THE WHIRLPOOL OF THE BALKANS 



189 



A VERY OLD CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN ATHENS 



means of a net drawn up by a creaking 

 and primitive windlass. 



BULGARIA S BIG SHARE 

 HISTORY 



N BALKAN 



Bulgaria bulks large in Balkan history. 

 In one generation of freedom she made 

 incredible progress and crowned her 

 achievements with exceeding prowess in 

 the First Balkan War. From this glow- 

 ing pinnacle a hideous mistake brought 

 her to a sad repute in no wise due to the 

 qualities of her people, but rather to one 

 headstrong and chauvinistic statesman 

 whose fateful counsel undid in a single 

 month all that the founders of the Balkan 

 Alliance had worked for two years to ac- 

 complish and whose mad folly destroyed, 

 for the majority of the world, an im- 

 pression of Bulgarian wisdom and ca- 

 pacity which had been toilsomely built up 

 from such meager beginnings. A second 

 error, entailing even greater disaster, was 

 made when the Bulgar King cast the lot 



of his people with the Teutonic Allies in 

 the World War. 



The history of Bulgaria differs little 

 from that of her sister Balkan States ; 

 the successive chapters are written in 

 blood. Herodotus, the father of history, 

 was the first to notice the wild Thracian 

 and Illyrian tribes who inhabited that 

 portion of the peninsula and what he said 

 of them centuries ago has a poignant em- 

 phasis in these last sad days of Bulgarian 

 experience: "If they were only ruled by 

 one man and could only agree among 

 themselves, they would be the greatest of 

 all nations." 



THE ADVENT OE THE SLAV IX THE 

 BALKANS 



These ancient Bulgars, however, were 

 doubtless of another strain than those 

 who now claim the name and who are 

 purely Slav — more characteristically so 

 than the Russians even. 



fust when the Slav first set his mark 



