as viewed with
alarm. Austria uneasily watched the approach of Servia to the Adriatic
and the Aegean. The formation of the new new autonomous state of
Albania, between Servia and the Adriatic, was all that prevented Austria
from attacking Servia during that crisis. The terms of peace left the
situation, as it concerned Austria and Russia, practically as it had
been. Austria made no further progress toward the sea, and Russia
remained the ally of Servia. Bulgaria had failed in its efforts to reach
Salonica.

At this stage another element exerted its influence. Servia awoke to the
possibility of a Greater Servia. An Empire of the Slavs had long been
dreamed of. In Austria-Hungary itself millions of Slavs were dreaming of
it and awaiting the disruption of Austria-Hungary, held together now,
as they argue, only by the indomitable will of the old Emperor, Franz
Joseph. The hatred between the Slavs and the Teutonic Austrians is
intense. The annexation by Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which
Servians predominate, increased the Servian hatred and the indignation
of the whole Slav world to the point of violence. A conflict was avoided
with difficulty. These principalities had hoped to form part of a
Greater Servia. Had not Russia been exhausted by the war with Japan,
Servia would have called upon her ally and the crisis would have come
then. As it was, the Balkans teemed with plots and counterplots against
the Austrians, culminating in the assassination of the Arch-Duke and
heir-apparent to the Austrian throne, Francis Ferdinand, known for his
anti-Slav principles, and therefore feared and hated as the king to
be. The assassination occurred at Serajevo in Bosnia, where Servian
disaffection was seething. Austria immediately laid the crime on the
Servian government.

AUSTRIA DECLARES WAR

Failing in her peremptory demands for satisfaction, Austria declared
war, July 28, 1914, apparently for revenge, but behind her righteous
indignation she still held in view her traditional ambition, a port on
the Mediterranean, to be secured by the complete control of the
Novi Bazar route to Salonica, a route which, besides its commercial
importance, is of tremendous strategic value to the nation which
commands it. The treaty of Berlin of 1878, after the Russo-Turkish War,
had given Austria the military, political, and commercial control of the
route within the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, then a part of Turkey.

But now, in the division of