i6 
LAND & WATER 
January ii, 1917 
have been oasv prey for Gormjin intriguefs. A 
clover man withii liirge bag of gold and an .indemnity 
bond against the loss of his Austrian estates for Knig 
Ferdinand might easily have brought Bulgaria mto the tield 
on our side in this war. But of course such thmgs are 
not done in our foreign policy. Bulgarian policy smce 
the accession of King Fefdinand has been usually pro- 
(lennan in intention whatever its public declarations. 
The peo[)le are pro-Russian, pro-British, pro-French so far 
as they have anv views on foreign policy. But the voice 
of the" people isstrangled by Ferdinand and his very 
capable secret police. 
(.(.) (ireece. The German cause in Greece has been 
handicapped by the trading genius of the people, which 
made difficult the German policy of commercial 
penetration ; and by the dependence of Greece on sea 
power. In view of the complete identity of Greek 
national interests with those of the Allies the degree of 
success uf German diplomacy at Athens (" Tino " is not 
the only pro-German) has been marvellous. 
(5.) "Turkey. Since the fall of Abdul— whose Glad- 
stoiiian title was modified by students of Balkan politics 
into "Abdul the d d clever "—Turkey has been 
an easy prey to German intrigues. She could never learn ' 
her Germany even at the price of bitter experience. 
The sacrifice of the Berlin Treaty, when Austria seized 
for good Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria repudiated 
Turkish suzerainty was a purely German move. Prussia 
pretended to regret the action of Austria and I remem- 
ber well the declarations of a Prussian diplomat (whose 
special mission was to hoodwink the " society " pro- 
Germans of Great Britain) that only the generous in- 
stincts of Prussia, compelling her to stand by a comrade 
in a difliculty, prevented the German Empire from re- 
pudiating the " precipitate and ill-judged action of 
Austria." But the position was clear to everybody 
except the voupg Turks. They have been content 
since to drift"with Germany to the present edge of final 
disaster though there was never on the face of it hope of a 
single advantage from the Prussian connection. 
That is an attempt to summarise the position of the 
(ierman Empire 5;/s-a-i7s the various Balkan States during 
the last two decades and to make clearer the reasons 
])rompting the decisions which followed upon the out- 
break of the Great \Va.T. One may conclude from various 
facts that the German Empire deliberately chose a 
Balkan pretext as the occasion for her attack on Europe. 
Agudir had taught that Italy was certainly not to be 
relied upon to join in the attack, and that Austria's 
resolution was very shaky. I have been told in high 
quarters that at the Agadir crisis Austria's attitude 
was to be one of, neutrality in case of war. The Great 
\\'ar had~ therefore to be engineered in some way so that 
.Austria was first committed deeply and her participation 
thus ensured. The war having begun, the German 
Powers relied with some confidence upon reaping big 
strategic advantages in the Balkans. Turkey ancl 
Bulgaria could be relied upon. Serbia would be crushed 
within the first three months, and Roumania and Greece: 
would then, either through fear or favour, come in on the 
side of the German Powers. 
But from the first things went wrong. The Hun had 
as usual miscalculated both the moral and the intel- 
lectual factors. He was profoundly certain that war on a 
Balkan pretext must not only bring Austria in but would 
keep England out. After the Balkan war we had refused 
to risk a general European conflict by supporting Serbia 
in her riglitful claim to keep what she had gained on the 
Adriatic. The attitude of Great Britain was supposed 
to be that no Balkan question was worth a soldier's 
life : and ISritisli stupidity' was supposed to be such that 
we would stand by and see the fate of civiUsation settled 
under the delusion that only .Serbia's fate was at stake. 
But Great Britain came in and came in on a direct issue, 
the outrage upon Belgium, which necessarily put in a 
liigli light before all the' small States of Europe the 
attitude of Prussia towards small nationalities. All who 
could think and were allowed to think in the Balkans 
became.at once anti-Prussian. 
