Unless you happen to be one of the many French army officers, government officials, and commercial travelers who “commute,” so to speak, between Marseilles and Algiers you will probably be somewhat surprised, should you stay up late, to see bright lights to starboard. The white Casbah of Algiers should loom in sight until late forenoon. Earlier than that I had not expected a sight of land, hence my question to the deck steward.
The Balearic Isles! I had forgotten about them. So those are the lights of Port Mahon, a city famous in song and story, named in honor of Hannibal’s brother Mago. What confused and curious recollections of classical and modern times those names suggest. Balearic slingers, those early sharpshooters, struggling over the Alps along with ponderous elephants who are having a harder time “making the grade” than a long wheel base on a mountain road; a British Admiral, John Byng, condemned to death for having failed in battle against his French opponent La Galissonniere, thereby leaving France in control of Minorca. What an argument was raised as to when a commander should leave his place in the line of battle! A scapegoat? Probably; the court absolved Byng from any charge of cowardice. And then we have mayonnaise sauce, invented by the cook of the Duke de Richelieu. Necessity is the mother of invention. Finding that fresh butter could not be obtained on the island of Minorca (and I doubt whether it can be obtained today), this resourceful cordon bleu made his sauce out of olive oil. By so doing he contributed more to the prestige of France, in the long run, than did his master when he captured Port Mahon in 1756.
Going to the smoking-room I take a glance at the chart. Behind Minorca lies Majorca. I am ashamed of my ignorance but all I know of this island is that it is the spot George Sand and Chopin chose for their famous “three weeks.” Intended as a honeymoon, that voyage to Cythera nearly ended in a tragedy. Of course it rained practically the entire time. The Chartreuse of Valldemosa was hardly the proper place for a consumptive. The straitlaced natives looked askance at the strange couple. And then came the sudden, terrifying hemorrhage, the frantic appeal to the surgeon of a French cruiser in the harbor of Palma, and the ghastly homeward journey in a cattle ship!
But I am digressing. Ibiza, Formentera, Cabrera, it was here that Dupont’s army was left to starve after surrendering at Bailen, the first serious defeat the Napoleonic eagles encountered. Well, whether or not the Balearic Isles are destined to play a part in history again, they must contain some picturesque places, if we are to believe the descriptions in Los Muertos Mandan by Blasco Ibanez. Although my curiosity to visit the islands where the dead command was aroused many years ago, it was not until recently that I boarded the Barcelona-Palma steamer. Have I aroused your curiosity sufficiently to bear with me while I indulge in the inalienable right of all travelers to wander and wonder?
If so, I shall begin by giving you a practical “tip,” the kind the steamship office will never think of. If your first view of the islands is to be from the Barcelona packet, as mine was, take a cabin on the port side. When you awake in the morning you will be skirting one of the most imposing coast lines the conflict of land and water ever wrought. While dressing and sipping your coffee you can gaze through your porthole on cliffs challenging the sea to its sternest efforts, on deep blue waves vanquished in the unequal contest and surrendering in foam and spray. The colors are so brilliant that no one but a great artist can paint them without sinking into meretricious art. Soon your eye will meet the symbol of Majorca, a watchtower. Every indenture of the coast has its silent guardian past which no Barbary corsair could pass without kindling a beacon whose flame would be answered from the near-by hill and so on to the spires of the cathedral at Palma.
