FERDINAND THE FALSE
The murder of Franz Ferdinand and the ranging of all the Great Powers
of Europe in a struggle for life or death opened up to Ferdinand a new
vista of opportunity. He could see at any rate that opportunities would
soon come his way to retrieve the losses of the second Balkan war. When
Turkey plunged headlong into the quarrel, the opportunities of Bulgaria
were multiplied tenfold, and for the first time in its existence this
newest of European nations occupied a position of great importance by
reason of its geographical position.
To appreciate to the full the real importance of Bulgaria’s position it
is necessary to take a glance at the map of Europe, as it appeared
after the Treaty of Bucarest, and before Europe was convulsed by the
Great War. One quick glance will show that the only European country
with a frontier adjoining that of Turkey in Europe is Bulgaria, and
that it lies like a wedge between the territory of the Central Powers
and that of Turkey.
In a word, a hostile Bulgaria would cut Turkey off from its allies of
Germany and Austria; a neutral Bulgaria would make communication most
difficult; while an allied Bulgaria would permit free passage of goods
and troops between Berlin and Constantinople.
Ferdinand was quick to see the new importance he had assumed in the
struggle of the nations, and eager to push his advantage to the utmost.
From the very outset he was wooed most assiduously by his old friend
Austria, and by Germany through Austria. On the other hand his
traditional friendship with France, and the deep obligation of Bulgaria
to Russia and Great Britain, caused the Allied Powers to regard the
position with some complacency. The hostility of all the Balkan States
to Turkey, and therefore to the Teuton Powers, was assumed, though it
appears to have been recognized from the outset that Ferdinand would
set a price, even upon his neutrality.
But Ferdinand was already committed to a scheme which promised him far
more than he could expect from his French friends and their allies. The
service demanded was no small one, for he had not only to appear in
arms on behalf of the Central Powers when the appointed time came, but
before then he had to destroy the trust of the other Balkan States in
the justice and the cause of the Entente Powers.
To this end it was necessary to retain the confidence of France, Great
Britain, and the Powers allied to them. The task was no easy one, since
his duplicity was a matter of notoriety; and he had need to preserve a
very specious air to cover the real cunning of his plans. How far he
went in his double dealing it is not yet possible to say; but it is
certain that he must have gone to extreme lengths to win the confidence
and trust of the Entente diplomatists in the face of the warnings that
were showered upon them.
The demands he made as the price of his friendship were for concessions
at the expense of his neighbours, Serbia and Greece. Serbia was to
yield 6,000 square miles of that part of Thrace which was wrested from
Turkey in the Balkan war. The demand was an unconscionable one, for in
the territory he wanted was a considerable section of the railway that
linked Belgrade to Salonica, and formed the only outlet that Serbia
possessed to the sea. That link was to be entrusted to the acknowledged
enemy of Serbia, the Czar of Bulgaria.
It is not very pleasant to reflect that Serbia was forced to consent to
this demand by her allies. The use made by Germans of the incident, and
of the pressure that had to be applied to Serbia, was a very deft one.
Rumania and Greece were told that they were mere pawns in the game, and
that the Powers of the Entente would willingly sacrifice them to their
own desire to retain the friendship of Bulgaria.
Greece was soon to have a practical illustration of the German
argument, for Ferdinand, emboldened by his first diplomatic success,
then demanded a strip of Greek territory on the Ægean, including the
Greek seaport of Kavalla. Greece strenuously objected, but was told
that she must give way and that it was only due to Bulgaria. “What did
we tell you?” whispered the Germans in Greek ears, and were justified
of their previous insinuations.
It has never been disclosed whether Ferdinand asked for instant
delivery of this territory, or whether the compliance with his demands
was followed on his part by the signing of a treaty with the Entente
Powers. It would have been like the disregard Ferdinand had always
shown for “scraps of paper” if he had committed Bulgaria to a pact
which he had already broken when it was signed. For at this time, when
by some means he had won the trust of the Entente Powers, he had
actually entered into treaty obligations with their enemies.
