Eminent Europeans; studies in continental reality

Preface

Much publicity has called to life, too much publicity has destroyed Central Europe for the English-reading peoples. Prior to the World War those peoples had a vague notion, founded entirely on implicit belief in the honesty of mapmakers, that there were countries called Austria, Hungary, Roumania; a learned minority cherished schoolday memories suggesting the potentiality of a land named Greece, where marble ruins and archaeologists led a dreary sort of symbiotic existence ; and it was recalled of Bohemia that its most interesting feature was a seaboard which could not be found. The conflagration of 1914 illuminated, for a moment, the landscape stretching between the Rhine and the Black Sea; but the sense of reality thus evoked was presently wiped out by the vast black clouds of Propaganda. The lands whose main artery is the Danube became fixed in one's consciousness as mysterious caverns whence emanated atrocities, unpronounceable proper names, information bureaus, national councils, and pamphlets, pamphlets, pamphlets, pamphlets. Then followed the period of self-determination; and before long iv PREFACE

the English-reading pubhc self-determined that it was sick of Central European pamphlets and whatever they stood for.

Yet to me, a native of the fair city of Budapest, the causes expounded by those pamphlets indicated realities — all the more real because I could view them from the perspective of prolonged absence. It is a commonplace to say that one discovers things by getting away from them. When I lived at Budapest — and I lived there the first twenty-one years of my life, — I did not know that there existed such a thing as Central Europe. I had to come to America to discover Central Europe. Like all awakening to the obvious hitherto obscured by its very obviousness, the discovery meant a revelation.

But what interested me in those pamphlets and other printed matter was not the Causes — it was the peoples behind them, or rather, people. I realized that I knew from first-hand experience that which most Americans and Englishmen accepted as an act of faith: that those peoples, those people, lived.

Now, if the peoples of Central Europe became unreal to Americans and Englishmen because they were disguised as Causes, the personalities of Central Europe became still more unreal because they were disguised as Symbols. There is less distance between a People — itself a collective being, a generalization — and a Cause, than between a Personality — something concrete, if only in the crudest sense palpable — and a Symbol. My profession

PREFACE V

thrust upon me the duty of reading hundredweights of literature — pamphlets, books, magazine and newspaper articles, dealing with the leaders of Central Europe. Some of these literary products were well-informed and informing; others were too-well-informed and misinforming; some were wellwritten, others were not; most of them may have served the specific purpose of the moment, usually connected with some sort of Drive; but whatever their other qualities may have been, they hardly ever made one suspect that the persons discussed had, among other things, souls. These persons were banners or at best standard-bearers; they were archangels or devils; they were vessels of political theories and principles, tokens of interests and preferences, sometimes dummies clothed in "human interest" anecdotes — human beings they were not. I read the biographies of a few — excellent specimens of political philology, warehouses of cold storage information — too many trees, of the forest not a trace.

In the following papers I have attempted to present some of the men, and one woman, who for the past eight years signified Central European history, as human beings, and not as symbols and political abstractions. I did not have to go very far before I realized the difficulties of my task — difficulties not specific, indeed, but generic — inherent in the drawing of "contemporary portraits" of a higher than the Sunday supplement plane. Its successful performance would have postulated a manifold vi PREFACE

equipment, involving the arts of the journalist, the historian and the novelist. It would have required the journalist's sense for the topical, the trenchant detail, for the manipulation of the subtle threads with which things remote geographically and psychologically are embroidered upon the consciousness of the hurried reader. The historian was called upon to contribute perspective, the faculty of sifting evidence, and the sense of connections. At least as important as these would have been the novelist's gift of re-creating reality from mere material. Selection of the essential, suppression of the irrelevant: in this highest precept of all art the three requirements converged.

Such was the nature of my undertaking. I owe an apology for the result — not for the plan and the aspiration. If I missed my mark, at least it was because I aimed too high — not too low. That may be no excuse for the rifleman; but the writer may plead it in extenuation.

