INVOLVEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN ROYALS IN MACEDONIA’S DESTINY

INVOLVEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN ROYALS IN MACEDONIA’S DESTINY

Up until a few years ago, most of us were not aware of what was going on behind the diplomatic curtain in Europe especially when it involved royal families.

But thanks to Hans Lothar Schteppan the former German ambassador to Macedonia we get to peek behind the curtain.

Using information from the Ottoman period he discovered in the Austrian and German archives, Hans Lothar Schteppan wrote a book called “The Macedonian Knot” which is based on new facts that have emerged connecting the European Royals to Macedonia’s annexation by its neighbours.

Before I give you any details, allow me to tell you a bit about the relationship of the royals of that time:

The King of England, Edward 7 was married to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Princess Alexandra of Denmark was King George I’s sister and King George was the King of Greece.

Princess Dagmar of Denmark, who was also the sister of King George of Greece, was married to the son of the Russian Tsar.

King George’s wife Queen Olga Konstantinovna was a cousin of the Russian Tsar Nicholas’s father and sister-in-law to King Edward 7 from England.

So you can see that the royals who ruled the most powerful states were related to each other and also looked after each others interests.

The reason this is important to know is because of, according to Hans Lothar Schteppan, the measures taken to award Macedonian lands to the smaller kingdoms mainly to the kingdom of Greece.

Sometime after Macedonia was given back to the Ottomans in 1878 it had been decided at high diplomatic levels that Macedonia was to be partitioned and awarded to Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria under the condition that Macedonia be divided under national lines. How and when Macedonia was to be divided was at the time not determined. The key words here are “national lines”.

Here is what Greek King George I said: “I do not know exactly what the conclusion was (in Reval on June 9, 1908) but a decision on Macedonia was reached.” This statement was made after King George met with King Edward of England, Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his own wife regarding “the future of Macedonia”.

So from what Hans Lothar Schteppan tells us, every time the royals had a meeting King George of Greece would be asking, “When can I get more land for my people?”

Here is a quote from Hans Lothar Schteppan: “Greek King George, it would appear, was strengthening his Dynastic relations for the purpose of territorial expansion into Macedonia. This became evident when, during every meeting with the Great Powers, King

George lost no opportunity to beg for more territory for his Greek Kingdom demonstrated through 250 Acts of the German Kingdom.”

Here is a quote from Hans Lothar Schteppan: “Back in the 18th century when the Russian–Ottoman wars were shaking up the Ottoman Empire, England had interests in securing a passage through the Mediterranean Sea to gain access to its Indian colony. On the other hand, Russia needed uninterrupted access from the Black to the Mediterranean Sea. To prevent Russia from gaining access to the Mediterranean Sea, England established the new Greek State on the land historically known as Achaea. A new King from the European Dynasties was installed and the young State became a Kingdom, established for the first time in 1832. The first King to be installed was Otto of Bavaria (1833-62). The next King to sit on the Greek Throne was Prince Wilhelm from Denmark known as George I, 1863-1913. He is responsible for all the Imperialistic gains Greece made during the Balkan Wars.

To justify why he wanted Macedonian lands for his Greek kingdom, King George I kept referring to the 2.5 million Greeks living in Macedonia who over the centuries referred to themselves as ‘Makedones’. These so-called Greeks who referred to themselves as Makedones, according to King George, in fact were a majority in Macedonia and he could not allow a small minority, referring to the Exarchates, to “usurp the name, national and cultural identity of some 2.5 million Greeks”.

When Kalnoki, the foreign minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, having listened to his incessant complaints about the Greek Church in Macedonia challenged the Greek King George I about where he got the figure of 2.5 million Greeks in Macedonia, King George had to admit that the number of Greeks in Macedonia was very small. (Austro– Hungarian records of 1886)

So having only a small number of Greeks in Macedonia, King George I would have found it difficult to free Macedonia. To increase his chances he would have to “make” Greeks out of the Macedonians but the only access he had to do that was to “Hellenize” them through the Patriarch Church.

Another less known fact presented by Hans Lothar Schteppan in his Book “Macedonian Knot” is that during the 1903 Macedonian Uprising, Macedonian Revolutionary Dimitar Berovski, one of the organizers of the Razlog Uprising of 1876, was not granted audience with the Russian Tsar. This sounds suspicious because it was well known that Russia was helping all Uprisings in Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and even Greece. Russia prided itself on being the self appointed protector of the Orthodox Christian, regardless of ethnicity.

Could Russia have been planning a different future for Macedonia? If Dimitar Berovski for example was a Bulgarian, as Bulgarian Propaganda likes to present him, why then was he not granted audience with the Russian Tsar? Bulgarian Revolutionaries were certainly always supported! One reason might be that supporting Macedonia would have interfered with Russian support for Bulgarian interests in Macedonia, and this would certainly have had future consequences for Russian Free Passage into the Black Sea.

There are also other aspects to this. The Imperialistic Dynastic Network of Greek King George I, also had interests in enlarging Greece’s territory. Thus Macedonia was left to fight on its own, not only against the Turks but also against the royal resistance. (Hans Lothar Schteppan)

Since most historians in this time period were overwhelmingly dependent on their monarchs for their subsistence, it becomes very questionable that they would ever question their benefactors. It is however, most logical to assume that they as subordinates, accepted such and co-operated in initiating the creation of a fictitious state with a fictitious history. Historians such as Droysan, promoted such, and are being accepted today as being factual when they are not. This quote was made by Pete Kondoff and confirmed by Hans Lothar Schteppan during an interview conducted by the MPO’s Macedonian Tribune on October 17, 2005.

Among other things here is what Hans Lothar Schteppan had to say: Yugoslav history is like Bulgarian history, Soviet history, East German history and Polish history. History based only on ideological specters. There is no truth, no facts, just intentions,

wishful thinking, ideas and ideology. If you prefer ideology, please do so and please don’t listen to me or read my book. What you have been taught in school, I am very sorry to say that I would personally not believe. So, please, you may believe whatever you like, just let me quote my documents. These documents are actual reports from the German ambassadors from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century from Constantinople, Sofia, Belgrade, Vienna, London, St. Petersburg, etc., and I believe them to be factual more than I can say about Yugoslav and Bulgarian interpretations of history. I am sorry to say that. Hans Lothar Schteppan