Bukarest had, for the moment anyhow, lost interest; my work there was completed, and a telegram from London instructed me to proceed to Belgrade. The trains via Budapest being overcrowded, I decided on the Danube route, and left by the night train for Orsova, in company with a number of journalists and business men from all parts of Rumania. We reached the port of the Iron Gate before dawn, and found a Hungarian steamer waiting; soon after daybreak we were heading up stream.
Behind us lay the Iron Gate, its gloom as yet unconquered by the sunrise; on our left the mountains of North-Eastern Servia rose like a rampart; on our right the foothills of the Carpathians terminated abruptly at the river’s edge; in front the Danube shimmered with soft and ever-changing lights; a stillness reigned which no one cared to break, even the crew spoke low, like pious travellers before a shrine. War’s alarms seemed infinitely distant from those glistening waters set in an amphitheatre of hills.
“How can man, being happy, still keep his happy hour?” The pageant of dawn and river and mountain faded as the sun rose higher; dim outlines became hard and sharp; the Iron Gate, surmounted by eddying wisps of mist, looked like a giant cauldron. The pass broadened with our westward progress revealing the plain of Southern Hungary, low hills replaced the mountains on the Servian bank. A bell rang as we stopped at a small river port, it announced breakfast and reminded us, incidentally, that stuffy smells are inseparable from human activities, even on the Danube, and within sight of the blue mountains of Transylvania.
My travelling companions were mainly British and French, with a sprinkling of Austrians and Italians. To all of them the latest development in the Balkan situation was of absorbing interest, and they discussed it incessantly from every point of view. Their attitude, as I learnt later, was typical, not one of them had failed to foresee everything that had happened; in the case of the more mysterious mannered, one had a vague impression that they had planned the whole business, and were awaiting results like rival trainers of racehorses on the eve of a great race. These citizens of the Great Powers were, in their commerce with the Balkan peoples, a curious mixture of patron and partisan. The right to patronize was, in their opinion, conferred by the fact of belonging to a big country; the partisan spirit had been developed after a short residence in the Peninsula. This spirit was perhaps based on genuine good will and sincere sympathy, but it certainly was not wholly disinterested. There was no reason why it should have been. No man can, simultaneously, be a good citizen of two countries; he will nearly always make money in one and spend it in the other. Patriotism is made to cover a multitude of sins, and, where money is being made, the acid test of political professions is their effect on business.
Listening to the conversation on the steamer I was astonished by the vivacity with which these self-appointed champions urged and disputed the territorial claims of each Balkan State in turn. Remote historical precedents were dragged in to justify the most extravagant extension of territory, secret treaties were hinted at which would change the nationality of millions of peasants, and whole campaigns were mapped out with a knowledge of geography which, to any one fresh from official circles in London, was amazing.
From breakfast on, the babel of voices continued, and it was curious to note how the different nationalities grouped themselves. The British were, almost to a man, pro-Bulgar, they wanted Bulgaria to have the greater part of Macedonia and Thrace, some of them even claimed Constantinople and Salonika for their protégés; they were on the whole optimistic as to the success of the Allies. The French and Italians urged the claims of Servia, Greece and Rumania in Macedonia; in regard to Albania the French were in favour of dividing that country between Servia and Greece, but this latter suggestion provoked vehement protests from the Italians. The three Austrians hardly joined in the discussion at all, one of them remarked that he agreed with the writer of the leading article in the Neue Freie Presse of a few days back, who compared the Balkan Peninsula to a certain suburb of Berlin, where there was one bank too many, and where, as a consequence, all banks suffered. In the Balkan Peninsula, according to this writer, there was one country too many, and a settled state of affairs was impossible until one of them had been eliminated; he didn’t say which.
I asked whether a definite partition of the territory to be conquered was not laid down in the Treaty of Alliance. No one knew or, at least, no one cared to say. There seemed to be a general feeling that Treaties didn’t matter. The journalists were in a seventh heaven of satisfaction at the prospect of unlimited copy for several months to come; the business men expected to increase their business if all went well. On that Danube steamer the war of 1912 was popular, the future might be uncertain, but it was full of pleasant possibilities.
I thought of London and remembered conversations there three weeks before the declaration of war. The general opinion might have been summarized as follows: The Bulgars were a hardy, frugal race, rather like the Scotch, and, therefore, sympathetic; they were ruled over by a king called Ferdinand, who was too clever to be quite respectable. As for Servia, the British conscience had, of course, been deeply shocked by the murder of the late King, and the Servian Government had been stood in the diplomatic corner for some years, but the crime had been more or less expiated by its dramatic elements and the fact that it had taught everybody a little geography. King Nicholas of Montenegro was a picturesque figure and had an amiable habit of distributing decorations. In regard to Greece, there were dynastic reasons why we should be well disposed towards the descendants of the men who fought at Marathon, not to mention the presence in our midst of financial magnates with unmistakably Greek names. Lastly, the Turks. In London, in 1912, these people enjoyed considerable popularity; they were considered the only gentlemen in the Balkans, the upper-class ones of course. Admittedly Turkish administration was corrupt and the Turks had a distressing habit of cutting down trees everywhere, but their most serious defect was that they were a little sticky about affording facilities for Western enterprise. This latter consideration was considered really important. Matters would improve, it was thought, after some changes had been made in the Consular Service.