Europe-Whither Bound? Part 3

There is spa.r.s.e grey hair on his whitish scalp, and lifting his full-sleeved arm he scratched his head with an open penknife whilst he talked.

In a strong military voice he said that two million Russians outside Russia acknowledged him as their leader. The French alternatives of Brazil or "Sovdepia" he considered shameful. Soviet Russia he always referred to as "Sovdepia"--the new name for it. Exodus to Brazil without preliminary conditions meant, he said, white slavery. Return to Sovdepia meant the _chresvichaika_ and execution. Time, he believed, was on his side. The Allies would need his army yet, and would be foolish if they deserted those who had sacrificed themselves to the Allied cause. Like many other Russians, Baron Wrangel believes in the coming complete disruption of Europe. Germany is almost bound to go the way of Russia.

That was the voice of Baron Wrangel, and one had the impression of a fine character which would stand the test of adversity. A soldier, however, and not a statesman or a prophet. But perhaps it takes neither a statesman nor a prophet to see that Europe is in mortal danger.

The supreme problem at Constantinople and on the peninsula seems to be to liquidate the Russian population fairly and honourably. Even those who have no sympathy with the military adventures in Russia will feel the call of humanity here. The Russians are not guilty of any crime: they are only terribly unfortunate.

Shortly after I saw Wrangel, he was isolated by the French authorities and forbidden to visit his army. The French then began the forcible return of the soldiers to Soviet Russia. As an alternative they could go to Brazil. But the first transports for Brazil were stopped by wireless.

The Government of Brazil, after all, did not agree to receive the Russians. So these miserables were put on the island of Corsica. Of the others little is known. Large numbers have been returned to Russia.

Serbia and Czecho-Slovakia have covenanted to take a few thousand.

As for the civilian refugees, a hundred thousand of them are in desperate straits. They cannot live in Constantinople, and they cannot get away.

It is a death-trap for them. For the women it is a trap far worse than death. They are unpopular people in Europe now--the gentry of Russia, people of education and gentle upbringing, the people of the old landed families. I observe that with the signing of the trade treaty with Soviet Russia funds have at once been started with the object of feeding starving Russians in Russia. Charities are a British and American vice, but something, not necessarily money, is due to the Russian refugees.

Human attention is needed--an honourable effort to solve the problem of making these Russians self-supporting economic units. Mr. Ilin, at the head of the Russian organization, is the man to approach. He is a capable, quiet Russian, who is under no illusions as to the enormity of the task or the difficulty of coping with it.

I met a Countess Trubetskoy, as poor as poor. "All I ask is something to take my mind off our coming fate," said she. "Imagine it. I am reading the Tarzan series of novels right through. Just to forget." They wish to forget, and we, who used to talk of loving the Russians,--we have forgotten.

EXTRA LEAVES

(ii) _On "Charity" and the Stagnation of Peoples_

In company with Mme. Tyrkova-Williams, I subsequently visited the offices of the "Save the Children Fund" in London to try to get some extra help for Constantinople, being convinced that the sufferings of the children there far exceeded those of the children of Vienna and Budapest and Prague. But no money can save the Russians at Constantinople, or the "little things" which Wrangel's army leaves behind them. Refugee men and women ought, perhaps, to be fruitless, but they are not. The birthrate at Gallipoli and Constantinople is high, and the lying-in hospitals are full. Is it not a characteristic paradox of life that babies should keep coming into a world that cannot find room for the parents? To provide for all these Russians for any considerable time would involve the collecting of more money than the rich of the world have to spare. When the hospitals of London are threatened with closure for want of funds, it is clear that mere "charity" is a useless resort. "Charity" moreover leaks. Though it is much puffed up and advertiseth itself, and is supported on the public platforms with sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbal, nevertheless it faileth. There is knowledge, and it remains, prophecies and they are fulfilled, but this thing which we call "charity" faileth, it vanisheth away. "The fund will soon be exhausted," we hear on all sides. Why not, then, try love? Why not try human action? Let men and women think a little more and forget mere money. Inspired political action is required, the refugees should be given some means of helping themselves and should be distributed over Europe in countries where for adults there is the chance at least of finding work, and where for the children food abounds. Constantinople is an overcrowded caravanserai.

There is no lasting means of living for more than one-fifth of the population, and almost no chance at all for the Russians. In Serbia, in Bulgaria, in Bohemia, in France and England, and in the New World there are at least chances of life for the homeless. At present there is scarcely a nation in the world that will take in the unfortunate Russians unless they are possessed of material means. France in this is adamant. She keeps the Russians waiting longest of all. And yet her responsibility for these Russians is very direct. The Russians helped to save France in the war, and these Russians were used by France to try and regain her lost investments in Russia. They believed in a generous n.o.ble France which never abandoned her friends. It is dumbfounding to the Russians that it should be France that is now forcing them either to die or to return to Soviet Russia.

