st
Austria.[112] It is rather different with regard to Tsaribrod, on the
main line between Ni[vs] and Sofia. So good a friend of the Yugoslavs as
Dr. Seton-Watson has deplored the cession of this small place, since it
appears likely to imperil a future friendship between Serbia and
Bulgaria. As a matter of fact the Yugoslav Peace Delegates requested,
for strategic purposes, a still more southerly frontier on the Dragoman
Pass, which was denied to them. But Tsaribrod, which is dominated by the
heights of Dragoman, is anyhow a place of minor importance. It is much
to be hoped that the inhabitants will not imitate those of the Pirot
_intelligentsia_ who in 1878 shook off the dust of their town when it
became Serbian and migrated to Sofia, where they never wearied of
anti-Serbian agitation. One must do one's best not to retard the arrival
of that day when it will be almost a matter of indifference as to
whether a village is situated in Serbia or in Bulgaria. Mr.
Stanojevi['c], the deputy for Zaje[vc]a, which is not far from the
frontier, proposed in the Skup[vs]tina that Tsaribrod should be left to
the Bulgars in exchange for a sum of money. This suggestion was opposed
by the Radicals, and the far-seeing Yugoslav statesmen who would gladly
have adopted it were left hoping that the Skup[vs]tina would some day
decide in its favour.... This moderation on the part of the Serbs has
been less in evidence at Bucharest and still less at Athens. The Peace
Conference which felt itself unable to deprive its Ally of southern
Dobrudja, and unable to resist the persuasive eloquence of M. Venizelos,
does not seem to have contributed towards a lasting Balkan peace. A
reviewer in the _Observer_, while approving of Mr. Leland Buxton's hope
of a Serb-Bulgar reconciliation, asks why this should be effected to the
exclusion and obvious detriment of Greece. "Why not a Balkan
Federation?" he asks. In view of the very different races which inhabit
the Balkans, he might just as well ask, "Why not a European Federation?"
And the statesmen of the non-Slav Balkan countries do not seem to have
made serious efforts to prevent the coming of a purely Slav Federation.
It remains to be seen whether, when that comes to pass, the Greek and
Roumanian people will have achieved such statesmanship as to make an
equally small effort to keep under their control their large Slav
territories.... "We should no longer think of Thrace," said M. Venizelos
in the Greek Cha