ROUMANIA AND GREECE
That Roumania would now take the field was a proposition which, after
the many and emphatic assurances volunteered by her own official
chiefs, was accepted almost universally. She had received considerable
help from the Allies towards her military preparations. Her senators
and deputies had fraternized with Italians and Frenchmen and her
diplomatists had been in frequent and friendly communication with
those of France, Britain and Russia. Even statesmen had allowed
themselves to be persuaded by words and gestures which it now appears
were meant only to be conditional assurances or social lubricants. The
Serbian Premier, for instance, whose shrewdness is proverbial,
exclaimed to an Italian journalist, in the second half of June:
"Roumania cannot but follow the example set her by Italy. Indeed, you
may telegraph to your journal that Roumania's entry into the arena is
a question of days and it may be only of hours. Of this many
foretokens have come to our knowledge."[100] But the optimists who had
drawn practical conclusions from Roumanian promises and friendships
lost sight of the difference between their own mentality and that of
the Balkan peoples. They also failed to make due allowance for the
influence of German interpenetration, the power of German gold, and
the deterrent effect of German victories. And above all, they left out
of consideration the really decisive question of military prospects as
conditioned by strategical position and supplies of munitions.
[100] _Giornale d'Italia_, June 19, 1915. _Corriere della
Sera_, June 20, 1915.
The party of intervention, however, was still active and full of
ardour. Its chief, Take Jonescu, is not merely Roumania's only
statesman, but has established a claim to rank as one of the prominent
public men of the present generation. Unluckily he has long been out
of office, and his party is condemned to the Cassandra role of
uttering true prophecies which find no credence among those who wield
the power of putting them to good account. M. Bratiano's appropriate
attitude may be described as statuesque. Occasionally his Press organs
commented upon the manifestations of the interventionists in words
barbed with bitter sarcasm and utilitarian maxims. "Roumania's blood
and money," the _Independence Roumaine_ explained, "must be spent only
in the furtherance of Roumania's interest." Her cause must be
dissociated from that of the belligerents. To this Take Jonescu
replied[101] that it is precisely for the good of Roumania that her
interest should not be separated from that of the Entente Powers in
the conflict. For on the issue of this conflict depends the
state-system of Europe and also the future of Roumania. If the Germans
are triumphant, he added, force and falsehood will triumph with them,
the State will acquire omnipotence, the individual sink into serfdom.
Neutrality during a war with such issues is, therefore, the height of
political unwisdom.
[101] _La Roumanie_, July 26, 1915.
Greece, after Venizelos's retirement, returned to the narrow creed and
foolish pranks of her unregenerate days, sinking deeper into anarchy.
More than once in her history she had been saved from her enemies and
once from her friends, but from her own self there is no saviour.
As soon as the Kaiser's paladin, King Constantine, had dismissed his
pilot and taken supreme command of the Ship of State, the portals of
the realm were thrown open to German machinations. The weaver in chief
of these was Wilhelm's confidential agent, Baron Schenk. According to
his own published biography, this gentleman had in youth been the
friend of the two sisters of Princess Battenberg, the Grand Duchess
Serge and of the Russian Tsaritza. He had served in the German army,
become the representative of the firm of Krupps, and been received at
the German court. While Venizelos was in office, Baron Schenk
flourished in the shade, but as soon as the Germanophile Gounaris took
over the reins of power, the secret agent went boldly forward into the
limelight and became the public chief of a party, received openly his
helpmates and partisans, distributed roles and money and set frankly
to work to "smash Venizelos."
King Constantine's protracted and strange malady hindered the Queen,
who is the Kaiser's sister, from receiving visits. Even the wives of
ministers were denied access to her Majesty. But the baron was an
exception. He called on her almost every day. Cabinet Ministers
consulted him. Journalists received directions, articles and bribes
from him. And when the elections were coming on every venal man of
influence who could damage Venizelos or help his antagonists was
bought with hard cash. In order to defeat some Venizelist candidates
whose return would have been particularly distressing, the Baron is
said to have spent six hundred thousand francs.[102] And it is held
that the results obtained by these means were well worth the money
spent. For the parliamentary opposition was strong and aggressive, and
some of its more active members had imbibed Hellenic patriotism from
the German Schenk. They have since been toiling and moiling to
disqualify Venizelos permanently from office on the ground that he is
a republican, and that the destinies of monarchy would not be safe in
his hands. By these means German organization, which finds work and
room for kings and for poisoners, for theologians and assassins, has
transformed Greece into a Prussian satrapy which avails itself of the
freedom of the seas, established by the Allies, to carry on contraband
to their detriment and give help and encouragement to Austrians,
Bulgars and Turks. And the Turks were meanwhile extirpating the Greeks
of the coast of Asia Minor.
