GERMAN MANŒUVRES TO PLAY THE ALLIES THE TRICK OF THE “DRAWN GAME,” THAT
IS, TO SECURE THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE “HAMBURG TO THE PERSIAN GULF”
SCHEME AS THE MINIMUM RESULT OF THE WAR.
I. The exceptional importance of the economic union of the
Central Empires, and the danger for the Allies of establishing
a connexion between that union and their own economic measures
after the war.
II. Reasons for the Turco-German dodge of making a separate
peace between the Ottoman empire and the Allies.
III. Why a separate and premature peace with Bulgaria would
play the Pangerman game.
At the moment when this book is published, the Germans have certainly not
renounced the hope of keeping and establishing a definite claim to the
territories which they actually occupy on the West and on the East; but
with their usual foresight they nevertheless contemplate the possibility
of their having to consent to evacuate on the West, let us say, 90,478
square kilometres, and on the East 260,000 square kilometres, in order to
preserve almost entire the principal part of the Pangerman acquisitions,
that is to say, the gains made, directly or indirectly, to the South
and South-east, namely, Austria-Hungary (676,616 square kilometres),
the Balkans (215,585 square kilometres), Turkey (about 1,792,000 square
kilometres). Total, 2,684,201 square kilometres.
To maintain its dominion over these territories, the government of Berlin
is from now onward directing its energies to three sorts of manœuvres,
all very astute, and very well co-ordinated, though they wear different
aspects, each corresponding to each of the three territorial stages
essential to the achievement of the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian
Gulf.” These three stages are Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria,
which last forms the bridge between the two other stages.
I.
As regards Austria-Hungary the Berlin programme may be summed up as
follows: _to take advantage of the occupation of the territories of the
Hapsburg Monarchy by the troops of William II. in order to impose, by
all possible means, both on Hungary and on Austria, a series of measures
called an economic union with Germany, which would leave Austria-Hungary
an appearance of independence sufficient to throw dust in the eyes of
the Allies, while at the same time it would in fact subject that empire
absolutely to the will of Berlin_.
So far, these tactics have not succeeded in putting on a semblance of
legality. Since the outbreak of war, the Pangermans of Vienna have not
even dared to summon the Austrian parliament, knowing very well that
the Slav and Latin deputies would protest most vehemently against the
subjection of their respective countries to the German empire. At present
the Germans of Vienna, while they terrorize the Austrian Slavs and try to
persuade them that the Allies have forsaken them, are striving to prepare
a meeting of the Reichsrath which might seem to sanction all that has
been done. But the reader will understand that it is no easy matter to
get up this farce, when he learns that even the Magyars, who have linked
themselves closely to Germany, are beginning to resist, now that Berlin
is forced to disclose those measures of enslavement, of which Hungary
must feel the effects, like the other States destined to pass under the
Pangerman yoke. It is said that William II.’s great Magyar accomplice,
Count Tisza himself, is protesting. At all events in the _Pesti Hirlap_
of Budapest, of 12th April, 1916, we are assured that his friend, the
Senator Eugène Rakosky, has just published the following lines, which are
particularly significant:
“All this Central European ferment will have no other result than
compelling the Hungarians to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the
Germans. They want us to make high roads for the Germans to the East.
All these Central European alliances and unions mean nothing but that we
are expected to sell our national soul and pass under the German yoke”
(quoted by _Le Temps_, 19th April, 1916).
But the Allies should have no illusion on this head. The most vehement
protests of the Magyars will be of no avail. The Germans are in
occupation of Austria-Hungary and they have the power. They may disguise
their enslavement of this vast empire under various formulas, such as
extension of the _Zollverein_, economic union of the Central Empires,
unification of the commercial laws of Austria and Germany, etc.; or they
may even, as a subterfuge, to lull the fears of the Allies to sleep, give
up the use of any positive formula, the final result will always be the
same, the political seizure by Germany of the Hapsburg Monarchy cloaked
under the decent pretext of economic measures.
To this object the Germans cling above everything else, because it
has been the basis of the whole Pangerman plan since 1895, and the
indispensable condition of achieving the scheme “from Hamburg to the
Persian Gulf,” as the reader will find explained, with the reasons in
full, in my book published fifteen years ago, _L’Europe et la Question
d’Autriche au seuil du XXᵉ siècle_; they cling to it, too, because
Germany has made war for the very purpose of effecting at least this
seizure of Austria-Hungary, which is absolutely indispensable to the
plans of William II.
