they turned upon one another, snarling like wild beasts over the spoil.
Bulgaria, the largest, fiercest, and most savage of the little States,
tried to fight Greece and Servia together. She failed, in a strife
quite as bloody as that against Turkey. The neighboring State of
Roumania also took part against the Bulgars. So did the Turks, who,
seeing the helplessness of their late tigerish opponent, began
snatching back the land they had ceded to Bulgaria.[1] The exhausted
Bulgars, defeated upon every side, yielded to their many foes.

[Footnote 1: See _The Second Balkan War_, page 350.]

Thus we face to-day a new Balkan Peninsula, consisting of half a dozen
little independent nations, all thoroughly democratic, except Turkey.
And even Turkey, we should remember, has made a long stride toward
Democracy by substituting for the autocracy of the Sultan the
constitutional rule of the "Young Turks," These still retain their
political control, though sorely shaken in power by the calamities
their country has undergone under their brief régime.

From this semi-barbarity of southeastern Europe, let us turn to note
the more peaceful progress which seemed promising the West. Little
Portugal suddenly declared herself a Republic in 1910.[2] She had been
having much anarchistic trouble before, killing of kings and hurling of
bombs. Now there was a brief, almost bloodless, uprising; and the young
new king fled. Prophets freely predicted that the unpractical and
unpractised Republic could not last. But instead of destroying itself
in petty quarrels, the new government has seemed to grow more able and
assured with each passing year.

[Footnote 2: See _Portugal Becomes a Republic_, page 28.]