Bulgarian Atrocities.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 8, 1912:
Dr. Gottheil Cites Cases and Quotes Hague Covenant.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    According to my colleague, Prof. Pupin, The Hague Tribunal is a stillborn child. I had not been dreaming; I was only mistaken. There have been conferences at a placed called The Hague, in 1899 and 1907. Solemn conventions have been drawn up and a splendid Palace of Peace has been erected by American munificence. But all these instruments cannot compel States to grant "the inalienable rights of man." Why, then, all this pother, peace conferences, peace societies, peace literature spread broadcast?
    I should condemn in the severest manner any aggression on the part of the Turks similar to that of the Balkan States, even if the Turks were victorious. To say that this attack upon Turkey is in the interests of "the inalienable rights of man" is simply to befog the issue. It is perfectly plain and has been stated by such official organs as The Bulgarian Mir that the reason why the Balkan States have fallen upon Turkey is that they considered the moment opportune for carrying out plans hatched long ago. In other words, the internal dissensions in the Ottoman Empire have so weakened the country that a raid upon Macedonia is a profitable undertaking.
    That which is glorious "patriotism" when Bulgarians, Servians, Montenegrins, Greeks — and Italians — are attacking Turkey becomes "fanaticism" when Turkey fights back.
    I am the last to applaud anything done by Turkey "which menaces the life of modern civilization." I do not close my eyes to Turkish excesses in the past. But perhaps Prof. Pupin does not know that in 1900 these same Bulgars that are now leading this "struggle for the inalienable rights of man" revenged themselves for their defeats in Macedonia by "falling on the Hellenes who were in their power on the soil of the principality.
    "Armed bands, organized under the eyes of the Government of Sofia, and acting in the presence of the police, raided the Greek cities of the Black Sea Coast, burning the schools and the churches, sacking private houses, and driving a population of 40,000 Hellenes out of a country in which they had maintained themselves through the worst ages of Turkish domination. And in Macedonia 'there is no form of horrid outrage, from violation to cannibalism,' that the Bulgars have not perpetrated."
    This was written, not by a "pro-Turk," but by an English Christian, Allen Upward. Prof. Pupin can read in a pamphlet entitled "The Population of Macedonia * * * A List of Greeks Killed at the instance of the Bulgarian Committees in Macedonia from 1897 to 1904" the details of 461 murders committed with diabolical cruelty during those years.
    Prof. Pupin laments the condition of "the enslaved Christian rajah" in Macedonia. He surely knows who, in addition to the "infidel Turk," is to blame. He can not be ignorant of the fact that the intervention of Austria and Russia in 1903 was meant to keep the pot boiling, not to pacify the excited racial and religious feelings and to bring order out of the existing chaos.
    It could be shown easily how most of the Turkish excesses have been provoked by the sinister "agent provocateur," whose dark deeds are so well known in Russia.
    The stillborn child — The Hague Tribunal — was ushered into the world with this solemn convention, signed with all the flourish of ambassadorial grandiloquence:
    In case of serious disagreement or dispute, before an appeal to arms, the signatory powers agree to have recourse, as far as circumstances allow, to the good offices or mediation of one or more friendly powers.
    Independently of this recourse, the contracting powers deem it expedient and desirable that one or more powers, strangers to the dispute, should, on their own initiative and as far as circumstances may allow, offer their good offices or mediation to the States at variance.
            RICHARD GOTTHEIL.
            Columbia University, Nov. 5, 1912.