Kitabı oku: «The Lost Fruits of Waterloo», sayfa 6

A fair warning of this kind of danger occurred in 1908. For twenty-three years Bulgaria had remained undisturbed, giving herself to a rapid process of educational and industrial development, in both of which lines she had come under the influence of German methods. Suddenly she threw off her nominal Turkish sovereignty and declared herself an entirely independent state. At the same time, and evidently by agreement with the German Empire, Austria-Hungary announced that she would hold Bosnia-Herzegovina as an integral part of her empire, thus superseding the “occupation” that was authorized by the congress of Berlin, in 1878. Serbia took the matter as a great injury, but she could do nothing alone. Her natural ally was Russia, then recovering from the severe losses of the war against Japan. Had the tsar been ready for war it is doubtful if he would have drawn the sword in this instance; for a world war would have resulted, and the nations were not yet ready to think of such an undertaking. But Serbia nursed her wrongs and to Russia the sense of her shame grew as she thought how her weakness had been flaunted in the face of the world. The day came when the fire could no longer be smothered.

To understand Serbia’s feelings we must recall the national ideal by which her hopes had been formed for many years. Most of the people of Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Novi-Bazar, and the northwestern corner of Macedonia were Serbs by blood. To unite them into a great Serbia had long been spoken of in Serbia as the “Great Idea.” When, therefore, Austria took definite possession of Bosnia-Herzegovina the “Great Idea” seemed defeated forever. Rage and despair possessed the Serbs wherever they lived, patriotic societies voiced the feeling of the people, and vengeance was plotted. Probably it was the feeling that this wide-spread hatred should be uprooted in the most thorough manner that prompted Austria to make the heavy conditions that were demanded as atonement for the crime of Sarajevo.

After Austria took the fateful step of 1908 Turkey still held the territory just north of the Bosphorus, organized as the province of Adrianople. She also had in Europe the provinces of Macedonia, Albania, and the sanjak of Novi-Bazar. To drive her out of these possessions was the object of the Balkan states. In 1911 Italy began a war against the sultan to gain Tripoli. The Balkan States seeing their enemy embarrassed, concluded that the hour of fate had come. They formed the Balkan League, made up of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and made ready for war. Their action alarmed the Great Powers, who brought the Concert of Europe to bear against the League. They gave the allies fair notice that they would not permit them to take any of the sultan’s territory in Europe, even though a war was won against him. The reply to this threat shows how weak the Concert had become. It was voiced by Montenegro, the smallest of the states, whose king immediately declared war and called on his allies to aid him in driving the pagan out of Europe. The call was accepted gladly and an ultimatum was sent to the sultan, who, relying on the promise of the Powers, defied his opponents.

In the war that followed Turkey was confronted by a united army of nearly a million men. It was impossible to withstand them and in two months most of Macedonia was lost, Constantinople was threatened, and Turkey asked for an armistice. Negotiations began in London, the Powers seemingly forgetting their empty threat that they “would not permit at the end of the conflict any modification of the territorial status quo in European Turkey.” The allies demanded hard terms which seemed about to be accepted by Turkey when by a coup d’état the “Young Turks,” a patriotic party of reformers, got possession of the government at Constantinople and resumed the fighting. Although they fought well, they could not withstand the large numbers that were against them. Janina fell to the Greeks, Adrianople was taken by a Serbo-Bulgarian force, and Scutari was taken by the Montenegrins. The Turks now yielded definitely and negotiations for peace were resumed.

Behind the diplomatic proceedings was the following interesting situation: Austria-Hungary was dismayed at the prospect of having a strong and permanent league organized in the Balkans; for it would probably make it impossible for her to realize her desire to extend her territory in that direction. She was especially unwilling to allow Serbia and Montenegro to hold the conquered shore of the Adriatic, since it was here that she designed to gain additional outlets to the seas. Italy at the same time was alarmed at the extension of Serbian power, since she, also, did not relish the prospect of having a strong state on the eastern side of the sea. It was with unexpected short-sightedness, however, that she was willing to block Serbia in order to promote the schemes of Austria, a far more formidable rival in that quarter, if she were ever firmly established there. Both states, therefore, appeared at London to limit the expansion of Serbia, and Germany supported them, seemingly on the principle that she was merely standing by the members of the Triple Alliance. It has been supposed that she expected that Ferdinand, heir-apparent of Austria, when he came to rule, would promote a vital union of the two great Mid-Continental empires. If we accept this theory, we must conclude that she had a still more vital reason for wishing Austria to have a large Adriatic coast-line, with important commercial harbors.