Nothing but the complete victory of the Allies can compel Berlin to
renounce this plan of domination and liberate the non-German peoples
of the Hapsburg Monarchy. Meantime the Germans are taking all possible
precautions against such an event. We have seen (p. 93) how already,
under their pressure, the Magyars are concerting with them the economic
measures to be taken in view of that future war, which is to complete the
results of a peace which Berlin already thinks bound to be “imperfect.”
Accordingly, the Allies cannot have the faintest doubt as to the new war
which as sure as fate will follow, sooner or later, from the economic and
necessarily political union of the Central Empires. In Chapter V we saw
that the certain consequence of this economic union would be:
1º. To secure to Germany the spoils of war and a trade monopoly over
nearly 3 millions of square kilometres containing wealth untold.
2º. On the contrary, to leave the Allies to pay all their expenses in the
war, which is equivalent to condemning their peoples to ruin.
3º. To make Prussian militarism more powerful than ever, since, radiating
from the block of Central Europe, it could command an army of from 15 to
21 millions of soldiers.
4º. To give Germany the supremacy over the majority of essential
strategic points on land and sea, which would provide Berlin with all
the means for executing gradually and completely its plan of world-wide
domination.
But it seems that these formidable consequences, which flow from the
seizure of Austria-Hungary by Germany, have not yet been sufficiently
understood in the Allied countries. That is the conclusion indicated
by the following opinions which have been published in some French and
English newspapers: “The declarations of Mr. Runciman, President of the
Board of Trade in the United Kingdom,” says _Le Temps_ of 25th March,
1916, “prove that Great Britain is resolved to work without delay for the
formation of an economic alliance against the powers of Central Europe.”
Mr. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, in an address at the Carlton
Club, gave his hearers to understand that the German Empire must not
be allowed to hope to reduce other countries to a state of commercial
dependence upon it (see _Le Temps_, 23rd March, 1916). In consequence
of these declarations an idea was formed of an economic understanding
between the Allies in order, according to _Le Petit Parisien_, “to make
an effective reply to the project of a Central Europe conceived by our
enemies.”
M. Jules Siegfried, in a letter to the _Temps_, 3rd April, 1916,
affirmed, with reference to this: “Germany, aware of the danger, is
seeking to form a Customs-union with Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey. It
is therefore necessary for us to guard against this danger.” Mr. Hewins,
chairman of the Business Committee of the House of Commons, stated at
London on April 6th: “But France and England, after their victory, will
possess a preponderance over the Austro-German union which will enable
them to dictate their tariffs, etc.” (see _L’Echo de Paris_, 7th April,
1916). M. Edmond Théry, in _Le Matin_ of 13th April, 1916, discussing the
same problem, concluded: “If, therefore, the Allied nations will erect
simultaneously and under identical conditions a powerful Customs barrier
between their respective home markets and the products of Germany and
her accomplices, this of itself will suffice to strike a mortal blow at
German industry, commerce, and credit.”
These declarations are amazing. How can the economic problem to be solved
by the Allies be placed, even through an obvious “inadvertence,” on a
basis so manifestly inaccurate? How, in fact, can we voluntarily admit
the least connection between the economic conference of the Allies and
the economic union of the Central empires, since that union is clearly
in flagrant contradiction with the general object of the war, which
nevertheless, the Allies are perfectly at one in pursuing? In fact, to
keep repeating that the Allies must form an economic alliance of the
Allies to compete after the war against the economic union of Central
Europe, and to prevent the German Empire from reducing other countries
besides Austria-Hungary to a commercial dependence on itself, this is, in
strict logic, to assume that the Allies agree to let Prussianized Germany
lay hands on the 50 million inhabitants of Austria-Hungary, which would
secure for Berlin the means of carrying out her scheme of domination
“from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” But it is clear that this result is
radically incompatible with the higher ideal aim of the war which the
Allies propose as their goal, the aim which their governments incessantly
proclaim, that is, the destruction of Prussian militarism.
There has therefore unquestionably been a mistake on the part of
some French and English authorities, who are in other respects well
qualified, in the way they have put the question and in the association
of their ideas. This mistake is doubtless explained by the fact that
in England loose ideas are still prevalent as to the Pangerman plan
and Austria-Hungary. Many people on the other side of the Channel
still imagine that the majority of the population of that Empire is
German, whereas on the principle of nationalities, Germany could at
most incorporate 7 or 8 millions of Germans at present subjects of the
Hapsburg (_see_ p. 126). These loose ideas prevalent in England are
very difficult to eradicate. It is these ideas which are at the root
of the mistakes made by our British Allies in regard to the Balkans
and Salonika, whereas, on account of Egypt and India, England was more
interested than all the other Allies in the rapid execution of that
expedition.
