LAND AND WATER 
May 15, 1915 
BOOKS OF THE WEEK 
A LITERARY REVIEW 
MR. NOEL BUXTON and his brother have written 
an unpretentious but extremely important 
book. It deserves the widest notice, for it 
broaches an urgent question of policy upon 
which they have a unique claim to pronounce 
an opinion. The events in the Dardanelles have brought 
home to average Britons the important part which the Near 
East is playing in the War. Those who had made a long study 
of the Balkans knew from the first that the attack upon 
Serbia was something more than a pretext ; that for years 
Germany and Austria had aimed at expansion towards 
Turkey, across Macedonia and the Balkan States. Austro- 
German diplomacy has had its gaze fixed upon a not too 
distant future when the decaying Turkish Empire should 
become an Austro-German dependency. Macedonia was on 
the road to Asia. Nearly twelve years ago, returning after a 
tour of inquiry in those regions, I had occasion to report that 
agents of Austria, political and commercial, were permeating 
Macedonia. Later, when the whole of that region was par- 
titioned among the victorious Balkan States, it became almost 
certain that Germany and Austria would endeavour to seize 
by force what they had failed to win by intrigue. 
THE EAST. 
It is safe to assert that if the Germans could have been 
victorious in the war, the Balkan States would have fallen 
entirely under their influence, Macedonia would have been 
annexed, and in a short time the whole of Turkey in Asia, 
and probably Persia also, would have become parts of the 
German Empire. That has now become unthinkable. If 
we would understand what a tremendous asset the Balkan 
States may yet prove to the Entente Powers we should turn to 
"The War and the Balkans." By Noel Buxton, 
M.P., and Charles Roden Buxton. (Allen and 
Unwin.) 3s. 6d. net. 
Even high diplomacy cannot ignore a measured state- 
ment on this subject by Mr. Noel Buxton. His extraordinary 
prestige in the Near East is not generally known in this 
country. For thirteen years he has travelled to and fro 
between England and the Balkans. In London, through the 
Balkan Committee, he brought together nearly all available 
expert opinion, and focussed it upon the task of clearing up 
misunderstandings. He was in communication with those 
similarly interested in foreign capitals, and so closely was he 
in touch with the people and pohticians of the Near East, 
so completely was his disinterestedness recognised, that he 
attained a prestige there which would be hardly credited in 
this country. Since the war broke out, he and his brother 
have spent four months in Roumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, 
and they are, therefore, at this moment, possessed of the latest 
information. I mention these personal matters to show that 
this book must not be regarded merely on its merits as a piece 
of literature, but as a statement with an immense weight of 
authority behind it. 
The mihtary situation at present dominates all others. 
The first question that will be asked is, what have we, Great 
Britain and our Allies, to gain from the adhesion of the Balkan 
States ? The answer is : " the forces of the Balkans, if 
united, are equal to the force of a great Power." The authors 
estimate these forces at 1,300,000 bayonets. This is a very 
cautious and conservative estimate. The real number of 
effective troops would probably be nearer two millions, 
composed of some of the best trained fighting men in Europe, 
many of them veterans who have served in two strenuous 
campaigns. It might be added that a neutral Roumania 
affords the enemy their only economic outlet in the East. 
Secondly, what is the means of securing their adhesion ? 
The stumbling-block at present is Bulgaria. All of these 
States desire to expand, but Bulgaria can only expand at 
the expense of the others, who stripped her of territory 
at the end of the last war. But how can Roumania, Serbia, 
and Greece be induced to part with territory to Bulgaria ? 
Here again the answer is simple. They can be doubly and 
trebly compensated at the expense of Austria-Hungary and 
Turkey, who together rule large territories properly Rou- 
manian, Serbian, and Greek. Transylvania_i^should go to 
Romnania ; Bosnia, Heryegovina, Dalmatia, and Croatia, 
to Serbia ; Smyrna, and other districts on theJAsiatic littoral, 
to Greece. Here we have the gist of the argument : — 
It is beyond question that there are terms which, while not 
alienating Serbia or Greece, are sufficient to induce Bulgaria to range 
herself on the side of the Entente . . . 
The attempt to persuade the Balkan States to make voluntary 
agreements with one another should be abandoned . . 
