MACEDONIA LESSONS LEARNED FROM NATO ADVISORY TEAM - Part 01

MACEDONIA: LESSONS LEARNED FROM NATO ADVISORY TEAM

Reference ID: 09SKOPJE369 Created: 2009-07-29 07:06 Released: 2011-08-30 01:44 Classification: CONFIDENTIAL Origin: Embassy Skopje

VZCZCXRO8843 PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHNP RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR DE RUEHSQ #0369 2100706 ZNY CCCCC ZZH P 290706Z JUL 09 FM AMEMBASSY SKOPJE TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8432 INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY 0544 RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

CONFIDENTIAL

SKOPJE 000369 SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/26/2019

TAGS: PREL PGOV MOPS NATO MK BU NL SUBJECT: MACEDONIA: LESSONS LEARNED FROM NATO ADVISORY TEAM SNAFU

Classified By: Ambassador Reeker for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d).

1. (C) Summary: The assignment of Bulgarians to both the commander and deputy positions of the NATO Advisory Team for Macedonia is not in U.S. interests. End summary.

2. (C) We learned off-line in early June that Bulgaria was the only Ally who volunteered to fill the "Chief NAT" position in Skopje, i.e., the deputy position at the NATO Advisory Team for Macedonia. As we understood it, the plan had been for the former Dutch DATT to take the Chief NAT position, but it appears that the Dutch government did not move precipitously to effect this. We then worked with Naples, USNATO, SHAPE, and the Dutch to turn this around, but it now appears that the Dutch DATT will almost certainly not be assigned, and the momentum remains that the next Chief NAT will be a Bulgarian. A Bulgarian, Commodore Valentin Gagashev, already holds the NAT Commander slot.

3. (C) The negative consequences for NATO's engagement in Macedonia could be significant. Bulgaria and Macedonia are wary neighbors at best. Part of the larger Macedonian region became part of Bulgaria as a consequence of the Balkan Wars, and Bulgarian fascists occupied present-day Macedonia during World War II. To this day, there are elements in Bulgaria who consider the modern state of Macedonia as a historical mistake, and many Bulgarians do not recognize the Macedonian language as separate from their own. While a number of Macedonians work in Bulgaria and hold Bulgarian passports as a matter of convenience, we should not mistake this for deep affection. We have unsubstantiated reports that elements in the Bulgarian embassy here are working closely with Greek colleagues on activities that are not in our interests.

4. (C) Regardless of the intentions of the new Chief NAT, it makes no sense from a NATO perspective that the commander and chief would come from the same country, especially a

neighbor, and especially a country so new to the Alliance.

Macedonia, and our interests here, would be far better served -- as in the past -- by a NAT leadership steeped in NATO experience from established Allies with no "negative baggage" here (such as Greece). Macedonia needs advisors in the NAT who have established relationships within NATO and know how to manage the unique bureaucracy at SHAPE. This is why the Dutch DATT was the ideal choice. When CHOD LTG Stojanovski learned that the new Chief NAT would be from Bulgaria, he was incensed and called SHAPE immediately. His response should have been predictable: many Macedonians do not trust Bulgaria. Thus the assignment of Bulgarians to run the NAT calls into question NATO's commitment to Macedonia, especially since a number of Macedonian military contacts had told us that they viewed the assignment of the Dutch DATT as a signal of NATO's commitment to again send its "A-team" here.

5. (C) The new NAT commander, Commodore Gagashev, is by all accounts a professional and working in good faith. While we understand he privately believes it would be a mistake for his deputy to also be a Bulgarian, he cannot force the issue within his national command structure. While it is likely too late for the Dutch DATT to be assigned to this position, we would ask that Washington, USNATO, and Embassy Sofia work to issue to ensure a better outcome for U.S. and NATO interests in Macedonia.

REEKER

Macedonia - August 26, 1944

SUMMARY

1. Geography.-Macedonia is mainly hilly, with rare patches of fertile land, with grassy uplands and considerable mineral deposits. Through it run two historic highways, one from the Danube to Salonica and the other from the Albanian coast through Salonica to Constantinople. Salonica is its natural metropolis (paras. 1-3).

2. Population.-The populations of Greek and of Bulgarian Macedonia had become by 1938 respectively Greek and Bulgarian in national sentiment. The “Macedonian Question” had become by then almost confined to Yugoslav Macedonia. The population of Macedonia as a whole has for many centuries been mixed. Published statistics are not reliable. The position in 1938 was as follows: (a) The Greeks were almost confined to Greek Macedonia, where since 1922 they had formed the overwhelming majority. (b) Most of the Slavs, who were not to be wholly identified with either Serbians or Bulgarians, were in Yugoslav Macedonia. Here they had become less Bulgarophil than they had been. (c) The Albanians formed a fringe in the west. (d) The Turks formed a docile minority in Yugoslav Macedonia. (e) The Jews were mainly concentrated in Salonica. (f) The Vlachs led a pastoral life in the west and were found in some of the towns (paras. 4-11). An attempted estimate of the numbers of these elements (para. 12).