Be that as it may, as the Allies cannot indulge in the sanguinary luxury
of fresh serious blunders, it is necessary to show why the project
of an economic understanding between the Allies should be absolutely
independent of the Berlin project of a Central European Union.
In point of fact, if this separation is not clearly effected, it will
entail the following baneful consequences, which will delay still further
the victory to gain which the Allied peoples are making such gigantic
sacrifices.
1º. To allow it to be understood in the newspapers of the Allies, even by
inadvertence, that the Allies could possibly admit of the economic union
which Germany intends to force on Austria-Hungary, would be to furnish
the German newspapers with a cordial for reviving the fainting spirits of
the German nation; for in that case the German journalists would point
out to their people that they can still count on carrying out the main
part of the Pangerman plan, which they regard as the essential object of
the war.
2º. The German scheme of capturing Austria-Hungary in an economical net
is radically incompatible with the pledges which the Allies have given
to Serbia. In his toast to the Prince of Serbia, M. Poincaré declared:
“Acting with the Serbian army, the Allies will liberate the Serbian
territory, will re-establish the independence and the sovereignty of
your noble country on a solid foundation, and will vindicate the rights
which have been infringed” (see _Le Temps_, 23rd March, 1916). Now a
mere glance at the map (p. 79) suffices to show that the capture of
Austria-Hungary by Germany would render the fulfilment of that solemn
promise impossible. Once in contact with the Balkans, Germany would be
the mistress of these countries, and for Serbia that would be a sentence
of death.
3º. To allow it to be supposed that the project of an economic union
between Germany and Austria-Hungary could be even contemplated by the
Allies, would be to give over to an agony of despair the 28 million Slav
and Latin subjects of the Hapsburg Monarchy, who look to the Allies as
their deliverers, and who, just because of their sympathies with the
Allied cause, are subjected to the most atrocious persecution. There can
be no doubt that the German press would catch at any ambiguous phrases in
the utterances of the Allied press about the “economic union” of Central
Europe in order to persuade these poor wretches that the Allies have
forsaken them for good and all, and that there is nothing left for them,
but to bow their neck to the German-Magyar yoke. But it is manifestly the
political and military interest of the Allies at the moment to let the
Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary know at once that they may rely on
the Allies, and that the victory of the Allied cause would mean the end
of their own serfdom. To attain that result of the war is unquestionably
a moral duty for the Allies; but more than that it is in strict
conformity with their own future interest, for the independence of 28
million Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary is absolutely indispensable
to the establishment of a new and lasting Europe, founded on the
principle of nationalities, and capable of forming at the same time in
Central Europe a barrier, which Pangermanism in arms will for the future
be powerless to overleap.
4º. Every mistake, or appearance of a mistake, as to the treatment which
the Western Allies intend to mete out to Austria-Hungary would excite
the liveliest protests among our Russian Allies. As M. Milioukoff well
said in a speech to the Duma: “When we have wound up bankrupt Turkey,
as we are now doing, it will be necessary to wind up another bankrupt
concern, and that is Austria-Hungary. We are certain that the numerous
nationalities which form part of the Dual Monarchy will receive their
liberty at the hands of Russia” (quoted by _Le Temps_, 27th March, 1916).
But the point of view set forth by M. Milioukoff, which is that of
everybody who really knows Austria-Hungary (see p. 118), must be shared
by all the Allies, since they intend to destroy Prussian militarism and
clearly do not wage the most frightful of all wars for the purpose of
seeing militant Prussia emerge from the struggle infinitely more powerful
than she entered into it.
These many and forcible reasons make it clear how necessary it is that
there should be no possible ambiguity in the Allied press as to the
economic conference of the Allies. It is all very well for the conference
to look ahead to the time when peace shall have been concluded, to take
“concerted measures to counteract the dirty tricks by which Germany has
compassed the destruction of her rivals,” to forestall fresh German
depredations, in time of peace, on the financial establishments of
the Allies, to prevent the Germans from manipulating the Custom-house
tariffs, with all their usual dexterity, and so forth. This is all
very well; nothing better; but on no account let there be, even in
appearance, the least connexion between these theoretical measures of the
Allies and the pretensions of Berlin to establish the economic union of
Central Europe. Besides, as Mr. Lloyd George has said, with his robust
good sense: “Before discussing the commercial system to be adopted after
the war, we must first win the war. Everything depends on that” (quoted
by _Le Temps_, 25th March). But the war will not be really won till every
revival of aggressive Pangermanism shall have been rendered impossible;
and this implies nothing less than the most energetic opposition to
Germany’s attempt to capture the majority of the countries which actually
compose the empire of the Hapsburgs.
