THE EASTERN QUESTION.
I.
The revolution of 1908 had set up in Turkey a constitutional system
or, more properly speaking, a travesty of one, by unearthing the
1876 constitution from the dust in which it lay buried. Count von
Aehrenthal, who in Vienna aimed at politics on the grand scale—a
personal policy, modelled on that of the statesmen of Berlin—took
advantage of the internal troubles arising from the overthrow of the
Hamidian despotism to convert into a formal annexation (7th October
1908) the right of occupying Bosnia-Herzegovina granted to the Dual
Monarchy by the Congress of Berlin. The pretext was ready to hand:
Francis Joseph could not allow the inhabitants of provinces under his
control to send deputies to a Parliament assembling at Constantinople.
The Austrian minister thought to disarm the opposition of the Young
Turks by withdrawing the Austro-Hungarian garrisons from the Sandjak of
Novibazar. All he did, in reality, was to weaken the position of his
Government in the ensuing conflict.
This conflict lasted through the winter of 1908-1909, and came near
to provoking a European war. On the one side was Austria-Hungary,
supported by Germany; on the other, not only Turkey, but also Serbia,
with Russia at her back.
The Belgrade Cabinet had sent to the Powers a protest against the
annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, describing it as “a serious injury
to the feelings, the interests, and the rights of the Serbian people.”
Serbia’s concern in the Austro-Turkish quarrel, which was marked by a
Turkish boycott of Austrian and Hungarian goods, is easily explained.
The arbitrary act of the Vienna Cabinet threatened to cut off the
Bosnian people forever from that of Serbia, to which it was attached
by a common origin. The Serbians could not calmly endure the severing
of these blood-ties, since it boded the ruin of their dearest national
aspirations and the end of their dreams of a wider empire to come.
As regards the Cabinet of Berlin, we do not know whether it was
consulted by Count von Aehrenthal as to the advisability of annexation,
or merely informed that the step was about to be taken. We must
entirely dismiss the view that Berlin itself suggested the playing
of this shabby trick on Turkey. But did it more or less approve of
what had been done? Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, who was then interim
chief at the Wilhelmstrasse, and who had not the art of concealing his
dislikes, always spoke of the Austrian minister in a sarcastic tone.
He was certainly no supporter of Aehrenthal’s adventurous policy, nor
can the Imperial Government have looked upon it with favour. The fall
of absolutism at Constantinople was in itself a serious blow to German
influence there, which was based upon Abdul Hamid’s friendship. This
critical moment in William II.’s diplomacy was chosen by the minister
of his most loyal ally for tearing up the Treaty of Berlin, for
annulling with a stroke of the pen the Sultan’s shadowy rule over two
ancient Ottoman provinces, and for thus lowering his religious prestige
as Caliph in the eyes of Mussulmans and kindling the wrath of the Young
Turks against Germanism. At the same time, the Prince of Bulgaria,
acting in agreement with the Cabinet of Vienna, declared himself
independent.
When Germany, however, saw Austria-Hungary at loggerheads with Russia,
who had flown to the rescue of Serbia, she did not hesitate to stand
firmly by her ally, and Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter was the first to
suggest that the German ambassador in St. Petersburg should show a
menacing front, in order to end the dispute as soon as possible.
Doubtless the Foreign Secretary was not loath to show the presumptuous
Aehrenthal that he could not get out of the scrape by his own unaided
efforts. The successful result of his counsels, the retreat of Russia,
followed by Belgrade’s resolve to drop its protest against the
annexation, made Kiderlen-Wächter very popular in Court circles, and
caused him to be looked upon as the coming man. From now onward, those
best qualified to judge expected great things of this former welcome
guest at Bismarck’s house and favourite pupil of the old professor of
Teuton diplomacy, the celebrated Holstein.
The motives for Germany’s interference are well-known. She could
not allow the solidity of the Triplice to be shaken. She owed a
debt of gratitude to her ally, who had not withheld her support at
the Algeciras Conference. Finally, since she fancied that England,
Russia, and France were attempting to encircle her, she was anxious
to prove that the mere gesture of putting her hand to her sword would
be enough to dispel the illusions of her foes. The machinations of
Paris and London would break down, she thought, at the touch of
reality, at the collision with German military power. The risk of war,
whatever may have been said at the time, was not very great. Herr
von Kiderlen-Wächter, who, as I have already said, was not at heart
a fighter, though he humoured the Emperor’s newly-acquired taste for
warlike phrases in diplomatic conversations, had seen this clearly
enough. Russia had not yet recovered from the wounds inflicted on her
by the struggle with Japan and by the revolutionary outbreaks to which
that struggle gave rise. In France, the national sentiment, which had
scarcely yet rallied from the shocks of the Moroccan disputes, was not
likely to be roused by the call of Serbian aspirations. In London, it
is true, the Government and public opinion had roundly condemned the
infringement of the Treaty of Berlin by Austrian diplomacy. But it is a
long way from an academic reproof to an effective intervention.