II
Do you remember the principal parts of βαλλω? Well, neither do I, but I do remember some of its derivatives: “parable,” a moral which is “thrown beside” the lesson for our edification, “diabolical,” so called because the devil is ever “throwing across” our path some poisoned dart, figuratively if not actually. What has that got to do with the Balearic Isles? Simply this, the ancient Balears were such first- class throwers that they gave the verb a generic sense, an early illustration of the saying “The Greeks had a word for it.” In this case the “it” was a race of white savages whose dress consisted mainly of three slings, one wrapped around the head, another around the waist, and one around the wrist. No wonder they acquired marksmanship early in life as their mothers placed their food out of reach on a tree or a ledge from which they were expected to bring it down with slings. One day the quiet of their primitive existence was disturbed by the arrival of strange sailors with stern, faces and curly dark beards who temptingly arranged rows of gaudy trinkets and some useful wares along the beach, just as their descendants do to this day in the islands of the Cyclades. “Trade follows the flag.” What is true now was true in the sixth century; b.c. The islands naturally shared the fortunes of their masters. The Balears became “native troops” in the Carthaginian armies. In 123 b.c. the conquerors of Carthage sent Q. Cecilius Metullus to take possession of the archipelago. In 55 b.c. Caesar was pleased by the performance of his Balearic slingers in action against the Britons. Little did the Mediterranean islanders suspect that one day they were to receive a long return visit from the islanders whose subjection they were assisting. After several centuries of rule by the barbarians who successively raided Rome, broken by a short occupation by the Eastern Emperor Belisarius; the islands were wrested from the Vis1' goths by the Arabs in the eighth century- The rule of the Visigoth lasted from 409 to 711. The rule of the Arab was destined to last until 1229. During this period the Moorish governors assumed regal powers and founded a piratical monarchy which included the island of Sardinia. We shall have occasion to couple the Balearic Isles and Sardinia again. So serious had their depredations become that in 1114 the Catalan Count Ramon de Berenguer, the third of his name, aided by the Genoese and the Pisans and abetted by Pope Pascual II, seized Palma. But the attempt to stamp out piracy was abortive. Hardly had Berenguer taken the city than he received disquieting news. The Moors were besieging Barcelona. Catalonia was one province of Spain which had been fairly successful in resisting Moorish invasion. So Berenguer rushed home, leaving the wily Italians to deal with the Arabs— which they proceeded to do, for a consideration, by sailing away and leaving the Arabs in possession of Palma. It was not until 1229 that Don Jaime of Aragon reduced the whole group and constituted the Kingdom of Majorca for the benefit of his second son and namesake. Conflans, Roussillon, and Montpelier were added for good measure. The Balearic Isles now began to assume the definite Catalan traits of language and culture which they still retain. In 1349 the islands were again absorbed into the Kingdom of Aragon by Redro IV and in due course joined Catalonia as part of the united realm of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Catalonia differs radically from the rest of Spain and has always displayed marked separatist tendencies. In 1640 the Catalans revolted against Philip IV and placed themselves under the protection of Louis XIII where they remained until 1659. Between 1694 and 1697 and again from 1808 to 1813 France held Catalonia without encountering any violent opposition on the part of the inhabitants. When civil strife besets Spain, as it does periodically, the Catalans develop a centrifugal force in which the difference of language is a powerful contributing factor. As regards Catalan one point should be borne in mind. It is a living language, derived from the Provencal. It is not a dialect. It has a grammar, a modern literature, and is spoken by four and one half million people in Spain, besides a couple of hundred thousand in France. It is also spoken in parts of Sardinia. The reasons which impel a progressive, energetic maritime state such as Catalonia to strike out for itself and part company with a central government to which it is bound by rather weak historical ties are fairly obvious. Once the solvent of separatism begins to work, how can Spain, or Catalonia for that matter, expect to exert enough attraction to keep such sizeable satellites as the Balearic Isles in their present orbits? During the Spanish-American War the Majorcans protested so strenuously against foreign service that conscription had to be abandoned. That sounds much like Ireland in the late war. When the smoke of battle clears away in Spain, Europe may well find herself confronted with another one of those problems which seem fated to keep the pot boiling. More than mere independence is now involved, as I shall attempt to prove.
III
Nature seems to have intended that certain places should be important strategically and not of much importance in any other way. The Isthmus of Panama is a good illustration in this hemisphere. The Mediterranean contains several, the best known of which are, obviously, Gibraltar and Malta. Now the mentality developed by the native population of such places is a very curious one. Realizing that their main stock in trade, their raison d'etre, lies in their strategic value, without which they would be subject to all the horrors of peace, in other words vegetate, they readily adapt themselves to the presence of a stranger whose liberal purse provides most, if not all, of their prosperity. The civilian population of Gibraltar, some seventeen thousand souls, consists mainly of Genoese and Maltese settlers. The original Spanish population has been largely relegated to the mainland. That the present inhabitants of Gibraltar should view their situation from a purely materialistic point of view is understandable. Conditions in Gibraltar are perhaps not normal, so let us pass on to another strategic base, Malta.
