"The next major war will be caused by some damn fool thing in the Balkans."
- Bismarck
The 19th century witnessed the political decline of the Ottoman Empire. As Ottoman power weakened, the Pan-Slavic forces of Balkan nationalism sought to liberate the various Balkan peoples from Turkish rule. As a result, several new states would come into existence. The European balance of power was threatened as the big powers, namely Russia and Austria, sought to fill the Balkan vacuum and pursue their regional interests. The combination of big power ambitions and the restlessness of Balkan nationalism would combine in a dangerous mixture that threatened to throw all of Europe into conflict. The following reading introduces the factors that made the Balkans both a background and specific cause of the First World War.
The major regions of the Balkan Peninsula included Romania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania. Between 1378 and 1877 all of these countries were part of the Ottoman Empire. Between 1877 and 1914 all but Bosnia would gain independence from the Turks. Bosnia would remain under Turkish then Austrian rule until made part of Yugoslavia in 1918.
The peoples of the Balkans are mostly Slavic peoples sharing a common cultural background with the Russians. The Albanians are not Slavs. The great majority of Balkan peoples are Christian sharing an Eastern (Greek) Orthodox spiritual tradition. In several Balkan countries there are Muslim minorities, the largest being in Bosnia. The majority of the Albanian population is Muslim. The Balkan peoples are: the Romanians, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Yugoslavs (Southern Slavs) - Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Montenegrins, and Macedonians.
In the late 19th century the moving force underlying nationalism in the Balkan region was Pan-Slavism. This was a form of cultural nationalism that viewed all Slavic peoples as one civilization. Its general goal was to liberate all Slavic peoples from the rule of the Muslim Turks.
In addition to the above form of general Balkan nationalism, Pan-Slavism was an active force in the foreign policies of two nations, Russia and Serbia. Russian Pan-Slavism sought the formation of a Russian-dominated federation of Slavic states with its spiritual, cultural, economic, and political center in Constantinople. Russia pursued this policy as part of its ambition to secure control of the Turkish Straits and gain access to the Mediterranean.
Serb Pan-Slavism sought to unite all Yugoslavs in an independent kingdom under Serbian rule. As many of the people of the region of Bosnia were Serbs, this meant Serbian conflict with the nation that ruled Bosnia. Before 1878 the Turks held Bosnia. After 1878 Bosnia was part of the Austrian Empire.
Policy Goals in the Balkans, 1877 - 1914
Ottoman Empire to preserve the territorial integrity of the Empire's European possessions; to prevent Balkan nationalism; to oppose Russian ambitions in the Balkans.
Russia to encourage anti-Turkish Balkan nationalism through a foreign policy based on Pan-Slavism; to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea through control of Constantinople and the Turkish Straits.
Britain to support the Ottoman Empire in preventing Russian expansion to the Mediterranean.
Serbia to unite the southern Slavs in an independent Yugoslav kingdom under Serbian rule; to pursue this goal through a close relationship with Russia.
Austria-Hungary to prevent expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans; to gain control over Bosnia in order to prevent the expansion of Serbia
The Russo-Turkish War, 1877 - 1878 In 1878 Russia defeated the Turks in a brief war through which Russia sought access to the Turkish Straits and the Mediterranean Sea. The resulting Treaty of San Stefano threatened to break up the Ottoman Empire and enable Russian expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean area. The Ottoman Empire was forced to recognize the independence of Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro. Russia would be allowed protection over an autonomous Bulgaria as well as a port on the Aegean coast of Bulgaria. Britain, alarmed by the possibility of a Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean, threatened to go to war against Russia. In fact, during the Russo-Turkish War, Britain sent warships into the Straits to protect Constantinople from Russian conquest.
The Congress of Berlin, 1878 With the balance of power in southeastern Europe upset by the Russian victory, the other big powers acted to preserve their interests in the area. A major European war was prevented through an agreement reached at a congress of nations that met in Berlin. The German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, seeing his newly created Germany threatened by the possible outbreak of a major war, acted as the intermediary in defusing the crisis. He invited the powers to an international congress to meet in Berlin.
In resolving the crisis, the big powers agreed that Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro would retain their independence. Bulgaria would be partitioned: Bulgaria Proper would be granted autonomy but remain under the nominal sovereignty of the Sultan; Eastern Rumelia would be governed by both the Bulgarians and Turks; southern Bulgaria (Macedonia) would remain under full Turkish sovereignty. Russia, consequently, lost its port on the Aegean. Austria-Hungary would occupy and administer Bosnia. Britain would be permitted to occupy and administer the island of Cyprus. France would be permitted to occupy and administer Tunisia on the North African coast. (Bosnia, Cyprus, and Tunisia would all remain under the nominal sovereignty of the Sultan, but the political realities were such that these territories would be colonies of their new overseers.) Russia was “compensated” with Turkish territories in the Caucasus region east of the Black Sea.
The Congress of Berlin: its significance and implications
1. War was prevented and the balance of power was preserved.
2. Russian expansion into the Mediterranean was prevented. Frustrated in its ambition to acquire the Straits, Russia continued to pursue its Pan-Slavic ambitions though renewed relationships with Serbia and Bulgaria.
