The changes made in the map of Europe by the Balkan Wars of
1912-1913 were not merely the occasion but a cause and probably the
most potent, and certainly the most urgent, of all the causes that
led to the World War which has been raging with such titanic fury
since the summer of 1914.
Had the Balkan Allies after their triumph over Turkey not fallen out
amongst themselves, had there been no second Balkan War in 1913, had
the Turkish provinces wrested from the Porte by the united arms of
Bulgaria, Greece, Servia, and Montenegro been divided amongst the
victors either by diplomacy or arbitration substantial justice would
have been done to all, none of them would have been humiliated, and
their moderation and concord would have commended their achievement
to the Great Powers who might perhaps have secured the acquiescence
of Austria-Hungary in the necessary enlargement of Servia and the
expansion of Greece to Saloniki and beyond.
But the outbreak of the second Balkan War nullified all these fair
prospects. And Bulgaria, who brought it on, found herself encircled
by enemies, including not only all her recent Allies against Turkey,
but also Turkey herself, and even Roumania, who had remained a
neutral spectator of the first Balkan War. Of course Bulgaria was
defeated. And a terrible punishment was inflicted on her. She was
stripped of a large part of the territory she had just conquered
from Turkey, including her most glorious battle-fields; her original
provinces were dismembered; her extension to the Aegean Sea was
seriously obstructed, if not practically blocked; and, bitterest and
most tragic of all, the redemption of the Bulgarians in Macedonia,
which was the principal object and motive of her war against Turkey
in 1912, was frustrated and rendered hopeless by Greek and Servian
annexations of Macedonian territory extending from the Mesta to the
Drin with the great cities of Saloniki, Kavala, and Monastir, which
in the patriotic national consciousness had long loomed up as fixed
points in the "manifest destiny" of Bulgaria.
That the responsibility for precipitating the second Balkan War
rests on Bulgaria is demonstrated in the latter portion of this
volume. Yet the intransigent and bellicose policy of Bulgaria was
from the point of view of her own interests so short-sighted, so
perilous, so foolish and insane that it seemed, even at the time, to
be directed by some external power and for some ulterior purpose. No
proof, however, was then available. But hints of that suspicion were
clearly conveyed even in the first edition of this volume, which, it
may be recalled, antedates the outbreak of the great European War.
Thus, on page 103, the question was put:
"Must we assume that there is some ground for suspecting that
Austria-Hungary was inciting Bulgaria to war?"
And again, on page 108, with reference to General Savoff's order
directing the attack on the Greek and Servian forces which initiated
the second Balkan War, the inquiry was made:
"Did General Savoff act on his own responsibility? Or is there
any truth in the charge that King Ferdinand, after a long
consultation with the Austro-Hungarian Minister, instructed the
General to issue the order?"
These questions may now be answered with positive assurance. What
was only surmise when this volume was written is to-day indubitable
certainty. The proof is furnished by the highest authorities both
Italian and Russian.
When the second Balkan War broke out San Giuliano was Prime Minister
of Italy. And he has recently published the fact that at that
time--the summer of 1913--the Austro-Hungarian government
communicated to the Italian government its intention of making war
on Servia and claimed under the terms of the Triple Alliance the
co-operation of Italy and Germany. The Italian government repudiated
the obligation imputed to it by Austria-Hungary and flatly declared
that the Triple Alliance had nothing to do with a war of aggression.
That Austria-Hungary did not proceed to declare war against Servia
at that time--perhaps because she was discouraged by Germany as well
as by Italy--makes it all the more intelligible, in view of her
bellicose attitude, that she should have been urgent and insistent
in pushing Bulgaria forward to smite their common rival.
This conclusion is confirmed by the positive statement of the
Russian government. The communication accompanying the declaration
of war against Bulgaria, dated October 18, contains the following
passage:
"The victorious war of the united Balkan people against their
ancient enemy, Turkey, assured to Bulgaria an honorable place in
the Slavic family. But under Austro-German suggestion, contrary
to the advice of the Russian Emperor and without the knowledge of
the Bulgarian government, the Coburg Prince on June 29, 1913,
moved Bulgarian armies against the Serbians."
