The Balkans | Page 3

thus undoubtedly attain the
hegemony of the peninsula, while the centre of gravity of the Serbian nation would, as is
ethnically just, move north-westwards. Political considerations, however, have until now
always been against this solution of the difficulty, and, even if it solved in this sense,
there would still remain the problem of the Greek nationality, whose distribution along all
the coasts of the Aegean, both European and Asiatic, makes a delimitation of the Greek
state on purely ethnical lines virtually impossible. It is curious that the Slavs, though
masters of the interior of the peninsula and of parts of its eastern and western coasts, have
never made the shores of the Aegean (the White Sea, as they call it) or the cities on them
their own. The Adriatic is the only sea on the shore of which any Slavonic race has ever
made its home. In view of this difficulty, namely, the interior of the peninsula being
Slavonic while the coastal fringe is Greek, and of the approximately equal numerical
strength of all three nations, it is almost inevitable that the ultimate solution of the
problem and delimitation of political boundaries will have to be effected by means of
territorial compromise. It can only be hoped that this ultimate compromise will be agreed
upon by the three countries concerned, and will be more equitable than that which was
forced on them by Rumania in 1913 and laid down in the Treaty of Bucarest of that year.
If no arrangement on a principle of give and take is made between them, the road to the
East, which from the point of view of the Germanic powers lies through Serbia, will
sooner or later inevitably be forced open, and the independence, first of Serbia,
Montenegro, and Albania, and later of Bulgaria and Greece, will disappear, de facto if not

in appearance, and both materially and morally they will become the slaves of the central
empires. If the Balkan League could be reconstituted, Germany and Austria would never
reach Salonika or Constantinople.

2
The Balkan Peninsula in Classical Times 400 B.C. - A.D. 500.
In the earlier historical times the whole of the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula
between the Danube and the Aegean was known as Thracia, while the western part (north
of the forty-first degree of latitude) was termed Illyricum; the lower basin of the river
Vardar (the classical Axius) was called Macedonia. A number of the tribal and personal
names of the early Illyrians and Thracians have been preserved. Philip of Macedonia
subdued Thrace in the fourth century B.C. and in 342 founded the city of Philippopolis.
Alexander's first campaign was devoted to securing control of the peninsula, but during
the Third century B.C. Thrace was invaded from the north and laid waste by the Celts,
who had already visited Illyria. The Celts vanished by the end of that century, leaving a
few place-names to mark their passage. The city of Belgrade was known until the seventh
century A.D. by its Celtic name of Singidunum. Naissus, the modern Nish, is also
possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230 B.C. that Rome came into contact with
Illyricum, owing to the piratical proclivities of its inhabitants, but for a long time it only
controlled the Dalmatian coast, so called after the Delmati or Dalmati, an Illyrian tribe.
The reason for this was the formidable character of the mountains of Illyria, which run in
several parallel and almost unbroken lines the whole length of the shore of the Adriatic
and have always formed an effective barrier to invasion from the west. The interior was
only very gradually subdued by the Romans after Macedonia had been occupied by them
in 146 B.C. Throughout the first century B.C. conflicts raged with varying fortune
between the invaders and all the native races living between the Adriatic and the Danube.
They were attacked both from Aquileia in the north and from Macedonia in the south, but
it was not till the early years of our era that the Danube became the frontier of the Roman
Empire.
In the year A.D. 6 Moesia, which included a large part of the modern kingdom of Serbia
and the northern half of that of Bulgaria between the Danube and the Balkan range (the
classical Haemus), became an imperial province, and twenty years later Thrace, the
country between the Balkan range and the Aegean, was incorporated in the empire, and
was made a province by the Emperor Claudius in A.D. 46. The province of Illyricum or
Dalmatia stretched between the Save and the Adriatic, and Pannonia lay between the
Danube and the Save. In 107 A.D. the Emperor Trajan conquered the Dacians beyond the
lower Danube, and organized a province of Dacia out of territory roughly equivalent to
the