The attitude of Bulgaria left no alternative but war. Yet the Bulgarian government failed to reckon the cost of war. Was it not madness for Bulgaria to force war upon Greece, Servia, and Montenegro on the west at a time when Roumania was making demands for territorial compensation on the north and Turkey was sure to seize the occasion to win back territory which Bulgaria had just wrested from her on the south? Never was a government blinder to the significant facts of a critical situation. All circumstances conspired to prescribe peace as the manifest policy for Bulgaria, yet nearly every step taken by the government was provocative of war. The Bulgarian army had covered itself with glory in the victorious campaign against the Moslem. A large part of European Turkey was already in Bulgarian hands. To imperil that glory and those possessions by the risk of a new war, when the country was exhausted and new enemies lay in wait, was as foolish as it was criminal. That way madness lay. Yet that way the policy pursued by the Bulgarian government infallibly led. Must we assume that there is some ground for suspecting that Austria-Hungary was inciting Bulgaria to war? We must leave it to history to answer. If the result was a terrible disaster, that was only the old Greek Nemesis of the gods for the outraged principles of reason and moderation.
THE CONCILIATORY SPIRIT OF GREECE
Those principles, thanks to the conciliatory spirit of Mr. Venizelos, the prime minister, and the steady support of King Constantine, who was also commander-in-chief, were loyally followed in Greece. A few days after the declaration of war against the Ottoman Empire, into which Greece was precipitately hastened by the unexpected action of Servia and Bulgaria, the Greek foreign minister addressed a communication to the Allies on the subject of the division of conquered territory. He traced the line of Greek claims, as based on ethnological grounds, and added that, as he foresaw difficulties in the way of a direct adjustment, he thought the disputed points should be submitted to arbitration. But months followed months without bringing from Bulgaria any clear reply to this just and reasonable proposal of the Greek government. Nevertheless, Mr. Venizelos persisted in his attitude of conciliation toward Bulgaria. He made concessions, not only in Thrace but in Eastern Macedonia, for which he was bitterly criticized on the ground of sacrificing vital Greek interests to Bulgaria. He recognized, as his critics refused to do, that the Balkan question could not be settled on ethnological principles alone; one had to take account also of geographical necessities. He saw that the Greeks in Thrace must be handed over to Bulgaria. He demanded only the Macedonian territory which the Greek forces had actually occupied, including Saloniki with an adequate hinterland. As the attitude of Bulgaria became more uncompromising, as she pushed her army of occupation further westward, Mr. Venizelos was even ready to make the River Struma the eastern boundary of New Greece, and to abandon to Bulgaria the Aegean Httoral between the Struma and the Mesta Rivers including Greek cities like Kavala, Seres, and Drama. But these new concessions of Mr. Venizelos were in danger of alienating from him the support of the Greek nation without yielding anything in return from Bulgaria. The outbreak of the war between the Allies saved him from a difficult political position. Yet against that war Mr. Venizelos strove resolutely to the end. And when in despite of all his efforts war came, he was justified in saying, as he did say to the national parliament, that the Greeks had the right to present themselves before the civilized world with head erect because this new war which was bathing with blood the Balkan Peninsula had not been provoked by Greece or brought about by the demand of Greece to receive satisfaction for all her ethnological claims. And this position in which he had placed his country was, he proudly declared, a "moral capital" of the greatest value.
BULGARIA BEGINS HOSTILITIES
Bulgaria's belated acceptance of Russian arbitration was not destined to establish peace. Yet Dr. Daneff, the prime minister, who received me on June 27 and talked freely of the Balkan situation (perhaps the more freely because in this conversation it transpired that we had been fellow students together at the University of Heidelberg), decided on June 28 not to go to war with the Allies. Yet that very evening at eight o'clock, unknown to Dr. Daneff, an order in cipher and marked "very urgent" was issued by General Savoff to the commander of the fourth army directing him on the following evening to attack the Servians "most vigorously along the whole front." On the following afternoon, the 29th, General Savoff issued another order to the army commanders giving further instructions for attacks on the Servians and Greeks, including an attack on Saloniki, stating that these attacks were taking place "without any official declaration of war," and that they were undertaken in order to accustom the Bulgarian army to regard their former allies as enemies, to hasten the activities of the Russian government, to compel the former allies to be more conciliatory, and to secure new territories for Bulgaria! Who was responsible for this deplorable lack of harmony between the civil government and the military authorities has not yet been officially disclosed. Did General Savoff act on his own responsibility? Or is there any truth in the charge that King Ferdinand after a long consultation with the Austro-Hungarian Minister instructed the General to issue the order? Dr. Daneff knew nothing of it, and though he made every effort to stop the resulting hostilities, the dogs of war had been let loose and could not now be torn from one another's throats.
There had been sporadic fighting in Macedonia between the Allies for some months past. Greece and Servia had concluded an anti-Bulgarian alliance on June 1. They also entered into a convention with Roumania by which that power agreed to intervene in case of war between the late Allies. And war having been declared, Roumania seized Silistria at midnight, July 10. Meanwhile the Servian and Greek forces were fighting the Bulgarians hard at Kilkis, Doiran, and other points between the Vardar and the Struma. And, as if Bulgaria had not enemies enough on her back already, the Turkish Army on July 12 left the Chataldja fortifications, crossed the Enos-Midia line, and in less than two weeks, with Enver Bey at its head, re-occupied Adrianople. Bulgaria was powerless to stop the further advance of the Turks, nor had she forces to send against the Roumanians who marched unopposed through the neighboring country till Sofia itself was within their power.
No nation could stand up against such fearful odds. Dr. Daneff resigned on July 15. And the new ministry had to make the best terms it could.
TERMS OF PEACE
A Peace Conference met at Bukarest on July 28, and peace was signed on August 10. By this Treaty of Bukarest Servia secured not only all that part of Macedonia already under her occupation but gained also an eastward extension beyond the Doiran-Istib-Kochana line into purely Bulgarian territory. Greece fared still better under the treaty; for it gave her not only all the Macedonian lands she had already occupied but extended her domain on the Aegean littoral as far east as the mouth of the Mesta and away into the interior as far above Seres and Drama as they are from the sea,—thus establishing the northern frontier of New Greece from Lake Presba (near the eastern boundary of Albania) on a northward-ascending line past Ghevgheli and Doiran to Kainchal in Thrace on the other side of the Mesta River. This assignment of territory conquered from Turkey had the effect of shutting out Bulgaria from the Western Aegean; and the littoral left to Bulgaria between the Mesta River and the Turkish boundary has no harbor of any consequence but Dedeagach, which is much inferior to Kavala.
The new Turkish boundary was arranged by negotiations between the Bulgarian and Ottoman governments. The terminus on the Black Sea was pushed north from Midia almost up to the southern boundary of Bulgaria. Enos remained the terminus on the Aegean. But the two termini were connected by a curved line which after following the Maritza River to a point between Sufli and Dimotika then swung in a semicircle well beyond Adrianople to Bulgaria and the Black Sea. Thus Bulgaria was compelled to cede back to the Asiatic enemy not only Adrianople but the battlefields of Kirk Kilisse, Lule Burgas, and Chorlu on which her brave soldiers had won such magnificent victories over the Moslems.