THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EUROPE
As this book goes to the press there is again war in the Balkans. It is
only a little war certainly, as yet confined within the limits of the
"autonomous State" of Albania, that quaint creation of the ambitions of
Austria and Italy, which in its foundation suggested the custom of one
of the old Fiji cannibal tribes--that of keeping alive and fattening a
victim whom it was intended to eat. Austria desires the Adriatic shore
of the Balkan Peninsula: so does Italy. They cannot agree either to
fight out the issue now or to abandon their conflicting ambitions; and
they have been responsible for creating "independent Albania," which one
of them hopes to devour up in the near future when the other one is in
difficulties. This war, small as it now is, threatens, however, to
spread to a great one; and though the danger may pass away now for the
moment, it is certain that one near day Albania will be the cause of
another Balkan war: for it is to kindle that war that she has been
brought into existence. Even to-day the position is immediately
threatening. The creation of Albania gave to Montenegro, to Servia, and
to Greece a serious disappointment. In particular was it a blow to
Montenegro, whose heroic little people had through centuries borne the
chief brunt of the fighting against the Turk:
They rose to where their sovran eagle sails,
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height,
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night
Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails,
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight
By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales.
O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne
Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,
Great Tsernogora! never since thine own
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.[2]
[2] Tennyson's well-known sonnet.
By the creation of Albania Montenegro was debarred from any great
territorial gain out of the partition of the Turks' old estate in the
Balkans, and was shut back on her mountains, as it seemed irrevocably.
Servia and Greece were left with almost as serious grievances. Albania
therefore is a constant source of temptation to a war of enterprise on
the part of three of the Balkan nations, and the war only awaits a
favourable opportunity to break out: a pretext for it can always be
supplied at a day's notice by some border collision with the wild and
lawless Albanian clans. Should the war in Albania spread to her
neighbours, Bulgaria, outraged and mortified by the Treaty of Bucharest
and again robbed and humiliated by Turkish encroachments on her
powerlessness after that Treaty, in all probability will seize the
opportunity to make a war of requital on some one of her neighbours, and
the Balkan Peninsula will then be again drenched in blood. There will be
again a cry of shocked horror from Western Europe as to these
"quarrelsome and bloodthirsty" Balkan peoples. But in fair play and
justice there is more reason for the little Balkan peoples to be shocked
and horrified at the cold-blooded policy of the Great Powers who, for
their own ends, create conditions which make peace in the Balkans
impossible.
The truth is that these little shreds of peoples, in the blood-soaked
Peninsula which destiny marked out to be the great battle-ground of
races, have been used as pawns in the great game of European diplomacy
ever since the fall of Napoleon. It will be recalled that one of the
earlier dreams of that ambitious genius was to enter the service of the
Sublime Porte and reorganise the power of Turkey. The crumbling away of
the power of the Turkish Empire, which had given centuries of anxiety to
Christian Europe, was at that time apparent. A great genius might then
have restored the fighting power and the prestige of Islam. But Napoleon
turned to other work and Turkey went on decaying. There soon arose a
question as to who should be the legatee of the "Sick Man of Europe,"
and legacy hunters, some fawning, some clamorous, gathered at his
bedside. To some of these it soon occurred that there would be wisdom in
hastening the process of division, and that a means to do this was to
question the moral right of the Turk to the Christian provinces over
which he ruled. In the state of public feeling in Europe at the time it
was most convenient to question this right on the ground of the
religious intolerance of the Turk.
Without joining the party of the "pro-Turks" it is clear that that
ground was more of a pretext than a reality. The Turk is not a religious
persecutor to anything like the extent to which the Christian has been a
religious persecutor. On coming into Europe he never sought, for
example, to destroy the Greek Church, and I do not think that there is
any clear evidence that Turkish misrule was founded at any period on
intolerance carried to the degree of murder for faith's sake. The fault
rather of the Porte's rule was the dreadful corruption and incompetence
of the Turk as an administrator and the Turkish ideas of the status of
women-folk--ideas which gave to Moslem women rights derived from their
Moslem men-relatives, but regarded Christian women as if they were
cattle without owners. I think that it was the adoption by European
Powers of religion as a pretext for interfering in the Balkans which has
been largely responsible for the religious bitterness there. It would
make the situation more clear and give a better hope for the future if
Western Europe would frankly recognise that the fervid interest taken
in the Balkan Peninsula for about a century has had no other reason
generally than territory-hunger.
