OLD EUROPE’S SUICIDE
“For History of Times representeth the magnitude of actions and
the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth over in
silence the smaller passages and motions of ‘men and matters.’”
--_Francis Bacon_
BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHRISTOPHER BIRDWOOD THOMSON
General Thomson comes of an English family of soldiers. He is about
forty-five years old, and has a career of active service behind him,
having served as subaltern four years in the Boer War, then having
passed the Staff-College, and subsequently having been employed by the
War Office in Balkan service.
At the very beginning of the Great War he was engaged in Staff work
at the French front, and in 1915 to 1917 was the British military
representative in the Balkans. In the Palestine campaign he saw active
service in the field until the occupation of Jerusalem.
When the Supreme War Council was convened at Versailles, Thomson was
recalled and was attached as British Military Representative in 1918
remaining until the conclusion of its peace negotiations. In 1919 he
retired with rank of Brigadier General--Royal Engineers.
He has now entered the field of politics as a member of the Labour
Party and is the selected candidate for Parliament, standing for
Central Bristol. He was a member of the Labour Party commission which
recently visited Ireland; and his services in the intensive campaign
work of the Labour Party in Great Britain have occupied the past year.
[Illustration: THE PYRAMID OF ERRORS]
OLD EUROPE’S
SUICIDE
OR
THE BUILDING OF A PYRAMID
OF ERRORS
An account of certain events in Europe during
the Period 1912-1919
By
BRIGADIER-GENERAL
CHRISTOPHER BIRDWOOD THOMSON
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THOMAS SELTZER
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
THOMAS SELTZER, INC.
_All Rights Reserved_
DEDICATION
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ONE
I HAVE ALWAYS CALLED
“LA BELLE SAGESSE,”
WHO GREATLY
LOVES HER COUNTRY AND HER
GARDEN BY
THE “SLEEPING WATERS”.
PREFACE
This book is a retrospect covering the period 1912-1919. It begins with
the first Balkan War, and ends with the Peace Conference at Paris.
Many of the events described have been dealt with by other writers,
and the only justification for adding one more volume to an already
well-stocked library, is that the author was an eye-witness of all
that he relates and enjoyed peculiar opportunities for studying the
situation as a whole. To impressions derived from personal contact
with many of the principal actors in this world-drama has been added
the easy wisdom which comes after the event. With these qualifications
a conscientious effort has been made to arrange the subject matter in
proper sequence and to establish some connection between cause and
effect--not with a view to carping criticism, but rather to stress the
more obvious errors of the past and glean from them some guidance for
the future.
It would be a rash statement to say that a European conflagration was
the inevitable outcome of a little Balkan War, but metaphor will not
be strained by comparing that same little war to a spark in close
proximity to a heap of combustible material, a spark fanned in secret
by ambitious and unscrupulous men, while others stood by, and, either
from ignorance or indifference, did nothing to prevent an inevitable
and incalculable disaster. That, as the present writer sees it, is the
parable of the Balkan Wars. And so in the first part of this book,
which deals with the period 1912-1914, the selfish intrigues of the
Central Empires are contrasted with the equally vicious proceedings
of the Imperial Russian Government, with the ignorance and inertia
which characterized Great Britain’s Continental policy and with the
vacillations of the Latin States. In later chapters, comments are made
on the diplomatic negotiations with the neutral Balkan States in 1915
and 1916, on the conduct of the war and on the Treaty signed June 28,
1919, in the Palace at Versailles.
