The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors
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who had been and were being oppressed by the Turks; that they were freed from this oppression was merely incidental, though it was the pretext for much of the warfare during this long period. But each of these two great powers coveted the Balkan peninsula. To Austria Saloniki would be an excellent seaport opening out on the Mediterranean, for the Adriatic was dominated by Italy. Russia, on her part, had her eyes on the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which would offer her an opening into the Mediterranean, to which she had no access at all. Added to that, the people of the Balkans were Slavs, blood kindred of the Russians, and could speedily be made into loyal subjects of the czar. Such was the situation which gradually evolved; which became more and more acute as the Turks retreated into the Balkan peninsula proper, across the Danube. And the first of the two grim powers to lead the pursuit down into the peninsula was Russia in 1877, when she hurled her armies over the Danube to "liberate" the Bulgars. From then on the Balkan problem demanded the most serious attention of European diplomats.
Balkan States Before the First Balkan War.
But the Balkan peoples that emerged, as the Turkish flood receded, were very different from those that had been engulfed four centuries previously. The Greeks had accepted the conquest, they bent rather than broke. Therefore the Turks had granted them special privileges. Their church and its clergy were spared and even given full spiritual authority over the other Christian peoples. But the Slavs fought stubbornly, not giving way until all their leaders were slain, and what culture they possessed was thoroughly wiped out. The Bulgars suffered especially, because they dwelt in the less mountainous regions of the peninsula. The Serbians could, occasionally, take refuge in the mountains of Montenegro, where their traditions and national spirit smoldered through the darker periods.
Just how many there were of these various peoples in the Balkans when Russia invaded the peninsula nearly forty years ago can only be left to surmise. In no country in the world has the question of population caused so much bitter dispute as in the Balkans. Because of racial and national jealousies, census figures have been deliberately padded and falsified by church and state alike. This is especially true of that part of the peninsula (Thrace and Macedonia) which was still under Turkish rule when the First Balkan War broke out in 1912. Only in what were then Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria proper were genuine census enumerations made.
Bulgaria claims to have had a population in 1910 of about 4,337,000, this being increased by half a million after the two wars. Serbia reported 2,900,000 in 1910, the new territory increasing this by more than 1,500,000. In Greece the population was 2,730,000 before the wars and then became 4,400,000. Little Montenegro contributed another 800,000 Serbs. In Albania the population has been estimated roughly at 800,000. Add all these figures together, and the result is the total population of the Balkan peninsula proper, less that which covers what was still Turkish territory when the present war broke out.
It is in the proportionate numbers of the various races and nationalities, however, that the greatest confusion and uncertainty exists. Nowhere in the world is there such an intermingling of various and differing peoples. Here official figures are especially misleading, and should be considered only within the boundaries of Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece as they were before the Balkan wars. For the peninsula as a whole the testimony or the reports of impartial foreigners who have traveled through the country is likely to be far more trustworthy.
The consensus of opinion would indicate that along the seacoast the Greeks predominate, and that they are also numerous in the large towns and cities. In the interior they are not found much north of Saloniki, and even in that city the majority of the population is Jewish. As traders, as the business elements in the cities, however, they are found even up in Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria.
In the interior there can be no doubt that the Slavs are in the vast majority over all the other peoples. The names of the smallest villages, as indicated on Austrian maps, the most trustworthy that have been made, are obviously Slavic. Down through Thrace, almost to Constantinople, over to a few miles outside Saloniki, sweeping over almost into the mountains of Albania, up to Montenegro, the people are Slavic.
The Slavs, again, are subdivided into two families: Serbs and Bulgars. And here it is more difficult to distinguish the dividing line, for although there is a marked difference between the characteristics of the two peoples, both physical and temperamental, so nearly alike are their languages that speech forms no sure guide to distinguishing, especially in Macedonia, where dialects vary with a day's travel. The trend of popular feeling seems the only guide.
The main population west of the Struma and nearly up to Saloniki are Serb, descendants of the Serbs, who were the inhabitants of the old Serb Kingdom and Empire in that region. In Thrace and east of the Struma the people are Bulgars.
Next to the Slavs in importance come the Turks, but these are nowhere found in a solid mass; they are scattered all over the peninsula, and even up into Bosnia and Herzegovina in Austria. Nowhere are they more numerous than in northern Bulgaria, along the banks of the Danube, and in the seaport cities on the Black Sea—Varna and Bourgas. The Bulgarian census figures give their number as about half a million in Bulgaria proper—about a seventh of the total population. Bulgaria, though she suffered most from the oppression and fanatical outbursts of the Turks in the old days, has always been the most tolerant. Because of this there was comparatively little emigration of the Turkish population after freedom gave the Christian majority control. Serbia reports only about 14,000 in her territory, but this is probably an underestimate. Down in Macedonia and southern Thrace the Turkish element is naturally very strong, increasing in mass toward Constantinople.
Of the minor race divisions the Albanians deserve first mention, not only because of their number, but because of their being more concentrated within a certain territory, which gives them some political significance. Though they have certain fine primitive qualities, they are not much higher in the scale of intelligence and civilization than were our North American Indians in the early days of our history. It is supposed that they are the direct descendants of the ancient Illyrians; if this be so, they have certainly not developed at all in the past two thousand years. The majority have long since accepted the Mohammedan faith of the Turks, but they differ markedly from the Turks in that they are rough in their manners, less fanatical in matters of religion, though violently prejudiced against all their Christian neighbors. Steady work of any kind is their horror. As a fighting force they can give much trouble, but they are not yet sufficiently developed to form a nation.
Next to the Albanians come the Jews. These differ very much from the Jews known to us in our American cities. They are the direct descendants of the Jews who were driven out of Spain by Torquemada during the Spanish Inquisition, and found refuge under the protection of the sultan. They still speak a curious old obsolete Spanish that can be understood by a Mexican or a Spaniard quite easily. The special privileges and the life of comparative ease which they enjoyed under Ottoman rule seems to have weakened them, for among them are not found the men of marked ability in the fields of art, science, and philosophy that may be found among the German or the Russian Jews. In Bulgaria, where the Government has given them equal rights with its Christian citizens, they number about 40,000, nearly all of them being engaged in small commercial pursuits. Farther south they increase in number. In Saloniki, now a Greek city, they form a huge majority of the total population—about 100,000 out of a mixed population of 175,000.
The Wallachs or Vlachs are another considerable portion of the Balkan population, especially in the mountain regions. They are generally considered as Rumanians, and have enjoyed the special protection of the Rumanian diplomatic agents in Turkey, but they differ somewhat from the Rumanians in Rumania proper. A gentle, peaceful people, most of them are engaged in pastoral pursuits, tending their flocks up in the mountains in the summer and coming down into the lowlands in the winter. In some places they have settled down to a civic life, as in Bersa, a town not far out of Saloniki along the Monastir railroad, where the majority of the population is Wallachian. It is said that their dialect is the nearest approach to a survival of the ancient Latin of any spoken tongue, from which it is deduced that they are the descendants of the Roman colonists that were sent by Rome into this country when it was under her rule.
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