Norwich bulletin., 1916-02-12

by Dr. Henry w. Hubert of Groton | in his lecture on Travel Experiences in the Balkans before the Mems Club. of Park Congregational church in the | Osgood Memorial parish house on Friday evening. In making the pre- diction Dr. Hubert said that the leu | ton will be driven out of the Balkan peninsula and out of the Roumanian and Slavic sections of southern Hun gary.
 The lecture was preceded by a brief business meeting, with President Robert Johnson in the chair. pr. President Johnson, spoke of the geo. graphical, racial and historic condf- tions that surround this greStest con f1ict of the ages and touched on the possibilities of Constantinople as a
 great world city at the junction of two great continents. The lecture, f1uently and convincingly delivered, held the close attention of all from the very beginning.
 It is more and more evident said Dr. Hubert, that the gigantic world
 war now waging not only had it's oc- casion and it's fundamental causes in the Balkans but that its major issue, will settle the future of Southeastern Europe as well as that of the Bos- phorus- -Dardanelles water highway in- to the Mediterranean. The entrance of the Ottoman and then the Bulgarian into the war on the side of the Teu-
  CT or later. the hard and the determin- ing fighting would make that his-
 torfc peninsula. the deciding battle field of the war; as, indeed, it has been again and again the spot where the destinies of the worlds life has been settled.
 Here met the Persian and the Hell lone and made certain that Occident and not Orient should control the centres of civilization. At Philippi R CO al Imperial Rome picked up the decad- ent factors of the classic age and weld ed them anew into the order and pow | CT of a united empire, to hold the
 world at bay until a new and a better civilization should appear. At Ad- | rianople (July 3. 323 A. D. Constan- | tine the Great, champion of the perse- 2uted Christians. put down the pagan | imperial rival, Lucinius, and made cer- | tain that. the centres of civilization l for all time to come should be | Christian. So now again the des- | tinies of empire not only for the Bal | kans and the Eastern Mediterranean | but fer the whole world seem to be
 awaiting their hour as the modern | contestants face each other on this historic battlefield.
 Highway of The Nations. { It is, consequently, with a peculiar | fascination he said, that we turn our | faces Balkan ward for a little this | evening and study the conditions, geo. l graphical, radical and historic. that | surround this determining conflict of | the ages.
 A cursory glance at the map shows
 the speaker indicated, that this re- | zion is a natural highway of the na- | tions, proved through the whole his | toric period as Goth and Vandal and | Hun and Slav snd Bulgar and Mag var and Ottoman swung westward l along the shores of the Black Sea to l enter the fair garden of Southern | Europe. At once jt is evident that tLa | determining geographical factor in l this section has been, not a mountain
 range the Balkans) but a majestic
 river-the Danube-rising in the very heart of Europe on the eastern slopes | of the Schwarzwald in the Grand l DuChy of Baden, 2S50 feet above sea
 level and flowing with gathering tide | generally to the southwest, 1875 miles l to pour into the Black Sea more wa | ter than comes into it from all other 1 continents. Indeed when the Danube l fills this vast catch-basin of the Black | Sea it may be said to pour its mighty
 Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and
 really empty into the tideless Med- l iterranean. ...- | Down The Danube.
 Dr. Hubert gave at some length an | account of the trip he took as l traveller and newspaper correspondent l in September and October, 1885, down l the entire naVigable length of the | Danube to RustChucll, Bulgaria, where l today the Bulgar-Teutonic. army is 1 organized to face the inevitable drive from Russia and Roumania- He described the Hungarian exposition at 1 Buda-Pest, where were gathered rep
 resentatives of every type of life in
 the Kingdom, including those sections
 directly involved in the outcome of the
 present war, Bosnia, Herzegovina and | Pennsylvania He told of his personal
 touch with Bosnia, Servia (especially Belgrade, it's capitaD, Roumania and
 Bulgaria as well as Qater) Greece. He
 described the exciting steamer ride
 down through the sixty miles of rapids
 in the Iron Gates where the Danube
 breaks through the Carpathfan range,
 Eastern Roumelia, having just revolt
 ed from the Turks to join Bulgaria, made it seem certain that war would arise. The bugles and war-drums | echoed throughout the land and the
 steamers down the Danube were crowded with. soldiers. Patritism
 ran high at every port of call.
 Facing New Development.
 Landing at Rustchuck and going by
 rail to Varaa, the seaport on the Black Sea, the 1jeaker found the little prin- cipality in the crude beginnings of its strong modern life. Its broad fertile | powerful development of life. Its cities and villages were all torn up with evidences of modern improve } ments and schools were in process of . building in every direction.
 . At Constantinople Dr. Hubert found the Turks pounding vigorously on the rivets of their loose-jointed men of war in the Golden Horn, but their general unpreparedness and the strong pres-
 sure from the great powers enabled the rebellion of Eastern Roumelia to become a revolution and war was averted. The speaker enlarged up- on the possibilities of Constantinople as g. great world-city at the joining of two great continents-He found il
 hard to predict but has high hopes that
 Russia will eventually be contant to
 hace Constantinop1e, 'The City of the , Car" a free. neutral state under the protection of the great nations, having
 a territory covering almost twenty 3 miles inland on either side of the !, Bosphorus. As for the Turk, the speaker would be content to have left
 to him a limited principality in North 3 west Asia Minor with ancient Brusa as its capital. He found himself ut n fo TTirpincr baCLr 0PIy.