CHAPTER XV
THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE ALLIES
To those who knew the centuries-old hatred and race rivalry between Greece and Servia and Bulgaria in the Balkan Peninsula, an alliance for the purpose of liberating Macedonia seemed impossible. The Ottoman Government had a sense of security which seemed to be justifiable. They had known how to keep alive and intensify racial hatred in European Turkey, and believed that they were immune from concerted attack because the Balkan States would never be able to agree as to the division of spoils after a successful war.
The history of the ten years of rivalry between bands, which had nullified the efforts of the Powers to "reform" Macedonia by installing a gendarmerie under European control, had taught the diplomats that they had working against the pacification of Macedonia not only the Ottoman authorities, but also the native Christian population and the neighbouring emancipated countries. They were ready to believe the astute Hussein Hilmy pasha, Vali of Macedonia, when he said: "I am ruling over an insane asylum. Were the Turkish flag withdrawn, they would fly at each other's throats, and instead of reform, you would have anarchy."
If the Balkan States had realized how completely and how easily they were going to overthrow the military power of Turkey, they probably would not have attempted it. This seems paradoxical, but it is true all the same.
The Allies did not anticipate more than the holding of the Ottoman forces in check and the occupation of the frontiers and of the upper valleys of the Vardar and Struma. Greece felt that she would be rewarded by a slight rectification of boundary in Thessaly and Epirus, if only the war would settle the status of Crete and result in an autonomous régime for the Ægean Islands. At the most, the Balkan States hoped to force upon Turkey the autonomy of Macedonia under a Christian governor. So jealous was each of the possibility of another's gaining control of Macedonia that this solution would have satisfied them more than the complete disappearance of Turkish rule. Both hopes and fears as to Macedonia were envisaged rather in connection with each other than in connection with the Turks.
Between Servia and Bulgaria there was a definite treaty, signed on March 13, 1912, which defined future spheres of influence in upper Macedonia. But Greece had no agreement either with Bulgaria or Servia.
The events of October, 1912, astonished the whole world. No such sudden and complete collapse of the Ottoman power in Europe was dreamed of. I have already spoken of how fearful the European Chancelleries were of an Ottoman victory. Had they not been so morally certain of Turkey's triumph they would never have sent to the belligerents their famous—and in the light of subsequent events ridiculous—joint note concerning the status quo.
But if the Great Powers were unprepared for the succession of Balkan triumphs, the allies were much more astonished at what they were able to accomplish. Kirk Kilissé and Lulé Burgas gave Thrace to Bulgaria. Kumanovo opened up the valley of the Vardar to the Servians, while the Greeks marched straight to Salonika without serious opposition.
The victories of the Servians and Greeks, so easily won, were to the Bulgarians a calamity which overshadowed their own striking military successes. They had spilled much blood and wasted their strength in the conquest of Thrace which they did not want, while their allies—but rivals for all that—were in possession of Macedonia, the Bulgaria irredenta. To be encircling Adrianople and besieging Constantinople, cities in which they had only secondary interest, while the Servians attacked Monastir and the Greeks were settling themselves comfortably in Salonika, was the irony of fate for those who felt that others were reaping the fruits for which they had made so great and so admirable a sacrifice.
When we come to judge dispassionately the folly of Bulgaria in provoking a war with her comrades in arms, and the seemingly amazing greed for land which it revealed, we must remember that the Bulgarians felt that they had accomplished everything to receive nothing. Salonika and not Adrianople was the city of their dreams. Macedonia and not Thrace was the country which they had taken arms to liberate. The Ægean Sea and not the extension of their Black Sea littoral formed the substantial and logical economic background to the appeal of race which led them to insist so strongly in gathering under their sovereignty all the elements of the Bulgarian people. European writers have not been able to understand how little importance the Bulgarians attached to their territorial acquisitions in Thrace, and of how little interest it was for them to acquire new possessions in which there were so few Bulgarians.
Then, too, the powerful elements which had pushed Bulgaria into the war with Turkey, and had contributed so greatly to her successes, were of Macedonian origin. In Sofia, the Macedonians are numerically, as well as financially and politically, very strong. I had a revelation of this, such as the compilation of statistics cannot give, on the day after the massacre of Kotchana. The newspapers called upon all the Macedonians in Sofia to put out flags tied with crêpe. In the main streets of the city, it seemed as if every second house was that of a Macedonian. To these people, ardent and powerful patriots, Macedonia was home. It had been the dream of their lives to unite the regions from which they had come—once emancipated from the Turks—to the mother country. From childhood, they had been taught to look towards the Rhodope Mountains as the hills from which should come their help. Is it any wonder then, that, after the striking victories of their arms, there should be a feeling of insanity—for it was that—when they saw the dreams of a lifetime about to vanish?
But the mischief of the matter, as a Scotchman would say, was that Greeks and Servians felt the same way about the same places. Populations had been mixed for centuries. At some time or other in past history each of the three peoples had had successful dynasties to spread their sovereignty over exactly the same territories. Each then could evoke the same historical memories, each the same past of suffering, each the same present of hopes, and the same prayers of the emancipated towards Sofia and Athens and Belgrade.
After the occupation of Salonika by the Greeks, the Bulgarian ambitions to break the power of Turkey were not the same as they had been before. Had Salonika been occupied two weeks earlier, there might not have been a Lulé Burgas. An armistice was hurriedly concluded. During the trying period of negotiations in London, and during the whole of the second part of the war, the jealousies of the allies had been awakened one against the other. Between Greeks and Bulgarians, it had been keen since the very first moment that the Greek army entered Macedonia. The crisis between Servia and Bulgaria did not become acute until Servia saw her way blocked to the Adriatic by the absurd attempt to create a free Albania. Then she naturally began to insist that the treaty of partition which she had signed with Bulgaria could not be carried out by her. In vain she appealed to the sense of justice of the Bulgarians. The treaty had been signed on the understanding that Albania would fall under the sphere of Servian aggrandizement. Nor, on the other hand, had it been contested that Thrace would belong to Bulgaria. If the treaty were carried out, Bulgaria would get everything and Servia nothing. Servia also reminded the Bulgarians of the loyal aid that had been given them in the reduction of Adrianople. But Bulgaria held to her pound of flesh.
Under the circumstances of the division of territory, Bulgaria's claim to cross the Vardar and go as far as Monastir and Okrida, would not only have given her possession of a fortress from which she could dominate both Servia and Greece, but would have put another state between Servia and Salonika. Bulgaria was, in fact, demanding everything as far as Servia was concerned. Servia cannot be blamed then for coming to an understanding with Greece, even if it were for support in the violation of a treaty. For where does history give us the example of a nation holding to a treaty when it was against her interest to do so?