When Turkey began showing signs of falling to pieces, Russia made an
early claim to the succession of "the Sick Man's" estate. Russia wanted
a warm water-port; and her territories would have been nicely rounded
off by the acquisition of Turkey in Europe. These were the real reasons,
not publicly expressed, for her Balkan policy. Less real reasons, kept
in the foreground, were that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was
at Constantinople, that Russia was the kinsman of the Slav populations
in the Balkans, and that her duty and right was to liberate
co-religionists who were suffering from religious persecution.
Great Britain was the great obstacle to the desire of Russia to march
down upon Constantinople. Her real objection was that with Russia on the
Bosphorus the control of the Mediterranean might pass into the hands of
the rival who seemed to wish to dispute with her for the mastery of
India. Her expressed reasons had some vague declarations about the
"chivalry of the Turk." Austria developed her ambition to suzerainty
over the Balkan Peninsula mainly on the strength of a claim to be the
heir of the old Holy Roman Empire, and as such possessing an hereditary
right to rule over the old seat of that Empire in the East. Italy was
forced into a Balkan policy by the impossibility of allowing a rival
Power to settle on the other side of the Adriatic, threatening her whole
east coast. Germany and France came into Balkan politics chiefly as
allies of Powers with more direct interests, although both have now
fears and hopes regarding the Asiatic dominions of the Sublime Porte and
shape their Balkan policy accordingly.
[Illustration: A YOUNG WOMAN OF THE ROUSTCHOUK DISTRICT]
The way in which, by the Congress of Berlin, the Treaty of San Stefano
was changed illustrated well the fact that, as regards the Balkan
Peninsula, Europe was far more concerned to advance the ambitions of the
Western Powers than to ameliorate the condition of the Near Eastern
peoples under Turkish government. The other Powers' jealousy of Russia
vetoed the creation of the big Bulgaria suggested then, because it was
feared that Bulgarian gratitude to the Power which had been responsible
for her liberation would make the new kingdom a mere appanage of
Russia. When it was manifest afterwards that Bulgarian gratitude was not
of that high and disinterested quality, and that the young Bulgarian
nation was, though semi-Eastern in origin, sufficiently European to play
for her own hand, and her own hand only, in national affairs, Europe had
a spasm of remorse and approved when Bulgaria took advantage of a
Turkish misfortune to gather to herself Eastern Roumelia. The only Power
that objected to that acquisition was Russia. Her eagerness for a big
Bulgaria had faded away with the knowledge that Bulgaria, big or little,
was not inclined to submit to dictation in national affairs from Russia.
The position after the Treaty of Berlin in the Balkans was this: four
virtually independent small nations held old Turkish provinces, and each
desired eagerly, and claimed on historical grounds, extensions of their
territory at the expense of the Turk or at the expense of one another.
Each was tempted to try the means to its end of intrigue with one of the
great Powers. These Powers, still keeping in view their own ambitions,
looked upon and treated the Balkan States as instruments to be used or
to be discarded without reference to the happiness of the Balkans and
with sole reference to the "European situation." Put a group of hungry
and badly trained boys in a cake-shop; set over them as a Board of
Appeal unjust, selfish, and intriguing masters; and you may not expect
peace. That has been for nearly a century the position in the Balkans.
The Balkan League between Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, and Montenegro,
formed about 1912, offered the first steady hope of a peaceful
settlement in the peninsula. There was the beginning there of a movement
which might have developed on the lines of the Swiss Federation and
grown to a Balkan Power in which the Slav element and the Graeco-Roman
element could have combined, in spite of differences of language and of
religion. The fact that Roumania stood out of the League was the first
unfavourable circumstance. True, Roumania is not a Balkan State in the
strict sense of the word, but her national destiny is clearly to be
either a partner with the Balkan States or the humble friend of one of
the great Powers on her borders. This fact is recognised now, and for
the time being Roumania is actually the head of a loose Balkan
combination formed in 1913.
More dangerous to the future of the Balkan League than the abstention
of Roumania was the fact that it had to face the strong hostility of
Austria, and therefore of the Triple Alliance; and it had hardly the
warm sympathy of Russia and was not therefore strongly favoured by the
Triple Entente. Great Britain, whose interests were all to be served and
not hindered by the growth of a Balkan Power, was the only strong friend
the Balkan League had; and her friendship was not strong enough to make
her support a matter of definite national policy.
