Balkan War of 1913 Bulgaria was estranged from the other Balkan states. Racially the Bulgarians are highly composite. In the west the contact with the Slavs has made the Alpine racial characteristics most prominent, while in the east the traits of the primordial Eurafrican or proto-Nordic race prevail. The Finnish or Bulgar invaders of the seventh century have had almost no significance for Bulgaria other than political. Racially they have long been assimilated in the original population and in the neighboring and invading Slavs. Turkish occupation has left traces of the Asiatic racial traits. Swarthy in complexion and short in stature, the Bulgars vary from extreme broadheadedness in the west to longheaded in the east. The Bulgarian language is now a definite Slavonic dialect, the original Finnish language has definitely disappeared centuries ago. In religion the Bulgarians are solidly Greek Orthodox, but the Bulgarian church is independent of the organization of the Greek Church. The best estimates put the truly Bulgar population of Bulgaria at about four millions at the outbreak of the World War, which number constituted about 75 per cent of the total population. In addition to these there were about a million and a quarter Bulgarians in southern Macedonia under Serbian rule and a very considerable number in the hinterland of the northern Aegean in the Dobrudja district and in the portion of Turkey adjoining Bulgaria.

Extending eastward from the western boundary of Bulgaria to the head of the Adriatic Sea is found the home of the Jugo-Slavs (i.e., the Southern Slavs), the Slovenes of Carniola and adjacent districts, the Croats of Croatia, the Serbo-Croats of Slavonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Serbs of Serbia and Montenegro. The Jugo-Slavs are the southern contingent of that general Slav incursion into central Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries. They were separated from their northern kinsmen in the ninth century by the Magyar invasion which drove a wedge between the two branches of the western vanguard of the Slavs. The Slovenes have never created an independent state, but have alternated between German and Italian

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, VOL. 10, NO. 1, 1919

control and are to-day primarily Germanic in most phases of their culture other than their language. Croatia was the first of the Jugo-Slav districts to develop a strong and coherent political organization. From 800 to about 1100 Croatia enjoyed a distinguished existence as an independent duchy and then as a kingdom, but from the beginning of the twelfth century to the present most of it has been controlled by Hungary. Serbia became a powerful kingdom in the thirteenth century and under Stephen Dushan (13311355) developed into the most extensive Balkan power that has existed since the decline of the Macedonian Empire. The independent Serbian kingdom was terminated by the Turks at the Battle of Kossove in 1389, and by 1459 the southern Slavs were completely conquered by the invading Turk. Serbia remained in a condition of subjection until the beginning of the national revolt in 1804. The right of self-government was obtained in 1830 and complete independence recognized in 1878. In 1903 the corrupt and Austrophile Obrenovitch dynasty was eliminated by the brutal assassination of the royal family. The rival Karageorgevitch dynasty which succeeded to the throne, in spite of its disgraceful mode of regaining power, brought to Serbia a more liberal and efficient political system and encouraged a revival of Serbian national sentiment, which has been intensified by Austrian aggression in the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 and the creation of Albania in 1913. The little mountain kingdom of Montenegro can boast of having been the only Slavic state of the Balkan peninsula to defy Turkish conquest. After three centuries of ineffectual attempts to conquer these warlike Serbs the Turks recognized their autonomy in 1799 and their complete independence in 1878. From the standpoint of race the Jugo-Slavs are the purest and finest type of Alpine Slavs. This is probably due to their more isolated habitat which has prevented as much intermixture of races as in central and eastern Europe. They are very tall and broadheaded brunets, of so fine a physical type that Deniker has designated them as a separate racethe Dinaric, but, as there is no doubt that they are true

Alpines, this attempt to classify them as a distinct subtype seems but a needless further complication of an already high confusing subject. The Slovene language differs from the Serbo-Croat, but is an allied dialect. The Serbian language is the purest Slav dialect of the Balkan peninsula and the Crotian language is merely Serb written in Latin characters. In religion the Slovenes and the Croatians are Roman Catholic, while the Serbs are Greek Orthodox. The total population of the territory inhabited by the JugoSlavs is estimated at about fourteen millions, of whom at least ten millions are Jugo-Slavs. Of the Jugo-Slavs a little over eight millions are Serbo-Croats and the remainder mainly Slovenes.