II.
A cunning manœuvre for saving the future of Pangermanism and of Enver
Pasha’s gang in Turkey has already been broached by the Germans. As it
will certainly be attempted again, should it be in the interest of Berlin
to push it through (and everything points that way), it becomes necessary
to unmask it completely beforehand. In February, 1916, numerous Turkish
agents, installed in Switzerland and apparently working through spies in
the Allied countries, began to set afloat a rumour that Turkey was ready
to conclude a separate peace. Enver Pasha had been assassinated (which of
course was a lie), and so forth. The aim of this manœuvre was to secure
in the Allied countries the assistance of those incorrigible fools,
armed with the panoply of crass ignorance on the affairs of the East,
who nevertheless are not always without influence on men at the head
of affairs. If I am rightly informed, this clever dodge of the Turkish
agents did really succeed for a time in enlisting some of the fools I
speak of. In the opinion of these gentry the conclusion of a separate
peace with Turkey would have been a very good move, since it would have
deprived Germany of the help of her Ottoman ally, etc. These are very
dangerous illusions, and it is necessary to show how and why this measure
would play the game of Berlin and gravely imperil the victory of the
Allies.
The Turks, greatly alarmed by the Russian successes in Armenia, see at
the same time their dream of a Panislamic movement fading away. They
are obliged to acknowledge to themselves that the Germans are cynically
using them for their own selfish ends, are driving them along the road
to famine by making a clean sweep of all their food supplies, and are
sending them to slaughter for the higher interests of Pangermany. But
while the mass of the Turks may very well feel their anger beginning
to rise against the Germans, they are completely in the hands of the
Young-Turk ringleaders, who in their turn are bound over, hand and
foot, to the Germans; and more and more the Germans are masters of the
organs of administration and government in Turkey. Therefore there is no
counting on an effective revolt of the Turkish population, who moreover
are entirely destitute of the spirit of organization. On the other hand,
the Germans are far-seeing people and perfectly understand that Turkey
is hastening towards a catastrophe. _But to bring about a separate peace
between Turkey and the Allies would be equivalent to inducing the Allies
to recognize the permanence of the Ottoman empire; it would thus save
that empire from disaster, and leave the door open for Berlin to re-open
its old intrigues after the conclusion of a peace on the basis of the
“drawn game”_ (see chap. V).
On the contrary, if the question of the Ottoman East is logically settled
once for all, all hope of carrying out at a later time the Pangerman
dream “from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf” is finally shattered.
Moreover, a separate peace would also serve the turn of the Young-Turk
ringleaders, for clearly nothing else could enable them to keep their
hold on the reins of power, or could save them from being massacred by
their fellow countrymen the day that the Ottoman crash comes. We see
therefore why the rumours of a separate peace between Turkey and the
Allies, which have been circulated and afterwards denied, only to be
started again, at some other time, are really a Turko-German manœuvre.
Besides, the Arabian journal _Al-Mokattan_ of Cairo (22nd April, 1916)
has remarked that “a separate peace with Turkey would cause Germany no
uneasiness, since the retirement of Turkey from the arena would relieve
Germany from the need of helping the Turks, as she does at present.”
Finally, the _Vossische Zeitung_ has confessed that “a separate peace
between Turkey and the enemies of Germany would in no way prejudice
Austro-German interests” (quoted by _Le Journal de Genève_, 25th April,
1916).
However, it is not to be supposed that the leaders of the Entente will
allow themselves to be caught in the Turko-German trap. The Eastern
question is a regular ulcer, which has envenomed European policy for
a hundred years; it is the nightmare of the chanceries. Every attempt
to reform the Ottoman empire has always failed. The fact is that this
dry-rotten State has only been bolstered up by the mutual rivalries of
the great powers. Since the victory of the Allies is bound to secure
for the Old World a very long period of peace, that perennial source
of troubles and wars, the Turkish empire, must be stopped for good.
Moreover, justice in its broader aspect demands the same solution of the
problem.
[Illustration: THE NATIONALITIES IN TURKEY.]
