hands of the War Cabinet, and the great personal ascendancy which Mr. Lloyd George, as Prime Minister, rapidly acquired, both tended rather to reduce the importance of the Foreign Secre- tary during Mr. Balfour's tenure of the post. It should be noted, however, that it was Mr. Balfour, as Foreign Secretary, who in Nov. 1917 gave a promise on behalf of his Govern- ment to provide a " national home " for the Jews in Palestine after the war. The exceptional amount of work to be dealt with at this period impelled him to ask for extra help in the office; and Lord Robert Cecil was taken from the Ministry of Blockade in the summer of 1918 and made an assistant Secretary of State. Mr. Balfour went to the Paris Conference in 1919 as the second British plenipotentiary; but as eventually the terms of peace were settled by a council of three, Mr. Wilson, M. Clemen- ceau, and Mr. Lloyd George (or of four, when the Italian prime minister attended), his share in the work was somewhat subordinate, though he appended his signature to the Treaty of Versailles, and to the treaty of guarantee to France against German aggression. When the Conference was over, he was glad to be relieved of the burden of a laborious office, and therefore relinquished the Secretary of. State's seals to Lord Curzon, but remained himself in Mr. Lloyd George's Cabinet in the honour- able but comparatively sinecure office of Lord President of the Council. He was appointed chief representative of the British Government at the first Assembly of the League of Nations in 1920; and also at the Disarmament Conference at Washington, D.C., in Nov. 1921.
Mr. Balfour's eminence, and his patriotic readiness to resume in war-time, in spite of advancing years, official labours in a secondary position, were suitably recognized on the King's birthday in 1916 by the grant of the Order of Merit. In 1919 he received a distinction which he must have peculiarly valued, when he was elected chancellor of his old university, Cambridge, in succession to his brother-in-law, Lord Rayleigh.
(G. E. B.)
BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH, ALEXANDER HUGH BRUCE,
IOTH (or 6xH) BARON (1849-1921), British politician, was born
at Kennet, Alloa, Jan. 13 1849, the son of Robert Bruce of Ken-
net. He was educated at Loretto, Eton and Oriel College, Ox-
ford, and in 1869 was restored by Act of Parliament to the
barony of Balfour of Burleigh, to which he was entitled by
his descent from the 5th baron, who was attainted after
the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. He first came into public notice
as a member of the factory commission of 1874, and afterwards
acted as chairman of many other commissions, including that
on educational endowments (1882-9). From 1889 to 1892 he
was parliamentary secretary to the Board of Trade in the Con-
servative Government, and from 1895 to 1903 (when he resigned
as a Free Trader opposed to tariff reform) Secretary for Scot-
land. In 1903 he became chairman of the commission on food
supply in time of war, and in 1909 of that on trade relations
with Canada and the West Indies, receiving in 1911 the G.C.M.G.
as a reward for his services. From 1916 to 1917 he was chair-
man of the committee on commercial and industrial policy
after the war. Lord Balfour, who received hon. degrees from
all the Scottish universities, was from 1896 to 1899 lord rector
of Edinburgh University and from 1900 chancellor of St. An-
drews University. In 1904 he was appointed Lord Warden of the
Stannaries. He published in 1911 The Rise and Development
of Presbyterianism in Scotland. He died in London July 6 1921.
BALKAN CAMPAIGNS (1914-8): see SALONIKA CAMPAIGN and SERBIAN CAMPAIGNS.
BALKAN PENINSULA (see 3.258). Geographically speak-
ing, the Balkan Peninsula is a meeting-point of European and
Asiatic relief (see fig. i): the Dinaric ranges belong to the Alps,
the Carpathians and the Balkans seem to be connected in an
arc, and the main tectonic systems of the peninsula have a
geological structure similar to the ranges of Asia Minor from
which they have been separated since the Pliocene or diluvial
period. In the same way, areas of strongly contrasted climate
are to be found in close proximity, e.g. Mediterranean on the
Adriatic and Aegean coast; Steppe, like that in Asia, on the
extensive plain formed by the Danube and the Maritsa; Central European in most of the peninsula; Alpine on the higher summits (see figs, i and 2). They are sometimes intermingled: valleys which reach far into the mountain masses enjoy a Mediterranean climate as, e.g. the lower Drin valley in Albania.
