Russia and the Balkans Inter-Balkan rivalries and Russian foreign policy 1908–1914

Abstract

Russia had traditionally been attracted to the Balkan region for strategic, ideological, and economic reasons. This volume presents an objective diplomatic history focused on five crucial years in the relations between Russia and the Balkan states from the Annexation Crisis of 1908-9 to the outbreak of the FIrst World War. Internal instability, political and military weakness, and the strong opposition of the other great powers, particularly after the Crimean War, forced Russia to co-ordinate her policy with the wishes of the Concert of Europe. She was compelled to collaborate with Austria-Hungary, her chief antagonist in the Balkans, in preseving the status quo, while she awaited a more opportune moment for an independent policy.Professor Rossos centres his study on the attempts of the Balkan states to combine and administer the coup de grâce to Turkey and block Austro-Hungarian encroachments to the south. The jockeying for position of the great powers of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, which formed the nucleus of the alliances of the First World War, is an underlying theme.Vacillating Russian policy was torn over irreconcilable issues that divided the Balkan states. The Balkan nations created a system of alliances aimed at ending Ottoman rule in the region. However, their conflicting claims for domination of Macedonia undermined their short-lived unity and destroyed the Balkan system of alliances which Russia expected to serve as an instrument of her supremacy in southeast Europe. The author's familiarity with Slavic languages, Greek, and Western languages enables him to provide complete accounts of the activities of the period, including much new detail. The resulting work brings fresh insights into Balkan rivalries and Russian involvement in the peninsula

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