In Turkey, as elsewhere, if the new settlement is to be endowed with a
potentiality of life, the principle of nationalities must be followed
as far as is practicable. Now, out of the 20 million inhabitants of the
Ottoman empire, four great nationalities (see the accompanying map)
account for about 18 millions. In the absence of statistics on which any
reliance can be placed, it is estimated that there are in Turkey about:—
Two millions of Levantines, of Europeans, of Jews, and of
miscellaneous races.
Two millions of Greeks.
Two millions of Armenians.
Eight millions of Arabs.
Six millions only of Turks.
As for the Greeks, who unfortunately do not form a coherent body (see p.
147), there are several solutions to be considered, with a view to giving
them a fraction of the Ottoman empire, if they throw themselves into the
struggle in the Balkans on the side of the Allies. With regard to the
Arabs, they detest the Turks, who have oppressed them for centuries.
The liberation of the Arabs from the Turkish yoke should therefore be
carried out so far as it is at all possible. As for the Armenians, of
whom several hundreds of thousands have just been massacred by the Turks,
it is clearly impossible to contemplate the continuance of the remnant
of this unhappy people under the iron heel of Enver Pasha, Talaat, and
the rest of that gang. With regard to the six millions, or thereabouts,
of Turks, who represent less than the third of the population of the
Ottoman empire, they really inhabit only Anatolia, that is to say, the
portion of the Ottoman empire included between the Black Sea and the
Mediterranean. Everywhere else the Turks are merely hated officials, who,
ever since the conquest by the Osmanli Sultans, have cynically sucked dry
the other populations of the Ottoman empire. No doubt the Turkish peasant
of Anatolia, when he is not a prey to one of those paroxysms of religious
fanaticism which seize him periodically, is generally a good fellow. Very
sober and long-suffering he makes an excellent soldier, but the mental
apparatus of your Anatolian Turk is several centuries behind the time. He
is incapable of self-government in our modern age. It is true that there
are some thousands of Turks who make excellent employees in the service
of the Ottoman Debt, but only on condition of their being constantly
supervised and directed by European heads of departments. Among the
Turks of Constantinople there is not a single group offering any serious
guarantee for the guidance of the Turkish masses. If the Turkish
peasant of Anatolia is undoubtedly endowed by nature with some sterling
qualities, it is equally certain that the Turks of Constantinople, with
few exceptions, are corrupt to the marrow of their bones. In these
circumstances to imagine that a really independent Turkish empire could
be set up is to nurse an absurd chimera. As for Constantinople, it is
not even a Turkish city; it is essentially cosmopolitan. Its 1,200,000
inhabitants consist of Turks (43 per cent.), Armenians (18 per cent.),
Greeks (17 per cent.), Jews (16 per cent.), Europeans, Levantines, and
miscellaneous peoples (6 per cent.).
On the other hand, it is plain enough that this amazing war cannot
close without allowing Russia to acquire a predominant position at
Constantinople. Russia certainly did not want the war, but she has
been compelled to wage it and to send millions of men to their death,
while she has had to support a formidable financial burden. For these
gigantic sacrifices Russia must receive compensation. The toll which
Russia will take of Poland in return for the autonomy granted to her—a
toll which is both just and conformable to the common interest of the
Poles as well as of the Russians—evidently cannot repay Russia for her
enormous sacrifices. That necessary compensation, therefore, Russia must
look for elsewhere. Now a glance at the map, combined with a knowledge
of the cosmopolitan character of Constantinople, will convince anybody
that Russia cannot continue to be bottled up in the Black Sea. While
it is necessary to the peace of the new Europe that the control of
the Straits should be exercised under the direction of Russia on as
liberal principles as possible, it is no less necessary for the West to
understand that justice demands for Russia a preponderant position at
Constantinople, even though the Western powers must make some undoubted
sacrifices to secure that object. If the soldiers of the Tsar have given
proof of unparalleled self-sacrifice, if, despite some cruel reverses,
they display an inflexible tenacity, it is because they are stirred
by two motives—a hatred of the Germans who have poisoned the Russian
bureaucracy, and the ardent wish for the fulfilment of that hope which
animates the poorest peasant in Russia, the hope of securing for Russia a
free outlet on the Mediterranean. These are the feelings, the depth and
power of which M. Milioukoff put into words when he said to the Duma: “We
shall not end the war without securing an outlet to the open sea. The
annexation of the Straits will not be a territorial annexation, for vast
Russia has no need of new territories, but she cannot prosper without
access to the open sea” (see _Le Journal de Genève_, 28th March, 1916).
