Macedonia had been successively under Greek, Bulgar, and Serb, before
Turkish, rule, but the Macedonian Slavs had, under the last, been so cut
off both from Bulgars and Serbs, that ethnologically and linguistically
they did not develop the characteristics of either of these two races,
which originally belonged to the same southern Slav stock, but remained a
primitive neutral Slav type. If the Serbs had been first in the field
instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian Slavs could just as easily have
been made into Serbs, sufficiently plausibly to convince the most knowing
expert. The well-known recipe for making a Macedonian Slav village Bulgar
is to add _-ov_ or _-ev_ (pronounced _-off, -yeff_) on to the names of all
the male inhabitants, and to make it Serb it is only necessary to add
further the syllable _-ich, -ov_ and _-ovich_ being respectively the
equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian of our termination _-son,_ e. g.
_Ivanov_ in Bulgarian, and _Jovanovit_ in Serbian = _Johnson_.

In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists,
suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh shepherds,
who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia with their herds
since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not possibly ever be
annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in order to justify Rumania
in claiming eventual territorial compensation elsewhere at the final day
of reckoning. Meanwhile, their existence as a separate and authentic
nationality in Turkey was officially recognized by the Porte in 1906.

The stages of the Macedonian question up to 1908 must at this point be
quite briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two 'most
interested powers', who as far back as the eighteenth century had divided
the Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and west, came
to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of affairs in
Turkey; but it never reached a conclusive stage and consequently was never