Le grandi potenze e gli equilibri balcanico-danubiani da Santo Stefano a Sarajevo

The span of time ranging from the beginning of the Russo-Turkish war (1877-78) to the beginning of World War I was a period of deep realignments in the southeastern European exchequer. The gradual flaking of the Ottoman control in the region, the creeping ‘easternization’ of the Austro-Hungarian ‘twin monarchy’, and the contrasted spreading of the Russian influence into the Eastern Balkans had chain effects that reverberated not only on Italy’s interests and perceptions, but also – through the interplay of the alliances and the system of the territorial compensations – into the whole Mediterranean basin. Moving from these premises, the paper aims at reconstructing the political, diplomatic and military interactions among the different powers in the regions, pointing out the way in which they helped to increase the rate of ‘imperial tension’ during the period of the so-called ‘Bismarckian balance’ and the following years, and contributed in ‘paving the way’ to World War I. A war that – far from leading to the composition of the different ambitions – consolidated them, and transformed them (although under a partially different form) into a structural element of the European scenario of the 20th century.