The title refers to the downfall of the Central Empires, which were the
last strongholds of the aristocratic traditions of Old Europe, both
from a social and a political point of view. It is submitted that these
Empires perished prematurely through the suicidal folly of their ruling
classes. Under wiser statesmanship, their autocratic governmental
system might have survived another century. Germany and Austria-Hungary
were prosperous States, and were assured of still greater prosperity if
events had pursued their normal course. But pride, ambition, impatience
and an overweening confidence in efficiency without idealism destroyed
their plans. They put their faith in Force, mere brutal Force, and
hoped to achieve more rapidly by conquest a commercial and political
predominance which, by waiting a few years, they could have acquired
without bloodshed. In the end, the military weapon they had forged
became the instrument of their own destruction. Too much was demanded
from the warlike German tribes; an industrial age had made war an
affair of workshops, and against them were arrayed all the resources of
Great Britain and America. Blind to these patent facts, a few reckless
militarists who held the reins of power goaded a docile people on to
desperate and unavailing efforts, long after all hope of victory had
vanished, and thus committed suicide as a despairing warrior does who
falls upon his sword.
The Prussian military system collapsed in the throes of revolution and
the rest of Europe breathed again. Materialism in its most efficient
form had failed, and to peoples bearing the intolerable burden
imposed by armaments came a new hope. Unfortunately, that hope was
vain. With the cessation of hostilities, the suicide of Old Europe
was not completely consummated. After the signing of the Armistice,
enlightened opinion, though undoubtedly disconcerted by the rapid march
of events, expected from the sudden downfall of the Central Empires a
swift transition from the old order to the new. The expectation was
not unreasonable that four years of wasteful, mad destruction would
be a lesson to mankind and, in a figurative sense, would form the
apex of a pyramid of errors--a pyramid rising from a broad base of
primitive emotions, through secret stages of artifice and intrigue,
and culminating in a point on which nothing could be built. A gloomy
monument, indeed, and useless--save as a habitation for the dead.
In an evil hour for civilization, the delegates who met to make the
Peace in Paris preferred the prospect of immediate gain to laying
the foundation of a new and better world. They, and the experts who
advised them, saw in the pyramid of errors a familiar structure, though
incomplete. Its completion demanded neither vision, nor courage, nor
originality of thought; precedent was their only guide in framing
Treaties which crowned the errors of the past and placed its topmost
block.
The chickens hatched at Versailles are now coming home to roost.
Democracy has been betrayed, our boasted civilization has been exposed
as a thin veneer overlaying the most savage instincts. Throughout
all Europe a state of moral anarchy prevails, hatred and a lust for
vengeance have usurped the place not only of charity and decent conduct
but also of statesmanship and common-sense. Peoples mistrust their
neighbours and their rulers, rich territories are unproductive for lack
of confidence and goodwill.
These ills are moral and only moral remedies will cure them. Force
_was_ required, and has done its work in successfully resisting
aggression by military states now humbled and dismembered. But Force is
a weapon with a double edge, and plays no part in human progress.
While this book endeavours to draw some lessons from the war and from
the even more disastrous peace, at the same time it pleads a cause.
That cause is Progress, and an appeal is made to all thinking men and
women to give their attention to these urgent international affairs,
which affect not only their prosperity, but their honour as citizens
of civilized States. The first step in this direction is to inform
ourselves. If, in the following pages, a little light is thrown on what
was before obscure, the writer will feel that his toil in the execution
of an unaccustomed task has been rewarded.
C. W. THOMSON
LONDON.