After their return from London, the Premiers Venizelos and Pasitch made an offensive and defensive alliance for ten years against the Bulgarian aspirations. In this alliance, concluded at Athens shortly after King George's death, the frontiers were definitely settled. In the negotiations, Greece showed the same desire to have everything for herself which Bulgaria was displaying. Finally she agreed to allow Servia to keep Monastir. Without this concession, Servia would have fared as badly at the hands of Greece as at the hands of Bulgaria. It is only because Greece feared that Servia might be driven to combine with Bulgaria against her, that the frontier in this agreement was drawn south of Monastir. The Greek army officers opposed strongly this concession, but Venizelos was wise enough to see that the maintenance of Greek claims to Monastir might result in the loss of Salonika. The Serbo-Greek alliance was not made public until the middle of June. Bulgaria had also been making overtures to Greece, and at the end of May had expressed her willingness to waive her claim to Salonika in return for Greek support against Servia. Venizelos, already bound to Servia, was honourable enough to refuse this proposition.
But the military reputation of Bulgaria was still so strong in Bulgarian diplomacy that Servia and Greece were anxious to arrive, if possible, at an arrangement without war. Venizelos proposed a meeting at Salonika. Bulgaria declined. Then Venizelos and Pasitch together proposed the arbitration of the Czar. Bulgaria at the first seemed to receive this proposition favourably, but stipulated that it would be only for the disputed matter in her treaty with Servia. At this moment, the Russian Czar sent a moving appeal to the Balkan States to avoid the horrors of a fratricidal war. Bulgaria then agreed to send, together with her Allies, delegates to a conference at Petrograd.
All the while, Premier Gueshoff of Bulgaria had been struggling for peace against the pressure and the intrigues of the Macedonian party at Sofia. They looked upon the idea of a Petrograd conference as the betrayal of Macedonians and Bulgarians by the mother country. Unable to maintain his position, Gueshoff resigned. His withdrawal ruined Bulgaria, for he was replaced by M. Daneff, who was heart and soul with the Macedonian party. A period of waiting followed. But from this moment war seemed inevitable to those who knew the feeling on both sides. Daneff and his friends did not hesitate. They would not listen to reason. They believed that they had the power to force Greece and Servia to a peace very nearly on their own terms. Public opinion was behind them, for news was continually coming to Sofia of Greek and Servian oppression of Bulgarians in the region between Monastir and Salonika. These stories of unspeakable cruelty, which were afterwards established to be true by the Carnegie Commission, had much to do with making possible the second war.
It was not difficult for the Macedonian party at Sofia to precipitate hostilities. The Bulgarian general staff, in spite of the caution that should have imposed itself upon them by the consideration of the exhausting campaign in the winter, felt certain of their ability to defeat the Servians and Greeks combined. Then, too, the army on the frontiers, in which there was a large element—perhaps twenty per cent.—of Macedonians, had already engaged in serious conflicts with the Greeks.
In fact, frontier skirmishes had begun in April. The affair of Nigrita was really a battle. After these outbreaks, Bulgarian and Greek officers had been compelled to establish a neutral zone in order to prevent the new war from beginning of itself. At the end of May, there had been fighting in the Panghaeon district, east of the river Strymon. The Bulgarian staff had wanted to prevent the Greeks from being in a position to cut the railway from Serres to Drama. In the beginning of June, Bulgarian coast patrols had fired on the Averoff. By the end of June, the Bulgarian outposts were not far from Salonika.
The first Bulgarian plan was to seize suddenly Salonika, which would thus cut off the Greek army from its base of supplies and its advantageous communication by sea with Greece. There were nearly one thousand five hundred Bulgarian soldiers in Salonika under the command of General Hassapsieff. How many comitadjis had been introduced into the city no one knows. I was there during the last week of June, and saw many Bulgarian peasants, big strapping fellows, who seemed to have no occupation. When I visited the Bulgarian company, which was quartered in the historic mosque of St. Sophia, two days before their destruction, they seemed to me to be absolutely sure of their position. At this moment, the atmosphere among the few Bulgarians in Salonika was that of complete confidence.
Among the Greeks, a spirit of excitement and of apprehension made them realize the gravity and the dangers of the events which were so soon to follow. Perfect confidence, while highly recommended by the theorists, does not seem to win wars. Nervousness, on the other hand, makes an army alert, and ready to exert all the greater effort, from the fact that it feels it needs that effort. In all the wars with which this book deals this has been true,—Italian confidence in 1911, Turkish confidence in 1912, Bulgarian confidence in 1913, and German confidence in 1914.
On the 29th of June, when I left Salonika to go to Albania, it was the opinion of the Greek officers in Salonika that the war—which they viewed with apprehension—would be averted by the conference at Petrograd. When I got on my steamship, the first man I met was Sandansky, who had become famous a decade before by the capture of Miss Stone, an American missionary. He had embarked on this Austrian Lloyd steamer at Kavalla, with the expectation of slipping ashore at Salonika, if possible, to prepare the way for the triumphal entry of the Bulgarian army. But he was only able to look sorrowfully out on the city, for the police were waiting to arrest him. What bitter thoughts he must have had when he saw the Bulgarian flag, which he had planted there with his own hands, waving from the minaret of St. Sophia, and he unable to organize its defence! A week later I saw Sandansky at a café in Valona. The war had then started, and he was probably trying to persuade the Albanians to enter the struggle and to take the Servians in the rear.
Up to June 29th, Servians and Bulgarians were fraternizing at their outposts, and joking about how soon they would be getting back to their everyday occupations, for which months of war and excitement had begun to unfit them. In several places Servians and Bulgarians ate together. I know of one outpost where the patrols were photographed together on a bridge. Little did they realize the horrible plot that was being coolly planned at Sofia,
CHAPTER XVI
THE WAR BETWEEN THE BALKAN ALLIES
On Sunday night, June 29th, without any declaration of war or even warning, General Savoff ordered a general attack all along the Greek and Servian lines. There was no direct provocation on the part of Bulgaria's allies.
The responsibility for precipitating the war which brought about the humiliation of Bulgaria can be directly fixed. Two general orders, dated from the military headquarters at Sofia on June 29th, have been published. They set forth an amazing and devilish scheme, which stands out as a most cold and bloody calculation, even among all the horrors of Balkan history. General Savoff stated positively that this energetic action was not the commencement of a war. It was merely for the purpose of occupying as much territory as possible in the contested regions before the intervention of the Powers. It had a two-fold object: to cut the communications between the Greeks and Servians at Veles (Küprülü) on the Vardar, and to throw an army suddenly into Salonika. The fighting began in the night-time. The Bulgarians naturally were able to advance into a number of important positions.
When the news became known at Salonika on the morning of the 30th, General Hassapsieff, on the ground that he was a diplomatic agent, was allowed to leave. Before his departure he gave an order to his forces to resist, if they were attacked, as he would return with the Bulgarian army in twenty-four hours.
Early in the afternoon the Greeks sent an ultimatum ordering the Bulgarians in Salonika to surrender by six o'clock. Their refusal led to all-night street fighting. Barricaded in St. Sophia and several other buildings, they were able to defend themselves until the Greeks turned artillery upon their places of refuge. Not many were killed on either side. Salonika was calm again the next day. One thousand three hundred Bulgarian soldiers and a number of prominent Bulgarian residents of Salonika, under conditions of exceptional cruelty and barbarism, were sent to Crete. The Greek forces in Salonika, among whom were some twenty thousand from America, were hurried to the outposts for the defence of the city.
