III.
The serious consequence which Germany’s alliance with Bulgaria would entail on Roumania, must ultimately oblige that country, despite the temporizing attitude of its government, to defend its vital interests. These interests now stand out more and more clearly. In the first place it is certain that the plan of Bulgarian supremacy in the Balkans (see p. 133) is as little acceptable to the Roumanians as to the Greeks. The frontier incidents, which have multiplied lately, between the Bulgarians and the Roumanians are manifest symptoms of the mutual and irreconcilable dislike of the two peoples. Besides, the Roumanians have been specially alarmed by what has happened in the part of the Dobrudja which Bulgaria was compelled to cede to Roumania in 1913 (indicated by crossed hatchings on the subjoined map). The syndicates of Bulgarian peasants in this region have plainly shown their separatist tendencies. Further, it has lately been discovered that in the New Dobrudja, the Bulgarian system of espionage has been worked, under colour of archæological excursions, by Germans, who afterwards transmitted to the Bulgarian military authorities photographs and plans of great importance. Lastly, at the beginning of 1916 Mr. Take Jonescu made known at Bukarest that Germany had promised to Bulgaria, at the expense of Roumania, not only the territory which Bulgaria had lost in 1913, but also the Roumanian Dobrudja as far as Galatz and Sulina. Since then Berlin has been obliged to throw a sop to Roumania by assuring Bukarest that Germany will put a curb on Bulgarian ambition. But this promise, a sort of blackmail extorted by the needs of the moment, forms but a very precarious guarantee for the Roumanians. They feel themselves threatened by Bulgarian ambitions, and there seems little reason to doubt that as soon as circumstances shall appear favourable, Roumania will make an end of the Bulgarian peril, as “she ought to have done in 1913,” if the Roumanian Government does not allow itself to be “hypnotized” by that of Berlin, to use the language of the Universal, the official connection of which with the military authorities at Bukarest is well known (quoted by Le Temps, 19th March, 1916).
GREAT ROUMANIA.
On the other hand the national policy of Roumania is influenced in the highest degree by the two questions of Bessarabia and Transylvania. As the map on the opposite page shows, Roumania irredenta is composed of two great racial and territorial elements: about 1,000,000 Roumanians live in Russian Bessarabia, but 3,700,000 Roumanians inhabit Transylvania and Bukovina, that is to say, vast regions of Hungary and Austria. The Roumanian ideal, in its entirety, would evidently be to incorporate at the same time the Roumanian brothers of the East and the West, but as the ideal is not practicable, a choice must be made. The partisans of Germany at Bukarest, led by M. Carp and Marghiloman, maintain that Roumania should elect for Bessarabia and therefore march against Russia. To this the practical politicians of Bukarest reply: “We should certainly be glad to incorporate the Roumanians of Bessarabia also, but that policy would only be possible if Russia were completely destroyed by Germany, which has not been done and cannot be done, for the facts so far prove that Russia could not be decisively beaten. Therefore Roumania cannot be such a fool as to incur the permanent hostility of the enormous empire of the Tzar. Moreover, in order to incorporate the 1,000,000 Roumanians of Bessarabia, we must abandon the 3,700,000 Roumanians of Transylvania, besides accepting into the bargain the supremacy of the Bulgarians in the Balkans, since they are the allies of the Central Empires.”
Such are the essential arguments which incline Roumanian opinion to make a decided choice for the acquisition of Transylvania. In order that the relations between Russia and Roumania should become cordial enough to permit of an alliance between St. Petersburg and Bukarest it remains, perhaps, for Russia to reassure Roumania with regard to the control of the Straits. It is certainly well understood at Bukarest that after the enormous sacrifices which she has made Russia cannot consent to remain bottled up by the Turks in the Black Sea, and that after the peace she must hold a preponderant position at Constantinople. On the other hand, it is the interest of all Europe and of Russia herself that she should ensure for the future a large amount of liberty in the control of the Straits. I cannot see, therefore, why Bukarest and Petrograd should not come to an understanding on this important subject.
In order to prevent, or at least retard, the intervention of Roumania, of which Berlin is much afraid, the Kaiser’s diplomacy is putting pressure on Vienna and on Budapest in order to obtain “large concessions” in favour of the Roumanians of Transylvania and Bukovina. But at Bukarest people know by experience the value to be attached to the promises of Vienna, and especially to those of the Magyar nobility. Besides, as Roumania desires the annexation, pure and simple, of Transylvania and of the Roumanian region of Bukovina, she could not be content with mere concessions. So the offers of the Central Empires at Bukarest have little chance of being seriously considered.
