Montenegro has an area of 14,180 square kilometers and half a million in population, and, lastly, Albania, the newborn State, with its scant hope of future political life, has an area of about 17,600 square kilometers, with an approximate population of 800,000 inhabitants.
Were the Balkan States satisfied with the above arrangement when the great European war broke? To this question we have the following answer from those concerned:
Turkey never forgave the European powers the treatment accorded to her in the London peace conference, and proved her dissatisfaction by entering Thrace and occupying Adrianople immediately she saw Bulgaria engaged in the second war. But Turkey desired also the Aegean islands occupied by Greece, and these, all but two at the entrance to the Dardanelles, the powers allotted to Greece, not securing thereby an increase of Turkish sympathies.
Greece was disappointed in two instances by the European powers; first, because they did not make their decision regarding the islands binding upon Turkey, thus creating a series of unending controversies between the Porte and the Government of Athens, one result of which was the wholesale expulsions and persecutions of the Greek element in Turkey, and especially in the Vilayets of Adrianople and Smyrna. The question of settling in a friendly way the Greco-Turkish differences was to be discussed between the Grand Vizier, Prince Said Halim, and the Premier of Greece, E.K. Venizelos, in a meeting of the two statesmen in Brussels, when the great European war broke.
Bulgaria, who for a moment saw her most cherished dream of Balkan hegemony realized and had all her fondest hopes shattered by the second war and the Treaty of Bucharest, cannot help regarding her neighbors as the robbers of what she considers her national patrimony, and at the same time she does not forget that in all their proceedings against her, Greek, Servian, Rumanian, and Montenegrin acted with the tacit approval of the great powers.
Servia for years had struggled to get an outlet on the Adriatic, and when, after a glorious war, she attained her goal, she found Austria opposing her, and behind Austria the whole of the European concert.
Montenegro in the same way cannot forget the disappointment of being cast out of Scutari after one of the most strenuous and glorious campaigns of her history, and lastly Albania, poor and helpless, without any support from her creators, feels all that a weak and wretched foundling has to feel toward those responsible for its misfortunes and miseries. In contrast with these feelings, Rumania was the only Balkan State perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement. In fact, Rumania, having played in the war the part of a great power, came out of it not only with increased prestige but also with the richest of all the Bulgarian provinces, Dobrudja, as a sort of deserved payment for serving the ends of European diplomacy.
From this general dissatisfaction of the Balkan States with European diplomacy and European intrigue sprang Gavrilo Prinzip and the murder at Serajevo that plunged Europe and the world into the greatest and most disastrous war of all time.
In fairness, however, to the Balkan States it must be said at this juncture that war, in whatever form and character, was far from the Balkan mind on June 28, 1914, when the Austrian Archduke and heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his consort were assassinated by the Servian youth Prinzip in the capital of Bosnia.
The years 1912 and 1913 had been too costly for the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, and the necessity of a continued peace for a good number of years was universally recognized, with the exception of Constantinople, in Athens, Bucharest, Sofia, Belgrade, Cettinge, and even Durazzo. To prove this we have the opinions of all the Balkan leaders and the views expressed in the Balkan press up to Aug. 1, 1914.