Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

When war began in 1914, Romania remained neutral, in spite of the fact that it had joined the Triple Alliance in 1883. This adherence had been made because of the Germanic sympathies of the royal family, and was so secret that only a handful of people even knew about it. The Romanian people themselves were sympathetic to France. At that time Romania consisted of three parts (Moldavia, Wallachia, and Dobruja) and had ambitions to acquire Bessarabia from Russia and Transylvania from Hungary. It did not seem possible that Romania could get both of these, yet that is exactly what happened, because Russia was defeated by Germany and ostracized by the Entente Powers after its revolution in 1917, while Hungary was defeated by the Entente Powers in 1918. The Romanians were strongly anti-Russian after 1878, but this feeling decreased in the course of time, while animosities against the Central Powers rose, because of the Hungarian mistreatment of the Romanian minority in Transylvania. As a result, Romania remained neutral in 1914. Efforts by the Entente Powers to win her to their side were vain until after the death of King Carol in October 1914. The Romanians asked, as the price of their intervention on the Entente side, Transylvania, parts of Bukovina and the Banat of Temesvar, 500,000 Entente troops in the Balkans, 200,000 Russian troops in Bessarabia, and equal status with the Great Powers at the Peace Conference. For this they promised to attack the Central Powers and not to make a separate peace. Only the heavy casualties suffered by the Entente Powers in 1916 brought them to the point of accepting these terms. They did so in August of that year, and Romania entered the war ten days later. The Central Powers at once overran the country, capturing Bucharest in December. The Romanians refused to make peace until the German advance to the Marne in the spring of 1918 convinced them that the Central Powers were going to win. Accordingly, they signed the Treaty of Bucharest with Germany (May 7, 1918) by which they gave Dobruja to Bulgaria, but obtained a claim to Bessarabia,’ which Germany had previously taken from Russia. Germany also obtained a ninety-year lease on the Romanian oil wells.

Though the Entente efforts to get Greece into the war were the most protracted and most unscrupulous of the period, they were unsuccessful so long as King Constantine remained on the throne (to June 1917). Greece was offered Smyrna in Turkey if it would give Kavalla to Bulgaria and support Serbia. Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos was favorable, but could not persuade the king, and soon was forced to resign (March 1915). He returned to office in August, after winning a parliamentary election in June. When Serbia asked Greece for the 150,000 men promised in the Serb-Greek treaty of 1913 as protection against a Bulgarian attack on Serbia, Venizelos tried to obtain these forces from the Entente Powers. Four French-British divisions landed at Saloniki (October 1915), but Venizelos was at once forced out of office by King Constantine. The Entente then offered to cede Cyprus to Greece in return for Greek support against Bulgaria but were refused (October 20, 1915). When German and Bulgarian forces began to occupy portions of Greek Macedonia, the Entente Powers blockaded Greece and sent an ultimatum asking for demobilization of the Greek Army and a responsible government in Athens (June, 1916). The Greeks at once accepted, since demobilization made it less likely they could be forced to make war on Bulgaria, and the demand for responsible-government could be met without bringing Venizelos back to office. Thus frustrated, the Entente Powers established a new provisional Greek government under Venizelos at their base at Saloniki. There he declared war on the Central Powers (November 1916). The Entente then demanded that the envoys of the Central Powers be expelled from Athens and that war materials within control of the Athenian government be surrendered. These demands were rejected (November 30, 1916). Entente forces landed at the port of Athens (Piraeus) on the same day, but stayed only overnight, being replaced by an Entente blockade of Greece. The Venizelos government was recognized by Britain (December 1916), but the situation dragged on unchanged. In June 1917, a new ultimatum was sent to Athens demanding the abdication of King Constantine. It was backed up by a seizure of Thessaly and Corinth, and was accepted at once. Venizelos became premier of the Athens government, and declared war on the Central Powers the next day (June 27, 1917). This gave the Entente a sufficient base to drive up the Vardar Valley, under French General Louis Franchet d’Esperey, and force Bulgaria out of the war.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Italy declared its neutrality on the grounds that the Triple Alliance of 1882, as renewed in 1912, bound it to support the Central Powers only in case of a defensive war and that the Austrian action against Serbia did not fall in this category. To the Italians, the Triple Alliance was still in full force and thus they were entitled, as provided in Article VII, to compensation for any Austrian territorial gains in the Balkans. As a guarantee of this provision, the Italians occupied the Valona district of Albania in November 1914. Efforts of the Central Powers to bribe Italy into the war were difficult because the Italian demands were largely at the expense of Austria. These demands included the South Tyrol, Gorizia, the Dalmatian Islands, and Valona, with Trieste a free city. A great public controversy took place in Italy between those who supported intervention in the war on the Entente side and those who wished to remain neutral. By skillful expenditure of money, the Entente governments were able to win considerable support. Their chief achievement was in splitting the normally pacifist Socialist Party by large money grants to Benito Mussolini. A rabid Socialist who had been a pacifist leader in the Tripolitan War of 1911 Mussolini was editor of the chief Socialist paper, Avanti. He was expelled from the party when he supported intervention on the Entente side, but, using French money, he established his own paper, Popolo d’ltalia, and embarked upon the unprincipled career which ultimately made him dictator of Italy.

By the secret Treaty of London (April 26, 1915), Italy’s demands as listed above were accepted by the Entente Powers and extended to provide that Italy should also obtain Trentino, Trieste, Istria (but not Fiume), South Dalmatia, Albania as a protectorate, the Dodecanese Islands, Adalia in Asia Minor, compensatory areas in Africa if the Entente Powers made any acquisitions on that continent, a loan of £50 million, part of the war indemnity, and exclusion of the Pope from any of the negotiations leading toward peace. For these extensive promises Italy agreed to make war on all the Central Powers within a month. It declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, 1915, but on Germany only in August, 1916.

The Treaty of London is of the utmost importance because its ghost haunted the chancelleries of Europe for more than twenty-five years. It was used as an excuse for the Italian attack on Ethiopia in 1935 and on France in 1940.

The Italian war effort was devoted to an attempt to force the Habsburg forces back from the head of the Adriatic Sea. In a series of at least twelve battles on the Isonzo River, on very difficult terrain, the Italians were notably unsuccessful. In the autumn of 1917 Germany gave the Austrians sufficient reinforcements to allow them to break through on to the rear of the Italian lines at Caporetto. The Italian defense collapsed and was reestablished along the Piave River only after losses of over 600,000 men, the majority by desertion. Austria was unable to pursue this advantage because of her war-weariness, her inability to mobilize her domestic economy successfully for war purposes, and, above all, by the growing unrest of the nationalities subject to Habsburg rule. These groups set up governmental committees in Entente capitals and organized “Legions” to fight on the Entente side. Italy organized a great meeting of these peoples at Rome in April 1918. They signed the “Pact of Rome,” promising to work for self-determination of subject peoples and agreeing to draw the frontier between the Italians and the South Slavs on nationality lines.