The distribution of soil affects the character of the vegetation as much as climate : north of the Balkans and of the Kopaonik plateau extensive tracts are covered by lake or marine deposits, loess and humus, where steppe meadows, forests and general cultivation prevail. On the central highlands are coniferous forests and Alpine pastures, while the isolated basins show the characteristics of northern soils and vegetation. The slopes facing the Aegean Sea, like those facing the Adriatic, give rise to deciduous bush and pseudo-maquis. The extreme limit of Mediterranean vegetation sometimes reaches as far as the upper Morava and the depressions S. of the Balkans in the eastern part of the peninsula, but does not extend farther than a few miles from the Adriatic or a few hundred metres above sea-level in the western part. To N. and E. of this limit, large areas, especially in Bosnia and Serbia, are still covered with forests of oak and birch trees, remnants of extensive primitive forest growth in the valleys as well as on the hills ; while to S. and W. low scrub prevails on the bare rocks. Tobacco, rice and cereals are grown in the fertile plains of Thrace and Macedonia, olive and orange trees flourish in the most sheltered places along the coast.
The extension of mountain barriers, climatic influences and zones of vegetation do not alone make the Balkan Peninsula a world by itself. Peripheral influences travel from Italy over the Adriatic, by the straits and the island-dotted Aegean to the indented Hellenic coast, then through the great longitudinal depressions which traverse the peninsula from N.W. to S.E. The morphological features combine to constitute the basis of natural regions the Aegean, the Balkans, the Morava-Vardar and the Pindo-Dinaric regions whose main characteristics depend more on morphology than on ethnography or history.
Natural Regions. The Aegean region is remarkable for the indentation of its coast. On the Hellenic part (Peloponnesus and Euboea) each morphological feature islands, gulfs and headlands points S.E. towards Asia Minor and turns its back to Europe. Karstic characteristics are well developed in the limestone areas of the Ionian coast. The climate is typically Mediterranean: summers are rainless, the atmosphere is clear and temperature is high. The rivers are not perennial. Among the mdquis growth, cultivation is restricted to small fields like oases. On the slopes and in the bottoms of the sheltered depressions, oranges, grapes, lemons and pome- granates survive the dry summer: the olive is prominent in the landscape. Animal as well as vegetable life is very restricted. The isolation of the units and the poorness of the soil would have almost prevented development if the population had not turned seaward, attracted by extraordinary opportunities for fishing, navigation and trade. The Aegean is the only region in the peninsula inhabited almost exclusively by Greeks, mostly seamen or traders, living in towns of the Mediterranean type, with high stone houses and narrow streets, or in large villages on terraces.
The Thraco-Macedoman region . combines the characteristics of the Hellenic and continental regions. The coast is also indented, but the large valleys of perennial streams (Vardar, Struma) give access to the gulfs. The land surface, chiefly consisting of crystalline, metamorphic rocks, denuded, displaced and dislocated, shows sharp contrasts of plateaus and basins, and here and there residual ridges. The tectonic basins, when not filled by the sea, as at Salonika and Orfano, are occupied by alluvial and tertiary lake deposits as in Thessaly and Thrace, or by lakes (Doiran, Langadha, Beshik) or, in the valleys, by marshes. The climate is half continental and half Mediterranean with rainy summers and cold winters. The Vardaras blowing in the rear of the deep winter cyclones brings snow to the hills and freezes the coast, while violent south-west winds bring excessive heat in summer. The proximity to the coaet of high hill masses has a great influence on the vegetation: the true maquis growth extends to an altitude of 200 metres on the coastal slopes, but olive and vine cultivation reaches as high as 400 metres. Oaks and chestnuts, at first scattered, increase with the elevation until they form forests, then coniferous trees appear and finally the cloud- wrapt Alpine summer pastures provide an area of " transhumance " to Kutzo-Vlakh and Slav shepherds, who spend the winters on the coastal plains. The area available for agriculture lies in the basins Thessaly for wheat, Seres for cotton, the plain of Salonika for rice, Kavalla for tobacco. The towns (Salonika, Kavalla), inhabited by Spanish Jews, Turks and Greeks, are built like amphitheatres on the slopes and the villages are inhabited by Slavs and Arumans. The latter are often of the Turkish Chiftlik type with square rooms grouped around the landowner's house, or are composed of houses made of sun-dried bricks.
Strongly contrasting with the Aegean, the Balkan region is a continental mass. The straight Black Sea coast does not favour peripheral influences travelling inward, and the high Rila and Rho- dope systems form a barrier against western penetration. The west- east folded Balkans divide the region into two parts, the lower Danubian plateau on the N., and the Maritsa basin on the S., but
