The Purple of the Balkan Kings

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, self-important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise Habsburgcapital, confronted with the _Neue Freie Presse_ and the cup of cream-topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed piccolohad just brought him. For years longer than a dog's lifetimesleek-headed piccolos had placed the _Neue Freie Presse_ and a cup ofcream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the same spot,under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once been a living,soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now made monstrous andsymbolical with a second head grafted on to its neck and a gilt crownplanted on either dusty skull. To-day Luitpold Wolkenstein read no morethan the first article in his paper, but read it again and again. "The Turkish fortress of Kirk Kilisseh has fallen . . . The Serbs, it isofficially announced, have taken Kumanovo . . . The fortress of KirkKilisseh lost, Kumanovo taken by the Serbs, these are tiding forConstantinople resembling something out of Shakspeare's tragedies of thekings . . . The neighbourhood of Adrianople and the Eastern region,where the great battle is now in progress, will not reveal merely thefuture of Turkey, but also what position and what influence the BalkanStates are to have in the world." For years longer than a dog's lifetime Luitpold Wolkenstein had disposedof the pretensions and strivings of the Balkan States over the cup ofcream-topped coffee that sleek-headed piccolos had brought him. Nevertravelling further eastward than the horse-fair at Temesvar, neverinviting personal risk in an encounter with anything more potentiallydesperate than a hare or partridge, he had constituted himself thecritical appraiser and arbiter of the military and national prowess ofthe small countries that fringed the Dual Monarchy on its Danube border.And his judgment had been one of unsparing contempt for small-scaleefforts, of unquestioning respect for the big battalions and full purses.Over the whole scene of the Balkan territories and their troubledhistories had loomed the commanding magic of the words "the GreatPowers"--even more imposing in their Teutonic rendering, "DieGrossmachte." Worshipping power and force and money-mastery as an elderly nerve-riddenwoman might worship youthful physical energy, the comfortable,plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the ambitions of theBalkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed against them that batteryof strange lip-sounds that a Viennese employs almost as an auxiliarylanguage to express the thoughts when his thoughts are not complimentary.British travellers had visited the Balkan lands and reported high thingsof the Bulgarians and their future, Russian officers had taken peeps attheir army and confessed "this is a thing to be reckoned with, and it isnot we who have created it, they have done it by themselves." But overhis cups of coffee and his hour-long games of dominoes the oracle hadlaughed and wagged his head and distilled the worldly wisdom of hiscastle. The Grossmachte had not succeeded in stifling the roll of thewar-drum, that was true; the big battalions of the Ottoman Empire wouldhave to do some talking, and then the big purses and big threatenings ofthe Powers would speak and the last word would be with them. Inimagination Luitpold heard the onward tramp of the red-fezzed bayonetbearers echoing through the Balkan passes, saw the little sheepskin-cladmannikins driven back to their villages, saw the augustly chidingspokesman of the Powers dictating, adjusting, restoring, settling thingsonce again in their allotted places, sweeping up the dust of conflict,and now his ears had to listen to the war-drum rolling in quite anotherdirection, had to listen to the tramp of battalions that were bigger andbolder and better skilled in war-craft than he had deemed possible inthat quarter; his eyes had to read in the columns of his accustomednewspaper a warning to the Grossmachte that they had something new tolearn, something new to reckon with, much that was time-honoured torelinquish. "The Great Powers will have not little difficulty inpersuading the Balkan States of the inviolability of the principle thatEurope cannot permit any fresh partition of territory in the East withouther approval. Even now, while the campaign is still undecided, there arerumours of a project of fiscal unity, extending over the entire Balkanlands, and further of a constitutional union in imitation of the GermanEmpire. That is perhaps only a political straw blown by the storm, butit is not possible to dismiss the reflection that the Balkan Statesleagued together command a military strength with which the Great Powerswill have to reckon . . . The people who have poured out their blood onthe battlefields and sacrificed the available armed men of an entiregeneration in order to encompass a union with their kinsfolk will notremain any longer in an attitude of dependence on the Great Powers or onRussia, but will go their own ways . . . The blood that has been pouredforth to-day gives for the first time a genuine tone to the purple of theBalkan Kings. The Great Powers cannot overlook the fact that a peoplethat has tasted victory will not let itself be driven back again withinits former limits. Turkey has lost to-day not only Kirk Kilisseh andKumanovo, but Macedonia also." Luitpold Wolkenstein drank his coffee, but the flavour had somehow goneout of it. His world, his pompous, imposing, dictating world, hadsuddenly rolled up into narrower dimensions. The big purses and the bigthreats had been pushed unceremoniously on one side; a force that hecould not fathom, could not comprehend, had made itself rudely felt. Theaugust Caesars of Mammon and armament had looked down frowningly on thecombat, and those about to die had not saluted, had no intention ofsaluting. A lesson was being imposed on unwilling learners, a lesson ofrespect for certain fundamental principles, and it was not the smallstruggling States who were being taught the lesson. Luitpold Wolkenstein did not wait for the quorum of domino players toarrive. They would all have read the article in the _Freie Presse_. Andthere are moments when an oracle finds its greatest salvation inwithdrawing itself from the area of human questioning.

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