Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

The disasters of the Turks before the armistice had an extraordinary moral effect in Germany. The new principle laid down by the friends of the victors, “The Balkans for the Balkan nations,” seemed to be accepted without much cavil by the Imperial Government and the Press. A scornful indifference towards Turkey and her misfortunes suddenly took the place of their former cordial friendliness. The Emperor, always ready to turn aside from the weak and to make advances to the strong, was one of the first to perform this interesting change of front. The Wilhelmstrasse exerted itself above all to soothe the anger of the Ballplatz and to stifle its faint cries for intervention, preaching the doctrine that Turkey should be left to her fate. I learned on good authority that when William II. took leave of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who, under colour of taking part in an Imperial shooting party, had come to Berlin to discuss the situation with him, he exclaimed, just as the train was starting: “Now remember—no silly adventures!”

The confining of the Ottoman Empire to its Asiatic possessions, with Constantinople as a bridgehead in Europe, was a solution regarded at Berlin during the whole winter, after and even before the capture of Adrianople, as eminently acceptable. The abandonment of her European provinces, which had become a serious burden on the Ottoman Treasury, would leave Turkey free to devote all her resources to exploiting her neglected domains in Anatolia and Syria, where her real wealth lay. The Crescent would shine with more dazzling radiance in the sky of Asia. The Berlin Press threw out hints of this kind to its Constantinople friends by way of consolation. Since German finance and industry had locked up vast sums of capital in the Asiatic vilayets for the building of railways and the irrigation of the adjoining land concessions, the most urgent business of the Imperial Government seemed to consist henceforth in ensuring the success of these undertakings. The directors of the Deutsche Bank, concessionaires for the Bagdad Railway, made every effort to discover means of saving the flotsam and jetsam of the Turkish wreck, and of settling the financial problems on which it was already decided a conference was to sit in Paris.

IV.

During the winter the conference of ambassadors, meeting in London and presided over by Sir Edward Grey, had revealed among the Powers a desire (universal, if varying in degree) to join hands in warding off European complications, and to put an end, as early as possible, to the Balkan struggle, by persuading the Ottoman Government to acquiesce in the sacrifices that it must make sooner or later. Their harmony set public opinion at rest. The final peace, for which the ambassadors were working so hard, seemed nearer and nearer, despite the breaking-off of the armistice and the renewal of hostilities by the Young Turks, whom a military plot had restored to power. When Dr. Daneff, the Bulgarian delegate in London, tactlessly vetoed Roumania’s demand for a rectification of frontier—the proposed Greater Bulgaria gave Roumania fears, not only for her own security, but for the Balkan balance of power—some regret was felt, but the possibility of a fresh struggle did not occur to any one. Before the end of March, however, the whole aspect of affairs had changed. A rift began to appear between the Dual Alliance and the Triplice, and the worst days of the 1911 summer seemed likely to repeat themselves. This was due, in the first place, to the sinister awakening of the Vienna Cabinet—its rage at seeing the steady advance of the Serbians and their approach to the Adriatic shores; and, secondly, to the dawn of strained relations between France and Germany after the news that their bills for military increases had already been framed.

The expulsion of the Serbians from the Adriatic and the raising of a barrier against the encroachments of Slavism and Hellenism on that seaboard was a programme by which the Berlin Cabinet hoped to reconcile the interests, almost always conflicting, of its allies. Italy, well disposed towards the Balkan States, but above all desirous of maintaining the Austro-Italian balance in the Adriatic (this had been one of the reasons for her entry into the Triplice), was not inclined to let Greece, by occupying the excellent Adriatic port of Valona, extend her maritime power along the eastern coast of that sea. Nor was she minded to help in establishing there a focus of Slav propaganda, to which the Slavonic elements of Dalmatia and Istria would have converged. The Triple Alliance craftily reasserted the principle used before as a weapon against Turkey, “The Balkans for the Balkan nations,” in order to create an independent Albania, a motley assemblage of tribes professing three distinct religions and sundered by immemorial hatreds. The new State, in conformity with an agreement between the Consulta and the Ballplatz, was to live under the twofold protection of Austria-Hungary and Italy, who would thus exercise a sort of condominium. Like other experiments of the kind, but after an even briefer interval, this joint control developed into an open rivalry.

The Vienna Cabinet, burning to avenge its diplomatic failures, and feeling assured of Berlin’s support, decided on 20th March to send a threatening note to the Montenegrins, who were on the point of capturing Scutari through the connivance of Essad Pasha, its defender. The note was followed by the appearance of an Austrian squadron off the coasts of Albania and Montenegro. It will be remembered with what a stormy display of public feeling on behalf of the Serbians and Montenegrins the news of this step was received in France and in Russia. Yet the storm was merely on the surface; neither nation was stirred to its depths. If the Paris and St. Petersburg Cabinets had been guided by a certain section of their Press, they would have found themselves on the threshold of a war at a very unfavourable juncture; for the Cabinet of St. James’s, which was then indifferent to Serbia, would not have come to their aid, and, on the other hand, they would have been confronted with the solid and formidable mass of the Triple Alliance. At Berlin, the outbreak of war seemed so likely to the Imperial Government that officers and men of the reserve were ordered to keep themselves in readiness for the call to mobilize.

Fortunately, those who conducted the policy of the Dual Alliance saw the danger ahead before it was too late. They clung to the compromise suggested at the London Conference, leaving the two Serb States nothing but the districts of Ipek, Djakovo, and Prizrend, and reserving Scutari for the future principality of Albania. In accordance with the unanimous will of the great Powers, and despite the indignant protests of some French and Russian newspapers, the King of Montenegro, at the beginning of May, consented to evacuate Scutari, where detachments of troops from the Powers were then garrisoned. On the 30th of the same month a Turko-Balkanic treaty was signed in London. Europe thought she could breathe again. She was in error: the peace was merely a makeshift.

V.

In order to prove to the Reichstag the necessity for the new army bill submitted to it on 18th March, the explanatory statement alleged the early victories of the Balkan League as the primary motive. Austria-Hungary, crippled by this new coalition, which probably had Russia at its back, could no longer give Germany sufficient aid; and the latter, with only her own strength to rely upon, would have to face her enemies on two opposite fronts.