1 00:00:01,300 --> 00:00:16,930 So I'm often on this, the psychics and I'm the director of South-East European Studies at Oxford and of the European Studies Centre. 2 00:00:17,530 --> 00:00:24,640 And on behalf of Caesar and My Convenors, Elizabeth Roberts and David Madden, 3 00:00:25,180 --> 00:00:31,690 I would like to welcome you to our most important event for this year a conference to 4 00:00:31,690 --> 00:00:39,520 commemorate World War One and its legacy on Southeast Europe titled The Past Is Never Dead. 5 00:00:39,610 --> 00:00:44,800 A quote by William Faulkner is hugely relevant in our part of the world, 6 00:00:45,370 --> 00:00:53,259 where historical memories are always influential and dominant as a direct or indirect reference affecting current developments, 7 00:00:53,260 --> 00:00:57,790 perceptions, attitudes, provoking debates, passionate and emotional, 8 00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:04,780 but also interesting academic debates such as the one that we are hoping to conduct today in this lecture theatre. 9 00:01:05,980 --> 00:01:14,200 Let me start from the beginning by pointing out that this is not just an exceptional phenomenon of the Balkans on how history affects the present. 10 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:23,050 The commemoration of the hundred years from World War One has been a hotly debated issue, not just there in Sarajevo, 11 00:01:23,620 --> 00:01:31,840 but other Balkan states where the war officially started, but also in this country, in Germany, in Austria or France. 12 00:01:32,230 --> 00:01:35,710 All of the main actors in the period preceding, during and after the war. 13 00:01:36,850 --> 00:01:45,610 But there's also something Balkan about the origins of the war itself, in that this is the region that experienced the collapse of two empires, 14 00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:53,260 the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman was impact and the percussions are being felt up until today. 15 00:01:53,980 --> 00:02:00,040 In many ways, World War One did signify the start of a new era of nation state building, 16 00:02:00,610 --> 00:02:08,410 a new understanding of human and minority rights, a new way of elite and mass involvement in political, economic and social affairs. 17 00:02:09,250 --> 00:02:12,250 What we've seen in Southeast Europe is a polyphony, 18 00:02:12,670 --> 00:02:20,620 often cacophony of views and perceptions as to what actually happened, who were the culprits or the victims of this war. 19 00:02:21,850 --> 00:02:28,450 What makes this region so particularly exciting is that Southeast Europe was the battleground in military, 20 00:02:28,450 --> 00:02:34,180 political or ideological terms of most proxy wars and competitions between the great powers of the time. 21 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:38,740 The middle of all the antagonism, the rivalries of the powerful patrons in Europe. 22 00:02:39,550 --> 00:02:47,260 But it has also led to local conflicts, indemnities, and let the Balkan elites to make difficult choices and decisions to take sides, 23 00:02:47,710 --> 00:02:51,310 the legacies of which have been disputed and abused until nowadays. 24 00:02:52,920 --> 00:03:00,720 I myself come from a country, Greece, where history textbooks up until the 1980s terminated with World War One, 25 00:03:01,260 --> 00:03:04,950 and there was no official memory after that historical moment. 26 00:03:06,180 --> 00:03:09,960 The bitter infighting between Venizelos and Royalists, 27 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:16,290 which is remembered as the great schism in Greece and the subsequent end of Greece's great idea, 28 00:03:16,890 --> 00:03:22,410 became a shameful and divisive historical moment that could not be handled for many decades to come. 29 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:29,820 But for the political elites and the political parties in Greece and for the over 1 million refugees from Anatolia, 30 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:35,370 the outcome of this great war was felt and affected their everyday lives and practices. 31 00:03:36,270 --> 00:03:43,139 Turkey, for its part, chose to forget about the Ottoman roots of the New Republic, and it is only recently that historians, 32 00:03:43,140 --> 00:03:50,610 social anthropologists and the official Turkish state are revisiting the significance of the Ottoman Empire in other parts of the region. 33 00:03:50,610 --> 00:03:55,740 States and people have had to live with the consequences of this period, not least in Yugoslavia, 34 00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:59,280 the country, which was the direct outcome of the collapse of the two empires. 35 00:04:00,180 --> 00:04:08,400 With all these issues in mind, my co-convener and I decided to engage with this past through the organisation of this conference, 36 00:04:08,820 --> 00:04:15,180 which forms part of the wider cluster of activities around Oxford on the 100th anniversary of the Great War. 37 00:04:16,590 --> 00:04:21,629 And we deliberately chose a speakers historians with a big experience and massive 38 00:04:21,630 --> 00:04:26,520 archival work on World War One to contemplate on the legacies of this period. 39 00:04:27,390 --> 00:04:33,510 So we are grateful to have with us today five hugely respected historians who have written numerous 40 00:04:33,510 --> 00:04:38,520 volumes on this particular period and will be introduced by the chairs of the two panels. 41 00:04:39,650 --> 00:04:48,430 But let me also think from my part. Professors IV about evil bandits from Yale University in Zagreb University. 42 00:04:48,820 --> 00:04:54,640 Richard Crampton My very own Balkan historian, Eugene Rogan from the Middle East Centre. 43 00:04:55,630 --> 00:05:01,660 Leslie Warner is a dphil graduate from St Anthony's and professors at the Aristotle University into Salonika. 44 00:05:02,290 --> 00:05:07,630 Thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to having you with us in this debate. 45 00:05:08,290 --> 00:05:17,200 And last but not least, Margaret Macmillan, our eminent historian and leader of this college, who will kick off this first panel. 46 00:05:18,250 --> 00:05:22,120 Now, Margaret, I know that you don't like us praising your personality and work, 47 00:05:22,720 --> 00:05:30,730 but I just want to mention that I'm lucky to have had the opportunity this past couple of years to discuss and learn from the latest volume, 48 00:05:31,210 --> 00:05:35,440 one of the best books to have been published on the origins of the First World War. 49 00:05:35,890 --> 00:05:44,410 And one of the bestsellers as well. And I was also very pleased to have convened your book launch back last January in this very 50 00:05:44,410 --> 00:05:48,940 room with other historians from Oxford in what was a particularly regarding discussion, 51 00:05:48,940 --> 00:05:56,050 a rewarding discussion on this topic. Let me also add that I'm very pleased to see all of you here, 52 00:05:56,650 --> 00:06:00,790 and in particular to mention three names that have been part of this college 53 00:06:00,910 --> 00:06:05,440 for many years and have produced some of the best writings of this period. 54 00:06:06,250 --> 00:06:13,210 And I'm referring to Professor Richard Kellogg, emeritus fellow who has worked on the history of Greece in the Balkans, 55 00:06:13,450 --> 00:06:16,600 has been reference reading for countless scholars around the world. 56 00:06:17,610 --> 00:06:26,399 Michael Smith, a different graduate from St Anthony's and an honorary fellow now whose book on the Ionian Vision has been one of the 57 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:34,830 best on the end of Greece's great idea and an invitation with a dedicated work and books on the 1922 refugees in Greece. 58 00:06:35,620 --> 00:06:39,510 I mentioning these names because I want to stress the contribution of these scholars, 59 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:44,250 all of them part of this college, to the study of history of Southeast Europe. 60 00:06:45,780 --> 00:06:50,670 I would also like to thank our colleague and historian differ Virgil from Saint Anselm College, 61 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:58,560 currently professor of history at Sacramento State University, Katharina Laws, who contributed with their ideas and constructive input. 62 00:06:59,370 --> 00:07:07,949 This event is video recorded for our website and will be shown to the students and scholars at the other side of the Atlantic or the Pacific, 63 00:07:07,950 --> 00:07:17,130 I should say, in Sacramento, where Katarina is leading a program on Greece in the Balkans and will generate a further debate over that as well. 64 00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:25,770 Katharina has also contributed financially via the Acropolis Foundation for the organisation of today's conference, for which we are grateful. 65 00:07:26,910 --> 00:07:31,170 And we would also like to mention the financial contribution from Saint Anthony College, 66 00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:39,600 whose logo in our program is not just because she is part of this college, but also for the funding which has been provided for this event. 67 00:07:40,530 --> 00:07:45,540 Before I finish, I would like to thank my colleague Convenors and chairs of the next two panels, 68 00:07:45,930 --> 00:07:49,890 Elizabeth Roberts, who is a member of this steering committee. 69 00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:58,200 But her major claim to fame is her historical work and her two volumes, one on Montenegro and one on Sunday. 70 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:05,400 And David Madden, chair of the Caesar Development Committee, who has lived as ambassador in different parts of this region, 71 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:11,820 including Greece, Cyprus or Bosnia, and with whom we conspired on a daily basis. 72 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:18,810 What should be our next project for C6? The three of us work together with great enthusiasm to put together this event. 73 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:28,740 But I should say for rather, because Julia Adams, the Seahawks administrator, has worked tirelessly not just on the administrative part of this event, 74 00:08:29,130 --> 00:08:33,780 but also doing her own archival research to come up with the relevant photos or other 75 00:08:33,780 --> 00:08:39,150 information and pictures which would decorate our program today and the website. 76 00:08:39,930 --> 00:08:45,210 I hope that you will enjoy commemorating with us the not so enjoyable historical event, 77 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:50,730 but certainly enjoy the quality of our talk and the debate that will follow in our speeches. 78 00:08:51,060 --> 00:08:54,090 And I would like to invite you to participate as much as you like. 79 00:08:54,540 --> 00:08:58,950 And we have until 6:30 for this symposium with a coffee break in the middle. 80 00:08:59,460 --> 00:09:05,180 And with this, I would like to invite Elizabeth and the speakers of the first panel to kick off the debate. 81 00:09:14,530 --> 00:09:18,770 Well, thank you often for that introduction to the thinking behind the Centenary Symposium. 82 00:09:18,790 --> 00:09:22,420 The past is never dead. Broken legacies of the First World War. 83 00:09:23,140 --> 00:09:27,760 Enough for me to introduce the speakers for the first section, first session of the symposium. 84 00:09:28,900 --> 00:09:34,000 So our first speaker, Professor Margaret Miller, and the Warden of St Anthony scarcely needs an introduction, 85 00:09:34,780 --> 00:09:39,910 but I would like to say just a few words about why she is the perfect person to set the scene for the symposium. 86 00:09:40,870 --> 00:09:46,240 Margaret's two magisterial books on the subject of the First World War Span the entire period. 87 00:09:46,870 --> 00:09:54,130 Her book, The War that Ended Peace How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War, takes us from the very beginning of the 20th century, 88 00:09:54,610 --> 00:09:59,680 a time which she writes seemed to be the very symbol of harmony and peace for all humanity. 89 00:10:00,460 --> 00:10:07,690 The outbreak of war in the 4th of August 1914, when, as she quotes Theodore Roosevelt, that great black tornado broke over Europe. 90 00:10:09,010 --> 00:10:14,620 Her multi-award winning peacemakers, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, published in 2001, 91 00:10:15,340 --> 00:10:22,240 recreates in vivid details the steps leading to the signing of the West Side Treaty on the 28th of June 1919. 92 00:10:22,570 --> 00:10:27,970 Five years to the day after Gavrilo Princip fired the shots that unleashed the Great War. 93 00:10:29,110 --> 00:10:32,710 To tackle both subjects was to take on a truly daunting task. 94 00:10:33,310 --> 00:10:40,810 Had been, according to The Economist, some 25,000 books and scholarly articles written on the subject since 1918. 95 00:10:42,070 --> 00:10:46,629 Nevertheless, she has succeeded in bringing these periods with her myriad complications to life 96 00:10:46,630 --> 00:10:51,820 in a manner that combines penetrating social analysis with psychological insight, 97 00:10:52,210 --> 00:10:56,410 and to do so in an immensely readable way. She's thus speaker, 98 00:10:56,410 --> 00:11:04,690 superbly suited to introduce a symposium which takes as its subject not simply the causes of and calamities occasioned by the First World War, 99 00:11:05,260 --> 00:11:14,560 but also its enduring influence in Southeastern Europe on the ways in which she continues to be remembered and used selectively, even 100 years on. 100 00:11:16,750 --> 00:11:20,050 Margaret will be followed by a second speaker, Professor Eva Bernhardt's, 101 00:11:20,350 --> 00:11:24,489 who's emeritus professor of history at Yale University and a former minister 102 00:11:24,490 --> 00:11:27,700 for Environmental Protection and Urban Planning in the Government of Croatia. 103 00:11:28,810 --> 00:11:32,760 Professor Banos is also admirably qualified to take up the question of Balkan legacies. 104 00:11:32,770 --> 00:11:41,500 The First World War. Born in Dubrovnik, he moved to the US at the age of 12, completing his master's and doctoral degrees at Stanford University. 