It is by such devices that the German Government is wont to launch into war. The mentality whence they spring cannot be discarded in a year or a generation, nor will any Peace Treaty, however ingeniously worded, prevent recourse being had to them in the future. For this, among other reasons, more trustworthy guarantees than scraps of paper must be sought and found.
CHAPTER IX
GERMAN PROPAGANDA IN SCANDINAVIA
The same breadth of vision and efficacy of treatment were similarly rewarded in the Scandinavian countries, where German propaganda, ever resourceful and many-sided, was facilitated by kinship of race, language, folklore and literature. Of the three kingdoms Sweden, the strongest, was also the most impressible owing to the further bond of fellowship supplied by a common object of distrust – the Russian empire. Suspicion and dislike of the Tsardom had been long and successfully inculcated by the German Press, from which Sweden received her supply of daily news, and also, as is usual in such cases, by prominent natives who, in obedience to motives to which history is indifferent, employed their influence to spread suspicion. Sven Hedin rendered invaluable services in this way to the Kaiser and the Fatherland, throwing the glamour of his name over a movement of which the ultimate tendency was national suicide. Under the auspices of a prussophile minority of Swedish politicians, a few of whom were supposed to favour the establishment of an absolute monarchy like that of Prussia, a clever campaign against the Tsardom was inaugurated. Falsehoods were concocted, imaginary dangers conjured up and described as real, and sinister Russian designs against the independence of Sweden and Norway were invoked as motives for energetic action. In vain the Tsar’s Government protested its friendship for Sweden and disproved the poisonous calumnies circulated by the Germans.
In the discovery and arrest of a number of Russian military spies, who were as active in Sweden as in other lands, and whose relations with the Tsar’s Military Attaché in Stockholm were said to be proven, these agitators found the few solid facts that served them as the groundwork of their fabric of suspicion and calumny.
The results of this propaganda answered the expectations of its German and Swedish organizers. Despite the quieting assurances given by the ex-Premier, the late Karl Staaff and M. Branting, Sweden’s two foremost statesmen, the present population was thoroughly alarmed. They spontaneously taxed themselves for new warships, insisted that a non-recurring war-tax identical with that of Germany should be imposed by the State, and many called for the immediate adhesion of Sweden to the Triple Alliance.
One of the fixed points of Russia’s policy, the Swedish agitators told their fellow-countrymen, is the acquisition of an ice-free port which can be utilized in winter. The Baltic ports do not answer this requirement, not only because they freeze in the cold season, but also, and especially, because the narrow Sound can be easily blocked by a hostile Power and Russia’s ships bottled up in the Baltic. Hence the persevering efforts she made at first to get possession of the Dardanelles and obtain free access to the Mediterranean in war-time. More than once she was on the very point of achieving success there, but lack of enterprise on the part of her statesmen or a sudden adverse change in the political conjuncture foiled this scheme, the realization of which was put off indefinitely. The Persian Gulf was the next object of her designs, but there, too, she encountered a diplomatic defeat. The third goal lay in the Far East, where a new Russian empire governed by a Viceroy and possessed of a promising capital, was founded with every prospect of good fortune. But here, again, defective statesmanship was followed by failure, and the campaign against Japan closed the Far Eastern chapter for a long while. Whither, it was asked, can Russia turn now? Recent events, M. Sven Hedin assured his countrymen, have already answered the query. Northwards. The great Slav Empire covets an ice-free harbour in Norway, and until this war broke out was busily engaged in compassing its end. At any future moment it may again start off on this enterprise. It is the duty of patriotic Swedes to thwart this nefarious project.
