The Angel of Peace

Whoever thought that in the Hague
Everything would fail this time,
Was simply wreathed in error,
Because before you thought things over,
The Angel of Peace was there,
But he was called: cholera.
(Die Muskete, Vienna, 1912) (The First Balkan War was drawing to a close, and for the first time the Hague Conventions were to play a role in the negotiations. Complicating the proceedings was the outbreak of cholera on both sides of the Bulgarian-Turkish lines.)