The Austrian and Russian governments then drew up a further series of reforms known as the “Mürzsteg programme” (Oct. 9, 1903) to which the Porte assented in principle, though many difficulties were raised over details. Two officials, an Austrian and a Russian, The “Mürzsteg Programme.” styled “civil agents” and charged with the supervision of the local authorities in the application of reforms, were placed by the side of the inspector-general while the reorganization of the gendarmerie was entrusted to a foreign general in the Turkish service aided by a certain number of officers from the armies of the great powers. The latter task was entrusted to the Italian General de Giorgis (April 1904), the country being divided into sections under the supervision of the officers of each power. The reforms proved a failure, mainly owing to the tacit opposition of the Turkish authorities, the insufficient powers attributed to the European officials, the racial feuds and the deplorable financial situation. In 1905 the powers agreed on the establishment of a financial commission on which the representatives of Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy would sit as colleagues of the civil agents. The Porte offered an obstinate resistance to the project and only yielded (Dec. 5) when the fleets of the powers appeared near the Dardanelles. Some improvement was now effected in the financial administration, but the general state of the country continued to grow worse; large funds were collected abroad by the committees at Athens, which despatched numerous bands largely composed of Cretans into the southern districts, the Servians displayed renewed activity in the north, while the Bulgarians offered a dogged resistance to all their foes.
The Austro-Russian entente came to an end in the beginning of 1908 owing to the Austrian project of connecting the Bosnian and Macedonian railway systems, and Great Britain and Russia now took the foremost place in the demand for reforms. After a meeting between King The “Reval Programme.” Edward VII. and the emperor Nicholas II. at Reval in the early summer of 1908 an Anglo-Russian scheme, known as the “Reval programme,” was announced; the project aimed at more effective European supervision and dealt especially with the administration of justice. Its appearance was almost immediately followed by the military revolt of the Young Turk or constitutional party, which began in the Monastir district under two junior officers, Enver Bey and Niazi Bey, in July. The restoration of the constitution of 1876 was proclaimed (July 24,1908), and the powers, anticipating the spontaneous adoption of reforms on the part of regenerated Turkey, decided to suspend the Reval programme and to withdraw their military officers from Macedonia.
See Lejean, Ethnographie de la Turquie d’Europe (Gotha, 1861); Hahn, Reise von Belgrad nach Salonik (Vienna, 1868); Yastreboff, Obichai i pesni turetskikh Serbov (St Petersburg, 1886); “Ofeicoff” (Shopoff), La Macédoine au point de vue ethnographique, historique et philologique (Philippopolis, 1888); Gopchevitch, Makedonien und Alt-Serbien (Vienna, 1889); Verkovitch, Topografichesko-ethnographicheskii ocherk Makedonii (St Petersburg, 1889); Burada, Cercetari despre scoalele Romanesci din Turcia (Bucharest, 1890); Tomaschek, Die heutigen Bewohner Macedoniens (Sonderabdruck aus den Verhandlungen des IX. D. Geographen-Tages in Wien, 1891) (Berlin, 1891); Die alten Thräker (Vienna, 1893); Berard, La Turquie et l’Hellénisme contemporain, (Paris, 1893); La Macédoine (Paris, 1900); Shopoff, Iz zhivota i polozhenieto na Bulgarite v vilayetite (Philippopolis, 1894); Weigand, Die Aromunen (Leipzig, 1895); Die nationalen Bestrebungen der Balkanvölker (Leipzig, 1898); Nikolaides, La Macédoine (Berlin, 1899); “Odysseus,” Turkey in Europe (London, 1900); Kunchoff, Makedonia: etnografia i statistika (Sofia, 1900); La Macédoine et la Vilayet d’Andrinople (Sofia, 1904), anonymous; L. Villari, The Balkan Question (London, 1905); H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia: its Races and their Future (London, 1906); J. Cvijić, Grundlinien der Geographie und Geologie von Mazedonien und Altserbien (Gotha, 1908). For the antiquities, see Texier and Pullan, Byzantine Architecture (London, 1864); Heuzey and Daumet, Mission archéologique en Macédoine (Paris, 1865); Duchesne and Bayet, Mémoire sur une mission en Macédoine et au Mont Athos (Paris, 1876); Barclay V. Head, Catalogue of Greek Coins; Macedonia (London, 1879); Kinch, L’Arc de triomphe de Salonique (Paris, 1890); Beretnung om en archaeologisk Reise i Makedonien (Copenhagen, 1893); Mommsen, Suppl. to vol. iii. Corpus inscript., latinarum (Berlin, 1893); Perdrizet, Articles on Macedonian archaeology and epigraphy in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, since 1894. (J. D. B.)
