Siapakah Seymour Martin Lipset ?

Seymour Martin Lipset (March 18, 1922–December 31, 2006) was an American political sociologist, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and the sociology of intellectual life. He also wrote extensively about the conditions for democracy in comparative perspective.

Lipset was born in New York, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He graduated from City College of New York, where he was an anti-Stalinist leftist and later became national chairman of the Young People's Socialist League. He left the Socialist Party in 1960 and described himself as a centrist, deeply influenced by Alexis de Tocqueville, George Washington, Aristotle, and Max Weber. Lipset received a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University in 1949. Before that he taught at the University of Toronto.

He was the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University (1975–1990) and the George D. Markham Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. He also taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Toronto. Lipset received the MacIver Prize for Political Man (1960) and the Gunnar Myrdal Prize for The Politics of Unreason. His book The First New Nation was a finalist for the National Book Award. He was also awarded the Townsend Harris and Margaret Byrd Dawson Medals for significant achievement, the Northern Telecom-International Council for Canadian Studies Gold Medal, and the Leon Epstein Prize in Comparative Politics by the American Political Science Association. He has received the Marshall Sklare Award for distinction in Jewish studies. In 1997, he was awarded the Helen Dinnerman Prize by the World Association for Public Opinion Research. Lipset was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was the only person to have been president of both the American Sociological Association (1992–93) and the American Political Science Association (1979–80).

He also served as the president of the International Society of Political Psychology, the Sociological Research Association, the World Association for Public Opinion Research, and the Society for Comparative Research. He was also the president of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Society in Vienna. His publications include American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (W.W. Norton, 1996) and Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (Routledge, 1990), and with Earl Raab Jews and the New American Scene (Harvard University Press, 1996). Lipset was active in public affairs on a national level.

He was a director of the United States Institute of Peace. He has been a board member of the Albert Shanker Institute, a member of the U.S. Board of Foreign Scholarships, co-chair of the Committee for Labor Law Reform, co-chair of the Committee for an Effective UNESCO, and consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the American Jewish Committee. He was president of the American Professors for Peace in the Middle East, chair of the National B'nai B'rith Hillel Commission and the Faculty Advisory Cabinet of the United Jewish Appeal, and cochair of the Executive Committee of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East.

He worked for years on seeking solution for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This was part of his larger project of researching what factor allow societies to sustain stable and peaceful democracies. His work focused on the preconditions to democracy -- especially high socioeconomic development--(see also Amartya Sen's work)--and the consequences of democracy for peace.

Lipset's first wife, Elsie, died in 1987. With her, he had three children: David, Daniel, and Cici. David Lipset is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. In addition to his three children, and six grandchildren, Lipset is survived by his second wife, Sydnee, whom he married in 1990. Besides making substantial contributions to cleavage theory, with his partner Stein Rokkan, Lipset was one of the first proponents of the "theory of modernization", which holds that democracy is the direct result of economic growth.

Persoalan: Menurut Lipset (1973:21), Kelangsungan Demokrasi Memerlukan Kedua-dua Faktor Pemecah dan Penyatu. Bincangkan Dalam Konteks Amalan Demokrasi Di Malaysia.

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Sejarah Kerajaan Turki Uthmaniyah Sehingga Kejatuhannya

Pengenalan

Empayar Turki Uthmaniyah telah diasaskan oleh Uthman 1 yang mengistiharkan kemerdekaan wilayah Uthmaniyah pada tahun 1299. Wilayah ini mula berkembang melalui penaklukan Constatinople oleh Muhammad Al-Fatih pada tahun 1453 dan terus gemilang semasa pemerintahan Sulaiman Al-Qanuni. Namun selepas kemangkatan Sulaiman Al-Qanuni pada tahun 1566 berlaku kemerosotan dalam empayar Turki Uthmaniyah. Malang yang menimpa ini adalah lantaran kelemahan-kelemahan yang wujud dalam kerajaan Turki Uthmaniyah yang telah membawa kepada kejatuhan empayar yang telah mencapai zaman kegemilangan.

Keruntuhan empayar yang telah mencapai kegemilangan ini merupakan peristiwa yang kompleks bagi sebuah masyarakat Islam dari sebuah kerajaan menuju negara moden. Pada proses keruntuhannya, Turki Uthmaniyah merupakan wilayah yang besar meliputi semenanjung Balkan, Asia Kecil, Arab Timur Tengah, Mesir dan Afrika. Namun, akibat daripada pelbagai faktor yang akhirnya membawa kepada kejatuhan Empayar Uthmaniyah sehingga memberi kesan kepada negara-negara Islam di sekitarnya yang turut terkena tempias akibat kemerosotan Turki Uthmaniyah (Tugasan Lengkap Milik PjjMalaysia)

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British Memperkenalkan Sistem Residen Di Tanah Melayu

Dasar Ekonomi British

Menjelang tahun 1895, pegawai-pegawai British di Negeri-Negeri Selat (NNS) dan London mendapati sistem residen yang dijalankan tidak berjalan lancar dan dikhuatiri hasrat mereka akan sukar dicapai. Hal ini berikutan daripada setiap negeri yang telah berada dalam genggaman British ditadbir oleh seorang residen dan corak kemajuan adalah mengikut kebijaksanaan dan kemahiran residen. Dengan kata lain residen seumpama arkitek kepada proses kemajuan sesebuah negeri. Sekiranya residen itu sendiri terkial-kial dalam menjalankan dasar-dasar British maka objektif British pastinya terkubur.

Kita sedia maklum bahawa tiada wujud pun satu garis panduan kepada setiap residen yang dilantik dan tiadanya keseragaman dalam setiap negeri. Residen akan mengkoreksi minda mereka mengikut kepakaran masing-masing dalam menjalankan dasar British. Setiap perkara pula perlu mendapat persetujuan gabenor NNS dan Pejabat Tanah Jajahan di London. Kita dapat menilai bahawa semua ini akan mendatangkan masalah kerana apabila kepesatan dalam ekonomi semakin rancak, residen sepatutnya membuat keputusan segera tanpa persetujuan daripada NNS dan Pejabat Tanah Jajahan di London. (Tugasan Lengkap Milik PjjMalaysia)

BIBLIOGRAFI

Abdul Rahman Ismail, Sejarah Kenegaraan dan Politik, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2007.
Azmah Abdul Manaf, Sejarah Sosial Masyarakat Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn. Bhd, 2001.
B.W. Andaya dan L.Y. Andaya, Sejarah Malaysia,Kuala Lumpur: Macmillian Publishers Sdn. Bhd, 1982.
Cheah Boon Kheng dan Abu Talib Ahmad, Kolonialisme di Malaysia dan Negara-Negara lain, Petaling Jaya: Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd, 1990.
C. D. Cowan, Tanah Melayu Kurun Kesembilan-belas (Asal- usul Penguasaan Politik British), Dewan bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur, 1970.
Emily Sadka, Journal of Sir Hugh Low, Perak,1877, JMBRAS, 1954, hl. 80-81.
H.S.Barlow, Swettenham, Kuala Lumpur: Southdene Sdn. Bhd, 1995.
Joginder Singh Jessy, Sejarah Tanah Melayu (1400-1959), Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1978.
Mardiana Nordin, Pengajian Malaysia, Shah Alam: Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd, 2000.
Mohd Isa Othman, Sejarah Malaysia (1800-1963), Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn. Bhd, 2002.

