79° The National Geographic Magazine 



Photo by F. J. Koch 

 A GREEK 0E SALONIKI, EUROPEAN TURKEY 



NOTES ON MACEDONIA 



THE Christians of Macedonia for 

 many years were called the 

 most unhappy and unfortunate 

 people of Europe. Though ruled by 

 only one-fourth their number of Turks, 

 they never combined against the Sultan, 

 because they hated and despised each 

 other more bitterly than their Moham- 

 medan master. Bulgarians, Greeks, Ser- 

 vians, and Vlachs make up the principal 

 Christian population. Until last sum- 

 mer the Greeks plotted to have the coun- 

 try annexed to Greece; the Bulgarians 

 wanted Bulgarian domination ; the Ser- 



vians hoped that through Macedonia 

 Servia might reach the sea, while the 

 Vlachs believed that Rumania should in 

 some way control the country. 



The rivalry between the racial par- 

 ties — they cannot be denned as races — ■ 

 worked death and disaster among the 

 Macedonian peasants. Bulgarian and 

 Greek bands committed upon communi- 

 ties of hostile politics atrocities less only 

 in extent than the atrocities of the Turks, 

 and they all supported the Turk against 

 each other. ' 



Now all has changed. Hatreds and 



