Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/813

 Origin of the War 0/1914 607 In 1897 Greece risked a war with Turkey, with the hope of in- creasing her realms, but was defeated. Turkey was of course anxious at all costs to hold on to the remnant of her once large dominion in Europe left her by the Congress of Berlin. She still held Macedonia and Albania. In 1908, thirty years after the un- satisfactory settlement at Berlin, a series of events began which in six years precipitated the World War. 1101. The Turkish Revolution of 1908. During the opening years of the twentieth century there developed in Turkey a small party of reformers, known as Young Turks. In 1908 a so-called "Committee of Union and Progress" was formed, which declared that Turkey must have a constitution and that the reformers would march on Constantinople if the Sultan did not yield. The aged Sultan, Abdul Hamid, did not feel himself in a position to oppose the movement, and so even Turkey got something at last that passed for a constitution. The election of representatives to the Turkish parliament took place, and the assembly was opened by the Sultan with great pomp in December, 1908. This "bloodless revolution" attracted the attention of Europe, and everyone wondered whether the Young Turks, who were few in number and unpractical in their notions of government, would really succeed in reforming such a thoroughly corrupt government as that of Abdul Hamid. 1102. Austria annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bulgaria immediately seized the occasion to declare itself entirely inde- pendent of Turkey. Next Austria proclaimed the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two Slavic provinces of Turkey which she had been managing since the settlement at the Congress of Berlin. She set to work to Germanize them as completely as possib'le and suppress all tendencies to join their Slavic relatives in Serbia. A glance at the map will show how important these provinces were for Austria, since they connected her other main possessions with Dalmatia and her ports on the Adriatic. 1103. War between Italy and Turkey. In September, 1911, Turkey's troubles were multiplied, for Italy declared war on her, on the ground that Italian subjects in Tripoli were not properly