105 00:11:42,580 --> 00:11:48,730 His award winning book, The National Question in Yugoslavia Origins History, Politics, published in 1984, 106 00:11:49,540 --> 00:11:53,650 which which established him as the foremost authority in this highly contentious field, 107 00:11:54,490 --> 00:11:59,049 has never been surpassed in its detailed and immensely knowledgeable analysis of the South. 108 00:11:59,050 --> 00:12:07,630 Slav National Question. Zaslow national question is one that emerged vividly, vividly from the collapse of all multinational empires, 109 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,350 the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman in particular at the end of the Great War. 110 00:12:11,350 --> 00:12:20,200 And it's one that remains highly topical. As Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and others continue to debate the collective responsibility, 111 00:12:21,490 --> 00:12:24,550 collective responsibility for that war and the subsequent wars today. 112 00:12:26,790 --> 00:12:30,000 Both Margaret McMillan and Professor Bennett's have written on the abuses of history 113 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:36,330 and on the highly toxic legacy of the continuing glamour and use of national myths. 114 00:12:38,750 --> 00:12:45,600 Professor Barnard's second prize winning book With Stalin against Tito, looks at another traumatic period in recent self-love history. 115 00:12:47,180 --> 00:12:52,160 Having once invited French treatment to speak at Yale, he became in the 1990, is one of presidents most vocal critics. 116 00:12:52,490 --> 00:13:00,110 He's been president of the Croatian Helsinki Group for Human Rights and editor of the prestigious journal Eastern European Politics and Societies. 117 00:13:01,550 --> 00:13:07,550 Our third speaker in this first session is Professor Richard Crampton, who is also somebody who needs no introduction at Sydney's, 118 00:13:07,550 --> 00:13:11,300 where for many years he taught history and politics of southeastern Europe. 119 00:13:12,860 --> 00:13:19,280 Richard Frampton's first degree was from Trinity College, Dublin, and he read his doctorate at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies. 120 00:13:20,300 --> 00:13:27,050 Professor Crampton is a particular specialist in the history of Bulgaria, which is a nation state siding with the Triple Alliance. 121 00:13:27,050 --> 00:13:30,380 We consider in this separate symposium as a counterpoint to Serbia. 122 00:13:30,710 --> 00:13:37,130 As the title of his talk was The First World War, the turning point in which Bulgarian history failed to turn suggests. 123 00:13:38,270 --> 00:13:46,010 Professor Frampton's Ph.D. research on Anglo-german relations in the Balkans from 1911 to 1914 culminated in his book The Hollow Détente, 124 00:13:46,250 --> 00:13:47,570 published in 1981, 125 00:13:48,170 --> 00:13:54,590 a detailed and scholarly account of the tensions accumulating over southeastern Europe in the period just prior to the First World War. 126 00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:58,970 But not only does Professor Crampton understand the background to today's symposium. 127 00:13:59,570 --> 00:14:04,700 His many books on Bulgaria, including his Concise History and His History of Bulgaria, 128 00:14:04,700 --> 00:14:10,250 published in the Oxford History of Modern Europe Series, his Eastern Europe in the 20th century and after, 129 00:14:10,850 --> 00:14:13,790 and most recently his Balkans since the Second World War, 130 00:14:14,510 --> 00:14:20,150 make him abundantly qualified to speak on today's subject of the Balkan legacy of the First World War. 131 00:14:22,130 --> 00:14:27,290 I've said more than enough, and I now have great pleasure in crossing the floor to ask the speaker, Margaret Macmillan. 132 00:14:28,100 --> 00:14:37,509 Thank you. Thank you very much. 133 00:14:37,510 --> 00:14:44,740 And it's a great pleasure to be here on a panel with such distinguished historians and to be talking about the subject, 134 00:14:44,860 --> 00:14:53,770 which is sadly, of enduring fascination. My title is Too Much History and Too Many Neighbours Europe in the Balkans before 1914. 135 00:14:54,970 --> 00:14:58,900 In the summer of 1914, shortly before the First World War broke out, 136 00:14:59,620 --> 00:15:06,130 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported on the recent Balkan wars, the wars of 1912 and 1913. 137 00:15:07,270 --> 00:15:13,209 It deplored the tendency of warring peoples to portray their enemies as subhuman and 138 00:15:13,210 --> 00:15:17,500 the all too frequent atrocities committed against both enemy soldiers and civilians. 139 00:15:18,370 --> 00:15:21,940 And went on to say, In the oldest civilisations, 140 00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:30,430 there is a synthesis of moral and social forces embodied in laws and institutions giving stability of character, 141 00:15:30,790 --> 00:15:34,060 forming public sentiment and making for security. 142 00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:40,810 Well, Europeans were shortly to learn that being part of an older civilisation, as they defined it, 143 00:15:41,050 --> 00:15:46,060 made absolutely no difference at all to what peoples were capable of doing to each other. 144 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:52,630 And I think this points to one of the questions that we need to consider when we look at the Balkans, 145 00:15:53,170 --> 00:16:00,010 and that is how much were the Balkans unique in European civilisation, in European history, 146 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:04,030 and how much were they part of that history and of that civilisation? 147 00:16:04,660 --> 00:16:10,270 And I would argue that it's very important to treat the Balkans very much as part of a wider world, 148 00:16:10,270 --> 00:16:13,959 not to see them as somehow an aberration in terms of European history, 149 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:21,820 not to see them as a small part of Europe, which somehow doesn't share in the other values and the norms and the standards of European society. 150 00:16:22,630 --> 00:16:27,640 I think it's also very important to remember, as we look at the outbreak of the First World War, 151 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:31,300 is it could have broken out over any number of issues. 152 00:16:31,930 --> 00:16:39,670 The period before 1914 in Europe was a time of intensified nationalism, national rivalry, 153 00:16:40,180 --> 00:16:47,050 competition on any number of levels, from arms races to colonies to trade. 154 00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:53,770 It was a period in which European powers were increasingly wary of each other and in 155 00:16:53,770 --> 00:16:58,540 which Europe was sadly becoming more and more used to the idea of a general war. 156 00:16:59,410 --> 00:17:07,060 War could have happened. A general war could have happened on a number of occasions before it finally broke out in 1914. 157 00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:15,100 It could have happened or certainly could have been a major war in 1898 when Britain and France confronted each other in Africa. 158 00:17:15,910 --> 00:17:23,500 That could have been a major war in 1905, when Britain and Russia found themselves at odds, 159 00:17:24,580 --> 00:17:29,290 particularly because they were backing different sides in the war that Russia was fighting against Japan. 160 00:17:29,980 --> 00:17:33,400 There could have been a general war in 1908 over the Bosnian crisis that could have 161 00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:38,770 been was over the two Moroccan crises that could have been general wars in 1911, 162 00:17:38,770 --> 00:17:44,770 1912 and 1913. Now, having said that doesn't mean that war was bound to break out. 163 00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:48,129 And I think one of the dangerous things looking at the First World War is we 164 00:17:48,130 --> 00:17:51,670 assume that because there were so many possible causes that it had to happen. 165 00:17:52,150 --> 00:17:58,030 And I think war had been avoided on previous occasions and could have been avoided in 1914. 166 00:17:58,420 --> 00:18:00,940 What happened in 1914 was, in my view, 167 00:18:01,450 --> 00:18:11,350 an incident which was then seized upon for various reasons by outside powers and turned into the sequence of events which led to a general war. 168 00:18:12,070 --> 00:18:16,360 But I think we do have to look at the Balkans, because that is, after all, where it started. 169 00:18:16,510 --> 00:18:23,650 And so I think we need to look at the ways in which what was going on in the Balkans intersected with what was going on in Europe. 170 00:18:24,490 --> 00:18:30,250 I would argue that much of what was happening in the Balkans in the 19th century, the development of the Balkan national states, 171 00:18:30,580 --> 00:18:37,270 the increasing tensions and rivalries between those states really was a reflection of what was happening elsewhere in Europe. 172 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:43,230 In fact, people in the Balkans were picking up ideas that were very much current elsewhere in Europe, 173 00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:48,130 the ideas of Mazzini, for example, about the rights of nations to have their independence. 174 00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:53,020 And increasingly, of course, young men, mostly young men from the Balkans, 175 00:18:53,020 --> 00:18:57,400 were travelling abroad, getting educations, picking up ideas, bringing them back. 176 00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:03,310 And increasingly, of course, thanks to modern communications, they could stay at home and get many of the same ideas. 177 00:19:03,700 --> 00:19:10,000 Nicholas Passage went off to Zurich for his education, graduating in 1872. 178 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:16,330 Princip and his co-conspirators were affected by ideas coming in from outside. 179 00:19:16,870 --> 00:19:20,800 Every sort of idea from Russian nihilists to the ideas of nature. 180 00:19:21,190 --> 00:19:26,829 Nietzsche was always very convenient because nobody understood what he meant anyway, and you could find almost anything you wanted in. 181 00:19:26,830 --> 00:19:30,960 And I mean, everyone from Hitler to vegetarians has found inspiration in nature. 182 00:19:30,970 --> 00:19:34,600 So I think we can see that it was a perhaps a rather dangerous. 183 00:19:35,450 --> 00:19:43,610 Set of ideas. Nationalism itself, which plays such a prominent part in what was happening in the Balkans in the 19th, early 19th, 184 00:19:44,330 --> 00:19:50,480 in the 19th and early 20th centuries was, of course, something very much stimulated by what was going on in Europe. 185 00:19:51,020 --> 00:19:59,680 The whole idea that nations had the right to independence and that independence was somehow coterminous with national territory. 186 00:19:59,690 --> 00:20:05,989 The idea that a nation was only complete when it could establish itself on a clearly defined piece of territory was something, 187 00:20:05,990 --> 00:20:11,060 of course, that the whole of Europe was grappling with in the course of the 19th century. 188 00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:17,180 What you also saw in the Balkans was, again, very much the sorts of developments you were seeing elsewhere in Europe, 189 00:20:17,180 --> 00:20:21,630 where you have people like all of us playing a part in creating national myths. 190 00:20:21,650 --> 00:20:27,559 National stories, national pasts, tales of triumph or tales of humiliation, 191 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:32,750 all of which fed into nationalist narratives and helped to create national movements. 192 00:20:33,290 --> 00:20:38,150 An English traveller who was travelling through Macedonia when it was still Ottoman territory, 193 00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:43,730 and that a school master from Serbia who was acting as a sort of missionary, 194 00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:48,170 and he believed that his purpose in life was to help to win over Macedonian. 195 00:20:48,650 --> 00:20:52,910 For the Serbians, he said, We got, said the schoolmaster to the English traveller. 196 00:20:53,390 --> 00:20:56,900 We got the children. We made them realise they were Serbs. 197 00:20:57,080 --> 00:21:03,260 We taught them their history. And this is just one example of something that was happening pretty much everywhere in Europe. 198 00:21:03,950 --> 00:21:09,500 Having said that, I think we need to situate the Balkans very much in a wider European story. 199 00:21:09,860 --> 00:21:14,930 And I think we also need to look at the particular factors that made the Balkans particularly unstable. 200 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:18,980 And I would argue that's really two things or perhaps three things. 201 00:21:19,730 --> 00:21:25,549 One is, of course, what was happening to the Ottoman Empire, which had controlled so much of the Balkans. 202 00:21:25,550 --> 00:21:28,550 And as the Ottoman Empire grew weaker, of course, 203 00:21:28,550 --> 00:21:36,680 it became more and more of a temptation both for the peoples within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, to think in terms of national independence, 204 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:41,060 but also more and more of a temptation for those from outside to meddle, 205 00:21:41,330 --> 00:21:46,070 to try and play off one party against another, and to try and advance their own interests. 206 00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:50,780 And then, of course, you get the further danger, which as it was, as many perceived it, 207 00:21:51,020 --> 00:21:53,870 when the ottoman suddenly looked as if they were going to pull themselves together, 208 00:21:54,200 --> 00:22:00,920 which for a number of reasons was not something that people in the Balkans or people in the wider European community thought was desirable. 209 00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:07,790 What you also had, of course, happening in the Balkans was the development of local strongly, 210 00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:12,470 strongly felt nationalisms, which often were in conflict with each other. 