Adventures in Journalism

by Philip Gibbs

In September of 1912 war broke out in the Balkans and, though we knew it not at the time, it was the overture to another war in which the whole world would be involved.

This seemed to be no more than a gathering of semi-civilized peoples—Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro—joined together in military alliance and by an old heritage of hatred against the Turk in Europe. Behind that combination, however, there were Great Powers, watching this affair with jealous hostility, with brooding anxiety, and with racial, dynastic, and financial interests closely touched. Russia was behind Serbia, whose hatred of Austria was equaled only by its fear that Austria might attack it in the rear when it marched against the Turks. Germany was behind the Turks, afraid of a Russian intervention. Serbia’s claim for “an open window,” on the Adriatic would not be tolerated by the Austrian Empire. The Greek claim to Crete and the dream of getting back to Asia Minor would arouse the jealousy of France and Italy. There was in this Balkan business a devil’s brew to poison the system of international relations, and behind the scenes corrupt interests of armament firms, Jewish money lenders, international financiers, were working in secret, sinister ways for great stakes.

Before war was actually declared, I set out for Serbia, on the way to Bulgaria, as “artist correspondent” of The Graphic and Daily Graphic, a title that amused me a good deal, as my artistic talent was of a most elementary kind. All I was required to do, however, was to provide the roughest sketches to be worked up by artists at home.

I was excited by this chance of becoming a war correspondent, which seemed to me the crown of journalistic ambition, and the heart of its adventure and romance. I little knew then that my squalid experience in this Balkan campaign would be but the first faint whiff of war with which, two years later, like most other men of my age, I was to become familiar in its daily routine, in the midst of its monstrous melodrama.

Provided with enough notebooks and sketchbooks to write and illustrate a history of the world, and enriched with a belt of gold which weighed heavy and chafed my waistline, I had an uneventful journey as far as the Danube below Belgrade. Then it brightened up a little. After my passports had been examined by a fat Serbian officer in a highly decorated uniform, my baggage was pounced on by a band of hairy brigands who, without paying the slightest attention to me, proceeded to fight among themselves for my bags. They shouted and cursed each other, exchanging lusty blows, and it was full twenty minutes before the victors piled my baggage into a miserable cab drawn by two starved horses, and allowed me to go, after heavy payment. My driver whipped up his bags of bones and started off on a wild career over the roads of Belgrade, that is to say, over rock-strewn quagmires and gaping pits. The carriage lurched from one side to another, with its wheels deep in the ruts, or high on piles of stones, and at times it seemed to me that only a miracle could save me from instant death.

The city of Belgrade, perched high above the Danube, with old, narrow, filthy streets within its walls, was filled with crowds of peasants mobilized for the war which had not yet been declared. Many of them had come from remote villages, and looked as if they had come from the Middle Ages. Some wore sheepskin coats with the shaggy wool inside and the skin decorated with crude paintings or garish embroideries. Others had woolen vests and a loose undergarment reaching like a kilt to their knees. Nearly all of them wore loose gaiters, worked with red stitches, or white woolen buskins. Others wore flat, oval sandals, almost as big as a tennis racquet, or shoes turned up at the toes with sharp peaks.

A wild cavalcade came riding down from the hills, like the hordes of Ghengis Khan. Their black hair was long and matted, beneath sheepskin caps or broad-brimmed hats. Pistols bristled in their red sashes, and they stood up, yelling, above saddles made of fagots tied to a piece of skin, cracking long whips, and urging on hairy little horses with rope reins and stirrups.

I had not been in Belgrade more than a few hours when I was arrested as an Austrian spy. Anxious to begin work as an “artist correspondent,” I made a rough sketch of a crowd of reservists waiting to entrain. Suddenly two soldiers fell upon me, took me prisoner, and hauled me through the streets, followed by a yelling crowd. Speaking only Serbian, they paid no heed to my protests in English, French, and German. In the police headquarters, I had the same difficulty with the commandant, who had one language and perfect conviction that I was an Austrian and a spy. After a weary time, when I thought of a white wall and a firing party, an interpreter appeared and listened to my efforts at explanation in bad German. The sketch was what alarmed them, as well it might have done, if they had any artistic sense. Finally, I was allowed to go, after a close investigation of my papers.

That night news came that the Montenegrins had fired the first shots in a war that was now certain, though still undeclared, and the streets were thronged with crowds drunk with emotion. I went to a café filled with Serbian officers, most of whom were amateur soldiers who had been professors, lawyers, doctors, and business men in civil life. They drank innumerable toasts, shouted and cheered, even wept a little.