If Europe had had an unselfish interest in the Balkans it would have
welcomed the Balkan League and made every effort to consolidate its
unity. True, the Balkan League had as its first task the robbing of
Turkey of her European provinces. But Turkey was herself in the position
of a robber; and it had come to be a matter of practical agreement among
the European Powers that the Christian provinces of Turkey would soon
have to pass from under the rule of the Sublime Porte. The only question
left was "how?" The Balkan League offered to answer that question in a
way satisfactory to all unselfish interests. But the selfish interests
of Europe were not served by the League. Austria, dreaming of one day
marching down to the Aegean, saw that that hope would be shattered if a
strong Balkan Federation held the Balkan Peninsula. Italy was afraid of
another Power on the Adriatic--an unwise fear, because her true national
policy should have welcomed a new check to Austria. Russia was not eager
to welcome a Balkan Federation, in which possibly the Slav element would
not predominate and which, in any case, would get to Constantinople
inevitably in the course of events. A bevy of eager jealousies set to
work to put obstacles in the path of the Balkan League. Those Powers
which were friendly to it were mildly friendly; those which were hostile
were relentlessly hostile.
It would be perhaps too much to say that if the European Powers had been
benevolently neutral to the Balkan League it would have survived and set
firm the foundations of a Balkan Federation. But it is reasonable to
believe that an actively benevolent Europe, acting with firmness and
impartiality and without seeking to serve any selfish aims, would have
succeeded in keeping the League together and saving the series of
fratricidal wars which began in 1913 and will be continued as soon as
the present exhaustion has been relieved. Instead of an actively
benevolent there was an actively malevolent Europe.
The plans of the Balkan League contemplated a division of the territory
which is now Albania between Greece, Servia, and Montenegro. The decree
of the Powers, issued because Austria made a "bluffing threat" of war if
Servia were allowed territory on the Adriatic, was that Albania should
be an independent kingdom. It had at the time no cities, no railways, no
roads worthy of the name, no civilised organisation, no basis at all of
national life. Several different racial types and religions found a
shelter within its area. The only useful purpose that could be served by
creating Albania as an independent State was to give the Balkan League a
cause of disunion, and to provide a _pied-a-terre_ for Austria for
future operations in the Balkans. If the "Holy Roman Empire" had
abandoned all thought of getting to the Aegean there would have been no
Albania.
The Balkan League was already very shaky when this bone of contention
was thrown among its members. Servia, Montenegro, and Greece, now
deprived of a share of their spoil, sought to obtain from Bulgaria, who
was in the position, as it were, of residuary legatee, some concessions
out of her share. Bulgaria, embittered at the time by the fact that
Roumania had taken advantage of the situation to demand a territorial
grant south of the Danube, was unwisely obstinate and would make no
concession to any of her partners. The issue had to be fought out
through a disastrous war in which Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece were bled
further of their manhood, already sadly thinned in the war with Turkey.
The Albania which was the chief of the causes of that fratricidal war
was duly constituted, and Prince William of Wied appointed Mpret or
King. At once there was trouble on all the Albanian boundaries, but
chiefly in the south, where the province of Epirus wished to be Greek
and rose in revolt against the new Albanian Government. The effect of
that revolt, which was generally successful, was that the Epirus
district seems likely to win a measure of local government or Home Rule
founded on the following chief conditions:
The country is divided into two administrative districts known
as Koritza and Argyrocastro. These will be governed by two
Prefects nominated by the Albanian Government. In all local
councils the number of elected members is to be three in excess
of the _ex officio_ members.
All existing Greek religious institutions and privileges are to
remain unaltered.
The Greek language is to be taught in the three first classes of
the popular schools, together with the Albanian language. In the
schools of purely Greek communities only the Greek language will
be taught.
The Greek language is to be recognised in matters of local
administration and the Law Courts in the two districts.
The native Epirotes are to remain armed, and are to be
incorporated in the _gendarmerie_ commanded by Dutch officers.
All other volunteers are to leave the country.
Albania is to grant a full amnesty.
The new regime is to be organised and its execution controlled
by the International Commission, and the Commissioners are to
visit the country to see that its provisions are being given
effect to.