Comparisons are invidious — especially so for the weaker party compared. I am aware of the handicap that my book carries in its title. But the book had been written before the title was thought of; it was chosen because it covers what it should. No intelligent and fair-minded critic will charge me with the desire to outdo Mr. Lytton Strachey. It was only when most of my chapters were already typed that I awoke to two facts. First, that I tried to see and to present in a new light things whose poignancy had worn off by custom and repetition.

PREFACE vii

Second, that I tried to write fragments of contemporary history with the methods and intentions of, not the chronicler nor the special pleader, but the analytical novelist, only working upon historic fact and document instead of imaginary material. In other words, I was interested in psychology and environment rather than in plots and events. My book turned out to be a faint attempt at dealing with a problem in literary form which had been already so brilliantly solved. So much the worse for my book.

There will be those who object to the limitation of this volume to personalities from the comparatively unimportant countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. Now, treating an ignored subject, or the ignored aspects of a subject (and despite tons of wartime press output, Central Europe is ignored) may be quite as important as elucidating new shades of a known one. But that is a defence of my theme, not of my title. The fact is — and here I touch upon an idea which will recur in the subsequent pages — that in a sense Hungarians, Czechs, Roumanians are better Europeans, are more European, than Englishmen or Frenchmen. England is a world ; so is France ; but Hungary, or Czechoslovakia, or Romnania, are mere segments of the whole called Europe.

To the two chapters wherein printed sources were extensively used — those on M. Venizelos and King viii PREFACE

Constantine — bibliographies are appended; in the others, quotations are credited in the text. As regards the two Hellenic chapters I must make special mention here of my indebtedness to Mr. John Mavrogordato, M.A., whose writings during and after the war, published in The New Europe and elsewhere, have helped me much toward an understanding of Near Eastern problems. For valuable suggestions for the chapter on President Masaryk, as well as for general encouragement, my sincerest thanks are due to Professor Herbert Adolphus Miller of Oberlin College, Ohio. There are practically no books in the English language dealing with the two revolutions and the counter-revolution in Hungary. For information on these subjects I am indebted to the files of the Manchester Guardian and the Neue Zilrcher Zeitung, above all, to the excellently edited organ of the Hungarian bourgeois refugees in Vienna, the Becsi Magyar Ujsdg (Vienna Hungarian Gazette). The facts relating to the Hungarian White Terror are set forth in the Report of the British Joint Labour Delegation, headed by Colonel J. C. Wedgwood, M.P., which visited Hungary in the spring of 1920. I take this occasion to convey my thanks to Colonel Wedgwood for his courtesy in supplying me with that most indispensable document.

But the two Hungarian chapters could never have been written without the guidance that I derived from the ceuvre of Professor Oscar Jaszi, the great intellectual leader of Young Hungary. My

PREFACE ix

obligation to him far exceeds the range of my quotations from his brilHant book, Magyar Calvary — Magyar Resurrection, unavailable, alas ! in English. It was he who taught me, like so many others of my generation, to understand Hungary in terms of European culture and modern political science.

The chapter on Queen Marie of Roumania treats that very beautiful and spirited lady in a way which our best people might possibly call unorthodox. I wish to assure my numerous Roumanian friends — who after all may not read the chapter very carefully — that whatever I say about their Queen is by no means intended to bear upon their nation. I was born in a country where preference for things Roumanian is not, to put it mildly, a common tradition ; but I am only glad to state that years of study and personal contact have generated in me a sincere admiration of and affection for the spirit of Young Roumania, that truly European spirit which is represented by men like M. Octavian Goga, poet, statesman, humanist. If I have to confess to a bias in the matter of Roumania, it is a distinctly pro- Roumanian bias, born of my faith in Young Roumania as the outpost of Latinity at the eastern gate of Europe.

E. S. B.

Baltimore, July, 1922.

The chapters on President Masaryk, Dr. Benes and Admiral Horthy have appeared, in part, in The New Republic, The New York Times and The Century Magazine respectively, and are reprinted here with the kind permission of the editors.