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Sejarah Masyarakat Imigran ke Malaysia

Masyarakat imigran seperti yang kita fahami ialah masyarakat India dan China sahaja disebabkan mereka merupakan agen terpenting kepada kronologi proses pembangunan negara secara amnya dari sudut politik, ekonomi dan sosial. Umum mengetahui bahawa antara penyebab kepada berlakunya penghijrahan para penduduk di China dan India ke Malaysia adalah disebabkan oleh beberapa perkara. Penghijrahan atau yang dikatakan imigrasi ini berlaku disebabkan oleh permasalahan ekonomi yang teruk misalnya di China, masalah bencana alam yang teruk serta parah bagai retak menunggu belah dan akibat daripada bencana alam yang sering melanda China seperti banjir besar telah meranapkan industri pertanian yang menjadi teras utama kepada kegiatan ekonomi kebanyakan masyarakat China. Perkara ini telah menyebabkan masyarakat China yang rata-ratanya mengamalkan kehidupan berorientasikan pertanian mengalami masalah ekonomi.

Selain itu, disebabkan pertambahan mahupun lebihan penduduk di China yang tidak terkawal telah menyebabkan permintaan untuk memenuhi kekosongan tenaga kerja sama ada dalam bidang profesional ataupun tidak melebihi kuantiti penawaran pekerjaan oleh kerajaan China. Jelasnya masalah-masalah tersebutlah yang menjadi pemangkin kepada berlakunya migrasi penduduk China ke Tanah Melayu namun sesetengah tokoh seperti Victor Purcell menegaskan sebenarnya bukanlah disebabkan masalah ekonomi menyebabkan masyarakat China datang berhijrah ke Tanah Melayu kerana majoritinya adalah berasal dari kawasan yang lebih baik keadaannya di bahagian selatan China iaitu Kwantung dan Fukien. Sebaliknya penghijrahan berlaku disebabkan kerana jalinan perdagangan yang sudah lama terjalin antara kawasan tersebut dengan negeri-negeri Melayu. Hal ini tidak menjadi masalah bagi masyarakat China kerana mereka sudah sebati dengan keadaan Tanah Melayu di samping pendirian China yang sememangnya menggalakkan penduduknya untuk berhijrah dalam membantu negara itu melenyapkan virus pengangguran yang dikhuatiri boleh mempengaruhi pola perkembangan ekonomi negara China (Tugasan Lengkap Milik PjjMalaysia)

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Sejarah Kewujudan Masyarakat Majmuk di Malaysia

Bagaimana perlaksanaan dasar politik dan ekonomi British ini telah menjadi pemangkin kepada perubahan struktur kependudukan di Malaysia pada abad ke-19?

Pengenalan

Menurut Kamus Dewan kependudukan bermaksud segala hal mengenai penduduk di sesuatu tempat, daerah, negeri dan sebagainya serta kependudukan juga merujuk segala aspek yang dibincangkan dalam simposium ini. Dalam konteks ini, perubahan dalam struktur kependudukan merupakan kesan daripada dasar politik dan ekonomi yang diperkenalkan oleh British.

Tindakan dan perkara yang dilakukan oleh British seperti kemasukan imigran telah mendorong pertambahan penduduk yang akhirnya membentuk masyarakat majmuk di Malaysia. Hal ini juga rentetan daripada daripada amalan pecah dan perintah British yang telah memisahkan masyarakat yang berbilang kaum di Malaysia mengikut faktor ekonomi dan politik. Masyarakat Melayu mengamalkan tradisi pertanian, Cina dengan aktiviti perlombongan dan India bekerja di ladang-ladang.

Persoalannya, bagaimana perlaksanaan dasar politik dan ekonomi British ini telah menjadi pemangkin kepada perubahan struktur kependudukan di Malaysia pada abad ke-19? Oleh itu, perbincangan akan menfokuskan kepada dasar ekonomi dan politik British seperti kemasukan imigran, masyarakat majmuk, pentadbiran politik, petempatan dan ekonomi dan pendidikan yang telah memberi implikasi terhadap struktur kependudukan di Malaysia pada abad ke-19 (Tugasan lengkap milik PjjMalaysia)

Bibiliografi

Bibliografi
Azmah Abdul Manaf, 2001, Sejarah Sosial Masyarakat Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn. Bhd.

Barbara Watson Andaya dan Leonard Y. Andaya, 1983, Sejarah Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Macmillan Publishers (M) Sdn. Bhd.

Cheah Boon Kheng dan Abu Talib Ahmad, 1990, Kolonialisme di Malaysia dan Negara-Negara Lain, Selangor, Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd.

Cowan C.D. 1970, Tanah Melayu Kurun Kesembilan-Belas: Asal-Usul Penguasaan Politik British, Kuala Lumpur, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Joginder Singh Jessy, 1978, Sejarah Tanah Melayu (1400-1959), Kuala Lumpur, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Mohd. Isa Othman, 2002, Sejarah Malaysia (1800-1963), Kuala Lumpur, Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn. Bhd.

Ooi Jin Bee, 1968, Bumi, Pendudok dan Ekonomi di Tanah Melayu, Kuala Lumpur, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Ruslan Zainuddin, 2004, Sejarah Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Penerbit Fajar Bakti.

Sarjit Singh, 2006, Hubungan Etnik di Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford Fajar.

Sufean Hussin, 1996, Pendidikan di Malaysia: Sejarah, Sistem dan Falsafah, Kuala Lumpur, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

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Perjuangan Demokrasi Myanmar Menuntut Kemerdekaan

Pendahuluan

Jika direnung sejenak ada sesuatu yang pelik dalam sesuana politik Myanmar semenjak kemerdekaan hingga pentadbiran bermula pada tahun 1962. Berdasarkan penelitian daripada ahli astrologi, Myanmar atau dahulunya lebih dikenali sebagai Burma mencapai kemerdekaan pada 4 Januari 1948. Tepat jam 4.20 pagi di perkarangan Rumah kerajaan kemerdekaan Myanmar telah terlakar dalam kitab sejarah dengan penurunan bendera Union Jack untuk digantikan bendera persekutuan Myanmar yang dipadankan daripada bendera Dobama Ahsiahyone.

Myanmar merupakan sebuah negara demokratik antara tahun 1948 hingga 1962.Sesuatu yang menarik untuk dibincangkan seorang tokoh bernama Aung San yang cukup sinonim sebagai watak utama dalam perjuangan menuntut kemerdekaan Myanmar daripada belenggu penjajahan. Sejarah telah menukilkan perjuangan Aung San melalui penubuhan Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) dalam usaha menentang Jepun yang mencabuli kedaulatan negara Myanmar ketika itu. Perjuangan demi perjuangan telah ditempuh oleh Aung San dan rakan seperjuangannya yang akhirnya membawa kepada kebebasan Myanmar daripada penjajahan. Namun, malang tidak berbau apabila berlaku tradegi hitam dalam sejarah politik Myanmar yang tidak akan luput dari ingatan setiap pengkaji sejarah negara penuh konflik ini. Mimpi ngeri telah berlaku dengan pembunuhan Aung San di saat perlembagaan dan kemerdekaan Myanmar hampir terbina. Walau bagaimanapun, perjuangan Aung San diteruskan oleh naib presidennya iaitu U Nu sebagai Perdana Menteri.

