THE DANUBE AND THE DARDANELLES
The River Danube and the Straits leading from the Black Sea to the
Ægean Sea have been the waterways of Europe whose fortunes have had the
greatest influence upon the evolution of international relations during
the last half century. The control of these two waterways, as long as
the Ottoman Empire remained strong, was not a question of compelling
interest to Europe. It was only when the decline of the Ottoman power
began to foreshadow the eventual disappearance of the empire from
Europe that nations began to think of the vital importance of the
control of these waterways to the economic life of Europe.
There is an extensive and interesting literature on the history of the
evolution of international law in its relationship to the various
questions raised by the necessarily international control of the Danube
and the Dardanelles. In a book like this, an adequate statement of the
history and work of the Danube Commission, and of the various
diplomatic negotiations affecting the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles,
their freedom of passage, their fortifications, their {132}
lighthouses, and their life-saving stations, cannot be attempted. It
is my intention, therefore, to treat these great waterways only in the
broader aspect of the important part that the questions raised by them
have played in leading up to the gigantic struggle which foreshadows a
new political reconstruction of the world.
The Danube is navigable from Germany all the way to the Black Sea. On
its banks are the capitals of Austria, Hungary, and Servia. It
traverses the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire, forms a natural boundary
between Austria and Servia, Rumania and Bulgaria, and then turns north
across Rumania to separate for a short distance Rumania and Russia
before finally reaching the Black Sea.
The volume of traffic on the Danube has increased steadily since the
Crimean War. It has become the great path of export for Austrian and
Hungarian merchandise to the Balkan States, Russia, Turkey, and Persia,
and for Servian, Bulgarian, and Rumanian products to Russia and Turkey.
The passenger service on the Danube has kept pace with the competition
of the railways. Eastward, it is frequently quicker, cheaper, and more
convenient than the railway service. You can leave Vienna or
Buda-Pesth in the evening, and reach Buda-Pesth or Belgrade in the
morning. From Belgrade to the Hungarian and Rumanian frontier towns,
the Danube furnishes the shortest route. From Bulgaria to Russia, the
Danube route, via Somovit and Galatz to Odessa, is in many ways
preferable to the through train service. It is by spending days on the
Danube that I have come to {133} realize how vital the river is to
freight and passenger communications between Austria-Hungary, the
Balkan states, and Russia. Travel gives life and meaning to
statistics. The Danube interprets itself.
The Congresses of Paris and Berlin considered carefully the entrance of
the Danube question into international life through the enfranchisement
of the Balkan States. International laws, administered by an
international commission, govern the Danube. It is a neutral waterway.
Problems, similar to those of the Scheldt, have arisen, however, in the
present war between Austria-Hungary and Servia. If Rumania and
Bulgaria should join in the European war, no matter on which side they
should fight, the whole Danube question would become further
complicated. When war actually breaks out, the rulings of
international law concerning neutrality are invariably violated.
States act according to their own interests.
In its larger European aspect, the Danube, as an international
waterway, is dependent upon the Dardanelles. Were Rumania to close the
navigation of the Danube, or were she to preserve its neutrality, she
would only be preventing or assisting the commerce of the riverain
states with the Black Sea. Unobstructed passage to the outside world
for Danube commerce depends upon the control of the outlet from the
Black Sea to the Ægean Sea. The Hungarian and Servian peasant looks
beyond his own great river to the narrow passage from the Sea of
Marmora. The question of the Danube is subordinated to the question of
the Dardanelles.
That the passage from the Black Sea to the outside {134} world remain
open and secure from sudden stoppage or constant menace is of vital
importance to the riverain Danube states, Austria-Hungary and Servia,
to the states bordering the Black Sea, Russia, Rumania, and Turkey, and
to Persia, whose nearest communications with Europe are by way of the
Black Sea. Austria-Hungary, however, has another outlet through the
Adriatic, Servia is pressing towards the Adriatic and the Ægean,
Bulgaria has recently secured an Ægean littoral, Persia is dependent
upon Russia, and Turkey holds the straits. There remain Russia and
Rumania, to whom the question of the Dardanelles is a matter of life
and death.