These considerations ran exactly counter to Serbia’s hopes in Albania. She had already occupied the Albanian port of Durazzo and expected to make it the center of a fair commercial life. When ordered to withdraw she did not dare refuse; but it was a great humiliation to her to cut off the possibility of her future growth. For a second time Austria had given her a vital blow, and there was another wrong to be remembered by those Serbians who were inclined to remember. By the decree of the Powers Albania was made an autonomous state under Turkish suzerainty, and later on a German prince was appointed to rule it.

While these affairs were being discussed Montenegro besieged Scutari, in northern Albania and continued operation until the place was taken, notwithstanding the purpose of the Powers was well known. Her courageous conduct won the admiration of lovers of brave men everywhere. Eight days after the capture of Scutari, Austria announced that she would enter the war if the place was not evacuated, and Italy and Germany declared they would support her. Throughout all Slavic countries arose a cry of indignation. In Russia especially it was loud and bitter; and it seemed that a great war was about to begin when King Nicholas, of Montenegro, gave the world the assurance of peace by withdrawing his army from Scutari.

Then came that unhappy turn of affairs by which the Balkan League was dissolved and the hope disappeared that a strong power would arise which would take the Near East out of the position of pawn for the greed of the Great Powers. Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria had made an ante-bellum agreement for the disposal of the territory they would take from Turkey, and the first was to have a large part of Albania. Denied this region she asked her allies to make a new allotment. Bulgaria raised strong objection, since the new demand, if granted, would mean that her gains would be smaller than was first agreed. Angry speeches led to war, and after a sharp struggle Bulgaria was beaten and forced to make peace without honor. While they were locked in the conflict Turkey seized the opportunity to recover Adrianople, and eventually held it. It illustrates the sordid nature of some of the Balkan states that Rumania entered this war for purely predatory purposes. She had remained neutral during the common effort to drive the Turk out; but now that Bulgaria was marching to sure defeat she came into the battle against her, and at the end of the war she demanded and was given a large part of Bulgarian territory. The “July War,” as this stage of the Balkan conflict is called, left the allies filled with bitter hatred for one another, and Bulgaria, weakened as she was, felt little inclined to lean on any of her immediate neighbors. She was ripe for the reception of Teutonic offers of friendship, and the result was soon seen of all men.

I have thus followed the complex story of the Balkan States to the year 1913. Through a century of war and intrigue Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Greece, and the small state of Montenegro had emerged from the Christian lands over which the Turks had ruled. Russia and Austria had taken small portions of those lands and had definite plans to secure influence over larger portions. In the Balkans Russian prestige was great, but if a state feared it she was apt to look to Austria, or to Germany – which was the same thing – as a means of balancing against Russia. At the same time it was known that Russia was planning to construct strategic lines of railroad leading to the Black Sea along the western border of her empire, and this was considered an ominous sign for the future. Altogether, the “tinder-box” was ready for ignition.

As to Turkey, her fortunes shrank steadily. At the end of the Balkan War she retained only 1,900,000 subjects in Europe, inhabitants of the district around Adrianople. She was becoming a distinctly Asiatic power, and the sultan must have felt that his hold on Constantinople was precarious. At the same time, as we shall see later on, Great Britain had secured a foothold on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and Russia was extending her influence in Persia, two threats from the eastward. Any far sighted Turk could see that his country was in danger of being crushed in a vise of foreign aggression. To which of the great states should Turkey turn for that protection which had long been her safety? Not to Russia, whose ambition was for Constantinople itself, nor to Great Britain, who seemed to desire the Euphrates Valley, and who was safely established in Egypt. In her extremity she listened to the suggestions of German wooers, who promised industrial development, railroads, and financial aid. Here was laid the foundation of Turko-German sympathy which was to be very important in the Great War.

After a calamity has occurred it is easy to point out the course by which it might have been avoided. It seems certain that if we stood again where the world stood in 1914 we should not do what we did in 1914. So we can see in what respects the events of the Balkan history went wrong. But the men who settled the crises of the past were not able to see what we see. They had the same blindness for the future that we have for that which lies before us now. They fumbled their problems as most men fumble problems, as we shall, perhaps, go on fumbling until the end of time. It is asking much to expect that statesmen shall be as wise as we who review their deeds.

But there are great facts in history which it is possible to know and use with profit. One of them is the incompetency of the principle of the Concert of Europe to deal with a situation like that we have reviewed in the Balkans. Concert predicates a group of satisfied great states, without over-reaching ambitions, who are willing to unite their efforts to restrain small states, or even one large state, from a course which shall force the rest of the world into conflict. When a group of great states have united to carry out a certain policy, and another tries to restrain the first group, concert is in great danger of breaking down. That was the situation in the Balkans. These states were drawn into the whirl of general European politics, and they intensified its velocity at one particular corner, so that what may be contemplated as a harmonious rotary movement broke into a twisting tornado. If, when the present war is over, the nations of the world undertake to go on under the old system, trusting to concert as the means of avoiding war, there is no reason to expect that the future will be less turbulent than the past.

