England and Germany

by Emile Joseph Dillon

After several weeks’ negotiations, and a thorough study of the question, an agreement was struck up between the Imperial Russian Bank and the Banque de France, by which the latter institution placed at the disposal of the former the requisite sum in francs which was specially earmarked for the payment of Russia’s private debts in Paris.

The fall in the rouble was partly caused by the diminution of Russian exports, in consequence of the closing of the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the land routes via Germany and Austria. The whole harvest of 1914 lay garnered up in the Tsar’s dominions, where prices fell to a low level, while the rouble lost one-fourth of its value. Russia’s interest on her foreign debt was thus increased by twenty-five per cent. The Western allies, on the other hand, were paying huge sums for corn to neutrals. As in the long run all Entente Powers will have to bear their share of eventual losses, it behoved them to prevent or moderate them. And this they accomplished to a limited extent. It might have been well to go further into the matter and consider the advisability of entering into closer partnership than was established by their concerted efforts in Paris. An economic league with privileges for importation and exportation accorded to all its members—and only to these—not merely during the war but for a series of years after the conclusion of peace, might perhaps have tended to solve that and kindred problems. But the Allied Governments were constitutionally averse to taking long views or adopting comprehensive measures.

But the reopening of the Dardanelles and the liberation of Russia’s corn supplies called for immediate attention and a concrete plan of campaign. The idea of rigging out a naval and military expedition had been mooted in London before the Financial Conference in Paris, but on grounds which do not yet constitute materials for public history it was dropped. At the Conference the scheme was again taken up, and the previous objections to its execution having been successfully met it was unanimously accepted. It is worth observing that the original plan, so far as the present writer was cognizant of it, was coherent, adequate and feasible, and involved co-ordination on the part of all three Allies. It did not contemplate a purely naval expedition to the Dardanelles, but provided for a mixed force of land and sea troops, of which the number was considerable and under the conditions then prevalent might also have been ample for the purpose. Although the Allies had thus made what they believed to be adequate provision for the success of their project, they took measures to render assurance doubly sure. They entered into pourparlers with Greece, from whose co-operation they anticipated advantages which would tell with decisive force not only on the outcome of the expedition but also on the upshot of the war.

Venizelos was approached and sounded on the subject. His authority in his country, like that of Bismarck on the eve of his fall, was held to be supreme. For he had saved Greece from anarchy and the dynasty from banishment; he had reorganized the army, strengthened the navy, established good government at home, extended the boundaries of the realm and laid the foundations of a regenerate State which might in time reunite under the royal sceptre most of the scattered elements of Hellenism. His personal relations with King Constantine were, however, understood to be wanting in cordiality, but the monarch was credited with sufficient acumen to perceive where the interests of his dynasty and country lay, and with common sense enough to allow them to be safeguarded and furthered. It was on these unsifted assumptions that the Governments of the allied Powers went to work.

One redoubtable obstacle to be dislodged before any headway could be made was Bulgaria’s opposition. In order to displace it, it would be necessary to acquiesce in her demands for territory possessed by her neighbours. And in view of the intimate relations, political and economical, which the military empires had established with Bulgaria and their firm hold over Ferdinand, even this retrocession might prove inadequate for the purpose. According to a binding arrangement between Serbia and Greece, no territorial concession running counter to the settlement of the Bucharest Treaty might be accorded to Bulgaria by either of the two contracting States, without the consent of the other. And now Venizelos was asked to signify his assent to the abandonment by Serbia of a part of the Macedonian province recently annexed. This point gained, he was further solicited to cede Kavalla and some 2000 square kilometres of territory incorporated with Greece, to Bulgaria, in return for the future possession of 140,000 square kilometres in western Asia Minor. It was stipulated by him and hastily taken for granted by the Governments of the Allied States that these concessions, together with those which Serbia and Roumania were expected to make, would move Bulgaria to follow Russia’s lead and enter the arena by the side of the Allies. But before Venizelos’s readiness to compromise could be utilized as a practical element of the negotiations, the Bulgarian Cabinet had applied for and received an advance of 150 million francs from the two Central empires on conditions which, in the judgment of the Greek Premier, rendered further dealings with that State nugatory.

