Chapter XIV: The War Between the Balkan States and Turkey (2)

The Bulgarian expeditionary corps for Macedonia, under General Theodoroff, had crossed the frontier on October 18th. Joined to it were the notorious bands of _comitadjis_ under the command of Sandansky, who afterwards related to me the story of this march. General Theodoroff's mission was to engage the portion of the Turkish Fifth Army Corps, which was stationed in the valleys of the Mesta and Struma, {298} east of the Vardar, thus preventing it from assembling and making a flank movement against the main Servian or Bulgarian armies. The Bulgarians were greeted everywhere as liberators, and, although they were not in great numbers, the Turks did not try to oppose them. Soldiers and Moslem Macedonians together fled before them towards Salonika.

When General Theodoroff realized the demoralization of the Turks, and heard how the Greeks were approaching Salonika without any more serious opposition than that which confronted him, he hurried his column towards Salonika. The Bulgarian Princes Boris and Cyril joined him. They were not in time to take part in the negotiations for the surrender of the city. The cowardice of Tahsin pasha had brought matters to a climax on November 9th. But they were able to enter Salonika on the 10th, at the same time that Crown Prince Constantine was making his triumphal entry. Sandansky and his _comitadjis_ hurried to the principal ancient church of the city, for over four hundred years the Saint Sophia of Salonika, and placed the Bulgarian flag in the minarets before the Greeks knew they had been outwitted. On the 12th, King George of Greece arrived to make his residence in the city that was to be his tomb.

After the capture of Monastir, the Servians pressed on to Okrida, on November 23d, and from there into Albania to Elbassan, which they reached five days later. It was their intention to join at Durazzo the other column of the third Servian army, of whose march down the Drin we have already spoken. But {299} the threatening attitude of Austria-Hungary necessitated the recall of the bulk of the Servian forces to Nish. This is the reason they were not able, at that stage of the war, to give the Montenegrins effective assistance against Scutari.

The left wing of the Thessalian Greek army, after the capture of Monastir by the Servians, pursued towards Albania, the Turks who had escaped from Monastir. With great skill, they managed to prevent the Turks from turning north-west into the interior of Albania. After the brilliant and daring storming of the heights of Tchangan, what remained of the Turkish army was compelled to retreat into Epirus towards Janina.

On October 20th, the Greek fleet under Admiral Koundouriotis appeared at the Dardanelles to offer battle to the Turks. Under the cover of the protection of their fleet, the Greeks occupied Lemnos, Thasos, Imbros, Samothrace, Nikaria, and the smaller islands. The inhabitants of Samos had expelled the Turkish garrisons on their own initiative at the outbreak of the war. Mitylene was captured without great difficulty on November 2lst. The Greeks landed at Chios on the 24th. Here the Turkish garrison of two thousand retired to the mountainous centre of the island, and succeeded in prolonging their resistance until January. When he saw that no help was coming from Asia Minor, whose shores had been in sight during all the weeks of combat and suffering, the heroic Turkish commander surrendered with one thousand eight hundred starving men on January 3d. It was only because Italy, {300} by a clause of the Treaty of Ouchy, still held the Dodecanese, that all of the Ægean Islands were not "gathered into the fold" by Greece.

There had been less than six weeks of fighting. The Balkan allies had swept from the field all the Turkish forces in Europe. The Turkish armies were bottled up in Constantinople, Adrianople, Janma, and Scutari, with absolutely no hope of making successful sorties. Except at Constantinople, they were besieged, and could expect neither reinforcements nor food supplies. The Greek fleet was master of the Ægean Sea, and held the Turkish navy blocked in the Dardanelles. No new armies could come from Asiatic Turkey. This was the situation when the armistice was signed. The Ottoman Empire in Europe had ceased to exist. The military prestige of Turkey had received a mortal blow.

