Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/256

This page has been validated.
240
THE BALKAN PENINSULA, ETC.

Railway contracts. (6) Bulgaria (10), Servia (58), and Roumania (51) take the place of the Porte in railway undertakings affecting those countries respectively; but in Eastern Roumelia the rights and obligations of the Porte continue (21). As to Montenegro, see Art. 29.

Estates of Mussulmans. (7) Special provision is made for the rights of Mussulman landed proprietors in Bulgaria (12) and in the territory ceded to Montenegro (30), and to Servia (39).

Property of Porte and Vakoufs. (8) Provision is also made as to property belonging to the State and to religious foundations (Vakoufs) in Bulgaria (12), Montenegro (30), and Servia (39).

Subjects of the Principalities. (9) The relation of Bulgarians (12), Montenegrins (31), Servians (40), and Roumanians (50), when within the Ottoman dominions, to Ottoman law, are specially regulated.

An Agent of Montenegro. (10) It is provided that Montenegro may have agents at Constantinople and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire (31).

Ottoman debt. (11) Provision is made as to the share of the Ottoman debt to be borne by Bulgaria (9), and, in respect of the territory newly annexed to them, by Montenegro (33) and Servia (42).

Bulgarian tribute. (12) Lastly, provision is made for the payment of tribute by Bulgaria (9).

Detailed information upon these points will be found in the notes to the relative articles of the Treaty.

Bosnia and Herzogovina XII. Bosnia and Herzegovina.—The Bosnians were tributary to Hungary or Servia, till in 1376 they proclaimed a king of their own; after whose defeat at the battle of Kossovo, in 1389, Bosnia became a vassal of Turkey, and was incorporated with it in 1463. It became one of the eight European 'eyalets,' in which the Herzegovina is a 'sandjak.' The adoption of Mohammedanism by the feudal nobles led to an estrangement between them and the mainly Christian peasantry. It was in the Herzegovina that the disturbances first began in 1875 which resulted in the Russo-Turkish war. By the Treaty of San Stefano[1] the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina was to be reformed in accordance with the scheme

  1. Art. 14.