Thus already it is recognised that within the small territory of Albania
there has been included one district which is so Greek in sympathy that
it cannot be administered under Albanian law.
[Illustration: AT THE WELL]
The next development in Albania was that Essad Pasha, the Albanian chief
who had, more than any other, assisted to form an independent Albania,
fell out with Prince William and was arrested. A state of tension
between him and Prince William had increased as evidence of Essad
Pasha's complicity in a revolutionary movement became known. A letter
written by Essad Pasha fell into Prince William's hands, in which Essad
Pasha ordered his agents to persuade people to obey only his commands
and not those of the Prince. The Prince thereupon summoned him to the
Palace, and after a stormy scene Essad Pasha tendered his resignation
and returned home. The Prince then held a Council with his Dutch
officers, and decided to compel the disbandment of Essad Pasha's
bodyguard. A Dutch officer conveyed the Prince's command to Essad Pasha.
He at first appeared to consent, and then told his men to resist. They
began to fire upon the Prince's armed adherents in the street. Austrian
and Italian detachments landed, and a party under the command of an
Italian officer arrested Essad Pasha.
That arrest created fresh trouble, and a few days later Prince William
abandoned his kingdom and took refuge on a foreign warship. Repenting of
that precipitate step, he returned to his capital again, and at the time
of writing (June 1914) he is still there under the protection of his
foreign soldiers; but an insurgent force holds the field, demanding
"restoration of Moslem rule." It is not too much to say that independent
Albania has been still-born. Probably neither Austria nor Italy expected
such a quick collapse of their artificial creation. But that it would
collapse one day must have been within their knowledge and their desire,
which was to put a sick infant in the place of a sick man. As it
happens, the collapse has come when neither of them is in a position to
benefit immediately by it. Neither is prepared for an expedition to the
Balkans. But whilst not serving the interests of the Powers who created
Albania, this new development has set the Balkan pot seething again. A
smell of blood taints the air and general fighting may follow. Albania
has provided the latest example of how the selfish ambition of Western
European Powers can inflict woe upon the Near East.
Agreed that these peoples of the Near East are very cantankerous and
very prone by nature to fly at one another's throats, still I maintain
that if Western Europe ceased from interference there would be a better
chance of peace in the Balkans, and if she interfered benevolently and
unselfishly she could make the certainty of peace.
If one could imagine the Powers of Europe reformed as regards their
foreign policy, and genuinely anxious to smooth away the troubles of
these sorely vexed Balkan peoples, the chief danger left to tranquillity
would be the religious intolerance which grows so rankly in the
Peninsula--between Christian and Christian more than between Moslem and
Christian. There needs to be put up in church or mosque of every Balkan
village the inscription of Abul Fazl:
O God, in every temple I see people that see Thee, and in every
language I hear spoken, people praise Thee.
Polytheism and Islam feel after Thee.
Each religion says, "Thou art one, without equal."
If it be a mosque, people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a
Christian church, people ring the bell from love to Thee.
Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the
mosque.
But it is Thee whom I search from temple to temple.
Thy elect have no dealings with either heresy or orthodoxy; for
neither of them stands behind the screen of Thy truth.
Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox.
But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the
perfume-seller.
Or the English poet's rendering of it:
Shall the rose
Cry to the lotus "No flower thou"? the palm
Call to the cypress "I alone am fair"?
The mango spurn the melon at his foot?
"Mine is the one fruit Alla made for man."
Look how the living pulse of Alla beats
Thro' all His world. If every single star
Should shriek its claim "I only am in heaven,"
Why that were such sphere-music as the Greek
Had hardly dream'd of. There is light in all,
And light, with more or less of shade, in all
Man-modes of worship....
I hate the rancour of their castes and creeds,
I let men worship as they will, I reap
No revenue from the field of unbelief.
I cull from every faith and race the best
And bravest soul for counsellor and friend.
I loathe the very name of infidel.
I stagger at the Koran and the sword.
I shudder at the Christian and the stake.
In regard also to this tendency to religious strife the older
civilisations of Europe could give help if they would, rather than
hindrance as they do now, encouraging and stimulating creed jealousies.
Even well-meaning and unselfish friends of the Balkans contribute often
to spread evil tendencies because they take up the attitude of blind
partisanship for one particular Balkan people, and refuse either to give
charity to the others or chiding to their pet people.
