of empire; she
aspired not only to the possession of Macedonia, but to the
provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, because of Serb
population. Their annexation by Austria meant to Serbia that there
could now be no rearrangement. And it meant, too, that Austria was
still determined to work her way south, down to Saloniki, when time
and opportunity were ripe. It was, in fact, as much of a threat to
Serbia as to the Turks.

Meanwhile the Young Turks continued with their attempt to establish
democracy in Constantinople. During the winter of 1908-9 the first
Parliament met. And naturally, the deputies representing the
backward and fanatical Mussulmans of Asia were in the majority, so
that in the very beginning it became obvious that democracy itself
was going to defeat its own ends. The reactionary elements, being in
a majority in the empire as a whole, it was only natural that their
representatives in the Parliament should be in a majority.

In the spring of 1910 there was a violent uprising of the more
fanatical Albanian tribes, who resisted the efforts of the new
Government to disarm the whole of the population, which was
undertaken as a first step toward establishing that law and order
which had never yet been known in the empire and which the committee
had organized to establish, within the limits of its own
communities, at least. The schools, too, were taken out of the hands
of the priests of the respective peoples and put under the control
of a Ministry of Education, and this roused bitter resentment on the
part of the Greeks, who, unlike the Serbs and Bulgars, are under the
complete domination of their church.

Under the influence of the reactionary elements that had gained
majority control through the Parliament, the old repressive measures
began gradually to be reestablished. To Sandanski and his colleagues
it soon became evident that their fond hopes of a truly democratic
Turkish Empire was not to be realized. It was not under a
constitutional Turkey that the Macedonians would be accorded civic
justice; that could only be accomplished through a Macedonia
enjoying home rule, whether as an independent state or under the
mere suzerainty of the sultan. This was the state of mind toward
which the Macedonians were tending when the next serious event began
developing.

CHAPTER XVIII

FORMATION OF THE BALKAN LEAGUE

Even to a school child it must have been obvious all along that the
solution of the