Yet the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the pressure brought to
bear by the Count de Pourtalès at St. Petersburg had far more serious
results than had been anticipated at Berlin. These moves exercised
a far-reaching influence on all the later conduct of the Tsar’s
Government, and their rebound could be clearly traced in the rigid
attitude shown by that Government when a new Austro-Serbian conflict
came to trouble the peace of Europe. The crisis of 1909 enabled Russia
to realize the full value of M. Isvolsky’s skill and foresight, in
that he had managed, since 1907, to draw her close both to her recent
enemy in the Far East and to her age-long rival in Central Asia. But
for the agreements formed by this statesman with Japan and England,
the alliances of to-day would have been impossible. Another outcome of
the 1909 crisis was that of revealing to the Slav Empire the need for
being armed to the teeth against its arrogant neighbour, and thus of
hastening on its military reorganization. If the Emperor William and
his advisers had not had such short memories, they would have been
less astonished than they seemed to be afterwards at the rapid progress
of Russia’s armaments.
The annexation policy of Count von Aehrenthal, which may well be
regarded as one of the indirect causes of the present war, had
other unfortunate effects on the Dual Monarchy. The ease with which
the triumph had been won led the bullies of Vienna and Buda-Pesth
to imagine that high-handed methods would always be successful.
They fancied that the Tsar’s Government, from fear of seeing the
two Germanic Empires ranged against it, would not dare to cross
Austria-Hungary’s path, if the latter set herself one day to chastise
Serbia.
The clash of the Habsburg monarchy with the valiant people of Kara
George over the Bosnian question was only the first lunge in a duel
where the weaker of the two adversaries, compelled to be wary, became
all the more dangerous in that he shifted his ground. A subterranean
movement carried on by Pan-Serb societies which had long been at work
with alternating fits of activity and quiescence began from this
time forth to excite, without respite, the separatist feeling of the
Bosnian and Croat communities. This was the most definite result of
Aehrenthal’s rash policy, but he did not live to see it come to pass.
He had tried to pour fresh blood into the veins of that great emaciated
body, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to make this dotard, racked with
incurable diseases, play an active part on the European stage. All
that he did was to embitter the mutual hatred of Austria and Serbia,
and, by laying rash hands upon the work of Bismarck, Beaconsfield, and
Andrassy, to revive the Eastern question—that fiery furnace, dreaded by
several generations of diplomats, which still smouldered beneath the
ashes of the Treaty of Berlin.
II.
Two years passed. Germany spent them in recovering, bit by bit, the
ground she had lost at Constantinople after the dethronement of Abdul
Hamid. Her dexterous ambassador succeeded in winning the elusive
confidence of the Committee of Union and Progress, just as he had won
that of the despot. The enterprises of German finance and industry
were spreading their tentacles further and further in Asiatic Turkey.
The Turkish army acquired the obvious stamp of Prussian discipline,
although the corps of officers, in losing the old Ottoman spirit handed
down by its forbears, was somewhat shorn of its martial qualities; it
concerned itself too much with politics, and not enough with the men
under its command. During the Agadir crisis the Near East remained
outwardly quiet, except in Crete, where the people’s eagerness to
be reunited with the Hellenic mother-country became more and more
difficult to curb.
The first Power that broke in upon this deceptive calm was again
an ally of Germany—Italy. She knew that at Constantinople the sham
constitutional system had done nothing more than substitute the tyranny
of a faction for that of an individual. It was only the Young Turks,
with their blatant ineptitude, that had any illusions as to the real
weakness of their country, the rottenness at its core. After Agadir
and the Franco-German Convention, Italy hastened to seize the portion
that had been allotted to her in her agreements with France. The fear
of seeing German traders securely planted at Tripoli and Bengazi
perhaps made her decide all the more quickly. The Libyan expedition was
prepared in secret, in order to baffle both the vigilance of Turkey and
the suspicions of Germany, who learnt, when it was too late to demur,
of the proposed assault on the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. That
empire was still a trump card for Germany in the game to be played
later against the Dual Alliance—a steadfast auxiliary, whose task it
would be to divert a large part of the enemy’s forces.
