Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 have to accept Ottoman suzerainty, and in return, the northern islands of Warba and Bubiyan must be allocated to Kuwait, and so forth. The waning influence of Istanbul in the Gulf forced it to make concessions without much to gain in return. The Ottoman Empire had faced a number of setbacks in the last few decades—a few of its provinces achieved independence, some were annexed by other countries, or many lost in conflict—and for internal political reasons it may have seemed important to maintain Kuwait as part of the empire, even if only symbolically. The Ottomans also felt that making
Territorial evolution of the Ottoman Empire the primarily Greek-speaking Dodecanese archipelago near Anatolia, including the Isle of Rhodes. See figure, below. The Balkan Wars were two wars in Southeast Europe in 1912–1913 in the course of which the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and Serbia) first conquered Ottoman-held Macedonia, Albania and most of Thrace and then fell out over the division of the spoils. After the Second Balkan War, the Ottomans were removed from and there was a possibility of some of the lands being absorbed by Serbia and the southern tip by Greece. This decision angered the Italians, who did not want Serbia to have