1054.4.- CARTERA DE SERVICIOS DE SALUD

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece (Balkan

League), and Montenegro vs. Turkey

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Balkans, principally Macedonia,

Albania, Thrace, Salonika, and Constantinople

DECLARATION: October 8, 1912, Montenegro declared war

on Turkey; October 17, 1912, Balkan League declared war on Turkey.

MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: By the late 19th and early

20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was in steep decline, its government so corrupt and feeble that it was popularly called “the sick man of Europe.” In 1911 Italy declared war on Turkey, primarily to wrest Libya from Ottoman control. The chief Balkan states, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, determined to capitalize not only on Turkey’s general weakness but also on its preoccupation with the Italian war, formed a military alliance, the Balkan League, in 1912. Montenegro unofficially allied itself with the league as well. The allies now seized on Ottoman misrule in Macedonia as a pretext for a war by which the Balkan states hoped to eliminate Turkish influence in their region and make substantial territorial gains.

OUTCOME: Turkey lost all its European possessions except

for the Chatalja and Gallipoli peninsulas; members of the Balkan League disputed the division of Macedonia; and Montenegro was forced to relinquish its conquest, Scutari, to Albania, a nation created by the Treaty of London.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS:

Bulgaria, 180,000; Serbia, 80,000; Greece, 50,000; Montenegro, 30,000; Turkey, 240,000. Figures are for regular forces; the belligerents (except for Montenegro) also drew on additional reserves.

CASUALTIES: Turkey, 30,000 deaths from battle and

disease; Balkan allies, 55,000 deaths from battle and disease

TREATIES: Treaty of London, May 30, 1913

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Hapsburg Empire was the multinational heir of the Holy Roman Empire’s universal approach to European government. Not as technologically retrograde as Russia, Austria-Hungary—the “Dual Monarchy”—remained nev- ertheless, like Russia, a vastly agricultural land. But the Austrian Germans and the Hungarian Magyars did not enjoy the kind of dominance over their ethnic minorities that the Great Russians exercised over the czar’s subject peoples (with the important exception of the Russian Poles). The House of Hapsburg sat precariously at the head of some 5 million Czechs and Slovaks, 3 million Serbs and Croats, an almost equal number of Romanians, 2.5 million Poles, and 1 million or so Slovenes, all longing to be free.

Thus, the basic problem of Austria-Hungary’s emperor Franz Joseph (1830–1916) was how to accommodate an

ardent ethnic nationalism without sparking the dissolu- tion of his empire. And the emperor could expand only at the expense of his ancient enemy, Ottoman Turkey, where he was hemmed in by Europe’s elaborate alliance system.

Established six centuries earlier, the Ottoman Empire had at its height controlled most of central and eastern Europe, western Asia, and North Africa. For the past 300 years the Ottomans had steadily been losing ground, a process rapidly accelerated in the past quarter century. All but bankrupted by constant warfare and corrupt rulers, the Turks nevertheless still played an important political role in the European balance of power established by Otto von Bismarck (1815–98)—Germany’s Iron Chancellor and the man who had all but built contemporary Europe with its complicated system of interlocking alliances.

The Turks were well aware that all three of the great powers of central and eastern Europe, Germany, Austria, and Russia, longed for various Ottoman holdings, espe- cially in the Balkans, but since no one in Europe could agree on how to carve them up, it became essential to European peace that no single major player stake a claim. Thus, the nations of Europe, including Britain and France, made sure the Turkish Empire did not fall to pieces pre- cisely in order to check the potential growth of their com- petitors. Indeed, since the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, which had settled Europe’s affairs after the NAPOLEONIC

WARS, Austria-Hungary owed its continued status as a

great power chiefly to its uncertain symbiosis with the Ottomans. In fact, Bismarck, unwilling to see Russia expand into the Balkans, had declared Austria-Hungary “a European necessity” in light of the Ottoman decline.

But as the various Balkan peoples shucked the cul- tural and political yoke of Istanbul (or, as they called it, Constantinople), they and their ethnic brethren just over the line in Austria-Hungary clamored for true freedom from Vienna as well, which kept Austria-Hungary in seemingly permanent crisis. If Germany considered the Dual Monarchy a bulwark against czarist ambition and the keystone to Europe’s balance of power, the other players— Britain, France, and Russia—increasingly found the Haps- burgs hopelessly out of step with the times and thought their empire close to moribund. By the time the Berlin agreement ran out in 1907, the Hapsburgs ruled the most despised country in Europe after Turkey, and the Great Powers, now realigned, were no longer willing to carry Austria-Hungary the way they had the declining Ottoman Empire for most of a century.