Such was the mutual confidence prevailing in 1911 among the members of
the Triple Alliance! But the Libyan campaign, contrary to the hopes
entertained in Rome at the outset, degenerated into a weary round of
guerrilla warfare. It seemed impossible for the two sides to come to
grips, and for one or the other to strike decisive blows. Turkey was
in a position to continue the struggle, outside Africa, without fatigue
or vital losses, up to the moment when Italy transferred the theatre of
her operations to the Ægean sea, and occupied Rhodes and the islands
of the Dodecanese. She thus obtained a hostage of which she would not
let go, and an excellent naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean. The
capture of the Greek islands had certain effects upon the peace of
Europe: it aroused the patriotic jealousy of Greece, and helped to
bring about the formation of the Balkan League. When the latter came
down in full array from the Balkan heights, Turkey and Italy, at the
instance of Germany, resolved to sign the Peace of Ouchy.
If the Vienna Cabinet resuscitated the Eastern question in 1909,
the Quirinal Cabinet in 1911 certainly contributed towards keeping
it alive. Moreover, it was the inventor of a process for making war
inevitable—the ultimatum sent when all is at peace, couched in such
imperious terms, and with such a brief interval for reply, that the
only possible answer is a resort to arms. The Balkan States, and above
all Austria-Hungary, were careful to study this model.
III.
Was the formation of the Balkan League or Confederacy, covertly
patronized by Russian diplomacy, known to the Cabinets of Berlin and
Vienna? I am inclined to think that they were not informed of it until
the moment when the Confederates were ready to give battle; otherwise,
they would have tried to hold them back or to sow dissensions among
them. Germany and Austria-Hungary alike were greatly concerned to keep
Turkey intact, that they might draw freely, not only upon her military
strength, but also upon her financial resources. Things were quite bad
enough when she became involved in the struggle with Italy, which had
threatened to drag on for ever. But when the Montenegrins, venturing
on a forlorn hope, began hostilities, the German Government at once
saw its chance in this new complication. It had no doubts as to the
ultimate success of the Turks. The retired officers who wrote for
Berlin newspapers trotted out a host of figures and technical details
to prove the overwhelming superiority of the Ottoman army. The Serbs
and the Greeks, who were no better now than when they were beaten at
Slivnitza and Domokos respectively, would be swallowed at a single
gulp. The Bulgarian army would offer a more stubborn resistance, but
it was deficient both in numbers and in training. Accordingly Berlin
laughed at the proposal of the Paris Cabinet that no change should be
permitted in the frontiers of the Balkan States. The Wilhelmstrasse
made a show of accepting it, with the mental reservation that later on,
when the triumph of the Crescent was assured, it would adopt the views
of the Vienna Cabinet, which had little inclination for showing mercy
to the Confederates.
If ever a war, before its opening stages, appeared to be a futile
shedding of blood, it was this one. For the matter of that, the
illusion only lasted a few days. I dined at Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter’s
on the evening when news was brought him of the Turkish defeat at Kirk
Kilisse. No words of mine can paint his amazement. He almost refused
to believe that a fortified position, held by excellent troops, should
have been carried in a few hours by an army of peasants. After the
brilliant victory of the Serbians at Kumanovo, however, and the entry
of the Greeks into Salonika, he was forced to admit the overthrow of
the Ottoman power. But the most cruel shock to German self-esteem was
to hear the French artillery, with which the Allies were supplied,
praised at the expense of the Krupp guns used by the vanquished army,
and strictures passed upon the German tactics, which Marshal Von
der Goltz had hammered so thoroughly into the heads of the Turkish
officers. Thus the first stones were cast at two reputations hitherto
unchallenged, and defended with might and main at Berlin.