THE ARMISTICE AND THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF LONDON

The hopelessness of the outcome of the war with Italy, the dissatisfaction over the foolish and arbitrary rule of its secret committees had weakened the hold of the "Committee of Union and Progress" over the army. Despite its success in the spring elections of 1912, its position was precarious. In July, Mahmud Shevket pasha, who was suspected of planning a military _pronunciamento_, resigned the Ministry of War. The Grand Vizier, Saïd pasha, soon followed him into retirement. The Sultan declared that a {301} ministry not under the control of a political party was a necessity.

Ghazi Mukhtar pasha, after much difficulty, succeeded in forming a ministry, in which a distinguished Armenian, Noradounghian effendi, was given the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. The Unionist majority in the lower house of Parliament proved intractable. Its obstructionist tactics won for the Chamber of Deputies the name of the "comic operahouse of Fundukli." (Fundukli was the Bosphorus quarter in which the House of Parliament was located.) With the help of the Senate, and the moral support of the army, the Sultan dissolved Parliament on August 5th. Only the menace of the Albanian revolution prevented the Committee from attempting to set up a rival Parliament at Salonika. This was the unenviable internal situation of Turkey at the opening of the Balkan War.

The disasters of the Thracian campaign led to the resignation of the Ghazi Mukhtar pasha Cabinet. The aged statesman of the old _régime_, Kiamil pasha, was called for the eighth time to the Grand Vizirate. He retained Nazim pasha, generalissimo of the Turkish army, and Noradounghian effendi, in the Ministries of War and Foreign Affairs. The most influential of the Young Turks, who had opposed bitterly the peace with Italy and were equally determined that no negotiations should be undertaken with the Balkan States, were exiled. Kiamil pasha saw clearly that peace was absolutely necessary. His long experience allowed him to have no illusions as to the possibility of continuing the struggle. Before {302} the Bulgarian attack upon Tchatalja, he began _pourparlers_ with General Savoff. After the repulse of November 17th and 18th, he was just as firm in his decision that the negotiations must be continued. He won over to his point of view the members of the Cabinet, and notably Nazim pasha.

The conditions of the armistice, signed on December 3d, were an acknowledgment of the complete _débâcle_ of the Turkish army. Bulgaria forced the stipulation that her army in front of Tchatalja should be revictualled by the railway which passed under the guns of Adrianople, while that fortress remained without food! Greece, by an agreement with her allies, refused to sign the armistice, but was allowed to be represented in the peace conference. The allies felt that the state of war on sea must continue, in order that Turkey should be prevented during the armistice from bringing to the front her army corps from Syria and Mesopotamia and Arabia; while Greece, in particular, was determined to run no risk in connection with the Ægean Islands. The peace delegates were to meet in London.

Orientals, Christian as well as Moslem, are famous for bargaining. Nothing can be accomplished without an exchange of proposals and counter-proposals _ad infinitum_. In the Conference of London, the demands of the allies were the cession of all European Turkey, except Albania, whose boundaries were not defined, of Crete, and of the islands in the Ægean Sea. A war indemnity was also demanded. Turkey was to be allowed to retain Constantinople, and a strip of territory from Midia on the Black Sea to {303} Rodosto on the Sea of Marmora, and the peninsula of the Thracian Chersonese, which formed the European shore of the Dardanelles. The boundaries of Albania, and its future status, were to be decided by the Powers.

I had a long conversation with the Grand Vizier, Kiamil pasha, on the day the peace delegates left for London. He was frank and unhesitating in the statement of his belief that Turkey could not continue the war. He denounced unsparingly the visionaries who were clamouring for a continuance of the struggle. "It is because of them that we are in our present humiliating position," he said. "They cry out now that we must not accept peace, but they know well that we cannot hope to win back any portion of what we have lost."