Contents

I. — Queen Marie of Roumania 1

Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, Duchess in Saxony. Born October 29, 1875. Daughter of Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria and the Prince-Consort, Duke Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Married to Crown Prince Ferdinand of Roumania January 10, 1893.

II. — King Ferdinand of Roumania 25

II

She began to paint. My English friend was in Bucharest when the Arts were wooing her. She said to him: "I am only happy on days when I have painted for two hours and been on horseback for two hours." Painters disliked that remark, but for the psychologist it was a gem. Painting, for her, was simply another form of exercise, a drain for her bursting vitality.

Nor was painting the end of it. The Roumanian court was a young court, but it already had its traditions. One of these traditions was that of the literary Queen. Under the pen name Carmen

Sylva, Queen Elizabeth had written a number of books, and those books were not only published, but they also sold. They delighted many a snob and many a sentimentalist, in Roumania and abroad. Surplus of energy, boredom and jealousy of the older woman began to hatch a conspiracy in Princess Marie; and one fatal day the conspirators thrust a weapon into her hand — a pen. Queen Carmen was avenged at last. It was her example that turned Marie into an author.

The relationship of kings and queens to the Arts is rather a pathetic one. It is not only that they want so terribly to be successful. They must be successful — in their exalted position they cannot afford failure. They might, of course, try anonymity; but on that term success would not be worth having. They crave fame. Being sentimentalists, €07 officio, as it were, they hate taking chances ; they shrink, as Meredith says somewhere, from the awful responsibility of the deed done; they are unaccustomed to, and abhor, the idea of paying a price. Kings and queens of the twentieth century may don disguise when they sail forth in quest of the grosser pleasures; but when they are out for literary fame they wear their full regalia; for they know the publicity value of their crowns, and are loath to sacrifice it.

Some fifteen or twenty years ago a friend of mine, a clever Frenchman, was introduced, in Paris, to King Oscar of Sweden, then on a visit in the French capital. The King seemed to like him, and he was quite pleased, even a little proud, when he received word that His Majesty wished to see him. He felt sure that the King sought the benefit of his knowledge of Paris and the world ; that he intended to discuss with him the relation of Sweden to Norway, or the problem of Russian aggression, then the bugbear of Scandinavia. One little thing he forgot : that His Majesty was also a poet, and that he had just published a volume. He was reminded of it soon enough. When he arrived the monarch greeted him most cordially, and drew quite close to him. He was, in all humility, preparing for his initiation into the holy of holies of European diplomacy, when suddenly the question came from the sovereign lips, — coaxingly, almost shyly:

"Do you think that my book will sell?" Dr. Johnson said that women preaching reminded him of dogs walking on their hind legs — they did not do it well, but the wonder was that they did it at all. Queen Marie started writing books in English, and thus accomplished one of the miracles of her life; for she does not completely master the English language, nor any other for that matter. Yet she neglects no opportunity to proclaim to the world that she is an English princess; on the slightest provocation, without any provocation at all, she will tell you that she is English, and how English she is. A thoroughbred Coburg, she hasn't a drop of English blood in her veins.

Every religion has its martyrs, even the one whose Bible is the Book of Snobs. There are people — I have known them — who conscientiously buy every book of Queen Marie as soon as it is off the presses. I assume that some of these zealots also try to read her books, though I doubt if any one ever succeeded in reading them, as Daisy Ashford would say, to the bitter end.

For Princess Marie literature was not a vehicle of self-expression, not even, primarily, a road to fame, but just a safety valve, like her painting, like her horseback-riding. She went out riding every morning, and on his visits to Bucharest my English friend repeatedly had the pleasure of accompanying her. He felt the honour keenly, but his pleasure was not unmixed. For she rode her horse for hours and hours at a stretch, absolutely careless of the creature's fatigue. No Englishwoman could ever do that. My friend was told that no horse lasted in the royal stables over three or four months. "I did not check up," he adds, "the mortality among the stenographers to whom Her Majesty dictated her books, but it must have been high."

