If the final settlement is to be just and lasting, the demands of the victors must be adjusted to the minimum, not the maximum, of their own vital interests. For Britain the central problem must inevitably be: What is to be the position of the German Navy if we are successful in this war? Is anything even remotely resembling disarmament to be attained unless that Navy is rendered innocuous? Is it conceivable that even if Britain accepted thestatus quo, a victorious Russia could ever tolerate a situation which secured to Germany the naval supremacy of the Baltic, and the possibility of bottling Russian sea-trade? Even the opening months of the war have shown what ought always to have been obvious, that sea-power differs from land-power in one vital respect: military supremacy can be shared between several powerful States, but naval supremacy is one and indivisible. In this war we shall either maintain and reassert our command of the sea, or we shall lose it: share it with Germany we shall not, because we cannot.
Again, what is to be the fate of German shipping and German colonies? Can we not curtail Germany's war navy, while respecting her mercantile marine? Is it either expedient or necessary to exact the uttermost farthing in the colonial sphere in the event of victory? It is obvious that just as Germany offered to respect French territory in Europe at the expense of the French colonial empire, so the Allies, if victorious, might divide the German colonies between them. By so doing, however, we shall provide, in the eyes of the German nation, a complete justification of William II.'s naval policy. One of the most widespread arguments among educated Germans (including those friendly to this country) has always been that German colonies and shipping are at the mercy of a stronger sea-power, and that therefore Germany only holds her sea-trade on sufferance. If, as a result of the war, we take from her all that we can, we shall ingrain this point of view in every German. We should thus tend to perpetuate the old situation, with its intolerable competition of armaments, unless indeed we could reduce Germany to complete bankruptcy—a thing which is almost inconceivable to those who know her resources and which would deprive us of one of our most valuable customers.
On the other hand, we must of course remember that any extra-European territorial changes depend not merely upon the attitude of Britain and her Allies, but upon the wishes of the Dominions. Even in the event of victory, it is still not London alone that will decide the fate of New Guinea, of Samoa, or of German South-West Africa. The last word will probably be spoken by Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and it is improbable that any one of the three will consent to the restoration of territory which they have occupied. It is only in the case of German colonies which border upon British Crown colonies(e.g.Togoland, Cameroon, or East Africa) that the decision will rest entirely with the European governments. At this stage it would be absurd to suggest even the bare outlines of a settlement; but it is well to emphasize the fact that it involves not only the United Kingdom but the Dominions, and that on its solution depends the future development of the British Empire. In other words, the war can only result in the downfall of the Empire or in the achievement of Imperial Federation and a further democratisation of the central government.
§4.Nationality and the German Empire.—Finally, there is a still graver question. Is Germany, if defeated, to lose territoryin Europe? and if so, would it be either possible or expedient to compensate her in other directions for such a loss? The application of the principle of Nationality to the German Empire would affect its territory in three directions—Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, and Posen. Let us very briefly consider these three problems.
[Illustration: THE FRANCO-GERMAN FRONTIERBoundary of France 1815-1871andBoundary of France 1871-1914]
(1) The population of the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine is mainly German by race and language, but none the less it had become by 1870 almost entirely French in feeling, as the result of its long union with France. The Germans, in reannexing the provinces after the war, were actuated almost equally by reasons of sentiment and strategy. They welcomed the recovery of a section of their race which had been wrested from them by the brutal aggression of Louis XIV. and the dynastic policy of his successor; they also desired to secure their western frontier against the possible attacks of France, which, under the Third Empire, was still most emphatically an aggressive power. In drawing the new frontier they included for purely strategic reasons a small portion of western Lorraine, round the fortress of Metz, which was admittedly as French as Champagne or Picardy. From 1871 till 1911, Alsace-Lorraine was governed as a direct appanage of the Imperial Crown; in the latter year it received a constitution, but nothing even remotely resembling self-government. Contrary to the expectation of most Germans, the two provinces have not become German in sentiment; indeed the unconciliatory methods of Prussia have steadily increased their estrangement, despite their share in the commercial prosperity of the Empire. Those who know intimately the undercurrents of feeling in Alsace-Lorraine are unanimous in asserting that if before last July an impartial plebiscite, without fear of the consequences, could have been taken among the inhabitants, an overwhelming majority would have voted for reunion with France. But having once been the battleground of the two nations and living in permanent dread of a repetition of the tragedy, the leaders of political thought in Alsace and Lorraine favoured a less drastic solution. They knew that Germany would not relinquish her hold nor France renounce her aspirations without another armed struggle; but they believed that the grant of real autonomy within the Empire, such as would place them on an equal footing with Würtemberg or Baden, would render their position tolerable, and by removing the chief source of friction between France and Germany, create the groundwork for more cordial and lasting relations between Germany and the two Western Powers.[1] Now that the nightmare of war has once more fallen upon them, the situation has radically changed, and there can be no question that in the event of a French victory the provinces would elect to return to France. The fact that several of their leading politicians have fled to France and identified themselves with the French cause, is symptomatic, though doubtless not conclusive. That the government of the Republic, if victorious, will make the retrocession of Alsace-Lorraine its prime condition of peace, is as certain as anything can be certain in the seething pot to which triumphant militarism has reduced unhappy Europe. It may, then, seem merely pedantic to refer to an alternative solution; and yet there is unquestionably a great deal to be said in favour of forming the two provinces into an independent State, or better still, uniting them in federal union with Luxemburg and Belgium. Thus would be realised that "Middle Kingdom" which so many efforts have been made to create, from the days of Charlemagne onwards. Henceforward the fate of Alsace-Lorraine would be neither French nor German; they would become a neutral clearing-house for the two cultures which have both come to be so inextricably bound up with the life and traditions of the border race. At the same time the most fertile source of friction between France and Germany would be removed, and the two countries would no longer glare at each other across a frontier bristling with fortifications.
[Footnote 1: This ideal was being actively pursued by many thoughtful people on both sides of the frontier. Only last June I was discussing it at some length with a prominent Alsatian deputy and various other friends in Berlin.]
(2) The problem of Schleswig-Holstein presents far less difficulty, if treated on a basis of nationality. Much has been written about the enormity of Prussia's treatment of Denmark in 1848 and 1863; but the plain truth is that the great majority of the population of the two duchies was as enthusiastic in favour of union with their German kinsmen farther south, as the population of Alsace-Lorraine was reluctant to be torn from France. The whole of Holstein and much the greater part of Schleswig always was, and is, pure German by race. Unfortunately Prussia, in annexing territory which is as German as Kent is English, also acquired a portion of North Schleswig, which is as unquestionably Danish, alike by blood and by sentiment. Hence a complete revision of frontiers on a racial basis would certainly involve the cession to Denmark of the extreme eastern portions of Schleswig, as far as and including the port of Flensburg.
To-day, however, this question is complicated by strategic considerations, due to the creation of the Kiel Canal as an almost impregnable naval base. The suggestion has already been seriously put forward, that Denmark should be allowed, in the event of Germany's defeat, to extend her territory as far as the north bank of the Canal, which would thus become an international highway for peaceful commerce, possibly under a general guarantee of neutrality. Whether such a present might not prove a very grave embarrassment to Denmark, and whether the guarantee would be more effectual than the treaty which secured Belgian independence, are questions which depend mainly upon the mood of the peoples of Europe after they are tired of shedding each other's blood. But it is well to realise that the question of the Kiel Canal is one which may very possibly lead to a prolongation of the war, and which, as I have already hinted, Russia will not allow to rest, even if Britain should hesitate to complete the work.