Meanwhile, after Russia’s embarrassing defeat in the RUSSO-JAPANESEWARof 1905, Moscow aimed its expan-

sionist ambitions back to the west, and the Great Russian Bear loomed once again over the Balkans. The Turks still controlled Macedonia, but it was ringed by “independent” Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria, all vulnerable to Russia’s seductive support. Together they would become the Balkan League in 1912, hoping to benefit by the inter- play between empires. Serbia posed the biggest threat to

Vienna because it had ethnic ties to Serbs and Croats inside Austria-Hungary. In years past Franz Joseph had bribed Serbia’s ruling dynasty to keep its people in line, but in 1903 a bloody coup d’état had brought to power a violently anti-Hapsburg clan, and now Russia was egging on the Balkan League nations it supported to action. Ironically, then, the Balkan League, which would soon attack the Ottomans, was formed originally to limit Austria’s increas- ing power in the region at the expense of Turkey.

Britain and France were disinclined to discourage the czar; they even (if unofficially) sympathized with the nationalist ambitions of Austria-Hungary’s ethnic minori- ties. Heedless of undermining the Hapsburg dynasty, such policies—official and unspoken—pushed the emperor and his ministers toward a mortal choice: die fighting or die by slow diplomatic dismemberment, the way Turkish Europe was dying. At the same time Austria’s only reliable ally, Germany, had—for internal reasons, and because of the international machinations of Britain, France, and Rus- sia—come to accept the inevitability of war. The “key- stone” of Europe’s balance of power, which provided the precarious stability that allowed other powers to follow their imperial dreams, was being worked loose. Once Aus- tria-Hungary was in effect yanked out from under the pro- tections of the overall alliance system, the entire diplomatic edifice would collapse. No one in Europe was unaware of what was happening. Even Bismarck had pre- dicted years before that the next war would come because of “some damn fool thing in the Balkans.” Indeed, all the powers had been building up mass armies just in case.

Then, on July 3, 1908, the Ottoman Empire’s Third Army Corps in Macedonia launched a revolt against the provincial authorities in Resna that quickly led to rebel- lion throughout the empire and brought into positions of power and authority the “Young Turks,” European-influ- enced revolutionaries intent on modernizing Turkey (see YOUNGTURKSREVOLT). Although eventually they would

succeed internally in reforming the government and fos- tering Turkish nationalism, their revolt shook the already seriously destabilized Balkans and led directly to WORLD

WARI, during which their ham-handed handling of for-

eign affairs resulted in the final dissolution of the Ottoman state.

Late in the 19th century, the empire’s current ruler, Sultan Abdulhamid II (1842–1918), had revoked the con- stitution governing its polyglot provinces and unleashed a vicious secret police force. The sultan’s state terror horri- fied the empire’s intelligentsia, but it was his massacre of tens of thousands of Armenians in the 1890s (see ARME-

NIANMASSACRES OF1894–1897) that made him an inter-

national pariah. Beset by a tide of rising nationalism among its subject peoples and Balkan neighbors, twisted hither and yon by the ambitions and demands of the Great Powers, Ottoman rule verged ever closer to total collapse. The Young Turks wanted to save the ailing empire, not destroy it. When young officers from the Third Army

Corps stationed in Macedonia’s Salonika (now Thessa- lonika, Greece), frustrated by irregular pay and rotten equipment, formed the Ottoman Liberty Society and began conspiring with Turkey’s exiled intellectuals, the stage was set. First came a series of mutinies, then the uprising in Macedonia. Then the deep-seeded ideological differences among the Young Turks resurfaced, preventing them from taking effective control of the government, and over the next two years the sultan staged a destabilizing counterrevolution. Not until 1913 did the Young Turks set themselves up as the arbiters of Ottoman politics. Mean- while, the old empire had fallen apart in the Balkans.

Turkish Bulgaria promptly took advantage of the chaos to declare its independence in 1908, and that same year Austria-Hungary quickly annexed Bosnia and Herzegov- ina. Turkish Crete proclaimed its union with Greece, though threats from Istanbul kept Greece from immedi- ately acting on the declaration. In 1911 Italy invaded and overran Tripoli (today’s Libya) in the ITALO-TURKISHWAR.