Turkey, of course, had, nationally speaking, gone into the 
lunatic asylum long before ; and her interest in small States 
was in any case a painful matter — partly indigestion, 
partly unsatisfied appetite. But Roumania's course was 
fixed at once. Her acute statesmen saw that the issue 
of the war was made certain by England's participation. 
The question that remained was how to stand out as a 
neutral until it was reasonably safe to become a com- 
batant. That cjuestion was handled with masterly 
linesse. Some sentimentalists will deplore the practical 
statesmanship which aimed to keep Roumania out of a 
martyr's crown and bring her on the stage as an avengur 
rather than a A'ictim. I'icasonable people will applaud 
the courage and skill with which she jilayed a very 
difficult game and will only regret the blunder whicji 
brought the Hun to Bucharest at a time when 'the 
Roumanians with happier management might have 
been in Belgrade. 
Now, despite the misfortunes of the moment, we can 
reasonably hope that soon some Herr Professor of Germany 
will be engaged in the sad task of estimating to what 
extent the ISalkan adventure contribuited to the shatter- 
ing of the Prussian dream of World Empire. 
The New Raemaekers' Exhibition 
THIRTEEN months ago Louis Raemaekers 
galvanized the civilized world with his exhibition 
of cartoons portraying German infamies in Bel- 
gium. It was a great achievement, and the more 
imtablc in that it was accomplished by a Neutral artist. 
Since then Raemaekers has never wavered in his\ duty 
as the recorder of German abominations, arid iij, his 
second exhibition now open at the Galleries of the Fine 
Arts' Society, 148, New Bond Street, he continues the 
tale of horror up to the deportations still in progress 
in Belgium. It seems almost a divine decree that this 
record should be depicted by tin; pencil and brush of 
a man who is not inspired by racial hatred, but is only 
concerned with the life and death struggle between 
modern civilization and medi;eval barbarism. 
This second exhibition in some respelrts excels the first. 
'1 he artist seems to have gained in strength and to have 
aciiuired greater confidence in his own exceptional 
powers. That sense of haunting beauty to which w'e n - 
terred at the time of the first exhibition is even more 
apparent, and again we are struck by his extraordinary 
])ower of awakening the emotions and unveiling with 
a few touches of the pencil the innermost qualities of 
humanity. The prodigality with which the German 
(ieneral Staff sacrifices its nien is portrayed for all time 
ill that famous cartoon drawn at the time of the great 
\ erdun offensive, when the Crown Prince says to the. 
Kaiser as the}' stand upon a mound of German dead : 
," Father, we must ha\e a hii:her pile to see \'eidun." 
There are, certain figures which it is obvious Rae- 
maekers delights in drawing, so full are they of natural 
humour. Ferdinand of Bulgaria is chief of these ; • he 
never ' appears here without evoking contemptuous 
laughter ; Bethmann-Hollweg runs him close, and then 
there is Tino. There is always a certain dignity about 
the Kaiser, but the German Crown Prince is the miserable 
specimen of humanity he is known to be in real life. But 
the one figure which stands out most prominently is 
Death. It would be an interesting study to ascertain 
tlie number of different characters in which the grisly 
skeleton has been drawn by Raemaekers. As a Pierrot 
he dances in the .streets of' Berlin in August 1914, when 
war is declared, and in December 1916, when peace is 
asked for and the people stand in the Berlin streets 
through a bitter winter night, Deat4i alone is the well- 
clad ])rosperous citizen. 
But it must not be thought that this second' exhibition 
is devoted only to the horrors of war. Among the 
beautiful cartoons to be seen here are the original illus- 
trations which Raemaekers drew for M. Itmilc Cammaerts' 
Natix-ity Play. There is a splendid picture of " l.e Vieux 
Poilu " and another "on an American hero who gave 
his life for humanity." A series of cartoons illustrate 
an Allegory of War and Peace, and a cartoon which oner 
seen will never be erased from the mind is entitled " Tin- 
Impassable Barrage "—the Kaiser held back by thi 
hosts of French heroes who rise from their graves. Thj^ 
i;.\presses the great truth which we all feel to-day. 
