New-York tribune., 1920-05-17
After 4Seuen Centuries
By Frank II. Simonds

mania has taken the southern Dobrudja,
| which was assigned to Bulgaria at Ber-
I'm. Serbia has Macedonia, in which
Bulgar agents have worked for more
than thirty years. The Greeks have
Salonica, and all the Egean coast east
ward to Gallipoli; they have all Of
Thrace and Adrianopie. They have, if
the international system now proposed
for Constantinoplc fails, the best chance
Of obtaining that city ITSELF
But what is most interesting, after
all, Is the fashion In which the ethnic
fragments have reabpcared as the Turk
ish wave has receded. The Turk has
conquered; he has not assimilated. He
advanced to the walls Of Vienna, where
Polish army halted him, but year by
year, as his power waned, another ethnic
group reamerged, as land reappears
when a flood begins to ebb. He has
camped in Europe and his stay has for
more than six centuries interrupted the
development Of the Balkan peoples But
for the Turk, the Serb and the Bulgar
might have kept pace with the English
man and the Frenchman in national de-
velopment. Five centuries ago, under
Dushan, Serbia was a progressive ma
ton. Nearly q thousand years ago
Bulgaria gave promise of a far-shning
future. AS for the Greek, he has best
survived the long night because he knew
best how to adapt himself to the tyrant.
| OF all the European wars which ex-
tend from the fall of Napoleon to the
fight Of William II, most have had their
| origin or their occasion in the Balkans,
and the last and mghtiest is no ex-
ception. The Eastern Question has
wrecked the Romanoff and Hapsburg
empires; it has dragged the Hohenzol-
lern down with the others. And the
odd and ironical circumstance is that
while the great powers have ruined
themselves and one another by their ii
valr;es, it has been the little peoples, the
Balkan races, which have in the end
won the prize. Austria pushed Bull
garia against Serbia as q move against
Russia; Russia countered by support ng
Serbia; Rumania was a soldier first of
the Gar against the Sultan and then
of the Kaisers against the Car; but
czars, kaisers, even the Sultan, have
ceased to be forces, while the Serb, the
Greek, the Rumanian, the Bulgar, re-
main
The curious may take down THAR his
torical aliases and turn to maps show
ing the Near East thousand years
ago and find suggestions of the from
tiers which are now being laid down
again. In a sense the Eastern Question
has reverted to an older stage. The
Balkans have ceased to be the battle
ground of great powers, they have be-
come, again, the field Of conflict of the
inhabitants themselves. A quarrel be-
tween the Bulgar and the Greek, be-
tween the Serb and the Rumanian, will
tomorrow have far less evil signifi-
cance in Paris, London and Rome than
decade ago. 1t will have none whatever
in Vienna, Berlin or Petrograd So
much is clear gain--to this degree the
W UIlu w dr mas IOC2lZeQ the Balkans,
To be sure, Constantinople remains
as it has been from the very dawn of
history-a problem for world politics.
international control will score its first
success, after many failures, if it
achieves anything lasting at the Golden
Horn.
In any event the departure of the
Turk from Europe, save as he fingers
politically impotent under the guns of
Allied warships in the Golden Horn.
marks the end of a long period in his
tory. 1t means the extinction of one
of the most dangerous perils threaten
ing world peace; it may not impossiblv
herald the opening of an era in which
the melting Of the SHOWS in the Balkans
will not bring apprehension to every
European chancellere
Copyright, 1920. by Mcclure Newspaper
Syndicnre)