THE NEW MAP OF THE BALKANS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 144, 13 March 1919, Page 5

THE NEW MAP OF THE BALKANS

RECONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS BULGARIA, THE PARVENU (By the "Christian Science Monitor's" Spccial Balkan Correspondent.) Throughout history the territories of the Balkan Peninsula and those bordering. on the Aegean Sea have occupied a position of supreme importance. In ancient and medieval times supremacy in the Near East was the symbol of imperial might; the mineral resources of the peninsula contributed largely to the wealth of Rome and Byzantium, and for centuries, it ivas the nervo centre of the world's commerce. But, above all, it was vnlue'd os the gTeat commercial communication between East and West. Kight down to the Sixteenth Century the treasures of the Orient were exchanged for the i.ierchqndise of tho Occident along busj' caravan routes, which stretched from the Eastern Mediterranean across Asia Minor; and from. Belgrade through the Balkan Peninsula and Constantinople and on to the Persian Gulf. Down to the Sixteenth Century! And then the intercourse ceased. It. has.been, the destiny of' the THirks to ■ blight almost every organism which came under their influence. - And so it was in the case of this enormous traffic between Europ° and Asia.. The Ottoman conquest blocked the contemporary interchange, and it was due very largely to this development that Western Europe set off in quest of new loutes and new and that res power became the dominating force in politics and commercb.' 1 In particular, it is to tho ensuing search for a; new way to the East that wo owe the discovery (if the Cane route by Vasco da Gama in IJ9S. Tho Mediterranean cities then lost their nri6tine importance, and it was not until five centuries later, a.s a result of the cutting of the Suez Canal and the consequent restoration of !. Mediterranean route, that they began to >e*ain their old .nosihon. 1 Within rtcent years, ug tho Bagdad Jteilway approached its .completion.' (ho land route has been steadily regainin,® its quondam importance. It is at Hst significant that the railway from Bel-1 grade through Constantinople to the Persian Gulf follows verv clnselv the old caravan track; significant'!also that German ambition to control the new land communications between East and West Should have been the cause of the great-e.-t wn,r in history. Aiirl it is interesting to note that the rearrival of ,the Serbian Army at Nish did more than .f,™..™ dawn of ueace. \lt meant that ,the power of Germany, like the power of ancient Rome, was finally brokenin tin Balkans. c " n P° ss iW ? i in the course of this discussion, to dip very deeply into the past history of. the ncninsula. Sufit to say that it has been tho battle-' wound of nations since the dawn of historv. : Many, of its vicissitudes may be easily explained. As has* already 'been pointed put, it was tho highroad between the East and West. It .was in turn the centre of world power and the symbol' of world power, It was, and is, open to easy invasion from either Europe or Asia. and. as a result, in' the Middle Arm, as now, it was peopled by a welter of wees.- One-man empires \ rose and lell in historically rapid succession; but there never was and possibly never will be. any organised State permanently exliila " sway | over tho entire peninDanger Zona of Europe. ■ TM> fact is very largely due to physicil causes.\ The Balkan Peninsula is essentially, a land of mountains; but, even so, its centre, is occupied by a paramount triangular, massif, with its angles at Bffcrade, Salonika, and Constants naple respectively. Tho .main communications skirt its foothills, .so to speak; there is no main thoroughfare across it. liius thi3 massif divides the peoples of the peninsula and renders the creation of any centralised State practically impossible. It may be argued that' in some instances geography, sharply conflicts juh ethnography j but the fact remains that some geographical features necessarily exercise a decisive influence -upon political construction. Geography haß so ordained that ■ Serbia's only satisfactory outlet to the Adriatic must pass through lands ethnologically Albnnian. Geography, again, has erected a