Belgium, will henceforth be frequently invoked in the Balkans unless we find a higher sanction for the ultimate settlement than the Greco-Serbian compromise' and the Treaty of Bucarest. A very competent writer has said that

·

"The settlement of Bucarest was imposed against the teachings of equity, of ethnography and of experience in professed pursuance of a Balkan balance of power. . . . The Balkan wars and the Treaty of Bucarest have left an aftermath of wars of extermination and the seeds of future wars of annexation.'

6

The Powers, Dr Burrows truly asserts, contributed nothing to the formation of the Balkan League; and the friends of Greece and Serbia consequently maintain that they should be superseded by those States as the arbiters of the future Balkan situation. Greece, he thinks, has shewn its fitness for this high vocation by its noble spirit of self-sacrifice-it has cheerfully acquiesced in the loss of Monastir, 'the watchword of its Irredentism, the test case for the argument that town should weigh more than country in determining ethnology.' This thoroughly Hellenic town, Hellenic it seems par excellence, was visited by Sir Valentine Chirol, a high and impartial authority, in 1881. With the exception of the Archbishop and the Hellenic Consul,' he writes, 'there is scarcely a family in Monastir that can lay claim to pure Greek blood.' Another eminent authority, Sir Arthur Evans, whose Serbophil sentiments are well known, declares that the population of the town is predominantly Bulgarian and that Bulgarian is the language of the market. Mr H. N. Brailsford, who spent a long time in the Monastir district and who speaks Greek and Bulgarian, writes: The so-called Greeks of Monastir are Vlachs to a man.' The writer, who has frequently visited Monastir, can add his testimony to these pronouncements. The population of Monastir is Turkish, Bulgarian and Vlach; the genuine Greeks are few; until the Serbian occupation, when the era of colonisation and forced conversions began, there were practically no Serbs in the town.

* Nationalism and War in the Near East,' p 356.

The fate of Monastir is indeed a 'test case,' not only of Greek magnanimity, but of the vaunted equity of the Treaty of Bucarest. Another instance of both is to be found in the fate of Kavalla. Not twice in three years, as Dr Burrows supposes, but thrice was M. Venizelos ready to concede that port to Bulgaria as a necessary outlet and inlet for the commerce of the interior and a set-off to the retention of Salonika by Greece. Dr Burrows regards ethnology as a bar to the admission of Bulgaria to Kavalla, a town which before the war was pre-eminently Turkish and is now perhaps rather more 'Hellenic' than Monastir. In the Quarterly Review' of last October the present writer, while insisting on nationality as the fundamental principle of the Balkan settlement, adduced certain considerations which must also be taken into account in the interests of the various populations and the law of Europe. Among these was the right of all the nations to sufficient access to the sea; this was insisted upon in the case of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Bulgaria, and it has been recognised by the leaders of the Entente Powers in the case of Poland. The more or less cosmopolitan character of the principal seaports in the Balkan Peninsula, which is noticed by Sir Thomas Holdich in his recent work, will not be denied by those who, like the writer, have resided in most of them.

The third Treaty of Bucarest, which embodies the Serbo-Greek 'compromise' for the division of the spoil, can only be cleared of the imputation of injustice by the production of proof that Macedonia is mainly a Serbian land and that whatever is not Serbian is Greek. With regard to Macedonia a voluminous literature has appeared since 1913. Since the outbreak of the great war practically all this literary activity has been on one side, as was only to be expected; and it would be strange indeed if it had not influenced the public mind to a large degree. But partisan literature and partisan statistics cannot prevail against facts. For the scientific world the Bulgarian character of Macedonia is a chose jugée: it has been established by the testimony of a long series of eminent and impartial travellers and scientific investigators such as Leake, Pouqueville, Ami Boué, Cyprien Robert, Lejean, Tozer, Mackenzie and Irby,

Jireček, Lamouche, Weigand, Victor Bérard, Evans, Chirol and a host of others, all writing before the war and some even before the outbreak of any national controversy.

