 the two movements found expression in
+the formation of the Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb coalition party, composed of
+those elements in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia which favoured closer union
+between the various groups of the Serb race scattered throughout those
+provinces, as well as in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Turkey.
+Owing to the circumstances already described, it was impossible for the
+representatives of the Serb race to voice their aspirations unanimously in any
+one parliament, and the work of the coalition, except in the provincial diet at
+Agram, consisted mostly of conducting press campaigns and spreading propaganda
+throughout those provinces. The most important thing about the coalition was
+that it buried religious antagonism and put unity of race above difference of
+belief. In this way it came into conflict with the ultramontane Croat party at
+Agram, which wished to incorporate Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia with
+Croatia and create a third purely Roman Catholic Slav state in the empire, on a
+level with Austria and Hungary; also to a lesser extent with the intransigent
+Serbs of Belgrade, who affected to ignore Croatia and Roman Catholicism, and
+only dreamed of bringing Bosnia, Hercegovina, and as much of Dalmatia as they
+could under their own rule; and finally it had to overcome the hostility of the
+Mohammedan Serbs of Bosnia, who disliked all Christians equally, could only
+with the greatest difficulty be persuaded that they were really Serbs and not
+Turks, and honestly cared for nothing but Islam and Turkish coffee, thus
+considerably facilitating the germanization of the two provinces. The coalition
+was wisely inclined to postpone the programme of final political settlement,
+and aimed immediately at the removal of the material and moral barriers placed
+between the Serbs of the various provinces of Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia
+and Hercegovina. If they had been sure of adequate guarantees they would
+probably have agreed to the inclusion of <i>all</i> Serbs and Croats within the
+monarchy, because the constitution of all Serbs and Croats in an independent
+state (not necessarily a kingdom) without it implied the then problematic
+contingencies of a European war and the disruption of Austria-Hungary.
+Considering the manifold handicaps under which Serbia and its cause suffered,
+the considerable success which its propaganda met with in Bosnia and
+Hercegovina and other parts of Austria-Hungary, from 1903 till 1908, is a
+proof, not only of the energy and earnestness of its promoters and of the
+vitality of the Serbian people, but also, if any were needed, of the extreme
+unpopularity of the Hapsburg régime in the southern Slav provinces of the dual
+monarchy. Serbia had no help from outside. Russia was entangled in the Far East
+and then in the revolution, and though the new dynasty was approved in St.
+Petersburg Russian sympathy with Serbia was at that time only lukewarm.
+Relations with Austria-Hungary were of course always strained; only one single
+line of railway connected the two countries, and as Austria-Hungary was the
+only profitable market, for geographical reasons, for Serbian products, Serbia
+could be brought to its knees at any moment by the commercial closing of the
+frontier. It was a symbol of the economic vassalage of Serbia and Montenegro
+that the postage between both of these countries and any part of
+Austria-Hungary was ten centimes, that for letters between Serbia and
+Montenegro, which had to make the long détour through Austrian territory, was
+twenty-five. But though this opened the Serbian markets to Austria, it also
+incidentally opened Bosnia, when the censor could be circumvented to propaganda
+by pamphlet and correspondence. Intercourse with western Europe was restricted
+by distance, and, owing to dynastic reasons, diplomatic relations were
+altogether suspended for several years between this country and Serbia. The
+Balkan States Exhibition held in London during the summer of 1907, to encourage
+trade between Great Britain and the Balkans, was hardly a success. Italy and
+Serbia had nothing in common. With Montenegro even, despite the fact that King
+Peter was Prince Nicholas&rsquo;s son-in-law, relations were bad. It was felt
+in Serbia that Prince Nicholas&rsquo;s autocratic rule acted as a brake on the
+legitimate development of the national consciousness, and Montenegrin students
+who visited Belgrade returned to their homes full of 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 enjoy the special favour as well as the financial support of the
+Russian court, and which, looked on throughout Europe as a picturesque and
+harmless institution, it would have been dangerous, as it was quite
+unnecessary, to touch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Serbia was thus left entirely to its own resources in the great propagandist
+activity which filled the years 1903 to 1908. The financial means at its
+disposal were exiguous in the extreme, especially when compared with the
+enormous sums lavished annually by the Austrian and German governments on their
+secret political services, so that the efforts of its agents cannot be ascribed
+to cupidity. Also it must be admitted that the kingdom of Serbia, with its
+capital Belgrade, thanks to the internal chaos and dynastic scandals of the
+previous forty years, resulting in superficial dilapidation, intellectual
+stagnation, and general poverty, lacked the material as well as the moral
+glamour which a successful Piedmont should possess. Nobody could deny, for
+instance, that, with all its natural advantages, Belgrade was at first sight
+not nearly such an attractive centre as Agram or Sarajevo, or that the
+qualities which the Serbs of Serbia had displayed since their emancipation were
+hardly such as to command the unstinted confidence and admiration of their as
+yet unredeemed compatriots. Nevertheless the Serbian propaganda in favour of
+what was really a Pan-Serb movement met with great success, especially in
+Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simultaneously the work of the Serbo-Croat coalition in Dalmatia, Croatia, and
+Slavonia made considerable progress in spite of clerical opposition and
+desperate conflicts with the government at Budapest. Both the one movement and
+the other naturally evoked great alarm and emotion in the Austrian and
+Hungarian capitals, as they were seen to be genuinely popular and also
+potentially, if not actually, separatist in character. In October 1906 Baron
+Achrenthal succeeded Count Goluchowski as Minister for Foreign Affairs at
+Vienna, and very soon initiated a more vigorous and incidentally anti-Slav
+foreign policy than his predecessor. What was now looked on as the Serbian
+danger had in the eyes of Vienna assumed such proportions that the time for
+decisive action was considered to have arrived. In January 1908 Baron
+Achrenthal announced his scheme for a continuation of the Bosnian railway
+system through the <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar to link 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 international commerce, while the engineering
+difficulties were such that the cost of construction would have been
+prohibitive. But the possibilities which this move indicated, the palpable
+evidence it contained of the notorious <i>Drang nach Osten</i> of the Germanic
+powers towards Salonika and Constantinople, were quite sufficient to fill the
+ministries of Europe, and especially those of Russia, with extreme uneasiness.
+The immediate result of this was that concerted action between Russia and
+Austria-Hungary in the Balkans was thenceforward impossible, and the Mürzsteg
+programme, after a short and precarious existence, came to an untimely end (cf.
+chap. 12). Serbia and Montenegro, face to face with this new danger which
+threatened permanently to separate their territories, were beside themselves,
+and immediately parried with the project, hardly more practicable in view of
+their international credit, of a Danube-Adriatic railway. In July 1908 the
+nerves of Europe were still further tried by the Young Turk revolution in
+Constantinople. The imminence of this movement was known to Austro-German
+diplomacy, and doubtless this knowledge, as well as the fear of the Pan-Serb
+movement, prompted the Austrian foreign minister to take steps towards the
+definitive regularization of his country&rsquo;s position in Bosnia and
+Hercegovina&mdash;provinces whose suzerain was still the Sultan of Turkey. The
+effect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan States was as any one who visited
+them at that time can testify, both pathetic and intensely humorous. The
+permanent chaos of the Turkish empire, and the process of watching for years
+its gradual but inevitable decomposition, had created amongst the neighbouring
+states an atmosphere of excited anticipation, which was really the breath of
+their nostrils; it had stimulated them during the endless Macedonian
+insurrections to commit the most awful outrages against each other&rsquo;s
+nationals and then lay the blame at the door of the unfortunate Turk; and if
+the Turk should really regenerate himself, not only would their occupation be
+gone, but the heavily-discounted legacies would assuredly elude their grasp. At
+the same time, since the whole policy of exhibiting and exploiting the horrors
+of Macedonia, and of organizing guerilla bands and provoking intervention, was
+based on the refusal of the Turks to grant reforms, as soon as the
+ultra-liberal constitution of Midhat Pasha, which, had been withdrawn after a
+brief and unsuccessful run in 1876, was restored by the Young Turks, there was
+nothing left for the Balkan States to do but to applaud with as much enthusiasm
+as they could simulate. The emotions experienced by the Balkan peoples during
+that summer, beneath the smiles which they had to assume, were exhausting even
+for southern temperaments. Bulgaria, with its characteristic
+matter-of-factness, was the first to adjust itself to the new and trying
+situation in which the only certainty was that something decisive had got to be
+done with all possible celerity. On October 5, 1908, Prince Ferdinand sprang on
+an astonished continent the news that he renounced the Turkish suzerainty (ever
+since 1878 the Bulgarian principality had been a tributary and vassal state of
+the Ottoman Empire, and therefore, with all its astonishingly rapid progress
+and material prosperity, a subject for commiseration in the kingdoms of Serbia
+and Greece) and proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria, with himself, as Tsar
+of the Bulgars, at its head. Europe had not recovered from this shock, still
+less Belgrade and Athens, when, two days later. Baron Aehrenthal announced the
+formal annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Emperor Francis Joseph.
+Whereas most people had virtually forgotten the Treaty of Berlin and had come
+to look on Austria as just as permanently settled in these two provinces as was
+Great Britain in Egypt and Cyprus, yet the formal breach of the stipulations of
+that treaty on Austria&rsquo;s part, by annexing the provinces without notice
+to or consultation with the other parties concerned, gave the excuse for a
+somewhat ridiculous hue and cry on the part of the other powers, and especially
+on that of Russia. The effect of these blows from right and left on Serbia was
+literally paralysing. When Belgrade recovered the use of its organs, it started
+to scream for war and revenue, and initiated an international crisis from which
+Europe did not recover till the following year. Meanwhile, almost unobserved by
+the peoples of Serbia 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 its garrisons from the <i>sandjak</i>
+of Novi-Pazar, thus evacuating the long-coveted corridor which was the one
+thing above all else necessary to Serbia and Montenegro for the realization of
+their plans.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>20<br/>
+<i>Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars,</i> 1908–13 (cf. Chap,
+13)</h2>
+
+<p>
+The winter of 1908-9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia&rsquo;s fortunes. The
+successive <i>coups</i> and <i>faits accomplis</i> carried out by Austria,
+Turkey, and Bulgaria during 1908 seemed destined to destroy for good the
+Serbian plans for expansion in any direction whatever, and if these could not
+be realized then Serbia must die of suffocation. It was also well understood
+that for all the martial ardour displayed in Belgrade the army was in no
+condition to take the field any more than was the treasury to bear the cost of
+a campaign; Russia had not yet recovered from the Japanese War followed by the
+revolution, and indeed everything pointed to the certainty that if Serbia
+indulged in hostilities against Austria-Hungary it would perish ignominiously
+and alone. The worst of it was that neither Serbia nor Montenegro had any legal
+claim to Bosnia and Hercegovina: they had been deluding themselves with the
+hope that their ethnical identity with the people of these provinces, supported
+by the effects of their propaganda, would induce a compassionate and generous
+Europe at least to insist on their being given a part of the coveted territory,
+and thus give Serbia access to the coast, when the ambiguous position of these
+two valuable provinces, still nominally Turkish but already virtually Austrian,
+came to be finally regularized. As a matter of fact, ever since Bismarck,
+Gorchakóv, and Beaconsfield had put Austria-Hungary in their possession in
+1878, no one had seriously thought that the Dual Monarchy would ever
+voluntarily retire from one inch of the territory which had been conquered and
+occupied at such cost, and those who noticed it were astonished at the
+evacuation by it of the <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar. At the same time Baron
+Achrenthal little foresaw what a hornet&rsquo;s nest he would bring about his
+ears by the tactless method in which the annexation was carried out. The first
+effect was to provoke a complete boycott of Austro-Hungarian goods and trading
+vessels throughout the Ottoman Empire, which was so harmful to the Austrian
+export trade that in January 1909 Count Achrenthal had to indemnify Turkey with
+the sum of £2,500,000 for his technically stolen property. Further, the
+attitude of Russia and Serbia throughout the whole winter remained so
+provocative and threatening that, although war was generally considered
+improbable, the Austrian army had to be kept on a war footing, which involved
+great expense and much popular discontent. The grave external crisis was only
+solved at the end of March 1909; Germany had had to deliver a veiled ultimatum
+at St. Petersburg, the result of which was the rescue of Austria-Hungary from
+an awkward situation by the much-advertised appearance of its faithful ally in
+shining armour. Simultaneously Serbia had to eat humble pie and declare, with
+complete absence of truth, that the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina had
+not affected its interests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the internal complications in the southern Slav provinces of
+Austria-Hungary were growing formidable. Ever since the summer of 1908 arrests
+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 of this agitation in order to justify
+abroad the pressing need for the formal annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina.
+The fact was that, though immediate danger to the monarchy as a result of the
+Pan-Serb agitation was known not to exist, yet in the interests of Austrian
+foreign policy, the Serbs had to be compromised in the eyes of Europe, the
+Croato-Serb coalition within the Dual Monarchy had to be destroyed to gratify
+Budapest in particular, and the religious and political discord between Croat
+and Serb, on which the foundation of the power of Austria-Hungary, and
+especially that of Hungary, in the south rested, and which was in a fair way of
+being eliminated through the efforts of the coalition, had to be revived by
+some means or other. It is not possible here to go into the details of the
+notorious Agram high treason trial, which was the outcome of all this. It
+suffices to say that it was a monstrous travesty of justice which lasted from
+March till October 1909, and though it resulted in the ostensible destruction
+of the coalition and the imprisonment of many of its members, it defeated its
+own ends, as it merely fanned the flame of nationalistic feeling against Vienna
+and Budapest, and Croatia has ever since had to be governed virtually by
+martial law. This was followed in December 1909 by the even more famous
+Friedjung trial. In March 1909 Count Achrenthal had begun in Vienna a violent
+press campaign against Serbia, accusing the Serbian Government and dynasty of
+complicity in the concoction of nefarious designs and conspiracies against the
+integrity of Austria-Hungary. This campaign was thought to be the means of
+foreshadowing and justifying the immediate military occupation of Serbia.
+Unfortunately its instigator had not been sufficiently particular as to the
+choice of his tools and his methods of using them. Among the contributors of
+the highly tendencious articles was the well-known historian Dr. Friedjung, who
+made extensive use of documents supplied him by the Vienna Foreign Office. His
+accusations immediately provoked an action for libel on the part of three
+leaders of the Croato-Serb coalition who were implicated, in December 1909. The
+trial, which was highly sensational, resulted in the complete vindication and
+rehabilitation both of those three Austrian subjects in the eyes of the whole
+of Austria-Hungary and of the Belgrade Foreign Office in those of Europe; the
+documents on which the charges were based were proven to be partly forgeries,
+partly falsified, and partly stolen by various disreputable secret political
+agents of the Austrian Foreign Office, and one of the principal Serbian
+&lsquo;conspirators&rsquo;, a professor of Belgrade University, proved that he
+was in Berlin at the time when he had been accused of presiding over a
+revolutionary meeting at Belgrade. But it also resulted in the latter
+discrediting of Count Achrenthal as a diplomat and of the methods by which he
+conducted the business of the Austrian Foreign Office, and involved his country
+in the expenditure of countless millions which it could ill afford.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There never was any doubt that a subversive agitation had been going on, and
+that it emanated in part from Serbia, but the Serbian Foreign Office, under the
+able management of Dr. Milovanović and Dr. Spalajković (one of the principal
+witnesses at the Friedjung trial), was far too clever to allow any of its
+members, or indeed any responsible person in Serbia, to be concerned in it, and
+the brilliant way in which the clumsy and foolish charges were refuted
+redounded greatly to the credit of the Serbian Government. Count Achrenthal had
+overreached himself, and moreover the wind had already been taken out of his
+sails by the public recantation on Serbia&rsquo;s part of its pretensions to
+Bosnia, which, as already mentioned, took place at the end of March 1909, and
+by the simultaneous termination of the international crisis marked by
+Russia&rsquo;s acquiescence in the <i>fait accompli</i> of the annexation. At
+the same time the Serbian Crown Prince George, King Peter&rsquo;s elder son,
+who had been the leader of the chauvinist war-party in Serbia, and was somewhat
+theatrical in demeanour and irresponsible in character, renounced his rights of
+succession in favour of his younger brother Prince Alexander, a much steadier
+and more talented young man. It is certain that when he realized how things
+were going to develop Count Achrenthal tried to hush up the whole incident, but
+it was too late, and Dr. Friedjung insisted on doing what he could to save his
+reputation as a historian. In the end he was made the principal scapegoat,
+though the press of Vienna voiced its opinion of the Austrian Foreign Office in
+no measured tones, saying, amongst other things, that if the conductors of its
+diplomacy must use forgeries, they might at any rate secure good ones.
+Eventually a compromise was arranged, after the defendant had clearly lost his
+case, owing to pressure being brought to bear from outside, and the Serbian
+Government refrained from carrying out its threat of having the whole question
+threshed out before the Hague Tribunal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cumulative effect of all these exciting and trying experiences was the
+growth of a distinctly more sympathetic feeling towards Serbia in Europe at
+large, and especially a rallying of all the elements throughout the Serb and
+Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary, except the extreme clericals of Agram, to
+the Serbian cause; briefly, the effect was the exact opposite of that desired
+by Vienna and Budapest. Meanwhile events had been happening elsewhere which
+revived the drooping interest and flagging hopes of Serbia in the development
+of foreign affairs. The attainment of power by the Young Turks and the
+introduction of parliamentary government had brought no improvement to the
+internal condition of the Ottoman Empire, and the Balkan peoples made no effort
+to conceal their satisfaction at the failure 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 service and obligatory payment of taxes caused a revolution in
+Albania, where such innovations were not at all appreciated. From 1909 till
+1911 there was a state of perpetual warfare in Albania, with which the Young
+Turks, in spite of cruel reprisals, were unable to cope, until, in the summer
+of that year, Austria threatened to intervene unless order were restored; some
+sort of settlement was patched up, and an amnesty was granted to the rebels by
+the new Sultan. This unfortunate man, after being rendered almost half-witted
+by having been for the greater part of his life kept a prisoner by his brother
+the tyrant Abdul Hamid, was now the captive of the Young Turks, and had been
+compelled by them to make as triumphal a progress as fears for his personal
+safety would allow through the provinces of European Turkey. But it was obvious
+to Balkan statesmen that Turkey was only changed in name, and that, if its
+threatened regeneration had slightly postponed their plans for its partition
+amongst themselves, the ultimate consummation of these plans must be pursued
+with, if possible, even greater energy and expedition than before. It was also
+seen by the more perspicacious of them that the methods hitherto adopted must
+in future be radically altered. A rejuvenated though unreformed Turkey, bent on
+self-preservation, could not be despised, and it was understood that if the
+revolutionary bands of the three Christian nations (Greece, Serbia, and
+Bulgaria) were to continue indefinitely to cut each others&rsquo; throats in
+Macedonia the tables might conceivably be turned on them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From 1909 onwards a series of phenomena occurred in the Balkans which ought to
+have given warning to the Turks, whose survival in Europe had been due solely
+to the fact that the Balkan States had never been able to unite. In the autumn
+of 1909 King Ferdinand of Bulgaria met Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and
+made an expedition in his company to Mount Kopaonik in Serbia, renowned for the
+beauty of its flora. This must have struck those who remembered the bitter
+feelings which had existed between the two countries for years and had been
+intensified by the events of 1908. Bulgaria had looked on Serbia&rsquo;s
+failures with persistent contempt, while Serbia had watched Bulgaria&rsquo;s
+successful progress with speechless jealousy, and the memory of Slivnitsa was
+not yet obliterated. In the summer of 1910 Prince Nicholas of Montenegro
+celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his reign and his golden wedding. The
+festivities were attended by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the Crown Prince
+Boris, by the Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and his sister, grandchildren of
+Prince Nicholas, by his two daughters the Queen of Italy and the Grand Duchess
+Anastasia of Russia, and by their husbands, King Victor Emmanuel and the Grand
+Duke Nicholas. The happiness of the venerable ruler, who was as respected
+throughout Europe as he was feared throughout his principality, was at the same
+time completed by his recognition as king by all the governments and sovereigns
+of the continent. The hopes that he would simultaneously introduce a more
+liberal form of government amongst his own people were unfortunately
+disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The year 1911, it need scarcely be recalled, was extremely fateful for the
+whole of Europe. The growing restlessness and irritability manifested by the
+German Empire began to make all the other governments feel exceedingly uneasy.
+The French expedition to Fez in April was followed by the Anglo-Franco-German
+crisis of July; war was avoided, and France was recognized as virtually master
+of Morocco, but the soreness of the diplomatic defeat rendered Germany a still
+more trying neighbour than it had been before. The first repercussion was the
+war which broke out in September 1911 between Italy and Turkey for the
+possession of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, which Italy, with its usual insight, saw
+was vital to its position as a Mediterranean power and therefore determined to
+acquire before any other power had time or courage to do so. In the Balkans
+this was a year of observation and preparation. Serbia, taught by the bitter
+lesson of 1908 not to be caught again unprepared, had spent much money and care
+on its army during the last few years and had brought it to a much higher state
+of efficiency. In Austria-Hungary careful observers wore aware that something
+was afoot and that the gaze of Serbia, which from 1903 till 1908 had been
+directed westwards to Bosnia and the Adriatic, had since 1908 been fixed on
+Macedonia and the Aegean. The actual formation of the Balkan League by King
+Ferdinand and M. Venezelos may not have been known, but it was realized that
+action of some sort on the part of the Balkan States was imminent, and that
+something must be done to forestall it. In February 1912 Count Aehrenthal died,
+and was succeeded by Count Berchtold as Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign
+Affairs. In August of the same year this minister unexpectedly announced his
+new and startling proposals for the introduction of reforms in Macedonia, which
+nobody in the Balkans who had any material interest in the fate of that
+province genuinely desired at that moment; the motto of the new scheme was
+&lsquo;progressive decentralization&rsquo;, blessed words which soothed the
+great powers as much as they alarmed the Balkan Governments. But already in May
+1912 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgaria and Serbia had
+been concluded, limiting their respective zones of influence in the territory
+which they hoped to conquer. It was, to any one who has any knowledge of Balkan
+history, incredible that the various Governments had been able to come to any
+agreement at all. That arrived at by Bulgaria and Serbia divided Macedonia
+between them in such a way that Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia with
+Monastir and Okhrida, and Serbia northern Macedonia or Old Serbia; there was an
+indeterminate zone between the two spheres, including Skoplje (Üsküb, in
+Turkish), the exact division of which it was agreed to leave to arbitration at
+a subsequent date.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Macedonian theatre of war was by common consent regarded as the most
+important, and Bulgaria here promised Serbia the assistance of 100,000 men. The
+Turks meanwhile were aware that all was not what it seemed beyond the
+frontiers, and in August 1912 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 awful sufferings of their
+compatriots under Turkish misrule, gradually became exhausted. On September 28
+the four Balkan Governments informed Russia that the Balkan League was an
+accomplished fact, and on the 30th the representatives of all four signed the
+alliance, and mobilization was ordered in Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The
+population of Montenegro was habitually on a war footing, and it was left to
+the mountain kingdom from its geographically favourable position to open
+hostilities. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on Turkey, and after a series
+of brilliant successes along the frontier its forces settled down to the
+wearisome and arduous siege of Scutari with its impregnable sentinel, Mount
+Taraboš, converted into a modern fortress; the unaccustomed nature of these
+tasks, to which the Montenegrin troops, used to the adventures of irregular
+warfare, were little suited, tried the valour and patience of the intrepid
+mountaineers to the utmost. By that time Europe was in a ferment, and both
+Russia and Austria, amazed at having the initiative in the regulation of Balkan
+affairs wrested from them, showered on the Balkan capitals threats and
+protests, which for once in a way were neglected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 13 Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia replied that the offer of outside
+assistance and advice had come too late, and that they had decided themselves
+to redress the intolerable and secular wrongs of their long-suffering
+compatriots in Macedonia by force of arms. To their dismay a treaty of peace
+was signed at Lausanne about the same time between Turkey and Italy, which
+power, it had been hoped, would have distracted Turkey&rsquo;s attention by a
+continuance of hostilities in northern Africa, and at any rate immobilized the
+Turkish fleet. Encouraged by this success Turkey boldly declared war on
+Bulgaria and Serbia on October 17, hoping to frighten Greece and detach it from
+the league; but on the 18th the Greek Government replied by declaring war on
+Turkey, thus completing the necessary formalities. The Turks were confident of
+an early and easy victory, and hoped to reach Sofia, not from Constantinople
+and Thrace, but pushing up north-eastwards from Macedonia. The rapid offensive
+of the Serbian army, however, took them by surprise, and they were completely
+overwhelmed at the battle of Kumanovo in northern Macedonia on October 23-4,
+1912. On the 31st King Peter made his triumphal entry into Skoplje (ex-Üsküb),
+the ancient capital of Serbia under Tsar Stephen Dušan in the fourteenth
+century. From there the Serbian army pursued the Turks southward, and at the
+battles of Prilep (November 5) and Monastir (November 19), after encountering
+the most stubborn opposition, finally put an end to their resistance in this
+part of the theatre of war. On November 9 the Greeks entered Salonika.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile other divisions of the Serbian army had joined hands with the
+Montenegrins, and occupied almost without opposition the long-coveted
+<i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar (the ancient Serb Raška), to the inexpressible
+rage of Austria-Hungary, which had evacuated it in 1908 in favour of its
+rightful owner, Turkey. At the same time a Serbian expeditionary corps marched
+right through Albania, braving great hardships on the way, and on November 30
+occupied Durazzo, thus securing at last a foothold on the Adriatic. Besides all
+this, Serbia, in fulfilment of its treaty obligations, dispatched 50,000
+splendidly equipped men, together with a quantity of heavy siege artillery, to
+help the Bulgarians at the siege of Adrianople. On December 3 an armistice was
+signed between the belligerents, with the condition that the three besieged
+Turkish fortresses of Adrianople, Scutari, and Yanina must not be
+re-victualled, and on December 16, 1912, peace negotiations were opened between
+representatives of the belligerent countries in London. Meanwhile the Germanic
+powers, dismayed by the unexpected victories of the Balkan armies and
+humiliated by the crushing defeats in the field of the German-trained Turkish
+army, had since the beginning of November been doing everything in their power
+to support their client Turkey and prevent its final extinction and at the same
+time the blighting of their ambitions eventually to acquire the Empire of the
+Near East. During the conference in London between the plenipotentiaries of the
+belligerents, parallel meetings took place between the representatives of the
+great powers, whose relations with each other were strained and difficult in
+the extreme. The Turkish envoys prolonged the negotiations, as was their
+custom; they naturally were unwilling to concede their European provinces to
+the despised and hated Greek and Slavonic conquerors, but the delays implied
+growing hardships for their besieged and starving garrisons in Thrace, Epirus,
+and Albania. On January 23, 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 object of interrupting the negotiations
+and staking all on the result of a final battle. As a result of these events,
+and of the palpable disingenuousness of the Turks in continuing the
+negotiations in London, the Balkan delegates on January 29 broke them off, and
+on February 3, 1913, hostilities were resumed. At length, after a siege of
+nearly five months, Adrianople, supplied with infinitely better artillery than
+the allies possessed, was taken by the combined Serbian and Bulgarian forces on
+March 26, 1913. The Serbian troops at Adrianople captured 17,010 Turkish
+prisoners, 190 guns, and the Turkish commander himself, Shukri Pasha.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the outbreak of the war in the autumn of 1912 the Balkan States had observed
+all the conventions, disavowing designs of territorial aggrandizement and
+proclaiming their resolve merely to obtain guarantees for the better treatment
+of the Christian inhabitants of Macedonia; the powers, for their part, duly
+admonished the naughty children of south-eastern Europe to the effect that no
+alteration of the territorial <i>status quo ante</i> would under any
+circumstances be tolerated. During the negotiations in London, interrupted in
+January, and resumed in the spring of 1913 after the fall of Adrianople, it was
+soon made clear that in spite of all these magniloquent declarations nothing
+would be as it had been before. Throughout the winter Austria-Hungary had been
+mobilizing troops and massing them along the frontiers of Serbia and
+Montenegro, any increase in the size of which countries meant a crushing blow
+to the designs of the Germanic powers and the end to all the dreams embodied in
+the phrase &lsquo;Drang nach Osten&rsquo; (&lsquo;pushing eastwards&rsquo;).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the spring of 1913 Serbia and Montenegro, instead 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 <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar,
+of 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 than Austria could stand, and at the renewed conference of London it
+was decided that they must retire. In the interests of nationality, in which
+the Balkan States themselves undertook the war, it was desirable that at any
+rate an attempt should be made to create an independent state of Albania,
+though no one who knew the local conditions felt confident as to its ultimate
+career. Its creation assuaged the consciences of the Liberal Government in
+Great Britain and at the same time admirably suited the strategic plans of
+Austria-Hungary. It left that country a loophole for future diplomatic efforts
+to disturb the peace of south-eastern Europe, and, with its own army in Bosnia
+and its political agents and irregular troops in Albania, Serbia and
+Montenegro, even though enlarged as it was generally recognized they must be,
+would be held in a vice and could be threatened and bullied from the south now
+as well as from the north whenever it was in the interests of Vienna and
+Budapest to apply the screw. The independence of Albania was declared at the
+conference of London on May 30, 1913. Scutari was included in it as being a
+purely Albanian town, and King Nicholas and his army, after enjoying its
+coveted flesh-pots for a few halcyon weeks, had, to their mortification, to
+retire to the barren fastnesses of the Black Mountain. Serbia, frustrated by
+Austria in its attempts, generally recognized as legitimate, to obtain even a
+commercial outlet on the Adriatic, naturally again diverted its aims southwards
+to Salonika. The Greeks were already in possession of this important city and
+seaport, as well as of the whole of southern Macedonia. The Serbs were in
+possession of central and northern Macedonia, including Monastir and Okhrida,
+which they had at great sacrifices conquered from the Turks. It had been agreed
+that Bulgaria, as its share of the spoils, should have all central Macedonia,
+with Monastir and Okhrida, although on ethnical grounds the Bulgarians have
+only very slightly better claim to the country and towns west of the Vardar
+than any of the other Balkan nationalities. But at the time that the agreement
+had been concluded it had been calculated in Greece and Serbia that Albania,
+far from being made independent, would be divided between them, and that
+Serbia, assured of a strip of coast on the Adriatic, would have no interest in
+the control of the river Vardar and of the railway which follows its course
+connecting the interior of Serbia with the port of Salonika. Greece and Serbia
+had no ground whatever for quarrel and no cause for mutual distrust, and they
+were determined, for political and commercial reasons, to have a considerable
+extent of frontier from west to east in common. The creation of an independent
+Albania completely altered the situation. If Bulgaria should obtain central
+Macedonia and thus secure a frontier from north to south in common with the
+newly-formed state of Albania, then Greece would be at the mercy of its
+hereditary enemies the Bulgars and Arnauts (Albanians) as it had previously
+been at the mercy of the Turks, while Serbia would have two frontiers between
+itself and the sea instead of one, as before, and its complete economic
+strangulation would be rendered inevitable and rapid. Bulgaria for its own part
+naturally refused to waive its claim to central Macedonia, well knowing that
+the master of the Vardar valley is master of the Balkan peninsula. The first
+repercussion of the ephemeral treaty of London of May 30, 1913, which created
+Albania and shut out Serbia from the Adriatic, was, therefore, as the diplomacy
+of the Germanic powers had all along intended it should be, the beginning of a
+feud between Greece and Serbia on the one hand, and Bulgaria on the other, the
+disruption of the Balkan League and the salvation, for the ultimate benefit of
+Germany, of what was left of Turkey in Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dispute as to the exact division of the conquered territory in Macedonia
+between Serbia and Bulgaria had, as arranged, been referred to arbitration,
+and, the Tsar of Russia having been chosen as judge, the matter was being
+threshed out in St. Petersburg during June 1913. Meanwhile Bulgaria, determined
+to make good its claim to the chestnuts which Greece and Serbia had pulled out
+of the Turkish fire, was secretly collecting troops along its temporary
+south-western frontier[1] with the object, in approved Germanic fashion, of
+suddenly invading and occupying all Macedonia, and, by the presentation of an
+irrevocable <i>fait accompli</i>, of relieving the arbitrator of his invidious
+duties or at any rate assisting him in the task.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: This was formed by the stream Zletovska, a tributary of the river
+Bregalnica, which in its turn falls into the Vardar on its left or eastern bank
+about 40 miles south of Skoplje (Üsküb).]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand, the relations between Bulgaria and its two allies had been
+noticeably growing worse ever since January 1913; Bulgaria felt aggrieved that,
+in spite of its great sacrifices, it had not been able to occupy so much
+territory as Greece and Serbia, and the fact that Adrianople was taken with
+Serbian help did not improve the feeling between the two Slav nations. The
+growth of Bulgarian animosity put Greece and Serbia on their guard, and, well
+knowing the direction which an eventual attack would take, these two countries
+on June 2, 1913, signed a military convention and made all the necessary
+dispositions for resisting any aggression on Bulgaria&rsquo;s part. At one
+o&rsquo;clock in the morning of June 30 the Bulgarians, without provocation,
+without declaration of war, and without warning, crossed the Bregalnica (a
+tributary of the Vardar) and attacked the Serbs. A most violent battle ensued
+which lasted for several days; at some points the Bulgarians, thanks to the
+suddenness of their offensive, were temporarily successful, but gradually the
+Serbs regained the upper hand and by July 1 the Bulgarians were beaten. The
+losses were very heavy on both sides, but the final issue was a complete
+triumph for the Serbian army. Slivnitsa was avenged by the battle of the
+Bregalnica, just as Kosovo was by that of Kumanovo. After a triumphant campaign
+of one month, in which the Serbs were joined by the Greeks, Bulgaria had to bow
+to the inevitable. The Rumanian army had invaded northern Bulgaria, bent on
+maintaining the Balkan equilibrium and on securing compensation for having
+observed neutrality during the war of 1912-13, and famine reigned at Sofia. A
+conference was arranged at Bucarest, and the treaty of that name was signed
+there on August 10, 1913. By the terms of this treaty Serbia retained the whole
+of northern and central Macedonia, including Monastir and Okhrida, and the
+famous <i>sandjak</i> of Novi-Pazar was divided between Serbia and Montenegro.
+Some districts of east-central Macedonia, which were genuinely Bulgarian, were
+included in Serbian territory, as Serbia naturally did not wish, after the
+disquieting and costly experience of June and July 1913, to give the Bulgarians
+another chance of separating Greek from Serbian territory by a fresh surprise
+attack, and the further the Bulgarians could be kept from the Vardar river and
+railway the less likelihood there was of this. The state of feeling in the
+Germanic capitals and in Budapest after this ignominious defeat of their
+protégé Bulgaria and after this fresh triumph of the despised and hated
+Serbians can be imagined. Bitterly disappointed first at seeing the Turks
+vanquished by the Balkan League&mdash;their greatest admirers could not even
+claim that the Turks had had any &lsquo;moral&rsquo; victories&mdash;their
+chagrin, when they saw the Bulgarians trounced by the Serbians, knew no bounds.
+That the secretly prepared attack on Serbia by Bulgaria was planned in Vienna
+and Budapest there is no doubt. That Bulgaria was justified in feeling
+disappointment and resentment at the result of the first Balkan War no one
+denies, but the method chosen to redress its wrongs could only have been
+suggested by the Germanic school of diplomacy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Serbia and Montenegro the result of the two successive Balkan Wars, though
+these had exhausted the material resources of the two countries, was a
+justifiable return of national self-confidence and rejoicing such as the
+people, humiliated and impoverished as it had habitually been by its internal
+and external troubles, had not known for very many years. At last Serbia and
+Montenegro had joined hands. At last Old Serbia was restored to the free
+kingdom. At last Skoplje, the mediaeval capital of Tsar Stephen Dušan, was
+again in Serbian territory. At last one of the most important portions of
+unredeemed Serbia had been reclaimed. Amongst the Serbs and Croats of Bosnia,
+Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and southern Hungary the effect of
+the Serbian victories was electrifying. Military prowess 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 Serbian peasant
+soldiers immediately imparted a heroic glow to the country whose very name, at
+any rate in central Europe, had become a byword, and a synonym for failure;
+Belgrade became the cynosure and the rallying-centre of the whole
+Serbo-Croatian race. But Vienna and Budapest could only lose courage and
+presence of mind for the moment, and the undeniable success of the Serbian arms
+merely sharpened their appetite for revenge. In August 1913 Austria-Hungary, as
+is now known, secretly prepared an aggression on Serbia, but was restrained,
+partly by the refusal of Italy to grant its approval of such action, partly
+because the preparations of Germany at that time were not complete. The
+fortunate Albanian question provided, for the time being, a more convenient rod
+with which to beat Serbia. Some Serbian troops had remained in possession of
+certain frontier towns and districts which were included in the territory of
+the infant state of Albania pending the final settlement of the frontiers by a
+commission. On October 18, 1913, Austria addressed an ultimatum to Serbia to
+evacuate these, as its continued occupation of them caused offence and disquiet
+to the Dual Monarchy. Serbia meekly obeyed. Thus passed away the last rumble of
+the storms which had filled the years 1912-13 in south-eastern Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The credulous believed that the Treaty of Bucarest had at last brought peace to
+that distracted part of the world. Those who knew their central Europe realized
+that Berlin had only forced Vienna to acquiesce in the Treaty of Bucarest
+because the time had not yet come. But come what might, Serbia and Montenegro,
+by having linked up their territory and by forming a mountain barrier from the
+Danube to the Adriatic, made it far more difficult for the invader to push his
+way through to the East than it would have been before the battles of Kumanovo
+and Bregalnica.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part04"></a>GREECE</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>1<br/>
+<i>From Ancient to Modern Greece</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The name of Greece has two entirely different associations in our minds.
+Sometimes it calls up a wonderful literature enshrined in a &lsquo;dead
+language&rsquo;, and exquisite works of a vanished art recovered by the spade;
+at other times it is connected with the currant-trade returns quoted on the
+financial page of our newspapers or with the &lsquo;Balance of Power&rsquo;
+discussed in their leading articles. Ancient and Modern Greece both mean much
+to us, but usually we are content to accept them as independent phenomena, and
+we seldom pause to wonder whether there is any deeper connexion between them
+than their name. It is the purpose of these pages to ask and give some answer
+to this question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thought that his own Greece might perish, to be succeeded by another Greece
+after the lapse of more than two thousand years, would have caused an Ancient
+Greek surprise. In the middle of the fifth century B.C., Ancient Greek
+civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous and secure. A generation before, it
+had flung back the onset of a political power which combined all the momentum
+of all the other contemporary civilizations in the world; and the victory had
+proved not merely the superiority of Greek arms&mdash;the Spartan spearman and
+the Athenian galley&mdash;but the superior vitality of Greek politics&mdash;the
+self-governing, self-sufficing city-state. In these cities a wonderful culture
+had burst into flower&mdash;an art expressing itself with equal mastery in
+architecture, sculpture, and drama, a science which ranged from the most
+practical medicine to the most abstract mathematics, and a philosophy which
+blended art, science, and religion into an ever-developing and ever more
+harmonious view of the universe. A civilization so brilliant and so versatile
+as this seemed to have an infinite future before it, yet even here death lurked
+in ambush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the cities ranged themselves in rival camps, and squandered their strength
+on the struggle for predominance, the historian of the Peloponnesian war could
+already picture Athens and Sparta in ruins,[1] and the catastrophe began to
+warp the soul of Plato before he had carried Greek philosophy to its zenith.
+This internecine strife of free communities was checked within a century by the
+imposition of a single military autocracy over them all, and Alexander the
+Great crowned his father Philip&rsquo;s work by winning new worlds for
+Hellenism from the Danube to the Ganges and from the Oxus to the Nile. The
+city-state and its culture were to be propagated under his aegis, but this
+vision vanished with Alexander&rsquo;s death, and Macedonian militarism proved
+a disappointment. The feuds of these crowned condottieri harassed the cities
+more sorely than their own quarrels, and their arms could not even preserve the
+Hellenic heritage against 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 had seen, Rome conquered all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Greek
+city and Greek dynast went down before her, and the political sceptre passed
+irrevocably from the Hellenic nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Thucydides, Book I, chap. 10.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: 264-146 B.C.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet this political abdication seemed to open for Hellenic culture a future more
+brilliant and assured than ever. Rome could organize as well as conquer. She
+accepted the city-state as the municipal unit of the Roman Empire, thrust back
+the Oriental behind the Euphrates, and promoted the Hellenization of all the
+lands between this river-frontier and the Balkans with much greater intensity
+than the Macedonian imperialists. Her political conquests were still further
+counterbalanced by her spiritual surrender, and Hellenism was the soul of the
+new Latin culture which Rome created, and which advanced with Roman government
+over the vast untutored provinces of the west and north, bringing them, too,
+within the orbit of Hellenic civilization. Under the shadow of the Roman
+Empire, Plutarch, the mirror of Hellenism, could dwell in peace in his little
+city-state of Chaeronea, and reflect in his writings all the achievements of
+the Hellenic spirit as an ensample to an apparently endless posterity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet the days of Hellenic culture were also numbered. Even Plutarch lived[1] to
+look down from the rocky citadel of Chaeronea upon Teutonic raiders wasting the
+Kephisos vale, and for more than three centuries successive hordes of Goths
+searched out and ravaged the furthest corners of European Greece. Then the
+current set westward to sweep away[2] the Roman administration in the Latin
+provinces, and Hellenism seemed to have been granted a reprieve. The Greek
+city-state of Byzantium on the Black Sea Straits had been transformed into the
+Roman administrative centre of Constantinople, and from this capital the
+Emperor Justinian in the sixth century A.D. still governed and defended the
+whole Greek-speaking world. But this political glamour only threw the symptoms
+of inward dissolution into sharper relief. Within the framework of the Empire
+the municipal liberty of the city-state had been stifled and extinguished by
+the waxing jungle of bureaucracy, and the spiritual culture which the
+city-state fostered, and which was more essential to Hellenism than any
+political institutions, had been part ejected, part exploited, and wholly
+compromised by a new gospel from the east.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: About A.D. 100]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: A.D. 404-476]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the Oriental had been compelled by Rome to draw his political frontier at
+the Euphrates, and had failed so far to cross the river-line, he had maintained
+his cultural independence within sight of the Mediterranean. In the hill
+country of Judah, overlooking the high road between Antioch and Alexandria, the
+two chief foci of Hellenism in the east which the Macedonians had founded, and
+which had grown to maturity under the aegis of Rome, there dwelt a little
+Semitic community which had defied all efforts of Greek or Roman to assimilate
+it, and had finally given birth to a world religion about the time that a Roman
+punitive expedition razed its holy city of Jerusalem to the ground.[1]
+Christianity was charged with an incalculable force, which shot like an
+electric current from one end of the Roman Empire to the other. The
+highly-organized society of its adherents measured its strength in several
+sharp conflicts with the Imperial administration, from which it emerged
+victorious, and it was proclaimed the official religious organization of the
+Empire by the very emperor that founded Constantinople.[2]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 70.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: Constantine the Great recognized Christianity in A.D. 313 and
+founded Constantinople in A.D. 328.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The established Christian Church took the best energies of Hellenism into its
+service. The Greek intellectuals ceased to become lecturers and professors, to
+find a more human and practical career in the bishop&rsquo;s office. The Nicene
+Creed, drafted by an &lsquo;oecumenical&rsquo; conference of bishops under the
+auspices of Constantine himself,[1] was the last notable formulation of Ancient
+Greek philosophy. The cathedral of Aya Sophia, with which Justinian adorned
+Constantinople, was the last original creation of Ancient Greek art.[2] The
+same Justinian closed the University of Athens, which had educated the world
+for nine hundred years and more, since Plato founded his college in the
+Academy. Six recalcitrant professors went into exile for their spiritual
+freedom, but they found the devout Zoroastrianism of the Persian court as
+unsympathetic as the devout Christianity of the Roman. Their humiliating return
+and recantation broke the &lsquo;Golden Chain&rsquo; of Hellenic thought for
+ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hellenism was thus expiring from its own inanition, when the inevitable
+avalanche overwhelmed it from without. In the seventh century A.D. there was
+another religious eruption in the Semitic world, this time in the heart of
+Arabia, where Hellenism had hardly penetrated, and under the impetus of Islam
+the Oriental burst his bounds again after a thousand years. Syria was reft away
+from the Empire, and Egypt, and North Africa as far as the Atlantic, and their
+political severance meant their cultural loss to Greek civilization. Between
+the Koran and Hellenism no fusion was possible. Christianity had taken
+Hellenism captive, but Islam gave it no quarter, and the priceless library of
+Alexandria is said to have been condemned by the caliph&rsquo;s order to feed
+the furnaces of the public baths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 325.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: Completed A.D. 538.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Hellenism was thus cut short in the east, a mortal blow was struck at its
+heart from the north. The Teuton had raided and passed on, but the lands he had
+depopulated were now invaded by immigrants who had come to stay. As soon as the
+last Goth and Lombard had gone west of the Isonzo, the Slavs poured in from the
+north-eastern plains of Europe through the Moravian gap, crossed the Danube
+somewhere near the site of Vienna, and drifted down along the eastern face of
+the Alps upon the Adriatic littoral. Rebuffed by the sea-board, the Slavonic
+migration was next deflected east, and filtered through the Bosnian mountains,
+scattering the Latin-speaking provincials before it to left and right, until it
+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 burst out with irresistible force in all directions, eastward across the
+Maritsa basin till it reached the Black Sea, and southward down the Vardar to
+the shores of the Aegean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beneath this Slavonic flood the Greek race in Europe was engulfed. A few
+fortified cities held out, Adrianople on the Maritsa continued to cover
+Constantinople; Salonika at the mouth of the Vardar survived a two hundred
+years siege; while further south Athens, Korinth, and Patras escaped
+extinction. But the tide of invasion surged around their 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 penetration is witnessed to this day by the Slavonic
+names which still cling to at least a third of the villages, rivers, and
+mountains in European Greece, and are found in the most remote as well as in
+the most accessible quarters of the land.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: For example: Tsimova and Panitsa in the Tainaron peninsula
+(Maina); Tsoupana and Khrysapha in Lakonia; Dhimitzana, Karytena, and
+Andhritsena in the centre of Peloponnesos, and Vostitsa on its north coast;
+Dobrena and Kaprena in Boiotia; Vonitza on the Gulf of Arta; Kardhitsa in the
+Thessalian plain.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the coming of the Slavs darkness descends like a curtain upon Greek
+history. We catch glimpses of Arab hosts ranging across Anatolia at will and
+gazing at Slavonic hordes across the narrow Bosphorus. But always the Imperial
+fleet patrols the waters between, and always the triple defences of
+Constantinople defy the assailant. Then after about two centuries the floods
+subside, the gloom disperses, and the Greek world emerges into view once more.
+But the spectacle before us is unfamiliar, and most of the old landmarks have
+been swept away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the middle of the ninth century A.D., the Imperial Government had reduced
+the Peloponnesos to order again, and found itself in the presence of three
+peoples. The greater part of the land was occupied by
+&lsquo;Romaioi&rsquo;&mdash;normal, loyal, Christian subjects of the
+empire&mdash;but in the hilly country between Eurotas, Taygetos, and the sea,
+two Slavonic tribes still maintained themselves in defiant savagery and
+worshipped their Slavonic gods, while beyond them the peninsula of Tainaron,
+now known as Maina, sheltered communities which still clung to the pagan name
+of Hellene and knew no other gods but Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. Hellene and
+Slav need not concern us. They were a vanishing minority, and the Imperial
+Government was more successful in obliterating their individuality than in
+making them contribute to its exchequer. The future lay with the Romaioi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The speech of these Romaioi was not the speech of Rome. &lsquo;Romaikà,&rsquo;
+as it is still called popularly in the country-side, is a development of the
+&lsquo;koinè&rsquo; or &lsquo;current&rsquo; dialect of Ancient Greek, in which
+the Septuagint and the New Testament are written. The vogue of these books
+after the triumph of Christianity and the oncoming of the Dark Age, when they
+were the sole intellectual sustenance of the people, gave the idiom in which
+they were composed an exclusive prevalence. Except in Tzakonia&mdash;the
+iron-bound coast between Cape Malea and Nauplia Bay&mdash;all other dialects of
+Ancient Greek became extinct, and the varieties of the modern language are all
+differentiations of the &lsquo;koinè&rsquo;, along geographical lines which in
+no way correspond with those which divided Doric from Ionian. Yet though Romaic
+is descended from the &lsquo;koinè&rsquo;, it is almost as far removed from it
+as modern Italian is from the language of St. Augustine or Cicero. Ancient
+Greek possessed a pitch-accent only, which allowed the quantitative values of
+syllables to be measured against one another, and even to form the basis of a
+metrical system. In Romaic the pitch-accent has transformed itself into a
+stress-accent almost as violent as the English, which has destroyed all
+quantitative relation between accented and unaccented syllables, often wearing
+away the latter altogether at the termination of words, and always
+impoverishing their vowel sounds. In the ninth century A.D. this new
+enunciation was giving rise to a new poetical technique founded upon accent and
+rhyme, which first essayed itself in folk-songs and ballads,[1] and has since
+experimented in the same variety of forms as English poetry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The earliest products of the modern technique were called
+&lsquo;city&rsquo; verses, because they originated in Constantinople, which has
+remained &lsquo;the city&rsquo; <i>par excellence</i> for the Romaic Greek ever
+since the Dark Age made it the asylum of his civilization.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These humble beginnings of a new literature were supplemented by the rudiments
+of a new art. Any visitor at Athens who looks at the three tiny churches [1]
+built in this period of first revival, and compares them with the rare
+pre-Norman churches of England, will find the same promise of vitality in the
+Greek architecture as in his own. The material&mdash;worked blocks of marble
+pillaged from ancient monuments, alternating with courses of contemporary
+brick&mdash;produces a completely new aesthetic effect upon the eye; and the
+structure&mdash;a grouping of lesser cupolas round a central dome&mdash; is the
+very antithesis of the &lsquo;upright-and-horizontal&rsquo; style which
+confronts him in ruins upon the Akropolis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The Old Metropolitan, the Kapnikaria, and St. Theodore.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These first achievements of Romaic architecture speak by implication of the
+characteristic difference between the Romaios and the Hellene. The linguistic
+and the aesthetic change were as nothing compared to the change in religion,
+for while the Hellene had been a pagan, the Romaios was essentially a member of
+the Christian Church. Yet this new and determining characteristic was already
+fortified by tradition. The Church triumphant had swiftly perfected its
+organisation on the model of the Imperial bureaucracy. Every Romaios owed
+ecclesiastical allegiance, through a hierarchy of bishops and metropolitans, to
+a supreme patriarch at Constantinople, and in the ninth century this
+administrative segregation of the imperial from the west-European Church had
+borne its inevitable fruit in a dogmatic divergence, and ripened into a schism
+between the Orthodox Christianity of the east on the one hand and the
+Catholicism of the Latin world on the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Orthodox Church exercised an important cultural influence over its Romaic
+adherents. The official language of its scriptures, creeds, and ritual had
+never ceased to be the Ancient Greek &lsquo;koinè&rsquo; and by keeping the
+Romaios familiar with this otherwise obsolete tongue it kept him in touch with
+the unsurpassable literature of his Ancient Greek predecessors. The vast body
+of Hellenic literature had perished 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 greatest authors&rsquo; greatest works had been preserved, and now
+that the stress was relieved, the wreckage of the remainder was sedulously
+garnered in anthologies, abridgements, and encyclopaedias. The rising
+monasteries offered a safe harbourage both for these compilations and for such
+originals as survived unimpaired, and in their libraries they were henceforth
+studied, cherished, and above all recopied with more or less systematic care.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Orthodox Church was thus a potent link between past and present, but the
+most direct link of all was the political survival of the Empire. Here, too,
+many landmarks had been swept away. The marvellous system of Roman Law had
+proved too subtle and complex for a world in the throes of dissolution. Within
+a century of its final codification by Justinian&rsquo;s commissioners) it had
+begun to fall into disuse, and was now replaced by more summary legislation,
+which was as deeply imbued with Mosaic principles as the literary language with
+the Hebraisms of the New Testament, and bristled with barbarous applications of
+the <i>Lex Talionis</i>. The administrative organization instituted by Augustus
+and elaborated by Diocletian had likewise disappeared, and the army-corps
+districts were the only territorial units that outlasted the Dark Age. Yet the
+tradition of order lived on. The army itself preserved Roman discipline and
+technique to a remarkable degree, and the military districts were already
+becoming the basis for a reconstituted civil government. The wealth of Latin
+technicalities incorporated in the Greek style of ninth-century officialdom
+witnesses to this continuity with the past and to the consequent political
+superiority of the Romaic Empire over contemporary western Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Within the Imperial frontiers the Romaic race was offered an apparently secure
+field for its future development. In the Balkan peninsula the Slav had been
+expelled or assimilated to the south of a line stretching from Avlona to
+Salonika. East of Salonika the empire still controlled little more in Europe
+than the ports of the littoral, and a military highway linking them with each
+other and with Constantinople. But beyond the Bosphorus the frontier included
+the whole body of Anatolia as far as Taurus and Euphrates, and here was the
+centre of gravity both of the Romaic state and of the Romaic nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A new Greek nation had in fact come into being, and it found itself in touch
+with new neighbours, whom the Ancient Greek had never known. Eastward lay the
+Armenians, reviving, like the Greeks, after the ebb of the Arab flood, and the
+Arabs themselves, quiescent within their natural bounds and transfusing the
+wisdom of Aristotle and Hippokrates into their native culture. Both these
+peoples were sundered from the Orthodox Greek by religion[1] as well as by
+language, but a number of nationalities established on his opposite flank had
+been evangelized from Constantinople and followed the Orthodox patriarch in his
+schism with Rome. The most important neighbour of the Empire in this quarter
+was the Bulgarian kingdom, which covered all the Balkan hinterland from the
+Danube and the Black Sea to the barrier-fortresses of Adrianople and Salonika.
+It had been founded by a conquering caste of non-Slavonic nomads from the
+trans-Danubian steppes, but these were completely absorbed in the Slavonic
+population which they had endowed with their name and had preserved by
+political consolidation from the fate of their brethren further south. This
+Bulgarian state included a large &lsquo;Vlach&rsquo; element descended from
+those Latin-speaking provincials whom the Slavs had pushed before them in their
+original migration; while the main body of the &lsquo;Rumans&rsquo;, whom the
+same thrust of invasion had driven leftwards across the Danube, had established
+itself in the mountains of Transylvania, and was just beginning to push down
+into the Wallachian and Moldavian plains. 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,
+as far westward as the Adriatic coast. Beyond, the heathen Magyars had pressed
+into the Danubian plains like a wedge, and cut off the Orthodox world from the
+Latin-Teutonic Christendom of the west; but it looked as though the two
+divisions of Europe were embarked upon the same course of development. Both
+were evolving a system of strongly-knit nationalities, neither wholly
+interdependent nor wholly self-sufficient, but linked together in their
+individual growth by the ties of common culture and religion. In both the
+darkness was passing. The future of civilization seemed once more assured, and
+in the Orthodox world the new Greek nation seemed destined to play the leading
+part.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The Armenians split off from the Catholic Church four centuries
+before the schism between the Roman and Orthodox sections of the latter.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His cultural and political heritage from his ancient predecessors gave the
+Romaic Greek in this period of revival an inestimable advantage over his cruder
+neighbours, and his superiority declared itself in an expansion of the Romaic
+Empire. In the latter half of the tenth century A.D. the nest of Arab pirates
+from Spain, which had established itself in Krete and terrorized the Aegean,
+was exterminated by the Emperor Nikiphóros Phokas, and on the eastern marches
+Antioch was gathered within the frontier at the Arabs&rsquo; expense, and
+advanced posts pushed across Euphrates. In the first half of the eleventh
+century Basil, &lsquo;Slayer of the Bulgars&rsquo;, destroyed the Balkan
+kingdom after a generation of bitter warfare, and brought the whole interior of
+the peninsula under the sway of Constantinople. His successors turned their
+attention to the cast again, and attracted one Armenian principality after
+another within the Imperial protectorate. Nor was the revival confined to
+politics. The conversion of the Russians about A.D. 1000 opened a boundless
+hinterland to the Orthodox Church, and any one who glances at a series of Greek
+ivory carvings or studies Greek history from the original sources, will here
+encounter a literary and artistic renaissance remarkable enough to explain the
+fascination which the barbarous Russian and the outlandish Armenian found in
+Constantinople. Yet this renaissance had hardly set in before it was paralysed
+by an unexpected blow, which arrested the development of Modern Greece for
+seven centuries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Modern, like Ancient, Greece was assailed in her infancy by a conqueror from
+the east, and, unlike Ancient Greece, she succumbed. Turkish nomads from the
+central Asiatic steppes had been drifting into the Moslem world as the vigour
+of the Arabs waned. First they came as slaves, then as mercenaries, until at
+last, in the eleventh century, the clan of Seljuk grasped with a strong hand
+the political dominion of Islam. As champions of the caliph the Turkish sultans
+disputed the infidels encroachment on the Moslem border. They challenged the
+Romaic Empire&rsquo;s progress in Armenia, and in A.D. 1071&mdash;five years
+after the Norman founded at Hastings the strong government which has been the
+making of England&mdash;the Seljuk Turk shattered at the battle of Melasgerd
+that heritage of strong government which had promised so much to Greece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Melasgerd opened the way to Anatolia. The Arab could make no lodgement there,
+but in the central steppe of the temperate plateau the Turk found a miniature
+reproduction of his original environment. Tribe after tribe crossed the Oxus,
+to make the long pilgrimage to these new marches which their race had won for
+Islam on the west, and the civilization developed in the country by fifteen
+centuries of intensive and undisturbed Hellenization was completely blotted
+out. The cities wore isolated from one another till their commerce fell into
+decay. The elaborately cultivated lands around them were left fallow till they
+were good for nothing but the pasturage which was all that the nomad required.
+The only monuments of architecture that have survived in Anatolia above ground
+are the imposing khans or fortified rest-houses built by the Seljuk sultans
+themselves after the consolidation of their rule, and they are the best
+witnesses of the vigorous barbarism by which Romaic culture was effaced. The
+vitality of the Turk was indeed unquestionable. He imposed his language and
+religion upon the native Anatolian peasantry, as the Greek had imposed his
+before him, and in time adopted their sedentary life, though too late to repair
+the mischief his own nomadism had wrought. Turk and Anatolian coalesced into
+one people; every mountain, river, lake, bridge, and village in the country
+took on a Turkish name, and a new nation was established for ever in the heart
+of the Romaic world, which nourished itself on the life-blood of the Empire and
+was to prove the supreme enemy, of the race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sequel to Melasgerd sealed the Empire&rsquo;s doom. Robbed of its
+Anatolian governing class and its Anatolian territorial army, it ceased to be
+self-sufficient, and the defenders it attracted from the west were at least as
+destructive as its eastern foes. The brutal régime of the Turks in the
+pilgrimage places of Syria had roused a storm of indignation in Latin Europe,
+and a cloud gathered in the west once more. It was heralded by adventurers from
+Normandy, who had first served the Romaic Government as mercenaries in southern
+Italy and then expelled their employers, about the time of Melasgerd, from
+their last foothold in the peninsula. Raids across the straits of Otranto
+carried the Normans up to the walls of Salonika, their fleets equipped in
+Sicily scoured the Aegean, and, before the eleventh century was out, they had
+followed up these reconnoitring expeditions by conducting Latin Christendom on
+its first crusade. The crusaders assembled at Constantinople, and the Imperial
+Government was relieved when the flood rolled on and spent itself further east.
+But one wave was followed by another, and the Empire itself succumbed to the
+fourth. In A.D. 1204, Constantinople was stormed by a Venetian flotilla and the
+crusading host it conveyed on board, and more treasures of Ancient Hellenism
+were destroyed in the sack of its hitherto inviolate citadel than had ever
+perished by the hand of Arab or Slav.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the fall of the capital the Empire dissolved in chaos, Venice and Genoa,
+the Italian trading cities whose fortune had been made by the crusades, now
+usurped the naval control of the Mediterranean which the Empire had exercised
+since Nikiphóros pacified Krete. They seized all strategical points of vantage
+on the Aegean coasts, and founded an &lsquo;extra-territorial&rsquo; community
+at Pera across the Golden Horn, to monopolize the trade of Constantinople with
+the Black Sea. The Latins failed to retain their hold on Constantinople itself,
+for the puppet emperors of their own race whom they enthroned there were
+evicted within a century by Romaic dynasts, who clung to such fragments of
+Anatolia as had escaped the Turk. But the Latin dominion was less ephemeral in
+the southernmost Romaic provinces of Europe. The Latins&rsquo; 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 another in bewildering succession, while the French princes of Achaia were
+at feud with their kindred vassals in the west of the Peloponnesos whenever
+they were not resisting the encroachments of Romaic despots in the south and
+east. To complete the anarchy, the non-Romaic peoples in the interior of the
+Balkan peninsula had taken the fall of Constantinople as a signal to throw off
+the Imperial yoke. In the hinterland of the capital the Bulgars had
+reconstituted their kingdom. The Romance-speaking Vlachs of Pindus moved down
+into the Thessalian plains. The aboriginal Albanians, who with their back to
+the Adriatic had kept the Slavs at bay, asserted their vitality and sent out
+migratory swarms to the south, which entered the service of the warring
+princelets and by their prowess won broad lands in every part of continental
+Greece, where Albanian place-names are to this day only less common than
+Slavonic. South-eastern Europe was again in the throes of social dissolution,
+and the convulsions continued till they were stilled impartially by the numbing
+hand of their ultimate author the Turk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: e.g. Klemoutsi, Glarentsa (Clarence) and Gastouni&mdash;villages
+of the currant district in Peloponnesos&mdash;and Sant-Omeri, the mountain that
+overlooks them.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Seljuk sultanate in Anatolia, shaken by the crusades, had gone the way of
+all oriental empires to make room for one of its fractions, which showed a most
+un-oriental faculty of organic growth. This was the extreme march on the
+north-western rim of the Anatolian plateau, overlooking the Asiatic littoral of
+the Sea of Marmora. It had been founded by one of those Turkish chiefs who
+migrated with their clans from beyond the Oxus; and it was consolidated by
+Othman his son, who extended his kingdom to the cities on the coast and
+invested his subjects with his own name. In 1355 the Narrows of Gallipoli
+passed into Ottoman hands, and opened a bridge to unexpected conquests in
+Europe. Serbia and Bulgaria collapsed at the first attack, and the hosts which
+marched to liberate them from Hungary and from France only ministered to
+Ottoman prestige by their disastrous discomfiture. Before the close of the
+fourteenth century the Ottoman sultan had transferred his capital to
+Adrianople, and had become immeasurably the strongest power in the Balkan
+peninsula.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that the end came quickly. At Constantinople the Romaic dynasty of
+Palaiologos had upheld a semblance of the Empire for more than a century after
+the Latin was expelled. But in 1453 the Imperial city fell before the assault
+of Sultan Mohammed; and before his death the conqueror eliminated all the other
+Romaic and Latin principalities from Peloponnesos to Trebizond, which had
+survived as enclaves to mar the uniformity of the Ottoman domain. Under his
+successors the tide of Ottoman conquest rolled on for half a century more over
+south-eastern Europe, till it 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 St. John.[2]
+The Romaic race, which had been split into so many fragments during the
+dissolution of the Empire, was reunited again in the sixteenth century under
+the common yoke of the Turk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: 1526.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: 1522.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even in the Dark Age, Greece had hardly been reduced to so desperate a
+condition as now. Through the Dark Age the Greek cities had maintained a
+continuous life, but Mohammed II depopulated Constantinople to repeople it with
+a Turkish majority from Anatolia. Greek commerce would naturally have benefited
+by the ejection of the Italians from the Levant, had not the Ottoman Government
+given asylum simultaneously to the Jews expelled from Spain. These Sephardim
+established themselves at Constantinople, Salonika, and all the other
+commercial centres of the Ottoman dominion, and their superiority in numbers
+and industry made them more formidable urban rivals of the Greeks than the
+Venetians and Genoese had ever been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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. The sultan&rsquo;s fiscal demands were the least 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 capitation-tax levied by the sultan on his Christian subjects, the
+greater efficiency and security of his government probably compensated for the
+additional charge. The vitality of Greece was chiefly sapped by the ruthless
+military organization of the Ottoman state. The bulk of the Ottoman army was
+drawn from a feudal cavalry, bound to service, as in the mediaeval Latin world,
+in return for fiefs or &lsquo;timaria&rsquo; assigned to them by their
+sovereign; and many beys and agas have bequeathed their names in perpetuity to
+the richest villages on the Messenian and Thessalian plains, to remind the
+modern peasant that his Christian ancestors once tilled the soil as serfs of a
+Moslem timariot. But the sultan, unlike his western contemporaries, was not
+content with irregular troops, and the serf-communes of Greece had to deliver
+up a fifth of their male children every fourth year to be trained at
+Constantinople as professional soldiers and fanatical Moslems. This corps of
+&lsquo;Janissaries&rsquo;[1] was founded in the third generation of the Ottoman
+dynasty, and was the essential instrument of its military success. One race has
+never appropriated and exploited the vitality of another in so direct or so
+brutal a fashion, and the institution of &lsquo;tribute-children&rsquo;, so
+long as it lasted, effectually prevented any recovery of the Greek nation from
+the untimely blows which had stricken it down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Yeni Asker&mdash;New soldiery.]
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>2<br/>
+<i>The Awakening of the Nation</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+During the two centuries that followed the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople,
+the Greek race was in serious danger of annihilation. Its life-blood was
+steadily absorbed into the conquering community&mdash;quite regularly by the
+compulsory tribute of children and spasmodically by the voluntary conversion of
+individual households. The rich apostasized, because too heavy a material
+sacrifice was imposed upon them by loyalty to their national religion; the
+destitute, 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 spared by the Ottoman Government in order to facilitate its own political
+system&mdash;by bringing the peasant, through the hierarchy of priest, bishop,
+and patriarch, under the moral control of the new Moslem master whom the
+ecclesiastics henceforth served.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scale on which wholesale apostasy was possible is shown by the case of
+Krete, which was conquered by the Turks from Venice just after these two
+centuries had closed, and was in fact the last permanent addition to the
+Turkish Empire. No urban or feudal settlers of Turkish blood were imported into
+the island. To this day the uniform speech of all Kretans is their native
+Greek. And yet the progressive conversion of whole clans and villages had
+transferred at least 20 per cent. of the population to the Moslem ranks before
+the Ottoman connexion was severed again in 1897.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The survival of the Greek nationality did not depend on any efforts of the
+Greeks themselves. They were indeed no 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 the Ottoman state,
+and, as the two centuries drew to a close, that state entered upon a phase of
+transformation and of consequent weakness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Ottoman organism has always displayed (and never more conspicuously than at
+the present moment) a much greater stability and vitality than any of its
+oriental predecessors. There was a vein of genius in its creators, and its
+youthful expansion permeated it with so much European blood that it became
+partly Europeanized in its inner tissues&mdash;sufficiently to partake, at any
+rate, in that faculty of indefinite organic growth which has so far revealed
+itself in European life. This acquired force has carried it on since the time
+when the impetus of its original institutions became spent&mdash;a time when
+purely oriental monarchies fall to pieces, and when Turkey herself hesitated
+between reconstruction and dissolution. That critical period began for her with
+the latter half of the seventeenth century, and incidentally opened new
+opportunities of life to her subject Greeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Substantial relief from their burdens&mdash;the primary though negative
+condition of national revival&mdash;accrued to the Greek peasantry from the
+decay of Ottoman militarism in all its branches. The Turkish feudal
+aristocracy, which had replaced the landed nobility of the Romaic Empire in
+Anatolia and established itself on the choicest lands in conquered Europe, was
+beginning to decline in strength. We have seen that it failed to implant itself
+in Krete, and its numbers were already stationary elsewhere. The Greek peasant
+slowly began to regain ground upon his Moslem lord, and he profited further by
+the degeneration of the janissary corps at the heart of the empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The janissaries had started as a militant, almost monastic body, condemned to
+celibacy, and recruited exclusively from the Christian tribute-children. But in
+1566 they extorted the privilege of legal marriage for themselves, and of
+admittance into the corps for the sons of their wedlock. The next century
+completed their transformation from a standing army into a hereditary urban
+militia&mdash;an armed and privileged <i>bourgeoisie</i>, rapidly increasing in
+numbers and correspondingly jealous of extraneous candidates for the coveted
+vacancies in their ranks. They gradually succeeded in abolishing the enrolment
+of Christian recruits altogether, and the last regular levy of children for
+that purpose was made in 1676. Vested interests at Constantinople had freed the
+helpless peasant from the most crushing burden of all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same moment the contemporary tendency in western Europe towards
+bureaucratic centralization began to extend itself to the Ottoman Empire. Its
+exponents were the brothers Achmet and Mustapha Köprili, who held the
+grand-vizierate in succession. They laid the foundations of a centralized
+administration, and, since the unadaptable Turk offered no promising material
+for their policy, they sought their instruments in the subject race. The
+continental Greeks were too effectively crushed to aspire beyond the
+preservation of their own existence; but the islands had been less sorely
+tried, and Khios, which had enjoyed over two centuries[1] of prosperity under
+the rule of a Genoese chartered company, and exchanged it for Ottoman
+sovereignty under peculiarly lenient conditions, could still supply Achmet a
+century later with officials of the intelligence and education he required,
+Khiots were the first to fill the new offices of &lsquo;Dragoman of the
+Porte&rsquo; (secretary of state) and &lsquo;Dragoman of the Fleet&rsquo;
+(civil complement of the Turkish capitan-pasha); and they took care in their
+turn to staff the subordinate posts of their administration with a host of
+pushing friends and dependants. The Dragoman of the Fleet wielded the fiscal,
+and thereby in effect the political, authority over the Greek islands in the
+Aegean; but this was not the highest power to which the new Greek bureaucracy
+attained. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century Moldavia and
+Wallachia&mdash;the two &lsquo;Danubian Provinces&rsquo; now united in the
+kingdom of Rumania&mdash;were placed in charge of Greek officials with the rank
+of voivode or prince, and with practically sovereign power within their
+delegated dominions. A Danubian principality became the reward of a successful
+dragoman&rsquo;s career, and these high posts were rapidly monopolized by a
+close ring of official families, who exercised their immense patronage in
+favour of their race, and congregated round the Greek patriarch in the
+&lsquo;Phanari&rsquo;,[2] the Constantinopolitan slum assigned him for his
+residence by Mohammed the Conqueror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: 1346-1566.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: &lsquo;Lighthouse-quarter.&rsquo;]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The alliance of this parvenu &lsquo;Phanariot&rsquo; aristocracy with the
+conservative Orthodox Church was not unnatural, for the Church itself had
+greatly extended its political power under Ottoman suzerainty. The Ottoman
+Government hardly regarded its Christian subjects as integral members of the
+state, and was content to leave their civil government in the hands of their
+spiritual pastors to an extent the Romaic emperors would never have tolerated.
+It allowed the Patriarchate at Constantinople to become its official
+intermediary with the Greek race, and it further extended the Greek
+patriarch&rsquo;s authority over the other conquered populations of Orthodox
+faith&mdash;Bulgars, Rumans, and Serbs&mdash;which had never been incorporated
+in the ecclesiastical or political organization of the Romaic Empire, but which
+learnt under Ottoman rule to receive their priests and bishops from the Greek
+ecclesiastics of the capital, and even to call themselves by the Romaic name.
+In 1691 Mustapha Köprili recognized and confirmed the rights of all Christian
+subjects of the Sultan by a general organic law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mustapha&rsquo;s &lsquo;New Ordinance&rsquo; was dictated by the reverses which
+Christians beyond the frontier were inflicting upon the Ottoman arms, for
+pressure from without had followed hard upon disintegration within.
+Achmet&rsquo;s pyrrhic triumph over Candia in 1669 was followed in 1683 by his
+brother Mustapha&rsquo;s disastrous discomfiture before the walls of Vienna,
+and these two sieges marked the turn of the Ottoman tide. The ebb was slow, yet
+the ascendancy henceforth lay with Turkey&rsquo;s Christian neighbours, and
+they began to cut short her frontiers on every side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Venetians had never lost hold upon the &lsquo;Ionian&rsquo; chain of
+islands&mdash; Corfù, Cefalonia, Zante, and Cerigo&mdash;which 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 Greek race 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, it effectively broke the
+Ottoman tradition, and left behind it a system of communal self-government
+among the Peloponnesian Greeks which the returning Turk was too feeble to sweep
+away. The Turks gained nothing by the rapid downfall 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 in Russia, which
+had been reorganized towards the turn of the century by Peter the Great with a
+radical energy undreamed of by any Turkish Köprili, and which found its destiny
+in opposition to the Ottoman Empire. The new Orthodox power regarded itself as
+the heir of the Romaic Empire from which it had received its first Christianity
+and culture. It aspired to repay the Romaic race in adversity by championing it
+against its Moslem oppressors, and sought its own reward in a maritime outlet
+on the Black Sea. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia
+repeatedly made war on Turkey, either with or without the co-operation of
+Austria; but the decisive bout in the struggle was the war of 1769-74. A
+Russian fleet appeared in the Mediterranean, raised an insurrection in
+Peloponnesos, and destroyed the Turkish squadron in battle. The Russian armies
+were still more successful on the steppes, and the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji
+not only left the whole north coast of the Black Sea in Russia&rsquo;s
+possession, but contained an international sanction for the rights of the
+sultan&rsquo;s Orthodox subjects. In 1783 a supplementary commercial treaty
+extorted for the Ottoman Greeks the right to trade under the Russian flag. The
+territorial sovereignty of Turkey in the Aegean remained intact, but the
+Russian guarantee gave the Greek race a more substantial security than the
+shadowy ordinance of Mustapha Köprili. The paralysing prestige of the Porte was
+broken, and Greek eyes were henceforth turned in hope towards Petersburg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: 1699-1718.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the end of the eighteenth century the condition of the Greeks had in fact
+changed remarkably for the better, and the French and English travellers who
+now began to visit the Ottoman Empire brought away the impression that a
+critical change in its internal equilibrium was at hand. The Napoleonic wars
+had just extinguished the Venetian Republic and swept the Ionian Islands into
+the struggle between England and France for the mastery of the Mediterranean.
+England had fortified herself in Cefalonia and Zante, France in Corfù, and
+interest centred on the opposite mainland, where Ali Pasha of Yannina
+maintained a formidable neutrality towards either power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The career of Ali marked that phase in the decline of an Oriental empire when
+the task of strong government becomes too difficult for the central authority
+and is carried on by independent satraps with greater efficiency in their more
+limited sphere. Ali governed the Adriatic hinterland with practically sovereign
+power, and compelled the sultan for some years to invest his sons with the
+pashaliks of Thessaly and Peloponnesos. The greater part of the Greek race thus
+came in some degree under his control, and his policy towards it clearly
+reflected the transition from the old to the new. He waged far more effective
+war than the distant sultan upon local liberties, and, though the elimination
+of the feudal Turkish landowner was pure gain to the Greeks, they suffered
+themselves from the loss of traditional privileges which the original Ottoman
+conquest had left intact. The Armatoli, a local Christian militia who kept
+order in the mountainous mainland north of Peloponnesos where 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 Aspropotarno, which had never been inscribed on the
+taxation-rolls of the Romaic or the Ottoman treasury, or Suli, a robber clan
+ensconced in the mountains Immediately west of Ali&rsquo;s capital. On the
+other hand, the administration of these pacified and consolidated dominions
+became as essentially Greek in character as the Phanariot régime beyond the
+Danube. Ali was a Moslem and an Albanian, but the Orthodox Greeks were in a
+majority among his subjects, and he knew how to take advantage of their
+abilities. His business was conducted by Greek secretaries in the Greek tongue,
+and Yannina, his capital, was a Greek city. European visitors to Yannina (for
+every one began the Levantine tour by paying his respects to Ali) were struck
+by the enterprise and intelligence of its citizens. The doctors were competent,
+because they had taken their education in Italy or France; the merchants were
+prosperous, because they had established members of their family at Odessa,
+Trieste, or even Hamburg, as permanent agents of their firm. A new Greek
+<i>bourgeoisie</i> had arisen, in close contact with the professional life of
+western Europe, and equally responsive to the new philosophical and political
+ideas that were being propagated by the French Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This intellectual ferment was the most striking change of all. Since the sack
+of Constantinople in 1204, Greek culture had retired into the
+monasteries&mdash;inaccessible fastnesses where the monks lived much the same
+life as the clansmen of Suli or Agrapha. Megaspélaion, the great cave quarried
+in the wall of a precipitous Peloponnesian ravine; Metéora, suspended on half a
+dozen isolated pinnacles of rock in Thessaly, where the only access was by
+pulley or rope-ladder; &lsquo;Ayon Oros&rsquo;, the confederation of
+monasteries great and small upon the mountain-promontory of Athos&mdash;these
+succeeded in preserving a shadow of the old tradition, at the cost of isolation
+from all humane influences that might have kept their spiritual inheritance
+alive. Their spirit was mediaeval, ecclesiastical, and as barren as their
+sheltering rocks; and the new intellectual disciples of Europe turned to the
+monasteries in vain. The biggest ruin on Athos is a boys&rsquo; school planned
+in the eighteenth century to meet the educational needs of all the Orthodox in
+the Ottoman Empire, and wrecked on the reefs of monastic obscurantism. But its
+founder, the Corfiot scholar Evyénios Voulgáris, did not hesitate to break with
+the past. He put his own educational ideas into practice at Yannina and
+Constantinople, and contributed to the great achievement of his contemporary,
+the Khiot Adhamandios Koráis, who settled in Paris and there evolved a literary
+adaptation of the Romaic patois to supersede the lifeless travesty of Attic
+style traditionally affected by ecclesiastical penmen. But the renaissance was
+not confined to Greeks abroad. The school on Athos failed, but others
+established themselves before the close of the eighteenth century in the
+people&rsquo;s midst, even in the smaller towns and the remoter villages. The
+still flourishing secondary school of Dhimitzána, in the heart of Peloponnesos,
+began its existence in this period, and the national revival found expression
+in a new name. Its prophets repudiated the &lsquo;Romaic&rsquo; name, with its
+associations of ignorance and oppression, and taught their pupils to think of
+themselves as &lsquo;Hellenes&rsquo; and to claim in their own right the
+intellectual and political liberty of the Ancient Greeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This spiritual &lsquo;Hellenism&rsquo;, however, was only one manifestation of
+returning vitality, and was ultimately due to the concrete economic development
+with which it went hand 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 in a penetrating way upon their countrymen at
+home. A mountain village like Ambelakia in Thessaly found a regular market for
+its dyed goods in Germany, and the commercial treaty of 1783 between Turkey and
+Russia encouraged communities which could make nothing of the land to turn
+their attention to the sea. Galaxhidi, a village on the northern shore of the
+Korinthian Gulf, whose only asset was its natural harbour, and Hydhra, Spetza,
+and Psarà, three barren little islands in the Aegean, had begun to lay the
+foundations of a merchant marine, when Napoleon&rsquo;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 they
+exploited to the full. The whitewashed houses of solid stone, rising tier above
+tier up the naked limestone mountainside, still testify to the prosperity which
+chance thus suddenly brought to the Hydhriots and their fellow islanders, and
+did not withdraw again till it had enabled them to play a decisive part in
+their nation&rsquo;s history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their ships were small, but they were home-built, skilfully navigated, and
+profitably employed in the carrying trade of the Mediterranean ports. Their
+economic life was based 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 profit of each voyage; but their political organization was
+oligarchical&mdash;an executive council 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 seafaring islands on the eve of the modern Greek Revolution were an exact
+reproduction of the Aigina, Korinth, and Athens which repelled the Persian from
+Ancient Greece. The germs of a new national life were thus springing up among
+the Greeks in every direction&mdash; in mercantile colonies scattered over the
+world from Odessa to Alexandria and from Smyrna to Trieste; among Phanariot
+princes in the Danubian Provinces and their ecclesiastical colleagues at
+Constantinople; in the islands of the Aegean and the Ionian chain, and upon the
+mountains of Suli and Agrapha. But the ambitions this national revival aroused
+were even greater than the reality itself. The leaders of the movement did not
+merely aspire to liberate the Greek nation from the Turkish yoke. They were
+conscious of the assimilative power their nationality possessed. The Suliots,
+for example, were an immigrant Albanian tribe, who had learnt to speak Greek
+from the Greek peasants over whom they tyrannized. The Hydhriot and Spetziot
+islanders were Albanians too, who had even clung to their primitive language
+during the two generations since they took up their present abode, but had
+become none the less firmly linked to their Greek-speaking neighbours in
+Peloponnesos by their common fellowship in the Orthodox Church. The numerous
+Albanian colonies settled up and down the Greek continent were at least as
+Greek in feeling as they. And why should not the same prove true of the
+Bulgarian population, in the Balkans, who had belonged from the beginning to
+the Orthodox Church, and had latterly been brought by improvident Ottoman
+policy within the Greek patriarch&rsquo;s fold? Or why should not the Greek
+administrators beyond the Danube imbue their Ruman subjects with a sound
+Hellenic sentiment? In fact, the prophets of Hellenism did not so much desire
+to extricate the Greek nation from the Ottoman Empire as to make it the ruling
+element in the empire itself by ejecting the Moslem Turks from their privileged
+position and assimilating all populations of Orthodox faith. These dreams took
+shape in the foundation of a secret society&mdash;the &lsquo;Philikì
+Hetairía&rsquo; or &lsquo;League of Friends&rsquo;&mdash;which established
+itself at Odessa in 1814 with the connivence of the Russian police, and opened
+a campaign of propaganda in anticipation of an opportunity to strike.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The initiative came from the Ottoman Government itself. At the weakest moment
+in its history the empire found in Sultan Mahmud a ruler of peculiar strength,
+who saw that the only hope of overcoming his dangers lay in meeting them
+half-way. The national movement of Hellenism was gathering momentum in the
+background, but it was screened by the personal ambitions of Ali of Yannina,
+and Mahmud reckoned to forestall both enemies by quickly striking Ali down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the winter of 1819-20 Ali was outlawed, and in the spring the invasion of
+his territories began. Both the Moslem combatants enlisted Christian Armatoli,
+and all continental Greece was under arms. By the end of the summer Ali&rsquo;s
+outlying strongholds had fallen, his armies were driven in, and he himself was
+closely invested in Yannina; but with autumn a deadlock set in, and the
+sultan&rsquo;s reckoning was thrown out. In November 1820 the veteran soldier
+Khurshid was appointed to the pashalik of Peloponnesos to hold the Greeks in
+check and close accounts with Ali. In March 1821, after five months spent in
+organizing his province, Khurshid felt secure enough to leave it for the
+Yannina lines. But he was mistaken; for within a month of his departure
+Peloponnesos was ablaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &lsquo;Philikì Hetairía&rsquo; had decided to act, and the Peloponnesians
+responded enthusiastically to the signal. In the north Germanòs, metropolitan
+bishop of Patras, rallied the insurgents at the monastery of Megaspélaion, and
+unfurled the monastic altar-cloth as a national standard. In the south the
+peninsula of Maina, which had been the latest refuge of ancient Hellenism, was
+now the first to welcome the new, and to throw off the shadowy allegiance it
+had paid for a thousand years to Romaic archonts and Ottoman capitan-pashas.
+Led by Petros Mavromichalis, the chief of the leading clan, the Mainates issued
+from their mountains. This was in April, and by the middle of May all the open
+country had been swept clear, and the hosts joined hands before Tripolitza,
+which was the seat of Ottoman government at the central point of the province.
+The Turkish garrison attacked, but was heavily defeated at Valtetzi by the
+tactical skill of Theodore Kolokotrónis the &lsquo;klepht&rsquo;, who had
+become experienced in guerrilla warfare through his alternate professions of
+brigand and gendarme&mdash;a career that had increased its possibilities as the
+Ottoman system decayed. After Kolokotrónis&rsquo;s victory, the Greeks kept
+Tripolitza under a close blockade. Early in October it fell amid frightful
+scenes of pillage and massacre, and Ottoman dominion in the Peloponnesos fell
+with it. On January 22, 1822, Korinth, the key to the isthmus, passed into the
+Greeks&rsquo; hands, and only four fortresses&mdash;Nauplia, Patras, Koron, and
+Modhon&mdash;still held out within it against Greek investment. Not a Turk
+survived in the Peloponnesos beyond their walls, for the slaughter at
+Tripolitza was only the most terrible instance of what happened wherever a
+Moslem colony was found. In Peloponnesos, at any rate, the revolution had been
+grimly successful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There had also been successes at sea. The merchant marine of the Greek islands
+had suffered grievously from the fall of Napoleon and the settlement at Vienna,
+which, by restoring normal conditions of trade, had destroyed their abnormal
+monopoly. The revolution offered new opportunities for profitable venture, and
+in April 1821 Hydhra, Spetza and Psarà hastened to send a privateering fleet to
+sea. As soon as the fleet crossed the Aegean, Samos rid itself of the Turks. At
+the beginning of June the rickety Ottoman squadron issued from the Dardanelles,
+but it was chased back by the islanders under the lee of Mitylini. Memories of
+Russian naval tactics in 1770 led the Psariots to experiment in fire-ships, and
+one of the two Turkish ships of the line fell a victim to this attack. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The general Christian revolution thus seemed fairly launched, and in the first
+panic the threatened Moslems began reprisals of an equally general kind. In the
+larger Turkish cities there were massacres of Christian minorities, and the
+Government lent countenance to them by murdering its own principal Christian
+official Gregorios, the Greek patriarch at Constantinople, on April 22, 1821.
+But Sultan Mahmud quickly recovered himself. He saw that his empire 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
+distant sparks with all his energy, before concentrating his force at leisure
+upon the main conflagration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This policy was justified by the event. On March 6 the &lsquo;Philikì
+Hetairia&rsquo; at Odessa had opened its own operations in grandiose style by
+sending a filibustering expedition across the Russo-Turkish frontier under
+command of Prince Alexander Hypsilantis, a Phanariot in the Russian service.
+Hypsilantis played for a general revolt of the Ruman population in the Danubian
+Principalities and a declaration of war against Turkey on the part of Russia.
+But the Rumans had no desire to assist the Greek bureaucrats who oppressed
+them, and the Tsar Alexander had been converted by the experiences of 1812-13
+to a pacifistic respect for the <i>status quo</i>. Prince Hypsilantis was
+driven ignominiously to internment across the Austrian frontier, little more
+than a hundred days after his expedition began; and his fiasco assured the
+Ottoman Government of two encouraging facts&mdash;that the revolution would not
+carry away the whole Orthodox population but would at any rate confine itself
+to the Greeks; and that the struggle against it would be fought out for the
+present, at least, without foreign intervention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the other direction, however, rebellion was spreading northward from
+Peloponnesos to continental Greece. Galaxídhi revolted in April, and was
+followed in June by Mesolonghi&mdash;a prosperous town of fishermen,
+impregnably situated in the midst of the lagoons at the mouth of the
+Aspropotamo, beyond the narrows of the Korinthian Gulf. By the end of the
+month, north-western Greece was free as far as the outposts of Khurshid Pasha
+beyond the Gulf of Arta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further eastward, again, in the mountains between the Gulf of Korinth and the
+river Elládha (Sperkheiòs), the Armatoli of Ali&rsquo;s faction had held their
+ground, and gladly joined the revolution on the initiative of their captains
+Dhiakos and Odhyssèvs. But the movement found its limits. The Turkish garrison
+of Athens obstinately held out during the winter of 1821-2, and the Moslems of
+Negrepont (Euboía) maintained their mastery in the island. In Agrapha they
+likewise held their own, and, after one severely punished raid, the Agraphiot
+Armatoli were induced to re-enter the sultan&rsquo;s service on liberal terms.
+The Vlachs in the gorges of the Aspropotamo were pacified with equal success;
+and Dramali, Khurshid&rsquo;s lieutenant, who guarded the communications
+between the army investing Yannina and its base at Constantinople, was easily
+able to crush all symptoms of revolt in Thessaly from his head-quarters at
+Lárissa. Still further east, the autonomous Greek villages on the mountainous
+promontories of Khalkidhiki had revolted in May, in conjunction with the
+well-supplied and massively fortified monasteries of the &lsquo;Ayon
+Oros&rsquo;; but the Pasha of Salonika called down the South Slavonic Moslem
+landowners from the interior, sacked the villages, and amnestied the monastic
+confederation on condition of establishing a Turkish garrison in their midst
+and confiscating their arms. The monks&rsquo; compliance was assisted by the
+excommunication under which the new patriarch at Constantinople had placed all
+the insurgents by the sultan&rsquo;s command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The movement was thus successfully localised on the European continent, and
+further afield it was still more easily cut short. After the withdrawal of the
+Turkish squadron, the Greek fleet had to look on at the systematic destruction
+of Kydhonies,[1] a flourishing Greek industrial town on the mainland opposite
+Mitylini which had been founded under the sultan&rsquo;s auspices only forty
+years before. All that the islanders could do was to take off the survivors in
+their boats; and when they dispersed to their ports in autumn, the Ottoman
+ships came out again from the Dardanelles, sailed round Peloponnesos into the
+Korinthian Gulf, and destroyed Galaxídhi. A still greater catastrophe followed
+the reopening of naval operations next spring. In March 1822 the Samians landed
+a force on Khios and besieged the Turkish garrison, which was relieved after
+three weeks by the arrival of the Ottoman fleet. A month later the Greek fleet
+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 this the Ottoman fleet fled back as 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 at the destruction of Kydhonies the season before. In
+the following summer, again, the same fate befell Trikéri, a maritime community
+on the Gulf of Volo which had gained its freedom when the rest of Thessaly
+stirred in vain; and so in 1823 the revolution found itself confined on sea, as
+well as on land, to the focus where it had originated in April 1821.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Turkish Aivali.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This isolation was a practical triumph for Sultan Mahmud. The maintenance of
+the Ottoman Empire on the basis of Moslem ascendancy was thereby assured; but
+it remained to be seen whether the isolated area could now be restored to the
+<i>status quo</i> in which the rest of his dominions had been retained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the whole season of 1821 the army of Khurshid had been held before
+Yannina. But in February 1822 Yannina fell, Ali was slain, his treasure seized,
+and his troops disbanded. The Ottoman forces were liberated for a counterattack
+on Peloponnesos. Already in April Khurshid broke up his camp at Lárissa, and
+his lieutenant Dramali was given command of the new expedition towards the
+south. He crossed the Sperkheiòs at the beginning of July with an army of
+twenty thousand men.[1] Athens had capitulated to Odhyssèvs ten days before;
+but it had kept open the road for Dramali, and north-eastern Greece fell
+without resistance into his hands. The citadel of Korinth surrendered as tamely
+as the open country, and he was master of the isthmus before the end of the
+month. Nauplia meanwhile had been treating with its besiegers for terms, and
+would have surrendered to the Greeks already if they had not driven their
+bargain so hard. Dramali hurried on southward into the plain to the
+fortress&rsquo;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 experienced
+direction of Kolokotrónis, the Greeks from their hill-fastnesses ringed round
+the plain of Argos and scaled up every issue. Dramali&rsquo;s supplies ran out.
+An attempt of his vanguard to break through again towards the north was
+bloodily repulsed, and he barely succeeded two days later in extricating 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 at Korinth, and Khurshid
+was executed by the sultan&rsquo;s command. The invasion of Peloponnesos had
+broken down, and nothing could avert the fall of Nauplia. The Ottoman fleet
+hovered for one September week in the offing, but Kanaris&rsquo;s fire-ships
+took another ship of the line in toll at the roadsteads of Tenedos before it
+safely regained the Dardanelles. The garrison of Nauplia capitulated in
+December, on condition of personal security and liberty, and the captain of a
+British frigate, which arrived on the spot, took measures that the compact
+should be observed instead of being broken by the customary massacre. But the
+strongest fortress in Peloponnesos was now in Greek hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Including a strong contingent of Moslem Slavs&mdash;Bulgarian
+Pomaks from the Aegean hinterland and Serbian Bosniaks from the Adriatic.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 strong sultan was just as formidable to the Suliots as a strong pasha, so
+they swelled their ranks by enfranchising their peasant-serfs, and made common
+cause with their old enemy in his adversity. Now that Ali was destroyed, the
+Suliots found themselves in a precarious position, and turned to the Greeks for
+aid. But on July 16 the Greek advance was checked by a severe defeat at 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 to advance in turn towards the
+south. On November 6 he actually laid siege to Mesolonghi, but here his
+experiences were as discomfiting as Dramali&rsquo;s. He could not keep open his
+communications, and after heavy losses retreated again to Arta in January 1823.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: He was a renegade officer of Ali&rsquo;s.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1823 the struggle seemed to be lapsing into stalemate. The liberated
+Peloponnesos had failed to propagate the revolution through the remainder of
+the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Government had equally failed to reconquer the
+Peloponnesos by military invasion. This season&rsquo;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 he penetrated no further than
+Anatolikòn&mdash;the Mesolonghiots&rsquo; outpost village at the head of the
+lagoons&mdash;and the campaign was only memorable for the heroic death of Marko
+Botzaris the Suliot in a night attack upon the Ottoman camp. At sea, the two
+fleets indulged in desultory cruises without an encounter, for the Turks were
+still timid and incompetent, while the growing insubordination and dissension
+on the Greek ships made concerted action there, too, impossible. By the end of
+the season it was clear that the struggle could only definitively be decided by
+the intervention of a third party on one side or the other&mdash;unless the
+Greeks brought their own ruin upon themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This indeed was not unlikely to happen; for the new house of Hellenism had
+hardly arisen before it became desperately divided against itself. The vitality
+of the national movement resided entirely in the local communes. It was they
+that had found the fighting men, kept them armed and supplied, and by
+spontaneous co-operation expelled the Turk from Peloponnesos. But if the
+co-operation was to be permanent it must have a central organization, and with
+the erection of this superstructure the troubles began. As early as June 1821 a
+&lsquo;Peloponnesian Senate&rsquo; was constituted and at once monopolized by
+the &lsquo;Primates&rsquo;, the propertied class that had been responsible for
+the communal taxes under the Romaic and Ottoman régimes and was allowed to
+control the communal government in return. About the same time two Phanariot
+princes threw in their lot with the revolution&mdash; Alexander Mavrokordatos
+and Demetrius, the more estimable brother of the futile Alexander Hypsilantis.
+Both were saturated with the most recent European political theory, and they
+committed the peasants and seamen of the liberated districts to an ambitious
+constitutionalism. In December 1821 a &lsquo;National Assembly&rsquo; met at
+Epidauros, passed an elaborate organic law, and elected Mavrokordatos first
+president of the Hellenic Republic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The struggle for life and death in 1822 had staved off the internal crisis, but
+the Peloponnesian Senate remained obstinately recalcitrant towards the National
+Government in defence of its own vested interests; and the insubordination of
+the fleet in 1823 was of one piece with the political faction which broke out
+as soon as the immediate danger from without was removed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards the end of 1823 European &lsquo;Philhellenes&rsquo; began to arrive in
+Greece. In those dark days of reaction that followed Waterloo, self-liberated
+Hellas seemed the one bright spot on the continent; but the idealists who came
+to offer her their services were confronted with a sorry spectacle. The people
+were indifferent to their leaders, and the leaders at variance among
+themselves. The gentlemanly Phanariots had fallen into the background.
+Mavrokordatos only retained influence in north-western Greece. In Peloponnesos
+the Primates were all-powerful, and Kolokotrónis the klepht was meditating a
+popular dictatorship at their expense. In the north-east the adventurer
+Odhyssévs had won a virtual dictatorship already, and was suspected of intrigue
+with the Turks; and all this factious dissension rankled into civil war as soon
+as the contraction of a loan in Great Britain had invested the political
+control of the Hellenic Republic with a prospective value in cash. The first
+civil war was fought between Kolokotrónis on the one side and the Primates of
+Hydhra and Peloponnesos on the other; but the issue was decided against
+Kolokotrónis by the adhesion to the coalition of Kolettis the Vlach, once
+physician to Mukhtar Pasha, the son of Ali, and now political agent for all the
+northern Armatoli in the national service. The fighting lasted from November
+1823 to June 1824, and was followed by another outbreak in November of the
+latter year, when the victors quarrelled over the spoils, and the Primates were
+worsted in turn by the islanders and the Armatoli. The nonentity Kondouriottis
+of Hydhra finally emerged as President of Greece, with the sharp-witted
+Kolettis as his principal wire-puller, but the disturbances did not cease till
+the last instalment of the loan had been received and squandered and there was
+no more spoil to fight for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, Sultan Mahmud had been better employed. Resolved to avert stalemate
+by the only possible means, he had applied in the course of 1823 to Mohammed
+Ali Pasha of Egypt, a more formidable, though more distant, satrap than Ali of
+Yannina himself. Mohammed Ali had a standing army and navy organized on the
+European model. He had also a son Ibrahim, who knew how to manoeuvre them, and
+was ambitious of a kingdom. Mahmud hired the father&rsquo;s troops and the
+son&rsquo;s generalship for the re-conquest of Peloponnesos, under engagement
+to invest Ibrahim with the pashalik as soon as he should effectively make it
+his own. By this stroke of diplomacy a potential rebel was turned into a
+willing ally, and the preparations for the Egyptian expedition went forward
+busily through the winter of 1823-4.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The plan of campaign was systematically carried out. During the season of
+respite the Greek islanders had harried the coasts and commerce of Anatolia and
+Syria at will. The first task was to deprive them of their outposts in the
+Aegean, and an advanced squadron of the Egyptian fleet accordingly destroyed
+the community of Kasos in June 1824, while the Ottoman squadron sallied out of
+the Dardanelles a month later and dealt out equal measure to Psarà. The two
+main flotillas then effected a junction off Rhodes; and, though the crippled
+Greek fleet still ventured pluckily to confront them, it could not prevent
+Ibrahim from casting anchor safely in Soudha Bay and landing his army to winter
+in Krete. In February 1825 he transferred these troops with equal impunity to
+the fortress of Modhon, which was still held for the sultan by an Ottoman
+garrison. The fire-ships of Hydhra came to harry his fleet too late, and on
+land the Greek forces were impotent against his trained soldiers. The
+Government in vain promoted Kolokotrónis from captivity to
+commandership-in-chief. The whole south-western half of Peloponnesos passed
+into Ibrahim&rsquo;s hands, and in June 1825 he even penetrated as far as the
+mills of Lerna on the eastern coast, a few miles south of Argos itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time the Ottoman army of the west moved south again under a new
+commander, Rashid Pasha of Yannina, and laid final siege on April 27 to
+Mesolonghi, just a year after Byron had died of fever within its walls. The
+Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frail mud-bastions, and they
+more than held their own in the amphibious warfare of the lagoons. The struggle
+was chequered by the continual coming and going of the Greek and Ottoman
+fleets. They were indeed the decisive factor; for without the supporting
+squadron Rashid would have found himself in the same straits as his
+predecessors at the approach of autumn, while the slackness of the islanders in
+keeping the sea allowed Mesolonghi to be isolated in January 1826. The rest was
+accomplished by the arrival of Ibrahim on the scene. His heavy batteries opened
+fire in February; his gunboats secured command of the lagoons, and forced
+Anatolikòn to capitulate in March. In April provisions in Mesolonghi itself
+gave out, and, scorning surrender, the garrison&mdash;men, women, and children
+together&mdash; made a general sortie on the night of April 22. Four thousand
+fell, three thousand were taken, and two thousand won through. It was a
+glorious end for Mesolonghi, but it left the enemy in possession of all
+north-western Greece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The situation was going from bad to worse. Ibrahim returned to Peloponnesos,
+and steadily pushed forward his front, ravaging as steadily as he went. Rashid,
+after pacifying the north-west, moved on to the north-eastern districts, where
+the national cause had been shaken by the final treachery and speedy
+assassination of Odhyssèvs. Siege was laid to Athens in June, and the Greek
+Government enlisted in vain the military experience of its Philhellenes.
+Fabvier held the Akropolis, but Generalissimo Sir Richard Church was heavily
+defeated in the spring of 1827 in an attempt to relieve him from the Attic
+coast; Grand Admiral Cochrane saw his fleet sail home for want of payment in
+advance, when he summoned it for review at Poros; and Karaiskakis, the Greek
+captain of Armatoli, was killed in a skirmish during his more successful
+efforts to harass Rashid&rsquo;s communications by land. On June 5, 1827, the
+Greek garrison of the Akropolis marched out on terms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It looked as if the Greek effort after independence would be completely
+crushed, and as if Sultan Mahmud would succeed in getting his empire under
+control. In September 1826 he had rid it at last of the mischief at its centre
+by blowing up the janissaries in their barracks at Constantinople. Turkey
+seemed almost to have weathered the storm when she was suddenly overborne by
+further intervention on the other side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tsar Alexander, the vaccillator, died in November 1825, and was succeeded by
+his son Nicholas I, as strong a character and as active a will as Sultan Mahmud
+himself. Nicholas approached the Greek question without any disinclination
+towards a Turkish war; and both Great Britain and France found an immediate
+interest in removing a ground of provocation which might lead to such a rude
+disturbance of the European &lsquo;Balance of Power&rsquo;. On July 6, 1827, a
+month after Athens surrendered, the three powers concluded a treaty for the
+pacification of Greece, in which they bound over both belligerent parties to
+accept an armistice under pain of military coercion. An allied squadron
+appeared off Navarino Bay to enforce this policy upon the Ottoman and Egyptian
+fleet which lay united there, and the intrusion of the allied admirals into the
+bay itself precipitated on October 20 a violent naval battle in which the
+Moslem flotilla was destroyed. The die was cast; and in April 1828 the Russian
+and Ottoman Governments drifted into a formal war, which brought Russian armies
+across the Danube as far as Adrianople, and set the Ottoman Empire at bay for
+the defence of its capital. Thanks to Mahmud&rsquo;s reorganization, the empire
+did not succumb to this assault; but it had no more strength to spare for the
+subjugation of Greece. The Greeks had no longer to reckon with the sultan as a
+military factor; and in August 1828 they wore relieved of Ibrahim&rsquo;s
+presence as well, by the disembarkation of 14,000 French troops in Peloponnesos
+to superintend the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces. In March 1829 the three
+powers delimited the Greek frontier. The line ran east and west from the Gulf
+of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, and assigned to the new state no more and no less
+territory than the districts that had effectively asserted their independence
+against the sultan in 1821. This settlement was the only one possible under the
+circumstances; but it was essentially transitory, for it neglected the natural
+line of nationality altogether, and left a numerical majority of the Greek
+race, as well as the most important centres of its life, under the old régime
+of servitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even the liberated area was not at the end of its troubles. In the spring of
+1827, when they committed themselves into the hands of their foreign patrons,
+the Greeks had found a new president for the republic in John Kapodistrias, an
+intimate of Alexander the tsar. Kapodistrias was a Corfiote count, with a
+Venetian education and a career in the Russian diplomatic service, and no one
+could have been more fantastically unsuitable for the task of reconstructing
+the country to which he was called. Kapodistrias&rsquo; ideal was the
+<i>fin-de-siècle</i> &lsquo;police-state&rsquo;; but &lsquo;official
+circles&rsquo; did not exist in Greece, and he had no acquaintance with the
+peasants and sailors whom he hoped to redeem by bureaucracy. He instituted a
+hierarchically centralized administration which made the abortive constitution
+of Mavrokordatos seem sober by comparison; he trampled on the liberty of the
+rising press, which was the most hopeful educational influence in the country;
+and he created superfluous ministerial portfolios for his untalented brothers.
+In fact he reglamented Greece from his palace at Aigina like a divinely
+appointed autocrat, from his arrival in January 1828 till the summer of 1831,
+when he provoked the Hydhriots to open rebellion, and commissioned the Russian
+squadron in attendance to quell them by a naval action, with the result that
+Poros was sacked by the President&rsquo;s regular army and the national fleet
+was completely destroyed. After that, he attempted to rule as a military
+dictator, and fell foul of the Mavromichalis of Maina. The Mainates knew better
+how to deal with the &lsquo;police-state&rsquo; than the Hydhriots; and on
+October 9, 1831, Kapodistrias was assassinated in Nauplia, at the church door,
+by two representatives of the Mavromichalis clan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The country lapsed into utter anarchy. Peloponnesians and Armatoli,
+Kolokotronists and Kolettists, alternately appointed and deposed subservient
+national assemblies and governing commissions by naked violence, which
+culminated in a gratuitous and disastrous attack upon the French troops
+stationed in Peloponnesos for their common protection. The three powers
+realized that it was idle to liberate Greece from Ottoman government unless
+they found her another in its place. They decided on monarchy, and offered 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 in July 1832 the sultan recognized the sovereign independence of the
+kingdom of Hellas in consideration of a cash indemnity; and in February 1833,
+just a year after the first overtures had been made, the appointed king arrived
+at Nauplia with a decorative Bavarian staff and a substantial loan from the
+allies.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>3<br/>
+<i>The Consolidation of the State</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+Half the story of Greece is told. We have watched the nation awake and put
+forth its newly-found strength in a great war of independence, and we have
+followed the course of the struggle to its result&mdash;the foundation of the
+kingdom of Hellas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is impossible to close this chapter of Greek history without a sense of
+disappointment. The spirit of Greece had travailed, and only a principality was
+born, which gathered within its frontiers scarcely one-third of the race, and
+turned for its government to a foreign administration which had no bond of
+tradition or affinity with the population it was to rule. And yet something had
+been achieved. An oasis had been wrested from the Turkish wilderness, in which
+Hellenism could henceforth work out its own salvation untrammelled, and extend
+its borders little by little, until it brought within them at last the whole of
+its destined heritage. The fleeting glamour of dawn had passed, but it had
+brought the steady light of day, in which the work begun could be carried out
+soberly and indefatigably to its conclusion. The new kingdom, in fact, if it
+fulfilled its mission, might become the political nucleus and the spiritual
+ensample of a permanently awakened nation&mdash;an &lsquo;education of
+Hellas&rsquo; such as Pericles hoped to see Athens become in the greatest days
+of Ancient Greece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When, therefore, we turn to the history of the kingdom, our disappointment is
+all the more intense, for in the first fifty years of its existence there is
+little development to record. In 1882 King Otto&rsquo;s principality presented
+much the same melancholy spectacle as it did in 1833, when he landed in Nauplia
+Bay, except that Otto himself had left the scene. His Bavarian staff belonged
+to that reactionary generation that followed the overthrow of Napoleon in
+Europe, and attempted, heedless of Kapodistrias&rsquo; fiasco, to impose on
+Greece the bureaucracy of the <i>ancien régime</i>. The Bavarians&rsquo; work
+was entirely destructive. The local liberties which had grown up under the
+Ottoman dominion and been the very life of the national revival, were
+effectively repressed. Hydhriot and Spetziot, Suliot and Mainate, forfeited
+their characteristic individuality, but none of the benefits of orderly and
+uniform government were realized. The canker of brigandage defied all efforts
+to root it out, and in spite of the loans with which the royal government was
+supplied by the protecting powers, the public finance was subject 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 1843.
+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 to
+Dane, yet the afflictions continued. In 1882 King George had been nineteen
+years on the throne[1] without any happier fortune than his
+predecessor&rsquo;s. It is true that the frontiers of the kingdom had been
+somewhat extended. Great Britain had presented the new sovereign with the
+Ionian Islands as an inaugural gift, and the Berlin Conference had recently
+added the province of Thessaly. Yet the major part of the Greek race still
+awaited liberation from the Turkish yoke, and regarded the national kingdom,
+chronically incapacitated by the twin plagues of brigandage and bankruptcy,
+with increasing disillusionment. The kingdom of Hellas seemed to have failed in
+its mission altogether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: King George, like King Otto, was only seventeen years old when he
+received his crown.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was the explanation of this failure? It was that the very nature of the
+mission paralysed the state from taking the steps essential to its
+accomplishment. The phenomenon has been, unhappily, only too familiar in the
+Nearer East, and any one who travelled in the Balkans in 1882, or even so
+recently as 1912, must at once have become aware of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until a nation has completely vindicated its right to exist, it is hard for it
+to settle down and make its life worth living. We nations of western Europe
+(before disaster fell upon us) had learnt to take our existence for granted,
+and &lsquo;Politics&rsquo; for us had come to mean an organized effort to
+improve the internal economy of our community. But a foreigner who picked up a
+Greek newspaper would have found in it none of 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 been monopolized by
+foreign politics, and in the cafes he would have heard the latest oscillation
+in the international balance of power canvassed with the same intense and
+minute interest that Englishmen in a railway-carriage would have been devoting
+to Old Age Pensions, National Health Insurance, or Land Valuation. He would
+have been amazed by a display of intimate knowledge such as no British quidnunc
+could have mustered if he had happened to stumble across these intricacies of
+international competition, and the conversation would always have terminated in
+the same unanswered but inconscionable challenge to the future: &lsquo;When
+will the oppressed majority of our race escape the Turkish yoke? If the Ottoman
+dominion is destroyed, what redistribution of its provinces will follow? Shall
+we then achieve our national unity, or will our Balkan neighbours encroach upon
+the inheritance which is justly ours?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This preoccupation with events beyond the frontiers was not caused by any lack
+of vital problems within them. The army was the most conspicuous object of
+public activity, but it was not an aggressive speculation, or an investment of
+national profits deliberately calculated to bring in one day a larger return.
+It was a necessity of 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 again at the miserable state of all reproductive public
+works. The railways were few and far between, their routes roundabout, and
+their rolling-stock scanty, so that trains were both rare and slow. Wheel-roads
+were no commoner a feature in Greece than railways are here, and such stretches
+as had been constructed had often never come into use, because they had just
+failed to reach their goal or were still waiting for their bridges, so that
+they were simply falling into decay and converting the outlay of capital upon
+them into a dead loss. The Peiraeus was the only port in the country where
+steamers could come alongside a quay, and discharge their cargoes directly on
+shore. Elsewhere, the vessel must anchor many cables&rsquo; lengths out, 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 open roadstead, where all ships that
+call are kept at a distance by the silt from a mountain torrent, and so placed
+in imminent danger of being driven, by the first storm, upon the rocks of a
+neighbouring peninsula.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The four chief ports being Peiraeus, Patras, Syra, and Volos.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These grave shortcomings were doubtless due in part to the 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 attempt
+much more, if the nation&rsquo;s energy could have been secured for the work.
+But it is hard to tinker at details when you are kept in a perpetual fever by a
+question of life and death, and the great preliminary questions of national
+unity and self-government remained still unsettled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before these supreme problems all other interests paled, for they were no
+will-o&rsquo;-the-wisps of theoretical politics. It needs a long political
+education to appreciate abstract ideas, and the Greeks were still in their
+political infancy, but the realization of Greater Greece implied for them the
+satisfaction of all their concrete needs at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So long as the <i>status quo</i> endured, they were isolated from the rest of
+Europe by an unbroken band of Turkish territory, stretching from the Aegean to
+the Adriatic Sea. What was the use of overcoming great engineering difficulties
+to build a line of European gauge from Athens right up to the northern
+frontier, if Turkey refused to sanction the construction of the tiny section
+that must pass through her territory between the Greek railhead and the actual
+terminus of the European system at Salonika? Or if, even supposing she withdrew
+her veto, she would have it in her power to bring pressure on Greece at any
+moment by threatening to sever communications along this vital artery? So long
+as Turkey was there, Greece was practically an island, and her only
+communication with continental Europe lay through her ports. But what use to
+improve the ports, when the recovery of Salonika, the fairest object of the
+national dreams, would ultimately change the country&rsquo;s economic centre of
+gravity, and make her maritime as well as her overland commerce flow along
+quite other channels than the present?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus the Greek nation&rsquo;s present was overshadowed by its future, and its
+actions paralysed by its hopes. Perhaps a nation with more power of application
+and less of imagination would have schooled itself to the thought that these
+sordid, obtrusive details were the key to the splendours of the future, and
+would have devoted itself to the systematic amelioration of the cramped area
+which it had already secured for its own. This is what Bulgaria managed to do
+during her short but wonderful period of internal growth between the Berlin
+Treaty of 1878 and the declaration of war against Turkey in 1912. But Bulgaria,
+thanks to her geographical situation, was from the outset freer from the
+tentacles of the Turkish octopus than Greece had contrived to make herself by
+her fifty years&rsquo; start, while her temperamentally sober ambitions were
+not inflamed by such past traditions as Greece had inherited, not altogether to
+her advantage. Be that as it may, Greece, whether by fault or misfortune, had
+failed during this half-century to apply herself successfully to the cure of
+her defects and the exploitation of her assets, though she did not lack leaders
+strong-minded enough to summon her to the dull business of the present. Her
+history during the succeeding generation was a struggle between the parties of
+the Present and the Future, and the unceasing discomfiture of the former is
+typified in the tragedy of Trikoupis, the greatest modern Greek statesman
+before the advent of Venezelos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trikoupis came into power in 1882, just after the acquisition of the rich
+agricultural province of Thessaly under the Treaty of Berlin had given the
+kingdom a fresh start. There were no such continuous areas of good arable land
+within the original frontiers, and such rare patches as there were had been
+desolated by those eight years of savage warfare[1] which had been the price of
+liberty. The population had been swept away by wholesale massacres of racial
+minorities in every district; the dearth of industrious hands had allowed the
+torrents to play havoc with the cultivation-terraces on the mountain slopes;
+and the spectre of malaria, always lying in wait for its opportunity, had
+claimed the waterlogged plains for its own. During the fifty years of
+stagnation little attempt had been made to cope with the evil, until now it
+seemed almost past remedy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: 1821-28]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, however, the surface of the land offered little prospect of wealth for the
+moment, there were considerable treasures to be found beneath it. A
+metalliferous bolt runs down the whole east coast of the Greek mainland,
+cropping up again in many of the Aegean islands, and some of the ores, of which
+there is a great variety, are rare and valuable. The lack of transit facilities
+is partly remedied by the fact that workable veins often lie near enough to the
+sea for the produce to be carried straight from mine to ship, by an
+endless-chain system of overhead trolleys; so that, once capital is secured for
+installing the plant and opening the mine, profitable operations can be carried
+on irrespective of the general economic condition of the country. Trikoupis saw
+how much potential wealth was locked up in these mineral seams. The problem was
+how to attract the capital necessary to tap it. The nucleus round which have
+accumulated those immense masses of mobilised capital that are the life-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, to a state of agricultural bankruptcy, has
+obviously failed to save any surplus in the process, so that it is unable to
+provide from its own pocket the minimum outlay it so urgently needs in order to
+open for itself some new activity. If it is to obtain a fresh start on other
+lines, it must secure the co-operation of the foreign investor, and the
+capitalist with a ready market for his money will only put it into enterprises
+where he has some guarantee of its safety. There was little doubt that the
+minerals of Greece would well repay extraction; the uncertain element was the
+Greek nation itself. The burning question of national unity might break out at
+any moment into a blaze of war, and, in the probable case of disaster, involve
+the whole country and all interests connected with it in economic as well as
+political ruin. Western Europe would not commit itself to Greek mining
+enterprise, unless it felt confident that the statesman responsible for the
+government of Greece would and could restrain his country from its instinctive
+impulse towards political adventure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great merit of Trikoupis was that he managed to inspire 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 administration. But
+the roads are unfinished, the railway-network incomplete, the mines exploited
+only to a fraction of their capacity, because the forces against Trikoupis were
+in the end too strong for him. It may be that his eye too rigidly followed the
+foreign investor&rsquo;s point of view, and that by adopting a more
+conciliatory attitude towards the national ideal, he might have strengthened
+his position at home without impairing his reputation abroad; but his position
+was really made impossible by a force quite beyond his control, the
+irresponsible and often intolerable behaviour which Turkey, under whatever
+régime, has always practised towards foreign powers, and especially towards
+those Balkan states which have won their freedom in her despite, while perforce
+abandoning a large proportion of their race to the protracted outrage of
+Turkish misgovernment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Several times over the Porte, by wanton insults to Greece, wrecked the efforts
+of Trikoupis to establish good relations between the two governments, and
+played the game of the chauvinist party led by Trikoupis&rsquo; rival,
+Deliyannis. Deliyannis&rsquo; tenures of office were always brief, but during
+them he contrived to undo most of the work accomplished by Trikoupis in the
+previous intervals. A particularly tense &lsquo;incident&rsquo; with Turkey put
+him in power in 1893, with a strong enough backing from the country to warrant
+a general mobilization. The sole result was the ruin of Greek credit. Trikoupis
+was hastily recalled to office by the king, but too late. He found himself
+unable to retrieve the ruin, and retired altogether from politics in 1895,
+dying abroad next year in voluntary exile and enforced disillusionment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the removal of Trikoupis from the helm, Greece ran straight upon the
+rocks. A disastrous war with Turkey was precipitated in 1897 by events in
+Krete. It brought the immediate <i>débâcle</i> of the army and the reoccupation
+of Thessaly for a year by Turkish troops, while its final penalties were the
+cession of the chief strategical positions along the northern frontier and the
+imposition of an international commission of control over the Greek finances,
+in view of the complete national bankruptcy entailed by the war. The fifteen
+years that followed 1895 were almost the blackest period in modern Greek
+history; yet the time was not altogether lost, and such events as the draining
+of the Kopais-basin by a British company, and its conversion from a malarious
+swamp into a rich agricultural area, marked a perceptible economic advance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This comparative stagnation was broken at last by the Young Turk
+<i>pronunciamiento</i> at Salonika in 1908, which produced such momentous
+repercussions all through the Nearer East. The Young Turks had struck in order
+to forestall the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, but the opportunity was
+seized by every restive element within it to extricate itself, if possible,
+from the Turkish coils. Now, just as in 1897, Greece was directly affected by
+the action of the Greek population in Krete. As a result of the revolt of
+1896-7, Krete had been constituted an autonomous state subject to Ottoman
+suzerainty, autonomy and suzerainty alike being guaranteed by four great
+powers. Prince George of Greece, a son of the King of the Hellenes, had been
+placed at the head of the autonomous government as high commissioner; but his
+autocratic tendency caused great discontent among the free-spirited Kretans,
+who had not rid themselves of the Turkish régime in order to forfeit their
+independence again in another fashion. Dissension culminated in 1906, when the
+leaders of the opposition took to 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 high commissioner by Zaimis,
+another citizen of the Greek kingdom, who inaugurated a more constitutional
+régime, and in 1908 the Kretans believed that the moment for realizing the
+national ideal had come. They proclaimed their union with Greece, and elected
+deputies to the Parliament at Athens. But the guarantor powers carried out
+their obligations by promptly sending a combined naval expedition, which hauled
+down the Greek flag at Canea, and prevented the deputies from embarking for
+Peiraeus. This apparently pedantic insistence upon the <i>status quo</i> was
+extremely exasperating to Greek nationalism. It produced a ferment in the
+kingdom, which grew steadily for nine months, and vented itself in July 1909 in
+the <i>coup d&rsquo;état</i> of the &lsquo;Military League&rsquo;, a
+second-hand imitation of the Turkish &lsquo;Committee of Union and
+Progress&rsquo;. The royal family was cavalierly treated, and constitutional
+government superseded by a junta of officers. But at this point the policy of
+the four powers towards Krete was justified. Turkey knew well that she had lost
+Krete in 1897, but she could still exploit her suzerainty to prevent Greece
+from gaining new strength by the annexation of the island. The Young Turks had
+seized the reins of government, not to modify the policy of the Porte, but to
+intensify its chauvinism, and they accordingly intimated that they would
+consider any violation of their suzerain rights over Krete a <i>casus belli</i>
+against Greece. Greece, without army or allies, was obviously not in a position
+to incur another war, and the &lsquo;Military League&rsquo; thus found that it
+had reached the end of its tether. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the man demanded by the situation appeared unexpectedly from the centre of
+disturbance, Krete. Venezelos started life as a successful advocate at Canea.
+He entered Kretan politics in the struggle for constitutionalism, and
+distinguished himself in the successful revolution of 1906, of which he was the
+soul. Naturally, he became one of the leading statesmen under Zaimis&rsquo;
+régime, and he further distinguished himself by resolutely opposing the
+&lsquo;Unionist&rsquo; agitation as premature, and yet retaining his hold over
+a people whose paramount political preoccupation was their national unity. The
+crisis of 1908-9 brought him into close relations with the government of the
+Greek kingdom; and the king, who had gauged his calibre, now took the patriotic
+step of calling in the man who had expelled his son from Krete, to put his own
+house in order. It speaks much for both men that they worked together in
+harmony from the beginning. Upon the royal invitation Venezelos exchanged
+Kretan for Greek citizenship, and took in hand the &lsquo;Military
+League&rsquo;. After short negotiations, he persuaded it to dissolve in favour
+of a national convention, which was able to meet in March 1910.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus Greece became a constitutional country once more, and Venezelos the first
+premier of the new era. During five years of continuous office he was to prove
+himself the good genius of his country. When he resigned his post in April
+1915, he left the work of consolidating the national state on the verge of
+completion, and it will be his country&rsquo;s loss if he is baulked of
+achievement. Results speak for themselves, and the remainder of this pamphlet
+will be little more than a record of his statesmanship; but before we pass on
+to review his deeds, we must say a word about the character to which they are
+due. In March 1912 the time came for the first general election since Venezelos
+had taken office. Two years&rsquo; experience of his administration had already
+won him such popularity and prestige, that the old party groups, purely
+personal followings infected with all the corruption, jingoism, and insincerity
+of the dark fifteen years, leagued themselves in a desperate effort to cast him
+out. Corruption on a grand scale was attempted, but Venezelos&rsquo; success at
+the polls was sweeping. The writer happened to be spending that month in Krete.
+The Kretans had, of course, elected deputies in good time to the parliament at
+Athens, and once more the foreign warships stopped them in the act of boarding
+the steamer for Peiraeus, while Venezelos, who was still responsible for the
+Greek Government till the new parliament met, had declared with characteristic
+frankness that the attendance of the Kretan deputies could not possibly be
+sanctioned, an opening of which his opponents did not fail to take advantage.
+Meanwhile, every one in Krete was awaiting news of the polling in the kingdom.
+They might have been expected to feel, at any rate, lukewarmly towards a man
+who had actually taken office on the programme of deferring their cherished
+&lsquo;union&rsquo; indefinitely; but, on the contrary, they greeted his
+triumph with enormous enthusiasm. Their feeling was explained by the comment of
+an innkeeper. &lsquo;Venezelos!&rsquo; he said: &lsquo;Why, he is a man who can
+say &ldquo;No&rdquo;. He won&rsquo;t stand any nonsense. If you try to get
+round him, he&rsquo;ll put you in irons.&rsquo; And clearly he had hit the
+mark. Venezelos would in any case have done well, because he is a clever man
+with an excellent power of judgement; but acuteness is a common Greek virtue,
+and if he has done brilliantly, it is because he has the added touch of genius
+required to make the Greek take &lsquo;No&rsquo; for an answer, a quality, very
+rare indeed in the nation, which explains the dramatic contrast between his
+success and Trikoupis&rsquo; failure. Greece has been fortunate indeed in
+finding the right man at the crucial hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the winter of 1911-12 and the succeeding summer, the foreign traveller met
+innumerable results of Venezelos&rsquo; activity in every part of the country,
+and all gave evidence of the same thing: a sane judgement and its inflexible
+execution. For instance, a resident in Greece had needed an escort of soldiers
+four years before, when he made an expedition into the wild country north-west
+of the Gulf of Patras, on account of the number of criminals
+&lsquo;wanted&rsquo; by the government who were lurking in that region as
+outlaws. In August 1912 an inquiry concerning this danger was met with a smile:
+&lsquo;Oh, yes, it was so,&rsquo; said the gendarme, &lsquo;but since then
+Venezelos has come. He amnestied every one &ldquo;out&rdquo; for minor
+offences, and then caught the &ldquo;really bad ones&rdquo;, so there are no
+outlaws in Akarnania now.&rsquo; And he spoke the truth. You could wander all
+about the forests and mountains without molestation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So far Venezelos 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 British missions, and when the
+opportunity appeared, he was ready to take full advantage of it. In the autumn
+of 1912, Turkey had been for a year at war with Italy; her finances had
+suffered a heavy drain, and the Italian command of the sea not only locked up
+her best troops in Tripoli, but interrupted such important lines of
+communication between her Asiatic and European provinces as the direct route by
+sea from Smyrna to Salonika, and the devious sea-passage thence round Greece to
+Scutari, which was the only alternative for Turkish troops to running the
+gauntlet of the Albanian mountaineers. Clearly the Balkan nations could find no
+better moment for striking the blow to settle that implacable
+&lsquo;preliminary question.&rsquo; 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 compromise between their conflicting claims,
+they would have to let this common opportunity for making them good slip by
+altogether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the four states concerned, two, Serbia and Montenegro, were of the same
+South-Slavonic nationality, and had been drawn into complete accord with each
+other since the formal annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary in 1908, which
+struck a hard blow at their common national idea, while neither of them had any
+conflicting claims with Greece, since the Greek and South-Slavonic
+nationalities are at no point geographically in contact. With Bulgaria, a
+nation of Slavonic speech and culture, though not wholly Slavonic in origin,
+Serbia had quarrelled for years over the ultimate destiny of the Üsküb district
+in north-western Macedonia, which was still subject to Turkey; but in the
+summer of 1912 the two states compromised in a secret treaty upon their
+respective territorial ambitions, and agreed to refer the fate of one debatable
+strip to the arbitration of Russia, after their already projected war with
+Turkey had been carried through. There was a more formidable conflict of
+interests between Bulgaria and Greece. These two nationalities are conterminous
+over a very wide extent of territory, stretching from the Black Sea on the east
+to the inland Lake of Okhrida on the west, and there is at no point a sharp
+dividing line between them. The Greek element tends to predominate towards the
+coast and the Bulgar towards the interior, but there are broad zones where
+Greek and Bulgar villages are inextricably interspersed, while purely Greek
+towns are often isolated in the midst of purely Bulgar rural districts. Even if
+the racial areas could be plotted out on a large-scale map, it was clear that
+no political frontier could be drawn to follow their convolutions, and that
+Greece and Bulgaria could only divide the spoils by both making up their minds
+to give and take. The actual lines this necessary compromise would follow,
+obviously depended on the degree of the allies&rsquo; success against Turkey in
+the common war that was yet to be fought, and Venezelos rose to the occasion.
+He had the courage to offer Bulgaria the Greek alliance without stipulating for
+any definite minimum share in the common conquests, and the tact to induce her
+to accept it on the same terms. Greece and Bulgaria agreed to shelve all
+territorial questions till the war had been brought to a successful close; and
+with the negotiation of this understanding (another case in which Venezelos
+achieved what Trikoupis had attempted only to fail) the Balkan League was
+complete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The events that followed are common knowledge. The Balkan allies opened the
+campaign in October, and the Turks collapsed before an impetuous attack. The
+Bulgarians crumpled up the Ottoman field armies in Thrace at the terrific
+battle of Lule Burgas; the Serbians disposed of the forces in the Macedonian
+interior, while the Greeks effected a junction with the Serbians from the
+south, and cut their way through to Salonika. Within two months of the
+declaration of war, the Turks on land had been driven out of the open
+altogether behind the shelter of the Chataldja and Gallipoli lines, and only
+three fortresses&mdash;Adrianople, Yannina, and Scutari&mdash;held out further
+to the west. Their navy, closely blockaded by the Greek fleet within the
+Dardanelles, had to look on passively at the successive occupation of the
+Aegean Islands by Greek landing-parties. With the winter came negotiations,
+during which an armistice reigned at Adrianople and Scutari, while the Greeks
+pursued the siege of Yannina and the Dardanelles blockade. The negotiations
+proved abortive, and the result of the renewed hostilities justified the action
+of the Balkan plenipotentiaries in breaking them off. By the spring of 1913 the
+three fortresses had fallen, and, under the treaty finally signed at London,
+Turkey ceded to the Balkan League, as a whole, all her European territories
+west of a line drawn from Ainos on the Aegean to Midía on the Black Sea,
+including Adrianople and the lower basin of the river Maritsa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The time had now come for Greece and Bulgaria to settle their account, and the
+unexpected extent of the common gains ought to have facilitated their division.
+The territory in question included the whole north coast of the Aegean and its
+immediate hinterland, and Venezelos proposed to consider it in two sections.
+(1) The eastern section, conveniently known as Thrace, consisted of the lower
+basin of the Maritsa. As far as Adrianople the population was Bulgar, but south
+of that city it was succeeded by a Greek element, with a considerable
+sprinkling of Turkish settlements, as far as the sea. Geographically, however,
+the whole district is intimately connected with Bulgaria, and the railway that
+follows the course of the Maritsa down to the port of Dedeagatch offers a
+much-needed economic outlet for large regions already within the Bulgarian
+frontier. Venezelos, then, was prepared to resign all Greek claims to the
+eastern section, in return for a corresponding concession by Bulgaria in the
+west. (2) The western section, consisting of the lower basins of the Vardar and
+Struma, lay in the immediate neighbourhood of the former frontier of Greece;
+but the Greek population of Salonika,[1] and the coast-districts east of it,
+could not be brought within the Greek frontier without including as well a
+certain hinterland inhabited mainly by Bulgarians. The cession of this was the
+return asked for by Venezelos, and he reduced it to a minimum by abstaining
+from pressing the quite well-founded claims of Greece in the Monastir district,
+which lay further inland still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The predominant element within the walls of Salonika itself is
+neither Greek nor Bulgarian, but consists of about 80,000 of those
+Spanish-speaking Jews who settled in Turkey as refugees during the sixteenth
+century.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Venezelos&rsquo; conciliatory proposals met with no response from the
+Bulgarian Government, which was in an &lsquo;all or nothing&rsquo; mood. It
+swallowed Venezelos&rsquo; gift of Thrace, and then proceeded to exploit the
+Bulgar hinterland of Salonika as a pretext for demanding the latter city as
+well. This uncompromising attitude made agreement impossible, and it was
+aggravated by the aggressive action of the Bulgarian troops in the occupied
+territory, who persistently endeavoured to steal ground from the Greek forces
+facing them. In May there was serious fighting to the east of the Struma, and
+peace was only restored with difficulty. Bulgarian relations with Serbia were
+becoming strained at the same time, though in this case Bulgaria had more
+justice on her side. Serbia maintained that the veto imposed by Austria upon
+her expansion to the Adriatic, in coincidence with Bulgaria&rsquo;s unexpected
+gains on the Maritsa to which Serbian arms had contributed, invalidated the
+secret treaty of the previous summer, and she announced her intention of
+retaining the Monastir district and the line of the Salonika railway as far as
+the future frontier of Greece. Bulgaria, on the other hand, shut her eyes to
+Serbia&rsquo;s necessity for an untrammelled economic outlet to one sea-board
+or the other, and took her stand on her strictly legal treaty-rights. However
+the balance of justice inclined, a lasting settlement could only have been
+reached by mutual forbearance and goodwill; but Bulgaria put herself hopelessly
+in the wrong towards both her allies by a treacherous night-attack upon them
+all along the line, at the end of June 1913. This disastrous act was the work
+of a single political party, which has since been condemned by most sections of
+Bulgarian public opinion; but the punishment, if not the responsibility for the
+crime, fell upon the whole nation. Greece and Serbia had already been drawn
+into an understanding by their common danger. They now declared war against
+Bulgaria in concert. The counter-strokes of their armies met with success, and
+the intervention of Rumania made Bulgaria&rsquo;s discomfiture certain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The results of the one month&rsquo;s war were registered in the Treaty of
+Bucarest. Many of its provisions were unhappily, though naturally, inspired by
+the spirit of revenge; but the Greek premier, at any rate, showed a
+statesmanlike self-restraint in the negotiations. Venezelos advocated the
+course of taking no more after the war than had been demanded before it. He
+desired to leave Bulgaria a broad zone of Aegean littoral between the Struma
+and Maritsa rivers, including ports capable of satisfying Bulgaria&rsquo;s
+pressing need for an outlet towards the south. But, in the exasperated state of
+public feeling, even Venezelos&rsquo; prestige failed to carry through his
+policy in its full moderation. King George had just been assassinated in his
+year of jubilee, in the streets of the long-desired Salonika; and King
+Constantine, his son, flushed by the victory of Kilkish and encouraged by the
+Machiavellian diplomacy of his Hohenzollern brother-in-law, insisted on
+carrying the new Greek frontier as far east as the river Mesta, and depriving
+Bulgaria of Kavala, the natural harbour for the whole Bulgarian hinterland in
+the upper basins of the Mesta and Struma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is true that Greece did not exact as much as she might have done. Bulgaria
+was still allowed to possess herself of a coastal strip east of the Mesta,
+containing the tolerable harbours of Porto Lagos and Dedeagatch, which had been
+occupied 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 the future from those drawbacks involved in immediate
+contact with Turkish territory, which she had so often experienced in the past.
+It is also true that the Kavala district is of great economic value in
+itself&mdash;it produces the better part of the Turkish Régie tobacco
+crop&mdash;and that on grounds of nationality alone Bulgaria has no claim to
+this prize, since the tobacco-growing peasantry is almost exclusively Greek or
+Turk, while the Greek element has been extensively reinforced during the last
+two years by refugees from Anatolia and Thrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, it is already clear that Venezelos&rsquo; judgement was the
+better. The settlement at the close of the present war may even yet bring
+Bulgaria reparation in many quarters. If the Ruman and South Slavonic
+populations at present included in the complexus of Austria-Hungary are freed
+from their imprisonment and united with the Serbian and Rumanian national
+states, Bulgaria may conceivably recover from the latter those Bulgarian lands
+which the Treaty of Bucarest made over to them in central Macedonia and the
+Dobrudja, while it would be still more feasible to oust the Turk again from
+Adrianople, where he slipped back in the hour of Bulgaria&rsquo;s prostration
+and has succeeded in maintaining himself ever since. Yet no amount of
+compensation in other directions and no abstract consideration for the national
+principle will induce Bulgaria to renounce her claim on Greek Kavala. Access to
+this district is vital to Bulgaria from the geographical point of view, and she
+will not be satisfied here with such rights as Serbia enjoys at
+Salonika&mdash;free use of the port and free traffic along a railway connecting
+it with her own hinterland. Her heart is set on complete territorial ownership,
+and she will not compose her feud with Greece until she has had her way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So long, therefore, as the question of Kavala remains unsettled, Greece will
+not be able to put the preliminary problem of &lsquo;national
+consolidation&rsquo; behind her, and enter upon the long-deferred chapter of
+&lsquo;internal development&rsquo;. To accomplish once for all this vital
+transition, Venezelos is taking the helm again into his hands, and it is his
+evident intention to close the Greek account with Bulgaria just as Serbia and
+Rumania hope to close theirs with the same state&mdash;by a bold territorial
+concession conditional upon adequate territorial compensation elsewhere.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The above paragraph betrays its own date; for, since it was
+written, the intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers has
+deferred indefinitely the hope of a settlement based upon mutual agreement.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The possibility of such compensation is offered by certain outstanding problems
+directly dependent upon the issue of the European conflict, and we must glance
+briefly at these before passing on to consider the new chapter of internal
+history that is opening for the Greek nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The problems in question are principally concerned with the ownership of
+islands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The integrity of a land-frontier is guaranteed by the whole strength of the
+nation included within it, and can only be modified by a struggle for existence
+with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by their geographical nature
+constitute independent political units, easily detached from or incorporated
+with larger domains, according to the momentary fluctuation in the balance of
+sea-power. Thus it happened that the arrival of the <i>Goeben</i> and
+<i>Breslau</i> at the Dardanelles in August 1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly
+certain questions concerning the Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly
+Greek in population, but their respective geographical positions and political
+fortunes differentiate them into several groups.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The Cyclades in the south-west, half submerged vanguards 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Krete, the largest of all Greek islands, has been dealt with already. She
+enjoyed autonomy under Turkish suzerainty for fifteen years before the Balkan
+War, and at its outbreak she once more proclaimed her union with Greece. This
+time at last her action was legalized, when Turkey expressly abandoned her
+suzerain rights by a clause in the Treaty of London.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. During the war itself, the Greek navy occupied a number of islands which had
+remained till then under the more direct government of Turkey, The parties to
+the Treaty of London agreed to leave their destiny to the decision of the
+powers, and the latter assigned them all to Greece, with the exception of
+Imbros and Tenedos which command strategically the mouth of the Dardanelles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The islands thus secured to Greece fall in turn into several sub-groups.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two of these are <i>(a)</i> Thasos, Samothraki, and Lemnos, off the European
+coast, and <i>(b)</i> Samos and its satellite Nikarià, immediately off the west
+coast of Anatolia; and these five islands seem definitely to have been given up
+by Turkey for lost. The European group is well beyond the range of her present
+frontiers; while Samos, though it adjoins 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 that the Ottoman Government
+did not acutely feel its final severance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>(c)</i> A third group consists of Mitylini and Khios,[1] and concerning this
+pair Greece and Turkey have so far come to no understanding. The Turks pointed
+out that the littoral off which these islands lie contains not only the most
+indispensable ports of Anatolia but also the largest enclaves of Greek
+population on the Asiatic mainland, and they declared that the occupation of
+this group by Greece menaced the sovereignty of the Porte in its home
+territory. &lsquo;See&rsquo;, they said, &lsquo;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 barricades Aivali and Edremid
+as well. As soon as the Greek Government has converted the harbours of these
+islands into naval bases, Anatolia will be subject to a perpetual Greek
+blockade, and this violent intimidation of the Turkish people will be
+reinforced by an insidious propaganda among the disloyal Greek elements in our
+midst.&rsquo; Accordingly the Turks refused to recognize the award of the
+powers, and demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman sovereignty in Mitylini
+and Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy after the precedent of Krete and
+Samos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Including its famous satellite Psarà.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 their inhabitants ardently desire union with the national kingdom;
+and that the Greek Government would hesitate to use them as a basis for
+economic coercion and nationalistic propaganda against Turkey, if only because
+the commerce of western Anatolia is almost exclusively in the hands of the
+Greek element on the Asiatic continent. Greek interests were presumably bound
+up with the economic prosperity and political consolidation of Turkey in Asia,
+and the Anatolian Greeks would merely have been alienated from their
+compatriots by any such impolitic machinations. &lsquo;Greek sovereignty in
+Mitylini and Khios&rsquo;, the Greeks maintained, &lsquo;does not threaten
+Turkish sovereignty on the Continent. But the restoration of Turkish suzerainty
+over the islands would most seriously endanger the liberty of their
+inhabitants; for Turkish promises are notoriously valueless, except when they
+are endorsed by the guarantee of some physically stronger power.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Negotiations were conducted between Greece and Turkey from these respective
+points of view without leading to any result, and the two standpoints were in
+fact irreconcilable, since either power required the other to leave vital
+national interests at the mercy of an ancient enemy, without undertaking to
+make corresponding sacrifices itself. The problem probably would never have
+been solved by compromise; but meanwhile the situation has been entirely
+transformed by the participation of Turkey in the European War, and the issue
+between Greece and Turkey, like the issue between Greece and Bulgaria, has been
+merged in the general problem of the European settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Balkan War of 1912 doomed the Ottoman power in Europe, but left its Asiatic
+future unimpaired. By making war against the Quadruple Entente, Turkey has
+staked 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 accommodate her régime in the liberated islands to the
+susceptibilities of a Turkey consolidated on the opposite mainland, but will be
+able to stretch out her hand over the Anatolian coast and its hinterland, and
+compensate herself richly in this quarter for the territorial sacrifices which
+may still be necessary to a lasting understanding with her Bulgarian neighbour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shores that dominate the Dardanelles will naturally remain beyond her
+grasp, but she may expect to establish herself on the western littoral from a
+point as far north as Mount Ida and the plain of Edremid. The Greek coast-town
+of Aivali will be hers, and the still more important focus of Greek commerce
+and civilization at Smyrna; while she will push her dominion along the railways
+that radiate from Smyrna towards the interior. South-eastward, Aidin will be
+hers in the valley of the Mendere (Maiandros). Due eastward she will re-baptize
+the glistening city of Ala Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia, under
+which it held out heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin had become
+the capital of a Moslem principality and the Turkish avalanche had rolled past
+it to the sea. Maybe she will follow the railway still further inland, and
+plant her flag on the Black Castle of Afiun, the natural railway-centre of
+Anatolia high up on the innermost plateau. All this and more was once Hellenic
+ground, and the Turkish incomer, for all his vitality, has never been able here
+to obliterate the older culture or assimilate the earlier population. In this
+western region Turkish villages are still interspersed with Greek, and under
+the government of compatriots the unconquerable minority would inevitably
+reassert itself by the peaceful weapons of its superior energy and
+intelligence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. If Greece realizes these aspirations through Venezelos&rsquo; statesmanship,
+she will have settled in conjunction her outstanding accounts with both
+Bulgaria and Turkey; but a fourth group of islands still remains for
+consideration, and these, though formerly the property of Turkey, are now in
+the hands of other European powers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>(a)</i> The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of islands
+off the Anatolian coast which continues the line of Mitylini, Khios, and Samos
+towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos, Astypalià, Karpathos, Kasos,
+and, above all, Rhodes. The Sporades were occupied by Italy during her war with
+Turkey in 1911-12, and she stipulated in the Peace of Lausanne that she should
+retain them as a pledge until the last Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had been
+withdrawn, after which she would make them over again to 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 Italy until the
+situation was transformed here also by the successive intervention of both
+powers in the European War. The consequent lapse of the Treaty of Lausanne
+simplifies the status of the Sporades, but it is doubtful what effect it will
+have upon their destiny. In language and political sympathy their inhabitants
+are as completely Greek as all the other islanders of the Aegean, and if the
+Quadruple Entente has made the principle of nationality its own, Italy is
+morally bound, now that the Sporades are at her free disposal, to satisfy their
+national aspirations by consenting to their union with the kingdom of Greece.
+On the other hand, the prospective dissolution of the Ottoman Empire has
+increased Italy&rsquo;s stake in this quarter. In the event of a partition, the
+whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fall within the Italian
+sphere, which will start from the Gulf of Iskanderun, include the districts of
+Adana and Adalia, and march with the new Anatolian provinces of Greece along
+the line of the river Mendere. This continental domain and the adjacent islands
+are geographically complementary to one another, and it is possible that Italy
+may for strategical reasons insist on retaining the Sporades in perpetuity if
+she realizes her ambitions on the continent. This solution would be less ideal
+than the other, but Greece would be wise to reconcile herself to it, as Italy
+has reconciled herself to the incorporation of Corsica in France; for by
+submitting frankly to this detraction from her national unity she would give
+her brethren in the Sporades the best opportunity of developing their national
+individuality untrammelled under a friendly Italian suzerainty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>(b)</i> The advance-guard of the Greek race that inhabits the great island
+of Cyprus has been subject to British government since 1878, when the
+provisional occupation of the island by Great Britain under a contract similar
+to that of Lausanne was negotiated in a secret agreement between Great Britain
+and Turkey on the eve of the Conference at Berlin. The condition of evacuation
+was in this case the withdrawal of Russia from Kars, and here likewise it never
+became operative till it was abrogated by the outbreak of war. Cyprus, like the
+Sporades, is now at the disposal of its <i>de facto</i> possessor, and on
+November 5, 1914, it was annexed to the British Empire. But whatever decision
+Italy may take, it is to be hoped that our own government at any rate will not
+be influenced exclusively by strategical considerations, but will proclaim an
+intention of allowing Cyprus ultimately to realize its national aspirations by
+union with Greece.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, this intention, under a certain
+condition, has definitely been expressed.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whole population of the island is Greek in language, while under an
+excellent British administration its political consciousness has been awakened,
+and has expressed itself in a growing desire for national unity among the
+Christian majority. It is true that in Cyprus, as in Krete, there is a
+considerable Greek-speaking minority of Moslems[1] who prefer the <i>status
+quo</i>; but, since the barrier of language is absent, their antipathy to union
+may not prove permanent. However important the retention of Cyprus may be to
+Great Britain from the strategical point of view, we shall find that even in
+the balance of material interests it is not worth the price of alienating the
+sympathy of an awakened and otherwise consolidated nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: In Cyprus about 22 per cent.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This rather detailed review of problems in the islands and Anatolia brings out
+the fact that Greek nationalism is not an artificial conception of theorists,
+but a real force which impels the most scattered and down-trodden populations
+of Greek speech to travail unceasingly for political unity within the national
+state. Yet by far the most striking example of this attractive power in
+Hellenism is the history of it in &lsquo;Epirus&rsquo;.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The name coined to include the districts of Himarra, Argyrokastro,
+and Koritsà.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Epirots are a population of Albanian race, and they still speak an Albanian
+dialect in their homes; while the women and children, at any rate, often know
+no other language. But somewhat over a century ago the political organism
+created by the remarkable personality of Ali Pasha in the hinterland of the
+Adriatic coast, and the relations of Great Britain and France with this new
+principality in the course of their struggle for the Mediterranean, began to
+awaken in the Epirots a desire for civilization. Their Albanian origin opened
+to them no prospects, for the race had neither a literature nor a common
+historical tradition; and they accordingly turned to the Greeks, with whom they
+were linked in religion by membership of the Orthodox Church, and in politics
+by subjection to Ali&rsquo;s Government at Yannina, which had adopted Greek as
+its official language.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had appealed to the right quarter; for we have seen how Greek culture
+accumulated a store of latent energy under the Turkish yoke, and was expending
+it at this very period in a vigorous national revival. The partially successful
+War of Liberation in the &lsquo;twenties of the nineteenth century was only the
+political manifestation of the new life. It has expressed itself more typically
+in a steady and universal enthusiasm for education, which throughout the
+subsequent generations of political stagnation has always opened to individual
+Greeks commercial and professional careers of the greatest brilliance, and
+often led them to spend the fortunes so acquired in endowing the nation with
+further educational opportunities. Public spirit is a Greek virtue. There are
+few villages which do not possess monuments of their successful sons, and a
+school is an even commoner gift than a church; while the State has supplemented
+the individual benefactor to an extent remarkable where public resources are so
+slender. The school-house, in fact, is generally the most prominent and
+substantial building in a Greek village, and the advantage offered to the
+Epirots by a <i>rapprochement</i> with the Greeks is concretely symbolized by
+the Greek schools established to-day in generous numbers throughout their
+country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the Epirot boy the school is the door to the future. The language he learns
+there makes him the member of a nation, and opens to him a world wide enough to
+employ all the talent and energy he may possess, if he seeks his fortune at
+Patras or Peiraeus, or in the great Greek commercial communities of Alexandria
+and Constantinople; while, if he stays at home, it still affords him a link
+with the life of civilized Europe through the medium of the ubiquitous Greek
+newspaper.[1] The Epirot has thus become Greek in soul, for he has reached the
+conception of a national life more liberal than the isolated existence of his
+native village through the avenue of Greek culture. &lsquo;Hellenism&rsquo; and
+nationality have become for him identical ideas; and when at last the hour of
+deliverance struck, he welcomed the Greek armies that marched into his country
+from the south and the east, after the fall of Yannina in the spring of 1913,
+with the same enthusiasm with which all the enslaved populations of native
+Greek dialect greeted the consummation of a century&rsquo;s hopes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: There is still practically no literature printed in the Albanian
+language.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the &lsquo;Hellenism&rsquo; of
+the Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem
+neighbours on the north. The latter speak a variety of the same Albanian
+tongue, but were differentiated by a creed which assimilated them to the ruling
+race. They had been superior to their Christian kinsmen by the weight of
+numbers and the possession of arms, which under the Ottoman régime were the
+monopoly of the Moslem. At last, however, the yoke of oppression was broken and
+the Greek occupation seemed a harbinger of security for the future. Unluckily,
+however, Epirus was of interest to others besides its own inhabitants. It
+occupies an important geographical position facing the extreme heel of Italy,
+just below the narrowest point in the neck of the Adriatic, and the Italian
+Government insisted that the country should be included in the newly erected
+principality of Albania, which the powers had reserved the right to delimit in
+concert by a provision in the Treaty of London.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Italy gave two reasons for her demand. First, she declared it incompatible with
+her own vital interests that both shores of the strait between Corfù and the
+mainland should pass into the hands of the same power, because the combination
+of both coasts and the channel between them offered a site for a naval base
+that might dominate the mouth of the Adriatic. Secondly, she maintained that
+the native Albanian speech of the Epirots proved their Albanian nationality,
+and that it was unjust to the new Albanian state to exclude from it the most
+prosperous and civilized branch of the Albanian nation. Neither argument is
+cogent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first argument could easily be met by the neutralization of the Corfù
+straits,[1] and it is also considerably weakened by the fact that the position
+which really commands the mouth of the Adriatic from the eastern side is not
+the Corfù channel beyond it but the magnificent bay of Avlona just within its
+narrowest section, and this is a Moslem district to which the Epirots have
+never laid claim, and which would therefore in any case fall within the
+Albanian frontier. The second argument is almost ludicrous. The destiny of
+Epirus is not primarily the concern of the other Albanians, of for that matter
+of the Greeks, but of the Epirots themselves, and it is hard to see how their
+nationality can be defined except in terms of their own conscious and expressed
+desire; for a nation is simply a group of men inspired by a common will to
+co-operate for certain purposes, and cannot be brought into existence by the
+external manipulation of any specific objective factors, but solely by the
+inward subjective impulse of its constituents. It was a travesty of justice to
+put the Orthodox Epirots at the mercy of a Moslem majority (which had been
+massacring them the year before) on the ground that they happened to speak the
+same language. The hardship was aggravated by the fact that all the routes
+connecting Epirus with the outer world run through Yannina and Salonika, from
+which the new frontier sundered her; while great natural barriers separate her
+from Avlona and Durazzo, with which the same frontier so ironically signalled
+her union.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Corfù itself is neutralized already by the agreement under which
+Great Britain transferred the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The award of the powers roused great indignation in Greece, but Venezelos was
+strong enough to secure that it should scrupulously be respected; and the
+&lsquo;correct attitude&rsquo; which he inflexibly maintained has finally won
+its reward. As soon as the decision of the powers was announced, the Epirots
+determined to help themselves. They raised a militia, and asserted their
+independence so successfully, that they compelled the Prince of Wied, the first
+(and perhaps the last) ruler of the new &lsquo;Albania&rsquo;, to give them
+home rule in matters of police and education, and to recognise Greek as the
+official language for their local administration. They ensured observance of
+this compact by the maintenance of their troops under arms. So matters
+continued, until a rebellion among his Moslem subjects and the outbreak of the
+European War in the summer of 1914 obliged the prince to depart, leaving
+Albania to its natural state of anarchy. The anarchy might have restored every
+canton and village to the old state of contented isolation, had it not been for
+the religious hatred between the Moslems and the Epirots, which, with the
+removal of all external control, began to vent itself in an aggressive assault
+of the former upon the latter, and entailed much needless misery in the autumn
+months.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reoccupation of Epirus by Greek troops had now become a matter of life and
+death to its inhabitants, and in October 1914 Venezelos took the inevitable
+step, after serving due notice upon all the signatories to the Treaty of
+London. Thanks in part to the absorption of the powers in more momentous
+business, but perhaps even in a greater degree to the confidence which the
+Greek premier had justly won by his previous handling of the question, this
+action was accomplished without protest or opposition. Since then Epirus has
+remained sheltered from the vicissitudes of civil war within and punitive
+expeditions from without, to which the unhappy remnant of Albania has been
+incessantly exposed; and we may prophesy that the Epiroi, unlike their
+repudiated brethren of Moslem or Catholic faith, have really seen the last of
+their troubles. Even Italy, from whom they had most to fear, has obtained such
+a satisfactory material guarantee by the occupation on her own part of Avlona,
+that she is as unlikely to demand the evacuation of Epirus by Greece as she is
+to withdraw her own force from her long coveted strategical base on the eastern
+shore of the Adriatic. In Avlona and Epirus the former rivals are settling down
+to a neighbourly contact, and there is no reason to doubt that the <i>de
+facto</i> line of demarcation between them will develop into a permanent and
+officially recognized frontier. The problem of Epirus, though not,
+unfortunately, that of Albania, may be regarded as definitely closed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reclamation of Epirus is perhaps the most honourable achievement of the
+Greek national revival, but it is by no means an isolated phenomenon. Western
+Europe is apt to depreciate modern &lsquo;Hellenism&rsquo;, chiefly because its
+ambitious denomination rather ludicrously challenges comparison with a vanished
+glory, while any one who has studied its rise must perceive that it has little
+more claim than western Europe itself to be the peculiar heir of ancient Greek
+culture. And yet this Hellenism of recent growth has a genuine vitality of its
+own. It displays a remarkable power of assimilating alien elements and
+inspiring them to an active pursuit of its ideals, and its allegiance supplants
+all others in the hearts of those exposed to its charm. The Epirots are not the
+only Albanians who have been Hellenized. In the heart of central Greece and
+Peloponnesus, on the plain of Argos, and in the suburbs of Athens, there are
+still Albanian enclaves, derived from those successive migrations between the
+fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries; but they have so entirely forgotten
+their origin that the villagers, when questioned, can only repeat: &lsquo;We
+can&rsquo;t say why we happen to speak &ldquo;Arvanitikà&rdquo;, but we are
+Greeks like everybody else.&rsquo; The Vlachs again, a Romance-speaking tribe
+of nomadic shepherds who have wandered as far south as Akarnania and the shores
+of the Korinthian Gulf, are settling down there to the agricultural life of the
+Greek village, so that Hellenism stands to them for the transition to a higher
+social phase. Their still migratory brethren in the northern ranges of Pindus
+are already &lsquo;Hellenes&rsquo; in political sympathy,[1] and are moving
+under Greek influence towards the same social evolution. In distant Cappadocia,
+at the root of the Anatolian peninsula, the Orthodox Greek population,
+submerged beneath the Turkish flood more than eight centuries ago, has retained
+little individuality except in its religion, and nothing of its native speech
+but a garbled vocabulary embedded in a Turkified syntax. Yet even this
+dwindling rear-guard has been overtaken just in time by the 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 fate of
+eastern Anatolia may be, the Greek element is now assured a prominent part in
+its future.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Greece owed her naval supremacy in 1912-13 to the new cruiser
+<i>Georgios Averof</i>, named after a Vlach millionaire who made his fortune in
+the Greek colony at Alexandria and left a legacy for the ship&rsquo;s
+construction at his death.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These, moreover, are the peripheries of the Greek world; and at its centre the
+impulse towards union in the national state readies a passionate intensity.
+&lsquo;Aren&rsquo;t you better off as you are?&rsquo; travellers used to ask in
+Krete during the era of autonomy. &lsquo;If you get your &ldquo;Union&rdquo;,
+you will have to do two years&rsquo; military service instead of one
+year&rsquo;s training in the militia, and will be taxed up to half as much
+again.&rsquo; &lsquo;We have thought of that,&rsquo; the Kretans would reply,
+&lsquo;but what does it matter, if we are united with Greece?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this unity modern Hellenism has concentrated its efforts, and after nearly a
+century of ineffective endeavour it has been brought by the statesmanship of
+Venezelos within sight of its goal. Our review of outstanding problems reveals
+indeed the inconclusiveness of the settlement imposed at Bucarest; but this
+only witnesses to the wisdom of the Greek nation in reaffirming its confidence
+in Venezelos at the present juncture, and recalling him to power to crown the
+work which he has so brilliantly carried through. Under Venezelos&rsquo;
+guidance we cannot doubt that the heart&rsquo;s desire of Hellenism will be
+accomplished at the impending European settlement by the final consolidation of
+the Hellenic national state.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: This paragraph, again, has been superseded by the dramatic turn of
+events; but the writer has left it unaltered, for the end is not yet.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet however attractive the sincerity of such nationalism may be, political
+unity is only a negative achievement. The history of a nation must be judged
+rather by the positive content of its ideals and the positive results which it
+attains, and herein the Hellenic revival displays certain grave shortcomings.
+The internal paralysis of social and economic life has already been noted and
+ascribed to the urgency of the &lsquo;preliminary question&rsquo;; but we must
+now add to this the growing embitterment which has poisoned the relations of
+Greece with her Balkan neighbours during the crises through which the
+&lsquo;preliminary question&rsquo; has been worked out to its solution. Now
+that this solution is at hand, will Hellenism prove capable of casting out
+these two evils, and adapt itself with strength renewed to the new phase of
+development that lies before it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The northern territories acquired in 1913 will give a much greater impetus to
+economic progress than Thessaly gave a generation ago; for the Macedonian
+littoral west as well as east of the Struma produces a considerable proportion
+of the Turkish Régie tobacco, while the pine-forests of Pindus, if judiciously
+exploited, will go far to remedy the present deficiency of home-grown timber,
+even if they do not provide quantities sufficient for export abroad. If we take
+into account the currant-crop of the Peloponnesian plain-lands which already
+almost monopolizes the world-market, the rare ores of the south-eastern
+mountains and the Archipelago, and the vintages which scientific treatment
+might bring into competition with the wines of the Peninsula and France, we can
+see that Greece has many sources of material prosperity within her reach, if
+only she applies her liberated energy to their development. Yet these are all
+of them specialized products, and Greece will never export any staple commodity
+to rival the grain which Rumania sends in such quantities to central Europe
+already, and which Bulgaria will begin to send within a few years&rsquo; time.
+Even the consolidated Greek kingdom will be too small in area and too little
+compact in geographical outline to constitute an independent economic unit, and
+the ultimate economic interests of the country demand co-operation in some
+organization more comprehensive than the political molecule of the national
+state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such an association should embrace the Balkans in their widest extent&mdash;
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Carpathians to the Aegean; for,
+in sharp contrast to the inextricable chaos of its linguistic and
+ecclesiastical divisions, the region constitutes economically a homogeneous and
+indivisible whole, in which none of the parts can divest themselves of their
+mutual interdependence. Greece, for example, has secured at last her direct
+link with the railway system of the European continent, but for free transit
+beyond her own frontier she still depends on Serbia&rsquo;s good-will, just, as
+Serbia depends on hers for an outlet to the Aegean at Salonika. The two states
+have provided for their respective interests by a joint proprietorship of the
+section of railway between Salonika and Belgrade; and similar railway problems
+will doubtless bring Rumania to terms with Serbia for access to the Adriatic,
+and both with Bulgaria for rights of way to Constantinople and the Anatolian
+hinterland beyond. These common commercial arteries of the Balkans take no
+account of racial or political frontiers, but link the region as a whole with
+other regions in a common economic relation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a special
+degree. The industries of central Europe will draw upon the raw products of the
+south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east will absorb in turn
+increasing quantities of manufactured plant from central Europe for the
+development of its own natural resources. The two areas will become parties in
+a vast economic 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 the future well-being of the Balkan States.
+Isolated individually and mutually competitive as they are at present, they
+must succumb to the economic ascendancy of Vienna and Berlin as inevitably as
+unorganized, unskilled labourers fall under the thraldom of a well-equipped
+capitalist. Central Europe will have in any event an enormous initial
+superiority over the 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
+deliberate steps towards co-operation among themselves, and find in railway
+conventions the basis for a Balkan zollverein. A zollverein should be the first
+goal of Balkan statesmanship in the new phase of history that is opening for
+Europe; but economic relations on this scale involve the political factor, and
+the Balkans will not be able to deal with their great neighbours on equal terms
+till the zollverein has ripened into a federation. The alternative is
+subjection, both political and economic; and neither the exhaustion of the
+Central Powers in the present struggle nor the individual consolidation of the
+Balkan States in the subsequent settlement will suffice by themselves to avert
+it in the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The awakening of the nation and the consolidation of the state, which we have
+traced in these pages, must accordingly lead on to the confederation of the
+Balkans, if all that has been so painfully won is not to perish again without
+result; and we are confronted with the question: Will Balkan nationalism rise
+to the occasion and transcend itself?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many spectators of recent history will dismiss the suggestion as Utopian.
+&lsquo;Nationality&rsquo;, they will say, &lsquo;revealed itself first as a
+constructive force, and Europe staked its future upon it; but now that we are
+committed to it, it has developed a sinister destructiveness which we cannot
+remedy. Nationality brought the Balkan States into being and led them to final
+victory over the Turk in 1912, only to set them tearing one another to pieces
+again in 1913. In the present catastrophe the curse of the Balkans has
+descended upon the whole of Europe, and laid bare unsuspected depths of chaotic
+hatred; yet Balkan antagonisms still remain more ineradicable than ours. The
+cure for nationality is forgetfulness, but Balkan nationalism is rooted
+altogether in the past. The Balkan peoples have suffered one shattering
+experience in common&mdash;the Turk, and the waters of Ottoman oppression that
+have gone over their souls have not been waters of Lethe. They have endured
+long centuries of spiritual exile by the passionate remembrance of their Sion,
+and when they have vindicated their heritage at last, and returned to build up
+the walls of their city and the temple of their national god, they have
+resented each other&rsquo;s neighbourhood as the repatriated Jew resented the
+Samaritan. The Greek dreams with sullen intensity of a golden age before the
+Bulgar was found in the land, and the challenge implied in the revival of the
+Hellenic name, so far from being a superficial vanity, is the dominant
+characteristic of the nationalism which has adopted it for its title. Modern
+Hellenism breathes the inconscionable spirit of the <i>émigré</i>.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is only too true. The faith that has carried them to national unity will
+suffice neither the Greeks nor any other Balkan people for the new era that has
+dawned upon them, and the future would look dark indeed, but for a strange and
+incalculable leaven, which is already potently at work in the land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since 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&mdash; America. From
+the Slovak villages in the Carpathians to the Greek villages in the Laconian
+hills they have been crossing the Atlantic in their thousands, to become
+dockers and navvies, boot-blacks and waiters, confectioners and barbers in
+Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, and all the other cities that have sprung up like
+magic to welcome the immigrant to the hospitable plains of the Middle West. The
+intoxication of his new environment stimulates all the latent industry and
+vitality of the Balkan peasant, and he abandons himself whole-heartedly to
+American life; yet he does not relinquish the national tradition in which he
+grew up. In America work brings wealth, and the Greek or Slovak soon worships
+his God in a finer church and reads his language in a better-printed newspaper
+than he ever enjoyed in his native village. The surplus flows home in
+remittances of such abundance that they are steadily raising the cost of living
+in the Balkans themselves, or, in other words, the standard of material
+civilization; and sooner or later the immigrant goes the way of his money
+orders, for home-sickness, if not a mobilization order, exerts its compulsion
+before half a dozen years are out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is a strange experience to spend a night in some remote mountain-village of
+Greece, and see Americanism and Hellenism face to face. Hellenism is
+represented by the village schoolmaster. He wears a black coat, talks a little
+French, and can probably read Homer; but his longest journey has been to the
+normal school at Athens, and it has not altered his belief that the ikon in the
+neighbouring monastery was made by St. Luke and the Bulgar beyond the mountains
+by the Devil. On the other side of you sits the returned emigrant, chattering
+irrepressibly in his queer version of the &lsquo;American language&rsquo;, and
+showing you the newspapers which are mailed to him every fortnight from the
+States. His clean linen collar and his well-made American boots are conspicuous
+upon him, and he will deprecate on your behalf and his own the discomfort and
+squalor of his native surroundings. His home-coming has been a disillusionment,
+but it is a creative phenomenon; and if any one can set Greece upon a new path
+it is he. He is transforming her material life by his American savings, for
+they are accumulating into a capital widely distributed in native hands, which
+will dispense the nation from pawning its richest mines and vineyards to the
+European exploiter, and enable it to carry on their development on its own
+account at this critical juncture when European sources of capital are cut off
+for an indefinite period by the disaster of the European War. The emigrant will
+give Greece all Trikoupis dreamed of, but his greatest gift to his country will
+be his American point of view. In the West he has learnt that men of every
+language and religion can live in the same city and work at the same shops and
+sheds and mills and switch-yards without desecrating each other&rsquo;s
+churches or even suppressing each other&rsquo;s newspapers, not to speak of
+cutting each other&rsquo;s throats; and when next he meets Albanian or Bulgar
+on Balkan ground, he may remember that he has once dwelt with him in fraternity
+at Omaha or St. Louis or Chicago. This is the gospel of Americanism, and unlike
+Hellenism, which spread downwards from the patriarch&rsquo;s residence and the
+merchant&rsquo;s counting-house, it is being preached in all the villages of
+the land by the least prejudiced and most enterprising of their sons (for it is
+these who answer America&rsquo;s call); and spreading upward from the peasant
+towards the professor in the university and the politician in parliament.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Will this new leaven conquer, and cast out the stale leaven of Hellenism before
+it sours the loaf? Common sense is mighty, but whether it shall prevail in
+Greece and the Balkans and Europe lies on the knees of the gods.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part05"></a>RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>1<br/>
+<i>Introduction</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The problem of the origin and formation of the Rumanian nation has always
+provided matter for keen disputation among historians, and the theories which
+have been advanced are widely divergent. Some of these discussions have been
+undertaken solely for political reasons, and in such cases existing data prove
+conveniently adaptable. This elastic treatment of the historical data is
+facilitated by the fact that a long and important period affecting the
+formation and the development of the Rumanian nation (270-1220) has bequeathed
+practically no contemporary evidence. By linking up, however, what is known
+antecedent to that period with the precise data available regarding the
+following it, and by checking the inferred results with what little evidence
+exists respecting the obscure epoch of Rumanian history, it has been possible
+to reconstruct, almost to a certainty, the evolution of the Rumanians during
+the Middle Ages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A discussion of the varying theories would be out of proportion, and out of
+place, in this essay. Nor is it possible to give to any extent a detailed
+description of the epic struggle which the Rumanians carried on for centuries
+against the Turks. I shall have to deal, therefore, on broad lines, with the
+historical facts&mdash;laying greater stress only upon the three fundamental
+epochs of Rumanian history: the formation of the Rumanian nation; its initial
+casting into a national polity (foundation of the Rumanian principalities); and
+its final evolution into the actual unitary State; and shall then pass on to
+consider the more recent internal and external development of Rumania, and her
+present attitude.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>2<br/>
+<i>Formation of the Rumanian Nation</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+About the fifth century B.C., when the population of the Balkan-Carpathian
+region consisted of various tribes belonging to the Indo-European family, the
+northern portion of the Balkan peninsula was conquered by the Thracians and the
+Illyrians. The Thracians spread north and south, and a branch of their race,
+the Dacians, crossed the Danube. The latter established themselves on both
+sides of the Carpathian ranges, in the region which now comprises the provinces
+of Oltenia (Rumania), and Banat and Transylvania (Hungary). The Dacian Empire
+expanded till its boundaries touched upon those of the Roman Empire. The Roman
+province of Moesia (between the Danube and the Balkans) fell before its armies,
+and the campaign that ensued was so successful that the Dacians were able to
+compel Rome to an alliance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two expeditions undertaken against Dacia by the Emperor Trajan (98-117)
+released Rome from these ignominious obligations, and brought Dacia under Roman
+rule (A.D. 106). Before his second expedition Trajan erected a stone bridge
+over the Danube, the remains of which can still be seen at Turnu-Severin, a
+short distance below the point where the Danube enters Rumanian territory.
+Trajan celebrated his victory by erecting at Adam Klissi (in the province of
+Dobrogea) the recently discovered <i>Tropaeum Traiani</i>, and in Rome the
+celebrated &lsquo;Trajan&rsquo;s Column&rsquo;, depicting in marble reliefs
+various episodes of the Dacian wars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The new Roman province was limited to the regions originally inhabited by the
+Dacians, and a strong garrison, estimated by historians at 25,000 men, was left
+to guard it. Numerous colonists from all parts of the Roman Empire were brought
+here as settlers, and what remained of the Dacian population completely
+amalgamated with them. The new province quickly developed under the impulse of
+Roman civilization, of which numerous inscriptions and other archaeological
+remains are evidence. It became one of the most flourishing dependencies of the
+Roman Empire, and was spoken of as <i>Dacia Felix</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About a century and a half later hordes of barbarian invaders, coming from the
+north and east, swept over the country. Under the strain of those incursions
+the Roman legions withdrew by degrees into Moesia, and in A.D. 271 Dacia was
+finally evacuated. But the colonists remained, retiring into the Carpathians,
+where they lived forgotten of history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most powerful of these invaders were the Goths (271-375), who, coming from
+the shores of the Baltic, had shortly before settled north of the Black Sea.
+Unaccustomed to mountain life, they did not penetrate beyond the plains between
+the Carpathians and the Dnjester. They had consequently but little intercourse
+with the Daco-Roman population, and the total absence in the Rumanian language
+and in Rumanian place-names of words of Gothic origin indicates that their stay
+had no influence upon country or population. Material evidence of their
+occupation is afforded, however, by a number of articles made of gold found in
+1837 at Petroasa (Moldavia), and now in the National Museum at Bucarest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the Goths came the Huns (375-453), under Attila, the Avars (566-799),
+both of Mongolian race, and the Gepidae (453-566), of Gothic race&mdash;all
+savage, bloodthirsty raiders, passing and repassing over the Rumanian regions,
+pillaging and burning everywhere. To avoid destruction the Daco-Roman
+population withdrew more and more into the inaccessible wooded regions of the
+mountains, and as a result were in no wise influenced by contact with the
+invaders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+ethnical conditions prevailing on the Danube. The Rumanians were separated from
+the Romans, following the occupation by the Slavs of the Roman provinces
+between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Such part of the population as was not
+annihilated during the raids of the Avars was taken into captivity, or
+compelled to retire southwards towards modern Macedonia and northwards towards
+the Dacian regions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Parts of the Rumanian country became dependent upon the new state founded
+between the Balkans and the Danube in 679 by the Bulgarians, a people of
+Turanian origin, who formerly inhabited the regions north of the Black Sea
+between the Volga and the mouth of the Danube.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity (864) the Slovenian
+language was introduced into their Church, and afterwards also into the Church
+of the already politically dependent Rumanian provinces.[1] This finally
+severed the Daco-Rumanians from the Latin world. The former remained for a long
+time under Slav influence, the extent of which is shown by the large number of
+words of Slav origin contained in the Rumanian language, especially in
+geographical and agricultural terminology.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians north and south of the Danube embraced the Christian
+faith after its introduction into the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great
+(325), with Latin as religious language and their church organization under the
+rule of Rome. A Christian basilica, dating from that period, has been
+discovered by the Rumanian; archaeologist, Tocilescu, at Adam Klissi
+(Dobrogea).]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coming of the Hungarians (a people of Mongolian race) about the end of the
+ninth century put an end to the Bulgarian domination in Dacia. While a few of
+the existing Rumanian duchies were subdued by Stephen the Saint, the first King
+of Hungary (995-1038), the &lsquo;land of the Vlakhs&rsquo; (<i>Terra
+Blacorum</i>), in the south-eastern part of Transylvania, enjoyed under the
+Hungarian kings a certain degree of national autonomy. The Hungarian chronicles
+speak of the Vlakhs as &lsquo;former colonists of the Romans&rsquo;. The
+ethnological influence of the Hungarians upon the Rumanian population has been
+practically nil. They found the Rumanian nation firmly established, race and
+language, and the latter remained pure of Magyarisms, even in Transylvania.
+Indeed, it is easy to prove&mdash;and it is only what might be expected, seeing
+that the Rumanians had attained a higher state of civilization than the
+Hungarian invaders&mdash;that the Hungarians were largely influenced by the
+Daco-Romans. They adopted Latin as their official language, they copied many of
+the institutions and customs of the Rumanians, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great number of the Rumanian nobles and freemen were, however, inimical to
+the new masters, and migrated to the regions across the mountains. This the
+Hungarians used as a pretext for bringing parts of Rumania under their
+domination, and they were only prevented from further extending it by the
+coming of the Tartars (1241), the last people of Mongolian origin to harry
+these regions. The Hungarians maintained themselves, however, in the parts
+which they had already occupied, until the latter were united into the
+principality of the &lsquo;Rumanian land&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To sum up: &lsquo;The Rumanians are living to-day where fifteen centuries ago
+their ancestors were living. The possession of the regions on the Lower Danube
+passed from one nation to another, but none endangered the Rumanian nation as a
+national entity. &ldquo;The water passes, the stones remain&rdquo;; the hordes
+of the migration period, detached from their native soil, disappeared as mist
+before the sun. But the Roman element bent their heads while the storm passed
+over them, clinging to the old places until the advent of happier days, when
+they were able to stand up and stretch their limbs.&rsquo;[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Traugott Tamm, <i>Über den Ursprung der Rumänen,</i>, Bonn, 1891.]
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>3<br/>
+<i>The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The first attempt to organize itself into a political entity was made by the
+Rumanian nation in the thirteenth century, when, under the impulse of the
+disaffected nobles coming from Hungary, the two principalities of
+&lsquo;Muntenia&rsquo; (Mountain Land), commonly known as Wallachia and
+&lsquo;Moldavia&rsquo;, came into being. The existence of Rumanians on both
+sides of the Carpathians long before Wallachia was founded is corroborated by
+contemporary chroniclers. We find evidence of it in as distant a source as the
+<i>History of the Mongols,</i> of the Persian chronicler, Rashid Al-Din, who,
+describing the invasion of the Tartars, says: &lsquo;In the middle of spring
+(1240) the princes (Mongols or Tartars) crossed the mountains in order to enter
+the country of the Bulares (Bulgarians) and of the Bashguirds (Hungarians).
+Orda, who was marching to the right, passed through the country of the Haute
+(Olt), where Bazarambam met him with an army, but was beaten. Boudgek crossed
+the mountains to enter the Kara-Ulak, and defeated the Ulak (Vlakh)
+people.&rsquo;[1] Kara-Ulak means Black Wallachia; Bazarambam is certainly the
+corrupted name of the Ban Bassarab, who ruled as vassal of Hungary over the
+province of Oltenia, and whose dynasty founded the principality of Muntenia.
+The early history of this principality was marked by efforts to free it from
+Hungarian domination, a natural development of the desire for emancipation
+which impelled the Rumanians to migrate from the subdued provinces in Hungary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, <i>Histoire des Roumains,</i> Paris, 1896, i, 168.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The foundation of Moldavia dates from after the retreat of the Tartars, who had
+occupied the country for a century (1241-1345). They were driven out by an
+expedition under Hungarian leadership, with the aid of Rumanians from the
+province of Maramuresh. It was the latter who then founded the principality of
+Moldavia under the suzerainty of Hungary, the chroniclers mentioning as its
+first ruler the Voivod Dragosh.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The legend as to the foundation of Moldavia tells us that Dragosh,
+when hunting one day in the mountains, was pursuing a bison through the dense
+forest. Towards sunset, just when a successful shot from his bow had struck and
+killed the animal, he emerged at a point from which the whole panorama of
+Moldavia was unfolded before his astonished eyes. Deeply moved by the beauty of
+this fair country, he resolved to found a state there. It is in commemoration
+of this event that Moldavia bears the head of a wild bison on her banner.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rudimentary political formations which already existed before the
+foundation of the principalities were swept away by the invasion of the
+Tartars, who destroyed all trace of constituted authority in the plains below
+the Carpathians. In consequence the immigrants from Transylvania did not
+encounter any resistance, and were even able to impose obedience upon the
+native population, though coming rather as refugees than as conquerors. These
+new-comers were mostly nobles (boyards). Their emigration deprived the masses
+of the Rumanian population of Transylvania of all moral and political
+support&mdash;especially as a part of the nobility had already been won over by
+their Hungarian masters&mdash;and with time the masses fell into servitude. On
+the other hand the immigrating nobles strengthened and secured the predominance
+of their class in the states which were to be founded. In both cases the
+situation of the peasantry became worse, and we have, curiously enough, the
+same social fact brought about by apparently contrary causes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though the Rumanians seem to have contributed but little, up to the nineteenth
+century, to the advance of civilization, their part in European history is
+nevertheless a glorious one, and if less apparent, perhaps of more fundamental
+importance. By shedding their blood in the struggle against the Ottoman
+invasion, they, together with the other peoples of Oriental Europe, procured
+that security which alone made possible the development of western
+civilization. Their merit, like that of all with whom they fought, &lsquo;is
+not to have vanquished time and again the followers of Mohammed, 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 heavy price, that their resources were
+drained, they were unable to carry on the fight, and thus their power came to
+an end&rsquo;.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., i. 266.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the phalanx of Christian warriors stand out the names of a few who were
+the bravest of a time when bravery was common; but while it is at least due
+that more tribute than a mere mention of their names should be paid to the
+patriot princes who fought in life-long conflict against Turkish domination,
+space does not permit me to give more than the briefest summary of the wars
+which for centuries troubled the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was in 1389, when Mircea the Old was Prince of Wallachia, that the united
+Balkan nations attempted for the first 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 the battle of Rovine (1398), where Mircea
+defeated an invading Turkish army, the country had peace, until Turkish
+victories under the Sultan Mohammed resulted, in 1411, in further submissions
+to tribute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is worthy of mention that it was on the basis of tribute that the relations
+between Turkey and Rumania rested until 1877, the Rumanian provinces becoming
+at no time what Hungary was for a century and a half, namely, a Turkish
+province.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a battle arising following his frustration&mdash;by means not unconnected
+with his name&mdash;of a Turkish plot against his person, Vlad the Impaler
+(1458-62) completely defeated the Turks under Mohammed II; but an unfortunate
+feud against Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, put an end to the reign of
+Vlad&mdash;a fierce but just prince.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A period of the most lamentable decadence followed, during which Turkish
+domination prevailed more and more in the country. During an interval of
+twenty-five years (1521-46) no less than eleven princes succeeded one another
+on the throne of Muntenia, whilst of the nineteen princes who ruled during the
+last three-quarters of the sixteenth century, only two died a natural death
+while still reigning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Moldavia also internal struggles were weakening the country. Not powerful
+enough to do away with one another, the various aspirants to the throne
+contented themselves with occupying and ruling over parts of the province.
+Between 1443-7 there were no less than three princes reigning simultaneously,
+whilst one of them, Peter III, lost and regained the throne three times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For forty-seven years (1457-1504) Stephen the Great fought for the independence
+of Moldavia. At Racova, in 1475, he annihilated an Ottoman army in a victory
+considered the greatest ever secured by the Cross against Islam. The Shah of
+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 Persians against the common foe. These princes, as well as Pope Sixtus IV,
+gave him great praise; but when Stephen 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 divide Moldavia between
+them. A Polish army entered the country, but was utterly destroyed by Stephen
+in the forest of Kosmin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having had the opportunity of judging at its right value the friendship of the
+Christian princes, on his death-bed Stephen advised his son Bogdan to make
+voluntary submission to the Turks. Thus Moldavia, like Wallachia, came under
+Turkish suzerainty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For many years after Stephen&rsquo;s death the Turks exploited the Rumanian
+countries shamelessly, the very candidates for the throne having to pay great
+sums for Turkish support. The country groaned under the resultant taxation and
+the promiscuousness of the tribute exacted till, in 1572, John the Terrible
+ascended the Moldavian throne. This prince refused to pay tribute, and
+repeatedly defeated the Turks. An army of 100,000 men advanced against John;
+but his cavalry, composed of nobles not over-loyal to a prince having the
+peasant cause so much at heart, deserted to the enemy, with the result that,
+after a gallant and prolonged resistance, he suffered defeat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Muntenia (1593-1601), was the last of the Vlakhs
+to stand up against Turkish aggression. This prince not only succeeded in
+crushing a Turkish army sent against him, but he invaded Transylvania, whose
+prince had leanings towards Turkey, pushed further into Moldavia, and succeeded
+in bringing the three Rumanian countries under his rule. Michael is described
+in the documents of the time as &lsquo;Prince of the whole land of
+Hungro-Wallachia, of Transylvania, and of Moldavia&rsquo;. He ruled for eight
+years. &lsquo;It was not the Turkish sword which put an end to the exploits of
+Michael the Brave. The Magyars of Transylvania betrayed him; the German emperor
+condemned him; and a Greek in Austria&rsquo;s service, General Basta, had him
+sabred: as though it were fated that 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.&rsquo;[1] The union of the Rumanian lands which he realized
+did not last long; but it gave form and substance to the idea which was from
+that day onward to be the ideal of the Rumanian nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Alfred Rumbaud, Introduction to Xenopol, op, cit., i. xix.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fundamental cause of all the sufferings of the Rumanian principalities was
+the hybrid &lsquo;hereditary-elective&rsquo; system of succession to the
+throne, which prevailed also in most of the neighbouring countries. All members
+of the princely family were eligible for the succession; but the right of
+selecting among them lay with an assembly composed of the higher nobility and
+clergy. All was well if a 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 with promises, 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&rsquo;s harem had a share, became capital factors in the
+choice and election of the ruler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Economically and intellectually all this was disastrous. The Rumanians were an
+agricultural people. The numerous class of small freeholders (moshneni and
+razeshi), not being able to pay the exorbitant taxes, often had their lands
+confiscated by the princes. Often, too, not being able to support themselves,
+they sold their property and their very selves to the big landowners. Nor did
+the nobles fare better. Formerly free, quasi-feudal warriors, seeking fortune
+in reward for services rendered to their prince, they were often subjected to
+coercive treatment on his part now that the throne depended upon the goodwill
+of influential personages at Constantinople. Various civil offices were created
+at court, either necessitated by the extension of the relations of the country
+or intended to satisfy some favourite of the prince. Sources of social position
+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
+best to undermine the position of the prince.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>4<br/>
+<i>The Phanariote Rule</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+These offices very presently fell to the lot of the Phanariotes (Greek
+merchants and bankers inhabiting the quarter of Phanar), who had in some way or
+another assisted the princes to their thrones, these being now practically put
+up to auction in Constantinople. As a natural consequence of such a state of
+affairs the thoughts of the Rumanian princes turned to Russia as a possible
+supporter against Ottoman oppression. A formal alliance was entered into in
+1711 with Tsar Peter the Great, but a joint military action against the Turks
+failed, the Tsar returned to Russia, and the Porte threatened to transform
+Moldavia, in order to secure her against incipient Russian influence, into a
+Turkish province with a pasha as administrator. The nobles were preparing to
+leave the country, and the people to retire into the mountains, as their
+ancestors had done in times of danger. It is not to be wondered at that, under
+the menace of losing their autonomy, the Rumanians &lsquo;welcomed the
+nomination of the dragoman of the Porte, Nicholas Mavrocordato, though he was a
+Greek. The people greeted with joy the accession of the first Phanariote to the
+throne of the principality of Moldavia&rsquo;[1] (1711).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., ii. 138]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Knowledge of foreign languages had enabled the Phanariotes to obtain important
+diplomatic positions at Constantinople, and they ended by acquiring the thrones
+of the Rumanian principalities as a recompense for their services. But they had
+to pay for it, and to make matters more profitable 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 thrones in this way three times. They acquired
+the throne by gold, and they could only keep it by gold. All depended upon how
+much they wore able to squeeze out of the country. The princes soon became past
+masters in the art of spoliation. They put taxes upon chimneys, and the
+starving peasants pulled their cottages down and went to live in mountain
+caves; they taxed the animals, and the peasants preferred to kill the few
+beasts they possessed. But this often proved no remedy, for we are told that
+the Prince Constantin Mavrocordato, having prescribed a tax on domestic animals
+at a time when an epidemic had broken out amongst them, ordered the tax to be
+levied on the carcasses. &lsquo;The Administrative régime during the Phanariote
+period was, in general, little else than organized brigandage,&rsquo; says
+Xenopol[1]. In fact the Phanariote rule was instinct with corruption, luxury,
+and intrigue. Though individually some of them may not deserve blame, yet
+considering what the Phanariotes took out of the country, what they introduced
+into it, and to what extent they prevented its development, their era was the
+most calamitous in Rumanian history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Ibid, op. cit., ii. 308]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The war of 1768 between Russia and Turkey gave the former power a vague
+protectorate over the Rumanian provinces (Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji). In 1774
+Austria acquired from the Turks, by false promises, the northern part of
+Moldavia, the pleasant land of Bucovina. During the new conflict between Turkey
+and Russia, the Russian armies occupied and battened upon the Rumanian
+provinces for six years. Though they had again to abandon their intention of
+making the Danube the southern boundary of their empire&mdash;to which Napoleon
+had agreed by the secret treaty with Tsar Alexander (Erfurt, September 27,
+1808)&mdash;they obtained from Turkey the cession of Bessarabia (Treaty of
+Bucarest, May 28, 1812), together with that part of Moldavia lying between the
+Dnjester and the Pruth, the Russians afterwards giving to the whole region the
+name of Bessarabia.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>5<br/>
+<i>Modern Period to 1866</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+In 1821 the Greek revolution, striving to create an independent Greece, broke
+out on Rumanian ground, supported by the princes of Moldavia and Muntenia. Of
+this support the Rumanians strongly disapproved, for, if successful, the
+movement would have strengthened the obnoxious Greek domination; If
+unsuccessful, the Turks were sure to take a terrible revenge for the assistance
+given by the Rumanian countries. The movement, which was started about the same
+time by the ennobled peasant, Tudor Vladimirescu, for the emancipation of the
+lower classes, soon acquired, therefore, an anti-Greek tendency. Vladimirescu
+was assassinated at the instigation of the Greeks; the latter were completely
+checked by the Turks, who, grown suspicious after the Greek rising and
+confronted with the energetic attitude of the Rumanian nobility, consented in
+1822 to the nomination of two native boyards, Jonitza Sturdza and Gregory
+Ghica, recommended by their countrymen, as princes of Moldavia and Wallachia.