(3) The third point at which, on a basis of racial redistribution, a defeated Germany must inevitably suffer territorial loss, is the Polish district on her eastern frontier. The present kingdom of Prussia includes 3,328,750 Poles among its subjects, mainly in the former duchy of Posen, but also in Silesia and along the southern edge of West and East Prussia (known as Mazurians and Kasubians). The pronouncedly anti-Polish policy pursued by the German Government for over twenty years past has aroused deep and insurmountable hatred against Prussia in the heart of the Poles, who even in the days when Berlin was relatively conciliatory towards them had never relinquished their passionate belief in the resurrection of their country. Above all, the attempt to denationalise the eastern marches by expropriation, colonisation of Germans, and other still cruder methods, has not only been in the main unsuccessful, but it has roused the Poles to formidable counter-efforts in the sphere of finance and agrarian co-operation. This coincided with remarkable changes in Russian Poland, which has rapidly become the chief industrial centre of the Russian Empire. Economic causes have toned down the bitterness which Russia's cruel repression of Polish aspirations had inspired, and to-day Prussia is unquestionably regarded by every Pole as a far more deadly enemy than even the Russian autocracy, the more so as the conviction has steadily gained ground that the Polish policy of Petrograd has been unduly subject to the directions of Berlin. While, then, the Poles look upon the promises from either of these two capitals with pardonable suspicion and reserve, it is certain that to-day such hopes as they may entertain from foreign aid centre more and more upon Russia.
Any attempt to reconstruct the kingdom of Poland, whether as an independent State or, as seems more practicable, as an autonomous unit within the Empire of the Tsar, would inevitably deprive Prussia of the greater part of the Duchy of Posen (except the three or four western "Kreise" or districts, in which the German element predominates), a strip of eastern Silesia from the upper reaches of the Vistula northwards, and a further strip of territory in East Prussia, extending from near the fortress of Thorn along the Mazurian lakes (in fact, the scene of the opening battles of the present war). Polish extremists, however, not content with these indubitably Polish districts, are already laying claim to the lower reaches of the Vistula and to Danzig as the port of the historical Poland; and there is a further tendency in certain Russian circles to regard the whole province of East Prussia as part of the natural spoils of war. And yet it is obvious that the annexation of Danzig,[1] one of the bulwarks of the old Hanseatic League, and of Königsberg, the cradle of the Prussian Crown and of modern German philosophy, would be a flagrant violation of that principle of Nationality which the Allies have inscribed upon their banner. The province of which Königsberg is the capital is to-day, whatever it may have been in the twelfth century, as German as any portion of the German Empire. Moreover, it is the stronghold of Junkerdom, that arrogant but virile squirearchy which still forms the backbone of the old Prussian system; and while it is doubtless the desire to undermine this caste by robbing it of hearth and home that prompts such drastic schemes of conquest, it cannot be too clearly realised that we should not only be guilty of a monstrous injustice in lending our support, but should be sowing the seeds of a new and even thornier problem than that of Alsace-Lorraine. It would, moreover, be a superfluous injustice, since it is perfectly possible to create on broad racial lines a new frontier at least as natural as that which divides Russia and Germany to-day.
[Footnote 1: Strictly speaking, Danzig, though under Polish suzerainty till 1772, has always been a German town enjoying complete autonomy. It shares the fame of Hamburg and Lübeck as one of the greatest of the mediaeval Hansa towns.]
Such are the changes which an application of the principle of Nationality involves. Let us then be under no illusions; they are changes such as can only be extracted from a Germany which has virtually ceased to exist as a military power—a contingency which is still remote to-day, and which can only be attained by enormous sacrifices in blood and resources. It is only by readjustment and compensation in other directions that the German nation could be induced even to consider a revision of frontier, and from the nature of things such compensation can only have one meaning—the break-up of Austria-Hungary.
§5.The Future of Austria-Hungary.—For many years this break-up has been foretold by political pessimists inside and outside the Habsburg dominions, and by many interested agitators both in Central and in Western Europe. The present writer, on the other hand, has always regarded Austria-Hungary as an organism full of infinite possibilities of progress and culture, a State modelled upon that diversity of type which Lord Acton held to be the surest guarantee of liberty. Those who affected to treat it as moribund under-estimated both the underlying geographical bases of its existence and its great natural resources; they emphasised what separates rather than what unites. In short, they saw the rivalry between the two mottoes "Divide et Impera" and "Viribus Unitis," and laid undue stress upon the former. Just because they realised the extraordinarily complicated nature of the racial problems involved, they tended to overlook the steady advance made in recent years by Austria in the conceptions of political and constitutional freedom. But at every turn Hungary has been Austria's evil genius: the influence of the Magyar oligarchy has given a reactionary flavour alike to internal and to foreign policy, has hampered every reform, and poisoned the relations of the State with its southern neighbours.
[Illustration: AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: POLITICAL DIVISIONS]
For a short time the aggressive Balkan policy of Count Aehrenthal, as exemplified in the annexation of Bosnia and the diplomatic duel with Russia, was hailed as worthy of the Bismarckian tradition; but it soon became clear that he was far from being the genius whose advent the Monarchy was so anxiously awaiting. In recent years, then, despite many hopeful signs, and despite increasing activity in almost every sphere of life, a kind of progressive paralysis has taken hold upon the body-politic. Three main causes may be noted—the lack of any great men capable of counteracting the Emperor's lack of initiative, which was always very marked, but has been accentuated by advancing old age; the superficial and malicious outlook of the capital and the classes which control it; the alliance between the Magyar oligarchy and the Jewish press and Haute Finance, working in a pronouncedly anti-Slav direction. The wheels still went round, but the machine of State made less and less progress: stagnation and aimlessness were everywhere apparent. On all sides it was recognised that the existing system had become unworkable, and that a catastrophe could only be averted by speedy reforms. To many far-seeing patriots the last hope of salvation for the State seemed to lie with the late Heir-Apparent, not perhaps as the ideal Prince, but as a man of courage and force of character, possessing the necessary energy to carry through drastic political changes. His removal was a crushing blow to all who still hoped against hope in the regeneration of the Monarchy. His place was filled by a young man, lacking both experience and prestige; never was there less sign of the heaven-born genius who alone could save a desperate situation.
In the life of nations and States, as in that of individuals, there sometimes comes a moment when it is possible to make the "Great Refusal" of which Dante sang; and "History teaches that those who decline, or prove unworthy of, the leading rôle which is offered to them, are trodden mercilessly underfoot." In closing the German edition of my book with these words, I expressed the conviction that "for a State such as Austria there could only be one choice"; but unhappily her statesmen have preferred the fatal alternative.[1] "The historic mission of the House of Habsburg is the vindication of equal rights and liberties for all races committed to its charge. The abandonment of this mission would endanger the very existence of a Great Power upon the Middle Danube."[2] Austria has proved untrue to this mission, and the inexorable forces of history seem at this moment to be working her destruction. Nations, like individuals, sometimes commit suicide; and those who have most earnestly warned them against such a crime are left as mourners in the funeral procession.
[Footnote 1: In July 1911 I dedicatedThe Southern Slav Questionto "that Austrian statesman who shall have the courage and the genius necessary to solve the Southern Slav Question." In April 1913, in publishing a German edition, I added the words, "At the twelfth hour this dedication is repeated." In November 1914 it is unhappily only too evident that that hour has already struck.]
[Footnote 2: SeeRacial Problems in Hungary, concluding sentence.]
