GREEK VERSUS BULGAR.
(To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Your correspondent who signs himself "A Roving Englishman " relies on four propositions which scarcely seem to be tenable; as, however, you have accorded considerable weight to his views in your leading article I hope you will allow me space to reply to them in order.
(1) I admit that the biggest battle was fought in Thrace, but that battle only had a decisive result because the Servian and Greek armies succeeded in crushing the Turkish army in Macedonia, and so prevented an invasion of Bulgaria, and because the Greek fleet, by becoming master of the .gean, made it impossible for the Turks to land troops at Cavalla or Dedeagatch, and threaten the right flank of the Bulgarian army. The Bulgarians themselves placed their losses at 83,000, a figure which is not universally accepted, and in any case their losses were much greater than they should have been owing to the shameful lack of sanitary precautions. Even this figure amounted to only about one-third of the Greek forces, which numbered considerably over 200,000 men, of whom 57,000 came from America. I mention this last fact, as it may serve to slow sceptics how it is that Greece managed to provide so large an army without calling up men of middle age.
(2) The war with Turkey was prolonged chiefly for the
benefit of Bulgaria, who at the first peace conference insisted on the cession of Adrianople, and her Allies loyally supported her in her demand. The armistice which Bulgaria imposed without Greece's consent also helped to prolong the war, as it gave Turkey breathing-space. I do not know what your correspondent considers to have been the beginning of the troubles in Central Macedonia. In one sense it was the trickery with which the Bulgarians, who arrived outside Salonica two days after its surrender to the Greeks, tried to establish a claim to joint occupation in November last. No open conflicts, however, arose until the first attack of the Bulgars on Nigrita in April last.
(3) In spite of official denials, worded in general terms, Bulgaria has admitted that her troops began the present war, but the Daneff Cabinet placed the responsibility for this on General Savoff, who was made to resign. He appears, how- ever, to have been reinstated since the change of Ministry.
(4) Nigrita, Serres, and Doxato are all Greek, not Bulgarian towns. The massacres and horrors committed by the Bulgarians in these places are sufficient to brand them as having con- ducted the war with inhumanity and barbarity. Bulgaria's countercharges are almost puerile to guogues. In connexion with this, too, one must remember that the Turks have brought the most serious allegations against the Bulgarian conduct in Thrace, which more than one Englishman has corroborated. Hence, when the Greeks accuse the Bulgars of similar conduct in the present war, one is inclined prima facie (if not according to our criminal law) to accept the charges as correct. However, these charges are proved by the evidence of the Austrian and Italian consuls, Commander Cardale, R.N., and the French Commission of Inquiry. Is it not possible to make people understand that the Greeks are not like the Bulgarians or Slavo-Mongolian people, and therefore are not congenitally predisposed to practise cruelties like those for which the Bulgars have made themselves notorious ever since the Middle Ages ? All who know the Greeks can say, and I can assure those who do not know them, that the peasants, however primitive they may be in some ways, e.g., in their superstitions, yet have their feelings civilized to a remarkable degree. The Turks did not complain of the behaviour of the Greek troops, and from my experience of them I can say that they abstained from excesses of all kinds in the last war.
I should like to say a word about the relative help derived from the press by Bulgaria and Greece. Did not Bulgaria mystify the British, French, and German press by means of her chosen mouthpiece, Lieutenant Wagner, who later became the laughing-stock of Europe ? No—the Bulgarian is not quite so simple in such matters as he is represented to be. Moreover, it can scarcely be said that Bulgaria has been unsupported by the press when she has had her case stated consistently with the forensic ability of the venerable Times correspondent in the Balkan peninsula.
Your correspondent "Scotus Viator," in saying that Greek towns like Serres, Drama, and Cavalla are essential to Bulgaria's economic future, makes a statement which even extreme Panslavists would scarcely put so baldly. Bulgaria has never had any sort of right to access to the Age= Sea except possibly for a time by virtue of the war against Turkey. Any rights which she had she chose to risk on the issue of the sword, in the hope of increasing them, but having been worsted, she must now reduce her claims considerably.
Quite apart from this, Greece is probably entitled, as the result of the horrible atrocities perpetrated by Bulgarians on Greeks, to claim that no Greeks shall remain under Bulgarian rule without adequate guarantees for their security from persecution and oppression.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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