barrier between the Bulgars and Macedonia, and provided a corridor between Belgrade and Salonika. * • The Balkan Peninsula has often been described as 'The Danger Zone of r iUlop ?' ' lls application might have been inshfied simply by the aftermath createu bV'the. successive incursions of omerent tribes and races; but, as a matter of fact, the danger springs from infernal and external causes, and often from a combination of both. Internal dispute has arisen from the conflicting claims of divers nations. You c °nfi:onted with a comparatively small tract, of territory inhabited by weeks herbs, Albanians. Vlachs, anil Tartar-Mongols or,-Bulgars; Greeks, herbs. and Bulbars have all held swty over,the peninsula; all of them were sul> dued bv the Ottoman invasion.. And tlifi retrogression of the Turk precipitated what may bo described as a scramble for nossessjon of the lands thus liberated. The purely external causes of conflict were, cf course, occasioned by the 6truggle between Austria and Russia to secure sredominance in the peninsula. For manv years there seemed little hope that tho Balkan States would be capable of maintaining an independent, existence. Indeed, from a geographical point of view, the'chances were, all against .this solution. -Austria had long sought an outlet on the .Aeg"an Sea. and . Russian pretensions' to Constantinople persisted nntil a recent date. Despite the treaty concluded with tho Haosburgs by Catherine the Great in the eighteenth Century, whereby the'Balkans were divided, into spheres of .influence, here followed a tmr-of-war between the two autocracies, and •it was the.'misfortune of the Balkan principalities that they were used as pawns in the game. In kter years pan-G«r-mnnism, which desinvl to use the oeninnila as a bridge between ,tl"> Central Empires and Turkey, sowed trouble in the Balkan lands with a heavy hand, and. whereas Russia l<»d scored in her duel with Austria, she betran to lo«s ground when Germany came on the scene. Rapacious Powers. The combination of internal and external causes, or, in, other words, the exploitation of the Balkan States by T?u=«ia and Austria,, respectively, provoked f hn most important of the Balkan wars. TV r.xamnle. it wa« nt the inrtige'-ion of Austria that Serbia attacked Bulgaria in 1885. Th» conflict if 1878 was occasioned by the Russian effoH to secure pos-es-eion of Constantinople, and it was in an attempt to -score off A tisiria that PetronTad drew tlie "Big BiilkHo" as outlined in tho Treaty of Sin Stefann. "Hi* war of 1913 was precipitated l>v Bulgaria, at the instigation of Austria, who d«iml to sfrancle Serbia—a country which, since accession of TCin<r Peter-, in 1903. had followed a Russonhile policy. Arnwddon itself cn">mencc'l with Austria's attempt to annihilate Serbia, and Bi'lffaria's : nferv«n fl on followed a pact with th° Central Enmirof, It is obvious, therefore, that fh»,T!alVan Stntrs themselves are not entirely to blame for the refutation, thev possess in 'Western Enroo->. Thev .haro h°en. ! n Inw meafure. the victims of the rapacity of "r°it T>nwers. Before Hi» setting out to diccirs be advisnbl" to nscerta'n the cause of Past internal friction. Tf fli|; on iisi> »!>n be located and removal. wp shall be in a. far "-ay to n=t-Mish those ''ormonious relations w'>Hi are essential +o the ocoe of Hie Balkans in """Hcii. lar an'l f,, ° world 'in peneral. Nnw. a groat deal tor. much has bepn written fiH said concerninsr the aliped irrfoncllrV'.'t T p f t-h- TWI-nn States. As a matter of fact, there has 1 , i;u«. lWTveon fnnr nit nf t l '" fi\-p Ralknn ki~""'orr,?. Grepco. Serb'i. Ttiini"ni\ and Montenegro readilv adjusted thei' ambitions, and fin n°;' cent, of the trouhle during the past, decad» can bo traced to the inordinate am. Mtion of BuVaria. With the possihle PTcep'ion of 'Rumania's desire to secu r e f?|p Southern Pohniia, it is not th? fact that. Bulgaria was regarded in 1913

