ABSTRACT
The 'Eastern Question', in one form or another, has constantly recurred in these pages. For most of the nineteenth century, and for the first few years of the twentieth century it suited some, at least, of the Christian Great Powers to preserve the Ottoman Empire as — in form at least — a major State, coequal with themselves. Meanwhile, the internal disintegration continued. Then, in the short period 1908—13, the structure largely collapsed. Events in the Balkans played a large part in producing that collapse, and it is necessary first to consider something of the background.
