After the disastrous and humiliating losses at Bukarest, Bulgaria still had her former vanquished foe to reckon with. The Turks were again at Adrianople and Kirk Kilissé. Thrace was once more in her power. The Treaty of Bukarest, while attributing Thrace to Bulgaria on the basis of the Treaty of London, actually said nothing whatever about it. Nor were there any promises of aid in helping Bulgaria to get back again what she had lost, without a struggle, by her folly and treachery.
A new war by Bulgaria alone in her weakened military condition and with her empty treasury, to drive once more the Turks back south of the Enos-Midia line, was impossible. Bulgaria appealed to the chancelleries of Europe to help her in taking possession of the Thracian territory ceded to her at London. The Powers made one of their futile overtures to Turkey, requesting that she accept the treaty which she had signed a few months before.
But no one could blame the Turks for having taken advantage of Bulgarian folly. Who could expect them to meekly withdraw behind the Enos-Midia line? Bulgaria could get no support in applying the argument of force.
In the end, the victors of Lulé Burgas had to go to Constantinople and make overtures directly to the Sublime Porte. They fared very badly. The Enos-Midia line was drawn, but it took a curve northward from the Black Sea and westward across the Maritza in such a way that the Turks obtained not only Adrianople, but also Kirk Kilissé and Demotica. The Bulgarians were not even masters of the one railway leading to Dedeagatch, their sole port on the Ægean Sea.
The year 1913 for Bulgaria will remain the most bitter one of her history. She had to learn the lesson that the life of nations, as well as of individuals, is one of give as well as take, and that compromise is the basis of sound statesmanship. Who wants all, generally gets nothing.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE ALBANIAN FIASCO
The world has not known just what to do with the mountainous country which comes out in a bend on the upper western side of the Balkan Peninsula directly opposite the heel of Italy. It caused trouble to the Romans from the very moment that they became an extra-Italian power. Inherited from them by the Byzantines, fought for with the varying fortunes by the Frankish princes, the Venetians, and the Turks, Albania has remained a country which cannot be said to have ever been wholly subjected. Nor can it be said to have ever had a national entity. Its present mediæval condition is due to the fact that, owing to its high mountains and its being on the road to nowhere, it has not, since the Roman days at least, undergone the influences of a contemporary civilization.
Venice recognized the importance of Albania during the days of her commercial prosperity. For the Albanian coast, with its two splendid harbours, of Valona and Durazzo, effectively guards the entrance of the Adriatic into the Mediterranean Sea.