3. History-Medieval Macedonia was inhabited by several races and saw many varieties of governments. From 1372 to 1912 it was politically under the Sultan; the Christians being under the civil jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople (after 1453). The modern Macedonia question began with the creation of the Bulgarian Exarchate and the competition of Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbians for the adherence of the population (paras. 13-15). In 1878 Russia sought to give nearly the whole of Macedonia to the proposed State of Bulgaria; but the Treaty of Berlin restored Macedonia to Turkey. From the 1890’s dated two revolutionary movements, one aiming at the incorporation of Macedonia in Bulgaria and the other at her autonomy. The Serbo-Bulgarian Treaty of 1912 assured the greater part of Macedonia to Bulgaria. There

was no Greco-Bulgarian apportionment of territory. In 1912 the Balkan States overcame Turkey, and in 1913 the Bulgarians fought the Serbians and Greeks. The settlement imposed on Bulgaria gave most of northern Macedonia to Serbia, southern and eastern Macedonia to Greece and only a small and mountainous remnant to Bulgaria. In 1915 Bulgaria, by joining the Central Empires, obtained all Serbian, and the eastern end of Greek Macedonia. In 1919 this was reversed, and Bulgaria, in addition, lost Strumica to Yugoslavia (paras. 16-22). Thereafter Greece got rid of most of her Slavs by exchange of populations with Bulgaria, and Greek refugees from Asia completed the hellenisation of Greek Macedonia. Yugoslavia claimed that her Macedonian Slavs were really Serbians and could quickly be educated into feeling so. The Macedonian revolutionaries, with help from Bulgaria, resisted violently, and Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations were extremely strained till 1934, when a rapprochement took place between the two States. In 1941, except for the south-west, some districts in the north-west, and Salonica itself, Bulgaria obtained all Macedonia. The Bulgarians savagely de-Hellenized eastern Macedonia and showed no regard for autonomist aspirations in Yugoslav Macedonia (paras. 23-28).

4. Economic and Social Factors.-Macedonian communications are bad. There are few railways, all radiating from Salonica (para. 29). (a) In Yugoslav Macedonia agriculture was primitive; there was little industry; stock breeding and the cultivation of tobacco and opium poppies were staple activities. Political aspirations before 1941 were mainly for autonomy, or Communism (usually ill-defined), or both (paras. 30-31). (b) The public works connected with the settlement of the 600,000 refugees in Greek Macedonia and the enterprise of the refugees made this area the chief cereal-producing district of Greece and economically improved the area in many ways. The political sentiments of most of the population appeared to be wholly Greek, with some Communism in the industrial centres (paras. 32-33). (c) Bulgarian Macedonia is a poor and mountainous district, which appeared to have become an integral part of Bulgaria (para. 34).

5. Conflicting Interests.-(a) The Vardar valley provides the easiest route from Serbia to the sea. The Serbians have considered the Free Zone at Salonica unsatisfactory and have aspired to the possession

of Salonica both for commercial and for strategic reasons. The Serbian claims to Macedonia, on ethnic or historical grounds, except as regards the north-west, are weak, but vehemently upheld (paras. 35-38). (b) The now overwhelmingly Greek character of the inhabitants of Greek Macedonia and the settlement of the refugees there give Greece a strong ethnic claim to this territory. The area is also of great economic interest to Greece, though Salonica has lost by being separated from some of her hinterland. Greece’s strategic interest lies in securing a defensible frontier and preventing the domination of the Balkans by a Slav Power (paras. 39-41.) (c) The Bulgarian interest in Macedonia is primarily ethnic. Bulgaria has an interest in acquiring an economic and strategic outlet to the Aegean from west Bulgaria across Macedonia. But Greece, probably supported by Turkey, would resist a proposal that she should cede any part of her coast to Bulgaria (paras. 42-44). (d) Albania has an ethnic claim to a part of western Macedonia; but only a small district is on her side of the mountains (para. 45). (e) Revolutionary movements of to-day in Macedonia may alter the political situation. Their strength is as yet unknown and will partly depend on the policy of the Greater Allies (para. 46).

