THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



473 



velopment and is of military importance, 

 Turks, Tatars, and Circassians are numerous 

 in its heterogeneous population. 



In Rumania are found a great number of 

 Hungarian, German, Bulgarian, and Serbian 

 settlers. The entire population is 7,508,000. 

 In the adjacent provinces of Bessarabia, Buko- 

 vina and Transylvania, Rumanians predomi- 

 nate. In Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary proper 

 and Serbia are many more. Their entire 

 number, in and outside the kingdom, is prob- 

 ably about 13,000,000. 



The excess at birth of males over females is 

 greater among the Rumanians than among any 

 other European people except the Greeks. Ten- 

 dency to such excess is noticeable among most 

 Greco-Latins. 



The Rumanians have special fondness for 

 the French. They are not displeased when 

 their country is spoken of as an Eastern 

 France, and they themselves call their capital, 

 Bucharest, ''the Eastern Paris." 



Rumania, likei Belgium, Montenegro, and 

 Serbia, has had her full share in the tragedy 

 of the just-ended war. Surrounded by foes, 

 isolated as she has always been, further strug- 

 gle only intensifying the horrors of the defeat, 

 she submitted for a time to her conquerors. 



THE RACES OF THE BALKAN 

 PENINSULA* 



The Balkan Peninsula is the most eastern 

 of the great peninsulas of southern Europe. It 

 derives its name from the Balkan Mountains, 

 its central and most distinctive feature. Along 

 the Danube, its northern boundary, ran the 

 natural route of migratory peoples, many of 

 whom were diverted southward by the fertile 

 and extensive plain which slopes from the Bal- 

 kans to the river. To the west and south 

 sharply defined mountain ranges offered abode 

 or asylum in their limited plateaus and fos- 

 tered the growth of individual communities. 



No other equal area of 185,000 square miles 

 in Europe presents equal variety of contour 

 and surface and natural resources and, in con- 

 sequence, such diversity of person and occupa- 

 tion among its inhabitants. 



The occupants of the peninsula could be held 

 together only if they constituted a single peo- 

 ple, united by common sentiments, or if all 

 were under the control of a single supreme 

 authority which none of them could resist. 

 As far as history knows, no united people has 

 ever dwelt upon it. Seldom and only for a 

 time, has any supreme authority existed in it. 



In every age the Balkan Peninsula is a mael- 

 strom of races, peoples, languages, religions, 

 and of all conceivable ambitions and passions, 

 dashing and breaking themselves upon one 

 another. 



The Balkan Peninsula includes Turks, Alba- 

 nians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, and Mon- 

 tenegrins. 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "The Changing Map of the Balkans," by 

 Frederick Moore (February, 1913). 



The political boundaries of these States and 

 provinces only vaguely coincide with the boun- 

 daries of race and language. Instead, every- 

 where there is a widely overlapping border- 

 land, in which languages pass into one another, 

 where adjacent States put forward extravagant 

 but often honest claims, and where many of 

 the inhabitants themselves do not really know 

 who they racially are or where politically they 

 should belong. In consequence, an active propa- 

 ganda has been carried on for years and large 

 sums of money expended to develop inclina- 

 tions. 



THE OTTOMAN TURKS * 



The early life of no other Eastern people is 

 so definitely known as that of the Ottoman 

 Turks. 



Led by Ertogrul, a Tatar chief, nearly four 

 hundred pagan nomad families wandered into 

 Asia Minor about 1230. They had fled from 

 Khorassan at the invasion of Jenghiz Khan. 

 Asia Minor at that time was broken up into 

 numerous petty States and feudal districts, of 

 which the moribund Seljuk Sultanate of 

 Iconium, or Roum, was the most considerable. 



Becoming voluntary converts to Islam and 

 faithful allies of the Sultan Ala-Eddin, the 

 four hundred saw their prestige and power 

 rapidly increase. Moslems and Christian and 

 Jewish renegades flocked to their tents. In 

 1281 Osman, or Othman, succeeded to leader- 

 ship. His name, signifying "Breaker of Bones,'' 

 was of happy omen to his ferocious followers. 



On the death of Ala-Eddin, last of the Sel- 

 juks, his kingdom broke into many fragments. 

 Osman undertook to conquer them all and pro- 

 claimed himself "Padiskhahi ali Osmani," sov- 

 ereign of the Ottomans. His people have ever 

 since called themselves Ottomans, regarding as 

 insult or injury the name Turk or barbarian, 

 applied to them by the Arabs and by the Euro- 

 peans in general. The Arabs, who disdain the 

 Turks, employ the name with design. 



The gradual extension of the Ottoman Em- 

 pire was due to its first seven sultans, each 

 succeeded by his son, all ruthless destroyers. 

 The seventh, Mohammed II, the Conqueror, 

 captured Constantinople in 1453. Continuous 

 subsequent conquests, reaching from Persia to 

 the Atlantic and the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, 

 terrified Europe. The English prayer-book to 

 this day, in its Good Friday Collect, makes 

 deprecatory intercession against the "Turks." 



Constantly receding since the defeat ati 

 Vienna by the Polish John Sobieski, in 1683, 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "The Young Turk," by Rear Admiral 

 Colby M. Chester (January, 1912) ; "Grass 

 Never Grows Where the Turkish Hoof Has 

 Trod," by Sir Edwin Pears (November, 1012) ; 

 "The Possible Solutions for the Eastern Prob- 

 lem," by Viscount James Bryce (November, 

 1912) ; "Life in Constantinople," by H. G. 

 Dwight (December, 1914), and "Constantinople 

 and Sancta Sophia," by Dr. E. A. Grosvenor 

 (May, 1915). 