211 00:22:12,590 --> 00:22:21,770 You think of the competition between Serbian and Bulgarian nationalism, for example, or the conflict between Serbian and Montenegro nationalism, 212 00:22:21,830 --> 00:22:28,910 a conflict which was in some times Fed, and especially in the cases of Serbia and Montenegro, by dynastic rivalries as well. 213 00:22:29,660 --> 00:22:34,970 And what you increasingly got in the Balkans was these states, as they became independent, 214 00:22:35,690 --> 00:22:41,990 developing strongly held nationalist myths, which look back as is not surprising. 215 00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:48,319 Look back to the greatest moments of their past. And so you didn't get Balkan states and you didn't get states elsewhere in Europe 216 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:52,610 saying we once had a nice little compact country about the size of Switzerland. 217 00:22:52,610 --> 00:22:57,960 That's what we'd really like to have now. Well, of course, they look back to is the time they were at their largest extent. 218 00:22:58,220 --> 00:23:01,400 And so Serbia tended to look back to the 14th century. 219 00:23:01,790 --> 00:23:04,310 Bulgarians tended to look back to the 10th century. 220 00:23:04,700 --> 00:23:11,960 And what that meant, of course, was they were often claiming the same pieces of land, which was going to lead to endless trouble. 221 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,319 What also made the Balkans particularly troubled, I think, 222 00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:26,990 was not just the internal rivalries in the Balkans and the pressures to free remaining Balkan lands from the Ottoman Empire. 223 00:23:27,470 --> 00:23:34,549 But of course, it was the fact that the Balkans were always and had always been a subject of interest for outsiders. 224 00:23:34,550 --> 00:23:38,420 And geography plays a very important part here. The Balkans are at a crossroads. 225 00:23:38,900 --> 00:23:43,760 They are in a part of the world where outside powers have a great many interests. 226 00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:48,410 And you see this, I think, very clearly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, 227 00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:57,390 up until the second part of the 19th century, the outside powers had tended to act as a consort of Europe. 228 00:23:57,410 --> 00:24:02,600 Not always very perfectly, but had tended to act to in the interests of stability. 229 00:24:03,170 --> 00:24:07,070 It was a conservative arrangement. It did not want rapid change. 230 00:24:07,490 --> 00:24:12,590 When powers were obliged to accept change, they tended to do so in concert. 231 00:24:12,590 --> 00:24:17,960 And so the Concert of Europe recognised the emergence of Greece after a certain delay, 232 00:24:18,170 --> 00:24:24,410 gradually recognised the emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania as independent nations. 233 00:24:24,740 --> 00:24:27,920 But it was done, I think, on the whole with a reluctance. 234 00:24:28,220 --> 00:24:34,060 But what began to happen towards the end of the 19th century as the Concert of Europe began to break down? 235 00:24:34,630 --> 00:24:36,910 And increasingly you've got the great powers. 236 00:24:37,510 --> 00:24:42,909 And again, it was not particularly those close to the Balkans, but they tended to take a more direct interest. 237 00:24:42,910 --> 00:24:50,020 But also the further off great powers such as Britain and France and Germany increasingly at odds with each other. 238 00:24:50,410 --> 00:24:58,150 And so what you had, I think this toxic mix in the Balkans of local rivalries, hostility to the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire itself, 239 00:24:58,540 --> 00:25:07,180 trying desperately to maintain its position in the Balkans, and then the outside powers playing increasingly their own and separate games. 240 00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:12,460 The Ottoman Empire had, I think, as its purpose to simply to hang on. 241 00:25:13,030 --> 00:25:20,859 But what worried outside powers, of course, was was towards the end of the period in 1908, when the Young Turks took over, 242 00:25:20,860 --> 00:25:25,479 and it looked, in fact, as though the Ottomans would begin to think in terms of getting back what they had lost. 243 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:32,590 And that was, of course, particularly worrying for the Austrians in the case of Bosnia, but it was worrying in more general terms. 244 00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:38,100 The Ottoman Empire offered huge temptations for outside powers. 245 00:25:38,140 --> 00:25:45,040 The Straits, of course, which led from the Black Sea through into the Mediterranean, and the great prize of Constantinople itself, 246 00:25:45,670 --> 00:25:49,930 territory still in North Africa islands in the Eastern Mediterranean, and of course, 247 00:25:49,930 --> 00:25:54,890 all the lands which stretch through from the Levant into the Middle East. 248 00:25:54,910 --> 00:26:00,340 I mean, these were temptations, particularly in a in an age of heightened imperialism. 249 00:26:01,390 --> 00:26:06,219 Increasingly, it became apparent by the end of the 19th century that the great powers had less 250 00:26:06,220 --> 00:26:10,030 interest in working as a concert and more interest in promoting their own interests. 251 00:26:10,630 --> 00:26:15,370 In the case of Germany, for example, very new nation on the map of Europe. 252 00:26:15,820 --> 00:26:23,970 Germany, by the end of the 19th century, was feeling that its economic and military power was not matched by any sort of imperial power. 253 00:26:24,250 --> 00:26:26,290 And the Germans were looking for an empire. 254 00:26:26,770 --> 00:26:32,980 They managed to get a few bits of Africa, managed to get a few bits of the South Pacific, managed to establish a foothold in China. 255 00:26:33,340 --> 00:26:37,810 But of course, much more tempting in many ways was the Ottoman Empire so close at hand? 256 00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:45,700 And you also had in the personality of the German ruler Kaiser Wilhelm the second someone who was, 257 00:26:45,700 --> 00:26:51,640 I think, intoxicated by the ideas of somehow establishing a great empire close at hand, 258 00:26:51,970 --> 00:26:55,990 who called himself the protector of the Muslims, went to Constantinople, 259 00:26:55,990 --> 00:27:00,790 talked in rather grandiose terms about how he and the Ottomans were the best of friends. 260 00:27:01,420 --> 00:27:06,710 Perhaps more worryingly, from the point of view of those who had their own interests in the Ottoman Empire, 261 00:27:06,730 --> 00:27:11,480 the Germans began construction of a railway, the Berlin to Baghdad Railway. 262 00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:16,780 It was never finished. But in the days when railways were ways of spreading power and influence, 263 00:27:17,470 --> 00:27:23,980 the building of such a railway was something that caused alarm among those who also had designs on the Ottoman Empire, 264 00:27:24,460 --> 00:27:27,850 and the French had an interest in what was happening in the Ottoman Empire. 265 00:27:27,850 --> 00:27:36,070 They had extensive and extensive possessions in North Africa, and they had very direct concern in what happened to the rest of the Ottoman Empire. 266 00:27:36,820 --> 00:27:41,530 The Italians, also with their dreams of building an empire, again, 267 00:27:41,530 --> 00:27:45,909 looked southwards into the Mediterranean and further afield at the Ottoman 268 00:27:45,910 --> 00:27:51,280 Empire as something that was which could could fill their imperialistic goals. 269 00:27:52,120 --> 00:28:00,610 The British, as the world's biggest power, were really more and more had more interest in the status quo. 270 00:28:01,330 --> 00:28:06,790 But they did have concerns about the fate of the Ottoman Empire and protection of the Suez Canal, 271 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:13,630 and a very important lifeline out to the Far East and to British possessions in the Far East was extremely important for the British. 272 00:28:14,140 --> 00:28:18,610 And increasingly before 1914, they were worried not just that the Ottoman Empire would collapse, 273 00:28:18,610 --> 00:28:22,750 but that there was going to be a very serious naval race in the Mediterranean. 274 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:28,750 Austria-Hungary and Italy had ordered Dreadnoughts before 1914, which were now in service. 275 00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:37,570 In 1911, the Ottomans ordered one from the British and in 1913 brought one boat, one from Brazil, which was temporarily bankrupt. 276 00:28:37,990 --> 00:28:40,030 And so there was really fear, I think, 277 00:28:40,030 --> 00:28:46,930 in Britain of a of a shifting strategic balance in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Black Sea, Austria-Hungary, 278 00:28:47,350 --> 00:28:51,730 which of course, was much more closely involved with what was what was going on in the Balkans, 279 00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:55,120 became increasingly concerned about what was happening there. 280 00:28:55,120 --> 00:29:00,700 I mean, from the point of view of Austria-Hungary, if the Ottoman Empire had remained, this would not have been a bad thing. 281 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:06,220 It was the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire that really, I think caused concern in Austria-Hungary. 282 00:29:06,970 --> 00:29:10,210 More than that, there was the growth of Serbia, 283 00:29:10,690 --> 00:29:17,349 which after 1903 moved increasingly into a position of hostility towards Austria-Hungary and increasingly 284 00:29:17,350 --> 00:29:22,660 for Austria-Hungary began to be seen as an existential threat to the survival of Austria-Hungary. 285 00:29:23,140 --> 00:29:34,060 If the Serbian nationalists could have their way, which was frequently expressed of bringing in South Slavs into some form of union with Serbia. 286 00:29:34,540 --> 00:29:42,549 That would of course meant the disintegration of the southern part of Austria-Hungary and if Austria-hungary's South Slavs had begun to go, 287 00:29:42,550 --> 00:29:47,080 then that really would have meant the end of the empire. The Poles were already restive. 288 00:29:47,140 --> 00:29:54,280 There were seen instead of becoming restive, the Czechs were beginning to think in terms of greater autonomy within Austria-Hungary. 289 00:29:54,280 --> 00:30:02,530 And so Serbia was not just an irritant for Austria-Hungary, it was a threat they fought by by 1914 to its very existence. 290 00:30:02,980 --> 00:30:08,889 I think what Austria-Hungary would have preferred is some sort of standstill agreement 291 00:30:08,890 --> 00:30:14,500 in the Balkans and in fact it had such an agreement with Russia up until 1908. 292 00:30:15,010 --> 00:30:22,210 In 1897, Russia and Austria-Hungary agreed that they would respect the territorial status quo in the Balkans. 293 00:30:22,870 --> 00:30:31,000 Neither would interfere in the internal affairs of existing Balkan states and they would not make sudden moves without consulting with the other. 294 00:30:31,450 --> 00:30:38,620 In 1903, they made a further agreement to work together to put pressure on the Ottoman Empire to bring about reforms in Macedonia, 295 00:30:38,770 --> 00:30:41,770 where Christians were feeling increasingly restive. 296 00:30:42,250 --> 00:30:49,450 In 1904, Austria-Hungary made a neutrality agreement with Russia, which allowed Russia to send more troops out to the Far East. 297 00:30:49,450 --> 00:30:56,290 And so up until this period, relations between Austria-Hungary and Russia were in fact reasonable. 298 00:30:56,380 --> 00:31:01,880 Certainly as far as the Balkans were concerned, what began to change was, first of all, 299 00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:11,800 the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and then Russia's attempt to reassert itself and the Russian government after 1905, 300 00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:20,080 very, very badly shaken by both the war itself and the subsequent near revolution in Russia, began to rethink its international relations. 301 00:31:20,470 --> 00:31:29,590 And after a considerable debate in ruling circles in Russia, it was decided that Russia would switch its attention more to the West than to the east. 302 00:31:29,770 --> 00:31:38,290 It would give up on the attempt to build an empire in the in the Far East, in opposition to Japan, and would begin to concentrate more on Europe. 303 00:31:38,500 --> 00:31:43,030 And what that meant was that the Balkans became a lot more important in Russian thinking. 304 00:31:43,300 --> 00:31:52,470 They already were. But the Russian attention now begins to turn increasingly to the Balkans, and it is further fuelled by two developments. 305 00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:57,340 One is the increasing importance of the Black Sea in the straits for Russian trade. 306 00:31:58,090 --> 00:32:03,909 By 1914, something like 40% of all total Russian exports were going out through the Black Sea, 307 00:32:03,910 --> 00:32:08,830 through the Straits into the Mediterranean, and increasing amounts of imports were coming in. 308 00:32:09,010 --> 00:32:12,610 Russia was exporting mainly foodstuffs and importing machinery, 309 00:32:12,610 --> 00:32:17,350 which were both of which were absolutely crucial for Russia's very rapid economic development. 310 00:32:17,860 --> 00:32:27,280 In 1911 and 1912, the Straits were temporarily closed during the Italian Turkish war and then again in the first Balkan War of 1912. 311 00:32:27,580 --> 00:32:30,850 And it caused very, very serious economic repercussions in Russia. 312 00:32:31,210 --> 00:32:36,730 And so the Russians were becoming increasingly concerned for economic reasons about what happened to that part of the world. 