“I always believed, and still believe, that the Balkan States cannot secure their future otherwise than by a close understanding among themselves, whether this understanding shall or shall not take the form of a federation. No one of the Balkan States is strong enough to resist the pressure from one or another of the European powers.
© Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.
FRANCIS JOSEPH I OF AUSTRIA, THE “OLD EMPEROR,” ON A STATE OCCASION
Francis Joseph died before the war had settled the fate of the Hapsburgs. The end came on November 21, 1916, in the sixty-eighth year of his reign. His life was tragic. He lived to see his brother executed, his Queen assassinated, and his only son a suicide, with always before him the specter of the disintegration of his many-raced empire.
“For this reason I am deeply grieved to see in the Balkan coalition of 1912 Roumania not invited. If Roumania had taken part in the first one, we should not have had the second. I did all that was in my power and succeeded in preventing the war between Roumania and the Balkan League in the winter of 1912-13.
“I risked my popularity, and I do not feel sorry for it. I employed all my efforts to prevent the second Balkan war, which, as is well known, was profitable to us. I repeatedly told the Bulgarians that they ought not to enter it because in that case we would enter it too. But I was not successful in my efforts.
“During the second Balkan war I did all in my power to end it as quickly as possible. At the conference at Bucharest I made efforts, as Mr. Pashich and Mr. Venizelos know very well, to secure for beaten Bulgaria the best terms. My object was to obtain a new coalition of all the Balkan States, including Roumania. Had I succeeded in this the situation would be much better. No reasonable man will deny that the Balkan States are neutralizing each other at the present time, which in itself makes the whole situation all the more miserable.
“In October, 1913, when I succeeded in facilitating the conclusion of peace between Greece and Turkey, I was pursuing the same object of the Balkan coalition. On my return from Athens I endeavored, though without success, to put the Greco-Turkish relations on a basis of friendship, being convinced that the well-understood interest of both countries lies not only in friendly relations, but even in an alliance between them.
“The dissensions that exist between the Balkan States can be settled in a friendly way without war. The best moment for this would be after the general war, when the map of Europe will be remade. The Balkan country which would start war against another Balkan country would commit, not only a crime against her own future, but an act of folly as well.