WHY THE WORLD WENT TO WAR
While it is true that the war was conceived in Berlin, it is none
the less true that it was born in the Balkans. It is necessary in
order that we may view with correct perspective the background of
the World War, that we gain some notion of the Balkan States and the
complications entering into their relations. These countries have been
the adopted children of the great European powers during generations
of rulers. Russia assumed guardianship of the nations having a
preponderance of Slavic blood; Roumania with its Latin consanguinities
was close to France and Italy; Bulgaria, Greece, and Balkan Turkey were
debatable regions wherein the diplomats of the rival nations secured
temporary victories by devious methods.
The Balkans have fierce hatreds and have been the site of sudden
historic wars. At the time of the declaration of the World War, the
Balkan nations were living under the provisions of the Treaty of
Bucharest, dated August 10, 1913. Greece, Roumania, Bulgaria, Serbia
and Montenegro were signers, and Turkey acquiesced in its provisions.
The assassination at Sarajevo had sent a convulsive shudder throughout
the Balkans. The reason lay in the century-old antagonism between the
Slav and the Teuton. Serbia, Montenegro and Russia had never forgiven
Austria for seizing Bosnia and Herzegovina and making these Slavic
people subjects of the Austrian crown. Bulgaria, Roumania and Turkey
remained cold at the news of the assassination. German diplomacy was
in the ascendant at these courts and the prospect of war with Germany
as their great ally presented no terrors for them. The sympathies of
the people of Greece were with Serbia, but the Grecian Court, because
the Queen of Greece was the only sister of the German Kaiser, was
whole heartedly with Austria. Perhaps at the first the Roumanians were
most nearly neutral. They believed strongly that each of the small
nations of the Balkan region as well as all of the small nations that
had been absorbed but had not been digested by Austria, should cut
itself from the leading strings held by the large European powers.
There was a distinct undercurrent for a federation resembling that of
the United States of America between these peoples. This was expressed
most clearly by M. Jonesco, leader of the Liberal party of Roumania
and generally recognized as the ablest statesman of middle Europe. He
declared:
[Illustration: PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST, 1913]
“I always believed, and still believe, that the Balkan States cannot
secure their future otherwise than by a close understanding among
themselves, whether this understanding shall or shall not take the form
of a federation. No one of the Balkan States is strong enough to resist
the pressure from one or another of the European powers.
[Illustration: © _Underwood and Underwood, N. Y._
FRANCIS JOSEPH I OF AUSTRIA, THE “OLD EMPEROR,” ON A STATE OCCASION
Francis Joseph died before the war had settled the fate of the
Hapsburgs. The end came on November 21, 1916, in the sixty-eighth
year of his reign. His life was tragic. He lived to see his brother
executed, his Queen assassinated, and his only son a suicide, with
always before him the specter of the disintegration of his many-raced
empire.]
“For this reason I am deeply grieved to see in the Balkan coalition of
1912 Roumania not invited. If Roumania had taken part in the first one,
we should not have had the second. I did all that was in my power and
succeeded in preventing the war between Roumania and the Balkan League
in the winter of 1912-13.
“I risked my popularity, and I do not feel sorry for it. I employed all
my efforts to prevent the second Balkan war, which, as is well known,
was profitable to us. I repeatedly told the Bulgarians that they ought
not to enter it because in that case we would enter it too. But I was
not successful in my efforts.
“During the second Balkan war I did all in my power to end it as
quickly as possible. At the conference at Bucharest I made efforts,
as Mr. Pashich and Mr. Venizelos know very well, to secure for beaten
Bulgaria the best terms. My object was to obtain a new coalition of
all the Balkan States, including Roumania. Had I succeeded in this the
situation would be much better. No reasonable man will deny that the
Balkan States are neutralizing each other at the present time, which
in itself makes the whole situation all the more miserable.
“In October, 1913, when I succeeded in facilitating the conclusion of
peace between Greece and Turkey, I was pursuing the same object of the
Balkan coalition. On my return from Athens I endeavored, though without
success, to put the Greco-Turkish relations on a basis of friendship,
being convinced that the well-understood interest of both countries
lies not only in friendly relations, but even in an alliance between
them.
“The dissensions that exist between the Balkan States can be settled in
a friendly way without war. The best moment for this would be after the
general war, when the map of Europe will be remade. The Balkan country
which would start war against another Balkan country would commit, not
only a crime against her own future, but an act of folly as well.