|lis a bear's skin ripe for division. All the local nations were following up the Ottoman retrogression; all were advancing into the vacuum created by the disappearance of the Turk from Europe. The Balkan question is very largely the Bulgarian question. Greece, Serbia, aad Rumania will go to the Peace Conference with a common programme, without rival claims. Therefore, when Bulgaria has been settled, the Balkans will have been battled. What were the motives which dictated Bulgaria's attitude in tho conflicts of , 1912, 1913, and 1915? The war of 1912 was regarded in Western Europe, as in Greece aad Serbia, as a war of liberation, a holy crusade. - All the parties to the Balkan League were to work for'the common object of freeing the Christians of Macedonia from the Turkish thrall. But we have since learned that Bulgaria embarked on a war of conquest. 31. Gueshoff, the Bulgarian statesman who negotiated the treaties, has confessed not only that Bulgaria aimed at the creation of the Bulgaria of San Stefano, but that she made use of Serbia to serve her own ends. .This, of course, was a vastly different ideal from that which governed the acts of the other parties to the alliance. It was an ideal which, had it not been carefully concealed during the pourparlers, would havo: stifled the Balkan Le'ague at birth. Small wonder that the outcome was unsatisfactory. ' There was nothing in the nature of a holy crusade about the conflict of 1913. In this case Bulgaria, on her own confession, mado ■ a clear bid to secure the ' hegemony of the Balkan Peninsula, To this end she sought and obtained a promise of Anstrian assistance, and rendered abortive all Russians attempts to settle the'dispute by arbitration. But for the ungovernable avarice ,of Bulgaria there would have been no Second Balkan War. Had she subscribed to tho ideals whioh in the main controlled tlio policy of her neighbours, the Balkan League misflit have been transformed into a confederation. Similarly, in 1915 it was territorial rapacity which persuaded Bulgaria to throw in her lot with the Central Powers and attack Serbia. Had she been more tractablo it would not have been difficult to form, a, new Balkan League, j encompassing Serbia, Montenegro, Greece. Bulgaria, and ivhich would speedily have reduced the German Empires and Turkey to impotence. Bulgaria the Obstacle, Wo, are obliged, therefore, to regard Bulgaria as the obstacle to Balkan harmony, and whether we desire to establish in South-eastern Europe a Balkan confederation which shall be the counterpart to a League of Nations, or merely wish to remove future causes of frictio;i and erect a rampart, against possible German aggression, it is obvious that Bulgaria must either be nquared_ or rendered ( powerless. There is no middle course. In the absence of a complete change of | heart and a full and frank renunciation \ of the imperialistic tendencies which have ; thus far controlled her pplicy, it must be made/impossiblo for her again to provoke her neighbours. . In the near future there , will lie heard a great deal more about Bulgaria's desire for so-called "national unity." Her statesmen make no secret of their determination to obtain e.t the pence table what they have lost upon' the battlefield. The Allies will he told that the Serbian Morava, Macedonia, Kavalla, Eastern Thrace, and the Dobnija _am Bulgarian, and .regaled with the divers arguments carefully adapted to each individual .pretension. And the Allies will be invited to gratify the lust of a country which lias fought against them, and • to [which may be attributed the responsibility for the, greatest of their misfortunes, at the expe.ise of friends who have sacrificed their all for tho common cause. It is, then,' necessary, to examine'Buigaria's'claims in some detail. There is no difficulty in obtaining' exact information thereon. For many vears she'has conducted a well-organised propaganda in Europe and America, so that there remain few, if any, original considerations to be set forth. > ■ Not only may tho arguments which are advanced bo observed, but the extension which Bulgaria's aspirations have undergone from, time to time. The Bulgarian nation is a parvenu nation, and it is one of the characteristics of the parvenu that his desires have a tendency to centre upon things which'appear to be most easily obtainable c,t a given moment. •Thus •Bulgaria- -has- always coveted the territories which seem to her to be most easily appropriated. Sometimes Macedonia is the most aidently wislied-for; on other occasions Turkish Thrace; . again, Kavalla, or the Serbian Morava.