January ii, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
15 
Germany's Policy in the Balkans 
By Frank Fox 
THE Balkan Peninsula is a fashionable cemetery 
for Empires. Archaeologists trace the tomb- 
stones of Powers which fought their great fights 
there in the days before Homer : and history tells 
of Persian, Macedonian, Roman and Mohammedan 
dreams of world domination coming to a,n end on its 
plains. Now it is the turn of the Prussian Empire. 
\Vhen the Central Powers advanced dramatically from 
Belgrade to the Bosphorus, British opinion in some quar- 
ters was dismayed, in almost all quarters depressed. 
French opinion (the clear, cool logic of which for the last 
quarter of a century has proved more than all else the 
vitality of the French race) expressed itself in the phrase, 
" The tortoise has put his head out." It was not very long 
before the British took generally the same view. Our 
logical perception had been dimmed at first by sympath\- 
for the sufferings of the Serbs, by anger for treachery of 
the Bulgars. VVhen we, too, saw clearly, it was plain that 
the Prussian had exposed if not his neck at any rate a 
vital limb beyond his carapace and that the ending of the 
reptile was more certain, more easy. 
The discussion of the why and wherefore of the Prussian 
folly may be recalled. One school of thought in this 
country argued that inescapable necessity forced the 
Kaiser into this adventure. Certainly he had strong 
urgings to do something in the way of a break-through. 
There is nothing more dispiriting than to stand a siege 
without sallies. The cheaply purchased treachery of 
Ferdinand of Bulgaria promised on the surface a sally at 
little cost. To ovenVhelm Serbia whilst Bulgaria held 
her from behind ; to join hands with'Turkey ; to extend 
in a month the German line from the centre of Europe 
to the centre of Asia Minor — that had all the glitter of 
a great victor3\ But it was not only a great mistake ; it 
was an irreparable mistake, and a mistake which no nation 
of sound thinkers could have made. Whatever there was 
of sound thought in Germany must have recognised that 
thc'decision of the Great War was practically certain the 
day that England declared herself : certain beyond any 
human element of doubt when the rush to Paris failed : 
and that the only sensible Prussian policy . thereafter 
was to play for as good a peace as possible with what- 
ever military policy (of vigorous offensive in the East or 
the West) promised best to weary the Allies. Having 
failed to conquer Europe it was the wrong time to go 
out to conquer the world by way of the Balkans. 
But, pace all the talk of German efficiency, the Balkan 
adventure was a mistake natural to the Prussian mind 
M'hich in all its " kolossality " (one must really manu- 
facture German words for the attributes of these strange 
inhuman Huns) strongly suggests the Calculating Boy 
who could solve the most abstruse mathematical pro- 
blems without help of pen or paper but was practically 
an idiot in aU else. We have made humiliating mis- 
takes in the war and before the war. The Hun's mistakes 
^vere and continue to be abysmal. WhereA'er human life 
touches the spiritual plane he has failed completely to 
understand, and regarding those relations of life which are 
governed by intellectual perception he has been almost 
as ignorant. He gave defiance to the moral indignation 
of the world and at the same time to the logic of facts 
most clearly in this Balkan adventure. 
As a result the Hun in the last stage of his defensive, 
when his only chance of mitigating punishment was to 
out-weary his ioqa, finds himself committed to a line 
straggling all across Europe. The drama Avorks to its 
appointed end. On the Western front and on the Russian 
front will be the struggle of giant armies from out of 
which the Hun will totter to fall : but strong human 
interest will be absorbed in the developments at the 
Balkan heel where the picturesquely varied forces of 
civilisation bite at his tendon Achilles. 
To follow the drama Mith understanding the bystander 
needs to refresh his memory regarding Balkan history 
since the Treaty of Berlin, and regarding Balkan racial 
types and their origins. Modern Balkan history began 
with the " iiberation " of Bulgaria by Russia and 
Roumania. Before that time, however, Greece, a\ ith aid 
from the outside chieflj', and Serbia, by her own efforts 
chiefly, had won some kind of independence. Roumania 
had never been completely subjugated. After the War 
of Liberation, Russia designed to have Bulgaria as the 
greatest state of the Balkans. Europe, at the time sus- 
. picious of Russia, contrived otherwise. Still the Treaty 
of Berlin whilst generous to Bulgaria (who had done 
little or nothing in the War of Liberation) , was notably 
imjust to Roumania. The Treaty left Roumania with a 
distinct grievance against Russia ; Serbia with a 
jealousy and distrust of Bulgaria ; Bulgaria with an 
unsatisfied dream of greatness ; Turkey, defeated but 
unrepentant, hoping for a road to revenge through the 
mutual jealousies of the Christian states, which had been 
liberated from her yoke ; Greece filled with a heady 
ambition and dangerously confident that she could revive 
her ancient glories with the aid of other people's arms. 
There were ghosts of the Roman Empire, Greek Empire/ 
Bulga* Empire, Serb Empire walking of nights, and each 
little scrap of a nation saw visions of greatness. 
A Tom Tiddler's Ground 
The Balkan Peninsula became thus a Tom Tiddler's 
Ground where anybody might pick up a crown ; and you 
might get anybody stabbed in tlie back for half-a-crown. 
And it was a dominating point from which a Great Power 
might command Europe, Asia, and Africa, as Constantine 
the Great had seen when he built Constantinople. Natur- 
ally with the Prussian dream of world domination came 
an interest in the Balkans ; and Salonika was marked down 
as a future German port of entry into the Mediterranean. 
The German Powers, happy in their stock of poor and 
prolific princes, as an incidental step captured all the 
palaces of the Balkan States with the exception of Serbia 
(and its highland province of Montenegro) and began a 
policy of diplomatic intrigue and commercial penetration. 
The latter was very industrious but not very successful, 
for much the same reason as that which explains the 
paucity of Jews in Scotland. Where the Greek is trading 
competition is difficiilt. Roughly to generalise, in their 
dealings with the Balkan Governments the Germans 
found : 
(i.) Tire Serbs quite hopeless. They were obstinately 
Slav. During the Turkish occupation the" Serbian mother 
would strangle at birth the child which a Turkish father 
had inflicted upon her. That was a sign of the irrecon- 
cilable spirit of the race. The Serbs saw that the path 
of the German to the Mediterranean must be by the 
valley of the Vardar, and were determined to hold the 
path. The German Powers long ago recognised that 
Serbia was to be fought, not won over. 
(2.) Roumania. The legitimate grievances of Roumania 
after the Berlin Treaty were industriously exploited by Ger- 
many and for a time Roumania was drawn into the orbit 
of tlic Central Powers. She was saved by the fact that 
within her borders there had survived an aristocratic 
class which inherited great intellectual capacity and 
a tradition of statesman.ship. A small Power, Roumania 
had big men who led her on the lines of a Florentine 
diplomacy. Her leaders saw that the Prussian system 
was fatal to the growth or oven the existence of small 
States and, whatever may have been the outward attitude 
of Roumania, her secret policy was of late always anti- 
Prussian. 
(3.) Bulgaria. In Bulgaria an industrious peasant 
population, partly Slav partly Turkish by blood, tills 
the soil and trades without any very serious political 
preoccupation. Under Turlcish rule the Bulgars were not 
nearly as miserable as some people imagined, and Bulgaria 
was the most prosperous and not at all the worst governed 
of the Turkish provinces- Since independence the very 
indifference of the Bulgars to politics has made them the 
unhappy victims of their politicians. Their attitude to 
public affairs is singularly like that of many citizens of 
the United States : that " politics " is a business to be 
left to the politicians. Bulgaria has naturally had some 
curious rascals among her politicians, and they naturally 
