Reforms without Substance, Violence without End
Од Wikibooks
Modern viewers of the past 15 years in the Balkans can point to any number of cases, the most flagrant being Kosovo, where a wide gulf exists between the vaunted standards of Western interventionists and their dismal application in reality. The situation was no different a century ago.
Nevertheless, as has been the case in modern Balkan experience, the intervening forces tried to put a rosy spin on things; what was championed was “the spirit of Mürzsteg,” an excessively optimistic picture of the reforms. Agenor Goluchowski, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, saw Mürzsteg as advancing two objectives. First, the February or Vienna reform plan accepted by Turkey had to be enforced by the two Civil Agents sent by Austria-Hungary and Russia. Second, he saw the goal as humanitarian intervention “to come in aid of the Christian populations which suffered so much from the war and devastations.”
The Mürzsteg Programme was thus heralded as a peacekeeping mission to restore stability and order in Macedonia, and to give the Macedonian people a greater say in their future by establishing greater local autonomy. Goluchowski saw the intervention as one that would benefit the population, because the Great Powers would be a benevolent, neutral force separating the Turkish forces and the revolutionary committees. That was the plan, anyway.
What in fact happened was a worsening of the cycle of violence between the Turks and the revolutionaries. Soon it became clear that the key problem with the reforms was that there was no outside supervision or monitoring. The Turks and their co-religionists were free to continue their atrocities against the Christians. The situation thus actually continued to deteriorate further following the reforms.
And the discrimination extended well down the chain of command. Albanian Muslim beys in the Kosovo vilayet rejected the concessions granted to the Orthodox Christians, particularly to the hated Serbian population. These Albanian officials, known as the “dire beys” or “lords of the valleys,” refused to allow Christians into the gendarmerie. Instead, they launched raids and attacks on the already persecuted subject population.
The flaws of the reforms were that the measures proposed were under-funded or not funded at all. The officials, policemen, and soldiers were not regularly salaried. This created an incentive to maintain the status quo. No general amnesty was offered to the insurgents. Article 5 of the program established a commission to review and evaluate amnesty claims, but the uncertainty precluded refugees from returning to face jeopardy. Finally, the British government wanted a Christian governor to supervise the reforms instead of a Turkish subject in the service of the Turkish government. This presented a conflict of interest that made the implementation of the reforms unworkable.
