To obtain a similar ascendancy over the Balkan states was more difficult; for the Turk was the secular enemy of all of them, and Austria was the foe of two of the four, and to bring these little states into partnership with their natural enemies seemed an all but impossible task.  Yet a good deal could be, and was, done.  In two of the four chief Balkan states German princes occupied the thrones, a Hohenzollern in Rumania, a Coburger in Bulgaria; in a third, the heir-apparent to the Greek throne was honoured with the hand of the Kaiser’s own sister.  Western peoples had imagined that the day had gone by when the policy of states could be deflected by such facts; especially as the Balkan states all had democratic parliamentary constitutions.  But the Germans knew better than the West.  They knew that kings could still play a great part in countries where the bulk of the electorate were illiterate, and where most of the class of professional politicians were always open to bribes.  Their calculations were justified.  King Carol of Rumania actually signed a treaty of alliance with Germany without consulting his ministers or parliament.  King Ferdinand of Bulgaria was able to draw his subjects into an alliance with the Turks, who had massacred their fathers in 1876, against the Russians, who had saved them from destruction.  King Constantine of Greece was able to humiliate and disgrace the country over which he ruled, in order to serve the purposes of his brother-in-law.  These sovereigns may have been the unconscious implements of a policy which they did not understand.  But they earned their wages.

There were, indeed, two moments when the great scheme came near being wrecked.  One was when Italy, the sleeping partner of the Triple Alliance, who was not made a sharer in these grandiose and vile projects, attacked and conquered the Turkish province of Tripoli in 1911, and strained to breaking-point the loyalty of the Turks to Germany.  The other was when, under the guidance of the two great statesmen of the Balkans, Venizelos of Greece and Pashitch of Serbia, the Balkan League was formed, and the power of Turkey in Europe broken.  If the League had held together, the great German project would have been ruined, or at any rate gravely imperilled.  But Germany and Austria contrived to throw an apple of discord among the Balkan allies at the Conference of London in 1912, and then stimulated Bulgaria to attack Serbia and Greece.  The League was broken up irreparably; its members had been brought into a sound condition of mutual hatred; and Bulgaria, isolated among distrustful neighbours, was ready to become the tool of Germany in order that by her aid she might achieve (fond hope!) the hegemony of the Balkans.  This brilliant stroke was effected in 1913—­the year before the Great War.  All that remained was to ruin Serbia.  For that purpose Austria had long been straining at the leash.  She had been on the point of making an attack in 1909, in 1912, in 1913.  In 1914 the leash was slipped.  If the rival empires chose to look on while Serbia was destroyed, well and good:  in that case the Berlin-Bagdad project could be systematically developed and consolidated, and the attack on the rival empires could come later.  If not, still it was well; for all was ready for the great challenge.