The population of Malta is a blend of Phoenician, Arab, Norman, Spanish, and Southern Italian stocks. Both as to language and racial make-up it resembles Sicily more than any other land. For centuries Malta has battened and fattened on the money poured into the island, first by the Knights of St. John and later by the British. “Un luxe de precautions inutiles” is how Admiral Jurien de la Graviere has described the imposing fortifications with which Valetta fairly bristles. Useless? From a military standpoint, possibly. But the pay-roll the British fleet brings is anything but useless to the Maltese. If the Italian Irredentists think they are meeting with any response when they proclaim the racial affinity of Italy and Malta, they are sadly mistaken. The Maltese are doing very nicely as they are and have not the slightest desire of changing masters. Would Panama be content to rejoin Colombia now that she has heard the ring of U. S. dollars?
The Carthaginians and the Romans were quick to realize the importance of the Balearic Isles as a naval base. Charles V frequently used Majorca as a base for his rather unsuccessful operations against the strongholds of the Barbary corsair Barbarossa. The struggle between France and England for Port Mahon is well known. It gave rise to the “return visit” of the Britons which lasted from 1708 to 1803, interrupted by two short occupations, one by the French in 1756 which we have already noted and one by the Spaniards in 1782. The struggle ended by the islands being returned to Spain by the peace of Amiens, from which time on the islands decidedly went “up stage.” Spain had no particular use for them; the other powers developed existing bases or added new ones—Bizerta, Cyprus, Corfu, Leros, and others.
Now what possible reason can there be for anyone desiring to arouse the Balearic Isles from the idyllic quiet in which they are basking? The advent of a new world power and a change in the direction of military movements is the answer.
The new power, as you have probably guessed, is Fascist Italy. The traveler in the Aegean or along the coast of Asia' Minor is surprised at finding, of ten at most unexpected places, not the glistening columns of a Greek temple or the graceful minaret of a Turkish mosque, but some remarkably well-preserved specimen of military architecture mutely testifying to the passage of the Genoese or the Venetian in by-gone centuries. The expansion of modern Italy first followed in the footsteps of the trading republics and then continued on into northeastern Africa. Why should Italy now cast her eyes westward? To be in a position to forestall any hostile move by Great Britain who is viewing Italian colonial plans on her Egyptian borders with suspicion, you will say. Yes, undoubtedly. But another reason is probably lurking in the fertile brains of those directing Italian expansion.
If you will glance at a chart of the Mediterranean you will see that the British bases are located with one main object in view: the protection of the route to Suez and India. The bases are therefore chosen primarily for maritime reasons and are functions of a policy that is commercial rather than military. Britain’s celebrated “life line” runs from East to West.
With the occupation of Algiers by France in 1830 a new “life line” began to extend across the Mediterranean, one that was military rather than commercial. At first this movement was from North to South and consisted mainly in shipments of troops and supplies to France’s new African possessions. During the World War we witnessed a reversal of this trend. The marked numerical inferiority of France to Germany naturally led the French to attempt to supplement the relatively small levies of French troops with ever increasing contingents of native troops. The post-war period has given impetus to this system, so that in any future continental war we are likely to see movements from Northern Africa on a scale surpassing anything heretofore witnessed, barring, of course, unforeseen developments to which I shall presently refer. France today is frankly emulating Rome and drafting huge contingents of “auxiliaries,” or “native troops” as they are now called, whose safe and speedy transportation across the Mediterranean in time of war would be France’s major naval task.
The wisdom of this policy, in the long run, is doubtful. The dangers threatening white supremacy and the survival of European civilization, now that Arabs and Africans are learning the use of modern weapons and have seen the rivalries and dissensions which are undermining the people they once believed invincible, are familiar to all readers of Lothrop Stoddard. One has only to read the diary of a German officer describing a Senagalese charge, which for sheer horror exceeds any war narrative I know of, to realize what the African menace added to the Asiatic Menace means to our race. One contingent of Moroccan troops, imported by the Spanish insurgents recently, on seeing “the rock” are said to have indulged in comments which showed that the memory of Tarik ben Zaid and the Cordoba Caliphate had not been effaced by the passing of four and one half centuries.
