Standard Grade/GCSE - International Relations Help (Balkans)?

The Balkans had only recently emerged from being under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and so we had new nations such as Serbia,,Montenegro,Greece Bosnia and Albania. Nominally a lot of these countries were under the control of the Ottoman Empire In some of these countries you had sizable populations from the others and this caused unrest and tension. Although the majority were quite happy to stay living wherever their ancestors had others believed otherwise. The majority of the peoples of the Balkans are Slavic, especially if you follow the arc up into Bulgaria and Romania. Some people thought that as these peoples shared an ethnic root and were also followers of an Orthodox Christianity then they should form one huge country. Russia a slavic and Orthodox state encouraged this idea as it had ambitions to build an Orthodox Empire with a capital in Constantinople (Istanbul). This movement was called Pan-Slavism (all-slavs).

To the North of the Balkans was another Empire seeking to expand southwards to the Mediterranean Sea, that of Austro-Hungary. It already controlled Croatia and had annexed Bosnia but wanted more, and was always threatening Serbia. The Russians of course supported their Slavic cousins and co-religionists. Whilst keen to pick off some of the Ottoman possessions the Austrians and their allies the Germans did not want the Ottoman Empire to fall leaving Russia with a free hand to do what they liked.

These are just some of the tensions involved in the area.

Great Powers directly involved were the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire (based around modern Turkey). Other Great Powers who were interested were Great Britain, France and Germany. Italy would also be looking around but is not normally considered a great power.

Eventually it would all kick off into two Balkan wars in 1912-1913, and eventually WW!