THE BALKAN BATTLEGROUND.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 22 October 1912, Page 6

THE BALKAN BATTLEGROUND.

From the distant timeo when the East first pressed upon Europe, the Balkan ±*eiiiripuia has been the great battleground of contending races. Homer sings of the strife carried into Asia and of the fall of Troy, impregnable to assault, through the strategy of the most crafty of men \ but history tells of the Persian host that crossed the narrow .strait by a bridge of boats and of its long march to defeat at the hands of the Jjeroic Greeks. The Retreat of the Ten Thousand, that most famous of world stories, immortalised by the great historian Xenophon, who inspired his fel-low-countrymen to cut their way to the sea from the heart of a hostile empire, led to the imposition, of the Macedonian rule over the East, an assertion of superior strength which seemed to unsure the European occupation of the .Balkans. For centuries the, peninsula was held against Asia. The Roman power gathered it in, and the "Eastern Empire," with its seat at .the city of 'Oonstantine, survived the invasion of the Goths and the collapse of the twin empire of the West; but when JVloharanied preached his fierce religion in the deserts of Arabia a new movement was born, through which, the Balkans became what they are to-day. The Eastern Empire withstood the attacks of the Saracens, but broke down when the Turks took up the cause of the Koran. A branch of the same great race to which the Tartars, the Mongols, and other famous fighting nations belong, ;the Ottoman Turks emerged from Central Asia in the thirteenth century. They speedily became the most important factor in the Mohammedan world, -and soon wrested its remaining Asiatic provinces from Constantinople. In 1342 the Turks first crossed into Europe, raiding and plundering; in 1355 they secured a permanent footing in European territory; in 1453 they successfully stormed Constantinople; by 1566, when Suleiman the Magnificent died, the Ottoman Empire stretched from Germany <bo Persia. This was the floodznark of the Asiatic invasion. In all the gi~eat Balkan peninsula only little Mouteftegro then kapt its independence; excepting this, not an inch of Balkan soil Init owned the Turk as master. During the two centimes which elapsed between the first Turkish raid on Europe and the death of Sulieman, war was almost continuous. The subjugation or the Christian population was complete. in many districts war assumed its most horrible form; hatred of the Turk was thus ineradicably stamped upon the peoples of South-Eastern Europe, and is an element not to be mistaken in the political complications of to-day.

For two centuries the victorious Turk pressed steadily forward upon Fan-ope; for four centuries he has been sullenly giving ground; all the time the Balkans have been in a state of turmoil, and only recently have they begun to .re-emerge from anarchy and barbarism. it must be confessed that their law is irregular and that their order leaves much to be desired : but what could be expected? Again and again the Danubian provinces revolted against the Sul--tan. Constantly the Austro-German • empire hurled its armies at the Turkish frontier; constantly ferocious Asiatic larmies passed through the Balkans, raoa and religion combined to fan mutual hatred, and the knowledge that his own Christian subjects were heart and soul with his enemies made the Turk merciless and desperate. The growing strength of Russia, was against him. The policy of European rivals sometimes assisted him, but his own inherent racial weaknesses prevented his effective occupation of the lands he had conquered. The varying fortunes of these ceaseless Balkan wars cannot easily be followed, but although from .year to year the issue often seemed doubtful, viewed century by century, tha ultimate outcome could not be mistaken. Turkish rule was doomed. Anc^e,nt Christian kingdoms reappeared. Semi-independent principalities'replaced Turkish provinces. European protector..ates were established. To-day we hays Greece, Roumania, Servia, " Bulgaria, •as independent States, all eager to renew the attack and to see the last of the Turk in Europe. The great European Powers profess with more or less sincerity to be desirous of maintaining tho peace, but Macedonia, from which raine world-rulers, has still to be liberated. The continued nongovernment of Macedonia is the incentive to peoples who need little incentive to attack anything Ottoman, nor does it appear possible ;for Europe to secure Macedonian reforms without depriving the Turk of everything but the shadow of authority. This would be easy enough were the Turk degenerate "in the Western meaning nf the term; but the Turk, singularly enough, still fights almost as well as he did when his very name terrorised :E;u-ope.— New Zealand Herald.