+The iniquitous system of &lsquo;the throne to the highest bidder&rsquo; had
+come to an end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The period which marks the decline of Greek influence in the Rumanian
+principalities also marks the growth of Russian influence; the first meant
+economic exploitation, the second was a serious menace to the very existence of
+the Rumanian nation. But if Russia seemed a possible future danger, Turkey with
+its Phanariote following was a certain and immediate menace. When, therefore,
+at the outbreak of the conflict with Turkey in 1828 the Russians once more
+passed the Pruth, the country welcomed them. Indeed, the Rumanian boyards, who
+after the rising of 1821 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 Treaty of Adrianople (1829) the rights of
+Turkey as suzerain were limited to the exaction of a monetary tribute and the
+right of investiture of the princes, one important innovation being that these
+last were to be elected by national assemblies for life. But, on the other
+hand, a Russian protectorate was established, and the provinces remained in
+Russian military occupation up to 1834, pending the payment of the war
+indemnity by Turkey. The ultimate aim of Russia may be open to discussion. Her
+immediate aim was to make Russian influence paramount in the principalities;
+this being the only possible explanation of the anomalous fact that, pending
+the payment of the war indemnity, Russia herself was occupying the provinces
+whose autonomy she had but now forcibly retrieved from Turkey. The <i>Règlement
+Organique</i>, the new constitutional law given to the principalities by their
+Russian governor, Count Kisseleff, truly reflected the tendency. From the
+administrative point of view it was meant to make for progress; from the
+political point of view it was meant to bind the two principalities to the will
+of the Tsar. The personal charm of Count Kisseleff seemed to have established
+as it were an unbreakable link between Russians and Rumanians. But when he left
+the country in 1834 &lsquo;the liking for Russia passed away to be replaced
+finally by the two sentiments which always most swayed the Rumanian heart: love
+for their country, and affection towards France&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Sec P. Eliade, <i>Histoire de l&rsquo;Esprit Public en
+Roumanie</i>, i, p. 167 et seq.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+French culture had been introduced into the principalities by 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 their
+children. With the Russian occupation a fresh impetus was given to French
+culture, which was pre-eminent in Russia at the time; and the Russian
+officials, not speaking the language of the country, generally employed French
+in their relations with the Rumanian authorities, French being already widely
+spoken in Rumania. The contact with French civilization, at an epoch when the
+Rumanians were striving to free themselves from Turkish, Greek, and Russian
+political influence, roused in them the sleeping Latin spirit, 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 in their
+history the Rumanians felt themselves drawn towards France, no less by racial
+affinity than by the liberal ideas to which that country had so passionately
+given herself during several decades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the Treaty of Adrianople the Black Sea was opened to the commercial vessels
+of all nations. This made for the rapid economic development of the
+principalities by providing an outlet for their agricultural produce, the chief
+source of their wealth. It also brought them nearer to western Europe, which
+began to be interested in a nation whose spirit centuries of sufferings had
+failed to break. Political, literary, and economic events thus prepared the
+ground for the Rumanian Renascence, and when in 1848 the great revolution broke
+out, it spread at once over the Rumanian countries, where the dawn of freedom
+had been struggling to break since 1821. The Rumanians of Transylvania rose
+against the tyranny of the Magyars; those of Moldavia and Muntenia against the
+oppressive influence of Russia. The movement under the gallant, but
+inexperienced, leadership of a few patriots, who, significantly enough, had
+almost all been educated in France, was, however, soon checked in the
+principalities by the joint action of Russian and Turkish forces which remained
+in occupation of the country. Many privileges were lost (Convention of Balta
+Liman, May 1, 1849); but the revolution had quickened the national sentiment of
+the younger generation in all classes of society, and the expatriated leaders,
+dispersed throughout the great capitals of Europe, strenuously set to work to
+publish abroad the righteous cause of their country. In this they received the
+enthusiastic and invaluable assistance of Edgar Quinet, Michelet, Saint-Marc
+Girardin, and others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This propaganda had the fortune to be contemporaneous and in agreement with the
+political events leading to the Crimean War, which was entered upon to check
+the designs of Russia. A logical consequence was the idea, raised at the Paris
+Congress of 1856, of the union of the Rumanian principalities as a barrier to
+Russian expansion. This idea found a powerful supporter in Napoleon III, ever a
+staunch upholder of the principle of nationality. But at the Congress the
+unexpected happened. Russia favoured the idea of union, &lsquo;to swallow the
+two principalities at a gulp,&rsquo; as a contemporary diplomatist maliciously
+suggested; while Austria opposed it strongly. So, inconceivably enough, did
+Turkey, whose attitude, as the French ambassador at Constantinople, Thouvenel,
+put it, &lsquo;was less influenced by the opposition of Austria than by the
+approval of Russia&rsquo;.[1] Great Britain also threw in her weight with the
+powers which opposed the idea of union, following her traditional policy of
+preserving the European equilibrium. The treaty of March 30, 1856,
+re-incorporated with Moldavia the southern part of Bessarabia, including the
+delta of the Danube, abolished the Russian protectorate, but confirmed the
+suzerainty of Turkey&mdash;not unnaturally, since the integrity of the Ottoman
+Empire had been the prime motive of the war. By prohibiting Turkey, however,
+from entering Rumanian territory, save with the consent of the great powers, it
+was recognized indirectly that the suzerainty was merely a nominal one. Article
+23 of the treaty, by providing that the administration of the principalities
+was to be on a national basis, implicitly pointed to the idea of union, as the
+organization of one principality independently of the other would not have been
+national. But as the main argument of Turkey and Austria was that the Rumanians
+themselves did not desire the union, it was decided to convene in both
+principalities special assemblies (divans <i>ad hoc</i>) representing all
+classes of the population, whose wishes were to be embodied, by a European
+commission, in a report for consideration by the Congress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: A. Xenopol, <i>Unionistii si Separatistii</i> (Paper read before
+the Rumanian Academy), 1909.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To understand the argument of the two powers concerned and the decision to
+which it led, it must be borne in mind that the principalities were in the
+occupation of an Austrian army, which had replaced the Russian armies withdrawn
+in 1854, and that the elections for the assemblies were to be presided over by
+Turkish commissaries. Indeed, the latter, in collaboration with the Austrian
+consuls, so successfully doctored the election lists,[1] that the idea of union
+might once more have fallen through, had it not been for the invaluable
+assistance which Napoleon III gave the Rumanian countries. As Turkish policy
+was relying mainly on England&rsquo;s support, Napoleon brought about a
+personal meeting with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, at Osborne (August
+1857), the result of which was a compromise: Napoleon agreed to defer for the
+time being the idea of an effective union of the two principalities, England
+undertaking, on the other hand, to make the Porte cancel the previous
+elections, and proceed to new ones after revision of the electoral lists. The
+corrupt Austrian and Turkish influence on the old elections was best
+demonstrated by the fact that only three of the total of eighty-four old
+members succeeded in securing re-election. The assemblies met and proclaimed as
+imperatively necessary to the future welfare of the provinces, their union,
+&lsquo;for no frontier divides us, and everything tends to bring us closer, and
+nothing to separate us, save the ill-will of those who desire to see us
+disunited and weak&rsquo;; further, a foreign hereditary dynasty, because
+&lsquo;the accession to the throne of princes chosen from amongst us has been a
+constant pretext for foreign interference, and the throne has been the cause of
+unending feud among the great families of this country&rsquo;. Moreover, if the
+union of the two principalities was to be accomplished under a native prince,
+it is obvious that the competition would have become doubly keen; not to speak
+of the jealousies likely to be arousal between Moldavians and Muntenians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The edifying correspondence between the Porte and its commissary
+Vorgoridès regarding the arrangements for the Rumanian elections fell into the
+hands of Rumanian politicians, and caused a great sensation when it appeared in
+<i>L&rsquo;Etoile du Danube</i>, published in Brussels by Rumanian
+<i>émigrés</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 started on
+the high road of progress. But Europe had called for the expression of these
+wishes only to get the question shelved for the moment, as in 1856 everybody
+was anxious for a peace which should at all costs be speedy. Consequently, when
+a second Congress met in Paris, in May 1858, three months of discussion and the
+sincere efforts of France only resulted in a hybrid structure entitled the
+&lsquo;United Principalities&rsquo;. These were to have a common legislation, a
+common army, and a central committee composed of representatives of both
+assemblies for the discussion of common affairs; but were to continue to form
+two separate states, with independent legislative and executive institutions,
+each having to elect a prince of Rumanian descent for life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Disappointed in their hopes and reasonable expectations, the Rumanians adopted
+the principle of &lsquo;help yourself and God will help you&rsquo;, and
+proceeded to the election of their rulers. Several candidates competed in
+Moldavia. To avoid a split vote the name of an outsider was put forward the day
+before the election, and on January 17, 1859, Colonel Alexander Ioan Cuza was
+unanimously elected. In Wallachia the outlook was very uncertain when the
+assembly met, amid great popular excitement, on February 5. The few patriots
+who had realized that the powers, seeking only their own interests, were
+consciously and of set purpose hampering the emancipation of a long-suffering
+nation, put forth and urged the election of Cuza, and the assembly unanimously
+adopted this spirited suggestion. By this master-stroke the Rumanians had
+quietly accomplished the reform which was an indispensable condition towards
+assuring a better future. The political moment was propitious. Italy&rsquo;s
+military preparation prevented Austria from intervening, and, as usual when
+confronted with an accomplished fact, the great powers and Turkey finished by
+officially recognizing the action of the principalities in December 1861. The
+central commission was at once abolished, the two assemblies and cabinets
+merged into one, and Bucarest became the capital of the new state
+&lsquo;Rumania&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the unsympathetic attitude of the powers had any good result, it was to
+bring home for the moment to the Rumanians the necessity for national unity.
+When the danger passed, however, the wisdom which it had evoked followed suit.
+Cuza cherished the hope of realizing various ideal reforms. Confronted with
+strong opposition, he did not hesitate to override the constitution by
+dissolving the National Assembly (May 2, 1864) and arrogating to himself the
+right, till the formation of a new Chamber, to issue decrees which had all the
+force of law. He thus gave a dangerous example to the budding constitutional
+polity; political passions were let loose, and a plot organized by the
+Opposition led to the forced abdication of Cuza on February 23, 1866. The
+prince left the country for ever a few days later. No disturbance whatever took
+place, not one drop of blood was shed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A series of laws, mostly adapted from French models, was introduced by Cuza.
+Under the Education Act of 1864 all degrees of education were free, and
+elementary education compulsory. A large number of special and technical
+schools were founded, as well as two universities, one at Jassy (1860) and one
+at Bucarest (1864). After the <i>coup d&rsquo;état</i> of 1864 universal
+suffrage was introduced, largely as an attempt to &lsquo;swamp&rsquo; the
+fractious political parties with the peasant vote; while at the same time a
+&lsquo;senate&rsquo; was created as a &lsquo;moderating assembly&rsquo; which,
+composed as it was of members by right and members nominated by the prince, by
+its very nature increased the influence of the crown. The chief reforms
+concerned the rural question. Firstly, Cuza and his minister, Cogalniceanu,
+secularized and converted to the state the domains of the monasteries, which
+during the long period of Greek influence had acquired one-fifth of the total
+area of the land, and were completely in the hands of the Greek clergy (Law of
+December 13, 1863). More important still, as affecting fundamentally the social
+structure of the country, was the Rural Law (promulgated on August 26, 1864),
+which had been the cause of the conflict between Cuza and the various political
+factions, the Liberals clamouring for more thorough reforms, the Conservatives
+denouncing Cuza&rsquo;s project as revolutionary. As the peasant question is
+the most important problem left for Rumania to solve, and as I believe that, in
+a broad sense, it has a considerable bearing upon the present political
+situation in that country, it may not be out of place here to devote a little
+space to its consideration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Originally the peasant lived in the village community as a free land-owner. He
+paid a certain due (one-tenth of his produce and three days&rsquo; labour
+yearly) to his leader (<i>cneaz</i>) as recompense for his leadership in peace
+and war. The latter, moreover, solely enjoyed the privilege of carrying on the
+occupations of miller and innkeeper, and the peasant was compelled to mill with
+him. When after the foundation of the principalities the upper class was
+established on a feudal basis, the peasantry were subjected to constantly
+increasing burdens. Impoverished and having in many cases lost their land, the
+peasants were also deprived at the end of the sixteenth century of their
+freedom of movement. By that time the cneaz, from being the leader of the
+community, had become the actual lord of the village, and his wealth was
+estimated by the number of villages he possessed. The peasant owners paid their
+dues to him in labour and in kind. Those peasants who owned no land were his
+serfs, passing with the land from master to master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under the Turkish domination the Rumanian provinces became the granary of the
+Ottoman Empire. The value of land rose quickly, as did also the taxes. To meet
+these taxes&mdash;from the payment of which the boyards (the descendants of the
+cneazi) were exempt&mdash;the peasant owners had 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 increase of their
+lands they needed more labour, and they obtained permission from the ruler not
+only to exact increased labour dues from the peasantry, but also to determine
+the amount of work that should be done in a day. This was effected in such a
+way that the peasants had, in fact, to serve three and four times the number of
+days due.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+eighteenth century. By a decree of Prince Moruzi, in 1805, the lords were for
+the first time empowered to reserve to their own use part of the estate,
+namely, one-fourth of the meadow land, and this privilege was extended in 1828
+to the use of one-third of the arable land. The remaining two-thirds were
+reserved for the peasants, every young married couple being entitled to a
+certain amount of land, in proportion to the number of traction animals they
+owned. When the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 opened the western markets to
+Rumanian corn, in which markets far 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 <i>Règlement Organique</i> they
+succeeded in reducing such land to half its previous area, at the same time
+maintaining and exacting from the peasant his dues in full. It is in the same
+Act that there appears for the first time the fraudulent title &lsquo;lords of
+the land&rsquo;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a view to ensuring, on the one hand, greater economic freedom to the
+land-owners, and, on the other, security for the peasants from the enslaving
+domination of the upper class, 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 estate. The original intention of creating
+common land was not carried out in the Bill. The peasant&rsquo;s holding in
+arable land being small, he not infrequently ploughed his pasture, and, as a
+consequence, had either to give up keeping beasts, or pay a high price to the
+land-owners for pasturage. Dues in labour and in kind were abolished, the
+land-owners receiving an indemnity which was to be refunded to the state by the
+peasants 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 ideal reform, without adequate study of and adaptation to
+social circumstances, his laws provided no practical solution of the problem
+with which they dealt. In this case, for example, the reform benefited the
+upper class solely, although generally considered a boon to the peasantry. Of
+ancient right two-thirds of the estate were reserved for the peasants; but the
+new law gave them possession of no more than the strip they were holding, which
+barely sufficed to provide them with the mere necessaries of life. The
+remainder up to two-thirds of the estate went as a gift, with full
+proprietorship; to the boyard. For the exemption of their dues in kind and in
+labour, the peasants had to pay an indemnity, whereas the right of their sons
+to receive at their marriage a piece of land in proportion to the number of
+traction animals they possessed was lost without compensation. Consequently,
+the younger peasants had to sell their labour, contracting for periods of a
+year and upwards, and became a much easier prey to the spoliation of the upper
+class than when they had at least a strip of land on which to build a hut, and
+from which to procure their daily bread; the more so as the country had no
+industry which could compete with agriculture in the labour market. An
+investigation undertaken by the Home Office showed that out of 1,265 labour
+contracts for 1906, chosen at random, only 39.7 per cent, were concluded at
+customary wages; the others were lower in varying degrees, 13.2 per cent. of
+the cases showing wages upwards of 75 per cent. below the usual rates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under these conditions of poverty and economic serfdom the peasantry was not
+able to participate in the enormous development of Rumanian agriculture, which
+had resulted from increased political security and the establishment of an
+extensive network of railways. While the boyards found an increasing attraction
+in politics, a new class of middlemen came into existence, renting the land
+from the boyards for periods varying generally from three to five years. Owing
+to the resultant competition, rents increased considerably, while conservative
+methods of cultivation kept production stationary. Whereas the big cultivator
+obtained higher prices to balance the increased cost of production, the
+peasant, who produced for his own consumption, could only face such increase by
+a corresponding decrease in the amount of food consumed. To show how much alive
+the rural question is, it is enough to state that peasant risings occurred in
+1888, 1889, 1894, 1900, and 1907; that new distributions of land took place in
+1881 and 1889; that land was promised to the peasants as well at the time of
+the campaign of 1877 as at that of 1913; and that more or less happily
+conceived measures concerning rural questions have been passed in almost every
+parliamentary session. The general tendency of such legislation partook of the
+&lsquo;free contract&rsquo; nature, though owing to the social condition of the
+peasantry the acts in question had to embody protective measures providing for
+a maximum rent for arable and pasture land, and a minimum wage for the peasant
+labourer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Solutions have been suggested in profusion. That a solution is possible no one
+can doubt. One writer, basing his arguments on official statistics which show
+that the days of employment in 1905 averaged only ninety-one for each peasant,
+claims that only the introduction of circulating capital and the creation of
+new branches of activity can bring about a change. The suggested remedy may be
+open to discussion; but our author is undoubtedly right when, asking himself
+why this solution has not yet been attempted, he says: &lsquo;Our country is
+governed at present by an agrarian class…. Her whole power rests in her
+ownership of the land, our only wealth. The introduction of circulating capital
+would result in the disintegration of that wealth, in the loss of its unique
+quality, and, as a consequence, in the social decline of its
+possessors.&rsquo;[1] This is the fundamental evil which prevents any solution
+of the rural question. A small class of politicians, with the complicity of a
+large army of covetous and unscrupulous officials, live in oriental indolence
+out of the sufferings of four-fifths of the Rumanian nation. Though elementary
+education is compulsory, more than 60 per cent. of the population are still
+illiterate, mainly on account of the inadequacy of the educational budget.
+Justice is a myth for the peasant. Of political rights he is, in fact,
+absolutely deprived. The large majority, and by far the sanest part of the
+Rumanian nation, are thus fraudulently kept outside the political and social
+life of the country. It is not surmising too much, therefore, to say that the
+opportunity of emancipating the Transylvanians would not have been wilfully
+neglected, had that part of the Rumanian nation in which the old spirit still
+survives had any choice in the determination of their own fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: St. Antim, <i>Cbestiunea Socială în România,</i> 1908, p. 214.]
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>6<br/>
+<i>Contemporary Period: Internal Development</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+In order to obviate internal disturbances or external interference, the leaders
+of the movement which had dethroned Prince Cuza caused parliament to proclaim,
+on the day of Cuza&rsquo;s abdication, Count Philip of Flanders&mdash; the
+father of King Albert of Belgium&mdash;Prince of Rumania. The offer was,
+however, not accepted, as neither France nor Russia favoured the proposal.
+Meanwhile a conference had met again in Paris at the instance of Turkey and
+vetoed the election 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 their protests if a candidate were found who was
+likely to secure the support of Napoleon III, then &lsquo;schoolmaster&rsquo;
+of European diplomacy. This candidate was found in the person of Prince Carol
+of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, second son of the head of the elder branch of the
+Hohenzollerns (Catholic and non-reigning). Prince Carol was cousin to the King
+of Prussia, and related through his grandmother to the Bonaparte family. He
+could consequently count upon the support of France and Prussia, while the
+political situation fortunately secured him from the opposition of Russia,
+whose relations with Prussia were at the time friendly, and also from that of
+Austria, whom Bismarck proposed to &lsquo;keep busy for some time to
+come&rsquo;. The latter must have viewed with no little satisfaction the
+prospect of a Hohenzollern occupying the throne of Rumania at this juncture;
+and Prince Carol, allowing himself to be influenced by the Iron
+Chancellor&rsquo;s advice, answered the call of the Rumanian nation, which had
+proclaimed him as &lsquo;Carol I, Hereditary Prince of Rumania&rsquo;.
+Travelling secretly with a small retinue, the prince second class, his suite
+first, Prince Carol descended the Danube on an Austrian steamer, and landed on
+May 8 at Turnu-Severin, the very place where, nearly eighteen centuries before,
+the Emperor Trajan had alighted and founded the Rumanian nation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By independent and energetic action, by a conscious neglect of the will of the
+powers, which only a young constitutional polity would have dared, by an active
+and unselfish patriotism, Rumania had at last chosen and secured as her ruler
+the foreign prince who alone had a chance of putting a stop to intrigues from
+within and from without. And the Rumanians had been extremely fortunate in
+their hasty and not quite independent choice. A prince of Latin origin would
+probably have been more warmly welcomed to the hearts of the Rumanian people;
+but after so many years of political disorder, corrupt administration, and
+arbitrary rule, a prince possessed of the German spirit of discipline and order
+was best fitted to command respect and impose obedience and sobriety of
+principle upon the Rumanian politicians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prince Carol&rsquo;s task was no easy one. The journal compiled by the
+provisional government, which held the reins for the period elapsing between
+the abdication of Cuza and the accession of Prince Carol, depicts in the
+darkest colours the economic situation to which the faults, the waste, the
+negligence, and short-sightedness of the previous régime had reduced the
+country, &lsquo;the government being in the humiliating position of having
+brought disastrous and intolerable hardship alike upon its creditors, its
+servants, its pensioners, and its soldiers&rsquo;.[1] Reforms were badly
+needed, and the treasury had nothing in hand but debts. To increase the income
+of the state was difficult, for the country was poor and not economically
+independent. Under the Paris Convention of 1858, Rumania remained bound, to her
+detriment, by the commercial treaties of her suzerain, Turkey, the powers not
+being willing to lose the privileges they enjoyed under the Turkish
+capitulations. Moreover, she was specially excluded from the arrangement of
+1860, which allowed Turkey to increase her import taxes. The inheritance of
+ultra-liberal measures from the previous regime made it difficult to cope with
+the unruly spirit of the nation. Any attempt at change in this direction would
+have savoured of despotism to the people, who, having at last won the right to
+speak aloud, believed that to clamour against anything that meant
+&lsquo;rule&rsquo; was the only real and full assertion of liberty. And the
+dissatisfied were always certain of finding a sympathetic ear and an open purse
+in the Chancellories of Vienna and St. Petersburg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: D.A. Sturdza, <i>Treizeci de ani de Domnie ai Regelui Carol,</i>
+1900, i.82.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prince Carol, not being sufficiently well acquainted with the conditions of the
+country nor possessing as yet much influence with the governing class, had not
+been in a position to influence at their inception the provisions of the
+extremely liberal constitution passed only a few weeks after his accession to
+the throne. The new constitution, which resembled that of Belgium more nearly
+than any other, was framed by a constituent assembly elected on universal
+suffrage, and, except for slight modifications introduced in 1879 and 1884, is
+in vigour to-day. It entrusts the executive to the king and his ministers, the
+latter alone being responsible for the acts of the government.[1] The
+legislative power is vested in the king and two assemblies&mdash;a senate and a
+chamber&mdash;the initiative resting with any one of the three.[2] The budget
+and the yearly bills fixing the strength of the army, however, must first be
+passed by the Chamber. The agreement of the two Chambers and the sanction of
+the king are necessary before any bill becomes law. The king convenes,
+adjourns, and dissolves parliament. He promulgates the laws and is invested
+with the right of absolute veto. The constitution proclaims the inviolability
+of domicile, the liberty of the press and of assembly, and absolute liberty of
+creed and religion, in so far as its forms of celebration do not come into
+conflict with public order and decency. It recognizes no distinction of class
+and privilege; all the citizens share equally rights and duties within the law.
+Education is free in the state schools, and elementary education compulsory
+wherever state schools exist. Individual liberty and property are guaranteed;
+but only Rumanian citizens can acquire rural property. Military service is
+compulsory, entailing two years in the infantry, three years in the cavalry and
+artillery, one year in all arms for those having completed their studies as far
+as the university stage. Capital punishment does not exist, except for military
+offences in time of war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: There are at present nine departments: Interior, Foreign Affairs,
+Finance, War, Education and Religion, Domains and Agriculture, Public Works,
+Justice, and Industry and Commerce. The President of the Cabinet is Prime
+Minister, with or without portfolio.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: All citizens of full age paying taxes, with various exemptions,
+are electors, voting according to districts and census. In the case of the
+illiterate country inhabitants, with an income from land of less than £12 a
+year, fifty of them choose one delegate having one vote in the parliamentary
+election. The professorial council of the two universities of Jassy and
+Bucarest send one member each to the Senate, the heir to the throne and the
+eight bishops being members by right.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The state religion is Greek Orthodox. Up to 1864 the Rumanian Church was
+subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In that year it was
+proclaimed independent, national, and autocephalous, though this change was not
+recognized by the Patriarchate till 1885, while the secularization of the
+property of the monasteries put an end <i>de facto</i> to the influence of the
+Greek clergy. Religious questions of a dogmatic nature are settled by the Holy
+Synod of Bucarest, composed of the two metropolitans of Bucarest and Jassy and
+the eight bishops; the Minister for Education, with whom the administrative
+part of the Church rests, having only a deliberative vote. The maintenance of
+the Church and of the clergy is included in the general budget of the country,
+the ministers being state officials (Law of 1893).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Religion has never played an important part in Rumanian national life, and was
+generally limited to merely external practices. This may be attributed largely
+to the fact that as the Slavonic language had been used in the Church since the
+ninth century and then was superseded by Greek up to the nineteenth century,
+the clergy was foreign, and was neither in a position nor did it endeavour to
+acquire a spiritual influence over the Rumanian peasant. There is no record
+whatever in Rumanian history of any religious feuds or dissensions. The
+religious passivity remained unstirred even during the domination of the Turks,
+who contented themselves with treating the unbelievers with contempt, and
+squeezing as much money as possible out of them. Cuza having made no provision
+for the clergy when he converted the wealth of the monasteries to the state,
+they were left for thirty years in complete destitution, and remained as a
+consequence outside the general intellectual development of the country. Though
+the situation has much improved since the Law of 1893, which incorporated the
+priests with the other officials of the Government, the clergy, recruited
+largely from among the rural population, are still greatly inferior to the
+Rumanian priests of Bucovina and Transylvania. Most of them take up Holy orders
+as a profession: &lsquo;I have known several country parsons who were thorough
+atheists.&rsquo;[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: R. Rosetti, <i>Pentru ce s-au răsculat țăranii</i>, 1907, p. 600]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However difficult his task, Prince Carol never deviated from the strictly
+constitutional path: his opponents were free to condemn the prince&rsquo;s
+opinions; he never gave them the chance of questioning his integrity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prince Carol relied upon the position in which his origin and family alliances
+placed him in his relations with foreign rulers to secure him the respect of
+his new subjects. Such considerations impressed the Rumanians. Nor could they
+fail to be aware of &lsquo;the differences between the previously elected
+princes and the present dynasty, and the improved position which the country
+owed to the latter&rsquo;.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Augenzeuge, <i>Aus dem Leben König Karls von Rumănien,
+1894-1900,</i> iii. 177.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To inculcate the Rumanians with the spirit of discipline the prince took in
+hand with energy and pursued untiringly, in spite of all obstacles, the
+organization of the army. A reliable and well-organized armed force was the
+best security against internal trouble-mongers, and the best argument in
+international relations, as subsequent events amply proved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Rumanian political parties were at the outset personal parties, supporting
+one or other of the candidates to the throne. When Greek influence, emanating
+from Constantinople, began to make itself felt, in the seventeenth century, a
+national party arose for the purpose of opposing it. This party counted upon
+the support of one of the neighbouring powers, and its various groups were
+known accordingly as the Austrian, the Russian, &amp;c., parties. With the
+election of Cuza the external danger diminished, and the politicians divided
+upon principles of internal reform. Cuza not being in agreement with either
+party, they united to depose him, keeping truce during the period preceding the
+accession of Prince Carol, when grave external dangers wore threatening, and
+presiding in a coalition ministry at the introduction of the new constitution
+of 1866. But this done, the truce was broken. Political strife again awoke with
+all the more vigour for having been temporarily suppressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reforms which it became needful to introduce gave opportunity for the
+development of strong divergence of views between the political parties. The
+Liberals&mdash;the Red Party, as they were called at the time&mdash;(led by
+C.A. Rosetti and Ioan Bratianu, both strong Mazzinists, both having taken an
+important part in the revolutionary movements of 1848 and in that which led to
+the deposition of Cuza) were advocating reforms hardly practicable even in an
+established democracy; the Conservatives (led by Lascar Catargiu) were striving
+to stem the flood of ideal liberal measures on which all sense of reality was
+being carried away.[1] In little more than a year there were four different
+Cabinets, not to mention numerous changes in individual ministers.
+&lsquo;Between the two extreme tendencies Prince Carol had to strive constantly
+to preserve unity of direction, he himself being the only stable element in
+that ever unstable country.&rsquo; It was not without many untoward incidents
+that he succeeded. His person was the subject of more than one unscrupulous
+attack by politicians in opposition, who did not hesitate to exploit the German
+origin and the German sympathies of the prince in order to inflame the masses.
+These internal conflicts entered upon an acute phase at the time of the
+Franco-German conflict of 1870. Whilst, to satisfy public opinion, the Foreign
+Secretary of the time, M.P.P. Carp, had to declare in parliament, that
+&lsquo;wherever the colours of France are waving, there are our interests and
+sympathies&rsquo;, the prince wrote to the King of Prussia assuring him that
+&lsquo;his sympathies will always be where the black and white banner is
+waving&rsquo;. In these so strained circumstances a section of the population
+of Bucarest allowed itself to be drawn into anti-German street riots.
+Disheartened and despairing of ever being able to do anything for that
+&lsquo;beautiful country&rsquo;, whose people &lsquo;neither know how to govern
+themselves nor will allow themselves to be governed&rsquo;, the prince decided
+to abdicate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: A few years ago a group of politicians, mainly of the old
+Conservative party, detached themselves and became the Conservative-Democratic
+party under the leadership of M. Take Ionescu.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So strong was the feeling in parliament roused by the prince&rsquo;s decision
+that one of his most inveterate opponents now declared that it would be an act
+of high treason for the prince to desert the country at such a crisis. We have
+an inkling of what might have resulted in the letter written by the Emperor of
+Austria to Prince Carol at the time, assuring him that &lsquo;my Government
+will eagerly seize any opportunity which presents itself to prove by deeds the
+interest it takes in a country connected by so many bonds to my empire&rsquo;.
+Nothing but the efforts of Lascar Catargiu and the sound patriotism of a few
+statesmen saved the country from what would have been a real misfortune. The
+people were well aware of this, and cheers lasting several minutes greeted that
+portion of the message from the throne which conveyed to the new parliament the
+decision of the prince to continue reigning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The situation was considerably strengthened during a period of five
+years&rsquo; Conservative rule. Prince Carol&rsquo;s high principles and the
+dignified example of his private life secured for him the increasing respect of
+politicians of all colours; while his statesmanlike qualities, his patience and
+perseverance, soon procured him an unlimited influence in the affairs of the
+state. This was made the more possible from the fact that, on account of the
+political ignorance of the masses, and of the varied influence exercised on the
+electorate by the highly centralized administration, no Rumanian Government
+ever fails to obtain a majority at an election. Any statesman can undertake to
+form a Cabinet if the king assents to a dissolution of parliament. Between the
+German system, where the emperor chooses the ministers independently of
+parliament, and the English system, where the members of the executive are
+indicated by the electorate through the medium of parliament, independently of
+the Crown, the Rumanian system takes a middle path. Neither the crown, nor the
+electorate, nor parliament possesses exclusive power in this direction. The
+Government is not, generally speaking, defeated either by the electorate or by
+parliament. It is the Crown which has the final decision in the changes of
+régime, and upon the king falls the delicate task of interpreting the
+significance of political or popular movements. The system&mdash;which comes
+nearest to that of Spain&mdash;undoubtedly has its advantages in a young and
+turbulent polity, by enabling its most stable element, the king, to ensure a
+continuous and harmonious policy. But it also makes the results dangerously
+dependent on the quality of that same element. Under the leadership of King
+Carol it was an undoubted success; the progress made by the country from an
+economic, financial, and military point of view during the last half-century is
+really enormous. Its position was furthermore strengthened by the proclamation
+of its independence, by the final settlement of the dynastic question,[1] and
+by its elevation on May 10, 1881, to the rank of kingdom, when upon the head of
+the first King of Rumania was placed a crown of steel made from one of the guns
+captured before Plevna from an enemy centuries old.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: In the absence of direct descendants and according to the
+constitution, Prince Ferdinand (born 1865), second son of King Carol&rsquo;s
+elder brother, was named Heir Apparent to the Rumanian throne. He married in
+1892 Princess Marie of Coburg, and following the death of King Carol in 1914,
+he acceded to the throne as Ferdinand I.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the point of view of internal politics progress has been less
+satisfactory. The various reforms once achieved, the differences of principle
+between the political parties degenerated into mere opportunism, the Opposition
+opposing, the Government disposing. The parties, and especially the various
+groups within the parties, are generally known by the names of their leaders,
+these denominations not implying any definite political principle or Government
+programme. It is, moreover, far from edifying that the personal element should
+so frequently distort political discussion. &lsquo;The introduction of modern
+forms of state organization has not been followed by the democratization of all
+social institutions…. The masses of the people have remained all but completely
+outside political life. Not only are we yet far from government of the people
+by the people, but our liberties, though deeply graven on the facade of our
+constitution, have not permeated everyday life nor even stirred in the
+consciousness of the people.&rsquo;[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: C. Stere, <i>Social-democratizm sau Poporanizm</i>, Jassy.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is strange that King Carol, who had the welfare of the people sincerely at
+heart, should not have used his influence to bring about a solution of the
+rural question; but this may perhaps be explained by the fact that, from
+Cuza&rsquo;s experience, he anticipated opposition from all political factions.
+It would almost seem as if, by a tacit understanding, and anxious to establish
+Rumania&rsquo;s international position, King Carol gave his ministers a free
+hand in the rural question, reserving for himself an equally free hand in
+foreign affairs. This seems borne out by the fact that, in the four volumes in
+which an &lsquo;eyewitness&rsquo;, making use of the king&rsquo;s private
+correspondence and personal notes, has minutely described the first fifteen
+years of the reign, the peasant question is entirely ignored.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The &lsquo;eyewitness&rsquo; was Dr. Schaeffer, formerly tutor to
+Prince Carol.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Addressing himself, in 1871, to the Rumanian representative at the Porte, the
+Austrian ambassador, von Prokesch-Osten, remarked: &lsquo;If Prince Carol
+manages to pull through without outside help, and make Rumania governable, it
+will be the greatest <i>tour de force</i> I have ever witnessed in my
+diplomatic career of more than half a century. It will be nothing less than a
+conjuring trick.&rsquo; King Carol succeeded; and only those acquainted with
+Rumanian affairs can appreciate the truth of the ambassador&rsquo;s words.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>7<br/>
+<i>Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+Up to 1866 Rumanian foreign politics may be said to have been non-existent. The
+offensive or defensive alliances against the Turks concluded by the Rumanian
+rulers with neighbouring princes during the Middle Ages were not made in
+pursuance of any definite policy, but merely to meet the moment&rsquo;s need.
+With the establishment of Turkish suzerainty Rumania became a pawn in the
+foreign politics of the neighbouring empires, and we find her repeatedly
+included in their projects of acquisition, partition, or compensation (as, for
+instance, when she was put forward as eventual compensation to Poland for the
+territories lost by that country in the first partition).[1] Rumania may be
+considered fortunate in not having lost more than Bucovina to Austria (1775),
+Bessarabia to Russia (1812), and, temporarily, to Austria the region between
+the Danube and the Aluta, called Oltenia (lost by the Treaty of Passarowitz,
+1718; recovered by the Treaty of Belgrade, 1739).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: See Albert Sorel, <i>The Eastern Question in the Eighteenth
+Century</i> (Engl. ed.), 1898, pp. 141, 147 &amp;c.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While her geographical position made of Rumania the cynosure of many covetous
+eyes, it at the same time saved her from individual attack by exciting
+countervailing jealousies. Moreover, the powers came at last to consider her a
+necessary rampart to the Ottoman Empire, whose dissolution all desired but none
+dared attempt. Austria and Russia, looking to the future, were continually
+competing for paramount influence in Rumania, though it is not possible to
+determine where their policy of acquisition ended and that of influence began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The position of the principalities became more secure after the Paris Congress
+of 1858, which placed them under the 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sudden change took place with the accession of Prince Carol; a Hohenzollern
+prince related to the King of Prussia and to Napoleon III could not be treated
+like one of the native boyards. The situation called for the more delicacy of
+treatment by the powers in view of the possibility of his being able to better
+those internal conditions which made Rumania &lsquo;uninteresting&rsquo; as a
+factor in international politics. In fact, the prince&rsquo;s personality
+assured for Rumania a status which she could otherwise have attained only with
+time, by a political, economic, and military consolidation of her home affairs;
+and the prince does not fail to remark in his notes that the attentions
+lavished upon him by other sovereigns were meant rather for the Hohenzollern
+prince than for the Prince of Rumania. Many years later even, after the war of
+1878, while the Russians were still south of the Danube with their lines of
+communication running through Rumania, Bratianu begged of the prince to give up
+a projected journey on account of the difficulties which might at any moment
+arise, and said: &lsquo;Only the presence of your Royal Highness keeps them
+[the Russians] at a respectful distance.&rsquo; It was but natural under these
+circumstances that the conduct of foreign affairs should have devolved almost
+exclusively on the prince. The ascendancy which his high personal character,
+his political and diplomatic skill, his military capacity procured for him over
+the Rumanian statesmen made this situation a lasting one; indeed it became
+almost a tradition. Rumania&rsquo;s foreign policy since 1866 may be said,
+therefore, to have been King Carol&rsquo;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, as the monarch saw them. Rebuking Bismarck&rsquo;s
+unfair attitude towards Rumania in a question concerning German investors,
+Prince Carol writes to his father in 1875: &lsquo;I have to put Rumania&rsquo;s
+interests above those of Germany. My path is plainly mapped out, and I must
+follow It unflinchingly, whatever the weather.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prince Carol was a thorough German, and as such naturally favoured the
+expansion of German influence among his new subjects. But if he desired Rumania
+to follow in the wake of German foreign policy, it 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 strong and firmly established. At the same time, acting
+on the advice of Bismarck, he did not fail to work toward a better
+understanding with Russia, &lsquo;who might become as well a reliable friend as
+a dangerous enemy to the Rumanian state&rsquo;. The sympathy shown him by
+Napoleon III was not always shared by the French statesmen,[1] and the
+unfriendly attitude of the French ambassador in Constantinople caused Prince
+Carol to remark that &lsquo;M. de Moustier is considered a better Turk than the
+Grand Turk himself&rsquo;. Under the circumstances a possible alliance between
+France and Russia, giving the latter a free hand in the Near East, would have
+proved a grave danger to Rumania; &lsquo;it was, consequently, a skilful, if
+imperious act, to enter voluntarily, and without detriment to the existing
+friendly relations with France, within the Russian sphere of influence, and not
+to wait till compelled to do so.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: See <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, June 15, 1866, article by Eugène
+Forcade.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The campaigns of 1866 and 1870 having finally established Prussia&rsquo;s
+supremacy in the German world, Bismarck modified his attitude towards Austria.
+In an interview with the Austrian Foreign Secretary, Count Beust (Gastein,
+October 1871), he broached for the first time the question of an alliance and,
+touching upon the eventual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, &lsquo;obligingly
+remarked that one could not conceive of a great power not making of its faculty
+for expansion a vital question&rsquo;.[2] Quite in keeping with that change
+were the counsels henceforth tendered to Prince Carol. Early that year Bismarck
+wrote of his sorrow at having been forced to the conclusion that Rumania had
+nothing to expect from Russia, while Prince Anthony, Prince Carol&rsquo;s
+father and faithful adviser, wrote soon after the above interview (November
+1871), that &lsquo;under certain circumstances it would seem a sound policy for
+Rumania to rely upon the support of Austria&rsquo;. Persevering in this
+crescendo of suggestion, Austria&rsquo;s new foreign secretary, Count Andrassy,
+drifted at length to the point by plainly declaring not long afterwards that
+&lsquo;Rumania is not so unimportant that one should deprecate an alliance with
+her&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: Gabriel Hanotaux, <i>La Guerre des Balkans et l&rsquo;Europe</i>
+(Beust, Mémoires), Paris, 1914, p. 297.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm intention of shaking off the
+Turkish suzerainty at the first opportunity, and not unnaturally he counted
+upon Germany&rsquo;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 difference between the Rumanian Government and a German company
+entrusted with the construction of the Rumanian railways; the more so as the
+Paris Convention had expressly forbidden any Turkish interference in
+Rumania&rsquo;s internal affairs. It thus 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: by joining 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. But
+though resolved to co-operate with Russia in any eventual action in the
+Balkans, Prince Carol skilfully avoided delivering himself blindfold into her
+hands by deliberately cutting himself away from the other guaranteeing powers.
+To the conference which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876 to settle
+Balkan affairs he addressed the demand that &lsquo;should war break out between
+one of the guaranteeing powers and Turkey, Rumania&rsquo;s line of conduct
+should be dictated, and her neutrality and rights guaranteed, by the other
+powers&rsquo;. This <i>démarche</i> failed. The powers had accepted the
+invitation to the conference as one accepts an invitation to visit a dying man.
+Nobody had any illusions on the possibility of averting war, least of all the
+two powers principally interested. In November 1876 Ali Bey and M. de Nelidov
+arrived simultaneously and secretly in Bucarest to sound Rumania as to an
+arrangement with their respective countries, Turkey and Russia. In opposition
+to his father and Count Andrassy, who counselled neutrality and the withdrawal
+of the Rumanian army into the mountains, and in sympathy with Bismarck&rsquo;s
+advice, Prince Carol concluded a Convention with Russia on April 16, 1877.
+Rumania promised to the Russian army &lsquo;free passage through Rumanian
+territory and the treatment due to a friendly army&rsquo;; whilst Russia
+undertook to respect Rumania&rsquo;s political rights, as well as &lsquo;to
+maintain and defend her actual integrity&rsquo;. &lsquo;It is pretty
+certain&rsquo;, wrote Prince Carol to his father, &lsquo;that this will not be
+to the liking of most of the great powers; but as they neither can nor will
+offer us anything, we cannot do otherwise than pass them by. A successful
+Russian campaign will free us from the nominal dependency upon Turkey, and
+Europe will never allow Russia to take her place.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On April 23 the Russian armies passed the Pruth. An offer of active
+participation by the Rumanian forces in the forthcoming campaign was rejected
+by the Tsar, who haughtily declared that &lsquo;Russia had no need for the
+cooperation of the Rumanian army&rsquo;, and that &lsquo;it was only under the
+auspices of the Russian forces that the foundation of Rumania&rsquo;s future
+destinies could be laid&rsquo;. Rumania was to keep quiet and accept in the end
+what Russia would deign to give her, or, to be more correct, take from her.
+After a few successful encounters, however, the Tsar&rsquo;s soldiers met with
+serious defeats before Plevna, and persistent appeals were now urged for the
+participation of the Rumanian army in the military operations. The moment had
+come for Rumania to bargain for her interests. But Prince Carol refused to make
+capital out of the serious position of the Russians; he led his army across the
+Danube and, at the express desire of the Tsar, took over the supreme command of
+the united forces before Plevna. After a glorious but terrible struggle Plevna,
+followed at short intervals by other strongholds, fell, the peace preliminaries
+were signed, and Prince Carol returned to Bucarest at the head of his
+victorious army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Notwithstanding the flattering words in which the Tsar spoke of the Rumanian
+share in the success of the campaign, Russia did not admit Rumania to the Peace
+Conference. By the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3,1878) Rumania&rsquo;s
+independence was recognized; Russia obtained from Turkey the Dobrudja and the
+delta of the Danube, reserving for herself the right to exchange these
+territories against the three southern districts of Bessarabia, restored to
+Rumania by the Treaty of Paris, 1856. This stipulation was by no means a
+surprise to Rumania, Russia&rsquo;s intention to recover Bessarabia was well
+known to the Government, who hoped, however, that the demand would not be
+pressed after the effective assistance rendered by the Rumanian army. &lsquo;If
+this be not a ground for the extension of our territory, it is surely none for
+its diminution,&rsquo; remarked Cogalniceanu at the Berlin Congress. 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 the Russian
+armies, guaranteed Rumania&rsquo;s integrity. But upon this stipulation
+Gorchakov put the jesuitical construction that, the Convention being concluded
+in view of a war to be waged against Turkey, it was only against Turkey that
+Russia undertook to guarantee Rumania&rsquo;s integrity; as to herself, she was
+not in the least bound by that arrangement. And should Rumania dare to protest
+against, or oppose the action of the Russian Government, &lsquo;the Tsar will
+order that Rumania be occupied and the Rumanian army disarmed&rsquo;.
+&lsquo;The army which fought at Plevna&rsquo;, replied Prince Carol through his
+minister, &lsquo;may well be destroyed, but never disarmed.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one last hope left to Rumania: that the Congress which met in Berlin
+in June 1878 for the purpose of revising the Treaty of San Stefano, would
+prevent such an injustice. But Bismarck was anxious that no &lsquo;sentiment de
+dignité blessée&rsquo; should rankle in Russia&rsquo;s future policy; the
+French representative, Waddington, was &lsquo;above all a practical man&rsquo;;
+Corti, the Italian delegate, was &lsquo;nearly rude&rsquo; to the Rumanian
+delegates; while Lord Beaconsfield, England&rsquo;s envoy, receiving the
+Rumanian delegates privately, had nothing to say but that &lsquo;in politics
+the best services are often rewarded with ingratitude&rsquo;. Russia strongly
+opposed even the idea that the Rumanian delegates should be allowed to put
+their case before the Congress, and consent was obtained only with difficulty
+after Lord Salisbury had ironically remarked that &lsquo;having heard the
+representatives of Greece, which was claiming foreign provinces, it would be
+but fair to listen also to the representatives of a country which was only
+seeking to retain what was its own&rsquo;. Shortly before, Lord Salisbury,
+speaking in London to the Rumanian special envoy, Callimaki Catargiu, had
+assured him of England&rsquo;s sympathy and of her effective assistance in case
+either of war or of a Congress. &lsquo;But to be quite candid he must add that
+there are questions of more concern to England, and should she be able to come
+to an understanding with Russia with regard to them, she would not wage war for
+the sake of Rumania.&rsquo; Indeed, an understanding came about, and an
+indiscretion enabled the <i>Globe</i> to make its tenor public early in June
+1878. &lsquo;The Government of her Britannic Majesty&rsquo;, it said,
+&lsquo;considers that it will feel itself bound to express its deep regret
+should Russia persist in demanding the retrocession of Bessarabia….
+England&rsquo;s interest in this question is not such, however, as to justify
+her taking upon herself alone the responsibility of opposing the intended
+exchange.&rsquo; So Bessarabia was lost, Rumania receiving instead Dobrudja
+with the delta of the Danube. But as the newly created state of Bulgaria was at
+the time little else than a detached Russian province, Russia, alone amongst
+the powers, opposed and succeeded in preventing the demarcation to the new
+Rumanian province of a strategically sound frontier. Finally, to the
+exasperation of the Rumanians, the Congress made the recognition of
+Rumania&rsquo;s independence contingent upon the abolition of Article 7 of the
+Constitution&mdash;which denied to non-Christians the right of becoming
+Rumanian citizens&mdash;and the emancipation of the Rumanian Jews.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Rumania only partially gave way to this intrusion of the powers
+into her internal affairs. The prohibition was abolished; but only individual
+naturalization was made possible, and that by special Act of Parliament. Only a
+very small proportion of the Jewish population has since been naturalized. The
+Jewish question in Rumania is undoubtedly a very serious one; but the matter is
+too controversial to be dealt with in a few lines without risking
+misrepresentation or doing an injustice to one or other of the parties. For
+which reason it has not been included in this essay.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was only after innumerable difficulties and hardships that, at the beginning
+of 1880, Rumania secured recognition of an independence which she owed to
+nobody but herself. Whilst Russia was opposing Rumania at every opportunity in
+the European conferences and commissions, she was at pains to show herself more
+amenable in <i>tête-à-tête</i>, and approached Rumania with favourable
+proposals. &lsquo;Rather Russia as foe than guardian,&rsquo; wrote Prince Carol
+to his father; and these words indicate an important turning-point in
+Rumania&rsquo;s foreign policy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 insisting that Austria should share in the
+partition of Poland, Frederick the Great had skilfully prevented her from
+remaining the one country towards which the Poles would naturally have turned
+for deliverance. Such an opportunity was lost by Russia through her
+short-sighted policy in Bessarabia&mdash;that of remaining the natural ally of
+Rumania against Rumania&rsquo;s natural foe, Austria-Hungary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rumania had neither historical, geographical, nor any important ethnographical
+points of contact with the region south of the Danube; the aims of a future
+policy could only have embraced neighbouring tracts of foreign territory
+inhabited by Rumanians. Whereas up to the date of the Berlin Congress such
+tracts were confined to Austria-Hungary, 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 should maintain friendly relations
+with both the powers striving for domination in the Near East; it was a vital
+necessity for her, however, to be able to rely upon the effective support of at
+least one of them in a case of emergency. Russia&rsquo;s conduct had aroused a
+deep feeling of bitterness and mistrust in Rumania, and every lessening of her
+influence was a step in Austria&rsquo;s favour. Secondary considerations tended
+to intensify this: on the one hand lay the fact that through Russia&rsquo;s
+interposition Rumania had no defendable frontier against Bulgaria; on the other
+hand was the greatly strengthened position created for Austria by her alliance
+with Germany, in whose future Prince Carol had the utmost confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: It is probable that this confederation had much to do with the
+readiness with which Bismarck supported the demands of his good friend,
+Gorchakov.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Germany&rsquo;s attitude towards Rumania had been curiously hostile during
+these events; but when Prince Carol&rsquo;s father spoke of this to the German
+Emperor, the latter showed genuine astonishment: Bismarck had obviously not
+taken the emperor completely into his confidence. When, a few days later,
+Sturdza had an interview with Bismarck at the latter&rsquo;s invitation, the
+German Chancellor discovered once more that Rumania had nothing to expect from
+Russia. Indeed, Rumania&rsquo;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 two &lsquo;natural friends&rsquo;, France and Germany. And,
+with his usual liberality when baiting his policy with false hopes, Bismarck
+went on to say that &lsquo;Turkey is falling to pieces; nobody can resuscitate
+her; Rumania has an important role to fulfil, but for this she must be wise,
+cautious, and strong&rsquo;. This new attitude was the natural counterpart of
+the change which was at that time making itself felt in Russo-German relations.
+While a Franco-Russian alliance was propounded by Gorchakov in an interview
+with a French journalist, Bismarck and Andrassy signed in Gastein the treaty
+which allied Austria to Germany (September 1879). As Rumania&rsquo;s interests
+were identical with those of Austria&mdash;wrote Count Andrassy privately to
+Prince Carol a few months later&mdash;namely, to prevent the fusion of the
+northern and the southern Slavs, she had only to express her willingness to
+become at a given moment the third party in the compact. In 1883 King Carol
+accepted a secret treaty of defensive alliance from Austria. In return for
+promises relating to future political partitions in the Balkans, the monarch
+pledged himself to oppose all developments likely to speed the democratic
+evolution, of Rumania. Though the treaty was never submitted to parliament for
+ratification, and notwithstanding a tariff war and a serious difference with
+Austria on the question of control of the Danube navigation, Rumania was, till
+the Balkan wars, a faithful &lsquo;sleeping partner&rsquo; of the Triple
+Alliance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All through that externally quiet period a marked discrepancy existed and
+developed between that line of policy and the trend of public opinion. The
+interest of the Rumanians within the kingdom centred increasingly on their
+brethren in Transylvania, the solution of whose hard case inspired most of the
+popular national movements. Not on account of the political despotism of the
+Magyars, for that of the Russians was in no way behind it. But whilst the
+Rumanians of Bessarabia were, with few exceptions, illiterate peasants, in
+Transylvania there was a solidly established and spirited middle class, whose
+protests kept pace with the oppressive measures. Many of them&mdash;and of
+necessity the more turbulent&mdash;migrated to Rumania, and there kept alive
+the &lsquo;Transylvanian Question&rsquo;. That the country&rsquo;s foreign
+policy has nevertheless constantly supported the Central Powers is due, to some
+extent, to the fact that the generation most deeply impressed by the events of
+1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country; to a greater extent to
+the increasing influence of German education,[1] and the economic and financial
+supremacy which the benevolent passivity of England and France enabled Germany
+to acquire; but above all to the personal influence of King Carol. Germany, he
+considered, was at the beginning of her development and needed, above all,
+peace; as Rumania was in the same position the wisest policy was to follow
+Germany, neglecting impracticable national ideals. King Carol outlined his
+views clearly in an interview which he had in Vienna with the Emperor Franz
+Joseph in 1883: &lsquo;No nation consents to be bereaved of its political
+aspirations, and those of the Rumanians are constantly kept at fever heat by
+Magyar oppression. But this was no real obstacle to a friendly understanding
+between the two neighbouring states.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Many prominent statesmen like Sturdza, Maiorescu, Carp, &amp;c.
+were educated in Germany, whereas the school established by the German
+community (<i>Evangelische Knaben und Realschule</i>), and which it under the
+direct control of the German Ministry of Education, is attended by more pupils
+than any other school in Bucarest.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the position when the Balkan peoples rose in 1912 to sever the last
+ties which bound them to the decadent Turkish Empire. King Carol, who had,
+sword in hand, won the independence of his country, could have no objection to
+such a desire for emancipation. Nor to the Balkan League itself, unfortunately
+so ephemeral; for by the first year of his reign he had already approached the
+Greek Government with proposals toward such a league, and toward freeing the
+Balkans from the undesirable interference of the powers.[1] It is true that
+Rumania, like all the other states, had not foreseen the radical changes which
+were to take place, and which considerably affected her position in the Near
+East. But she was safe as long as the situation was one of stable equilibrium
+and the league remained in existence. &lsquo;Rumania will only be menaced by a
+real danger when a Great Bulgaria comes into existence,&rsquo; remarked Prince
+Carol to Bismarck in 1880, and Bulgaria had done nothing since to allay
+Rumanian suspicions. On the contrary, the proviso of the Berlin Convention that
+all fortifications along the Rumania frontier should be razed to the ground had
+not been carried out by the Bulgarian Government. Bulgarian official
+publications regarded the Dobrudja as a &lsquo;Bulgaria Irredenta&rsquo;, and
+at the outset of the first Balkan war a certain section of the Bulgarian press
+speculated upon the Bulgarian character of the Dobrudja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: See Augenzeuge, op. cit., i. 178]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Balkan League having proclaimed, however, that their action did not involve
+any territorial changes, and the maintenance of the <i>status quo</i> having
+been insisted upon by the European Concert, Rumania declared that she would
+remain neutral. All this jugglery of mutual assurances broke down with the
+unexpected rout of the Turks; the formula &lsquo;the Balkans to the Balkan
+peoples&rsquo; made its appearance, upon which Bulgaria was at once notified
+that Rumania would insist upon the question of the Dobrudja frontier being
+included in any fundamental alteration of the Berlin Convention. The Bulgarian
+Premier, M. Danev, concurred in this point of view, but his conduct of the
+subsequent London negotiations was so &lsquo;diplomatic&rsquo; that their only
+result was to strain the patience of the Rumanian Government and public opinion
+to breaking point. Nevertheless, the Rumanian Government agreed that the point
+in dispute should be submitted to a conference of the representatives of the
+great powers in St. Petersburg, and later accepted the decision of that
+conference, though the country considered it highly unsatisfactory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The formation of the Balkan League, and especially the collapse of Turkey, had
+meant a serious blow to the Central Powers&rsquo; policy of peaceful
+penetration. Moreover, &lsquo;for a century men have been labouring to solve
+the Eastern. Question. On the day when it shall be considered solved, Europe
+will inevitably witness the propounding of the Austrian Question.&rsquo;[1] To
+prevent this and to keep open a route to the East Austro-German diplomacy set
+to work, and having engineered the creation of Albania succeeded in barring
+Serbia&rsquo;s way to the Adriatic; Serbia was thus forced to seek an outlet in
+the south, where her interests were doomed to clash with Bulgarian aspirations.
+The atmosphere grew threatening. In anticipation of a conflict with Bulgaria,
+Greece and Serbia sought an alliance with Rumania. The offer was declined; but,
+in accordance with the policy which Bucarest had already made quite clear to
+Sofia, the Rumanian army was ordered to enter Bulgaria immediately that country
+attacked her former allies. The Rumanians advanced unopposed to within a few
+miles of Sofia, and in order to save the capital Bulgaria declared her
+willingness to comply with their claims. Rumania having refused, however, to
+conclude a separate peace, Bulgaria had to give way, and the Balkan premiers
+met in conference at Bucarest to discuss terms. The circumstances were not
+auspicious. The way in which Bulgaria had conducted previous negotiations, and
+especially the attack upon her former allies, had exasperated the Rumanians and
+the Balkan peoples, and the pressure of public opinion hindered from the outset
+a fair consideration of the Bulgarian point of view. Moreover, cholera was
+making great ravages in the ranks of the various armies, and, what threatened
+to be even more destructive, several great powers were looking for a crack in
+the door to put their tails through, as the Rumanian saying runs. So anxious
+were the Balkan statesmen to avoid any such interference that they agreed
+between themselves to a short time limit: on a certain day, and by a certain
+hour, peace was to be concluded, or hostilities were to start afresh. The
+treaty was signed on August 10, 1913, Rumania obtaining the line
+Turtukai-Dobrich-Balchik, this being the line already demanded by her at the
+time of the London negotiations. The demand was put forth originally as a
+security against the avowed ambitions of Bulgaria; it was a strategical
+necessity, but at the same time a political mistake from the point of view of
+future relations. The Treaty of Bucarest, imperfect arrangement as it was, had
+nevertheless a great historical significance. &lsquo;Without complicating the
+discussion of our interests, which we are best in a position to understand, by
+the consideration of other foreign, interests,&rsquo; remarked the President of
+the Conference, &lsquo;we shall have established for the first time by
+ourselves peace and harmony amongst our peoples.&rsquo; Dynastic interests and
+impatient ambitions, however, completely subverted this momentous step towards
+a satisfactory solution of the Eastern Question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: Albert Sorel, op, cit., p. 266.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The natural counter-effect of the diplomatic activity of the Central Powers was
+a change in Rumanian policy. Rumania considered the maintenance of the Balkan
+equilibrium a vital question, and as she had entered upon a closer union with
+Germany against a Bulgaria subjected to Russian influence, so she now turned to
+Russia as a guard against a Bulgaria under German influence. This breaking away
+from the &lsquo;traditional&rsquo; policy of adjutancy-in-waiting to the
+Central Powers was indicated by the visit of Prince Ferdinand&mdash;now King of
+Rumania&mdash;to St. Petersburg, and the even more significant visit which Tsar
+Nicholas afterwards paid to the late King Carol at Constanza. Time has been too
+short, however, for those new relations so to shape themselves as to exercise a
+notable influence upon Rumania&rsquo;s present attitude.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap31"></a>8<br/>
+<i>Rumania and the Present War</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>(a) The Rumanians outside the Kingdom</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is the
+circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside Rumanian
+territory. As the available official statistics generally show political bias
+it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly speaking there are
+about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter of a million in Bucovina,
+three and a half millions in Hungary, while something above half a million form
+scattered colonies in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia. All these live in more
+or less close proximity to the Rumanian frontiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That these Rumanian elements have maintained their nationality is due to purely
+intrinsic causes. We have seen that the independence of Rumania in her foreign
+relations had only recently been established, since when the king, the factor
+most influential in foreign politics, had discouraged nationalist tendencies,
+lest the country&rsquo;s internal development might be compromised by friction
+with neighbouring states. The Government exerted its influence against any
+active expression of the national feeling, and the few
+&lsquo;nationalists&rsquo; and the &lsquo;League for the cultural unity of all
+Rumanians&rsquo; had been, as a consequence, driven to seek a justification for
+their existence in antisemitic agitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The above circumstances had little influence upon the situation in Bucovina.
+This province forms an integral part of the Habsburg monarchy, with which it
+was incorporated as early as 1775. The political situation of the Rumanian
+principalities at the time, and the absence of a national cultural movement,
+left the detached population exposed to Germanization, and later to the Slav
+influence of the rapidly expanding Ruthene element. That language and national
+characteristics have, nevertheless, not been lost is due to the fact that the
+Rumanian population of Bucovina is peasant almost to a man&mdash;a class little
+amenable to changes of civilization.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This also applies largely to Bessarabia, which, first lost in 1812, was
+incorporated with Rumania in 1856, and finally detached in 1878. The few
+Rumanians belonging to the landed class were won over by the new masters. But
+while the Rumanian population was denied any cultural and literary activities
+of its own, the reactionary attitude of the Russian Government towards
+education has enabled the Rumanian peasants to preserve their customs and their
+language. At the same time their resultant ignorance has kept them outside the
+sphere of intellectual influence of the mother country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Rumanians who live in scattered colonies south of the Danube are the
+descendants of those who took refuge in these regions during the ninth and
+tenth centuries from the invasions of the Huns. Generally known as
+Kutzo-Vlakhs, or, among themselves, as Aromuni, they are&mdash;as even Weigand,
+who undoubtedly has Bulgarophil leanings, recognizes&mdash;the most intelligent
+and best educated of the inhabitants of Macedonia. In 1905 the Rumanian
+Government secured from the Porte official recognition of their separate
+cultural and religious organizations on a national basis. Exposed as they are
+to Greek influence, it will be difficult to prevent their final assimilation
+with that people. The interest taken in them of late by the Rumanian Government
+arose out of the necessity to secure them against pan-Hellenic propaganda, and
+to preserve one of the factors entitling Rumania to participate in the
+settlement of Balkan affairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have sketched elsewhere the early history of the Rumanians 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 migrating over the
+mountains. Debarred from the support of the noble class, the Rumanian peasantry
+lost its state of autonomy, which changed into one of serfdom to the soil upon
+which they toiled. Desperate risings in 1324, 1437, 1514, 1600, and 1784 tended
+to case the Hungarian oppression, which up to the nineteenth century strove
+primarily after a political and religious hegemony. But the Magyars having
+failed in 1848 in their attempt to free themselves from Austrian domination
+(defeated with the assistance of a Russian army at Villagos, 1849), mainly on
+account of the fidelity of the other nationalities to the Austrian Crown, they
+henceforth directed their efforts towards strengthening their own position by
+forcible assimilation of those nationalities. This they were able to do,
+however, only after Königgrätz, when a weakened Austria had to give way to
+Hungarian demands. In 1867 the Dual Monarchy was established, and Transylvania,
+which up to then formed a separate duchy enjoying full political rights, was
+incorporated with the new Hungarian kingdom. The Magyars were handicapped in
+their imperialist ambitions by their numerical inferiority. As the next best
+means to their end, therefore, they resorted to political and national
+oppression, class despotism, and a complete disregard of the principles of
+liberty and humanity.[1] Hungarian was made compulsory in the administration,
+even in districts where the bulk of the population did not understand that
+language. In villages completely inhabited by Rumanians so-called
+&lsquo;State&rsquo; schools were founded, in which only Hungarian was to be
+spoken, and all children upwards of three years of age had to attend them. The
+electoral regulations were drawn up in such a manner that the Rumanians 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
+protest a special press law was introduced for Transylvania. But the Rumanian
+journalists being usually acquitted by the juries a new regulation prescribed
+that press offences should be tried only at Kluj (Klausenburg)&mdash;the sole
+Transylvanian town with a predominating Hungarian population&mdash;a measure
+which was in fundamental contradiction to the principles of justice.[2] In 1892
+the Rumanian grievances were embodied 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 Hungarian Government the members of the deputation
+were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for having plotted against the
+unity of the Magyar state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians inhabit mainly the province of Transylvania, Banat,
+Crishiana, and Maramuresh. They represent 46.2 per cent. of the total
+population of these provinces, the Magyars 32.5 per cent., the Germans 11.5 per
+cent., and the Serbs 4.5 per cent. These figured are taken from official
+Hungarian statistics, and it may therefore be assumed that the Rumanian
+percentage represents a minimum.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 2: Over a period of 22 years (1886-1908) 850 journalists were
+charged, 367 of whom were Rumanians; the sentences totalling 216 years of
+imprisonment, the fines amounting to Fcs. 138,000.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Notwithstanding these disabilities the Rumanians of Transylvania enjoyed a long
+period of comparative social and economic liberty at a time when Turkish and
+Phanariote domination was hampering all progress in Rumania. Office under the
+Government growing increasingly difficult to obtain, the Rumanians in
+Transylvania turned largely to commercial and the open professions, and, as a
+result, a powerful middle class now exists. In their clergy, both of the
+Orthodox and the Uniate Church&mdash;which last, while conducting its ritual in
+the vernacular, recognizes papal supremacy&mdash; the Rumanians have always
+found strong moral support, while the national struggle tends to unite the
+various classes. The Rumanians of Hungary form by far the sanest element in the
+Rumanian nation. From the Rumanians within the kingdom they have received
+little beside sympathy. The important part played by the country at the Peace
+of Bucarest, and her detachment from Austria-Hungary, must necessarily have
+stimulated the national consciousness of the Transylvanians; while at the same
+time all hope for betterment from within must have ceased at the death of
+Archduke Francis Ferdinand, an avowed friend of the long-suffering
+nationalities. It is, therefore, no mere matter of conjecture that the passive
+attitude of the Rumanian Government at the beginning of the present conflict
+must have been a bitter disappointment to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>(b) Rumania&rsquo;s Attitude</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tragic development of the crisis in the summer of 1914 threw Rumania into a
+vortex of unexpected hopes and fears. Aspirations till then considered little
+else than Utopian became tangible possibilities, while, as suddenly, dangers
+deemed far off loomed large and near. Not only was such a situation quite
+unforeseen, nor had any plan of action been preconceived to meet it, but it was
+in Rumania&rsquo;s case a situation unique from the number of conflicting
+considerations and influences at work within it. Still under the waning
+influence of the thirty years quasi-alliance with Austria, Rumania was not yet
+acclimatized to her new relations with Russia. Notwithstanding the inborn
+sympathy with and admiration for France, the Rumanians could not be blind to
+Germany&rsquo;s military power. The enthusiasm that would have sided with
+France for France&rsquo;s sake 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 the king; and the bright vision of the
+&lsquo;principle of nationality&rsquo; was darkened by the shadow of Russia as
+despot of the Near East.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One fact in the situation stood out from the rest, namely, the unexpected
+opportunity of redeeming that half of the Rumanian nation which was still under
+foreign rule; the more so as one of the parties in the conflict had given the
+&lsquo;principle of nationality&rsquo; a prominent place in its programme. But
+the fact that both Austria-Hungary and Russia had a large Rumanian population
+among their subjects rendered a purely national policy impossible, and Rumania
+could do nothing but weigh which issue offered her the greater advantage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three ways lay open: complete neutrality, active participation on the side of
+the Central Powers, or common cause with the Triple Entente. Complete
+neutrality was advocated by a few who had the country&rsquo;s material security
+most at heart, and also, as a <i>pis aller</i>, by those who realized that
+their opinion that Rumania should make common cause with the Central Powers had
+no prospect of being acted upon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That King Carol favoured the idea of a joint action with Germany 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 satisfaction the
+possibility of regaining Bessarabia, the loss of which must have been bitterly
+felt by the victor of Plevna. Such a policy would have met with the approval of
+many Rumanian statesmen, notably of M. Sturdza, sometime leader of the Liberal
+party and Prime Minister; of M. Carp, sometime leader of the Conservative party
+and Prime Minister; of M. Maiorescu, ex-Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary,
+who presided at the Bucarest Conference of 1913; of M. Marghiloman, till
+recently leader of the Conservative party, to name only the more important. M.
+Sturdza, the old statesman who had been one of King Carol&rsquo;s chief
+coadjutors in the making of modern Rumania, and who had severed for many years
+his connexion with active politics, again took up his pen to raise a word of
+warning. M. Carp, the political aristocrat who had retired from public life a
+few years previously, and had professed a lifelong contempt for the
+&lsquo;Press and all its works&rsquo;, himself started a daily paper
+(<i>Moldova</i>) which, he intended should expound his views. Well-known
+writers like M. Radu Rosetti wrote[1] espousing the cause favoured by the king,
+though not for the king&rsquo;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&rsquo;s plans in the Near East. They
+dreaded the idea of seeing Russia on the Bosphorus, as rendering illusory
+Rumania&rsquo;s splendid position at the mouth of the Danube. For not only is a
+cheap waterway absolutely necessary for the bulky products forming the chief
+exports of Rumania; but these very products, corn, petroleum, and timber, also
+form the chief exports of Russia, who, by a stroke of the pen, may rule Rumania
+out of competition, should she fail to appreciate the political leadership of
+Petrograd. Paris and Rome were, no doubt, beloved sisters; but Sofia, Moscow,
+and Budapest were next-door neighbours to be reckoned with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: See R. Rosetti, <i>Russian Politics at Work in the Rumanian
+Countries</i>, facts compiled from French official documents, Bucarest, 1914.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those who held views opposed to those, confident in the righteousness of the
+Allies&rsquo; cause and in their final victory, advocated immediate
+intervention, and to that end made the most of the two sentiments which
+animated public opinion: interest in the fate of the Transylvanians, and
+sympathy with France. They contended that though a purely national policy was
+not possible, the difference between Transylvania and Bessarabia in area and in
+number and quality of the population was such that no hesitation was
+admissible. The possession of Transylvania was assured if the Allies were
+successful; whereas Russia would soon recover if defeated, and would regain
+Bessarabia by force of arms, or have it once more presented to her by a
+Congress anxious to soothe her &lsquo;sentiment de dignité blessée&rsquo;. A
+Rumania enlarged in size and population had a better chance of successfully
+withstanding any eventual pressure from the north, and it was clear that any
+attempt against her independence would be bound to develop into a European
+question. Rumania could not forget what she owed to France; and if
+circumstances had made the Transylvanian question one &lsquo;à laquelle on
+pense toujours et dont on ne parle jamais&rsquo;, the greater was the duty, now
+that a favourable opportunity had arisen, to help the brethren across the
+mountains. It was also a duty to fight for right and civilization, proclaimed
+M. Take Ionescu, the exponent of progressive ideas in Rumanian politics; and
+he, together with the prominent Conservative statesman, M. Filipescu, who
+loathes the idea of the Rumanians being dominated by the inferior Magyars, are
+the leaders of the interventionist movement. It was due to M. Filipescu&rsquo;s
+activity, especially, that M. Marghiloman was forced by his own party to resign
+his position as leader on account of his Austrophil sentiments&mdash;an event
+unparalleled in Rumanian politics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These were the two main currents of opinion which met in conflict at the Crown
+Council&mdash;a committee <i>ad hoc</i> consisting of the Cabinet and the
+leaders of the Opposition&mdash;summoned by the king early in August 1914, when
+Rumania&rsquo;s neutrality was decided upon. The great influence which the
+Crown can always wield under the Rumanian political system was rendered the
+more potent in the present case by the fact that the Premier, M. Bratianu, is
+above all a practical man, and the Liberal Cabinet over which he presides one
+of the most colourless the country ever had: a Cabinet weak to the point of
+being incapable of realizing its own weakness and the imperative necessity at
+this fateful moment of placing the helm in the hands of a national ministry. M.
+Bratianu considered that Rumania was too exposed, and had suffered too much in
+the past for the sake of other countries, to enter now upon such an adventure
+without ample guarantees. There would always be time for her to come in. This
+policy of opportunism he was able to justify by powerful argument. The supply
+of war material for the Rumanian army had been completely in the hands of
+German and Austrian arsenals, and especially in those of Krupp. For obvious
+reasons Rumania could no longer rely upon that source; indeed, Germany was
+actually detaining contracts for war and sanitary material placed with her
+before the outbreak of the war. There was the further consideration that, owing
+to the nature of Rumania&rsquo;s foreign policy in the past, no due attention
+had been given to the defence of the Carpathians, nor to those branches of the
+service dealing with mountain warfare. On the other hand, a continuous line of
+fortifications running from Galatz to Focshani formed, together with the lower
+reaches of the Danube, a strong barrier against attack from the north.
+Rumania&rsquo;s geographical position is such that a successful offensive from
+Hungary could soon penetrate to the capital, and by cutting the country in two
+could completely paralyse its organization. Such arguments acquired a magnified
+importance in the light of the failure of the negotiations with 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 German
+and Austrian capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the point of view of practical politics only the issue of the conflict
+will determine the wisdom or otherwise of Rumania&rsquo;s attitude. But, though
+it is perhaps out of place to enlarge upon it here, it is impossible not to
+speak of the moral aspect of the course adopted. By giving heed to the unspoken
+appeal from Transylvania the Rumanian national spirit would have been
+quickened, and the people braced to a wholesome sacrifice. Many were the
+wistful glances cast towards the Carpathians by the subject Rumanians, as they
+were being led away to fight for their oppressors; but, wilfully unmindful, the
+leaders of the Rumanian state buried their noses in their ledgers, oblivious of
+the fact that in these times of internationalism a will in common, with
+aspirations in common, is the very life-blood of nationality. That sentiment
+ought not to enter into politics is an argument untenable in a country which
+has yet to see its national aspirations fulfilled, and which makes of these
+aspirations definite claims. No Rumanian statesman can contend that possession
+of Transylvania is necessary to the existence of the Rumanian state. What they
+can maintain is that deliverance from Magyar oppression is vital to the
+existence of the Transylvanians. The right to advance such a claim grows out of
+their very duty of watching over the safety of the subject Rumanians.
+&lsquo;When there are squabbles in the household of my brother-in-law,&rsquo;
+said the late Ioan Bratianu when speaking on the Transylvanian question,
+&lsquo;it is no affair of mine; but when he raises a knife against his wife, it
+is not merely my right to intervene, it is my duty.&rsquo; It is difficult to
+account for the obliquity of vision shown by so many Rumanian politicians.
+&lsquo;The whole policy of such a state [having a large compatriot population
+living in close proximity under foreign domination] must be primarily
+influenced by anxiety as to the fate of their brothers, and by the duty of
+emancipating them,&rsquo; affirms one of the most ardent of Rumanian
+nationalist orators; and he goes on to assure us that &lsquo;if Rumania waits,
+it is not from hesitation as to her duty, but simply in order that she may
+discharge it more completely&rsquo;.[1] Meantime, while Rumania waits,
+regiments composed almost completely of Transylvanians have 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&rsquo;s conception of
+his duty, and here, as in so many other cases in the present conflict, the
+nation at large must not be judged by the policy of the few who hold the reins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Footnote 1: <i>Quarterly Review</i>, London, April, 1915, pp. 449-50.]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rumania&rsquo;s claims to Transylvania are not of an historical nature. They
+are founded upon the numerical superiority of the subject Rumanians in
+Transylvania, that is upon the &lsquo;principle of nationality&rsquo;, and are
+morally strengthened by the treatment the Transylvanians suffer at the hands of
+the Magyars. By its passivity, however, the Rumanian Government has sacrificed
+the prime factor of the &lsquo;principle of nationality&rsquo; to the
+attainment of an object in itself subordinate to that factor; that is, it has
+sacrificed the &lsquo;people&rsquo; in order to make more sure of the
+&lsquo;land&rsquo;. In this way the Rumanian Government has entered upon a
+policy of acquisition; a policy which Rumania is too weak to pursue save under
+the patronage of one or a group of great powers; a policy unfortunate inasmuch
+as it will deprive her of freedom of action in her external politics. Her
+policy will, in its consequences, certainly react to the detriment of the
+position acquired by the country two years ago, when independent action made
+her arbiter not only among the smaller Balkan States, but also among those and
+her late suzerain, Turkey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such, indeed, must inevitably be the fate of Balkan politics in general.
+Passing from Turkish domination to nominal 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-eastern Europe found its highest
+expression in the Balkan League. The war against Turkey was in effect a
+rebellion against the political tutelage of the powers. But this emancipation
+was short-lived. By their greed the Balkan States again opened up a way to the
+intrusion of foreign diplomacy, and even, as we now see, of foreign troops. The
+first Balkan war marked the zenith of Balkan political emancipation; the second
+Balkan war was the first act in the tragic <i>débâcle</i> out of which the
+present situation developed. The interval between August 1913 (Peace of
+Bucarest) and August 1914 was merely an armistice during which Bulgaria and
+Turkey recovered their breath, and German and Austrian diplomacy had time to
+find a pretext for war on its own account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&lsquo;Exhausted but not vanquished we have had to furl our glorious standards
+in order to await better days,&rsquo; said Ferdinand of Bulgaria to his
+soldiers after the conclusion of the Peace of Bucarest; and Budapest, Vienna,
+and Berlin have no doubt done their best to keep this spirit of revenge alive
+and to prevent a renascence of the Balkan Alliance. They have succeeded. They
+have done more: they have succeeded in causing the &lsquo;principle of
+nationality&rsquo;&mdash;that idea which involves the disruption of
+Austria&mdash;to be stifled by the very people whom it was meant to save. For
+whilst the German peoples are united in this conflict, the majority of the
+southern Slavs, in fighting the German battles, are fighting to perpetuate the
+political servitude of the subject races of Austria-Hungary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However suspicious Rumania may be of Russia, however bitter the quarrels
+between Bulgars, Greeks, and Serbs, it is not, nor can it ever be natural, that
+peoples who have groaned under Turkish despotism for centuries should, after
+only one year of complete liberation, join hands with an old and dreaded enemy
+not only against their fellow sufferers, but even against those who came
+&lsquo;to die that they may live&rsquo;. These are the Dead Sea fruits of
+dynastic policy. Called to the thrones of the small states of the Near East for
+the purpose of creating order and peace, the German dynasties have overstepped
+their function and abused the power entrusted to them. As long as, in normal
+times, political activities were confined to the diplomatic arena there was no
+peril of rousing the masses out of their ignorant indolence; but, when times
+are abnormal, it is a different and a dangerous thing to march these peoples
+against their most intimate feelings. When, as the outcome of the present false
+situation, sooner or later the dynastic power breaks, it will then be for the
+powers who are now fighting for better principles not to impose their own views
+upon the peoples, or to place their own princes upon the vacant thrones. Rather
+must they see that the small nations of the Near East are given a chance to
+develop in peace and according to their proper ideals; that they be not again
+subjected to the disintegrating influence of European diplomacy; and that,
+above all, to the nations in common, irrespective of their present attitude,
+there should be a just application of the &lsquo;principle of
+nationality&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part06"></a>TURKEY</h2>
+
+<p>
+Turkey is no better name for the Osmanli dominion or any part of it than
+Normandy would be for Great Britain. It is a mediaeval error of nomenclature
+sanctioned by long usage in foreign mouths, but without any equivalent in the
+vernacular of the Osmanlis themselves. The real &lsquo;Turkey&rsquo; is
+Turkestan, and the real Turks are the Turcomans. The Osmanlis are the least
+typical Turks surviving. Only a very small proportion of them have any strain
+of Turkish blood, and this is diluted till it is rarely perceptible in their
+physiognomy: and if environment rather than blood is to be held responsible for
+racial features, it can only be said that the territory occupied by the
+Osmanlis is as unlike the homeland of the true Turks as it can well be, and is
+quite unsuited to typically Turkish life and manners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While of course it would be absurd to propose at this time of day any change in
+the terms by which the civilized world unanimously designates the Osmanlis and
+their dominion, it is well to insist 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 invasion of
+Asia Minor by immense numbers of Central Asiatic migrants, who, intent, like
+the early Arab armies, on offering to Asia first and Europe second the choice
+of apostasy or death, absorbed or annihilated almost all the previous
+populations, and swept forward into the Balkans as single-minded apostles of
+Islam. If the composition and the aims of the Osmanlis had been these, it 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 the
+most civilized and best-ordered state of their time. Who, then, are the
+Osmanlis in reality? What have they to do with true Turks? and in virtue of
+what innate qualities did they found and consolidate their power?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap32"></a>1<br/>
+<i>Origin of the Osmanlis</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+We 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 is still called
+Turkestan, and pushing westwards towards the Caspian Sea. Somewhat more than
+another century passes, and, reached by a missionary faith of West Asia, they
+come out of the Far Eastern darkness into a dim light of western history. One
+Boja, lord of Kashgar and Khan of what the Chinese knew as the people of
+Thu-Kiu&mdash;probably the same name as &lsquo;Turk&rsquo;&mdash;embraced Islam
+and forced it on his Mazdeist subjects; but other Turkish tribes, notably the
+powerful Uighurs, remained intolerant of the new dispensation, and expelled the
+Thu-Kiu <i>en masse</i> from their holding in Turkestan into Persia. Here they
+distributed themselves in detached hordes over the north and centre. At this
+day, in some parts of Persia, e.g. Azerbaijan, Turks make the bulk of the
+population besides supplying the reigning dynasty of the whole kingdom. For the
+Shahs of the Kajar house are not Iranian, but purely Turkish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This, it should be observed, was the western limit of Turkish expansion in the
+mass. Azerbaijan is the nearest region to us in which Turki blood predominates,
+and the westernmost province of the true Turk homeland. All Turks who have
+passed thence into Hither Asia have come in comparatively small detachments, as
+minorities to alien majorities. They have invaded as groups of nomads seeking
+vacant pasturage, or as bands of military adventurers who, first offering their
+swords to princes of the elder peoples, have subsequently, on several occasions
+and in several localities, imposed themselves on their former masters. To the
+first category belong all those Turcoman, Avshar, Yuruk, and other Turki
+tribes, which filtered over the Euphrates into unoccupied or sparsely inhabited
+parts of Syria and Asia Minor from the seventh century onwards, and survive to
+this day in isolated patches, distinguished from the mass of the local
+populations, partly by an ineradicable instinct for nomadic life, partly by
+retention of the pre-Islamic beliefs and practices of the first immigrants. In
+the second category&mdash;military adventurers&mdash;fall, for example, the
+Turkish praetorians who made and unmade not less than four caliphs at Bagdad in
+the ninth century, and that bold <i>condottiere</i>, Ahmed ibn Tulun, who
+captured a throne at Cairo. Even Christian emperors availed themselves of these
+stout fighters. Theophilus of Constantinople anticipated the Ottoman invasion
+of Europe by some five hundred years when he established Vardariote Turks in
+Macedonia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most important members of the second category, however, were the Seljuks.
+Like the earlier Thu-Kiu, they were pushed out of Turkestan late in the tenth
+century to found a power in Persia. Here, in Khorasan, the mass of the horde
+settled and remained: and it was only a comparatively small section which went
+on westward as military adventurers to fall upon Bagdad, Syria, Egypt, and Asia
+Minor. This first conquest was little better than a raid, so brief was the
+resultant tenure; but a century later two dispossessed nephews of Melek Shah of
+Persia set out on a military adventure which had more lasting consequences.
+Penetrating with, a small following into Asia Minor, they seized Konia, and
+instituted there a kingdom nominally feudatory to the Grand Seljuk of Persia,
+but in reality independent and destined to last about two centuries. Though
+numerically weak, their forces, recruited from the professional soldier class
+which had bolstered up the Abbasid Empire and formed the Seljukian kingdoms of
+Persia and Syria, were superior to any Byzantine troops that could be arrayed
+in southern or central Asia Minor. They constituted indeed the only compact
+body of fighting men seen in these regions for some generations. It found
+reinforcement from the 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 of Moslem image-haters
+more congenial, as it was certainly more effective, than that of Byzantine
+emperors. The creed of the Seljuks was Islam of an Iranian type. Of
+Incarnationist colour, it repudiated the dour illiberal spirit of the early
+Arabian apostles which latter-day Sunnite orthodoxy has revived. Accordingly
+its professors, backed by an effective force and offering security and
+privilege, quickly won over the aborigines&mdash;Lycaonians, Phrygians,
+Cappadocians, and Cilicians&mdash;and welded them into a nation, leaving only a
+few detached communities here and there to cherish allegiance to Byzantine
+Christianity. In the event, the population of quite two-thirds of the Anatolian
+peninsula had already identified itself with a ruling Turki caste before, early
+in the thirteenth century, fresh Turks appeared on the scene&mdash;those Turks
+who were to found the Ottoman Empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They entered Asia Minor much as the earlier Turcomans had entered it&mdash;a
+small body of nomadic adventurers, thrown off by the larger body of Turks
+settled in Persia to seek new pastures west of the Euphrates. There are divers
+legends about the first appearance and establishment of these particular Turks:
+but all agree that they were of inconsiderable number&mdash; not above four
+hundred families at most. Drifting in by way of Armenia, they pressed gradually
+westward from Erzerum in hope of finding some unoccupied country which would
+prove both element and fertile. Byzantine influence was then at a very low ebb.
+With Constantinople itself in Latin hands, the Greek writ ran only along the
+north Anatolian coast, ruled from two separate centres, Isnik (Nicaea) and
+Trebizond: and the Seljuk kingdom was run in reality much more vigorous. Though
+apparently without a rival, it was subsisting by consent, on the prestige of
+its past, rather than on actual power. The moment of its dissolution was
+approaching, and the Anatolian peninsula, two-thirds Islamized, but
+ill-organised and very loosely knit, was becoming once more a fair field for
+any adventurer able to command a small compact force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The newly come Turks were invited finally to settle on the extreme
+north-western fringe of the Seljuk territory&mdash;in a region so near Nicaea
+that their sword would be a better title to it than any which the feudal
+authority of Konia could confer. In fact it was a debatable land, an angle
+pushed up between the lake plain of Nicaea on the one hand and the plain of
+Brusa on the other, and divided from each by not lofty heights, Yenishehr, its
+chief town, which became the Osmanli chief Ertogrul&rsquo;s residence, lies, as
+the crow flies, a good deal less than fifty miles from the Sea of Marmora, and
+not a hundred miles from Constantinople itself. Here Ertogrul was to be a
+Warden of the Marches, to hold his territory for the Seljuk and extend it for
+himself at the expense of Nicaea if he could. If he won through, so much the
+better for Sultan Alaeddin; if he failed, <i>vile damnum!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hardly were his tribesmen settled, however, among the Bithynians and Greeks of
+Yenishehr, before the Seljuk collapse became a fact. The Tartar storm, ridden
+by Jenghis Khan, which had overwhelmed Central Asia, spent its last force on
+the kingdom of Konia, and, withdrawing, left the Seljuks bankrupt of force and
+prestige and Anatolia without an overlord. The feudatories were free everywhere
+to make or mar themselves, and they spent the last half of the thirteenth
+century in fighting for whatever might be saved from the Seljuk wreck before it
+foundered for ever about 1300 A.D. In the south, the centre, and the east of
+the peninsula, where Islam had long rooted itself as the popular social system,
+various Turki emirates established themselves on a purely Moslem
+basis&mdash;certain of these, like the Danishmand emirate of Cappadocia, being
+restorations of tribal jurisdictions which had existed before the imposition of
+Seljuk overlordship.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the extreme north-west, however, where the mass of society was still
+Christian and held itself Greek, no Turkish, potentate could either revive a
+pre-Seljukian status or simply carry on a Seljukian system in miniature. If he
+was to preserve independence at all, he must rely on a society which was not
+yet Moslem and form a coalition with the &lsquo;Greeks&rsquo;, into whom the
+recent recovery of Constantinople from the Latins had put fresh heart. Osman,
+who had succeeded Ertogrul in 1288, recognized where his only possible chance
+of continued dominion and future aggrandizement lay. He turned to the Greeks,
+as an element of vitality and numerical strength to be absorbed into his
+nascent state, and applied himself unremittingly to winning over and
+identifying with himself the Greek feudal seigneurs in his territory or about
+its frontiers. Some of these, like Michael, lord of Harmankaya, readily enough
+stood in with the vigorous Turk and became Moslems. Others, as the new state
+gained momentum, found themselves obliged to accept it or be crushed. There are
+to this day Greek communities in the Brusa district jealously guarding
+privileges which date from compacts made with their seigneurs by Osman and his
+son Orkhan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not till the Seljuk kingdom was finally extinguished, in or about 1300
+A.D. that Osman assumed at Yenishehr the style and title of a sultan.
+Acknowledged from Afium Kara Hissar, in northern Phrygia, to the Bithynian
+coast of the Marmora, beside whose waters his standards had already been
+displayed, he lived on to see Brusa fall to his son Orkhan, in 1326, and become
+the new capital. Though Nicaea still held out, Osman died virtual lord of the
+Asiatic Greeks; and marrying his son to a Christian girl, the famous Nilufer,
+after whom the river of Brusa is still named, he laid on Christian foundations
+the strength of his dynasty and his state. The first regiment of professional
+Ottoman soldiery was recruited by him and embodied later by Orkhan, his son,
+from Greek and other Christian-born youths, who, forced to apostatize, were
+educated as Imperial slaves in imitation of the Mamelukes, constituted more
+than a century earlier in Egypt, and now masters where they had been bondmen.
+It is not indeed for nothing that Osman&rsquo;s latest 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 correct form Othman,
+&lsquo;Ottomans&rsquo;), because they derived their being as a nation and
+derive their national strength, not so much from central Asia as from the blend
+of Turk and Greek which Osman promoted among his people. This Greek strain has
+often been reinforced since his day and mingled with other Caucasian strains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was left to Orkhan to round off this Turco-Grecian realm in Byzantine Asia
+by the capture first of Ismid (Nicomedia) and then of Isnik (Nicaea); and with
+this last acquisition the nucleus of a self-sufficient sovereign state was
+complete. After the peaceful absorption of the emirate of Karasi, which added
+west central Asia Minor almost as far south as the Hermus, the Osmanli ruled in
+1338 a dominion of greater area than that of the Greek emperor, whose capital
+and coasts now looked across to Ottoman shores all the way from the Bosphorus
+to the Hellespont.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap33"></a>2<br/>
+<i>Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+If the new state was to expand by conquest, its line of advance was already
+foreshadowed. For the present, it could hardly break back into Asia Minor,
+occupied as this was by Moslem principalities sanctioned by the same tradition
+as itself, namely, the prestige of the Seljuks. To attack these would be to sin
+against Islam. But in front lay a rich but weak Christian state, the centre of
+the civilization to which the popular element in the Osmanli society belonged.
+As inevitably as 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 no invitation from a Greek to dispose an Ottoman sultan to
+push over to the European shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such an invitation, however, did in fact precede the first Osmanli crossing in
+force. In 1345 John Cantacuzene solicited help of Orkhan against the menace of
+Dushan, the Serb. Twelve years later came a second invitation. Orkhan&rsquo;s
+son, Suleiman, this time ferried a large army over the Hellespont, and, by
+taking and holding Gallipoli and Rodosto, secured a passage from continent to
+continent, which the Ottomans would never again let go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such invitations, though they neither prompted the extension of the Osmanli
+realm into Europe nor sensibly precipitated it, did nevertheless divert the
+course of the Ottoman arms and reprieve the Greek empire till Timur and his
+Tartars could come on the scene and, all unconsciously, secure it a further
+respite. But for these diversions there is little doubt Constantinople would
+have passed into Ottoman hands nearly a century earlier than the historic date
+of its fall. The Osmanli armies, thus led aside to make the Serbs and not the
+Greeks of Europe their first objective, became involved at once in a tangle of
+Balkan affairs from which they only extricated themselves after forty years of
+incessant fighting in almost every part of the peninsula except the domain of
+the Greek emperor. This warfare, which in no way advanced the proper aims of
+the lords of Brusa and Nicaea, not only profited the Greek emperor by relieving
+him of concern about his land frontier but also used up strength which might
+have made head against the Tartars. Constantinople then, as now, was detached
+from the Balkans. The Osmanlis, had they possessed themselves of it, 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 treacheries by annexations after
+the victories of Kosovo in 1389 and Nikopolis in 1396.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor was this all. They became involved also with certain peoples of the main
+continent of Europe, whose interests or sympathies had been affected by those
+long and sanguinary Balkan wars. There was already bad blood and to spare
+between the Osmanlis on the one hand, and Hungarians, Poles, and Italian
+Venetians on the other, long before any second opportunity to attack
+Constantinople occurred: and the Osmanlis were in for that age-long struggle to
+secure a &lsquo;scientific frontier&rsquo; 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 eighteenth century and spell ruin in
+the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is a vulgar error to suppose that the Osmanlis set out for Europe, in the
+spirit of Arab apostles, to force their creed and dominion on all the world.
+Both in Asia and Europe, from first to last, their expeditions and conquests
+have been inspired palpably by motives similar to those active among the
+Christian powers, namely, desire for political security and the command of
+commercial areas. Such wars as the Ottoman sultans, once they were established
+at Constantinople, did wage again and again with knightly orders or with
+Italian republics would have been undertaken, and fought with the same
+persistence, by any Greek emperor who felt himself strong enough. Even the
+Asiatic campaigns, which Selim I and some of his successors, down to the end of
+the seventeenth century, would undertake, were planned and carried out from
+similar motives. Their object was to secure the eastern basin of the
+Mediterranean by the establishment of some strong frontier against Iran, out of
+which had come more than once forces threatening the destruction of Ottoman
+power. It does not, of course, in any respect disprove their purpose that, in
+the event, this object was never attained, and that an unsatisfactory
+Turco-Persian border still illustrates at this day the failures of Selim I and
+Mohammed IV.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the opening of the fifteenth century, when, all unlooked for, a most
+terrible Tartar storm was about to break upon western Asia, the Osmanli realm
+had grown considerably, not only in Europe by conquest, but also in Asia by the
+peaceful effect of marriages and heritages. Indeed it now comprised scarcely
+less of the Anatolian peninsula than the last Seljuks had held, that is to say,
+the whole of the north as far as the Halys river beyond Angora, the central
+plateau to beyond Konia, and all the western coast-lands. The only emirs not
+tributary were those of Karamania, Cappadocia, and Pontus, that is of the
+southern and eastern fringes; and one detached fragment of Greek power survived
+in the last-named country, the kingdom of Trebizond. As for Europe, it had
+become the main scene of Osmanli operations, and now contained the
+administrative capital, Adrianople, though Brusu kept a sentimental primacy.
+Sultan Murad, who some years after his succession in 1359 had definitely
+transferred the centre of political gravity to Thrace, was nevertheless carried
+to the Bithynian capital for burial, Bulgaria, Serbia, and districts of both
+Bosnia and Macedonia were now integral parts of an empire which had come to
+number at least as many Christian as Moslem subjects, and to depend as much on
+the first as on the last. Not only had the 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&mdash;even those waged against men of the True Faith in Asia. A
+considerable body of Christian Serbs had stood up in Murad&rsquo;s line at the
+battle of Konia in 1381, before the treachery of another body of the same race
+gave him the victory eight years later at Kosovo. So little did the Osmanli
+state model itself on the earlier caliphial empires and so naturally did it
+lean towards the Roman or Byzantine imperial type.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And just because it had come to be in Europe and of Europe, it was able to
+survive the terrible disaster of Angora in 1402. Though the Osmanli army was
+annihilated by Timur, and an Osmanli sultan, for the first and last time in
+history, remained in the hands of the foe, the administrative machinery of the
+Osmanli state was not paralysed. A new ruler was proclaimed at Adrianople, and
+the European part of the realm held firm. The moment that the Tartars began to
+give ground, the Osmanlis began to recover it. In less than twenty years they
+stood again in Asia as they were before Timur&rsquo;s attack, and secure for
+the time on the east, could return to restore their prestige in the west, where
+the Tartar victory had bred unrest and brought both the Hungarians and the
+Venetians on the Balkan scene. Their success was once more rapid and
+astonishing: Salonika passed once and for all into Ottoman hands: the Frank
+seigneurs and the despots of Greece were alike humbled; and although Murad II
+failed to crush the Albanian, Skanderbey, he worsted his most dangerous foe,
+John Hunyadi, with the help of Wallach treachery at the second battle of
+Kosovo. At his death, three years later, he left the Balkans quiet and the
+field clear for his successor to proceed with the long deferred but inevitable
+enterprise of attacking all that was left of Greek empire, the district and
+city of Constantinople.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doom of New Rome was fulfilled within two years. In the end it passed
+easily enough into the hands of those who already had been in possession of its
+proper empire for a century or more. Historians have made more of this fall of
+Constantinople in 1453 than contemporary opinion seems to have made of it. No
+prince in Europe was moved to any action by its peril, except, very
+half-heartedly, the Doge. Venice could not feel quite indifferent to the
+prospect of the 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 Constantinople, the latter, long a land power only, would be
+bound to concern themselves with the sea also. The Venetians made no effort
+worthy of their apprehensions, though these were indeed exceedingly well
+founded; for, as all the world knows, to the sea the Osmanlis did at once
+betake themselves. In less than thirty years they were ranging all the eastern
+Mediterranean and laying siege to Rhodes, the stronghold of one of their most
+dangerous competitors, the Knights Hospitallers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this consequence consists the chief historic importance of the Osmanli
+capture of Constantinople. For no other reason can it he called an
+epoch-marking event. If it guaranteed the Empire of the East against passing
+into any western hands, for example, those of Venice or Genoa, it did not
+affect the balance of power between Christendom and Islam; for the strength of
+the former had long ceased to reside at all in Constantinople. The last Greek
+emperor died a martyr, but not a champion.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap34"></a>3<br/>
+<i>Heritage and Expansion of Byzantine Empire</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+On 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 be would be changed. He had displaced a Palaeologus by an
+Osmanli only in order that an empire long in fact Osmanli should henceforth be
+so also <i>de jure</i>. Therefore he confirmed the pre-existing Oecumenical
+patriarch in his functions and the Byzantine Greeks in their privileges,
+renewed the rights secured to Christian foreigners by the Greek emperors, and
+proclaimed 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, Mohammed devoted himself to precisely those tasks which would
+have fallen to a Greek emperor desirous of restoring Byzantine power. He thrust
+back Latins wherever they were encroaching on the Greek sphere, as were the
+Venetians of the Morea, the Hospitallers of Rhodes, and the Genoese of the
+Crimea: and he rounded off the proper Byzantine holding by annexing, in Europe,
+all the Balkan peninsula except 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 emirates of Karamania and
+Cappadocia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before Mohammed died in 1481 the Osmanli Turco-Grecian nation may be said to
+have come into its own. It was lord <i>de facto et de jure belli</i> of the
+eastern or Greek Empire, that is of all territories and seas grouped
+geographically round Constantinople as a centre, with only a few exceptions
+unredeemed, of which the most notable were the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and
+Krete, still in Latin hands. Needless to say, the Osmanlis themselves differed
+greatly from their imperial predecessors. Their official speech, their official
+creed, their family system were all foreign to Europe, and many of their ideas
+of government had been learned in the past from Persia and China, or were
+derived from the original tribal organization of the true Turks. But if they
+were neither more nor less Asiatics than the contemporary Russians, they were
+quite as much Europeans as many of the Greek emperors had been&mdash;those of
+the Isaurian dynasty, for instance. They had given no evidence as yet of a
+fanatical Moslem spirit&mdash;this was to be bred in them by subsequent
+experiences&mdash;and their official creed had governed their policy hardly
+more than does ours in India or Egypt. Mohammed the Conqueror had not only
+shown marked favour to Christians, whether his <i>rayas</i> or not, but
+encouraged letters and the arts in a very un-Arabian spirit. Did he not have
+himself portrayed by Gentile Bellini? The higher offices of state, both civil
+and military, were confided (and would continue so to be for a century to come)
+almost exclusively to men of Christian origin. Commerce was encouraged, and
+western traders recognized that their facilities were greater now than they had
+been under Greek rule. The Venetians, for example, enjoyed in perfect liberty a
+virtual monopoly of the Aegean and Euxine trade. The social condition of the
+peasantry seems to have been better than it had been under Greek seigneurs,
+whether in Europe or in Asia, and better than it was at the moment in feudal
+Christendom. The Osmanli military organization was reputed the best in the
+world, and its fame attracted adventurous spirits from all over Europe to learn
+war in the first school of the age. Ottoman armies, it is worth while to
+remember, were the only ones then attended by efficient medical and
+commissariat services, and may be said to have introduced to Europe these
+alleviations of the horrors of war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had the immediate successors of Mohammed been content&mdash;or, rather, had
+they been able&mdash;to remain within his boundaries, they would have robbed
+Ottoman history of one century of sinister brilliance, but might have postponed
+for many centuries the subsequent sordid decay; for the seeds of this were
+undoubtedly sown by the three great sultans who followed the taker of
+Constantinople. Their ambitions or their necessities led to a great increase of
+the professional army which would entail many evils in time to come. Among
+these were praetorianism in the capital and the great provincial towns;
+subjection of land and peasantry to military seigneurs, who gradually detached
+themselves from the central control; wars undertaken abroad for no better
+reason than the employment of soldiery feared at home; consequent expansion of
+the territorial empire beyond the administrative capacity of the central
+government; development of the &lsquo;tribute-children&rsquo; system of
+recruiting into a scourge of the <i>rayas</i> and a continual offence to
+neighbouring states, and the supplementing of that system by acceptance of any
+and every alien outlaw who might offer himself for service: lastly, revival of
+the dormant crusading spirit of Europe, which reacted on the Osmanlis,
+begetting in them an Arabian fanaticism and disposing them to revert to the
+obscurantist spirit of the earliest Moslems. To sum the matter up in other
+words: the omnipotence and indiscipline of the Janissaries; the contumacy of
+&lsquo;Dere Beys&rsquo; (&lsquo;Lords of the Valleys,&rsquo; who maintained a
+feudal independence) and of provincial governors; the concentration of the
+official mind on things military and religious, to the exclusion of other
+interests; the degradation and embitterment of the Christian elements in the
+empire; the perpetual financial embarrassment of the government with its
+inevitable consequence of oppression and neglect of the governed; and the
+constant provocation in Christendom of a hostility which was always latent and
+recurrently active&mdash; all these evils, which combined to push the empire
+nearer and nearer to ruin from the seventeenth century onwards, can be traced
+to the brilliant epoch of Osmanli history associated with the names of Bayezid
+II, Selim I, and Suleiman the Magnificent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time Fate, rather than any sultan, must be blamed. It was
+impossible to forgo some further extension of the empire, and very difficult to
+arrest extension at any satisfactory static point. For one thing, as has been
+pointed out already, there were important territories in the proper Byzantine
+sphere still unredeemed at the death of Mohammed. Rhodes, Krete, and Cyprus,
+whose possession carried with it something like superior control of the
+Levantine trade, were in Latin hands. Austrian as well as Venetian occupation
+of the best harbours was virtually closing the Adriatic to the masters of the
+Balkans. Nor could the inner lands of the Peninsula be quite securely held
+while the great fortress of Belgrade, with the passage of the Danube, remained
+in Hungarian keeping, Furthermore, 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 of Mohammed&rsquo;s successor, a
+cloud no bigger than a man&rsquo;s hand came up above its northern
+horizon&mdash;the harbinger of the Muscovite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the Asiatic part of the Byzantine sphere, there was only one little
+corner in the south-east to be rounded off to bring all the Anatolian peninsula
+under the Osmanli. But that corner, the Cilician plain, promised trouble, since
+it was held by another Islamic power, that of the Egyptian Mamelukes, which,
+claiming to be at least equal to the Osmanli, possessed vitality much below its
+pretensions. The temptation to poach on it was strong, and any lord of
+Constantinople who once gave way to this, would find himself led on to assume
+control of all coasts of the easternmost Levant, and then to push into inland
+Asia in quest of a scientific frontier at their back&mdash;perilous and costly
+enterprise which Rome had essayed again and again and had to renounce in the
+end. Bayezid II took the first step by summoning the Mameluke to evacuate
+certain forts near Tarsus, and expelling his garrisons <i>vi et armis</i>.
+Cilicia passed to the Osmanli; but for the moment he pushed no farther.
+Bayezid, who was under the obligation always to lead his army in person, could
+make but one campaign at a time; and a need in Europe was the more pressing. In
+quitting Cilicia, however, he left open a new question in Ottoman
+politics&mdash;the Asiatic continental question&mdash;and indicated to his
+successor a line of least resistance on which to advance. Nor would this be his
+only dangerous legacy. The prolonged and repeated raids into Adriatic lands, as
+far north as Carniola and Carinthia, with which the rest of Bayezid&rsquo;s
+reign was occupied, brought Ottoman militarism at last to a point, whose
+eventual attainment might have been foreseen any time in the past
+century&mdash; the point at which, strong in the possession of a new arm,
+artillery, it would assume control of the state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bayezid&rsquo;s seed was harvested by Selim. First in a long series of
+praetorian creatures which would end only with the destroyer of the praetorians
+themselves three centuries later, he owed his elevation to a Janissary revolt,
+and all the eight bloody years of his reign were to be punctuated by Janissary
+tumults. To keep his creators in any sort of order and contentment he had no
+choice but to make war from his first year to his last. When he died, in 1520,
+the Ottoman Empire had been swelled to almost as wide limits in Asia and Africa
+as it has ever attained since his day. Syria, Armenia, great part of Kurdistan,
+northern Mesopotamia, part of Arabia, and last, but not least, Egypt, were
+forced to acknowledge Osmanli suzerainty, and for the first time an Osmanli
+sultan had proclaimed himself caliph. True that neither by his birth nor by the
+manner of his appointment did Selim satisfy the orthodox caliphial tradition;
+but, besides his acquisition of certain venerated relics of the Prophet, such
+as the <i>Sanjak i-sherif</i> or holy standard, and besides a yet more
+important acquisition&mdash;the control of the holy cities of the faith&mdash;
+he could base a claim on the unquestioned fact that the office was vacant, and
+the equally certain fact that he was the most powerful Moslem prince in the
+world. Purists might deny him if they dared: the vulgar Sunni mind was
+impressed and disposed to accept. The main importance, however, of
+Selim&rsquo;s assumption of the caliphate was that it consecrated Osmanli
+militarism to a religious end&mdash;to the original programme of Islam. This
+was a new thing, fraught with dire possibilities from that day forward. It
+marked the supersession of the Byzantine or European ideal by the Asiatic in
+Osmanli policy, and introduced a phase of Ottoman history which has endured to
+our own time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inevitable process was continued in the next reign. Almost all the military
+glories of Suleiman&mdash;known to contemporary Europe as &lsquo;the
+Magnificent&rsquo; and often held by historians the greatest of Osmanli
+sultans&mdash; made for weakening, not strengthening, the empire. His earliest
+operations indeed, the captures of Rhodes from the Knights and of Belgrade and
+Šabac from the Hungarians, expressed a legitimate Byzantine policy; and the
+siege of Malta, one of his latest ventures, might also be defended as a measure
+taken in the true interests of Byzantine commerce. But the most brilliant and
+momentous of his achievements bred evils for which military prestige and the
+material profits to be gained from the oppression of an irreconcilable
+population were inadequate compensation. This was the conquest of Hungary. It
+would result in Buda and its kingdom remaining Ottoman territory for a century
+and a 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 the Balkan sphere; but also it would result in the Osmanli power
+finding itself on a weak frontier face to face at last with a really strong
+Christian race, the Germanic, before which, since it could not advance, it
+would have ultimately to withdraw; and in the rousing of Europe to a sense of
+its common danger from Moslem activity. Suleiman&rsquo;s failure to take Vienna
+more than made good the panic which had followed on his victory at Mohacs. It
+was felt that the Moslem, now that he had failed against the bulwark of central
+Europe, was to go no farther, and that the hour of revenge was near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Illustration: The Ottoman Empire (Except the Arabian and African provinces)]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was nearer than perhaps was expected. Ottoman capacity to administer the
+overgrown empire in Europe and Asia was strained already almost to
+breaking-point, and it was in recognition of this fact that Suleiman made the
+great effort to reorganize his imperial system, which has earned him his
+honourable title of <i>El Kanun</i>, the Regulator. But if he could reset and
+cleanse the wheels of the administrative machine, he could not increase its
+capacity. New blood was beginning to fail for the governing class just as the
+demands on it became greater. No longer could it be manned exclusively from the
+Christian born. Two centuries of recruiting in the Balkans and West Asia had
+sapped their resources. Even the Janissaries were not now all
+&lsquo;tribute-children&rsquo;. Their own sons, free men Moslem born, began to
+be admitted to the ranks. This change was a vital infringement of the old
+principle of Osmanli rule, that all the higher administrative and military
+functions should be vested in slaves of the imperial household, directly
+dependent on the sultan himself; and once breached, this principle could not
+but give way more and more. The descendants of imperial slaves, free-born
+Moslems, but barred from the glory and profits of their fathers&rsquo;
+function, had gradually become a very numerous class of country gentlemen
+distributed over all parts of the empire, and a very malcontent one. Though it
+was still subservient, its dissatisfaction at exclusion from the central
+administration was soon to show itself partly in assaults on the time-honoured
+system, partly in assumption of local jurisdiction, which would develop into
+provincial independence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The overgrowth of his empire further compelled Suleiman to divide the standing
+army, in order that more than one imperial force might take the field at a
+time. Unable to lead all his armies in person, he elected, in the latter part
+of his reign, to lead none, and for the first time left the Janissaries to
+march without a sultan to war. Remaining himself at the centre, he initiated a
+fashion which would encourage Osmanli sultans to lapse into half-hidden beings,
+whom their subjects would gradually invest with religious character. Under
+these conditions the ruler, the governing class (its power grew with this
+devolution), the dominant population of the state, and the state itself all
+grew more fanatically Moslem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the early years of the seventeenth century, Ahmed I being on the throne, the
+Ottoman Empire embraced the widest territorial area which it was ever to cover
+at any one moment. In what may be called the proper Byzantine field, Cyprus had
+been recovered and Krete alone stood out. Outside that field, Hungary on the
+north and Yemen (since Selim&rsquo;s conquest in 1516) on the south were the
+frontier provinces, 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
+III, which culminated in 1588 with the occupation of Tabriz and half
+Azerbaijan.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap35"></a>4<br/>
+<i>Shrinkage and Retreat</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The fringes of this vast empire, however, none too surely held, were already
+involving it in insoluble difficulties and imminent dangers. On the one hand,
+in Asia, it had been found impossible to establish military fiefs in Arabia,
+Kurdistan, or anywhere east of it, on the system which had secured the Osmanli
+tenure elsewhere. On the other hand, in Europe, as we have seen, the empire had
+a very unsatisfactory frontier, beyond which a strong people not only set
+limits to further progress but was prepared to dispute the ground already
+gained. In a treaty signed at Sitvatorok, in 1606, the Osmanli sultan was
+forced to acknowledge definitely the absolute and equal sovereignty of his
+northern neighbour, Austria; and although, less than a century later, Vienna
+would be attacked once more, there was never again to be serious prospect of an
+extension of the empire in the direction of central Europe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 seventeenth and eighteenth, is one long record of praetorian
+tumults at home; and ever more rarely will these be compensated by military
+successes abroad. The first of these centuries had not half elapsed ere the
+Janissaries had taken the lives of two sultans, and brought the Grand Vizierate
+to such a perilous pass that no ordinary holder of it, unless backed by some
+very powerful Albanian or other tribal influence, could hope to save his credit
+or even his life. During this period indeed no Osmanli of the older stocks ever
+exercised real control of affairs. It was only among the more recently
+assimilated elements, such as the Albanian, the Slavonic, or the Greek, that
+men of the requisite character and vigour could be found. The rally which
+marked the latter half of the seventeenth century was entirely the work of
+Albanians or of other generals and admirals, none of whom had had a Moslem
+grandfather. Marked by the last Osmanli conquest made at the expense of
+Europe&mdash;that of Krete; by the definite subjugation of Wallachia; by the
+second siege of Vienna; by the recovery of the Morea from Venice; and finally
+by an honourable arrangement with Austria about the Danube frontier&mdash;it is
+all to be credited to the Kuprili &lsquo;dynasty&rsquo; of Albanian viziers,
+which conspicuously outshone the contemporary sovereigns of the dynasty of
+Osman, the best of them, Mohammed IV, not excepted. It was, however, no more
+than a rally; for greater danger already threatened from another quarter.
+Agreement had not been reached with Austria at Carlowitz, in 1699, before a new
+and baleful planet swam into the Osmanli sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, this time, no central European power, to which, at the worst, all that
+lay north of the proper Byzantine sphere might be abandoned; but a claimant for
+part of that sphere itself, perhaps even for the very heart of it. Russia,
+seeking an economic outlet, had sapped her way south to the Euxine shore, and
+was on the point of challenging the Osmanli right to that sea. The contest
+would involve a vital issue; and if the Porte did not yet grasp this fact,
+others had grasped it. The famous &lsquo;Testament of Peter the Great&rsquo;
+may or may not be a genuine document; but, in either case, it proves that
+certain views about the necessary policy of Russia in the Byzantine area, which
+became commonplaces of western political thinkers as the eighteenth century
+advanced, were already familiar to east European minds in the earlier part of
+that century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Battle was not long in being joined. In the event, it would cost Russia about
+sixty years of strenuous effort to reduce the Byzantine power of the Osmanlis
+to a condition little better than that in which Osman had found the Byzantine
+power of the Greeks four centuries before. During the first two-thirds of this
+period the contest was waged not unequally. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739,
+Sultan Mahmud I appeared for a moment even to have gained the whole issue,
+Russia agreeing to her own exclusion from the Black Sea, and from interference
+in the Danubian principalities. But the success could not be sustained.
+Repeated effort was rapidly exhausting Osmanli strength, sapped as it was by
+increasing internal disease: and when a crisis arrived with the accession of
+the Empress Catherine, it proved too weak to meet it. During the ten years
+following 1764 Osmanli hold on the Black Sea was lost irretrievably. After the
+destruction of the fleet at Chesme the Crimea became untenable and was
+abandoned to the brief mercies of Russia: and with a veiled Russian
+protectorate established in the Danubian principalities, and an open Russian
+occupation in Morean ports, Constantinople had lost once more her own seas.
+When Selim III was set on a tottering throne, in 1787, the wheel of Byzantine
+destiny seemed to have come again almost full circle: and the world was
+expecting a Muscovite succession to that empire which had acknowledged already
+the Roman, the Greek, and the Osmanli.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Certainly history looked like repeating itself. As in the fourteenth century,
+so in the eighteenth, the imperial provinces, having shaken off almost all
+control of the capital, were administering themselves, and happier for doing
+so. Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Trebizond acknowledged adventurers as
+virtually independent lords. Asia Minor, in general, was being controlled, in
+like disregard of imperial majesty, by a group of &lsquo;Dere Beys&rsquo;,
+descended, in different districts, from tribal chieftains or privileged
+tax-farmers, or, often, from both. The latter part of the eighteenth century
+was the heyday of the Anatolian feudal families&mdash;of such as the
+Chapanoghlus of Yuzgad, whose sway stretched from Pontus to Cilicia, right
+across the base of the peninsula, or the Karamanoghlus of Magnesia, Bergama,
+and Aidin, who ruled as much territory as the former emirs of Karasi and
+Sarukhan, and were recognized by the representatives of the great trading
+companies as wielding the only effective authority in Smyrna. The wide and rich
+regions controlled by such families usually contributed neither an <i>asper</i>
+to the sultan&rsquo;s treasury nor a man to the imperial armies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On no mountain of either Europe or Asia&mdash;and mountains formed a large part
+of the Ottoman empire in both&mdash;did the imperial writ run. Macedonia and
+Albania were obedient only to their local beys, and so far had gone the
+devolution of Serbia and Bosnia to Janissary aghas, feudal beys, and the
+Beylerbey of Rumili, that these provinces hardly concerned themselves more with
+the capital. The late sultan, Mustapha III, had lost almost the last remnant of
+his subjects&rsquo; respect, not so much by the ill success of his mutinous
+armies as by his depreciation of the imperial coinage. He had died bankrupt of
+prestige, leaving no visible assets to his successor. What might become of the
+latter no one in the empire appeared to care. As in 1453, it waited other
+lords.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap36"></a>5<br/>
+<i>Revival</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+It has been waiting, nevertheless, ever since&mdash;waiting for much more than
+a century; and perhaps the end is not even yet. Why, then, have expectations
+not only within but without the empire been so greatly at fault? How came
+Montesquieu, Burke, and other confident prophets since their time to be so
+signally mistaken? There were several co-operating causes, but one paramount.
+Constantinople was no longer, as in 1453, a matter of concern only to itself,
+its immediate neighbours, and certain trading republics of Italy. It had become
+involved with the commercial interests of a far wider circle, in particular of
+the great trading peoples of western Europe, the British, the French, and the
+Dutch, and with the political interests of the Germanic and Russian nations.
+None of these could be indifferent to a revolution in its fortunes, and least
+of all to its 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 at Vienna till early in the century to
+come: but even before the end of the eighteenth century it could be foreseen
+that its life would be bound up with the maintenance of Constantinople in
+independence of any one of the parent powers&mdash;that is, with the
+prolongation of the Osmanli phase of its imperial fortunes. This doctrine,
+consistently acted upon by Europe, has been the sheet anchor of the Ottoman
+empire for a century. Even to this day its Moslem dynasty has never been
+without one powerful Christian champion or another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were, however, some thirty years still to elapse after Selim&rsquo;s
+accession before that doctrine was fully born: and had her hands been free,
+Russia might well have been in secure possession of the Byzantine throne long
+before 1815. For, internally, the Osmanli state went from bad to worse. The
+tumultuous insubordination of the Janissaries became an ever greater scandal.
+Never in all the long history of their riots was their record for the years
+1807-9 equalled or even approached. Never before, also, had the provinces been
+so utterly out of hand. This was the era of Jezzar the Butcher at Acre, of the
+rise of Mehemet Ali in Egypt, of Ali Pasha in Epirus, and of Pasvanoghlu at
+Vidin. When Mahmud II was thrust on to the throne in 1809, he certainly began
+his reign with no more personal authority and no more imperial prestige or
+jurisdiction than the last Greek emperor had enjoyed on his accession in 1448.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great 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 give substance. Whatever the Osmanlis suffered during that war,
+it undoubtedly kept them in Constantinople. Temporary loss of Egypt and the
+small damage done by the British attack on Constantinople in 1807 were a small
+price to pay for the diversion of Russia&rsquo;s main energies to other than
+Byzantine fields, and for the assurance, made doubly sure when the great enemy
+did again attack, that she would not be allowed to settle the account alone.
+Whatever Napoleon may have planned and signed at Tilsit, the aegis of France
+was consistently opposed to the enemies of the Osmanlis down to the close of
+the Napoleonic age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus it came about that those thirty perilous years passed without the expected
+catastrophe. There was still a successor of Osman reigning in Constantinople
+when the great Christian powers, met in conclave at Vienna, half unconsciously
+guaranteed the continued existence of the Osmanli Empire simply by leaving it
+out of account in striking a Balance of Power in Europe. Its European
+territory, with the capital within it, was of quite enough importance to
+disturb seriously the nice adjustment agreed at Vienna; and, therefore, while
+any one&rsquo;s henceforth to take or leave, it would become always some
+one&rsquo;s to guard. A few years had yet to pass before the phrase, the
+Maintenance of the Integrity of the Ottoman Empire, would be a watchword of
+European diplomacy: but, whether formulated thus or not, that principle became
+a sure rock of defence for the Osmanli Empire on the birthday of the doctrine
+of the Balance of Power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Secure from destruction by any foes but those of his own household, as none
+knew better than he, the reigning Osmanli was scheming to regain the
+independence and dignity of his forefathers. Himself a creature of the
+Janissaries, Mahmud had plotted the abolition of his creators from the first
+year of his reign, but making a too precipitate effort after the conclusion of
+peace with Russia, had ignominiously failed and fallen into worse bondage than
+ever. Now, better assured of his imperial position and supported by leading men
+of all classes among his subjects, he returned not only to his original
+enterprise but to schemes for removing other checks on the power of the
+sovereign which had come into being in the last two centuries&mdash;notably the
+feudal independence of the Dere Beys, and the irresponsibility of provincial
+governors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Probably Mahmud II&mdash;if he is to be credited with personal initiation of
+the reforms always associated with his name&mdash;was not conscious of any
+purpose more revolutionary than that of becoming master in his own house, as
+his ancestors had been. What he ultimately accomplished, however, was something
+of much greater and more lasting moment to the Osmanli state. It was nothing
+less than the elimination of the most Byzantine features in its constitution
+and government. The substitution of national forces for mercenary praetorians:
+the substitution of direct imperial government of the provinces for devolution
+to seigneurs, tribal chiefs, and irresponsible officers: the substitution of
+direct collection for tax-farming: and the substitution of administration by
+bureaucrats for administration by household officers&mdash;these, the chief
+reforms carried through under Mahmud, were all anti-Byzantine. They did not
+cause the Osmanli state to be born anew, but, at least, they went far to purge
+it of original sin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That Mahmud and his advisers could carry through such reforms at all in so old
+a body politic is remarkable: that they carried them through amid the events of
+his reign is almost miraculous. One affront after another was put on the
+Sultan, one blow after another was struck at his empire. Inspired by echoes of
+the French Revolution and by Napoleon&rsquo;s recognition of the rights of
+nationalities, first the Serbs and then the Greeks seized moments of Ottoman
+disorder to rise in revolt against their local lords. The first, who had risen
+under Selim III, achieved, under Mahmud, autonomy, but not independence,
+nothing remaining to the sultan as before except the fortress of Belgrade with
+five other strongholds. 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 passed out of the empire, the first provinces so to pass since the
+Osmanli loss of Hungary. Yet it was in the middle of that fatal struggle that
+Mahmud settled for ever with the Janissaries, and during all its course he was
+settling one after another with the Dere Beys!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had thus sacrificed the flower of his professional troops and had
+hardly had time to replace the local governments of the provinces by anything
+much better than general anarchy, he found himself faced by a Russian assault.
+His raw levies fought as no other raw levies than the Turkish can, and, helped
+by manifestations of jealousy by the other powers, staved off the capture of
+Constantinople, which, at one moment, seemed about to take place at last. But
+he had to accept humiliating terms, amounting virtually, to a cession of the
+Black Sea. Mahmud recognized that such a price he must pay for crossing the
+broad stream between Byzantinism and Nationalism, and kept on his way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally came a blow at the hands of one of his own household and creed. Mehemet
+Ali of Egypt, who had faithfully fought his sovereign&rsquo;s battles in Arabia
+and the Morea, 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 than he had intended&mdash;more than half-way across Asia
+Minor&mdash;after the imperial armies had suffered three signal defeats, before
+he extorted what he had desired at first: and in the end, after very brief
+enjoyment, he had to resign all again to the mandate, not of his sovereign, but
+of certain European powers who commanded his seas. Mahmud, however, who lived
+neither to see himself saved by the <i>giaur</i> fleets, nor even to hear of
+his latest defeat, had gone forward with the reorganization of the central and
+provincial administration, undismayed by Mehemet Ali&rsquo;s contumacy or the
+insistence of Russia at the gate of the Bosphorus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As news arrived from time to time in the west of Mahmud&rsquo;s disasters, it
+was customary to prophesy the imminent dissolution of his empire. We, however,
+looking backward now, can see that by its losses the Osmanli state in reality
+grew stronger. Each of its humiliations pledged some power or group of powers
+more deeply to support it: and before Mahmud died, he had reason to believe
+that, so long as the European Concert should ensue the Balance of Power, his
+dynasty would not be expelled from Constantinople. His belief has been
+justified. At every fresh crisis of Ottoman fortunes, and especially after
+every fresh Russian attack, foreign protection has unfailingly been extended to
+his successors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not, however, only in virtue of the increasing solicitude of the powers
+on its behalf that during the nineteenth century the empire was growing and
+would grow stronger, but also in virtue of certain assets within itself. First
+among these ranked the resources of its Asiatic territories, which, as the
+European lands diminished, became more and more nearly identified with the
+empire. When, having got rid of the old army, Mahmud imposed service on all his
+Moslem subjects, in theory, but in effect only on the Osmanlis (not the Arabs,
+Kurds, or other half assimilated nomads and hillmen), it meant more than a
+similar measure would have meant in a Christian empire. For, the life of Islam
+being war, military service binds Moslems together and to their chiefs as it
+binds men under no other dispensation; therefore Mahmud, so far as he was able
+to enforce 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, it was attained 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 of a drastic
+order had to precede construction, and more of Mahmud&rsquo;s reign had to be
+devoted to the former than remained for the latter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did, however, live to see not only the germ of a nation emerge from chaos,
+but also the framework of an organization for governing it well or ill. The
+centralized bureaucracy which he succeeded in initiating was, of course,
+wretchedly imperfect both in constitution and equipment. But it promised to
+promote the end he had in view and no other, inasmuch as, being the only
+existent machine of government, it derived any effective power it had from
+himself alone. Dependent on Stambul, it served to turn thither the eyes and
+prayers of the provincials. The naturally submissive and peaceful population of
+Asia Minor quickly accustomed itself to look beyond the dismantled strongholds
+of its fallen beys. As for the rest&mdash; contumacious and bellicose beys and
+sheikhs of Kurdish hills and Syrian steppes&mdash;their hour of surrender was
+yet to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The eventual product of Mahmud&rsquo;s persistency was the &lsquo;Turkey&rsquo;
+we have seen in our own time&mdash;that Turkey irretrievably Asiatic in spirit
+under a semi-European system of administration, which has governed despotically
+in the interests of one creed and one class, with slipshod, makeshift methods,
+but has always governed, and little by little has extended its range. Knowing
+its imperfections and its weakness, we have watched with amazement its hand
+feeling forward none the less towards one remote frontier district after
+another, painfully but surely getting its grip, and at last closing on Turcoman
+chiefs and Kurdish beys, first in the Anatolian and Cilician hills, then in the
+mountains of Armenia, finally in the wildest Alps of the Persian borderland. We
+have marked its stealthy movement into the steppes and deserts of Syria,
+Mesopotamia, and Arabia&mdash; now drawn back, now pushed farther till it has
+reached and held regions over which Mahmud could claim nothing but a suzerainty
+in name. To judge how far the shrinkage of the Osmanli European empire has been
+compensated by expansion of its Asiatic, one has only to compare the political
+state of Kurdistan, as it was at the end of the eighteenth century, and as it
+has been in our own time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is impossible to believe that the Greek Empire, however buttressed and
+protected by foreign powers, could ever have reconstituted itself after falling
+so low as it fell in the fourteenth century and as the Osmanli Empire fell in
+the eighteenth; and it is clear that the latter must still have possessed
+latent springs of vitality, deficient in the former. What can these have been?
+It is worth while to try to answer this question at the present juncture, since
+those springs, if they existed a hundred years ago, can hardly now be dry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the first place it had its predominant creed. This had acted as Islam acts
+everywhere, as a very strong social bond, uniting the vast majority of subjects
+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 with special efficacy in Asia Minor, whose
+inhabitants the Osmanli emperors, unlike the Greek, had always been at some
+pains to attach to themselves. The sultan, therefore, could still count on
+general support from the population of his empire&rsquo;s heart, and had at his
+disposal the resources of a country which no administration, however
+improvident or malign, has ever been able to exhaust.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the second place the Osmanli &lsquo;Turks&rsquo;, however fallen away from
+the virtues of their ancestors, had not lost either &lsquo;the will to
+power&rsquo; or their capacity for governing under military law. If they had
+never succeeded in learning to rule as civilians they had not forgotten how to
+rule as soldiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the third place the sultanate of Stambul had retained a vague but valuable
+prestige, based partly on past history, partly on its pretension to religious
+influence throughout a much larger area than its proper dominions; and the
+conservative population of the latter was in great measure very imperfectly
+informed of its sovereign&rsquo;s actual position.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the fourth and last place, among the populations on whose loyalty the
+Osmanli sultan could make good his claim, were several strong unexhausted
+elements, especially in Anatolia. There are few more vigorous and enduring
+peoples than the peasants of the central plateau of Asia Minor, 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, less firmly attached to himself,
+but not less vigorous, such, for example, as the Albanians of his European
+mountains and the Kurds of his Asiatic. However decadent might be the
+Turco-Grecian Osmanli (he, unfortunately, had the lion&rsquo;s share of
+office), those other elements had suffered no decline in physical or mental
+development. Indeed, one cannot be among them now without feeling that their
+day is not only not gone, but is still, for the most part, yet to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such were latent assets of the Osmanli Empire, appreciated imperfectly by the
+prophets of its dissolution. Thanks to them, that empire continued not only to
+hold together throughout the nineteenth century but, in some measure, to
+consolidate itself. Even when the protective fence, set up by European powers
+about it, was violated, as by Russia several times&mdash;in 1829, in 1854, and
+in 1877&mdash;the nation, which Mahmud had made, always proved capable of stout
+enough resistance to delay the enemy till European diplomacy, however slow of
+movement, could come to its aid, and ultimately to dispose the victor to accept
+terms consistent with its continued existence. It was an existence, of course,
+of sufferance, but one which grew better assured the longer it lasted. By an
+irony of the Osmanli position, the worse the empire was administered, the
+stronger became its international guarantee. No better example can be cited
+than the effect of its financial follies. When national bankruptcy, long
+contemplated by its Government, supervened at last, the sultan had nothing more
+to fear from Europe. He became, <i>ipso facto</i>, the cherished protégé of
+every power whose nationals had lent his country money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Considering the magnitude of the change which Mahmud instituted, the stage at
+which he left it, and the character of the society in which it had to be
+carried out, it was unfortunate that he should have been followed on the throne
+by two well-meaning weaklings, of whom the first was a voluptuary, the second a
+fantastic spendthrift of doubtful sanity. Mahmud, as has been said, being
+occupied for the greater part of his reign in destroying the old order, had
+been able to reconstruct little more than a framework. His operations had been
+almost entirely forcible&mdash;of a kind understood by and congenial to the
+Osmanli character&mdash;and partly by circumstances but more by his natural
+sympathies, he had been identified from first to last with military
+enterprises. Though he was known to contemplate the eventual supremacy of civil
+law, and the equality of all sorts and conditions of his subjects before it, he
+did nothing to open this vista to public view. Consequently he encountered
+little or no factious opposition. Very few held briefs for either the
+Janissaries or the Dere Beys; and fewer regretted them when they were gone.
+Osmanli society identified itself with the new army and accepted the consequent
+reform of the central or provincial administration. Nothing in these changes
+seemed to affect Islam or the privileged position of Moslems in the empire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was quite another matter when Abdul Mejid, in the beginning of his reign,
+promulgated an imperial decree&mdash;the famous Tanzimat or Hatti Sherif of
+Gulkhaneh&mdash;which, amid many excellent and popular provisions for the
+continued reform of the administration, proclaimed the equality of Christian
+and Moslem subjects in service, in reward, and before the law. The new sultan,
+essentially a civilian and a man of easy-going temperament, had been induced to
+believe that the end of an evolution, which had only just begun, could be
+anticipated <i>per saltum</i>, and that he and all his subjects would live
+happily together ever after. His counsellors had been partly politicians, who
+for various reasons, good and bad, wished to gain West European sympathy for
+their country, involved in potential bondage to Russia since the Treaty of
+Unkiar Skelessi (1833), and recently afflicted by Ibrahim Pasha&rsquo;s victory
+at Nizib; and they looked to Great Britain to get them out of the Syrian mess.
+Partly also Abdul Mejid had been influenced by enthusiasts, who set more store
+by ideas or the phrases in which they were expressed, than by the evidence of
+facts. There were then, as since, &lsquo;young men in a hurry&rsquo; among the
+more Europeanized Osmanlis. The net result of the sultan&rsquo;s precipitancy
+was to set against himself and his policy all who wished that such it
+consummation of the reform process might never come and all who knew it would
+never come, if snatched at thus&mdash;that is, both the &lsquo;Old Turks&rsquo;
+and the moderate Liberals; and, further, to change for the worse the spirit in
+which the new machine of government was being worked and in which fresh
+developments of it would be accepted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To his credit, however, Abdul Mejid went on with administrative reform. The
+organization of the army into corps&mdash;the foundation of the existing
+system&mdash;and the imposition of five years&rsquo; service on all subjects of
+the empire (in theory which an Albanian rising caused to be imperfectly
+realized in fact), belong to the early part of his reign; as do also, on the
+civil side, the institution of responsible councils of state and formation of
+ministries, and much provision for secondary education. To his latest years is
+to be credited the codification of the civil law. He had the advantage of some
+dozen initial years of comparative security from external foes, after the
+Syrian question had been settled in his favour by Great Britain and her allied
+powers at the cheap price of a guarantee of hereditary succession to the house
+of Mehemet Ali. Thanks to the same support, war with Persia was avoided and war
+with Russia postponed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the provinces, even if quiet (which some of them, e.g. the Lebanon in the
+early &lsquo;forties&rsquo;, were not), proved far from content. If the form of
+Osmanli government had changed greatly, its spirit had changed little, and
+defective communications militated against the responsibility of officials to
+the centre. Money was scarce, and the paper currency&mdash;an ill-omened device
+of Mahmud&rsquo;s&mdash;was depreciated, distrusted, and regarded as an
+imperial betrayal of confidence. Finally, the hostility of Russia, notoriously
+unabated, and the encouragement of aspiring <i>rayas</i> credited to her and
+other foreign powers made bad blood between creeds and encouraged opposition to
+the execution of the pro-Christian Tanzimat. When Christian turbulence at last
+brought on, in 1854, the Russian attack which developed into the Crimean War,
+and Christian allies, though they frustrated that attack, made a peace by which
+the Osmanlis gained nothing, the latter were in no mood to welcome the
+repetition of the Tanzimat, which Abdul Mejid consented to embody in the Treaty
+of Paris. The reign closed amid turbulence and humiliations&mdash;massacre and
+bombardment at Jidda, massacre and Franco-British coercion in Syria&mdash;from
+all of which the sultan took refuge with women and wine, to meet in 1861 a
+drunkard&rsquo;s end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His successor, Abdul Aziz, had much the same intentions, the same civilian
+sympathies, the same policy of Europeanization, and a different, but more
+fatal, weakness of character. He was, perhaps, never wholly sane; but his
+aberration, at first attested only by an exalted conviction of his divine
+character and inability to do wrong, excited little attention until it began to
+issue in fantastic expenditure. By an irony of history, he is the one Osmanli
+sultan upon the roll of our Order of the Garter, the right to place a banner in
+St, George&rsquo;s Chapel having been offered to this Allah-possessed caliph on
+the occasion of his visit to the West in 1867.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Despite the good intentions of Abdul Aziz himself&mdash;as sincere as can be
+credited to a disordered brain&mdash;-and despite more than one minister of
+outstanding ability, reform and almost everything else in the empire went to
+the bad in this unhappy reign. The administration settled down to lifeless
+routine and lapsed into corruption: the national army was starved: the
+depreciation of the currency grew worse as the revenue declined and the
+sultan&rsquo;s household and personal extravagance increased. Encouraged by the
+inertia of the imperial Government, the Christians of the European provinces
+waxed bold. Though Montenegro was severely handled for contumacy, the Serbs
+were able to cover their penultimate stage towards freedom by forcing in 1867
+the withdrawal of the last Ottoman garrisons from their fortresses. Krete stood
+at bay for three years and all but 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 as a
+nationality in the Ottoman Empire, her Church being detached from the control
+of the Oecumenical Patriarch of the Greeks and placed under an Exarch.
+Presently, her peasantry growing ever more restive, passed from protest to
+revolt against the Circassian refugee-colonists with whom the Porte was
+flooding the land. The sultan, in an evil hour, for lack of trained troops, let
+loose irregulars on the villages, and the Bulgarian atrocities, which they
+committed in 1875, sowed a fatal harvest for his successor to reap. His own
+time was almost fulfilled. The following spring a dozen high officials, with
+the assent of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the active dissent of no one, took Abdul
+Aziz from his throne to a prison, wherein two days later he perished, probably
+by his own hand. A puppet reigned three months as Murad V, and then, at the
+bidding of the same king-makers whom his uncle had obeyed, left the throne free
+for his brother Abdul Hamid, a man of affairs and ability, who was to be the
+most conspicuous, or rather, the most notorious Osmanli sultan since Suleiman.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap37"></a>6<br/>
+<i>Relapse</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The new sultan, who had not expected his throne, found his realm in perilous
+case. Nominally sovereign and a member of the Concert of Europe, he was in
+reality a semi-neutralized dependant, existing, as an undischarged bankrupt, on
+sufferance of the powers. Should the Concert be dissolved, or even divided, and
+any one of its members be left free to foreclose its Ottoman mortgages, the
+empire would be at an end. Internally it was in many parts in open revolt, in
+all the rest stagnant and slowly rotting. The thrice-foiled claimant to its
+succession, who six years before had denounced the Black Sea clause of the
+Treaty of Paris and so freed its hands for offence, was manifestly preparing a
+fresh assault. Something drastic must be done; but what?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This danger of the empire&rsquo;s international situation, and also the
+disgrace of it, had been evident for some time past to those who had any just
+appreciation of affairs; and in the educated class, at any rate, something like
+a public opinion, very apprehensive and very much ashamed, had struggled into
+being. The discovery of a leader in Midhat Pasha, former governor-general of
+Bagdad, and a king-maker of recent notoriety, induced the party of this opinion
+to take precipitate action. Murad had been deposed in August. Before the year
+was out Midhat presented himself before Abdul Hamid with a formal demand for
+the promulgation of a Constitution, proposing not only to put into execution
+the pious hopes of the two Hatti Sherifs of Abdul Mejid but also to limit the
+sovereign and govern the empire by representative institutions. The new sultan,
+hardly settled on his uneasy throne, could not deny those who had deposed his
+two predecessors, and, shrewdly aware that ripe facts would not be long in
+getting the better of immature ideas, accepted. A parliament was summoned; an
+electorate, with only the haziest notions of what it was about, went through
+the form of sending representatives to Constantinople; and the sittings were
+inaugurated by a speech from the throne, framed on the most approved Britannic
+model, the deputies, it is said, jostling and crowding the while to sit, as
+many as possible, on the right, which they understood was always the side of
+powers that be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is true this extemporized chamber never had a chance. The Russians crossed
+the Pruth before it had done much more than verify its powers, and the thoughts
+and energies of the Osmanlis were soon occupied with the most severe and
+disastrous struggle in which the empire had ever engaged. But it is equally
+certain that it could not have turned to account any chance it might have had.
+Once more the &lsquo;young men in a hurry&rsquo; had snatched at the end of an
+evolution hardly begun, without taking into account the immaturity of Osmanli
+society in political education and political capacity. After suspension during
+the 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 that the next reformers would inevitably have a more convinced
+public opinion behind them, and he had virtually destroyed the power of
+Mahmud&rsquo;s bureaucracy. If the only immediate effect was the substitution
+of an unlimited autocracy, the Osmanli peoples would be able thenceforward to
+ascribe their misfortunes to a single person, meditate attack, on a single
+position, and dream of realizing some day an ideal which had been definitely
+formulated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Russian onslaught, which began in both Europe and Asia 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, joined the invader. In campaigns lasting a little
+less than a 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 by rival powers, both before the peace and
+in the revision of it at Berlin, gave fresh assurance that the end would not be
+suffered to come yet; and, moreover, through the long series of disasters, much
+latent strength of the empire and its peoples had been revealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When that empire had emerged, shorn of several provinces&mdash;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&mdash;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 empire must be made, not more European, but more Asiatic. In
+the development of Islamic spirit to pan-Islamic unity it would find new
+strength; and towards this end in the early eighties, while he was yet
+comparatively young, with intelligence unclouded and courage sufficient, Abdul
+Hamid patiently set himself. In Asia, naturally sympathetic to autocracy, and
+the home of the faith of his fathers, he set on foot a pan-Islamic propaganda.
+He exalted his caliphate; he wooed the Arabs, and he plotted with extraneous
+Moslems against whatever foreign government they might have to endure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It cannot be denied that this idea was based on the logic of facts, and, if it
+could be realized, promised better than Midhat&rsquo;s for escape from shameful
+dependence. Indeed, Abdul Hamid, an autocrat bent on remaining one, could
+hardly have acted upon any other. By far the greater part of the territorial
+empire remaining to him lay in Asia. The little left in Europe would obviously
+soon be reduced to less. The Balkan lands were waking, or already awake, to a
+sense of separate nationality, and what chance did the Osmanli element, less
+progressive than any, stand in them? The acceptance of the Ottoman power into
+the Concert of Europe, though formally notified to Abdul Mejid, had proved an
+empty thing. In that galley there was no place for a sultan except as a
+dependent or a slave. As an Asiatic power, however, exerting temporal sway over
+some eighteen million bodies and religious influence over many times more
+souls, the Osmanli caliph might command a place in the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result belied these hopes. Abdul Hamid&rsquo;s failure was owed in the main
+to facts independent of his personality or statecraft. The expansion of Islam
+over an immense geographical area and among peoples living in incompatible
+stages of sophistication, under most diverse political and social conditions,
+has probably made any universal caliphial authority for ever impossible. The
+original idea of the caliphate, like that of the <i>jehad</i> or holy war of
+the faithful, presupposed that all Moslems were under governments of their own
+creed, and, perhaps, under one government. Moreover, if such a caliph were ever
+to be again, an Osmanli sultan would not be a strong candidate. Apart from the
+disqualification of his blood, he being not of the Prophet&rsquo;s tribe nor
+even an Arab, he is lord of a state irretrievably compromised in purist eyes
+(as Wahabis and Senussis have testified once and again) by its Byzantine
+heritage of necessary relations with infidels. Abdul Hamid&rsquo;s predecessors
+for two centuries or more had been at no pains to infuse reality into their
+nominal leadership of the faithful. To call a real caliphate out of so long
+abeyance could hardly have been effected even by a bold soldier, who appealed
+to the general imagination of Moslems; and certainly was beyond the power of a
+timid civilian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Abdul Hamid had played this card and failed, he had no other; and his
+natural pusillanimity and shiftiness induced him to withdraw ever more into the
+depths of his palace, and there use his intelligence in exploiting this
+shameful dependence of his country on foreign powers. Unable or unwilling to
+encourage national resistance, he consoled himself, as a weak malcontent will,
+by setting one power against another, pin-pricking the stronger and blustering
+to the weaker. The history of his reign is a long record of protests and
+surrenders to the great in big matters, as to Great Britain in the matter of
+Egypt in 1881, to Russia in that of Eastern Rumelia in 1885, to France on the
+question of the Constantinople quays and other claims, and to all the powers in
+1881 in the matter of the financial control. Between times he put in such
+pin-pricks as he could, removing his neighbours&rsquo; landmarks in the Aden
+<i>hinterland</i> or the Sinaitic peninsula. He succeeded, however, in keeping
+his empire out of a foreign war with any power for about thirty years, with the
+single exception of a brief conflict with Greece in 1897. While in the first
+half of his reign he was at pains to make no European friend, in the latter he
+fell more and more under the influence of Germany, which, almost from the
+accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II, began to prepare a southward way for future
+use, and alone of the powers, never browbeat the sultan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Internally, the empire passed more and more under the government of the
+imperial household. Defeated by the sheer geographical difficulty of
+controlling directly an area so vast and inadequately equipped with means of
+communication, Abdul Hamid soon relaxed the spasmodic efforts of his early
+years to better the condition of his subjects; and, uncontrolled and
+demoralized by the national disgrace, the administration went from bad to much
+worse. Ministers irresponsible; officials without sense of public obligation;
+venality in all ranks; universal suspicion and delation; violent remedies, such
+as the Armenian massacres of 1894, for diseases due to neglect; the peasantry,
+whether Moslem or Christian, but especially Christian, forced ultimately to
+liquidate all accounts; impoverishment of the whole empire by the improvidence
+and oppression of the central power&mdash; such phrasing of the conventional
+results of &lsquo;Palace&rsquo; government expresses inadequately the fruits of
+Yildiz under Abdul Hamid II.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Pari passu</i> with this disorder of central and provincial administration
+increased the foreign encroachments on the empire. The nation saw not only
+rapid multiplication of concessions and hypothecations to aliens, and of alien
+persons themselves installed in its midst under extra-territorial immunity from
+its laws, secured by the capitulations, but also whole provinces sequestered,
+administered independently of the sultan&rsquo;s government, and prepared for
+eventual alienation. Egypt, Tunisia, Eastern Rumelia, Krete&mdash;these had all
+been withdrawn from Ottoman control since the Berlin settlement, and now
+Macedonia seemed to be going the same way. Bitter to swallow as the other
+losses had been&mdash;pills thinly sugared with a guarantee of
+suzerainty&mdash;the loss of Macedonia would be more bitter still; for, if it
+were withdrawn from Ottoman use and profit, Albania would follow and so would
+the command of the north Aegean and the Adriatic shores; while an ancient
+Moslem population would remain at Christian mercy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was partly Ottoman fault, partly the fault of circumstances beyond Ottoman
+control, that this district had become a scandal and a reproach. In the days of
+Osmanli greatness 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, it had
+already become a cockpit for the new-born Christian nationalities, which had
+been developed on the north, east, and south. These were using every weapon,
+material and spiritual, to secure preponderance in its society, and had created
+chronic disorder which the Ottoman administration now weakly encouraged to save
+itself trouble, now violently dragooned. Already the powers had not only
+proposed autonomy for it, but begun to control its police and its finance. This
+was the last straw. The public opinion which had slowly been forming for thirty
+years gained the army, and Midhat&rsquo;s seed came to fruit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By an irony of fate Macedonia not only supplied the spectacle which exasperated
+the army to revolt, but by its very disorder made the preparation of that
+revolt possible; for it was due to local limitations of Ottoman sovereignty
+that the chief promoters of revolution were able to conspire in safety. By
+another irony, two of the few progressive measures ever encouraged by Abdul
+Hamid contributed to his undoing. If he had not sent young officers to be
+trained abroad, 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, as he began to do after 1897, the Salonika army could
+have had no such influence on affairs in Constantinople as it exerted in 1908
+and again in 1909. As it was, the sultan, at a mandate from Resna in Macedonia,
+re-enacted Midhat&rsquo;s Constitution, and, a year later, saw an army from
+Salonika arrive to uphold that Constitution against the reaction he had
+fostered, and to send him, dethroned and captive, to the place whence itself
+had come.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap38"></a>7<br/>
+<i>Revolution</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+Looking back on this revolution across seven years of its consequences, we see
+plainly enough that it was inspired far less by desire for humane progress than
+by shame of Osmanli military decline. The &lsquo;Liberty, Equality,
+Fraternity&rsquo; programme which its authors put forward (a civilian minority
+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
+eventually guide its course. The essence of that movement was militant
+nationalism. The empire was to be regenerated, not by humanizing it but by
+Ottomanizing it. 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 not so
+wish must be eliminated by the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The revolutionary Committee in Salonika, called &lsquo;of Union and
+Progress&rsquo;, held up its cards at first, but by 1910 events had forced its
+hand on the table. The definite annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by
+Austria-Hungary in 1908, and the declaration of independence and assumption of
+the title Tsar by the ruler of Bulgaria, since they were the price to be paid
+by the revolutionaries for a success largely made in Germany, were opposed
+officially only <i>pro forma</i>; but when uninformed opinion in the empire was
+exasperated thereby against Christendom, the Committee, to appease
+reactionaries, had to give premature proof of pan-Osmanli and pro-Moslem
+intentions by taking drastic action against <i>rayas</i>. The Greeks of the
+empire, never without suspicions, had failed to testify the same enthusiasm for
+Ottoman fraternity which others, e.g. the Armenians, had shown; now they
+resumed their separatist attitude, and made it clear that they still aspired,
+not to Ottoman, but to Hellenic nationality. Nor were even the Moslems of the
+empire unanimous for fraternity among themselves. The Arab-speaking societies
+complained of under-representation in the councils and offices of the state,
+and made no secret of their intention not to be assimilated by the
+Turk-speaking Osmanlis. To all suggestions, however, of local home-rule and
+conciliation of particularist societies in the empire, the Committee was deaf.
+Without union, it believed in no progress, and by union it understood the
+assimilation of all societies in the empire to the Osmanli.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Logic was on the side of the Committee in its choice of both end and means. In
+pan-Ottomanism, if it could be effected, lay certainly the single chance of
+restoring Osmanli independence and power to anything like the position they had
+once held. In rule by a militarist oligarchy for some generations to come, lay
+the one hope of realizing the pan-Ottoman idea and educating the resultant
+nation to self-government. That end, however, it was impossible to realize
+under the circumstances in which past history had involved the Ottoman Empire.
+There was too much bad blood between different elements of its society which
+Osmanli rulers had been labouring for centuries rather to keep apart than to
+unite; and certain important elements, both Moslem and Christian, had already
+developed too mature ideas of separate nationality. With all its defects,
+however, the new order did undoubtedly rest on a wider basis than the old, and
+its organization was better conceived and executed. It retained some of the
+sympathy of Europe which its beginnings had excited, and the western powers,
+regarding its representative institutions as earnests of good government,
+however ill they might work at the first, were disposed to give it every
+chance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unfortunately the Young Turks were in a hurry to bring on their millennium, and
+careless of certain neighbouring powers, not formidable individually but to be
+reckoned with if united, to whom the prospect of regenerated Osmanlis
+assimilating their nationals could not be welcome. Had the Young Turks been
+content to put their policy of Ottomanization in the background for awhile, had
+they made no more than a show of accepting local distinctions of creed and
+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 resist, should that union eventually be arrayed against themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a considerable and energetic element among them belonged to the nervous
+Levantine type of Osmanli, which is as little minded to compromise as any Old
+Turk, though from a different motive. It elected to deal drastically and at
+once with Macedonia, the peculiar object 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. It did not get it. The interested
+neighbours, each beset by fugitives of its oppressed nationals, protested only
+to be ignored or browbeaten. They drew towards one another; old feuds and
+jealousies were put on one side; and at last, in the summer of 1912, a Holy
+League of Balkan States, inspired by Venezelos, the new Kretan Prime Minister
+of Greece, and by Ferdinand of Bulgaria, was formed with a view to common
+action against the oppressor of Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian nationals in
+Macedonia. Montenegro, always spoiling for a fight, was deputed to fire the
+train, and at the approach of autumn the first Balkan war blazed up.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap39"></a>8<br/>
+<i>Balkan War</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+The course of the struggle is described elsewhere in this volume. Its event
+illustrates the danger of an alliance succeeding beyond the expectations in
+which it was formed. The constituent powers had looked for a stiff struggle
+with the Ottoman armies, but for final success sufficient to enable them, at
+the best, to divide Macedonia among themselves, at the worst, to secure its
+autonomy under international guarantee. Neither they nor any one else expected
+such an Ottoman collapse as was in store. Their moment of attack was better
+chosen than they knew. The Osmanli War Office was caught fairly in the middle
+of the stream. Fighting during the revolution, subsequently against Albanians
+and other recalcitrant provincials, and latterly against the Italians, who had
+snatched at Tripoli the year before, had reduced the <i>Nizam</i>, the first
+line of troops, far below strength. The <i>Redif</i>, the second line, had
+received hardly more training, thanks to the disorganization of Abdul
+Hamid&rsquo;s last years and of the first years of the new order, than the
+<i>Mustafuz</i>, the third and last line. Armament, auxiliary services, and the
+like had been disorganized preparatory to a scheme for thorough reorganization,
+which had been carried, as yet, but a very little way. A foreign (German)
+element, introduced into the 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 of various arms; those which met the
+Serbs, a little better; those which opposed the Greeks, a little worse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It followed that the Bulgarians, who had proposed to do no more in Thrace than
+block Adrianople and immobilize the Constantinople forces, were carried by
+their own momentum right down to Chataldja, and there and at Adrianople had to
+prosecute siege operations when they ought to have been marching to Kavala and
+Salonika. The Serbs, after hard fighting, broke through not only into Macedonia
+but into Albania, and reached the Adriatic, but warned off this by the powers,
+consoled themselves with the occupation of much more Macedonian territory than
+the concerted plans of the allies had foreseen. The Greeks, instead of hard
+contests for the Haliacmon Valley and Epirus&mdash;their proper
+Irredenta&mdash;pushed such weak forces before them that they got through to
+Salonika just in time to forestall a Bulgarian column. Ottoman collapse was
+complete everywhere, except on the Chataldja front. It remained to divide the
+spoil. Serbia might not have Adriatic Albania, and therefore wanted as much
+Macedonia as she had actually overrun. Greece wanted the rest of Macedonia and
+had virtually got it. Remained Bulgaria who, with more of Thrace than she
+wanted, found herself almost entirely crowded out of Macedonia, the common
+objective of all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Faced with division <i>ex post facto</i>, the allies found their <i>a
+priori</i> agreement would not resolve the situation. Bulgaria, the predominant
+partner and the most aggrieved, would neither recognize the others&rsquo;
+rights of possession nor honestly submit her claims to the only possible
+arbiter, the Tsar of Russia. Finding herself one against two, she tried a
+<i>coup de main</i> on both fronts, failed, and brought on a second Balkan war,
+in which a new determining factor, Rumania, intervened at a critical moment to
+decide the issue against her. The Ottoman armies recovered nearly all they had
+lost in eastern and central Thrace, including Adrianople, almost without firing
+a shot, and were not ill pleased to be quit of a desperate situation at the
+price of Macedonia, Albania, and western Thrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Defeated and impoverished, the Ottoman power came out of the war clinging to a
+mere remnant of its European empire&mdash;one single mutilated province which
+did not pay its way. With the lost territories had gone about one-eighth of the
+whole population and one-tenth of the total imperial revenue. But when these
+heavy losses had been cut, there was nothing more of a serious nature to put to
+debit, but a little even to credit. Ottoman prestige had suffered but slightly
+in the eyes of the people. The obstinate and successful defence of the
+Chataldja lines and the subsequent recovery of eastern Thrace with Adrianople,
+the first European seat of the Osmanlis, had almost effaced the sense of
+Osmanli disgrace, and stood to the general credit of the Committee and the
+individual credit of its military leader, Enver Bey. The loss of some thousands
+of soldiers and much material was compensated by an invaluable lesson in the
+faultiness of the military system, and especially the <i>Redif</i>
+organization. The way was now clearer than before for re-making the army on the
+best European model, the German. The campaign had not been long, nor, as wars
+go, costly to wage. In the peace Turkey gained a new lease of life from the
+powers, and, profligate that she was, the promise of more millions of foreign
+money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over and above all this an advantage, which she rated above international
+guarantees, was secured to her&mdash;the prospective support of the strongest
+military power in Europe. The success of Serbia so menaced Germano-Austrian
+plans for the penetration of the Balkans, that the Central Powers were bound to
+woo Turkey even more lavishly than before, and to seek alliance where they had
+been content with influence. In a strong Turkey resided all their hope of
+saving from the Slavs the way to the Mediterranean. They had kept this policy
+in view for more than twenty years, and in a hundred ways, by introduction of
+Germans into the military organization, promotion of German financial
+enterprise, pushing of German commerce, pressure on behalf of German
+concessions which would entail provincial influence (for example, the
+construction of a transcontinental railway in Asia), those powers had been
+manifesting their interest in Turkey with ever-increasing solicitude. Now they
+must attach her to themselves with hoops of steel and, with her help, as soon
+as might be, try to recast the Balkan situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The experience of the recent war and the prospect in the future made
+continuance and accentuation of military government in the Ottoman Empire
+inevitable. The Committee, which had made its way back to power by violent
+methods, now suppressed its own Constitution almost as completely as Abdul
+Hamid had suppressed Midhat&rsquo;s parliament. Re-organization of the military
+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 1912-14. The bond
+with Germany was drawn lighter. More German instructors were invited, more
+German engineers commissioned, more munitions of war paid for in French gold.
+By 1914 it had become so evident that the Osmanlis must array themselves with
+Austro-Germany in any European war, that one wonders why a moment&rsquo;s
+credit was ever given to their protestations of neutrality when that war came
+at last in August 1914. Turkey then needed other three months to complete her
+first line of defences and mobilize. These were allowed to her, and in the late
+autumn she entered the field against Great Britain, France, and Russia, armed
+with German guns, led by German officers, and fed with German gold.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap40"></a>9<br/>
+<i>The Future</i></h2>
+
+<p>
+Turkey&rsquo;s situation, therefore, in general terms has become this. With the
+dissolution of the Concert of Europe the Ottoman Empire has lost what had been
+for a century its chief security for continued existence. Its fate now depends
+on that of two European powers which are at war with the rest of the former
+Concert. Among the last named are Turkey&rsquo;s two principal creditors,
+holding together about seventy-five per cent. of her public debt. In the event
+of the defeat of her friends, these creditors will be free to foreclose, the
+debtor being certainly in no position to meet her obligations. Allied with
+Christian powers, the Osmanli caliph has proved no more able than his
+predecessors to unite Islam in his defence; but, for what his title is worth,
+Mohammed V is still caliph, no rival claim having been put forward. The loyalty
+of the empire remains where it was, pending victory or defeat, the provinces
+being slow to realize, and still slower to resent, the disastrous economic
+state to which the war is reducing them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The present struggle may leave the Osmanli Empire in one of three situations:
+(1) member of a victorious alliance, reinforced, enlarged, and lightened of
+financial burdens, as the wages of its sin; (2) member of a defeated alliance,
+bound to pay the price of blood in loss of territory, or independence, or even
+existence; (3) party to a compromise under which its territorial empire might
+conceivably remain Ottoman, but under even stricter European tutelage than of
+old.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first alternative it would be idle to discuss, for the result of conditions
+so novel are impossible to foresee. Nor, indeed, when immediate events are so
+doubtful an at the present moment, is it profitable to attempt 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 the
+disposal of the empire may lie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The influence of the Osmanlis in their empire to-day resides in three things:
+first, in their possession of Constantinople; second, in the sultan&rsquo;s
+caliphate and his guardianship of the holy cities of Islam; third, in certain
+qualities of Osmanli character, notably &lsquo;will to power&rsquo; and courage
+in the field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Constantinople means for the Osmanlis is implied in that name <i>Roum</i>
+by which the western dominions of the Turks have been known ever since the
+Seljuks won Asia Minor. Apart from the prestige of their own early conquests,
+the Osmanlis inherited, and in a measure retain in the Near East, the
+traditional prestige of the greatest empire which ever held it. They stand not
+only for their own past but also for whatever still lives of the prestige of
+Rome. Theirs is still the repute of the imperial people <i>par excellence</i>,
+chosen and called to rule.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That this repute should continue, after the sweeping victories of Semites and
+subsequent centuries of Ottoman retreat before other heirs of Rome, is a
+paradox to be explained only by the fact that a large part of the population of
+the Near East remains at this day in about the same stage of civilization and
+knowledge as in the time of, say, Heraclius. The Osmanlis, be it remembered,
+were and are foreigners in a great part of their Asiatic empire equally with
+the Greeks of Byzantium or the Romans of Italy; and their establishment in
+Constantinople nearly five centuries ago did not mean to the indigenous peoples
+of the Near East what it meant to Europe&mdash;a victory of the East over the
+West&mdash;so much as a continuation of immemorial &lsquo;Roman&rsquo; dominion
+still exercised from the same imperial centre. Since Rome first spread its
+shadow over the Near East, many men of many races, whose variety was
+imperfectly realised, if realised at all, by the peasants of Asia Minor, Syria,
+Mesopotamia, and Egypt, have ruled in its name; the Osmanlis, whose
+governmental system was in part the Byzantine, made but one more change which
+meant the same old thing. The peasants know, of course, about those Semitic
+victories; but they know also that if the Semite has had his day of triumph and
+imposed, as was right and proper, his God and his Prophet on Roum&mdash;even on
+all mankind as many believed, and some may be found in remoter regions who
+still believe&mdash;he has returned to his own place south of Taurus; and still
+Roum is Roum, natural indefeasible Lord of the World.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a belief is dying now, of course; but it dies slowly and hard. It still
+constitutes a real asset of the Osmanlis, and will not cease to have value
+until they lose Constantinople. On the possession of the old imperial city it
+depends for whatever vitality it has. You may demonstrate, as you will, and as
+many publicists have done since the Balkan War and before, what and how great
+economic, political, and social advantages 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 could concentrate Moslems where their co-religionists are already the
+great majority, and so have done with the everlasting friction and weakness
+entailed in jurisdiction over preponderant Christian elements. Here they might
+throw off the remnants of their Byzantinism as a garment and, no longer forced
+to face two ways, live and govern with single minds as the Asiatics they are.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vain illusion, as Osmanli imperialists know! It is their empire that would fall
+away as a garment so soon as the Near East realized that they no longer ruled
+in the Imperial City. Enver Pasha and the Committee were amply justified in
+straining the resources of the Ottoman Empire to cracking-point, not merely to
+retain Constantinople but also to recover Adrianople and a territory in Europe
+large enough to bulk as Roum. Nothing that happened in that war made so greatly
+for the continuation of the old order in Asiatic Turkey as the reoccupation of
+Adrianople. The one occasion on which Europeans in Syria had reason to expect a
+general explosion was when premature rumours of the entry of the Bulgarian army
+into Stambul gained currency for a few hours. That explosion, had the news
+proved true or not been contradicted in time, would have been a panic-stricken,
+ungovernable impulse of anarchy&mdash;of men conscious that an old world had
+passed away and ignorant what conceivable new world could come to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the perilous moment passed, to be succeeded by general diffusion of a
+belief that the inevitable catastrophe was 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 national organizations and nationalist
+journals sprang to life at Beirut and elsewhere. The revival of Arab empire was
+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 beyond Chataldja: the Balkan States were at war
+among themselves: finally, Adrianople had been re-occupied. And all was as in
+the beginning. Budding life withered in the Arab movement, and the Near East
+settled down once more in the persistent shadow of Roum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such is the first element in Osmanli prestige, doomed to disappear the moment
+that the Ottoman state relinquishes Europe. Meanwhile there it is for what it
+is worth; and it is actually worth a tradition of submission, natural and
+honourable, to a race of superior destiny, which is instinctive in some
+millions of savage simple hearts.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+What of the second element? The religious prestige of the Ottoman power as the
+repository of caliphial authority and trustee for Islam in the Holy Land of
+Arabia, is an asset almost impossible to estimate. Would a death struggle of
+the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world? Would the Moslems of India,
+Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, and Malaya take up arms for the Ottoman sultan
+as caliph? Nothing but the event will prove that they would. Jehad, or Holy
+War, is an obsolescent weapon difficult and dangerous for Young Turks to wield:
+difficult because their own Islamic sincerity is suspect and they are taking
+the field now as clients of <i>giaur</i> peoples; dangerous because the Ottoman
+nation itself includes numerous Christian elements, indispensable to its
+economy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can count on its religious prestige
+appealing widely, overriding counteracting sentiments, and, if it rouses to
+action, rousing the most dangerous temper of all. It is futile to ignore the
+caliph because he is not of the Koreish, and owes his dignity to a
+sixteenth-century transfer. These facts are either unknown or not borne in mind
+by half the Sunnites on whom he might call, and weigh far less with the other
+half than his hereditary dominion over the Holy Cities, sanctioned by the
+prescription of nearly four centuries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One thing can be foretold with certainty. The religious prestige of an Ottoman
+sultan, who had definitely lost control of the Holy Places, would cease as
+quickly and utterly as the secular prestige of one who had evacuated
+Constantinople: and since the loss of the latter would probably precipitate an
+Arab revolt, and cut off the Hejaz, the religious element in Ottoman prestige
+may be said to depend on Constantinople as much as the secular. All the more
+reason why the Committee of Union and Progress should not have accepted that
+well-meant advice of European publicists! A successful revolt of the
+Arab-speaking provinces would indeed sound the death-knell of the Ottoman
+Empire. No other event would be so immediately and surely catastrophic.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+The third element in Osmanli prestige, inherent qualities of the Osmanli
+&lsquo;Turk&rsquo; himself, will be admitted by every one who knows him and his
+history. To say that he has the &lsquo;will to power&rsquo; is not, however, to
+say that he has an aptitude for government. He wishes to govern others; his
+will to do so imposes itself on peoples who have not the same will; they give
+way to him and he governs them indifferently, though often better than they can
+govern themselves. For example, bad as, according to our standards, Turkish
+government is, native Arab government, when not in tutelage to Europeans, has
+generally proved itself worse, when tried in the Ottoman area in modern times.
+Where it is of a purely Bedawi barbaric type, as in the emirates of central
+Arabia, it does well enough; but if the population be contaminated ever so
+little with non-Arab elements, practices, or ideas, Arab administration seems
+incapable of producing effective government. It has had chances in the Holy
+Cities at intervals, and for longer periods in the Yemen. But a European, long
+resident in the latter country, who has groaned under Turkish administration,
+where it has always been most oppressive, bore witness that the rule of the
+native Imam only served to replace oppressive government by oppressive anarchy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the Osmanli&rsquo;s courage as a fighting man, that has often been
+exemplified, and never better than in the Gallipoli peninsula. It is admitted.
+The European and Anatolian Osmanlis yield little one to the other in this
+virtue; but the palm, if awarded at all, must be given to the levies from
+northern and central Asia Minor.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+If Constantinople should be lost, the Arab-speaking parts of the empire would
+in all likelihood break away, carrying the Holy Cities with them. When the
+constant risk of this consummation, with the cataclysmic nature of its
+consequences is considered, one marvels why the Committee, which has shown no
+mean understanding of some conditions essential to Osmanli empire, should have
+done so little hitherto to conciliate Arab susceptibilities. Neither in the
+constitution of the parliament nor in the higher commands of the army have the
+Arab-speaking peoples been given anything like their fair share; and loudly and
+insistently have they protested. Perhaps the Committee, whose leading members
+are of a markedly Europeanized type, understands Asia less well than Europe.
+Certainly its programme of Ottomanization, elaborated by military ex-attachés,
+by Jew bankers and officials from Salonika, and by doctors, lawyers, and other
+<i>intellectuels</i> fresh from Paris, was conceived on lines which offered the
+pure Asiatic very little scope. The free and equal Osmanlis were all to take
+their cue from men of the Byzantine sort which the European provinces, and
+especially the city of Constantinople, breed. After the revolution, nothing in
+Turkey struck one so much as the apparition on the top of things everywhere of
+a type of Osmanli who has the characteristic qualities of the Levantine Greek.
+Young officers, controlling their elders, only needed a change of uniform to
+pass in an Athenian crowd. Spare and dapper officials, presiding in seats of
+authority over Kurds and Arabs, reminded one of Greek journalists. Osmanli
+journalists themselves treated one to rhodomontades punctuated with restless
+gesticulation, which revived memories of Athenian cafés in war-time. It was the
+Byzantine triumphing over the Asiatic; and the most Asiatic elements in the
+empire were the least likely to meet with the appreciation or sympathy of the
+Byzantines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Are the Arab-speaking peoples, therefore, likely to revolt, or be successful in
+splitting the Ottoman Empire, if they do? The present writer would like to say,
+in parenthesis, that, in his opinion, this consummation of the empire is not
+devoutly to be wished. The substitution of Arab administration for Osmanli
+would necessarily entail European tutelage of the parts of the Arab-speaking
+area in which powers, like ourselves, have vital interests&mdash;Syria, for
+example, southern Mesopotamia, and, probably, Hejaz. The last 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 loth to see him
+dismissed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An Arab revolt, however, might break out whether the Triple Entente desired its
+success or not. What chance of success would it have? The peoples of the Arab
+part of the Ottoman Empire are a congeries of differing races, creeds, sects,
+and social systems, with no common bond except language. The physical character
+of their land 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 (not to mention a large Jewish element), the cleavage being more
+abrupt than in western Turkey and the tradition and actual spirit of mutual
+enmity more separative. Further, each of those main creed-divisions is
+subdivided. Even Islam in this region includes a number of incompatible sects,
+such as the Ansariye, the Metawali, and the Druses in the Syrian mountains,
+Shiite Arabs on the Gulf coast and the Persian border, with pagan Kurds and
+Yezidis in the latter 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. It is almost impossible to imagine the
+inhabitants of Syria concerting a common plan or taking common action. The only
+elements among them which have shown any political sense or capacity for
+political organization are Christian. The Maronites of the Lebanon are most
+conspicuous among these; but neither their numbers nor their traditional
+relations with their neighbours qualify them to form the nucleus of a free
+united Syria. The &lsquo;Arab Movement&rsquo; up to the present has consisted
+in little more than talk and journalese. It has not developed any considerable
+organization to meet that stable efficient organization which the Committee of
+Union and Progress has directed throughout the Ottoman dominions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the rest of the empire, Asia Minor will stand by the Osmanli cause, even
+if Europe and Constantinople, and even if the Holy Places and all the
+Arab-speaking provinces be lost. Its allegiance does not depend on either the
+tradition of Roum or the caliphate, but on essential unity with the Osmanli
+nation. Asia Minor is the nation. There, prepared equally by Byzantine
+domination and by Seljukian influence, the great mass of the people long ago
+identified itself insensibly and completely with the tradition and hope of the
+Osmanlis. The subsequent occupation of the Byzantine capital by the heirs of
+the Byzantine system, and their still later assumption of caliphial
+responsibility, were not needed to cement the union. Even a military occupation
+by Russia or by another strong power would not detach Anatolia from the Osmanli
+unity; for a thing cannot be detached from itself. But, of course, that
+occupation might after long years cause the unity itself to cease to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such an occupation, however, would probably not be seriously resisted or
+subsequently rebelled against by the Moslem majority in Asia Minor, supposing
+Osmanli armaments to have been crushed. The Anatolian population is a sober,
+labouring peasantry, essentially agricultural and wedded to the soil. The
+levies for Yemen and Europe, which have gone far to deplete and exhaust it of
+recent years, were composed of men who fought to order and without imagination,
+steadily and faithfully, as their fathers had fought. They have no lust for
+war, no Arabian tradition of fighting for its own sake, and little, if any,
+fanaticism. Attempts to inspire Anatolian troops with religious rage in the
+Balkan War were failures. They were asked to fight in too modern a way under
+too many Teutonic officers. The result illustrated a prophecy ascribed to
+Ghasri Mukhtar Pasha. When German instructors were first introduced into
+Turkey, he foretold that they would be the end of the Ottoman army. No, these
+Anatolians desire nothing better than to follow their plough-oxen, and live
+their common village life, under any master who will let them be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elements of the Christian minority, however, Armenian and Greek, would give
+trouble with their developed ideas of nationality and irrepressible tendency to
+&lsquo;Europize&rsquo;. They would present, indeed, problems of which at
+present one cannot foresee the solution. It seems inevitable that an autonomous
+Armenia, like an autonomous Poland, must be constituted ere long; but where?
+There is no geographical unit of the Ottoman area in which Armenians are the
+majority. If they cluster more thickly in the vilayets of Angora, Sivas,
+Erzerum, Kharput, and Van, i.e. in easternmost Asia Minor, than elsewhere, and
+form a village people of the soil, they are consistently a minority in any
+large administrative district. Numerous, too, in the trans-Tauric vilayets of
+Adana and Aleppo, the seat 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 in Constantinople, could be induced to concentrate in a
+reconstituted Armenia (which is doubtful, seeing how addicted they are to
+general commerce and what may be called parasitic life), they could not fill
+out both the Greater and the Lesser Armenias of history, in sufficient strength
+to overbear the Osmanli and Kurdish elements. The widest area which might he
+constituted an autonomous Armenia with good prospect of self-sufficiency would
+be the present Russian province, where the head-quarters of the national
+religion lie, with the addition of the provinces of Erzerum, Van, and Kharput.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, if Russia had brought herself to make a self-denying ordinance, she would
+have to police her new Armenia very strongly for some years; for an acute
+Kurdish problem would confront it, and no concentration of nationals could be
+looked for from the Armenia Irredenta of Diarbekr, Urfa, Aleppo, Aintab,
+Marash, Adana, Kaisariyeh, Sivas, Angora, and Trebizond (not to mention farther
+and more foreign towns), until public security was assured in what for
+generations has been a cockpit. The Kurd is, of course, an Indo-European as
+much as the Armenian, and rarely a true Moslem; but it would be a very long
+time indeed before these facts reconciled him to the domination of the race
+which he has plundered for three centuries. Most of the Osmanlis of eastern
+Asia Minor are descendants of converted Armenians; but their assimilation would
+be slow and doubtful. Islam, more rapidly and completely than any other creed,
+extinguishes racial sympathies and groups its adherents anew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Anatolian Greeks are less numerous but not less difficult to provide for.
