The result was a Serbian victory, but it was very
far from being a decisive and conclusive victory. The Bulgarians
were forced back some fifteen miles into their own territory, but
had it not been for the intervention of Rumania there can be no
doubt that the Serbs would have entered Sofia. Here it was that
the Serbians lost 7,000 killed and 30,000 wounded of their best
men, as against 5,000 killed and 18,000 wounded in the whole war
with Turkey; a total loss that was bound to be felt a few months
later when the struggle was to be against so powerful an adversary
as Austria-Hungary. The two previous wars had, without exaggeration,
deprived the Serbian fighting forces of one-tenth their number--a
tenth that was of the very best of first-line troops.
[Illustration: PICTORIAL MAP OF THE BALKANS]
Added to this was another serious handicap, possibly even more
serious. Serbia had, indeed, emerged victorious from the two wars,
with a large stretch of conquered territory at her backdoor. But
this acquired territory, practically all of Macedonia that had
not gone to Greece, was peopled by Serbs. For twenty-five years
these Macedonians had been organized into revolutionary fighting
bands, the "Macedonian Committee" for the liberation of Macedonia
and Albania from the Turks, and had struggled, not only against the
Turks, but against foreign armed bands of propagandists. Some eight
years subsequently to the foundation of the Macedonian Committee of
native origin, the Bulgars founded in 1893 their committee which
was called the Macedo-Adrianople Committee.
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