Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition
Turkey throws in her lot with the central empires.—The demands of
Italy.—She joins the Triple Entente.—The retreat of the
Russians.—The Balkans again.—Bulgaria’s bargaining.—German
princes on Balkan thrones.—The central empires bid the highest
for Bulgarian support.—The attitude of Greece.—Roumania’s hopes.
To return to the great war. The diplomats of both sides made all
haste to put pressure upon the governments of the countries which
were not engaged in the struggle, in order to win them over.
Germany and Austria worked hard with Italy, with Turkey, and with
Bulgaria. The Turks were the first to plunge in. The party headed
by Enver Bey (the young minister of war) saw that a victory for
Russia and her allies meant the final expulsion of the Turks from
Europe. Only in the victory of Germany and Austria did this
faction see any hope for Turkey. It was the latter part of
October (1914) when Turkish warships, without any provocation,
sailed into some Russian ports on the Black Sea and blazed away
with their big guns.
Some of the older Turkish statesmen were terrified, and did their
best to get the government at Constantinople to disclaim all
responsibility for this act of their naval commanders. The “Young
Turks,” however, were all for war on the side of Germany. What is
more, Russia, always anxious for an excuse to seize
Constantinople, would not allow the Turks to apologize for their
act and keep out of trouble. She declared war on Turkey, and was
quickly followed by France and England.
Both sides now set to work on Italy. It was plain that all the
sympathies of the Italian people were with France and England.
The six grandsons of Garibaldi formed an Italian regiment and
volunteered for fighting on the French lines. Two of them were
killed, and at their funerals in Rome, nearly all the inhabitants
of the city turned out and showed plainly that they too would
like to be fighting on the side of France.
You will remember that Italy wanted very much to gain the
provinces of Trentino and Istria, with the cities of Trent,
Trieste (trï ĕs′te), Pola (pō′lä), and Fiume (fē ū′me), all
inhabited by Italian people. The possession of these counties and
cities by Austria had been the greatest source of trouble between
the two nations. Italy now came out boldly, and demanded, as the
price of her keeping out of the war, that Austria give to her
this land inhabited by Italians. Germany urged Austria to do
this, and sent as her special ambassador, to keep Italy from
joining her enemies, Prince von Bulow, whose wife was an Italian
lady, and who was very popular with the Italian statesmen.
For months, von Bulow argued and pleaded, first trying to induce
Italy to accept a small part of the disputed territory and then,
when he found this impossible, doing his best to induce Austria
to give it all. Austria was stubborn. She did not take kindly to
the plan of giving away her cities. She offered to cede some
territory if Italy should wait until the end of the war.
This did not satisfy Italy. She was by no means certain that
Austria and Germany were going to win the war and was even less
sure that Austria would be willing, in case of her victory, to
give up a foot of territory. It seemed to the Italian statesmen
that it was “now or never” if Italy wished to get within her
kingdom all of her own people. In the month of May 1915 Italy
threw herself into the struggle by declaring war on Austria and
entering an alliance with Russia, France, and England.
[Illustration: Russian peasants fleeing before the German army]
Meanwhile, the Russians were having difficulties. They had
millions and millions of men, but not enough rifles to equip them
all. They had plenty of food but very little ammunition for their
cannon. Austria and Germany, on the other hand, had been
manufacturing shot and shells in enormous quantities, and from
the month of May, when the Russians had crossed the Carpathian
Mountains and were threatening to pour down on Buda-Pest and
Vienna, they drove them steadily back until the first of October,
forcing them to retreat nearly three hundred miles.
In the meantime, the Balkans again became the seat of trouble.
You will recall that Bulgaria, who had grown proud because of her
victory over Turkey in the war of 1912, was too grasping when it
came to a division of the conquered territory. Thus she brought
on a second war, in the course of which Greece and Serbia
defeated her, while Roumania took a slice of her territory and
the Turks recaptured the city of Adrianople. The czar of Russia
had done his best to prevent this second Balkan war, even sending
a personal telegram to Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria and to King
Peter of Serbia, begging them for the sake of the Slavic race,
not to let their quarrels come to blows. Bulgaria, confident of
her ability to defeat Greece and Serbia, had disregarded the
Russians’ pleadings, and as a result Russia did not interfere to
save her when her neighbors were robbing her of part of the land
which she had taken from Turkey.
It will be recalled that Macedonia was the country which Bulgaria had
felt most sorry to lose, as its inhabitants were largely Bulgarian in
their blood, although many Greeks and Serbs were among them. Therefore,
just as Italy strove by war and diplomacy to add Trentino to her
nation, so Bulgaria now saw her chance to gain Macedonia from Serbia.
Accordingly, she asked the four great powers what they would give her
in case she entered the war on their side, and attacked Turkey by way
of Constantinople, while the French and English were hammering at the
forts along the Dardanelles.[7]
[7] England and France needed wheat, which Russia had in great
quantities at her ports on the Black Sea. On the other hand France and
England, by supplying Russia with rifles and ammunition, could strike
a hard blow at Germany.
The four powers, after much persuasion and brow-beating, finally
induced Serbia to agree to give up part of Serbian Macedonia to
Bulgaria. They further promised Bulgaria to give her the city of
Adrianople and the territory around it which Turkey had
reconquered. But Bulgaria was not easily satisfied. She wanted
more than Serbia was willing to give; she wanted, too, the port
of Kavala, which Greece had taken from her. This the allies could
not promise.
