lay aside their long treasured policy of isolation, while the growing dangers of such isolation made our best statesmen ready to accept the new policy. Whatever may happen to the League of Nations in the future the nations entered a new era in world relations in 1919. SUGGESTED READINGS Gibbons, The New Map of Europe, Chapters XIX-XXI. Hayes, A Political and Social History of Modern Europe, II, 697-710. Robinson and Beard, Development of Modern Europe, II, 362-372. Geography Peninsula. PART III THE NEAR EASTERN QUESTION CHAPTER I THE SETTING OF THE PROBLEM GEOGRAPHICALLY, the Balkan Peninsula has always been the pathway of conquering peoples as well as a commercial highof the Balkan way between Asia and Europe. The mountains and waterways, instead of opening the peninsula to settlement, have made it rather the pathway to lands beyond its confines. The Romans laid out three main roads across the peninsula. One of these started from Durazzo on the Adriatic Sea, led through the mountain gaps to Salonica, thence by the old Persian road to Constantinople. A second started from Fiume or Trieste to the valley of the Save River, thence winding southward to Sofia and eastward to Adrianople; while the third left the second in the Save valley and followed the Danube River to the old Roman province of Dacia, now Roumania. In modern times the roads have made some important divergences. The Danube road has taken to the river, as being more practicable. The middle road has developed a very important branch which from Belgrade southward to Salonica along the Vardar River is the roadway that until 1914 both Servia and Austria have been desirous of controlling. This same main traveled road developed another important branch from Adrianople southward along the Maritza River to the Aegean, controlling the lands and harbors which have been the heart's desire of Bulgaria since its foundation in 1878. Generally the lands of the peninsula are mountainous and poor, repaying the farmer in a niggardly way, while the valleys, which contain the richer land, are short and narrow. The Inhabitants of the Balkans. As early as the third century the Slavs began their incursions into the peninsula. "By the end of the sixth century this immigration had become an invasion. They disputed the possession of the land with the original inhabitants, driving them to the mountains as the Anglo-Saxons did the Celts of Britain." The Slav penetrated to all parts of the peninsula and has left his influence in modern Greece. In Albania as in Greece, he was largely absorbed; but in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria he became dominant. Into this Serbian population the Bulgars broke in the seventh century, and established themselves as conquerors. Who they were or what tongue they spoke is still disputed. The Slav absorbed the Bulgar to the extent of giving him his speech and the greater part of his customs. However, these gifts did not prevent the Bulgars from retaining their individuality or from regarding the Slav as their hereditary enemy. From the invasion of the Bulgars to the invasion of the Turk in the fourteenth century, the history of the peninsula is similar to that of the early European peoples. The people were busy establishing customs, reforming the language, establishing trade, and cultivating the soil. Among them came the Eastern invaders, the Turks, who at the great battle of Kossovo in 1448 took over the control of the peninsula. Under the rule of the Turk, the people lost a great deal that they had gained in the earlier period. They lost their knowledge of the art of war as well as many of the arts of peace. Trade and commerce and manufactures were largely destroyed. Heavy and irregular taxes took the spirit out of the people so that they became little better than serfs. The Turk, however, did not destroy the religion of the people nor interfere with their national habits and customs. These and their language were kept intact, and, when the power of the Turk began to wane after his struggles with western Europe, the people still possessing the germs of a national existence, became filled with the desire to throw off the conqueror's control and with the waning of Turkish power the growth of the unity of the peoples began again. "The grim, raw races springing and rushing forward in all directions frighten me a good deal", wrote Mr. Robert Lytton, the English ambassador to Vienna, in the middle of the last century. To him the supreme example of this grimness and rawness was the ruling prince of Servia, Obronovitch, an ex-pig driver who had been guilty of at least a dozen murders in forcing his way to the leadership of his people.1 "The story of the rise to the surface of these 'grim raw races' rivals the story of the English Robin Hood. While their countrymen were enslaved they kept up the spirit of nationality and their struggle against the oppressor from their mountain fastnesses and forest homes. The patriot outlaw in the greenwood, the folk bard among the peasantry, these nourished their kindred's passion for freedom and implacable hatred for the Turk." Little by little the people secured 1 Macdonald, Turkey and the Eastern Question, p. 9. 