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That union did not long continue. Each put 

 forth extravagant claims regarding the na- 

 tionality of the people they had freed. In 

 Macedonia, where a pell-mell of races spreads 

 round Monastir, their claims were most violent. 

 Turkish rule had deadened national sense 

 among the newly liberated. Many did not 

 know whether they were Bulgarians, Greeks, 

 or Serbians. ' 



In 1913 Bulgaria, without warning, suddenly 

 attacked her allies, Greece and Serbia, and was 

 decisively beaten. In 1915, utterly indifferent 

 to the world-issues involved, she joined the 

 Teutonic Powers, believing that their success 

 was assured and that thereby she would ad- 

 vance her interests. In 1918, sensing their im- 

 pending defeat, she abandoned her allies in the 

 field and made peace. 



In the lamentable events of the last six 

 years it is just to discriminate between the 

 Bulgarians and the unscrupulous German 

 Prince who was their Tsar. The docile people 

 submitted and followed but they did not ini- 

 tiate or perhaps desire the tortuous, inglorious 

 policy of their sovereign. 



In 1917 the Bulgarians constituted three- 

 fourths of the 5,518,000 inhabitants of the 

 country, practically all communicants of the 

 Eastern Orthodox Church. The more than 

 700,000 Turks or Pomaks were rapidly being 

 absorbed. 



Bulgarian is called "at once the most ancient 

 and most modern" ot Slavic languages. The 

 grammar shows modern tendencies, but the lin- 

 guistic groundwork is in close affinity with the 

 oldest written Slavic dialect, that of the 

 Church. 



The Bulgarian birth-rate in 1910 was forty- 

 one to every one thousand persons. In 191 1 

 the excess of births over deaths was 18.35 per 

 1,000 persons — a larger excess than among any 

 other people of Europe. 



The Bulgarians are a sturdy, sober, indus- 

 trious, practical people. While not vivacious 

 or emotional, their parental and filial affection 

 is marked. Materialistic rather than idealistic, 

 they nevertheless appreciate education for 

 their daughters as well as for their sons. 



THE SERBIANS * 



The Serbians first appear as a confederation 

 of Slavic tribes, which, together with their near 

 kin, the Croats, inhabited the northern slope of 

 the Carpathians. In the seventh century the 

 two occupied side by side all the west and 

 northwest of the peninsula. Both recognized 

 the Byzantine Emperor as suzerain. 



The Serbians spread far and wide over pres- 

 ent Serbia, northern Albania, Montenegro, Bos- 

 nia, Herzegovina, and possibly farther north. 

 The Croats settled to the northwest. 



Christianized before any other Slavic tribe, 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "Serbia and Montenegro" (November, 

 1908), and "The Kingdom of Serbia," by Wil- 

 liam Joseph Showalter (April, 1915). 



geography brought the Serbians who lived 

 eastward into the Eastern Orthodox Church 

 and carried the Croats living westward into 

 the Roman Church. Internal dissensions re- 

 tarded their growth. Vassals alternately of 

 Bulgarians and Byzantines, they did not at- 

 tain independence until the twelfth century. 



Though the Serbian kingdom lasted little 

 more than three hundred years, two of its 

 Tsars render it illustrious, Stephen Dushan the 

 Great and Laza. 



Ably seconded by his Bulgarian wife, the 

 Tsaritza Helen, Dushan united nearly all the 

 peninsula in the effort to crush the menacing 

 Turkish power but died suddenly on his march 

 to Constantinople. In lofty aim and ability as 

 legislator, diplomat and warrior, this dimly- 

 seen eastern Tsar is one of the grandest 

 figures of the Middle Ages. 



Lazar took up the task of Dushan but fell, 

 betrayed and gloriously fighting, in 1389 at the 

 battle of Kossova on the Plains of Amsel. 

 Serbia prostrate, but with spirit unbroken, re- 

 sisted for seventy years, but was made a pash- 

 alik of the Sultan soon after the fall of Con- 

 stantinople. 



The heiduks, guerrilla Robin Hoods of the 

 peninsula, in the mountains and forests car- 

 ried on the fight against the Turks. In 1804, 

 led by the swineherd Kara George, the Serbian 

 people rose en masse. After twenty-five bloody 

 years, in the Russo-Turkish treaty of Adrian- 

 ople the Sultan recognized their autonomy. 

 A^ new leader, Milosch Obrenovitch, had 

 arisen. 



The savage rivalry of the Karageorgevitch 

 and Obrenovitch families, though unattended by 

 civil war, reddens the story of Serbia. Three 

 of the former and five of the latter have reigned. 

 The Obrenovitches became extinct in 1903. 



The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 resulted 

 in the full independence of Serbia which pro- 

 claimed herself a kingdom four years later. 

 Enraged at the union of Bulgaria and Eastern 

 Roumelia, Serbia in 1885 declared war but 

 was decisively beaten at Slivnitza. More 

 worthy was the Balkan war of 1912 when Ser- 

 bia, together with Bulgaria, Greece, and Mon- 

 tenegro, freed the Christian subjects of the 

 Ottomans. In the Balkan war of the follow- 

 ing year she was victorious over Bulgarian 

 attack. 



The story of the Austrian ultimatum, of 

 three invasions of Serbian territory by the 

 Austrians, each time repulsed, and of her des- 

 perate resistance against the combined Aus- 

 trian, Bulgarian, and German armies, forms an 

 essential chapter of the just-ended war. 



The kingdom is inhabited by 4,616,000 peo- 

 ple, almost exclusively Serbian. It is the Pied- 

 mont of the newly formed Jugo-Slav confed- 

 eracy. The number of Serbians resident in 

 former Austria-Hungary may be reckoned as 

 5,000,000, in great part descendants of the ex- 

 patriated after Kossova. Professor Pupin, 

 educator and inventor, is a Serbian. 



Without harshness, the Serbian language is 

 an almost perfect instrument for poetry and 