There were a number of reasons why the position of Kiamil pasha was sound. First of all, the army organization was in hopeless confusion. Although the Bulgarians were checked at Tchatalja, the conditions on the Constantinople side of the forts was terrible. The general headquarters at Hademkeuy were buried in filth and mud. Although the army was but twenty-five miles from the city, there were days on end when not even bread arrived. Cholera was making great ravages. Soldiers, crazed from hunger, were shot dead for disobeying the order which forbade their eating raw vegetables. There were neither fuel, shelter, nor blankets. Winter was at hand. At San Stefano, one of the most beautiful suburbs of Stambul, in a concentration camp the soldiers died by the thousands of starvation fever. {304} It was one of the most heart-rending tragedies of history.

All the while, in the cafés of Péra, Galata, and Stambul, Turkish officers sat the day long, sipping their coffee, and deciding that Adrianople must not be given up. Even while the fighting was going on, when the fate of the city hung in the balance, I saw these degenerate officers _by the hundreds_, feasting at Péra, while their soldiers were dying like dogs at Tchatalja and San Stefano. This is an awful statement to make, but it is the record of fact. Notices in the newspapers, declaring that officers found in Constantinople without permission would be immediately taken before the Court-Martial, had absolutely no effect.

The navy failed to give any account of itself to the Greeks, who were waiting outside of the Dardanelles. Finally, on December 16th, after the people of the vicinity had openly cursed and taunted them, the fleet sailed out to fight. An action at long range did little damage to either side. The Turkish vessels refused to go beyond the protection of their forts. They returned in the evening to anchor. The mastery of the sea remained to the Greeks.[1]

[1] In this connection, it would be forgetting to pay tribute to a remarkable exploit to omit mention of the raid of the _Hamidieh_ during the late winter. One Ottoman officer at least chafed under the disgrace of the inaction of the Ottoman navy. With daring and skill, Captain Reouf bey slipped out into the Ægean Sea on the American-built cruiser, the _Hamidieh_. He evaded the Greek blockaders, bombarded some outposts on one of the islands, and sank the auxiliary cruiser, the _Makedonia_, in a Greek port. The _Hamidieh_ next appeared in the Adriatic, where she sank several transports, and bombarded Greek positions on the coast of Albania. The cruiser was next heard of at Port Said. She passed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea for a couple of weeks, and then returned boldly into the Mediterranean, although Greek torpedo-boats were lying in wait. Captain Reouf bey ran again the gauntlet of the Greek fleet, and got back to the Dardanelles without mishap. This venture, undertaken without permission from the Turkish admiral, had no effect upon the war. For it came too late. But it showed what a little enterprise and courage might have done to prevent the Turkish débâcle, if undertaken at the beginning of the war.

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If the army and the navy were powerless, how about the people of the capital? From the very beginning of the war, the inhabitants of Constantinople, Moslem as well as Christian, displayed the most complete indifference concerning the fortunes of the battles. Even when the Bulgarians were attacking Tchatalja, the city took little interest. Buying and selling went on as usual. There were few volunteers for national defence, but the cafés were crowded and the theatres and dance-halls of Péra were going at full swing. The refugees came and camped in our streets and in the cemeteries outside of the walls. Those who did not die passed on to Asia. The wounded arrived, and crowded our hospitals and barracks. The cholera came. The soldiers starved to death at San Stefano. The spirit of Byzantium was over the city still. The year 1913 began as 1453 had begun.

The Government tried to raise money by a national loan. It could get none from Europe, unless it agreed to surrender Adrianople and make peace practically on the terms of the allies. An appeal must be made to the Osmanlis. For how could the war be resumed without money? There are many wealthy pashas at Constantinople. Their palaces line both shores of the Bosphorus. They spend money at Monte Carlo {306} like water. They live at Nice, as they live at Constantinople, like princes--or like American millionaires! One of the sanest and wisest of Turkish patriots, a man whom I have known and admired, was appointed to head a committee to wait upon these pashas, many of them married to princesses of the imperial family, and solicit their contributions. The scheme was that the subscribers should advance five years of taxes on their properties for the purposes of national defence. The committee hired a small launch, and spent a day visiting the homes of the pashas. On their return, after paying the rental of the launch, they had about forty pounds sterling! Was it not two million pounds that was raised for the Prince of Wales Fund recently in London? Was not the French loan "for national defence," issued just before the present war, subscribed in a few hours _forty-three times _over the large amount of thirty-two million pounds asked for?