They will have still less, if the Roumanians yield to the force of evidence by recognizing, that even if the Pangerman plan were to provide for the cession of Transylvania to Roumania, at the expense of Hungary, that plan would still threaten their independence in the most direct and indisputable manner. In her attempt to win Roumania to her side, Berlin has promised to give Bessarabia, with Odessa, to Roumania at the expense of Russia. In order to appreciate the character and the sincerity of this offer, the Roumanians need only refer to the pamphlet long ago circulated by the Alldeutscher Verband, which sets forth the fundamental plan of 1894, and which I have often quoted. It bears the title, Great Germany and Central Europe in 1950. On p. 36 that work defines as follows the fate which Pangermanism has in store for Roumania on the East. “In the case of a victorious war against Russia, Roumania might get Upper Bessarabia as far as the Dniester. Austria would annex Lower Bessarabia in the form of a Margraviate of Bessarabia, and by means of the German colonies, which already exist, she would transform it into a purely German region. The boundaries of this Austro-German Margraviate of Bessarabia would include the cities of Odessa, Bender, Borodino, Formosa, Beni, Ismail, and the mouths of the Danube at Sulina. A reciprocal exchange of populations with the neighbouring countries would easily ensure the exclusively German colonization of this Margraviate. German ships of war would mount guard at the mouth of the German Danube.” This fundamental plan, which dates from twenty-one years ago, would now be completed, as we saw (p. 133) by the ultimate establishment in the Roumanian Dobrudja of the Bulgarians, who would thus be in direct contact with the new Margraviate of Prussianized Austria.
Hence, supposing the Germans were victorious, the Roumanians, who have been much alarmed by the idea of seeing the Russians installed at Constantinople, would be confronted by the danger of being soon entirely cut off from both the Black Sea and from the Mediterranean. The Bulgarians would take possession of the Roumanian Dobrudja, the Germans would remain at Constantinople and the Dardanelles, where they are already, and besides they would be dominant at Odessa and the mouths of the Danube, according to the plan drawn up, as far back as 1844, by the future Marshal Moltke (see p. 4). The authority of that name may satisfy the Roumanians that the scheme is no mere fantasy.
Moreover, it is plain enough that were Roumania once encircled, she could no longer dream of creating, as she so ardently desires to do, a national industry, since she would be no more than an economic territory reduced to impotence, a mere dumping-ground for goods made in Pangermany.
To sum up, we see that this is really a question of life or death for Roumania. A Prussian victory, in fact, would imperil her national independence in the most direct and indubitable manner. It appears that the general opinion in Roumania is alive to the danger and to the necessity of Roumanian intervention in the conflict. It remains to be seen whether German influences at Bukarest will be adroit enough and powerful enough to delude the Roumanian authorities into shilly-shallying till the decisive hour shall have come and gone.
CHAPTER VIII.
GERMAN MANŒUVRES TO PLAY THE ALLIES THE TRICK OF THE “DRAWN GAME,” THAT IS, TO SECURE THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE “HAMBURG TO THE PERSIAN GULF” SCHEME AS THE MINIMUM RESULT OF THE WAR.
I. The exceptional importance of the economic union of the Central Empires, and the danger for the Allies of establishing a connexion between that union and their own economic measures after the war.
II. Reasons for the Turco-German dodge of making a separate peace between the Ottoman empire and the Allies.
III. Why a separate and premature peace with Bulgaria would play the Pangerman game.
At the moment when this book is published, the Germans have certainly not renounced the hope of keeping and establishing a definite claim to the territories which they actually occupy on the West and on the East; but with their usual foresight they nevertheless contemplate the possibility of their having to consent to evacuate on the West, let us say, 90,478 square kilometres, and on the East 260,000 square kilometres, in order to preserve almost entire the principal part of the Pangerman acquisitions, that is to say, the gains made, directly or indirectly, to the South and South-east, namely, Austria-Hungary (676,616 square kilometres), the Balkans (215,585 square kilometres), Turkey (about 1,792,000 square kilometres). Total, 2,684,201 square kilometres.
To maintain its dominion over these territories, the government of Berlin is from now onward directing its energies to three sorts of manœuvres, all very astute, and very well co-ordinated, though they wear different aspects, each corresponding to each of the three territorial stages essential to the achievement of the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” These three stages are Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, which last forms the bridge between the two other stages.