Farewell to Dedo ’Mitri and promises to return, farewells and much handshaking to all the assembled village, a discriminate distribution of small copper coins, a courtly salute from the priest, and we turned our horse’s head towards the mountains whence we came.
Slower than ever was our progress, as Vasil in his sleep was constantly falling off the back seat, and the horse, once stopped, was loath to move on again. The whip-lash was lost for ever, yet there was the broad road up into the mountains all before us.
We left Vasil and his conveyance in the road and turned afoot into a track which used to be the only means of communication in earlier days. A very unsafe one too, for it offered splendid opportunities to those who pursue guerilla warfare. Here and there were masses of boulders whence marksmen could command the track and then vanish in the impenetrable forests.
Dedo ’Mitri knows them well, that track, those piles of rock that offer cover to the sniper, those giants of the forest, and the thick undergrowth that covered his retreat. But Dedo ’Mitri no longer goes to see his old acquaintances the rocks and forest trees. His country is free, free as the wind that howls on wintry nights up the valley to join chorus with the wolves. From mountain and valley, from town and village, the Crescent had faded away to the south, and Bulgaria, a strong young kingdom, forced its way out of Turkish oppression. They are old men now, those who are left, who like Dedo ’Mitri spent the best years of their life in the cause of freedom. But the story has never been forgotten, the traditions of Bulgaria’s former greatness live strong in a regenerate Bulgaria. The sons of Bulgaria looked down from the Rhodope Mountains, over the rolling plains, their gaze bent on Constantinople, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar. They have knocked at the gates of that City before.
With consummate skill Tsar Ferdinand kept his plans secret while the Balkan League was forming to overthrow the last of Ottoman power in Europe. For many years all Bulgaria had been preparing for this great stroke, arming, organizing, making sacrifices as a nation must do when in pursuit of a high ideal, so when the moment came it found a strong people, trained to arms, determined to snatch success from before the cannon’s mouth and crown its standards with laurel victory. With a possible war strength of over three hundred thousand men and four hundred and fifty guns Bulgaria stood ready to take the field.
The massacres of Kochana gave impetus to the avalanche which was ready to descend over the hills and vales of Thrace. Bulgaria had been making steady propaganda in Macedonia and had drawn within the folds of its nationality a great number of those nondescripts, Slavs, who form the major portion of the inhabitants of that quondam Turkish province. This propaganda was actively supported by the Bulgarian Church under its enlightened high-priest, His Beatitude Joseph, Exarch of Bulgaria.
I first met the Exarch some years ago while on a visit to Bulgaria. His Beatitude had left Constantinople, where the interests of his flock in Macedonia require that he should reside, and was taking a holiday in a remote village near Sofia, a village nestling among the mountain range of Vitosa, by the banks of a mountain torrent along which a broad military road leads to the Turkish frontier. We discussed the state of Macedonia, and though I may not divulge all that was said to me, I gained an even higher opinion of Bulgarian thoroughness and efficiency. We also discussed the schism between the Greek and Bulgarian sections of the Orthodox Church; this is a purely political matter, and was freely used by the Porte to foster racial animosity in Macedonia. When the Greeks gained their independence the Bulgarians of Macedonia were encouraged to build schools and were allowed to endow several new bishoprics; when the Greeks were temporarily disabled by the war of 1898 the Porte thought fit to persecute the Bulgarians of Macedonia, assisted in this by Pomaks, Bulgarians converted to Islam some centuries ago. The Turks overdid this policy, and their measures only served to crystalize the different non-Turk racial and religious elements of Macedonia. Bands of comitadjis were formed, they assisted nationalist propaganda by primitive methods, and finally, the Porte being weakened by revolution and the vacillations of a farcical Parliament terrorized by esoteric militarism, strengthened the arms of those who sought freedom from Turkish rule.
The occasion arose over the massacres of Kotchana, which sent a wave of fierce indignation over Bulgaria. Reforms in Macedonia and the punishment of those concerned in the outrages were demanded by Tsar Ferdinand and refused by the Porte, which, feeling itself strong enough and ignoring the strength and stability of the Balkan Alliance, declared war on Bulgaria. Forthwith the armies of Bulgaria, already assembled in battle array on the frontier, poured into Thrace and overran that province, driving the Ottoman forces before it.
War was declared by Turkey against Bulgaria and Servia on October 17th, on the same day Greece sent a similar declaration to the Porte. Then the highly organized forces of the Allies marched. While the Greek navy put to sea to capture islands in the Ægean and invaded Turkey from the south, the Bulgarians entered Thrace in three columns under the Tsar and General Savof, General Hanof capturing Kurt Kalé and Mustapha Pasha on October 18th. On the following day Turkish cruisers made a futile attempt on the Bulgarian coast, bombarding Varna and destroying an inoffensive monastery. By this day all the four Allies had invaded Turkish territory. The mountain passes were in the hands of the Bulgarians by October 20th, and the army marching on Adrianople; Adrianople, where the Bulgars had vanquished Emperor Nicephorus and his troops by the banks of the Maritza in 811.
While in the west the Servian army was continuing its victorious march on Üsküb, while the Montenegrin northern army under Prince Danilo moved from Berane to the capture of Plava and Gusinje, and their southern army commenced the siege of Scutari by attacking Tarabosh, the Bulgarian armies drove the Turks from the Arda River west of Adrianople, and General Dimitrief completed the easterly turning movement by attacking the Ottoman forces at Kirk Kilisse. Here the battle raged to and fro with varying success until the Turks, under Abdullah Pasha, were finally routed on October 24th. At the same time Bulgarian troops occupied Vasiliko on the Black Sea; the Servians, under General Yankovitch, had already captured Prishtina on the 20th, and others commanded by General Ziskovitch had entered Kralovo and Novi Bazar. On the day which witnessed the defeat of Abdullah Pasha at the hands of General Dimitrief at Kirk Kilisse, the Servians, led by their Crown Prince in person, won the decisive battle of Kumanovo.