In the face of these facts, the Young Turks were vociferous in their demand that the war be continued. Adrianople must not be surrendered! Kiamil pasha decided to call a "Divan," or National Assembly, of the most important men in Turkey. They were summoned by the Sultan to meet at the palace of Dolma-Baghtche on January 22, 1913. I went to see what would happen there. One would expect that the whole of Constantinople would be hanging on the words of this council, whose decision the Cabinet had agreed to accept. A half-dozen policemen at the palace gate, a vendor of lemonade, two street-sweepers, an Italian cinematograph photographer, {307} and a dozen foreign newspaper men--that was the extent of the crowd.

The Divan, after hearing the _exposés_ of the Ministers of War, Finance, and Foreign Affairs, decided that there was nothing to discuss. The decision was inevitable. Peace must be signed. That night Kiamil pasha telegraphed to London to the Turkish commissioners, directing them to consent to the reddition of Adrianople; and, the other fortresses which were still holding out, and to make peace at the price of ceding all the Ottoman territories in Europe beyond a line running from Enos on the Ægean Sea, at the mouth of the Maritza River, to Midia on the Black Sea.

On the following day, January 23d, a _coup d'état_ was successfully carried out.

Enver bey, the former "hero of liberty," who had taken a daring and praiseworthy part in the revolution of 1908, had been ruined afterwards by being appointed military _attaché_ of the Ottoman Embassy at Berlin. There was much that was admirable and winning in Enver bey, much that was what the French call "elevation of soul." He was a sincere patriot. But the years at Berlin, and the deadening influence of militarism and party politics mixed together, had changed him from a patriot to a politician. He went to Tripoli during the Italian War, and organized a resistance in Benghazi, which he announced would be "as long as he lived." But it was a decision _à la Turque_. The Balkan War found him again at Constantinople--not at the front leading a company against the enemy--but at {308} Constantinople, plotting with the other Young Turks how they could once more get the reins of government in their hands. The decision of the Divan was the opportunity. Enver bey led a small band of followers into the Sublime Porte, and shot Nazim pasha and his _aide-de-camp_ dead. The other members of the Cabinet were imprisoned, and the telephone to the palace cut. Enver bey was driven at full speed in an automobile to the palace. He secured from the Sultan a _firman_ calling on Mahmud Shevket pasha to form a new Cabinet. The Young Turks were again in power.

The bodies of Nazim pasha and the _aide-de-camp_ were buried quickly and secretly. For one of Enver's companions, a man of absolutely no importance, who had been killed by defenders of Nazim, a great military funeral was held.

Mahmud Shevket pasha, who had been living in retirement at Scutari since the war began, accepted the position of Grand Vizier. I heard him, on the steps of the Sublime Porte, justify the murder of Nazim pasha, on the ground that there had been the intention to give up Adrianople. The new Cabinet was going to redeem the country, and save it from a shameful peace.

When the news of the _coup d'état_ reached London, it was recognized that further negotiations were useless. The peace conference had failed.

THE SECOND PERIOD OF THE WAR

It is very doubtful if Mahmud Shevket, Enver, and their accomplices had any hope whatever of {309} retrieving the fortunes of Turkish arms. They had prepared the _coup d'état_ to get back again into office. This could not be done without the tacit consent of the army. At the moment of the Divan the army was stirred up over the surrender of Adrianople. It was the moment to act. At any other time the army would not have acquiesced in the murder of its generalissimo. The Sultan's part in the plot was not clear. His assent was, however, immediately given. Living in seclusion, and knowing practically nothing of what was going on, he signed the _firmans_, accepting the resignation of the Kiamil pasha Cabinet and charging Mahmud Shevket with the formation of a new Cabinet, either by force or by playing upon his fears of what might be his own fate, should the agreement to surrender Adrianople lead to a revolution.

