HOSTILE SENTIMENTS OF THE BALKANS
As may be seen from what has been said, the sentiment of hostility between the Christian States of the Balkan region and the Mohammedan empire of Turkey was not likely to be easily allayed. The atrocities of persecution which the Christians had suffered at the hands of the Turks were unforgotten and unavenged, and to them was added an ambitious desire to widen their dominions at the expense of Turkey, if possible to drive Turkey completely out of Europe and extend their areas of control to the Mediterranean and the Bosporus. These states consisted of Servia, made an autonomous principality in 1830, an independent principality in 1878, and a kingdom in 1882; Bulgaria, an autonomous principality in 1878, an independent kingdom in 1908; Roumania, an autonomous principality in 1802, an independent principality in 1878, a kingdom in 1881; Montenegro, an independent principality in 1878, a kingdom in 1910; Eastern Roumelia, autonomous in 1878, annexed to Bulgaria in 1885. Adjoining these on the south was Greece, an independent kingdom since 1830. The former provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina had been assigned to Austrian administrative control in 1878, and annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908, an act which added to the feeling of unrest in the Balkan States.
The relations existing between the Balkan States and their neighbors was one of dissatisfaction and hostility which might at any time break into war, this being especially the case with those which bordered directly upon Turkey—Servia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece. Roumania, being removed from contact, had less occasion to entertain warlike sentiments.