In 1912, Italy conquered Libya at the cost of Turkey and against the will and pleasure of Berlin. Again in 1912 Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria became united against the Ottoman Empire; this also was contrary to the will and pleasure of Berlin. What was quite unexpected by the Kaiser’s Staff was the victory of the Balkan peoples over the Turks. As Germany had upheld the latter she felt profoundly humiliated. Then, in order to hinder the foundation of an efficient Balkanic Confederation—that is, one constituted on the principle of a fair balance—Vienna, and above all, Berlin, used as their tool the Tsar Ferdinand’s well-known ambition to establish Bulgarian supremacy in the peninsula. Accordingly instigated by the Germanic powers, the Bulgarians in June, 1913, attacked their allies, the Serbians and Greeks. But once more the Kaiser’s calculations were upset. Roumania, escaping for the first time from German leading strings, intervened against Bulgaria, which was struggling with her former allies, and thus Bulgaria was vanquished. Now, the new condition of things which arose from the Bukarest treaty of August 10th, 1913, suddenly formed a formidable obstacle to the Pangerman scheme in the East, and this is the reason: The treaty of Bukarest created in the peninsula two groups of states sharply opposed to each other. The first was formed of the beaten and sullen participants in the Balkan wars, Bulgaria and Turkey. The second group was composed of those peoples who had benefited by the wars and were satisfied with the result, to wit, Roumania, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. These four last states, seeing that their vital interests had become closely bound together by the territorial annexations made at the cost of the common enemy, had joined all their forces to insure the maintenance of the Bukarest treaty which they considered inviolable. On the other hand, this sharp division of the Balkan States into two groups whose interests were diametrically opposed, reacted deeply on general European politics. The force of events led the conquered states of 1912 and 1913, Turkey and Bulgaria, to support Germanism in the Balkans; on the contrary, Roumania, as well as Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, because of their recent acquisitions, were leaning more and more towards the Triple Entente, quite contrary to the views of Berlin and at the cost of Turkey, which even then was bound hand and foot to Germany. [Illustration: THE ANTIGERMANIC BARRIER IN THE BALKANS AFTER THE TREATY OF BUKAREST (10TH AUGUST, 1913).] Previous to the Balkan wars the Triple Entente enjoyed an influence in the peninsula, vastly inferior to that of Germany; after the treaty of Bukarest, however, the Entente found support in that group of states which was most powerfully organized and which presented (see map) a very solid barrier to the accomplishment of Pangerman designs in the East.