How the knowledge of the clause providing for an independent Macedonia was conveyed to them is not recorded, but that Sandanski and his colleagues were approached by the Bulgarian agents cannot be doubted. Certain it is that just before hostilities broke out the blood feud between Ferdinand and Sandanski had been put aside, and Sandanski, the slayer of Sarafoff, the outlawed bandit, walked through the streets of Sofia unmolested. And when the war did actually break out, Sandanski was leading some thousands of his Macedonian comitajis against the Turks in the Razlog district, which he conquered and turned over to the Bulgarian authorities when they came there to establish a civil government.
The league, having been established, was now anxious to begin operations as soon as possible, for the reason that beginning hostilities against Turkey while she was still at war with Italy would put the latter in the position of being their ally. But that was just a position in which Italy, as an ally of Austria, did not wish to find herself. So when it became evident that the Balkan league had been formed and meant to take action, Italy and Turkey both hastened to arrange terms of peace, the former to save herself from an awkward situation, the latter so that she might give her full attention to the new danger.
CHAPTER XIX
FIRST AND SECOND BALKAN WARS
The war finally broke out on September 30, 1912, precipitated by Montenegro before the other members of the league were quite ready. The wonderful victories of the Serbian and Bulgarian armies were the surprise and wonder of the world at the time. The Bulgarians were victorious at Lule Burges, and the Serbians at Kumanovo. The Greeks advanced as far as Saloniki, while their fleet bottled up the ships of the Turks in the Dardanelles. Finally the Bulgarians swept the Turks in Thrace into Constantinople and were battering down the gates of the capital itself. The Serbians marched an army over the mountains to Durazzo on the Adriatic, and the Montenegrins took Scutari. And by the following spring Turkey was suing for peace, which was finally brought about by the Treaty of London on May 30, 1913.
But the very success of the Balkan allies opened up new dangers of deep gravity. And now Austria, who had not quite dared to attack Serbia during the hostilities, saw an opportunity whereby she might defeat the league by opening up the dangers engendered by their very success. Had it not been for her intrigues there would have been no Second Balkan War. But she hated Serbia and was already determined on her destruction.
Largely because of the determined stand taken by Austria in the London conference, Albania was made an independent principality, Serbia was denied her longed-for outlet on the Adriatic, Greece was deprived of Epirus, and Montenegro had to give up Scutari, the taking of which cost her so much blood.
Now it had also happened that the operations of the various armies of the Balkan allies had been in territories different from what had at first been anticipated. The Turks had put up their main fight down in Thrace, leaving the greater area of Macedonia comparatively undefended. Thus the Bulgarians, while doing the heaviest fighting, had been concentrated in a small territory, hammering away at the main forces of the Turks, while the Serbian and Greek armies had been able to overrun much larger territories with comparative ease. Thus Bulgaria, though she had done most of the fighting and had lost the heaviest, occupied only a broad pathway from her own southern frontier, down through Thrace to Constantinople, while Serbia occupied most of Macedonia, and Greece was in possession of Saloniki.
Greece and Serbia, and especially Serbia, having been cheated of most of the territory they had counted on annexing by the Treaty of London, now demanded a revision of the treaties by which they had gone into the war. Moreover, the Treaty of London confirmed them in the possession of the territory they now occupied.
The bitterest feelings were at once rekindled. Both sides had grievances. Serbia maintained that at the conference in London Bulgaria had failed to back up her claim for Albania. Therefore she was entitled to compensation in Macedonia. Bulgaria asserted that Macedonia was inhabited by Bulgars who did not wish to become Serbian subjects.
Balkans After the Second Balkan War.
At this juncture Austria again appeared on the scene and whispered in Bulgaria's ear that she should take what she wanted by force of arms; was not her army equal to the armies of Greece and Serbia combined? Meanwhile she, Austria, would see that there was no intervention from the outside. This was one motive that drove Bulgaria into the Second Balkan War.
For the past generation Macedonian boys had been coming up into Bulgaria. Many had gone back to Macedonia, but the majority had remained and settled in Bulgaria. Hundreds of them had entered the army and many of them had acquired high rank. Others, again, had entered the Government service, and dozens had been sent to the National Assembly by Bulgarian constituencies. And several, among them Ghenadieff, had become ministers in the cabinet.
To a still greater extent Macedonians have poured into Serbia. During the past hundred years, ever since the pashalic of Belgrade became free from the Turks, thousands of Macedonians have come up into Serbia for education and a life. They entered the army, Parliament, and every department of state, in large numbers, they became educationalists and swelled the ranks of commerce. Among the members of the Serb Cabinet during this war born in Macedonia are: the Prime Minister Nikola Pashich, from Tetovo; Dr. Lazar Patchou, Minister of Finance, from Monastir; Nicola Stefanovich, Cabinet Minister at the war's outbreak, from Navrovo; Kosta Stoyanovich, former Minister of Commerce, from Monastir; General Dimitriye Tzintzar-Markovich, from Ochrida; General Lazar Lazarevich, from Moskopolye, Monastir; former Prime Minister Milan Christich, the Serb Minister Plenipotentiary in Rome; Michael Ristich; former Prime Minister Dr. Vladam Georgevich; Svetolick Popovich, from Uskub; Under-Secretary of State for Public Works, Petar Popovich, from Prilep; Head of Public Works, Professor Lazarevich, from Ghevgheli; Professor Alexich, from Kumanovo; General Lazar Petrovich, from Bashino Selo; Veles, and many others. The names of the distinguished and prominent Macedonians in army, state, and education services, and those in trade and other useful occupations in Serbia fill a considerable space in the Post Office Directory.
The ambition of the Coburg King Ferdinand, since his coming to Bulgaria, has steadily aimed at the conquest and annexation of neighboring countries with the view of forming for himself an extended state. In this idea Bulgaria has been developed by him on lines de facto tending toward creating rather a feudal domain than a free, modern constitutional state. He encouraged a large number of political parties which could be easily played one against another, duplicating somewhat the Hapsburg principle as applied in the Austrian system of counterbalancing the various nationalities; the educational system was not developed to the extent nor along lines to produce a truly free and powerful people evidenced by the large number of young men and women students finding it necessary to go for higher education to the American Roberts College at Constantinople.
Ferdinand, always supported by Austria, with whom he has always been in secret alliance, has devoted large sums to anti-Serb and anti-Greek propaganda in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and throughout the world, preparing for the day when his designs of conquest could be carried into effect.
As the First Balkan War drew to a finish, when King Ferdinand's grip had hardly closed on the golden prize of that war, Adrianople, which the Serbs helped their Bulgar brothers to conquer, and whose Turkish commander and his staff, as fate decreed, were actually captured by the Serbs and handed over by them to the Bulgarians, Ferdinand turned his army westward to attack the Serbs, leaving Adrianople and Thracia, rich territory which the Bulgars had just reconquered at such cost of blood and which was confirmed to Bulgaria by the Treaty of London, to