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Art. 10. THE FOUR TREATIES OF BUCAREST.

In the year 1812, exactly a century before the formation of the Balkan League and the destruction of the Turkish Empire in Europe, the first Treaty of Bucarest was signed, not in the Wallachian capital, but in a villa at Sinaia, by Russian and Turkish plenipotentiaries. Under the Empress Catherine II, Russia had begun to interest herself in the welfare of the oppressed Christian races in Turkey; and in the Treaty of Kainarji (1774) she had already exacted from the Sultan a general promise of protection for the Christian faith in the Ottoman Empire. The war with Turkey, which originated in the division of Europe between Napoleon and Alexander in the Treaty of Tilsit, naturally came to an end when the French Emperor turned against his ally. The conflict had been indecisive, but, by the Treaty which concluded it, Russia obtained special assurances for the good government of Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia. These regions passed gradually out of Turkish hands, and a portion of the Greek race became free in 1829; but the condition of the population remaining under the rule of the Porte grew worse rather than better, and solemn announcements of reform, such as the Hatt-i-Shereef of Gulhané (1839), the Hatt-i-Humayoun (1856), and the "constitution" of 1876, proved to be nothing more than delusions. The efforts of the Powers in 1856 and 1878 on behalf of the suffering races were of a half-hearted character; and the Treaty of Berlin sanctioned the great diplomatic crime of the century-the retrocession to Turkey of large portions of the Armenian and Bulgarian races newly liberated by the Treaty of San Stefano.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the consequences of that fatal act. Not one of the statesmen who signed the Treaty can have believed in his heart that the tripartite division of the Bulgarian race would be a permanent arrangement. It could only serve for the nonce as a check to Russian designs. Under the Cyprus Convention reforms were to be carried out in the Armenian provinces, but practically nothing was done. For some years the Christian populations, exhausted by the war and hoping against hope for the realisation of the promised reforms, remained quiescent. The first shock

to the artificial structure raised at Berlin came in September 1885 when Eastern Rumelia proclaimed its union with Bulgaria. All the world expected that the Sultan would crush the revolt, and Turkish troops assembled on the frontier. But the Bulgarians were aided by British diplomacy, which had executed a complete volte face under the able direction of Sir William White; and that remarkable man, though opposed by all his colleagues, induced the Sultan to stay his hand. The danger to Bulgarian union came from the West, not the East. While Prince Alexander was hurrying all his forces to the Turkish frontier, King Milan of Serbia suddenly declared war and invaded Bulgaria. Prince Alexander's position was apparently desperate, but the Bulgarians, led by young subalterns-the chief of the staff was in his twenty-fifth year-routed the invaders and were pursuing them in the direction of Nish when the Austrian minister at Belgrade, Count Khevenhüller, appeared on the scene and imposed a cessation of hostilities. A few months later Serbian and Bulgarian plenipotentiaries and Majid Pasha, a Turkish official, met at Bucarest, where a treaty of peace was signed.

The second Treaty of Bucarest (March 3, 1886) is the shortest on record. It consists of a single clause stating that peace has been restored between Serbia and Bulgaria. The war cost Bulgaria upwards of 6000 killed and wounded and some 25 million francs, but the aggressor escaped scot-free. Austria, which had unquestionably winked at, if she had not instigated, the Serbian attack, defended the interests of her protégé. In justice to Serbia it must be stated that King Milan's adventure was far from meeting with general approval; it was recognised that the King, aware of his increasing unpopularity, sought to prop up his tottering throne by means of an easy victory. Several years later King Milan, in conversation with the writer, gave an interesting and impressive account of his experience during these stormy days and of the motives of his action. He was in Vienna when the news of the Bulgarian revolution reached him; he started at once for Belgrade, where all was excitement and confusion, and put himself at the head of the national movement for the defence of the principle of 'equilibrium' and the sanctity of treaties.

He said nothing, as might be expected, of Austrian encouragement or of the dangers which encompassed the dynasty. In the certain anticipation of victory he took with him to the front some gigantic candles to be lighted for the Te Deum which he proposed to celebrate in the cathedral at Sofia; these fell into the hands of Prince Alexander, and are now religiously preserved in King Ferdinand's palace.

The real significance of the war of 1885 seems to have escaped the notice of most observers, It was the first instance since the Middle Ages of an attack made by one of the Christian nations of the Balkan Peninsula upon another. It was the beginning of a series of fratricidal conflicts, partly due to unscrupulous foreign intrigue, partly to the crude chauvinism of young and inexperienced States, whose national programmes were as yet unfulfilled. It was the precursor of the SerboBulgarian wars of 1913 and 1915. The Bulgarians have long memories and never forget an injury; to those who are familiar with this trait in their character there is nothing surprising in the fact that they fired the first shot in the former year, and in the latter dealt their neighbours a 'stab in the back' similar to that which they had received from them thirty years previously. Before 1885 the relations between the two races had been most friendly; Bulgarian haiduks in the mountains had helped the Serbians in their struggle for independence; a Bulgarian legion was organised at Belgrade when that city was bombarded by the Turks in 1862; and large numbers of Bulgars fought under the Serbian flag in the campaigns of 1876 and 1877.

