Photo by A. W. Cutler 



A SERVIAN VENDER OE ODDS AND ENDS OUTSIDE THE CENTRAL STATION : BUDAPEST, 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



sit idly by and watch Russia thus thrust 

 herself into a situation that threatened to 

 do the same in the end with British com- 

 merce in the Orient that the fall of Con- 

 stantinople did with western commerce. 

 She knew that Constantinople's fall be- 

 fore the Turk had cut off western trade 

 with Asia, causing the decline and decay 

 of the cities of the Mediterranean and 

 sending Columbus westward in search of 

 another passage to India. And history, 

 she feared, might repeat itself. 



EACH WITH HIS OWN REASON 



Also Austria-Hungary felt that she 

 had her national life at stake, for with a 

 majority of her people Slavs, and with 



Russia and Servia encouraging a Pan- 

 Slavic movement, looking to the tearing 

 from Austria-Hungary of all her Slavic 

 provinces, she had, from her viewpoint, 

 quite a substantial right to be afraid of 

 a future that would result in any increase 

 in Russia's dominions or Russian influ- 

 ence in the Balkans. 



Germany's deep interest in the situa- 

 tion in the southeast of Europe arose 

 from the fact that she had acquired com- 

 mercial interests reaching from Constan- 

 tinople to Bagdad. She had seen herself 

 checkmated in her ambition to reach the 

 Persian Gulf by pressure, which forced 

 her to give up her concession for the 

 buildinsf of a railroad through Nineveh 



419 