There was no diplomatic action following the treachery of the Bulgarians towards their allies. The Greek Foreign Minister stated that Greece considered the Bulgarian attack an act of war, and that the Greek army had been ordered to advance immediately to retake the positions which the Bulgarians had captured. Nor did Servia show any disposition to treat with Bulgaria. No official communications reached Sofia from a Great Power. There had been a miscalculation. Bulgaria was compelled, as a consequence of her ill-considered act, to face a new war. There was no withdrawal possible.
From a purely military point of view, it seems hard to believe that the Bulgarians really thought that their night attack would bring about war. Their army had borne the brunt of the campaign against the Turks, and had suffered terribly during the winter spent in the trenches before Tchatalja. They were not in a good strategic position, for the army was spread out over a long line, and the character of the country made concentration difficult. Adequate railway communication with the bases of supplies was lacking. The Greeks and Servians, on the other hand, held not only the railway from Salonika to Nish through the valley of the Vardar, but even were it successfully cut, had communication by railway with their bases at Salonika, Monastir, Mitrovitza, Uskub, and Nish.
General Ivanoff, in command of the second Bulgarian army, was charged with confronting the whole of the Greek forces, in a line passing from the Ægean Sea to Demir-Hissar on the Vardar, between Serres and Salonika. When we realize that General Ivanoff had less than fifty thousand men, a portion of whom were recruits from the region of Serres, and that he had to guard against an attack on his right flank from the Servians, we cannot help wondering what the Bulgarian general staff had counted upon in provoking their allies to battle. Did they expect that the Greeks and Servians would be intimidated by the night attack of June 29th, and would agree to continue the project of a conference at Petrograd? Or did they think that the Greek army was of so little value that they could brush it aside, and enter Salonika, just as the Greeks had been able to enter in November? Whatever hypothesis we adopt, it shows contempt for their opponents and belief in their own star. The proof of the fact that the Bulgarians never dreamed of anything but the success of their "bluff," or, if there was resistance, of an easy victory, is found in the few troops at the disposal of General Ivanoff, and in the choice of Doiran, so near the front of battle, as the base of supplies. At Doiran everything that the second army needed in provisions and munitions of war was stored. From the financial standpoint alone, Bulgaria could not afford to risk the loss of these supplies.
On July 2d, the Greek army, under the command of Crown Prince Constantine, took the offensive against the Bulgarians, who had occupied on the previous day the crest of Beshikdag, from the mouth of the Struma to the plateau of Lahana, across the road from Salonika to Serres, and the heights north of Lake Ardzan, commanding the left bank of the Vardar. The positions were strong. If the Greek army had been of the calibre that the Bulgarians evidently expected, or if General Ivanoff had had sufficient forces to hold the positions against the Greek attack, there would undoubtedly have been pourparlers, and a probable cessation of hostilities just as the Bulgarians counted upon.
But the Greeks soon proved that they were as brave and as determined as their opponents. Their artillery fire was excellent. There was no wavering before the deadly resistance of the entrenched Bulgarians. After five days of struggle, in which both sides showed equal courage, the forces of General Ivanoff yielded to superior numbers. The Bulgarians were compelled to retreat, on July 6th, in two columns, towards Demir-Hissar and Strumitza. The retreat was effected in good order, and the Greeks, though in possession of mobile artillery, could not surround either column. Victory had been purchased at a terrible price. The Greek losses in five days were greater than during the whole war with Turkey. They admitted ten thousand hors du combat. The Greeks had received their first serious baptism of fire, and had demonstrated that they could fight. The Turks had never given them the opportunity to wipe out the disgrace of 1897.
It is a tribute to the quickness of decision of the Crown Prince Constantine and his general staff, and to the spirit of his soldiers, that this severe trial of five days of continuous fighting and fearful loss of life was not followed by a respite. The Greek headquarters were moved to Doiran on the 7th. It was decided to maintain the offensive as long as the army had strength to march and men to fill the gaps made by the fall of thousands every day. The Bulgarians, although they contested desperately every step, were kept on the move. On the right, the Greeks pushed through to Serres, joining there, on July 11th, the advance-guard of the detachments which the Greek fleet had landed at Kavalla on the 9th.
The advance of the Greek armies was along the Vardar, the Struma, and the Mesta. On the Vardar, the Bulgarian abandonment of Demir-Hissar, on the 10th, enabled the Greeks to repair the railway, and establish communication with the Servian army. The right wing, advancing by the Mesta, occupied Drama. On July 19th, the Bulgarian resistance was concentrated at Nevrokop. When it broke here, the Greek right wing was able to send its outposts to the foothills of the Rhodope Mountains, on the Bulgarian frontier.
The Greeks began to speak of the invasion of Bulgaria, and of making peace at Sofia. But the bulk of their forces met an invincible resistance at Simitli. From the 23d to the 26th, they attacked the Bulgarian positions, and believed that the advantage was theirs. But on the 27th the Bulgarians began a counter-attack against both wings of the Greek army at once. On the 29th, the Greeks began to plan their retreat. On the 30th, they realized that the retreat was no longer possible. The Bulgarians were on both their flanks. It was then that the armistice saved them.
While the Greek army was gaining its victories in the hinterland of Macedonia, the ports of the Ægean coast, Kavalla, Makri, Porto-Lagos, and Dedeagatch were occupied without resistance by the Greek fleet. Detachments withdrawn from Epirus were brought to these ports. Some went to Serres and Drama. Others garrisoned the ports, and occupied Xanthi and other nearby inland towns.
The Bulgarians may have had some reason to discount the value of the Greek army. For it had not yet been tried. But the Servians had shown from the very first day of the war with Turkey that they possessed high military qualities. The courage of their troops was coupled with agility. They had had more experience than the Bulgarians and Greeks in quick marches, and in breaking up their forces into numerous columns. There is probably no army in Europe to-day which can equal the Servians in mobility. It is incredible that the Bulgarians could have hoped to surprise the Servians, and find a weak place anywhere along their lines. On the defensive, in localities which they had come to know intimately by nine months in the field, it would have taken a larger force than the Bulgarians could muster to get the better of soldiers such as the Servians had proved themselves to be.
Whether it was by scorn for the Greeks, or by appreciation of the Servian concentration, the Bulgarians had planned to confront the Servians with four of their five armies. We have already seen that General Ivanoff had the second army alone to oppose to the Greeks, and that even a few battalions of his troops were needed on the Servian flank.
The engagements between the Bulgarians and the Servians had two distinct fields of action, one in Macedonia, and the other on the Bulgaro-Servian frontier.
In Macedonia, the Bulgarians experienced the same surprise in regard to the Servians as in regard to the Greeks. Their sudden attack of June 30th did not strike terror to the hearts of their opponents. Instead of gaining for them a favourable diplomatic position, they found that the Servians did not even suggest a parley. On July 1st, the Servians started a counter-attack, and kept a steady offensive against their former allies for eight days. Gradually the Bulgarians, along the Bregalnitza, gave ground, retreating from position to position, always with their face towards the enemy. The battle, after the first day, was for the Bulgarians a defensive action all along the line.
