The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors
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scattered element are the Gypsies; they are especially numerous in Bulgaria and Serbia. These people are the lowest in their standard of living and culture of all the Balkan races. All of them speak Turkish, but their natural tongue differs from any other Balkan dialect. Among themselves they are known as "Copts," which would rather indicate a comparatively recent Egyptian origin. However, as they are absolutely of no significance, either politically or in any other sense, they need not be considered further.
Rumania, though not properly a Balkan State, has played some part in Balkan politics. The Danube forms not only a political, but a natural boundary, between Bulgaria and Rumania. Along either of their respective banks the population is solidly Bulgarian or Rumanian; there has been comparatively little mixing. Though Rumania boasts of a distinct cultured class, and her larger cities, especially Bucharest, present all the physical appearances of a higher order of civilization, on account of the longer period of independence enjoyed from the Turk, it is doubtful if the Rumanian people as a whole possess the hardy qualities of the Serbians and Bulgars. At any rate the level of education among the peasantry is much lower. In race the Rumanians are of Latin blood with some admixture of Slavic. As has been stated elsewhere, they extend as a people up into Transylvania and Bukowina in Austria, and into the Russian province of Bessarabia.
As will now be seen, the Slavs, including both Bulgars and Serbs, form the predominating element in the Balkans. Yet, in spite of the similarity between their speech, they differ strongly in temperament, as has already been stated. Possibly it is because of the mixture of Asiatic blood in the Bulgars. The Bulgar, slow, heavy, inclined to be morose and suspicious of all strangers, does not give so pleasant a first impression. The Serb is light-hearted, inclined to be frivolous, and is much more adaptable. Give the Bulgar a patch of ground and he will immediately plant vegetables; the Serb will devote at least some of it to flowers. Then will come the Greek trader and make a fatter profit out of the product of their toil than either of them.
But what is of especial political significance, in considering these various Balkan peoples, is the mutual distrust and hatred that exists between them, sown and sedulously fostered by outside powers. For had they been able to weld themselves into one people, one nation, they would have been able to withstand the aggressive intentions of both Austria and Russia, presented a solid front to both those powers, and able to maintain the independence and peace in the Balkans, and, very possibly, no great war at present.
The Turk is universally hated, but he is not despised. Except when his fanaticism is aroused there is no better neighbor than the Turk, he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover, he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor is he at all underhand—he never makes a good spy.
The Greek, and more especially the Greek who lives on Turkish soil, has not possessed these qualities. He has accepted and bent to the Turk, and in his rôle of a willing slave, he has played a very questionable part toward the other Christian peoples. However, there is a political reason for his unpopularity.
On account of his acceptance of Turkish rule the Greek was allowed special privileges. The Turks acknowledged the Greek Church as the representative of all the Christian peoples under their rule. This gave the patriarch of the Greek Church not only a spiritual but a temporal authority over the Bulgars and the Serbs, as well as over his own people, a power which was backed by Turkish troops.
Putting aside those frantic outbursts of barbarity against the Christian inhabitants of his country, of which the Turk has frequently been guilty, yet never has he been so oppressive as the Greek patriarch. Given power over the Slav population, the patriarch used it to its limit. Not only did he tax them oppressively to support a church with which they had no sympathy, but he used all efforts to stamp out every little spark of national feeling that had survived the centuries of Turkish rule. He forced Greek teachers on their children, and finally he made it a crime for any Slav to be heard speaking his own tongue. It was the aim to make all Turkish Christians into Greeks, and to attain this end no means was too severe. Later, some years before the liberation of Bulgaria, the sultan gave the Bulgars the right to establish a church of their own. And then, when he could no longer employ Turkish troops to force adherence to his church, the patriarch did not hesitate to organize secret bands of terrorists to take their place. And this policy was followed up until just before the First Balkan War, then resumed with renewed ferocity afterward in the territory acquired after the Second Balkan War.
Between the Serbs and the Bulgars the hatred may be very intense at this present moment on account of the Second Balkan War and because King Ferdinand, helped by Austria and Germany, has at last accomplished his long-prepared ambition to crush Serbia. When Bulgar meets Serb they naturally fraternize. The prejudice between them is really artificial. It has been partly created and wholly fanned into flame by the governing cliques for political reasons. In fact, it may be said that all these hatreds would gradually die out were it not for the artificial irritation that has been kept up by the governing cliques of the respective states. The fact that they could all combine against the Turks in the First Balkan War seems evidence enough that union is not impossible, if only the various kings and their supporters would suppress their personal ambitions and greed and consider the welfare of their respective people as of the first importance.
CHAPTER XIII
BULGARIA
The present war is the logical sequel of the successive scenes of the drama enacted in the Balkan theatre. And though original causes may be found still farther back in history, by beginning with the liberation of Bulgaria, the whole story may be fairly well unfolded. All students of Balkan history are fairly well agreed on the point that the Treaty of Berlin is responsible for most of the troubles that have come since.
At that time in 1877 Turkey still controlled all of the Balkan Peninsula except Greece, including Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Rumania. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro, however, were only nominally part of Turkey, since they were allowed to have their own ruling princes and enjoyed almost complete independence. The Bulgars were still governed by Turkish pashas, and were in no way allowed to participate in their own government.
For many years there had been revolutionary activities among them, whose aim was to prepare and stir up the peasants to active revolt against the rule of the Turks. It was part of Russia's policy to encourage these conspirators, for a strong revolutionary uprising might always be the opportunity for intervention and ultimate annexation.
In the spring of 1876 a slight uprising took place under the leadership of some schoolmasters, some of whom had been educated in Russia and had there imbibed the Panslavist idea: the ultimate union of all Slavs under the autocracy of the czar.
At first the uprising attracted little attention; it had occurred down in southern Rumania, not far from Philippopolis. Nor did its suppression at first attract notice, until MacGhan, the American correspondent of an English newspaper, went down to the scene of the troubles and began sending in reports to his paper, and as the European public read these descriptions in the British newspaper, their indignation rose and presently swept all over Europe in a storm of fury against the Turks.
These were what afterward became known as the Bulgarian atrocities. The villagers of Batak had been preparing for some days to join the insurrection when a force of bashi-bazouks, Turkish irregulars, under the command of Achmet Agha and Mohammed Agha arrived at the place. On the two Turkish leaders giving their word of honor that no harm should come to them, the villagers surrendered. No sooner had they laid down their arms than a general massacre of the whole population began; not only the men, but women and children were tortured, outraged, and hacked to pieces. When a British commission appeared on the scene two months later to investigate, the little village church was still piled up to the windows with the corpses of those that had fled there for sanctuary. Skulls with gray hairs still attached to them, tresses which had once adorned the heads of young girls, and the rotting limbs of small children were mingled in one gruesome heap. It is said that the Ottoman High Commissioner, who was sent by the Turkish Government with the British