the Balkan Governments. But already in May
1912 agreements between Bulgaria and Greece and between Bulgaria and
Serbia had been concluded, limiting their respective zones of influence in
the territory which they hoped to conquer. It was, to any one who has any
knowledge of Balkan history, incredible that the various Governments had
been able to come to any agreement at all. That arrived at by Bulgaria and
Serbia divided Macedonia between them in such a way that Bulgaria should
obtain central Macedonia with Monastir and Okhrida, and Serbia northern
Macedonia or Old Serbia; there was an indeterminate zone between the two
spheres, including Skoplje (Ueskueb, in Turkish), the exact division of
which it was agreed to leave to arbitration at a subsequent date.

The Macedonian theatre of war was by common consent regarded as the most
important, and Bulgaria here promised Serbia the assistance of 100,000
men. The Turks meanwhile were aware that all was not what it seemed beyond
the frontiers, and in August 1912 began collecting troops in Thrace,
ostensibly for manoeuvres. During the month of September the patience of
the four Governments of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, which
had for years with the utmost self-control been passively watching the
awful sufferings of their compatriots under Turkish misrule, gradually
became exhausted. On September 28 the four Balkan Governments informed
Russia that the Balkan League was an accomplished fact, and on the 30th
the representatives of all four signed the alliance, and mobilization was
ordered in Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The population of Montenegro was
habitually on a war footing, and it was left to the mountain kingdom from
its geographically favourable position to open hostilities. On October 8
Montenegro declared war on Turkey, and after a series of brilliant
successes along the frontier its forces settled down to the wearisome and
arduous siege of Scutari with its impregnable sentinel, Mount Tarabo[)s],
converted into a modern fortress; the unaccustomed nature of these tasks,
to which the Montenegrin troops, used to the adventures of irregular
warfare, were little suited, tried the valour and patience of the intrepid
mountaineers to the utmost. By that time Europe was in a ferment, and both
Russia and Austria, amazed at having the initiative in the regulation of
Balkan affairs wrested from them, showered on the Balkan capitals threats
and protests, which for once in