The Guilt of William Hohenzollern/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE BALKAN CRISES
The first of the frivolous acts by which Austria endangered the peace of the world took place in the autumn of 1908, when, without any necessity, the regions administered by her for the Turks, Bosnia and Herzegovina, were annexed; a shameless breach of treaty with Turkey, and a deep injury to the national feeling of the Yugo-Slavs, who were necessarily most embittered by this treatment of the Bosnians as chattels who could at will be exchanged or carried off. The danger of a world-war became imminent, for Russia saw herself forced back in her Balkan policy without receiving any compensation. But the other European States, and especially England, also uttered the most vigorous protests against this insolent tearing-up of the Treaty of 1878. Austria must have withdrawn had not the German Empire come to her side.
This attitude of Germany's laid the foundation for the later world-war. Yet German politicians have, even during this war (though before the collapse), defended it. Prince Bülow, in his previously quoted work, “The Policy of Germany,” takes credit for his action at this crisis:
“In my speeches in the Reichstag, as well as in my instructions to our representatives abroad, I allowed no doubt to prevail that Germany was determined under all circumstances to hold with Nibelung-faith to her alliance with Austria. The German sword was flung into the scales of European judgment, directly for the sake of our Austro-Hungarian ally, indirectly for the maintenance of European peace, and first of all and above all for the prestige of Germany and her position in the world.” (Page 60.)
So these were the methods by which the old régime sought to preserve peace: it never thought of restraining its ally from frivolous provocations, but only of throwing its sword into the scales. And by this, as well as by its sanction of a breach of treaty, it believed itself to be working for the prestige of Germany before the world!
Hashagen, in his little book “Outlines of World-Policy,” which appeared in the same year as Bülow's, writes in even more enthusiastic language:
“For the confirmation of the alliance on both sides it is an inestimable advantage that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina soon gave rise to so intense an international resentment, not only against Austria, but against Germany too. It was precisely this resentment which made the bond of relation of the two allies wholly indissoluble.” (II., p. 6.)
Truly an ingenious policy, which saw, in the kindling of an intense international resentment against oneself, an inestimable advantage, for the precise reason that it bound Germany fast to the inwardly bankrupt State of Austria!
The “German sword” in 1908 and 1909 kept the peace of the world, because Russia at that time had to swallow quietly the insult levelled at Serbia, and through Serbia at itself. It was still bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the war with Japan and by the Revolution.
Serbia was on March 31st, 1909, obliged, in a humble Note, to promise better behaviour, and to abandon its protest against the annexation.
But Russia naturally did not accept final defeat in the Balkans. Serbia, in her isolation, had to retreat before Austria. Russian statecraft now succeeded in forming an alliance among the Balkan States. A federation of the Balkan peoples in one common Republic had been for years the demand of the Yugo-Slav socialists. It offered to the Balkan peoples the best conditions for maintaining their independence, both as against Turkey and Austria, as well as Russia.
Such a formation was not, of course, acceptable to Russian policy. Quite the contrary. As often before, however, Russia knew how to use for her own ends the force springing from an idea that worked along the inevitable lines of development. She formed an association not among the Balkan peoples, but among the Balkan princes, with the object of putting an end to the dominion of the Turks in Europe.
In October, 1912, war broke out between the allied States of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro against Turkey. The latter was easily defeated, and the European Powers accepted the situation with the watchword: The Balkans for the Balkan peoples.
And so, in spite of the storm brewing in the south-eastern corner, the peace of the world seemed to be maintained. But Austria now comes on the scene again and endangers it by giving the hated Serbia another kick. Serbia is obliged to relinquish the outlet on the Adriatic which it had fought for and had won.
This time it is more serious than in 1908.
Austria, like Russia, mobilizes in February, 1913. But mobilization means preparation for war, not war itself. England mediates, and Russia yields once more. Mobilization is annulled in March. Peace is preserved, but at the cost of Serbia, and, through Serbia, of her protector, Russia. Serbia must surrender her outlet on the Adriatic.
And thus a new and dangerous tension is created. Serbia endeavours to obtain compensation at the expense of Bulgaria in Macedonia. She finds allies in Greece and Rumania. Their combined forces overthrow Bulgaria and reduce her territory.
Yet this time also the peace of the world is preserved. Europe holds aloof from intervention. So it comes on August 10th, 1913, to the Peace of Bucharest. It is hoped that the Balkans will now be at peace, and that the peace of the world may be ensured for a long period—just one year before the outbreak of the world-war.
Austria, indeed, was not pleased with the Peace of Bucharest. She requested the approval of Italy for a “preventive defensive action” against Serbia. Italy nipped the idea in the bud. We may suppose, with Prince Lichnowsky, that the Marquis San Giuliano who described the plan as a “pericolosissima aventura”—a most dangerous adventure—prevented us from being entangled in a world-war in the summer of 1913. But even in Germany, Austria found on this occasion no friendly response. It must not be forgotten that a Hohenzollern reigned in Rumania. Germany was, therefore, primarily concerned to maintain the Peace of Bucharest. To this must refer the remark about “the leaning of this lofty personage (William) towards Serbia” in the memorandum handed by Tisza to the Austrian Emperor on July 1st, 1914.[1]
But the rulers of Austria would not be content. They tilted incessantly at the conditions established by the Peace of Bucharest, and at last succeeded in bringing Germany round to their side.
While the two Allies thus shaped the policy which was to end in the world-war, they succeeded most admirably in preluding it not only by alienating the sympathies of the other Governments, but also of the peoples. There were movements towards greater freedom in Croatia and in Bosnia. Austria combated them not merely with a reign of terror, but with prosecutions and with a propaganda which were not only so unscrupulous, but so ineffably stupid in their execution, that she had to submit to have it proved against her (especially in the Friedjung prosecution, 1909) that she was working with forged documents, forged, moreover, in the Austrian Embassy in Belgrade under the ægis of Count Forgach—the same man who in 1914 was to be fatally concerned in the Ultimatum to Serbia, and the unloosing of the world-war. Even worse were the “moral conquests” made in the world by Germany, in the Zabern affair of November, 1913, immediately before the world-war; an affair which showed that in the German Empire the civilian population are outlaws in relation to the military, and that the latter completely dominate the civil Government.
At the close of the previous century, the Dreyfus affair in France had shown that the French military were also capable of remarkable achievements in the way of thoughtlessness and arrogance. But this affair had ended, after a severe struggle, in the victory of the civil Government, while in Germany the result was the overthrow of the civil authority before the military.
Apart from this, the Zabern affair had the effect of tearing open in France the wound of Alsace-Lorraine, which had begun to heal. And thus Germany and Austria went into the world-war, loaded before all the world with the reputation of falsehood, forgery, violence, the dictatorship of the sword, the denial of civil rights to the annexed provinces.
- ↑ “Austrian Red Book on the Events that led up to the War,” 1919, I., p. 18.