Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/79

 Passing through the cities on either bank of the Danube this commerce was carried yet deeper into the oriental countries. A second route, cutting the peninsula diagonally, passed the Danube at Belgrade, and this was the reason for the creation of a new Danubian Serbia in the 15th century. A third united the Venetian colonies of Albania with the interior by the via aegnatia, or by the narrow and precipitous paths and ravines of the Pindus: the vitality of Bosnia, of Herzegovina and Macedonia was thereby stimulated.

Now the frontiers of the national states form an obstacle. Different tariff systems rule the exchange of goods. Bulgaria can no longer reach the Aegean or Serbia, Salonika, unless she asks the consent of Greece. For Roumania, not only access to the Aegean, but also to the Adriatic, necessary to its natural relations with Italy, is closed. A reversal of the status quo is of the highest necessity.

But to obtain this a political entente between the States concerned is the first essential.

After the formation of the first-born of these States certain good relations were continually maintained. Between the Serb movement of Karageorge and the Wallachian movement of Tudor Vladimirescu, a strong relation of dependency was recognised. The Greek movement of 1821 was supported in the Roumanian principalities by prince, bishop and boyar alike, and Vladimirescu, before separating his own national movement, was a sincere member of the secret association against the Turkish domination. Macedonians were among his lieutenants; the collaboration of the Serbian chief, Milosh, was also not rejected. For the leader of the rebellion, Alexander Ipsilanti, the goal was the revival of the Byzantine Empire and he took the Phoenix as his crest. In Morea the struggle against