At the same time King Constantine, yielding to German importunity and to personal emotions, adopted a series of measures of which the effect would have been to discredit in the eyes of the nation Venizelos’s patriotism as a minister and his veracity as an individual. The upshot of these machinations was the voluntary retirement of the Premier from public life, the dissolution of the Greek Parliament, the accession to power of a Germanophile Cabinet, and the frustration of that part of the Allies’ plan which had for its object the immediate co-operation of Greece and the subsequent enlistment of the neighbouring Balkan States. As yet, however, Greece was not wholly lost to the Entente. Another opportunity presented itself which, had it been seized by the Governments of Great Britain and France, might yet have altered the course of Balkan history. But the acceptable offer in which it was embodied by the Hellenic Government elicited no response whatever in London or Paris. This was the last hope. Thenceforward the Allies were constrained to rely upon their own unaided exertions.

How they approached the problem thus modified, and to what degree and in consequence of what technical occurrences the achievement fell short of reasonable expectations, are matters which do not come within the scope of this summary narrative of historic events. It may suffice to contrast the belief, which in March 1915 was widespread—that the Dardanelles would be forced and Constantinople captured in the space of four or five weeks—with the circumstance that since then the British troops alone had nearly a hundred thousand casualties and that in the month of January 1916 it became evident that nothing could be gained by further prolonging this painful effort, and the enterprise was abandoned.

In spite of Turkey’s hostility, the tone of the Allied Press lost little of its buoyancy. Japan, who had declared war on Germany in August,[78] had since captured Kiao Chau[79]] and that achievement coupled with the results of four months’ warfare in Europe were held to be promising. For Germany’s original plan of campaign had been foiled, her army driven back from Paris, and Austria had been defeated in Galicia. If on the debit side of the balance nearly all Belgium and nine departments of France had fallen into the enemy’s hands, it was some solace to learn that the military authorities of the Allies had reckoned with all that from the outset. Every reverse sustained by their arms turned out to have been foreseen and discounted by their sagacious leaders. Then, again, it was argued that time was on our side, enabling us to develop our resources, which are much vaster than those of the enemy. To this way of looking at the situation the writer of these lines opposed another. “There is,” he wrote, “a small section of the nation, men conversant with the aims, modes of thought, and military, financial, and economic resources of the enemy, whose gloomy forecasts in the past have been unhappily fulfilled in the present, and who would gladly see more conclusive evidence than has yet been offered that everything which can be done at a given moment to turn the scale more decisively in our favour is being expeditiously undertaken by the responsible authorities.

“They are afraid that the gravity of the issues for which we are fighting, the telling initial advantages secured by the wily enemy, the formidable nature of the difficulties in the way of decisive victory, and the tremendous sacrifices which we shall all be called upon to make before we come in sight of the goal, have not yet filtered down into the consciousness of any considerable section of the people.” Many months later[80] Mr. Lloyd George re-echoed that judgment when dealing with the Welsh miners’ strike.

But optimism continued to prevail among the allied peoples, who through the Press proclaimed their conviction that ultimate and complete success was a foregone conclusion. At the same time, however, an eager desire to hasten this consummation found vent among a considerable section of politicians, more particularly in France. And one of the means by which they hoped to attain their goal was by inviting Japan to co-operate with the Allies in Europe. As “invitation” was the term employed, the peculiar manner in which the idea was conceived hardly needs definition. To the Japanese themselves the inference was patent and distasteful. Theretofore it had been a dogma that France, Britain and Russia, being quite capable of crushing Germany and Austria, neither attempted nor wished to draw any neutral or Asiatic nation into the sanguinary maelstrom of war. And even now it was held to be undignified to swerve from that doctrine. Help therefore, it was contended, was not indispensable to victory, it was merely desirable from the humanitarian standpoint of putting an early end to the campaign and sparing the lives of millions.