A Norwegian port, it is freely admitted, would not fulfil all Russia’s requirements. It would, for instance, leave much to be desired from an economic point of view. The resources of the hinterland would be too scanty. The cost of transport would be too heavy. But strategically it would answer the purpose admirably. Now this conquest would not be achieved without invading and annexing a portion of North Sweden as well. For it would be impossible to keep and utilize such an acquisition without a hinterland containing factories, workshops, wharves, docks, stores and a fairly numerous population which, in turn, would require corn, cattle, timber, etc. Is it credible, asked M. Sven Hedin, that the southern boundary of this back-land could be drawn further northwards than to the north of Ångermanland, Jämtland and Drontheim? At bottom, then, it is the annexation of a vast slice of Sweden proper that Russia has in view. Perhaps the first route of the Russian army would lie on the eastern bank of the rivers Torne-älf and Muonio-älf and lead to the Lyngen Fjord. How long would it stop there? Step by step it would move along the coast southwards to Drontheim. Then Norrland would be surrounded on three sides by Russians. “Later on they would tighten the noose and strangle our country. Are we to remain inactive during the course of events?.. The Swede in general is aware of the existence of this danger and knows that it may come upon him at any moment as a reality.”
In verity, no normal individual, acquainted with the political condition of Europe, can be said to know that the peril of a Russian invasion of Sweden exists or existed of late years. As a matter of fact, he knows that the contradictory proposition is true.
The symptoms of Russia’s alleged designs on Norway and Sweden are as fantastic as the sweeping statements by which they are heralded. One of them was the order issued by the Russian Government to build a railway bridge over the Neva in Petrograd in order to link the Finnish railway with all the other stations which are situated on the opposite bank of that river, as though the Russian capital should be the only one in Europe without a girdle railway and Finland the sole section of the empire cut off from all the rest! Another of these “infallible tokens” of Russia’s machinations were the measures adopted to render the Finnish railways, and, in particular, the Oesterbotten line, capable of transporting Russian military trains, by enlarging the stations, strengthening the bridges and rails, and other kindred expedients. Further, a number of new lines were considered necessary from a strategic point of view, one connecting Petersburg with Wasa via Hiitola, Nyslott and Iyväskylä. Barracks were built or ordered in Fredrikshamn, Kouvala, Lahtis and other Finnish towns, or railway centres. All these precautions, however, are not only explicable without the theory that Sweden and Norway are to be invaded, but they ought to have been adopted long ago, say unprejudiced military authorities, in the interests of Russia’s home defence. Yet M. Sven Hedin concluded his argument with the words: “When it has been further established that the transport of Russian troops to Finland has greatly increased – and it is affirmed that there are already about 85,000 soldiers there – and when we also bear in mind that for many years past Sweden and likewise Norway have been visited by so-called knife-grinders53 from Russia, no doubt can remain. Russia is making ready for an onslaught on the Northern kingdoms.”
But long before Sven Hedin and his friends had begun their campaign, the ground had been prepared from Berlin, the work of interpenetration had made great headway, and Germany was regarded by Sweden as an elder sister. For the economic invasion preceded the political. Statistics of foreign trade reveal the Teuton as the exporter to that country of over forty per cent. of the entire quantity of merchandise entering from abroad.54
Switzerland, whose position as a neutral oasis encircled by belligerents is fraught with difficulty, has long been treated as hardly more than an adjunct of the German empire, and many of the best Swiss writers, far from resenting this affront, welcome it as a compliment. Just as Americans occasionally write about “the King” when alluding to the British Sovereign, so the Swiss often fall into the way of describing the operations of “our army,” “our cause,” when alluding to the Kaiser’s troops and German designs.
Several times during the progress of the war the conduct of Swiss organizations and individuals towards the two groups of belligerents aroused grounded misgivings in the minds of the French, British and Italians who asked only for the observance of strict neutrality. One remarkable instance of the pro-German leanings complained of was the absolute and persistent refusal of the Swiss to submit to reasonable restrictions respecting the sale to Germany and Austria of goods exported to Switzerland by the allied countries. This refusal was all the more significant that it came after the secret acquiescence in the more stringent limitations which had been imposed on them by the Germans. Thus two wholly different sets of weights and measures would appear to have been employed by the spokesmen of the little Republic in their dealings with the two groups of warring Powers. And it was always Germany who obtained preferential treatment.
