The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—TurkeyHogarth, D. G. (David George)
History
The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey
Hogarth, D. G. (David George)
Balkan Peninsula -- History; Eastern question (Balkan)
Greeks were already in possession of this important city and seaport,
as well as of the whole of southern Macedonia. The Serbs were in
possession of central and northern Macedonia, including Monastir and
Okhrida, which they had at great sacrifices conquered from the Turks.
It had been agreed that Bulgaria, as its share of the spoils, should
have all central Macedonia, with Monastir and Okhrida, although on
ethnical grounds the Bulgarians have only very slightly better claim to
the country and towns west of the Vardar than any of the other Balkan
nationalities. But at the time that the agreement had been concluded it
had been calculated in Greece and Serbia that Albania, far from being
made independent, would be divided between them, and that Serbia,
assured of a strip of coast on the Adriatic, would have no interest in
the control of the river Vardar and of the railway which follows its
course connecting the interior of Serbia with the port of Salonika.
Greece and Serbia had no ground whatever for quarrel and no cause for
mutual distrust, and they were determined, for political and commercial
reasons, to have a considerable extent of frontier from west to east in
common. The creation of an independent Albania completely altered the
situation. If Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia and thus secure
a frontier from north to south in common with the newly-formed state of
Albania, then Greece would be at the mercy of its hereditary enemies
the Bulgars and Arnauts (Albanians) as it had previously been at the
mercy of the Turks, while Serbia would have two frontiers between
itself and the sea instead of one, as before, and its complete economic
strangulation would be rendered inevitable and rapid. Bulgaria for its
own part naturally refused to waive its claim to central Macedonia,
well knowing that the master of the Vardar valley is master of the
Balkan peninsula. The first repercussion of the ephemeral treaty of
London of May 30, 1913, which created Albania and shut out Serbia from
the Adriatic, was, therefore, as the diplomacy of the Germanic powers
had all along intended it should be, the beginning of a feud between
Greece and Serbia on the one hand, and Bulgaria on the other, the
disruption of the Balkan League and the salvation, for the ultimate
benefit of Germany, of what was left of Turkey in Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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