participation in the Dardanelles expedition, could testify that the Bulgarian Government was ready to mobilize the army and march against Turkey as soon as Greece's adherence to the Entente had been announced, so as to secure a share in the spoils. Not even Czar Ferdinand thought it opportune at that time to evince his pro-Austrian leanings, so sure did he feel of the success of the proposed enterprise against the Dardanelles by the combined Entente and Greek troops.

If the powers had used the full strength of their influence on the military party at Belgrade during the Summer of 1915, Radoslavov's moderate and just offer could have been accepted. Even in the early Autumn of 1915, if Great Britain had been willing to place British and French troops in Macedonia and had exerted greater pressure in Sofia, she might have kept Bulgaria out of the war. Many Englishmen, journalists, business men and others, in touch with the negotiations in Sofia before her mobilization frankly affirm this to be true.

While the Serbian press was attacking Bulgaria fiercely, and the Serbian Government remained sullenly obstinate, and the Entente powers dallied, Germany was using every device to create sentiment in her favor. She bought up the largest paper in Bulgaria. She furnished glowing reports of German victories. She magnified Entente defeats. She exalted German inventions and harped on the perils of Serbia, until finally King Ferdinand forced the too independent Bulgarian War Minister to resign, and brought his country in on the German side.

As regards" atrocities," I can give my personal testimony that these were not wholly upon one side. As a member of The Christian Herald and Red Cross Relief Committees from 1913-15, I personally saw Serbian officials doing to Bulgarians some of the very things for which Captain Gordon-Smith so bitterly attacks the Bulgarians in 1917. I talked with many of the refugees from Greek and Serbian Macedonia as to the treatment they had been receiving in the new Serbia. During

6.

March, 1913, four months before the treason of the second Balkan War, I was told by a European Red Cross official of the terrible way in which Serbians were getting rid of the Albanians in old Serbia and Novi Bazar. I talked with the Bishop of Debar, who was forced by Bulgaria's Serbian "allies " to quit his See; also with Bulgarian teachers of both sexes who had been driven ont of their schools and homes without being given an opportunity to utter a word in their own defense. I heard constantly of reports, letters and bitter complaints pouring almost daily into the Government archives in Sofia. The notorious Serbian decree of Oct. 4, 1913, gave to the most insignificant Serbian official in Macedonia full powers to dispose of the lives of the local inhabitants.

I certainly have no wish to justify atrocities, by whomsoever committed. But any impartial student of affairs in the Balkans since 1912 knows that atrocity stories there have been grossly exaggerated. He knows that Serbians and Greeks were not a whit behind those whom they attacked in so clever and, too often, in so conscienceless a way.

In plain words, the charges made against Bulgaria are largely unjust. An equal injustice has been done Bulgaria by the post-war settlement which gave Southern Macedonia permanently to Serbian control. No less a personage than Viscount Bryce pointed this out in an address before the House of Lords last year. Viscount Bryce testified from personal experience that the population of this area was almost purely Bulgarian, and declared that the equitable arrangement would have been, not to give the district to Bulgaria, perhaps, but at least to make it autonomous. The action taken in effect create a Macedonia Irredenta in the Balkas, in addition to the Austria Irredeta in the Tyrol. The disaffected poplation, Viscount Bryce intimed, would remain a source of weakness to Serbia, which had otherwise received

enormous accretions alike of territory and population from the war.

What is needed now is the calming of all the bitter quarrels between the Balkan peoples; the absolute stopping of mutual recriminations, of all charges of atrocity, of quarrels over past mistakes, and a constant emphasizing of all common interests combined with constructive development. Make Macedonia an autonomous member of a Jugoslav United

States, enjoying the same rights and liberties that old Serbia does. Crush out jingoism in each land. Urge disarmament equally in all Balkan States, not merely in defeated Bulgaria; and recognize clearly that the vast majority of the Bulgarians, from King Boris and his Cabinet down to the people, are as genuinely democratic, progressive and peaceloving as in any other Balkan State. Two Rivers, Wis., Sept. 7, 1921.