The international position of Rumania is most unfortunate. She must
make common cause with Germanic Europe or with Turkey to prevent her
only waterway to the outside world from falling into the hands of
Russia, or she must ally herself with Russia, and, by adding Bukovina
and Transylvania, increase her numbers to the point where she can hope
to resist the tide of Slavs around her. In discussing the neutrality
of Rumania, the French and British press have given too much emphasis
to the loyalty of King Carol for the Hohenzollern family, of which he
was a member, as the cause of the failure of Rumania to join the
enemies of the Germanic Powers, and to the hope that the death of the
sovereign who made Rumania may result in a favourable change in the
policy of the Bukarest Cabinet. The new sovereign, King Ferdinand, is
also a Hohenzollern. The hesitation of Rumania has not been, and is
not, primarily because of the family ties of her rulers. {135} The
Rumanians in Hungary may call for union with their enfranchised
brethren, just as the Italians in Austria may call for union with the
Italians who were liberated in 1859 and 1866. But is irredentism the
only factor in influencing the policy of Italy and Rumania? For
Rumania, at least, the hope of acquiring Transylvania and Bukovina in
the international settlement following the war is offset by the
apprehension of seeing Russia at the Dardanelles.
The Dardanelles has been the scene of struggles for commercial
supremacy since the days of the Peloponnesian wars. It was in the
Dardanelles that the great battle was fought which brought about the
downfall of Athenian hegemony. It was over the question of fortifying
the island of Tenedos that Venice and Genoa in the latter half of the
fourteenth century fought the war during which the Genoese occupation
of Chioggia nearly caused the destruction of Venice. Then came the
Ottoman occupation to put a stop to international jealousies until
modern times.
The political development of Russia from Moscow has been a consistent
forward march towards ocean waterways. There have been six possible
outlets for Russia, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the White Sea, the
Yellow Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Adriatic. At different periods
of her history, Russia has expended her efforts continuously in these
various directions. To reach the Baltic, Peter the Great built
Petrograd. One has to stand on the Kremlin on a beautiful summer day
and look out over the sacred city of the Russians to grasp the fulness
of {136} the sacrifice and the marvellous daring of the man who
abandoned Moscow to build another capital on piles driven into dreary
salt marshes. It was for the sea and contact with the outside world!
To reach the Pacific Ocean, Russia patiently conquered the former
empire of the Mongols, steppe by steppe, and when she thought the
moment of realization had arrived, did not hesitate to throw a band of
steel across the continent of Asia. To reach the Persian Gulf, she
crossed the Caucasus and launched her ships upon the Caspian Sea. To
reach the Black Sea, she broke the military power of the houses of
Jagello and Osman, building laboriously upon the ruins of Poland and
the Ottoman Empire. Is it to reach the Adriatic that her forces are
now before Przemysl?
In spite of her struggles through three centuries, Russia is still
landlocked. The ice is an insurmountable barrier to freedom of exit
from the White Sea, her only undisputed outlet. Japan has arisen to
shatter the dreams of the future of Port Dalny, and make useless the
sacrifices to gain the Pacific. The control by Germany of the exit
from the Baltic Sea has been strengthened in recent years by the
construction and fortification of the Kiel Canal. The Persian Gulf has
been given up by the accord of 1907 with Great Britain. There has
remained what has always been the strongest hope, and the one for the
realization of which Russia has made consistent and stupendous efforts.
Radetsky, in his memoirs, has summed up the attitude of Russia towards
the Ottoman Empire in {137} words that give the key to the whole
Eastern Question during the past century:
"Owing to her geographical position, Russia is the national and eternal
enemy of Turkey.... Russia must therefore do all she can to take
possession of Constantinople, for its possession alone will grant to
her the security and territorial completeness necessary for her future."
Three times during the nineteenth century Russia endeavoured to destroy
the Ottoman Empire in Europe so that she might gain control of the exit
to the Ægean Sea. In 1828, her armies reached Adrianople, and half a
century later the suburbs of Constantinople. In both instances,
especially the second, it was the opposition of Great Britain that
forced Russia to make peace without having attained her end. In 1854,
France and Italy joined Great Britain in the invasion of the Crimea to
preserve "the integrity of the Ottoman Empire." In 1856, at the
Congress of Paris, Russia saw the western Powers uphold the principle
that the Czar had no right to sovereignty even on the Black Sea, a half
of which his ancestors had wrested from the Turks. It was no use for
Russia to plead that she had "special interests" in her own territorial
waters. The Black Sea was neutralized. The expression "_selon nos
convenances et intérêts_" was understood by Great Britain to refer only
to British interests! It was by right of might that Russia was held in
check. In 1870, Bismarck purchased the neutrality of Russia in his war
against France by agreeing to Russia's {138} denunciation of the Paris
treaty clauses which held her impotent in the Black Sea. But again, in
1878, Great Britain interfered to bottle up Russia. Since then the
Russian navy has been a prisoner in the Black Sea. Will it continue to
be so after the war of 1914?