On July 4th, General Dimitrieff assumed the functions of generalissimo of the Bulgarian forces. He tried his best to check the Servian offensive. But the aggressive spirit had gone out of the Bulgarian army. Lulé Burgas could not be repeated. It was incapable of more than a stubborn resistance to the Servian advance. By July 8th, the Servians were masters of the approaches to Istip, and had cleared the Bulgarians out of the territory which led down into the valley of the Vardar. Then they stopped. From this time on to the signing of the armistice, the Macedonian Servian army was content with the victories of the first week.
Along the Servian-Bulgarian frontier, the Bulgarian army had some initial success. But General Kutincheff did not dispose of enough men to make possible a successful aggressive movement towards Nish. From the very first, when the Macedonian army failed to advance, the Bulgarian plans for an invasion of Servia fell to the ground. They had based everything upon an advance in Macedonia to the Vardar. So the forward movement wavered. The Servians, now sure of Rumanian co-operation, advanced in turn towards Widin. General Kutincheff was compelled to fall back on Sofia by the Rumanian invasion. Widin was invested by the Servians on July 23d.
Rumania had watched with alarm the rise of the military power of Bulgaria. She could not intervene in the first Balkan war on the side of the Turks. The civilized world would not have countenanced such a move, nor would it have had the support of Rumanian public opinion. Whatever the menace of Bulgarian hegemony in the Balkan Peninsula, Rumania had to wait until peace had been signed between the allies and the Turks. But, as we have already seen, during the first negotiations at London, her Minister to Great Britain had been instructed to treat with Bulgaria for a cession of territory from the Danube at Silistria to the Black Sea, in order that Rumania might have the strategic frontier which the Congress of Berlin ought to have given her, when the Dobrudja was awarded to her, without her consent, in exchange for Bessarabia. As Rumania had helped to free Bulgaria in 1877-78, and had never received any reward for her great sacrifices, while the Bulgarians had done little to win their own independence, the demand of a rectification of frontier was historically reasonable. Since Rumania had so admirably developed the Dobrudja, and had constructed the port of Constanza, it was justified from the economic standpoint. For the possession of Silivria, and a change of frontier on the Dobrudja, was the only means by which Rumania could hope to defend her southern frontier from attack.
At first, the Bulgarians bitterly opposed any compensation to Rumania. They discounted the importance of her neutrality, for they knew that she could not act against them as long as they were at war with Turkey. They denounced the demands of Rumania, perfectly reasonable as they were, as "blackmail." They were too blinded with the dazzling glory of their unexpected victories against the Turks to realize how essential the friendship of Rumania—at least, the neutrality of Rumania—was to their schemes for taking all Macedonia to themselves. When, in April, they signed with very ill grace the cession of Silivria, as a compromise, and refused to yield the small strip of territory from Silivria to Kavarna on the Black Sea, the Bulgarians made a fatal political mistake. It was madness enough to go into the second Balkan war in the belief that they could frighten, or, if that failed, overwhelm the Servians and Greeks. What shall we call the failure to take into their political calculations the possibility of a Rumanian intervention? Even if there were not the question of the frontier in the Dobrudja, would not Rumanian intervention still be justified by the consideration of preserving the balance of power in the Balkans? By intervening, Rumania would be acting, in her small corner of the world, just as the larger nations of Europe had acted time and again since the sixteenth century.
The Rumanian mobilization commenced on July 3d. On July 10th, Rumania declared war, and crossed the Danube. The Bulgarians decided that they would not oppose the Rumanian invasion. How could they? Already their armies were on the defensive, and hard pressed, by Greeks and Servians. There is a limit to what a few hundred thousand men could do. It is possible, though not probable, that the Bulgarian armies might have gained the upper hand in the end against their former allies in Macedonia. But with Rumania bringing into the field a fresh army, larger than that of any other Balkan States, Bulgaria's case was hopeless. The Rumanians advanced without opposition, and began to march upon Sofia. They occupied, on July 15th, the seaport of Varna, from which the Bulgarian fleet had withdrawn to Sebastopol.
It would have been easy for the Rumanians to have occupied Sofia, and waited there for the Servian and Greek armies to arrive. The humiliation of Bulgaria could have been made complete. Why, then, the armistice of July 30th? Why the assembling hastily of a peace conference at Bukarest? Political and financial, as well as military, considerations dictated the wisdom of granting to Bulgaria an armistice.
Greece and Servia were exhausted financially, and their armies could gain little more than glory by continuing the war. The Greek army, in fact, was in a critical position, and ran the risk of being surrounded and crushed by the Bulgarians. The Servians had not shown much hurry to come to the aid of the Greeks. The truth of the matter is that, after the battle of the Bregalnitza, which ended on July 10th, the Servians began to get very nervous about the successes of their Greek allies. They knew well the Greek character, and feared that too easy victories over the Bulgarians might necessitate a third war with Greece over Monastir. So, on July 11th, with the ostensible reason that such a measure was necessary to protect their rear against the Albanians, the Servian general staff withdrew from the front a number of the best regiments, and placed them in a position where they could act, if the Greeks tried to seize Monastir. On the other hand, Rumania gave both Greece and Servia to understand that she had entered the war, not from any altruistic desire to help them, but for her own interests. To see Bulgaria too greatly humiliated and weakened was decidedly no more to the interest of Rumania than to see her triumphant.
As for Montenegro, she had entered the second Balkan war to give loyal support to Servia, from whom she expected in return a generous spirit in dividing the sandjak of Novi Bazar. Her co-operation, however, as I am able to state from having been in Cettinje when the decision was taken to send ten thousand men against Bulgaria, was not made the subject of any bargain. So, when Servia thought best to sign the armistice, Montenegro was in thorough accord.
After a month of fighting, in which the losses had been far greater than during the war with Turkey, and the treatment of non-combatants by all the armies horrible beyond description, the scene of battle shifted from the blood-stained mountains and valleys of Macedonia to the council chamber at Bukarest. Rumania was to preside over a Balkan Congress of Berlin!
CHAPTER XVII
THE TREATY OF BUKAREST
When the delegates from the various important capitals reached Bukarest on July 30th, the armies were still fighting. Everyone, however, seemed anxious to come to an understanding as soon as possible. The first session of the delegates was held on the afternoon of July 30th. Premier Pasitch for Servia and Premier Venizelos for Greece were present. But Premier Daneff, who had so wanted the war, did not have the manhood to face its consequences. The Bulgarians were represented in Bukarest by no outstanding leader, either political or military. Premier Majoresco of Rumania presided over the conference. The first necessity was the decision for an armistice. A suspension of arms was agreed upon to begin upon August 1st at noon. On August 4th the armistice was extended for three days to August 8th.
In the conference of Bukarest, Bulgaria, naturally, stood by herself. It was necessary, if there was to be peace, that her delegates should come to an understanding as to the sacrifices she was willing to make with each of her neighbours separately. Consequently the important decisions were made in committee meetings. The general assembly of delegates had little else to do than to ratify the concessions wrung from Bulgaria in turn by each of the opponents.