3. Pan-Slavic nationalism was encouraged. Romania and Serbia were granted independence.
4. A precedent was set for big-power breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
5. The Balkans became an area of future great power conflict.
6. The awarding of Bosnia to Austria put Serbia and Austria in an antagonistic relationship with each other.
7. The awarding of Cyprus to Britain and Tunisia to France expanded British and French imperial interests in the Mediterranean. Italy, angry and frustrated in its hopes to acquire Tunisia, became increasingly antagonistic towards France, and joined in a military alliance with Germany and Austria in 1882.
Balkanization: Then and Now (to 2006)
The breakup of the Balkan region of the Ottoman Empire into smaller states became known as "Balkanization." This term has since taken on generic meaning and is applied to any situation wherein a once-unified region has broken up into smaller, often conflicting, states.
In brief, this is what happened. In 1877 - 1878 a Balkan war saw Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro get their independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1908 Bulgaria asserted its independence. A later Balkan war in 1912 - 1913 saw Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro fight the Ottoman Empire and expand their territories. In this war Albania gained its independence (1912) and Serbia gained Kosovo. In a later war, also in 1913, Bulgaria was defeated by Serbia, Romania, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. All of these Balkan wars involved the interests of the larger powers. Russia sought to protect its Slavic "brothers," the Serbs and Bulgarians, and prevent Austrian expansion in the Balkans. Austria sought to preserve its sovereignty over such Slavic territories as Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia. Serbia saw itself as the leader of a Pan-Slavic movement seeking to unite all Yugoslavs (the Southern Slavs -Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Montenegrins, and Macedonians) under one pan-Slavic state.
In 1914 World War One resulted when Austria accused Serbia of the assassination in Bosnia of the heir to the Austrian throne. In 1918, as the Austrian Empire collapsed, Serbia created a new nation, later called Yugoslavia, comprised of itself, Montenegro and Macedonia, and the former Austrian territories of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. The boundaries of this new state were confirmed by the 1919 Paris Peace Settlement as drawn by the leaders of Britain, France, and the United States, often without regard for the ethnic identity of the regions through which the border lines ran. In an ironic twist of history, Yugoslavia, the country that was created from the Pan-Slavic ambitions of Serbia, was itself "Balkanized" beginning in the summer of 1991.
In 1991 Yugoslavia began to break up when its constituent republics Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence. Yugoslavia attempted unsuccessfully to prevent their secession with armed force. The Balkanization of Yugoslavia was accelerated when Bosnia and Macedonia declared their independence in 1992. The result was a bloody conflict as the Yugoslav rump state (dominated by Serbia) and Croatia both sought to expand their political control over the Serb and Croat regions of Bosnia. Bosnia collapsed into a brutal ethnic civil war as its Muslim, Croat, and Serb populations waged war among themselves. In a policy reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust, the Bosnian Serb forces undertook a seemingly genocidal policy of “ethnic cleansing” intended to eliminate the Bosnian Muslim population. Thousands of men, women, and children were displaced, interned in concentration camps, or slaughtered. The Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, became a battlefield. International intervention compelled the warring parties to make peace in 1995, but Bosnia was internally Balkanized by being federalized into Serb and Croat-Muslim constituent republics.
In late 1998 the leadership of Yugoslavia began a policy intended forcibly to remove the ethnic Albanian population from the Serbian region of Kosovo. In early 1999 concerted pressure from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia failed to compel Yugoslavia to end its Kosovo policy. In March 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched a three-month air war against Yugoslavia in a successful effort to force Yugoslavia to seek a negotiated solution to the Kosovo crisis. To monitor and enforce the settlement, an international force of some 50,000 UN troops were sent to Kosovo. Kosovo remained under UN supervision until 2006 when the region was restored to Serbian authority. UN military forces, however, remained in the province.
In February 2003, the parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro both voted to restructure themselves as a new state called the Federation of Serbia and Montenegro. Yugoslavia, consequently, ceased to exist. Nonetheless, the Balkanization of the region would continue. In the spring of 2006, Montenegro conducted a referendum wherein its people overwhelmingly voted for separation from Serbia. Serbia recognized Montenegrin independence in June 2006 and declared its own independence, ending the former federation of the two countries. Thus, Serbia reverted back to its 1914 boundaries. Balkanization took another step in February 2008, when Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. Although the US and several other European states recognized Kosovan independence, Serbia did not.
International reaction to the horror of the war in Bosnia caused the UN to impose sanctions on Yugoslavia and to indict the Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic and other Bosnian Serb leaders as war criminals to be brought to justice. Corrupt and wily, Milosevic had exercised dictatorial power over Serbia since 1989. As Serbia was the dominant Yugoslav state, Milosevic, in effect, directed Yugoslavia’s policy. He supported and directed the Bosnian Serb genocidal war against the Bosnian Muslims. He became president of Yugoslavia in 1997, in which capacity he attempted to “cleanse” Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population. In 2000 he lost his bid for reelection but refused to step down from office. He was later compelled to resign in the face of massive demonstrations and in 2001 was arrested by Yugoslav authorities and turned over to the UN. Extradited to the Netherlands, he stood trial before the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague. He was charged with having used the power of his offices to commit crimes against humanity, namely genocide. His trial was still in progress at the time of his death in March 2006.
Sources for the Balkans
Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Knapton, Ernest and Thomas Derry. Europe 1815 – 1914. New York: Scribners, 1965.
Langer, William, ed. An Encyclopedia of World History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
Langer, William L. et al. Western Civilization. New York: American Heritage, 1968.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: Norton, 1996.
Palmer, Robert R. et al. A History of the Modern World. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2006. New York: WRC Media, 2005.