And finally came the Moslem Turks, who first conquered Asia Minor from the degenerated Greeks, then took Constantinople from them in 1453. After that the Turks swept up the entire Balkan peninsula, conquering all except that little mountainous corner up against the Adriatic, which is now Montenegro, and subjugating all the peoples, Greeks and Slavs alike. Nor did the Turkish conquest stop here; it swept onward, up into Europe, and was not definitely checked until it had advanced as far as Vienna itself. Then the tide turned, and little by little the Turks were driven back, until now they are on the very verge of being forced across the Bosphorus. And as the Turkish flood ebbed, the Balkan peoples gradually emerged, one after another springing up into independent nationalities.
Now the two great forces that had been driving back the Turks during the centuries were the Austrians and the Russians. And though these two great Christian powers fought against the same enemy, there gradually arose between them a bitter jealousy. Each was determined that the Turk should be driven out of Europe, but each realized that their two paths after the retreating Turk must soon converge in the Balkan peninsula. Neither cared anything for the Christian peoples who had been and were being oppressed by the Turks; that they were freed from this oppression was merely incidental, though it was the pretext for much of the warfare during this long period. But each of these two great powers coveted the Balkan peninsula. To Austria Saloniki would be an excellent seaport opening out on the Mediterranean, for the Adriatic was dominated by Italy. Russia, on her part, had her eyes on the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which would offer her an opening into the Mediterranean, to which she had no access at all. Added to that, the people of the Balkans were Slavs, blood kindred of the Russians, and could speedily be made into loyal subjects of the czar. Such was the situation which gradually evolved; which became more and more acute as the Turks retreated into the Balkan peninsula proper, across the Danube. And the first of the two grim powers to lead the pursuit down into the peninsula was Russia in 1877, when she hurled her armies over the Danube to "liberate" the Bulgars. From then on the Balkan problem demanded the most serious attention of European diplomats.
Balkan States Before the First Balkan War.
But the Balkan peoples that emerged, as the Turkish flood receded, were very different from those that had been engulfed four centuries previously. The Greeks had accepted the conquest, they bent rather than broke. Therefore the Turks had granted them special privileges. Their church and its clergy were spared and even given full spiritual authority over the other Christian peoples. But the Slavs fought stubbornly, not giving way until all their leaders were slain, and what culture they possessed was thoroughly wiped out. The Bulgars suffered especially, because they dwelt in the less mountainous regions of the peninsula. The Serbians could, occasionally, take refuge in the mountains of Montenegro, where their traditions and national spirit smoldered through the darker periods.
Just how many there were of these various peoples in the Balkans when Russia invaded the peninsula nearly forty years ago can only be left to surmise. In no country in the world has the question of population caused so much bitter dispute as in the Balkans. Because of racial and national jealousies, census figures have been deliberately padded and falsified by church and state alike. This is especially true of that part of the peninsula (Thrace and Macedonia) which was still under Turkish rule when the First Balkan War broke out in 1912. Only in what were then Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria proper were genuine census enumerations made.
Bulgaria claims to have had a population in 1910 of about 4,337,000, this being increased by half a million after the two wars. Serbia reported 2,900,000 in 1910, the new territory increasing this by more than 1,500,000. In Greece the population was 2,730,000 before the wars and then became 4,400,000. Little Montenegro contributed another 800,000 Serbs. In Albania the population has been estimated roughly at 800,000. Add all these figures together, and the result is the total population of the Balkan peninsula proper, less that which covers what was still Turkish territory when the present war broke out.
It is in the proportionate numbers of the various races and nationalities, however, that the greatest confusion and uncertainty exists. Nowhere in the world is there such an intermingling of various and differing peoples. Here official figures are especially misleading, and should be considered only within the boundaries of Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece as they were before the Balkan wars. For the peninsula as a whole the testimony or the reports of impartial foreigners who have traveled through the country is likely to be far more trustworthy.
The consensus of opinion would indicate that along the seacoast the Greeks predominate, and that they are also numerous in the large towns and cities. In the interior they are not found much north of Saloniki, and even in that city the majority of the population is Jewish. As traders, as the business elements in the cities, however, they are found even up in Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria.