762 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



October 1, 1913. 



unprotestingly allowed Turkey to tear 

 up the Treaty of London, and do not 

 seemingly intend to prevent iurther 

 fighting between the Allies. There are 

 Jv rumours with regard to contem- 

 plated mobilisation in Europe once 

 more, but these have not been con- 

 firmed. I'iie real danger point is Al- 

 bania, not Thr. The Powers have 

 insisted upon the creation of an inde- 

 pendent principality in Albania in 

 order to carry out the wishes of Austria 

 and Italy, that Servia shall have no 

 outlet to the Adriatic. But the Serbs 

 will not be slow to take advantage of 

 the internecine strife now raging in Al- 

 bania to occupy territory there on the 

 excuse that their frontier is threatened, 

 their nationals in danger. In that event 

 the Powers would have to take action 

 to safeguard the State they had 

 created. 



ESSAD BEY ACAIN. 



Obviously the Balkan settlement, 

 built up with such care and patience 

 by Sir Edward Grey and European 

 diplomatists, may fall any moment like 

 a house of cards. We have again all 

 the possibilities of an even more serious 

 European crisis than that created when 

 the first war was started. Essad Bey, 

 the defender of Scutari, has hoisted the 

 Turkish flag, announced his intention 

 of creating an autonomous Albania 

 under Turkish suzerainty, and has 

 ordered the provisional Government es- 

 tablished by the Powers to leave 

 Yalona. Although he has no chance 

 of success, his action, by forcing Servia, 

 Greece and Montenegro to intervene, 

 may easily bring about the most serious 

 complications in Europe. The situa- 

 tion is about as complicated as could 

 well be imagined. The only fairly cer 

 tain result that can be foreseen is that 

 Roumania is bound to benefit consider- 

 ably, whatever happens. 



LOSSES IN THE WAR. 



It is estimated that the first Balkan 

 War cost the Allies over £ 1 00,000,000 

 and Turkey £80,000,000. The second 

 involved Bulgaria in an expenditure of 

 £36,000,000, Servia £20,000,000, and 



Greece £10,000,000, so that the two 

 together have cost £250,000,000. As 

 they lasted 303 days, this works out not 

 very far short of £1.000,000 per diem. 

 In the first war the Turks had 100,000 

 killed, the Bulgars 80,000, the Serbs 

 30,000, the Greeks 10,000, and the Mon- 

 tenegrins 8000. This gives a good in- 

 dication as to who bore the brunt of 

 the fighting. In the second war the 

 Bulgar killed amounted to 60,000, the 

 Servian to 40,000, and the Greek to 

 30,000. A total of 358,000 killed. 

 Servia and Greece obviously did far 

 less than Bulgaria against Turkey, but 

 they have received, or rather taken, the 

 lion's share of the loot. Turkey has 

 negotiated a loan of £28,000,000 in 

 France at 4 per cent. As quid pro quo 

 for this Turkey agrees to all France's 

 demands in connection with the Syrian 

 and Anatolan railways. 



ATROCITIES IN THE BALKANS. 



The accounts of " atrocities " by the 

 Bulgarians with which Europe has been 

 deluged have been proved in the main 

 to be gross exaggerations, o.'" even 

 worse, emanating as they have from 

 Grecian and Servian sources. Not only 

 has the Commission of Enquiry defi- 

 nitely stated this, but independent doc- 

 tors and newspaper correspondents have 

 testified to the humanity of the Bul- 

 garians in Adrianople, and to their al- 

 most " inconceivable patience " in deal- 

 ing with the Greek population there. 

 The war has been rendered more hor- 

 rible than such a ghastly business al- 

 ways must be by cruel outrages on both 

 sides, and certainly the awful doings of 

 the Servian troops in Macedonia, as 

 chronicled by European war correspon- 

 dents, enable us readily to understand 

 the furious resistance the Albanian vil- 

 lagers are making to Servian occupa- 

 tion. It would seem as if cholera, too, 

 is now added to the spectres of famine 

 and outrage stalking through that dis- 

 tracted land, which the Christian 

 "Allies" went to war to liberate. The 

 outlook for the peasants there is truly 

 terrible, for the rush of war in spring 

 and summer prevented the crops being 

 sown or harvested, so that many must 

 die from starvation. 



