ἐκεῖ 'ς τὸ Σαραντάπορο. Χαλάλι του ὁ θάνατος, γιατὶ λευτέρωσε λαό! Μήπως εἶν ̓ πρώτη τους φορὰ in 'ς τὴ Μάνη τὰ σκοτώματα ;

νά ναι κοντὰ 'ς τὴν πλάτη του,

That They may not scoff at νὰ μὴ μᾶς τὸν γελάσουσι

Art. 11.-THE DEVASTATION OF MACEDONIA.

1. Atrocités Grecques en Macédoine pendant la guerre Greco-Bulgare (Avec une carte et 53 reproductions photographiques). Par Prof. Dr L. Miletitch. Sophia: Imprimerie de l'état, 1913.

2. Réponse à la brochure des Professeurs des Universités d'Athenes, Atrocités Bulgares en Macédoine.' Par les professeurs de l'Université de Sophia. Sophia: Imprimerie de la Cour Royale, 1913.

3. Extraits fac-similés de certaines lettres trouvées dans le courrier du 19me régiment de la 7me division grecque, saisi par les troupes bulgares dans la region Razlog, le 14/27 Juillet, 1913. Sofia Imprimerie de la Cour Royale, 1913.

4. Nouvelle Série de Lettres écrites. . . . par des soldats grecques du 19me régiment, 7me division. . . . Témoignages des citoyens paisibles de Serrès, victimes des atrocités grecques et sauvés par miracle. Sofia, 1/14 Sept. 1913.

THE question of culpability for the atrocities committed in the second Balkan War has already been much debated, but such information as has been published has come chiefly from the Greeks. The Carnegie Commission has taken much evidence, and its report is eagerly awaited; but, as the date of its appearance is not yet known, it seems desirable to publish some testimonies collected from other than Greek sources. We may surely rely upon the English public to hold an even balance while the question is in dispute.

I ask the reader to compare the conditions of the civil populations of Eastern Macedonia (now New Greece) as they were last June with what they are to-day, and to put it to himself upon whom the responsibility must rest for a tragedy so vast, grim and atrocious. This area, though one of the most fruitful and beautiful in Europe, and the seat of an ancient civilisation, is little known to Englishmen. It has been vilely misgoverned for five centuries. Since 1887 it has been the cockpit of rival sectaries, Patriarchist Greeks and Bulgarian Exarchists. During the first War (1912) Thrace and Eastern Macedonia were traversed by a Turkish army in retreat and by

the Bulgarians, but suffered surprisingly little, and at the end of last June, after six months of Bulgarian rule, was in a good way. The conquerors had paid for what they took; discipline was rigid; no looting was allowed. What local friction had occurred was due to fanatical Greek ecclesiastics; and, although actual skirmishes had taken place at Pangaion and Nigrita, these were in consequence of Greek troops intruding upon districts under Bulgarian administration. The fact stands that, when I left Adrianople in mid-April, 1913, nobody was saying that any man of any race or religion in Eastern Macedonia was being oppressed by his Bulgarian rulers in mind, body or estate.*

What was this population like? It was not homogeneous; its most important city, Salonika, was, and is still, a predominantly Hebrew community, speaking the Old Spanish its ancestors brought with them from Castile. The Chalkidic Peninsula, the coastline, and the trading communities in the towns were Greek, while the agricultural population, solidly Bulgarian in the northern half of the territory, was largely so to within a few miles of the Egean Sea. There were considerable Turkish districts and smaller settlements of Kutzo-Vlachs and Gypsies; but, local admixture notwithstanding, the country between the Rhodope Mountains and the sea, known from time immemorial as Macedonia, was down to last June populated by Macedonians, i.e. Bulgarians speaking the Bulgarian tongue, and worshipping according to the rites of the Bulgarian (Exarchist) Church. These men and women were consciously and ardently attached to their Bulgarian brothers of the Kingdom. To regard these people as savages, and their destruction as negligible, is to be guilty of inexcusable ignorance. They were a

* I spent five months in the Balkans and Adrianople in the winter of 1912-13, distributing relief on behalf of the Society of Friends' War Victims Fund. As to the general good behaviour of the Bulgarians during and after the first war I rely on the evidence of my own senses. With regard to the way in which the Bulgarians treated the Greeks of Thrace during the six months of their ascendency there, I may cite the evidence of my friend Mr Stephen Hobhouse, of Castle Cary. The Greek women admitted to him that they hated the Bulgars, but they had treated them like gentlemen.'

·

courteous, industrious and virile race living upon their own properties, producing large quantities of wine, silk, cotton, leather, tobacco, rice and other foodstuffs. Despite much discouragement from their Turkish masters they had educated themselves. In the majority of villages, and in all towns where there was any considerable Bulgarian population, the white school-house was a conspicuous object, and the school-teacher a leading man. Such were the Bulgarians of Eastern Macedonia in the last days of June, 1913.

Where are they to-day? Gone! They have disappeared. So far as human agency can effect it, they have been obliterated. By shot, shell and bayonet, by fire and torture, by proscription, imprisonment and forcible exile, the whole non-Greek element has been destroyed or chased out. The reader will please to observe that I am not yet saying by whom this thing has been done, but stating the well-ascertained fact that someone has done it. Nor have destruction and proscription stopped at Bulgarians. Roman Catholics and Protestants and a mixed multitude of Turks, KutzoVlachs and Jews,† have been impartially maltreated, robbed and expelled at the point of the bayonet. Whither? Into Bulgaria-a point which will call for later consideration. At the present moment more than one hundred villages and several towns, which in June last were as peaceful and as prosperous as any in the Balkans, and in point of good order and education would have compared favourably with a similar number in the Kingdom of Greece, lie wasted, roofless and without inhabitant. This devastation, by whomsoever effected, was done during or immediately after harvest, and with extreme severity. It appears that it was no part of the

So asserted by their Bishop at the time and on the spot, but subsequently denied by him at Salonika. The denial, if genuine, was undoubtedly extorted by Greek pressure; but the Bishop's signature, like that of Mr Haskell, to be mentioned later, was most probably forged. The outrages and murders are well attested by other witnesses.

† Who ever heard of a Jew being maltreated by a Bulgarian? The idea is ludicrous. In Bulgaria, and in practically no other Christian community in eastern Europe, the Hebrew votes, travels, owns land, serves in the army, holds his head erect and enjoys every right of full citizenship. Yet the spoliation and murder of Jews in Eastern Macedonia is laid to the charge of the one race notoriously incapable of such conduct.