Rather than go back to "Sovdepia" many who think their lives are forfeit there are ready to resort to desperate means of escape. They steal over to Kemal and fight for him, or they sign on for Brazil, or stow away in one or other of the many ships in the harbours. But whilst adventurous escapades are possible for the men there is not even that way open for the women and the old folk and the children. Many are sure to die before they find salvation. The way to save the greatest number is a.s.suredly to allow the refugees to circulate freely and find what life they can. Has not England been plastered with the notice, "Don't pity a man; find him a job." That is something to apply to the Russians. We cannot find them a job, but at least let us give them a chance. There is room in Europe for these Russians, and they would not prove long a burden once they were in the way of life.

In any case a great stagnant pool of human beings such as is found at Constantinople, makes a dangerous place in the body politic of humanity. Is the blood of all of us a little distempered? It comes from foul pools and sluggish channels where conditions of health are absent.

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

IV. FROM SOFIA

The last night at Constantinople was memorable, and it is strange to contrast the brilliance, the clamour, the poignancy, of that time with the quiet gloom and dirt of Sofia. Dinner with two young Russians at the "Kievsky Ugolok"; vodka was taken as if it were part of a rite. We were served by a beautiful woman with little hands. All the lights were shaded and the violins crooned.

"The best of my youth gone in senseless fighting," said Count Tolstoy.

"Twenty-two to twenty-eight, think of it; surely the best years of life, and campaigning all the while, from Insterburg to Sevastopol, and who knows what more."

"I am going to cut it all and start afresh," said Col. S. "I don't believe in the cause. If I could get a little farm in Canada or California!"

"Well, you are married and have children, that makes the difference.

You are bound to them. But honour binds me to Russia--whatever happens."

"It's a strange time."

"Yes, strange."

"Who knows what will happen next in Europe!"

"Do you think European civilization will fall?"

"I think it possible that it may."

"In my opinion also--it may happen. The fall of Russia is just a forewarning--it will all go down."

Once more the favourite theme of conversation.

Going home at midnight, one sees the miscellaneous crowd still on the street. From an open cafe window a gramaphone bleats out the strains of "Pagliacci" into the street, as if "Pagliacci" also were a refugee and was on the streets. Listening to it there came the thought that our whole modern way of life, of which that opera is sufficiently characteristic, was being chased from its home, chased out into an unkind elemental world to beg its way. Then on a corner of a street a hoa.r.s.e woman calling repeatedly her price like a hawker at a market, "_Chetiresta_! _Chetiresta_!" Quite a decent lady in Russia, the wife of a bank-clerk or petty official, but now up against it, the great it of revolution. Four crooked lanes go down to Pet.i.ts Champs, all a-jingle with Greek music and tinkling gla.s.ses and women's laughter.

The great gla.s.s-house cabaret below is refulgent with electric light, and you see the figures swirl in a "_Grande Danse Moscouvite_." You climb the mounting street to where dusky but handsome Punjabi soldiers stand in front of the British Emba.s.sy, looking with sinless gaze on sin pa.s.sing by, and then to the hotel. You sleep in the office of the hotel, between two safes, because there is no room to be had anywhere.

Your curtainless windows are right on the street, and the endless razzle-dazzle of night-life goes on. In the disturbed after-hours of midnight or early hours of morning you may see a dozen or so drunken sailors pulling cabs and cabhorses on to the pavement, two sailors on each horse, cuffing its flanks with their hats, shouting and screeching, and evidently dreaming of the Wild West whence they come, the Turkish cab-drivers absolutely placid and pa.s.sive, however, and the Turkish gendarmes unalarmed, whilst strapping fellows of the American Naval Police with white bonnets on their heads, and neat blue jerkins, rush in and literally fell the sailors one by one with their truncheons, and fling them sprawling to the side-walk.

Next morning it is brilliantly and cruelly sunny, and on the way out of the city the eyes rest on a young woman dressed in the fashions of 1917, but with burst boots and darned "tango" stockings, and rent, shabby dress. The strong light betrays the disguises of a long-lived hat and shines garishly on the powder and paint of a young-old face.

So Constantinople goes on.

What a contrast when you return to Sofia! It is a day's journey in the express--a very short time, far too short to efface the vivid impression on the senses made by Constantinople. Perhaps in one respect Sofia resembles the great city, in that it is overcrowded.

Arriving at night, you are lucky to share a room with a Bulgarian officer. The latter is lying in bed, and does not seem perturbed at a civilian being put into his room. Perhaps he has been staying a long time without paying, and the management is retaliating. There is a bed which has sheets which may have been laid fresh for a German officer in 1915, and you wisely follow the custom of the country and sleep with your clothes on.

Next day, when you step out on to the streets of the Bulgarian capital, your eyes almost refuse to take in the change. You have such a strong expectation of the moving picture of the Constantinople street that you feel, as it were, robbed and astonished, as by a spell cast over your world. You have been transported by enchantment to an entirely different scene. Here is a strange quiet. A peasant population has come to town in heavy clothes and heavy faces. Despite the war and all the trouble it has meant, there is a feeling that all able-bodied men and women are provided for. Here is none of the elegance and indolence of Athens, or of the ingenuity and cleverness of Constantinople, but a steadiness and drabness of a peasant clumsiness mark the new Sofia. It is neither so pleasant nor so promising a place as it was in 1915. The soil of the black years is upon it.

