Introduction - Part 06

5. How is it that the Ottomans could not find and catch Delchev in all the years that he operated in Macedonia and yet they were able to

find him and kill him on his way to a meeting to stop the early uprising from taking place?

These questions show a pattern. The Bulgarians created the Supremacist organization… why? There was already a Macedonian revolutionary organization working effectively … The Bulgarians betrayed the Macedonian leaders to the Ottomans… Why?

The Bulgarian government was running the entire show in Macedonia through the Supremacists and the Great Powers were right there behind the Bulgarian government. If the Western Great Powers did not support Bulgarian interference in Macedonia they would have stopped it. They stopped Russia, a much stronger opponent, when it invaded the Balkans and liberated part of Macedonia. Why wouldn’t they stop Bulgaria? Because it was in their interest to undo what Russia had done and to support Bulgaria in doing their bidding.

The Bulgarians reassured the Macedonian revolutionaries that Bulgaria was prepared to help them, even by declaring war on the Ottomans if necessary, all the Macedonians had to do was “fire the first volley of shots”.

In other words the Bulgarians desperately wanted the Macedonians to become involved in a massive armed conflict with the Ottomans as soon as possible, even when they knew that the Macedonians were not prepared. The fact that no Bulgarian army crossed into Macedonia after the first shots were fired, or at any time after that, proves yet again that the 1903 Ilinden Uprising was staged and controlled from the outside, by the Western Great Powers though their proxies.

There were also those Macedonians, including some of the revolutionary leaders, who truly believed that if the Macedonians started an Uprising against the Muslim Ottomans, their Christian brothers, the Great Powers, would come to their rescue, just like they did with the Greeks, Serbians and Bulgarians. But they were mistaken. That did not happen!

The Ottomans at the time were aware that something was being prepared and were going from village to village looking for arms. Basically the Ottoman approach was to demoralize the people, punish them for what they were about to do in order to stop them from doing it. This put extra pressure on the Macedonian revolutionaries to get moving with the preparations for the uprising.

The Supremacists gave the Macedonians a choice: “Wait and get shot like fish in a barrel or rise up and fight right now.”

A while later most of the Macedonian leaders were released from prison under a general amnesty. The amnesty came as a result of external pressure, mainly from the Western Great Powers. People in the west were basically fed up with how the Ottomans treated the Christians in their empire and pressured their governments to do something. So the Great Powers squeezed the Ottomans to open the jails and let everyone go. But by now Delchev was dead and out of the picture, and he had not been replaced. In the meantime preparations for the uprising were gaining momentum and there was no turning back.

After Damian Gruev was released from prison he took Delchev’s job and command of the Macedonian revolutionary forces. Unfortunately he had been in jail for about six months and was not up to speed with what was going on.

Gruev called for a Congress to take place, which unfortunately was completely dominated by Supremacists who again voted for an early Uprising. At the same time it was decided to start the Uprising on August 2nd. August 2nd is a religious holiday – Sveti Ilia, a day of celebration not of violence. The Ottomans would not expect violence during a Christian holiday so it was an ideal time to start the Uprising.

The most unfortunate thing about this uprising, however, was not that the Ottomans would be surprised but that the Macedonians were not prepared for such a venture and for its aftermath. They had willing fighters but not the arms and ammunition. It was very difficult to get arms and ammunition.

The Bulgarians sold the Macedonians their old army guns but without ammunition. The Greeks refused to sell them any arms. There was a company in Athens that made guns and some Macedonians who spoke Greek had to lie about their use in order to purchase some. But even after purchasing them, it was difficult to smuggle them inside Macedonia. The Ottomans were vigilant and kept their eyes open.

If the Greeks and Bulgarians were genuinely in support of a Macedonian Uprising they would have helped the Macedonians. The fact that the Bulgarians did not supply the Macedonians with ammunition and the Greeks refused to sell them arms, is again proof that they did not want the Macedonians to win.

