MAKING A NATION TO ORDER
From the young officers who wore on their shoulders the silver greyhound
of the American Courier Service we heard many discouraging tales of the
annoyances and discomforts for which we must be prepared in traveling
through Hungary, the Banat and Jugoslavia. But, to tell the truth, I did
not take these warnings very seriously, for I had observed that a
profoundly pessimistic attitude of mind characterized all of the
Americans or English whose duties had kept them in the Balkans for any
length of time. In Salonika this mental condition was referred to as
"the Balkan tap"--derived, no doubt, from the verb "to knock," as with a
hammer--and it usually implied that those suffering from the ailment had
outstayed their period of usefulness and should be sent home.
Thrice weekly a train composed of an assortment of ramshackle and
dilapidated coaches, called by courtesy the Orient Express, which
maintained an average speed of fifteen miles an hour, left Bucharest for
Vincovce, a small junction town in the Banat, where it was supposed to
make connections with the south-bound Simplon Express from Paris to
Belgrade and with the north-bound express from Belgrade to Paris. The
Simplon Express likewise ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were
missed at Vincovce, the passengers were compelled to spend at least two
days in a small Hungarian town which was notorious, even in that region,
for its discomforts and its dirt. All went well with us, however, the
train at one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty miles an hour,
until, in a particularly desolate portion of the great Hungarian plain,
we came to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's wait, I descended
to ascertain the cause of the delay, I found the train crew surrounded
by a group of indignant and protesting passengers.
"What's the trouble?" I inquired.
"The engineer claims that he has run out of coal," some one answered.
"But he says that there is a coal depot three or four kilometers ahead
and that, if each first-class passenger will contribute fifty francs,
and each second-class passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will
enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vincovce. Otherwise, he
says, we will probably miss both connections, which means that we must
stay in Vincovce for forty-eight hours. And if you had ever seen
Vincovce you would understand that such a prospect is anything but
alluring."
While my fellow-passengers were noisily debating the question I strolled
ahead to take a look at the engine. As I had been led to expect from the
stories I had heard from the courier officers, the tender contained an
ample supply of coal--enough, it seemed to me, to haul the train to
Trieste.
"This is nothing but a hold-up," I told the assembled passengers. "There
is plenty of coal in the tender. I am as anxious to make the connection
as any of you, but I will settle here and raise bananas, or whatever
they do raise in the Banat, before I will submit to this highwayman's
demands."
Seeing that his bluff had been called, the engineer, favoring me with a
murderous glance, sullenly climbed into his cab and the train started,
only to stop again, however, a few miles further on, this time, the
engineer explained, because the engine had broken down. There being no
way of disputing this statement, it became a question of pay or
stay--and we stayed. The engineer did not get his tribute and we did not
get our train at Vincovce, where we spent twenty hot, hungry and
extremely disagreeable hours before the arrival of a local train bound
for Semlin, across the Danube from Belgrade. We completed our journey to
the Jugoslav capital in a fourth-class compartment into which were
already squeezed two Serbian soldiers, eight peasants, a crate of live
poultry and a dog, to say nothing of a multitude of small and undesired
occupants whose presence caused considerable annoyance to every one,
including the dog. We were glad when the train arrived at Semlin.
Late in the summer of 1919, as a result of the reconstruction of the
railway bridges which had been blown up by the Bulgarians early in the
war, through service between Salonika and Belgrade was restored. As the
journey consumed from three to five days, however, the train stopping
for the night at stations where the hotel accommodation was of the most
impossible description, the American and British officials and
relief-workers who were compelled to make the journey (I never heard of
any one making it for pleasure) usually hired a freight car, which they
fitted up with army cots and a small cook-stove, thus traveling in
comparative comfort.
