Too Much History and Too Many Neighbours: Europe and the Balkans before 1914

Abstract

The Balkans before 1914 must be considered both in terms of their own internal tensions and developments and in the wider European context which include growing nationalisms, revolutionary ideologies, and imperial rivalries. Three developments combined to make the region unstable and a threat to international stability: the emergence of national states in the Balkans, the weakness and then the apparent revival of the Ottoman Empire, and great power interests and ambitions.