313 00:32:37,300 --> 00:32:42,940 What also was beginning to happen, of course, was the growth of public opinion in Russia and Pan Slav ism. 314 00:32:42,940 --> 00:32:48,280 The idea that somehow Russia was the natural leader of all the Slavic peoples begins to play a part. 315 00:32:48,430 --> 00:32:52,600 I think it was used by government, but nevertheless begins to play a part in what you begin to get. 316 00:32:53,230 --> 00:33:02,350 Is the government in Russia feeling itself, pressured by what is now becoming the increasingly important factor of of of Pan Slav ism. 317 00:33:02,860 --> 00:33:09,310 And so what you have is the Russians and the Austro-Hungarian Hungarians, both with very strong interests in the Balkans. 318 00:33:10,090 --> 00:33:20,860 Those relations, that relationship reaches a crisis point in 1908 when Austria-Hungary without so Russia feels proper warning annexes Bosnia. 319 00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:27,850 And that really marks the end of any attempt to get a stand standoff agreement between Austria-Hungary and Russia in the Balkans from that point on. 320 00:33:28,180 --> 00:33:31,570 And I won't go into all the details because they're rather complicated from that point on. 321 00:33:32,140 --> 00:33:38,440 They see themselves as rivals, and they begin to look into the Balkans increasingly for possible allies. 322 00:33:38,890 --> 00:33:42,250 And so the Russians look increasingly to Romania. 323 00:33:43,270 --> 00:33:47,409 They toy with the idea of making a relation, an alliance with Bulgaria. 324 00:33:47,410 --> 00:33:49,870 But there are various reasons why this is difficult. 325 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:57,340 Increasingly, the Russians focus on Serbia as the focus of their attention and the way in which they can get influence in the Balkans. 326 00:33:57,730 --> 00:34:01,840 And increasingly Austria-Hungary works to try and counteract that. 327 00:34:02,470 --> 00:34:07,209 And so what you're getting in the Balkans is an increasing interference from outside 328 00:34:07,210 --> 00:34:14,800 powers and increasingly the Balkan nations themselves trying to influence affairs. 329 00:34:15,420 --> 00:34:18,460 This is this is noticed by European diplomats. 330 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:27,100 In 1912, a French diplomat says in St Petersburg in the history, for the first time in the history of the Eastern question, 331 00:34:27,670 --> 00:34:34,330 the small states have acquired a position of such independence of the great powers that they feel able to act completely without. 332 00:34:34,410 --> 00:34:39,990 Them and even take them in tow. And so what you're having is great power, interest and involvement. 333 00:34:40,230 --> 00:34:44,580 But increasingly, the nations of the Balkans making their own policies. 334 00:34:45,270 --> 00:34:51,180 And so what you get very, very rapidly is a deterioration in the Balkans, 335 00:34:51,240 --> 00:34:57,570 fed by outside influences, fed by the decline, and then brief revival of the Ottoman Empire. 336 00:34:58,110 --> 00:35:03,749 And increasingly a willingness and a propensity of the Balkan peoples to take matters into their own hands. 337 00:35:03,750 --> 00:35:12,640 And it is not just Balkan governments that are doing this. Increasingly, what you're getting is young Balkan peoples making their own decisions. 338 00:35:12,660 --> 00:35:21,840 I mean, it is very, very clear that terrorists and other young and young nationalists see themselves not just in conflict against outside powers, 339 00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:28,860 not just trying to fill a national dream, but also against their own establishments that they see the older generation as not moving fast enough, 340 00:35:28,860 --> 00:35:32,880 not doing enough to fulfil the nationalist dreams of the younger ones. 341 00:35:33,210 --> 00:35:37,890 Well, you probably all know the final stories, and I'll make it very brief as I think my time is up. 342 00:35:38,460 --> 00:35:47,430 In 1911, the Italians really helped to make the whole situation very, very much more dangerous by moving against the Ottoman Empire. 343 00:35:47,550 --> 00:35:54,810 The Italians have long had their eyes on the two provinces of North Africa, which they were going to put together as Libya, 344 00:35:55,320 --> 00:36:01,049 and on a number of islands belonging to the Ottomans at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, then they move in. 345 00:36:01,050 --> 00:36:08,610 What is a thoroughly cynical move, they claim that Italian citizens are being beaten up in Benghazi and Tripoli. 346 00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:13,810 They send an ultimatum and I think with two days notice, with a fool of impossible demands. 347 00:36:13,830 --> 00:36:14,309 This, of course, 348 00:36:14,310 --> 00:36:21,960 is going to be a precedent for a similar ultimatum that is going to be sent three years later and demand absolutely impossible things. 349 00:36:22,140 --> 00:36:24,780 People around Europe call it the policy of the stiletto. 350 00:36:25,980 --> 00:36:31,920 The Italians having prepared the ground and having loaded their troops onto troop ships already, 351 00:36:32,250 --> 00:36:37,470 then declare war on the Ottoman Empire and seize the territories that they want. 352 00:36:37,770 --> 00:36:46,980 What that does is show everyone in the Balkans that it's now possible to break previous agreements, attack the Ottomans and get away with it. 353 00:36:47,670 --> 00:36:52,680 Trotsky, who was a war correspondent in the Balkans in this period, 354 00:36:52,830 --> 00:36:58,650 talks to a leading politician in Serbia as the Italians are breaking, breaking apart. 355 00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:05,370 They the the peace in the Balkans attacking the Ottoman Empire as a leading politician in Serbia, 356 00:37:05,370 --> 00:37:09,990 says to Trotsky, there's no longer any status quo in the Balkans. 357 00:37:10,770 --> 00:37:15,300 Why should why didn't the powers defend the status quo when Italy seized Tripoli? 358 00:37:15,690 --> 00:37:19,830 And why should the Balkan states be treated as if they were not European, but like Morocco? 359 00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:26,280 And so what you get with the Italian war on the Ottoman Empire, I think is very, very important. 360 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:34,320 Watershed or threshold been crossed that it is now possible to attack the Ottoman Empire without really making very much excuse at all. 361 00:37:34,650 --> 00:37:42,480 And so in 1912, a Balkan League is formed under the patronage of the Russians who seem to have thought that they could control it, 362 00:37:42,630 --> 00:37:45,420 which was a very wrong assumption indeed. 363 00:37:47,070 --> 00:37:53,910 The Balkan League was set up and Bulgaria, Serbia first signing a treaty agreeing to divide the Macedonian lands. 364 00:37:54,090 --> 00:38:00,150 Greece then coming in. Montenegro coming in. And finally, Serbia and Montenegro making a deal. 365 00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:02,820 So by September 1912, the Balkan League is complete. 366 00:38:03,420 --> 00:38:11,520 They say that it is purely defensive, but of course it's directed against the Ottoman Empire and it is a league, really, that exists for aggression. 367 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:15,720 So the war breaks out in late October 1912. 368 00:38:16,140 --> 00:38:23,940 The Ottomans are rapidly defeated. The great powers still managing to keep some semblance of the concert of Europe doomed. 369 00:38:24,540 --> 00:38:27,600 There is a conference in London, both of the Balkan nations themselves, 370 00:38:27,900 --> 00:38:31,800 and a conference of the great powers to try and bring about some sort of peace. 371 00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:39,240 But what is very, very dangerous, I think, is that increasingly, even among the great powers, there's talk of a general war breaking out. 372 00:38:39,750 --> 00:38:45,690 And what it does, it also foreshadows in a very alarming way what's going to happen in 1914. 373 00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:52,050 France apparently gives a guarantee to Russia that if it comes to a general war, it will support it. 374 00:38:52,410 --> 00:39:00,450 And Germany gives not yet a firm guarantee, but gives an assurance to Austria-Hungary that it will stand by it if a general war comes. 375 00:39:00,870 --> 00:39:08,760 What the Balkan war also does, and it's succeeded by a very short war in 1913 when the Balkan nations plus the Ottoman Empire, 376 00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,150 turn on Bulgaria, which has done too well out of the first Balkan war. 377 00:39:12,150 --> 00:39:15,930 And it's a very complicated and not very edifying story. 378 00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:19,740 But what you also get coming out of that are resentments. 379 00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:26,340 You get the Russians saying to themselves, We will not let Austria-Hungary push Serbia around in the future. 380 00:39:26,730 --> 00:39:34,049 Austria-Hungary itself is increasingly obsessed with Serbia and Berchtold, the chancellor of Austria-Hungary says. 381 00:39:34,050 --> 00:39:39,240 Or. Foreign Minister Foster Hungary says in a very revealing word in his memoirs. 382 00:39:39,240 --> 00:39:45,600 Later on, he said Austria-Hungary was emasculated in the Balkan wars when it stood by and allowed Serbia to come out. 383 00:39:46,230 --> 00:39:54,510 Much increased inside. For the Serbians themselves, however, although they have grown markedly in size, their national project is still uncompleted. 384 00:39:54,930 --> 00:40:00,030 And so I think what you get happening in the Balkans is European rivalries playing themselves out, 385 00:40:00,510 --> 00:40:06,000 but also being caught up and feeding on and helping to feed local Balkan rivalries. 386 00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:14,520 And so when the second or the third crisis comes in 1914, you have a set of memories, you have a set of resentments. 387 00:40:15,030 --> 00:40:22,649 You also have, I think, a rather dangerous feeling that we got through the crises of 1911, 1912 and 1913. 388 00:40:22,650 --> 00:40:23,700 We'll get through this one. 389 00:40:23,910 --> 00:40:31,410 So it's a very, very bad mix of some of those who don't want to get through the crisis and some of those who think that they will get through it. 390 00:40:31,860 --> 00:40:38,520 And as we know, it leads to war. I don't think even so, that what happened in the summer of 1914 was inevitable. 391 00:40:38,910 --> 00:40:44,700 I think decisions were made different decisions, and those had been made in previous crises in the Balkans. 392 00:40:44,700 --> 00:40:51,990 But this time the decisions were made by statesmen who knowingly took a risk that the decisions they were making could lead to war. 393 00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,210 We will never agree on how the war started, 394 00:40:55,230 --> 00:41:01,290 and of course we are going to go on as the commemorations come around talking about how to remember that war. 395 00:41:01,620 --> 00:41:06,030 And there are as many memories, I think, as there are national viewpoints on the war. 396 00:41:07,410 --> 00:41:12,660 Christopher Clarke and I have both been attacked for saying unkind things about Serbians. 397 00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:23,310 I've been well, he's had it worse than me. I've been accused of well, I've had emails saying I should be fired because I call Princip a terrorist. 398 00:41:24,660 --> 00:41:31,470 It seems to me that he was. If you stand on the car of a running board of a car and shoot people point blank, that seems to me a terrorist act. 399 00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:37,670 But others would call him a freedom fighter. And I think it just gives we will probably be discussing this day. 400 00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,490 It just gives you an idea of the disagreements that we can have about it. 401 00:41:41,820 --> 00:41:46,350 How we remember the war, I think, is very much tied up with current politics. 402 00:41:46,350 --> 00:41:52,440 And I think the reason that so many Serbian nationalists are very sensitive about memories of the war has as much to 403 00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:58,230 do with Serbia's position in Europe today as it does with actually remembering something that happened 100 years ago. 404 00:41:58,590 --> 00:42:03,780 And I think the same thing is happening in Britain why we have this debate over 405 00:42:03,780 --> 00:42:06,809 whether the war should be remembered as a great moment of triumph for the British or 406 00:42:06,810 --> 00:42:11,219 whether it should be remembered as a catastrophe has something to do with Britain's 407 00:42:11,220 --> 00:42:15,750 relations with Europe today and something to do with British domestic politics. 408 00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:22,050 And so curious, though, it seems the events of 100 days ago are going to be something that go on haunting us. 409 00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,070 And I don't think we're not going to reach any agreement today that I hope we'll have a good argument. 410 00:42:26,250 --> 00:42:34,140 Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I, too, am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. 411 00:42:35,460 --> 00:42:41,850 I shall focus on the Yugoslav state as a phase in the resolution of the South. 412 00:42:41,850 --> 00:42:45,180 Slav question or is it questions? 413 00:42:46,050 --> 00:42:49,170 And I shall begin rather. 414 00:42:49,170 --> 00:42:59,950 Before the First World War, the crisis of dualism in Austria-Hungary entered an acute phase after 1903 as a result of three developments. 415 00:42:59,970 --> 00:43:08,520 First of all, the demands of the Hungarian opposition for parity in language and insignia within the Imperial and royal military, 416 00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:16,949 which escalated into national resistance against Austria and contributed to the electoral victory of the opposition 417 00:43:16,950 --> 00:43:24,030 coalition in 1905 that simultaneously provoked national demands among the minority nationalities in Hungary. 418 00:43:24,720 --> 00:43:33,930 Second, the national movement in Croatia exploded into May one when taking area and riots and seriously destabilised the regime of Bern. 419 00:43:33,930 --> 00:43:38,700 Karl Coyne, Heather Ruddock and his pro unionist and Serb proteges. 