Word: balkanize
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...Foreign Affairs, in whose aristocratic veins flowed the blood of Hungary's unscrupulous, wheedling past. Assured of a career by virtue of birth, Count Csáky became Europe's foremost professional in the art of diplomatic tightrope-walking even after the rope had become a Balkan tangle...
Travelers who visit the Balkans without losing a watch or wallet are regarded by Western Europeans as exceptions, by the Balkan peoples as geniuses. Balkan gentlemen even joke about the dexterity of their own restless fingers...
...their stories recounts that during a diplomatic dinner in a Balkan capital the British Ambassador missed his watch and informed his host. Unembarrassed, the host announced: "During dinner someone took his neighbor's watch. I shall place a silver platter on the table, the lights will be turned out for a minute, and I expect the watch to be placed on the platter." When the lights came on, the platter contained six watches. According to another version, the platter was missing...
Colonel William Joseph ("Wild Bill") Donovan, commander in World War I of New York's "Fighting Sixty-Ninth" Regiment and in World War II Frank Knox's unofficial military observer inspecting the equipment and resources of countries at war or approaching it, arrived last fortnight in the Balkans. He had already spent several weeks in London, several days with the British forces in Africa. His first Balkan stop was Sofia, where he straightened his tie and went to call on the King. Leaving the Royal Palace, he discovered that his wallet containing passport, money and letters of introduction...
...more interesting than numbers alone was Britain's speculative distribution of the German Armies. Surprising was the strength to the northeast (50 divisions in Poland, four in Moravia), the relative weakness of the Balkan front (five in Rumania, 25 pooled in Austria). Most significant was the concentration along the western front: all attack troops, nearly two-thirds of Germany's total 224 divisions massed in Norway, western Germany, the Lowlands and France. If the British had guessed right, it could mean only one thing: a full-out attack across the Channel...