Just when Ottoman power was receding, the rapid development of steam
power began to make southern Russia the bread basket of Europe. Steam
machinery increased the yield of these vast and rich lands, steam
railways enabled the farmers to send their harvests to Black Sea ports,
and steamships made possible the distribution of the harvests
throughout Europe. I used to live on the Bosphorus, and from my study
window I could see every day the never-ceasing procession of grain
ships of all nations going to and coming from the Black Sea. In May,
1912, when the Dardanelles was closed for a month during the Italian
war, two hundred steamships lay at anchor in the harbour of
Constantinople.
Another influence whose importance cannot be overestimated has
constantly turned the eyes of Russians towards Constantinople. Slavs
are idealists. For an ideal, one makes sacrifices that material
considerations do not call forth. To the Russians, Constantinople is
Tsarigrad, the city of the Emperor. It is from Constantinople that the
Russians received their religion. Their civilization is imbued with
the spirit of Byzantium. Just as one sees in the Polish language the
influence of Latin in the construction of the sentence, one sees in the
kindred Russian tongue the influence of Greek. I have frequently been
struck {139} with the close and vital relationship between
Constantinople and Russia during the period of the development of the
Russian nation. _Now that Russia seems to be entering upon a period of
national awakening, the sentiment is bound to be irresistible among the
Russians that they are the rightful inheritors of the Eastern Empire,
eclipsed for so many centuries by the shadow of Islam and now about to
be born again_.
On a July evening in 1908, when the constitutional revolution in Turkey
was beginning to occupy the attention of Europe, I sat with my wife in
the winter garden of the Grand Hotel in Paris. We were listening to a
charming and intelligent Russian gentleman explain to us the aims of
the political parties in the Duma of 1907. A waiter came to tell us
that our baggage was ready. "Where are you going?" asked the Russian.
"To Constantinople," we answered. An expression of wistful sadness or
joy--you can never tell which it is meant to be with a Russian--came
across his face. "Constantinople!" he murmured, more to himself than
to us: "This revolution will fail. You will see. For we must come
into our own."
The political aspect of the question of the Dardanelles has changed
greatly since Great Britain and France fought one war with Russia, and
Great Britain stood ready to fight a second, in order to prevent this
passage from falling into Russian hands.
Almost immediately after the crisis of San Stefano and the resulting
revision of the Russo-Turkish treaty at Berlin, the interests of Great
Britain were diverted from the north-east to the south-east {140}
Mediterranean. She decided that her permanent route to India was
through the Suez Canal, and made it secure by getting possession of the
majority of the shares of the Canal and by seizing Egypt. The
Bulgarians began to show themselves lacking in the expected docility
towards their liberator. British diplomats realized that they had been
fearing what did not happen. They began to lose interest in the
Dardanelles. This loss of interest in the question of the straits as a
vital factor in their world interests has grown so complete in recent
years that Russia has no reason to anticipate another visit of the
British fleet to Besika Bay if--I refrain from prophesying. It is safe
to say, however, that London has forgotten Mohammed Ali, the Crimea,
and the Princes' Islands, while the traditions of Unkiar Skelessi are
still dominating the foreign policy of Petrograd.
For, while the future of the Dardanelles has come to mean less to Great
Britain, it means more than ever before to Russia. Russia has been
turned back from the Pacific. The loss of Manchuria in the war with
Japan caused her once again to cast her eyes upon the outlet to the
Mediterranean. To the increase in her wheat trade has been added also
the development of the petroleum trade from the Caucasus wells. Since
the agreement for the partition of Persia with Great Britain in 1907,
and the mutual "hands off" accord with Germany at Potsdam in 1910, the
expectations of a brilliant Russian future for northern Persia and the
Armenian and Kurdish corner of Asiatic Turkey have been great.
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Since the Congress of Berlin, Germany has come into the place of Great
Britain as the enemy who would keep Russia from finding the Ægean Sea.
The growth of German interests at Constantinople and in Asia Minor has
become the India--in anticipation--of Germany. When Russia, after her
ill-fated venture in the Far East, turned her efforts once more towards
the Balkan peninsula, it began to dawn upon her that the _Drang nach
Oesten_ might prove a menace to her control of the Dardanelles, fully
as great as was formerly the British fetish of the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire to keep open the route to India. Diplomacy endeavoured
to ward off the inevitable struggle. But the Balkan wars created a new
situation that broke rudely the accords of Skierniewice and Potsdam.
Austria-Hungary in the Balkans and Germany in Asia Minor became the
nightmare of Russia.
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