THE REAL CAUSE OF THE WAR. BY LUCIEN WOLF


Who made the war? It is, perhaps, a little
early, and otherwise untimely, to enter upon a purely historical inquiry of this nature, and I would willingly have left it to a more con
templative period, were it not that it has been posed by our excellent Ambassador in St. Peters
burg, Sir George Buchanan. In his New Year’s address to the local British colony he casually mentioned that the blame of the Balkan war had been “ laid at the door of diplomacy, ” and this he proceeded to characterise as hardly fair. ” In his view the real cause was “ racial passion, ” which when once aroused is as difficult to control as the forces of nature which burst out in some volcanic eruption. ” Here we have one of those magniloquent red herrings which always prove so comforting to nervous persons who
dislike and deprecate the search for responsibility. With every deference to Sir George Buchanan, I venture to say that racial passion had much less to do with the outbreak of the war than diplomacy, and that the diplomacy chiefly to blame had its headquarters not many stone-throws from his own official residence. If he wants to know the truth let him ask M. Sazonoff for a glimpse of the documents relating to the negotiation of the Balkan Alliance which Caused M. Poincare so much astonishment and concern when they were shown to him in St. Petersburg some three months ago. He will there find that racial passion was an instrument rather than the cause of the war, and that the primary cause was the Balkan Alliance,
which was exclusively the achievement of Russian diplomacy. Of course, it may be said that the Alliance was con
structed without any thought of using it for the purposes of an aggressive war against Turkey; but, unfortunately, this is not true.
The deadlock between Turkey and
Bulgaria on the question of Adrianople reminds one of a certain famous quarrel between France and Spain.
“ My cousin, the King of France, and I, ” said his Majesty of Spain, are entirely in agreement in regard to the Italian marches, for he wants them and so do I. ” In the case of Turkey and
Bulgaria the agreement is even closer,
for not only do both of them want Adrianople, but they want it for precisely the same reasons. Each
wants a strategic frontier, and each is convinced that Adrianople will best supply its needs in this respect. I confess that my sympathies are wholly
with the Turks, for their need is much greater than that of the Bulgars, and it is a need which, in a sense, is not of their seeking. They are allowed to retain Constantinople, not for their own benefit, and not because it is essential to the solution of the Eastern Question, but purely and simply because the Balkan Allies and the Great Powers cannot agree upon an alternative. Consequently,
in retaining possession of Constantinople they are not experiencing a favour, but are rendering a service, and they have, therefore, a right to ask that they shall be treated with some little
generosity. The gift, or, rather, trust, should not be a source of anxiety to them. They should have elbow-room and proper means of defence.
Hence their need of Adrianople. Without that fortress they would always be at the merry of Bulgaria should any accident to the European situation enable her to stretch out her hand towards St. Sophia. On the other hand, Bulgaria has nothing to fear from the Turks at Adrianople. Turkey has not waged an aggressive war for a good many generations, and even if she were disposed to wage one against Bulgaria she would have a long distance to cover before she reached Sofia. The Bulgars, however, could pounce upon Constantinople in a twinkling.
Another point to be borne in mind is that
Adrianople is a Moslem city, and that the rural population of the vilayet is also prepon
territorial claims based upon such studies require to be closely scrutinised. Whether the Turkish estimates are any more reliable I cannot say; but, in regard to Adrianople, their claim is, I find,
supported by so impartial an authority as the latest edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica. ”
Where races and creeds are so inextricably
mixed as in European Turkey, any territorial partition must lead to hardships. In the case of Adrianople this need not be, seeing that the vilayet is only a prolongation of the territory the Allies are prepared to leave to Turkey. It is otherwise with Monastir, the capital of Macedonia, which is coveted with equal intensity by Bulgar, Serb and Greek, but which possesses an overwhelm
ing Mussulman majority. Moreover, the local Slavs are uncertain as to whether they are Serbs or Bulgars, while most of the Greeks are Hellenised Vlachs. Add to this that Monastir is the headquarters of the Macedonia for the Macedonians ” movement, and it will be seen how diffi
cult its eventual allocation will be on any intelligible principle of nationality. I note, too, that the Albanian delegates now in London also claim Monastir,
and I dare say their title is quite as good as those of the other claimants.
Is it quite realised that one of the
results of the war may be to make Great Britain a sort of tributary of the Kingdom of Greece? The cession of
the Turkish rights in the Ægean Islands will have the effect of transferring to Greece the over-lordship of the island of Cyprus, which we have occupied and administered since 1878, in order to enable us to make the necessary pro
vision for defending the integrity of the Asiatic possessions of the Sultan. This
will involve us in a good deal of embarrassment. In the first place, it will not be easy for us to discharge the duty of defending Asiatic Turkey with
out compromising the neutrality of the Hellenic Kingdom in any war in which it may involve us. Then, although the tribute will be paid as usual to the English and French bondholders, it will necessitate a special provision in the Treaty of Peace to which we shall thus become a party. Another nuisance is that the inhabitants of the island, who are as Greek as their kinsmen of Chio and Mytilene, are almost as violently Pan-Hellenic as the Cretans. They regard themselves as oppressed by Great Britain, and only last year the Greek members of the Legislative Council resigned in a body on account of their nationalist grievances. What they will say and do when they find their sister islands restored to Greece while they are still held in captivity I tremble to think. The worst of it is that we cannot follow the prece
dent of the Ionian Islands, because our position in the Eastern Mediterranean has been very much prejudiced by recent happenings, and Cyprus is consequently likely to prove valuable to us as the place of arms” which Lord Beacons field pictured it. Nor, on the other hand, can we regularise our position by acquiring sovereign rights in the island, for that would set all Europe grabbing in the same latitude. After all, there was a good deal of virtue in the status quo.
derantly Moslem. I note that the Bulgarians dispute this, but the rule-of-thumb estimates of Balkan patriots arc always extremely unreliable. In Macedonia, for example, the estimates of population always vary tremendously according to the nationality of the enumerator. Thus, while the Serb writer, Gobchevitch, claims 2, 048, 320 of his compatriots in Macedonia as against 57, 600 Bulgars, his Bulgar confrère Kantchef, declares that the real proportions are 1, 184, 036 Bulgars and only 700 Serbs. If, again, you refer to the Greek writer, Nicolaides, you will find that the total number of Serbs and Bulgars together is 454, 700, while the Greeks are nearly 700, 000 strong. It is clear from these wide divergences that Balkan patriotism, however effective in battle, is not a favourable medium for the study of race types and their statistics, and that
THE NEW GERMAN SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Herr von Jagow, the German Ambassador at Rome, who has been chosen by the Emperor
to replace the late Herr von Kiderlen-Waechter.