Balkan League

The League of the Balkans^[a] was a quadruple alliance formed by a series of bilateral treaties concluded in 1912 between the Eastern Orthodox kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, and directed against the Ottoman Empire,^[1] which at the time still controlled much of Southeastern Europe.

Not to be confused with the Balkan Entente (1934) or the Balkan Pact (1953).

The Balkans had been in a state of turmoil since the early 1900s, with years of guerrilla warfare in Macedonia followed by the Young Turk Revolution, the protracted Bosnian Crisis, and several Albanian Uprisings. The outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 had further weakened the Ottomans and emboldened the Balkan states. Under Russian influence, Serbia and Bulgaria settled their differences and signed an alliance, originally directed against Austria-Hungary on 13 March 1912,^[2] but by adding a secret chapter to it essentially redirected the alliance against the Ottoman Empire.^[3] Serbia then signed a mutual alliance with Montenegro, while Bulgaria did the same with Greece. The League was victorious in the First Balkan War which broke out in October 1912, where it successfully seized control of almost all European Ottoman territories. Following this victory however, unresolved prior differences between the allies re-emerged over the division of the spoils, particularly Macedonia, leading to the effective break-up of the League, and soon after, on 16 June 1913, Bulgaria attacked her erstwhile allies, beginning the Second Balkan War.

was a prime mover in the establishment of the League and saw it as an essential tool in case of a future war against Russia's rival, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.^[7] But it was unaware of the Bulgarian plans over Thrace and Constantinople, territories on which Russia had long-held ambitions, and on which it had just secured a secret agreement of expansion from its allies France and Britain, as a reward in participating in the upcoming World War I against the Central Powers.

Russia

not feeling ready for a war against Germany in 1912, took a totally negative position against the League, firmly informing its ally Russia that it would not take part in a potential conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary if it resulted from the actions of the Balkan League. The French however failed to achieve British participation in a common intervention to stop the upcoming Balkan conflict.

France

The , although officially a staunch supporter of the Ottoman Empire's integrity, took secret diplomatic steps encouraging the Greek entry into the League in order to counteract Russian influence. At the same time, it encouraged the Bulgarian aspirations over Thrace, preferring a Bulgarian Thrace to a Russian one, despite the assurances it had given to the Russians in regard of their expansion there.

British Empire

struggling for an exit from the Adriatic and seeking ways for expansion in the south at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, was totally opposed to any other nation's expansion in the area. At the same time, the Habsburg Empire had its own internal problems with the significant Slav populations that campaigned against the German–Hungarian control of the multinational state. Serbia, whose aspirations in the direction of Bosnia were no secret, was considered an enemy and the main tool of Russian machinations that were behind the agitation of Austria's Slav subjects.

Austria-Hungary

already heavily involved in the internal Ottoman politics, officially opposed a war against the Empire, but in its effort to win Bulgaria for the Central Powers, and seeing the inevitability of Ottoman disintegration, was playing with the idea to replace the Balkan positions of the Ottomans with a friendly Greater Bulgaria in its San Stefano borders, an idea that was based on the German origin of the Bulgarian king and his anti-Russian sentiments.

Germany

These developments did not go unnoticed by the Great Powers, but although there was an official consensus between the Europe an Powers over the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, which led to a stern warning to the Balkan states, unofficially each of them took a different diplomatic approach due to their conflicting interests in the area. As a result, any possible preventative effect of the common official warning was canceled by the mixed unofficial signals, and failed to prevent the outbreak of hostilities:

For the Balkan League, the opportunity was too good to be missed, as the Ottoman Empire was weak and riddled with internal strife. The allied governments intensified their military and diplomatic preparations. During the last days of September, the Balkan states and the Ottoman Empire mobilized their armies. The first state to declare war was Montenegro, on October 8, 1912, starting the First Balkan War. The other three states, after issuing an ultimatum to the Porte on October 13, declared war on Turkey on October 17.

Mount Holyoke College.

The Formation of the Balkan Alliance of 1912

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