At first the Balkan states went to war against
Turkey. The Balkan League of Serbia, Bulgaria,
Greece and Montenegro attacked the Turks in
October 1912 and defeated them. As a result of
the war Serbia greatly increased its territory, to
the alarm of Austria. All the great European
powers stepped in to supervise the peace and
Russia had to agree to Austrian demands limiting
Serbia’s gains.
But hardly had the question been settled
in London in May 1913 when the members of
the Balkan League fought each other. Bulgaria
now attacked Serbia and Greece; Montenegro,
Romania and Turkey joined Serbia and Greece in
attacking Bulgaria. Bulgaria was forced to make
peace and yield many of its gains from the first
Balkan war.
The conflicts of the Balkan states would have
mattered comparatively little outside their own
region of the world, but for the effects on Austria-
Hungary and on Russia. There was little consis-
tency about Russian policy in the Balkans. Strong
Pan-Slav feelings motivated Russia’s ambassadors
in the Balkans and these were backed by sections
of public opinion within Russia. But the official
line taken by Sergei Sazonov, Izvolsky’s successor
at the Foreign Ministry in St Petersburg, was
caution. The result of the Balkan wars was to
weaken Russia’s position as well as Austria’s. For
Russia the future appeared full of uncertainties in
the Balkans. The eventual alignment of the indi-
vidual Balkan states, with Austria-Hungary and
Germany on the one side and Russia and France
on the other, was unpredictable. Only Serbia was
still Russia’s firm ally and that was not for love of
Russia but due to its enmity of Austria-Hungary.
These uncertainties made the Russians much
more nervous about the future of the Straits of
Constantinople. They were not only vital stra-
tegically but, with the upsurge of the Russian
economy, they also formed an increasingly
important link in the chain of Russia’s trade with
the rest of the world. Three-quarters of its grain
exports were shipped from the Black Sea through
the Straits, and grain constituted some 40 per
cent of Russia’s total export trade. The Russians
wished the Turks to remain the guardians as long
as they did not fall under hostile influence until
the Russians were strong enough to control
them. Germany now had become a double threat:
as Austria-Hungary’s ally and, since 1909, as
Turkey’s ‘friend’. The appointment of a German
general, Liman von Sanders in November 1913
to command the army corps stationed in Con-
stantinople greatly alarmed St Petersburg. Russian
protests this time worked. General von Sanders
was promoted to the rank of field marshal, which
made him too grand merely to command troops
in Constantinople.
On the plus side for the Russians was the atti-
tude of the French who in 1912 strongly revived
the Franco-Russian alliance. But Russian policy
would in the end be dictated by Russian interests.
Until Russia’s military reorganisation was com-
pleted, and while still faced with strikes and unrest
at home, Russia wanted to avoid war. That was
still the view of the Council of Ministers called to
debate the question in January 1914, just a few
months before the outbreak of war.
The Habsburg Empire had been a formidable
European power for more than four centuries.
Was its disintegration in the twentieth century the
inevitable consequence of the two most powerful
currents of modern history: nationalism and
industrialisation? These threatened, respectively,
the common bond of loyalty which the national-
ities composing the Dual Monarchy felt for the
dynasty and the acceptance of an existing social
order. In many ways industrialisation and nation-
alism were contradictory forces in Austria-
Hungary. The large market of the empire and free
trade within it helped industrial progress; social-
ism, which grew with industrial expansion, also
called for an allegiance that cut across the ethnic
differences of nationality. Nationalism, on the
other hand, was divisive and threatened to break
up the empire. But nationalism contained the
seeds of conflict within itself. There could be no
easy agreement in a part of Europe where the
nationalities were so intermingled as to what
precise national frontiers should be drawn, or
who should form the majority in a state or which
peoples must acquiesce in remaining a minority.
There would be conflicts and tensions however
matters were arranged and the majority of the
1
MULTINATIONAL RUSSIAN AND HABSBURG EMPIRES 47