It would be neither truthful nor good policy to attempt to maintain that
the great Powers of Europe are altogether responsible for the blood
torrents which are always flowing in the Balkans. But they have had a
great share of the responsibility in the past; are very guilty in the
present. Since gaining some knowledge of the Balkan peoples I have
always nursed a hope, a very desperate hope, that the powers of Western
Europe would repent of selfish ambitions at the eleventh hour, and would
adopt a policy of real help to the struggling nationalities of the Near
East. They are kept so miserable and yet naturally are really so
amiable, those little peoples. The Bulgarians in particular I learned to
regard with something of affection. Their good temper and their industry
and their patience recalled Tolstoy's pen-pictures of the Russian
peasants:
All of these peasants, even those who had quarrelled with him
about the hay, or those whom he had injured if their intention
was not to cheat him, saluted him gaily as they passed, and
showed no anger for what he had done, or any remorse or even
remembrance that they had tried to defraud him. All was
swallowed up and forgotten in this sea of joyous, universal
labour. God gave the day, God gave the strength; and the day and
the strength consecrated the labour and yielded their own
reward. No one dreamed of asking, Why this work, and who enjoyed
the fruits of it? These questions were secondary and of no
account....
Levin had often looked with interest at this life, had often
been tempted to become one with the people, living their lives;
but to-day the impression of what he had seen in the bearing of
Vanka Parmenof towards his young wife gave him for the first
time a clear and definite desire to exchange the burdensome,
idle, artificial, selfish existence which he led, for the
laborious, simple, pure, and delightful life of the peasantry.
The elder, who had been sitting with him, had already gone home;
the neighbouring villagers were wending their way indoors; while
those who lived at a distance were preparing to spend the night
in the meadow, and getting ready for supper.
Levin, without being seen, still lay on the hay, looking,
listening, and thinking. The peasantry, gathered on the prairie,
scarcely slept throughout the short summer night. At first there
were gay gossip and laughter while everybody was eating; then
followed songs and jests.
All the long, laborious day had left no trace upon them, except
of its happiness....
The Bulgarian peasants are indeed very close to the Russians of the
south, where there has been a mixture of Tartar blood. Simple,
laborious, religious, frugal, they deserve better than to be food for
powder.
INDEX
Adrianople, 88
Aegean Sea, 16, 151
Albania, 134
Arjenli, 114
Balkan Mountains, 150
Baltic shores, the, 16
Banki, 153
Black Sea, 16, 150
Bourgas, 20, 161
Bulair, 136
Burgas, 150
Chatalja, 114
Danube, 39
Dardanelles, 145
Epirus, 134
Ermenikioi, 114
Gabrovo, 155
Hissar, 153
Jambouli, 20
Janina, 134
Kalofer, 155
Karlovo, 155
Kasilagatch, 67
Kastoria, 67
Kirk Kilisse, 67, 111
Klissoura, 155
Koprivchtitza, 155
Kotel, 155
Kustendji, 16
Macedonia, 134, 145
Maritza River, 148
Marmora, Sea of, 19, 145
Meritchleri, 153
Monastir, 67
Mustapha Pasha, 67, 108
Nisch, 67
Nish in Servia, near the border of Bulgaria, 21
Novo-grad, 18
Panaguiourichte, 155
Philippopolis, 18, 67, 154
Pirdop, 155
Preslav--now in ruins, 54
Rhodope Mountains, 59, 150
Roumania, 150
Roustchouk, 67
Salonica, 145
Samokov, 155
Sandjaks, 67
Schumla, 18, 33
Scutari, 134
Servia, 150
Shipka Pass, 96
Silistra, 150
Silivri, 114
Sliven, 67, 153, 155
Sofia, 22, 67, 77, 153
Sopot, 155
Stara Zagora, 106, 154
Stroumitza, 67
Struma River, 151
Tchorlu, 113
Thrace, 88, 134, 145
Tikvesch, 67
Tirnova, 67, 169
Toultcha, 67
Trevna, 155
Uskub, 67
Varna, 16, 67, 150, 161
Varshetz, 153
Veles, 67
Vidin, 67
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_.
[Illustration: Sketch Map accompanying "Bulgaria." By Frank Fox.
Published by A. & C. Black Ltd., London.]