THE FINAL SETTLEMENT
King Charles of Roumania now took the opportunity to demand this territory, and when his demand was refused by Ferdinand of Bulgaria he marched an army across the Danube and took the Bulgarians, exhausted by their recent struggle, in the rear. No battles were fought. The Roumanian army advanced until within thirty miles of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, and Ferdinand was obliged to appeal for peace, and in the subsequent treaty yielded to Roumania the tract desired, which served to round out the frontier on the Black Sea.
Another unexpected event took place. While her late foes were struggling in a war of their own, Turkey quietly stepped into the arena, and on July 20th retook possession, without opposition, of Adrianople, Bulgaria’s great prize in the late war.
A peace conference was held at Bukarest, capital of Roumania, beginning July 30th, and framing a treaty, signed on August 10th.
This provided for the evacuation of Bulgaria by the invading armies, and also for a division of the conquered territory. Bulgaria gained the largest amount of territory, though less than she had claimed. Greece retained the important seaport of Salonica, the possession of which had been hotly disputed, and gained the largest sea front. Montenegro, though deprived of the much-coveted Scutari, was assigned part of northern Albania and the Turkish sanjak of Novibazar, adjoining on the east, considerably increasing her diminutive territory.
Servia had most reason to be dissatisfied with the result, in view of her craving for an opening to the sea. Cut off by Albania on the west, it sought an opening on the south, demanding the city of Kavala, on the Aegean Sea. But to this Greece strongly objected, as that city, one of the great tobacco marts of the world, was inhabited almost wholly by Greeks. Servia, however, extended southward far over its old territory, gaining Uskub, its old capital. And the Powers also agreed that it should have commercial rights on the Mediterranean, thorough railroad connection with Salonica.
As regards Turkey’s shrewd advantage of the opportunity to retake Adrianople, it proved a successful move. The Russian press strongly advocated that the Turks should be ejected, but the jealousy of the Powers prevented any agreement as to who should do this and in the end the Turks remained, with a considerable widening of the tract of land before assigned to them.
In these wars it is estimated that 358,000 persons died, and that the cost of the two wars, to the several nations involved, reached a total of $1,200,000,000. Its general result was almost to complete the work of expelling the Turks from Europe, the territory lost by them being divided up between the several Balkan nations.
Chapter XIX.
METHODS IN MODERN WARFARE
Ancient and Modern Weapons—New Types of Weapons—The Iron-clad Warship—The Balloon in War—Tennyson’s Foresight—Gunning for Airships—The Submarine—Under-water Warfare—The New Type of Battleship—Mobilization—The Waste of War
One hundred years ago the Battle of Waterloo had just been fought and Napoleon’s star had set never to rise again. For years he had swept Europe with his armies, rending the nations into fragments, and winning world-famous victories with weapons that no one would look for today except in a military museum, weapons antiquated beyond all possible utility on a modern field of battle.