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By Root 584 0

was an invitation to work, the drawers below had been found to be locked when the old gentleman had died and no one knew how to open them. The keys to the side-drawers were, it was supposed, in the centre drawer, but though the key to this was in its place and was the right key – for it bore a tag in Count Peter’s writing – and although it turned quite easily, the drawer still did not open. Balint was sure that somewhere there was a secret catch, but he had never been able to find it. After many attempts he had finally given up the struggle and indeed had been happy to do so for he felt instinctively that this drawer probably held some special memories, some long-dead secrets better left undisturbed. In any case he did not need those drawers, for near the door there stood a modern roll-top work table with its drawers of files, and this Balint used for his daily correspondence.

It was at his grandfather’s old desk that Balint sat when Aron and Ganyi had gone to the meeting. His letters and a pile of newspapers had been put there for him and he at once took that day’s paper and turned to the news from abroad. He had been doing this every morning for the past six weeks – ever since the Balkan War had started.

Every day the news was increasingly unexpected and confusing, and Balint read it all with growing anxiety. He was only too aware that the official policy of the Ballplatz was to maintain the status quo, but also that, on the contrary, the Heir himself planned to increase the direct rule of the Habsburgs and to extend it by enslaving the southern Slavs. The twists and turns revealed in the papers therefore baffled and confused him. That Russia wanted war was certain, for her power and influence were everywhere to be seen. But Vienna – what was her part in all this? Was Austria tacitly following her lead? Balint grew increasingly sure that somewhere, somehow, some fatal error was being compounded.

Austria-Hungary’s foreign minister, whose authority and power could easily have put an end to the fighting, turned instead to subtle diplomacy and induced the other great powers, in apparent but deceptive harmony, merely to give a little rap on the knuckles to the heads of the warring Balkan states by letting them know that, whatever the result of the fighting, Vienna would never consent to any diminution in Turkish authority. This mild and ineffective warning was not issued until October 8th, 1912, by which time it should have been obvious to all that it would have no effect.

The only concession the great powers would allow, it seemed, was that Turkey must be induced to grant essential reforms in her administration of Macedonia. The news of this important climb-down also came too late: it arrived in Cetinje only on the afternoon of the day on which Nikita had already declared war on Turkey and sent his troops to invade her borders.

Balint could not conceive how all this muddle had been possible. It was not to be believed that Vienna had not known in advance what was being plotted in Montenegro. Even if the Ballplatz’s own intelligence service had failed to pass on the news, they could easily have been informed by merely reading The Times, for the great London newspaper had published, as early as the end of August, the full text of the Balkan Pact. To imagine that, when Turkey had been defeated, anyone would be able to induce the victorious armies to retreat behind the ancient boundaries was an absurdity hard to credit. There must, therefore, be some other explanation, and it could only be that the central European powers took a Turkish victory for certain and that Vienna was looking forward to the defeat of the Balkan states. At any rate it was clear that this was the view of the Prussian Marshal von der Goltz who had himself, a few years before, planned the reorganization of the Turkish armies.

The Sublime Porte thanked the great powers for their interest and promises of support, but clearly did not have much faith in them; while the Balkan states paid no heed at all. Then the war started and the Turks were chased from