Curiously enough, the only trains running on anything approaching a
schedule in the Balkans were those loaded with Swiss goods and belonging
to the Swiss Government. In crossing Southern Hungary we passed at least
half-a-dozen of them, they being readily distinguished by a Swiss flag
painted on each car. Each train, consisting of forty cars, was
accompanied by a Swiss officer and twenty infantrymen--finely set-up
fellows in _feldgrau_ with steel helmets modeled after the German
pattern. Had the trains not been thus guarded, I was told, the goods
would never have reached their destination and the cars, which are the
property of the Swiss State Railways, would never have been returned. It
is by such drastic methods as this that Switzerland, though hard hit by
the war, has kept the wheels of her industries turning and her currency
from serious depreciation. I have rarely seen more hopeless-looking
people than those congregated on the platforms of the little stations at
which we stopped in Hungary. The Rumanian armies had swept the country
clean of livestock and agricultural machinery, throwing thousands of
peasants out of work, and, owing to the appalling depreciation of the
kroner, which was worth less than a twentieth of its normal value, great
numbers of people who, under ordinary conditions, would have been
described as comfortably well off, found themselves with barely
sufficient resources to keep themselves from want. To add to their
discouragement, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to Hungary's
future. In order to obtain an idea of just how familiar the inhabitants
of the rural districts were with political conditions, I asked four
intelligent-looking men in succession who was the ruler of Hungary and
what was its present form of government. The first opined that the
Archduke Joseph had been chosen king; another ventured the belief that
the country was a republic with Bela Kun as president; the third
asserted that Hungary had been annexed to Rumania; while the last man I
questioned said quite frankly that he didn't know who was running the
country, or what its form of government was, and that he didn't much
care. As a result of the decision of the Peace Conference which awarded
Transylvania to Rumania and divided the Banat between Rumania and
Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of virtually all her forests,
all her mines, all her oil wells, and all of her manufactories save
those in Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt and demoralized nation of
practically all of her resources save her wheat-fields. I talked with a
number of Americans and English who were conversant with Hungary's
internal condition and they agreed that it was doubtful if the country,
stripped of its richest territories, deprived of most of its resources,
and hemmed in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long exist as an
independent state. On several occasions I heard the opinion expressed
that sooner or later the Hungarians, in order to save themselves from
complete ruin, would ask to be admitted to the Jugoslav Confederation,
thereby obtaining for their products an outlet to the sea. In any
event, the Hungarians appear to have a more friendly feeling for their
Jugoslav neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they charge with a
deliberate attempt to bring about their economic ruin.
In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and materials, we found that
the traces of the Austrian bombardment of Belgrade in 1914, which did
enormous damage to the Serbian capital, were rapidly being effaced and
that the city was fast resuming its pre-war appearance. The place was as
busy as a boom town in the oil country. The Grand Hotel, where the food
was the best and cheapest we found in the Balkans, was filled to the
doors with officers, politicians, members of parliament--for the
Skupshtina was in session--relief workers, commercial travelers and
concession seekers, and the huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with
Russian capital, was about to reopen. Architecturally, Belgrade shows
many traces of Muscovite influence, many of the more important buildings
having the ornate façades of pink, green and purple tiles, the colored
glass windows, and the gilded domes which are so characteristically
Russian. Though the main thoroughfare of the city, formerly called the
Terásia but now known as Milan Street, is admirably paved with wooden
blocks, the cobble pavements of the other streets have remained
unchanged since the days of Turkish rule, being so rough that it is
almost impossible to drive a motor car over them without imminent danger
of breaking the springs. Five minutes' walk from the center of the city,
on a promontory commanding a superb view of the Danube and its junction
with the Save, is a really charming park known as the Slopes of
Dreaming, where, on fine evenings, almost the entire population of the
capital appears to be promenading, the rather drab appearance of an
urban crowd being brightened by the gaily embroidered costumes of the
peasants and the silver-trimmed uniforms of the Serbian officers.
The palace known as the Old Konak, where King Alexander and Queen Draga
were assassinated under peculiarly revolting circumstances on the night
of June 11, 1905, and from an upper window of which their mutilated
bodies were thrown into the garden, has been torn down, presumably
because of its unpleasant associations for the present dynasty, but
only a stone's throw away from the tragic spot is being erected a large
and ornate palace of gray stone, ornamented with numerous carvings, as a
residence for Prince-Regent Alexander, who, when I was there, was
occupying a modest one-story building on the opposite side of the
street. By far the most interesting building in Belgrade, however, is a
low, tile-roofed, white-walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes
Mihajelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is pointed out to visitors
as "the Cradle of the War," for in the low-ceilinged room on the second
floor is said to have been hatched the plot which resulted in the
assassination of the Austrian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring
of 1914 and thereby precipitated Armageddon.
[Illustration: THE WINE-SHOP WHICH IS POINTED OUT TO VISITORS AS "THE
CRADLE OF THE WAR"]
In this connection, here is a story, told me by a Czechoslovak who had
served as an officer in the Serbian army during the war, which throws an
interesting sidelight on the tragedy of Serajevo. This officer's uncle,
a colonel in the Austrian army, had been, it seemed, equerry to the
Archduke Ferdinand, being in attendance on the Archduke at the Imperial
shooting-lodge in Bohemia when, early in the spring of 1914, the
German Emperor, accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, went there,
ostensibly for the shooting. The day after their arrival, according to
my informant's story, the Emperor and the Archduke went out with the
guns, leaving Admiral von Tirpitz at the lodge with the Archduchess. The
equerry, who was on duty in an anteroom, through a partly opened door
overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess to obtain the consent of
her husband--with whom she was known to exert extraordinary
influence--to a union of Austria-Hungary with Germany upon the death of
Francis Joseph, who was then believed to be dying--a scheme which had
long been cherished by the Kaiser and the Pan-Germans.
