These were the roots of the great evil - the overlapping claims, the
resulting intolerance, the mortal, existential fear stoked by the
kaleidoscopic conduct of the Big Powers. To recognize the existence
of the Macedonian identity - was to threaten the Greek or Bulgarian
ones. To accept the antiquity of the Albanians was to dismantle
Macedonia, Serbia and Greece. To countenance Bulgarian demands was
to inhumanly penalize its Turk citizens. It was a zero-sum game
played viciously by everyone involved. The prize was mere existence
- the losers annihilated.
It very nearly came to that during the two Balkan Wars of 1912 and
1913.
Allies shifted their allegiance in accordance with the shifting
fortunes of a most bewildering battlefield. When the dust settled,
two treaties later, Macedonia was dismembered by its neighbours,
Bulgaria bitterly contemplated the sour fruits of its delusional
aggression and Serbia and Austro-Hungary rejoiced. Thus were the
seeds of World War I sown.
The Yugoslav war of succession (or civil war) was a continuation of
this mayhem by other means. Yugoslavia was born in sin, in the
dictatorship of King Alexander I (later slain in France in 1934). It
faced agitation, separatism and discontent from its inception. It
was falling apart when the second world conflagration erupted.
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