After 1907, as we have seen, Russia's foreign policy drifted toward cooperation with Britain, hostility to Germany, as well as to pursuing a strong Slavophile (i.e., pro-Serb) policy in the Balkans. To Germany and Austria-Hungary, however, she appeared as something of a menace, for she was maintaining and increasing a great army, building strategic railways, intriguing in the Balkans, and looking with covetous eyes on Constantinople, the long-sought opening from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean for her navy. It seemed that her ally France and (after 1907) her friend Britain might be the only restraining influences on her ambitions. In particular, her involvement in the Balkans where she began to cultivate good relations with Austria's neighbor, Serbia, alarmed Austria. The traditional balance of power in the area seemed to be in jeopardy. But the political nature of the Austro-Hungarian empire also served to complicate relations in the Balkans, for the Hungarian (Magyar) component of the empire continued to oppress the subject peoples of Serb, Slovene and related ethnic background by attempts to "Magyarize" them through the suppression of their own indigenous cultures in favor of the supremacy of the Hungarian language and institutions. Besides, the neighboring independent Serbia viewed this with much hostility and thus tolerated a violent, anti-Austrian propaganda within her borders. This in turn angered the Austrian military chiefs who often advised preemptive war so as to be finished with Serbia altogether. This mutual hostility was increased after 1908 when Austria formally annexed the occupied province of Bosnia (administered by her under agreement with Turkey since 1878) wherein dwelt nearly two million (Slavic) Serbs and Croats, thus seeming to prevent forever the possible merger of the province with Serbia.
In the years immediately preceding the outbreak of war in 1914, therefore, Pan-Serbian agitation both in Serbia and in Bosnia kept the pot boiling in the region.