Patah tumbuh hilang berganti adalah ungkapan yang signifikan dalam bercerita mengenai insan bernama U Nu. Memegang mandat sebagai pemimpin AFPFL adalah menjadi tanggungjawab U Nu untuk memimpin Myanmar ke arah kemerdekaan pada tarikh keramat 4 Januari 1948. Tarikh ini merupakan hari yang tidak akan luput dalam ingatan rakyat Myanmar. Dalam keadaan sebuah negara baru mencapai kemerdekaan, tidak dinafikan berlaku permasalahan dalam aspek politik, ekonomi dan sosial. Permasalahan ini telah membawa kepada konflik yang lebih mencekam dalam sejarah Myanmar yang penuh onak dan duri.

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Latar Belakang Ibnu Khaldun Ilmuan Terulung

Nama sebenar Abdul Rahman bin Muhammad bin Khaldun al-Hadrami Beliau dilahirkan pada tahun 1332 di Tunis dan merupakan tokoh sejarawan ulung yang kaya dengan ilmu pengetahuan seperti fikah, hadis, logik falsafah, matematik, kalam, astronomi, geografi, sastera, bahasa Arab dan pelbagai cabang ilmu lain. Dalam kancah mahupun arena politik pula, Ibnu Khaldun mempunyai banyak pengalaman seperti menjawat jawatan seperti ahli persuratan di istana Fas, menjadi hajib (setaraf dengan PM) di Bougie, hakim mahkamah diraja dan setiausaha Raja Muda Abu Ishak.

Ibnu Khaldun dipercayai mula menulis ataupun berminat untuk menceburi bidang penulisan selepas pulang daripada menunaikan haji (1387) dan memberi penumpuan dalam bidang sejarah kerana ada ilmu pengetahuan dan pengalaman yang luas. Penulisan beliau dalam pensejarahan Islam telah memperlihatkan dengan terhasilnya kitab Muqaddimah. Kitab ini dianggap karya yang teragung dalam bidang sejarah dan persejarahan. Kitab ini merupakan pendahuluan kepada kitab yang kedua iaitu al-‘Ibar wa diwan al-mubtada’ wa al-khabar fi ayyam al-‘arab wa al’ajam wa al-Barbar. B. Lewis mengatakan Muqaddimah merupakan ensiklopedia sintesis mengenai metodologi sains kebudayaan yang sangat penting dan boleh menolong ahli sejarah menghasilkan kajian yang benar dan ilmiah mengenai ilmu sejarah dan sosiologi.

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Balkan Wars

The term Balkan Wars refers to the two wars that took place in South-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia (see Balkan League), having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century rule in the Balkans in a seven-month campaign resulting in the Treaty of London.


The Second Balkan War broke out on 16 June 1913 when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its gains, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece. Their armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked penetrating into Bulgaria, while Romania and the Ottomans used the favourable time to intervene against Bulgaria to win territorial gains. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War.

Background

The background to the wars lies in the incomplete emergence of nation-states on the European territory of the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the 19th century. The Serbs had gained substantial territory during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878, while Greece acquired Thessaly in 1881 (although it lost a small area back to the Ottoman Empire in 1897) and Bulgaria (an autonomous principality since 1878) incorporated the formerly distinct province of Eastern Rumelia (1885). All three as well as Montenegro sought additional territories within the large Ottoman-ruled region known as Rumelia, comprising Eastern Rumelia, Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace.

Policies of the Great Powers

Throughout the 19th Century, the Great Powers shared different aims over the "Eastern Question" and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Russia wished for access to the "warm waters" of the Mediterranean; it pursued a pan-Slavic foreign policy and thereby supported Bulgaria and Serbia. Britain wished to deny Russia access to the "warm waters" and supported the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, although it also supported a limited expansion of Greece as a backup plan in case integrity of the empire was no longer possible. France wished to strengthen its position in the region, especially in the Levant (today's Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Israel).

The Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary wished for a continuation of the existence of the Ottoman Empire, since both were troubled multinational entities and thus the collapse of the one might weaken the other. The Habsburgs also saw a strong Ottoman presence in area as a counterweight to the Serbian nationalistic call to their own Serbs subjects in Bosnia. Regarding Italy, it has been argued that from that time it wished to recreate the Roman empire; its main aim at the time seems to have been primarily the denial of access to the Adriatic Sea of another major sea power. Germany in turn, under the "Drang nach Osten" policy, aspired to turn the Ottoman Empire into its own de-facto colony, and thus supported its integrity.


Bulgaria and Greece sent armed bandits inside the Empire (in Macedonia and Thrace) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to protect their own nationals from the forced "Bulgarization" of Greeks by Bulgarians or "Hellinization" of Bulgars by Greeks. Low intensity warfare had broken out inside Macedonia between the Greek and Bulgarian bands and the Ottoman army after 1904 in the Struggle for Macedonia. After the Young Turk revolution of July 1908, the situation changed somewhat drastically.

The Young Turk revolution

It is no surprise that the "Young Turk" revolution occurred in the troubled European provinces of the Empire. There the threat to its integrity was the most pronounced, and the need for reforms was most evident. When the revolt broke out, it was supported by intellectuals, the army, and almost all the ethnic minorities of the Empire, and forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to re-adopt the long defunct Ottoman constitution of 1877, ushering the Second Constitutional Era. Hopes were raised among the Balkan ethnicities of reforms and autonomy, and elections were held to form a representative, multi-ethnic, Ottoman parliament. However, following the Sultan's attempted counter-coup, the liberal element of the Young Turks was sidelined and the nationalist element became dominant.


At the same time, in October 1908, Austria-Hungary seized the opportunity of the Ottoman political upheaval to annex the de jure Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which it had occupied since 1878 (see Bosnian Crisis), and Bulgaria declared itself a fully independent kingdom. The Greeks of the autonomous Cretan State proclaimed unification with Greece, though the opposition of the Great Powers prevented the latter action from taking practical effect.

Reaction in the Balkan States

Frustrated in the north by Austria-Hungary's incorporation of Bosnia with its 975,000 Orthodox Serbs (and many more Serbs and Serb-sympathizers of other faiths), and forced (March 1909) to accept the annexation and restrain anti-Habsburg agitation among Serbian nationalist groups, the Serbian government looked to formerly Serb territories in the south, notably "Old Serbia" (the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and the province of Kosovo).


On 15 August 1909, the Military League a group of Greek officers took action against the government to reform their country's national government and reorganize the army. The league found itself unable to create a new political system, till the league summoned the Cretan politician Eleutherios Venizelos to Athens as its political adviser. Venizelos persuaded the king to revise the constitution and asked the league to disband in favor of a National Assembly. In March 1910 the Military League dissolved itself.