+The scattered groups of them on the plateau&mdash;in Cappadocia, Pontus, the
+Konia district&mdash;and on the eastward coast-lands would offer no serious
+difficulty to a lord of the interior. But those in the western river-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 at Athens has long concerned them
+more than what happens at Constantinople; and with Greece occupying the islands
+in the daily view of many of them, they are coming to regard themselves more
+and more every day as citizens of Graecia Irredenta. What is to be done with
+these? What, in particular, with Smyrna, the second city of the Ottoman Empire
+and the first of &lsquo;Magna Graecia&rsquo;? Its three and a half hundred
+thousand souls include the largest Greek urban population resident in any one
+city. Shall it be united to Greece? Greece herself might well hesitate. It
+would prove a very irksome possession, involving her in all sorts of
+continental difficulties and risks. There is no good frontier inland for such
+an <i>enclave</i>. It could hardly be held without the rest of westernmost
+Asia, from Caria to the Dardanelles, and in this region the great majority of
+the population is Moslem of old stocks, devotedly attached both to their faith
+and to the Osmanli tradition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The present writer, however, is not among the prophets. He has but tried to set
+forth what may delay and what may precipitate the collapse of an empire, whose
+doom has been long foreseen, often planned, invariably postponed; and, further,
+to indicate some difficulties which, being bound to confront heirs of the
+Osmanlis, will be better met the better they are understood before the final
+agony&mdash;If this is, indeed, to be!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap41"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p>
+Abbasid Empire,<br/>
+Abdul Aziz, Sultan,<br/>
+Abdul Hamid, Sultan,<br/>
+Abdul Mejid, Sultan,<br/>
+Achaia,<br/>
+Achmet III: <i>see</i> Ahmed III.<br/>
+Adalia,<br/>
+Adana,<br/>
+Aden,<br/>
+Adhamandios Koráis,<br/>
+Adrianople,<br/>
+  captured by the Turks (1361),<br/>
+  captured by Serbians and Bulgarians (1913),<br/>
+  first European seat of the Osmanlis,<br/>
+  foundation of,<br/>
+  Peace and Treaty of (1829),<br/>
+  restored to Turkey (1913),<br/>
+  Russians before (1878),<br/>
+  siege of (1912-13),<br/>
+Adriatic, the,<br/>
+Aegean, the,<br/>
+  islands of,<br/>
+  trade of,<br/>
+Aehrenthal, Baron and Count,<br/>
+Afium Kara Hissar,<br/>
+Agram (Zagreb), capital of Croatia,<br/>
+Agram high treason trial, the,<br/>
+Agrapha, clansmen of,<br/>
+Ahiolu (Anchialo),<br/>
+Ahmed I, Sultan,<br/>
+Ahmed III, Sultan,<br/>
+Ahmed ibn Tulun,<br/>
+Aidin,<br/>
+Aintab,<br/>
+Aigina,<br/>
+Ainos, <i>See also</i> Enos.<br/>
+Aivali, <i>See also</i> Kydhonies.<br/>
+Akarnania,<br/>
+Akerman, Convention of (1826),<br/>
+Alaeddin, Sultan,<br/>
+Ala Shehr (Philadelphia),<br/>
+Albania,<br/>
+  and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  conquest of, by the Turks,<br/>
+  during the Slav immigration,<br/>
+  in classical times,<br/>
+  made independent,<br/>
+  revolts against Young Turks,<br/>
+  under the Turks,<br/>
+Albanian language, the,<br/>
+Albanians, the,<br/>
+  migrations of,<br/>
+Aleppo,<br/>
+Alexander the Great,<br/>
+Alexander I, King of Serbia (1889-1903),<br/>
+Alexander I, Emperor of Russia,<br/>
+Alexander II, Emperor of Russia,<br/>
+Alexander III, Emperor of Russia,<br/>
+Alexander, Crown Prince of Serbia,<br/>
+Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria (1879-85),<br/>
+Alexander Karagjorgjević, Prince of Serbia (1843-58),<br/>
+Alexandria,<br/>
+Alexis Comnenus, the Emperor,<br/>
+Ali Pasha,<br/>
+Ambelakia,<br/>
+America, effect of emigration from south-eastern Europe to,<br/>
+Anatolia, the Turks and,<br/>
+  character of the population,<br/>
+  feudal families,<br/>
+Anatolikón,<br/>
+  captured by the Turks (1825),<br/>
+Andrassy, Count,<br/>
+Angora,<br/>
+  battle of (1402),<br/>
+Arabia, Turkish prestige in,<br/>
+  and the Turks,<br/>
+  movement of, in the direction of revolt,<br/>
+Arabs and Anatolia,<br/>
+  and Bulgars,<br/>
+  and Islam,<br/>
+Arcadiopolis: <i>see</i> Lule-Burgas.<br/>
+Argos,<br/>
+Arian controversy, the,<br/>
+Armatoli, or Christian militia,<br/>
+Armenians, the,<br/>
+  character of the,<br/>
+  massacres of (1894),<br/>
+Arnauts: <i>see</i> Albanians.<br/>
+Arta, Gulf of,<br/>
+  plain of,<br/>
+Asen dynasty, the,<br/>
+Asia Minor, Turks in,<br/>
+Asparukh (Bulgar prince),<br/>
+Aspropotamo, the,<br/>
+Astypalià,<br/>
+Athens,<br/>
+  Duchy of,<br/>
+  University of,<br/>
+  siege of (1821-2),<br/>
+  (1827),<br/>
+Athos, Mount,<br/>
+Attila,<br/>
+Austerlitz, battle of (1805),<br/>
+Austria-Hungary and the Adriatic,<br/>
+  and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  and Serbia, relations between,<br/>
+  and the Serbs,<br/>
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,<br/>
+  and Turkey, relations between,<br/>
+    wars between,<br/>
+  annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,<br/>
+  occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,<br/>
+  relations with the Balkan League,<br/>
+  relations with Rumania,<br/>
+  Ruman and South Slavonic populations in,<br/>
+Austrian politics in Rumania,<br/>
+Austrians and Serbs, relations between,<br/>
+  and Turks,<br/>
+Avars, the: their invasion of the Balkan peninsula with the Slavs,<br/>
+  their war with the Bulgars,<br/>
+Avlona,<br/>
+  bay of,<br/>
+Avshar tribe,<br/>
+&lsquo;Ayon Oros&rsquo;,<br/>
+Azerbaijan,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bačka,<br/>
+Bagdad,<br/>
+&lsquo;Balance of Power&rsquo;, the,<br/>
+Balkan League, the,<br/>
+  formation of the,<br/>
+  dissolution of the,<br/>
+Balkan peninsula, the, annexation of, by Mohammed II,<br/>
+  control of,<br/>
+  economic unity of,<br/>
+  German policy in,<br/>
+  nationalism in,<br/>
+  Slav inhabitants of,<br/>
+  Turkish power in,<br/>
+  under Roman rule,<br/>
+Balkan States, relations between the,<br/>
+  zollverein,<br/>
+Balkan war, the first (1912-13),<br/>
+  the second (June 1913),<br/>
+Banat, the,<br/>
+Baranya,<br/>
+Basil I, the Emperor,<br/>
+Basil II, the Emperor,<br/>
+  &lsquo;Slayer of the Bulgars&rsquo;,<br/>
+Bassarab, dynasty of,<br/>
+Bayezid I, Sultan,<br/>
+Bayezid II, Sultan,<br/>
+Beaconsfield, Earl of,<br/>
+Beirut,<br/>
+Belgrade,<br/>
+  capital of Serbia,<br/>
+  captured by the Serbs (1807),<br/>
+  captured by the Turks (1521),<br/>
+   (1813),<br/>
+  its Celtic name,<br/>
+  Treaty of (1739),<br/>
+Belisarius,<br/>
+Berchtold, Count,<br/>
+Bergama,<br/>
+Berlin,<br/>
+  Congress of (1878),<br/>
+  Treaty of (1878),<br/>
+Bessarabia, Bulgars in, 25,<br/>
+  lost(1812),<br/>
+  regained (1856),<br/>
+  lost again (1878),<br/>
+  importance with regard to present situation,<br/>
+Bieberstein, Duron Marschall von,<br/>
+Bismarck,<br/>
+Bitolj: <i>see</i> Monastir.<br/>
+Black Castle of Afiun,<br/>
+Black Sea,<br/>
+  Russian exclusion from,<br/>
+Bogomil heresy, the,<br/>
+Boja, lord of Kashgar,<br/>
+Boris, Bulgar prince (852-88),<br/>
+Boris, Crown Prince of Bulgaria,<br/>
+Bosnia, annexation of,<br/>
+  independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks,<br/>
+  in relation to the other Serb territories,<br/>
+  its Slavonic population,<br/>
+  relations of, with Hungary,<br/>
+  revolts in, against Turkey,<br/>
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule,<br/>
+  under Turkish rule,<br/>
+Bosphorus, the,<br/>
+Botzaris, Marko,<br/>
+Branković, George,<br/>
+Branković, Vuk,<br/>
+Bratianu, Ioan (father),<br/>
+  (son),<br/>
+Bregalnica, battle of the (1913),<br/>
+Brusa,<br/>
+Bucarest, Committee of,<br/>
+  Peace Conference (1913),<br/>
+  Treaty of (1812),<br/>
+    (1913),<br/>
+Bucovina, acquisition by Austria,<br/>
+  Rumanians in,<br/>
+Buda,<br/>
+Budapest, in relation to the Serbo-Croats,<br/>
+Budua,<br/>
+Bulgaria, declaration of independence by, and assumption of title Tsar by its
+ruler,<br/>
+  conflicting interests with Greece,<br/>
+  early wars between, and the Greeks,<br/>
+  geographical position of,<br/>
+  growth of,<br/>
+  intervention on the side of the Central Powers in the European War,<br/>
+  its division into eastern and western,<br/>
+    extent of western,<br/>
+  in the two Balkan wars (1912-13),<br/>
+  its early relations with Rome,<br/>
+  its relations with Russia,<br/>
+  obtains recognition as a nationality in the Ottoman Empire,<br/>
+  of Slav speech and culture,<br/>
+  place of, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  Turkish atrocities in,<br/>
+Bulgaria and Rumania,<br/>
+Bulgaria and Serbia, contrasted,<br/>
+  the agreement between,<br/>
+  wars between (1885, 1913),<br/>
+Bulgaria and Turkey, relations between,<br/>
+Bulgarian bishoprics in Macedonia,<br/>
+  Church, early vicissitudes of the,<br/>
+    claims and propaganda in Macedonia,<br/>
+  Exarchist Church, the,<br/>
+  literature,<br/>
+  monarchy, origins of the,<br/>
+Bulgarians, general distribution of,<br/>
+  their attitude to the Slavs and the Germans,<br/>
+Bulgarians and Serbians, contrast between,<br/>
+Bulgars, the, their origin,<br/>
+  their advance westwards and then southwards into the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  their absorption by the Slavs,<br/>
+  north of the Danube,<br/>
+  adherents of the Orthodox Church,<br/>
+Burke, Edmund,<br/>
+Byron, Lord,<br/>
+Byzantine Christianity,<br/>
+  commerce,<br/>
+  diplomacy, its attitude towards the Slav and other invaders,<br/>
+  Empire,<br/>
+    heritage and expansion of, by the Turks,<br/>
+Byzantium, ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,<br/>
+  decline of,<br/>
+  Greek colony of,<br/>
+  Roman administrative centre,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cairo,<br/>
+Caliphate, the,<br/>
+Campo Formio, Treaty of (1797),<br/>
+Candia, siege of,<br/>
+Canea,<br/>
+Cantucuzene, John,<br/>
+Cape Malea,<br/>
+Cappadocia,<br/>
+Caria,<br/>
+Carinthia,<br/>
+Carlowitz, Treaty of (1699),<br/>
+Carniola,<br/>
+Carol, Prince of Rumania,<br/>
+    his accession,<br/>
+    joins Russia against Turkey,<br/>
+    intention to abdicate,<br/>
+    proclaimed king,<br/>
+  King,<br/>
+    and the Balkans,<br/>
+    personal points,<br/>
+Carp, P.P.,<br/>
+Carpathian mountains, the,<br/>
+Catargiu, Lascar,<br/>
+Catherine, Empress,<br/>
+Cattaro, Bocche di,<br/>
+Caucasia,<br/>
+Cefalonia,<br/>
+Celts, the, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Cerigo,<br/>
+Cetina river (Dalmatia),<br/>
+Cetinje,<br/>
+Chaeronea,<br/>
+Charlemagne, crushes the Avars,<br/>
+Charles VI, Emperor of Austria,<br/>
+Charles, Prince and King of Rumania: <i>see</i> Carol.<br/>
+Časlav, revolts against Bulgars,<br/>
+Chataldja, lines of,<br/>
+Chesme, destruction of Turkish fleet in,<br/>
+Chios: <i>see</i> Khios.<br/>
+Christianity,<br/>
+  in the Balkan peninsula in classical times,<br/>
+  introduced into Bulgaria,<br/>
+  introduced amongst the Serbs,<br/>
+Christians, their treatment by the Turks,<br/>
+Church, division of the, affects the Serbs and Croats,<br/>
+Church, Generalissimo Sir Richard,<br/>
+Churches, rivalry of the eastern and western,<br/>
+Cilicia,<br/>
+Claudius, the Emperor,<br/>
+Coalition, Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb, the,<br/>
+Cochrane, Grand Admiral,<br/>
+Cogalniceanu, M.,<br/>
+Comnenus: <i>see</i> Alexis <i>and</i> Manuel.<br/>
+Concert of Europe,<br/>
+Constantine the Great,<br/>
+Constantine, King of Greece,<br/>
+Constantine, ruler of Bulgaria,<br/>
+Constantinople,<br/>
+  and the Serbian Church,<br/>
+  ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,<br/>
+  cathedral of Aya Sophia,<br/>
+  commercial interests of,<br/>
+  decline of,<br/>
+  defences of,<br/>
+  ecclesiastical influence of,<br/>
+  fall of (1204),<br/>
+    (1453),<br/>
+  its position at the beginning of the barbarian invasions,<br/>
+  made an imperial city,<br/>
+  Patriarchate at,<br/>
+  &lsquo;Phanari&rsquo;, the,<br/>
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Rome,<br/>
+Constitution, Rumanian,<br/>
+Corfù,<br/>
+Corinth: <i>see</i> Korinth.<br/>
+Crete: <i>see</i> Krete.<br/>
+Crimea, abandoned to Russia,<br/>
+Crimean War, the,<br/>
+Croatia,<br/>
+  absorbed by Hungary,<br/>
+  position of, in relation to the Serb territories,<br/>
+Croato-Serb unity, movement in favour of,<br/>
+Croats, Crotians,<br/>
+  general distribution of,<br/>
+  their origin,<br/>
+Croats and Serbs, difference between,<br/>
+Crusaders, the, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Crusades; the first; the fourth,<br/>
+Cuza, Prince of Rumania,<br/>
+Cyclades, the,<br/>
+Cyprus,<br/>
+  in Latin hands,<br/>
+  in Ottoman hands,<br/>
+  under the British,<br/>
+Cyrenaica,<br/>
+Cyril, St.,<br/>
+Cyrillic alphabet, the,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dacia,<br/>
+  subjection to, and abandonment by, the Romans,<br/>
+Dacians,<br/>
+  settlement in Carpathian regions,<br/>
+  wars with Rome,<br/>
+Dalmatia,<br/>
+  acquired by Austria-Hungary,<br/>
+  and Venice,<br/>
+  in classical times,<br/>
+  in relation to other Serb territories,<br/>
+  its Slavonic population,<br/>
+  relations of, with Hungary,<br/>
+Daniel, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,<br/>
+Danilo, Prince of Montenegro,<br/>
+Danube, the,<br/>
+  as frontier of Roman Empire,<br/>
+Danube <i>(continued)</i>:<br/>
+  Bulgars cross the,<br/>
+  Slavs cross the,<br/>
+Danubian principalities, Russian protectorate in,<br/>
+Dardanelles, the,<br/>
+Decius, the Emperor,<br/>
+Dedeagach,<br/>
+Deliyannis,<br/>
+Demotika,<br/>
+Dhimitzána,<br/>
+Diocletian, the Emperor, his redistribution of the imperial provinces,<br/>
+Dnieper, the,<br/>
+Dniester, the,<br/>
+Dobrudja,<br/>
+  acquisition by Rumania,<br/>
+  Bulgarian aspirations in regard to,<br/>
+Draga, Queen-Consort of Serbia,<br/>
+Dramali,<br/>
+Drave, the,<br/>
+Drina, the,<br/>
+Dubrovnik: <i>see</i> Ragusa.<br/>
+Dulcigno (Ulcinj),<br/>
+Durazzo,<br/>
+Durostorum: <i>see</i> Silistria.<br/>
+Dushan: <i>see</i> Stephen Dušan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eastern Church, the,<br/>
+Eastern Slavs; <i>see</i> Russians.<br/>
+Edremid,<br/>
+Egypt,<br/>
+Egyptian expedition (1823-4),<br/>
+Enos-Midia line, the,<br/>
+Enver Bey,<br/>
+Epirus,<br/>
+  power of Hellenism in,<br/>
+Ertogrul, Osmanli chief,<br/>
+Erzerum,<br/>
+Eugen, Prince, of Savoy,<br/>
+Euphrates, the,<br/>
+Euxine trade,<br/>
+Evyénios Voulgáris,<br/>
+Exarchist Church, the,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabvier,<br/>
+Ferdinand, Prince and King of Bulgaria (1886-),<br/>
+  his relations with foreign powers,<br/>
+Ferdinand, King of Rumania,<br/>
+Filipescu, Nicholas,<br/>
+Fiume (Rjeka),<br/>
+France,<br/>
+  and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,<br/>
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,<br/>
+  and the Turks,<br/>
+  relations with Rumania,<br/>
+French, the,<br/>
+  in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  in Dalmatia,<br/>
+  in Morocco,<br/>
+  influence in Rumania,<br/>
+French Revolution<br/>
+  and the rights of nationalities,<br/>
+Friedjung, Dr., and the accusation against Serbia,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Galaxidhi,<br/>
+Galicia,<br/>
+Gallipoli,<br/>
+Genoese,<br/>
+George, Crown Prince of Serbia,<br/>
+George,<br/>
+  King of Greece,<br/>
+  assassination of,<br/>
+George, Prince of Greece,<br/>
+German diplomacy at Constantinople,<br/>
+  influence in the Near East,<br/>
+  influence in Rumania,<br/>
+  influence in Turkey,<br/>
+German Empire, restlessness of,<br/>
+German hierarchy, early struggles of, against Slavonic liturgy,<br/>
+Germanic peoples, southward movement of,<br/>
+Germanòs, metropolitan bishop of Patrae,<br/>
+Germany and the Turkish frontier,<br/>
+  efforts to reach the Adriatic,<br/>
+  its expansion eastward,<br/>
+  and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  and Russia, relations between,<br/>
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,<br/>
+  relations with Rumania,<br/>
+  revolutions promoted by,<br/>
+Gjorgjević, Dr. V.,<br/>
+Golden Horn,<br/>
+Goluchowski, Count,<br/>
+Gorazd,<br/>
+Gorchakov, Prince,<br/>
+Goths, invasion of the,<br/>
+Great Britain and the Balkan States, relations between,<br/>
+  and Egypt,<br/>
+  and Rumania,<br/>
+  and Syria,<br/>
+  and the Ionian Islands,<br/>
+  and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,<br/>
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,<br/>
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,<br/>
+  loan to Greece,<br/>
+  occupation of Cyprus,<br/>
+Greece, anarchy in,<br/>
+  ancient,<br/>
+  and Macedonia,<br/>
+  and Russia,<br/>
+  and Serbia,<br/>
+  and the adjacent islands,<br/>
+  and the Christian religion,<br/>
+  and the first Balkan war,<br/>
+  and the Ionian Islands,<br/>
+  and the Orthodox Church,<br/>
+  and the Slav migration,<br/>
+  brigandage in,<br/>
+  conflict of interests with Bulgaria,<br/>
+  conquest of, by the Turks,<br/>
+  delimitation of the frontier (1829),<br/>
+  dispute with Italy as to possession of Epirus,<br/>
+  effect of the French Revolution on,<br/>
+  invasion of, by Goths,<br/>
+  land-tax,<br/>
+  loans to,<br/>
+  local liberties,<br/>
+  &lsquo;Military League&rsquo; of 1909,<br/>
+  minerals of,<br/>
+  monarchy established, and its results,<br/>
+  &lsquo;National Assembly&rsquo;,<br/>
+  oppressive relations with Turkey, and efforts for liberation,<br/>
+  revolutions in 1843 and 1862.<br/>
+  territorial contact with Turkey.<br/>
+  &lsquo;tribute-children&rsquo; for Turkish army from.<br/>
+  war with Turkey (1828); (1897); (1912).<br/>
+Greek agriculture.<br/>
+  anti-Greek movement in Rumania.<br/>
+  army.<br/>
+  art and architecture.<br/>
+  ascendancy in Bulgaria.<br/>
+  <i>bourgeoisie</i>.<br/>
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia.<br/>
+  coalition with the Seljuks.<br/>
+  commerce and economic progress.<br/>
+  dialects of Ancient Greece.<br/>
+  education.<br/>
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula.<br/>
+  influence in Bulgaria.<br/>
+  influence in Rumania.<br/>
+  language in Rumanian Church.<br/>
+  literature.<br/>
+  monastic culture.<br/>
+  nationalism.<br/>
+  national religion.<br/>
+  navy.<br/>
+  officials tinder the Turks.<br/>
+  Patriarch.<br/>
+  public finance.<br/>
+  public spirit.<br/>
+  public works.<br/>
+  railways.<br/>
+  renaissance.<br/>
+  shipping.<br/>
+  unity.<br/>
+Greek Empire, decline of.<br/>
+Greek hierarchy, in Bulgaria, the.<br/>
+Greeks, Anatolian.<br/>
+  Byzantine.<br/>
+  general distribution of.<br/>
+  Ottoman.<br/>
+  their attitude with regard to the barbarian invasions.<br/>
+Gregorios, Greek Patriarch at Constantinople.<br/>
+Gulkhaneh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hadrian, the Emperor.<br/>
+Haliacmon Valley.<br/>
+Halys river.<br/>
+Hasa.<br/>
+Hatti Sherif.<br/>
+Hejaz.<br/>
+Hellenic culture and civilization.<br/>
+Hellenic Republic.<br/>
+Hellespont, the.<br/>
+Hercegovina.<br/>
+  annexation of, by Austria-Hungary.<br/>
+  its Slavonic population.<br/>
+  origin and independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks.<br/>
+  revolts in, against Turkey.<br/>
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule.<br/>
+  under Turkish rule.<br/>
+Hilmi Pasha.<br/>
+Hungarians.<br/>
+  and the Turks.<br/>
+  invade the Balkan peninsula.<br/>
+Hungary,<br/>
+  and the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  and the Serbo-Croats,<br/>
+  and the Serbs,<br/>
+  and Turkey, wars between,<br/>
+  conquest of, by Suleiman I,<br/>
+  growth of,<br/>
+  loss of, by the Turks,<br/>
+  Slavs in,<br/>
+Huns, arrival of the, in Europe,<br/>
+  their origin,<br/>
+  settled in Hungary,<br/>
+Hunyadi, John,<br/>
+Hydhra and the Hydhriots,<br/>
+Hypsilantis, Prince Alexander,<br/>
+  Prince Demetrius,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ibar, the,<br/>
+Ibrahim Pasha,<br/>
+Ida, Mount,<br/>
+Ignatiyev, Count,<br/>
+Illyria, Celtic invasion of,<br/>
+  prefecture of,<br/>
+  Roman conquest of,<br/>
+Illyrians, the,<br/>
+Imbros,<br/>
+Ionescu, Take,<br/>
+Ionian islands,<br/>
+  presented to Greece by Great Britain,<br/>
+Ipek: <i>see</i> Peć<br/>
+Iran,<br/>
+Iskanderoun, Gulf of,<br/>
+Italian influence in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  trading cities,<br/>
+Italy, and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  and the possession of Epirus,<br/>
+  diocese of,<br/>
+  prefecture of,<br/>
+  war with Turkey (1911-12),<br/>
+Ivan III, Tsar of Russia,<br/>
+Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jehad, or Holy War,<br/>
+Jenghis Khan,<br/>
+Jerusalem,<br/>
+Jews, at Constantinople,<br/>
+  in Rumania,<br/>
+  in Turkey,<br/>
+Jezzar the Butcher,<br/>
+Jidda,<br/>
+John Alexander, ruler of Bulgaria,<br/>
+John Asen I, Bulgar Tsar (1186-96),<br/>
+John Asen II, Bulgar Tsar (1218-41),<br/>
+John Tzimisces, the Emperor,<br/>
+John the Terrible, Prince of Moldavia,<br/>
+Joseph II, Emperor of Austria,<br/>
+Judah,<br/>
+Jugo-Slav(ia),<br/>
+Justin I, the Emperor,<br/>
+Justinian I, the Emperor,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kaisariyeh,<br/>
+Kalamata,<br/>
+Kaloian, Bulgar Tsar (1196-1207),<br/>
+Kama, Bulgars on the,<br/>
+Kanaris, Constantine,<br/>
+Kapodistrias, John,<br/>
+Kara-George (Petrović),<br/>
+Karagjorgjević (sc. family of Kara-George) dynasty, the,<br/>
+Karaiskakis,<br/>
+Karamania,<br/>
+Karasi,<br/>
+Karlovci (Carlowitz, Karlowitz),<br/>
+Karpathos,<br/>
+Kasos;<br/>
+  destruction of (1824),<br/>
+Kavala,<br/>
+Kazan,<br/>
+Khalkidhiki,<br/>
+Kharput,<br/>
+  siege of (1822),<br/>
+Khorasan,<br/>
+Khurshid Pasha,<br/>
+Kiev,<br/>
+Kilkish, Greek victory at,<br/>
+Kirk-Kilissé, battle of,<br/>
+Kisseleff, Count,<br/>
+Kladovo,<br/>
+Knights Hospitallers of St. John,<br/>
+Kochana,<br/>
+Kolettis,<br/>
+Kolokotrónis, Theodore,<br/>
+Kondouriottis,<br/>
+Konia,<br/>
+  battle of,<br/>
+Kopais basin, draining of,<br/>
+Korinth,<br/>
+  surrender of (1822),<br/>
+Korinthian Gulf,<br/>
+Kos,<br/>
+Kosovo, vilayet of,<br/>
+Kosovo Polje, battle of,<br/>
+Kraljević, Marko: <i>see</i> Marko K.<br/>
+Krete,<br/>
+  conquest of, by Turks,<br/>
+  intervention of the powers and constituted an autonomous state,<br/>
+  speech of,<br/>
+Krum (Bulgar prince),<br/>
+Kruševac,<br/>
+Kubrat (Bulgar prince),<br/>
+Kumanovo, battle of (1912),<br/>
+Kumans, the Tartar,<br/>
+Kurdistan,<br/>
+Kurds, the,<br/>
+Kutchuk Kainardji, Treaty of,<br/>
+Kydhonies, destruction of,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Laibach (Ljubljana),<br/>
+Lansdowne, Marquess of,<br/>
+Lárissa,<br/>
+Latin Empire at Constantinople, the,<br/>
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Lausanne, Treaty of (1912),<br/>
+Lazar (Serbian Prince),<br/>
+&lsquo;League of Friends&rsquo;,<br/>
+Leipsic, battle of (1813),<br/>
+Lemnos,<br/>
+Leo, the Emperor,<br/>
+Leopold II, Emperor of Austria,<br/>
+Lepanto, battle of (1571),<br/>
+Lerna,<br/>
+Leskovac,<br/>
+Levant, the,<br/>
+  commerce of,<br/>
+Libyan war (1911-12),<br/>
+Lombards, the,<br/>
+London, Conference of (1912-13),<br/>
+  Treaty of (1913),<br/>
+Louis, conquers the Serbs,<br/>
+Lule-Burgas,<br/>
+  battle of (1912),
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Macedonia,<br/>
+  anarchy in,<br/>
+  defeat of the Turks by the Serbians in,<br/>
+  establishment of Turks in,<br/>
+  general characteristics of, in classical times,<br/>
+  inhabitants of,<br/>
+  revolt in,<br/>
+  place-names in,<br/>
+Macedonian question, the,<br/>
+  Slavs, the,<br/>
+Magnesia,<br/>
+Magyars, the,<br/>
+  their irruption into Europe,<br/>
+  growing power and ambitions of the,<br/>
+  influence upon the Rumanians,<br/>
+Mahmud I, Sultan,<br/>
+Mahmud II, Sultan,<br/>
+Maina,<br/>
+Maiorescu, Titu<br/>
+Malasgerd, battle of,<br/>
+Malta, siege of,<br/>
+Mamelukes, Egyptian,<br/>
+Manichaean heresy, the,<br/>
+Manuel Comnenus, the Emperor,<br/>
+Marash,<br/>
+Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor,<br/>
+Marghiloman, Alexander,<br/>
+Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria,<br/>
+Maritsa, the,<br/>
+  battle of,<br/>
+Marko Kraljević,<br/>
+Marmora, Sea of,<br/>
+Mavrokordatos, Alexander,<br/>
+Mavromichalis clan,<br/>
+Mavromichalis, Petros,<br/>
+Mediterranean, the,<br/>
+Megaspélaion,<br/>
+Mehemet Ali: <i>see</i> Mohammed Ali.<br/>
+Melek Shah, of Persia,<br/>
+Mendere (Maiandros),<br/>
+Mesolonghi,<br/>
+Mesopotamia,<br/>
+Messenia,<br/>
+Mesta,<br/>
+Metéora,<br/>
+Methodius, St.,<br/>
+Michael Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia (1840-2, 1860-8),<br/>
+Michael III, the Emperor,<br/>
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia,<br/>
+Midhat Pasha and representative institutions in Turkey,<br/>
+Media,<br/>
+Milan Obrenović II, Prince of Serbia (1839),<br/>
+Milan Obrenović IV, Prince and King of Serbia (1868-89),<br/>
+Mileševo, monastery of,<br/>
+Milica, Princess,<br/>
+Military colonies, Austro-Hungarian, of Serbs against Turkey,<br/>
+Miloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia (1817-39, 1858-60),<br/>
+Milovanović, Dr.,<br/>
+Mircea the Old, Prince of Wallachia,<br/>
+Misivria (Mesembria),<br/>
+Mitylini,<br/>
+Modhon,<br/>
+Mohacs, battle of,<br/>
+Mohammed II, Sultan,<br/>
+Mohammed IV, Sultan,<br/>
+Mohammed V, Sultan,<br/>
+Mohammed Ali Pasha, of Egypt,<br/>
+Mohammedan influence in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Mohammedan Serbs, of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the,<br/>
+Moldavia,<br/>
+  foundation of,<br/>
+Monastir (Bitolj, in Serbian),<br/>
+  battle of (1912),<br/>
+Montenegro,<br/>
+  achieves its independence,<br/>
+  and the Balkan League,<br/>
+  autonomous,<br/>
+  becomes a kingdom,<br/>
+  conquered by the Turks,<br/>
+  during the Napoleonic wars,<br/>
+  in the Balkan war (1912-13),<br/>
+  position of, amongst the other Serb territories,<br/>
+  relations with Russia,<br/>
+  revolt in,<br/>
+  under Turkish rule,<br/>
+  war with Turkey,<br/>
+Montesquieu,<br/>
+Morava, the,<br/>
+Moravia, its conversion to Christianity,<br/>
+Morea: <i>see</i> Peloponnesos.<br/>
+Morocco crisis, the,<br/>
+Moslems,<br/>
+Mukhtar Pasha,<br/>
+Muntenia (Wallachia), foundation of,<br/>
+Murad I, Sultan, murder of,<br/>
+Murad II, Sultan,<br/>
+Murad III, Sultan,<br/>
+Murad V, Sultan,<br/>
+Murzsteg programme of reforms, the,<br/>
+Mustapha II, Sultan,<br/>
+Mustapha III, Sultan,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naissus: <i>see</i> Nish.<br/>
+Napoleon I,<br/>
+Napoleon III, and Rumania,<br/>
+Natalie, Queen-Consort of Serbia,<br/>
+Nationalism,<br/>
+Nauplia,<br/>
+  fall of (1822),<br/>
+Nauplia Bay,<br/>
+Navarino, battle of (1827),<br/>
+Negrepont,<br/>
+Nemanja dynasty, the,<br/>
+Nicaea,<br/>
+Nicholas I, Prince and King of Montenegro (1860-),<br/>
+Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia,<br/>
+Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia,<br/>
+Nicomedia,<br/>
+Nikarià, 230.<br/>
+Nikiphóros Phokas, the Emperor,<br/>
+Nikopolis,<br/>
+  battle of,<br/>
+Nikšić,<br/>
+Nilufer,<br/>
+Nish (Naissus, Niš),<br/>
+  Celtic origin,<br/>
+  Goths defeated at,<br/>
+  Bulgarians march on,<br/>
+  geographical position of,<br/>
+Nish-Salonika railway,<br/>
+Nizib,<br/>
+Normans, the,<br/>
+Novae: <i>see</i> Svishtov.<br/>
+Novi Pazar, Sandjak of,<br/>
+  occupied by Austria-Hungary,<br/>
+  evacuated by Austria-Hungary,<br/>
+  occupied by Serbia and Montenegro,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Obilić, Miloš,<br/>
+Obrenović dynasty, the,<br/>
+Odessa,<br/>
+  Committee of,<br/>
+Odhyssèus,<br/>
+Oecumenical Patriarch, the,<br/>
+Okhrida,<br/>
+  Archbishopric and Patriarchate of,<br/>
+  Lake of,<br/>
+Old Serbia (northern Macedonia),<br/>
+Orient, prefecture of the,<br/>
+Orkhan,<br/>
+Orthodox Church: <i>see</i> Eastern Church.<br/>
+Osman (Othman), Sultan,<br/>
+Osmanli: <i>see</i> Turkey <i>and</i> Turks.<br/>
+Ostrogoths, the,<br/>
+Otranto, straits of,<br/>
+Otto, Prince, of Bavaria, King of Greece,<br/>
+  driven into exile,<br/>
+Ottoman Empire: <i>see</i> Turkey.<br/>
+Ouchy, Treaty of: <i>see</i> Lausanne, Treaty of.<br/>
+Oxus,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Palaiologos, Romaic dynasty of,<br/>
+Pannonia,<br/>
+  Bulgars in,<br/>
+Pan-Serb movement, the<br/>
+Pan-Slavism,<br/>
+Paris, Congress of (1856),<br/>
+  Convention (1858),<br/>
+  Treaty of (1856),<br/>
+Paša, M,<br/>
+Passarowitz, Treaty of,<br/>
+Pasvanoghlu,<br/>
+Patmos,<br/>
+Patras,<br/>
+  Gulf of,<br/>
+Paul, Emperor of Russia,<br/>
+Paulicians, the,<br/>
+Peć (Ipek, in Turkish), patriarchate of,<br/>
+Pechenegs, the Tartar,<br/>
+Petraeus,<br/>
+&lsquo;Peloponnesian Senate&rsquo;,<br/>
+Peloponnesos (Morea),<br/>
+Pera,<br/>
+Persia and the Turks,<br/>
+  at war with Constantinople,<br/>
+  Grand Seljuk of,<br/>
+Persian Gulf,<br/>
+Peter the Great,<br/>
+  &lsquo;Testament&rsquo; of,<br/>
+Peter, Bulgar Tsar (927-69)<br/>
+Peter I, King of Serbia (1903),<br/>
+Peter I, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,<br/>
+Petrović-Njegoš, dynasty of,<br/>
+Petta, battle of,<br/>
+Phanariote Greeks, the, <i>See</i> Greek officials under the<br/>
+                 Turks, <i>and</i> Turkey, Phanariot régime.<br/>
+&lsquo;Philhellenes&rsquo;,<br/>
+&lsquo;Philikì Hetairia&rsquo;,<br/>
+Philip, Count of Flanders,<br/>
+Philip of Macedonia,<br/>
+Philippopolis, Bogomil centre,<br/>
+  foundation of,<br/>
+  revolts against Turks,<br/>
+Pindus,<br/>
+Pirot,<br/>
+Place-names, the distribution of classical, indigenous, and<br/>
+                         Slavonic, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Plevna, siege of,<br/>
+Podgorica,<br/>
+Poland,<br/>
+Pontus,<br/>
+Popes, attitude of the, towards the Slavonic liturgy,<br/>
+Poros,<br/>
+Porto Lagos,<br/>
+Požarevac,<br/>
+Preslav, Bulgarian capital,<br/>
+Prespa,<br/>
+Pressburg, Treaty of (1805),<br/>
+Prilep, battle of (1912),<br/>
+&lsquo;Primates&rsquo;, the,<br/>
+Prizren,<br/>
+Prussia and Austria, war between (1866),<br/>
+Psarà,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Radowitz, Baron von,<br/>
+Ragusa (Dubrovnik, in Serbian), its relations with the Serbian<br/>
+state,<br/>
+  prosperity of, under Turkish rule,<br/>
+  decline of,<br/>
+Railways in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Rashid Pasha,<br/>
+Raška, centre of Serb state,<br/>
+Règlement Organique,<br/>
+Religious divisions in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Resna, in Macedonia,<br/>
+Rhodes,<br/>
+  siege of,<br/>
+Ristić, M.,<br/>
+Rodosto,<br/>
+Romaic architecture,<br/>
+  government,<br/>
+  language,<br/>
+&lsquo;Romaioi&rsquo;,<br/>
+Roman Catholicism in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+Roman Empire,<br/>
+Roman law,<br/>
+Rome, its conquest of the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  relations of, with Bulgaria,<br/>
+  relations of, with Serbia,<br/>
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Constantinople,<br/>
+Rosetti, C.A.,<br/>
+Rovine, battle of,<br/>
+Rumania and the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  and the second Balkan war(1913),<br/>
+  and Bulgaria,<br/>
+  and the Russo-Turkish war (1877),<br/>
+  anti-Greek movement in,<br/>
+  anti-Russian revolution in,<br/>
+  commerce of,<br/>
+  convention with Russia (1877),<br/>
+  dynastic question in,<br/>
+  education in,<br/>
+  influences at work in,<br/>
+  military situation,<br/>
+  nationalist activity in,<br/>
+  neutrality of,<br/>
+  origins of,<br/>
+  Patriarch&rsquo;s authority in,<br/>
+  peasantry of,<br/>
+  Phanariotes in,<br/>
+  political parties in,<br/>
+  politics of, internal,<br/>
+  relations with Russia,<br/>
+  religion and Church in,<br/>
+  Roman civilization, influence in,<br/>
+  rural question in,<br/>
+  Russian influence in; politics in,<br/>
+  struggle for independence,<br/>
+  territorial gains,<br/>
+  territorial losses,<br/>
+  Turkish rule in,<br/>
+  Upper class in (cneazi, boyards),<br/>
+    origins of,<br/>
+    social evolution of,<br/>
+    economic and political supremacy,<br/>
+Rumanian army,<br/>
+  claims in Macedonia,<br/>
+  principalities, foundation of,<br/>
+    union of,<br/>
+    revolt (1822),<br/>
+Rumanians, early evidences of,<br/>
+  in Bessarabia,<br/>
+  in Bucovina,<br/>
+  in Hungary,<br/>
+  in Macedonia,<br/>
+Rumelia, Eastern,<br/>
+Russia and Bulgaria,<br/>
+  and Greece,<br/>
+  and Montenegro,<br/>
+  and Rumania,<br/>
+  and Serbia,<br/>
+  and Turkey,<br/>
+  and the Macedonian question,<br/>
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,<br/>
+  Bulgars in,<br/>
+  commercial treaty with Turkey (1783),<br/>
+  convention with Rumania (1877),<br/>
+  conversion to Christianity,<br/>
+  occupation of Kars,<br/>
+  re-organization under Peter the Great,<br/>
+  wars with Turkey (1769-84),<br/>
+    (1787),<br/>
+    (1807),<br/>
+    (1828),<br/>
+    (1877-8),<br/>
+    (1914-15),<br/>
+Russian diplomacy at Constantinople,<br/>
+  influence in Bulgaria,<br/>
+  invasion of Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  relations with the Balkan Christians,<br/>
+  relations with the Balkan League,<br/>
+Russians, the, comparison of,<br/>
+  with the Southern Slavs,<br/>
+  <i>see</i> Slavs, the Eastern,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Šabac (Shabatz),<br/>
+Salisbury, Lord,<br/>
+Salonika,<br/>
+Salonika-Nish railway, the,<br/>
+Samos,<br/>
+Samothraki,<br/>
+Samuel, Tsar of western Bulgaria (977-1014),<br/>
+San Stefano, Treaty of (1878),<br/>
+Saracens, the,<br/>
+Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia,<br/>
+Sava, St.,<br/>
+Save, the,<br/>
+Scutari (di Albania), Skodra,<br/>
+Selim I, Sultan,<br/>
+Selim III, Sultan,<br/>
+Seljuks, the,<br/>
+Semendria: <i>see</i> Smederevo.<br/>
+Semites, the,<br/>
+Serb migrations,<br/>
+  national life, centres of,<br/>
+  political centres,<br/>
+  race, home of the,<br/>
+  territories, divisions of the,<br/>
+Serbia and Austria-Hungary, relations between,<br/>
+  and Bulgaria, contrasted,<br/>
+  the agreement between,<br/>
+  and Macedonia,<br/>
+  and Russia, relations between,<br/>
+  and the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina,<br/>
+  and the Balkan League,<br/>
+  and Turkey,<br/>
+  dissensions in,<br/>
+  geography of,<br/>
+  Patriarch&rsquo;s authority in,<br/>
+  the barrier to German expansion eastwards,<br/>
+  Turkish conquest of,<br/>
+  wars with Turkey (1875-7),<br/>
+Serbian Church, the,<br/>
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia,<br/>
+  Empire, its extent under Stephen Dušan,<br/>
+  literature,<br/>
+  nation, centre of gravity of,<br/>
+  principality, its extent in 1830,<br/>
+Serbo-Bulgarian war (1885),<br/>
+  (1913),<br/>
+Serbo-Croat nationality, formation of the,<br/>
+Serbo-Croat unity, movement in favour of,<br/>
+Serbo-Croats, general distribution of,<br/>
+Serbs, defeat Bulgars and Greeks,<br/>
+  distribution of the, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  general distribution of the,<br/>
+  north of the Danube,<br/>
+  outside the boundaries of the Serb state,<br/>
+  religious persecution of,<br/>
+  revolt against Bulgaria,<br/>
+  revolt against the Magyars,<br/>
+  revolts against Turkey,<br/>
+  their attitude towards the Germans,<br/>
+Serbs and Croats, difference between,<br/>
+Shabatz: <i>see</i> Šabac.<br/>
+Shipka Pass,<br/>
+Shishman, revolts against Bulgaria,<br/>
+Sicily,<br/>
+Silistria,<br/>
+Simeon the Great, Bulgar Tsar (893-927),<br/>
+Singidunum: <i>see</i> Belgrade.<br/>
+Sitvatorok, Treaty of,<br/>
+Sivas,<br/>
+Skanderbey,<br/>
+Skodra: <i>see</i> Scutari.<br/>
+Skoplje (Üsküb, in Turkish),<br/>
+Slav influence in Rumania,<br/>
+Slavonia,<br/>
+  absorbed by Hungary,<br/>
+Slavonic immigration, the streams of, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  languages, the, use of, in Rumanian Church,<br/>
+  liturgy, the, southern, nationalities,<br/>
+Slavs, maritime,<br/>
+  method of their migration southwards into the Balkan peninsula<br/>
+  migration, in the seventh century,<br/>
+  their lack of cohesion,<br/>
+  their attacks on Salonika and Constantinople with the Avars,<br/>
+  their original home,<br/>
+  their settlement south of the Danube,<br/>
+  the Balkan, their attitude towards the Church, under Turkish rule,<br/>
+  the Eastern (Russians),<br/>
+  the Southern, general distribution of,<br/>
+  the Western,<br/>
+Slivnitsa, battle of (1885),<br/>
+Slovenes, the,<br/>
+Smederevo (Semendria),<br/>
+Smyrna,<br/>
+Sofia, captured by the Bulgars from the Greeks, captured by the Turks,<br/>
+Soudha Bay,<br/>
+Southern Slav nationalities, the,<br/>
+Spain, Jews expelled from,<br/>
+Spalajković, Dr.,<br/>
+Spetza,<br/>
+Sporades, the,<br/>
+Srem: <i>see</i> Syrmia.<br/>
+Stambul,<br/>
+Sultanate of,<br/>
+Stambulov,<br/>
+Stephen Dragutin,<br/>
+Stephen Dušan, King of Serbia(1331-45), Tsar of Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks
+(1345-55),<br/>
+Stephen (Lazarević), Serbian Prince,<br/>
+Stephen Nemanja, <i>veliki župan</i>,<br/>
+Stephen Nemanjić, King of Serbia (1196-1223), the First-Crowned,<br/>
+Stephen Radoslav, King of Serbia (1223-33),<br/>
+Stephen Uroš I, King of Serbia (1242-76),<br/>
+Stephen Uroš II (Milutin), King of Serbia (1282-1321),<br/>
+Stephen Uroš III (Dećanski), King of Serbia (1321-31),<br/>
+Stephen Vladislav, King of Serbia (1233-42),<br/>
+Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia,<br/>
+Struma, the,<br/>
+Suleiman I, Sultan (the Magnificent),<br/>
+Suli, clansmen of,<br/>
+Šumadija,<br/>
+Svetoslav, ruler of Bulgaria,<br/>
+Svishtov,<br/>
+Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev,<br/>
+Syria,<br/>
+Syrian question, the,<br/>
+Syrmia,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tabriz,<br/>
+Tanzimat, the,<br/>
+Taraboš, Mount,<br/>
+Tarsus,<br/>
+Tartar invasion, the,<br/>
+Tartars of the Golden Horde,<br/>
+Tenedos,<br/>
+Teutons, the,<br/>
+Thasos,<br/>
+Theodore Lascaris, the Emperor,<br/>
+Theodoric,<br/>
+Theodosius, the Emperor,<br/>
+Theophilus of Constantinople,<br/>
+Thessaly,<br/>
+Thrace,<br/>
+Thu-Kiu, people of,<br/>
+Tilsit, peace of (1807),<br/>
+Timok, the,<br/>
+Timur,<br/>
+Tirnovo, centre and capital of second Bulgarian empire,<br/>
+Trajan, the Emperor, in the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  his conquest of Dacia,<br/>
+Transylvania,<br/>
+Trebizond,<br/>
+Trieste,<br/>
+Trikéri, destruction of,<br/>
+Trikoupis, Greek statesman,<br/>
+Tripoli,<br/>
+Tripolitza,<br/>
+Tunisia,<br/>
+Turcomans, the,<br/>
+Turkestan,<br/>
+Turkey: administrative systems,<br/>
+  and the Armenian massacres (1894),<br/>
+  and the Balkans,<br/>
+  and Bulgaria,<br/>
+  and the Bulgarian atrocities,<br/>
+  and Greece,<br/>
+  and the islands of southeastern Europe,<br/>
+  and Rumania,<br/>
+  and Russia,<br/>
+  and Serbia,<br/>
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,<br/>
+  and the suzerainty of Krete,<br/>
+  Christians in, position of,<br/>
+  codification of the civil law,<br/>
+  commercial treaties,<br/>
+  Committee of Union and Progress,<br/>
+  conquests in Europe,<br/>
+    in Asia,<br/>
+    of the Balkan peninsula,<br/>
+  decline and losses of territory in Europe and Asia,<br/>
+  &lsquo;Dere Beys&rsquo;,<br/>
+  Dragoman, office of, 184, 185,<br/>
+  expansion: of the Osmanli kingdom,<br/>
+    of the Byzantine Empire,<br/>
+    extent of the empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,<br/>
+    territorial expansion in Asia,<br/>
+  feudal aristocracy of,<br/>
+  financial embarrassments and public debt,<br/>
+  frontier beyond the Danube,<br/>
+  German influence in,<br/>
+  Grand Vizierate,<br/>
+  military organization,<br/>
+    soldiery recruited from Christian races,<br/>
+    &lsquo;tribute-children&rsquo; system of recruiting,<br/>
+  name of,<br/>
+  pan-Islamic propaganda under Abdul Hamul,<br/>
+  pan-Ottomanism,<br/>
+  Phanariot régime,<br/>
+  praetorians,<br/>
+  railway construction, effect of,<br/>
+  reforms in,<br/>
+  representative institutions inaugurated,<br/>
+  revival and relapse in the nineteenth century,<br/>
+  revolution of 1910,<br/>
+  war in the Balkans (1912),<br/>
+  war with Great Britain, France, and Russia (1914-15),<br/>
+  wars with Greece (1821),<br/>
+    (1897),<br/>
+    (1912),<br/>
+  war with Italy (1911-12),<br/>
+  wars with Russia (1769-74),<br/>
+    (1787),<br/>
+    (1807),<br/>
+    (1828),<br/>
+    (1877-8),<br/>
+    (1914-15),<br/>
+  wars with Serbia (1875-7),<br/>
+  Young Turks, the,<br/>
+Turkish conquests in Europe,<br/>
+  fleet,<br/>
+  janissaries,<br/>
+Turks (Osmanlis), entry into Europe,<br/>
+  general distribution of,<br/>
+  nomadic tribes of,<br/>
+  origin of,<br/>
+  vitality and inherent qualities of the,<br/>
+Tzakonia,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Uighurs, Turkish tribe,<br/>
+Unkiar Skelessi, Treaty of (1833),<br/>
+Uroš, King of Serbia: <i>see</i> Stephen Uroš.<br/>
+Uroš, Serbian Tsar (1355-71),<br/>
+Üskub: <i>see</i> Skoplje,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Valens, the Emperor,<br/>
+Valtetzi, battle of,<br/>
+Van,<br/>
+Vardar, the,<br/>
+Varna,<br/>
+  battle of (1444),<br/>
+  captured by the Bulgars,<br/>
+Venezelos, E., Kretan and Greek statesman,<br/>
+  his part in the Kretan revolution,<br/>
+  becomes premier of Greece,<br/>
+  work as a constructive statesman,<br/>
+  the formation of the Balkan League,<br/>
+  his proposals to Bulgaria for settlement of claims,<br/>
+  his handling of the problem of Epirus,<br/>
+  results of his statesmanship,<br/>
+Venice and the Venetian Republic,<br/>
+Victoria, Queen of England,<br/>
+Vienna,<br/>
+  besieged by the Turks (1526),<br/>
+    (1683),<br/>
+  Congress of (1814),<br/>
+  in relation to the Serbo-Croats: <i>see</i> Budapest.<br/>
+Visigoths, the,<br/>
+Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia,<br/>
+Vlakhs, the,<br/>
+Volga, Bulgars of the,<br/>
+Volo, Gulf of,<br/>
+Vranja,<br/>
+Vrioni, Omer,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wallachia,<br/>
+  advent of the Turks in,<br/>
+  subjugation of, by the Turks,<br/>
+Wied, Prince of,<br/>
+William II, German Emperor,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yannina,<br/>
+Yantra, the,<br/>
+Yemen,<br/>
+Yenishehr,<br/>
+Yuruk tribe,<br/>
+Yuzgad,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zabergan,<br/>
+Zaimis, high commissioner of Krete,<br/>
+Zante,<br/>
+Zeta, the, river and district,
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Balkans
+by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Balkans
+       A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey
+
+Author: Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+Release Date: March 26, 2004 [EBook #11716]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andy Schmitt and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE BALKANS
+
+A HISTORY OF BULGARIA--SERBIA--GREECE--RUMANIA--TURKEY
+
+
+
+
+THE BALKANS
+
+A HISTORY OF BULGARIA--SERBIA--GREECE--RUMANIA--TURKEY
+
+BY NEVILL FORBES, ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE, D. MITRANY, D.G. HOGARTH
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely
+separated, engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had no
+opportunity for interchange of views. Each must be held responsible,
+therefore, for his own section alone. If there be any discrepancies in our
+writings (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. It may be well to state that the sections on Serbia and Bulgaria
+were finished before the decisive Balkan developments of the past two
+months. Those on Greece and Rumania represent only a little later stage of
+the evolution. That on Turkey, compiled between one mission abroad and
+another, was the latest to be finished.
+
+If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and
+foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about any
+Balkan people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be fighting
+to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and interwoven in some
+intimate way with our history. That any one of them is arrayed against us
+to-day is not to be laid entirely or chiefly at its own door. They are all
+fine peoples who have not obtained their proper places in the sun. The
+best of the Osmanli nation, the Anatolian peasantry, has yet to make its
+physical and moral qualities felt under civilized conditions. As for the
+rest--the Serbs and the Bulgars, who have enjoyed brief moments of
+barbaric glory in their past, have still to find themselves in that future
+which shall be to the Slav. The Greeks, who were old when we were not as
+yet, are younger now than we. They are as incalculable a factor in a
+political forecast as another Chosen Race, the Jews. Their past is the
+world's glory: the present in the Near East is theirs more than any
+people's: the future--despite the laws of corporate being and decline,
+dare we say they will have no part in it? Of Rumania what are we to think?
+Her mixed people has had the start of the Balkan Slavs in modern
+civilization, and evidently her boundaries must grow wider yet. But the
+limits of her possible expansion are easier to set than those of the rest.
+
+We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history,
+whether of the East or the West, is mostly a record of bloodshedding and
+cruelty; and the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in most
+parts of the Balkans, and is not yet over in some parts. There are certain
+things salutary to bear in mind when we think or speak of any part of that
+country to-day. First, that less than two hundred years ago, England had
+its highwaymen on all roads, and its smuggler dens and caravans, Scotland
+its caterans, and Ireland its moonlighters. Second, that religious fervour
+has rarely mitigated and generally increased 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 write about the Near East under
+existing circumstances altogether _sine ira et studio_, we have tried to
+remember that each of its peoples has a case.
+
+D.G. HOGARTH.
+
+_November_, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BULGARIA AND SERBIA. By NEVILL FORBES.
+
+ 1. Introductory
+ 2. The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times 400 B.C. - A.D. 500
+ 3. The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A.D. 500-650
+
+
+BULGARIA.
+
+ 4. The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,
+    600-700
+ 5. The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of
+    Christianity, 700-893
+ 6. The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire, 893-972
+ 7. The Rise and Fall of 'Western Bulgaria' and the Greek
+    Supremacy, 963-1186
+ 8. The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1186-1258
+ 9. The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse, 1258-1393
+10. The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation, 1393-1878
+11. The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86
+12. The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 1886-1908
+13. The Kingdom, 1908-13
+
+
+SERBIA.
+
+14. The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy, 650-1168
+15. The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction
+    of Serbian Independence, 1168-1496
+16. The Turkish Dominion, 1496-1796
+17. The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and
+    Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c] (1815-30): 1796-1830
+18. The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia, 1830-1903
+19. Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary,
+    1903-8
+20. Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars, 1908-13
+
+
+GREECE. By ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.
+
+1. From Ancient to Modern Greece
+2. The Awakening of the Nation
+3. The Consolidation of the State
+
+
+RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS. By D. MITRANY
+
+1. Introduction
+2. Formation of the Rumanian Nation
+3. The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities
+4. The Phanariote Rule
+5. Modern Period to 1866
+6. Contemporary Period: Internal Development
+7. Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs
+8. Rumania and the Present War
+
+
+TURKEY. By D. G. HOGARTH
+
+1. Origin of the Osmanlis
+2. Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom
+3. Heritage and Expansion of the Byzantine Empire
+4. Shrinkage and Retreat
+5. Revival
+6. Relapse
+7. Revolution
+8. The Balkan War
+9. The Future
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+MAPS
+
+The Balkan Peninsula: Ethnological
+The Balkan Peninsula
+The Ottoman Empire
+
+
+
+
+BULGARIA AND SERBIA
+
+
+
+1
+
+_Introductory_
+
+
+The whole of what may be called the trunk or _massif_ 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 the Adriatic) and
+the lake of Scutari in the west, through lakes Okhrida and Prespa (in
+Macedonia) to the outskirts of Salonika and thence to Midia on the shores
+of the Black Sea, 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 the west, and the Slovenes in the extreme north-west,
+between Trieste and the Save; these nationalities compose the southern
+branch of the Slavonic race. The other inhabitants 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 are to be found in varying
+quantities within the limits of the Slav territory roughly outlined above,
+but greater numbers of them are outside it; on the other hand, there are a
+considerable number of Serbs living north of the rivers Save and Danube,
+in southern Hungary. Details of the ethnic distribution and boundaries
+will of course be gone into more 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 gastronomers to
+denote a dish, the principal characteristic of which is that its component
+parts are mixed up into quite inextricable 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 in number, inhabiting the Austrian provinces of
+Carinthia and Carniola, have never been able to form a political state,
+though, with the growth of Trieste as a great port and the persistent
+efforts of Germany to make her influence if not her flag supreme on the
+shores of the Adriatic, this small people has from its geographical
+position and from its anti-German (and anti-Italian) attitude achieved
+considerable notoriety and some importance.
+
+Of the Bulgars and Serbs it may be said that at the present moment the
+former control the eastern, and the latter, in alliance with the Greeks,
+the western half of the peninsula. It has always been the ambition of each
+of these three nationalities to dominate the whole, an ambition which has
+caused endless waste of blood and money and untold misery. If the question
+were to be settled purely on ethnical considerations, 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 in
+origin, and would thus undoubtedly attain the hegemony of the peninsula,
+while the centre of gravity of the Serbian nation would, as is ethnically
+just, move north-westwards. Political considerations, however, have until
+now always been against this solution of the difficulty, and, even if it
+solved in this sense, there would still remain 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 lines virtually impossible. It is curious that the Slavs, though
+masters of the interior of the peninsula and of parts of its eastern and
+western coasts, have never made the shores of the Aegean (the White Sea,
+as they call it) or the cities on them their own. The Adriatic is the only
+sea on the shore of which any Slavonic race has ever made its home. In
+view of this difficulty, namely, the interior of the peninsula being
+Slavonic while the coastal fringe is Greek, and of the approximately equal
+numerical strength of all three nations, it is almost inevitable that the
+ultimate solution of the problem and delimitation of political boundaries
+will have to be effected by means of territorial compromise. It can only
+be hoped that this ultimate compromise will be agreed upon by the three
+countries concerned, and will be more equitable than that which was forced
+on them by Rumania in 1913 and laid down in the Treaty of Bucarest of that
+year.
+
+If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is made between them,
+the road to the East, which from the point of view of the Germanic powers
+lies through Serbia, will sooner or later inevitably be forced open, and
+the independence, first 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. If the Balkan League could be reconstituted, Germany and Austria
+would never reach Salonika or Constantinople.
+
+
+
+2
+
+_The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times_
+
+400 B.C. - A.D. 500.
+
+
+In the earlier historical times the whole of the eastern part of the
+Balkan peninsula between the Danube and the Aegean was known as Thracia,
+while the western part (north of the forty-first degree of latitude) was
+termed Illyricum; the lower basin of the river Vardar (the classical
+Axius) was called Macedonia. A number of the tribal and personal names of
+the early Illyrians and Thracians have been preserved. Philip of Macedonia
+subdued Thrace in the fourth century B.C. and in 342 founded the city of
+Philippopolis. Alexander's first campaign was devoted to securing control
+of the peninsula, but 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 Belgrade was known until
+the seventh century A.D. by its Celtic name of Singidunum. Naissus, the
+modern Nish, is also possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230 B.C.
+that Rome came into contact with Illyricum, owing to the piratical
+proclivities of its inhabitants, but for a long time it only controlled
+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 run in several parallel and almost unbroken lines the
+whole length of the shore of the Adriatic and have always formed an
+effective barrier to invasion from the west. The interior was only very
+gradually subdued by the Romans after Macedonia had been occupied by them
+in 146 B.C. Throughout the first century B.C. conflicts raged with varying
+fortune between the invaders and all the native races living between the
+Adriatic and the Danube. They were attacked both from Aquileia in the
+north and from Macedonia in the south, 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 of that of Bulgaria between the
+Danube and the Balkan range (the classical Haemus), became an imperial
+province, and twenty 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 between the Save and the Adriatic, and Pannonia lay
+between the Danube and the Save. In 107 A.D. the Emperor Trajan conquered
+the Dacians beyond the lower Danube, and organized a province of Dacia out
+of territory roughly equivalent to the modern Wallachia and Transylvania,
+This trans-Danubian territory did not remain attached to the empire for
+more than a hundred and fifty years; but within the river line a vast belt
+of country, stretching from the head of the Adriatic to the mouths of the
+Danube on the Black Sea, was Romanized through and through. The Emperor
+Trajan has been called the Charlemagne of the Balkan peninsula; all
+remains are attributed to him (he was nicknamed the Wallflower by
+Constantine the Great), and his reign marked the zenith of Roman power in
+this part of the world. The Balkan peninsula enjoyed the benefits of Roman
+civilization for three centuries, from the first to the fourth, but from
+the second century onwards the attitude of the Romans was defensive rather
+than offensive. The war against the 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 251 the
+Emperor Decius was killed in battle against them near Odessus on the Black
+Sea (the modern Varna). The Goths reached the outskirts of Thessalonica
+(Salonika), but were defeated by the Emperor Claudius at Naissus (Nish) in
+269; shortly afterwards, however, the Emperor Aurelian had definitively to
+relinquish Dacia to them. The Emperor Diocletian, a native of Dalmatia,
+who reigned from 284 to 305, carried out a redistribution of the imperial
+provinces. Pannonia and western Illyria, or Dalmatia, were assigned to the
+prefecture of Italy, Thrace to that of the Orient, while the whole centre
+of the peninsula, from the Danube to the Peloponnese, constituted the
+prefecture of Illyria, with Thessalonica as capital. The territory to the
+north of the Danube having been lost, what is now western Bulgaria was
+renamed Dacia, while Moesia, the modern kingdom of Serbia, was made very
+much smaller. Praevalis, or the southern part of Dalmatia, approximately
+the modern Montenegro and Albania, was detached from that province and
+added to the prefecture of Illyria. In this way the boundary between the
+province of Dalmatia and the Balkan peninsula proper ran from near the
+lake of Scutari in the south to the river Drinus (the modern Drina), whose
+course it followed till the Save was reached in the north.
+
+An event of far-reaching importance in the following century was the
+elevation by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium into
+the imperial city of Constantinople in 325. This century also witnessed
+the arrival of the Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed the
+Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper and the Dniester, in 375, and the
+Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the modern Rumania, moved
+southwards in sympathy with this event. The Emperor Valens lost his life
+fighting against these Goths in 378 at the great battle of Adrianople (a
+city established in Thrace by 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 devastated the entire peninsula, after which they proceeded to
+Italy. After the death of the Emperor Theodosius the empire was divided,
+never to be joined into one whole again. The dividing line followed that,
+already mentioned, which separated the prefecture of Italy from those of
+Illyria and the Orient, that is to say, it began in the south, on the
+shore of the Adriatic near the Bocche di Cattaro, and went due north along
+the valley of the Drina till the confluence of that river with the Save.
+It will be seen that this division had 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 provinces to 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. Its extent is proved by
+the fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly, and their language
+very largely, defended from those of the legions and colonies of the
+Emperor Trajan.
+
+Latin influence, shipping, colonization, and art were always supreme on
+the eastern shores of the Adriatic, just as 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 vocabulary is derived;
+though driven southwards by the Romans and northwards by the Greeks, they
+have remained in their mountain fastnesses to this day, impervious to any
+of the civilizations to which they have been exposed.
+
+Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula very early; Macedonia
+and Dalmatia were the parts where it was first established, and it took
+some time to penetrate into the interior. During the reign of Diocletian
+numerous martyrs suffered for the faith in the Danubian provinces, but
+with the accession of Constantine the Great persecution came to an end. As
+soon, however, as the Christians were left alone, they started persecuting
+each other, and during the fourth century 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 Theiss; they devastated the Balkan
+peninsula, in spite of the tribute which they had levied on Constantinople
+in return for their promise 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, where
+he remained till he transferred the sphere of his activities to Italy ten
+years later. Towards the end of the fifth century Huns of various kinds
+returned to the lower Danube and devastated the peninsula several times,
+penetrating as far as Epirus and Thessaly.
+
+
+
+3
+
+_The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula_, A.D. 500-650
+
+
+The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security
+and prosperity during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into
+barbarism as a result of these endless invasions; the walled towns, such
+as Salonika and Constantinople, were the only safe places, and the country
+became waste and desolate. The process continued unabated throughout the
+three following centuries, and one is driven to one of two conclusions,
+either that these lands must have possessed very extraordinary powers of
+recuperation to make it worth while for invaders to pillage them so
+frequently, or, what is more probable, there can have been after some time
+little left to plunder, and consequently the Byzantine historians'
+accounts of enormous drives of prisoners and booty are much exaggerated.
+It is impossible to count the number of times the tide of invasion and
+devastation swept southwards over the unfortunate peninsula. The emperors
+and their generals did what they could by means of defensive works on the
+frontiers, of punitive expeditions, and of trying to set the various
+hordes of barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they had at
+the same time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain,
+it is not surprising that they were not more successful. The growing
+riches of Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for
+the wild men from the east and north, and unfortunately the Greek citizens
+were more inclined to spend their energy in theological disputes and their
+leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other to the
+defence of their country. It was only by dint of paying them huge sums of
+money that the invaders were kept away from the coast. The departure of
+the Huns and the Goths had made the way for fresh series of unwelcome
+visitors. In the sixth century the Slavs appear for the first time. From
+their original homes which were immediately north 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
+in Dacia, north of the Danube, in the previous century, but they are first
+mentioned as having crossed that river during the reign of the Emperor
+Justin I (518-27). They were a loosely-knit congeries of tribes without
+any single leader or central authority; some say they merely possessed the
+instinct of anarchy, others that they were permeated with the ideals of
+democracy. What is certain is that amongst them neither leadership nor
+initiative was developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and
+organisation. The Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians, were only
+welded into anything approaching unity by the comparatively much smaller
+number of Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came and took charge of
+their affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of
+themselves able to form a united community, conscious of its aim and
+capable of persevering in its attainment.
+
+The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company of
+the Avars, a terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns, were
+of Asiatic (Turkish or Mongol) origin. These invasions became more
+frequent during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-65), and
+culminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all the invaders on
+Constantinople under a certain Zabergan, which was brilliantly defeated by
+the veteran Byzantine general Belisarius. 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 their warlike 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; that is to say, 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 Danube, the 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
+military energies of Constantinople were diverted to Persia, so that the
+invaders of the Balkan peninsula had the field very much to themselves. It
+was during this time that the power of the Avars reached its height. They
+were masters of all the country up to the walls of Adrianople and
+Salonika, though they did not settle there. The peninsula seems to have
+been colonized by Slavs, who penetrated right down into Greece; but the
+Avars were throughout this time, both in politics and in war, the
+directing and dominating force. During another Persian war, which broke
+out in 622 and entailed the prolonged absence of the emperor from
+Constantinople, the Avars, not satisfied with the tribute extorted from
+the Greeks, made an alliance against them with the Persians, and in 626
+collected a large army of Slavs and Asiatics and attacked Constantinople
+both by land and sea from the European side, while the Persians threatened
+it from Asia. But the walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks proved
+invincible, 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 downfall became 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 unostentatiously proceeding; by the middle of the
+seventh century it was complete. The main streams of Slavonic immigration
+moved southwards and westwards. The first covered the whole of the country
+between the Danube and the Balkan range, overflowed into Macedonia, and
+filtered down into Greece. Southern Thrace in the east and Albania in the
+west were comparatively little affected, and in these districts the
+indigenous population maintained itself. The coasts of the Aegean and the
+great cities on or near them were too strongly held by the Greeks to be
+affected, and those Slavs who penetrated into Greece itself were soon
+absorbed by the local populations. The still stronger Slavonic stream,
+which moved westwards and turned up north-westwards, overran the whole
+country down to the shores of the Adriatic and as far as the sources of
+the Save and Drave in the Alps. From that point in the west to the shores
+of the Black Sea in the east became one solid mass of Slavs,
+and has remained so ever since. The few Slavs who were left north of the
+Danube in Dacia were gradually assimilated by the inhabitants of that
+province, who were 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 words of
+Slavonic origin contained in the Rumanian language.
+
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA ETHNOLOGICAL]
+
+Place-names are a good index of the extent and strength of the tide of
+Slav immigration. All along the coast, from the mouth of the Danube to the
+head of the Adriatic, the Greek and Roman names have been retained though
+places have often been given alternative names by the Slavonic settlers.
+Thrace, especially the south-eastern part, and Albania have the fewest
+Slavonic place-names. In Macedonia and Lower Moesia (Bulgaria) very few
+classical names have survived, while in Upper Moesia (Serbia) and the
+interior of Dalmatia (Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Montenegro) they have
+entirely disappeared. The Slavs themselves, though their tribal names were
+known, were until the ninth century usually called collectively S(k)lavini
+([Greek: Sklabaenoi]) by the Greeks, and all the inland parts of the
+peninsula were for long termed by them 'the S(k)lavonias' ([Greek:
+Sklabiniai]).
+
+During the seventh century, dating from the defeat of the Slavs and Avars
+before the walls of Constantinople in 626 and the final triumph of the
+emperor over the Persians in 628, the influence and power of the Greeks
+began to reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north as the
+Danube; this process was coincident with the decline of the might of the
+Avars. It was the custom of the astute Byzantine diplomacy to look on and
+speak of lands which had been occupied by the various barbarian invaders
+as grants made to them through the generosity of the emperor; by this
+means, by dint also of lavishing titles and substantial incomes to the
+invaders' chiefs, by making the most of their mutual jealousies, and also
+by enlisting regiments of Slavonic mercenaries in the imperial armies, the
+supremacy of Constantinople was regained far more effectively than it
+could have been by the continual and exhausting use of force.
+
+
+
+
+BULGARIA
+
+
+
+4
+
+_The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,_ 600-700
+
+
+The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed all
+their movements until their final establishment there in the seventh
+century, are involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by name in
+classical and Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes to the
+north of the Black Sea amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has been
+assumed by some that at the end of the fifth and throughout the sixth
+century they were associated first with the Huns and later with the Avars
+and Slavs in the various incursions into and invasions of the eastern
+empire which have already been enumerated. It is the tendency of Bulgarian
+historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the history of Russia
+only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the antiquity of their
+own and to claim as early a date as possible for the authentic appearance
+of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of the Balkan theatre. They
+are also unwilling to admit that they were anticipated by the Slavs; they
+prefer to think that the Slavs only insinuated themselves there thanks to
+the energy of the Bulgars' offensive against the Greeks, and that as soon
+as the Bulgars had leisure to look about them they found all the best
+places already occupied by the anarchic Slavs.
+
+Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were or
+were not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept westwards
+into Europe with little intermission throughout the fifth and sixth
+centuries, but even if they were, they do not seem to have settled down as
+early as that anywhere south of the Danube; it seems certain that they did
+not do so until the seventh century, and therefore that the Slavs were
+definitely installed in the Balkan peninsula a whole century before the
+Bulgars crossed the Danube for good.
+
+The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like the
+Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from eastern Asia,
+of the stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of all these peoples
+was to move westwards from Asia into Europe, and this they did at
+considerable and irregular intervals, though in alarming and apparently
+inexhaustible numbers, roughly from the fourth till the fourteenth
+centuries. The distance was great, but the journey, thanks to the flat,
+grassy, treeless, and well-watered character of the steppes of southern
+Russia which they had to cross, was easy. They often halted for
+considerable periods by the way, and some never moved further westwards
+than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in large numbers on the
+Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it is presumed 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 Tartar immigrants from Asia and eventually
+were consolidated into the powerful kingdom of Kazan, which was only
+crushed by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552. According to Bulgarian historians,
+the basins of the rivers Volga and Don and the steppes of eastern Russia
+proved too confined a space for the legitimate development of Bulgarian
+energy, and expansion to the west was decided on. A large number of
+Bulgars therefore detached themselves and began to move south-westwards.
+During the sixth century they seem to have been settled in the country to
+the north of the Black Sea, forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria. It
+is very doubtful whether the Bulgars did take part, as they are supposed
+to have done, in the ambitious but unsuccessful attack on Constantinople
+in 559 under Zabergan, chief of another Tartar tribe; but it is fairly
+certain that they did in the equally formidable but equally unsuccessful
+attacks by the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609 and Constantinople
+in 626.
+
+During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh 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 the Bulgars grew as 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 joined forces with what was left of the Avars, and there the
+Bulgars maintained themselves till they were obliterated by 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 at 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 that
+year the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.
+
+The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not known,
+but what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process, by which
+the Franks in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenous
+population 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 subject nationality, that beyond a few personal names
+no traces of the language of the Bulgars have survived. Modern Bulgarian,
+except for the Turkish words introduced into it later during the Ottoman
+rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so the Bulgarian nationality; as is so often
+the case with mongrel 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 Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity_,
+700-893
+
+
+From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have
+given their name the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks, and
+ever since both peoples have looked on one another as natural and
+hereditary enemies. The Bulgars, like all the barbarians who had preceded
+them, were fascinated by the honey-pot of Constantinople, 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 Greeks or else amongst
+themselves. At times a diversion was caused by the Bulgars taking the part
+of the Greeks, as in 718, when they 'delivered' Constantinople, at the
+invocation 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 anarchy of the many, which the Bulgars found when they
+arrived, and which their first few autocratic rulers had been able to
+control, was replaced by an anarchy of the few. Prince succeeded prince,
+war followed war, at the will of the feudal nobles. This internal strife
+was naturally profitable to the Greeks, who lavishly subsidized the rival
+factions.
+
+At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined
+forces with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the
+Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards
+towards the Danube. In this the Bulgars were completely successful under
+the leadership of one Krum, whom, in the elation of victory, they promptly
+elected to the throne. Krum was a far more capable ruler than they had
+bargained for, and he not only united all the Bulgars north and south of
+the Danube into one dominion, but also forcibly repressed the whims of the
+nobles and re-established the autocracy and the hereditary monarchy.
+Having finished with his enemies in the north, he turned his attention to
+the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he captured from them the
+important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica, known to the Slavs as
+Sredets), which is to-day the capital of Bulgaria. The loss of this city
+was a blow to the Greeks, because it was a great centre of commerce and
+also the point at which the commercial and strategic highways of the
+peninsula met and crossed. The Emperor Nikiph�ros, who wished to take his
+revenge and recover his lost property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars
+and lost his life in the Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at
+Mesembria (the modern Misivria) in 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum
+appeared before the capital, where he nearly lost his life in an ambush
+while negotiating for peace. During preparations for a final assault on
+Constantinople he died suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to have
+introduced civilisation into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power
+and gave it some of the more essential organs of government. He framed a
+code of laws remarkable for their rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary
+in such a community and beneficial in its effect. He repressed civil
+strife, and by this means made possible the reawakening of commerce and
+agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity, founded in 822 the city
+of Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav), situated in eastern
+Bulgaria, between Varna and Silistria, which was the capital until 972.
+
+The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed the
+definitive conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It is
+within this period also that fell the activities of the two great
+'Slavonic' missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and Methodius,
+who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders of
+their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into Bulgaria
+(or Moesia, as it was then) long before the arrival 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 was brought 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 the Church was at this time still
+nominally one, yet the rivalry between Rome and Constantinople had already
+become acute, and the struggle for spheres of spiritual influence had
+begun. It was in the year 863 that the Prince of Moravia, anxious to
+introduce Christianity into his country in a form intelligible to his
+subjects, addressed himself to the Emperor Michael III for help. Rome
+could not provide any suitable missionaries with knowledge of Slavonic
+languages, and the German, or more exactly the Bavarian, hierarchy with
+which Rome entrusted the spiritual welfare of the Slavs of Moravia and
+Pannonia used its greater local knowledge for political and not religious
+ends. The Germans exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order
+completely to dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter
+were only allowed to see the Church through Teutonic 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 composed the Slavonic alphabet which is to-day
+used throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and in many
+parts of Austria-Hungary and translated the gospels into Slavonic; it is
+for this reason that they are regarded with such veneration by all members
+of the Eastern Church. Their mission proved the greatest success (it must
+be remembered that at this time the various Slavonic tongues were probably
+less dissimilar than they are now), and the two brothers were warmly
+welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, 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; St. Cyril died in 869 and St. Methodius in 885; subsequent
+Popes, notably Stephen V, were not so benevolent to the Slavonic cause;
+the machinations of the German hierarchy (which included, even in those
+days, the falsification of documents) were irresistible, and finally the
+invasion of the Magyars, in 893, destroyed what was left of the Slavonic
+Church in Moravia. The missionary brothers had probably passed through
+Bulgaria on their way north in 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 subjects to do
+the same. Even when he had enforced his will on them at the price of
+numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at the
+beginning of his difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to welcome
+Bulgaria into the fold, but they had no wish to set up an independent
+Church and hierarchy 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 the basileus derived from the Church of
+Constantinople; he also admired the pomp of ecclesiastical ceremony, and
+wished to have a patriarch of his own to crown him and a hierarchy of his
+own to serve him. Finding the Greeks unresponsive, he turned to Rome, and
+Pope Nicholas I sent him two bishops to superintend the ecclesiastical
+affairs of Bulgaria till the investiture of Boris at the hands of the Holy
+See could be arranged. These bishops set 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 independent Church their enthusiasm abated and they were
+recalled to Rome in 867.
+
+Adrian II proved no more sympathetic, and in 870, during the reign of the
+Emperor Basil I, it was decided without more ado that the Bulgarian Church
+should be directly under the Bishop of Constantinople, on the ground that
+the kingdom of Boris was a vassal-state of the basileus, and that from the
+Byzantine point of view, as opposed to that of Rome, the State came first
+and the Church next. The Moravian Gorazd, a disciple of Methodius, was
+appointed Metropolitan, and at his death he was succeeded by his fellow
+countryman and co-disciple Clement, who by means of the construction of
+numerous churches and monasteries did a great deal for the propagation of
+light and learning in Bulgaria. The definite subjection of the Bulgarian
+Church to that of Byzantium was an important and far-reaching event. Boris
+has been reproached with submitting himself and his country to Greek
+influence, but in those days it was either Constantinople or Rome (there
+was no third way); and in view of the proximity of Constantinople and the
+glamour which its civilization cast all over the Balkans, it is not
+surprising that the Greeks carried the day.
+
+
+
+6
+
+_The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire_, 893-972
+
+
+During the reign of Simeon, second son of Boris, which lasted from 893 to
+927, Bulgaria reached a very high level of power and prosperity. Simeon,
+called the Great, is looked on by Bulgarians as their most capable monarch
+and his reign as the most brilliant period of their history. He had spent
+his childhood at Constantinople and been educated there, and he became
+such an admirer of Greek civilization that he was nicknamed _H�miargos_.
+His instructors had done their work so well that Simeon remained
+spellbound by the glamour of Constantinople throughout his life, and,
+although he might have laid the foundations of a solid empire in the
+Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and to be recognized as
+basileus--an ambition which was not to be fulfilled. His first campaign
+against the Greeks was not very 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 Pechenegs, 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 (894-913), the internal development
+of Bulgaria made great strides. The administration was properly organized,
+commerce was encouraged, and agriculture flourished. In the wars against
+the Greeks which occupied his last years he was more successful, and
+inflicted a severe defeat on them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917;
+but he was still unable to get from them what he wanted, and at last, in
+921, he was obliged to proclaim himself _basileus_ and _autocrat[=o]r_ of
+all Bulgars and Greeks, a title which nobody else recognized. He
+reappeared before Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more
+than the customary devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a
+solemn reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were
+clever enough to prevent the Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their
+return journey, and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was
+anxious to see them and enter into direct relations with Rome. In the same
+year Simeon tried to make an alliance with the Arabs, but the ambassadors
+of the latter were intercepted by the Greeks, who made it worth their
+while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.
+
+In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort against Constantinople and as
+a preliminary he ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. When, however, he arrived
+before the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate, and he
+entered into negotiations, which, as 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 subjected most of the eastern part of Serbia
+to his rule. From all this it can be seen that he was no diplomat, though
+not lacking in enterprise and ambition. The fact was that while he made
+his kingdom too powerful for the Greeks to subdue (indeed they were
+compelled to pay him tribute), yet Constantinople 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 south of
+the Danube and east of the rivers Morava and Ibar in Serbia and of the
+Drin in Albania. The Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence in
+Bulgaria during his reign, and works of theology grew like mushrooms. This
+was the only kind of literature that was ever popular in Bulgaria, and
+although it is usual to throw contempt on the literary achievements of
+Constantinople, we should know but little of Bulgaria were it not for the
+Greek historians.
+
+Simeon died in 927, and his son Peter, who succeeded him, was a lover of
+peace and comfort; he married a Byzantine princess, and during his reign
+(927-69) Greek influence grew ever stronger, in spite of several revolts
+on the part of the Bulgar nobles, while the capital Preslav became a
+miniature Constantinople. In 927 Rome recognized the kingdom 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 _arch[=o]n_ or prince (_knyaz_ in Bulgarian), which was the utmost
+title allowed to any foreign sovereign. It was not until 945 that they
+recognized Peter as _basileus_, the unique title possessed by their own
+emperors and till then never granted to any one else. Peter's reign was
+one of misfortune for his country both at home and abroad. In 931 the
+Serbs broke loose under their leader [)C]aslav, whom Simeon had captured
+but who effected his escape, and asserted their independence. In 963 a
+formidable revolt under one Shishman undermined the whole state fabric. He
+managed to subtract Macedonia and all western Bulgaria, including Sofia
+and Vidin, from Peter's rule, and proclaimed himself independent _tsar
+(tsar_ or _caesar_ was a title often accorded by Byzantium to relatives of
+the emperor or to distinguished men of Greek or other nationality, and
+though it was originally the equivalent of the highest title, it had long
+since ceased to be so: the emperor's designations were _basileus_ and
+_autocrat[=o]r_). From this time there were two Bulgarias--eastern and
+western. The eastern half was now little more than a Byzantine province,
+and the western became the centre of national life and the focus of
+national aspirations.
+
+Another factor which militated against the internal progress of Bulgaria
+was the spread of the Bogomil heresy in the tenth century. This remarkable
+doctrine, founded on 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 rest a man of uncertain
+identity, who made Philippopolis the centre of his activity. Its principal
+features were of a negative character, and consequently it was very
+difficult successfully to apply force against them. The Bogomils
+recognized the authority neither of Church nor of State; the validity
+neither of oaths nor of human laws. They refused to pay taxes, to fight,
+or to obey; they sanctioned theft, but looked upon any kind of punishment
+as unjustifiable; they discountenanced marriage and were strict
+vegetarians. Naturally a heresy so alarming in its individualism shook to
+its foundations the not very firmly established Bulgarian society.
+Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in spite of all persecutions, and its
+popularity amongst the Bulgarians, and indeed amongst all the Slavs of the
+peninsula, is without doubt partly explained by political reasons. The
+hierarchy of the Greek Church, which supported the ruling classes of the
+country and lent them authority at the same time that it increased its
+own, was antipathetic to the Slavs, and the Bogomil heresy drew much
+strength from its nationalistic colouring and from the appeal which it
+made to the character of the Balkan Slavs, who have always been intolerant
+of government by the Church. But neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical
+authorities were able to cope with the problem; indeed they were apt to
+minimize its importance, and the heresy was never eradicated till the
+arrival on the scene of Islam, which proved as attractive to the
+schismatics as the well-regulated Orthodox Church had been the reverse.
+
+The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a great recrudescence of
+the power of Constantinople under the Emperor Nikiph�ros Phokas, who
+wrested Cyprus and Crete from the Arabs and inaugurated an era of
+prosperity for the eastern empire, giving it a new lease of vigorous and
+combative life. Wishing to reassert the Greek supremacy in the Balkan
+peninsula his first act was to refuse any further payment of tribute to
+the Bulgarians as 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 more assured he secured the co-operation of the Russians under
+Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev; this potentate's mother Olga had visited
+Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (though her son and the bulk of
+the population were still ardent heathens), and commercial intercourse
+between Russia and Constantinople by means of the Dnieper and the Black
+Sea was at that time lively. Svyatoslav did not want pressing, and
+arriving with an army of 10,000 men in boats, overcame northern Bulgaria
+in a few days (967); they were helped by Shishman and the western Bulgars,
+who did not mind at what price Peter and the eastern Bulgars were crushed.
+Svyatoslav was recalled to Russia in 968 to defend his home from attacks
+by the Tartar Pechenegs, but that done, he made up his mind to return to
+Bulgaria, lured by its riches and by the hope of the eventual possession
+of Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor Nikiph�ros was by now aware of the danger he had imprudently
+conjured up, and made a futile alliance with eastern Bulgaria; but in
+January 969 Peter of Bulgaria died, and in December of the same year
+Nikiph�ros was murdered by the ambitious Armenian John Tzimisces,[1] who
+thereupon became emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the field clear of his
+enemies, returned in 970, and in March of that year sacked and occupied
+Philippopolis. The Emperor John Tzimisces, who was even abler both as
+general and as diplomat than his predecessor, quietly pushed forward 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 he stormed,
+massacring many of the garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and his
+remaining troops escaped to Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the
+Danube, where again, however, they were besieged and defeated by the
+indefatigable emperor. At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians
+being allowed to go free on condition of the complete evacuation of
+Bulgaria and a gift of corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at
+the hands of the Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev. The triumph
+of the Greeks was complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much
+left of the earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two
+mighty iron vessels on the top of it. Eastern Bulgaria (i.e. Moesia and
+Thrace) ceased to exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John Tzimisces
+made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, followed by the two sons of
+Peter of Bulgaria on foot; the elder was deprived of his regal attributes
+and created _magistros_, the younger was made a eunuch.
+
+[Footnote 1: John the Little.]
+
+
+
+7
+
+_The Rise and Fall of 'Western Bulgaria' and the Greek Supremacy_,
+963-1186
+
+
+Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither that
+the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the victory of
+the Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in Macedonia,
+where the apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital. Western
+Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania, southern and
+eastern Serbia, and the westernmost parts of modern Bulgaria. It was from
+this district that numerous anti-Hellenic revolts were directed after the
+death of the Emperor John Tzimisces in 976. These culminated during the
+reign of Samuel (977-1014), one of the sons of Shishman. He was as capable
+and energetic, as unscrupulous and inhuman, as the situation he was called
+upon to fill demanded. He began by assassinating all his relations and
+nobles who resented his desire to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was
+recognized as _tsar_ by the Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to
+fight the Greeks, the only possible occupation for any self-respecting
+Bulgarian ruler. The emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was
+brave and patriotic but young and inexperienced. In his early campaigns
+Samuel carried all before him; he reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985,
+Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II near Sofia the same year. Later he
+conquered Albania and the southern parts of Serbia and what is now
+Montenegro and Hercegovina. In 996 he threatened Salonika, but first of
+all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese; here he was
+followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and completely
+overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.
+
+From that year (996) his fortune changed; the Greeks reoccupied northern
+Bulgaria, in 999, and also recovered Thessaly and parts of Macedonia. The
+Bulgars were subjected to almost annual attacks on the part of Basil II;
+the country was ruined and could not long hold out. The final disaster
+occurred in 1014, when Basil II utterly defeated his inveterate foe in a
+pass near Seres in Macedonia. Samuel escaped to Prilip, but when he beheld
+the return of 15,000 of his troops who had been captured and blinded by
+the Greeks he died of syncope. Basil II, known as Bulgaroctonus, or
+Bulgar-killer, went from victory to victory, and finally occupied the
+Bulgarian capital of Okhrida in 1016. Western Bulgaria came to an end, as
+had eastern Bulgaria in 972, the remaining members of the royal family
+followed the emperor to the Bosphorus to enjoy comfortable captivity, and
+the triumph of Constantinople was complete.
+
+From 1018 to 1186 Bulgaria had no existence as an independent state; Basil
+II, although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general treatment of
+the Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a protectorate
+than as a possession. But after his death Greek rule became much more
+oppressive. The Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972 established at Okhrida)
+was reduced to an archbishopric, and in 1025 the see was given to a Greek,
+who lost no time in eliminating the Bulgarian element from positions of
+importance throughout his diocese. Many of the nobles were transplanted to
+Constantinople, where their opposition was numbed by the bestowal of
+honours. During the eleventh century the peninsula was invaded frequently
+by the Tartar Pechenegs and Kumans, whose aid was invoked both by Greeks
+and Bulgars; the result of these incursions was not always favourable to
+those who had promoted them; the barbarians invariably stayed longer and
+did more damage 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 peninsula became ever more
+variegated. To the Tartar settlers were added colonies of Armenians and
+Vlakhs by various emperors. The last touch was given by the arrival of the
+Normans in 1081 and the passage of the crusaders in 1096. The wholesale
+depredations of the latter naturally made the inhabitants of the Balkan
+peninsula anything but sympathetically disposed towards their cause. One
+of the results of all this turmoil and of the heavy hand of the Greeks was
+a great increase in the vitality of the Bogomil heresy already referred to;
+it became a refuge for patriotism and an outlet for its expression. The
+Emperor Alexis Comnenus instituted a bitter persecution of it, which only
+led to its growth and rapid propagation westwards into Serbia from its
+centre Philippopolis.
+
+The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian monarchy by the
+Greeks was of course that the nation itself was totally lacking in
+cohesion and organization, and could only achieve any lasting success when
+an exceptionally gifted ruler managed to discount the centrifugal
+tendencies of the feudal nobles, as Simeon and Samuel had done. Other
+discouraging factors wore the permeation of the Church and State by
+Byzantine influence, the lack of a large 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.
+
+
+
+8
+
+_The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire,_ 1186-1258
+
+
+From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the
+brevity of which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature of
+the events that crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the Greeks
+culminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars, which had its centre in
+Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northern Bulgaria--a position of great
+natural strength and strategic importance, 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
+Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the archbishop Basil, who crowned
+one of them, called John Asen, as _tsar_ in Tirnovo in 1186. Their first
+efforts against the Greeks were not successful, but securing the support
+of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and of the Crusaders in 1189
+they became more so; but there was life in the Greeks yet, and victory
+alternated with defeat. John Asen I was assassinated in 1196 and was
+succeeded after many internal discords and murders by his relative Kaloian
+or Pretty John. This cruel and unscrupulous though determined ruler soon
+made an end of all his enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such
+success abroad that Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions.
+Moreover, he re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture
+of the Greeks, and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized
+Kaloian as _tsar_ of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de Bougrie,
+in the words of Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and they were both
+duly consecrated and crowned by the papal legate at Tirnovo in 1204. The
+French, who had just established themselves in Constantinople during the
+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 1207 his career was cut
+short; he was murdered while besieging Salonika by one of his generals who
+was a friend of his wife. After eleven years of further anarchy he was
+succeeded by John Asen II. During the reign of this monarch, which lasted
+from 1218 till 1241, Bulgaria reached the zenith of its power. He was the
+most enlightened ruler the country had had, and he not only waged war
+successfully abroad but also put an end 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 capital at Tirnovo,
+which city he considerably embellished and enlarged.
+
+Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one French.
+The first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them, named
+Theodore, who had proclaimed himself _basileus_ at Okhrida in 1223.
+Thereupon he annexed the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus
+to his dominions, and made Theodore's brother Manuel, who had married one
+of his daughters, viceroy, established at Salonika. Another of his
+daughters had married Stephen Vladislav, who was King of Serbia from
+1233-43, and a third married Theodore, son of the Emperor John III, who
+reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter, after being sought in marriage
+by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife for the Emperor Baldwin
+II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour of the daughter of the
+King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the mind of John Asen II and
+threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with whom he concluded an alliance
+in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the Emperor John III, were, however,
+utterly defeated by the French under the walls of Constantinople in 1236,
+and the Bulgarian ruler, who had no wish to see 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 the French in
+1237, the Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him
+with excommunication; he went so far as 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
+brother-in-law the King of Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin
+II, to whose help against the Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace
+in 1239. While besieging the Greeks with indifferent success, he learned
+of the death of his wife and his eldest son from plague, and incontinently
+returned to Tirnovo, giving up the war and restoring his daughter to her
+lonely husband. This adaptable monarch died a natural death in 1241, and
+the three rulers of his family who succeeded him, whose reigns filled the
+period 1241-58, managed to undo all the constructive work of their
+immediate predecessors. Province after province was lost and internal
+anarchy increased. This remarkable dynasty came to an inglorious end in
+1258, when its last representative was murdered by his own nobles, and
+from this time onwards Bulgaria was only a shadow of its former self.
+
+
+
+9
+
+_The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse,_ 1258-1393
+
+
+From 1258 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have continued flickering until
+its final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period it never
+had any voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan peninsula. Owing
+to the fact that no ruler emerged capable of keeping the distracted
+country in order, there was a regular _chass�-crois�_ of rival princelets,
+an unceasing tale of political 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 the virtual
+disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the profit of the surrounding
+states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist supremacy. It is especially
+remarkable for the complete ascendancy which Serbia gained in the Balkan
+peninsula.
+
+A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the Bulgarian
+throne from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of John Asen II.
+After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261, the
+Hungarians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with the Greeks
+against Constantine; the latter called the Tartars of southern Russia, at
+this time at 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 the Bulgarian 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 affairs. Constantine was followed
+by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the
+victories of King Uro[)s] II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all
+Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the
+Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south
+that the clouds were rolling up which not much later were to burst over
+the peninsula. In 1308 the Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in
+1326 established themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was
+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 order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his
+death in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married
+the daughter of Uro[)s] II of Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with
+the Greeks against his brother-in-law Stephen Uro[)s] III and dispatched
+his wife to her home. During the war which ensued the unwonted allies were
+utterly routed by the Serbs at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.
+
+From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of Tartar
+origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia's greatest ruler, Stephen
+Du[)s]an; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his suzerain,
+and from thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia. Meanwhile
+the Turkish storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the Hellespont in
+1356, and Murad I made Adrianople his capital in 1366. After the death of
+John Alexander in 1365 the Hungarians invaded northern Bulgaria, and his
+successor invoked the help of the Turks against them and also against the
+Greeks. This was the beginning of the end. The Serbs, during an absence of
+the Sultan in Asia, undertook an offensive, but were defeated by the Turks
+near Adrianople in 1371, who captured Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs
+formed a huge southern Slav alliance, in which the Bulgarians refused to
+join, but, after a temporary success against the Turks in 1387, they were
+vanquished by them as the result of treachery at the famous battle of
+Kosovo in 1389. Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on the Danube in
+1388 and destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling the
+Patriarch Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into
+the hands of the Turks, 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 the subjection of Rumania in 1394 and
+the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western Europe under
+Sigismund, King of Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the Turkish conquest was
+complete, though the battle of Varna was not fought till 1444, nor
+Constantinople entered till 1453.
+
+
+
+10
+
+_The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation,_ 1393-1878
+
+
+From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no
+history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy.
+National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days for
+national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and most
+people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have many
+excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst others;
+it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too much cannot
+be said in praise of Mohammedan civilization. Who does not prefer the
+minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the architecture of Budapest,
+notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern Europe? On the other
+hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought prosperity or
+happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed they submerged
+their identity in the religion of their conquerors), or that its Influence
+was either vivifying or generally popular.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Turkish names for Constantinople and Adrianople.]
+
+To the races they conquered the Turks offered two alternatives--serfdom or
+Turkdom; those who could not bring themselves to accept either of these
+had either to emigrate or take to brigandage and outlawry in the
+mountains. The Turks literally overlaid the European nationalities of the
+Balkan peninsula for five hundred years, and from their own point of view
+and from that of military history this was undoubtedly a very splendid
+achievement; it was more than the Greeks or Romans had ever done. From the
+point of view of humanitarianism also it is beyond a doubt that much less
+human blood was spilt in the Balkan peninsula during the five hundred
+years of Turkish rule than during the five hundred years of Christian rule
+which preceded them; indeed it would have been difficult to spill more. It
+is also a pure illusion to think of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or
+cruel; they are just as good-natured and good-humoured as anybody else; it
+is only when their military or religious passions are aroused that they
+become more reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks
+who taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan peninsula; the latter
+had nothing to learn in this respect.
+
+In spite of all this, however, from the point of view of the Slavs of
+Bulgaria and Serbia, Turkish rule was synonymous with suffocation. If the
+Turks were all that their greatest admirers think them the history of the
+Balkan peninsula in the nineteenth century would have been very different
+from what it has been, namely, one perpetual series of anti-Turkish
+revolts.
+
+Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the most completely crushed
+and effaced. The Greeks by their ubiquity, their brains, and their money
+were soon able to make the Turkish storm drive their own windmill; the
+Rumanians were somewhat sheltered by the Danube and also by their distance
+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
+afforded them some protection. Bulgaria was simply annihilated, and its
+population, already far from homogeneous, was still further varied by
+numerous Turkish and other Tartar colonies.
+
+For the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the last Balkan state
+to emancipate itself; for these reasons also it is the least trammelled by
+prejudices and by what are considered national predilections and racial
+affinities, while its heterogeneous composition makes it vigorous and
+enterprising. The treatment of the Christians by the Turks was by no means
+always the same; generally speaking, it grew worse as the power of the
+Sultan grew less. During the fifteenth century they were allowed to
+practise their religion and all their vocations in comparative liberty and
+peace. But from the sixteenth century onwards the control of the Sultan
+declined, power became decentralized, the Ottoman Empire grew ever more
+anarchic and the rule of the provincial governors more despotic.
+
+But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the only enemies and oppressors of
+the Bulgars. The r�le played by the Greeks in Bulgaria during the Turkish
+dominion was almost 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 1767 the Bulgarians were under the Greco-Bulgarian Patriarchate
+of Okhrida, an organization in which all posts, from the highest to the
+lowest, had to be bought from the Turkish administration at exorbitant and
+ever-rising prices; the Phanariote Greeks (so called because they
+originated in the Phanar quarter at Constantinople) were the only ones who
+could afford those of the higher posts, with the result that the Church
+was controlled from Constantinople. In 1767 the independent patriarchates
+were abolished, and from that date the religious control of the Greeks was
+as complete as the political control of the Turks. The Greeks did all they
+could to obliterate the last traces of Bulgarian nationality which 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, that the individual hatred of Greeks and
+Bulgars of each other has 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 not until the
+eighteenth century, 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 first
+asserted in Rumania after the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, in 1774. It was
+only the Napoleonic war in 1812 that prevented the Russians from extending
+their territory south of the Danube, whither it already stretched. Serbia
+was partially free by 1826, and Greece achieved complete independence in
+1830, when the Russian troops, in order to coerce the Turks, occupied part
+of Bulgaria and advanced as far as 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 by wholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia and
+importations of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts. The Crimean
+War and the short-sighted championship of Turkey by the western European
+powers checked considerably the development at which Russia aimed.
+Moldavia and Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the semi-protectorate
+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
+Hohenzollern, came to rule over the country, the first sign of German
+influence in the Near East; at this time Rumania still acknowledged the
+supremacy of the Sultan.
+
+During the first half of the nineteenth century there took place a
+considerable intellectual renascence in Bulgaria, a movement fostered by
+wealthy Bulgarian merchants of Bucarest and Odessa. In 1829 a history of
+Bulgaria was published by a native of that country in Moscow; in 1835 the
+first school was established in Bulgaria, and many others soon followed.
+It must be remembered that not only was nothing known at that time about
+Bulgaria and its inhabitants in other countries, but the Bulgars had
+themselves to be taught who they were. The Bulgarian people in Bulgaria
+consisted entirely of peasants; there was no Bulgarian upper or middle or
+'intelligent' or professional class; those enlightened Bulgars who existed
+were domiciled in other countries; the Church was in the hands of the
+Greeks, who vied with the Turks in suppressing Bulgarian nationality.
+
+The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the enlightenment
+and emancipation of Bulgaria were dissimilar in composition and in aim;
+the members of the former were more intent on educational and religious
+reform, and aimed at the gradual and peaceful regeneration of their
+country by these means; the latter wished to effect the immediate
+political emancipation of Bulgaria by violent and, if necessary, warlike
+means.
+
+It was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first. In 1856 the
+Porte had promised religious reforms tending to the appointment of
+Bulgarian bishops and the recognition of the Bulgarian language in Church
+and school. But these not 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 year an attempt was made to
+bring the Church of Bulgaria under that of Rome, but, owing to Russian
+opposition, proved abortive. In 1870, the growing agitation having at last
+alarmed 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 notable was that of 1875, instigated by
+Stambul�v, the future dictator, in sympathy with the outbreak in
+Montenegro, Hercegovina, and Bosnia of that year; the result of this and
+of similar movements in 1876 was the series of notorious Bulgarian
+massacres in that year. The indignation of Europe was aroused and
+concerted representations were urgently made at Constantinople. Midhat
+Pasha disarmed his opponents by summarily introducing the British
+constitution into Turkey, but, needless to say, Bulgaria's lot was not
+improved by this specious device. Russia had, however, steadily been
+making her preparations, and, Turkey having refused to discontinue
+hostilities against Montenegro, on April 24, 1877, war was declared by the
+Emperor Alexander II, whose patience had become exhausted; he was joined
+by Prince Charles of Rumania, who saw that by doing so he would be
+rewarded by the complete emancipation of his country, then still a
+vassal-state of Turkey, and its erection into a kingdom. At the beginning
+of the war all went well for the Russians and Rumanians, who were soon
+joined by large numbers of Bulgarian insurgents; the Turkish forces were
+scattered all over the peninsula. The committee of Bucarest transformed
+itself into a provisional government, but the Russians, who had undertaken
+to liberate the country, naturally had to keep its administration
+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 resistance
+rapidly 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,
+Ignatiyev dictated the terms of the Treaty of San 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 just, 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 autonomous
+province, tributary to Turkey; southern Bulgaria, fancifully termed
+Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the name always given by the Turks to the
+whole Balkan peninsula), was to have autonomous administration under a
+Christian governor appointed by the Porte; Macedonia was left to Turkey;
+and the Dobrudja, between the Danube and the Black Sea, was adjudged to
+Rumania.
+
+
+
+11
+
+_The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86_
+
+
+The relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians were better before
+the liberation of the latter by the former than after; this may seem
+unjust, because Bulgaria could never have freed herself so decisively and
+rapidly alone, and Russia was the only power in whose interest it was to
+free her from the Turks, and who could translate that interest 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.
+
+What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in
+those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected
+Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and treasure
+which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected its
+gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence in all
+the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria was no
+doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of expressing
+its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most people who
+have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action or been put
+under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its right to an
+independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe writers that
+Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of Bulgaria, but
+this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of the Balkan
+peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the Russian
+Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and vigorous national
+block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an independent state, was
+an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is quite possible for Russia
+to obtain possession or control of Constantinople without owning all the
+intervening littoral.
+
+That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of
+Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was just
+as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The eventual
+result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered the sphere
+of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather calculation, a
+contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at the time, and whose
+full meaning, even if it had, would not have been grasped by them.
+
+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 its monuments
+of theological literature. Nevertheless, they have never been enthusiastic
+Pan-Slavists, any more than the Dutch have ever been ardent Pan-Germans;
+it is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the one people as it is of
+the other. The Bulgarians indeed think themselves superior to the Slavs by
+reason of the warlike and glorious traditions of the Tartar tribe that
+gave them their name and infused the Asiatic element into their race, thus
+endowing them with greater stability, energy, and consistency than is
+possessed by purely Slav peoples. These latter, on the other hand, and
+notably the Serbians, for the same reason affect contempt for the mixture
+of blood and for what they consider the Mongol characteristics of the
+Bulgarians. What is certain is that between Bulgarians and Germans
+(including German Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed that
+elemental, ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between
+German (and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from
+the Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in
+which the Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in
+Austria-Hungary and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment of
+the purely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared. The reason is
+that with the growth of the Serb national movement, from 1903 onwards,
+Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly
+well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to neutralize the
+possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.
+
+It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which
+had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been
+steadily on the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced Bulgaria
+to half the size that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the Treaty of San
+Stefano, 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 conditions, 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 its cereals are in
+central and western Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is
+infinitesimal. Politically, both 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 first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions. Both
+Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of Berlin.
+Russian influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy controlled
+the organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic constitution
+was arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the successful
+government of their country by the quite inexperienced 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 religion
+and in politics. The choice fell on Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew
+of the Empress of Russia, who had taken part in the campaign of the
+Russian army. Prince Alexander was conscientious, energetic, and
+enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat, and from the outset his honesty
+precluded his success. From the very first he failed to keep on good terms
+with Russia or its representatives, who at that time were still numerous
+in Bulgaria, while he was helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary
+government. The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father Alexander
+II in 1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which he
+successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of
+Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September
+1883); this procedure discomfited 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 of the country had been going on for some time,
+and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis suddenly
+proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly announced his
+approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city on September 21.
+Russia frowned on 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 compensation for Bulgaria's
+aggrandisement; it must be remembered that it was Bismarck who, by the
+Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined Serbia to its inadequate limits
+of those day.
+
+On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia, which
+is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. 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 the Bulgarians were completely
+victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took Pirot in Serbia on
+November 27, 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. Prince Alexander's position did not improve after this, indeed
+it would have needed a much more skilful navigator to steer through the
+many currents which eddied round him. A strong Russophile party formed
+itself in the army; on the night of August 21, 1886, some officers of this
+party, who were the most capable in the Bulgarian army, appeared at Sofia,
+forced Alexander to resign, and abducted him; they put him on board his
+yacht on the Danube and escorted him 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 26 he found himself at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this
+_coup d'�tat_ found that it was not at all popular in the country. A
+counter-revolution, headed by the statesman Stambul�v, was immediately
+initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst
+tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor
+Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left
+Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in
+Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency
+was constituted, at the head of which was Stambul�v.
+
+
+
+12
+
+_The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,_ 1886-1908
+
+
+Stambul�v was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was of humble origin. He took
+part in the insurrection of 1876 and in the war of liberation, and in 1884
+became president of the S�braniye (Parliament). From 1886 till 1894 he was
+virtually dictator of Bulgaria. He was intensely patriotic and also
+personally ambitious, determined, energetic, ruthlessly cruel and
+unscrupulous, but incapable of deceit; these qualities were apparent in
+his powerful and grim expression of face, while his manner inspired the
+weak with terror and the strongest with respect. His policy in general was
+directed against Russia. At the general election held in October 1886 he
+had all his important opponents imprisoned beforehand, while armed
+sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters from approaching the
+ballot-boxes. Out of 522 elected deputies, there were 470 supporters of
+Stambul�v. This implied the complete suppression of the Russophile party
+and led to a rupture with St. Petersburg.
+
+Whatever were Stambul�v'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. But once having started on this path he
+found it difficult to stop, 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 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 Cl�mentine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter
+of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined great ambition and tenacity of
+purpose with extreme prudence, astuteness, and patience; he was a
+consummate diplomat. The election of this prince was viewed with great
+disfavour by Russia, and for fear of offending the Emperor Alexander III
+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 suzerain,
+the Sultan Abdul Hamid. He wisely left all power in the hands of the
+unattractive and to him, unsympathetic prime minister, Stambul�v, till he
+himself felt secure in his position, and till the dictator should have
+made himself thoroughly hated. Ferdinand's clever and wealthy mother cast
+a beneficent and civilizing glow around him, smoothing away many
+difficulties by her womanly tact and philanthropic activity, and, thanks
+to his 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 Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma. In May 1894, as a
+result of a social misadventure in which he became involved, Stambul�v
+sent in his resignation, confidently expecting a refusal. To his
+mortification it was accepted; thereupon he initiated a violent press
+campaign, but his halo had faded, and on July 15 he was savagely attacked
+in the street by unknown men, who afterwards escaped, and he died three
+days later. So intense were the emotions of the people that his grave had
+to be guarded by the military for two months. In November 1894 followed
+the death of the Emperor Alexander III, and as a result of this double
+event the road to a reconciliation with Russia was opened. Meanwhile the
+German Emperor, who was on good terms with Princess Cl�mentine, 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 Russia
+were still further improved by the rebaptism of the infant Crown Prince
+Boris according to the rites of the eastern Church, in February 1896, and
+a couple of years later Ferdinand and his wife and child paid a highly
+successful state visit to Peterhof. In September 1902 a memorial church
+was erected by the Emperor Nicholas II at the Shipka Pass, and later an
+equestrian statue of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II was placed opposite
+the House of Parliament in Sofia.
+
+Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishing material
+progress. Railways were built, exports increased, and the general
+condition of the country greatly improved. It is the fashion to compare
+the wonderful advance made by Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of its
+new existence with the very much slower progress made by Serbia during a
+much longer period. This is insisted on especially by publicists in
+Austria-Hungary and Germany, but it is forgotten that even before the last
+Balkan war the geographical position of Bulgaria with its seaboard was
+much more favourable to its economic development than that of Serbia,
+which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by Turkish and Austro-Hungarian
+territory; moreover, Bulgaria being double the size of the Serbia of those
+days, had far greater resources upon which to draw.
+
+From 1894 onwards Ferdinand's power in his own country and his influence
+abroad had been steadily growing. He always appreciated the value of
+railways, and became almost as great a traveller as the German Emperor.
+His estates in the south of Hungary constantly required his attention, and
+he was a frequent visitor in Vienna. The German Emperor, though he could
+not help admiring Ferdinand's success, was always a little afraid of him;
+he felt that Ferdinand's gifts were so similar to his own that he would be
+unable to count on him in an emergency. Moreover, it was difficult to
+reconcile Ferdinand's ambitions in extreme south-eastern Europe with his
+own. Ferdinand's relations with Vienna, on the other hand, and especially
+with the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand, were both cordial and intimate.
+
+The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably in
+Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of 1902-3
+anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of terror, and,
+also the unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia since the
+accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused uneasiness in
+Sofia, no less than in Vienna and Budapest. The Young Turkish revolution
+of July 1908, and the triumph of the Committee of Union and Progress,
+disarmed the critics of Turkey who wished to make the forcible
+introduction of reforms a pretext for their interference; but the
+potential rejuvenation of the Ottoman Empire which it foreshadowed
+indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action. In September,
+after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in eastern Roumelia
+(which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia Cabinet seized the line
+with a military force on the plea of political necessity. At the same time
+Ferdinand, 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 at Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at
+Tirnovo, the ancient capital, Ferdinand proclaimed the complete
+independence of Bulgaria and eastern Rumelia under himself as King (_Tsar_
+in Bulgarian), and on October 7 Austria-Hungary announced the annexation
+of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the two Turkish provinces administered by it
+since 1879, nominally under Turkish suzerainty.
+
+
+
+13
+
+_The Kingdom_, 1908-13
+
+(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)
+
+
+The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the
+Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The Macedonian
+question was extremely complicated; it started on the assumption that the
+disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding throughout the
+nineteenth century, would eventually be completed, and the question was
+how in this eventuality to satisfy the territorial claims of the three
+neighbouring countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, claims both
+historical and ethnological, 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 modern form do not go
+farther back than 1885, when the ease with which eastern Rumelia (i.e.
+southern Bulgaria) threw off the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously united
+with the semi-independent principality of northern Bulgaria affected the
+imagination of the Balkan statesmen. From that time Sofia began to cast
+longing eyes on Macedonia, the whole of which was claimed as 'unredeemed
+Bulgaria', and Stambul�v's last 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 blow for the Greek
+Patriarchate at Constantinople.
+
+Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin, article 23 of which
+stipulated for reforms in that province; but in those days the Balkan
+States were too young and weak to worry themselves or the European powers
+over the troubles of their co-religionists in Turkey; their hands were
+more than full setting their own houses in some sort of order, and it was
+in nobody's interest to reform Macedonia, so article 23 remained the
+expression of a philanthropic sentiment. This indifference on the part of
+Europe left the 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 Macedonia increased, 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 which it engendered was the following: The population of Macedonia
+was nowhere, except in the immediate vicinity of the borders of these
+three countries, either purely Bulgar or purely Greek or purely Serb; most
+of the towns contained a percentage of at least two of these
+nationalities, not to mention the Turks (who after all were still the
+owners of the country by right of conquest), Albanians, Tartars, Rumanians
+(Vlakhs), and others; the city of Salonika was and is almost purely
+Jewish, while in the country districts Turkish, Albanian, Greek, Bulgar,
+and Serb villages were inextricably confused. Generally speaking, the
+coastal strip was mainly Greek (the coast itself purely so), the interior
+mainly Slav. The problem was for each country to peg out as large a claim
+as possible, and so effectively, by any means in their power, to make the
+majority of the population contained in that claim acknowledge itself to
+be Bulgar, or Serb, or Greek, that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire
+was over, each part of Macedonia would automatically fall into the arms of
+its respective deliverers. The game was played through the appropriate
+media of churches and schools, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had
+first of all to be enlightened as to who they were, or rather as to who
+they were told they had got to consider themselves, while the Church, as
+always, conveniently covered a multitude of political aims; when those
+methods flagged, a bomb would be thrown at, let us say, a Turkish official
+by an _agent provocateur_ of one of the three players, inevitably
+resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent Christians by 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 of Macedonia, including Salonika
+and all the Aegean coast (except Chalcidice), Okhrida, and Monastir;
+Greece claimed all southern Macedonia, and Serbia parts of northern and
+central Macedonia known as Old Serbia. The crux of the whole 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 irreconcilable
+conflict with those of its rivals. The importance of this point was
+greatly emphasized by the existence of the 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,
+just as in the north it was already, to its bitter cost, at the mercy of
+Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless, Bulgarian propaganda had been so effectual
+that Serbia and Greece never expected they would eventually be able to
+join hands so easily and successfully as they afterwards did.
+
+The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a factor. This people,
+though small in numbers, was formidable in character, and had never been
+effectually subdued by the Turks. They would have been glad to have a
+boundary contiguous with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had no quarrel)
+as a support against their hereditary enemies, Serbs in 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.
+It is the Slav population of Macedonia that has engendered so much heat
+and caused so much blood to be spilt. The dispute as to whether it is
+rather Serb or Bulgar has caused interminable and most bitter controversy.
+The truth is that it _was_ neither the one nor the other, but that, the
+ethnological and linguistic missionaries of Bulgaria having been first in
+the field, a majority of the Macedonian Slavs had been so long and so
+persistently told that they were Bulgars, that after a few years Bulgaria
+could, with some truth, claim that this fact was so.
+
+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,
+which originally belonged to the same southern Slav stock, but remained a
+primitive neutral Slav type. If the Serbs had been first in the field
+instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian Slavs could just as easily have
+been made into Serbs, sufficiently 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 _-off, -yeff_) on to the names of all
+the male inhabitants, and to make it Serb it is only necessary to add
+further the syllable _-ich, -ov_ and _-ovich_ being respectively the
+equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian of our termination _-son,_ e. g.
+_Ivanov_ in Bulgarian, and _Jovanovit_ in Serbian = _Johnson_.
+
+In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists,
+suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh shepherds,
+who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia with their herds
+since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not possibly ever be
+annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in order to justify Rumania
+in claiming eventual territorial compensation 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 must at this point be
+quite briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two 'most
+interested powers', who as far back as the eighteenth century had divided
+the Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and west, came
+to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of affairs in
+Turkey; but it never reached a conclusive stage and consequently was never
+applied. The Macedonian 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 December 1902, but was not successful in
+restoring order. In October 1903 the Emperor Nicholas II and the Emperor
+of Austria, with their foreign ministers, met at M�rzsteg, in Styria, and
+elaborated a more definite plan of reform known as the M�rzsteg programme,
+the drastic terms of which had 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. Owing to the procrastination of the Porte and to the
+extreme complexity of the financial measures which had to be elaborated in
+connexion with this scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations 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 position in regard to
+this question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and France
+had no territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost to secure
+reform not only in the _vilayets_ of Macedonia, but also in the realm of
+Ottoman finance. Italy's interest centred in Albania, whose eventual fate,
+for geographical and strategic reasons, could not leave it indifferent.
+Austria-Hungary's only care was by any means to prevent the aggrandizement
+of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and Montenegro, so as to secure the
+control, if not the possession, of the routes to Salonika, if necessary
+over the prostrate bodies of those two countries which defiantly barred
+Germanic progress towards the East. Russia was already fatally absorbed in
+the Far Eastern adventure, and, moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878,
+been losing influence at Constantinople, where before its word had been
+law; the Treaty of Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia
+had ever since that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors
+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
+choice of its representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in
+Turkey was not grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the
+credit of the German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the
+triumphal journey of William II to the Bosphorus in 1889, German
+influence, under the able guidance of Baron von Radowitz, steadily
+increased. This culminated in the r�gime of the late Baron Marschall von
+Bieberstein, who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It was German policy to
+flatter, support, and encourage Turkey in every possible way, to refrain
+from taking part with the other powers in the invidious and perennial
+occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to give as
+much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked for.
+Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a district
+assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in the naval
+demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany naturally
+encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey
+soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and
+disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos
+and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced
+themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into practice,
+Germany alone was responsible.
+
+The blow which King Ferdinand had inflicted on the prestige of the Young
+Turks in October 1908, by proclaiming his independence, naturally lent
+lustre to the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. Serbia, baffled by the
+simultaneous Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and maddened
+by the elevation of Bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom (its material
+progress had hitherto been discounted in Serbian eyes by the fact that it
+was a mere vassal principality), seemed about to be crushed by the two
+iron pots jostling it on either side. Its international position was at
+that time such that it could expect no help or encouragement from western
+Europe, while the events of 1909 (cf. p. 144) showed that Russia was not
+then in a position to render active assistance. Greece, also screaming
+aloud for compensation, was told by its friends amongst the great powers
+that if it made a noise it would get nothing, but that if it behaved like
+a good child it might some day be given Krete. Meanwhile Russia, rudely
+awakened by the events of 1908 to the real state of affairs in the Near
+East, beginning to realize the growth of German influence at
+Constantinople, and seeing the unmistakable resuscitation of
+Austria-Hungary as a great power, made manifest by the annexation of
+Bosnia and Hercegovina, temporarily reasserted its influence in Bulgaria.
+From the moment when Baron Aehrenthal announced his chimerical scheme of
+an Austrian railway through the _Sandjak_ of Novi Pazar in January 1908--
+everybody knows that the railway already built through Serbia along the
+Morava valley is the only commercially remunerative and strategically
+practicable road from Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest to Salonika and
+Constantinople--Russia realized that the days of the M�rzsteg programme
+were over, that henceforward it was to be a struggle between Slav and
+Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople and the dominion of the Near
+East, and that something must be 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 put an 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 Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized tribute, owed to
+its ex-suzerain the Sultan, by very easy instalments to Russia instead.
+
+The immediate effects of the Young Turk revolution amongst the Balkan
+States, and the events, watched benevolently by Russia, which led to the
+formation of the Balkan League, when it was joyfully realized that neither
+the setting-up of parliamentary government, nor even the overthrow of
+Abdul Hamid, implied the commencement of the millennium in Macedonia and
+Thrace, have been described elsewhere (pp. 141, 148). King Ferdinand and
+M. Venezelos are generally credited with the inception and realisation of
+the League, though it was so secretly and skilfully concerted that it is
+not yet possible correctly to apportion praise for the remarkable
+achievement. Bulgaria is a very democratic country, but King Ferdinand,
+owing to his sagacity, patience, and experience, and also thanks to his
+influential dynastic connexions and propensity for travel, has always been
+virtually his own foreign minister; in spite of the fact that he is a
+large feudal Hungarian landlord, and has temperamental leanings towards
+the Central European Empires, it is quite credible that King Ferdinand
+devoted all his undeniable talents and great energy to the formation of
+the League when he saw that the moment had come for Bulgaria to realize
+its destiny at Turkey's expense, and that, if the other three Balkan
+States could be induced to come to the same wise decision, it would be so
+much the better for all of them. That Russia could do anything else than
+whole-heartedly welcome the formation of the Balkan League was absolutely
+impossible. Pan-Slavism had long since ceased to be the force it was, and
+nobody in Russia dreamed of or desired the incorporation of any Balkan
+territory in the Russian Empire. It is possible to control Constantinople
+without possessing the Balkans, and Russia could only rejoice if a
+Greco-Slavonic league should destroy the power of the Turks and thereby
+make impossible the further advance of the Germanic powers eastward.
+
+That Russia was ever in the least jealous of the military successes 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 happened to be in Russia during the winter of 1912-13.
+
+The years 1908 to 1912 were outwardly uneventful in Bulgaria, though a
+great deal of quiet work was done in increasing the efficiency of the
+army, and the material prosperity of the country showed no falling off.
+Relations with the other Balkan States, especially with Serbia and
+Montenegro, improved considerably, and there was ample room for such
+improvement. This was outwardly marked by frequent visits paid to each
+other by members of the several royal families of the three Slavonic
+kingdoms of the Balkans. In May 1912 agreements for the eventual
+delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in the event of
+war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bulgaria 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 territories separated by the large Bulgarian wedge
+which was to be driven between them. The exact future line of demarcation
+between Serbian and Bulgarian territory was to be left to arbitration. The
+possible creation of an independent Albania was not contemplated.
+
+In August 1912 the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Ferdinand's arrival in
+Bulgaria was celebrated with much rejoicing at the ancient capital of
+Tirnovo, and was marred only by the news of the terrible massacre of
+Bulgars by Turks at Kochana in Macedonia; this event, however, opportune
+though mournful, tended considerably to increase the volume of the wave of
+patriotism which swept through the country. Later in the same month Count
+Berchtold startled Europe with his 'progressive decentralization' scheme
+of reform for Macedonia. The manner in which this event led to the final
+arrangements for the declaration of war on Turkey by the four Balkan
+States is given in full elsewhere (cf. p. 151).
+
+The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray, and the autumn
+manoeuvres had permitted the concentration unobserved of a considerable
+portion of it, ready to strike when the time came. Mobilisation was
+ordered on September 30, 1912. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on
+Turkey. On October 13 Bulgaria, with the other Balkan States, replied to
+the remonstrances of Russia and Austria by declaring that its patience was
+at length exhausted, and that the sword alone was able to enforce proper
+treatment of the Christian populations in European Turkey. On October 17
+Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and unexpected conclusion of peace with
+Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia, and on
+October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a sentimental exhortation to his
+people to liberate their fellow-countrymen, who were still groaning under
+the Crescent.
+
+The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was about
+180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to oppose
+the Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was considered by the
+Turks to be the most important theatre of war, yet the proximity of the
+Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople made it necessary to retain a large
+number of troops in Thrace. On October 19 the Bulgarians took the frontier
+town of Mustafa Pasha. On October 24 they defeated the Turks at
+Kirk-Kiliss� (or Lozengrad), further east. From October 28 to November 2
+raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas, which resulted in a complete and
+brilliant victory of the Bulgarians over the Turks. The defeat and
+humiliation of the Turks was as rapid and thorough in Thrace as it had
+been in Macedonia, and by the middle of November the remains of the
+Turkish army were entrenched behind the impregnable lines of Chataldja,
+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
+brilliant and lightning campaign, refrained from storming the lines of
+Chataldja, an operation which could not fail to involve losses such as the
+Bulgarian nation was scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the
+armistice was signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months
+led, however, to 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 assistance Serbia, being able to
+spare troops from Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy siege
+artillery, an arm which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913, the
+fortress surrendered to the allied armies.
+
+The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that year,
+fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous Enos-Midia
+line, running between these two places situated on the shores respectively
+of the Aegean and the Black Sea. This delimitation would have given
+Bulgaria possession of Adrianople. But meanwhile Greece 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 the creation of the independent state of Albania, determined to
+retain possession of all that part of Macedonia, including the whole
+valley of the Vardar with its important railway, which they had conquered,
+and thus secure their common frontier. In May 1913 a military convention
+was concluded between them, and the Balkan League, the relations between
+the members of which had been becoming more strained ever since January,
+finally dissolved. Bulgaria, outraged by this callous disregard of the
+agreements as to the partition of Macedonia signed a year previously by
+itself and its ex-allies, did not wait for the result of the arbitration
+which was actually proceeding in Russia, but in an access of indignation
+rushed to arms.
+
+This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the night of June 30,
+1913, by a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in its
+undoing. In order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern and
+northern frontiers were denuded of troops. But the totally unforeseen
+happened. The Serbs were victorious, defeating the Bulgars in 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
+end of July the campaign was over and Bulgaria had to submit to fate.
+
+By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest, which was concluded on August 10,
+1913, Bulgaria obtained a considerable part of Thrace and eastern
+Macedonia, including a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of
+Dedeagach, but it was forced to 'compensate' Rumania with a slice of its
+richest province (the districts of Dobrich and Silistria in north-eastern
+Bulgaria), and it lost central Macedonia, a great part of which it would
+certainly have been awarded by Russia's arbitration. On September 22,
+1913, the Treaty of Constantinople was signed by Bulgaria and Turkey; by
+its terms Turkey retained possession of Adrianople and of a far larger
+part of Thrace than its series of ignominious defeats in the autumn of
+1912 entitled it to.
+
+In the fatal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia which caused the
+disruption of the Balkan League, led to the tragic second Balkan war of
+July 1913, and naturally left behind the bitterest feelings, it is
+difficult to apportion the blame. Both Serbia and Bulgaria were
+undoubtedly at fault in the choice of the methods by which they sought to
+adjust their difference, but the real guilt is to be found neither in
+Sofia nor in Belgrade, but in Vicuna and Budapest. The Balkan League
+barred the way of the Germanic Powers to the East; its disruption weakened
+Bulgaria and again placed Serbia at the mercy of the Dual Monarchy. After
+these trying and unremunerative experiences it is not astonishing that the
+Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler should have retired to the remote
+interior of their shell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Explanation of Serbian orthography_
+
+c = ts
+[)c] = ch (as in _church_)
+['c] =  "  "  "  but softer
+[)s] =  sh
+[)z] =  zh (as z in _azure_)
+gj  = g (as in _George_)
+j = y
+
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA]
+
+
+
+
+SERBIA
+
+
+
+14
+
+_The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy_, 650-1168
+
+
+The manner of the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula, of that of
+the Bulgars, and of the formation of the Bulgarian nationality has already
+been described (cf. p. 26). The installation of the Slavs in the lands
+between the Danube, the Aegean, and the Adriatic was completed by about
+A.D. 650. In the second half of the seventh century the Bulgars settled
+themselves in the eastern half of the peninsula and became absorbed by the
+Slavs there, and from that time the nationality of the Slavs in the
+western half began 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 (or Croatians), and Slovenes. The Serbs, much
+the most numerous of the three, occupied roughly the modern kingdom of
+Serbia (including Old Serbia and northern Macedonia), Montenegro, and most
+of Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia; the Croats occupied the more western
+parts of these last three territories and Croatia; the Slovenes occupied
+the modern Carniola and southern Carinthia. Needless to say, none of these
+geographical designations existed in those days except Dalmatia, on the
+coast of which the Latin influence and nomenclature maintained itself. The
+Slovenes, whose language is closely akin to but not identical with Serbian
+(or Croatian), even to-day only number one and a half million, and do not
+enter into this narrative, as they have never played any political r�le in
+the Balkan peninsula.
+
+The Serbs and the Croats were, as 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 the
+Serbo-Croatian race has always been divided into two. It is only within
+the last few years that a movement has taken place, the object of which is
+to reunite Serbs and Croats into one nation and eventually into one state.
+The movement originated in Serbia, the Serbs maintaining that they and the
+Croats are one people because they speak the same language, and that
+racial and linguistic unity outweighs religious divergence. A very large
+number of Croats agree with the Serbs in this and support their views, but
+a minority for long obstinately insisted that there was a racial as well
+as a religious difference, and that fusion was impossible. The former
+based their argument on facts, the latter theirs on prejudice, which is
+notoriously difficult to overcome. Latterly the movement in favour of
+fusion grew very much stronger among the Croats, and together with that in
+Serbia resulted in the Pan-Serb agitation which, gave the pretext for the
+opening of hostilities in July 1914.
+
+The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, _jug_, pronounced yug, =
+_south_ in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croats, and also includes Slovenes;
+it is only used with reference to the Bulgarians from the point of view of
+philology (the group of South Slavonic languages including Bulgarian,
+Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; the East Slavonic, Russian; and the West
+Slavonic, Polish and Bohemian).
+
+In the history of the Serbs and Croats, or of the Serbo-Croatian race,
+several factors of a general nature have first to be considered, which
+have influenced its whole development. Of these, the physical nature of
+the country in which they settled, between the Danube and Save and the
+Adriatic, is one of the most important. It is almost everywhere
+mountainous, and though the mountains themselves never attain as much as
+10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the whole country with an intricate
+network and have always formed an obstacle to easy communication between
+the various parts of it. The result of this has been twofold. In the first
+place it has, generally speaking, been a protection against foreign
+penetration and conquest, and in so far was beneficial. Bulgaria, further
+east, is, on the whole, less mountainous, in spite of the Balkan range
+which stretches the whole length of it; for this reason, and also on
+account of its geographical position, any invaders coming from the north
+or north-east, especially if aiming at Constantinople or Salonika, were
+bound to sweep over it. The great immemorial highway from the north-west
+to the Balkan peninsula crosses the Danube at Belgrade and follows the
+valley of the Morava to Nish; thence it branches off eastwards, going
+through Sofia and again crossing all Bulgaria to reach Constantinople,
+while the route to Salonika follows the Morava southwards from Nish and
+crosses the watershed into 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 the Morava and the Adriatic, which is
+really the home of the Serb race.
+
+In the second place, while it has undoubtedly been a protection to the
+Serb race, it has also been a source of weakness. It has prevented a
+welding together of the people into one whole, has facilitated the rise of
+numerous political units at various times, and generally favoured the
+dissipation of the national strength, and militated against national
+organization and cohesion. In the course of history this process has been
+emphasized rather than diminished, and to-day the Serb race is split up
+into six political divisions, while Bulgaria, except for those Bulgars
+claimed as 'unredeemed' beyond the frontier, presents a united whole. It
+is only within the last thirty years, with the gradual improvement of
+communications (obstructed to an incredible extent by the Austro-Hungarian
+government) and the spread of education, that the Serbs in the different
+countries which they inhabit have become fully conscious of their
+essential identity and racial unity.
+
+No less important than the physical aspect of their country on the
+development of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the middle
+of it from south to north there had been drawn a line of division more
+than two centuries before their arrival. Artificial boundaries are
+proverbially ephemeral, but this one has lasted 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; at the division of
+the Roman Empire into East and West it was again followed, and it formed
+the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly
+the same as the present political boundary between Montenegro and
+Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from
+the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory. The
+Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by
+the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the
+Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had
+consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the
+hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the
+country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is
+difficult to be accurate.
+
+The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the
+Bulgars in the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present
+political frontier between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north from
+the mouth of the river Timok on the southern bank of the Danube and going
+southwards slightly east of Pirot, is ethnographically approximately
+correct till it reaches the newly acquired and much-disputed territories
+in Macedonia, and represents fairly accurately the line that has divided
+the two nationalities ever since they were first differentiated in the
+seventh century. In the confused state of Balkan politics in the Middle
+Ages the political influence of Bulgaria often extended west of this line
+and included Nish and the Morava valley, while at other times that of
+Serbia extended east of it. The dialects spoken in these frontier
+districts represent a transitional stage between the two languages; each
+of the two peoples naturally considers them more akin to its own, and
+resents the fact that any of them should be included in the territory of
+the other. Further south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the
+Turkish conquest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in
+the times of Simeon, Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian,
+especially during the height of Serbian power in the fourteenth century,
+while intermittently it had been a province of the Greek Empire, which
+always claimed it as its own. On historical grounds, therefore, each of
+the three nations can claim possession of Macedonia. From an ethnographic
+point of view the Slav population of Macedonia (there were always and are
+still many non-Slav elements) was originally the same as that in 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-European or Aryan 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
+mountainous 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
+dominion neither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia, and the
+Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all been pure Slavs, 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 Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the Macedonian Slavs would have
+become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further development of the
+Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap. 13).
+
+The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east,
+where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they were
+the Greeks and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river Save
+and on the west by the Adriatic. They were split up into a number of
+tribes, each of which was headed by a chief called in Serbian _[)z]upan_
+and in Greek _arch[=o]n_. Whenever any one of these managed, either by
+skill or by good fortune, to extend his power over a few of the
+neighbouring districts he was termed _veliki_ (=great) _[)z]upan_. From
+the beginning of their history, which is roughly put at A.D. 650, until
+A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign domination. Their suzerains were
+nominally always the Greek emperors, who had 'granted' them the land they
+had taken, and whenever the emperor happened to be energetic and powerful,
+as were Basil I (the Macedonian, 867-86), John Tzimisces (969-76), Basil
+II (976-1025), and Manuel Comnenus (1143-80), the Greek supremacy was very
+real. At those times again when Bulgaria was very powerful, under Simeon
+(893-927), Samuel (977-1014), and John Asen II (1218-41), many of the more
+easterly and southerly Serbs came under Bulgarian rule, though it is
+instructive to notice that the Serbs themselves do not recognize the West
+Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of Samuel to have been a Bulgarian state.
+The Bulgars, however, at no time brought all the Serb lands under their
+sway.
+
+Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned, some
+Serb princeling would try to form a political state on a more ambitious
+scale, but the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the Serbs
+reverted to their favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst themselves.
+Such wore the attempts of [)C]aslav, who had been made captive by Simeon
+of Bulgaria, escaped after his death, and ruled over a large part of
+central Serbia till 960, and later of Bodin, whose father, Michael, was
+even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII; Bodin formed a state near the
+coast, in the Zeta river district (now Montenegro), and ruled there from
+1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the country peopled by the Serbs
+was split into a number of tiny principalities always at war with one
+another. Generally speaking, this country gradually became divided into
+two main geographical divisions: (1) the _Pomorje_, or country _by the
+sea_, which included most of the modern Montenegro and the southern halves
+of Hercegovina and Dalmatia, and (2) the _Zagorje_, or country _behind the
+hills_, 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 _Pomorje_ and the Save;
+to the north of the _Pomorje_ and _Zagorje_ lay Croatia. Besides their
+neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and west played an
+important part in Serbian history even in those early days.
+
+Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power of
+the Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a great
+impression on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, _kral_ or
+_korol_, is derived directly from his name), and his son Louis conquered
+the Serbs settled in the country between the rivers Save and Drave. This
+is commemorated in the name of the mass of hill which lies between the
+Danube and the Save, in eastern Slavonia, and is to this day known as
+_Fru[)s]ka Gora_, or French Hill. The Serbs and Bulgars fought against the
+Franks, and while the Bulgars held their own, the Serbs were beaten, and
+those who did not like the rule of the new-comers had to migrate
+southwards across the Save; at the same time the Serbs between the rivers
+Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were subjected by the Bulgars. With the
+arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth century, a wall was raised between
+the Serbs and central and western Europe on land. Croatia and Slavonia
+(between the Save and the Drave) were gradually drawn into the orbit of
+the Hungarian state, and in 1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia
+was absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of that country ever since.
+Hungary, aiming at an outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected
+most of Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily
+growing in power throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had
+secured control of all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part
+of the coast. All the cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of
+Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic.
+
+In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth
+centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped
+themselves into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which had
+been Caslav's centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian
+state (this district, with the town of Ras as its centre, included the
+south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and what was the
+Turkish _sandjak_ or province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on the coast (the
+modern Montenegro); and (3) Bosnia, so called after the river Bosna, which
+runs through it. Bosnia, which roughly corresponded to the modern province
+of that name, became independent in the second half of the tenth century,
+and was never after that incorporated in the Serbian state. At times it
+fell under Hungarian influence; in the twelfth century, during the reign
+of Manuel Comnenus, who was victorious over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all
+other Serb territories, had to acknowledge the supremacy of
+Constantinople.
+
+It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied territory
+which, while the Church was still one, was divided between two dioceses,
+Italy and Dacia, and when the Church itself was divided, in the eleventh
+century, was torn apart between the two beliefs. The dividing line between
+the jurisdictions of Rome and Constantinople ran from north to south
+through Bosnia, but naturally there has always been a certain vagueness
+about the extent of their respective jurisdictions. In later years the
+terms Croat and Roman 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. The loyalty of the Croatians to
+Austria-Hungary has been largely owing to the influence of Roman
+Catholicism.
+
+During the first centuries of Serbian history Christianity made slow
+progress in the western half of the Balkan peninsula. The Dalmatian coast
+was always under the influence of Rome, but the interior was long pagan.
+It is doubtful whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf. chap. 5)
+actually passed through Serb territory, but in the tenth century their
+teachings and writings were certainly current there. At the time of the
+division of the Churches all the Serb lands except the Dalmatian coast,
+Croatia, and western Bosnia, were faithful to Constantinople, and the
+Greek hierarchy obtained complete control of the ecclesiastical
+administration. The elaborate organisation and opulent 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, 6), a much more primitive and democratic form of
+Christianity, already familiar in the East as the Manichaean heresy, took
+hold of the Serbs' imagination and made as rapid and disquieting progress
+in their country as it had already done in the neighbouring Bulgaria;
+inasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teaching to be
+socialistic, subversive, and highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical
+supremacy of Constantinople, all of which indeed it was, adherence to it
+became amongst the Serbs a direct expression of patriotism.
+
+
+
+15
+
+_The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian
+Independence_, 1168-1496
+
+
+From 1168 the power of the Serbs, or rather of the central Serb state of
+Raska, and the extent of its territory gradually but steadily increased.
+This was outwardly expressed in the firm establishment on the throne of
+the national Nemanja dynasty, which can claim the credit of having by its
+energy, skill, and good fortune fashioned the most imposing and formidable
+state the Serb race has ever known. This dynasty ruled the country
+uninterruptedly, but not without many quarrels, feuds, and rivalries
+amongst its various members, from 1168 until 1371, when it became extinct.
+
+There were several external factors which at this time favoured the rise
+of the Serbian state. Byzantium and the Greek Empire, to which the Emperor
+Manuel Comnenus had by 1168 restored some measure of its former greatness
+and splendour, regaining temporary control, after a long war with Hungary,
+even over Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, after this date began
+definitively to decline, and after the troublous times of the fourth
+crusade (1204), when for sixty years a Latin empire was established on the
+Bosphorus, never again recovered as a Christian state the position in the
+Balkan peninsula which it had so long enjoyed. Bulgaria, too, after the
+meteoric glory of its second empire under the Asen dynasty (1186-1258),
+quite went to pieces, the eastern and northern parts falling under Tartar,
+the southern under Greek influence, while the western districts fell to
+Serbia. In the north, on the other hand, Hungary was becoming a dangerous
+and ambitious neighbour. During the thirteenth century, it is true, the
+attention of the Magyars was diverted by the irruption into and
+devastation of their country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia, the
+Tartars, who wrought great havoc and even penetrated as far as the
+Adriatic coast. Nevertheless Hungary was always a 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 objects of the Magyars were twofold--to attain the hegemony of the
+Balkan peninsula by conquering all the still independent Serb territories,
+and to bring the peninsula within the pale of Rome. They were not
+successful in either of these objects, partly because their wars with the
+Serbian rulers always failed to reach a decision, partly because their
+plans conflicted with those of the powerful Venetian republic. The
+relations between Venice and Serbia were always most cordial, as their
+ambitions did not clash; those of Venice were not continental, while those
+of Serbia were never maritime. The semi-independent Slavonic city-republic
+of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in Serbian) played a very important part
+throughout this period. It was under Venetian supremacy, but was
+self-governing and had a large fleet of its own. It was the great place of
+exchange between Serbia and western Europe, and was really the
+meeting-place of East and West. Its relations with Serbia were by no means
+always peaceful; it was a Naboth's vineyard for the 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 home during
+the Middle Ages of a flourishing school of Serbian literature, which was
+inspired by that of Italy. The influence of Italian civilization and of
+the Italian Church was naturally strong in the Serb province, much of
+which was under Venetian rule; the reason for this was that communication
+by sea with Italy was easier and safer than that by land with Serbia. The
+long, formidable ranges of limestone mountains which divide the Serbian
+interior from the Adriatic in almost unbroken and parallel lines have
+always been a barrier to 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 Serbian Empire.
+
+The first of the Nemanja dynasty was Stephen, whose title was still only
+_Veliki ['Z]upan_; he extended Serb territory southwards at the expense of
+the Greeks, especially after the death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180. He also
+persecuted the Bogomils, who took refuge in large numbers in the adjacent
+Serb state of Bosnia. Like many other Serbian rulers, he abdicated in
+later life in favour of his younger son, Stephen, called Nemanji� (=
+Nemanya's son), and himself became a monk (1196), travelling for this
+purpose to Mount Athos, the great monastic centre and home of theological
+learning of the Eastern Church. There he saw his youngest son, who some
+years previously had also journeyed thither and entered a monastery,
+taking the name of Sava.
+
+It was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sort of memorial
+church, for the welfare of his own soul, before his death, and to decorate
+and endow it lavishly. Stephen and his son together superintended the
+erection in this sense of the church and monastery of Hilandar on Mount
+Athos, which became a famous centre of Serbian church life. Stephen died
+shortly after the completion of the building in 1199, and was buried in
+it, but in 1207 he was reinterred in the monastery of Studenica, in
+Serbia, also founded by him.
+
+The reign of Stephen Nernanji['c] (1196-1223) opened with a quarrel
+between him and his elder brother, who not unnaturally felt he ought to
+have succeeded his father; the Bulgarians profited by this and seized a
+large part of eastern Serbia, including Belgrade, Nish, Prizren, and
+Skoplje. This, together with the fall of Constantinople and the
+establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204, alarmed the Serbs and brought
+about a reconciliation between the brothers, and in 1207 Sava returned to
+Serbia to organise the Church on national lines. In 1219 he journeyed to
+Nicaea and extracted from the Emperor Theodore Lascaris, who had fallen on
+evil days, the concession for the establishment of an autonomous national
+Serbian Church, independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Sava
+himself was at the head of the new institution. In 1220 he solemnly
+crowned his brother King _(Kralj)_ of Serbia, the natural consequence of
+his activities in the previous year. For this reason Stephen Nemanji['c]
+is called 'The First-Crowned'. He was succeeded in 1223 by his son Stephen
+Radoslav, and he in turn was deposed by his brother Stephen Vladislav in
+1233. Both these were crowned by Sava, and Vladislav married the daughter
+of Tsar John Asen II, under whom Bulgaria was then at the height of her
+power. Sava journeyed to Palestine, and on his return paid a visit to the
+Bulgarian court at Tirnovo, where he died in 1236. His body was brought to
+Serbia and buried in the monastery of Mile[)s]evo, built by Vladislav.
+This extremely able churchman and politician, who did a great deal for the
+peaceful development of his country, was canonized and is regarded as the
+patron saint of Serbia.
+
+The reign of Vladislav's son and successor, Stephen Uro[)s] I (1242-76),
+was characterized by economic development and the strengthening of the
+internal administration. In external affairs he made no conquests, but
+defeated a combination of the Bulgarians with Ragusa against him, and
+after the war the Bulgarian ruler married his daughter. In his wars
+against Hungary he was unsuccessful, and the Magyars remained in
+possession of a large part of northern Serbia. In 1276 he was deposed by
+his son, Stephen Dragutin, who in his turn, after an unsuccessful war
+against the Greeks, again masters of Constantinople since 1261, was
+deposed and succeeded by his brother, Stephen Uro[)s] II, named Milutin,
+in 1282. This king ruled from 1282 till 1321, and during his reign the
+country made very great material progress; its mineral wealth especially,
+which included gold and silver mines, began to be exploited. He extended
+the boundaries of his kingdom in the north, making the Danube and the Save
+the frontier. The usual revolt against paternal authority was made by his
+son Stephen, but was unsuccessful, and the rebel was banished to
+Constantinople.
+
+It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons,
+and the inevitable consequence of this system was the series of provincial
+rebellions which occurred in almost every reign. When the revolt
+succeeded, the father (or brother) was granted in his turn a small
+appanage. In this case it was the son who was exiled, but he was recalled
+in 1319 and a reconciliation took place. Milutin died in 1321 and was
+succeeded by his son, Stephen Uro[)s] III, who reigned till 1331. He is
+known as Stephen De[)c]anski, after the memorial church which he built at
+De[)c]ani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great defeat of
+the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330. The
+following year his son, Stephen Du[)s]an, rebelled against him and deposed
+him. Stephen Du[)s]an, who reigned from 1331 till 1355, was Serbia's
+greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its utmost limits.
+Provincial and family revolts and petty local disputes with such places as
+Ragusa became a thing of the past, and he undertook conquest on a grand
+scale. Between 1331 and 1344 he subjected all Macedonia, Albania,
+Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful to keep on good terms with Ragusa and
+with Hungary, then under Charles Robert. He married the sister of the
+Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign Bulgaria was completely under
+Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil war which had become perennial at
+Constantinople, and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of the
+growing power of the Turks, no doubt to some extent explain the facility
+and rapidity of his conquests; nevertheless his power was very formidable,
+and his success inspired considerable alarm in western Europe. This was
+increased when, in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire. He first
+called together a special Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an
+archbishopric, whose centre was then at Pe['c] (in Montenegro, Ipek in
+Turkish), was proclaimed a Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as
+Patriarch; then this prelate, together with the Bulgarian Patriarch,
+Simeon, and Nicholas, Archbishop of Okhrida, crowned Stephen Tsar of the
+Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks. Upon this the Patriarch of Constantinople gave
+himself the vain satisfaction of anathematizing the whole of Serbia, as a
+punishment for this insubordination.
+
+In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI, persuaded King Louis of Hungary 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 conquered the southern half of Dalmatia, and extended his empire
+as far north as the river Cetina. In 1354 Stephen Du[)s]an himself
+approached the Pope, offering to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, if
+he would support him against the Hungarians and the Turks. The Pope sent
+him an embassy, but eventually Stephen could not agree to the papal
+conditions, and concluded an alliance, of greater practical utility, with
+the Venetians. In 1355, however, he suddenly died, at the age of
+forty-six, and thus the further development and aggrandisement of his
+country was prematurely arrested.
+
+Stephen Du[)s]an made a great impression on his contemporaries, both by
+his imposing personal appearance and by his undoubted wisdom and ability.
+He was especially a great legislator, and his remarkable code of laws,
+compiled in 1349 and enlarged in 1354, is, outside his own country, his
+greatest title to fame. During Stephen Du[)s]an's reign the political
+centre of Serbia, which had for many years gradually tended to shift
+southwards towards Macedonia, was at Skoplje (�sk�b in Turkish), which he
+made his capital. Stephen Du[)s]an's empire extended from the Adriatic in
+the west to the river Maritsa in the east, from the Save and Danube in the
+north to the Aegean; it included all the modern kingdoms of Serbia,
+Montenegro, Albania, and most of Greece, Dalmatia as far north as the
+river Cetina, as well as 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. It did not include the cities of Salonika
+or Ragusa, nor any considerable part of the modern kingdom of Bulgaria,
+nor Bosnia, Croatia, North Dalmatia, nor Slavonia (between the Save and
+Drave), ethnologically all purely Serb lands. From the point of view of
+nationality, therefore, its boundaries were far from ideal.
+
+Stephen Du[)s]an was succeeded by his son, known as Tsar Uro[)s], but he
+was as weak as his father had been strong. Almost as soon as 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 at this juncture was fatal, as a far
+more formidable foe than the ruler's rebellious relations was advancing
+against it. The Turkish conquests were proceeding apace; they had taken
+Gallipoli 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 in 1351, met them again on the Maritsa river in
+1371, and were completely defeated. Several of the upstart princes who had
+been pulling Stephen Du[)s]an's empire to pieces perished, and Tsar
+Uro[)s] only survived the battle of the Maritsa two months; he was
+unmarried, and with him died the Nemanja dynasty and the Serbian Empire.
+
+After this disaster the unity of the Serbian state was completely
+destroyed, and it has never since been restored in the same measure.
+
+That part of the country to the south of Skoplje fell completely under
+Turkish control; it was here that the famous national hero, Marko
+Kraljevi['c] (or King's son), renowned for his prowess, ruled as a vassal
+prince and mercenary soldier of the Turks; his father was one of the rebel
+princes who fell at the battle of the river Maritsa in 1371. North of
+Skoplje, Serbia, with Kru[)s]evac as a new political centre, continued to
+lead an independent but precarious existence, much reduced in size and
+glory, under a native ruler, Prince Lazar; all the conquests of Stephen
+Du[)s]an were lost, and the important coastal province of Zeta, which
+later developed into Montenegro, had broken away and proclaimed its
+autonomy directly after the death of Tsar Uro[)s].
+
+In 1375 a formal reconciliation was effected with the Patriarch of
+Constantinople; the ban placed on the Serbian Church in 1352 was removed
+and the independence of the Serbian Patriarchate of Pe['c] (Ipek)
+recognised. Meanwhile neither Greeks, Bulgars, nor Serbs were allowed any
+peace by the Turks.
+
+In 1389 was fought the great battle of Kosovo Polje, or the Field of
+Blackbirds, a large plain in Old Serbia, at the southern end of which is
+Skoplje. At this battle Serbian armies from all the Serb lands, including
+Bosnia, joined together in defence of their country for the last time. The
+issue of the battle was for some time in doubt, but was decided by the
+treachery and flight at the critical moment of one of the Serb leaders,
+Vuk Brankovi['c], son-in-law of Prince Lazar, with a large number of
+troops. Another dramatic incident was the murder of Sultan Murad in his
+tent by another Serbian leader, Milo[)s] Obili['c], 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 to the
+Sultan's presence and proved his patriotism by killing him. The momentary
+dismay was put an end to by the energetic conduct of Bayezid, son of
+Murad, who rallied the Turkish troops and ultimately inflicted total
+defeat on the Serbians. From the effects of this battle Serbia never
+recovered; Prince Lazar was captured and executed; his wife, Princess
+Milica, had to give her daughter to Bayezid in marriage, whose son thus
+ultimately claimed possession of Serbia by right of inheritance. Princess
+Milica and her son Stephen continued to live at Kru[)s]evac, but Serbia
+was already a tributary of Turkey. In the north, Hungary profited by the
+course of events and occupied Belgrade and all northern Serbia, but in
+1396 the Turks defeated the Magyars severely at the battle of Nikopolis,
+on the Danube, making the Serbs under Stephen fight on the Turkish side.
+Stephen also had to help Sultan Bajazet against the Tartars, and fought at
+the battle of Angora, in 1402, when Tamerlane captured Bayezid.
+
+After Stephen returned to Serbia he made an alliance with Hungary, which
+gave him back Belgrade and northern Serbia; it was at this time (1403)
+that Belgrade first became the capital, the political centre having in the
+course of fifty years moved from the Vardar to the Danube. The disorders
+which followed the defeat of Bayezid gave some respite to the Serbs, but
+Sultan Murad II (1421-51) again took up arms against him, and invaded
+Serbia as far as Kru[)s]evac.
+
+At the death of Stephen (Lazarevi['c]), in 1427, he was succeeded as
+_Despot_ by his nephew, George Brankovi['c]; but the Sultan, claiming
+Serbia as his own, immediately declared war on him. The Serbian ruler had
+to abandon Belgrade to the Magyars, and Nish and Kru[)s]evac to the Turks.
+He then built and fortified the town of Smederevo (or Semendria) lower
+down on the Danube, in 1428, and made this his capital. 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. Later George Brankovi['c] made another alliance with Hungary, and
+in 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi, defeated the Turks and liberated
+the whole of Serbia as far as the Adriatic, though he remained a tributary
+of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars broke the treaty of
+peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched against them under their
+Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the disastrous battle of Varna, on
+the Black Sea, where the king lost his life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died
+and was succeeded by the Sultan Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured
+Constantinople (Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital); in
+1456 his armies were besieging Belgrade, but were defeated by John
+Hunyadi, who, unfortunately for the Serbs, died of the plague shortly
+afterwards. George Brankovi['c] died the same year, and at his death
+general disorder spread over the country. The Turks profited by this,
+overran the whole of Serbia, and in 1459 captured Smederevo, the last
+Serbian stronghold.
+
+Meanwhile Bosnia had been for nearly a hundred years enjoying a false
+security as an independent Serb kingdom. Its rulers had hitherto been
+known by the title of _Ban_, and were all vassals of the King of Hungary;
+but in 1377 Ban Tvrtko profited by the embarrassments of his suzerain in
+Poland and proclaimed himself king, the neighbouring kingdom of Serbia
+having, after 1371, ceased to exist, and was duly crowned in Saint Sava's
+monastery of Mile[)s]evo. The internal history of the kingdom was even
+more turbulent than had been that of Serbia. To the endemic troubles of
+succession and alternating alliances and wars with foreign powers were
+added those of confession. Bosnia was always a no man's land as regards
+religion; it was where the Eastern and Western Churches met, and
+consequently the rivalry between them there was always, as it is now,
+intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too, early took root in Bosnia and
+became extremely popular; it was the obvious refuge for those who did not
+care to become involved in the strife of the Churches. One of the kings of
+Bosnia, Stephen Thomas, who reigned from 1444 till 1461, was himself a
+Bogomil, and when at the insistence 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, to the lands of one Stephen, who sheltered them, proclaimed his
+independence of Bosnia, and on the strength of the fact that Saint Sava's
+monastery of Mile[)s]evo was in his territory, announced himself Herzog,
+or Duke (in Serbian Herceg, though the real Serb equivalent is _Vojvoda_)
+of Saint Sava, ever since when (1448) that territory has been called
+Hercegovina. In spite of many promises, neither the Pope nor the King of
+Hungary did anything to help Bosnia when the Turks began to invade the
+country after their final subjection of Serbia in 1459. In 1463 they
+invaded Bosnia and pursued, captured, and slew the last king; their
+conquest of the country was complete and rapid. A great exodus of the Serb
+population took place to the south, west, and north; but large numbers,
+especially of the landowning class, embraced the faith of their conquerors
+in order to retain possession of their property. In 1482 a similar fate
+befell Hercegovina. Albania had already been conquered after stubborn
+resistance in 1478. There remained only the mountainous coastal province
+of Zeta, which had been an independent principality ever since 1371. Just
+as inland Serbia had perished between the Turkish hammer and the Hungarian
+anvil, so maritime Serbia was crushed between Turkey and Venice, only its
+insignificance and inaccessibility giving it a longer lease of independent
+life. Ivan Crnojevi['c], one of the last independent rulers of Zeta, who
+had to fly to Italy in 1480, abandoning his capital, [)Z]abljak, to the
+Turks, returned in 1481, when the death of Sultan Mohammed temporarily
+raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and founded Cetinje and made it his
+capital. His son George, who succeeded him and ruled from 1490 till 1496,
+is famous as having set up the first Serbian printing-press there. Its
+activities were naturally not encouraged by the Turkish conquest, but it
+was of great importance to the national Serbian Church, for which books
+were printed with it.
+
+In 1496, Venice having wisely made peace with the Sultan some years
+previously, this last independent scrap of Serb territory was finally
+incorporated in the Turkish dominions. At the end of the fifteenth century
+the Turks were masters of all the Serb lands except Croatia, Slavonia, and
+parts of Dalmatia, which belonged to Hungary, and the Dalmatian coast and
+islands, which were Venetian. The Turkish conquest of Serbia, which began
+in 1371 at the battle of the Maritsa, and was rendered inevitable by the
+battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389, thus took a hundred and twenty-five years
+to complete.
+
+
+
+16
+
+_The Turkish Dominion_, 1496-1796
+
+The lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was different from that of their
+neighbours the Bulgars; and though it was certainly not enviable, it was
+undoubtedly better. The Turks for various reasons never succeeded in
+subduing Serbia and the various Serb lands as completely as they had
+subdued, or rather annihilated, Bulgaria. The Serbs were spread over a far
+larger extent of territory than were the Bulgars, they were further
+removed from the Turkish centre, and the wooded and mountainous nature of
+their country facilitated even more than in the case of Bulgaria the
+formation of bands of brigands and rebels and militated against its
+systematic policing by the Turks. The number of centres of national life,
+Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and Montenegro, to take them in the
+chronological order of their conquest by the Turks, had been notoriously a
+source of weakness to the Serbian state, as is still the case to-day, but
+at the same time made it more difficult for the Turks to stamp out the
+national consciousness. What still further contributed to this difficulty
+was the fact that many Serbs escaped the oppression of Turkish rule by
+emigrating to 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 and Hungary. It had begun already after the final
+subjection of Serbia proper and Bosnia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463, but
+after the fall of Belgrade, which was the outpost of Hungary against the
+Turks, in 1521, and the battle of Mohacs, in 1526, when the Turks
+completely defeated the Magyars, it assumed great proportions. As the
+Turks pushed their conquests further north, the Serbs migrated before them;
+later 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 Ba[)c]ka (the country
+between the Theiss and Danube), and in Baranya (between the Danube and the
+Drave). All this part of southern Hungary and Croatia was formed by the
+Austrians into a military borderland against Turkey, and the Croats and
+immigrant Serbs were organized as military colonists with special
+privileges, on the analogy of the Cossacks in southern Russia and Poland.
+In Dalmatia the Serbs played a similar r�le in the service of Venice,
+which, like Austria-Hungary, was frequently at war with the Turks. During
+the sixteenth century Ragusa enjoyed its greatest prosperity; it paid
+tribute to the Sultan, was under his protection, and never rebelled. It
+had a quasi monopoly of the trade of the entire Balkan peninsula. It was a
+sanctuary both for Roman Catholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and
+sometimes acted as intermediary on behalf of its co-religionists with the
+Turkish authorities, with whom it wielded great influence. Intellectually
+also it was a sort of Serb oasis, and the only place during the Middle
+Ages where Serbian literature was able to flourish.
+
+Montenegro during the sixteenth century formed part of the Turkish
+province of Scutari. Here, as well as in Serbia proper, northern Macedonia
+(known after the removal northwards of the political centre, in the
+fourteenth century, as Old Serbia), Bosnia, and Hercegovina, the Turkish
+rule was firmest, but not harshest, during the first half of the sixteenth
+century, when the power of the Ottoman Empire was at its height. Soon
+after the fall of Smederevo, in 1459, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] (Ipek)
+was abolished, the Serbian Church lost its independence, was merged in the
+Greco-Bulgar Archbishopric of Okhrida (in southern Macedonia), and fell
+completely under the control of the Greeks. In 1557, however, through the
+influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb nationality, the Patriarchate of
+Pe['c] was revived. The revival of this centre of national life was
+momentous; through its agency the Serbian monasteries were restored,
+ecclesiastical books printed, and priests educated, and more fortunate
+than the Bulgarian national Church, which remained under Greek management,
+it was able to focus the national enthusiasms and aspirations and keep
+alive with hope the flame of nationality amongst those Serbs who had not
+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 of Lepanto (1571). But the seventeenth
+century saw a revival of Turkish power; Krete was added to their empire,
+and in 1683 they very nearly captured Vienna. In the war which followed
+their repulse, and in which the victorious Austrians penetrated as far
+south as Skoplje, the Serbs took part against the Turks; but when later
+the Austrians were obliged to retire, the Serbs, who had risen against the
+Turks at the bidding of their Patriarch Arsen III, had to suffer terrible
+reprisals at their hands, with the result that another wholesale
+emigration, with the Patriarch at its head, took place into the
+Austro-Hungarian military borderland. This time it was the very heart of
+Serbia which was abandoned, namely, Old Serbia and northern Macedonia,
+including Pe['c] and Prizren. The vacant Patriarchate was for a time
+filled by a Greek, and the Albanians, many of whom were Mohammedans and
+therefore Turcophil, spread northwards and eastwards into lands that had
+been Serb since the seventh century. From the end of the seventeenth
+century, however, the Turkish power began unmistakably to wane. The Treaty
+of Carlowitz (1699) left the Turks still in possession of Syrmia (between
+the Danube and Save) and the Banat (north of the Danube), but during the
+reign of the Emperor Charles VI their retreat was accelerated. In 1717
+Prince Eugen of Savoy captured Belgrade, then, as now, a bulwark of the
+Balkan peninsula against invasion from the north, and by the Treaty of
+Passarowitz (Po[)z]arevac, on the Danube), in 1718, Turkey not only
+retreated definitively south of the Danube and the Save, but left a large
+part of northern Serbia in Austrian hands. By the same treaty Venice
+secured possession of the whole of Dalmatia, where it had already gained
+territory by the Treaty of Curlowitz in 1699.
+
+But the Serbs soon found out that alien populations fare little better
+under Christian rule, when they are not of the same confession as their
+rulers, than under Mohammedan. The Orthodox Serbs in Dalmatia suffered
+thenceforward from relentless persecution at the hands of the Roman
+Catholics. In Austria-Hungary too, and in that part of Serbia occupied by
+the Austrians after 1718, the Serbs discovered that the Austrians, when
+they had beaten the Turks largely by the help of Serbian levies, were very
+different from the Austrians who had encouraged the Serbs to settle in
+their country and form military colonies on their frontiers to protect
+them from Turkish invasion. The privileges promised them when their help
+had been necessary were disregarded as soon as their services could be
+dispensed with. Austrian rule soon became more oppressive than Turkish,
+and to the Serbs' other woes was now added religious persecution. The
+result of all this was that a counter-emigration set in and the Serbs
+actually began to 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 Eugen no longer led them, and though the Serbs were
+again persuaded by their Patriarch, Arsen IV, to rise against the Turks,
+they only did so half-heartedly. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739,
+Austria had to withdraw north of the Save and Danube, evacuating all
+northern Serbia in favour of the Turks. From this time onwards the lot of
+the Serbs, both in Austria-Hungary and in Turkey, went rapidly from bad to
+worse. The Turks, as the power of their empire declined, and in return for
+the numerous Serb revolts, had recourse to measures of severe repression;
+amongst others was that of the final abolition of the Patriarchate of Pe�
+in 1766, whereupon the control of the Serbian Church in Turkey passed
+entirely into the hands of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople.
+
+The Austrian Government similarly, perceiving now for the first time the
+elements of danger which the resuscitation of the Serbian nationality
+would contain for the rule of the Hapsburgs, embarked on a systematic
+persecution of the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary and Slavonia. During
+the reign of Maria Theresa (1740-80), whose policy was to conciliate the
+Magyars, the military frontier zone was abolished, a series of repressive
+measures was passed against those Serbs who refused to become Roman
+Catholics, and the Serbian nationality was refused official recognition.
+The consequence of this persecution was a series of revolts which were all
+quelled with due severity, 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 II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their
+treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the
+beginning of the eighteenth century Montenegro began to assume greater
+importance in the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of the
+Serbs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed part
+of the Turkish dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible nature of its
+mountain fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very forcibly asserted.
+It was ruled by a prince-bishop, and its religious independence thus
+connoted a certain secular freedom of thought if not of action. In the
+seventeenth century warlike encounters between the Turks 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
+Montenegro was often rather civil in character, being caused by the
+ill-feeling which existed between the numerous Montenegrins who had become
+Mohammedans and those who remained faithful to their national Church. In
+the course of the eighteenth century the r�le which fell to Montenegro
+became more important. In all the other Serb countries the families which
+naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or in exile,
+as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and
+purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great
+earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of
+international importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had
+survived both a greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all,
+the ancient Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a
+number of at any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families;
+these families naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as
+destined to play an important part in the resistance to and the eventual
+overthrow of the Turkish dominion. The prince-bishop had to be consecrated
+by the Patriarch of Pe['c], and in 1700 Patriarch Arsen III consecrated
+one Daniel, of the house (which has been ever since then and is now still
+the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s], to this
+office, after he had been elected to it by the council of notables at
+Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and precluded
+from participating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey by the
+intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was solidly
+Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks
+independently of the other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his
+anti-Turkish policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to
+the south and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians,
+he developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that
+friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb principality
+on the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent feature of eastern
+European politics ever since. This intimacy did not prevent the Turks
+giving Montenegro many hard blows whenever they had the time or energy to
+do so, and did not ensure any special protective clauses in favour of the
+mountain state whenever the various treaties between Russia and Turkey
+were concluded. Its effect was rather psychological and financial. From
+the time when the _Vladika_ (= Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the
+Great, in 1714, the rulers of Montenegro often made pilgrimages to the
+Russian capital, and were always sure of finding sympathy as well as
+pecuniary if not armed support. Bishops in the Orthodox Church are
+compulsorily celibate, and the succession in Montenegro always descended
+from uncle to nephew. When Peter I Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s] succeeded, in
+1782, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] was no more, so he had to get permission
+from the Austrian Emperor Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan
+of Karlovci (Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.
+
+About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and
+Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils
+between them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the
+same time (1788) in the district of [)S]umadija, in Serbia, by a number of
+Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Ko[)c]a,
+after whom the whole war is called Ko[)c]ina Krajina (=Ko[)c]a's country),
+another, yet the Austrians were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the
+death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was concluded between Austria and
+Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which Turkey retained the whole of
+Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube remained the frontier between
+the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of Montenegro had joined in the
+fray and had fared better, inflicting some unpleasant defeats on the Turks
+under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated in two battles in 1796 (the
+Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued
+fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari. With this
+triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the
+Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro,
+the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was _de facto_ established.
+
+
+
+17
+
+_The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George_ (1804-13) _and Milo[)s]
+Obrenovi['c]_ (1815-30): 1796-1830
+
+
+The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment
+as an independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous
+accomplishment than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries.
+One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position
+was cut off from outside help. It was easy for the western powers to help
+Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to help Rumania and, later,
+Bulgaria directly with its army, because communication between them was
+easy. But Serbia on the one hand was separated from the sea, first by
+Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and then by Bosnia,
+Hercegovina, and the _sandjak_ (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which
+territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence
+owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro,
+also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in
+self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size
+permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was
+too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively
+brought to bear upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia,
+and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to
+be traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards
+through Turkish territory. The only country which could have helped Serbia
+was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do so, the
+Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to retard the
+Serbian cause. As a result of all this Serbia, in her long struggle
+against the Turks, had to rely principally on its own resources, though
+Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent country from disaster.
+
+Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation and development of
+modern Serbia has been the proneness of its people to internal dissension.
+There was no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the country would
+naturally devolve after the first successful revolution against Turkish
+rule, there was not even any aristocracy left, and no foreign ruler was
+ever asked for by the Serbs or was ever imposed on them by the other
+nations as in the case of Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria. On the other hand
+the rising against Turkey was a rising of the whole people, and it was
+almost inevitable that as soon as some measure of independence was gained
+the unity the Serbs had shown when fighting against their oppressors
+should dissolve and be replaced by bitter rivalries and disputes amongst
+the various local leaders who had become prominent during the rebellion.
+
+These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves into a
+blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjevi['c] and the
+Obrenovi['c], a quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against
+the progress of the Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.
+
+The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political independence
+of Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible, its economic
+development and material prosperity. Until recent years Austria-Hungary
+and Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in such a position that
+whenever Serbia either demurred at its neighbours' tariffs or wished to
+retaliate by means of its own, the screw was immediately applied and
+economic strangulation threatened. Rumania and Bulgaria economically could
+never be 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 their neighbours' live stock and cereals, when
+their first business is to sell their own, while the cost of transit of
+imports from western Europe through those countries is prohibitive.
+
+After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia
+remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the
+authority of the Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real
+power was wielded by local Turkish officials, who exploited the country,
+looked on it as their own property, and enjoyed semi-independence. Their
+exactions and cruelties were worse than had been those of the Turks in the
+old days, and it was against them and their troops, not against those of
+the Sultan, that the first battles in the Serbian war of independence were
+fought. It was during the year 1803 that the Serbian leaders first made
+definite plans for the rising which eventually took place in the following
+year. The ringleader was George Petrovi['c], known as Black George, or
+Kara-George, and amongst his confederates was Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c]. The
+centre of the conspiracy was at Topola, in the district of [)S]umadija in
+central Serbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place
+of Kara-George. The first two years of fighting between the Serbians and,
+first, the provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan's forces, fully
+rewarded the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of
+1807 they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided
+efforts and captured the towns of Po[)z]arevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and
+[)S]abac. The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening
+of diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time
+the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to
+threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he gave
+the Serbs financial assistance and commended their cause to the especial
+care of his ambassador at Constantinople.
+
+In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace
+of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the
+Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes
+against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following
+years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian
+leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence which
+prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again
+fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with better fortune.
+In 1811 Kara-George was elected _Gospodar_, or sovereign, by a popular
+assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish province. At the end of that
+year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria,
+and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then have achieved
+complete independence.
+
+But Napoleon was already preparing his invasion and Russia had to conclude
+peace with Turkey in a hurry, which necessarily implied that the Sultan
+obtained unduly favourable terms. In the Treaty of Bucarest between the
+two countries signed in May 1812, the Serbs were indeed mentioned, and
+promised vague internal autonomy and a general amnesty, 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 Serbs in Serbia had to
+withdraw. Negotiations between the Turks and the Serbs for the regulation
+of their position were continued throughout 1812, but finally the Turks
+refused all their claims and conditions and, seeing the European powers
+preoccupied with their own affairs, invaded the country from Bosnia in the
+west, and also from the east and south, in August 1813. The Serbs, left
+entirely to their own resources, succumbed before the superior forces of
+the Turks, and by the beginning of October the latter were again masters
+of the whole country and in possession of Belgrade. Meanwhile Kara-George,
+broken in health and unable to cope with the difficulties of the
+situation, which demanded successful strategy both against the
+overwhelming forces of the Turks in the field and against the intrigues of
+his enemies at home, somewhat ignominiously fled across the river to
+Semlin in Hungary, and was duly incarcerated by the Austrian authorities.
+
+The news of Napoleon's defeat at Leipsic (October 1813) arrived just after
+that of the re-occupation of Belgrade by the Turks, damped _feu-de-joie_
+which they were firing at Constantinople, and made them rather more
+conciliatory and lenient to the Serbian rebels. But this attitude did not
+last long, and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh efforts to regain
+their short-lived liberty. The Congress of Vienna met in the autumn of
+1814, and during its whole course Serbian emissaries gave the Russian
+envoys no peace. But with the return of Napoleon to France in the spring
+of 1815 and the break-up of the Congress, all that Russia could do was,
+through its ambassador at Constantinople, to threaten invasion unless the
+Turks left the Serbs alone. Nevertheless, conditions in Serbia became so
+intolerable that another rebellion soon took shape, this time under
+Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c]. 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 not temporize, and his arbitrary methods of enforcing discipline
+and his ungovernable temper had made him many enemies. While the credit
+for the first Serbian revolt (1804-13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly to him,
+the second revolt owed its more lasting success to the skill of Milo[)s]
+Obrenovi['c]. The fighting started at Takovo, the home of the Obrenovi['c]
+family, in April 1815, and after many astonishing successes against the
+Turks, including the capture of the towns of Rudnik, [)C]a[)c]ak,
+Po[)z]arevac, and Kraljevo, was all over by July of the same year. The
+Turks were ready with large armies in the west in Bosnia, and also south
+of the Morava river, to continue the campaign and crush the rebellion, but
+the news of the final defeat of Napoleon, and the knowledge that Russia
+would soon have time again to devote attention to the Balkans, withheld
+their appetites for revenge, and negotiations with the successful rebels
+were initiated. During the whole of this period, from 1813 onwards,
+Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c], as head of a district, was an official of the
+Sultan in Serbia, and it was one of his principles never to break
+irreparably with the Turks, 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 1815 onwards he himself personally conducted negotiations
+in the name of his people with the various pashas who were deputed to deal
+with him. While these negotiations went on and the armistice was in force,
+he was confronted, or rather harassed from behind, by a series of revolts
+against his growing authority on the part of his jealous compatriots.
+
+In June 1817 Kara-George, who had been in Russia after being released by
+the Austrians in 1814, returned surreptitiously to Serbia, encouraged by
+the brighter aspect which affairs in his country seemed to be assuming.
+But the return of his most dangerous rival was as unwelcome to Milo[)s] as
+it was to the Turkish authorities at Belgrade, and, measures having been
+concerted between them, Kara-George was murdered on July 26,1817, and the
+first act in the blood-feud between the two families thus committed. In
+November of the same year a _skup[)s]tina_, or national assembly, was held
+at Belgrade, and Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c], whose position was already
+thoroughly assured, was elected hereditary prince (_knez_) of the country.
+
+Meanwhile events of considerable importance for the future of 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 the hands of Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, when the
+Venetian republic was extinguished by Napoleon. The Bocche di Cuttaro, a
+harbour both strategically 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 the successful rebellion of the
+Montenegrins against the Turks.
+
+By the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria Dalmatia became
+French in 1805. But the Montenegrins, supported by the Russians, resisted
+the new owners and occupied the Bocche; at the Peace of Tilsit in 1807,
+however, this important place was assigned to France by Russia, and
+Montenegro had to submit to its loss. In 1806 the French occupied Ragusa,
+and in 1808 abolished the independence of the ancient Serb city-republic.
+In 1812 the Montenegrins, helped by the Russians and British, again
+expelled the French and reoccupied Cattaro; but Austria was by now fully
+alive to the meaning this harbour would have once it was in the possession
+of Montenegro, and after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 took definitive
+possession of it as well as of all the rest of Dalmatia, thus effecting
+the complete exclusion of the Serb race for all political and commercial
+purposes from the Adriatic, its most natural and obvious means of
+communication with western Europe.
+
+Though Milo[)s] had been elected prince by his own people, it was long
+before he was recognized as such by the Porte. His efforts for the
+regularization of his position entailed endless negotiations in
+Constantinople; these were enlivened by frequent anti-Obrenovi['c] revolts
+in Serbia, all of which Milo[)s] successfully quelled. The revolution in
+Greece in 1821 threw the Serbian question from the international point of
+view into the shade, but the Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded his brother
+Alexander I on the Russian throne in 1825, soon showed that he took a
+lively and active interest in Balkan affairs. Pan-Slavism had scarcely
+become fashionable in those days, and it was still rather as the protector
+of its co-religionists under the Crescent that Russia intervened. In 1826
+Russian and Turkish delegates met at Akerman in Bessarabia, and in
+September of that year signed a convention by which the Russian
+protectorate over the Serbs was recognized, the Serbs were granted
+internal autonomy, the right to trade and erect churches, schools, and
+printing-presses, and the Turks were forbidden to live in Serbia except in
+eight garrison towns; the garrisons were to be Turkish, and tribute was
+still to be paid to the Sultan as suzerain. These concessions, announced
+by Prince Milo[)s] to his people at a special _skup[)s]tina_ held at
+Kragujevac in 1827, evoked great enthusiasm, but the urgency of the Greek
+question again delayed their fulfilment. After the battle of Navarino on
+October 20, 1827, in which the British, French, and Russian fleets
+defeated the Turkish, the Turks became obstinate and refused to carry out
+the stipulations of the Convention of Akerman in favour of Serbia.
+Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey in April 1828, and the Russian
+armies crossed the Danube and the Balkans and marched on Constantinople.
+
+Peace was concluded at Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey agreed to carry out
+immediately all the stipulations of the Treaty of Bucarest (1812) and the
+Convention of Akerman (1826). The details took some time to settle, but in
+November 1830 the _hatti-sherif_ of the Sultan, acknowledging Milo[)s] as
+hereditary prince of Serbia, was publicly read in Belgrade. All the
+concessions already promised were duly granted, and Serbia became
+virtually independent, but still tributary to the Sultan. Its territory
+included most of the northern part of the modern kingdom of Serbia,
+between the rivers Drina, Save, Danube, and Timok, but not the districts
+of Nish, Vranja, and Pirot. Turkey still retained Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+Macedonia, the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, which separated Serbia from
+Montenegro, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).
+
+
+
+18
+
+_The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia,_ 1830-1903
+
+
+During his rule of Serbia, which lasted virtually from 1817 till 1839,
+Prince Milo[)s] did a very great deal for the welfare of his country. He
+emancipated the Serbian Church from the trammels of the Greek Patriarchate
+of Constantinople in 1831, from which date onwards it was ruled by a
+Metropolitan of Serb nationality, resident at Belgrade. He encouraged the
+trade of the country, a great deal of which he held in his own hands; he
+was in fact a sort of prototype of those modern Balkan business-kings of
+whom King George of Greece and King Carol of Rumania were the most notable
+examples. He raised an army and put it on a permanent footing, and
+organized the construction of roads, schools, and churches. He was,
+however, an autocratic ruler of the old school, and he had no inclination
+to share the power for the attainment of which he had laboured so many
+years and gone through so much. From his definite installation as
+hereditary prince discontent at his arbitrary methods of government
+amongst his ex-equals increased, and after several revolts he was forced
+eventually to grant a 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 at Constantinople, and while he was there
+the situation in Serbia became still more serious. After his return he
+was, after several years of delay and of growing unpopularity, compelled
+to agree to another constitution which was forced on him, paradoxically
+enough, by the joint efforts of the Tsar and of the Sultan, who seemed to
+take an unnatural pleasure in supporting the democratic Serbians against
+their successful colleague in autocracy, who had done so much for his
+turbulent subjects. Serbia even in those days was essentially and
+uncompromisingly democratic, but even so Milo[)s] obstinately refused to
+carry out the provisions of the constitution or in any way to submit to a
+curtailment of his power, and in 1839 he left his ungrateful principality
+and took refuge in Rumania, where he possessed an estate, abdicating in
+favour of his elder son Milan. This Prince Milan, known as Obrenovi['c]
+II, was seriously ill at the time of his accession, and died within a
+month of it. He was succeeded by his younger brother Michael, known as
+Obrenovi['c] III, 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 has ever had. His first reign (1840-2),
+however, did not open well. He inaugurated it by paying a state visit to
+Constantinople, but the Sultan only recognized him as elective prince and
+insisted on his having two advisers approved and appointed by 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, Vu[)c]i['c], and,
+though Michael's rule was not as arbitrary as his father's, he had to bow
+to the popular will which supported Vu[)c]i['c] and cross the river to
+Semlin. After a stormy interval, during which the Emperor Nicholas I tried
+to intervene in favour of Michael, Alexander Karagjorgjevi['c], son of
+Kara-George, was elected prince (1843). No sooner was this representative
+of the rival dynasty installed, however, than rebellions in favour of
+Michael occurred. These were thrown into the shade by the events of 1848,
+In that memorable year of revolutions the Magyars rose against Austria and
+the Serbs in southern Hungary rose against the Magyars. Prince Alexander
+resolved to send military help to his oppressed countrymen north of the
+Save and Danube, and, though the insurgents were unsuccessful, Prince
+Alexander gained in popularity amongst the Serbs by the line of action he
+had taken. During the Crimean War, on the other hand, Serbia remained
+strictly neutral, to the annoyance of the Tsar; at the Congress of Paris
+(1856) the exclusive protectorate of Russia was replaced by one of all the
+powers, and Russian influence in the western Balkans was thereby weakened.
+Prince Alexander's prudence, moreover, cost him his popularity, and in
+1858 he in his turn had to bid farewell to his difficult countrymen.
+
+In December of the same year the veteran Prince Milo['s] Obrenovi['c] I
+was recalled to power as hereditary prince. His activities during his
+second reign were directed against Turkish influence, which was still
+strong, and he made efforts to have the Turkish populations removed from
+the eight garrison towns, including Belgrade, where they still lived in
+spite of the fact that their emigration had been stipulated for in 1830.
+Unfortunately he did not live long enough to carry out his plans, for he
+fell ill at Topchider, the summer palace near Belgrade, in the autumn of
+1860, and died a few days afterwards. He was again succeeded by his son
+Michael Obrenovi['c] III, who was already thirty-six years of age. This
+able prince's second reign was brilliantly successful, and it was a
+disaster for which his foolish countrymen had to pay dearly, when, by
+their fault, it was prematurely cut short in 1868. His first act was with
+the consent of a specially summoned _skup[)s]tina_ to abolish the law by
+which he could only appoint and remove his counsellers with the approval
+of the Porte. Next he set about the organization and establishment of a
+regular army of 30,000 men. In 1862 an anti-Turkish rebellion broke out
+amongst the Serbs in Hercegovina (still, with Bosnia, a Turkish province),
+and the Porte, accusing Prince Michael of complicity, made warlike
+preparations against him.
+
+Events, however, were precipitated in such a way that, without waiting for
+the opening of hostilities, the Turkish general in command of the fortress
+of Belgrade turned his guns on the city; this provoked the intervention of
+the powers at Constantinople, and the entire civilian Turkish population
+had to quit the country (in accordance with the stipulations of 1830),
+only Turkish garrisons remaining in the fortresses of [)S]abac, Belgrade,
+Smederevo, and Kladovo, along the northern river frontier, still
+theoretically the boundary of the Sultan's dominions. After this success
+Prince Michael continued his military preparations in order to obtain
+final possession of the fortresses when a suitable occasion should arise.
+This occurred in 1866, when Austria was engaged in the struggle with
+Prussia, and the policy of Great Britain became less Turcophil than it had
+hitherto been. On April 6, 1867, the four fortresses, which had been in
+Serbian possession from 1804 to 1813, but had since then been garrisoned
+by the Turks, were delivered over to Serbia and the last Turkish soldier
+left Serbian soil without a shot having been fired. Though Serbia after
+this was still a vassal state, being tributary to the Sultan, these
+further steps on the road to complete independence were a great triumph,
+especially for Prince Michael personally. But this very triumph actuated
+his political opponents amongst his own countrymen, amongst whom were
+undoubtedly adherents of the rival dynasty, to revenge, and blind to the
+interests of their people they foolishly and most brutally murdered this
+extremely capable and conscientious prince in the deer park near Topchider
+on June 10, 1868. The opponents of the Obrenovi['c] dynasty were, however,
+baulked in their plans, and a cousin of the late prince was elected to the
+vacant and difficult position. This ruler, known as Milan Obrenovi['c] IV,
+who was only fourteen years of age at the time of his accession (1868),
+was of a very different character from his predecessor. The first thing
+that happened during his minority was the substitution of the constitution
+of 1838 by another one which was meant to give the prince and the national
+assembly much more power, but which, eventually, made the ministers
+supreme.
+
+The prince came of age in 1872 when he was eighteen, and he soon showed
+that the potential pleasures to be derived from his position were far more
+attractive to him than the fulfilment of its obvious duties. He found much
+to occupy him in Vienna and Paris and but little in Belgrade. At the same
+time the Serb people had lost, largely by its 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 last
+of many) broke out amongst the Serbs of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and all
+the efforts of the Turks to quell it 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 Serbia was
+joined by Montenegro. The country was, however, not materially prepared
+for war, the expected sympathetic risings in other parts of Turkey either
+did not take place or failed, and the Turks turned their whole army on to
+Serbia, with the result that in October the Serbs had to appeal to the
+Tsar for help and an armistice was arranged, which lasted till February
+1877. During the winter a conference was held in Constantinople to devise
+means for alleviating the lot of the Christians in Turkey, and a peace was
+arranged between Turkey and Serbia whereby the _status quo ante_ was
+restored. But after the conference the heart of Turkey was again hardened
+and the stipulations in favour of the Christians were not carried out.
+
+In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey (cf. chap. 10), and in the autumn of
+the same year Serbia joined in. This time the armies of Prince Milan were
+more successful, and conquered and occupied the whole of southern Serbia
+including the towns and districts of Nish, Pirot, Vranja, and Leskovac,
+Montenegro, which had not been included in the peace of the previous
+winter, but had been fighting desperately and continuously against the
+Turks ever since it had begun actively to help the Serb rebels of
+Hercegovina in 1875, had a series of successes, as a result of which it
+obtained possession of the important localities of Nik['s]i['c],
+Podgorica, Budua, Antivari, and Dulcigno, the last three on the shore of
+the Adriatic. By the Treaty of San Stefano the future interests of both
+Serbia and Montenegro were jeopardised by the creation of a Great
+Bulgaria, but that would not have mattered if in return they had been
+given control of the purely Serb provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+which ethnically they can claim just as legitimately as Bulgaria claims
+most of Macedonia. The Treaty of San Stefano was, however, soon replaced
+by that of Berlin. By its terms both Serbia and Montenegro achieved
+complete independence and the former ceased to be a tributary state of
+Turkey. The Serbs were given the districts of southern Serbia which they
+had occupied, and which are all ethnically Serb except Pirot, the
+population of which is a sort of cross between Serb and Bulgar. The Serbs
+also undertook to build a railway through their country to the Turkish and
+Bulgarian frontiers. Montenegro was nearly doubled in size, receiving the
+districts of Nik['s]i['c], Podgorica, and others; certain places in the
+interior the Turks and Albanians absolutely refused to surrender, and to
+compensate for these Montenegro was given a strip of coast with the
+townlets of Antivari and Dulcigno. The memory of Gladstone, who specially
+espoused Montenegro's cause in this matter, is held in the greatest
+reverence in the brave little mountain country, but unfortunately the
+ports themselves are economically absolutely useless. Budua, higher up the
+Dalmatian coast, which would have been of some use, was handed over to
+Austria, to which country, already possessed of Cattaro and all the rest
+of Dalmatia, it was quite superfluous. Greatest tragedy of all for the
+future of the Serb race, the administration of Bosnia and Hercegovina was
+handed over 'temporarily' to Austria-Hungary, and Austrian garrisons were
+quartered throughout those two provinces, which they were able to occupy
+only after the most bitter armed opposition on the part of the
+inhabitants, and also in the Turkish _sandjak_ or province of Novi-Pazar,
+the ancient Raska and cradle of the Serb state; this strip of mountainous
+territory under Turkish administrative and Austrian military control was
+thus converted into a fortified wedge which effectually kept the two
+independent Serb states of Serbia and Montenegro apart. After all these
+events the Serbs had to set to work to put their enlarged house in order.
+But the building of railways and schools and the organization of the
+services cost a lot of money, and as public economy is not a Serbian
+virtue the debt grew rapidly. In 1882 Serbia proclaimed itself a kingdom
+and was duly recognized by the other nations. But King Milan did not learn
+to manage the affairs of his country any better as time went on. He was
+too weak to stand alone, and having freed himself from Turkey he threw
+himself into the arms of Austria, with which country he concluded a secret
+military convention. In 1885, when Bulgaria and 'Eastern Rumelia'
+successfully coalesced and Bulgaria thereby received a considerable
+increase of territory and power, the Serbs, prompted by jealousy, 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
+disastrous battle of Slivnitsa (cf. chap. II); Austria had to intervene to
+save its victim, and Serbia got nothing for its trouble but a large
+increase of debt and a considerable decrease of military reputation. In
+addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate in his conjugal relations;
+his wife, the beautiful Queen Natalie, was a Russian, and as he himself
+had Austrian sympathies, they could scarcely be expected to agree on
+politics. But the strife between them extended from the sphere of
+international to that of personal sympathies and antipathies. King Milan
+was promiscuous in affairs of the heart and Queen Natalie was jealous.
+Scenes of domestic discord were frequent and violent, and the effect of
+this atmosphere 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 subjects with
+all his failings, lost his hold on the country after the unfortunate war
+of 1885, and the partisans of the rival dynasty began to be hopeful once
+more. In 1888 King Milan gave Serbia a very much more liberal
+constitution, by which the ministers were for the first time made really
+responsible to the _skup[)s]tina_ or national assembly, replacing that of
+1869, and the following year, worried by his political and domestic
+failures, discredited and unpopular both at 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. Risti['c],
+with a radical ministry under M. Pa[)s]i['c], an extremely able and
+patriotic statesman of pro-Russian sympathies, who ever since he first
+became prominent in 1877 had been growing in power and influence. But
+trouble did not cease with the abdication of King Milan. He and his wife
+played Box and Cox at Belgrade for the next four years, quarrelling and
+being reconciled, intriguing and fighting round the throne and person of
+their son. At last both parents agreed to leave the country and give the
+unfortunate youth a chance. King Milan settled in Vienna, Queen Natalie in
+Biarritz. In 1893 King Alexander suddenly declared himself of age and
+arrested all his ministers and regents one evening while they were dining
+with him. The next year he abrogated the constitution of 1888, under which
+party warfare in the Serbian parliament had been bitter and uninterrupted,
+obstructing any real progress, and restored that of 1869. Ever since 1889
+(the date of the accession of the German Emperor) Berlin had taken more
+interest in Serbian affairs, and it has been alleged that it was William
+II who, through the wife of the Rumanian minister at his court, who was
+sister of Queen Natalie, influenced King Alexander in his abrupt and
+ill-judged decisions. It was certainly German policy to weaken and
+discredit Serbia and to further Austrian influence at Belgrade at the
+expense of that of Russia. King Milan returned for a time to Belgrade in
+1897, and the reaction, favourable to Austria, which had begun in 1894,
+increased during his presence and under the ministry of Dr. Vladan
+Gjorgjevi['c], which lasted from 1897 till 1900. This state of repression
+caused unrest throughout the country. All its energies were absorbed in
+fruitless political party strife, and no material or moral progress was
+possible. King Alexander, distracted, solitary, and helpless 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
+relaxation to see his mother at Biarritz, he fell violently in love with
+her lady in waiting, Madame Draga Ma[)s]in, the divorced wife of a Serbian
+officer. Her somewhat equivocal past was in King Alexander's eyes quite
+eclipsed by her great beauty and her wit, which had not been impaired by
+conjugal infelicity. Although she was thirty-two, and he only twenty-four,
+he determined to marry her, and the desperate opposition of his parents,
+his army, his ministers, and his people, based principally on the fact
+that the woman was known to be incapable of child-birth, only precipitated
+the accomplishment of his intention. This unfortunate and headstrong
+action on the part of the young king, who, though deficient in tact and
+intuition, had plenty of energy and was by no means stupid, might have
+been forgiven him by his people if, as was at first thought possible, it
+had restored internal peace and prosperity in the country and thereby
+enabled it to prepare itself to take a part in the solution o� those
+foreign questions which vitally affected Serb interests and were already
+looming on the horizon. But it did not. In 1901 King Alexander granted
+another constitution and for a time attempted to work with a coalition
+ministry; but this failed, and a term of reaction with pro-Austrian
+tendencies, which were favoured by the king and queen, set in. This
+reaction, combined with the growing disorganization of the finances and
+the general sense of the discredit and failure which the follies of its
+rulers had during the last thirty years brought on the country; completely
+undermined the position of the dynasty and made a catastrophe inevitable.
+This occurred, as is well known, on June 10, 1903, when, as the result of
+a military conspiracy, King Alexander, the last of the Obrenovi['c]
+dynasty, his wife, and her male relatives were murdered. This crime was
+purely political, and it is absurd to gloss it over or to explain it
+merely as the result of the family feud between the two dynasties. That
+came to an end in 1868, when the murder of Kara-George in 1817 by the
+agency of Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c] was avenged by the lunatic assassination
+of the brilliant Prince Michael Obrenovi['c] III. It is no exaggeration to
+say that, from the point of view of the Serbian patriot, the only
+salvation of his country in 1903 lay in getting rid of the Obrenovi['c]
+dynasty, which had become pro-Austrian, had no longer the great gifts
+possessed by its earlier members, and undoubtedly by its vagaries hindered
+the progress of Serbia both in internal and external politics. The
+assassination was unfortunately carried out with unnecessary cruelty, and
+it is this fact that made such a bad impression and for so long militated
+against Serbia in western Europe; but it must be remembered that
+civilization in the Balkans, where political murder, far from being a
+product of the five hundred years of Turkish dominion, has always been
+endemic, is not on the same level in many respects as it is in the rest of
+Europe. Life is one of the commodities which are still cheap in backward
+countries.
+
+Although King Alexander and his wife can in no sense be said to have
+deserved the awful fate that befell them, it is equally true that had any
+other course been adopted, such as 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, it was long before
+things in any sense settled down. As for the alleged complicity of the
+rival dynasty in the crime, it is well established that that did not
+exist. It was no secret to anybody interested in Serbian affairs that
+something catastrophic was about to happen, and when the tragedy occurred
+it was natural to appeal to the alternative native dynasty to step into
+the breach. But the head of that dynasty was in no way responsible for the
+plot, still less for the manner in which it was carried out, and it was
+only after much natural hesitation and in the face of his strong
+disinclination that Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c] was induced to accept
+the by no means enviable, easy, or profitable task of guiding Serbia's
+destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903 was a source neither of glory nor of
+riches, and it was notoriously no sinecure.
+
+After the tragedy, the democratic constitution of 1888 was first of all
+restored, and then Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c], grandson of
+Kara-George, the leader of the first Serbian insurrection of 1804-13, who
+was at that time fifty-nine years of age, was unanimously elected king. He
+had married in 1883 a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and sister
+of the future Queen of Italy, but she had been dead already some years at
+the time of his accession, leaving him with a family of two sons and a
+daughter.
+
+
+
+19
+
+_Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary,_ 1903-8
+
+
+It was inevitable that, 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 to live down the results. Other powers,
+especially those of western Europe, looked coldly on Serbia and were in no
+hurry to resume diplomatic intercourse, still less to offer diplomatic
+support. The question of the punishment and exile of the conspirators was
+almost impossible of solution, and only time was able to obliterate the
+resentment caused by the whole affair. In Serbia itself a great change
+took place. The new sovereign, though he laboured under the greatest
+possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable behaviour, modesty, tact,
+and strictly constitutional rule, was able to withdraw the court of
+Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it had become used. The public
+finances began to be reorganized, commerce began to improve in spite of
+endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, and attention was again diverted
+from home to foreign politics. With the gradual spread of education and
+increase of communication, and the growth of national self-consciousness
+amongst the Serbs and Croats of Austria-Hungary and the two independent
+Serb states, a new movement for the closer intercourse amongst the various
+branches of the Serb race for south Slav unity, as it was called,
+gradually began to take shape. At the same time a more definitely
+political agitation started in Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating
+position of economic bondage in which the country was held by
+Austria-Hungary, and was roughly justified by the indisputable argument:
+'Serbia must expand or die.' Expansion at the cost of Turkey seemed
+hopeless, because even the acquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a
+large alien population and no maritime outlet. It was towards the Adriatic
+that the gaze of the Serbs was directed, to the coast which was ethnically
+Serbian and could legitimately be considered a heritage of the Serb race.
+
+Macedonia was also taken into account, schools and armed bands began their
+educative activity amongst those inhabitants of the unhappy province who
+were Serb, or who lived in places where Serbs had lived, or who with
+sufficient persuasion could be induced to call themselves Serb; but the
+principal stream of propaganda was directed westwards into Bosnia and
+Hercegovina. The antagonism between Christian and Mohammedan, Serb and
+Turk, was never so bitter as between Christian and Christian, Serb and
+German or Magyar, and the Serbs were clever enough to see that Bosnia and
+Hercegovina, from every point of view, was to them worth ten Macedonias,
+though it would he ten times more difficult to obtain. Bosnia and
+Hercegovina, though containing three confessions, were ethnically
+homogeneous, and it was realised that these two provinces were as
+important to Serbia and Montenegro as the rest of Italy had been to
+Piedmont.
+
+It must at this time be recalled in what an extraordinary way the Serb
+race had fortuitously been broken up into a number of quite arbitrary
+political divisions. Dalmatia (three per cent. of the population of which
+is Italian and all the rest Serb or Croat, preponderatingly Serb and
+Orthodox in the south and preponderating Croat or Roman Catholic in the
+north) was a province of Austria and sent deputies to the Reichsrath at
+Vienna; at the same time it was territorially isolated from Austria and
+had no direct railway connexion with any country except a narrow-gauge
+line into Bosnia. Croatia and Slavonia, preponderatingly Roman Catholic,
+were lands of the Hungarian crown, and though they had a provincial
+pseudo-autonomous diet at Agram, the capital of Croatia, they sent
+deputies to the Hungarian parliament at Budapest. Thus what had in the
+Middle Ages been known as the triune kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and
+Dalmatia, with a total Serbo-Croat population of three millions, was
+divided between Austria and Hungary.