To the Editor of Current History:

Replying to my article on "Rumania in New Europe," published in the July number of the CURRENT HISTORY, Prince Antoine Bibesco, the Rumanian Minister in Washington, has presented in the September number an attempt to explain away Rumania's shortcomings. He writes:

*

It is plain that the real grievance behind Mr. Vladimiroff's somewhat heated denunciation is not what Rumania is today, but what she did in 1913. In that year Rumania interceded in behalf of Serbia and Greece, then treacherously attacked by their ally, Bulgaria, and decided the conflict in the former's favor. * * Possibly Mr. Vladimiroff would be satisfied by a readjustment of Southeastern European frontiers that would protect the racial minorities of Transsylvania by turning them over to Bulgaria. These minorities, however, might be less enthusiastic after consulting the Greeks and the Serbians of Macedonia, who are acquainted with the Bulgarian methods at close range.

Rumania came to the parting of the ways 1878. She struggled hard at that time, ying to decide between right and wrong, etween justice and injustice, and she fell. rom that time on, morally, Rumania has een slipping downward very fast. From the year 679 A. D. up to 1878 obrudja always was an integral part of ulgaria. Dobrudja is the cradle of the

Bulgarian Kingdom. In the treaty of San Stephano in 1878 Russia assigned Dobrudja to Rumania in exchange for Bessarabia, which the Congress of Paris in 1856 had detached from Russia after the Crimean war, giving it to Rumania in order to block Russia's way to Constantinople.

The Rumanian Government, the press-in a word, all the organs expressing the will and conscience of the Rumanian peoplesolemnly arose against this exchange, objecting in the most emphatic manner that the Danube divided Rumania and Bulgaria, that Dobrudja was a Bulgarian country, and that its annexation would be an infraction of the rights of nationalities, to which Rumania owed her creation as a State. The entire press of Rumania came out in unison, saying: We cede nothing, we accept nothing; even if Bessarabia is taken away from us by brute force we will not have Dobrudja." Finally, when King Carol I. was forced by the Treaty of Berlin to accept Dobrudja, he issued a proclamation to the people of Dobrudja beginning as follows:

66

The great powers of Europe have by the Treaty of Berlin ceded your country to Rumania. Not as conquerors do we enter within the boundaries fixed for us by Europe, &c.

From the date when Rumania entered Dobrudja, in 1878, up to the present day, during a lapse of forty-one years, Rumania has ruled Dobrudja by what is known as "the exception régime," where the power of the local prefect is unlimited. “It is a régime of political rights without freedom under the protection of prefects and Ministers."

On Oct. 3, 1912, the Bulgarian Minister at Bucharest, M. Kalinoff, asked the Rumanian Prime Minister, Mr. Maoresco, what would be Rumania's attitude in case of war between Bulgaria and Turkey, if Bulgaria undertook to defend the rights of her nationals in Thrace and Macedonia. The latter replied: "Rumania will have no objection whatever, for she herself has obtained her freedom from the Turks after a long struggle. If Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia want to free their nationals from the Turkish yoke, Rumania will observe a strict neutrality and will have no claim upon any territory taken away from the Turk." In consequence of this assurance the Bulgarian Ministerial Council extended to Rumania most cordial greetings and thanked her heartily for the noble stand which she had decided to take toward Bulgaria. (See "Les evénements de la Peninsule Balkanique: L'action de la Rumanie," Bucharest, 1913, No. 1-41).

It was in the Fall of 1912, when Bulgaria, single-handed, had to confront the Asiatic hordes east of Adrianople, that Rumania came in with a claim for extending her boundaries to the south in Dobrudja. At that time she asked only for the town and fortress of Silistra. Bulgaria agreed to cede that city to Rumania for the sake of peace. The conference of Ambassadors at St. Petersburg described the attitude of Bulgaria on this occasion in the following words:

Before parting, the conference wishes to pay homage to the well-known disposition of Bulgaria to maintain and to strengthen its ties of friendship with Rumania. These dispositions having singularly lightened its task, the conference expresses the conviction that the powers will remember the sacrifices which they asked Bulgaria to make.