420 00:43:39,210 --> 00:43:40,020 And three, 421 00:43:40,020 --> 00:43:49,800 the dynastic revolution in Serbia removed the pro Austrian Abramovich dynasty in favour of an expansionist and pro-Russian ideology of its dynasty. 422 00:43:50,730 --> 00:43:58,920 The Abramovich foreign policy, which, thanks to the secret convention with Austria-Hungary over 1881 pursued southward expansion 423 00:43:59,370 --> 00:44:04,200 increasingly was being revised in favour of expansion into Bosnia and Herzegovina. 424 00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:12,060 As a result, the South Slavic question became the most dangerous threat to the security of the dual monarchy. 425 00:44:13,710 --> 00:44:23,190 In response to the South Slavic question, really the role of the predominantly South Slavic provinces in Austria-Hungary within the dual system, 426 00:44:23,850 --> 00:44:33,929 the Austro-Hungarian elites reacted variously. The dualist circle of Emperor King Franz Josef, the second developed really? 427 00:44:33,930 --> 00:44:42,320 No. Abolishing the great Austrian circle of Archduke Franz Ferdinand extended a trial estate to the South Slavs, 428 00:44:42,660 --> 00:44:49,950 with the unlikely prospect that the circles objections to the federal going dualism in the monarchy would be addressed by 429 00:44:49,950 --> 00:44:58,560 an even more decentralising realist system in which the South Slavs would gain the third unit besides Austria and Hungary. 430 00:44:59,460 --> 00:45:07,470 And third, the Hungarian politically elite was secretly gleeful over Austria's troubles in the Balkans, 431 00:45:08,010 --> 00:45:16,800 but maintained a myopic view that the South Slavic grievances were nothing but an expression of Vienna schemes at the expense of Budapest. 432 00:45:17,310 --> 00:45:26,129 These circumstances promoted a new political initiative by the political leaders that would argue against the old, 433 00:45:26,130 --> 00:45:35,580 sterile policy of relying on Vienna against Budapest and maintaining a vigorous front against the frozen agrarian Serb parties in Croatia, 434 00:45:35,580 --> 00:45:44,640 Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The new political initiative, or the new course, as it has traditionally been dubbed, 435 00:45:45,150 --> 00:45:51,360 commenced in 1905 under the leadership of two notables, both from Dalmatia. 436 00:45:51,870 --> 00:45:59,470 Journalist Francis Pillar of Dubrovnik, the editor of the field and newspaper novelist and Antithrombotic of Split. 437 00:45:59,490 --> 00:46:02,520 Lawyer and politician. Later the mayor of Split. 438 00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:07,380 Although both belong to the Dalmatian branch of the Nationalist Party of Right, 439 00:46:08,190 --> 00:46:15,810 the Romanian background militated against the anti-Mafia or ordeal of craft nationalists in the Hungarian half of the dual monarchy. 440 00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:27,120 They promulgated the platform of the new course, which included some traditional crop demands, the revision of the agreement or not by 1868, 441 00:46:27,270 --> 00:46:30,950 the acceptance of Croatia's financial independence and so on, 442 00:46:31,380 --> 00:46:41,370 but developed also some new calls on behalf on Croat, Serb National Oneness and the Cross State right. 443 00:46:41,430 --> 00:46:49,950 With the extended hand to the Slovenes and then the idea of a common front with all the anti-German forces in Austria-Hungary. 444 00:46:50,730 --> 00:47:01,170 In addition, reliance on Karageorge, which Serbia and ultimately Russia was among the unofficial A2 and secret strategic concepts of the new course 445 00:47:01,620 --> 00:47:09,690 with the ultimate and subversive goal of creation of a South Slav state of Yugoslavia with Serbia and Montenegro. 446 00:47:10,110 --> 00:47:18,450 Needless to say, outside of Austria-Hungary, Sophia Loren Trowbridge scored initial successes in their designs. 447 00:47:18,900 --> 00:47:24,540 By the autumn of 1905. The rifts among most of the current oppositional parties in Croatia, 448 00:47:24,540 --> 00:47:31,380 Slovenia and the Ameesha were healed, as were those between the craft and Serb oppositional parties. 449 00:47:31,410 --> 00:47:39,630 By December of 1905, the cross circulation developed a joining developed as a junior partner in the oppositional Hungarian coalition. 450 00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,630 And then on the wings of the Hungarian coalitions. 451 00:47:42,630 --> 00:47:50,790 Electoral victory of 1905 scored its own electoral victory in 1906, balloting for the Croatian Sabah Diet. 452 00:47:51,660 --> 00:47:56,460 Still just a founder. It clipped the wings of the Hungarian coalition. 453 00:47:57,030 --> 00:48:02,189 Once it came to power, he worked a civil effect on the victorious craft the Serb coalition, 454 00:48:02,190 --> 00:48:08,940 by engrossing it in the permanent displays of loyalty against the spectre of pan Serbian grand treason. 455 00:48:09,780 --> 00:48:11,640 After the Young Turk revolution, 456 00:48:11,670 --> 00:48:21,210 when the Foreign Minister Alois from NSL precipitated an international crisis by pressing for unilateral annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 457 00:48:21,510 --> 00:48:25,800 and after the triumphs of the Balkan states in the wars of 1912 1913, 458 00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:34,950 the real Serbian grand treason could no longer be notice for the crying, for the crying of wolf in the intervening years. 459 00:48:36,140 --> 00:48:40,910 By the time Gavrilo Princip fired his shots at Sarajevo Superior and Throne, 460 00:48:40,910 --> 00:48:47,420 which were spent politicians sufficiently alert to the dangers that were bound to follow by making 461 00:48:47,420 --> 00:48:54,230 a hasty retreat to Italy and from there to France and Britain under the new war circumstances. 462 00:48:55,510 --> 00:49:02,649 They place themselves at the head of the South Slav emigres from Austria-Hungary and created a self-appointed Yugoslav 463 00:49:02,650 --> 00:49:10,810 committee that resurrected the secret program of the new course no longer constrained by loyalties to Austria-Hungary. 464 00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:18,070 They opted for a union with Serbia and Montenegro, which they got in the most unwelcome form. 465 00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:23,320 Great Serbian form already, really during the course of the war itself. 466 00:49:24,610 --> 00:49:28,870 Even before Serbia's military collapsed in 1915, 467 00:49:29,380 --> 00:49:35,890 the Serbian government declared in December of 1914 that the unification liberation of all of our and free brethren. 468 00:49:35,950 --> 00:49:42,160 This is a quote. The Serbs, Scots and Slovenes of Austria-Hungary was one of its war aims. 469 00:49:42,910 --> 00:49:49,510 This did not prevent it from adjusting to the far more reduced and found offers which, 470 00:49:49,510 --> 00:49:56,470 in the event of an Allied victory after the signing of the Secret Treaty of London with Italy in April 1915, 471 00:49:56,860 --> 00:50:05,650 would have secured for Serbia most of southern back, most of Slovenia, and lost about me sheer and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 472 00:50:06,490 --> 00:50:12,580 Nor did it prevent it from seeking a separate peace with Austria-Hungary after the February revolution in Russia. 473 00:50:13,390 --> 00:50:20,770 Still sensing its weakness in July of 1917, the Serbian government signed an agreement with Yugoslav Committee, 474 00:50:21,250 --> 00:50:28,960 the so-called court for Declaration, which had bound itself to establish a united and independent Serb Slovene state. 475 00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:31,179 That would be a constitutional, 476 00:50:31,180 --> 00:50:39,790 democratic and preliminary monarchy headed by the kind of Georgia rich dynasty through which signed a declaration on behalf of the Yugoslav committee. 477 00:50:40,270 --> 00:50:48,940 So below this, enchanted by the policies of the Serbian government and convinced that Croatia was about to be partitioned between Italy and Serbia, 478 00:50:49,240 --> 00:50:53,470 departed from the Yugoslav committee and created his own grand committee, 479 00:50:53,860 --> 00:50:58,780 which would promote the independence of Croatia to the Allies ignored and isolated. 480 00:50:59,170 --> 00:51:01,960 He died in London in 1917. 481 00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:14,670 Serbia's choice between the small solution a supposedly allied sponsored safe expansion into the predominantly Serb territories of Austria-Hungary, 482 00:51:15,150 --> 00:51:22,410 which Serbia's Prime Minister, Nikola Passage and Regent Aleksandar supposedly rejected in favour of an unsafe, 483 00:51:22,470 --> 00:51:30,209 great solution of a union with the Krauts and Slovenes of Yugoslavia is still used as an argument against 484 00:51:30,210 --> 00:51:37,890 those who would begrudge Serbia the supposedly allowable missteps in the process of Yugoslav unification, 485 00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:43,680 as if the choice was real, as if nobody else had a choice in the matter. 486 00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:50,040 And as if states and governments can pick and choose between alternative futures. 487 00:51:50,670 --> 00:51:57,510 In fact, the war results turned out a lot better for Serbia than its political leadership anticipated. 488 00:51:58,170 --> 00:52:05,760 The Yugoslav committee and the political leadership of the South Slavs in the monarchy were ignored by the victorious allies, 489 00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:13,170 which failed to recognise the state of the Slovenian, Scots and Serbs that emerged out of the rubble of the monarchy in October of 1918. 490 00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:17,820 Unable to protect themselves against Italian territorial claims, 491 00:52:18,180 --> 00:52:25,170 domestic turmoil and the encroaching Serbian army, the monarchists Slav politicians, led by the liberal elite, 492 00:52:25,740 --> 00:52:33,450 caved in to Serbia and concluded an arrangement that brought forth a new state, the kingdom of the Serbs, 493 00:52:33,450 --> 00:52:38,940 Croats and Slovenes, with all the features of a perversely red program of the new course. 494 00:52:40,210 --> 00:52:47,050 Carrots and Slovenes were indeed red Austrian and fingering tutelage and retain most of their ethnic territories. 495 00:52:47,650 --> 00:52:51,760 But the continuity of the Serbian state and institutional centralism, 496 00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:57,249 which was enshrined in the Constitution of 1921 without any provisions for 497 00:52:57,250 --> 00:53:01,690 federalist safeguards or recognition of historical and ethnic particular reasons. 498 00:53:02,020 --> 00:53:08,050 But I wanted a new tutelage, admittedly under Masters, less formidable than those in Austria-Hungary, 499 00:53:08,380 --> 00:53:12,730 but certainly less committed to the rule of law and parliamentary procedure. 500 00:53:13,940 --> 00:53:24,200 Still the wealth and security of the South Slavs could have been enhanced in time through evolutionary adjustments had not. 501 00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:31,940 The results of the First World War created the conditions for the growth of communist and fascist totalitarianism. 502 00:53:33,290 --> 00:53:37,830 The real tragedy of Yugoslavia was not what transpired. 503 00:53:42,050 --> 00:53:47,000 Under the various. Corrupt and arbitrary. 504 00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:50,780 BELGRAVE Regimes of the 1920s and the early 1930s. 505 00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:56,690 Although these regimes undoubtedly radicalised political relations in the country, 506 00:53:57,260 --> 00:54:05,210 the real tragedy was that the occupation in 1941 put an end to the initial federalist measures. 507 00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:14,630 The February tragic agreement of 1939 that the Demons unleashed in 1941 made the post-war democratic state impossible. 508 00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:21,650 And the theatrics, federalism and non-alignment were as fake as they were welcomed by the West. 509 00:54:22,100 --> 00:54:27,590 Under the Cold War conditions. It was the tragedy of perversity and omission. 510 00:54:28,070 --> 00:54:37,280 Just as being is less transpired in Austria-Hungary, if we are to indulge in counterfactual speculation, however, 511 00:54:38,210 --> 00:54:44,390 we must also consider what the South Slavic area would have looked like in the 1960s 512 00:54:45,020 --> 00:54:49,280 in the absence of the First World War and presumably the Second World War as well. 513 00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:57,770 End of Yugoslavia. Public ostrich across from the liquor curve of a county of Croatia proper. 514 00:54:58,430 --> 00:55:03,920 And the Secretary of the Yugoslav Committee in London wrote the following in 1971. 515 00:55:04,820 --> 00:55:10,430 I quote Opatija near Rijeka was in 1918, purely Croat. 516 00:55:11,090 --> 00:55:14,090 Then came the Italians, the Italian schools, etc. 517 00:55:14,540 --> 00:55:21,410 In the summer of 1945, I went to a party to see what trace the Italians left behind. 518 00:55:22,220 --> 00:55:26,990 I walked the city streets and addressed the children. Elderly people did not interest me. 519 00:55:27,450 --> 00:55:32,660 All these exclusively in Croatian. They all answered my question. 520 00:55:33,110 --> 00:55:36,440 They understood them. My questions. They understood them. 521 00:55:36,860 --> 00:55:40,130 But not a single child. A child answered in Croatian. 522 00:55:40,700 --> 00:55:48,200 They responded in Italian. That was their language and what could have been the language of the country. 523 00:55:48,590 --> 00:55:50,510 Once they were of age. 524 00:55:50,540 --> 00:55:59,360 It follows from this that well-conceived, well conceived schools can change the character of a population within two generations. 525 00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:08,300 We like to brag that we withstood the threat of German ization, Italian ization, etc., which of course is not true. 526 00:56:08,930 --> 00:56:19,670 We were protected by our backwardness, primitivism, illiteracy, and the fact that previously the means of rapid nationalisation were not available. 