THE DIVIDED SLAVS

"I wish to speak to you to-night about the problem of Southeastern Europe, which may be best defined as the problem of those races which were at one time subject to the Turk. These races include the Magyar, the Roumanian, the South Slav (Croat and Serb and Slovene), the Bulgarian, the Greek, and the Albanian. The fortunes of these various races are involved one with another by geographical and historical causes, and have to be treated as a single whole. A mistake that has often been made in America and England as elsewhere, is to divide this single problem of the near East into two water-tight compartments, one of which is labelled Balkan States, and the other Austria-Hungary. People in England have interested themselves a little in two of the Balkan States-namely Greece since the time of Byron, and Bulgaria from the time of Gladstone and the Bulgarian atrocities onwards. But we have never interested ourselves enough in Roumania and Serbia, and we have known nothing of the problems of Austria-Hungary, since the time of Kossuth. A year ago, people in England used vaguely to wonder whether the Magyars were Slavs, and whether Austria-Hungary would break up when the Emperor Franz Joseph died. But why it should break up at all, and into how many pieces, they had no idea. Above all, no one seemed to understand the intimate connection of Balkan questions with those of Austria-Hungary. Yet if you glance at this race map you will see the connection at once. While the independent part of the South Slav race that we call Serbia and Montenegro is situated in the Balkan peninsula, the greater part of the South Slav race is found in Austria-Hungary. So too, independent Roumania is one of the four Christian powers of the Balkan peninsula, while three and one-half million Roumanians are in Hungary subject to Magyar rule. In fact the South Slav race and the Roumanian race are each cut in half-onehalf free in the Balkans, and the other half subject to the rule of the Emperor Francis Josef. For this reason it is impossible to disassociate the Balkan and the Austro-Hungarian questions.

THE RUSH OF NATIONALITIES

"What is the historical origin of this state of things? The countries shown on this map, that is to say the Balkans and Hungary, are just those European countries which were at one time submerged beneath the Turkish flood. The high-water mark of that flood was reached at the abortive siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683. In the generation following that event, the Turkish flood first began to subside in the time of the great Austrian general Prince Eugene, best known to Englishmen as Marlborough's colleague at Blenheim. Largely by the victories of Eugene, the whole of Hungary was delivered from the Ottoman yoke, and modern Austria-Hungary (except Bosnia and Dalmatia) was then formed. It was formed at the expense of the Turk, but it was formed no less at the expense of the future freedom of the

races that Austria then delivered. In delivering them from the Turks the House of Hapsburg made them subject to its own dominion. On the other hand the lands that now constitute independent Serbia and Roumania continued as parts of the Turkish Empire throughout the eighteenth century. At that price they purchased their present national

existence.

"During the eighteenth century the Turks usually held Belgrade as the outpost of decivilization against Europe. And so things remained until in the first years of the nineteenth century, the movement for the emancipation of the Balkan races began with the revolt of Northwest Serbia under the hero Karageorge. A dozen years later, in the time of Byron, the Greeks imitated the Serbians; and in yet another generation in the time of Gladstone and Disraeli, the Bulgarians followed suit. Finally, in 1912, the Turks were driven into a very small corner of Europe by a combination of Bulgarian, Serbian, and Greek. The Roumanians (who had never been so completely enslaved by the Turks as the Balkan peoples south of the Danube), were throughout the nineteenth century consolidating the independence and prosperity of modern Roumania. This work was carried to success by the good King Carol, who died a few months ago.

This nineteenth century work of the liberation of the Balkans from Turkey, differs from Prince Eugene's liberation of Hungary in two important respects. In the first place, the nineteenth century is the era of nationality, ushered in by the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon. French ideas of liberty profoundly affected the races subject to the Turk. Hence in the nineteenth century we find the Balkan peoples working out their own liberation and forming independent states on the basis of nationality and democracy-Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece. This is a much more complete work of liberation than the work which Prince Eugene had accomplished under the ancient régime of substituting the Austrian for the Turkish rule in Hungary.