6. Possible Solutions.-(i) a unified and independent Macedonia. This appears out of date, since the southern area is now definitely Greek and not Macedonia. (ii) (a) A unified and autonomous Macedonia in a Balkan Federation. This, too, would encounter the same objection, apart from the improbability of such a Federation. This might be the best way to end the Serb-Bulgar antagonism and would probably have considerable support in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the U.S.S.R.; although it would arouse Greek and Turkish apprehension. (c) The same, in a Balkan Federation. Could such a Federation be created, this proposal would have the merits of (b) together with the economic advantage of reuniting Salonica with the whole of its hinterland. (iii) The cession of part of Yugoslav Macedonia to Bulgaria and an exchange of populations. There are many formidable objections to this. (iv) Such a cession and exchange might be effected within a South Slav Federation comprising Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. (v) The elimination of the Macedonian question through the control of the Balkan peninsula by an outside Power, e.g., the U.S.S.R. This would arouse many apprehensions in the Balkans and elsewhere. (vi) The restoration of the status quo of

1940, possible mitigated by international control of the ports and main communications of Macedonia, but providing no permanent solution. But new factors may produce an unforeseen solution (paras. 47-53).

Geography

1. Macedonia is here taken to include the areas watered by the following rivers and their affluents: the Vardar and the Vistritza a in the west, and the Mesta and the lower Struma in the east. Its approximate boundaries are the Rhodope and Rila mountains, the hills north-east and north of Skoplje, the Sar Planina mountains and their southward extension, Lakes Ohrida and Prespa, the Pindus range, the Kamvunia mountains, Mount Olympus and the Aegean Sea.

2. Macedonia is mainly hilly; the only extensive plains being those around the lower basins of the main rivers. There are also the smaller elevated plains in the neighbourhoods of Tetovo, Skoplje and Bitolj. There are wide grass uplands suitable for grazing. The mineral resources of the area are believed to be considerable; iron, lead, magnesite and manganese have been found in many parts and, above all, chrome, the reserves of which are supposed to be large.

3. Two important features of Macedonia need emphasis. (a) The area lies in the centre of the Balkan Peninsula. Through it, intersecting on the lower Vardar, run two of the main routes across the peninsula-the north-south route from the Danube up the Morava and down the Vardar to the Aegean, and the west-east route from the Albanian coast along the northern coast of the Aegean to Constantinople. (b) All the Macedonian highways lead towards the gulf of Salonica. This is completely true of western and southern Macedonia, where mountains block all other routes, and even north-eastern Macedonia has tended to do its overseas trade through Salonica owing to the lack of harbours at nearer points on the coast.

Population

4. One contemporary feature of Macedonia needs to be stated at this point. By 1938 the nationally Greek character of the population of

Greek Macedonia (see paragraphs 6, 23, 39 and 47), and similarly the Bulgarian character of Bulgarian Macedonia (see paragraph 34) appeared established. The question of Macedonian autonomy, by that date, had reference only to Yugoslav Macedonia; though it was complicated by the presence of a Slav population within the borders of western Greek Macedonia and by the problem of access to the sea at Salonica.

5. The population has for centuries been a mixture of races speaking various tongues. Hence the culinary expression, une macedoine, for a jumble of different ingredients. There have never been any reliable linguistic or racial statistics of Macedonia. This is largely due to the illiteracy of many of the inhabitants and of the fierceness of national animosities, which has led the authorities to adjust the figures to their own satisfaction and the peasants to describe themselves as may at the moment seem safest. In many cases the peasants themselves do not clearly know what they are.

6. Six main peoples inhabit Macedonia. In the order of their probable numerical strengths in 1938, they are the Greeks, the Slavs, the Albanians, the Turks, the Jews and the Vlachs. (a) The Greeks of Yugoslav and Bulgarian Macedonia, who till 1912 formed a considerable part of the urban populations, were by 1938 negligible in number. On the other hand, most of the Aegean coast has been Greek-inhabited continuously since long before the Christian era. And the Greek element in Macedonia was increased between 1919 and 1928 by some 600,000 refugees from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace. By 1938 the over-whelming majority in Greek Macedonia consisted of Greeks, Orthodox in religion and nationally conscious, and including an Orthodox and Greek-feeling, but Turkish-speaking, minority among the refugees.

7. (b) The Slavs in 1938 formed the great majority in Yugoslav and Bulgarian Macedonia, and a small remnant in Greek Macedonia. Before 1870 they were merely the Slav-speaking portion of the submerged Christian population, which was mostly Orthodox by religion; there was also a Turkish-speaking Moslem minority. In 1870 the Bulgarian Exarchate (autonomous Church) was founded, and this created a schism between its adherents and those of the Greek Patriarchate (see paragraph 15). By 1912 most authorities

were agreed in considering these Slav-speaking Macedonian adherents to the Exarchate to be mostly assimilated in sentiment to the Bulgarians; though in the north there were some whose sentiment was Serbian; and everywhere there were some who professed to be merely Macedonian. Twenty-three years of Yugoslav (Serbian) Government diminished the attachment to Bulgaria; but the political sentiments of the Macedonian Slavs were obscure.

8. (c) The Albanians, though found further east, were mainly concentrated along the western border of Macedonia. The great majority of these Albanians were Mohammedans, though a few in the north were Catholics and some of those in Greek Macedonia were Orthodox.

