The international intervention in the Kosovo vilayet was based not on humanitarianism, but on advancing the national interests of the intervening powers, the Great Powers. The intervention was an exercise in imperialism and colonialism as each power sought to exert its influence and control in the Balkans. In the Sunday, February 23, 1908 New York Times, correspondent Stephen Bonsal wrote in the article “Christendom’s Champions in Macedonia”, that “each of the European Powers wants to improve the situation in the Balkans, but in a way to help their own interests.” He found that “instead of devoting their energies to their humanitarian mission they are occupied in quarreling over railway concessions.” Bonsal argued that Austria-Hungary was motivated by an interest to construct a railway line in the Balkans: “It is unpleasant to have to picture the frame of mind of the Macedonian Christian peasant, be he of Greek, Bulgarian, Serb, or Roumanian origin, when he learns that his Christian protectors have fallen out and are departing in high dudgeon, not because his particular reform measure has not been adequately carried out, but because he has been refused the railway concessions he wanted for profit and for national advantage.”

Zagorichani destroyed after the 1903 insurgency in the Kosovo vilayet.

International Peacekeepers

The Italian carabinieri peacekeeping force was deployed to Macedonia from 1904 to 1911. Their mission was to reorganize the Ottoman Turkish gendarmerie. The carabinieri made up the core of the peacekeeping mission in the Kosovo vilayet. Their objective was ultimately only to improve the administrative apparatus of the Ottoman Turkey in Macedonia, which was then part of the Kosovo vilayet.

The carabinieri, cavalrymen whose weapon was a carbine or rifle, were a gendarmerie who functioned as military police and as peacekeepers. The corps of Carabinieri Reali, the Royal Carabinieri, was established under the Regie Patenti, Royal Patents, on July 13, 1814.

Two women stand amid the ruins of Zagorichani.

“Peace with Honour”?: From the Congress of Berlin to World War I

The European Great Powers met at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to resolve the "Eastern Question" by delineating the final and definitive Balkan borders. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli declared that the agreements at the Berlin Congress represented “peace with honour”. Otto von Bismarck, who hosted the Congress, regarded himself as an “honest broker” who advocated Realpolitik, a diplomacy based not on ethics or theory but on actual or real situations that required a balance of power or balancing of competing interests. Bismarck and Disraeli had concluded that the conflicting interests of the Great Power rivalry had been resolved at Berlin. In fact, nothing had been resolved. The Great Powers had only created the temporary appearance of stability based on considerations of self-interest. British and German foreign policy was focused on preventing Russian expansion into the Balkans. Ultimately, the objective was to prop up the Ottoman Turkish Empire and to prevent its imminent collapse.

LEFT: A member of the carabinieri in the Kosovo vilayet, 1907. RIGHT: The carabinieri uniform with fez.

As part of the Treaty of Berlin, Disraeli was able to negotiate the Cyprus Convention, which allowed Britain to establish a strategic naval presence on Cyprus to safeguard British shipping lanes to India and British colonies in the far and near East. William Gladstone dismissed the Cyprus Convention as “an insane convention”.

Queen Victoria reiterated the fact that British policy during the Eastern Crisis was motivated by maintaining British imperial and colonial power, not humanitarian concerns. In a letter read in the cabinet on April 21, 1877, Queen Victoria wrote: “It is not a question of upholding Turkey; it is a question of Russian or British supremacy in the world.”

Disraeli eschewed diplomatic caution. He argued for a swift and forceful British response in order to maintain British imperial supremacy in a May, 1877 conversation with Queen Victoria: “There is among the leading members too great a fear of responsibility. This is not the way ... to maintain empires.”

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the British Foreign Secretary, traveled to Berlin to negotiate the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. When Disraeli and Dascoyne-Cecil returned to London, Disraeli triumphantly proclaimed in a speech in the House of Commons on July 16, 1878:

"Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace—but a peace I hope with honour."

