The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

Mr. Tsilka is an Albanian by birth, from the province adjoining Macedonia on the west, was educated in the missionary schools at Monastir and Samakov, and afterwards took a course in Union Theological Seminary, New York City. He is pastor of a native church at Kortcha, Albania, and for several years, with the assistance of his wife, has conducted a school there. Mrs. Tsilka, a Bulgarian, and a native of Bansko, was visiting her parents in that town for several weeks before her capture. Like her husband, she is a graduate of the mission school at Samakov, completed her education at Northfield, Massachusetts, and afterwards graduated from the Presbyterian Training School for nurses in New York City.

They had been attending a summer school for teachers at Bansko, and, with several members of the class, started on horseback for their respective homes on the 3d of September, 1901. Miss Stone’s journey led her towards the railway which runs from Budapest to Salonika. Mr. and Mrs. Tsilka and Mr. Dimitsoff, her father, were on their way to Albania, and the rest of the party expected to leave them at various stations on the road which crosses the Perion range of the Balkan Mountains. Seven of the party were men, but only one of them was armed. Upon a rough mountain trail between Bansko and Djumia, after three hours’ journey, they sat down under the forest trees to eat their luncheon and feed their animals, when they were captured by a band of alleged brigands variously estimated from twelve to forty. Miss Stone says:

“They were of various ages—some bearded, fierce of face and wild of dress; some younger, but all athletic and heavily armed. Some wore suits of brown homespun, some Turkish uniforms with red or white fezzes, while others were in strange and nondescript attire. One had his face so bound up in a red handkerchief as to be unrecognizable; others with faces horribly blackened and disguised with what looked like rags bobbing over their foreheads—the knotted corners of their handkerchiefs, as we afterwards learned.

“Their rifles and accouterments seemed fresh and new, and they also carried revolvers and daggers in their belts, with a plentiful and evident supply of cartridges. They had undoubtedly intended to fill us with terror at the sight of them—and truly horrible they looked.

“Mr. Tsilka had given his wife his watch and money; the latter she secreted in her mouth, and tucked the watch under her belt, as she supposed, but it slipped below and showed. One of the brigands called her attention to it, sarcastically remarking that she had better put it away more securely. He could not have alarmed her more; if the brigands did not want our money and watches, what could be their purpose!”

The brigands seemed to be on friendly terms with George Toderoff, the guide of Miss Stone’s party, who had been employed at Bansko, and was afterwards arrested as an accomplice, but was released by the Bulgarian government without trial or examination and against the protest of the diplomatic agent of the United States. They showed no disposition to rob or injure any member of the party, although they promptly and in cold blood murdered an unarmed Turk who happened to be passing along the trail, and who, they no doubt feared, might communicate their movements to the authorities. As soon as a convenient place was reached, the brigands instructed the party to go into camp, and repeatedly assured them that they need fear no harm. No threats of violence were made and no insults offered, as is customary when Turks encounter Christians. No Christian woman can expect to escape insult and seldom injury if she meets a Turkish soldier in Macedonia; but Miss Stone, being an American of strong character and past middle age, has usually been treated with respect. If her captors had been Turks the proceedings would have been entirely different from what actually occurred, and the three young women teachers, especially, would have had an entirely different experience. This circumstance is the strongest kind of evidence that their captors were Bulgarians. The party went into camp, and during the evening the brigands disappeared, taking with them Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka and two horses. If they had been Turks their captives would have been stripped of everything valuable and their animals would have been stolen, but not an article was missing. The luggage was undisturbed and the brigands did not even help themselves to the food supplies provided for the journey.

During the remainder of the fall and the succeeding winter, until February 23, 1902, the captives were kept moving from place to place in the mountains, suffering considerable privation and discomfort, but, as both Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka testify, they were treated with invariable respect and kindness, and were as well supplied with the necessaries of life as was possible in that primitive country. They seemed to appreciate the value of their captives and took a great deal of care and trouble to protect them from exposure and injury, and in November, when Mrs. Tsilka’s child was born, they brought an old woman from some unknown quarter to assist as a nurse.

In the meantime there was great excitement in Sofia and other parts of Bulgaria. In the United States public meetings were held in many places and liberal contributions made towards a fund to ransom Miss Stone and her companion, and the secretary of state ordered Mr. Charles M. Dickinson, the American consul-general at Constantinople, to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, with instructions to use his best efforts to secure the release of the captives.

On the morning of September 4, after the disappearance of their captors with Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka, that lady’s husband and father, with the other men in the party, made a careful examination of the country around them, but could find no trace of the women or the brigands except their trail, which led over the mountains back towards Bulgaria. The entire day was spent in the search. The husband and the father of Mrs. Tsilka, almost overcome with grief and consternation, pursued their fruitless search through the next night, and as there were no further signs of the brigands decided to return to Bansko and give an alarm. Messengers had already been sent there, and to notify the missionary colony at Samakov, but, strange to say, the news of the capture preceded them and was whispered about the streets by Cyril Vaciloff and other Macedonian revolutionists, who appeared to know all about it. They also predicted the amount of ransom that would be demanded before anything had been heard from the brigands. The demand, which was contained in a letter written by Miss Stone in the Bulgarian language to the treasurer of the missionary board, was dictated by some person of intelligence. The language and the forms of expression used were very unlike her literary style. There was no doubt, however, of the penmanship. That letter was thrown into the window of the house of missionary Haskell at Samakov during the night, and his daughter identified Vaciloff in the moonlight while trying to open the window. A local newspaper friendly to the Macedonian cause published the important part of the contents of the letter before they were made known by the missionaries, including the amount of ransom demanded.

This and other circumstances make it very clear that Vaciloff intended or expected to be the medium of negotiation for Miss Stone’s release, and his failure was undoubtedly due to his arrest, which frightened him and induced him to deny all knowledge of the affair. The missionaries and the United States consul-general were not allowed to question him or communicate with him while he was in jail. He was released by the order of the authorities at Sofia upon the pretext that no evidence had been offered against him, although no one had been invited to present evidence. No attempt was made by anybody to secure evidence. The missionaries and Consul-general Dickinson were not informed of the decision to release him, and they did not know of his release until they saw the announcement in the newspapers. The only inference to be drawn from this unusual procedure was that the officials and the managers of the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee realized the complications that might ensue with the United States, the damage their cause would suffer before the world and the odium they would be compelled to endure if Vaciloff’s plans were carried out.