Bulgaria, which had secured Ottoman recognition of her independence in April 1909 and enjoyed the friendship of Russia,also looked to districts of Ottoman Thrace and Macedonia. In March 1910, an Albanian insurrection broke out in Kosovo which was covertly supported by the young Turks. In August 1910 Montenegro followed Bulgaria's precedent by becoming a kingdom.

The Balkan League

Following Italy's victory in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912 the Young Turks fell from power after a coup. The Balkan countries saw this as an opportunity to attack and fulfill their desires of expansion.

With the initial encouragement of Russian agents, a series of agreements was concluded between Serbia and Bulgaria in March 1912. Military victory against the Ottoman empire would not be possible while it could bring reinforcements from Asia. The condition of the Ottoman railways of the time was primitive, so most reinforcement would have to come by sea through the Aegean. Greece was the only Balkan country with a navy powerful enough to deny use of the Aegean to the Ottomans, thus a treaty became necessary between Greece and Bulgaria which signed in May 1912.

Montenegro concluded agreements between Serbia and Bulgaria later that year. Bulgaria signed treaties with Serbia to divide between them the territory of northern Macedonia, but such an agreement was clearly denied to Greece. Bulgaria's policy then was to use the agreement to limit Serbia's access to Macedonia, while at the same time denying any such agreement with Greece, believing that its army would be able to occupy the larger part of Aegean Macedonia and the important port city of Thessaloniki before the Greeks.

The resulting alliance between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro became known as the Balkan League; its existence was undesirable for all the Great Powers. The league was loose at best, though a secret liaison officer was exchanged between the Greek and the Serbian army after the war began. Greece delayed the start of the war several times in the summer of 1912, in order to better prepare her navy, but Montenegro declared war on October 8 (September 25 O.S.). Following an ultimatum to the Ottomans, the remaining members of the alliance entered the conflict on October 17.

First Balkan War

With the exception of Greece, and in continuation of their secret prewar settlements of expansion between them and under close Russian supervision, the three Slavic allies (Bulgarian, Serbs and Montenegrins) had led out extensive plans to coordinate their war efforts: the Serbs and Montenegrins in the theatre of Sandjak, the Bulgarians and Serbs in the Macedonian and Thracian theatres. The Ottoman Empire had a massive pool of manpower of about 26 million people, but it was handicapped by plans called for an army heavily depended from reinforcements that had to come mainly from the Asian part of the Empire where the 3/4 of the population and the majority of the Muslims lived.

These had to be transferred to the Balkans mostly by ships, but this depended on the result of battles between the Turkish and Greek Navies on the Aegean. With the outbreak of the war the Turks activated three Army HQ allocating there most of their available forces per front: The Thracian with its HQ in Constantinople, the Western with its HQ in Salonika and the Vardar with its HQ in Skopje, against the Bulgarians, the Greeks and the Serbians respectively. Smaller independent units had been allocated elsewhere mostly around heavily fortified cities.

Montenegro was the first that declared war on October 8.Its main thrust was towards Shkodra, with secondary operations in the Novi Pazar area. The rest of the Allies after giving a common ultimatum, declared war a week later. Bulgaria attacked towards Eastern Thrace, being stopped only at the outskirts of Constantinople at the Çatalca line and the isthmus of the Gallipoli peninsula, while secondary forces captured Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia.

Serbia attacked south towards Skopje and Monastir and then turned west to the present day Albania reaching Adriatica while a second Army captured Kosovo and linked with the Montenegrin forces. Greece's main forces attacked from Thessaly into Macedonia through the Sarantaporo strait and after capturing Thessaloniki on 12 November (on 26 October 1912, O.S.) expanded its occupied area linked up with the Serbian army to the north-western, while its main forces turned east towards Kavala reaching the Bulgarians. Another Greek army attacked into Epirus towards Ioannina.

In the naval front the Turkish fleet twice exited the Dardanelles and was twice defeated by the Greek Navy, in the battles of Elli and Lemnos. Its dominance on the Aegean Sea made it impossible for the Ottomans to transfer the planned troops from the Middle East to the Thracian (against the Bulgarian) and to the Macedonian (against the Greeks and Serbians) fronts.

According to the E.J.Erickson the Greek Navy played also a crucial, albeit indirect role, in the Thracian campaign by neutralizing no less than three Thracian Corps (see First Balkan War, The Bulgarian theatre of operations), a significant portion of the Ottoman Army there, in the all-important opening round of the war.

After the defeating of the Ottoman fleet the Greek Navy was also free to liberate the islands of the Aegean.General Nikola Ivanov identified the activity of the Greek Navy as the chief factor in the general success of the allies.

In January, after a successful coup by young army officers, Turkey decided to continue the war. After a failed Ottoman counter-attack in the Western-Thracian front, Bulgarian forces with the help of the Serbian Army managed to conquer Adrianople while Greek forces managed to take Ioannina after defeating the Ottomans in the battle of Bizani. In the joint Serbian-Montenegrin theatre of operation the Montenegrin army captured after siege the Shkodra, ending the Ottoman presence west of the Çatalca line in Europe after nearly 500 years. The war ended with the Treaty of London on May 17, 1913.

The Second Balkan War

Though the Balkan allies had fought together against the common enemy, that was not enough to overcome their mutual rivalries. The Second Balkan War broke out on 16 June 1913 when Bulgaria attacked its erstwhile allies in the First Balkan War, Serbia and Greece, while Montenegro, Romania and the Ottoman Empire intervened later against Bulgaria. When the Greek army entered Thessaloniki in the First Balkan War ahead of the Bulgarian 7th division by only a day, they were asked to allow a Bulgarian battalion to enter the city. Greece accepted in exchange for allowing a Greek unit to enter the city of Serres.

The Bulgarian unit that entered Thessaloniki turned out to be a 48,000-strong division instead of the battalion, something which caused concern among the Greeks, who viewed it as a Bulgarian attempt to establish a condominium over the city. In the event, due to the urgently needed reinforcements in the Thracian front, the Bulgarian Headquarters were soon forced by necessity to remove its troops from the city (while the Greeks agreed by mutual treaty to remove their units based in Serres) and transport them to Dedeağaç (modern Alexandroupolis), but besides the agreement it left behind a battalion that started fortifying its positions.
Greece had also allowed the Bulgarians to control the stretch of the Thessaloniki-Constantinople railroad that lay in Greek-occupied territory, since Bulgaria controlled the largest part of this railroad towards Thrace.

After the end of the operations in Thrace and in confirmation to the Greek concerns, Bulgaria not satisfied with the territory it controlled in Macedonia, immediately asked Greece to relinquish its control over Thessaloniki and the land north of Pieria, effectively to hand over all Aegean Macedonia. These unacceptable demands together with the Bulgarian refusal to demobilize its army after the Treaty of London had ended the common war against the Ottomans, alarmed Greece, which decided also to maintain its army's mobilization.