So even though the Macedonians were unable to find sufficient arms to fight an uprising, Gruev, the supreme leader at the time, decided to start the uprising anyway. The Macedonians were damned if they did and they were damned if they didn’t start the uprising so they decided to start it. The Ottomans were going from village to village destroying every village looking for arms, so the villages were going to be destroyed anyway; uprising or no uprising.

These were the conditions under which the August 2nd, 1903 Macedonian National Uprising took place, which ended in disaster as the Western Great Powers had hoped.

The Russians had their ships patrolling the Aegean Sea and so did the British, watching Macedonia burn from the distance and they did nothing to stop it.

The brunt of the uprising lasted about 12 days. Parts of Kostur Region, Klisura and Neveska were liberated for a longer period of time but the town Krushevo, as I mentioned earlier, got most of the credit because its liberators declared it a republic, the first republic in the Balkans or maybe even in all of Europe.

After the failed uprising, to save themselves the Macedonian people were even willing to look to the Greeks for help.

The Macedonians were losing all hope, even in their own abilities to protect themselves. And this is exactly what the Western Great Powers were hoping for.

And the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian propaganda was right there behind them. “Christian brothers don’t worry we are here to save you.”

Where were they when the Macedonians were fighting to liberate themselves, especially the Bulgarians who openly promised to help them? Many volleys were fired and yet not a single Bulgarian soldier came to their rescue! The English had their ships sailing the Aegean Sea to make sure the Bulgarians, or anyone else, did not offer help.

When will the Macedonians learn not to believe empty words?

Times were desperate for the next ten years from 1903 to 1913 for the Macedonian people, a decade of misery under the Ottoman yoke.

But things were about to get worse.

After the Macedonian people failed to liberate themselves, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria began preparations to invade Macedonia and kick the ailing Ottoman Empire out. They each could not do it alone so they were convinced by Russia, I believe, to form an alliance, or a Balkan League as it was later called. And so in 1912 they invaded and took Macedonia while driving the Ottomans out.

Some top Macedonian revolutionary leaders, including Iane Sandanski, who survived the 1903 Ilinden Uprising and later fought against the Bulgarians, were well aware of Bulgarian plans to annex Macedonia. Sandanski was of the opinion that Macedonia should fight for autonomy, following Delchev’s philosophy. Macedonia could only gain its independence by first becoming an autonomous province inside the Ottoman Empire. Delchev and Sandanski were well aware of the Great Powers and their meddling in Macedonian affairs through their proxies Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria and that Macedonia would eventually be swallowed up by one or all of them. Unfortunately none of these Macedonians was aware that the

Western Great Powers had plans not only to occupy and partition Macedonia but to wipe out everything that was Macedonian, something that was never done before.

Delchev had seen what Russia had done with the San Stefano Treaty when Russia gave Macedonian to Bulgaria. He had also seen what the Western European Powers had done with the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 when, instead of giving Macedonia autonomy, they gave it back to the Ottomans with absolutely no safeguards for the Macedonian people.

So, if anyone was to protect Macedonia from being “swallowed up” by the Great Power proxies, it would have to be the Ottoman Empire. But first Macedonia had to gain its autonomy.

As I mentioned earlier, the Western Great Powers did not want Macedonia to gain its autonomy and become an Ottoman protectorate and that is precisely why the Bulgarian Supremacists started the Ilinden Uprising early.

Let us not get confused here by the Greek and Bulgarian propaganda that “somehow” the Macedonian revolutionary leaders trusted Bulgaria to “liberate” Macedonia and create an independent Macedonian state. Bulgaria wanted Macedonia for itself. The Macedonian revolutionary leaders wanted an independent Macedonia. Delchev believed that this could only be achieved through an autonomous Macedonia under the protection of the Ottoman Empire.