The disasters of the Turks before the armistice had an extraordinary
moral effect in Germany. The new principle laid down by the friends
of the victors, “The Balkans for the Balkan nations,” seemed to be
accepted without much cavil by the Imperial Government and the
Press. A scornful indifference towards Turkey and her misfortunes
suddenly took the place of their former cordial friendliness. The
Emperor, always ready to turn aside from the weak and to make advances
to the strong, was one of the first to perform this interesting
change of front. The Wilhelmstrasse exerted itself above all to
soothe the anger of the Ballplatz and to stifle its faint cries for
intervention, preaching the doctrine that Turkey should be left to
her fate. I learned on good authority that when William II. took
leave of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who, under colour of taking
part in an Imperial shooting party, had come to Berlin to discuss the
situation with him, he exclaimed, just as the train was starting: “Now
remember—no silly adventures!”
The confining of the Ottoman Empire to its Asiatic possessions, with
Constantinople as a bridgehead in Europe, was a solution regarded at
Berlin during the whole winter, after and even before the capture of
Adrianople, as eminently acceptable. The abandonment of her European
provinces, which had become a serious burden on the Ottoman Treasury,
would leave Turkey free to devote all her resources to exploiting her
neglected domains in Anatolia and Syria, where her real wealth lay. The
Crescent would shine with more dazzling radiance in the sky of Asia.
The Berlin Press threw out hints of this kind to its Constantinople
friends by way of consolation. Since German finance and industry had
locked up vast sums of capital in the Asiatic vilayets for the building
of railways and the irrigation of the adjoining land concessions, the
most urgent business of the Imperial Government seemed to consist
henceforth in ensuring the success of these undertakings. The directors
of the Deutsche Bank, concessionaires for the Bagdad Railway, made
every effort to discover means of saving the flotsam and jetsam of the
Turkish wreck, and of settling the financial problems on which it was
already decided a conference was to sit in Paris.
IV.
During the winter the conference of ambassadors, meeting in London
and presided over by Sir Edward Grey, had revealed among the Powers a
desire (universal, if varying in degree) to join hands in warding off
European complications, and to put an end, as early as possible, to
the Balkan struggle, by persuading the Ottoman Government to acquiesce
in the sacrifices that it must make sooner or later. Their harmony set
public opinion at rest. The final peace, for which the ambassadors were
working so hard, seemed nearer and nearer, despite the breaking-off
of the armistice and the renewal of hostilities by the Young Turks,
whom a military plot had restored to power. When Dr. Daneff, the
Bulgarian delegate in London, tactlessly vetoed Roumania’s demand for
a rectification of frontier—the proposed Greater Bulgaria gave Roumania
fears, not only for her own security, but for the Balkan balance of
power—some regret was felt, but the possibility of a fresh struggle
did not occur to any one. Before the end of March, however, the whole
aspect of affairs had changed. A rift began to appear between the Dual
Alliance and the Triplice, and the worst days of the 1911 summer seemed
likely to repeat themselves. This was due, in the first place, to the
sinister awakening of the Vienna Cabinet—its rage at seeing the steady
advance of the Serbians and their approach to the Adriatic shores; and,
secondly, to the dawn of strained relations between France and Germany
after the news that their bills for military increases had already been
framed.
The expulsion of the Serbians from the Adriatic and the raising of
a barrier against the encroachments of Slavism and Hellenism on
that seaboard was a programme by which the Berlin Cabinet hoped to
reconcile the interests, almost always conflicting, of its allies.
Italy, well disposed towards the Balkan States, but above all desirous
of maintaining the Austro-Italian balance in the Adriatic (this had
been one of the reasons for her entry into the Triplice), was not
inclined to let Greece, by occupying the excellent Adriatic port of
Valona, extend her maritime power along the eastern coast of that sea.
Nor was she minded to help in establishing there a focus of Slav
propaganda, to which the Slavonic elements of Dalmatia and Istria
would have converged. The Triple Alliance craftily reasserted the
principle used before as a weapon against Turkey, “The Balkans for the
Balkan nations,” in order to create an independent Albania, a motley
assemblage of tribes professing three distinct religions and sundered
by immemorial hatreds. The new State, in conformity with an agreement
between the Consulta and the Ballplatz, was to live under the twofold
protection of Austria-Hungary and Italy, who would thus exercise a sort
of _condominium_. Like other experiments of the kind, but after an even
briefer interval, this joint control developed into an open rivalry.
The Vienna Cabinet, burning to avenge its diplomatic failures, and
feeling assured of Berlin’s support, decided on 20th March to send
a threatening note to the Montenegrins, who were on the point of
capturing Scutari through the connivance of Essad Pasha, its defender.