+
+Further, there were about 700,000 Serbs and Croats in the south of Hungary
+proper, cast and north of the Danube, known as the Banat and Ba[)c]ka, a
+district which during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was
+the hearth and home of Serb literature and education, but which later
+waned in importance in that respect as independent Serbia grew. These
+Serbs were directly dependent on Budapest, the only autonomy they
+possessed being ecclesiastical. Bosnia and Hercegovina, still nominally
+Turkish provinces, with a Slav population of nearly two million (850,000
+Orthodox Serbs, 650,000 Mohammedan Serbs, and the rest Roman Catholics),
+were to all intents and purposes already imperial lands of
+Austria-Hungary, with a purely military and police administration; the
+shadow of Turkish sovereignty provided sufficient excuse to the _de facto_
+owners of these provinces not to grant the inhabitants parliamentary
+government or even genuine provincial autonomy. The Serbs in Serbia
+numbered nearly three millions, those in Montenegro about a quarter of a
+million; while in Turkey, in what was known as Old Serbia (the _sandjak_
+of Novi-Pasar between Serbia and Montenegro and the vilayet of Korovo),
+and in parts of northern and central Macedonia, there were scattered
+another half million. These last, of course, had no voice at all in the
+management of their own affairs. Those in Montenegro lived under the
+patriarchal autocracy of Prince Nicholas, who had succeeded his uncle,
+Prince Danilo, in 1860, at 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 restless with the restricted
+possibilities of a career which the mountain principality offered them,
+and in latter years migrated in large numbers to North and South America,
+whither emigration from Dalmatia and Croatia too had already readied
+serious proportions. The Serbs in Serbia were the only ones who could
+claim to be free, but even this was a freedom entirely dependent on the
+economic malevolence of Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Cut up in this way by
+the hand of fate into such a number of helpless fragments, it was
+inevitable that the Serb race, if it possessed any vitality, should
+attempt, at any cost, to piece some if not all of them together and form
+an ethnical whole which, economically and politically, should be master of
+its own destinies. It was equally inevitable that the policy of
+Austria-Hungary should be to anticipate or definitively render any such
+attempt impossible, because obviously the formation of a large south Slav
+state, by cutting off Austria from the Adriatic and eliminating from the
+dual monarchy all the valuable territory between the Dalmatian coast and
+the river Drave, would seriously jeopardize its position as a great power;
+it must be remembered, also, that Austria-Hungary, far from decomposing,
+as it was commonly assumed was happening, had been enormously increasing
+in vitality ever since 1878.
+
+The means adopted by the governments of Vienna and Budapest to nullify the
+plans of Serbian expansion were generally to maintain the political
+_�miettement_ of the Serb race, the isolation of one group from another,
+the virtually enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale and their
+substitution by German colonists, and the encouragement of rivalry and
+discord between Roman Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb. No railways were
+allowed to be built in Dalmatia, communication between Agram and any other
+parts of the monarchy except Fiume or Budapest was rendered almost
+impossible; Bosnia and Hercegovina were shut off into a watertight
+compartment and endowed with a national flag composed of the inspiring
+colours of brown and buff; it was made impossible for Serbs to visit
+Montenegro or for Montenegrins to visit Serbia except via Fiume, entailing
+the bestowal of several pounds on the Hungarian state steamers and
+railways. As for the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, it was turned into a
+veritable Tibet, and a legend was spread abroad that if any foreigner
+ventured there he would be surely murdered by Turkish brigands; meanwhile
+it was full of Viennese ladies giving picnics and dances and tennis
+parties 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 more enjoyable by the construction of railways, roads, and
+hotels. At the same time this was not a work of pure philanthropy, and the
+emigration statistics are a good indication of the joy with which the
+Bosnian peasants paid for an annual influx of admiring tourists. In spite
+of all these disadvantages, however, the Serbo-Croat provinces of
+Austria-Hungary could not be deprived of all the benefits of living within
+a large and prosperous customs union, while being made to pay for all the
+expenses of the elaborate imperial administration and services; and the
+spread of education, even under the Hapsburg r�gime, began to tell in
+time. Simultaneously with the agitation which emanated from Serbia and was
+directed towards the advancement, by means of schools and religious and
+literary propaganda, of Serbian influence in Bosnia and Hercegovina, a
+movement started in Dalmatia and Croatia for the closer union of those two
+provinces. About 1906 the two movements found expression in the formation
+of the Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb coalition party, composed of those
+elements in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia which favoured closer union
+between the various groups of the Serb race scattered throughout those
+provinces, as well as in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Hercegovina, and
+Turkey. Owing to the circumstances already described, it was impossible
+for the representatives of the Serb race to voice their aspirations
+unanimously in any one parliament, and the work of the coalition, except
+in the provincial diet at Agram, consisted mostly of conducting press
+campaigns and spreading propaganda throughout those provinces. The most
+important thing about the coalition was that it buried religious
+antagonism and put unity of race above difference of belief. In this way
+it came into conflict with the ultramontane Croat party at Agram, which
+wished to incorporate Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia with Croatia and
+create a third purely Roman Catholic Slav state in the empire, on a level
+with Austria and Hungary; also to a lesser extent with the intransigent
+Serbs of Belgrade, who affected to ignore Croatia and Roman Catholicism,
+and only dreamed of bringing Bosnia, Hercegovina, and as much of Dalmatia
+as they could under their own rule; and finally it had to overcome the
+hostility of the Mohammedan Serbs of Bosnia, who disliked all Christians
+equally, could only with the greatest difficulty be persuaded that they
+were really Serbs and not Turks, and honestly cared for nothing but Islam
+and Turkish coffee, thus considerably facilitating the germanization of
+the two provinces. The coalition was wisely inclined to postpone the
+programme of final political settlement, and aimed immediately at the
+removal of the material and moral barriers placed between the Serbs of the
+various provinces of Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia and Hercegovina. If
+they had been sure of adequate guarantees they would probably have agreed
+to the inclusion of _all_ Serbs and Croats within the monarchy, because
+the constitution of all Serbs and Croats in an independent state (not
+necessarily a kingdom) without it implied the then problematic
+contingencies of a European war and the disruption of Austria-Hungary.
+Considering the manifold handicaps under which Serbia and its cause
+suffered, the considerable success which its propaganda met with in Bosnia
+and Hercegovina and other parts of Austria-Hungary, from 1903 till 1908,
+is a proof, not only of the energy and earnestness of its promoters and of
+the vitality of the Serbian people, but also, if any were needed, of the
+extreme unpopularity of the Hapsburg r�gime in the southern Slav provinces
+of the dual monarchy. Serbia had no help from outside. Russia was
+entangled in the Far East and then in the revolution, and though the new
+dynasty was approved in St. Petersburg Russian sympathy with Serbia was at
+that time only lukewarm. Relations with Austria-Hungary were of course
+always strained; only one single line of railway connected the two
+countries, and as Austria-Hungary was the only profitable market, for
+geographical reasons, for Serbian products, Serbia could be brought to its
+knees at any moment by the commercial closing of the frontier. It was a
+symbol of the economic vassalage of Serbia and Montenegro that the postage
+between both of these countries and any part of Austria-Hungary was ten
+centimes, that for letters between Serbia and Montenegro, which had to
+make the long d�tour through Austrian territory, was twenty-five. But
+though this opened the Serbian markets to Austria, it also incidentally
+opened Bosnia, when the censor could be circumvented to propaganda by
+pamphlet and correspondence. Intercourse with western Europe was
+restricted by distance, and, owing to dynastic reasons, diplomatic
+relations were altogether suspended for several years between this country
+and Serbia. The Balkan States Exhibition held in London during the summer
+of 1907, to encourage trade between Great Britain and the Balkans, was
+hardly a success. Italy and Serbia had nothing in common. With Montenegro
+even, despite the fact that King Peter was Prince Nicholas's son-in-law,
+relations were bad. It was felt in Serbia that Prince Nicholas's
+autocratic rule acted as a brake on the legitimate development of the
+national consciousness, and Montenegrin students who visited Belgrade
+returned to their homes full of 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 enjoy
+the special favour as well as the financial support of the Russian court,
+and which, looked on throughout Europe as a picturesque and harmless
+institution, it would have been dangerous, as it was quite unnecessary, to
+touch.
+
+Serbia was thus left entirely to its own resources in the great
+propagandist activity which filled the years 1903 to 1908. The financial
+means at its disposal were exiguous in the extreme, especially when
+compared with the enormous sums lavished annually by the Austrian and
+German governments on their secret political services, so that the efforts
+of its agents cannot be ascribed to cupidity. Also it must be admitted
+that the kingdom of Serbia, with its capital Belgrade, thanks to the
+internal chaos and dynastic scandals of the previous forty years,
+resulting in superficial dilapidation, intellectual stagnation, and
+general poverty, lacked the material as well as the moral glamour which a
+successful Piedmont should possess. Nobody could deny, for instance, that,
+with all its natural advantages, Belgrade was at first sight not nearly
+such an attractive centre as Agram or Sarajevo, or that the qualities
+which the Serbs of Serbia had displayed since their emancipation were
+hardly such as to command the unstinted confidence and admiration of their
+as yet unredeemed compatriots. Nevertheless the Serbian propaganda in
+favour of what was really a Pan-Serb movement met with great success,
+especially in Bosnia, Hercegovina, 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 conflicts with the government at Budapest. Both the one
+movement and the other naturally evoked great alarm and emotion in the
+Austrian and Hungarian capitals, as they were seen to be genuinely popular
+and also potentially, if not actually, separatist in character. In October
+1906 Baron Achrenthal succeeded Count Goluchowski as Minister for Foreign
+Affairs at Vienna, and very soon initiated a more vigorous and
+incidentally anti-Slav foreign policy than his predecessor. What was now
+looked on as the Serbian danger had in the eyes of Vienna assumed such
+proportions that the time for decisive action was considered to have
+arrived. In January 1908 Baron Achrenthal announced his scheme for a
+continuation of the Bosnian railway system through the _sandjak_ of
+Novi-Pazar to link 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 international commerce, while the engineering difficulties
+were such that the cost of construction would have been prohibitive. But
+the possibilities which this move indicated, the palpable evidence it
+contained of the notorious _Drang nach Osten_ of the Germanic powers
+towards Salonika and Constantinople, were quite sufficient to fill the
+ministries of Europe, and especially those of Russia, with extreme
+uneasiness. The immediate result of this was that concerted action between
+Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans was thenceforward impossible,
+and the M�rzsteg programme, after a short and precarious existence, came
+to an untimely end (cf. chap. 12). Serbia and Montenegro, face to face
+with this new danger which threatened permanently to separate their
+territories, were beside themselves, and immediately parried with the
+project, hardly more practicable in view of their international credit, of
+a Danube-Adriatic railway. In July 1908 the nerves of Europe were still
+further tried by the Young Turk revolution in Constantinople. The
+imminence of this movement was known to Austro-German diplomacy, and
+doubtless this knowledge, as well as the fear of the Pan-Serb movement,
+prompted the Austrian foreign minister to take steps towards the
+definitive regularization of his country's position in Bosnia and
+Hercegovina--provinces whose suzerain was still the Sultan of Turkey. The
+effect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan States was as any one who
+visited them at that time can testify, both pathetic and intensely
+humorous. The permanent chaos of the Turkish empire, and the process of
+watching for years its gradual but inevitable decomposition, had created
+amongst the neighbouring states an atmosphere of excited anticipation,
+which was really the breath of their nostrils; it had stimulated them
+during the endless Macedonian insurrections to commit the most awful
+outrages against each other's nationals and then lay the blame at the door
+of the unfortunate Turk; and if the Turk should really regenerate himself,
+not only would their occupation be gone, but the heavily-discounted
+legacies would assuredly elude their grasp. At the same time, since the
+whole policy of exhibiting and exploiting the horrors of Macedonia, and of
+organizing guerilla bands and provoking intervention, was based on the
+refusal of the Turks to grant reforms, as soon as the ultra-liberal
+constitution of Midhat Pasha, which, had been withdrawn after a brief and
+unsuccessful run in 1876, was restored by the Young Turks, there was
+nothing left for the Balkan States to do but to applaud with as much
+enthusiasm as they could simulate. The emotions experienced by the Balkan
+peoples during that summer, beneath the smiles which they had to assume,
+were exhausting even for southern temperaments. Bulgaria, with its
+characteristic matter-of-factness, was the first to adjust itself to the
+new and trying situation in which the only certainty was that something
+decisive had got to be done with all possible celerity. On October 5,
+1908, Prince Ferdinand sprang on an astonished continent the news that he
+renounced the Turkish suzerainty (ever since 1878 the Bulgarian
+principality had been a tributary and vassal state of the Ottoman Empire,
+and therefore, with all its astonishingly rapid progress and material
+prosperity, a subject for commiseration in the kingdoms of Serbia and
+Greece) and proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria, with himself, as Tsar
+of the Bulgars, at its head. Europe had not recovered from this shock,
+still less Belgrade and Athens, when, two days later. Baron Aehrenthal
+announced the formal annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Emperor
+Francis Joseph. Whereas most people had virtually forgotten the Treaty of
+Berlin and had come to look on Austria as just as permanently settled in
+these two provinces as was Great Britain in Egypt and Cyprus, yet the
+formal breach of the stipulations of that treaty on Austria's part, by
+annexing the provinces without notice to or consultation with the other
+parties concerned, gave the excuse for a somewhat ridiculous hue and cry
+on the part of the other powers, and especially on that of Russia. The
+effect of these blows from right and left on Serbia was literally
+paralysing. When Belgrade recovered the use of its organs, it started to
+scream for war and revenue, and initiated an international crisis from
+which Europe did not recover till the following year. Meanwhile, almost
+unobserved by the peoples of Serbia 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 its
+garrisons from the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, thus evacuating the
+long-coveted corridor which was the one thing above all else necessary to
+Serbia and Montenegro for the realization of their plans.
+
+
+
+20
+
+_Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars,_ 1908-13 (cf. Chap, 13)
+
+
+The winter of 1908-9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia's fortunes. The
+successive _coups_ and _faits accomplis_ carried out by Austria, Turkey,
+and Bulgaria during 1908 seemed destined to destroy for good the Serbian
+plans for expansion in any direction whatever, and if these could not be
+realized then Serbia must die of suffocation. It was also well understood
+that for all the martial ardour displayed in Belgrade the army was in no
+condition to take the field any more than was the treasury to bear the
+cost of a campaign; Russia had not yet recovered from the Japanese War
+followed by the revolution, and indeed everything pointed to the certainty
+that if Serbia indulged in hostilities against Austria-Hungary it would
+perish ignominiously and alone. The worst of it was that neither Serbia
+nor Montenegro had any legal claim to Bosnia and Hercegovina: they had
+been deluding themselves with the hope that their ethnical identity with
+the people of these provinces, supported by the effects of their
+propaganda, would induce a compassionate and generous Europe at least to
+insist on their being given a part of the coveted territory, and thus give
+Serbia access to the coast, when the ambiguous position of these two
+valuable provinces, still nominally Turkish but already virtually
+Austrian, came to be finally regularized. As a matter of fact, ever since
+Bismarck, Gorchak�v, and Beaconsfield had put Austria-Hungary in their
+possession in 1878, no one had seriously thought that the Dual Monarchy
+would ever voluntarily retire from one inch of the territory which had
+been conquered and occupied at such cost, and those who noticed it were
+astonished at the evacuation by it of the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar. At the
+same time Baron Achrenthal little foresaw what a hornet's nest he would
+bring about his ears by the tactless method in which the annexation was
+carried out. The first effect was to provoke a complete boycott of
+Austro-Hungarian goods and trading vessels throughout the Ottoman Empire,
+which was so harmful to the Austrian export trade that in January 1909
+Count Achrenthal had to indemnify Turkey with the sum of �2,500,000 for
+his technically stolen property. Further, the attitude of Russia and
+Serbia throughout the whole winter remained so provocative and threatening
+that, although war was generally considered improbable, the Austrian army
+had to be kept on a war footing, which involved great expense and much
+popular discontent. The grave external crisis was only solved at the end
+of March 1909; Germany had had to deliver a veiled ultimatum at St.
+Petersburg, the result of which was the rescue of Austria-Hungary from an
+awkward situation by the much-advertised appearance of its faithful ally
+in shining armour. Simultaneously Serbia had to eat humble pie and
+declare, with complete absence of truth, that the annexation of Bosnia and
+Hercegovina had not affected its interests.
+
+Meanwhile the internal complications in the southern Slav provinces of
+Austria-Hungary were growing formidable. Ever since the summer of 1908
+arrests 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 of this agitation in order to
+justify abroad the pressing need for the formal annexation of Bosnia and
+Hercegovina. The fact was that, though immediate danger to the monarchy as
+a result of the Pan-Serb agitation was known not to exist, yet in the
+interests of Austrian foreign policy, the Serbs had to be compromised in
+the eyes of Europe, the Croato-Serb coalition within the Dual Monarchy had
+to be destroyed to gratify Budapest in particular, and the religious and
+political discord between Croat and Serb, on which the foundation of the
+power of Austria-Hungary, and especially that of Hungary, in the south
+rested, and which was in a fair way of being eliminated through the
+efforts of the coalition, had to be revived by some means or other. It is
+not possible here to go into the details of the notorious Agram high
+treason trial, which was the outcome of all this. It suffices to say that
+it was a monstrous travesty of justice which lasted from March till
+October 1909, and though it resulted in the ostensible destruction of the
+coalition and the imprisonment of many of its members, it defeated its own
+ends, as it merely fanned the flame of nationalistic feeling against
+Vienna and Budapest, and Croatia has ever since had to be governed
+virtually by martial law. This was followed in December 1909 by the even
+more famous Friedjung trial. In March 1909 Count Achrenthal had begun in
+Vienna a violent press campaign against Serbia, accusing the Serbian
+Government and dynasty of complicity in the concoction of nefarious
+designs and conspiracies against the integrity of Austria-Hungary. This
+campaign was thought to be the means of foreshadowing and justifying the
+immediate military occupation of Serbia. Unfortunately its instigator had
+not been sufficiently particular as to the choice of his tools and his
+methods of using them. Among the contributors of the highly tendencious
+articles was the well-known historian Dr. Friedjung, who made extensive
+use of documents supplied him by the Vienna Foreign Office. His
+accusations immediately provoked an action for libel on the part of three
+leaders of the Croato-Serb coalition who were implicated, in December
+1909. The trial, which was highly sensational, resulted in the complete
+vindication and rehabilitation both of those three Austrian subjects in
+the eyes of the whole of Austria-Hungary and of the Belgrade Foreign
+Office in those of Europe; the documents on which the charges were based
+were proven to be partly forgeries, partly falsified, and partly stolen by
+various disreputable secret political agents of the Austrian Foreign
+Office, and one of the principal Serbian 'conspirators', a professor of
+Belgrade University, proved that he was in Berlin at the time when he had
+been accused of presiding over a revolutionary meeting at Belgrade. But it
+also resulted in the latter discrediting of Count Achrenthal as a diplomat
+and of the methods by which he conducted the business of the Austrian
+Foreign Office, and involved his country in the expenditure of countless
+millions which it could ill afford.
+
+There never was any doubt that a subversive agitation had been going on,
+and that it emanated in part from Serbia, but the Serbian Foreign Office,
+under the able management of Dr. Milovanovi['c] and Dr. Spalajkovi['c]
+(one of the principal witnesses at the Friedjung trial), was far too
+clever to allow any of its members, or indeed any responsible person in
+Serbia, to be concerned in it, and the brilliant way in which the clumsy
+and foolish charges were refuted redounded greatly to the credit of the
+Serbian Government. Count Achrenthal had overreached himself, and moreover
+the wind had already been taken out of his sails by the public recantation
+on Serbia's part of its pretensions to Bosnia, which, as already
+mentioned, took place at the end of March 1909, and by the simultaneous
+termination of the international crisis marked by Russia's acquiescence in
+the _fait accompli_ of the annexation. At the same time the Serbian Crown
+Prince George, King Peter's elder son, who had been the leader of the
+chauvinist war-party in Serbia, and was somewhat theatrical in demeanour
+and irresponsible in character, renounced his rights of succession in
+favour of his younger brother Prince Alexander, a much steadier and more
+talented young man. It is certain that when he realized how things were
+going to develop Count Achrenthal tried to hush up the whole incident, but
+it was too late, and Dr. Friedjung insisted on doing what he could to save
+his reputation as a historian. In the end he was made the principal
+scapegoat, though the press of Vienna voiced its opinion of the Austrian
+Foreign Office in no measured tones, saying, amongst other things, that if
+the conductors of its diplomacy must use forgeries, they might at any rate
+secure good ones. Eventually a compromise was arranged, after the
+defendant had clearly lost his case, owing to pressure being brought to
+bear from outside, and the Serbian Government refrained from carrying out
+its threat of having the whole question threshed out before the Hague
+Tribunal.
+
+The cumulative effect of all these exciting and trying experiences was the
+growth of a distinctly more sympathetic feeling towards Serbia in Europe
+at large, and especially a rallying of all the elements throughout the
+Serb and Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary, except the extreme clericals
+of Agram, to the Serbian cause; briefly, the effect was the exact opposite
+of that desired by Vienna and Budapest. Meanwhile events had been
+happening elsewhere which revived the drooping interest and flagging hopes
+of Serbia in the development of foreign affairs. The attainment of power
+by the Young Turks and the introduction of parliamentary government had
+brought no improvement to the internal condition of the Ottoman Empire,
+and the Balkan peoples made no effort to conceal their satisfaction at the
+failure 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
+service and obligatory payment of taxes caused a revolution in Albania,
+where such innovations were not at all appreciated. From 1909 till 1911
+there was a state of perpetual warfare in Albania, with which the Young
+Turks, in spite of cruel reprisals, were unable to cope, until, in the
+summer of that year, Austria threatened to intervene unless order were
+restored; some sort of settlement was patched up, and an amnesty was
+granted to the rebels by the new Sultan. This unfortunate man, after being
+rendered almost half-witted by having been for the greater part of his
+life kept a prisoner by his brother the tyrant Abdul Hamid, was now the
+captive of the Young Turks, and had been compelled by them to make as
+triumphal a progress as fears for his personal safety would allow through
+the provinces of European Turkey. But it was obvious to Balkan statesmen
+that Turkey was only changed in name, and that, if its threatened
+regeneration had slightly postponed their plans for its partition amongst
+themselves, the ultimate consummation of these plans must be pursued with,
+if possible, even greater energy and expedition than before. It was also
+seen by the more perspicacious of them that the methods hitherto adopted
+must in future be radically altered. A rejuvenated though unreformed
+Turkey, bent on self-preservation, could not be despised, and it was
+understood that if the revolutionary bands of the three Christian nations
+(Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria) were to continue indefinitely to cut each
+others' throats in Macedonia the tables might conceivably be turned on
+them.
+
+From 1909 onwards a series of phenomena occurred in the Balkans which
+ought to have given warning to the Turks, whose survival in Europe had
+been due solely to the fact that the Balkan States had never been able to
+unite. In the autumn of 1909 King Ferdinand of Bulgaria met Crown Prince
+Alexander of Serbia and made an expedition in his company to Mount
+Kopaonik in Serbia, renowned for the beauty of its flora. This must have
+struck those who remembered the bitter feelings which had existed between
+the two countries for years and had been intensified by the events of
+1908. Bulgaria had looked on Serbia's failures with persistent contempt,
+while Serbia had watched Bulgaria's successful progress with speechless
+jealousy, and the memory of Slivnitsa was not yet obliterated. In the
+summer of 1910 Prince Nicholas of Montenegro celebrated the fiftieth
+anniversary of his reign and his golden wedding. The festivities were
+attended by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the Crown Prince Boris, by the
+Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and his sister, grandchildren of Prince
+Nicholas, by his two daughters the Queen of Italy and the Grand Duchess
+Anastasia of Russia, and by their husbands, King Victor Emmanuel and the
+Grand Duke Nicholas. The happiness of the venerable ruler, who was as
+respected throughout Europe as he was feared throughout his principality,
+was at the same time completed by his recognition as king by all the
+governments and sovereigns of the continent. The hopes that he would
+simultaneously introduce a more liberal form of government amongst his own
+people were unfortunately disappointed.
+
+The year 1911, it need scarcely be recalled, was extremely fateful for the
+whole of Europe. The growing restlessness and irritability manifested by
+the German Empire began to make all the other governments feel exceedingly
+uneasy. The French expedition to Fez in April was followed by the
+Anglo-Franco-German crisis of July; war was avoided, and France was
+recognized as virtually master of Morocco, but the soreness of the
+diplomatic defeat rendered Germany a still more trying neighbour than it
+had been before. The first repercussion was the war which broke out in
+September 1911 between Italy and Turkey for the possession of Tripoli and
+Cyrenaica, which Italy, with its usual insight, saw was vital to its
+position as a Mediterranean power and therefore determined to acquire
+before any other power had time or courage to do so. In the Balkans this
+was a year of observation and preparation. Serbia, taught by the bitter
+lesson of 1908 not to be caught again unprepared, had spent much money and
+care on its army during the last few years and had brought it to a much
+higher state of efficiency. In Austria-Hungary careful observers wore
+aware that something was afoot and that the gaze of Serbia, which from
+1903 till 1908 had been directed westwards to Bosnia and the Adriatic, had
+since 1908 been fixed on Macedonia and the Aegean. The actual formation of
+the Balkan League by King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos may not have been
+known, but it was realized that action of some sort on the part of the
+Balkan States was imminent, and that something must be done to forestall
+it. In February 1912 Count Aehrenthal died, and was succeeded by Count
+Berchtold as Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs. In August of
+the same year this minister unexpectedly announced his new and startling
+proposals for the introduction of reforms in Macedonia, which nobody in
+the Balkans who had any material interest in the fate of that province
+genuinely desired at that moment; the motto of the new scheme was
+'progressive decentralization', blessed words which soothed the great
+powers as much as they alarmed the Balkan Governments. But already in May
+1912 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgaria and
+Serbia had been concluded, limiting their respective zones of influence in
+the territory which they hoped to conquer. It was, to any one who has any
+knowledge of Balkan history, incredible that the various Governments had
+been able to come to any agreement at all. That arrived at by Bulgaria and
+Serbia divided Macedonia between them in such a way that Bulgaria should
+obtain central Macedonia with Monastir and Okhrida, and Serbia northern
+Macedonia or Old Serbia; there was an indeterminate zone between the two
+spheres, including Skoplje (�sk�b, in Turkish), the exact division of
+which it was agreed to leave to arbitration at a subsequent date.
+
+The Macedonian theatre of war was by common consent regarded as the most
+important, and Bulgaria here promised Serbia the assistance of 100,000
+men. The Turks meanwhile were aware that all was not what it seemed beyond
+the frontiers, and in August 1912 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
+awful sufferings of their compatriots under Turkish misrule, gradually
+became exhausted. On September 28 the four Balkan Governments informed
+Russia that the Balkan League was an accomplished fact, and on the 30th
+the representatives of all four signed the alliance, and mobilization was
+ordered in Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The population of Montenegro was
+habitually on a war footing, and it was left to the mountain kingdom from
+its geographically favourable position to open hostilities. On October 8
+Montenegro declared war on Turkey, and after a series of brilliant
+successes along the frontier its forces settled down to the wearisome and
+arduous siege of Scutari with its impregnable sentinel, Mount Tarabo[)s],
+converted into a modern fortress; the unaccustomed nature of these tasks,
+to which the Montenegrin troops, used to the adventures of irregular
+warfare, were little suited, tried the valour and patience of the intrepid
+mountaineers to the utmost. By that time Europe was in a ferment, and both
+Russia and Austria, amazed at having the initiative in the regulation of
+Balkan affairs 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 that the offer of
+outside assistance and advice had come too late, and that they had decided
+themselves to redress the intolerable and secular wrongs of their
+long-suffering compatriots in Macedonia by force of arms. To their dismay
+a treaty of peace was signed at Lausanne about the same time between
+Turkey and Italy, which power, it had been hoped, would have distracted
+Turkey's attention by a continuance of hostilities in northern Africa, and
+at any rate immobilized the Turkish fleet. Encouraged by this success
+Turkey boldly declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia on October 17, hoping to
+frighten Greece and detach it from the league; but on the 18th the Greek
+Government replied by declaring war on Turkey, thus completing the
+necessary formalities. The Turks were confident of an early and easy
+victory, and hoped to reach Sofia, not from Constantinople and Thrace, but
+pushing up north-eastwards from Macedonia. The rapid offensive of the
+Serbian army, however, took them by surprise, and they were completely
+overwhelmed at the battle of Kumanovo in northern Macedonia on October
+23-4, 1912. On the 31st King Peter made his triumphal entry into Skoplje
+(ex-�sk�b), the ancient capital of Serbia under Tsar Stephen Du[)s]an in
+the fourteenth century. From there the Serbian army pursued the Turks
+southward, and at the battles of Prilep (November 5) and Monastir
+(November 19), after encountering the most stubborn opposition, finally
+put an end to their resistance in this part of the theatre of war. On
+November 9 the Greeks entered Salonika.
+
+Meanwhile other divisions of the Serbian army had joined hands with the
+Montenegrins, and occupied almost without opposition the long-coveted
+_sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar (the ancient Serb Ra[)s]ka), to the inexpressible
+rage of Austria-Hungary, which had evacuated it in 1908 in favour of its
+rightful owner, Turkey. At the same time a Serbian expeditionary corps
+marched right through Albania, braving great hardships on the way, and on
+November 30 occupied Durazzo, thus securing at last a foothold on the
+Adriatic. Besides all this, Serbia, in fulfilment of its treaty
+obligations, dispatched 50,000 splendidly equipped men, together with a
+quantity of heavy siege artillery, to help the Bulgarians at the siege of
+Adrianople. On December 3 an armistice was signed between the
+belligerents, with the condition that the three besieged Turkish
+fortresses of Adrianople, Scutari, and Yanina must not be re-victualled,
+and on December 16, 1912, peace negotiations were opened between
+representatives of the belligerent countries in London. Meanwhile the
+Germanic powers, dismayed by the unexpected victories of the Balkan armies
+and humiliated by the crushing defeats in the field of the German-trained
+Turkish army, had since the beginning of November been doing everything in
+their power to support their client Turkey and prevent its final
+extinction and at the same time the blighting of their ambitions
+eventually to acquire the Empire of the Near East. During the conference
+in London between the plenipotentiaries of the belligerents, parallel
+meetings took place between the representatives of the great powers, whose
+relations with each other were strained and difficult in the extreme. The
+Turkish envoys prolonged the negotiations, as was their custom; they
+naturally were unwilling to concede their European provinces to the
+despised and hated Greek and Slavonic conquerors, but the delays implied
+growing hardships for their besieged and starving garrisons in Thrace,
+Epirus, and Albania. On January 23, 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 object of
+interrupting the negotiations and staking all on the result of a final
+battle. As a result of these events, and of the palpable disingenuousness
+of the Turks in continuing the negotiations in London, the Balkan
+delegates on January 29 broke them off, and on February 3, 1913,
+hostilities were resumed. At length, after a siege of nearly five months,
+Adrianople, supplied with infinitely better artillery than the allies
+possessed, was taken by the combined Serbian and Bulgarian forces on March
+26, 1913. The Serbian troops at Adrianople captured 17,010 Turkish
+prisoners, 190 guns, and the Turkish commander himself, Shukri Pasha.
+
+At the outbreak of the war in the autumn of 1912 the Balkan States had
+observed all the conventions, disavowing designs of territorial
+aggrandizement and proclaiming their resolve merely to obtain guarantees
+for the better treatment of the Christian inhabitants of Macedonia; the
+powers, for their part, duly admonished the naughty children of
+south-eastern Europe to the effect that no alteration of the territorial
+_status quo ante_ would under any circumstances be tolerated. During the
+negotiations in London, interrupted in January, and resumed in the spring
+of 1913 after the fall of Adrianople, it was soon made clear that in spite
+of all these magniloquent declarations nothing would be as it had been
+before. Throughout the winter Austria-Hungary had been mobilizing troops
+and massing them along the frontiers of Serbia and Montenegro, any
+increase in the size of which countries meant a crushing blow to the
+designs of the Germanic powers and the end to all the dreams embodied in
+the phrase 'Drang nach Osten' ('pushing eastwards').
+
+In the spring of 1913 Serbia and Montenegro, instead 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 _sandjak_ of
+Novi-Pazar, of 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 than Austria could stand, and at the
+renewed conference of London it was decided that they must retire. In the
+interests of nationality, in which the Balkan States themselves undertook
+the war, it was desirable that at any rate an attempt should be made to
+create an independent state of Albania, though no one who knew the local
+conditions felt confident as to its ultimate career. Its creation assuaged
+the consciences of the Liberal Government in Great Britain and at the same
+time admirably suited the strategic plans of Austria-Hungary. It left that
+country a loophole for future diplomatic efforts to disturb the peace of
+south-eastern Europe, and, with its own army in Bosnia and its political
+agents and irregular troops in Albania, Serbia and Montenegro, even though
+enlarged as it was generally recognized they must be, would be held in a
+vice and could be threatened and bullied from the south now as well as
+from the north whenever it was in the interests of Vienna and Budapest to
+apply the screw. The independence of Albania was declared at the
+conference of London on May 30, 1913. Scutari was included in it as being
+a purely Albanian town, and King Nicholas and his army, after enjoying its
+coveted flesh-pots for a few halcyon weeks, had, to their mortification,
+to retire to the barren fastnesses of the Black Mountain. Serbia,
+frustrated by Austria in its attempts, generally recognized as legitimate,
+to obtain even a commercial outlet on the Adriatic, naturally again
+diverted its aims southwards to Salonika. The Greeks were already in
+possession of this important city and seaport, as well as of the whole of
+southern Macedonia. The Serbs were in possession of central and northern
+Macedonia, including Monastir and Okhrida, which they had at great
+sacrifices conquered from the Turks. It had been agreed that Bulgaria, as
+its share of the spoils, should have all central Macedonia, with Monastir
+and Okhrida, although on ethnical grounds the Bulgarians have only very
+slightly better claim to the country and towns west of the Vardar than any
+of the other Balkan nationalities. But at the time that the agreement had
+been concluded it had been calculated in Greece and Serbia that Albania,
+far from being made independent, would be divided between them, and that
+Serbia, assured of a strip of coast on the Adriatic, would have no
+interest in the control of the river Vardar and of the railway which
+follows its course connecting the interior of Serbia with the port of
+Salonika. Greece and Serbia had no ground whatever for quarrel and no
+cause for mutual distrust, and they were determined, for political and
+commercial reasons, to have a considerable extent of frontier from west to
+east in common. The creation of an independent Albania completely altered
+the situation. If Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia and thus secure
+a frontier from north to south in common with the newly-formed state of
+Albania, then Greece would be at the mercy of its hereditary enemies the
+Bulgars and Arnauts (Albanians) as it had previously been at the mercy of
+the Turks, while Serbia would have two frontiers between itself and the
+sea instead of one, as before, and its complete economic strangulation
+would be rendered inevitable and rapid. Bulgaria for its own part
+naturally refused to waive its claim to central Macedonia, well knowing
+that the master of the Vardar valley is master of the Balkan peninsula.
+The first repercussion of the ephemeral treaty of London of May 30, 1913,
+which created Albania and shut out Serbia from the Adriatic, was,
+therefore, as the diplomacy of the Germanic powers had all along intended
+it should be, the beginning of a feud between Greece and Serbia on the one
+hand, and Bulgaria on the other, the disruption of the Balkan League and
+the salvation, for the ultimate benefit of Germany, of what was left of
+Turkey in Europe.
+
+The dispute as to the exact division of the conquered territory in
+Macedonia between Serbia and Bulgaria had, as arranged, been referred to
+arbitration, and, the Tsar of Russia having been chosen as judge, the
+matter was being threshed out in St. Petersburg during June 1913.
+Meanwhile Bulgaria, determined to make good its claim to the chestnuts
+which Greece and Serbia had pulled out of the Turkish fire, was secretly
+collecting troops along its temporary south-western frontier[1] with the
+object, in approved Germanic fashion, 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 at any rate
+assisting him in the task.
+
+[Footnote 1: This was formed by the stream Zletovska, a tributary of the
+river Bregalnica, which in its turn falls into the Vardar on its left or
+eastern bank about 40 miles south of Skoplje (�sk�b).]
+
+On the other hand, the relations between Bulgaria and its two allies had
+been noticeably growing worse ever since January 1913; Bulgaria felt
+aggrieved that, in spite of its great sacrifices, it had not been able to
+occupy so much territory as Greece and Serbia, and the fact that
+Adrianople was taken with Serbian help did not improve the feeling between
+the two Slav nations. The growth of Bulgarian animosity put Greece and
+Serbia on their guard, and, well knowing the direction which an eventual
+attack would take, these two countries on June 2, 1913, signed a military
+convention and made all the necessary dispositions for resisting any
+aggression on Bulgaria's part. At one o'clock in the morning of June 30
+the Bulgarians, without provocation, without declaration of war, and
+without warning, crossed the Bregalnica (a tributary of the Vardar) and
+attacked the Serbs. A most violent battle ensued which lasted for several
+days; at some points the Bulgarians, thanks to the suddenness of their
+offensive, were temporarily successful, but gradually the Serbs regained
+the upper hand and by July 1 the Bulgarians were beaten. The losses were
+very heavy on both sides, but the final issue was a complete triumph for
+the Serbian army. Slivnitsa was avenged by the battle of the Bregalnica,
+just as Kosovo was by that of Kumanovo. After a triumphant campaign of one
+month, in which the Serbs were joined by the Greeks, Bulgaria had to bow
+to the inevitable. The Rumanian army had invaded northern Bulgaria, bent
+on maintaining the Balkan equilibrium and on securing compensation for
+having observed neutrality during the war of 1912-13, and famine reigned
+at Sofia. A conference was arranged at Bucarest, and the treaty of that
+name was signed there on August 10, 1913. By the terms of this treaty
+Serbia retained the whole of northern and central Macedonia, including
+Monastir and Okhrida, and the famous _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar was divided
+between Serbia and Montenegro. Some districts of east-central Macedonia,
+which were genuinely Bulgarian, were included in Serbian territory, as
+Serbia naturally did not wish, after the disquieting and costly experience
+of June and July 1913, to give the Bulgarians another chance of separating
+Greek from Serbian territory by a fresh surprise attack, and the further
+the Bulgarians could be kept from the Vardar river and railway the less
+likelihood there was of this. The state of feeling in the Germanic
+capitals and in Budapest after this ignominious defeat of their prot�g�
+Bulgaria and after this fresh triumph of the despised and hated Serbians
+can be imagined. Bitterly disappointed first at seeing the Turks
+vanquished by the Balkan League--their greatest admirers could not even
+claim that the Turks had had any 'moral' victories--their chagrin, when
+they saw the Bulgarians trounced by the Serbians, knew no bounds. That the
+secretly prepared attack on Serbia by Bulgaria was planned in Vienna and
+Budapest there is no doubt. That Bulgaria was justified in feeling
+disappointment and resentment at the result of the first Balkan War no one
+denies, but the method chosen to redress its wrongs could only have been
+suggested by the Germanic school of diplomacy.
+
+In Serbia and Montenegro the result of the two successive Balkan Wars,
+though these had exhausted the material resources of the two countries,
+was a justifiable return of national self-confidence and rejoicing such as
+the people, humiliated and impoverished as it had habitually been by its
+internal and external troubles, had not known for very many years. At last
+Serbia and Montenegro had joined hands. At last Old Serbia was restored to
+the free kingdom. At last Skoplje, the mediaeval capital of Tsar Stephen
+Du[)s]an, was again in Serbian territory. At last one of the most
+important portions of unredeemed Serbia had been reclaimed. Amongst the
+Serbs and Croats of Bosnia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and
+southern Hungary the effect of the Serbian victories was electrifying.
+Military prowess 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 Serbian peasant soldiers immediately imparted a
+heroic glow to the country whose very name, at any rate in central Europe,
+had become a byword, and a synonym for failure; Belgrade became the
+cynosure and the rallying-centre of the whole Serbo-Croatian race. But
+Vienna and Budapest could only lose courage and presence of mind for the
+moment, and the undeniable success of the Serbian arms merely sharpened
+their appetite for revenge. In August 1913 Austria-Hungary, as is now
+known, secretly prepared an aggression on Serbia, but was restrained,
+partly by the refusal of Italy to grant its approval of such action,
+partly because the preparations of Germany at that time were not complete.
+The fortunate Albanian question provided, for the time being, a more
+convenient rod with which to beat Serbia. Some Serbian troops had remained
+in possession of certain frontier towns and districts which were included
+in the territory of the infant state of Albania pending the final
+settlement of the frontiers by a commission. On October 18, 1913, Austria
+addressed an ultimatum to Serbia to evacuate these, as its continued
+occupation of them caused offence and disquiet to the Dual Monarchy.
+Serbia meekly obeyed. Thus passed away the last rumble of the storms which
+had filled the years 1912-13 in south-eastern Europe.
+
+The credulous believed that the Treaty of Bucarest had at last brought
+peace to that distracted part of the world. Those who knew their central
+Europe realized that Berlin had only forced Vienna to acquiesce in the
+Treaty of Bucarest because the time had not yet come. But come what might,
+Serbia and Montenegro, by having linked up their territory and by forming
+a mountain barrier from the Danube to the Adriatic, made it far more
+difficult for the invader to push his way through to the East than it
+would have been before the battles of Kumanovo and Bregalnica.
+
+
+
+
+GREECE
+
+
+
+1
+
+_From Ancient to Modern Greece_
+
+
+The name of Greece has two entirely different associations in our minds.
+Sometimes it calls up a wonderful literature enshrined in a 'dead
+language', and exquisite works of a vanished art recovered by the spade;
+at other times it is connected with the currant-trade returns quoted on
+the financial page of our newspapers or with the 'Balance of Power'
+discussed in their leading articles. Ancient and Modern Greece both mean
+much to us, but usually we are content to accept them as independent
+phenomena, and we seldom pause to wonder whether there is any deeper
+connexion between them than their name. It is the purpose of these pages
+to ask and give some answer to this question.
+
+The thought that his own Greece might perish, to be succeeded by another
+Greece after the lapse of more than two thousand years, would have caused
+an Ancient Greek surprise. In the middle of the fifth century B.C.,
+Ancient Greek civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous and secure. A
+generation before, it had flung back the onset of a political power which
+combined all the momentum of all the other contemporary civilizations in
+the world; and the victory had proved not merely the superiority of Greek
+arms--the Spartan spearman and the Athenian galley--but the superior
+vitality of Greek politics--the self-governing, self-sufficing city-state.
+In these cities a wonderful culture had burst into flower--an art
+expressing itself with equal mastery in architecture, sculpture, and
+drama, a science which ranged from the most practical medicine to the most
+abstract mathematics, and a philosophy which blended art, science, and
+religion into an ever-developing and ever more harmonious view of the
+universe. A civilization so brilliant and so versatile as this seemed to
+have an infinite future before it, yet even here death lurked in ambush.
+
+When the cities ranged themselves in rival camps, and squandered their
+strength on the struggle for predominance, the historian of the
+Peloponnesian war could already picture Athens and Sparta in ruins,[1] and
+the catastrophe began to warp the soul of Plato before he had carried
+Greek philosophy to its zenith. This internecine strife of free
+communities was checked within a century by the imposition of a single
+military autocracy over them all, and Alexander the Great crowned his
+father Philip's work by winning new worlds for Hellenism from the Danube
+to the Ganges and from the Oxus to the Nile. The city-state and its
+culture were to be propagated under his aegis, but this vision vanished
+with Alexander's death, and Macedonian militarism proved a disappointment.
+The feuds of these crowned condottieri harassed the cities more sorely
+than their own quarrels, and their arms could not even preserve the
+Hellenic heritage against 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 had seen, Rome conquered all the coasts of the
+Mediterranean. Greek city and Greek dynast went down before her, and the
+political sceptre passed irrevocably from the Hellenic nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Thucydides, Book I, chap. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 264-146 B.C.]
+
+Yet this political abdication seemed to open for Hellenic culture a future
+more brilliant and assured than ever. Rome could organize as well as
+conquer. She accepted the city-state as the municipal unit of the Roman
+Empire, thrust back the Oriental behind the Euphrates, and promoted the
+Hellenization of all the lands between this river-frontier and the Balkans
+with much greater intensity than the Macedonian imperialists. Her
+political conquests were still further counterbalanced by her spiritual
+surrender, and Hellenism was the soul of the new Latin culture which Rome
+created, and which advanced with Roman government over the vast untutored
+provinces of the west and north, bringing them, too, within the orbit of
+Hellenic civilization. Under the shadow of the Roman Empire, Plutarch, the
+mirror of Hellenism, could dwell in peace in his little city-state of
+Chaeronea, and reflect in his writings all the achievements of the
+Hellenic spirit as an ensample to an apparently endless posterity.
+
+Yet the days of Hellenic culture were also numbered. Even Plutarch
+lived[1] to look down from the rocky citadel of Chaeronea upon Teutonic
+raiders wasting the Kephisos vale, and for more than three centuries
+successive hordes of Goths searched out and ravaged the furthest corners
+of European Greece. Then the current set westward to sweep away[2] the
+Roman administration in the Latin provinces, and Hellenism seemed to have
+been granted a reprieve. The Greek city-state of Byzantium on the Black
+Sea Straits had been transformed into the Roman administrative centre of
+Constantinople, and from this capital the Emperor Justinian in the sixth
+century A.D. still governed and defended the whole Greek-speaking world.
+But this political glamour only threw the symptoms of inward dissolution
+into sharper relief. Within the framework of the Empire the municipal
+liberty of the city-state had been stifled and extinguished by the waxing
+jungle of bureaucracy, and the spiritual culture which the city-state
+fostered, and which was more essential to Hellenism than any political
+institutions, had been part ejected, part exploited, and wholly compromised
+by a new gospel from the east.
+
+[Footnote 1: About A.D. 100]
+
+[Footnote 2: A.D. 404-476]
+
+While the Oriental had been compelled by Rome to draw his political
+frontier at the Euphrates, and had failed so far to cross the river-line,
+he had maintained his cultural independence within sight of the
+Mediterranean. In the hill country of Judah, overlooking the high road
+between Antioch and Alexandria, the two chief foci of Hellenism in the
+east which the Macedonians had founded, and which had grown to maturity
+under the aegis of Rome, there dwelt a little Semitic community which had
+defied all efforts of Greek or Roman to assimilate it, and had finally
+given birth to a world religion about the time that a Roman punitive
+expedition razed its holy city of Jerusalem to the ground.[1] Christianity
+was charged with an incalculable force, which shot like an electric
+current from one end of the Roman Empire to the other. The
+highly-organized society of its adherents measured its strength in several
+sharp conflicts with the Imperial administration, from which it emerged
+victorious, and it was proclaimed the official religious organization of
+the Empire by the very emperor that founded Constantinople.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 70.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Constantine the Great recognized Christianity in A.D. 313 and
+founded Constantinople in A.D. 328.]
+
+The established Christian Church took the best energies of Hellenism into
+its service. The Greek intellectuals ceased to become lecturers and
+professors, to find a more human and practical career in the bishop's
+office. The Nicene Creed, drafted by an 'oecumenical' conference of
+bishops under the auspices of Constantine himself,[1] was the last notable
+formulation of Ancient Greek philosophy. The cathedral of Aya Sophia, with
+which Justinian adorned Constantinople, was the last original creation of
+Ancient Greek art.[2] The same Justinian closed the University of Athens,
+which had educated the world for nine hundred years and more, since Plato
+founded his college in the Academy. Six recalcitrant professors went into
+exile for their spiritual freedom, but they found the devout
+Zoroastrianism of the Persian court as unsympathetic as the devout
+Christianity of the Roman. Their humiliating return and recantation broke
+the 'Golden Chain' of Hellenic thought for ever.
+
+Hellenism was thus expiring from its own inanition, when the inevitable
+avalanche overwhelmed it from without. In the seventh century A.D. there
+was another religious eruption in the Semitic world, this time in the
+heart of Arabia, where Hellenism had hardly penetrated, and under the
+impetus of Islam the Oriental burst his bounds again after a thousand
+years. Syria was reft away from the Empire, and Egypt, and North Africa as
+far as the Atlantic, and their political severance meant their cultural
+loss to Greek civilization. Between the Koran and Hellenism no fusion was
+possible. Christianity had taken Hellenism captive, but Islam gave it no
+quarter, and the priceless library of Alexandria is said to have been
+condemned by the caliph's order to feed the furnaces of the public baths.
+
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 325.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Completed A.D. 538.]
+
+While Hellenism was thus cut short in the east, a mortal blow was struck
+at its heart from the north. The Teuton had raided and passed on, but the
+lands he had depopulated were now invaded by immigrants who had come to
+stay. As soon as the last Goth and Lombard had gone west of the Isonzo,
+the Slavs poured in from the north-eastern plains of Europe through the
+Moravian gap, crossed the Danube somewhere near the site of Vienna, and
+drifted down along the eastern face of the Alps upon the Adriatic
+littoral. Rebuffed by the sea-board, the Slavonic migration was next
+deflected east, and filtered through the Bosnian mountains, scattering the
+Latin-speaking provincials before it to left and right, until it 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 burst out with irresistible force in all directions, eastward across
+the Maritsa basin till it reached the Black Sea, and southward down the
+Vardar to the shores of the Aegean.
+
+Beneath this Slavonic flood the Greek race in Europe was engulfed. A few
+fortified cities held out, Adrianople on the Maritsa continued to cover
+Constantinople; Salonika at the mouth of the Vardar survived a two hundred
+years siege; while further south Athens, Korinth, and Patras escaped
+extinction. But the tide of invasion surged around their 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 penetration is witnessed to this day by the Slavonic
+names which still cling to at least a third of the villages, rivers, and
+mountains in European Greece, and are found in the most remote as well as
+in the most accessible quarters of the land.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: For example: Tsimova and Panitsa in the Tainaron peninsula
+(Maina); Tsoupana and Khrysapha in Lakonia; Dhimitzana, Karytena, and
+Andhritsena in the centre of Peloponnesos, and Vostitsa on its north coast;
+Dobrena and Kaprena in Boiotia; Vonitza on the Gulf of Arta; Kardhitsa in
+the Thessalian plain.]
+
+With the coming of the Slavs darkness descends like a curtain upon Greek
+history. We catch glimpses of Arab hosts ranging across Anatolia at will
+and gazing at Slavonic hordes across the narrow Bosphorus. But always the
+Imperial fleet patrols the waters between, and always the triple defences
+of Constantinople defy the assailant. Then after about two centuries the
+floods subside, the gloom disperses, and the Greek world emerges into view
+once more. But the spectacle before us is unfamiliar, and most of the old
+landmarks have been swept away.
+
+By the middle of the ninth century A.D., the Imperial Government had
+reduced the Peloponnesos to order again, and found itself in the presence
+of three peoples. The greater part of the land was occupied by 'Romaioi'--
+normal, loyal, Christian subjects of the empire--but in the hilly country
+between Eurotas, Taygetos, and the sea, two Slavonic tribes still
+maintained themselves in defiant savagery and worshipped their Slavonic
+gods, while beyond them the peninsula of Tainaron, now known as Maina,
+sheltered communities which still clung to the pagan name of Hellene and
+knew no other gods but Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. Hellene and Slav need not
+concern us. They were a vanishing minority, and the Imperial Government
+was more successful in obliterating their individuality than in making
+them contribute to its exchequer. The future lay with the Romaioi.
+
+The speech of these Romaioi was not the speech of Rome. 'Romaik�,' as it
+is still called popularly in the country-side, is a development of the
+'koin�' or 'current' dialect of Ancient Greek, in which the Septuagint and
+the New Testament are written. The vogue of these books after the triumph
+of Christianity and the oncoming of the Dark Age, when they were the sole
+intellectual sustenance of the people, gave the idiom in which they were
+composed an exclusive prevalence. Except in Tzakonia--the iron-bound coast
+between Cape Malea and Nauplia Bay--all other dialects of Ancient Greek
+became extinct, and the varieties of the modern language are all
+differentiations of the 'koin�', along geographical lines which in no way
+correspond with those which divided Doric from Ionian. Yet though Romaic
+is descended from the 'koin�', it is almost as far removed from it as
+modern Italian is from the language of St. Augustine or Cicero. Ancient
+Greek possessed a pitch-accent only, which allowed the quantitative values
+of syllables to be measured against one another, and even to form the
+basis of a metrical system. In Romaic the pitch-accent has transformed
+itself into a stress-accent almost as violent as the English, which has
+destroyed all quantitative relation between accented and unaccented
+syllables, often wearing away the latter altogether at the termination of
+words, and always impoverishing their vowel sounds. In the ninth century
+A.D. this new enunciation was giving rise to a new poetical technique
+founded upon accent and rhyme, which first essayed itself in folk-songs
+and ballads,[1] and has since experimented in the same variety of forms as
+English poetry.
+
+[Footnote 1: The earliest products of the modern technique were called
+'city' verses, because they originated in Constantinople, which has
+remained 'the city' _par excellence_ for the Romaic Greek ever since the
+Dark Age made it the asylum of his civilization.]
+
+These humble beginnings of a new literature were supplemented by the
+rudiments of a new art. Any visitor at Athens who looks at the three tiny
+churches [1] built in this period of first revival, and compares them with
+the rare pre-Norman churches of England, will find the same promise of
+vitality in the Greek architecture as in his own. The material--worked
+blocks of marble pillaged from ancient monuments, alternating with courses
+of contemporary brick--produces a completely new aesthetic effect upon the
+eye; and the structure--a grouping of lesser cupolas round a central dome--
+is the very antithesis of the 'upright-and-horizontal' style which
+confronts him in ruins upon the Akropolis.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Old Metropolitan, the Kapnikaria, and St. Theodore.]
+
+These first achievements of Romaic architecture speak by implication of
+the characteristic difference between the Romaios and the Hellene. The
+linguistic and the aesthetic change were as nothing compared to the change
+in religion, for while the Hellene had been a pagan, the Romaios was
+essentially a member of the Christian Church. Yet this new and determining
+characteristic was already fortified by tradition. The Church triumphant
+had swiftly perfected its organisation on the model of the Imperial
+bureaucracy. Every Romaios owed ecclesiastical allegiance, through a
+hierarchy of bishops and metropolitans, to a supreme patriarch at
+Constantinople, and in the ninth century this administrative segregation
+of the imperial from the west-European Church had borne its inevitable
+fruit in a dogmatic divergence, and ripened into a schism between the
+Orthodox Christianity of the east on the one hand and the Catholicism of
+the Latin world on the other.
+
+The Orthodox Church exercised an important cultural influence over its
+Romaic adherents. The official language of its scriptures, creeds, and
+ritual had never ceased to be the Ancient Greek 'koin�' and by keeping the
+Romaios familiar with this otherwise obsolete tongue it kept him in touch
+with the unsurpassable literature of his Ancient Greek predecessors. The
+vast body of Hellenic literature had perished 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 greatest authors' greatest works had
+been preserved, and now that the stress was relieved, the wreckage of the
+remainder was sedulously garnered in anthologies, abridgements, and
+encyclopaedias. The rising monasteries offered a safe harbourage both for
+these compilations and for such originals as survived unimpaired, and in
+their libraries they were henceforth studied, cherished, and above all
+recopied with more or less systematic care.
+
+The Orthodox Church was thus a potent link between past and present, but
+the most direct link of all was the political survival of the Empire.
+Here, too, many landmarks had been swept away. The marvellous system of
+Roman Law had proved too subtle and complex for a world in the throes of
+dissolution. Within a century of its final codification by Justinian's
+commissioners) it had begun to fall into disuse, and was now replaced by
+more summary legislation, which was as deeply imbued with Mosaic
+principles as the literary language with the Hebraisms of the New
+Testament, and bristled with barbarous applications of the _Lex Talionis_.
+The administrative organization instituted by Augustus and elaborated by
+Diocletian had likewise disappeared, and the army-corps districts were the
+only territorial units that outlasted the Dark Age. Yet the tradition of
+order lived on. The army itself preserved Roman discipline and technique
+to a remarkable degree, and the military districts were already becoming
+the basis for a reconstituted civil government. The wealth of Latin
+technicalities incorporated in the Greek style of ninth-century
+officialdom witnesses to this continuity with the past and to the
+consequent political superiority of the Romaic Empire over contemporary
+western Europe.
+
+Within the Imperial frontiers the Romaic race was offered an apparently
+secure field for its future development. In the Balkan peninsula the Slav
+had been expelled or assimilated to the south of a line stretching from
+Avlona to Salonika. East of Salonika the empire still controlled little
+more in Europe than the ports of the littoral, and a military highway
+linking them with each other and with Constantinople. But beyond the
+Bosphorus the frontier included the whole body of Anatolia as far as
+Taurus and Euphrates, and here was the centre of gravity both of the
+Romaic state and of the Romaic nation.
+
+A new Greek nation had in fact come into being, and it found itself in
+touch with new neighbours, whom the Ancient Greek had never known.
+Eastward lay the Armenians, reviving, like the Greeks, after the ebb of
+the Arab flood, and the Arabs themselves, quiescent within their natural
+bounds and transfusing the wisdom of Aristotle and Hippokrates into their
+native culture. Both these peoples were sundered from the Orthodox Greek
+by religion[1] as well as by language, but a number of nationalities
+established on his opposite flank had been evangelized from Constantinople
+and followed the Orthodox patriarch in his schism with Rome. The most
+important neighbour of the Empire in this quarter was the Bulgarian
+kingdom, which covered all the Balkan hinterland from the Danube and the
+Black Sea to the barrier-fortresses of Adrianople and Salonika. It had
+been founded by a conquering caste of non-Slavonic nomads from the
+trans-Danubian steppes, but these were completely absorbed in the Slavonic
+population which they had endowed with their name and had preserved by
+political consolidation from the fate of their brethren further south.
+This Bulgarian state included a large 'Vlach' element descended from those
+Latin-speaking provincials whom the Slavs had pushed before them in their
+original migration; while the main body of the 'Rumans', whom the same
+thrust of invasion had driven leftwards across the Danube, had established
+itself in the mountains of Transylvania, and was just beginning to push
+down into the Wallachian and Moldavian plains. 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, as far westward as the Adriatic coast. Beyond, the
+heathen Magyars had pressed into the Danubian plains like a wedge, and cut
+off the Orthodox world from the Latin-Teutonic Christendom of the west;
+but it looked as though the two divisions of Europe were embarked upon the
+same course of development. Both were evolving a system of strongly-knit
+nationalities, neither wholly interdependent nor wholly self-sufficient,
+but linked together in their individual growth by the ties of common
+culture and religion. In both the darkness was passing. The future of
+civilization seemed once more assured, and in the Orthodox world the new
+Greek nation seemed destined to play the leading part.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Armenians split off from the Catholic Church four
+centuries before the schism between the Roman and Orthodox sections of the
+latter.]
+
+His cultural and political heritage from his ancient predecessors gave the
+Romaic Greek in this period of revival an inestimable advantage over his
+cruder neighbours, and his superiority declared itself in an expansion of
+the Romaic Empire. In the latter half of the tenth century A.D. the nest
+of Arab pirates from Spain, which had established itself in Krete and
+terrorized the Aegean, was exterminated by the Emperor Nikiph�ros Phokas,
+and on the eastern marches Antioch was gathered within the frontier at the
+Arabs' expense, and advanced posts pushed across Euphrates. In the first
+half of the eleventh century Basil, 'Slayer of the Bulgars', destroyed the
+Balkan kingdom after a generation of bitter warfare, and brought the whole
+interior of the peninsula under the sway of Constantinople. His successors
+turned their attention to the cast again, and attracted one Armenian
+principality after another within the Imperial protectorate. Nor was the
+revival confined to politics. The conversion of the Russians about A.D.
+1000 opened a boundless hinterland to the Orthodox Church, and any one who
+glances at a series of Greek ivory carvings or studies Greek history from
+the original sources, will here encounter a literary and artistic
+renaissance remarkable enough to explain the fascination which the
+barbarous Russian and the outlandish Armenian found in Constantinople. Yet
+this renaissance had hardly set in before it was paralysed by an
+unexpected blow, which arrested the development of Modern Greece for seven
+centuries.
+
+Modern, like Ancient, Greece was assailed in her infancy by a conqueror
+from the east, and, unlike Ancient Greece, she succumbed. Turkish nomads
+from the central Asiatic steppes had been drifting into the Moslem world
+as the vigour of the Arabs waned. First they came as slaves, then as
+mercenaries, until at last, in the eleventh century, the clan of Seljuk
+grasped with a strong hand the political dominion of Islam. As champions
+of the caliph the Turkish sultans disputed the infidels encroachment on
+the Moslem border. They challenged the Romaic Empire's progress in
+Armenia, and in A.D. 1071--five years after the Norman founded at Hastings
+the strong government which has been the making of England--the Seljuk
+Turk shattered at the battle of Melasgerd that heritage of strong
+government which had promised so much to Greece.
+
+Melasgerd opened the way to Anatolia. The Arab could make no lodgement
+there, but in the central steppe of the temperate plateau the Turk found a
+miniature reproduction of his original environment. Tribe after tribe
+crossed the Oxus, to make the long pilgrimage to these new marches which
+their race had won for Islam on the west, and the civilization developed
+in the country by fifteen centuries of intensive and undisturbed
+Hellenization was completely blotted out. The cities wore isolated from
+one another till their commerce fell into decay. The elaborately
+cultivated lands around them were left fallow till they were good for
+nothing but the pasturage which was all that the nomad required. The only
+monuments of architecture that have survived in Anatolia above ground are
+the imposing khans or fortified rest-houses built by the Seljuk sultans
+themselves after the consolidation of their rule, and they are the best
+witnesses of the vigorous barbarism by which Romaic culture was effaced.
+The vitality of the Turk was indeed unquestionable. He imposed his
+language and religion upon the native Anatolian peasantry, as the Greek
+had imposed his before him, and in time adopted their sedentary life,
+though too late to repair the mischief his own nomadism had wrought. Turk
+and Anatolian coalesced into one people; every mountain, river, lake,
+bridge, and village in the country took on a Turkish name, and a new
+nation was established for ever in the heart of the Romaic world, which
+nourished itself on the life-blood of the Empire and was to prove the
+supreme enemy, of the race.
+
+This sequel to Melasgerd sealed the Empire's doom. Robbed of its Anatolian
+governing class and its Anatolian territorial army, it ceased to be
+self-sufficient, and the defenders it attracted from the west were at
+least as destructive as its eastern foes. The brutal r�gime of the Turks
+in the pilgrimage places of Syria had roused a storm of indignation in
+Latin Europe, and a cloud gathered in the west once more. It was heralded
+by adventurers from Normandy, who had first served the Romaic Government
+as mercenaries in southern Italy and then expelled their employers, about
+the time of Melasgerd, from their last foothold in the peninsula. Raids
+across the straits of Otranto carried the Normans up to the walls of
+Salonika, their fleets equipped in Sicily scoured the Aegean, and, before
+the eleventh century was out, they had followed up these reconnoitring
+expeditions by conducting Latin Christendom on its first crusade. The
+crusaders assembled at Constantinople, and the Imperial Government was
+relieved when the flood rolled on and spent itself further east. But one
+wave was followed by another, and the Empire itself succumbed to the
+fourth. In A.D. 1204, Constantinople was stormed by a Venetian flotilla
+and the crusading host it conveyed on board, and more treasures of Ancient
+Hellenism were destroyed in the sack of its hitherto inviolate citadel
+than had ever perished by the hand of Arab or Slav.
+
+With the fall of the capital the Empire dissolved in chaos, Venice and
+Genoa, the Italian trading cities whose fortune had been made by the
+crusades, now usurped the naval control of the Mediterranean which the
+Empire had exercised since Nikiph�ros pacified Krete. They seized all
+strategical points of vantage on the Aegean coasts, and founded an
+'extra-territorial' community at Pera across the Golden Horn, to
+monopolize the trade of Constantinople with the Black Sea. The Latins
+failed to retain their hold on Constantinople itself, for the puppet
+emperors of their own race whom they enthroned there were evicted within a
+century by Romaic dynasts, who clung to such fragments of Anatolia as had
+escaped the Turk. But the Latin dominion was less ephemeral in the
+southernmost Romaic provinces of Europe. The Latins' 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 another in bewildering succession, while the
+French princes of Achaia were at feud with their kindred vassals in the
+west of the Peloponnesos whenever they were not resisting the
+encroachments of Romaic despots in the south and east. To complete the
+anarchy, the non-Romaic peoples in the interior of the Balkan peninsula
+had taken the fall of Constantinople as a signal to throw off the Imperial
+yoke. In the hinterland of the capital the Bulgars had reconstituted their
+kingdom. The Romance-speaking Vlachs of Pindus moved down into the
+Thessalian plains. The aboriginal Albanians, who with their back to the
+Adriatic had kept the Slavs at bay, asserted their vitality and sent out
+migratory swarms to the south, which entered the service of the warring
+princelets and by their prowess won broad lands in every part of
+continental Greece, where Albanian place-names are to this day only less
+common than Slavonic. South-eastern Europe was again in the throes of
+social dissolution, and the convulsions continued till they were stilled
+impartially by the numbing hand of their ultimate author the Turk.
+
+[Footnote 1: e.g. Klemoutsi, Glarentsa (Clarence) and Gastouni--villages
+of the currant district in Peloponnesos--and Sant-Omeri, the mountain that
+overlooks them.]
+
+The Seljuk sultanate in Anatolia, shaken by the crusades, had gone the way
+of all oriental empires to make room for one of its fractions, which
+showed a most un-oriental faculty of organic growth. This was the extreme
+march on the north-western rim of the Anatolian plateau, overlooking the
+Asiatic littoral of the Sea of Marmora. It had been founded by one of
+those Turkish chiefs who migrated with their clans from beyond the Oxus;
+and it was consolidated by Othman his son, who extended his kingdom to the
+cities on the coast and invested his subjects with his own name. In 1355
+the Narrows of Gallipoli passed into Ottoman hands, and opened a bridge to
+unexpected conquests in Europe. Serbia and Bulgaria collapsed at the first
+attack, and the hosts which marched to liberate them from Hungary and from
+France only ministered to Ottoman prestige by their disastrous
+discomfiture. Before the close of the fourteenth century the Ottoman
+sultan had transferred his capital to Adrianople, and had become
+immeasurably the strongest power in the Balkan peninsula.
+
+After that the end came quickly. At Constantinople the Romaic dynasty of
+Palaiologos had upheld a semblance of the Empire for more than a century
+after the Latin was expelled. But in 1453 the Imperial city fell before
+the assault of Sultan Mohammed; and before his death the conqueror
+eliminated all the other Romaic and Latin principalities from Peloponnesos
+to Trebizond, which had survived as enclaves to mar the uniformity of the
+Ottoman domain. Under his successors the tide of Ottoman conquest rolled
+on for half a century more over south-eastern Europe, till it 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 St. John.[2] The Romaic race, which had been
+split into so many fragments during the dissolution of the Empire, was
+reunited again in the sixteenth century under the common yoke of the Turk.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1526.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1522.]
+
+Even in the Dark Age, Greece had hardly been reduced to so desperate a
+condition as now. Through the Dark Age the Greek cities had maintained a
+continuous life, but Mohammed II depopulated Constantinople to repeople it
+with a Turkish majority from Anatolia. Greek commerce would naturally have
+benefited by the ejection of the Italians from the Levant, had not the
+Ottoman Government given asylum simultaneously to the Jews expelled from
+Spain. These Sephardim established themselves at Constantinople, Salonika,
+and all the other commercial centres of the Ottoman dominion, and their
+superiority in numbers and industry made them more formidable urban rivals
+of the 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 r�gime. The sultan's fiscal demands were the least 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 capitation-tax levied by the sultan on his
+Christian subjects, the greater efficiency and security of his government
+probably compensated for the additional charge. The vitality of Greece was
+chiefly sapped by the ruthless military organization of the Ottoman state.
+The bulk of the Ottoman army was drawn from a feudal cavalry, bound to
+service, as in the mediaeval Latin world, in return for fiefs or 'timaria'
+assigned to them by their sovereign; and many beys and agas have
+bequeathed their names in perpetuity to the richest villages on the
+Messenian and Thessalian plains, to remind the modern peasant that his
+Christian ancestors once tilled the soil as serfs of a Moslem timariot.
+But the sultan, unlike his western contemporaries, was not content with
+irregular troops, and the serf-communes of Greece had to deliver up a
+fifth of their male children every fourth year to be trained at
+Constantinople as professional soldiers and fanatical Moslems. This corps
+of 'Janissaries'[1] was founded in the third generation of the Ottoman
+dynasty, and was the essential instrument of its military success. One
+race has never appropriated and exploited the vitality of another in so
+direct or so brutal a fashion, and the institution of 'tribute-children',
+so long as it lasted, effectually prevented any recovery of the Greek
+nation from the untimely blows which had stricken it down.
+
+[Footnote 1: Yeni Asker--New soldiery.]
+
+
+
+2
+
+_The Awakening of the Nation_
+
+
+During the two centuries that followed the Ottoman conquest of
+Constantinople, the Greek race was in serious danger of annihilation. Its
+life-blood was steadily absorbed into the conquering community--quite
+regularly by the compulsory tribute of children and spasmodically by the
+voluntary conversion of individual households. The rich apostasized,
+because too heavy a material sacrifice was imposed upon them by loyalty to
+their national religion; the destitute, 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 spared by the Ottoman
+Government in order to facilitate its own political system--by bringing
+the peasant, through the hierarchy of priest, bishop, and patriarch, under
+the moral control of the new Moslem master whom the ecclesiastics
+henceforth served.
+
+The scale on which wholesale apostasy was possible is shown by the case of
+Krete, which was conquered by the Turks from Venice just after these two
+centuries had closed, and was in fact the last permanent addition to the
+Turkish Empire. No urban or feudal settlers of Turkish blood were imported
+into the island. To this day the uniform speech of all Kretans is their
+native Greek. And yet the progressive conversion of whole clans and
+villages had transferred at least 20 per cent. of the population to the
+Moslem ranks before the Ottoman connexion was severed again in 1897.
+
+The survival of the Greek nationality did not depend on any efforts of the
+Greeks themselves. They were indeed no 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 the
+Ottoman state, and, as the two centuries drew to a close, that state
+entered upon a phase of transformation and of consequent weakness.
+
+The Ottoman organism has always displayed (and never more conspicuously
+than at the present moment) a much greater stability and vitality than any
+of its oriental predecessors. There was a vein of genius in its creators,
+and its youthful expansion permeated it with so much European blood that
+it became partly Europeanized in its inner tissues--sufficiently to
+partake, at any rate, in that faculty of indefinite organic growth which
+has so far revealed itself in European life. This acquired force has
+carried it on since the time when the impetus of its original institutions
+became spent--a time when purely oriental monarchies fall to pieces, and
+when Turkey herself hesitated between reconstruction and dissolution. That
+critical period began for her with the latter half of the seventeenth
+century, and incidentally opened new opportunities of life to her subject
+Greeks.
+
+Substantial relief from their burdens--the primary though negative
+condition of national revival--accrued to the Greek peasantry from the
+decay of Ottoman militarism in all its branches. The Turkish feudal
+aristocracy, which had replaced the landed nobility of the Romaic Empire
+in Anatolia and established itself on the choicest lands in conquered
+Europe, was beginning to decline in strength. We have seen that it failed
+to implant itself in Krete, and its numbers were already stationary
+elsewhere. The Greek peasant slowly began to regain ground upon his Moslem
+lord, and he profited further by the degeneration of the janissary corps
+at the heart of the empire.
+
+The janissaries had started as a militant, almost monastic body, condemned
+to celibacy, and recruited exclusively from the Christian
+tribute-children. But in 1566 they extorted the privilege of legal
+marriage for themselves, and of admittance into the corps for the sons of
+their wedlock. The next century completed their transformation from a
+standing army into a hereditary urban militia--an armed and privileged
+_bourgeoisie_, rapidly increasing in numbers and correspondingly jealous
+of extraneous candidates for the coveted vacancies in their ranks. They
+gradually succeeded in abolishing the enrolment of Christian recruits
+altogether, and the last regular levy of children for that purpose was
+made in 1676. Vested interests at Constantinople had freed the helpless
+peasant from the most crushing burden of all.
+
+At the same moment the contemporary tendency in western Europe towards
+bureaucratic centralization began to extend itself to the Ottoman Empire.
+Its exponents were the brothers Achmet and Mustapha K�prili, who held the
+grand-vizierate in succession. They laid the foundations of a centralized
+administration, and, since the unadaptable Turk offered no promising
+material for their policy, they sought their instruments in the subject
+race. The continental Greeks were too effectively crushed to aspire beyond
+the preservation of their own existence; but the islands had been less
+sorely tried, and Khios, which had enjoyed over two centuries[1] of
+prosperity under the rule of a Genoese chartered company, and exchanged it
+for Ottoman sovereignty under peculiarly lenient conditions, could still
+supply Achmet a century later with officials of the intelligence and
+education he required, Khiots were the first to fill the new offices of
+'Dragoman of the Porte' (secretary of state) and 'Dragoman of the Fleet'
+(civil complement of the Turkish capitan-pasha); and they took care in
+their turn to staff the subordinate posts of their administration with a
+host of pushing friends and dependants. The Dragoman of the Fleet wielded
+the fiscal, and thereby in effect the political, authority over the Greek
+islands in the Aegean; but this was not the highest power to which the new
+Greek bureaucracy attained. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth
+century Moldavia and Wallachia--the two 'Danubian Provinces' now united in
+the kingdom of Rumania--were placed in charge of Greek officials with the
+rank of voivode or prince, and with practically sovereign power within
+their delegated dominions. A Danubian principality became the reward of a
+successful dragoman's career, and these high posts were rapidly
+monopolized by a close ring of official families, who exercised their
+immense patronage in favour of their race, and congregated round the Greek
+patriarch in the 'Phanari',[2] the Constantinopolitan slum assigned him
+for his residence by Mohammed the Conqueror.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1346-1566.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Lighthouse-quarter.']
+
+The alliance of this parvenu 'Phanariot' aristocracy with the conservative
+Orthodox Church was not unnatural, for the Church itself had greatly
+extended its political power under Ottoman suzerainty. The Ottoman
+Government hardly regarded its Christian subjects as integral members of
+the state, and was content to leave their civil government in the hands of
+their spiritual pastors to an extent the Romaic emperors would never have
+tolerated. It allowed the Patriarchate at Constantinople to become its
+official intermediary with the Greek race, and it further extended the
+Greek patriarch's authority over the other conquered populations of
+Orthodox faith--Bulgars, Rumans, and Serbs--which had never been
+incorporated in the ecclesiastical or political organization of the Romaic
+Empire, but which learnt under Ottoman rule to receive their priests and
+bishops from the Greek ecclesiastics of the capital, and even to call
+themselves by the Romaic name. In 1691 Mustapha K�prili recognized and
+confirmed the rights of all Christian subjects of the Sultan by a general
+organic law.
+
+Mustapha's 'New Ordinance' was dictated by the reverses which Christians
+beyond the frontier were inflicting upon the Ottoman arms, for pressure
+from without had followed hard upon disintegration within. Achmet's
+pyrrhic triumph over Candia in 1669 was followed in 1683 by his brother
+Mustapha's disastrous discomfiture before the walls of Vienna, and these
+two sieges marked the turn of the Ottoman 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 'Ionian' chain of islands--
+Corf�, Cefalonia, Zante, and Cerigo--which 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 Greek race 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, it effectively broke the Ottoman
+tradition, and left behind it a system of communal self-government among
+the Peloponnesian Greeks which the returning Turk was too feeble to sweep
+away. The Turks gained nothing by the rapid downfall 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 in Russia, which had been reorganized towards the turn of the
+century by Peter the Great with a radical energy undreamed of by any
+Turkish K�prili, and which found its destiny in opposition to the Ottoman
+Empire. The new Orthodox power regarded itself as the heir of the Romaic
+Empire from which it had received its first Christianity and culture. It
+aspired to repay the Romaic race in adversity by championing it against
+its Moslem oppressors, and sought its own reward in a maritime outlet on
+the Black Sea. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia
+repeatedly made war on Turkey, either with or without the co-operation of
+Austria; but the decisive bout in the struggle was the war of 1769-74. A
+Russian fleet appeared in the Mediterranean, raised an insurrection in
+Peloponnesos, and destroyed the Turkish squadron in battle. The Russian
+armies were still more successful on the steppes, and the Treaty of
+Kutchuk Kainardji not only left the whole north coast of the Black Sea in
+Russia's possession, but contained an international sanction for the
+rights of the sultan's Orthodox subjects. In 1783 a supplementary
+commercial treaty extorted for the Ottoman Greeks the right to trade under
+the Russian flag. The territorial sovereignty of Turkey in the Aegean
+remained intact, but the Russian guarantee gave the Greek race a more
+substantial security than the shadowy ordinance of Mustapha K�prili. The
+paralysing prestige of the Porte was broken, and Greek eyes were
+henceforth turned in hope towards Petersburg.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1699-1718.]
+
+By the end of the eighteenth century the condition of the Greeks had in
+fact changed remarkably for the better, and the French and English
+travellers who now began to visit the Ottoman Empire brought away the
+impression that a critical change in its internal equilibrium was at hand.
+The Napoleonic wars had just extinguished the Venetian Republic and swept
+the Ionian Islands into the struggle between England and France for the
+mastery of the Mediterranean. England had fortified herself in Cefalonia
+and Zante, France in Corf�, and interest centred on the opposite mainland,
+where Ali Pasha of Yannina maintained a formidable neutrality towards
+either power.
+
+The career of Ali marked that phase in the decline of an Oriental empire
+when the task of strong government becomes too difficult for the central
+authority and is carried on by independent satraps with greater efficiency
+in their more limited sphere. Ali governed the Adriatic hinterland with
+practically sovereign power, and compelled the sultan for some years to
+invest his sons with the pashaliks of Thessaly and Peloponnesos. The
+greater part of the Greek race thus came in some degree under his control,
+and his policy towards it clearly reflected the transition from the old to
+the new. He waged far more effective war than the distant sultan upon
+local liberties, and, though the elimination of the feudal Turkish
+landowner was pure gain to the Greeks, they suffered themselves from the
+loss of traditional privileges which the original Ottoman conquest had
+left intact. The Armatoli, a local Christian militia who kept order in the
+mountainous mainland north of Peloponnesos where 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 Aspropotarno, which had never been inscribed on the
+taxation-rolls of the Romaic or the Ottoman treasury, 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 became as essentially Greek in character as the Phanariot r�gime
+beyond the Danube. Ali was a Moslem and an Albanian, but the Orthodox
+Greeks were in a majority among his subjects, and he knew how to take
+advantage of their abilities. His business was conducted by Greek
+secretaries in the Greek tongue, and Yannina, his capital, was a Greek
+city. European visitors to Yannina (for every one began the Levantine tour
+by paying his respects to Ali) were struck by the enterprise and
+intelligence of its citizens. The doctors were competent, because they had
+taken their education in Italy or France; the merchants were prosperous,
+because they had established members of their family at Odessa, Trieste,
+or even Hamburg, as permanent agents of their firm. A new Greek
+_bourgeoisie_ had arisen, in close contact with the professional life of
+western Europe, and equally responsive to the new philosophical and
+political ideas that were being propagated by the French Revolution.
+
+This intellectual ferment was the most striking change of all. Since the
+sack of Constantinople in 1204, Greek culture had retired into the
+monasteries--inaccessible fastnesses where the monks lived much the same
+life as the clansmen of Suli or Agrapha. Megasp�laion, the great cave
+quarried in the wall of a precipitous Peloponnesian ravine; Met�ora,
+suspended on half a dozen isolated pinnacles of rock in Thessaly, where
+the only access was by pulley or rope-ladder; 'Ayon Oros', the
+confederation of monasteries great and small upon the mountain-promontory
+of Athos--these succeeded in preserving a shadow of the old tradition, at
+the cost of isolation from all humane influences that might have kept
+their spiritual inheritance alive. Their spirit was mediaeval,
+ecclesiastical, and as barren as their sheltering rocks; and the new
+intellectual disciples of Europe turned to the monasteries in vain. The
+biggest ruin on Athos is a boys' school planned in the eighteenth century
+to meet the educational needs of all the Orthodox in the Ottoman Empire,
+and wrecked on the reefs of monastic obscurantism. But its founder, the
+Corfiot scholar Evy�nios Voulg�ris, did not hesitate to break with the
+past. He put his own educational ideas into practice at Yannina and
+Constantinople, and contributed to the great achievement of his
+contemporary, the Khiot Adhamandios Kor�is, who settled in Paris and there
+evolved a literary adaptation of the Romaic patois to supersede the
+lifeless travesty of Attic style traditionally affected by ecclesiastical
+penmen. But the renaissance was not confined to Greeks abroad. The school
+on Athos failed, but others established themselves before the close of the
+eighteenth century in the people's midst, even in the smaller towns and
+the remoter villages. The still flourishing secondary school of
+Dhimitz�na, in the heart of Peloponnesos, began its existence in this
+period, and the national revival found expression in a new name. Its
+prophets repudiated the 'Romaic' name, with its associations of ignorance
+and oppression, and taught their pupils to think of themselves as
+'Hellenes' and to claim in their own right the intellectual and political
+liberty of the Ancient Greeks.
+
+This spiritual 'Hellenism', however, was only one manifestation of
+returning vitality, and was ultimately due to the concrete economic
+development with which it went hand 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 in a penetrating way upon
+their countrymen at home. A mountain village like Ambelakia in Thessaly
+found a regular market for its dyed goods in Germany, and the commercial
+treaty of 1783 between Turkey and Russia encouraged communities which
+could make nothing of the land to turn their attention to the sea.
+Galaxhidi, a village on the northern shore of the Korinthian Gulf, whose
+only asset was its natural harbour, and Hydhra, Spetza, and Psar�, 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 they exploited to
+the full. The whitewashed houses of solid stone, rising tier above tier up
+the naked limestone mountainside, still testify to the prosperity which
+chance thus suddenly brought to the Hydhriots and their fellow islanders,
+and did not withdraw again till it had enabled them to play a decisive
+part in their nation's history.
+
+Their ships were small, but they were home-built, skilfully navigated, and
+profitably employed in the carrying trade of the Mediterranean ports.
+Their economic life was based 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 profit of each voyage; but their political
+organization was oligarchical--an executive council 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 seafaring islands on the eve of the modern
+Greek Revolution were an exact reproduction of the Aigina, Korinth, and
+Athens which repelled the Persian from Ancient Greece. The germs of a new
+national life were thus springing up among the Greeks in every direction--
+in mercantile colonies scattered over the world from Odessa to Alexandria
+and from Smyrna to Trieste; among Phanariot princes in the Danubian
+Provinces and their ecclesiastical colleagues at Constantinople; in the
+islands of the Aegean and the Ionian chain, and upon the mountains of Suli
+and Agrapha. But the ambitions this national revival aroused were even
+greater than the reality itself. The leaders of the movement did not
+merely aspire to liberate the Greek nation from the Turkish yoke. They
+were conscious of the assimilative power their nationality possessed. The
+Suliots, for example, were an immigrant Albanian tribe, who had learnt to
+speak Greek from the Greek peasants over whom they tyrannized. The
+Hydhriot and Spetziot islanders were Albanians too, who had even clung to
+their primitive language during the two generations since they took up
+their present abode, but had become none the less firmly linked to their
+Greek-speaking neighbours in Peloponnesos by their common fellowship in
+the Orthodox Church. The numerous Albanian colonies settled up and down
+the Greek continent were at least as Greek in feeling as they. And why
+should not the same prove true of the Bulgarian population, in the
+Balkans, who had belonged from the beginning to the Orthodox Church, and
+had latterly been brought by improvident Ottoman policy within the Greek
+patriarch's fold? Or why should not the Greek administrators beyond the
+Danube imbue their Ruman subjects with a sound Hellenic sentiment? In
+fact, the prophets of Hellenism did not so much desire to extricate the
+Greek nation from the Ottoman Empire as to make it the ruling element in
+the empire itself by ejecting the Moslem Turks from their privileged
+position and assimilating all populations of Orthodox faith. These dreams
+took shape in the foundation of a secret society--the 'Philik� Hetair�a'
+or 'League of Friends'--which established itself at Odessa in 1814 with
+the connivence of the Russian police, and opened a campaign of propaganda
+in anticipation of an opportunity to strike.
+
+The initiative came from the Ottoman Government itself. At the weakest
+moment in its history the empire found in Sultan Mahmud a ruler of
+peculiar strength, who saw that the only hope of overcoming his dangers
+lay in meeting them half-way. The national movement of Hellenism was
+gathering momentum in the background, but it was screened by the personal
+ambitions of Ali of Yannina, and Mahmud reckoned to forestall both enemies
+by quickly striking Ali down.
+
+In the winter of 1819-20 Ali was outlawed, and in the spring the invasion
+of his territories began. Both the Moslem combatants enlisted Christian
+Armatoli, and all continental Greece was under arms. By the end of the
+summer Ali's outlying strongholds had fallen, his armies were driven in,
+and he himself was closely invested in Yannina; but with autumn a deadlock
+set in, and the sultan's reckoning was thrown out. In November 1820 the
+veteran soldier Khurshid was appointed to the pashalik of Peloponnesos to
+hold the Greeks in check and close accounts with Ali. In March 1821, after
+five months spent in organizing his province, Khurshid felt secure enough
+to leave it for the Yannina lines. But he was mistaken; for within a month
+of his departure Peloponnesos was ablaze.
+
+The 'Philik� Hetair�a' had decided to act, and the Peloponnesians
+responded enthusiastically to the signal. In the north German�s,
+metropolitan bishop of Patras, rallied the insurgents at the monastery of
+Megasp�laion, and unfurled the monastic altar-cloth as a national
+standard. In the south the peninsula of Maina, which had been the latest
+refuge of ancient Hellenism, was now the first to welcome the new, and to
+throw off the shadowy allegiance it had paid for a thousand years to
+Romaic archonts and Ottoman capitan-pashas. Led by Petros Mavromichalis,
+the chief of the leading clan, the Mainates issued from their mountains.
+This was in April, and by the middle of May all the open country had been
+swept clear, and the hosts joined hands before Tripolitza, which was the
+seat of Ottoman government at the central point of the province. The
+Turkish garrison attacked, but was heavily defeated at Valtetzi by the
+tactical skill of Theodore Kolokotr�nis the 'klepht', who had become
+experienced in guerrilla warfare through his alternate professions of
+brigand and gendarme--a career that had increased its possibilities as
+the Ottoman system decayed. After Kolokotr�nis's victory, the Greeks kept
+Tripolitza under a close blockade. Early in October it fell amid frightful
+scenes of pillage and massacre, and Ottoman dominion in the Peloponnesos
+fell with it. On January 22, 1822, Korinth, the key to the isthmus, passed
+into the Greeks' hands, and only four fortresses--Nauplia, Patras, Koron,
+and Modhon--still held out within it against Greek investment. Not a Turk
+survived in the Peloponnesos beyond their walls, for the slaughter at
+Tripolitza was only the most terrible instance of what happened wherever a
+Moslem colony was found. In Peloponnesos, at any rate, the revolution had
+been grimly successful.
+
+There had also been successes at sea. The merchant marine of the Greek
+islands had suffered grievously from the fall of Napoleon and the
+settlement at Vienna, which, by restoring normal conditions of trade, had
+destroyed their abnormal monopoly. The revolution offered new
+opportunities for profitable venture, and in April 1821 Hydhra, Spetza and
+Psar� hastened to send a privateering fleet to sea. As soon as the fleet
+crossed the Aegean, Samos rid itself of the Turks. At the beginning of
+June the rickety Ottoman squadron issued from the Dardanelles, but it was
+chased back by the islanders under the lee of Mitylini. Memories of
+Russian naval tactics in 1770 led the Psariots to experiment in
+fire-ships, and one of the two Turkish ships of the line fell a victim to
+this attack. 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 fairly launched, and in the
+first panic the threatened Moslems began reprisals of an equally general
+kind. In the larger Turkish cities there were massacres of Christian
+minorities, and the Government lent countenance to them by murdering its
+own principal Christian official Gregorios, the Greek patriarch at
+Constantinople, on April 22, 1821. But Sultan Mahmud quickly recovered
+himself. He saw that his empire 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 distant sparks with
+all his energy, before concentrating his force at leisure upon the main
+conflagration.
+
+This policy was justified by the event. On March 6 the 'Philik� Hetairia'
+at Odessa had opened its own operations in grandiose style by sending a
+filibustering expedition across the Russo-Turkish frontier under command
+of Prince Alexander Hypsilantis, a Phanariot in the Russian service.
+Hypsilantis played for a general revolt of the Ruman population in the
+Danubian Principalities and a declaration of war against Turkey on the
+part of Russia. But the Rumans had no desire to assist the Greek
+bureaucrats who oppressed them, and the Tsar Alexander had been converted
+by the experiences of 1812-13 to a pacifistic respect for the _status
+quo_. Prince Hypsilantis was driven ignominiously to internment across the
+Austrian frontier, little more than a hundred days after his expedition
+began; and his fiasco assured the Ottoman Government of two encouraging
+facts--that the revolution would not carry away the whole Orthodox
+population but would at any rate confine itself to the Greeks; and that
+the struggle against it would be fought out for the present, at least,
+without foreign intervention.
+
+In the other direction, however, rebellion was spreading northward from
+Peloponnesos to continental Greece. Galax�dhi revolted in April, and was
+followed in June by Mesolonghi--a prosperous town of fishermen,
+impregnably situated in the midst of the lagoons at the mouth of the
+Aspropotamo, beyond the narrows of the Korinthian Gulf. By the end of the
+month, north-western Greece was free as far as the outposts of Khurshid
+Pasha beyond the Gulf of Arta.
+
+Further eastward, again, in the mountains between the Gulf of Korinth and
+the river Ell�dha (Sperkhei�s), the Armatoli of Ali's faction had held
+their ground, and gladly joined the revolution on the initiative of their
+captains Dhiakos and Odhyss�vs. But the movement found its limits. The
+Turkish garrison of Athens obstinately held out during the winter of
+1821-2, and the Moslems of Negrepont (Eubo�a) maintained their mastery in
+the island. In Agrapha they likewise held their own, and, after one
+severely punished raid, the Agraphiot Armatoli were induced to re-enter
+the sultan's service on liberal terms. The Vlachs in the gorges of the
+Aspropotamo were pacified with equal success; and Dramali, Khurshid's
+lieutenant, who guarded the communications between the army investing
+Yannina and its base at Constantinople, was easily able to crush all
+symptoms of revolt in Thessaly from his head-quarters at L�rissa. Still
+further east, the autonomous Greek villages on the mountainous
+promontories of Khalkidhiki had revolted in May, in conjunction with the
+well-supplied and massively fortified monasteries of the 'Ayon Oros'; but
+the Pasha of Salonika called down the South Slavonic Moslem landowners
+from the interior, sacked the villages, and amnestied the monastic
+confederation on condition of establishing a Turkish garrison in their
+midst and confiscating their arms. The monks' compliance was assisted by
+the excommunication under which the new patriarch at Constantinople had
+placed all the insurgents by the sultan's command.
+
+The movement was thus successfully localised on the European continent,
+and further afield it was still more easily cut short. After the
+withdrawal of the Turkish squadron, the Greek fleet had to look on at the
+systematic destruction of Kydhonies,[1] a flourishing Greek industrial
+town on the mainland opposite Mitylini which had been founded under the
+sultan's auspices only forty years before. All that the islanders could do
+was to take off the survivors in their boats; and when they dispersed to
+their ports in autumn, the Ottoman ships came out again from the
+Dardanelles, sailed round Peloponnesos into the Korinthian Gulf, and
+destroyed Galax�dhi. A still greater catastrophe followed the reopening of
+naval operations next spring. In March 1822 the Samians landed a force on
+Khios and besieged the Turkish garrison, which was relieved after three
+weeks by the arrival of the Ottoman fleet. A month later the Greek fleet
+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 this the Ottoman fleet fled back as 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 at the
+destruction of Kydhonies the season before. In the following summer,
+again, the same fate befell Trik�ri, a maritime community on the Gulf of
+Volo which had gained its freedom when the rest of Thessaly stirred in
+vain; and so in 1823 the revolution found itself confined on sea, as well
+as on land, to the focus where it had originated in April 1821.
+
+[Footnote 1: Turkish Aivali.]
+
+This isolation was a practical triumph for Sultan Mahmud. The maintenance
+of the Ottoman Empire on the basis of Moslem ascendancy was thereby
+assured; but it remained to be seen whether the isolated area could now be
+restored to the _status quo_ in which the rest of his dominions had been
+retained.
+
+During the whole season of 1821 the army of Khurshid had been held before
+Yannina. But in February 1822 Yannina fell, Ali was slain, his treasure
+seized, and his troops disbanded. The Ottoman forces were liberated for a
+counterattack on Peloponnesos. Already in April Khurshid broke up his camp
+at L�rissa, and his lieutenant Dramali was given command of the new
+expedition towards the south. He crossed the Sperkhei�s at the beginning
+of July with an army of twenty thousand men.[1] Athens had capitulated to
+Odhyss�vs ten days before; but it had kept open the road for Dramali, and
+north-eastern Greece fell without resistance into his hands. The citadel
+of Korinth surrendered as tamely as the open country, and he was master of
+the isthmus before the end of the month. Nauplia meanwhile had been
+treating with its besiegers for terms, and would have surrendered to the
+Greeks already if they had not driven their bargain so hard. Dramali
+hurried on southward into the plain to the fortress'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 experienced direction of Kolokotr�nis,
+the Greeks from their hill-fastnesses ringed round the plain of Argos and
+scaled up every issue. Dramali's supplies ran out. An attempt of his
+vanguard to break through again towards the north was bloodily repulsed,
+and he barely succeeded two days later in extricating 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 at Korinth, and Khurshid was
+executed by the sultan's command. The invasion of Peloponnesos had broken
+down, and nothing could avert the fall of Nauplia. The Ottoman fleet
+hovered for one September week in the offing, but Kanaris's fire-ships
+took another ship of the line in toll at the roadsteads of Tenedos before
+it safely regained the Dardanelles. The garrison of Nauplia capitulated in
+December, on condition of personal security and liberty, and the captain
+of a British frigate, which arrived on the spot, took measures that the
+compact should be observed instead of being broken by the customary
+massacre. But the strongest fortress in Peloponnesos was now in Greek
+hands.
+
+[Footnote 1: Including a strong contingent of Moslem Slavs--Bulgarian
+Pomaks from the Aegean hinterland and Serbian Bosniaks from the Adriatic.]
+
+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 strong sultan was just as formidable to the
+Suliots as a strong pasha, so they swelled their ranks by enfranchising
+their peasant-serfs, and made common cause with their old enemy in his
+adversity. Now that Ali was destroyed, the Suliots found themselves in a
+precarious position, and turned to the Greeks for aid. But on July 16 the
+Greek advance was checked by a severe defeat at 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 to advance in turn towards the south.
+On November 6 he actually laid siege to Mesolonghi, but here his
+experiences were as discomfiting as Dramali's. He could not keep open his
+communications, and after heavy losses retreated again to Arta in January
+1823.
+
+[Footnote 1: He was a renegade officer of Ali's.]
+
+In 1823 the struggle seemed to be lapsing into stalemate. The liberated
+Peloponnesos had failed to propagate the revolution through the remainder
+of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Government had equally failed to
+reconquer the 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 he penetrated no
+further than Anatolik�n--the Mesolonghiots' outpost village at the head of
+the lagoons--and the campaign was only memorable for the heroic death of
+Marko Botzaris the Suliot in a night attack upon the Ottoman camp. At sea,
+the two fleets indulged in desultory cruises without an encounter, for the
+Turks were still timid and incompetent, while the growing insubordination
+and dissension on the Greek ships made concerted action there, too,
+impossible. By the end of the season it was clear that the struggle could
+only definitively be decided by the intervention of a third party on one
+side or the other--unless the Greeks brought their own ruin upon
+themselves.
+
+This indeed was not unlikely to happen; for the new house of Hellenism had
+hardly arisen before it became desperately divided against itself. The
+vitality of the national movement resided entirely in the local communes.
+It was they that had found the fighting men, kept them armed and supplied,
+and by spontaneous co-operation expelled the Turk from Peloponnesos. But
+if the co-operation was to be permanent it must have a central
+organization, and with the erection of this superstructure the troubles
+began. As early as June 1821 a 'Peloponnesian Senate' was constituted and
+at once monopolized by the 'Primates', the propertied class that had been
+responsible for the communal taxes under the Romaic and Ottoman r�gimes
+and was allowed to control the communal government in return. About the
+same time two Phanariot princes threw in their lot with the revolution--
+Alexander Mavrokordatos and Demetrius, the more estimable brother of the
+futile Alexander Hypsilantis. Both were saturated with the most recent
+European political theory, and they committed the peasants and seamen of
+the liberated districts to an ambitious constitutionalism. In December
+1821 a 'National Assembly' met at Epidauros, passed an elaborate organic
+law, and elected Mavrokordatos first president of the Hellenic Republic.
+
+The struggle for life and death in 1822 had staved off the internal
+crisis, but the Peloponnesian Senate remained obstinately recalcitrant
+towards the National Government in defence of its own vested interests;
+and the insubordination of the fleet in 1823 was of one piece with the
+political faction which broke out as soon as the immediate danger from
+without was removed.
+
+Towards the end of 1823 European 'Philhellenes' began to arrive in Greece.
+In those dark days of reaction that followed Waterloo, self-liberated
+Hellas seemed the one bright spot on the continent; but the idealists who
+came to offer her their services were confronted with a sorry spectacle.
+The people were indifferent to their leaders, and the leaders at variance
+among themselves. The gentlemanly Phanariots had fallen into the
+background. Mavrokordatos only retained influence in north-western Greece.
+In Peloponnesos the Primates were all-powerful, and Kolokotr�nis the
+klepht was meditating a popular dictatorship at their expense. In the
+north-east the adventurer Odhyss�vs had won a virtual dictatorship
+already, and was suspected of intrigue with the Turks; and all this
+factious dissension rankled into civil war as soon as the contraction of a
+loan in Great Britain had invested the political control of the Hellenic
+Republic with a prospective value in cash. The first civil war was fought
+between Kolokotr�nis on the one side and the Primates of Hydhra and
+Peloponnesos on the other; but the issue was decided against Kolokotr�nis
+by the adhesion to the coalition of Kolettis the Vlach, once physician to
+Mukhtar Pasha, the son of Ali, and now political agent for all the
+northern Armatoli in the national service. The fighting lasted from
+November 1823 to June 1824, and was followed by another outbreak in
+November of the latter year, when the victors quarrelled over the spoils,
+and the Primates were worsted in turn by the islanders and the Armatoli.
+The nonentity Kondouriottis of Hydhra finally emerged as President of
+Greece, with the sharp-witted Kolettis as his principal wire-puller, but
+the disturbances did not cease till the last instalment of the loan had
+been received and squandered and there was no more spoil to fight for.
+
+Meanwhile, Sultan Mahmud had been better employed. Resolved to avert
+stalemate by the only possible means, he had applied in the course of 1823
+to Mohammed Ali Pasha of Egypt, a more formidable, though more distant,
+satrap than Ali of Yannina himself. Mohammed Ali had a standing army and
+navy organized on the European model. He had also a son Ibrahim, who knew
+how to manoeuvre them, and was ambitious of a kingdom. Mahmud hired the
+father's troops and the son's generalship for the re-conquest of
+Peloponnesos, under engagement to invest Ibrahim with the pashalik as soon
+as he should effectively make it his own. By this stroke of diplomacy a
+potential rebel was turned into a willing ally, and the preparations for
+the Egyptian expedition went forward busily through the winter of 1823-4.
+
+The plan of campaign was systematically carried out. During the season of
+respite the Greek islanders had harried the coasts and commerce of
+Anatolia and Syria at will. The first task was to deprive them of their
+outposts in the Aegean, and an advanced squadron of the Egyptian fleet
+accordingly destroyed the community of Kasos in June 1824, while the
+Ottoman squadron sallied out of the Dardanelles a month later and dealt
+out equal measure to Psar�. The two main flotillas then effected a
+junction off Rhodes; and, though the crippled Greek fleet still ventured
+pluckily to confront them, it could not prevent Ibrahim from casting
+anchor safely in Soudha Bay and landing his army to winter in Krete. In
+February 1825 he transferred these troops with equal impunity to the
+fortress of Modhon, which was still held for the sultan by an Ottoman
+garrison. The fire-ships of Hydhra came to harry his fleet too late, and
+on land the Greek forces were impotent against his trained soldiers. The
+Government in vain promoted Kolokotr�nis from captivity to
+commandership-in-chief. The whole south-western half of Peloponnesos
+passed into Ibrahim's hands, and in June 1825 he even penetrated as far as
+the mills of Lerna on the eastern coast, a few miles south of Argos
+itself.
+
+At the same time the Ottoman army of the west moved south again under a
+new commander, Rashid Pasha of Yannina, and laid final siege on April 27
+to Mesolonghi, just a year after Byron had died of fever within its walls.
+The Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frail mud-bastions,
+and they more than held their own in the amphibious warfare of the
+lagoons. The struggle was chequered by the continual coming and going of
+the Greek and Ottoman fleets. They were indeed the decisive factor; for
+without the supporting squadron Rashid would have found himself in the
+same straits as his predecessors at the approach of autumn, while the
+slackness of the islanders in keeping the sea allowed Mesolonghi to be
+isolated in January 1826. The rest was accomplished by the arrival of
+Ibrahim on the scene. His heavy batteries opened fire in February; his
+gunboats secured command of the lagoons, and forced Anatolik�n to
+capitulate in March. In April provisions in Mesolonghi itself gave out,
+and, scorning surrender, the garrison--men, women, and children together--
+made a general sortie on the night of April 22. Four thousand fell, three
+thousand were taken, and two thousand won through. It was a glorious end
+for Mesolonghi, but it left the enemy in possession of all north-western
+Greece.
+
+The situation was going from bad to worse. Ibrahim returned to
+Peloponnesos, and steadily pushed forward his front, ravaging as steadily
+as he went. Rashid, after pacifying the north-west, moved on to the
+north-eastern districts, where the national cause had been shaken by the
+final treachery and speedy assassination of Odhyss�vs. Siege was laid to
+Athens in June, and the Greek Government enlisted in vain the military
+experience of its Philhellenes. Fabvier held the Akropolis, but
+Generalissimo Sir Richard Church was heavily defeated in the spring of
+1827 in an attempt to relieve him from the Attic coast; Grand Admiral
+Cochrane saw his fleet sail home for want of payment in advance, when he
+summoned it for review at Poros; and Karaiskakis, the Greek captain of
+Armatoli, was killed in a skirmish during his more successful efforts to
+harass Rashid's communications by land. On June 5, 1827, the Greek
+garrison of the Akropolis marched out on terms.
+
+It looked as if the Greek effort after independence would be completely
+crushed, and as if Sultan Mahmud would succeed in getting his empire under
+control. In September 1826 he had rid it at last of the mischief at its
+centre by blowing up the janissaries in their barracks at Constantinople.
+Turkey seemed almost to have weathered the storm when she was suddenly
+overborne by further intervention on the other side.
+
+Tsar Alexander, the vaccillator, died in November 1825, and was succeeded
+by his son Nicholas I, as strong a character and as active a will as
+Sultan Mahmud himself. Nicholas approached the Greek question without any
+disinclination towards a Turkish war; and both Great Britain and France
+found an immediate interest in removing a ground of provocation which
+might lead to such a rude disturbance of the European 'Balance of Power'.
+On July 6, 1827, a month after Athens surrendered, the three powers
+concluded a treaty for the pacification of Greece, in which they bound
+over both belligerent parties to accept an armistice under pain of
+military coercion. An allied squadron appeared off Navarino Bay to enforce
+this policy upon the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet which lay united there,
+and the intrusion of the allied admirals into the bay itself precipitated
+on October 20 a violent naval battle in which the Moslem flotilla was
+destroyed. The die was cast; and in April 1828 the Russian and Ottoman
+Governments drifted into a formal war, which brought Russian armies across
+the Danube as far as Adrianople, and set the Ottoman Empire at bay for the
+defence of its capital. Thanks to Mahmud's reorganization, the empire did
+not succumb to this assault; but it had no more strength to spare for the
+subjugation of Greece. The Greeks had no longer to reckon with the sultan
+as a military factor; and in August 1828 they wore relieved of Ibrahim's
+presence as well, by the disembarkation of 14,000 French troops in
+Peloponnesos to superintend the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces. In
+March 1829 the three powers delimited the Greek frontier. The line ran
+east and west from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, and assigned to
+the new state no more and no less territory than the districts that had
+effectively asserted their independence against the sultan in 1821. This
+settlement was the only one possible under the circumstances; but it was
+essentially transitory, for it neglected the natural line of nationality
+altogether, and left a numerical majority of the Greek race, as well as
+the most important centres of its life, under the old r�gime of servitude.
+
+Even the liberated area was not at the end of its troubles. In the spring
+of 1827, when they committed themselves into the hands of their foreign
+patrons, the Greeks had found a new president for the republic in John
+Kapodistrias, an intimate of Alexander the tsar. Kapodistrias was a
+Corfiote count, with a Venetian education and a career in the Russian
+diplomatic service, and no one could have been more fantastically
+unsuitable for the task of reconstructing the country to which he was
+called. Kapodistrias' ideal was the _fin-de-si�cle_ 'police-state'; but
+'official circles' did not exist in Greece, and he had no acquaintance
+with the peasants and sailors whom he hoped to redeem by bureaucracy. He
+instituted a hierarchically centralized administration which made the
+abortive constitution of Mavrokordatos seem sober by comparison; he
+trampled on the liberty of the rising press, which was the most hopeful
+educational influence in the country; and he created superfluous
+ministerial portfolios for his untalented brothers. In fact he reglamented
+Greece from his palace at Aigina like a divinely appointed autocrat, from
+his arrival in January 1828 till the summer of 1831, when he provoked the
+Hydhriots to open rebellion, and commissioned the Russian squadron in
+attendance to quell them by a naval action, with the result that Poros was
+sacked by the President's regular army and the national fleet was
+completely destroyed. After that, he attempted to rule as a military
+dictator, and fell foul of the Mavromichalis of Maina. The Mainates knew
+better how to deal with the 'police-state' than the Hydhriots; and on
+October 9, 1831, Kapodistrias was assassinated in Nauplia, at the church
+door, by two representatives of the Mavromichalis clan.
+
+The country lapsed into utter anarchy. Peloponnesians and Armatoli,
+Kolokotronists and Kolettists, alternately appointed and deposed
+subservient national assemblies and governing commissions by naked
+violence, which culminated in a gratuitous and disastrous attack upon the
+French troops stationed in Peloponnesos for their common protection. The
+three powers realized that it was idle to liberate Greece from Ottoman
+government unless they found her another in its place. They decided on
+monarchy, and offered 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 in July 1832 the
+sultan recognized the sovereign independence of the kingdom of Hellas in
+consideration of a cash indemnity; and in February 1833, just a year after
+the first overtures had been made, the appointed king arrived at Nauplia
+with a decorative Bavarian staff and a substantial loan from the allies.
+
+
+
+3
+
+_The Consolidation of the State_
+
+
+Half the story of Greece is told. We have watched the nation awake and put
+forth its newly-found strength in a great war of independence, and we have
+followed the course of the struggle to its result--the foundation of the
+kingdom of Hellas.
+
+It is impossible to close this chapter of Greek history without a sense of
+disappointment. The spirit of Greece had travailed, and only a
+principality was born, which gathered within its frontiers scarcely
+one-third of the race, and turned for its government to a foreign
+administration which had no bond of tradition or affinity with the
+population it was to rule. And yet something had been achieved. An oasis
+had been wrested from the Turkish wilderness, in which Hellenism could
+henceforth work out its own salvation untrammelled, and extend its borders
+little by little, until it brought within them at last the whole of its
+destined heritage. The fleeting glamour of dawn had passed, but it had
+brought the steady light of day, in which the work begun could be carried
+out soberly and indefatigably to its conclusion. The new kingdom, in fact,
+if it fulfilled its mission, might become the political nucleus and the
+spiritual ensample of a permanently awakened nation--an 'education of
+Hellas' such as Pericles hoped to see Athens become in the greatest days
+of Ancient Greece.
+
+When, therefore, we turn to the history of the kingdom, our disappointment
+is all the more intense, for in the first fifty years of its existence
+there is little development to record. In 1882 King Otto's principality
+presented much the same melancholy spectacle as it did in 1833, when he
+landed in Nauplia Bay, except that Otto himself had left the scene. His
+Bavarian staff belonged to that reactionary generation that followed the
+overthrow of Napoleon in Europe, and attempted, heedless of Kapodistrias'
+fiasco, to impose on Greece the bureaucracy of the _ancien r�gime_. The
+Bavarians' work was entirely destructive. The local liberties which had
+grown up under the Ottoman dominion and been the very life of the national
+revival, were effectively repressed. Hydhriot and Spetziot, Suliot and
+Mainate, forfeited their characteristic individuality, but none of the
+benefits of orderly and uniform government were realized. The canker of
+brigandage defied all efforts to root it out, and in spite of the loans
+with which the royal government was supplied by the protecting powers, the
+public finance was subject 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 1843. 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 to Dane, yet the
+afflictions continued. In 1882 King George had been nineteen years on the
+throne[1] without any happier fortune than his predecessor's. It is true
+that the frontiers of the kingdom had been somewhat extended. Great
+Britain had presented the new sovereign with the Ionian Islands as an
+inaugural gift, and the Berlin Conference had recently added the province
+of Thessaly. Yet the major part of the Greek race still awaited liberation
+from the Turkish yoke, and regarded the national kingdom, chronically
+incapacitated by the twin plagues of brigandage and bankruptcy, with
+increasing disillusionment. The kingdom of Hellas seemed to have failed in
+its mission altogether.
+
+[Footnote 1: King George, like King Otto, was only seventeen years old
+when he received his crown.]
+
+What was the explanation of this failure? It was that the very nature of
+the mission paralysed the state from taking the steps essential to its
+accomplishment. The phenomenon has been, unhappily, only too familiar in
+the Nearer East, and any one who travelled in the Balkans in 1882, or even
+so recently as 1912, must at once have become aware of it.
+
+Until a nation has completely vindicated its right to exist, it is hard
+for it to settle down and make its life worth living. We nations of
+western Europe (before disaster fell upon us) had learnt to take our
+existence for granted, and 'Politics' for us had come to mean an organized
+effort to improve the internal economy of our community. But a foreigner
+who picked up a Greek newspaper would have found in it none of 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 been monopolized by foreign politics, and in the cafes he would have
+heard the latest oscillation in the international balance of power
+canvassed with the same intense and minute interest that Englishmen in a
+railway-carriage would have been devoting to Old Age Pensions, National
+Health Insurance, or Land Valuation. He would have been amazed by a
+display of intimate knowledge such as no British quidnunc could have
+mustered if he had happened to stumble across these intricacies of
+international competition, and the conversation would always have
+terminated in the same unanswered but inconscionable challenge to the
+future: 'When will the oppressed majority of our race escape the Turkish
+yoke? If the Ottoman dominion is destroyed, what redistribution of its
+provinces will follow? Shall we then achieve our national unity, or will
+our Balkan neighbours encroach upon the inheritance which is justly ours?'
+
+This preoccupation with events beyond the frontiers was not caused by any
+lack of vital problems within them. The army was the most conspicuous
+object of public activity, but it was not an aggressive speculation, or an
+investment of national profits deliberately calculated to bring in one day
+a larger return. It was a necessity of 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 again at the
+miserable state of all reproductive public works. The railways were few
+and far between, their routes roundabout, and their rolling-stock scanty,
+so that trains were both rare and slow. Wheel-roads were no commoner a
+feature in Greece than railways are here, and such stretches as had been
+constructed had often never come into use, because they had just failed to
+reach their goal or were still waiting for their bridges, so that they
+were simply falling into decay and converting the outlay of capital upon
+them into a dead loss. The Peiraeus was the only port in the country where
+steamers could come alongside a quay, and discharge their cargoes directly
+on shore. Elsewhere, the vessel must anchor many cables' lengths out, 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 open roadstead, where all
+ships that call are kept at a distance by the silt from a mountain
+torrent, and so placed in imminent danger of being driven, by the first
+storm, upon the rocks of a neighbouring peninsula.
+
+[Footnote 1: The four chief ports being Peiraeus, Patras, Syra, and
+Volos.]
+
+These grave shortcomings were doubtless due in part to the 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
+attempt much more, if the nation's energy could have been secured for the
+work. But it is hard to tinker at details when you are kept in a perpetual
+fever by a question of life and death, and the great preliminary questions
+of national unity and self-government remained still unsettled.
+
+Before these supreme problems all other interests paled, for they were no
+will-o'-the-wisps of theoretical politics. It needs a long political
+education to appreciate abstract ideas, and the Greeks were still in their
+political infancy, but the realization of Greater Greece implied for them
+the satisfaction of all their concrete needs at once.
+
+So long as the _status quo_ endured, they were isolated from the rest of
+Europe by an unbroken band of Turkish territory, stretching from the
+Aegean to the Adriatic Sea. What was the use of overcoming great
+engineering difficulties to build a line of European gauge from Athens
+right up to the northern frontier, if Turkey refused to sanction the
+construction of the tiny section that must pass through her territory
+between the Greek railhead and the actual terminus of the European system
+at Salonika? Or if, even supposing she withdrew her veto, she would have
+it in her power to bring pressure on Greece at any moment by threatening
+to sever communications along this vital artery? So long as Turkey was
+there, Greece was practically an island, and her only communication with
+continental Europe lay through her ports. But what use to improve the
+ports, when the recovery of Salonika, the fairest object of the national
+dreams, would ultimately change the country's economic centre of gravity,
+and make her maritime as well as her overland commerce flow along quite
+other channels than the present?
+
+Thus the Greek nation's present was overshadowed by its future, and its
+actions paralysed by its hopes. Perhaps a nation with more power of
+application and less of imagination would have schooled itself to the
+thought that these sordid, obtrusive details were the key to the
+splendours of the future, and would have devoted itself to the systematic
+amelioration of the cramped area which it had already secured for its own.
+This is what Bulgaria managed to do during her short but wonderful period
+of internal growth between the Berlin Treaty of 1878 and the declaration
+of war against Turkey in 1912. But Bulgaria, thanks to her geographical
+situation, was from the outset freer from the tentacles of the Turkish
+octopus than Greece had contrived to make herself by her fifty years'
+start, while her temperamentally sober ambitions were not inflamed by such
+past traditions as Greece had inherited, not altogether to her advantage.
+Be that as it may, Greece, whether by fault or misfortune, had failed
+during this half-century to apply herself successfully to the cure of her
+defects and the exploitation of her assets, though she did not lack
+leaders strong-minded enough to summon her to the dull business of the
+present. Her history during the succeeding generation was a struggle
+between the parties of the Present and the Future, and the unceasing
+discomfiture of the former is typified in the tragedy of Trikoupis, the
+greatest modern Greek statesman before the advent of Venezelos.
+
+Trikoupis came into power in 1882, just after the acquisition of the rich
+agricultural province of Thessaly under the Treaty of Berlin had given the
+kingdom a fresh start. There were no such continuous areas of good arable
+land within the original frontiers, and such rare patches as there were
+had been desolated by those eight years of savage warfare[1] which had
+been the price of liberty. The population had been swept away by wholesale
+massacres of racial minorities in every district; the dearth of
+industrious hands had allowed the torrents to play havoc with the
+cultivation-terraces on the mountain slopes; and the spectre of malaria,
+always lying in wait for its opportunity, had claimed the waterlogged
+plains for its own. During the fifty years of stagnation little attempt
+had been made to cope with the evil, until now it seemed almost past
+remedy.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1821-28]
+
+If, however, the surface of the land offered little prospect of wealth for
+the moment, there were considerable treasures to be found beneath it. A
+metalliferous bolt runs down the whole east coast of the Greek mainland,
+cropping up again in many of the Aegean islands, and some of the ores, of
+which there is a great variety, are rare and valuable. The lack of transit
+facilities is partly remedied by the fact that workable veins often lie
+near enough to the sea for the produce to be carried straight from mine to
+ship, by an endless-chain system of overhead trolleys; so that, once
+capital is secured for installing the plant and opening the mine,
+profitable operations can be carried on irrespective of the general
+economic condition of the country. Trikoupis saw how much potential wealth
+was locked up in these mineral seams. The problem was how to attract the
+capital necessary to tap it. The nucleus round which have accumulated
+those immense masses of mobilised capital that are the life-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, to a state of agricultural
+bankruptcy, has obviously failed to save any surplus in the process, so
+that it is unable to provide from its own pocket the minimum outlay it so
+urgently needs in order to open for itself some new activity. If it is to
+obtain a fresh start on other lines, it must secure the co-operation of
+the foreign investor, and the capitalist with a ready market for his money
+will only put it into enterprises where he has some guarantee of its
+safety. There was little doubt that the minerals of Greece would well
+repay extraction; the uncertain element was the Greek nation itself. The
+burning question of national unity might break out at any moment into a
+blaze of war, and, in the probable case of disaster, involve the whole
+country and all interests connected with it in economic as well as
+political ruin. Western Europe would not commit itself to Greek mining
+enterprise, unless it felt confident that the statesman responsible for
+the government of Greece would and could restrain his country from its
+instinctive impulse towards political adventure.
+
+The great merit of Trikoupis was that he managed to inspire 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
+administration. But the roads are unfinished, the railway-network
+incomplete, the mines exploited only to a fraction of their capacity,
+because the forces against Trikoupis were in the end too strong for him.
+It may be that his eye too rigidly followed the foreign investor's point
+of view, and that by adopting a more conciliatory attitude towards the
+national ideal, he might have strengthened his position at home without
+impairing his reputation abroad; but his position was really made
+impossible by a force quite beyond his control, the irresponsible and
+often intolerable behaviour which Turkey, under whatever r�gime, has
+always practised towards foreign powers, and especially towards those
+Balkan states which have won their freedom in her despite, while perforce
+abandoning a large proportion of their race to the protracted outrage of
+Turkish misgovernment.
+
+Several times over the Porte, by wanton insults to Greece, wrecked the
+efforts of Trikoupis to establish good relations between the two
+governments, and played the game of the chauvinist party led by Trikoupis'
+rival, Deliyannis. Deliyannis' tenures of office were always brief, but
+during them he contrived to undo most of the work accomplished by
+Trikoupis in the previous intervals. A particularly tense 'incident' with
+Turkey put him in power in 1893, with a strong enough backing from the
+country to warrant a general mobilization. The sole result was the ruin of
+Greek credit. Trikoupis was hastily recalled to office by the king, but
+too late. He found himself unable to retrieve the ruin, and retired
+altogether from politics in 1895, dying abroad next year in voluntary
+exile and enforced disillusionment.
+
+With the removal of Trikoupis from the helm, Greece ran straight upon the
+rocks. A disastrous war with Turkey was precipitated in 1897 by events in
+Krete. It brought the immediate _d�b�cle_ of the army and the reoccupation
+of Thessaly for a year by Turkish troops, while its final penalties were
+the cession of the chief strategical positions along the northern frontier
+and the imposition of an international commission of control over the
+Greek finances, in view of the complete national bankruptcy entailed by
+the war. The fifteen years that followed 1895 were almost the blackest
+period in modern Greek history; yet the time was not altogether lost, and
+such events as the draining of the Kopais-basin by a British company, and
+its conversion from a malarious swamp into a rich agricultural area,
+marked a perceptible economic advance.
+
+This comparative stagnation was broken at last by the Young Turk
+_pronunciamiento_ at Salonika in 1908, which produced such momentous
+repercussions all through the Nearer East. The Young Turks had struck in
+order to forestall the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, but the
+opportunity was seized by every restive element within it to extricate
+itself, if possible, from the Turkish coils. Now, just as in 1897, Greece
+was directly affected by the action of the Greek population in Krete. As a
+result of the revolt of 1896-7, Krete had been constituted an autonomous
+state subject to Ottoman suzerainty, autonomy and suzerainty alike being
+guaranteed by four great powers. Prince George of Greece, a son of the
+King of the Hellenes, had been placed at the head of the autonomous
+government as high commissioner; but his autocratic tendency caused great
+discontent among the free-spirited Kretans, who had not rid themselves of
+the Turkish r�gime in order to forfeit their independence again in another
+fashion. Dissension culminated in 1906, when the leaders of the opposition
+took to 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 high commissioner by Zaimis, another
+citizen of the Greek kingdom, who inaugurated a more constitutional
+r�gime, and in 1908 the Kretans believed that the moment for realizing the
+national ideal had come. They proclaimed their union with Greece, and
+elected deputies to the Parliament at Athens. But the guarantor powers
+carried out their obligations by promptly sending a combined naval
+expedition, which hauled down the Greek flag at Canea, and prevented the
+deputies from embarking for Peiraeus. This apparently pedantic insistence
+upon the _status quo_ was extremely exasperating to Greek nationalism. It
+produced a ferment in the kingdom, which grew steadily for nine months,
+and vented itself in July 1909 in the _coup d'�tat_ of the 'Military
+League', a second-hand imitation of the Turkish 'Committee of Union and
+Progress'. The royal family was cavalierly treated, and constitutional
+government superseded by a junta of officers. But at this point the policy
+of the four powers towards Krete was justified. Turkey knew well that she
+had lost Krete in 1897, but she could still exploit her suzerainty to
+prevent Greece from gaining new strength by the annexation of the island.
+The Young Turks had seized the reins of government, not to modify the
+policy of the Porte, but to intensify its chauvinism, and they accordingly
+intimated that they would consider any violation of their suzerain rights
+over Krete a _casus belli_ against Greece. 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 its tether. 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 appeared unexpectedly from the
+centre of disturbance, Krete. Venezelos started life as a successful
+advocate at Canea. He entered Kretan politics in the struggle for
+constitutionalism, and distinguished himself in the successful revolution
+of 1906, of which he was the soul. Naturally, he became one of the leading
+statesmen under Zaimis' r�gime, and he further distinguished himself by
+resolutely opposing the 'Unionist' agitation as premature, and yet
+retaining his hold over a people whose paramount political preoccupation
+was their national unity. The crisis of 1908-9 brought him into close
+relations with the government of the Greek kingdom; and the king, who had
+gauged his calibre, now took the patriotic step of calling in the man who
+had expelled his son from Krete, to put his own house in order. It speaks
+much for both men that they worked together in harmony from the beginning.
+Upon the royal invitation Venezelos exchanged Kretan 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 Venezelos the
+first premier of the new era. During five years of continuous office he
+was to prove himself the good genius of his country. When he resigned his
+post in April 1915, he left the work of consolidating the national state
+on the verge of completion, and it will be his country's loss if he is
+baulked of achievement. Results speak for themselves, and the remainder of
+this pamphlet will be little more than a record of his statesmanship; but
+before we pass on to review his deeds, we must say a word about the
+character to which they are due. In March 1912 the time came for the first
+general election since Venezelos had taken office. Two years' experience
+of his administration had already won him such popularity and prestige,
+that the old party groups, purely personal followings infected with all
+the corruption, jingoism, and insincerity of the dark fifteen years,
+leagued themselves in a desperate effort to cast him out. Corruption on a
+grand scale was attempted, but Venezelos' success at the polls was
+sweeping. The writer happened to be spending that month in Krete. The
+Kretans had, of course, elected deputies in good time to the parliament at
+Athens, and once more the foreign warships stopped them in the act of
+boarding the steamer for Peiraeus, while Venezelos, who was still
+responsible for the Greek Government till the new parliament met, had
+declared with characteristic frankness that the attendance of the Kretan
+deputies could not possibly be sanctioned, an opening of which his
+opponents did not fail to take advantage. Meanwhile, every one in Krete
+was awaiting news of the polling in the kingdom. They might have been
+expected to feel, at any rate, lukewarmly towards a man who had actually
+taken office on the programme of deferring their cherished 'union'
+indefinitely; but, on the contrary, they greeted his triumph with enormous
+enthusiasm. Their feeling was explained by the comment of an innkeeper.
+'Venezelos!' he said: 'Why, he is a man who can say "No". He won't stand
+any nonsense. If you try to get round him, he'll put you in irons.' And
+clearly he had hit the mark. Venezelos would in any case have done well,
+because he is a clever man with an excellent power of judgement; but
+acuteness is a common Greek virtue, and if he has done brilliantly, it is
+because he has the added touch of genius required to make the Greek take
+'No' for an answer, a quality, very rare indeed in the nation, which
+explains the dramatic contrast between his success and Trikoupis' failure.
+Greece has been fortunate indeed in finding the right man at the crucial
+hour.
+
+In the winter of 1911-12 and the succeeding summer, the foreign traveller
+met innumerable results of Venezelos' activity in every part of the
+country, and all gave evidence of the same thing: a sane judgement and its
+inflexible execution. For instance, a resident in Greece had needed an
+escort of soldiers four years before, when he made an expedition into the
+wild country north-west of the Gulf of Patras, on account of the number of
+criminals 'wanted' by the government who were lurking in that region as
+outlaws. In August 1912 an inquiry concerning this danger was met with a
+smile: 'Oh, yes, it was so,' said the gendarme, 'but since then Venezelos
+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.' And he
+spoke the truth. You could wander all about the forests and mountains
+without molestation.
+
+So far Venezelos 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 British missions,
+and when the opportunity appeared, he was ready to take full advantage of
+it. In the autumn of 1912, Turkey had been for a year at war with Italy;
+her finances had suffered a heavy drain, and the Italian command of the
+sea not only locked up her best troops in Tripoli, but interrupted such
+important lines of communication between her Asiatic and European
+provinces as the direct route by sea from Smyrna to Salonika, and the
+devious sea-passage thence round Greece to Scutari, which was the only
+alternative for Turkish troops to running the gauntlet of the Albanian
+mountaineers. Clearly the Balkan nations could find no better moment for
+striking the blow 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 compromise between their conflicting claims, they would
+have to let this common opportunity for making them good slip by
+altogether.
+
+Of the four states concerned, two, Serbia and Montenegro, were of the same
+South-Slavonic nationality, and had been drawn into complete accord with
+each other since the formal annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary in
+1908, which struck a hard blow at their common national idea, while
+neither of them had any conflicting claims with Greece, since the Greek
+and South-Slavonic nationalities are at no point geographically in
+contact. With Bulgaria, a nation of Slavonic speech and culture, though
+not wholly Slavonic in origin, Serbia had quarrelled for years over the
+ultimate destiny of the �sk�b district in north-western Macedonia, which
+was still subject to Turkey; but in the summer of 1912 the two states
+compromised in a secret treaty upon their respective territorial
+ambitions, and agreed to refer the fate of one debatable strip to the
+arbitration of Russia, after their already projected war with Turkey had
+been carried through. There was a more formidable conflict of interests
+between Bulgaria and Greece. These two nationalities are conterminous over
+a very wide extent of territory, stretching from the Black Sea on the east
+to the inland Lake of Okhrida on the west, and there is at no point a
+sharp dividing line between them. The Greek element tends to predominate
+towards the coast and the Bulgar towards the interior, but there are broad
+zones where Greek and Bulgar villages are inextricably interspersed, while
+purely Greek towns are often isolated in the midst of purely Bulgar rural
+districts. Even if the racial areas could be plotted out on a large-scale
+map, it was clear that no political frontier could be drawn to follow
+their convolutions, and that Greece and Bulgaria could only divide the
+spoils by both making up their minds to give and take. The actual lines
+this necessary compromise would follow, obviously depended on the degree
+of the allies' success against Turkey in the common war that was yet to be
+fought, and Venezelos rose to the occasion. He had the courage to offer
+Bulgaria the Greek alliance without stipulating for any definite minimum
+share in the common conquests, and the tact to induce her to accept it on
+the same terms. Greece and Bulgaria agreed to shelve all territorial
+questions till the war had been brought to a successful close; and with
+the negotiation of this understanding (another case in which Venezelos
+achieved what Trikoupis had attempted only to fail) the Balkan League was
+complete.
+
+The events that followed are common knowledge. The Balkan allies opened
+the campaign in October, and the Turks collapsed before an impetuous
+attack. The Bulgarians crumpled up the Ottoman field armies in Thrace at
+the terrific battle of Lule Burgas; the Serbians disposed of the forces in
+the Macedonian interior, while the Greeks effected a junction with the
+Serbians from the south, and cut their way through to Salonika. Within two
+months of the declaration of war, the Turks on land had been driven out of
+the open altogether behind the shelter of the Chataldja and Gallipoli
+lines, and only three fortresses--Adrianople, Yannina, and Scutari--held
+out further to the west. Their navy, closely blockaded by the Greek fleet
+within the Dardanelles, had to look on passively at the successive
+occupation of the Aegean Islands by Greek landing-parties. With the winter
+came negotiations, during which an armistice reigned at Adrianople and
+Scutari, while the Greeks pursued the siege of Yannina and the Dardanelles
+blockade. The negotiations proved abortive, and the result of the renewed
+hostilities justified the action of the Balkan plenipotentiaries in
+breaking them off. By the spring of 1913 the three fortresses had fallen,
+and, under the treaty finally signed at London, Turkey ceded to the Balkan
+League, as a whole, all her European territories west of a line drawn from
+Ainos on the Aegean to Mid�a on the Black Sea, including Adrianople and
+the lower basin of the river Maritsa.
+
+The time had now come for Greece and Bulgaria to settle their account, and
+the unexpected extent of the common gains ought to have facilitated their
+division. The territory in question included the whole north coast of the
+Aegean and its immediate hinterland, and Venezelos proposed to consider it
+in two sections. (1) The eastern section, conveniently known as Thrace,
+consisted of the lower basin of the Maritsa. As far as Adrianople the
+population was Bulgar, but south of that city it was succeeded by a Greek
+element, with a considerable sprinkling of Turkish settlements, as far as
+the sea. Geographically, however, the whole district is intimately
+connected with Bulgaria, and the railway that follows the course of the
+Maritsa down to the port of Dedeagatch offers a much-needed economic
+outlet for large regions already within the Bulgarian frontier. Venezelos,
+then, was prepared to resign all Greek claims to the eastern section, in
+return for a corresponding concession by Bulgaria in the west. (2) The
+western section, consisting of the lower basins of the Vardar and Struma,
+lay in the immediate neighbourhood of the former frontier of Greece; but
+the Greek population of Salonika,[1] and the coast-districts east of it,
+could not be brought within the Greek frontier without including as well a
+certain hinterland inhabited mainly by Bulgarians. The cession of this was
+the return asked for by Venezelos, and he reduced it to a minimum by
+abstaining from pressing the quite well-founded claims of Greece in the
+Monastir district, which lay further inland still.
+
+[Footnote 1: The predominant element within the walls of Salonika itself
+is neither Greek nor Bulgarian, but consists of about 80,000 of those
+Spanish-speaking Jews who settled in Turkey as refugees during the
+sixteenth century.]
+
+But Venezelos' conciliatory proposals met with no response from the
+Bulgarian Government, which was in an 'all or nothing' mood. It swallowed
+Venezelos' gift of Thrace, and then proceeded to exploit the Bulgar
+hinterland of Salonika as a pretext for demanding the latter city as well.
+This uncompromising attitude made agreement impossible, and it was
+aggravated by the aggressive action of the Bulgarian troops in the
+occupied territory, who persistently endeavoured to steal ground from the
+Greek forces facing them. In May there was serious fighting to the east of
+the Struma, and peace was only restored with difficulty. Bulgarian
+relations with Serbia were becoming strained at the same time, though in
+this case Bulgaria had more justice on her side. Serbia maintained that
+the veto imposed by Austria upon her expansion to the Adriatic, in
+coincidence with Bulgaria's unexpected gains on the Maritsa to which
+Serbian arms had contributed, invalidated the secret treaty of the
+previous summer, and she announced her intention of retaining the Monastir
+district and the line of the Salonika railway as far as 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 the
+other, and took her stand on her strictly legal treaty-rights. However the
+balance of justice inclined, a lasting settlement could only have been
+reached by mutual forbearance and goodwill; but Bulgaria put herself
+hopelessly in the wrong towards both her allies by a treacherous
+night-attack upon them all along the line, at the end of June 1913. This
+disastrous act was the work of a single political party, which has since
+been condemned by most sections of Bulgarian public opinion; but the
+punishment, if not the responsibility for the crime, fell upon the whole
+nation. Greece and Serbia had already been drawn into an understanding by
+their common danger. They now declared war against Bulgaria in concert.
+The counter-strokes of their armies met with success, and the intervention
+of Rumania made Bulgaria's discomfiture certain.
+
+The results of the one month's war were registered in the Treaty of
+Bucarest. Many of its provisions were unhappily, though naturally,
+inspired by the spirit of revenge; but the Greek premier, at any rate,
+showed a statesmanlike self-restraint in the negotiations. Venezelos
+advocated the course of taking no more after the war than had been
+demanded before it. He desired to leave Bulgaria a broad zone of Aegean
+littoral between the Struma and Maritsa rivers, including ports capable of
+satisfying Bulgaria's pressing need for an outlet towards the south. But,
+in the exasperated state of public feeling, even Venezelos' prestige
+failed to carry through his policy in its full moderation. King George had
+just been assassinated in his year of jubilee, in the streets of the
+long-desired Salonika; and King Constantine, his son, flushed by the
+victory of Kilkish and encouraged by the Machiavellian diplomacy of his
+Hohenzollern brother-in-law, insisted on carrying the new Greek frontier
+as far east as the river Mesta, and depriving Bulgaria of Kavala, the
+natural harbour for the whole Bulgarian hinterland in the upper basins of
+the Mesta and Struma.
+
+It is true that Greece did not exact as much as she might have done.
+Bulgaria was still allowed to possess herself of a coastal strip east of
+the Mesta, containing the tolerable harbours of Porto Lagos and
+Dedeagatch, which had been occupied 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 the future from those
+drawbacks involved in immediate contact with Turkish territory, which she
+had so often experienced in the past. It is also true that the Kavala
+district is of great economic value in itself--it produces the better part
+of the Turkish R�gie tobacco crop--and that on grounds of nationality
+alone Bulgaria has no claim to this prize, since the tobacco-growing
+peasantry is almost exclusively Greek or Turk, while the Greek element has
+been extensively reinforced during the last two years by refugees from
+Anatolia and Thrace.
+
+Nevertheless, it is already clear that Venezelos' judgement was the
+better. The settlement at the close of the present war may even yet bring
+Bulgaria reparation in many quarters. If the Ruman and South Slavonic
+populations at present included in the complexus of Austria-Hungary are
+freed from their imprisonment and united with the Serbian and Rumanian
+national states, Bulgaria may conceivably recover from the latter those
+Bulgarian lands which the Treaty of Bucarest made over to them in central
+Macedonia and the Dobrudja, while it would be still more feasible to oust
+the Turk again from Adrianople, where he slipped back in the hour of
+Bulgaria's prostration and has succeeded in maintaining himself ever
+since. Yet no amount of compensation in other directions and no abstract
+consideration for the national principle will induce Bulgaria to renounce
+her claim on Greek Kavala. Access to this district is vital to Bulgaria
+from the geographical point of view, and she will not be satisfied here
+with such rights as Serbia enjoys at Salonika--free use of the port and
+free traffic along a railway connecting it with her own hinterland. Her
+heart is set on complete territorial ownership, and she will not compose
+her feud with Greece until she has had her way.
+
+So long, therefore, as the question of Kavala remains unsettled, Greece
+will not be able to put the preliminary problem of 'national
+consolidation' behind her, and enter upon the long-deferred chapter of
+'internal development'. To accomplish once for all this vital transition,
+Venezelos is taking the helm again into his hands, and it is his evident
+intention to close the Greek account with Bulgaria just as Serbia and
+Rumania hope to close theirs with the same state--by a bold territorial
+concession conditional upon adequate territorial compensation
+elsewhere.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The above paragraph betrays its own date; for, since it was
+written, the intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers
+has deferred indefinitely the hope of a settlement based upon mutual
+agreement.]
+
+The possibility of such compensation is offered by certain outstanding
+problems directly dependent upon the issue of the European conflict, and
+we must glance briefly at these before passing on to consider the new
+chapter of internal history that is opening for the Greek nation.
+
+The problems in question are principally concerned with the ownership of
+islands.
+
+The integrity of a land-frontier is guaranteed by the whole strength of
+the nation included within it, and can only be modified by a struggle for
+existence with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by their
+geographical nature constitute independent political units, easily
+detached from or incorporated with larger domains, according to the
+momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea-power. Thus it happened that
+the arrival of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ at the Dardanelles in August
+1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly certain questions concerning the
+Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population, but
+their respective geographical positions and political fortunes
+differentiate them into several groups.
+
+1. The Cyclades in the south-west, half submerged vanguards 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 enjoyed autonomy under Turkish suzerainty for fifteen years before the
+Balkan War, and at its outbreak she once more proclaimed her union with
+Greece. This time at last her action was legalized, when Turkey expressly
+abandoned her suzerain rights by a clause in the Treaty of London.
+
+3. During the war itself, the Greek navy occupied a number of islands
+which had remained till then under the more direct government of Turkey,
+The parties to the Treaty of London agreed to leave their destiny to the
+decision of the powers, and the latter assigned them all to Greece, with
+the exception of Imbros and Tenedos which command strategically the mouth
+of the Dardanelles.
+
+The islands thus secured to Greece fall in turn into several sub-groups.
+
+Two of these are _(a)_ Thasos, Samothraki, and Lemnos, off the European
+coast, and _(b)_ Samos and its satellite Nikari�, immediately off the west
+coast of Anatolia; and these five islands seem definitely to have been
+given up by Turkey for lost. The European group is well beyond the range
+of her present frontiers; while Samos, though it adjoins 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 that the Ottoman Government did not acutely feel its final severance.
+
+_(c)_ A third group consists of Mitylini and Khios,[1] and concerning this
+pair Greece and Turkey have so far come to no understanding. The Turks
+pointed out that the littoral off which these islands lie contains not
+only the most indispensable ports of Anatolia but also the largest
+enclaves of Greek population on the Asiatic mainland, and they declared
+that the occupation of this group by Greece menaced 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 barricades Aivali
+and Edremid as well. As soon as the Greek Government has converted the
+harbours of these islands into naval bases, Anatolia will be subject to a
+perpetual Greek blockade, and this violent intimidation of the Turkish
+people will be reinforced by an insidious propaganda among the disloyal
+Greek elements in our midst.' Accordingly the Turks refused to recognize
+the award of the powers, and demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman
+sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy after
+the precedent of Krete and Samos.
+
+[Footnote 1: Including its famous satellite Psar�.]
+
+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 their inhabitants ardently desire union with the
+national kingdom; and that the Greek Government would hesitate to use them
+as a basis for economic coercion and nationalistic propaganda against
+Turkey, if only because the commerce of western Anatolia is almost
+exclusively in the hands of the Greek element on the Asiatic continent.
+Greek interests were presumably bound up with the economic prosperity and
+political consolidation of Turkey in Asia, and the Anatolian Greeks would
+merely have been alienated from their compatriots by any such impolitic
+machinations. 'Greek sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios', the Greeks
+maintained, 'does not threaten Turkish sovereignty on the Continent. But
+the restoration of Turkish suzerainty over the islands would most
+seriously endanger the liberty of their inhabitants; for Turkish promises
+are notoriously valueless, except when they are endorsed by the guarantee
+of some physically stronger power.'
+
+Negotiations were conducted between Greece and Turkey from these
+respective points of view without leading to any result, and the two
+standpoints were in fact irreconcilable, since either power required the
+other to leave vital national interests at the mercy of an ancient enemy,
+without undertaking to make corresponding sacrifices itself. The problem
+probably would never have been solved by compromise; but meanwhile the
+situation has been entirely transformed by the participation of Turkey in
+the European War, and the issue between Greece and Turkey, like the issue
+between Greece and Bulgaria, has been merged in the general problem of the
+European settlement.
+
+The Balkan War of 1912 doomed the Ottoman power in Europe, but left its
+Asiatic future unimpaired. By making war against the Quadruple Entente,
+Turkey has staked 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 accommodate her r�gime in the
+liberated islands to the susceptibilities of a Turkey consolidated on the
+opposite mainland, but will be able to stretch out her hand over the
+Anatolian coast and its hinterland, and compensate herself richly in this
+quarter for the territorial sacrifices which may still be necessary to a
+lasting understanding with her Bulgarian neighbour.
+
+The shores that dominate the Dardanelles will naturally remain beyond her
+grasp, but she may expect to establish herself on the western littoral
+from a point as far north as Mount Ida and the plain of Edremid. The Greek
+coast-town of Aivali will be hers, and the still more important focus of
+Greek commerce and civilization at Smyrna; while she will push her
+dominion along the railways that radiate from Smyrna towards the interior.
+South-eastward, Aidin will be hers in the valley of the Mendere
+(Maiandros). Due eastward she will re-baptize the glistening city of Ala
+Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia, under which it held out
+heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin had become the capital of
+a Moslem principality and the Turkish avalanche had rolled past it to the
+sea. Maybe she will follow the railway still further inland, and plant her
+flag on the Black Castle of Afiun, the natural railway-centre of Anatolia
+high up on the innermost plateau. All this and more was once Hellenic
+ground, and the Turkish incomer, for all his vitality, has never been able
+here to obliterate the older culture or assimilate the earlier population.
+In this western region Turkish villages are still interspersed with Greek,
+and under the government of compatriots the unconquerable minority would
+inevitably reassert itself by the peaceful weapons of its superior energy
+and intelligence.
+
+4. If Greece realizes these aspirations through Venezelos' statesmanship,
+she will have settled in conjunction her outstanding accounts with both
+Bulgaria and Turkey; but a fourth group of islands still remains for
+consideration, and these, though formerly the property of Turkey, are now
+in the hands of other European powers.
+
+_(a)_ The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of islands
+off the Anatolian coast which continues the line of Mitylini, Khios, and
+Samos towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos, Astypali�,
+Karpathos, Kasos, and, above all, Rhodes. The Sporades were occupied by
+Italy during her war with Turkey in 1911-12, and she stipulated in the
+Peace of Lausanne that she should retain them as a pledge until the last
+Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had been withdrawn, after which she would make
+them over again to 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 Italy until the situation was transformed
+here also by the successive intervention of both powers in the European
+War. The consequent lapse of the Treaty of Lausanne simplifies the status
+of the Sporades, but it is doubtful what effect it will have upon their
+destiny. In language and political sympathy their inhabitants are as
+completely Greek as all the other islanders of the Aegean, and if the
+Quadruple Entente has made the principle of nationality its own, Italy is
+morally bound, now that the Sporades are at her free disposal, to satisfy
+their national aspirations by consenting to their union with the kingdom
+of Greece. On the other hand, the prospective dissolution of the Ottoman
+Empire has increased Italy's stake in this quarter. In the event of a
+partition, the whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fall
+within the Italian sphere, which will start from the Gulf of Iskanderun,
+include the districts of Adana and Adalia, and march with the new
+Anatolian provinces of Greece along the line of the river Mendere. This
+continental domain and the adjacent islands are geographically
+complementary to one another, and it is possible that Italy may for
+strategical reasons insist on retaining the Sporades in perpetuity if she
+realizes her ambitions on the continent. This solution would be less ideal
+than the other, but Greece would be wise to reconcile herself to it, as
+Italy has reconciled herself to the incorporation of Corsica in France;
+for by submitting frankly to this detraction from her national unity she
+would give her brethren in the Sporades the best opportunity of developing
+their national individuality untrammelled under a friendly Italian
+suzerainty.
+
+_(b)_ The advance-guard of the Greek race that inhabits the great island
+of Cyprus has been subject to British government since 1878, when the
+provisional occupation of the island by Great Britain under a contract
+similar to that of Lausanne was negotiated in a secret agreement between
+Great Britain and Turkey on the eve of the Conference at Berlin. The
+condition of evacuation was in this case the withdrawal of Russia from
+Kars, and here likewise it never became operative till it was abrogated by
+the outbreak of war. Cyprus, like the Sporades, is now at the disposal of
+its _de facto_ possessor, and on November 5, 1914, it was annexed to the
+British Empire. But whatever decision Italy may take, it is to be hoped
+that our own government at any rate will not be influenced exclusively by
+strategical considerations, but will proclaim an intention of allowing
+Cyprus ultimately to realize its national aspirations by union with
+Greece.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, this intention, under a certain
+condition, has definitely been expressed.]
+
+The whole population of the island is Greek in language, while under an
+excellent British administration its political consciousness has been
+awakened, and has expressed itself in a growing desire for national unity
+among the Christian majority. It is true that in Cyprus, as in Krete,
+there is a considerable Greek-speaking minority of Moslems[1] who prefer
+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 to Great Britain from the strategical point of
+view, we shall find that even in the balance of material interests it is
+not worth the price of alienating the sympathy of an awakened and
+otherwise consolidated nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: In Cyprus about 22 per cent.]
+
+This rather detailed review of problems in the islands and Anatolia brings
+out the fact that Greek nationalism is not an artificial conception of
+theorists, but a real force which impels the most scattered and
+down-trodden populations of Greek speech to travail unceasingly for
+political unity within the national state. Yet by far the most striking
+example of this attractive power in Hellenism is the history of it in
+'Epirus'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The name coined to include the districts of Himarra,
+Argyrokastro, and Korits�.]
+
+The Epirots are a population of Albanian race, and they still speak an
+Albanian dialect in their homes; while the women and children, at any
+rate, often know no other language. But somewhat over a century ago the
+political organism created by the remarkable personality of Ali Pasha in
+the hinterland of the Adriatic coast, and the relations of Great Britain
+and France with this new principality in the course of their struggle for
+the Mediterranean, began to awaken in the Epirots a desire for
+civilization. Their Albanian origin opened to them no prospects, for the
+race had neither a literature nor a common historical tradition; and they
+accordingly turned to the Greeks, with whom they were linked in religion
+by membership of the Orthodox Church, and in politics by subjection to
+Ali's Government at Yannina, which had adopted Greek as its official
+language.
+
+They had appealed to the right quarter; for we have seen how Greek culture
+accumulated a store of latent energy under the Turkish yoke, and was
+expending it at this very period in a vigorous national revival. The
+partially successful War of Liberation in the 'twenties of the nineteenth
+century was only the political manifestation of the new life. It has
+expressed itself more typically in a steady and universal enthusiasm for
+education, which throughout the subsequent generations of political
+stagnation has always opened to individual Greeks commercial and
+professional careers of the greatest brilliance, and often led them to
+spend the fortunes so acquired in endowing the nation with further
+educational opportunities. Public spirit is a Greek virtue. There are few
+villages which do not possess monuments of their successful sons, and a
+school is an even commoner gift than a church; while the State has
+supplemented the individual benefactor to an extent remarkable where
+public resources are so slender. The school-house, in fact, is generally
+the most prominent and substantial building in a Greek village, and the
+advantage offered to the Epirots by a _rapprochement_ with the Greeks is
+concretely symbolized by the Greek schools established to-day in generous
+numbers throughout their country.
+
+For the Epirot boy the school is the door to the future. The language he
+learns there makes him the member of a nation, and opens to him a world
+wide enough to employ all the talent and energy he may possess, if he
+seeks his fortune at Patras or Peiraeus, or in the great Greek commercial
+communities of Alexandria and Constantinople; while, if he stays at home,
+it still affords him a link with the life of civilized Europe through the
+medium of the ubiquitous Greek newspaper.[1] The Epirot has thus become
+Greek in soul, for he has reached the conception of a national life more
+liberal than the isolated existence of his native village through the
+avenue of Greek culture. 'Hellenism' and nationality have become for him
+identical ideas; and when at last the hour of deliverance struck, he
+welcomed the Greek armies that marched into his country from the south and
+the east, after the fall of Yannina in the spring of 1913, with the same
+enthusiasm with which all the enslaved populations of native Greek dialect
+greeted the consummation of a century's hopes.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is still practically no literature printed in the
+Albanian language.]
+
+The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the 'Hellenism' of the
+Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem
+neighbours on the north. The latter speak a variety of the same Albanian
+tongue, but were differentiated by a creed which assimilated them to the
+ruling race. They had been superior to their Christian kinsmen by the
+weight of numbers and the possession of arms, which under the Ottoman
+r�gime were the monopoly of the Moslem. At last, however, the yoke of
+oppression was broken and the Greek occupation seemed a harbinger of
+security for the future. Unluckily, however, Epirus was of interest to
+others besides its own inhabitants. It occupies an important geographical
+position facing the extreme heel of Italy, just below the narrowest point
+in the neck of the Adriatic, and the Italian Government insisted that the
+country should be included in the newly erected principality of Albania,
+which the powers had reserved the right to delimit in concert by a
+provision in the Treaty of London.
+
+Italy gave two reasons for her demand. First, she declared it incompatible
+with her own vital interests that both shores of the strait between Corf�
+and the mainland should pass into the hands of the same power, because the
+combination of both coasts and the channel between them offered a site for
+a naval base that might dominate the mouth of the Adriatic. Secondly, she
+maintained that the native Albanian speech of the Epirots proved their
+Albanian nationality, and that it was unjust to the new Albanian state to
+exclude from it the most prosperous and civilized branch of the Albanian
+nation. Neither argument is cogent.
+
+The first argument could easily be met by the neutralization of the Corf�
+straits,[1] and it is also considerably weakened by the fact that the
+position which really commands the mouth of the Adriatic from the eastern
+side is not the Corf� channel beyond it but the magnificent bay of Avlona
+just within its narrowest section, and this is a Moslem district to which
+the Epirots have never laid claim, and which would therefore in any case
+fall within the Albanian frontier. The second argument is almost
+ludicrous. The destiny of Epirus is not primarily the concern of the other
+Albanians, of for that matter of the Greeks, but of the Epirots
+themselves, and it is hard to see how their nationality can be defined
+except in terms of their own conscious and expressed desire; for a nation
+is simply a group of men inspired by a common will to co-operate for
+certain purposes, and cannot be brought into existence by the external
+manipulation of any specific objective factors, but solely by the inward
+subjective impulse of its constituents. It was a travesty of justice to
+put the Orthodox Epirots at the mercy of a Moslem majority (which had been
+massacring them the year before) on the ground that they happened to speak
+the same language. The hardship was aggravated by the fact that all the
+routes connecting Epirus with the outer world run through Yannina and
+Salonika, from which the new frontier sundered her; while great natural
+barriers separate her from Avlona and Durazzo, with which the same
+frontier so ironically signalled her union.
+
+[Footnote 1: Corf� itself is neutralized already by the agreement under
+which Great Britain transferred the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863.]
+
+The award of the powers roused great indignation in Greece, but Venezelos
+was strong enough to secure that it should scrupulously be respected; and
+the 'correct attitude' which he inflexibly maintained has finally won its
+reward. As soon as the decision of the powers was announced, the Epirots
+determined to help themselves. They raised a militia, and asserted their
+independence so successfully, that they compelled the Prince of Wied, the
+first (and perhaps the last) ruler of the new 'Albania', to give them home
+rule in matters of police and education, and to recognise Greek as the
+official language for their local administration. They ensured observance
+of this compact by the maintenance of their troops under arms. So matters
+continued, until a rebellion among his Moslem subjects and the outbreak of
+the European War in the summer of 1914 obliged the prince to depart,
+leaving Albania to its natural state of anarchy. The anarchy might have
+restored every canton and village to the old state of contented isolation,
+had it not been for the religious hatred between the Moslems and the
+Epirots, which, with the removal of all external control, began to vent
+itself in an aggressive assault of the former upon the latter, and
+entailed much needless misery in the autumn months.
+
+The reoccupation of Epirus by Greek troops had now become a matter of life
+and death to its inhabitants, and in October 1914 Venezelos took the
+inevitable step, after serving due notice upon all the signatories to the
+Treaty of London. Thanks in part to the absorption of the powers in more
+momentous business, but perhaps even in a greater degree to the confidence
+which the Greek premier had justly won by his previous handling of the
+question, this action was accomplished without protest or opposition.
+Since then Epirus has remained sheltered from the vicissitudes of civil
+war within and punitive expeditions from without, to which the unhappy
+remnant of Albania has been incessantly exposed; and we may prophesy that
+the Epiroi, unlike their repudiated brethren of Moslem or Catholic faith,
+have really seen the last of their troubles. Even Italy, from whom they
+had most to fear, has obtained such a satisfactory material guarantee by
+the occupation on her own part of Avlona, that she is as unlikely to
+demand the evacuation of Epirus by Greece as she is to withdraw her own
+force from her long coveted strategical base on the eastern shore of the
+Adriatic. In Avlona and Epirus the former rivals are settling down to a
+neighbourly contact, and there is no reason to doubt that the _de facto_
+line of demarcation between them will develop into a permanent and
+officially recognized frontier. The problem of Epirus, though not,
+unfortunately, that of Albania, may be regarded as definitely closed.
+
+The reclamation of Epirus is perhaps the most honourable achievement of
+the Greek national revival, but it is by no means an isolated phenomenon.
+Western Europe is apt to depreciate modern 'Hellenism', chiefly because
+its ambitious denomination rather ludicrously challenges comparison with a
+vanished glory, while any one who has studied its rise must perceive that
+it has little more claim than western Europe itself to be the peculiar
+heir of ancient Greek culture. And yet this Hellenism of recent growth has
+a genuine vitality of its own. It displays a remarkable power of
+assimilating alien elements and inspiring them to an active pursuit of its
+ideals, and its allegiance supplants all others in the hearts of those
+exposed to its charm. The Epirots are not the only Albanians who have been
+Hellenized. In the heart of central Greece and Peloponnesus, on the plain
+of Argos, and in the suburbs of Athens, there are still Albanian enclaves,
+derived from those successive migrations between the fourteenth and the
+eighteenth centuries; but they have so entirely forgotten their origin
+that the villagers, when questioned, can only repeat: 'We can't say why we
+happen to speak "Arvanitik�", but we are Greeks like everybody else.' The
+Vlachs again, a Romance-speaking tribe of nomadic shepherds who have
+wandered as far south as Akarnania and the shores of the Korinthian Gulf,
+are settling down there to the agricultural life of the Greek village, so
+that Hellenism stands to them for the transition to a higher social phase.
+Their still migratory brethren in the northern ranges of Pindus are
+already 'Hellenes' in political sympathy,[1] and are moving under Greek
+influence towards the same social evolution. In distant Cappadocia, at the
+root of the Anatolian peninsula, the Orthodox Greek population, submerged
+beneath the Turkish flood more than eight centuries ago, has retained
+little individuality except in its religion, and nothing of its native
+speech but a garbled vocabulary embedded in a Turkified syntax. Yet even
+this dwindling rear-guard has been overtaken just in time by the 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
+fate of eastern Anatolia may be, the Greek element is now assured a
+prominent part in its future.
+
+[Footnote 1: Greece owed her naval supremacy in 1912-13 to the new cruiser
+_Georgios Averof_, named after a Vlach millionaire who made his fortune in
+the Greek colony at Alexandria and left a legacy for the ship's
+construction at his death.]
+
+These, moreover, are the peripheries of the Greek world; and at its centre
+the impulse towards union in the national state readies a passionate
+intensity. 'Aren't you better off as you are?' travellers used to ask in
+Krete during the era of autonomy. 'If you get your "Union", you will have
+to do two years' military service instead of one year's training in the
+militia, and will be taxed up to half as much again.' 'We have thought of
+that,' the Kretans would reply, 'but what does it matter, if we are united
+with Greece?'
+
+On this unity modern Hellenism has concentrated its efforts, and after
+nearly a century of ineffective endeavour it has been brought by the
+statesmanship of Venezelos within sight of its goal. Our review of
+outstanding problems reveals indeed the inconclusiveness of the settlement
+imposed at Bucarest; but this only witnesses to the wisdom of the Greek
+nation in reaffirming its confidence in Venezelos at the present juncture,
+and recalling him to power to crown the work which he has so brilliantly
+carried through. Under Venezelos' guidance we cannot doubt that the
+heart's desire of Hellenism will be accomplished at the impending European
+settlement by the final consolidation of the Hellenic national state.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This paragraph, again, has been superseded by the dramatic
+turn of events; but the writer has left it unaltered, for the end is not
+yet.]
+
+Yet however attractive the sincerity of such nationalism may be, political
+unity is only a negative achievement. The history of a nation must be
+judged rather by the positive content of its ideals and the positive
+results which it attains, and herein the Hellenic revival displays certain
+grave shortcomings. The internal paralysis of social and economic life has
+already been noted and ascribed to the urgency of the 'preliminary
+question'; but we must now add to this the growing embitterment which has
+poisoned the relations of Greece with her Balkan neighbours during the
+crises through which the 'preliminary question' has been worked out to its
+solution. Now that this solution is at hand, will Hellenism prove capable
+of casting out these two evils, and adapt itself with strength renewed to
+the new phase of development that lies before it?
+
+The northern territories acquired in 1913 will give a much greater impetus
+to economic progress than Thessaly gave a generation ago; for the
+Macedonian littoral west as well as east of the Struma produces a
+considerable proportion of the Turkish R�gie tobacco, while the
+pine-forests of Pindus, if judiciously exploited, will go far to remedy
+the present deficiency of home-grown timber, even if they do not provide
+quantities sufficient for export abroad. If we take into account the
+currant-crop of the Peloponnesian plain-lands which already almost
+monopolizes the world-market, the rare ores of the south-eastern mountains
+and the Archipelago, and the vintages which scientific treatment might
+bring into competition with the wines of the Peninsula and France, we can
+see that Greece has many sources of material prosperity within her reach,
+if only she applies her liberated energy to their development. Yet these
+are all of them specialized products, and Greece will never export any
+staple commodity to rival the grain which Rumania sends in such quantities
+to central Europe already, and which Bulgaria will begin to send within a
+few years' time. Even the consolidated Greek kingdom will be too small in
+area and too little compact in geographical outline to constitute an
+independent economic unit, and the ultimate economic interests of the
+country demand co-operation in some organization more comprehensive than
+the political molecule of the national state.
+
+Such an association should embrace the Balkans in their widest extent--
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Carpathians to the Aegean;
+for, in sharp contrast to the inextricable chaos of its linguistic and
+ecclesiastical divisions, the region constitutes economically a
+homogeneous and indivisible whole, in which none of the parts can divest
+themselves of their mutual interdependence. Greece, for example, has
+secured at last her direct link with the railway system of the European
+continent, but for free transit beyond her own frontier she still depends
+on Serbia's good-will, just, as Serbia depends on hers for an outlet to
+the Aegean at Salonika. The two states have provided for their respective
+interests by a joint proprietorship of the section of railway between
+Salonika and Belgrade; and similar railway problems will doubtless bring
+Rumania to terms with Serbia for access to the Adriatic, and both with
+Bulgaria for rights of way to Constantinople and the Anatolian hinterland
+beyond. These common commercial arteries of the Balkans take no account of
+racial or political frontiers, but link the region as a whole with other
+regions in a common economic relation.
+
+South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a
+special degree. The industries of central Europe will draw upon the raw
+products of the south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east
+will absorb in turn increasing quantities of manufactured plant from
+central Europe for the development of its own natural resources. The two
+areas will become parties in a vast economic 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 the
+future well-being of the Balkan States. Isolated individually and mutually
+competitive as they are at present, they must succumb to the economic
+ascendancy of Vienna and Berlin as inevitably as unorganized, unskilled
+labourers fall under the thraldom of a well-equipped capitalist. Central
+Europe will have in any event an enormous initial superiority over the
+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
+deliberate steps towards co-operation among themselves, and find in
+railway conventions the basis for a Balkan zollverein. A zollverein should
+be the first goal of Balkan statesmanship in the new phase of history that
+is opening for Europe; but economic relations on this scale involve the
+political factor, and the Balkans will not be able to deal with their
+great neighbours on equal terms till the zollverein has ripened into a
+federation. The alternative is subjection, both political and economic;
+and neither the exhaustion of the Central Powers in the present struggle
+nor the individual consolidation of the Balkan States in the subsequent
+settlement will suffice by 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 accordingly lead on to the confederation
+of the Balkans, if all that has been so painfully won is not to perish
+again without result; and we are confronted with the question: Will Balkan
+nationalism rise to the occasion and transcend itself?
+
+Many spectators of recent history will dismiss the suggestion as Utopian.
+'Nationality', they will say, 'revealed itself first as a constructive
+force, and Europe staked its future upon it; but now that we are committed
+to it, it has developed a sinister destructiveness which we cannot remedy.
+Nationality brought the Balkan States into being and led them to final
+victory over the Turk in 1912, only to set them tearing one another to
+pieces again in 1913. In the present catastrophe the curse of the Balkans
+has descended upon the whole of Europe, and laid bare unsuspected depths
+of chaotic hatred; yet Balkan antagonisms still remain more ineradicable
+than ours. The cure for nationality is forgetfulness, but Balkan
+nationalism is rooted altogether in the past. The Balkan peoples have
+suffered one shattering experience in common--the Turk, and the waters of
+Ottoman oppression that have gone over their souls have not been waters of
+Lethe. They have endured long centuries of spiritual exile by the
+passionate remembrance of their Sion, and when they have vindicated their
+heritage at last, 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 repatriated Jew resented the Samaritan. The Greek
+dreams with sullen intensity of a golden age before the Bulgar was found
+in the land, and the challenge implied in the revival of the Hellenic
+name, so far from being a superficial vanity, is the dominant
+characteristic of the nationalism which has adopted it for its title.
+Modern Hellenism breathes the inconscionable spirit of the _�migr�_.'
+
+This is only too true. The faith that has carried them to national unity
+will suffice neither the Greeks nor any other Balkan people for the new
+era that has dawned upon them, and the future would look dark indeed, but
+for a strange and incalculable leaven, which is already potently at work
+in the land.
+
+Since 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 to the Greek villages
+in the Laconian hills they have been crossing the Atlantic in their
+thousands, to become dockers and navvies, boot-blacks and waiters,
+confectioners and barbers in Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, and all the other
+cities that have sprung up like magic to welcome the immigrant to the
+hospitable plains of the Middle West. The intoxication of his new
+environment stimulates all the latent industry and vitality of the Balkan
+peasant, and he abandons himself whole-heartedly to American life; yet he
+does not relinquish the national tradition in which he grew up. In America
+work brings wealth, and the Greek or Slovak soon worships his God in a
+finer church and reads his language in a better-printed newspaper than he
+ever enjoyed in his native village. The surplus flows home in remittances
+of such abundance that they are steadily raising the cost of living in the
+Balkans themselves, or, in other words, the standard of material
+civilization; and sooner or later the immigrant goes the way of his money
+orders, for home-sickness, if not a mobilization order, exerts its
+compulsion before half a dozen years are out.
+
+It is a strange experience to spend a night in some remote
+mountain-village of Greece, and see Americanism and Hellenism face to
+face. Hellenism is represented by the village schoolmaster. He wears a
+black coat, talks a little French, and can probably read Homer; but his
+longest journey has been to the normal school at Athens, and it has not
+altered his belief that the ikon in the neighbouring monastery was made by
+St. Luke and the Bulgar beyond the mountains by the Devil. On the other
+side of you sits the returned emigrant, chattering irrepressibly in his
+queer version of the 'American language', and showing you the newspapers
+which are mailed to him every fortnight from the States. His clean linen
+collar and his well-made American boots are conspicuous upon him, and he
+will deprecate on your behalf and his own the discomfort and squalor of
+his native surroundings. His home-coming has been a disillusionment, but
+it is a creative phenomenon; and if any one can set Greece upon a new path
+it is he. He is transforming her material life by his American savings,
+for they are accumulating into a capital widely distributed in native
+hands, which will dispense the nation from pawning its richest mines and
+vineyards to the European exploiter, and enable it to carry on their
+development on its own account at this critical juncture when European
+sources of capital are cut off for an indefinite period by the disaster of
+the European War. The emigrant will give Greece all Trikoupis dreamed of,
+but his greatest gift to his country will be his American point of view.
+In the West he has learnt that men of every language and religion can live
+in the same city and work at the same shops and sheds and mills and
+switch-yards without desecrating each other's churches or even suppressing
+each other's newspapers, not to speak of cutting each other's throats; and
+when next he meets Albanian or Bulgar on Balkan ground, he may remember
+that he has once dwelt with him in fraternity at Omaha or St. Louis or
+Chicago. This is the gospel of Americanism, and unlike Hellenism, which
+spread downwards from the patriarch's residence and the merchant's
+counting-house, it is being preached in all the villages of the land by
+the least prejudiced and most enterprising of their sons (for it is these
+who answer America's call); and spreading upward from the peasant towards
+the professor in the university and the politician in parliament.
+
+Will this new leaven conquer, and cast out the stale leaven of Hellenism
+before it sours the loaf? Common sense is mighty, but whether it shall
+prevail in Greece and the Balkans and Europe lies on the knees of the
+gods.
+
+
+
+
+RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS
+
+
+
+1
+
+_Introduction_
+
+
+The problem of the origin and formation of the Rumanian nation has always
+provided matter for keen disputation among historians, and the theories
+which have been advanced are widely divergent. Some of these discussions
+have been undertaken solely for political reasons, and in such cases
+existing data prove conveniently adaptable. This elastic treatment of the
+historical data is facilitated by the fact that a long and important
+period affecting the formation and the development of the Rumanian nation
+(270-1220) has bequeathed practically no contemporary evidence. By linking
+up, however, what is known antecedent to that period with the precise data
+available regarding the following it, and by checking the inferred results
+with what little evidence exists respecting the obscure epoch of Rumanian
+history, it has been possible to reconstruct, almost to a certainty, the
+evolution of the Rumanians during the Middle Ages.
+
+A discussion of the varying theories would be out of proportion, and out
+of place, in this essay. Nor is it possible to give to any extent a
+detailed description of the epic struggle which the Rumanians carried on
+for centuries against the Turks. I shall have to deal, therefore, on broad
+lines, with the historical facts--laying greater stress only upon the
+three fundamental epochs of Rumanian history: the formation of the
+Rumanian nation; its initial casting into a national polity (foundation of
+the Rumanian principalities); and its final evolution into the actual
+unitary State; and shall then pass on to consider the more recent internal
+and external development of Rumania, and her present attitude.
+
+
+
+2
+
+_Formation of the Rumanian Nation_
+
+
+About the fifth century B.C., when the population of the Balkan-Carpathian
+region consisted of various tribes belonging to the Indo-European family,
+the northern portion of the Balkan peninsula was conquered by the
+Thracians and the Illyrians. The Thracians spread north and south, and a
+branch of their race, the Dacians, crossed the Danube. The latter
+established themselves on both sides of the Carpathian ranges, in the
+region which now comprises the provinces of Oltenia (Rumania), and Banat
+and Transylvania (Hungary). The Dacian Empire expanded till its boundaries
+touched upon those of the Roman Empire. The Roman province of Moesia
+(between the Danube and the Balkans) fell before its armies, and the
+campaign that ensued was so successful that the Dacians were able to
+compel Rome to an alliance.
+
+Two expeditions undertaken against Dacia by the Emperor Trajan (98-117)
+released Rome from these ignominious obligations, and brought Dacia under
+Roman rule (A.D. 106). Before his second expedition Trajan erected a stone
+bridge over the Danube, the remains of which can still be seen at
+Turnu-Severin, a short distance below the point where the Danube enters
+Rumanian territory. Trajan celebrated his victory by erecting at Adam
+Klissi (in the province of Dobrogea) the recently discovered _Tropaeum
+Traiani_, and in Rome the celebrated 'Trajan's Column', depicting in
+marble reliefs various episodes of the Dacian wars.
+
+The new Roman province was limited to the regions originally inhabited by
+the Dacians, and a strong garrison, estimated by historians at 25,000 men,
+was left to guard it. Numerous colonists from all parts of the Roman
+Empire were brought here as settlers, and what remained of the Dacian
+population completely amalgamated with them. The new province quickly
+developed under the impulse of Roman civilization, of which numerous
+inscriptions and other archaeological remains are evidence. It became one
+of the most flourishing dependencies of the Roman Empire, and was spoken
+of as _Dacia Felix_.
+
+About a century and a half later hordes of barbarian invaders, coming from
+the north and east, swept over the country. Under the strain of those
+incursions the Roman legions withdrew by degrees into Moesia, and in A.D.
+271 Dacia was finally evacuated. But the colonists remained, retiring into
+the Carpathians, where they lived forgotten of history.
+
+The most powerful of these invaders were the Goths (271-375), who, coming
+from the shores of the Baltic, had shortly before settled north of the
+Black Sea. Unaccustomed to mountain life, they did not penetrate beyond
+the plains between the Carpathians and the Dnjester. They had consequently
+but little intercourse with the Daco-Roman population, and the total
+absence in the Rumanian language and in Rumanian place-names of words of
+Gothic origin indicates that their stay had no influence upon country or
+population. Material evidence of their occupation is 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 (375-453), under Attila, the Avars
+(566-799), both of Mongolian race, and the Gepidae (453-566), of Gothic
+race--all savage, bloodthirsty raiders, passing and repassing over the
+Rumanian regions, pillaging and burning everywhere. To avoid destruction
+the Daco-Roman population withdrew more and more into the inaccessible
+wooded regions of the mountains, and as a result were in no wise
+influenced by contact with 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 ethnical conditions prevailing on the Danube. The
+Rumanians were separated from the Romans, following the occupation by the
+Slavs of the Roman provinces between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Such
+part of the population as was not annihilated during the raids of the
+Avars was taken into captivity, or compelled to retire southwards towards
+modern Macedonia and northwards towards the Dacian regions.
+
+Parts of the Rumanian country became dependent upon the new state founded
+between the Balkans and the Danube in 679 by the Bulgarians, a people of
+Turanian origin, who formerly inhabited the regions north of the Black Sea
+between the Volga and the mouth of the Danube.
+
+After the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity (864) the Slovenian
+language was introduced into their Church, and afterwards also into the
+Church of the already politically dependent Rumanian provinces.[1] This
+finally severed the Daco-Rumanians from the Latin world. The former
+remained for a long time under Slav influence, the extent of which is
+shown by the large number of words of Slav origin contained in the
+Rumanian language, especially in geographical and agricultural
+terminology.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians north and south of the Danube embraced the
+Christian faith after its introduction into the Roman Empire by
+Constantine the Great (325), with Latin as religious language and their
+church organization under the rule of Rome. A Christian basilica, dating
+from that period, has been discovered by the Rumanian; archaeologist,
+Tocilescu, at Adam Klissi (Dobrogea).]
+
+The coming of the Hungarians (a people of Mongolian race) about the end of
+the ninth century put an end to the Bulgarian domination in Dacia. While a
+few of the existing Rumanian duchies were subdued by Stephen the Saint,
+the first King of Hungary (995-1038), the 'land of the Vlakhs' (_Terra
+Blacorum_), in the south-eastern part of Transylvania, enjoyed under the
+Hungarian kings a certain degree of national autonomy. The Hungarian
+chronicles speak of the Vlakhs as 'former colonists of the Romans'. The
+ethnological influence of the Hungarians upon the Rumanian population has
+been practically nil. They found the Rumanian nation firmly established,
+race and language, and the latter remained pure of Magyarisms, even in
+Transylvania. Indeed, it is easy to prove--and it is only what might be
+expected, seeing that the Rumanians had attained a higher state of
+civilization than the Hungarian invaders--that the Hungarians were largely
+influenced by the Daco-Romans. They adopted Latin as their official
+language, they copied many of the institutions and customs of the
+Rumanians, 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 were, however, inimical
+to the new masters, and migrated to the regions across the mountains. This
+the Hungarians used as a pretext for bringing parts of Rumania under their
+domination, and they were only prevented from further extending it by the
+coming of the Tartars (1241), the last people of Mongolian origin to harry
+these regions. The Hungarians maintained themselves, however, in the parts
+which they had already occupied, until the latter were united into the
+principality of the 'Rumanian land'.
+
+To sum up: 'The Rumanians are living to-day where fifteen centuries ago
+their ancestors were living. The possession 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, detached from their native soil,
+disappeared as mist before the sun. But the Roman element bent their heads
+while the storm passed over them, clinging to the old places until the
+advent of happier days, when they were able to stand up and stretch their
+limbs.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Traugott Tamm, _�ber den Ursprung der Rum�nen,_, Bonn, 1891.]
+
+
+
+3
+
+_The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities_
+
+
+The first attempt to organize itself into a political entity was made by
+the Rumanian nation in the thirteenth century, when, under the impulse of
+the disaffected nobles coming from Hungary, the two principalities of
+'Muntenia' (Mountain Land), commonly known as Wallachia and 'Moldavia',
+came into being. The existence of Rumanians on both sides of the
+Carpathians long before Wallachia was founded is corroborated by
+contemporary chroniclers. We find evidence of it in as distant a source as
+the _History of the Mongols,_ of the Persian chronicler, Rashid Al-Din,
+who, describing the invasion of the Tartars, says: 'In the middle of
+spring (1240) the princes (Mongols or Tartars) crossed the mountains in
+order to enter the country of the Bulares (Bulgarians) and of the
+Bashguirds (Hungarians). Orda, who was marching to the right, passed
+through the country of the Haute (Olt), where Bazarambam met him with an
+army, but was beaten. Boudgek crossed the mountains to enter the
+Kara-Ulak, and defeated the Ulak (Vlakh) people.'[1] Kara-Ulak means Black
+Wallachia; Bazarambam is certainly the corrupted name of the Ban Bassarab,
+who ruled as vassal of Hungary over the province of Oltenia, and whose
+dynasty founded the principality of Muntenia. The early history of this
+principality was marked by efforts to free it from Hungarian domination, a
+natural development of the desire for emancipation which impelled the
+Rumanians to migrate from the subdued provinces in Hungary.
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, _Histoire des Roumains,_ Paris, 1896, i, 168.]
+
+The foundation of Moldavia dates from after the retreat of the Tartars,
+who had occupied the country for a century (1241-1345). They were driven
+out by an expedition under Hungarian leadership, with the aid of Rumanians
+from the province of Maramuresh. It was the latter who then founded the
+principality of Moldavia under the suzerainty of Hungary, the chroniclers
+mentioning as its first ruler the Voivod Dragosh.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The legend as to the foundation of Moldavia tells us that
+Dragosh, when hunting one day in the mountains, was pursuing a bison
+through the dense forest. Towards sunset, just when a successful shot from
+his bow had struck and killed the animal, he emerged at a point from which
+the whole panorama of Moldavia was unfolded before his astonished eyes.
+Deeply moved by the beauty of this fair country, he resolved to found a
+state there. It is in commemoration of this event that Moldavia bears the
+head of a wild bison on her banner.]
+
+The rudimentary political formations which already existed before the
+foundation of the principalities were swept away by the invasion of the
+Tartars, who destroyed all trace of constituted authority in the plains
+below the Carpathians. In consequence the immigrants from Transylvania did
+not encounter any resistance, and were even able to impose obedience upon
+the native population, though coming rather as refugees than as
+conquerors. These new-comers were mostly nobles (boyards). Their
+emigration deprived the masses of the Rumanian population of Transylvania
+of all moral and political support--especially as a part of the nobility
+had already been won over by their Hungarian masters--and with time the
+masses fell into servitude. On the other hand the immigrating nobles
+strengthened and secured the predominance of their class in the states
+which were to be founded. In both cases the situation of the peasantry
+became worse, and we have, curiously enough, the same social fact brought
+about by apparently contrary causes.
+
+Though the Rumanians seem to have contributed but little, up to the
+nineteenth century, to the advance of civilization, their part in European
+history is nevertheless a glorious one, and if less apparent, perhaps of
+more fundamental importance. By shedding their blood in the struggle
+against the Ottoman invasion, they, together with the other peoples of
+Oriental Europe, procured that security which alone made possible the
+development of western civilization. Their merit, like that of all with
+whom they fought, 'is not to have vanquished time and again the followers
+of Mohammed, 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
+heavy price, that their resources were drained, they were unable to carry
+on the fight, and thus their power came to an end'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., i. 266.]
+
+From the phalanx of Christian warriors stand out the names of a few who
+were the bravest of a time when bravery was common; but while it is at
+least due that more tribute than a mere mention of their names should be
+paid to the patriot princes who fought in life-long conflict against
+Turkish domination, space does not permit me to give more than the
+briefest summary of the wars which for centuries troubled the country.
+
+It was in 1389, when Mircea the Old was Prince of Wallachia, that the
+united Balkan nations attempted for the first 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 the battle of
+Rovine (1398), where Mircea defeated an invading Turkish army, the country
+had peace, until Turkish victories under the Sultan Mohammed resulted, in
+1411, in further submissions to tribute.
+
+It is worthy of mention that it was on the basis of tribute that the
+relations between Turkey and Rumania rested until 1877, the Rumanian
+provinces becoming at no time what Hungary was for a century and a half,
+namely, a Turkish province.
+
+In a battle arising following his frustration--by means not unconnected
+with his name--of a Turkish plot against his person, Vlad the Impaler
+(1458-62) completely defeated the Turks under Mohammed II; but an
+unfortunate feud against Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, put an end
+to the reign of Vlad--a fierce but just prince.
+
+A period of the most lamentable decadence followed, during which Turkish
+domination prevailed more and more in the country. During an interval of
+twenty-five years (1521-46) no less than eleven princes succeeded one
+another on the throne of Muntenia, whilst of the nineteen princes who
+ruled during the last three-quarters of the sixteenth century, only two
+died a natural death while still reigning.
+
+In Moldavia also internal struggles were weakening the country. Not
+powerful enough to do away with one another, the various aspirants to the
+throne contented themselves with occupying and ruling over parts of the
+province. Between 1443-7 there were no less than three princes reigning
+simultaneously, whilst one of them, Peter III, lost and regained the
+throne three times.
+
+For forty-seven years (1457-1504) Stephen the Great fought for the
+independence of Moldavia. At Racova, in 1475, he annihilated an Ottoman
+army in a victory considered the greatest ever secured by the Cross
+against Islam. The Shah of 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 Persians against the common foe.
+These princes, as well as Pope Sixtus IV, gave him great praise; but when
+Stephen 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 divide Moldavia between them. A
+Polish army entered the country, but was utterly destroyed by Stephen in
+the forest of Kosmin.
+
+Having had the opportunity of judging at its right value the friendship of
+the Christian princes, on his death-bed Stephen advised his son Bogdan to
+make voluntary submission to the Turks. Thus Moldavia, like Wallachia,
+came under Turkish suzerainty.
+
+For many years after Stephen's death the Turks exploited the Rumanian
+countries shamelessly, the very candidates for the throne having to pay
+great sums for Turkish support. The country groaned under the resultant
+taxation and the promiscuousness of the tribute exacted till, in 1572,
+John the Terrible ascended the Moldavian throne. This prince refused to
+pay tribute, and repeatedly defeated the Turks. An army of 100,000 men
+advanced against John; but his cavalry, composed of nobles not over-loyal
+to a prince having the peasant cause so much at heart, deserted to the
+enemy, with the result that, after a gallant and prolonged resistance, he
+suffered defeat.
+
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Muntenia (1593-1601), was the last of the
+Vlakhs to stand up against Turkish aggression. This prince not only
+succeeded in crushing a Turkish army sent against him, but he invaded
+Transylvania, whose prince had leanings towards Turkey, pushed further
+into Moldavia, and succeeded in bringing the three Rumanian countries
+under his rule. Michael is described in the documents of the time as
+'Prince of the whole land of Hungro-Wallachia, of Transylvania, and of
+Moldavia'. He ruled for eight years. 'It was not the Turkish sword which
+put an end to the exploits of Michael the Brave. The Magyars of
+Transylvania betrayed him; the German emperor condemned him; and a Greek
+in Austria's service, General Basta, had him sabred: as though it were
+fated that 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 the Rumanian lands which he realized did not last
+long; but it gave form and substance to the idea which was from that day
+onward to be the ideal of the Rumanian nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Alfred Rumbaud, Introduction to Xenopol, op, cit., i. xix.]
+
+The fundamental cause of all the sufferings of the Rumanian principalities
+was the hybrid 'hereditary-elective' system of succession to the throne,
+which prevailed also in most of the neighbouring countries. All members of
+the princely family were eligible for the succession; but the right of
+selecting among them lay with an assembly composed of the higher nobility
+and clergy. All was well if a 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 with promises, 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 factors in the choice and election of the ruler.
+
+Economically and intellectually all this was disastrous. The Rumanians
+were an agricultural people. The numerous class of small freeholders
+(moshneni and razeshi), not being able to pay the exorbitant taxes, often
+had their lands confiscated by the princes. Often, too, not being able to
+support themselves, they sold their property and their very selves to the
+big landowners. Nor did the nobles fare better. Formerly free,
+quasi-feudal warriors, seeking fortune in reward for services rendered to
+their prince, they were often subjected to coercive treatment on his part
+now that the throne depended upon the goodwill of influential personages
+at Constantinople. Various civil offices were created at court, either
+necessitated by the extension of the relations of the country or intended
+to satisfy some favourite of the prince. Sources of social position 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 best to undermine the position of the prince.
+
+
+
+4
+
+_The Phanariote Rule_
+
+
+These offices very presently fell to the lot of the Phanariotes (Greek
+merchants and bankers inhabiting the quarter of Phanar), who had in some
+way or another assisted the princes to their thrones, these being now
+practically put up to auction in Constantinople. As a natural consequence
+of such a state of affairs the thoughts of the Rumanian princes turned to
+Russia as a possible supporter against Ottoman oppression. A formal
+alliance was entered into in 1711 with Tsar Peter the Great, but a joint
+military action against the Turks failed, the Tsar returned to Russia, and
+the Porte threatened to transform Moldavia, in order to secure her against
+incipient Russian influence, into a Turkish province with a pasha as
+administrator. The nobles were preparing to leave the country, and the
+people to retire into the mountains, as their ancestors had done in times
+of danger. It is not to be wondered at 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 people
+greeted with joy the accession of the first Phanariote to the throne of
+the principality of Moldavia'[1] (1711).
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., ii. 138]
+
+Knowledge of foreign languages had enabled the Phanariotes to obtain
+important diplomatic positions at Constantinople, and they ended by
+acquiring the thrones of the Rumanian principalities as a recompense for
+their services. But they had to pay for it, and to make matters more
+profitable 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 thrones in this way three times. They acquired the throne by
+gold, and they could only keep it by gold. All depended upon how much they
+wore able to squeeze out of the country. The princes soon became past
+masters in the art of spoliation. They put taxes upon chimneys, and the
+starving peasants pulled their cottages down and went to live in mountain
+caves; they taxed the animals, and the peasants preferred to kill the few
+beasts they possessed. But this often proved no remedy, for we are told
+that the Prince Constantin Mavrocordato, having prescribed a tax on
+domestic animals at a time when an epidemic had broken out amongst them,
+ordered the tax to be levied on the carcasses. 'The Administrative r�gime
+during the Phanariote period was, in general, little else than organized
+brigandage,' says Xenopol[1]. In fact the Phanariote rule was instinct
+with corruption, luxury, and intrigue. Though individually some of them
+may not deserve blame, yet considering what the Phanariotes took out of
+the country, what they introduced into it, and to what extent they
+prevented its development, their era was the most calamitous in Rumanian
+history.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid, op. cit., ii. 308]
+
+The war of 1768 between Russia and Turkey gave the former power a vague
+protectorate over the Rumanian provinces (Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji). In
+1774 Austria acquired from the Turks, by false promises, the northern part
+of Moldavia, the pleasant land of Bucovina. During the new conflict
+between Turkey and Russia, the Russian armies occupied and battened upon
+the Rumanian provinces for six years. Though they had again to abandon
+their intention of making the Danube the southern boundary of their
+empire--to which Napoleon had agreed by the secret treaty with Tsar
+Alexander (Erfurt, September 27, 1808)--they obtained from Turkey the
+cession of Bessarabia (Treaty of Bucarest, May 28, 1812), together with
+that part of Moldavia lying between the Dnjester and the Pruth, the
+Russians afterwards giving to the whole region the name of Bessarabia.
+
+
+
+5
+
+_Modern Period to 1866_
+
+
+In 1821 the Greek revolution, striving to create an independent Greece,
+broke out on Rumanian ground, supported by the princes of Moldavia and
+Muntenia. Of this support the Rumanians strongly disapproved, for, if
+successful, the movement would have strengthened the obnoxious Greek
+domination; If unsuccessful, the Turks were sure to take a terrible
+revenge for the assistance given by the Rumanian countries. The movement,
+which was started about the same time by the ennobled peasant, Tudor
+Vladimirescu, for the emancipation of the lower classes, soon acquired,
+therefore, an anti-Greek tendency. Vladimirescu was assassinated at the
+instigation of the Greeks; the latter were completely checked by the
+Turks, who, grown suspicious after the Greek rising and confronted with
+the energetic attitude of the Rumanian nobility, consented in 1822 to the
+nomination of two native boyards, Jonitza Sturdza and Gregory Ghica,
+recommended by their countrymen, as princes of 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 influence in the Rumanian
+principalities also marks the growth of Russian influence; the first meant
+economic exploitation, the second was a serious menace to the very
+existence of the Rumanian nation. But if Russia seemed a possible future
+danger, Turkey with its Phanariote following was a certain and immediate
+menace. When, therefore, at the outbreak of the conflict with Turkey in
+1828 the Russians once more passed the Pruth, the country welcomed them.