"Never will I lend my influence to such a plan!" the equerry heard the
Archduchess violently exclaim. "Never! Never! Never!"
At the moment the Emperor and the Archduke, having returned from their
battue, entered the room, whereupon the Archduchess, her voice shrill
with indignation, poured out to her husband the story of von Tirpitz's
proposal. The Archduke, always noted for the violence of his temper,
promptly sided with his wife, angrily accusing the Kaiser of intriguing
behind his back against the independence of Austria. Ensued a violent
altercation between the ruler of Germany and the Austrian heir-apparent,
which ended in the Kaiser and his adviser abruptly terminating their
visit and departing the same evening for Berlin.
For the truth of this story I do not vouch; I merely repeat it in the
words in which it was told to me by an officer whose veracity I have no
reason to question. There are many things which point to its
probability. Certain it is that the Archduke, who was a man of strong
character and passionately devoted to the best interests of the Dual
Monarchy, was the greatest obstacle to the Kaiser's scheme for the union
of the two empires under his rule, a scheme which, could it have been
realized, would have given Germany that highroad to the East and that
outlet to the Warm Water of which the Pan-Germans had long dreamed. The
assassination of the Archduke a few weeks later not only removed the
greatest stumbling-block to these schemes of Teutonic expansion, but it
further served the Kaiser's purpose by forcing Austria into war with
Serbia, thereby making Austria responsible, in the eyes of the world,
for launching the conflict which the Kaiser had planned.
There has never been any conclusive proof, remember, that the Serbs were
responsible for Ferdinand's assasination. Not that there is anything in
their history which would lead one to believe that they would balk at
that method of removing an enemy, but, regarded from a political
standpoint, it would have been the most unintelligent and short-sighted
thing they could possibly have done. Nor are the Serbs and the
Pan-Germans the only ones to whom the crime might logically be traced.
Ferdinand, remember, had many enemies within the borders of his own
country. The Austrian anti-clericals hated and distrusted him because he
surrounded himself by Jesuit advisers and because he was believed to be
unduly under the influence of the Church of Rome. He was equally
unpopular with a large and powerful element of the Hungarians, who
foresaw a serious diminution of their influence in the affairs of the
monarchy should the Archduke succeed in realizing his dream of a Triple
Kingdom composed of Austria, Hungary and the Southern Slavs.
Strange indeed are the changes which have been brought about by the
greatest conflict. Ferdinand, descendant of a long line of princes,
kings and emperors, has passed round that dark corner whence no man
returns, but his ambitious dreams of a triple kingdom which would
include the Southern Slavs have survived him, though in a somewhat
modified form. But he who sits on the throne of the new kingdom, and who
rules to-day over a great portion of the former dominions of the
Hapsburgs, instead of being a scion of the Imperial House of Austria, is
the great-grandson of a Serbian blacksmith.
Owing to the ill-health and advanced age of King Peter of Serbia, his
second son, Alexander, is Prince-Regent of the Kingdom of the Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes. Prince Alexander, a slender, dark-complexioned man
with characteristically Slav features, was educated in Vienna and is
said to be an excellent soldier. He is extremely democratic, simple in
manner, a student, a hard worker, and devoted to the best interests of
his people. Though he is an accomplished horseman, a daring, even
reckless motorist, and an excellent shot, he is probably the loneliest
man in his kingdom, for he has no close associates of his own age, being
surrounded by elderly and serious-minded advisers; his aged father is in
a sanitarium, his scapegrace elder brother lives in Paris, and his
sister, a Russian grand duchess, makes her home on the Riviera. Though
old beyond his years and visibly burdened by the responsibilities of his
difficult position, he possesses a peculiarly winning manner and is
immensely popular with his soldiers, whose hardships he shared
throughout the war. Though he enjoys no great measure of popularity
among his new Croat and Slovene subjects, who might be expected to
regard any Serb ruler with a certain degree of jealousy and suspicion,
he has unquestionably won their profound respect. It is a difficult and
trying position which this young man occupies, and it is not made any
easier for him, I imagine, by the knowledge that, should he make a false
step, should he arouse the enmity of certain of the powerful factions
which surround him, the fate of his predecessor and namesake, King
Alexander, might quite conceivably befall him.
I have been asked if, in my opinion, the peoples composing the new state
of Jugoslavia will stick together. If there could be effected a
confederation, modeled on that of Switzerland or the United States, in
which the component states would have equal representation, with the
executive power vested in a Federal Council, as in Switzerland, then I
believe that Jugoslavia would develop into a stable and prosperous
nation. But I very much doubt if the Croats, the Slovenes, the Bosnians
and the Montenegrins will willingly consent to a permanent arrangement
whereby the new nation is placed under a Serbian dynasty, no matter how
complete are the safeguards afforded by the constitution or how
conscientious and fair-minded the sovereign himself may be. No one
questions the ability or the honesty of purpose of Prince Alexander, but
the non-Serb elements feel, and not wholly without justification, that a
Serbian prince on the throne means Serbian politicians in places of
authority, thereby giving Serbia a disproportionate share of authority
in the government of Jugoslavia, as Prussia had in the government of the
German Empire.