December 6, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE xi
CHAPTER
I. A DAY ON THE DANUBE 1
II. BELGRADE--OCTOBER, 1912: A VIEW FROM A WINDOW 10
III. THE BATTLE OF KUMANOVO 20
IV. MACEDONIA--1912 35
V. ALBANIA--1912-1913 49
VI. THE SECOND BALKAN WAR AND THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST 59
VII. TWO MEN WHO DIED 69
VIII. “1914” PEACE AND WAR 74
IX. THE NEUTRAL BALKAN STATES--1915 84
X. SLEEPING WATERS 99
XI. THE DISASTER IN RUMANIA--1916 108
XII. THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND THE RUSSO-RUMANIAN
OFFENSIVE--1917 127
XIII. A MIDNIGHT MASS 143
XIV. “WESTERNERS” AND “EASTERNERS” 147
XV. THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS--1919 161
XVI. LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD 177
OLD EUROPE’S SUICIDE
CHAPTER I
A DAY ON THE DANUBE
“When the snows melt there will be war in the Balkans,” had become an
habitual formula in the Foreign Offices of Europe during the first
decade of the twentieth century. Statesmen and diplomats found comfort
in this prophecy on their return from cures at different Continental
spas, because, the season being autumn, the snow had still to fall, and
would not melt for at least six months. This annual breathing space was
welcome after the anxieties of spring and summer; the inevitable war
could be discussed calmly and dispassionately, preparations for its
conduct could be made methodically, and brave words could be bandied
freely in autumn in the Balkans. Only an imminent danger inspires fear;
hope has no time limit, the most unimaginative person can hope for the
impossible twenty years ahead.
Without regard either for prophecies or the near approach of winter,
Bulgaria, Servia, Greece and Montenegro declared war on Turkey at
the beginning of October, 1912. The Balkan _Bloc_ had been formed,
and did not include Rumania, a land where plenty had need of peace;
King Charles was resolutely opposed to participation in the war, he
disdained a mere Balkan alliance as unworthy of the “Sentinel of the
Near East.”
Bukarest had, for the moment anyhow, lost interest; my work there
was completed, and a telegram from London instructed me to proceed to
Belgrade. The trains _via_ Budapest being overcrowded, I decided on the
Danube route, and left by the night train for Orsova, in company with
a number of journalists and business men from all parts of Rumania. We
reached the port of the Iron Gate before dawn, and found a Hungarian
steamer waiting; soon after daybreak we were heading up stream.
Behind us lay the Iron Gate, its gloom as yet unconquered by the
sunrise; on our left the mountains of North-Eastern Servia rose like
a rampart; on our right the foothills of the Carpathians terminated
abruptly at the river’s edge; in front the Danube shimmered with soft
and ever-changing lights; a stillness reigned which no one cared to
break, even the crew spoke low, like pious travellers before a shrine.
War’s alarms seemed infinitely distant from those glistening waters set
in an amphitheatre of hills.
“How can man, being happy, still keep his happy hour?” The pageant
of dawn and river and mountain faded as the sun rose higher; dim
outlines became hard and sharp; the Iron Gate, surmounted by eddying
wisps of mist, looked like a giant cauldron. The pass broadened with
our westward progress revealing the plain of Southern Hungary, low
hills replaced the mountains on the Servian bank. A bell rang as we
stopped at a small river port, it announced breakfast and reminded
us, incidentally, that stuffy smells are inseparable from human
activities, even on the Danube, and within sight of the blue mountains
of Transylvania.
My travelling companions were mainly British and French, with a
sprinkling of Austrians and Italians. To all of them the latest
development in the Balkan situation was of absorbing interest, and they
discussed it incessantly from every point of view. Their attitude, as
I learnt later, was typical, not one of them had failed to foresee
everything that had happened; in the case of the more mysterious
mannered, one had a vague impression that they had planned the whole
business, and were awaiting results like rival trainers of racehorses
on the eve of a great race. These citizens of the Great Powers were,
in their commerce with the Balkan peoples, a curious mixture of patron
and partisan. The right to patronize was, in their opinion, conferred
by the fact of belonging to a big country; the partisan spirit had
been developed after a short residence in the Peninsula. This spirit
was perhaps based on genuine good will and sincere sympathy, but it
certainly was not wholly disinterested. There was no reason why it
should have been. No man can, simultaneously, be a good citizen of two
countries; he will nearly always make money in one and spend it in the
other. Patriotism is made to cover a multitude of sins, and, where
money is being made, the acid test of political professions is their
effect on business.
