"The purpose of the geography curriculum was to come to know the narrower and
broader Fatherland and to awaken one’s love of it. . . . From [merely learning the names
of] the many rivers and mountains one will not see all the Serbian lands, not even the
heroic and unfortunate field of Kosovo [on which the Ottomans defeated the Serbs in
1389]; from the many rivers and mountains children do not see that there are more Serbs
living outside Serbia than in Serbia; they do not see that Serbia is surrounded on all sides
by Serbian lands; from the many mountains and rivers we do not see that, were it not for
the surrounding Serbs, Serbia would be a small island that foreign waves would quickly
inundate and destroy; and, if there were no Serbia, the remainder of Serbdom would feel
as though it did not have a heart." - Report to the Serbian Teachers’ Association, 1911–1912.
The conditions referred to in the report were most directly a result of which of the
following developments?
(A) The transformation of the Habsburg Empire into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary
(B) The emergence of new Balkan states as the Ottoman Empire declined
(C) The growth of international tensions following Bismarck’s dismissal as chancellor
of Germany
(D) The increase of economic competition between imperial powers for industrial
resources