But unfortunately Young Turkey had a bigger task on its hands than it could swing. The Mohammedans of Macedonia and Thrace had been won over to its progressive ideas. But the people of Islam on the other side of the Bosphorus had yet to be heard from. And when they did make their voices heard, it was not in favor of recognizing the giaours as their political equals. Perhaps, even, if left to itself, Turkey, under the guidance of the new and younger elements, might eventually have emerged triumphant against the dark forces of fanaticism and reaction. But it was not to have that opportunity. The solidarity of all the Turkish subjects, especially in European Turkey, would be nothing less than a calamity to all the Balkan States. There would be no "oppressed" brothers to rescue, consequently no pretext for that territorial expansion which they had all counted on to take place some day in the future. There could be no Greater Hellas, a Byzantine Empire reestablished, with Constantinople as its capital; there could be no Greater Bulgaria, with Czar Ferdinand as its ruler. Russia, too, when her opportunity came to take Constantinople, would come, not as a liberator of the Macedonian Slavs, but as an invading enemy. And Austria would find her pathway to Saloniki blocked by a stronger Turkey than she had counted upon. All these powers were against the success of Young Turkey. But they did not stand shoulder to shoulder against it. Between the Balkan States and the two big powers was another division of interest quite as deep. It was the rivalry of the wolves and the bears. The Young Turks' revolution may definitely be considered the first jar to the _status quo_, as established by the Treaty of Berlin, to be followed in quick succession by other similar shocks, which were presently to culminate in its complete upset and the present war. Turkey herself had broken the compact to remain quiescent, to stand pat. With the exception of the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, there had been no changes during those twenty-nine years. The next event in the chain happened almost immediately. Hardly had the revolution in Turkey occurred when Austria, who had, by the terms of the Berlin Treaty, been simply administrating the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed them without any ceremony. In actual fact this was merely making theory conform to the practical situation, but it put the Young Turks in an awkward predicament. The old regime under Abdul Hamid would not have been able to do more than accept, and that was what the Young Turks were compelled to do, handicapped as they were by the confusion attending their own affairs at home. But it roused the anger of the conservative Turks, and they somehow attributed it to the new regime.