British Liberalism and the Balkans, C. 1875-1925

ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output British liberalism and the Balkans, c. 1875-1925 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40082/ Version: Full Version Citation: Perkins, James Andrew (2014) British liberalism and the Balkans, c. 1875-1925. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email British liberalism and the Balkans, c. 1875-1925 James Andrew Perkins Department of History, Classics and Archaeology Birkbeck, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2014 1 I confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. James Perkins 2 Abstract This is a study of the place of the Balkans in British liberal politics from the late-Victorian era to the aftermath of the First World War. It argues that engagement with the region was part of a wider reformist dynamic in British politics and society in this period. The late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries saw the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the emergence of independent successor states in the Balkans against a background of nationalist tension, political violence, and humanitarian suffering. This raised questions and concerns that resonated particularly strongly within British liberal political culture, as revealed through analysis of correspondence and memoir, journalism, public and parliamentary debate, humanitarian initiatives, political activism, and diplomacy. In particular, the thesis considers: the political agitation in response to atrocities in Ottoman Bulgaria in 1876 (chapter 1); the wider impact of this agitation on late-Victorian politics (chapter 2); the renewed activism in response to Ottoman misrule in early-twentieth century Macedonia (chapter 3); the dilemmas and debates generated by the Balkan Wars and the First World War between 1912 and 1918 (chapter 4); and the impact of this on the new internationalist agendas of the 1920s (chapter 5). Liberal engagement with the Balkans is shown to have intersected closely with domestic reformist political agendas, as well as with other international causes, both European and imperial. By exploring these intersections, the thesis re-examines aspects of change, continuity and conflict in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century British politics and society, and reconsiders the multifaceted relationships that linked that society to the rest of the world. 3 Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been written without the help and support of many people. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, David Feldman, for his invaluable guidance over the course of my research. I am also grateful to Lucy Riall for her teaching and supervision on the MA in Historical Research that I completed at Birkbeck prior to starting the PhD, and for her help since. I would like to express my thanks for the fees scholarship awarded by Birkbeck’s School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy, which provided welcome financial assistance. A Postgraduate Research Support Grant from the Royal Historical Society enabled me to consult the Noel Buxton papers at McGill University, Montreal. I am grateful for this support. I would also like to thank the staff of all the libraries and archives that I visited during the course of my research. I benefited from the opportunity to discuss aspects of this thesis at a number of conferences and seminars, and would particularly like to thank the organisers of: the History and Space Conference at Birkbeck, University of London (June 2014); the Voluntary Action History Society Conference at the University of Huddersfield (July 2013); the History Postgraduate Colloquium at the University of Reading (June 2013); the Political History Network Seminar at Newcastle University (February 2013); the PhD Symposium on South East Europe at Goldsmiths, University of London (June 2012); the Histories of Activism Postgraduate Conference at Bishopsgate Institute, London (November 2011). This thesis marks the culmination of a number of years combining work and study. I would like to thank my family for encouraging me in this endeavour, my colleagues for providing a supportive working environment, and my friends for providing welcome diversions from books, documents and archives along the way. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Martina. Her patience, consideration, encouragement and enthusiasm have been a constant source of support throughout my postgraduate study, and I am extremely grateful. 4 Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................4 Table of Contents......................................................................................................................5 Introduction: British liberalism and the Balkans .................................................................8 ‘Some slight friction threatening in the Balkans’..................................................................................9 ‘Trouble-Makers’ and ‘Mugwumps’ ...................................................................................................14 ‘Balkanism’ and the ‘East End of Europe’..........................................................................................17 The Balkans in the Age of Empire ......................................................................................................26 Outline of Chapters..............................................................................................................................29 The Balkans as a moral crusade – the Bulgarian agitation and the Eastern Crisis.........34 Liberals and the Eastern Question .......................................................................................................36 Liberals and the Balkans......................................................................................................................41 Against Tory and Turk ........................................................................................................................46 Radicalism, religion, and the ‘Semitic adventurer’ .............................................................................53 The Balkans after Berlin: ‘Progress’ and ‘Civilisation’? ....................................................................58 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................................68 Balkan Legacies: the political memory of the Bulgarian agitation in late-Victorian Britain......................................................................................................................................71 The ‘East End of Europe’ and the East End of London ......................................................................71 Imperial analogies? The Irish Home Rule crisis..................................................................................78 The ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ Revisited? ....................................................................................................88 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................................99 ‘Europe Unredeemed’: the Macedonian question.............................................................102 The Balkan Committee......................................................................................................................105 Why Macedonia mattered..................................................................................................................113 The Balkan dilemmas of British liberal internationalism..................................................................120 Balkan peasants and the ‘Condition of England’ ..............................................................................132 Organising dissent over foreign policy..............................................................................................143 ‘Futile pinpricks’? A case study in humanitarian politics .................................................................152 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................161 5 “What then is the duty of the civilised world in the Balkans?” Liberalism, nationalism and war, 1912-1918...............................................................................................................164 From ‘Autonomy’ to ‘Anatomy’: the Balkan Wars ..........................................................................166 ‘Heroic Serbia’, Ivan Meštrović and the imaginative geography of the Balkans at war...................178 Clash of the Experts: the Balkans and the New Europe ....................................................................191 Citizenship, self-determination and empire.......................................................................................199 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................211 After the Eastern Question:

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