The Washington herald., 1912-10-21
Hot Balkans, but Bosphorous.

q w mlc all Oh tHC Ddihdh StatSS AiS
ahort of funds, they soon will be long
livery long snow. As The Wash
lngton Herald pointed out before, this
war starts out at an extraordinary sea-
son. Winter is close at hand, and
winter in the Balkans, even if the
weather is not very severe, is some
thing terrible, roads and passes being
blocked with snow for six to seven
months on a stretch. Ordinarily
threats of war in Southeastern Europe
are heard in the spring, when the
roads are dry. Still, when people get
their fighting blood up, it takes more
than snow to cool it.
Many a great battle has been fought
in the snow. Take Eyiau. While that
onslaught was in progress snowstorms
swept over the battlefield. And the
famous Shipka Pass passage by the
Russians in the last Russo-Turkish
war was accomplished in veritable
tempest of snow. The Herald has said
it before. and says 1t again-the in
fluences that would tend to localize the
Balkan war are not meteorological, but
financial. None of the belligerents has
been able to secure any considerable
loan in the money centers OF the world,
and under modern conditions no ma
tion that cannot afford actually to fire
gold" has any chance of keeping up
the fight very long.
Just what designs lie back of the
permission which the powers of Eu-
rope appear to have given for the war
in the Balkans will not be evident for
some time. The causes and expected
results are far from being on the sur
face. What is plain is that astute
statesmen at Berlin, Paris, London,
and St Petersburg have begun series
Of international jockeyings, out Of
which the little brothers," who actual
ly spill their blood, will derive only
incidental benefit, perhaps none at all.
Let US suppose, for the sake of ar
gument, that the Ottoman is driven
from the Bosphorus back into Asia,
whence he came eonqueror centuries
ago. While this would not be mourn
ed by Christianity, the question which
of the great powers should occupy the
most strategic spot near the Levant
could not possibly be decided without
an appeal to arms by four or FIVE
nations. Does any one suppose that
any of the small Balkan. states will be
permitted to seize prize that half a
dozen big states have unsuccessfully
coveted for centuries? Would Britain
consent to have Russia controlling the
outlet into the Dardanelles and the
Aegean Sea, with the advantage this
would give her archenemy in Asia
and rival for the Indian Ocean COM
merce to block the Suez Canal, the
short route to India and Australasia
and all that this would mean for Eng
land? Never! Yet Russia, in whose
territory are the three mouths of the
Danube, in Bessarabia, to the north of
Roumania. Russia, with her frowning
Sebastopol fortifcations in the Crimea ;
Russia, which some day is bound to
make good the prophecy of Peter the
Great; Russia. who has all the advan-
tages of strength and wealth on her
side, will scarcely allow England to
be given the protectorate-a favored
English method of grabbing countries
-over Constantinople.
Considering all of which. we are not
wrong in propounding the question,
Why have the great powers of the
treaty of Berlin, and the signatories of
the second Hague convention permitted
the Balkan powder to catch fire just