Checking the Dominion of the Turk in Europe
The Story of Servia—Turkey in Europe—The Bulgarian Horrors—The Defense of Plevna—The Congress of Berlin—Hostile Sentiments in the Balkans—Incitement to War—Fighting Begins—The Advance on Adrianople—Servian and Greek victories—The Bulgarian Successes—Steps toward Peace—The War Resumed—Siege of Scutari—Treaty of Peace—War Between the Allies—The Final Settlement
In the southeast of Europe lies a group of minor kingdoms, of little importance in size, but of great importance in the progress of recent events. Their sudden uprising in 1912, their conquest of nearly the whole existing remnant of Turkey in Europe, and the subsequent struggle between them for the spoils are specially important from the fact that Servia, one of this group of states, was the ostensible—hardly the actual—cause of the great European war of 1914.
These, known as the Balkan States from their being traversed by the Balkan range of mountains, comprise the kingdoms of Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, and the recent and highly artificial kingdom of Albania. Greece is an outlying member of the group.