THE SHIPKA PASS
Serbia took a hand in this campaign, too, though she hesitated for some time, going to the aid of Russia through fear of Austria. Beginning late, at a time when the mountains were covered in the winter snows, the Serbians suffered severely from the weather, but won notable victories at Pirot, at Nish, and at Vranga. The Turks were in full retreat on Constantinople when the armistice and Treaty of San Stefano put an end to the war.
It seems to be one of the standing rules of Balkan wars and Balkan peace treaties that those who do the work shall not reap the reward, and that a policy of standing by and waiting is the wisest and most profitable. In this Russo-Turkish war the Roumanians had done invaluable work for the Russian cause. In return the Treaty of San Stefano robbed them shamefully. The Bulgarians had done little, except to stain the arms of the allies with a series of massacres of the Turks in reprisal for the previous atrocities inflicted upon them by the Bashi-Bazouks. The Bulgarians were awarded a tremendous prize of territory. If the grant had been confirmed it would have made Bulgaria the paramount power of the Balkan Peninsula. By the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria was made an autonomous principality subject to Turkey, with a Christian government and national militia. The Prince of Bulgaria was to be freely chosen by the people and accepted by the Sublime Porte, with the consent of the Powers. As regards internal government, it was agreed that an assembly of notables, presided over by an Imperial Commissioner and attended by a Turkish Commissioner, should meet at Philippopolis or Tirnova before the election of the Prince to draw up a constitutional statute similar to those of the other Danubian principalities after the Treaty of Adrianople in 1830. The boundaries of Bulgaria were to include all that is now Bulgaria, and the greater part of Thrace and Macedonia.
The European Congress of Berlin which revised the Treaty of San Stefano recognised that the motive of Russia was to create in Bulgaria a vast but weak state, which would obediently serve her interests and in time fall into her hands: and that the injury proposed to be done to Roumania was inspired by a desire to limit the progress of a courageous but an unfortunately independent-minded friend. The Congress was suspicious of the Bulgarian arrangement, and clipped off much of the territory assigned to the new principality. The injury done to Roumania was allowed to stand. Then, as in 1912-1913, when Balkan boundaries were again under the discussion of an inter-European Conference, the vital interests of the great Powers surrounding the Balkan Peninsula were to keep its peoples divided and weak. Both Russia and Austria had more or less defined territorial ambitions in the Balkans: and it suited neither Power to see any one Balkan state rise to such a standard of greatness as would enable it to take the lead in a Balkan Union. Especially was it not the wish of Austria that any Balkan state should grow to be so strong as to kill definitely the hope she cherished of extending down the Adriatic and towards the Aegean.
By the Treaty of Berlin, which followed the Congress of Berlin, the greater part of the Balkan Peninsula was freed altogether from Turkish rule. Roumania and Serbia were relieved from all suggestion of tribute or vassalage. Bulgaria was left subject to a tribute (which was very quickly afterwards repudiated). Where the Turkish power was left in existence in European Turkey it was a threatened existence, for the newly freed Christian peoples began at once to conspire to help to freedom their nationals left still under Turkish rule. The war of 1912 began to be prepared in 1878.
There was, however, a period of comparative peace. Roumania, though discontented, decided to bide her time. Her prince was crowned king with a crown made from the metal of Turkish cannon taken at Plevna. That was the only hint that she gave of keeping in mind the greatness of her services which had been so poorly rewarded.
Montenegro, whilst deprived of the great and the well-deserved expansion which the Treaty of San Stefano offered, had some benefit from the Treaty of Berlin. The area of the kingdom was doubled and it won access to the Adriatic. A little later the harbour of Dulcigno was ceded to Montenegro by Turkey under pressure from the Powers, and she was left with only one notable grievance, that of being shut off from Serbia by the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, which Austria secured for Turkey, apparently with the idea of one day seizing it on her way down to Salonica.
Chusseau Flaviens