At the crucial stage of the Balkan war, experts in Eastern questions turned curious eyes toward Roumania, the most advanced and the strongest of the Balkan States. The sway and influence behind Roumania controls the situation in the Balkans. Who is the power holding this key to the situation? Germany and Austria. The appearance of an army on Roumania's southwestern frontier would have made a vast difference in the success of the Balkan arms against the Turk. This army, however, did not appear until the Allies had finished fighting Turkey and had begun to fight themselves. I shall show you why this army was withheld.
The ruling house in Roumania is closely allied and related to the house of Hohenzollern. I need only mention Carmen Sylva, the Queen of Roumania, and King Charles, both German by birth. The direct commercial relationship between Germany and Roumania is also very great. Roumania, of all the Balkan countries, has least felt the yoke of the Turk and the intense hatred of the Turk rampant in the rest of the Balkan States is not characteristic of Carmen Sylva's domains. Russo-French machinations producing tangible results in Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro and Albania met with only indifferent success in Roumania. If Russian persuasion and gold could have induced Roumania to throw her armies into the field against the Turk, the map of the Balkans would show some mighty changes. A Roumanian army corps, menacing Turkey's northwestern frontier during her struggle with the Balkan Allies, would certainly have seen the occupation of Constantinople by the allied forces. But those army corps were withheld through Austro-German influence and pressure on Roumania. Ready they were and they came in handy and were made use of by Germany and Austria in keeping Servia and Bulgaria in check. Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro, stanchly believing Russia's promises in securing ratification of their successes and territory, found themselves left to their own resource, Russia being unable through force of circumstances to exert her pledged influence.
Humanity has been staggered by the results of the wars in the Balkans, but to those who were behind the scenes the results did not come as a surprise. Bulgaria alone had enough successes against the Turk to warrant great acquisitions of territory, so with her allies. Under ordinary circumstances there would have been no return to the status quo ante-bellum. Why this return?
When little countries previously hereditary enemies are welded together by an outside power and the influence of this power subsequently wanes, there is an inevitable outcome. The individual cupidity and jealousies will break forth, especially when judiciously fostered as they were in this instance by the counter influence of Germany and Austria. The result is well known. Servia was jealous of Bulgaria; Bulgaria was jealous of Montenegro; Greece was jealous of the lot and Roumania, instigated by her wirepullers, would not permit any of them to have anything. But through sheer exhaustion and disgust and a stoppage of Franco-Russian money we would have had one of the finest all around throat-cutting competitions the world has ever seen. In the meantime, the mutual jealousy and inability to divide the spoil was beneficial to Turkey, who really lost nothing worth speaking about, commensurate with the reverses received.
That and the breaking up of any possible coalition or federation of Balkan States under Russian influence was just what the German-Austrian Balkan policy demanded. A broken and prostrated Turkey, a united and strong central Balkan Federation able to put a million efficient fighters in the field, probably under Russian sway, would make a vast difference to German aims and aspirations in central Europe. A million soldiers coöperating with Russia would in the event of a European war take practically the whole of the Austrian forces, leaving Germany the sole care of the Russian battalions, which would mean quite half her available fighting force, weakening her operations by that half on her Franco and lowland border. As it stands now, the Balkans eliminated for decades to come; Turkey as a potential fighting stronger today than ever, would and will be used by Germany against any possible Russian interference; and the Turkish army, three-quarters of a million strong, in conjunction with the Austrian armies provides the needed guard against Russia, joining in or making capital out of any war Germany is likely to enter into in the near future.
Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves is not known in the Balkans, but among the gay extravagant army officers of Belgrade, "Count Arthur Zu Wernigrode" is.
[X]
MY MISSION AND BETRAYAL IN ENGLAND
During 1911 my diplomatic missions piled one upon the other. Of recent years it was the most tempestuous in European cabinets. The drama that began with my mission to Monte Carlo and developed through the swift climaxes of the Moroccan affair, the secret conference between Germany, Austria and England in the Taunus, that rushed on through the intrigues that preceded the Balkan War, had now lulled, gathering its forces perhaps for the final catastrophe, the general war of all the Powers, which may come this year--or next. To be sure the terms that the English, German and Austrian ministers had agreed upon in the Black Forest were now awaiting ratification by their respective governments. Bear this in mind--"were waiting ratification"--for it explains the mission that I was called upon to undertake on November 18, 1911.
I received the usual summons to report at the Wilhelmstrasse. Instead of being brought before Count von Wedel, I was taken over to Koenigergratzerstrasse 70, to the German Admiralty Intelligence Department. Here I met my old Chief Captain Tappken, head of the naval branch of the Intelligence Department. The Captain briefly informed me that it had been deemed advisable to send me to England--unwelcome news, this, as you will see. In the usual curt yet polite manner of German officers, the Captain introduced me to three naval experts. One was a construction officer, another in the signaling department, the third, an expert on explosives and mines. One at a time they took me in hand, grooming me in the intricacies of their respective fields. It was like a rehearsal in the grooming I had received years ago when taken into the Service and trained for months. I sat for hours over diagrams with a naval officer on each side. They brought me before charts that were as big as the wall of the room. These charts gave the exact dimensions and type of every vessel in the British navy. Not only that, I was made to study the silhouettes of all the new and different types of English warships--why you will see.