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2 18
232 THE PEACE OF BUKHAREST [chap. xiii.
The Treaty of Bukharest, in place of all that had been
so well thought out and drawn up by M. Sazonoff at the
time of the Conferences in London, yielded us one result
only as a consolation : the one I mentioned above and
which at the beginning had been so contrary to M.
Sazonoff’s way of thinking. This result was the alliance
binding Serbians, Rumanians and Greeks into one sheaf,
and directed mainly against the Bulgarians. We liked
to think that this new Balkan league would mainly
serve as a curb to Austria’s designs for expansion, and
would henceforth obey our wise guiding hand. This
was how it was viewed in a certain set in our Foreign
Office. Contemplating the punishment of the guilty
and the renewal of Russian influence in Greece and
Rumania, where this influence had been in jeopardy
for so long, some young and impetuous members of our
Foreign Office proclaimed the great victory of Russian
policy in the Near East, a victory gained without
bloodshed (Vdikaya bezkrovnaya pobeda). When a young
colleague, who had come as a messenger to Sofia,
reported this talk to me, I told him to take a message
from me to all those who had indulged in it to the effect
that either this triumph would not last and we should
be obliged to renounce the largest share of our illusions
concerning the results of the Treaty of Bukharest, or
that blood would be shed and in such quantity as had
not been shed since the conquest of the Mongolians and
the grave disorders of the smoutnoye vremia.
When the terrible events of the world-war came to
put the solidity of the new system to the test it was
found that the Serbians alone remained entirely faithful
to the moral engagement into which they had entered
with us. In Greece and Rumania only a section of the
politicians considered that the events of 1913 bound
these States to Serbia and to Russia; others only saw in
them a triumph of diplomatic opportunism, after the
recording of which one could boldly resume former
sympathies and former engagements. Indeed, at the
moment of the great trial neither of the two States
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