527 00:56:20,270 --> 00:56:23,600 Nor was anybody particularly interested in such things. 528 00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:30,230 Now that nowadays it is otherwise. Had the Italians skipped, though meesha only 50 years. 529 00:56:30,650 --> 00:56:35,150 There would be no more Croats there. Moreover, in boy, were they not. 530 00:56:35,180 --> 00:56:42,710 The situation was similar. The elite, the educated folk who went to the Hungarian schools, spoke in the area. 531 00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:53,150 Dr. Milan Turchin, who was a Serb from Chamchamal, told me once that the liberation had the liberation been deferred by 50 years? 532 00:56:53,540 --> 00:56:56,670 There would have been no Serbs involved, were they? Not at all. 533 00:56:56,990 --> 00:57:00,620 And of course, for the purpose of identification, 534 00:57:00,620 --> 00:57:11,540 I should add that Ostovich was a lifelong friend of Iran marriage and of the New Europe Group RW Citizen Vets and became Steed and the rest. 535 00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:20,090 For these men, the fulfilment of the new course, fully or partially successful, came not a moment too soon. 536 00:57:21,140 --> 00:57:24,140 Now, a century after the Great War. 537 00:57:26,010 --> 00:57:31,200 Those whose outcome allowed for a Yugoslav solution to the South Slav oppression. 538 00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:34,320 Moreover, from a post Yugoslav perspective, 539 00:57:34,950 --> 00:57:45,780 it might be concluded that the contrasting legacies of this process were connected with the pluralisation of what were always South Slav questions. 540 00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:56,459 There there were and still are, several. This does not mean that their 20th century Yugoslav interface was in some sense 541 00:57:56,460 --> 00:58:01,980 wrong or avoidable errors are not plausible in the kinetic process of history. 542 00:58:02,790 --> 00:58:13,890 This interface cannot be discussed in isolation from the overreaching and overarching European and international issues of the 20th century. 543 00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:21,420 There still remain a number of the South, Slav and Balkan questions, and I think before we conclude, 544 00:58:21,420 --> 00:58:29,550 we might as well mention some of them which can and probably will be resolved in various ways in future. 545 00:58:29,910 --> 00:58:36,750 First of all, the Serb question, which of course, involves the fact that in the absence of the Yugoslav state, 546 00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:42,990 circulation is now divided among several successive states of Yugoslavia. 547 00:58:43,260 --> 00:58:47,400 And this is something that in various quarters in Belgrade is not the dead issue. 548 00:58:48,180 --> 00:58:57,360 If you read such things as pronounced opinions from your friends, your mentors, the to atrocities recently deceased, 549 00:58:57,660 --> 00:59:09,450 the issue of integration of Republika Srpska in Serbia with Serbia is something that is a long range foreign policy aim of the Serbian government. 550 00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:15,090 To what extent that is still lively in the present government, of course, is a matter for discussion. 551 00:59:15,420 --> 00:59:18,900 But this is something that is very much in the air. 552 00:59:19,350 --> 00:59:26,669 The question of the Serbs outside of Serbia proper, to a smaller extent, 553 00:59:26,670 --> 00:59:32,100 there is a question that involves the disposition of the courts in Bosnia Herzegovina, 554 00:59:32,430 --> 00:59:40,950 to some extent manipulated by the current government, but nevertheless an issue that keeps stirring in Bosnia Herzegovina itself. 555 00:59:41,670 --> 00:59:42,780 Needless to say, 556 00:59:42,780 --> 00:59:51,720 the Bosnian question is something that transcends the borders of Bosnia Herzegovina and involves neighbouring states of Serbia and Montenegro. 557 00:59:52,020 --> 00:59:59,880 The status of the soundtrack and indeed the status of Bosniaks outside of the central area, further to the southeast. 558 01:00:00,210 --> 01:00:11,790 This too is something that is not by any means over the Montenegrin question, which of course does not involve the status of Montenegro as a state. 559 01:00:12,150 --> 01:00:14,900 At least not in Montenegro, but elsewhere. 560 01:00:14,910 --> 01:00:24,090 Of course, the identity of Montenegrins, whether they are strictly that or besides also Serbs, is something that is by no means over. 561 01:00:24,390 --> 01:00:32,490 As anybody who follows the various examples from press outside of Montenegro and inside from European 562 01:00:32,490 --> 01:00:41,400 testify to the Macedonian question is also allowed to issue not just the question of the Macedonian state, 563 01:00:41,850 --> 01:00:52,050 which is, for all intents and purposes, partitioned between a Albanian third and the Slavic Macedonian two thirds. 564 01:00:52,380 --> 01:00:57,430 But the status of ethnic Macedonians in their community. 565 01:00:57,450 --> 01:01:01,500 The propagating spirit has once again become extremely lively. 566 01:01:02,460 --> 01:01:07,500 Needless to say, the question of the Macedonian state itself is something that is part of the 567 01:01:07,500 --> 01:01:12,570 larger Balkan issue in the relations with neighbouring neighbouring Greece. 568 01:01:13,740 --> 01:01:16,830 Besides these South Slavic questions. 569 01:01:17,370 --> 01:01:29,640 We have the Albanian question, which is a Balkan question, and that is, by anybody's judgement, the most lively of those mentioned, 570 01:01:30,030 --> 01:01:35,939 because the unification of Albanians into a single state is something that was the 571 01:01:35,940 --> 01:01:43,440 order of the day already in 1914 and is still as important as a hundred years ago. 572 01:01:43,860 --> 01:01:48,510 And finally, although I do not wish to make much of it, there is the Yugoslav question, 573 01:01:49,170 --> 01:01:57,990 because there are some who think that the resolution of all of these questions requires still a new version of the Yugoslav solution. 574 01:01:58,830 --> 01:02:01,050 I do not, of course, share that particular view, 575 01:02:01,380 --> 01:02:09,660 but we should not dismiss this as entirely implausible in the very complicated world of Balkan politics. 576 01:02:09,750 --> 01:02:15,280 Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 577 01:02:15,280 --> 01:02:21,070 I, too, would like to begin by thanking hosts this afternoon for organising this meeting. 578 01:02:23,380 --> 01:02:25,360 Margaret said in her introduction, 579 01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:37,720 or Elizabeth said in her introduction that my PhD thesis was on Anglo-german relations in the Balkans from 1911 to 1914. 580 01:02:39,070 --> 01:02:49,270 I should just like to point out that I began work on that thesis in 1964, which is as the arithmetic begins amongst, 581 01:02:49,270 --> 01:02:54,940 you will realise, precisely halfway between the outbreak of the war and this year. 582 01:02:55,540 --> 01:03:03,160 So I do not know whether I am here as a combatant or a commentator, but to turn to Bulgaria. 583 01:03:03,730 --> 01:03:12,610 Bulgaria, of course, was defeated in the First World War, and no nation really wants to dwell on its defeats. 584 01:03:13,630 --> 01:03:24,820 So in fact, at least until the last ten years or so, the First World War has not played a large part in Bulgaria's national consciousness. 585 01:03:25,510 --> 01:03:28,210 It's not the sort of thing they want to dwell on. 586 01:03:29,710 --> 01:03:36,700 Also, I think it's very important to point out that for Bulgaria, as indeed for the other Balkan states, 587 01:03:37,390 --> 01:03:46,660 the First World War is inseparable from and is basically a continuation of the Balkan wars of 19 1213. 588 01:03:47,710 --> 01:03:58,690 The Bulgarians speak of the second Balkan war in which they lost the conquests they made in the first as the first national catastrophe. 589 01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:07,990 They referred to it as a national catastrophe. When it happened, they refer to the First World War as the second national catastrophe. 590 01:04:08,680 --> 01:04:17,110 So there is a continuity and there is a similarity of outcome for both the Balkan wars and the First World War. 591 01:04:19,060 --> 01:04:29,670 To look at legacy as well. If you went into Bulgaria, then you would immediately be affected by one consequence of the First World War. 592 01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:35,020 Though you may not realise it because if you looked at your watch or the calendar, 593 01:04:35,830 --> 01:04:43,510 you would see that the date in the western Canada, in the Gregorian calendar and it was during the First World War. 594 01:04:43,510 --> 01:04:48,909 And as part of the process that the First World War that Bulgaria switched from the Julian 595 01:04:48,910 --> 01:04:55,090 calendar favoured by the Orthodox Church to the Western Canada favoured by its allies. 596 01:04:55,120 --> 01:05:00,520 Now you may think, oh, well, that was going to happen anyway, which it probably would. But it had been tried before. 597 01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:10,180 It had been tried in the 1890s by a modernising Bulgarian government, and the process of the attempt to change the calendar had been defeated. 598 01:05:10,810 --> 01:05:18,900 And it had been defeated essentially by the power and influence of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 1916. 599 01:05:18,910 --> 01:05:25,090 The Church was in no position to make that resistance and also the Germans pressed for it. 600 01:05:25,660 --> 01:05:36,700 And conveniently Eastern Easter, which and Tide and Ascension Day in 1916 were the same in the Western and the Eastern calendars. 601 01:05:36,790 --> 01:05:44,620 So that made it quite easy to switch. So there is one permanent, lasting consequence legacy of the First World War. 602 01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:50,980 Another one immediate consequence, which was not so long lasting but in some ways was quite important, 603 01:05:52,270 --> 01:05:58,240 was that after the First World War, Bulgaria was occupied by various allied troops. 604 01:05:59,230 --> 01:06:08,709 The largest number were at Italians. One of the things they brought to Bulgaria were Masonic lodges, which were already there before, 605 01:06:08,710 --> 01:06:13,090 but which flourished enormously and expanded enormously under Italian influence. 606 01:06:13,540 --> 01:06:16,150 In the immediate years after the First World War, 607 01:06:16,510 --> 01:06:24,580 and they became important politically because they became vehicles through which opposition politicians, 608 01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:29,170 politicians opposing the agrarian government, which I come to in a moment, 609 01:06:30,220 --> 01:06:39,490 a vehicle through which opposing politicians could meet, could organise and basically could conspire in which they did. 610 01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:51,249 As I say, it was a useful way to hide from the grey and ice after the allied occupation and certainly after the advent of the Communists, 611 01:06:51,250 --> 01:06:58,090 after the Second World War. Of course, the Masonic lodges came under enormous pressure and were eventually dissolved, 612 01:06:58,750 --> 01:07:06,160 but it was one of the early signs of the relaxation of the communist regime in Bulgaria in 1986, 613 01:07:06,790 --> 01:07:12,070 when a Bulgarian historian called Village of Gay Ogier Sullivan Vale give. 614 01:07:12,610 --> 01:07:15,940 Published a book on masonry in Bulgaria. 615 01:07:16,510 --> 01:07:19,990 It sold out within hours. It was an absolute sensation. 616 01:07:20,140 --> 01:07:31,840 Fascinating book, too. But the whole process of the whole phenomenon of Masonic lodges in Bulgaria was very much a consequence of the First World War. 617 01:07:34,060 --> 01:07:41,830 Well, I wasn't going to turn to more obvious and important effects and consequences of the war, 618 01:07:42,850 --> 01:07:48,549 or should I say the wars, the Balkan wars and the First World War and the First World War, 619 01:07:48,550 --> 01:07:59,230 of course, being concluded as far as Bulgaria was concerned by the Treaty of many nations and on the 27th of November 1919. 620 01:08:00,880 --> 01:08:10,330 I'll talk first about the implications and of the Treaty in Foreign Affairs, and then I'll talk about domestic affairs. 621 01:08:12,790 --> 01:08:20,530 Once in a BBC Bulgarian service broadcast on the First World War and its consequences. 622 01:08:21,370 --> 01:08:29,050 I said that the Treaty of Nice and was not particularly harsh in territorial terms, 623 01:08:29,530 --> 01:08:34,360 that the Bulgarians didn't get off too badly as far as territory was concerned. 624 01:08:35,350 --> 01:08:42,909 The next time I was in Soviet, I was in deep water and deep trouble, because of course, the Bulgarians don't see it that way. 625 01:08:42,910 --> 01:08:49,900 But it's true. I mean, content compared with the territories lost by Hungary, by the Ottoman Empire, by Germany. 626 01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:55,450 What Bulgaria lost may have been important, but it was not extensive. 627 01:08:57,400 --> 01:09:05,260 There were four areas in which the treaty made territorial stipulation. 628 01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:12,100 The first was that three small enclaves on Bulgaria's western border, 629 01:09:12,610 --> 01:09:24,550 its border now with the state of the Yugoslavia of the prime kingdom that were taken, were ceded to the new Yugoslav state. 630 01:09:25,900 --> 01:09:30,790 They were predominantly Bulgarian in population and probably still are. 631 01:09:31,840 --> 01:09:39,790 It's not a serious issue in Bulgaria, but Bulgarian nationalists will not forget the fact that there are these three areas 632 01:09:39,790 --> 01:09:44,230 on their Western territory and to the west of them which are essentially Bulgarian. 