The war-fever which seized upon the populace of Vienna and Budapest last July typified the feelings of the three dominant races in the Monarchy, the Germans, the Magyars, and the Jews; but it is no criterion for the attitude of large masses of the population. In fact, the war has accentuated the centrifugal tendencies which were so marked a feature of recent years, and which the introduction of Universal Suffrage and the annexation of Bosnia arrested but failed to eradicate; a stringent censorship may conceal, but cannot alter, this fact. Disaffection is rife in portions of the army and affects its powers of resistance, while the financial and economic crisis grows from week to week. Cynics have tried to define the mutual relations of Germany and Austria-Hungary by comparing the former to a strong man carrying a corpse upon his shoulders, and the course of the war during the first three months would seem to confirm this view. So far as Austria-Hungary is concerned, its two outstanding features have been the signal failure of the "punitive expedition" against Serbia and the debacle of Auffenberg's army in Galicia. Friendly observers were prepared for a break-down in the higher command and were aware that many Slav regiments could not be relied upon, but they had expected more from the German and Magyar sections of the army and from the very efficient officers' corps, as a stiffening element. It is now known that despite the aggressive policy of its chiefs, the Austro-Hungarian army was far from ready, and that its commissariat and sanitary arrangements utterly broke down.
The evident failure to profit by the experience of two general mobilisations within the previous six years is in itself a proof that there is "something rotten in the state," and it is already obvious that only a complete and crushing victory of Germany can extricate Austria-Hungary from the war without loss of prestige and actual territory. Unless the Russians can be not merely defeated but driven out, it is absolutely certain that they will retain the province of Galicia, or at least the eastern portion, with its Ruthene or Ukrainian population; unless the Serbian army can be overwhelmed, Bosnia and at least some portion of Dalmatia will fall into the hands of Serbia. This would be an eminently unsatisfactory solution or rather it would be no solution at all, for it would solve neither the Polish, the Ukraine, nor the Southern Slav questions. I merely refer to it as a possible outcome of one form of stalemate; it is hardly necessary to add that from every point of view stalemate is the result which is most to be dreaded, since it inevitably involves fresh wars in the immediate future. Whatever happens, the effete Dual System in its present form is doomed, for while an Austrian defeat means dissolution, an Austrian victory means the absorption of Serbia and Montenegro, and in either case the balance between Austria and Hungary will be fatally disturbed and a new constitutional arrangement rendered inevitable. It is thus a tragic paradox that while the attempt to bolster up the Dual System was undoubtedly one of the great underlying causes of the war, its first effect is likely to be the collapse of that very system.
The Dual System once abolished, it might seem reasonable to aim at a reconstruction of Austria-Hungary on a modified federal basis. But this was essentially a peace-ideal. The war, far from kindling a common patriotism which in Austria-Hungary was so conspicuous by its absence, has placed a gulf of blood between race and race, and rendered their continued existence under the same roof not only difficult but undesirable. Even in the event of only relative failure on the part of Austria-Hungary a much more radical solution may be expected, while the effect of her complete defeat would be to place the solution of the whole "Austrian problem" in the hands of the Entente Powers and of her own disaffected populations. In that case there are two probable alternatives, one more radical than the other. Both depend to a large extent upon the development of the military situation and upon as yet incalculable economic influences, but it is possible to indicate their broad outlines. Indeed, this is the best means of illustrating the conflicting fears and aspirations which the great conflict has still further intensified in the racial whirlpool of Central Europe. Let us consider the less drastic of the two first.
Austria, as distinguished from Hungary, consists of seventeen provinces, of which Galicia is the largest and most populous; yet there are many Austrians who have long regarded its possession as anything but an unmixed blessing for the Monarchy as a whole, and would scarcely regret its loss. It has always occupied a peculiar autonomous position of its own; its political, social, and economic conditions are at least a century behind those of the neighbouring provinces, and have given rise to many gross scandals. It has been a hot-bed of agrarian unrest, electoral corruption, and international espionage. Instead of paying its own way, it has been financially a heavy drag upon the State, while racially it provides, in the Polish-Ruthene conflict, an object-lesson on the disagreeable fact that an oppressed race can become an oppressor when occasion arises. But the argument which weighs most with the Germans of Austria is that the Poles of Galicia have for a whole generation held in their hands the political balance in the Austrian Parliament, and that the disappearance of the Polish and Ruthene deputies would destroy the Slav majority and correspondingly strengthen the Germans. The Magyars in their turn would no doubt view with some alarm the extension of the Russian frontier to the line of the Carpathians; but the change would bring to them certain obvious compensations, since it would greatly increase the relative importance of Hungary inside what was left of the Habsburg Monarchy. In short, it is by no means impossible that if the Russians succeed in holding Galicia, Austria-Hungary may show a sudden alacrity to buy peace by disgorging a province which has never wholly fitted into her geographical or political system.
It is obvious that the fate of the small province of Bukovina is bound up with that of Galicia; and in such circumstances as we have just indicated, it would doubtless be divided between Russia and Roumania on broad ethnographical lines, the northern districts being Ruthene, the southern Roumanian. This, however, must depend upon the attitude of the kingdom of Roumania, to which reference will be made later.
There is one other direction in which Austria could afford to surrender territory, without serious loss save that of prestige. The southern portion of Tirol—the so-called Trentino, the district round the town of Trent—is purely Italian by race, and its union with the kingdom of Italy has long been the chief point in the programme of the Italian Irredentists or extreme Nationalists. It is a poor and mountainous country, which belongs geographically to its southern rather than to its northern neighbour. The pronouncedly Italian sympathies of its inhabitants have complicated the problem of government and have been a permanent source of friction between Austria and Italy. The elaborate fortifications along the existing frontier would have to be sacrificed, but the new racial frontier could soon be made equally satisfactory from a strategic point of view. It should then be borne in mind that at a later stage of the war an attempt may be made by Austria to buy off Italy with the offer of the Trentino. Whether the latter would seriously consider such an offer, if made, will doubtless depend upon future events, but it is clear that Italy, if her diplomatists are sufficiently adroit, has a fair prospect of acquiring the Trentino, whichever side wins, and consequently that a much more tempting bait will be required in order to induce her to abandon her neutrality. These two losses, the one already probable, the other hypothetical, would still leave Austria in the unquestioned position of a Great Power. The problem of her future relations with her Balkan neighbours raises an infinitely more complicated issue. Let us consider the Southern Slav and Roumanian questions, first separately, and then in their bearing upon each other.
§6.The Southern Slav Question.—The Southern Slav question, as has already been argued in an earlier chapter, can only be treated satisfactorily as an organic whole; and it may be taken for granted that Austria-Hungary, in the event of victory, will annex the two independent Serb kingdoms, and unite the whole Serbo-Croat race under Habsburg rule. The task of governing them, when once she has overcome their resistance, will be one of extraordinary difficulty, and will involve a complete revision of her own standards of government and administration. Her record and that of Hungary in the Slavonic South does not inspire one with confidence as to the result. Moreover, it is not too much to assert that the destruction of Serb independence—a task which the present writer unhesitatingly regards as beyond the powers of Austria—will in no way solve the Southern Slav problem, but merely transfer its centre of gravity. The task of Southern Slav liberation would pass to Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary would be involved in an ever-widening field of hostilities. Hence, even if Serbia's independence were not now inextricably bound up with the success of the British arms, it would still be essential that every effort should be made to heal what has long been an open sore upon the face of Europe. People in this country are only too apt to ignore the question altogether, or at best to say, "Oh yes, of course, if the Allies win, the Serbs will get Bosnia." Those who talk thus have not grasped the elements of the great problem, of which Bosnia, like Serbia itself, is only one section. The idea that to transfer Bosnia alone from Austro-Hungarian to Serbian hands would settle anything whatever, fatally ignores alike the laws of geography and those considerations of national sentiment which dominate politics in South-Eastern Europe. In every respect Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia complement each other. So long as there were no railways in the Balkans and Bosnia stagnated under Turkish rule, so long as the national consciousness of the Serbo-Croats slumbered or ran in purely provincial channels, the separation between coast and hinterland was possible, though even then unnatural. But with the advent of modern economic ideas the situation radically changed. It was above all the possession of the Dalmatian seaboard that tempted Austria to occupy Bosnia, and so conversely the acquisition of Bosnia by Serbia would at once compel the latter, willy-nilly (quite apart from all racial affinities or sentiments), to aspire to Dalmatia as well.