RUSSIA'S AID

"We must also remark another difference between the earlier and the later expulsion of the Turk. Austria had been the instrument of the earlier expulsion; but throughout the nineteenth century Russia was the leader of the Liberationist movement. England sometimes went against the Turk, under Byron and Gladstone, sometimes for him under Palmerston and Disraeli. But Russia has for a hundred years been the steady friend of liberation in the Turkish Empire, and has fought at least three wars in that interest. We have to recognize frankly, as Bright and Gladstone recognized, as Palmerston and Disraeli failed to recognize, that, although Russia is a despotism at home, she has been more ready to go on wars of liberation abroad than any other country in Europe or in America. Roumania, Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria are independent domocracies, and they owe their freedom, first

to their own efforts, and secondly to Russia. Hitherto Russia has got nothing in return for all these efforts except Bessarabia-a doubtful boon. She has not even got access to warm water and the world's oceans through the closed Dardanelles. In Sofia (Bulgaria's noble city which thirty years ago was a dirty Turkish village), there stands in the grand square before the Parliament house the equestrian statue of the Czar Liberator,-the Russian despot who freed Bulgaria in the war of 1877. The memories of which that statue is the symbol has up to this moment restrained the Bulgarian peasant from taking the side of Russia's enemies in the present war.

"And what was Austria's rôle during these nineteenth century wars of liberation? Her rôle was to remain neutral as between Turk and Christian, and to carry off as much as she could in the scramble. When Bosnia, an entirely Serb province, bravely revolted against the Turk, Austria took Bosnia for herself,-by occupation, in 1878, followed by a long war against the Serb inhabitants, and by formal annexation in 1908. She thus increased the number of South Slavs in her dominions to nearly seven millions, and so compensated herself for the Italian possessions which she had recently lost. Indeed her rule over the South Slavs is very much of the same character as her rule over the Italians two generations ago. But before saying anything more about AustroMagyar rule over South Slavs and Roumanians, I should like first to say a little about independent Roumania and independent Serbia.

THE RISE OF ROUMANIA

"The Roumanians regard themselves as a Latin people. Their language is akin to Italian, although it contains also many Slav words. The people are descended from the inhabitants of Dacia, the province. which Trajan added to the Roman Empire. But there has of course been much intermarriage with later Slav immigrants. Certainly the modern Roumanians have many distinctive Latin qualities, good and less good. They are utterly different from the Slav and Magyar races by whom they are surrounded. They are an isolated and somewhat pathetic Western phenomenon in this Eastern world. They would be happier on the Mediterranean than on the Euxine. They look for alliance to Italy, and they get their modern civilization straight from France. Bucharest, the Roumanian capital, has been built in imitation of Paris and the life there is imitation Parisian. The literature they read is French literature, their theatre and opera are on the French and Italian model. They know French so well that it is worth while to publish four of the Bucharest papers in that language. Though their commercial and financial connections are necessarily Austro-German owing to their geographic position, their sympathies and ideas are French and Italian.

"Bucharest is a much more considerable city than Sofia or Belgrade, and as an imitation of Paris it is by no means contemptible. For there

is a leisured and a wealthy class in Roumania which makes the life at Bucharest. There is no such leisured and wealthy class in Bulgaria or in Serbia. In those Balkan countries south of the Danube every peasant owns his own farm and there is no one to make him afraid. But among the Roumanians of independent Roumania, as among the Magyars of Hungary, there is a feudal or landlord class owning great estates much as in England.

"Historical reasons can be found for this marked difference in social structure. The Turkish rule was never so absolute in Hungary or in Roumania as it was south of the Danube in Serbia and in Bulgaria, when the Turks were in the Hungarian plain. The Magyar nobility retired into the mountains of Transylvania, whence they returned to their old estates when the Turks were expelled by Prince Eugene. In Roumania the Turks were little more than suzerains, ruling to some extent through the agency of the boyars. When the Turks withdrew, these native feudal classes remained supreme both in Hungary and in Roumania. But in Bulgaria and Serbia the Turks killed off the old native feudal nobility of which we read in the Kossovo ballads, and themselves became the landlords. So when the Turks were driven out of Serbia and Bulgaria, feudalism disappeared with them, and the purest peasant democracy was left behind as they retired.