Ill

Then the Princess became Queen ; and by a coincidence the war broke out almost at the same moment. For Marie it was a fortunate coincidence. She found herself. At last here was an adequate outlet for her boundless energy, a field that could absorb all the cloudbursts of her activity. She could now be "up and doing" twenty-four hours a day if she chose. She could achieve things — more than that: she could achieve things that really mattered. She could manage men ; she could mould events. Heretofore she had to enjoy, in a degree, action vicariously in her fairy tales; now she could play a part in making real history. She wanted to be on the bill all the time — a "headliner," as Americans say.

"I have never been so happy as during the war." If Queen Marie never said that, she might have said it ; if anybody ever said it, it was a woman. One of the women who, "fed up" on the strenuous futility called social life, could now address mass meetings, organize relief societies and vigilance committees, direct war loan campaigns, prepare Red Cross supplies, even nurse the wounded — anything. No woman had a greater opportunity in the war than Queen Marie. She lived up to it.

One of the first tasks the war thrust upon her was a removal. A removal, from one city to another, means no small thing even in the ordinary middleclass household. It is an epoch-making event in the life of a court. A long time before the Germans pierced the Roumanian front a confidential report on the military situation was demanded from headquarters. "Is Bucharest menaced?" asked the court. "Not in the least," answered the generals, in chorus. Queen Marie is a shrewd woman. "We must prepare to go to lassy," said Her Majesty.

And to lassy they went. There was a shortage of munitions at the front, of food in the towns, because there was a shortage of rolhng stock. There were no cars to accommodate the refugees from the devastated areas. But trains were commandeered to transfer to the royal palace at I assy all the contents of the Cotroceni household. All kinds of mediocre furniture, worn-out polar bears' skins turned a murky grey with age, cracked Persian pottery, embroideries and silks snatched up at Liberty's during hasty stays in London. True, Roumania was at war; but the Stimmung of the Bucharest court had to be recreated at I assy at any cost.

In the evening little intimate concerts were given. Richly painted shades or heavy pieces of silk covered the lamps, and a Roumanian violinist, Enesco, or a pianist, Mme. Cella Delavrancea, played everything from Bach to Debussy. Missions came from Allied governments, Albert Thomas from France, Gutchkoff, the Minister of War, from Russia, to stimulate Roumanian resistance. They were welcome but not needed. The King and Queen had made up their minds. The Roumanian armies would fight on to their last drop of blood.

A great friend of Her Majesty once said to me: "No woman was ever so gifted as she — none, not even Sarah Bernhardt or Mrs. Fiske."

A curious comparison — a Queen and two actresses. A truer comparison than would appear at first glance. Queens and actresses have many parts to play. At lassy Queen Marie, clad all in white, with a diamond cross on her breast, a cross of the colour of blood on the white veil that covered her forehead, visited the hospitals every morning. In the afternoon she gave audiences, either to native politicians in need of a coaxing word, or to foreign diplomatists. To the French Minister, Count de St. Aulaire, later Ambassador in London, she explained what a wonderful Queen she was — it was she who dragged her hesitant husband, her reluctant Premier, into the war.

Count de St. Aulaire, being the envoy of a mere republic, was convulsed with the delights of such intimate relation with a real Queen. He flashed across Europe enthusiastic dispatches; he said, adapting the famous mot of Mirabeau, that there was only one man in Roumania, ^nd that was the Queen.

All of which was delicious, and Her Majesty enjoyed it to the dregs. Now I don't want to be misunderstood. I don't mean to say that the tragedy of the war did not affect her. She did not remain unmoved by its horrors. But contact with the war, and not the least with war's horrors, made her a different, and, morally, a richer woman. She tasted power. She liked it, and in a weak and respectful country she was able to hold on to it.