The "Coburg Prince" is of course Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria. That
he acted under Austro-Hungarian influences in attacking his Balkan
Allies on that fateful Sunday, June 29, 1913, is no longer
susceptible of doubt. But whatever other inferences may be drawn
from that conclusion it certainly makes the course of Bulgaria in
launching the second Balkan War, though its moral character remains
unchanged, look less hopeless and desperate than it otherwise
appeared. Had she not Austria-Hungary behind her? And had not
Austria-Hungary at that very time informed her Italian ally that she
intended making war against Servia?
But, whatever the explanation, the thunderbolt forged in 1913 was
not launched till July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary formally
declared war on Servia. The occasion was the assassination, a month
earlier, of the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his
wife, the Duchess of Hohenburg, in the streets of Sarajevo. The
occasion, however, was not the cause of the war. The cause was that
which moved the Dual Monarchy to announce a war on Servia in the
summer of 1913, namely, dissatisfaction with the territorial
aggrandizement of Servia as a result of the first Balkan War and
alarm at the Pan-Serb agitation and propaganda which followed the
Servian victories over Turkey. These motives had subsequently been
much intensified by the triumph of Servia over Bulgaria in the
second Balkan War. The relations of Austria-Hungary to Servia had
been acutely strained since October, 1908, when the former annexed
the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which under the
terms of the treaty of Berlin she had been administering since 1878.
The inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina are Serb, and Serb also
are the inhabitants of Dalmatia on the west and Croatia on the
north, which the Dual Monarchy had already brought under its
sceptre. The new annexation therefore seemed a fatal and a final
blow to the national aspirations of the Serb race and it was
bitterly resented by those who had already been gathered together
and "redeemed" in the Kingdom of Servia. A second disastrous
consequence of the annexation was that it left Servia hopelessly
land-locked. The Serb population of Dalmatia and Herzegovina looked
out on the Adriatic along a considerable section of its eastern
coast, but Servia's long-cherished hope of becoming a maritime state
by the annexation of the Serb provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina
was now definitively at an end. She protested, she appealed, she
threatened; but with Germany behind the Dual Monarchy and Russia
still weak from the effects of the war with Japan, she was quickly
compelled to submit to superior force.
During the war of the Balkan Allies against Turkey Servia made one
more effort to get to the Adriatic,--this time by way of Albania.
She marched her forces over the mountains of that almost impassable
country and reached the sea at Durazzo. But she was forced back by
the European powers at the demand of Austria-Hungary, as some weeks
later on the same compulsion she had to withdraw from the siege of
Scutari. Then she turned toward the Aegean, and the second Balkan
War gave her a new opportunity. The treaty of Bukarest and the
convention with Greece assured her of an outlet to the sea at
Saloniki. But this settlement proved scarcely less objectionable to
Austria-Hungary than the earlier dream of Servian expansion to the
Adriatic by the annexation of the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
The fact is that, if we look at the matter dispassionately and in a
purely objective spirit, we shall find that there really was a
hopeless incompatibility between the ideals, aims, policies, and
interests of the Servians and the Serb race and those of the
Austrians and Hungarians. Any aggrandizement of the Kingdom of
Servia, any enlargement of its territory, any extension to the sea
and especially to the Adriatic, any heightening and intensifying of
the national consciousness of its people involved some danger to the
Dual Monarchy. For besides the Germans who control Austria, and the
Hungarians who control Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire embraces
many millions of Slavs, and the South Slavs are of the same family
and speak practically the same language as the inhabitants of the
Kingdom of Servia. And Austria and Hungary can not get to their
outlets on the Adriatic--Trieste and Fiume--without passing through
territory inhabited by these South Slavs.
If, therefore, Austria and Hungary were not to be left land-locked
they must at all hazards prevent the absorption of their South Slav
subjects by the Kingdom of Servia. Pan-Serbism at once menaced the
integrity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and jeopardized its
position on the Adriatic. Hence the cardinal features in the Balkan
policy of Austria-Hungary were a ruthless repression of national
aspiration among its South Slav subjects--the inhabitants of
Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina; a watchful and jealous
opposition to any increase of the territory or resources of the
Kingdom of Servia; and a stern and unalterable determination to
prevent Servian expansion to the Adriatic.