Even while this conflict still raged, the small Christian states of the Balkans—Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria—formed the Balkan League, ostensibly to check Austro-Hungarian ambitions on the peninsula. Their ambi- tions stirred by the Italians’ successes, they now suddenly attacked European Turkey, with Montenegro first declaring war on Turkey on October 8, 1912, only to be quickly fol- lowed by the others. The Young Turks almost immediately came to terms with Italy, but it did not help to prevent the First Balkan War.

COURSE OF THE WAR

Turkish forces in the Balkans included 140,000 troops in Macedonia, Epirus, and Albania, plus about 100,000 in Thrace. The Balkan League mustered 180,000 Bulgarians, 80,000 Serbs, and 50,000 Greeks, all regular army forces. If reserves were mobilized, each nation could double its available forces. Montenegro had a tiny force of 30,000 who, however, were highly capable guerrilla fighters. Potentially, the Ottomans could bring even larger numbers into the fray. However, the Greeks controlled the Aegean, which would effectively block, at least for some time, rein- forcement. An even bigger disadvantage for the Turks was the generally poor level of the officer corps. The Ottoman Empire had made extensive use of German military advis- ers to modernize the imperial armies, but while the Ger- man influence was profoundly felt in organization, equipment, and the training of enlisted men, much of the old-line officer corps refused instruction.

The Balkan League allies invaded Turkey’s eastern provinces during October 17–20, 1912. General Radko Dimitriev (fl. 1912–17) led three Bulgarian armies into Thrace, advancing on Adrianople. General Radomir Put- nik (1847–1917) led three Serbian armies into Turkish provinces from the north while Crown Prince Constantine (1868–1923) led Greek forces from the south. These two forces planned to converge on the Vardar Valley, where, 164 Balkan War, First

pincers-fashion, they could close in on Turkish units in the region. Constantine detached a small force to invade Epirus while he led the main army relentlessly into the Vardar Valley. At the Battle of Elasson (October 23, 1912), Constantine defeated the Turks, forcing them to fall back on Monastir. Ideally, Constantine would have given chase and attacked the retreating force from the rear. However, the Bulgarians broke with the agreed-on strategy by send- ing a division toward Salonika. Constantine realized that the Bulgarians were attempting to grab this region and turned east to intercept their advance. On his way to Salonika, Constantine met heavy Turkish resistance at Venije Vardar during November 2–3. After a fierce battle, which included ancillary Greek losses at Kastoria and Banitsa, Constantine regained the initiative and defeated the Turks on November 5. From Venije Vardar, he contin- ued toward Salonika as remaining Turkish forces in the region withdrew to Yannina.

While the Greeks advanced from the south, the Serbs descended from the north, defeating a small Turkish detachment at Kumanovo on October 24 but encounter- ing stauncher Turkish resistance in the Babuna Pass, near Prilep. Here the Serbs were stalled, but skillful tactical leadership threatened the Turks with double envelopment and forced them to evacuate Skopje and fall back on Monastir.

At Monastir the reinforced Turks, 40,000 strong, offered battle on November 5. A first bold Serbian thrust at the Turks’ left in an attempt to gain the high ground exposed the Serbs to a strong counterattack. The Turks rapidly transferred men from the center to reinforce the left for the counterattack; this enabled them to regain the high ground and to inflict heavy casualties on the Serbs, but it so weakened the Turk center that a Serb thrust broke right through. With the Greeks now approaching from the south, Turkish resistance crumbled, and the Battle of Monastir turned disastrous for them. Half the force at Monastir, 20,000 Turks, were killed, wounded, or cap- tured. The remainder retreated in bad order to the fortress at Yannina, where they were instantly laid under siege by the Greeks, who pinned them down until March 3, 1913, when the fortress finally fell. Just four days after the Mona- stir debacle, on November 9, the 20,000-man Turkish gar- rison holding Salonika surrendered to the Greek forces about to storm the city. Thus, Constantine was able to beat the Bulgarians to Salonika, occupying this prize just one day in advance of the arrival of the Bulgarian army.

