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Chapter I
By Way of Introduction
Instructed in the autumn of 1912 to join the Bulgarian army,
then mobilising for war against Turkey, as war correspondent for
the London Morning Post, I made my preparations with the thought
uppermost that I was going to a cut-throat country where massacre
was the national sport and human life was regarded with no
sentimental degree of respect. The Bulgarians, a generation ago,
had been paraded before the eyes of the British people by the fiery
eloquence of Mr. Gladstone as a deeply suffering people, wretched
victims of Turkish atrocities. After the wide sympathy that followed
his Bulgarian Atrocities campaign there came a strong reaction. It
was maintained that the Bulgarians were by no means the blameless
victims of the Turks; and could themselves initiate massacres as well
as suffer from them. Some even charged that there was a good deal of
party spirit to account for the heat of Mr. Gladstone’s championship.
I think that the average British opinion in 1912 was that, regarding
the quarrels between Bulgar and Turk, there was a great deal to
be said against both sides; and that no Balkan people was worth a
moment’s sentimental worry. “Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for
‘tis their nature to,” expressed the common view when one heard that
there had been murders and village-burnings again in the Balkans.
Certainly there were enthusiasts who held to the old Gladstonian
faith that there was some peculiar merit in the Bulgarian people
which justified all that they did, and which would justify Great
Britain in going into the most dangerous of wars on their behalf.
These enthusiasts, as if to make more startlingly clear their love
for Bulgaria, commonly took a profoundly pacific view of all other
questions of international politics, and would become passionately
indignant at the suggestion that the British Power should ever move
navy or army in defence of any selfish British interest. They were—
they still are, it may be said—the leading lights of what is called the
Peace-at-any-price party, detesting war and “jingoism,” and viewing
patriotism, when found growing on British soil, with dry suspicion.
Patriotism in Bulgaria is, however, to their view a growth of a
different order, worthy to be encouraged and sheltered at any cost.
As a counter-weight to these enthusiasts, Great Britain sheltered
a little band, usually known as pro-Turks, who believed, with
almost as passionate a sincerity as that of the pro-Bulgarians, that
the Turk was the only gentleman in Europe, and that his mild and
blameless aspirations towards setting up the perfect State were
being cruelly thwarted by the abominable Bulgars and other Balkan
riff-raff. Good government in the Balkans would come, they held,
if the tide of Turkish rule flowed forward and the restless, semisavage,
murderous Balkan Christian states went back to peace and
philosophic calm under the wise rule of Cadi administering the will
of the Khalifate.
But pro-Bulgarian and pro-Turk made comparatively few converts
in Great Britain. They formed influential little groups and inspired
debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and
published literature, and went out as missions to their beloved
nationalities, and had all their affection confirmed again by the
fine appreciation showered upon them. The great mass of British
public opinion, however, they did not touch. There was never a
second flaming campaign because of Turkish atrocities towards
Bulgaria, and the pro-Turks never had a sufficient sense of humour
to suggest a counter-campaign when Bulgarians made reprisals. In
official circles the general attitude towards Balkan affairs was one of
vexation alternating with indifference.
“Those detestable Balkans!” quoth one diplomat in an
undiplomatic moment: and expressed well the official mind. “They
are six of one and half a dozen of the other,” said the man in the
street when he heard of massacres, village-burnings, and tortures
in the Balkans; and he turned to the football news with undisturbed
mind, seeking something on which a fair opinion could be formed
without too much worry.
The view of the man in the street was my view in 1912. I can recall
being contented in my mind to know that at any rate one’s work as
a war correspondent would not be disturbed by any sympathy for
the one side or the other. Whichever side lost it would deserve to
have lost, and whatever reduction in the population of the Balkan
Peninsula was caused by the war would be ultimately a benefit
to Europe. In parts of America where the race feeling is strongest,
they say that the only good nigger is a dead nigger. So I felt about
the Balkan populations. The feelings of a man with some interest
in flocks of sheep on hearing that war had broken out between the
wolves and the jackals would represent fairly well the attitude of
mind in which I packed my kit for the Balkans.