The Austro-Hungarian representative in Bucharest must have heaved a sigh of relief when it became clear that Rumania’s participation in the Conference would be restricted to land-grabbing in the Dobruja.[18] Silistria and a district from which one of the best Bulgarian infantry regiments drew its recruits were claimed, and eventually annexed, by Rumania. No great extent of territory this, but enough to hurt.
The French and British press, skimming lightly on the surface of the Conference, dealt with personalities in preference to principles. M. Venizelos was their favourite delegate, and held that position to the end. Success in any walk of life is profitable; success in rebellion is the shortest road to fame. M. Venizelos had begun his career as a Cretan rebel. In 1913 he shared with King Constantine the honours of two victorious campaigns in Macedonia, and was credited with the resurrection of the old Hellenic spirit. At Bucharest this remarkable man was in a difficult position; his sole rival in the affections of the Greek people was his sovereign, to whom he owed the allegiance of a subject and with whom his personal relations were far from cordial. The considered judgments of M. Venizelos favoured concessions to Bulgaria in regard to Cavalla and its hinterland; to any such suggestions the King replied with a categorical refusal. Fearful of forfeiting popularity by any act which would diminish the aggrandizements of Greece, M. Venizelos was perpetually balancing between his conception of Balkan statesmanship and concern for his own reputation. Eventually, the latter gained the day. Cavalla was retained by Greece and another bone of contention was created between Greeks and Bulgars. The presence of Servian and Turkish delegates at Bucharest was purely formal. Like the daughters of the horse-leech, their cry was—give; to have given them more than what they had already taken would have brought on another war, and no one was prepared for that. Servia’s retention of Monastir was sanctioned, the Turks remained at Adrianople. The Bulgars, crestfallen and daunted for a time, retained a part of Thrace, including Dede Agatch and Porto Lagos; they were alone and friendless; the sympathies of Russia, the one-time liberator, had been estranged. They turned their eyes, reluctantly, towards the Central Empires and nursed a fell revenge.
In due course, the Treaty of Bucharest was signed by the contracting parties. It has never been officially recognized by the Great Powers, yet by many it is accepted as a basis for future readjustments in the Balkan Peninsula. Fallacies are of rapid growth, they none the less die hard. The negotiations had been, in fact, a diplomatic duel between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the first clash between two mighty movements—the “Drang nach Osten”[19] and Pan-Slavism. Austria-Hungary had won. The new frontiers were a triumph for her diplomacy. Servia, though victorious, was enclosed as in a net; on the East an irreconcilable Bulgaria; on the West, Albania torn by internal discord, and fast becoming an outpost of the Central Empires; on the South Greece, where German influence was daily gaining ground. Killed by its authors, the Balkan “Bloc” was dead. A new element had been introduced into the balance of power in Europe. Servia and Bulgaria were doubtful States no longer, they were in opposite camps, and, when the lassitude caused by two cruel wars had passed, they could be set at each other’s throats again to fight for interests not their own.
Great Britain had held aloof from the proceedings of the Conference. Our Minister in Bucharest had received instructions to take neither part nor lot in the negotiations; if called upon for an opinion he was to endorse that of his Russian colleague. If the British Government had any Balkan policy at all it was, apparently, a Russian policy, a vicarious partnership, an acquiescence in the pernicious doctrine that two wrongs may make a right.
A gaping wound had been made in Europe’s side, the surgeons had met together at Bucharest, and fearing to probe had sewn it up with clumsy stitches. Wounds are not healed by surgery such as this, not only do they open up again, their poison spreads, attains some vital organ, and causes death. Good surgery needs knowledge, foresight, courage, the power and will to act. The men, who from ignorance or inertia neglected and dallied with the Balkan problem, were scarcely less guilty than the criminals who, of set purpose, made a peace which sowed the seeds of war.
During the summer of 1913 a spell of intense heat occurred in the fertile plains of the Danube valley. In every village dirt and insanitary conditions encouraged flies, winged insects swarmed by night and day, revelling in filth and carrying disease. The Rumanian peasants who had marched into Bulgaria had been attacked by a more deadly enemy than the Bulgarian hosts—the cholera microbe pursued them to their homes; the malady assumed an epidemic form and raged at first unchecked.
To some it seemed an act of retribution for an unrighteous peace, a manifestation of stern justice, dubbed divine, although its victims were the innocent and weak. The rich escaped by fleeing to hill stations or the sea, the poor, perforce, remained and died by hundreds, their families were decimated, their fields were left untilled, a blight had fallen on this pleasant land.
In her hour of trial Rumania discovered an unexpected source of strength and consolation. Calamity had called, and from her castle in the mountains an English Princess came, leaving the fragrant coolness of the woods for stifling heat and misery in myriad shape, down in the sun-scorched plain. In every cholera camp her white-clad form was seen moving from tent to tent, bringing the tonic of her beauty, restoring hope, dealing out pity with a lavish hand. To humble folk weighed down by suffering, it was as though an angel passed, and memories cluster still around those days, weaving a web of gratitude and loving kindness, a web to outward seeming, frail and unsubstantial, but unbreakable, surviving all the shocks of war, binding the people to their Queen.
I returned to London through Sofia and Belgrade. After the festivities of Bucharest the aspect of both these Capitals was sad indeed. Victor and vanquished alike were reaping the aftermath of war; bedraggled soldiers thronged the streets, no longer saviours, not even heroes, merely idle citizens, useless until demobilized.
From Belgrade my duties called me to Vienna. As the train crossed the railway bridge to Semlin, I saw again the guns and searchlights on the Save’s Hungarian bank. Austria-Hungary had not yet decided on her course of action, but she was ready. The Balkan Allies of 1912, like rabbits unconscious of the presence of hungry pythons, had had their frolic. Now, they had paused for breath and had time to think. No longer Allies, they were helpless. Victims, not wholly innocent, they would crouch and wait; already it seemed as if a Python-State had stirred.