“For History of Times representeth the magnitude of actions and the public faces and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller passages and motions of ‘men and matters.’” — Francis Bacon...

General Thomson comes of an English family of soldiers. He is about forty-five years old, and has a career of active service behind him, having served as subaltern four years in the Boer War, then having passed the Staff-College, and subsequently having been employed by the War Office in Balkan service. At the very beginning of the Great War he was engaged in Staff work at the French front, and in 1915 to 1917 was the British military representative in the Balkans. In the Palestine campaign he s

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ONE I HAVE ALWAYS CALLED “ La Belle Sagesse ,” WHO GREATLY LOVES HER COUNTRY AND HER GARDEN BY The “Sleeping Waters” ....

This book is a retrospect covering the period 1912–1919. It begins with the first Balkan War, and ends with the Peace Conference at Paris. Many of the events described have been dealt with by other writers, and the only justification for adding one more volume to an already well-stocked library, is that the author was an eye-witness of all that he relates and enjoyed peculiar opportunities for studying the situation as a whole. To impressions derived from personal contact with many of the princi

“When the snows melt there will be war in the Balkans,” had become an habitual formula in the Foreign Offices of Europe during the first decade of the twentieth century. Statesmen and diplomats found comfort in this prophecy on their return from cures at different Continental spas, because, the season being autumn, the snow had still to fall, and would not melt for at least six months. This annual breathing space was welcome after the anxieties of spring and summer; the inevitable war could be d

Mobilization was nearly completed when I paid my first visit to the Servian War Office, an unpretentious building situated half way down a side street leading from the Royal Palace to the River Save. On entering, I congratulated myself that, at last, I was to meet and speak with a real Servian; hitherto I had met nearly every other nationality in the legations, hotels, and other places frequented by visitors to foreign capitals. At the time of my visit, the only society in Belgrade consisted of

Although the Balkan bloc of 1912 was formed by men whose motives were as various as their interests and personalities, it was based on a correct appreciation of the general situation. It offered a prospect of relieving the intolerable tension which prevailed in the Balkan Peninsula at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, an Empire whose natural frontier was in Turkish Thrace, 2 and whose administration in South-Eastern Europe had been both wasteful and tyrannical. A continuance of Turkish sovereig

Macedonia is a tangle of mountains, whose higher levels are often bare and rocky; the intervening valleys are fertile, and in some cases, sufficiently extensive to be described as plains. These plains are the granaries of Macedonia, and contain the larger towns like Skoplje and Monastir, their population consists of peasants and farmers representing all the Balkan races, mingled with these, and living by their toil, are traders of almost every nationality. The scenery is wild and picturesque by

After the victory at Kumanovo, as already mentioned, the 3rd Servian Army marched westwards into Albania. The northern part of this Turkish province had a special value in Servian eyes. It included the so-called Adriatic ports—Durazzo and San Giovanni di Medua. Colonel G—— P—— had given me some idea of the hatred felt by his countrymen for Albanians generally. The misgivings aroused at Belgrade by his reference to this subject were more than confirmed by the conduct of the Albanian campaign. No

In April, 1913, representatives of the Balkan States were summoned, for the second time, to Great Britain, and once again the negotiations threatened to drag on interminably. They were cut short, however, by Sir Edward Grey, who had lost patience with the procrastinating methods of the delegates, and a treaty was signed, known as the “Peace of London.” So ended the first Balkan War. Turkey lost all her territory in Europe except Turkish Thrace, which served as a hinterland to Constantinople; Bul

Near Krivolak, in the Vardar Valley, a road strikes westward, joining the railway with the plains lying beyond a wall of mountains. At first, it winds in tortuous fashion, following a streamlet’s rocky bed, and, ever rising, leads to a tableland where other roads are met, and signposts point the way to Monastir. The Vardar Valley is a rift of gentle beauty in a wild, inhospitable land, the mother of many tributaries coming from east and west. It broadens on its journey to the sea, the plains adj

