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.
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.
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, thoughthey 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.
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 thePesti Hirlapof 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 byLe 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 theZollverein, 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 understoodin 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,” saysLe Tempsof 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 (seeLe Temps, 23rd March, 1916). In consequence of these declarations an idea was formed of an economic understanding between the Allies in order, according toLe 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 theTemps, 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.” (seeL’Echo de Paris, 7th April, 1916). M. Edmond Théry, inLe Matinof 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 majorityof 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 (seep. 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” (seeLe 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 tothe 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 byLe 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 byLe 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.
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 thefools 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 ofcarrying 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 journalAl-Mokattanof 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, theVossische Zeitunghas confessed that “a separate peace between Turkey and the enemies of Germany would in no way prejudice Austro-German interests” (quoted byLe 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.
THE NATIONALITIES IN TURKEY.
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.
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 Balkanson 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 theirbones. 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” (seeLe 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 beenunsuccessful, 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.
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 thatthey 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 ofBukarest; 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 aMacédoine. 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 unityof 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 Tempsof January 10th, 1916, noticed a curious book of theirs which had lately appeared, and which the journal described as “pacificist dreams.” Thesegentlemen 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 Turkeyin the spring of1914, 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 theHouse 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” (seeL’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 (seeLe 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 thehands 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.
ENCROACHMENTS PLANNED BY BULGARIA ON NEIGHBOURING STATES.
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 whatBerlin 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.