Left: Gregory Shcherbina, the Russian Consul in Kosovska Mitrovica, assassinated by an Albanian Muslim in 1903. Middle: Russian Foreign Minister Vladimir Lamsdorff, 1900-1906. Right: Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Izvolsky, 1906-1910.

The unresolved issues of the 1878 Congress of Berlin would lead inextricably and ineluctably to World War I. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Hercegovina on October 6, 1908. Article 25 of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin gave Austria-Hungary only the right to "occupy and administer" Bosnia-Hercegovina  This illegal action in violation of the Treaty of Berlin precipitated the Bosnian or Annexation Crisis of 1908 and led directly to World War I. The responses to this criminal act were criminal acts by those who lived under Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Hercegovina. One crime was followed by subsequent crimes in response. This was an instance of state terrorism. The response was counter-terrorism. The “international intervention” in 1878 had only exacerbated the tensions and conflicts in the Balkans.

Insurgency in the Kosovo Vilayet

In 1902, an insurgency erupted in Macedonia against the Ottoman Turkish occupation. The Macedonian insurrection threatened to undermine the Ottoman Empire in Europe, “Turkey in Europe”. In 1903, Albanians sought to create a Greater Albania by violently preventing an international diplomatic presence in Kosovo. Russia and Austria-Hungary continued to support the Ottoman Empire, the Sublime Porte, by seeking to find a way to ensure stability and to preserve the status quo. Their goal was to prevent the rapid dissolution of the Ottoman Empire because that would allow the indigenous peoples to determine their own political futures and would preclude their influence and control.

The Murzsteg Agreement was a way for bringing normalcy to the Balkans and preserving the status quo. The Italian peacekeeping mission, consisting of the Royal Carabinieri, was formed as a result of the Murzsteg Agreement of October 2-3, 1903 between the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary and Russia. The reform plan was based on the assumption that changes needed to be implemented in the Kosovo vilayet to prevent the complete collapse of Turkey in Europe. The reform of the Gendarmerie in Macedonia was needed because the abuses of the authorities were seen as one of the major causes of the uprising in Macedonia. As in Crete, reform measures were needed to pacify the population after the uprising of 1902 in Macedonia.

There was corruption in the gendarmerie and its members were accused of embezzling the local population. Colonel Henry Lorenzo Albera, the Italian Military Attaché based in Monastir or Bitola, described one instance in a letter of June, 1904:

"The gendarmerie is now a mass of indiscipline, immorality, and poverty. Officers and troops have lived until a few months ago on robbery, extortion and bribery. There are no barracks … equipment, administration and service…. Nothing or little is registered …”

The Turkish government agreed to hire 60 foreign officers who would be paid by Turkey. The Turkish government initially understood that the officers were only to consist of 25 advisers, who would be consulted based on their professionalism and expertise.

The carabinieri had established their reputation as peacekeepers and instructors during their role in Crete beginning in 1897 in reorganizing the gendarmerie. Italy sought, like Russia and Austria-Hungary, to expand its diplomatic and political role in the Balkans. The Italian Foreign Minister Thomas Tittoni was in charge of organizing the Italian peacekeeping mission under the Murzsteg plan.

On January 1, 1904, Lieutenant General Emilio De Giorgis had taken command of the mission. He had earlier been the commander of the Division Cagliari, with the official title of Lieutenant General Réorganisateur, Lieutenant General Riorganizzatore. On January 2, 1904, Captain Balduino Caprini, was made a part of the command, an officer of the Italian Army, who was a veteran of the international peacekeeping mission in Crete.

On April 8, captains Frederick Craveri, Carlo Cicognani, and Rodolfo Ridolfi Ettore Lodi and Giovanni Battista Basso, were selected for the mission from the Italian Army. On April 23, Lieutenant Joseph Luzi was added to the mission. The Turkish government, through the Ottoman Bank, paid their salaries and travel expenses and procured their uniforms and horses.

The requirements for the peacekeepers were that they had to be unmarried and without children, they had to know French, the language spoken fluently by Turkish officials, and they had to commit to stay in Macedonia for a period of not less than three years.

