been able to withstand the aggressive
intentions of both Austria and Russia, presented a solid front to
both those powers, and able to maintain the independence and peace
in the Balkans, and, very possibly, no great war at present.

The Turk is universally hated, but he is not despised. Except when
his fanaticism is aroused there is no better neighbor than the Turk,
he is courteous, tolerant in his quieter moments, and very much
inclined to be a good fellow in the disposal of his money. Moreover,
he is a hard fighter, and that quality always excites respect. Nor
is he at all underhand--he never makes a good spy.

The Greek, and more especially the Greek who lives on Turkish soil,
has not possessed these qualities. He has accepted and bent to the
Turk, and in his role of a willing slave, he has played a very
questionable part toward the other Christian peoples. However, there
is a political reason for his unpopularity.

On account of his acceptance of Turkish rule the Greek was allowed
special privileges. The Turks acknowledged the Greek Church as the
representative of all the Christian peoples under their rule. This
gave the patriarch of the Greek Church not only a spiritual but a
temporal authority over the Bulgars and the Serbs, as well as over
his own people, a power which was backed by Turkish troops.

Putting aside those frantic outbursts of barbarity against the
Christian inhabitants of his country, of which the Turk has
frequently been guilty, yet never has he been so oppressive as the
Greek patriarch. Given power over the Slav population, the patriarch
used it to its limit. Not only did he tax them oppressively to
support a church with which they had no sympathy, but he used all
efforts to stamp out every little spark of national feeling that had
survived the centuries of Turkish rule. He forced Greek teachers on
their children, and finally he made it a crime for any Slav to be
heard speaking his own tongue. It was the aim to make all Turkish
Christians into Greeks, and to attain this end no means was too
severe. Later, some years before the liberation of Bulgaria, the
sultan gave the Bulgars the right to establish a church of their
own. And then, when he could no longer employ Turkish troops to
force adherence to his church, the patriarch did not hesitate to
organize secret bands of terrorists to take their place. And this
policy was followed up until just before the First Balkan War, then
resumed with re