Listening to the conversation on the steamer I was astonished by the
vivacity with which these self-appointed champions urged and disputed
the territorial claims of each Balkan State in turn. Remote historical
precedents were dragged in to justify the most extravagant extension
of territory, secret treaties were hinted at which would change the
nationality of millions of peasants, and whole campaigns were mapped
out with a knowledge of geography which, to any one fresh from official
circles in London, was amazing.
From breakfast on, the babel of voices continued, and it was curious
to note how the different nationalities grouped themselves. The
British were, almost to a man, pro-Bulgar, they wanted Bulgaria to
have the greater part of Macedonia and Thrace, some of them even
claimed Constantinople and Salonika for their protégés; they were on
the whole optimistic as to the success of the Allies. The French and
Italians urged the claims of Servia, Greece and Rumania in Macedonia;
in regard to Albania the French were in favour of dividing that country
between Servia and Greece, but this latter suggestion provoked vehement
protests from the Italians. The three Austrians hardly joined in the
discussion at all, one of them remarked that he agreed with the writer
of the leading article in the _Neue Freie Presse_ of a few days back,
who compared the Balkan Peninsula to a certain suburb of Berlin, where
there was one bank too many, and where, as a consequence, all banks
suffered. In the Balkan Peninsula, according to this writer, there was
one country too many, and a settled state of affairs was impossible
until one of them had been eliminated; he didn’t say which.
I asked whether a definite partition of the territory to be conquered
was not laid down in the Treaty of Alliance. No one knew or, at least,
no one cared to say. There seemed to be a general feeling that Treaties
didn’t matter. The journalists were in a seventh heaven of satisfaction
at the prospect of unlimited copy for several months to come; the
business men expected to increase their business if all went well. On
that Danube steamer the war of 1912 was popular, the future might be
uncertain, but it was full of pleasant possibilities.
I thought of London and remembered conversations there three weeks
before the declaration of war. The general opinion might have been
summarized as follows: The Bulgars were a hardy, frugal race, rather
like the Scotch, and, therefore, sympathetic; they were ruled over by a
king called Ferdinand, who was too clever to be quite respectable. As
for Servia, the British conscience had, of course, been deeply shocked
by the murder of the late King, and the Servian Government had been
stood in the diplomatic corner for some years, but the crime had been
more or less expiated by its dramatic elements and the fact that it
had taught everybody a little geography. King Nicholas of Montenegro
was a picturesque figure and had an amiable habit of distributing
decorations. In regard to Greece, there were dynastic reasons why we
should be well disposed towards the descendants of the men who fought
at Marathon, not to mention the presence in our midst of financial
magnates with unmistakably Greek names. Lastly, the Turks. In London,
in 1912, these people enjoyed considerable popularity; they were
considered the only gentlemen in the Balkans, the upper-class ones of
course. Admittedly Turkish administration was corrupt and the Turks
had a distressing habit of cutting down trees everywhere, but their
most serious defect was that they were a little sticky about affording
facilities for Western enterprise. This latter consideration was
considered really important. Matters would improve, it was thought,
after some changes had been made in the Consular Service.
The war had come at last. Few people in England knew its cause or its
objects; many thought and hoped the Turks would win. We had played the
part of stern moralists when a debauched and tyrannical youth received
summary justice at the hands of his outraged subjects, but we watched
lightheartedly the preparations for a struggle which would soak the
whole Balkan Peninsula in blood.
Night was falling as we passed under the walls of the old fortress of
Belgrade. During the last hour the conversation had taken a purely
business turn about coal concessions in the Ergene Valley[1] and a
French company which was being formed to exploit Uskub. Both localities
were in Turkish territory, but would change their nationality after the
war, if the Balkan Allies were the victors.
The steamer ran alongside the jetty; the journey was, for most of us,
at an end. Every one was in high spirits; the near prospect of dinner
in an hotel had produced a general feeling of optimism in regard to the
Near Eastern question. One felt it wouldn’t be the fault of any one
on our steamer if things went wrong. Our advice would always be given
gladly and ungrudgingly, and we would accept any responsibility except
that of putting into execution our own plans. We considered we were
playing quite an important part in the Balkan drama, but, belonging as
we did to big countries or Great Powers, once the fighting began we
were forced to stand aside.