9. (d) The Turks of Macedonia were a pathetic remnant of the former dominant caste. Turks vanished from Greek Macedonia with the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. A considerable number also left Yugoslav Macedonia; but in 1938 there was still a Turkish element living along the Vardar and in the towns. They appeared to be without national ambitions and to be resigned to their subordinate condition.

10. (e) The Jews of Greek Macedonia in 1938 were almost all concentrated in Salonica. In Yugoslav Macedonia there were a few thousand Jews in the towns.

11. (f) The Vlachs, or Kutzo-Vlachs were the remnant of the once numerous Romanised Thracians or Illyrians. They were Orthodox by religion. They led a pastoral life in the hills of western Macedonia, both Greek and Yugoslav, and kept themselves to themselves. There were also Vlach elements in the towns; but these tended to disappear by assimilation to their urban neighbours.

12. The estimate of the various races in Macedonia in 1912, attempted in the Foreign Office Handbook No. 19, Macedonia (1920), was as follows: - Slavs…….1,150,000 Turks…….400,000 Greeks…...300,000

Vlachs……200,000 Albanians...120,000 Jews………100,000

Great changes, especially in Greek Macedonia, have occurred since then. The following figures are an attempt to estimate the numbers of these racial elements for 1938, bearing in mind the remarks in paragraph 5 (the linguistic figures according to the latest census giving them are shown in brackets).

Greek Bulgarian Total Macedonia(1) Macedonia

Greeks 1,250,000 1,260,000 (1928: 1,250,000 Slavs 120,000 1,090,000 (1928: 82,000 Albanians 40,000 170,000 (1928: 2,000 Turks 100,000

Jews 70,000 77,000 (1928: 60,500 Vlachs 45,000 50,000 (1928: 20,000 Totals 1,525,000 2,792,000

Yugoslav

Macedonia(2)

10,000

750,000

(1921: 553,000 130,000

(1921: 124,500 100,000

(1921: 116,000 7,000

(1921: 5,000 50,000

(1921: 7,800 1,047,000

220,000

220,000

Recent Census Totals 1928: 1,411,769 1931: 950,435 1934: 207,065

(1) The Greek census figures for 1928 seem to over-estimate the number of Greeks and to under-estimate other elements.

(2) The last Yugoslav census to give linguistic figures was that of 1921. It appears to have under-estimated the Albanian and Vlach elements. Since 1921 the Slav element has been strengthened by immigration; and the Turkish and Albanian elements weakened by emigration.

History

13. Macedonia was hellenised from about the ninth century B.C. by Greek settlers both from the interior and from the Greek city-States round the southern Aegean. In the fourth century B.C. Philip and Alexander the Great, Kings of Macedonia, imposed their rule on the Greek city-States of the Macedonian coast and southern Greece. This enlarged Macedonia became a Roman Province in the second century B.C.; at the close of the fourth century A.D., it was included in the Eastern, or Byzantine, half of the Empire. By then all Macedonia was Greek-speaking, except for a Latin-speaking northern fringe near Skoplje. A new element arrived, in the sixth century, with Slav invaders who largely supplanted the Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking populations of the interior and spread down to the coast at the mouth of the Vardar. During the tenth century the Bulgarian (Slavised Turkish) Tsars extended their dominion over all Macedonia, except the coast, and established a Bulgarian Patriarchate at Ohrida. In 1019 the Emperor Basil II extinguished the Bulgarian power; and Macedonia retained a Byzantine province till 1186. From that date till 1372 Macedonia was in dispute between Byzantines, Bulgarians and Latins; and was finally incorporated into the short-lived Serb empire of Stephen Dusan, whose capital was Skoplje. In 1392 the Osmanlis arrived on the scene, and in 1430, with the capture of Salonica, which had been Greek throughout the periods of Slav rule in the hinterland, they completed the Turkish conquest of Macedonia.

14. For more than five centuries Macedonia was part of the Ottoman Empire. From 1453 onwards its Orthodox inhabitants, of all nationalities, were collectively classified as “the Millet of Rum” and were all placed under the civil (though not all under the

ecclesiastical) jurisdiction of the (Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The Ottoman conquest enriched the macedoine with two new ingredients: Moslem Turkish military colonists from Anatolia and Spanish-speaking Jewish refugees, expelled from Castile, to whom the Ottoman Government gave new homes in Salonica.