The new Servia which emerged from the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 was
an object of anxiety and even of alarm to the statesmen of Vienna
and Buda-Pesth. The racial and national aspirations already astir
among the South Slavs of the Dual Monarchy were quickened and
intensified by the great victories won by their Servian brethren
over both Turks and Bulgarians and by the spectacle of the
territorial aggrandizement which accrued from those victories to the
independent Kingdom of Servia. Might not this Greater Servia prove a
magnet to draw the kindred Slavs of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia,
and Croatia away from their allegiance to an alien empire? The
diplomacy of Vienna had indeed succeeded in excluding Servia from
the Adriatic but it had neither prevented its territorial
aggrandizement nor blocked its access to the Aegean.
Access to the Aegean was not, however, as serious a matter as access
to the Adriatic. Yet the expansion of Servia to the south over the
Macedonian territory she had wrested from Turkey, as legalized in
the Treaty of Bukarest, nullified the Austro-Hungarian dream of
expansion through Novi Bazar and Macedonia to the Aegean and the
development from Saloniki as a base of a great and profitable
commerce with all the Near and Middle East.
Here were the conditions of a national tragedy. They have developed
into a great international war, the greatest and most terrible ever
waged on this planet.
It may be worth while in concluding to note the relations of the
Balkan belligerents of 1912-1913 to the two groups of belligerents
in the present world-conflict.
The nemesis of the treaties of London and Bukarest and the fear of
the Great Powers pursue the Balkan nations and determine their
alignments. The declaration of war by Austria-Hungary against
Servia, which started the present cataclysm, fixed the enemy status
of Servia and also Montenegro. The good relations long subsisting
between Emperor William and the Porte were a guarantee to the
Central Powers of the support of Turkey, which quickly declared in
their favor. The desire of avenging the injury done her by the
treaty of Bukarest and the prospect of territorial aggrandizement at
the expense of her sister Slav nation on the west drew Bulgaria
(which was influenced also by the victories of the Germanic forces)
into the same group in company with Turkey, her enemy in both the
Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Bulgaria's opportunity for revenge soon
arrived. It was the Bulgarian army, in cooperation with the
Austro-German forces, that overran Servia and Montenegro and drove
the national armies beyond their own boundaries into foreign
territory. If the fortunes of war turn and the Entente Powers get
the upper hand in the Balkans, these expelled armies of Servia and
Montenegro, who after rest and reorganization and re-equipping in
Corfu have this summer been transported by France and England to
Saloniki, may have the satisfaction of devastating the territory of
the sister Slav state of Bulgaria, quite in the divisive and
internecine spirit of all Balkan history. The fate and future of
Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro now depend on the issue of the
great European conflict. The same thing is true of Turkey, into
which meanwhile Russian forces, traversing the Caucasus, have driven
a dangerous wedge through Armenia towards Mesopotamia. Roumania has
thus far maintained the policy of neutrality to which she adhered so
successfully in the first Balkan war--a policy which in view of her
geographical situation, with Bulgaria to the south, Russia to the
north, and Austria-Hungary to the west, she cannot safely abandon
till fortune has declared more decisively for one or the other group
of belligerents. The only remaining party to the Balkan Wars is
Greece, and the situation of Greece, though not tragic like that of
Servia, must be exceedingly humiliating to the Greek nation and to
the whole Hellenic race.
When the war broke out, Mr. Venizelos was still prime minister of
Greece. His policy was to go loyally to the assistance of Servia, as
required by the treaty between the two countries; to defend New
Greece against Bulgaria, to whom, however, he was ready to make some
concessions on the basis of a quid pro quo; and to join and
co-operate actively with the Entente Powers on the assurance of
receiving territorial compensation in Asia Minor. King Constantine,
on the other hand, seems to have held that the war of the Great
Powers in the Balkans practically abrogated the treaty between
Greece and Servia and that, in any event, Greek resistance to the
Central Powers was useless. The positive programme of the King was
to maintain neutrality between the two groups of belligerents and at
the same time to keep the Greek army mobilized. Between these two
policies the Greek nation wavered and hesitated; but the King, who
enjoyed the complete confidence of the general staff, had his way
and the cabinet of Mr. Venizelos was replaced by another in
sympathy with the policy of the neutrality of Greece and the
mobilization of the Greek army.
