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. The war set the stage for the July crisis of 1914 and thus served as a prelude to the First World War.
The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.
The Second Balkan War was a conflict that broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 (O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counterattacked, entering Bulgaria. With Bulgaria's also having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania and the bulk of Bulgarian forces engaged in the south, the prospect of an easy victory incited Romanian intervention against Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to regain some lost territories from the previous war. When Romanian troops approached the capital Sofia, Bulgaria asked for an armistice, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest, in which Bulgaria had to cede portions of its First Balkan War gains to Serbia, Greece and Romania. In the Treaty of Constantinople, it lost Adrianople to the Ottomans.
Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos was a Cretan Greek statesman and prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movement. He is noted for his contribution to the expansion of Greece and promotion of liberal-democratic policies. As leader of the Liberal Party, he held office as prime minister of Greece for over 12 years, spanning eight terms between 1910 and 1933. During his governance, Venizelos entered in diplomatic cooperation with the Great Powers and had profound influence on the internal and external affairs of Greece. He has therefore been labelled as "The Maker of Modern Greece" and is still widely known as the "Ethnarch".
The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captured the Ottoman Tripolitania Vilayet, of which the main sub-provinces were Fezzan, Cyrenaica, and Tripoli itself. These territories became the colonies of Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which would later merge into Italian Libya.
Western Thrace or West Thrace, also known as Greek Thrace, is a geographic and historical region of Greece, between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country; East Thrace, which lies east of the river Evros, forms the European part of Turkey, and the area to the north, in Bulgaria, is known as Northern Thrace.
The Battle of Sarantaporo, also variously transliterated as Sarantaporon or Sarandaporon, took place on 9–10 October, 1912. It was the first major battle fought between Greek forces under Crown Prince Constantine and Ottoman forces under General Hasan Tahsin Pasha during the First Balkan War. The battle began when the Greek army attacked the Ottoman defensive line at the Sarantaporo pass, which connected Thessaly with central Macedonia.
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922) was a period of history of the Ottoman Empire beginning with the Young Turk Revolution and ultimately ending with the empire's dissolution and the founding of the modern state of Turkey.
The Aviation Squadrons of the Ottoman Empire were military aviation units of the Ottoman Army and Navy. The history of Ottoman military aviation dates back to June 1909 or July 1911. The organisation is sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Air Force. The fleet size reached its apex in December 1916, when the Ottoman aviation squadrons had 90 airplanes. The Aviation Squadrons were reorganized as the General Inspectorate of Air Forces on 29 July 1918. With the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, the Ottoman military aviation effectively came to an end. At the time of the armistice, the Ottoman military aviation had around 100 pilots; 17 land-based airplane companies ; and 3 seaplane companies ; totalling 80 aircraft.
The participation of Greece in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 is one of the most important episodes in modern Greek history, as it allowed the Greek state to almost double its size and achieve most of its present territorial size. It also served as a catalyst of political developments, as it brought to prominence two personalities, whose relationship would dominate the next decade and have long-lasting repercussions for Greece: the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, and the Army's commander-in-chief, the Crown Prince and later King, Constantine I.
The Kingdom of Serbia was one of the major parties in the Balkan Wars, gaining land in both conflicts. It experienced significant territorial gains in the Central Balkans, nearly doubling its territory.
The following events occurred in September 1912:
The following events occurred in January 1913:
The following events occurred in October 1912:
The following events occurred in December 1912:
The following events occurred in July 1913:
The following events occurred in August 1913:
The Committee of Union and Progress, later the Union and Progress Party, was a revolutionary organization and political party active between 1889 and 1926 in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. The foremost faction within the Young Turk movement, it instigated the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which ended absolute monarchy and began the Second Constitutional Era. From 1913 to 1918, the CUP ruled the empire as an authoritarian one-party state and committed genocides against the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian peoples as part of a broader policy of ethnic erasure during the late Ottoman period. The CUP was associated with the wider Young Turk movement, and its members have often been referred to as Young Turks, although the movement produced other political parties as well. Within the Ottoman Empire its members were known as İttihadcılar ('Unionists') or Komiteciler ('Committeemen').
During the decline and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Muslim inhabitants living in territories previously under Ottoman control, often found themselves as a persecuted minority after borders were re-drawn. These populations were subject to genocide, expropriation, massacres, and ethnic cleansing.
Events from the year 1913 in Italy.