After pointing out-what most persons know that there are Bulgares' and 'Valaques grécisants' in Macedonia, Dr Burrows proceeds to 'join issue' with what he incorrectly describes as my 'main argument.' The existence of these non-Greek 'grécisants' is of course due to the ecclesiastical and educational monopoly which the Greeks enjoyed for centuries in Macedonia. Had they employed better instruments for their propaganda, their privileged position would have enabled them to hellenise the whole ignorant Christian population. With the disappearance of this monopoly the numbers of their partisans among the non-Greek populations has enormously declined. A word only need be said with regard to the official Greek figures for East Macedonia,' compiled in 1915, while that region was under Greek rule, which afford an amusing instance of how deftly the Bulgarian element is eliminated on paper as well as by other means. The Greeks, who are represented as the great majority, are divided into 'Greek-speaking Greeks (169,290) and Non-Greek-speaking' Greeks' (16,627); of the former a considerable number are unquestionably Patriarchist Bulgarians, who, in the region to which these statistics apply, are generally bilingual, Greek being the language of commerce. The Non-Greekspeaking Greeks,' a singular category, are practically all Patriarchist Bulgarians, inasmuch as there are scarcely any Vlachs or Christian Albanians in this part of the country; these Bulgarians till recently were styled 'Bulgarophone Greeks,' but the adjective 'Bulgar,' even in a compound, is now anathema. For the same reason the Exarchist Bulgarians are put down as 'Slavs' (33,255). Lastly of the so-called 'Turks' (145,857) at least half are 'Pomaks'-the Moslem Bulgarians of the Rhodope slopes.*

* In this case there is some excuse for the misnomer, as Mahometans of all nationalities, e.g. the Moslem Greeks of Crete, are commonly described as Turks.' The Serbians have similarly banned the tell-tale adjective 'Bulgarska' by which the eastern confluent of the Morava has been known from time immemorial.

The Bulgar element has been annihilated in the elections as well as in the census, not a single 'Slav' being ' returned from Macedonia as a whole to the Greek parliament'; Dr Burrows seems unaware of how elections are 'made' in these countries, even under Greek auspices. Rejecting the teaching of history, which shows that the Turks always emigrate from countries where they have ceased to be masters, he believes that they will remain in Macedonia, having experienced 'good Greek government. And yet they have emigrated in great numbers from Thessaly, where they have experienced 'good Greek government,' and where the discontent of the Moslem peasantry is notorious.

It only remains to enter an emphatic protest against Dr Burrows' assumption that the numerical superiority of the Greeks over the Bulgarians, which he regards as 'the dominant fact about the two races,' entitles them to plant their refugees from Turkey and elsewhere on Bulgarian lands. It is strange to find such a doctrine advocated by a champion of 'equilibrium.' The population of Germany is greater than that of Britain; is she therefore entitled to appropriate our colonies and to plant settlements in Kent and Sussex? An amicable exchange of lands was recommended in the October number of this Review, especially in cases where there is an overlapping of natural boundaries; but this, of course, can only take place when peace has been restored and the frontiers of the various nations fixed by impartial arbitration. It is earnestly to be hoped that, in the result, ample room will be found in Greek lands for the distressed Hellenic populations, and that at the same time King Constantine's Bulgarian victims will be restored to the homes of their forefathers.

The transition from the third Treaty of Bucarest to the fourth is short and tragic. The third Treaty, which was set up on the shreds of three repudiated compacts and proclaimed the triumph of force over right, tended to perpetuate race hatreds in the Balkans, threw Bulgaria into the arms of Germany, and directly led to the outbreak of the European War. Austria, which had done her best to kindle the war of partition, soon endeavoured to profit by the situation created by the Treaty and

invited Italy to join in an attack on Serbia. Italy refused; and the project was abandoned because Germany was not ready at the time. But Germany was ready within a year, and the murder of the Austrian heir-apparent furnished a convenient pretext for the inauguration of the grand struggle for world-domination. Serbia and Montenegro were crushed after a heroic resistance; Greece underwent a long period of humiliation, from which she was happily rescued by her geographical situation and the firmness of the maritime Powers. Of the States which imposed the predatory arrangements of 1913 she has paid the lightest penalty.

The turn of Rumania came next. Had King Charles lived for some years longer, she might have maintained her neutrality; but this, in view of the Russian collapse, would not have saved her in the end from humiliating dependence on Germany. King Charles, indeed, desired active co-operation with the Central Powers; he believed that Bulgaria would range herself on the side of the Entente, and he aimed at extracting from her another slice of territory and at getting back Bessarabia from Russia. This policy implied the sacrifice of Transylvania, but King Charles, as a German, preferred Realpolitik to nationalist ideals. He was never a chauvinist; he disapproved of the invasion of Bulgaria, and signed the order for mobilisation with tears in his eyes. After his death Rumania 'took the better part'; her gallant stand for national unity can only excite our admiration, and her misfortunes compel our sympathy, although they must be regarded as the historical consequence of past errors. She has been betrayed by the same Power which encouraged her to invade the territory of a neighbour with whom she was at peace. Bulgaria, too, has paid a heavy price for the faults of the past, for the precarious attainment of national unity cannot compensate her for her prolonged sufferings, still less for her humiliating subjection to the Central Powers. Had the Balkan States held together after the triumph of 1912 how different would be their position to-day!

*

King Charles' death, like the mysterious assassination of King George at Salonika, had an important bearing on the politics of the time. The former event left Rumania free to pursue a national policy; the latter placed Greece for the time under the control of the Kaiser.