First Balkan War
The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior (significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.
| First Balkan War | |||||||||
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| Part of the Balkan Wars | |||||||||
Clockwise from top right: Serbian forces entering the town of Mitrovica; Ottoman troops at the Battle of Kumanovo; Meeting of the Greek king George I and the Bulgarian tsar Ferdinand I in Thessaloniki; Bulgarian heavy artillery | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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| Strength | |||||||||
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436,742 men initially (significantly more than the Balkan League by the end)
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
Total: 156,139 killed, wounded, or died of disease |
Ottoman Empire:
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| Numerous Albanian and Ottoman civilian casualties (see below...) | |||||||||
The war was a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster for the Ottomans, who lost 83% of their European territories and 69% of their European population. As a result of the war, the League captured and partitioned almost all of the Ottoman Empire's remaining territories in Europe. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albania, which dissatisfied the Serbs. Bulgaria, meanwhile, was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia and attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913, which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War.
During the war, many civilians, overwhelmingly Muslim Turks, were either killed or forced to flee their homes. The highly politicized and disorganized units of the Ottoman army were quite incapable of evacuating the civilians in the war zone. This situation left many civilians in the occupied areas defenseless against the invading armies of the Balkan League. Although there are discussions about the exact amount of civilian casualties, when the war ended great changes occurred in the demographic makeup of the Balkan region.