"The Serbo-Bulgarian conflict," said Dr. Milovanović, a Serbian
Minister of Justice, "has its origin exclusively in the chauvinistic
circles of both countries. Macedonia is the battlefield." He said,
very rightly, that the population of Macedonia was equally near to
Serb and to Bulgar; but unhappily, in his efforts to establish a
_modus vivendi_, he proposed that Macedonia should be divided between
the two countries. Surely it is far better that it should become the
common possession of Serb and Bulgar, the link joining them to one
another. After Dr. Milovanović came the Balkan wars, of which the
second utterly destroyed for many a long day his hopes of an
understanding, since the experiences of the invaded Bulgars were
generally very different from those recorded by the careful
schoolmaster, Stavri Popoff, in his monograph, _The Self-Defence of
the Village of Ciprovci against the Serbo-Roumanian Invasion of 1913_
(Berkovica, 1915). This isolated village in the mountains was defended
by thirty old reservists, who possessed 100 guns and 15,000
cartridges. So pleased is their historian with the manner in which
they held their own--the rocks which surround Ciprovci are so many
natural fortresses--that he tells us not only the names of the thirty
warriors but those of the other inhabitants who carried milk and bread
to the outposts. On July 14, a Sunday, there was an exciting battle,
in the course of which the Bulgars suffered no human casualties, but
lost to the Serbs 900 sheep and a score of cattle, and this, says
Popoff, "made the women weep very much." As soon as possible a
telegram was sent to the War Office at Sofia, asking for
reinforcements, after which "their spirits rose to such a height that
they felt they could resist anything." On July 26 the Serbs were again
repulsed, but once more a number of sheep and cattle were carried off.
In conclusion the author thanks "all those who morally and materially
have helped and will help the cause," including the mayors of the
neighbourhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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