Chapter 459: Anti-Bulgaria Alliance

The Serbian government's ideas were extremely beautiful, but one could only say that the ideal was plump, while the reality was skeletal.

To say nothing of anything else, the Austro-Hungarian Empire firmly opposed Serbia obtaining Albania during the war and supported the Albania region in gaining independence.

The reason was also very simple: the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not want to see its mortal enemy, Serbia, obtain Albania as an outlet to the sea.

Originally, Serbia was just a small inland country; although the people of this country had fierce combat capabilities, it was ultimately just a small nuisance.

If Serbia were allowed to obtain an outlet to the sea, it would be easier for Serbia to obtain material resources from overseas; it was believed that Russia, the old rival of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, would also be willing to transport more supplies to Serbia via sea routes to disgust the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Originally, Serbia had no other ideas; the Serbian government only thought of arguing on strong grounds to obtain the Albania region it had been longing for.

But what the Serbian government did not expect was that under the firm opposition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, apart from Russia expressing a supportive attitude, none of the other great powers reacted at all.

Even Serbia's ally, Bulgaria, expressed silence on this, having no intention of helping Serbia fight for Albania.

If it were only the opposition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that would be one thing, but behind the Austro-Hungarian Empire stood Germany, and Germany was also participating in these peace negotiations.

The outcome was also very obvious: Russia alone could not secure Albania for Serbia amidst the opposition of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Britain also felt that Serbia was somewhat greedy and did not approve of Serbia obtaining Albania.

If Serbia were truly allowed to obtain Albania, to say nothing of the Albanian outlet to the sea, the territory alone would be enough to make Serbia more than double its own land area.

In this way, a powerful Serbia would also cause no small amount of trouble for Britain's little brother, Greece; Britain did not want any more accidents to occur in the Balkan Peninsula, and it would be best if there were not even a trace of an accident.

After many days of negotiations and lobbying, it was finally determined, under the insistence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that Albania would become independent after this war.

The Serbian government, unable to obtain Albania, suffered a heavy blow; their hatred for the Austro-Hungarian Empire became deeper, and at the same time, they were somewhat dissatisfied with their ally, Bulgaria.

Although they still needed Bulgaria to confront the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this did not mean that Serbia would swallow this bitter pill.

In the subsequent negotiations, the Serbian government immediately changed its attitude, refusing to recognize Bulgaria's acquisition of the entirety of Macedonia, and hoped to get a share in the partition of the Macedonia region to compensate for the loss of being unable to obtain the Albania region.

The Greek government, which had not spoken up until now, also immediately expressed its attitude, stating that it did not recognize Bulgaria's territorial partition plan and hoped that it could also obtain southern Macedonia, including a large area including Thessaloniki.

In this way, these peace negotiations evolved into infighting among the Balkan League.

Another Balkan League country, Montenegro, had no say in the matter.

Montenegro obtained nearly one-third of its national territory in this war, which was already quite good for Montenegro.

After all, Montenegro's own scale was limited; it was impossible for it to seek territory equivalent to the size of its own homeland all at once, like Bulgaria and Serbia.

Even if Montenegro could obtain so much territory, relying on the hundreds of thousands of people within its borders, it would likely be unable to assimilate it in a short period of time.

Moreover, the Ottoman Empire only had so much territory in Europe; if Montenegro were allowed to obtain too much territory, the other more powerful countries would naturally obtain less.

Having obtained that one-third of the territory, Montenegro had already exited the territorial scramble, while the remaining three countries—Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece—began the struggle over the land of Macedonia.

Macedonia at this time was not the Republic of North Macedonia of later generations, but the much larger Macedonia region.

The Macedonia region included the Republic of North Macedonia of later generations, the Central Macedonia, West Macedonia, and East Macedonia regions of Greece, as well as parts of southwestern Bulgaria, with a total area reaching an astonishing 70, 00-plus square kilometers.

One could see the purpose of the three Balkan countries' struggle for Macedonia just from the land area. If Bulgaria were allowed to obtain the complete Macedonia region, Bulgaria would become the undisputed strongest country in the Balkan region.

Serbia and Greece certainly did not want to let Bulgaria become the regional hegemon, and they also wanted a share of the Macedonia region, which led to internal contradictions within the Balkan League.

As the peace negotiations progressed, this internal struggle among the three Balkan countries gradually evolved into one among four.

Had Montenegro rejoined the struggle for Macedonia? Not at all; they were still a long distance away from the Macedonia region.

Speaking of this Balkan country joining the land partition, one must mention the respective positions of the European great powers regarding these three countries during the peace negotiations.

The British Empire naturally stood on the side of Greece, and Serbia, as a troublemaker for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, naturally gained the support of Russia.

Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire certainly would not support Serbia, and they had no great interest in supporting Greece. As for Bulgaria, whose royal family came from the German region, they were quite optimistic.

The combat effectiveness of the Bulgarian army was quite fierce, and Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire believed that such a Bulgaria could play a certain role and could also help contain Russia.

It was precisely because of this that during the peace negotiations, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire stood on the side of Bulgaria, supporting Bulgaria in obtaining Macedonia and Thrace.

Because Bulgaria had the support of two great powers behind it, Serbia and Greece did not have much chance of winning.

In order to prevent Bulgaria from becoming the sole dominant power with the support of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Britain proposed a new solution to the Greek government: to rope in a new ally to join in the partition of the territory.

Who was this ally?

In fact, there was only one country in the Balkan Peninsula that had not joined these peace negotiations, and that was Romania, north of Bulgaria.

Although Romania had not joined this war, Romania was certainly also unwilling to see the rise of Bulgaria.

The Greek government quickly adopted the British government's suggestion and dispatched diplomatic representatives to quickly head to Romania to lobby Romania to join the territorial scramble and jointly target Bulgaria.

The Greek diplomatic representatives traveled at breakneck speed; they soon arrived in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and met with King Carol I of Romania.

It is worth mentioning that this white-haired-looking Carol I also came from the German region.

Moreover, Carol I came from the royal family of the German region, the House of Hohenzollern. The House of Hohenzollern was the royal family of Germany, which actually also meant that the relationship between Romania and Germany could certainly not be bad.

The facts were indeed so. As early as nearly twenty years ago, Romania had secretly allied with Germany in order to exchange for the support of Germany, this emerging super great power.

Germany at that time also hoped to see pro-German forces blossom everywhere in Europe, and naturally, it was willing to form an alliance with Romania.

It was precisely because Romania had a secret alliance with Germany that after the Greek ambassador found him and proposed a plan to jointly target Bulgaria, King Carol I of Romania was somewhat hesitant.

Although according to the Greek diplomatic representative's words, Romania did not need to pay any price to obtain a small piece of land, if doing so violated Germany's interests, then it would be somewhat not worth the loss for Romania.

After all, the South Dobruja region that Greece proposed for Romania to demand from Bulgaria was far inferior to the Macedonia region in terms of both area and population.

If there were not enough benefits, Romania would not be willing to get involved.

Seeing that Carol I was somewhat hesitant but unable to make up his mind, the Greek diplomatic representative could only continue to persuade this elderly king: "Respected Your Majesty the King, I have come on this trip with great sincerity."

"We can temporarily set aside the issue of South Dobruja and only consider the situation in the Balkan region after these peace negotiations."