New York Times correspondent Stephen Bonzal noted that the “deadlock [was] due to clash of selfish interests” among the Great Powers. He concluded: “This complete failure of the powers which intervened in the affairs of Turkey on humanitarian grounds, is an unfortunate occurrence, but when it becomes patent (and who can deny it?) that the break-down is motivated by a clash of sordid money interests and a sparring for selfish political edvantage [sic], good may yet come of the collapse---more good certainly than could follow a continuance of the former state of make-believe and do-nothing.”

Kosovo: Plight of Serbian Population

Kosovo was excluded from the purview of the Murzsteg reforms. The plight of the Serbian population in Kosovo continued to deteriorate as Albanian nationalists were determined to take over Kosovo and to annex it to a Greater or Ethnic Albania. The Albanian population violently opposed humanitarian international intervention in the Kosovo vilayet because it was perceived as supporting the Serbian population at the expense of the Albanian objective to seize Kosovo. The international or foreign intervention in Kosovo consisted primarily in the establishing of Russian diplomatic missions in Kosovo. Russian foreign policy had focused on the Balkans after the 1878 Congress of Berlin as Russia and Austria-Hungary vied to fill the vacuum left by Ottoman Turkey.

The main street in Ochrid, circa 1906.

On March 29, the Albanian mobs attacked the town of Vojinovic. Isa Boletini and other Albanian ultra-nationalists who sought to annex Kosovo to a Greater Albania, incited riots against the Russian diplomatic presence in Kosovo. Isa Boletini incited the assassination of Shcherbina. Albanian mobs attacked Vojinovic and Vucitrn, “the Albanians first robbed the Church of St. Elijah, dispelled the funeral procession, turned over the coffin with the deceased, and continued raging and looting Vucitrn”. Albanian mobs then were planning to attack Kosovska Mitrovica. Shcherbina requested that Hilmi Pasha deploy a Turkish infantry regiment to Svinjari to prevent an Albanian attack on Mitrovica.

The Albanian attack on Mitrovica began on March 30, 1903. The Turkish garrison, which consisted of 300 troops, was able to drive back and to disperse an Albanian force of 2,000 insurgents.

Shcherbina monitored the developments in the town. While at the train station, Ibrahim Halit, an Albanian Muslim guard, fired two shots at Shcherbina. One bullet struck and wounded Shcherbina in the shoulder. The murder was based on the besa or oath of revenge. Shcherbina died on April 10 from his wounds. He was eulogized in the Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti:

“He fell in the battle for the honorable cross, he parted with his suffering soul after several days of torments; he died for the holy Orthodoxy and freedom of the Serbian people. The son of powerful Russia laid his head in Kosovo, protecting and defending the non-liberated brothers, in the name of his Emperor and in the name of his homeland’s power. With his death, he proved the love and care of his master for our non-liberated brothers, with his death he more closely tied the two same-blooded nations, the Serbs and the Russians.”

Shcherbina’s coffin was transported by rail from Kosovska Mitrovica to Skopje, the capital of the Kosovo vilayet. Kosovo Serbs greeted his coffin as the train made stops in Pristina, Urosevac, and Vucitrn.

Kosovo and Russia

Russian diplomatic and political involvement in the Balkans increased during the 1890s. Czar Nicholas II had increased the level of Russian diplomatic involvement and commitment in the Balkans. The coup d’etat on June 11, 1903 in Belgrade resulted in the assassination of Alexander Obrenovich and his wife Draga. They were replaced by the Karageorgevich dynasty under Peter. The pro-Austrian policy of the Obrenovich regime was transformed into an anti-Austrian policy under the new government. This resulted in a commercial or economic war between Serbia and Austria known as the Pig War. This policy shift resulted over conflict over Bosnia, leading to the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary in 1908 and the abandonment of the Sandzak. Moreover, the Russian and Austrian rivalry in the Balkans intensified with a collapse of Russian-Austrian collaboration and cooperation. The tensions with Austria-Hungary resulted in closer Serbian and Russian diplomatic, military, and political ties.

