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Title: Current History, A Monthly Magazine
The European War, March 1915

Author: New York Times

Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20521]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The New York Times

CURRENT HISTORY

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

_THE EUROPEAN WAR_

MARCH, 1915

Caldron of the Balkans

But little has hitherto been published in English describing
from original sources how the Balkan States, out of which
the world conflict arose, resolved, in Kipling's phrase, to
"stand up and meet the war." The following documents, taken
from authoritative Balkan sources, show for the first time
the purely Balkan aspect of the great struggle.

How Turkey Went to War

By Ottoman Authorities

_Immediately on receiving official notification of the rupture of
diplomatic relations between Austria and Servia, the Turkish Grand
Vizier hastened to inform the Diplomatic Corps in Constantinople that
Turkey would remain neutral in the conflict. Explaining this official
Turkish declaration, the following editorial article appeared early in
August in the Ministerial paper, Tasfiri-Efkiar, published in
Constantinople:_

The declarations made by the Grand Vizier to the Ambassadors of the
powers, in order to reassure them as to the dispositions of Turkey, do
not constitute from a legal point of view a declaration of neutrality,
according to the stipulations of The Hague Conventions; likewise the
Austrian ultimatum to Servia, viewed in the same light, is not
tantamount to a declaration of war. In fact, The Hague Conventions
demand a formal declaration in both cases. But if the formal
declaration of Turkish neutrality cannot be made before she has
received an official notification of the existing war, it is
nevertheless true that the head of the Government, in his
conversations with the Ambassadors, has given them to understand what
the