[102] _Gazette de Lausanne_, July 6, 1915, and _Corriere
della Sera_, July 8, 1915.
Bulgaria's attitude underwent no momentous change during the interval
that elapsed between the outbreak of the war and the close of the
first year. Symptoms of a new orientation had, it is true, often been
signalled and commented, but Ferdinand of Coburg and his lieutenants
remained steadfastly faithful to the policy of quiescence which had
conferred more substantial benefits on Germany and Austria than could
have been bestowed by the active co-operation of the whole Bulgarian
army. This tremendous effect could never have been obtained if
Bulgaria had entirely broken with the Powers of the Entente. It seemed
as essential to its success that these should never wholly give up the
hope of winning her over, as it was that her important movements
should be conducive to the interests of their enemies. Hence every
secret arrangement with Berlin and Vienna was emphatically denied, and
every overt accord declared to be devoid of political significance.
It was thus that Europe was directed to construe the negotiations
between the Sofia Cabinet and the Austro-German financial syndicate
respecting the payment of an instalment of the L20,000,000 loan
contracted shortly before the war. That Germany, whose financial
ventures are invariably combined with political designs, would not
part with her money to Bulgaria at a moment when gold is scarce,
unless she were sure of an adequate political return, could not be
gainsaid. And that the retention by Bulgaria of her freedom of action
would be incompatible with the interests of Austria and Germany is
also manifest. However this may be, the twenty millions sterling
demanded by Sofia were accorded, and the legend was launched that the
transaction was purely financial.
Towards the end of July[103] King Ferdinand's ministers made another
momentous move, the consequences of which cut deep into the political
situation. A convention was signed in Stamboul between the Turkish and
Bulgarian Governments by which the former ceded to Bulgaria the
Turkish section of the Dedeagatch railway--that is to say, the whole
line that runs on Turkish territory, together with the stations of
Dimotika, Kulela-Burgas, and Karagatch. The new boundary ran
thenceforward parallel to the river Maritza, all the territory
eastward of that becoming Bulgarian.
[103] July 22, 1915.
And this concession, King Ferdinand's ministers would have Europe
believe, was devoid of political bearings. It was merely a case of
something being given for nothing. And the Allies allowed themselves
to be persuaded that this was the real significance of the deal. The
German Press was more frank. It announced that the relations between
Bulgaria and Turkey had entered upon a decisive phase and that all
fear of Bulgaria's taking part in the war on the side of the Allies
had been definitely dispelled.
The Bulgarian problem throughout all that wearisome crisis, which
ended by Ferdinand throwing off the mask, was in reality simple, and
the known or verifiable facts ought to have been sufficient to bring
the judgment of the Entente statesmen to conclusions which would have
enabled them to steer clear of the costly blunders that characterized
their policy. The line of action followed from first to last by
Ferdinand was supremely inelastic: only its manifestations, of which
the object was to deceive, were varied and conflicting. It was bound
up with Austria's undertaking to restore Macedonia to Bulgaria and to
maintain Ferdinand on the throne. This twofold promise was the bait by
which the king was caught and kept in Austria's toils, while the
Bulgarian people was moved by patriotism to identify its cause with
that of Ferdinand. And the arrangement was to my knowledge completed
before the opening of the European war. Evidence of its existence was
forthcoming, but the statesmen of the Entente, who allowed
preconceived notions to overrule the testimony of their senses,
declined to accept it. Since then the Bulgarian Cabinet, in the person
of the Premier, has publicly admitted the truth of my reiterated
statement. In a public speech, delivered in March 1916, "M.
Radoslavoff confessed that Bulgaria had entered the war by reason of
certain obligations which she had assumed."[104]
[104] Cf. _Daily Telegraph_, March 14, 1916, in telegram from
Athens.
