Wars,_ 1908-13 (cf. Chap, 13)

The winter of 1908-9 marked the lowest ebb of Serbia's fortunes. The
successive _coups_ and _faits accomplis_ carried out by Austria, Turkey,
and Bulgaria during 1908 seemed destined to destroy for good the Serbian
plans for expansion in any direction whatever, and if these could not be
realized then Serbia must die of suffocation. It was also well understood
that for all the martial ardour displayed in Belgrade the army was in no
condition to take the field any more than was the treasury to bear the
cost of a campaign; Russia had not yet recovered from the Japanese War
followed by the revolution, and indeed everything pointed to the certainty
that if Serbia indulged in hostilities against Austria-Hungary it would
perish ignominiously and alone. The worst of it was that neither Serbia
nor Montenegro had any legal claim to Bosnia and Hercegovina: they had
been deluding themselves with the hope that their ethnical identity with
the people of these provinces, supported by the effects of their
propaganda, would induce a compassionate and generous Europe at least to
insist on their being given a part of the coveted territory, and thus give
Serbia access to the coast, when the ambiguous position of these two
valuable provinces, still nominally Turkish but already virtually
Austrian, came to be finally regularized. As a matter of fact, ever since
Bismarck, Gorchakov, and Beaconsfield had put Austria-Hungary in their
possession in 1878, no one had seriously thought that the Dual Monarchy
would ever voluntarily retire from one inch of the territory which had
been conquered and occupied at such cost, and those who noticed it were
astonished at the evacuation by it of the _sandjak_ of Novi-Pazar. At the
same time Baron Achrenthal little foresaw what a hornet's nest he would
bring about his ears by the tactless method in which the annexation was
carried out. The first effect was to provoke a complete boycott of
Austro-Hungarian goods and trading vessels throughout the Ottoman Empire,
which was so harmful to the Austrian export trade that in January 1909
Count Achrenthal had to indemnify Turkey with the sum of L2,500,000 for
his technically stolen property. Further, the attitude of Russia and
Serbia throughout the whole winter remained so provocative and threatening
that, although war was generally considered improbable, the Austrian army
had to be kept on a war footing, which involved great expense a