e Roumanian (or Vlach) population in that disputed
region gave her an equally valid claim to a share in the common
estate.

In all Macedonia there may be some 100,000 Vlachs, though Roumanian
officials put the number much higher. Many of them are highland
shepherds; others engage in transportation with trains of horses or
mules; those in the lowlands are good farmers. They are found
especially in the mountains and valleys between Thessaly and
Albania. They are generally favorable to the Greek cause. Most of
them speak Greek as well as Roumanian; and they are all devoted
members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Yet there has been a Roumanian
propaganda in Macedonia since 1886, and the government at Bukarest
has devoted large sums to the maintenance of Roumanian schools, of
which the maximum number at any time has perhaps not exceeded forty.

Now if every other nation--Greek, Servian, Bulgarian--which had
hitherto maintained its propaganda of schools and churches in
Macedonia, was to bring its now emancipated children under the
benign sway of the home government and also was to annex the
Macedonian lands which they occupied, why, Roumania asked, should
she be excluded from participation in the arrangement? She did not,
it is true, join the Allies in fighting the common Moslem oppressor.
But she maintained a benevolent neutrality. And since Macedonia is
not conterminous with Roumania, she was not seeking to annex any
portion of it. Yet the rights those Roumanians in Macedonia gave her
should be satisfied. And so arguing, the Roumanian government
claimed as a quid pro quo the adjoining northeastern corner of
Bulgaria, permitting Bulgaria to recoup herself by the uncontested
annexation of Thrace and Eastern Macedonia.

Such was the Roumanian reasoning. Certainly it bore hard on
Bulgaria. But none of the belligerents showed any mercy on Bulgaria.
War is a game of ruthless self-interest. It was Bulgaria who
appealed to arms and she now had to pay the penalty. Her losses
enriched all her neighbors. What Lord Bacon says of individuals is
still more true of nations: the folly of one is the fortune of
another, and none prospers so suddenly as by others' errors.

THE WORK AND REWARD OF MONTENEGRO

I have already sufficiently described the territorial gains of
Roumania, Servia, and Greece. But I must not pass over Montenegro in
silence. As the invincible warriors of King Nicholas opened the war
against the Ottoman Empire, so t