Greece, like Rumania, is also racially isolated. She fears Russia for the same reason that Bulgaria does; Greece is determined that Constantinople shall one day be hers. And she fears Austria because Austria's pathway would even take Saloniki from her. And finally she fears Italy because Italy has ambitions in Asia Minor and Albania. All the belligerents seem to be treading on the toes of Greece.
It will be seen, therefore, that the diplomatic game was an especially delicate one in the Balkans. Being comparatively weak, these small states cannot fight alone for themselves. Their selfish ambitions, or of their governing cliques rather, make a combination impossible. Their only chance is to bargain with the winner at the right moment.
During the first half year of the war there was very little for the Balkan diplomats to do but lie low and watch; watch for the first signs of weakening of either the Allies or the Teutons. To be sure, Turkey threw in her lot with the Teutons during this period, but German control of the Turkish machinery of government and the army appears to have been so strong that it seems doubtful whether Turkish initiative was much of a factor in the move.
One of the first moves by the Teutonic Powers through Austria-Hungary was the attempted invasion of Serbia, by which they hoped to eliminate her from the field and also to swing the other Balkan States, especially Bulgaria, over to their side. And had Austria succeeded in penetrating the peninsula through Serbia, there can hardly be any doubt that the effect would have been immediate.
But the invasion by Austria, attempted three times, was an abject failure. At the end of five months a whole Austrian army corps had been annihilated by the Serbians and the rest of the huge invading armies had been driven back across the Danube and Save. Following close upon this came the extraordinary success of the Russians in Bukowina and in the Carpathians, which placed Hungary in immediate danger of being invaded. The cause of the Allies began to look promising and the machinery of Balkan diplomacy began slowly to revolve.
Meanwhile the principal efforts of the Entente statesmen had been directed toward effecting a reconciliation between Bulgaria and the other Balkan States which, she maintained, had robbed her of Macedonia. Indeed, it may well be said that the Treaty of Bucharest, whereby the Macedonian Bulgars were largely handed over to Serbia, and Greece was, and continued to be, the main stumbling block in the path of the Allies to bring Bulgaria around to a union with Serbia and Greece and Rumania, for Rumania had also picked Bulgaria's pockets while she was down, by taking a strip of territory at the mouth of the Danube. In this she had not even had the excuse of reclaiming her own people, for here were none but pure Bulgarians.
In January, 1915, Rumania began to show signs of shaping a definite policy that might later lead her to taking sides. Her King, Carol, a Hohenzollern by blood, had died shortly after the war and his nephew, Ferdinand, ascended the throne on October 11, 1914. Possibly he may have had something to do with the change. At any rate, though Rumania had previously accepted financial assistance from Austria, in January she received a loan of several millions from Great Britain, most of which was spent on the army, then partly mobilized.
At the same time negotiations of a tentative nature were opened by the Foreign Office with Russia offering to throw the Rumanian troops into the conflict on the side of the Allies for a certain consideration. This consideration was that she receive Bukowina, part of the province of Banat, and certain sections of Bessarabia populated by Rumanians, The Allies considered these demands extortionate, and the negotiations were protracted. When the Austrians and Germans, later in the spring, succeeded in driving the Russians out of the Carpathians, Rumania hastily dropped these negotiations and seated herself more firmly on top of the fence. And so, under the guidance of Bratiano, her prime minister, she has continued throughout the whole year, listening to proposals, first from one side, then from the other, but always carefully maintaining her neutral position.
Bulgaria had, at about the same time, accepted a loan from Germany. Attempts were made at the time to explain away the political significance of the transaction by representing the advance as an installment of a loan the terms of which had been arranged before the beginning of the war, but the essential fact was that the cash came from Germany at a time when she was herself calling in all the gold of her people into the Imperial treasury.
Bulgaria now plainly let it be understood under what conditions she would join a union of the Balkan neutrals against the Teutonic Powers. Her premier, Radoslavov, head of the Bulgarian Liberal Party, whose policy has always been anti-Russian, is one of the most astute politicians in the Balkans, and this description is equally true of King Ferdinand as a monarch. These two stated definitely Bulgaria's price; that part of Macedonia which was to have been allowed to her by the agreement which bound her to Serbia and Greece during the first Balkan War; the Valley of the Struma, including the port of Kavalla, that part of Thrace which she herself had taken from Turkey, and the southern Dobruja, the whole of the territory Rumania had filched from her while her back was turned during the two Balkan wars.