But in spreading the rumour of a separate peace with Turkey the Germans
expect to derive the following advantage from the manœuvre. They reckon
that some Allied newspapers in the West will receive the idea favourably.
The Germans would immediately take advantage of that to stir up in Russia
a violent storm of indignation and doubt against the Western Allies.
The example of 1915 ought to serve the Allies as a warning against any
imprudence in the press. It is not sufficiently known in France that last
year the Germans traded largely on the apparent inactivity of the French
troops, at the time when the Russians were obliged to endure their long
retreat of five months. That inactivity was certainly not the effect
of any ill will of the French towards their Russian allies; it was the
consequence of that baneful theory of the Western front considered as
the principal and exclusive theatre of war, a theory which prevented the
intervention by way of Salonika, at a time when it might still have been
easily effected, between May and July, 1915. Nevertheless, that apparent
inactivity has been used by the Germans to excite discontent in Russia
against the French, and their efforts have not been unsuccessful, for
during a long time many Russians were much annoyed with the French for an
inactivity which seemed to them inexplicable. This instance may help us
to understand what a disastrous effect would be produced in Russia by the
news that in the West the newspapers or influential circles contemplate
as possible a separate peace with Turkey at the very moment when the
Russian arms are more and more successful in Armenia, and when these
successes not only console the soldiers of the Tsar for their former
reverses, but also render the Allies a substantial service by draining
the Balkan peninsula of Turkish troops, and thus facilitating the Allied
offensive from Salonika Northward.
Such are the various results aimed at by the astute new dodge of a
separate peace with the Ottoman empire. Surely it is only necessary
to recognize them to prevent the Allies from being caught in the new
Turko-German trap.
III.
Contemporaneously with the rumour of a separate peace with Turkey, in
February, 1916, a suggestion was mysteriously made to the Western Allies
that the Bulgarians also wished to treat with them. The two manœuvres, as
we shall see, are in fact closely connected. If the Bulgarians were to
come and say to the Allies: “We have been deceived, deluded by Berlin,
we have pursued an odious policy. As a proof of our good faith we will
evacuate immediately the Serbian territories which we have invaded, and
we will do all in our power to undo the mischief we have done. Grant us
peace on these terms”; in that case, clearly enough, there would be some
reason for listening to Sofia. But it would be entirely to mistake the
character of the Bulgarians and of their government to imagine that
they could even dream of such a proposal. What the Bulgarians would like
well enough would be a peace with the Allies, which should allow them to
retain their territorial acquisitions, the permanent character of which
was proclaimed by M. Radoslavoff on March 1st, 1916. Such a settlement,
moreover, as we shall see, would square exactly with the interests of
Sofia and Berlin.
At heart, the Bulgarians would be very glad of peace, since a
continuation of the war can hardly procure for them any accession to what
they already hold. On the other hand, the offensive of the Allies from
Salonika, if it is well organized, ought to mete out to the Bulgarians
the chastisement which they dread, especially since the check to the
Germans before Verdun and the Russian successes in Armenia. The Bulgarian
people is moreover deeply discontented at the heavy losses which it has
already sustained by the sword and by disease in the campaign against
Serbia. They see the whole of Bulgaria in the hands of German officers.
As for the Bulgarian army, it is in a very unsatisfactory state,
which has already led to local mutinies and many desertions. In these
circumstances Bulgaria would evidently on all accounts do a good piece of
business if she were to make a separate peace with the Allies. It must
be clearly understood that this Bulgarian manœuvre is not openly avowed
at Sofia; it is only carried on underhand, and probably, for the reasons
we shall see, with the connivance of Berlin. Nevertheless, it is very
dangerous, for, it must be said in the interest of the common Allied
cause and of the truth, it has found supporters in the Allied countries
among those who combine an invincible fatuity with ideas on the Balkans
which are forty years behind the time.
There are also some Russians who still imagine that in 1915 the Allied
diplomacy made a mistake in not undoing the consequences of the treaty
of Bukarest; whereas in point of fact that is just what has been done,
and what, as we saw in Chapter II., § I., constituted the fundamental
error of the Allied policy in the Balkans. According to these Russians
the treaty of Bukarest should have been set aside in order to restore
Bulgaria to the limits assigned to it by the treaty of San Stefano. This
is the point of view maintained as late as March, 1916, by M. Milioukoff
from the tribune of the Duma. I have explained (p. 138), why on the
west the Bulgaria of the San Stefano treaty by no means corresponded
to the racial facts, and for what reasons Macedonia, forming the south
of Serbia, is very far from being Bulgarian. A striking proof of it is
that the Bulgarians have just massacred there a quantity of Serbians.
