ge of the changed European situation to take
up once more the traditional policy of the Habsburg monarchy in the Balkan
Peninsula. He gradually departed from the Muerzsteg basis, and in January
1908 deliberately undermined the Austro-Russian agreement by obtaining from
the sultan a concession for a railway from the Bosnian frontier through the
sanjak of Novibazar to the Turkish terminus at Mitrovitza. This was done in
the teeth of the expressed wish of Russia; it roused the helpless
resentment of Servia, whose economic dependence upon the Dual Monarchy was
emphasized by the outcome of the war of tariffs into which she had plunged
in 1906, and who saw in this scheme another link in the chain forged for
her by the Habsburg empire; it offended several of the great powers, who
seemed to see in this railway concession the price of the abandonment by
Austria-Hungary of her interest in Macedonian reforms. That Baron von
Aerenthal was able to pursue a policy apparently so rash, was due to the
fact that he could reckon on the support of Germany. The intimate relations
between the two powers had been revealed during the dispute between France
and Germany about Morocco; in the critical division of the 3rd of March
1906 at the Algeciras Conference Austria-Hungary, alone of all the powers,
had sided with Germany, and it was a proposal of the Austro-Hungarian
plenipotentiary that formed the basis of the ultimate settlement between
Germany and France (see MOROCCO: _History_). The cordial relations thus
emphasized encouraged Baron Aerenthal, in the autumn of 1908, to pursue a
still bolder policy. The revolution in Turkey had entirely changed the face
of the Eastern Question; the problem of Macedonian reform was swallowed up
in that of the reform of the Ottoman empire generally, there was even a
danger that a rejuvenated Turkey might in time lay claim to the provinces
occupied by Austria-Hungary under the treaty of Berlin; in any case, the
position of these provinces, governed autocratically from Vienna, between a
constitutional Turkey and a constitutional Austria-Hungary, would have been
highly anomalous. In the circumstances Baron Aerenthal determined on a bold
policy. Without consulting the co-signatory powers of the treaty of Berlin,
and in deliberate violation of its provisions, the king-emperor issued, on
the 13th of October, a decree annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina to the
Habsburg Monarchy, and at the same time announcing the withdra