654 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE DIPLOMATIC CAMPAIGN. 



In Questions Diplomatiques et Coloniales of 

 November i and i6 there is an article by Com- 

 mander de Thomasson on the Diplomatic Cam- 

 paign. 



ALLIED MALCONTENTS. 



The diplomatic drama which was being played 

 during the great military tragedy in the Balkans, 

 by the Great Powers, might well be entitled 

 "The Allied Malcontents," he writes. In the 

 Triple Alliance, as in the Triple Entente, there 

 was a feeling of uneasiness and distrust arising 

 from the fact that more than one Power put its 

 own particular interests before the general 

 interests of the group of which it is a member, 

 thus compromising Europ>ean peace. From the 

 moment that the Eastern Question was raised, 

 it is extraordinary that the friends or allies did 

 not agree on the mutual concessions to be made 

 and the course to be followed in the circum- 

 stances which it was easy to foresee would be 

 produced. As to the Triple Alliance, a coolness 

 between the Dual Monarchy and Austria- 

 Hungary has been brought about by the initia- 

 tive of the Balkan Allies. In the camp of the 

 Triple Entente confidence no longer prevails, 

 and the French effort in favour of peace only 

 met with a succds d'esiime. One thing, how- 

 ever, has become clear. England has again 

 become Turcophil, because of the turn which 

 events in India have taken and England's desire 

 to be agreeable to the Moslem League. 



At Berlin Count Berchtold is reproached with 

 having encouraged the Bulgarian offensive to 

 enable Austria to advance a few steps in the 

 direction of Salonica, and in London the question 

 is being asked : Was M. Sazanoff quite sincere 

 in deploring the misdeeds of the Balkan League? 

 Some French journalists accuse England and 

 others accuse Russia of being found lacking in 

 "' European patriotism," or, in simpler terms, of 

 not having the intelligence to grasp the situation. 



ATTITUDE OF RUSSIA. 



But in our day it is not the Chancelleries, but 

 the nations, who make peace and war, and all 

 little diplomatic moves perish before great 

 national movements. One such movement is 

 shaking the Balkans to-day. It was not the 

 governments of the League which wanted war. 

 The war was due to the force of a great Mace- 

 donian party. Similarly, it is one of tl'WDse great 

 currents of opinion which constitutes the danger 

 of a difference between Austria and Russia. The 

 Tsar may have his hand forced by the Pan- 

 Slavist party, which has representatives even at 

 the Court. It is the alternating feeling of confi- 

 dence and mistrust which this party inspires in 



Servia which explains the continual variations of 

 Servian policy. The question now is : What will 

 be the attitude of the Pan-Slavists in Russia to 

 any territorial aggrandisement of Servia? The 

 main objective of the Serbs is not so much Old 

 Servia and the Sandjak, which are inhabited by 

 a mixture of races, as Bosnia and Herzegovina, 

 where the race is pure Serb. Referring to 

 Austria and Italy, the writer points out that the 

 Macedonian question is not the only one to be 

 solved. Albania is equally important, and it was 

 because of Albania that Italy was so desirous of 

 maintaining the status quo in the Balkans and 

 concluding peace with Turkey. 



AN OUTLET FOR SERVIA. 



At the outbreak of the Balkan war the pacifists 

 hoped Turkey would win, because it would 

 simplify matters and enable the pacifists to go to 

 sleep again on their soft pillow of inertia and 

 egoism. Meanwhile, recent events must have 

 been sufficient to convince them that it is by 

 military force alone that the territorial status 

 quo of a country can be assured. During the 

 past six months the diplomacy of the Balkans 

 has been much more advanced than that of the 

 Great Powers, and one may suppose that the 

 Allied States were prepared for anything, includ- 

 ing their remarkable success. The writer 

 examines the basis on which the Balkan States 

 will probably treat with the vanquished, and out- 

 lines the changes which are likely to be made in 

 the map of Europe. Servia, he says, demands 

 the Albanian coast from the Gulf of Drin to 

 Durazzo. Austria will not allow Albania to be 

 touched, and therefore puzzles her brains to dis- 

 cover other economic outlets to offer to Servia — 

 a port in Dalmatia, like Melkovitch, by which 

 Servian produce might find transit by crossing 

 Austrian territory, or a port on the ^^gean, such 

 as Kavalla. The Servian position would then 

 be analogous to that of Germany on the Congo. 

 The Serbs will have nothing to do with it. \\ hat 

 they want is not only the free use of a port, but 

 access to that port by a railway traversing 

 Servian territory. The writer is of opinion that 

 that port need not necessarily be Durazzo. The 

 less Albanian territory the Serbs annex the better 

 it will be for them. 



", A MYTH is the pure product of the human 

 imagination, an attempt to express the wonder- 

 ful and the mysterious." Such is the definition 

 given in Folklore by W. H. R. Rivers, treat- 

 ing of " The Social Significance of Myth." So 

 defined, a mvth has chieflv been taken to refer 

 to natural phenomena. Mr. Rivers shows how- 

 it relates to social phenomena. 



