A scrap of paper : $b The inner history of German diplomacy and her scheme of world-wide conquestDillon, Emile Joseph
History
A scrap of paper : $b The inner history of German diplomacy and her scheme of world-wide conquest
Dillon, Emile Joseph
Germany -- Foreign relations; World War, 1914-1918
Now, this assumption had been belied by events. Salonica was under the
dominion of Greece, whose leanings towards France and Great Britain
were notorious and fixed. Servia had waxed great, and was striving to
add further to her power and territory at Austria’s expense. Bulgaria
was sullen, and might become rebellious. Roumania, estranged from
the Dual Monarchy, had seemingly moved within the political orbit of
Russia. And even Turkey, abandoned to herself among these prospective
enemies of the Teutonic Powers, was amenable to their suasion and to
the pressure of France and England. Such a state of affairs could
not be brooked by Austria-Hungary, who beheld her Slav possessions
threatened in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, nor by Germany, who
feared that her road to the sea and to Asia Minor would be blocked.
Accordingly the two allies decided to apply the scrap of paper doctrine
to the Treaty of Bucharest, to cut up Greater Servia, bribe Bulgaria
with the Macedonian provinces which King Ferdinand had lost by the
treacherous attack on his allies, deprive Greece of the islands and
throw them as a sop to Turkey, win over Roumania by intimidation and
cajolery, and constrain her to make a block with Bulgaria and Turkey
against Servia and Greece.
This preconcerted scheme had been questioned by easy-going optimists in
Great Britain before the outbreak of the war. But it has been virtually
acknowledged since then not only by the Austrian Government but also
by the “cream of Germany’s intelligence” in a pamphlet entitled “Truth
About Germany.” This statement of our enemy’s case was drawn up for
American consumption by a committee which includes among its members
Prince von Bülow, Herr Ballin, Field-Marshal von der Goltz, Herr von
Gwinner, Professor Harnack, the theologian, Prince Hatzfeldt, Herr von
Mendelssohn, Professor Schmoller, and Professor Wundt. In the chapter
dealing with the last Balkan war as one of the causes of the present
conflict, these gentlemen argue that the outcome of that struggle was a
humiliation for the Habsburg Monarchy, and that it had been so intended
by the Ministers of the Tsar. And then comes their important admission
that ever since the Treaty of Bucharest, the two Teutonic allies had
been diligently preparing for war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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