The note was followed by the appearance of an Austrian squadron off
the coasts of Albania and Montenegro. It will be remembered with
what a stormy display of public feeling on behalf of the Serbians
and Montenegrins the news of this step was received in France and in
Russia. Yet the storm was merely on the surface; neither nation was
stirred to its depths. If the Paris and St. Petersburg Cabinets had
been guided by a certain section of their Press, they would have found
themselves on the threshold of a war at a very unfavourable juncture;
for the Cabinet of St. James’s, which was then indifferent to Serbia,
would not have come to their aid, and, on the other hand, they would
have been confronted with the solid and formidable mass of the Triple
Alliance. At Berlin, the outbreak of war seemed so likely to the
Imperial Government that officers and men of the reserve were ordered
to keep themselves in readiness for the call to mobilize.
Fortunately, those who conducted the policy of the Dual Alliance saw
the danger ahead before it was too late. They clung to the compromise
suggested at the London Conference, leaving the two Serb States nothing
but the districts of Ipek, Djakovo, and Prizrend, and reserving
Scutari for the future principality of Albania. In accordance with the
unanimous will of the great Powers, and despite the indignant protests
of some French and Russian newspapers, the King of Montenegro, at the
beginning of May, consented to evacuate Scutari, where detachments of
troops from the Powers were then garrisoned. On the 30th of the same
month a Turko-Balkanic treaty was signed in London. Europe thought
she could breathe again. She was in error: the peace was merely a
makeshift.
V.
In order to prove to the Reichstag the necessity for the new army
bill submitted to it on 18th March, the explanatory statement alleged
the early victories of the Balkan League as the primary motive.
Austria-Hungary, crippled by this new coalition, which probably had
Russia at its back, could no longer give Germany sufficient aid; and
the latter, with only her own strength to rely upon, would have to face
her enemies on two opposite fronts.
It was not true to say that the idea of enlarging German armaments had
been prompted by the Balkan campaigns. The train had been laid for some
time; the heavy war material for which credits were now demanded had
already been ordered at Krupp’s, and there were other expenses to which
the Government was committed. But the Balkan conflict set a bad example
to the Berlin Staff. It served as a stimulus, a flick of the whip to
drive the nations into a universal war. Nevertheless, the Staff wished
to give the army its finishing touches before Germany came to blows
with her eastern and western adversaries, and perhaps some of these
finishing touches were suggested by the experience of recent military
events.
Curiously enough, the Chancellor, in his expository speech of 7th April
on the bill, made no allusion to Italy or to the help that she might
furnish. Was this omission due to a mistaken contempt for her fighting
strength? This is unthinkable; he would have taken good care not to
offend an ally who was naturally sensitive. The most likely assumption
is that, in showing to his hearers Austria-Hungary at grips with the
new Confederates in the Balkan danger-zone, where a victory of the Dual
Monarchy would inevitably have affected that Austro-Italian balance
which was one of the fundamentals of the Triple Alliance, he judged it
more prudent to avoid all mention of Italy. We know to-day, from the
publication of the Italian Green Book, that by Article 7 of the treaty
Austria-Hungary was required to come to a previous understanding with
Italy, if the _status quo_ in the Balkans should be altered through
her agency, by a temporary or permanent occupation of territory; the
same obligation being, of course, imposed upon Italy. We can now form
a better idea of the difficulties that would have beset the entry of
Italy into a general war, destined, according to the anticipations
or the wishes of the Central Empires, to include the interior of the
Balkans in its scope. It was wiser, therefore, to say nothing about
her co-operation. Strange though it may seem, the Chancellor’s silence
regarding the Latin ally aroused no comment either in the Reichstag or
in the Press.
As a matter of fact, the spectre of the Balkan League, at the time
when the Chancellor raised it, was anything but formidable. The
danger was about to vanish in smoke, and the Confederates, instead of
sharing their booty like brothers, were already bent on settling its
ownership by the sword. The Chancellor must have known this, however
bad his information from diplomatic sources may have been. The army
bill of 1913 was the climax of a plan worked out with elaborate care;
the events of the autumn of 1913 merely supplied the pretext and the
staging necessary for bringing it before the world.
Yet in the spring of 1913 William II., although he had stood by his
allies in the Scutari affair, did not seem to desire an immediate war.
