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In short, Veles, Monastir and Ochrida were widely regarded as a pledge to be held until Bosnia and Dalmatia could be redeemed, but then to be handed over to the Bulgarians. It is true that the Serbo-Bulgar War of 1913 and the passions which it aroused have converted this feeling into one of reluctance to sacrifice what was bought at such a fearful price.
It would be tiresome, but what could one do?... As they sat upon the parapet of a broken bridge on the road between Elbassan and Ochrida Benham was moved to a dissertation upon the condition of Albania and the politics of the Balkan peninsula. "Here we are," he said, "not a week from London, and you see the sort of life that men live when the forces of civilization fail.
The cession of Monastir, Ochrida, and the Vardar Valley to Bulgaria would have rendered this impossible, for it would not merely have driven a wedge between Serbia and Greece, but would have placed two customs frontiers, the Bulgarian and the Greek, between Serbia and the sea, instead of only one, the Turkish, as hitherto.
Servia, withdrawn behind the Ochrida-Golema Vreh line in accordance with the terms of the treaty, would at any rate have nothing to say about the matter. Now if you imagine a base line drawn from Saloniki to Golema Vreh, you have an equilateral triangle resting on Ochrida as apex.
The Bulgarian church was recognized as independent by the Greek patriarch at Constantinople; its primates subsequently received the title of patriarch, and their see was established at Preslav, and then successively westward at Sofia, Vodena, Presba, and finally Ochrida, which looks out on the mountains of Albania.
By the end of September the conduct of the Serbs in the Dibra district was so bad that the maddened populace, profiting by a moment when the garrison was reduced, revolted, drove out the Serbs and retook Ochrida, where they were welcomed by both Bulgars and Albanians. As I wrote at the time: "It is criminal of the Powers to delay the frontier commissions.
And the extreme limit, on the south and east, of Turkish territory assigned to Servia by this treaty was fixed by a line starting from Ochrida on the borders of Albania and running northeastward across the Vardar River a few miles above Veles and thence, following the same general direction, through Ovcepolje and Egri Palanka to Golema Vreh on the frontier of Bulgaria a terminus some twenty miles southeast of the meeting point of Servia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.
The people of Ochrida had to officially rejoice that their nationality was destroyed, though it had survived some six centuries of the Turk. At Pogradech we again found the Serbs. Here the whole population is Albanian. There was no doubt of their sentiments. They asked anxiously as to the fate of their town, and dreaded lest the Serb occupation should be permanent.
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