[Reily]

I don't agree. The average Russian knew that those in the Balkans were fellow Slavs. Pan-Slavic ideals did have a hold on the minds of a significant number of Russians. Also remember the Balkans had become newly freed from the Ottoman Turks, some this was done with Russian help. In the minds of Russians, Moscow had inherited from the fall of Constantinople the mantle of the protector of Eastern Crhistainity. The Ottomans’ were allies of the Germans and the Germans were not particularly liked anyway. Also their was a notion they were the Third Rome.

[wagglebee]

You are right about the Pan-Slavic sentiment, but they weren't willing to go to war with Austria and Germany for it.

World War I was hell on the Russian people. As long as the army remained loyal everything was fine, but the Tsar's fate was sealed when officers started embracing the Bolsheviks.

[Verginius Rufus]

The Russian interest in the Balkans seems fitful. Earlier they had fought a war with Turkey and tried to set up an independent Bulgaria (in the 1870s)--later, in the post-WWII era, Bulgaria was one of the most loyal of the satellite nations in the Soviet bloc. The Russians sided with Serbia in 1914 and in the 1990s but pretty much ignored them at other times--they didn't offer any help when Hitler was about to attack in 1941.

Besides the humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Russia had been forced to back down in 1908 after Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, with nothing to show for it. They didn't want another humiliation in 1914. In July 1914 they should have told the Kingdom of Serbia: "Yes, the ultimatum is outrageous, but you had better give in."