Balkan Wars (1912-1913): Prelude to the First World War

The Balkan Wars were two short but intense conflicts fought in south-eastern Europe between October 1912 and August 1913. In the first, an alliance of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro drove the Ottoman Empire out of almost all its remaining European territory; in the second, the victors fell out over the spoils. The wars redrew the map of the Balkans, created an independent Albania and left tensions that helped ignite the First World War a year later.

Background: the “Eastern Question”

By 1900 the Ottoman Empire still ruled a broad belt of land across the southern Balkans, including Macedonia, Thrace, Albania, Kosovo and Epirus. Its neighbours, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro, had won independence or autonomy during the nineteenth century, from the Greek War of Independence to the settlement imposed by the great powers at the Congress of Berlin. Each wanted to complete its “national unification” at Ottoman expense.

Macedonia was the great prize. Its mixed population of Slavs, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, Vlachs and Jews was claimed by Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece alike, and rival armed bands had fought there for years.

Several events in 1908-1912 created an opening. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 brought nationalist officers to power in Constantinople, but it also unsettled the empire. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, angering Serbia. Albanian revolts broke out from 1910, and in 1911 Italy attacked Ottoman Libya in the Italo-Turkish War, exposing Ottoman military weakness.

The Balkan League

Encouraged by Russian diplomacy, the Balkan states put aside their rivalries. Serbia and Bulgaria signed an alliance in March 1912 with a secret annex dividing much of Macedonia between them, leaving a “contested zone” for the Russian tsar to arbitrate. Greece and Bulgaria agreed an alliance in May 1912, and Montenegro reached understandings with its partners. Greece and Bulgaria, however, never agreed how to divide Macedonia.

Together the League could field well over half a million soldiers, while Ottoman forces in Europe were spread out and in the middle of reorganisation.

The First Balkan War (1912-1913)

Montenegro declared war on 8 October 1912, and Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece joined on 17-18 October. The allies advanced on several fronts at once.

The Bulgarian army, the largest, drove into Thrace. It won at Kirk Kilisse (Kırklareli) in late October and then at Lule Burgas (Lüleburgaz) from 28 October to 2 November, one of the largest battles fought in Europe between 1871 and 1914. The Ottomans fell back to the Çatalca lines, the last defences before Constantinople, where in mid-November the exhausted Bulgarians, weakened by cholera, were halted.

The Serbian army under Radomir Putnik defeated the Ottomans at Kumanovo on 23-24 October and at Monastir (Bitola) in November, taking most of northern and central Macedonia and Kosovo. The Greeks advanced from Thessaly, won at Sarantaporo and received the surrender of Thessaloniki on 8 November 1912, just ahead of a Bulgarian force. The Greek navy controlled the Aegean, preventing Ottoman reinforcements from Asia from crossing by sea.

On 28 November 1912, Albanian leaders gathered at Vlorë under Ismail Qemali and declared Albania’s independence.

An armistice was agreed with Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro on 3 December 1912, and peace talks opened in London. In January 1913 a coup in Constantinople, the Raid on the Sublime Porte led by Enver Pasha, brought to power officers determined to keep Adrianople (Edirne), and fighting resumed in February.

The besieged fortresses then fell one after another. The Greeks took Ioannina on 6 March 1913. Bulgarian forces, with Serbian help, stormed Adrianople on 26 March after a siege of about five months. Montenegro captured Scutari (Shkodër) in April but was forced by the great powers to hand it over to the new Albanian state. The Treaty of London, signed on 30 May 1913, left the Ottomans only a small corner of eastern Thrace behind a line from Enos to Midia.

The Second Balkan War (1913)

Victory exposed the allies’ disagreements. Serbia, denied an Adriatic coastline by the creation of Albania, refused to give Bulgaria the Macedonian lands promised in 1912. Greece and Serbia signed a secret alliance against Bulgaria in June 1913.

On the night of 29-30 June 1913, Bulgarian troops attacked Serbian and Greek positions in Macedonia without a formal declaration of war. The gamble failed. The Serbs held at the Bregalnica river, and the Greeks won at Kilkis-Lachanas. Romania, seeking Southern Dobruja, invaded Bulgaria in July and advanced almost unopposed towards Sofia, while the Ottomans, under Enver, retook Adrianople.

Surrounded, Bulgaria sought peace. The Treaty of Bucharest, signed on 10 August 1913, confirmed its defeat; the Ottoman Empire then made separate peace treaties with Bulgaria in September and with Greece in November 1913.

Key people

• Ferdinand I of Bulgaria (1861-1948), tsar of Bulgaria, whose ambitions drove both the alliance and the disastrous attack of 1913.
• Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936), Greek prime minister who helped build the League and secured large Greek gains.
• Nikola Pašić (1845-1926), Serbian prime minister and leading architect of the Serbian-Bulgarian alliance.
• Radomir Putnik (1847-1917), Serbian chief of staff and commander at Kumanovo.
• Enver Pasha (1881-1922), Young Turk officer who led the 1913 coup and the recapture of Adrianople.

By the numbers

Consequences

The Ottoman Empire lost nearly all its European possessions, ending more than five centuries of rule in much of the Balkans. Greece gained southern Macedonia, Thessaloniki, southern Epirus and Crete, and Serbia took northern and central Macedonia and Kosovo. Montenegro expanded, Romania gained Southern Dobruja, and Bulgaria kept only part of eastern Macedonia and an outlet to the Aegean.

The human cost was severe. Armies suffered heavily from cholera and typhus, and civilians of every community faced massacre, looting and expulsion. The Carnegie Endowment’s international commission, reporting in 1914, documented atrocities by all sides. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, including many Muslims who fled to Anatolia, were uprooted.

Legacy and the road to 1914

The wars made Serbia a stronger and more confident state, with many of its people hoping to unite with the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Vienna saw this as a mortal danger; it had already backed Albanian independence to keep Serbia from the sea, and in October 1913 it forced Serbian troops out of Albania with an ultimatum.

Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, both bitter at their losses, later joined the Central Powers in the First World War. Less than a year after Bucharest, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo turned Austro-Serbian hostility into a European war. For this reason historians often describe the Balkan Wars as a prelude to 1914.

Timeline

• 1912, 13 March: Serbia and Bulgaria sign their alliance treaty.
• 1912, 8 October: Montenegro declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• 1912, 28 October - 2 November: Bulgarian victory at Lule Burgas.
• 1912, 8 November: Ottoman garrison of Thessaloniki surrenders to the Greek army.
• 1912, 28 November: Albania declares independence at Vlorë.
• 1913, 23 January: Enver Pasha’s coup in Constantinople.
• 1913, 26 March: Adrianople falls to Bulgarian and Serbian forces.
• 1913, 30 May: Treaty of London ends the First Balkan War.
• 1913, 29-30 June: Bulgaria attacks Serbia and Greece.
• 1913, 10 August: Treaty of Bucharest ends the Second Balkan War.

Why it matters

The Balkan Wars ended Ottoman rule over most of south-eastern Europe and shaped the borders of modern Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania and North Macedonia. They also hardened the national rivalries and great-power tensions that made the Balkans the starting point of the First World War.