Repression, Unease and the Call for Intervention
Од Wikibooks
The brutal Turkish counter-measures against the Macedonian insurgents created a widespread popular perception in Europe that something had to be done to stop the “murders and rapine” in Macedonia, as a contemporary observer put it. While the British government proposed administrative and judicial reform in Macedonia, the traditionally cautious imperial power was however committed to maintaining the status quo- i.e., Turkey’s continued rule in the Balkans. British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, in a speech before the House of Commons on September 14, 1903, stated that “the balance of criminality lies not with the Turks, but with the rebels.”
There was notable dissonance between the Great Powers, which all sought to protect their own interests in the region. Britain eventually came around to the idea of a sovereign Macedonia under a Christian governor, but Russia and Austria-Hungary opposed this plan. Germany opposed any restrictions on Turkish sovereignty.
For his part, US President Theodore Roosevelt discussed the Macedonian crisis and suppression of the insurgency in his December 6, 1904 State of the Union message before Congress. “In Turkey,” he said, “our difficulties arise less from the way in which our citizens are sometimes treated than from the indignation inevitably excited in seeing such fearful misrule as has been witnessed both in Armenia and Macedonia.” Nevertheless, the United States did not get directly involved with the turbulence in the Balkans.
A key role in the Great Power negotiations was played by the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Vladimir Lamsdorff, who went to Vienna to discuss the plan with his Austrian counterpart. The count also visited Belgrade on December 26, 1902, and four days later reached Sofia. The outcome of this shuttle diplomacy was announced in February 1903 as “the Viennese Plan” or Vienna Reform Scheme. The Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid was forced to accept this unpleasant new check on his sovereignty in the Balkans- a sign of how desperate were the fortunes of the once mighty Turkish empire.
The Vienna Plan was the direct precursor to the Mürzsteg reforms, which established zones of responsibility for each of the Great Powers. These states charged themselves with overseeing the implementation of reform and keeping a lookout for any abuses of human rights by the Turkish authorities. However, the mission was fragmented and had no ‘muscle,’ meaning that the observers were unable to intervene directly to stop the bloodshed.
The Austro-Hungarian and Russian plan included recommendations from Britain as well. But these measures were perceived as merely cosmetic and superficial; it was already a case of too little too late in a wild land on the brink of independence and flirting with chaos. Ultimately, the Vienna Plan and its successor, the Mürzsteg Programme of reforms, would fail.
By 1908, when the Great Powers had lost all confidence in the Macedonian reforms and when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, it was clear that a major, region-wide war was in the offing. The former failure led to the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, and the latter provocation to World War I. Given the enormity of these events, it is remarkable that very few pay attention to the role of Western intervention and rivalries in the Macedonia crisis of the first decade of the twentieth century.
