There were also external causes which contributed to the deepening
tragedy in the Balkans. Undoubtedly the most potent was the
dislocation of the plans of the Allies by the creation of an
independent Albania. This new kingdom was called into being by the
voice of the European concert at the demand of Austria-Hungary
supported by Italy.
{68}
The controlling force in politics, though not the only force, is
self-interest. Austria-Hungary had long sought an outlet through
Macedonia to the Aegean by way of Saloniki. It was also the aim of
Servia to reach the Adriatic. But the foreign policy of
Austria-Hungary, which has millions of Serbs under its dominion, has
steadily opposed the aggrandizement of Servia. And now that Servia and
her allies had taken possession of Macedonia and blocked the path of
Austria-Hungary to Saloniki, it was not merely revenge, it was
self-interest pursuing a consistent foreign policy, which moved the
Dual Monarchy to make the cardinal feature of its Balkan programme the
exclusion of Servia from access to the Adriatic Sea. Before the first
Balkan war began the Adriatic littoral was under the dominion of
Austria-Hungary and Italy, for though Montenegro and European Turkey
were their maritime neighbors neither of them had any naval strength.
Naturally {69} these two dominant powers desired that after the close
of the Balkan war they should not be in a worse position in the
Adriatic than heretofore. But if Servia were allowed to expand
westward to the Adriatic, their supremacy might in the future be
challenged. For Servia might enter into special relations with her
great sister Slav state, Russia, or a confederation might be formed
embracing all the Balkan states between the Black Sea and the Adriatic:
and, in either event, Austria-Hungary and Italy would no longer enjoy
the unchallenged supremacy on the Adriatic coasts which was theirs so
long as Turkey held dominion over the maritime country lying between
Greece and Montenegro. As a necessity of practical politics,
therefore, there emerged the Austro-Italian policy of an independent
Albania. But natural and essential as this policy was for Italy and
Austria-Hungary, it was fatal to Servia's dream of expansion to the
Adriatic; it set narrow limits to the northward extension of {70}
Greece into Epirus, and the southward extension of Montenegro below
Scutari; it impelled these Allies to seek compensation in territory
that Bulgaria had regarded as her peculiar preserve; and as a
consequence it seriously menaced the existence of the Balkan Alliance
torn as it already was by mutual jealousies, enmities, aggressions, and
recriminations.