The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

power, endangered his plans and prompted him to action. The annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1908 brought the German danger nearer to Serbia and embittered Austro-Serbian relations to the highest pitch. Ferdinand approached Serbia at the moment when she was most disposed for making the greatest concessions in Macedonia in exchange for the promise of some help and co-operation against AustriaHungary. Thus the Serbo-Bulgarian Treaty of Alliance was signed in 1912, and the Balkan League embracing Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro was formed in the same year.

The forming of the Balkan League, together with the triumphant march of the allied armies through Macedonia and Thrace, was hailed with joy by all sincere friends of the Balkan nations, and called forth many sanguine expectations as to the future of the Balkans. But the Balkan League was dead on the very day upon which the treaty of alliance was signed. It was dead because upon it lay the curse of Prussian statecraft; because it was not animated by the living spirit, which is truth and sincerity.

The Balkan statesmen and Governments of 1912 approached each other, negotiated and concluded the treaty of alliance, not in a pious spirit of brotherly union or Christian love, animated by a sincere desire not only to fight the old Mussulman oppressor and to divide the spoil, but also to further each other’s political and

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