The Balkans: Nationalism, War And The Great Pow... -

The is perhaps the clearest example of this. Decisions that would affect millions of Balkan residents for generations were made by diplomats in tailcoats who had never stepped foot in Sarajevo or Sofia. By drawing arbitrary lines on a map, the Great Powers didn't solve the "Eastern Question"—they merely postponed the explosion. The Cycle of War

The 20th century saw these tensions boil over repeatedly. The effectively ended Ottoman rule but left the victors fighting over the remains. Shortly after, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist acted as the spark that ignited World War I , dragging the entire globe into a conflict born of regional grievances.

The dream of "Greater" states—Greater Serbia, Greater Bulgaria, Greater Albania—became the driving force for independence. However, because the region’s ethnic groups were so deeply interspersed, one nation’s liberation often felt like another’s occupation. This "zero-sum" approach to territory created a volatile environment where borders rarely matched the people living within them. The Shadow of the Great Powers