On January 29th, the allies denounced the armistice, and hostilities reopened. The Bulgarians at Tchatalja had strongly entrenched themselves, and were content to rest on the defensive. They did not desire to capture Constantinople. But the Turks wanted to relieve Adrianople. The offensive movement must come from them. The Young Turks had killed Nazim pasha, they said, because they believed Adrianople could be saved. The word was now to Mahmud Shevket and Enver. Let them justify their action.

Enthusiastic speeches were made at Constantinople. We were told that the army at Tchatalja had moved forward, and was going to drive the Bulgarians out of Thrace. The Turks did advance some kilometres, but, like their fleet at the Dardanelles, {310} not beyond the protection of the forts! They did not dare to make a general assault upon the Bulgarian positions. The renewal of the war, as far as Tchatalja was concerned, was a perfect farce. Every one in Constantinople knew that the army was not even trying to relieve Adrianople by a forward march from Constantinople.

Enver bey, who realized that he must make some move to justify the _coup d'état_ of January 23d, gathered two army corps on the small boats which serve the Bosphorus villages and the Isles of Princes. It was his intention to land on the European shore of the Dardanelles, and take the Bulgarians in the rear. A few of his troops--the first that were sent--disembarked at Gallipoli, and, co-operating with the Dardanelles garrison, attempted an offensive movement against the Bulgarian positions at Bulair, which were bottling the peninsula. The attack failed ignominiously. For the Bulgarians, after dispersing the first bayonet charge by their machine-guns, were not content to wait for another attack. They scrambled over their trenches, and attacked the Turks at the point of the bayonet. The army broke, and fled. Some six thousand Turks were left on the field. The Bulgarian losses were trifling. On the same day, February 8th, and the following day, the rest of Enver bey's forces tried to land at several places on the European shore of the Sea of Marmora. For some reason that has never been explained, the Turkish fleet did not co-operate with Enver bey's attempted landings. Naturally the Turks were mowed down. At Sharkeuy it was simply slaughter. {311} Three divisions were butchered. Those few who succeeded in getting foot on shore were driven into the sea and bayoneted. The two corps were practically annihilated.

After this exploit, Enver bey returned to Constantinople, and received the congratulations of the Grand Vizier whom he had created, by a murder, _to redeem Turkey and recover Adrianople_.

The inability to advance at Tchatalja and at Bulair, and the failure to land troops on the coasts of Thrace, entirely immobilized the Turkish armies during the second period of the war. They were content to sit and watch the fall of the three fortresses of Janina, Adrianople, and Scutari. At the moment of the _coup d'état_, I telegraphed that the whole miserable affair was nothing more than a party move of the "outs" to oust the "ins." The events confirmed this judgment. Mahmud Shevket pasha had no other policy than that of Kiamil pasha and Nazim pasha. He, and the Young Turk party, did absolutely nothing to relieve the situation. As soon as they thought they were safe from those who swore to avenge Nazim's death, they began again negotiations for peace, and on exactly the same terms.

In the meantime, the Greeks, who had not signed the armistice, decided that they must take Janina by assault. The worst of the winter was not yet over, but plans were made to increase the small Greek forces which had been practically inactive since the siege began. Janina had never been completely invested. When the Crown Prince arrived, he planned to capture the most troublesome forts, and {312} from them to make untenable the formidable hills which commanded the city. The Greeks followed the plan with great skill and courage. Position after position was taken until the city was at the mercy of their artillery. During the night of March 5th, Essad pasha sent to Prince Constantino emissaries to surrender the city, garrison, and munitions of war without conditions.

