The Washington herald., 1915-12-26
Ae
oSdo Empires alom
BY JAMES MORGAN
Mr.. Aergan to-day takes HIS readers
to the latest stern eenter In the war
and enc sf the NEST DeriIsus spots On
the map, where Serbia. the plueky Mt
tie Eatekeeper Of the Balkans, - full
filling again her hard destiny-to BE
strsek down and sverrun by great
Powers marehink along the oldest and
ahorest rsad between Europe and Asia
Minor. There enc Of the tragedies Of
history In being enacted anew under
eur eyes.
Another article will be pablished
Of the Balkan Nations.

Why should poor Serbia have becom
the storm center in the Balkans? VIII.
did the eagles Of the Teutonic Empire
swoop down upon her? Not merel!
because a Serb assassinated the Aus
trian Crown Prince. Why did the Bit
Empires of the Entente drop every
thing else to go to her rescue. No
merely as the chivalrous protectors o
little Nations.
Serbia's destiny is written in hel
geography. Nations no less than mel
are the creatures and the creations o
their environment.
England and Japan were made by
their tight little islands. and France
and Italy by their Alpine barriers
Spain is what she is because of the
Pyrenees. Holland was made by heI
dykes. Russia by her remote ah6
boundless plains. and America by hei
continent Not the Turk but Constan-
tinople is the maker of Turkey. And
Serbia owes all her troubles today
owes a thousand years of trouble. to
her unfortunate position on the map
The Gates of Two Worlds.
The Balkan Peninsula is the causeway.
= tongue OF land uniting two worlds. At
the top of il the Alpine spurs of Bosnia
and the Carpathian Mountains of Tran
sylvania draw together and leave only a
gap into Serbia At the Bottom of the
peninsula the seas close in upon 1t about
Constantinople, leaving mere bridge
head for a passage over into the Orient.
Serbia and Constantinople thus are the
1
all the empires in the past have struggled.
even as the empires now are struggling.
to seize and hold one or both OF them.
The kaisers are marching through Serbia
today along the very highways construct
cd by the Caesars between those gates,
and their imperial foes are trying to stop
their advance along that old Roman road
to world dominion. the shortest land
route from Europe to Asia Minor.
In the twilight of the Roman empire.
barbarian hordes burst through the upper
gate and blocked the traffic. Thereupon
a monarch of the eastern empire at Con-
stantinople, looking for a new and yiSor
Gus gate keeper to clear the road. invited
n mountain tribe of the great Slavic fam
lily to come down out of their Carpathian
wiids and tend the gate On that invita-
ton. the Serbs settled 1900 years ago
in the valley of the Morava River. from
lately driven them.
For centuries they guarded the road
against the Magyars. the Tartars. the
Bulgars and other new coming barbar-
ians. Meanwhile the gatetenders adopt
ed Christianity. organized themselves
into a kingdom and finally struck against
their aging and feeble employer at Con-
stantinople. who called upon the Bulgars
and Rumanians to help him put down
the strike.
When Serbia Was an Empire.
In that Balkan war of 1880 the strikers
gathered at Nish, where the road forks,
one branch running straight on to Con-
stantinople, through Bulgaria. and the
other down through Macedonia TO Sal
onica on the Aegean Sea. Hastily ad-
vancing by the upper road the Serbs |
caught the Bulgars before the Ruman- |
ians or the imperial army could come |
TO their support At one blow they over
whelmed Bulgaria and shattered the al |
lance.
All the Balkans and Consantinople as
well now seemed to lay at the mercy of
the victorious Serbians. At once they
set forth on the path OF conquest. under
the leadership OF their 2c-year-old mon
arch, Stephen Dushan. the most illus
trious name on Serbia's page Of history.
Hurting back the ever-rcstless Magyars
of Hungary in the North and chasing
the Albanian raiders into the deep re-
cesses Of their mountains, Dushan pro-
claimed himself King of the AIbanians
as well as of the Serbs. At the same
time, he converted Bulgaria into a mere
protectorate and, marching through
Macedonia, he carried the frontier of his
kingdom into Thessaly and Thrace.
At a splendid coronation in Uskub the
conqueror put on an imperial crown,
proclaiming himself emperor of the Ser
bians and Rumanians. of the Bulgars
and the Albanians. Virtually all the
Balkans were gathered beneath the Ser
marked out ConstantiSople for conquest.
He wanted to hold the lower as well as
the upper gate to the old road.
But Constantinople has been the Car
OF many ambitious warriors. |
Only twice has a conqueror succeeded
in preaching its stubborn walls in all the
!. 500 years and more since they were
reared by Constantine the Great And
when Dushan was almost in sight Of
st. Sofia, death suddenly and mysteri-
ously arrested his triumphant advance.
The Fail Of serbia.
The high tide of the Serbian empire
broke and ebbed.~ The Turk instead be-
came the keeper of the Constantinople
ID northward to seize the opposite gate.
Thus Serbia found herself not the con-
Iueror Of the East, but the defender Of
he West.
AS the Mohammedans forced their way
up the Balkan peninsula. Serbias noun
ain pass became the outpost of Chris
cndom, with the Serbs valiantly up
holding the cross against the crescent
lntil overwhelmed at Kossovo In lsss
After 600 years have passed the Serbian
'ards still chant probably are chanting
n the camps Of the retreating Serbs to-
lay. their story Of the great battle
ought on Kossovos field of black
'irds." where the Turkish horses stood
launch to haunch. head to tail, and mot
drop OF rain could fall to the earth
eeveen them" The plain, they tell us,
vas transformed by the enemy's ban
ers into far-stretching garden Of
right tulips. and over It cleaned .
heet Of flame woven by Turkish -Iances
in the June sun. +
As the Serbian empire fell. with all
he flower Of serbia's heroes lying about
in heaps of slain, n terrible revenge
'as taken on the victor. Stealing up to
he Turkish Sultan, a Serb killed him in
he door Of his tent. whereupon thei