cannot part with it until she has got some other exit for her commerce not dominated by her enemy Austria, who blocks all her routes to the north and denies her expansion out to the Adriatic. And most unfortunately Serbia cannot satisfy Bulgaria by ceding Monastir, without at the same time giving up the Vardar valley, because the Vardar region lies between Monastir and Bulgaria. Monastir and the Vardar valley are the wrong side of one another, from the point of view of a bargain between Serbia and Bulgaria. Monastir is what the Bulgarians above all desire and the Vardar Valley is, at present, vital to Serbia. In the present war if it were not for the supplies which Serbia has got up the Vardar Valley from Western Europe, she would months ago have been conquered by Austria. And in time of peace the Vardar line is equally vital to her commerce and connection with the world. Austria blocks her to north and west, and drives her to seek an exit to the south. In 1913 Austria threatened us all with a European war if Serbia got an outlet on the Adriatic. Austria won her point then, but we have got the European war after all. Because Serbia was not allowed to get out into the Adriatic after the Turkish war, therefore she had to cling to Macedonia and the Greek connection as her only other outlet to the sea. At the same time Austria's attitude encouraged King Ferdinand of Bulgaria to attack Serbia and Greece, instead of going to arbitration. The consequences was the fatal war of 1913 between the Christian allies—a triumph for Austrian diplomacy. That war prevented and still prevents a Balkan league against Austria. "Since that war the problem of Macedonia has become more difficult than ever. Many hold that the best solution would lie in the creation of a Serb and Croat state on the Adriatic, uniting Serbia and the South Slav provinces of Austria. If Serbia had thus secured her opening to the sea by the northwest, then the Vardar Valley to the south would cease to be a vital necessity for her, and she could cede it to Bulgaria. THE GREAT POWERS' ERROR "Let us be fair to these Balkan states. If they fought savage wars against each other, and if they now fail to agree, the issues are real and vital and difficult beyond the comprehension of those who have not studied them closely. I have shown that the Macedonian problem presented real difficulties to any peaceful solution. These difficulties, greatly aggravated by the policy of Austria, caused the second Balkan war. It was a wicked war, but there was far more reason for it than there is for the present European war between the Great Powers. The Great Powers might have prevented the second Balkan war, but instead of that Austria did her best to bring it about by denying Serbia access to the sea except by way of Macedonia and Salonika. Finally when Serbia had disappointed Austria by emerging victorious over Bulgaria, Austria proposed to Italy to make a wanton and unprovoked attack upon Serbia, in August, 1913, nearly a year before the Sarajevo murder. Italy refused. This significant fact of secret diplomacy was recently revealed in the Italian Chamber by Signor Giolitti himself, to whom the proposal was made. "Why is Austria-Hungary so jealous of Serbia? Because she has an uneasy conscience. She is the tyrant of the South Slav races within her own borders, and therefore an independent South Slav state must either be her vassal or her deadly foe. Serbia stands towards Austria in the same relation that little Piedmont once stood to her in Italy. Now that in the last few years Serbia has at length become a powerful and orderly state, Austria cannot sleep o' nights for thinking of her. As the usurping King said of Hamlet, 'Like the hectic in my blood he rages.' It is for this reason that the Balkan and Austro-Hungarian problems have got to be studied together, if we would understand either aright. ATROCITIES OF BOTH SIDES "I repeat, let us be just to these Balkan races. While they were under the Turk we idealized them as Christian martyrs, and when they threw off that yoke we were surprised to find that after five hundred years of crushing barbarian rule they were not more perfect than ourselves. It is not the only case in history of an enslaved race being overidealized until it was set free, and then unreasonably abused for not coming up to impossible expectations. There is no doubt that the second Balkan war caused a great revulsion of feeling against Serbian, Greek, and Bulgarian. This was much enhanced when Mr. Carnegie's Commission published its Report on the Causes and Conduct of the Second Balkan War. I do not think the Report was the last word on the causes of the war, but it established beyond question the