2º. The German scheme of capturing Austria-Hungary in an economical net is radically incompatible with the pledges which the Allies have given to Serbia. In his toast to the Prince of Serbia, M. Poincaré declared: “Acting with the Serbian army, the Allies will liberate the Serbian territory, will re-establish the independence and the sovereignty of your noble country on a solid foundation, and will vindicate the rights which have been infringed” (see Le Temps, 23rd March, 1916). Now a mere glance at the map (p. 79) suffices to show that the capture of Austria-Hungary by Germany would render the fulfilment of that solemn promise impossible. Once in contact with the Balkans, Germany would be the mistress of these countries, and for Serbia that would be a sentence of death.
3º. To allow it to be supposed that the project of an economic union between Germany and Austria-Hungary could be even contemplated by the Allies, would be to give over to an agony of despair the 28 million Slav and Latin subjects of the Hapsburg Monarchy, who look to the Allies as their deliverers, and who, just because of their sympathies with the Allied cause, are subjected to the most atrocious persecution. There can be no doubt that the German press would catch at any ambiguous phrases in the utterances of the Allied press about the “economic union” of Central Europe in order to persuade these poor wretches that the Allies have forsaken them for good and all, and that there is nothing left for them, but to bow their neck to the German-Magyar yoke. But it is manifestly the political and military interest of the Allies at the moment to let the Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary know at once that they may rely on the Allies, and that the victory of the Allied cause would mean the end of their own serfdom. To attain that result of the war is unquestionably a moral duty for the Allies; but more than that it is in strict conformity with their own future interest, for the independence of 28 million Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary is absolutely indispensable to the establishment of a new and lasting Europe, founded on the principle of nationalities, and capable of forming at the same time in Central Europe a barrier, which Pangermanism in arms will for the future be powerless to overleap.
4º. Every mistake, or appearance of a mistake, as to the treatment which the Western Allies intend to mete out to Austria-Hungary would excite the liveliest protests among our Russian Allies. As M. Milioukoff well said in a speech to the Duma: “When we have wound up bankrupt Turkey, as we are now doing, it will be necessary to wind up another bankrupt concern, and that is Austria-Hungary. We are certain that the numerous nationalities which form part of the Dual Monarchy will receive their liberty at the hands of Russia” (quoted by Le Temps, 27th March, 1916). But the point of view set forth by M. Milioukoff, which is that of everybody who really knows Austria-Hungary (see p. 118), must be shared by all the Allies, since they intend to destroy Prussian militarism and clearly do not wage the most frightful of all wars for the purpose of seeing militant Prussia emerge from the struggle infinitely more powerful than she entered into it.
These many and forcible reasons make it clear how necessary it is that there should be no possible ambiguity in the Allied press as to the economic conference of the Allies. It is all very well for the conference to look ahead to the time when peace shall have been concluded, to take “concerted measures to counteract the dirty tricks by which Germany has compassed the destruction of her rivals,” to forestall fresh German depredations, in time of peace, on the financial establishments of the Allies, to prevent the Germans from manipulating the Custom-house tariffs, with all their usual dexterity, and so forth. This is all very well; nothing better; but on no account let there be, even in appearance, the least connexion between these theoretical measures of the Allies and the pretensions of Berlin to establish the economic union of Central Europe. Besides, as Mr. Lloyd George has said, with his robust good sense: “Before discussing the commercial system to be adopted after the war, we must first win the war. Everything depends on that” (quoted by Le Temps, 25th March). But the war will not be really won till every revival of aggressive Pangermanism shall have been rendered impossible; and this implies nothing less than the most energetic opposition to Germany’s attempt to capture the majority of the countries which actually compose the empire of the Hapsburgs.
II.
A cunning manœuvre for saving the future of Pangermanism and of Enver Pasha’s gang in Turkey has already been broached by the Germans. As it will certainly be attempted again, should it be in the interest of Berlin to push it through (and everything points that way), it becomes necessary to unmask it completely beforehand. In February, 1916, numerous Turkish agents, installed in Switzerland and apparently working through spies in the Allied countries, began to set afloat a rumour that Turkey was ready to conclude a separate peace. Enver Pasha had been assassinated (which of course was a lie), and so forth. The aim of this manœuvre was to secure in the Allied countries the assistance of those incorrigible fools, armed with the panoply of crass ignorance on the affairs of the East, who nevertheless are not always without influence on men at the head of affairs. If I am rightly informed, this clever dodge of the Turkish agents did really succeed for a time in enlisting some of the fools I speak of. In the opinion of these gentry the conclusion of a separate peace with Turkey would have been a very good move, since it would have deprived Germany of the help of her Ottoman ally, etc. These are very dangerous illusions, and it is necessary to show how and why this measure would play the game of Berlin and gravely imperil the victory of the Allies.
The Turks, greatly alarmed by the Russian successes in Armenia, see at the same time their dream of a Panislamic movement fading away. They are obliged to acknowledge to themselves that the Germans are cynically using them for their own selfish ends, are driving them along the road to famine by making a clean sweep of all their food supplies, and are sending them to slaughter for the higher interests of Pangermany. But while the mass of the Turks may very well feel their anger beginning to rise against the Germans, they are completely in the hands of the Young-Turk ringleaders, who in their turn are bound over, hand and foot, to the Germans; and more and more the Germans are masters of the organs of administration and government in Turkey. Therefore there is no counting on an effective revolt of the Turkish population, who moreover are entirely destitute of the spirit of organization. On the other hand, the Germans are far-seeing people and perfectly understand that Turkey is hastening towards a catastrophe. But to bring about a separate peace between Turkey and the Allies would be equivalent to inducing the Allies to recognize the permanence of the Ottoman empire; it would thus save that empire from disaster, and leave the door open for Berlin to re-open its old intrigues after the conclusion of a peace on the basis of the “drawn game” (see chap. V).
On the contrary, if the question of the Ottoman East is logically settled once for all, all hope of carrying out at a later time the Pangerman dream “from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf” is finally shattered. Moreover, a separate peace would also serve the turn of the Young-Turk ringleaders, for clearly nothing else could enable them to keep their hold on the reins of power, or could save them from being massacred by their fellow countrymen the day that the Ottoman crash comes. We see therefore why the rumours of a separate peace between Turkey and the Allies, which have been circulated and afterwards denied, only to be started again, at some other time, are really a Turko-German manœuvre. Besides, the Arabian journal Al-Mokattan of Cairo (22nd April, 1916) has remarked that “a separate peace with Turkey would cause Germany no uneasiness, since the retirement of Turkey from the arena would relieve Germany from the need of helping the Turks, as she does at present.” Finally, the Vossische Zeitung has confessed that “a separate peace between Turkey and the enemies of Germany would in no way prejudice Austro-German interests” (quoted by Le Journal de Genève, 25th April, 1916).
However, it is not to be supposed that the leaders of the Entente will allow themselves to be caught in the Turko-German trap. The Eastern question is a regular ulcer, which has envenomed European policy for a hundred years; it is the nightmare of the chanceries. Every attempt to reform the Ottoman empire has always failed. The fact is that this dry-rotten State has only been bolstered up by the mutual rivalries of the great powers. Since the victory of the Allies is bound to secure for the Old World a very long period of peace, that perennial source of troubles and wars, the Turkish empire, must be stopped for good. Moreover, justice in its broader aspect demands the same solution of the problem.