The Balkan Wars refers to 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 its 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. The war set the stage for the Balkan crisis of 1914 and thus served as a "prelude to the First World War".
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires, was one of the two main coalitions that fought in World War I (1914–1918). It consisted of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria and was also known as the Quadruple Alliance.
The League of the Balkans 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, which at the time still controlled much of Southeastern Europe.
The Congress of Berlin was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at the meeting were Europe's then six great powers: Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany; the Ottomans; and four Balkan states: Greece, Serbia, Romania and Montenegro. The congress concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, replacing the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano that had been signed three months earlier.
Peter I was the last king of Serbia, reigning from 15 June 1903 to 1 December 1918. On 1 December 1918, he became the first king of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and he held that title until his death three years later. Since he was the king of Serbia during a period of great Serbian military success, he was remembered by the Serbian people as King Peter the Liberator, and also as Old King.
The Bosnian Crisis, also known as the Annexation Crisis or the First Balkan Crisis, erupted on 5 October 1908 when Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, territories formerly within the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire but under Austro-Hungarian administration since 1878.
The Battle of Cer was a military campaign fought between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in August 1914, starting three weeks into the Serbian Campaign, the initial military action of the First World War. It took place around Cer Mountain and several surrounding villages, as well as the town of Šabac.
The Balkans theatre, or Balkan campaign was a theatre of World War I fought between the Central Powers and the Allies.
The Serbian campaign was a series of military expeditions launched in 1914 and 1915 by the Central Powers against the Kingdom of Serbia during the First World War.
The Kosovo offensive was an offensive launched part of the greater Serbian campaign of World War I, by German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian units under the command of Prussian Field Marshal Mackensen. It was conducted in the south west corner of Serbia, in the historic site of the medieval battle of Kosovo, where the three Serbian armies had successfully retreated, during the second half of November 1915.
The Kingdom of Bulgaria participated in World War I on the side of the Central Powers from 14 October 1915, when the country declared war on Serbia, until 30 September 1918, when the Armistice of Salonica came into effect.
The U-1 class was a class of two submarines or U-boats built for and operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The class comprised U-1 and U-2. The boats were built to an American design at the Pola Navy Yard after domestic design proposals failed to impress the Navy. Constructed between 1907 and 1909, the class was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Navy's efforts to competitively evaluate three foreign submarine designs.
Albania during World War I was an independent state, having gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, on 28 November 1912, following the First Balkan War. It was recognised by the Great Powers as the Principality of Albania, after Turkey officially renounced all its rights in May 1913. Being a fledgling new country, it quickly unravelled and just a few months after taking power, its German ruler, Prince William of Wied, was forced to flee. After World War I broke out, anarchy took hold of the country as tribes and regions rebelled against central rule. To protect the Greek minority, Greek control was established in the southern districts replacing the Northern Epirote units beginning in October 1914. In response to this, Italy, although officially neutral at the time, also sent troops into the port of Vlorë, while Serbia and Montenegro took control of northern regions. In 1915 Serbia was overrun by combined German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces; the Serbian army retreated across the mountain passes of northern Albania, towards the Adriatic. Italian troops drove the Greeks from southern Albania and brought almost all Albanian territory under their control. Austrian forces invaded in June 1916; Austro-Hungarian forces remained in Albania until the end of the war when a multinational Allied force broke through and pushed them out in 1918.
The Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces occupied Serbia from late 1915 until the end of World War I. Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia on 28 July 1914 marked the beginning of the war. After three unsuccessful Austro-Hungarian offensives between August and December 1914, a combined Austro-Hungarian and German offensive breached the Serbian front from the north and west in October 1915, while Bulgaria attacked from the southeast. By January 1916, all of Serbia had been occupied by the Central Powers.
The Great Retreat, also known in Serbian historiography as the Albanian Golgotha, was a strategic withdrawal of the Royal Serbian Army, which marked the end of the second Serbian campaign of World War I.
The Toplica Uprising was a mass uprising against Bulgarian occupation force, that took place in Bulgarian occupied Serbia during the First World War. The rebels were motivated by grievances against the Bulgarian authorities for ordering conscription of local Serbs in the Bulgarian army, forced labour and the denationalisation policy imposed on the indigenous population. The revolt was supported by Serbian guerrilla fighters known as Chetniks.
The Yugoslav monitor Sava is a Temes-class river monitor that was built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy as SMS Bodrog. She fired the first shots of World War I just after 01:00 on 29 July 1914, when she and two other monitors shelled Serbian defences near Belgrade. She was part of the Danube Flotilla, and fought the Serbian and Romanian armies from Belgrade to the mouth of the Danube. In the closing stages of the war, she was the last monitor to withdraw towards Budapest, but was captured by the Serbs when she grounded on a sandbank downstream from Belgrade. After the war, she was transferred to the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and renamed Sava. She remained in service throughout the interwar period, although budget restrictions meant she was not always in full commission.
The convention of Sofia between Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) was signed on 6 September (24 August O.S.) 1915. It rectified the border between the two countries in Bulgaria's favour in order to bring Bulgaria into the First World War on the side of the Central Powers.
The Austro–Serbian Convention of 1881 was a secret bilateral treaty signed in Belgrade on 28 June 1881 by Gabriel Freiherr Herbert-Rathkeal on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and by Čedomilj Mijatović on behalf of the Principality of Serbia. The convention effectively turned Serbia into a protectorate state of Austria-Hungary, meant its accession by proxy to the subsequent Triple Alliance (1882) and come military aid though Serbo-Bulgarian War.
The Bulgarian occupation of Serbia of WW1 started in Autumn 1915 following the invasion of Serbia by the combined armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. After Serbia's defeat and the retreat of its forces across Albania, the country was divided into Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian occupation zones.