This bias springs from causes which are stable and deep-rooted. The bulk of the Swiss people are frankly pro-German in their sympathies and their military chiefs side with the Teuton on most of those questions of principle which form the line of cleavage between him and the allied peoples. That the end justifies the means, is one of those axioms which the authorities of the Swiss Republic appear to have endorsed without hesitation. In the month of March 1916 two Swiss Colonels, Egli and de Wattenwyl, were tried on two charges which, if proved, would, it was somewhat hastily assumed, bring down severe retribution on their heads. It was alleged that they had communicated to the German military authorities important telegraphic messages intercepted on their way from the Allies. But the evidence adduced was deemed insufficient to bear out this indictment. The other charge was that they had regularly handed on the confidential bulletin of the Swiss General Staff to the military attachés of the Central Empires in Berne and only to them. And the count was proven to the satisfaction of the tribunal. Now this act admittedly constituted a breach of neutrality. Yet the Chief of the Swiss General Staff, Colonel Sprecher, defended the accused men on the singular ground that their action – that is to say, a grave breach of neutrality to the detriment of the allied nations – was excusable because of the end in view, which was to gain in exchange useful information for the Intelligence Department of the War Office. This plea is based on the German military principle that the means are hallowed by the end.
It is some satisfaction, however, to note that in the Romande cantons of the Republic a series of protests have been made against the spirit of Prussian military amorality which, as the pleadings and the acquittal of the two officers showed, permeates the military circles of that little State whose very existence depends on its neutrality.
Kultur is widely diffused throughout the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. The German Universities of the Republic are regarded and treated as Universities of the Fatherland and their professors interchanged. And when we further reflect that Germany exports to Switzerland goods to the value of 680,870,000 francs as against 347,985,000 exported by France, who stands second on the list, that German Universities and those of German Switzerland elect their professors indiscriminately from among candidates of both countries, and that German is spoken in Switzerland by more than 2,500,000 inhabitants as against 796,244 who use French – one cannot affect surprise at much that called for comment before the war and provoked mild deprecation throughout its first phase.
CHAPTER X
GERMANY AND THE BALKANS
For two decades the Balkan States and Turkey had been objects of Germany’s especial solicitude. And with reason. For the part allotted to them in the plan for teutonizing Europe was of the utmost moment. The high road from Berlin to the Near East passed through Budapest and the Balkans. And Austria, as the pioneer of German Kultur there, kept her gaze fixed and her efforts concentrated on Salonica. Bulgaria’s goodwill had been acquired through Ferdinand of Coburg, himself an Austro-Hungarian officer, and was maintained by Austria’s energetic championship of Bulgaria’s claims against Serbia. Counts Aehrenthal and Berchtold destined Bulgaria and Roumania to coalesce and form the nucleus of a permanent Balkan confederation to be patronized and protected by the Habsburgs.
But circumstance thwarted the design. And after the Balkan League had done its work and Turkey’s grasp on Europe had relaxed, Bulgaria, in the person of Ferdinand, was brought to undo what without her lead could not then have been achieved, to fall foul of her allies and smash the coalition.
This incitement was unwelcome to many of Bulgaria’s trusty leaders, who, much though they might grudge Serbia’s successes and rapid growth, were of opinion that Bulgaria would be ill-advised to break her connection with the Slav cause. But the leaders unexpectedly found that they were being led, and led away from the natural friends of Bulgaria by the German prince who had caused the death of Bulgaria’s greatest statesman and made no secret of his contempt for the Bulgarian people generally. Ferdinand, assuming autocratic power, rendered this inestimable service to the Teutons and fastened the Bulgarian State to the Central Empires.
At some time before the outbreak of the war Ferdinand had struck up a compact with the Central Empires which bound Bulgaria to follow their lead. This he did at his own risk and on his own responsibility. I had grounds for believing in the existence of some such covenant a considerable time before the storm burst, but I had no tangible proof of it. In July 1914, however, I knew it for certain, but without having ascertained the particulars. When and by whom it had been signed, and what were the main stipulations agreed upon, still remained in the domain of speculation. I discovered, however, that Bulgaria’s hands were tied; that her mourning for lost Macedonia would not last long; that the aims she pursued were the policy of the outlet on four seas, and the territorial separation of Greece and Serbia; that her rôle in the Peninsula was to be predominant; that she had been chosen to supplant Serbia as the leading Balkan State, and would pay tribute to the Central Empires in the shape of docility to and ready co-operation with them; and that Roumania would, if she continued to find favour in the eyes of the statesmen of Vienna and Berlin, be associated with Bulgaria, but without attaining her rank or acquiring her power.
