settlement was patched up, and an amnesty was
granted to the rebels by the new Sultan. This unfortunate man, after being
rendered almost half-witted by having been for the greater part of his
life kept a prisoner by his brother the tyrant Abdul Hamid, was now the
captive of the Young Turks, and had been compelled by them to make as
triumphal a progress as fears for his personal safety would allow through
the provinces of European Turkey. But it was obvious to Balkan statesmen
that Turkey was only changed in name, and that, if its threatened
regeneration had slightly postponed their plans for its partition amongst
themselves, the ultimate consummation of these plans must be pursued with,
if possible, even greater energy and expedition than before. It was also
seen by the more perspicacious of them that the methods hitherto adopted
must in future be radically altered. A rejuvenated though unreformed
Turkey, bent on self-preservation, could not be despised, and it was
understood that if the revolutionary bands of the three Christian nations
(Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria) were to continue indefinitely to cut each
others' throats in Macedonia the tables might conceivably be turned on
them.

From 1909 onwards a series of phenomena occurred in the Balkans which
ought to have given warning to the Turks, whose survival in Europe had
been due solely to the fact that the Balkan States had never been able to
unite. In the autumn of 1909 King Ferdinand of Bulgaria met Crown Prince
Alexander of Serbia and made an expedition in his company to Mount
Kopaonik in Serbia, renowned for the beauty of its flora. This must have
struck those who remembered the bitter feelings which had existed between
the two countries for years and had been intensified by the events of
1908. Bulgaria had looked on Serbia's failures with persistent contempt,
while Serbia had watched Bulgaria's successful progress with speechless
jealousy, and the memory of Slivnitsa was not yet obliterated. In the
summer of 1910 Prince Nicholas of Montenegro celebrated the fiftieth
anniversary of his reign and his golden wedding. The festivities were
attended by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the Crown Prince Boris, by the
Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia and his sister, grandchildren of Prince
Nicholas, by his two daughters the Queen of Italy and the Grand Duchess
Anastasia of Russia, and by their husbands, King Victor Emmanuel and the
Grand Duke Nicholas. The happiness of th