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Preface
At the beginning of the 20th century the Great European Powers,[i] divided into two totally antagonistic political-military alliances, were preparing themselves for the final settling of accounts among each other concerning the new division of political-economic spheres of influence and the redistributing the colonies around the world. Their different interests overlapped upon the territory of South-East Europe, much more look down at the other parts of the globe, for the reason of the exploitation of the regional natural wealth and to take advantage of the military-strategic importance of South-East Europe as the strategic hinterland of East Mediterranean and the most fitting bond between Central Europe and the Middle East.
The German driving towards Baghdad, the Austrian-Hungarian and the Italian towards Thessaloniki (Salonika), as well as the Russian towards Constantinople/Istanbul, were going through the Balkans or South-East Europe, while at the same time France and Great Britain intended to protect status quo in the region. For Berlin and Vienna, it was more than obvious that the road to the oil-fields of the Persian Gulf is running exactly across the Balkans.[ii]
A struggle for the domination over South-East Europe by both the Central Powers (Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary) and the Entente Cordiale (France, Russia, Great Britain) at the turn of the 20th century, especially in the years just before and during the Balkan Wars (1912−1913) appeared as diplomatic and economic introduction to the First World War (or the Great War, 1914−1918).[iii] Each member of these two military-political alliances had its own interests in various natures (geopolitical, economic, financial, military, confessional, etc.) in the region. A policy toward South-East Europe at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century by each member of the Great European Powers was directed and executed exactly according to these national (and Capitalistic) interests.[iv] Particularly the German Balkan policy turned out to be of the crucial importance for the future national liberation struggle of the Balkan people and states by having a direct impact to the solving of the Eastern Question in the years from 1912 to 1918.
The German “Drang nach Osten” policy and South-East Europe
The unified German Empire, proclaimed in Versailles in January 1871, contemplated to balance the division of world’s colonies, the markets and the sources of the world’s raw material.[v] Exceptionally the pan-Germanic movement, established in 1891, propagated the making of a powerful German global empire. In order to do it, a new distribution of the world’s colonies was of the first necessity to be done.[vi] The Balkans was one of the regions in the world, which had to be “redistributed” in the German favor.[vii] In the spirit of such a policy, the German Parliament (Reichstag) issued the law regarding the enlargement of the German navy in 1898 for the reason “to secure the maritime interests of Germany”. In the next year (1899), during the First International Conference in The Hague the German Kaiser (Emperor) Wilhelm II Hohenzollern (1888−1918) openly stated that “the sharpened sword is the best guarantee for the peace”.[viii]
The pan-Germanic imperialism after the German unification in 1871 was primarily directed towards the East under the motto “Drang nach Osten”. One of the aims of this policy was to make the Ottoman Empire subservient in economic and political points of view in order to exploit reach natural potentials of this multicontinental country. However, in order to do this, the French and the British influence in South-East Europe, Asia Minor (Anatolia) and the Middle East had to be diminished while, at the same time, the Russian penetration into the Balkans and the Straits should be made as impossible as by supporting the political status quo in the region. In the German concept of “Drang nach Osten” foreign policy, the Suez Canal was to be under Berlin’s domination for the purpose that Great Britany would be cut off from its overseas colonies in Asia, Africa, and the region of Pacific Ocean. Around the year 1900, the German capital investment in the Ottoman Empire already pressed back the French and the British ones. It was 45% of the German capital out of total foreign capital investment in the Ottoman Empire just before the Balkan Wars started in 1912.[ix] The Ottoman trade was financed in the first place by the German Deutsche Orientbank.[x] The Ottoman army was provided with the war material and technique, especially by the artillery, from the German military factories (Krupp, Mauzer). The Ottoman army was restructured and modernized according to the German war strategy primarily due to the German military mission in the Ottoman Empire led by General von der Goltz.