15. With the advent of the Western ideology of nationalism in the nineteenth century the peoples of Macedonia began to stir. The peasants desired release from the incompetence and abuses of the latter-day Ottoman regime. The Christians wished to shake off the Moslem ascendancy; the non-Greeks to escape from the extortions of the Greek clergy, who since 1767 had become their ecclesiastical as well as civil superiors. The modern form of the Macedonian Question was the outcome of the creation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870. the Ottoman Government, under diplomatic pressure from Russia, authorized the formation of an autocephalous Bulgarian Church for almost all the territories which by 1885 were included in Bulgaria, with the addition of Nis, and also provided that other districts might be annexed to this Exarchate if two-thirds of their inhabitants so desired. The Greek Patriarch of Constantinople resisted this innovation and finally excommunicated the whole Exarchist clergy as schismatic. Thereafter it was war to the knife between Patriarchists and Exarchists for 40 years in most of Macedonia. Greeks and Bulgarians used priests, schoolmasters, and armed bands of “komitadjis” (a word derived from the committees which organized them) in the struggle to establish their ethnic claims against the day of Turkey-in-Europe’s collapse. Hatred of the common Turkish ruler became less bitter than detestation of the Christian neighbour.

16. The abortive Treaty of San Stefano (3rd March, 1878), imposed by Russia upon Turkey, provided for the creation of a Bulgarian Principality which would have included fringes of modern Albania and Serbia and the whole of Macedonia except the Vistritza valley, Salonica, and the Chalcidice peninsula. At Berlin, however, the Powers, alarmed by Russian policy, drastically revised the terms of San Stefano and reconfirmed Turkey in the possession of the whole of Macedonia, which continued in anarchy under Turkish sovereignty for 34 more years. Bulgarians did not forget that at San

Stefano their State had been promised territory which would have made it predominant in the Balkans and would have nullified Greek ambitions in Macedonia.

17. After 1878 the Bulgarians increasingly attracted the Macedonian Slavs and succeeded in gaining several bishoprics for their Exarchate. Towards the close of the century the Serbians began to join in the melee; and even distant Roumainia supported the Kutzo-Vlach cause. In this fight of all against all, the Ottoman Government could rely on the loyalty of three elements only: the Albanians (except when they were exasperated by attempts to govern them), the Turks and the Jews. They resorted to bargaining with one race at the expense of another; and were assisted by the half-hearted support of the Great Powers other than Russia.

18. In 1895 there was founded in Sofia by Macedonian refugees (who were very numerous in Bulgaria and constituted nearly a half of the population of the city) the “Supreme Committee,” to demand the annexation of Macedonia to Bulgaria. In 1896 was founded the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO), whose object was the autonomy of Macedonia and whose leaders, though Slavs, attempted for years to maintain friendly relations with all the nationalities, even the Turks, of Macedonia. Despite confusing changes in these two organizations during the subsequent 40 years, this division of principle was permanent. The “Supremists” stood for Bulgarian nationalism; IMRO till some years after 1919 stood for Macedonian autonomy and some members of the organization have never ceased to do so, though others went over to “Supremism” (see below, paragraph 25).

19. The attempts of the Powers to procure peace by international control of the finances and the gendarmerie did little to restrain the inter-racial strife. The glorious expectation, aroused by the Young Turk revolution (1908), that all the races and religions of Turkey were now going to be free and equal, was soon followed by disillusionment. The strife of nationalities was resumed. But in 1912 the Balkan States, for the first time, decided to solve the Macedonian Question themselves. The Balkan League of 1912 and the ensuing war were the result.

20. The preliminary Serbo-Bulgarian treaty, of the 13th March, 1912, indicated, if not the sincerely agreed claims of both States, at any rate their relative strengths. Of the Turkish territory, which it was hoped to annex, Serbia recognized the Bulgarian right to all east of the Rhodope mountains and the Struma; while Bulgaria admitted the Serbian right to all north and west of the Sar Planina. As for the main part of Macedonia, a line was drawn (marked in broken green on the map). Serbia made no claim south-east of this line. Bulgaria, in a curious clause, accepted the line, provided that the Tsar of Russia, to whose arbitration both parties agreed, pronounced in its favour. Thus Serbia contented herself with a modest strip of northern Macedonia, including Skoplje; while Bulgaria, as between the two Slav States, was to have the whole of the rest of Macedonia, with a right to argue about the line of division. The assertion of Serbia’s rights west of the Sar Planina showed that she proposed to annex Albanian-inhabited territory, across which alone she could hope to reach the sea. In the corresponding Greco-Bulgarian treaty, of the 29th May, 1912, no territorial stipulations were make No Serbo-Greek treaty is known to have been made. Bulgaria was the leader and the pivot of the League.