+Indeed, the Rumanian boyards, who after the rising of 1821 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 Treaty of Adrianople (1829) the rights of Turkey as suzerain were
+limited to the exaction of a monetary tribute and the right of investiture
+of the princes, one important innovation being that these last were to be
+elected by national assemblies for life. But, on the other hand, a Russian
+protectorate was established, and the provinces remained in Russian
+military occupation up to 1834, pending the payment of the war indemnity
+by Turkey. The ultimate aim of Russia may be open to discussion. Her
+immediate aim was to make Russian influence paramount in the
+principalities; this being the only possible explanation of the anomalous
+fact that, pending the payment of the war indemnity, Russia herself was
+occupying the provinces whose autonomy she had but now forcibly retrieved
+from Turkey. The _R�glement Organique_, the new constitutional law given
+to the principalities by their Russian governor, Count Kisseleff, truly
+reflected the tendency. From the administrative point of view it was meant
+to make for progress; from the political point of view it was meant to
+bind the two principalities to the will of the Tsar. The personal charm of
+Count Kisseleff seemed to have established as it were an unbreakable link
+between Russians and Rumanians. But when he left the country in 1834 'the
+liking for Russia passed away to be replaced finally by the two sentiments
+which always most swayed the Rumanian heart: love for their country, and
+affection towards France'.
+
+[Footnote 1: Sec P. Eliade, _Histoire de l'Esprit Public en Roumanie_, i,
+p. 167 et seq.]
+
+French culture had been introduced into the principalities by 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 their children. With the Russian occupation a fresh
+impetus was given to French culture, which was pre-eminent in Russia at
+the time; and the Russian officials, not speaking the language of the
+country, generally employed French in their relations with the Rumanian
+authorities, French being already widely spoken in Rumania. The contact
+with French civilization, at an epoch when the Rumanians were striving to
+free themselves from Turkish, Greek, and Russian political influence,
+roused in them the sleeping Latin spirit, 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 in their history
+the Rumanians felt themselves drawn towards France, no less by racial
+affinity than by the liberal ideas to which that country had so
+passionately given herself during several decades.
+
+By the Treaty of Adrianople the Black Sea was opened to the commercial
+vessels of all nations. This made for the rapid economic development of
+the principalities by providing an outlet for their agricultural produce,
+the chief source of their wealth. It also brought them nearer to western
+Europe, which began to be interested in a nation whose spirit centuries of
+sufferings had failed to break. Political, literary, and economic events
+thus prepared the ground for the Rumanian Renascence, and when in 1848 the
+great revolution broke out, it spread at once over the Rumanian countries,
+where the dawn of freedom had been struggling to break since 1821. The
+Rumanians of Transylvania rose against the tyranny of the Magyars; those
+of Moldavia and Muntenia against the oppressive influence of Russia. The
+movement under the gallant, but inexperienced, leadership of a few
+patriots, who, significantly enough, had almost all been educated in
+France, was, however, soon checked in the principalities by the joint
+action of Russian and Turkish forces which remained in occupation of the
+country. Many privileges were lost (Convention of Balta Liman, May 1,
+1849); but the revolution had quickened the national sentiment of the
+younger generation in all classes of society, and the expatriated leaders,
+dispersed throughout the great capitals of Europe, strenuously set to work
+to publish abroad the righteous cause of their country. In this they
+received the enthusiastic and invaluable assistance of Edgar Quinet,
+Michelet, Saint-Marc Girardin, and others.
+
+This propaganda had the fortune to be contemporaneous and in agreement
+with the political events leading to the Crimean War, which was entered
+upon to check the designs of Russia. A logical consequence was the idea,
+raised at the Paris Congress of 1856, of the union of the Rumanian
+principalities as a barrier to Russian expansion. This idea found a
+powerful supporter in Napoleon III, ever a staunch upholder of the
+principle of nationality. But at the Congress the unexpected happened.
+Russia favoured the idea of union, 'to swallow the two principalities at a
+gulp,' as a contemporary diplomatist maliciously suggested; while Austria
+opposed it strongly. So, inconceivably enough, did Turkey, whose attitude,
+as the French ambassador at Constantinople, Thouvenel, put it, 'was less
+influenced by the opposition of Austria than by the approval of
+Russia'.[1] Great Britain also threw in her weight with the powers which
+opposed the idea of union, following her traditional policy of preserving
+the European equilibrium. The treaty of March 30, 1856, re-incorporated
+with Moldavia the southern part of Bessarabia, including the delta of the
+Danube, abolished the Russian protectorate, but confirmed the suzerainty
+of Turkey--not unnaturally, since the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had
+been the prime motive of the war. By prohibiting Turkey, however, from
+entering Rumanian territory, save with the consent of the great powers, it
+was recognized indirectly that the suzerainty was merely a nominal one.
+Article 23 of the treaty, by providing that the administration of the
+principalities was to be on a national basis, implicitly pointed to the
+idea of union, as the organization of one principality independently of
+the other would not have been national. But as the main argument of Turkey
+and Austria was that the Rumanians themselves did not desire the union, it
+was decided to convene in both principalities special assemblies (divans
+_ad hoc_) representing all classes of the population, whose wishes were to
+be embodied, by a European commission, in a report for consideration by
+the Congress.
+
+[Footnote 1: A. Xenopol, _Unionistii si Separatistii_ (Paper read before
+the Rumanian Academy), 1909.]
+
+To understand the argument of the two powers concerned and the decision to
+which it led, it must be borne in mind that the principalities were in the
+occupation of an Austrian army, which had replaced the Russian armies
+withdrawn in 1854, and that the elections for the assemblies were to be
+presided over by Turkish commissaries. Indeed, the latter, in
+collaboration with the Austrian consuls, so successfully doctored the
+election lists,[1] that the idea of union might once more have fallen
+through, had it not been for the invaluable assistance which Napoleon III
+gave the Rumanian countries. As Turkish policy was relying mainly on
+England's support, Napoleon brought about a personal meeting with Queen
+Victoria and Prince Albert, at Osborne (August 1857), the result of which
+was a compromise: Napoleon agreed to defer for the time being the idea of
+an effective union of the two principalities, England undertaking, on the
+other hand, to make the Porte cancel the previous elections, and proceed
+to new ones after revision of the electoral lists. The corrupt Austrian
+and Turkish influence on the old elections was best demonstrated by the
+fact that only three of the total of eighty-four old members succeeded in
+securing re-election. The assemblies met and proclaimed as imperatively
+necessary to the future welfare of the provinces, their union, 'for no
+frontier divides us, and everything tends to bring us closer, and nothing
+to separate 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 us has been a constant
+pretext for foreign interference, and the throne has been the cause of
+unending feud among the great families of this country'. Moreover, if the
+union of the two principalities was to be accomplished under a native
+prince, it is obvious that the competition would have become doubly keen;
+not to speak of the jealousies likely to be arousal between Moldavians and
+Muntenians.
+
+[Footnote 1: The edifying correspondence between the Porte and its
+commissary Vorgorid�s regarding the arrangements for the Rumanian
+elections fell into the hands of Rumanian politicians, and caused a great
+sensation when it appeared in _L'Etoile du Danube_, published in Brussels
+by Rumanian _�migr�s_.]
+
+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
+started on the high road of progress. But Europe had called for the
+expression of these wishes only to get the question shelved for the
+moment, as in 1856 everybody was anxious for a peace which should at all
+costs be speedy. Consequently, when a second Congress met in Paris, in May
+1858, three months of discussion and the sincere efforts of France only
+resulted in a hybrid structure entitled the 'United Principalities'. These
+were to have a common legislation, a common army, and a central committee
+composed of representatives of both assemblies for the discussion of
+common affairs; but were to continue to form two separate states, with
+independent legislative and executive institutions, each having to elect a
+prince of Rumanian descent for life.
+
+Disappointed in their hopes and reasonable expectations, the Rumanians
+adopted the principle of 'help yourself and God will help you', and
+proceeded to the election of their rulers. Several candidates competed in
+Moldavia. To avoid a split vote the name of an outsider was put forward
+the day before the election, and on January 17, 1859, Colonel Alexander
+Ioan Cuza was unanimously elected. In Wallachia the outlook was very
+uncertain when the assembly met, amid great popular excitement, on
+February 5. The few patriots who had realized that the powers, seeking
+only their own interests, were consciously and of set purpose hampering
+the emancipation of a long-suffering nation, put forth and urged the
+election of Cuza, and the assembly unanimously adopted this spirited
+suggestion. By this master-stroke the Rumanians had quietly accomplished
+the reform which was an indispensable condition towards assuring a better
+future. The political moment was propitious. Italy's military preparation
+prevented Austria from intervening, and, as usual when confronted with an
+accomplished fact, the great powers and Turkey finished by officially
+recognizing the action of the principalities in December 1861. The central
+commission was at once abolished, the two assemblies and cabinets merged
+into one, and Bucarest became the capital of the new state 'Rumania'.
+
+If the unsympathetic attitude of the powers had any good result, it was to
+bring home for the moment to the Rumanians the necessity for national
+unity. When the danger passed, however, the wisdom which it had evoked
+followed suit. Cuza cherished the hope of realizing various ideal reforms.
+Confronted with strong opposition, he did not hesitate to override the
+constitution by dissolving the National Assembly (May 2, 1864) and
+arrogating to himself the right, till the formation of a new Chamber, to
+issue decrees which had all the force of law. He thus gave a dangerous
+example to the budding constitutional polity; political passions were let
+loose, and a plot organized by the Opposition led to the forced abdication
+of Cuza on February 23, 1866. The prince left the country for ever a few
+days later. No disturbance whatever took place, not one drop of blood was
+shed.
+
+A series of laws, mostly adapted from French models, was introduced by
+Cuza. Under the Education Act of 1864 all degrees of education were free,
+and elementary education compulsory. A large number of special and
+technical schools were founded, as well as two universities, one at Jassy
+(1860) and one at Bucarest (1864). After the _coup d'�tat_ of 1864
+universal suffrage was introduced, largely as an attempt to 'swamp' the
+fractious political parties with the peasant vote; while at the same time
+a 'senate' was created as a 'moderating assembly' which, composed as it
+was of members by right and members nominated by the prince, by its very
+nature increased the influence of the crown. The chief reforms concerned
+the rural question. Firstly, Cuza and his minister, Cogalniceanu,
+secularized and converted to the state the domains of the monasteries,
+which during the long period of Greek influence had acquired one-fifth of
+the total area of the land, and were completely in the hands of the Greek
+clergy (Law of December 13, 1863). More important still, as affecting
+fundamentally the social structure of the country, was the Rural Law
+(promulgated on August 26, 1864), which had been the cause of the conflict
+between Cuza and the various political factions, the Liberals clamouring
+for more thorough reforms, the Conservatives denouncing Cuza's project as
+revolutionary. As the peasant question is the most important problem left
+for Rumania to solve, and as I believe that, in a broad sense, it has a
+considerable bearing upon the present political situation in that country,
+it may not be out of place here to devote a little space to its
+consideration.
+
+Originally the peasant lived in the village community as a free
+land-owner. He paid a certain due (one-tenth of his produce and three
+days' labour yearly) to his leader (_cneaz_) as recompense for his
+leadership in peace and war. The latter, moreover, solely enjoyed the
+privilege of carrying on the occupations of miller and innkeeper, and the
+peasant was compelled to mill with him. When after the foundation of the
+principalities the upper class was established on a feudal basis, the
+peasantry were subjected to constantly increasing burdens. Impoverished
+and having in many cases lost their land, the peasants were also deprived
+at the end of the sixteenth century of their freedom of movement. By that
+time the cneaz, from being the leader of the community, had become the
+actual lord of the village, and his wealth was estimated by the number of
+villages he possessed. The peasant owners paid their dues to him in labour
+and in kind. Those peasants who owned no land were his serfs, passing with
+the land from master to master.
+
+Under the Turkish domination the Rumanian provinces became the granary of
+the Ottoman Empire. The value of land rose quickly, as did also the taxes.
+To meet these taxes--from the payment of which the boyards (the
+descendants of the cneazi) were exempt--the peasant owners had 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 increase of their lands they needed more labour, and they obtained
+permission from the ruler not only to exact increased labour dues from the
+peasantry, but also to determine the amount of work that should be done in
+a day. This was effected in such 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 eighteenth century. By a decree of Prince Moruzi, in
+1805, the lords were for the first time empowered to reserve to their own
+use part of the estate, namely, one-fourth of the meadow land, and this
+privilege was extended in 1828 to the use of one-third of the arable land.
+The remaining two-thirds were reserved for the peasants, every young
+married couple being entitled to a certain amount of land, in proportion
+to the number of traction animals they owned. When the Treaty of
+Adrianople of 1829 opened the western markets to Rumanian corn, in which
+markets far 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 _R�glement Organique_ they succeeded in
+reducing such land to half its previous area, at the same time maintaining
+and exacting from the peasant his dues in full. It is in the same Act that
+there appears for the first time the fraudulent 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, security for the peasants from the
+enslaving domination of the upper class, 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 estate. The original
+intention of creating common land was not carried out in the Bill. The
+peasant's holding in arable land being small, he not infrequently ploughed
+his pasture, and, as a consequence, had either to give up keeping beasts,
+or pay a high price to the land-owners for pasturage. Dues in labour and
+in kind were abolished, the land-owners receiving an indemnity which was
+to be refunded to the state by the peasants 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 ideal reform,
+without adequate study of and adaptation to social circumstances, his laws
+provided no practical solution of the problem with which they dealt. In
+this case, for example, the reform benefited the upper class solely,
+although generally considered a boon to the peasantry. Of ancient right
+two-thirds of the estate were reserved for the peasants; but the new law
+gave them possession of no more than the strip they were holding, which
+barely sufficed to provide them with the mere necessaries of life. The
+remainder up to two-thirds of the estate went as a gift, with full
+proprietorship; to the boyard. For the exemption of their dues in kind and
+in labour, the peasants had to pay an indemnity, whereas the right of
+their sons to receive at their marriage a piece of land in proportion to
+the number of traction animals they possessed was lost without
+compensation. Consequently, the younger peasants had to sell their labour,
+contracting for periods of a year and upwards, and became a much easier
+prey to the spoliation of the upper class than when they had at least a
+strip of land on which to build a hut, and from which to procure their
+daily bread; the more so as the country had no industry which could
+compete with agriculture in the labour market. An investigation undertaken
+by the Home Office showed that out of 1,265 labour contracts for 1906,
+chosen at random, only 39.7 per cent, were concluded at customary wages;
+the others were lower in varying degrees, 13.2 per cent. of the cases
+showing wages upwards of 75 per cent. below the usual rates.
+
+Under these conditions of poverty and economic serfdom the peasantry was
+not able to participate in the enormous development of Rumanian
+agriculture, which had resulted from increased political security and the
+establishment of an extensive network of railways. While the boyards found
+an increasing attraction in politics, a new class of middlemen came into
+existence, renting the land from the boyards for periods varying generally
+from three to five years. Owing to the resultant competition, rents
+increased considerably, while conservative methods of cultivation kept
+production stationary. Whereas the big cultivator obtained higher prices
+to balance the increased cost of production, the peasant, who produced for
+his own consumption, could only face such increase by a corresponding
+decrease in the amount of food consumed. To show how much alive the rural
+question is, it is enough to state that peasant risings occurred in 1888,
+1889, 1894, 1900, and 1907; that new distributions of land took place in
+1881 and 1889; that land was promised to the peasants as well at the time
+of the campaign of 1877 as at that of 1913; and that more or less happily
+conceived measures concerning rural questions have been passed in almost
+every parliamentary session. The general tendency of such legislation
+partook of the 'free contract' nature, though owing to the social
+condition of the peasantry the acts in question had to embody protective
+measures 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 a solution is possible no
+one can doubt. One writer, basing his arguments on official statistics
+which show that the days of employment in 1905 averaged only ninety-one
+for each peasant, claims that only the introduction of circulating capital
+and the creation of new branches of activity can bring about a change. The
+suggested remedy may be open to discussion; but our author is undoubtedly
+right when, asking himself why this solution has not yet been attempted,
+he says: 'Our country is governed at present by an agrarian class.... Her
+whole power rests in her ownership of the land, our only wealth. The
+introduction of circulating capital would result in the disintegration of
+that wealth, in the loss of its unique quality, and, as a consequence, in
+the social decline of its possessors.'[1] This is the fundamental evil
+which prevents any solution of the rural question. A small class of
+politicians, with the complicity of a large army of covetous and
+unscrupulous officials, live in oriental indolence out of the sufferings
+of four-fifths of the Rumanian nation. Though elementary education is
+compulsory, more than 60 per cent. of the population are still illiterate,
+mainly on account of the inadequacy of the educational budget. Justice is
+a myth for the peasant. Of political rights he is, in fact, absolutely
+deprived. The large majority, and by far the sanest part of the Rumanian
+nation, are thus fraudulently kept outside the political and social life
+of the country. It is not surmising too much, therefore, to say that the
+opportunity of emancipating the Transylvanians would not have been
+wilfully neglected, had that part of the Rumanian nation in which the old
+spirit still survives had any choice in the determination of their own
+fate.
+
+[Footnote 1: St. Antim, _Cbestiunea Social[)a] [^i]n Rom[^a]nia,_ 1908, p.
+214.]
+
+
+
+6
+
+_Contemporary Period: Internal Development_
+
+
+In order to obviate internal disturbances 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 offer was,
+however, not accepted, as neither France nor Russia favoured the proposal.
+Meanwhile a conference had met again in Paris at the instance of Turkey
+and vetoed the election 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 their protests if a candidate
+were found who was likely to secure the support of Napoleon III, then
+'schoolmaster' of European diplomacy. This candidate was found in the
+person of Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, second son of the head
+of the elder branch of the Hohenzollerns (Catholic and non-reigning).
+Prince Carol was cousin to the King of Prussia, and related through his
+grandmother to the Bonaparte family. He could consequently count upon the
+support of France and Prussia, while the political situation fortunately
+secured him from the opposition of Russia, whose relations with Prussia
+were at the time friendly, and also from that of Austria, whom Bismarck
+proposed to 'keep busy for some time to come'. The latter must have viewed
+with no little satisfaction the prospect of a Hohenzollern occupying the
+throne of Rumania at this juncture; and Prince Carol, allowing himself to
+be influenced by the Iron Chancellor's advice, answered the call of the
+Rumanian nation, which had proclaimed him as 'Carol I, Hereditary Prince
+of Rumania'. Travelling secretly with a small retinue, the prince second
+class, his suite first, Prince Carol descended the Danube on an Austrian
+steamer, and landed on May 8 at Turnu-Severin, the very place where,
+nearly eighteen centuries before, the Emperor Trajan had alighted and
+founded the Rumanian nation.
+
+By independent and energetic action, by a conscious neglect of the will of
+the powers, which only a young constitutional polity would have dared, by
+an active and unselfish patriotism, Rumania had at last chosen and secured
+as her ruler the foreign prince who alone had a chance of putting a stop
+to intrigues from within and from without. And the Rumanians had been
+extremely fortunate in their hasty and not quite independent choice. A
+prince of Latin origin would probably have been more warmly welcomed to
+the hearts of the Rumanian people; but after so many years of political
+disorder, corrupt administration, and arbitrary rule, a prince possessed
+of the German spirit of discipline and order was best fitted to command
+respect and impose obedience and sobriety of principle upon the Rumanian
+politicians.
+
+Prince Carol's task was no easy one. The journal compiled by the
+provisional government, which held the reins for the period elapsing
+between the abdication of Cuza and the accession of Prince Carol, depicts
+in the darkest colours the economic situation to which the faults, the
+waste, the negligence, and short-sightedness of the previous r�gime had
+reduced the country, 'the government being in the humiliating position of
+having brought disastrous and intolerable hardship alike upon its
+creditors, its servants, its pensioners, and its soldiers'.[1] Reforms
+were badly needed, and the treasury had nothing in hand but debts. To
+increase the income of the state was difficult, for the country was poor
+and not economically independent. Under the Paris Convention of 1858,
+Rumania remained bound, to her detriment, by the commercial treaties of
+her suzerain, Turkey, the powers not being willing to lose the privileges
+they enjoyed under the Turkish capitulations. Moreover, she was specially
+excluded from the arrangement of 1860, which allowed Turkey to increase
+her import taxes. The inheritance of ultra-liberal measures from the
+previous regime made it difficult to cope with the unruly spirit of the
+nation. Any attempt at change in this direction would have savoured of
+despotism to the people, who, having at last won the right to speak aloud,
+believed that to clamour against anything that meant 'rule' was the only
+real and full assertion of liberty. And the dissatisfied were always
+certain of finding a sympathetic ear and an open purse in the
+Chancellories of Vienna and St. Petersburg.
+
+[Footnote 1: D.A. Sturdza, _Treizeci de ani de Domnie ai Regelui Carol,_
+1900, i.82.]
+
+Prince Carol, not being sufficiently well acquainted with the conditions
+of the country nor possessing as yet much influence with the governing
+class, had not been in a position to influence at their inception the
+provisions of the extremely liberal constitution passed only a few weeks
+after his accession to the throne. The new constitution, which resembled
+that of Belgium more nearly than any other, was framed by a constituent
+assembly elected on universal suffrage, and, except for slight
+modifications introduced in 1879 and 1884, is in vigour to-day. It
+entrusts the executive to the king and his ministers, the latter alone
+being responsible for the acts of the government.[1] The legislative power
+is vested in the king and two assemblies--a senate and a chamber--the
+initiative resting with any one of the three.[2] The budget and the yearly
+bills fixing the strength of the army, however, must first be passed by
+the Chamber. The agreement of the two Chambers and the sanction of the
+king are necessary before any bill becomes law. The king convenes,
+adjourns, and dissolves parliament. He promulgates the laws and is
+invested with the right of absolute veto. The constitution proclaims the
+inviolability of domicile, the liberty of the press and of assembly, and
+absolute liberty of creed and religion, in so far as its forms of
+celebration do not come into conflict with public order and decency. It
+recognizes no distinction of class and privilege; all the citizens share
+equally rights and duties within the law. Education is free in the state
+schools, and elementary education compulsory wherever state schools exist.
+Individual liberty and property are guaranteed; but only Rumanian citizens
+can acquire rural property. Military service is compulsory, entailing two
+years in the infantry, three years in the cavalry and artillery, one year
+in all arms for those having completed their studies as far as the
+university stage. Capital punishment does not exist, except for military
+offences in time of war.
+
+[Footnote 1: There are at present nine departments: Interior, Foreign
+Affairs, Finance, War, Education and Religion, Domains and Agriculture,
+Public Works, Justice, and Industry and Commerce. The President of the
+Cabinet is Prime Minister, with or without portfolio.]
+
+[Footnote 2: All citizens of full age paying taxes, with various
+exemptions, are electors, voting according to districts and census. In the
+case of the illiterate country inhabitants, with an income from land of
+less than �12 a year, fifty of them choose one delegate having one vote in
+the parliamentary election. The professorial council of the two
+universities of Jassy and Bucarest send one member each to the Senate, the
+heir to the throne and the eight bishops being members by right.]
+
+The state religion is Greek Orthodox. Up to 1864 the Rumanian Church was
+subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In that year it was
+proclaimed independent, national, and autocephalous, though this change
+was not recognized by the Patriarchate till 1885, while the secularization
+of the property of the monasteries put an end _de facto_ to the influence
+of the Greek clergy. Religious questions of a dogmatic nature are settled
+by the Holy Synod of Bucarest, composed of the two metropolitans of
+Bucarest and Jassy and the eight bishops; the Minister for Education, with
+whom the administrative part of the Church rests, having only a
+deliberative vote. The maintenance of the Church and of the clergy is
+included in the general budget of the country, the ministers being state
+officials (Law of 1893).
+
+Religion has never played an important part in Rumanian national life, and
+was generally limited to merely external practices. This may be attributed
+largely to the fact that as the Slavonic language had been used in the
+Church since the ninth century and then was superseded by Greek up to the
+nineteenth century, the clergy was foreign, and was neither in a position
+nor did it endeavour to acquire a spiritual influence over the Rumanian
+peasant. There is no record whatever in Rumanian history of any religious
+feuds or dissensions. The religious passivity remained unstirred even
+during the domination of the Turks, who contented themselves with treating
+the unbelievers with contempt, and squeezing as much money as possible out
+of them. Cuza having made no provision for the clergy when he converted
+the wealth of the monasteries to the state, they were left for thirty
+years in complete destitution, and remained as a consequence outside the
+general intellectual development of the country. Though the situation has
+much improved since the Law of 1893, which incorporated the priests with
+the other officials of the Government, the clergy, recruited largely from
+among the rural population, are still greatly inferior to the Rumanian
+priests of Bucovina and Transylvania. Most of them take up Holy orders as
+a profession: 'I have known several country parsons who were thorough
+atheists.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: R. Rosetti, _Pentru ce s-au r[)a]sculat [t'][)a]ranii_, 1907,
+p. 600]
+
+However difficult his task, Prince Carol never deviated from the strictly
+constitutional path: his opponents were free to condemn the prince's
+opinions; he never gave them the chance of questioning his integrity.
+
+Prince Carol relied upon the position in which his origin and family
+alliances placed him in his relations with foreign rulers to secure him
+the respect of his new subjects. Such considerations impressed the
+Rumanians. Nor could they fail to be aware of 'the differences between the
+previously elected princes and the present dynasty, and the improved
+position which the country owed to the latter'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Augenzeuge, _Aus dem Leben K�nig Karls von Rum[)a]nien,
+1894-1900,_ iii. 177.]
+
+To inculcate the Rumanians with the spirit of discipline the prince took
+in hand with energy and pursued untiringly, in spite of all obstacles, the
+organization of the army. A reliable and well-organized armed force was
+the best security against internal trouble-mongers, and the best argument
+in international relations, as subsequent events amply proved.
+
+The Rumanian political parties were at the outset personal parties,
+supporting one or other of the candidates to the throne. When Greek
+influence, emanating from Constantinople, began to make itself felt, in
+the seventeenth century, a national party arose for the purpose of
+opposing it. This party counted upon the support of one of the
+neighbouring powers, and its various groups were known accordingly as the
+Austrian, the Russian, &c., parties. With the election of Cuza the
+external danger diminished, and the politicians divided upon principles of
+internal reform. Cuza not being in agreement with either party, they
+united to depose him, keeping truce during the period preceding the
+accession of Prince Carol, when grave external dangers wore threatening,
+and presiding in a coalition ministry at the introduction of the new
+constitution of 1866. But this done, the truce was broken. Political
+strife again awoke with all the more vigour for having been temporarily
+suppressed.
+
+The reforms which it became needful to introduce gave opportunity for the
+development of strong divergence of views between the political parties.
+The Liberals--the Red Party, as they were called at the time--(led by C.A.
+Rosetti and Ioan Bratianu, both strong Mazzinists, both having taken an
+important part in the revolutionary movements of 1848 and in that which
+led to the deposition of Cuza) were advocating reforms hardly practicable
+even in an established democracy; the Conservatives (led by Lascar
+Catargiu) were striving to stem the flood of ideal liberal measures on
+which all sense of reality was being carried away.[1] In little more than
+a year there were four different Cabinets, not to mention numerous changes
+in individual ministers. 'Between the two extreme tendencies Prince Carol
+had to strive constantly to preserve unity of direction, he himself being
+the only stable element in that ever unstable country.' It was not without
+many untoward incidents that he succeeded. His person was the subject of
+more than one unscrupulous attack by politicians in opposition, who did
+not hesitate to exploit the German origin and the German sympathies of the
+prince in order to inflame the masses. These internal conflicts entered
+upon an acute phase at the time of the Franco-German conflict of 1870.
+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 assuring him that 'his sympathies will always
+be where the black and white banner is waving'. In these so strained
+circumstances a section of the population of Bucarest allowed itself to be
+drawn into anti-German street riots. Disheartened and despairing of ever
+being able to do anything for that 'beautiful country', whose people
+'neither know how to govern themselves nor will allow themselves to be
+governed', the prince decided to abdicate.
+
+[Footnote 1: A few years ago a group of politicians, mainly of
+the old Conservative party, detached themselves and became the
+Conservative-Democratic party under the leadership of M. Take Ionescu.]
+
+So strong was the feeling in parliament roused by the prince's decision
+that one of his most inveterate opponents now declared that it would be an
+act of high treason for the prince to desert the country at such a crisis.
+We have an inkling of what might have resulted in the letter written by
+the Emperor of Austria to Prince Carol at the time, assuring him that 'my
+Government will eagerly seize any opportunity which presents itself to
+prove by deeds the interest it takes in a country connected by so many
+bonds to my empire'. Nothing but the efforts of Lascar Catargiu and the
+sound patriotism of a few statesmen saved the country from what would have
+been a real misfortune. The people were well aware of this, and cheers
+lasting several minutes greeted that portion of the message from the
+throne which conveyed to the new parliament the decision of the prince to
+continue reigning.
+
+The situation was considerably strengthened during a period of five years'
+Conservative rule. Prince Carol's high principles and the dignified
+example of his private life secured for him the increasing respect of
+politicians of all colours; while his statesmanlike qualities, his
+patience and perseverance, soon procured him an unlimited influence in the
+affairs of the state. This was made the more possible from the fact that,
+on account of the political ignorance of the masses, and of the varied
+influence exercised on the electorate by the highly centralized
+administration, no Rumanian Government ever fails to obtain a majority at
+an election. Any statesman can undertake to form a Cabinet if the king
+assents to a dissolution of parliament. Between the German system, where
+the emperor chooses the ministers independently of parliament, and the
+English system, where the members of the executive are indicated by the
+electorate through the medium of parliament, independently of the Crown,
+the Rumanian system takes a middle path. Neither the crown, nor the
+electorate, nor parliament possesses exclusive power in this direction.
+The Government is not, generally speaking, defeated either by the
+electorate or by parliament. It is the Crown which has the final decision
+in the changes of r�gime, and upon the king falls the delicate task of
+interpreting the significance of political or popular movements. The
+system--which comes nearest to that of Spain--undoubtedly has its
+advantages in a young and turbulent polity, by enabling its most stable
+element, the king, to ensure a continuous and harmonious policy. But it
+also makes the results dangerously dependent on the quality of that same
+element. Under the leadership of King Carol it was an undoubted success;
+the progress made by the country from an economic, financial, and military
+point of view during the last half-century is really enormous. Its
+position was furthermore strengthened by the proclamation of its
+independence, by the final settlement of the dynastic question,[1] and by
+its elevation on May 10, 1881, to the rank of kingdom, when upon the head
+of the first King of Rumania was placed a crown of steel made from one of
+the guns captured before Plevna from an enemy centuries old.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the absence of direct descendants and according to the
+constitution, Prince Ferdinand (born 1865), second son of King Carol's
+elder brother, was named Heir Apparent to the Rumanian throne. He married
+in 1892 Princess Marie of Coburg, and following the death of King Carol in
+1914, he acceded to the throne as Ferdinand I.]
+
+From the point of view of internal politics progress has been less
+satisfactory. The various reforms once achieved, the differences of
+principle between the political parties degenerated into mere opportunism,
+the Opposition opposing, the Government disposing. The parties, and
+especially the various groups within the parties, are generally known by
+the names of their leaders, these denominations not implying any definite
+political principle or Government programme. It is, moreover, far from
+edifying that the personal element should so frequently distort political
+discussion. 'The introduction of modern forms of state organization has
+not been followed by the democratization of all social institutions....
+The masses of the people have remained all but completely outside
+political life. Not only are we yet far from government of the people by
+the people, but our liberties, though deeply graven on the facade of our
+constitution, have not permeated everyday life nor even stirred in the
+consciousness of the people.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: C. Stere, _Social-democratizm sau Poporanizm_, Jassy.]
+
+It is strange that King Carol, who had the welfare of the people sincerely
+at heart, should not have used his influence to bring about a solution of
+the rural question; but this may perhaps be explained by the fact that,
+from Cuza's experience, he anticipated opposition from all political
+factions. It would almost seem as if, by a tacit understanding, and
+anxious to establish Rumania's international position, King Carol gave his
+ministers a free hand in the rural question, reserving for himself an
+equally free hand in foreign affairs. This seems borne out by the fact
+that, in the four volumes in which an 'eyewitness', making use of the
+king's private correspondence and personal notes, has minutely described
+the first fifteen years of the reign, the peasant question is entirely
+ignored.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The 'eyewitness' was Dr. Schaeffer, formerly tutor to Prince
+Carol.]
+
+Addressing himself, in 1871, to the Rumanian representative at the Porte,
+the Austrian ambassador, von Prokesch-Osten, remarked: 'If Prince Carol
+manages to pull through without outside help, and make Rumania governable,
+it will be the greatest _tour de force_ I have ever witnessed in my
+diplomatic career of more than half a century. It will be nothing less
+than a conjuring trick.' King Carol succeeded; and only those acquainted
+with Rumanian affairs can appreciate the truth of the ambassador's words.
+
+
+
+_7_
+
+_Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs_
+
+
+Up to 1866 Rumanian foreign politics may be said to have been
+non-existent. The offensive or defensive alliances against the Turks
+concluded by the Rumanian rulers with neighbouring princes during the
+Middle Ages were not made in pursuance of any definite policy, but merely
+to meet the moment's need. With the establishment of Turkish suzerainty
+Rumania became a pawn in the foreign politics of the neighbouring empires,
+and we find her repeatedly included in their projects of acquisition,
+partition, or compensation (as, for instance, when she was put forward as
+eventual compensation to Poland for the territories lost by that country
+in the first partition).[1] Rumania may be considered fortunate in not
+having lost more than Bucovina to Austria (1775), Bessarabia to Russia
+(1812), and, temporarily, to Austria the region between the Danube and the
+Aluta, called Oltenia (lost by the Treaty of Passarowitz, 1718; recovered
+by the Treaty of Belgrade, 1739).
+
+[Footnote 1: See Albert Sorel, _The Eastern Question in the Eighteenth
+Century_ (Engl. ed.), 1898, pp. 141, 147 &c.]
+
+While her geographical position made of Rumania the cynosure of many
+covetous eyes, it at the same time saved her from individual attack by
+exciting countervailing jealousies. Moreover, the powers came at last to
+consider her a necessary rampart to the Ottoman Empire, whose dissolution
+all desired but none dared attempt. Austria and Russia, looking to the
+future, were continually competing for paramount influence in Rumania,
+though it is not possible to determine where their policy of acquisition
+ended and that of influence began.
+
+The position of the principalities became more secure after the Paris
+Congress of 1858, which placed them under the 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 Prince Carol; a
+Hohenzollern prince related to the King of Prussia and to Napoleon III
+could not be treated like one of the native boyards. The situation called
+for the more delicacy of treatment by the powers in view of the
+possibility of his being able to better those internal conditions which
+made Rumania 'uninteresting' as 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 military consolidation of her home affairs; and the prince does not
+fail to remark in his notes that the attentions lavished upon him by other
+sovereigns were meant rather for the Hohenzollern prince than for the
+Prince of Rumania. Many years later even, after the war of 1878, while the
+Russians were still south of the Danube with their lines of communication
+running through Rumania, Bratianu begged of the prince to give up a
+projected journey on account of the difficulties which might at any moment
+arise, and said: 'Only the presence of your Royal Highness keeps them [the
+Russians] at a respectful distance.' It was but natural under these
+circumstances that the conduct of foreign affairs should have devolved
+almost exclusively on the prince. The ascendancy which his high personal
+character, his political and diplomatic skill, his military capacity
+procured for him over the Rumanian statesmen made this situation a lasting
+one; indeed it became almost a tradition. Rumania's foreign policy since
+1866 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, as the monarch saw them.
+Rebuking Bismarck's unfair attitude towards Rumania in a question
+concerning German investors, Prince Carol writes to his father in 1875: 'I
+have to put Rumania's interests above those of Germany. My path is plainly
+mapped out, and I must follow It unflinchingly, whatever the weather.'
+
+Prince Carol was a thorough German, and as such naturally favoured the
+expansion of German influence among his new subjects. But if he desired
+Rumania to follow in the wake of German foreign policy, it 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 strong and firmly
+established. At the same time, acting on the advice of Bismarck, he did
+not fail to work toward a better understanding with Russia, 'who might
+become as well a reliable friend as a dangerous enemy to the Rumanian
+state'. The sympathy shown him by Napoleon III was not always shared by
+the French statesmen,[1] and the unfriendly attitude of the French
+ambassador in Constantinople caused Prince Carol to remark that 'M. de
+Moustier is considered a better Turk than the Grand Turk himself'. Under
+the circumstances a possible alliance between France and Russia, giving
+the latter a free hand in the Near East, would have proved a grave danger
+to Rumania; 'it was, consequently, a skilful, if imperious act, to enter
+voluntarily, and without detriment to the existing friendly relations with
+France, within the Russian sphere of influence, and not to wait till
+compelled to do so.'
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 15, 1866, article by Eug�ne
+Forcade.]
+
+The campaigns of 1866 and 1870 having finally established Prussia's
+supremacy in the German world, Bismarck modified his attitude towards
+Austria. In an interview with the Austrian Foreign Secretary, Count Beust
+(Gastein, October 1871), he broached for the first time the question of an
+alliance and, touching upon the eventual dissolution of the Ottoman
+Empire, 'obligingly remarked that one could not conceive of a great power
+not making of its faculty for expansion a vital question'.[2] Quite in
+keeping with that change were the counsels henceforth tendered to Prince
+Carol. Early that year Bismarck wrote of his sorrow at having been forced
+to the conclusion that Rumania had nothing to expect from Russia, while
+Prince Anthony, Prince Carol's father and faithful adviser, wrote soon
+after the above interview (November 1871), that 'under certain
+circumstances it would seem a sound policy for Rumania to rely upon the
+support of Austria'. Persevering in this 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
+unimportant that one should deprecate an alliance with her'.
+
+[Footnote 2: Gabriel Hanotaux, _La Guerre des Balkans et l'Europe_ (Beust,
+M�moires), Paris, 1914, p. 297.]
+
+Prince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm intention of shaking
+off the Turkish suzerainty at the first opportunity, and not unnaturally
+he counted upon Germany'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 difference between the Rumanian Government
+and a German company entrusted with the construction of the Rumanian
+railways; the more so as the Paris Convention had expressly forbidden any
+Turkish interference in Rumania's internal affairs. It thus 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: by joining 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. But though resolved to co-operate with
+Russia in any eventual action in the Balkans, Prince Carol skilfully
+avoided delivering himself blindfold into her hands by deliberately
+cutting himself away from the other guaranteeing powers. To the conference
+which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876 to settle Balkan affairs he
+addressed the demand that 'should war break out between one of the
+guaranteeing powers and Turkey, Rumania's line of conduct should be
+dictated, and her neutrality and rights guaranteed, by the other powers'.
+This _d�marche_ failed. The powers had accepted the invitation to the
+conference as one accepts an invitation to visit a dying man. Nobody had
+any illusions on the possibility of averting war, least of all the two
+powers principally interested. In November 1876 Ali Bey and M. de Nelidov
+arrived simultaneously and secretly in Bucarest to sound Rumania as to an
+arrangement with their respective countries, Turkey and Russia. In
+opposition to his father and Count Andrassy, who counselled neutrality and
+the withdrawal 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. Rumania promised to the Russian army 'free passage through
+Rumanian territory and the treatment due to a friendly army'; whilst
+Russia undertook to respect Rumania's political rights, as well as 'to
+maintain and defend her actual integrity'. 'It is pretty certain', wrote
+Prince Carol to his father, 'that this will not be to the liking of most
+of the great powers; but as they neither can nor will offer us anything,
+we cannot do otherwise than pass them by. A successful Russian campaign
+will free us from the nominal dependency upon Turkey, and Europe will
+never allow Russia to take her place.'
+
+On April 23 the Russian armies passed the Pruth. An offer of active
+participation by the Rumanian forces in the forthcoming campaign was
+rejected by the Tsar, who haughtily declared that 'Russia had no need for
+the cooperation of the Rumanian army', and that 'it was only under the
+auspices of the Russian forces that the foundation of Rumania's future
+destinies could be laid'. Rumania was to keep quiet and accept in the end
+what Russia would deign to give her, or, to be more correct, take from
+her. After a few successful encounters, however, the Tsar's soldiers met
+with serious defeats before Plevna, and persistent appeals were now urged
+for the participation of the Rumanian army in the military operations. The
+moment had come for Rumania to bargain for her interests. But Prince Carol
+refused to make capital out of the serious position of the Russians; he
+led his army across the Danube and, at the express desire of the Tsar,
+took over the supreme command of the united forces before Plevna. After a
+glorious but terrible struggle Plevna, followed at short intervals by
+other strongholds, fell, the peace preliminaries were signed, and Prince
+Carol returned to Bucarest at the head of his victorious army.
+
+Notwithstanding the flattering words in which the Tsar spoke of the
+Rumanian share in the success of the campaign, Russia did not admit
+Rumania to the Peace Conference. By the Treaty of San Stefano (March
+3,1878) Rumania's independence was recognized; Russia obtained from Turkey
+the Dobrudja and the delta of the Danube, reserving for herself the right
+to exchange these territories against the three 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
+recover Bessarabia was well known to the Government, who hoped, however,
+that the demand would not be pressed after the effective assistance
+rendered by the Rumanian army. 'If this be not a ground for the extension
+of our territory, it is surely none for its diminution,' remarked
+Cogalniceanu at the Berlin Congress. 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 the Russian armies, guaranteed
+Rumania's integrity. But upon this stipulation Gorchakov put the
+jesuitical construction that, the Convention being concluded in view of a
+war to be waged against Turkey, it was only against Turkey that Russia
+undertook to guarantee Rumania's integrity; as to herself, she was not in
+the least bound by that arrangement. And should Rumania dare to protest
+against, or oppose the action of the Russian Government, 'the Tsar will
+order that Rumania be occupied and the Rumanian army disarmed'. 'The army
+which fought at Plevna', replied Prince Carol through his minister, 'may
+well be destroyed, but never disarmed.'
+
+There was one last hope left to Rumania: that the Congress which met in
+Berlin in June 1878 for the purpose of revising the Treaty of San Stefano,
+would prevent such an injustice. But Bismarck was anxious that no
+'sentiment de dignit� bless�e' should rankle in Russia's future policy;
+the French representative, Waddington, was 'above all a practical man';
+Corti, the Italian delegate, was 'nearly rude' to the Rumanian delegates;
+while Lord Beaconsfield, England's envoy, receiving the Rumanian delegates
+privately, had nothing to say but that 'in politics the best services are
+often rewarded with ingratitude'. Russia strongly opposed even the idea
+that the Rumanian delegates should be allowed to put their case before the
+Congress, and consent was obtained only with difficulty after Lord
+Salisbury had ironically remarked that 'having heard the representatives
+of Greece, which was claiming foreign provinces, it would be but fair to
+listen also to the representatives of a country which was only seeking to
+retain what was its own'. Shortly before, Lord Salisbury, speaking in
+London to the Rumanian special envoy, Callimaki Catargiu, had assured him
+of England's sympathy and of her effective assistance in case either of
+war or of a Congress. 'But to be quite candid he must add that there are
+questions of more concern to England, and should she be able to come to an
+understanding with 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 tenor public early in June
+1878. 'The Government of her Britannic Majesty', it said, 'considers that
+it will feel itself bound to express its deep regret should Russia persist
+in demanding the retrocession of Bessarabia.... England's interest in this
+question is not such, however, as to justify her taking upon herself alone
+the responsibility of opposing the intended exchange.' So Bessarabia was
+lost, Rumania receiving instead Dobrudja with the delta of the Danube. But
+as the newly created state of Bulgaria was at the time little else than a
+detached Russian province, Russia, alone amongst the powers, opposed and
+succeeded in preventing the demarcation to the new Rumanian province of a
+strategically sound frontier. 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 becoming Rumanian citizens--and the
+emancipation of the Rumanian Jews.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rumania only partially gave way to this intrusion of the
+powers into her internal affairs. The prohibition was abolished; but only
+individual naturalization was made possible, and that by special Act of
+Parliament. Only a very small proportion of the Jewish population has
+since been naturalized. The Jewish question in Rumania is undoubtedly a
+very serious one; but the matter is too controversial to be dealt with in
+a few lines without risking misrepresentation or doing an injustice to one
+or other of the parties. For which reason it has not been included in this
+essay.]
+
+It was only after innumerable difficulties and hardships that, at the
+beginning of 1880, Rumania secured recognition of an independence which
+she owed to nobody but herself. Whilst Russia was opposing Rumania at
+every opportunity in the European conferences and commissions, she was at
+pains to show herself more amenable in _t�te-�-t�te_, and approached
+Rumania with favourable proposals. 'Rather Russia as foe than guardian,'
+wrote Prince Carol to his father; and these words indicate an important
+turning-point 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 insisting that Austria should
+share in the partition of Poland, Frederick the Great had skilfully
+prevented her from remaining the one country towards which the Poles would
+naturally have turned for deliverance. Such an opportunity was lost by
+Russia through her short-sighted policy in Bessarabia--that of remaining
+the natural ally of Rumania against Rumania's natural foe,
+Austria-Hungary.
+
+Rumania had neither historical, geographical, nor any important
+ethnographical points of contact with the region south of the Danube; the
+aims of a future policy could only have embraced neighbouring tracts of
+foreign territory inhabited by Rumanians. Whereas up to the date of the
+Berlin Congress such tracts were confined to Austria-Hungary, 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 should maintain friendly relations with both the powers
+striving for domination in the Near East; it was a vital necessity for
+her, however, to be able to rely upon the effective support of at least
+one of them in a case of emergency. Russia's conduct had aroused a deep
+feeling of bitterness and mistrust in Rumania, and every lessening of her
+influence was a step in Austria's favour. Secondary considerations tended
+to intensify this: on the one hand lay the fact that through Russia's
+interposition Rumania had no defendable frontier against Bulgaria; on the
+other hand was the greatly strengthened position created for Austria by
+her alliance with Germany, in whose future Prince Carol had the utmost
+confidence.
+
+[Footnote 1: It is probable that this confederation had much to do with
+the readiness with which Bismarck supported the demands of his good
+friend, Gorchakov.]
+
+Germany's attitude towards Rumania had been curiously hostile during these
+events; but when Prince Carol's father spoke of this to the German
+Emperor, the latter showed genuine astonishment: Bismarck had obviously
+not taken the emperor completely into his confidence. When, a few days
+later, Sturdza had an interview with Bismarck at 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 two 'natural 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 pieces; nobody
+can resuscitate her; Rumania has an important role to fulfil, but for this
+she must be wise, cautious, and strong'. This new attitude was the natural
+counterpart of the change which was at that time making itself felt in
+Russo-German relations. While a Franco-Russian alliance was propounded by
+Gorchakov in an interview with a French journalist, Bismarck and Andrassy
+signed in Gastein the treaty which allied Austria to Germany (September
+1879). As Rumania's interests were identical with those of Austria--wrote
+Count Andrassy privately to Prince Carol a few months later--namely, to
+prevent the fusion of the northern and the southern Slavs, she had only to
+express her willingness to become at a given moment the third party in the
+compact. In 1883 King Carol accepted a secret treaty of defensive alliance
+from Austria. In return for promises relating to future political
+partitions in the Balkans, the monarch pledged himself to oppose all
+developments likely to speed the democratic evolution, of Rumania. Though
+the treaty was never submitted to parliament for ratification, and
+notwithstanding a tariff war and a serious difference with Austria on the
+question of control of the Danube navigation, Rumania was, till the Balkan
+wars, a faithful 'sleeping partner' of the Triple Alliance.
+
+All through that externally quiet period a marked discrepancy existed and
+developed between that line of policy and the trend of public opinion. The
+interest of the Rumanians within the kingdom centred increasingly on their
+brethren in Transylvania, the solution of whose hard case inspired most of
+the popular national movements. Not on account of the political despotism
+of the Magyars, for that of the Russians was in no way behind it. But
+whilst the Rumanians of Bessarabia were, with few exceptions, illiterate
+peasants, in Transylvania there was a solidly established and spirited
+middle class, whose protests kept pace with the oppressive measures. Many
+of them--and of necessity the more turbulent--migrated to Rumania, and
+there kept alive the 'Transylvanian Question'. That the country's foreign
+policy has nevertheless constantly supported the Central Powers is due, to
+some extent, to the fact that the generation most deeply impressed by the
+events of 1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country; to a
+greater extent to the increasing influence of German education,[1] and the
+economic and financial supremacy which the benevolent passivity of England
+and France enabled Germany to acquire; but above all to the personal
+influence of King Carol. Germany, he considered, was at the beginning of
+her development and needed, above all, peace; as Rumania was in the same
+position the wisest policy was to follow Germany, neglecting impracticable
+national ideals. King Carol outlined his views clearly in an interview
+which he had in Vienna with the Emperor Franz Joseph in 1883: 'No nation
+consents to be bereaved of its political aspirations, and those of the
+Rumanians are constantly kept at fever heat by Magyar oppression. But this
+was no real obstacle to a friendly understanding between the two
+neighbouring states.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Many prominent statesmen like Sturdza, Maiorescu, Carp, &c.
+were educated in Germany, whereas the school established by the German
+community (_Evangelische Knaben und Realschule_), and which it under the
+direct control of the German Ministry of Education, is attended by more
+pupils than any other school in Bucarest.]
+
+Such was the position when the Balkan peoples rose in 1912 to sever the
+last ties which bound them to the decadent Turkish Empire. King Carol, who
+had, sword in hand, won the independence of his country, could have no
+objection to such a desire for emancipation. Nor to the Balkan League
+itself, unfortunately so ephemeral; for by the first year of his reign he
+had already approached the Greek Government with proposals toward such a
+league, and toward freeing the Balkans from the undesirable interference
+of the powers.[1] It is true that Rumania, like all the other states, had
+not foreseen the radical changes which were to take place, and which
+considerably affected her position in the Near East. But she was safe as
+long as the situation was one of stable equilibrium and the league
+remained in existence. 'Rumania will only be menaced by a real danger when
+a Great Bulgaria comes into existence,' remarked Prince Carol to Bismarck
+in 1880, and Bulgaria had done nothing since to allay Rumanian suspicions.
+On the contrary, the proviso of the Berlin Convention that all
+fortifications along the Rumania frontier should be razed to the ground
+had not been carried out by the Bulgarian Government. Bulgarian official
+publications regarded the Dobrudja as a 'Bulgaria Irredenta', and at the
+outset of the first Balkan war a certain section of the Bulgarian press
+speculated upon the Bulgarian character of the Dobrudja.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Augenzeuge, op. cit., i. 178]
+
+The Balkan League having proclaimed, however, that their action did not
+involve any territorial changes, and the maintenance of the _status quo_
+having been insisted upon by the European Concert, Rumania declared that
+she would remain neutral. All this jugglery of mutual assurances broke
+down with the unexpected rout of the Turks; the formula 'the Balkans to
+the Balkan peoples' made its appearance, upon which Bulgaria was at once
+notified that Rumania would insist upon the question of the Dobrudja
+frontier being included in any fundamental alteration of the Berlin
+Convention. The Bulgarian Premier, M. Danev, concurred in this point of
+view, but his conduct of the subsequent London negotiations was so
+'diplomatic' that their only result was to strain the patience of the
+Rumanian Government and public opinion to breaking point. Nevertheless,
+the Rumanian Government agreed that the point in dispute should be
+submitted to a conference of the representatives of the great powers in
+St. Petersburg, and later accepted the decision of that conference, though
+the country considered it highly unsatisfactory.
+
+The formation of the Balkan League, and especially the collapse of Turkey,
+had meant a serious blow to the Central Powers' policy of peaceful
+penetration. Moreover, 'for a century men have been labouring to solve the
+Eastern. Question. On the day when it shall be considered solved, Europe
+will inevitably witness the propounding of the Austrian Question.'[1] To
+prevent this and to keep open a route to the East Austro-German diplomacy
+set to work, and having engineered the creation of Albania succeeded in
+barring Serbia's way to the Adriatic; Serbia was thus forced to seek an
+outlet in the south, where her interests were doomed to clash with
+Bulgarian aspirations. The atmosphere grew threatening. In anticipation of
+a conflict with Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia sought an alliance with
+Rumania. The offer was declined; but, in accordance with the policy which
+Bucarest had already made quite clear to Sofia, the Rumanian army was
+ordered to enter Bulgaria immediately that country attacked her former
+allies. The Rumanians advanced unopposed to within a few miles of Sofia,
+and in order to save the capital Bulgaria declared her willingness to
+comply with their claims. Rumania having refused, however, to conclude a
+separate peace, Bulgaria had to give way, and the Balkan premiers met in
+conference at Bucarest to discuss terms. The circumstances were not
+auspicious. The way in which Bulgaria had conducted previous negotiations,
+and especially the attack upon her former allies, had exasperated the
+Rumanians and the Balkan peoples, and the pressure of public opinion
+hindered from the outset a fair consideration of the Bulgarian point of
+view. Moreover, cholera was making great ravages in the ranks of the
+various armies, and, what threatened to be even more destructive, several
+great powers were looking for a crack in the door to put their tails
+through, as the Rumanian saying runs. So anxious were the Balkan statesmen
+to avoid any such interference that they agreed between themselves to a
+short time limit: on a certain day, and by a certain hour, peace was to be
+concluded, or hostilities were to start afresh. The treaty was signed on
+August 10, 1913, Rumania obtaining the line Turtukai-Dobrich-Balchik, this
+being the line already demanded by her at the time of the London
+negotiations. The demand was put forth originally as a security against
+the avowed ambitions of Bulgaria; it was a strategical necessity, but at
+the same time a political mistake from the point of view of future
+relations. The Treaty of Bucarest, imperfect arrangement as it was, had
+nevertheless a great historical significance. 'Without complicating the
+discussion of our interests, which we are best in a position to
+understand, by the consideration of other foreign, interests,' remarked
+the President of the Conference, 'we shall have established for the first
+time by ourselves peace and harmony amongst our peoples.' Dynastic
+interests and impatient ambitions, however, completely subverted this
+momentous step towards a satisfactory solution of the Eastern Question.
+
+[Footnote 1: Albert Sorel, op, cit., p. 266.]
+
+The natural counter-effect of the diplomatic activity of the Central
+Powers was a change in Rumanian policy. Rumania considered the maintenance
+of the Balkan equilibrium a vital question, and as she had entered upon a
+closer union with Germany against a Bulgaria subjected to Russian
+influence, so she now turned to Russia as a guard against a Bulgaria under
+German influence. This breaking away from the 'traditional' policy of
+adjutancy-in-waiting to the Central Powers was indicated by the visit of
+Prince Ferdinand--now King of Rumania--to St. Petersburg, and the even
+more significant visit which Tsar Nicholas afterwards paid to the late
+King Carol at Constanza. Time has been too short, however, for those new
+relations so to shape themselves as to exercise a notable influence upon
+Rumania's present attitude.
+
+
+
+8
+
+_Rumania and the Present War_
+
+
+_(a) The Rumanians outside the Kingdom_
+
+The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is
+the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside
+Rumanian territory. As the available official statistics generally show
+political bias it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly
+speaking there are about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter of
+a million in Bucovina, three and a half millions in Hungary, while
+something above half a million form scattered colonies in Bulgaria,
+Serbia, and Macedonia. All these live in more or less close proximity to
+the Rumanian frontiers.
+
+That these Rumanian elements have maintained their nationality is due to
+purely intrinsic causes. We have seen that the independence of Rumania in
+her foreign relations had only recently been established, since when the
+king, the factor most influential in foreign politics, had discouraged
+nationalist tendencies, lest the country's internal development might be
+compromised by friction with neighbouring states. The Government exerted
+its influence against any active expression of the national feeling, and
+the few 'nationalists' and the 'League for the cultural unity of all
+Rumanians' had been, as a consequence, driven to seek a justification for
+their existence in antisemitic agitation.
+
+The above circumstances had little influence upon the situation in
+Bucovina. This province forms an integral part of the Habsburg monarchy,
+with which it was incorporated as early as 1775. The political situation
+of the Rumanian principalities at the time, and the absence of a national
+cultural movement, left the detached population exposed to Germanization,
+and later to the Slav influence of the rapidly expanding Ruthene element.
+That language and national characteristics have, nevertheless, not been
+lost is due to the fact that the Rumanian population of Bucovina is
+peasant almost to a man--a class little amenable to changes of
+civilization.
+
+This also applies largely to Bessarabia, which, first lost in 1812, was
+incorporated with Rumania in 1856, and finally detached in 1878. The few
+Rumanians belonging to the landed class were won over by the new masters.
+But while the Rumanian population was denied any cultural and literary
+activities of its own, the reactionary attitude of the Russian Government
+towards education has enabled the Rumanian peasants to preserve their
+customs and their language. At the same time their resultant ignorance has
+kept them outside the sphere of intellectual influence of the mother
+country.
+
+The Rumanians who live in scattered colonies south of the Danube are the
+descendants of those who took refuge in these regions during the ninth and
+tenth centuries from the invasions of the Huns. Generally known as
+Kutzo-Vlakhs, or, among themselves, as Aromuni, they are--as even Weigand,
+who undoubtedly has Bulgarophil leanings, recognizes--the most intelligent
+and best educated of the inhabitants of Macedonia. In 1905 the Rumanian
+Government secured from the Porte official recognition of their separate
+cultural and religious organizations on a national basis. Exposed as they
+are to Greek influence, it will be difficult to prevent their final
+assimilation with that people. The interest taken in them of late by the
+Rumanian Government arose out of the necessity to secure them against
+pan-Hellenic propaganda, and to preserve one of the factors entitling
+Rumania to participate in the settlement of Balkan affairs.
+
+I have sketched elsewhere the early history of the Rumanians 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 migrating over the mountains. Debarred from the support of the
+noble class, the Rumanian peasantry lost its state of autonomy, which
+changed into one of serfdom to the soil upon which they toiled. Desperate
+risings in 1324, 1437, 1514, 1600, and 1784 tended to case the Hungarian
+oppression, which up to the nineteenth century strove primarily after a
+political and religious hegemony. But the Magyars having failed in 1848 in
+their attempt to free themselves from Austrian domination (defeated with
+the assistance of a Russian army at Villagos, 1849), mainly on account of
+the fidelity of the other nationalities to the Austrian Crown, they
+henceforth directed their efforts towards strengthening their own position
+by forcible assimilation of those nationalities. This they were able to
+do, however, only after K�niggr�tz, when a weakened Austria had to give
+way to Hungarian demands. In 1867 the Dual Monarchy was established, and
+Transylvania, which up to then formed a separate duchy enjoying full
+political rights, was incorporated with the new Hungarian kingdom. The
+Magyars were handicapped in their imperialist ambitions by their numerical
+inferiority. As the next best means to their end, therefore, they resorted
+to political and national oppression, class despotism, and a complete
+disregard of the principles of liberty and humanity.[1] Hungarian was made
+compulsory in the administration, even in districts where the bulk of the
+population did not understand that language. In villages completely
+inhabited by Rumanians so-called 'State' schools were founded, in which
+only Hungarian was to be spoken, and all children upwards of three years
+of age had to attend them. The electoral regulations were drawn up in such
+a manner that the Rumanians 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 protest a special press law was
+introduced for Transylvania. But the Rumanian journalists being usually
+acquitted by the juries a new regulation prescribed that press offences
+should be tried only at Kluj (Klausenburg)--the sole Transylvanian town
+with a predominating Hungarian population--a measure which was in
+fundamental contradiction to the principles of justice.[2] In 1892 the
+Rumanian grievances were embodied 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 Hungarian Government the members of
+the deputation were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for having
+plotted against the unity of the Magyar state.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians inhabit mainly the province of Transylvania,
+Banat, Crishiana, and Maramuresh. They represent 46.2 per cent. of the
+total population of these provinces, the Magyars 32.5 per cent., the
+Germans 11.5 per cent., and the Serbs 4.5 per cent. These figured are
+taken from official Hungarian statistics, and it may therefore be assumed
+that the Rumanian percentage represents a minimum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Over a period of 22 years (1886-1908) 850 journalists were
+charged, 367 of whom were Rumanians; the sentences totalling 216 years of
+imprisonment, the fines amounting to Fcs. 138,000.]
+
+Notwithstanding these disabilities the Rumanians of Transylvania enjoyed a
+long period of comparative social and economic liberty at a time when
+Turkish and Phanariote domination was hampering all progress in Rumania.
+Office under the Government growing increasingly difficult to obtain, the
+Rumanians in Transylvania turned largely to commercial and the open
+professions, and, as a result, a powerful middle class now exists. In
+their clergy, both of the Orthodox and the Uniate Church--which last,
+while conducting its ritual in the vernacular, recognizes papal supremacy--
+the Rumanians have always found strong moral support, while the national
+struggle tends to unite the various classes. The Rumanians of Hungary form
+by far the sanest element in the Rumanian nation. From the Rumanians
+within the kingdom they have received little beside sympathy. The
+important part played by the country at the Peace of Bucarest, and her
+detachment from Austria-Hungary, must necessarily have stimulated the
+national consciousness of the Transylvanians; while at the same time all
+hope for betterment from within must have ceased at the death of Archduke
+Francis Ferdinand, an avowed friend of the long-suffering nationalities.
+It is, therefore, no mere matter of conjecture that the passive attitude
+of the Rumanian Government at the beginning of the present conflict must
+have been a bitter disappointment to them.
+
+_(b) Rumania's Attitude_
+
+The tragic development of the crisis in the summer of 1914 threw Rumania
+into a vortex of unexpected hopes and fears. Aspirations till then
+considered little else than Utopian became tangible possibilities, while,
+as suddenly, dangers deemed far off loomed large and near. Not only was
+such a situation quite unforeseen, nor had any plan of action been
+preconceived to meet it, but it was in Rumania's case a situation unique
+from the number of conflicting considerations and influences at work
+within it. Still under the waning influence of the thirty years
+quasi-alliance with Austria, Rumania was not yet acclimatized to her new
+relations with Russia. Notwithstanding the inborn sympathy with and
+admiration for France, the Rumanians could not be blind to Germany's
+military power. The enthusiasm that would have sided with France for
+France's sake 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 the king; and the bright vision of the
+'principle of nationality' was darkened by the shadow of Russia as despot
+of the Near East.
+
+One fact in the situation stood out from the rest, namely, the unexpected
+opportunity of redeeming that half of the Rumanian nation which was still
+under foreign rule; the more so as one of the parties in the conflict had
+given the 'principle of nationality' a prominent place in its programme.
+But the fact that both Austria-Hungary and Russia had a large Rumanian
+population among their subjects rendered a purely national policy
+impossible, and Rumania could do nothing but weigh which issue offered her
+the greater advantage.
+
+Three ways lay open: complete neutrality, active participation on the side
+of the Central Powers, or common cause with the Triple Entente. Complete
+neutrality was advocated by a few who had the country's material security
+most at heart, and also, as a _pis aller_, by those who realized that
+their opinion that Rumania should make common cause with the Central
+Powers had no prospect of being acted upon.
+
+That King Carol favoured the idea of a joint action with Germany 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 satisfaction the
+possibility of regaining Bessarabia, the loss of which must have been
+bitterly felt by the victor of Plevna. Such a policy would have met with
+the approval of many Rumanian statesmen, notably of M. Sturdza, sometime
+leader of the Liberal party and Prime Minister; of M. Carp, sometime
+leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister; of M. Maiorescu,
+ex-Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, who presided at the Bucarest
+Conference of 1913; of M. Marghiloman, till recently leader of the
+Conservative party, to name only the more important. M. Sturdza, the old
+statesman who had been one of King Carol's chief coadjutors in the making
+of modern Rumania, and who had severed for many years his connexion with
+active politics, again took up his pen to raise a word of warning. M.
+Carp, the political aristocrat who had retired from public life a few
+years previously, and had professed a lifelong contempt for the 'Press and
+all its works', himself started a daily paper (_Moldova_) which, he
+intended should expound his views. Well-known writers like M. Radu Rosetti
+wrote[1] espousing the cause favoured by 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 at the mouth of the Danube. For not only is a cheap
+waterway absolutely necessary for the bulky products forming the chief
+exports of Rumania; but these very products, corn, petroleum, and timber,
+also form the chief exports of Russia, who, by a stroke of the pen, may
+rule Rumania out of competition, should she fail to appreciate the
+political leadership of Petrograd. Paris and Rome were, no doubt, beloved
+sisters; but Sofia, Moscow, and Budapest were next-door neighbours to be
+reckoned with.
+
+[Footnote 1: See R. Rosetti, _Russian Politics at Work in the Rumanian
+Countries_, facts compiled from French official documents, Bucarest,
+1914.]
+
+Those who held views opposed to those, 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 public opinion: interest in the fate of the Transylvanians, and
+sympathy with France. They contended that though a purely national policy
+was not possible, the difference between Transylvania and Bessarabia in
+area and in number and quality of the population was such that no
+hesitation was admissible. The possession of Transylvania was assured if
+the Allies were successful; whereas Russia would soon recover if defeated,
+and would regain Bessarabia by force of arms, or have it once more
+presented to her by a Congress anxious to soothe her 'sentiment de dignit�
+bless�e'. A Rumania enlarged in size and population had a better chance of
+successfully withstanding any eventual pressure from the north, and it was
+clear that any attempt against her independence would be bound to develop
+into a European question. Rumania could not forget what she owed to France;
+and if circumstances had made the Transylvanian question one '� laquelle
+on pense toujours et dont on ne parle jamais', the greater was the duty,
+now that a favourable opportunity had arisen, to help the brethren across
+the mountains. It was also a duty to fight for right and civilization,
+proclaimed M. Take Ionescu, the exponent of progressive ideas in Rumanian
+politics; and he, together with the prominent Conservative statesman, M.
+Filipescu, who loathes the idea of the Rumanians being dominated by the
+inferior Magyars, are the leaders of the interventionist movement. It was
+due to M. Filipescu's activity, especially, that M. Marghiloman was forced
+by his own party to resign his position as leader on account of his
+Austrophil sentiments--an event unparalleled in Rumanian politics.
+
+These were the two main currents of opinion which met in conflict at the
+Crown Council--a committee _ad hoc_ consisting of the Cabinet and the
+leaders of the Opposition--summoned by the king early in August 1914, when
+Rumania's neutrality was decided upon. The great influence which the Crown
+can always wield under the Rumanian political system was rendered the more
+potent in the present case by the fact that the Premier, M. Bratianu, is
+above all a practical man, and the Liberal Cabinet over which he presides
+one of the most colourless the country ever had: a Cabinet weak to the
+point of being incapable of realizing its own weakness and the imperative
+necessity at this fateful moment of placing the helm in the hands of a
+national ministry. M. Bratianu considered that Rumania was too exposed,
+and had suffered too much in the past for the sake of other countries, to
+enter now upon such an adventure without ample guarantees. There would
+always be time for her to come in. This policy of opportunism he was able
+to justify by powerful argument. The supply of war material for the
+Rumanian army had been completely in the hands of German and Austrian
+arsenals, and especially in those of Krupp. For obvious reasons Rumania
+could no longer rely upon that source; indeed, Germany was actually
+detaining contracts for war and sanitary material placed with her before
+the outbreak of the war. There was the further consideration that, owing
+to the nature of Rumania's foreign policy in the past, no due attention
+had been given to the defence of the Carpathians, nor to those branches of
+the service dealing with mountain warfare. On the other hand, a continuous
+line of fortifications running from Galatz to Focshani formed, together
+with the lower reaches of the Danube, a strong barrier against attack from
+the north. Rumania's geographical position is such that a successful
+offensive from Hungary could soon penetrate to the capital, and by cutting
+the country in two could completely paralyse its organization. Such
+arguments acquired a magnified importance in the light of the failure of
+the negotiations with 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 German and Austrian capital.
+
+From the point of view of practical politics only the issue of the
+conflict will determine the wisdom or otherwise of Rumania's attitude.
+But, though it is perhaps out of place to enlarge upon it here, it is
+impossible not to speak of the moral aspect of the course adopted. By
+giving heed to the unspoken appeal from Transylvania the Rumanian national
+spirit would have been quickened, and the people braced to a wholesome
+sacrifice. Many were the wistful glances cast towards the Carpathians by
+the subject Rumanians, as they were being led away to fight for their
+oppressors; but, wilfully unmindful, the leaders of the Rumanian state
+buried their noses in their ledgers, oblivious of the fact that in these
+times of internationalism a will in common, with aspirations in common, is
+the very life-blood of nationality. That sentiment ought not to enter into
+politics is an argument untenable in a country which has yet to see its
+national aspirations fulfilled, and which makes of these aspirations
+definite claims. No Rumanian statesman can contend that possession of
+Transylvania is necessary to the existence of the Rumanian state. What
+they can maintain is that deliverance from Magyar oppression is vital to
+the existence of the Transylvanians. The right to advance such a claim
+grows out of their very duty of watching over the safety of the subject
+Rumanians. 'When there are squabbles in the household of my
+brother-in-law,' said the late Ioan Bratianu when speaking on the
+Transylvanian question, 'it is no affair of mine; but when he raises a
+knife against his wife, it is not merely my right to intervene, it is my
+duty.' It is difficult to account for the obliquity of vision shown by so
+many Rumanian politicians. 'The whole policy of such a state [having a
+large compatriot population living in close proximity under foreign
+domination] must be primarily influenced by anxiety as to the fate of
+their brothers, and by the duty of emancipating them,' affirms one of the
+most ardent of Rumanian nationalist orators; and he goes on to assure us
+that 'if Rumania waits, it is not from hesitation as to her duty, but
+simply in order that she may discharge it more completely'.[1] Meantime,
+while Rumania waits, regiments composed almost completely of
+Transylvanians have 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 conception of his duty, and here, as in
+so many other cases in the present conflict, the nation at large must not
+be judged by the policy of the few who hold the reins.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Quarterly Review_, London, April, 1915, pp. 449-50.]
+
+Rumania's claims to Transylvania are not of an historical nature. They are
+founded upon the numerical superiority of the subject Rumanians in
+Transylvania, that is upon the 'principle of nationality', and are morally
+strengthened by the treatment the Transylvanians suffer at the hands of
+the Magyars. By its passivity, however, the Rumanian Government has
+sacrificed the prime factor of the 'principle of nationality' to the
+attainment of an object in itself subordinate to that factor; that is, it
+has sacrificed the 'people' in order to make more sure of the 'land'. In
+this way the Rumanian Government has entered upon a policy of acquisition;
+a policy which Rumania is too weak to pursue save under the patronage of
+one or a group of great powers; a policy unfortunate inasmuch as it will
+deprive her of freedom of action in her external politics. Her policy
+will, in its consequences, certainly react to the detriment of the
+position acquired by the country two years ago, when independent action
+made her arbiter not only among the smaller Balkan States, but also among
+those and her late suzerain, Turkey.
+
+Such, indeed, must inevitably be the fate of Balkan politics in general.
+Passing from Turkish domination to nominal 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-eastern Europe
+found its highest expression in the Balkan League. The war against Turkey
+was in effect a rebellion against the political tutelage of the powers.
+But this emancipation was short-lived. By their greed the Balkan States
+again opened up a way to the intrusion of foreign diplomacy, and even, as
+we now see, of foreign troops. The first Balkan war marked the zenith of
+Balkan political emancipation; the second Balkan war was the first act in
+the tragic _d�b�cle_ out of which the present situation developed. The
+interval between August 1913 (Peace of Bucarest) and August 1914 was
+merely an armistice during which Bulgaria and Turkey recovered their
+breath, and German and Austrian diplomacy had time to find a pretext for
+war on its own account.
+
+'Exhausted but not vanquished we have had to furl our glorious standards
+in order to await better days,' said Ferdinand of Bulgaria to his soldiers
+after the conclusion of the Peace of Bucarest; and Budapest, Vienna, and
+Berlin have no doubt done their best to keep this spirit of revenge alive
+and to prevent a renascence of the Balkan Alliance. They have succeeded.
+They have done more: they have succeeded in causing the 'principle of
+nationality'--that idea which involves the disruption of Austria--to be
+stifled by the very people whom it was meant to save. For whilst the
+German peoples are united in this conflict, the majority of the southern
+Slavs, in fighting the German battles, are fighting to perpetuate the
+political servitude of the subject races of Austria-Hungary.
+
+However suspicious Rumania may be of Russia, however bitter the quarrels
+between Bulgars, Greeks, and Serbs, it is not, nor can it ever be natural,
+that peoples who have groaned under Turkish despotism for centuries
+should, after only one year of complete liberation, join hands with an old
+and dreaded enemy not only against their fellow sufferers, but even
+against those who came 'to die that they may live'. These are the Dead Sea
+fruits of dynastic policy. Called to the thrones of the small states of
+the Near East for the purpose of creating order and peace, the German
+dynasties have overstepped their function and abused the power entrusted
+to them. As long as, in normal times, political activities were confined
+to the diplomatic arena there was no peril of rousing the masses out of
+their ignorant indolence; but, when times are abnormal, it is a different
+and a dangerous thing to march these peoples against their most intimate
+feelings. When, as the outcome of the present false situation, sooner or
+later the dynastic power breaks, it will then be for the powers who are
+now fighting for better principles not to impose their own views upon the
+peoples, or to place their own princes upon the vacant thrones. Rather
+must they see that the small nations of the Near East are given a chance
+to develop in peace and according to their proper ideals; that they be not
+again subjected to the disintegrating influence of European diplomacy; and
+that, above all, to the nations in common, irrespective of their present
+attitude, there should be a just application of the 'principle of
+nationality'.
+
+
+
+
+TURKEY
+
+
+
+Turkey is no better name for the Osmanli dominion or any part of it than
+Normandy would be for Great Britain. It is a mediaeval error of
+nomenclature sanctioned by long usage in foreign mouths, but without any
+equivalent in the vernacular of the Osmanlis themselves. The real 'Turkey'
+is Turkestan, and the real Turks are the Turcomans. The Osmanlis are the
+least typical Turks surviving. Only a very small proportion of them have
+any strain of Turkish blood, and this is diluted till it is rarely
+perceptible in their physiognomy: and if environment rather than blood is
+to be held responsible for racial features, it can only be said that the
+territory occupied by the Osmanlis is as unlike the homeland of the true
+Turks as it can well be, and is quite unsuited to typically Turkish life
+and manners.
+
+While of course it would be absurd to propose at this time of day any
+change in the terms by which the civilized world unanimously designates
+the Osmanlis and their dominion, it is well to insist 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 invasion of Asia Minor by
+immense numbers of Central Asiatic migrants, who, intent, like the early
+Arab armies, on offering to Asia first and Europe second the choice of
+apostasy or death, absorbed or annihilated almost all the previous
+populations, and swept forward into the Balkans as single-minded apostles
+of Islam. If the composition and the aims of the Osmanlis had been these,
+it 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 the most civilized and best-ordered state of their time.
+Who, then, are the Osmanlis in reality? What have they to do with true
+Turks? and in virtue of what innate qualities did they found and
+consolidate their power?
+
+
+
+1
+
+_Origin of the Osmanlis_
+
+
+We 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 is still called Turkestan, and pushing westwards towards the
+Caspian Sea. Somewhat more than another century passes, and, reached by a
+missionary faith of West Asia, they come out of the Far Eastern darkness
+into a dim light of western history. One Boja, lord of Kashgar and Khan of
+what the Chinese knew as the people of Thu-Kiu--probably the same name as
+'Turk'--embraced Islam and forced it on his Mazdeist subjects; but other
+Turkish tribes, notably the powerful Uighurs, 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 over the north and centre. At this day, in some parts of Persia,
+e.g. Azerbaijan, Turks make the bulk of the population besides supplying
+the reigning dynasty of the whole kingdom. For the Shahs of the Kajar
+house are not Iranian, but purely Turkish.
+
+This, it should be observed, was the western limit of Turkish expansion in
+the mass. Azerbaijan is the nearest region to us in which Turki blood
+predominates, and the westernmost province of the true Turk homeland. All
+Turks who have passed thence into Hither Asia have come in comparatively
+small detachments, as minorities to alien majorities. They have invaded as
+groups of nomads seeking vacant pasturage, or as bands of military
+adventurers who, first offering their swords to princes of the elder
+peoples, have subsequently, on several occasions and in several
+localities, imposed themselves on their former masters. To the first
+category belong all those Turcoman, Avshar, Yuruk, and other Turki tribes,
+which filtered over the Euphrates into unoccupied or sparsely inhabited
+parts of Syria and Asia Minor from the seventh century onwards, and
+survive to this day in isolated patches, distinguished from the mass of
+the local populations, partly by an ineradicable instinct for nomadic
+life, partly by retention of the pre-Islamic beliefs and practices of the
+first immigrants. In the second category--military adventurers--fall, for
+example, the Turkish praetorians who made and unmade not less than four
+caliphs at Bagdad in the ninth century, and that bold _condottiere_, Ahmed
+ibn Tulun, who captured a throne at Cairo. Even Christian emperors availed
+themselves of these stout fighters. Theophilus of Constantinople
+anticipated the Ottoman invasion of Europe by some five hundred years when
+he established Vardariote Turks in Macedonia.
+
+The most important members of the second category, however, were the
+Seljuks. Like the earlier Thu-Kiu, they were pushed out of Turkestan late
+in the tenth century to found a power in Persia. Here, in Khorasan, the
+mass of the horde settled and remained: and it was only a comparatively
+small section which went on westward as military adventurers to fall upon
+Bagdad, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. This first conquest was little
+better than a raid, so brief was the resultant tenure; but a century later
+two dispossessed nephews of Melek Shah of Persia set out on a military
+adventure which had more lasting consequences. Penetrating with, a small
+following into Asia Minor, they seized Konia, and instituted there a
+kingdom nominally feudatory to the Grand Seljuk of Persia, but in reality
+independent and destined to last about two centuries. Though numerically
+weak, their forces, recruited from the professional soldier class which
+had bolstered up the Abbasid Empire and formed the Seljukian kingdoms of
+Persia and Syria, were superior to any Byzantine troops that could be
+arrayed in southern or central Asia Minor. They constituted indeed the
+only compact body of fighting men seen in these regions for some
+generations. It found reinforcement from the 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 of Moslem image-haters more congenial, as it was
+certainly more effective, than that of Byzantine emperors. The creed of
+the Seljuks was Islam of an Iranian type. Of Incarnationist colour, it
+repudiated the dour illiberal spirit of the early Arabian apostles which
+latter-day Sunnite orthodoxy has revived. Accordingly its professors,
+backed by an effective 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 allegiance to Byzantine
+Christianity. In the event, the population of quite two-thirds of the
+Anatolian peninsula had already identified itself with a ruling Turki
+caste before, early in the thirteenth century, fresh Turks appeared on the
+scene--those Turks who were to found the Ottoman Empire.
+
+They entered Asia Minor much as the earlier Turcomans had entered it--a
+small body of nomadic adventurers, thrown off by the larger body of Turks
+settled in Persia to seek new pastures west of the Euphrates. There are
+divers legends about the first appearance and establishment of these
+particular Turks: but all agree that they were of inconsiderable number--
+not above four hundred families at most. Drifting in by way of Armenia,
+they pressed gradually westward from Erzerum in hope of finding some
+unoccupied country which would prove both element and fertile. Byzantine
+influence was then at a very low ebb. With Constantinople itself in Latin
+hands, the Greek writ ran only along the north Anatolian coast, ruled from
+two separate centres, Isnik (Nicaea) and Trebizond: and the Seljuk kingdom
+was run in reality much more vigorous. Though apparently without a rival,
+it was subsisting by consent, on the prestige of its past, rather than on
+actual power. The moment of its dissolution was approaching, and the
+Anatolian peninsula, two-thirds Islamized, but ill-organised and very
+loosely knit, was becoming once more a fair field for any adventurer able
+to command a small compact force.
+
+The newly come Turks were invited finally to settle on the extreme
+north-western fringe of the Seljuk territory--in a region so near Nicaea
+that their sword would be a better title to it than any which the feudal
+authority of Konia could confer. In fact it was a debatable land, an angle
+pushed up between the lake plain of Nicaea on the one hand and the plain
+of Brusa on the other, and divided from each by not lofty heights,
+Yenishehr, its chief town, which became the Osmanli chief Ertogrul's
+residence, lies, as the crow flies, a good deal less than fifty miles from
+the Sea of Marmora, and not a hundred miles from Constantinople itself.
+Here Ertogrul was to be a Warden of the Marches, to hold his territory for
+the Seljuk and extend it for himself at the expense of Nicaea if he could.
+If he won through, so much the better for Sultan Alaeddin; if he failed,
+_vile damnum!_
+
+Hardly were his tribesmen settled, however, among the Bithynians and
+Greeks of Yenishehr, before the Seljuk collapse became a fact. The Tartar
+storm, ridden by Jenghis Khan, which had overwhelmed Central Asia, spent
+its last force on the kingdom of Konia, and, withdrawing, left the Seljuks
+bankrupt of force and prestige and Anatolia without an overlord. The
+feudatories were free everywhere to make or mar themselves, and they spent
+the last half of the thirteenth century in fighting for whatever might be
+saved from the Seljuk wreck before it foundered for ever about 1300 A.D.
+In the south, the centre, and the east of the peninsula, where Islam 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 restorations of tribal
+jurisdictions which had existed before the imposition of Seljuk
+overlordship.
+
+In the extreme north-west, however, where the mass of society was still
+Christian and held itself Greek, no Turkish, potentate could either revive
+a pre-Seljukian status or simply carry on a Seljukian system in miniature.
+If he was to preserve independence at all, he must rely on a society which
+was not yet Moslem and form a coalition with the 'Greeks', into whom the
+recent recovery of Constantinople from the Latins had put fresh heart.
+Osman, who had succeeded Ertogrul in 1288, recognized where his only
+possible chance of continued dominion and future aggrandizement lay. He
+turned to the Greeks, as an element of vitality and numerical strength to
+be absorbed into his nascent state, and applied himself unremittingly to
+winning over and identifying with himself the Greek feudal seigneurs in
+his territory or about its frontiers. Some of these, like Michael, lord of
+Harmankaya, readily enough stood in with the vigorous Turk and became
+Moslems. Others, as the new state gained momentum, found themselves
+obliged to accept it or be crushed. There are to this day Greek
+communities in the Brusa district jealously guarding privileges which date
+from compacts made with their seigneurs by Osman and his son Orkhan.
+
+It was not till the Seljuk kingdom was finally extinguished, in or about
+1300 A.D. that Osman assumed at Yenishehr the style and title of a sultan.
+Acknowledged from Afium Kara Hissar, in northern Phrygia, to the Bithynian
+coast of the Marmora, beside whose waters his standards had already been
+displayed, he lived on to see Brusa fall to his son Orkhan, in 1326, and
+become the new capital. Though Nicaea still held out, Osman died virtual
+lord of the Asiatic Greeks; and marrying his son to a Christian girl, the
+famous Nilufer, after whom the river of Brusa is still named, he laid on
+Christian foundations the strength of his dynasty and his state. The first
+regiment of professional Ottoman soldiery was recruited by him and
+embodied later by Orkhan, his son, from Greek and other Christian-born
+youths, who, forced to apostatize, were educated as Imperial slaves in
+imitation of the Mamelukes, constituted more than a century earlier in
+Egypt, and now masters where they had been bondmen. It is not indeed for
+nothing that Osman's latest 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 correct form Othman, 'Ottomans'),
+because they derived their being as a nation and derive their national
+strength, not so much from central Asia as from the blend of Turk and
+Greek which Osman promoted among his people. This Greek strain has often
+been reinforced since his day and mingled with other Caucasian strains.
+
+It was left to Orkhan to round off this Turco-Grecian realm in Byzantine
+Asia by the capture first of Ismid (Nicomedia) and then of Isnik (Nicaea);
+and with this last acquisition the nucleus of a self-sufficient sovereign
+state was complete. After the peaceful absorption of the emirate of
+Karasi, which added west central Asia Minor almost as far south as the
+Hermus, the Osmanli ruled in 1338 a dominion of greater area than that of
+the Greek emperor, whose capital and coasts now looked across to Ottoman
+shores all the way from the Bosphorus to the Hellespont.
+
+
+
+2
+
+_Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom_
+
+
+If the new state was to expand by conquest, its line of advance was
+already foreshadowed. For the present, it could hardly break back into
+Asia Minor, occupied as this was by Moslem principalities sanctioned by
+the same tradition as itself, namely, the prestige of the Seljuks. To
+attack these would be to sin against Islam. But in front lay a rich but
+weak Christian state, the centre of the civilization to which the popular
+element in the Osmanli society belonged. As inevitably as 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 no
+invitation from a Greek to dispose an Ottoman sultan to push over to the
+European shore.
+
+Such an invitation, however, did in fact precede the first Osmanli
+crossing in force. In 1345 John Cantacuzene solicited help of Orkhan
+against the menace of Dushan, the Serb. Twelve years later came a second
+invitation. 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 continent to continent, which the Ottomans would never
+again let go.
+
+Such invitations, though they neither prompted the extension of the
+Osmanli realm into Europe nor sensibly precipitated it, did nevertheless
+divert the course of the Ottoman arms and reprieve the Greek empire till
+Timur and his Tartars could come on the scene and, all unconsciously,
+secure it a further respite. But for these diversions there is little
+doubt Constantinople would have passed into Ottoman hands nearly a century
+earlier than the historic date of its fall. The Osmanli armies, thus led
+aside to make the Serbs and not the Greeks of Europe their first
+objective, became involved at once in a tangle of Balkan affairs from
+which they only extricated themselves after forty years of incessant
+fighting in almost every part of the peninsula except the domain of the
+Greek emperor. This warfare, which in no way advanced the proper aims of
+the lords of Brusa and Nicaea, not only profited the Greek emperor by
+relieving him of concern about his land frontier but also used up strength
+which might have made head against the Tartars. Constantinople then, as
+now, was detached from the Balkans. The Osmanlis, had they possessed
+themselves of it, 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 treacheries by annexations after the victories of Kosovo in 1389
+and Nikopolis in 1396.
+
+Nor was this all. They became involved also with certain peoples of the
+main continent of Europe, whose interests or sympathies had been affected
+by those long and sanguinary Balkan wars. There was already bad blood and
+to spare between the Osmanlis on the one hand, and Hungarians, Poles, and
+Italian Venetians on the other, long before any second opportunity to
+attack Constantinople occurred: and the Osmanlis were in for that age-long
+struggle to secure a 'scientific frontier' 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 eighteenth century and spell
+ruin in the end.
+
+It is a vulgar error to suppose that the Osmanlis set out for Europe, in
+the spirit of Arab apostles, to force their creed and dominion on all the
+world. Both in Asia and Europe, from first to last, their expeditions and
+conquests have been inspired palpably by motives similar to those active
+among the Christian powers, namely, desire for political security and the
+command of commercial areas. Such wars as the Ottoman sultans, once they
+were established at Constantinople, did wage again and again with knightly
+orders or with Italian republics would have been undertaken, and fought
+with the same persistence, by any Greek emperor who felt himself strong
+enough. Even the Asiatic campaigns, which Selim I and some of his
+successors, down to the end of the seventeenth century, would undertake,
+were planned and carried out from similar motives. Their object was to
+secure the eastern basin of the Mediterranean by the establishment of some
+strong frontier against Iran, out of which had come more than once forces
+threatening the destruction of Ottoman power. It does not, of course, in
+any respect disprove their purpose that, in the event, this object was
+never attained, and that an unsatisfactory Turco-Persian border still
+illustrates at this day the failures of Selim I and Mohammed IV.
+
+By the opening of the fifteenth century, when, all unlooked for, a most
+terrible Tartar storm was about to break upon western Asia, the Osmanli
+realm had grown considerably, not only in Europe by conquest, but also in
+Asia by the peaceful effect of marriages and heritages. Indeed it now
+comprised scarcely less of the Anatolian peninsula than the last Seljuks
+had held, that is to say, the whole of the north as far as the Halys river
+beyond Angora, the central plateau to beyond Konia, and all the western
+coast-lands. The only emirs not tributary were those of Karamania,
+Cappadocia, and Pontus, that is of the southern and eastern fringes; and
+one detached fragment of Greek power survived in the last-named country,
+the kingdom of Trebizond. As for Europe, it had become the main scene of
+Osmanli operations, and now contained the administrative capital,
+Adrianople, though Brusu kept a sentimental primacy. Sultan Murad, who
+some years after his succession in 1359 had definitely transferred the
+centre of political gravity to Thrace, was nevertheless carried to the
+Bithynian capital for burial, Bulgaria, Serbia, and districts of both
+Bosnia and Macedonia were now integral parts of an empire which had come
+to number at least as many Christian as Moslem subjects, and to depend as
+much on the first as on the last. Not only had the 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 of the True Faith
+in Asia. A considerable body of Christian Serbs had stood up in Murad's
+line at the battle of Konia in 1381, before the treachery of another body
+of the same race gave him the victory eight years later at Kosovo. So
+little did the Osmanli state model itself on the earlier caliphial empires
+and so naturally did it lean towards the Roman or Byzantine imperial type.
+
+And just because it had come to be in Europe and of Europe, it was able to
+survive the terrible disaster of Angora in 1402. Though the Osmanli army
+was annihilated by Timur, and an Osmanli sultan, for the first and last
+time in history, remained in the hands of the foe, the administrative
+machinery of the Osmanli state was not paralysed. A new ruler was
+proclaimed at Adrianople, and the European part of the realm held firm.
+The moment that the Tartars began to give ground, the Osmanlis began to
+recover it. In less than twenty years they stood again in Asia as they
+were before Timur's attack, and secure for the time on the east, could
+return to restore their prestige in the west, where the Tartar victory had
+bred unrest and brought both the Hungarians and the Venetians on the
+Balkan scene. Their success was once more rapid and astonishing: Salonika
+passed once and for all into Ottoman hands: the Frank seigneurs and the
+despots of Greece were alike humbled; and although Murad II failed to
+crush the Albanian, Skanderbey, he worsted his most dangerous foe, John
+Hunyadi, with the help of Wallach treachery at the second battle of
+Kosovo. At his death, three years later, he left the Balkans quiet and the
+field clear for his successor to proceed with the long deferred but
+inevitable enterprise of attacking all that 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 who already had been in possession
+of its proper empire for a century or more. Historians have made more of
+this fall of Constantinople in 1453 than contemporary opinion seems to
+have made of it. No prince in Europe was moved to any action by its peril,
+except, very half-heartedly, the Doge. Venice could not feel quite
+indifferent to the prospect of the 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 Constantinople, the
+latter, long a land power only, would be bound to concern themselves with
+the sea also. The Venetians made no effort worthy of their apprehensions,
+though these were indeed exceedingly well founded; for, as all the world
+knows, to the sea the Osmanlis did at once betake themselves. In less than
+thirty years they were ranging all the eastern Mediterranean and laying
+siege to Rhodes, the stronghold of one of their most dangerous
+competitors, the Knights Hospitallers.
+
+In this consequence consists the chief historic importance of the Osmanli
+capture of Constantinople. For no other reason can it he called an
+epoch-marking event. If it guaranteed the Empire of the East against
+passing into any western hands, for example, those of Venice or Genoa, it
+did not affect the balance of power between Christendom and Islam; for the
+strength of the former had long ceased to reside at all in Constantinople.
+The last Greek emperor died a martyr, but not a champion.
+
+
+
+3
+
+_Heritage and Expansion of Byzantine Empire_
+
+
+On 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 be would be changed. He had displaced a Palaeologus by an
+Osmanli only in order that an empire long in fact Osmanli should
+henceforth be so also _de jure_. Therefore he confirmed the pre-existing
+Oecumenical patriarch in his functions and the Byzantine Greeks in their
+privileges, renewed the rights secured to Christian foreigners by the
+Greek emperors, and proclaimed 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, Mohammed devoted
+himself to precisely those tasks which would have fallen to a Greek
+emperor desirous of restoring Byzantine power. He thrust back Latins
+wherever they were encroaching on the Greek sphere, as were the Venetians
+of the Morea, the Hospitallers of Rhodes, and the Genoese of the Crimea:
+and he rounded off the proper Byzantine holding by annexing, in Europe,
+all the Balkan peninsula except 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 emirates of
+Karamania and Cappadocia.
+
+Before Mohammed died in 1481 the Osmanli Turco-Grecian nation may be said
+to have come into its own. It was lord _de facto et de jure belli_ of the
+eastern or Greek Empire, that is of all territories and seas grouped
+geographically round Constantinople as a centre, with only a few
+exceptions unredeemed, of which the most notable were the islands of
+Cyprus, Rhodes, and Krete, still in Latin hands. Needless to say, the
+Osmanlis themselves differed greatly from their imperial predecessors.
+Their official speech, their official creed, their family system were all
+foreign to Europe, and many of their ideas of government had been learned
+in the past from Persia and China, or were derived from the original
+tribal organization of the true Turks. But if they were neither more nor
+less Asiatics than the contemporary Russians, they were quite as much
+Europeans as many of the Greek emperors had been--those of the Isaurian
+dynasty, for instance. They had given no evidence as yet of a fanatical
+Moslem spirit--this was to be bred in them by subsequent experiences--and
+their official creed had governed their policy hardly more than does ours
+in India or Egypt. Mohammed the Conqueror had not only shown marked favour
+to Christians, whether his _rayas_ or not, but encouraged letters and the
+arts in a very un-Arabian spirit. Did he not have himself portrayed by
+Gentile Bellini? The higher offices of state, both civil and military,
+were confided (and would continue so to be for a century to come) almost
+exclusively to men of Christian origin. Commerce was encouraged, and
+western traders recognized that their facilities were greater now than
+they had been under Greek rule. The Venetians, for example, enjoyed in
+perfect liberty a virtual monopoly of the Aegean and Euxine trade. The
+social condition of the peasantry seems to have been better than it had
+been under Greek seigneurs, whether in Europe or in Asia, and better than
+it was at the moment in feudal Christendom. The Osmanli military
+organization was reputed the best in the world, and its fame attracted
+adventurous spirits from all over Europe to learn war in the first school
+of the age. Ottoman armies, it is worth while to remember, were the only
+ones then attended by efficient medical and commissariat services, and may
+be said to have introduced to Europe these alleviations of the horrors of
+war.
+
+Had the immediate 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 for many centuries the subsequent sordid decay; for the seeds of
+this were undoubtedly sown by the three great sultans who followed the
+taker of Constantinople. Their ambitions or their necessities led to a
+great increase of the professional army which would entail many evils in
+time to come. Among these were praetorianism in the capital and the great
+provincial towns; subjection of land and peasantry to military seigneurs,
+who gradually detached themselves from the central control; wars
+undertaken abroad for no better reason than the employment of soldiery
+feared at home; consequent expansion of the territorial empire beyond the
+administrative capacity of the central government; development of the
+'tribute-children' system of recruiting into a scourge of the _rayas_ and
+a continual offence to neighbouring states, and the supplementing of that
+system by acceptance of any and every alien outlaw who might offer himself
+for service: lastly, revival of the dormant crusading spirit of Europe,
+which reacted on the Osmanlis, begetting in them an Arabian fanaticism and
+disposing them to revert to the obscurantist spirit of the earliest
+Moslems. To sum the matter 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 official mind on things military and
+religious, to the exclusion of other interests; the degradation and
+embitterment of the Christian elements in the empire; the perpetual
+financial embarrassment of the government with its inevitable consequence
+of oppression and neglect of the governed; and the constant provocation in
+Christendom of a hostility which was always latent and recurrently active--
+all these evils, which combined to push the empire nearer and nearer to
+ruin from the seventeenth century onwards, can be traced to the brilliant
+epoch of Osmanli history associated with the names of Bayezid II, Selim I,
+and Suleiman the Magnificent.
+
+At the same time Fate, rather than any sultan, must be blamed. It was
+impossible to forgo some further extension of the empire, and very
+difficult to arrest extension at any satisfactory static point. For one
+thing, as has been pointed out already, there were important territories
+in the proper Byzantine sphere still unredeemed at the death of Mohammed.
+Rhodes, Krete, and Cyprus, whose possession carried with it something like
+superior control of the Levantine trade, were in Latin hands. Austrian as
+well as Venetian occupation of the best harbours was virtually closing the
+Adriatic to the masters of the Balkans. Nor could the inner lands of the
+Peninsula be quite securely held while the great fortress of Belgrade,
+with the passage of the Danube, remained in Hungarian keeping,
+Furthermore, 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 of 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 to bring all the Anatolian
+peninsula under the Osmanli. But that corner, the Cilician plain, promised
+trouble, since it was held by another Islamic power, that of the Egyptian
+Mamelukes, which, claiming to be at least equal to the Osmanli, possessed
+vitality much below its pretensions. The temptation to poach on it was
+strong, and any lord of Constantinople who once gave way to this, would
+find himself led on to assume control of all coasts of the easternmost
+Levant, and then to push into inland Asia in quest of a scientific
+frontier at their back--perilous and costly enterprise which Rome had
+essayed again and again and had to renounce in the end. Bayezid II took
+the first step by summoning the Mameluke to evacuate certain forts near
+Tarsus, and expelling his garrisons _vi et armis_. Cilicia passed to the
+Osmanli; but for the moment he pushed no farther. Bayezid, who was under
+the obligation always to lead his army in person, could make but one
+campaign at a time; and a need in Europe was the more pressing. In
+quitting Cilicia, however, he left open a new question in Ottoman
+politics--the Asiatic continental question--and indicated to his successor
+a line of least resistance on which to advance. Nor would this be his only
+dangerous legacy. The prolonged and repeated raids into Adriatic lands, as
+far north as Carniola and Carinthia, with which the rest of Bayezid's
+reign was occupied, brought Ottoman militarism at last to a point, whose
+eventual attainment might have been foreseen any time in the past century--
+the point at which, strong in the possession of a new arm, artillery, it
+would assume control of the state.
+
+Bayezid's seed was harvested by Selim. First in a long series of
+praetorian creatures which would end only with the destroyer of the
+praetorians themselves three centuries later, he owed his elevation to a
+Janissary revolt, and all the eight bloody years of his reign were to be
+punctuated by Janissary tumults. To keep his creators in any sort of order
+and contentment he had no choice but to make war from his first year to
+his last. When he died, in 1520, the Ottoman Empire had been swelled to
+almost as wide limits in Asia and Africa as it has ever attained since his
+day. Syria, Armenia, great part of Kurdistan, northern Mesopotamia, part
+of Arabia, and last, but not least, Egypt, were forced to acknowledge
+Osmanli suzerainty, and for the first time an Osmanli sultan had
+proclaimed himself caliph. True that neither by his birth nor by the
+manner of his appointment did Selim satisfy the orthodox caliphial
+tradition; but, besides his acquisition of certain venerated relics of the
+Prophet, such as the _Sanjak i-sherif_ or holy standard, and besides a yet
+more important acquisition--the control of the holy cities of the faith--
+he could base a claim on the unquestioned fact that the office was vacant,
+and the equally certain fact that he was the most powerful Moslem prince
+in the world. Purists might deny him if they dared: the vulgar Sunni mind
+was impressed and disposed to accept. The main importance, however, of
+Selim's assumption of the caliphate was that it consecrated Osmanli
+militarism to a religious end--to the original programme of Islam. This
+was a new thing, fraught with dire possibilities from that day forward. It
+marked the supersession of the Byzantine or European ideal by the Asiatic
+in Osmanli policy, and introduced a phase of Ottoman history which has
+endured to our own time.
+
+The inevitable process was continued in the next reign. Almost all the
+military glories of Suleiman--known to contemporary Europe as 'the
+Magnificent' and often held by historians the greatest of Osmanli sultans--
+made for weakening, not strengthening, the empire. His earliest operations
+indeed, the captures of Rhodes from the Knights and of Belgrade and
+[)S]abac from the Hungarians, expressed a legitimate Byzantine policy; and
+the siege of Malta, one of his latest ventures, might also be defended as
+a measure taken in the true interests of Byzantine commerce. But the most
+brilliant and momentous of his achievements bred evils for which military
+prestige and the material profits to be gained from the oppression of an
+irreconcilable population were inadequate compensation. This was the
+conquest of Hungary. It would result in Buda and its kingdom remaining
+Ottoman territory for a century and a 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 the Balkan sphere;
+but also it would result in the Osmanli power finding itself on a weak
+frontier face to face at last with a really strong Christian race, the
+Germanic, before which, since it could not advance, it would have
+ultimately to withdraw; and in the rousing of Europe to a sense of its
+common danger from Moslem activity. Suleiman's failure to take Vienna more
+than made good the panic which had followed on his victory at Mohacs. It
+was felt that the Moslem, now that he had failed against the bulwark of
+central Europe, was to go no farther, and that the hour of revenge was
+near.
+
+[Illustration: The Ottoman Empire (Except the Arabian and African
+provinces)]
+
+It was nearer than perhaps was expected. Ottoman capacity to administer
+the overgrown empire in Europe and Asia was strained already almost to
+breaking-point, and it was in recognition of this fact that Suleiman made
+the great effort to reorganize his imperial system, which has earned him
+his honourable title of _El Kanun_, the Regulator. But if he could reset
+and cleanse the wheels of the administrative machine, he could not
+increase its capacity. New blood was beginning to fail for the governing
+class just as the demands on it became greater. No longer could it be
+manned exclusively from the Christian born. Two centuries of recruiting in
+the Balkans and West Asia had sapped their resources. Even the Janissaries
+were not now all 'tribute-children'. Their own sons, free men Moslem born,
+began to be admitted to the ranks. This change was a vital infringement of
+the old principle of Osmanli rule, that all the higher administrative and
+military functions should be vested in slaves of the imperial household,
+directly dependent on the sultan himself; and once breached, this
+principle could not but give way more and more. The descendants of
+imperial slaves, free-born Moslems, but barred from the glory and profits
+of their fathers' function, had gradually become a very numerous class of
+country gentlemen distributed over all parts of the empire, and a very
+malcontent one. Though it was still subservient, its dissatisfaction at
+exclusion from the central administration was soon to show itself partly
+in assaults on the time-honoured system, partly in assumption of local
+jurisdiction, which would develop into provincial independence.
+
+The overgrowth of his empire further compelled Suleiman to divide the
+standing army, in order that more than one imperial force might take the
+field at a time. Unable to lead all his armies in person, he elected, in
+the latter part of his reign, to lead none, and for the first time left
+the Janissaries to march without a sultan to war. Remaining himself at the
+centre, he initiated a fashion which would encourage Osmanli sultans to
+lapse into half-hidden beings, whom their subjects would gradually invest
+with religious character. Under these conditions the ruler, the governing
+class (its power grew with this devolution), the dominant population of
+the state, and the state 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 area which it
+was ever to cover at any one moment. In what may be called the proper
+Byzantine field, 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 frontier provinces, 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 III, which culminated in 1588
+with the occupation of Tabriz and half Azerbaijan.
+
+
+
+4
+
+_Shrinkage and Retreat_
+
+
+The fringes of this vast empire, however, none too surely held, were
+already involving it in insoluble difficulties and imminent dangers. On
+the one hand, in Asia, it had been found impossible to establish military
+fiefs in Arabia, Kurdistan, or anywhere east of it, on the system which
+had secured the Osmanli tenure elsewhere. On the other hand, in Europe, as
+we have seen, the empire had a very unsatisfactory frontier, beyond which
+a strong people not only set limits to further progress but was prepared
+to dispute the ground already gained. In a treaty signed at Sitvatorok, in
+1606, the Osmanli sultan was forced to acknowledge definitely the absolute
+and equal sovereignty of his northern neighbour, Austria; and although,
+less than a century later, Vienna would be attacked once more, there was
+never again to be serious prospect of an extension of the empire in the
+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 seventeenth and eighteenth, is one long record of
+praetorian tumults at home; and ever more rarely will these be compensated
+by military successes abroad. The first of these centuries had not half
+elapsed ere the Janissaries had taken the lives of two sultans, and
+brought the Grand Vizierate to such a perilous pass that no ordinary
+holder of it, unless backed by some very powerful Albanian or other tribal
+influence, could hope to save his credit or even his life. During this
+period indeed no Osmanli of the older stocks ever exercised real control
+of affairs. It was only among the more recently assimilated elements, such
+as the Albanian, the Slavonic, or the Greek, that men of the requisite
+character and vigour could be found. The rally which marked the latter
+half of the seventeenth century was entirely the work of Albanians or of
+other generals and admirals, none of whom had had a Moslem grandfather.
+Marked by the last Osmanli conquest made at the expense of Europe--that
+of Krete; by the definite subjugation of Wallachia; by the second siege of
+Vienna; by the recovery of the Morea from Venice; and finally by an
+honourable arrangement with Austria about the Danube frontier--it is all
+to be credited to the Kuprili 'dynasty' of Albanian viziers, which
+conspicuously outshone the contemporary sovereigns of the dynasty of
+Osman, the best of them, Mohammed IV, not excepted. It was, however, no
+more than a rally; for greater danger already threatened from another
+quarter. Agreement had not been reached with Austria at Carlowitz, in
+1699, before a new and baleful planet swam into the Osmanli sky.
+
+It was, this time, no central European power, to which, at the worst, all
+that lay north of the proper Byzantine sphere might be abandoned; but a
+claimant for part of that sphere itself, perhaps even for the very heart
+of it. Russia, seeking an economic outlet, had sapped her way south to the
+Euxine shore, and was on the point of challenging the Osmanli right to
+that sea. The contest would involve a vital issue; and if the Porte did
+not yet grasp this fact, others had grasped it. The famous 'Testament of
+Peter the Great' may or may not be a genuine document; but, in either
+case, it proves that certain views about the necessary policy of Russia in
+the Byzantine area, which became commonplaces of western political
+thinkers as the eighteenth century advanced, were already familiar to east
+European minds in the earlier part of that century.
+
+Battle was not long in being joined. In the event, it would cost Russia
+about sixty years of strenuous effort to reduce the Byzantine power of the
+Osmanlis to a condition little better than that in which Osman had found
+the Byzantine power of the Greeks four centuries before. During the first
+two-thirds of this period the contest was waged not unequally. By the
+Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Sultan Mahmud I appeared for a moment even to
+have gained the whole issue, Russia agreeing to her own exclusion from the
+Black Sea, and from interference in the Danubian principalities. But the
+success could not be sustained. Repeated effort was rapidly exhausting
+Osmanli strength, sapped as it was by increasing internal disease: and
+when a crisis arrived with the accession of the Empress Catherine, it
+proved too weak to meet it. During the ten years following 1764 Osmanli
+hold on the Black Sea was lost irretrievably. After the destruction of the
+fleet at Chesme the Crimea became untenable and was abandoned to the brief
+mercies of Russia: and with a veiled Russian protectorate established in
+the Danubian principalities, and an open Russian occupation in Morean
+ports, Constantinople had lost once more her own seas. When Selim III was
+set on a tottering throne, in 1787, the wheel of Byzantine destiny seemed
+to have come again almost full circle: and the world was expecting a
+Muscovite succession to that empire which had acknowledged already the
+Roman, the Greek, and the Osmanli.
+
+Certainly history looked like repeating itself. As in the fourteenth
+century, so in the eighteenth, the imperial provinces, having shaken off
+almost all control of the capital, were administering themselves, and
+happier for doing so. Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Trebizond
+acknowledged adventurers as virtually independent lords. Asia Minor, in
+general, was being controlled, in like disregard of imperial majesty, by a
+group of 'Dere Beys', descended, in different districts, from tribal
+chieftains or privileged tax-farmers, or, often, from both. The latter
+part of the eighteenth century was the heyday of the Anatolian feudal
+families--of such as the Chapanoghlus of Yuzgad, whose sway stretched from
+Pontus to Cilicia, right across the base of the peninsula, or the
+Karamanoghlus of Magnesia, Bergama, and Aidin, who ruled as much territory
+as the former emirs of Karasi and Sarukhan, and were recognized by the
+representatives of the great trading companies as wielding the only
+effective authority in Smyrna. The wide and rich regions controlled by
+such families usually contributed neither an _asper_ to the sultan's
+treasury 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 the imperial writ run. Macedonia and
+Albania were obedient only to their local beys, and so far had gone the
+devolution of Serbia and Bosnia to Janissary aghas, feudal beys, and the
+Beylerbey of Rumili, that these provinces hardly concerned themselves more
+with the capital. The late sultan, Mustapha III, had lost almost the last
+remnant of his subjects' respect, not so much by the ill success of his
+mutinous armies as by his depreciation of the imperial coinage. He had
+died bankrupt of prestige, leaving no visible assets to his successor.
+What might become of the latter no one in the empire appeared to care. As
+in 1453, it waited other lords.
+
+
+
+5
+
+_Revival_
+
+
+It has been waiting, nevertheless, ever since--waiting for much more than
+a century; and perhaps the end is not even yet. Why, then, have
+expectations not only within but without the empire been so greatly at
+fault? How came Montesquieu, Burke, and other confident prophets since
+their time to be so signally mistaken? There were several co-operating
+causes, but one paramount. Constantinople was no longer, as in 1453, a
+matter of concern only to itself, its immediate neighbours, and certain
+trading republics of Italy. It had become involved with the commercial
+interests of a far wider circle, in particular of the great trading
+peoples of western Europe, the British, the French, and the Dutch, and
+with the political interests of the Germanic and Russian nations. None of
+these could be indifferent to a revolution in its fortunes, and least of
+all to its 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 at Vienna till early in the
+century to come: but even before the end of the eighteenth century it
+could be foreseen that its life would be bound up with the maintenance of
+Constantinople in independence of any one of the parent powers--that is,
+with the prolongation of the Osmanli phase of its imperial fortunes. This
+doctrine, consistently acted upon by Europe, has been the sheet anchor of
+the Ottoman empire for a century. Even to this day its Moslem dynasty has
+never been without one powerful Christian champion or another.
+
+There were, however, some thirty years still to elapse after Selim's
+accession before that doctrine was fully born: and had her hands been
+free, Russia might well have been in secure possession of the Byzantine
+throne long before 1815. For, internally, the Osmanli state went from bad
+to worse. The tumultuous insubordination of the Janissaries became an ever
+greater scandal. Never in all the long history of their riots was their
+record for the years 1807-9 equalled or even approached. Never before,
+also, had the provinces been so utterly out of hand. This was the era of
+Jezzar the Butcher at Acre, of the rise of Mehemet Ali in Egypt, of Ali
+Pasha in Epirus, and of Pasvanoghlu at Vidin. When Mahmud II was thrust on
+to the throne in 1809, he certainly began his reign with no more personal
+authority and no more imperial prestige or jurisdiction than the last
+Greek emperor had enjoyed on his accession in 1448.
+
+The great 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 give substance. Whatever the Osmanlis suffered during
+that war, it undoubtedly kept them in Constantinople. Temporary loss of
+Egypt and the small damage done by the British attack on Constantinople in
+1807 were a small price to pay for the diversion of Russia's main energies
+to other than Byzantine fields, and for the assurance, made doubly sure
+when the great enemy did again attack, that she would not be allowed to
+settle the account alone. Whatever Napoleon may have planned and signed at
+Tilsit, the aegis of France was consistently opposed to the enemies of the
+Osmanlis down to the close of the Napoleonic age.
+
+Thus it came about that those thirty perilous years passed without the
+expected catastrophe. There was still a successor of Osman reigning in
+Constantinople when the great Christian powers, met in conclave at Vienna,
+half unconsciously guaranteed the continued existence of the Osmanli
+Empire simply by leaving it out of account in striking a Balance of Power
+in Europe. Its European territory, with the capital within it, was of
+quite enough importance to disturb seriously the nice adjustment agreed at
+Vienna; and, therefore, while any one's henceforth to take or leave, it
+would become always some one's to guard. A few years had yet to pass
+before the phrase, the Maintenance of the Integrity of the Ottoman Empire,
+would be a watchword of European diplomacy: but, whether formulated thus
+or not, that principle became a sure rock of defence for the Osmanli
+Empire on the birthday of the doctrine of the Balance of Power.
+
+Secure from destruction by any foes but those of his own household, as
+none knew better than he, the reigning Osmanli was scheming to regain the
+independence and dignity of his forefathers. Himself a creature of the
+Janissaries, Mahmud had plotted the abolition of his creators from the
+first year of his reign, but making a too precipitate effort after the
+conclusion of peace with Russia, had ignominiously failed and fallen into
+worse bondage than ever. Now, better assured of his imperial position and
+supported by leading men of all classes among his subjects, he returned
+not only to his original enterprise but to schemes for removing other
+checks on the power of the sovereign which had come into being in the last
+two centuries--notably the feudal independence of the Dere Beys, and the
+irresponsibility of provincial governors.
+
+Probably Mahmud II--if he is to be credited with personal initiation of
+the reforms always associated with his name--was not conscious of any
+purpose more revolutionary than that of becoming master in his own house,
+as his ancestors had been. What he ultimately accomplished, however, was
+something of much greater and more lasting moment to the Osmanli state. It
+was nothing less than the elimination of the most Byzantine features in
+its constitution and government. The substitution of national forces for
+mercenary praetorians: the substitution of direct imperial government of
+the provinces for devolution to seigneurs, tribal chiefs, and
+irresponsible officers: the substitution of direct collection for
+tax-farming: and the substitution of administration by bureaucrats for
+administration by household officers--these, the chief reforms carried
+through under Mahmud, were all anti-Byzantine. They did not cause the
+Osmanli state to be born anew, but, at least, they went far to purge it of
+original sin.
+
+That Mahmud and his advisers could carry through such reforms at all in so
+old a body politic is remarkable: that they carried them through amid the
+events of his reign is almost miraculous. One affront after another was
+put on the Sultan, one blow after another was struck at his empire.
+Inspired by echoes of the French Revolution and by Napoleon's recognition
+of the rights of nationalities, first the Serbs and then the Greeks seized
+moments of Ottoman disorder to rise in revolt against their local lords.
+The first, who had risen under Selim III, achieved, under Mahmud,
+autonomy, but not independence, nothing remaining to the sultan as before
+except the fortress of Belgrade with five other strongholds. 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 passed out of the
+empire, the first provinces so to pass since the Osmanli loss of Hungary.
+Yet it was in the middle of that fatal struggle that Mahmud settled for
+ever with the Janissaries, and during all its course he was settling one
+after another with the Dere Beys!
+
+When he had thus sacrificed the flower of his professional troops and had
+hardly had time to replace the local governments of the provinces by
+anything much better than general anarchy, he found himself faced by a
+Russian assault. His raw levies fought as no other raw levies than the
+Turkish can, and, helped by manifestations of jealousy by the other
+powers, staved off the capture of Constantinople, which, at one moment,
+seemed about to take place at last. But he had to accept humiliating
+terms, amounting virtually, to a cession of the Black Sea. Mahmud
+recognized that such a price he must pay for crossing the broad stream
+between Byzantinism and Nationalism, and kept on his way.
+
+Finally came a blow at the hands of one of his own household and creed.
+Mehemet Ali of Egypt, who had faithfully fought his sovereign's battles in
+Arabia and the Morea, 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 than he had intended--more than half-way
+across Asia Minor--after the imperial armies had suffered three signal
+defeats, before he extorted what he had desired at first: and in the end,
+after very brief enjoyment, he had to resign all again to the mandate, not
+of his sovereign, but of certain European powers who commanded his seas.
+Mahmud, however, who lived neither to see himself saved by the _giaur_
+fleets, nor even to hear of his latest defeat, had gone forward with the
+reorganization of the central and provincial administration, undismayed by
+Mehemet Ali's contumacy or the insistence of Russia at the gate of the
+Bosphorus.
+
+As news arrived from time to time in the west of Mahmud's disasters, it
+was customary to prophesy the imminent dissolution of his empire. We,
+however, looking backward now, can see that by its losses the Osmanli
+state in reality grew stronger. Each of its humiliations pledged some
+power or group of powers more deeply to support it: and before Mahmud
+died, he had reason to believe that, so long as the European Concert
+should ensue the Balance of Power, his dynasty would not be expelled from
+Constantinople. His belief has been justified. At every fresh crisis of
+Ottoman fortunes, and especially after every fresh Russian attack, foreign
+protection has unfailingly been extended to his successors.
+
+It was not, however, only in virtue of the increasing solicitude of the
+powers on its behalf that during the nineteenth century the empire was
+growing and would grow stronger, but also in virtue of certain assets
+within itself. First among these ranked the resources of its Asiatic
+territories, which, as the European lands diminished, became more and more
+nearly identified with the empire. When, having got rid of the old army,
+Mahmud imposed service on all his Moslem subjects, in theory, but in
+effect only on the Osmanlis (not the Arabs, Kurds, or other half
+assimilated nomads and hillmen), it meant more than a similar measure
+would have meant in a Christian empire. For, the life of Islam being war,
+military service binds Moslems together and to their chiefs as it binds
+men under no other dispensation; therefore Mahmud, so far as he was able
+to enforce 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, it was attained 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 of a drastic order had to precede construction, and more
+of Mahmud's reign had to be devoted to the former than remained for the
+latter.
+
+He did, however, live to see not only the germ of a nation emerge from
+chaos, but also the framework of an organization for governing it well or
+ill. The centralized bureaucracy which he succeeded in initiating was, of
+course, wretchedly imperfect both in constitution and equipment. But it
+promised to promote the end he had in view and no other, inasmuch as,
+being the only existent machine of government, it derived any effective
+power it had from himself alone. Dependent on Stambul, it served to turn
+thither the eyes and prayers of the provincials. The naturally submissive
+and peaceful population of Asia Minor quickly accustomed itself to look
+beyond the dismantled strongholds of its fallen beys. As for the rest--
+contumacious and bellicose beys and sheikhs of Kurdish hills and Syrian
+steppes--their hour of surrender was yet to come.
+
+The eventual product of Mahmud's persistency was the 'Turkey' we have seen
+in our own time--that Turkey irretrievably Asiatic in spirit under a
+semi-European system of administration, which has governed despotically in
+the interests of one creed and one class, with slipshod, makeshift
+methods, but has always governed, and little by little has extended its
+range. Knowing its imperfections and its weakness, we have watched with
+amazement its hand feeling forward none the less towards one remote
+frontier district after another, painfully but surely getting its grip,
+and at last closing on Turcoman chiefs and Kurdish beys, first in the
+Anatolian and Cilician hills, then in the mountains of Armenia, finally in
+the wildest Alps of the Persian borderland. We have marked its stealthy
+movement into the steppes and deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia--
+now drawn back, now pushed farther till it has reached and held regions
+over which Mahmud could claim nothing but a suzerainty in name. To judge
+how far the shrinkage of the Osmanli European empire has been compensated
+by expansion of its Asiatic, one has only to compare the political state
+of Kurdistan, as it was at the end of the eighteenth century, and as it
+has been in our own time.
+
+It is impossible to believe that the Greek Empire, however buttressed and
+protected by foreign powers, could ever have reconstituted itself after
+falling so low as it fell in the fourteenth century and as the Osmanli
+Empire fell in the eighteenth; and it is clear that the latter must still
+have possessed latent springs of vitality, deficient in the former. What
+can these have been? It is worth while to try to answer this question at
+the present juncture, since those springs, if they existed a hundred years
+ago, can hardly now be dry.
+
+In the first place it had its predominant creed. This had acted as Islam
+acts everywhere, as a very strong social bond, uniting the vast majority
+of subjects 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 with special efficacy in Asia
+Minor, whose inhabitants the Osmanli emperors, unlike the Greek, had
+always been at some pains to attach to themselves. The sultan, therefore,
+could still count on general support from the population of his empire's
+heart, and had at his disposal the resources of a country which no
+administration, 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 not lost either 'the will to power' or
+their capacity for governing under military law. If they had never
+succeeded in learning to rule as civilians they had not forgotten how to
+rule as soldiers.
+
+In the third place the sultanate of Stambul had retained a vague but
+valuable prestige, based partly on past history, partly on its pretension
+to religious influence throughout a much larger area than its proper
+dominions; and the conservative population of the latter was in great
+measure very imperfectly informed of its sovereign's actual position.
+
+In the fourth and last place, among the populations on whose loyalty the
+Osmanli sultan could make good his claim, were several strong unexhausted
+elements, especially in Anatolia. There are few more vigorous and enduring
+peoples than the peasants of the central plateau of Asia Minor, 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, less firmly
+attached to himself, but not less vigorous, such, for example, as the
+Albanians of his European mountains and the Kurds of his Asiatic. However
+decadent might be the Turco-Grecian Osmanli (he, unfortunately, had the
+lion's share of office), those other elements had suffered no decline in
+physical or mental development. Indeed, one cannot be among them now
+without feeling that their day is not only not gone, but is still, for the
+most part, yet to be.
+
+Such were latent assets of the Osmanli Empire, appreciated imperfectly by
+the prophets of its dissolution. Thanks to them, that empire continued not
+only to hold together throughout the nineteenth century but, in some
+measure, to consolidate itself. Even when the protective fence, set up by
+European powers about it, was violated, as by Russia several times--in
+1829, in 1854, and in 1877--the nation, which Mahmud had made, always
+proved capable of stout enough resistance to delay the enemy till European
+diplomacy, however slow of movement, could come to its aid, and ultimately
+to dispose the victor to accept terms consistent with its continued
+existence. It was an existence, of course, of sufferance, but one which
+grew better assured the longer it lasted. By an irony of the Osmanli
+position, the worse the empire was administered, the stronger became its
+international guarantee. No better example can be cited than the effect of
+its financial follies. When national bankruptcy, long contemplated by its
+Government, supervened at last, the sultan had nothing more to fear from
+Europe. He became, _ipso facto_, the cherished prot�g� of every power
+whose nationals had lent his country money.
+
+Considering the magnitude of the change which Mahmud instituted, the stage
+at which he left it, and the character of the society in which it had to
+be carried out, it was unfortunate that he should have been followed on
+the throne by two well-meaning weaklings, of whom the first was a
+voluptuary, the second a fantastic spendthrift of doubtful sanity. Mahmud,
+as has been said, being occupied for the greater part of his reign in
+destroying the old order, had been able to reconstruct little more than a
+framework. His operations had been almost entirely forcible--of a kind
+understood by and congenial to the Osmanli character--and partly by
+circumstances but more by his natural sympathies, he had been identified
+from first to last with military enterprises. Though he was known to
+contemplate the eventual supremacy of civil law, and the equality of all
+sorts and conditions of his subjects before it, he did nothing to open
+this vista to public view. Consequently he encountered little or no
+factious opposition. Very few held briefs for either the Janissaries or
+the Dere Beys; and fewer regretted them when they were gone. Osmanli
+society identified itself with the new army and accepted the consequent
+reform of the central or provincial administration. Nothing in these
+changes seemed to affect Islam or the privileged position of Moslems in
+the empire.
+
+It was quite another matter when Abdul Mejid, in the beginning of his
+reign, promulgated an imperial decree--the famous Tanzimat or Hatti Sherif
+of Gulkhaneh--which, amid many excellent and popular provisions for the
+continued reform of the administration, proclaimed the equality of
+Christian and Moslem subjects in service, in reward, and before the law.
+The new sultan, essentially a civilian and a man of easy-going
+temperament, had been induced to believe that the end of an evolution,
+which had only just begun, could be anticipated _per saltum_, and that he
+and all his subjects would live happily together ever after. His
+counsellors had been partly politicians, who for various reasons, good and
+bad, wished to gain West European sympathy for their country, involved in
+potential bondage to Russia since the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (1833),
+and recently afflicted by Ibrahim Pasha's victory at Nizib; and they
+looked to Great Britain to get them out of the Syrian mess. Partly also
+Abdul Mejid had been influenced by enthusiasts, who set more store by
+ideas or the phrases in which they were expressed, than by the evidence of
+facts. There were then, as since, 'young men in a hurry' among the more
+Europeanized Osmanlis. The net result of the sultan's precipitancy was to
+set against himself and his policy all who wished that such it
+consummation of the reform process might never come and all who knew it
+would never come, if snatched at 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 worked and in which fresh
+developments of it would be accepted.
+
+To his credit, however, Abdul Mejid went on with administrative reform.
+The organization of the army into corps--the foundation of the existing
+system--and the imposition of five years' service on all subjects of the
+empire (in theory which an Albanian rising caused to be imperfectly
+realized in fact), belong to the early part of his reign; as do also, on
+the civil side, the institution of responsible councils of state and
+formation of ministries, and much provision for secondary education. To
+his latest years is to be credited the codification of the civil law. He
+had the advantage of some dozen initial years of comparative security from
+external foes, after the Syrian question had been settled in his favour by
+Great Britain and her allied powers at the cheap price of a guarantee of
+hereditary succession to the house of Mehemet Ali. Thanks to the same
+support, war with 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), proved far from content. If the form of
+Osmanli government had changed greatly, its spirit had changed little, and
+defective communications militated against the responsibility of officials
+to the centre. Money was scarce, and the paper currency--an ill-omened
+device of Mahmud's--was depreciated, distrusted, and regarded as 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 blood between creeds and
+encouraged opposition to the execution of the pro-Christian Tanzimat. When
+Christian turbulence at last brought on, in 1854, the Russian attack which
+developed into the Crimean War, and Christian allies, though they
+frustrated that attack, made a peace by which the Osmanlis gained nothing,
+the latter were in no mood to welcome the repetition of the Tanzimat,
+which Abdul Mejid consented to embody in the Treaty of Paris. The reign
+closed amid turbulence and humiliations--massacre and bombardment at
+Jidda, massacre and Franco-British coercion in Syria--from all of which
+the sultan took 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 Europeanization, and a different, but more
+fatal, weakness of character. He was, perhaps, never wholly sane; but his
+aberration, at first attested only by an exalted conviction of his divine
+character and inability to do wrong, excited little attention until it
+began to issue in fantastic expenditure. By an irony of history, he is the
+one Osmanli sultan upon the roll of our Order of the Garter, the right to
+place a banner in St, George's Chapel having been offered to this
+Allah-possessed caliph on the occasion of his visit to the West in 1867.
+
+Despite the good intentions of Abdul Aziz himself--as sincere as can be
+credited to a disordered brain---and despite more than one minister of
+outstanding ability, reform and almost everything else in the empire went
+to the bad in this unhappy reign. The administration settled down to
+lifeless routine and lapsed into corruption: the national army was starved:
+the depreciation of the currency grew worse as the revenue declined and
+the sultan's household and personal extravagance increased. Encouraged by
+the inertia of the imperial Government, the Christians of the European
+provinces waxed bold. Though Montenegro was severely handled for
+contumacy, the Serbs were able to cover their penultimate stage towards
+freedom by forcing in 1867 the withdrawal of the last Ottoman garrisons
+from their fortresses. Krete stood at bay for three years and all but 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 as a nationality in the Ottoman
+Empire, her Church being detached from the control of the Oecumenical
+Patriarch of the Greeks and placed under an Exarch. Presently, her
+peasantry growing ever more restive, passed from protest to revolt against
+the Circassian refugee-colonists with whom the Porte was flooding the
+land. The sultan, in an evil hour, for lack of trained troops, let loose
+irregulars on the villages, and the Bulgarian atrocities, which they
+committed in 1875, sowed a fatal harvest for his successor to reap. His
+own time was almost fulfilled. The following spring a dozen high
+officials, with the assent of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the active dissent
+of no one, took Abdul Aziz from his throne to a prison, wherein two days
+later he perished, probably by his own hand. A puppet reigned three months
+as Murad V, and then, at the bidding of the same king-makers whom his
+uncle had obeyed, left the throne free for his brother Abdul Hamid, a man
+of affairs and ability, who was to be the most conspicuous, or rather, the
+most notorious Osmanli sultan since Suleiman.
+
+
+
+6
+
+_Relapse_
+
+
+The new sultan, who had not expected his throne, found his realm in
+perilous case. Nominally sovereign and a member of the Concert of Europe,
+he was in reality a semi-neutralized dependant, existing, as an
+undischarged bankrupt, on sufferance of the powers. Should the Concert be
+dissolved, or even divided, and any one of its members be left free to
+foreclose its Ottoman mortgages, the empire would be at an end. Internally
+it was in many parts in open revolt, in all the rest stagnant and slowly
+rotting. The thrice-foiled claimant to its succession, who six years
+before had denounced the Black Sea clause of the Treaty of Paris and so
+freed its hands for offence, was manifestly preparing a fresh assault.
+Something drastic must be done; but what?
+
+This danger of the empire's international situation, and also the disgrace
+of it, had been evident for some time past to those who had any just
+appreciation of affairs; and in the educated class, at any rate, something
+like a public opinion, very apprehensive and very much ashamed, had
+struggled into being. The discovery of a leader in Midhat Pasha, former
+governor-general of Bagdad, and a king-maker of recent notoriety, induced
+the party of this opinion to take precipitate action. Murad had been
+deposed in August. Before the year was out Midhat presented himself before
+Abdul Hamid with a formal demand for the promulgation of a Constitution,
+proposing not only to put into execution the pious hopes of the two Hatti
+Sherifs of Abdul Mejid but also to limit the sovereign and govern the
+empire by representative institutions. The new sultan, hardly settled on
+his uneasy throne, could not deny those who had deposed his two
+predecessors, and, shrewdly aware that ripe facts would not be long in
+getting the better of immature ideas, accepted. A parliament was summoned;
+an electorate, with only the haziest notions of what it was about, went
+through the form of sending representatives to Constantinople; and the
+sittings were inaugurated by a speech from the throne, framed on the most
+approved Britannic model, the deputies, it is said, jostling and crowding
+the while to sit, as many as possible, on the right, which they understood
+was always the side of powers that be.
+
+It is true this extemporized chamber never had a chance. The Russians
+crossed the Pruth before it had done much more than verify its powers, and
+the thoughts and energies of the Osmanlis were soon occupied with the most
+severe and disastrous struggle in which the empire had ever engaged. But
+it is equally certain that it could not have turned to account any chance
+it might have had. Once more the 'young men in a hurry' had snatched at
+the end of an evolution hardly begun, without taking into account the
+immaturity of Osmanli society in political education and political
+capacity. After suspension during the 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 that the next
+reformers would inevitably have a more convinced public opinion behind
+them, and he had virtually destroyed the power of Mahmud's bureaucracy. If
+the only immediate effect was the substitution of an unlimited autocracy,
+the Osmanli peoples would be able thenceforward to ascribe their
+misfortunes to a single person, meditate attack, on a single position, and
+dream of realizing some day an ideal which had been definitely formulated.
+
+The Russian onslaught, which began in both Europe and Asia 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, joined the invader. In
+campaigns lasting a little less than a 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 by
+rival powers, both before the peace and in the revision of it at Berlin,
+gave fresh assurance that the end would not be suffered to come yet; and,
+moreover, through the long series of disasters, much latent strength 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 empire must be made, not more European,
+but more Asiatic. In the development of Islamic spirit to pan-Islamic
+unity it would find new strength; and towards this end in the early
+eighties, while he was yet comparatively young, with intelligence
+unclouded and courage sufficient, Abdul Hamid patiently set himself. In
+Asia, naturally sympathetic to autocracy, and the home of the faith of his
+fathers, he set on foot a pan-Islamic propaganda. He exalted his caliphate;
+he wooed the Arabs, and he plotted with extraneous Moslems against
+whatever foreign government they might have to endure.
+
+It cannot be denied that this idea was based on the logic of facts, and,
+if it could be realized, promised better than Midhat's for escape from
+shameful dependence. Indeed, Abdul Hamid, an autocrat bent on remaining
+one, could hardly have acted upon any other. By far the greater part of
+the territorial empire remaining to him lay in Asia. The little left in
+Europe would obviously soon be reduced to less. The Balkan lands were
+waking, or already awake, to a sense of separate nationality, and what
+chance did the Osmanli element, less progressive than any, stand in them?
+The acceptance of the Ottoman power into the Concert of Europe, though
+formally notified to Abdul Mejid, had proved an empty thing. In that
+galley there was no place for a sultan except as a dependent or a slave.
+As an Asiatic power, however, exerting temporal sway over some eighteen
+million bodies and religious influence over many times more souls, the
+Osmanli caliph might command a place in the sun.
+
+The result belied these hopes. Abdul Hamid's failure was owed in the main
+to facts independent of his personality or statecraft. The expansion of
+Islam over an immense geographical area and among peoples living in
+incompatible stages of sophistication, under most diverse political and
+social conditions, has probably made any universal caliphial authority for
+ever impossible. The original idea of the caliphate, like that of the
+_jehad_ or holy war of the faithful, presupposed that all Moslems were
+under governments of their own creed, and, perhaps, under one government.
+Moreover, if such a caliph were ever to be again, an Osmanli sultan would
+not be a strong candidate. Apart from the disqualification of his blood,
+he being not of the Prophet's tribe nor even an Arab, he is lord of a
+state irretrievably compromised in purist eyes (as Wahabis and Senussis
+have testified once and again) by its Byzantine heritage of necessary
+relations with infidels. Abdul Hamid's predecessors for two centuries or
+more had been at no pains to infuse reality into their nominal leadership
+of the faithful. To call a real caliphate out of so long abeyance could
+hardly have been effected even by a bold soldier, who appealed to the
+general imagination of Moslems; and certainly was beyond the power of a
+timid civilian.
+
+When Abdul Hamid had played this card and failed, he had no other; and his
+natural pusillanimity and shiftiness induced him to withdraw ever more
+into the depths of his palace, and there use his intelligence in
+exploiting this shameful dependence of his country on foreign powers.
+Unable or unwilling to encourage national resistance, he consoled himself,
+as a weak malcontent will, by setting one power against another,
+pin-pricking the stronger and blustering to the weaker. The history of his
+reign is a long record of protests and surrenders to the great in big
+matters, as to Great Britain in the matter of Egypt in 1881, to Russia in
+that of Eastern Rumelia in 1885, to France on the question of the
+Constantinople quays and other claims, and to all the powers in 1881 in
+the matter of the financial control. Between times he put in such
+pin-pricks as he could, removing his neighbours' landmarks in the Aden
+_hinterland_ or the Sinaitic peninsula. He succeeded, however, in keeping
+his empire out of a foreign war with any power for about thirty years,
+with the single exception of a brief conflict with Greece in 1897. While
+in the first half of his reign he was at pains to make no European friend,
+in the latter he fell more and more under the influence of Germany, which,
+almost from the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II, began to prepare a
+southward way for future use, and alone of the powers, never browbeat the
+sultan.
+
+Internally, the empire passed more and more under the government of the
+imperial household. Defeated by the sheer geographical difficulty of
+controlling directly an area so vast and inadequately equipped with means
+of communication, Abdul Hamid soon relaxed the spasmodic efforts of his
+early years to better the condition of his subjects; and, uncontrolled and
+demoralized by the national disgrace, the administration went from bad to
+much worse. Ministers irresponsible; officials without sense of public
+obligation; venality in all ranks; universal suspicion and delation;
+violent remedies, such as the Armenian massacres of 1894, for diseases due
+to neglect; the peasantry, whether Moslem or Christian, but especially
+Christian, forced ultimately to liquidate all accounts; impoverishment of
+the whole empire by the improvidence and oppression of the central power--
+such phrasing of the conventional results of 'Palace' government expresses
+inadequately the fruits of Yildiz under Abdul Hamid II.
+
+_Pari passu_ with this disorder of central and provincial administration
+increased the foreign encroachments on the empire. The nation saw not only
+rapid multiplication of concessions and hypothecations to aliens, and of
+alien persons themselves installed in its midst under extra-territorial
+immunity 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 had all been withdrawn from Ottoman control since
+the Berlin settlement, and now Macedonia seemed to be going the same way.
+Bitter to swallow as the other losses had been--pills thinly sugared with
+a guarantee of suzerainty--the loss of Macedonia would be more bitter
+still; for, if it were withdrawn from Ottoman use and profit, Albania
+would follow and so would the command of the north Aegean and the Adriatic
+shores; while an ancient Moslem population would remain at Christian
+mercy.
+
+It was partly Ottoman fault, partly the fault of circumstances beyond
+Ottoman control, that this district had become a scandal and a reproach.
+In the days of Osmanli greatness 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, it had already become a cockpit for the new-born Christian
+nationalities, which had been developed on the north, east, and south.
+These were using every weapon, material and spiritual, to secure
+preponderance in its society, and had created chronic disorder which the
+Ottoman administration now weakly encouraged to save itself trouble, now
+violently dragooned. Already the powers had not only proposed autonomy for
+it, but begun to control its police and its finance. This was the last
+straw. The public opinion which had slowly been forming for thirty years
+gained the army, and Midhat's seed came to fruit.
+
+By an irony of fate Macedonia not only supplied the spectacle which
+exasperated the army to revolt, but by its very disorder made the
+preparation of that revolt possible; for it was due to local limitations
+of Ottoman sovereignty that the chief promoters of revolution were able to
+conspire in safety. By another irony, two of the few progressive measures
+ever encouraged by Abdul Hamid contributed to his undoing. If he had not
+sent young officers to be trained abroad, 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, as he
+began to do after 1897, the Salonika army could have had no such influence
+on affairs in Constantinople as it exerted in 1908 and again in 1909. As
+it was, the sultan, at 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 he had fostered, and to
+send him, dethroned and captive, to the place whence itself had come.
+
+
+
+7
+
+_Revolution_
+
+
+Looking back on this revolution across seven years of its consequences, we
+see plainly enough that it was inspired far less by desire for humane
+progress than by shame of Osmanli military decline. The 'Liberty,
+Equality, Fraternity' programme which its authors put forward (a civilian
+minority 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 eventually guide its course. The essence of that movement was
+militant nationalism. The empire was to be regenerated, not by humanizing
+it but by Ottomanizing it. 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 not so wish must be eliminated by the rest.
+
+The revolutionary Committee in Salonika, called 'of Union and Progress',
+held up its cards at first, but by 1910 events had forced its hand on the
+table. The definite annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by
+Austria-Hungary in 1908, and the declaration of independence and
+assumption of the title Tsar by the ruler of Bulgaria, since they were the
+price to be paid by the revolutionaries for a success largely made in
+Germany, were opposed officially only _pro forma_; but when uninformed
+opinion in the empire was exasperated thereby against Christendom, the
+Committee, to appease reactionaries, had to give premature proof of
+pan-Osmanli and pro-Moslem intentions by taking drastic action against
+_rayas_. The Greeks of the empire, never without suspicions, had failed to
+testify the same enthusiasm for Ottoman fraternity which others, e.g. the
+Armenians, had shown; now they resumed their separatist attitude, and made
+it clear that they still aspired, not to Ottoman, but to Hellenic
+nationality. Nor were even the Moslems of the empire unanimous for
+fraternity among themselves. The Arab-speaking societies complained of
+under-representation in the councils and offices of the state, and made no
+secret of their intention not to be assimilated by the Turk-speaking
+Osmanlis. To all suggestions, however, of local home-rule and conciliation
+of particularist societies in the empire, the Committee was deaf. Without
+union, it believed in no progress, and by union it understood the
+assimilation of all societies in the empire to the Osmanli.
+
+Logic was on the side of the Committee in its choice of both end and
+means. In pan-Ottomanism, if it could be effected, lay certainly the
+single chance of restoring Osmanli independence and power to anything like
+the position they had once held. In rule by a militarist oligarchy for
+some generations to come, lay the one hope of realizing the pan-Ottoman
+idea and educating the resultant nation to self-government. That end,
+however, it was impossible to realize under the circumstances in which
+past history had involved the Ottoman Empire. There was too much bad blood
+between different elements of its society which Osmanli rulers had been
+labouring for centuries rather to keep apart than to unite; and certain
+important elements, both Moslem and Christian, had already developed too
+mature ideas of separate nationality. With all its defects, however, the
+new order did undoubtedly rest on a wider basis than the old, and its
+organization was better conceived and executed. It retained some of the
+sympathy of Europe which its beginnings had excited, and the western
+powers, regarding its representative institutions as earnests of good
+government, however ill they might work at the first, were disposed to
+give it every chance.
+
+Unfortunately the Young Turks were in a hurry to bring on their
+millennium, and careless of certain neighbouring powers, not formidable
+individually but to be reckoned with if united, to whom the prospect of
+regenerated Osmanlis assimilating their nationals could not be welcome.
+Had the Young Turks been content to put their policy of Ottomanization in
+the background for awhile, had they made no more than a show of accepting
+local distinctions of creed and 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 resist, 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 as little minded to compromise
+as any Old Turk, though from a different motive. It elected to deal
+drastically and at once with Macedonia, the peculiar object 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. It did
+not get it. The interested neighbours, each beset by fugitives of its
+oppressed nationals, protested only to be ignored or browbeaten. They drew
+towards one another; old feuds and jealousies were put on one side; and at
+last, in the summer of 1912, a Holy League of Balkan States, inspired by
+Venezelos, the new Kretan Prime Minister of Greece, and by Ferdinand of
+Bulgaria, was formed with a view to common action against the oppressor of
+Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian nationals in Macedonia. Montenegro, always
+spoiling for a fight, was deputed to fire the train, and at the approach
+of autumn the first Balkan war blazed up.
+
+
+
+8
+
+_Balkan War_
+
+
+The course of the struggle is described elsewhere in this volume. Its
+event illustrates the danger of an alliance succeeding beyond the
+expectations in which it was formed. The constituent powers had looked for
+a stiff struggle with the Ottoman armies, but for final success sufficient
+to enable them, at the best, to divide Macedonia among themselves, at the
+worst, to secure its autonomy under international guarantee. Neither they
+nor any one else expected such an Ottoman collapse as was in store. Their
+moment of attack was better chosen than they knew. The Osmanli War Office
+was caught fairly in the middle of the stream. Fighting during the
+revolution, subsequently against Albanians and other recalcitrant
+provincials, and latterly against the Italians, who had snatched at
+Tripoli the year before, had reduced the _Nizam_, the first line of
+troops, far below strength. The _Redif_, the second line, had received
+hardly more training, thanks to the disorganization of Abdul Hamid's last
+years and of the first years of the new order, than the _Mustafuz_, the
+third and last line. Armament, auxiliary services, and the like had been
+disorganized preparatory to a scheme for thorough reorganization, which
+had been carried, as yet, but a very little way. A foreign (German)
+element, introduced into the 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 of various arms; those
+which met the Serbs, a little better; those which opposed the Greeks, a
+little worse.
+
+It followed that the Bulgarians, who had proposed to do no more in Thrace
+than block Adrianople and immobilize the Constantinople forces, were
+carried by their own momentum right down to Chataldja, and there and at
+Adrianople had to prosecute siege operations when they ought to have been
+marching to Kavala and Salonika. The Serbs, after hard fighting, broke
+through not only into Macedonia but into Albania, and reached the
+Adriatic, but warned off this by the powers, consoled themselves with the
+occupation of much more Macedonian territory than the concerted plans of
+the allies had foreseen. The Greeks, instead of hard contests for the
+Haliacmon Valley and Epirus--their proper Irredenta--pushed such weak
+forces before them that they got through to Salonika just in time to
+forestall a Bulgarian column. Ottoman collapse was complete everywhere,
+except on the Chataldja front. It remained to divide the spoil. Serbia
+might not have Adriatic Albania, and therefore wanted as much Macedonia as
+she had actually overrun. Greece wanted the rest of Macedonia and had
+virtually got it. Remained Bulgaria who, with more of Thrace than she
+wanted, found herself almost entirely crowded out of Macedonia, the common
+objective of all.
+
+Faced with division _ex post facto_, the allies found their _a priori_
+agreement would not resolve the situation. Bulgaria, the predominant
+partner and the most aggrieved, would neither recognize the others' rights
+of possession nor honestly submit her claims to the only possible arbiter,
+the Tsar of Russia. Finding herself one against two, she tried a _coup de
+main_ on both fronts, failed, and brought on a second Balkan war, in which
+a new determining factor, Rumania, intervened at a critical moment to
+decide the issue against her. The Ottoman armies recovered nearly all they
+had lost in eastern and central Thrace, including Adrianople, almost
+without firing a shot, and were not ill pleased to be quit of a desperate
+situation at the price of Macedonia, Albania, and western Thrace.
+
+Defeated and impoverished, the Ottoman power came out of the war clinging
+to a mere remnant of its European empire--one single mutilated province
+which did not pay its way. With the lost territories had gone about
+one-eighth of the whole population and one-tenth of the total imperial
+revenue. But when these heavy losses had been cut, there was nothing more
+of a serious nature to put to debit, but a little even to credit. Ottoman
+prestige had suffered but slightly in the eyes of the people. The
+obstinate and successful defence of the Chataldja lines and the subsequent
+recovery of eastern Thrace with Adrianople, the first European seat of the
+Osmanlis, had almost effaced the sense of Osmanli disgrace, and stood to
+the general credit of the Committee and the individual credit of its
+military leader, Enver Bey. The loss of some thousands of soldiers and
+much material was compensated by an invaluable lesson in the faultiness of
+the military system, and especially the _Redif_ organization. The way was
+now clearer than before for re-making the army on the best European model,
+the German. The campaign had not been long, nor, as wars go, costly to
+wage. In the peace Turkey gained a new lease of life from the powers, and,
+profligate that she was, the promise of more millions of foreign money.
+
+Over and above all this an advantage, which she rated above international
+guarantees, was secured to her--the prospective support of the strongest
+military power in Europe. The success of Serbia so menaced
+Germano-Austrian plans for the penetration of the Balkans, that the
+Central Powers were bound to woo Turkey even more lavishly than before,
+and to seek alliance where they had been content with influence. In a
+strong Turkey resided all their hope of saving from the Slavs the way to
+the Mediterranean. They had kept this policy in view for more than twenty
+years, and in a hundred ways, by introduction of Germans into the military
+organization, promotion of German financial enterprise, pushing of German
+commerce, pressure on behalf of German concessions which would entail
+provincial influence (for example, the construction of a transcontinental
+railway in Asia), those powers had been manifesting their interest in
+Turkey with ever-increasing solicitude. Now they must attach her to
+themselves with hoops of steel and, with her help, as soon as might be,
+try to recast the Balkan situation.
+
+The experience of the recent war and the prospect in the future made
+continuance and accentuation of military government in the Ottoman Empire
+inevitable. The Committee, which had made its way back to power by violent
+methods, now suppressed its own Constitution almost as completely as Abdul
+Hamid had suppressed Midhat's parliament. Re-organization of the military
+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 1912-14. The bond with Germany was drawn lighter. More German
+instructors were invited, more German engineers commissioned, more
+munitions of war paid for in French gold. By 1914 it had become so evident
+that the Osmanlis must array themselves with Austro-Germany in any
+European war, that one wonders why a moment's credit was ever given to
+their protestations of neutrality when that war came at last in August
+1914. Turkey then needed other three months to complete her first line of
+defences and mobilize. These were allowed to her, and in the late autumn
+she entered the field against Great Britain, France, and Russia, armed
+with German guns, led by German officers, 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 the Ottoman Empire has lost what had
+been for a century its chief security for continued existence. Its fate
+now depends on that of two European powers which are at war with the rest
+of the former Concert. Among the last named are Turkey's two principal
+creditors, holding together about seventy-five per cent. of her public
+debt. In the event of the defeat of her friends, these creditors will be
+free to foreclose, the debtor being certainly in no position to meet her
+obligations. Allied with Christian powers, the Osmanli caliph has proved
+no more able than his predecessors to unite Islam in his defence; but, for
+what his title is worth, Mohammed V is still caliph, no rival claim having
+been put forward. The loyalty of the empire remains where it was, pending
+victory or defeat, the provinces being slow to realize, and still slower
+to resent, the disastrous economic state to which the war is reducing
+them.
+
+The present struggle may leave the Osmanli Empire in one of three
+situations: (1) member of a victorious alliance, reinforced, enlarged, and
+lightened of financial burdens, as the wages of its sin; (2) member of a
+defeated alliance, bound to pay the price of blood in loss of territory,
+or independence, or even existence; (3) party to a compromise under which
+its territorial empire might conceivably remain Ottoman, but under even
+stricter European tutelage than of old.
+
+The first alternative it would be idle to discuss, for the result of
+conditions so novel are impossible to foresee. Nor, indeed, when immediate
+events are so doubtful an at the present moment, is it profitable to
+attempt 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 the disposal of the empire may
+lie.
+
+The influence of the Osmanlis in their empire to-day resides in three
+things: first, in their possession of Constantinople; second, in the
+sultan's caliphate and his guardianship of the holy cities of Islam;
+third, in certain qualities of Osmanli character, notably 'will to power'
+and courage in the field.
+
+What Constantinople means for the Osmanlis is implied in that name _Roum_
+by which the western dominions of the Turks have been known ever since the
+Seljuks won Asia Minor. Apart from the prestige of their own early
+conquests, the Osmanlis inherited, and in a measure retain in the Near
+East, the traditional prestige of the greatest empire which ever held it.
+They stand not only for their own past but also for whatever still lives
+of the prestige of Rome. Theirs is still the repute of the imperial people
+_par excellence_, chosen and called to rule.
+
+That this repute should continue, after the sweeping victories of Semites
+and subsequent centuries of Ottoman retreat before other heirs of Rome, is
+a paradox to be explained only by the fact that a large part of the
+population of the Near East remains at this day in about the same stage of
+civilization and knowledge as in the time of, say, Heraclius. The
+Osmanlis, be it remembered, were and are foreigners in a great part of
+their Asiatic empire equally with the Greeks of Byzantium or the Romans of
+Italy; and their establishment in Constantinople nearly five centuries ago
+did not mean to the indigenous peoples of the Near East what it meant to
+Europe--a victory of the East over the West--so much as a continuation of
+immemorial 'Roman' dominion still exercised from the same imperial centre.
+Since Rome first spread its shadow over the Near East, many men of many
+races, whose variety was imperfectly realised, if realised at all, by the
+peasants of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, have ruled in its
+name; the Osmanlis, whose governmental system was in part the Byzantine,
+made but one more change which meant the same old thing. The peasants
+know, of course, about those Semitic victories; but they know also that if
+the Semite has had his day of triumph and imposed, as was right and
+proper, his God and his Prophet on Roum--even on all mankind as many
+believed, and some may be found in remoter regions who still believe--he
+has returned to his own place south of Taurus; and still Roum is Roum,
+natural indefeasible Lord of the World.
+
+Such a belief is dying now, of course; but it dies slowly and hard. It
+still constitutes a real asset of the Osmanlis, and will not cease to have
+value until they lose Constantinople. On the possession of the old
+imperial city it depends for whatever vitality it has. You may
+demonstrate, as you will, and as many publicists have done since the
+Balkan War and before, what and how great economic, political, and social
+advantages 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 could
+concentrate Moslems where their co-religionists are already the great
+majority, and so have done with the everlasting friction and weakness
+entailed in jurisdiction over preponderant Christian elements. Here they
+might throw off the remnants of their Byzantinism as a garment and, no
+longer forced to face two ways, live and govern with single minds as the
+Asiatics they are.
+
+Vain illusion, as Osmanli imperialists know! It is their empire that would
+fall away as a garment so soon as the Near East realized that they no
+longer ruled in the Imperial City. Enver Pasha and the Committee were
+amply justified in straining the resources of the Ottoman Empire to
+cracking-point, not merely to retain Constantinople but also to recover
+Adrianople and a territory in Europe large enough to bulk as Roum. Nothing
+that happened in that war made so greatly for the continuation of the old
+order in Asiatic Turkey as the reoccupation of Adrianople. The one
+occasion on which Europeans in Syria had reason to expect a general
+explosion was when premature rumours of the entry of the Bulgarian army
+into Stambul gained currency for a few hours. That explosion, had the news
+proved true or not been contradicted in time, would have been a
+panic-stricken, ungovernable impulse of anarchy--of men conscious that an
+old world had passed away and ignorant what conceivable new world could
+come to be.
+
+But the perilous moment passed, to be succeeded by general diffusion of a
+belief that the inevitable catastrophe was 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 national organizations and
+nationalist journals sprang to life at Beirut and elsewhere. The revival
+of Arab empire was 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 beyond Chataldja:
+the Balkan States were at war among themselves: finally, Adrianople had
+been re-occupied. And all was as in the beginning. Budding life withered
+in the Arab movement, and the Near East settled down once more in the
+persistent shadow of Roum.
+
+Such is the first element in Osmanli prestige, doomed to disappear the
+moment that the Ottoman state relinquishes Europe. Meanwhile there it is
+for what it is worth; and it is actually worth a tradition of submission,
+natural and honourable, to a race of superior destiny, which is
+instinctive in some millions of savage simple hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What of the second element? The religious prestige of the Ottoman power as
+the repository of caliphial authority and trustee for Islam in the Holy
+Land of Arabia, is an asset almost impossible to estimate. Would a death
+struggle of the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world? Would the
+Moslems of India, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, and Malaya take up arms
+for the Ottoman sultan as caliph? Nothing but the event will prove that
+they would. Jehad, or Holy War, is an obsolescent weapon difficult and
+dangerous for Young Turks to wield: difficult because their own Islamic
+sincerity is suspect and they are taking the field now as clients of
+_giaur_ peoples; dangerous because the Ottoman nation itself includes
+numerous Christian elements, indispensable to its economy.
+
+Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can count on its religious
+prestige appealing widely, overriding counteracting sentiments, and, if it
+rouses to action, rousing the most dangerous temper of all. It is futile
+to ignore the caliph because he is not of the Koreish, and owes his
+dignity to a sixteenth-century transfer. These facts are either unknown or
+not borne in mind by half the Sunnites on whom he might call, and weigh
+far less with the other half than his hereditary dominion over the Holy
+Cities, sanctioned by the prescription of nearly four centuries.
+
+One thing can be foretold with certainty. The religious prestige of an
+Ottoman sultan, who had definitely lost control of the Holy Places, would
+cease as quickly and utterly as the secular prestige of one who had
+evacuated Constantinople: and since the loss of the latter would probably
+precipitate an Arab revolt, and cut off the Hejaz, the religious element
+in Ottoman prestige may be said to depend on Constantinople as much as the
+secular. All the more reason why the Committee of Union and Progress
+should not have accepted that well-meant advice of European publicists! A
+successful revolt of the Arab-speaking provinces would indeed sound the
+death-knell of the Ottoman Empire. No other event would be so immediately
+and surely catastrophic.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third element in Osmanli prestige, inherent qualities of the Osmanli
+'Turk' himself, will be admitted by every one who knows him and his
+history. To say that he has the 'will to power' is not, however, to say
+that he has an aptitude for government. He wishes to govern others; his
+will to do so imposes itself on peoples who have not the same will; they
+give way to him and he governs them indifferently, though often better
+than they can govern themselves. For example, bad as, according to our
+standards, Turkish government is, native Arab government, when not in
+tutelage to Europeans, has generally proved itself worse, when tried in
+the Ottoman area in modern times. Where it is of a purely Bedawi barbaric
+type, as in the emirates of central Arabia, it does well enough; but if
+the population be contaminated ever so little with non-Arab elements,
+practices, or ideas, Arab administration seems incapable of producing
+effective government. It has had chances in the Holy Cities at intervals,
+and for longer periods in the Yemen. But a European, long resident in the
+latter country, who has groaned under Turkish administration, where it has
+always been most oppressive, bore witness that the rule of the native Imam
+only served to replace oppressive government by oppressive anarchy.
+
+As for the Osmanli's courage as a fighting man, that has often been
+exemplified, and never better than in the Gallipoli peninsula. It is
+admitted. The European and Anatolian Osmanlis yield little one to the
+other in this virtue; but the palm, if awarded at all, must be given to
+the levies from northern and central Asia Minor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If Constantinople should be lost, the Arab-speaking parts of the empire
+would in all likelihood break away, carrying the Holy Cities with them.
+When the constant risk of this consummation, with the cataclysmic nature
+of its consequences is considered, one marvels why the Committee, which
+has shown no mean understanding of some conditions essential to Osmanli
+empire, should have done so little hitherto to conciliate Arab
+susceptibilities. Neither in the constitution of the parliament nor in the
+higher commands of the army have the Arab-speaking peoples been given
+anything like their fair share; and loudly and insistently have they
+protested. Perhaps the Committee, whose leading members are of a markedly
+Europeanized type, understands Asia less well than Europe. Certainly its
+programme of Ottomanization, elaborated by military ex-attach�s, by Jew
+bankers and officials from Salonika, and by doctors, lawyers, and other
+_intellectuels_ fresh from Paris, was conceived on lines which offered
+the pure Asiatic very little scope. The free and equal Osmanlis were all
+to take their cue from men of the Byzantine sort which the European
+provinces, and especially the city of Constantinople, breed. After the
+revolution, nothing in Turkey struck one so much as the apparition on the
+top of things everywhere of a type of Osmanli who has the characteristic
+qualities of the Levantine Greek. Young officers, controlling their
+elders, only needed a change of uniform to pass in an Athenian crowd.
+Spare and dapper officials, presiding in seats of authority over Kurds and
+Arabs, reminded one of Greek journalists. Osmanli journalists themselves
+treated one to rhodomontades punctuated with restless gesticulation, which
+revived memories of Athenian caf�s in war-time. It was the Byzantine
+triumphing over the Asiatic; and the most Asiatic elements in the empire
+were the least likely to meet with the appreciation or sympathy of the
+Byzantines.
+
+Are the Arab-speaking peoples, therefore, likely to revolt, or be
+successful in splitting the Ottoman Empire, if they do? The present writer
+would like to say, in parenthesis, that, in his opinion, this consummation
+of the empire is not devoutly to be wished. The substitution of Arab
+administration for Osmanli would necessarily entail European tutelage of
+the parts of the Arab-speaking area in which powers, like ourselves, have
+vital interests--Syria, for example, southern Mesopotamia, and, probably,
+Hejaz. The last 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 loth to see him dismissed.
+
+An Arab revolt, however, might break out whether the Triple Entente
+desired its success or not. What chance of success would it have? The
+peoples of the Arab part of the Ottoman Empire are a congeries of
+differing races, creeds, sects, and social systems, with no common bond
+except language. The physical character of their land 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 (not to
+mention a large Jewish element), the cleavage being more abrupt than in
+western Turkey and the tradition and actual spirit of mutual enmity more
+separative. Further, each of those main creed-divisions is subdivided.
+Even Islam in this region includes a number of incompatible sects, such as
+the Ansariye, the Metawali, and the Druses in the Syrian mountains, Shiite
+Arabs on the Gulf coast and the Persian border, with pagan Kurds and
+Yezidis in the latter 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. It is almost impossible to imagine
+the inhabitants of Syria concerting a common plan or taking common action.
+The only elements among them which have shown any political sense or
+capacity for political organization are Christian. The Maronites of the
+Lebanon are most conspicuous among these; but neither their numbers nor
+their traditional relations with their neighbours qualify them to form the
+nucleus of a free united Syria. The 'Arab Movement' up to the present has
+consisted in little more than talk and journalese. It has not developed
+any considerable organization to meet that stable efficient organization
+which the Committee of Union and Progress has directed throughout the
+Ottoman dominions.
+
+As for the rest of the empire, Asia Minor will stand by the Osmanli cause,
+even if Europe and Constantinople, and even if the Holy Places and all the
+Arab-speaking provinces be lost. Its allegiance does not depend on either
+the tradition of Roum or the caliphate, but on essential unity with the
+Osmanli nation. Asia Minor is the nation. There, prepared equally by
+Byzantine domination and by Seljukian influence, the great mass of the
+people long ago identified itself insensibly and completely with the
+tradition and hope of the Osmanlis. The subsequent occupation of the
+Byzantine capital by the heirs of the Byzantine system, and their still
+later assumption of caliphial responsibility, were not needed to cement
+the union. Even a military occupation by Russia or by another strong power
+would not detach Anatolia from the Osmanli unity; for a thing cannot be
+detached from itself. But, of course, that occupation might after long
+years cause the unity itself to cease to be.
+
+Such an occupation, however, would probably not be seriously resisted or
+subsequently rebelled against by the Moslem majority in Asia Minor,
+supposing Osmanli armaments to have been crushed. The Anatolian population
+is a sober, labouring peasantry, essentially agricultural and wedded to
+the soil. The levies for Yemen and Europe, which have gone far to deplete
+and exhaust it of recent years, were composed of men who fought to order
+and without imagination, steadily and faithfully, as their fathers had
+fought. They have no lust for war, no Arabian tradition of fighting for
+its own sake, and little, if any, fanaticism. Attempts to inspire
+Anatolian troops with religious rage in the Balkan War were failures. They
+were asked to fight in too modern a way under too many Teutonic officers.
+The result illustrated a prophecy ascribed to Ghasri Mukhtar Pasha. When
+German instructors were first introduced into Turkey, he foretold that
+they would be the end of the Ottoman army. No, these Anatolians desire
+nothing better than to follow their plough-oxen, and live their common
+village life, under any master who will let them be.
+
+Elements of the Christian minority, however, Armenian and Greek, would
+give trouble with their developed ideas of nationality and irrepressible
+tendency to 'Europize'. They would present, indeed, problems of which at
+present one cannot foresee the solution. It seems inevitable that an
+autonomous Armenia, like an autonomous Poland, must be constituted ere
+long; but where? There is no geographical unit of the Ottoman area in
+which Armenians are the majority. If they cluster more thickly in the
+vilayets of Angora, Sivas, Erzerum, Kharput, and Van, i.e. in easternmost
+Asia Minor, than elsewhere, and form a village people of the soil, they
+are consistently a minority in any large administrative district.
+Numerous, too, in the trans-Tauric vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, the seat
+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 in Constantinople, could be induced to concentrate
+in a reconstituted Armenia (which is doubtful, seeing how addicted they
+are to general commerce and what may be called parasitic life), they could
+not fill out both the Greater and the Lesser Armenias of history, in
+sufficient strength to overbear the Osmanli and Kurdish elements. The
+widest area which might he constituted an autonomous Armenia with good
+prospect of self-sufficiency would be the present Russian province, where
+the head-quarters of 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 ordinance, she
+would have to police her new Armenia very strongly for some years; for an
+acute Kurdish problem would confront it, and no concentration of nationals
+could be looked for from the Armenia Irredenta of Diarbekr, Urfa, Aleppo,
+Aintab, Marash, Adana, Kaisariyeh, Sivas, Angora, and Trebizond (not to
+mention farther and more foreign towns), until public security was assured
+in what for generations has been a cockpit. The Kurd is, of course, an
+Indo-European as much as the Armenian, and rarely a true Moslem; but it
+would be a very long time indeed before these facts reconciled him to the
+domination of the race which he has plundered for three centuries. Most of
+the Osmanlis of eastern Asia Minor are descendants of converted Armenians;
+but their assimilation would be slow and doubtful. Islam, more rapidly and
+completely than any other creed, extinguishes racial sympathies and groups
+its adherents anew.
+
+The Anatolian Greeks are less numerous but not less difficult 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 serious
+difficulty to a lord of the interior. But those in the western
+river-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 at Athens has long concerned them more than what happens at
+Constantinople; and with Greece occupying the islands in the daily view of
+many of them, they are coming to regard themselves more and more every day
+as citizens of Graecia Irredenta. What is to be done with these? What, in
+particular, with Smyrna, the second city of the Ottoman Empire and the
+first of 'Magna Graecia'? Its three and a half hundred thousand souls
+include the largest Greek urban population resident in any one city. Shall
+it be united to Greece? Greece herself might well hesitate. It would prove
+a very irksome possession, involving her in all sorts of continental
+difficulties and risks. There is no good frontier inland for such an
+_enclave_. It could hardly be held without the rest of westernmost Asia,
+from Caria to the Dardanelles, and in this region the great majority of
+the population is Moslem of old stocks, devotedly attached both to their
+faith and to the Osmanli tradition.
+
+The present writer, however, is not among the prophets. He has but tried
+to set forth what may delay and what may precipitate the collapse of an
+empire, whose doom has been long foreseen, often planned, invariably
+postponed; and, further, to indicate some difficulties which, being bound
+to confront heirs of the Osmanlis, will be better met the better they are
+understood before the final agony--If this is, indeed, to be!
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abbasid Empire,
+Abdul Aziz, Sultan,
+Abdul Hamid, Sultan,
+Abdul Mejid, Sultan,
+Achaia,
+Achmet III: _see_ Ahmed III.
+Adalia,
+Adana,
+Aden,
+Adhamandios Kor�is,
+Adrianople,
+  captured by the Turks (1361),
+  captured by Serbians and Bulgarians (1913),
+  first European seat of the Osmanlis,
+  foundation of,
+  Peace and Treaty of (1829),
+  restored to Turkey (1913),
+  Russians before (1878),
+  siege of (1912-13),
+Adriatic, the,
+Aegean, the,
+  islands of,
+  trade of,
+Aehrenthal, Baron and Count,
+Afium Kara Hissar,
+Agram (Zagreb), capital of Croatia,
+Agram high treason trial, the,
+Agrapha, clansmen of,
+Ahiolu (Anchialo),
+Ahmed I, Sultan,
+Ahmed III, Sultan,
+Ahmed ibn Tulun,
+Aidin,
+Aintab,
+Aigina,
+Ainos, _See also_ Enos.
+Aivali, _See also_ Kydhonies.
+Akarnania,
+Akerman, Convention of (1826),
+Alaeddin, Sultan,
+Ala Shehr (Philadelphia),
+Albania,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  conquest of, by the Turks,
+  during the Slav immigration,
+  in classical times,
+  made independent,
+  revolts against Young Turks,
+  under the Turks,
+Albanian language, the,
+Albanians, the,
+  migrations of,
+Aleppo,
+Alexander the Great,
+Alexander I, King of Serbia (1889-1903),
+Alexander I, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander II, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander III, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander, Crown Prince of Serbia,
+Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria (1879-85),
+Alexander Karagjorgjevi['c], Prince of Serbia (1843-58),
+Alexandria,
+Alexis Comnenus, the Emperor,
+Ali Pasha,
+Ambelakia,
+America, effect of emigration from south-eastern Europe to,
+Anatolia, the Turks and,
+  character of the population,
+  feudal families,
+Anatolik�n,
+  captured by the Turks (1825),
+Andrassy, Count,
+Angora,
+  battle of (1402),
+Arabia, Turkish prestige in,
+  and the Turks,
+  movement of, in the direction of revolt,
+Arabs and Anatolia,
+  and Bulgars,
+  and Islam,
+Arcadiopolis: _see_ Lule-Burgas.
+Argos,
+Arian controversy, the,
+Armatoli, or Christian militia,
+Armenians, the,
+  character of the,
+  massacres of (1894),
+Arnauts: _see_ Albanians.
+Arta, Gulf of,
+  plain of,
+Asen dynasty, the,
+Asia Minor, Turks in,
+Asparukh (Bulgar prince),
+Aspropotamo, the,
+Astypali�,
+Athens,
+  Duchy of,
+  University of,
+  siege of (1821-2),
+    (1827),
+Athos, Mount,
+Attila,
+Austerlitz, battle of (1805),
+Austria-Hungary and the Adriatic,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and Serbia, relations between,
+  and the Serbs,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  and Turkey, relations between,
+    wars between,
+  annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,
+  occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,
+  relations with the Balkan League,
+  relations with Rumania,
+  Ruman and South Slavonic populations in,
+Austrian politics in Rumania,
+Austrians and Serbs, relations between,
+  and Turks,
+Avars, the: their invasion of the Balkan peninsula with the Slavs,
+  their war with the Bulgars,
+Avlona,
+  bay of,
+Avshar tribe,
+'Ayon Oros',
+Azerbaijan,
+
+
+Ba[)c]ka,
+Bagdad,
+'Balance of Power', the,
+Balkan League, the,
+  formation of the,
+  dissolution of the,
+Balkan peninsula, the, annexation of, by Mohammed II,
+  control of,
+  economic unity of,
+  German policy in,
+  nationalism in,
+  Slav inhabitants of,
+  Turkish power in,
+  under Roman rule,
+Balkan States, relations between the,
+  zollverein,
+Balkan war, the first (1912-13),
+  the second (June 1913),
+Banat, the,
+Baranya,
+Basil I, the Emperor,
+Basil II, the Emperor,
+  'Slayer of the Bulgars',
+Bassarab, dynasty of,
+Bayezid I, Sultan,
+Bayezid II, Sultan,
+Beaconsfield, Earl of,
+Beirut,
+Belgrade,
+  capital of Serbia,
+  captured by the Serbs (1807),
+  captured by the Turks (1521),
+   (1813),
+  its Celtic name,
+  Treaty of (1739),
+Belisarius,
+Berchtold, Count,
+Bergama,
+Berlin,
+  Congress of (1878),
+  Treaty of (1878),
+Bessarabia, Bulgars in, 25,
+  lost(1812),
+  regained (1856),
+  lost again (1878),
+  importance with regard to present situation,
+Bieberstein, Duron Marschall von,
+Bismarck,
+Bitolj: _see_ Monastir.
+Black Castle of Afiun,
+Black Sea,
+  Russian exclusion from,
+Bogomil heresy, the,
+Boja, lord of Kashgar,
+Boris, Bulgar prince (852-88),
+Boris, Crown Prince of Bulgaria,
+Bosnia, annexation of,
+  independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks,
+  in relation to the other Serb territories,
+  its Slavonic population,
+  relations of, with Hungary,
+  revolts in, against Turkey,
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule,
+  under Turkish rule,
+Bosphorus, the,
+Botzaris, Marko,
+Brankovi['c], George,
+Brankovi['c], Vuk,
+Bratianu, Ioan (father),
+  (son),
+Bregalnica, battle of the (1913),
+Brusa,
+Bucarest, Committee of,
+  Peace Conference (1913),
+  Treaty of (1812),
+    (1913),
+Bucovina, acquisition by Austria,
+  Rumanians in,
+Buda,
+Budapest, in relation to the Serbo-Croats,
+Budua,
+Bulgaria, declaration of independence by, and assumption of
+                                   title Tsar by its ruler,
+  conflicting interests with Greece,
+  early wars between, and the Greeks,
+  geographical position of,
+  growth of,
+  intervention on the side of the Central Powers in the European War,
+  its division into eastern and western,
+    extent of western,
+  in the two Balkan wars (1912-13),
+  its early relations with Rome,
+  its relations with Russia,
+  obtains recognition as a nationality in the Ottoman Empire,
+  of Slav speech and culture,
+  place of, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  Turkish atrocities in,
+Bulgaria and Rumania,
+Bulgaria and Serbia, contrasted,
+  the agreement between,
+  wars between (1885, 1913),
+Bulgaria and Turkey, relations between,
+Bulgarian bishoprics in Macedonia,
+  Church, early vicissitudes of the,
+    claims and propaganda in Macedonia,
+  Exarchist Church, the,
+  literature,
+  monarchy, origins of the,
+Bulgarians, general distribution of,
+  their attitude to the Slavs and the Germans,
+Bulgarians and Serbians, contrast between,
+Bulgars, the, their origin,
+  their advance westwards and then southwards into the
+                                     Balkan peninsula,
+  their absorption by the Slavs,
+  north of the Danube,
+  adherents of the Orthodox Church,
+Burke, Edmund,
+Byron, Lord,
+Byzantine Christianity,
+  commerce,
+  diplomacy, its attitude towards the Slav and other invaders,
+  Empire,
+    heritage and expansion of, by the Turks,
+Byzantium, ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,
+  decline of,
+  Greek colony of,
+  Roman administrative centre,
+
+
+Cairo,
+Caliphate, the,
+Campo Formio, Treaty of (1797),
+Candia, siege of,
+Canea,
+Cantucuzene, John,
+Cape Malea,
+Cappadocia,
+Caria,
+Carinthia,
+Carlowitz, Treaty of (1699),
+Carniola,
+Carol, Prince of Rumania,
+    his accession,
+    joins Russia against Turkey,
+    intention to abdicate,
+    proclaimed king,
+  King,
+    and the Balkans,
+    personal points,
+Carp, P.P.,
+Carpathian mountains, the,
+Catargiu, Lascar,
+Catherine, Empress,
+Cattaro, Bocche di,
+Caucasia,
+Cefalonia,
+Celts, the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Cerigo,
+Cetina river (Dalmatia),
+Cetinje,
+Chaeronea,
+Charlemagne, crushes the Avars,
+Charles VI, Emperor of Austria,
+Charles, Prince and King of Rumania: _see_ Carol.
+[)C]aslav, revolts against Bulgars,
+Chataldja, lines of,
+Chesme, destruction of Turkish fleet in,
+Chios: _see_ Khios.
+Christianity,
+  in the Balkan peninsula in classical times,
+  introduced into Bulgaria,
+  introduced amongst the Serbs,
+Christians, their treatment by the Turks,
+Church, division of the, affects the Serbs and Croats,
+Church, Generalissimo Sir Richard,
+Churches, rivalry of the eastern and western,
+Cilicia,
+Claudius, the Emperor,
+Coalition, Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb, the,
+Cochrane, Grand Admiral,
+Cogalniceanu, M.,
+Comnenus: _see_ Alexis _and_ Manuel.
+Concert of Europe,
+Constantine the Great,
+Constantine, King of Greece,
+Constantine, ruler of Bulgaria,
+Constantinople,
+  and the Serbian Church,
+  ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,
+  cathedral of Aya Sophia,
+  commercial interests of,
+  decline of,
+  defences of,
+  ecclesiastical influence of,
+  fall of (1204),
+    (1453),
+  its position at the beginning of the barbarian invasions,
+  made an imperial city,
+  Patriarchate at,
+  'Phanari', the,
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Rome,
+Constitution, Rumanian,
+Corf�,
+Corinth: _see_ Korinth.
+Crete: _see_ Krete.
+Crimea, abandoned to Russia,
+Crimean War, the,
+Croatia,
+  absorbed by Hungary,
+  position of, in relation to the Serb territories,
+Croato-Serb unity, movement in favour of,
+Croats, Crotians,
+  general distribution of,
+  their origin,
+Croats and Serbs, difference between,
+Crusaders, the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Crusades; the first; the fourth,
+Cuza, Prince of Rumania,
+Cyclades, the,
+Cyprus,
+  in Latin hands,
+  in Ottoman hands,
+  under the British,
+Cyrenaica,
+Cyril, St.,
+Cyrillic alphabet, the,
+
+
+Dacia,
+  subjection to, and abandonment by, the Romans,
+Dacians,
+  settlement in Carpathian regions,
+  wars with Rome,
+Dalmatia,
+  acquired by Austria-Hungary,
+  and Venice,
+  in classical times,
+  in relation to other Serb territories,
+  its Slavonic population,
+  relations of, with Hungary,
+Daniel, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
+Danilo, Prince of Montenegro,
+Danube, the,
+  as frontier of Roman Empire,
+Danube _(continued)_:
+  Bulgars cross the,
+  Slavs cross the,
+Danubian principalities, Russian protectorate in,
+Dardanelles, the,
+Decius, the Emperor,
+Dedeagach,
+Deliyannis,
+Demotika,
+Dhimitz�na,
+Diocletian, the Emperor, his redistribution of the imperial provinces,
+Dnieper, the,
+Dniester, the,
+Dobrudja,
+  acquisition by Rumania,
+  Bulgarian aspirations in regard to,
+Draga, Queen-Consort of Serbia,
+Dramali,
+Drave, the,
+Drina, the,
+Dubrovnik: _see_ Ragusa.
+Dulcigno (Ulcinj),
+Durazzo,
+Durostorum: _see_ Silistria.
+Dushan: _see_ Stephen Du[)s]an.
+
+
+Eastern Church, the,
+Eastern Slavs; _see_ Russians.
+Edremid,
+Egypt,
+Egyptian expedition (1823-4),
+Enos-Midia line, the,
+Enver Bey,
+Epirus,
+  power of Hellenism in,
+Ertogrul, Osmanli chief,
+Erzerum,
+Eugen, Prince, of Savoy,
+Euphrates, the,
+Euxine trade,
+Evy�nios Voulg�ris,
+Exarchist Church, the,
+
+
+Fabvier,
+Ferdinand, Prince and King of Bulgaria (1886-),
+  his relations with foreign powers,
+Ferdinand, King of Rumania,
+Filipescu, Nicholas,
+Fiume (Rjeka),
+France,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,
+  and the Turks,
+  relations with Rumania,
+French, the,
+  in the Balkan peninsula,
+  in Dalmatia,
+  in Morocco,
+  influence in Rumania,
+French Revolution
+  and the rights of nationalities,
+Friedjung, Dr., and the accusation against Serbia,
+
+
+Galaxidhi,
+Galicia,
+Gallipoli,
+Genoese,
+George, Crown Prince of Serbia,
+George,
+  King of Greece,
+  assassination of,
+George, Prince of Greece,
+German diplomacy at Constantinople,
+  influence in the Near East,
+  influence in Rumania,
+  influence in Turkey,
+German Empire, restlessness of,
+German hierarchy, early struggles of, against Slavonic liturgy,
+Germanic peoples, southward movement of,
+German�s, metropolitan bishop of Patrae,
+Germany and the Turkish frontier,
+  efforts to reach the Adriatic,
+  its expansion eastward,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and Russia, relations between,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  relations with Rumania,
+  revolutions promoted by,
+Gjorgjevi['c], Dr. V.,
+Golden Horn,
+Goluchowski, Count,
+Gorazd,
+Gorchakov, Prince,
+Goths, invasion of the,
+Great Britain and the Balkan States, relations between,
+  and Egypt,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Syria,
+  and the Ionian Islands,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  loan to Greece,
+  occupation of Cyprus,
+Greece, anarchy in,
+  ancient,
+  and Macedonia,
+  and Russia,
+  and Serbia,
+  and the adjacent islands,
+  and the Christian religion,
+  and the first Balkan war,
+  and the Ionian Islands,
+  and the Orthodox Church,
+  and the Slav migration,
+  brigandage in,
+  conflict of interests with Bulgaria,
+  conquest of, by the Turks,
+  delimitation of the frontier (1829),
+  dispute with Italy as to possession of Epirus,
+  effect of the French Revolution on,
+  invasion of, by Goths,
+  land-tax,
+  loans to,
+  local liberties,
+  'Military League' of 1909,
+  minerals of,
+  monarchy established, and its results,
+  'National Assembly',
+  oppressive relations with Turkey, and efforts for liberation,
+  revolutions in 1843 and 1862.
+  territorial contact with Turkey.
+  'tribute-children' for Turkish army from.
+  war with Turkey (1828); (1897); (1912).
+Greek agriculture.
+  anti-Greek movement in Rumania.
+  army.
+  art and architecture.
+  ascendancy in Bulgaria.
+  _bourgeoisie_.
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia.
+  coalition with the Seljuks.
+  commerce and economic progress.
+  dialects of Ancient Greece.
+  education.
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula.
+  influence in Bulgaria.
+  influence in Rumania.
+  language in Rumanian Church.
+  literature.
+  monastic culture.
+  nationalism.
+  national religion.
+  navy.
+  officials tinder the Turks.
+  Patriarch.
+  public finance.
+  public spirit.
+  public works.
+  railways.
+  renaissance.
+  shipping.
+  unity.
+Greek Empire, decline of.
+Greek hierarchy, in Bulgaria, the.
+Greeks, Anatolian.
+  Byzantine.
+  general distribution of.
+  Ottoman.
+  their attitude with regard to the barbarian invasions.
+Gregorios, Greek Patriarch at Constantinople.
+Gulkhaneh.
+
+
+Hadrian, the Emperor.
+Haliacmon Valley.
+Halys river.
+Hasa.
+Hatti Sherif.
+Hejaz.
+Hellenic culture and civilization.
+Hellenic Republic.
+Hellespont, the.
+Hercegovina.
+  annexation of, by Austria-Hungary.
+  its Slavonic population.
+  origin and independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks.
+  revolts in, against Turkey.
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule.
+  under Turkish rule.
+Hilmi Pasha.
+Hungarians.
+  and the Turks.
+  invade the Balkan peninsula.
+Hungary,
+  and the Balkan peninsula,
+  and the Serbo-Croats,
+  and the Serbs,
+  and Turkey, wars between,
+  conquest of, by Suleiman I,
+  growth of,
+  loss of, by the Turks,
+  Slavs in,
+Huns, arrival of the, in Europe,
+  their origin,
+  settled in Hungary,
+Hunyadi, John,
+Hydhra and the Hydhriots,
+Hypsilantis, Prince Alexander,
+  Prince Demetrius,
+
+
+Ibar, the,
+Ibrahim Pasha,
+Ida, Mount,
+Ignatiyev, Count,
+Illyria, Celtic invasion of,
+  prefecture of,
+  Roman conquest of,
+Illyrians, the,
+Imbros,
+Ionescu, Take,
+Ionian islands,
+  presented to Greece by Great Britain,
+Ipek: _see_ Pe['c]
+Iran,
+Iskanderoun, Gulf of,
+Italian influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+  trading cities,
+Italy, and the Macedonian question,
+  and the possession of Epirus,
+  diocese of,
+  prefecture of,
+  war with Turkey (1911-12),
+Ivan III, Tsar of Russia,
+Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia,
+
+
+Jehad, or Holy War,
+Jenghis Khan,
+Jerusalem,
+Jews, at Constantinople,
+  in Rumania,
+  in Turkey,
+Jezzar the Butcher,
+Jidda,
+John Alexander, ruler of Bulgaria,
+John Asen I, Bulgar Tsar (1186-96),
+John Asen II, Bulgar Tsar (1218-41),
+John Tzimisces, the Emperor,
+John the Terrible, Prince of Moldavia,
+Joseph II, Emperor of Austria,
+Judah,
+Jugo-Slav(ia),
+Justin I, the Emperor,
+Justinian I, the Emperor,
+
+
+Kaisariyeh,
+Kalamata,
+Kaloian, Bulgar Tsar (1196-1207),
+Kama, Bulgars on the,
+Kanaris, Constantine,
+Kapodistrias, John,
+Kara-George (Petrovi['c]),
+Karagjorgjevi['c] (sc. family of Kara-George) dynasty, the,
+Karaiskakis,
+Karamania,
+Karasi,
+Karlovci (Carlowitz, Karlowitz),
+Karpathos,
+Kasos;
+  destruction of (1824),
+Kavala,
+Kazan,
+Khalkidhiki,
+Kharput,
+  siege of (1822),
+Khorasan,
+Khurshid Pasha,
+Kiev,
+Kilkish, Greek victory at,
+Kirk-Kiliss�, battle of,
+Kisseleff, Count,
+Kladovo,
+Knights Hospitallers of St. John,
+Kochana,
+Kolettis,
+Kolokotr�nis, Theodore,
+Kondouriottis,
+Konia,
+  battle of,
+Kopais basin, draining of,
+Korinth,
+  surrender of (1822),
+Korinthian Gulf,
+Kos,
+Kosovo, vilayet of,
+Kosovo Polje, battle of,
+Kraljevi['c], Marko: _see_ Marko K.
+Krete,
+  conquest of, by Turks,
+  intervention of the powers and constituted an autonomous state,
+  speech of,
+Krum (Bulgar prince),
+Kru[)s]evac,
+Kubrat (Bulgar prince),
+Kumanovo, battle of (1912),
+Kumans, the Tartar,
+Kurdistan,
+Kurds, the,
+Kutchuk Kainardji, Treaty of,
+Kydhonies, destruction of,
+
+
+Laibach (Ljubljana),
+Lansdowne, Marquess of,
+L�rissa,
+Latin Empire at Constantinople, the,
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+Lausanne, Treaty of (1912),
+Lazar (Serbian Prince),
+'League of Friends',
+Leipsic, battle of (1813),
+Lemnos,
+Leo, the Emperor,
+Leopold II, Emperor of Austria,
+Lepanto, battle of (1571),
+Lerna,
+Leskovac,
+Levant, the,
+  commerce of,
+Libyan war (1911-12),
+Lombards, the,
+London, Conference of (1912-13),
+  Treaty of (1913),
+Louis, conquers the Serbs,
+Lule-Burgas,
+  battle of (1912),
+
+
+Macedonia,
+  anarchy in,
+  defeat of the Turks by the Serbians in,
+  establishment of Turks in,
+  general characteristics of, in classical times,
+  inhabitants of,
+  revolt in,
+  place-names in,
+Macedonian question, the,
+  Slavs, the,
+Magnesia,
+Magyars, the,
+  their irruption into Europe,
+  growing power and ambitions of the,
+  influence upon the Rumanians,
+Mahmud I, Sultan,
+Mahmud II, Sultan,
+Maina,
+Maiorescu, Titu
+Malasgerd, battle of,
+Malta, siege of,
+Mamelukes, Egyptian,
+Manichaean heresy, the,
+Manuel Comnenus, the Emperor,
+Marash,
+Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor,
+Marghiloman, Alexander,
+Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria,
+Maritsa, the,
+  battle of,
+Marko Kraljevi['c],
+Marmora, Sea of,
+Mavrokordatos, Alexander,
+Mavromichalis clan,
+Mavromichalis, Petros,
+Mediterranean, the,
+Megasp�laion,
+Mehemet Ali: _see_ Mohammed Ali.
