After Austria took the fateful step of 1908 Turkey still held the territory just north of the Bosphorus, organized as the province of Adrianople. She also had in Europe the provinces of Macedonia, Albania, and the sanjak of Novi-Bazar. To drive her out of these possessions was the object of the Balkan states. In 1911 Italy began a war against the sultan to gain Tripoli. The Balkan States seeing their enemy embarrassed, concluded that the hour of fate had come. They formed the Balkan League, made up of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and made ready for war. Their action alarmed the Great Powers, who brought the Concert of Europe to bear against the League. They gave the allies fair notice that they would not permit them to take any of the sultan’s territory in Europe, even though a war was won against him. The reply to this threat shows how weak the Concert had become. It was voiced by Montenegro, the smallest of the states, whose king immediately declared war and called on his allies to aid him in driving the pagan out of Europe. The call was accepted gladly and an ultimatum was sent to the sultan, who, relying on the promise of the Powers, defied his opponents. In the war that followed Turkey was confronted by a united army of nearly a million men. It was impossible to withstand them and in two months most of Macedonia was lost, Constantinople was threatened, and Turkey asked for an armistice. Negotiations began in London, the Powers seemingly forgetting their empty threat that they “would not permit at the end of the conflict any modification of the territorial _status quo_ in European Turkey.” The allies demanded hard terms which seemed about to be accepted by Turkey when by a _coup d’état_ the “Young Turks,” a patriotic party of reformers, got possession of the government at Constantinople and resumed the fighting. Although they fought well, they could not withstand the large numbers that were against them. Janina fell to the Greeks, Adrianople was taken by a Serbo-Bulgarian force, and Scutari was taken by the Montenegrins. The Turks now yielded definitely and negotiations for peace were resumed.