Who can measure the duplicity of this man? It is certain that the trust
reposed in him by both sides was very great, and that in the end he was
certain to betray one or the other. That he had already chosen to
betray the Entente is fairly certain, for already the expedition
against the Dardanelles had been launched, and he well knew that its
success would mean the total extinction of his long-cherished scheme
for obtaining possession of Constantinople.
With Germany and Austria, on the other hand, he was dealing with Powers
lavish of their promises. To them, and to Turkey also, a free passage
through Bulgaria had now become vital. They were at a standstill in the
western area of war, and their great effort against Russia was now
expending itself. The only outlet offering was to the east and south,
and to that outlet the assistance of Bulgaria was imperative. So
Germany promised far more than the Entente Powers could give, and
Ferdinand sold himself to the biggest bidder.
It was a dangerous game he played, for the success of the attempt on
the Dardanelles would have made it impossible for him to carry out his
arrangement with his friends the Huns. The failure of that enterprise,
on the other hand, allowed him to break his obligations to the Entente
Powers, after they had strained the loyalty of Serbia, Greece and
Rumania, in trying to meet his demands.
Such was the double treachery of which Ferdinand was guilty in 1914 and
1915. His treaties with the Teuton Powers appear to have been two. The
first was made with Austria in 1913, when he pledged himself to common
action against Serbia with that Power; and so, it may be, paved the way
to the assassination of the heir-apparent to the Austrian throne. The
other was made with Germany in July, 1915, when Ferdinand was
guaranteed Thrace, and a strip of Greek territory along the Ægean,
including the ports of Kavalla and Salonica.
In April of 1915 the Rumanian Minister at Sofia warned his government
that the agreement had been made, and Rumania in its turn warned the
Entente Powers. Later Greece warned the Entente of what was going on at
least twice. In the face of these warnings, the Entente Powers
continued to believe in Ferdinand. The Serbians, who knew his villany,
and were certain that he was casting in his lot with their oppressors,
wished to take the bull by the horns and attack Bulgaria while its
powerful friends were fully occupied with Russia and on the western
front. They were restrained by the Entente Powers; otherwise they would
have altered the whole course of the war.
I repeat that the Entente must have had better assurance than mere
protestations from Ferdinand to have trusted him so implicitly. His
reputation and his past career were for any one to read; yet in face of
all suspicious circumstances he was trusted. M. Joseph Reinach states
that when the documents of the negotiations are published by the
Entente Powers they will constitute a record in baseness and treachery.
For my own part, I conceive that nothing less than a treaty signed by
Ferdinand and his ministers will be brought forward in justification of
the latitude that was allowed to him.
The mobilization of the Bulgarian army was finally ordered upon the
flimsiest of pretexts, and its concentration upon the Serbian frontier,
concurrently with the advance of the German and Austrians upon the
doomed kingdom, follows inevitably. The rest is a matter of recent
history, still an incomplete chapter in the story of the Great War.
One effect of Ferdinand’s intervention was to unite Constantinople with
Berlin, and to make the British evacuation of the peninsula of
Gallipoli a necessity. Thus the Czar of Bulgaria was instrumental in
striking the hardest blow at the prestige of the British arms that has
been inflicted in the memory of living man. He effected it, not by
prowess in the field, but by an act of base and shameless treachery,
which involved his turning his back upon all the nations which he had
extolled as liberating influences, to which Bulgaria owed its very
existence. It involved him in an alliance with Turkey, the Power
against which he had been for a generation declaiming. But it was a
shrewd blow nevertheless, and it will be the fault of Great Britain
itself if the punishment for it is not conceived on a similar scale of
magnitude.
It must not be supposed that Ferdinand stood alone in Bulgaria in this
act of dissimulation and treachery. He acted in connivance with a
ministry which represented a very powerful pro-Hun section of Bulgarian
opinion. For by this time a large section of Bulgaria, embittered by
the reverse of the second Balkan war, had renounced its Slavonic
sympathies, and had openly pronounced for the Kultur of the Kaiser and
his generals and professors.
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KULTUR IN BULGARIA
“_A heroic struggle is being played out before us; the healthy and
mighty German Kultur is fighting the rotten French Culture which, being
sentenced to death, endeavours to induce all the other nations of
Europe to join her._”—DR. PETROFF, OF THE BULGARIAN UNIVERSITY.
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