There were, however, Macedonian individuals who looked to the Bulgarians as saviours. You have to understand that the Bulgarian propaganda sounded very attractive to some. The Bulgarians were not saying “We are here to occupy your country and turn you into Bulgarians”, they were saying “Christian brothers we are here to help you…”

We have to remember that Bulgaria too was under the Ottoman yoke until 1878 and because of that some Macedonian people felt that the Bulgarians had sympathy for them and wanted to help.

There is also the fact that the Macedonian revolutionary leadership was infiltrated by Macedonians who worked for Bulgarian interests, knowingly or unknowingly. They too were convinced that Bulgaria could be their saviour.

Let us not forget that Bulgaria also promised the Macedonian people that it would intervene on their behalf and help them liberate themselves. All the Macedonians had to do was start the Uprising.

“Just fire one shot and the Bulgarian army will come in and save you” was the message they were getting from Bulgaria.

And why wouldn’t the Macedonian people take advantage of such a generous offer?

Well the Macedonians fired many shots and no Bulgarian army showed up. So this proves that Bulgaria’s aim was to get the Macedonians into a confrontation with the Ottomans and when the two sides had destroyed each other, walk in and invade Macedonia. This was also the plan of the Western Great Powers but without the promise that Bulgaria would alone be allowed to invade and occupy Macedonia. If that promise was made to the Bulgarians it was a false promise. If the Western Great Powers wanted the Bulgarians to have Macedonia they would have given it to them in 1878 under the Treaty of San Stefano. But that did not happen because the Western Great Powers had no intention of giving Macedonia to the Bulgarians… then… now… or ever!

But in the end the Bulgarians did not invade. And this is why: The Russian King warned them that there would be severe consequences from the Western European Great Powers if they invaded Macedonia. He reminded them of what happened in Berlin in 1878… He also advised them that this time Russia would not be there to save them.

But the Bulgarians kept making empty promises.

As mentioned earlier the English were there, in the Aegean Sea, watching the rebellion play out and making sure the Bulgarians did not invade and the Macedonians did not win.

Ten years later, the same Great Powers, including the English, authorized Bulgaria along with Greece and Serbia to invade, occupy and partition Macedonia.

Later we find out the decision on “how to divide Macedonia” was left up to the Russian King.

What surprised me the most is that the Russian King, who obviously was biased towards Bulgaria, was put in charge of deciding how to divide Macedonia.

And what did he decide? Did he decide to divide Macedonia along “national lines” as was previously planned? No! When he was asked “How should we divide Macedonia”, the Russian King replied: “No one knows how to divide Macedonia. So go, drive the Ottomans out and wherever your armies stop, that’s where you put your dividing lines.”

And that, more or less, is what happened until the Austro-Hungarians (Hapsburgs) decided they were not going to allow Serbia to have access to the Adriatic Sea.

So what happened after that?

Well, all hell broke loose and the Second Balkan War started.

Italy and Austro-Hungary called for an Albanian state to be created in the lands that Serbia had occupied. Serbia was not happy about losing those lands and asked Bulgaria for more land because at that time Bulgaria had occupied the largest part of Macedonia.

Bulgaria did not answer the Serbian plea and kept ignoring Serbia. Serbia was not strong enough to take those lands by force by itself so it asked Greece for help. A secret pact was made to strike Bulgaria. Bulgaria found out about it and preemptively struck back at both Serbia and Greece and started to drive them out of Macedonia.

Romania from the north sought this opportunity to regain some territories it had lost to Bulgaria and attacked Bulgaria from the north. The Ottomans, having just lost Macedonia, decide to take a chance on getting some of it back and struck Bulgaria from the east.

The Great Powers decided to intervene and stop this from becoming a World War. The Second Balkan War ended with the signing of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest. Again, the division was determined by where the armies stood when the war ended. And that’s how Macedonia was divided.

So after their country was invaded and occupied, the Macedonian people faced another prospect; their country was partitioned in three pieces. Greece was given 51%, Serbia 39% and Bulgaria was lucky to even receive 10%. But Bulgaria was not happy about that and every time there was a conflict, it tried to take more of Macedonia.