In the Balkan Peninsula, monasteries are more than places of refuge for people with monastic minds, they minister to a wider public, and are at once hostels and shrines, centres of food supply and travellers’ gossip, where merchants market, while monks pray and sing. Their pious founders have left a saintly work behind them, theirs is an incense burnt in the furnace of affliction, mounting to heaven on waves of gratitude. The Monastery of St. Joachim stands in a quiet valley, a mile or more from

In the early spring of 1914 a revolution broke out in Southern Albania. The Christian Epirotes, renouncing allegiance to the Prince of Wied (the sovereign appointed by the Great Powers), had set up a provisional and independent Government at Argyrocastron, a mountain village about twenty miles north-east of Santi Quaranta. This port lies within easy distance of Corfu, and, by a stroke of fortune, I was able to land there, in spite of the fact that it was held by the insurgents. After a short sta

My duties recalled me to the Balkan Peninsula in the early spring of 1915. None too soon, the Allied Governments had turned their attention to Near Eastern problems and had decided to dispatch an Expeditionary Force to retrieve their damaged prestige in the East. The main objectives were the Dardanelles and Constantinople, respectively the gateway and the pivot of the Ottoman Empire and points of inestimable strategic value for the future conduct of a world-wide war. Imperial policy, in its wide

Before Rumania became a kingdom, and while Wallachia and Moldavia were separate Principalities, under the suzerainty of Turkish Sultans, a Russian Army occupied the land, the pretext for its presence being the maintenance of law and order. The Russian Government appointed as Pro-Consul a certain General Kissileff, who planted trees and laid out roads and proved himself a wise administrator; the good he did survives him, one of the roads he planned and built commemorates his name. The Chaussée Ki

During the early months of 1916, Bucharest had been comparatively neglected by the Foreign Offices of the belligerent States. So far as could be seen, the Central Empires had abandoned the hope of obtaining Rumanian co-operation against Russia. Count Czernin 25 had expressed himself openly to that effect, and his German colleague, though more discreet, in all probability shared his views. The French and Italian Ministers were a prey to exasperation and suspicions; to them it seemed outrageous th

By the middle of January, 1917, the front in Rumania had become stabilized on what was, in point of fact, General Alexieff’s shortest line. This line had its right near Dorna Vatra 33 (the Russian left before Rumania intervened) and traversed the Carpathian foothills until it reached the Sereth Valley, north-east of the town of Focsani; thence it followed the left bank of the river to its junction with the Danube close to Galatz. East of this latter place the front was vague and variable, the sw

On Easter Eve, it is the practice of the Orthodox Greek Church to hold a Special Vigil, which terminates at midnight on Holy Saturday. In the year 1917 this vigil had unusual significance for the Rumanian people, who were passing through a time of tribulation, the words “Kyrie Eleison” 38 were in every heart, and even the irreligious sought the solace of Mother Church. I had been with the Armies, and had returned to Jassy late on Easter Saturday. My way had lain through almost deserted country,

For many years before the “Great World War,” the German Army had been the most formidable fighting machine in existence. It had filled professional soldiers in all countries with envy and admiration, as the supreme expression of a warlike and disciplined race. When the war began the Allied Armies were unprepared, and were unable to withstand an offensive which was a triumph of scientific organization and almost achieved complete success. The partial success of this first German offensive had two

“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the power and spirit of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures which pursue either at the expense of the other are compelled to stand aside—cities will never rest from their evils, no—nor the human race, as I believe.”— Plato. Four days before the official declaration of war on Germany by the Government of the United States, President Wilson made a speech before the American

Some one has said that evolution is a fact and progress a sentiment. This definition casts a doubt on progress: it implies that progressive thinkers are in the category of sentimentalists who do not deal in facts. If no alternative existed between looking back on the slow advance of evolution and looking forward in a spirit of sentimental hope, the present situation would be dark indeed; a pessimist might be inclined to conclude that civilization had ceased to advance, that, on the contrary, its