Baron Christopher Birdwood Thomson

“ Old Europe, during the process of its suicide, built up a pyramid of errors which may well serve, not only as the tomb of mediaeval systems, of false conceptions, but also as a monument to remind succeeding generations of the errors of the past.
A pyramid is a structure whose form is final, just bare, blank walls converging to a point, and there it ends, offering a symbol of that human pride which dares to set a limit to the progress of mankind. ”

“ Monastir was a town in torment, lamentations resounded in the Consulates of all the Great Powers, the publicans were not alone in regretting the departure of the backward but tolerant Turk.
In the army of occupation, although discipline was strictly maintained, a revulsion of feeling had taken place. The poor in every Balkan State were suffering, as they always do, on them had fallen the burden of the war, shorn of its bloody splendour. ”

“ At Belgrade the talk had been of a war of liberation from economic thraldom, of a conflict between the Crescent and the Cross; with the armies it was otherwise. No thought of policy or secret treaties, or even of religion, confused the minds of Servia’s peasant soldiers; they marched like men called to fulfil their country’s destiny, singing the story of their race, making the mountains echo with their martial songs. ”

“ The narrow streets around the hero’s tomb were thronged by an invading host of Serbs, with devastation in their track, their hands imbrued with Albanian peasants’ blood. An evil genius seemed to possess the Servian leaders. The war, no more a war of liberation, had loosed their basest passions; success had made them cruel, vindictive and tyrannical, the very faults for which they blamed the Turks.
As Bacon says: “Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.” ”

“ The Russian character is a strange amalgam; some of its moods are noble and poetic, others are fierce and ruthless as those of a wild beast. When the Allies had used persuasion with Rumania, Russia had stood aside, but when a different note was sounded, when growing irritation and impatience decided the Government in Paris to force Rumania’s hand, a ready and willing instrument was found in the Government of the Czar. Here was a policy which gave full scope to strength and cunning; Great Britain and France might preach morality and justice, Russia would act with violence and guile. ”

“ From every quarter comes the tramp of hurrying feet, a mighty movement is in progress. It cannot, like “sleeping waters,” be pent up, but its purpose is not destructive. It seeks a useful outlet for a vast store of human energy, a freer, wider life for manual workers, too long the victims of exploitation, whose hearts and hands are needed to turn the new world’s mill.
All lovers of freedom are in this movement; they are of every race and creed and possess the true international spirit, whose aim is progress. ”

“ In the first week of August, the delegates of the Balkan States assembled at Bucharest to negotiate yet another peace. Their task was not an easy one. Public opinion in Servia and Greece was exultant and clamouring for vengeance; in Turkey, Enver Pasha, the saviour of Adrianople, was at the zenith of his fame. From elements such as these a judicial frame of mind was not to be expected; they were blinded by hatred, pent up through decades of jealousy and fear. Enver cherished ambitious dreams, counted on German help, and knew no scruples. ”

“ With two such men in charge of Anglo-Saxon policy, the triumph of M. Clemenceau49 was not left long in doubt. He could count in advance on the support of capitalist elements in Great Britain and the United States; and thus, the power and wealth of the British Empire and America were used by an aged Frenchman as a stick to beat helpless, starving peoples and to slake a Latin craving for revenge. A shameful rôle, indeed, for a race which has never known ultimate defeat and has always been magnanimous in the hour of victory. ”

“ If the British Government had any Balkan policy at all it was, apparently, a Russian policy, a vicarious partnership, an acquiescence in the pernicious doctrine that two wrongs may make a right.
A gaping wound had been made in Europe’s side, the surgeons had met together at Bucharest, and fearing to probe had sewn it up with clumsy stitches. Wounds are not healed by surgery such as this, not only do they open up again, their poison spreads, attains some vital organ, and causes death. Good surgery needs knowledge, foresight, courage, the power and will to act. ”

“ In France, a restless, ignorant optimism had conceived a selfish plan; Great Britain had endorsed it, and Russia, in the name of Allied interests, had pursued a traditional Russian policy, which had been both sinister and obscure.
“He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat, committeth himself to prison.” In 1912, the Great Powers, of those days, had laid the foundations of their policy in the Balkans. Ignorance, inertia, selfishness and greed had characterized their statecraft: an ill seat this on which to build, but one well fitted for a pyramid of errors. ”