It has since been positively asserted by M. Filipescu, an ex-Cabinet Minister of Roumania, that “towards the mid-August 1914, when the treaty was concluded which bound Bulgaria to Germany, the Roumanian Minister in Berlin, M. Beldiman, had cognizance of this treaty and apprised the Roumanian Government of the fact.”55 M. Take Jonescu, the illustrious Roumanian statesman, has assigned a different date to the conclusion of the agreement, but confirmed the fact of its existence in the course of a conversation which has also been made public.[2] He stated that the King of Bulgaria, “who is swayed more by personal rancour than by the interests of his people, imposed his policy on them. He allied himself with the Germans as long ago as Spring 1914. The treaty was taken from Sofia to Berlin by an official of the Deutsche Bank.”56
Whatever doubts may prevail respecting the exact date, the main fact is established – Ferdinand bound Bulgaria to the Central Empires.
Personal interest as well as State reasons determined him to place himself under Austro-German protection. It was at Austria’s instigation that he had spurned the advice of his official advisers, treacherously attacked his allies and brought down defeat upon his armies and discredit upon himself. But the Habsburg Government had undertaken to see him through the ordeal to which he was then subjected by his own people. The Treaty of Bucharest, which deprived Bulgaria of Kavalla and Salonica, left the wound to fester and Austro-Bulgarian friendship to harden into a definite alliance. None the less Bulgaria’s friendship with the Central Empires was not openly manifested until the financial transaction was concluded between them which made Bulgaria the creditor of Austria-Hungary shortly before the outbreak of the war.
Economically, Bulgaria, like her neighbours, had long been a tributary of the Central Empires. German and Austrian interests were cunningly intertwined with Bulgarian in almost every branch of national life. The banks, financial houses, export firms, are all under Austrian or German control. In the army, too, despite its Russian training and traditions, there was a party of officers whose admiration for the war-lord ran away with their discretion. And the celebrated loan of half a milliard francs, which Austrian financiers undertook to advance to Bulgaria – on outrageously oppressive conditions – set the crown to the work of many years. This transaction was not intended by either party to be purely financial. Its political bearings were evidenced by the circumstances in which it was negotiated and the terms on which it was concluded. But the economic concessions insisted upon by Austria and conceded by Bulgaria constituted of themselves a convincing proof of the design to reduce the latter country to the position of one of the dependents of the Central Empires.
Of all the recognized agencies for penetrating international opinion, swaying international sentiment, and influencing international action, one of the most abiding and decisive is that of royal courts. Yet its value was not merely underrated by Britain, France and Russia, but was completely ignored. And Germany, whose diplomacy, in spite of its clumsiness and brutality, was far-sighted and assiduous in watching for and utilizing every opportunity of smoothing the way for the execution of the grandiose plan, purveyed almost every court and throne in Europe with kings, queens and princesses of its own. And those who were neither Germans by birth nor connected with Germans by marriage were influenced by education, by military training, or at least by a system of atmosphering which, with certain striking examples before one, could be reduced to a few clear rules.
Roumania at the opening of the war was governed by a Hohenzollern prince who had linked the destinies of his country with those of Austria-Hungary as far back as the year 1880, and, having renewed the secret convention in 1913, which for him was no mere scrap of paper, convoked a crown council in August 1914 and proposed that Roumania should redeem his pledge and take the field against the enemies of the Central Empires. But King Carol’s military ardour was not merely damped but choked by a recalcitrant cabinet.
That monarch’s influence as a pioneer of Teuton Kultur in Roumania can hardly be exaggerated. An upright ruler, who discharged his duties conscientiously, the King reckoned among these the dissipation of native gloom by means of German light. And during his long reign he succeeded in spreading a network of German economic interests throughout his realm which, while raising the material level of the nation, has reduced it to the position of a German tributary. It would be unjust to make this a subject of reproach to the monarch who acted up to his lights, but it would be a mistake to belittle the vast services thus rendered by a single individual to the Teuton race, or to overlook the degree of responsibility that attaches to the nations now banded together, and in especial to Russia, for the sequence of untoward phenomena which, now that they are not only seen, but felt, and felt painfully, we naïvely deplore.
