for ages they had lavished blood and treasure in effecting the liberation of the Balkan peoples.  Besides, in 1897, the Tsar had framed an agreement with the Court of Vienna for the purpose of exercising conjointly some measure of control over Balkan affairs; and he then vetoed Austria’s suggestion for the acquisition of Bosnia.  In 1903, when the two Empires drew up the “February” and “Muerzsteg” Programmes for more effectually dealing with the racial disputes in Macedonia, the Hapsburg Court did not renew the suggestion about Bosnia, yet in 1908 Austria annexed that province.  Obviously, she would not have thus defied the public law of Europe and Russian, Servian, and Turkish interests, but for the recent humiliation of Russia in the Far East, which explains both the dramatic intervention of the Kaiser at Tangier against Russia’s ally, France, and the sudden apparition of Austria as an aggressive Power.  In his speech to the Austro-Hungarian Delegations Aehrenthal declared that he intended to continue “an active foreign policy,” which would enable Austria-Hungary to “occupy to the full her place in the world.”  She had to act because otherwise “affairs might have developed against her.”

Thus the Eastern Question once more became a matter of acute controversy.  The Austro-Russian agreements of 1897 and 1903 had huddled up and cloaked over those racial and religious disputes, so that there was little chance of a general war arising out of them.  But since 1908 the Eastern Question has threatened to produce a general conflict unless Austria moderated her pretensions.  She did not do so; for, as we have seen, Germany favoured them in order to assure uninterrupted communications between Central Europe and her Bagdad Railway.  Already Hapsburg influence was supreme at Bukharest, Sofia, and in Macedonian affairs.  If it could dominate Servia (anti-Austrian since the accession of King Peter in 1903) the whole of the Peninsula would be subject to Austro-German control.  True, the influence of Germany at Constantinople at first suffered a shock from the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908; and those eager nationalists deeply resented the annexation of Bosnia, which they ascribed to the Austro-German alliance.  The men of Berlin, however, so far from furthering that act, disapproved of it as endangering their control of Turkey and exploitation of its resources.  In fact, Germany’s task in inducing her prospective vassals, the Turks, to submit to spoliation at the hands of her ally, Austria, was exceedingly difficult; and in the tension thus created, the third partner of the Triple Alliance, Italy, very nearly parted company, from disgust at Austrian encroachments in a quarter where she cherished aspirations.  As we have seen, Victor Emmanuel III., early in his reign, favoured friendly relations with Russia; and these ripened quickly during the “Annexation Crisis” of 1908-9, as both Powers desired to maintain the status quo against Austria[525].  On December 24, 1908, the Russian