Geographically, it is inconceivable that to-day Dalmatia should be in different hands from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Herzegovina does actually touch the sea at two places—for a few miles at the swampy mouth of the Narenta below Metkovié, and for a mile at Castelnuovo-Zelenika, inside the Bocche di Cattaro. It is obvious that to allow Serbia these two outlets, while leaving their surroundings to another State, would create immediate and intolerable friction; whereas to assign the southern half of Dalmatia to Bosnia, but to leave the northern half in other hands, would be keenly resented by the Dalmatians themselves, as an outrage alike upon their national and their local traditions.
When we consider the population of Dalmatia we must apply the rival tests of history and of race. On the grounds of historical sentiment Italy might claim Dalmatia; for its chief towns (Zara, Sebenico, Trau, Spalato, Lesina, Curzola)[1] were Venetian colonies, and not only they but even the Republic of Ragusa, which always maintained an independent existence, were saturated with Italian culture and ideals. But on ethnical grounds Dalmatia is now overwhelmingly Slavonic. In 1900 only 3.1 per cent of its population—in other words, about 15,000 out of a total of 584,000—were Italians, the remaining 97 per cent being Serbo-Croats. The census of 1910 is even more unfavourable to the Italians, probably unduly so. It is, of course, true that the Italian element, though numerically negligible, represents a higher percentage of the educated and cultured class; but while this would entitle Italy to demand guarantees for the maintenance of existing Italian schools and institutions, it cannot conceivably be employed as an argument in favour of an Italian occupation. Not only would it bring her inevitably into collision with the Southern Slavs who already are, and are likely to remain, a military power of no mean order; it would lead her on into the false and hopeless path of attempting to assimilate a hostile population by the aid of an insignificant minority which only exists in half a dozen towns, and in all the rest of the province is simply non-existent. The price paid would be the eternal enmity of all Slavs, the jeopardising of Italian interests in the Balkans, the sacrifice of many of the benefits which the new Trans-Balkan railway route (Odessa-Bucarest-Kladovo-Sarajevo-Spalato) would naturally bring to Italy, a challenge to one of the finest maritime races in Europe—the Croats of Dalmatia, Croatia and Istria—a challenge which would sooner or later involve the creation of a Southern Slav navy against Italy. So far as Britain is concerned, to separate Dalmatia from Bosnia is not only to prevent even the beginnings of a solution of the Southern Slav question, but to obscure the naval situation in the Mediterranean, to alienate Russia in a matter in which we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by accommodating her. But even when Bosnia and Dalmatia have been united to Serbia and Montenegro, the Southern Slav problem will still be far from solution. Dalmatia is alike in constitutional theory and in political fantasy, though not in sober fact, an integral portion of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, and it is unthinkable that Serbo-Croat opinion could ever consent to the liberation of the one without the other. No solution has any chance of permanence which ignores Agram as the centre of Croat political and religious life, of education, art and historic memories. The Dalmatian Croats, as the most virile and stubborn element in the race, have always formed the vanguard of political thought, but it is to Agram that they have always turned for the necessary backing, and it is the peasantry of Croatia who have always borne the brunt of every attempt at repression. Latterly the Dalmatians have been the soul of the student movement, which plays so vital a part in recent political development.
[Footnote 1: In the West they are only known under their Italian names, but at home they are known as Zadar, Sibenik, Trogir, Split, Hvar, Korcula, and Dubrovnik (Ragusa).]
Croatia-Slavonia is a vital part of the problem, indeed from a national point of view perhaps more vital than Bosnia and Dalmatia. But even this is not enough. No settlement will be complete which ignores the Slovenes of eastern Istria, Carniola, and southern Carinthia and Styria: they must share the fate of their Croat and Serb kinsmen.
So far, then, as the Southern Slavs are concerned, the triumph of the Allies ought to mean the creation of a new State on the Eastern Adriatic, the expansion of gallant Serbia into Jugoslavia (Jug is the Slav word for south), and the achievement of Unity by the three kindred races, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. On the north it would be comparatively easy to draw a new frontier corresponding to the main requirements of ethnography, geography, and strategy. With only very slight deviations, this would follow the racial line between Slovenes and Germans from the present Italian frontier as far as the little town of Radkersburg in Styria; thence, the course of the rivers Mur and Drave as far as the latter's junction with the Danube. It is only in the Banat—that portion of the great Hungarian plain which faces Belgrade across the Danube—that an artificial frontier will be inevitable, if the Serb districts of Hungary are to be included in the new State and if the Serb capital is to be rendered immune from the dangers of future bombardment. The weak spot in so drastic a solution is the inclusion of the Slovene districts, which—in view of their geographical position, cutting off the German provinces of Austria from the sea—is unthinkable, save in the event of a complete collapse of the Monarchy. All depends upon the number of leaves which are pulled off the artichoke. If only a few of the outer rows are taken, a situation may arise in which it would be necessary to sacrifice the Slovenes and to rest satisfied with the acquisition of Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Croatia—in other words, with the frontier which at present divides Croatia from Austria and from Hungary proper. But this, it must be remembered, would leave the work of Southern Slav Unity incomplete, and is only to be regarded as apis aller.
The Slovene section of the Southern Slav problem is further complicated by the attitude of Italy, who cannot be indifferent to the fate of Trieste and Pola. On historic grounds Italy cannot lay claim to Trieste, which has been a possession of the House of Habsburg since 1386 (400 years longer than Dalmatia). But if as before we apply the principle of nationality, it is indisputable that Trieste is an Italian town, though the whole surrounding country up to the very suburbs is purely Slovene. On the other hand, the commercial interests of Trieste are entirely bound up with its hinterland, by which is meant not only the Alpine provinces, but Upper and Lower Austria and Bohemia on the one hand and even south Germany (Bavaria) on the other. Any settlement, then, must be a compromise between national and economic interests. As an ancient centre of Italian culture, Trieste would welcome the flag of the Regno upon its municipality, as the surest guarantee that the town would remain Italian in character to all time. But any attempt to include Trieste within the tariff system of the kingdom of Italy would produce fatal results, and the obvious solution is to proclaim the city as a free commercial port. Of course, from a purely Southern Slav point of view, the fate of the town of Trieste (as distinct from the district) ought to be a matter of complete indifference, though of course the extremists claim it. It is, however, well to bear in mind that the inclusion of Trieste in Italy's tariff system would mean the speedy economic ruin of a great and flourishing commercial centre. Commercially, then, Trieste is unthinkable save either as the port of Austria or as aporto francounder Italian suzerainty. So far as Istria is concerned, there would be no insurmountable difficulty in drawing a satisfactory frontier on ethnographical lines; the western portions, including Capodistria, Rovigno, and Pola, are overwhelmingly Italian, while the interior of the little province and the eastern shore (with Abbazia, Lovrana, etc.) is as overwhelmingly Slavonic (Croat and Slovene mixed). Any redistribution of territory on the basis of nationality must therefore inevitably assign western Istria to Italy, and no reasonable Southern Slav would raise any valid objection. Once more the essential fact to consider is that the acquisition of Trieste and Pola by Italy presupposes the disappearance of Austria-Hungary; otherwise it is not even remotely possible. Hence it is no exaggeration to assert that the fate of Trieste is one of the central issues in the whole European settlement. Once make Trieste a free port, under the Italian flag, andipso factothe Austro-Hungarian navy ceases to exist, and with it all need for Italian naval activity in the Adriatic. In other words, such a settlement would lead to an almost idyllic reduction of naval armaments in the Adriatic, since both Italy and the new Jugoslavia could afford to restrict themselves to a minimum of coast defence. It is obvious, however, that the dismantlement of Pola—to-day an almost impregnable fortress—would be an essential condition to neighbourly relations between the two, the more so since under such altered circumstances an Italian naval base at Pola could only have one objective.