King Carol’s successor is also a Hohenzollern prince whose attachment to his Prussian fatherland is noted, whose relations with his kinsman, the Kaiser, are cordial, but whose devotion to his subjects is paramount. More than once since the opening of the campaign Roumania was believed to be on the point of exchanging neutrality for belligerency, but, on grounds which it would be unfruitful to discuss, she abandoned the intention, if she ever harboured it. As matters now are, the Allies are congratulating themselves on the circumstance that she is still neutral.
The Queen of Sweden is a daughter of the most imperialistic of German princes, the late Grand Duke of Baden and a cousin of the Kaiser, to whom she is attached by bonds of sympathy and admiration. And her consort the King, fascinated by the methods, the strivings, the achievements of the Hohenzollerns, has made more than one attempt to imitate them, but, owing partly to the opposition of the late Herr Staaff, and largely to his own mental and moral equipment, which point in a different direction, he felt obliged to desist.
The accomplished Queen of the Belgians and the Tsaritsa of Russia are also both German princesses, but they form exceptions to the rule that whichever of any two spouses is German exercises an overmastering influence on the other. The Prince Consort of Holland, the Duke of Mecklenburg, is a German of the Germans, but through constitutional channels he can wield no political influence, and the attitude of the Dutch Government towards the Allies has been clear enough to need no elaborate exegesis.
The King of Bulgaria is an ex-officer of the Austro-Hungarian army, whose pro-German work and its far-resonant results will probably never be wholly forgotten by his own German people. For, as we saw, it has rendered them services that cannot be repaid. Not, indeed, that he had any coherent plan in his mind’s eye, or was guided by any deep-seated moral principles. Politics were for him the art of the possible enlarged by the negation of the ethical. Ferdinand may, therefore, be described as an opportunist, who in current politics contented himself with following his nose. Of treaties and conventions he had signed a goodly number and broken some. Thus with Russia he had a secret agreement of a military nature, and also with Russia’s rival, Austria-Hungary. With Serbia he had one set of stipulations, with Turkey another, but, shifty customer that he is, he had set himself above them all and was ever ready to follow the lead of personal interest. What the historian will accentuate is the deftness with which German diplomacy, for all its alleged clumsiness, contrived to use his defects and his qualities alike for the furtherance of its own designs.
Love of country, like religious faith, is a respectable mainspring of action. But Ferdinand has been credited with neither. Whithersoever he moves one looks in vain for the guiding light of large ideas. Deeper than conscious volition lies the stored-up instinct of barren pettifogging egotism to which a fine moral atmosphere is deadly. Insincerity is second nature to him. He once boasted in my presence that he was a born actor, and it is fair to say that he played his rôles – repellent for the most part – as behoves a mummer. The astonishing thing is that he should have got influential politicians to take him seriously. While assuring the French deputy, M. Joseph Reinach, of his attachment to France and signing himself the European, he was writing to Professor Walter of Budapest offering “all the sympathies of the Bulgarian nation” to Hungary.57 I have read ecstatic communications of his penned in hours of exaltation, when visions of Constantine’s city, the mosque of Aya Sofia towering aloft, warmed his fancy and the sheen of Byzantine brocades and the quaint paraphernalia of bygone days inspired his apocalyptic words. His language in those telegrams and letters was highfaluting and bombastic. And I read other communications of his – mostly abject appeals for help – devoid of dignity and manliness, when the gloom of dissipated illusions was made unbearable by fear of dethronement and death. And the figure cut by the Tsarlet, who addressed those humble prayers – mostly to influential ladies – was despicable.
Ferdinand was swayed by ingrained hatred of Russia which was almost as potent as his contempt for the Bulgars. And he never made a secret of either. For the Turkish pasha who was responsible for the Bulgarian atrocities, which aroused Gladstone’s indignation, Ferdinand’s professed admiration took the form of a subscription.58 But high above all motives that turned upon his feelings towards others were those that centred entirely in himself.