Sofia was a peasant city without much fashion or style then, and this aspect has intensified itself. The peasant is the born enemy of the town, and whilst he may be perfect in the country he is a boorish and non-comprehending fellow when he comes to the capital to rule. The peasant in power has very little use for the brighter side of civilization. The more the latter is cut down the better for him. He has, unfortunately, grasped the truism that "without the peasant nothing can exist," and he is much disposed therefore to take more of the profit of living for himself and cut down the expenses of civilization.

In Bulgaria we have the curious anomaly of peasant communists in political power and a king. Monarchy and a sort of Bolshevism.

"So you are all Bolsheviks here?"

"No, only peasant-communists."

"Is that not similar?"

"No. We have no international programme. International politics do not interest us. We do not want any more wars. Governments make the wars and the people have to fight them. Ask anyone, Did we want the last war? Do we ever get anything out of wars? No. And now we have an administration who will keep us out of trouble."

The speaker was an ordinary Sofian proletariat, earning his living in a bakery. He seemed much pleased with Bulgaria as she is now; did not want a port, or talk about plebiscites, or the alleged nationality of those who dwell in the wildernesses of Macedonia.

So it is, a people of few words and not much racial ambition is in power. The old diplomatists and politicians, the "bourgeois," as they are now called, are all in opposition. Most of the educated and cultured and rich are out of office and power. They pursue the same old course of Balkan intrigue, communicating their opinions to you in stage-whispers, but intrigue merely ends in intrigue and does not lead to action. The old regime and old politics naturally find allies in the press which, having been so venal in the past, finds it difficult to turn to honest journalism. The venality of the press in Balkan countries is a characteristic which does more harm to nationhood in these parts than is understood. It springs from the original practice of giving State subsidies to authors and journalists and newspaper proprietors, on the ground that the reading public is too small to support such people entirely. Receivers of subsidies are naturally chary of writing against their patrons, and a great opportunity arises for interested parties to buy the press. The advisability of buying sections of the Balkan press is urged upon foreign Governments. So journalism and the organs of public opinion become not only physically debauched but poisoned at heart.

For that reason one need not pay much respect to the recrudescence in the press of attacks upon Greece. It is true, Bulgaria has lost Dedeagatch, her southern port, her window on to the Aegean, and a Greek army is between Bulgaria and Constantinople, but peasant Bulgaria will thrive quite well without a port; she virtually never used Dedeagatch, and it would be obvious foolishness to shed more blood for the possession of this remote harbour. The exit of Varna on the Black Sea suffices for all the wants of new Bulgaria.

One meets many partisans of Bulgaria. English people naturally like the Bulgars at first sight. The Bulgar is a good fighting man, and that makes a strong appeal to the man of the world. He is simple, not b.u.mptious, gives himself no airs of traditional culture or modern education, and therefore recommends himself. The cynical and false opinion of 1914-15 regarding Bulgaria--that she would come in to the war on the side that bid most money--is forgotten. And the disloyalties of Bulgaria, disloyalty to the Russia who set her free and to her erstwhile ally Serbia, are overlooked. The stupid Bulgarian hates and intractabilities are ignored, and the new European partisans would raise and strengthen her again, some being even ready, in opinion, to set her flying against Greece once more.

There is one constructive hope which appeals to most thinking minds, and that is, that at some time in the future Bulgaria could be merged in Jugo-Slavia or federated with it. Serbia abandoned her own good name and took this name of Jugo-Slavia or Country of the southern Slavs, that she might form the basis of a commonwealth of all the southern Slav nationalities. And if she embraces Croats and Slovenes why not Bulgars, too? It is said that the Bulgars, in order to ingratiate themselves with their war-allies, pretended that they were not Slav, that they were in reality also Huns, kindred of Hungarians and Finns. But a people with a language so like Russian could hardly cling to that deception. The best way to avoid trouble in the Balkans is to have larger, more comprehensive states. Therefore, one looks forward to the mergence of Bulgaria in something better and safer by and by.

Many Russians have found refuge in Sofia, a few thousand of the more lucky ones who have managed to get away from Constantinople. I daresay it is not realized how difficult it is to get out of that city to go even such a short distance as Sofia. Even for an Englishman it is difficult enough. What takes days for one of us takes months for a Russian, and then he has to have sponsors. However, when once he gets to Sofia, he finds the cost of living reduced five times. A pound sterling would keep a Russian in Sofia for a week, but in Constantinople for not much more than a day. Of course you can starve for nothing in both cities: the cost of living ceases to be important when you have nothing at all. But Sofia abounds in cheap white bread and b.u.t.ter. You get a pat of about two ounces with your morning roll.