Rarely have peace delegates been put in a more painful position than the men whom Bulgaria sent to Bukarest. It will always be an open question as to whether the military situation of Bulgaria on the 31st of July, as regards Servia and Greece, was retrievable. But the presence of a Rumanian army in Bulgaria made absolutely impossible the continuance of the war. Consequently there was nothing for Bulgaria to do but to yield to the demands of Greece and Servia. The only check upon the Servian and Greek delegates was the determination of Rumania not to see Bulgaria too greatly weakened. She had entered into line to gain her bit of territory in the south of the Dobrudja. But she had also in mind the prevention of Bulgarian hegemony in the Balkan Peninsula, and she did not propose to see this hegemony go elsewhere. This explains the favourable terms which Bulgaria received.
The Bulgarian and Rumanian delegates quickly agreed upon a frontier to present to the meeting of August 4th. By this, the first of the protocols, Bulgaria ceded to Rumania all her territory north of a line from the Danube, above Turtukaia, to the end of the Black Sea, south of Ekrene. In addition, she bound herself to dismantle the present fortresses and promised not to construct forts at Rustchuk, Schumla, and the country between and for twenty kilometres around Baltchik.
On August 6th, the protocol with Servia was presented. The Servian frontier was to start at a line drawn from the summit of Patarika on the old frontier, and to follow the watershed between the Vardar and the Struma to the Greek-Bulgarian frontier, with the exception of the upper valley of the Strumnitza which remained Servian territory.
The following day the protocol with Greece was presented. The Greek-Bulgarian frontier was to run from the crest of Belashitcha to the mouth of the River Mesta on the Ægean Sea. Bulgaria formally agreed to waive all pretensions to Crete. The protocol with the Greeks was the only one over which the Bulgarians made a resolute stand. When they signed this protocol, they stated that the accord was only because they had taken notice of the notes which Austria-Hungary and Russia presented to the conference, to the effect that in their ratification they would reserve for future discussion the inclusion of Kavalla in Greek territory.
The Bulgarians insisted on a clause guaranteeing autonomy for churches and schools in the condominium of liberated territories. Servia opposed this demand mildly, and Greece strongly. They were right. The question of national propaganda through churches and schools had done more to arouse and keep alive racial hatred in Macedonia than any other cause. If there were to be a lasting peace, nothing could be more unwise than the continuance of the propaganda which had plunged Macedonia into such terrible confusion.
Rumania, however, secured in the Treaty of Bukarest from each of the States what they had been unwilling to grant each other. Rumania imposed upon Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia, the obligation of granting autonomy to the Kutzo-Wallachian churches, and assent to the creation of bishoprics subsidized by the Rumanian Government.
A rather amusing incident occurred on August 5th by the proposition of the United States Government through its Minister at Bukarest, that a provision be embodied in the treaty according full religious liberties in transferred territories. The ignorance of American diplomacy, so frequently to be deplored, never made a greater blunder than this. It showed how completely the American State Department and its advisors on Near Eastern affairs had misunderstood the Macedonian question. Quite rightly, the consideration even of this request was rejected as superfluous. Mr. Venizelos administered a well-deserved rebuke when he said that religious liberty, in the right sense of the word, was understood through the extension of each country's constitution over the territories acquired.
Much has been written concerning the intrigues of European Powers at Bukarest during the ten days of the conference which made a new map for the Balkan Peninsula. It will be many years, if ever, before these intrigues are brought to light. Therefore we cannot discuss the question of the pressure which was brought to bear upon Rumania, upon Bulgaria, and upon Servia and Greece to determine the partition of territories. Germany looked with alarm upon the possibility of a durable settlement. Austria was determined that Bulgaria and Servia should not become reconciled.
Austria-Hungary and Russia, though for different reasons, were right in their attitude toward the matter of Greece's claim upon Kavalla. Greece would have done well had she been content to leave to Bulgaria a larger littoral on the Ægean Sea, and the port which is absolutely essential for the proper economic development of the hinterland attributed to her. By taking her pound of flesh, the Greeks only exposed themselves to future dangers. The laws of economics are inexorable. Bulgaria cannot allow herself to think sincerely about peace until her portion of Macedonia, by the inclusion of Kavalla, is logically complete. It would have been better politics for Greece to have shown herself magnanimous on this point. As George Sand has so aptly said: "It is not philanthropy, but our own interest, which leads us sometimes to do good to men in order that they may be prevented in the future from doing harm to us."
When we come to look back upon the second Balkan war, and have traced out the sad consequences and the continued unrest which followed the Treaty of Bukarest, it is possible that Servia's responsibility may be considered as great, if not greater, than that of Bulgaria in bringing about the strife between the allies. In our sympathy with the inherent justice of Servia's claim for adequate territorial compensation for what she had suffered for, and what she had contributed to, the Turkish débâcle in Europe, we are apt to overlook three indisputable facts: that Servia repudiated a solemn treaty with Bulgaria, on the basis of which Bulgaria had agreed to the alliance against Turkey; that the territories granted to Servia, south of the line which she had sworn not to pass in her territorial claims, and a portion of those in the "contested zone" of her treaty with Bulgaria, were beyond any shadow of doubt inhabited by Bulgarians; and that since these territories were ceded to her she has not, as was tacitly understood at Bukarest, extended to them the guarantees and privileges of the Servian constitution.
The Treaty of Bukarest, so far as the disputed territories allotted to Servia are concerned, has created a situation analogous to that of Alsace and Lorraine after the Treaty of Frankfort. And Servia started in to cope with it by following Prussian methods. What Servians of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia have suffered from Austrian rule, free Servia is inflicting upon the Bulgarians who became her subjects after the second Balkan war.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the population of Macedonia, as a whole, of whatever race or creed, would welcome to-day a return to the Ottoman rule of Abdul Hamid. The Turkish "constitutional régime" was worse than Abdul Hamid, the war of "liberation" worse than the Young Turks, and the present disposition of territories satisfies none. Poor Macedonia!
After the disastrous and humiliating losses at Bukarest, Bulgaria still had her former vanquished foe to reckon with. The Turks were again at Adrianople and Kirk Kilissé. Thrace was once more in her power. The Treaty of Bukarest, while attributing Thrace to Bulgaria on the basis of the Treaty of London, actually said nothing whatever about it. Nor were there any promises of aid in helping Bulgaria to get back again what she had lost, without a struggle, by her folly and treachery.
A new war by Bulgaria alone in her weakened military condition and with her empty treasury, to drive once more the Turks back south of the Enos-Midia line, was impossible. Bulgaria appealed to the chancelleries of Europe to help her in taking possession of the Thracian territory ceded to her at London. The Powers made one of their futile overtures to Turkey, requesting that she accept the treaty which she had signed a few months before.
But no one could blame the Turks for having taken advantage of Bulgarian folly. Who could expect them to meekly withdraw behind the Enos-Midia line? Bulgaria could get no support in applying the argument of force.