"Hungary and Roumania both have their feudal class. But whereas the Magyar feudal oligarchy still bears sway in Hungarian politics, the boyars of free Roumania, though they still collect their rents, are losing their political supremacy. Their position is in fact rather like that of the English landlords. The boyars constitute the Conservative party in Roumanian politics, but it is now in opposition. The Liberal party is in office under M. Bratianu, and this party is dependent on the peasant's vote, with a program of land reform and universal suffrage. But both parties have united to arm the country with a view to an attack on Hungary in the present war, which may or may not be made if the military conditions grow sufficiently favorable to warrant intervention on the side of the Allies. The Government is cryptic and cautious, as it is responsible for events; but the Conservative opposition is clamoring for war against Austria to release the three and one-half millions of their brother Roumanians from the Magyar yoke.

HATRED OF MAGYARS

"In spite of the personal sympathies of the late King Carol, all parties in Roumania were and are in favor of hostilities against Hungary rather than against Russia,-if there are to be hostilities at all. This is the more remarkable because the Roumanians do not love the Russians. It is true that the Russians have often in the past fought their battles against the Turks, but in the great war of 1877-78, when the Roumanians fought most gallantly in the Plevna campaign, the Russians rewarded them evilly by taking away from them Bessarabia, a province

chiefly inhabited by Roumanians. The Roumanians cannot forgive or forget that. But little as they like the Russians, they like the Magyars still less, and many more of their brothers are subject to the Magyar yoke than to the Russian. Furthermore the Roumanians or Transylvania have supplied more statesmen and leaders of literature and of culture to the race than have the Roumanians at Bessarabia. For these reasons the free Roumanians think much more about liberating their brothers in Hungary than in liberating their brothers in Russia. Also their sympathies in the present war have been directed by close racial and intellectual sympathy that they feel with the Latin peoples of the West.

"From what I have been saying, you may perhaps think that Roumania is now concerned only with Hungary, and that she lies outside the Balkan sphere. And indeed she did not take part with the other Balkan States in the last war against Turkey in 1912. But in 1913 she intervened in the second Balkan war between the Christian allies. On that occasion the Roumanians marched against Bulgaria, because they could not stand by and see Serbia crushed, for Serbia is Roumania's natural ally against Austria-Hungary. The Roumanians had given Bulgaria fair warning that if she attacked Serbia, they would join in the war. In that respect the Roumanian's interference in the war of 1913 was more justified than most people suppose; but unfortunately they ended by taking for themselves some Bulgarian territory, inhabited by Bulgarians. They are now paying the penalty in the hostile attitude of Bulgaria, which is one of the reasons why they do not venture to attack Hungary.

SERBIA AND HER WOES

"Serbia is more deeply involved than Roumania, both in Balkan and in Austro-Hungarian politics. Her quarrel with Bulgaria is less easy to adjust. Her quarrel with Austria-Hungary has involved herself and all Europe in the most frightful war that has ever plagued this planet.

"Like Roumania, Serbia since the war of 1913 holds territory that the Bulgarians regard as rightly belonging to themselves-the vexed region of Northern Macedonia, including the Vardar Valley and coveted Monastir. This is a much more serious question than the differences between Roumania and Bulgaria, where a rectification of frontier could easily be arranged on obvious racial lines. Indeed, the possession of Monastir and the Vardar Valley is a more difficult question than either Serbian or Bulgarian sympathizers are wont to admit. Macedonia is a mixture of races, Greek, Turk, Albanian, Vlach, Bulgar, Serb, and Macedonian Slav. The Macedonian Slavs are the most important race, akin both to Serbian and Bulgarian, but not identical with either.

"The Serbian standpoint in regard to Macedonia is clear. The Vardar Valley and railway, terminating in friendly Greek territory at Salonika, is Serbia's only connection with the rest of the world. She