Similarly, in northern Macedonia, the tension between Serbia and Bulgaria due to later aspirations over Vardar Macedonia generated many incidents between the nearby Armies, prompting Serbia to maintain its army's mobilization. Serbia and Greece proposed that each of the three countries reduce its army by one fourth, as a first step to facilitate a peaceful solution but Bulgaria rejected it. Seeing the omens Greece and Serbia started a series of negotiations and signed a treaty on May 19/June 1, 1913.

With this treaty, a mutual border was agreed between the two countries, together with an agreement for mutual military and diplomatic support in case of a Bulgarian or/and Austrohugarian attack. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, being well informed, tried to stop the upcoming conflict on June 8, by sending an identical personal message to the Kings of Bulgaria and Serbia, offering to act as arbitrator according to the provisions of the 1912 Serbo-Bulgarian treaty. But Bulgaria by making the acceptance of Russian arbitration conditional, in effect denied any discussion, caused Russia to repudiate its alliance with Bulgaria (see Russo-Bulgarian military convention signed 31 May 1902).

The Serbs and the Greeks had a military advantage in the eve of the war because their armies confronted comparatively weak Ottoman forces in the First Balkan War and suffered relatively light casualties[7] while the Bulgarians were involved in heavy fighting in Thrace. The Serbs and the Greeks had time to fortify their positions in Macedonia. The Bulgarians also held some advantages controlling internal communication and supply lines.

On 16 June 1913 General Savov under the direct orders of the tsar Ferdinand I, issued attacking orders against both Greece and Serbia without consulting the Bulgarian government and without any official declaration of war.During the night of June 17, 1913 they attacked the Serbian army at Bregalnica river and then the Greek army in Nigrita.

The Serbian army resisted the sudden night attack, while most of soldiers did not even know who they are fighting with, as Bulgarian camps were located next to Serbs and were considered allies. Montenegro's forces were just a few kilometres away and rushed also to the battle. The Bulgarian attack was halted.The Greek army was also successful.

Retreating according to the plan for two days while Thessaloniki was cleared of the remaining Bulgarian regiment. Then the Greek army counter-attacked and defeated the Bulgarians at Kilkis-Lahanas, after which the mostly Bulgarian town was destroyed.

However, the Greek army's pace was not quick enough as to prevent the massacre of Greek peaceable inhabitants at Nigrita, Serres, Drama and Doxato. The Greek army then divided their forces and advanced in two directions. Part proceeded east and occupied Western Thrace. The rest of the Greek army advanced up to the Struma River valley, defeating the Bulgarian army in the battles of Doiran and Mt. Beles and continued its advance to the north towards Sofia. In the Kresna straits the Greeks were ambushed by the Bulgarian 2nd and 1st Army newly arrived from the Serbian front that had already taken defensive positions there following the Bulgarian victory at Kalimanci.

By 30 July the Greek army outnumbering by the now counter-attacking Bulgarian Armies attempting to encircle the Greeks in a Cannae-type battle applying pressure on their flanks. The Greek army resisted successfully however, launching local counter-attacks. The battle was continued for eleven days, between July 29 and August 9 over 20 km of a maze of forests and mountains with no conclusion.

The Greek King, seeing that the units he fought were from the Serbian front, tried to convince the Serbs to renew their attack, as the front ahead them was now thinner, but the Serbs, rejected it. By then, news came for the Romanian success towards Sofia and its imminent fall. After that, Constantine realizing the aimless of the continuation of the counterattack agreed to Eleftherios Venizelos' proposal and accepted the Bulgarian request for armistice as this had been communicated through Romania.

Romania had raised an army and declared war on Bulgaria on June 27 as it had from June 15 officially warned Bulgaria that it will not remain neutral in a new Balkan war, due to the Bulgaria's refusal to cede the fortress of Silistra as promised before the First Balkan war in exchange for the Romanian neutrality. They encountered little resistance and by the time the Greeks accepted the Bulgarian request for armistice they had reached Vrazhdebna, 7 miles from the center of Sofia.

Seeing the military position of the Bulgarian army the Ottomans decided to intervene. They attacked and finding no opposition, managed to recover the eastern Thrace with its fortified city of Adrianople, regaining a land mass in Europe which was only slightly larger than the present-day European territory of the Republic of Turkey.

Reactions among the Great Powers during the wars

The developments that led to the First Balkan War did not go unnoticed by the Great Powers, but although there was an official consensus between the European Powers over the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, which led to a stern warning to the Balkan states, unofficially each of them took a different diplomatic approach due to their conflicting interests in the area. As a result, any possible preventive effect of the common official warning was cancelled by the mixed unofficial signals, and failed to prevent or to stop the war:

• Russia was a prime mover in the establishment of the Balkan League and saw it as an essential tool in case of a future war against its rival, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But it was unaware of the Bulgarian plans over Thrace and Constantinople, territories on which it had long-held ambitions, and on which it had just secured a secret agreement of expansion from its allies France and Britain, as a reward in participating in the upcoming Great War against the Central Powers.

• France, not feeling ready for a war against Germany in 1912, took a totally negative position against the war, firmly informing its ally Russia that it would not take part in a potential conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary if it resulted from the actions of the Balkan League. The French however failed to achieve British participation in a common intervention to stop the Balkan conflict.

• The British Empire, although officially a staunch supporter of the Ottoman Empire's integrity, took secret diplomatic steps encouraging the Greek entry into the League in order to counteract Russian influence. At the same time it encouraged the Bulgarian aspirations over Thrace, preferring a Bulgarian Thrace to a Russian one, despite the assurances the British had given to the Russians in regard of their expansion there.

• Austria-Hungary, struggling for an exit from the Adriatic and seeking ways for expansion in the south at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, was totally opposed to any other nation's expansion in the area. At the same time, the Habsburg empire had its own internal problems with the significant Slav populations that campaigned against the German-Hungarian control of the multinational state. Serbia, whose aspirations in the direction of the Austrian-held Bosnia were no secret, was considered an enemy and the main tool of Russian machinations that were behind the agitation of Austria's Slav subjects. But Austria-Hungary failed to achieve German backup for a firm reaction. Initially, Emperor Wilhelm II told the Archduke Franz Ferdinand that Germany was ready to support Austria in all circumstances—even at the risk of a world war, but Austro-Hungarians hesitated. Finally, in the German Imperial War Council of 8 December 1912 the consensus was that Germany would not be ready for war until at least mid-1914 and notes about that passed to the Habsburgs. Consequently no actions could be taken when the Serbs acceded to the Austria ultimatum of October 18 and withdrawn from Albania.

• Germany, already heavily involved in the internal Ottoman politics, officially opposed a war against the Empire. But in her effort to win Bulgaria for the Central Powers, and seeing the inevitability of Ottoman disintegration, was playing with the idea to replace the Balkan positions of the Ottomans with a friendly Greater Bulgaria in her San Stefano borders—an idea that was based on the German origin of the Bulgarian King and his anti-Russian sentiments.


The Second Balkan war was a catastrophic blow to the Russian policies in the Balkans, in where Russia had focused its interests for exit to the "warm seas" for centuries. First, it marked the end of the Balkan League, a vital arm to the Russian system of defence against Austria-Hungary. Secondly, the clearly pro-Serbian position Russia had forced to take in the conflict, mainly due to the Bulgarian uncompromising aggressiveness, caused a permanent break-up between the two countries.