There is an unfortunate tendency in Italy to misread the whole situation on the eastern Adriatic, to ignore the transformation which the revival of Southern Slav consciousness has wrought in lands which once owned the supremacy of Venice. A short-sighted distrust of the Slav blinds many Italians to the double fact that he has come to stay, and that his friendship is to be had for the asking. The commercial future of Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Serbia is intimately bound up with Italy, and Italy herself will be the chief loser if she closes her eyes to so patent a truth.
The fate of Trieste and Istria is a triangular issue between Teuton, Slav, and Latin. The Italian, if his claims are too ambitious or exacting, may succeed in preventing the Slav from obtaining his share of the spoils, but only by leaving them all in the hands of a still more dangerous rival, in other words, by a crude policy of dog-in-the-manger.
One thing is certain in all this interplay of forces—that it is too late in the day to suppress Southern Slav national consciousness, and that there can never be durable peace and contentment on the eastern Adriatic until the unity of the race has been achieved. It would be premature to discuss the exact forms which the new State would assume; but when the time comes it will be found that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Croatia-Slavonia, Istria and Carniola, will acclaim their liberation at the hands of free Serbia and Montenegro. Their watchword, however, will be not conquest from without, but free and voluntary union from within—a union which will preserve their existing political institutions and culture as a worthy contribution to the common Southern Slav fund. The natural solution is a federal union under which the sovereign would be crowned not only as King of Serbia but with the crown of Zvonomir as King of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, thus reviving historic traditions dating from the tenth century and never abandoned or forgotten. The Croatian Parliament would continue in Agrani, parallel with the Serb Parliament in Belgrade, but both would be represented in a central federal Parliament. The only question is whether the existing provincial divisions should be allowed to survive, the Diets of Bosnia, Dalmatia, Istria, and Carniola thus forming conjointly with the Serbian, Montenegrin, and Croatian Parliaments the units on which the new constitution is based, or whether complete unification should be attempted. The latter would be the ideal arrangement, but in view of the great divergence of local customs and institutions it would probably be premature, and it might therefore be wiser to preserve the smaller units until they were ripe for fusion, rather than to compromise by creating a dual State of Serbia and Croatia.
§7.The Roumanian Question.—I have dwelt at some length upon the Southern Slav problem, because it is as complicated as it is unfamiliar to public opinion in this country. It has been thecausa causansof the present struggle, and if neglected or mismanaged at the final settlement, may again plunge Europe into trouble at some future date. Parallel with any solution of the Southern Slav question must come the solution of the Roumanian question, which represents the other half of Austria-Hungary's Balkan policy. The Kingdom of Roumania is, alike in territory, population, and resources, the leading power in the Balkan peninsula, but over five million Roumanians, including the very cream of the race, still live under foreign domination. Of these at least 3,500,000 are in Austria-Hungary, the great majority under the grossly oppressive rule of the Magyars; and the redemption of Transylvania and the neighbouring counties of Hungary has always been the ideal of all patriotic Roumanians, even of those who looked to a distant future for its realisation. Russia's short-sighted policy in 1878, in annexing the Roumanian province of Bessarabia as a reward for their valiant support at Plevna, drove the Roumanians into the arms of Austria-Hungary, and for a whole generation not even the perpetual irritant of Magyar tyranny in Transylvania could avail to shake theententebetween Vienna and Bucarest, strengthened as it was by the personal friendship of the Emperor Francis Joseph and King Charles. But the spell was broken by Austria's attitude during the Balkan War. The imperious force of circumstances brought the interests of Roumania and Serbia into line; for it was obvious that any blow aimed against Serbia's independent existence must threaten Roumania also, just as any weakening of the Serbo-Croat element in the Monarchy must react unfavourably on that of the Roumanians and other nationalities of Hungary. The growth of national feeling within the two neighbour races has proceeded for some time past on parallel lines, and even before the war there were manifest signs that the Roumanians of Hungary, whose economic and cultural progress since the beginning of the century has been very rapid, were at length nearing the end of their patience. The bomb outrage at Debreczen last February—an event which is without parallel in Roumanian history—was the first muttering of the gathering storm. Roumania occupies a position of extreme delicacy. Her natural tendency would be to espouse the cause of the Allies, since they obviously have more to offer her than their rivals. But the somewhat equivocal attitude of her statesmen has been determined not merely by an astute desire to win the spoils of war without making the necessary sacrifice—a policy which is apt to overreach itself—but also by a very pardonable anxiety as to the attitude of Bulgaria and Turkey. Roumania has hitherto been the foremost upholder of the Treaty of Bucarest, and it is only in the event of drastic territorial changes farther west that she is likely to consent to its being torn up. She has made no secret of the fact that she would not tolerate naked aggression against the Greeks, whether from the Turkish or Bulgarian side. In view of the political record of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and his present Prime Minister, the Roumanians may perhaps be excused for adopting an attitude of vigilant reserve; for their statesmen suspect that Bulgaria is only waiting until the Roumanian army has crossed the Carpathians in order to reoccupy the southern Dobrudja. Certain it is that Roumania, while declining all temptations to join the central powers, has also rejected the Russian invitation to occupy the Bukovina, and has actually approached Hungary with a view to securing the restoration of Transylvanian autonomy. The Magyars on their part have tried to buy off Roumania by introducing the Roumanian language of instruction in many of the State schools of Transylvania—a wholly inadequate concession which would none the less have been inconceivable four short months ago. Unfortunately the realisation of Roumanian unity inevitably involves the inclusion in the new State of considerable Magyar and Saxon minorities, amounting in all to not less than 600,000 inhabitants. There are no means of overcoming the hard facts of geography, but it is essential that Roumania, while incorporating Magyar and Saxon islets in the Roumanian racial sea, should guarantee the existing institutions of the two races, and the fullest possible linguistic freedom in church,[1] school, and press. The Saxons in particular have preserved their identity for over seven centuries in this little corner of the Carpathians, and have contributed far more than their share to the cause of culture and progress in Hungary. It would be a crying irony of fate if they were allowed to perish in the twentieth century at the hands of those who have pledged themselves to vindicate the rights of smaller nationalities.
[Footnote 1: The Szekel (Magyar) districts of Transylvania are mainly Calvinist, the Saxons Lutheran to a man, while the Roumanians are divided between the Orthodox and the Roumanian Uniate Churches. Transylvania is also the centre of an interesting sect of Unitarians, who are for the most part Magyar by race.]
It must not be forgotten that the dream of Roumanian Unity can only be fully realised if Russia restores at least a portion of Bessarabia, which contains not less than a million and a quarter Roumanians. A victorious Russia might well afford such a concession; for it would involve no strategic dangers and would, especially if conveyed in the graceful form of a wedding dowry, triumphantly efface the last traces of Russophobe feeling that still linger in Roumania. But it would be absurd to expect such magnanimity on the part of Russia unless Roumania's action is prompt and vigorous. The abstract theory of nationality must be reinforced by the more practical argument of sterling services rendered to a common cause.
