a; the rise of Young Turkey.

If the little Balkan States were opposed to the Macedonian
Committee, for the very same reason Russia and Austria were opposed,
though to these two powers it was not so vital a matter. For the
present they, with the rest of Europe were maintaining the _status
quo_. For a number of years Russia had been busy in another quarter
in the Far East, and had not much thought to give to the Balkans.
Then came her defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1905 and her
hopes of emerging on the open sea in that direction were effectually
doomed. Austria, too, was willing to defer the realization of her
ambitions, so long as Russia made no move. Yet both realized that
they must do battle for their interests in the Balkans.

In 1903 the Macedonian Committee, rendered desperate by the pressure
of the Greek, Bulgar, and Serbian propagandists, as well as by the
Turks, who were beginning to take more active measures against the
"comitlara," or "committee people," as they called the revolutionists,
precipitated an uprising in the Monastir district, under the
leadership of Damyan Grueff, Deltcheff having been killed by soldiers
some time previous. The object was not so much a successful revolution
as to create a crisis in the Balkan problem; to disturb the _status
quo_ of the European statesmen. For, as Grueff expressed it, "horror
with an end is better than horror without an end."

The uprising was suppressed with the customary Turkish severity,
though not with such atrocities as had occurred in Bulgaria
twenty-eight years previously. Nor did the burning of hundreds of
villages ruffle the European statesmen. A conference of the powers
was indeed called and an attempt made to institute such reforms as
had been contemplated by the XXIII Article of the Berlin Treaty,
which included foreign police officers, in command of the Turkish
police in Macedonia. Each of the powers did indeed send some
officers down there, but they had little more influence than so many
tourists. After the uprising the same old situation continued. The
Greek Church was now making desperate attempts to overrun Macedonia
with its terrorist bands and Ferdinand started another intrigue on
behalf of Bulgarian propaganda which came near proving more fatal to
the committee than any of the Greek attacks.

Ferdinand, through a young Macedonian who had been an officer in his
army and was now an active member of the committee, Boris Sarafoff,
began