While the Greeks, Serbs, and elements of the Bulgar- ian forces were operating in Macedonia, the main Bulgar- ian forces—the First, Second, Third Armies—advanced into Thrace from October 22 to December 3, 1912. In sharp fighting at Seliolu and Kirk Kilissa during October 22–25, Turkish forces under Abdalla Pasha (b. 1860) were defeated but regrouped intact. He established a 35-mile front from Lülé Burgas to Bunar Hisar. While the Bulgar- ian Second Army laid siege to Adrianople, the First and

Third Armies turned to the east to attack the Turks along the Lülé Burgas–Bunar Hisar line. The Battle of Lülé Bur- gas began on October 28 with a poorly coordinated Bul- garian attack on the north end of the Turkish line. The Turks readily repulsed this first thrust, but their line was too thin to withstand the attacks that now spread along it. They withdrew to the fortified Chatalja Line, where they concentrated between the Black Sea and the Sea of Mar- mora to block access to Constantinople. Laying siege to that city, the Bulgarians repeatedly attempted to breach the Chatalja Line but were repulsed during November 17–18 with heavy losses. The two armies were stalemated and stopped fighting on December 3.

Just six weeks earlier, no one could have imagined that by November 3, 1912, Balkan troops would be standing before the walls of Constantinople, or that five days later the Greeks would enter Salonika, or that by the end of November the Serbs would have taken the port of Durazzo on the Adriatic, giving landlocked Serbia a link to the sea. In short, the Turkish army, much to everybody’s surprise, virtually collapsed in the face of the invasion. On Decem- ber 5 the Turkish government begged the Balkan belliger- ents for an armistice until peace talks could be arranged.

LONDON PEACE CONFERENCE

If the Balkan victory shocked the three Great Powers of central Europe, the Ottoman rout dismayed them. Ger- many had been husbanding new relations with the Young Turks while it constructed its Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway. Austria, expecting the Turks to make short work of the Serbs, was instead treated to the sight of them triumphant on the Adriatic. The day Serbian troops marched into Durazzo, the Hapsburg emperor mobilized nearly 1 mil- lion men and demanded the Balkan state withdraw from the seaport. But Russia endorsed the Balkan League and promised to defend its Turkish conquests. The message was clear: If Austria moved against Serbia, Russia would respond, and a general European war would surely follow. At the same time, Russia was not exactly thrilled by Bul- garia’s success, since the czar had always intended that Russian troops should occupy Constantinople, not the Bulgarian army.

Recognizing that the actions of the Balkan League had the potential to badly destabilize an already potentially explosive Europe, England’s foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey (1862–1933) sought to contain the conflict by proposing a conference of the Great Powers, who agreed to meet in London beginning on December 10, 1912. Even while Grey set about his mission, Greece and Montenegro, ignoring the armistice, continued to fight. Attended by the belligerents as well as by the Great Powers of western Europe, the London Peace Conference got under way on December 17, 1912, but after less than a month of negotia- tion, the conference dissolved on January 13, 1913. The armistice, such as it was, remained in force until the Jan- uary 23 coup d’état at Constantinople. Turkish nationalists Balkan War, First 165

of the Young Turk movement, under the leadership of Enver Bey (1880–1922), overthrew the Ottoman regime and denounced the armistice. Fighting resumed on Febru- ary 3, but the war continued to go badly for the Turks. The fortress at Yannina fell on March 3, 1913, with the surren- der of 30,000 Turkish troops to Crown Prince Constantine. Shortly after this, on March 26, Adrianople fell to a joint Bulgarian-Serb siege. It took the Bulgarian-Serb forces two days to storm the city’s defenses, and losses were heavy— 9,500 killed or wounded—but they persevered. Shukri Pasha (fl. 1912) surrendered the city’s 60,000-man garri- son. The following month Serbs came to the assistance of Montenegrin guerrillas who had laid siege to Scutari. The two allies fell to disputing, and the Serbs withdrew on April 16. Despite this, the Turks surrendered to the Mon- tenegrins on April 22.

The Turks returned in haste to the peace table, ready now for the Great Powers to impose a settlement. On May 30, 1913, the Treaty of London was signed, bringing the First Balkan War to an uneasy close. The short treaty, pri- marily the work of the Great Powers, was subscribed to by the weary belligerents but failed to specify just how the ter- ritorial gains would be distributed among the Balkan allies. For certain, Turkey lost all of its European possessions except for the Chatalja and Gallipoli peninsulas, but Mon- tenegro, whose guerrillas had fought hard to gain Scutari, were forced to relinquish this conquest to Albania, which was granted independence, a nation newly created by the Treaty of London. Crete went to Greece, but Macedonia— so said the Great Powers in faraway London—was some-