BALKAN WARS 



553 



BALKAN WARS 



traced to the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 

 turies, when the Turks laid the foundations of 

 their European empire. Thereafter, until the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, the Balkan 

 peninsula was never free from Turkish rule. 

 Uprisings and wars were many, but in spite of 

 occasional defeats the Turks maintained their 

 dominion. The natives of the peninsula, how- 

 ever, never became Turks, in spite of every 

 effort to suppress race feeling among them. 

 The Turks, though cruel and merciless to the 

 conquered foe, left them two privileges, the 

 right of local self-government and freedom of 

 worship, which went far to keep burning the 

 flame of national consciousness. Parts of 

 Greece, for example, were under Turkish rule 

 for four centuries, yet the people remained 

 Greeks and Christians. 



The Eastern Question. The gradual decline 

 of Turkish power in Eastern Europe during the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries coincided 

 with the development of strong national units 

 in Western Europe. Russia, too, began to 

 expand, largely at Turkish expense, and occa- 

 sionally offered some encouragement to the 

 Slavic peoples in the Balkans in their con- 

 tinuous warfare against the Turks. The ex- 

 panding interests of the European powers, 

 particularly England, Russia and Austria, con- 

 flicted not merely with each other and with 

 Turkish desires, but also with the nationalist 

 aspirations of the Balkan peoples. One by one 

 th Balkan states, beginning with Greece in 

 1830 and ending with Bulgaria in 1908, de- 

 clared their independence and won acknowl- 

 edgment of it through pressure exerted by the 

 powers upon Turkey. Yet these same powers 

 prevented the Balkan states from attaining 

 their ultimate ambition, the adjustment of 

 boundaries according to nationality. Every 

 one of the Balkan countries, except Monte- 

 negro, ruled a large section of territory which 

 was claimed or coveted by another, and Turkey 

 still held Macedonia and Albania, which all of 

 them wanted. 



This triangular conflict of interests has occu- 

 pied the attention of European diplomats since 

 th middle of the eighteenth century, and is 

 rally summarized as the Eastern Question. 

 The Congress of Berlin (see BERLIN, CONGRESS 

 OP) established a delicate balance of interests 

 winch survived for a generation, but in 1908 

 and 1900 the status quo, that is, the existing 

 condition, was overturned. The successes of 

 the young Turks (which sec), the proclamation 

 of Bulgaria's independence, and the annexation 



of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria pro- 

 duced a new set of problems. In the Turkish 

 part of the peninsula, moreover, oppression 

 finally drove the inhabitants of Northern Al- 

 bania into revolt in 1910, and in the next year 

 the war with Italy greatly weakened the Turk- 

 ish military power. 



The Attempted Solution. This combination 

 of circumstances led the Balkan countries to 

 form what many wise statesmen had believed 

 impossible, a league against Turkey. Sinking 

 their own differences for a time, they declared 

 war against the latter. Their reasons as stated 

 by Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria were that the 

 Christians under Turkish rule in Albania and 

 Macedonia had not been able to obtain condi- 

 tions of life that were bearable, and that "to 

 succor the Christian population of Turkey 

 remains to us no other means than to turn 

 to arms." This was a part of the reason, but 

 the immediate occasion for war was the prob- 

 ability, almost a certainty, that Turkey would 

 be defeated. Reorganization at home and the 

 victory of Italian arms in Tripoli left Turkey 

 handicapped to meet the new attack. It was 

 less a war of liberation than a war of conquest. 

 The elimination of the Turk from Europe was 

 the first step in the solution of the Eastern 

 Question. 



The War. In September, 1912, the Balkan 

 countries began to mobilize troops, and in 

 October military operations were begun. Ac- 

 cording to the plan of campaign the Monte- 

 negrins were to capture Scutari; the Serbians 

 were to drive the Turks from Macedonia; the 

 Bulgarians were to overcome the Turks in 

 Thrace and then move on towards Constan- 

 tinople; the Greeks were to capture Saloniki. 

 The four armies moved forward at practically 

 the same time. The Turks, unable to mass 

 their forces to resist any one attack, were de- 

 feated by the Bulgarians in the great battles 

 of Kirk-Kilisse and Lule Burgas, and within 

 I lnve weeks had lost several important for- 

 tresses. The main Turkish army took a strong 

 position behind the works at Tchatalja, the 

 only stronghold between the allied forces and 

 Constantinople. On November 8 the Greeks 

 captured Saloniki 



Proposal* jor Peace. The speedy victories 

 of the allies forced the Turks to ask for a stay 

 of hostilities ; an armistice was declared Decem- 

 ber 3, and a peace conference was called to 

 meet at once in London. The allies demanded 

 that Turkey abandon her territory in Europe, 

 except a small region around Constantinople, 



