If the second Balkan War had not left memories more bitter than at
Ciprovci then the reconciling labours of those who follow Dr.
Milovanović would be less difficult. In our own day Mr. Leland
Buxton, working also for this union which eventually must come,
suggests in his _Black Sheep of the Balkans_[79] that Macedonia should
be made autonomous. But this would do no more than perpetuate the
wearisome and fierce intrigues of which exponents can be always found
in Balkan countries. Macedonia must become the common possession; and
what could be more desirable than that one of these countries should
administer the province in such a way as to attract the other country?
Marshal Mišić was of opinion that the officials whom the Serbs,
after the Balkan War, placed in Macedonia were too often not the kind
of men whom wisdom would have chosen; but there was as yet a general
eagerness to avoid being sent to those unalluring parts. The officials
left behind them such unhappy recollections that the Serbian army,
advancing through Macedonia in 1918, was received, as a rule, with
something less than delight. Fortunately the Yugoslav Government was
able, after these events, to induce a far superior class of officials
to serve in Macedonia, though I believe the scale of remuneration is
no higher than in the old kingdom. Men are selected who, in addition
to other qualities, speak the Turkish or Albanian of the district.
"You can count on our moral and material support, on all that we now
give to Turkey," said Mr. Balfour in 1903 to M. Svetislav Simić,
the Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who came as special envoy to
London "if," said Mr. Balfour, "you can come to an understanding with
the Bulgars on the one side and the Croats on the other." In many
Macedonian places one finds that priests and schoolmasters--I have
said this before but it will bear repetition--who officiated under the
Bulgars have been confirmed in their posts. How very different is this
from the policy of a few years ago when, for example, at Kriva (or
Egri) Palanka there was considerable propaganda with respect to the
school. While Macedonia was part of the Sultan's dominions there was,
on the whole, more willingness of Serbs and Bulgars to provide a
school than of the local population to frequent it.
FEROCITIES OF EDUCATION
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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