Imperialist Aggression in Balkan Peninsula

23). The Crimean War commenced in 1854 as a result.

Peace was declared after two bloody years. Decades later, the Balkan Peninsula would again find itself caught in the crossfire, as Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef began false his attention to "Eastern policy"(Stapleton, 2001, pp. 30). Franz Josef, recognizing that it had "Slavs in its own conglomerate and a decaying Ottoman empire to the s out(p)h" knew that the Habsburg Empire must(prenominal) "maintain the territorial status quo" (Stapleton, 2001, pp. 31). Russian had other ideas; facing pressure from its own internal Pan-Slavist movement and the tempting face of achieving naval access to the Mediterranean, Russia prepared for action (Stapleton, 2001, pp. 31).

German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, deciding to take this opportunity to strike a equilibrium between the Habsburgs and the Russians, threatened to intervene if war should break out in the Balkans. Seeing the Balkans as an "area in which we seat help our friends and harm our enemies without being inhibited to any nifty extent by direct interests of our own", Bismarck practice the tone for 50 years of German influence in the region (Ferguson, 1993, pp. 24).

Bismarck's dealings in the region showed little admiration for its inhabitants; when larger powers needed to be assuaged, Bismarck carved up chunks of the Balkans and simply gav

For this, the first fractional of the 20th century in the Balkans reflected a fear of German influence. The British were drawn into World War I on the side of Russia in 1914, in large part to foreclose German domination of Western Europe, a chain of events kicked finish when Bosnian Serbs assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in protest all over the Austrian annexation of Bosnia (Ferguson, 1993, p. 23-24). The Balkan Peninsula, already a mess pursual the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, was in shambles; Albanian statehood had been contested by Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks, Kosovo had locomote under attack by Kosovo, the gasping remains of the Ottoman empire had been rent asunder; hundreds of thousands perished (Ajami, 1999, pp. 20).

Ferguson, Niall. (1993). Europa nervosa: the Roots of Europe's Balkan Balk. The New Republic. Vol. 208 (22): 22-25.

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