THE BALKAN PENINSULA

AGENTS

America The Macmillan Company 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York

Australasia The Oxford University Press 205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Canada The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. St. Martin's House, 70 Bond Street, Toronto

India Macmillan & Company, Ltd. Macmillan Building, Bombay 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta

A BALKAN PEASANT

THE BALKAN PENINSULA

BY

FRANK FOX

AUTHOR OF
"AUSTRALIA," "BULGARIA," "SWITZERLAND," ETC.

PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK, LTD.
4, 5, & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.

1915

[v]

PREFACE

This book was written in the spring of 1914, justbefore Germany plunged the world into thehorrors of a war which she had long prepared,taking as a pretext a Balkan incident—thepolitical murder of an Austrian prince by anAustrian subject of Serb nationality. Germanyhaving prepared for war was anxious for anoccasion which would range Austria by her side.If Germany had gone to war at the time of theAgadir incident, she knew that Italy woulddesert the Triple Alliance, and she feared forAustria's loyalty. A war pretext which madeAustria's desertion impossible was just the thingfor her plans.

It would be impossible to reshape this bookso as to bring within its range the Great War,begun in the Balkans, and in all human probability[vi]to be decided finally by battles in theBalkans. I let it go out to the public as impressionsof the Balkans dated from the end of1913. It may have some value to the studentof contemporary Balkan events.

My impressions of the Balkan Peninsula werechiefly gathered during the period 1912-13 ofthe war of the Balkan allies against Turkey,and of the subsequent war among themselves.I was war correspondent for the London MorningPost during the war against Turkey and penetratedthrough the Balkan Peninsula down tothe Sea of Marmora and the lines of Chatalja.In war-time peoples show their best or theirworst. As they appeared during a struggle inwhich, at first, the highest feelings of patriotismwere evoked, and afterwards the lowest feelingsof greed and cruelty, the Balkan peoples leftme with a steady affection for the peasants andthe common folk generally; a dislike and contempt,which made few exceptions, for thepoliticians and priests who governed theirdestinies. Perhaps when they settle down toa more peaceful existence—if ever they do—the...