From 1900 to 1906, the Russian Foreign Minister Vladimir Lamsdorff focused his diplomatic efforts on the Eastern Question or Crisis and the Murzsteg reforms, the proposed administrative reform of Ottoman Turkish administration in the Kosovo vilayet. He had been at the 1878 Berlin Congress when he was part of the Russian mission of Prince Alexander Gorchakov, the Chancellor of the Russian Empire. In late 1902, he personally visited Belgrade, Sofia and Vienna to discuss the Balkan crises with Serbian premier Nikola Paši?, Hristo Tatarchev, and Agenor Maria Go?uchowski. In September, 1903, he accompanied Nicholas II to Vienna and the Austrian district of Murzzuschlag in Styria where the Murzsteg Agreement was reached between Russia and Austria-Hungary. Like Bismarck and Disraeli, Lamsdorff sought to prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by maintaining the status quo. He condemned the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie insurgency in the Kosovo vilayet and opposed the policies of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. He did not support Slavic nationalism in the Balkans.

Lamsdorff wa replaced by Alexander Izvolsky in 1906, who had earlier been the Russian ambassador in Belgrade. He was the Russian Foreign Minister from April, 1906 to November, 1910. Like Lamsdorff, he was willing to maintain the status quo in the Balkans and to gain concessions for Russia at the expense of the Slavic Orthodox population.

He saw Bosnia as a way for Russia to gain access to the Straits. He would trade Bosnia away in exchange for Austro-Hungarian support for Russian access to the Straits. He met with the Austrian Foreign Minister, Baron Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, at Buchlau on September 15, 1908, and agreed to Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in exchange for Austria's agreement to the opening of the Straits to Russian shipping. Izvolsky expected that an international meeting would follow this action because it was a clear violation of the terms of the Treaty of Berlin. At this meeting, he expected that Russia would receive concessions regarding the Straits. Austria-Hungary unilaterally annexed Bosnia on October 6. Izvolsky was outraged because he perceived this as a betrayal of his diplomatic efforts and an insult to Russia as a Great Power. Germany was able to force Russia to recognize the annexation.

The Bosnian Crisis and Annexation was seen as a diplomatic and strategic disaster for Russian foreign policy. Russian nationalists and members of the Pan-Slavic Movement attacked Izvolsky for betraying Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox population of Bosnia-Hercegovina, which then was the largest group in Bosnia. Izvolsky was dismissed as Foreign Minister in 1910. His one major diplomatic achievement was to strengthen the military and political alliance with France and Great Britain against Germany which would result in World War I. Izvolsky even proclaimed when World War I erupted: “This is my war!”

The “Myth” of Kosovo

Kosovo continued to have a profound impact and influence on Serbian policy. After 500 years of Muslim Turkish occupation, Serbs were able to retain their Christian religion and their ethnic and national identity. Kosovo was seen as a metaphor for the re-emergence of Christianity in Eastern Europe. The once-powerful Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire was in shreds and tatters. Its total and complete collapse was imminent. Serbs saw Kosovo as a vindication of their Christian religious convictions and beliefs. Empires and superpowers come and go. Power is transitory and uncertain and ephemeral. The “myth” of Kosovo was a powerful stimulus for the Orthodox Serbs in seeking to overthrow the Ottoman Turkish occupation.

John Reed, the American journalist and author of Ten Days that Shook the World, was able to capture the importance and significance of the Kosovo legacy for the Serbian population after his visit to Serbia: “Every peasant soldier knows what he is fighting for. When he was a baby, his mother greeted him, ‘Hail little avenger of Kosovo!’ (At the battle of Kossovo, in the fourteenth century, Serbia fell under the Turks.)”