21. In the First Balkan War (1912-13) the Bulgarian troops were mainly directed eastwards, and therefore conquered little of Macedonia, but nearly all of Thrace; while the Serbians overran the valley of the Vardar and northern Albania, and the Greeks occupied southern Macedonia up to and beyond the coveted port of Salonica. Meanwhile the Great Powers had agreed on the creation of an Albanian State and the consequent expulsion of the Serbians from the Albanian coast. By the time that peace was made with Turkey (the 30th May, 1913), disputes between the Balkan Allies had already begun. Serbia argued that, having been expelled from north Albania, which she had expected to acquire, she must have a larger share of Macedonia. Bulgaria took her stand against Serbia on her treaty rights, and claimed that Greece had acquired much more of the loot than her military efforts justified. Serbia and Greece, being in possession of Macedonia, made a treaty of mutual support; no appeal was made to the Tsar for arbitration; the Allies prepared to fight each other. The Bulgarians attacked the Serbians and Greeks, but were repulsed, and had also to sustain Turkish and Roumanian invasions in their rear. By the Treaty of Bucharest (the 10th August,

1913) Macedonia was divided along the lines of actual occupation (see frontiers marked in green on the map). Serbia acquired nearly all the Vardar basin, together with Ohrida, and a promise from Greece of a commercial outlet to the sea at Salonica; Greece obtained all southern Macedonia, Salonica itself and the Aegean coastal strip to beyond the Mesta. Embittered by the miscarriage of all their plans, the Bulgarians awaited an opportunity to reverse the decisions of 1913. As for their Macedonian protégés, they were equally embittered. The autonomists saw their hopes shattered by the partition of their country. The “Supremists” saw Macedonia divided from the Bulgarian “mother-country.”

22. Bulgaria’s opportunity came in 1915, when she joined the Central Empires and was rewarded with the occupation of all Serbian Macedonia and the eastern extremity of Greek Macedonia. The country was Bulgarised, Bulgarian priests and teachers were introduced, and the Slav inhabitants had to change the ends of their names from ic (-itch) to –ov. In 1919 all this was reversed once more, the Serbians and Greeks returned, -ov gave place to –ic again, and Bulgaria had to cede the Strumica Valley to Serbia (now Yugoslavia).

23. After 1918 Greece and Yugoslavia followed different policies with regard to Macedonian unrest, which was almost wholly the work of Slavs. Greece, under the Treaty of Neuilly (1919), conducted an exchange of populations with Bulgaria, thereby securing the removal of all but a few thousands of the Slavs of her eastern Macedonia. The Slavs of her share of western Macedonia she left in their villages, though providing them with Greek schools. An enormous influx of Greek refugees from Asia Minor quickly completed the hellenisation of Greek Macedonia.

24. But Yugoslavia asserted that her Macedonian Slavs were Serbs, who only needed a few years of “education” to become thankfully aware of the fact. Experience of Yugoslav government, however, caused the Macedonians to complain bitterly to the League of Nations and to the world at large. They alleged that the administration was incompetent, corrupt, and brutal, the means of communication as deplorable as ever, the State Tobacco Monopoly oppressive to Government, not trusting the Macedonians, did, in

fact, in the 1920’s import officials, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and clergy from Serbia, as well as applying agrarian reform for the benefit of colonists from Serbia. As the salaries of officials were small, the conditions of life primitive, and the chances of advancement dependent on party intrigue, the less desirable type of Serbian civil servant tended to go to Macedonia.

25. The natural effect of the “education” was to provoke the vigorous resistance of IMRO (see para. 18), for whom Yugoslavia was “Enemy No. 1.” Partly from sympathy with IMRO, partly from inability, in her almost demilitarized condition, to control IMRO, Bulgaria gave the Organisation a free hand to operate in and from the district of Petric. In IMRO itself two tendencies operated. One wing, led by Ivan Mihailov, increasingly co-operated with the Bulgarian chauvinists, in return for whose support they acted as the gunmen of the Bulgarian political police and removed public men who favoured Liberal politics or showed signs of goodwill towards Yugoslavia. The other, led by Todor Alexandrov, stood for Macedonian in touch with the Soviet Government, to work for Macedonian autonomy within a Balkan Federation; and a periodical, Federation balkanique, was published in Vienna to propagate that programme. (This Vlahov is said to be identical with the Vlahov who was announced as a Vice-President of the Yugoslav Partisans’ National council of Liberation established at Jajce in Bosnia in November 1943.) Neither autonomy nor Soviet influence suited the plans of the Bulgarian nationalists, and for this reason Alexandrov was murdered in 1925. General Protogerov, who succeeded him in his policy, which in fact enjoyed the approval of the mass of Macedonians in southern Yugoslavia, was also murdered, in 1928. The subsequent history of IMRO is one of desperate resistance to the Yugoslav regime and blood-thirsty internal strife. Under Mihailov, who maintained relations with Pavelic and the Croat terrorists and was said to be financed from Italy, IMRO’s sorties into Yugoslavia were so violent that the Yugoslav Government had to establish a system of barbed wire and innumerable blockhouses along the Bulgarian frontier and employ the local peasants to repel their “liberators,” until they finally got the better of the Organisation.