In the end, the victors of Lulé Burgas had to go to Constantinople and make overtures directly to the Sublime Porte. They fared very badly. The Enos-Midia line was drawn, but it took a curve northward from the Black Sea and westward across the Maritza in such a way that the Turks obtained not only Adrianople, but also Kirk Kilissé and Demotica. The Bulgarians were not even masters of the one railway leading to Dedeagatch, their sole port on the Ægean Sea.
The year 1913 for Bulgaria will remain the most bitter one of her history. She had to learn the lesson that the life of nations, as well as of individuals, is one of give as well as take, and that compromise is the basis of sound statesmanship. Who wants all, generally gets nothing.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ALBANIAN FIASCO
The world has not known just what to do with the mountainous country which comes out in a bend on the upper western side of the Balkan Peninsula directly opposite the heel of Italy. It caused trouble to the Romans from the very moment that they became an extra-Italian power. Inherited from them by the Byzantines, fought for with the varying fortunes by the Frankish princes, the Venetians, and the Turks, Albania has remained a country which cannot be said to have ever been wholly subjected. Nor can it be said to have ever had a national entity. Its present mediæval condition is due to the fact that, owing to its high mountains and its being on the road to nowhere, it has not, since the Roman days at least, undergone the influences of a contemporary civilization.
Venice recognized the importance of Albania during the days of her commercial prosperity. For the Albanian coast, with its two splendid harbours, of Valona and Durazzo, effectively guards the entrance of the Adriatic into the Mediterranean Sea.
But Albania did not demand attention a hundred years ago when the last map of Europe was being made by the Congress of Vienna. The reason for this is simple. Italy was not a political whole. The head of the Adriatic was entirely in the hands of Austria. There was no thought at that time of our modern navies, and of the importance of keeping open the Straits of Otranto. It was the Dalmatian coast, north of Albania, which Austria considered essential to her commercial supremacy. Then, too, Greece had not yet received her freedom, and the Servians had not risen in rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. There were no Slavic, Hellenic, and Italian questions to disturb Austria in her peaceful possession of the Adriatic Sea.
It was not until the union of Italy had been accomplished, and the south Slavic nationalities had formed themselves into political units, that Albania became a "question" in the chancelleries of Europe.
Austria-Hungary determined that Italy should not get a foothold in Albania. Italy had the same determination in regard to Austria-Hungary. Since the last Russo-Turkish War, Austria-Hungary and Italy have had the united determination to keep the Slavs from reaching the Adriatic. For the past generation, feeling certain that the end of the Ottoman Empire was at hand, Austria and Italy through their missionaries, their schools, and their consular and commercial agents, have struggled hard against each other to secure the ascendancy in Albania. Their intrigues have not ceased up to this day.
When Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Young Turk oppression of the Albanians aroused the first expression of what might possibly be called national feeling since the time of Skander bey's resistance to the Ottoman conquest, the rival Powers, instead of following in the line of Russia and Great Britain in Persia, and establishing spheres of interest, agreed to support the Albanian national movement as the best possible check upon Servian and Greek national aspirations. This was the status of Albania in her relationship to the Adriatic Powers, when the war of the Balkan States against Turkey broke out. The accord between Austria and Italy had stood the strain of Italy's war with Turkey. Largely owing to their fear of Russia and to the pressure of Germany, it stood the strain of the Balkan War. But both Italy and Austria let it be known to the other Powers that if the Turkish Empire in Europe disappeared, there must be an independent Albania.
This dictum was accepted in principle by the other four Powers, who saw in it the only possible chance of preventing the outbreak of a conflict between Austria and Russia which would be bound to involve all Europe in war. No nation wanted to fight over the question of Albania. Russia could not hope to have support from Great Britain and France to impose upon the Triple Alliance her desire for a Slavic outlet to the Adriatic. For neither France nor Great Britain was anxious for the Russian to get to the Mediterranean. The accord between the Powers was shown in the warning given to Greece and Servia that the solution of the Albanian question must be reserved for the Powers when a treaty of peace was signed with Turkey. The accord weathered the severe test put upon it by the bold defiance of the Montenegrin occupation of Scutari.
We have spoken elsewhere of the policy of the Young Turks towards Albania. This most useful and loyal corner of the Sultan's dominions was turned into a country of perennial revolutions, which started soon after the inauguration of the constitutional régime. In the winter of 1911-1912, when the group of Albanian deputies in the Ottoman Parliament saw their demands for reforms rejected by the Cabinet, and even the right of discussion of their complaints refused on the floor of Parliament, the Albanians north and south, Catholic and Moslem, united in a resistance to the Turkish authorities that extended to Uskub and Monastir. After the spring elections of 1912, the resistance became a formidable revolt. For the Young Turks had rashly manoeuvred the balloting with more than Tammany skill. The Albanians were left without representatives in Parliament! Former deputies, such as Ismail Kemal bey, Hassan bey, and chiefs such as Isa Boletinatz, Idris Sefer, and Ali Riza joined in a determination to demand autonomy by force of arms.
When, in July, the Cabinet decided to move an army against the Albanians, there were wholesale desertions from the garrison of Monastir, and of Albanian officers from all parts of European Turkey. Mahmoud Shevket pasha was compelled to resign the Ministry of War, and was followed by Saïd pasha and the whole Cabinet. The Albanians demanded as a sine qua non the dissolution of Parliament. The Mukhtar Cabinet agreed to the dissolution, and accepted almost all the demands of the rebels in a conference at Pristina.
For the tables had now been turned. Instead of a Turkish invasion of Albania for "pacification," as in previous summers, it was a question now of an Albanian invasion of Turkey. In spite of the conciliatory spirit of the new Cabinet, the agitation persisted. It was rumoured that the Malissores and the Mirdites were planning a campaign against Scutari and Durazzo. I was in Uskub in the early part of September. Isa Boletinatz and his band were practically in possession of the city. A truce for Ramazan, the Moslem fast month, had been arranged between Turks and Albanians. But the Albanians said they would not lay down their arms until a new and honestly constitutional election was held.
Immediately after Ramazan came the Balkan War. Albania found herself separated from Turkey, and in a position to have more than autonomy without having to deal further with the Turks.
During the Balkan War, the attitude of the Albanians was a tremendous disappointment to the Turks. One marvels that loyalty to the Empire could have been expected, even from the Moslem element, in Albania. And yet the Turks did expect that a Pan-Islamic feeling would draw the Albanian beys to fight for the Sultan, just as they had expected a similar phenomenon on the part of the rebellious Arabs of the Arabic peninsula during the war with Italy.
From the very beginning the Albanians adopted an attitude of opportunism. They did not lift a hand directly to help the Turks. Had they so desired, they might have made impossible the investment of Janina by the Greeks. But nowhere, save in Scutari, did the Albanians make a stubborn stand against the military operations of the Balkan allies. Almost from the beginning, they had understood that the Powers would not allow the partition of Albania. They knew that the retention of Janina was hopeless after the successes of the allies during October. But they received encouragement from both Austria-Hungary and Italy to fight for Scutari.
