On that journey, at a little village which I cannot name between Silivri and Chatalja, the population was largely Greek. Some of the Greeks, after the Turks had fled before the Bulgarians, had discarded the fez and were wearing Bulgarian caps. Others held to the fez, but had marked on it with white chalk a cross. I formed the opinion that if by the fortune of war the Turks came back, those crosses would be rubbed out. The Greek can be very pliant undoubtedly, when he is in contact with a dominant people. The other side to his character--that of a hot-headed, argumentative, boisterous Donnybrook Fair patriotism--is developed in his own country where it is fed with memories of the historic greatness of his race.
The Roumanian--the fourth national type in the Balkans to which I shall refer--very closely resembles the Greek in most respects. Like the Greeks the Roumanians are subtle, flexible, engaging. They are a singularly good-looking race, and Roumanian girls are sought after in marriage a great deal. A Serbian politician explaining to me what he called "a nice national balance," pointed out that the Serbians rather despised trade and finance. The Roumanian, therefore, came into Serbia to make money as shopkeeper and financier. Then the young Serbian man married the rich Roumanian's daughter and thus the Serbian money was still kept in the country.
The instinct for trade has a very marked effect on the politics of the Balkans. The Serbian has no love for trade: the Montenegrin despises it quite. The Greek and the Roumanian are very keen traders with an inclination to escape from manual work as soon as they can. The Bulgarian is a trader and also fond of productive industry. So "as two of a trade never agree," neither Greek nor Roumanian can get on as well with the Bulgarian as with the Serbian.
The Roumanian national polity differs greatly from the Greek, though the two racial types are very similar. Whilst Greece has a stormy and disorderly democracy, Roumania is ruled practically by an oligarchy--an oligarchy which during the past twelve months has won to an achievement which would have delighted the old Florentine Republic. Without losing a soldier, almost without spending a crown, Roumania has won a great tract of territory and established herself as the paramount power of the Balkans. It was a victory of unscrupulous and patient resoluteness which is a classic of its kind, and it was made possible by the oligarchic system of Roumania. The Montenegrin does not need to be considered separately: he is the "Highlander" of the Serbian and shares Serbian language, customs, and character with such modifications as the conditions of his mountain life impose. But the Albanian, the largely Mohammedan mountain type to which the jealousies of Europe have agreed to give a separate nationality and a separate kingdom, calls for some attention. The Albanian is the wildest of the Balkan types, and his country the most primitive. It has had no period of civilisation, and can hardly be said to promise to have. Its existence as a nation in 1914 was due to the fact that the German Powers wished to have a footing in the Balkans for intrigue. "The creation of Albania dealt a death-blow to the Balkan League," said a cynical Austrian diplomatist recently. He was right: and the creation of Albania undertaken at the instance of Austria had no other purpose from the first, though it was disguised under the plea of anxiety for the national rights of the Albanians, wild catamarans of the hills, odd specimens of whom one may encounter in many parts of the Balkans acting as dragomans. The Albanian has many savage virtues. He is a picturesque fellow as he swaggers about with a silver-decorated armoury stuck in his waist-belt: and he is truly faithful to a master. But he has not the barest elements of a national organisation; and the Austrian Prince of Albania did not find a single house within all his dominion which would satisfy the housing needs of a respectable London clerk.