The German financial-political expansion in the Ottoman Empire reached its peak when the German building companies got a concession to construct the Baghdad Railway (Konia-Baghdad-Basra) – the railway line which had an extremely significant economic and military-strategic importance for the Middle East. In this context, it is not so surprising that the German Middle East’s and Balkan policies were very close to each other. Namely, as between Germany and the Ottoman Asia Minor was located the Balkan Peninsula it was as plain as day clear to the German diplomats that South-East Europe might be under the German financial, economic, political, and even military domination and control. The creators and proponents of the “Drang nach Osten” policy saw the Balkan railways as the natural link between the railways in Mitteleuropa (Central Europe) under the Germanic rule and those in Anatolia and further in the Persian Gulf.[xi] Shortly, the railway network connecting Berlin and the Persian Gulf, running throughout South-East Europe (the Orient Express), should be financially dominated and controlled by the German banks. For that reason, the German foreign policy did not support any political changes in the Balkans and, therefore, the Ottoman Empire should avoid the destiny of further disintegration after the 1878 Berlin Congress.[xii] However, the Ottoman Empire would be surely dissipated by the creation and enlargement of the Christian Balkan states at the expense of the Ottoman Balkan territories.[xiii]
The projected German imperialism was directed towards the Middle East but via Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. Practically, in order to realize the policy of “Drang nach Osten”, Berlin might put under its own control the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary and the rest of South-East Europe. Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia, and Edirne were the main railway’s ties on the path to Istanbul, Baghdad, and Basra, while Pola (Pula), Trieste, Dubrovnik (Ragusa), and Kotor (Cattaro) should be transformed into the chief German basis for Berlin’s domination over both the Adriatic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. It was exactly the Russian newspaper Новое время from April 29th, 1898, which warned the Russian diplomacy that as a result of the German political-military-economic penetration into the Ottoman Empire “Anatolia will become the German India”.[xiv]
The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was imagined as the forerunner of the German interests in South-East Europe and, in this respect, the Viennese imperialistic policy at the Balkans was welcomed and supported by Berlin and the pan-Germanic politicians in Potsdam.[xv] The reason for the German political supervision of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was a strong Austro-Hungarian economic and financial dependence on the German capital and financial investments. Such Austro-Hungarian subjection to the German economic-financial control and, therefore, its inability to act politically as an independent state was seen from the fact that 50% of the Austro-Hungarian export was directed to the German market. Even before the Bosnian-Herzegovinian crisis in 1908−1909, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was financially depended on the German banks (the Dresdner Bank, the Deutsche Bank, the Darmschterer Bank, and the Diskontogezelschaft Bank). At the same time, the Balkan states were becoming gradually as well as more financially subjected to the control of the same German capital. For instance, the main German investor in Serbia was Berlin’s Trade Society (the Berliner Handelsgezelschaft), while Serbia’s export to Germany in 1910 reached 42%.[xvi] The similar situation, for instance, was with Bulgaria too. Her import from Germany and Austria-Hungary was 45%, while 32% of Bulgaria’s total export was directed toward Germany and the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.[xvii]
The principal aim of such German financial-economic Balkan policy was to transform the Ottoman Empire into “its own India” and for that reason Berlin became the chief protagonist of the Balkan status quo policy, helping to “the Bosporus’ sick man” to redeem. Subsequently, Berlin and Vienna aimed to prevent the creation of anti-Ottoman Balkan Alliance under the Russian umbrella.[xviii]
Nevertheless, there were two crucial points of the Austro-German disagreement in relation to their collective Balkan policy:
1) While the Habsburg Emperor-King wanted to see only Bulgaria as a new member state of the Central Powers, for the German Emperor Serbia could be included into this political-military bloc too. For Vienna, Serbia and Montenegro should be kept out from the Central Powers in order not to influence the Austrian South Slavic population against the Viennese court.
2) The German Kaiser was not willing to support the Austrian policy to enlarge Bulgaria at the Greek and Romanian territorial expense because of the family links between Germany’s Hohenzollerns and Greece’s Kings George and Constantine, Romania’s King Karol respectively.