The heroic defence of Scutari, which lasted longer than that of any of the other fortified towns in the Balkan Peninsula, cannot be regarded as a feat of the Turkish army. During the siege, the general commanding Scutari had been assassinated by order of Essad pasha, who was his second in command. Essad then assumed charge of the defence as purely Albanian in character. He refused to accept the armistice, and continued the struggle throughout the debates in London. Scutari is at the south end of a lake which is shared between Albania and Montenegro. Commanding the city is a steep barren hill called Tarabosh. With their heavy artillery on this hill, the Albanians were able to prevent indefinitely the capture of their city. Servians and Montenegrins found themselves confronted with the task of taking Tarabosh by assault, if they hoped to occupy Scutari. This was a feat beyond the strength of a Balkan army. On the steep slopes of this hill were placed miles of barbed wire. The assailants were mowed down each time they tried to reach the batteries at the top. As Tarabosh commanded the four corners of the horizon, its cannon could prevent an assault or bombardment of the city from the plain. The allies were unable to silence the batteries on the crest of this hill.
During the winter, the principal question before the concert of European Powers was that of Scutari. Austria-Hungary was so determined that Scutari should not fall into the hands of the Montenegrins and Servians that she mobilized several army corps in Bosnia-Herzegovina and on the Russian frontier of Galicia, at Christmas time, 1912. The New Year brought with it ominous forebodings for the peace of Europe. Diplomacy worked busily to bring about an accord between the Powers, and pressure upon the besiegers of Scutari. In the middle of March, it was unanimously agreed that Scutari should remain to Albania, and that Servia should receive Prizrend, Ipek, Dibra, and Diakova as compensation for not reaching the Adriatic, and the assurance of an economic outlet for a railroad at some Albanian port. The European concert then decided to demand at Belgrade and Cettinje the lifting of the siege of Scutari.
Servia, yielding to the warning of Russia that nothing further could be done for her, consented to withdraw her troops from before Scutari, and to abandon the points in Albanian territory which had been allotted by the Powers to the independent Albanian State which they intended to create. Servia had another reason for doing this. Seeing the hopelessness of territorial aggrandizement in Albania, she decided to denounce her treaty of partition, concluded before the war, with Bulgaria. To realize this act of faithlessness and treachery, she had need of the sympathetic support of the Powers in the quarrel which was bound to ensue. We see here how the blocking of Servia's outlet to the Adriatic led inevitably to a war between the Balkan Allies.
But with Montenegro the situation was entirely different. She had sacrificed one-fifth of her army in the attacks upon Tarabosh, and Scutari seemed to her the only thing that she was to get out of the war with Turkey. Perched up in her mountains, there was little harm that the Powers could do to her. Just as King Nicholas had precipitated the Balkan War against the advice of the Powers the previous October, he decided on April 1st to refuse to obey the command of the Powers to lift the siege of Scutari. From what I have gathered myself from conversations in the Montenegrin capital two months later, I feel that the King of Montenegro can hardly be condemned for what the newspapers of Europe called his "audacious folly" in refusing to give a favourable response to the joint note presented to him by the European Ministers at Cettinje. The Montenegrins are illiterate mountaineers, who know nothing whatever about considerations of international diplomacy. If their King had listened to words written on a piece of paper, and had ordered the Montenegrin troops to withdraw from before Scutari, he would probably have lost his throne.
So the Powers were compelled to make a show of force. Little Montenegro, with its one port, and its total population not equal to a single arrondissement of the city of Paris, received the signal honour of an international blockade. On April 7th, an international fleet, under the command of the British Admiral Burney, blockaded the coast from Antivari to Durazzo. While all Europe was showing its displeasure in the Adriatic, the Montenegrins kept on, although deserted by the Servians, sitting in a circle around Scutari, only twenty-five miles inland from the blockading fleet. On April 23d, after the Balkan War was all finished, Europe was electrified by the news that the Albanians had surrendered Scutari to Montenegro. The worst was to be feared, for Austria announced her determination to send her troops across the border from Bosnia into Montenegro. Such an action would certainly have brought on a great European war. For neither at Rome nor at Petrograd could Austrian intervention have been tolerated.
No Power in Europe was at that moment ready for war. Largely through pressure brought to bear at Cettinje by his son-in-law, the King of Italy, King Nicholas decided on May 5th to deliver Scutari to the Powers. The Montenegrins withdrew, and ten days later Scutari was occupied by detachments of marines from the international squadron. The blockade was lifted. The peace of Europe was saved.
The Treaty of London, signed on May 30, 1913, put Albania into the hands of the Powers. The northern and eastern frontiers had been arranged by the promise made to Servia in return for her withdrawal from the siege of Scutari. But the southern frontier was still an open question. Here Italy was as much interested as was Austria in the north. With Corfu in the possession of Greece, Italy would not agree that the coast of the mainland opposite should also be Hellenic. The Greeks, on the contrary, declared that the littoral and hinterland, up beyond Santi Quaranta, was part of ancient Epirus, and inhabited principally by Greeks. It should therefore revert logically to greater Greece. Athens lifted again the old cry, "Where there are Hellenes, there is Hellas." The Greeks were occupying Santi Quaranta. They claimed as far north as Argyrokastron. But they consented to withdraw from the Adriatic, north of and opposite Corfu, if interior points equally far to the north were left to them. An international commission was formed to make a southern boundary for Albania. Its task has is still open.
What was to be done with this new state, foster child of all Europe, with indefinite boundaries, with guardians each jealous of the other, and neighbours waiting only for a favourable moment to throw themselves upon her and extinguish her life?
I visited Albania in July, 1913, during the second Balkan War. At Valona, in the south, I found a provisional government, self-constituted during the previous winter, whose authority was problematical outside of Valona itself. At the head of the government was Ismail Kemal, whom I had known as the champion of Albanian autonomy in the Ottoman Parliament at Constantinople. He talked passionately of Albania, the new State in Europe, with its united population and its national aspirations. He was eager to have the claims of Albania to a generous southern frontier presented at London. He assured me that I could write with perfect confidence in glowing terms concerning the future of Albania, that a spirit of harmony reigned throughout the country, and that the Albanians of all creeds, freed from Turkish oppression, were looking eagerly to their new life as an independent nation. When I expressed misgivings as to the rôle of Essad pasha, the provisional president asserted that the former commander of Scutari was wholly in accord with him, and cited as proof the fact that he had that very day received from Essad pasha his acceptance of the portfolio of Minister of the Interior.
But that indefinable feeling of misgiving, which one always has over the enthusiasm of Orientals, caused me to withhold judgment as to the liability of Albania until I had seen how things were going in other portions of the new kingdom.
At Durazzo, the northern port of Albania, the friends of Essad pasha were in control of the government. Things were still being done à la turque, and there was a feeling of great uncertainty concerning the future. Few had any faith whatever in the provisional government at Valona, and it was declared that the influence of Essad pasha would decide the attitude of the Albanians in Durazzo, Tirana, and Elbassan. Essad was chief of the Toptanis, the most influential family in the neighbourhood of Durazzo. He had "made his career" in the gendarmerie, and had risen rapidly through the approval and admiration of Abdul Hamid. This is an indication of his character. He was credited with the ambition of ruling Albania. To withdraw his forces and his munitions of war intact, so that he could press these claims, is the only explanation of his "deal" with King Nicholas of Montenegro to surrender Scutari. Essad had sacrificed the pride and honour of Albania to his personal ambition.