Military and family reasons combined to stay his hand. The new bill,
with its financial cover, had not yet been passed in the Reichstag,
and the Emperor wished to celebrate peacefully in his capital both the
twenty-fifth year of his reign and his daughter’s wedding with Duke
Ernest of Cumberland. Among those invited to the wedding ceremony,
besides the families of the bride and bridegroom, were the sovereigns
of Russia and Great Britain, owing to their ties of kinship. It was an
occasion, chosen no doubt by design, for a final attempt to isolate
Republican France from the monarchies of the Triple Entente. On the
gala night at the opera, William II. beamed from the Imperial box,
accompanied by the Empress and the bride, and with Tsar Nicholas, King
George, and Queen Mary in his immediate neighbourhood. Following these
came the young heir to the Guelph dynasty, whom adroit diplomacy, as
well as certain leanings on his own part, had reconciled with the
Hohenzollerns, although they had dethroned his grandfather. What a
triumph for the German monarch, on whom Fortune seemed to have lavished
all her smiles! The unforgettable picture of this almost insolent
happiness brings back to our minds a close historical parallel—the
famous command performances at Erfurt. There, too, a Cæsar, but a Cæsar
with the conqueror’s laurels on his brow, had a throng of royalties
behind him, and talked affably with an Emperor of Russia before a
resplendent audience. But after Erfurt Napoleon waited four years
before quarrelling with Alexander. Only a year elapsed before William
II. changed the open-hearted friendliness of his guests into implacable
enmity, through their resolve to champion the cause of two little
peoples, the victims of a wanton aggression.
VI.
The law reviving the three years’ term of military service was the
immediate answer of the Republican Government to the bill demanding
such great sacrifices from the German taxpayer, in order that the
crushing superiority of the Imperial armies might be assured. When all
doubts as to the passing of the French bill were removed, Germany’s
first thrill of surprise at this counter-blast was turned to genuine
indignation—an indignation that would have been comical if the issues
at stake had not been so serious. To read the Berlin papers, one would
have thought that only the German Empire had the right to arm in
self-defence, and that France could claim no such privilege. In certain
drawing-rooms, the revival of the three years’ service was spoken of as
a challenge to Germanism! A password went the round of the newspapers:
dates were to be confused, and the French bill was to be represented as
earlier than the German. This flagrant lie was blazoned abroad by the
whole Press, with the exception of the Socialist organs, as a damning
accusation against France. Dr. T. Schiemann, in the _Kreuzzeitung_,
went so far as to maintain that the three years’ term had been forced
upon M. Poincaré by the Tsar, during the visit of the President (then
Foreign Minister) to St. Petersburg in the previous year. It was the
price exacted by Russia for her military aid and for the upkeep of the
alliance.
Whether this conscious incitement of Teuton jingoism would lead to
grave results was a question that, in the eyes of a foreign observer,
depended on the length of the simultaneous Parliamentary debates over
the bills in Paris and Berlin. The journalistic attacks of the Germans
were answered in a tone of equal asperity by the French Press. Should
any regrettable incidents arise in the course of the debates, would
the Republican Cabinet have enough control over French public opinion,
would the Imperial Government have enough mastery over the Pan-Germans,
to be able to find a prompt and friendly solution? No one has forgotten
the stir caused in France, the distrust that seized hold of the public
mind, when in the preceding April a Zeppelin, after flying some way
over the frontier, unexpectedly came down at Lunéville. The brawl
between French students and German tourists at Nancy had proved more
difficult to smooth over. Fortunately, the Barthou Cabinet had not
lost its head, but had managed, by rapid action, to forestall the
demand for explanations and apologies which a very rabid journal, the
semi-official _Kölnische Zeitung_, advised Herr von Jagow to demand
from the Republican Government. Despite the perils of the situation,
the summer supervened without bringing a catastrophe. The French and
German bills were passed in a sultry political atmosphere, which
already gave promise of a storm.
The malignity of William II.’s Government towards France, and its
indulgence towards those who sowed bad feeling in the country, as if
to reap a harvest of hate, were nowhere more strikingly exhibited
than in the persistent legend regarding the cruel treatment of German
soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. Nothing would have been easier
than officially to deny these alleged barbarities, as well as the
reports of press-gang methods employed by agents of that famous corps
in Germany—in short, to silence the canting protests to which its
existence gave rise. Not only did the Government omit to do this, but
it even tolerated, until a formal complaint was laid, the production
in a Berlin theatre of a play in which the French uniform of the
legionaries was held up to ridicule. One might have compared the
Foreign Legion to a poisoned lancet, kept by the authorities for the
purpose of envenoming, when it pleased them, their intercourse with
France.