The above lines were penned on May 9, 1913. On July 10 the Rumanian Army received the order to invade Bulgaria, which at that time was at war with its former allies, trying to make them observe the sanctity of their treaties with Bulgaria. It

was Greece and Serbia who acted treacherously toward their allies.

The truth is just the reverse of the usual charge. It was Rumania who scrapped her treaty with Bulgaria, signed at St. Petersburg only two months earlier, and stabbed Bulgaria in the back; and it was done at a time when she was exhausted from the great struggle against the Turk and when she was fully occupied with her former allies, trying to drive them out of her own back yard.

Bulgaria met the buccaneers at Bucharest, and in addition to losing Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbians she lost to Rumania 8,525 square kilometers in Dobrudja, the granary of Bulgaria; and with it went a population of 282,007, out of which only 6,359 were Rumanians.

Even Venizelos himself, in his memorandum to the Peace Conference at Versailles, while pleading that Western Thrace be given to Greece, said: "Besides, if one keeps account of the fact that Rumania would be disposed, once her national unity is accomplished, to cede back to Bulgaria that portion of Dobrudja which fell to its share in 1913, and which forms one of the richest regions in the Balkans. * * * Bulgaria will be the only one among her allies which will come out of the war undamaged."

Bulgaria has fought three wars for territory which three international tribunals had pronounced to be inhabited by Bulgarians an dto belong to Bulgaria.

As regards the Greeks and the Serbians in Macedonia, I refer Prince Bibesco to that splendid public document, "The Report of the International Commission to Inquire Into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars." The main conclusion of that report was that, in so far as atrocities were concerned, the conduct of the Bulgarians, as compared to that of their allies, was the least reprehensible, and that whatever atrocities were committed by them were done under great provocation.

To the Big Four of the Peace Conference, in so far as their decisions on Balkan matters are concerned, I will quote Edmund Burke's words: "But with respect to you, ye legislators, ye civilizers of mankind! Your regulations have done more mischief in cold blood than all the rage of the fiercest animals in their greatest terrors."

To the Editor of Current History:

The article of Gordon Gordon-Smith in CURRENT HISTORY for July, entitled "Bulgaria's Crimes Against Serbia," stirred me up, because it happens that I was a volunteer in the Balkan War of 1913 and had the honor to be taken prisoner by the "brave Serbians" at Sultan Tepe. They robbed me of everything I possessedmoney, boots (of which they never had any), haversack, and everything they could think of that was useful. To my plea that they should let me keep $10, they said 'Die."

crimes upon their brethren, brave Montenegrins.

In the same magazine is an article on "Rumania and the New Europe," page 631, by Theodore Vladimiroff. I cannot too highly express my appreciation of that article, as it is of great concern to me and all those who are interested in the Balkan States. I used to live in Rumania and know that everything the writer says is true. The only regret I have is that he has not said enough, particularly on the question of immorality and the acceptance of bribes by the officials from the lowest to the highest. It happens that I have the honor to possess a poem entitled "Ode to the Rumanian Army," composed by an American lady in Bulgaria. This poem has never been published and I am sending it to you herewith. It expresses exactly my view of the Rumanian Government at that timehow it entered Bulgaria in a sneaking manner and committed crimes of every description on innocent children, women and old men. It runs as follows:

King Carol marched one Summer's day,
To invade his neighbor's helpless land;
He marched across a bridge of boats;
He said: There's nothing safer floats;
Nor fear we Bulgar keeps or moats,
For I've this great invasion planned,
When all the men are far away."