In the meantime, Bulgaria was bargaining with Austria, Germany,
and Turkey. France, England, and Russia were ready to pay back
Serbia for the loss of Macedonia, by promising her Bosnia and
Herzegovina in case they won the war from Austria. In like
fashion, Austria and Germany promised Bulgaria some Turkish
territory and also the southern part of the present kingdom of
Serbia, in case she entered the war on their side.
Now the king of Bulgaria, or the czar, as he prefers to call
himself, is a German. (As these little countries won their
independence from Turkey, they almost always called in foreign
princes to be their kings. In this way it had come about that the
king of Greece was a prince of Denmark, the king of Roumania was
a German of the Hohenzollern family, while the czar of Bulgaria
was a German of the Coburg family, the same family which has
furnished England and Belgium with their kings.)
The Bulgarians themselves are members of the Greek Catholic
Church, and they have a very high regard for the czar of Russia,
as the head of that church. Czar Ferdinand had no such feeling,
however. He wanted to be the most powerful ruler in the Balkan
states, and it made no difference to him which side helped him to
gain his object.
[Illustration: A Bomb-Proof Trench in the Western War Front]
About this time, the Russians had been forced to retreat to a
line running south from Riga, on the Baltic Sea, to the northern
boundary of Roumania. The French and English had been pounding at
the Dardanelles for some months, but the stubborn resistance of
the Turks seemed likely to hold them out of Constantinople for a
long time to come. The checked Italians had not been able to make
much headway against the Austrians through the mountainous Alpine
country where the fighting was taking place. In the west, the
Germans were holding firmly against the attacks of the British
and French. The czar of Bulgaria and his ministers, thinking that
the German-Austrian-Turkish alliance could win with their help,
flung their nation into its third war within four years. This
happened in Octoher, 1915.
Now at the close of the second Balkan war, when Serbia and Greece
defeated Bulgaria, they made an alliance, by which each agreed to
come to the help of the other in case either was attacked by
Bulgaria. Roumania, too, was friendly to Greece and Serbia,
rather than to treaty Bulgaria, for the Roumanians knew that
Bulgaria was very anxious to get back the territory of which
Roumania had robbed her, in the second Balkan war. In this way,
the Quadruple Entente (Russia, Italy, France, and England) hoped
that the entry of Bulgaria into the war, on the side of Germany
and Turkey, would bring Greece and Roumania in on the other side.
The Greek people were ready to rush to Serbia’s aid and so was
the Greek prime minister. The queen of Greece, however, is a
sister of the German emperor, and through her influence with her
husband she was able to defeat the plans of Venizelos (vĕn ĭ
zĕl′ŏs), the prime minister, who was notified by the king that
Greece would not enter the war. Venizelos accordingly resigned,
but not until he had given permission to the French and English
to land troops at Salonika, for the purpose of rushing to the
help of Serbia. (Greece also was afraid that German and Austrian
armies might lay waste her territory, as they had Serbia’s,
before England and France could come to the rescue.)
Meanwhile poor Serbia was in a desperate state. The two Balkan
wars had drained her of some of her best soldiers. Twice the
Austrians had invaded her kingdom in this war, and twice they had
been driven out. Then came a dreadful epidemic of typhus fever
which was the result of unhealthful conditions caused by the war.
Now the little kingdom, attacked by the Germans and Austrians on
two sides and by the Bulgarians on a third, was literally
fighting with her back to the wall. She had counted on Greece to
stand by her promise to help in case of an attack from Bulgaria,
but we have seen how the German queen of Greece had been able to
prevent this. Serbia hoped that Roumania, too, would come to her
help. However, as you have been told, the king of Roumania is a
German of the Hohenzollern family, a cousin of the emperor, and
in spite of the sympathy of his people for Italy, France, and
Serbia, he was able to keep them from joining in the defense of
the Serbs.
Now Roumania ought to include a great part of Bessarabia (bes ȧ
rȧ′bi ȧ), which is the nearest county of Russia, and also the
greater part of Transylvania and Bukowina (boo kō vï′nȧ),
which are the provinces of Austria-Hungary that lie nearest; for
a great part of the inhabitants of these three counties are
Roumanians by blood and language. They would like to be parts of
the kingdom of Roumania, and Roumania would like to possess them.
The Quadruple Entente would promise Roumania parts of
Transylvania and Bukowina in case she joined the war on their
side, while the Triple Alliance was ready to promise her
Bessarabia. Roumania, as was said before, was originally settled
by colonists sent out from Rome, and in the eleventh century a
large number of people from the north of Italy settled there. On
this account, Roumania looks upon Italy as her mother country,
and it was thought that Italy’s attack upon Austria would
influence her to support the Entente.
Each country wanted to be a friend of the winning side, in order
to share in the spoils. In this way, whenever it looked as if the
Quadruple Entente did not need her help Roumania was eager to
offer it, at a price which seemed to the allies too high. When,
however, the tide turned the other way, she lost her enthusiasm
for the cause of her friends, fearing what the central empires
might do to her.
Questions for Review
What was the motive of Turkey in joining the war?
Why were the Russians not sorry to have Turkey declare war on
them?
What were the feelings of the Italian people?
What were the Italian diplomats anxious to gain?
What were the demands of Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria upon the
Entente powers?
Why did Bulgaria join the central empires?
Why did Greece keep out of the conflict?
What were Roumania’s hopes?