CHAPTER VII
GERMAN IDEALS AND ORGANIZATION

When wars begin between nations we usually see the leaders of thought on each side busy developing distrust among their own citizens for the people against whom they are fighting. In accordance with this fact, the people of the United States have read a great deal since August, 1914, to make them think very unkindly of Germany.

This chapter is not a plea for the Germans, and I agree that they did unnecessarily cruel and impossible things in Belgium. It is not to be denied that they played a most unwise part in the war game, when they tried to steal a march on France by invading through Belgium, a thing they were pledged not to do. It pays to keep faith; and when a nation does not keep faith other nations have no recourse but to treat it as if it were a pirate. If they do otherwise, the whole game will become a pirate’s game, and good faith will disappear from international relations. If Germany may violate Belgium at will, why may she not violate Switzerland, Holland, or any other state that stands in her way; and who would not expect her to do it, if no powers faced her that were willing and able to dispute her will?

It is not improbable that German leaders understood this as well as we who now pass it under review. They must have made their calculations on arousing the opposition of the world and proceeded with the expectation that they would gain so much by their sweep through forbidden Belgium that they could defy the world. And if things had gone well for them, the calculation would have been well made. For if Germany had carried France off her feet and placed her in a position to offer no further menace during the next ten years, and if she had dealt a similar blow to Russia, what power could have checked her in the future decade? By glancing at the situation in Europe today we may see how an intrenched Germany defies the united and unwhipped world. How much more might she not have had her way, if the thrust through Belgium had succeeded!

Let us suppose that the game of bad faith had proved successful as planned, what would have been the result? Probably Great Britain would have wakened slowly to her peril, but her position was such that she could have done nothing. Her fleet would have been useless against an enemy that rules on land. Her army could not have met the combined Teutonic armies, and she would have had no allies. Meanwhile, Germany and Austria at their leisure could have digested the Balkans and drawing Turkey into their net could have established a “Mittel-Europa” that would have left the rest of the world at their mercy. These were alluring stakes to play for, and it is not hard to see how a nation whose leaders have thrown aside the homely motto that “Righteousness exalteth a nation” would be willing to take a chance in order to obtain them.

When we think of such things as these we are in danger of concluding that they represent the real Germany. We look back to that Germany of the past which we saw in our youth, whose music we have heard all our lives, whose Goethe we have read, whose scholarship we have built upon, and whose toys have amused us and our children through many decades and ask ourselves whether or not we were mistaken in our ideas of Germany. Are there two Germanies, and if so, which is the true Germany? Probably the answer is that each is the real Germany manifesting herself in different moods. Fundamentally we have an intense and emotional people, swayed in one instance by artistic emotions, in another by the love of exact research for facts, in another by the feeling of domesticity, and in still another by the powerful impulse of a great national egoism. They are a people who can love much, hate much, play much, sacrifice much, and serve well when called into service. In their war-maddened mood they have stained a fair reputation, and they are now trying to think that the stain will not matter if they can only fight through to victory. But nations are like men in this that however successful one may become personally he never gets to be so great that he can afford to carry a tarnished reputation.

Let us turn to the Germany of old and see if we cannot observe the process by which she came to her present state of mind. While I realize that it is absolutely necessary for the world to crush her attempt to rule Europe, I cannot find it in my heart to hate her. She has risen to such a state of efficiency in social organization and in the capacity to spread the light of civilization that she commands respect from thinking foes. It is the duty of the world to chasten the spirit of arrogance out of her, but to leave her sound and able to deal with the future in that way in which she is so well fitted to play a strong and beneficial part. If ever a great people needed the discipline of disaster to teach them that nations, like men, should do to others as they wish others to do to them, that nation is the Germany of today. To understand in what way this splendid state has run away from its past we shall have to glance at its history in the recent past.

