During this time, Russia had began designing plans for an extension of the Slav ascendency to Constantinople and through Serbia to the Adriatic Sea. Great Britain and France, despite the fact that these two nations possessed the largest overseas empires, were distrubed lest some power might seek to obtain a "place in the sun" at their expense. Imperialism this produced conflicting national interested which made a great war a likely possibility. .
Relating to the conflicting clash of imperialistic programs had been the construction of numerous confusing and entangling alliances. The pattern of alliances which divided Europe made each side less flexible than otherwise may have been the case. Germany backed Austria against the Serbs, not so much because the Serbs interested Germany, but because the Austrian monarchy was the only ally Germany could count upon to help counterbalance the threat of encirclement by the rival alliance of France, Great Britain and Russian - otherwise known as the Triple Entente. Similar calculations required the French to rally to the side of Russia in order to ensure Russian help against Germany in some future crisis. .
Even prior to World War 1, in 1908-09, Austro-Serbian relations were in a sad state. Article 25 of the 1878 Treat of Berlin gave Austria-Hungary permission to occupy and administer Bosnia and Herzegovina, made in consequence of an understanding between Russia and the Dual Monarchy on the eve of the Russo-Turkish war, and the support given to the Austro-Hungarian claims by England and Germany at the Congress of Berlin. The annexation in October 1908 led to a controversey between the Dual Monarchy and Turkey, which in turn led to international complications which, for several weeks early in 1909, threatened to end in a general European war. This was the Bosnian crisis. .
The annexed provinces were inhabited primarily by Serbs, and as a route across that region would afford Serbia the most convenient form of the long desired access to the Adriatic, the Serbian agents at the Congress of Berlin tried to protest against the arrangement.