+Melek Shah, of Persia,
+Mendere (Maiandros),
+Mesolonghi,
+Mesopotamia,
+Messenia,
+Mesta,
+Met�ora,
+Methodius, St.,
+Michael Obrenovi['c] III, Prince of Serbia (1840-2, 1860-8),
+Michael III, the Emperor,
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia,
+Midhat Pasha and representative institutions in Turkey,
+Media,
+Milan Obrenovi['c] II, Prince of Serbia (1839),
+Milan Obrenovi['c] IV, Prince and King of Serbia (1868-89),
+Mile[)s]evo, monastery of,
+Milica, Princess,
+Military colonies, Austro-Hungarian, of Serbs against Turkey,
+Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c] I, Prince of Serbia (1817-39, 1858-60),
+Milovanovi['c], Dr.,
+Mircea the Old, Prince of Wallachia,
+Misivria (Mesembria),
+Mitylini,
+Modhon,
+Mohacs, battle of,
+Mohammed II, Sultan,
+Mohammed IV, Sultan,
+Mohammed V, Sultan,
+Mohammed Ali Pasha, of Egypt,
+Mohammedan influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+Mohammedan Serbs, of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the,
+Moldavia,
+  foundation of,
+Monastir (Bitolj, in Serbian),
+  battle of (1912),
+Montenegro,
+  achieves its independence,
+  and the Balkan League,
+  autonomous,
+  becomes a kingdom,
+  conquered by the Turks,
+  during the Napoleonic wars,
+  in the Balkan war (1912-13),
+  position of, amongst the other Serb territories,
+  relations with Russia,
+  revolt in,
+  under Turkish rule,
+  war with Turkey,
+Montesquieu,
+Morava, the,
+Moravia, its conversion to Christianity,
+Morea: _see_ Peloponnesos.
+Morocco crisis, the,
+Moslems,
+Mukhtar Pasha,
+Muntenia (Wallachia), foundation of,
+Murad I, Sultan, murder of,
+Murad II, Sultan,
+Murad III, Sultan,
+Murad V, Sultan,
+Murzsteg programme of reforms, the,
+Mustapha II, Sultan,
+Mustapha III, Sultan,
+
+
+Naissus: _see_ Nish.
+Napoleon I,
+Napoleon III, and Rumania,
+Natalie, Queen-Consort of Serbia,
+Nationalism,
+Nauplia,
+  fall of (1822),
+Nauplia Bay,
+Navarino, battle of (1827),
+Negrepont,
+Nemanja dynasty, the,
+Nicaea,
+Nicholas I, Prince and King of Montenegro (1860-),
+Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia,
+Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia,
+Nicomedia,
+Nikari�, 230.
+Nikiph�ros Phokas, the Emperor,
+Nikopolis,
+  battle of,
+Nik[)s]i['c],
+Nilufer,
+Nish (Naissus, Ni[)s]),
+  Celtic origin,
+  Goths defeated at,
+  Bulgarians march on,
+  geographical position of,
+Nish-Salonika railway,
+Nizib,
+Normans, the,
+Novae: _see_ Svishtov.
+Novi Pazar, Sandjak of,
+  occupied by Austria-Hungary,
+  evacuated by Austria-Hungary,
+  occupied by Serbia and Montenegro,
+
+
+Obili['c], Milo[)s],
+Obrenovi['c] dynasty, the,
+Odessa,
+  Committee of,
+Odhyss�us,
+Oecumenical Patriarch, the,
+Okhrida,
+  Archbishopric and Patriarchate of,
+  Lake of,
+Old Serbia (northern Macedonia),
+Orient, prefecture of the,
+Orkhan,
+Orthodox Church: _see_ Eastern Church.
+Osman (Othman), Sultan,
+Osmanli: _see_ Turkey _and_ Turks.
+Ostrogoths, the,
+Otranto, straits of,
+Otto, Prince, of Bavaria, King of Greece,
+  driven into exile,
+Ottoman Empire: _see_ Turkey.
+Ouchy, Treaty of: _see_ Lausanne, Treaty of.
+Oxus,
+
+
+Palaiologos, Romaic dynasty of,
+Pannonia,
+  Bulgars in,
+Pan-Serb movement, the
+Pan-Slavism,
+Paris, Congress of (1856),
+  Convention (1858),
+  Treaty of (1856),
+Pa[)s]a, M,
+Passarowitz, Treaty of,
+Pasvanoghlu,
+Patmos,
+Patras,
+  Gulf of,
+Paul, Emperor of Russia,
+Paulicians, the,
+Pe['c] (Ipek, in Turkish), patriarchate of,
+Pechenegs, the Tartar,
+Petraeus,
+'Peloponnesian Senate',
+Peloponnesos (Morea),
+Pera,
+Persia and the Turks,
+  at war with Constantinople,
+  Grand Seljuk of,
+Persian Gulf,
+Peter the Great,
+  'Testament' of,
+Peter, Bulgar Tsar (927-69)
+Peter I, King of Serbia (1903),
+Peter I, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
+Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s], dynasty of,
+Petta, battle of,
+Phanariote Greeks, the, _See_ Greek officials under the
+                 Turks, _and_ Turkey, Phanariot r�gime.
+'Philhellenes',
+'Philik� Hetairia',
+Philip, Count of Flanders,
+Philip of Macedonia,
+Philippopolis, Bogomil centre,
+  foundation of,
+  revolts against Turks,
+Pindus,
+Pirot,
+Place-names, the distribution of classical, indigenous, and
+                         Slavonic, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Plevna, siege of,
+Podgorica,
+Poland,
+Pontus,
+Popes, attitude of the, towards the Slavonic liturgy,
+Poros,
+Porto Lagos,
+Po[)z]arevac,
+Preslav, Bulgarian capital,
+Prespa,
+Pressburg, Treaty of (1805),
+Prilep, battle of (1912),
+'Primates', the,
+Prizren,
+Prussia and Austria, war between (1866),
+Psar�,
+
+
+Radowitz, Baron von,
+Ragusa (Dubrovnik, in Serbian), its relations with the Serbian
+state,
+  prosperity of, under Turkish rule,
+  decline of,
+Railways in the Balkan peninsula,
+Rashid Pasha,
+Ra[)s]ka, centre of Serb state,
+R�glement Organique,
+Religious divisions in the Balkan peninsula,
+Resna, in Macedonia,
+Rhodes,
+  siege of,
+Risti['c], M.,
+Rodosto,
+Romaic architecture,
+  government,
+  language,
+'Romaioi',
+Roman Catholicism in the Balkan peninsula,
+Roman Empire,
+Roman law,
+Rome, its conquest of the Balkan peninsula,
+  relations of, with Bulgaria,
+  relations of, with Serbia,
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Constantinople,
+Rosetti, C.A.,
+Rovine, battle of,
+Rumania and the Balkan peninsula,
+  and the second Balkan war(1913),
+  and Bulgaria,
+  and the Russo-Turkish war (1877),
+  anti-Greek movement in,
+  anti-Russian revolution in,
+  commerce of,
+  convention with Russia (1877),
+  dynastic question in,
+  education in,
+  influences at work in,
+  military situation,
+  nationalist activity in,
+  neutrality of,
+  origins of,
+  Patriarch's authority in,
+  peasantry of,
+  Phanariotes in,
+  political parties in,
+  politics of, internal,
+  relations with Russia,
+  religion and Church in,
+  Roman civilization, influence in,
+  rural question in,
+  Russian influence in; politics in,
+  struggle for independence,
+  territorial gains,
+  territorial losses,
+  Turkish rule in,
+  Upper class in (cneazi, boyards),
+    origins of,
+    social evolution of,
+    economic and political supremacy,
+Rumanian army,
+  claims in Macedonia,
+  principalities, foundation of,
+    union of,
+    revolt (1822),
+Rumanians, early evidences of,
+  in Bessarabia,
+  in Bucovina,
+  in Hungary,
+  in Macedonia,
+Rumelia, Eastern,
+Russia and Bulgaria,
+  and Greece,
+  and Montenegro,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Serbia,
+  and Turkey,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  Bulgars in,
+  commercial treaty with Turkey (1783),
+  convention with Rumania (1877),
+  conversion to Christianity,
+  occupation of Kars,
+  re-organization under Peter the Great,
+  wars with Turkey (1769-84),
+    (1787),
+    (1807),
+    (1828),
+    (1877-8),
+    (1914-15),
+Russian diplomacy at Constantinople,
+  influence in Bulgaria,
+  invasion of Balkan peninsula,
+  relations with the Balkan Christians,
+  relations with the Balkan League,
+Russians, the, comparison of,
+  with the Southern Slavs,
+  _see_ Slavs, the Eastern,
+
+
+[)S]abac (Shabatz),
+Salisbury, Lord,
+Salonika,
+Salonika-Nish railway, the,
+Samos,
+Samothraki,
+Samuel, Tsar of western Bulgaria (977-1014),
+San Stefano, Treaty of (1878),
+Saracens, the,
+Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia,
+Sava, St.,
+Save, the,
+Scutari (di Albania), Skodra,
+Selim I, Sultan,
+Selim III, Sultan,
+Seljuks, the,
+Semendria: _see_ Smederevo.
+Semites, the,
+Serb migrations,
+  national life, centres of,
+  political centres,
+  race, home of the,
+  territories, divisions of the,
+Serbia and Austria-Hungary, relations between,
+  and Bulgaria, contrasted,
+  the agreement between,
+  and Macedonia,
+  and Russia, relations between,
+  and the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+  and the Balkan League,
+  and Turkey,
+  dissensions in,
+  geography of,
+  Patriarch's authority in,
+  the barrier to German expansion eastwards,
+  Turkish conquest of,
+  wars with Turkey (1875-7),
+Serbian Church, the,
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia,
+  Empire, its extent under Stephen Du[)s]an,
+  literature,
+  nation, centre of gravity of,
+  principality, its extent in 1830,
+Serbo-Bulgarian war (1885),
+  (1913),
+Serbo-Croat nationality, formation of the,
+Serbo-Croat unity, movement in favour of,
+Serbo-Croats, general distribution of,
+Serbs, defeat Bulgars and Greeks,
+  distribution of the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  general distribution of the,
+  north of the Danube,
+  outside the boundaries of the Serb state,
+  religious persecution of,
+  revolt against Bulgaria,
+  revolt against the Magyars,
+  revolts against Turkey,
+  their attitude towards the Germans,
+Serbs and Croats, difference between,
+Shabatz: _see_ [)S]abac.
+Shipka Pass,
+Shishman, revolts against Bulgaria,
+Sicily,
+Silistria,
+Simeon the Great, Bulgar Tsar (893-927),
+Singidunum: _see_ Belgrade.
+Sitvatorok, Treaty of,
+Sivas,
+Skanderbey,
+Skodra: _see_ Scutari.
+Skoplje (�sk�b, in Turkish),
+Slav influence in Rumania,
+Slavonia,
+  absorbed by Hungary,
+Slavonic immigration, the streams of, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  languages, the, use of, in Rumanian Church,
+  liturgy, the, southern, nationalities,
+Slavs, maritime,
+  method of their migration southwards into the Balkan peninsula
+  migration, in the seventh century,
+  their lack of cohesion,
+  their attacks on Salonika and Constantinople with the Avars,
+  their original home,
+  their settlement south of the Danube,
+  the Balkan, their attitude towards the Church, under Turkish rule,
+  the Eastern (Russians),
+  the Southern, general distribution of,
+  the Western,
+Slivnitsa, battle of (1885),
+Slovenes, the,
+Smederevo (Semendria),
+Smyrna,
+Sofia, captured by the Bulgars from the Greeks, captured by the Turks,
+Soudha Bay,
+Southern Slav nationalities, the,
+Spain, Jews expelled from,
+Spalajkovi['c], Dr.,
+Spetza,
+Sporades, the,
+Srem: _see_ Syrmia.
+Stambul,
+Sultanate of,
+Stambulov,
+Stephen Dragutin,
+Stephen Du[)s]an, King of Serbia(1331-45), Tsar of Serbs, Bulgars,
+                                             and Greeks (1345-55),
+Stephen  (Lazarevi['c]), Serbian Prince,
+Stephen Nemanja, _veliki [)z]upan_,
+Stephen Nemanji['c], King of Serbia (1196-1223), the First-Crowned,
+Stephen Radoslav, King of Serbia (1223-33),
+Stephen Uro[)s] I, King of Serbia (1242-76),
+Stephen Uro[)s] II (Milutin), King of Serbia (1282-1321),
+Stephen Uro[)s] III (De['c]anski), King of Serbia (1321-31),
+Stephen Vladislav, King of Serbia (1233-42),
+Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia,
+Struma, the,
+Suleiman I, Sultan (the Magnificent),
+Suli, clansmen of,
+[)S]umadija,
+Svetoslav, ruler of Bulgaria,
+Svishtov,
+Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev,
+Syria,
+Syrian question, the,
+Syrmia,
+
+
+Tabriz,
+Tanzimat, the,
+Tarabo[)s], Mount,
+Tarsus,
+Tartar invasion, the,
+Tartars of the Golden Horde,
+Tenedos,
+Teutons, the,
+Thasos,
+Theodore Lascaris, the Emperor,
+Theodoric,
+Theodosius, the Emperor,
+Theophilus of Constantinople,
+Thessaly,
+Thrace,
+Thu-Kiu, people of,
+Tilsit, peace of (1807),
+Timok, the,
+Timur,
+Tirnovo, centre and capital of second Bulgarian empire,
+Trajan, the Emperor, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  his conquest of Dacia,
+Transylvania,
+Trebizond,
+Trieste,
+Trik�ri, destruction of,
+Trikoupis, Greek statesman,
+Tripoli,
+Tripolitza,
+Tunisia,
+Turcomans, the,
+Turkestan,
+Turkey: administrative systems,
+  and the Armenian massacres (1894),
+  and the Balkans,
+  and Bulgaria,
+  and the Bulgarian atrocities,
+  and Greece,
+  and the islands of southeastern Europe,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Russia,
+  and Serbia,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the suzerainty of Krete,
+  Christians in, position of,
+  codification of the civil law,
+  commercial treaties,
+  Committee of Union and Progress,
+  conquests in Europe,
+    in Asia,
+    of the Balkan peninsula,
+  decline and losses of territory in Europe and Asia,
+  'Dere Beys',
+  Dragoman, office of, 184, 185,
+  expansion: of the Osmanli kingdom,
+    of the Byzantine Empire,
+    extent of the empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+    territorial expansion in Asia,
+  feudal aristocracy of,
+  financial embarrassments and public debt,
+  frontier beyond the Danube,
+  German influence in,
+  Grand Vizierate,
+  military organization,
+    soldiery recruited from Christian races,
+    'tribute-children' system of recruiting,
+  name of,
+  pan-Islamic propaganda under Abdul Hamul,
+  pan-Ottomanism,
+  Phanariot r�gime,
+  praetorians,
+  railway construction, effect of,
+  reforms in,
+  representative institutions inaugurated,
+  revival and relapse in the nineteenth century,
+  revolution of 1910,
+  war in the Balkans (1912),
+  war with Great Britain, France, and Russia (1914-15),
+  wars with Greece (1821),
+    (1897),
+    (1912),
+  war with Italy (1911-12),
+  wars with Russia (1769-74),
+    (1787),
+    (1807),
+    (1828),
+    (1877-8),
+    (1914-15),
+  wars with Serbia (1875-7),
+  Young Turks, the,
+Turkish conquests in Europe,
+  fleet,
+  janissaries,
+Turks (Osmanlis), entry into Europe,
+  general distribution of,
+  nomadic tribes of,
+  origin of,
+  vitality and inherent qualities of the,
+Tzakonia,
+
+
+Uighurs, Turkish tribe,
+Unkiar Skelessi, Treaty of (1833),
+Uro[)s], King of Serbia: _see_ Stephen Uro[)s].
+Uro[)s], Serbian Tsar (1355-71),
+�skub: _see_ Skoplje,
+
+Valens, the Emperor,
+Valtetzi, battle of,
+Van,
+Vardar, the,
+Varna,
+  battle of (1444),
+  captured by the Bulgars,
+Venezelos, E., Kretan and Greek statesman,
+  his part in the Kretan revolution,
+  becomes premier of Greece,
+  work as a constructive statesman,
+  the formation of the Balkan League,
+  his proposals to Bulgaria for settlement of claims,
+  his handling of the problem of Epirus,
+  results of his statesmanship,
+Venice and the Venetian Republic,
+Victoria, Queen of England,
+Vienna,
+  besieged by the Turks (1526),
+    (1683),
+  Congress of (1814),
+  in relation to the Serbo-Croats: _see_ Budapest.
+Visigoths, the,
+Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia,
+Vlakhs, the,
+Volga, Bulgars of the,
+Volo, Gulf of,
+Vranja,
+Vrioni, Omer,
+
+
+Wallachia,
+  advent of the Turks in,
+  subjugation of, by the Turks,
+Wied, Prince of,
+William II, German Emperor,
+
+
+Yannina,
+Yantra, the,
+Yemen,
+Yenishehr,
+Yuruk tribe,
+Yuzgad,
+
+
+Zabergan,
+Zaimis, high commissioner of Krete,
+Zante,
+Zeta, the, river and district,
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Balkans
+by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Balkans
+by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Balkans
+       A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey
+
+Author: Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+Release Date: March 26, 2004 [EBook #11716]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andy Schmitt and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE BALKANS
+
+A HISTORY OF BULGARIA--SERBIA--GREECE--RUMANIA--TURKEY
+
+
+
+
+THE BALKANS
+
+A HISTORY OF BULGARIA--SERBIA--GREECE--RUMANIA--TURKEY
+
+BY NEVILL FORBES, ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE, D. MITRANY, D.G. HOGARTH
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Widely
+separated, engaged on other duties, and pressed for time, we have had no
+opportunity for interchange of views. Each must be held responsible,
+therefore, for his own section alone. If there be any discrepancies in our
+writings (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. It may be well to state that the sections on Serbia and Bulgaria
+were finished before the decisive Balkan developments of the past two
+months. Those on Greece and Rumania represent only a little later stage of
+the evolution. That on Turkey, compiled between one mission abroad and
+another, was the latest to be finished.
+
+If our sympathies are not all the same, or given equally to friends and
+foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about any
+Balkan people. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he be fighting
+to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and interwoven in some
+intimate way with our history. That any one of them is arrayed against us
+to-day is not to be laid entirely or chiefly at its own door. They are all
+fine peoples who have not obtained their proper places in the sun. The
+best of the Osmanli nation, the Anatolian peasantry, has yet to make its
+physical and moral qualities felt under civilized conditions. As for the
+rest--the Serbs and the Bulgars, who have enjoyed brief moments of
+barbaric glory in their past, have still to find themselves in that future
+which shall be to the Slav. The Greeks, who were old when we were not as
+yet, are younger now than we. They are as incalculable a factor in a
+political forecast as another Chosen Race, the Jews. Their past is the
+world's glory: the present in the Near East is theirs more than any
+people's: the future--despite the laws of corporate being and decline,
+dare we say they will have no part in it? Of Rumania what are we to think?
+Her mixed people has had the start of the Balkan Slavs in modern
+civilization, and evidently her boundaries must grow wider yet. But the
+limits of her possible expansion are easier to set than those of the rest.
+
+We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history,
+whether of the East or the West, is mostly a record of bloodshedding and
+cruelty; and the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in most
+parts of the Balkans, and is not yet over in some parts. There are certain
+things salutary to bear in mind when we think or speak of any part of that
+country to-day. First, that less than two hundred years ago, England had
+its highwaymen on all roads, and its smuggler dens and caravans, Scotland
+its caterans, and Ireland its moonlighters. Second, that religious fervour
+has rarely mitigated and generally increased 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 write about the Near East under
+existing circumstances altogether _sine ira et studio_, we have tried to
+remember that each of its peoples has a case.
+
+D.G. HOGARTH.
+
+_November_, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BULGARIA AND SERBIA. By NEVILL FORBES.
+
+ 1. Introductory
+ 2. The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times 400 B.C. - A.D. 500
+ 3. The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula, A.D. 500-650
+
+
+BULGARIA.
+
+ 4. The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,
+    600-700
+ 5. The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of
+    Christianity, 700-893
+ 6. The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire, 893-972
+ 7. The Rise and Fall of 'Western Bulgaria' and the Greek
+    Supremacy, 963-1186
+ 8. The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire, 1186-1258
+ 9. The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse, 1258-1393
+10. The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation, 1393-1878
+11. The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86
+12. The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, 1886-1908
+13. The Kingdom, 1908-13
+
+
+SERBIA.
+
+14. The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy, 650-1168
+15. The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction
+    of Serbian Independence, 1168-1496
+16. The Turkish Dominion, 1496-1796
+17. The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and
+    Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c] (1815-30): 1796-1830
+18. The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia, 1830-1903
+19. Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary,
+    1903-8
+20. Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars, 1908-13
+
+
+GREECE. By ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.
+
+1. From Ancient to Modern Greece
+2. The Awakening of the Nation
+3. The Consolidation of the State
+
+
+RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS. By D. MITRANY
+
+1. Introduction
+2. Formation of the Rumanian Nation
+3. The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities
+4. The Phanariote Rule
+5. Modern Period to 1866
+6. Contemporary Period: Internal Development
+7. Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs
+8. Rumania and the Present War
+
+
+TURKEY. By D. G. HOGARTH
+
+1. Origin of the Osmanlis
+2. Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom
+3. Heritage and Expansion of the Byzantine Empire
+4. Shrinkage and Retreat
+5. Revival
+6. Relapse
+7. Revolution
+8. The Balkan War
+9. The Future
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+MAPS
+
+The Balkan Peninsula: Ethnological
+The Balkan Peninsula
+The Ottoman Empire
+
+
+
+
+BULGARIA AND SERBIA
+
+
+
+1
+
+_Introductory_
+
+
+The whole of what may be called the trunk or _massif_ 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 the Adriatic) and
+the lake of Scutari in the west, through lakes Okhrida and Prespa (in
+Macedonia) to the outskirts of Salonika and thence to Midia on the shores
+of the Black Sea, 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 the west, and the Slovenes in the extreme north-west,
+between Trieste and the Save; these nationalities compose the southern
+branch of the Slavonic race. The other inhabitants 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 are to be found in varying
+quantities within the limits of the Slav territory roughly outlined above,
+but greater numbers of them are outside it; on the other hand, there are a
+considerable number of Serbs living north of the rivers Save and Danube,
+in southern Hungary. Details of the ethnic distribution and boundaries
+will of course be gone into more 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 gastronomers to
+denote a dish, the principal characteristic of which is that its component
+parts are mixed up into quite inextricable 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 in number, inhabiting the Austrian provinces of
+Carinthia and Carniola, have never been able to form a political state,
+though, with the growth of Trieste as a great port and the persistent
+efforts of Germany to make her influence if not her flag supreme on the
+shores of the Adriatic, this small people has from its geographical
+position and from its anti-German (and anti-Italian) attitude achieved
+considerable notoriety and some importance.
+
+Of the Bulgars and Serbs it may be said that at the present moment the
+former control the eastern, and the latter, in alliance with the Greeks,
+the western half of the peninsula. It has always been the ambition of each
+of these three nationalities to dominate the whole, an ambition which has
+caused endless waste of blood and money and untold misery. If the question
+were to be settled purely on ethnical considerations, 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 in
+origin, and would thus undoubtedly attain the hegemony of the peninsula,
+while the centre of gravity of the Serbian nation would, as is ethnically
+just, move north-westwards. Political considerations, however, have until
+now always been against this solution of the difficulty, and, even if it
+solved in this sense, there would still remain 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 lines virtually impossible. It is curious that the Slavs, though
+masters of the interior of the peninsula and of parts of its eastern and
+western coasts, have never made the shores of the Aegean (the White Sea,
+as they call it) or the cities on them their own. The Adriatic is the only
+sea on the shore of which any Slavonic race has ever made its home. In
+view of this difficulty, namely, the interior of the peninsula being
+Slavonic while the coastal fringe is Greek, and of the approximately equal
+numerical strength of all three nations, it is almost inevitable that the
+ultimate solution of the problem and delimitation of political boundaries
+will have to be effected by means of territorial compromise. It can only
+be hoped that this ultimate compromise will be agreed upon by the three
+countries concerned, and will be more equitable than that which was forced
+on them by Rumania in 1913 and laid down in the Treaty of Bucarest of that
+year.
+
+If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is made between them,
+the road to the East, which from the point of view of the Germanic powers
+lies through Serbia, will sooner or later inevitably be forced open, and
+the independence, first 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. If the Balkan League could be reconstituted, Germany and Austria
+would never reach Salonika or Constantinople.
+
+
+
+2
+
+_The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times_
+
+400 B.C. - A.D. 500.
+
+
+In the earlier historical times the whole of the eastern part of the
+Balkan peninsula between the Danube and the Aegean was known as Thracia,
+while the western part (north of the forty-first degree of latitude) was
+termed Illyricum; the lower basin of the river Vardar (the classical
+Axius) was called Macedonia. A number of the tribal and personal names of
+the early Illyrians and Thracians have been preserved. Philip of Macedonia
+subdued Thrace in the fourth century B.C. and in 342 founded the city of
+Philippopolis. Alexander's first campaign was devoted to securing control
+of the peninsula, but 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 Belgrade was known until
+the seventh century A.D. by its Celtic name of Singidunum. Naissus, the
+modern Nish, is also possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230 B.C.
+that Rome came into contact with Illyricum, owing to the piratical
+proclivities of its inhabitants, but for a long time it only controlled
+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 run in several parallel and almost unbroken lines the
+whole length of the shore of the Adriatic and have always formed an
+effective barrier to invasion from the west. The interior was only very
+gradually subdued by the Romans after Macedonia had been occupied by them
+in 146 B.C. Throughout the first century B.C. conflicts raged with varying
+fortune between the invaders and all the native races living between the
+Adriatic and the Danube. They were attacked both from Aquileia in the
+north and from Macedonia in the south, 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 of that of Bulgaria between the
+Danube and the Balkan range (the classical Haemus), became an imperial
+province, and twenty 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 between the Save and the Adriatic, and Pannonia lay
+between the Danube and the Save. In 107 A.D. the Emperor Trajan conquered
+the Dacians beyond the lower Danube, and organized a province of Dacia out
+of territory roughly equivalent to the modern Wallachia and Transylvania,
+This trans-Danubian territory did not remain attached to the empire for
+more than a hundred and fifty years; but within the river line a vast belt
+of country, stretching from the head of the Adriatic to the mouths of the
+Danube on the Black Sea, was Romanized through and through. The Emperor
+Trajan has been called the Charlemagne of the Balkan peninsula; all
+remains are attributed to him (he was nicknamed the Wallflower by
+Constantine the Great), and his reign marked the zenith of Roman power in
+this part of the world. The Balkan peninsula enjoyed the benefits of Roman
+civilization for three centuries, from the first to the fourth, but from
+the second century onwards the attitude of the Romans was defensive rather
+than offensive. The war against the 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 251 the
+Emperor Decius was killed in battle against them near Odessus on the Black
+Sea (the modern Varna). The Goths reached the outskirts of Thessalonica
+(Salonika), but were defeated by the Emperor Claudius at Naissus (Nish) in
+269; shortly afterwards, however, the Emperor Aurelian had definitively to
+relinquish Dacia to them. The Emperor Diocletian, a native of Dalmatia,
+who reigned from 284 to 305, carried out a redistribution of the imperial
+provinces. Pannonia and western Illyria, or Dalmatia, were assigned to the
+prefecture of Italy, Thrace to that of the Orient, while the whole centre
+of the peninsula, from the Danube to the Peloponnese, constituted the
+prefecture of Illyria, with Thessalonica as capital. The territory to the
+north of the Danube having been lost, what is now western Bulgaria was
+renamed Dacia, while Moesia, the modern kingdom of Serbia, was made very
+much smaller. Praevalis, or the southern part of Dalmatia, approximately
+the modern Montenegro and Albania, was detached from that province and
+added to the prefecture of Illyria. In this way the boundary between the
+province of Dalmatia and the Balkan peninsula proper ran from near the
+lake of Scutari in the south to the river Drinus (the modern Drina), whose
+course it followed till the Save was reached in the north.
+
+An event of far-reaching importance in the following century was the
+elevation by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium into
+the imperial city of Constantinople in 325. This century also witnessed
+the arrival of the Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed the
+Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper and the Dniester, in 375, and the
+Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the modern Rumania, moved
+southwards in sympathy with this event. The Emperor Valens lost his life
+fighting against these Goths in 378 at the great battle of Adrianople (a
+city established in Thrace by 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 devastated the entire peninsula, after which they proceeded to
+Italy. After the death of the Emperor Theodosius the empire was divided,
+never to be joined into one whole again. The dividing line followed that,
+already mentioned, which separated the prefecture of Italy from those of
+Illyria and the Orient, that is to say, it began in the south, on the
+shore of the Adriatic near the Bocche di Cattaro, and went due north along
+the valley of the Drina till the confluence of that river with the Save.
+It will be seen that this division had 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 provinces to 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. Its extent is proved by
+the fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly, and their language
+very largely, defended from those of the legions and colonies of the
+Emperor Trajan.
+
+Latin influence, shipping, colonization, and art were always supreme on
+the eastern shores of the Adriatic, just as 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 vocabulary is derived;
+though driven southwards by the Romans and northwards by the Greeks, they
+have remained in their mountain fastnesses to this day, impervious to any
+of the civilizations to which they have been exposed.
+
+Christianity spread to the shores of the peninsula very early; Macedonia
+and Dalmatia were the parts where it was first established, and it took
+some time to penetrate into the interior. During the reign of Diocletian
+numerous martyrs suffered for the faith in the Danubian provinces, but
+with the accession of Constantine the Great persecution came to an end. As
+soon, however, as the Christians were left alone, they started persecuting
+each other, and during the fourth century 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 Theiss; they devastated the Balkan
+peninsula, in spite of the tribute which they had levied on Constantinople
+in return for their promise 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, where
+he remained till he transferred the sphere of his activities to Italy ten
+years later. Towards the end of the fifth century Huns of various kinds
+returned to the lower Danube and devastated the peninsula several times,
+penetrating as far as Epirus and Thessaly.
+
+
+
+3
+
+_The Arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula_, A.D. 500-650
+
+
+The Balkan peninsula, which had been raised to a high level of security
+and prosperity during the Roman dominion, gradually relapsed into
+barbarism as a result of these endless invasions; the walled towns, such
+as Salonika and Constantinople, were the only safe places, and the country
+became waste and desolate. The process continued unabated throughout the
+three following centuries, and one is driven to one of two conclusions,
+either that these lands must have possessed very extraordinary powers of
+recuperation to make it worth while for invaders to pillage them so
+frequently, or, what is more probable, there can have been after some time
+little left to plunder, and consequently the Byzantine historians'
+accounts of enormous drives of prisoners and booty are much exaggerated.
+It is impossible to count the number of times the tide of invasion and
+devastation swept southwards over the unfortunate peninsula. The emperors
+and their generals did what they could by means of defensive works on the
+frontiers, of punitive expeditions, and of trying to set the various
+hordes of barbarians at loggerheads with each other, but, as they had at
+the same time to defend an empire which stretched from Armenia to Spain,
+it is not surprising that they were not more successful. The growing
+riches of Constantinople and Salonika had an irresistible attraction for
+the wild men from the east and north, and unfortunately the Greek citizens
+were more inclined to spend their energy in theological disputes and their
+leisure in the circus than to devote either the one or the other to the
+defence of their country. It was only by dint of paying them huge sums of
+money that the invaders were kept away from the coast. The departure of
+the Huns and the Goths had made the way for fresh series of unwelcome
+visitors. In the sixth century the Slavs appear for the first time. From
+their original homes which were immediately north 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
+in Dacia, north of the Danube, in the previous century, but they are first
+mentioned as having crossed that river during the reign of the Emperor
+Justin I (518-27). They were a loosely-knit congeries of tribes without
+any single leader or central authority; some say they merely possessed the
+instinct of anarchy, others that they were permeated with the ideals of
+democracy. What is certain is that amongst them neither leadership nor
+initiative was developed, and that they lacked both cohesion and
+organisation. The Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of the Russians, were only
+welded into anything approaching unity by the comparatively much smaller
+number of Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers who came and took charge of
+their affairs at Kiev. Similarly the Southern Slavs were never of
+themselves able to form a united community, conscious of its aim and
+capable of persevering in its attainment.
+
+The Slavs did not invade the Balkan peninsula alone but in the company of
+the Avars, a terrible and justly dreaded nation, who, like the Huns, were
+of Asiatic (Turkish or Mongol) origin. These invasions became more
+frequent during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (527-65), and
+culminated in 559 in a great combined attack of all the invaders on
+Constantinople under a certain Zabergan, which was brilliantly defeated by
+the veteran Byzantine general Belisarius. 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 their warlike 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; that is to say, 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 Danube, the 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
+military energies of Constantinople were diverted to Persia, so that the
+invaders of the Balkan peninsula had the field very much to themselves. It
+was during this time that the power of the Avars reached its height. They
+were masters of all the country up to the walls of Adrianople and
+Salonika, though they did not settle there. The peninsula seems to have
+been colonized by Slavs, who penetrated right down into Greece; but the
+Avars were throughout this time, both in politics and in war, the
+directing and dominating force. During another Persian war, which broke
+out in 622 and entailed the prolonged absence of the emperor from
+Constantinople, the Avars, not satisfied with the tribute extorted from
+the Greeks, made an alliance against them with the Persians, and in 626
+collected a large army of Slavs and Asiatics and attacked Constantinople
+both by land and sea from the European side, while the Persians threatened
+it from Asia. But the walls of the city and the ships of the Greeks proved
+invincible, 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 downfall became 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 unostentatiously proceeding; by the middle of the
+seventh century it was complete. The main streams of Slavonic immigration
+moved southwards and westwards. The first covered the whole of the country
+between the Danube and the Balkan range, overflowed into Macedonia, and
+filtered down into Greece. Southern Thrace in the east and Albania in the
+west were comparatively little affected, and in these districts the
+indigenous population maintained itself. The coasts of the Aegean and the
+great cities on or near them were too strongly held by the Greeks to be
+affected, and those Slavs who penetrated into Greece itself were soon
+absorbed by the local populations. The still stronger Slavonic stream,
+which moved westwards and turned up north-westwards, overran the whole
+country down to the shores of the Adriatic and as far as the sources of
+the Save and Drave in the Alps. From that point in the west to the shores
+of the Black Sea in the east became one solid mass of Slavs,
+and has remained so ever since. The few Slavs who were left north of the
+Danube in Dacia were gradually assimilated by the inhabitants of that
+province, who were 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 words of
+Slavonic origin contained in the Rumanian language.
+
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA ETHNOLOGICAL]
+
+Place-names are a good index of the extent and strength of the tide of
+Slav immigration. All along the coast, from the mouth of the Danube to the
+head of the Adriatic, the Greek and Roman names have been retained though
+places have often been given alternative names by the Slavonic settlers.
+Thrace, especially the south-eastern part, and Albania have the fewest
+Slavonic place-names. In Macedonia and Lower Moesia (Bulgaria) very few
+classical names have survived, while in Upper Moesia (Serbia) and the
+interior of Dalmatia (Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Montenegro) they have
+entirely disappeared. The Slavs themselves, though their tribal names were
+known, were until the ninth century usually called collectively S(k)lavini
+([Greek: Sklabaenoi]) by the Greeks, and all the inland parts of the
+peninsula were for long termed by them 'the S(k)lavonias' ([Greek:
+Sklabiniai]).
+
+During the seventh century, dating from the defeat of the Slavs and Avars
+before the walls of Constantinople in 626 and the final triumph of the
+emperor over the Persians in 628, the influence and power of the Greeks
+began to reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north as the
+Danube; this process was coincident with the decline of the might of the
+Avars. It was the custom of the astute Byzantine diplomacy to look on and
+speak of lands which had been occupied by the various barbarian invaders
+as grants made to them through the generosity of the emperor; by this
+means, by dint also of lavishing titles and substantial incomes to the
+invaders' chiefs, by making the most of their mutual jealousies, and also
+by enlisting regiments of Slavonic mercenaries in the imperial armies, the
+supremacy of Constantinople was regained far more effectively than it
+could have been by the continual and exhausting use of force.
+
+
+
+
+BULGARIA
+
+
+
+4
+
+_The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula,_ 600-700
+
+
+The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed all
+their movements until their final establishment there in the seventh
+century, are involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by name in
+classical and Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes to the
+north of the Black Sea amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has been
+assumed by some that at the end of the fifth and throughout the sixth
+century they were associated first with the Huns and later with the Avars
+and Slavs in the various incursions into and invasions of the eastern
+empire which have already been enumerated. It is the tendency of Bulgarian
+historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the history of Russia
+only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the antiquity of their
+own and to claim as early a date as possible for the authentic appearance
+of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of the Balkan theatre. They
+are also unwilling to admit that they were anticipated by the Slavs; they
+prefer to think that the Slavs only insinuated themselves there thanks to
+the energy of the Bulgars' offensive against the Greeks, and that as soon
+as the Bulgars had leisure to look about them they found all the best
+places already occupied by the anarchic Slavs.
+
+Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were or
+were not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept westwards
+into Europe with little intermission throughout the fifth and sixth
+centuries, but even if they were, they do not seem to have settled down as
+early as that anywhere south of the Danube; it seems certain that they did
+not do so until the seventh century, and therefore that the Slavs were
+definitely installed in the Balkan peninsula a whole century before the
+Bulgars crossed the Danube for good.
+
+The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like the
+Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from eastern Asia,
+of the stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of all these peoples
+was to move westwards from Asia into Europe, and this they did at
+considerable and irregular intervals, though in alarming and apparently
+inexhaustible numbers, roughly from the fourth till the fourteenth
+centuries. The distance was great, but the journey, thanks to the flat,
+grassy, treeless, and well-watered character of the steppes of southern
+Russia which they had to cross, was easy. They often halted for
+considerable periods by the way, and some never moved further westwards
+than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in large numbers on the
+Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it is presumed 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 Tartar immigrants from Asia and eventually
+were consolidated into the powerful kingdom of Kazan, which was only
+crushed by the Tsar Ivan IV in 1552. According to Bulgarian historians,
+the basins of the rivers Volga and Don and the steppes of eastern Russia
+proved too confined a space for the legitimate development of Bulgarian
+energy, and expansion to the west was decided on. A large number of
+Bulgars therefore detached themselves and began to move south-westwards.
+During the sixth century they seem to have been settled in the country to
+the north of the Black Sea, forming a colony known as Black Bulgaria. It
+is very doubtful whether the Bulgars did take part, as they are supposed
+to have done, in the ambitious but unsuccessful attack on Constantinople
+in 559 under Zabergan, chief of another Tartar tribe; but it is fairly
+certain that they did in the equally formidable but equally unsuccessful
+attacks by the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609 and Constantinople
+in 626.
+
+During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh 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 the Bulgars grew as 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 joined forces with what was left of the Avars, and there the
+Bulgars maintained themselves till they were obliterated by 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 at 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 that
+year the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.
+
+The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not known,
+but what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process, by which
+the Franks in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenous
+population 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 subject nationality, that beyond a few personal names
+no traces of the language of the Bulgars have survived. Modern Bulgarian,
+except for the Turkish words introduced into it later during the Ottoman
+rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so the Bulgarian nationality; as is so often
+the case with mongrel 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 Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity_,
+700-893
+
+
+From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have
+given their name the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks, and
+ever since both peoples have looked on one another as natural and
+hereditary enemies. The Bulgars, like all the barbarians who had preceded
+them, were fascinated by the honey-pot of Constantinople, 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 Greeks or else amongst
+themselves. At times a diversion was caused by the Bulgars taking the part
+of the Greeks, as in 718, when they 'delivered' Constantinople, at the
+invocation 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 anarchy of the many, which the Bulgars found when they
+arrived, and which their first few autocratic rulers had been able to
+control, was replaced by an anarchy of the few. Prince succeeded prince,
+war followed war, at the will of the feudal nobles. This internal strife
+was naturally profitable to the Greeks, who lavishly subsidized the rival
+factions.
+
+At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined
+forces with those to the north in the efforts of the latter against the
+Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne, were again pressing south-eastwards
+towards the Danube. In this the Bulgars were completely successful under
+the leadership of one Krum, whom, in the elation of victory, they promptly
+elected to the throne. Krum was a far more capable ruler than they had
+bargained for, and he not only united all the Bulgars north and south of
+the Danube into one dominion, but also forcibly repressed the whims of the
+nobles and re-established the autocracy and the hereditary monarchy.
+Having finished with his enemies in the north, he turned his attention to
+the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he captured from them the
+important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica, known to the Slavs as
+Sredets), which is to-day the capital of Bulgaria. The loss of this city
+was a blow to the Greeks, because it was a great centre of commerce and
+also the point at which the commercial and strategic highways of the
+peninsula met and crossed. The Emperor Nikiphoros, who wished to take his
+revenge and recover his lost property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars
+and lost his life in the Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at
+Mesembria (the modern Misivria) in 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum
+appeared before the capital, where he nearly lost his life in an ambush
+while negotiating for peace. During preparations for a final assault on
+Constantinople he died suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to have
+introduced civilisation into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power
+and gave it some of the more essential organs of government. He framed a
+code of laws remarkable for their rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary
+in such a community and beneficial in its effect. He repressed civil
+strife, and by this means made possible the reawakening of commerce and
+agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity, founded in 822 the city
+of Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav), situated in eastern
+Bulgaria, between Varna and Silistria, which was the capital until 972.
+
+The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed the
+definitive conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It is
+within this period also that fell the activities of the two great
+'Slavonic' missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and Methodius,
+who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders of
+their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into Bulgaria
+(or Moesia, as it was then) long before the arrival 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 was brought 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 the Church was at this time still
+nominally one, yet the rivalry between Rome and Constantinople had already
+become acute, and the struggle for spheres of spiritual influence had
+begun. It was in the year 863 that the Prince of Moravia, anxious to
+introduce Christianity into his country in a form intelligible to his
+subjects, addressed himself to the Emperor Michael III for help. Rome
+could not provide any suitable missionaries with knowledge of Slavonic
+languages, and the German, or more exactly the Bavarian, hierarchy with
+which Rome entrusted the spiritual welfare of the Slavs of Moravia and
+Pannonia used its greater local knowledge for political and not religious
+ends. The Germans exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order
+completely to dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter
+were only allowed to see the Church through Teutonic 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 composed the Slavonic alphabet which is to-day
+used throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and in many
+parts of Austria-Hungary and translated the gospels into Slavonic; it is
+for this reason that they are regarded with such veneration by all members
+of the Eastern Church. Their mission proved the greatest success (it must
+be remembered that at this time the various Slavonic tongues were probably
+less dissimilar than they are now), and the two brothers were warmly
+welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, 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; St. Cyril died in 869 and St. Methodius in 885; subsequent
+Popes, notably Stephen V, were not so benevolent to the Slavonic cause;
+the machinations of the German hierarchy (which included, even in those
+days, the falsification of documents) were irresistible, and finally the
+invasion of the Magyars, in 893, destroyed what was left of the Slavonic
+Church in Moravia. The missionary brothers had probably passed through
+Bulgaria on their way north in 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 subjects to do
+the same. Even when he had enforced his will on them at the price of
+numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at the
+beginning of his difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to welcome
+Bulgaria into the fold, but they had no wish to set up an independent
+Church and hierarchy 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 the basileus derived from the Church of
+Constantinople; he also admired the pomp of ecclesiastical ceremony, and
+wished to have a patriarch of his own to crown him and a hierarchy of his
+own to serve him. Finding the Greeks unresponsive, he turned to Rome, and
+Pope Nicholas I sent him two bishops to superintend the ecclesiastical
+affairs of Bulgaria till the investiture of Boris at the hands of the Holy
+See could be arranged. These bishops set 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 independent Church their enthusiasm abated and they were
+recalled to Rome in 867.
+
+Adrian II proved no more sympathetic, and in 870, during the reign of the
+Emperor Basil I, it was decided without more ado that the Bulgarian Church
+should be directly under the Bishop of Constantinople, on the ground that
+the kingdom of Boris was a vassal-state of the basileus, and that from the
+Byzantine point of view, as opposed to that of Rome, the State came first
+and the Church next. The Moravian Gorazd, a disciple of Methodius, was
+appointed Metropolitan, and at his death he was succeeded by his fellow
+countryman and co-disciple Clement, who by means of the construction of
+numerous churches and monasteries did a great deal for the propagation of
+light and learning in Bulgaria. The definite subjection of the Bulgarian
+Church to that of Byzantium was an important and far-reaching event. Boris
+has been reproached with submitting himself and his country to Greek
+influence, but in those days it was either Constantinople or Rome (there
+was no third way); and in view of the proximity of Constantinople and the
+glamour which its civilization cast all over the Balkans, it is not
+surprising that the Greeks carried the day.
+
+
+
+6
+
+_The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire_, 893-972
+
+
+During the reign of Simeon, second son of Boris, which lasted from 893 to
+927, Bulgaria reached a very high level of power and prosperity. Simeon,
+called the Great, is looked on by Bulgarians as their most capable monarch
+and his reign as the most brilliant period of their history. He had spent
+his childhood at Constantinople and been educated there, and he became
+such an admirer of Greek civilization that he was nicknamed _Hemiargos_.
+His instructors had done their work so well that Simeon remained
+spellbound by the glamour of Constantinople throughout his life, and,
+although he might have laid the foundations of a solid empire in the
+Balkans, his one ambition was to conquer Byzantium and to be recognized as
+basileus--an ambition which was not to be fulfilled. His first campaign
+against the Greeks was not very 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 Pechenegs, 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 (894-913), the internal development
+of Bulgaria made great strides. The administration was properly organized,
+commerce was encouraged, and agriculture flourished. In the wars against
+the Greeks which occupied his last years he was more successful, and
+inflicted a severe defeat on them at Anchialo (the modern Ahiolu) in 917;
+but he was still unable to get from them what he wanted, and at last, in
+921, he was obliged to proclaim himself _basileus_ and _autocrat[=o]r_ of
+all Bulgars and Greeks, a title which nobody else recognized. He
+reappeared before Constantinople the same year, but effected nothing more
+than the customary devastation of the suburbs. The year 923 witnessed a
+solemn reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople; the Greeks were
+clever enough to prevent the Roman legates visiting Bulgaria on their
+return journey, and thereby administered a rebuff to Simeon, who was
+anxious to see them and enter into direct relations with Rome. In the same
+year Simeon tried to make an alliance with the Arabs, but the ambassadors
+of the latter were intercepted by the Greeks, who made it worth their
+while not to continue the journey to Bulgaria.
+
+In 924 Simeon determined on a supreme effort against Constantinople and as
+a preliminary he ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. When, however, he arrived
+before the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate, and he
+entered into negotiations, which, as 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 subjected most of the eastern part of Serbia
+to his rule. From all this it can be seen that he was no diplomat, though
+not lacking in enterprise and ambition. The fact was that while he made
+his kingdom too powerful for the Greeks to subdue (indeed they were
+compelled to pay him tribute), yet Constantinople 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 south of
+the Danube and east of the rivers Morava and Ibar in Serbia and of the
+Drin in Albania. The Byzantine Church greatly increased its influence in
+Bulgaria during his reign, and works of theology grew like mushrooms. This
+was the only kind of literature that was ever popular in Bulgaria, and
+although it is usual to throw contempt on the literary achievements of
+Constantinople, we should know but little of Bulgaria were it not for the
+Greek historians.
+
+Simeon died in 927, and his son Peter, who succeeded him, was a lover of
+peace and comfort; he married a Byzantine princess, and during his reign
+(927-69) Greek influence grew ever stronger, in spite of several revolts
+on the part of the Bulgar nobles, while the capital Preslav became a
+miniature Constantinople. In 927 Rome recognized the kingdom 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 _arch[=o]n_ or prince (_knyaz_ in Bulgarian), which was the utmost
+title allowed to any foreign sovereign. It was not until 945 that they
+recognized Peter as _basileus_, the unique title possessed by their own
+emperors and till then never granted to any one else. Peter's reign was
+one of misfortune for his country both at home and abroad. In 931 the
+Serbs broke loose under their leader [)C]aslav, whom Simeon had captured
+but who effected his escape, and asserted their independence. In 963 a
+formidable revolt under one Shishman undermined the whole state fabric. He
+managed to subtract Macedonia and all western Bulgaria, including Sofia
+and Vidin, from Peter's rule, and proclaimed himself independent _tsar
+(tsar_ or _caesar_ was a title often accorded by Byzantium to relatives of
+the emperor or to distinguished men of Greek or other nationality, and
+though it was originally the equivalent of the highest title, it had long
+since ceased to be so: the emperor's designations were _basileus_ and
+_autocrat[=o]r_). From this time there were two Bulgarias--eastern and
+western. The eastern half was now little more than a Byzantine province,
+and the western became the centre of national life and the focus of
+national aspirations.
+
+Another factor which militated against the internal progress of Bulgaria
+was the spread of the Bogomil heresy in the tenth century. This remarkable
+doctrine, founded on 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 rest a man of uncertain
+identity, who made Philippopolis the centre of his activity. Its principal
+features were of a negative character, and consequently it was very
+difficult successfully to apply force against them. The Bogomils
+recognized the authority neither of Church nor of State; the validity
+neither of oaths nor of human laws. They refused to pay taxes, to fight,
+or to obey; they sanctioned theft, but looked upon any kind of punishment
+as unjustifiable; they discountenanced marriage and were strict
+vegetarians. Naturally a heresy so alarming in its individualism shook to
+its foundations the not very firmly established Bulgarian society.
+Nevertheless it spread with rapidity in spite of all persecutions, and its
+popularity amongst the Bulgarians, and indeed amongst all the Slavs of the
+peninsula, is without doubt partly explained by political reasons. The
+hierarchy of the Greek Church, which supported the ruling classes of the
+country and lent them authority at the same time that it increased its
+own, was antipathetic to the Slavs, and the Bogomil heresy drew much
+strength from its nationalistic colouring and from the appeal which it
+made to the character of the Balkan Slavs, who have always been intolerant
+of government by the Church. But neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical
+authorities were able to cope with the problem; indeed they were apt to
+minimize its importance, and the heresy was never eradicated till the
+arrival on the scene of Islam, which proved as attractive to the
+schismatics as the well-regulated Orthodox Church had been the reverse.
+
+The third quarter of the tenth century witnessed a great recrudescence of
+the power of Constantinople under the Emperor Nikiphoros Phokas, who
+wrested Cyprus and Crete from the Arabs and inaugurated an era of
+prosperity for the eastern empire, giving it a new lease of vigorous and
+combative life. Wishing to reassert the Greek supremacy in the Balkan
+peninsula his first act was to refuse any further payment of tribute to
+the Bulgarians as 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 more assured he secured the co-operation of the Russians under
+Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev; this potentate's mother Olga had visited
+Constantinople in 957 and been baptized (though her son and the bulk of
+the population were still ardent heathens), and commercial intercourse
+between Russia and Constantinople by means of the Dnieper and the Black
+Sea was at that time lively. Svyatoslav did not want pressing, and
+arriving with an army of 10,000 men in boats, overcame northern Bulgaria
+in a few days (967); they were helped by Shishman and the western Bulgars,
+who did not mind at what price Peter and the eastern Bulgars were crushed.
+Svyatoslav was recalled to Russia in 968 to defend his home from attacks
+by the Tartar Pechenegs, but that done, he made up his mind to return to
+Bulgaria, lured by its riches and by the hope of the eventual possession
+of Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor Nikiphoros was by now aware of the danger he had imprudently
+conjured up, and made a futile alliance with eastern Bulgaria; but in
+January 969 Peter of Bulgaria died, and in December of the same year
+Nikiphoros was murdered by the ambitious Armenian John Tzimisces,[1] who
+thereupon became emperor. Svyatoslav, seeing the field clear of his
+enemies, returned in 970, and in March of that year sacked and occupied
+Philippopolis. The Emperor John Tzimisces, who was even abler both as
+general and as diplomat than his predecessor, quietly pushed forward 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 he stormed,
+massacring many of the garrison, in April 972. Svyatoslav and his
+remaining troops escaped to Silistria (the Durostorum of Trajan) on the
+Danube, where again, however, they were besieged and defeated by the
+indefatigable emperor. At last peace was made in July 972, the Russians
+being allowed to go free on condition of the complete evacuation of
+Bulgaria and a gift of corn; the adventurous Svyatoslav lost his life at
+the hands of the Pechenegs while making his way back to Kiev. The triumph
+of the Greeks was complete, and it can be imagined that there was not much
+left of the earthenware Bulgaria after the violent collision of these two
+mighty iron vessels on the top of it. Eastern Bulgaria (i.e. Moesia and
+Thrace) ceased to exist, becoming a purely Greek province; John Tzimisces
+made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, followed by the two sons of
+Peter of Bulgaria on foot; the elder was deprived of his regal attributes
+and created _magistros_, the younger was made a eunuch.
+
+[Footnote 1: John the Little.]
+
+
+
+7
+
+_The Rise and Fall of 'Western Bulgaria' and the Greek Supremacy_,
+963-1186
+
+
+Meanwhile western Bulgaria had not been touched, and it was thither that
+the Bulgarian patriarch Damian removed from Silistria after the victory of
+the Greeks, settling first in Sofia and then in Okhrida in Macedonia,
+where the apostate Shishman had eventually made his capital. Western
+Bulgaria included Macedonia and parts of Thessaly, Albania, southern and
+eastern Serbia, and the westernmost parts of modern Bulgaria. It was from
+this district that numerous anti-Hellenic revolts were directed after the
+death of the Emperor John Tzimisces in 976. These culminated during the
+reign of Samuel (977-1014), one of the sons of Shishman. He was as capable
+and energetic, as unscrupulous and inhuman, as the situation he was called
+upon to fill demanded. He began by assassinating all his relations and
+nobles who resented his desire to re-establish the absolute monarchy, was
+recognized as _tsar_ by the Holy See of Rome in 981, and then began to
+fight the Greeks, the only possible occupation for any self-respecting
+Bulgarian ruler. The emperor at that time was Basil II (976-1025), who was
+brave and patriotic but young and inexperienced. In his early campaigns
+Samuel carried all before him; he reconquered northern Bulgaria in 985,
+Thessaly in 986, and defeated Basil II near Sofia the same year. Later he
+conquered Albania and the southern parts of Serbia and what is now
+Montenegro and Hercegovina. In 996 he threatened Salonika, but first of
+all embarked on an expedition against the Peloponnese; here he was
+followed by the Greek general, who managed to surprise and completely
+overwhelm him, he and his son barely escaping with their lives.
+
+From that year (996) his fortune changed; the Greeks reoccupied northern
+Bulgaria, in 999, and also recovered Thessaly and parts of Macedonia. The
+Bulgars were subjected to almost annual attacks on the part of Basil II;
+the country was ruined and could not long hold out. The final disaster
+occurred in 1014, when Basil II utterly defeated his inveterate foe in a
+pass near Seres in Macedonia. Samuel escaped to Prilip, but when he beheld
+the return of 15,000 of his troops who had been captured and blinded by
+the Greeks he died of syncope. Basil II, known as Bulgaroctonus, or
+Bulgar-killer, went from victory to victory, and finally occupied the
+Bulgarian capital of Okhrida in 1016. Western Bulgaria came to an end, as
+had eastern Bulgaria in 972, the remaining members of the royal family
+followed the emperor to the Bosphorus to enjoy comfortable captivity, and
+the triumph of Constantinople was complete.
+
+From 1018 to 1186 Bulgaria had no existence as an independent state; Basil
+II, although cruel, was far from tyrannical in his general treatment of
+the Bulgars, and treated the conquered territory more as a protectorate
+than as a possession. But after his death Greek rule became much more
+oppressive. The Bulgarian patriarchate (since 972 established at Okhrida)
+was reduced to an archbishopric, and in 1025 the see was given to a Greek,
+who lost no time in eliminating the Bulgarian element from positions of
+importance throughout his diocese. Many of the nobles were transplanted to
+Constantinople, where their opposition was numbed by the bestowal of
+honours. During the eleventh century the peninsula was invaded frequently
+by the Tartar Pechenegs and Kumans, whose aid was invoked both by Greeks
+and Bulgars; the result of these incursions was not always favourable to
+those who had promoted them; the barbarians invariably stayed longer and
+did more damage 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 peninsula became ever more
+variegated. To the Tartar settlers were added colonies of Armenians and
+Vlakhs by various emperors. The last touch was given by the arrival of the
+Normans in 1081 and the passage of the crusaders in 1096. The wholesale
+depredations of the latter naturally made the inhabitants of the Balkan
+peninsula anything but sympathetically disposed towards their cause. One
+of the results of all this turmoil and of the heavy hand of the Greeks was
+a great increase in the vitality of the Bogomil heresy already referred to;
+it became a refuge for patriotism and an outlet for its expression. The
+Emperor Alexis Comnenus instituted a bitter persecution of it, which only
+led to its growth and rapid propagation westwards into Serbia from its
+centre Philippopolis.
+
+The reason of the complete overthrow of the Bulgarian monarchy by the
+Greeks was of course that the nation itself was totally lacking in
+cohesion and organization, and could only achieve any lasting success when
+an exceptionally gifted ruler managed to discount the centrifugal
+tendencies of the feudal nobles, as Simeon and Samuel had done. Other
+discouraging factors wore the permeation of the Church and State by
+Byzantine influence, the lack of a large 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.
+
+
+
+8
+
+_The Rise and Fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire,_ 1186-1258
+
+
+From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the
+brevity of which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature of
+the events that crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the Greeks
+culminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars, which had its centre in
+Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northern Bulgaria--a position of great
+natural strength and strategic importance, 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
+Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the archbishop Basil, who crowned
+one of them, called John Asen, as _tsar_ in Tirnovo in 1186. Their first
+efforts against the Greeks were not successful, but securing the support
+of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and of the Crusaders in 1189
+they became more so; but there was life in the Greeks yet, and victory
+alternated with defeat. John Asen I was assassinated in 1196 and was
+succeeded after many internal discords and murders by his relative Kaloian
+or Pretty John. This cruel and unscrupulous though determined ruler soon
+made an end of all his enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such
+success abroad that Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions.
+Moreover, he re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture
+of the Greeks, and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized
+Kaloian as _tsar_ of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de Bougrie,
+in the words of Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and they were both
+duly consecrated and crowned by the papal legate at Tirnovo in 1204. The
+French, who had just established themselves in Constantinople during the
+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 1207 his career was cut
+short; he was murdered while besieging Salonika by one of his generals who
+was a friend of his wife. After eleven years of further anarchy he was
+succeeded by John Asen II. During the reign of this monarch, which lasted
+from 1218 till 1241, Bulgaria reached the zenith of its power. He was the
+most enlightened ruler the country had had, and he not only waged war
+successfully abroad but also put an end 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 capital at Tirnovo,
+which city he considerably embellished and enlarged.
+
+Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one French.
+The first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them, named
+Theodore, who had proclaimed himself _basileus_ at Okhrida in 1223.
+Thereupon he annexed the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus
+to his dominions, and made Theodore's brother Manuel, who had married one
+of his daughters, viceroy, established at Salonika. Another of his
+daughters had married Stephen Vladislav, who was King of Serbia from
+1233-43, and a third married Theodore, son of the Emperor John III, who
+reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter, after being sought in marriage
+by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife for the Emperor Baldwin
+II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour of the daughter of the
+King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the mind of John Asen II and
+threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with whom he concluded an alliance
+in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the Emperor John III, were, however,
+utterly defeated by the French under the walls of Constantinople in 1236,
+and the Bulgarian ruler, who had no wish to see 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 the French in
+1237, the Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him
+with excommunication; he went so far as 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
+brother-in-law the King of Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin
+II, to whose help against the Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace
+in 1239. While besieging the Greeks with indifferent success, he learned
+of the death of his wife and his eldest son from plague, and incontinently
+returned to Tirnovo, giving up the war and restoring his daughter to her
+lonely husband. This adaptable monarch died a natural death in 1241, and
+the three rulers of his family who succeeded him, whose reigns filled the
+period 1241-58, managed to undo all the constructive work of their
+immediate predecessors. Province after province was lost and internal
+anarchy increased. This remarkable dynasty came to an inglorious end in
+1258, when its last representative was murdered by his own nobles, and
+from this time onwards Bulgaria was only a shadow of its former self.
+
+
+
+9
+
+_The Serbian Supremacy and the Final Collapse,_ 1258-1393
+
+
+From 1258 onwards Bulgaria may be said to have continued flickering until
+its final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period it never
+had any voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan peninsula. Owing
+to the fact that no ruler emerged capable of keeping the distracted
+country in order, there was a regular _chasse-croise_ of rival princelets,
+an unceasing tale of political 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 the virtual
+disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the profit of the surrounding
+states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist supremacy. It is especially
+remarkable for the complete ascendancy which Serbia gained in the Balkan
+peninsula.
+
+A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the Bulgarian
+throne from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of John Asen II.
+After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261, the
+Hungarians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with the Greeks
+against Constantine; the latter called the Tartars of southern Russia, at
+this time at 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 the Bulgarian 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 affairs. Constantine was followed
+by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the
+victories of King Uro[)s] II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all
+Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the
+Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south
+that the clouds were rolling up which not much later were to burst over
+the peninsula. In 1308 the Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in
+1326 established themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was
+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 order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his
+death in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married
+the daughter of Uro[)s] II of Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with
+the Greeks against his brother-in-law Stephen Uro[)s] III and dispatched
+his wife to her home. During the war which ensued the unwonted allies were
+utterly routed by the Serbs at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.
+
+From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of Tartar
+origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia's greatest ruler, Stephen
+Du[)s]an; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his suzerain,
+and from thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia. Meanwhile
+the Turkish storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the Hellespont in
+1356, and Murad I made Adrianople his capital in 1366. After the death of
+John Alexander in 1365 the Hungarians invaded northern Bulgaria, and his
+successor invoked the help of the Turks against them and also against the
+Greeks. This was the beginning of the end. The Serbs, during an absence of
+the Sultan in Asia, undertook an offensive, but were defeated by the Turks
+near Adrianople in 1371, who captured Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs
+formed a huge southern Slav alliance, in which the Bulgarians refused to
+join, but, after a temporary success against the Turks in 1387, they were
+vanquished by them as the result of treachery at the famous battle of
+Kosovo in 1389. Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on the Danube in
+1388 and destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling the
+Patriarch Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into
+the hands of the Turks, 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 the subjection of Rumania in 1394 and
+the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western Europe under
+Sigismund, King of Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the Turkish conquest was
+complete, though the battle of Varna was not fought till 1444, nor
+Constantinople entered till 1453.
+
+
+
+10
+
+_The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation,_ 1393-1878
+
+
+From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no
+history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy.
+National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days for
+national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and most
+people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have many
+excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst others;
+it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too much cannot
+be said in praise of Mohammedan civilization. Who does not prefer the
+minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the architecture of Budapest,
+notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern Europe? On the other
+hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought prosperity or
+happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed they submerged
+their identity in the religion of their conquerors), or that its Influence
+was either vivifying or generally popular.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Turkish names for Constantinople and Adrianople.]
+
+To the races they conquered the Turks offered two alternatives--serfdom or
+Turkdom; those who could not bring themselves to accept either of these
+had either to emigrate or take to brigandage and outlawry in the
+mountains. The Turks literally overlaid the European nationalities of the
+Balkan peninsula for five hundred years, and from their own point of view
+and from that of military history this was undoubtedly a very splendid
+achievement; it was more than the Greeks or Romans had ever done. From the
+point of view of humanitarianism also it is beyond a doubt that much less
+human blood was spilt in the Balkan peninsula during the five hundred
+years of Turkish rule than during the five hundred years of Christian rule
+which preceded them; indeed it would have been difficult to spill more. It
+is also a pure illusion to think of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or
+cruel; they are just as good-natured and good-humoured as anybody else; it
+is only when their military or religious passions are aroused that they
+become more reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks
+who taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan peninsula; the latter
+had nothing to learn in this respect.
+
+In spite of all this, however, from the point of view of the Slavs of
+Bulgaria and Serbia, Turkish rule was synonymous with suffocation. If the
+Turks were all that their greatest admirers think them the history of the
+Balkan peninsula in the nineteenth century would have been very different
+from what it has been, namely, one perpetual series of anti-Turkish
+revolts.
+
+Of all the Balkan peoples the Bulgarians were the most completely crushed
+and effaced. The Greeks by their ubiquity, their brains, and their money
+were soon able to make the Turkish storm drive their own windmill; the
+Rumanians were somewhat sheltered by the Danube and also by their distance
+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
+afforded them some protection. Bulgaria was simply annihilated, and its
+population, already far from homogeneous, was still further varied by
+numerous Turkish and other Tartar colonies.
+
+For the same reasons already mentioned Bulgaria was the last Balkan state
+to emancipate itself; for these reasons also it is the least trammelled by
+prejudices and by what are considered national predilections and racial
+affinities, while its heterogeneous composition makes it vigorous and
+enterprising. The treatment of the Christians by the Turks was by no means
+always the same; generally speaking, it grew worse as the power of the
+Sultan grew less. During the fifteenth century they were allowed to
+practise their religion and all their vocations in comparative liberty and
+peace. But from the sixteenth century onwards the control of the Sultan
+declined, power became decentralized, the Ottoman Empire grew ever more
+anarchic and the rule of the provincial governors more despotic.
+
+But the Mohammedan conquerors were not the only enemies and oppressors of
+the Bulgars. The role played by the Greeks in Bulgaria during the Turkish
+dominion was almost 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 1767 the Bulgarians were under the Greco-Bulgarian Patriarchate
+of Okhrida, an organization in which all posts, from the highest to the
+lowest, had to be bought from the Turkish administration at exorbitant and
+ever-rising prices; the Phanariote Greeks (so called because they
+originated in the Phanar quarter at Constantinople) were the only ones who
+could afford those of the higher posts, with the result that the Church
+was controlled from Constantinople. In 1767 the independent patriarchates
+were abolished, and from that date the religious control of the Greeks was
+as complete as the political control of the Turks. The Greeks did all they
+could to obliterate the last traces of Bulgarian nationality which 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, that the individual hatred of Greeks and
+Bulgars of each other has 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 not until the
+eighteenth century, 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 first
+asserted in Rumania after the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, in 1774. It was
+only the Napoleonic war in 1812 that prevented the Russians from extending
+their territory south of the Danube, whither it already stretched. Serbia
+was partially free by 1826, and Greece achieved complete independence in
+1830, when the Russian troops, in order to coerce the Turks, occupied part
+of Bulgaria and advanced as far as 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 by wholesale emigrations of Bulgars into Bessarabia and
+importations of Tartars and Kurds into the vacated districts. The Crimean
+War and the short-sighted championship of Turkey by the western European
+powers checked considerably the development at which Russia aimed.
+Moldavia and Wallachia were in 1856 withdrawn from the semi-protectorate
+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
+Hohenzollern, came to rule over the country, the first sign of German
+influence in the Near East; at this time Rumania still acknowledged the
+supremacy of the Sultan.
+
+During the first half of the nineteenth century there took place a
+considerable intellectual renascence in Bulgaria, a movement fostered by
+wealthy Bulgarian merchants of Bucarest and Odessa. In 1829 a history of
+Bulgaria was published by a native of that country in Moscow; in 1835 the
+first school was established in Bulgaria, and many others soon followed.
+It must be remembered that not only was nothing known at that time about
+Bulgaria and its inhabitants in other countries, but the Bulgars had
+themselves to be taught who they were. The Bulgarian people in Bulgaria
+consisted entirely of peasants; there was no Bulgarian upper or middle or
+'intelligent' or professional class; those enlightened Bulgars who existed
+were domiciled in other countries; the Church was in the hands of the
+Greeks, who vied with the Turks in suppressing Bulgarian nationality.
+
+The two committees of Odessa and Bucarest which promoted the enlightenment
+and emancipation of Bulgaria were dissimilar in composition and in aim;
+the members of the former were more intent on educational and religious
+reform, and aimed at the gradual and peaceful regeneration of their
+country by these means; the latter wished to effect the immediate
+political emancipation of Bulgaria by violent and, if necessary, warlike
+means.
+
+It was the ecclesiastical question which was solved first. In 1856 the
+Porte had promised religious reforms tending to the appointment of
+Bulgarian bishops and the recognition of the Bulgarian language in Church
+and school. But these not 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 year an attempt was made to
+bring the Church of Bulgaria under that of Rome, but, owing to Russian
+opposition, proved abortive. In 1870, the growing agitation having at last
+alarmed 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 notable was that of 1875, instigated by
+Stambulov, the future dictator, in sympathy with the outbreak in
+Montenegro, Hercegovina, and Bosnia of that year; the result of this and
+of similar movements in 1876 was the series of notorious Bulgarian
+massacres in that year. The indignation of Europe was aroused and
+concerted representations were urgently made at Constantinople. Midhat
+Pasha disarmed his opponents by summarily introducing the British
+constitution into Turkey, but, needless to say, Bulgaria's lot was not
+improved by this specious device. Russia had, however, steadily been
+making her preparations, and, Turkey having refused to discontinue
+hostilities against Montenegro, on April 24, 1877, war was declared by the
+Emperor Alexander II, whose patience had become exhausted; he was joined
+by Prince Charles of Rumania, who saw that by doing so he would be
+rewarded by the complete emancipation of his country, then still a
+vassal-state of Turkey, and its erection into a kingdom. At the beginning
+of the war all went well for the Russians and Rumanians, who were soon
+joined by large numbers of Bulgarian insurgents; the Turkish forces were
+scattered all over the peninsula. The committee of Bucarest transformed
+itself into a provisional government, but the Russians, who had undertaken
+to liberate the country, naturally had to keep its administration
+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 resistance
+rapidly 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,
+Ignatiyev dictated the terms of the Treaty of San 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 just, 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 autonomous
+province, tributary to Turkey; southern Bulgaria, fancifully termed
+Eastern Rumelia (Rumili was the name always given by the Turks to the
+whole Balkan peninsula), was to have autonomous administration under a
+Christian governor appointed by the Porte; Macedonia was left to Turkey;
+and the Dobrudja, between the Danube and the Black Sea, was adjudged to
+Rumania.
+
+
+
+11
+
+_The Aftermath, and Prince Alexander of Battenberg, 1878-86_
+
+
+The relations between the Russians and the Bulgarians were better before
+the liberation of the latter by the former than after; this may seem
+unjust, because Bulgaria could never have freed herself so decisively and
+rapidly alone, and Russia was the only power in whose interest it was to
+free her from the Turks, and who could translate that interest 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.
+
+What so often happens in the relationships of individuals happened in
+those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected
+Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and treasure
+which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected its
+gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence in all
+the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria was no
+doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of expressing
+its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most people who
+have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action or been put
+under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its right to an
+independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe writers that
+Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of Bulgaria, but
+this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of the Balkan
+peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the Russian
+Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and vigorous national
+block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an independent state, was
+an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is quite possible for Russia
+to obtain possession or control of Constantinople without owning all the
+intervening littoral.
+
+That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of
+Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was just
+as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The eventual
+result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered the sphere
+of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather calculation, a
+contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at the time, and whose
+full meaning, even if it had, would not have been grasped by them.
+
+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 its monuments
+of theological literature. Nevertheless, they have never been enthusiastic
+Pan-Slavists, any more than the Dutch have ever been ardent Pan-Germans;
+it is as unreasonable to expect such a thing of the one people as it is of
+the other. The Bulgarians indeed think themselves superior to the Slavs by
+reason of the warlike and glorious traditions of the Tartar tribe that
+gave them their name and infused the Asiatic element into their race, thus
+endowing them with greater stability, energy, and consistency than is
+possessed by purely Slav peoples. These latter, on the other hand, and
+notably the Serbians, for the same reason affect contempt for the mixture
+of blood and for what they consider the Mongol characteristics of the
+Bulgarians. What is certain is that between Bulgarians and Germans
+(including German Austrians and Magyars) there has never existed that
+elemental, ineradicable, and insurmountable antipathy which exists between
+German (and Magyar) and Slav wherever the two races are contiguous, from
+the Baltic to the Adriatic; nothing is more remarkable than the way in
+which the Bulgarian people has been flattered, studied, and courted in
+Austria-Hungary and Germany, during the last decade, to the detriment of
+the purely Slav Serb race with whom it is always compared. The reason is
+that with the growth of the Serb national movement, from 1903 onwards,
+Austria-Hungary and Germany felt an instinctive and perfectly
+well-justified fear of the Serb race, and sought to neutralize the
+possible effect of its growing power by any possible means.
+
+It is not too much to say, in summing up, that Russian influence, which
+had been growing stronger in Bulgaria up till 1877-8, has since been
+steadily on the decline; Germany and Austria-Hungary, who reduced Bulgaria
+to half the size that Count Ignatiyev had made it by the Treaty of San
+Stefano, 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 conditions, 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 its cereals are in
+central and western Europe, the connexion between Bulgaria and Russia is
+infinitesimal. Politically, both 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 first Bulgarian Parliament met in 1879 under trying conditions. Both
+Russian and Bulgarian hopes had been dashed by the Treaty of Berlin.
+Russian influence was still paramount, however, and the viceroy controlled
+the organization of the administration. An ultra-democratic constitution
+was arranged for, a fact obviously not conducive to the successful
+government of their country by the quite inexperienced 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 religion
+and in politics. The choice fell on Prince Alexander of Battenberg, nephew
+of the Empress of Russia, who had taken part in the campaign of the
+Russian army. Prince Alexander was conscientious, energetic, and
+enthusiastic, but he was no diplomat, and from the outset his honesty
+precluded his success. From the very first he failed to keep on good terms
+with Russia or its representatives, who at that time were still numerous
+in Bulgaria, while he was helpless to stem the ravages of parliamentary
+government. The Emperor Alexander III, who succeeded his father Alexander
+II in 1881, recommended him to insist on being made dictator, which he
+successfully did. But when he found that this only meant an increase of
+Russian influence he reverted to parliamentary government (in September
+1883); this procedure discomfited 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 of the country had been going on for some time,
+and on September 18, 1885, the inhabitants of Philippopolis suddenly
+proclaimed the union under Prince Alexander, who solemnly announced his
+approval at Tirnovo and triumphantly entered their city on September 21.
+Russia frowned on 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 compensation for Bulgaria's
+aggrandisement; it must be remembered that it was Bismarck who, by the
+Treaty of Berlin, had arbitrarily confined Serbia to its inadequate limits
+of those day.
+
+On November 13 King Milan declared war, and began to march on Sofia, which
+is not far from the Serbo-Bulgarian frontier. 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 the Bulgarians were completely
+victorious. Prince Alexander, after hard fighting, took Pirot in Serbia on
+November 27, 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. Prince Alexander's position did not improve after this, indeed
+it would have needed a much more skilful navigator to steer through the
+many currents which eddied round him. A strong Russophile party formed
+itself in the army; on the night of August 21, 1886, some officers of this
+party, who were the most capable in the Bulgarian army, appeared at Sofia,
+forced Alexander to resign, and abducted him; they put him on board his
+yacht on the Danube and escorted him 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 26 he found himself at Lemberg. But those who had carried out this
+_coup d'etat_ found that it was not at all popular in the country. A
+counter-revolution, headed by the statesman Stambulov, was immediately
+initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst
+tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor
+Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left
+Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in
+Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency
+was constituted, at the head of which was Stambulov.
+
+
+
+12
+
+_The Regeneration under Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,_ 1886-1908
+
+
+Stambulov was born at Tirnovo in 1854 and was of humble origin. He took
+part in the insurrection of 1876 and in the war of liberation, and in 1884
+became president of the Sobraniye (Parliament). From 1886 till 1894 he was
+virtually dictator of Bulgaria. He was intensely patriotic and also
+personally ambitious, determined, energetic, ruthlessly cruel and
+unscrupulous, but incapable of deceit; these qualities were apparent in
+his powerful and grim expression of face, while his manner inspired the
+weak with terror and the strongest with respect. His policy in general was
+directed against Russia. At the general election held in October 1886 he
+had all his important opponents imprisoned beforehand, while armed
+sentries discouraged ill-disposed voters from approaching the
+ballot-boxes. Out of 522 elected deputies, there were 470 supporters of
+Stambulov. This implied the complete suppression of the Russophile party
+and led to a rupture with St. Petersburg.
+
+Whatever were Stambulov'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. But once having started on this path he
+found it difficult to stop, 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 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 Clementine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter
+of Louis-Philippe. This young man combined great ambition and tenacity of
+purpose with extreme prudence, astuteness, and patience; he was a
+consummate diplomat. The election of this prince was viewed with great
+disfavour by Russia, and for fear of offending the Emperor Alexander III
+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 suzerain,
+the Sultan Abdul Hamid. He wisely left all power in the hands of the
+unattractive and to him, unsympathetic prime minister, Stambulov, till he
+himself felt secure in his position, and till the dictator should have
+made himself thoroughly hated. Ferdinand's clever and wealthy mother cast
+a beneficent and civilizing glow around him, smoothing away many
+difficulties by her womanly tact and philanthropic activity, and, thanks
+to his 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 Marie-Louise of Bourbon-Parma. In May 1894, as a
+result of a social misadventure in which he became involved, Stambulov
+sent in his resignation, confidently expecting a refusal. To his
+mortification it was accepted; thereupon he initiated a violent press
+campaign, but his halo had faded, and on July 15 he was savagely attacked
+in the street by unknown men, who afterwards escaped, and he died three
+days later. So intense were the emotions of the people that his grave had
+to be guarded by the military for two months. In November 1894 followed
+the death of the Emperor Alexander III, and as a result of this double
+event the road to a reconciliation with Russia was opened. Meanwhile the
+German Emperor, who was on good terms with Princess Clementine, 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 Russia
+were still further improved by the rebaptism of the infant Crown Prince
+Boris according to the rites of the eastern Church, in February 1896, and
+a couple of years later Ferdinand and his wife and child paid a highly
+successful state visit to Peterhof. In September 1902 a memorial church
+was erected by the Emperor Nicholas II at the Shipka Pass, and later an
+equestrian statue of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II was placed opposite
+the House of Parliament in Sofia.
+
+Bulgaria meanwhile had been making rapid and astonishing material
+progress. Railways were built, exports increased, and the general
+condition of the country greatly improved. It is the fashion to compare
+the wonderful advance made by Bulgaria during the thirty-five years of its
+new existence with the very much slower progress made by Serbia during a
+much longer period. This is insisted on especially by publicists in
+Austria-Hungary and Germany, but it is forgotten that even before the last
+Balkan war the geographical position of Bulgaria with its seaboard was
+much more favourable to its economic development than that of Serbia,
+which the Treaty of Berlin had hemmed in by Turkish and Austro-Hungarian
+territory; moreover, Bulgaria being double the size of the Serbia of those
+days, had far greater resources upon which to draw.
+
+From 1894 onwards Ferdinand's power in his own country and his influence
+abroad had been steadily growing. He always appreciated the value of
+railways, and became almost as great a traveller as the German Emperor.
+His estates in the south of Hungary constantly required his attention, and
+he was a frequent visitor in Vienna. The German Emperor, though he could
+not help admiring Ferdinand's success, was always a little afraid of him;
+he felt that Ferdinand's gifts were so similar to his own that he would be
+unable to count on him in an emergency. Moreover, it was difficult to
+reconcile Ferdinand's ambitions in extreme south-eastern Europe with his
+own. Ferdinand's relations with Vienna, on the other hand, and especially
+with the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand, were both cordial and intimate.
+
+The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably in
+Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of 1902-3
+anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of terror, and,
+also the unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia since the
+accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused uneasiness in
+Sofia, no less than in Vienna and Budapest. The Young Turkish revolution
+of July 1908, and the triumph of the Committee of Union and Progress,
+disarmed the critics of Turkey who wished to make the forcible
+introduction of reforms a pretext for their interference; but the
+potential rejuvenation of the Ottoman Empire which it foreshadowed
+indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action. In September,
+after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in eastern Roumelia
+(which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia Cabinet seized the line
+with a military force on the plea of political necessity. At the same time
+Ferdinand, 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 at Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at
+Tirnovo, the ancient capital, Ferdinand proclaimed the complete
+independence of Bulgaria and eastern Rumelia under himself as King (_Tsar_
+in Bulgarian), and on October 7 Austria-Hungary announced the annexation
+of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the two Turkish provinces administered by it
+since 1879, nominally under Turkish suzerainty.
+
+
+
+13
+
+_The Kingdom_, 1908-13
+
+(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)
+
+
+The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the
+Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The Macedonian
+question was extremely complicated; it started on the assumption that the
+disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding throughout the
+nineteenth century, would eventually be completed, and the question was
+how in this eventuality to satisfy the territorial claims of the three
+neighbouring countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, claims both
+historical and ethnological, 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 modern form do not go
+farther back than 1885, when the ease with which eastern Rumelia (i.e.
+southern Bulgaria) threw off the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously united
+with the semi-independent principality of northern Bulgaria affected the
+imagination of the Balkan statesmen. From that time Sofia began to cast
+longing eyes on Macedonia, the whole of which was claimed as 'unredeemed
+Bulgaria', and Stambulov's last 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 blow for the Greek
+Patriarchate at Constantinople.
+
+Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin, article 23 of which
+stipulated for reforms in that province; but in those days the Balkan
+States were too young and weak to worry themselves or the European powers
+over the troubles of their co-religionists in Turkey; their hands were
+more than full setting their own houses in some sort of order, and it was
+in nobody's interest to reform Macedonia, so article 23 remained the
+expression of a philanthropic sentiment. This indifference on the part of
+Europe left the 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 Macedonia increased, 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 which it engendered was the following: The population of Macedonia
+was nowhere, except in the immediate vicinity of the borders of these
+three countries, either purely Bulgar or purely Greek or purely Serb; most
+of the towns contained a percentage of at least two of these
+nationalities, not to mention the Turks (who after all were still the
+owners of the country by right of conquest), Albanians, Tartars, Rumanians
+(Vlakhs), and others; the city of Salonika was and is almost purely
+Jewish, while in the country districts Turkish, Albanian, Greek, Bulgar,
+and Serb villages were inextricably confused. Generally speaking, the
+coastal strip was mainly Greek (the coast itself purely so), the interior
+mainly Slav. The problem was for each country to peg out as large a claim
+as possible, and so effectively, by any means in their power, to make the
+majority of the population contained in that claim acknowledge itself to
+be Bulgar, or Serb, or Greek, that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire
+was over, each part of Macedonia would automatically fall into the arms of
+its respective deliverers. The game was played through the appropriate
+media of churches and schools, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had
+first of all to be enlightened as to who they were, or rather as to who
+they were told they had got to consider themselves, while the Church, as
+always, conveniently covered a multitude of political aims; when those
+methods flagged, a bomb would be thrown at, let us say, a Turkish official
+by an _agent provocateur_ of one of the three players, inevitably
+resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent Christians by 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 of Macedonia, including Salonika
+and all the Aegean coast (except Chalcidice), Okhrida, and Monastir;
+Greece claimed all southern Macedonia, and Serbia parts of northern and
+central Macedonia known as Old Serbia. The crux of the whole 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 irreconcilable
+conflict with those of its rivals. The importance of this point was
+greatly emphasized by the existence of the 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,
+just as in the north it was already, to its bitter cost, at the mercy of
+Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless, Bulgarian propaganda had been so effectual
+that Serbia and Greece never expected they would eventually be able to
+join hands so easily and successfully as they afterwards did.
+
+The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a factor. This people,
+though small in numbers, was formidable in character, and had never been
+effectually subdued by the Turks. They would have been glad to have a
+boundary contiguous with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had no quarrel)
+as a support against their hereditary enemies, Serbs in 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.
+It is the Slav population of Macedonia that has engendered so much heat
+and caused so much blood to be spilt. The dispute as to whether it is
+rather Serb or Bulgar has caused interminable and most bitter controversy.
+The truth is that it _was_ neither the one nor the other, but that, the
+ethnological and linguistic missionaries of Bulgaria having been first in
+the field, a majority of the Macedonian Slavs had been so long and so
+persistently told that they were Bulgars, that after a few years Bulgaria
+could, with some truth, claim that this fact was so.
+
+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,
+which originally belonged to the same southern Slav stock, but remained a
+primitive neutral Slav type. If the Serbs had been first in the field
+instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian Slavs could just as easily have
+been made into Serbs, sufficiently 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 _-off, -yeff_) on to the names of all
+the male inhabitants, and to make it Serb it is only necessary to add
+further the syllable _-ich, -ov_ and _-ovich_ being respectively the
+equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian of our termination _-son,_ e. g.
+_Ivanov_ in Bulgarian, and _Jovanovit_ in Serbian = _Johnson_.
+
+In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists,
+suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh shepherds,
+who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia with their herds
+since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not possibly ever be
+annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in order to justify Rumania
+in claiming eventual territorial compensation 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 must at this point be
+quite briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two 'most
+interested powers', who as far back as the eighteenth century had divided
+the Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and west, came
+to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of affairs in
+Turkey; but it never reached a conclusive stage and consequently was never
+applied. The Macedonian 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 December 1902, but was not successful in
+restoring order. In October 1903 the Emperor Nicholas II and the Emperor
+of Austria, with their foreign ministers, met at Muerzsteg, in Styria, and
+elaborated a more definite plan of reform known as the Muerzsteg programme,
+the drastic terms of which had 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. Owing to the procrastination of the Porte and to the
+extreme complexity of the financial measures which had to be elaborated in
+connexion with this scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations 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 position in regard to
+this question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and France
+had no territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost to secure
+reform not only in the _vilayets_ of Macedonia, but also in the realm of
+Ottoman finance. Italy's interest centred in Albania, whose eventual fate,
+for geographical and strategic reasons, could not leave it indifferent.
+Austria-Hungary's only care was by any means to prevent the aggrandizement
+of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and Montenegro, so as to secure the
+control, if not the possession, of the routes to Salonika, if necessary
+over the prostrate bodies of those two countries which defiantly barred
+Germanic progress towards the East. Russia was already fatally absorbed in
+the Far Eastern adventure, and, moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878,
+been losing influence at Constantinople, where before its word had been
+law; the Treaty of Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia
+had ever since that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors
+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
+choice of its representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in
+Turkey was not grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the
+credit of the German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the
+triumphal journey of William II to the Bosphorus in 1889, German
+influence, under the able guidance of Baron von Radowitz, steadily
+increased. This culminated in the regime of the late Baron Marschall von
+Bieberstein, who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It was German policy to
+flatter, support, and encourage Turkey in every possible way, to refrain
+from taking part with the other powers in the invidious and perennial
+occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to give as
+much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked for.
+Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a district
+assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in the naval
+demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany naturally
+encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey
+soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and
+disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos
+and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced
+themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into practice,
+Germany alone was responsible.
+
+The blow which King Ferdinand had inflicted on the prestige of the Young
+Turks in October 1908, by proclaiming his independence, naturally lent
+lustre to the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. Serbia, baffled by the
+simultaneous Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and maddened
+by the elevation of Bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom (its material
+progress had hitherto been discounted in Serbian eyes by the fact that it
+was a mere vassal principality), seemed about to be crushed by the two
+iron pots jostling it on either side. Its international position was at
+that time such that it could expect no help or encouragement from western
+Europe, while the events of 1909 (cf. p. 144) showed that Russia was not
+then in a position to render active assistance. Greece, also screaming
+aloud for compensation, was told by its friends amongst the great powers
+that if it made a noise it would get nothing, but that if it behaved like
+a good child it might some day be given Krete. Meanwhile Russia, rudely
+awakened by the events of 1908 to the real state of affairs in the Near
+East, beginning to realize the growth of German influence at
+Constantinople, and seeing the unmistakable resuscitation of
+Austria-Hungary as a great power, made manifest by the annexation of
+Bosnia and Hercegovina, temporarily reasserted its influence in Bulgaria.
+From the moment when Baron Aehrenthal announced his chimerical scheme of
+an Austrian railway through the _Sandjak_ of Novi Pazar in January 1908--
+everybody knows that the railway already built through Serbia along the
+Morava valley is the only commercially remunerative and strategically
+practicable road from Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest to Salonika and
+Constantinople--Russia realized that the days of the Muerzsteg programme
+were over, that henceforward it was to be a struggle between Slav and
+Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople and the dominion of the Near
+East, and that something must be 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 put an 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 Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized tribute, owed to
+its ex-suzerain the Sultan, by very easy instalments to Russia instead.
+
+The immediate effects of the Young Turk revolution amongst the Balkan
+States, and the events, watched benevolently by Russia, which led to the
+formation of the Balkan League, when it was joyfully realized that neither
+the setting-up of parliamentary government, nor even the overthrow of
+Abdul Hamid, implied the commencement of the millennium in Macedonia and
+Thrace, have been described elsewhere (pp. 141, 148). King Ferdinand and
+M. Venezelos are generally credited with the inception and realisation of
+the League, though it was so secretly and skilfully concerted that it is
+not yet possible correctly to apportion praise for the remarkable
+achievement. Bulgaria is a very democratic country, but King Ferdinand,
+owing to his sagacity, patience, and experience, and also thanks to his
+influential dynastic connexions and propensity for travel, has always been
+virtually his own foreign minister; in spite of the fact that he is a
+large feudal Hungarian landlord, and has temperamental leanings towards
+the Central European Empires, it is quite credible that King Ferdinand
+devoted all his undeniable talents and great energy to the formation of
+the League when he saw that the moment had come for Bulgaria to realize
+its destiny at Turkey's expense, and that, if the other three Balkan
+States could be induced to come to the same wise decision, it would be so
+much the better for all of them. That Russia could do anything else than
+whole-heartedly welcome the formation of the Balkan League was absolutely
+impossible. Pan-Slavism had long since ceased to be the force it was, and
+nobody in Russia dreamed of or desired the incorporation of any Balkan
+territory in the Russian Empire. It is possible to control Constantinople
+without possessing the Balkans, and Russia could only rejoice if a
+Greco-Slavonic league should destroy the power of the Turks and thereby
+make impossible the further advance of the Germanic powers eastward.
+
+That Russia was ever in the least jealous of the military successes 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 happened to be in Russia during the winter of 1912-13.
+
+The years 1908 to 1912 were outwardly uneventful in Bulgaria, though a
+great deal of quiet work was done in increasing the efficiency of the
+army, and the material prosperity of the country showed no falling off.
+Relations with the other Balkan States, especially with Serbia and
+Montenegro, improved considerably, and there was ample room for such
+improvement. This was outwardly marked by frequent visits paid to each
+other by members of the several royal families of the three Slavonic
+kingdoms of the Balkans. In May 1912 agreements for the eventual
+delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in the event of
+war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bulgaria 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 territories separated by the large Bulgarian wedge
+which was to be driven between them. The exact future line of demarcation
+between Serbian and Bulgarian territory was to be left to arbitration. The
+possible creation of an independent Albania was not contemplated.
+
+In August 1912 the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Ferdinand's arrival in
+Bulgaria was celebrated with much rejoicing at the ancient capital of
+Tirnovo, and was marred only by the news of the terrible massacre of
+Bulgars by Turks at Kochana in Macedonia; this event, however, opportune
+though mournful, tended considerably to increase the volume of the wave of
+patriotism which swept through the country. Later in the same month Count
+Berchtold startled Europe with his 'progressive decentralization' scheme
+of reform for Macedonia. The manner in which this event led to the final
+arrangements for the declaration of war on Turkey by the four Balkan
+States is given in full elsewhere (cf. p. 151).
+
+The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray, and the autumn
+manoeuvres had permitted the concentration unobserved of a considerable
+portion of it, ready to strike when the time came. Mobilisation was
+ordered on September 30, 1912. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on
+Turkey. On October 13 Bulgaria, with the other Balkan States, replied to
+the remonstrances of Russia and Austria by declaring that its patience was
+at length exhausted, and that the sword alone was able to enforce proper
+treatment of the Christian populations in European Turkey. On October 17
+Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and unexpected conclusion of peace with
+Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia, and on
+October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a sentimental exhortation to his
+people to liberate their fellow-countrymen, who were still groaning under
+the Crescent.
+
+The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was about
+180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to oppose
+the Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was considered by the
+Turks to be the most important theatre of war, yet the proximity of the
+Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople made it necessary to retain a large
+number of troops in Thrace. On October 19 the Bulgarians took the frontier
+town of Mustafa Pasha. On October 24 they defeated the Turks at
+Kirk-Kilisse (or Lozengrad), further east. From October 28 to November 2
+raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas, which resulted in a complete and
+brilliant victory of the Bulgarians over the Turks. The defeat and
+humiliation of the Turks was as rapid and thorough in Thrace as it had
+been in Macedonia, and by the middle of November the remains of the
+Turkish army were entrenched behind the impregnable lines of Chataldja,
+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
+brilliant and lightning campaign, refrained from storming the lines of
+Chataldja, an operation which could not fail to involve losses such as the
+Bulgarian nation was scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the
+armistice was signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months
+led, however, to 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 assistance Serbia, being able to
+spare troops from Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy siege
+artillery, an arm which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913, the
+fortress surrendered to the allied armies.
+
+The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that year,
+fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous Enos-Midia
+line, running between these two places situated on the shores respectively
+of the Aegean and the Black Sea. This delimitation would have given
+Bulgaria possession of Adrianople. But meanwhile Greece 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 the creation of the independent state of Albania, determined to
+retain possession of all that part of Macedonia, including the whole
+valley of the Vardar with its important railway, which they had conquered,
+and thus secure their common frontier. In May 1913 a military convention
+was concluded between them, and the Balkan League, the relations between
+the members of which had been becoming more strained ever since January,
+finally dissolved. Bulgaria, outraged by this callous disregard of the
+agreements as to the partition of Macedonia signed a year previously by
+itself and its ex-allies, did not wait for the result of the arbitration
+which was actually proceeding in Russia, but in an access of indignation
+rushed to arms.
+
+This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the night of June 30,
+1913, by a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in its
+undoing. In order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern and
+northern frontiers were denuded of troops. But the totally unforeseen
+happened. The Serbs were victorious, defeating the Bulgars in 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
+end of July the campaign was over and Bulgaria had to submit to fate.
+
+By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest, which was concluded on August 10,
+1913, Bulgaria obtained a considerable part of Thrace and eastern
+Macedonia, including a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of
+Dedeagach, but it was forced to 'compensate' Rumania with a slice of its
+richest province (the districts of Dobrich and Silistria in north-eastern
+Bulgaria), and it lost central Macedonia, a great part of which it would
+certainly have been awarded by Russia's arbitration. On September 22,
+1913, the Treaty of Constantinople was signed by Bulgaria and Turkey; by
+its terms Turkey retained possession of Adrianople and of a far larger
+part of Thrace than its series of ignominious defeats in the autumn of
+1912 entitled it to.
+
+In the fatal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia which caused the
+disruption of the Balkan League, led to the tragic second Balkan war of
+July 1913, and naturally left behind the bitterest feelings, it is
+difficult to apportion the blame. Both Serbia and Bulgaria were
+undoubtedly at fault in the choice of the methods by which they sought to
+adjust their difference, but the real guilt is to be found neither in
+Sofia nor in Belgrade, but in Vicuna and Budapest. The Balkan League
+barred the way of the Germanic Powers to the East; its disruption weakened
+Bulgaria and again placed Serbia at the mercy of the Dual Monarchy. After
+these trying and unremunerative experiences it is not astonishing that the
+Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler should have retired to the remote
+interior of their shell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Explanation of Serbian orthography_
+
+c = ts
+[)c] = ch (as in _church_)
+['c] =  "  "  "  but softer
+[)s] =  sh
+[)z] =  zh (as z in _azure_)
+gj  = g (as in _George_)
+j = y
+
+[Illustration: THE BALKAN PENINSULA]
+
+
+
+
+SERBIA
+
+
+
+14
+
+_The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy_, 650-1168
+
+
+The manner of the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula, of that of
+the Bulgars, and of the formation of the Bulgarian nationality has already
+been described (cf. p. 26). The installation of the Slavs in the lands
+between the Danube, the Aegean, and the Adriatic was completed by about
+A.D. 650. In the second half of the seventh century the Bulgars settled
+themselves in the eastern half of the peninsula and became absorbed by the
+Slavs there, and from that time the nationality of the Slavs in the
+western half began 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 (or Croatians), and Slovenes. The Serbs, much
+the most numerous of the three, occupied roughly the modern kingdom of
+Serbia (including Old Serbia and northern Macedonia), Montenegro, and most
+of Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia; the Croats occupied the more western
+parts of these last three territories and Croatia; the Slovenes occupied
+the modern Carniola and southern Carinthia. Needless to say, none of these
+geographical designations existed in those days except Dalmatia, on the
+coast of which the Latin influence and nomenclature maintained itself. The
+Slovenes, whose language is closely akin to but not identical with Serbian
+(or Croatian), even to-day only number one and a half million, and do not
+enter into this narrative, as they have never played any political role in
+the Balkan peninsula.
+
+The Serbs and the Croats were, as 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 the
+Serbo-Croatian race has always been divided into two. It is only within
+the last few years that a movement has taken place, the object of which is
+to reunite Serbs and Croats into one nation and eventually into one state.
+The movement originated in Serbia, the Serbs maintaining that they and the
+Croats are one people because they speak the same language, and that
+racial and linguistic unity outweighs religious divergence. A very large
+number of Croats agree with the Serbs in this and support their views, but
+a minority for long obstinately insisted that there was a racial as well
+as a religious difference, and that fusion was impossible. The former
+based their argument on facts, the latter theirs on prejudice, which is
+notoriously difficult to overcome. Latterly the movement in favour of
+fusion grew very much stronger among the Croats, and together with that in
+Serbia resulted in the Pan-Serb agitation which, gave the pretext for the
+opening of hostilities in July 1914.
+
+The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, _jug_, pronounced yug, =
+_south_ in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croats, and also includes Slovenes;
+it is only used with reference to the Bulgarians from the point of view of
+philology (the group of South Slavonic languages including Bulgarian,
+Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; the East Slavonic, Russian; and the West
+Slavonic, Polish and Bohemian).
+
+In the history of the Serbs and Croats, or of the Serbo-Croatian race,
+several factors of a general nature have first to be considered, which
+have influenced its whole development. Of these, the physical nature of
+the country in which they settled, between the Danube and Save and the
+Adriatic, is one of the most important. It is almost everywhere
+mountainous, and though the mountains themselves never attain as much as
+10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the whole country with an intricate
+network and have always formed an obstacle to easy communication between
+the various parts of it. The result of this has been twofold. In the first
+place it has, generally speaking, been a protection against foreign
+penetration and conquest, and in so far was beneficial. Bulgaria, further
+east, is, on the whole, less mountainous, in spite of the Balkan range
+which stretches the whole length of it; for this reason, and also on
+account of its geographical position, any invaders coming from the north
+or north-east, especially if aiming at Constantinople or Salonika, were
+bound to sweep over it. The great immemorial highway from the north-west
+to the Balkan peninsula crosses the Danube at Belgrade and follows the
+valley of the Morava to Nish; thence it branches off eastwards, going
+through Sofia and again crossing all Bulgaria to reach Constantinople,
+while the route to Salonika follows the Morava southwards from Nish and
+crosses the watershed into 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 the Morava and the Adriatic, which is
+really the home of the Serb race.
+
+In the second place, while it has undoubtedly been a protection to the
+Serb race, it has also been a source of weakness. It has prevented a
+welding together of the people into one whole, has facilitated the rise of
+numerous political units at various times, and generally favoured the
+dissipation of the national strength, and militated against national
+organization and cohesion. In the course of history this process has been
+emphasized rather than diminished, and to-day the Serb race is split up
+into six political divisions, while Bulgaria, except for those Bulgars
+claimed as 'unredeemed' beyond the frontier, presents a united whole. It
+is only within the last thirty years, with the gradual improvement of
+communications (obstructed to an incredible extent by the Austro-Hungarian
+government) and the spread of education, that the Serbs in the different
+countries which they inhabit have become fully conscious of their
+essential identity and racial unity.
+
+No less important than the physical aspect of their country on the
+development of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the middle
+of it from south to north there had been drawn a line of division more
+than two centuries before their arrival. Artificial boundaries are
+proverbially ephemeral, but this one has lasted 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; at the division of
+the Roman Empire into East and West it was again followed, and it formed
+the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly
+the same as the present political boundary between Montenegro and
+Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from
+the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory. The
+Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by
+the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the
+Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had
+consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the
+hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the
+country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is
+difficult to be accurate.
+
+The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the
+Bulgars in the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present
+political frontier between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north from
+the mouth of the river Timok on the southern bank of the Danube and going
+southwards slightly east of Pirot, is ethnographically approximately
+correct till it reaches the newly acquired and much-disputed territories
+in Macedonia, and represents fairly accurately the line that has divided
+the two nationalities ever since they were first differentiated in the
+seventh century. In the confused state of Balkan politics in the Middle
+Ages the political influence of Bulgaria often extended west of this line
+and included Nish and the Morava valley, while at other times that of
+Serbia extended east of it. The dialects spoken in these frontier
+districts represent a transitional stage between the two languages; each
+of the two peoples naturally considers them more akin to its own, and
+resents the fact that any of them should be included in the territory of
+the other. Further south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the
+Turkish conquest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in
+the times of Simeon, Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian,
+especially during the height of Serbian power in the fourteenth century,
+while intermittently it had been a province of the Greek Empire, which
+always claimed it as its own. On historical grounds, therefore, each of
+the three nations can claim possession of Macedonia. From an ethnographic
+point of view the Slav population of Macedonia (there were always and are
+still many non-Slav elements) was originally the same as that in 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-European or Aryan 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
+mountainous 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
+dominion neither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia, and the
+Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all been pure Slavs, 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 Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the Macedonian Slavs would have
+become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further development of the
+Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap. 13).
+
+The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east,
+where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they were
+the Greeks and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river Save
+and on the west by the Adriatic. They were split up into a number of
+tribes, each of which was headed by a chief called in Serbian _[)z]upan_
+and in Greek _arch[=o]n_. Whenever any one of these managed, either by
+skill or by good fortune, to extend his power over a few of the
+neighbouring districts he was termed _veliki_ (=great) _[)z]upan_. From
+the beginning of their history, which is roughly put at A.D. 650, until
+A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign domination. Their suzerains were
+nominally always the Greek emperors, who had 'granted' them the land they
+had taken, and whenever the emperor happened to be energetic and powerful,
+as were Basil I (the Macedonian, 867-86), John Tzimisces (969-76), Basil
+II (976-1025), and Manuel Comnenus (1143-80), the Greek supremacy was very
+real. At those times again when Bulgaria was very powerful, under Simeon
+(893-927), Samuel (977-1014), and John Asen II (1218-41), many of the more
+easterly and southerly Serbs came under Bulgarian rule, though it is
+instructive to notice that the Serbs themselves do not recognize the West
+Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of Samuel to have been a Bulgarian state.
+The Bulgars, however, at no time brought all the Serb lands under their
+sway.
+
+Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned, some
+Serb princeling would try to form a political state on a more ambitious
+scale, but the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the Serbs
+reverted to their favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst themselves.
+Such wore the attempts of [)C]aslav, who had been made captive by Simeon
+of Bulgaria, escaped after his death, and ruled over a large part of
+central Serbia till 960, and later of Bodin, whose father, Michael, was
+even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII; Bodin formed a state near the
+coast, in the Zeta river district (now Montenegro), and ruled there from
+1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the country peopled by the Serbs
+was split into a number of tiny principalities always at war with one
+another. Generally speaking, this country gradually became divided into
+two main geographical divisions: (1) the _Pomorje_, or country _by the
+sea_, which included most of the modern Montenegro and the southern halves
+of Hercegovina and Dalmatia, and (2) the _Zagorje_, or country _behind the
+hills_, 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 _Pomorje_ and the Save;
+to the north of the _Pomorje_ and _Zagorje_ lay Croatia. Besides their
+neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and west played an
+important part in Serbian history even in those early days.
+
+Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power of
+the Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a great
+impression on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, _kral_ or
+_korol_, is derived directly from his name), and his son Louis conquered
+the Serbs settled in the country between the rivers Save and Drave. This
+is commemorated in the name of the mass of hill which lies between the
+Danube and the Save, in eastern Slavonia, and is to this day known as
+_Fru[)s]ka Gora_, or French Hill. The Serbs and Bulgars fought against the
+Franks, and while the Bulgars held their own, the Serbs were beaten, and
+those who did not like the rule of the new-comers had to migrate
+southwards across the Save; at the same time the Serbs between the rivers
+Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were subjected by the Bulgars. With the
+arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth century, a wall was raised between
+the Serbs and central and western Europe on land. Croatia and Slavonia
+(between the Save and the Drave) were gradually drawn into the orbit of
+the Hungarian state, and in 1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia
+was absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of that country ever since.
+Hungary, aiming at an outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected
+most of Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily
+growing in power throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had
+secured control of all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part
+of the coast. All the cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of
+Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic.
+
+In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth
+centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped
+themselves into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which had
+been Caslav's centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian
+state (this district, with the town of Ras as its centre, included the
+south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and what was the
+Turkish _sandjak_ or province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on the coast (the
+modern Montenegro); and (3) Bosnia, so called after the river Bosna, which
+runs through it. Bosnia, which roughly corresponded to the modern province
+of that name, became independent in the second half of the tenth century,
+and was never after that incorporated in the Serbian state. At times it
+fell under Hungarian influence; in the twelfth century, during the reign
+of Manuel Comnenus, who was victorious over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all
+other Serb territories, had to acknowledge the supremacy of
+Constantinople.
+
+It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied territory
+which, while the Church was still one, was divided between two dioceses,
+Italy and Dacia, and when the Church itself was divided, in the eleventh
+century, was torn apart between the two beliefs. The dividing line between
+the jurisdictions of Rome and Constantinople ran from north to south
+through Bosnia, but naturally there has always been a certain vagueness
+about the extent of their respective jurisdictions. In later years the
+terms Croat and Roman 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. The loyalty of the Croatians to
+Austria-Hungary has been largely owing to the influence of Roman
+Catholicism.
+
+During the first centuries of Serbian history Christianity made slow
+progress in the western half of the Balkan peninsula. The Dalmatian coast
+was always under the influence of Rome, but the interior was long pagan.
+It is doubtful whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf. chap. 5)
+actually passed through Serb territory, but in the tenth century their
+teachings and writings were certainly current there. At the time of the
+division of the Churches all the Serb lands except the Dalmatian coast,
+Croatia, and western Bosnia, were faithful to Constantinople, and the
+Greek hierarchy obtained complete control of the ecclesiastical
+administration. The elaborate organisation and opulent 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, 6), a much more primitive and democratic form of
+Christianity, already familiar in the East as the Manichaean heresy, took
+hold of the Serbs' imagination and made as rapid and disquieting progress
+in their country as it had already done in the neighbouring Bulgaria;
+inasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teaching to be
+socialistic, subversive, and highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical
+supremacy of Constantinople, all of which indeed it was, adherence to it
+became amongst the Serbs a direct expression of patriotism.
+
+
+
+15
+
+_The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian
+Independence_, 1168-1496
+
+
+From 1168 the power of the Serbs, or rather of the central Serb state of
+Raska, and the extent of its territory gradually but steadily increased.
+This was outwardly expressed in the firm establishment on the throne of
+the national Nemanja dynasty, which can claim the credit of having by its
+energy, skill, and good fortune fashioned the most imposing and formidable
+state the Serb race has ever known. This dynasty ruled the country
+uninterruptedly, but not without many quarrels, feuds, and rivalries
+amongst its various members, from 1168 until 1371, when it became extinct.
+
+There were several external factors which at this time favoured the rise
+of the Serbian state. Byzantium and the Greek Empire, to which the Emperor
+Manuel Comnenus had by 1168 restored some measure of its former greatness
+and splendour, regaining temporary control, after a long war with Hungary,
+even over Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, after this date began
+definitively to decline, and after the troublous times of the fourth
+crusade (1204), when for sixty years a Latin empire was established on the
+Bosphorus, never again recovered as a Christian state the position in the
+Balkan peninsula which it had so long enjoyed. Bulgaria, too, after the
+meteoric glory of its second empire under the Asen dynasty (1186-1258),
+quite went to pieces, the eastern and northern parts falling under Tartar,
+the southern under Greek influence, while the western districts fell to
+Serbia. In the north, on the other hand, Hungary was becoming a dangerous
+and ambitious neighbour. During the thirteenth century, it is true, the
+attention of the Magyars was diverted by the irruption into and
+devastation of their country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia, the
+Tartars, who wrought great havoc and even penetrated as far as the
+Adriatic coast. Nevertheless Hungary was always a 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 objects of the Magyars were twofold--to attain the hegemony of the
+Balkan peninsula by conquering all the still independent Serb territories,
+and to bring the peninsula within the pale of Rome. They were not
+successful in either of these objects, partly because their wars with the
+Serbian rulers always failed to reach a decision, partly because their
+plans conflicted with those of the powerful Venetian republic. The
+relations between Venice and Serbia were always most cordial, as their
+ambitions did not clash; those of Venice were not continental, while those
+of Serbia were never maritime. The semi-independent Slavonic city-republic
+of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in Serbian) played a very important part
+throughout this period. It was under Venetian supremacy, but was
+self-governing and had a large fleet of its own. It was the great place of
+exchange between Serbia and western Europe, and was really the
+meeting-place of East and West. Its relations with Serbia were by no means
+always peaceful; it was a Naboth's vineyard for the 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 home during
+the Middle Ages of a flourishing school of Serbian literature, which was
+inspired by that of Italy. The influence of Italian civilization and of
+the Italian Church was naturally strong in the Serb province, much of
+which was under Venetian rule; the reason for this was that communication
+by sea with Italy was easier and safer than that by land with Serbia. The
+long, formidable ranges of limestone mountains which divide the Serbian
+interior from the Adriatic in almost unbroken and parallel lines have
+always been a barrier to 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 Serbian Empire.
+
+The first of the Nemanja dynasty was Stephen, whose title was still only
+_Veliki ['Z]upan_; he extended Serb territory southwards at the expense of
+the Greeks, especially after the death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180. He also
+persecuted the Bogomils, who took refuge in large numbers in the adjacent
+Serb state of Bosnia. Like many other Serbian rulers, he abdicated in
+later life in favour of his younger son, Stephen, called Nemanjie (=
+Nemanya's son), and himself became a monk (1196), travelling for this
+purpose to Mount Athos, the great monastic centre and home of theological
+learning of the Eastern Church. There he saw his youngest son, who some
+years previously had also journeyed thither and entered a monastery,
+taking the name of Sava.
+
+It was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sort of memorial
+church, for the welfare of his own soul, before his death, and to decorate
+and endow it lavishly. Stephen and his son together superintended the
+erection in this sense of the church and monastery of Hilandar on Mount
+Athos, which became a famous centre of Serbian church life. Stephen died
+shortly after the completion of the building in 1199, and was buried in
+it, but in 1207 he was reinterred in the monastery of Studenica, in
+Serbia, also founded by him.
+
+The reign of Stephen Nernanji['c] (1196-1223) opened with a quarrel
+between him and his elder brother, who not unnaturally felt he ought to
+have succeeded his father; the Bulgarians profited by this and seized a
+large part of eastern Serbia, including Belgrade, Nish, Prizren, and
+Skoplje. This, together with the fall of Constantinople and the
+establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204, alarmed the Serbs and brought
+about a reconciliation between the brothers, and in 1207 Sava returned to
+Serbia to organise the Church on national lines. In 1219 he journeyed to
+Nicaea and extracted from the Emperor Theodore Lascaris, who had fallen on
+evil days, the concession for the establishment of an autonomous national
+Serbian Church, independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Sava
+himself was at the head of the new institution. In 1220 he solemnly
+crowned his brother King _(Kralj)_ of Serbia, the natural consequence of
+his activities in the previous year. For this reason Stephen Nemanji['c]
+is called 'The First-Crowned'. He was succeeded in 1223 by his son Stephen
+Radoslav, and he in turn was deposed by his brother Stephen Vladislav in
+1233. Both these were crowned by Sava, and Vladislav married the daughter
+of Tsar John Asen II, under whom Bulgaria was then at the height of her
+power. Sava journeyed to Palestine, and on his return paid a visit to the
+Bulgarian court at Tirnovo, where he died in 1236. His body was brought to
+Serbia and buried in the monastery of Mile[)s]evo, built by Vladislav.
+This extremely able churchman and politician, who did a great deal for the
+peaceful development of his country, was canonized and is regarded as the
+patron saint of Serbia.
+
+The reign of Vladislav's son and successor, Stephen Uro[)s] I (1242-76),
+was characterized by economic development and the strengthening of the
+internal administration. In external affairs he made no conquests, but
+defeated a combination of the Bulgarians with Ragusa against him, and
+after the war the Bulgarian ruler married his daughter. In his wars
+against Hungary he was unsuccessful, and the Magyars remained in
+possession of a large part of northern Serbia. In 1276 he was deposed by
+his son, Stephen Dragutin, who in his turn, after an unsuccessful war
+against the Greeks, again masters of Constantinople since 1261, was
+deposed and succeeded by his brother, Stephen Uro[)s] II, named Milutin,
+in 1282. This king ruled from 1282 till 1321, and during his reign the
+country made very great material progress; its mineral wealth especially,
+which included gold and silver mines, began to be exploited. He extended
+the boundaries of his kingdom in the north, making the Danube and the Save
+the frontier. The usual revolt against paternal authority was made by his
+son Stephen, but was unsuccessful, and the rebel was banished to
+Constantinople.
+
+It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons,
+and the inevitable consequence of this system was the series of provincial
+rebellions which occurred in almost every reign. When the revolt
+succeeded, the father (or brother) was granted in his turn a small
+appanage. In this case it was the son who was exiled, but he was recalled
+in 1319 and a reconciliation took place. Milutin died in 1321 and was
+succeeded by his son, Stephen Uro[)s] III, who reigned till 1331. He is
+known as Stephen De[)c]anski, after the memorial church which he built at
+De[)c]ani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great defeat of
+the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330. The
+following year his son, Stephen Du[)s]an, rebelled against him and deposed
+him. Stephen Du[)s]an, who reigned from 1331 till 1355, was Serbia's
+greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its utmost limits.
+Provincial and family revolts and petty local disputes with such places as
+Ragusa became a thing of the past, and he undertook conquest on a grand
+scale. Between 1331 and 1344 he subjected all Macedonia, Albania,
+Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful to keep on good terms with Ragusa and
+with Hungary, then under Charles Robert. He married the sister of the
+Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign Bulgaria was completely under
+Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil war which had become perennial at
+Constantinople, and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of the
+growing power of the Turks, no doubt to some extent explain the facility
+and rapidity of his conquests; nevertheless his power was very formidable,
+and his success inspired considerable alarm in western Europe. This was
+increased when, in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire. He first
+called together a special Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an
+archbishopric, whose centre was then at Pe['c] (in Montenegro, Ipek in
+Turkish), was proclaimed a Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as
+Patriarch; then this prelate, together with the Bulgarian Patriarch,
+Simeon, and Nicholas, Archbishop of Okhrida, crowned Stephen Tsar of the
+Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks. Upon this the Patriarch of Constantinople gave
+himself the vain satisfaction of anathematizing the whole of Serbia, as a
+punishment for this insubordination.
+
+In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI, persuaded King Louis of Hungary 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 conquered the southern half of Dalmatia, and extended his empire
+as far north as the river Cetina. In 1354 Stephen Du[)s]an himself
+approached the Pope, offering to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, if
+he would support him against the Hungarians and the Turks. The Pope sent
+him an embassy, but eventually Stephen could not agree to the papal
+conditions, and concluded an alliance, of greater practical utility, with
+the Venetians. In 1355, however, he suddenly died, at the age of
+forty-six, and thus the further development and aggrandisement of his
+country was prematurely arrested.
+
+Stephen Du[)s]an made a great impression on his contemporaries, both by
+his imposing personal appearance and by his undoubted wisdom and ability.
+He was especially a great legislator, and his remarkable code of laws,
+compiled in 1349 and enlarged in 1354, is, outside his own country, his
+greatest title to fame. During Stephen Du[)s]an's reign the political
+centre of Serbia, which had for many years gradually tended to shift
+southwards towards Macedonia, was at Skoplje (Ueskueb in Turkish), which he
+made his capital. Stephen Du[)s]an's empire extended from the Adriatic in
+the west to the river Maritsa in the east, from the Save and Danube in the
+north to the Aegean; it included all the modern kingdoms of Serbia,
+Montenegro, Albania, and most of Greece, Dalmatia as far north as the
+river Cetina, as well as 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. It did not include the cities of Salonika
+or Ragusa, nor any considerable part of the modern kingdom of Bulgaria,
+nor Bosnia, Croatia, North Dalmatia, nor Slavonia (between the Save and
+Drave), ethnologically all purely Serb lands. From the point of view of
+nationality, therefore, its boundaries were far from ideal.
+
+Stephen Du[)s]an was succeeded by his son, known as Tsar Uro[)s], but he
+was as weak as his father had been strong. Almost as soon as 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 at this juncture was fatal, as a far
+more formidable foe than the ruler's rebellious relations was advancing
+against it. The Turkish conquests were proceeding apace; they had taken
+Gallipoli 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 in 1351, met them again on the Maritsa river in
+1371, and were completely defeated. Several of the upstart princes who had
+been pulling Stephen Du[)s]an's empire to pieces perished, and Tsar
+Uro[)s] only survived the battle of the Maritsa two months; he was
+unmarried, and with him died the Nemanja dynasty and the Serbian Empire.
+
+After this disaster the unity of the Serbian state was completely
+destroyed, and it has never since been restored in the same measure.
+
+That part of the country to the south of Skoplje fell completely under
+Turkish control; it was here that the famous national hero, Marko
+Kraljevi['c] (or King's son), renowned for his prowess, ruled as a vassal
+prince and mercenary soldier of the Turks; his father was one of the rebel
+princes who fell at the battle of the river Maritsa in 1371. North of
+Skoplje, Serbia, with Kru[)s]evac as a new political centre, continued to
+lead an independent but precarious existence, much reduced in size and
+glory, under a native ruler, Prince Lazar; all the conquests of Stephen
+Du[)s]an were lost, and the important coastal province of Zeta, which
+later developed into Montenegro, had broken away and proclaimed its
+autonomy directly after the death of Tsar Uro[)s].
+
+In 1375 a formal reconciliation was effected with the Patriarch of
+Constantinople; the ban placed on the Serbian Church in 1352 was removed
+and the independence of the Serbian Patriarchate of Pe['c] (Ipek)
+recognised. Meanwhile neither Greeks, Bulgars, nor Serbs were allowed any
+peace by the Turks.
+
+In 1389 was fought the great battle of Kosovo Polje, or the Field of
+Blackbirds, a large plain in Old Serbia, at the southern end of which is
+Skoplje. At this battle Serbian armies from all the Serb lands, including
+Bosnia, joined together in defence of their country for the last time. The
+issue of the battle was for some time in doubt, but was decided by the
+treachery and flight at the critical moment of one of the Serb leaders,
+Vuk Brankovi['c], son-in-law of Prince Lazar, with a large number of
+troops. Another dramatic incident was the murder of Sultan Murad in his
+tent by another Serbian leader, Milo[)s] Obili['c], 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 to the
+Sultan's presence and proved his patriotism by killing him. The momentary
+dismay was put an end to by the energetic conduct of Bayezid, son of
+Murad, who rallied the Turkish troops and ultimately inflicted total
+defeat on the Serbians. From the effects of this battle Serbia never
+recovered; Prince Lazar was captured and executed; his wife, Princess
+Milica, had to give her daughter to Bayezid in marriage, whose son thus
+ultimately claimed possession of Serbia by right of inheritance. Princess
+Milica and her son Stephen continued to live at Kru[)s]evac, but Serbia
+was already a tributary of Turkey. In the north, Hungary profited by the
+course of events and occupied Belgrade and all northern Serbia, but in
+1396 the Turks defeated the Magyars severely at the battle of Nikopolis,
+on the Danube, making the Serbs under Stephen fight on the Turkish side.
+Stephen also had to help Sultan Bajazet against the Tartars, and fought at
+the battle of Angora, in 1402, when Tamerlane captured Bayezid.
+
+After Stephen returned to Serbia he made an alliance with Hungary, which
+gave him back Belgrade and northern Serbia; it was at this time (1403)
+that Belgrade first became the capital, the political centre having in the
+course of fifty years moved from the Vardar to the Danube. The disorders
+which followed the defeat of Bayezid gave some respite to the Serbs, but
+Sultan Murad II (1421-51) again took up arms against him, and invaded
+Serbia as far as Kru[)s]evac.
+
+At the death of Stephen (Lazarevi['c]), in 1427, he was succeeded as
+_Despot_ by his nephew, George Brankovi['c]; but the Sultan, claiming
+Serbia as his own, immediately declared war on him. The Serbian ruler had
+to abandon Belgrade to the Magyars, and Nish and Kru[)s]evac to the Turks.
+He then built and fortified the town of Smederevo (or Semendria) lower
+down on the Danube, in 1428, and made this his capital. 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. Later George Brankovi['c] made another alliance with Hungary, and
+in 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi, defeated the Turks and liberated
+the whole of Serbia as far as the Adriatic, though he remained a tributary
+of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars broke the treaty of
+peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched against them under their
+Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the disastrous battle of Varna, on
+the Black Sea, where the king lost his life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died
+and was succeeded by the Sultan Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured
+Constantinople (Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital); in
+1456 his armies were besieging Belgrade, but were defeated by John
+Hunyadi, who, unfortunately for the Serbs, died of the plague shortly
+afterwards. George Brankovi['c] died the same year, and at his death
+general disorder spread over the country. The Turks profited by this,
+overran the whole of Serbia, and in 1459 captured Smederevo, the last
+Serbian stronghold.
+
+Meanwhile Bosnia had been for nearly a hundred years enjoying a false
+security as an independent Serb kingdom. Its rulers had hitherto been
+known by the title of _Ban_, and were all vassals of the King of Hungary;
+but in 1377 Ban Tvrtko profited by the embarrassments of his suzerain in
+Poland and proclaimed himself king, the neighbouring kingdom of Serbia
+having, after 1371, ceased to exist, and was duly crowned in Saint Sava's
+monastery of Mile[)s]evo. The internal history of the kingdom was even
+more turbulent than had been that of Serbia. To the endemic troubles of
+succession and alternating alliances and wars with foreign powers were
+added those of confession. Bosnia was always a no man's land as regards
+religion; it was where the Eastern and Western Churches met, and
+consequently the rivalry between them there was always, as it is now,
+intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too, early took root in Bosnia and
+became extremely popular; it was the obvious refuge for those who did not
+care to become involved in the strife of the Churches. One of the kings of
+Bosnia, Stephen Thomas, who reigned from 1444 till 1461, was himself a
+Bogomil, and when at the insistence 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, to the lands of one Stephen, who sheltered them, proclaimed his
+independence of Bosnia, and on the strength of the fact that Saint Sava's
+monastery of Mile[)s]evo was in his territory, announced himself Herzog,
+or Duke (in Serbian Herceg, though the real Serb equivalent is _Vojvoda_)
+of Saint Sava, ever since when (1448) that territory has been called
+Hercegovina. In spite of many promises, neither the Pope nor the King of
+Hungary did anything to help Bosnia when the Turks began to invade the
+country after their final subjection of Serbia in 1459. In 1463 they
+invaded Bosnia and pursued, captured, and slew the last king; their
+conquest of the country was complete and rapid. A great exodus of the Serb
+population took place to the south, west, and north; but large numbers,
+especially of the landowning class, embraced the faith of their conquerors
+in order to retain possession of their property. In 1482 a similar fate
+befell Hercegovina. Albania had already been conquered after stubborn
+resistance in 1478. There remained only the mountainous coastal province
+of Zeta, which had been an independent principality ever since 1371. Just
+as inland Serbia had perished between the Turkish hammer and the Hungarian
+anvil, so maritime Serbia was crushed between Turkey and Venice, only its
+insignificance and inaccessibility giving it a longer lease of independent
+life. Ivan Crnojevi['c], one of the last independent rulers of Zeta, who
+had to fly to Italy in 1480, abandoning his capital, [)Z]abljak, to the
+Turks, returned in 1481, when the death of Sultan Mohammed temporarily
+raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and founded Cetinje and made it his
+capital. His son George, who succeeded him and ruled from 1490 till 1496,
+is famous as having set up the first Serbian printing-press there. Its
+activities were naturally not encouraged by the Turkish conquest, but it
+was of great importance to the national Serbian Church, for which books
+were printed with it.
+
+In 1496, Venice having wisely made peace with the Sultan some years
+previously, this last independent scrap of Serb territory was finally
+incorporated in the Turkish dominions. At the end of the fifteenth century
+the Turks were masters of all the Serb lands except Croatia, Slavonia, and
+parts of Dalmatia, which belonged to Hungary, and the Dalmatian coast and
+islands, which were Venetian. The Turkish conquest of Serbia, which began
+in 1371 at the battle of the Maritsa, and was rendered inevitable by the
+battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389, thus took a hundred and twenty-five years
+to complete.
+
+
+
+16
+
+_The Turkish Dominion_, 1496-1796
+
+The lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was different from that of their
+neighbours the Bulgars; and though it was certainly not enviable, it was
+undoubtedly better. The Turks for various reasons never succeeded in
+subduing Serbia and the various Serb lands as completely as they had
+subdued, or rather annihilated, Bulgaria. The Serbs were spread over a far
+larger extent of territory than were the Bulgars, they were further
+removed from the Turkish centre, and the wooded and mountainous nature of
+their country facilitated even more than in the case of Bulgaria the
+formation of bands of brigands and rebels and militated against its
+systematic policing by the Turks. The number of centres of national life,
+Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and Montenegro, to take them in the
+chronological order of their conquest by the Turks, had been notoriously a
+source of weakness to the Serbian state, as is still the case to-day, but
+at the same time made it more difficult for the Turks to stamp out the
+national consciousness. What still further contributed to this difficulty
+was the fact that many Serbs escaped the oppression of Turkish rule by
+emigrating to 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 and Hungary. It had begun already after the final
+subjection of Serbia proper and Bosnia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463, but
+after the fall of Belgrade, which was the outpost of Hungary against the
+Turks, in 1521, and the battle of Mohacs, in 1526, when the Turks
+completely defeated the Magyars, it assumed great proportions. As the
+Turks pushed their conquests further north, the Serbs migrated before them;
+later 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 Ba[)c]ka (the country
+between the Theiss and Danube), and in Baranya (between the Danube and the
+Drave). All this part of southern Hungary and Croatia was formed by the
+Austrians into a military borderland against Turkey, and the Croats and
+immigrant Serbs were organized as military colonists with special
+privileges, on the analogy of the Cossacks in southern Russia and Poland.
+In Dalmatia the Serbs played a similar role in the service of Venice,
+which, like Austria-Hungary, was frequently at war with the Turks. During
+the sixteenth century Ragusa enjoyed its greatest prosperity; it paid
+tribute to the Sultan, was under his protection, and never rebelled. It
+had a quasi monopoly of the trade of the entire Balkan peninsula. It was a
+sanctuary both for Roman Catholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and
+sometimes acted as intermediary on behalf of its co-religionists with the
+Turkish authorities, with whom it wielded great influence. Intellectually
+also it was a sort of Serb oasis, and the only place during the Middle
+Ages where Serbian literature was able to flourish.
+
+Montenegro during the sixteenth century formed part of the Turkish
+province of Scutari. Here, as well as in Serbia proper, northern Macedonia
+(known after the removal northwards of the political centre, in the
+fourteenth century, as Old Serbia), Bosnia, and Hercegovina, the Turkish
+rule was firmest, but not harshest, during the first half of the sixteenth
+century, when the power of the Ottoman Empire was at its height. Soon
+after the fall of Smederevo, in 1459, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] (Ipek)
+was abolished, the Serbian Church lost its independence, was merged in the
+Greco-Bulgar Archbishopric of Okhrida (in southern Macedonia), and fell
+completely under the control of the Greeks. In 1557, however, through the
+influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb nationality, the Patriarchate of
+Pe['c] was revived. The revival of this centre of national life was
+momentous; through its agency the Serbian monasteries were restored,
+ecclesiastical books printed, and priests educated, and more fortunate
+than the Bulgarian national Church, which remained under Greek management,
+it was able to focus the national enthusiasms and aspirations and keep
+alive with hope the flame of nationality amongst those Serbs who had not
+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 of Lepanto (1571). But the seventeenth
+century saw a revival of Turkish power; Krete was added to their empire,
+and in 1683 they very nearly captured Vienna. In the war which followed
+their repulse, and in which the victorious Austrians penetrated as far
+south as Skoplje, the Serbs took part against the Turks; but when later
+the Austrians were obliged to retire, the Serbs, who had risen against the
+Turks at the bidding of their Patriarch Arsen III, had to suffer terrible
+reprisals at their hands, with the result that another wholesale
+emigration, with the Patriarch at its head, took place into the
+Austro-Hungarian military borderland. This time it was the very heart of
+Serbia which was abandoned, namely, Old Serbia and northern Macedonia,
+including Pe['c] and Prizren. The vacant Patriarchate was for a time
+filled by a Greek, and the Albanians, many of whom were Mohammedans and
+therefore Turcophil, spread northwards and eastwards into lands that had
+been Serb since the seventh century. From the end of the seventeenth
+century, however, the Turkish power began unmistakably to wane. The Treaty
+of Carlowitz (1699) left the Turks still in possession of Syrmia (between
+the Danube and Save) and the Banat (north of the Danube), but during the
+reign of the Emperor Charles VI their retreat was accelerated. In 1717
+Prince Eugen of Savoy captured Belgrade, then, as now, a bulwark of the
+Balkan peninsula against invasion from the north, and by the Treaty of
+Passarowitz (Po[)z]arevac, on the Danube), in 1718, Turkey not only
+retreated definitively south of the Danube and the Save, but left a large
+part of northern Serbia in Austrian hands. By the same treaty Venice
+secured possession of the whole of Dalmatia, where it had already gained
+territory by the Treaty of Curlowitz in 1699.
+
+But the Serbs soon found out that alien populations fare little better
+under Christian rule, when they are not of the same confession as their
+rulers, than under Mohammedan. The Orthodox Serbs in Dalmatia suffered
+thenceforward from relentless persecution at the hands of the Roman
+Catholics. In Austria-Hungary too, and in that part of Serbia occupied by
+the Austrians after 1718, the Serbs discovered that the Austrians, when
+they had beaten the Turks largely by the help of Serbian levies, were very
+different from the Austrians who had encouraged the Serbs to settle in
+their country and form military colonies on their frontiers to protect
+them from Turkish invasion. The privileges promised them when their help
+had been necessary were disregarded as soon as their services could be
+dispensed with. Austrian rule soon became more oppressive than Turkish,
+and to the Serbs' other woes was now added religious persecution. The
+result of all this was that a counter-emigration set in and the Serbs
+actually began to 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 Eugen no longer led them, and though the Serbs were
+again persuaded by their Patriarch, Arsen IV, to rise against the Turks,
+they only did so half-heartedly. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739,
+Austria had to withdraw north of the Save and Danube, evacuating all
+northern Serbia in favour of the Turks. From this time onwards the lot of
+the Serbs, both in Austria-Hungary and in Turkey, went rapidly from bad to
+worse. The Turks, as the power of their empire declined, and in return for
+the numerous Serb revolts, had recourse to measures of severe repression;
+amongst others was that of the final abolition of the Patriarchate of Pee
+in 1766, whereupon the control of the Serbian Church in Turkey passed
+entirely into the hands of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople.
+
+The Austrian Government similarly, perceiving now for the first time the
+elements of danger which the resuscitation of the Serbian nationality
+would contain for the rule of the Hapsburgs, embarked on a systematic
+persecution of the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary and Slavonia. During
+the reign of Maria Theresa (1740-80), whose policy was to conciliate the
+Magyars, the military frontier zone was abolished, a series of repressive
+measures was passed against those Serbs who refused to become Roman
+Catholics, and the Serbian nationality was refused official recognition.
+The consequence of this persecution was a series of revolts which were all
+quelled with due severity, 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 II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their
+treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the
+beginning of the eighteenth century Montenegro began to assume greater
+importance in the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of the
+Serbs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed part
+of the Turkish dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible nature of its
+mountain fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very forcibly asserted.
+It was ruled by a prince-bishop, and its religious independence thus
+connoted a certain secular freedom of thought if not of action. In the
+seventeenth century warlike encounters between the Turks 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
+Montenegro was often rather civil in character, being caused by the
+ill-feeling which existed between the numerous Montenegrins who had become
+Mohammedans and those who remained faithful to their national Church. In
+the course of the eighteenth century the role which fell to Montenegro
+became more important. In all the other Serb countries the families which
+naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or in exile,
+as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and
+purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great
+earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of
+international importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had
+survived both a greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all,
+the ancient Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a
+number of at any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families;
+these families naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as
+destined to play an important part in the resistance to and the eventual
+overthrow of the Turkish dominion. The prince-bishop had to be consecrated
+by the Patriarch of Pe['c], and in 1700 Patriarch Arsen III consecrated
+one Daniel, of the house (which has been ever since then and is now still
+the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s], to this
+office, after he had been elected to it by the council of notables at
+Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and precluded
+from participating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey by the
+intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was solidly
+Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks
+independently of the other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his
+anti-Turkish policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to
+the south and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians,
+he developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that
+friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb principality
+on the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent feature of eastern
+European politics ever since. This intimacy did not prevent the Turks
+giving Montenegro many hard blows whenever they had the time or energy to
+do so, and did not ensure any special protective clauses in favour of the
+mountain state whenever the various treaties between Russia and Turkey
+were concluded. Its effect was rather psychological and financial. From
+the time when the _Vladika_ (= Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the
+Great, in 1714, the rulers of Montenegro often made pilgrimages to the
+Russian capital, and were always sure of finding sympathy as well as
+pecuniary if not armed support. Bishops in the Orthodox Church are
+compulsorily celibate, and the succession in Montenegro always descended
+from uncle to nephew. When Peter I Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s] succeeded, in
+1782, the Patriarchate of Pe['c] was no more, so he had to get permission
+from the Austrian Emperor Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan
+of Karlovci (Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.
+
+About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and
+Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils
+between them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the
+same time (1788) in the district of [)S]umadija, in Serbia, by a number of
+Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Ko[)c]a,
+after whom the whole war is called Ko[)c]ina Krajina (=Ko[)c]a's country),
+another, yet the Austrians were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the
+death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was concluded between Austria and
+Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which Turkey retained the whole of
+Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube remained the frontier between
+the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of Montenegro had joined in the
+fray and had fared better, inflicting some unpleasant defeats on the Turks
+under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated in two battles in 1796 (the
+Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued
+fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari. With this
+triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the
+Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro,
+the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was _de facto_ established.
+
+
+
+17
+
+_The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George_ (1804-13) _and Milo[)s]
+Obrenovi['c]_ (1815-30): 1796-1830
+
+
+The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment
+as an independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous
+accomplishment than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries.
+One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position
+was cut off from outside help. It was easy for the western powers to help
+Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to help Rumania and, later,
+Bulgaria directly with its army, because communication between them was
+easy. But Serbia on the one hand was separated from the sea, first by
+Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and then by Bosnia,
+Hercegovina, and the _sandjak_ (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which
+territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence
+owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro,
+also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in
+self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size
+permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was
+too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively
+brought to bear upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia,
+and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to
+be traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards
+through Turkish territory. The only country which could have helped Serbia
+was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do so, the
+Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to retard the
+Serbian cause. As a result of all this Serbia, in her long struggle
+against the Turks, had to rely principally on its own resources, though
+Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent country from disaster.
+
+Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation and development of
+modern Serbia has been the proneness of its people to internal dissension.
+There was no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the country would
+naturally devolve after the first successful revolution against Turkish
+rule, there was not even any aristocracy left, and no foreign ruler was
+ever asked for by the Serbs or was ever imposed on them by the other
+nations as in the case of Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria. On the other hand
+the rising against Turkey was a rising of the whole people, and it was
+almost inevitable that as soon as some measure of independence was gained
+the unity the Serbs had shown when fighting against their oppressors
+should dissolve and be replaced by bitter rivalries and disputes amongst
+the various local leaders who had become prominent during the rebellion.
+
+These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves into a
+blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjevi['c] and the
+Obrenovi['c], a quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against
+the progress of the Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.
+
+The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political independence
+of Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible, its economic
+development and material prosperity. Until recent years Austria-Hungary
+and Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in such a position that
+whenever Serbia either demurred at its neighbours' tariffs or wished to
+retaliate by means of its own, the screw was immediately applied and
+economic strangulation threatened. Rumania and Bulgaria economically could
+never be 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 their neighbours' live stock and cereals, when
+their first business is to sell their own, while the cost of transit of
+imports from western Europe through those countries is prohibitive.
+
+After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia
+remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the
+authority of the Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real
+power was wielded by local Turkish officials, who exploited the country,
+looked on it as their own property, and enjoyed semi-independence. Their
+exactions and cruelties were worse than had been those of the Turks in the
+old days, and it was against them and their troops, not against those of
+the Sultan, that the first battles in the Serbian war of independence were
+fought. It was during the year 1803 that the Serbian leaders first made
+definite plans for the rising which eventually took place in the following
+year. The ringleader was George Petrovi['c], known as Black George, or
+Kara-George, and amongst his confederates was Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c]. The
+centre of the conspiracy was at Topola, in the district of [)S]umadija in
+central Serbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place
+of Kara-George. The first two years of fighting between the Serbians and,
+first, the provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan's forces, fully
+rewarded the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of
+1807 they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided
+efforts and captured the towns of Po[)z]arevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and
+[)S]abac. The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening
+of diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time
+the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to
+threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he gave
+the Serbs financial assistance and commended their cause to the especial
+care of his ambassador at Constantinople.
+
+In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace
+of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the
+Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes
+against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following
+years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian
+leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence which
+prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again
+fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with better fortune.
+In 1811 Kara-George was elected _Gospodar_, or sovereign, by a popular
+assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish province. At the end of that
+year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria,
+and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then have achieved
+complete independence.
+
+But Napoleon was already preparing his invasion and Russia had to conclude
+peace with Turkey in a hurry, which necessarily implied that the Sultan
+obtained unduly favourable terms. In the Treaty of Bucarest between the
+two countries signed in May 1812, the Serbs were indeed mentioned, and
+promised vague internal autonomy and a general amnesty, 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 Serbs in Serbia had to
+withdraw. Negotiations between the Turks and the Serbs for the regulation
+of their position were continued throughout 1812, but finally the Turks
+refused all their claims and conditions and, seeing the European powers
+preoccupied with their own affairs, invaded the country from Bosnia in the
+west, and also from the east and south, in August 1813. The Serbs, left
+entirely to their own resources, succumbed before the superior forces of
+the Turks, and by the beginning of October the latter were again masters
+of the whole country and in possession of Belgrade. Meanwhile Kara-George,
+broken in health and unable to cope with the difficulties of the
+situation, which demanded successful strategy both against the
+overwhelming forces of the Turks in the field and against the intrigues of
+his enemies at home, somewhat ignominiously fled across the river to
+Semlin in Hungary, and was duly incarcerated by the Austrian authorities.
+
+The news of Napoleon's defeat at Leipsic (October 1813) arrived just after
+that of the re-occupation of Belgrade by the Turks, damped _feu-de-joie_
+which they were firing at Constantinople, and made them rather more
+conciliatory and lenient to the Serbian rebels. But this attitude did not
+last long, and the Serbs soon had reason to make fresh efforts to regain
+their short-lived liberty. The Congress of Vienna met in the autumn of
+1814, and during its whole course Serbian emissaries gave the Russian
+envoys no peace. But with the return of Napoleon to France in the spring
+of 1815 and the break-up of the Congress, all that Russia could do was,
+through its ambassador at Constantinople, to threaten invasion unless the
+Turks left the Serbs alone. Nevertheless, conditions in Serbia became so
+intolerable that another rebellion soon took shape, this time under
+Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c]. 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 not temporize, and his arbitrary methods of enforcing discipline
+and his ungovernable temper had made him many enemies. While the credit
+for the first Serbian revolt (1804-13) undoubtedly belongs chiefly to him,
+the second revolt owed its more lasting success to the skill of Milo[)s]
+Obrenovi['c]. The fighting started at Takovo, the home of the Obrenovi['c]
+family, in April 1815, and after many astonishing successes against the
+Turks, including the capture of the towns of Rudnik, [)C]a[)c]ak,
+Po[)z]arevac, and Kraljevo, was all over by July of the same year. The
+Turks were ready with large armies in the west in Bosnia, and also south
+of the Morava river, to continue the campaign and crush the rebellion, but
+the news of the final defeat of Napoleon, and the knowledge that Russia
+would soon have time again to devote attention to the Balkans, withheld
+their appetites for revenge, and negotiations with the successful rebels
+were initiated. During the whole of this period, from 1813 onwards,
+Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c], as head of a district, was an official of the
+Sultan in Serbia, and it was one of his principles never to break
+irreparably with the Turks, 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 1815 onwards he himself personally conducted negotiations
+in the name of his people with the various pashas who were deputed to deal
+with him. While these negotiations went on and the armistice was in force,
+he was confronted, or rather harassed from behind, by a series of revolts
+against his growing authority on the part of his jealous compatriots.
+
+In June 1817 Kara-George, who had been in Russia after being released by
+the Austrians in 1814, returned surreptitiously to Serbia, encouraged by
+the brighter aspect which affairs in his country seemed to be assuming.
+But the return of his most dangerous rival was as unwelcome to Milo[)s] as
+it was to the Turkish authorities at Belgrade, and, measures having been
+concerted between them, Kara-George was murdered on July 26,1817, and the
+first act in the blood-feud between the two families thus committed. In
+November of the same year a _skup[)s]tina_, or national assembly, was held
+at Belgrade, and Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c], whose position was already
+thoroughly assured, was elected hereditary prince (_knez_) of the country.
+
+Meanwhile events of considerable importance for the future of 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 the hands of Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, when the
+Venetian republic was extinguished by Napoleon. The Bocche di Cuttaro, a
+harbour both strategically 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 the successful rebellion of the
+Montenegrins against the Turks.
+
+By the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria Dalmatia became
+French in 1805. But the Montenegrins, supported by the Russians, resisted
+the new owners and occupied the Bocche; at the Peace of Tilsit in 1807,
+however, this important place was assigned to France by Russia, and
+Montenegro had to submit to its loss. In 1806 the French occupied Ragusa,
+and in 1808 abolished the independence of the ancient Serb city-republic.
+In 1812 the Montenegrins, helped by the Russians and British, again
+expelled the French and reoccupied Cattaro; but Austria was by now fully
+alive to the meaning this harbour would have once it was in the possession
+of Montenegro, and after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 took definitive
+possession of it as well as of all the rest of Dalmatia, thus effecting
+the complete exclusion of the Serb race for all political and commercial
+purposes from the Adriatic, its most natural and obvious means of
+communication with western Europe.
+
+Though Milo[)s] had been elected prince by his own people, it was long
+before he was recognized as such by the Porte. His efforts for the
+regularization of his position entailed endless negotiations in
+Constantinople; these were enlivened by frequent anti-Obrenovi['c] revolts
+in Serbia, all of which Milo[)s] successfully quelled. The revolution in
+Greece in 1821 threw the Serbian question from the international point of
+view into the shade, but the Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded his brother
+Alexander I on the Russian throne in 1825, soon showed that he took a
+lively and active interest in Balkan affairs. Pan-Slavism had scarcely
+become fashionable in those days, and it was still rather as the protector
+of its co-religionists under the Crescent that Russia intervened. In 1826
+Russian and Turkish delegates met at Akerman in Bessarabia, and in
+September of that year signed a convention by which the Russian
+protectorate over the Serbs was recognized, the Serbs were granted
+internal autonomy, the right to trade and erect churches, schools, and
+printing-presses, and the Turks were forbidden to live in Serbia except in
+eight garrison towns; the garrisons were to be Turkish, and tribute was
+still to be paid to the Sultan as suzerain. These concessions, announced
+by Prince Milo[)s] to his people at a special _skup[)s]tina_ held at
+Kragujevac in 1827, evoked great enthusiasm, but the urgency of the Greek
+question again delayed their fulfilment. After the battle of Navarino on
+October 20, 1827, in which the British, French, and Russian fleets
+defeated the Turkish, the Turks became obstinate and refused to carry out
+the stipulations of the Convention of Akerman in favour of Serbia.
+Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey in April 1828, and the Russian
+armies crossed the Danube and the Balkans and marched on Constantinople.
+
+Peace was concluded at Adrianople in 1829, and Turkey agreed to carry out
+immediately all the stipulations of the Treaty of Bucarest (1812) and the
+Convention of Akerman (1826). The details took some time to settle, but in
+November 1830 the _hatti-sherif_ of the Sultan, acknowledging Milo[)s] as
+hereditary prince of Serbia, was publicly read in Belgrade. All the
+concessions already promised were duly granted, and Serbia became
+virtually independent, but still tributary to the Sultan. Its territory
+included most of the northern part of the modern kingdom of Serbia,
+between the rivers Drina, Save, Danube, and Timok, but not the districts
+of Nish, Vranja, and Pirot. Turkey still retained Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+Macedonia, the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, which separated Serbia from
+Montenegro, and Old Serbia (northern Macedonia).
+
+
+
+18
+
+_The Throes of Regeneration: Independent Serbia,_ 1830-1903
+
+
+During his rule of Serbia, which lasted virtually from 1817 till 1839,
+Prince Milo[)s] did a very great deal for the welfare of his country. He
+emancipated the Serbian Church from the trammels of the Greek Patriarchate
+of Constantinople in 1831, from which date onwards it was ruled by a
+Metropolitan of Serb nationality, resident at Belgrade. He encouraged the
+trade of the country, a great deal of which he held in his own hands; he
+was in fact a sort of prototype of those modern Balkan business-kings of
+whom King George of Greece and King Carol of Rumania were the most notable
+examples. He raised an army and put it on a permanent footing, and
+organized the construction of roads, schools, and churches. He was,
+however, an autocratic ruler of the old school, and he had no inclination
+to share the power for the attainment of which he had laboured so many
+years and gone through so much. From his definite installation as
+hereditary prince discontent at his arbitrary methods of government
+amongst his ex-equals increased, and after several revolts he was forced
+eventually to grant a 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 at Constantinople, and while he was there
+the situation in Serbia became still more serious. After his return he
+was, after several years of delay and of growing unpopularity, compelled
+to agree to another constitution which was forced on him, paradoxically
+enough, by the joint efforts of the Tsar and of the Sultan, who seemed to
+take an unnatural pleasure in supporting the democratic Serbians against
+their successful colleague in autocracy, who had done so much for his
+turbulent subjects. Serbia even in those days was essentially and
+uncompromisingly democratic, but even so Milo[)s] obstinately refused to
+carry out the provisions of the constitution or in any way to submit to a
+curtailment of his power, and in 1839 he left his ungrateful principality
+and took refuge in Rumania, where he possessed an estate, abdicating in
+favour of his elder son Milan. This Prince Milan, known as Obrenovi['c]
+II, was seriously ill at the time of his accession, and died within a
+month of it. He was succeeded by his younger brother Michael, known as
+Obrenovi['c] III, 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 has ever had. His first reign (1840-2),
+however, did not open well. He inaugurated it by paying a state visit to
+Constantinople, but the Sultan only recognized him as elective prince and
+insisted on his having two advisers approved and appointed by 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, Vu[)c]i['c], and,
+though Michael's rule was not as arbitrary as his father's, he had to bow
+to the popular will which supported Vu[)c]i['c] and cross the river to
+Semlin. After a stormy interval, during which the Emperor Nicholas I tried
+to intervene in favour of Michael, Alexander Karagjorgjevi['c], son of
+Kara-George, was elected prince (1843). No sooner was this representative
+of the rival dynasty installed, however, than rebellions in favour of
+Michael occurred. These were thrown into the shade by the events of 1848,
+In that memorable year of revolutions the Magyars rose against Austria and
+the Serbs in southern Hungary rose against the Magyars. Prince Alexander
+resolved to send military help to his oppressed countrymen north of the
+Save and Danube, and, though the insurgents were unsuccessful, Prince
+Alexander gained in popularity amongst the Serbs by the line of action he
+had taken. During the Crimean War, on the other hand, Serbia remained
+strictly neutral, to the annoyance of the Tsar; at the Congress of Paris
+(1856) the exclusive protectorate of Russia was replaced by one of all the
+powers, and Russian influence in the western Balkans was thereby weakened.
+Prince Alexander's prudence, moreover, cost him his popularity, and in
+1858 he in his turn had to bid farewell to his difficult countrymen.
+
+In December of the same year the veteran Prince Milo['s] Obrenovi['c] I
+was recalled to power as hereditary prince. His activities during his
+second reign were directed against Turkish influence, which was still
+strong, and he made efforts to have the Turkish populations removed from
+the eight garrison towns, including Belgrade, where they still lived in
+spite of the fact that their emigration had been stipulated for in 1830.
+Unfortunately he did not live long enough to carry out his plans, for he
+fell ill at Topchider, the summer palace near Belgrade, in the autumn of
+1860, and died a few days afterwards. He was again succeeded by his son
+Michael Obrenovi['c] III, who was already thirty-six years of age. This
+able prince's second reign was brilliantly successful, and it was a
+disaster for which his foolish countrymen had to pay dearly, when, by
+their fault, it was prematurely cut short in 1868. His first act was with
+the consent of a specially summoned _skup[)s]tina_ to abolish the law by
+which he could only appoint and remove his counsellers with the approval
+of the Porte. Next he set about the organization and establishment of a
+regular army of 30,000 men. In 1862 an anti-Turkish rebellion broke out
+amongst the Serbs in Hercegovina (still, with Bosnia, a Turkish province),
+and the Porte, accusing Prince Michael of complicity, made warlike
+preparations against him.
+
+Events, however, were precipitated in such a way that, without waiting for
+the opening of hostilities, the Turkish general in command of the fortress
+of Belgrade turned his guns on the city; this provoked the intervention of
+the powers at Constantinople, and the entire civilian Turkish population
+had to quit the country (in accordance with the stipulations of 1830),
+only Turkish garrisons remaining in the fortresses of [)S]abac, Belgrade,
+Smederevo, and Kladovo, along the northern river frontier, still
+theoretically the boundary of the Sultan's dominions. After this success
+Prince Michael continued his military preparations in order to obtain
+final possession of the fortresses when a suitable occasion should arise.
+This occurred in 1866, when Austria was engaged in the struggle with
+Prussia, and the policy of Great Britain became less Turcophil than it had
+hitherto been. On April 6, 1867, the four fortresses, which had been in
+Serbian possession from 1804 to 1813, but had since then been garrisoned
+by the Turks, were delivered over to Serbia and the last Turkish soldier
+left Serbian soil without a shot having been fired. Though Serbia after
+this was still a vassal state, being tributary to the Sultan, these
+further steps on the road to complete independence were a great triumph,
+especially for Prince Michael personally. But this very triumph actuated
+his political opponents amongst his own countrymen, amongst whom were
+undoubtedly adherents of the rival dynasty, to revenge, and blind to the
+interests of their people they foolishly and most brutally murdered this
+extremely capable and conscientious prince in the deer park near Topchider
+on June 10, 1868. The opponents of the Obrenovi['c] dynasty were, however,
+baulked in their plans, and a cousin of the late prince was elected to the
+vacant and difficult position. This ruler, known as Milan Obrenovi['c] IV,
+who was only fourteen years of age at the time of his accession (1868),
+was of a very different character from his predecessor. The first thing
+that happened during his minority was the substitution of the constitution
+of 1838 by another one which was meant to give the prince and the national
+assembly much more power, but which, eventually, made the ministers
+supreme.
+
+The prince came of age in 1872 when he was eighteen, and he soon showed
+that the potential pleasures to be derived from his position were far more
+attractive to him than the fulfilment of its obvious duties. He found much
+to occupy him in Vienna and Paris and but little in Belgrade. At the same
+time the Serb people had lost, largely by its 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 last
+of many) broke out amongst the Serbs of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and all
+the efforts of the Turks to quell it 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 Serbia was
+joined by Montenegro. The country was, however, not materially prepared
+for war, the expected sympathetic risings in other parts of Turkey either
+did not take place or failed, and the Turks turned their whole army on to
+Serbia, with the result that in October the Serbs had to appeal to the
+Tsar for help and an armistice was arranged, which lasted till February
+1877. During the winter a conference was held in Constantinople to devise
+means for alleviating the lot of the Christians in Turkey, and a peace was
+arranged between Turkey and Serbia whereby the _status quo ante_ was
+restored. But after the conference the heart of Turkey was again hardened
+and the stipulations in favour of the Christians were not carried out.
+
+In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey (cf. chap. 10), and in the autumn of
+the same year Serbia joined in. This time the armies of Prince Milan were
+more successful, and conquered and occupied the whole of southern Serbia
+including the towns and districts of Nish, Pirot, Vranja, and Leskovac,
+Montenegro, which had not been included in the peace of the previous
+winter, but had been fighting desperately and continuously against the
+Turks ever since it had begun actively to help the Serb rebels of
+Hercegovina in 1875, had a series of successes, as a result of which it
+obtained possession of the important localities of Nik['s]i['c],
+Podgorica, Budua, Antivari, and Dulcigno, the last three on the shore of
+the Adriatic. By the Treaty of San Stefano the future interests of both
+Serbia and Montenegro were jeopardised by the creation of a Great
+Bulgaria, but that would not have mattered if in return they had been
+given control of the purely Serb provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+which ethnically they can claim just as legitimately as Bulgaria claims
+most of Macedonia. The Treaty of San Stefano was, however, soon replaced
+by that of Berlin. By its terms both Serbia and Montenegro achieved
+complete independence and the former ceased to be a tributary state of
+Turkey. The Serbs were given the districts of southern Serbia which they
+had occupied, and which are all ethnically Serb except Pirot, the
+population of which is a sort of cross between Serb and Bulgar. The Serbs
+also undertook to build a railway through their country to the Turkish and
+Bulgarian frontiers. Montenegro was nearly doubled in size, receiving the
+districts of Nik['s]i['c], Podgorica, and others; certain places in the
+interior the Turks and Albanians absolutely refused to surrender, and to
+compensate for these Montenegro was given a strip of coast with the
+townlets of Antivari and Dulcigno. The memory of Gladstone, who specially
+espoused Montenegro's cause in this matter, is held in the greatest
+reverence in the brave little mountain country, but unfortunately the
+ports themselves are economically absolutely useless. Budua, higher up the
+Dalmatian coast, which would have been of some use, was handed over to
+Austria, to which country, already possessed of Cattaro and all the rest
+of Dalmatia, it was quite superfluous. Greatest tragedy of all for the
+future of the Serb race, the administration of Bosnia and Hercegovina was
+handed over 'temporarily' to Austria-Hungary, and Austrian garrisons were
+quartered throughout those two provinces, which they were able to occupy
+only after the most bitter armed opposition on the part of the
+inhabitants, and also in the Turkish _sandjak_ or province of Novi-Pazar,
+the ancient Raska and cradle of the Serb state; this strip of mountainous
+territory under Turkish administrative and Austrian military control was
+thus converted into a fortified wedge which effectually kept the two
+independent Serb states of Serbia and Montenegro apart. After all these
+events the Serbs had to set to work to put their enlarged house in order.
+But the building of railways and schools and the organization of the
+services cost a lot of money, and as public economy is not a Serbian
+virtue the debt grew rapidly. In 1882 Serbia proclaimed itself a kingdom
+and was duly recognized by the other nations. But King Milan did not learn
+to manage the affairs of his country any better as time went on. He was
+too weak to stand alone, and having freed himself from Turkey he threw
+himself into the arms of Austria, with which country he concluded a secret
+military convention. In 1885, when Bulgaria and 'Eastern Rumelia'
+successfully coalesced and Bulgaria thereby received a considerable
+increase of territory and power, the Serbs, prompted by jealousy, 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
+disastrous battle of Slivnitsa (cf. chap. II); Austria had to intervene to
+save its victim, and Serbia got nothing for its trouble but a large
+increase of debt and a considerable decrease of military reputation. In
+addition to all this King Milan was unfortunate in his conjugal relations;
+his wife, the beautiful Queen Natalie, was a Russian, and as he himself
+had Austrian sympathies, they could scarcely be expected to agree on
+politics. But the strife between them extended from the sphere of
+international to that of personal sympathies and antipathies. King Milan
+was promiscuous in affairs of the heart and Queen Natalie was jealous.
+Scenes of domestic discord were frequent and violent, and the effect of
+this atmosphere 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 subjects with
+all his failings, lost his hold on the country after the unfortunate war
+of 1885, and the partisans of the rival dynasty began to be hopeful once
+more. In 1888 King Milan gave Serbia a very much more liberal
+constitution, by which the ministers were for the first time made really
+responsible to the _skup[)s]tina_ or national assembly, replacing that of
+1869, and the following year, worried by his political and domestic
+failures, discredited and unpopular both at 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. Risti['c],
+with a radical ministry under M. Pa[)s]i['c], an extremely able and
+patriotic statesman of pro-Russian sympathies, who ever since he first
+became prominent in 1877 had been growing in power and influence. But
+trouble did not cease with the abdication of King Milan. He and his wife
+played Box and Cox at Belgrade for the next four years, quarrelling and
+being reconciled, intriguing and fighting round the throne and person of
+their son. At last both parents agreed to leave the country and give the
+unfortunate youth a chance. King Milan settled in Vienna, Queen Natalie in
+Biarritz. In 1893 King Alexander suddenly declared himself of age and
+arrested all his ministers and regents one evening while they were dining
+with him. The next year he abrogated the constitution of 1888, under which
+party warfare in the Serbian parliament had been bitter and uninterrupted,
+obstructing any real progress, and restored that of 1869. Ever since 1889
+(the date of the accession of the German Emperor) Berlin had taken more
+interest in Serbian affairs, and it has been alleged that it was William
+II who, through the wife of the Rumanian minister at his court, who was
+sister of Queen Natalie, influenced King Alexander in his abrupt and
+ill-judged decisions. It was certainly German policy to weaken and
+discredit Serbia and to further Austrian influence at Belgrade at the
+expense of that of Russia. King Milan returned for a time to Belgrade in
+1897, and the reaction, favourable to Austria, which had begun in 1894,
+increased during his presence and under the ministry of Dr. Vladan
+Gjorgjevi['c], which lasted from 1897 till 1900. This state of repression
+caused unrest throughout the country. All its energies were absorbed in
+fruitless political party strife, and no material or moral progress was
+possible. King Alexander, distracted, solitary, and helpless 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
+relaxation to see his mother at Biarritz, he fell violently in love with
+her lady in waiting, Madame Draga Ma[)s]in, the divorced wife of a Serbian
+officer. Her somewhat equivocal past was in King Alexander's eyes quite
+eclipsed by her great beauty and her wit, which had not been impaired by
+conjugal infelicity. Although she was thirty-two, and he only twenty-four,
+he determined to marry her, and the desperate opposition of his parents,
+his army, his ministers, and his people, based principally on the fact
+that the woman was known to be incapable of child-birth, only precipitated
+the accomplishment of his intention. This unfortunate and headstrong
+action on the part of the young king, who, though deficient in tact and
+intuition, had plenty of energy and was by no means stupid, might have
+been forgiven him by his people if, as was at first thought possible, it
+had restored internal peace and prosperity in the country and thereby
+enabled it to prepare itself to take a part in the solution oL those
+foreign questions which vitally affected Serb interests and were already
+looming on the horizon. But it did not. In 1901 King Alexander granted
+another constitution and for a time attempted to work with a coalition
+ministry; but this failed, and a term of reaction with pro-Austrian
+tendencies, which were favoured by the king and queen, set in. This
+reaction, combined with the growing disorganization of the finances and
+the general sense of the discredit and failure which the follies of its
+rulers had during the last thirty years brought on the country; completely
+undermined the position of the dynasty and made a catastrophe inevitable.
+This occurred, as is well known, on June 10, 1903, when, as the result of
+a military conspiracy, King Alexander, the last of the Obrenovi['c]
+dynasty, his wife, and her male relatives were murdered. This crime was
+purely political, and it is absurd to gloss it over or to explain it
+merely as the result of the family feud between the two dynasties. That
+came to an end in 1868, when the murder of Kara-George in 1817 by the
+agency of Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c] was avenged by the lunatic assassination
+of the brilliant Prince Michael Obrenovi['c] III. It is no exaggeration to
+say that, from the point of view of the Serbian patriot, the only
+salvation of his country in 1903 lay in getting rid of the Obrenovi['c]
+dynasty, which had become pro-Austrian, had no longer the great gifts
+possessed by its earlier members, and undoubtedly by its vagaries hindered
+the progress of Serbia both in internal and external politics. The
+assassination was unfortunately carried out with unnecessary cruelty, and
+it is this fact that made such a bad impression and for so long militated
+against Serbia in western Europe; but it must be remembered that
+civilization in the Balkans, where political murder, far from being a
+product of the five hundred years of Turkish dominion, has always been
+endemic, is not on the same level in many respects as it is in the rest of
+Europe. Life is one of the commodities which are still cheap in backward
+countries.
+
+Although King Alexander and his wife can in no sense be said to have
+deserved the awful fate that befell them, it is equally true that had any
+other course been adopted, such as 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, it was long before
+things in any sense settled down. As for the alleged complicity of the
+rival dynasty in the crime, it is well established that that did not
+exist. It was no secret to anybody interested in Serbian affairs that
+something catastrophic was about to happen, and when the tragedy occurred
+it was natural to appeal to the alternative native dynasty to step into
+the breach. But the head of that dynasty was in no way responsible for the
+plot, still less for the manner in which it was carried out, and it was
+only after much natural hesitation and in the face of his strong
+disinclination that Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c] was induced to accept
+the by no means enviable, easy, or profitable task of guiding Serbia's
+destiny. The Serbian throne in 1903 was a source neither of glory nor of
+riches, and it was notoriously no sinecure.
+
+After the tragedy, the democratic constitution of 1888 was first of all
+restored, and then Prince Peter Karagjorgjevi['c], grandson of
+Kara-George, the leader of the first Serbian insurrection of 1804-13, who
+was at that time fifty-nine years of age, was unanimously elected king. He
+had married in 1883 a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and sister
+of the future Queen of Italy, but she had been dead already some years at
+the time of his accession, leaving him with a family of two sons and a
+daughter.
+
+
+
+19
+
+_Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serbo-Croats in Austria-Hungary,_ 1903-8
+
+
+It was inevitable that, 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 to live down the results. Other powers,
+especially those of western Europe, looked coldly on Serbia and were in no
+hurry to resume diplomatic intercourse, still less to offer diplomatic
+support. The question of the punishment and exile of the conspirators was
+almost impossible of solution, and only time was able to obliterate the
+resentment caused by the whole affair. In Serbia itself a great change
+took place. The new sovereign, though he laboured under the greatest
+possible disadvantages, by his irreproachable behaviour, modesty, tact,
+and strictly constitutional rule, was able to withdraw the court of
+Belgrade from the trying limelight to which it had become used. The public
+finances began to be reorganized, commerce began to improve in spite of
+endless tariff wars with Austria-Hungary, and attention was again diverted
+from home to foreign politics. With the gradual spread of education and
+increase of communication, and the growth of national self-consciousness
+amongst the Serbs and Croats of Austria-Hungary and the two independent
+Serb states, a new movement for the closer intercourse amongst the various
+branches of the Serb race for south Slav unity, as it was called,
+gradually began to take shape. At the same time a more definitely
+political agitation started in Serbia, largely inspired by the humiliating
+position of economic bondage in which the country was held by
+Austria-Hungary, and was roughly justified by the indisputable argument:
+'Serbia must expand or die.' Expansion at the cost of Turkey seemed
+hopeless, because even the acquisition of Macedonia would give Serbia a
+large alien population and no maritime outlet. It was towards the Adriatic
+that the gaze of the Serbs was directed, to the coast which was ethnically
+Serbian and could legitimately be considered a heritage of the Serb race.
+
+Macedonia was also taken into account, schools and armed bands began their
+educative activity amongst those inhabitants of the unhappy province who
+were Serb, or who lived in places where Serbs had lived, or who with
+sufficient persuasion could be induced to call themselves Serb; but the
+principal stream of propaganda was directed westwards into Bosnia and
+Hercegovina. The antagonism between Christian and Mohammedan, Serb and
+Turk, was never so bitter as between Christian and Christian, Serb and
+German or Magyar, and the Serbs were clever enough to see that Bosnia and
+Hercegovina, from every point of view, was to them worth ten Macedonias,
+though it would he ten times more difficult to obtain. Bosnia and
+Hercegovina, though containing three confessions, were ethnically
+homogeneous, and it was realised that these two provinces were as
+important to Serbia and Montenegro as the rest of Italy had been to
+Piedmont.
+
+It must at this time be recalled in what an extraordinary way the Serb
+race had fortuitously been broken up into a number of quite arbitrary
+political divisions. Dalmatia (three per cent. of the population of which
+is Italian and all the rest Serb or Croat, preponderatingly Serb and
+Orthodox in the south and preponderating Croat or Roman Catholic in the
+north) was a province of Austria and sent deputies to the Reichsrath at
+Vienna; at the same time it was territorially isolated from Austria and
+had no direct railway connexion with any country except a narrow-gauge
+line into Bosnia. Croatia and Slavonia, preponderatingly Roman Catholic,
+were lands of the Hungarian crown, and though they had a provincial
+pseudo-autonomous diet at Agram, the capital of Croatia, they sent
+deputies to the Hungarian parliament at Budapest. Thus what had in the
+Middle Ages been known as the triune kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and
+Dalmatia, with a total Serbo-Croat population of three millions, was
+divided between Austria and Hungary.
+
+Further, there were about 700,000 Serbs and Croats in the south of Hungary
+proper, cast and north of the Danube, known as the Banat and Ba[)c]ka, a
+district which during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was
+the hearth and home of Serb literature and education, but which later
+waned in importance in that respect as independent Serbia grew. These
+Serbs were directly dependent on Budapest, the only autonomy they
+possessed being ecclesiastical. Bosnia and Hercegovina, still nominally
+Turkish provinces, with a Slav population of nearly two million (850,000
+Orthodox Serbs, 650,000 Mohammedan Serbs, and the rest Roman Catholics),
+were to all intents and purposes already imperial lands of
+Austria-Hungary, with a purely military and police administration; the
+shadow of Turkish sovereignty provided sufficient excuse to the _de facto_
+owners of these provinces not to grant the inhabitants parliamentary
+government or even genuine provincial autonomy. The Serbs in Serbia
+numbered nearly three millions, those in Montenegro about a quarter of a
+million; while in Turkey, in what was known as Old Serbia (the _sandjak_
+of Novi-Pasar between Serbia and Montenegro and the vilayet of Korovo),
+and in parts of northern and central Macedonia, there were scattered
+another half million. These last, of course, had no voice at all in the
+management of their own affairs. Those in Montenegro lived under the
+patriarchal autocracy of Prince Nicholas, who had succeeded his uncle,
+Prince Danilo, in 1860, at 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 restless with the restricted
+possibilities of a career which the mountain principality offered them,
+and in latter years migrated in large numbers to North and South America,
+whither emigration from Dalmatia and Croatia too had already readied
+serious proportions. The Serbs in Serbia were the only ones who could
+claim to be free, but even this was a freedom entirely dependent on the
+economic malevolence of Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Cut up in this way by
+the hand of fate into such a number of helpless fragments, it was
+inevitable that the Serb race, if it possessed any vitality, should
+attempt, at any cost, to piece some if not all of them together and form
+an ethnical whole which, economically and politically, should be master of
+its own destinies. It was equally inevitable that the policy of
+Austria-Hungary should be to anticipate or definitively render any such
+attempt impossible, because obviously the formation of a large south Slav
+state, by cutting off Austria from the Adriatic and eliminating from the
+dual monarchy all the valuable territory between the Dalmatian coast and
+the river Drave, would seriously jeopardize its position as a great power;
+it must be remembered, also, that Austria-Hungary, far from decomposing,
+as it was commonly assumed was happening, had been enormously increasing
+in vitality ever since 1878.
+
+The means adopted by the governments of Vienna and Budapest to nullify the
+plans of Serbian expansion were generally to maintain the political
+_emiettement_ of the Serb race, the isolation of one group from another,
+the virtually enforced emigration of Slavs on a large scale and their
+substitution by German colonists, and the encouragement of rivalry and
+discord between Roman Catholic Croat and Orthodox Serb. No railways were
+allowed to be built in Dalmatia, communication between Agram and any other
+parts of the monarchy except Fiume or Budapest was rendered almost
+impossible; Bosnia and Hercegovina were shut off into a watertight
+compartment and endowed with a national flag composed of the inspiring
+colours of brown and buff; it was made impossible for Serbs to visit
+Montenegro or for Montenegrins to visit Serbia except via Fiume, entailing
+the bestowal of several pounds on the Hungarian state steamers and
+railways. As for the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, it was turned into a
+veritable Tibet, and a legend was spread abroad that if any foreigner
+ventured there he would be surely murdered by Turkish brigands; meanwhile
+it was full of Viennese ladies giving picnics and dances and tennis
+parties 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 more enjoyable by the construction of railways, roads, and
+hotels. At the same time this was not a work of pure philanthropy, and the
+emigration statistics are a good indication of the joy with which the
+Bosnian peasants paid for an annual influx of admiring tourists. In spite
+of all these disadvantages, however, the Serbo-Croat provinces of
+Austria-Hungary could not be deprived of all the benefits of living within
+a large and prosperous customs union, while being made to pay for all the
+expenses of the elaborate imperial administration and services; and the
+spread of education, even under the Hapsburg regime, began to tell in
+time. Simultaneously with the agitation which emanated from Serbia and was
+directed towards the advancement, by means of schools and religious and
+literary propaganda, of Serbian influence in Bosnia and Hercegovina, a
+movement started in Dalmatia and Croatia for the closer union of those two
+provinces. About 1906 the two movements found expression in the formation
+of the Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb coalition party, composed of those
+elements in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia which favoured closer union
+between the various groups of the Serb race scattered throughout those
+provinces, as well as in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Hercegovina, and
+Turkey. Owing to the circumstances already described, it was impossible
+for the representatives of the Serb race to voice their aspirations
+unanimously in any one parliament, and the work of the coalition, except
+in the provincial diet at Agram, consisted mostly of conducting press
+campaigns and spreading propaganda throughout those provinces. The most
+important thing about the coalition was that it buried religious
+antagonism and put unity of race above difference of belief. In this way
+it came into conflict with the ultramontane Croat party at Agram, which
+wished to incorporate Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia with Croatia and
+create a third purely Roman Catholic Slav state in the empire, on a level
+with Austria and Hungary; also to a lesser extent with the intransigent
+Serbs of Belgrade, who affected to ignore Croatia and Roman Catholicism,
+and only dreamed of bringing Bosnia, Hercegovina, and as much of Dalmatia
+as they could under their own rule; and finally it had to overcome the
+hostility of the Mohammedan Serbs of Bosnia, who disliked all Christians
+equally, could only with the greatest difficulty be persuaded that they
+were really Serbs and not Turks, and honestly cared for nothing but Islam
+and Turkish coffee, thus considerably facilitating the germanization of
+the two provinces. The coalition was wisely inclined to postpone the
+programme of final political settlement, and aimed immediately at the
+removal of the material and moral barriers placed between the Serbs of the
+various provinces of Austria-Hungary, including Bosnia and Hercegovina. If
+they had been sure of adequate guarantees they would probably have agreed
+to the inclusion of _all_ Serbs and Croats within the monarchy, because
+the constitution of all Serbs and Croats in an independent state (not
+necessarily a kingdom) without it implied the then problematic
+contingencies of a European war and the disruption of Austria-Hungary.
+Considering the manifold handicaps under which Serbia and its cause
+suffered, the considerable success which its propaganda met with in Bosnia
+and Hercegovina and other parts of Austria-Hungary, from 1903 till 1908,
+is a proof, not only of the energy and earnestness of its promoters and of
+the vitality of the Serbian people, but also, if any were needed, of the
+extreme unpopularity of the Hapsburg regime in the southern Slav provinces
+of the dual monarchy. Serbia had no help from outside. Russia was
+entangled in the Far East and then in the revolution, and though the new
+dynasty was approved in St. Petersburg Russian sympathy with Serbia was at
+that time only lukewarm. Relations with Austria-Hungary were of course
+always strained; only one single line of railway connected the two
+countries, and as Austria-Hungary was the only profitable market, for
+geographical reasons, for Serbian products, Serbia could be brought to its
+knees at any moment by the commercial closing of the frontier. It was a
+symbol of the economic vassalage of Serbia and Montenegro that the postage
+between both of these countries and any part of Austria-Hungary was ten
+centimes, that for letters between Serbia and Montenegro, which had to
+make the long detour through Austrian territory, was twenty-five. But
+though this opened the Serbian markets to Austria, it also incidentally
+opened Bosnia, when the censor could be circumvented to propaganda by
+pamphlet and correspondence. Intercourse with western Europe was
+restricted by distance, and, owing to dynastic reasons, diplomatic
+relations were altogether suspended for several years between this country
+and Serbia. The Balkan States Exhibition held in London during the summer
+of 1907, to encourage trade between Great Britain and the Balkans, was
+hardly a success. Italy and Serbia had nothing in common. With Montenegro
+even, despite the fact that King Peter was Prince Nicholas's son-in-law,
+relations were bad. It was felt in Serbia that Prince Nicholas's
+autocratic rule acted as a brake on the legitimate development of the
+national consciousness, and Montenegrin students who visited Belgrade
+returned to their homes full of 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 enjoy
+the special favour as well as the financial support of the Russian court,
+and which, looked on throughout Europe as a picturesque and harmless
+institution, it would have been dangerous, as it was quite unnecessary, to
+touch.
+
+Serbia was thus left entirely to its own resources in the great
+propagandist activity which filled the years 1903 to 1908. The financial
+means at its disposal were exiguous in the extreme, especially when
+compared with the enormous sums lavished annually by the Austrian and
+German governments on their secret political services, so that the efforts
+of its agents cannot be ascribed to cupidity. Also it must be admitted
+that the kingdom of Serbia, with its capital Belgrade, thanks to the
+internal chaos and dynastic scandals of the previous forty years,
+resulting in superficial dilapidation, intellectual stagnation, and
+general poverty, lacked the material as well as the moral glamour which a
+successful Piedmont should possess. Nobody could deny, for instance, that,
+with all its natural advantages, Belgrade was at first sight not nearly
+such an attractive centre as Agram or Sarajevo, or that the qualities
+which the Serbs of Serbia had displayed since their emancipation were
+hardly such as to command the unstinted confidence and admiration of their
+as yet unredeemed compatriots. Nevertheless the Serbian propaganda in
+favour of what was really a Pan-Serb movement met with great success,
+especially in Bosnia, Hercegovina, 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 conflicts with the government at Budapest. Both the one
+movement and the other naturally evoked great alarm and emotion in the
+Austrian and Hungarian capitals, as they were seen to be genuinely popular
+and also potentially, if not actually, separatist in character. In October
+1906 Baron Achrenthal succeeded Count Goluchowski as Minister for Foreign
+Affairs at Vienna, and very soon initiated a more vigorous and
+incidentally anti-Slav foreign policy than his predecessor. What was now
+looked on as the Serbian danger had in the eyes of Vienna assumed such
+proportions that the time for decisive action was considered to have
+arrived. In January 1908 Baron Achrenthal announced his scheme for a
+continuation of the Bosnian railway system through the _sandjak_ of
+Novi-Pazar to link 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 international commerce, while the engineering difficulties
+were such that the cost of construction would have been prohibitive. But
+the possibilities which this move indicated, the palpable evidence it
+contained of the notorious _Drang nach Osten_ of the Germanic powers
+towards Salonika and Constantinople, were quite sufficient to fill the
+ministries of Europe, and especially those of Russia, with extreme
+uneasiness. The immediate result of this was that concerted action between
+Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans was thenceforward impossible,
+and the Muerzsteg programme, after a short and precarious existence, came
+to an untimely end (cf. chap. 12). Serbia and Montenegro, face to face
+with this new danger which threatened permanently to separate their
+territories, were beside themselves, and immediately parried with the
+project, hardly more practicable in view of their international credit, of
+a Danube-Adriatic railway. In July 1908 the nerves of Europe were still
+further tried by the Young Turk revolution in Constantinople. The
+imminence of this movement was known to Austro-German diplomacy, and
+doubtless this knowledge, as well as the fear of the Pan-Serb movement,
+prompted the Austrian foreign minister to take steps towards the
+definitive regularization of his country's position in Bosnia and
+Hercegovina--provinces whose suzerain was still the Sultan of Turkey. The
+effect of the Young Turk coup in the Balkan States was as any one who
+visited them at that time can testify, both pathetic and intensely
+humorous. The permanent chaos of the Turkish empire, and the process of
+watching for years its gradual but inevitable decomposition, had created
+amongst the neighbouring states an atmosphere of excited anticipation,
+which was really the breath of their nostrils; it had stimulated them
+during the endless Macedonian insurrections to commit the most awful
+outrages against each other's nationals and then lay the blame at the door
+of the unfortunate Turk; and if the Turk should really regenerate himself,
+not only would their occupation be gone, but the heavily-discounted
+legacies would assuredly elude their grasp. At the same time, since the
+whole policy of exhibiting and exploiting the horrors of Macedonia, and of
+organizing guerilla bands and provoking intervention, was based on the
+refusal of the Turks to grant reforms, as soon as the ultra-liberal
+constitution of Midhat Pasha, which, had been withdrawn after a brief and
+unsuccessful run in 1876, was restored by the Young Turks, there was
+nothing left for the Balkan States to do but to applaud with as much
+enthusiasm as they could simulate. The emotions experienced by the Balkan
+peoples during that summer, beneath the smiles which they had to assume,
+were exhausting even for southern temperaments. Bulgaria, with its
+characteristic matter-of-factness, was the first to adjust itself to the
+new and trying situation in which the only certainty was that something
+decisive had got to be done with all possible celerity. On October 5,
+1908, Prince Ferdinand sprang on an astonished continent the news that he
+renounced the Turkish suzerainty (ever since 1878 the Bulgarian
+principality had been a tributary and vassal state of the Ottoman Empire,
+and therefore, with all its astonishingly rapid progress and material
+prosperity, a subject for commiseration in the kingdoms of Serbia and
+Greece) and proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria, with himself, as Tsar
+of the Bulgars, at its head. Europe had not recovered from this shock,
+still less Belgrade and Athens, when, two days later. Baron Aehrenthal
+announced the formal annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Emperor
+Francis Joseph. Whereas most people had virtually forgotten the Treaty of
+Berlin and had come to look on Austria as just as permanently settled in
+these two provinces as was Great Britain in Egypt and Cyprus, yet the
+formal breach of the stipulations of that treaty on Austria's part, by
+annexing the provinces without notice to or consultation with the other
+parties concerned, gave the excuse for a somewhat ridiculous hue and cry
+on the part of the other powers, and especially on that of Russia. The
+effect of these blows from right and left on Serbia was literally
+paralysing. When Belgrade recovered the use of its organs, it started to
+scream for war and revenue, and initiated an international crisis from
+which Europe did not recover till the following year. Meanwhile, almost
+unobserved by the peoples of Serbia 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 its
+garrisons from the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar, thus evacuating the
+long-coveted corridor which was the one thing above all else necessary to
+Serbia and Montenegro for the realization of their plans.
+
+
+
+20
+
+_Serbia and Montenegro, and the two Balkan Wars,_ 1908-13 (cf. Chap, 13)
+
+
+The winter of 1908-9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia's fortunes. The
+successive _coups_ and _faits accomplis_ carried out by Austria, Turkey,
+and Bulgaria during 1908 seemed destined to destroy for good the Serbian
+plans for expansion in any direction whatever, and if these could not be
+realized then Serbia must die of suffocation. It was also well understood
+that for all the martial ardour displayed in Belgrade the army was in no
+condition to take the field any more than was the treasury to bear the
+cost of a campaign; Russia had not yet recovered from the Japanese War
+followed by the revolution, and indeed everything pointed to the certainty
+that if Serbia indulged in hostilities against Austria-Hungary it would
+perish ignominiously and alone. The worst of it was that neither Serbia
+nor Montenegro had any legal claim to Bosnia and Hercegovina: they had
+been deluding themselves with the hope that their ethnical identity with
+the people of these provinces, supported by the effects of their
+propaganda, would induce a compassionate and generous Europe at least to
+insist on their being given a part of the coveted territory, and thus give
+Serbia access to the coast, when the ambiguous position of these two
+valuable provinces, still nominally Turkish but already virtually
+Austrian, came to be finally regularized. As a matter of fact, ever since
+Bismarck, Gorchakov, and Beaconsfield had put Austria-Hungary in their
+possession in 1878, no one had seriously thought that the Dual Monarchy
+would ever voluntarily retire from one inch of the territory which had
+been conquered and occupied at such cost, and those who noticed it were
+astonished at the evacuation by it of the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar. At the
+same time Baron Achrenthal little foresaw what a hornet's nest he would
+bring about his ears by the tactless method in which the annexation was
+carried out. The first effect was to provoke a complete boycott of
+Austro-Hungarian goods and trading vessels throughout the Ottoman Empire,
+which was so harmful to the Austrian export trade that in January 1909
+Count Achrenthal had to indemnify Turkey with the sum of L2,500,000 for
+his technically stolen property. Further, the attitude of Russia and
+Serbia throughout the whole winter remained so provocative and threatening
+that, although war was generally considered improbable, the Austrian army
+had to be kept on a war footing, which involved great expense and much
+popular discontent. The grave external crisis was only solved at the end
+of March 1909; Germany had had to deliver a veiled ultimatum at St.
+Petersburg, the result of which was the rescue of Austria-Hungary from an
+awkward situation by the much-advertised appearance of its faithful ally
+in shining armour. Simultaneously Serbia had to eat humble pie and
+declare, with complete absence of truth, that the annexation of Bosnia and
+Hercegovina had not affected its interests.
+
+Meanwhile the internal complications in the southern Slav provinces of
+Austria-Hungary were growing formidable. Ever since the summer of 1908
+arrests 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 of this agitation in order to
+justify abroad the pressing need for the formal annexation of Bosnia and
+Hercegovina. The fact was that, though immediate danger to the monarchy as
+a result of the Pan-Serb agitation was known not to exist, yet in the
+interests of Austrian foreign policy, the Serbs had to be compromised in
+the eyes of Europe, the Croato-Serb coalition within the Dual Monarchy had
+to be destroyed to gratify Budapest in particular, and the religious and
+political discord between Croat and Serb, on which the foundation of the
+power of Austria-Hungary, and especially that of Hungary, in the south
+rested, and which was in a fair way of being eliminated through the
+efforts of the coalition, had to be revived by some means or other. It is
+not possible here to go into the details of the notorious Agram high
+treason trial, which was the outcome of all this. It suffices to say that
+it was a monstrous travesty of justice which lasted from March till
+October 1909, and though it resulted in the ostensible destruction of the
+coalition and the imprisonment of many of its members, it defeated its own
+ends, as it merely fanned the flame of nationalistic feeling against
+Vienna and Budapest, and Croatia has ever since had to be governed
+virtually by martial law. This was followed in December 1909 by the even
+more famous Friedjung trial. In March 1909 Count Achrenthal had begun in
+Vienna a violent press campaign against Serbia, accusing the Serbian
+Government and dynasty of complicity in the concoction of nefarious
+designs and conspiracies against the integrity of Austria-Hungary. This
+campaign was thought to be the means of foreshadowing and justifying the
+immediate military occupation of Serbia. Unfortunately its instigator had
+not been sufficiently particular as to the choice of his tools and his
+methods of using them. Among the contributors of the highly tendencious
+articles was the well-known historian Dr. Friedjung, who made extensive
+use of documents supplied him by the Vienna Foreign Office. His
+accusations immediately provoked an action for libel on the part of three
+leaders of the Croato-Serb coalition who were implicated, in December
+1909. The trial, which was highly sensational, resulted in the complete
+vindication and rehabilitation both of those three Austrian subjects in
+the eyes of the whole of Austria-Hungary and of the Belgrade Foreign
+Office in those of Europe; the documents on which the charges were based
+were proven to be partly forgeries, partly falsified, and partly stolen by
+various disreputable secret political agents of the Austrian Foreign
+Office, and one of the principal Serbian 'conspirators', a professor of
+Belgrade University, proved that he was in Berlin at the time when he had
+been accused of presiding over a revolutionary meeting at Belgrade. But it
+also resulted in the latter discrediting of Count Achrenthal as a diplomat
+and of the methods by which he conducted the business of the Austrian
+Foreign Office, and involved his country in the expenditure of countless
+millions which it could ill afford.