Belgrade seemed half asleep already. The city is built on a ridge
overlooking the junction of the Save with the Danube. From the quay
a long line of white houses was visible, flanked at one end by the
Cathedral and a dark mass of trees, at the other by a large, ugly
building, behind which stands the Royal Palace. Lights were few and
far between, the aspect of the town was cold and inhospitable, it was
evidently no busy centre eager to swallow up travellers and take their
money. The Servian capital has nothing to offer to pleasure seekers,
and sightseers must be content with scenery. Across the river, half
a mile away, the lights of the Semlin cast a glare upon the sky, one
could even hear faintly the strains of a Hungarian military band.
Only three of my fellow travellers remained on the landing stage; they
were Austrians. Two of them were going to Semlin in the steamer, the
third was, like myself, waiting for his baggage to be disembarked. This
man and I were to see a good deal of each other during the months that
followed; he was the Austrian Military Attaché at Belgrade.
The steamer whistle gave the signal for departure and farewells
were exchanged. Just before stepping on board, one of the departing
Austrians said, “Well, Otto, when next we meet I suppose the Turks will
be here,” to which the military representative of the Dual Monarchy
replied, “The sooner the better.” He then got into his cab and drove
off to the house where, for three years, he had enjoyed all the
privileges due to his diplomatic functions.
I had spent the whole day with a crowd of talkative and communicative
men, but, as a rickety old cab took me up the hill towards the town,
I remembered more distinctly what the comparatively silent Austrians
had said than anything else that I had heard. These men seemed to mix
up private business and politics less than the others; they gave the
impression of thinking on big lines, of representing a policy of some
sort.
In October, 1912, many people still believed that the British
Government had a Balkan policy. The war had been foreseen for so
many years, its repercussion on Asia Minor and the whole Mohammedan
world could hardly fail to be considerable, while the risk of the
conflagration spreading, so as to involve all Europe, was universally
recognized. Under such circumstances, it seemed incredible that those
responsible for the maintenance of the British Empire would leave
anything to chance. Of course, we British had a policy, but personally
I hadn’t the faintest idea what it was, nor, for the moment, could I
think of any one who had.
At last the hotel was reached. A sleepy “concierge” showed me to my
room, a vast apartment whose outstanding feature was its painted
ceiling. This work of art was oval in shape and consisted of a vault
of almost inky blue spangled with stars, round which were cherubs and
angels in appropriately exiguous costumes. The subject was perhaps
meant to be a celestial choir, but the artist had somehow missed his
mark; the faces were neither angelic nor cherubic; they wore an air
of mystery not unmingled with self-satisfaction. The figures emerged
in stiff, conventional fashion from the edges of the ceiling into the
central blue, and, if it hadn’t been for their lack of dress and look
of conscious superiority, they might have been a collection of quite
ordinary men, gathered round an oval table stained with ink. One of the
cherubs bore a strong facial resemblance to a distinguished diplomat of
my acquaintance; he was whispering something in his neighbour’s ear,
and the latter seemed amused. The neighbour was a cherub, not an angel;
he had a queer, wizened face of somewhat Slavonic type.
I was tired out, but I did not sleep well. I had been thinking about
British policy in the Balkans before I fell asleep, and had strange
dreams which were almost nightmares. It was all the fault of the
ceiling; that cherub was so exactly like the diplomat and I dreamed
he was telling the other one a secret, this explained the whispering,
and that it was an important State secret, connected with my visit to
Belgrade.
Who knows? The artist who had painted that hideous ceiling may have
done so in a mood of irony. He may have chosen, as models for his
cherubs, some well-known personages engaged in propping up a crazy
structure known as “the balance of power in Europe.”