IV
Turn once more to a chart of the Mediterranean and try to lay a course from Algiers or Bizerta to Marseilles and Toulon that will not pass within 100 miles of Sardinia on the East and the Balearic Isles on the West. It can be done but with not much to spare. The normal course from Marseilles to Algiers takes us within 8 miles of Minorca, as I once discovered to surprise.
It is pretty obvious that the Spanish Insurgents” are under heavy obligations to Italy and will continue to need that country’s backing for some time to come. Should a base in the Balearic Isles be allocated to Italy by a grateful “insurgent” Spanish government, the Italian navy and air forces would control two prongs of a vice through which France’s African contingents must find a passage. There is no overestimating the authority in world affairs Italy would assume by this fact. It was from Majorca that Charles V harassed the Barbary coast. It was from Minorca that England watched Toulon. If to a base in these islands be added Ceuta, the African counterpart of Gibraltar, and one of the Canary Islands, past which convoys from the Cape of Good Hope must pass, we may well have to revise all our strategic notions.
Several reflections naturally come to mind at this point. What has become of the usually farseeing British diplomacy that England should seem unable to prevent such a windfall dropping into the lap of her latest rival? It is rather a stiff price to pay for the dubious privilege of championing “liberalism.” As for France, she is in a fair way of seeing herself surrounded by three, instead of two, Fascist states, with Italy watching her Mediterranean coast from the West as well as from the East. Socialism may be idealism, but it is not practical international politics. When the show-down comes the peace of Europe will be subjected to a pretty severe strain.
But we are forgetting the possible attitude of the Balearic Islanders in all this. The time has passed when territories can be handed around like so much loose change. The Balearic Isles are rather extensive and possessed of too much economic life of their own to be treated as mere bases. Right. But how do we know that the Balears have any objection to an arrangement that may restore to them much of their lost importance? Conversations with Majorcans convinced me that the dream of autonomy was revolving like a wheel within the wheel of Catalan independence. The bond between these islands and Catalonia is by no means indissoluble.
In fact the islanders in the present upheaval seem to have taken a radically different view of matters from that of Barcelona. If we are to believe press dispatches the Italian aviators have been welcomed in Palma and a daily airplane service seems to be in operation between Italy and the islands. Of course it is only “commercial aviation” but what opportunities for “leases,” “concessions,” etc., these two words connote! “Coaling stations,” “radio stations” are decidedly vieux jeu and the Fascists are nothing if not up to date.
How about the native population? Well, if a small island is involved those who resent the change can follow the example of the native population of Gibraltar. Anyway, they are hardly in a position to resist. But unless my guess is decidedly wrong nothing tragic is going to happen. Majorca can aspire to the prosperity of Malta without losing any freedom she really cherishes. Pick up any book by a modern Majorcan and you will find that the days of Majorca’s struggle against Islam, the days when the islands played a part in the history of the world are “the good old days.” Then why not aspire to see them return? We shall not witness a second siege of Sargossa in the Balearic Isles. Spanish in name only, what would they lose in joining the rising star of Italia Irridenta?
Whatever tragedy is in the air is of another nature.
The Balearic Isles! Now that I have seen them I shall never forget them again. Peaceful white fishing villages snugly ensconsed within bottle-necked harbors, hills covered by writhing, century-old olive trees, valleys drowsy with the incense of orchards and vineyards, caves which seem to have opened out at the touch of some magician’s wand, stately and somber mansions whose flat-arched patios partake of the fonda as well as of the palace, Gothic vaulting which for slender grace stands unequalled. If ever I see them again will they be dwarfed by some radio tower or hangar, disturbed by some dry dock or arsenal? To be sure, in resuming their place in the line of battle the islands are but obeying the voice of a remote past. Los Muertos Mandanl It was from his Minorcan father that Admiral Farragut inherited his fighting blood. But the lost or marred beauty of these islands of the blessed cannot be restored by having some martial Catalan remind us, as he proudly points to the Castillo de Bellver, that now as of yore Europe’s watchtowers against a cruel African foe are: “Les Isles Baleares, Monsieur.