t on the Adriatic, and
when, after a glorious war, she attained her goal, she found Austria
opposing her, and behind Austria the whole of the European concert.

Montenegro in the same way cannot forget the disappointment of being
cast out of Scutari after one of the most strenuous and glorious
campaigns of her history, and lastly Albania, poor and helpless,
without any support from her creators, feels all that a weak and
wretched foundling has to feel toward those responsible for its
misfortunes and miseries. In contrast with these feelings, Rumania was
the only Balkan State perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement. In
fact, Rumania, having played in the war the part of a great power,
came out of it not only with increased prestige but also with the
richest of all the Bulgarian provinces, Dobrudja, as a sort of
deserved payment for serving the ends of European diplomacy.

From this general dissatisfaction of the Balkan States with European
diplomacy and European intrigue sprang Gavrilo Prinzip and the murder
at Serajevo that plunged Europe and the world into the greatest and
most disastrous war of all time.

In fairness, however, to the Balkan States it must be said at this
juncture that war, in whatever form and character, was far from the
Balkan mind on June 28, 1914, when the Austrian Archduke and heir to
the throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his consort were assassinated by the
Servian youth Prinzip in the capital of Bosnia.

The years 1912 and 1913 had been too costly for the whole of the
Balkan Peninsula, and the necessity of a continued peace for a good
number of years was universally recognized, with the exception of
Constantinople, in Athens, Bucharest, Sofia, Belgrade, Cettinge, and
even Durazzo. To prove this we have the opinions of all the Balkan
leaders and the views expressed in the Balkan press up to Aug. 1,
1914.

A single point yet calls for a few remarks, and this covers the mutual
relations of the Balkan States just before the European war.

We have seen in what a degree the question of the ownership of the
Aegean Islands had divided the Governments of Athens and
Constantinople. In fact, if any war in the Near East were to be
feared, this was one between the two secular enemies, Greek and Turk,
and when in May, 1913, the anti-Greek agitation in the Ottoman Empire
reached its climax it was only through the tremendous influence of the
Greek Premier on Hellenic public opinion and his extreme modera