Already there have been manifestations of friction between the Serbs and
the Croats and between the Serbs and the Slovenes, to say nothing of the
open hostility which exists between the Serbs and certain Montenegrin
factions, to which I have alluded in a preceding chapter. It should be
remembered that the Croats and Slovenes, though members of the great
family of Southern Slavs, have by no means as much in common with their
Serb kinsmen as is generally believed. Croatia and Slovenia have both
educated and wealthy classes. Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small
educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that
there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each
have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions;
Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and
professional men who come from peasant stock. As a result of the large
sums which were spent on public instruction in Croatia and Slovenia
under Austrian rule, only a comparatively small proportion of the
population is illiterate. But in Serbia public education is still in a
regrettably backward state, the latest figures available showing that
less than seventeen per cent. of the population can read and write, a
condition which, I doubt not, will rapidly improve with the
reestablishment of peace. Laibach (now known as Lubiana), the chief city
of Croatia, Agram, in Slovenia, and Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia,
have long been known as education centers, possessing a culture and
educational facilities of which far larger cities would have reason to
be proud. But Belgrade, having been, as it were, on the frontier of
European civilization, has been compelled to concentrate its energies
and its resources on commerce and the national defense. The attitude of
the people of Agram toward the less sophisticated and cultured Serbs
might be compared to that of an educated Bostonian toward an Arizona
ranchman--a worthy, industrious fellow, no doubt, but rather lacking in
culture and refinement. The truth of the matter is that the Croats and
the Slovenes, though only too glad to escape the Allies' wrath by
claiming kinship with the Serbs and taking refuge under the banner of
Jugoslavia, at heart consider themselves immeasurably superior to their
southern kinsmen, whose political dictation, now that the storm has
passed, they are beginning to resent.
The first impression which the Serb makes upon a stranger is rarely a
favorable one. As an American diplomat, who is a sincere friend of
Serbia, remarked to me, "The Serb has neither manner nor manners. The
visitor always sees his worst side while his best side remains hidden.
He never puts his best foot forward."
A certain sullen defiance of public opinion is, it has sometimes seemed
to me, a characteristic of the Serb. He gives one the impression of
constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring any one to knock
it off. He is always eager for an argument, but, like so many
argumentative persons, it is almost impossible to convince him that he
is in the wrong. The slightest opposition often drives him into an
almost childlike rage and if things go against him he is apt to charge
his opponent with insincerity or prejudice. He can see things only one
way, _his_ way and he resents criticism so violently that it is seldom
wise to argue with him.
Though the Serb, when afforded opportunities for education, usually
shows great brilliancy as a student and often climbs high in his chosen
profession, he all too frequently lacks the mental poise and the power
of restraining his passions which are the heritage of those peoples who
have been educated for generations.
In Serbia, as in the other Balkan states, it is the peasants who form
the most substantial and likeable element of the population. The Serbian
peasant is simple, kindly, honest, and hospitable, and, though he could
not be described with strict truthfulness as a hard worker, his wife
invariably is. Although, like most primitive peoples, he is suspicious
of strangers, once he is assured that they are friends there is no
sacrifice that he will not make for their comfort, going cold and
hungry, if necessary, in order that they may have his blanket and his
food. He is one of the very best soldiers in Europe, somewhat careless
in dress, drill and discipline, perhaps, but a good shot, a tireless
marcher, inured to every form of hardship, and invariably cheerful and
uncomplaining. Perhaps it is his instinctive love of soldiering which
makes him so reluctant to lay down the rifle and take up the hoe. He
has fought three victorious wars in rapid succession and he has come to
believe that his metier is fighting. In this he is tacitly encouraged by
France, who sees in an armed and ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-the-hat
Jugoslavia a counterbalance to Italian ambitions in the Balkans.
Though there are irresponsible elements in both Jugoslavia and Italy who
talk lightly of war, I am convinced that the great bulk of the
population in both countries realize that such a war would be the height
of shortsightedness and folly. Throughout the Fiume and Dalmatian crises
precipitated by d'Annunzio, Jugoslavia behaved with exemplary patience,
dignity and discretion. Let her future foreign relations continue to be
characterized by such self-control; let her turn her energies to
developing the vast territories to which she has so unexpectedly fallen
heir; let her take immediate steps toward inaugurating systems of
transportation, public instruction and sanitation; let her waste no time
in ridding herself of her jingo politicians and officers--let Jugoslavia
do these things and her future will take care of itself. She is a young
country, remember. Let us be charitable in judging her.