SIDELIGHTS ON THE BALKAN WAR. OVER five centuries ago, or, to be precise, on June 15, 1389, there raged on an ill-omened plain, not unfittingly named The Field of Crows,' a battle which was to shatter Slavonic aspirations and seal the fate of the Balkan Peninsula for many years to come. On the one side was ranged the Turkish host, under the Sultan Murad and Bayazid the Thunderbolt; on the other stood the allies, Bulgars still nursing the memory of their empire founded by the Tsars Krum and Simeon, hardy mountaineers from Crna Gora and all the flower of Servian chivalry under Tsar Lazar and Vouk Brankovitch, his brother-in-law. The issue of that battle, in which the multitude of lances and other horsemen's staves shadowed the light of the sun, hung long in doubt until towards evening Vouk Brankovitch crossed over to the Turks with 12,000 By nightfall Tsar and Sultan were both dead. The scattered remnants of the allies were seeking refuge and the Balkan Peninsula was incorporated into the Turkish Empire. 'How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished 'with these words ends the finest tribute made by a poet to a defeated race, and, just as the disaster of Mt. Gilboa inspired David to that magnificent lament, so the memory of Kossovo has been the theme of all the finest Servian folksongs ever since: There resteth to Servia a glory, A tale to be chanted and told ! They are gone to their graves grim and gory, But out of the darkness and desolation Of the mourning heart of a widow'd nation, Yea, so long as a babe shall be born, Or there resteth a man in the land; So long as a blade of corn On the stricken plain of Kossovo. To one unacquainted with the romanticism that is so engrained in the Slavonic character, it must seem incredible that the memories of that bygone battle should form part and parcel of a twentiethcentury existence. But in the Balkans, more than in any other part of Europe, appeal is regularly made to the rights and privileges of a past age, as if a thousand years were but as yesterday. And so even to-day, when some blind beggar starts the mournful ballad, the loyal Servian peasant will spit on the floor when the singer comes to the passage which describes Vouk's treachery; and to-day on the scarlet caps of the Montenegrins can be seen the five black rings marking the five centuries which have rolled by since the greater part of the Serb race passed under the Ottoman yoke. The spontaneous enthusiasm which manifested itself from one end of Servia to another, when the order for general mobilisation was promulgated, can easily be understood when we remember how each son of Servia has hugged this bitter-sweet tradition to his soul since earliest days. Bitter-sweet indeed, for the plaintive lines are not merely a record of a people's downfall; they are an earnest of better things to come, a prophecy of ultimate victoryat least, that is how the Servian reads between the words Their memory waketh an exultation. And when the armies advanced on October 17, it was as armies who knew that they had been destined to revive the ancient glories of their empires. It needed no stilted verbose proclamation to rouse their blood. King Ferdinand's cold and calculated appeal to religious sentiment was not only undignified but superfluous. To every soldier, whether Servian or Bulgarian, it was a natural war, just as a tussle with the Spaniard was as natural to the Englishman of Drake's period as going to bed. The few foreigners who were privileged to see the men concentrate as units before proceeding to divisional headquarters, have witnessed a national call to arms which it would be hard to parallel elsewhere in Europe. From the Shipka Pass with the golden domes of its monastery in memory of the Russian dead, along the rich Tundja valley, studded with acre upon acre of rose bushes that yield the priceless attar, on the 1 The tale of the battle and of Vouk's treachery is told by two ravens. Two ravens came from Kossovo. . . . One after one they perched upon The palace of the great Lazon . . One 'gan croak and one 'gan call. high Sofia plateau encircled with its crimson-brown mountains, over the undulating downs of Servia to where, enshrined on its triple peak, Belgrade looks out across the Danube and the Sava to her Hungarian foes. There was a ceaseless stream of peasants plodding in towards their enlistment centres. It was not the mobilisation of a modern army, but rather the gathering of an impi, or the assembling of a mighty host to go up against the enemy and smite them.' Garments of all shapes and colours passed before one's eyes, sheepskins fancifully worked in red and blue and black, baggy trousers with braided seams and pockets, stockings of the most startling hue, caps white and black and brown, conical, round and fitting closely to the skull. Women wearing the short national petticoat trimmed daintily with red, carried their lord and master's food, or drove some patient ox or wiry Balkan pony that had been requisitioned for the war. Only a few aged crones were left in each village to till the fields. There was a general exodus from the villages. The trains, as they came into the main centres, provided an equally amazing spectacle. It seemed as if even the engines were imbued with a spirit of patriotism and were able to drag a double load. One saw them harnessed to some fifty trucks, groaning, panting, wheezing but yet slowly and surely getting their monstrous burden to its appointed spot. And what a burden! Exactly how many men contrived to cling on or inside each waggon will never be known. Each truck was labelled as capable of holding forty men, but there must have been at least double that number inside; they were packed so tight that one would have thought that if a man had breathed he would have broken his neighbour's ribs. Another