THE BALKAN'S HISTORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15169, 7 December 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE BALKAN'S HISTORY.

A STORY OF STRIFE.

Avtkr the Roman occupation hordes of barbarians swept over the Balkan Peninsula, down to tho '.very walls of Byzantium, and little is known until in the tenth century a Bulgarian ruler named Simeon established the first Bulgarian Empire, which ran from the Black Sea to the .Albanian coast and took in Scrvia. That empire split in two under his successor, but was partially re-united by a great man named Samuel in a struggle against the Byzantine Emperor, a cruel aesthetic known as the Bulgar-slaycr. The Bulgarian army was defeated, and the Bulgar-slayer put

\ out the eyes of 15,000 captive warriors) 3 leaving only every hundredth man with a one qye to lead the blind thousands home 5 to their king.' As they'groped their way l before him the heart of their king broke, . and ho died within a few days. That was 1 in 1014. In the thirteenth century the . first Servian Empire ruse. The Serbs conquered' Bulgaria and the greater part of , Macedonia, and in the fourteenth century i their Emperor dreamed of. a great united ■ Grcek-Serb-Bulgar empire as the means of ' ( withstanding the conquest of the Turks, (which already threatened," ..The fatal field; ~' of Kossoyo ~iu.- 1389, . mi which the Turks ! 'overthrew the empire, put a black seal on ! the Balkans for nearly 500 years. .'No j historical event before or since has left such I a powerful impression on the Servian mind. ' The Emperor, as' well, as the Sultan, was slain, ami the flower of the Servian aristocracy was left dead on the field. The Roumanians fought and fell with their Christian neighbours, and, though they resisted in their own hind for a time, they, too, were subjugated.- The conquest of Bulgaria hud begun a few days before, and the land was now devastated by fire and sword. Most of the population hid in the mountains, and the deeds of outlaw bands are idealised in folk-lore. ■ Michael the Brave. Europe then for generation* lost sight of Roumanians and Bulgarians. The boldest attempt to struggle free was made by . Michael the Brave, a Roumanian prince, at tho end of tlie sixteenth century. lie .united, under ..him-.the. two princedoms of Roumanian, Wallachia and Moldavia, and ' for a time made headway against the Turks. He came to his princedom by in-trigues-at Constantinople, and was deeply involved with Turkish money-lenders. One day he summoned the money-lenders to his palace and set it on lire. ' They were burned to death, and their fate. was the signal for a massacre of Turks everywhere in the land. After various ups and downs in life he. was finally assassinated by an ally general. • To this day he remains the great national hero of Roumania. The lot of the peasants in the Balkans during > this time had perhaps been no worse than • it had been'under-the oppression of native nobies. But' with the decline of tho power of the sultans , in the eighteenth century anarchy spread, and roaming bands of soldiers and desperadoes committed every i conceivable atrocity. The. Balkans then began to look to Russia for deliverance. Roumania entered into a treaty with Peter ' the. Great m 1711, but the Russian army .' was defeated, and the Prince of Moldavia i was beheaded in Constantinople. • Tho i States had to wait another hundred years , for their emancipation. . Emancipation from the Turk. '• Servia was the first. Taking advantage. ( of anarchy in the Turkish Empire in 1804, . she rose and cleared the enemy from her land. For a few years she was. indepen- ] dent. Tien,, .in 1815, she. was reeon-. i quered, but two years afterwards she rose j again and secured autonomy. The Bui- , garians, isolated by mountains, did not , join in the revolution of 1804, but a wonderful national, literary, ' and edit- i cational revival began, and led to a long l and bitter, but ultimately successful, war 'with the Greek clergy, who, under Turkey, had a monopoly in education. In 1822 Greece fought for, and against a disorganised Turkish army won, ' her indc- ■ f>2ndence. In 1848 there was a great revoutioh in Roumania. The people of Mol- '' davia surrounded the palace of their prince J and forced him to sign a Constitution, but 5 then, under a treaty contracted by Russia v and Turkey, the unfortunate country was , deprived for a time of its last vestige of I independence. The exiled leaders of the c revolution, spread through n Europe the tragic history of the country's ( wrongs, and Europe became aware for the first time of a Roumanian nationality. In 1861 and 1864 Bulgaria suffered another ° great wrong. Twelve thousand Crimean I Tartars and a still greater number of Cir- n caseians were settled on lands taken with- n out compensation from the peasants, and c. were a great scourge to the country. . About this time Servia, after a short, but u desperate, struggle, drove the Turkish gar- tt risons out of its towns. si The Bulgarian Atrocities. t; u Then in 1876' came. the most terrible w event in a dreadful history. Turkey ~ feared a rising in Bulgaria, and an order was issued from Constantinople for a *' general massacre, and from 12,000 to 15,000 ° men, women, and children were butchered, t] In the same year Servia declared war, but — was defeated. . This, however, was the I *] salvation of. the Balkans. Russia inter- I r, vened, and that war, in which the Ronnmnian and Bulgarian troops showed the Vi greatest bravery, established the basis of t> the. independence of the Balkan States as oi they exist to-day. . The Balkan committee it in London,-in a manifesto issued the othor *>< day, say that the present war was made at g<

the Berlin Congress in , 1878, when'the Powers, at the instance of Great Britain, restored >tho Macedonia which . Russian arms' had won from the direct, rule of Turkey. It is true that the Treaty of Berlin .revoked a treaty signed only four'months before—tli? Treaty of San Stefano—under which ' almost, the whole of Macedonia was given to Bulgaria, to which nationality the preponderance of tho population belongs. It is not necessary to go over the various programmes "which the Powers have sought i to force on Turkey, and their breakdown, one by one-—from the proposals of 1878 to tin! Reval programme,.announced after the meeting of King Edward and the Tsar in i 1905, but suspended on the rise of the Young Turks : in the hope they inspired. But to explain the chaotic state of' the country and the miracle of the: present alliance of hitherto envious States, it "should be remembered that, • after many years passed in waiting for reforms, revolutionary committees were formed' in ■ Bulgaria, which sent armed bands into North Macedonia. Greece sent rival bands trom. the south, and Scrvia has also been active. At the same, time the States, but Bulgaria by far the most, were spending money on the education .of their kins-people in Macedonia by establishing schools and gymnasia. Turkey has remained heedless, and' lias closed the Christian schools' and exiled th? teachers. Progress in prosperity and order has been made by the allies within, their own boundaries, while Macedonia has remained a country of;buried possibilities.' .The contrast is impressive. Now a union of Serbs, Greeks, and, Bulgarians has been realised such as Hie' famous • internal _ organisation of Sofia' urged 'on the States nearly'2o years ago. but without success, i'.K both Greeks and .Servians were jealous lest it should be the means of adding. Mace- j donia to Bulgaria, and not of autonomy or i partition. • •