t deal the French Norman peasantry.

The duties of national defence make heavy demands on the national
industry in Bulgaria. Training for military service is universal and
compulsory. There is no hope at all that there will be any lightening of
military burdens for some time to come, since the 1914 wars have left
Bulgaria in a position which the national pride refuses to accept as
final. The burdens are borne cheerfully. The patience of the Bulgarian
peasant soldiery during the awful campaigns of 1913 and 1914 was heroic,
and their steadiness in the field showed how well they had profited by
their training.

For this Bulgarian nation, so frugal, industrious, persevering and
courageous there must be a splendid future. It has all the essential
elements of greatness and must overcome in time the misfortunes of the
past. If but the Fates will shield Bulgaria for a time from the
desperate policy of attempting any new war of revenge or of enterprise,
her growing economic strength, her superiority in industry and in
application to other peoples of the Peninsula will in time assert
themselves, and give her a strong position in the Balkans.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EUROPE

As this book goes to the press there is again war in the Balkans. It is
only a little war certainly, as yet confined within the limits of the
"autonomous State" of Albania, that quaint creation of the ambitions of
Austria and Italy, which in its foundation suggested the custom of one
of the old Fiji cannibal tribes--that of keeping alive and fattening a
victim whom it was intended to eat. Austria desires the Adriatic shore
of the Balkan Peninsula: so does Italy. They cannot agree either to
fight out the issue now or to abandon their conflicting ambitions; and
they have been responsible for creating "independent Albania," which one
of them hopes to devour up in the near future when the other one is in
difficulties. This war, small as it now is, threatens, however, to
spread to a great one; and though the danger may pass away now for the
moment, it is certain that one near day Albania will be the cause of
another Balkan war: for it is to kindle that war that she has been
brought into existence. Even to-day the position is immediately
threatening. The creation of Albania gave to Montenegro, to Servia, and
to Greece a serious disappointment. In particular was it a blow to
Montenegro, whose heroic little people had through centuries borne t