The Crown Prince returned to Salonika in triumph. A few days later, the assassination of King George made him King. From this time on, the diplomatic position of Premier Venizelos, in his endeavour to keep within bounds the military party which had the ear of the new King, became most difficult. Even his great genius could not prevent the rupture with Bulgaria.

After the fall of Janina, the Bulgarian general staff realized that it was essential for them to force the capitulation of Adrianople, or to take the city by assault. As they had to keep a large portion of their army before Tchatalja and Bulair, it was decided that forty-five thousand Servians, with their siege cannon, should co-operate in the attack upon Adrianople. It was afterwards given by the Servians as an excuse for breaking their treaty with Bulgaria, that they had helped in the fall of Adrianople. But it must be remembered that the Bulgarian army, by its maintenance of the positions at Tchatalja and Bulair, was rendering service not to herself alone but to the common cause of the allies. Greece and Servia will never be able to get away from the fact that Bulgaria bore the brunt of the burden in the first {313} Balkan War, and that her services in the common cause were far greater than those of either of her allies. One cannot too strongly emphasize the point, also, that the capture and possession of Adrianople did not mean to Bulgaria either from the practical or from the sentimental standpoint what Salonika meant to the Greeks and Uskub to the Servians. The Servian contingent before Adrianople was not helping Bulgaria to do what was to be wholly to the benefit of Bulgaria. The Servians were co-operating in an enterprise that was to contribute to the success of their common cause.

Adrianople had been closely invested ever since the battle of Kirk Kilissé. No army came to the relief of the garrison after the fatal retreat of October 24th. The Bulgarians had not made a serious effort to capture the city during the first period of the war. The armistice served their ends well, because each day lessened the provisions of the besieged. Inside the city Shukri pasha had done all he could to keep up the courage of the inhabitants. He himself was ignorant of the real situation at Constantinople. Perhaps it was in good faith that he assured the garrison continually that the hour of deliverance was at hand. By wireless, the authorities at Constantinople, after the _coup d'état_ especially, kept assuring him that the army was advancing, and that it was a question only of days. So, in spite of starvation and of the continual rain of shells upon the city, he managed to maintain the _morale_ of his garrison. The allies finally decided upon a systematic assault of the forts on all sides of the city at once. In this way, {314} the Turks were not able to use their heavy artillery to best advantage. Advancing with scissors, the Bulgarians and Servians cut their way through the tangle of barbed wire. On the 24th and 25th, the forts fell one after the other. Czar Ferdinand entered the city with his troops on March 26th.

It was at the moment of this heroic capture, in which there was glory enough for all, that the clouds of trouble between Bulgaria and Servia began to appear on the horizon. Shukri pasha, following the old policy of the Turks, which had been so successful for centuries in the Balkan Peninsula, tried to surrender to the Servian general, who was too loyal to discipline to fall into this trap. But the Servian newspapers began to say that it was really the Servian army who had captured the city, and that Shukri pasha recognized this fact when he sent to find the Servian commander. There was an unedifying duel of newspapers between Belgrade and Sofia, which showed that the material for conflagration was ready.

In the second period of the war, the Servians gave substantial aid, especially in artillery, to the Montenegrins, who had been besieging Scutari ever since October 15th. I went over the mountain of Tarabosh on horse with an Albanian who had been one of its defenders. He related graphically the story of the repeated assaults of the Montenegrins and Servians. Each time they were driven back before they reached those batteries that dominated Scutari and made impossible the entry to the city without their capture. The loss of life was tremendous. The bravery of the {315} assailants could do nothing against the miles and miles of barbed wire. No means of stopping assault has ever proved more efficacious. The besiegers were unable to capture Tarabosh. So they could not enter the city.