To the southwest of Serbia lies the little mountain state of Albania. Inhabited by a group of hardy, primitive and warlike mountaineers, Albania, by a fiat of the Austrian government, was advanced in 1913 from a tribal condition to independent statehood in the effort of Vienna to shut off Serbia from an outlet to the Adriatic. Albania has had no distinct history but has existed as a group of warring tribes since classical days. Racially the Albanians are regarded by Ripley as identical with the Serbo-Croats. In culture the Albanians are a strange mixture of Greek, Slav, Turk and Italian. In religion the Albanians are divided between the Mohammedans, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics the Moslems being the most numerous. Certainly southern Albania or northern Epirus belongs to the Greeks on the basis of both culture and national feeling. It is estimated that there are a little more than one million Albanians out of a total of a million and a half inhabitants living in the Albanian state.

The southernmost extension of the Balkan peninsula is the habitat of the Greeks, who, whatever the actuality, regard themselves as the descendants of the Greeks of the age of Pericles and Aristotle. The Greeks were conquered by the Romans in 146 B.C., but retained most phases of their culture and imposed it upon the Byzantine Empire founded by Constantine in 330 A.D. The Greeks remained under the control of the Eastern Empire until the occupa

tion of Hellas by the Turks between 1423 and 1460, except for a short period following the fourth crusade (1204–1261), when a Latin empire was established, and the later temporary conquest of a part of Greece by Stephen Dushan in the middle of the fourteenth century. By their own gallant efforts and through the aid of Russia, France and England the Greeks were awarded their independence in the treaty of Adrianople (1829) and established as a kingdom in 1832. Receiving some territory by the treaty of Berlin (1878) the Greeks have since made great strides in advance, especially after 1909 under the leadership of their exceedingly able and statesmanlike premier, Eleutherios Venezelos, who reorganized the Greek state and prepared it for the victorious war against the Turks in 1912-1913, by which Greece was greatly increased in population, territory and prestige. The modern Greek prides himself not only upon this cultural heritage from classical Greece, but also maintains his direct physical descent from the Attic Greeks. In spite of many invasions of the Greek peninsula between classical times and today by non-Greek peoples, such as Avars and Slavs, it is true that in some districts, especially in Thessaly, Attica and the Peloponnesus, the modern Greek has retained the characteristics of the original Mediterranean race to a remarkable degree. The "Greeks" of Asia can scarcely be regarded as Greek in anything else than national feeling and some superficial aspects of culture. The Greeks speak a language which is a debased form of the ancient Attic Greek, but since the Hellenic revival of the last century it has been systematically improved and brought back closer to the classical form. In religion the Greeks belong almost without exception to the Greek Orthodox Church. There are about four million seven hundred thousand Greeks in the Greek state, about two millions in the Aegean Islands and along the coast of Asia Minor, some one hundred and fifty thousand in Epirus, nearly two hundred thousand in Macedonia, about three hundred and fifty thousand in the city of Constantinople and about four hundred thousand in western Thrace, where they constitute a majority of the population.

If space were available one might carry this discussion into a consideration of the disputed territory in western Asia, such as Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Arabia and the new proposed Jewish state in Palestine, but this territory involves problems of so widely different a character and such relative ease of solution that they may be passed over with this mere allusion.

III. NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE

The principle of national self-determination as applied to the reconstruction of Europe means in its most fundamental and general sense the redrawing of the map of Europe so that state lines will coincide as far as possible with the ethnographic boundaries of the distinct national units which have been heretofore either thwarted in obtaining complete political unity or denied any political independence and existence whatever. This guiding tenet of nationality must, however, be accepted with reservations and should be governed by general good judgment and common sense, or its enforcement will merely result in a return to something near complete political anarchy. As Mr. Zimmern has pointed out,

If the sentiment of nationality were admitted as a sole and sufficient claim for a change of government French Canada would pass to France, Wisconsin to Germany, and part of Minnesota to Norway, while the New York police would become servants of the new Home Rule government in Ireland. The theory which makes national feeling the criterion of Statehood can easily be reduced to an absurdity.

Were there available space it would be most instructive to summarize what is known about the claims presented by the small nations at the peace conference. It is perfectly obvious that in many if not most cases the claims have embraced all the territory to which the most shadowy pretentions could be advanced, apparently in the hope that after extensive reductions in the original claims the territory assigned would be somewhat more than what each nation 'A. E. Zimmern, Nationality and Government, p. 49.