at this time, while Bulgaria was a Turkish protectorate in name at least, until 1908, as stated above.

From the remote past the different peoples of the Balkan peninsula have inherited racial animosities and political troubles and confusion. The Bulgarians resented the "tyranny" of the Greeks in ecclesiastical and educational matters. The Albanians have always been wild and ungovernable and unable to assimulate the benefits of ordered government and society. The Roumanians prided themselves in their Roman stock and traditions and held apart from the other peoples of the peninsula. As is stated in the RandMcNally Atlas (p.42):

For 1000 years the Balkan Peninsula has suffered from political confusion due in part to its geographical position, which made it the meeting-ground of conflicting races and religions. In ancient times it was occupied by various branches of the Arian stock, the Thracians in the northeast, the Illyrians in the northwest, and the Greeks in the south, whose commingling gave rise to the mixed Macedonian type inhabiting the northern central part of the peninsula. Under Roman, and especially under Byzantine rule, it attained its highest development, Constantinople becoming the chief center of the world's civilization and commerce. In the seventh century, A.D., the Servians and Bulgarians, of Slavonic stock, pressed southward into the peninsula, driving the Greeks before them to the south, the Illyrians (ancestors of the present Albanians) to the southwest, and the Romans back toward the northwest. The introduction of Christianity in the ninth century marked the transition from barbarism to civilization. For a time the Bulgarians were masters of the peninsula, but in the fourteenth century the Servians established a short-lived supremacy which by the defeat of their army in 1389, followed by the fall of Constantinople in 1453 gave way before the irresistible advance of the Turk. Four centuries of retrogression ensued, during which the peninsula, with the exception of Dalmatia in the northwest, which continued under Venetian and later passed under Austrian rule, was abandoned to almost hopeless barbarity. It was not until the nineteenth century that the almost smothered germs of national vitality were quickened again under Russian influence, and that the Balkan peoples were aroused to struggle for freedom from the yoke of the "unspeakable" Turk.

Coming back to recent years, we find that Bulgaria's desire to annex neighboring parts of European Turkey inhabited by Slav, especially Macedonia, was widely cherished, and more or less tension existed with Serbia, Greece and Austria even before the first Balkan war. It was also realized

that strategically Roumania's position was one of commanding importance. This can easily be seen by a glance at the map, which will show the peculiar shape and frontiers of Roumania. She has stood in the pathway of both Teuton and Russian advance toward the regions beyond the Black Sea, and, second only to Serbia, in these same powers' path to the eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor and the Orient. Thus, the security of Roumania, like the other small states of this region, depended upon a delicate tension of international relations that has justly been called the "powderbox" of Europe. And even now, let me repeat, only a strong League of Nations can guarantee peace in this troublesome region in the future.

As Bulgaria was the last of the Balkan states (save only Albania) to gain her complete independence of Turkey, so Serbia was the first (save only Greece). But that did not make hers a stable government. She virtually gained her independence in 1829, immediately after Greece became free from Turkey. And complete independence was given her by the treaty of Berlin, 1878. Her progress, considering her opportunity has been disappointing, the most so of all the Balkan states; and this has made her all the more a prey to Austrian and German intrigues. The new Jugo-Slav state, however, with a greater Serbia as the nucleus, gives promise of better things for the future.

It was a general conviction of the students of the Balkan affairs just previous to the World War that, in case of a breakout of war in this region, the Central Powers and Russia would each attempt to seize as big a slice of the Balkan regions as possible; the Russians would make for Constantinople, the Austrians for Serbia, Macedonia and the Saloniki coast; the English would make for the Dardanelles, to protect their Eastern possessions; the French for Rhodes, parts of Asia Minor and Syria, and the Italians for Albania and the entire eastern coast of the Adriatic. They were not very far wrong when the World War came. Said M. Berard:

"The outcome cannot be anything but a general European war of the most terrible kind." (See Victor Berard, "The Balkan Question," Villari volume, with Introduction by James Bryce.)

