its aims southwards to Salonika. The Greeks were already in
possession of this important city and seaport, as well as of the whole of
southern Macedonia. The Serbs were in possession of central and northern
Macedonia, including Monastir and Okhrida, which they had at great
sacrifices conquered from the Turks. It had been agreed that Bulgaria, as
its share of the spoils, should have all central Macedonia, with Monastir
and Okhrida, although on ethnical grounds the Bulgarians have only very
slightly better claim to the country and towns west of the Vardar than any
of the other Balkan nationalities. But at the time that the agreement had
been concluded it had been calculated in Greece and Serbia that Albania,
far from being made independent, would be divided between them, and that
Serbia, assured of a strip of coast on the Adriatic, would have no
interest in the control of the river Vardar and of the railway which
follows its course connecting the interior of Serbia with the port of
Salonika. Greece and Serbia had no ground whatever for quarrel and no
cause for mutual distrust, and they were determined, for political and
commercial reasons, to have a considerable extent of frontier from west to
east in common. The creation of an independent Albania completely altered
the situation. If Bulgaria should obtain central Macedonia and thus secure
a frontier from north to south in common with the newly-formed state of
Albania, then Greece would be at the mercy of its hereditary enemies the
Bulgars and Arnauts (Albanians) as it had previously been at the mercy of
the Turks, while Serbia would have two frontiers between itself and the
sea instead of one, as before, and its complete economic strangulation
would be rendered inevitable and rapid. Bulgaria for its own part
naturally refused to waive its claim to central Macedonia, well knowing
that the master of the Vardar valley is master of the Balkan peninsula.
The first repercussion of the ephemeral treaty of London of May 30, 1913,
which created Albania and shut out Serbia from the Adriatic, was,
therefore, as the diplomacy of the Germanic powers had all along intended
it should be, the beginning of a feud between Greece and Serbia on the one
hand, and Bulgaria on the other, the disruption of the Balkan League and
the salvation, for the ultimate benefit of Germany, of what was left of
Turkey in Europe.

The dispute as to the exact division of the conquered territory in
Macedonia be