of the Allies, and when even King Constantine had firmly rejected William II. 's suggestion that he should fall upon Serbia and tear up the Treaty of Bucharest. What changed the views of both Athens and Sofia was simply the unfavour- able turn in the military fortunes of the Allies. As long as the Bulgarians thought that the Dardanelles would be forced, their help could probably have been secured in return for the promise of Macedonia and the guarantee of an Allied occupation: what was lacking was the corresponding pledge to Serbia. The conclusion of a Bulgarian loan in Berlin in Feb. was the first sign of a change, and after March neutrality was the best that the Allies could hope for from Bulgaria, though she showed great skill in furthering Bulgarophil illusions in the West. Thus the concrete proposals addressed to Sofia by the Entente on May 20, over Serbia's head, came two months too late. The Rado- slavov Cabinet now played for time, and while asking on June 15 for further details, concluded parallel negotiations with Turkey regarding the Thracian railway. On July 18 the official Narodni Prava spoke of the impossibility of Bulgaria keeping out of the war, and public opinion freely discussed the rival alternatives. The final reply of the Entente (Aug. 3) offered Bulgaria the " whole uncontested zone " of the treaty of 1913, with immediate occupation as far as the Vardar; dis- cussion even of Skoplje and of the " contested zone " after peace; Seres at once and Kavalla in the future; and the Enos-Midia line in Thrace. The price was to be war upon Turkey. Greece at once protested, and the Emperor William urged his brother- in-law on no account to cede Kavalla. But the decisive factor was the fall of Warsaw on Aug. 8; not only public opinion, but the general staff now regarded Germany's triumph as inevitable. The Turco-Bulgarian agreement was initialed on the very day after the Allied note, and completed at the end of the month, and on Aug. 20 its negotiator, the Germanophil 2ekov, replaced Ficco as War Minister. Meanwhile the position of the Pasic Cabinet was extremely delicate. It loyally declined to discuss the indirect overtures made to it from Vienna, and stood officially for the programme of unity: but during the summer, yielding to pressure from the reactionaries in Petrograd, it showed a readiness to limit its claims to the territory generally regarded as purely Orthodox viz. Banat, Syrmia, Bosnia- Herzegovina and South Dalmatia and to leave the Catholic Croats and Slovenes to their fate. This scheme would have fitted in with Italian designs and with the Treaty of London, which envisaged three separate Slav States, an enlarged Serbia, an enlarged Montenegro and a reduced Croatia. Its weakness lay in the ignorance of its promoters; for even such a division would have left well over a -million Catholics in " Orthodox " Serbia. Its failure, however, was above all due to the vigilance of Mr. Supilo and his colleagues of the Yugoslav committee.
The Conquest of Serbia. In the late summer the Serbian Government was unduly optimistic as to Greek and Rumanian intervention, and its disbelief in a German invasion was en- couraged by Allied military opinion. Only three weeks before Mackensen crossed the Danube, Lord Kitchener, in conversa- tion with a Serbian representative, gave his opinion that any action from the north was mere bluff. Hence though the Skup- tina on Sept. 5 authorized the Government to make terri- torial concessions, Pasic adopted a waiting attitude. Bulgaria's mobilization, two days after the opening of the Austro-German bombardment along the river front, proved his calculations to have been correct. Yet even at this moment Allied opinion hoped that Bulgaria might enter on the Entente side, and therefore a veto was imposed upon the Serbian general staff's plan for an immediate attack upon Sofia before the Bulgarian army was ready (Sept. 27). Next day Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons announced that in the event of Bulgaria's aggression " we are prepared to give to our friends in the Balkans all the support in our power, in the manner that would be most welcome to them, in concert with our Allies, without reserve and without qualification." Relying on the fulfilment of this pledge, the Serbs devoted their main effort to checking the Austro- German advance and remained on the defensive towards Bul-
garia. The danger was increased by King Constantine's repu- diation of Greece's treaty obligations towards Serbia and the overthrow of Venizelos. That statesman, however, had enquired of the Allies as early as Sept. 23, whether, if Bulgaria declared war on Serbia, and if Greece asked Serbia to supply the 150,000 men stipulated by the Serbo-Greek Treaty for such a contin- gency, France and Britain would assume Serbia's obligation for her; and an affirmative answer was received within 48 hours. On Oct. 6, the rupture with Bulgaria was complete. The fatal delays in sending the promised troops, coupled with Allied insistence that the Serbs should hold back Mackensen to the last moment, belong to military history; but their results were eminently political. At the critical moment of the Bulgarian menace to the Nish-Salonika railway there were at Salonika not 150,000 Allied troops ready for action, but 35,000 French, and 13,000 British, the latter under strict injunctions from London not to cross the frontier into Serbia. 1 Nish was decorated to welcome Allies who never came. The whole Serbian plan of campaign collapsed, and the armies, losing control of the rail- way southwards, retired precipitately through the passes leading to the plain of Kosovo. General Sarrail, informed that he must not expect reinforcements, was forced to arrest his belated offensive northwards (Nov. 12) and soon to withdraw to the west of the Vardar. The Serbs were thus cut off from Allied help, lost Skoplje and only just escaped envelopment by the converging Austro-German and Bulgarian armies. The final retreat of the Serbian army and Government took place in the dead of winter across the inhospitable snow mountains of Albania and Montenegro to Scutari, Medua and Durazzo, a smaller section escaping southwards from Prizren and augment- ing the Serbian forces south of Monastir. Fortunately, the general exodus of the civilian population was checked before it had gone too far; but the retreat stands out as one of the great tragedies of the war, and the loss of life which it involved must have far exceeded 100,000 and is estimated at twice that number by very sober authorities. 2 After dreadful sufferings the fugitives were conveyed by Allied transports to Corfu, which for the remainder of the war became the seat of the Serbian Government and a base for the convalescence and reorganization of the army. Notable assistance was rendered by British voluntary units, and some idea of the generous response of the British public to Serbia's need may be gathered from the fact that the Serbian Relief Fund from first to last collected over 1,000,000 in money and material, and employed over 700 workers in Serbia, Albania, Corfu, Salonika, Corsica, Biserta and France, while the Scottish Women's Hospitals under Dr. Elsie Inglis performed notable services for the Serbs both on the Balkan and the Russian fronts. The deaths of Mrs. Dearmer, Mrs. Harley (Lord French's sister), Mrs. Haver- field, Dr. Inglis herself and many others set a seal on the new- found friendship of the two nations.
Conquered Serbia was divided for administrative purposes between Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, the latter holding the Timok, Nish, Skoplje and Macedonia: all that remained to the Serbs was a fragment of territory south of Monastir. Bulgaria now threw off the mask and officially declared the Serbian State to have ceased to exist. It therefore enrolled all men of military age throughout the occupied territory and in Feb. 1917 extended this to include the whole male population. It refused to recog- nize the Serbian Red Cross and took possession of the Serbian Legation in Sofia. All " ownerless " land was confiscated, all Serbian schools, law courts, and inscriptions were Bulgarized, libraries and collections were either destroyed or removed to Bulgaria, the Serbian clergy were evicted, and there were whole- sale deportations. A formidable rising in the mountains be- hind Kursumlje (Kurshumlye) was brutally repressed, with over 2,000 executions (March 1917). The war aims now repeatedly avowed by Sofia were the annexation not only of Macedonia, but of Kosovo and Prizren, and the whole upper Morava and Timok valleys: a common frontier with Hungary: the prevention
1 See Gen. Sarrail, Man commandement en Orient, p. 27.
- G. Djurifi, in Royal Statistical Journal, May 1919.