“The destiny and future of the Balkan States, and of all the small
European peoples as well, will not be regulated by fratricidal wars,
but, with this great European struggle, the real object of which is to
settle the question whether Europe shall enter an era of justice, and
therefore happiness for the small peoples, or whether we will face a
period of oppression more or less gilt-edged. And as I always believed
that wisdom and truth will triumph in the end, I want to believe, too,
that, in spite of the pessimistic news reaching me from the different
sides of the Balkan countries, there will be no war among them in
order to justify those who do not believe in the vitality of the small
peoples.”
The conference at Rome, April 10, 1918, to settle outstanding questions
between the Italians and the Slavs of the Adriatic, drew attention to
those Slavonic peoples in Europe who were under non-Slavonic rule.
At the beginning of the war there were three great Slavonic groups
in Europe: First, the Russians with the Little Russians, speaking
languages not more different than the dialect of Yorkshire is from the
dialect of Devonshire; second, a central group, including the Poles,
the Czechs or Bohemians, the Moravians, and Slovaks, this group thus
being separated under the four crowns of Russia, Germany, Austria and
Hungary; the third, the southern group, included the Sclavonians,
the Croatians, the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, the Slavs,
generally called Slovenes, in the western part of Austria, down to
Gorizia, and also the two independent kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia.
Like the central group, this southern group of Slavs was divided
under four crowns, Hungary, Austria, Montenegro, and Serbia; but, in
spite of the fact that half belong to the Western and half to the
Eastern Church, they are all essentially the same people, though
with considerable infusion of non-Slavonic blood, there being a good
deal of Turkish blood in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The languages,
however, are practically identical, formed largely of pure Slavonic
materials, and, curiously, much more closely connected with the eastern
Slav group--Russia and Little Russia--than with the central group,
Polish and Bohemian. A Russian of Moscow will find it much easier
to understand a Slovene from Gorizia than a Pole from Warsaw. The
Ruthenians, in southern Galicia and Bukowina, are identical in race and
speech with the Little Russians of Ukrainia.
Of the central group, the Poles have generally inclined to Austria,
which has always supported the Polish landlords of Galicia against
the Ruthenian peasantry; while the Czechs have been not so much
anti-Austrian as anti-German. Indeed, the Hapsburg rulers have again
and again played these Slavs off against their German subjects. It was
the Southern Slav question as affecting Serbia and Austria, that gave
the pretext for the present war. The central Slav question affecting
the destiny of the Poles--was a bone of contention between Austria
and Germany. It is the custom to call the Southern Slavs “Jugoslavs”
from the Slav word Yugo, “south,” but as this is a concession to
German transliteration many prefer to write the word “Yugoslav,” which
represents its pronunciation. The South Slav question was created by
the incursions of three Asiatic peoples--Huns, Magyars, Turks--who
broke up the originally continuous Slav territory that ran from the
White Sea to the confines of Greece and the Adriatic.
[Illustration: THE MIXTURE OF RACES IN SOUTH CENTRAL EUROPE]
This was the complex of nationalities, the ferment of races existing
in 1914. Out of the hatreds engendered by the domination over the
liberty-loving Slavic peoples by an arrogant Teutonic minority grew the
assassinations at Sarajevo. These crimes were the expression of hatred
not for the heir apparent of Austria but for the Hapsburgs and their
Germanic associates.
By a twist of the wheel of fate, the same Slavic peoples whose
determination to rid themselves of the Teutonic yoke, started the war,
also bore rather more than their share in the swift-moving events that
decided and closed the war.
Russia, the dying giant among the great nations, championed the Slavic
peoples at the beginning of the war. It entered the conflict in aid of
little Serbia, but at the end Russia bowed to Germany in the infamous
peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk. Thereafter during the last months of
the war Russia was virtually an ally of its ancient enemy, Turkey,
the “Sick Man of Europe,” and the central German empires. With these
allies the Bolshevik government of Russia attempted to head off the
Czecho-Slovak regiments that had been captured by Russia during its
drive into Austria and had been imprisoned in Siberia. After the peace
consummated at Brest-Litovsk, these regiments determined to fight on
the side of the Allies and endeavored to make their way to the western
front.
No war problems were more difficult than those of the Czecho-Slovaks.
Few have been handled so masterfully. Surrounded by powerful enemies
which for centuries have been bent on destroying every trace of Slavic
culture, they had learned how to defend themselves against every trick
or scheme of the brutal Germans.
