The New York Times Current History, A Monthly Magazine: The European War, March 1915Various
History
The New York Times Current History, A Monthly Magazine: The European War, March 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
Turkey never forgave the European powers the treatment accorded to her
in the London peace conference, and proved her dissatisfaction by
entering Thrace and occupying Adrianople immediately she saw Bulgaria
engaged in the second war. But Turkey desired also the Aegean islands
occupied by Greece, and these, all but two at the entrance to the
Dardanelles, the powers allotted to Greece, not securing thereby an
increase of Turkish sympathies.
Greece was disappointed in two instances by the European powers;
first, because they did not make their decision regarding the islands
binding upon Turkey, thus creating a series of unending controversies
between the Porte and the Government of Athens, one result of which
was the wholesale expulsions and persecutions of the Greek element in
Turkey, and especially in the Vilayets of Adrianople and Smyrna. The
question of settling in a friendly way the Greco-Turkish differences
was to be discussed between the Grand Vizier, Prince Said Halim, and
the Premier of Greece, E.K. Venizelos, in a meeting of the two
statesmen in Brussels, when the great European war broke.
Bulgaria, who for a moment saw her most cherished dream of Balkan
hegemony realized and had all her fondest hopes shattered by the
second war and the Treaty of Bucharest, cannot help regarding her
neighbors as the robbers of what she considers her national patrimony,
and at the same time she does not forget that in all their proceedings
against her, Greek, Servian, Rumanian, and Montenegrin acted with the
tacit approval of the great powers.
Servia for years had struggled to get an outlet 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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