But there was another safe test which the Entente Governments could
have applied with profit to the situation. Interest was obviously the
mainspring of the Bulgarian nation by whomsoever it might chance to be
represented. It would be inconsistent with the conception of
international politics to assume any other. Now that interest, it was
obvious, could be so fully and rapidly furthered by the Central
Empires, and in the judgment of the Bulgars with such finality and at
the cost of so few sacrifices, that it was sheer impossible for the
Entente Governments to attempt to compete with those. Bulgaria
demanded immediate possession of Central Macedonia and the permanent
weakening of the Serbian State. And this the Central Empires promised
to effect within a few weeks from Bulgaria's entry into the war.
Moreover, while asking that she should take part in a struggle against
that group of belligerents which she deemed by far the weaker, they
undertook to give her the full support of the two greatest military
Powers in the world.
Consider the difference between that arrangement and the attractions
provided by the Entente. Russia, France and Britain could deal only in
counters, not in hard cash like their adversaries. The utmost they
were able to offer was an undertaking to use their good offices with
Serbia and Greece to obtain the promise of a part of Bulgaria's
demands. And the fulfilment of this promise would of necessity be
conditional on the victory of the Allies. As for the weakening of
Serbia, it could not be entertained. On the contrary, that State,
according to the Entente scheme, would be greatly enlarged, would, in
fact, become by far the greatest of the Balkan nations. And for this
shadowy lure, Bulgaria was expected to meet in deadly encounter the
greatest military empires the world has ever seen, and to meet them
without the help of any of the Great Powers of the Entente.
One has but to compare these two alternatives in order to realize
that, even if Ferdinand had entered into no binding compact with
Austria and Germany, he would not hesitate a moment between them.
Personally and politically he was held tight by the Teuton tentacles.
The currency of the notion that with these competing offers before
him, a crafty statesman like Ferdinand who felt over and above that
Russia's vengeance was hanging over his head, would take what he
believed was the losing side, shows a degree of _naivete_ which cannot
be qualified without epithets which it had better be understood than
expressed.
Looking back upon the results of the first twenty months of the war
and upon the more obvious causes to which they may fairly be
ascribed, one is struck less forcibly by the military and economic
unpreparedness of the Allies for the inevitable conflict than by their
inaccessibility to the ground ideas on which Germany set her hopes of
success. The two groups of belligerents stood intellectually on
different planes. The Teuton's faith was implicit in the law of
causality, in the necessity of contemplating the vast problem as a
whole, of adjusting means to ends, of co-operation at home and
co-ordination of means abroad. The methods of the Allies were drawn
from a limited range of experience which was no longer applicable to
the new conditions, and their hopes rested on a series of isolated
exertions put forth temporarily under stress of exceptional pressure.
They made noble sacrifices for the cause of liberty and justice.
Pacific by temperament and conviction, they resignedly accepted
military discipline as a temporary expedient, a purgatorial ordeal,
and went about the while with a sense of displacement, the longing of
exiles to get back. Spurred by stress of circumstance, they achieved
more than foresight and insight had led them to design but far less
than their optimism had encouraged them to anticipate. Step by step
they were driven by hard reality to widen their angle of vision, to
extend their schemes, and to concert certain measures in common. The
meeting of the three Finance Ministers in Paris was followed by the
Councils of the allied generals, by the combined expedition to the
Dardanelles, and by the nationalization of the manufacture of
munitions in each of the allied countries. And all these innovations
were moves in the right direction. But they were made as temporary
expedients under pressure of outward events, and it is still to the
future that one looks for tokens of statesmanlike intuition which from
a comprehensive survey of the problem in its entirety will draw the
materials wherewith to weave a coherent scheme of general action and
permanent co-operation.