It was, under all the circumstances of the case, an exceedingly
difficult policy to carry out successfully. Each group of the
belligerents wanted special favors; the nation was divided on the
subject of neutrality; the expense of keeping the army mobilized was
ruinous to the country; and the views and sympathies of the greatest
statesman Modern Greece had ever had remained out of office, as they
had been in office, diametrically opposed to those of the victorious
warrior-King and doubtless also of the Queen, the sister of the
German Emperor. This condition was one of unstable equilibrium which
could not long continue. It was upset on May 26, 1916, by a
Bulgarian invasion of Greek territory and the seizure of Fort Rupel,
one of the keys to the Struma Valley and to eastern Macedonia. The
cities of Seres and Drama with their large Greek Population, and
even Kavala are now in danger, and the Greek people seem greatly
stirred by the situation. Mr. Venizelos in a newspaper article
bitterly asks:
"Who could have imagined a Greek army witnessing the Bulgarian
flag replacing that of Greece? Is it for this that our
mobilization is maintained?"
But, while Greece has been invaded by Bulgaria, with the support of
Germany (who, however, has given a written promise that the Greek
territory now occupied shall be restored), Greek sovereignty has
since suffered another severe shock by the intervention of Great
Britain, France, and Russia, who, under the Protocol of London, are
the Protecting Powers of the Kingdom. These Powers demand of the
Greek government that the army shall be completely and immediately
demobilized, that the present cabinet shall be replaced by another
which shall guarantee benevolent neutrality toward the Entente
Powers, that the Chamber shall be immediately dissolved and new
elections held, and that certain public functionaries obnoxious to
the legations of the Allies shall be replaced. And statements from
Athens dated June 21 announce that Greece, under the menace of an
embargo maintained by the allied navies, has yielded to these
demands. With Greece humiliated by the Protecting Powers and her
territory occupied by Bulgaria, with Servia and Montenegro overrun
and occupied by the German-Austrian-Bulgarian forces, with Roumania
waiting to see which of the belligerent groups will be finally
victorious, with Bulgaria now basking in the sunshine of the Central
Powers but an object of hatred to all the Allied Powers and
especially to Russia, one may be pardoned for refusing to make any
guess whatever as to the way in which the resultant diagonal of the
parallelogram of European forces will ultimately run through the
Balkans. Fortunately also such prediction has no place in an account
of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913.
To-day the Balkan nations are the pawns of the Great Powers who are
directly responsible for the deplorable conditions that now exist
among them. Yet in a very real sense their present tragic situation
is the nemesis of the political sins of the Balkan nations
themselves. These sins are those of all undeveloped political
communities. Even the most highly civilized nations may temporarily
fall under their sway, and then civilization reverts to barbarism,
as the terrible condition of Europe to-day actually demonstrates.
But the acute disease from which Europe suffers is more or less
chronic in the Balkans, where elemental human nature has never been
thoroughly disciplined and chastened in the school of peaceful
political life and experience. Each for himself without regard to
others or even without thought of a future day of reckoning seems to
be the maxim of national conduct among the Balkan peoples. The
spirit of strife and division possesses them; they are dominated by
the uncontrolled instinct of national egoism and greed. The second
Balkan War, alike in its origin, course, and conclusion, was a bald
exhibition of the play of these primitive and hateful passions.
The history of the world, which is also the high tribunal of the
world, proves that no nation can with impunity ignore the rights of
other nations or repudiate the ideal of a common good or defy the
rule of righteousness by which political communities achieve
it--justice, moderation, and the spirit of hopeful and unwearying
conciliation. In their war against Turkey in 1912 the Balkan
nations, for the first time in history, laid aside their mutual
antagonisms and co-operated in a common cause. This union and
concord marked at least the beginning of political wisdom. And it
was vindicated, if ever any policy was vindicated, by the surprise
and splendor of the results.
My hope for the Balkan nations is that they may return to this path
from which they were too easily diverted in 1913. They must learn,
while asserting each its own interests and advancing each its own
welfare, to pay scrupulous regard to the rights and just claims of
others and to co-operate wisely for the common good in a spirit of
mutual confidence and good will. This high policy, as expedient as
it is sound, was to a considerable extent embodied in the leadership
of Venizelos and Pashitch and Gueshoff. And where there is a leader
with vision the people in the end will follow him. May the final
settlement of the European War put no unnecessary obstacle in the
way of the normal political development of all the Balkan Nations!