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Updated: June 23, 2025
At the Foreign Office I begged protection for the Balkan Moslems, who were being barbarously exterminated, and stated that until it was seen that the Balkan conquerors were capable of just rule, the Capitulations should remain in force. Those with whom I spoke admitted that the consular reports from Uskub and Monastir were very bad, but that it was not advisable to publish them.
The latter felt herself directly menaced by the Balkan policy of Russia; the former was not prepared to see her southern neighbour despoiled of territory. Hence in 1879 was initiated that closer union between Germany and Austria which has been so largely responsible for the present situation.
Primarily, the Balkan question is, or rather was, one between subject Christian populations and the Turks. But it has been complicated, not only by the quarrels of the subject populations among themselves, but by the rival ambitions and claims of Russia and Austria.
Italy must be dragged into a triple alliance; and the small Balkan States must be tied up with Austria, that through an alliance with Turkey, Germany might reach not only the Mediterranean but the waters of the Pacific. This must happen before the great try-out for the mastery of the seas.
In May 1913 a military convention was concluded between them, and the Balkan League, the relations between the members of which had been becoming more strained ever since January, finally dissolved.
If European statecraft had not been animated by false conceptions, largely economic in origin, based upon a belief in the necessary rivalry of states, the advantages of preponderant force and conquest, the Western nations could have composed their quarrels and ended the abominations of the Balkan peninsula long ago even in the opinion of the Times.
Finding herself one against two, she tried a coup de main on both fronts, failed, and brought on a second Balkan war, in which a new determining factor, Rumania, intervened at a critical moment to decide the issue against her.
To obtain a similar ascendancy over the Balkan states was more difficult; for the Turk was the secular enemy of all of them, and Austria was the foe of two of the four, and to bring these little states into partnership with their natural enemies seemed an all but impossible task. Yet a good deal could be, and was, done.
Finally the Serbs gave way, and claimed a far larger part of Macedonia than had been mapped out in their agreement with Bulgaria prior to the war. Hence arose strifes between their forces, in which the Greeks also sided against the Bulgars. Meanwhile, the London Conference of the Powers and the Balkan States framed terms of peace, which were largely due to the influence of Sir Edward Grey .
The cure for nationality is forgetfulness, but Balkan nationalism is rooted altogether in the past. The Balkan peoples have suffered one shattering experience in common the Turk, and the waters of Ottoman oppression that have gone over their souls have not been waters of Lethe.
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