dozen or more were perched on the roof; four or five spent an acrobatic time on the buffers and couplings; a few existed precariously on the footboard; and doubtless there were a couple ensconced snugly in the sanctuary dear to the American 'hobo.' But this enthusiasm had its unpleasant side-for those at least who could not understand why the Balkan States existed. The arrival of each passenger train at a station was the signal for a vigorous invasion. Placid foreigners, mainly of Teutonic origin, who had paid a large sum for a wagon-lit, perspired and gesticulated freely when seven or eight burly reservists, whose last meal had been flavoured mainly with garlic, intruded upon their tranquil repose, beamed a cheery welcome and then lovingly fondled an antique rifle which might have done service with a Voivode in the War of Independence, or passed round a bayonet three feet in length. There could be no doubt of the genuine character of the nation's feeling. It was a national not a financier's or a politician's war. Merchants left their offices in the City, their clubs in Pall Mall or Piccadilly, their stores in a dozen different Western States-and no one knows what years of work and struggle that store cost to erect and looked forward eagerly to the feel of some unpaved miry village street, to the reek of a tumbledown khan-across the frontier. Yet, strangely enough, in the very magnificence and spontaneity of this feeling lies the danger. It is not a politician's war, as has been said; but the politicians for their own ends have fanned the ever-smouldering spark into a blaze, and it will rest with them to put the blaze out. For the moment they must feel much like the wretched man who, the proud possessor of a magic ring, had loosed the genie imprisoned by the spell, and then found that he had forgotten the word by which the genie was laid to rest. Before the opening of the campaign the Balkan politicians had solemnly announced, for the benefit of the Great Powers, who formed the gallery, that there was no question of territorial aggrandisement whatever in the war between the allies and the Ottoman Empire. This disinterested view, however, was not shared by a single private in the Servian and Bulgarian armies. The rank and file were for the moment supremely happy. They were on the eve of paying off old scores with an hereditary enemy; they were serenely confident of victory and they were under no illusions as to what would be the tangible result of the war-the revival of the empires created, in the case of the Bulgarians, by Krum and Simeon; in that of Servia, by Stefan Dushan. Fortune in some ways has seen fit to favour these politicians, inasmuch as the crushing victories gained by the allies renders a return to the status quo impossible. Hence Servia will be rewarded with an ample increase of territory, but it is doubtful whether it will satisfy the demands and appetite of the new imperialists, who can be found in every café. It is not for nothing that on the first day of the war the country was flooded with maps giving the boundaries of Dushan's Empire, and that in every shop men, women and children can be seen poring over the war maps-in VOL. XXXV.-NO. 199, N.S: 8 which the flags are always placed incorrectly-and watching how the tide of conquest creeps on and on until it is nearing the limits. that mark the furthest point of Servian domination. It is the firm belief of every Servian to-day that an era of prosperity has dawned upon the country, and that in a few years the once-despised state will have won its place in the Concert of Europe. By January 1, 1913, the Sandjak, Old Kossovo, Salonika, Durazzo and San Giovanni on the Adriatic will be under the Servian flag; and within two years Servia and Herzegovina will be incorporated within a grand Servian Empire. To the sober student of foreign affairs, such an idea must seem the vapourings of a megalomaniac, but unfortunately such a belief does not take into consideration the Servian character. In many respects the Servian is more Slav than the Russian. In the Servian the hysterical exaltation so often found in the Slavonic character is greatly exaggerated, while the stolid patience and endurance of the Russian is lacking. The psychology of the Serb has made him a willing and pliable tool in the hands of the Russian Government, which has never relinquished its ambitions of a Pan-Slavonic Empire. The Pan-Slavists have always used Servia as an advanceguard, and now that they find Servia predisposed for a campaign, which will have for its object the detachment of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Dual Monarchy, there is every possibility of their supporting such a project by every means in their power. The sinister rôle played by Russia in Servian history can never be overlooked, but so fantastic, so bizarre are the details, that one seems to be reading the incredible figment of a novelist's brain rather than the historical account of events in the nineteenth and twentieth century history of a European State. A continual war, all the more bitter and dangerous, because it has to be waged in secret, is going on between Austria and Russia. The victor will gain paramount influence. In the course of this struggle Holy Russia has never hesitated to employ the traitor or the assassin. It was owing to Russian influence that Milosh Obrenovitch, who had won autonomy for Servia by the sword, was driven into exile; Russian agents were responsible for the murder of Michael Obrenovitch in the Deerpark; Russia instigated two attempts on Milan, and prompted his mistress, a Russian spy, to urge him on in his desire of abdication. Holy Russia, again, encouraged the ill-fated Alexander in his passion for Draga, while the Russian Minister was cognisant of the military conspiracy which culminated in the |