The Czecho-Slovak plan in Russia was of great value to the Allies
all over the world, and was put at their service by Professor Thomas
G. Masaryk. He went to Russia when everything was adrift and got
hold of Bohemian prisoners here and there and organized them into a
compact little army of 50,000 to 60,000 men. Equipped and fed, he
moved them to whatever point had most power to thoroughly disrupt the
German plans. They did much to check the German army for months. They
resolutely refused to take any part in Russian political affairs, and
when it seemed no longer possible to work effectively in Russia, this
remarkable little band started on a journey all round the world to get
to the western front. They loyally gave up most of their arms under
agreement with Lenine and Trotzky that they might peacefully proceed
out of Russia via Vladivostok.
While they were carrying out their part of the agreement, and well on
the way, they were surprised by telegrams from Lenine and Trotzky to
the Soviets in Siberia ordering them to take away their arms and intern
them.
The story of what occurred then was told by two American engineers,
Emerson and Hawkins, who, on the way to Ambassador Francis, and not
being able to reach Bologda, joined a band of four or five thousand.
The engineers were with them three months, while they were making it
safe along the lines of the railroad for the rest of the Czecho-Slovaks
to get out, and incidentally for Siberians to resume peaceful
occupations. They were also supported by old railway organizations
which had stuck bravely to them without wages and which every little
while were “shot up” by the Bolsheviki.
Distress in Russia would have been much more intense had it not been
for the loyalty of the railway men in sticking to their tasks. Some
American engineers at Irkutsk, on a peaceful journey, out of Russia,
on descending from the cars were met with a demand to surrender, and
shots from machine guns. Some, fortunately, had kept hand grenades, and
with these and a few rifles went straight at the machine guns. Although
outnumbered, the attackers took the guns and soon afterward took the
town. The Czecho-Slovaks, in the beginning almost unarmed, went against
great odds and won for themselves the right to be considered a nation.
Seeing the treachery of Lenine and Trotzky, they went back toward the
west and made things secure for their men left behind. They took town
after town with the arms they first took away from the Bolsheviki and
Germans; but in every town they immediately set up a government, with
all the elements of normal life. They established police and sanitary
systems, opened hospitals, and had roads repaired, leaving a handful
of men in the midst of enemies to carry on the plans of their leaders.
American engineers speaking of the cleanliness of the Czecho-Slovak
army, said that they lived like Spartans.
The whole story is a remarkable evidence of the struggle of these
little people for self-government.
The emergence of the Czecho-Slovak nation has been one of the most
remarkable and noteworthy features of the war. Out of the confusion of
the situation, with the possibility of the resurrection of oppressed
peoples, something of the dignity of old Bohemia was comprehended,
and it was recognized that the Czechs were to be rescued from Austria
and the Slovaks from Hungary, and united in one country with entire
independence. This was undoubtedly due, in large measure, to the
activities of Professor Masaryk, the president of the National
Executive Council of the Czecho-Slovaks. His four-year exile in the
United States had the establishment of the new nation as its fruit.
Professor Masaryk called attention to the fact that there is a
peculiar discrepancy between the number of states in Europe and the
number of nationalities--twenty-seven states to seventy nationalities.
He explained, also, that almost all the states are mixed, from the
point of nationality. From the west of Europe to the east, this is
found to be true, and the farther east one goes the more mixed do the
states become. Austria is the most mixed of all the states. There is
no Austrian language, but there are nine languages, and six smaller
nations or remnants of nations. In all of Germany there are eight
nationalities besides the Germans, who have been independent, and who
have their own literature. Turkey is an anomaly, a combination of
various nations overthrown and kept down.
Since the eighteenth century there has been a continuing strong
movement from each nation to have its own state. Because of the mixed
peoples, there is much confusion. There are Roumanians in Austria, but
there is a kingdom of Roumania. There are Southern Slavs, but there
are also Serbia and Montenegro. It is natural that the Southern Slavs
should want to be united as one state. So it is with Italy.
There was no justice in Poland being separated in three parts to serve
the dynasties of Prussia, Russia and Austria. The Czecho-Slovaks of
Austria and Hungary claimed a union. The national union consists in an
endeavor to make the suppressed nations free, to unite them in their
own states, and to readjust the states that exist; to force Austria and
Prussia to give up the states that should be free.
In the future, said Doctor Masaryk, there are to be sharp ethnological
boundaries. The Czecho-Slovaks will guarantee the minorities absolute
equality, but they will keep the German part of their country, because
there are many Bohemians in it, and they do not trust the Germans.