On August 6th, the protocol with Servia was presented. The Servian frontier was to start at a line drawn from the summit of Patarika on the old frontier, and to follow the watershed between the Vardar and the Struma to the Greek-Bulgarian frontier, with the exception of the upper valley of the Strumnitza which remained Servian territory.
The following day the protocol with Greece was presented. The Greek-Bulgarian frontier was to run from the crest of Belashitcha to the mouth of the River Mesta on the Ægean Sea. Bulgaria formally agreed to waive all pretensions to Crete. The protocol with the Greeks was the only one over which the Bulgarians made a resolute stand. When they signed this protocol, they stated that the accord was only because they had taken notice of the notes which Austria-Hungary and Russia presented to the conference, to the effect that in their ratification they would reserve for future discussion the inclusion of Kavalla in Greek territory.
The Bulgarians insisted on a clause guaranteeing autonomy for churches and schools in the condominium of liberated territories. Servia opposed this demand mildly, and Greece strongly. They were right. The question of national propaganda through churches and schools had done more to arouse and keep alive racial hatred in Macedonia than any other cause. If there were to be a lasting peace, nothing could be more unwise than the continuance of the propaganda which had plunged Macedonia into such terrible confusion.
Rumania, however, secured in the Treaty of Bukarest from each of the States what they had been unwilling to grant each other. Rumania imposed upon Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia, the obligation of granting autonomy to the Kutzo-Wallachian churches, and assent to the creation of bishoprics subsidized by the Rumanian Government.
A rather amusing incident occurred on August 5th by the proposition of the United States Government through its Minister at Bukarest, that a provision be embodied in the treaty according full religious liberties in transferred territories. The ignorance of American diplomacy, so frequently to be deplored, never made a greater blunder than this. It showed how completely the American State Department and its advisors on Near Eastern affairs had misunderstood the Macedonian question. Quite rightly, the consideration even of this request was rejected as superfluous. Mr. Venizelos administered a well-deserved rebuke when he said that religious liberty, in the right sense of the word, was understood through the extension of each country's constitution over the territories acquired.
Much has been written concerning the intrigues of European Powers at Bukarest during the ten days of the conference which made a new map for the Balkan Peninsula. It will be many years, if ever, before these intrigues are brought to light. Therefore we cannot discuss the question of the pressure which was brought to bear upon Rumania, upon Bulgaria, and upon Servia and Greece to determine the partition of territories. Germany looked with alarm upon the possibility of a durable settlement. Austria was determined that Bulgaria and Servia should not become reconciled.
Austria-Hungary and Russia, though for different reasons, were right in their attitude toward the matter of Greece's claim upon Kavalla. Greece would have done well had she been content to leave to Bulgaria a larger littoral on the Ægean Sea, and the port which is absolutely essential for the proper economic development of the hinterland attributed to her. By taking her pound of flesh, the Greeks only exposed themselves to future dangers. The laws of economics are inexorable. Bulgaria cannot allow herself to think sincerely about peace until her portion of Macedonia, by the inclusion of Kavalla, is logically complete. It would have been better politics for Greece to have shown herself magnanimous on this point. As George Sand has so aptly said: "It is not philanthropy, but our own interest, which leads us sometimes to do good to men in order that they may be prevented in the future from doing harm to us."
When we come to look back upon the second Balkan war, and have traced out the sad consequences and the continued unrest which followed the Treaty of Bukarest, it is possible that Servia's responsibility may be considered as great, if not greater, than that of Bulgaria in bringing about the strife between the allies. In our sympathy with the inherent justice of Servia's claim for adequate territorial compensation for what she had suffered for, and what she had contributed to, the Turkish débâcle in Europe, we are apt to overlook three indisputable facts: that Servia repudiated a solemn treaty with Bulgaria, on the basis of which Bulgaria had agreed to the alliance against Turkey; that the territories granted to Servia, south of the line which she had sworn not to pass in her territorial claims, and a portion of those in the "contested zone" of her treaty with Bulgaria, were beyond any shadow of doubt inhabited by Bulgarians; and that since these territories were ceded to her she has not, as was tacitly understood at Bukarest, extended to them the guarantees and privileges of the Servian constitution.
The Treaty of Bukarest, so far as the disputed territories allotted to Servia are concerned, has created a situation analogous to that of Alsace and Lorraine after the Treaty of Frankfort. And Servia started in to cope with it by following Prussian methods. What Servians of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia have suffered from Austrian rule, free Servia is inflicting upon the Bulgarians who became her subjects after the second Balkan war.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the population of Macedonia, as a whole, of whatever race or creed, would welcome to-day a return to the Ottoman rule of Abdul Hamid. The Turkish "constitutional régime" was worse than Abdul Hamid, the war of "liberation" worse than the Young Turks, and the present disposition of territories satisfies none. Poor Macedonia!