It is therefore a rather tragic thing that for a generation or two the public in Bulgaria has been trained to think that Macedonia is a fundamentally Bulgarian country pining for liberation. The feeling on that subject has been all the more intense because this was almost the only region that could be considered as unredeemed Bulgaria. Bulgarian patriotism could concentrate and specialize on Macedonia. Serbian feeling about the country was formerly not quite so strong, perhaps, since Serbia had so many other unredeemed kinsmen to ponder over—in Bosnia first and foremost. At any rate, since the events of the last seven years, after they have fought three wars for the possession of Macedonia, the Serbs now entertain feelings about that country that are not a bit less ardent and intransigent than those of the Bulgarians.
Those three wars—or the last two at least—can hardly be left out of the account. If before 1913 the Macedonian problem might be considered an open question, with the balance of rights inclining somewhat in favor of the Bulgarians, it would seem that today Serbia has acquired, by blood and suffering, titles that can scarcely be denied. After Bulgaria’s two perfidious attacks—the first one in 1913 so indefensible that prominent Bulgarians have since called it “an act of insane folly,” “a fratricidal crime,” and the second one in 1915 hardly less dastardly, for it was a blow in the back when Serbia was fighting for her life against the Austro-German onslaught—; after Bulgaria has conducted her wars with a savagery worthy of her allies and joined in what seems little less than a deliberate effort to exterminate the Serbian nation; after Bulgaria, in her moments of apparent triumph, has loudly announced the intention to appropriate not only Macedonia but half of the older Serbia as well; and after Serbia’s so desperate and gallant struggle and final brilliant victory—it may be all very well for the beaten Bulgar to present himself, with Wilsonian phrases to replace his old Prussian ones, and say, “Let’s have peace and make up, and you give me all we’ve been fighting for”; but it would be more than human nature could expect, or than strict justice, I think, can demand, that Serbia or her Allies should grant his request.
It is another question, of course, whether this outcome will make for permanent peace in the Balkans. Much will depend on the degree of generosity and tact that the Serbs may show in dealing with those Macedonians who have come to feel themselves Bulgars, and with the probably larger mass who as yet have no definite national consciousness of any kind. There is reasonable ground for hope, I think, that, if peace continues for a generation or so, the majority of the Macedonians can be won over by quite legitimate means to Serbian nationality.
Rather different, perhaps, is the case of another territory lost by Bulgaria at the treaty of Bucharest, and which she has again failed to recover—the Southern Dobrudja. Apart from the one city of Silistria (with 14,000 people), this small territory would seem to be of little value to anybody. It contains, however, over 100,000 Bulgarians as against only 6000 Roumanians; moreover, it is of strategic importance. Roumania’s motive for demanding it in 1913 was to protect the railway leading to her chief port, Constanza, a line which was at one point only about twenty miles from the old Bulgarian frontier. But through the cession then made, the danger was merely shifted to the other side. It is now Bulgaria’s chief Black Sea port, Varna, and the railway serving it that are menaced, for the Roumanian frontier comes within about ten miles of them. Hence the American delegation at Paris endeavored to have the frontier of 1913 corrected so that neither side would be in danger. But Roumania displayed a certain obstinacy, and the Conference, not wishing to complicate much more serious questions then pending between it and Roumania, shelved the Dobrudja matter, intimating, however, that it might be taken up later in connection with the problem of Bessarabia.
Not only has Bulgaria failed to regain her losses of 1913, but the new Peace Treaty deprives her of some bits of territory that have hitherto belonged to her. Serbia has secured some small rectifications of the frontier established in 1913, all of them for strategic reasons. One of them, in the valley of the River Strumica, was very genuinely needed, for at that point the old frontier came within about six miles of the Belgrade-Salonica railway, and what this means is shown by the fact that in the first year of the Great War, before Bulgaria officially entered the contest, this all-important railroad was almost cut by a raid of Bulgarian komitadjis. The other chief rectification, in the Pirot-Tsaribrod basin, seems more questionable, and has the disadvantage of bringing the frontier even nearer to Sofia than has been the case since 1878.
A more considerable loss to Bulgaria, though not necessarily a definitive one, is that of the territory in Western Thrace which she acquired in 1913. To this question I shall come back in a moment in connection with the whole problem of Thrace. As a preliminary to that, however, it seems necessary to say a word as to the general situation and claims of Greece.
While the Balkan settlement now being effected at Paris is in the main a confirmation of that of 1913, some new departures have been made or are in prospect; and these relate almost wholly to the problem of Greek irredentism. For if Roumanian or Serbian national unity could be attained chiefly by the acquisition of former Austrian and Hungarian territories, the question of Greek national unity involves primarily further changes of territory in the Balkans.
It has been estimated by Mr. Venizelos that the Hellenic nation today comprises over eight million people, of whom only 55% live in the kingdom of Greece. Of the rest about one million are widely dispersed all over the world; nearly two millions reside in Asia Minor and Cyprus—lands outside the scope of this survey; there are 100,000 in the Dodecanesus, those Aegean islands which Italy certainly should, and probably will, transfer to Greece. There remain, as unredeemed Greek populations in the Balkans, about 731,000 people in Thrace and at Constantinople, and about 151,000 in Northern Epirus and Southern Albania. All told, Greece hopes to liberate about two millions of her kinsmen as a result of the War, and to bring it about that at least 75% of the race, that portion which is gathered in the lands about the Aegean, should live united in the Hellenic kingdom.
On the northwest Greece lays claims to that territory which she calls Northern Epirus and which her opponents call Southern Albania: a territory which she fought for in 1912-13, but which the Powers at that time, under Austro-Italian influence, awarded to Albania. This district contains two important towns, Koritza and Argyrocastro, and a total population of about 120,000 Orthodox Christians and 80-100,000 Mohammedans. It seems to be fairly well agreed that the Mohammedans are and feel themselves to be Albanians, and that most of the Christians also speak Albanian in their homes as their mother tongue. The Greeks claim however, that these Christian Epirotes read and write only Greek and are really bilingual; that by their religion, culture, historic traditions, and their ardent Hellenic patriotism today, they are essentially Greeks, and belong to Greece by the same right as Alsace and Lorraine to France. All of this the Albanian spokesmen, of course, strenuously deny. They maintain that this is a thoroughly and devotedly Albanian population, whose separation from the rest of the Shkypetars would be among the most glaring of the many mutilations that this much-tried nation has had to endure.