The Greeks fear that an autonomous Macedonia—for which the Bulgarian committees are striving—would be annexed by Bulgaria, as in the case of East Rumelia. The Greeks, therefore, support the Turks, until such time as Macedonia becomes Hellenic. They have been at work for a century converting the country. Before the creation of the Exarchate, when there was but one Orthodox Church in European Turkey, they strove to destroy the Bulgarian language, abolishing it from the schools and churches. When the new Church was established they stamped it schismatic; and many Bulgarians were afraid to leave the old Church, and remain to-day faithful to the Patriarchate—and members of the Greek community.
Some Greek partisans claim also the Servian communities of Macedonia because the Servians have no autocephalous church, and all Greeks claim the Vlach communities.
The Kutzo-Vlachs, or Wallachians, are a people akin to the Rumanians. They speak a language similar to that of the Rumanians, evidently a Latin tongue. The kingdom of Rumania claims these people, and conducts a propaganda among them to retain them, in the hope of securing territorial compensation—a corner of Bulgaria, perhaps—at the division of Macedonia.
Until 1905 the Vlach churches were also under the direct control of the Patriarchate; but Rumanian influence at Constantinople then obtained their independence. The Greeks contested the separation violently, and sought to prevent by force the installation of the Vlach clergy. Rumania, not being contiguous to Turkey, was unable to give battle with armed bands, and declared a civil war upon Greece. Diplomatic connections were severed, trade treaties abolished, and Greek shipping in the Danube was severely taxed.
CHAPTER IX
ACROSS COUNTRY
Travel in Turkey is severely restricted. If a native succeeds in obtaining a teskeré, or the visé thereto, necessary for making a journey, there is still the deterring danger of arrest on suspicion at his destination or en route, in spite of his papers. If he is a non-Moslem he is suspected of nothing worse than being a revolutionist, and is only set upon by polite police officers; but if he be Mohamedan, he is required to deal with the spies of the Sultan. I once witnessed in Salonica the impressive military funeral of a pasha who had been in high favour at Court. So highly was the pasha esteemed that the Sultan sent one of his own physicians, a Greek, from Constantinople to attend him—though, incidentally, the doctor arrived after the pasha’s death. But the unfortunate Turk had not possessed sufficient of Abdul Hamid’s confidence to secure for him permission to visit Constantinople—for which he had applied several months before—in order to have an operation performed there by competent surgeons.
Foreigners fare better. They may travel to the limits of the few railway lines without serious annoyance—if they confine their stops to Consular towns. To enter the ‘interior,’ however, permission is seldom given, and Europeans (in Turkey the name includes Americans) are never allowed to leave the railways without an escort. Only on one occasion did we get away from the railways with the consent of the authorities. This was at the instance of a certain Consul, a man who demanded things and got them. The journey was across a section of Macedonia from Monastir, the terminus of one railway, to Veles, an intermediary point on the north-and-south line. As might be supposed, the country was comparatively quiet at the time, the crops were being gathered, and the authorities informed us (the Englishman and me) that all insurgents had been ‘suppressed.’
We rode out of Monastir perched high on Turkish saddles, at a dizzy distance above our diminutive steeds. At first we sought to secure our lofty positions by a tight grip of the reins, but they pulled on curb bits, and so tortured our poor little ponies that we soon sacrificed our pride, gave the animals their heads, and ‘gripped leather’ until we learned to balance. Just outside the town our escort, six mounted men, awaited us and fell in with us without so much as a salaam. They were the usual ragged beggars, much patched where they sat, tied up in places, and generally off colour. Across their faded chests stretched many yellow stripes—in lieu of gold braid—which designated them of the corps of Zaptiehs. Three of them wore shoes of the regulation order issued by the Imperial Ottoman commissary department, but the others were more fortunate. Of these latter two possessed native woollen stockings and charruks, and the third had a high boot on one foot and a shoe and leather legging on the other. The leather legging hardly met about the calf to which it was applied, and lacing was necessary to fill a slight breach, while the boot was large enough to admit a long, flute-like cigarette-holder, a tobacco-pouch, and a flint. The fezzes of this brigade were the one uniform thing other than their guns; they were all good, possessed tassels, and one even showed signs of having been pressed at a not far distant date—unlike those which sat upon Christian heads.