Between the first and the second establishment of the Ionian commonwealth, Servia had been delivered and had been conquered again. The first revolt made Servia a tributary principality. ♦Second revolt and deliverance. 1817-1829.♦ It was then won back by the Turk and again delivered. ♦1826-1829.♦ Its freedom, modified by the payment of tribute and by the presence of Turkish garrisons in certain towns, was decreed by the peace of Akerman, and was carried out by the treaty of Hadrianople. ♦Withdrawal of Turkish garrisons. 1867.♦ Fifty years after the second establishment of the principality, its practical freedom was made good by the withdrawal of the Turkish garrisons. ♦Servia independent with an enlarged territory. 1878.♦ The last changes have made Servia, under a native dynasty, an independent state, released from all tribute or vassalage. The same changes have given Servia a slight increase of territory. ♦Servian territory left to the Turk.♦ But the boundary is so drawn as to leave part of the old Servian land to the Turk, and carefully to keep the frontiers of the Servian and Montenegrin principalities apart. That is to say, the Servian nation is split into four parts—Montenegro, free Servia, Turkish Servia, and those Servian lands which are, some under the ‘administration,’ some under the acknowledged rule, of the King of Hungary and Dalmatia.
♦The Rouman principalities.♦
While Servia and Greece were under the immediate rule of the Turk, the Rouman lands of Wallachia and Moldavia always kept a certain measure of separate being. The Turk named and deposed their princes, but they never came under his direct rule. ♦Union of Wallachia and Moldavia. 1861.♦ After the Treaty of Paris, the two principalities, being again allowed to choose for themselves, took the first step towards union by choosing the same prince. Then followed their complete union as the Principality of Roumania, paying tribute to the Turk, but otherwise free. ♦Independence of Roumania. 1878.♦ The last changes have made Roumania, as well as Servia, an independent state. Its frontier towards Russia, enlarged at Paris, was cut short at Berlin. ♦Change of its frontier.♦ But this last treaty restored to it the land of Dobrutcha south of the Danube, thus giving the new state a certain Euxine sea-board. Thus the Roumans, the Romance-speaking people of Eastern Europe, still a scattered remnant in their older seats, have, in their great colony on the Danube, won for themselves a place among the nations of Europe.
Lastly, while Servia and Roumania have been wholly freed from the yoke, a part of Bulgaria has been raised to that position of practical independence which they formerly held. ♦The Bulgaria of San Stefano. 1878.♦ The Russian treaty of San Stefano decreed a tributary principality of Bulgaria, whose boundaries came most nearly to those of the third Bulgarian kingdom at its greatest extent. But it was to have, what no Bulgarian state had had before, a considerable Ægæan sea-board. This would have had the effect of splitting the immediate dominion of the Turk in two. It would also have had the real fault of adding to Bulgaria some districts which ought rather to be added to free Greece. ♦Treaty of Berlin.
Division of Bulgaria.♦ By the Treaty of Berlin the Turk was to keep the whole north coast of the Ægæan, while the Bulgarian nation was split into three parts, in three different political conditions. ♦Free.♦ The oldest and latest Bulgarian land, the land between Danube and Balkan, forms, with the exception of the corner ceded to Roumania, the tributary Principality of Bulgaria. ♦Half-free.♦ The land immediately south of the Danube, the southern Bulgaria of history—northern Roumelia, according to the compass—receives the diplomatic name of Eastern Roumelia, a name which would more naturally take in Constantinople. Its political condition is described as ‘administrative autonomy,’ a half-way house, it would seem, between bondage and freedom. ♦Enslaved.♦ Meanwhile in the old Macedonian land, the land for which Basil and Samuel strove so stoutly, the question between Greek and Bulgarian is held to be solved by handing over Greek and Bulgarian alike to the uncovenanted mercies of the Turk.
