Monastir had become a part of Serbia, and a very unhappy part at that. The reasons were not far to seek--the population was not Servian, 78[6] per cent. of the inhabitants of the vilayet were Bulgars, and of the rest only a small proportion were Serbs. Ruthless repression of every institution or business which did not profess a Servian origin only served to embitter popular feeling, and reveal the real facts of the situation. Ignorance of the Servian language was counted as a crime; publicans and other comparatively innocuous traders were flogged for infringing decrees published in Servian which they could not understand. Twelve lashes applied by an athletic gendarme are, no doubt, a powerful incentive to learning foreign languages, but many residents so mistrusted their linguistic talents that, rather than face a second lesson, they left their homes, preferring the lot of refugees to tyranny and persecution. Monastir was a town in torment, lamentations resounded in the Consulates of all the Great Powers, the publicans were not alone in regretting the departure of the backward but tolerant Turk. In the army of occupation, although discipline was strictly maintained, a revulsion of feeling had taken place. The poor in every Balkan State were suffering, as they always do, on them had fallen the burden of the war, shorn of its bloody splendour. The misery in Macedonia sickened the Servian peasants, they feared for their own homes, and deserted in large numbers. Armies are not machines, they are dynamic bodies whose health depends on action, kept stationary amid a strife of tongues they melt away. The Greeks had won the race for Salonika without much bloodshed, it was said that the Turkish military governor had sold the town for 300,000 francs. The Bulgars arrived a few hours after the triumphal entry of the Greek troops. They were received coldly, like unwelcome visitors. The Serbs were greeted more cordially, but as guests rather than Allies.