The New Map of Europe (1911-1914) / The Story of the Recent European Diplomatic Crises and Wars and of Europe's Present Catastrophe

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

After the occupation of Salonika by the Greeks, the Bulgarian ambitions to break the power of Turkey were not the same as they had been before. Had Salonika been occupied two weeks earlier, there might not have been a Lulé Burgas. An armistice was hurriedly concluded. During the trying period of negotiations in London, and during the whole of the second part of the war, the jealousies of the allies had been awakened one against the other. Between Greeks and Bulgarians, it had been keen since the very first moment that the Greek army entered Macedonia. The crisis between Servia and Bulgaria did not become acute until Servia saw her way blocked to the Adriatic by the absurd attempt to create a free Albania. Then she naturally began to insist that the treaty of partition which she had signed with Bulgaria could not be carried out by her. In vain she appealed to the sense of justice of the Bulgarians. The treaty had been signed on the understanding that Albania would fall under the sphere of Servian aggrandizement. Nor, on the other hand, had it been contested that Thrace would belong to Bulgaria. If the treaty were carried out, Bulgaria would get everything and Servia nothing. Servia also reminded the Bulgarians of the loyal aid that had been given them in the reduction of Adrianople. But Bulgaria held to her pound of flesh.

Under the circumstances of the division of territory, Bulgaria's claim to cross the Vardar and go as far as Monastir and Okrida, would not only have given her possession of a fortress from which she could dominate both Servia and Greece, but would have put another state between Servia and Salonika. Bulgaria was, in fact, demanding everything as far as Servia was concerned. Servia cannot be blamed then for coming to an understanding with Greece, even if it were for support in the violation of a treaty. For where does history give us the example of a nation holding to a treaty when it was against her interest to do so?

After their return from London, the Premiers Venizelos and Pasitch made an offensive and defensive alliance for ten years against the Bulgarian aspirations. In this alliance, concluded at Athens shortly after King George's death, the frontiers were definitely settled. In the negotiations, Greece showed the same desire to have everything for herself which Bulgaria was displaying. Finally she agreed to allow Servia to keep Monastir. Without this concession, Servia would have fared as badly at the hands of Greece as at the hands of Bulgaria. It is only because Greece feared that Servia might be driven to combine with Bulgaria against her, that the frontier in this agreement was drawn south of Monastir. The Greek army officers opposed strongly this concession, but Venizelos was wise enough to see that the maintenance of Greek claims to Monastir might result in the loss of Salonika. The Serbo-Greek alliance was not made public until the middle of June. Bulgaria had also been making overtures to Greece, and at the end of May had expressed her willingness to waive her claim to Salonika in return for Greek support against Servia. Venizelos, already bound to Servia, was honourable enough to refuse this proposition.

But the military reputation of Bulgaria was still so strong in Bulgarian diplomacy that Servia and Greece were anxious to arrive, if possible, at an arrangement without war. Venizelos proposed a meeting at Salonika. Bulgaria declined. Then Venizelos and Pasitch together proposed the arbitration of the Czar. Bulgaria at the first seemed to receive this proposition favourably, but stipulated that it would be only for the disputed matter in her treaty with Servia. At this moment, the Russian Czar sent a moving appeal to the Balkan States to avoid the horrors of a fratricidal war. Bulgaria then agreed to send, together with her Allies, delegates to a conference at Petrograd.

All the while, Premier Gueshoff of Bulgaria had been struggling for peace against the pressure and the intrigues of the Macedonian party at Sofia. They looked upon the idea of a Petrograd conference as the betrayal of Macedonians and Bulgarians by the mother country. Unable to maintain his position, Gueshoff resigned. His withdrawal ruined Bulgaria, for he was replaced by M. Daneff, who was heart and soul with the Macedonian party. A period of waiting followed. But from this moment war seemed inevitable to those who knew the feeling on both sides. Daneff and his friends did not hesitate. They would not listen to reason. They believed that they had the power to force Greece and Servia to a peace very nearly on their own terms. Public opinion was behind them, for news was continually coming to Sofia of Greek and Servian oppression of Bulgarians in the region between Monastir and Salonika. These stories of unspeakable cruelty, which were afterwards established to be true by the Carnegie Commission, had much to do with making possible the second war.

It was not difficult for the Macedonian party at Sofia to precipitate hostilities. The Bulgarian general staff, in spite of the caution that should have imposed itself upon them by the consideration of the exhausting campaign in the winter, felt certain of their ability to defeat the Servians and Greeks combined. Then, too, the army on the frontiers, in which there was a large element—perhaps twenty per cent.—of Macedonians, had already engaged in serious conflicts with the Greeks.

In fact, frontier skirmishes had begun in April. The affair of Nigrita was really a battle. After these outbreaks, Bulgarian and Greek officers had been compelled to establish a neutral zone in order to prevent the new war from beginning of itself. At the end of May, there had been fighting in the Panghaeon district, east of the river Strymon. The Bulgarian staff had wanted to prevent the Greeks from being in a position to cut the railway from Serres to Drama. In the beginning of June, Bulgarian coast patrols had fired on the Averoff. By the end of June, the Bulgarian outposts were not far from Salonika.

The first Bulgarian plan was to seize suddenly Salonika, which would thus cut off the Greek army from its base of supplies and its advantageous communication by sea with Greece. There were nearly one thousand five hundred Bulgarian soldiers in Salonika under the command of General Hassapsieff. How many comitadjis had been introduced into the city no one knows. I was there during the last week of June, and saw many Bulgarian peasants, big strapping fellows, who seemed to have no occupation. When I visited the Bulgarian company, which was quartered in the historic mosque of St. Sophia, two days before their destruction, they seemed to me to be absolutely sure of their position. At this moment, the atmosphere among the few Bulgarians in Salonika was that of complete confidence.

Among the Greeks, a spirit of excitement and of apprehension made them realize the gravity and the dangers of the events which were so soon to follow. Perfect confidence, while highly recommended by the theorists, does not seem to win wars. Nervousness, on the other hand, makes an army alert, and ready to exert all the greater effort, from the fact that it feels it needs that effort. In all the wars with which this book deals this has been true,—Italian confidence in 1911, Turkish confidence in 1912, Bulgarian confidence in 1913, and German confidence in 1914.

On the 29th of June, when I left Salonika to go to Albania, it was the opinion of the Greek officers in Salonika that the war—which they viewed with apprehension—would be averted by the conference at Petrograd. When I got on my steamship, the first man I met was Sandansky, who had become famous a decade before by the capture of Miss Stone, an American missionary. He had embarked on this Austrian Lloyd steamer at Kavalla, with the expectation of slipping ashore at Salonika, if possible, to prepare the way for the triumphal entry of the Bulgarian army. But he was only able to look sorrowfully out on the city, for the police were waiting to arrest him. What bitter thoughts he must have had when he saw the Bulgarian flag, which he had planted there with his own hands, waving from the minaret of St. Sophia, and he unable to organize its defence! A week later I saw Sandansky at a café in Valona. The war had then started, and he was probably trying to persuade the Albanians to enter the struggle and to take the Servians in the rear.