fact that atrocities had been committed in its conduct. But those atrocities have now to be set side by side with the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian troops in Serbia, near Shabatz and Losnitza, in the middle days of August last year. The Austro-Hungarian troops then and there murdered two to three thousand civilians, burning many women and children alive, and committing the most ghoulish outrages on many others. I have visited the scenes of these events and I have the proofs and details under my hand. So far as I was able to ascertain, the Serbians have committed no reprisals. Their sixty thousand Austrian prisoners in Serbia have no stories of such reprisals, they have no complaints to make, and in the hospitals the Austrian wounded (as I have seen both at the base and the front) are given absolute equality of treatment with the Serbian. How, after this, are we to go on regarding the Serbs as savages who should for their own good be subjected to Austro-Hungarian rule? "The deficiency in the higher branches of government, natural to a peasant democracy, put Serbia back for a generation or more. She had begun her independent existence sixty years before any part of Bulgaria was set free, and she ought therefore to have remained ahead in the race of progress. Yet, at the close of the nineteenth century she dropped behind Bulgaria in education, in the arts of life, and in military proficiency. Bulgaria, though a peasant democracy like Serbia, had the great advantage of a group of leaders educated at the American. Robert College, Constantinople. So Bulgaria, in the first generation of her independent existence, forged ahead, and from 1878 to 1913 every one courted Bulgaria and despised Serbia. The enemies of Turkish rule, like the British Balkan Committee, looked to the Bulgarian army to deliver the Balkan Christians, and scarcely visited Serbia. The Macedonians looked for deliverance to Sofia, not to Belgrade. To Europe in general the Serbians were an unknown race, dwelling somewhere in the interior of Eastern Europe. People forgot that the Serbians under Karageorge and Milosh Obrenovitch had won their liberty from the Turk earlier and with less help from outside, than Greek, Roumanian, or Bulgar. Yet during these years when they were held in such contempt, a remarkable national revival was going on. The present King Peter restored parliamentary government, and presided as a constitutional monarch over the resumed democratic life of the nation. M. Pashich, a man of high honor and ability, was chosen as the people's premier, and he has done almost as much for Serbia as M. Venezelos for Greece. Education and administration were greatly improved. Above all the army was made efficient. The change for the good was most rapid after 1908. In that year Austria proclaimed the formal annexation of the Serb province of Bosnia which she had occupied for the last thirty years. This outrage on Serb race feeling stung the Serbians to the quick, and from that moment forwards they pulled themselves together and began to arm in real earnest. A national moral revival was observed by the very few who watched Serbia. But Turk, Bulgar, and Austrian despised Serbia too much to observe the change. And consequently in three successive years, 1912, 1913, and 1914, Turk, Bulgar, and Austrian have suffered most unexpected defeats at the hands of the Serbian army. AUSTRIA RULED BY MAGYARS "Prior to 1868 the various races of Austria-Hungary were ruled by the German-Austrians by the sword. In 1848 the Magyars of Hungary attempted to get free, but they were suppressed by Vienna, largely owing to the great Kossuth's great mistake in refusing to take the Roumanians, Slovaks, and South Slavs into partnership with the Magyars. Kossuth's policy of forcibly 'Magyarizing' all these races of Hungary has become the permanent policy of the race of which he is the hero. The more liberal policy of Deah has unfortunately been abandoned. In 1868 the Austrians of Vienna found they could no longer rule their immense Empire alone, and took the Magyars into partnership. Since then the German-Austrians and the Magyars have divided between them the government of the various races of the Empire-South Slavs and Italians, Slovaks, Ruthenes, Poles, and Czechs. An empire so hetero geneous in race must either be a despotism ruled by the sword, or a land of federal liberty. Since 1868 it has halted between these two paths, the Magyars pulling towards despotism, while the German-Austrians showed some inclination towards liberalism in their treatment of the Poles. The test case was the treatment of the South Slav race, part of which was in Hungary under the Magyars, and part in Dalmatia