§8.Can the Dual Monarchy be replaced?—The result of applying the principle of nationality to the Southern Slavs and Roumanians would thus be to create two powerful national States at the expense of the Habsburg Monarchy; and here it is well to repeat that such drastic territorial changes are only possible if the military power of Austria suffers an almost complete eclipse. But even the loss of Galicia, Bukovina, Transylvania, the Trentino, and the Serbo-Croat provinces would still leave Austria-Hungary a State of very considerable area, with a population of 32 millions. There is no reason why such a State should not continue to exist, provided that it retained the necessary access to the sea at Trieste and Pola, and this would involve the exclusion of the Slovenes from the new Jugo-Slav State. Under such circumstances it would be possible to reconstruct the State on a federal basis, with five main racial units, the Germans, the Czechs and Slovaks, the Magyars, the Slovenes, and the Italians. Certain unimportant racial minorities would still be left, but these could unquestionably be dealt with by a law of guarantees, similar to those which have played so conspicuous a part in the theory, but sometimes also in the practice, of the Dual Monarchy. So many severe amputations might, however, prove too much for the vitality of the patient; and in any case we may assume that either Austria-Hungary will be able to prevent the operation, or that the Allies, if they can once bring matters thus far, will insist upon completing the process by a drastic post-mortem inquiry. Any sympathetic qualms are likely to be outweighed by the consideration that a State of this hybrid nature would tend to be more than ever a vassal of Germany. Moreover, there can be no doubt that one of the surest means of bringing Germany to her knees is by crushing her most formidable ally, and thus tapping some of the sources of her own military and economic strength. It is safe to assume that this consideration plays an important part in the military plans of Russia; and for many reasons—political, strategic, and economic—a Russian occupation of Bohemia must be regarded as the essential prelude to a decisive victory of the Allies. The war has thrown the Dual Monarchy into the melting-pot; but it is not enough to accept the possibility of its disappearance from the map, it is also necessary to consider what new organisms would take its place. A complete partition would, as we have seen, remove the last obstacle to a unified Southern Slav State. The dreams of Italia Irredenta and Greater Roumania would be realised. Western Galicia and a part of Silesia would be united to autonomous Poland as reconstituted by the Russian Tsar. Eastern Galicia, Northern Bukovina, and the Ruthene districts of Hungary as far as Ungvár and Munkács, would be incorporated in the Russian Empire, though it is to be hoped that an early result of this change would be the grant of a certain modified autonomy, or at least of special linguistic and religious privileges, to the Ukraine population, thus united after centuries of partition in a single body politic.
§9.Bohemia and Hungary.—But the most striking result of the partition would be the revival of the famous mediaeval kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary as independent States. Thus would be realised the dream of two races, the Czechs and Magyars, whose national revival forms one of the most romantic incidents of the nineteenth century. But it is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than their respective development. In Bohemia the Czechs, after losing their religious and civic liberty and enduring for two centuries the domination of the Germans, raised themselves once more in the course of two generations, by sheer force of character and tireless industry, to a position of equality, and reorganised their national life on an essentially democratic basis. In Hungary the Magyars, thanks to their central position, their superior political sense, and their possession of a powerful aristocracy, succeeded in concentrating all government and administration in their own hands and reducing the other races of the country, who have always formed a majority of the population, to a state of veritable political helotry. And just as their evolution has been on very different lines, so must be their future fate. In Bohemia all is activity and political progress, in Hungary the sterility of a corrupt and reactionary system, staking the future upon the hollow credit of a long-vanished past. The Czechs are beyond all question the most progressive, the most highly civilised, the most democratic of all Slavonic nations. The stubborn spirit of John Hus is still alive among them to-day, and their recent achievements in music, art, and industry are in every way worthy of the nation which has produced Comenius and Dvorák and first lit the torch of Reformation in Europe. The ancient city of Prague contains all the elements of culture necessary for the regeneration of Bohemia, and the mineral riches and industrial resources of the country are infinitely greater than those of many European States which have successfully led a separate national existence.
But the liberation of the Czechs would not be complete unless their close kinsmen the Slovaks were included in the new Bohemian State; and every reason alike of politics, race, and geography tells overwhelmingly in favour of such an arrangement. The Slovaks, who would to the last man welcome the change, have long suffered from the gross tyranny of Magyar rule. Their schools and institutions have been ruthlessly suppressed or reduced in numbers, their press muzzled, their political development arrested, their culture and traditions—far more truly autochthonous than those of the conquering Magyar invaders—have been discouraged and hampered at every turn. The Slovaks are a race whose artistic and musical gifts, whose innate sense of colour and poetry have won the sympathy and admiration of all who know them; and their systematic oppression at the hands of the Magyar oligarchy is one of the greatest infamies of the last fifty years. In this war Britain has proclaimed herself the champion of the small nations, and none are more deserving of her sympathy than the Slovaks. Unless our statesmen renounce that principle of nationality which they have so loudly proclaimed, the Slovaks cannot be abandoned to their fate; for they form an essential part of the Bohemian problem. Without them the new kingdom could not stand alone, isolated as it would be among hostile or indifferent neighbours. In every way the Slovak districts form the natural continuation of Bohemia and are the necessary link between it and Russia, upon whose moral support the new State must rely in the first critical years of its existence.
The main difficulty would be the fate of racial minorities; for minorities there still must be, no matter how the frontiers may be drawn. At first sight the natural solution would be to pare down Bohemia by assigning to the neighbouring provinces of Germany the German fringe which almost completely surrounds the Czech kernel. So far as the south-west and north-east districts of Bohemia (near Budweis and along the German Silesian border) are concerned, the historic boundaries might fairly be revised on ethnographic lines, and in the same way the line of demarcation between Bohemia and Hungary could in the main be made to follow the racial boundary between Slovak and Magyar and later between Slovak and Ruthene. But in the north of Bohemia there are insurmountable objections to any revision of the historic frontier of the kingdom; for not merely is its industrial life concentrated to a very considerable degree in the German districts, but this fact is responsible for the existence of important Czech industrial minorities, which it would be difficult to sacrifice. So far as there is to be any sacrifice, it must be made by the losers rather than by the winners in this war. But it ought to be possible, under the rule of some carefully selected western prince as ruler of Bohemia, to devise proper administrative guarantees for the linguistic rights of minorities in every mixed district of Bohemia, whether it be Czech or German. The case of Hungary is different. That the Allies, if victorious, should perpetuate the racial hegemony of the Magyars, and with it many of the abuses which have contributed towards the present war, is as unthinkable as that they should once more bolster up the Turkish régime. If the Habsburg Monarchy should break up, Hungary is fully entitled to her independence. She will become a national Magyar State, but in a sense very different from that which her Jingo politicians have intended—not by assimilating the non-Magyar races of the country, but by losing to the other national States by which she will be surrounded all but the purely Magyar districts of the central plains. Hungary will then be more fully than before a Danubian State; her rich alluvial lands will be developed, and a check will be put upon the unnecessary streams of Magyar emigration which the present political and economic situation favours. The chief gainer by the change will be the Magyar peasantry, who have in their own way been exploited by the ruling oligarchy as cruelly as their non-Magyar neighbours. One result of the war will be to discredit the policy and methods of this oligarchy and to hasten the break-up of the vast latifundia of the great magnates and the Church, and those other drastic land reforms without which Hungary cannot hope to attain her full economic value as the granary of central Europe. Hitherto the government of the day has secured a parliamentary majority by corrupting and terrorising the non-Magyar constituencies of the periphery and thus out-voting the radical Magyar stalwarts of the great plain; and with the loss of the Slovak, Ruthene and Roumanian districts this system would automatically collapse. The result might be a genuine strengthening of democratic elements and the dawn of a new era for the Magyar race.