633 01:09:45,070 --> 01:09:53,740 And again, I got into trouble by mentioning that once in a broadcast and an attack by a Yugoslav young Yugoslav student who said very interestingly, 634 01:09:53,740 --> 01:10:04,860 in fact, that most of those Bulgarians, most of those constituencies in these enclaves voted for Milosevic to were pro Milosevic in the 1990s. 635 01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:16,110 The second area, which Bulgaria lost was the southern region, which had been occupied in the First Balkan war and then in the First World War. 636 01:10:16,120 --> 01:10:21,370 If you think of the map of the Balkans, where the Danube turns north, 90 degrees north, 637 01:10:21,370 --> 01:10:26,670 the WGA is the area between the north and Danube in the Black Sea and the southern part of it. 638 01:10:27,780 --> 01:10:36,790 It was part of Bulgaria, a very mixed area in terms of ethnic composition, a lot of Turks and other races there. 639 01:10:37,540 --> 01:10:45,460 But from Bulgaria's point of view, this great importance was that it was the most fertile area of the whole country, 640 01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:49,990 and it produced large quantities of grain. 641 01:10:50,630 --> 01:10:54,910 And so it was an important area from that point of view. 642 01:10:56,620 --> 01:11:00,880 The third area, Bulgaria, lost whilst Bulgarian Thrace. 643 01:11:01,510 --> 01:11:09,670 And between basically the right of the mountains and the Aegean Sea, that area had been occupied again, 644 01:11:09,700 --> 01:11:14,800 most of it during the first Balkan War and then again in the First World War. 645 01:11:16,060 --> 01:11:23,170 It was a territory which contained 90,000 ethnic Bulgarians, by most accounts. 646 01:11:24,580 --> 01:11:36,130 And it was an important area for Bulgaria because after the the Balkan wars, despite the defeat in the second book War, 647 01:11:36,790 --> 01:11:45,520 Bulgaria retained a strip of territory from Bulgaria, a problem that might as well go down to the Aegean coast, 648 01:11:46,750 --> 01:11:51,340 down to the port of the or Alexandroupolis as it is now. 649 01:11:52,210 --> 01:11:58,240 And this was important for the Bulgarians and the idea that was not much use to then perceive that as a port, 650 01:11:58,240 --> 01:12:02,580 because the railway took down the many severely wound in and out of Ottoman territory. 651 01:12:02,590 --> 01:12:10,720 So the Bulgarians spent a lot of money and a lot of effort starting to build a new port at Port Lagos on the Indian coast. 652 01:12:12,160 --> 01:12:14,560 It was very important, this whole business, 653 01:12:15,010 --> 01:12:23,200 because it enabled the Bulgarians to export their goods through this southern port directly into the Mediterranean. 654 01:12:23,230 --> 01:12:31,330 It cut off three or four days of sailing for from the port seven of Burgas on the Bulgarian coast, 655 01:12:31,480 --> 01:12:34,590 down the Black Sea, through the Straits into the Mediterranean. 656 01:12:34,630 --> 01:12:38,680 The corridor to the Aegean was extremely important. 657 01:12:41,170 --> 01:12:45,850 The Aegean itself was important too, as I say, 658 01:12:45,850 --> 01:12:54,010 because of the access to the Mediterranean and after the defeat of the Second Balkan War, the Bulgarians had been allowed to keep it. 659 01:12:55,150 --> 01:13:04,270 After the defeat in the First World War, the Allies recognised the importance of this and in Article 48 of the Treaty of Milan, 660 01:13:04,270 --> 01:13:09,969 which probably is the most important article in the whole treaty as far as most Bulgarians were concerned. 661 01:13:09,970 --> 01:13:16,540 And still today, you will find Bulgarians arguing about the importance of Article 48 of the treaty. 662 01:13:17,110 --> 01:13:24,280 Article 48 of the Treaty of Nice said that Bulgaria would be allowed economic access to the Aegean. 663 01:13:25,450 --> 01:13:29,860 It didn't say how that was to be achieved, and it never was achieved. 664 01:13:30,250 --> 01:13:36,970 But it was a very important concession to the Bulgarians and one which they constantly raised. 665 01:13:38,170 --> 01:13:41,230 It was very important to them, I say. 666 01:13:41,260 --> 01:13:51,070 They became resentful, increasingly resentful of the fact that the Western allies, the victorious allies, never fulfilled their promise in Article 48. 667 01:13:51,670 --> 01:14:00,729 It also had other effects. It was useful diplomatically for the Bulgarians because it enabled them to argue for 668 01:14:00,730 --> 01:14:07,600 territorial change without arguing for the redesign or the tearing up of the treaties. 669 01:14:07,690 --> 01:14:12,790 It made them to be to make territorial gain or demands without being what, 670 01:14:13,030 --> 01:14:18,640 in the contemporary jargon was revisionist, you know, without wanting to revise the peace treaties. 671 01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:29,020 It also enabled them to establish ties with revisionist states. 672 01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:42,240 And in the 1920s, the chief diplomatic thrust of Bulgarian foreign policy was to seek the cooperation with Italy, another revisionist power. 673 01:14:42,250 --> 01:14:54,979 But in this case, of course, the victorious power. So Article 48 and the Aegean, the third territorial area, was very important to Bulgarians. 674 01:14:54,980 --> 01:14:59,450 The fourth and final territorial settlement affected Macedonia. 675 01:14:59,960 --> 01:15:04,450 And this, of course, is one of the great issues in Bulgarian history. 676 01:15:04,460 --> 01:15:08,180 It's one of the leitmotif of Bulgarian history. 677 01:15:08,300 --> 01:15:12,980 The fact that Bulgaria and Macedonia are not joined. 678 01:15:12,980 --> 01:15:22,550 Were not joined. But I'm going to spend a couple of minutes on this because it is very, very important, 679 01:15:23,240 --> 01:15:35,450 not only in terms of diplomacy and in terms of the territorial settlement, but it's important because of the dynamics of nationalism in the Balkans. 680 01:15:39,290 --> 01:15:46,430 Elizabeth. Sorry. Margaret referred to her Serbian teacher, referred to the Serbian teacher in Macedonia. 681 01:15:47,150 --> 01:16:01,340 Now it is almost certain that that Serbian teacher was working alongside four with the Serbian Orthodox Church because the main thrust for national 682 01:16:01,700 --> 01:16:13,400 recruitment in Ottoman Macedonia by the Christians was to persuade the local Christians to enrol in that particular branch of the Orthodox Church. 683 01:16:13,670 --> 01:16:17,810 Greek, Bulgarian music. Those were the three. 684 01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:24,800 And the church has made enormous efforts to popularise themselves and to gather in supporters. 685 01:16:24,920 --> 01:16:31,490 There was one church, but for example, in the far southwest of Macedonia in Harrison, 686 01:16:32,660 --> 01:16:41,930 which had huge support, the Bulgarian church, because the Cantor had the most stupendous voice. 687 01:16:42,500 --> 01:16:44,630 He had a wonderful voice and people flocked to hear him. 688 01:16:45,590 --> 01:16:55,040 Many more people flocked in later years on a wider stage to hear his son, who was the great operatic bass, Boris Christoph. 689 01:16:57,770 --> 01:17:07,219 But the fact that the Christian populations were operating in this fashion trying to recruit support through 690 01:17:07,220 --> 01:17:16,520 their churches was only possible because the Ottoman Empire had an indulgent attitude towards religions. 691 01:17:16,790 --> 01:17:20,540 As long as those churches did not revolt, oppose the Sultan. 692 01:17:20,960 --> 01:17:24,980 They were free to conduct their own religious affairs. 693 01:17:25,370 --> 01:17:33,020 So the Serbs and the Bulgarians and the Greeks were free to try and attempt to attract support to their own particular churches. 694 01:17:33,830 --> 01:17:34,580 And they did that. 695 01:17:34,910 --> 01:17:42,770 And one of the interesting things about the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, for example, was that contrary to the usual Orthodox tradition, 696 01:17:43,430 --> 01:17:50,450 the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was not in the Bulgarian state, but he was in Constantinople. 697 01:17:51,410 --> 01:18:00,950 And that was because from Constantinople he could operate in favour of the Bulgarian exile exile churches in Macedonia, 698 01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:04,700 as well as dealing with the Bulgarian churches in Bulgaria. 699 01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:12,560 After 1913, the Bulgarians lost Macedonia. 700 01:18:13,220 --> 01:18:19,460 But Macedonia and the Macedonian territories they coveted were now included in Greece or Serbia, 701 01:18:20,060 --> 01:18:24,290 where the attitude towards the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was entirely different. 702 01:18:25,370 --> 01:18:35,150 The Bulgarian population of Macedonia was now ruled by assertive, centralised, nationalist, modernising states, 703 01:18:35,270 --> 01:18:43,850 not by an indulgent Ottoman Empire based on the notion of the military to separate religious communities. 704 01:18:44,030 --> 01:18:52,400 And it was a cruel blow to Bulgarian national aspirations in Macedonia that this happened in the after, in fact, the second Balkan War. 705 01:18:53,240 --> 01:19:03,110 The head of the Bulgarian church eventually moved his headquarters to Sofia, giving up on the struggle for Macedonia in the First World War. 706 01:19:03,170 --> 01:19:10,310 Of course, the Bulgarians occupied Macedonia again. So the Bulgarian Orthodox Church moved in with its priests, etc. 707 01:19:11,210 --> 01:19:20,390 But after this, to the First World War, the loss of the territory once again meant the loss not just of the territory, 708 01:19:20,780 --> 01:19:26,720 but the loss of the means by which that territory could become more Bulgarian ized. 709 01:19:27,290 --> 01:19:28,760 And this was the critical factor. 710 01:19:31,130 --> 01:19:39,500 Now, the title of my lecture was it was in 1919 of the First World War, the turning point at which Bulgaria failed to turn. 711 01:19:40,190 --> 01:19:52,329 So an answer that. The answer is yes, but in most respects it turned back again in 1923 after the First World War, 712 01:19:52,330 --> 01:20:00,010 if there was a contest between the urban left, the socialists, communists and the agrarian. 713 01:20:01,140 --> 01:20:10,630 And the contest was won by the Aryans who dominated Bulgarian politics from 1919 until a violent coup in June 1923. 714 01:20:11,620 --> 01:20:19,360 The agrarian leader Alexander establishing did not take Macedonia very seriously. 715 01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:23,170 His idea was that, okay, this is a terrible settlement. 716 01:20:23,170 --> 01:20:28,960 It's stupid, but like the settlement in 1878 with eastern Romania, that too is stupid. 717 01:20:30,100 --> 01:20:33,640 In time people see it, you'll see it stupid and it will rectify itself. 718 01:20:34,000 --> 01:20:42,640 In the meantime, we must come and cultivate good relations with Yugoslavia in a venue that's not a state. 719 01:20:43,090 --> 01:20:51,700 And in any case, in all probability, history will so evolve that the whole of the Balkans will soon be dominated by agrarian style government, 720 01:20:52,060 --> 01:21:00,070 in which case national boundaries will be a little significance, and Macedonia will cease to be an important question. 721 01:21:01,510 --> 01:21:06,640 He was certainly not going to let this question complicate his relations with Belgrade, 722 01:21:07,270 --> 01:21:14,050 and he signed a convention with the Yugoslav government march on the borders of Serbia and Bulgaria, 723 01:21:15,340 --> 01:21:22,059 agreeing that Bulgaria had no claim on Macedonia and agreeing that he and his government would 724 01:21:22,060 --> 01:21:29,049 do what they could to suppress the Bulgarian of Macedonian terrorists or freedom fighters, 725 01:21:29,050 --> 01:21:34,660 calling them what you will who were operating out of Bulgaria and stumbling U.S. government moved 726 01:21:35,290 --> 01:21:42,850 thousands of Macedonians from near the Yugoslav and Greek borders to the east of Bulgaria. 727 01:21:45,160 --> 01:21:53,110 After stumbling fell, they reasserted themselves, particularly in the extreme southwestern corner of Bulgaria, 728 01:21:54,040 --> 01:21:58,330 in a place called Putin in the pit Pétain area, the pit in mountains. 729 01:21:58,780 --> 01:22:08,380 They formed a basically a state within a state, and they then became an extreme embarrassment to the Bulgarian government. 730 01:22:09,340 --> 01:22:15,110 Their internal feuds, as well as their attacks upon Greece and Serbian Institute, 731 01:22:15,140 --> 01:22:19,660 Greek and Serbian institutions of Macedonia embarrassed the Bulgarian government, 732 01:22:20,590 --> 01:22:28,030 and it angered both Serbia and Greece to the extent, for example, that in October 1925, 733 01:22:28,420 --> 01:22:38,950 a division of the Greek army occupied part of southern Bulgaria for a number of days in 1933. 734 01:22:39,640 --> 01:22:46,150 These activities became dangerous to the Bulgarian government, with the signature in London of a convention on terrorism. 735 01:22:47,230 --> 01:22:56,770 The convention said that any state which did not suppress terrorists on its own territory, which were operating in the territory of another state, 736 01:22:57,250 --> 01:23:06,340 were that any state in that position was committing, and it was breaching international law and breaching the convention against terrorism. 737 01:23:06,730 --> 01:23:14,139 This was dangerous because immediately the Bulgarian government realised that here the danger was Greece and Serbia. 738 01:23:14,140 --> 01:23:21,100 Greece and Yugoslavia now would align together against Bulgarian actions as they had in 1913. 739 01:23:21,370 --> 01:23:32,320 It would be a recreation of the disastrous Serbian Bulgarian axis, Serbian Greek axis of 1913, which destroyed Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia. 740 01:23:34,300 --> 01:23:35,530 Now we get another rerun. 741 01:23:35,950 --> 01:23:45,939 The Second World War again saw Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia, and again the Bulgarian church flowed in Bulgarian schools were established. 742 01:23:45,940 --> 01:23:52,120 The first university ever was established in Skopje during the Bulgarian occupation. 