The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 | Page 4

the Triple Alliance the
co-operation of Italy and Germany. The Italian government repudiated
the obligation imputed to it by Austria-Hungary and flatly declared that
the Triple Alliance had nothing to do with a war of aggression. That

Austria-Hungary did not proceed to declare war against Servia at that
time--perhaps because she was discouraged by Germany as well as by
Italy--makes it all the more intelligible, in view of her bellicose attitude,
that she should have been urgent and insistent in pushing Bulgaria
forward to smite their common rival.
This conclusion is confirmed by the positive statement of the Russian
government. The communication accompanying the declaration of war
against Bulgaria, dated October 18, contains the following passage:
"The victorious war of the united Balkan people against their ancient
enemy, Turkey, assured to Bulgaria an honorable place in the Slavic
family. But under Austro-German suggestion, contrary to the advice of
the Russian Emperor and without the knowledge of the Bulgarian
government, the Coburg Prince on June 29, 1913, moved Bulgarian
armies against the Serbians."
The "Coburg Prince" is of course Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria. That he
acted under Austro-Hungarian influences in attacking his Balkan Allies
on that fateful Sunday, June 29, 1913, is no longer susceptible of doubt.
But whatever other inferences may be drawn from that conclusion it
certainly makes the course of Bulgaria in launching the second Balkan
War, though its moral character remains unchanged, look less hopeless
and desperate than it otherwise appeared. Had she not Austria-Hungary
behind her? And had not Austria-Hungary at that very time informed
her Italian ally that she intended making war against Servia?
But, whatever the explanation, the thunderbolt forged in 1913 was not
launched till July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary formally declared
war on Servia. The occasion was the assassination, a month earlier, of
the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the
Duchess of Hohenburg, in the streets of Sarajevo. The occasion,
however, was not the cause of the war. The cause was that which
moved the Dual Monarchy to announce a war on Servia in the summer
of 1913, namely, dissatisfaction with the territorial aggrandizement of
Servia as a result of the first Balkan War and alarm at the Pan-Serb
agitation and propaganda which followed the Servian victories over
Turkey. These motives had subsequently been much intensified by the
triumph of Servia over Bulgaria in the second Balkan War. The
relations of Austria-Hungary to Servia had been acutely strained since
October, 1908, when the former annexed the Turkish provinces of

Bosnia and Herzegovina, which under the terms of the treaty of Berlin
she had been administering since 1878. The inhabitants of Bosnia and
Herzegovina are Serb, and Serb also are the inhabitants of Dalmatia on
the west and Croatia on the north, which the Dual Monarchy had
already brought under its sceptre. The new annexation therefore
seemed a fatal and a final blow to the national aspirations of the Serb
race and it was bitterly resented by those who had already been
gathered together and "redeemed" in the Kingdom of Servia. A second
disastrous consequence of the annexation was that it left Servia
hopelessly land-locked. The Serb population of Dalmatia and
Herzegovina looked out on the Adriatic along a considerable section of
its eastern coast, but Servia's long-cherished hope of becoming a
maritime state by the annexation of the Serb provinces of Bosnia and
Herzegovina was now definitively at an end. She protested, she
appealed, she threatened; but with Germany behind the Dual Monarchy
and Russia still weak from the effects of the war with Japan, she was
quickly compelled to submit to superior force.
During the war of the Balkan Allies against Turkey Servia made one
more effort to get to the Adriatic,--this time by way of Albania. She
marched her forces over the mountains of that almost impassable
country and reached the sea at Durazzo. But she was forced back by the
European powers at the demand of Austria-Hungary, as some weeks
later on the same compulsion she had to withdraw from the siege of
Scutari. Then she turned toward the Aegean, and the second Balkan
War gave her a new opportunity. The treaty of Bukarest and the
convention with Greece assured her of an outlet to the sea at Saloniki.
But this settlement proved scarcely less objectionable to
Austria-Hungary than the earlier dream of Servian expansion to the
Adriatic by the annexation of the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
The fact is that, if we look at the matter dispassionately and in a purely
objective spirit, we shall find that there really was a hopeless
incompatibility between the ideals, aims, policies, and interests of the
Servians and the Serb race and those of the Austrians and Hungarians.
Any aggrandizement of the Kingdom of Servia, any enlargement