+
+There never was any doubt that a subversive agitation had been going on,
+and that it emanated in part from Serbia, but the Serbian Foreign Office,
+under the able management of Dr. Milovanovi['c] and Dr. Spalajkovi['c]
+(one of the principal witnesses at the Friedjung trial), was far too
+clever to allow any of its members, or indeed any responsible person in
+Serbia, to be concerned in it, and the brilliant way in which the clumsy
+and foolish charges were refuted redounded greatly to the credit of the
+Serbian Government. Count Achrenthal had overreached himself, and moreover
+the wind had already been taken out of his sails by the public recantation
+on Serbia's part of its pretensions to Bosnia, which, as already
+mentioned, took place at the end of March 1909, and by the simultaneous
+termination of the international crisis marked by Russia's acquiescence in
+the _fait accompli_ of the annexation. At the same time the Serbian Crown
+Prince George, King Peter's elder son, who had been the leader of the
+chauvinist war-party in Serbia, and was somewhat theatrical in demeanour
+and irresponsible in character, renounced his rights of succession in
+favour of his younger brother Prince Alexander, a much steadier and more
+talented young man. It is certain that when he realized how things were
+going to develop Count Achrenthal tried to hush up the whole incident, but
+it was too late, and Dr. Friedjung insisted on doing what he could to save
+his reputation as a historian. In the end he was made the principal
+scapegoat, though the press of Vienna voiced its opinion of the Austrian
+Foreign Office in no measured tones, saying, amongst other things, that if
+the conductors of its diplomacy must use forgeries, they might at any rate
+secure good ones. Eventually a compromise was arranged, after the
+defendant had clearly lost his case, owing to pressure being brought to
+bear from outside, and the Serbian Government refrained from carrying out
+its threat of having the whole question threshed out before the Hague
+Tribunal.
+
+The cumulative effect of all these exciting and trying experiences was the
+growth of a distinctly more sympathetic feeling towards Serbia in Europe
+at large, and especially a rallying of all the elements throughout the
+Serb and Croat provinces of Austria-Hungary, except the extreme clericals
+of Agram, to the Serbian cause; briefly, the effect was the exact opposite
+of that desired by Vienna and Budapest. Meanwhile events had been
+happening elsewhere which revived the drooping interest and flagging hopes
+of Serbia in the development of foreign affairs. The attainment of power
+by the Young Turks and the introduction of parliamentary government had
+brought no improvement to the internal condition of the Ottoman Empire,
+and the Balkan peoples made no effort to conceal their satisfaction at the
+failure 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
+service and obligatory payment of taxes caused a revolution in Albania,
+where such innovations were not at all appreciated. From 1909 till 1911
+there was a state of perpetual warfare in Albania, with which the Young
+Turks, in spite of cruel reprisals, were unable to cope, until, in the
+summer of that year, Austria threatened to intervene unless order were
+restored; some sort of settlement was patched up, and an amnesty was
+granted to the rebels by the new Sultan. This unfortunate man, after being
+rendered almost half-witted by having been for the greater part of his
+life kept a prisoner by his brother the tyrant Abdul Hamid, was now the
+captive of the Young Turks, and had been compelled by them to make as
+triumphal a progress as fears for his personal safety would allow through
+the provinces of European Turkey. But it was obvious to Balkan statesmen
+that Turkey was only changed in name, and that, if its threatened
+regeneration had slightly postponed their plans for its partition amongst
+themselves, the ultimate consummation of these plans must be pursued with,
+if possible, even greater energy and expedition than before. It was also
+seen by the more perspicacious of them that the methods hitherto adopted
+must in future be radically altered. A rejuvenated though unreformed
+Turkey, bent on self-preservation, could not be despised, and it was
+understood that if the revolutionary bands of the three Christian nations
+(Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria) were to continue indefinitely to cut each
+others' throats in Macedonia the tables might conceivably be turned on
+them.
+
+From 1909 onwards a series of phenomena occurred in the Balkans which
+ought to have given warning to the Turks, whose survival in Europe had
+been due solely to the fact that the Balkan States had never been able to
+unite. In the autumn of 1909 King Ferdinand of Bulgaria met Crown Prince
+Alexander of Serbia and made an expedition in his company to Mount
+Kopaonik in Serbia, renowned for the beauty of its flora. This must have
+struck those who remembered the bitter feelings which had existed between
+the two countries for years and had been intensified by the events of
+1908. Bulgaria had looked on Serbia's failures with persistent contempt,
+while Serbia had watched Bulgaria's successful progress with speechless
+jealousy, and the memory of Slivnitsa was not yet obliterated. In the
+summer of 1910 Prince Nicholas of Montenegro celebrated the fiftieth
+anniversary of his reign and his golden wedding. The festivities were
+attended by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the Crown Prince Boris, by the
+Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and his sister, grandchildren of Prince
+Nicholas, by his two daughters the Queen of Italy and the Grand Duchess
+Anastasia of Russia, and by their husbands, King Victor Emmanuel and the
+Grand Duke Nicholas. The happiness of the venerable ruler, who was as
+respected throughout Europe as he was feared throughout his principality,
+was at the same time completed by his recognition as king by all the
+governments and sovereigns of the continent. The hopes that he would
+simultaneously introduce a more liberal form of government amongst his own
+people were unfortunately disappointed.
+
+The year 1911, it need scarcely be recalled, was extremely fateful for the
+whole of Europe. The growing restlessness and irritability manifested by
+the German Empire began to make all the other governments feel exceedingly
+uneasy. The French expedition to Fez in April was followed by the
+Anglo-Franco-German crisis of July; war was avoided, and France was
+recognized as virtually master of Morocco, but the soreness of the
+diplomatic defeat rendered Germany a still more trying neighbour than it
+had been before. The first repercussion was the war which broke out in
+September 1911 between Italy and Turkey for the possession of Tripoli and
+Cyrenaica, which Italy, with its usual insight, saw was vital to its
+position as a Mediterranean power and therefore determined to acquire
+before any other power had time or courage to do so. In the Balkans this
+was a year of observation and preparation. Serbia, taught by the bitter
+lesson of 1908 not to be caught again unprepared, had spent much money and
+care on its army during the last few years and had brought it to a much
+higher state of efficiency. In Austria-Hungary careful observers wore
+aware that something was afoot and that the gaze of Serbia, which from
+1903 till 1908 had been directed westwards to Bosnia and the Adriatic, had
+since 1908 been fixed on Macedonia and the Aegean. The actual formation of
+the Balkan League by King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos may not have been
+known, but it was realized that action of some sort on the part of the
+Balkan States was imminent, and that something must be done to forestall
+it. In February 1912 Count Aehrenthal died, and was succeeded by Count
+Berchtold as Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs. In August of
+the same year this minister unexpectedly announced his new and startling
+proposals for the introduction of reforms in Macedonia, which nobody in
+the Balkans who had any material interest in the fate of that province
+genuinely desired at that moment; the motto of the new scheme was
+'progressive decentralization', blessed words which soothed the great
+powers as much as they alarmed the Balkan Governments. But already in May
+1912 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgaria and
+Serbia had been concluded, limiting their respective zones of influence in
+the territory which they hoped to conquer. It was, to any one who has any
+knowledge of Balkan history, incredible that the various Governments had
+been able to come to any agreement at all. That arrived at by Bulgaria and
+Serbia divided Macedonia between them in such a way that Bulgaria should
+obtain central Macedonia with Monastir and Okhrida, and Serbia northern
+Macedonia or Old Serbia; there was an indeterminate zone between the two
+spheres, including Skoplje (Ueskueb, in Turkish), the exact division of
+which it was agreed to leave to arbitration at a subsequent date.
+
+The Macedonian theatre of war was by common consent regarded as the most
+important, and Bulgaria here promised Serbia the assistance of 100,000
+men. The Turks meanwhile were aware that all was not what it seemed beyond
+the frontiers, and in August 1912 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
+awful sufferings of their compatriots under Turkish misrule, gradually
+became exhausted. On September 28 the four Balkan Governments informed
+Russia that the Balkan League was an accomplished fact, and on the 30th
+the representatives of all four signed the alliance, and mobilization was
+ordered in Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The population of Montenegro was
+habitually on a war footing, and it was left to the mountain kingdom from
+its geographically favourable position to open hostilities. On October 8
+Montenegro declared war on Turkey, and after a series of brilliant
+successes along the frontier its forces settled down to the wearisome and
+arduous siege of Scutari with its impregnable sentinel, Mount Tarabo[)s],
+converted into a modern fortress; the unaccustomed nature of these tasks,
+to which the Montenegrin troops, used to the adventures of irregular
+warfare, were little suited, tried the valour and patience of the intrepid
+mountaineers to the utmost. By that time Europe was in a ferment, and both
+Russia and Austria, amazed at having the initiative in the regulation of
+Balkan affairs 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 that the offer of
+outside assistance and advice had come too late, and that they had decided
+themselves to redress the intolerable and secular wrongs of their
+long-suffering compatriots in Macedonia by force of arms. To their dismay
+a treaty of peace was signed at Lausanne about the same time between
+Turkey and Italy, which power, it had been hoped, would have distracted
+Turkey's attention by a continuance of hostilities in northern Africa, and
+at any rate immobilized the Turkish fleet. Encouraged by this success
+Turkey boldly declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia on October 17, hoping to
+frighten Greece and detach it from the league; but on the 18th the Greek
+Government replied by declaring war on Turkey, thus completing the
+necessary formalities. The Turks were confident of an early and easy
+victory, and hoped to reach Sofia, not from Constantinople and Thrace, but
+pushing up north-eastwards from Macedonia. The rapid offensive of the
+Serbian army, however, took them by surprise, and they were completely
+overwhelmed at the battle of Kumanovo in northern Macedonia on October
+23-4, 1912. On the 31st King Peter made his triumphal entry into Skoplje
+(ex-Ueskueb), the ancient capital of Serbia under Tsar Stephen Du[)s]an in
+the fourteenth century. From there the Serbian army pursued the Turks
+southward, and at the battles of Prilep (November 5) and Monastir
+(November 19), after encountering the most stubborn opposition, finally
+put an end to their resistance in this part of the theatre of war. On
+November 9 the Greeks entered Salonika.
+
+Meanwhile other divisions of the Serbian army had joined hands with the
+Montenegrins, and occupied almost without opposition the long-coveted
+_sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar (the ancient Serb Ra[)s]ka), to the inexpressible
+rage of Austria-Hungary, which had evacuated it in 1908 in favour of its
+rightful owner, Turkey. At the same time a Serbian expeditionary corps
+marched right through Albania, braving great hardships on the way, and on
+November 30 occupied Durazzo, thus securing at last a foothold on the
+Adriatic. Besides all this, Serbia, in fulfilment of its treaty
+obligations, dispatched 50,000 splendidly equipped men, together with a
+quantity of heavy siege artillery, to help the Bulgarians at the siege of
+Adrianople. On December 3 an armistice was signed between the
+belligerents, with the condition that the three besieged Turkish
+fortresses of Adrianople, Scutari, and Yanina must not be re-victualled,
+and on December 16, 1912, peace negotiations were opened between
+representatives of the belligerent countries in London. Meanwhile the
+Germanic powers, dismayed by the unexpected victories of the Balkan armies
+and humiliated by the crushing defeats in the field of the German-trained
+Turkish army, had since the beginning of November been doing everything in
+their power to support their client Turkey and prevent its final
+extinction and at the same time the blighting of their ambitions
+eventually to acquire the Empire of the Near East. During the conference
+in London between the plenipotentiaries of the belligerents, parallel
+meetings took place between the representatives of the great powers, whose
+relations with each other were strained and difficult in the extreme. The
+Turkish envoys prolonged the negotiations, as was their custom; they
+naturally were unwilling to concede their European provinces to the
+despised and hated Greek and Slavonic conquerors, but the delays implied
+growing hardships for their besieged and starving garrisons in Thrace,
+Epirus, and Albania. On January 23, 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 object of
+interrupting the negotiations and staking all on the result of a final
+battle. As a result of these events, and of the palpable disingenuousness
+of the Turks in continuing the negotiations in London, the Balkan
+delegates on January 29 broke them off, and on February 3, 1913,
+hostilities were resumed. At length, after a siege of nearly five months,
+Adrianople, supplied with infinitely better artillery than the allies
+possessed, was taken by the combined Serbian and Bulgarian forces on March
+26, 1913. The Serbian troops at Adrianople captured 17,010 Turkish
+prisoners, 190 guns, and the Turkish commander himself, Shukri Pasha.
+
+At the outbreak of the war in the autumn of 1912 the Balkan States had
+observed all the conventions, disavowing designs of territorial
+aggrandizement and proclaiming their resolve merely to obtain guarantees
+for the better treatment of the Christian inhabitants of Macedonia; the
+powers, for their part, duly admonished the naughty children of
+south-eastern Europe to the effect that no alteration of the territorial
+_status quo ante_ would under any circumstances be tolerated. During the
+negotiations in London, interrupted in January, and resumed in the spring
+of 1913 after the fall of Adrianople, it was soon made clear that in spite
+of all these magniloquent declarations nothing would be as it had been
+before. Throughout the winter Austria-Hungary had been mobilizing troops
+and massing them along the frontiers of Serbia and Montenegro, any
+increase in the size of which countries meant a crushing blow to the
+designs of the Germanic powers and the end to all the dreams embodied in
+the phrase 'Drang nach Osten' ('pushing eastwards').
+
+In the spring of 1913 Serbia and Montenegro, instead 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 _sandjak_ of
+Novi-Pazar, of 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 than Austria could stand, and at the
+renewed conference of London it was decided that they must retire. In the
+interests of nationality, in which the Balkan States themselves undertook
+the war, it was desirable that at any rate an attempt should be made to
+create an independent state of Albania, though no one who knew the local
+conditions felt confident as to its ultimate career. Its creation assuaged
+the consciences of the Liberal Government in Great Britain and at the same
+time admirably suited the strategic plans of Austria-Hungary. It left that
+country a loophole for future diplomatic efforts to disturb the peace of
+south-eastern Europe, and, with its own army in Bosnia and its political
+agents and irregular troops in Albania, Serbia and Montenegro, even though
+enlarged as it was generally recognized they must be, would be held in a
+vice and could be threatened and bullied from the south now as well as
+from the north whenever it was in the interests of Vienna and Budapest to
+apply the screw. The independence of Albania was declared at the
+conference of London on May 30, 1913. Scutari was included in it as being
+a purely Albanian town, and King Nicholas and his army, after enjoying its
+coveted flesh-pots for a few halcyon weeks, had, to their mortification,
+to retire to the barren fastnesses of the Black Mountain. Serbia,
+frustrated by Austria in its attempts, generally recognized as legitimate,
+to obtain even a commercial outlet on the Adriatic, naturally again
+diverted its aims southwards to Salonika. The Greeks were already in
+possession of this important city and seaport, as well as of the whole of
+southern Macedonia. The Serbs were in possession of central and northern
+Macedonia, including Monastir and Okhrida, which they had at great
+sacrifices conquered from the Turks. It had been agreed that Bulgaria, as
+its share of the spoils, should have all central Macedonia, with Monastir
+and Okhrida, although on ethnical grounds the Bulgarians have only very
+slightly better claim to the country and towns west of the Vardar than any
+of the other Balkan nationalities. But at the time that the agreement had
+been concluded it had been calculated in Greece and Serbia that Albania,
+far from being made independent, would be divided between them, and that
+Serbia, assured of a strip of coast on the Adriatic, would have no
+interest in the control of the river Vardar and of the railway which
+follows its course connecting the interior of Serbia with the port of
+Salonika. Greece and Serbia had no ground whatever for quarrel and no
+cause for mutual distrust, and they were determined, for political and
+commercial reasons, to have a considerable extent of frontier from west to
+east in common. The creation of an independent Albania completely altered
+the situation. If Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia and thus secure
+a frontier from north to south in common with the newly-formed state of
+Albania, then Greece would be at the mercy of its hereditary enemies the
+Bulgars and Arnauts (Albanians) as it had previously been at the mercy of
+the Turks, while Serbia would have two frontiers between itself and the
+sea instead of one, as before, and its complete economic strangulation
+would be rendered inevitable and rapid. Bulgaria for its own part
+naturally refused to waive its claim to central Macedonia, well knowing
+that the master of the Vardar valley is master of the Balkan peninsula.
+The first repercussion of the ephemeral treaty of London of May 30, 1913,
+which created Albania and shut out Serbia from the Adriatic, was,
+therefore, as the diplomacy of the Germanic powers had all along intended
+it should be, the beginning of a feud between Greece and Serbia on the one
+hand, and Bulgaria on the other, the disruption of the Balkan League and
+the salvation, for the ultimate benefit of Germany, of what was left of
+Turkey in Europe.
+
+The dispute as to the exact division of the conquered territory in
+Macedonia between Serbia and Bulgaria had, as arranged, been referred to
+arbitration, and, the Tsar of Russia having been chosen as judge, the
+matter was being threshed out in St. Petersburg during June 1913.
+Meanwhile Bulgaria, determined to make good its claim to the chestnuts
+which Greece and Serbia had pulled out of the Turkish fire, was secretly
+collecting troops along its temporary south-western frontier[1] with the
+object, in approved Germanic fashion, 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 at any rate
+assisting him in the task.
+
+[Footnote 1: This was formed by the stream Zletovska, a tributary of the
+river Bregalnica, which in its turn falls into the Vardar on its left or
+eastern bank about 40 miles south of Skoplje (Ueskueb).]
+
+On the other hand, the relations between Bulgaria and its two allies had
+been noticeably growing worse ever since January 1913; Bulgaria felt
+aggrieved that, in spite of its great sacrifices, it had not been able to
+occupy so much territory as Greece and Serbia, and the fact that
+Adrianople was taken with Serbian help did not improve the feeling between
+the two Slav nations. The growth of Bulgarian animosity put Greece and
+Serbia on their guard, and, well knowing the direction which an eventual
+attack would take, these two countries on June 2, 1913, signed a military
+convention and made all the necessary dispositions for resisting any
+aggression on Bulgaria's part. At one o'clock in the morning of June 30
+the Bulgarians, without provocation, without declaration of war, and
+without warning, crossed the Bregalnica (a tributary of the Vardar) and
+attacked the Serbs. A most violent battle ensued which lasted for several
+days; at some points the Bulgarians, thanks to the suddenness of their
+offensive, were temporarily successful, but gradually the Serbs regained
+the upper hand and by July 1 the Bulgarians were beaten. The losses were
+very heavy on both sides, but the final issue was a complete triumph for
+the Serbian army. Slivnitsa was avenged by the battle of the Bregalnica,
+just as Kosovo was by that of Kumanovo. After a triumphant campaign of one
+month, in which the Serbs were joined by the Greeks, Bulgaria had to bow
+to the inevitable. The Rumanian army had invaded northern Bulgaria, bent
+on maintaining the Balkan equilibrium and on securing compensation for
+having observed neutrality during the war of 1912-13, and famine reigned
+at Sofia. A conference was arranged at Bucarest, and the treaty of that
+name was signed there on August 10, 1913. By the terms of this treaty
+Serbia retained the whole of northern and central Macedonia, including
+Monastir and Okhrida, and the famous _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar was divided
+between Serbia and Montenegro. Some districts of east-central Macedonia,
+which were genuinely Bulgarian, were included in Serbian territory, as
+Serbia naturally did not wish, after the disquieting and costly experience
+of June and July 1913, to give the Bulgarians another chance of separating
+Greek from Serbian territory by a fresh surprise attack, and the further
+the Bulgarians could be kept from the Vardar river and railway the less
+likelihood there was of this. The state of feeling in the Germanic
+capitals and in Budapest after this ignominious defeat of their protege
+Bulgaria and after this fresh triumph of the despised and hated Serbians
+can be imagined. Bitterly disappointed first at seeing the Turks
+vanquished by the Balkan League--their greatest admirers could not even
+claim that the Turks had had any 'moral' victories--their chagrin, when
+they saw the Bulgarians trounced by the Serbians, knew no bounds. That the
+secretly prepared attack on Serbia by Bulgaria was planned in Vienna and
+Budapest there is no doubt. That Bulgaria was justified in feeling
+disappointment and resentment at the result of the first Balkan War no one
+denies, but the method chosen to redress its wrongs could only have been
+suggested by the Germanic school of diplomacy.
+
+In Serbia and Montenegro the result of the two successive Balkan Wars,
+though these had exhausted the material resources of the two countries,
+was a justifiable return of national self-confidence and rejoicing such as
+the people, humiliated and impoverished as it had habitually been by its
+internal and external troubles, had not known for very many years. At last
+Serbia and Montenegro had joined hands. At last Old Serbia was restored to
+the free kingdom. At last Skoplje, the mediaeval capital of Tsar Stephen
+Du[)s]an, was again in Serbian territory. At last one of the most
+important portions of unredeemed Serbia had been reclaimed. Amongst the
+Serbs and Croats of Bosnia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and
+southern Hungary the effect of the Serbian victories was electrifying.
+Military prowess 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 Serbian peasant soldiers immediately imparted a
+heroic glow to the country whose very name, at any rate in central Europe,
+had become a byword, and a synonym for failure; Belgrade became the
+cynosure and the rallying-centre of the whole Serbo-Croatian race. But
+Vienna and Budapest could only lose courage and presence of mind for the
+moment, and the undeniable success of the Serbian arms merely sharpened
+their appetite for revenge. In August 1913 Austria-Hungary, as is now
+known, secretly prepared an aggression on Serbia, but was restrained,
+partly by the refusal of Italy to grant its approval of such action,
+partly because the preparations of Germany at that time were not complete.
+The fortunate Albanian question provided, for the time being, a more
+convenient rod with which to beat Serbia. Some Serbian troops had remained
+in possession of certain frontier towns and districts which were included
+in the territory of the infant state of Albania pending the final
+settlement of the frontiers by a commission. On October 18, 1913, Austria
+addressed an ultimatum to Serbia to evacuate these, as its continued
+occupation of them caused offence and disquiet to the Dual Monarchy.
+Serbia meekly obeyed. Thus passed away the last rumble of the storms which
+had filled the years 1912-13 in south-eastern Europe.
+
+The credulous believed that the Treaty of Bucarest had at last brought
+peace to that distracted part of the world. Those who knew their central
+Europe realized that Berlin had only forced Vienna to acquiesce in the
+Treaty of Bucarest because the time had not yet come. But come what might,
+Serbia and Montenegro, by having linked up their territory and by forming
+a mountain barrier from the Danube to the Adriatic, made it far more
+difficult for the invader to push his way through to the East than it
+would have been before the battles of Kumanovo and Bregalnica.
+
+
+
+
+GREECE
+
+
+
+1
+
+_From Ancient to Modern Greece_
+
+
+The name of Greece has two entirely different associations in our minds.
+Sometimes it calls up a wonderful literature enshrined in a 'dead
+language', and exquisite works of a vanished art recovered by the spade;
+at other times it is connected with the currant-trade returns quoted on
+the financial page of our newspapers or with the 'Balance of Power'
+discussed in their leading articles. Ancient and Modern Greece both mean
+much to us, but usually we are content to accept them as independent
+phenomena, and we seldom pause to wonder whether there is any deeper
+connexion between them than their name. It is the purpose of these pages
+to ask and give some answer to this question.
+
+The thought that his own Greece might perish, to be succeeded by another
+Greece after the lapse of more than two thousand years, would have caused
+an Ancient Greek surprise. In the middle of the fifth century B.C.,
+Ancient Greek civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous and secure. A
+generation before, it had flung back the onset of a political power which
+combined all the momentum of all the other contemporary civilizations in
+the world; and the victory had proved not merely the superiority of Greek
+arms--the Spartan spearman and the Athenian galley--but the superior
+vitality of Greek politics--the self-governing, self-sufficing city-state.
+In these cities a wonderful culture had burst into flower--an art
+expressing itself with equal mastery in architecture, sculpture, and
+drama, a science which ranged from the most practical medicine to the most
+abstract mathematics, and a philosophy which blended art, science, and
+religion into an ever-developing and ever more harmonious view of the
+universe. A civilization so brilliant and so versatile as this seemed to
+have an infinite future before it, yet even here death lurked in ambush.
+
+When the cities ranged themselves in rival camps, and squandered their
+strength on the struggle for predominance, the historian of the
+Peloponnesian war could already picture Athens and Sparta in ruins,[1] and
+the catastrophe began to warp the soul of Plato before he had carried
+Greek philosophy to its zenith. This internecine strife of free
+communities was checked within a century by the imposition of a single
+military autocracy over them all, and Alexander the Great crowned his
+father Philip's work by winning new worlds for Hellenism from the Danube
+to the Ganges and from the Oxus to the Nile. The city-state and its
+culture were to be propagated under his aegis, but this vision vanished
+with Alexander's death, and Macedonian militarism proved a disappointment.
+The feuds of these crowned condottieri harassed the cities more sorely
+than their own quarrels, and their arms could not even preserve the
+Hellenic heritage against 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 had seen, Rome conquered all the coasts of the
+Mediterranean. Greek city and Greek dynast went down before her, and the
+political sceptre passed irrevocably from the Hellenic nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Thucydides, Book I, chap. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 264-146 B.C.]
+
+Yet this political abdication seemed to open for Hellenic culture a future
+more brilliant and assured than ever. Rome could organize as well as
+conquer. She accepted the city-state as the municipal unit of the Roman
+Empire, thrust back the Oriental behind the Euphrates, and promoted the
+Hellenization of all the lands between this river-frontier and the Balkans
+with much greater intensity than the Macedonian imperialists. Her
+political conquests were still further counterbalanced by her spiritual
+surrender, and Hellenism was the soul of the new Latin culture which Rome
+created, and which advanced with Roman government over the vast untutored
+provinces of the west and north, bringing them, too, within the orbit of
+Hellenic civilization. Under the shadow of the Roman Empire, Plutarch, the
+mirror of Hellenism, could dwell in peace in his little city-state of
+Chaeronea, and reflect in his writings all the achievements of the
+Hellenic spirit as an ensample to an apparently endless posterity.
+
+Yet the days of Hellenic culture were also numbered. Even Plutarch
+lived[1] to look down from the rocky citadel of Chaeronea upon Teutonic
+raiders wasting the Kephisos vale, and for more than three centuries
+successive hordes of Goths searched out and ravaged the furthest corners
+of European Greece. Then the current set westward to sweep away[2] the
+Roman administration in the Latin provinces, and Hellenism seemed to have
+been granted a reprieve. The Greek city-state of Byzantium on the Black
+Sea Straits had been transformed into the Roman administrative centre of
+Constantinople, and from this capital the Emperor Justinian in the sixth
+century A.D. still governed and defended the whole Greek-speaking world.
+But this political glamour only threw the symptoms of inward dissolution
+into sharper relief. Within the framework of the Empire the municipal
+liberty of the city-state had been stifled and extinguished by the waxing
+jungle of bureaucracy, and the spiritual culture which the city-state
+fostered, and which was more essential to Hellenism than any political
+institutions, had been part ejected, part exploited, and wholly compromised
+by a new gospel from the east.
+
+[Footnote 1: About A.D. 100]
+
+[Footnote 2: A.D. 404-476]
+
+While the Oriental had been compelled by Rome to draw his political
+frontier at the Euphrates, and had failed so far to cross the river-line,
+he had maintained his cultural independence within sight of the
+Mediterranean. In the hill country of Judah, overlooking the high road
+between Antioch and Alexandria, the two chief foci of Hellenism in the
+east which the Macedonians had founded, and which had grown to maturity
+under the aegis of Rome, there dwelt a little Semitic community which had
+defied all efforts of Greek or Roman to assimilate it, and had finally
+given birth to a world religion about the time that a Roman punitive
+expedition razed its holy city of Jerusalem to the ground.[1] Christianity
+was charged with an incalculable force, which shot like an electric
+current from one end of the Roman Empire to the other. The
+highly-organized society of its adherents measured its strength in several
+sharp conflicts with the Imperial administration, from which it emerged
+victorious, and it was proclaimed the official religious organization of
+the Empire by the very emperor that founded Constantinople.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 70.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Constantine the Great recognized Christianity in A.D. 313 and
+founded Constantinople in A.D. 328.]
+
+The established Christian Church took the best energies of Hellenism into
+its service. The Greek intellectuals ceased to become lecturers and
+professors, to find a more human and practical career in the bishop's
+office. The Nicene Creed, drafted by an 'oecumenical' conference of
+bishops under the auspices of Constantine himself,[1] was the last notable
+formulation of Ancient Greek philosophy. The cathedral of Aya Sophia, with
+which Justinian adorned Constantinople, was the last original creation of
+Ancient Greek art.[2] The same Justinian closed the University of Athens,
+which had educated the world for nine hundred years and more, since Plato
+founded his college in the Academy. Six recalcitrant professors went into
+exile for their spiritual freedom, but they found the devout
+Zoroastrianism of the Persian court as unsympathetic as the devout
+Christianity of the Roman. Their humiliating return and recantation broke
+the 'Golden Chain' of Hellenic thought for ever.
+
+Hellenism was thus expiring from its own inanition, when the inevitable
+avalanche overwhelmed it from without. In the seventh century A.D. there
+was another religious eruption in the Semitic world, this time in the
+heart of Arabia, where Hellenism had hardly penetrated, and under the
+impetus of Islam the Oriental burst his bounds again after a thousand
+years. Syria was reft away from the Empire, and Egypt, and North Africa as
+far as the Atlantic, and their political severance meant their cultural
+loss to Greek civilization. Between the Koran and Hellenism no fusion was
+possible. Christianity had taken Hellenism captive, but Islam gave it no
+quarter, and the priceless library of Alexandria is said to have been
+condemned by the caliph's order to feed the furnaces of the public baths.
+
+[Footnote 1: A.D. 325.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Completed A.D. 538.]
+
+While Hellenism was thus cut short in the east, a mortal blow was struck
+at its heart from the north. The Teuton had raided and passed on, but the
+lands he had depopulated were now invaded by immigrants who had come to
+stay. As soon as the last Goth and Lombard had gone west of the Isonzo,
+the Slavs poured in from the north-eastern plains of Europe through the
+Moravian gap, crossed the Danube somewhere near the site of Vienna, and
+drifted down along the eastern face of the Alps upon the Adriatic
+littoral. Rebuffed by the sea-board, the Slavonic migration was next
+deflected east, and filtered through the Bosnian mountains, scattering the
+Latin-speaking provincials before it to left and right, until it 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 burst out with irresistible force in all directions, eastward across
+the Maritsa basin till it reached the Black Sea, and southward down the
+Vardar to the shores of the Aegean.
+
+Beneath this Slavonic flood the Greek race in Europe was engulfed. A few
+fortified cities held out, Adrianople on the Maritsa continued to cover
+Constantinople; Salonika at the mouth of the Vardar survived a two hundred
+years siege; while further south Athens, Korinth, and Patras escaped
+extinction. But the tide of invasion surged around their 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 penetration is witnessed to this day by the Slavonic
+names which still cling to at least a third of the villages, rivers, and
+mountains in European Greece, and are found in the most remote as well as
+in the most accessible quarters of the land.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: For example: Tsimova and Panitsa in the Tainaron peninsula
+(Maina); Tsoupana and Khrysapha in Lakonia; Dhimitzana, Karytena, and
+Andhritsena in the centre of Peloponnesos, and Vostitsa on its north coast;
+Dobrena and Kaprena in Boiotia; Vonitza on the Gulf of Arta; Kardhitsa in
+the Thessalian plain.]
+
+With the coming of the Slavs darkness descends like a curtain upon Greek
+history. We catch glimpses of Arab hosts ranging across Anatolia at will
+and gazing at Slavonic hordes across the narrow Bosphorus. But always the
+Imperial fleet patrols the waters between, and always the triple defences
+of Constantinople defy the assailant. Then after about two centuries the
+floods subside, the gloom disperses, and the Greek world emerges into view
+once more. But the spectacle before us is unfamiliar, and most of the old
+landmarks have been swept away.
+
+By the middle of the ninth century A.D., the Imperial Government had
+reduced the Peloponnesos to order again, and found itself in the presence
+of three peoples. The greater part of the land was occupied by 'Romaioi'--
+normal, loyal, Christian subjects of the empire--but in the hilly country
+between Eurotas, Taygetos, and the sea, two Slavonic tribes still
+maintained themselves in defiant savagery and worshipped their Slavonic
+gods, while beyond them the peninsula of Tainaron, now known as Maina,
+sheltered communities which still clung to the pagan name of Hellene and
+knew no other gods but Zeus, Athena, and Apollo. Hellene and Slav need not
+concern us. They were a vanishing minority, and the Imperial Government
+was more successful in obliterating their individuality than in making
+them contribute to its exchequer. The future lay with the Romaioi.
+
+The speech of these Romaioi was not the speech of Rome. 'Romaika,' as it
+is still called popularly in the country-side, is a development of the
+'koine' or 'current' dialect of Ancient Greek, in which the Septuagint and
+the New Testament are written. The vogue of these books after the triumph
+of Christianity and the oncoming of the Dark Age, when they were the sole
+intellectual sustenance of the people, gave the idiom in which they were
+composed an exclusive prevalence. Except in Tzakonia--the iron-bound coast
+between Cape Malea and Nauplia Bay--all other dialects 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 with those which divided Doric from Ionian. Yet though Romaic
+is descended from the 'koine', it is almost as far removed from it as
+modern Italian is from the language of St. Augustine or Cicero. Ancient
+Greek possessed a pitch-accent only, which allowed the quantitative values
+of syllables to be measured against one another, and even to form the
+basis of a metrical system. In Romaic the pitch-accent has transformed
+itself into a stress-accent almost as violent as the English, which has
+destroyed all quantitative relation between accented and unaccented
+syllables, often wearing away the latter altogether at the termination of
+words, and always impoverishing their vowel sounds. In the ninth century
+A.D. this new enunciation was giving rise to a new poetical technique
+founded upon accent and rhyme, which first essayed itself in folk-songs
+and ballads,[1] and has since experimented in the same variety of forms as
+English poetry.
+
+[Footnote 1: The earliest products of the modern technique were called
+'city' verses, because they originated in Constantinople, which has
+remained 'the city' _par excellence_ for the Romaic Greek ever since the
+Dark Age made it the asylum of his civilization.]
+
+These humble beginnings of a new literature were supplemented by the
+rudiments of a new art. Any visitor at Athens who looks at the three tiny
+churches [1] built in this period of first revival, and compares them with
+the rare pre-Norman churches of England, will find the same promise of
+vitality in the Greek architecture as in his own. The material--worked
+blocks of marble pillaged from ancient monuments, alternating with courses
+of contemporary brick--produces a completely new aesthetic effect upon the
+eye; and the structure--a grouping of lesser cupolas round a central dome--
+is the very antithesis of the 'upright-and-horizontal' style which
+confronts him in ruins upon the Akropolis.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Old Metropolitan, the Kapnikaria, and St. Theodore.]
+
+These first achievements of Romaic architecture speak by implication of
+the characteristic difference between the Romaios and the Hellene. The
+linguistic and the aesthetic change were as nothing compared to the change
+in religion, for while the Hellene had been a pagan, the Romaios was
+essentially a member of the Christian Church. Yet this new and determining
+characteristic was already fortified by tradition. The Church triumphant
+had swiftly perfected its organisation on the model of the Imperial
+bureaucracy. Every Romaios owed ecclesiastical allegiance, through a
+hierarchy of bishops and metropolitans, to a supreme patriarch at
+Constantinople, and in the ninth century this administrative segregation
+of the imperial from the west-European Church had borne its inevitable
+fruit in a dogmatic divergence, and ripened into a schism between the
+Orthodox Christianity of the east on the one hand and the Catholicism of
+the Latin world on the other.
+
+The Orthodox Church exercised an important cultural influence over its
+Romaic adherents. The official language of its scriptures, creeds, and
+ritual had never ceased to be the Ancient Greek 'koine' and by keeping the
+Romaios familiar with this otherwise obsolete tongue it kept him in touch
+with the unsurpassable literature of his Ancient Greek predecessors. The
+vast body of Hellenic literature had perished 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 greatest authors' greatest works had
+been preserved, and now that the stress was relieved, the wreckage of the
+remainder was sedulously garnered in anthologies, abridgements, and
+encyclopaedias. The rising monasteries offered a safe harbourage both for
+these compilations and for such originals as survived unimpaired, and in
+their libraries they were henceforth studied, cherished, and above all
+recopied with more or less systematic care.
+
+The Orthodox Church was thus a potent link between past and present, but
+the most direct link of all was the political survival of the Empire.
+Here, too, many landmarks had been swept away. The marvellous system of
+Roman Law had proved too subtle and complex for a world in the throes of
+dissolution. Within a century of its final codification by Justinian's
+commissioners) it had begun to fall into disuse, and was now replaced by
+more summary legislation, which was as deeply imbued with Mosaic
+principles as the literary language with the Hebraisms of the New
+Testament, and bristled with barbarous applications of the _Lex Talionis_.
+The administrative organization instituted by Augustus and elaborated by
+Diocletian had likewise disappeared, and the army-corps districts were the
+only territorial units that outlasted the Dark Age. Yet the tradition of
+order lived on. The army itself preserved Roman discipline and technique
+to a remarkable degree, and the military districts were already becoming
+the basis for a reconstituted civil government. The wealth of Latin
+technicalities incorporated in the Greek style of ninth-century
+officialdom witnesses to this continuity with the past and to the
+consequent political superiority of the Romaic Empire over contemporary
+western Europe.
+
+Within the Imperial frontiers the Romaic race was offered an apparently
+secure field for its future development. In the Balkan peninsula the Slav
+had been expelled or assimilated to the south of a line stretching from
+Avlona to Salonika. East of Salonika the empire still controlled little
+more in Europe than the ports of the littoral, and a military highway
+linking them with each other and with Constantinople. But beyond the
+Bosphorus the frontier included the whole body of Anatolia as far as
+Taurus and Euphrates, and here was the centre of gravity both of the
+Romaic state and of the Romaic nation.
+
+A new Greek nation had in fact come into being, and it found itself in
+touch with new neighbours, whom the Ancient Greek had never known.
+Eastward lay the Armenians, reviving, like the Greeks, after the ebb of
+the Arab flood, and the Arabs themselves, quiescent within their natural
+bounds and transfusing the wisdom of Aristotle and Hippokrates into their
+native culture. Both these peoples were sundered from the Orthodox Greek
+by religion[1] as well as by language, but a number of nationalities
+established on his opposite flank had been evangelized from Constantinople
+and followed the Orthodox patriarch in his schism with Rome. The most
+important neighbour of the Empire in this quarter was the Bulgarian
+kingdom, which covered all the Balkan hinterland from the Danube and the
+Black Sea to the barrier-fortresses of Adrianople and Salonika. It had
+been founded by a conquering caste of non-Slavonic nomads from the
+trans-Danubian steppes, but these were completely absorbed in the Slavonic
+population which they had endowed with their name and had preserved by
+political consolidation from the fate of their brethren further south.
+This Bulgarian state included a large 'Vlach' element descended from those
+Latin-speaking provincials whom the Slavs had pushed before them in their
+original migration; while the main body of the 'Rumans', whom the same
+thrust of invasion had driven leftwards across the Danube, had established
+itself in the mountains of Transylvania, and was just beginning to push
+down into the Wallachian and Moldavian plains. 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, as far westward as the Adriatic coast. Beyond, the
+heathen Magyars had pressed into the Danubian plains like a wedge, and cut
+off the Orthodox world from the Latin-Teutonic Christendom of the west;
+but it looked as though the two divisions of Europe were embarked upon the
+same course of development. Both were evolving a system of strongly-knit
+nationalities, neither wholly interdependent nor wholly self-sufficient,
+but linked together in their individual growth by the ties of common
+culture and religion. In both the darkness was passing. The future of
+civilization seemed once more assured, and in the Orthodox world the new
+Greek nation seemed destined to play the leading part.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Armenians split off from the Catholic Church four
+centuries before the schism between the Roman and Orthodox sections of the
+latter.]
+
+His cultural and political heritage from his ancient predecessors gave the
+Romaic Greek in this period of revival an inestimable advantage over his
+cruder neighbours, and his superiority declared itself in an expansion of
+the Romaic Empire. In the latter half of the tenth century A.D. the nest
+of Arab pirates from Spain, which had established itself in Krete and
+terrorized the Aegean, was exterminated by the Emperor Nikiphoros Phokas,
+and on the eastern marches Antioch was gathered within the frontier at the
+Arabs' expense, and advanced posts pushed across Euphrates. In the first
+half of the eleventh century Basil, 'Slayer of the Bulgars', destroyed the
+Balkan kingdom after a generation of bitter warfare, and brought the whole
+interior of the peninsula under the sway of Constantinople. His successors
+turned their attention to the cast again, and attracted one Armenian
+principality after another within the Imperial protectorate. Nor was the
+revival confined to politics. The conversion of the Russians about A.D.
+1000 opened a boundless hinterland to the Orthodox Church, and any one who
+glances at a series of Greek ivory carvings or studies Greek history from
+the original sources, will here encounter a literary and artistic
+renaissance remarkable enough to explain the fascination which the
+barbarous Russian and the outlandish Armenian found in Constantinople. Yet
+this renaissance had hardly set in before it was paralysed by an
+unexpected blow, which arrested the development of Modern Greece for seven
+centuries.
+
+Modern, like Ancient, Greece was assailed in her infancy by a conqueror
+from the east, and, unlike Ancient Greece, she succumbed. Turkish nomads
+from the central Asiatic steppes had been drifting into the Moslem world
+as the vigour of the Arabs waned. First they came as slaves, then as
+mercenaries, until at last, in the eleventh century, the clan of Seljuk
+grasped with a strong hand the political dominion of Islam. As champions
+of the caliph the Turkish sultans disputed the infidels encroachment on
+the Moslem border. They challenged the Romaic Empire's progress in
+Armenia, and in A.D. 1071--five years after the Norman founded at Hastings
+the strong government which has been the making of England--the Seljuk
+Turk shattered at the battle of Melasgerd that heritage of strong
+government which had promised so much to Greece.
+
+Melasgerd opened the way to Anatolia. The Arab could make no lodgement
+there, but in the central steppe of the temperate plateau the Turk found a
+miniature reproduction of his original environment. Tribe after tribe
+crossed the Oxus, to make the long pilgrimage to these new marches which
+their race had won for Islam on the west, and the civilization developed
+in the country by fifteen centuries of intensive and undisturbed
+Hellenization was completely blotted out. The cities wore isolated from
+one another till their commerce fell into decay. The elaborately
+cultivated lands around them were left fallow till they were good for
+nothing but the pasturage which was all that the nomad required. The only
+monuments of architecture that have survived in Anatolia above ground are
+the imposing khans or fortified rest-houses built by the Seljuk sultans
+themselves after the consolidation of their rule, and they are the best
+witnesses of the vigorous barbarism by which Romaic culture was effaced.
+The vitality of the Turk was indeed unquestionable. He imposed his
+language and religion upon the native Anatolian peasantry, as the Greek
+had imposed his before him, and in time adopted their sedentary life,
+though too late to repair the mischief his own nomadism had wrought. Turk
+and Anatolian coalesced into one people; every mountain, river, lake,
+bridge, and village in the country took on a Turkish name, and a new
+nation was established for ever in the heart of the Romaic world, which
+nourished itself on the life-blood of the Empire and was to prove the
+supreme enemy, of the race.
+
+This sequel to Melasgerd sealed the Empire's doom. Robbed of its Anatolian
+governing class and its Anatolian territorial army, it ceased to be
+self-sufficient, and the defenders it attracted from the west were at
+least as destructive as its eastern foes. The brutal regime of the Turks
+in the pilgrimage places of Syria had roused a storm of indignation in
+Latin Europe, and a cloud gathered in the west once more. It was heralded
+by adventurers from Normandy, who had first served the Romaic Government
+as mercenaries in southern Italy and then expelled their employers, about
+the time of Melasgerd, from their last foothold in the peninsula. Raids
+across the straits of Otranto carried the Normans up to the walls of
+Salonika, their fleets equipped in Sicily scoured the Aegean, and, before
+the eleventh century was out, they had followed up these reconnoitring
+expeditions by conducting Latin Christendom on its first crusade. The
+crusaders assembled at Constantinople, and the Imperial Government was
+relieved when the flood rolled on and spent itself further east. But one
+wave was followed by another, and the Empire itself succumbed to the
+fourth. In A.D. 1204, Constantinople was stormed by a Venetian flotilla
+and the crusading host it conveyed on board, and more treasures of Ancient
+Hellenism were destroyed in the sack of its hitherto inviolate citadel
+than had ever perished by the hand of Arab or Slav.
+
+With the fall of the capital the Empire dissolved in chaos, Venice and
+Genoa, the Italian trading cities whose fortune had been made by the
+crusades, now usurped the naval control of the Mediterranean which the
+Empire had exercised since Nikiphoros pacified Krete. They seized all
+strategical points of vantage on the Aegean coasts, and founded an
+'extra-territorial' community at Pera across the Golden Horn, to
+monopolize the trade of Constantinople with the Black Sea. The Latins
+failed to retain their hold on Constantinople itself, for the puppet
+emperors of their own race whom they enthroned there were evicted within a
+century by Romaic dynasts, who clung to such fragments of Anatolia as had
+escaped the Turk. But the Latin dominion was less ephemeral in the
+southernmost Romaic provinces of Europe. The Latins' 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 another in bewildering succession, while the
+French princes of Achaia were at feud with their kindred vassals in the
+west of the Peloponnesos whenever they were not resisting the
+encroachments of Romaic despots in the south and east. To complete the
+anarchy, the non-Romaic peoples in the interior of the Balkan peninsula
+had taken the fall of Constantinople as a signal to throw off the Imperial
+yoke. In the hinterland of the capital the Bulgars had reconstituted their
+kingdom. The Romance-speaking Vlachs of Pindus moved down into the
+Thessalian plains. The aboriginal Albanians, who with their back to the
+Adriatic had kept the Slavs at bay, asserted their vitality and sent out
+migratory swarms to the south, which entered the service of the warring
+princelets and by their prowess won broad lands in every part of
+continental Greece, where Albanian place-names are to this day only less
+common than Slavonic. South-eastern Europe was again in the throes of
+social dissolution, and the convulsions continued till they were stilled
+impartially by the numbing hand of their ultimate author the Turk.
+
+[Footnote 1: e.g. Klemoutsi, Glarentsa (Clarence) and Gastouni--villages
+of the currant district in Peloponnesos--and Sant-Omeri, the mountain that
+overlooks them.]
+
+The Seljuk sultanate in Anatolia, shaken by the crusades, had gone the way
+of all oriental empires to make room for one of its fractions, which
+showed a most un-oriental faculty of organic growth. This was the extreme
+march on the north-western rim of the Anatolian plateau, overlooking the
+Asiatic littoral of the Sea of Marmora. It had been founded by one of
+those Turkish chiefs who migrated with their clans from beyond the Oxus;
+and it was consolidated by Othman his son, who extended his kingdom to the
+cities on the coast and invested his subjects with his own name. In 1355
+the Narrows of Gallipoli passed into Ottoman hands, and opened a bridge to
+unexpected conquests in Europe. Serbia and Bulgaria collapsed at the first
+attack, and the hosts which marched to liberate them from Hungary and from
+France only ministered to Ottoman prestige by their disastrous
+discomfiture. Before the close of the fourteenth century the Ottoman
+sultan had transferred his capital to Adrianople, and had become
+immeasurably the strongest power in the Balkan peninsula.
+
+After that the end came quickly. At Constantinople the Romaic dynasty of
+Palaiologos had upheld a semblance of the Empire for more than a century
+after the Latin was expelled. But in 1453 the Imperial city fell before
+the assault of Sultan Mohammed; and before his death the conqueror
+eliminated all the other Romaic and Latin principalities from Peloponnesos
+to Trebizond, which had survived as enclaves to mar the uniformity of the
+Ottoman domain. Under his successors the tide of Ottoman conquest rolled
+on for half a century more over south-eastern Europe, till it 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 St. John.[2] The Romaic race, which had been
+split into so many fragments during the dissolution of the Empire, was
+reunited again in the sixteenth century under the common yoke of the Turk.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1526.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1522.]
+
+Even in the Dark Age, Greece had hardly been reduced to so desperate a
+condition as now. Through the Dark Age the Greek cities had maintained a
+continuous life, but Mohammed II depopulated Constantinople to repeople it
+with a Turkish majority from Anatolia. Greek commerce would naturally have
+benefited by the ejection of the Italians from the Levant, had not the
+Ottoman Government given asylum simultaneously to the Jews expelled from
+Spain. These Sephardim established themselves at Constantinople, Salonika,
+and all the other commercial centres of the Ottoman dominion, and their
+superiority in numbers and industry made them more formidable urban rivals
+of the 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 regime. The sultan's fiscal demands were the least 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 capitation-tax levied by the sultan on his
+Christian subjects, the greater efficiency and security of his government
+probably compensated for the additional charge. The vitality of Greece was
+chiefly sapped by the ruthless military organization of the Ottoman state.
+The bulk of the Ottoman army was drawn from a feudal cavalry, bound to
+service, as in the mediaeval Latin world, in return for fiefs or 'timaria'
+assigned to them by their sovereign; and many beys and agas have
+bequeathed their names in perpetuity to the richest villages on the
+Messenian and Thessalian plains, to remind the modern peasant that his
+Christian ancestors once tilled the soil as serfs of a Moslem timariot.
+But the sultan, unlike his western contemporaries, was not content with
+irregular troops, and the serf-communes of Greece had to deliver up a
+fifth of their male children every fourth year to be trained at
+Constantinople as professional soldiers and fanatical Moslems. This corps
+of 'Janissaries'[1] was founded in the third generation of the Ottoman
+dynasty, and was the essential instrument of its military success. One
+race has never appropriated and exploited the vitality of another in so
+direct or so brutal a fashion, and the institution of 'tribute-children',
+so long as it lasted, effectually prevented any recovery of the Greek
+nation from the untimely blows which had stricken it down.
+
+[Footnote 1: Yeni Asker--New soldiery.]
+
+
+
+2
+
+_The Awakening of the Nation_
+
+
+During the two centuries that followed the Ottoman conquest of
+Constantinople, the Greek race was in serious danger of annihilation. Its
+life-blood was steadily absorbed into the conquering community--quite
+regularly by the compulsory tribute of children and spasmodically by the
+voluntary conversion of individual households. The rich apostasized,
+because too heavy a material sacrifice was imposed upon them by loyalty to
+their national religion; the destitute, 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 spared by the Ottoman
+Government in order to facilitate its own political system--by bringing
+the peasant, through the hierarchy of priest, bishop, and patriarch, under
+the moral control of the new Moslem master whom the ecclesiastics
+henceforth served.
+
+The scale on which wholesale apostasy was possible is shown by the case of
+Krete, which was conquered by the Turks from Venice just after these two
+centuries had closed, and was in fact the last permanent addition to the
+Turkish Empire. No urban or feudal settlers of Turkish blood were imported
+into the island. To this day the uniform speech of all Kretans is their
+native Greek. And yet the progressive conversion of whole clans and
+villages had transferred at least 20 per cent. of the population to the
+Moslem ranks before the Ottoman connexion was severed again in 1897.
+
+The survival of the Greek nationality did not depend on any efforts of the
+Greeks themselves. They were indeed no 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 the
+Ottoman state, and, as the two centuries drew to a close, that state
+entered upon a phase of transformation and of consequent weakness.
+
+The Ottoman organism has always displayed (and never more conspicuously
+than at the present moment) a much greater stability and vitality than any
+of its oriental predecessors. There was a vein of genius in its creators,
+and its youthful expansion permeated it with so much European blood that
+it became partly Europeanized in its inner tissues--sufficiently to
+partake, at any rate, in that faculty of indefinite organic growth which
+has so far revealed itself in European life. This acquired force has
+carried it on since the time when the impetus of its original institutions
+became spent--a time when purely oriental monarchies fall to pieces, and
+when Turkey herself hesitated between reconstruction and dissolution. That
+critical period began for her with the latter half of the seventeenth
+century, and incidentally opened new opportunities of life to her subject
+Greeks.
+
+Substantial relief from their burdens--the primary though negative
+condition of national revival--accrued to the Greek peasantry from the
+decay of Ottoman militarism in all its branches. The Turkish feudal
+aristocracy, which had replaced the landed nobility of the Romaic Empire
+in Anatolia and established itself on the choicest lands in conquered
+Europe, was beginning to decline in strength. We have seen that it failed
+to implant itself in Krete, and its numbers were already stationary
+elsewhere. The Greek peasant slowly began to regain ground upon his Moslem
+lord, and he profited further by the degeneration of the janissary corps
+at the heart of the empire.
+
+The janissaries had started as a militant, almost monastic body, condemned
+to celibacy, and recruited exclusively from the Christian
+tribute-children. But in 1566 they extorted the privilege of legal
+marriage for themselves, and of admittance into the corps for the sons of
+their wedlock. The next century completed their transformation from a
+standing army into a hereditary urban militia--an armed and privileged
+_bourgeoisie_, rapidly increasing in numbers and correspondingly jealous
+of extraneous candidates for the coveted vacancies in their ranks. They
+gradually succeeded in abolishing the enrolment of Christian recruits
+altogether, and the last regular levy of children for that purpose was
+made in 1676. Vested interests at Constantinople had freed the helpless
+peasant from the most crushing burden of all.
+
+At the same moment the contemporary tendency in western Europe towards
+bureaucratic centralization began to extend itself to the Ottoman Empire.
+Its exponents were the brothers Achmet and Mustapha Koeprili, who held the
+grand-vizierate in succession. They laid the foundations of a centralized
+administration, and, since the unadaptable Turk offered no promising
+material for their policy, they sought their instruments in the subject
+race. The continental Greeks were too effectively crushed to aspire beyond
+the preservation of their own existence; but the islands had been less
+sorely tried, and Khios, which had enjoyed over two centuries[1] of
+prosperity under the rule of a Genoese chartered company, and exchanged it
+for Ottoman sovereignty under peculiarly lenient conditions, could still
+supply Achmet a century later with officials of the intelligence and
+education he required, Khiots were the first to fill the new offices of
+'Dragoman of the Porte' (secretary of state) and 'Dragoman of the Fleet'
+(civil complement of the Turkish capitan-pasha); and they took care in
+their turn to staff the subordinate posts of their administration with a
+host of pushing friends and dependants. The Dragoman of the Fleet wielded
+the fiscal, and thereby in effect the political, authority over the Greek
+islands in the Aegean; but this was not the highest power to which the new
+Greek bureaucracy attained. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth
+century Moldavia and Wallachia--the two 'Danubian Provinces' now united in
+the kingdom of Rumania--were placed in charge of Greek officials with the
+rank of voivode or prince, and with practically sovereign power within
+their delegated dominions. A Danubian principality became the reward of a
+successful dragoman's career, and these high posts were rapidly
+monopolized by a close ring of official families, who exercised their
+immense patronage in favour of their race, and congregated round the Greek
+patriarch in the 'Phanari',[2] the Constantinopolitan slum assigned him
+for his residence by Mohammed the Conqueror.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1346-1566.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Lighthouse-quarter.']
+
+The alliance of this parvenu 'Phanariot' aristocracy with the conservative
+Orthodox Church was not unnatural, for the Church itself had greatly
+extended its political power under Ottoman suzerainty. The Ottoman
+Government hardly regarded its Christian subjects as integral members of
+the state, and was content to leave their civil government in the hands of
+their spiritual pastors to an extent the Romaic emperors would never have
+tolerated. It allowed the Patriarchate at Constantinople to become its
+official intermediary with the Greek race, and it further extended the
+Greek patriarch's authority over the other conquered populations of
+Orthodox faith--Bulgars, Rumans, and Serbs--which had never been
+incorporated in the ecclesiastical or political organization of the Romaic
+Empire, but which learnt under Ottoman rule to receive their priests and
+bishops from the Greek ecclesiastics of the capital, and even to call
+themselves by the Romaic name. In 1691 Mustapha Koeprili recognized and
+confirmed the rights of all Christian subjects of the Sultan by a general
+organic law.
+
+Mustapha's 'New Ordinance' was dictated by the reverses which Christians
+beyond the frontier were inflicting upon the Ottoman arms, for pressure
+from without had followed hard upon disintegration within. Achmet's
+pyrrhic triumph over Candia in 1669 was followed in 1683 by his brother
+Mustapha's disastrous discomfiture before the walls of Vienna, and these
+two sieges marked the turn of the Ottoman 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 'Ionian' chain of islands--
+Corfu, Cefalonia, Zante, and Cerigo--which 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 Greek race 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, it effectively broke the Ottoman
+tradition, and left behind it a system of communal self-government among
+the Peloponnesian Greeks which the returning Turk was too feeble to sweep
+away. The Turks gained nothing by the rapid downfall 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 in Russia, which had been reorganized towards the turn of the
+century by Peter the Great with a radical energy undreamed of by any
+Turkish Koeprili, and which found its destiny in opposition to the Ottoman
+Empire. The new Orthodox power regarded itself as the heir of the Romaic
+Empire from which it had received its first Christianity and culture. It
+aspired to repay the Romaic race in adversity by championing it against
+its Moslem oppressors, and sought its own reward in a maritime outlet on
+the Black Sea. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia
+repeatedly made war on Turkey, either with or without the co-operation of
+Austria; but the decisive bout in the struggle was the war of 1769-74. A
+Russian fleet appeared in the Mediterranean, raised an insurrection in
+Peloponnesos, and destroyed the Turkish squadron in battle. The Russian
+armies were still more successful on the steppes, and the Treaty of
+Kutchuk Kainardji not only left the whole north coast of the Black Sea in
+Russia's possession, but contained an international sanction for the
+rights of the sultan's Orthodox subjects. In 1783 a supplementary
+commercial treaty extorted for the Ottoman Greeks the right to trade under
+the Russian flag. The territorial sovereignty of Turkey in the Aegean
+remained intact, but the Russian guarantee gave the Greek race a more
+substantial security than the shadowy ordinance of Mustapha Koeprili. The
+paralysing prestige of the Porte was broken, and Greek eyes were
+henceforth turned in hope towards Petersburg.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1699-1718.]
+
+By the end of the eighteenth century the condition of the Greeks had in
+fact changed remarkably for the better, and the French and English
+travellers who now began to visit the Ottoman Empire brought away the
+impression that a critical change in its internal equilibrium was at hand.
+The Napoleonic wars had just extinguished the Venetian Republic and swept
+the Ionian Islands into the struggle between England and France for the
+mastery of the Mediterranean. 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 formidable neutrality towards
+either power.
+
+The career of Ali marked that phase in the decline of an Oriental empire
+when the task of strong government becomes too difficult for the central
+authority and is carried on by independent satraps with greater efficiency
+in their more limited sphere. Ali governed the Adriatic hinterland with
+practically sovereign power, and compelled the sultan for some years to
+invest his sons with the pashaliks of Thessaly and Peloponnesos. The
+greater part of the Greek race thus came in some degree under his control,
+and his policy towards it clearly reflected the transition from the old to
+the new. He waged far more effective war than the distant sultan upon
+local liberties, and, though the elimination of the feudal Turkish
+landowner was pure gain to the Greeks, they suffered themselves from the
+loss of traditional privileges which the original Ottoman conquest had
+left intact. The Armatoli, a local Christian militia who kept order in the
+mountainous mainland north of Peloponnesos where 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 Aspropotarno, which had never been inscribed on the
+taxation-rolls of the Romaic or the Ottoman treasury, 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 became as essentially Greek in character as the Phanariot regime
+beyond the Danube. Ali was a Moslem and an Albanian, but the Orthodox
+Greeks were in a majority among his subjects, and he knew how to take
+advantage of their abilities. His business was conducted by Greek
+secretaries in the Greek tongue, and Yannina, his capital, was a Greek
+city. European visitors to Yannina (for every one began the Levantine tour
+by paying his respects to Ali) were struck by the enterprise and
+intelligence of its citizens. The doctors were competent, because they had
+taken their education in Italy or France; the merchants were prosperous,
+because they had established members of their family at Odessa, Trieste,
+or even Hamburg, as permanent agents of their firm. A new Greek
+_bourgeoisie_ had arisen, in close contact with the professional life of
+western Europe, and equally responsive to the new philosophical and
+political ideas that were being propagated by the French Revolution.
+
+This intellectual ferment was the most striking change of all. Since the
+sack of Constantinople in 1204, Greek culture had retired into the
+monasteries--inaccessible fastnesses where the monks lived much the same
+life as the clansmen of Suli or Agrapha. Megaspelaion, the great cave
+quarried in the wall of a precipitous Peloponnesian ravine; Meteora,
+suspended on half a dozen isolated pinnacles of rock in Thessaly, where
+the only access was by pulley or rope-ladder; 'Ayon Oros', the
+confederation of monasteries great and small upon the mountain-promontory
+of Athos--these succeeded in preserving a shadow of the old tradition, at
+the cost of isolation from all humane influences that might have kept
+their spiritual inheritance alive. Their spirit was mediaeval,
+ecclesiastical, and as barren as their sheltering rocks; and the new
+intellectual disciples of Europe turned to the monasteries in vain. The
+biggest ruin on Athos is a boys' school planned in the eighteenth century
+to meet the educational needs of all the Orthodox in the Ottoman Empire,
+and wrecked on the reefs of monastic obscurantism. But its founder, the
+Corfiot scholar Evyenios Voulgaris, did not hesitate to break with the
+past. He put his own educational ideas into practice at Yannina and
+Constantinople, 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
+lifeless travesty of Attic style traditionally affected by ecclesiastical
+penmen. But the renaissance was not confined to Greeks abroad. The school
+on Athos failed, but others established themselves before the close of the
+eighteenth century in the people's midst, even in the smaller towns and
+the remoter villages. The still flourishing secondary school of
+Dhimitzana, in the heart of Peloponnesos, began its existence in this
+period, and the national revival found expression in a new name. Its
+prophets repudiated the 'Romaic' name, with its associations of ignorance
+and oppression, and taught their pupils to think of themselves as
+'Hellenes' and to claim in their own right the intellectual and political
+liberty of the Ancient Greeks.
+
+This spiritual 'Hellenism', however, was only one manifestation of
+returning vitality, and was ultimately due to the concrete economic
+development with which it went hand 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 in a penetrating way upon
+their countrymen at home. A mountain village like Ambelakia in Thessaly
+found a regular market for its dyed goods in Germany, and the commercial
+treaty of 1783 between Turkey and Russia encouraged communities which
+could make nothing of the land to turn their attention to the sea.
+Galaxhidi, a village on the northern shore of the Korinthian Gulf, whose
+only asset was its natural harbour, and Hydhra, Spetza, and Psara, 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 they exploited to
+the full. The whitewashed houses of solid stone, rising tier above tier up
+the naked limestone mountainside, still testify to the prosperity which
+chance thus suddenly brought to the Hydhriots and their fellow islanders,
+and did not withdraw again till it had enabled them to play a decisive
+part in their nation's history.
+
+Their ships were small, but they were home-built, skilfully navigated, and
+profitably employed in the carrying trade of the Mediterranean ports.
+Their economic life was based 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 profit of each voyage; but their political
+organization was oligarchical--an executive council 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 seafaring islands on the eve of the modern
+Greek Revolution were an exact reproduction of the Aigina, Korinth, and
+Athens which repelled the Persian from Ancient Greece. The germs of a new
+national life were thus springing up among the Greeks in every direction--
+in mercantile colonies scattered over the world from Odessa to Alexandria
+and from Smyrna to Trieste; among Phanariot princes in the Danubian
+Provinces and their ecclesiastical colleagues at Constantinople; in the
+islands of the Aegean and the Ionian chain, and upon the mountains of Suli
+and Agrapha. But the ambitions this national revival aroused were even
+greater than the reality itself. The leaders of the movement did not
+merely aspire to liberate the Greek nation from the Turkish yoke. They
+were conscious of the assimilative power their nationality possessed. The
+Suliots, for example, were an immigrant Albanian tribe, who had learnt to
+speak Greek from the Greek peasants over whom they tyrannized. The
+Hydhriot and Spetziot islanders were Albanians too, who had even clung to
+their primitive language during the two generations since they took up
+their present abode, but had become none the less firmly linked to their
+Greek-speaking neighbours in Peloponnesos by their common fellowship in
+the Orthodox Church. The numerous Albanian colonies settled up and down
+the Greek continent were at least as Greek in feeling as they. And why
+should not the same prove true of the Bulgarian population, in the
+Balkans, who had belonged from the beginning to the Orthodox Church, and
+had latterly been brought by improvident Ottoman policy within the Greek
+patriarch's fold? Or why should not the Greek administrators beyond the
+Danube imbue their Ruman subjects with a sound Hellenic sentiment? In
+fact, the prophets of Hellenism did not so much desire to extricate the
+Greek nation from the Ottoman Empire as to make it the ruling element in
+the empire itself by ejecting the Moslem Turks from their privileged
+position and assimilating all populations of Orthodox faith. These dreams
+took shape in the foundation of a secret society--the 'Philiki Hetairia'
+or 'League of Friends'--which established itself at Odessa in 1814 with
+the connivence of the Russian police, and opened a campaign of propaganda
+in anticipation of an opportunity to strike.
+
+The initiative came from the Ottoman Government itself. At the weakest
+moment in its history the empire found in Sultan Mahmud a ruler of
+peculiar strength, who saw that the only hope of overcoming his dangers
+lay in meeting them half-way. The national movement of Hellenism was
+gathering momentum in the background, but it was screened by the personal
+ambitions of Ali of Yannina, and Mahmud reckoned to forestall both enemies
+by quickly striking Ali down.
+
+In the winter of 1819-20 Ali was outlawed, and in the spring the invasion
+of his territories began. Both the Moslem combatants enlisted Christian
+Armatoli, and all continental Greece was under arms. By the end of the
+summer Ali's outlying strongholds had fallen, his armies were driven in,
+and he himself was closely invested in Yannina; but with autumn a deadlock
+set in, and the sultan's reckoning was thrown out. In November 1820 the
+veteran soldier Khurshid was appointed to the pashalik of Peloponnesos to
+hold the Greeks in check and close accounts with Ali. In March 1821, after
+five months spent in organizing his province, Khurshid felt secure enough
+to leave it for the Yannina lines. But he was mistaken; for within a month
+of his departure Peloponnesos was ablaze.
+
+The 'Philiki Hetairia' had decided to act, and the Peloponnesians
+responded enthusiastically to the signal. In the north Germanos,
+metropolitan bishop of Patras, rallied the insurgents at the monastery of
+Megaspelaion, and unfurled the monastic altar-cloth as a national
+standard. In the south the peninsula of Maina, which had been the latest
+refuge of ancient Hellenism, was now the first to welcome the new, and to
+throw off the shadowy allegiance it had paid for a thousand years to
+Romaic archonts and Ottoman capitan-pashas. Led by Petros Mavromichalis,
+the chief of the leading clan, the Mainates issued from their mountains.
+This was in April, and by the middle of May all the open country had been
+swept clear, and the hosts joined hands before Tripolitza, which was the
+seat of Ottoman government at the central point of the province. The
+Turkish garrison attacked, but was heavily defeated at Valtetzi by the
+tactical skill of Theodore Kolokotronis the 'klepht', who had become
+experienced in guerrilla warfare through his alternate professions of
+brigand and gendarme--a career that had increased its possibilities as
+the Ottoman system decayed. After Kolokotronis's victory, the Greeks kept
+Tripolitza under a close blockade. Early in October it fell amid frightful
+scenes of pillage and massacre, and Ottoman dominion in the Peloponnesos
+fell with it. On January 22, 1822, Korinth, the key to the isthmus, passed
+into the Greeks' hands, and only four fortresses--Nauplia, Patras, Koron,
+and Modhon--still held out within it against Greek investment. Not a Turk
+survived in the Peloponnesos beyond their walls, for the slaughter at
+Tripolitza was only the most terrible instance of what happened wherever a
+Moslem colony was found. In Peloponnesos, at any rate, the revolution had
+been grimly successful.
+
+There had also been successes at sea. The merchant marine of the Greek
+islands had suffered grievously from the fall of Napoleon and the
+settlement at Vienna, which, by restoring normal conditions of trade, had
+destroyed their abnormal monopoly. The revolution offered new
+opportunities for profitable venture, and in April 1821 Hydhra, Spetza and
+Psara hastened to send a privateering fleet to sea. As soon as the fleet
+crossed the Aegean, Samos rid itself of the Turks. At the beginning of
+June the rickety Ottoman squadron issued from the Dardanelles, but it was
+chased back by the islanders under the lee of Mitylini. Memories of
+Russian naval tactics in 1770 led the Psariots to experiment in
+fire-ships, and one of the two Turkish ships of the line fell a victim to
+this attack. 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 fairly launched, and in the
+first panic the threatened Moslems began reprisals of an equally general
+kind. In the larger Turkish cities there were massacres of Christian
+minorities, and the Government lent countenance to them by murdering its
+own principal Christian official Gregorios, the Greek patriarch at
+Constantinople, on April 22, 1821. But Sultan Mahmud quickly recovered
+himself. He saw that his empire 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 distant sparks with
+all his energy, before concentrating his force at leisure upon the main
+conflagration.
+
+This policy was justified by the event. On March 6 the 'Philiki Hetairia'
+at Odessa had opened its own operations in grandiose style by sending a
+filibustering expedition across the Russo-Turkish frontier under command
+of Prince Alexander Hypsilantis, a Phanariot in the Russian service.
+Hypsilantis played for a general revolt of the Ruman population in the
+Danubian Principalities and a declaration of war against Turkey on the
+part of Russia. But the Rumans had no desire to assist the Greek
+bureaucrats who oppressed them, and the Tsar Alexander had been converted
+by the experiences of 1812-13 to a pacifistic respect for the _status
+quo_. Prince Hypsilantis was driven ignominiously to internment across the
+Austrian frontier, little more than a hundred days after his expedition
+began; and his fiasco assured the Ottoman Government of two encouraging
+facts--that the revolution would not carry away the whole Orthodox
+population but would at any rate confine itself to the Greeks; and that
+the struggle against it would be fought out for the present, at least,
+without foreign intervention.
+
+In the other direction, however, rebellion was spreading northward from
+Peloponnesos to continental Greece. Galaxidhi revolted in April, and was
+followed in June by Mesolonghi--a prosperous town of fishermen,
+impregnably situated in the midst of the lagoons at the mouth of the
+Aspropotamo, beyond the narrows of the Korinthian Gulf. By the end of the
+month, north-western Greece was free as far as 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), the Armatoli of Ali's faction had held
+their ground, and gladly joined the revolution on the initiative of their
+captains Dhiakos and Odhyssevs. But the movement found its limits. The
+Turkish garrison of Athens obstinately held out during the winter of
+1821-2, and the Moslems of Negrepont (Euboia) maintained their mastery in
+the island. In Agrapha they likewise held their own, and, after one
+severely punished raid, the Agraphiot Armatoli were induced to re-enter
+the sultan's service on liberal terms. The Vlachs in the gorges of the
+Aspropotamo were pacified with equal success; and Dramali, Khurshid's
+lieutenant, who guarded the communications between the army investing
+Yannina and its base at Constantinople, was easily able to crush all
+symptoms of revolt in Thessaly from his head-quarters at Larissa. Still
+further east, the autonomous Greek villages on the mountainous
+promontories of Khalkidhiki had revolted in May, in conjunction with the
+well-supplied and massively fortified monasteries of the 'Ayon Oros'; but
+the Pasha of Salonika called down the South Slavonic Moslem landowners
+from the interior, sacked the villages, and amnestied the monastic
+confederation on condition of establishing a Turkish garrison in their
+midst and confiscating their arms. The monks' compliance was assisted by
+the excommunication under which the new patriarch at Constantinople had
+placed all the insurgents by the sultan's command.
+
+The movement was thus successfully localised on the European continent,
+and further afield it was still more easily cut short. After the
+withdrawal of the Turkish squadron, the Greek fleet had to look on at the
+systematic destruction of Kydhonies,[1] a flourishing Greek industrial
+town on the mainland opposite Mitylini which had been founded under the
+sultan's auspices only forty years before. All that the islanders could do
+was to take off the survivors in their boats; and when they dispersed to
+their ports in autumn, the Ottoman ships came out again from the
+Dardanelles, sailed round Peloponnesos into the Korinthian Gulf, and
+destroyed Galaxidhi. A still greater catastrophe followed the reopening of
+naval operations next spring. In March 1822 the Samians landed a force on
+Khios and besieged the Turkish garrison, which was relieved after three
+weeks by the arrival of the Ottoman fleet. A month later the Greek fleet
+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 this the Ottoman fleet fled back as 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 at the
+destruction of Kydhonies the season before. In the following summer,
+again, the same fate befell Trikeri, a maritime community on the Gulf of
+Volo which had gained its freedom when the rest of Thessaly stirred in
+vain; and so in 1823 the revolution found itself confined on sea, as well
+as on land, to the focus where it had originated in April 1821.
+
+[Footnote 1: Turkish Aivali.]
+
+This isolation was a practical triumph for Sultan Mahmud. The maintenance
+of the Ottoman Empire on the basis of Moslem ascendancy was thereby
+assured; but it remained to be seen whether the isolated area could now be
+restored to the _status quo_ in which the rest of his dominions had been
+retained.
+
+During the whole season of 1821 the army of Khurshid had been held before
+Yannina. But in February 1822 Yannina fell, Ali was slain, his treasure
+seized, and his troops disbanded. The Ottoman forces were liberated for a
+counterattack on Peloponnesos. Already in April Khurshid broke up his camp
+at Larissa, and his lieutenant Dramali was given command of the new
+expedition towards the south. He crossed the Sperkheios at the beginning
+of July with an army of twenty thousand men.[1] Athens had capitulated to
+Odhyssevs ten days before; but it had kept open the road for Dramali, and
+north-eastern Greece fell without resistance into his hands. The citadel
+of Korinth surrendered as tamely as the open country, and he was master of
+the isthmus before the end of the month. Nauplia meanwhile had been
+treating with its besiegers for terms, and would have surrendered to the
+Greeks already if they had not driven their bargain so hard. Dramali
+hurried on southward into the plain to the fortress'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 experienced direction of Kolokotronis,
+the Greeks from their hill-fastnesses ringed round the plain of Argos and
+scaled up every issue. Dramali's supplies ran out. An attempt of his
+vanguard to break through again towards the north was bloodily repulsed,
+and he barely succeeded two days later in extricating 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 at Korinth, and Khurshid was
+executed by the sultan's command. The invasion of Peloponnesos had broken
+down, and nothing could avert the fall of Nauplia. The Ottoman fleet
+hovered for one September week in the offing, but Kanaris's fire-ships
+took another ship of the line in toll at the roadsteads of Tenedos before
+it safely regained the Dardanelles. The garrison of Nauplia capitulated in
+December, on condition of personal security and liberty, and the captain
+of a British frigate, which arrived on the spot, took measures that the
+compact should be observed instead of being broken by the customary
+massacre. But the strongest fortress in Peloponnesos was now in Greek
+hands.
+
+[Footnote 1: Including a strong contingent of Moslem Slavs--Bulgarian
+Pomaks from the Aegean hinterland and Serbian Bosniaks from the Adriatic.]
+
+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 strong sultan was just as formidable to the
+Suliots as a strong pasha, so they swelled their ranks by enfranchising
+their peasant-serfs, and made common cause with their old enemy in his
+adversity. Now that Ali was destroyed, the Suliots found themselves in a
+precarious position, and turned to the Greeks for aid. But on July 16 the
+Greek advance was checked by a severe defeat at 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 to advance in turn towards the south.
+On November 6 he actually laid siege to Mesolonghi, but here his
+experiences were as discomfiting as Dramali's. He could not keep open his
+communications, and after heavy losses retreated again to Arta in January
+1823.
+
+[Footnote 1: He was a renegade officer of Ali's.]
+
+In 1823 the struggle seemed to be lapsing into stalemate. The liberated
+Peloponnesos had failed to propagate the revolution through the remainder
+of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Government had equally failed to
+reconquer the 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 he penetrated no
+further than Anatolikon--the Mesolonghiots' outpost village at the head of
+the lagoons--and the campaign was only memorable for the heroic death of
+Marko Botzaris the Suliot in a night attack upon the Ottoman camp. At sea,
+the two fleets indulged in desultory cruises without an encounter, for the
+Turks were still timid and incompetent, while the growing insubordination
+and dissension on the Greek ships made concerted action there, too,
+impossible. By the end of the season it was clear that the struggle could
+only definitively be decided by the intervention of a third party on one
+side or the other--unless the Greeks brought their own ruin upon
+themselves.
+
+This indeed was not unlikely to happen; for the new house of Hellenism had
+hardly arisen before it became desperately divided against itself. The
+vitality of the national movement resided entirely in the local communes.
+It was they that had found the fighting men, kept them armed and supplied,
+and by spontaneous co-operation expelled the Turk from Peloponnesos. But
+if the co-operation was to be permanent it must have a central
+organization, and with the erection of this superstructure the troubles
+began. As early as June 1821 a 'Peloponnesian Senate' was constituted and
+at once monopolized by the 'Primates', the propertied class that had been
+responsible for the communal taxes under the Romaic and Ottoman regimes
+and was allowed to control the communal government in return. About the
+same time two Phanariot princes threw in their lot with the revolution--
+Alexander Mavrokordatos and Demetrius, the more estimable brother of the
+futile Alexander Hypsilantis. Both were saturated with the most recent
+European political theory, and they committed the peasants and seamen of
+the liberated districts to an ambitious constitutionalism. In December
+1821 a 'National Assembly' met at Epidauros, passed an elaborate organic
+law, and elected Mavrokordatos first president of the Hellenic Republic.
+
+The struggle for life and death in 1822 had staved off the internal
+crisis, but the Peloponnesian Senate remained obstinately recalcitrant
+towards the National Government in defence of its own vested interests;
+and the insubordination of the fleet in 1823 was of one piece with the
+political faction which broke out as soon as the immediate danger from
+without was removed.
+
+Towards the end of 1823 European 'Philhellenes' began to arrive in Greece.
+In those dark days of reaction that followed Waterloo, self-liberated
+Hellas seemed the one bright spot on the continent; but the idealists who
+came to offer her their services were confronted with a sorry spectacle.
+The people were indifferent to their leaders, and the leaders at variance
+among themselves. The gentlemanly Phanariots had fallen into the
+background. Mavrokordatos only retained influence in north-western Greece.
+In Peloponnesos the Primates were all-powerful, and Kolokotronis the
+klepht was meditating a popular dictatorship at their expense. In the
+north-east the adventurer Odhyssevs had won a virtual dictatorship
+already, and was suspected of intrigue with the Turks; and all this
+factious dissension rankled into civil war as soon as the contraction of a
+loan in Great Britain had invested the political control of the Hellenic
+Republic with a prospective value in cash. The first civil war was fought
+between Kolokotronis on the one side and the Primates of Hydhra and
+Peloponnesos on the other; but the issue was decided against Kolokotronis
+by the adhesion to the coalition of Kolettis the Vlach, once physician to
+Mukhtar Pasha, the son of Ali, and now political agent for all the
+northern Armatoli in the national service. The fighting lasted from
+November 1823 to June 1824, and was followed by another outbreak in
+November of the latter year, when the victors quarrelled over the spoils,
+and the Primates were worsted in turn by the islanders and the Armatoli.
+The nonentity Kondouriottis of Hydhra finally emerged as President of
+Greece, with the sharp-witted Kolettis as his principal wire-puller, but
+the disturbances did not cease till the last instalment of the loan had
+been received and squandered and there was no more spoil to fight for.
+
+Meanwhile, Sultan Mahmud had been better employed. Resolved to avert
+stalemate by the only possible means, he had applied in the course of 1823
+to Mohammed Ali Pasha of Egypt, a more formidable, though more distant,
+satrap than Ali of Yannina himself. Mohammed Ali had a standing army and
+navy organized on the European model. He had also a son Ibrahim, who knew
+how to manoeuvre them, and was ambitious of a kingdom. Mahmud hired the
+father's troops and the son's generalship for the re-conquest of
+Peloponnesos, under engagement to invest Ibrahim with the pashalik as soon
+as he should effectively make it his own. By this stroke of diplomacy a
+potential rebel was turned into a willing ally, and the preparations for
+the Egyptian expedition went forward busily through the winter of 1823-4.
+
+The plan of campaign was systematically carried out. During the season of
+respite the Greek islanders had harried the coasts and commerce of
+Anatolia and Syria at will. The first task was to deprive them of their
+outposts in the Aegean, and an advanced squadron of the Egyptian fleet
+accordingly destroyed the community of Kasos in June 1824, while the
+Ottoman squadron sallied out of the Dardanelles a month later and dealt
+out equal measure to Psara. The two main flotillas then effected a
+junction off Rhodes; and, though the crippled Greek fleet still ventured
+pluckily to confront them, it could not prevent Ibrahim from casting
+anchor safely in Soudha Bay and landing his army to winter in Krete. In
+February 1825 he transferred these troops with equal impunity to the
+fortress of Modhon, which was still held for the sultan by an Ottoman
+garrison. The fire-ships of Hydhra came to harry his fleet too late, and
+on land the Greek forces were impotent against his trained soldiers. The
+Government in vain promoted Kolokotronis from captivity to
+commandership-in-chief. The whole south-western half of Peloponnesos
+passed into Ibrahim's hands, and in June 1825 he even penetrated as far as
+the mills of Lerna on the eastern coast, a few miles south of Argos
+itself.
+
+At the same time the Ottoman army of the west moved south again under a
+new commander, Rashid Pasha of Yannina, and laid final siege on April 27
+to Mesolonghi, just a year after Byron had died of fever within its walls.
+The Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frail mud-bastions,
+and they more than held their own in the amphibious warfare of the
+lagoons. The struggle was chequered by the continual coming and going of
+the Greek and Ottoman fleets. They were indeed the decisive factor; for
+without the supporting squadron Rashid would have found himself in the
+same straits as his predecessors at the approach of autumn, while the
+slackness of the islanders in keeping the sea allowed Mesolonghi to be
+isolated in January 1826. The rest was accomplished by the arrival of
+Ibrahim on the scene. His heavy batteries opened fire in February; his
+gunboats secured command of the lagoons, and forced Anatolikon to
+capitulate in March. In April provisions in Mesolonghi itself gave out,
+and, scorning surrender, the garrison--men, women, and children together--
+made a general sortie on the night of April 22. Four thousand fell, three
+thousand were taken, and two thousand won through. It was a glorious end
+for Mesolonghi, but it left the enemy in possession of all north-western
+Greece.
+
+The situation was going from bad to worse. Ibrahim returned to
+Peloponnesos, and steadily pushed forward his front, ravaging as steadily
+as he went. Rashid, after pacifying the north-west, moved on to the
+north-eastern districts, where the national cause had been shaken by the
+final treachery and speedy assassination of Odhyssevs. Siege was laid to
+Athens in June, and the Greek Government enlisted in vain the military
+experience of its Philhellenes. Fabvier held the Akropolis, but
+Generalissimo Sir Richard Church was heavily defeated in the spring of
+1827 in an attempt to relieve him from the Attic coast; Grand Admiral
+Cochrane saw his fleet sail home for want of payment in advance, when he
+summoned it for review at Poros; and Karaiskakis, the Greek captain of
+Armatoli, was killed in a skirmish during his more successful efforts to
+harass Rashid's communications by land. On June 5, 1827, the Greek
+garrison of the Akropolis marched out on terms.
+
+It looked as if the Greek effort after independence would be completely
+crushed, and as if Sultan Mahmud would succeed in getting his empire under
+control. In September 1826 he had rid it at last of the mischief at its
+centre by blowing up the janissaries in their barracks at Constantinople.
+Turkey seemed almost to have weathered the storm when she was suddenly
+overborne by further intervention on the other side.
+
+Tsar Alexander, the vaccillator, died in November 1825, and was succeeded
+by his son Nicholas I, as strong a character and as active a will as
+Sultan Mahmud himself. Nicholas approached the Greek question without any
+disinclination towards a Turkish war; and both Great Britain and France
+found an immediate interest in removing a ground of provocation which
+might lead to such a rude disturbance of the European 'Balance of Power'.
+On July 6, 1827, a month after Athens surrendered, the three powers
+concluded a treaty for the pacification of Greece, in which they bound
+over both belligerent parties to accept an armistice under pain of
+military coercion. An allied squadron appeared off Navarino Bay to enforce
+this policy upon the Ottoman and Egyptian fleet which lay united there,
+and the intrusion of the allied admirals into the bay itself precipitated
+on October 20 a violent naval battle in which the Moslem flotilla was
+destroyed. The die was cast; and in April 1828 the Russian and Ottoman
+Governments drifted into a formal war, which brought Russian armies across
+the Danube as far as Adrianople, and set the Ottoman Empire at bay for the
+defence of its capital. Thanks to Mahmud's reorganization, the empire did
+not succumb to this assault; but it had no more strength to spare for the
+subjugation of Greece. The Greeks had no longer to reckon with the sultan
+as a military factor; and in August 1828 they wore relieved of Ibrahim's
+presence as well, by the disembarkation of 14,000 French troops in
+Peloponnesos to superintend the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces. In
+March 1829 the three powers delimited the Greek frontier. The line ran
+east and west from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta, and assigned to
+the new state no more and no less territory than the districts that had
+effectively asserted their independence against the sultan in 1821. This
+settlement was the only one possible under the circumstances; but it was
+essentially transitory, for it neglected the natural line of nationality
+altogether, and left a numerical majority of the Greek race, as well as
+the most important centres of its life, under the old regime of servitude.
+
+Even the liberated area was not at the end of its troubles. In the spring
+of 1827, when they committed themselves into the hands of their foreign
+patrons, the Greeks had found a new president for the republic in John
+Kapodistrias, an intimate of Alexander the tsar. Kapodistrias was a
+Corfiote count, with a Venetian education and a career in the Russian
+diplomatic service, and no one could have been more fantastically
+unsuitable for the task of reconstructing the country to which he was
+called. Kapodistrias' ideal was the _fin-de-siecle_ 'police-state'; but
+'official circles' did not exist in Greece, and he had no acquaintance
+with the peasants and sailors whom he hoped to redeem by bureaucracy. He
+instituted a hierarchically centralized administration which made the
+abortive constitution of Mavrokordatos seem sober by comparison; he
+trampled on the liberty of the rising press, which was the most hopeful
+educational influence in the country; and he created superfluous
+ministerial portfolios for his untalented brothers. In fact he reglamented
+Greece from his palace at Aigina like a divinely appointed autocrat, from
+his arrival in January 1828 till the summer of 1831, when he provoked the
+Hydhriots to open rebellion, and commissioned the Russian squadron in
+attendance to quell them by a naval action, with the result that Poros was
+sacked by the President's regular army and the national fleet was
+completely destroyed. After that, he attempted to rule as a military
+dictator, and fell foul of the Mavromichalis of Maina. The Mainates knew
+better how to deal with the 'police-state' than the Hydhriots; and on
+October 9, 1831, Kapodistrias was assassinated in Nauplia, at the church
+door, by two representatives of the Mavromichalis clan.
+
+The country lapsed into utter anarchy. Peloponnesians and Armatoli,
+Kolokotronists and Kolettists, alternately appointed and deposed
+subservient national assemblies and governing commissions by naked
+violence, which culminated in a gratuitous and disastrous attack upon the
+French troops stationed in Peloponnesos for their common protection. The
+three powers realized that it was idle to liberate Greece from Ottoman
+government unless they found her another in its place. They decided on
+monarchy, and offered 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 in July 1832 the
+sultan recognized the sovereign independence of the kingdom of Hellas in
+consideration of a cash indemnity; and in February 1833, just a year after
+the first overtures had been made, the appointed king arrived at Nauplia
+with a decorative Bavarian staff and a substantial loan from the allies.
+
+
+
+3
+
+_The Consolidation of the State_
+
+
+Half the story of Greece is told. We have watched the nation awake and put
+forth its newly-found strength in a great war of independence, and we have
+followed the course of the struggle to its result--the foundation of the
+kingdom of Hellas.
+
+It is impossible to close this chapter of Greek history without a sense of
+disappointment. The spirit of Greece had travailed, and only a
+principality was born, which gathered within its frontiers scarcely
+one-third of the race, and turned for its government to a foreign
+administration which had no bond of tradition or affinity with the
+population it was to rule. And yet something had been achieved. An oasis
+had been wrested from the Turkish wilderness, in which Hellenism could
+henceforth work out its own salvation untrammelled, and extend its borders
+little by little, until it brought within them at last the whole of its
+destined heritage. The fleeting glamour of dawn had passed, but it had
+brought the steady light of day, in which the work begun could be carried
+out soberly and indefatigably to its conclusion. The new kingdom, in fact,
+if it fulfilled its mission, might become the political nucleus and the
+spiritual ensample of a permanently awakened nation--an 'education of
+Hellas' such as Pericles hoped to see Athens become in the greatest days
+of Ancient Greece.
+
+When, therefore, we turn to the history of the kingdom, our disappointment
+is all the more intense, for in the first fifty years of its existence
+there is little development to record. In 1882 King Otto's principality
+presented much the same melancholy spectacle as it did in 1833, when he
+landed in Nauplia Bay, except that Otto himself had left the scene. His
+Bavarian staff belonged to that reactionary generation that followed the
+overthrow of Napoleon in Europe, and attempted, heedless of Kapodistrias'
+fiasco, to impose on Greece the bureaucracy of the _ancien regime_. The
+Bavarians' work was entirely destructive. The local liberties which had
+grown up under the Ottoman dominion and been the very life of the national
+revival, were effectively repressed. Hydhriot and Spetziot, Suliot and
+Mainate, forfeited their characteristic individuality, but none of the
+benefits of orderly and uniform government were realized. The canker of
+brigandage defied all efforts to root it out, and in spite of the loans
+with which the royal government was supplied by the protecting powers, the
+public finance was subject 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 1843. 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 to Dane, yet the
+afflictions continued. In 1882 King George had been nineteen years on the
+throne[1] without any happier fortune than his predecessor's. It is true
+that the frontiers of the kingdom had been somewhat extended. Great
+Britain had presented the new sovereign with the Ionian Islands as an
+inaugural gift, and the Berlin Conference had recently added the province
+of Thessaly. Yet the major part of the Greek race still awaited liberation
+from the Turkish yoke, and regarded the national kingdom, chronically
+incapacitated by the twin plagues of brigandage and bankruptcy, with
+increasing disillusionment. The kingdom of Hellas seemed to have failed in
+its mission altogether.
+
+[Footnote 1: King George, like King Otto, was only seventeen years old
+when he received his crown.]
+
+What was the explanation of this failure? It was that the very nature of
+the mission paralysed the state from taking the steps essential to its
+accomplishment. The phenomenon has been, unhappily, only too familiar in
+the Nearer East, and any one who travelled in the Balkans in 1882, or even
+so recently as 1912, must at once have become aware of it.
+
+Until a nation has completely vindicated its right to exist, it is hard
+for it to settle down and make its life worth living. We nations of
+western Europe (before disaster fell upon us) had learnt to take our
+existence for granted, and 'Politics' for us had come to mean an organized
+effort to improve the internal economy of our community. But a foreigner
+who picked up a Greek newspaper would have found in it none of 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 been monopolized by foreign politics, and in the cafes he would have
+heard the latest oscillation in the international balance of power
+canvassed with the same intense and minute interest that Englishmen in a
+railway-carriage would have been devoting to Old Age Pensions, National
+Health Insurance, or Land Valuation. He would have been amazed by a
+display of intimate knowledge such as no British quidnunc could have
+mustered if he had happened to stumble across these intricacies of
+international competition, and the conversation would always have
+terminated in the same unanswered but inconscionable challenge to the
+future: 'When will the oppressed majority of our race escape the Turkish
+yoke? If the Ottoman dominion is destroyed, what redistribution of its
+provinces will follow? Shall we then achieve our national unity, or will
+our Balkan neighbours encroach upon the inheritance which is justly ours?'
+
+This preoccupation with events beyond the frontiers was not caused by any
+lack of vital problems within them. The army was the most conspicuous
+object of public activity, but it was not an aggressive speculation, or an
+investment of national profits deliberately calculated to bring in one day
+a larger return. It was a necessity of 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 again at the
+miserable state of all reproductive public works. The railways were few
+and far between, their routes roundabout, and their rolling-stock scanty,
+so that trains were both rare and slow. Wheel-roads were no commoner a
+feature in Greece than railways are here, and such stretches as had been
+constructed had often never come into use, because they had just failed to
+reach their goal or were still waiting for their bridges, so that they
+were simply falling into decay and converting the outlay of capital upon
+them into a dead loss. The Peiraeus was the only port in the country where
+steamers could come alongside a quay, and discharge their cargoes directly
+on shore. Elsewhere, the vessel must anchor many cables' lengths out, 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 open roadstead, where all
+ships that call are kept at a distance by the silt from a mountain
+torrent, and so placed in imminent danger of being driven, by the first
+storm, upon the rocks of a neighbouring peninsula.
+
+[Footnote 1: The four chief ports being Peiraeus, Patras, Syra, and
+Volos.]
+
+These grave shortcomings were doubtless due in part to the 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
+attempt much more, if the nation's energy could have been secured for the
+work. But it is hard to tinker at details when you are kept in a perpetual
+fever by a question of life and death, and the great preliminary questions
+of national unity and self-government remained still unsettled.
+
+Before these supreme problems all other interests paled, for they were no
+will-o'-the-wisps of theoretical politics. It needs a long political
+education to appreciate abstract ideas, and the Greeks were still in their
+political infancy, but the realization of Greater Greece implied for them
+the satisfaction of all their concrete needs at once.
+
+So long as the _status quo_ endured, they were isolated from the rest of
+Europe by an unbroken band of Turkish territory, stretching from the
+Aegean to the Adriatic Sea. What was the use of overcoming great
+engineering difficulties to build a line of European gauge from Athens
+right up to the northern frontier, if Turkey refused to sanction the
+construction of the tiny section that must pass through her territory
+between the Greek railhead and the actual terminus of the European system
+at Salonika? Or if, even supposing she withdrew her veto, she would have
+it in her power to bring pressure on Greece at any moment by threatening
+to sever communications along this vital artery? So long as Turkey was
+there, Greece was practically an island, and her only communication with
+continental Europe lay through her ports. But what use to improve the
+ports, when the recovery of Salonika, the fairest object of the national
+dreams, would ultimately change the country's economic centre of gravity,
+and make her maritime as well as her overland commerce flow along quite
+other channels than the present?
+
+Thus the Greek nation's present was overshadowed by its future, and its
+actions paralysed by its hopes. Perhaps a nation with more power of
+application and less of imagination would have schooled itself to the
+thought that these sordid, obtrusive details were the key to the
+splendours of the future, and would have devoted itself to the systematic
+amelioration of the cramped area which it had already secured for its own.
+This is what Bulgaria managed to do during her short but wonderful period
+of internal growth between the Berlin Treaty of 1878 and the declaration
+of war against Turkey in 1912. But Bulgaria, thanks to her geographical
+situation, was from the outset freer from the tentacles of the Turkish
+octopus than Greece had contrived to make herself by her fifty years'
+start, while her temperamentally sober ambitions were not inflamed by such
+past traditions as Greece had inherited, not altogether to her advantage.
+Be that as it may, Greece, whether by fault or misfortune, had failed
+during this half-century to apply herself successfully to the cure of her
+defects and the exploitation of her assets, though she did not lack
+leaders strong-minded enough to summon her to the dull business of the
+present. Her history during the succeeding generation was a struggle
+between the parties of the Present and the Future, and the unceasing
+discomfiture of the former is typified in the tragedy of Trikoupis, the
+greatest modern Greek statesman before the advent of Venezelos.
+
+Trikoupis came into power in 1882, just after the acquisition of the rich
+agricultural province of Thessaly under the Treaty of Berlin had given the
+kingdom a fresh start. There were no such continuous areas of good arable
+land within the original frontiers, and such rare patches as there were
+had been desolated by those eight years of savage warfare[1] which had
+been the price of liberty. The population had been swept away by wholesale
+massacres of racial minorities in every district; the dearth of
+industrious hands had allowed the torrents to play havoc with the
+cultivation-terraces on the mountain slopes; and the spectre of malaria,
+always lying in wait for its opportunity, had claimed the waterlogged
+plains for its own. During the fifty years of stagnation little attempt
+had been made to cope with the evil, until now it seemed almost past
+remedy.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1821-28]
+
+If, however, the surface of the land offered little prospect of wealth for
+the moment, there were considerable treasures to be found beneath it. A
+metalliferous bolt runs down the whole east coast of the Greek mainland,
+cropping up again in many of the Aegean islands, and some of the ores, of
+which there is a great variety, are rare and valuable. The lack of transit
+facilities is partly remedied by the fact that workable veins often lie
+near enough to the sea for the produce to be carried straight from mine to
+ship, by an endless-chain system of overhead trolleys; so that, once
+capital is secured for installing the plant and opening the mine,
+profitable operations can be carried on irrespective of the general
+economic condition of the country. Trikoupis saw how much potential wealth
+was locked up in these mineral seams. The problem was how to attract the
+capital necessary to tap it. The nucleus round which have accumulated
+those immense masses of mobilised capital that are the life-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, to a state of agricultural
+bankruptcy, has obviously failed to save any surplus in the process, so
+that it is unable to provide from its own pocket the minimum outlay it so
+urgently needs in order to open for itself some new activity. If it is to
+obtain a fresh start on other lines, it must secure the co-operation of
+the foreign investor, and the capitalist with a ready market for his money
+will only put it into enterprises where he has some guarantee of its
+safety. There was little doubt that the minerals of Greece would well
+repay extraction; the uncertain element was the Greek nation itself. The
+burning question of national unity might break out at any moment into a
+blaze of war, and, in the probable case of disaster, involve the whole
+country and all interests connected with it in economic as well as
+political ruin. Western Europe would not commit itself to Greek mining
+enterprise, unless it felt confident that the statesman responsible for
+the government of Greece would and could restrain his country from its
+instinctive impulse towards political adventure.
+
+The great merit of Trikoupis was that he managed to inspire 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
+administration. But the roads are unfinished, the railway-network
+incomplete, the mines exploited only to a fraction of their capacity,
+because the forces against Trikoupis were in the end too strong for him.
+It may be that his eye too rigidly followed the foreign investor's point
+of view, and that by adopting a more conciliatory attitude towards the
+national ideal, he might have strengthened his position at home without
+impairing his reputation abroad; but his position was really made
+impossible by a force quite beyond his control, the irresponsible and
+often intolerable behaviour which Turkey, under whatever regime, has
+always practised towards foreign powers, and especially towards those
+Balkan states which have won their freedom in her despite, while perforce
+abandoning a large proportion of their race to the protracted outrage of
+Turkish misgovernment.
+
+Several times over the Porte, by wanton insults to Greece, wrecked the
+efforts of Trikoupis to establish good relations between the two
+governments, and played the game of the chauvinist party led by Trikoupis'
+rival, Deliyannis. Deliyannis' tenures of office were always brief, but
+during them he contrived to undo most of the work accomplished by
+Trikoupis in the previous intervals. A particularly tense 'incident' with
+Turkey put him in power in 1893, with a strong enough backing from the
+country to warrant a general mobilization. The sole result was the ruin of
+Greek credit. Trikoupis was hastily recalled to office by the king, but
+too late. He found himself unable to retrieve the ruin, and retired
+altogether from politics in 1895, dying abroad next year in voluntary
+exile and enforced disillusionment.
+
+With the removal of Trikoupis from the helm, Greece ran straight upon the
+rocks. A disastrous war with Turkey was precipitated in 1897 by events in
+Krete. It brought the immediate _debacle_ of the army and the reoccupation
+of Thessaly for a year by Turkish troops, while its final penalties were
+the cession of the chief strategical positions along the northern frontier
+and the imposition of an international commission of control over the
+Greek finances, in view of the complete national bankruptcy entailed by
+the war. The fifteen years that followed 1895 were almost the blackest
+period in modern Greek history; yet the time was not altogether lost, and
+such events as the draining of the Kopais-basin by a British company, and
+its conversion from a malarious swamp into a rich agricultural area,
+marked a perceptible economic advance.
+
+This comparative stagnation was broken at last by the Young Turk
+_pronunciamiento_ at Salonika in 1908, which produced such momentous
+repercussions all through the Nearer East. The Young Turks had struck in
+order to forestall the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, but the
+opportunity was seized by every restive element within it to extricate
+itself, if possible, from the Turkish coils. Now, just as in 1897, Greece
+was directly affected by the action of the Greek population in Krete. As a
+result of the revolt of 1896-7, Krete had been constituted an autonomous
+state subject to Ottoman suzerainty, autonomy and suzerainty alike being
+guaranteed by four great powers. Prince George of Greece, a son of the
+King of the Hellenes, had been placed at the head of the autonomous
+government as high commissioner; but his autocratic tendency caused great
+discontent among the free-spirited Kretans, who had not rid themselves of
+the Turkish regime in order to forfeit their independence again in another
+fashion. Dissension culminated in 1906, when the leaders of the opposition
+took to 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 high commissioner by Zaimis, another
+citizen of the Greek kingdom, who inaugurated a more constitutional
+regime, and in 1908 the Kretans believed that the moment for realizing the
+national ideal had come. They proclaimed their union with Greece, and
+elected deputies to the Parliament at Athens. But the guarantor powers
+carried out their obligations by promptly sending a combined naval
+expedition, which hauled down the Greek flag at Canea, and prevented the
+deputies from embarking for Peiraeus. This apparently pedantic insistence
+upon the _status quo_ was extremely exasperating to Greek nationalism. It
+produced a ferment in the kingdom, which grew steadily for nine months,
+and vented itself in July 1909 in the _coup d'etat_ of the 'Military
+League', a second-hand imitation of the Turkish 'Committee of Union and
+Progress'. The royal family was cavalierly treated, and constitutional
+government superseded by a junta of officers. But at this point the policy
+of the four powers towards Krete was justified. Turkey knew well that she
+had lost Krete in 1897, but she could still exploit her suzerainty to
+prevent Greece from gaining new strength by the annexation of the island.
+The Young Turks had seized the reins of government, not to modify the
+policy of the Porte, but to intensify its chauvinism, and they accordingly
+intimated that they would consider any violation of their suzerain rights
+over Krete a _casus belli_ against Greece. 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 its tether. 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 appeared unexpectedly from the
+centre of disturbance, Krete. Venezelos started life as a successful
+advocate at Canea. He entered Kretan politics in the struggle for
+constitutionalism, and distinguished himself in the successful revolution
+of 1906, of which he was the soul. Naturally, he became one of the leading
+statesmen under Zaimis' regime, and he further distinguished himself by
+resolutely opposing the 'Unionist' agitation as premature, and yet
+retaining his hold over a people whose paramount political preoccupation
+was their national unity. The crisis of 1908-9 brought him into close
+relations with the government of the Greek kingdom; and the king, who had
+gauged his calibre, now took the patriotic step of calling in the man who
+had expelled his son from Krete, to put his own house in order. It speaks
+much for both men that they worked together in harmony from the beginning.
+Upon the royal invitation Venezelos exchanged Kretan 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 Venezelos the
+first premier of the new era. During five years of continuous office he
+was to prove himself the good genius of his country. When he resigned his
+post in April 1915, he left the work of consolidating the national state
+on the verge of completion, and it will be his country's loss if he is
+baulked of achievement. Results speak for themselves, and the remainder of
+this pamphlet will be little more than a record of his statesmanship; but
+before we pass on to review his deeds, we must say a word about the
+character to which they are due. In March 1912 the time came for the first
+general election since Venezelos had taken office. Two years' experience
+of his administration had already won him such popularity and prestige,
+that the old party groups, purely personal followings infected with all
+the corruption, jingoism, and insincerity of the dark fifteen years,
+leagued themselves in a desperate effort to cast him out. Corruption on a
+grand scale was attempted, but Venezelos' success at the polls was
+sweeping. The writer happened to be spending that month in Krete. The
+Kretans had, of course, elected deputies in good time to the parliament at
+Athens, and once more the foreign warships stopped them in the act of
+boarding the steamer for Peiraeus, while Venezelos, who was still
+responsible for the Greek Government till the new parliament met, had
+declared with characteristic frankness that the attendance of the Kretan
+deputies could not possibly be sanctioned, an opening of which his
+opponents did not fail to take advantage. Meanwhile, every one in Krete
+was awaiting news of the polling in the kingdom. They might have been
+expected to feel, at any rate, lukewarmly towards a man who had actually
+taken office on the programme of deferring their cherished 'union'
+indefinitely; but, on the contrary, they greeted his triumph with enormous
+enthusiasm. Their feeling was explained by the comment of an innkeeper.
+'Venezelos!' he said: 'Why, he is a man who can say "No". He won't stand
+any nonsense. If you try to get round him, he'll put you in irons.' And
+clearly he had hit the mark. Venezelos would in any case have done well,
+because he is a clever man with an excellent power of judgement; but
+acuteness is a common Greek virtue, and if he has done brilliantly, it is
+because he has the added touch of genius required to make the Greek take
+'No' for an answer, a quality, very rare indeed in the nation, which
+explains the dramatic contrast between his success and Trikoupis' failure.
+Greece has been fortunate indeed in finding the right man at the crucial
+hour.
+
+In the winter of 1911-12 and the succeeding summer, the foreign traveller
+met innumerable results of Venezelos' activity in every part of the
+country, and all gave evidence of the same thing: a sane judgement and its
+inflexible execution. For instance, a resident in Greece had needed an
+escort of soldiers four years before, when he made an expedition into the
+wild country north-west of the Gulf of Patras, on account of the number of
+criminals 'wanted' by the government who were lurking in that region as
+outlaws. In August 1912 an inquiry concerning this danger was met with a
+smile: 'Oh, yes, it was so,' said the gendarme, 'but since then Venezelos
+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.' And he
+spoke the truth. You could wander all about the forests and mountains
+without molestation.
+
+So far Venezelos 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 British missions,
+and when the opportunity appeared, he was ready to take full advantage of
+it. In the autumn of 1912, Turkey had been for a year at war with Italy;
+her finances had suffered a heavy drain, and the Italian command of the
+sea not only locked up her best troops in Tripoli, but interrupted such
+important lines of communication between her Asiatic and European
+provinces as the direct route by sea from Smyrna to Salonika, and the
+devious sea-passage thence round Greece to Scutari, which was the only
+alternative for Turkish troops to running the gauntlet of the Albanian
+mountaineers. Clearly the Balkan nations could find no better moment for
+striking the blow 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 compromise between their conflicting claims, they would
+have to let this common opportunity for making them good slip by
+altogether.
+
+Of the four states concerned, two, Serbia and Montenegro, were of the same
+South-Slavonic nationality, and had been drawn into complete accord with
+each other since the formal annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary in
+1908, which struck a hard blow at their common national idea, while
+neither of them had any conflicting claims with Greece, since the Greek
+and South-Slavonic nationalities are at no point geographically in
+contact. With Bulgaria, a nation of Slavonic speech and culture, though
+not wholly Slavonic in origin, Serbia had quarrelled for years over the
+ultimate destiny of the Ueskueb district in north-western Macedonia, which
+was still subject to Turkey; but in the summer of 1912 the two states
+compromised in a secret treaty upon their respective territorial
+ambitions, and agreed to refer the fate of one debatable strip to the
+arbitration of Russia, after their already projected war with Turkey had
+been carried through. There was a more formidable conflict of interests
+between Bulgaria and Greece. These two nationalities are conterminous over
+a very wide extent of territory, stretching from the Black Sea on the east
+to the inland Lake of Okhrida on the west, and there is at no point a
+sharp dividing line between them. The Greek element tends to predominate
+towards the coast and the Bulgar towards the interior, but there are broad
+zones where Greek and Bulgar villages are inextricably interspersed, while
+purely Greek towns are often isolated in the midst of purely Bulgar rural
+districts. Even if the racial areas could be plotted out on a large-scale
+map, it was clear that no political frontier could be drawn to follow
+their convolutions, and that Greece and Bulgaria could only divide the
+spoils by both making up their minds to give and take. The actual lines
+this necessary compromise would follow, obviously depended on the degree
+of the allies' success against Turkey in the common war that was yet to be
+fought, and Venezelos rose to the occasion. He had the courage to offer
+Bulgaria the Greek alliance without stipulating for any definite minimum
+share in the common conquests, and the tact to induce her to accept it on
+the same terms. Greece and Bulgaria agreed to shelve all territorial
+questions till the war had been brought to a successful close; and with
+the negotiation of this understanding (another case in which Venezelos
+achieved what Trikoupis had attempted only to fail) the Balkan League was
+complete.
+
+The events that followed are common knowledge. The Balkan allies opened
+the campaign in October, and the Turks collapsed before an impetuous
+attack. The Bulgarians crumpled up the Ottoman field armies in Thrace at
+the terrific battle of Lule Burgas; the Serbians disposed of the forces in
+the Macedonian interior, while the Greeks effected a junction with the
+Serbians from the south, and cut their way through to Salonika. Within two
+months of the declaration of war, the Turks on land had been driven out of
+the open altogether behind the shelter of the Chataldja and Gallipoli
+lines, and only three fortresses--Adrianople, Yannina, and Scutari--held
+out further to the west. Their navy, closely blockaded by the Greek fleet
+within the Dardanelles, had to look on passively at the successive
+occupation of the Aegean Islands by Greek landing-parties. With the winter
+came negotiations, during which an armistice reigned at Adrianople and
+Scutari, while the Greeks pursued the siege of Yannina and the Dardanelles
+blockade. The negotiations proved abortive, and the result of the renewed
+hostilities justified the action of the Balkan plenipotentiaries in
+breaking them off. By the spring of 1913 the three fortresses had fallen,
+and, under the treaty finally signed at London, Turkey ceded to the Balkan
+League, as a whole, all her European territories west of a line drawn from
+Ainos on the Aegean to Midia on the Black Sea, including Adrianople and
+the lower basin of the river Maritsa.
+
+The time had now come for Greece and Bulgaria to settle their account, and
+the unexpected extent of the common gains ought to have facilitated their
+division. The territory in question included the whole north coast of the
+Aegean and its immediate hinterland, and Venezelos proposed to consider it
+in two sections. (1) The eastern section, conveniently known as Thrace,
+consisted of the lower basin of the Maritsa. As far as Adrianople the
+population was Bulgar, but south of that city it was succeeded by a Greek
+element, with a considerable sprinkling of Turkish settlements, as far as
+the sea. Geographically, however, the whole district is intimately
+connected with Bulgaria, and the railway that follows the course of the
+Maritsa down to the port of Dedeagatch offers a much-needed economic
+outlet for large regions already within the Bulgarian frontier. Venezelos,
+then, was prepared to resign all Greek claims to the eastern section, in
+return for a corresponding concession by Bulgaria in the west. (2) The
+western section, consisting of the lower basins of the Vardar and Struma,
+lay in the immediate neighbourhood of the former frontier of Greece; but
+the Greek population of Salonika,[1] and the coast-districts east of it,
+could not be brought within the Greek frontier without including as well a
+certain hinterland inhabited mainly by Bulgarians. The cession of this was
+the return asked for by Venezelos, and he reduced it to a minimum by
+abstaining from pressing the quite well-founded claims of Greece in the
+Monastir district, which lay further inland still.
+
+[Footnote 1: The predominant element within the walls of Salonika itself
+is neither Greek nor Bulgarian, but consists of about 80,000 of those
+Spanish-speaking Jews who settled in Turkey as refugees during the
+sixteenth century.]
+
+But Venezelos' conciliatory proposals met with no response from the
+Bulgarian Government, which was in an 'all or nothing' mood. It swallowed
+Venezelos' gift of Thrace, and then proceeded to exploit the Bulgar
+hinterland of Salonika as a pretext for demanding the latter city as well.
+This uncompromising attitude made agreement impossible, and it was
+aggravated by the aggressive action of the Bulgarian troops in the
+occupied territory, who persistently endeavoured to steal ground from the
+Greek forces facing them. In May there was serious fighting to the east of
+the Struma, and peace was only restored with difficulty. Bulgarian
+relations with Serbia were becoming strained at the same time, though in
+this case Bulgaria had more justice on her side. Serbia maintained that
+the veto imposed by Austria upon her expansion to the Adriatic, in
+coincidence with Bulgaria's unexpected gains on the Maritsa to which
+Serbian arms had contributed, invalidated the secret treaty of the
+previous summer, and she announced her intention of retaining the Monastir
+district and the line of the Salonika railway as far as 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 the
+other, and took her stand on her strictly legal treaty-rights. However the
+balance of justice inclined, a lasting settlement could only have been
+reached by mutual forbearance and goodwill; but Bulgaria put herself
+hopelessly in the wrong towards both her allies by a treacherous
+night-attack upon them all along the line, at the end of June 1913. This
+disastrous act was the work of a single political party, which has since
+been condemned by most sections of Bulgarian public opinion; but the
+punishment, if not the responsibility for the crime, fell upon the whole
+nation. Greece and Serbia had already been drawn into an understanding by
+their common danger. They now declared war against Bulgaria in concert.
+The counter-strokes of their armies met with success, and the intervention
+of Rumania made Bulgaria's discomfiture certain.
+
+The results of the one month's war were registered in the Treaty of
+Bucarest. Many of its provisions were unhappily, though naturally,
+inspired by the spirit of revenge; but the Greek premier, at any rate,
+showed a statesmanlike self-restraint in the negotiations. Venezelos
+advocated the course of taking no more after the war than had been
+demanded before it. He desired to leave Bulgaria a broad zone of Aegean
+littoral between the Struma and Maritsa rivers, including ports capable of
+satisfying Bulgaria's pressing need for an outlet towards the south. But,
+in the exasperated state of public feeling, even Venezelos' prestige
+failed to carry through his policy in its full moderation. King George had
+just been assassinated in his year of jubilee, in the streets of the
+long-desired Salonika; and King Constantine, his son, flushed by the
+victory of Kilkish and encouraged by the Machiavellian diplomacy of his
+Hohenzollern brother-in-law, insisted on carrying the new Greek frontier
+as far east as the river Mesta, and depriving Bulgaria of Kavala, the
+natural harbour for the whole Bulgarian hinterland in the upper basins of
+the Mesta and Struma.
+
+It is true that Greece did not exact as much as she might have done.
+Bulgaria was still allowed to possess herself of a coastal strip east of
+the Mesta, containing the tolerable harbours of Porto Lagos and
+Dedeagatch, which had been occupied 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 the future from those
+drawbacks involved in immediate contact with Turkish territory, which she
+had so often experienced in the past. It is also true that the Kavala
+district is of great economic value in itself--it produces the better part
+of the Turkish Regie tobacco crop--and that on grounds of nationality
+alone Bulgaria has no claim to this prize, since the tobacco-growing
+peasantry is almost exclusively Greek or Turk, while the Greek element has
+been extensively reinforced during the last two years by refugees from
+Anatolia and Thrace.
+
+Nevertheless, it is already clear that Venezelos' judgement was the
+better. The settlement at the close of the present war may even yet bring
+Bulgaria reparation in many quarters. If the Ruman and South Slavonic
+populations at present included in the complexus of Austria-Hungary are
+freed from their imprisonment and united with the Serbian and Rumanian
+national states, Bulgaria may conceivably recover from the latter those
+Bulgarian lands which the Treaty of Bucarest made over to them in central
+Macedonia and the Dobrudja, while it would be still more feasible to oust
+the Turk again from Adrianople, where he slipped back in the hour of
+Bulgaria's prostration and has succeeded in maintaining himself ever
+since. Yet no amount of compensation in other directions and no abstract
+consideration for the national principle will induce Bulgaria to renounce
+her claim on Greek Kavala. Access to this district is vital to Bulgaria
+from the geographical point of view, and she will not be satisfied here
+with such rights as Serbia enjoys at Salonika--free use of the port and
+free traffic along a railway connecting it with her own hinterland. Her
+heart is set on complete territorial ownership, and she will not compose
+her feud with Greece until she has had her way.
+
+So long, therefore, as the question of Kavala remains unsettled, Greece
+will not be able to put the preliminary problem of 'national
+consolidation' behind her, and enter upon the long-deferred chapter of
+'internal development'. To accomplish once for all this vital transition,
+Venezelos is taking the helm again into his hands, and it is his evident
+intention to close the Greek account with Bulgaria just as Serbia and
+Rumania hope to close theirs with the same state--by a bold territorial
+concession conditional upon adequate territorial compensation
+elsewhere.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The above paragraph betrays its own date; for, since it was
+written, the intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers
+has deferred indefinitely the hope of a settlement based upon mutual
+agreement.]
+
+The possibility of such compensation is offered by certain outstanding
+problems directly dependent upon the issue of the European conflict, and
+we must glance briefly at these before passing on to consider the new
+chapter of internal history that is opening for the Greek nation.
+
+The problems in question are principally concerned with the ownership of
+islands.
+
+The integrity of a land-frontier is guaranteed by the whole strength of
+the nation included within it, and can only be modified by a struggle for
+existence with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by their
+geographical nature constitute independent political units, easily
+detached from or incorporated with larger domains, according to the
+momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea-power. Thus it happened that
+the arrival of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ at the Dardanelles in August
+1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly certain questions concerning the
+Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population, but
+their respective geographical positions and political fortunes
+differentiate them into several groups.
+
+1. The Cyclades in the south-west, half submerged vanguards 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 enjoyed autonomy under Turkish suzerainty for fifteen years before the
+Balkan War, and at its outbreak she once more proclaimed her union with
+Greece. This time at last her action was legalized, when Turkey expressly
+abandoned her suzerain rights by a clause in the Treaty of London.
+
+3. During the war itself, the Greek navy occupied a number of islands
+which had remained till then under the more direct government of Turkey,
+The parties to the Treaty of London agreed to leave their destiny to the
+decision of the powers, and the latter assigned them all to Greece, with
+the exception of Imbros and Tenedos which command strategically the mouth
+of the Dardanelles.
+
+The islands thus secured to Greece fall in turn into several 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 by Turkey for lost. The European group is well beyond the range
+of her present frontiers; while Samos, though it adjoins 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 that the Ottoman Government did not acutely feel its final severance.
+
+_(c)_ A third group consists of Mitylini and Khios,[1] and concerning this
+pair Greece and Turkey have so far come to no understanding. The Turks
+pointed out that the littoral off which these islands lie contains not
+only the most indispensable ports of Anatolia but also the largest
+enclaves of Greek population on the Asiatic mainland, and they declared
+that the occupation of this group by Greece menaced 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 barricades Aivali
+and Edremid as well. As soon as the Greek Government has converted the
+harbours of these islands into naval bases, Anatolia will be subject to a
+perpetual Greek blockade, and this violent intimidation of the Turkish
+people will be reinforced by an insidious propaganda among the disloyal
+Greek elements in our midst.' Accordingly the Turks refused to recognize
+the award of the powers, and demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman
+sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy after
+the precedent of Krete and Samos.
+
+[Footnote 1: Including its famous satellite Psara.]
+
+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 their inhabitants ardently desire union with the
+national kingdom; and that the Greek Government would hesitate to use them
+as a basis for economic coercion and nationalistic propaganda against
+Turkey, if only because the commerce of western Anatolia is almost
+exclusively in the hands of the Greek element on the Asiatic continent.
+Greek interests were presumably bound up with the economic prosperity and
+political consolidation of Turkey in Asia, and the Anatolian Greeks would
+merely have been alienated from their compatriots by any such impolitic
+machinations. 'Greek sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios', the Greeks
+maintained, 'does not threaten Turkish sovereignty on the Continent. But
+the restoration of Turkish suzerainty over the islands would most
+seriously endanger the liberty of their inhabitants; for Turkish promises
+are notoriously valueless, except when they are endorsed by the guarantee
+of some physically stronger power.'
+
+Negotiations were conducted between Greece and Turkey from these
+respective points of view without leading to any result, and the two
+standpoints were in fact irreconcilable, since either power required the
+other to leave vital national interests at the mercy of an ancient enemy,
+without undertaking to make corresponding sacrifices itself. The problem
+probably would never have been solved by compromise; but meanwhile the
+situation has been entirely transformed by the participation of Turkey in
+the European War, and the issue between Greece and Turkey, like the issue
+between Greece and Bulgaria, has been merged in the general problem of the
+European settlement.
+
+The Balkan War of 1912 doomed the Ottoman power in Europe, but left its
+Asiatic future unimpaired. By making war against the Quadruple Entente,
+Turkey has staked 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 accommodate her regime in the
+liberated islands to the susceptibilities of a Turkey consolidated on the
+opposite mainland, but will be able to stretch out her hand over the
+Anatolian coast and its hinterland, and compensate herself richly in this
+quarter for the territorial sacrifices which may still be necessary to a
+lasting understanding with her Bulgarian neighbour.
+
+The shores that dominate the Dardanelles will naturally remain beyond her
+grasp, but she may expect to establish herself on the western littoral
+from a point as far north as Mount Ida and the plain of Edremid. The Greek
+coast-town of Aivali will be hers, and the still more important focus of
+Greek commerce and civilization at Smyrna; while she will push her
+dominion along the railways that radiate from Smyrna towards the interior.
+South-eastward, Aidin will be hers in the valley of the Mendere
+(Maiandros). Due eastward she will re-baptize the glistening city of Ala
+Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia, under which it held out
+heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin had become the capital of
+a Moslem principality and the Turkish avalanche had rolled past it to the
+sea. Maybe she will follow the railway still further inland, and plant her
+flag on the Black Castle of Afiun, the natural railway-centre of Anatolia
+high up on the innermost plateau. All this and more was once Hellenic
+ground, and the Turkish incomer, for all his vitality, has never been able
+here to obliterate the older culture or assimilate the earlier population.
+In this western region Turkish villages are still interspersed with Greek,
+and under the government of compatriots the unconquerable minority would
+inevitably reassert itself by the peaceful weapons of its superior energy
+and intelligence.
+
+4. If Greece realizes these aspirations through Venezelos' statesmanship,
+she will have settled in conjunction her outstanding accounts with both
+Bulgaria and Turkey; but a fourth group of islands still remains for
+consideration, and these, though formerly the property of Turkey, are now
+in the hands of other European powers.
+
+_(a)_ The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of islands
+off the Anatolian coast which continues the line of Mitylini, Khios, and
+Samos towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos, Astypalia,
+Karpathos, Kasos, and, above all, Rhodes. The Sporades were occupied by
+Italy during her war with Turkey in 1911-12, and she stipulated in the
+Peace of Lausanne that she should retain them as a pledge until the last
+Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had been withdrawn, after which she would make
+them over again to 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 Italy until the situation was transformed
+here also by the successive intervention of both powers in the European
+War. The consequent lapse of the Treaty of Lausanne simplifies the status
+of the Sporades, but it is doubtful what effect it will have upon their
+destiny. In language and political sympathy their inhabitants are as
+completely Greek as all the other islanders of the Aegean, and if the
+Quadruple Entente has made the principle of nationality its own, Italy is
+morally bound, now that the Sporades are at her free disposal, to satisfy
+their national aspirations by consenting to their union with the kingdom
+of Greece. On the other hand, the prospective dissolution of the Ottoman
+Empire has increased Italy's stake in this quarter. In the event of a
+partition, the whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fall
+within the Italian sphere, which will start from the Gulf of Iskanderun,
+include the districts of Adana and Adalia, and march with the new
+Anatolian provinces of Greece along the line of the river Mendere. This
+continental domain and the adjacent islands are geographically
+complementary to one another, and it is possible that Italy may for
+strategical reasons insist on retaining the Sporades in perpetuity if she
+realizes her ambitions on the continent. This solution would be less ideal
+than the other, but Greece would be wise to reconcile herself to it, as
+Italy has reconciled herself to the incorporation of Corsica in France;
+for by submitting frankly to this detraction from her national unity she
+would give her brethren in the Sporades the best opportunity of developing
+their national individuality untrammelled under a friendly Italian
+suzerainty.
+
+_(b)_ The advance-guard of the Greek race that inhabits the great island
+of Cyprus has been subject to British government since 1878, when the
+provisional occupation of the island by Great Britain under a contract
+similar to that of Lausanne was negotiated in a secret agreement between
+Great Britain and Turkey on the eve of the Conference at Berlin. The
+condition of evacuation was in this case the withdrawal of Russia from
+Kars, and here likewise it never became operative till it was abrogated by
+the outbreak of war. Cyprus, like the Sporades, is now at the disposal of
+its _de facto_ possessor, and on November 5, 1914, it was annexed to the
+British Empire. But whatever decision Italy may take, it is to be hoped
+that our own government at any rate will not be influenced exclusively by
+strategical considerations, but will proclaim an intention of allowing
+Cyprus ultimately to realize its national aspirations by union with
+Greece.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, this intention, under a certain
+condition, has definitely been expressed.]
+
+The whole population of the island is Greek in language, while under an
+excellent British administration its political consciousness has been
+awakened, and has expressed itself in a growing desire for national unity
+among the Christian majority. It is true that in Cyprus, as in Krete,
+there is a considerable Greek-speaking minority of Moslems[1] who prefer
+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 to Great Britain from the strategical point of
+view, we shall find that even in the balance of material interests it is
+not worth the price of alienating the sympathy of an awakened and
+otherwise consolidated nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: In Cyprus about 22 per cent.]
+
+This rather detailed review of problems in the islands and Anatolia brings
+out the fact that Greek nationalism is not an artificial conception of
+theorists, but a real force which impels the most scattered and
+down-trodden populations of Greek speech to travail unceasingly for
+political unity within the national state. Yet by far the most striking
+example of this attractive power in Hellenism is the history of it in
+'Epirus'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The name coined to include the districts of Himarra,
+Argyrokastro, and Koritsa.]
+
+The Epirots are a population of Albanian race, and they still speak an
+Albanian dialect in their homes; while the women and children, at any
+rate, often know no other language. But somewhat over a century ago the
+political organism created by the remarkable personality of Ali Pasha in
+the hinterland of the Adriatic coast, and the relations of Great Britain
+and France with this new principality in the course of their struggle for
+the Mediterranean, began to awaken in the Epirots a desire for
+civilization. Their Albanian origin opened to them no prospects, for the
+race had neither a literature nor a common historical tradition; and they
+accordingly turned to the Greeks, with whom they were linked in religion
+by membership of the Orthodox Church, and in politics by subjection to
+Ali's Government at Yannina, which had adopted Greek as its official
+language.
+
+They had appealed to the right quarter; for we have seen how Greek culture
+accumulated a store of latent energy under the Turkish yoke, and was
+expending it at this very period in a vigorous national revival. The
+partially successful War of Liberation in the 'twenties of the nineteenth
+century was only the political manifestation of the new life. It has
+expressed itself more typically in a steady and universal enthusiasm for
+education, which throughout the subsequent generations of political
+stagnation has always opened to individual Greeks commercial and
+professional careers of the greatest brilliance, and often led them to
+spend the fortunes so acquired in endowing the nation with further
+educational opportunities. Public spirit is a Greek virtue. There are few
+villages which do not possess monuments of their successful sons, and a
+school is an even commoner gift than a church; while the State has
+supplemented the individual benefactor to an extent remarkable where
+public resources are so slender. The school-house, in fact, is generally
+the most prominent and substantial building in a Greek village, and the
+advantage offered to the Epirots by a _rapprochement_ with the Greeks is
+concretely symbolized by the Greek schools established to-day in generous
+numbers throughout their country.
+
+For the Epirot boy the school is the door to the future. The language he
+learns there makes him the member of a nation, and opens to him a world
+wide enough to employ all the talent and energy he may possess, if he
+seeks his fortune at Patras or Peiraeus, or in the great Greek commercial
+communities of Alexandria and Constantinople; while, if he stays at home,
+it still affords him a link with the life of civilized Europe through the
+medium of the ubiquitous Greek newspaper.[1] The Epirot has thus become
+Greek in soul, for he has reached the conception of a national life more
+liberal than the isolated existence of his native village through the
+avenue of Greek culture. 'Hellenism' and nationality have become for him
+identical ideas; and when at last the hour of deliverance struck, he
+welcomed the Greek armies that marched into his country from the south and
+the east, after the fall of Yannina in the spring of 1913, with the same
+enthusiasm with which all the enslaved populations of native Greek dialect
+greeted the consummation of a century's hopes.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is still practically no literature printed in the
+Albanian language.]
+
+The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the 'Hellenism' of the
+Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem
+neighbours on the north. The latter speak a variety of the same Albanian
+tongue, but were differentiated by a creed which assimilated them to the
+ruling race. They had been superior to their Christian kinsmen by the
+weight of numbers and the possession of arms, which under the Ottoman
+regime were the monopoly of the Moslem. At last, however, the yoke of
+oppression was broken and the Greek occupation seemed a harbinger of
+security for the future. Unluckily, however, Epirus was of interest to
+others besides its own inhabitants. It occupies an important geographical
+position facing the extreme heel of Italy, just below the narrowest point
+in the neck of the Adriatic, and the Italian Government insisted that the
+country should be included in the newly erected principality of Albania,
+which the powers had reserved the right to delimit in concert by a
+provision in the Treaty of London.
+
+Italy gave two reasons for her demand. First, she declared it incompatible
+with her own vital interests that both shores of the strait between Corfu
+and the mainland should pass into the hands of the same power, because the
+combination of both coasts and the channel between them offered a site for
+a naval base that might dominate the mouth of the Adriatic. Secondly, she
+maintained that the native Albanian speech of the Epirots proved their
+Albanian nationality, and that it was unjust to the new Albanian state to
+exclude from it the most prosperous and civilized branch of the Albanian
+nation. Neither argument is cogent.
+
+The first argument could easily be met by the neutralization of the Corfu
+straits,[1] and it is also considerably weakened by the fact that the
+position which really commands the mouth of the Adriatic from the eastern
+side is not the Corfu channel beyond it but the magnificent bay of Avlona
+just within its narrowest section, and this is a Moslem district to which
+the Epirots have never laid claim, and which would therefore in any case
+fall within the Albanian frontier. The second argument is almost
+ludicrous. The destiny of Epirus is not primarily the concern of the other
+Albanians, of for that matter of the Greeks, but of the Epirots
+themselves, and it is hard to see how their nationality can be defined
+except in terms of their own conscious and expressed desire; for a nation
+is simply a group of men inspired by a common will to co-operate for
+certain purposes, and cannot be brought into existence by the external
+manipulation of any specific objective factors, but solely by the inward
+subjective impulse of its constituents. It was a travesty of justice to
+put the Orthodox Epirots at the mercy of a Moslem majority (which had been
+massacring them the year before) on the ground that they happened to speak
+the same language. The hardship was aggravated by the fact that all the
+routes connecting Epirus with the outer world run through Yannina and
+Salonika, from which the new frontier sundered her; while great natural
+barriers separate her from Avlona and Durazzo, with which the same
+frontier so ironically signalled her union.
+
+[Footnote 1: Corfu itself is neutralized already by the agreement under
+which Great Britain transferred the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863.]
+
+The award of the powers roused great indignation in Greece, but Venezelos
+was strong enough to secure that it should scrupulously be respected; and
+the 'correct attitude' which he inflexibly maintained has finally won its
+reward. As soon as the decision of the powers was announced, the Epirots
+determined to help themselves. They raised a militia, and asserted their
+independence so successfully, that they compelled the Prince of Wied, the
+first (and perhaps the last) ruler of the new 'Albania', to give them home
+rule in matters of police and education, and to recognise Greek as the
+official language for their local administration. They ensured observance
+of this compact by the maintenance of their troops under arms. So matters
+continued, until a rebellion among his Moslem subjects and the outbreak of
+the European War in the summer of 1914 obliged the prince to depart,
+leaving Albania to its natural state of anarchy. The anarchy might have
+restored every canton and village to the old state of contented isolation,
+had it not been for the religious hatred between the Moslems and the
+Epirots, which, with the removal of all external control, began to vent
+itself in an aggressive assault of the former upon the latter, and
+entailed much needless misery in the autumn months.
+
+The reoccupation of Epirus by Greek troops had now become a matter of life
+and death to its inhabitants, and in October 1914 Venezelos took the
+inevitable step, after serving due notice upon all the signatories to the
+Treaty of London. Thanks in part to the absorption of the powers in more
+momentous business, but perhaps even in a greater degree to the confidence
+which the Greek premier had justly won by his previous handling of the
+question, this action was accomplished without protest or opposition.
+Since then Epirus has remained sheltered from the vicissitudes of civil
+war within and punitive expeditions from without, to which the unhappy
+remnant of Albania has been incessantly exposed; and we may prophesy that
+the Epiroi, unlike their repudiated brethren of Moslem or Catholic faith,
+have really seen the last of their troubles. Even Italy, from whom they
+had most to fear, has obtained such a satisfactory material guarantee by
+the occupation on her own part of Avlona, that she is as unlikely to
+demand the evacuation of Epirus by Greece as she is to withdraw her own
+force from her long coveted strategical base on the eastern shore of the
+Adriatic. In Avlona and Epirus the former rivals are settling down to a
+neighbourly contact, and there is no reason to doubt that the _de facto_
+line of demarcation between them will develop into a permanent and
+officially recognized frontier. The problem of Epirus, though not,
+unfortunately, that of Albania, may be regarded as definitely closed.
+
+The reclamation of Epirus is perhaps the most honourable achievement of
+the Greek national revival, but it is by no means an isolated phenomenon.
+Western Europe is apt to depreciate modern 'Hellenism', chiefly because
+its ambitious denomination rather ludicrously challenges comparison with a
+vanished glory, while any one who has studied its rise must perceive that
+it has little more claim than western Europe itself to be the peculiar
+heir of ancient Greek culture. And yet this Hellenism of recent growth has
+a genuine vitality of its own. It displays a remarkable power of
+assimilating alien elements and inspiring them to an active pursuit of its
+ideals, and its allegiance supplants all others in the hearts of those
+exposed to its charm. The Epirots are not the only Albanians who have been
+Hellenized. In the heart of central Greece and Peloponnesus, on the plain
+of Argos, and in the suburbs of Athens, there are still Albanian enclaves,
+derived from those successive migrations between the fourteenth and the
+eighteenth centuries; but they have so entirely forgotten their origin
+that the villagers, when questioned, can only repeat: 'We can't say why we
+happen to speak "Arvanitika", but we are Greeks like everybody else.' The
+Vlachs again, a Romance-speaking tribe of nomadic shepherds who have
+wandered as far south as Akarnania and the shores of the Korinthian Gulf,
+are settling down there to the agricultural life of the Greek village, so
+that Hellenism stands to them for the transition to a higher social phase.
+Their still migratory brethren in the northern ranges of Pindus are
+already 'Hellenes' in political sympathy,[1] and are moving under Greek
+influence towards the same social evolution. In distant Cappadocia, at the
+root of the Anatolian peninsula, the Orthodox Greek population, submerged
+beneath the Turkish flood more than eight centuries ago, has retained
+little individuality except in its religion, and nothing of its native
+speech but a garbled vocabulary embedded in a Turkified syntax. Yet even
+this dwindling rear-guard has been overtaken just in time by the 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
+fate of eastern Anatolia may be, the Greek element is now assured a
+prominent part in its future.
+
+[Footnote 1: Greece owed her naval supremacy in 1912-13 to the new cruiser
+_Georgios Averof_, named after a Vlach millionaire who made his fortune in
+the Greek colony at Alexandria and left a legacy for the ship's
+construction at his death.]
+
+These, moreover, are the peripheries of the Greek world; and at its centre
+the impulse towards union in the national state readies a passionate
+intensity. 'Aren't you better off as you are?' travellers used to ask in
+Krete during the era of autonomy. 'If you get your "Union", you will have
+to do two years' military service instead of one year's training in the
+militia, and will be taxed up to half as much again.' 'We have thought of
+that,' the Kretans would reply, 'but what does it matter, if we are united
+with Greece?'
+
+On this unity modern Hellenism has concentrated its efforts, and after
+nearly a century of ineffective endeavour it has been brought by the
+statesmanship of Venezelos within sight of its goal. Our review of
+outstanding problems reveals indeed the inconclusiveness of the settlement
+imposed at Bucarest; but this only witnesses to the wisdom of the Greek
+nation in reaffirming its confidence in Venezelos at the present juncture,
+and recalling him to power to crown the work which he has so brilliantly
+carried through. Under Venezelos' guidance we cannot doubt that the
+heart's desire of Hellenism will be accomplished at the impending European
+settlement by the final consolidation of the Hellenic national state.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This paragraph, again, has been superseded by the dramatic
+turn of events; but the writer has left it unaltered, for the end is not
+yet.]
+
+Yet however attractive the sincerity of such nationalism may be, political
+unity is only a negative achievement. The history of a nation must be
+judged rather by the positive content of its ideals and the positive
+results which it attains, and herein the Hellenic revival displays certain
+grave shortcomings. The internal paralysis of social and economic life has
+already been noted and ascribed to the urgency of the 'preliminary
+question'; but we must now add to this the growing embitterment which has
+poisoned the relations of Greece with her Balkan neighbours during the
+crises through which the 'preliminary question' has been worked out to its
+solution. Now that this solution is at hand, will Hellenism prove capable
+of casting out these two evils, and adapt itself with strength renewed to
+the new phase of development that lies before it?
+
+The northern territories acquired in 1913 will give a much greater impetus
+to economic progress than Thessaly gave a generation ago; for the
+Macedonian littoral west as well as east of the Struma produces a
+considerable proportion of the Turkish Regie tobacco, while the
+pine-forests of Pindus, if judiciously exploited, will go far to remedy
+the present deficiency of home-grown timber, even if they do not provide
+quantities sufficient for export abroad. If we take into account the
+currant-crop of the Peloponnesian plain-lands which already almost
+monopolizes the world-market, the rare ores of the south-eastern mountains
+and the Archipelago, and the vintages which scientific treatment might
+bring into competition with the wines of the Peninsula and France, we can
+see that Greece has many sources of material prosperity within her reach,
+if only she applies her liberated energy to their development. Yet these
+are all of them specialized products, and Greece will never export any
+staple commodity to rival the grain which Rumania sends in such quantities
+to central Europe already, and which Bulgaria will begin to send within a
+few years' time. Even the consolidated Greek kingdom will be too small in
+area and too little compact in geographical outline to constitute an
+independent economic unit, and the ultimate economic interests of the
+country demand co-operation in some organization more comprehensive than
+the political molecule of the national state.
+
+Such an association should embrace the Balkans in their widest extent--
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Carpathians to the Aegean;
+for, in sharp contrast to the inextricable chaos of its linguistic and
+ecclesiastical divisions, the region constitutes economically a
+homogeneous and indivisible whole, in which none of the parts can divest
+themselves of their mutual interdependence. Greece, for example, has
+secured at last her direct link with the railway system of the European
+continent, but for free transit beyond her own frontier she still depends
+on Serbia's good-will, just, as Serbia depends on hers for an outlet to
+the Aegean at Salonika. The two states have provided for their respective
+interests by a joint proprietorship of the section of railway between
+Salonika and Belgrade; and similar railway problems will doubtless bring
+Rumania to terms with Serbia for access to the Adriatic, and both with
+Bulgaria for rights of way to Constantinople and the Anatolian hinterland
+beyond. These common commercial arteries of the Balkans take no account of
+racial or political frontiers, but link the region as a whole with other
+regions in a common economic relation.
+
+South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a
+special degree. The industries of central Europe will draw upon the raw
+products of the south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east
+will absorb in turn increasing quantities of manufactured plant from
+central Europe for the development of its own natural resources. The two
+areas will become parties in a vast economic 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 the
+future well-being of the Balkan States. Isolated individually and mutually
+competitive as they are at present, they must succumb to the economic
+ascendancy of Vienna and Berlin as inevitably as unorganized, unskilled
+labourers fall under the thraldom of a well-equipped capitalist. Central
+Europe will have in any event an enormous initial superiority over the
+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
+deliberate steps towards co-operation among themselves, and find in
+railway conventions the basis for a Balkan zollverein. A zollverein should
+be the first goal of Balkan statesmanship in the new phase of history that
+is opening for Europe; but economic relations on this scale involve the
+political factor, and the Balkans will not be able to deal with their
+great neighbours on equal terms till the zollverein has ripened into a
+federation. The alternative is subjection, both political and economic;
+and neither the exhaustion of the Central Powers in the present struggle
+nor the individual consolidation of the Balkan States in the subsequent
+settlement will suffice by 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 accordingly lead on to the confederation
+of the Balkans, if all that has been so painfully won is not to perish
+again without result; and we are confronted with the question: Will Balkan
+nationalism rise to the occasion and transcend itself?
+
+Many spectators of recent history will dismiss the suggestion as Utopian.
+'Nationality', they will say, 'revealed itself first as a constructive
+force, and Europe staked its future upon it; but now that we are committed
+to it, it has developed a sinister destructiveness which we cannot remedy.
+Nationality brought the Balkan States into being and led them to final
+victory over the Turk in 1912, only to set them tearing one another to
+pieces again in 1913. In the present catastrophe the curse of the Balkans
+has descended upon the whole of Europe, and laid bare unsuspected depths
+of chaotic hatred; yet Balkan antagonisms still remain more ineradicable
+than ours. The cure for nationality is forgetfulness, but Balkan
+nationalism is rooted altogether in the past. The Balkan peoples have
+suffered one shattering experience in common--the Turk, and the waters of
+Ottoman oppression that have gone over their souls have not been waters of
+Lethe. They have endured long centuries of spiritual exile by the
+passionate remembrance of their Sion, and when they have vindicated their
+heritage at last, 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 repatriated Jew resented the Samaritan. The Greek
+dreams with sullen intensity of a golden age before the Bulgar was found
+in the land, and the challenge implied in the revival of the Hellenic
+name, so far from being a superficial vanity, is the dominant
+characteristic of the nationalism which has adopted it for its title.
+Modern Hellenism breathes the inconscionable spirit of the _emigre_.'
+
+This is only too true. The faith that has carried them to national unity
+will suffice neither the Greeks nor any other Balkan people for the new
+era that has dawned upon them, and the future would look dark indeed, but
+for a strange and incalculable leaven, which is already potently at work
+in the land.
+
+Since 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 to the Greek villages
+in the Laconian hills they have been crossing the Atlantic in their
+thousands, to become dockers and navvies, boot-blacks and waiters,
+confectioners and barbers in Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, and all the other
+cities that have sprung up like magic to welcome the immigrant to the
+hospitable plains of the Middle West. The intoxication of his new
+environment stimulates all the latent industry and vitality of the Balkan
+peasant, and he abandons himself whole-heartedly to American life; yet he
+does not relinquish the national tradition in which he grew up. In America
+work brings wealth, and the Greek or Slovak soon worships his God in a
+finer church and reads his language in a better-printed newspaper than he
+ever enjoyed in his native village. The surplus flows home in remittances
+of such abundance that they are steadily raising the cost of living in the
+Balkans themselves, or, in other words, the standard of material
+civilization; and sooner or later the immigrant goes the way of his money
+orders, for home-sickness, if not a mobilization order, exerts its
+compulsion before half a dozen years are out.
+
+It is a strange experience to spend a night in some remote
+mountain-village of Greece, and see Americanism and Hellenism face to
+face. Hellenism is represented by the village schoolmaster. He wears a
+black coat, talks a little French, and can probably read Homer; but his
+longest journey has been to the normal school at Athens, and it has not
+altered his belief that the ikon in the neighbouring monastery was made by
+St. Luke and the Bulgar beyond the mountains by the Devil. On the other
+side of you sits the returned emigrant, chattering irrepressibly in his
+queer version of the 'American language', and showing you the newspapers
+which are mailed to him every fortnight from the States. His clean linen
+collar and his well-made American boots are conspicuous upon him, and he
+will deprecate on your behalf and his own the discomfort and squalor of
+his native surroundings. His home-coming has been a disillusionment, but
+it is a creative phenomenon; and if any one can set Greece upon a new path
+it is he. He is transforming her material life by his American savings,
+for they are accumulating into a capital widely distributed in native
+hands, which will dispense the nation from pawning its richest mines and
+vineyards to the European exploiter, and enable it to carry on their
+development on its own account at this critical juncture when European
+sources of capital are cut off for an indefinite period by the disaster of
+the European War. The emigrant will give Greece all Trikoupis dreamed of,
+but his greatest gift to his country will be his American point of view.
+In the West he has learnt that men of every language and religion can live
+in the same city and work at the same shops and sheds and mills and
+switch-yards without desecrating each other's churches or even suppressing
+each other's newspapers, not to speak of cutting each other's throats; and
+when next he meets Albanian or Bulgar on Balkan ground, he may remember
+that he has once dwelt with him in fraternity at Omaha or St. Louis or
+Chicago. This is the gospel of Americanism, and unlike Hellenism, which
+spread downwards from the patriarch's residence and the merchant's
+counting-house, it is being preached in all the villages of the land by
+the least prejudiced and most enterprising of their sons (for it is these
+who answer America's call); and spreading upward from the peasant towards
+the professor in the university and the politician in parliament.
+
+Will this new leaven conquer, and cast out the stale leaven of Hellenism
+before it sours the loaf? Common sense is mighty, but whether it shall
+prevail in Greece and the Balkans and Europe lies on the knees of the
+gods.
+
+
+
+
+RUMANIA: HER HISTORY AND POLITICS
+
+
+
+1
+
+_Introduction_
+
+
+The problem of the origin and formation of the Rumanian nation has always
+provided matter for keen disputation among historians, and the theories
+which have been advanced are widely divergent. Some of these discussions
+have been undertaken solely for political reasons, and in such cases
+existing data prove conveniently adaptable. This elastic treatment of the
+historical data is facilitated by the fact that a long and important
+period affecting the formation and the development of the Rumanian nation
+(270-1220) has bequeathed practically no contemporary evidence. By linking
+up, however, what is known antecedent to that period with the precise data
+available regarding the following it, and by checking the inferred results
+with what little evidence exists respecting the obscure epoch of Rumanian
+history, it has been possible to reconstruct, almost to a certainty, the
+evolution of the Rumanians during the Middle Ages.
+
+A discussion of the varying theories would be out of proportion, and out
+of place, in this essay. Nor is it possible to give to any extent a
+detailed description of the epic struggle which the Rumanians carried on
+for centuries against the Turks. I shall have to deal, therefore, on broad
+lines, with the historical facts--laying greater stress only upon the
+three fundamental epochs of Rumanian history: the formation of the
+Rumanian nation; its initial casting into a national polity (foundation of
+the Rumanian principalities); and its final evolution into the actual
+unitary State; and shall then pass on to consider the more recent internal
+and external development of Rumania, and her present attitude.
+
+
+
+2
+
+_Formation of the Rumanian Nation_
+
+
+About the fifth century B.C., when the population of the Balkan-Carpathian
+region consisted of various tribes belonging to the Indo-European family,
+the northern portion of the Balkan peninsula was conquered by the
+Thracians and the Illyrians. The Thracians spread north and south, and a
+branch of their race, the Dacians, crossed the Danube. The latter
+established themselves on both sides of the Carpathian ranges, in the
+region which now comprises the provinces of Oltenia (Rumania), and Banat
+and Transylvania (Hungary). The Dacian Empire expanded till its boundaries
+touched upon those of the Roman Empire. The Roman province of Moesia
+(between the Danube and the Balkans) fell before its armies, and the
+campaign that ensued was so successful that the Dacians were able to
+compel Rome to an alliance.
+
+Two expeditions undertaken against Dacia by the Emperor Trajan (98-117)
+released Rome from these ignominious obligations, and brought Dacia under
+Roman rule (A.D. 106). Before his second expedition Trajan erected a stone
+bridge over the Danube, the remains of which can still be seen at
+Turnu-Severin, a short distance below the point where the Danube enters
+Rumanian territory. Trajan celebrated his victory by erecting at Adam
+Klissi (in the province of Dobrogea) the recently discovered _Tropaeum
+Traiani_, and in Rome the celebrated 'Trajan's Column', depicting in
+marble reliefs various episodes of the Dacian wars.
+
+The new Roman province was limited to the regions originally inhabited by
+the Dacians, and a strong garrison, estimated by historians at 25,000 men,
+was left to guard it. Numerous colonists from all parts of the Roman
+Empire were brought here as settlers, and what remained of the Dacian
+population completely amalgamated with them. The new province quickly
+developed under the impulse of Roman civilization, of which numerous
+inscriptions and other archaeological remains are evidence. It became one
+of the most flourishing dependencies of the Roman Empire, and was spoken
+of as _Dacia Felix_.
+
+About a century and a half later hordes of barbarian invaders, coming from
+the north and east, swept over the country. Under the strain of those
+incursions the Roman legions withdrew by degrees into Moesia, and in A.D.
+271 Dacia was finally evacuated. But the colonists remained, retiring into
+the Carpathians, where they lived forgotten of history.
+
+The most powerful of these invaders were the Goths (271-375), who, coming
+from the shores of the Baltic, had shortly before settled north of the
+Black Sea. Unaccustomed to mountain life, they did not penetrate beyond
+the plains between the Carpathians and the Dnjester. They had consequently
+but little intercourse with the Daco-Roman population, and the total
+absence in the Rumanian language and in Rumanian place-names of words of
+Gothic origin indicates that their stay had no influence upon country or
+population. Material evidence of their occupation is 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 (375-453), under Attila, the Avars
+(566-799), both of Mongolian race, and the Gepidae (453-566), of Gothic
+race--all savage, bloodthirsty raiders, passing and repassing over the
+Rumanian regions, pillaging and burning everywhere. To avoid destruction
+the Daco-Roman population withdrew more and more into the inaccessible
+wooded regions of the mountains, and as a result were in no wise
+influenced by contact with 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 ethnical conditions prevailing on the Danube. The
+Rumanians were separated from the Romans, following the occupation by the
+Slavs of the Roman provinces between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Such
+part of the population as was not annihilated during the raids of the
+Avars was taken into captivity, or compelled to retire southwards towards
+modern Macedonia and northwards towards the Dacian regions.
+
+Parts of the Rumanian country became dependent upon the new state founded
+between the Balkans and the Danube in 679 by the Bulgarians, a people of
+Turanian origin, who formerly inhabited the regions north of the Black Sea
+between the Volga and the mouth of the Danube.
+
+After the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity (864) the Slovenian
+language was introduced into their Church, and afterwards also into the
+Church of the already politically dependent Rumanian provinces.[1] This
+finally severed the Daco-Rumanians from the Latin world. The former
+remained for a long time under Slav influence, the extent of which is
+shown by the large number of words of Slav origin contained in the
+Rumanian language, especially in geographical and agricultural
+terminology.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians north and south of the Danube embraced the
+Christian faith after its introduction into the Roman Empire by
+Constantine the Great (325), with Latin as religious language and their
+church organization under the rule of Rome. A Christian basilica, dating
+from that period, has been discovered by the Rumanian; archaeologist,
+Tocilescu, at Adam Klissi (Dobrogea).]
+
+The coming of the Hungarians (a people of Mongolian race) about the end of
+the ninth century put an end to the Bulgarian domination in Dacia. While a
+few of the existing Rumanian duchies were subdued by Stephen the Saint,
+the first King of Hungary (995-1038), the 'land of the Vlakhs' (_Terra
+Blacorum_), in the south-eastern part of Transylvania, enjoyed under the
+Hungarian kings a certain degree of national autonomy. The Hungarian
+chronicles speak of the Vlakhs as 'former colonists of the Romans'. The
+ethnological influence of the Hungarians upon the Rumanian population has
+been practically nil. They found the Rumanian nation firmly established,
+race and language, and the latter remained pure of Magyarisms, even in
+Transylvania. Indeed, it is easy to prove--and it is only what might be
+expected, seeing that the Rumanians had attained a higher state of
+civilization than the Hungarian invaders--that the Hungarians were largely
+influenced by the Daco-Romans. They adopted Latin as their official
+language, they copied many of the institutions and customs of the
+Rumanians, 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 were, however, inimical
+to the new masters, and migrated to the regions across the mountains. This
+the Hungarians used as a pretext for bringing parts of Rumania under their
+domination, and they were only prevented from further extending it by the
+coming of the Tartars (1241), the last people of Mongolian origin to harry
+these regions. The Hungarians maintained themselves, however, in the parts
+which they had already occupied, until the latter were united into the
+principality of the 'Rumanian land'.
+
+To sum up: 'The Rumanians are living to-day where fifteen centuries ago
+their ancestors were living. The possession 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, detached from their native soil,
+disappeared as mist before the sun. But the Roman element bent their heads
+while the storm passed over them, clinging to the old places until the
+advent of happier days, when they were able to stand up and stretch their
+limbs.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Traugott Tamm, _Ueber den Ursprung der Rumaenen,_, Bonn, 1891.]
+
+
+
+3
+
+_The Foundation and Development of the Rumanian Principalities_
+
+
+The first attempt to organize itself into a political entity was made by
+the Rumanian nation in the thirteenth century, when, under the impulse of
+the disaffected nobles coming from Hungary, the two principalities of
+'Muntenia' (Mountain Land), commonly known as Wallachia and 'Moldavia',
+came into being. The existence of Rumanians on both sides of the
+Carpathians long before Wallachia was founded is corroborated by
+contemporary chroniclers. We find evidence of it in as distant a source as
+the _History of the Mongols,_ of the Persian chronicler, Rashid Al-Din,
+who, describing the invasion of the Tartars, says: 'In the middle of
+spring (1240) the princes (Mongols or Tartars) crossed the mountains in
+order to enter the country of the Bulares (Bulgarians) and of the
+Bashguirds (Hungarians). Orda, who was marching to the right, passed
+through the country of the Haute (Olt), where Bazarambam met him with an
+army, but was beaten. Boudgek crossed the mountains to enter the
+Kara-Ulak, and defeated the Ulak (Vlakh) people.'[1] Kara-Ulak means Black
+Wallachia; Bazarambam is certainly the corrupted name of the Ban Bassarab,
+who ruled as vassal of Hungary over the province of Oltenia, and whose
+dynasty founded the principality of Muntenia. The early history of this
+principality was marked by efforts to free it from Hungarian domination, a
+natural development of the desire for emancipation which impelled the
+Rumanians to migrate from the subdued provinces in Hungary.
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, _Histoire des Roumains,_ Paris, 1896, i, 168.]
+
+The foundation of Moldavia dates from after the retreat of the Tartars,
+who had occupied the country for a century (1241-1345). They were driven
+out by an expedition under Hungarian leadership, with the aid of Rumanians
+from the province of Maramuresh. It was the latter who then founded the
+principality of Moldavia under the suzerainty of Hungary, the chroniclers
+mentioning as its first ruler the Voivod Dragosh.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The legend as to the foundation of Moldavia tells us that
+Dragosh, when hunting one day in the mountains, was pursuing a bison
+through the dense forest. Towards sunset, just when a successful shot from
+his bow had struck and killed the animal, he emerged at a point from which
+the whole panorama of Moldavia was unfolded before his astonished eyes.
+Deeply moved by the beauty of this fair country, he resolved to found a
+state there. It is in commemoration of this event that Moldavia bears the
+head of a wild bison on her banner.]
+
+The rudimentary political formations which already existed before the
+foundation of the principalities were swept away by the invasion of the
+Tartars, who destroyed all trace of constituted authority in the plains
+below the Carpathians. In consequence the immigrants from Transylvania did
+not encounter any resistance, and were even able to impose obedience upon
+the native population, though coming rather as refugees than as
+conquerors. These new-comers were mostly nobles (boyards). Their
+emigration deprived the masses of the Rumanian population of Transylvania
+of all moral and political support--especially as a part of the nobility
+had already been won over by their Hungarian masters--and with time the
+masses fell into servitude. On the other hand the immigrating nobles
+strengthened and secured the predominance of their class in the states
+which were to be founded. In both cases the situation of the peasantry
+became worse, and we have, curiously enough, the same social fact brought
+about by apparently contrary causes.
+
+Though the Rumanians seem to have contributed but little, up to the
+nineteenth century, to the advance of civilization, their part in European
+history is nevertheless a glorious one, and if less apparent, perhaps of
+more fundamental importance. By shedding their blood in the struggle
+against the Ottoman invasion, they, together with the other peoples of
+Oriental Europe, procured that security which alone made possible the
+development of western civilization. Their merit, like that of all with
+whom they fought, 'is not to have vanquished time and again the followers
+of Mohammed, 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
+heavy price, that their resources were drained, they were unable to carry
+on the fight, and thus their power came to an end'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., i. 266.]
+
+From the phalanx of Christian warriors stand out the names of a few who
+were the bravest of a time when bravery was common; but while it is at
+least due that more tribute than a mere mention of their names should be
+paid to the patriot princes who fought in life-long conflict against
+Turkish domination, space does not permit me to give more than the
+briefest summary of the wars which for centuries troubled the country.
+
+It was in 1389, when Mircea the Old was Prince of Wallachia, that the
+united Balkan nations attempted for the first 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 the battle of
+Rovine (1398), where Mircea defeated an invading Turkish army, the country
+had peace, until Turkish victories under the Sultan Mohammed resulted, in
+1411, in further submissions to tribute.
+
+It is worthy of mention that it was on the basis of tribute that the
+relations between Turkey and Rumania rested until 1877, the Rumanian
+provinces becoming at no time what Hungary was for a century and a half,
+namely, a Turkish province.
+
+In a battle arising following his frustration--by means not unconnected
+with his name--of a Turkish plot against his person, Vlad the Impaler
+(1458-62) completely defeated the Turks under Mohammed II; but an
+unfortunate feud against Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, put an end
+to the reign of Vlad--a fierce but just prince.
+
+A period of the most lamentable decadence followed, during which Turkish
+domination prevailed more and more in the country. During an interval of
+twenty-five years (1521-46) no less than eleven princes succeeded one
+another on the throne of Muntenia, whilst of the nineteen princes who
+ruled during the last three-quarters of the sixteenth century, only two
+died a natural death while still reigning.
+
+In Moldavia also internal struggles were weakening the country. Not
+powerful enough to do away with one another, the various aspirants to the
+throne contented themselves with occupying and ruling over parts of the
+province. Between 1443-7 there were no less than three princes reigning
+simultaneously, whilst one of them, Peter III, lost and regained the
+throne three times.
+
+For forty-seven years (1457-1504) Stephen the Great fought for the
+independence of Moldavia. At Racova, in 1475, he annihilated an Ottoman
+army in a victory considered the greatest ever secured by the Cross
+against Islam. The Shah of 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 Persians against the common foe.
+These princes, as well as Pope Sixtus IV, gave him great praise; but when
+Stephen 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 divide Moldavia between them. A
+Polish army entered the country, but was utterly destroyed by Stephen in
+the forest of Kosmin.
+
+Having had the opportunity of judging at its right value the friendship of
+the Christian princes, on his death-bed Stephen advised his son Bogdan to
+make voluntary submission to the Turks. Thus Moldavia, like Wallachia,
+came under Turkish suzerainty.
+
+For many years after Stephen's death the Turks exploited the Rumanian
+countries shamelessly, the very candidates for the throne having to pay
+great sums for Turkish support. The country groaned under the resultant
+taxation and the promiscuousness of the tribute exacted till, in 1572,
+John the Terrible ascended the Moldavian throne. This prince refused to
+pay tribute, and repeatedly defeated the Turks. An army of 100,000 men
+advanced against John; but his cavalry, composed of nobles not over-loyal
+to a prince having the peasant cause so much at heart, deserted to the
+enemy, with the result that, after a gallant and prolonged resistance, he
+suffered defeat.
+
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Muntenia (1593-1601), was the last of the
+Vlakhs to stand up against Turkish aggression. This prince not only
+succeeded in crushing a Turkish army sent against him, but he invaded
+Transylvania, whose prince had leanings towards Turkey, pushed further
+into Moldavia, and succeeded in bringing the three Rumanian countries
+under his rule. Michael is described in the documents of the time as
+'Prince of the whole land of Hungro-Wallachia, of Transylvania, and of
+Moldavia'. He ruled for eight years. 'It was not the Turkish sword which
+put an end to the exploits of Michael the Brave. The Magyars of
+Transylvania betrayed him; the German emperor condemned him; and a Greek
+in Austria's service, General Basta, had him sabred: as though it were
+fated that 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 the Rumanian lands which he realized did not last
+long; but it gave form and substance to the idea which was from that day
+onward to be the ideal of the Rumanian nation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Alfred Rumbaud, Introduction to Xenopol, op, cit., i. xix.]
+
+The fundamental cause of all the sufferings of the Rumanian principalities
+was the hybrid 'hereditary-elective' system of succession to the throne,
+which prevailed also in most of the neighbouring countries. All members of
+the princely family were eligible for the succession; but the right of
+selecting among them lay with an assembly composed of the higher nobility
+and clergy. All was well if a 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 with promises, 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 factors in the choice and election of the ruler.
+
+Economically and intellectually all this was disastrous. The Rumanians
+were an agricultural people. The numerous class of small freeholders
+(moshneni and razeshi), not being able to pay the exorbitant taxes, often
+had their lands confiscated by the princes. Often, too, not being able to
+support themselves, they sold their property and their very selves to the
+big landowners. Nor did the nobles fare better. Formerly free,
+quasi-feudal warriors, seeking fortune in reward for services rendered to
+their prince, they were often subjected to coercive treatment on his part
+now that the throne depended upon the goodwill of influential personages
+at Constantinople. Various civil offices were created at court, either
+necessitated by the extension of the relations of the country or intended
+to satisfy some favourite of the prince. Sources of social position 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 best to undermine the position of the prince.
+
+
+
+4
+
+_The Phanariote Rule_
+
+
+These offices very presently fell to the lot of the Phanariotes (Greek
+merchants and bankers inhabiting the quarter of Phanar), who had in some
+way or another assisted the princes to their thrones, these being now
+practically put up to auction in Constantinople. As a natural consequence
+of such a state of affairs the thoughts of the Rumanian princes turned to
+Russia as a possible supporter against Ottoman oppression. A formal
+alliance was entered into in 1711 with Tsar Peter the Great, but a joint
+military action against the Turks failed, the Tsar returned to Russia, and
+the Porte threatened to transform Moldavia, in order to secure her against
+incipient Russian influence, into a Turkish province with a pasha as
+administrator. The nobles were preparing to leave the country, and the
+people to retire into the mountains, as their ancestors had done in times
+of danger. It is not to be wondered at 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 people
+greeted with joy the accession of the first Phanariote to the throne of
+the principality of Moldavia'[1] (1711).
+
+[Footnote 1: Xenopol, op. cit., ii. 138]
+
+Knowledge of foreign languages had enabled the Phanariotes to obtain
+important diplomatic positions at Constantinople, and they ended by
+acquiring the thrones of the Rumanian principalities as a recompense for
+their services. But they had to pay for it, and to make matters more
+profitable 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 thrones in this way three times. They acquired the throne by
+gold, and they could only keep it by gold. All depended upon how much they
+wore able to squeeze out of the country. The princes soon became past
+masters in the art of spoliation. They put taxes upon chimneys, and the
+starving peasants pulled their cottages down and went to live in mountain
+caves; they taxed the animals, and the peasants preferred to kill the few
+beasts they possessed. But this often proved no remedy, for we are told
+that the Prince Constantin Mavrocordato, having prescribed a tax on
+domestic animals at a time when an epidemic had broken out amongst them,
+ordered the tax to be levied on the carcasses. 'The Administrative regime
+during the Phanariote period was, in general, little else than organized
+brigandage,' says Xenopol[1]. In fact the Phanariote rule was instinct
+with corruption, luxury, and intrigue. Though individually some of them
+may not deserve blame, yet considering what the Phanariotes took out of
+the country, what they introduced into it, and to what extent they
+prevented its development, their era was the most calamitous in Rumanian
+history.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid, op. cit., ii. 308]
+
+The war of 1768 between Russia and Turkey gave the former power a vague
+protectorate over the Rumanian provinces (Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji). In
+1774 Austria acquired from the Turks, by false promises, the northern part
+of Moldavia, the pleasant land of Bucovina. During the new conflict
+between Turkey and Russia, the Russian armies occupied and battened upon
+the Rumanian provinces for six years. Though they had again to abandon
+their intention of making the Danube the southern boundary of their
+empire--to which Napoleon had agreed by the secret treaty with Tsar
+Alexander (Erfurt, September 27, 1808)--they obtained from Turkey the
+cession of Bessarabia (Treaty of Bucarest, May 28, 1812), together with
+that part of Moldavia lying between the Dnjester and the Pruth, the
+Russians afterwards giving to the whole region the name of Bessarabia.
+
+
+
+5
+
+_Modern Period to 1866_
+
+
+In 1821 the Greek revolution, striving to create an independent Greece,
+broke out on Rumanian ground, supported by the princes of Moldavia and
+Muntenia. Of this support the Rumanians strongly disapproved, for, if
+successful, the movement would have strengthened the obnoxious Greek
+domination; If unsuccessful, the Turks were sure to take a terrible
+revenge for the assistance given by the Rumanian countries. The movement,
+which was started about the same time by the ennobled peasant, Tudor
+Vladimirescu, for the emancipation of the lower classes, soon acquired,
+therefore, an anti-Greek tendency. Vladimirescu was assassinated at the
+instigation of the Greeks; the latter were completely checked by the
+Turks, who, grown suspicious after the Greek rising and confronted with
+the energetic attitude of the Rumanian nobility, consented in 1822 to the
+nomination of two native boyards, Jonitza Sturdza and Gregory Ghica,
+recommended by their countrymen, as princes of 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 influence in the Rumanian
+principalities also marks the growth of Russian influence; the first meant
+economic exploitation, the second was a serious menace to the very
+existence of the Rumanian nation. But if Russia seemed a possible future
+danger, Turkey with its Phanariote following was a certain and immediate
+menace. When, therefore, at the outbreak of the conflict with Turkey in
+1828 the Russians once more passed the Pruth, the country welcomed them.
+Indeed, the Rumanian boyards, who after the rising of 1821 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 Treaty of Adrianople (1829) the rights of Turkey as suzerain were
+limited to the exaction of a monetary tribute and the right of investiture
+of the princes, one important innovation being that these last were to be
+elected by national assemblies for life. But, on the other hand, a Russian
+protectorate was established, and the provinces remained in Russian
+military occupation up to 1834, pending the payment of the war indemnity
+by Turkey. The ultimate aim of Russia may be open to discussion. Her
+immediate aim was to make Russian influence paramount in the
+principalities; this being the only possible explanation of the anomalous
+fact that, pending the payment of the war indemnity, Russia herself was
+occupying the provinces whose autonomy she had but now forcibly retrieved
+from Turkey. The _Reglement Organique_, the new constitutional law given
+to the principalities by their Russian governor, Count Kisseleff, truly
+reflected the tendency. From the administrative point of view it was meant
+to make for progress; from the political point of view it was meant to
+bind the two principalities to the will of the Tsar. The personal charm of
+Count Kisseleff seemed to have established as it were an unbreakable link
+between Russians and Rumanians. But when he left the country in 1834 'the
+liking for Russia passed away to be replaced finally by the two sentiments
+which always most swayed the Rumanian heart: love for their country, and
+affection towards France'.
+
+[Footnote 1: Sec P. Eliade, _Histoire de l'Esprit Public en Roumanie_, i,
+p. 167 et seq.]
+
+French culture had been introduced into the principalities by 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 their children. With the Russian occupation a fresh
+impetus was given to French culture, which was pre-eminent in Russia at
+the time; and the Russian officials, not speaking the language of the
+country, generally employed French in their relations with the Rumanian
+authorities, French being already widely spoken in Rumania. The contact
+with French civilization, at an epoch when the Rumanians were striving to
+free themselves from Turkish, Greek, and Russian political influence,
+roused in them the sleeping Latin spirit, 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 in their history
+the Rumanians felt themselves drawn towards France, no less by racial
+affinity than by the liberal ideas to which that country had so
+passionately given herself during several decades.
+
+By the Treaty of Adrianople the Black Sea was opened to the commercial
+vessels of all nations. This made for the rapid economic development of
+the principalities by providing an outlet for their agricultural produce,
+the chief source of their wealth. It also brought them nearer to western
+Europe, which began to be interested in a nation whose spirit centuries of
+sufferings had failed to break. Political, literary, and economic events
+thus prepared the ground for the Rumanian Renascence, and when in 1848 the
+great revolution broke out, it spread at once over the Rumanian countries,
+where the dawn of freedom had been struggling to break since 1821. The
+Rumanians of Transylvania rose against the tyranny of the Magyars; those
+of Moldavia and Muntenia against the oppressive influence of Russia. The
+movement under the gallant, but inexperienced, leadership of a few
+patriots, who, significantly enough, had almost all been educated in
+France, was, however, soon checked in the principalities by the joint
+action of Russian and Turkish forces which remained in occupation of the
+country. Many privileges were lost (Convention of Balta Liman, May 1,
+1849); but the revolution had quickened the national sentiment of the
+younger generation in all classes of society, and the expatriated leaders,
+dispersed throughout the great capitals of Europe, strenuously set to work
+to publish abroad the righteous cause of their country. In this they
+received the enthusiastic and invaluable assistance of Edgar Quinet,
+Michelet, Saint-Marc Girardin, and others.
+
+This propaganda had the fortune to be contemporaneous and in agreement
+with the political events leading to the Crimean War, which was entered
+upon to check the designs of Russia. A logical consequence was the idea,
+raised at the Paris Congress of 1856, of the union of the Rumanian
+principalities as a barrier to Russian expansion. This idea found a
+powerful supporter in Napoleon III, ever a staunch upholder of the
+principle of nationality. But at the Congress the unexpected happened.
+Russia favoured the idea of union, 'to swallow the two principalities at a
+gulp,' as a contemporary diplomatist maliciously suggested; while Austria
+opposed it strongly. So, inconceivably enough, did Turkey, whose attitude,
+as the French ambassador at Constantinople, Thouvenel, put it, 'was less
+influenced by the opposition of Austria than by the approval of
+Russia'.[1] Great Britain also threw in her weight with the powers which
+opposed the idea of union, following her traditional policy of preserving
+the European equilibrium. The treaty of March 30, 1856, re-incorporated
+with Moldavia the southern part of Bessarabia, including the delta of the
+Danube, abolished the Russian protectorate, but confirmed the suzerainty
+of Turkey--not unnaturally, since the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had
+been the prime motive of the war. By prohibiting Turkey, however, from
+entering Rumanian territory, save with the consent of the great powers, it
+was recognized indirectly that the suzerainty was merely a nominal one.
+Article 23 of the treaty, by providing that the administration of the
+principalities was to be on a national basis, implicitly pointed to the
+idea of union, as the organization of one principality independently of
+the other would not have been national. But as the main argument of Turkey
+and Austria was that the Rumanians themselves did not desire the union, it
+was decided to convene in both principalities special assemblies (divans
+_ad hoc_) representing all classes of the population, whose wishes were to
+be embodied, by a European commission, in a report for consideration by
+the Congress.
+
+[Footnote 1: A. Xenopol, _Unionistii si Separatistii_ (Paper read before
+the Rumanian Academy), 1909.]
+
+To understand the argument of the two powers concerned and the decision to
+which it led, it must be borne in mind that the principalities were in the
+occupation of an Austrian army, which had replaced the Russian armies
+withdrawn in 1854, and that the elections for the assemblies were to be
+presided over by Turkish commissaries. Indeed, the latter, in
+collaboration with the Austrian consuls, so successfully doctored the
+election lists,[1] that the idea of union might once more have fallen
+through, had it not been for the invaluable assistance which Napoleon III
+gave the Rumanian countries. As Turkish policy was relying mainly on
+England's support, Napoleon brought about a personal meeting with Queen
+Victoria and Prince Albert, at Osborne (August 1857), the result of which
+was a compromise: Napoleon agreed to defer for the time being the idea of
+an effective union of the two principalities, England undertaking, on the
+other hand, to make the Porte cancel the previous elections, and proceed
+to new ones after revision of the electoral lists. The corrupt Austrian
+and Turkish influence on the old elections was best demonstrated by the
+fact that only three of the total of eighty-four old members succeeded in
+securing re-election. The assemblies met and proclaimed as imperatively
+necessary to the future welfare of the provinces, their union, 'for no
+frontier divides us, and everything tends to bring us closer, and nothing
+to separate 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 us has been a constant
+pretext for foreign interference, and the throne has been the cause of
+unending feud among the great families of this country'. Moreover, if the
+union of the two principalities was to be accomplished under a native
+prince, it is obvious that the competition would have become doubly keen;
+not to speak of the jealousies likely to be arousal between Moldavians and
+Muntenians.
+
+[Footnote 1: The edifying correspondence between the Porte and its
+commissary Vorgorides regarding the arrangements for the Rumanian
+elections fell into the hands of Rumanian politicians, and caused a great
+sensation when it appeared in _L'Etoile du Danube_, published in Brussels
+by Rumanian _emigres_.]
+
+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
+started on the high road of progress. But Europe had called for the
+expression of these wishes only to get the question shelved for the
+moment, as in 1856 everybody was anxious for a peace which should at all
+costs be speedy. Consequently, when a second Congress met in Paris, in May
+1858, three months of discussion and the sincere efforts of France only
+resulted in a hybrid structure entitled the 'United Principalities'. These
+were to have a common legislation, a common army, and a central committee
+composed of representatives of both assemblies for the discussion of
+common affairs; but were to continue to form two separate states, with
+independent legislative and executive institutions, each having to elect a
+prince of Rumanian descent for life.
+
+Disappointed in their hopes and reasonable expectations, the Rumanians
+adopted the principle of 'help yourself and God will help you', and
+proceeded to the election of their rulers. Several candidates competed in
+Moldavia. To avoid a split vote the name of an outsider was put forward
+the day before the election, and on January 17, 1859, Colonel Alexander
+Ioan Cuza was unanimously elected. In Wallachia the outlook was very
+uncertain when the assembly met, amid great popular excitement, on
+February 5. The few patriots who had realized that the powers, seeking
+only their own interests, were consciously and of set purpose hampering
+the emancipation of a long-suffering nation, put forth and urged the
+election of Cuza, and the assembly unanimously adopted this spirited
+suggestion. By this master-stroke the Rumanians had quietly accomplished
+the reform which was an indispensable condition towards assuring a better
+future. The political moment was propitious. Italy's military preparation
+prevented Austria from intervening, and, as usual when confronted with an
+accomplished fact, the great powers and Turkey finished by officially
+recognizing the action of the principalities in December 1861. The central
+commission was at once abolished, the two assemblies and cabinets merged
+into one, and Bucarest became the capital of the new state 'Rumania'.
+
+If the unsympathetic attitude of the powers had any good result, it was to
+bring home for the moment to the Rumanians the necessity for national
+unity. When the danger passed, however, the wisdom which it had evoked
+followed suit. Cuza cherished the hope of realizing various ideal reforms.
+Confronted with strong opposition, he did not hesitate to override the
+constitution by dissolving the National Assembly (May 2, 1864) and
+arrogating to himself the right, till the formation of a new Chamber, to
+issue decrees which had all the force of law. He thus gave a dangerous
+example to the budding constitutional polity; political passions were let
+loose, and a plot organized by the Opposition led to the forced abdication
+of Cuza on February 23, 1866. The prince left the country for ever a few
+days later. No disturbance whatever took place, not one drop of blood was
+shed.
+
+A series of laws, mostly adapted from French models, was introduced by
+Cuza. Under the Education Act of 1864 all degrees of education were free,
+and elementary education compulsory. A large number of special and
+technical schools were founded, as well as two universities, one at Jassy
+(1860) and one at Bucarest (1864). After the _coup d'etat_ of 1864
+universal suffrage was introduced, largely as an attempt to 'swamp' the
+fractious political parties with the peasant vote; while at the same time
+a 'senate' was created as a 'moderating assembly' which, composed as it
+was of members by right and members nominated by the prince, by its very
+nature increased the influence of the crown. The chief reforms concerned
+the rural question. Firstly, Cuza and his minister, Cogalniceanu,
+secularized and converted to the state the domains of the monasteries,
+which during the long period of Greek influence had acquired one-fifth of
+the total area of the land, and were completely in the hands of the Greek
+clergy (Law of December 13, 1863). More important still, as affecting
+fundamentally the social structure of the country, was the Rural Law
+(promulgated on August 26, 1864), which had been the cause of the conflict
+between Cuza and the various political factions, the Liberals clamouring
+for more thorough reforms, the Conservatives denouncing Cuza's project as
+revolutionary. As the peasant question is the most important problem left
+for Rumania to solve, and as I believe that, in a broad sense, it has a
+considerable bearing upon the present political situation in that country,
+it may not be out of place here to devote a little space to its
+consideration.
+
+Originally the peasant lived in the village community as a free
+land-owner. He paid a certain due (one-tenth of his produce and three
+days' labour yearly) to his leader (_cneaz_) as recompense for his
+leadership in peace and war. The latter, moreover, solely enjoyed the
+privilege of carrying on the occupations of miller and innkeeper, and the
+peasant was compelled to mill with him. When after the foundation of the
+principalities the upper class was established on a feudal basis, the
+peasantry were subjected to constantly increasing burdens. Impoverished
+and having in many cases lost their land, the peasants were also deprived
+at the end of the sixteenth century of their freedom of movement. By that
+time the cneaz, from being the leader of the community, had become the
+actual lord of the village, and his wealth was estimated by the number of
+villages he possessed. The peasant owners paid their dues to him in labour
+and in kind. Those peasants who owned no land were his serfs, passing with
+the land from master to master.
+
+Under the Turkish domination the Rumanian provinces became the granary of
+the Ottoman Empire. The value of land rose quickly, as did also the taxes.
+To meet these taxes--from the payment of which the boyards (the
+descendants of the cneazi) were exempt--the peasant owners had 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 increase of their lands they needed more labour, and they obtained
+permission from the ruler not only to exact increased labour dues from the
+peasantry, but also to determine the amount of work that should be done in
+a day. This was effected in such 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 eighteenth century. By a decree of Prince Moruzi, in
+1805, the lords were for the first time empowered to reserve to their own
+use part of the estate, namely, one-fourth of the meadow land, and this
+privilege was extended in 1828 to the use of one-third of the arable land.
+The remaining two-thirds were reserved for the peasants, every young
+married couple being entitled to a certain amount of land, in proportion
+to the number of traction animals they owned. When the Treaty of
+Adrianople of 1829 opened the western markets to Rumanian corn, in which
+markets far 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 _Reglement Organique_ they succeeded in
+reducing such land to half its previous area, at the same time maintaining
+and exacting from the peasant his dues in full. It is in the same Act that
+there appears for the first time the fraudulent 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, security for the peasants from the
+enslaving domination of the upper class, 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 estate. The original
+intention of creating common land was not carried out in the Bill. The
+peasant's holding in arable land being small, he not infrequently ploughed
+his pasture, and, as a consequence, had either to give up keeping beasts,
+or pay a high price to the land-owners for pasturage. Dues in labour and
+in kind were abolished, the land-owners receiving an indemnity which was
+to be refunded to the state by the peasants 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 ideal reform,
+without adequate study of and adaptation to social circumstances, his laws
+provided no practical solution of the problem with which they dealt. In
+this case, for example, the reform benefited the upper class solely,
+although generally considered a boon to the peasantry. Of ancient right
+two-thirds of the estate were reserved for the peasants; but the new law
+gave them possession of no more than the strip they were holding, which
+barely sufficed to provide them with the mere necessaries of life. The
+remainder up to two-thirds of the estate went as a gift, with full
+proprietorship; to the boyard. For the exemption of their dues in kind and
+in labour, the peasants had to pay an indemnity, whereas the right of
+their sons to receive at their marriage a piece of land in proportion to
+the number of traction animals they possessed was lost without
+compensation. Consequently, the younger peasants had to sell their labour,
+contracting for periods of a year and upwards, and became a much easier
+prey to the spoliation of the upper class than when they had at least a
+strip of land on which to build a hut, and from which to procure their
+daily bread; the more so as the country had no industry which could
+compete with agriculture in the labour market. An investigation undertaken
+by the Home Office showed that out of 1,265 labour contracts for 1906,
+chosen at random, only 39.7 per cent, were concluded at customary wages;
+the others were lower in varying degrees, 13.2 per cent. of the cases
+showing wages upwards of 75 per cent. below the usual rates.
+
+Under these conditions of poverty and economic serfdom the peasantry was
+not able to participate in the enormous development of Rumanian
+agriculture, which had resulted from increased political security and the
+establishment of an extensive network of railways. While the boyards found
+an increasing attraction in politics, a new class of middlemen came into
+existence, renting the land from the boyards for periods varying generally
+from three to five years. Owing to the resultant competition, rents
+increased considerably, while conservative methods of cultivation kept
+production stationary. Whereas the big cultivator obtained higher prices
+to balance the increased cost of production, the peasant, who produced for
+his own consumption, could only face such increase by a corresponding
+decrease in the amount of food consumed. To show how much alive the rural
+question is, it is enough to state that peasant risings occurred in 1888,
+1889, 1894, 1900, and 1907; that new distributions of land took place in
+1881 and 1889; that land was promised to the peasants as well at the time
+of the campaign of 1877 as at that of 1913; and that more or less happily
+conceived measures concerning rural questions have been passed in almost
+every parliamentary session. The general tendency of such legislation
+partook of the 'free contract' nature, though owing to the social
+condition of the peasantry the acts in question had to embody protective
+measures 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 a solution is possible no
+one can doubt. One writer, basing his arguments on official statistics
+which show that the days of employment in 1905 averaged only ninety-one
+for each peasant, claims that only the introduction of circulating capital
+and the creation of new branches of activity can bring about a change. The
+suggested remedy may be open to discussion; but our author is undoubtedly
+right when, asking himself why this solution has not yet been attempted,
+he says: 'Our country is governed at present by an agrarian class.... Her
+whole power rests in her ownership of the land, our only wealth. The
+introduction of circulating capital would result in the disintegration of
+that wealth, in the loss of its unique quality, and, as a consequence, in
+the social decline of its possessors.'[1] This is the fundamental evil
+which prevents any solution of the rural question. A small class of
+politicians, with the complicity of a large army of covetous and
+unscrupulous officials, live in oriental indolence out of the sufferings
+of four-fifths of the Rumanian nation. Though elementary education is
+compulsory, more than 60 per cent. of the population are still illiterate,
+mainly on account of the inadequacy of the educational budget. Justice is
+a myth for the peasant. Of political rights he is, in fact, absolutely
+deprived. The large majority, and by far the sanest part of the Rumanian
+nation, are thus fraudulently kept outside the political and social life
+of the country. It is not surmising too much, therefore, to say that the
+opportunity of emancipating the Transylvanians would not have been
+wilfully neglected, had that part of the Rumanian nation in which the old
+spirit still survives had any choice in the determination of their own
+fate.
+
+[Footnote 1: St. Antim, _Cbestiunea Social[)a] [^i]n Rom[^a]nia,_ 1908, p.
+214.]
+
+
+
+6
+
+_Contemporary Period: Internal Development_
+
+
+In order to obviate internal disturbances 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 offer was,
+however, not accepted, as neither France nor Russia favoured the proposal.
+Meanwhile a conference had met again in Paris at the instance of Turkey
+and vetoed the election 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 their protests if a candidate
+were found who was likely to secure the support of Napoleon III, then
+'schoolmaster' of European diplomacy. This candidate was found in the
+person of Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, second son of the head
+of the elder branch of the Hohenzollerns (Catholic and non-reigning).