Stephen Bonsal re-iterated the powerful impact Kosovo had on Serbs in 1908, writing in the New York Times: “He will put them to flight on the black field of Kossovo, where the Christian empire of the Balkans met with a heroic end 500 years ago…” He noted that the goal to relieve the Muslim Ottoman Turkish occupation in the Balkans had been a long-standing one: “Such has been the talk every Spring since 1890, when I first visited Macedonia, and such has been the talk every Spring, when the war clouds thickened, for many generations before ours.”

Results of the Reforms

The 48 officers in the cazas gave the Christian population a sense of security. The gendarmerie reforms did improve the quality of the gendarmerie. The actual officers in the field carried out their mission in good faith in spite of its ambiguous and complex nature and undefined character. They continued to meet with obstruction from the Turkish officials.

The major achievement of the reforms was that they prevented a major “conflagration” or insurgency. In 1904 no European Power was willing to risk war to intervene militarily to help the Christian populations in Macedonia. The military commission continued to meet twice a year from 1904 to 1908 and sent their reports to the Austrian and Russian embassies who sent it to the Turkish government.

The Turkish officials continued to oppose the reforms through obstructionism and delay, through “passive resistance”, through inertia. The Sultan refused to accelerate the pace of the reforms and did everything to discourage their implementation. Hamid wanted to wait out the reforms by stalling and delaying tactics. Turkish officials sought to intimidate and pressure Christians from making complaints and from voicing their grievances to the officers. The Turkish officials showed bad faith at every turn. There were, however, exceptions. The vali of Kosovo, Mahmoud Chevket Pasha, a native of Baghdad, supported the reforms. The commander of the Skopje zone, Osman Fewzi Pasha, a Tartar, also supported the reforms. The problem with the reforms was that 48 international officers were an inadequate number to monitor the three vilayets. The Turkish government kept the number of the reorganized gendarmerie intentionally low to minimize their impact and effectiveness.

The introduction of Christians in the gendarmerie was not successful. They were undisciplined and unpopular in both Muslim and Christian areas. They were seen as traitors and lackeys by the Christians and were despised by Muslims who detested Christians controlling them. They were said to be lacking in “moral value” and “political conviction”. In 1907, they made up 10% of the gendarmerie. The gendarmes carried the obsolescent Martini rifles while the insurgents had the Mannlicher and Mauser rifles. Christians also were issued gun licenses infrequently while Muslims were well-armed and carried firearms openly. The reforms did not prevent abuses against Christians or ensure their safety. The abuses of the gendarmes were, however, reduced or lessened due to the reforms.

There was also a conflict over what branch should oversee the reorganization of the gendarmerie, the civilian or military. Austria wanted “mixed councils” which were rejected by the other powers.

The Civil Agents were also circumscribed in who they could talk to and what they could see by Turkish officials.

In March, 1908, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, proposed autonomy for Macedonia as a way to resolve the crisis.

From June 9-10, 1908, Edward VII and the Russian Czar Nicholas II “cordially” met at Reval/Tallin to discuss plans to install a mostly European administration in Macedonia under an Ottoman governor to be approved by the powers. Germany and the dissident Ottoman Committee for Unity and Progress (CUP) rejected the proposal.

On July 27, 1908, the powers withdrew their peacekeeping force from Crete.

On September 1, 1909, the ambassadors of the Great Powers decided unanimously to recall the Civil Agents from Macedonia and to disband the financial commission. This action brought the Murzsteg reforms in Macedonia to an end. In March, 1909, the Turkish government hired the French, British, and Italian missions under private contracts to reorganize the gendarmerie in all of Ottoman Turkey. This cynical move showed the utter absurdity of the reforms.

The Murzsteg reforms achieved very little in Macedonia. They were stalling tactics that only made the Balkans powder keg more volatile and explosive. The international intervention only made matters worse. The Murzsteg reforms demonstrated the abject and tragic failure of international intervention. The Balkans Wars would follow in 1912 and 1913 and World War I, the Great War, would follow in 1914.

