Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/33

 Meanwhile, there was a moment when it seemed that a just and reasonable partition of Slav lands owned by the Turk was likely, in spite of Austro-German attempts to sow discord, to be attained by the Balkan states themselves, united in one Balkan League. The possibility of building such a union appeared again with the change of dynasty in Serbia in 1903. The younger generation of Serbian and Bulgarian intellectuals did very much to cool down international irritation, and in 1904 an attempt was made to conclude a commercial treaty, with the further prospect of a customs-union and even a treaty for mutual defence. Unhappily, this treaty met with a formal veto on the part of Austria. Still, conversations were resumed as early as 1909, and proceeded further in Petrograd in 1910, without coming to any definite result in regard to Macedonia; and, finally, a formula of partition of Macedonia was secretly arrived at when the Turco-Italian war of 1911 made it clear to everybody that Turkey's life in Europe was soon to end. By the Serbo-Bulgarian Treaty of March 13, 1912, the limit was finally drawn in Macedonia, approximately, according to the view of Mr Tsviyits, the best Serbian specialist in geography, on the lines of Serbian ethnographic research. This treaty was followed by the Graeco-Bulgarian treaty of May, 1912, wherein, unhappily, no frontiers were established which could settle conflicting claims. Then, when the Albanian revolt of 1912 proved finally the weakness of Turkey, military agreements were concluded on September 5, 1912, with Serbia, and on September 28, 1912, with Greece. On October 13, the allied Balkan states