THE NEW STUMBLING-BLOCK IN THE BALKANS

THE FOREIGN OFFICE BAG. BY LUCIEN WOLF

Everybody interested in international politics,
and more particularly the management of British external relations, will read and ponder the thoughtful article on “ European Recon
struction and British Policy ” which appears in the new number of the Edinburgh. In the main the argument is one with which I have much
sympathy. It is a plea for the limitation of our Continental commitments under the Triple Entente. The author does not go as far as I do in thinking that Splendid Isolation ” is still quite possible, and would even be advantageous;
but he is well on that road, seeing that, among other heresies, he holds that “ about the Balance of Power in Europe we have little occasion to trouble ourselves. ” But not only does he counsel this limitation; he thinks it has already been
effected. From the partial revival of the Concert of Europe and the closer co-operation of Great Britain, France and Germany during the Near Eastern crisis, he ingeniously conjectures that the risks we ran over Agadir have taught Sir Edward Grey a wholesome lesson. How far this is ascertained history has yet to be shown.
I believe another explanation is possible, and, at any rate, I fail
to see as yet any safe coherency in our foreign policy as practised by Sir Edward Grey.
With the writer s warning that
the present war will not see the end of the Eastern Question,
and that it would not see it even if the “ bag and baggage ” recipe of Mr. Gladstone were literally applied, I am in complete agreement.
M. Daneff’s plea for Adrianople, on
the ground that it would give a friendly neighbour to Turkey in the shape of a Bulgarie rassasiée is really of a ludicrous naïveté. The Turks see well enough that if it is Adrianople to-day it is bound to be Constantinople to-morrow, and hence they are in no hurry to hasten the evil day. But even when the Constantinople question is settled the whole Eastern Question will reconstitute itself with exactly the same elements in Asiatic Turkey.
How true this is may be seen every day by anyone who takes the
trouble to read the leading Russian newspapers, especially the Novoye Vremya. That journal is very much concerned about the future of Armenia, and it holds that the present opportunity of remedying the grievances of the Armenians should not be neglected by the
Powers. The scheme it favours is, however, not a return to the Treaty of Berlin, but a more or less veiled Russian Protectorate. In short, the Novoye Vremya thinks that Russia ought to have a
mandate to give to the Armenians the blessings of “ law and order ” after the model of Northern Persia and Outer Mongolia. Of course, Europe will do nothing of the kind; but this is a knocking
at the Asiatic door of which we shall hear a good
deal more later on. In this connection nothing is more significant than the energy with which, as I hear from Teheran, Russia is now pressing the Persian Government for the Urmia railway con
cession. Once at Urmia the zeal of the benevolent Muscovite for the well-being of the Armenians—
that is, of course, the Armenians of Turkey, not of the Caucasus—will be uncontrollable.

T am curious to know what the Conference of

Ambassadors will have to say to the claims of Roumania for a slice of Bulgarian territory as
compensation for the disturbed balance of power in the Balkans. Most of them, I dare say, are praying that the two States will settle the question between them, and call upon Europe only to recognise the accomplished fact. For the Triple Alliance especially it is a delicate matter, seeing that Roumania has long been a sort of ally of theirs. This consideration, however, need not appeal to Great Britain and France, whose interests in the Balkans are less material. They can afford to look at the question from the point of view of Treaty rights and good government, and I trust most devoutly that
There have been few things of late more
dramatic than the sudden resuscitation of the “ Affaire ” on the eve of the French Presi
dential election. Was it only a coincidence or was it an intrigue? As a coincidence it was astonishing; as an intrigue it was quite preter
naturally clever. But we may dismiss the idea of intrigue, for it is inconceivable that officials of the War Office would have conspired with M.
Millerand, who, in 1898, was almost a militant Dreyfusard, to upset M. Poincare in order to please the party of fiches and “ national treason ” presided over by M. Combes. Clearly it was an accident. It had, however, the effect of showing how unforgettable the “Affaire” is, in spite of amnesties and reparations, and all the other forms of slate-cleaning. The explanation of this survival is quite simple. The “ Affaire ” is irrepressible because it never was wholly a mere
question of a miscarriage of justice. Dreyfus was a lay figure in a great moral and political conflict.
I remember Emile Zola explaining it to me in his picturesque way one summer day when we lounged together in the pleasant lanes of Norwood. “ Dreyfus! ” he ex
claimed. “ I do not know him. They tell me he is unsympathetic. But his case is a symbol, a shib
boleth. It is a test of righteousness,
an incident in a great and eternal struggle between two schools of thought, one of which says, ‘ Let the individual perish so long as the machine goes on; ’ while the other retorts, ‘ Sooner the destruc
tion of the machine than one act of injustice. ’ ” Here we see at once how deeply rooted the “Affaire” is, and what it means
in French politics to attach to any public man the suspicion of Dreyfusism or anti-Drcyfusism.
Zubeir Pasha was one of the
remarkable men of the nineteenth century. He was quite a Central African Napoleon in his day, and he paid for his large con
quests with both an Elba and a St. Helena. Before Gordon’s arrival in the Sudan Zubeir was master of Southern Kordofan, the Baru,
Wadai and a number of other Sultanates, all of which he had conquered. Gordon, as we know,
wanted to have him made Governor- General of the Sudan, and had his counsel been followed there can be no doubt that the Mahdi’s revolt would have been crushed at a very early period. But in that case there would have been no British Sudan. We were suffi
ciently alive to his great influence, however, after the battle of Omdurman, when we brought him from Cairo to help us to settle the country. He
served us loyally, and there is nobody who has had anything to do with the Sudanese Administration who has not a kind word for the old gentleman.
We treated him, I am afraid, rather shabbily, for although we—that is the Egyptian Government— confiscated millions of pounds’ worth of his pro
perty, we only allowed him a pension of ₺2000 a year. This was not much on which to keep town houses in Khartoum and Omdurman, a huge
estate at Geili, a harem of some two hundred wives, and dependents on a proportionate scale.
they will take their stand on that ground. It would be a real misfortune for any Bulgarian territory to be ceded to Roumania, for in Bulgaria all citizens, irrespective of race or creed, are equal before the law and are treated with the most even-handed justice, while in Roumania religious intolerance and disabilities flourish as rankly as in Russia itself. The worst of it is that Roumania has added bad faith to her intolerance, for in 1880 she pledged herself to abolish all civil and religious dis
abilities in accordance with Article XLIV of the Treaty of Berlin, and received in return the European recognition of her independence. This pledge she has cynically broken.
THE NEW DANGER IN THE BALKANS: ROUMANIA’S CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION
The latest complication in the troubled Near East is due to Roumania, who has presented to Bulgaria her little bill ns the price of her neutrality during the campaign against Turkey. This takes the form of a demand for the tract of territory—about the size of Kent—stretching from Silistria to the Black Sea at
Kavarnn. Both of these are important towns which Bulgaria would be loath to sacrifice.
DRAWN BY G. F. MORRELL