However, despite these disputes, both Berlin and Vienna reached, for instance, a common agreement on the question of Albania: in the case of the Ottoman withdrawal from the Balkans, as greater as Albanian independent state was to be created and to exist under the Germanic protectorate and support (i.e., of Germany and Austria).[xix]
The Austro-Hungarian Balkan course
After the unification of Italy (1859−1866), when the Austrian Empire lost all of its Italian provinces,[xx] the focal sphere of interest of Viennese foreign policy became South-East Europe, especially its central and southern regions. Following the metamorphosis of the Austrian Empire and its transformation into the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867 (the Aussgleich or the Agreement),[xxi] Vienna and Budapest directed its economic and political expansion in the first place toward Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sanjak (Raška), Kosovo- Metochia, Albania, and the Buy of Thessaloniki in the Aegean Sea. For the Austro-Hungarian ruling establishment, this direction of Viennese-Budapest’s foreign policy was determined by both Austro-Hungary’s geographical position and the inner (ethnic) structure of the state, as the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Berhtold clearly stated on May 2nd, 1913.[xxii] In another word, it meant that the planners of the Austro-Hungarian foreign policy saw the Balkans as Habsburg’s colonial dominion with the city of Thessaloniki as a southern focal economic seaport of Austria-Hungary (Trieste was a northern focal economic seaport of the monarchy, while the Bay of Kotor was the main navy base of the Dual Monarchy). The Austrian interest in South-East Europe, principally in Central and South Balkans arose simultaneously with the Italian intention to transform the Adriatic Sea into the Italian mare nostro and to control South Albania with the Strait of Otranto, likewise with the Russian intendment to acquire Istanbul with the Straits. Threatened that Italy would close the Adriatic gate to the Austro-Hungarian overseas trade, Viennese and Budapest’s politicians intended to transform the northern part of the Aegean Sea with the Buy of Thessaloniki to the principal Austro-Hungarian export-import seaport open to the world’s market. The prominence of the territory of present-day Albania for Rome and Vienna-Budapest must be seen in the context of the Italian-Austro-Hungarian conflict for the dominance over the Adriatic Sea. Certainly, for both sides, it was apparent that who is governing Albania is at the same time controlling the Adriatic Sea.[xxiii]
In order to implement a cardinal goal in its Balkan policy – to dominate over the Morava-Vardar’s valley and the Buy of Thessaloniki, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary obtained significant concessions for the building of the Balkan-Ottoman railway lines. The first direct railway traffic on the line Vienna-Budapest-Thessaloniki-Istanbul started due to the Austro-Hungarian financial capital in 1888. Four years before the beginning of the Balkan Wars in 1912, the Ottoman import from the Austro-Hungarian market was extended to 22% out of total Ottoman import. As it was done with the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary was putting as well as the Balkan states under its financial and political dependence after the 1878 Berlin Congress. Thus, it was signed the Railway Convention with Serbia in 1880, the Trade Contract with Serbia in 1881, the Secret Convention with Serbia’s Prince Milan Obrenović IV in June 1881, the Veterinary Convention with Serbia, the Trade (1875) and the Customs Union with Romania in 1883, etc.[xxiv] For the matter of fact, just before the 1906‒1911 Custom War between Serbia and the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian financial capital already had the leading role in and control of Serbia’s export-trade. In addition, more than 85% of Serbia’s export was directed to the Austrian-Hungarian market, while 90% of Serbia’s import was coming from the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.[xxv]
For the better understanding of Serbia’s dependence on the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary after the 1878 Berlin Congress,[xxvi] on the first place of importance, it should be shortly elaborated the 1881 Secret Convention signed between Serbia’s and Austria-Hungary’s monarchs. According to the Convention, the Principality (the Kingdom from 1882) of Serbia could not without Vienna-Budapest’s approval conclude any political agreement with the foreign countries. In addition, Serbia gave up propaganda, political, and all other activities to liberate the Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sanjak and to annex these two provinces in which at that time the majority of the population were the Serbs. In fact, according to the Convention, the westward (across the Drina River) territorial enlargement of Serbia was unable and for that reason in the coming decades Belgrade’s foreign policy was directed southward, or in another word, toward Kosovo-Metochia, Macedonia, and Albania with one of the main tasks to get direct exit to the sea. By giving up an idea to occupy Sanjak after 1878, Serbia at the same time rejected the option of the Serbian-Montenegrin political unification. Such reality had a serious consequence for the upcoming Balkan Wars as the exit of Serbia to the Adriatic Sea by the unification with Montenegro was impossible, Belgrade intended to acquire the sea cost for continental Serbia by the occupation of present-day North Albania’s littoral on the Ionian Sea (at that time part of the Ottoman Empire). Simultaneously, Montenegro sought to occupy the city of Scutari (Skadar) on the eastern coast of the Lake of Scutari, mainly populated by the Albanians, as the city which was in the 11th century a capital of the Principality of Zeta (according to the Montenegrin historiography, that was the first national state of the Montenegrins).[xxvii]
