s military and naval preparations,
to reject all proposals for the substitution of arbitration in place of
the reign of force, and thereby to enclose the policy of the Great
Powers in a vicious circle from which the only escape was a general
reduction of armaments or war.

[Footnote 522: _Bismarck, his Reflections and Recollections_, vol. ii.
pp. 252, 289. There are grounds for thinking that William II. has been
pushed on to a bellicose policy by the Navy, Colonial, and Pan-German
Leagues. In 1908 he seems to have sought to pause; but powerful
influences (as also at the time of the crises of July 1911 and 1914)
propelled him. See an article in the _Revue de Paris_ of April 15, 1913,
"Guillaume II et les pangermanistes." In my narrative I speak of the
Kaiser as equivalent to the German Government; for he is absolute and
his Ministers are responsible solely to him.]

CHAPTER XXII

TEUTON _versus_ SLAV (1908-13)

"To tell the truth, the Slav seems to us a born
slave."--TREITSCHKE, June 1876.

On October 7, 1908, Austria-Hungary exploded a political bomb-shell by
declaring her resolve to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since the Treaty of
Berlin of 1878, she had provisionally occupied and administered those
provinces as mandatory of Europe (see p. 238). But now, without
consulting Europe, she appropriated her charge. On the other hand, she
consented to withdraw from the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar which she had
occupied by virtue of a secret agreement with Russia of July 1878. Even
so, her annexation of a great province caused a sharp crisis for the
following reasons: (1) It violated the international law of Europe
without any excuse whatever. (2) It exasperated Servia, which hoped
ultimately to possess Bosnia, a land peopled by her kindred and
necessary to her expansion seawards. (3) It no less deeply offended the
Young Turks, who were resolved to revivify the Turkish people and assert
their authority over all parts of the Ottoman dominions. (4) It came at
the same time as the assumption by Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria of the
title of Tsar of the Bulgarians. This change of title, which implied a
prospect of sovereignty over the Bulgars of Macedonia, had been arranged
during a recent visit to Buda-Pest, and foreshadowed the supremacy of
Austrian influence not only in the new kingdom of Bulgaria but
eventually in the Bulgar districts of Macedonia[523].

[Footnote 523: H.W. Steed, _The Hapsburg Monarchy_, pp. 52,