2 Macdonald, Turkey and the Eastern Question, p. 39. their autonomy and their independence from the Turk, usually with the aid of the great European Powers. All Europe has remained the enemy of the Turk because of his hostility to the arts of civilization. Because of this enmity, or for the sale of some national advantage to the power concerned, and possibly sometimes for the sake of the Balkan peoples themselves, Russia, Austria, and England in turn or in concert have created the six independent states of the peninsula. Montenegro had never wholly submitted to the Turk, and, secure in their mountain fastnesses, its people had kept up the long fight for independence. Greece secured her freedom through allied aid in 1830, while Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Albania took advantage of the quarrels of the Great Powers to gain their independence. Yet, in spite of independence, the peninsula remains a patchwork of nationalities. There is no possibility of geographical lines separating races, and religion joins with race in fighting for adherents. As Mr. Macdonald puts it, "The best example of this Balkan peculiarity was the man who said he was a Greek, but he was born in Bulgaria, his father was a Serbian, and his children were Montenegrins. The Ottoman Turk found his way into Europe after being driven from his home in the highlands of central Asia by the Mongol hordes. In Asia Minor he enlarged his territory and strengthened his position by defeating the Seljuk Turks and the representatives of the Greek empire until he had secured a good footing and had founded a dynasty. When Othman, who gave his name to the dynasty, died in 1300, he had become the virtual lord of Asia Minor. This advent of the Turk into Europe resulted from the breakup of the Greek empire which was due to many causes. There had come into southeastern Europe a strong element of Slavs who scattered themselves well over the peninsula and defied the power of the Greek emperors. These Slavs and Bulgars had taken possession of the western and northern portion of the peninsula and were gradually encroaching upon Macedonia. Here, to save themselves, the Greeks first called the Turks across the Bosphorus to aid in expelling these Slavs. Causes for the Advent of the Turk. The Fourth Crusade, perhaps above all other causes, aided in introducing the Turk into Europe by its weakening of the Greek empire. Its control of Constantinople lasted only about a half century, but during that time it completed the destruction of the eastern empire in the Balkans, so weakening it that it was wholly unable to withstand the many assaults of its enemies in both the east and the west. Moreover, it fostered the internal quarrels which were fast sapping the strength of the Greeks and which were finally to complete their disruption. These three causes, the invasion of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs, the capture of Byzantium in the Fourth Crusade, and internal strife in the empire itself, added to the conquest of the Asiatic portions of the Greek empire by Othman and his son, paved the way for the entrance of the Turks into Europe. As said above, they were first invited to cross the Bosphorus to aid the Greek emperor against the Slavs who were invading Macedonia. After one or two successful campaigns, they remained in Europe and ere long the Greek emperor was chagrined to find that the Turk had begun the struggle with the Slav on his own account. It is unnecessary to follow this struggle, which has two strong landmarks: the battle of Kossovo in 1448, where the Serb was finally conquered and the Turk became master of the peninsula; and the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, which in some respects was less important than the former battle, but which completed the mastery of the Greek empire in the Balkans, and "definitely planted a new nation on European soil." The Turk, a The Turk, however, like most Asiatic peoples, has never adjusted himself to European ways and civilization. He has remained an Asiatic, a stranger to the peoples in his new home, and unwilling to become other than the nomad and fighter of the Asiatic plains. However, the Turk has partially accepted the inheritance of the Greek empire, for he has supported the Greek church and has encouraged it in its struggle with the Western church. He has always been tolerant in religious affairs. Hardly was he settled in his new capital before he ordered the election of a Greek Patriarch in the Eastern church, who was taught to look to the Sultan for the maintenance of his rights and privileges. Prior to the twentieth century, the Turks never made any attempt to absorb the conquered peoples, nor have they permitted assimilation with the conquered peoples. Many years ago, Mr. Freeman pointed out this peculiarity of the Turk: "The Turks, though they have been in some parts of Turkey for five hundred years, have still never become the people of the land, nor have they in any way become one with the people of the land. They still remain as they were when they first came in, a people of strangers bearing rule over the people of the land, but in every way distinct from them." This peculiar characteristic has been very strong in the Turk. There is not another instance in history, with the exception of the Jew, where the relatively small numbers of the invaders have not been absorbed by or partially absorbed by the peoples of the land. But the Turk |