Conclusion: The Failure of the Murzsteg Plan to Stabilize Macedonia

What did the Murzsteg Reforms and international intervention achieve in Macedonia? According to Arthur May, the Murzsteg Reforms “remained a dead letter.” There was no judicial reform in Macedonia. While the Murzsteg plan granted a measure of local autonomy to Monastir or Bitola, Skopje, and Salonika, Macedonian Christians continued to be denied even basic civil and human rights in the Turkish courts. The situation for Kosovo Serbs deteriorated. Their human and civil rights were violated by Albanian Muslim ultra-nationalists. Turkey refused to allow international monitors or officials to participate in the judiciary in Macedonia. Turkey was supported in this in foreign chancelleries. Rival comitadji guerrillas continued to infiltrate and to gain control and to seize territory in Macedonia. According to May, “not very much, in a word, was accomplished in bettering the wretched lot of the Macedonians.” In 1907, the British foreign office sought to coerce Turkey to make significant reforms in Macedonia and to break the deadlock. Austria and Russia, however, opposed the new reform initiative, stating that the time was “singularly inopportune for advancing fresh proposals.” Austria considered the possibility of sending in an international fore into Macedonia that would exclude Britain but ultimately rejected it. May argued: “Only force, as a matter of fact, could compel the Turk to rectify evils in Macedonia, and that the powers were unwilling to apply.” Germany, argued that applying force in Macedonia would result in instability and would encourage insurgencies in the other parts of Ottoman Turkey.

The enactment of the reforms did not bring any change in Macedonia. The reforms did not “receive practically any real application.” The only parts of the reforms that were applied were those for the reorganization of the gendarmerie. According to French military attaché Dupont in Constantinople, this was done only because the Turks did not want direct Great Power intervention in Macedonia. A main problem of the reforms was that there were no enforcement mechanisms to compel the Turks to act. French representatives recommended that “urgent measures” be taken but Turkish Inspector Hilmi Pasha ignored them, instead focusing on the insurgency in Albania.

In March, 1903, Nandrup and Unander had been hired to study the regulations for the gendarmerie. Nandrup was stationed in Skopje. They were described as “both perfectly incompetent”. In August, 1903, Captain Simon and Malfeyt and Bureau from Belgium and Haas from Sweden were also assigned to the Turkish army. They could not speak Turkish and thus relied on translators from Turkey. They did not understand the Macedonian conflict and crisis. Commander Duping later wrote: “It is nearly superfluous to say that these officers did not, and could not, do anything meaningful.” The means for the reorganization were not provided for. In 1908, all plans to achieve reform in Macedonia through international intervention were abandoned after the collapse of the Russian and Austrian entente over the annexation of Bosnia and the Young Turk Revolution.

Henry Noel Brailsford, the leader of the British aid mission to Macedonia in 1903, was a Socialist and journalist, a foreign correspondent for The Manchester Guardian, the Morning Leader, and The Daily News. He had earlier spent time on assignment in the Balkans in the 1890s.  He published the book Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future in 1906 recounting his experiences in Macedonia during the insurgency and the implementation of the reforms.

Brailsford gave the following on-the-spot, eyewitness evaluation of the reforms: “The Mürzsteg programme aimed at something more than the improvement of the Turkish administrative machinery. It has done a very little in this direction, and when it is complete it may do more. Its chief aim, however, was to bring some measure of appeasement, to restore order, to re-establish confidence, to repair devastation, and, in a word, to remove the motives for rebellion. Here it has failed, and the failure is so conspicuous that it has actually aggravated the normal anarchy. The Macedonians were encouraged to hope; the loss of their hope has deepened their despair and increased their recklessness. The reforms left the Turks supreme in all administrative matters. They used their liberty to resort to all the old devices of repression and provocation. They still seemed to contemplate an eventual war with Bulgaria, and to make a pretext, they tried to drive the Bulgarians to desperate courses. They were for ever mobilising their troops, calling out the reserves, and accumulating armaments. The troops lived on the peasants and drained the exchequer. Mutinies were frequent and discipline was lax. Under the plea of searching for arms they harried the villages and carried on their perquisitions, with the usual accompaniments of rapine and brutality.”