Why did not King Milan, instead of attacking the sister-state, seek 'compensation' from Turkey, the traditional enemy, for the Bulgarian union? Greece was preparing to take that course, but Austria preferred a Serbo-Bulgarian war. Divide et impera had already become the watchword of her Balkan policy. Austria had already in 1881 made a secret Treaty with Serbia, assuring her expansion in the direction of Macedonia in order to divert her attention from kindred Bosnia. The Treaty was renewed in 1889; but, even then, few persons in Serbia thought of making any claim to Macedonia on ethnological grounds. The writer spent some months in

Serbia in that year, when the 500th anniversary of the battle of Kossovo was celebrated with great solemnity and intense patriotic excitement. Ardent desires were expressed for the restoration of Czar Dushan's empire, but, except in this connexion, Macedonia was never mentioned.

The absence in the second Treaty of Bucarest of any indemnity for her neighbour's aggression caused much soreness in Bulgaria, which, together with the unsatisfactory and incomplete settlement of the question of the union with Eastern Rumelia and the intrigues of Russia and her partisans, brought about the fall of Prince Alexander and plunged the country in confusion. On the Serbian side there was the soreness of defeat, which led King Milan's delegates, it is said, to oppose the insertion in the Treaty of the usual reference to friendly relations in the future. Nevertheless, in 1904, after the extinction of the Obrenovich dynasty, we find Serbia and Bulgaria engaged in the negotiation of a defensive alliance and a fiscal union. The proclamation of Bulgarian independence in 1908 passed almost unnoticed in Serbia, owing to the irritation caused by the simultaneous annexation of Bosnia by Austria. The formation of the Balkan league followed in 1912; and the Christian nations which had fought side by side against the Ottoman invader at Kossovo were once more arrayed together against the secular foe. The Turkish empire in Europe was overthrown, but the splendour of this great achievement was soon dimmed by sordid disputes among the victors. The Central Powers, in confident anticipation of the defeat of the Balkan allies, had refrained from interference; but Austria, in pursuance of her usual policy, now began to foment their mutual jealousies, while Rumania, which had stood aloof from the great crusade, demanded 'compensation' for her neutrality.

It soon appeared evident that Bulgaria, whose central position exposes her to encroachment on every side, would be expected to satisfy all claims; and in these circumstances her wisest course would have been to buy off Rumania, who demanded a considerable slice of her territory, although the question between the two nations had already been settled by the Protocol of Petersburg. As between Serbia and Bulgaria, all possibility of a

conflict had apparently been eliminated by a treaty (March 13, 1912) which minutely defined the territorial claims of both nations, reserving the final disposal of a certain contested area for the decision of the Tsar. But Serbia repudiated the treaty; and the opposition orators in the Skupshtina at Belgrade were still denouncing Russian arbitration and advocating an appeal to the sword when the war party at Sofia broke away, and General Savoff, without the knowledge of his Government, gave orders to attack the Serbian and Greek armies. This rash step-of which the more immediate causes were the fear of the officers that the peasant soldiers would insist on going home for the harvest, and the exasperation of the Macedonian chiefs at the forcible denationalisation of their kindred by the Serbian and Greek authorities-put Bulgaria out of court and gave her enemies their chance. Two days later the troops were recalled and General Savoff was dismissed, but it was too late. The armed forces of Rumania, Turkey, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro closed around the culprit State as the champions of order and the sanctity of treaties; Bulgaria was crushed; and in the first week of August 1913 the delegates of the victorious allies, together with a number of military officers fresh from the battlefield, met at Bucarest for the division of the spoil. In the space of eight days a complete re-arrangement of territories in the Balkan Peninsula was announced to an astonished world. Had General Savoff stayed his hand the result would hardly have been different, for the military coteries surrounding King Constantine and the Serbian Crown-Prince were determined on war. Three days before General Savoff's adventure King Constantine had left Athens for the front taking with him the declaration of war already drawn up.

The third Treaty of Bucarest (August 10, 1913) is of the old-fashioned type. It is based on the venerable principle Victoribus spolia, and, like most of its predecessors, e.g. the Treaties of Vienna and Berlin, takes no account of nationalities. It assigns practically the whole of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, the greater part falling to Serbia, and hands over to Rumania a considerable portion of Bulgarian territory to which she

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