♦General Survey.♦
We may end our survey of the south-eastern lands by taking a general view of their geographical position at some of the most important points in their history. ♦800.♦ At the end of the eighth century we see the Eastern Empire still stretching from Tauros to Sardinia; but everywhere, save in its solid Asiatic peninsula, it has shrunk up into a dominion of coasts and islands. It still holds Sicily, Sardinia, and Crete, the heel and the toe of Italy, the outlying duchies of Campania, the outlying duchy at the head of the Hadriatic. In its great European peninsula it holds the whole of the Ægæan coast, a great part of the coasts of the Euxine and the Hadriatic. But the lord of the sea rules nowhere far from the sea; the inland regions are held, partly by the great Bulgarian power, partly by smaller Slavonic tribes fluctuating between independence and formal submission. ♦900.♦ At the end of the next century the general character of the East-Roman dominion remains the same, but many points of detail have changed. Sardinia and Crete are lost; a corner is all that is left in Sicily; but the Imperial power is acknowledged along the whole eastern Hadriatic coast; the heel and the toe have grown into the dominion of all southern Italy; all Greece has been won back to the Empire. But the Empire has now new neighbours. The Turanian Magyar is seated on the Danube, and other kindred nations are pressing in his wake. Russians, Slaves that is under Scandinavian leadership, threaten the Empire by sea. ♦1000.♦ The last year of the tenth century shows Sicily wholly lost, but Crete and Cyprus won back; Kilikia and Northern Syria are won again; Bulgaria is won and lost again; Russian establishment on the Danube is put off for eight hundred years; the great struggle is going on to decide whether the Slave or the Eastern Roman is to rule in the south-eastern peninsula. ♦c. 1040.♦ At one moment in the eleventh century we see the dominion of the New Rome at its full height. Europe south of the Danube and its great tributaries, Asia to Caucasus and almost to the Caspian, form a compact body of dominion, stretching from the Venetian isles to the old Phœnician cities. The Italian and insular dominion is untouched; it is enlarged for a moment by Sicilian conquest. ♦c. 1090.♦ Another glance, half-a-century later, shows the time when the Empire was most frightfully cut short by old enemies and new. The Servian wins back his own land; the Saracen wins back Sicily. The Norman in Italy cuts down the Imperial dominion to the nominal superiority of Naples, the last of Greek cities in the West, as Kymê was the first. For a moment he even plants himself east of Hadria, and rends away Corfu and Durazzo from the Eastern world, as Rome rent them away thirteen centuries before. The Turk swallows up the inland provinces of Asia; he plants his throne at Nikaia, and leaves to the Empire no Asiatic dominion beyond a strip of Euxine and Ægæan coast. ♦c. 1180.♦ Towards the end of the twelfth century, the Empire is restored to its full extent in Europe; Servia and Dalmatia are won back, Hungary itself looks like a vassal. In Asia the inland realm of the Turk is hemmed in by the strong Imperial grasp of the whole coast-line, Euxine, Ægæan, and Mediterranean. ♦c. 1200.♦ At the next moment comes the beginning of the final overthrow; before the century is out, the distant possessions of the Empire have either fallen away of themselves, or have been rent away by other powers. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Trebizond, Corfu, even Epeiros and Hellas, have parted away, or are in the act of parting away. ♦1204.♦ Venice, its long nominal homage cast aside, joins with faithless crusaders to split the Empire in pieces. The Flemish Emperor reigns at Constantinople; the Lombard King reigns at Thessalonikê; Achaia, Athens, Naxos, give their names to more abiding dynasties; Venice plants herself firmly in Crete and Peloponnêsos. Still the Empire is not dead. The Frank, victorious in Europe, hardly wins a footing in Asia. Nikaia and Trebizond keep on the Imperial succession, and a third Greek power, for a moment Imperial also, holds it in Western Greece and the islands. ♦1250.♦ Fifty years later, the Empire of Nikaia has become an European power; it has already outlived the Latin dominion at Thessalonikê; it has checked the revived power of Bulgaria; it has cut short the Latin Empire to the immediate neighbourhood of the Imperial city. To the north Servia is strengthening herself; Bosnia is coming into being; the Dalmatian cities are tossed to and fro among their neighbours. ♦1300.♦ Another glance at the end of the thirteenth century shows us the revived East-Roman Empire in its old Imperial seat, still in Europe an advancing and conquering power, ruling on the three seas of its own peninsula, established once more in Peloponnêsos, a compact and seemingly powerful state, as compared with the Epeirot, Achaian, and Athenian principalities, or with the scattered possessions of Venice in the Greek lands. But the power which seems so firmly established in Europe has all but passed away in Asia. There the Turk has taken the place of the Greek, and the Greek the place of the Frank, as they stood a hundred years earlier. And behind the immediate Turkish enemies stands that younger and mightier Turkish power which is to swallow up all its neighbours, Mussulman and Christian. ♦c. 1354.♦ In the central years of the fourteenth century we see the Empire hemmed in between two enemies, European and Asiatic, which have risen to unexpected power at the same time. Part of Thrace, Chalkidikê, part of Thessaly, a few scattered points in Asia, are left to the Empire; in Peloponnêsos alone is it an advancing power; everywhere else its frontiers have fallen back. The Servian Tzar rules from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth. The Ottoman Emir has left but a few fragments to the Empire in Asia, and has already fixed his grasp on Europe. ♦1400.♦ Before the century is ended, neither Constantinople, nor Servia, nor any other Christian power, is dominant in the south-eastern peninsula. The Ottoman rules in their stead. The Empire is cut short to a corner of Thrace, with Thessalonikê, Chalkidikê, and the Peloponnesian province which now forms its greatest possession. Instead of the great power of Servia, we see a crowd of small principalities, Greek, Slavonic, and Albanian, falling for the most part under either Ottoman or Venetian supremacy. The Servian name is still borne by one of them; but its prince is a Turkish vassal; the true representative of Servian independence has already begun to show itself among the mountains which look down on the mouths of Cattaro and the lake of Skodra. Bulgaria has fallen lower still; the Turk’s immediate power reaches to the Danube. Bosnia at one end, the Frank principalities at the other end, the Venetian islands in either sea, still hold out; but the Turk has begun, if not to rule over them, at least to harry them. Within the memory of men who could remember when the Empire of Servia was not yet, who could remember when the eagles of Constantinople still went forth to victory, the Ottoman had become the true master of the South-Eastern lands; whatever has as yet escaped his grasp remained simply as remnants ready for the gleaning.
