Balkan War Quotes

“A year and a half had passed since Berchtold had first taken charge of the Viennese Foreign Office, and in this time all his efforts at diplomacy had ended in failure. When the Balkan War had started Berchtold had been so confident of a Turkish victory that he had then declared that, no matter what happened at the front, the status quo in the Balkans would remain unchanged. He had spoken recklessly, and too soon, for almost at once the rebels in the Turkish provinces had chased the Ottoman armies from the field, and so there had been no question, after such dizzying triumphs, of ordering the victorious insurgents to withdraw behind their former frontiers. Berchtold had then found himself in the unenviable position of having to go cap in hand to the London Conference, defend his now untenable former convictions and somehow save what he could from the debacle he had failed to foresee.”
― Miklós Bánffy, They Were Divided

“SAN, NEOPROSTOM OPTOČEN

Lišće oktobra
dobilo je boju medaljona
kojeg si mi donio
s pohoda na nježne vratne žile.

Sad, kad si nepovratno otišao
u utrobu Lucifera,
često sanjam jesen:

iz prokisle zemlje niču vratovi
s ogrlicama od žice,
i duše
optočene neoprostom.”
― Sandra Džananović

“We were told that we are one.
By soul, by blood. By the land we share like bread, yet have broken like bone.
By the language that crumbles in our mouths like a tooth that no longer belongs to the jaw.
We were told to love those whose eyes we learned to look at through the barrel of a gun - those whose wounds resemble ours, yet no longer mean the same.”
― Sandra Džananović