Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
The view of the Bulgarians as to the ultimate result of the war, and
what they had designed should be the division of spoil after the war, I
gathered from various classes in Bulgaria, speaking not only with
politicians but with bankers, trading people, and others. They concluded
that the Turk was going to be driven out of Europe, at any rate, as far
as Constantinople. They considered that Constantinople was too great a
prize for the Bulgarian nation, or for the Balkan States, and that
Constantinople would be left as an international city, to be governed by
a commission of the Great Powers. Bulgaria was, then, to have
practically all Turkey-in-Europe--the province of Thrace, and a large
part of Macedonia as far as the city of Salonica. Constantinople was to
be left, with a small territory, as an international city, and the
Bulgarian boundary was to stretch as far as Salonica. Salonica, they
admitted, was desired very much by the Bulgarians, and also very much by
the Greeks; and the Bulgarian idea in regard to Salonica before the war
was that it would be best to make it a free Balkan city, governed by all
the Balkan States in common, and a free port for all the Balkan States.
Then the frontier of Greece was to extend very much to the north, and
Greece was to be allowed all the Aegean Islands. The Serbian frontier
was to extend to the eastward and the southward, and what is now the
autonomous province of Albania (the creation of which has been insisted
on by the Powers) was to be divided between Montenegro and Servia.
That division would have left the Bulgarians with the greatest spoil of
the war. They would have had entry on to the Sea of Marmora; they would
have controlled, perhaps, one side of the Dardanelles (but I believe
they thought that the Dardanelles might also be left to a commission of
the Powers). It needed great confidence and exact knowledge as to the
state of the Turkish Army to allow plans of that sort to have been not
only formed, but to be generally talked about.
It must be tragical now for a patriotic Bulgarian to compare these high
anticipations with the actual results of the war, and to reflect that at
one time he had three-fourths of his hopes secure and then sacrificed
all by straining after the remainder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account