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. {344} 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.

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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 {346} 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 {347} 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 {348} 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 {349} 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 {350} 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.

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