For a point of departure let us take the Seven Years’ War. This struggle was the result of the ambition of young Frederick, a strong and unethical king of Prussia. When he came to the throne he found that a parsimonious father had left him a full treasury, an excellent army, and a united kingdom, while fate had sent the neighboring state Austria, a young woman for ruler and an army that was not formidable. It was a favorable opportunity to seize Silesia, which Prussia considered necessary to her welfare, and to which she had the flimsiest pretense of right. The rapacity of Frederick, her king, cannot be justified on moral grounds, and it threw Europe into commotions for which nearly a quarter of a century was needed for settlement. The last phase of this quarter-of-a-century was the Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763. By the time it began Frederick of Prussia was looked upon by his neighbors as a menace to Europe; and Austria, France, and Russia united to crush him. He had a friend in Great Britain, who was generally found among the foes of France. In the great war he waged through seven years he fought off foes first on one side and then on the other until the war ended at last with Prussia still unconquered.

If hard and valiant fighting and solicitude for the welfare of his country could redeem the error of the invasion of Silesia the Seven Years’ War would relieve Frederick, whom posterity calls “Frederick the Great,” of all odium on account of the thoughtless way in which he began his wars. Unlike the present kaiser, he began a long reign rashly and ended it wisely. Administrative reforms and a policy of peace with his neighbors made his last years a period of happiness for Prussia.

But Silesia fixed a firm hold on the Prussian imagination. Long justified as an act necessary to the safety of the Fatherland, and therefore permissible, it has given sanction for the idea that wrong may be done that good shall result, if only the state is to be benefitted. It is a false doctrine, and it can do nothing but lead to wars. Nations are under the same obligations to do right as individuals.

The next phase of German history which has interest for us in connection with this study is that which lies between the years 1806 and 1813. It was a period of deep humiliation at the hands of Napoleon. The small states were huddled together in a Confederation which was, in fact, a tool of the Emperor of France, and Prussia lay like a trembling and crushed thing in his hand. No living man who hates Germany for the deeds of the present war could wish her a worse fate than Napoleon inflicted on her after the battle of Jena in 1806. He insulted the king, burdened the people with requisitions, and limited their armies. It was the acme of national shame for the nation that is now so strong.

The cause of these woes was the lack of organization, and perhaps Napoleon did the nation a service when he beat the Prussians into a realization of it. No nation is so poor that it has not reformers who see in what way its evils may be corrected. In the days that preceded the calamities of which I speak Prussia had her prophets crying to deaf men. Misfortune opened the ears of the rulers so that the prophets might be heard. Reforms were adopted out of which has grown the Germany of today. They all looked toward the unification of national energy, whatever its form; but they are expressed in three notable ways: universal military service, the correction of waste energy in civil life, and the inculcation of the spirit of obedience to authority. On these principles chiefly a new Germany was built.

We have said a great deal recently about crushing the German military system. Probably we do not know just what we mean in saying this. At least, it was not always our habit to decry the system. Many a time we have spoken with admiration of the reforms of Scharnhorst, of the glory of Leipzig and of the services of Blücher at Waterloo. If we stop to think we shall see that our real objection is the purpose for which the German military system has been used. And it seems that if it is to be broken into pieces it must be opposed with a stronger system built on a similar plan.

The next period that expresses Germany’s peculiar spirit is the era of Bismarck, 1862 to 1890. It was the time of the cult of iron. Bismarck was the “Iron Chancellor,” the nation offered its enemies “blood and iron.” Iron cannon, iron words, and iron laws became the ideals of the people. Statesmen, historians, poets, editors, professors, and all other patriots began to worship according to the rite of the new cult. And iron entered into the blood of the Germans.

To carry out Bismarck’s policy it was necessary to break down a promising liberal movement that seemed on the point of giving Prussia responsible government. It was his faith that a united Germany must hew her way into the position of great power in Europe, and in order to have a state that could do this there must be a strong central authority, able to direct all the resources of the state to the desired end. The large number of small nobles had long ago formed the celebrated Junker autocracy, a body with like ideals. He gave their restless energy a more definite political and military object, and made them take places as parts of his great state machine.

He had his reward. In 1866 he fought a decisive war against Prussia’s old enemy, Austria, and won it so quickly that even the Prussians were astonished. In 1870–1871 he threw the state against France in a war that left the land of Napoleon as completely at his feet as Prussia had been at the feet of the Corsican. And then in the moment of exultation over the victory he founded the German empire by uniting with Prussia the numerous smaller German states. There is much to support the suggestion that a similar stroke is held in reserve to create a Mittel-Europa of Germany and Austria-Hungary as a final glory of the present war, if Germany shows herself able to carry off the victory.

Bismarck’s ambition for Germany was to hold a position of arbiter in Continental affairs. He felt that this was the best way to make his country safe from hostile combinations, and it met his ideal of the dignity to which Germany ought to attain. He achieved his desire in the Three Emperors’ League and the Triple Alliance. Predominance in influence was the height of his ambition. The conquest of new lands, and the support of industry and trade by a policy of territorial expansion, were not within his plans. He was a man of an older generation to whom a predominance among the Great Powers was better than chasing the rainbow of world empire.

