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 Were the Turkish flag withdrawn, {320} they would fly at each other's throats, and instead of reform, you would have anarchy."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 {321} 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 {322} 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 {323} 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. {324} 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 {325} 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. {326} 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 {327} 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, {328} 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.

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