THE CHANGING MAP IN THE BALKANS 



By Frederick Moore 



Author of "The Balkan Trail" and Correspondknt of the Associated Press 



A\'ERY definite settlement of the 

 centuries-old Balkan Question 

 promises to result from the war 

 Avhich the "Allies" have heen conducting 

 against the Ottoman Empire. The Turk 

 has been driven not entirely back to Asia 

 but far enough in that direction to termi- 

 nate his power over subject European 

 races. This is the solution for which 

 those European countries not materially 

 interested in the maintenance of the Ot- 

 toman regime have long been hoping. 



Centuries ago the Turks set out from 

 Asia Minor with the idea of conquering 

 the world for their Prophet Alohammed. 

 They carried their new faith east into 

 Persia, India, and China, and west into 

 Europe. In Europe they succeeded in 

 driving their way as far as the gates of 

 \'ienna, subjugating all the peoples of 

 Southeastern Europe except some few 

 bands of hardy Serbs who took refuge 

 in the fastnesses of the mountains that 

 now make up the little kingdom of 

 JMontenegro. 



the TURKS CONQUERED, BUT FAILED TO 



convert 



But though the Turks conquered and 

 subdued with the sword they found the 

 peoples of Southeastern Europe who fol- 

 lowed the Christianity of that day most 

 hard-headed and unconvertible. Had the 

 Turks adopted the method of the Arabs, 

 who went across North Africa on the 

 same mission and even entered Spain, 

 they would have left no soul alive who 

 did not say with them 



"There is no god but God. and Mohammed is 

 His Prophet." 



They did not desolate, however, to the 

 same extent as the Arab ; their method, 

 though sufficiently terrible to blight the 

 conquered countries and retard their 

 progress for centuries, was never quite 

 as drastic as the methods of ether Mo- 

 hammedans. The Turks are the best of 

 the peoples who have accepted that un- 

 compromising militant faith. 



The territory which the Turks suc- 

 ceeded in overrunning was too vast to 

 lay entirely waste and the people too 

 numerous to exterminate. Those whom 

 they could convert were made Moham- 

 medans ; the others became vassals and 

 serfs, laboring for the conquerors, paying 

 them tribute in money and in kind, and 

 yielding up not only of their wordly pos- 

 sessions, as the Turk demanded, but also 

 of their flesh and blood. Many of their 

 daughters went at the Turks" will to ^lo- 

 hammedan harems, and for many years a 

 tribute of their finest sons was also ex- 

 acted. 



In the early days of the conquest the 

 Sultan's agents visited every four years 

 the Christian villages under his domina- 

 tion and took away a fifth part of all the 

 male children between the ages of six 

 and nine, to be raised as ^lohammedans 

 and to form his corps of Janissary sol- 

 diers. Naturally, the strongest and finest 

 boys were selected ; however, being taken 

 young, like many of the girls, no mem- 

 ories of parents or deep religious beliefs 

 long affected them. 



HOW THE TURKS IMPROVED THE RACE 



By this system and by conversions 

 (for many of the Christians went over 

 to the new faith because of the privileges 

 it oflfered, the foremost being the right 

 to carry arms) the Turks added to their 

 Semitic blood some of the finest manhood 

 of the races of Southeastern Europe. 

 Turks whose appearance is thoroughly 

 European and Turks with fair hair and 

 straight noses are to be distinguished 

 throughout Western Turkey from the 

 distinctive Semitic type ; and some of the 

 best brains in the recent Young Turk 

 movement are European brains. 



The infusion of European blood had 

 a certain minor efifect uj^on the character 

 of the Turk, but the greater change came 

 upon the converts and their ofifspring. 

 The blight of the Mohammedan creed, 

 which impairs all better civilizations that 

 it touches, affected the Europeans only 



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