743 01:23:53,530 --> 01:23:55,180 Again, of course, the Bulgarians lost. 744 01:23:56,290 --> 01:24:08,740 And then from 1944 to 1948, as the Communists were becoming more and more powerful, there was essentially a rerun of the position from 1919 to 1923, 745 01:24:09,190 --> 01:24:16,020 when the new incumbent radical government was really dismissive of Macedonia, 746 01:24:16,030 --> 01:24:23,889 dismissive of Bulgarian claims to Macedonia in 19 9023 that had been an agrarian government which had taken that line from 1994. 747 01:24:23,890 --> 01:24:29,710 From 1944 to 1948, it was a communist dominated government which took the same attitude. 748 01:24:29,950 --> 01:24:38,860 Okay. Yes, Macedonia has it now has a new, separate identity as the People's Republic of Macedonia. 749 01:24:40,300 --> 01:24:47,710 The Balkans will evolve into a new. Confederation in which, again, national boundaries will cease to be of great importance. 750 01:24:48,070 --> 01:24:52,900 So we needn't worry about Macedonia and even the Bulgarian government. 751 01:24:53,170 --> 01:25:03,729 In the end of 1947, 48 began to encourage the teaching of Macedonian in schools in those parts of Bulgaria, 752 01:25:03,730 --> 01:25:06,280 which were part of Macedonia pitying Macedonia. 753 01:25:06,880 --> 01:25:15,460 They set up a theatre in the main town in Macedonian theatre and they taught Macedonian history in the schools in that area. 754 01:25:17,260 --> 01:25:18,879 It all came to an end, 755 01:25:18,880 --> 01:25:31,900 a rapid end in 1948 because the chief drivers of this move towards Balkan Confederation or consolidation were Tito and David Dimitrov, 756 01:25:31,900 --> 01:25:37,840 the Bulgarian leader. But they didn't keep Stalin fully informed of what they were up to. 757 01:25:38,350 --> 01:25:46,060 And Stalin took this as one, one of his pretexts for breaking off relations with Tito. 758 01:25:47,020 --> 01:25:53,230 After the break with Tito, the Bulgarians became totally subservient to the Soviet line. 759 01:25:53,980 --> 01:25:58,810 And I think with a heavy sigh of relief for many Bulgarian communists, 760 01:25:59,080 --> 01:26:05,050 they dropped this Macedonian line, but this supporting Macedonian separate identity. 761 01:26:05,980 --> 01:26:09,220 And from 1948 until 1989, 762 01:26:10,090 --> 01:26:16,209 the Macedonian question in Bulgaria was essentially a means of promoting what's 763 01:26:16,210 --> 01:26:20,560 the Bulgarians regarded as their rightful historical cultural claims on Macedonia? 764 01:26:20,890 --> 01:26:30,940 And any historic historian from the West or elsewhere who went to Bulgaria was deluged with free books by the Institute of Balkan Studies in Sofia, 765 01:26:31,360 --> 01:26:36,940 nearly all of them about Macedonia and how it had always been Bulgarian and always would be Bulgarian. 766 01:26:39,250 --> 01:26:50,050 The only time, as far as I know, that the Bulgarian Communist government sent a note of protest to the Soviet government was when 767 01:26:50,500 --> 01:26:57,340 the Soviet Academy of Sciences published a Russian Macedonian Macedonian Russian dictionary, 768 01:26:58,150 --> 01:27:02,860 and the Bulgarians protested, saying This was totally unnecessary. There's no such thing as a separate Macedonian language. 769 01:27:03,670 --> 01:27:08,980 And for the Bulgarians to protest to Moscow in those years, it was really quite unusual. 770 01:27:09,970 --> 01:27:16,420 As I say, I think it's the only one. The only case I know of it happening after 1989. 771 01:27:19,320 --> 01:27:26,790 There was a period of instability in the sense in terms of Bulgaria's attitude towards Macedonia. 772 01:27:27,570 --> 01:27:36,240 But in 1992, Bulgaria became the first state to recognise the newly separated Macedonian state. 773 01:27:36,720 --> 01:27:44,690 And finally. They did this because they feared that Turkey might do said before them, 774 01:27:44,690 --> 01:27:51,890 and thereby establish a greater diplomatic and cultural influence in Macedonia than Bulgaria would enjoy. 775 01:27:53,270 --> 01:28:05,740 But they also did it because there were rumours, apparently fairly credible rumours that the 1913 Greek Serbian axis was again being considered. 776 01:28:05,750 --> 01:28:14,480 And there were rumours that the Greeks and the Serbs had talked about the partition of Macedonia, 777 01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:25,040 in which case, of course, Bulgaria would be left out. But it was a sort of half and half measure, this really recognition of the Macedonian state, 778 01:28:25,310 --> 01:28:30,440 because the Bulgarians specifically said, we do not recognise the Macedonian nation. 779 01:28:31,070 --> 01:28:37,320 And that remained the case. And during the 1990s, relations were patchy and difficult. 780 01:28:37,340 --> 01:28:46,280 And inside Bulgaria itself, there was still considerable pressure and agitation over the Macedonian issue. 781 01:28:47,930 --> 01:28:55,070 Then in 1999, in February 1999, the second agreement between Skopje and Sofia was signed, 782 01:28:55,460 --> 01:29:01,430 in which case in which both sides renounced all territorial claims on the other, 783 01:29:02,240 --> 01:29:10,820 and it was agreed that negotiations between them would be conducted in, quote, the official languages of the two countries. 784 01:29:12,380 --> 01:29:27,380 Didn't say what they were. This was done primarily because Bulgaria was seeking admission to Natal and to in the long term, to the European Union. 785 01:29:28,070 --> 01:29:38,090 And of course, both those organisations are extremely reluctant to accept any state with serious border problems, nearly always. 786 01:29:39,830 --> 01:29:41,870 But in in effect, so far, 787 01:29:43,190 --> 01:29:54,620 the February 1999 agreement between Skopje and Sofia seems to have settled this Macedonian issue as far as internal Bulgarian politics are concerned. 788 01:29:54,920 --> 01:29:58,880 That is not to say all Bulgarians have forgotten about Macedonia, far from it. 789 01:30:00,140 --> 01:30:09,380 But in terms of official policy, it is not now a feature of Bulgarian diplomacy or Bulgarian activity. 790 01:30:10,130 --> 01:30:19,370 And in that sense, at long last, perhaps that particular legacy of the Balkan First World War has been laid to rest. 791 01:30:20,780 --> 01:30:28,010 So those are the main external effects and legacies of the First World War and the Balkan wars are now. 792 01:30:28,040 --> 01:30:31,070 Say a few words about the domestic effects. 793 01:30:33,020 --> 01:30:41,990 Obviously, there was a huge impact on human life in terms of lives lost, lives ruined and lives disrupted. 794 01:30:43,400 --> 01:30:49,500 Bulgaria mobilised a greater percentage of its male population than any other combatant in the First World War. 795 01:30:50,030 --> 01:31:00,650 And so the effect was considerable. It produced the war itself, produced internal dislocation with men away. 796 01:31:01,490 --> 01:31:09,350 And also, as I say in the moment, animals mobilised, the crops were harder to take in. 797 01:31:09,620 --> 01:31:15,830 The harvests fell. And by the end of the war, there was severe malnutrition and there were food riots in Bulgaria. 798 01:31:16,170 --> 01:31:18,650 And really throughout 1918. 799 01:31:21,140 --> 01:31:28,850 One of the stipulations, the Treaty of No, a domestic one, but one closely associated with foreign affairs, was the Bulgarian military establishment. 800 01:31:29,600 --> 01:31:37,880 This was to be limited to a maximum of 20,000 men in the army who were all to be volunteers. 801 01:31:38,600 --> 01:31:44,330 And there were two. There was to be no general staff, no Air Force and various other restrictions. 802 01:31:44,950 --> 01:31:51,500 And these very often were evaded arms were smuggled in and buried. 803 01:31:51,830 --> 01:31:55,310 People were trained secretly, secretly in military camps. 804 01:31:56,270 --> 01:32:03,679 And later on, in the 1930s. The evasion of the military clauses of the Treaty of No became a useful means for 805 01:32:03,680 --> 01:32:12,650 the King to enlist the support of the Army and against his other internal foes. 806 01:32:14,660 --> 01:32:27,140 Another treaty stipulation concerning reparations, Bulgaria, was to pay 2.25 billion gold francs to the allies within 37 years. 807 01:32:29,030 --> 01:32:37,610 The sum was reduced in 1923 and the payments abolished by the Convention on Reparations in Lausanne in 1932. 808 01:32:38,450 --> 01:32:44,330 By which time Bulgaria had paid over 40 million gold francs to in reparations. 809 01:32:44,870 --> 01:32:50,390 This was not just just a cache of gold that the Bulgarians had to part with. 810 01:32:51,440 --> 01:32:55,670 They had to hand over to Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania. 811 01:32:56,180 --> 01:32:59,750 Coal, railway equipment and livestock. 812 01:33:01,220 --> 01:33:15,620 Of the latter, there were they were to hand over a total of 125 bombs, 13,500 million cows, 12,500 horses and a mass and 2500 meals. 813 01:33:16,310 --> 01:33:19,880 Now, I just mentioned those figures for a particular reason. 814 01:33:20,600 --> 01:33:29,300 As I said a little bit earlier, mobilisation in Bulgaria, in England, not merely humans, but also animals and particular draught animals. 815 01:33:29,450 --> 01:33:37,999 And in Bulgaria, the need for draft animals was probably greater than in any other of the combatant states, because the areas occupied by Bulgaria, 816 01:33:38,000 --> 01:33:46,940 except in the dungeon, but mainly the areas in the south, in Thrace and in particular in Macedonia, had very few roads and almost no railways at all. 817 01:33:47,570 --> 01:33:52,040 The only way you could move equipment and supplies was by draft animals. 818 01:33:52,130 --> 01:33:59,150 So huge numbers of animals were moved into Macedonia to support the Bulgarian military occupation. 819 01:33:59,840 --> 01:34:05,000 And the fact of course, most of them didn't come back and that then more had to be handed over, 820 01:34:05,390 --> 01:34:11,330 had a very serious effect upon Bulgaria's agricultural capability. 821 01:34:14,690 --> 01:34:17,750 War also caused in Bulgaria as elsewhere, 822 01:34:18,440 --> 01:34:24,259 a centralisation of the economy and indeed it caused a military takeover of the economy 823 01:34:24,260 --> 01:34:30,140 in 1917 because of maladministration and corruption by the civilian authorities. 824 01:34:31,010 --> 01:34:37,750 The problems were intense and manifold. I mean, the problems were the Germans were buying up huge amounts of food. 825 01:34:37,760 --> 01:34:45,710 They were allowed to spend so much. Each German soldier was allowed to send so much food home per month, per year. 826 01:34:46,280 --> 01:34:52,660 The numbers of the amount sent were huge and in excess 50 100,000 times more than was permitted by law, 827 01:34:53,420 --> 01:34:57,110 partly because the Germans controlled the telephone service most of the railway system, 828 01:34:57,410 --> 01:35:02,190 but also mainly because German and Austrian currencies have been made legal tender in Bulgaria 829 01:35:02,210 --> 01:35:07,040 during the war and they were much stronger than the Bulgarian lives of the Austrian farmers. 830 01:35:07,610 --> 01:35:12,559 Those who were left sold their produce when they could to the Germans and the 831 01:35:12,560 --> 01:35:16,880 Austrians before the Bulgarian requisitioning authorities got their hands on. 832 01:35:20,270 --> 01:35:26,419 Corruption again was another problem. There was one case where some this is my by-line the binder. 833 01:35:26,420 --> 01:35:34,520 Before the event, a Bulgarian arranged for a fake air raid on Burgas Harbour, 834 01:35:35,120 --> 01:35:41,480 during which he loaded 30,000 sheep into two ships in bogus harbour and made an absolute fortune of it. 835 01:35:41,930 --> 01:35:45,260 And I say it's my reminder of on the left, 836 01:35:47,930 --> 01:35:57,620 the precedent for the takeover in command setting of a command economy was followed in Bulgaria at the beginning of the Great Depression, 837 01:35:57,620 --> 01:36:03,170 when the Bulgarian government set up a green purchasing agency and trading agency controlling the business, 838 01:36:03,650 --> 01:36:08,210 which means of import or export of grain, and then in the Second World War. 839 01:36:08,390 --> 01:36:12,890 And of course, then but in the setting up of the command economy. 840 01:36:13,220 --> 01:36:16,820 Under the Communists, there were clear precedents to follow. 841 01:36:18,980 --> 01:36:24,200 The political impact I mentioned radicalisation through deprivation. 842 01:36:24,470 --> 01:36:29,720 And then the defeat which produced the agrarian versus communist contest. 843 01:36:30,140 --> 01:36:35,150 And then the agrarian regime which proved to be very corrupt. 844 01:36:35,360 --> 01:36:40,940 It was it lacked an administration cadre, administrative cadre, and it did prove corrupt, 845 01:36:41,990 --> 01:36:48,440 and it did spawn a whole series of conspiracies, many of them hatched inside these Masonic lodges. 846 01:36:49,340 --> 01:37:03,320 And it's this these brought about in 1923, the violent coup by the army and the then non agrarian, non socialist political union parties. 847 01:37:04,850 --> 01:37:10,400 There was a repeat of the agrarian communist duel after after the Second World War. 848 01:37:10,670 --> 01:37:15,920 But of course this in this occasion the Communists came out on top. 849 01:37:16,640 --> 01:37:23,180 But there was no doubt when that struggle began that the agrarian who had the stronger force, 850 01:37:24,330 --> 01:37:29,600 the communists were strong in Bulgaria, that the agrarian in terms of popular support were strong. 851 01:37:31,340 --> 01:37:42,780 Some people believe that one of the reasons why the non-Communist anti Aryans were so supine in this period, why, 852 01:37:42,830 --> 01:37:52,110 which enabled the Communists to take over, helped them to take over, was the fact that many unable to stop many, 853 01:37:54,640 --> 01:38:01,250 many non-aggressive non-communist who had been frightened by agrarian successes after the First World War and 854 01:38:01,250 --> 01:38:06,410 therefore did not want to do anything which would enable them to come back to power after the Second World War, 855 01:38:06,560 --> 01:38:09,680 which meant that the communist task is easier. Easier. 856 01:38:10,520 --> 01:38:13,920 Lie 30 minutes is up until the.