The Balkan Wars Strip the Empire's European Territory
In eight months, the Ottomans lose 83 percent of what remained of Ottoman Europe
Quick facts
- First Balkan War begins
- October 1912
- European territory lost
- c. 83 percent
- Treaty ending First Balkan War
- Treaty of London, May 1913
- Ottoman recovery
- Edirne retaken in Second Balkan War, June-August 1913
What happened
Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria invaded Ottoman-held Macedonia and Thrace in October 1912, opening the First Balkan War, and within weeks the Ottoman army had lost virtually all of its remaining European territory outside eastern Thrace. The war was a comprehensive defeat, costing the empire roughly 83 percent of its European territory and around 69 percent of its European population, and it was settled by the Treaty of London in May 1913. A second Balkan war broke out that June, when the victorious Balkan allies turned on each other over the spoils, and the Ottomans used the opportunity to retake the city of Edirne, fixing the empire's new western border at the Maritsa River.
Why it matters
The Balkan Wars finished off five centuries of Ottoman rule in southeastern Europe in less than a year, a loss that discredited the Young Turk government and hardened the nationalist, more ethnically exclusive politics that the Committee of Union and Progress's authoritarian wing would carry into the First World War. Losing the Balkans also meant absorbing hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees into Anatolia, reshaping the empire's remaining population just before it entered a war that would cost it everything else.
How we know
The Balkan Wars and their territorial outcomes are documented in the Treaty of London and Treaty of Bucharest texts of 1913 and cross-referenced in the Library of Congress's Turkey country study and contemporary American press coverage of the conflict.
Sources
- Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Turkey: A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies), Ch. 3 · General sourcecountrystudies.us · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- HISTORY (A&E Television Networks). Serbia and Greece Declare War on Ottoman Empire in First Balkan War · Reputable sourcehistory.com · The domain "history.com" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- The Ottoman Empire → · See the Ottoman Empire timeline for a fuller account of the Balkan Wars and the empire's near-total loss of its European territory.