Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defeated it, in the process stripping the Ottomans of their European provinces, leaving only Eastern Thrace under the Ottoman Empire's control. In the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria fought against the other four original combatants of the first war. It also faced an attack from Romania from the north. The Ottoman Empire lost the bulk of its territory in Europe. Although not involved as a combatant, Austria-Hungary became relatively weaker as a much enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples.[7] The war set the stage for the July crisis of 1914 and thus served as a prelude to the First World War.[8]
For the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, see Yugoslav Wars.
By the early 20th century, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia had achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large elements of their ethnic populations remained under Ottoman rule. In 1912, these countries formed the Balkan League. The First Balkan War began on 8 October 1912, when the League member states attacked the Ottoman Empire, and ended eight months later with the signing of the Treaty of London on 30 May 1913. The Second Balkan War began on 16 June 1913, when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its loss of Macedonia, attacked its former Balkan League allies. The combined forces of Serbian and Greek armies, with their superior numbers repelled the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked Bulgaria by invading it from the west and the south. Romania, having taken no part in the conflict, had intact armies to strike with and invaded Bulgaria from the north in violation of a peace treaty between the two states. The Ottoman Empire also attacked Bulgaria and advanced in Thrace regaining Adrianople. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria managed to regain most of the territories it had gained in the First Balkan War. However, it was forced to cede the ex-Ottoman south part of Dobruja province to Romania.[9]
The Balkan Wars were marked by ethnic cleansing, with all parties being responsible for grave atrocities against civilians, and inspired later atrocities including war crimes during the 1990s Yugoslav Wars.[10][11][12][13]
The developments that led to the First Balkan War did not go unnoticed by the Great Powers. Although there was an official consensus between the European 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 preventive effect of the common official warning was cancelled by the mixed unofficial signals, and failed to prevent or to stop the war:
The Second Balkan war was a catastrophic blow to Russian policies in the Balkans, which for centuries had focused on access to the "warm seas". First, it marked the end of the Balkan League, a vital arm of the Russian system of defense against Austria-Hungary. Second, the clearly pro-Serbian position Russia had been forced to take in the conflict, mainly due to the disagreements over land partitioning between Serbia and Bulgaria, caused a permanent break-up between the two countries. Accordingly, Bulgaria reverted its policy to one closer to the Central Powers' understanding over an anti-Serbian front, due to its new national aspirations, now expressed mainly against Serbia. As a result, Serbia was isolated militarily against its rival Austria-Hungary, a development that eventually doomed Serbia in the coming war a year later. Most damaging, the new situation effectively trapped Russian foreign policy: After 1913, Russia could not afford to lose its last ally in this crucial area and thus had no alternatives but to unconditionally support Serbia when the crisis between Serbia and Austria escalated in 1914. This was a position that inevitably drew Russia into an unwelcome World War with devastating results since it was less prepared (both militarily and socially) for that event than any other Great Power.
Austria-Hungary took alarm at the great increase in Serbia's territory at the expense of its national aspirations in the region, as well as Serbia's rising status, especially to Austria-Hungary's Slavic populations. This concern was shared by Germany, which saw Serbia as a satellite of Russia. These concerns contributed significantly to the two Central Powers' willingness to go to war against Serbia. This meant that when a Serbian backed organization assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the reform-minded heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, causing the 1914 July Crisis, the conflict quickly escalated and resulted in the First World War.
Legacy
Citizens of Turkey regard the Balkan Wars as a major disaster (Balkan harbi faciası) in the nation's history. The Ottoman Empire lost all its European territories west of the River Maritsa as a result of the two Balkan Wars, which thus delineated present-day Turkey's western border. By 1923, only 38% of the Muslim population of 1912 still lived in the Balkans and majority of Balkan Turks had been killed or expelled.[54] The unexpected fall and sudden relinquishing of Turkish-dominated European territories created a traumatic event amongst many Turks that triggered the ultimate collapse of the empire itself within five years. Paul Mojzes has called the Balkan Wars an ''unrecognized genocide''.[55]
Nazım Pasha, Chief of Staff of the Ottoman Army, was held responsible for the failure and was assassinated on 23 January 1913 during the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état.[56]
Most Greeks regard the Balkan Wars as a period of epic achievements. They managed to liberate and gain territories that had been inhabited by Greeks since ancient times and doubled the size of the Greek Kingdom, capturing major cities such as Thessaloniki and Ioannina that had been under Ottoman rule for almost half a millennium. The Greek Army, small and ill-equipped compared to the superior Ottoman but also Bulgarian and Serbian armies, won very important battles. That made Greece a viable pawn in the Great Powers' chess play. Two great personalities rose in the Greek political arena, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, the leading mind behind the Greek foreign policy, and Crown Prince, and later King, Konstantinos I, the Major General of the Greek Army.[15][57]