In the same year began the Russo-Japanese war (1904–1905). At first glance it would seem that this conflict threatened to weaken the Entente Cordiale, for Japan was allied to Great Britain and Russia was bound up with France by the Dual Alliance. But the result was just the opposite. The Entente was not only left intact, but it was actually strengthened. When Japan defeated Russia, Great Britain ceased to fear Russian aggression in the Far East, which made it possible for her to draw nearer to the Muscovite power. At the same time, Russia, always seeking an outlet to the sea, turned her eyes with greater eagerness than ever to the Near East, which brought her into a more intense state of opposition to Austria and Germany. Delcassé seized the opportunity offered him and succeeded in bringing together these two great nations, which for many years had been continually ready to fly at one another. He put into motion the negotiations out of which was formed the Triple Entente (1907) in which Great Britain, France, and Russia announced that they had settled their differences and would stand together in future crises.
The incidents that followed the culmination of Delcassé’s diplomacy are very striking, but they must be deferred until I reach a later stage of my subject. Here it is only proper to observe that it brought the theory of the Balance of Power to its logical development. Delcassé was in a world in which one great and most efficiently armed nation stood in a position to turn suddenly on the rest of Europe and sweep it into her lap. By her military and naval power, by her vast trained army, by her readiness for instantaneous action, by her well planned strategic railroads, and by her alliances with the middle-European states she was in a threatening position. At a given signal she could seize great domains, fortify herself, and defy all the world to drive her out of what she had taken. There was hardly an intelligent German who did not believe that this course would be followed in the near future and who did not feel confident that it would make Germany the dominating nation of the world. Against this system the Triple Entente was formed, as a means of balance. It was larger than the Triple Alliance but not so effectively led.
And here I must observe that these two groups had come into existence in the most natural way. Bismarck had founded the Triple Alliance as a means of preserving peace, not as a means of aggression; but it had become something more than he intended it to be. It had enabled Germany to play such a part in European politics that the creation of another great group as a balance was apparently demanded. Immediately that her position was lowered Germany felt aggrieved that the combination had been made against her. So powerful were her convictions about her wrongs that she threw away all thought of a concert of the Great Powers for the settlement of the difficulty. She had trusted to the Balance to protect her; but she now considered it something more than a state of equilibrium and she appealed to arms. Before this narrative recounts the actual events by which she felt that she was justified in taking this step, it is necessary to consider the Balkan question, a series of causes and events which for nearly a century has been an open menace to European peace and stability.
CHAPTER VI
THE BALKAN STATES
Viscount Grey has been criticized for not understanding the Balkan problem. If his critics understood how complex is the story of the last century in this part of Europe they would withold their strictures. I, at least, do not blame any man for failing to carry in his mind an appreciation of all that the mixed mass of races and religions in the Balkan country have striven and hoped for during the recent past. In this chapter the best that can be promised is an account of the main facts of Balkan history. A more detailed narrative would be confusing to the reader. A failure to mention the subject would leave much unexplained that is essential to an understanding of the origin of the present war. And we shall hardly know how to decide what kind of a peace the future security of Europe demands, if we leave out of consideration the proper disposition to be made of the small states of the Southeast.
In 1453 Turkey took Constantinople and began a series of conquests that carried her to the very gates of the city of Vienna. That important stronghold seemed about to fall into her hands in 1683, when an army of Polish and German soldiers came to its rescue in the name of Christianity, drove off the infidels, and wrenched Hungary out of their hands for the benefit of the Austrian power. This struggle proved the highwater mark of Turkish conquest in Europe. From that time to this, wars of reconquest have followed one another, the pagans always playing a losing game. But for a long time all that part of Southeastern Europe that could be reached from the Black Sea was held by the Turks, the part that was easily reached from Germany was held by the Christians, and the part that lay between, a broad belt of hilly country, was continually in dispute. Across it armies fought back and forth, each side winning and losing in turn, but with the general result in favor of the Christians, who slowly pushed back the frontier of their enemies.
The region held by the Turks was tenacious of its Christian faith and recognized the religious authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who, Christian though he was, stood under the control of the sultan. The inhabitants suffered many hardships and were reduced to the condition of serfs under Mohammedan masters. The long bondage to their overlords had a peculiar effect on their characters. They came to think it right to use fraud, violence, and subterfuge against their oppressors, and so they employed religion and patriotism to defend the commission of acts which in ordinary situations are considered without the pale of civilized conduct. To this day the Balkan states are not rid of their heritage from these years of moral darkness.
The Balkan people, ruled long as Turkish subjects, have gradually formed themselves into five principal groups as follows: the Serbians, dwelling in the interior of the country northwest of Turkey proper and occupying much of the hinterland lying east of the Adriatic; the Bulgars, settled east of the Serbs and extending as far as the shores of the Black Sea; the Wallachians and Moldavians, who were of kindred stock and became known as Rumanians because they believed themselves the descendants of the inhabitants of the ancient Roman colony of Dacia; the Albanians living along the lower eastern shores of the Adriatic; and the Montenegrins, of the same race as the Serbians, who defended themselves so well in their mountain strongholds that they could say they had never been conquered by the Turks. Many race elements entered into these groups, but the Serbs and Montenegrins were largely Slavic, while the Bulgars were generally of a distinct race of Asiatic origin, and the Rumanians were generally Vlachs, a name given to the Latin speaking population of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Albanians seem to be of mixed stock, but they have a strong sense of nationality. These five groups correspond respectively to the five civil divisions that have emerged from the Turkish provinces, each playing its part in the modern Balkan problem.