26. The situation was a vicious circle. The Yugoslav Government said that they could not accord more liberty to Macedonia while the danger from IMRO existed. The Bulgarian Government replied that their public opinion would not permit them to suppress IMRO while Macedonia groaned under tyranny. King Alexander attempted, after 1929, to solve the problem. Many Yugoslav officials were moved, and others, largely from the former Austro-Hungarian lands, were introduced; salaries were increased; native Macedonian clergy were given parishes; the end of party politics somewhat improved the atmosphere. The health service did much good work in attacking malaria. Loans were made to peasant co-operatives. These improvements prepared the way for the King’s approach to King Boris of Bulgaria in 1933; which was the suppression of IMRO in Bulgaria, and the end of the closed frontier. Bulgarian opinion appeared to become increasingly reconciled to the loss of Macedonia. Meanwhile Mihailov fled to Turkey, but had the satisfaction of knowing that one of his gunmen had murdered King Alexander in October, 1934.

27. The unabated grievances of the Macedonians of Yugoslavia were the absence of employment for the educated class and the smallness of the expenditure on public works, except at Skoplje. Though political crime died away, the ideal of autonomy persisted. The British Vice-Consul at Skoplje estimated in November 1940 that the majority of the Slavs and Turks of Yugoslav Macedonia were autonomists, only a minority of the Slavs still cherishing the hope of annexation by Bulgaria.

28. In 1941 Bulgaria once more occupied all Yugoslav Macedonia except the upper Vardar valley, above Skoplje, as well as Greek eastern, and some portions of Greek western, Macedonia. Most of Greek western Macedonia was occupied by the Italians, and Salonica was firmly kept under German control. Many thousands of Greeks were massacred in eastern Macedonia, others were deported to Bulgaria, and many more fled to southern Greece. The Bulgarian Government began a systematic replacement of the dead, deported, or fugitive Greeks by Bulgarians. In Yugoslav Macedonia no savagery on a similar scale was displayed; but Bulgaria showed no tenderness towards Macedonian aspirations for autonomy and introduced Bulgarian officials, teachers, and clergy, either

Macedonians long resident in Bulgaria or men with no Macedonian connections at all. Many thousands of Serbs fled into Serbia. The population received the right of option for Bulgarian or their former nationality. If they chose the latter alternative, they had to emigrate. Both from Salonica and the Yugoslav towns here were deportations of Jews to unknown destinations.

Economic and Social Factors

29 The lack of railways, together with the indifferent conditions of road transport, is partly responsible for the poverty of Macedonia. The few railways of Macedonia all radiate from Salonica. They are: the main line to Serbia up the Vardar and down the Morava, with side-lines to Ohridea and Stip and a loop line by Florina and Bitolj to Veles; the main line of Greece from Salonica to Athens; and two lines running eastwards from Salonica to Drama, whence a single line runs on through Thrace. In Bulgaria tow lines from Sofia reach the frontier, near Kustendil and Petric. After April, 1941, plans were made for the extension of these lines across Macedonia. By June 1944 the line to Kustendil had been carried on to Kumanovo (on the main Salonica-Belgrade line) and was expected to be open to traffic within a few weeks; while the narrow-guage line to Petric had been extended to join the Greek railways at Siderocastro (Demir Hissar), and a beginning (the first 25 miles south from Gorna Djumaja) had been made with the conversion of the line to normal gauge.

30. (a) In Yugoslav Macedonia agriculture has been primitive, though it has gained by the comparative peace of the 1930’s, and the introduction, on a small scale, of improved methods. In addition to cereals, the chief crops have been tobacco (to whose cultivators the State Monopoly paid a derisory price) and opium poppies; with some rice and cotton. Industry has been confined to a few breweries, soap and flour mills, and the chrome mines; and to traditional handicrafts. A considerable part of the population has lived by breeding sheep and cattle.

31. Before 1912 the proximity of the sea, and contact with the foreign schools and international life of Salonica and Constantinople produced a small, but intelligent, educated class of Macedonians of all nationalities. In Yugoslav Macedonia, after 1919, the various

elements of this intelligentsia, diminished by the disappearance of most of the Greeks, gave evidence of mutual co-operation. Their main demands were for honest and enlightened government, which would afford educated Macedonians a chance of employment and make possible a reasonable livelihood for the peasants. Macedonian opinion appeared, in so far as a generalization may be attempted, to seek the realization of these benefits (often paradoxically identified by Balkan Slavs with what were once the normal European liberties of the individual) under Russian or other foreign auspices. The two aspirations seemed to be not infrequently entertained simultaneously.

32. (b) Greek Macedonia was completely transformed after 1918 by the settlement of the Greek refugees from Turkish Thrace and Anatolia. To accommodate these immigrants large estates were broken up and distributed, as was surplus communal pastureland. Large areas of marshy and malarial land were drained in the valleys of the Vardar and the Struma and measures were taken to provide adequate water-supplies by boring artesian wells and laying pipes and conduits. The Refugee Commission distributed draught animals and sheep. The refugees were, on the whole, a fine type, sturdy, hard-working, and intelligent. They applied themselves energetically to reclaiming waste land, learning new agricultural methods, and producing new, as well as old, crops. Macedonia, with its patches of fertile soil, became the chief cereal-producing area in Greece. Before the coming of the refugees tobacco had been grown mainly in eastern and central Macedonia; the new settlers extended cultivation to western Macedonia; indeed, so much tobacco was produced that production exceeded demand and had to be restricted. The refugees also engaged with success in market-gardening near the larger towns, and in the production of hemp and silk.