§10.Germany and Austria.—One final problem connected with Austria-Hungary remains. What is to be the fate of the German provinces of Austria? If the map of Europe is to be recast on a basis of nationality, we obviously cannot withhold from the great German nation that right to racial unity which we accord to the Czechs, the Poles and many minor races. The seven German provinces—Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Tirol, Salzburg and Vorarlberg—reconstituted perhaps as a kingdom of Austria under the House of Habsburg and augmented by the German population of western Hungary, would then become an additional federal unit in the German Empire. Such an event, it cannot be too often repeated, is inconceivable except as the result of a complete defeat of the central powers, but if on that assumption Germany loses Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, the loss would be made good by the incorporation of German Austria. The result of this in figures would be the subtraction of six million inhabitants and the addition of eight million others—a transaction which need not unduly alarm the British Jingo, and at the same time might render defeat less galling to the German patriot.
Whether this fulfillment of the Pan-German aspiration would meet with unqualified enthusiasm on either side of the present frontier, is a question on which it is not altogether easy to answer. The idea of admitting eight million additional Catholic subjects into Germany would certainly arouse misgivings in Prussia, both among the stricter Protestants and among the far more active section of "intellectuals" who merely regard Protestantism as a political asset in the struggle against Latin and Slavonic influences. From a political point of view their admission would unquestionably transform the whole parliamentary situation and force the Imperial Government to revise its whole attitude; for the Austrian voters would greatly strengthen the two parties to whose existence Prussia has never become reconciled—the Clerical Centre and the Social Democratic Left,—while contributing little or nothing to the parties of the Conservative Junkers or the middle-class "Liberals." In other words, the new element might prove to be an effective leaven which would permeate the whole lump. All the arguments which induced Bismarck to expel Austria from Germany in 1868 would still be upheld by the advocates of "Preussen-Deutschland" (see p. 65), and the Prussian hegemony; but after an unsuccessful war and territorial losses the chance of making these good by the achievement of national unity would probably sweep away the dissentients, who would no longer represent a triumphant system, but a beaten and discredited caste. The old idea of the "seventy-million Empire," which appealed so strongly to the Liberals of Frankfurt in 1848, should prove irresistible under these circumstances. The influence of Austrian Germans, already so marked in literature, art, music, and above all in political theory, might make itself felt in other spheres also.
Meanwhile, in view of the wild talk in which certain sections of the Press are already indulging, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that only the Germans can reform their political institutions, and that any attempt at external interference will not merely fail lamentably, but produce the very opposite effect from that which is intended. If the German Emperor insists upon confusing the relative positions of the Deity and some of his self-styled vicegerents upon earth, only the German people can restore him to a sense of proportion and modesty. All believers in human progress hope that after this war the monstrous theories of divine right propounded by the House of Hohenzollern will be relegated to the lumber-room of a vanished past. But the sooner references to St. Helena as a residence for deposed emperors are dismissed as arrant nonsense, the better. The future of German dynasties, as of German Unity, rests with the German people itself; and those who challenge this statement repudiateipso factothe two principles of Nationality and International Law, which we have officially adopted as our programme for the future.
The fate of the German provinces of Austria is one of the central problems raised by this war, since it is the link between the fate of two Empires. The present writer most emphatically disclaims all idea of prophecy; but he feels that the time has come for outlining some of the possible alternatives which confront the statesmen of "the new Europe." So far as Austria-Hungary is concerned, it is clear that the splendid dream of "a monarchical Switzerland," as conceived by many serious political thinkers, has already died a violent death; but it would be quite premature to dogmatise on the future grouping of the races of the Dual Monarchy at a moment when its ultimate fate has still to be decided on the field of battle.
§11.Italian Aspirations.—We have already alluded to Italy's position, in connection with the Southern Slav question, and have pointed out that a settlement which follows even approximately the lines of nationality would assign the Trentino, the town of Trieste (as a free port), and a strip of Western Istria to Italy, but the remainder of the coast from Cape Promontore to the Bojana river to the new "Jugoslavia." There are, however, other directions in which Italy may claim compensation for her friendly attitude towards the Triple Entente. She has already occupied the rocky islet of Saseno, opposite Valona, and in the event of the collapse of Austria-Hungary, she may demand the whole bay of Valona, as the strategic key to the Adriatic, and even a general protectorate of the embryo Albanian State. The establishment of a miniature Gibraltar on the eastern side of the Straits of Otranto is a step which neither France nor Britain would oppose, if Italy should insist upon it; but it may be questioned whether she would not thereby be laying up stores of trouble for a distant future, altogether incommensurate with any possible advantages which might accrue. Indeed, Italy would probably be well advised to abandon all idea of an Albanian adventure (which, originally conceived as a counterstroke to Austrian aggression, would lose its point if Austria disappeared from the scene), to leave the Greeks a free hand in south Epirus, to cede to them Rhodes and the other islands occupied during the Tripolitan War, and then to secure, during the partition of Turkey, the reversion of Cilicia and the Gulf of Alexandretta. It is in any case clear that the Powers of the Triple Entente will raise no objections to such action on the part of Italy, and are resolved to show every consideration to a power whose great and vital interests in the Mediterranean in no way conflict with their own.
§12.The Balkan Situation: Bulgaria and Greece.—The creation of aGreater Roumania and of a new Southern Slav State would transform the wholeBalkan situation, and therefore obviously involves material concessions toBulgaria and Greece.
(A) If Roumania succeeds in redeeming her kinsmen across the northern frontiers, she cannot be so ungenerous as to insist upon retaining territory whose population is overwhelmingly Bulgarian, and the least which might be expected from her would be the retrocession to Bulgaria of her bloodless acquisition during the second Balkan War. This means a reversion to the boundary defined under Russian arbitration at Petrograd in January 1913—except outside the fortress of Silistria, where strategic reasons demand its rectification.
It is in the relations of Bulgaria and Serbia, however, that the key to the Balkan situation is to be found. The Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of February 1912, which formed the groundwork of the Balkan alliance, had limited Serbia's sphere of influence to northern Macedonia and referred to the arbitration of the Russian Tsar any disputes arising from conquests to the south of a certain specified line. Serbia was tacitly given a free hand in her attempt to reach the sea in Northern Albania. The action of Austria-Hungary in vetoing her access to the Adriatic forced Serbia to turn her eyes from west to south and to seek her economic outlet to the sea down the valley of the Vardar to Salonica and the Aegean. The cession of Monastir, Ochrida, and the Vardar Valley to Bulgaria would have rendered this impossible, for it would not merely have driven a wedge between Serbia and Greece, but would have placed two customs frontiers, the Bulgarian and the Greek, between Serbia and the sea, instead of only one, the Turkish, as hitherto. Shut in upon all sides, with all hope of expansion blocked by the powerful Dual Monarchy to north and west and by a big Bulgaria to east and south, Serbia would have found herself in a worse position than before the war. The Bulgarians, intoxicated by their victories over the Turks and seduced by the promptings of the Austrian tempter, turned a deaf ear to the arguments of their Serbian allies, and insisted upon their pound of flesh. They failed to realise that the most effective way of inducing the Serbs to evacuate Macedonia was to give them adequate backing in their demand for an Adriatic port. Every fresh intrigue of Sofia with Vienna confirmed Belgrade in its view of the vital necessity for retaining the Vardar Valley. The hoary argument that "circumstances alter cases," appeared anew in the garb of the Bismarckian theory that all treaties are subject to the provision "rebus sic stantibus"—a theory which many great international lawyers have unhesitatingly endorsed. In this form it appealed as irresistibly to the Serbs as did the rival shibboleth of "The treaty, the whole treaty, and nothing but the treaty" to the Bulgarians. It is impossible to absolve either side from blame; for the Serbs, in formally denouncing a treaty into which they had voluntarily entered, were doing exactly what they had so bitterly resented in Austria-Hungary's treatment of Bosnia, while the Bulgarians, in flouting the Tsar whom they had named as arbiter and in attempting to uphold the treaty by brute force and treachery, abandoned the ground of law, and placed themselves openly in the wrong.