Accordingly, Bulgaria reverted its policy into a more close to the Central Powers understanding over an anti-Serbian front, due to its new national aspirations, now expressed mainly against Serbia. As a result, Serbia isolated militarily against its rival Austria-Hungary; a development that eventually doomed Serbia in the coming war a year later. But most damaging, the new situation effectively trapped the Russian foreign policy:

After 1913, Russia could not afford losing its last ally in this critical for her interests area and thus had no alternatives but to unconditionally support Serbia when the crisis between Serbia and Austria broke out in 1914. This was a position that inevitably drew her, although unwillingly, in a World War with devastating for her, results, since it was less prepared (both militarily and socially) for that event, than any other Great Power.

Austria-Hungary took alarm at the great increase in Serbia's territory at the expense of its national aspirations in the region, as well as Serbia's rising status, especially to the Austro-Hungarian Slavic populations. This concern was shared by Germany, which saw Serbia as a satellite of Russia. This contributed significantly to the two Central Powers' willingness to go to a war as soon as possible.

Finally, when a Serbian backed organization assassinated the heir of the Austro-Hungarian throne, causing the 1914 July Crisis, nobody could stop the conflict and the First World War broke out.

Khidmat Menaip Assignment kerana kesuntukan masa, kekurangan buku rujukan dan takde idea Klik Sini or dapatkan contoh Assignment di Sini

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The Balkan Factors of World War I

Few issues in modern history have received as much attention as assigning responsibility for the outbreak of the World War in 1914. The debate began during the war itself as each side tried to lay blame on the other, became part of the "war guilt" question after 1918, went through a phase of revisionism in the 1920s, and was revived in the 1960s thanks to the work of Fritz Fischer.

This lecture also deals with the causes of World War I, but does so from a Balkan perspective. Certainly Great Power tensions were widespread in 1914, and those tensions caused the rapid spread of the war after it broke out, but many previous Great Power crises had been resolved without war. Why did this particular episode, a Balkan crisis that began with a political murder in Bosnia, prove so unmanageable and dangerous?

Some questions will help to frame our inquiry:

* What was the purpose of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914?
* Who was responsible for the killing, besides the assassins themselves?
* Was a war inevitable after the murder, or did policy-makers let the crisis escape their control?
* Finally, why did a Balkan crisis lead to a world war in 1914, when other crises had not?

Focusing on the Balkans

From a Balkan perspective, it is crucial to look at the actors and decision-makers who were at work during the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, the two states involved in the original Sarajevo crisis. Doing so highlights factors that are somewhat different from those at work among the Great Powers at large, or those cited in general explanations for the war.

General treatments of the European crisis of 1914 often blame Great Power statesmen for their shortsightedness, incompetence, or failure to act in a timely or effective way to keep the peace. A common theme is the passive nature of Great Power policy: leaders reacted to events instead of proactively managing the crisis. With some justification, scholars conclude that French leaders had little choice: France was the object of a German invasion. England in turn entered the war because a successful German attack on France and Belgium would have made Germany too powerful. Both Germany and Russia mobilized their armies in haste, because each one feared defeat by powerful enemies if they delayed. Germany and Russia also rashly committed themselves to support Balkan clients -- Austria-Hungary and Serbia, respectively -- because Berlin and St. Petersburg feared that failure to do so would cost them the trust of important allies and leave them isolated. This interpretation treats Balkan matters largely through their influence on policies elsewhere.

An analysis rooted in a Balkan perspective, on the other hand, can evaluate the proactive steps taken in the region from the start of the crisis. Unfortunately, when Austrians, Hungarians and Serbs made important decisions early in the crisis, they consistently avoided compromise and risked war. Two months passed between the murder of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by a Bosnian Serb high school student on June 28, and the coming of general war at the end of August. In other words, there was plenty of time for calculation, caution and decision. Who chose to risk war, and why?

The purpose of the murder itself

The murder itself was hardly a mystery. There were scores of witnesses and the killers were immediately arrested: we even have a photograph of Gavrilo Princip being wrestled to the ground by police. The conspirators willingly confessed: transcripts of their trial statements have been published. Nor was the fact of murder per se crucial. It was an age of assassins: Franz Joseph's wife, the Empress Elizabeth, had been murdered in 1898 in Switzerland by an Italian, but Austria did not seek war with Italy or Switzerland. It was the significance of this particular crime for Austro-Serbian relations that mattered.

Serbian blame: the assassins

To assess the degree of Serbian guilt, we should look in three places: the young Bosnian assassins, their backers in Serbia, and the Serbian government.

In an open car, Franz Ferdinand, his wife Sophie Chotek and Governor Potiorek passed seven assassins as their procession drove through Sarajevo. A look at the actual participants tells us something about South Slav nationalist dissatisfaction in Habsburg-ruled Bosnia.

The first conspirator along the parade route was Mehmed Mehmedbasic, a 27-year old carpenter, son of an impoverished Bosnian Muslim notable: he had a bomb. After planning a plot of his own to kill Governor Potiorek, Mehmedbasic joined the larger plot. When the car passed him, he did nothing: a gendarme stood close by, and Mehmedbasic feared that a botched attempt might spoil the chance for the others. He was the only one of the assassins to escape.

Next was Vaso Cubrilovic, a 17-year old student armed with a revolver. Cubrilovic was recruited for the plot during a political discussion: in Bosnia in 1914, virtual strangers could soon be plotting political murders together, if they shared radical interests. Cubrilovic had been expelled from the Tuzla high school for walking out during the Habsburg anthem. Cubrilovic too did nothing, afraid of shooting Duchess Sophie by accident. Under Austrian law, there was no death penalty for juvenile offenders, so Cubrilovic was sentenced to 16 years. In later life he became a history professor.

Nedelko Cabrinovic was the third man, a 20-year old idler who was on bad terms with his family over his politics: he took part in strikes and read anarchist books. His father ran a cafe, did errands for the local police, and beat his family. Nedeljko dropped out of school, and moved from job to job: locksmithing, operating a lathe and setting type. In 1914 Cabrinovic worked for the Serbian state printing house in Belgrade. He was a friend of Gavrilo Princip, who recruited him there for the killing, and they travelled together back to Sarajevo. Cabrinovic threw a bomb, but failed to see the car in time to aim well: he missed the heir's car and hit the next one, injuring several people. Cabrinovic swallowed poison and jumped into a canal, but he was saved from suicide and arrested. He died of tuberculosis in prison in 1916.

The fourth and fifth plotters were standing together. One was Cvetko Popovic, an 18-year old student who seems to have lost his nerve, although he claimed not to have seen the car, being nearsighted. Popovic received a 13-year sentence, and later became a school principal.

Nearby was 24-year old Danilo Ilic, the main organizer of the plot; he had no weapon. Ilic was raised in Sarajevo by his mother, a laundress. His father was dead, and Ilic worked as a newsboy, a theatre usher, a laborer, a railway porter, a stone-worker and a longshoreman while finishing school; later he was a teacher, a bank clerk, and a nurse during the Balkan Wars. His real vocation was political agitation: he had contacts in Bosnia, with the Black Hand in Serbia and in the exile community in Switzerland. He obtained the guns and bombs used in the plot. Ilic was executed for the crime.

