The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1912. THE WAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 43, 14 October 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1912. THE WAR.

: , (,'fiUjvH ‘' r-i-4444-l ! m onwii y.ui > 'Tile" very unprbfitffbte 'war hotfriigiiig between the'Balkan arid'Turkey is as regrettable, ps jtmppeared iiieviG able. 1 1 Those. who 1 know the. situation inost thoroughly declare that' if the, States \yiu in their contest against .their .hereditary foe they will 'gain ■nothing, and if they lose, their punishment will, be heavy ii; i Though the masr sacres credited to the Turkish soldiery from'time to time have been enough to cause any people , to revolt, it has to be remembered that no love has been lost between the rival states* and their quarrels with each other have been nearly as ferocious as the quarrel each separate State has with Turkish rule and oppression. Macedonia and Albania are at this time provinces of the Turkish Empire, but both professedly desire autonomy while Servia and Bulgaria have altogether different views, each desiring to incorporate a great portion of the Albanian province in their own territory. Macedonia’s plight is affirmed to be even worse, for those who are most familiar with these turbulent peoples aver that an autonomous State populated by Bulgarians, Serbs, and Greeks, would merely be another name for pandemonium, and that what the three nationalities really desire is the partition of Macedonia between them, on the basis of their respective populations in the province. Such a partition could never be effected without great trouble and bloodshed, and from what has been made public it appears that the Great Powers have no intention of permitting such cutting up of the province any more than it has, at present, any intention of permitting the disintegration of Turkey. With the deposing of the Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1908, and the assumption of power by the constitutional government, it was anticipated that the days of Turkish misrule and atrocity in Macedonia had passed. But these horrors have gone on just the same, and changes of administration have done nothing to improve the situation. The expressed determination of the European Powers to keep out of the present conflict may stand, but there are indications that Russia and Austria—both possessing predominant interests in the Balkan Peninsula—may possibly be driven to take part in the struggle, ft is stated with authority that the Serbs and Bulgarians have the open sympathy and scarcely disguised support of their fellow Slavs in Russia. There are also some twelve million Slavs in the Austrian Empire, who are probably of like mind, and a conflict between Slav and Teuton with the great forces of each opposed in a death struggle is not outside the bounds of possibility now that the war torch has been kindled in the Balkans. A war at present limited to Turkey and the Balkan States is certainly raging: if it goes no further than that

it can do little towards solving one of Europe’s greatest and most troublesome problems.