ame from India, most of them--to save themselves
trouble--preferred the bread, though with the Serbian flour they could
have baked themselves just twice as much.... When Europe took up the
Macedonian problem towards the close of 1902 there had been a
considerable revolt, followed by an outburst of official ferocity and
the flight of some thousands of peasants. The Sultan, in the hope of
forestalling any Russian interference, promised various reforms. But
Russia and Austria proceeded to discuss what each of them would do in
Macedonia, and one resolve was that they also, being the two
"interested" Powers, would institute a scheme of reform. The Western
Powers for a time abdicated their responsibilities and left the
miserable Macedonians to the supervision of the two countries which,
as they themselves said, were the least disinterested. Now and then
the other Powers made a suggestion, as when Lord Lansdowne, who was in
favour of autonomy, made in January 1905 a number of proposals which
would have assisted the solution of the problem. But Austria and
Russia would only accept a part of his programme. Their own programme,
drawn up at Muerzsteg in September 1903, was plainly of a transitional
nature. It announced to the different Balkan peoples that the end of
their serfdom was approaching, and thus it accentuated their latent
rivalries and hostilities. Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian bands ravaged
the country.

"The Serbo-Bulgarian conflict," said Dr. Milovanovi['c], a Serbian
Minister of Justice, "has its origin exclusively in the chauvinistic
circles of both countries. Macedonia is the battlefield." He said,
very rightly, that the population of Macedonia was equally near to
Serb and to Bulgar; but unhappily, in his efforts to establish a
_modus vivendi_, he proposed that Macedonia should be divided between
the two countries. Surely it is far better that it should become the
common possession of Serb and Bulgar, the link joining them to one
another. After Dr. Milovanovi['c] came the Balkan wars, of which the
second utterly destroyed for many a long day his hopes of an
understanding, since the experiences of the invaded Bulgars were
generally very different from those recorded by the careful
schoolmaster, Stavri Popoff, in his monograph, _The Self-Defence of
the Village of Ciprovci against the Serbo-Roumanian Invasion of 1913_
(Berkovica, 1915). This isolated village in the mountains was defended
by thirty old reservists, who