The final two of the seven conspirators were farther down the road. Trifko Grabez was a 19-year old Bosnian going to school in Belgrade, where he became friends with Princip. He too did nothing: at his trial he said he was afraid of hurting some nearby women and children, and feared that an innocent friend standing with him would be arrested unjustly. He too died in prison: the Austrians spared few resources for the health of the assassins after conviction.

Gavrilo Princip was last. Also 19-years old, he was a student who had never held a job. His peasant family owned a tiny farm of four acres, the remnant of a communal zadruga broken up in the 1880s; for extra cash, his father drove a mail coach. Gavrilo was sickly but smart: at 13 he went off to the Merchants Boarding School in Sarajevo. He soon turned up his nose at commerce in favor of literature, poetry and student politics. For his role in a demonstration, he was expelled and lost his scholarship. In 1912 he went to Belgrade: he never enrolled in school, but dabbled in literature and politics, and somehow made contact with Apis and the Black Hand. During the Balkan Wars he volunteered for the Serbian army, but was rejected as too small and weak.

On the day of the attack, Princip heard Cabrinovic's bomb go off and assumed that the Archduke was dead. By the time he heard what had really happened, the cars had driven past him. By bad luck, a little later the returning procession missed a turn and stopped to back up at a corner just as Princip happened to walk by. Princip fired two shots: one killed the archduke, the other his wife. Princip was arrested before he could swallow his poison capsule or shoot himself. Princip too was a minor under Austrian law, so he could not be executed. Instead he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and died of tuberculosis in 1916.

We can make some generalizations about the plotters. All were Bosnian by birth. Most were Serbian, or one might say Orthodox, but one was a Bosnian Muslim: at their trial, the plotters did not speak of Serbian, Croatian or Muslim identity, only their unhappiness with the Habsburgs. None of the plotters was older than 27: so none of them were old enough to remember the Ottoman regime. Their anger over conditions in Bosnia seems directed simply at the visible authorities. The assassins were not advanced political thinkers: most were high school students. From statements at their trial, the killing seems to have been a symbolic act of protest. Certainly they did not expect it to cause a war between Austria and Serbia.

A closer look at the victims also supports this view: that symbolic, not real, power was at stake. Assassination attempts were not unusual in Bosnia. Some of the plotters originally planned to kill Governor Potiorek, and only switched to the royal couple at the last minute. Franz Ferdinand had limited political influence. He was Emperor Franz Joseph's nephew, and became the heir when Franz Joseph's son killed himself in 1889 (his sisters could not take the throne).

This position conferred less power than one might think. Franz Ferdinand's wife, Sophie Chotek, was a Bohemian noblewoman, but not noble enough to be royal. She was scorned by many at court, and their children were out of the line of succession (Franz Ferdinand's brother Otto was next). Franz Ferdinand had strong opinions, a sharp tongue and many political enemies. He favored "trialism," adding a third Slavic component to the Dual Monarchy, in part to reduce the influence of the Hungarians. His relations with Budapest were so bad that gossips blamed the killing on Magyar politicians. There have been efforts to say that Serbian politicians had him killed to block his pro-Slav reform plans, but the evidence for this is thin.

Serbian blame: the Black Hand

The assassins did not act alone. Who was involved within Serbia, and why? To understand Serbian actions accurately, we must distinguish between the Radical Party led by Prime Minister Pasic, and the circle of radicals in the army around Apis, the man who led the murders of the Serbian royal couple in 1903.

The role of Apis in 1914 is a matter of guesswork, despite many investigations. The planning was secret, and most of the participants died without making reliable statements . Student groups like Mlada Bosna were capable of hatching murder plots on their own. During 1913 several of the eventual participants talked about murdering General Oskar Potiorek, the provincial Governor or even Emperor Franz Joseph.

Once identified as would-be assassins, however, the Bosnian students seem to have been directed toward Franz Ferdinand by Dimitrijevic-Apis, by now a colonel in charge of Serbian intelligence. Princip returned from a trip to Belgrade early in 1914 with a plan to kill Franz Ferdinand, contacts in the Black Hand who later supplied the guns and bombs, and information about the planned June visit by the heir, which Princip would not have known without a leak or tip from within Serbian intelligence. In 1917, Apis took credit for planning the killing, but his motives can be questioned: at the time, he was being tried for treason against the Serbian king, and mistakenly believed that his role in the plot would lead to leniency. In fact, the Radical Party and the king were afraid of Apis and had him shot.

Those who believe Apis was at work point to "trialism" as his motive. Apis is supposed to have seen the heir as the only man capable of reviving Austria-Hungary. If Franz Ferdinand had reorganized the Habsburg Empire on a trialist basis, satisfying the Habsburg South Slavs, Serbian hopes to expand into Bosnia and Croatia would have been blocked. In early June 1914, Apis is said to have decided to give guns and bombs to Princip and his accomplices, and arranged to get the students back over the border into Bosnia without passing through the border checkpoints. Later in the month, other members of the Black Hand ruling council voted to cancel the plan, but by then it was too late to call back the assassins.

Serbian blame: Pasic and the state

While Apis may or may not have been guilty of planning the murder, the murder did not necessarily mean war. There was no irresistable outburst of popular anger after the assassination: Austria-Hungary did not take revenge in hot blood, but waited almost two months. When the Habsburg state did react against Serbia, it was in a calculated manner as we will see in a moment. For now, suffice it to say that the Austrians chose to blame the Pasic government for the crime. How culpable was the Serbian regime?

There is no evidence to suggest that Pasic planned the crime. It is unlikely that the Black Hand officers were acting on behalf of the government, because the military and the Radical Party in fact were engaged in a bitter competition to control the state. After the Balkan Wars, both military and civilian figures claimed the right to administer the newly liberated lands (the so-called Priority Question). After 1903, Pasic knew that Apis' clique would kill to get their way.

Pasic's responsibility revolves around reports that he was warned of the intended crime, and took inadequate steps to warn Austrian authorities. Despite Pasic's denials, there is substantial testimony that someone alerted him to the plot, and that Pasic ordered the Serbian ambassador in Vienna to tell the Austrians that an attempt would be made on the life of the heir during his visit to Bosnia.

However, when the Serbian ambassador passed on the warning, he appears to have been too discreet. Instead of saying that he knew of an actual plot, he spoke in terms of a hypothetical assassination attempt, and suggested that a state visit by Franz Ferdinand on the day of Kosovo (June 28) was too provocative. Austrian diplomats failed to read between the lines of this vague comment. By the time the warning reached the Habsburg joint finance minister (the man in charge of Bosnian affairs) any sense of urgency had been lost, and he did nothing to increase security or cancel the heir's planned visit. After the murders, the Serbian government was even more reluctant to compromise itself by admitting any prior knowledge, hence Pasic's later denials.

If we agree that the Pasic government did not plan the killings, what can we say about their response to the crisis that followed? War in 1914 was not inevitable: did the Serbs work hard enough to avoid it?