At the beginning of the war, Scutari was under the command of Hassan Riza pasha. In February, he was assassinated by his subordinate, Essad pasha, an Albanian of the Toptani family, who had been a favourite of Abdul Hamid, and had had a rather questionable career in the _gendarmerie_ during the days of despotism. After the assassination of the Turkish commandant, it was for Albania and not for Turkey that Essad pasha continued the resistance. In March, Austria began to threaten the Montenegrins, and assure them that they could not keep the city. The story of how she secured the agreement of the Great Powers in coercing Montenegro is told in another chapter. Montenegro was defiant, and paid no attention to an international blockade. But on April 13th, the Servians, fearing international complications, withdrew from the siege. It was astonishing news to the world that after this, on April 22d, Essad pasha surrendered Scutari to the King of Montenegro, with the stipulation that he could withdraw with his garrison, his light artillery, and whatever munitions he might be able to take with him.

The Ottoman flag had ceased to wave in any part of Europe except Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The war was over, whether the Young Turks would have it so or not. Facts are facts.

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THE TREATY OF LONDON

Nazim pasha was assassinated on January 23d. The armistice was denounced on the 29th. On February 10th, Mahmud Shevket pasha began to sound the Great Powers for their intervention in securing peace. It was necessary, however, now that the war had been resumed, that the impossibility of relieving Adrianople be demonstrated, so that it might not continue to be a stumbling-block in reopening the negotiations. The Great Powers were willing to act as mediators, but could not make any acceptable overture until after the fall of Janina and Adrianople.

On March 23d, they proposed the following as basis for the renewal of the negotiations at London:

"1. A frontier line from Enos to Midia, which would follow the course of the Maritza, and the cession to the Allies of all the territories west of that line, with the exception of Albania, whose status and frontiers would be decided upon by the Powers.

"2. Decision by the Powers of the question of the Ægean Islands.

"3. Abandonment of Crete by Turkey.

"4. Arrangement of all financial questions at Paris, by an international commission, in which the representatives of Turkey and the allies would be allowed to sit. Participation of the allies in the Ottoman Debt, and in the financial obligations of the territories newly acquired. No indemnity of war, in principle.

"5. End of hostilities immediately after the acceptance of this basis of negotiations."

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Turkey agreed to these stipulations. The Balkan States, however, did not want to commit themselves to the Enos-Midia line "as definitely agreed upon," but only as a base of _pourparlers_. They insisted that the Ægean Islands must be ceded directly to them. They wanted to know what the Powers had in mind in regard to the frontiers of Albania. In the last place, they refused to relinquish the possibility of an indemnity of war.

Notes were exchanged back and forth among the chancelleries until April 20th, when the Balkan States finally agreed to accept the mediation of the Powers. They had practically carried all their points, however, except that of the communication of the Albanian frontier. Hostilities ceased. There really was not much more to fight about, at least as far as Turkey was concerned.

It was a whole month before the second conference at London opened. The only gleam of hope that the Turks were justified in entertaining, when they decided to renew the war, had been the possible outbreak of a war between the Allies. If only the quarrel over Macedonia had come, for which they looked from week to week, they might have been able to put pressure on Bulgaria for the return of Adrianople, and on Greece for the return of the Ægean Islands. But the rupture between the Allies did not take place until after they had settled with Turkey. Why fight over the bear's skin until it was actually in their hands?

The negotiations were reopened in London on May 20th. On May 30th, the peace preliminaries {318} were signed. The Sultan of Turkey ceded to the Kings of the allied states his dominions in Europe beyond the Enos-Midia line. Albania, its status and frontiers, were intrusted by the Sultan to the sovereigns of the Great Powers. He ceded Crete to the allied sovereigns, but left the decision as to the islands in the Ægean Sea, and the status of Mount Athos, to the Great Powers.

The war between the allies enabled Turkey to violate this treaty. They won back from Bulgaria, without opposition, most of Thrace, including Adrianople and Kirk Kilissé. Later, treaties were made separately with each of the Balkan States. But, as it seems to be a principle of history that no territories that have once passed from the shadow of the Crescent return, it is probable that the Treaty of London will, in the end, represent the _minimum_ of what Turkey's former subjects have wrested from her.

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