The events of the great war have already modified the problem. The one unanswerable argument of the Serbs in declining to surrender Macedonia was the plea that they would then have nothing to offer Bulgaria for her neutrality or her support when their own inevitable day of reckoning with Austria should arrive. In short, Veles, Monastir and Ochrida were widely regarded as a pledge to be held until Bosnia and Dalmatia could be redeemed, but then to be handed over to the Bulgarians. It is true that the Serbo-Bulgar War of 1913 and the passions which it aroused have converted this feeling into one of reluctance to sacrifice what was bought at such a fearful price. But the moment has now arrived to translate an instinct into a reality. If Southern Slav Unity is to be achieved, a binding promise, under the guarantee of the Entente Powers, must be given to Bulgaria, that, in proportion as the work of Serbo-Croat unification is achieved, the Macedonian frontier will be revised in favour of Bulgaria. It is possible that Bulgaria may prefer a different formula, according to which the Tsar with the approval of his Western Allies should arbitrate upon the original Serbo-Bulgar treaty. Any such concession to Bulgarian sentiment ought not to be resented in Serbia, in view of the great issues involved. It is obvious that Serbia cannot hope to achieve her national unity unless Bulgaria abstains from hostile action, or to consolidate her new position when won unless she can win Bulgaria's active friendship. The latter by her intervention could at any moment turn the scales against Turkey or against Serbia, and it is thus essential that the Allies should treat her now with a generosity proportionate to the callous neglect with which Europe left her to her fate in September 1913.
The tendency to look down upon the Balkan States from the fancied heights of a superior "culture" has never been so marked in France or Britain as in Germany, where the Press is now engaged in comparing their own cultural exploits in Belgium with the lack of culture displayed by the "bandits" and "assassins" of Serbia, and where a man of such scientific distinction as Werner Sombart can describe the heroic kingdom of Montenegro as "nothing but a bad joke in the history of the world!"[1] But even here the habit of condescension lingers, and amidst the threatened collapse of Western civilisation it is well to remember the essential distinction between primitive and savage. The Balkan nations have grown to manhood while we slept, and must henceforth be regarded as equals in the European commonwealth.
[Footnote 1:Berliner Tageblatt,cited byObserver, November 8, 1914.]
(B) Such territorial changes as have been outlined above would vitally affect the position of Greece, who is also fully entitled to claim compensation for any serious disturbance of the balance of power. The first and most obvious form which compensation would take is the final occupation of southern Epirus; no objections will be raised to this by the Entente Powers, and it is probable that Italy has already made her own bargain with the Cabinet of Athens on this very point. It is to be hoped that Italy may also consent to hand over Rhodes and the neighbouring islands to Greece, in return for a free hand in Southern Asia Minor in the event of the Turkish Empire breaking up. By far the thorniest problem is provided by the future ownership of Kavala, which the Treaty of Bucarest assigned to Greece in August 1913, but which from an economic point of view is Bulgaria's port on the Aegean, and as vital a necessity for her future development as it is a superfluous luxury to Greece. The statesmen of Petrograd were not blind to these considerations, but the scale was turned at Bucarest by the active intervention of the German Emperor, who, under the plea of seconding his brother-in-law, King Constantine, skilfully provided a permanent bone of contention between Bulgaria and Greece. His action may not unfairly be compared to that of the Hungarian Premier, Count Tisza, in fomenting the quarrel between Serbia and Bulgaria two months earlier.
Serbia's cession of Central Macedonia to Bulgaria could not fail to be distasteful to the Greeks, for it would automatically render their tenure of Kavala highly precarious. It is to be hoped, however, that they may be brought to realise that its surrender and the consequent improvement of Greco-Bulgarian relations are in the highest interests of Greece and the whole Hellenic race. Here again, the break-up of the Turkish Empire may enable the Greeks to compensate themselves on the shores of Asia Minor. But the real key to the problem of Kavala, and thus indirectly to the revival of the Balkan League and all the far-reaching effects which that would have upon the fate of Europe, lies in the hands of Britain. It could instantly be solved by the cession of Cyprus to Greece, on condition that Kavala and the valley of the Strymon were restored to Bulgaria. Neither strategically nor economically is Cyprus of any value to Britain; thirty-five years ago it was taken over by Disraeli "as a sort of fee for opposing Russia," a foolish habit which we had abandoned long before the present war with Turkey. Its population is predominantly Greek, and the Hellenic national movement is steadily gaining ground. Anything that we might gain by its retention is more than counterbalanced by its value as an instrument of barter.
§13.The Future of Turkey.—The entry of Turkey into the great war marks a further stage in the winnowing process from which we hope that a regenerated Europe will emerge. Two of the main causes of the war are the Turk and the Magyar, whose effete and tyrannous systems have each in its own manner and degree long kept South-Eastern Europe in a ferment of unrest and reaction. It is a matter of profound regret that two infinitely more virile and progressive races, the German and the Jew, should be fighting their battles for them, and indeed bolstering up causes which would otherwise speedily collapse by reason of their own inward rottenness. It is the Triple Alliance which has made it possible for the iniquitous racial hegemony of the Magyars to survive in Hungary; it is the joint policy of Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin which has hampered the progress of the Balkan States, and above all the development of every Slavonic nation; and in this their most valuable allies have been the Jewish Press and the Jewishhaute financeof Germany, Austria and Hungary. Just as we hope and believe that one result of this war will be the emancipation of Germany and German "culture" from the corroding influences of militarist doctrine, so there are good grounds for hoping that it will also give a new and healthy impetus to Jewish national policy, grant freer play to their many splendid qualities, and enable them to shake off the false shame which has led men who ought to be proud of their Jewish race to assume so many alien disguises and to accuse of anti-Semitism those who refuse to be deceived by mere appearances. It is high time that the Jews should realise that few things do more to foster anti-Semite feeling than this very tendency to sail under false colours and conceal their true identity. The Zionist and the orthodox Jewish nationalist have long ago won the respect and admiration of the world. No race has ever defied assimilation so stubbornly and so successfully, and the modern tendency of individual Jews to repudiate what is one of their chief glories suggests an almost comic resolve to fight against the course of nature.
These cryptic tendencies of pseudo-national as opposed to national Judaism have played a great part in the Young Turkish movement and the destruction which it is bringing upon Turkey. The Committee of Union and Progress at first enjoyed the moral and financial support of many men, both Christians and Jews, to whom its methods and secret currents were a sealed book. For a time the Young Turks, like the Magyars farther west, deceived foreign opinion by claptrap phrases from the repertory of modern democracy. But "murder will out," and the Committee—despite the tiny group of able, and in certain cases honourable, men who control its destinies—has gradually been revealed in its true colours, as a parasitic growth upon the body politic, preserving the worst faults of the old régime and blending with it much of the decadence which lies like froth along the backwaters of Western civilisation.
Since 1908, then, the fate of Turkey has passed from the control of the Turk and is being decided by an alien clique of infidels, renegades, political freemasons[1] and Jews, in whose hands the Caliph is a helpless tool, and to whom the teachings of Christ and of Mohammed are mere worn-out superstitions. In fact, the Committee is in its essence non-Turkish and non-Moslem. In the name of a secret society, based openly upon the subversive ideas of the wilder French Jacobins, and not shrinking from assassination as a convenient political weapon, a Jehad or Holy War is to be preached against the British Empire, and the most sacred interests of Islam are to be exploited in the interests of Germany. What bitter irony is in the fact that William II., who risked universal war to avenge the murder of his friend, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, should now find himself closely allied with Enver Pasha, the military adventurer who barely two years ago foully assassinated his own commander-in-chief, Nazim Pasha, and who therefore represents everything that is anathema to the Prussian War Lord with his exaggerated ideas of military discipline and personal loyalty!