Events travelled fast in the month of July 1915, and their effect on
the Allies was depressing. In Russia the Austro-Germans were advancing
steadily against Riga and Warsaw, where a battle which experts
accounted the most sanguinary and momentous in the war was approaching
a decision. A fatal bar being placed by Russia's reverses and other
untoward occurrences to the realization of the hopes that had been
raised by Kitchener's army, the French, headed by M. Pichon and backed
by the Russian Press, once more mooted the vexed question of Japanese
intervention. In the Turkish dominions the Greeks were subjected to
relentless persecution, especially on the coast of Asia Minor. The
massacre of Armenians on an unprecedented scale was reported from
Bitlis, Moosh, Diarbekir and Zeitun. In the first-named region 9,000
bodies, mostly women and children, were, it is alleged, cast into the
river Tigris.[105] The Swedish Premier, by an enigmatic speech in
which the doctrine of neutrality at all costs was ostentatiously
repudiated, aroused suspicion of an intention on the part of his
Government to join the Teutons in order to weaken the Slav neighbour,
and to this apprehension colour was imparted by the tardy announcement
that since the outbreak of the war Sweden had increased her army from
360,000 to 500,000 men. In the United States mysterious "accidents"
and mishaps occurred on board warships and in munitions and arms
manufactories, and strikes were organized by Germans and Austrians on
a scale which attracted the serious attention of the Washington
Government.
[105] _Novoye Vremya_, July 22, 1915.
But the last month of that fateful year was further darkened by the
most dangerous and ominous event recorded in the United Kingdom since
the war began. Over 200,000 coal miners of South Wales deliberately,
obstinately and criminally withheld their labour from their own
nation, whose existence at that moment was dependent on its bestowal.
The coal pits of South Wales remained idle for over a week. The miners
crossed their arms and turned deaf ears to the voice of reason and
interest calling on them not to sacrifice the lives of their kith and
kin who were fighting for them. This act of black treason to the
country had been foreseen and foretold months before, but out of
consideration for the rights of individuals was allowed to take place.
The Germans and Austrians were exultant, for another couple of weeks'
strike would have given them the victory. Already the collapse of our
defence was become a definite eventuality. The tact and statesmanship
of Mr. Lloyd George exorcised the redoubtable spectre, but the spirit
which that piece of treason revealed filled the most sanguine with
dread and set those of little faith asking themselves whether this
lamentable phenomenon was not one of certain ill-boding symptoms which
seemed to reveal the smoothly moving current that bears doomed nations
onward to their fate.
Certainly nothing could put in a clearer light than that strike has
done the peremptory necessity of national discipline, at any rate in
war-time. The State that is unable to command the service of all its
citizens when beset by ruthless foreign enemies has lost its lease of
life and its right to live. It must be recognized that patriotism is
still an unknown sentiment among millions of those who are citizens of
the United Kingdom and Ireland. Patriotism has never been
systematically inculcated among us as in Germany, France and Russia.
Parochial or at most party interests still mark the loftiest heights
to which certain sections of the population can soar above the dead
level of individual egotism. In Germany and Austria strikes during war
are unthinkable. Every railway official, every tram-conductor, every
artisan there is a soldier subject to military discipline and is
expected to give the fullest measure of his productive powers to the
nation. And it is fair to add that they all regard this duty as a
signal honour and a source of pleasure. For to them patriotism is a
religion and their country a divinity.
The depth and fervour of this self-denying spirit among them as
contrasted with the "healthy individual egotism" of the Allies
constitutes one of the most disquieting phenomena of the struggle.
Austria has been scoffed at for her abject submissiveness to Germany.
But there is another way of looking at her attitude. She has
courageously effaced her individuality more completely even than
Turkey for the sake of the common cause. And she has lost nothing by
the painful effort. Her various peoples who were expected to be
tearing each other to pieces have given us a splendid example of
discipline and self-abnegation. In the Skoda works at Pilsen, where
machine guns are made, fifteen thousand workmen are cheerfully toiling
and moiling every day of the week, Sundays and holidays not excepted.
Since the war began Germany has accomplished as great things at home
as on foreign battlefields. She built and launched a Dreadnought of
25,600 tons, a line-of-battle ship of 26,200 tons. And while the
latter vessel was on the stocks, the reports published in the British
press of the splendid results obtained by the 15-inch guns of the
_Queen Elizabeth_ moved the German Admiralty to substitute these for
the 12-inch guns already adopted. Two swift cruisers, 12 small
submarines and 24 larger ones of 1200 tons displacement, with a speed
of 16 knots under water, 20 on the surface and a radius of action of
3000 miles--were among the results of a single year's activity.