In addition to having their country portioned into three pieces, (four pieces, Albania was later given a small piece of Macedonia) the Macedonian people were now faced with three (four) new occupiers who were not satisfied with just occupying Macedonian lands but wanted to assimilate the Macedonian people, by force if necessary in order to extinguish the Macedonian identity, which was part of the Western Great Power long-term plan, which is ongoing to this day... In other words, in order for Greece and Bulgaria to live Macedonia had to die!

Having said all that and knowing that our most gallant and massive Uprising was staged and instigated from the outside, does not take away from the fact that the Macedonian people fought gallantly and sacrificed their lives to liberate themselves and Macedonia and to create their own independent Macedonian state. It was a noble cause and it will be remembered and celebrated forever.

(For more information on the Macedonian people’s various uprisings over the years read my book “Macedonian Struggle For Independence”, published in 2008.)

Divided Macedonia and the atrocities committed against the Macedonian people

The jubilance of liberation died down quickly as the fires of burning Macedonian villages lit the night skies. Macedonia was in flames again. Liberators turned into occupiers and rained havoc on the Macedonian population. The political, economic and ethnic unity of Macedonia was no more. Greek soldiers who came to liberate their Christian brothers from the oppressive Ottomans and terrible Bulgarians were now burning, torturing and murdering people. In the words of Sir Edmond Grey, “The Balkan war began as a war of liberation, became rapidly a war of annexation, and has ended as a war of extermination.” (Page 294,Vasil Bogov, Macedonian Revelation, Historical Documents Rock and Shatter Modern Political Ideology)

Atrocities were being committed by all sides and those caught in the middle, the Macedonian people, were their victims.

The Greek atrocities were revealed to the world when a lost mailbag was discovered containing letters from Greek soldiers in Macedonia to their families in Greece. The mailbag was turned in to the Carnegie Relief Commission and the contents of the letters were made public. Expecting to fight for the glory of the fatherland, the soldiers instead found themselves torturing, murdering, burning houses and evicting women and children from their homes in a most vile way. The letters revealed that the soldiers were acting on direct orders from the Greek authorities and the Greek king himself. Macedonian families of known Exarchists (Macedonians affiliated with the Bulgarian Church inside Macedonia) were ordered by force to “take with them what they could carry and get out”. “This is Greece now and there is no place for Bulgarians here.” Those who remained were forced to swear loyalty to the Greek State. Anyone refusing to take the loyalty oath was either executed, as an example of what would happen to those disloyal, or evicted from his or her ancestral home. To explain the mass evacuations, Greek officials claimed that the inhabitants of Macedonia left by choice or became Greek by choice. The truth is; no one was given any choice at all.

“A thousand Greek and Serbian publicists began to fill the world with their shouting about the essentially Greek or Serbian character of the populations of their different spheres. The Serbs gave the unhappy Macedonians twenty four hours to renounce their nationality and proclaim themselves Serbs, and the Greeks did the same. Refusal meant murder or expulsion. Greek and Serbian colonists were poured into the occupied country... The Greek newspapers began to talk about a Macedonia peopled entirely with Greeks-and they explained the fact that no one spoke Greek by calling the people ‘Bulgaro-phone Greeks’ ... the Greek army entered villages where no one spoke their language. ‘What do you mean by speaking Bulgarian?’ cried the officers. ‘This is Greece and you must speak Greek.’“ (Page 104, John Shea, Macedonia and Greece, The Struggle to define a new Balkan Nation)

In 1913 Professor R.A. Reiss reported to the Greek government: “Those whom you would call Bulgarian speakers I would simply call Macedonians...Macedonian is not the language they speak in Sofia...I repeat the mass of inhabitants there (Macedonia) remain simply Macedonians.”

When war broke out in the Balkans in 1912 and 1913, the Carnegie Endowment dispatched a commission on a fact finding mission. The mission consisted of seven prominent members from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Among them was the distinguished journalist Henry N. Brailsford, author of the book “Macedonia its Races and their Future”.