In 1888 died Wilhelm I, the king whom Bismarck made Emperor. He was an honest man who loved the simple and sound Germany in which he was reared. At this time the leading men of 1871 were passing from power and a group was coming on the scene who were young men in the intoxicating times of Sedan and Metz. A new emperor came to the throne, possessing great energy and the capacity of forming vast plans. He was eleven years old when the empire was proclaimed at Versailles, the age at which ordinary boys begin to wake from the dreams of childhood. From such dreams Wilhelm II passed to dreams of imperial glory. The idea of bigness of authority that he thus formed has remained with him to this day. Add the effects of an impulsive disposition and an unusual amount of confidence in himself and you will account for the peculiar gloss spread over a character that is strong and otherwise wholesome.

Early in his reign he gave ground for alarm by several acts that are hardly to be described in a less severe word than “bumptious.” He dismissed Bismarck from the Chancellorship, seemingly for no other reason than that he wished a chancellor who would be more obedient to the imperial will, and he uttered many sentiments which caused sober men to wonder what kind of emperor he was going to be. But as the years passed it was noticed that all his aberrations fell short of disaster, and as he was very energetic and devoted to efficiency in civil and military matters the world came at last to regard him with real esteem.

When the present war began the kaiser became its leader, as was his duty and privilege. Opinion in hostile countries pronounced him the agent responsible for its outbreak. Around his striking personality have collected many stories of dark complexion. At this time it is not possible to test their accuracy, but it is safe to say that many of them are chiefly assumption. On the other hand, it is undoubted that he is now a firm friend of the military party, and that he supports the autocracy in its purpose to carry the war to the bitter end. He has been a diligent war lord and he has shown a willingness to share the sacrifices of the people. Stories of apparent reliability that have come out of Germany in recent months imply that he has steadily gained in popularity during the conflict, while most of the other members of his family have lost.

If it is important to clear thinking to see the kaiser in an impartial light, it is equally necessary to understand the German Kultur. This term is used in Germany to indicate the mass of ideas and habits of thought of a people. It applies to art and industry, to religion and war, to whatever the human mind directs. From the German’s standpoint we have a Kultur of our own. We have no corresponding term, nor concept, and we cannot realize all he means in using the term if we do not put ourselves in his place. Now it is true that the German has won great success in intellectual ways. Scholarship, scientific invention, the application of art to industry, and well planned efficiency in social organization are his in a large degree. He is proud of his achievements; and when the war began he felt that it was the German mission to give this Kultur to other peoples. From his standpoint, a Germanized world would be a world made happy. It was an honest opinion, and it went far to support his desire for expansion.

The Germans are a docile people with respect to their superiors, and this trait is a condition of their Kultur. It is traditional in Germany for the peasant to obey his lord, the lord to obey his over-lord, and the over-lord to obey his ruler. To the kaiser look all the people in a sense which no citizen of the United States can understand without using a fair amount of imagination. The lords and over-lords constitute the Junkers, who in the modern military system make up the officer class. A high sense of authority runs through the whole population, the upper classes knowing how to give orders and the lower classes knowing how to take them.

Before the battle of Jena, 1806, the Prussian army was made up of peasants forced to serve under the nobles, who took the offices. Townsmen were excluded from the army. The peasant’s forced service lasted twenty years. The system was as inefficient as it was unequal, and a commission was appointed to reform it. The result was the modern system of universal service, put into complete operation in 1813. After a hundred years it is possible to see some of the effects of the system on the ideals of the people. It has taught them to work together in their places, formed habits of promptness and cleanliness, and lessened the provincialism of the lower classes. It has been a great training school in nationalism, preserving the love of country and instilling in the minds of the masses a warm devotion to the military traditions of the nation.

It has also produced results of a questionable value. By fostering the military spirit it has developed a desire for war, on the same principle that a boy in possession of a sharp hatchet has a strong impulse to hack away at his neighbor’s shrubbery. It is probable that the temptation to use a great and superior army was a vital fact in bringing on the present war. Furthermore, the wide-spread habit of docility leaves a people without self-assertion and enables their rulers to impose upon them. As to the influence of universal service in promoting militarism, that has been frequently mentioned.

On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that not all states that have had universal military training have been saddled with these evils. France, for example, has had universal training without becoming obsessed with the passion for war and without the loss of popular individualism. It seems well to say that universal training itself does not produce the evils sometimes attributed to it. In Germany, at least, it seems that it was the purpose for which the army existed, and not the army itself, that developed militarism and brought other unhappy effects.