It was the “Drang nach Osten,” a movement directed primarily by the valleys of the Danube and the Morava, and forking out subsequently along the Vardar and Maritza gaps. To clear this road to Turkey, Serbia was wiped off the map of Europe in the fall of 1915 by Teutonic armies. For this too had Serbian nationality been split into three separate bodies at the behest of Teutonic diplomatists. Bosnia and Herzegovina, lands Serbian in heart and logic, were administered by Austria, an empire in name like Turkey but virtually ruled by Prussia since the day of Sadowa. Montenegro, of old the refuge of martyred Serbia, had always been prevented by Austria from uniting with its sister state. In truth Serbia lay under the bane of a geographical curse. It was always in the way.
The misfortune of position is shared fully by Turkey. Coming at right angles to Germany’s southeasterly drive, Russia’s steady southwesterly advances in the nineteenth century foreshadowed the conversion of all the Black Sea and its Bosporus entrance into Russian waters. With the most inaccessible parts of the Armenian mountains in Russian hands since 1878, further expansion through western Armenia into Anatolia cannot be delayed much longer.
The Russian viewpoint deserves every consideration. Russia lies benumbed by the cold of her frozen land. She has had one long winter since the dawn of her nationality. The chief reason why her sons have been laggards in the liberal progress of the past hundred years must be sought in this simple fact of geography. Russia does not need more land or fresh resources. She only seeks the warmth of the sun’s rays. Geographically it is Russia rather than Germany who is entitled to “her place under the sun.” Today more than ever, and because of her newly-won liberty and democratic institutions, Russia needs a window on the sunny side of her national dwelling.
Russian access to the open sea in the southwest can be secured either at Constantinople or Alexandretta. The Bosporus route is the more advantageous, as the markets for products of the plains of southern Russia are strewn along Mediterranean coasts. But mastery of the Bosporus is of little value to Russia without possession of the Dardanelles strait. The Marmora is but the lobby of the Black Sea. The entire Bosporus-Dardanelles waterway must, therefore, be Russian in order to allow the country to reap the full advantages of attaining ice-free seas. If fifty years ago the question was merely one of political foresight, today it has assumed vital importance, for southwestern Russia’s economic development, in the present century, has made the country absolutely dependent on Balkan and Mediterranean markets.