With regard to the ethnography of the region we may introduce into the
discussion a new argument, as original perhaps as it is convincing. To
tell the truth the most accurate account of the ethnographic position
of Macedonia is that which has been handed down to us for generations
by the Cooks—it is a _Macédoine_. In the great dictionary of Larousse,
vol. x, p. 855, edition of 1873, and therefore anterior by five years
to the treaty of San Stefano (1878), we read: “_Macédoine_ (Macedonia),
a dish composed of a great number of different vegetables or fruits.
‘This word,’ says Ch. Nodier, ‘was probably first applied to a very
miscellaneous dish in allusion to the incredible medley of peoples on
whom Philip and Alexander imposed the laws of Macedonia.’”
Now these various peoples are the Turks, the Albanians, the Bulgarians,
the Jews, the Roumanians, and the Serbians, who inhabit the south of
Serbia. Thus the ancient tradition handed down by the cooks, whose
impartiality in matters of ethnography will not be disputed, undoubtedly
contradicts the theory of the ethnographical unity of Bulgaria mapped
out by the treaty of San Stefano; and it must be remembered that in
1878 Russian diplomacy had special reasons, which no longer exist, for
treating the whole of that Bulgaria as exclusively Bulgarian. The words
of M. Milioukoff prove that the erroneous ideas of 1878 still linger
in the minds of some Russians. Happily among the vast majority of our
Eastern Allies the logic of facts has dissipated those sentimental
leanings to Bulgaria which were once so strong. Indeed, the Bulgarians
themselves have powerfully assisted the Russians to arrive at a juster
appreciation of the true situation. At the end of 1915, in the first
effervescence of their affection for Germany, the newspapers of Sofia
announced that the Bulgarians are not Slavs but Tartar-Mongols, and that
this racial consideration, added to all the rest, goes to show that along
with the Turks and the Magyars they should form the “Turanian block,”
which, in association with Germany, will master and hold down the Slavs
and Latins in Europe. Hence the Bulgarian dodge of a separate peace
with the Allies has very little chance of being seriously considered in
Russia. But unfortunately some of those same Englishmen, whose erroneous
information greatly contributed to the Balkan mistakes of 1915, are
actually supporting it. I shall only refer here to Englishmen who have
no official position. Among them must particularly be named the brothers
Charles and Noel Buxton, who have long been at the head of a committee
which is called the Balkan Committee, but which in fact has always been
systematically Bulgarophile. Now by an odd coincidence the brothers
Buxton have into the bargain Germanophile leanings. _Le Temps_ of January
10th, 1916, noticed a curious book of theirs which had lately appeared,
and which the journal described as “pacificist dreams.” These gentlemen
appear to advocate a premature peace with Berlin as well as with Sofia,
a policy which is characteristic of them. Still more dangerous is the
activity of some underground workers who masquerade as correspondents of
English newspapers in the Balkans. Amongst them are some who, holding
views that were true enough in the time of Gladstone but are wrong
to-day, systematically favour the Bulgarians. Such is their prejudice
that they have failed to see the bearing of the treaty of Bukarest, and
did not so much as suspect the existence of the treaties which Bulgaria
concluded with Germany and Turkey _in the spring of_ 1914, and which have
just been disclosed by M. Radoslavoff (see p. 154). These correspondents,
in virtue of the undeserved credit given them in London, contributed
in large measure to delude the British authorities in 1915 as to the
true intentions of Bulgaria down to the moment when it stepped into the
arena at the side of Germany. From this grievous error has resulted the
crushing of Serbia, with its manifold consequences. In spite of these
plain facts staring them in the face, some incorrigible Englishmen are
still unconvinced. While they acknowledge the very great difficulties
of the actual situation of the Bulgarians, they nevertheless arrive at
this paradoxical conclusion that the Allies should make peace with the
Bulgarians and suffer them to retain their present conquests.