And he had cogent personal motives for cultivating cordial relations with the country of his birth. From the Austrian Government he expected to be saved from the necessity of abdicating and expiating his unwisdom. It was his inordinate ambition and vanity which had brought the Bulgarian nation to the very brink of ruin. He it was who had insisted on breaking off negotiations with Turkey during the London Conference and recommencing hostilities. In vain the Chief of the General Staff, Fitcheff,59 besought him to conclude peace. The importunate military adviser was suddenly relieved of his duties and the second phase of the Balkan war begun. It was Ferdinand, too, who thwarted Russia’s peace-making efforts, refused to send delegates to the tribunal of arbitration in Petrograd, and ordered the treacherous attack on the Serbs and the Greeks which culminated in Bulgaria’s forfeiting some of the principal fruits of her heroic military exertions.
For this series of baleful blunders – to the Bulgars they were nothing more – Ferdinand was known to be alone responsible. He had assumed the sole responsibility, and he had hoped to gather in the lion’s share of the spoils. And as soon as responsibility seemed likely to involve punishment, his Ministers withdrew and exposed his person to the nation. When, after the end of the second Balkan war, General Savoff repaired to Constantinople to better the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey, he invited a number of French and British journalists who happened to be just then in the capital, and he addressed them as follows: “It has come to my ears that in Sofia I am accused of being the person who issued the order to our army to attack our Allies and that I am to be tried for it. They will never dare to prosecute me. For I have here – ” and he thumped his side pocket as he spoke – “the order issued by the real author of the war and in his own handwriting. He commanded me orally to do this, but I replied that I must have a written order from the Government. Thereupon he shouted: ‘I am the supreme chief of the army and am about to give you the order in writing,’ indited the behest and handed it to me. That is why he cannot prosecute me. I will show him up. Already now I tell you, so that all may hear, C’est un coquin, un misérable!”60
That was General Savoff’s summing-up of his august sovereign. And his forecast proved correct. Ferdinand did not attempt to lay the blame on him, still less to have an indictment filed against him. On the contrary, he kissed Savoff on his return to Sofia and later on made him his adjutant-general. Ferdinand’s responsibility being established, his abdication was clamoured for by public opinion. His own estimate of his plight was impregnated with despair. He despatched the abject telegrams mentioned above to his influential friends. It was then that he received a letter signed by the three chiefs of the Liberal groups of the old Stambulovist Party – Radoslavoff, Ghennadieff and Tontcheff – and written, it has been alleged, after consultation between all four parties, exhorting him to reverse the national policy and link Bulgaria’s fate with that of Austria. The Coburg prince publicly welcomed them, dismissed the Daneff Cabinet, handed the reins of power to the three self-constituted saviours of the dynasty and country, and the Treaty of Bucharest was signed in an offhand manner. The keynote of the policy of the new Cabinet was hatred of Russia, who was held up to public opprobrium by the press of Sofia as the mischief-maker who had betrayed Bulgaria; and as the nation thirsted for a culprit on whom to vent its rage, the legend obtained a certain vogue. At the same time emphatic assurances were given by Count Berchtold that Austria would upset the Treaty of Bucharest, break down the Serbian and Greek barriers that stood between Bulgaria and her natural boundaries, and establish Ferdinand and his dynasty more firmly on the throne. This prospect heartened the King and stimulated his fellow-workers.
But perhaps the most decisive factor in Bulgaria’s attitude towards the Central Powers has been that of Russia towards Bulgaria. The Tsardom cherishes tender feelings towards the political entity which it called into being. Bulgaria is the creature of the great Slav people which shed its blood and spent its treasure in giving it life and viability, and has ever since felt bound to watch over its destinies, forgive its foolish freaks, and contribute to its political and material well-being. Congruously with this frame of mind, Russia has not the heart to deal with Bulgaria as she would deal under similar provocation with Roumania or Greece. Like the baby cripple, or the profligate son, this wayward little nation ever remains the spoiled child. Hence, do what harm she may to Russia, she is not merely immune from the natural consequences of her unfriendly acts, but certain to reap fruits ripened by the sacrifices of those whose policy she strove to baulk. Conscious of this immense privilege, she takes the fullest advantage of it. Under such conditions no stable coalition of the Balkan States was possible.