An idea of the unpreparedness of European diplomacy in the face of the sudden Balkan war can be had by simply glancing at the records of the British House of Commons of the first weeks after the war was declared.
Sir Edward Grey, then and now Foreign Secretary of State for Great Britain, making the first announcement of the rupture between Turkey and the Balkan States, said—exposing the views not only of his Government but of the European concert as well—that Europe, being taken unawares, would not permit any alteration of the Balkan frontiers as the result of the war. After the first victories of the Balkan allies we see Great Britain changing her policy. "The Balkan victors shall not be deprived of the fruits of their victories," Premier Asquith was declaring in Parliament less than a fortnight after Sir Edward spoke. In both these instances the British statesmen were voicing the policy of the European concert taken as a whole.

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