ABSTRACTBefore 1914, a more intimate relationship started to develop between overseas commercial activity and foreign policy. This occurred as a consequence of the politicization of international business relations that came about when other great powers began increasingly to challenge Britain's global commercial, political, and imperial supremacy. Britain had traditionally followed alaissez-faireline when it came to supporting or protecting British overseas business enterprise. In the mid-1880s, Britain was compelled to review its policy. After this, the British government was prepared to offer limited assistance to British firms, but this often took place only in regions which were significant in terms of overall policy interest, including Turkey, Iran, and China. This article examines British commercial diplomacy in the Balkans, a region which has not received much attention from historians in this framework. British commercial diplomacy there followed the general line of limited intervention and support was offered mostly on legal grounds. Local political troubles and great power politics also played a role in diplomatic decision-making as did negative cultural perceptions, but to a considerably lesser degree. In most cases, the British government refrained from supporting British business enterprise in the Balkans on account of fears about financial speculation.

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This study explores official British perceptions of Balkan soldiers and armed forces against the background of evolving theories of militarism from the 1870s until 1913. The article is based on research on reports of British intelligence agents, the British War Office and the Foreign Office on Balkan armies and military exercises. These primary sources have hitherto remained unexploited in the historiography examining British images of the Balkans. British perceptions of Serbian and Montenegrin armies and soldiers remained relatively static until the early twentieth century. Through most of the period in focus here, they were regarded as untrained gangs of peasants incapable of engaging in armed conflict with advanced militaries. This perception began to change during the Balkan Wars as a consequence of the Serbian army's satisfactory performance. British images of Bulgarian soldiers and military traits were much more complex. In the late 1870s, they were represented as a submissive race; in the 1880s as masculine and obedient fighters; in the 1890s as militaristic; and on the eve of the Balkan Wars as a non‐expansionist nation of peasants. British officials' views were usually firmly rooted in personal observations and reflected the increasing emphasis on empiricism in intelligence gathering. Moreover, at the same time, racial theories and codes of masculinity influenced their opinions, as did preconceptions about Balkan social, religious and cultural realities.

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