“ Civilization stood aghast and feigned a moral indignation which was far from being sincere. Austria-Hungary, in thus using a weak and neighbouring race, was acting in strict conformity with moral standards which the Great Powers themselves had set. Junkers in Germany, Cosmopolitan financiers in Paris, Reactionaries in England, and the Czar’s ministers in Russia had acted, or were prepared to act in precisely similar fashion, each in their separate sphere. In the eyes of these men, national sentiment was the appanage of Great Powers, the day of small States had passed. ”

“ Unreasoning docility is held by some to be a civic virtue: that was the German doctrine and the basis of their Military System, which, though at its inception a defensive system, became an instrument of conquest, pride and insolence, a menace to the world. The form of war which Germany initiated and perfected has degraded war itself, it has organized slaughter with mechanical devices, has made tanks of more account than brains, and has crowned the triumph of matter over mind. ”

“ So far as Servia was concerned little remained to be done, old Servia had been reconquered, an outlet to the sea had been acquired. Servia, the State, had more than gained her object; Servia, the Ally, the Member of the Balkan League, was at the parting of the ways. Under the terms of the Secret Treaty, Monastir passed into Bulgaria’s sphere of influence. This Macedonian town, if held as one of the fruits of Servia’s victory, was bound to become an apple of discord. Every thinking man in Servia knew it, but knowledge is not always power. ”

“ A state of affairs was protracted which encouraged the greedy and unscrupulous, which checked any expression of opinion by the “plain people” of President Wilson’s speeches, which gave an opening to militarists, jingo journalists, and politicians, whose ideas were those of German Junkers and who still believed in war.
Jungle law reasserted itself. In an allegoric sense, the Conference was like a jungle through which a forest fire had passed, destroying the scanty verdure it had once possessed, leaving bare, blackened stumps too hard to burn. Some of the larger, fiercer beasts had been expelled ”

“ It would be a rash statement to say that a European conflagration was the inevitable outcome of a little Balkan War, but metaphor will not be strained by comparing that same little war to a spark in close proximity to a heap of combustible material, a spark fanned in secret by ambitious and unscrupulous men, while others stood by, and, either from ignorance or indifference, did nothing to prevent an inevitable and incalculable disaster. ”

“ On battlefields, heroic valour was regarded as a commonplace, in countless homes, self-sacrifice became a daily rite. In British hearts, despair had found no place, theirs was a confidence born of consciousness of strength, the strength which in Kinglake’s glowing words is: “Other than that of mere riches, other than that of gross numbers, strength carried by proud descent from one generation to another, strength awaiting the trials that are to come.” ”

“ A truly democratic Germany will be a tremendous force in Europe, and may find in Russia, under a Soviet Government, an ally more in sympathy with progress than either Great Britain or the Latin Powers under reactionary governments. The Russians, once our allies, regard the French and British with hatred and resentment, and these same feelings animate all the nationalities on whom have been forced insulting terms of Peace. ”

“ A great fact in evolution has occurred, and now mankind is at the parting of the ways. Those who await a miracle or a hero to save them from themselves are unworthy citizens and use an idle form of speech when they talk of a new world. Old Europe’s suicide will culminate in world-wide chaos, unless Democracy asserts itself and counsels of wisdom and sanity prevail. ”

“ Throughout the Conference the frenzied merriment in Paris was characteristic of the cosmopolitan class which has grown up in an industrial age. These parasites on the wealth of nations possess neither the spirit of nobless oblige nor any sympathy with the masses, and yet they influence affairs; they appear light and frivolous, as though they had no interest in life beyond dancing and feasting on the ruins of Old Europe, and deadening reflection with the discords of jazz bands ”

“ A catastrophic war had contained no lesson for these people; for them, its culmination at Versailles was far more a social than a political event; they took no interest in politics, they wanted security for property and a Government of strong men who would keep the masses well in hand. They were not real democrats, and they cheered both long and loud, when the men, who between them had betrayed Democracy, emerged from the stately palace to see the fountains play. ”

“ Here, men whose lives were darkened by suspicion found a rare atmosphere, where mystery was physical, and did not hide the truth; here, could be learned the story of a race from one whose memory was saturated with traditions, who faced the future calmly, knowing its perils, sustained by hope and faith; here could be heard the twin voices of sanity and reason, expounding not what Rumania was supposed to think, but what Rumania thought. ”

“ The Prussian military system collapsed in the throes of revolution and the rest of Europe breathed again. Materialism in its most efficient form had failed, and to peoples bearing the intolerable burden imposed by armaments came a new hope. Unfortunately, that hope was vain. With the cessation of hostilities, the suicide of Old Europe was not completely consummated. After the signing of the Armistice, enlightened opinion, though undoubtedly disconcerted by the rapid march of events, expected from the sudden downfall of the Central Empires a swift transition from the old order to the new. ”