Be that as it may, this underhand agitation lately carried on in London
by a few but very active agents, has naturally been reprobated by
well-informed British opinion. The English who in April, 1916, gave so
warm a reception to the Prince of Serbia, are apprehensive lest a new
blunder should be perpetrated in the Balkans. To prevent that contingency
a question was put in the House of Commons on March 28th: “A member
asked for an assurance that Bulgaria would not be admitted to a separate
peace, and especially that she should not be permitted to acquire
territories at the expense of the peoples who have fought on the side
of the Allies during the war” (see _L’Œuvre_, 29th March, 1916). This
British resolution is in harmony with the interests, moral and material,
recent and future, of the Allies.
In the first place, it is useless to reckon, as some misguided people
have done, on a really effective popular Bulgarian rising against the
government. Tsar Ferdinand has always done just what he pleased in
Bulgaria, and now that he is hand in glove with Berlin, the Germans
will furnish him with the force needed to keep him on the throne. As
for the Bulgarian people, they are no doubt the victims of the present
situation, but so they will remain. Unquestionably they possess some
sterling qualities. They are industrious, energetic, and sober. But
they resemble the Prussians in many points, as the new German minister
to Sofia announced recently (see _Le Temps_, 18th March, 1916). In
fact the Bulgarian people has the keen eye to the main chance, the
duplicity, and the domineering spirit of the Brandenburgs. Moreover, the
Bulgarian people is the prey of the Bulgarian politicians, who, with
the stubbornness of mules and a doggedness of which it is impossible
to convey an idea, are perfectly irreconcilable on the question of
Macedonia. No doubt the most astute among them might very well, as in
1915, pretend to negotiate with the Allies for the purpose of delaying
the attack from the side of Salonika, of which Berlin is extremely
afraid; but to believe it possible to come to a sincere and durable
understanding with Bulgaria is merely to nurse the most pernicious of
chimeras. To conclude a premature peace with Bulgaria would also entail
on the Allies other fatal consequences, which it is easy to demonstrate.
A treaty with the Bulgarians, who in complicity with the Germans have
just massacred systematically an enormous number of Serbians, would be
a manifest act of treason to Serbia; it would be to treat the crimes of
the Bulgarians as if they actually conferred rights on the criminals.
Clearly the public opinion of the Allied nations would never tolerate
such an infamy. Besides, from a military point of view the calculation
would be wrong. In order to avoid giving battle to 350,000 Bulgarians,
whose forces must be divided between the Roumanian front and the Salonika
front, the Allies would be obliged, in the first place, to dispense
with the assistance of 150,000 Serbian soldiers, who obviously would
refuse to march the day that the Allies entered into negotiations with
the Bulgarians. Moreover, an understanding with Bulgaria would have the
effect, at once political and military, of undermining the favourable
disposition of the Greeks and Roumanians towards the Entente. As I have
shown in Chapter VII, the hatred of the Roumanians and the Greeks for the
Bulgarians is the great psychological factor in the Balkans.
The official plan of Bulgarian supremacy, set forth on the accompanying
map, may serve to explain that hatred, for it shows that Bulgarian
ambition encroaches considerably on the territories of all her
neighbours. It now even extends by way of Albania to the Adriatic. We can
therefore readily understand that this plan of Bulgarian supremacy is the
nightmare of the Greeks and the Roumanians. But these Bulgarians, like
the Prussians, because of the similarity of their characters, will never
renounce their programme of dominion until they shall have received at
the hands of the Allies, with the help of the Greeks and Roumanians, the
sound thrashing which they have earned a hundred times over, and which
is essential to the establishment of lasting peace in the Balkans. But
it is clear that if negotiations were opened for a separate peace with
the Bulgarians, the Greeks (250,000 men) and the Roumanians (600,000
men), seeing their interests once more misunderstood by the Allies, would
refuse once and for all to fight on their side.
[Illustration: ENCROACHMENTS PLANNED BY BULGARIA ON NEIGHBOURING STATES.]
Finally, a separate peace which left Bulgaria in possession of her
conquests, would enable her to build and buttress the bridge which is to
join the Central Empires to Turkey. That is just what Berlin wants in
order to execute its scheme of domination “from Hamburg to the Persian
Gulf.” In the light of that aim, the secret attempts of Bulgaria to
conclude a separate peace are seen to be the Bulgaro-German counterpart
of the Turko-German manœuvre which I have exposed above (see p. 167).
Evidently the Allies will not allow themselves to be taken in by these
clumsy tricks. The lesson taught by the faults committed in the Balkans
in 1915 is so plain that it will prevent the Allied leaders from
perpetrating any fresh blunder on a large scale. Moreover, the victory of
the Allies cannot be won, and a lasting peace cannot be established in
Europe, unless the German dodge of the “drawn game” is frustrated.