From Durazzo, I went to San Giovanni di Medua, which was occupied by the Montenegrins, just as I had found Santi Quaranta in the south occupied by the Greeks. Going inland from this port (one must use his imagination in calling San Giovanni di Medua a port) by way of Alessio, I reached Scutari, from whose citadel flew the flags of the Powers. In every quarter of this typically and hopelessly Turkish town, one ran across sailors from various nations. Each Power had its quarter, and had named the streets with some curious results. The Via Garibaldi ran into the Platz Radetzky. On the Catholic cathedral was a sign informing you that you were in the Rue Ernest Renan.
This accidental naming of streets was a prophecy of the hopelessness of trying to reconcile the conflicting aims and ideals of the Powers whose bands were playing side by side in the public garden. In the dining-room of the hotel, when I saw Austrians, Italians, Germans, British, and French officers eating together at the long tables, instead of rejoicing at this seeming spirit of European harmony, I had the presentiment of the inevitable result of the struggle between Slav and Teuton, to prevent which these men were there. Just a year later, I stood in front of the Gare du Montparnasse in Paris reading the order for General Mobilization. There came back to me as in a dream the public garden at Scutari, and the mingled strains of national anthems, with officers standing rigidly in salute beside their half-filled glasses.
In the palatial home of a British nobleman who had loved the Albanians and had lived long in Scutari, Admiral Burney established his headquarters. I talked with him there one afternoon concerning the present and the future of Albania, and the relationship of the problem which he had before him with the peace of Europe. Never have I found a man more intelligently apprehensive of the possible outcome of the drama in which he was playing a part, and at the same time more determinedly hopeful to use all his ability and power to save the peace of Europe by welding together the Albanians into a nation worthy of the independence that has been given to them by the European concert. Such men as Admiral Burney are more than the glory of a nation: they are the making of a nation. The greatness of Britain is due to the men who serve her. High ideals, self-sacrifice, ability, and energy are the corner-stones of the British overseas Empire.
There was little, however, that Admiral Burney, or anyone in fact, could do for Albania. No nation can exist in modern times, when national life is in the will of the people rather than in the unifying qualities of a ruler, if there are no common ideals and the determination to attain them. Albania is without a national spirit and a national past. It is, therefore, no unit, capable of being welded into a state. The creation by the Ambassadors of the Powers in London may have been thought by them to be a necessity. But it was really a makeshift. If the Albanians had done their part, and had shown the possibility of union, the makeshift might have developed into a new European state. As things have turned out, it has stayed what it was in the beginning,—a fiasco.
Among the many candidates put forward for the new throne, Prince William of Wied was finally decided upon. He was a Protestant, and could occupy a position of neutrality among his Moslem, Orthodox, and Catholic subjects. He was a German, and could not be suspected of Slavic sympathies. He was a relative of the King of Rumania, and could expect powerful support in the councils of the Balkan Powers.
It would be wearisome to go into the story of Prince William's short and unhappy reign. At Durazzo, which was chosen for the capital, he quickly showed himself incapable of the rôle which a genius among rulers might have failed to play successfully. Lost in a maze of bewildering intrigues, foreign and domestic, the ruler of Albania saw his prestige, and then his dignity, disappear. He never had any real authority. He had been forced upon the Albanians. They did not want him. The Powers who had placed him upon the throne did not support him. In the spring, the usual April heading, "Albania in Arms," appeared once more in the newspapers of the world. Up to the outbreak of the European war, when Albania was "lost in the shuffle," almost daily telegrams detailed the march of the insurgents upon Durazzo, the useless and fatal heroism of the Dutch officers of the gendarmerie, the incursions of the Epirote bands in the south, and the embarrassing position of the international forces still occupying Scutari. What the Albanians really wanted, none could guess, much less they themselves!
The European war, in August, 1914, enabled the Powers to withdraw gracefully from the Albanian fiasco. Their contingents hurriedly abandoned Scutari, and sailed for home. The French did not have time to do this, so they went to Montenegro. Since the catastrophe, to prevent which they had created Albania, had fallen upon Europe, what further need was there for the Powers to bother about the fortunes of Prince William and his subjects? Italy alone was left with hands free, and her interests were not at stake, so long as Greece kept out of the fray. For Prince William of Wied, Italy felt no obligation whatever.
Without support and without money, there was nothing left to Prince William but to get out. He did not have the good sense to make his withdrawal from Albania a dignified proceeding. The palace was left under seals. The Prince issued a proclamation which would lead the Albanians to believe that it was his intention to return. It may be that he thought the triumph of the German and Austrian armies in the European war would mean his re-establishment to Durazzo. But after he was once again safely home at Neu-Wied, he did what he ought to have done many months before. A high-sounding manifesto announced his abdication, and wished the Albanians Godspeed in the future. After this formality had been accomplished, the former Mpret of Albania rejoined his regiment in the German army, and went out to fight against the French.
With Prince William of Wied and the international corps of occupation gone, the Albanians were left to themselves. At Durazzo, a body of notables, calling themselves the Senate, adopted resolutions restoring the Ottoman flag and the suzerainty of the Sultan, invited Prince Burhaneddin effendi, a son of Abdul Hamid, to become their ruler, and solemnly decreed that hereafter the Turkish language should be restored to its former position as the official language of the country.
But Essad pasha thought otherwise. The psychological moment, for which he had been waiting ever since his surrender of Scutari to the Montenegrins, had come. In the first week of October, he hurried to Durazzo with his followers, had himself elected head of a new provisional government by the Albanian Senate, and announced openly that his policy would be to look to Italy instead of to Austria for support. After rendering homage to the Sultan as Khalif, asking the people to celebrate the happy spirit of harmony which now reigned throughout Albania, and prophesying a new era of peace and prosperity for Europe's latest-born independent state, the former gendarme of Abdul Hamid entered the palace, broke the seals of the international commission, and went to sleep in the bed of Prince William of Wied.
One wonders whether the new ruler of Albania will have more restful slumbers than his predecessor. In spite of all protests, Greece is still secretly encouraging the Epirotes in their endeavour to push northward the frontier of the Hellenic kingdom. Italy has two army corps at Brindisi waiting for a favourable moment to occupy Valona. The Montenegrins and Servians are planning once more to reach the Adriatic through the valleys of the Boyana and Drin, after they have driven the Austro-Hungarian armies from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only an Austrian triumph could now save Albania from her outside enemies. But could anything save her from her inside enemies? When I read of Essad Pasha in Durazzo, self-chosen Moses of his people, there comes back to me a conversation with the leading Moslem chieftain of Scutari, whose guest I had the privilege of being, in his home in the summer of 1913. When I mentioned Essad pasha, he rose to his feet before the fire, waved his arms, and cried out: "When I see Essad, I shall shoot him like a dog!"