“ The frame of mind which, subconsciously perhaps, possessed the French and British Governments was not so unlike that of the actively vicious autocratic Empires; they, too, relied on experts and officials, to whom Small States and helpless peoples were negligible factors, who respected only force and wealth, who viewed human affairs exclusively from those standpoints, and, wrapped in a mantle of self-satisfaction, as ignorant of psychology as of true statesmanship, could not perceive the portents of the times. ”

“ The chickens hatched at Versailles are now coming home to roost. Democracy has been betrayed, our boasted civilization has been exposed as a thin veneer overlaying the most savage instincts. Throughout all Europe a state of moral anarchy prevails, hatred and a lust for vengeance have usurped the place not only of charity and decent conduct but also of statesmanship and common-sense. Peoples mistrust their neighbours and their rulers, rich territories are unproductive for lack of confidence and goodwill. ”

“ No Peace Conference has ever undertaken a more stupendous task than that which confronted the delegates of the Allied States in Paris in January, 1919. Central Europe was seething with revolution and slowly dying of starvation. Beyond lay Russia, unknown yet full of portents, more terrible to many timorous souls than ever Germany had been. The war had come to a sudden and unexpected end, and enemy territory had not been invaded save at extremities which were not vital points. The Central Empires and their Allies had collapsed from internal causes. ”

“ Misconceived by the rest of Europe and misdirected by Kerensky, it degenerated into civil war; yet it did prove that even the most down-trodden people possess the power and instinct of self-liberation.
The collapse of the German Military System removed a formidable barrier to human progress. Its efficiency, as an administrative and national institution, had seemed to justify the glorification of the State at the expense of individual freedom; a dangerous example had been set which militarists in every land took as a model and a guide. ”

“ That revolution was inevitable: it might have been precipitated by an intelligent adaptation of Allied policy to facts.
So far as could be seen, the Allies had no policy at this period. Statesmen no longer ruled. The German system had been followed by making the General Staffs omnipotent. To men obsessed by one single facet of a many-sided problem, the Russian Revolution was an incident without significance beyond its bearing on the Western Front; for them the Russian armies were machines, whose functions had undergone no change as the result of revolution. ”

“ Democracy has been betrayed by its own ignorance and apathy, by misplaced confidence in mediocre men, by failure to be democratic, by permitting politicians and officials to usurp the people’s sovereign power.
A new danger is on the horizon. The men who scoffed at progress, who at first derided the League of Nations, and to whose influence were due the prolongation of the Armistice and the worst features of the Treaties, are alarmed by the present situation. ”

“ I ventured to suggest that Austria would not lightly relax her hold on such valuable possessions—as Cattaro, for example. He assented, but repeated with vehemence, “Servia’s first economic objective must be an Adriatic port,” Durazzo or San Giovanni di Medua would do—to begin with. When I enquired how it was proposed to deal with the Albanians, an ugly, cruel look crept into his face as he hissed out a German slang expression for extermination. The Albanians were, in his opinion, nothing more nor less than thieves and murderers for whom there was no place in the Peninsula. ”

“ The war about to commence was only the first phase; success would give to Servia sufficient territory and economic independence to enable her to prepare for a greater and inevitable struggle with Austria-Hungary. The pitfalls were many. No one realized the difficulties more fully than the man standing with me at that window, who was even anxious to expose them in his eagerness to gain a little sympathy. He knew that wise and wary statesmanship would be required in handling the Bulgarian question. The hot-heads at home would have to be restrained. ”

“ A continuance of Turkish sovereignty in Macedonia and Albania had become an anachronism. Justice, however wild, demanded the expulsion of the Turks, and all who knew the history of the Balkans approved the action of the Allied States.
Not only did the creation of this bloc bid fair to provide a solution of purely Balkan questions; while it lasted it could not fail to have a stabilizing influence in the “Balance of Power” in Europe. From a military point of view, the combined forces in Bulgaria, Servia and Greece were a far from negligible factor ”

“ Young, handsome, ascetic, gifted with fiery eloquence, and as religious as his flock, he supplied a moral impulse which redeemed much that was trivial in the conduct of the revolution; his premature death from consumption was a real loss to Epirus and its already hopeless cause.
M. Venizelos said little about general Balkan matters, he appeared tired and dispirited, and it was evident that the Greek Government was not going to get itself into trouble over the Epirotes, in spite of their pure Greek origin. ”