The commission was dispatched from Paris on August 2nd, 1913, shortly before the end of the second Balkan War and returned to Paris nearly eight weeks later, on September 28th. In spite of opposition from the Greek government, the commission arrived in time to witness much of the war’s aftermath and record most accounts while they were still fresh in people’s minds. The commission’s findings were compiled and released in 1914.

In a statement dated February 22, 1914, Carnegie Endowment Acting Director Nicholas Murray Butler said:

“The circumstances which attended the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 were of such character as to fix upon them the attention of the civilized world. The conflicting reports as to what actually occurred before and during these wars, together with the persistent rumors often supported by specific and detailed statements as to violations of the laws of war by the several combatants, made it important that an impartial and exhaustive examination should be made of this entire episode in contemporary history. The purpose of such an impartial examination by an independent authority was to inform public opinion and to make plain just what is or may be involved in an international war carried on under modern conditions. If the minds of men can be turned even for a short time away from passion, from race antagonism and from national aggrandizement to a contemplation of the individual and national losses due to war and to the shocking horrors which modern warfare entails, a step and by no means a short one, will have been taken toward the substitution of justice for force in the settlement of international differences. It was with this motive and for this purpose that the Division of Intercourse and Education of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Constituted in July, 1913, an International Commission of Inquiry to study the recent Balkan wars and to visit the actual scenes where fighting had taken place and the territory which had been devastated. The presidency of this International Commission of Inquiry was entrusted to Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, Senator of France, who had represented his country at the First and Second Hague Conferences of 1899 and of 1907, and who as President Fondateur of the Conciliation Internationale, has labored so long and so effectively to bring the various nations of the world into closer and more sympathetic relations. With Baron d’Estournelles de Constant there were associated men of the highest standing, representing different nationalities, who were able to bring to this important task large experience and broad sympathy.” (George F. Kennan. “The Other Balkan Wars” A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 1993).

And like I said earlier, according to the Carnegie report, the Macedonians were not the only ones duped. The soldiers of the invading armies were lied to also. “The Servian soldier, like the Greek, was firmly persuaded that in Macedonia he would find compatriots, men who could speak his language and address him with jivio or zito. He found men speaking a language different from his, who cried hourrah! He misunderstood or did not understand at all. The theory he had learned from youth of the existence of a Servian Macedonia and a Greek Macedonia naturally suffered; but his patriotic conviction that Macedonia must become Greek or Servian, if not so already, remained unaffected. Doubtless Macedonia had been what he wanted it to become in those times of Douchan the Strong or the Byzantine Emperors. It was only agitators and propagandist Bulgarians who instilled into the population the idea of being Bulgarian. The agitators must be driven out of the country, and it would again become what it had always been, Servian or Greek.”

It’s worthwhile picking up the report and reading it, especially the eyewitness testimonies, the statistics of people murdered and the letters the Greek soldiers wrote home confessing to the atrocities they had committed. The book is authored by George F. Kennan and called “The Other Balkan Wars” A 1913 Carnegie Endowment Inquiry in Retrospect with a New Introduction and Reflections on the Present Conflict. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, 1993.

The second Balkan War was about grabbing territory and exacting revenge. As the armies clashed there were winners and losers. The losers took revenge on the civilian population by looting, burning, killing and raping the Macedonian population.

Among many other things, following is the kind of information you will find in the book:

“Deny that your enemies are men, and presently you will treat them as vermin”. (P 95)

“When you have to deal with barbarians, you must behave like a barbarian yourself.” (P 95, a quote from a Greek officer.)

According to the Carnegie report, Greece was the first to instigate aggression by attacking Kukush on July 4, 1913. In retaliation

Bulgaria attacked Demir-Hissar on July 7, Serres on July 11 and Doxato on July 13.

On July 12, according to the Carnegie report, King Constantine dispatched the following telegram to the representatives of Greece in the European capitals;