m the Black Sea on the east
to the inland Lake of Okhrida on the west, and there is at no point a
sharp dividing line between them. The Greek element tends to predominate
towards the coast and the Bulgar towards the interior, but there are broad
zones where Greek and Bulgar villages are inextricably interspersed, while
purely Greek towns are often isolated in the midst of purely Bulgar rural
districts. Even if the racial areas could be plotted out on a large-scale
map, it was clear that no political frontier could be drawn to follow
their convolutions, and that Greece and Bulgaria could only divide the
spoils by both making up their minds to give and take. The actual lines
this necessary compromise would follow, obviously depended on the degree
of the allies' success against Turkey in the common war that was yet to be
fought, and Venezelos rose to the occasion. He had the courage to offer
Bulgaria the Greek alliance without stipulating for any definite minimum
share in the common conquests, and the tact to induce her to accept it on
the same terms. Greece and Bulgaria agreed to shelve all territorial
questions till the war had been brought to a successful close; and with
the negotiation of this understanding (another case in which Venezelos
achieved what Trikoupis had attempted only to fail) the Balkan League was
complete.

The events that followed are common knowledge. The Balkan allies opened
the campaign in October, and the Turks collapsed before an impetuous
attack. The Bulgarians crumpled up the Ottoman field armies in Thrace at
the terrific battle of Lule Burgas; the Serbians disposed of the forces in
the Macedonian interior, while the Greeks effected a junction with the
Serbians from the south, and cut their way through to Salonika. Within two
months of the declaration of war, the Turks on land had been driven out of
the open altogether behind the shelter of the Chataldja and Gallipoli
lines, and only three fortresses--Adrianople, Yannina, and Scutari--held
out further to the west. Their navy, closely blockaded by the Greek fleet
within the Dardanelles, had to look on passively at the successive
occupation of the Aegean Islands by Greek landing-parties. With the winter
came negotiations, during which an armistice reigned at Adrianople and
Scutari, while the Greeks pursued the siege of Yannina and the Dardanelles
blockade. The negotiations proved abortive, and the result of the renewed
hostilities justified the act