The highlight of the Austrian-Hungarian success in its Balkan policy against the Russian influence in the region was the decision by the Bulgarian Government to accept the Austro-Hungarian project of building the trans-Balkan railway line Vienna-Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul at the expense of the Russian project to construct the railway line Ruse-Sofia. In fact, after this decision, Bulgaria was gradually becoming a part of the Habsburg’s sphere of interest in South-East Europe involving Bulgaria at the same time into the military alliance of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy). Therefore, 50% of Bulgarian export-import was directed in 1910 toward Germany and the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.[xxviii] Finally, as a consequence, Bulgaria became a member-state of the Central Powers’ alliance in 1915.[xxix]
The trade contracts with Romania signed in 1875 and 1883 enabled Austria-Hungary to undertake the export of capital into this South-East European country.[xxx] Finally, the economy of Bosnia-Herzegovina (after 1878 under the Austro-Hungarian occupation and administration) was totally under Viennese-Budapest’s exploitation especially the wood’s and mine’s industries.[xxxi]
The territory of present-day Albania and the lands inhabited by the Albanians have very significant value in the concept of Austria-Hungary’s Balkan policy. It was true primarily because of rich Albania’s natural resources and its tremendously important geopolitical and strategic position as the territory located at the very entrance to the Adriatic Sea. Therefore, the Austrian-Hungarian military establishment in Vienna-Budapest did not hide that Albania “must be in close economic, cultural and political relations with the Monarchy”.[xxxii] The another reason for such “close” ties between Albania and Austro-Hungary was a plan by the Viennese Military Court Council to transfigure Albania into the chief barrier and counterbalance against both the Serbian-Montenegrin pretensions on the territories of Macedonia, North Albania, and Kosovo-Metochia and the Italian and the Greek aspirations on the present-day South Albania and the littoral of the Adriatic Sea. However, Italy, which after its national and political unification in 1859‒1866 was becoming very significant and respectful economic and political European player[xxxiii] was the principal and strongest political actor to oppose the Habsburgs to convert Albania into their own economic and political colony. At the turn of the 20th century, Austria-Hungary and Italy became the only masters of the Albanian economic life. For instance, the main part of the export-import trade through the Ottoman-Albanian seaport of Valona was controlled by the Austrian-Hungarian financial capital. Similarly, the Austrian “Lloyd” and “The Fiume Oboti Company” self-possessed the chief portion of Albania’s overseas trade. Lloyd’s steamboats maintained in 1913 around 73% of the Albanian steamboat’s traffic. The most important mines and the best forests in Albania were under the Austro-Hungarian economic exploitation. However, the Austrian-Hungarian domination over the territory of Albania was tremendously challenged in 1913 when Italy in a clean manner disagreed with Vienna’s intention to get a concession to construct the first Albanian railway line from Scutari to Valona. Generally, just before the outbreak of the Balkan Wars in 1912, the territory of present-day Albania was economically much more depended on the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary than on the Ottoman Empire.[xxxiv]
The Austro-Hungarian policy of transforming South-East Europe into its own colonial possession allowed Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Romania to have their own Governments, rulers, diplomacy,[xxxv] to use the national languages or to have a fictive autonomy within the Monarchy, but all of them at the same time have to be highly economically, politically, financially and military depended on Vienna-Budapest.[xxxvi] Probably the Kingdom of Serbia was the main spine in the Austrian-Hungarian eyes at the Balkans since the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1804−1813 when de facto an independent state of Serbia under the Russian protection was established.[xxxvii]
The real reason for such Austro-Serbian antagonism, which finally led the world to the Great War of 1914−1918[xxxviii] was, on one hand, the Viennese intention to dominate over the South Slavs at the Balkans and, on other hand, Belgrade’s intendment to include all Serbs from the Ottoman Empire and the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary into unified national state of the Serbs, respectively.[xxxix] The most belligerent political factor in the Dual Monarchy, the Court War Council, was suggesting to the Emperor (Kaizer) Franc Joseph I Habsburg to resolve the Yugoslav Question by the military occupation of small Kingdom of Serbia. A Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General-Staff, Conrad von Hezendorf was calling for Emperor’s attention that if the Austro-Hungarian army would occupy the city of Niš in South Serbia, South-East Balkans would be under the monopoly of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.[xl] Nonetheless, the Emperor was not willing to accept such policy as 50% of the population of the Dual Monarchy was of the Slavic origin. In other word, in the case of Serbia’s or both Serbia’s and Montenegro’s annexation by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Slavic element would prevail over the Germanic and Hungarian ones combined.