VII.
While these dangerous frictions were the chief cause of anxiety to all
who, like myself, felt that the peace of Europe hung upon Franco-German
relations, it seems that at this period the attention of the European
public was drawn rather to the grave events enacted in the Balkan
theatre soon after the Treaty of London signed on 30th May. A new
conflict was brewing in that quarter. As in previous cases, the efforts
to localize it were successful, but it left behind it a leaven of spite
and hatred that went on fermenting silently throughout the winter,
until in the following summer it helped to produce a universal war.
A very heavy share of the responsibility for the second Balkan struggle
falls to Austrian diplomacy. Austria could not resign herself to the
inevitable and put up with the neighbourhood of a Serbia enhanced in
power and prestige. The wrangles of the Confederates over the partition
of Macedonia gave her the chance for which she had been waiting since
the Ottoman disasters. It was she—there is no longer any doubt on this
point—that instigated Bulgaria to attack her recent allies, promising
to secure the inaction of Roumania. It never occurred to her that she
was thus sacrificing a staunch ally who occupied an outpost on the
Lower Danube, an island of Western culture in the sea of Slavdom; that
the future of Roumania would be seriously jeopardized if Bulgaria
became too strong. We have since learnt from M. Take Jonescu that her
mouthpiece at Bucharest, Prince Karl von Fürstenberg, even went so
far as to bluster, in order to ensure that Roumanian troops should
not intervene. It was all lost labour. The Austrian calculations were
entirely thrown out of gear by the victories of the Greeks and Serbians
and by their alliance with Roumania.
For forty-seven years King Carol had guided the destinies of his
young kingdom with a wisdom that deserved its success. But his usual
insight forsook him at the outbreak of hostilities in the Balkans.
Like the Germans, he believed that the Turks would win; and Fortune,
who is erroneously supposed to have no love for old men, seemed to
deny him throughout the winter the means of correcting his mistake.
His attitude even lost him some of his popularity with his subjects.
Yet before the ensuing spring drew to its close, Fortune changed, and
offered him an unlooked-for compensation. This time the aged monarch,
seizing the opportunity provided by the overweening ambition of his
rival in political cunning, the Tsar of Bulgaria, decided to strike
while the iron was hot. Though it meant breaking the secret convention
that bound him to Austria, and dealing a cruel blow to his great
friendship with Francis Joseph, he forged ahead, and thus, without
its costing him a single drop of Roumanian blood, enjoyed the proud
privilege of dictating the Treaty of Bucharest to the Bulgars, who had
been rendered utterly helpless by the entry of his troops into the
field. When the Cabinet of Vienna urged that this treaty should be
submitted to the Powers for revision, the King haughtily opposed its
claim. No doubt he was privately assured of support from Germany, who
was determined to humour Roumania in order to keep her under her own
thumb; for he telegraphed his gratitude to the Emperor William in a
phrase that needs no comment: “Thanks to you, the peace is a conclusive
one.”
We may gather, therefore, that the Berlin Cabinet had not followed that
of Vienna in its crooked, intriguing policy at Sofia and Bucharest. As
Herr von Zimmermann remarked to me at the time, the Imperial Government
was content to observe neutrality towards the Balkan States,
interposing only with advice that might cool the frenzy of their
strife. There is no reason to question the truth of this statement. The
line of conduct adopted by Germany was all the more skilful in that it
furthered the military renascence of Turkey. The success of the plot
that secured the dictatorship for Enver Bey and the Young Turks had
been hailed with delight at Berlin. When Tsar Ferdinand committed the
blunder of withdrawing the Bulgarian garrison from Adrianople in order
to cope with his enemies in Macedonia, the second city of the Ottoman
Empire fell without a blow into the hands of its former masters. After
this easy triumph, the German Government, under threat of coercive
measures (very difficult, by the way, to carry out), refused to join
the Triple Entente Powers for the purpose of forcing the Turks to
disgorge their prize and restrict themselves to the frontier fixed at
the London Conference. Thus the Treaty of London, with the ink upon it
scarcely dry, could be torn up with impunity. Turkey’s gratitude for
this moral support was destined to efface the memory of her abandonment
by her former protectress at the time of her early reverses. Finally,
under the auspices of German diplomacy, more influential than ever at
the Porte, peace was signed in a treaty which deprived the Bulgarians
of the greater part of their conquests in Thrace.
