Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Margo Romberg and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE BALKAN PENINSULA AGENTS AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK AUSTRALASIA THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA [Illustration: A BALKAN PEASANT] THE BALKAN PENINSULA BY FRANK FOX AUTHOR OF "AUSTRALIA," "BULGARIA," "SWITZERLAND," ETC. PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK, LTD. 4, 5, & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1915 PREFACE This book was written in the spring of 1914, just before Germany plunged the world into the horrors of a war which she had long prepared, taking as a pretext a Balkan incident--the political murder of an Austrian prince by an Austrian subject of Serb nationality. Germany having prepared for war was anxious for an occasion which would range Austria by her side. If Germany had gone to war at the time of the Agadir incident, she knew that Italy would desert the Triple Alliance, and she feared for Austria's loyalty. A war pretext which made Austria's desertion impossible was just the thing for her plans. It would be impossible to reshape this book so as to bring within its range the Great War, begun in the Balkans, and in all human probability to be decided finally by battles in the Balkans. I let it go out to the public as impressions of the Balkans dated from the end of 1913. It may have some value to the student of contemporary Balkan events.