In a sense her choice was justified at last. As Queen of England she would never have had the opportunities to rule, to control and initiate, that now literally poured into her lap. The court was managed by polished but inefficient gentlemen. The generals were not much better. One, Mavrocordato, was appointed to a mission with the Allied General Staff at Salonica; but the French were advised never to let him reach his destination, and they wisely heeded the counsel. Another, Catargi, was appointed Minister to Belgium, and was now safe, in more than one sense, with King Albert's court at Le Havre. Two men gained the special confidence of the Queen. The one was Prince Stirbey, a descendant of former rulers of Roumania. The other was a man in khaki, the Canadian Colonel Boyle.

Prince Stirbey was not only a real prince — he was the Prince Charming. He was very handsome and very rich ; he did not speak much, but the little he said was good. He was all the time engaged in far-reaching schemes — his one ambition in this world was to become richer every day; but he kept his schemes to himself. They were not in evidence. The one thing that was in evidence was his charm, and even about that he had to exercise restraints. Who would have thought that the Prince Charming had a wife somewhere, and an innumerable host of daughters? However, in the Orient women know their place and keep it. In any event, his wife and his multitudinous daughters did not prevent Prince Stirbey from accomplishing, in the briefest time, a most brilliant military career. In a few months the Lieutenant was promoted to Colonel. No recompense is too big for charm. Not only did Prince Stirbey became the eminence grise, the power behind the throne, of Roumania — as the Prime

Minister's brother-in-law he was an ideal go-between from court to the world of politicians. But his position had its risks — grave ones. Many a Roumanian lip at one time fell into a shape that made you believe that you had just heard or were just going to hear the word Rasputin. But in the Orient, where intrigue was invented, they have also perfected the art of directing public attention where it belongs. Perhaps Prince Stirbey prayed to the Almighty that He would send some one to deliver him from being the butt of popular interest. Perhaps Prince Stirbey invented Colonel Boyle.

IV

Who was Colonel Boyle? His admirers called him the Colonel Lawrence of Roumania, local version of the Oxford archaeologist who became statesman, strategist and cavalry hero in Arabia. But Colonel Boyle's relations with Oxford were less patent, and although at one time he may have had something to do with excavating, he was no archaeologist. He came from Canada. Behind Canada lay Alaska, land of the midnight sun, of gold, of prospecting, of tangled lawsuits about clashing claims. In Roumania nobody asked for details. All he was asked was, "Who are you?"

"A Colonel, at any rate," answered Boyle.

"Why not become a hero?"

"I am prepared for any job that you may give me."

It was at the beginning of the Bolshevik upheaval in Russia. Colonel Boyle was entrusted with the task of freeing a certain number of Roumanians from the grasp of the Bolsheviki. At that early stage the prestige of khaki was still considerable. They will tell }^ou in Roumania that Colonel Boyle saved five, fifty or five hundred lives in Russia. In cases like that it is always a question of appreciation rather than of fact. Whatever else his mission accomplished, one result was obvious. Colonel Boyle became the Queen's slave.

"When I saw her I felt like Paul on the Damascus road," he is reported to have said.

From that moment on the Queen utilized him — sent him on missions that required tact and discretion as well as energy and resourcefulness. She sent him to rescue her son, the Crown Prince, from the clutches of — but that is another story. She sent him to try to get for her sister, wife of the Grand Duke Kyril, the throne of Russia. Why not? The Czar of all the Russians was not only dead — he had been buried and lamented in an article by Her Majesty the Queen Marie. And had she not the blood of Catherine the Great in her veins? Once she was passing a column of Russian soldiers. One exclaimed: "There — what a good Empress she would make for us!" But she was engaged elsewhere. Her sister had been the Duchess of Hesse. She had divorced her husband in order to marry the Grand Duke Kyril of Russia. They were both alive, and although handicapped, in Orthodox eyes, by the matter of the divorce, still the nearest claimants to the Russian throne.

Boyle had once had a stroke in an airplane, but be was fond of flying nevertheless. He was sent to the Wrangel front to ascertain how long it would take for Wrangel to reinstate the Romanoffs. He returned with the message that it was a question of six months. Six days later General Wrangel was floating quietly toward Constantinople, and the coronation of the Grand Duke Kyril was postponed sine Me.