♦1500.♦
We will take our next glance in the later years of the fifteenth century, a few years after the death of the great conqueror. The momentary break-up of the power of the Ottoman has been followed by the greatest of his conquests. All now is over. The New Rome is the seat of barbarian power. Trebizond, Peloponnêsos, Athens, Euboia, the remnant of independent Epeiros, Servia, Bosnia, Albania, all are gathered in. The islands are still mostly untouched; but the whole mainland is conquered, save where Venice still holds her outposts, and where the warrior prelates of the Black Mountain, the one independent Christian power from the Save to Cape Matapan, have entered on their career of undying glory. With these small exceptions, the whole dominion of the Macedonian Emperors has passed into Ottoman hands, together with a vast tributary dominion beyond the Danube, much of which had never bowed to either Rome. ♦1600.♦ At the end of another century, we see all Hungary, save a tributary remnant, a subject land of the Turk. We see Venice shorn of Cyprus and all her Peloponnesian possessions. The Dukes have gone from Naxos and the Knights from Rhodes, and the Mussulman lord of so many Christian lands has spread his power over his fellow Mussulmans in Syria, Egypt, and Africa. ♦1700.♦ Another century passes, and the tide is turned. The Turk can still conquer; he has won Crete abidingly and Podolia for a moment. But the crescent has passed away for ever from Buda and from the Western isles; it has passed away for a moment from Corinth and all Peloponnêsos. ♦1800.♦ At the end of another century we see the Turk’s immediate possession bounded by the Save and the Danube, and his overlordship bounded by the Dniester. His old rivals Poland and Venice are no more; but Austria hems in his Slavonic provinces; France struggles for the islands off his western shore; Russia watches him from the peninsula so long held by the free Goth and the free Greek. ♦1878.♦ Seventy-eight years more, and his shadow of overlordship ends at the Danube, his shadow of immediate dominion ends at the Balkan. Free Greece, free Servia, free Roumania—Montenegro again reaching to her own sea—Bulgaria parted into three, but longing for reunion—Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus, held in a mysterious way by neighbouring or distant European powers—all join to form, not so much a picture as a dissolving view. We see in them a transitional state of things, which diplomacy fondly believes to be an eternal settlement of an eternal question, but of which reason and history can say only that we know not what a day may bring forth.
[Long after this chapter was written, after the whole of it was printed, after a great part of it was revised for the press, there appeared the first volume of the great collection of C. N. Sathas, Μνημεῖα τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Ἱσορίας, Documents Inédits relatifs à l’Histoire de la Grèce au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1880). In his preface M. Sathas insists on two points. One is the Greek character of the Eastern Empire throughout its whole being; that it had a Greek side no one ever thought of denying. He brings together a good many occasional instances, largely from unprinted manuscripts, of the use of Ἕλλην and Ἑλλάς through the whole period of the Empire. That the name came into rhetorical use by a kind of Renaissance about the thirteenth century is undoubted. I brought together some few instances in my Historical Essays, iii. 246, and the whole history of Laonikos Chalkokondylas is one long instance. M. Sathas brings several others from much earlier times. But they seem to me to be mainly cases of the rhetorical use of an antiquated name, such as is common among all nations. They do not seem to affect the proposition that the regular national name of the Empire and its people was always Roman. M. Sathas’ other point is somewhat startling. It is that the Slavonic occupation of a large part of Greece, as to the extent of which there has been much disputing, but which I never before saw altogether denied, is all a mistake. According to him the settlers were not Slaves, but Albanians, called Slaves by that lax use of national names of which there certainly are plenty of instances. I cannot undertake either to accept or to refute M. Sathas’ doctrine during the process of revising a proof-sheet. I can only put the fact on record that one who has gone very deeply into the matter has come to this, to me at least, altogether new conclusion.]