How far did the Cabinet of Berlin, on the morrow of the Peace of
Bucharest, which it approved, associate itself with the step that has
been revealed to us by the remarkable disclosures of Signor Giolitti
to the Italian Parliament? Austria-Hungary, eager for action, would
fain have crushed Serbia in the full tide of her victory. From the 9th
of August 1913 Vienna made overtures with this object to the Quirinal,
but the latter would not listen to its suggestions. If Germany had
considered the moment favourable for reopening the Balkan question
and satisfying at the same time her European ambitions, she would
have ignored Italy’s scruples; she would have drawn the sword in
company with her impatient ally, as she did a year later. But, in the
Emperor’s opinion, the hour had not yet struck for the execution of his
far-reaching designs.
VIII.
In the course of the following winter, a characteristic action showed
to the more clear-sighted how important Turkey and her military
reorganization had once more become in the eyes of the Berlin Staff.
One of the ablest German generals, Liman von Sanders, was sent with
a large mission to Constantinople, in order to take over the command
of the First Army Corps, revive the German system of training for the
Turkish soldier, and re-establish the auxiliary services. To meet the
objections raised by the Russian ambassador, the authorities changed
his title to that of Inspector-General with the rank of Marshal. At
the same time, Enver Bey, whose devotion to Germany was notorious,
was appointed War Minister, and at once began a process of ruthless
weeding-out among the higher grade officers. What did this appointment
of a German to the head of the army and this radical clearance in the
cadre of generals betoken, if not a desire to make the military forces
of Turkey fitted, as soon as possible, and under the most trustworthy
leaders, to play the part assigned to them in the next war?
To make up for this activity, William II. displayed an utter
indifference to the fate of Albania, although he had done so much
towards bringing the new State into the world. More enlightened, no
doubt, than his allies as to the chances of life possessed by this
sickly offspring of their diplomacy, he had not thought it advisable
that a German prince should plot for the Albanian crown, and had left
it to the Court of Vienna to patronize the claimant. After the first
tragi-comic episodes of the Durazzo siege, the Imperial Government,
ashamed of the ridicule that this foolish business brought upon the
German name, calmly washed its hands of the luckless Prince von Wied.
During the last months before the cataclysm, relations became still
closer, and the interchange of views still more frequent, between the
Courts of Berlin and Vienna. William II. and the Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, the real guiding spirit of Austro-Hungarian statecraft,
missed no opportunity of seeing each other and conversing at length.
They were like two conspirators, furtively laying their heads together
for some momentous deed. In April the Kaiser paid a visit to the
Austrian Crown Prince at Miramar, and in June at Konopischt, in
Bohemia, where he was accompanied by the Secretary of State for the
Navy. Both the curiosity of the public and the professional interest
of diplomats were aroused by these marks of a friendship that was
too intimate not to give cause for anxiety. On the occasion of the
Konopischt meeting, the German ambassador in London was instructed to
reassure the British Foreign Secretary as to the presence of Admiral
von Tirpitz in the Emperor’s retinue. The visit, it was stated, had
no military object. The Ambassador did protest too much! The Admiral,
we may be sure, did not leave home in order to enjoy the fragrance
of the Bohemian roses. It is more than doubtful, however, whether we
shall ever know the purport of these conversations; one of those who
took part in them is already in the grave. Did they, at Konopischt,
remodel the map of Europe, assign the mastery of the Mediterranean to
the Austro-German squadrons, fix the moment for the great upheaval?
The Archduke, so far as one can read into the soul of this inscrutable
prince, seemed to be the most eager for war. Yet, by a decree of fate,
he did not live to see the accomplishment of the plans that he drew up
in cold blood with his guests amid the exquisite gardens of his lordly
mansion.
In the spring of 1914 Germany and Austria-Hungary, who both had
old scores to pay off in connection with Morocco and the Balkans
respectively, reached the zenith of their military preparations. The
German army was ready at all points, and the Austro-Hungarian army
was as ready as it can ever be. The airships and aeroplanes were only
waiting for the signal to leave their sheds; the heavy guns, an array
of monsters, were already marshalled in the artillery parks. All that
was wanted was a pretext. As Dr. Schiemann had pointed out in the
_Kreuzzeitung_, however, Germany could have a war with France merely
by letting Austria fly at Serbia’s throat. Prophetic words, which a
political crime was to bear out, while at the same time it was to give
William II. the pretext he required for appearing before Europe as an
instrument of justice and vengeance!