THE BALKANS 



HERE I wish to supplement my mam text by a few general 

 considerations which may be of interest. In so doing, I shall 

 assume that the reader knows something of the geography of 

 the region, as also of the "grim, raw races" conquered by the 

 Turks in the fifteenth century, to be subjected through four 

 hundred years to the vicissitudes of Moslem rule, whereby 

 periods of utter neglect alternated with episodes of religious 

 zeal always expressed in terms of massacre. 



The catastrophic confusions which have intermittently 

 followed escape from Turkish rule in the last century are in no 

 sense consequences of release; neither are they the result of 

 special racial defects or tendencies. As a whole, the Balkan 

 folk are on a fair level of intelligence and capacity with other 

 Europeans. Thus far, they have never had a fair chance. All 

 of them are better than they seem at a distance, and all better 

 as individuals than gathered into armies or political organiza- 

 tions. Moreover, under Ottoman rule social distinctions were 

 obliterated; noble and peasant found themselves on the same 

 level at the bottom. This condition made ultimately for 

 democracy, it is true, as no hereditary nobility exists in Bul- 

 garia or Serbia. 



Their history has been conditioned on five main elements: 

 (i) emancipation long drawn out, the various districts which 

 gained their freedom at intervals forming separate centers of 

 population and rapidly developing national rivalries; (2) the 

 placing over several of these new states "the Tsar's small 

 change" an alien German ruler or Germanized prince 

 trained in the poisonous atmosphere of petty courts; (3) the 

 infesting of their capitals at all times by the secret agents of 

 three unscrupulous dynasties, each offering something offensive 

 or injurious to other states; (4) the weakening of respect for 

 human life through generations of servitude; and finally, (5) 

 the confusion of tongues. As to this last, the Balkan peoples 

 speak at least seven distinct languages, five of them (Slavic, 

 Roumanian, Greek, Hebrew, and Turkish) using different 

 alphabets and with scarcely a linguistic root in common, while 

 along the borders and in the courts six world-tongues (French, 



C 806 ] 



