The organisation was reduced to a winter status, Damian Grueff remaining in active command of some sixty bands of a thousand men in all. The other insurgents were parolled until summoned again.
The committajis had hoped that the ‘general rising’—or, rather, the suppression which they foresaw for it—would cause the Powers of Europe to make Macedonia autonomous. They put most of their faith in the sympathy of Great Britain, and in this they made no mistake—though Great Britain has tried for a long time to sympathise with the Turks. At the wanton suppression of the feeble rising it was the British Government that advocated the delivery of the province from Turkish control. Austria and Russia, on the contrary, and especially Russia, urged upon the Turkish Government the necessity of a rapid and thorough repression of the rising, and warned Bulgaria early and often against entering into the conflict.
It was announced during the revolution that the Russian Czar and the Austrian Emperor would meet, together with their Foreign Ministers, at Murzsteg; and to this conference the Bulgarians attached much hope until it was declared from Vienna and St. Petersburg that the interview of the Emperors would in no way alter their Macedonian programme.
The programme was altered, however, as a compromise with Lord Lansdowne. The British Foreign Minister, with support from the Governments of Italy and France, proposed to the Austrian and Russian Foreign Ministers, while at Murzsteg, that Macedonia be placed under the control of a governor-general independent of the Sultan and responsible to the Powers alone. The Austro-Russian alliance objected to this, but, in spite of previous declarations to the contrary, agreed to extend their scheme of reforms.
The Murzsteg programme, as the new scheme is known, provided for the appointment of two civil agents, one Austrian and one Russian, to ‘assist’ Hilmi Pasha; for the appointment of foreign officers to reform the Turkish gendarmerie; and for taxation, financial, and other reforms. The two most interested Powers would have employed only Austrian and Russian officers to reorganise the Turkish gendarmerie, but Italy and Great Britain insisted on participating in this work, and each of them, as well as France, sent a contingent of five officers and a chief to Turkey. Germany, in consideration of the Sultan, who opposed this reform desperately, declined to detail a staff.
The Russian civil agents (the first was withdrawn) have both been men with Russian ideas of government. The Austrians (the first of whom died) have been without sufficient support from Vienna. Hilmi Pasha remains absolute governor of the Rumelian provinces, and the second Austro-Russian programme remains at this writing, April 1906, little more effective than the first. Except in the district of Drama, where the British officers operate, there is little change in the condition of Macedonia. Soldiers and civil officials, left unpaid, continue their work of plunder and extortion, murders are numerous, and minor massacres take place from time to time; the insurgents maintain their organisation, skeleton bands continue to roam the country, and occasionally fights occur.
During 1905 Lord Lansdowne again pressed for effective measures of reform. The Italian and French Governments again gave him some support. Towards the end of the year Austria and Russia ‘invited’ the other Powers to participate in an international naval demonstration to wrest from the Sultan financial autonomy for Macedonia. The British Foreign Office at once agreed to participate, and proposed that the demonstration should exact also effective reforms in the judicial administration of Macedonia, but the two most interested Powers again opposed whole-hearted measures. Germany advised the Sultan to accede, but would send no ships.
After the conference on Bigla Dagh, the voivodas, with their bands, separated, bound in different directions on various missions. Boris Sarafoff, with ninety men, dropped south from Bigla Dagh around Florina to convey news of the revolution’s end to certain other bands, and to gather arms from the peasants. The band were destined ultimately to return to Bulgaria, 120 miles away; but they were doomed to cover several times this distance, spending thirty-four days, on the march back to the free land.
