n
proposals of the four powers, and finally Great Britain, fearing
complications, declared abruptly through Sir Edward Grey that the
Balkan war was one of conquest, and for that reason subject to
European intervention. In this way European diplomacy stepped into the
Balkan conflict and took charge of the final settlement of the first
war.

The resolution to interfere in the war once taken, the European powers
lost no time in finding a way to end the conflict, and with this
object in mind they forced on the belligerents two successive
armistices, culminating in the two peace conferences of London. These
armistices served two purposes from the diplomatic point of view;
first, they exhausted financially the little Balkan countries; and,
secondly, they prepared public opinion for the acceptance of any peace
terms. The second conference in London succeeded in forcing a peace
treaty on the Balkan States. With the exception of Bulgaria, who hoped
to retain most of the Turkish territory won by the Balkan coalition,
every one was dissatisfied with the way the London conference ended.

Turkey, on one hand, was losing more territory than at first imagined,
as the result of her defeat, and the loss of Adrianople was especially
hard for every Turk.

Greece was obliged to sign a peace treaty giving her vague and
indefinite boundaries and leaving out the question of the Aegean
Islands and Epirus, to be settled at a later date by another
conference of the Ambassadors of the six great powers in London.

Servia also had to wait for the realization of her fondest hope, which
was to obtain a free commercial access to the Adriatic by way of
Durazzo or San Giovanni di Medua. That question also was to be decided
by the Ambassadorial conference. Montenegro was to lose Scutari, for
which she had shed her heart's blood, without getting at the same time
any adequate compensation. Such was the Peace of London, from the
strictly Balkan point of view, and its conclusion in May, 1913, was
the signal for the disruption of the Balkan League and the forerunner
of the second war. One month later Bulgaria, having fallen under
Austrian influences, quarreled with Servia and Greece over the
division of certain Macedonian territories, and on June 16 (29, new
style) all of a sudden attacked her erstwhile allies, thereby bringing
about the second Balkan conflict, with Greece, Servia, and Montenegro
united against her. The outcome of this war, the entry of