England and Germany

by Emile Joseph Dillon

ROUMANIA AND GREECE

That Roumania would now take the field was a proposition which, after the many and emphatic assurances volunteered by her own official chiefs, was accepted almost universally. She had received considerable help from the Allies towards her military preparations. Her senators and deputies had fraternized with Italians and Frenchmen and her diplomatists had been in frequent and friendly communication with those of France, Britain and Russia. Even statesmen had allowed themselves to be persuaded by words and gestures which it now appears were meant only to be conditional assurances or social lubricants. The Serbian Premier, for instance, whose shrewdness is proverbial, exclaimed to an Italian journalist, in the second half of June: “Roumania cannot but follow the example set her by Italy. Indeed, you may telegraph to your journal that Roumania’s entry into the arena is a question of days and it may be only of hours. Of this many foretokens have come to our knowledge.”[100] But the optimists who had drawn practical conclusions from Roumanian promises and friendships lost sight of the difference between their own mentality and that of the Balkan peoples. They also failed to make due allowance for the influence of German interpenetration, the power of German gold, and the deterrent effect of German victories. And above all, they left out of consideration the really decisive question of military prospects as conditioned by strategical position and supplies of munitions.

The party of intervention, however, was still active and full of ardour. Its chief, Take Jonescu, is not merely Roumania’s only statesman, but has established a claim to rank as one of the prominent public men of the present generation. Unluckily he has long been out of office, and his party is condemned to the Cassandra rôle of uttering true prophecies which find no credence among those who wield the power of putting them to good account. M. Bratiano’s appropriate attitude may be described as statuesque. Occasionally his Press organs commented upon the manifestations of the interventionists in words barbed with bitter sarcasm and utilitarian maxims. “Roumania’s blood and money,” the Independence Roumaine explained, “must be spent only in the furtherance of Roumania’s interest.” Her cause must be dissociated from that of the belligerents. To this Take Jonescu replied[101] that it is precisely for the good of Roumania that her interest should not be separated from that of the Entente Powers in the conflict. For on the issue of this conflict depends the state-system of Europe and also the future of Roumania. If the Germans are triumphant, he added, force and falsehood will triumph with them, the State will acquire omnipotence, the individual sink into serfdom. Neutrality during a war with such issues is, therefore, the height of political unwisdom.

Greece, after Venizelos’s retirement, returned to the narrow creed and foolish pranks of her unregenerate days, sinking deeper into anarchy. More than once in her history she had been saved from her enemies and once from her friends, but from her own self there is no saviour.

As soon as the Kaiser’s paladin, King Constantine, had dismissed his pilot and taken supreme command of the Ship of State, the portals of the realm were thrown open to German machinations. The weaver in chief of these was Wilhelm’s confidential agent, Baron Schenk. According to his own published biography, this gentleman had in youth been the friend of the two sisters of Princess Battenberg, the Grand Duchess Serge and of the Russian Tsaritza. He had served in the German army, become the representative of the firm of Krupps, and been received at the German court. While Venizelos was in office, Baron Schenk flourished in the shade, but as soon as the Germanophile Gounaris took over the reins of power, the secret agent went boldly forward into the limelight and became the public chief of a party, received openly his helpmates and partisans, distributed rôles and money and set frankly to work to “smash Venizelos.”

King Constantine’s protracted and strange malady hindered the Queen, who is the Kaiser’s sister, from receiving visits. Even the wives of ministers were denied access to her Majesty. But the baron was an exception. He called on her almost every day. Cabinet Ministers consulted him. Journalists received directions, articles and bribes from him. And when the elections were coming on every venal man of influence who could damage Venizelos or help his antagonists was bought with hard cash. In order to defeat some Venizelist candidates whose return would have been particularly distressing, the Baron is said to have spent six hundred thousand francs.[102] And it is held that the results obtained by these means were well worth the money spent. For the parliamentary opposition was strong and aggressive, and some of its more active members had imbibed Hellenic patriotism from the German Schenk. They have since been toiling and moiling to disqualify Venizelos permanently from office on the ground that he is a republican, and that the destinies of monarchy would not be safe in his hands. By these means German organization, which finds work and room for kings and for poisoners, for theologians and assassins, has transformed Greece into a Prussian satrapy which avails itself of the freedom of the seas, established by the Allies, to carry on contraband to their detriment and give help and encouragement to Austrians, Bulgars and Turks. And the Turks were meanwhile extirpating the Greeks of the coast of Asia Minor.

Bulgaria’s attitude underwent no momentous change during the interval that elapsed between the outbreak of the war and the close of the first year. Symptoms of a new orientation had, it is true, often been signalled and commented, but Ferdinand of Coburg and his lieutenants remained steadfastly faithful to the policy of quiescence which had conferred more substantial benefits on Germany and Austria than could have been bestowed by the active co-operation of the whole Bulgarian army. This tremendous effect could never have been obtained if Bulgaria had entirely broken with the Powers of the Entente. It seemed as essential to its success that these should never wholly give up the hope of winning her over, as it was that her important movements should be conducive to the interests of their enemies. Hence every secret arrangement with Berlin and Vienna was emphatically denied, and every overt accord declared to be devoid of political significance.

It was thus that Europe was directed to construe the negotiations between the Sofia Cabinet and the Austro-German financial syndicate respecting the payment of an instalment of the £20,000,000 loan contracted shortly before the war. That Germany, whose financial ventures are invariably combined with political designs, would not part with her money to Bulgaria at a moment when gold is scarce, unless she were sure of an adequate political return, could not be gainsaid. And that the retention by Bulgaria of her freedom of action would be incompatible with the interests of Austria and Germany is also manifest. However this may be, the twenty millions sterling demanded by Sofia were accorded, and the legend was launched that the transaction was purely financial.

Towards the end of July[103] King Ferdinand’s ministers made another momentous move, the consequences of which cut deep into the political situation. A convention was signed in Stamboul between the Turkish and Bulgarian Governments by which the former ceded to Bulgaria the Turkish section of the Dedeagatch railway—that is to say, the whole line that runs on Turkish territory, together with the stations of Dimotika, Kulela-Burgas, and Karagatch. The new boundary ran thenceforward parallel to the river Maritza, all the territory eastward of that becoming Bulgarian.