Interference by the Great Powers in Balkan affairs has always been disastrous, because it has been selfish. M. Hartwig may have considered the Serbs as little brothers, but he used them as an advanced guard of Pan-Slavism without regard for their real interests or preparedness for the task. Like the Russian Military Attaché, he thought that the victories of Kumanovo and Monastir had brought about “la liquidation de l’Autriche,” and that in future Russia alone would control the Balkan situation. He was wrong, and his and Servia’s mistaken policy gave Austria-Hungary her opportunity.
The reaction of policy in strategy soon became manifest. In spite of the fact that a Turkish Army, led by Djavid Pasha (the best of Turkey’s generals), was still in being, all active operations were suspended, and the Serbian forces were distributed throughout the conquered territory and became an army of occupation. Monastir, renamed Bitolja, was held by a garrison consisting exclusively of Serbs, the civil administration was taken over by Serbian officials.
Monastir had become a part of Serbia, and a very unhappy part at that. The reasons were not far to seek—the population was not Servian, 78[6] per cent. of the inhabitants of the vilayet were Bulgars, and of the rest only a small proportion were Serbs. Ruthless repression of every institution or business which did not profess a Servian origin only served to embitter popular feeling, and reveal the real facts of the situation. Ignorance of the Servian language was counted as a crime; publicans and other comparatively innocuous traders were flogged for infringing decrees published in Servian which they could not understand. Twelve lashes applied by an athletic gendarme are, no doubt, a powerful incentive to learning foreign languages, but many residents so mistrusted their linguistic talents that, rather than face a second lesson, they left their homes, preferring the lot of refugees to tyranny and persecution. Monastir was a town in torment, lamentations resounded in the Consulates of all the Great Powers, the publicans were not alone in regretting the departure of the backward but tolerant Turk.
In the army of occupation, although discipline was strictly maintained, a revulsion of feeling had taken place. The poor in every Balkan State were suffering, as they always do, on them had fallen the burden of the war, shorn of its bloody splendour. The misery in Macedonia sickened the Servian peasants, they feared for their own homes, and deserted in large numbers. Armies are not machines, they are dynamic bodies whose health depends on action, kept stationary amid a strife of tongues they melt away.
The Greeks had won the race for Salonika without much bloodshed, it was said that the Turkish military governor had sold the town for 300,000 francs. The Bulgars arrived a few hours after the triumphal entry of the Greek troops. They were received coldly, like unwelcome visitors. The Serbs were greeted more cordially, but as guests rather than Allies.
At all Ægean ports the sea breezes compete unsuccessfully with unsavoury odours, resulting from insanitary conditions, dried fish and garlic; Salonika was no exception to the rule, but at the time of my arrival the moral atmosphere was even more unwholesome. Greeks, Serbs and Bulgars jostled each other in the narrow streets, proclaiming by their presence the downfall of Turkish rule in Macedonia. Yet, though success was sweet, its aftermath had turned to bitterness. Something had been smashed, something they had all feared and hated; and now they were face to face with one another, the broken pieces in their hands, themselves a prey to envy, greed, and, worst of all, uncertainty. The Balkan Allies were writhing in the net of an alliance concluded secretly, its clauses were known only to a chosen few, who dared not to tell the truth. Each nation had its version of the Treaty, twisting the facts to suit its special interests. Brawls occurred daily in the streets between the Allied soldiers, their leaders wrangled in hotels. Many wealthy Turks had remained, they wore the look of men who, if not over-honest, still hoped, when the thieves fell out, to come into their own again.
Greece claimed Salonika on the ground of prior occupation; Bulgaria demanded that the port and its hinterland should be under the same administration, or, in other words, her own; Servia had no direct interest in Salonika, but clung doggedly to Monastir, in spite of the Treaty.
The Greek and Bulgarian Governments then in power were anxious to reach a settlement, but neither Government dared abate its claims; public opinion in both Greece and Bulgaria was supposed to be against concessions, because some organs of the Press had said it was so. A curious illusion this, though prevalent in every country. In the Balkans many important papers were subsidized with foreign money, yet still were believed to voice the views of peasants who could neither read nor write.
Colonel G—— P——, while discussing the possibility of obtaining ammunition from the Western Powers through Salonika, had suggested that the port should be internationalized. This was, of course, the only practical solution of the problem; but coming from a Serb it would have had more weight if it had been accompanied by a promise to surrender Monastir. Unfortunately, no such surrender, either immediate or prospective, was within the sphere of practical politics. M. Gueshoff, the Bulgarian Prime Minister, went so far as to offer to leave the town and a part of Macedonia to the Serbs until the Servian aspirations in other directions should have been gratified. An agreement to this effect was reached during a private meeting with M. Pasitch, but it came to naught; neither Prime Minister could control the sinister forces which worked like a poisonous leaven in their countries, and were rapidly wrecking the Balkan “Bloc.”
By the middle of December, 1912, it had become evident that no peaceful settlement of the Macedonian question was possible if the Balkan States were left to their own devices. Collective intervention by the Great Powers was precluded by the attitude of at least three among them, who were deliberately exploiting the rivalry of the Balkan Allies, and hoped to fish in troubled waters.