33. Economically the assimilation of the refugees seems to have been successfully accomplished, but they tended in some parts to lead a segregated life, in villages of their own. In the towns the converse seems to have been the case, as it proved difficult to find employment for some of the professional men. In any case, there seems to be little doubt about the national sentiments of the refugees. They are Greeks by race and by national consciousness.

The industrial proletariat of the tobacco centres of eastern Macedonia is reported to have leanings towards Communism, but what it understands by this term or how far it would wish to come under any form of Russian influence is very doubtful.

34. (c) Bulgarian Macedonia is a poor and mountainous district. After 1919 the Supremist IMRO leaders made it their headquarters, into which even the Bulgarian authorities could not venture without their connivance. In 1934 their rule disappeared with astonishing completeness. Since then the district has probably become fully integrated into Bulgaria.

Conflicting Interests

35 (a) Yugoslav interests.-The Yugoslav interest in Macedonia is Serbian, not shared by Croats and Slovenes except indirectly. From Serbia the Morava-Vardar route to Salonica is the geographically natural way to the sea, blocked by Greek possession of the outlet. After long disputes the Treaty of 1929 gave Yugoslavia a small free Zone in Salonica, with free use of the railway to Gjevgjeli, subject to the maintenance of Greek sovereignty over the zone and railway. As, however, Yugoslavia’s trade was almost entirely directed overland northwards and westwards, she made little use of the Free Zone. Its exports were confined to minerals from the Trepca (The Trepca mines lie about 110 km. N.N.W. of Skoplje) and Allatini mines; imports were negligible. Further, the Yugoslav authorities seem to have considered a zone in a Greek port unsatisfactory and to have cherished the hope of gaining Salonica itself; a hope momentarily justified when, on the 25th March, 1941, Hitler promised them Salonica on their adherence to his “New Order.” It appears improbable that the agricultural products of Serbia and Yugoslav Macedonia will find a ready market overseas. But their mineral resources should find such markets and be increasingly exploited. For the export of minerals and for imports (if the world returns to freedom of international trade), Yugoslavia would have an interest in the possession of Salonica. But the Free Zone, especially if reasonably enlarged, ought adequately to meet her needs.

36. Serbians have aspired to the possession of Salonica for strategic reasons. It would provide Yugoslavia with an alternative outlet to

the Mediterranean (and one nearer to Serbia) should the Adriatic be controlled by a hostile Power. Should Serbia become separated from the Croat and Slovene lands, this Serbian desire would be strengthened. On the other hand, as long as Yugoslavia’s relations divide Greek territory and completely alienate Greece, would destroy Yugoslavia’s defensive Balkan alliances and leave her Balkan frontiers surrounded by enemies. Only if Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were politically united or on the friendliest terms, would this vital objection to the Yugoslav acquisition of Salonica lose its weight; and even then Yugoslav statesmen would need to consider whether it would be worth while to gain Salonica at the cost of Greek, and also Turkish, hostility.

37. Serbian ethnic and historical claims in Macedonia, though vehemently upheld, are weak. Serbians do not forget that Skoplje was the capital of the fourteenth century Serbian Empire. But that Empire was both multi-racial and short-lived. Only in the north, in the neighbourhood of Skoplje, can the Macedonian Slavs be said to be predominantly Serbian in national sentiment.

38. (b) Greek interests.-First, Greece has an ethnic interest. Salonica and most of the coast have been continuously Greek-inhabited since long before the Christian era (see para. 13 above). In 1913 Greece acquired her considerable share of the non-Greek-inhabited hinterland. After 1919 the character of the population changed, with the removal of the Turkish-speaking Moslems and most of the Bulgarians and the enormous influx of Greek refugees. Greek Macedonia was, in 1938, overwhelmingly Greek-inhabited. The secular Greek character of the coast and the achievement of Greece, with the help of the League of Nations, in settling Greeks of Asia Minor in the area, give Greece an undeniably strong claim to her share of Macedonia.

39. Secondly, Greece’s economic interest is great. Salonica, indeed, cut off by the northern frontier of Greece from a large part of Macedonia, has not flourished since 1918; though its economic difficulties must also be attributed to the War of 1914-18, the disasters in Asia Minor, and the world economic depression. Greek Macedonia is the richest of the Greek provinces and is of great value to Greece for its cereals, its pasture lands, its tobacco industry, its

not yet fully exploited mineral resources, and its hardy rural population.