Market does not react to recognition of Kosovo separatists indicating it anticipated the outcome.

“A typical outrage occurred in February, 1905, at the Bulgarian village of Kuklish, where, according to the report of a Russian gendarmerie captain, 64 houses out of 105 were burned, 38 unarmed peasants killed, including two women and a baby, five persons wounded, and eleven women violated. The whole place was pillaged, and the officers made no attempt to check the savagery of their men. It is worthy of note that the ‘reformed’ gendarmes who were present behaved exactly like the unregenerate soldiery.”

Zervi, Mogila, Konopnitsa, and other Macedonian towns were similarly attacked during the spring and summer of 1905 by the “reformed” gendarmerie.

Life for Macedonian civilians was not improved as a result of the reforms: “As in 1903, the migratory Macedonian labourers who annually visit Constantinople in search of work were confined to their villages and forbidden to travel. A curfew ordinance was enforced, which renders any peasant abroad after sundown liable to be summarily shot. Half the refugees from the Adrianople region have been unable to return, and their lands were occupied by Moslem ‘squatters.’ In the Monastir vilayet nothing has been done beyond the distribution of a grant, which averaged £1 per family, to rebuild the burned villages. Nearly all the rural Bulgarian schools are closed because the teachers, as political suspects, are forbidden to give instruction.”

New York Times reporter Stephen Bonsal noted in 1908 that the intervention was motivated by concern over the spoils and in self-interest and aggrandizement: “As it has well been said, every one of the powers wishes to modify the present situation, but, unhappily, it would appear that each one wished to modify it for its personal advantage and, alas, profit. In a word, the news from Macedonia is that the champions of Christendom have come to blows, not with the assassins of the Sultan, who are seeking to destroy the remnants of the congregation that St. Paul loved, but among themselves over a sordid question of political loot.”

Turkish policy in Macedonia was to pit different Christian national and ethnic groups against each other, the policy of divide and conquer. Brailsford analyzed this divisive policy as follows: “Lastly, with the evident intention of fomenting the feud between Greeks and Bulgarians, Hilmi Pasha has handed over a large number of Bulgarian village churches to the Greek faction. But the worst feature of all is the complicated racial strife, a sort of furtive civil war, which devastates the country. The Turks watch this internecine contest, not merely with tolerance, but with satisfaction. The rayahs are at war among themselves, and the master may fold his arms. But the real responsibility lies with the Government, which connives at the vendetta and seeks to profit by it. The Turks, despite their vast armaments, have proved once more their total incapacity to maintain even an outward semblance of order.”

Brailsford adduced the reason for the failure of the Murzsteg reforms: “The Mürzsteg programme has failed, largely because it attempted to reform Macedonia without reckoning with the Macedonians. It was an advertisement to all the world that the Near Eastern Question was open at last. It bore on its surface the marks of transition. No one could imagine it to be final, and no one could suppose that, having recognised the impossibility of Turkish rule, the Powers would ultimately shrink from drawing the logical conclusion. It announced to every race in the Balkans that the end was approaching, and inevitably it accentuated their latent rivalries and hostilities.”

The Murzsteg reforms failed because the international intervention was not so much concerned about the people in Macedonia as it was about advancing the national self-interests and geo-political and geo-strategic agendas of the Great Powers. The populations of Macedonia were pawns and marionettes in the intervention. Moreover, the Great Powers were never able to resolve the inherent contradiction and conflict between international intervention and sovereignty. One precluded the other. How can you have both simultaneously?

The international intervention in the Kosovo vilayet was essentially a stalling tactic, a smokescreen, revealing the absurdity and futility of all interventions. All interventions address the superficial symptoms, and not the inherent causes of conflict. The Murzsteg reforms only put off and delayed a final resolution of the conflict. The reforms made Macedonia more unstable and volatile. International intervention in Macedonia had failed.
 

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