King Carol hastened on his way,
And gloried in his army's might;
Dismantled forts they bravely stormed,
Old men and boys, with care, disarmed,
And in defenseless cities swarmed-
Then from their precincts fled in fright,*
Lest all the men were not away.

King Carol swooped upon his prey,
And stripped it clean with fiendish glee;
Ate up its substance with the zest
Of caterpillars; brought the pest,
Took all he could and spoiled the rest;
Hurrah! For who's afraid? quoth he.
With all the men so far away?

To the Editor of Current History:

By way of reply to Maurice Samuel's criticism of my article in your August issue on The Jewish Problem in Poland," allow me to state that my allusion to rare instances " of physical violence refers to five or six cases, with one exception located at the time within the zone of military warfare. Regarding these cases I wish to quote from Commissioner Morgenthau's report as follows:

Just as the Jews would resent being condemned as a race for the action of a few of their undesirable co-religionists, SO it would be correspondingly unfair to condemn the Polish nation as a whole for the violence committed by uncontrolled troops or local mobs. These excesses were apparently not premeditated, for if they had been part of a preconceived plan the number of victims would have run into the thousands instead of amounting to about 280.

In substantiation of my statement that the Polish Government's failure to protect the Jews is not due to any predetermined policy, I cite this from Mr. Morgenthau's report:

It is believed that these excesses were the result of a widespread anti-semitic prejudice aggravated by the belief that the Jewish inhabitants were politically hostile to the Polish State. When the boundaries of Poland are once fixed and the internal organization of the country is perfected the Polish Government will be increasingly able to protect all classes of Polish citizenry.

The following passages are from the report of Homer H. Johnson, a third member of the Morgenthau Mission:

We are of the opinion, in view of the previous training of the Polish soldiery in the German. Austrian and Russian Armies, the Fastern low valuation of human life, the want of food and clothing which had accompanied the breaking up of the Central Powers, and the universal tenseness of popular nerves worn by the vicissitudes of war, that the antagonism felt by the Polish military foward the Jews and resulting in depredation and violence against them is not a matter of surprise, reprehensible and regrettable as it is.

In concluding the matter of physical violence to the Jews, I quote the following from the report of Sir Stuart Samuel, British Chief Commissioner to Poland, for the investigation of this matter:

*

The military authorities endeavored to restrict the action of the soldiers as much as possible * as the civil authority has been able to make its power effective; so the position in the rear of the troops has become more and more satisfactory.

Captain P. Wright, also a member of the British Commission, reports as follows, in speaking of the number of Jews killed: "One would be too many, but taking these casualties as a standard with which to measure the excesses committed against them (the Jews), I am more astonished at their smallness than their greatness."

Regarding the criticism of my statements that the Jews form the great class of merchants, the greater percentage being "peddlers or petty traders," I wish to add that this state was forced on them by the laws of the country, and to quote from the Morgenthau report as follows:

If American Jewry want to cure the evils in Poland, they must get at the root of them. Sending one or two million Jews to Palestine will do little good; the evil consists in allowing the Jews in a town to follow one or two pursuits. Where there are 5,000, perhaps 1,000 could make an honest living, but 5,000 must cheat each other or starve.

Where is the historical authority for the statement that there were Jews in Poland before the Poles, and if so, why has the country been known as Poland for centuries? And if my critic considers the Litwacs the "modernizing element" among the Jews in Poland, how would he characterize the Jewish "Assimilators," to whom they are violently opposed?

If, as my critic states, the separatism of the Polish Jew is confined to utterly harmless details of dress and appearance," why does Henry Morgenthau say:

Polish national feeling is irritated by what is regarded as the "alien" character of the great mass of the Jewish population. This is constantly brought home to the Poles by the fact that the majority of the Jews affect a distinctive dress, observe the Sabbath on Saturday, conduct business on Sunday, have separate dietary laws, wear long beards and speak a language of their own. The great majority of Jews in Poland belong to separate Jewish political parties. The concentration of the Jews in separate districts or quarters in Polish cities also emphasizes the