From 1878 onward, the Viennese policy toward only two free, sovereign and independent Yugoslav states, Serbia and Montenegro, was focused on thwarting Belgrade to unite Serbia and Montenegro into a single national state. Subsequently, as the best instrument to keep Serbia and Montenegro in political separation, Austria-Hungary found to build the railway line from Sarajevo to Kosovska Mitrovica via Sanjak of Novi Pazar.[xli] This railway line should become a part of the Austro-Hungarian wider railway network which was connecting Vienna and Budapest with Istanbul, Thessaloniki, and the Albanian seaport of Valona.[xlii]
Italy and the Balkans
After the unification of Italy from 1859 to 1866,[xliii] the Italian administration accepted the foreign policy of the creation of a greater Italian state which should resemble a certain extent on the ancient Roman Empire.[xliv] The project of a “New Roman Empire” was directed toward the Italian direct control or territorial acquisitions of the parts of the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and certain territories in North Africa and Asia Minor. However, for the very reason that the Italian attempt to conquer African Ethiopia in the years of 1886−1896 failed, the Italian pivotal aim of the foreign policy after the Ethiopian War was directed toward the Balkans.[xlv]
However, there were two most important focal points of the Italian interest in the region of South-East Europe: 1) Albania, and 2) East Adriatic littoral. The press in Italy at the turn of the 20th century (around 1900) called openly the whole Adriatic Sea as the Italian Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). To be a master of the Adriatic Sea became the principal precondition for the Italian economic and political infiltration into the Balkan Peninsula. Special importance for the Italian Balkan policy was Albania and the Albanian populated Balkan lands for the very reason that the main direction of the Italian penetration into South-East Europe was seen to be via Valona, Elbasan, and Bitola with the final destination at the Bay of Thessaloniki. The Italians verily followed, in this case, the ancient Roman military road Via Egnatia, which connected Italy with the East (with Byzant/Constantinople and further with Asia Minor).[xlvi] By contrast, the Austro-Hungarians followed in their penetration into the Balkans different but also the ancient Roman military road – Via Militaris, from Belgrade (Singidunum) via Sofia (Serdica), Plovdiv (Philippopolis), and Edirne (Adrianopolis) to Istanbul (Constantinople).[xlvii]
The Italian project of the Trans-Balkan Railway-Line is the best illustration of the Italian Balkan plans and way of economic-political infiltration into South-East Europe’s hinterland. Rome, in order to be more active in the Balkan affairs, required in 1902−1904 that the Italian police forces would implement necessary reforms in the Ottoman Bitola (Monastir) Vilayet.[xlviii] In the year 1911, when the 1911−1912 Italo-Ottoman War started,[xlix] the Italian trade and financial capital already prevailed over the Austrian-Hungarian one in the area of Albania’s littoral of both the Ionic and the Adriatic Sea. What regards the whole territory of the Ottoman Albania, as the focal Italian point of colonial expansion in South-East Europe, in the years of the 1912−1913 Balkan Wars the presence of the Italian capital in the country reached the second place, just behind the Austrian-Hungarian one. The Italian trade companies mastered around 25% of the export-import trade from Scutari and 30% from South Albania. The total financial operations in the cities of Valona and Durazzo (Durrës) were done by the Italian banks but primarily by the Society for the Trade with the East.
