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The winter of 1908-9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia's fortunes. The successive coups and faits accomplis carried out by Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria during 1908 seemed destined to destroy for good the Serbian plans for expansion in any direction whatever, and if these could not be realized then Serbia must die of suffocation.
On the flat prairie lands the rails are laid, and there is a length of one hundred and seventy-five miles without a single curve. Three hundred and fifty thousand square miles of this prairie is specially adapted to the growing of grain. In 1908-9 the yield of wheat was 4,920,000 tons.
Equally decisive, perhaps, was Germany's formidable shipbuilding in 1908-9, namely, four Dreadnoughts to England's two, a fact which explains this statement of Bülow: "When at last, during the Bosnian crisis, the sky of international politics cleared, when German power on the Continent burst its encompassing bonds, we had already got beyond the stage of preparation in the construction of our fleet ."
They must have realized the great danger of the situation, but they very likely may have thought that by another piece of bluff similar to that of 1908-9 they might intimidate Russia a second time; and they believed that Russia was behindhand in her military preparations.
And, most remarkable of all, the figures I shall submit to you, the gross amount of income which comes under the view of the Treasury Commissioners who are charged with the collection of income-tax, was in the year 1898-9 762 millions, and it had risen from that figure to 980 millions sterling in the year 1908-9: that is to say, that it had risen by 218 millions in the course of ten years.
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