Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III. Bulgaria in 1911
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i9n] THE TURKISH REVOLUTION
19
gradually disappearing like a useless appendage,
incompatible with the unlimited moral credit which the
Powers vied with one another in assigning to Turkey in
her radical renovation.
Moreover, relations between the European Powers
themselves were becoming particularly complicated
during the same year 1908.
The act of the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina had
been prepared before the Turkish Revolution, which as I
said before had been a surprise to every one.
As the year 1908 coincided with the Jubilee of the
sixty years’ reign of Francis Joseph of Austria, a
newly-appointed and ambitious Minister—M. d’Aerenthal—
wishing to make his name from the outset, desired to
present the annexation as a Jubilee present to the aged
Monarch. In M. Isvolsky—also newly appointed, and
keen to make his country forget the recent disasters on
the shores of the Pacific and to replace Russian policy
in the historic groove of the Near East—M. d’Aerenthal
found a suitable partner, willing to listen to proposals
and to formulate some of his own. A friendly exchange
of views took place through the interposition of the
Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in St. Petersburg. The
Russian Foreign Office received the wishes of Vienna
fairly favourably, and suggested on their side that it was
necessary for Russia that the government of the Straits
should be improved in her favour. In the very midst
of these discussions, which were endorsed by a very
friendly exchange of views between St. Petersburg and
London on this same question of the Straits, the Turkish
Revolution broke out. This event, however, did not
check the plans of the two partners, and the interview
planned between M. Isvolsky and M. d’Aerenthal
took place all the same at Buchlau. But there all the
cards were shuffled. The ambitious and unscrupulous
Austrian Minister persisted with his schemes and, in
order to take Europe by surprise, hastened the act
of annexation, with the result that Russia—supported
by England and France, who thought the moment had
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