Balkan States and Great Powers – Conflicts and Disputes in the First Half of the 20th Century

The author analyzes the policy of great powers towards the Balkan countries and nations, through the two Balkan wars (1912, 1913), the Great War and World War II until the formation of the Cold War order after it. The author asks questions about the geopolitical role of the great powers that influenced the construction of a lasting peace system in the Balkans during the period in question. The leaders of the Balkan independence movements realized that they had to rely on the assistance of great powers in their endeavours, hence the “original sin” of international relations in the Balkans became the growing influence of stronger players, the scale of which is unmatched in any other region of the Old Continent. The support given to Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece or Albania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the great powers in their struggle for independence and sovereignty extended to all areas of international relations after the constitution of nation-states and continues to accompany them to this day, taking various forms. It must be hypothesized that the influence of the great powers has had a destructive effect on the construction of a lasting peace system in the Balkans.