+Prince Carol was cousin to the King of Prussia, and related through his
+grandmother to the Bonaparte family. He could consequently count upon the
+support of France and Prussia, while the political situation fortunately
+secured him from the opposition of Russia, whose relations with Prussia
+were at the time friendly, and also from that of Austria, whom Bismarck
+proposed to 'keep busy for some time to come'. The latter must have viewed
+with no little satisfaction the prospect of a Hohenzollern occupying the
+throne of Rumania at this juncture; and Prince Carol, allowing himself to
+be influenced by the Iron Chancellor's advice, answered the call of the
+Rumanian nation, which had proclaimed him as 'Carol I, Hereditary Prince
+of Rumania'. Travelling secretly with a small retinue, the prince second
+class, his suite first, Prince Carol descended the Danube on an Austrian
+steamer, and landed on May 8 at Turnu-Severin, the very place where,
+nearly eighteen centuries before, the Emperor Trajan had alighted and
+founded the Rumanian nation.
+
+By independent and energetic action, by a conscious neglect of the will of
+the powers, which only a young constitutional polity would have dared, by
+an active and unselfish patriotism, Rumania had at last chosen and secured
+as her ruler the foreign prince who alone had a chance of putting a stop
+to intrigues from within and from without. And the Rumanians had been
+extremely fortunate in their hasty and not quite independent choice. A
+prince of Latin origin would probably have been more warmly welcomed to
+the hearts of the Rumanian people; but after so many years of political
+disorder, corrupt administration, and arbitrary rule, a prince possessed
+of the German spirit of discipline and order was best fitted to command
+respect and impose obedience and sobriety of principle upon the Rumanian
+politicians.
+
+Prince Carol's task was no easy one. The journal compiled by the
+provisional government, which held the reins for the period elapsing
+between the abdication of Cuza and the accession of Prince Carol, depicts
+in the darkest colours the economic situation to which the faults, the
+waste, the negligence, and short-sightedness of the previous regime had
+reduced the country, 'the government being in the humiliating position of
+having brought disastrous and intolerable hardship alike upon its
+creditors, its servants, its pensioners, and its soldiers'.[1] Reforms
+were badly needed, and the treasury had nothing in hand but debts. To
+increase the income of the state was difficult, for the country was poor
+and not economically independent. Under the Paris Convention of 1858,
+Rumania remained bound, to her detriment, by the commercial treaties of
+her suzerain, Turkey, the powers not being willing to lose the privileges
+they enjoyed under the Turkish capitulations. Moreover, she was specially
+excluded from the arrangement of 1860, which allowed Turkey to increase
+her import taxes. The inheritance of ultra-liberal measures from the
+previous regime made it difficult to cope with the unruly spirit of the
+nation. Any attempt at change in this direction would have savoured of
+despotism to the people, who, having at last won the right to speak aloud,
+believed that to clamour against anything that meant 'rule' was the only
+real and full assertion of liberty. And the dissatisfied were always
+certain of finding a sympathetic ear and an open purse in the
+Chancellories of Vienna and St. Petersburg.
+
+[Footnote 1: D.A. Sturdza, _Treizeci de ani de Domnie ai Regelui Carol,_
+1900, i.82.]
+
+Prince Carol, not being sufficiently well acquainted with the conditions
+of the country nor possessing as yet much influence with the governing
+class, had not been in a position to influence at their inception the
+provisions of the extremely liberal constitution passed only a few weeks
+after his accession to the throne. The new constitution, which resembled
+that of Belgium more nearly than any other, was framed by a constituent
+assembly elected on universal suffrage, and, except for slight
+modifications introduced in 1879 and 1884, is in vigour to-day. It
+entrusts the executive to the king and his ministers, the latter alone
+being responsible for the acts of the government.[1] The legislative power
+is vested in the king and two assemblies--a senate and a chamber--the
+initiative resting with any one of the three.[2] The budget and the yearly
+bills fixing the strength of the army, however, must first be passed by
+the Chamber. The agreement of the two Chambers and the sanction of the
+king are necessary before any bill becomes law. The king convenes,
+adjourns, and dissolves parliament. He promulgates the laws and is
+invested with the right of absolute veto. The constitution proclaims the
+inviolability of domicile, the liberty of the press and of assembly, and
+absolute liberty of creed and religion, in so far as its forms of
+celebration do not come into conflict with public order and decency. It
+recognizes no distinction of class and privilege; all the citizens share
+equally rights and duties within the law. Education is free in the state
+schools, and elementary education compulsory wherever state schools exist.
+Individual liberty and property are guaranteed; but only Rumanian citizens
+can acquire rural property. Military service is compulsory, entailing two
+years in the infantry, three years in the cavalry and artillery, one year
+in all arms for those having completed their studies as far as the
+university stage. Capital punishment does not exist, except for military
+offences in time of war.
+
+[Footnote 1: There are at present nine departments: Interior, Foreign
+Affairs, Finance, War, Education and Religion, Domains and Agriculture,
+Public Works, Justice, and Industry and Commerce. The President of the
+Cabinet is Prime Minister, with or without portfolio.]
+
+[Footnote 2: All citizens of full age paying taxes, with various
+exemptions, are electors, voting according to districts and census. In the
+case of the illiterate country inhabitants, with an income from land of
+less than L12 a year, fifty of them choose one delegate having one vote in
+the parliamentary election. The professorial council of the two
+universities of Jassy and Bucarest send one member each to the Senate, the
+heir to the throne and the eight bishops being members by right.]
+
+The state religion is Greek Orthodox. Up to 1864 the Rumanian Church was
+subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In that year it was
+proclaimed independent, national, and autocephalous, though this change
+was not recognized by the Patriarchate till 1885, while the secularization
+of the property of the monasteries put an end _de facto_ to the influence
+of the Greek clergy. Religious questions of a dogmatic nature are settled
+by the Holy Synod of Bucarest, composed of the two metropolitans of
+Bucarest and Jassy and the eight bishops; the Minister for Education, with
+whom the administrative part of the Church rests, having only a
+deliberative vote. The maintenance of the Church and of the clergy is
+included in the general budget of the country, the ministers being state
+officials (Law of 1893).
+
+Religion has never played an important part in Rumanian national life, and
+was generally limited to merely external practices. This may be attributed
+largely to the fact that as the Slavonic language had been used in the
+Church since the ninth century and then was superseded by Greek up to the
+nineteenth century, the clergy was foreign, and was neither in a position
+nor did it endeavour to acquire a spiritual influence over the Rumanian
+peasant. There is no record whatever in Rumanian history of any religious
+feuds or dissensions. The religious passivity remained unstirred even
+during the domination of the Turks, who contented themselves with treating
+the unbelievers with contempt, and squeezing as much money as possible out
+of them. Cuza having made no provision for the clergy when he converted
+the wealth of the monasteries to the state, they were left for thirty
+years in complete destitution, and remained as a consequence outside the
+general intellectual development of the country. Though the situation has
+much improved since the Law of 1893, which incorporated the priests with
+the other officials of the Government, the clergy, recruited largely from
+among the rural population, are still greatly inferior to the Rumanian
+priests of Bucovina and Transylvania. Most of them take up Holy orders as
+a profession: 'I have known several country parsons who were thorough
+atheists.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: R. Rosetti, _Pentru ce s-au r[)a]sculat [t'][)a]ranii_, 1907,
+p. 600]
+
+However difficult his task, Prince Carol never deviated from the strictly
+constitutional path: his opponents were free to condemn the prince's
+opinions; he never gave them the chance of questioning his integrity.
+
+Prince Carol relied upon the position in which his origin and family
+alliances placed him in his relations with foreign rulers to secure him
+the respect of his new subjects. Such considerations impressed the
+Rumanians. Nor could they fail to be aware of 'the differences between the
+previously elected princes and the present dynasty, and the improved
+position which the country owed to the latter'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Augenzeuge, _Aus dem Leben Koenig Karls von Rum[)a]nien,
+1894-1900,_ iii. 177.]
+
+To inculcate the Rumanians with the spirit of discipline the prince took
+in hand with energy and pursued untiringly, in spite of all obstacles, the
+organization of the army. A reliable and well-organized armed force was
+the best security against internal trouble-mongers, and the best argument
+in international relations, as subsequent events amply proved.
+
+The Rumanian political parties were at the outset personal parties,
+supporting one or other of the candidates to the throne. When Greek
+influence, emanating from Constantinople, began to make itself felt, in
+the seventeenth century, a national party arose for the purpose of
+opposing it. This party counted upon the support of one of the
+neighbouring powers, and its various groups were known accordingly as the
+Austrian, the Russian, &c., parties. With the election of Cuza the
+external danger diminished, and the politicians divided upon principles of
+internal reform. Cuza not being in agreement with either party, they
+united to depose him, keeping truce during the period preceding the
+accession of Prince Carol, when grave external dangers wore threatening,
+and presiding in a coalition ministry at the introduction of the new
+constitution of 1866. But this done, the truce was broken. Political
+strife again awoke with all the more vigour for having been temporarily
+suppressed.
+
+The reforms which it became needful to introduce gave opportunity for the
+development of strong divergence of views between the political parties.
+The Liberals--the Red Party, as they were called at the time--(led by C.A.
+Rosetti and Ioan Bratianu, both strong Mazzinists, both having taken an
+important part in the revolutionary movements of 1848 and in that which
+led to the deposition of Cuza) were advocating reforms hardly practicable
+even in an established democracy; the Conservatives (led by Lascar
+Catargiu) were striving to stem the flood of ideal liberal measures on
+which all sense of reality was being carried away.[1] In little more than
+a year there were four different Cabinets, not to mention numerous changes
+in individual ministers. 'Between the two extreme tendencies Prince Carol
+had to strive constantly to preserve unity of direction, he himself being
+the only stable element in that ever unstable country.' It was not without
+many untoward incidents that he succeeded. His person was the subject of
+more than one unscrupulous attack by politicians in opposition, who did
+not hesitate to exploit the German origin and the German sympathies of the
+prince in order to inflame the masses. These internal conflicts entered
+upon an acute phase at the time of the Franco-German conflict of 1870.
+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 assuring him that 'his sympathies will always
+be where the black and white banner is waving'. In these so strained
+circumstances a section of the population of Bucarest allowed itself to be
+drawn into anti-German street riots. Disheartened and despairing of ever
+being able to do anything for that 'beautiful country', whose people
+'neither know how to govern themselves nor will allow themselves to be
+governed', the prince decided to abdicate.
+
+[Footnote 1: A few years ago a group of politicians, mainly of
+the old Conservative party, detached themselves and became the
+Conservative-Democratic party under the leadership of M. Take Ionescu.]
+
+So strong was the feeling in parliament roused by the prince's decision
+that one of his most inveterate opponents now declared that it would be an
+act of high treason for the prince to desert the country at such a crisis.
+We have an inkling of what might have resulted in the letter written by
+the Emperor of Austria to Prince Carol at the time, assuring him that 'my
+Government will eagerly seize any opportunity which presents itself to
+prove by deeds the interest it takes in a country connected by so many
+bonds to my empire'. Nothing but the efforts of Lascar Catargiu and the
+sound patriotism of a few statesmen saved the country from what would have
+been a real misfortune. The people were well aware of this, and cheers
+lasting several minutes greeted that portion of the message from the
+throne which conveyed to the new parliament the decision of the prince to
+continue reigning.
+
+The situation was considerably strengthened during a period of five years'
+Conservative rule. Prince Carol's high principles and the dignified
+example of his private life secured for him the increasing respect of
+politicians of all colours; while his statesmanlike qualities, his
+patience and perseverance, soon procured him an unlimited influence in the
+affairs of the state. This was made the more possible from the fact that,
+on account of the political ignorance of the masses, and of the varied
+influence exercised on the electorate by the highly centralized
+administration, no Rumanian Government ever fails to obtain a majority at
+an election. Any statesman can undertake to form a Cabinet if the king
+assents to a dissolution of parliament. Between the German system, where
+the emperor chooses the ministers independently of parliament, and the
+English system, where the members of the executive are indicated by the
+electorate through the medium of parliament, independently of the Crown,
+the Rumanian system takes a middle path. Neither the crown, nor the
+electorate, nor parliament possesses exclusive power in this direction.
+The Government is not, generally speaking, defeated either by the
+electorate or by parliament. It is the Crown which has the final decision
+in the changes of regime, and upon the king falls the delicate task of
+interpreting the significance of political or popular movements. The
+system--which comes nearest to that of Spain--undoubtedly has its
+advantages in a young and turbulent polity, by enabling its most stable
+element, the king, to ensure a continuous and harmonious policy. But it
+also makes the results dangerously dependent on the quality of that same
+element. Under the leadership of King Carol it was an undoubted success;
+the progress made by the country from an economic, financial, and military
+point of view during the last half-century is really enormous. Its
+position was furthermore strengthened by the proclamation of its
+independence, by the final settlement of the dynastic question,[1] and by
+its elevation on May 10, 1881, to the rank of kingdom, when upon the head
+of the first King of Rumania was placed a crown of steel made from one of
+the guns captured before Plevna from an enemy centuries old.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the absence of direct descendants and according to the
+constitution, Prince Ferdinand (born 1865), second son of King Carol's
+elder brother, was named Heir Apparent to the Rumanian throne. He married
+in 1892 Princess Marie of Coburg, and following the death of King Carol in
+1914, he acceded to the throne as Ferdinand I.]
+
+From the point of view of internal politics progress has been less
+satisfactory. The various reforms once achieved, the differences of
+principle between the political parties degenerated into mere opportunism,
+the Opposition opposing, the Government disposing. The parties, and
+especially the various groups within the parties, are generally known by
+the names of their leaders, these denominations not implying any definite
+political principle or Government programme. It is, moreover, far from
+edifying that the personal element should so frequently distort political
+discussion. 'The introduction of modern forms of state organization has
+not been followed by the democratization of all social institutions....
+The masses of the people have remained all but completely outside
+political life. Not only are we yet far from government of the people by
+the people, but our liberties, though deeply graven on the facade of our
+constitution, have not permeated everyday life nor even stirred in the
+consciousness of the people.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: C. Stere, _Social-democratizm sau Poporanizm_, Jassy.]
+
+It is strange that King Carol, who had the welfare of the people sincerely
+at heart, should not have used his influence to bring about a solution of
+the rural question; but this may perhaps be explained by the fact that,
+from Cuza's experience, he anticipated opposition from all political
+factions. It would almost seem as if, by a tacit understanding, and
+anxious to establish Rumania's international position, King Carol gave his
+ministers a free hand in the rural question, reserving for himself an
+equally free hand in foreign affairs. This seems borne out by the fact
+that, in the four volumes in which an 'eyewitness', making use of the
+king's private correspondence and personal notes, has minutely described
+the first fifteen years of the reign, the peasant question is entirely
+ignored.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The 'eyewitness' was Dr. Schaeffer, formerly tutor to Prince
+Carol.]
+
+Addressing himself, in 1871, to the Rumanian representative at the Porte,
+the Austrian ambassador, von Prokesch-Osten, remarked: 'If Prince Carol
+manages to pull through without outside help, and make Rumania governable,
+it will be the greatest _tour de force_ I have ever witnessed in my
+diplomatic career of more than half a century. It will be nothing less
+than a conjuring trick.' King Carol succeeded; and only those acquainted
+with Rumanian affairs can appreciate the truth of the ambassador's words.
+
+
+
+_7_
+
+_Contemporary Period: Foreign Affairs_
+
+
+Up to 1866 Rumanian foreign politics may be said to have been
+non-existent. The offensive or defensive alliances against the Turks
+concluded by the Rumanian rulers with neighbouring princes during the
+Middle Ages were not made in pursuance of any definite policy, but merely
+to meet the moment's need. With the establishment of Turkish suzerainty
+Rumania became a pawn in the foreign politics of the neighbouring empires,
+and we find her repeatedly included in their projects of acquisition,
+partition, or compensation (as, for instance, when she was put forward as
+eventual compensation to Poland for the territories lost by that country
+in the first partition).[1] Rumania may be considered fortunate in not
+having lost more than Bucovina to Austria (1775), Bessarabia to Russia
+(1812), and, temporarily, to Austria the region between the Danube and the
+Aluta, called Oltenia (lost by the Treaty of Passarowitz, 1718; recovered
+by the Treaty of Belgrade, 1739).
+
+[Footnote 1: See Albert Sorel, _The Eastern Question in the Eighteenth
+Century_ (Engl. ed.), 1898, pp. 141, 147 &c.]
+
+While her geographical position made of Rumania the cynosure of many
+covetous eyes, it at the same time saved her from individual attack by
+exciting countervailing jealousies. Moreover, the powers came at last to
+consider her a necessary rampart to the Ottoman Empire, whose dissolution
+all desired but none dared attempt. Austria and Russia, looking to the
+future, were continually competing for paramount influence in Rumania,
+though it is not possible to determine where their policy of acquisition
+ended and that of influence began.
+
+The position of the principalities became more secure after the Paris
+Congress of 1858, which placed them under the 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 Prince Carol; a
+Hohenzollern prince related to the King of Prussia and to Napoleon III
+could not be treated like one of the native boyards. The situation called
+for the more delicacy of treatment by the powers in view of the
+possibility of his being able to better those internal conditions which
+made Rumania 'uninteresting' as 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 military consolidation of her home affairs; and the prince does not
+fail to remark in his notes that the attentions lavished upon him by other
+sovereigns were meant rather for the Hohenzollern prince than for the
+Prince of Rumania. Many years later even, after the war of 1878, while the
+Russians were still south of the Danube with their lines of communication
+running through Rumania, Bratianu begged of the prince to give up a
+projected journey on account of the difficulties which might at any moment
+arise, and said: 'Only the presence of your Royal Highness keeps them [the
+Russians] at a respectful distance.' It was but natural under these
+circumstances that the conduct of foreign affairs should have devolved
+almost exclusively on the prince. The ascendancy which his high personal
+character, his political and diplomatic skill, his military capacity
+procured for him over the Rumanian statesmen made this situation a lasting
+one; indeed it became almost a tradition. Rumania's foreign policy since
+1866 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, as the monarch saw them.
+Rebuking Bismarck's unfair attitude towards Rumania in a question
+concerning German investors, Prince Carol writes to his father in 1875: 'I
+have to put Rumania's interests above those of Germany. My path is plainly
+mapped out, and I must follow It unflinchingly, whatever the weather.'
+
+Prince Carol was a thorough German, and as such naturally favoured the
+expansion of German influence among his new subjects. But if he desired
+Rumania to follow in the wake of German foreign policy, it 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 strong and firmly
+established. At the same time, acting on the advice of Bismarck, he did
+not fail to work toward a better understanding with Russia, 'who might
+become as well a reliable friend as a dangerous enemy to the Rumanian
+state'. The sympathy shown him by Napoleon III was not always shared by
+the French statesmen,[1] and the unfriendly attitude of the French
+ambassador in Constantinople caused Prince Carol to remark that 'M. de
+Moustier is considered a better Turk than the Grand Turk himself'. Under
+the circumstances a possible alliance between France and Russia, giving
+the latter a free hand in the Near East, would have proved a grave danger
+to Rumania; 'it was, consequently, a skilful, if imperious act, to enter
+voluntarily, and without detriment to the existing friendly relations with
+France, within the Russian sphere of influence, and not to wait till
+compelled to do so.'
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 15, 1866, article by Eugene
+Forcade.]
+
+The campaigns of 1866 and 1870 having finally established Prussia's
+supremacy in the German world, Bismarck modified his attitude towards
+Austria. In an interview with the Austrian Foreign Secretary, Count Beust
+(Gastein, October 1871), he broached for the first time the question of an
+alliance and, touching upon the eventual dissolution of the Ottoman
+Empire, 'obligingly remarked that one could not conceive of a great power
+not making of its faculty for expansion a vital question'.[2] Quite in
+keeping with that change were the counsels henceforth tendered to Prince
+Carol. Early that year Bismarck wrote of his sorrow at having been forced
+to the conclusion that Rumania had nothing to expect from Russia, while
+Prince Anthony, Prince Carol's father and faithful adviser, wrote soon
+after the above interview (November 1871), that 'under certain
+circumstances it would seem a sound policy for Rumania to rely upon the
+support of Austria'. Persevering in this 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
+unimportant that one should deprecate an alliance with her'.
+
+[Footnote 2: Gabriel Hanotaux, _La Guerre des Balkans et l'Europe_ (Beust,
+Memoires), Paris, 1914, p. 297.]
+
+Prince Carol had accepted the throne with the firm intention of shaking
+off the Turkish suzerainty at the first opportunity, and not unnaturally
+he counted upon Germany'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 difference between the Rumanian Government
+and a German company entrusted with the construction of the Rumanian
+railways; the more so as the Paris Convention had expressly forbidden any
+Turkish interference in Rumania's internal affairs. It thus 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: by joining 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. But though resolved to co-operate with
+Russia in any eventual action in the Balkans, Prince Carol skilfully
+avoided delivering himself blindfold into her hands by deliberately
+cutting himself away from the other guaranteeing powers. To the conference
+which met in Constantinople at the end of 1876 to settle Balkan affairs he
+addressed the demand that 'should war break out between one of the
+guaranteeing powers and Turkey, Rumania's line of conduct should be
+dictated, and her neutrality and rights guaranteed, by the other powers'.
+This _demarche_ failed. The powers had accepted the invitation to the
+conference as one accepts an invitation to visit a dying man. Nobody had
+any illusions on the possibility of averting war, least of all the two
+powers principally interested. In November 1876 Ali Bey and M. de Nelidov
+arrived simultaneously and secretly in Bucarest to sound Rumania as to an
+arrangement with their respective countries, Turkey and Russia. In
+opposition to his father and Count Andrassy, who counselled neutrality and
+the withdrawal 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. Rumania promised to the Russian army 'free passage through
+Rumanian territory and the treatment due to a friendly army'; whilst
+Russia undertook to respect Rumania's political rights, as well as 'to
+maintain and defend her actual integrity'. 'It is pretty certain', wrote
+Prince Carol to his father, 'that this will not be to the liking of most
+of the great powers; but as they neither can nor will offer us anything,
+we cannot do otherwise than pass them by. A successful Russian campaign
+will free us from the nominal dependency upon Turkey, and Europe will
+never allow Russia to take her place.'
+
+On April 23 the Russian armies passed the Pruth. An offer of active
+participation by the Rumanian forces in the forthcoming campaign was
+rejected by the Tsar, who haughtily declared that 'Russia had no need for
+the cooperation of the Rumanian army', and that 'it was only under the
+auspices of the Russian forces that the foundation of Rumania's future
+destinies could be laid'. Rumania was to keep quiet and accept in the end
+what Russia would deign to give her, or, to be more correct, take from
+her. After a few successful encounters, however, the Tsar's soldiers met
+with serious defeats before Plevna, and persistent appeals were now urged
+for the participation of the Rumanian army in the military operations. The
+moment had come for Rumania to bargain for her interests. But Prince Carol
+refused to make capital out of the serious position of the Russians; he
+led his army across the Danube and, at the express desire of the Tsar,
+took over the supreme command of the united forces before Plevna. After a
+glorious but terrible struggle Plevna, followed at short intervals by
+other strongholds, fell, the peace preliminaries were signed, and Prince
+Carol returned to Bucarest at the head of his victorious army.
+
+Notwithstanding the flattering words in which the Tsar spoke of the
+Rumanian share in the success of the campaign, Russia did not admit
+Rumania to the Peace Conference. By the Treaty of San Stefano (March
+3,1878) Rumania's independence was recognized; Russia obtained from Turkey
+the Dobrudja and the delta of the Danube, reserving for herself the right
+to exchange these territories against the three 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
+recover Bessarabia was well known to the Government, who hoped, however,
+that the demand would not be pressed after the effective assistance
+rendered by the Rumanian army. 'If this be not a ground for the extension
+of our territory, it is surely none for its diminution,' remarked
+Cogalniceanu at the Berlin Congress. 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 the Russian armies, guaranteed
+Rumania's integrity. But upon this stipulation Gorchakov put the
+jesuitical construction that, the Convention being concluded in view of a
+war to be waged against Turkey, it was only against Turkey that Russia
+undertook to guarantee Rumania's integrity; as to herself, she was not in
+the least bound by that arrangement. And should Rumania dare to protest
+against, or oppose the action of the Russian Government, 'the Tsar will
+order that Rumania be occupied and the Rumanian army disarmed'. 'The army
+which fought at Plevna', replied Prince Carol through his minister, 'may
+well be destroyed, but never disarmed.'
+
+There was one last hope left to Rumania: that the Congress which met in
+Berlin in June 1878 for the purpose of revising the Treaty of San Stefano,
+would prevent such an injustice. But Bismarck was anxious that no
+'sentiment de dignite blessee' should rankle in Russia's future policy;
+the French representative, Waddington, was 'above all a practical man';
+Corti, the Italian delegate, was 'nearly rude' to the Rumanian delegates;
+while Lord Beaconsfield, England's envoy, receiving the Rumanian delegates
+privately, had nothing to say but that 'in politics the best services are
+often rewarded with ingratitude'. Russia strongly opposed even the idea
+that the Rumanian delegates should be allowed to put their case before the
+Congress, and consent was obtained only with difficulty after Lord
+Salisbury had ironically remarked that 'having heard the representatives
+of Greece, which was claiming foreign provinces, it would be but fair to
+listen also to the representatives of a country which was only seeking to
+retain what was its own'. Shortly before, Lord Salisbury, speaking in
+London to the Rumanian special envoy, Callimaki Catargiu, had assured him
+of England's sympathy and of her effective assistance in case either of
+war or of a Congress. 'But to be quite candid he must add that there are
+questions of more concern to England, and should she be able to come to an
+understanding with 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 tenor public early in June
+1878. 'The Government of her Britannic Majesty', it said, 'considers that
+it will feel itself bound to express its deep regret should Russia persist
+in demanding the retrocession of Bessarabia.... England's interest in this
+question is not such, however, as to justify her taking upon herself alone
+the responsibility of opposing the intended exchange.' So Bessarabia was
+lost, Rumania receiving instead Dobrudja with the delta of the Danube. But
+as the newly created state of Bulgaria was at the time little else than a
+detached Russian province, Russia, alone amongst the powers, opposed and
+succeeded in preventing the demarcation to the new Rumanian province of a
+strategically sound frontier. 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 becoming Rumanian citizens--and the
+emancipation of the Rumanian Jews.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Rumania only partially gave way to this intrusion of the
+powers into her internal affairs. The prohibition was abolished; but only
+individual naturalization was made possible, and that by special Act of
+Parliament. Only a very small proportion of the Jewish population has
+since been naturalized. The Jewish question in Rumania is undoubtedly a
+very serious one; but the matter is too controversial to be dealt with in
+a few lines without risking misrepresentation or doing an injustice to one
+or other of the parties. For which reason it has not been included in this
+essay.]
+
+It was only after innumerable difficulties and hardships that, at the
+beginning of 1880, Rumania secured recognition of an independence which
+she owed to nobody but herself. Whilst Russia was opposing Rumania at
+every opportunity in the European conferences and commissions, she was at
+pains to show herself more amenable in _tete-a-tete_, and approached
+Rumania with favourable proposals. 'Rather Russia as foe than guardian,'
+wrote Prince Carol to his father; and these words indicate an important
+turning-point 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 insisting that Austria should
+share in the partition of Poland, Frederick the Great had skilfully
+prevented her from remaining the one country towards which the Poles would
+naturally have turned for deliverance. Such an opportunity was lost by
+Russia through her short-sighted policy in Bessarabia--that of remaining
+the natural ally of Rumania against Rumania's natural foe,
+Austria-Hungary.
+
+Rumania had neither historical, geographical, nor any important
+ethnographical points of contact with the region south of the Danube; the
+aims of a future policy could only have embraced neighbouring tracts of
+foreign territory inhabited by Rumanians. Whereas up to the date of the
+Berlin Congress such tracts were confined to Austria-Hungary, 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 should maintain friendly relations with both the powers
+striving for domination in the Near East; it was a vital necessity for
+her, however, to be able to rely upon the effective support of at least
+one of them in a case of emergency. Russia's conduct had aroused a deep
+feeling of bitterness and mistrust in Rumania, and every lessening of her
+influence was a step in Austria's favour. Secondary considerations tended
+to intensify this: on the one hand lay the fact that through Russia's
+interposition Rumania had no defendable frontier against Bulgaria; on the
+other hand was the greatly strengthened position created for Austria by
+her alliance with Germany, in whose future Prince Carol had the utmost
+confidence.
+
+[Footnote 1: It is probable that this confederation had much to do with
+the readiness with which Bismarck supported the demands of his good
+friend, Gorchakov.]
+
+Germany's attitude towards Rumania had been curiously hostile during these
+events; but when Prince Carol's father spoke of this to the German
+Emperor, the latter showed genuine astonishment: Bismarck had obviously
+not taken the emperor completely into his confidence. When, a few days
+later, Sturdza had an interview with Bismarck at 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 two 'natural 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 pieces; nobody
+can resuscitate her; Rumania has an important role to fulfil, but for this
+she must be wise, cautious, and strong'. This new attitude was the natural
+counterpart of the change which was at that time making itself felt in
+Russo-German relations. While a Franco-Russian alliance was propounded by
+Gorchakov in an interview with a French journalist, Bismarck and Andrassy
+signed in Gastein the treaty which allied Austria to Germany (September
+1879). As Rumania's interests were identical with those of Austria--wrote
+Count Andrassy privately to Prince Carol a few months later--namely, to
+prevent the fusion of the northern and the southern Slavs, she had only to
+express her willingness to become at a given moment the third party in the
+compact. In 1883 King Carol accepted a secret treaty of defensive alliance
+from Austria. In return for promises relating to future political
+partitions in the Balkans, the monarch pledged himself to oppose all
+developments likely to speed the democratic evolution, of Rumania. Though
+the treaty was never submitted to parliament for ratification, and
+notwithstanding a tariff war and a serious difference with Austria on the
+question of control of the Danube navigation, Rumania was, till the Balkan
+wars, a faithful 'sleeping partner' of the Triple Alliance.
+
+All through that externally quiet period a marked discrepancy existed and
+developed between that line of policy and the trend of public opinion. The
+interest of the Rumanians within the kingdom centred increasingly on their
+brethren in Transylvania, the solution of whose hard case inspired most of
+the popular national movements. Not on account of the political despotism
+of the Magyars, for that of the Russians was in no way behind it. But
+whilst the Rumanians of Bessarabia were, with few exceptions, illiterate
+peasants, in Transylvania there was a solidly established and spirited
+middle class, whose protests kept pace with the oppressive measures. Many
+of them--and of necessity the more turbulent--migrated to Rumania, and
+there kept alive the 'Transylvanian Question'. That the country's foreign
+policy has nevertheless constantly supported the Central Powers is due, to
+some extent, to the fact that the generation most deeply impressed by the
+events of 1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country; to a
+greater extent to the increasing influence of German education,[1] and the
+economic and financial supremacy which the benevolent passivity of England
+and France enabled Germany to acquire; but above all to the personal
+influence of King Carol. Germany, he considered, was at the beginning of
+her development and needed, above all, peace; as Rumania was in the same
+position the wisest policy was to follow Germany, neglecting impracticable
+national ideals. King Carol outlined his views clearly in an interview
+which he had in Vienna with the Emperor Franz Joseph in 1883: 'No nation
+consents to be bereaved of its political aspirations, and those of the
+Rumanians are constantly kept at fever heat by Magyar oppression. But this
+was no real obstacle to a friendly understanding between the two
+neighbouring states.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Many prominent statesmen like Sturdza, Maiorescu, Carp, &c.
+were educated in Germany, whereas the school established by the German
+community (_Evangelische Knaben und Realschule_), and which it under the
+direct control of the German Ministry of Education, is attended by more
+pupils than any other school in Bucarest.]
+
+Such was the position when the Balkan peoples rose in 1912 to sever the
+last ties which bound them to the decadent Turkish Empire. King Carol, who
+had, sword in hand, won the independence of his country, could have no
+objection to such a desire for emancipation. Nor to the Balkan League
+itself, unfortunately so ephemeral; for by the first year of his reign he
+had already approached the Greek Government with proposals toward such a
+league, and toward freeing the Balkans from the undesirable interference
+of the powers.[1] It is true that Rumania, like all the other states, had
+not foreseen the radical changes which were to take place, and which
+considerably affected her position in the Near East. But she was safe as
+long as the situation was one of stable equilibrium and the league
+remained in existence. 'Rumania will only be menaced by a real danger when
+a Great Bulgaria comes into existence,' remarked Prince Carol to Bismarck
+in 1880, and Bulgaria had done nothing since to allay Rumanian suspicions.
+On the contrary, the proviso of the Berlin Convention that all
+fortifications along the Rumania frontier should be razed to the ground
+had not been carried out by the Bulgarian Government. Bulgarian official
+publications regarded the Dobrudja as a 'Bulgaria Irredenta', and at the
+outset of the first Balkan war a certain section of the Bulgarian press
+speculated upon the Bulgarian character of the Dobrudja.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Augenzeuge, op. cit., i. 178]
+
+The Balkan League having proclaimed, however, that their action did not
+involve any territorial changes, and the maintenance of the _status quo_
+having been insisted upon by the European Concert, Rumania declared that
+she would remain neutral. All this jugglery of mutual assurances broke
+down with the unexpected rout of the Turks; the formula 'the Balkans to
+the Balkan peoples' made its appearance, upon which Bulgaria was at once
+notified that Rumania would insist upon the question of the Dobrudja
+frontier being included in any fundamental alteration of the Berlin
+Convention. The Bulgarian Premier, M. Danev, concurred in this point of
+view, but his conduct of the subsequent London negotiations was so
+'diplomatic' that their only result was to strain the patience of the
+Rumanian Government and public opinion to breaking point. Nevertheless,
+the Rumanian Government agreed that the point in dispute should be
+submitted to a conference of the representatives of the great powers in
+St. Petersburg, and later accepted the decision of that conference, though
+the country considered it highly unsatisfactory.
+
+The formation of the Balkan League, and especially the collapse of Turkey,
+had meant a serious blow to the Central Powers' policy of peaceful
+penetration. Moreover, 'for a century men have been labouring to solve the
+Eastern. Question. On the day when it shall be considered solved, Europe
+will inevitably witness the propounding of the Austrian Question.'[1] To
+prevent this and to keep open a route to the East Austro-German diplomacy
+set to work, and having engineered the creation of Albania succeeded in
+barring Serbia's way to the Adriatic; Serbia was thus forced to seek an
+outlet in the south, where her interests were doomed to clash with
+Bulgarian aspirations. The atmosphere grew threatening. In anticipation of
+a conflict with Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia sought an alliance with
+Rumania. The offer was declined; but, in accordance with the policy which
+Bucarest had already made quite clear to Sofia, the Rumanian army was
+ordered to enter Bulgaria immediately that country attacked her former
+allies. The Rumanians advanced unopposed to within a few miles of Sofia,
+and in order to save the capital Bulgaria declared her willingness to
+comply with their claims. Rumania having refused, however, to conclude a
+separate peace, Bulgaria had to give way, and the Balkan premiers met in
+conference at Bucarest to discuss terms. The circumstances were not
+auspicious. The way in which Bulgaria had conducted previous negotiations,
+and especially the attack upon her former allies, had exasperated the
+Rumanians and the Balkan peoples, and the pressure of public opinion
+hindered from the outset a fair consideration of the Bulgarian point of
+view. Moreover, cholera was making great ravages in the ranks of the
+various armies, and, what threatened to be even more destructive, several
+great powers were looking for a crack in the door to put their tails
+through, as the Rumanian saying runs. So anxious were the Balkan statesmen
+to avoid any such interference that they agreed between themselves to a
+short time limit: on a certain day, and by a certain hour, peace was to be
+concluded, or hostilities were to start afresh. The treaty was signed on
+August 10, 1913, Rumania obtaining the line Turtukai-Dobrich-Balchik, this
+being the line already demanded by her at the time of the London
+negotiations. The demand was put forth originally as a security against
+the avowed ambitions of Bulgaria; it was a strategical necessity, but at
+the same time a political mistake from the point of view of future
+relations. The Treaty of Bucarest, imperfect arrangement as it was, had
+nevertheless a great historical significance. 'Without complicating the
+discussion of our interests, which we are best in a position to
+understand, by the consideration of other foreign, interests,' remarked
+the President of the Conference, 'we shall have established for the first
+time by ourselves peace and harmony amongst our peoples.' Dynastic
+interests and impatient ambitions, however, completely subverted this
+momentous step towards a satisfactory solution of the Eastern Question.
+
+[Footnote 1: Albert Sorel, op, cit., p. 266.]
+
+The natural counter-effect of the diplomatic activity of the Central
+Powers was a change in Rumanian policy. Rumania considered the maintenance
+of the Balkan equilibrium a vital question, and as she had entered upon a
+closer union with Germany against a Bulgaria subjected to Russian
+influence, so she now turned to Russia as a guard against a Bulgaria under
+German influence. This breaking away from the 'traditional' policy of
+adjutancy-in-waiting to the Central Powers was indicated by the visit of
+Prince Ferdinand--now King of Rumania--to St. Petersburg, and the even
+more significant visit which Tsar Nicholas afterwards paid to the late
+King Carol at Constanza. Time has been too short, however, for those new
+relations so to shape themselves as to exercise a notable influence upon
+Rumania's present attitude.
+
+
+
+8
+
+_Rumania and the Present War_
+
+
+_(a) The Rumanians outside the Kingdom_
+
+The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is
+the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside
+Rumanian territory. As the available official statistics generally show
+political bias it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly
+speaking there are about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter of
+a million in Bucovina, three and a half millions in Hungary, while
+something above half a million form scattered colonies in Bulgaria,
+Serbia, and Macedonia. All these live in more or less close proximity to
+the Rumanian frontiers.
+
+That these Rumanian elements have maintained their nationality is due to
+purely intrinsic causes. We have seen that the independence of Rumania in
+her foreign relations had only recently been established, since when the
+king, the factor most influential in foreign politics, had discouraged
+nationalist tendencies, lest the country's internal development might be
+compromised by friction with neighbouring states. The Government exerted
+its influence against any active expression of the national feeling, and
+the few 'nationalists' and the 'League for the cultural unity of all
+Rumanians' had been, as a consequence, driven to seek a justification for
+their existence in antisemitic agitation.
+
+The above circumstances had little influence upon the situation in
+Bucovina. This province forms an integral part of the Habsburg monarchy,
+with which it was incorporated as early as 1775. The political situation
+of the Rumanian principalities at the time, and the absence of a national
+cultural movement, left the detached population exposed to Germanization,
+and later to the Slav influence of the rapidly expanding Ruthene element.
+That language and national characteristics have, nevertheless, not been
+lost is due to the fact that the Rumanian population of Bucovina is
+peasant almost to a man--a class little amenable to changes of
+civilization.
+
+This also applies largely to Bessarabia, which, first lost in 1812, was
+incorporated with Rumania in 1856, and finally detached in 1878. The few
+Rumanians belonging to the landed class were won over by the new masters.
+But while the Rumanian population was denied any cultural and literary
+activities of its own, the reactionary attitude of the Russian Government
+towards education has enabled the Rumanian peasants to preserve their
+customs and their language. At the same time their resultant ignorance has
+kept them outside the sphere of intellectual influence of the mother
+country.
+
+The Rumanians who live in scattered colonies south of the Danube are the
+descendants of those who took refuge in these regions during the ninth and
+tenth centuries from the invasions of the Huns. Generally known as
+Kutzo-Vlakhs, or, among themselves, as Aromuni, they are--as even Weigand,
+who undoubtedly has Bulgarophil leanings, recognizes--the most intelligent
+and best educated of the inhabitants of Macedonia. In 1905 the Rumanian
+Government secured from the Porte official recognition of their separate
+cultural and religious organizations on a national basis. Exposed as they
+are to Greek influence, it will be difficult to prevent their final
+assimilation with that people. The interest taken in them of late by the
+Rumanian Government arose out of the necessity to secure them against
+pan-Hellenic propaganda, and to preserve one of the factors entitling
+Rumania to participate in the settlement of Balkan affairs.
+
+I have sketched elsewhere the early history of the Rumanians 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 migrating over the mountains. Debarred from the support of the
+noble class, the Rumanian peasantry lost its state of autonomy, which
+changed into one of serfdom to the soil upon which they toiled. Desperate
+risings in 1324, 1437, 1514, 1600, and 1784 tended to case the Hungarian
+oppression, which up to the nineteenth century strove primarily after a
+political and religious hegemony. But the Magyars having failed in 1848 in
+their attempt to free themselves from Austrian domination (defeated with
+the assistance of a Russian army at Villagos, 1849), mainly on account of
+the fidelity of the other nationalities to the Austrian Crown, they
+henceforth directed their efforts towards strengthening their own position
+by forcible assimilation of those nationalities. This they were able to
+do, however, only after Koeniggraetz, when a weakened Austria had to give
+way to Hungarian demands. In 1867 the Dual Monarchy was established, and
+Transylvania, which up to then formed a separate duchy enjoying full
+political rights, was incorporated with the new Hungarian kingdom. The
+Magyars were handicapped in their imperialist ambitions by their numerical
+inferiority. As the next best means to their end, therefore, they resorted
+to political and national oppression, class despotism, and a complete
+disregard of the principles of liberty and humanity.[1] Hungarian was made
+compulsory in the administration, even in districts where the bulk of the
+population did not understand that language. In villages completely
+inhabited by Rumanians so-called 'State' schools were founded, in which
+only Hungarian was to be spoken, and all children upwards of three years
+of age had to attend them. The electoral regulations were drawn up in such
+a manner that the Rumanians 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 protest a special press law was
+introduced for Transylvania. But the Rumanian journalists being usually
+acquitted by the juries a new regulation prescribed that press offences
+should be tried only at Kluj (Klausenburg)--the sole Transylvanian town
+with a predominating Hungarian population--a measure which was in
+fundamental contradiction to the principles of justice.[2] In 1892 the
+Rumanian grievances were embodied 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 Hungarian Government the members of
+the deputation were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for having
+plotted against the unity of the Magyar state.
+
+[Footnote 1: The Rumanians inhabit mainly the province of Transylvania,
+Banat, Crishiana, and Maramuresh. They represent 46.2 per cent. of the
+total population of these provinces, the Magyars 32.5 per cent., the
+Germans 11.5 per cent., and the Serbs 4.5 per cent. These figured are
+taken from official Hungarian statistics, and it may therefore be assumed
+that the Rumanian percentage represents a minimum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Over a period of 22 years (1886-1908) 850 journalists were
+charged, 367 of whom were Rumanians; the sentences totalling 216 years of
+imprisonment, the fines amounting to Fcs. 138,000.]
+
+Notwithstanding these disabilities the Rumanians of Transylvania enjoyed a
+long period of comparative social and economic liberty at a time when
+Turkish and Phanariote domination was hampering all progress in Rumania.
+Office under the Government growing increasingly difficult to obtain, the
+Rumanians in Transylvania turned largely to commercial and the open
+professions, and, as a result, a powerful middle class now exists. In
+their clergy, both of the Orthodox and the Uniate Church--which last,
+while conducting its ritual in the vernacular, recognizes papal supremacy--
+the Rumanians have always found strong moral support, while the national
+struggle tends to unite the various classes. The Rumanians of Hungary form
+by far the sanest element in the Rumanian nation. From the Rumanians
+within the kingdom they have received little beside sympathy. The
+important part played by the country at the Peace of Bucarest, and her
+detachment from Austria-Hungary, must necessarily have stimulated the
+national consciousness of the Transylvanians; while at the same time all
+hope for betterment from within must have ceased at the death of Archduke
+Francis Ferdinand, an avowed friend of the long-suffering nationalities.
+It is, therefore, no mere matter of conjecture that the passive attitude
+of the Rumanian Government at the beginning of the present conflict must
+have been a bitter disappointment to them.
+
+_(b) Rumania's Attitude_
+
+The tragic development of the crisis in the summer of 1914 threw Rumania
+into a vortex of unexpected hopes and fears. Aspirations till then
+considered little else than Utopian became tangible possibilities, while,
+as suddenly, dangers deemed far off loomed large and near. Not only was
+such a situation quite unforeseen, nor had any plan of action been
+preconceived to meet it, but it was in Rumania's case a situation unique
+from the number of conflicting considerations and influences at work
+within it. Still under the waning influence of the thirty years
+quasi-alliance with Austria, Rumania was not yet acclimatized to her new
+relations with Russia. Notwithstanding the inborn sympathy with and
+admiration for France, the Rumanians could not be blind to Germany's
+military power. The enthusiasm that would have sided with France for
+France's sake 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 the king; and the bright vision of the
+'principle of nationality' was darkened by the shadow of Russia as despot
+of the Near East.
+
+One fact in the situation stood out from the rest, namely, the unexpected
+opportunity of redeeming that half of the Rumanian nation which was still
+under foreign rule; the more so as one of the parties in the conflict had
+given the 'principle of nationality' a prominent place in its programme.
+But the fact that both Austria-Hungary and Russia had a large Rumanian
+population among their subjects rendered a purely national policy
+impossible, and Rumania could do nothing but weigh which issue offered her
+the greater advantage.
+
+Three ways lay open: complete neutrality, active participation on the side
+of the Central Powers, or common cause with the Triple Entente. Complete
+neutrality was advocated by a few who had the country's material security
+most at heart, and also, as a _pis aller_, by those who realized that
+their opinion that Rumania should make common cause with the Central
+Powers had no prospect of being acted upon.
+
+That King Carol favoured the idea of a joint action with Germany 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 satisfaction the
+possibility of regaining Bessarabia, the loss of which must have been
+bitterly felt by the victor of Plevna. Such a policy would have met with
+the approval of many Rumanian statesmen, notably of M. Sturdza, sometime
+leader of the Liberal party and Prime Minister; of M. Carp, sometime
+leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister; of M. Maiorescu,
+ex-Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, who presided at the Bucarest
+Conference of 1913; of M. Marghiloman, till recently leader of the
+Conservative party, to name only the more important. M. Sturdza, the old
+statesman who had been one of King Carol's chief coadjutors in the making
+of modern Rumania, and who had severed for many years his connexion with
+active politics, again took up his pen to raise a word of warning. M.
+Carp, the political aristocrat who had retired from public life a few
+years previously, and had professed a lifelong contempt for the 'Press and
+all its works', himself started a daily paper (_Moldova_) which, he
+intended should expound his views. Well-known writers like M. Radu Rosetti
+wrote[1] espousing the cause favoured by 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 at the mouth of the Danube. For not only is a cheap
+waterway absolutely necessary for the bulky products forming the chief
+exports of Rumania; but these very products, corn, petroleum, and timber,
+also form the chief exports of Russia, who, by a stroke of the pen, may
+rule Rumania out of competition, should she fail to appreciate the
+political leadership of Petrograd. Paris and Rome were, no doubt, beloved
+sisters; but Sofia, Moscow, and Budapest were next-door neighbours to be
+reckoned with.
+
+[Footnote 1: See R. Rosetti, _Russian Politics at Work in the Rumanian
+Countries_, facts compiled from French official documents, Bucarest,
+1914.]
+
+Those who held views opposed to those, 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 public opinion: interest in the fate of the Transylvanians, and
+sympathy with France. They contended that though a purely national policy
+was not possible, the difference between Transylvania and Bessarabia in
+area and in number and quality of the population was such that no
+hesitation was admissible. The possession of Transylvania was assured if
+the Allies were successful; whereas Russia would soon recover if defeated,
+and would regain Bessarabia by force of arms, or have it once more
+presented to her by a Congress anxious to soothe her 'sentiment de dignite
+blessee'. A Rumania enlarged in size and population had a better chance of
+successfully withstanding any eventual pressure from the north, and it was
+clear that any attempt against her independence would be bound to develop
+into a European question. Rumania could not forget what she owed to France;
+and if circumstances had made the Transylvanian question one 'a laquelle
+on pense toujours et dont on ne parle jamais', the greater was the duty,
+now that a favourable opportunity had arisen, to help the brethren across
+the mountains. It was also a duty to fight for right and civilization,
+proclaimed M. Take Ionescu, the exponent of progressive ideas in Rumanian
+politics; and he, together with the prominent Conservative statesman, M.
+Filipescu, who loathes the idea of the Rumanians being dominated by the
+inferior Magyars, are the leaders of the interventionist movement. It was
+due to M. Filipescu's activity, especially, that M. Marghiloman was forced
+by his own party to resign his position as leader on account of his
+Austrophil sentiments--an event unparalleled in Rumanian politics.
+
+These were the two main currents of opinion which met in conflict at the
+Crown Council--a committee _ad hoc_ consisting of the Cabinet and the
+leaders of the Opposition--summoned by the king early in August 1914, when
+Rumania's neutrality was decided upon. The great influence which the Crown
+can always wield under the Rumanian political system was rendered the more
+potent in the present case by the fact that the Premier, M. Bratianu, is
+above all a practical man, and the Liberal Cabinet over which he presides
+one of the most colourless the country ever had: a Cabinet weak to the
+point of being incapable of realizing its own weakness and the imperative
+necessity at this fateful moment of placing the helm in the hands of a
+national ministry. M. Bratianu considered that Rumania was too exposed,
+and had suffered too much in the past for the sake of other countries, to
+enter now upon such an adventure without ample guarantees. There would
+always be time for her to come in. This policy of opportunism he was able
+to justify by powerful argument. The supply of war material for the
+Rumanian army had been completely in the hands of German and Austrian
+arsenals, and especially in those of Krupp. For obvious reasons Rumania
+could no longer rely upon that source; indeed, Germany was actually
+detaining contracts for war and sanitary material placed with her before
+the outbreak of the war. There was the further consideration that, owing
+to the nature of Rumania's foreign policy in the past, no due attention
+had been given to the defence of the Carpathians, nor to those branches of
+the service dealing with mountain warfare. On the other hand, a continuous
+line of fortifications running from Galatz to Focshani formed, together
+with the lower reaches of the Danube, a strong barrier against attack from
+the north. Rumania's geographical position is such that a successful
+offensive from Hungary could soon penetrate to the capital, and by cutting
+the country in two could completely paralyse its organization. Such
+arguments acquired a magnified importance in the light of the failure of
+the negotiations with 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 German and Austrian capital.
+
+From the point of view of practical politics only the issue of the
+conflict will determine the wisdom or otherwise of Rumania's attitude.
+But, though it is perhaps out of place to enlarge upon it here, it is
+impossible not to speak of the moral aspect of the course adopted. By
+giving heed to the unspoken appeal from Transylvania the Rumanian national
+spirit would have been quickened, and the people braced to a wholesome
+sacrifice. Many were the wistful glances cast towards the Carpathians by
+the subject Rumanians, as they were being led away to fight for their
+oppressors; but, wilfully unmindful, the leaders of the Rumanian state
+buried their noses in their ledgers, oblivious of the fact that in these
+times of internationalism a will in common, with aspirations in common, is
+the very life-blood of nationality. That sentiment ought not to enter into
+politics is an argument untenable in a country which has yet to see its
+national aspirations fulfilled, and which makes of these aspirations
+definite claims. No Rumanian statesman can contend that possession of
+Transylvania is necessary to the existence of the Rumanian state. What
+they can maintain is that deliverance from Magyar oppression is vital to
+the existence of the Transylvanians. The right to advance such a claim
+grows out of their very duty of watching over the safety of the subject
+Rumanians. 'When there are squabbles in the household of my
+brother-in-law,' said the late Ioan Bratianu when speaking on the
+Transylvanian question, 'it is no affair of mine; but when he raises a
+knife against his wife, it is not merely my right to intervene, it is my
+duty.' It is difficult to account for the obliquity of vision shown by so
+many Rumanian politicians. 'The whole policy of such a state [having a
+large compatriot population living in close proximity under foreign
+domination] must be primarily influenced by anxiety as to the fate of
+their brothers, and by the duty of emancipating them,' affirms one of the
+most ardent of Rumanian nationalist orators; and he goes on to assure us
+that 'if Rumania waits, it is not from hesitation as to her duty, but
+simply in order that she may discharge it more completely'.[1] Meantime,
+while Rumania waits, regiments composed almost completely of
+Transylvanians have 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 conception of his duty, and here, as in
+so many other cases in the present conflict, the nation at large must not
+be judged by the policy of the few who hold the reins.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Quarterly Review_, London, April, 1915, pp. 449-50.]
+
+Rumania's claims to Transylvania are not of an historical nature. They are
+founded upon the numerical superiority of the subject Rumanians in
+Transylvania, that is upon the 'principle of nationality', and are morally
+strengthened by the treatment the Transylvanians suffer at the hands of
+the Magyars. By its passivity, however, the Rumanian Government has
+sacrificed the prime factor of the 'principle of nationality' to the
+attainment of an object in itself subordinate to that factor; that is, it
+has sacrificed the 'people' in order to make more sure of the 'land'. In
+this way the Rumanian Government has entered upon a policy of acquisition;
+a policy which Rumania is too weak to pursue save under the patronage of
+one or a group of great powers; a policy unfortunate inasmuch as it will
+deprive her of freedom of action in her external politics. Her policy
+will, in its consequences, certainly react to the detriment of the
+position acquired by the country two years ago, when independent action
+made her arbiter not only among the smaller Balkan States, but also among
+those and her late suzerain, Turkey.
+
+Such, indeed, must inevitably be the fate of Balkan politics in general.
+Passing from Turkish domination to nominal 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-eastern Europe
+found its highest expression in the Balkan League. The war against Turkey
+was in effect a rebellion against the political tutelage of the powers.
+But this emancipation was short-lived. By their greed the Balkan States
+again opened up a way to the intrusion of foreign diplomacy, and even, as
+we now see, of foreign troops. The first Balkan war marked the zenith of
+Balkan political emancipation; the second Balkan war was the first act in
+the tragic _debacle_ out of which the present situation developed. The
+interval between August 1913 (Peace of Bucarest) and August 1914 was
+merely an armistice during which Bulgaria and Turkey recovered their
+breath, and German and Austrian diplomacy had time to find a pretext for
+war on its own account.
+
+'Exhausted but not vanquished we have had to furl our glorious standards
+in order to await better days,' said Ferdinand of Bulgaria to his soldiers
+after the conclusion of the Peace of Bucarest; and Budapest, Vienna, and
+Berlin have no doubt done their best to keep this spirit of revenge alive
+and to prevent a renascence of the Balkan Alliance. They have succeeded.
+They have done more: they have succeeded in causing the 'principle of
+nationality'--that idea which involves the disruption of Austria--to be
+stifled by the very people whom it was meant to save. For whilst the
+German peoples are united in this conflict, the majority of the southern
+Slavs, in fighting the German battles, are fighting to perpetuate the
+political servitude of the subject races of Austria-Hungary.
+
+However suspicious Rumania may be of Russia, however bitter the quarrels
+between Bulgars, Greeks, and Serbs, it is not, nor can it ever be natural,
+that peoples who have groaned under Turkish despotism for centuries
+should, after only one year of complete liberation, join hands with an old
+and dreaded enemy not only against their fellow sufferers, but even
+against those who came 'to die that they may live'. These are the Dead Sea
+fruits of dynastic policy. Called to the thrones of the small states of
+the Near East for the purpose of creating order and peace, the German
+dynasties have overstepped their function and abused the power entrusted
+to them. As long as, in normal times, political activities were confined
+to the diplomatic arena there was no peril of rousing the masses out of
+their ignorant indolence; but, when times are abnormal, it is a different
+and a dangerous thing to march these peoples against their most intimate
+feelings. When, as the outcome of the present false situation, sooner or
+later the dynastic power breaks, it will then be for the powers who are
+now fighting for better principles not to impose their own views upon the
+peoples, or to place their own princes upon the vacant thrones. Rather
+must they see that the small nations of the Near East are given a chance
+to develop in peace and according to their proper ideals; that they be not
+again subjected to the disintegrating influence of European diplomacy; and
+that, above all, to the nations in common, irrespective of their present
+attitude, there should be a just application of the 'principle of
+nationality'.
+
+
+
+
+TURKEY
+
+
+
+Turkey is no better name for the Osmanli dominion or any part of it than
+Normandy would be for Great Britain. It is a mediaeval error of
+nomenclature sanctioned by long usage in foreign mouths, but without any
+equivalent in the vernacular of the Osmanlis themselves. The real 'Turkey'
+is Turkestan, and the real Turks are the Turcomans. The Osmanlis are the
+least typical Turks surviving. Only a very small proportion of them have
+any strain of Turkish blood, and this is diluted till it is rarely
+perceptible in their physiognomy: and if environment rather than blood is
+to be held responsible for racial features, it can only be said that the
+territory occupied by the Osmanlis is as unlike the homeland of the true
+Turks as it can well be, and is quite unsuited to typically Turkish life
+and manners.
+
+While of course it would be absurd to propose at this time of day any
+change in the terms by which the civilized world unanimously designates
+the Osmanlis and their dominion, it is well to insist 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 invasion of Asia Minor by
+immense numbers of Central Asiatic migrants, who, intent, like the early
+Arab armies, on offering to Asia first and Europe second the choice of
+apostasy or death, absorbed or annihilated almost all the previous
+populations, and swept forward into the Balkans as single-minded apostles
+of Islam. If the composition and the aims of the Osmanlis had been these,
+it 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 the most civilized and best-ordered state of their time.
+Who, then, are the Osmanlis in reality? What have they to do with true
+Turks? and in virtue of what innate qualities did they found and
+consolidate their power?
+
+
+
+1
+
+_Origin of the Osmanlis_
+
+
+We 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 is still called Turkestan, and pushing westwards towards the
+Caspian Sea. Somewhat more than another century passes, and, reached by a
+missionary faith of West Asia, they come out of the Far Eastern darkness
+into a dim light of western history. One Boja, lord of Kashgar and Khan of
+what the Chinese knew as the people of Thu-Kiu--probably the same name as
+'Turk'--embraced Islam and forced it on his Mazdeist subjects; but other
+Turkish tribes, notably the powerful Uighurs, 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 over the north and centre. At this day, in some parts of Persia,
+e.g. Azerbaijan, Turks make the bulk of the population besides supplying
+the reigning dynasty of the whole kingdom. For the Shahs of the Kajar
+house are not Iranian, but purely Turkish.
+
+This, it should be observed, was the western limit of Turkish expansion in
+the mass. Azerbaijan is the nearest region to us in which Turki blood
+predominates, and the westernmost province of the true Turk homeland. All
+Turks who have passed thence into Hither Asia have come in comparatively
+small detachments, as minorities to alien majorities. They have invaded as
+groups of nomads seeking vacant pasturage, or as bands of military
+adventurers who, first offering their swords to princes of the elder
+peoples, have subsequently, on several occasions and in several
+localities, imposed themselves on their former masters. To the first
+category belong all those Turcoman, Avshar, Yuruk, and other Turki tribes,
+which filtered over the Euphrates into unoccupied or sparsely inhabited
+parts of Syria and Asia Minor from the seventh century onwards, and
+survive to this day in isolated patches, distinguished from the mass of
+the local populations, partly by an ineradicable instinct for nomadic
+life, partly by retention of the pre-Islamic beliefs and practices of the
+first immigrants. In the second category--military adventurers--fall, for
+example, the Turkish praetorians who made and unmade not less than four
+caliphs at Bagdad in the ninth century, and that bold _condottiere_, Ahmed
+ibn Tulun, who captured a throne at Cairo. Even Christian emperors availed
+themselves of these stout fighters. Theophilus of Constantinople
+anticipated the Ottoman invasion of Europe by some five hundred years when
+he established Vardariote Turks in Macedonia.
+
+The most important members of the second category, however, were the
+Seljuks. Like the earlier Thu-Kiu, they were pushed out of Turkestan late
+in the tenth century to found a power in Persia. Here, in Khorasan, the
+mass of the horde settled and remained: and it was only a comparatively
+small section which went on westward as military adventurers to fall upon
+Bagdad, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. This first conquest was little
+better than a raid, so brief was the resultant tenure; but a century later
+two dispossessed nephews of Melek Shah of Persia set out on a military
+adventure which had more lasting consequences. Penetrating with, a small
+following into Asia Minor, they seized Konia, and instituted there a
+kingdom nominally feudatory to the Grand Seljuk of Persia, but in reality
+independent and destined to last about two centuries. Though numerically
+weak, their forces, recruited from the professional soldier class which
+had bolstered up the Abbasid Empire and formed the Seljukian kingdoms of
+Persia and Syria, were superior to any Byzantine troops that could be
+arrayed in southern or central Asia Minor. They constituted indeed the
+only compact body of fighting men seen in these regions for some
+generations. It found reinforcement from the 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 of Moslem image-haters more congenial, as it was
+certainly more effective, than that of Byzantine emperors. The creed of
+the Seljuks was Islam of an Iranian type. Of Incarnationist colour, it
+repudiated the dour illiberal spirit of the early Arabian apostles which
+latter-day Sunnite orthodoxy has revived. Accordingly its professors,
+backed by an effective 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 allegiance to Byzantine
+Christianity. In the event, the population of quite two-thirds of the
+Anatolian peninsula had already identified itself with a ruling Turki
+caste before, early in the thirteenth century, fresh Turks appeared on the
+scene--those Turks who were to found the Ottoman Empire.
+
+They entered Asia Minor much as the earlier Turcomans had entered it--a
+small body of nomadic adventurers, thrown off by the larger body of Turks
+settled in Persia to seek new pastures west of the Euphrates. There are
+divers legends about the first appearance and establishment of these
+particular Turks: but all agree that they were of inconsiderable number--
+not above four hundred families at most. Drifting in by way of Armenia,
+they pressed gradually westward from Erzerum in hope of finding some
+unoccupied country which would prove both element and fertile. Byzantine
+influence was then at a very low ebb. With Constantinople itself in Latin
+hands, the Greek writ ran only along the north Anatolian coast, ruled from
+two separate centres, Isnik (Nicaea) and Trebizond: and the Seljuk kingdom
+was run in reality much more vigorous. Though apparently without a rival,
+it was subsisting by consent, on the prestige of its past, rather than on
+actual power. The moment of its dissolution was approaching, and the
+Anatolian peninsula, two-thirds Islamized, but ill-organised and very
+loosely knit, was becoming once more a fair field for any adventurer able
+to command a small compact force.
+
+The newly come Turks were invited finally to settle on the extreme
+north-western fringe of the Seljuk territory--in a region so near Nicaea
+that their sword would be a better title to it than any which the feudal
+authority of Konia could confer. In fact it was a debatable land, an angle
+pushed up between the lake plain of Nicaea on the one hand and the plain
+of Brusa on the other, and divided from each by not lofty heights,
+Yenishehr, its chief town, which became the Osmanli chief Ertogrul's
+residence, lies, as the crow flies, a good deal less than fifty miles from
+the Sea of Marmora, and not a hundred miles from Constantinople itself.
+Here Ertogrul was to be a Warden of the Marches, to hold his territory for
+the Seljuk and extend it for himself at the expense of Nicaea if he could.
+If he won through, so much the better for Sultan Alaeddin; if he failed,
+_vile damnum!_
+
+Hardly were his tribesmen settled, however, among the Bithynians and
+Greeks of Yenishehr, before the Seljuk collapse became a fact. The Tartar
+storm, ridden by Jenghis Khan, which had overwhelmed Central Asia, spent
+its last force on the kingdom of Konia, and, withdrawing, left the Seljuks
+bankrupt of force and prestige and Anatolia without an overlord. The
+feudatories were free everywhere to make or mar themselves, and they spent
+the last half of the thirteenth century in fighting for whatever might be
+saved from the Seljuk wreck before it foundered for ever about 1300 A.D.
+In the south, the centre, and the east of the peninsula, where Islam 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 restorations of tribal
+jurisdictions which had existed before the imposition of Seljuk
+overlordship.
+
+In the extreme north-west, however, where the mass of society was still
+Christian and held itself Greek, no Turkish, potentate could either revive
+a pre-Seljukian status or simply carry on a Seljukian system in miniature.
+If he was to preserve independence at all, he must rely on a society which
+was not yet Moslem and form a coalition with the 'Greeks', into whom the
+recent recovery of Constantinople from the Latins had put fresh heart.
+Osman, who had succeeded Ertogrul in 1288, recognized where his only
+possible chance of continued dominion and future aggrandizement lay. He
+turned to the Greeks, as an element of vitality and numerical strength to
+be absorbed into his nascent state, and applied himself unremittingly to
+winning over and identifying with himself the Greek feudal seigneurs in
+his territory or about its frontiers. Some of these, like Michael, lord of
+Harmankaya, readily enough stood in with the vigorous Turk and became
+Moslems. Others, as the new state gained momentum, found themselves
+obliged to accept it or be crushed. There are to this day Greek
+communities in the Brusa district jealously guarding privileges which date
+from compacts made with their seigneurs by Osman and his son Orkhan.
+
+It was not till the Seljuk kingdom was finally extinguished, in or about
+1300 A.D. that Osman assumed at Yenishehr the style and title of a sultan.
+Acknowledged from Afium Kara Hissar, in northern Phrygia, to the Bithynian
+coast of the Marmora, beside whose waters his standards had already been
+displayed, he lived on to see Brusa fall to his son Orkhan, in 1326, and
+become the new capital. Though Nicaea still held out, Osman died virtual
+lord of the Asiatic Greeks; and marrying his son to a Christian girl, the
+famous Nilufer, after whom the river of Brusa is still named, he laid on
+Christian foundations the strength of his dynasty and his state. The first
+regiment of professional Ottoman soldiery was recruited by him and
+embodied later by Orkhan, his son, from Greek and other Christian-born
+youths, who, forced to apostatize, were educated as Imperial slaves in
+imitation of the Mamelukes, constituted more than a century earlier in
+Egypt, and now masters where they had been bondmen. It is not indeed for
+nothing that Osman's latest 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 correct form Othman, 'Ottomans'),
+because they derived their being as a nation and derive their national
+strength, not so much from central Asia as from the blend of Turk and
+Greek which Osman promoted among his people. This Greek strain has often
+been reinforced since his day and mingled with other Caucasian strains.
+
+It was left to Orkhan to round off this Turco-Grecian realm in Byzantine
+Asia by the capture first of Ismid (Nicomedia) and then of Isnik (Nicaea);
+and with this last acquisition the nucleus of a self-sufficient sovereign
+state was complete. After the peaceful absorption of the emirate of
+Karasi, which added west central Asia Minor almost as far south as the
+Hermus, the Osmanli ruled in 1338 a dominion of greater area than that of
+the Greek emperor, whose capital and coasts now looked across to Ottoman
+shores all the way from the Bosphorus to the Hellespont.
+
+
+
+2
+
+_Expansion of the Osmanli Kingdom_
+
+
+If the new state was to expand by conquest, its line of advance was
+already foreshadowed. For the present, it could hardly break back into
+Asia Minor, occupied as this was by Moslem principalities sanctioned by
+the same tradition as itself, namely, the prestige of the Seljuks. To
+attack these would be to sin against Islam. But in front lay a rich but
+weak Christian state, the centre of the civilization to which the popular
+element in the Osmanli society belonged. As inevitably as 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 no
+invitation from a Greek to dispose an Ottoman sultan to push over to the
+European shore.
+
+Such an invitation, however, did in fact precede the first Osmanli
+crossing in force. In 1345 John Cantacuzene solicited help of Orkhan
+against the menace of Dushan, the Serb. Twelve years later came a second
+invitation. 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 continent to continent, which the Ottomans would never
+again let go.
+
+Such invitations, though they neither prompted the extension of the
+Osmanli realm into Europe nor sensibly precipitated it, did nevertheless
+divert the course of the Ottoman arms and reprieve the Greek empire till
+Timur and his Tartars could come on the scene and, all unconsciously,
+secure it a further respite. But for these diversions there is little
+doubt Constantinople would have passed into Ottoman hands nearly a century
+earlier than the historic date of its fall. The Osmanli armies, thus led
+aside to make the Serbs and not the Greeks of Europe their first
+objective, became involved at once in a tangle of Balkan affairs from
+which they only extricated themselves after forty years of incessant
+fighting in almost every part of the peninsula except the domain of the
+Greek emperor. This warfare, which in no way advanced the proper aims of
+the lords of Brusa and Nicaea, not only profited the Greek emperor by
+relieving him of concern about his land frontier but also used up strength
+which might have made head against the Tartars. Constantinople then, as
+now, was detached from the Balkans. The Osmanlis, had they possessed
+themselves of it, 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 treacheries by annexations after the victories of Kosovo in 1389
+and Nikopolis in 1396.
+
+Nor was this all. They became involved also with certain peoples of the
+main continent of Europe, whose interests or sympathies had been affected
+by those long and sanguinary Balkan wars. There was already bad blood and
+to spare between the Osmanlis on the one hand, and Hungarians, Poles, and
+Italian Venetians on the other, long before any second opportunity to
+attack Constantinople occurred: and the Osmanlis were in for that age-long
+struggle to secure a 'scientific frontier' 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 eighteenth century and spell
+ruin in the end.
+
+It is a vulgar error to suppose that the Osmanlis set out for Europe, in
+the spirit of Arab apostles, to force their creed and dominion on all the
+world. Both in Asia and Europe, from first to last, their expeditions and
+conquests have been inspired palpably by motives similar to those active
+among the Christian powers, namely, desire for political security and the
+command of commercial areas. Such wars as the Ottoman sultans, once they
+were established at Constantinople, did wage again and again with knightly
+orders or with Italian republics would have been undertaken, and fought
+with the same persistence, by any Greek emperor who felt himself strong
+enough. Even the Asiatic campaigns, which Selim I and some of his
+successors, down to the end of the seventeenth century, would undertake,
+were planned and carried out from similar motives. Their object was to
+secure the eastern basin of the Mediterranean by the establishment of some
+strong frontier against Iran, out of which had come more than once forces
+threatening the destruction of Ottoman power. It does not, of course, in
+any respect disprove their purpose that, in the event, this object was
+never attained, and that an unsatisfactory Turco-Persian border still
+illustrates at this day the failures of Selim I and Mohammed IV.
+
+By the opening of the fifteenth century, when, all unlooked for, a most
+terrible Tartar storm was about to break upon western Asia, the Osmanli
+realm had grown considerably, not only in Europe by conquest, but also in
+Asia by the peaceful effect of marriages and heritages. Indeed it now
+comprised scarcely less of the Anatolian peninsula than the last Seljuks
+had held, that is to say, the whole of the north as far as the Halys river
+beyond Angora, the central plateau to beyond Konia, and all the western
+coast-lands. The only emirs not tributary were those of Karamania,
+Cappadocia, and Pontus, that is of the southern and eastern fringes; and
+one detached fragment of Greek power survived in the last-named country,
+the kingdom of Trebizond. As for Europe, it had become the main scene of
+Osmanli operations, and now contained the administrative capital,
+Adrianople, though Brusu kept a sentimental primacy. Sultan Murad, who
+some years after his succession in 1359 had definitely transferred the
+centre of political gravity to Thrace, was nevertheless carried to the
+Bithynian capital for burial, Bulgaria, Serbia, and districts of both
+Bosnia and Macedonia were now integral parts of an empire which had come
+to number at least as many Christian as Moslem subjects, and to depend as
+much on the first as on the last. Not only had the 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 of the True Faith
+in Asia. A considerable body of Christian Serbs had stood up in Murad's
+line at the battle of Konia in 1381, before the treachery of another body
+of the same race gave him the victory eight years later at Kosovo. So
+little did the Osmanli state model itself on the earlier caliphial empires
+and so naturally did it lean towards the Roman or Byzantine imperial type.
+
+And just because it had come to be in Europe and of Europe, it was able to
+survive the terrible disaster of Angora in 1402. Though the Osmanli army
+was annihilated by Timur, and an Osmanli sultan, for the first and last
+time in history, remained in the hands of the foe, the administrative
+machinery of the Osmanli state was not paralysed. A new ruler was
+proclaimed at Adrianople, and the European part of the realm held firm.
+The moment that the Tartars began to give ground, the Osmanlis began to
+recover it. In less than twenty years they stood again in Asia as they
+were before Timur's attack, and secure for the time on the east, could
+return to restore their prestige in the west, where the Tartar victory had
+bred unrest and brought both the Hungarians and the Venetians on the
+Balkan scene. Their success was once more rapid and astonishing: Salonika
+passed once and for all into Ottoman hands: the Frank seigneurs and the
+despots of Greece were alike humbled; and although Murad II failed to
+crush the Albanian, Skanderbey, he worsted his most dangerous foe, John
+Hunyadi, with the help of Wallach treachery at the second battle of
+Kosovo. At his death, three years later, he left the Balkans quiet and the
+field clear for his successor to proceed with the long deferred but
+inevitable enterprise of attacking all that 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 who already had been in possession
+of its proper empire for a century or more. Historians have made more of
+this fall of Constantinople in 1453 than contemporary opinion seems to
+have made of it. No prince in Europe was moved to any action by its peril,
+except, very half-heartedly, the Doge. Venice could not feel quite
+indifferent to the prospect of the 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 Constantinople, the
+latter, long a land power only, would be bound to concern themselves with
+the sea also. The Venetians made no effort worthy of their apprehensions,
+though these were indeed exceedingly well founded; for, as all the world
+knows, to the sea the Osmanlis did at once betake themselves. In less than
+thirty years they were ranging all the eastern Mediterranean and laying
+siege to Rhodes, the stronghold of one of their most dangerous
+competitors, the Knights Hospitallers.
+
+In this consequence consists the chief historic importance of the Osmanli
+capture of Constantinople. For no other reason can it he called an
+epoch-marking event. If it guaranteed the Empire of the East against
+passing into any western hands, for example, those of Venice or Genoa, it
+did not affect the balance of power between Christendom and Islam; for the
+strength of the former had long ceased to reside at all in Constantinople.
+The last Greek emperor died a martyr, but not a champion.
+
+
+
+3
+
+_Heritage and Expansion of Byzantine Empire_
+
+
+On 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 be would be changed. He had displaced a Palaeologus by an
+Osmanli only in order that an empire long in fact Osmanli should
+henceforth be so also _de jure_. Therefore he confirmed the pre-existing
+Oecumenical patriarch in his functions and the Byzantine Greeks in their
+privileges, renewed the rights secured to Christian foreigners by the
+Greek emperors, and proclaimed 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, Mohammed devoted
+himself to precisely those tasks which would have fallen to a Greek
+emperor desirous of restoring Byzantine power. He thrust back Latins
+wherever they were encroaching on the Greek sphere, as were the Venetians
+of the Morea, the Hospitallers of Rhodes, and the Genoese of the Crimea:
+and he rounded off the proper Byzantine holding by annexing, in Europe,
+all the Balkan peninsula except 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 emirates of
+Karamania and Cappadocia.
+
+Before Mohammed died in 1481 the Osmanli Turco-Grecian nation may be said
+to have come into its own. It was lord _de facto et de jure belli_ of the
+eastern or Greek Empire, that is of all territories and seas grouped
+geographically round Constantinople as a centre, with only a few
+exceptions unredeemed, of which the most notable were the islands of
+Cyprus, Rhodes, and Krete, still in Latin hands. Needless to say, the
+Osmanlis themselves differed greatly from their imperial predecessors.
+Their official speech, their official creed, their family system were all
+foreign to Europe, and many of their ideas of government had been learned
+in the past from Persia and China, or were derived from the original
+tribal organization of the true Turks. But if they were neither more nor
+less Asiatics than the contemporary Russians, they were quite as much
+Europeans as many of the Greek emperors had been--those of the Isaurian
+dynasty, for instance. They had given no evidence as yet of a fanatical
+Moslem spirit--this was to be bred in them by subsequent experiences--and
+their official creed had governed their policy hardly more than does ours
+in India or Egypt. Mohammed the Conqueror had not only shown marked favour
+to Christians, whether his _rayas_ or not, but encouraged letters and the
+arts in a very un-Arabian spirit. Did he not have himself portrayed by
+Gentile Bellini? The higher offices of state, both civil and military,
+were confided (and would continue so to be for a century to come) almost
+exclusively to men of Christian origin. Commerce was encouraged, and
+western traders recognized that their facilities were greater now than
+they had been under Greek rule. The Venetians, for example, enjoyed in
+perfect liberty a virtual monopoly of the Aegean and Euxine trade. The
+social condition of the peasantry seems to have been better than it had
+been under Greek seigneurs, whether in Europe or in Asia, and better than
+it was at the moment in feudal Christendom. The Osmanli military
+organization was reputed the best in the world, and its fame attracted
+adventurous spirits from all over Europe to learn war in the first school
+of the age. Ottoman armies, it is worth while to remember, were the only
+ones then attended by efficient medical and commissariat services, and may
+be said to have introduced to Europe these alleviations of the horrors of
+war.
+
+Had the immediate 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 for many centuries the subsequent sordid decay; for the seeds of
+this were undoubtedly sown by the three great sultans who followed the
+taker of Constantinople. Their ambitions or their necessities led to a
+great increase of the professional army which would entail many evils in
+time to come. Among these were praetorianism in the capital and the great
+provincial towns; subjection of land and peasantry to military seigneurs,
+who gradually detached themselves from the central control; wars
+undertaken abroad for no better reason than the employment of soldiery
+feared at home; consequent expansion of the territorial empire beyond the
+administrative capacity of the central government; development of the
+'tribute-children' system of recruiting into a scourge of the _rayas_ and
+a continual offence to neighbouring states, and the supplementing of that
+system by acceptance of any and every alien outlaw who might offer himself
+for service: lastly, revival of the dormant crusading spirit of Europe,
+which reacted on the Osmanlis, begetting in them an Arabian fanaticism and
+disposing them to revert to the obscurantist spirit of the earliest
+Moslems. To sum the matter 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 official mind on things military and
+religious, to the exclusion of other interests; the degradation and
+embitterment of the Christian elements in the empire; the perpetual
+financial embarrassment of the government with its inevitable consequence
+of oppression and neglect of the governed; and the constant provocation in
+Christendom of a hostility which was always latent and recurrently active--
+all these evils, which combined to push the empire nearer and nearer to
+ruin from the seventeenth century onwards, can be traced to the brilliant
+epoch of Osmanli history associated with the names of Bayezid II, Selim I,
+and Suleiman the Magnificent.
+
+At the same time Fate, rather than any sultan, must be blamed. It was
+impossible to forgo some further extension of the empire, and very
+difficult to arrest extension at any satisfactory static point. For one
+thing, as has been pointed out already, there were important territories
+in the proper Byzantine sphere still unredeemed at the death of Mohammed.
+Rhodes, Krete, and Cyprus, whose possession carried with it something like
+superior control of the Levantine trade, were in Latin hands. Austrian as
+well as Venetian occupation of the best harbours was virtually closing the
+Adriatic to the masters of the Balkans. Nor could the inner lands of the
+Peninsula be quite securely held while the great fortress of Belgrade,
+with the passage of the Danube, remained in Hungarian keeping,
+Furthermore, 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 of 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 to bring all the Anatolian
+peninsula under the Osmanli. But that corner, the Cilician plain, promised
+trouble, since it was held by another Islamic power, that of the Egyptian
+Mamelukes, which, claiming to be at least equal to the Osmanli, possessed
+vitality much below its pretensions. The temptation to poach on it was
+strong, and any lord of Constantinople who once gave way to this, would
+find himself led on to assume control of all coasts of the easternmost
+Levant, and then to push into inland Asia in quest of a scientific
+frontier at their back--perilous and costly enterprise which Rome had
+essayed again and again and had to renounce in the end. Bayezid II took
+the first step by summoning the Mameluke to evacuate certain forts near
+Tarsus, and expelling his garrisons _vi et armis_. Cilicia passed to the
+Osmanli; but for the moment he pushed no farther. Bayezid, who was under
+the obligation always to lead his army in person, could make but one
+campaign at a time; and a need in Europe was the more pressing. In
+quitting Cilicia, however, he left open a new question in Ottoman
+politics--the Asiatic continental question--and indicated to his successor
+a line of least resistance on which to advance. Nor would this be his only
+dangerous legacy. The prolonged and repeated raids into Adriatic lands, as
+far north as Carniola and Carinthia, with which the rest of Bayezid's
+reign was occupied, brought Ottoman militarism at last to a point, whose
+eventual attainment might have been foreseen any time in the past century--
+the point at which, strong in the possession of a new arm, artillery, it
+would assume control of the state.
+
+Bayezid's seed was harvested by Selim. First in a long series of
+praetorian creatures which would end only with the destroyer of the
+praetorians themselves three centuries later, he owed his elevation to a
+Janissary revolt, and all the eight bloody years of his reign were to be
+punctuated by Janissary tumults. To keep his creators in any sort of order
+and contentment he had no choice but to make war from his first year to
+his last. When he died, in 1520, the Ottoman Empire had been swelled to
+almost as wide limits in Asia and Africa as it has ever attained since his
+day. Syria, Armenia, great part of Kurdistan, northern Mesopotamia, part
+of Arabia, and last, but not least, Egypt, were forced to acknowledge
+Osmanli suzerainty, and for the first time an Osmanli sultan had
+proclaimed himself caliph. True that neither by his birth nor by the
+manner of his appointment did Selim satisfy the orthodox caliphial
+tradition; but, besides his acquisition of certain venerated relics of the
+Prophet, such as the _Sanjak i-sherif_ or holy standard, and besides a yet
+more important acquisition--the control of the holy cities of the faith--
+he could base a claim on the unquestioned fact that the office was vacant,
+and the equally certain fact that he was the most powerful Moslem prince
+in the world. Purists might deny him if they dared: the vulgar Sunni mind
+was impressed and disposed to accept. The main importance, however, of
+Selim's assumption of the caliphate was that it consecrated Osmanli
+militarism to a religious end--to the original programme of Islam. This
+was a new thing, fraught with dire possibilities from that day forward. It
+marked the supersession of the Byzantine or European ideal by the Asiatic
+in Osmanli policy, and introduced a phase of Ottoman history which has
+endured to our own time.
+
+The inevitable process was continued in the next reign. Almost all the
+military glories of Suleiman--known to contemporary Europe as 'the
+Magnificent' and often held by historians the greatest of Osmanli sultans--
+made for weakening, not strengthening, the empire. His earliest operations
+indeed, the captures of Rhodes from the Knights and of Belgrade and
+[)S]abac from the Hungarians, expressed a legitimate Byzantine policy; and
+the siege of Malta, one of his latest ventures, might also be defended as
+a measure taken in the true interests of Byzantine commerce. But the most
+brilliant and momentous of his achievements bred evils for which military
+prestige and the material profits to be gained from the oppression of an
+irreconcilable population were inadequate compensation. This was the
+conquest of Hungary. It would result in Buda and its kingdom remaining
+Ottoman territory for a century and a 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 the Balkan sphere;
+but also it would result in the Osmanli power finding itself on a weak
+frontier face to face at last with a really strong Christian race, the
+Germanic, before which, since it could not advance, it would have
+ultimately to withdraw; and in the rousing of Europe to a sense of its
+common danger from Moslem activity. Suleiman's failure to take Vienna more
+than made good the panic which had followed on his victory at Mohacs. It
+was felt that the Moslem, now that he had failed against the bulwark of
+central Europe, was to go no farther, and that the hour of revenge was
+near.
+
+[Illustration: The Ottoman Empire (Except the Arabian and African
+provinces)]
+
+It was nearer than perhaps was expected. Ottoman capacity to administer
+the overgrown empire in Europe and Asia was strained already almost to
+breaking-point, and it was in recognition of this fact that Suleiman made
+the great effort to reorganize his imperial system, which has earned him
+his honourable title of _El Kanun_, the Regulator. But if he could reset
+and cleanse the wheels of the administrative machine, he could not
+increase its capacity. New blood was beginning to fail for the governing
+class just as the demands on it became greater. No longer could it be
+manned exclusively from the Christian born. Two centuries of recruiting in
+the Balkans and West Asia had sapped their resources. Even the Janissaries
+were not now all 'tribute-children'. Their own sons, free men Moslem born,
+began to be admitted to the ranks. This change was a vital infringement of
+the old principle of Osmanli rule, that all the higher administrative and
+military functions should be vested in slaves of the imperial household,
+directly dependent on the sultan himself; and once breached, this
+principle could not but give way more and more. The descendants of
+imperial slaves, free-born Moslems, but barred from the glory and profits
+of their fathers' function, had gradually become a very numerous class of
+country gentlemen distributed over all parts of the empire, and a very
+malcontent one. Though it was still subservient, its dissatisfaction at
+exclusion from the central administration was soon to show itself partly
+in assaults on the time-honoured system, partly in assumption of local
+jurisdiction, which would develop into provincial independence.
+
+The overgrowth of his empire further compelled Suleiman to divide the
+standing army, in order that more than one imperial force might take the
+field at a time. Unable to lead all his armies in person, he elected, in
+the latter part of his reign, to lead none, and for the first time left
+the Janissaries to march without a sultan to war. Remaining himself at the
+centre, he initiated a fashion which would encourage Osmanli sultans to
+lapse into half-hidden beings, whom their subjects would gradually invest
+with religious character. Under these conditions the ruler, the governing
+class (its power grew with this devolution), the dominant population of
+the state, and the state 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 area which it
+was ever to cover at any one moment. In what may be called the proper
+Byzantine field, 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 frontier provinces, 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 III, which culminated in 1588
+with the occupation of Tabriz and half Azerbaijan.
+
+
+
+4
+
+_Shrinkage and Retreat_
+
+
+The fringes of this vast empire, however, none too surely held, were
+already involving it in insoluble difficulties and imminent dangers. On
+the one hand, in Asia, it had been found impossible to establish military
+fiefs in Arabia, Kurdistan, or anywhere east of it, on the system which
+had secured the Osmanli tenure elsewhere. On the other hand, in Europe, as
+we have seen, the empire had a very unsatisfactory frontier, beyond which
+a strong people not only set limits to further progress but was prepared
+to dispute the ground already gained. In a treaty signed at Sitvatorok, in
+1606, the Osmanli sultan was forced to acknowledge definitely the absolute
+and equal sovereignty of his northern neighbour, Austria; and although,
+less than a century later, Vienna would be attacked once more, there was
+never again to be serious prospect of an extension of the empire in the
+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 seventeenth and eighteenth, is one long record of
+praetorian tumults at home; and ever more rarely will these be compensated
+by military successes abroad. The first of these centuries had not half
+elapsed ere the Janissaries had taken the lives of two sultans, and
+brought the Grand Vizierate to such a perilous pass that no ordinary
+holder of it, unless backed by some very powerful Albanian or other tribal
+influence, could hope to save his credit or even his life. During this
+period indeed no Osmanli of the older stocks ever exercised real control
+of affairs. It was only among the more recently assimilated elements, such
+as the Albanian, the Slavonic, or the Greek, that men of the requisite
+character and vigour could be found. The rally which marked the latter
+half of the seventeenth century was entirely the work of Albanians or of
+other generals and admirals, none of whom had had a Moslem grandfather.
+Marked by the last Osmanli conquest made at the expense of Europe--that
+of Krete; by the definite subjugation of Wallachia; by the second siege of
+Vienna; by the recovery of the Morea from Venice; and finally by an
+honourable arrangement with Austria about the Danube frontier--it is all
+to be credited to the Kuprili 'dynasty' of Albanian viziers, which
+conspicuously outshone the contemporary sovereigns of the dynasty of
+Osman, the best of them, Mohammed IV, not excepted. It was, however, no
+more than a rally; for greater danger already threatened from another
+quarter. Agreement had not been reached with Austria at Carlowitz, in
+1699, before a new and baleful planet swam into the Osmanli sky.
+
+It was, this time, no central European power, to which, at the worst, all
+that lay north of the proper Byzantine sphere might be abandoned; but a
+claimant for part of that sphere itself, perhaps even for the very heart
+of it. Russia, seeking an economic outlet, had sapped her way south to the
+Euxine shore, and was on the point of challenging the Osmanli right to
+that sea. The contest would involve a vital issue; and if the Porte did
+not yet grasp this fact, others had grasped it. The famous 'Testament of
+Peter the Great' may or may not be a genuine document; but, in either
+case, it proves that certain views about the necessary policy of Russia in
+the Byzantine area, which became commonplaces of western political
+thinkers as the eighteenth century advanced, were already familiar to east
+European minds in the earlier part of that century.
+
+Battle was not long in being joined. In the event, it would cost Russia
+about sixty years of strenuous effort to reduce the Byzantine power of the
+Osmanlis to a condition little better than that in which Osman had found
+the Byzantine power of the Greeks four centuries before. During the first
+two-thirds of this period the contest was waged not unequally. By the
+Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Sultan Mahmud I appeared for a moment even to
+have gained the whole issue, Russia agreeing to her own exclusion from the
+Black Sea, and from interference in the Danubian principalities. But the
+success could not be sustained. Repeated effort was rapidly exhausting
+Osmanli strength, sapped as it was by increasing internal disease: and
+when a crisis arrived with the accession of the Empress Catherine, it
+proved too weak to meet it. During the ten years following 1764 Osmanli
+hold on the Black Sea was lost irretrievably. After the destruction of the
+fleet at Chesme the Crimea became untenable and was abandoned to the brief
+mercies of Russia: and with a veiled Russian protectorate established in
+the Danubian principalities, and an open Russian occupation in Morean
+ports, Constantinople had lost once more her own seas. When Selim III was
+set on a tottering throne, in 1787, the wheel of Byzantine destiny seemed
+to have come again almost full circle: and the world was expecting a
+Muscovite succession to that empire which had acknowledged already the
+Roman, the Greek, and the Osmanli.
+
+Certainly history looked like repeating itself. As in the fourteenth
+century, so in the eighteenth, the imperial provinces, having shaken off
+almost all control of the capital, were administering themselves, and
+happier for doing so. Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Trebizond
+acknowledged adventurers as virtually independent lords. Asia Minor, in
+general, was being controlled, in like disregard of imperial majesty, by a
+group of 'Dere Beys', descended, in different districts, from tribal
+chieftains or privileged tax-farmers, or, often, from both. The latter
+part of the eighteenth century was the heyday of the Anatolian feudal
+families--of such as the Chapanoghlus of Yuzgad, whose sway stretched from
+Pontus to Cilicia, right across the base of the peninsula, or the
+Karamanoghlus of Magnesia, Bergama, and Aidin, who ruled as much territory
+as the former emirs of Karasi and Sarukhan, and were recognized by the
+representatives of the great trading companies as wielding the only
+effective authority in Smyrna. The wide and rich regions controlled by
+such families usually contributed neither an _asper_ to the sultan's
+treasury 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 the imperial writ run. Macedonia and
+Albania were obedient only to their local beys, and so far had gone the
+devolution of Serbia and Bosnia to Janissary aghas, feudal beys, and the
+Beylerbey of Rumili, that these provinces hardly concerned themselves more
+with the capital. The late sultan, Mustapha III, had lost almost the last
+remnant of his subjects' respect, not so much by the ill success of his
+mutinous armies as by his depreciation of the imperial coinage. He had
+died bankrupt of prestige, leaving no visible assets to his successor.
+What might become of the latter no one in the empire appeared to care. As
+in 1453, it waited other lords.
+
+
+
+5
+
+_Revival_
+
+
+It has been waiting, nevertheless, ever since--waiting for much more than
+a century; and perhaps the end is not even yet. Why, then, have
+expectations not only within but without the empire been so greatly at
+fault? How came Montesquieu, Burke, and other confident prophets since
+their time to be so signally mistaken? There were several co-operating
+causes, but one paramount. Constantinople was no longer, as in 1453, a
+matter of concern only to itself, its immediate neighbours, and certain
+trading republics of Italy. It had become involved with the commercial
+interests of a far wider circle, in particular of the great trading
+peoples of western Europe, the British, the French, and the Dutch, and
+with the political interests of the Germanic and Russian nations. None of
+these could be indifferent to a revolution in its fortunes, and least of
+all to its 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 at Vienna till early in the
+century to come: but even before the end of the eighteenth century it
+could be foreseen that its life would be bound up with the maintenance of
+Constantinople in independence of any one of the parent powers--that is,
+with the prolongation of the Osmanli phase of its imperial fortunes. This
+doctrine, consistently acted upon by Europe, has been the sheet anchor of
+the Ottoman empire for a century. Even to this day its Moslem dynasty has
+never been without one powerful Christian champion or another.
+
+There were, however, some thirty years still to elapse after Selim's
+accession before that doctrine was fully born: and had her hands been
+free, Russia might well have been in secure possession of the Byzantine
+throne long before 1815. For, internally, the Osmanli state went from bad
+to worse. The tumultuous insubordination of the Janissaries became an ever
+greater scandal. Never in all the long history of their riots was their
+record for the years 1807-9 equalled or even approached. Never before,
+also, had the provinces been so utterly out of hand. This was the era of
+Jezzar the Butcher at Acre, of the rise of Mehemet Ali in Egypt, of Ali
+Pasha in Epirus, and of Pasvanoghlu at Vidin. When Mahmud II was thrust on
+to the throne in 1809, he certainly began his reign with no more personal
+authority and no more imperial prestige or jurisdiction than the last
+Greek emperor had enjoyed on his accession in 1448.
+
+The great 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 give substance. Whatever the Osmanlis suffered during
+that war, it undoubtedly kept them in Constantinople. Temporary loss of
+Egypt and the small damage done by the British attack on Constantinople in
+1807 were a small price to pay for the diversion of Russia's main energies
+to other than Byzantine fields, and for the assurance, made doubly sure
+when the great enemy did again attack, that she would not be allowed to
+settle the account alone. Whatever Napoleon may have planned and signed at
+Tilsit, the aegis of France was consistently opposed to the enemies of the
+Osmanlis down to the close of the Napoleonic age.
+
+Thus it came about that those thirty perilous years passed without the
+expected catastrophe. There was still a successor of Osman reigning in
+Constantinople when the great Christian powers, met in conclave at Vienna,
+half unconsciously guaranteed the continued existence of the Osmanli
+Empire simply by leaving it out of account in striking a Balance of Power
+in Europe. Its European territory, with the capital within it, was of
+quite enough importance to disturb seriously the nice adjustment agreed at
+Vienna; and, therefore, while any one's henceforth to take or leave, it
+would become always some one's to guard. A few years had yet to pass
+before the phrase, the Maintenance of the Integrity of the Ottoman Empire,
+would be a watchword of European diplomacy: but, whether formulated thus
+or not, that principle became a sure rock of defence for the Osmanli
+Empire on the birthday of the doctrine of the Balance of Power.
+
+Secure from destruction by any foes but those of his own household, as
+none knew better than he, the reigning Osmanli was scheming to regain the
+independence and dignity of his forefathers. Himself a creature of the
+Janissaries, Mahmud had plotted the abolition of his creators from the
+first year of his reign, but making a too precipitate effort after the
+conclusion of peace with Russia, had ignominiously failed and fallen into
+worse bondage than ever. Now, better assured of his imperial position and
+supported by leading men of all classes among his subjects, he returned
+not only to his original enterprise but to schemes for removing other
+checks on the power of the sovereign which had come into being in the last
+two centuries--notably the feudal independence of the Dere Beys, and the
+irresponsibility of provincial governors.
+
+Probably Mahmud II--if he is to be credited with personal initiation of
+the reforms always associated with his name--was not conscious of any
+purpose more revolutionary than that of becoming master in his own house,
+as his ancestors had been. What he ultimately accomplished, however, was
+something of much greater and more lasting moment to the Osmanli state. It
+was nothing less than the elimination of the most Byzantine features in
+its constitution and government. The substitution of national forces for
+mercenary praetorians: the substitution of direct imperial government of
+the provinces for devolution to seigneurs, tribal chiefs, and
+irresponsible officers: the substitution of direct collection for
+tax-farming: and the substitution of administration by bureaucrats for
+administration by household officers--these, the chief reforms carried
+through under Mahmud, were all anti-Byzantine. They did not cause the
+Osmanli state to be born anew, but, at least, they went far to purge it of
+original sin.
+
+That Mahmud and his advisers could carry through such reforms at all in so
+old a body politic is remarkable: that they carried them through amid the
+events of his reign is almost miraculous. One affront after another was
+put on the Sultan, one blow after another was struck at his empire.
+Inspired by echoes of the French Revolution and by Napoleon's recognition
+of the rights of nationalities, first the Serbs and then the Greeks seized
+moments of Ottoman disorder to rise in revolt against their local lords.
+The first, who had risen under Selim III, achieved, under Mahmud,
+autonomy, but not independence, nothing remaining to the sultan as before
+except the fortress of Belgrade with five other strongholds. 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 passed out of the
+empire, the first provinces so to pass since the Osmanli loss of Hungary.
+Yet it was in the middle of that fatal struggle that Mahmud settled for
+ever with the Janissaries, and during all its course he was settling one
+after another with the Dere Beys!
+
+When he had thus sacrificed the flower of his professional troops and had
+hardly had time to replace the local governments of the provinces by
+anything much better than general anarchy, he found himself faced by a
+Russian assault. His raw levies fought as no other raw levies than the
+Turkish can, and, helped by manifestations of jealousy by the other
+powers, staved off the capture of Constantinople, which, at one moment,
+seemed about to take place at last. But he had to accept humiliating
+terms, amounting virtually, to a cession of the Black Sea. Mahmud
+recognized that such a price he must pay for crossing the broad stream
+between Byzantinism and Nationalism, and kept on his way.
+
+Finally came a blow at the hands of one of his own household and creed.
+Mehemet Ali of Egypt, who had faithfully fought his sovereign's battles in
+Arabia and the Morea, 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 than he had intended--more than half-way
+across Asia Minor--after the imperial armies had suffered three signal
+defeats, before he extorted what he had desired at first: and in the end,
+after very brief enjoyment, he had to resign all again to the mandate, not
+of his sovereign, but of certain European powers who commanded his seas.
+Mahmud, however, who lived neither to see himself saved by the _giaur_
+fleets, nor even to hear of his latest defeat, had gone forward with the
+reorganization of the central and provincial administration, undismayed by
+Mehemet Ali's contumacy or the insistence of Russia at the gate of the
+Bosphorus.
+
+As news arrived from time to time in the west of Mahmud's disasters, it
+was customary to prophesy the imminent dissolution of his empire. We,
+however, looking backward now, can see that by its losses the Osmanli
+state in reality grew stronger. Each of its humiliations pledged some
+power or group of powers more deeply to support it: and before Mahmud
+died, he had reason to believe that, so long as the European Concert
+should ensue the Balance of Power, his dynasty would not be expelled from
+Constantinople. His belief has been justified. At every fresh crisis of
+Ottoman fortunes, and especially after every fresh Russian attack, foreign
+protection has unfailingly been extended to his successors.
+
+It was not, however, only in virtue of the increasing solicitude of the
+powers on its behalf that during the nineteenth century the empire was
+growing and would grow stronger, but also in virtue of certain assets
+within itself. First among these ranked the resources of its Asiatic
+territories, which, as the European lands diminished, became more and more
+nearly identified with the empire. When, having got rid of the old army,
+Mahmud imposed service on all his Moslem subjects, in theory, but in
+effect only on the Osmanlis (not the Arabs, Kurds, or other half
+assimilated nomads and hillmen), it meant more than a similar measure
+would have meant in a Christian empire. For, the life of Islam being war,
+military service binds Moslems together and to their chiefs as it binds
+men under no other dispensation; therefore Mahmud, so far as he was able
+to enforce 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, it was attained 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 of a drastic order had to precede construction, and more
+of Mahmud's reign had to be devoted to the former than remained for the
+latter.
+
+He did, however, live to see not only the germ of a nation emerge from
+chaos, but also the framework of an organization for governing it well or
+ill. The centralized bureaucracy which he succeeded in initiating was, of
+course, wretchedly imperfect both in constitution and equipment. But it
+promised to promote the end he had in view and no other, inasmuch as,
+being the only existent machine of government, it derived any effective
+power it had from himself alone. Dependent on Stambul, it served to turn
+thither the eyes and prayers of the provincials. The naturally submissive
+and peaceful population of Asia Minor quickly accustomed itself to look
+beyond the dismantled strongholds of its fallen beys. As for the rest--
+contumacious and bellicose beys and sheikhs of Kurdish hills and Syrian
+steppes--their hour of surrender was yet to come.
+
+The eventual product of Mahmud's persistency was the 'Turkey' we have seen
+in our own time--that Turkey irretrievably Asiatic in spirit under a
+semi-European system of administration, which has governed despotically in
+the interests of one creed and one class, with slipshod, makeshift
+methods, but has always governed, and little by little has extended its
+range. Knowing its imperfections and its weakness, we have watched with
+amazement its hand feeling forward none the less towards one remote
+frontier district after another, painfully but surely getting its grip,
+and at last closing on Turcoman chiefs and Kurdish beys, first in the
+Anatolian and Cilician hills, then in the mountains of Armenia, finally in
+the wildest Alps of the Persian borderland. We have marked its stealthy
+movement into the steppes and deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia--
+now drawn back, now pushed farther till it has reached and held regions
+over which Mahmud could claim nothing but a suzerainty in name. To judge
+how far the shrinkage of the Osmanli European empire has been compensated
+by expansion of its Asiatic, one has only to compare the political state
+of Kurdistan, as it was at the end of the eighteenth century, and as it
+has been in our own time.
+
+It is impossible to believe that the Greek Empire, however buttressed and
+protected by foreign powers, could ever have reconstituted itself after
+falling so low as it fell in the fourteenth century and as the Osmanli
+Empire fell in the eighteenth; and it is clear that the latter must still
+have possessed latent springs of vitality, deficient in the former. What
+can these have been? It is worth while to try to answer this question at
+the present juncture, since those springs, if they existed a hundred years
+ago, can hardly now be dry.
+
+In the first place it had its predominant creed. This had acted as Islam
+acts everywhere, as a very strong social bond, uniting the vast majority
+of subjects 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 with special efficacy in Asia
+Minor, whose inhabitants the Osmanli emperors, unlike the Greek, had
+always been at some pains to attach to themselves. The sultan, therefore,
+could still count on general support from the population of his empire's
+heart, and had at his disposal the resources of a country which no
+administration, 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 not lost either 'the will to power' or
+their capacity for governing under military law. If they had never
+succeeded in learning to rule as civilians they had not forgotten how to
+rule as soldiers.
+
+In the third place the sultanate of Stambul had retained a vague but
+valuable prestige, based partly on past history, partly on its pretension
+to religious influence throughout a much larger area than its proper
+dominions; and the conservative population of the latter was in great
+measure very imperfectly informed of its sovereign's actual position.
+
+In the fourth and last place, among the populations on whose loyalty the
+Osmanli sultan could make good his claim, were several strong unexhausted
+elements, especially in Anatolia. There are few more vigorous and enduring
+peoples than the peasants of the central plateau of Asia Minor, 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, less firmly
+attached to himself, but not less vigorous, such, for example, as the
+Albanians of his European mountains and the Kurds of his Asiatic. However
+decadent might be the Turco-Grecian Osmanli (he, unfortunately, had the
+lion's share of office), those other elements had suffered no decline in
+physical or mental development. Indeed, one cannot be among them now
+without feeling that their day is not only not gone, but is still, for the
+most part, yet to be.
+
+Such were latent assets of the Osmanli Empire, appreciated imperfectly by
+the prophets of its dissolution. Thanks to them, that empire continued not
+only to hold together throughout the nineteenth century but, in some
+measure, to consolidate itself. Even when the protective fence, set up by
+European powers about it, was violated, as by Russia several times--in
+1829, in 1854, and in 1877--the nation, which Mahmud had made, always
+proved capable of stout enough resistance to delay the enemy till European
+diplomacy, however slow of movement, could come to its aid, and ultimately
+to dispose the victor to accept terms consistent with its continued
+existence. It was an existence, of course, of sufferance, but one which
+grew better assured the longer it lasted. By an irony of the Osmanli
+position, the worse the empire was administered, the stronger became its
+international guarantee. No better example can be cited than the effect of
+its financial follies. When national bankruptcy, long contemplated by its
+Government, supervened at last, the sultan had nothing more to fear from
+Europe. He became, _ipso facto_, the cherished protege of every power
+whose nationals had lent his country money.
+
+Considering the magnitude of the change which Mahmud instituted, the stage
+at which he left it, and the character of the society in which it had to
+be carried out, it was unfortunate that he should have been followed on
+the throne by two well-meaning weaklings, of whom the first was a
+voluptuary, the second a fantastic spendthrift of doubtful sanity. Mahmud,
+as has been said, being occupied for the greater part of his reign in
+destroying the old order, had been able to reconstruct little more than a
+framework. His operations had been almost entirely forcible--of a kind
+understood by and congenial to the Osmanli character--and partly by
+circumstances but more by his natural sympathies, he had been identified
+from first to last with military enterprises. Though he was known to
+contemplate the eventual supremacy of civil law, and the equality of all
+sorts and conditions of his subjects before it, he did nothing to open
+this vista to public view. Consequently he encountered little or no
+factious opposition. Very few held briefs for either the Janissaries or
+the Dere Beys; and fewer regretted them when they were gone. Osmanli
+society identified itself with the new army and accepted the consequent
+reform of the central or provincial administration. Nothing in these
+changes seemed to affect Islam or the privileged position of Moslems in
+the empire.
+
+It was quite another matter when Abdul Mejid, in the beginning of his
+reign, promulgated an imperial decree--the famous Tanzimat or Hatti Sherif
+of Gulkhaneh--which, amid many excellent and popular provisions for the
+continued reform of the administration, proclaimed the equality of
+Christian and Moslem subjects in service, in reward, and before the law.
+The new sultan, essentially a civilian and a man of easy-going
+temperament, had been induced to believe that the end of an evolution,
+which had only just begun, could be anticipated _per saltum_, and that he
+and all his subjects would live happily together ever after. His
+counsellors had been partly politicians, who for various reasons, good and
+bad, wished to gain West European sympathy for their country, involved in
+potential bondage to Russia since the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (1833),
+and recently afflicted by Ibrahim Pasha's victory at Nizib; and they
+looked to Great Britain to get them out of the Syrian mess. Partly also
+Abdul Mejid had been influenced by enthusiasts, who set more store by
+ideas or the phrases in which they were expressed, than by the evidence of
+facts. There were then, as since, 'young men in a hurry' among the more
+Europeanized Osmanlis. The net result of the sultan's precipitancy was to
+set against himself and his policy all who wished that such it
+consummation of the reform process might never come and all who knew it
+would never come, if snatched at 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 worked and in which fresh
+developments of it would be accepted.
+
+To his credit, however, Abdul Mejid went on with administrative reform.
+The organization of the army into corps--the foundation of the existing
+system--and the imposition of five years' service on all subjects of the
+empire (in theory which an Albanian rising caused to be imperfectly
+realized in fact), belong to the early part of his reign; as do also, on
+the civil side, the institution of responsible councils of state and
+formation of ministries, and much provision for secondary education. To
+his latest years is to be credited the codification of the civil law. He
+had the advantage of some dozen initial years of comparative security from
+external foes, after the Syrian question had been settled in his favour by
+Great Britain and her allied powers at the cheap price of a guarantee of
+hereditary succession to the house of Mehemet Ali. Thanks to the same
+support, war with 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), proved far from content. If the form of
+Osmanli government had changed greatly, its spirit had changed little, and
+defective communications militated against the responsibility of officials
+to the centre. Money was scarce, and the paper currency--an ill-omened
+device of Mahmud's--was depreciated, distrusted, and regarded as 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 blood between creeds and
+encouraged opposition to the execution of the pro-Christian Tanzimat. When
+Christian turbulence at last brought on, in 1854, the Russian attack which
+developed into the Crimean War, and Christian allies, though they
+frustrated that attack, made a peace by which the Osmanlis gained nothing,
+the latter were in no mood to welcome the repetition of the Tanzimat,
+which Abdul Mejid consented to embody in the Treaty of Paris. The reign
+closed amid turbulence and humiliations--massacre and bombardment at
+Jidda, massacre and Franco-British coercion in Syria--from all of which
+the sultan took 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 Europeanization, and a different, but more
+fatal, weakness of character. He was, perhaps, never wholly sane; but his
+aberration, at first attested only by an exalted conviction of his divine
+character and inability to do wrong, excited little attention until it
+began to issue in fantastic expenditure. By an irony of history, he is the
+one Osmanli sultan upon the roll of our Order of the Garter, the right to
+place a banner in St, George's Chapel having been offered to this
+Allah-possessed caliph on the occasion of his visit to the West in 1867.
+
+Despite the good intentions of Abdul Aziz himself--as sincere as can be
+credited to a disordered brain---and despite more than one minister of
+outstanding ability, reform and almost everything else in the empire went
+to the bad in this unhappy reign. The administration settled down to
+lifeless routine and lapsed into corruption: the national army was starved:
+the depreciation of the currency grew worse as the revenue declined and
+the sultan's household and personal extravagance increased. Encouraged by
+the inertia of the imperial Government, the Christians of the European
+provinces waxed bold. Though Montenegro was severely handled for
+contumacy, the Serbs were able to cover their penultimate stage towards
+freedom by forcing in 1867 the withdrawal of the last Ottoman garrisons
+from their fortresses. Krete stood at bay for three years and all but 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 as a nationality in the Ottoman
+Empire, her Church being detached from the control of the Oecumenical
+Patriarch of the Greeks and placed under an Exarch. Presently, her
+peasantry growing ever more restive, passed from protest to revolt against
+the Circassian refugee-colonists with whom the Porte was flooding the
+land. The sultan, in an evil hour, for lack of trained troops, let loose
+irregulars on the villages, and the Bulgarian atrocities, which they
+committed in 1875, sowed a fatal harvest for his successor to reap. His
+own time was almost fulfilled. The following spring a dozen high
+officials, with the assent of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the active dissent
+of no one, took Abdul Aziz from his throne to a prison, wherein two days
+later he perished, probably by his own hand. A puppet reigned three months
+as Murad V, and then, at the bidding of the same king-makers whom his
+uncle had obeyed, left the throne free for his brother Abdul Hamid, a man
+of affairs and ability, who was to be the most conspicuous, or rather, the
+most notorious Osmanli sultan since Suleiman.
+
+
+
+6
+
+_Relapse_
+
+
+The new sultan, who had not expected his throne, found his realm in
+perilous case. Nominally sovereign and a member of the Concert of Europe,
+he was in reality a semi-neutralized dependant, existing, as an
+undischarged bankrupt, on sufferance of the powers. Should the Concert be
+dissolved, or even divided, and any one of its members be left free to
+foreclose its Ottoman mortgages, the empire would be at an end. Internally
+it was in many parts in open revolt, in all the rest stagnant and slowly
+rotting. The thrice-foiled claimant to its succession, who six years
+before had denounced the Black Sea clause of the Treaty of Paris and so
+freed its hands for offence, was manifestly preparing a fresh assault.
+Something drastic must be done; but what?
+
+This danger of the empire's international situation, and also the disgrace
+of it, had been evident for some time past to those who had any just
+appreciation of affairs; and in the educated class, at any rate, something
+like a public opinion, very apprehensive and very much ashamed, had
+struggled into being. The discovery of a leader in Midhat Pasha, former
+governor-general of Bagdad, and a king-maker of recent notoriety, induced
+the party of this opinion to take precipitate action. Murad had been
+deposed in August. Before the year was out Midhat presented himself before
+Abdul Hamid with a formal demand for the promulgation of a Constitution,
+proposing not only to put into execution the pious hopes of the two Hatti
+Sherifs of Abdul Mejid but also to limit the sovereign and govern the
+empire by representative institutions. The new sultan, hardly settled on
+his uneasy throne, could not deny those who had deposed his two
+predecessors, and, shrewdly aware that ripe facts would not be long in
+getting the better of immature ideas, accepted. A parliament was summoned;
+an electorate, with only the haziest notions of what it was about, went
+through the form of sending representatives to Constantinople; and the
+sittings were inaugurated by a speech from the throne, framed on the most
+approved Britannic model, the deputies, it is said, jostling and crowding
+the while to sit, as many as possible, on the right, which they understood
+was always the side of powers that be.
+
+It is true this extemporized chamber never had a chance. The Russians
+crossed the Pruth before it had done much more than verify its powers, and
+the thoughts and energies of the Osmanlis were soon occupied with the most
+severe and disastrous struggle in which the empire had ever engaged. But
+it is equally certain that it could not have turned to account any chance
+it might have had. Once more the 'young men in a hurry' had snatched at
+the end of an evolution hardly begun, without taking into account the
+immaturity of Osmanli society in political education and political
+capacity. After suspension during the 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 that the next
+reformers would inevitably have a more convinced public opinion behind
+them, and he had virtually destroyed the power of Mahmud's bureaucracy. If
+the only immediate effect was the substitution of an unlimited autocracy,
+the Osmanli peoples would be able thenceforward to ascribe their
+misfortunes to a single person, meditate attack, on a single position, and
+dream of realizing some day an ideal which had been definitely formulated.
+
+The Russian onslaught, which began in both Europe and Asia 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, joined the invader. In
+campaigns lasting a little less than a 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 by
+rival powers, both before the peace and in the revision of it at Berlin,
+gave fresh assurance that the end would not be suffered to come yet; and,
+moreover, through the long series of disasters, much latent strength 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 empire must be made, not more European,
+but more Asiatic. In the development of Islamic spirit to pan-Islamic
+unity it would find new strength; and towards this end in the early
+eighties, while he was yet comparatively young, with intelligence
+unclouded and courage sufficient, Abdul Hamid patiently set himself. In
+Asia, naturally sympathetic to autocracy, and the home of the faith of his
+fathers, he set on foot a pan-Islamic propaganda. He exalted his caliphate;
+he wooed the Arabs, and he plotted with extraneous Moslems against
+whatever foreign government they might have to endure.
+
+It cannot be denied that this idea was based on the logic of facts, and,
+if it could be realized, promised better than Midhat's for escape from
+shameful dependence. Indeed, Abdul Hamid, an autocrat bent on remaining
+one, could hardly have acted upon any other. By far the greater part of
+the territorial empire remaining to him lay in Asia. The little left in
+Europe would obviously soon be reduced to less. The Balkan lands were
+waking, or already awake, to a sense of separate nationality, and what
+chance did the Osmanli element, less progressive than any, stand in them?
+The acceptance of the Ottoman power into the Concert of Europe, though
+formally notified to Abdul Mejid, had proved an empty thing. In that
+galley there was no place for a sultan except as a dependent or a slave.
+As an Asiatic power, however, exerting temporal sway over some eighteen
+million bodies and religious influence over many times more souls, the
+Osmanli caliph might command a place in the sun.
+
+The result belied these hopes. Abdul Hamid's failure was owed in the main
+to facts independent of his personality or statecraft. The expansion of
+Islam over an immense geographical area and among peoples living in
+incompatible stages of sophistication, under most diverse political and
+social conditions, has probably made any universal caliphial authority for
+ever impossible. The original idea of the caliphate, like that of the
+_jehad_ or holy war of the faithful, presupposed that all Moslems were
+under governments of their own creed, and, perhaps, under one government.
+Moreover, if such a caliph were ever to be again, an Osmanli sultan would
+not be a strong candidate. Apart from the disqualification of his blood,
+he being not of the Prophet's tribe nor even an Arab, he is lord of a
+state irretrievably compromised in purist eyes (as Wahabis and Senussis
+have testified once and again) by its Byzantine heritage of necessary
+relations with infidels. Abdul Hamid's predecessors for two centuries or
+more had been at no pains to infuse reality into their nominal leadership
+of the faithful. To call a real caliphate out of so long abeyance could
+hardly have been effected even by a bold soldier, who appealed to the
+general imagination of Moslems; and certainly was beyond the power of a
+timid civilian.
+
+When Abdul Hamid had played this card and failed, he had no other; and his
+natural pusillanimity and shiftiness induced him to withdraw ever more
+into the depths of his palace, and there use his intelligence in
+exploiting this shameful dependence of his country on foreign powers.
+Unable or unwilling to encourage national resistance, he consoled himself,
+as a weak malcontent will, by setting one power against another,
+pin-pricking the stronger and blustering to the weaker. The history of his
+reign is a long record of protests and surrenders to the great in big
+matters, as to Great Britain in the matter of Egypt in 1881, to Russia in
+that of Eastern Rumelia in 1885, to France on the question of the
+Constantinople quays and other claims, and to all the powers in 1881 in
+the matter of the financial control. Between times he put in such
+pin-pricks as he could, removing his neighbours' landmarks in the Aden
+_hinterland_ or the Sinaitic peninsula. He succeeded, however, in keeping
+his empire out of a foreign war with any power for about thirty years,
+with the single exception of a brief conflict with Greece in 1897. While
+in the first half of his reign he was at pains to make no European friend,
+in the latter he fell more and more under the influence of Germany, which,
+almost from the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II, began to prepare a
+southward way for future use, and alone of the powers, never browbeat the
+sultan.
+
+Internally, the empire passed more and more under the government of the
+imperial household. Defeated by the sheer geographical difficulty of
+controlling directly an area so vast and inadequately equipped with means
+of communication, Abdul Hamid soon relaxed the spasmodic efforts of his
+early years to better the condition of his subjects; and, uncontrolled and
+demoralized by the national disgrace, the administration went from bad to
+much worse. Ministers irresponsible; officials without sense of public
+obligation; venality in all ranks; universal suspicion and delation;
+violent remedies, such as the Armenian massacres of 1894, for diseases due
+to neglect; the peasantry, whether Moslem or Christian, but especially
+Christian, forced ultimately to liquidate all accounts; impoverishment of
+the whole empire by the improvidence and oppression of the central power--
+such phrasing of the conventional results of 'Palace' government expresses
+inadequately the fruits of Yildiz under Abdul Hamid II.
+
+_Pari passu_ with this disorder of central and provincial administration
+increased the foreign encroachments on the empire. The nation saw not only
+rapid multiplication of concessions and hypothecations to aliens, and of
+alien persons themselves installed in its midst under extra-territorial
+immunity 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 had all been withdrawn from Ottoman control since
+the Berlin settlement, and now Macedonia seemed to be going the same way.
+Bitter to swallow as the other losses had been--pills thinly sugared with
+a guarantee of suzerainty--the loss of Macedonia would be more bitter
+still; for, if it were withdrawn from Ottoman use and profit, Albania
+would follow and so would the command of the north Aegean and the Adriatic
+shores; while an ancient Moslem population would remain at Christian
+mercy.
+
+It was partly Ottoman fault, partly the fault of circumstances beyond
+Ottoman control, that this district had become a scandal and a reproach.
+In the days of Osmanli greatness 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, it had already become a cockpit for the new-born Christian
+nationalities, which had been developed on the north, east, and south.
+These were using every weapon, material and spiritual, to secure
+preponderance in its society, and had created chronic disorder which the
+Ottoman administration now weakly encouraged to save itself trouble, now
+violently dragooned. Already the powers had not only proposed autonomy for
+it, but begun to control its police and its finance. This was the last
+straw. The public opinion which had slowly been forming for thirty years
+gained the army, and Midhat's seed came to fruit.
+
+By an irony of fate Macedonia not only supplied the spectacle which
+exasperated the army to revolt, but by its very disorder made the
+preparation of that revolt possible; for it was due to local limitations
+of Ottoman sovereignty that the chief promoters of revolution were able to
+conspire in safety. By another irony, two of the few progressive measures
+ever encouraged by Abdul Hamid contributed to his undoing. If he had not
+sent young officers to be trained abroad, 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, as he
+began to do after 1897, the Salonika army could have had no such influence
+on affairs in Constantinople as it exerted in 1908 and again in 1909. As
+it was, the sultan, at 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 he had fostered, and to
+send him, dethroned and captive, to the place whence itself had come.
+
+
+
+7
+
+_Revolution_
+
+
+Looking back on this revolution across seven years of its consequences, we
+see plainly enough that it was inspired far less by desire for humane
+progress than by shame of Osmanli military decline. The 'Liberty,
+Equality, Fraternity' programme which its authors put forward (a civilian
+minority 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 eventually guide its course. The essence of that movement was
+militant nationalism. The empire was to be regenerated, not by humanizing
+it but by Ottomanizing it. 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 not so wish must be eliminated by the rest.
+
+The revolutionary Committee in Salonika, called 'of Union and Progress',
+held up its cards at first, but by 1910 events had forced its hand on the
+table. The definite annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by
+Austria-Hungary in 1908, and the declaration of independence and
+assumption of the title Tsar by the ruler of Bulgaria, since they were the
+price to be paid by the revolutionaries for a success largely made in
+Germany, were opposed officially only _pro forma_; but when uninformed
+opinion in the empire was exasperated thereby against Christendom, the
+Committee, to appease reactionaries, had to give premature proof of
+pan-Osmanli and pro-Moslem intentions by taking drastic action against
+_rayas_. The Greeks of the empire, never without suspicions, had failed to
+testify the same enthusiasm for Ottoman fraternity which others, e.g. the
+Armenians, had shown; now they resumed their separatist attitude, and made
+it clear that they still aspired, not to Ottoman, but to Hellenic
+nationality. Nor were even the Moslems of the empire unanimous for
+fraternity among themselves. The Arab-speaking societies complained of
+under-representation in the councils and offices of the state, and made no
+secret of their intention not to be assimilated by the Turk-speaking
+Osmanlis. To all suggestions, however, of local home-rule and conciliation
+of particularist societies in the empire, the Committee was deaf. Without
+union, it believed in no progress, and by union it understood the
+assimilation of all societies in the empire to the Osmanli.
+
+Logic was on the side of the Committee in its choice of both end and
+means. In pan-Ottomanism, if it could be effected, lay certainly the
+single chance of restoring Osmanli independence and power to anything like
+the position they had once held. In rule by a militarist oligarchy for
+some generations to come, lay the one hope of realizing the pan-Ottoman
+idea and educating the resultant nation to self-government. That end,
+however, it was impossible to realize under the circumstances in which
+past history had involved the Ottoman Empire. There was too much bad blood
+between different elements of its society which Osmanli rulers had been
+labouring for centuries rather to keep apart than to unite; and certain
+important elements, both Moslem and Christian, had already developed too
+mature ideas of separate nationality. With all its defects, however, the
+new order did undoubtedly rest on a wider basis than the old, and its
+organization was better conceived and executed. It retained some of the
+sympathy of Europe which its beginnings had excited, and the western
+powers, regarding its representative institutions as earnests of good
+government, however ill they might work at the first, were disposed to
+give it every chance.
+
+Unfortunately the Young Turks were in a hurry to bring on their
+millennium, and careless of certain neighbouring powers, not formidable
+individually but to be reckoned with if united, to whom the prospect of
+regenerated Osmanlis assimilating their nationals could not be welcome.
+Had the Young Turks been content to put their policy of Ottomanization in
+the background for awhile, had they made no more than a show of accepting
+local distinctions of creed and 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 resist, 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 as little minded to compromise
+as any Old Turk, though from a different motive. It elected to deal
+drastically and at once with Macedonia, the peculiar object 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. It did
+not get it. The interested neighbours, each beset by fugitives of its
+oppressed nationals, protested only to be ignored or browbeaten. They drew
+towards one another; old feuds and jealousies were put on one side; and at
+last, in the summer of 1912, a Holy League of Balkan States, inspired by
+Venezelos, the new Kretan Prime Minister of Greece, and by Ferdinand of
+Bulgaria, was formed with a view to common action against the oppressor of
+Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian nationals in Macedonia. Montenegro, always
+spoiling for a fight, was deputed to fire the train, and at the approach
+of autumn the first Balkan war blazed up.
+
+
+
+8
+
+_Balkan War_
+
+
+The course of the struggle is described elsewhere in this volume. Its
+event illustrates the danger of an alliance succeeding beyond the
+expectations in which it was formed. The constituent powers had looked for
+a stiff struggle with the Ottoman armies, but for final success sufficient
+to enable them, at the best, to divide Macedonia among themselves, at the
+worst, to secure its autonomy under international guarantee. Neither they
+nor any one else expected such an Ottoman collapse as was in store. Their
+moment of attack was better chosen than they knew. The Osmanli War Office
+was caught fairly in the middle of the stream. Fighting during the
+revolution, subsequently against Albanians and other recalcitrant
+provincials, and latterly against the Italians, who had snatched at
+Tripoli the year before, had reduced the _Nizam_, the first line of
+troops, far below strength. The _Redif_, the second line, had received
+hardly more training, thanks to the disorganization of Abdul Hamid's last
+years and of the first years of the new order, than the _Mustafuz_, the
+third and last line. Armament, auxiliary services, and the like had been
+disorganized preparatory to a scheme for thorough reorganization, which
+had been carried, as yet, but a very little way. A foreign (German)
+element, introduced into the 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 of various arms; those
+which met the Serbs, a little better; those which opposed the Greeks, a
+little worse.
+
+It followed that the Bulgarians, who had proposed to do no more in Thrace
+than block Adrianople and immobilize the Constantinople forces, were
+carried by their own momentum right down to Chataldja, and there and at
+Adrianople had to prosecute siege operations when they ought to have been
+marching to Kavala and Salonika. The Serbs, after hard fighting, broke
+through not only into Macedonia but into Albania, and reached the
+Adriatic, but warned off this by the powers, consoled themselves with the
+occupation of much more Macedonian territory than the concerted plans of
+the allies had foreseen. The Greeks, instead of hard contests for the
+Haliacmon Valley and Epirus--their proper Irredenta--pushed such weak
+forces before them that they got through to Salonika just in time to
+forestall a Bulgarian column. Ottoman collapse was complete everywhere,
+except on the Chataldja front. It remained to divide the spoil. Serbia
+might not have Adriatic Albania, and therefore wanted as much Macedonia as
+she had actually overrun. Greece wanted the rest of Macedonia and had
+virtually got it. Remained Bulgaria who, with more of Thrace than she
+wanted, found herself almost entirely crowded out of Macedonia, the common
+objective of all.
+
+Faced with division _ex post facto_, the allies found their _a priori_
+agreement would not resolve the situation. Bulgaria, the predominant
+partner and the most aggrieved, would neither recognize the others' rights
+of possession nor honestly submit her claims to the only possible arbiter,
+the Tsar of Russia. Finding herself one against two, she tried a _coup de
+main_ on both fronts, failed, and brought on a second Balkan war, in which
+a new determining factor, Rumania, intervened at a critical moment to
+decide the issue against her. The Ottoman armies recovered nearly all they
+had lost in eastern and central Thrace, including Adrianople, almost
+without firing a shot, and were not ill pleased to be quit of a desperate
+situation at the price of Macedonia, Albania, and western Thrace.
+
+Defeated and impoverished, the Ottoman power came out of the war clinging
+to a mere remnant of its European empire--one single mutilated province
+which did not pay its way. With the lost territories had gone about
+one-eighth of the whole population and one-tenth of the total imperial
+revenue. But when these heavy losses had been cut, there was nothing more
+of a serious nature to put to debit, but a little even to credit. Ottoman
+prestige had suffered but slightly in the eyes of the people. The
+obstinate and successful defence of the Chataldja lines and the subsequent
+recovery of eastern Thrace with Adrianople, the first European seat of the
+Osmanlis, had almost effaced the sense of Osmanli disgrace, and stood to
+the general credit of the Committee and the individual credit of its
+military leader, Enver Bey. The loss of some thousands of soldiers and
+much material was compensated by an invaluable lesson in the faultiness of
+the military system, and especially the _Redif_ organization. The way was
+now clearer than before for re-making the army on the best European model,
+the German. The campaign had not been long, nor, as wars go, costly to
+wage. In the peace Turkey gained a new lease of life from the powers, and,
+profligate that she was, the promise of more millions of foreign money.
+
+Over and above all this an advantage, which she rated above international
+guarantees, was secured to her--the prospective support of the strongest
+military power in Europe. The success of Serbia so menaced
+Germano-Austrian plans for the penetration of the Balkans, that the
+Central Powers were bound to woo Turkey even more lavishly than before,
+and to seek alliance where they had been content with influence. In a
+strong Turkey resided all their hope of saving from the Slavs the way to
+the Mediterranean. They had kept this policy in view for more than twenty
+years, and in a hundred ways, by introduction of Germans into the military
+organization, promotion of German financial enterprise, pushing of German
+commerce, pressure on behalf of German concessions which would entail
+provincial influence (for example, the construction of a transcontinental
+railway in Asia), those powers had been manifesting their interest in
+Turkey with ever-increasing solicitude. Now they must attach her to
+themselves with hoops of steel and, with her help, as soon as might be,
+try to recast the Balkan situation.
+
+The experience of the recent war and the prospect in the future made
+continuance and accentuation of military government in the Ottoman Empire
+inevitable. The Committee, which had made its way back to power by violent
+methods, now suppressed its own Constitution almost as completely as Abdul
+Hamid had suppressed Midhat's parliament. Re-organization of the military
+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 1912-14. The bond with Germany was drawn lighter. More German
+instructors were invited, more German engineers commissioned, more
+munitions of war paid for in French gold. By 1914 it had become so evident
+that the Osmanlis must array themselves with Austro-Germany in any
+European war, that one wonders why a moment's credit was ever given to
+their protestations of neutrality when that war came at last in August
+1914. Turkey then needed other three months to complete her first line of
+defences and mobilize. These were allowed to her, and in the late autumn
+she entered the field against Great Britain, France, and Russia, armed
+with German guns, led by German officers, 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 the Ottoman Empire has lost what had
+been for a century its chief security for continued existence. Its fate
+now depends on that of two European powers which are at war with the rest
+of the former Concert. Among the last named are Turkey's two principal
+creditors, holding together about seventy-five per cent. of her public
+debt. In the event of the defeat of her friends, these creditors will be
+free to foreclose, the debtor being certainly in no position to meet her
+obligations. Allied with Christian powers, the Osmanli caliph has proved
+no more able than his predecessors to unite Islam in his defence; but, for
+what his title is worth, Mohammed V is still caliph, no rival claim having
+been put forward. The loyalty of the empire remains where it was, pending
+victory or defeat, the provinces being slow to realize, and still slower
+to resent, the disastrous economic state to which the war is reducing
+them.
+
+The present struggle may leave the Osmanli Empire in one of three
+situations: (1) member of a victorious alliance, reinforced, enlarged, and
+lightened of financial burdens, as the wages of its sin; (2) member of a
+defeated alliance, bound to pay the price of blood in loss of territory,
+or independence, or even existence; (3) party to a compromise under which
+its territorial empire might conceivably remain Ottoman, but under even
+stricter European tutelage than of old.
+
+The first alternative it would be idle to discuss, for the result of
+conditions so novel are impossible to foresee. Nor, indeed, when immediate
+events are so doubtful an at the present moment, is it profitable to
+attempt 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 the disposal of the empire may
+lie.
+
+The influence of the Osmanlis in their empire to-day resides in three
+things: first, in their possession of Constantinople; second, in the
+sultan's caliphate and his guardianship of the holy cities of Islam;
+third, in certain qualities of Osmanli character, notably 'will to power'
+and courage in the field.
+
+What Constantinople means for the Osmanlis is implied in that name _Roum_
+by which the western dominions of the Turks have been known ever since the
+Seljuks won Asia Minor. Apart from the prestige of their own early
+conquests, the Osmanlis inherited, and in a measure retain in the Near
+East, the traditional prestige of the greatest empire which ever held it.
+They stand not only for their own past but also for whatever still lives
+of the prestige of Rome. Theirs is still the repute of the imperial people
+_par excellence_, chosen and called to rule.
+
+That this repute should continue, after the sweeping victories of Semites
+and subsequent centuries of Ottoman retreat before other heirs of Rome, is
+a paradox to be explained only by the fact that a large part of the
+population of the Near East remains at this day in about the same stage of
+civilization and knowledge as in the time of, say, Heraclius. The
+Osmanlis, be it remembered, were and are foreigners in a great part of
+their Asiatic empire equally with the Greeks of Byzantium or the Romans of
+Italy; and their establishment in Constantinople nearly five centuries ago
+did not mean to the indigenous peoples of the Near East what it meant to
+Europe--a victory of the East over the West--so much as a continuation of
+immemorial 'Roman' dominion still exercised from the same imperial centre.
+Since Rome first spread its shadow over the Near East, many men of many
+races, whose variety was imperfectly realised, if realised at all, by the
+peasants of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, have ruled in its
+name; the Osmanlis, whose governmental system was in part the Byzantine,
+made but one more change which meant the same old thing. The peasants
+know, of course, about those Semitic victories; but they know also that if
+the Semite has had his day of triumph and imposed, as was right and
+proper, his God and his Prophet on Roum--even on all mankind as many
+believed, and some may be found in remoter regions who still believe--he
+has returned to his own place south of Taurus; and still Roum is Roum,
+natural indefeasible Lord of the World.
+
+Such a belief is dying now, of course; but it dies slowly and hard. It
+still constitutes a real asset of the Osmanlis, and will not cease to have
+value until they lose Constantinople. On the possession of the old
+imperial city it depends for whatever vitality it has. You may
+demonstrate, as you will, and as many publicists have done since the
+Balkan War and before, what and how great economic, political, and social
+advantages 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 could
+concentrate Moslems where their co-religionists are already the great
+majority, and so have done with the everlasting friction and weakness
+entailed in jurisdiction over preponderant Christian elements. Here they
+might throw off the remnants of their Byzantinism as a garment and, no
+longer forced to face two ways, live and govern with single minds as the
+Asiatics they are.
+
+Vain illusion, as Osmanli imperialists know! It is their empire that would
+fall away as a garment so soon as the Near East realized that they no
+longer ruled in the Imperial City. Enver Pasha and the Committee were
+amply justified in straining the resources of the Ottoman Empire to
+cracking-point, not merely to retain Constantinople but also to recover
+Adrianople and a territory in Europe large enough to bulk as Roum. Nothing
+that happened in that war made so greatly for the continuation of the old
+order in Asiatic Turkey as the reoccupation of Adrianople. The one
+occasion on which Europeans in Syria had reason to expect a general
+explosion was when premature rumours of the entry of the Bulgarian army
+into Stambul gained currency for a few hours. That explosion, had the news
+proved true or not been contradicted in time, would have been a
+panic-stricken, ungovernable impulse of anarchy--of men conscious that an
+old world had passed away and ignorant what conceivable new world could
+come to be.
+
+But the perilous moment passed, to be succeeded by general diffusion of a
+belief that the inevitable catastrophe was 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 national organizations and
+nationalist journals sprang to life at Beirut and elsewhere. The revival
+of Arab empire was 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 beyond Chataldja:
+the Balkan States were at war among themselves: finally, Adrianople had
+been re-occupied. And all was as in the beginning. Budding life withered
+in the Arab movement, and the Near East settled down once more in the
+persistent shadow of Roum.
+
+Such is the first element in Osmanli prestige, doomed to disappear the
+moment that the Ottoman state relinquishes Europe. Meanwhile there it is
+for what it is worth; and it is actually worth a tradition of submission,
+natural and honourable, to a race of superior destiny, which is
+instinctive in some millions of savage simple hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What of the second element? The religious prestige of the Ottoman power as
+the repository of caliphial authority and trustee for Islam in the Holy
+Land of Arabia, is an asset almost impossible to estimate. Would a death
+struggle of the Osmanlis in Europe rouse the Sunni world? Would the
+Moslems of India, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, and Malaya take up arms
+for the Ottoman sultan as caliph? Nothing but the event will prove that
+they would. Jehad, or Holy War, is an obsolescent weapon difficult and
+dangerous for Young Turks to wield: difficult because their own Islamic
+sincerity is suspect and they are taking the field now as clients of
+_giaur_ peoples; dangerous because the Ottoman nation itself includes
+numerous Christian elements, indispensable to its economy.
+
+Undoubtedly, however, the Ottoman sultanate can count on its religious
+prestige appealing widely, overriding counteracting sentiments, and, if it
+rouses to action, rousing the most dangerous temper of all. It is futile
+to ignore the caliph because he is not of the Koreish, and owes his
+dignity to a sixteenth-century transfer. These facts are either unknown or
+not borne in mind by half the Sunnites on whom he might call, and weigh
+far less with the other half than his hereditary dominion over the Holy
+Cities, sanctioned by the prescription of nearly four centuries.
+
+One thing can be foretold with certainty. The religious prestige of an
+Ottoman sultan, who had definitely lost control of the Holy Places, would
+cease as quickly and utterly as the secular prestige of one who had
+evacuated Constantinople: and since the loss of the latter would probably
+precipitate an Arab revolt, and cut off the Hejaz, the religious element
+in Ottoman prestige may be said to depend on Constantinople as much as the
+secular. All the more reason why the Committee of Union and Progress
+should not have accepted that well-meant advice of European publicists! A
+successful revolt of the Arab-speaking provinces would indeed sound the
+death-knell of the Ottoman Empire. No other event would be so immediately
+and surely catastrophic.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third element in Osmanli prestige, inherent qualities of the Osmanli
+'Turk' himself, will be admitted by every one who knows him and his
+history. To say that he has the 'will to power' is not, however, to say
+that he has an aptitude for government. He wishes to govern others; his
+will to do so imposes itself on peoples who have not the same will; they
+give way to him and he governs them indifferently, though often better
+than they can govern themselves. For example, bad as, according to our
+standards, Turkish government is, native Arab government, when not in
+tutelage to Europeans, has generally proved itself worse, when tried in
+the Ottoman area in modern times. Where it is of a purely Bedawi barbaric
+type, as in the emirates of central Arabia, it does well enough; but if
+the population be contaminated ever so little with non-Arab elements,
+practices, or ideas, Arab administration seems incapable of producing
+effective government. It has had chances in the Holy Cities at intervals,
+and for longer periods in the Yemen. But a European, long resident in the
+latter country, who has groaned under Turkish administration, where it has
+always been most oppressive, bore witness that the rule of the native Imam
+only served to replace oppressive government by oppressive anarchy.
+
+As for the Osmanli's courage as a fighting man, that has often been
+exemplified, and never better than in the Gallipoli peninsula. It is
+admitted. The European and Anatolian Osmanlis yield little one to the
+other in this virtue; but the palm, if awarded at all, must be given to
+the levies from northern and central Asia Minor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If Constantinople should be lost, the Arab-speaking parts of the empire
+would in all likelihood break away, carrying the Holy Cities with them.
+When the constant risk of this consummation, with the cataclysmic nature
+of its consequences is considered, one marvels why the Committee, which
+has shown no mean understanding of some conditions essential to Osmanli
+empire, should have done so little hitherto to conciliate Arab
+susceptibilities. Neither in the constitution of the parliament nor in the
+higher commands of the army have the Arab-speaking peoples been given
+anything like their fair share; and loudly and insistently have they
+protested. Perhaps the Committee, whose leading members are of a markedly
+Europeanized type, understands Asia less well than Europe. Certainly its
+programme of Ottomanization, elaborated by military ex-attaches, by Jew
+bankers and officials from Salonika, and by doctors, lawyers, and other
+_intellectuels_ fresh from Paris, was conceived on lines which offered
+the pure Asiatic very little scope. The free and equal Osmanlis were all
+to take their cue from men of the Byzantine sort which the European
+provinces, and especially the city of Constantinople, breed. After the
+revolution, nothing in Turkey struck one so much as the apparition on the
+top of things everywhere of a type of Osmanli who has the characteristic
+qualities of the Levantine Greek. Young officers, controlling their
+elders, only needed a change of uniform to pass in an Athenian crowd.
+Spare and dapper officials, presiding in seats of authority over Kurds and
+Arabs, reminded one of Greek journalists. Osmanli journalists themselves
+treated one to rhodomontades punctuated with restless gesticulation, which
+revived memories of Athenian cafes in war-time. It was the Byzantine
+triumphing over the Asiatic; and the most Asiatic elements in the empire
+were the least likely to meet with the appreciation or sympathy of the
+Byzantines.
+
+Are the Arab-speaking peoples, therefore, likely to revolt, or be
+successful in splitting the Ottoman Empire, if they do? The present writer
+would like to say, in parenthesis, that, in his opinion, this consummation
+of the empire is not devoutly to be wished. The substitution of Arab
+administration for Osmanli would necessarily entail European tutelage of
+the parts of the Arab-speaking area in which powers, like ourselves, have
+vital interests--Syria, for example, southern Mesopotamia, and, probably,
+Hejaz. The last 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 loth to see him dismissed.
+
+An Arab revolt, however, might break out whether the Triple Entente
+desired its success or not. What chance of success would it have? The
+peoples of the Arab part of the Ottoman Empire are a congeries of
+differing races, creeds, sects, and social systems, with no common bond
+except language. The physical character of their land 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 (not to
+mention a large Jewish element), the cleavage being more abrupt than in
+western Turkey and the tradition and actual spirit of mutual enmity more
+separative. Further, each of those main creed-divisions is subdivided.
+Even Islam in this region includes a number of incompatible sects, such as
+the Ansariye, the Metawali, and the Druses in the Syrian mountains, Shiite
+Arabs on the Gulf coast and the Persian border, with pagan Kurds and
+Yezidis in the latter 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. It is almost impossible to imagine
+the inhabitants of Syria concerting a common plan or taking common action.
+The only elements among them which have shown any political sense or
+capacity for political organization are Christian. The Maronites of the
+Lebanon are most conspicuous among these; but neither their numbers nor
+their traditional relations with their neighbours qualify them to form the
+nucleus of a free united Syria. The 'Arab Movement' up to the present has
+consisted in little more than talk and journalese. It has not developed
+any considerable organization to meet that stable efficient organization
+which the Committee of Union and Progress has directed throughout the
+Ottoman dominions.
+
+As for the rest of the empire, Asia Minor will stand by the Osmanli cause,
+even if Europe and Constantinople, and even if the Holy Places and all the
+Arab-speaking provinces be lost. Its allegiance does not depend on either
+the tradition of Roum or the caliphate, but on essential unity with the
+Osmanli nation. Asia Minor is the nation. There, prepared equally by
+Byzantine domination and by Seljukian influence, the great mass of the
+people long ago identified itself insensibly and completely with the
+tradition and hope of the Osmanlis. The subsequent occupation of the
+Byzantine capital by the heirs of the Byzantine system, and their still
+later assumption of caliphial responsibility, were not needed to cement
+the union. Even a military occupation by Russia or by another strong power
+would not detach Anatolia from the Osmanli unity; for a thing cannot be
+detached from itself. But, of course, that occupation might after long
+years cause the unity itself to cease to be.
+
+Such an occupation, however, would probably not be seriously resisted or
+subsequently rebelled against by the Moslem majority in Asia Minor,
+supposing Osmanli armaments to have been crushed. The Anatolian population
+is a sober, labouring peasantry, essentially agricultural and wedded to
+the soil. The levies for Yemen and Europe, which have gone far to deplete
+and exhaust it of recent years, were composed of men who fought to order
+and without imagination, steadily and faithfully, as their fathers had
+fought. They have no lust for war, no Arabian tradition of fighting for
+its own sake, and little, if any, fanaticism. Attempts to inspire
+Anatolian troops with religious rage in the Balkan War were failures. They
+were asked to fight in too modern a way under too many Teutonic officers.
+The result illustrated a prophecy ascribed to Ghasri Mukhtar Pasha. When
+German instructors were first introduced into Turkey, he foretold that
+they would be the end of the Ottoman army. No, these Anatolians desire
+nothing better than to follow their plough-oxen, and live their common
+village life, under any master who will let them be.
+
+Elements of the Christian minority, however, Armenian and Greek, would
+give trouble with their developed ideas of nationality and irrepressible
+tendency to 'Europize'. They would present, indeed, problems of which at
+present one cannot foresee the solution. It seems inevitable that an
+autonomous Armenia, like an autonomous Poland, must be constituted ere
+long; but where? There is no geographical unit of the Ottoman area in
+which Armenians are the majority. If they cluster more thickly in the
+vilayets of Angora, Sivas, Erzerum, Kharput, and Van, i.e. in easternmost
+Asia Minor, than elsewhere, and form a village people of the soil, they
+are consistently a minority in any large administrative district.
+Numerous, too, in the trans-Tauric vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, the seat
+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 in Constantinople, could be induced to concentrate
+in a reconstituted Armenia (which is doubtful, seeing how addicted they
+are to general commerce and what may be called parasitic life), they could
+not fill out both the Greater and the Lesser Armenias of history, in
+sufficient strength to overbear the Osmanli and Kurdish elements. The
+widest area which might he constituted an autonomous Armenia with good
+prospect of self-sufficiency would be the present Russian province, where
+the head-quarters of 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 ordinance, she
+would have to police her new Armenia very strongly for some years; for an
+acute Kurdish problem would confront it, and no concentration of nationals
+could be looked for from the Armenia Irredenta of Diarbekr, Urfa, Aleppo,
+Aintab, Marash, Adana, Kaisariyeh, Sivas, Angora, and Trebizond (not to
+mention farther and more foreign towns), until public security was assured
+in what for generations has been a cockpit. The Kurd is, of course, an
+Indo-European as much as the Armenian, and rarely a true Moslem; but it
+would be a very long time indeed before these facts reconciled him to the
+domination of the race which he has plundered for three centuries. Most of
+the Osmanlis of eastern Asia Minor are descendants of converted Armenians;
+but their assimilation would be slow and doubtful. Islam, more rapidly and
+completely than any other creed, extinguishes racial sympathies and groups
+its adherents anew.
+
+The Anatolian Greeks are less numerous but not less difficult 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 serious
+difficulty to a lord of the interior. But those in the western
+river-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 at Athens has long concerned them more than what happens at
+Constantinople; and with Greece occupying the islands in the daily view of
+many of them, they are coming to regard themselves more and more every day
+as citizens of Graecia Irredenta. What is to be done with these? What, in
+particular, with Smyrna, the second city of the Ottoman Empire and the
+first of 'Magna Graecia'? Its three and a half hundred thousand souls
+include the largest Greek urban population resident in any one city. Shall
+it be united to Greece? Greece herself might well hesitate. It would prove
+a very irksome possession, involving her in all sorts of continental
+difficulties and risks. There is no good frontier inland for such an
+_enclave_. It could hardly be held without the rest of westernmost Asia,
+from Caria to the Dardanelles, and in this region the great majority of
+the population is Moslem of old stocks, devotedly attached both to their
+faith and to the Osmanli tradition.
+
+The present writer, however, is not among the prophets. He has but tried
+to set forth what may delay and what may precipitate the collapse of an
+empire, whose doom has been long foreseen, often planned, invariably
+postponed; and, further, to indicate some difficulties which, being bound
+to confront heirs of the Osmanlis, will be better met the better they are
+understood before the final agony--If this is, indeed, to be!
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abbasid Empire,
+Abdul Aziz, Sultan,
+Abdul Hamid, Sultan,
+Abdul Mejid, Sultan,
+Achaia,
+Achmet III: _see_ Ahmed III.
+Adalia,
+Adana,
+Aden,
+Adhamandios Korais,
+Adrianople,
+  captured by the Turks (1361),
+  captured by Serbians and Bulgarians (1913),
+  first European seat of the Osmanlis,
+  foundation of,
+  Peace and Treaty of (1829),
+  restored to Turkey (1913),
+  Russians before (1878),
+  siege of (1912-13),
+Adriatic, the,
+Aegean, the,
+  islands of,
+  trade of,
+Aehrenthal, Baron and Count,
+Afium Kara Hissar,
+Agram (Zagreb), capital of Croatia,
+Agram high treason trial, the,
+Agrapha, clansmen of,
+Ahiolu (Anchialo),
+Ahmed I, Sultan,
+Ahmed III, Sultan,
+Ahmed ibn Tulun,
+Aidin,
+Aintab,
+Aigina,
+Ainos, _See also_ Enos.
+Aivali, _See also_ Kydhonies.
+Akarnania,
+Akerman, Convention of (1826),
+Alaeddin, Sultan,
+Ala Shehr (Philadelphia),
+Albania,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  conquest of, by the Turks,
+  during the Slav immigration,
+  in classical times,
+  made independent,
+  revolts against Young Turks,
+  under the Turks,
+Albanian language, the,
+Albanians, the,
+  migrations of,
+Aleppo,
+Alexander the Great,
+Alexander I, King of Serbia (1889-1903),
+Alexander I, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander II, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander III, Emperor of Russia,
+Alexander, Crown Prince of Serbia,
+Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria (1879-85),
+Alexander Karagjorgjevi['c], Prince of Serbia (1843-58),
+Alexandria,
+Alexis Comnenus, the Emperor,
+Ali Pasha,
+Ambelakia,
+America, effect of emigration from south-eastern Europe to,
+Anatolia, the Turks and,
+  character of the population,
+  feudal families,
+Anatolikon,
+  captured by the Turks (1825),
+Andrassy, Count,
+Angora,
+  battle of (1402),
+Arabia, Turkish prestige in,
+  and the Turks,
+  movement of, in the direction of revolt,
+Arabs and Anatolia,
+  and Bulgars,
+  and Islam,
+Arcadiopolis: _see_ Lule-Burgas.
+Argos,
+Arian controversy, the,
+Armatoli, or Christian militia,
+Armenians, the,
+  character of the,
+  massacres of (1894),
+Arnauts: _see_ Albanians.
+Arta, Gulf of,
+  plain of,
+Asen dynasty, the,
+Asia Minor, Turks in,
+Asparukh (Bulgar prince),
+Aspropotamo, the,
+Astypalia,
+Athens,
+  Duchy of,
+  University of,
+  siege of (1821-2),
+    (1827),
+Athos, Mount,
+Attila,
+Austerlitz, battle of (1805),
+Austria-Hungary and the Adriatic,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and Serbia, relations between,
+  and the Serbs,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  and Turkey, relations between,
+    wars between,
+  annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,
+  occupation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by,
+  relations with the Balkan League,
+  relations with Rumania,
+  Ruman and South Slavonic populations in,
+Austrian politics in Rumania,
+Austrians and Serbs, relations between,
+  and Turks,
+Avars, the: their invasion of the Balkan peninsula with the Slavs,
+  their war with the Bulgars,
+Avlona,
+  bay of,
+Avshar tribe,
+'Ayon Oros',
+Azerbaijan,
+
+
+Ba[)c]ka,
+Bagdad,
+'Balance of Power', the,
+Balkan League, the,
+  formation of the,
+  dissolution of the,
+Balkan peninsula, the, annexation of, by Mohammed II,
+  control of,
+  economic unity of,
+  German policy in,
+  nationalism in,
+  Slav inhabitants of,
+  Turkish power in,
+  under Roman rule,
+Balkan States, relations between the,
+  zollverein,
+Balkan war, the first (1912-13),
+  the second (June 1913),
+Banat, the,
+Baranya,
+Basil I, the Emperor,
+Basil II, the Emperor,
+  'Slayer of the Bulgars',
+Bassarab, dynasty of,
+Bayezid I, Sultan,
+Bayezid II, Sultan,
+Beaconsfield, Earl of,
+Beirut,
+Belgrade,
+  capital of Serbia,
+  captured by the Serbs (1807),
+  captured by the Turks (1521),
+   (1813),
+  its Celtic name,
+  Treaty of (1739),
+Belisarius,
+Berchtold, Count,
+Bergama,
+Berlin,
+  Congress of (1878),
+  Treaty of (1878),
+Bessarabia, Bulgars in, 25,
+  lost(1812),
+  regained (1856),
+  lost again (1878),
+  importance with regard to present situation,
+Bieberstein, Duron Marschall von,
+Bismarck,
+Bitolj: _see_ Monastir.
+Black Castle of Afiun,
+Black Sea,
+  Russian exclusion from,
+Bogomil heresy, the,
+Boja, lord of Kashgar,
+Boris, Bulgar prince (852-88),
+Boris, Crown Prince of Bulgaria,
+Bosnia, annexation of,
+  independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks,
+  in relation to the other Serb territories,
+  its Slavonic population,
+  relations of, with Hungary,
+  revolts in, against Turkey,
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule,
+  under Turkish rule,
+Bosphorus, the,
+Botzaris, Marko,
+Brankovi['c], George,
+Brankovi['c], Vuk,
+Bratianu, Ioan (father),
+  (son),
+Bregalnica, battle of the (1913),
+Brusa,
+Bucarest, Committee of,
+  Peace Conference (1913),
+  Treaty of (1812),
+    (1913),
+Bucovina, acquisition by Austria,
+  Rumanians in,
+Buda,
+Budapest, in relation to the Serbo-Croats,
+Budua,
+Bulgaria, declaration of independence by, and assumption of
+                                   title Tsar by its ruler,
+  conflicting interests with Greece,
+  early wars between, and the Greeks,
+  geographical position of,
+  growth of,
+  intervention on the side of the Central Powers in the European War,
+  its division into eastern and western,
+    extent of western,
+  in the two Balkan wars (1912-13),
+  its early relations with Rome,
+  its relations with Russia,
+  obtains recognition as a nationality in the Ottoman Empire,
+  of Slav speech and culture,
+  place of, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  Turkish atrocities in,
+Bulgaria and Rumania,
+Bulgaria and Serbia, contrasted,
+  the agreement between,
+  wars between (1885, 1913),
+Bulgaria and Turkey, relations between,
+Bulgarian bishoprics in Macedonia,
+  Church, early vicissitudes of the,
+    claims and propaganda in Macedonia,
+  Exarchist Church, the,
+  literature,
+  monarchy, origins of the,
+Bulgarians, general distribution of,
+  their attitude to the Slavs and the Germans,
+Bulgarians and Serbians, contrast between,
+Bulgars, the, their origin,
+  their advance westwards and then southwards into the
+                                     Balkan peninsula,
+  their absorption by the Slavs,
+  north of the Danube,
+  adherents of the Orthodox Church,
+Burke, Edmund,
+Byron, Lord,
+Byzantine Christianity,
+  commerce,
+  diplomacy, its attitude towards the Slav and other invaders,
+  Empire,
+    heritage and expansion of, by the Turks,
+Byzantium, ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,
+  decline of,
+  Greek colony of,
+  Roman administrative centre,
+
+
+Cairo,
+Caliphate, the,
+Campo Formio, Treaty of (1797),
+Candia, siege of,
+Canea,
+Cantucuzene, John,
+Cape Malea,
+Cappadocia,
+Caria,
+Carinthia,
+Carlowitz, Treaty of (1699),
+Carniola,
+Carol, Prince of Rumania,
+    his accession,
+    joins Russia against Turkey,
+    intention to abdicate,
+    proclaimed king,
+  King,
+    and the Balkans,
+    personal points,
+Carp, P.P.,
+Carpathian mountains, the,
+Catargiu, Lascar,
+Catherine, Empress,
+Cattaro, Bocche di,
+Caucasia,
+Cefalonia,
+Celts, the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Cerigo,
+Cetina river (Dalmatia),
+Cetinje,
+Chaeronea,
+Charlemagne, crushes the Avars,
+Charles VI, Emperor of Austria,
+Charles, Prince and King of Rumania: _see_ Carol.
+[)C]aslav, revolts against Bulgars,
+Chataldja, lines of,
+Chesme, destruction of Turkish fleet in,
+Chios: _see_ Khios.
+Christianity,
+  in the Balkan peninsula in classical times,
+  introduced into Bulgaria,
+  introduced amongst the Serbs,
+Christians, their treatment by the Turks,
+Church, division of the, affects the Serbs and Croats,
+Church, Generalissimo Sir Richard,
+Churches, rivalry of the eastern and western,
+Cilicia,
+Claudius, the Emperor,
+Coalition, Serbo-Croat or Croato-Serb, the,
+Cochrane, Grand Admiral,
+Cogalniceanu, M.,
+Comnenus: _see_ Alexis _and_ Manuel.
+Concert of Europe,
+Constantine the Great,
+Constantine, King of Greece,
+Constantine, ruler of Bulgaria,
+Constantinople,
+  and the Serbian Church,
+  ascendancy of, over Bulgaria,
+  cathedral of Aya Sophia,
+  commercial interests of,
+  decline of,
+  defences of,
+  ecclesiastical influence of,
+  fall of (1204),
+    (1453),
+  its position at the beginning of the barbarian invasions,
+  made an imperial city,
+  Patriarchate at,
+  'Phanari', the,
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Rome,
+Constitution, Rumanian,
+Corfu,
+Corinth: _see_ Korinth.
+Crete: _see_ Krete.
+Crimea, abandoned to Russia,
+Crimean War, the,
+Croatia,
+  absorbed by Hungary,
+  position of, in relation to the Serb territories,
+Croato-Serb unity, movement in favour of,
+Croats, Crotians,
+  general distribution of,
+  their origin,
+Croats and Serbs, difference between,
+Crusaders, the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Crusades; the first; the fourth,
+Cuza, Prince of Rumania,
+Cyclades, the,
+Cyprus,
+  in Latin hands,
+  in Ottoman hands,
+  under the British,
+Cyrenaica,
+Cyril, St.,
+Cyrillic alphabet, the,
+
+
+Dacia,
+  subjection to, and abandonment by, the Romans,
+Dacians,
+  settlement in Carpathian regions,
+  wars with Rome,
+Dalmatia,
+  acquired by Austria-Hungary,
+  and Venice,
+  in classical times,
+  in relation to other Serb territories,
+  its Slavonic population,
+  relations of, with Hungary,
+Daniel, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
+Danilo, Prince of Montenegro,
+Danube, the,
+  as frontier of Roman Empire,
+Danube _(continued)_:
+  Bulgars cross the,
+  Slavs cross the,
+Danubian principalities, Russian protectorate in,
+Dardanelles, the,
+Decius, the Emperor,
+Dedeagach,
+Deliyannis,
+Demotika,
+Dhimitzana,
+Diocletian, the Emperor, his redistribution of the imperial provinces,
+Dnieper, the,
+Dniester, the,
+Dobrudja,
+  acquisition by Rumania,
+  Bulgarian aspirations in regard to,
+Draga, Queen-Consort of Serbia,
+Dramali,
+Drave, the,
+Drina, the,
+Dubrovnik: _see_ Ragusa.
+Dulcigno (Ulcinj),
+Durazzo,
+Durostorum: _see_ Silistria.
+Dushan: _see_ Stephen Du[)s]an.
+
+
+Eastern Church, the,
+Eastern Slavs; _see_ Russians.
+Edremid,
+Egypt,
+Egyptian expedition (1823-4),
+Enos-Midia line, the,
+Enver Bey,
+Epirus,
+  power of Hellenism in,
+Ertogrul, Osmanli chief,
+Erzerum,
+Eugen, Prince, of Savoy,
+Euphrates, the,
+Euxine trade,
+Evyenios Voulgaris,
+Exarchist Church, the,
+
+
+Fabvier,
+Ferdinand, Prince and King of Bulgaria (1886-),
+  his relations with foreign powers,
+Ferdinand, King of Rumania,
+Filipescu, Nicholas,
+Fiume (Rjeka),
+France,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,
+  and the Turks,
+  relations with Rumania,
+French, the,
+  in the Balkan peninsula,
+  in Dalmatia,
+  in Morocco,
+  influence in Rumania,
+French Revolution
+  and the rights of nationalities,
+Friedjung, Dr., and the accusation against Serbia,
+
+
+Galaxidhi,
+Galicia,
+Gallipoli,
+Genoese,
+George, Crown Prince of Serbia,
+George,
+  King of Greece,
+  assassination of,
+George, Prince of Greece,
+German diplomacy at Constantinople,
+  influence in the Near East,
+  influence in Rumania,
+  influence in Turkey,
+German Empire, restlessness of,
+German hierarchy, early struggles of, against Slavonic liturgy,
+Germanic peoples, southward movement of,
+Germanos, metropolitan bishop of Patrae,
+Germany and the Turkish frontier,
+  efforts to reach the Adriatic,
+  its expansion eastward,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and Russia, relations between,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  relations with Rumania,
+  revolutions promoted by,
+Gjorgjevi['c], Dr. V.,
+Golden Horn,
+Goluchowski, Count,
+Gorazd,
+Gorchakov, Prince,
+Goths, invasion of the,
+Great Britain and the Balkan States, relations between,
+  and Egypt,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Syria,
+  and the Ionian Islands,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the struggle for the Mediterranean,
+  and the Treaty of Berlin,
+  loan to Greece,
+  occupation of Cyprus,
+Greece, anarchy in,
+  ancient,
+  and Macedonia,
+  and Russia,
+  and Serbia,
+  and the adjacent islands,
+  and the Christian religion,
+  and the first Balkan war,
+  and the Ionian Islands,
+  and the Orthodox Church,
+  and the Slav migration,
+  brigandage in,
+  conflict of interests with Bulgaria,
+  conquest of, by the Turks,
+  delimitation of the frontier (1829),
+  dispute with Italy as to possession of Epirus,
+  effect of the French Revolution on,
+  invasion of, by Goths,
+  land-tax,
+  loans to,
+  local liberties,
+  'Military League' of 1909,
+  minerals of,
+  monarchy established, and its results,
+  'National Assembly',
+  oppressive relations with Turkey, and efforts for liberation,
+  revolutions in 1843 and 1862.
+  territorial contact with Turkey.
+  'tribute-children' for Turkish army from.
+  war with Turkey (1828); (1897); (1912).
+Greek agriculture.
+  anti-Greek movement in Rumania.
+  army.
+  art and architecture.
+  ascendancy in Bulgaria.
+  _bourgeoisie_.
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia.
+  coalition with the Seljuks.
+  commerce and economic progress.
+  dialects of Ancient Greece.
+  education.
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula.
+  influence in Bulgaria.
+  influence in Rumania.
+  language in Rumanian Church.
+  literature.
+  monastic culture.
+  nationalism.
+  national religion.
+  navy.
+  officials tinder the Turks.
+  Patriarch.
+  public finance.
+  public spirit.
+  public works.
+  railways.
+  renaissance.
+  shipping.
+  unity.
+Greek Empire, decline of.
+Greek hierarchy, in Bulgaria, the.
+Greeks, Anatolian.
+  Byzantine.
+  general distribution of.
+  Ottoman.
+  their attitude with regard to the barbarian invasions.
+Gregorios, Greek Patriarch at Constantinople.
+Gulkhaneh.
+
+
+Hadrian, the Emperor.
+Haliacmon Valley.
+Halys river.
+Hasa.
+Hatti Sherif.
+Hejaz.
+Hellenic culture and civilization.
+Hellenic Republic.
+Hellespont, the.
+Hercegovina.
+  annexation of, by Austria-Hungary.
+  its Slavonic population.
+  origin and independence of, and conquest of, by the Turks.
+  revolts in, against Turkey.
+  under Austro-Hungarian rule.
+  under Turkish rule.
+Hilmi Pasha.
+Hungarians.
+  and the Turks.
+  invade the Balkan peninsula.
+Hungary,
+  and the Balkan peninsula,
+  and the Serbo-Croats,
+  and the Serbs,
+  and Turkey, wars between,
+  conquest of, by Suleiman I,
+  growth of,
+  loss of, by the Turks,
+  Slavs in,
+Huns, arrival of the, in Europe,
+  their origin,
+  settled in Hungary,
+Hunyadi, John,
+Hydhra and the Hydhriots,
+Hypsilantis, Prince Alexander,
+  Prince Demetrius,
+
+
+Ibar, the,
+Ibrahim Pasha,
+Ida, Mount,
+Ignatiyev, Count,
+Illyria, Celtic invasion of,
+  prefecture of,
+  Roman conquest of,
+Illyrians, the,
+Imbros,
+Ionescu, Take,
+Ionian islands,
+  presented to Greece by Great Britain,
+Ipek: _see_ Pe['c]
+Iran,
+Iskanderoun, Gulf of,
+Italian influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+  trading cities,
+Italy, and the Macedonian question,
+  and the possession of Epirus,
+  diocese of,
+  prefecture of,
+  war with Turkey (1911-12),
+Ivan III, Tsar of Russia,
+Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia,
+
+
+Jehad, or Holy War,
+Jenghis Khan,
+Jerusalem,
+Jews, at Constantinople,
+  in Rumania,
+  in Turkey,
+Jezzar the Butcher,
+Jidda,
+John Alexander, ruler of Bulgaria,
+John Asen I, Bulgar Tsar (1186-96),
+John Asen II, Bulgar Tsar (1218-41),
+John Tzimisces, the Emperor,
+John the Terrible, Prince of Moldavia,
+Joseph II, Emperor of Austria,
+Judah,
+Jugo-Slav(ia),
+Justin I, the Emperor,
+Justinian I, the Emperor,
+
+
+Kaisariyeh,
+Kalamata,
+Kaloian, Bulgar Tsar (1196-1207),
+Kama, Bulgars on the,
+Kanaris, Constantine,
+Kapodistrias, John,
+Kara-George (Petrovi['c]),
+Karagjorgjevi['c] (sc. family of Kara-George) dynasty, the,
+Karaiskakis,
+Karamania,
+Karasi,
+Karlovci (Carlowitz, Karlowitz),
+Karpathos,
+Kasos;
+  destruction of (1824),
+Kavala,
+Kazan,
+Khalkidhiki,
+Kharput,
+  siege of (1822),
+Khorasan,
+Khurshid Pasha,
+Kiev,
+Kilkish, Greek victory at,
+Kirk-Kilisse, battle of,
+Kisseleff, Count,
+Kladovo,
+Knights Hospitallers of St. John,
+Kochana,
+Kolettis,
+Kolokotronis, Theodore,
+Kondouriottis,
+Konia,
+  battle of,
+Kopais basin, draining of,
+Korinth,
+  surrender of (1822),
+Korinthian Gulf,
+Kos,
+Kosovo, vilayet of,
+Kosovo Polje, battle of,
+Kraljevi['c], Marko: _see_ Marko K.
+Krete,
+  conquest of, by Turks,
+  intervention of the powers and constituted an autonomous state,
+  speech of,
+Krum (Bulgar prince),
+Kru[)s]evac,
+Kubrat (Bulgar prince),
+Kumanovo, battle of (1912),
+Kumans, the Tartar,
+Kurdistan,
+Kurds, the,
+Kutchuk Kainardji, Treaty of,
+Kydhonies, destruction of,
+
+
+Laibach (Ljubljana),
+Lansdowne, Marquess of,
+Larissa,
+Latin Empire at Constantinople, the,
+  influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+Lausanne, Treaty of (1912),
+Lazar (Serbian Prince),
+'League of Friends',
+Leipsic, battle of (1813),
+Lemnos,
+Leo, the Emperor,
+Leopold II, Emperor of Austria,
+Lepanto, battle of (1571),
+Lerna,
+Leskovac,
+Levant, the,
+  commerce of,
+Libyan war (1911-12),
+Lombards, the,
+London, Conference of (1912-13),
+  Treaty of (1913),
+Louis, conquers the Serbs,
+Lule-Burgas,
+  battle of (1912),
+
+
+Macedonia,
+  anarchy in,
+  defeat of the Turks by the Serbians in,
+  establishment of Turks in,
+  general characteristics of, in classical times,
+  inhabitants of,
+  revolt in,
+  place-names in,
+Macedonian question, the,
+  Slavs, the,
+Magnesia,
+Magyars, the,
+  their irruption into Europe,
+  growing power and ambitions of the,
+  influence upon the Rumanians,
+Mahmud I, Sultan,
+Mahmud II, Sultan,
+Maina,
+Maiorescu, Titu
+Malasgerd, battle of,
+Malta, siege of,
+Mamelukes, Egyptian,
+Manichaean heresy, the,
+Manuel Comnenus, the Emperor,
+Marash,
+Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor,
+Marghiloman, Alexander,
+Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria,
+Maritsa, the,
+  battle of,
+Marko Kraljevi['c],
+Marmora, Sea of,
+Mavrokordatos, Alexander,
+Mavromichalis clan,
+Mavromichalis, Petros,
+Mediterranean, the,
+Megaspelaion,
+Mehemet Ali: _see_ Mohammed Ali.
+Melek Shah, of Persia,
+Mendere (Maiandros),
+Mesolonghi,
+Mesopotamia,
+Messenia,
+Mesta,
+Meteora,
+Methodius, St.,
+Michael Obrenovi['c] III, Prince of Serbia (1840-2, 1860-8),
+Michael III, the Emperor,
+Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia,
+Midhat Pasha and representative institutions in Turkey,
+Media,
+Milan Obrenovi['c] II, Prince of Serbia (1839),
+Milan Obrenovi['c] IV, Prince and King of Serbia (1868-89),
+Mile[)s]evo, monastery of,
+Milica, Princess,
+Military colonies, Austro-Hungarian, of Serbs against Turkey,
+Milo[)s] Obrenovi['c] I, Prince of Serbia (1817-39, 1858-60),
+Milovanovi['c], Dr.,
+Mircea the Old, Prince of Wallachia,
+Misivria (Mesembria),
+Mitylini,
+Modhon,
+Mohacs, battle of,
+Mohammed II, Sultan,
+Mohammed IV, Sultan,
+Mohammed V, Sultan,
+Mohammed Ali Pasha, of Egypt,
+Mohammedan influence in the Balkan peninsula,
+Mohammedan Serbs, of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the,
+Moldavia,
+  foundation of,
+Monastir (Bitolj, in Serbian),
+  battle of (1912),
+Montenegro,
+  achieves its independence,
+  and the Balkan League,
+  autonomous,
+  becomes a kingdom,
+  conquered by the Turks,
+  during the Napoleonic wars,
+  in the Balkan war (1912-13),
+  position of, amongst the other Serb territories,
+  relations with Russia,
+  revolt in,
+  under Turkish rule,
+  war with Turkey,
+Montesquieu,
+Morava, the,
+Moravia, its conversion to Christianity,
+Morea: _see_ Peloponnesos.
+Morocco crisis, the,
+Moslems,
+Mukhtar Pasha,
+Muntenia (Wallachia), foundation of,
+Murad I, Sultan, murder of,
+Murad II, Sultan,
+Murad III, Sultan,
+Murad V, Sultan,
+Murzsteg programme of reforms, the,
+Mustapha II, Sultan,
+Mustapha III, Sultan,
+
+
+Naissus: _see_ Nish.
+Napoleon I,
+Napoleon III, and Rumania,
+Natalie, Queen-Consort of Serbia,
+Nationalism,
+Nauplia,
+  fall of (1822),
+Nauplia Bay,
+Navarino, battle of (1827),
+Negrepont,
+Nemanja dynasty, the,
+Nicaea,
+Nicholas I, Prince and King of Montenegro (1860-),
+Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia,
+Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia,
+Nicomedia,
+Nikaria, 230.
+Nikiphoros Phokas, the Emperor,
+Nikopolis,
+  battle of,
+Nik[)s]i['c],
+Nilufer,
+Nish (Naissus, Ni[)s]),
+  Celtic origin,
+  Goths defeated at,
+  Bulgarians march on,
+  geographical position of,
+Nish-Salonika railway,
+Nizib,
+Normans, the,
+Novae: _see_ Svishtov.
+Novi Pazar, Sandjak of,
+  occupied by Austria-Hungary,
+  evacuated by Austria-Hungary,
+  occupied by Serbia and Montenegro,
+
+
+Obili['c], Milo[)s],
+Obrenovi['c] dynasty, the,
+Odessa,
+  Committee of,
+Odhysseus,
+Oecumenical Patriarch, the,
+Okhrida,
+  Archbishopric and Patriarchate of,
+  Lake of,
+Old Serbia (northern Macedonia),
+Orient, prefecture of the,
+Orkhan,
+Orthodox Church: _see_ Eastern Church.
+Osman (Othman), Sultan,
+Osmanli: _see_ Turkey _and_ Turks.
+Ostrogoths, the,
+Otranto, straits of,
+Otto, Prince, of Bavaria, King of Greece,
+  driven into exile,
+Ottoman Empire: _see_ Turkey.
+Ouchy, Treaty of: _see_ Lausanne, Treaty of.
+Oxus,
+
+
+Palaiologos, Romaic dynasty of,
+Pannonia,
+  Bulgars in,
+Pan-Serb movement, the
+Pan-Slavism,
+Paris, Congress of (1856),
+  Convention (1858),
+  Treaty of (1856),
+Pa[)s]a, M,
+Passarowitz, Treaty of,
+Pasvanoghlu,
+Patmos,
+Patras,
+  Gulf of,
+Paul, Emperor of Russia,
+Paulicians, the,
+Pe['c] (Ipek, in Turkish), patriarchate of,
+Pechenegs, the Tartar,
+Petraeus,
+'Peloponnesian Senate',
+Peloponnesos (Morea),
+Pera,
+Persia and the Turks,
+  at war with Constantinople,
+  Grand Seljuk of,
+Persian Gulf,
+Peter the Great,
+  'Testament' of,
+Peter, Bulgar Tsar (927-69)
+Peter I, King of Serbia (1903),
+Peter I, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro,
+Petrovi['c]-Njego[)s], dynasty of,
+Petta, battle of,
+Phanariote Greeks, the, _See_ Greek officials under the
+                 Turks, _and_ Turkey, Phanariot regime.
+'Philhellenes',
+'Philiki Hetairia',
+Philip, Count of Flanders,
+Philip of Macedonia,
+Philippopolis, Bogomil centre,
+  foundation of,
+  revolts against Turks,
+Pindus,
+Pirot,
+Place-names, the distribution of classical, indigenous, and
+                         Slavonic, in the Balkan peninsula,
+Plevna, siege of,
+Podgorica,
+Poland,
+Pontus,
+Popes, attitude of the, towards the Slavonic liturgy,
+Poros,
+Porto Lagos,
+Po[)z]arevac,
+Preslav, Bulgarian capital,
+Prespa,
+Pressburg, Treaty of (1805),
+Prilep, battle of (1912),
+'Primates', the,
+Prizren,
+Prussia and Austria, war between (1866),
+Psara,
+
+
+Radowitz, Baron von,
+Ragusa (Dubrovnik, in Serbian), its relations with the Serbian
+state,
+  prosperity of, under Turkish rule,
+  decline of,
+Railways in the Balkan peninsula,
+Rashid Pasha,
+Ra[)s]ka, centre of Serb state,
+Reglement Organique,
+Religious divisions in the Balkan peninsula,
+Resna, in Macedonia,
+Rhodes,
+  siege of,
+Risti['c], M.,
+Rodosto,
+Romaic architecture,
+  government,
+  language,
+'Romaioi',
+Roman Catholicism in the Balkan peninsula,
+Roman Empire,
+Roman law,
+Rome, its conquest of the Balkan peninsula,
+  relations of, with Bulgaria,
+  relations of, with Serbia,
+  spiritual rivalry of, with Constantinople,
+Rosetti, C.A.,
+Rovine, battle of,
+Rumania and the Balkan peninsula,
+  and the second Balkan war(1913),
+  and Bulgaria,
+  and the Russo-Turkish war (1877),
+  anti-Greek movement in,
+  anti-Russian revolution in,
+  commerce of,
+  convention with Russia (1877),
+  dynastic question in,
+  education in,
+  influences at work in,
+  military situation,
+  nationalist activity in,
+  neutrality of,
+  origins of,
+  Patriarch's authority in,
+  peasantry of,
+  Phanariotes in,
+  political parties in,
+  politics of, internal,
+  relations with Russia,
+  religion and Church in,
+  Roman civilization, influence in,
+  rural question in,
+  Russian influence in; politics in,
+  struggle for independence,
+  territorial gains,
+  territorial losses,
+  Turkish rule in,
+  Upper class in (cneazi, boyards),
+    origins of,
+    social evolution of,
+    economic and political supremacy,
+Rumanian army,
+  claims in Macedonia,
+  principalities, foundation of,
+    union of,
+    revolt (1822),
+Rumanians, early evidences of,
+  in Bessarabia,
+  in Bucovina,
+  in Hungary,
+  in Macedonia,
+Rumelia, Eastern,
+Russia and Bulgaria,
+  and Greece,
+  and Montenegro,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Serbia,
+  and Turkey,
+  and the Macedonian question,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  Bulgars in,
+  commercial treaty with Turkey (1783),
+  convention with Rumania (1877),
+  conversion to Christianity,
+  occupation of Kars,
+  re-organization under Peter the Great,
+  wars with Turkey (1769-84),
+    (1787),
+    (1807),
+    (1828),
+    (1877-8),
+    (1914-15),
+Russian diplomacy at Constantinople,
+  influence in Bulgaria,
+  invasion of Balkan peninsula,
+  relations with the Balkan Christians,
+  relations with the Balkan League,
+Russians, the, comparison of,
+  with the Southern Slavs,
+  _see_ Slavs, the Eastern,
+
+
+[)S]abac (Shabatz),
+Salisbury, Lord,
+Salonika,
+Salonika-Nish railway, the,
+Samos,
+Samothraki,
+Samuel, Tsar of western Bulgaria (977-1014),
+San Stefano, Treaty of (1878),
+Saracens, the,
+Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia,
+Sava, St.,
+Save, the,
+Scutari (di Albania), Skodra,
+Selim I, Sultan,
+Selim III, Sultan,
+Seljuks, the,
+Semendria: _see_ Smederevo.
+Semites, the,
+Serb migrations,
+  national life, centres of,
+  political centres,
+  race, home of the,
+  territories, divisions of the,
+Serbia and Austria-Hungary, relations between,
+  and Bulgaria, contrasted,
+  the agreement between,
+  and Macedonia,
+  and Russia, relations between,
+  and the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
+  and the Balkan League,
+  and Turkey,
+  dissensions in,
+  geography of,
+  Patriarch's authority in,
+  the barrier to German expansion eastwards,
+  Turkish conquest of,
+  wars with Turkey (1875-7),
+Serbian Church, the,
+  claims and propaganda in Macedonia,
+  Empire, its extent under Stephen Du[)s]an,
+  literature,
+  nation, centre of gravity of,
+  principality, its extent in 1830,
+Serbo-Bulgarian war (1885),
+  (1913),
+Serbo-Croat nationality, formation of the,
+Serbo-Croat unity, movement in favour of,
+Serbo-Croats, general distribution of,
+Serbs, defeat Bulgars and Greeks,
+  distribution of the, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  general distribution of the,
+  north of the Danube,
+  outside the boundaries of the Serb state,
+  religious persecution of,
+  revolt against Bulgaria,
+  revolt against the Magyars,
+  revolts against Turkey,
+  their attitude towards the Germans,
+Serbs and Croats, difference between,
+Shabatz: _see_ [)S]abac.
+Shipka Pass,
+Shishman, revolts against Bulgaria,
+Sicily,
+Silistria,
+Simeon the Great, Bulgar Tsar (893-927),
+Singidunum: _see_ Belgrade.
+Sitvatorok, Treaty of,
+Sivas,
+Skanderbey,
+Skodra: _see_ Scutari.
+Skoplje (Ueskueb, in Turkish),
+Slav influence in Rumania,
+Slavonia,
+  absorbed by Hungary,
+Slavonic immigration, the streams of, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  languages, the, use of, in Rumanian Church,
+  liturgy, the, southern, nationalities,
+Slavs, maritime,
+  method of their migration southwards into the Balkan peninsula
+  migration, in the seventh century,
+  their lack of cohesion,
+  their attacks on Salonika and Constantinople with the Avars,
+  their original home,
+  their settlement south of the Danube,
+  the Balkan, their attitude towards the Church, under Turkish rule,
+  the Eastern (Russians),
+  the Southern, general distribution of,
+  the Western,
+Slivnitsa, battle of (1885),
+Slovenes, the,
+Smederevo (Semendria),
+Smyrna,
+Sofia, captured by the Bulgars from the Greeks, captured by the Turks,
+Soudha Bay,
+Southern Slav nationalities, the,
+Spain, Jews expelled from,
+Spalajkovi['c], Dr.,
+Spetza,
+Sporades, the,
+Srem: _see_ Syrmia.
+Stambul,
+Sultanate of,
+Stambulov,
+Stephen Dragutin,
+Stephen Du[)s]an, King of Serbia(1331-45), Tsar of Serbs, Bulgars,
+                                             and Greeks (1345-55),
+Stephen  (Lazarevi['c]), Serbian Prince,
+Stephen Nemanja, _veliki [)z]upan_,
+Stephen Nemanji['c], King of Serbia (1196-1223), the First-Crowned,
+Stephen Radoslav, King of Serbia (1223-33),
+Stephen Uro[)s] I, King of Serbia (1242-76),
+Stephen Uro[)s] II (Milutin), King of Serbia (1282-1321),
+Stephen Uro[)s] III (De['c]anski), King of Serbia (1321-31),
+Stephen Vladislav, King of Serbia (1233-42),
+Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia,
+Struma, the,
+Suleiman I, Sultan (the Magnificent),
+Suli, clansmen of,
+[)S]umadija,
+Svetoslav, ruler of Bulgaria,
+Svishtov,
+Svyatoslav, Prince of Kiev,
+Syria,
+Syrian question, the,
+Syrmia,
+
+
+Tabriz,
+Tanzimat, the,
+Tarabo[)s], Mount,
+Tarsus,
+Tartar invasion, the,
+Tartars of the Golden Horde,
+Tenedos,
+Teutons, the,
+Thasos,
+Theodore Lascaris, the Emperor,
+Theodoric,
+Theodosius, the Emperor,
+Theophilus of Constantinople,
+Thessaly,
+Thrace,
+Thu-Kiu, people of,
+Tilsit, peace of (1807),
+Timok, the,
+Timur,
+Tirnovo, centre and capital of second Bulgarian empire,
+Trajan, the Emperor, in the Balkan peninsula,
+  his conquest of Dacia,
+Transylvania,
+Trebizond,
+Trieste,
+Trikeri, destruction of,
+Trikoupis, Greek statesman,
+Tripoli,
+Tripolitza,
+Tunisia,
+Turcomans, the,
+Turkestan,
+Turkey: administrative systems,
+  and the Armenian massacres (1894),
+  and the Balkans,
+  and Bulgaria,
+  and the Bulgarian atrocities,
+  and Greece,
+  and the islands of southeastern Europe,
+  and Rumania,
+  and Russia,
+  and Serbia,
+  and the struggle for Greek independence,
+  and the suzerainty of Krete,
+  Christians in, position of,
+  codification of the civil law,
+  commercial treaties,
+  Committee of Union and Progress,
+  conquests in Europe,
+    in Asia,
+    of the Balkan peninsula,
+  decline and losses of territory in Europe and Asia,
+  'Dere Beys',
+  Dragoman, office of, 184, 185,
+  expansion: of the Osmanli kingdom,
+    of the Byzantine Empire,
+    extent of the empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+    territorial expansion in Asia,
+  feudal aristocracy of,
+  financial embarrassments and public debt,
+  frontier beyond the Danube,
+  German influence in,
+  Grand Vizierate,
+  military organization,
+    soldiery recruited from Christian races,
+    'tribute-children' system of recruiting,
+  name of,
+  pan-Islamic propaganda under Abdul Hamul,
+  pan-Ottomanism,
+  Phanariot regime,
+  praetorians,
+  railway construction, effect of,
+  reforms in,
+  representative institutions inaugurated,
+  revival and relapse in the nineteenth century,
+  revolution of 1910,
+  war in the Balkans (1912),
+  war with Great Britain, France, and Russia (1914-15),
+  wars with Greece (1821),
+    (1897),
+    (1912),
+  war with Italy (1911-12),
+  wars with Russia (1769-74),
+    (1787),
+    (1807),
+    (1828),
+    (1877-8),
+    (1914-15),
+  wars with Serbia (1875-7),
+  Young Turks, the,
+Turkish conquests in Europe,
+  fleet,
+  janissaries,
+Turks (Osmanlis), entry into Europe,
+  general distribution of,
+  nomadic tribes of,
+  origin of,
+  vitality and inherent qualities of the,
+Tzakonia,
+
+
+Uighurs, Turkish tribe,
+Unkiar Skelessi, Treaty of (1833),
+Uro[)s], King of Serbia: _see_ Stephen Uro[)s].
+Uro[)s], Serbian Tsar (1355-71),
+Ueskub: _see_ Skoplje,
+
+Valens, the Emperor,
+Valtetzi, battle of,
+Van,
+Vardar, the,
+Varna,
+  battle of (1444),
+  captured by the Bulgars,
+Venezelos, E., Kretan and Greek statesman,
+  his part in the Kretan revolution,
+  becomes premier of Greece,
+  work as a constructive statesman,
+  the formation of the Balkan League,
+  his proposals to Bulgaria for settlement of claims,
+  his handling of the problem of Epirus,
+  results of his statesmanship,
+Venice and the Venetian Republic,
+Victoria, Queen of England,
+Vienna,
+  besieged by the Turks (1526),
+    (1683),
+  Congress of (1814),
+  in relation to the Serbo-Croats: _see_ Budapest.
+Visigoths, the,
+Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia,
+Vlakhs, the,
+Volga, Bulgars of the,
+Volo, Gulf of,
+Vranja,
+Vrioni, Omer,
+
+
+Wallachia,
+  advent of the Turks in,
+  subjugation of, by the Turks,
+Wied, Prince of,
+William II, German Emperor,
+
+
+Yannina,
+Yantra, the,
+Yemen,
+Yenishehr,
+Yuruk tribe,
+Yuzgad,
+
+
+Zabergan,
+Zaimis, high commissioner of Krete,
+Zante,
+Zeta, the, river and district,
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Balkans
+by Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BALKANS ***
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