If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.

Otto von Bismarck.

Hello and welcome to the When Diplomacy Fails Special on World War I, episode 20.4, the July

Crisis of 1914.

This episode is one I've been waiting to do since I started When Diplomacy Fails.

When people talk about when diplomacy fails, I want them to say, oh, have you heard of his

special on World War I? It's like nine episodes long.

The idea is that by doing World War I in this level of detail, I'll have satisfied my original

reasons for starting this, and can then pay attention to what other people want.

Well, theoretically anyway, but I don't want to bore you with rambling anymore, so on to the episode we go.

I will now take you to the year 1914.

As early, as the year 1912, Britain had in fact hosted a conference in London, which had been designed to ease the tension in the

Balkans by creating an independent Albania out of the Ottoman retreat. This had the double

effect of appeasing Austria, who didn't want Serbia to gain a port in the Adriatic, while also

somewhat annoying Russia and Serbia, who both wanted Serbia to have that port. Montenegro also refused to agree to the

creation of an independent Albania on the Adriatic, but both Serbia and Montenegro eventually agreed

to recognise Albania and its territory once significant pressure had been applied. The problems that

a growing Serbia placed in front of Britain were not felt as intensely as they would have been to those nations closer to the Balkans, since a continued peace depending on everyone getting along, and Serbia was not getting on well with any one of its neighbors in 1913, especially Austria-Hungary. It was so much simpler.

British and indeed European statesmen would likely have lamented when the Ottomans just controlled it all.

But nationalism would not allow it

and the self-determination present within the Balkan countries of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia,

Montenegro, Greece and to an extent Macedonia

...