The arrangement contemplated must be dictated from without. 
England must take an equally prominent part with France and 
Russia in dictating the terms. . . . 
Germany and Austria have already made definite promises. . . 
It is not too much to say that the diplomatist might take a leaf 
out of the book of the soldier and the sailor. At present, while military 
and naval action is being pressed forward with determination and high 
technical intelligence, it is entitled to more adequate support from 
diplomacy than it has hitherto received. 
The last sentence is important. Diplomacy has a chance to 
contribute to success in war. When such issues are at stake 
the Foreign Office can no more afford to be idle than the War 
Office or the Admiralty. 
"A History of Persia." By Lieut.-Col. P. 
Sykes. (Macmillan.) 50s. net. 
M. 
It is impossible to resist the fascination of this book at a 
moment when Constantinople, the ancient centre of civihsa- 
tion, is again threatened by an invading army, and the countries 
of western Asia, which through thousands of years have been 
tossed about from conqueror to conqueror, are again to be 
re-shuffled. Needless to say, in writing the history of Persia, 
Colonel Sykes has not attempted to confine himself to the 
country which now goes by that name. The Persian Empire 
at one time included nearly all that is now Turkey, and mucb 
besides; its history cannot be separated from that of theHittites, 
the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the ancient Greeks, the 
Romans, the Arabs, the Mongols, and the Turks. Colonel' 
Sykes has indeed erred on the side of covering too wide a field. 
He has told us so much about contiguous Empires which have 
figured prominently in history, that he has often failed to 
disentangle the features of the distinctively Persian, or 
Iranian, peoples. He has lived and travelled for twenty-one 
years in the country, and he, if any one, should be able to 
trace the genesis of what is characteristically Persian in the 
habits, customs and institutions of the people. He justly 
claims " to have acquired to some extent the Persian point of 
view," but there are times when this excellence proves a 
weakness, and leads him to over-estimate the glory of terri- 
torial conquests and eastern despotisms, and to think too 
little of racial customs and traditions. • 
Of course it is no easy task to unravel these obscure pages 
of history. The cuneiform inscriptions do not tell us much of 
the lives of the people. Ancient records busied themselves 
with the affairs of Kings and Courts, and ignored the things 
which are more important to the scientific historian. It is- 
only by reading between the lines that modem research can 
re-construct ancient civilisations. Colonel Sykes has followed 
the more straightforward course, but even so, the record is 
valuable as well as romantically interesting. 
There is no other complete history of Persia embodying 
the results of recent researches. He has described the natural 
features of the country as no one unfamihar with it 
could have done. He has begun from the very beginning, 
showing us a primitive, predatory people existing close to the 
mighty Empire of the Assyrians, and falling under their sway. 
He contrasts the civilisation of Babylon with the brutalising 
influence of Assyria. He describes the appearance of the 
Medes and the Persians, who over-ran the older Empires 
under the leadership of Cyrus and Darius, and there is a short 
but particularly interesting chapter on the refining religion of 
Zoroaster. There were great epochs of revolutionary change 
which are not all of equal importance in their effects upon 
civilisation. The conquests of Alexander were large, but 
their effects were less lasting than the arrival of Christianity, 
and, for Persia, far less convulsive than the arrival of 
Mohammed and the Arabs, who effected more lasting changes 
by their religion than by their swords. We must remember 
that the Persians who preserved their racial character in spite 
of an apparently endless succession of despotisms, were 
Aryans. They first figure in written history as men who 
were taught " to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the 
truth." In the ninth and tenth centuries, as the author re- 
minds us, learning, literature and art flourished in Persia 
when Europe was plunged in barbarism. Firdawsi, Nizami^ 
Sadi, Hafiz, and Omar are only a few of the great names 
which make Persian literature glorious, and can we find a 
more interesting definition of poetry than that given by 
Nizami ? 
Poetry is that art whereby the poet arranges imaginary propositions- 
and adapts the deductions with the result that he can make a little 
thing appear great and a great thing small, or cause good to appear 
in the garb of evil and evil in the garb of good. By acting on the 
imagination he excites the faculties of anger and concupiscence in such 
a way that by his suggestion men's temperaments become affected 
no 