and Istria under the Austrians, and part under their joint rule in Bosnia. Unfortunately in the last few years the Magyars have dragged Austria after them in the domestic policy of repression of South Slav national consciousness. The worst incidents of oppression have been the most recent. "Austria ought to have solved the problem of nationality on the same lines as those on which people solved the problem of religion two centuries ago by mutual tolerance. Owing to the Magyars, she has missed her opportunity. The domestic system of the Magyars in Hungary has proved fatal to all Europe. For this internal tyranny has involved an aggressive foreign policy in the Balkans towards Serbia. Repression of Croats and Serbs in Hungary necessitated repression of the Croats in Austrian Dalmatia, and of the Serbs in Bosnia. In these circumstances the oppressed Serbs and Croats naturally looked across the Drina to their brothers of free Serbia, especially after Serbia had showed herself redoubtable in war against the Turks and Bulgars in 1912-13. For the same reason it became more than ever essential to the Austrians to prevent the further development of Serbia after her victory over the Turks, lest she should become the liberator of the South Slavs. Hence the fatal policy of Austria in making it a casus belli for all Europe if Serbia got a single port on the Adriatic. By Austrian decree the Serbians were condemned to remain forever a bucolic, inland people, with no seaport, though half the Eastern Adriatic coast is inhabited by their conationals, the South Slavs. THE GREAT WAR "The present war was in its origin a 'punitive expedition' against the Serbians, for having the impudence to sympathize with their brother Serbs and Croats in Austria-Hungary. The expedition was to have been made in August, 1913, as Signor Giolitti recently revealed to the world, but owing to Italy's refusal to join the German powers in a war of aggression it was postponed for a year, until the murder of the Archduke by his own Austrian-Serb subjects seemed a fitting opportunity to wipe Serbia off the map. "Until the various races of Austria-Hungary obtain political selfgovernment and cultural liberty for their languages and schools there will never be peace in Europe. There will always be assassinations, revolts, and finally wars. If a peace is patched up leaving the boundaries of Austria-Hungary intact and with no provision made for a radical change in the condition of Roumanians, Slovaks, Croats, and Serbs, a fresh war will only be a question of years, even if every other European problem were satisfactorily solved. All the nationalist movements inside Austria-Hungary have been growing with great rapidity during the last half-dozen years, especially the movement drawing the Croats towards the Serbs. The reign of terror that has existed in these provinces ever since the war began has made it utterly impossible that the old system can continue except as the rule of the sword over a hostile population. "Some people ask why, if the subject races of Austria-Hungary are thus alienated from the government, they do not now rise in insurrection. The answer is because all the young men are taken into the army by the modern system of military slavery, and all the leaders are in prison or in exile. If that had been done in Italy and throughout Europe in March, 1848, there would have been no year of revolutions. The modern militarist organization make revolutions impossible. That is why Europe is in very great danger of falling under a system of tyranny -far more impregnable to assault and more pitiless to prayer than the tyrannies against which the peoples of Europe rose in 1848. We are told that the time for small States has gone by. But if the big Empires that devour them deny racial, cultural, and political liberty within their borders, and turn all their subjects irrespective of personal or racial differences, into so many pieces of a grinding military machine,—then the extinction of little democracies, like Serbia and others elsewhere, I will mean the extinction of human freedom and of all that is noblest in the spirit of man." Thursday Evening, April 22 The guest on this evening was Rev. Marshall Dawson, of Tacoma, Washington, who delivered an illustrated lecture: "The Panama Exposition, Yosemite, and Ranier." It developed into one of the most interesting travel talks ever given before the Club members. S. W. Reynolds presided and introduced the speaker. ART AND LIBRARY COMMITTEE NEW BOOKS The following books have been added to the Library: LITERATURE The Bibelot (22 volumes). BIOGRAPHY Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt. American Women in Civic Work, Helen C. Bennett. |