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Updated: June 19, 2025
That frenzied Nationalism and not religion is at the base of this intolerance is further proved by hatred of the Serb for the Bulgarian Church, which on all points of dogma and doctrine and in its services is precisely the same as that of the Serbs. And this same frenzied Nationalism, if persisted in, may yet lead to Serbia's undoing.
It is in the relations of Bulgaria and Serbia, however, that the key to the Balkan situation is to be found. The Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of February 1912, which formed the groundwork of the Balkan alliance, had limited Serbia's sphere of influence to northern Macedonia and referred to the arbitration of the Russian Tsar any disputes arising from conquests to the south of a certain specified line.
The importance of this point was greatly emphasized by the existence of the Nish-Salonika railway, which is Serbia's only direct outlet to the sea, and runs through Macedonia from north to south, following the right or western bank of the river Vardar.
And was it not the vigour of Serbia's reconstituted army in 1918 which, under Misió and a French Marshal, struck the critical blow at the Bulgar which ruined the whole German confederation brought about the surrender of Bulgaria and Austria, and led infallibly to the Armistice! Whatever happens in the new political turmoil, Serbia has won our admiration and gratitude in the West.
The only chance the Serbs had of success was to shorten their line by withdrawing to the semicircular mountain ridge which lies south and south-east of Valievo, and even so their prospects were gloomy. Two wars had already depleted Serbia's manhood and her munitions, and her numbers were sadly inferior to the Austrians.
Roumania, too, was friendly to Greece and Serbia, rather than to treaty Bulgaria, for the Roumanians knew that Bulgaria was very anxious to get back the territory of which Roumania had robbed her, in the second Balkan war. The Greek people were ready to rush to Serbia's aid and so was the Greek prime minister.
The Secretary of State for Religion very kindly facilitated my journey to the shrine of St. Lazar, where I saw Serbia's mediaeval prince lying headless before the altar. Strange to say, it seemed as if the body had a head. The shroud was raised to disclose his brown and wizened fingers and shrunken middle, and where the head should be were the contours of a head under a veil.
On October 28th I find in my diary: "Had urgent appeal to go to Belgrade, but decided not I don't want to get badly mixed in their politics." The Montenegrins were all for war, and the wildest reports reached us of Prince George of Serbia's efforts to precipitate it. Russia, still reeling from her Japanese thrashing and torn with internal troubles, could do nothing.
Bethmann-Hollweg saw the mote of Greater-Serbianism in Serbia's eye, but he was peculiarly anxious not to perceive the beam of Pan-Germanism which has blinded Germany's vision for a generation, and is the one and only cause for the rapid increase in European armaments.
It was not until the Serbs and Croats formed their coalition in 1905 that the trial of strength had come. In Serbia, Peter Karageorgevitch ascended the throne and reversed the pro-Austrian policy of his predecessor. This it will be remembered was influenced until then by the Bulgarian policy of Russia and by Serbia's defeat at the hands of Bulgaria in 1885.
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