With the marriage of the Italian hear of the throne, Vittorio Emanuel Orlando, with the Montenegrin Princess Helen (Jelena), a daughter of the Montenegrin Prince Nikola I, in 1896 the door to Montenegro was open for the Italian capital and political influence. Up to 1912, the Italian capital was predominant in Montenegro’s economy. For instance, the concession to construct the first Montenegrin railway-line (Bar-Virpazar) was given to the Banca Comerciale Italiana. The same bank started to exploit the steamboat traffic at the Lake of Scutari.[l]
The Italian intention to use Albania’s territory as the bridge for its penetration into South-East Europe, as well as to transform the Strait of Otranto into the Italian Gibraltar, followed by Rome’s wish to annex Alto Adige (Süd Tyrol), Istria, and Dalmatia led Italy to the open clash with Vienna-Budapest upon the lordship over the Adriatic Sea and the Balkan hinterland.[li] At that time, the Austro-Hungarian belligerent military and political circles created a motto: “Our future is in the Balkans, our stumbling block is Italy”. In order to dismiss the main obstacle for the Austrian-Hungarian predominance in the Balkan affairs, a Chief of the Austrian-Hungarian General Headquarters Conrad von Hötzendorf advised the Emperor “firstly to settle the affairs with Italy”.[lii] Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a hearing of the Austro-Hungarian throne, predicted in February 1913 in his conversation with Conrad von Hötzendorf that “our principal enemy is Italy and against Italy, we had to fight one day in order to regain Venice and Lombardy”[liii] (lost during the wars for the Italian unification).
For the Italian Balkan policy, the most dangerous Austrian-Hungarian plan with regard to the region of South-East Europe was a design of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary to transform present-day North Albania into the Austrian-Hungarian foothill for the further advance towards the Balkan hinterland. For that reason, Italy made serious efforts to thwart the Austro-Hungarian intention to master the east-central portion of the Balkans, including the areas populated by the Albanian majority or minority as Albania proper, Kosovo-Metochia, East Montenegro, and West Macedonia. In other word, to keep Vienna-Budapest as far as from the Strait of Otranto became a crucial goal of the Italian policy in the Balkans around 1900. An additional problem for Italy was Serbia’s territorial pretension on present-day North Albania as well as the Greek wish to dominate over North Epirus (present-day South Albania).[liv]
In order to obviate the Serbian-Greek division of Albania, Italy in principle did not support the creation of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire since the league would make stronger both Serbia and Greece. Rome showed its real attitude toward the Balkan League[lv] when Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria proclaimed the war against the Ottoman Empire in October 1912 as Italy at the same moment put an end its military operations against the Ottoman Empire in Lybia in order to make better Ottoman military position at the Balkans against the members of the Balkan League.[lvi] The Italian newspapers at that time were writing that “the Slavdom is coming via Montenegro to the Adriatic”; the Slavdom which was “just behind Albania” and in the following years and decades the Slavdom will require Bosnia-Herzegovina, Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia.[lvii] The Italian diplomatic representative in Vienna even tried to convince the Austrian-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs that for the sake of the Italian geopolitical[lviii] and economic interests in the region, Serbia was more dangerous than the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.[lix] Consequently, regardless of the whole spectrum of the Italian disputes with Austria-Hungary on supremacy over South-East Europe, the disintegration of the Balkan League was their joint interest. Their common goal was “to prevent Slavic domination over the Adriatic Sea”.[lx]
Surely, the question of the division of the spheres of influence over the region of South-East Europe between the European Great Powers including Italy as well as was one of the focal causes of friction which threatened to upset the peace of Europe at the turn of the 20th century as they were:
- A naval rivalry between the United Kingdom and the German Empire.
- The French intention to return lost Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871 (as a consequence of the 1870‒1871 Franco-Prussian War).
- The German Empire accused the Trip