There is no use crying over spilt crowns. A French proverb says, ^'Un amant de perdu, dix de retrouve." In a period of great upheavals if you miss a throne you may find another if you only look around quickly enough. Venizelos was tottering in Greece; the exchange of Constantine was rising. Constantine's son suddenly became a good match. Prince Stirbey — or was it Colonel Boyle? — was dispatched to Switzerland to negotiate the marriage between the Prince Georgios of Greece and the Princess Elizabeth of Roumania. The mission was crowned with success.

But that is rushing too far ahead. The war was still on. The Germans were advancing, they were menacing the Roumanian rear. The court was prepared for any emergency. Elaborate plans were made. The King and Queen would take refuge in a Russian town. The Roumanian army would withdraw to the Caucasus, if need be, but it would fight for every inch of ground. . . .

The Roumanian government signed the separate peace on May 7, 1918. Small countries have to play safe even when they embark on an adventure. Some of the great Scottish families had sons both in the Jacobite and the Whig camp, so that they might keep their estates whichever side won. Similarly, small countries whose fate hinges on the pleasure of the Great Powers, usually have two sets of politicians ready to change places according to the ups and downs of international rivalry. Roumania had a set of pro-Ally statesmen that had brought her into the war. She also had a set of pro-German politicians who were prepared to come into power as soon as their rivals went out. The Premier who signed the separate peace in Bucharest was M. Marghiloman.

Half a year passed, and Germany was defeated. The Marghiloman ministry went out ; the Bratiano ministry — the old pro-Ally war cabinet — came back. Once more peace, officially so called, reigned in Europe.

The Queen journeyed to the West. The war had ended; but not her war-born activities. Her trip was one of pleasure combined with business. She did not cease to work for her country. She was asked by Roumanians to buy locomotives and rolling stock, to sell wheat and maize for them. In Paris, beside attending innumerable social engagements and buying almost as innumerable dresses she found time to discuss with leaders of industry and finance the needs of Roumania. She was ever on the verge of concluding big transactions; but they seldom came off entirely. Hitches occurred. They couldn't be helped. The Queen had an imagination that was all the more apt to run away with her as it had been fed the richest of foods for the past three years. Be that as it may — the fact remains that Queen Marie unfolded a skill as a press agent for her country that any professional might envy. She "sold" Roumania to the West.

But Paris, after all, is a comparatively easy place for royalty. After forty years of the Republic a queen — any queen — cannot help being a social success. Dinners are given for her by the Comtesse de Beam, the Comtesse Aynard de Chabrillan, the Marquise de Flers and others. Often at these dinners a strange hissing sound may be heard above the din of conversation and laughter, the ruffling of silks and the clinking of hand-cut glasses. It is the sound of little private axes being ground by a prudent and ambitious hostess. But it takes an experienced ear to perceive that discreet noise. They still know how to make guests happy in the grand style at Paris.

London is different. The acid test of twentiethcentury royalty is its reception in England. One might almost say to a king, "Tell me with whom you associate in England and I tell you what kind of a king you are."

To begin with, the attitude of the British aristocracy even to their own King is a peculiar one. They worship the institution of monarchy with an ahnost religious zeal. But their respect for the office does not preclude indifference, or worse, to its incumbent. That King Edward — who really was an excellent ruler, but who had had his escapades in his youth and spoke English with a German accent — did not have a very happy time of it with a certain section of the British aristocracy is well enough known. Who can be more royalistic than the Duke of Buccleuch? Yet it is possible for a Montagu- Douglas-Scott to look down upon a mere Saxe- Coburg — not to mention their recently acquired name of Windsor — as a kind of, well, upstart. To a degree it is nothing but self-defence — love of comfort. The presence of a King or Queen adds nothing to the glory of an English or Scottish duke, but it does constrain him, and dukes do not like to be constrained.