CHAPTER VII.
THE BALKANS AND THE PANGERMAN PLAN.
I. The connexion between the Pangerman plan and the plan of Bulgarian supremacy.
II. Greece and the Pangerman ambitions.
III. Roumania and the Pangerman plan.
In virtue of the geographical position which they occupy in the zone “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf,” the Balkan States are of extreme importance for the making or the marring of the whole Pangerman plan. Moreover, events have proved to the satisfaction of the most sceptical the influence which these States exert on the issue of the struggle. Public opinion, therefore, both in Allied and neutral countries, should note very clearly the intimate relation which exists between the Balkan factors and the universal Pangerman plan.
I can here touch only on the fundamental Balkan factors, those that have a durable and permanent character, not on the attitude of certain governments in the Eastern peninsula. That attitude for the last year has been singularly vacillating. It shifts, in fact, under the action of those parasitic German influences which, through the dynastic ties of the reigning families, backed by the threats of Berlin, sway these governments in opposition to the national interests which it is their bounden duty to defend. Moreover, simple justice compels us to acknowledge, that the diplomatic mistakes made by the Allies, especially in 1915, in consequence of their imperfect acquaintance with Balkan facts, has been singularly favourable to the success of the German influences.
Thus, for example, at Athens, the present Cabinet, formed after the arbitrary dissolution of the Greek parliament, and therefore destitute of all constitutional authority, has been instigated by King Constantine, brother-in-law of the Emperor William II., to persevere in a policy which all influential Greeks who are free to speak their minds regard as disastrous to the true interests of Hellenism. Similarly at Bukarest the attitude of the Bratiano cabinet is subjected by eminent Roumanians to searching criticism. Thus La Roumanie, the organ of M. Take Jonescu, speaking of the commercial agreement between Germany and Roumania, has recently said: “This agreement makes Roumania the dupe of Germany”[5] (see Le Journal, 20th April, 1916). The final decision of certain Balkan governments is, therefore, for the moment still in suspense, but whatever it may be, each of the Balkan peoples would infallibly see its future interests thwarted or menaced by the triumph of the Pangerman plan. It is important to clear up these prospects. So far as Montenegro and Serbia are concerned, any discussion would be superfluous, so evident is it that a German victory would mean for these two States their definite and final disappearance.