Italy's interest and part in the Balkan question in this period was summed up by an Italian as follows:-"Italy has every interest in preventing the influence of Austria and Russia in Macedonia from extending and being gradually converted into a more or less effective dominion.”—(By an

Italian deputy.) This feeling and interest explains the tenacity with which the Italian delegates to the peace conference cling to their shadowy claim to Albania and the southern Adriatic coast.

While studying the Balkan situation just previous to the First Balkan war in 1911 the author of the present volume made this statement: "The idea prevails in Europe that the time has come for the solution of this most perplexing problem. England seems most anxious that this be speedily accomplished. According to Mr. Bryce there are two solutions. One is the absorbing of the existing nationalities into the great dominions and great nations which border upon Turkey. The other is the growth of these nationalities, or some of them, into nations and states. The latter, I think is the more satisfactory solution, and will prove the more likely, providing the great powers do not injustly intervene. Mr. Bryce concludes his chapter ('Introduction to the Eastern Question') with these words: 'He who, looking above and beyond the dust of current politics, will try to fix his eyes, as Mr. Gladstone did, upon the heights of a more distant landscape, will find reason to think that the development of these nationalities has in it more promise for the future than the extension of the sway of one or two huge military empires, and will believe that to encourage and help them to grow into nations is an aim to which such great and enlightened peoples as those of England, France and Italy may fitly direct their efforts." This is ample evidence to the

writer's mind, of Great Britain's more liberal policy in international politics in recent years, under the wise tutelage and leadership of such men as Gladstone and Lord Bryce. And as a sequel to this statement that I made eight years ago, let me say that the present Jugo-Slav movement has been made acceptable to the Allied nations through such earlier championship as that mentioned in the above quotation. It is not a new movement, born of the War, but is now, because of the World War, realizable beyond the fondest hopes of its early champions.

We have omitted at this point of our study of the causes of war in recent years, any separate treatment of the causes of the Turko-Italian war of 1911, because we gave rather a detailed statement of the underlying cause and the meaning of this war in our chapter in which we treated wars of nationality of which this one between Italy and Turkey is (on Italy's part) the most prominent one of the twentieth century, previous to the World War. We may add in passing, however, that there was a good deal of sentiment, the vision and memory of the glories of ancient Rome and her sway over the land of the Carthagenians,-in the zeal with which the Italians fought the Turks and their subjects in northern Africa. Then too, this war meant one of the final steps in the unification of Italy, as the Italians conceived a united Italy to be, the same thing that led them to enter the World War against Austria, for the provinces of the Trentino and Trieste.

TH

CHAPTER IX

CAUSES OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR (1904)

HE cause of the war for Japan was mostly economic rather than political. It goes back to the enormous increase in Japan's population, the growth of her industries and commerce, and on the other hand to the inadequateness of her agriculture to supply a living for her growing population or to produce sufficient raw material for her manufactures. For these very reasons, Japan has felt that she could not allow any other nation to secure a controlling influence in any part of the Chinese Empire, much less in Korea.2

With Russia, the cause was primarily political rather than economic. It was therefore less vital than that of Japan. Economically, Russia had no such reason for bringing on such a conflict as had Japan. She is able to take care of herself for a long time to come, in that respect.

Russia's great political aim, as Professor Hershey states, was to gain access to the sea in four directions, viz.: Black Sea and Mediterranean, Baltic Sea, Persian Gulf, Pacific Ocean.3 This has been her vision and ambition ever since the time of Peter the Great. She is still actively striving for all but the northern one of these. (And in passing it may be observed that this desire to secure such outlets helps to explain, to a considerable degree, many of the nineteenth century wars in these regions and is no small contributory cause to those conflicts.)

3

'Hershey, "Int. Law and Diplomacy of Russo-Japanese War," p. 2. "The Japanese people have grown to such numbers that they need an outlet beyond the sea and cannot resign into strong hands their nearest field for colonization and expansion"; Lawrence, p. 2.

'Hershey, p. 3.