The Balkan Wars strip the empire of nearly all its European territory
A coalition of former Ottoman subject states drives Ottoman armies out of the Balkans in months, then turns on each other.
Quick facts
- First Balkan War
- October 1912-May 1913
- Balkan League
- Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro
- Territory lost
- About 83% of remaining European Ottoman land
- Second Balkan War
- Summer 1913, Bulgaria vs. former allies plus the Ottomans
What happened
In October 1912 the Balkan League, an alliance of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro formed specifically to exploit Ottoman weakness after the Young Turk period's instability, declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Bulgarian forces besieged the Ottoman fortress at Adrianople and won major battles at Kirk Kilisse and Lule Burgas, while Greek forces took Salonika and Serbian and Montenegrin forces advanced into Macedonia and Albania. By the time a peace treaty was signed in London in May 1913, the Ottomans had lost roughly 83 percent of their remaining European territory and 69 percent of their European population, retaining only eastern Thrace and Constantinople. A Second Balkan War broke out weeks later when Bulgaria turned on its former allies over the division of the spoils, this time with the Ottoman Empire joining the coalition against Bulgaria and recovering Adrianople.
Why it matters
The wars ended more than five centuries of Ottoman rule over the Balkan Peninsula except for a small corner of Thrace, a loss so rapid and total that it discredited the Young Turk government's claims to have modernized the Ottoman military. The territorial disputes the wars left unresolved between Balkan states directly fed the tensions that triggered the First World War the following year.
How we know
The peer-reviewed International Encyclopedia of the First World War, published by Freie Universitat Berlin, reconstructs the military campaigns in detail, including the Bulgarian siege of Adrianople and the battles at Kirk Kilisse and Lule Burgas, and traces the war's origins to nationalist ambitions among Balkan states that had been Ottoman subjects during the previous century.
Sources
- International Encyclopedia of the First World War (1914-1918-online), Freie Universitat Berlin. Balkan Wars 1912-1913 · General sourceencyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Ottoman Empire · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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