MACEDONIAN EMPIRE, the name generally given to the empire founded by Alexander the Great of Macedon in the countries now represented by Greece and European Turkey, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, Persia and eastwards as far as northern India.[1] The present article contains a general account of the empire in its various aspects. It falls naturally into two main divisions:—I. The reign of Alexander. II. The period of his successors, the “Diadochi” and their dynasties.
I. The Reign of Alexander.—At the beginning of the 4th century B.C. two types of political association confronted each other in the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean,—the Persian monarchy with its huge agglomeration of subject peoples, and the Greek city-state. Each 1. Greeks and Persians. had a different principle of strength. The Persian monarchy was strong in its size, in the mere amount of men and treasure it could dispose of under a single hand; the Greek state was strong in its morale, in the energy and discipline of its soldiery. But the smallness of the single city-states and their unwillingness to combine prevented this superiority in quality from telling destructively upon the bulk of the Persian empire. The future belonged to any power that could combine the advantages of both systems, could make a state larger than the Greek polis, and animated by a spirit equal to that of the Greek soldier. This was achieved by the kings of Macedonia. The work, begun by his predecessors, of consolidating the kingdom internally and making its army a fighting-machine of high power was completed by the genius of Philip II. (359-336 B.C.), who at the same time by war and diplomacy brought the Greek states of the Balkan peninsula generally to recognize his single predominance. At the synod of Corinth (338) Philip was solemnly declared the captain-general (στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ) of the Hellenes against the Great King. The attack on Persia was delayed by the assassination of Philip in 336, and it needed some fighting before the young Alexander had made his position secure in Macedonia and Greece. The recognition as captain-general he had obtained at another synod in Corinth, by an imposing military demonstration in Greece immediately upon his accession. Then came the invasion of the Persian empire by Alexander in 334 at the head of an army composed both of Macedonians and contingents from the allied Greek states. Before this force the Persian monarchy went down, and when Alexander died eleven years later (323) a Macedonian empire which covered all the territory of the old Persian empire, and even more, was a realized fact.
The empire outside of Macedonia itself consisted of 22 provinces. In Europe, (1) Thrace; in Asia Minor, (2) Phrygia on the Hellespont, (3) Lydia, (4) Caria, (5) Lycia and Pamphylia, (6) Great Phrygia, (7) Paphlagonia and Cappadocia; between the Taurus and Iran, (8) Cilicia, (9) Syria, (10) 2. Extent of the Empire. Mesopotamia, (11) Babylonia, (12) Susiana; in Africa, (13) Egypt; in Iran, (14) Persis, (15) Media, (16) Parthia and Hyrcania, (17) Bactria and Sogdiana, (18) Areia and Drangiana, (19) Carmania, (20) Arachosia and Gedrosia; lastly the Indian provinces, (21) the Paropanisidae (the Kabul valley), and (22) the province assigned to Pithon, the son of Agenor, upon the Indus (J. Beloch, Griech. Gesch. III. [ii.], p. 236 seq.; for the Indian provinces cf. B. Niese, Gesch. der griech. und maked. Staaten, I. p. 500 seq.). Hardly provinces proper, but rather client principalities, were the two native kingdoms to which Alexander had left the conquered land beyond the Indus—the kingdoms of Taxiles and Porus.
The conquered empire presented Alexander with a system of government ready-made, which it was natural for the new masters to take over. For the Asiatic provinces and Egypt, the old Persian name of satrapy (see Satrap) was still retained, but the governor seems to have been styled 3. System of Government. officially in Greek strategos, although the term satrap certainly continued current in common parlance. The governors appointed by Alexander were, in the west of the empire, exclusively Macedonians; in the east, members of the Old Persian nobility were still among the satraps at Alexander’s death, Atropates in Media, Phrataphernes in Parthia and Hyrcania,
- ↑ For the events which brought this empire into being see Alexander the Great. For the detailed accounts of the separate dynasties into which it was divided after Alexander’s death, see Seleucid Dynasty, Antigonus, Pergamum, &c., and for its effect on the spread of Hellenic culture see Hellenism.