Blame in Austria-Hungary

Before we can answer that question, we must look at the official Austrian reaction to the killing. This took two forms. First, the police and the courts undertook a wide-ranging series of arrests and investigations. Hundreds of people were arrested or questioned, sometimes violently. Twenty-five people were finally tried and convicted, though only a few were executed, because so many of the defendants were minors.

Second, the Austrian foreign ministry and the emperor's closest advisors considered what to do about Serbia's role in the plot. Investigators quickly learned that the murder weapons came from Serbian sources, but Austrian intelligence failed to distinguish between the roles of the Pasic administration and the unofficial nationalist groups: for that matter, they blamed Narodna Odbrana for the crime, apparently unaware of the Black Hand.

Austria's blame for the war attaches to its calculated response to the murders. Early councils were divided. The chief of staff, General Franz Baron Conrad von Hoetzendorf, wanted a military response from the beginning. Conrad had previously argued that the Monarchy was surrounded by enemies who needed to be defeated individually, before they could combine. In other words, he wanted a war against the Serbs and Russians, followed later by a confrontation with Italy. Leopold Count von Berchtold, the Habsburg foreign minister, generally agreed with Conrad's analysis. Berchtold took no strong position in the crisis: he was apparently convinced by Conrad, and his only hesitation involved the need to prepare public opinion for war.

The only real opposition to a policy of confrontation and war came from the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Stephan Tisza. Tisza was personally opposed to militarism and took the risks of war more seriously than Conrad. Also, as a Magyar, Tisza realized that a Habsburg victory would be a domestic defeat for Hungarians: if Austria annexed Serbia, the delicate ethnic balance in the Dual Monarchy would be lost. Either the Slavic population of Hungary would increase, leaving the Magyars as a minority in their own country, or trialism would replace the dualist system, again discounting Magyar influence.

The early Austrian deliberations included another, calculated element that shows their limited interest in peace: in weighing the merits of a military response, Vienna first sought the reaction of her German ally. The Austrian ambassador in Berlin found that the Germans, especially Kaiser Wilhelm, supported a war to punish Serbia and offered their full support. This was in clear contrast to events during the Balkan War of 1912, when Berlin refused to back Vienna in any intervention. Like the Austrians, the Germans feared a future war with Russia, and preferred to fight soon, before their enemies grew stronger.

When the Austrian Council of Ministers met again on July 7, the majority favored war. To satisfy Tisza, the council agreed to present demands to Serbia, rather than declare war at once. In the belief that a diplomatic victory alone would not be enough to destroy Serbia as a threat, the demands were deliberately to be written in such extreme terms that Serbia could not accept them. Serbia's refusal to comply would then become the excuse for war. Within a week, Tisza himself consented to this plan: his only reservation was insistence that no Serbian territory be annexed after the war.

The final 10-point ultimatum demanded the suppression of anti-Austrian newspapers and organizations (including Narodna Odbrana), a purge of anti-Austrian teachers and officers, and the arrest of certain named offenders. Two points seriously interfered in Serbian sovereignty:

* Austrian police would help suppress subversives on Serbian territory, and
* Austrian courts would help prosecute accused conspirators inside Serbia.

The document had a 48-hour deadline. The council finalized the demands on July 19th and sent them to Belgrade on the 23rd. The war party in Vienna hoped that the Serbs would fail to agree, and that this could be an excuse for war. The 48-hour time limit is further evidence that the document was not meant as a negotiating proposal, but as an ultimatum.

We can say three things about how the Austrian process of decision bears on Austria's responsibility:

* First, the majority in the Council of Ministers assumed from the first that war was the appropriate response. Only Count Tisza opposed it, and he did so largely for reasons of domestic politics. His objections were overcome by the promise to seek no annexation of Serbia. The negotiations with Serbia were really a sham, to create a good impression: even the 48-hour ultimatum shows that crisis, not compromise, was the intent.
* A second clue to Austria's intent is Vienna's approach to Berlin for Germany support in case of war. After the Berlin government responded with the so-called "blank check," the war party saw no further reason to seek peace.
* Third, the terms of the ultimatum show that the Austrians came to a decision even though they were acting on incomplete information. The ultimatum was issued well before the trial of the assassins could establish the facts of the crime. Vienna knew nothing about the Black Hand or its role, but it made no difference: the decision for war was based on expediency, not justice or facts.

The Serb reply

The Serbs in turn failed to do their utmost to defuse the crisis. When Serbia first received the ultimatum, Pasic indicated that he could accept its terms, with a few reservations and requests for clarification. As time passed, however, it became clear that Russia would support Serbia regardless of the situation. After that, Pasic gave up seeking peace. While a long reply was written and sent, Serbia rejected the key points about Austrian interference in domestic judicial and police work. Pasic knew that this meant war, and the Serbian army began to mobilize even before the reply was complete. While mobilization was prudent, it did not imply a strong commitment to peace. Because the Serbian reply did not accept every point, Austria broke off relations on July 25.

The tough positions taken by both Austria and Serbia brought the situation too close to the brink to step back, and in a few days matters were out of control. Again, the specific arguments raised by each side matter less than their mutual willingness to take risks. This policy of brinkmanship made war more likely than negotiation.

Why a Balkan war?

This leads us to the last question: why did the Balkan crisis of 1914 lead to World War I, when many other crises were resolved without a general war in Europe?

This is really two questions:

* First, why did the crisis led to a war between Austria and Serbia? and
* Second, why did that conflict soon involve the rest of the Great Powers?

From what we have seen about risktaking by the Austro-Hungarians and the Serbs, we can say something about why those two states went to war in 1914.

In the first place, both governments believed that their prestige and credibility were on the line, not only in the international community, but at home.

For the Austrians, a personal attack on the royal family required a strong response, especially if the assassins were Serbs, who had defied the Dual Monarchy during the Pig War, been labelled as traitors during the Friedjung Trial, and recently destroyed southeastern Europe's other dynastic empire (the Ottomans). Failure to act in the summer of 1914 invited greater turmoil later.

For the Serbian regime, the humiliating Austrian terms would have undone all the progress made since 1903 in achieving independence from Habsburg meddling. The economic Pig War, Austria's annexation of Bosnia in 1908, and now the demand to send police into Serbia, all implied renewed Austrian control. In addition, Pasic and his ministers faced a real risk that right-wing extremists would kill them if they backed down.

On the international stage, both sides were one defeat away from being marginalized: Austria-Hungary had no intention of replacing the Ottoman Empire as the "Sick Man of Europe" and Serbia refused to be treated as a protectorate.

Second, in 1914 both sides believed that they were in a strong position to win if war came. The Austrians had German backing; the Serbs had promises from Russia. Neither side considered the chance that the war would spread across Europe.

Third, neither side really believed that their differences could be settled by negotiation. Only one regime could rule the South Slavs in Bosnia.

Fourth, both sides focussed on the fruits of victory and ignored the costs of defeat. We have already discussed the Great Serb ideas that became Belgrade's war aims: annexation of Bosnia, Croatia, Vojvodina and so forth. Despite promises to Tisza that the war would bring no annexation of unwelcome Slavs, by 1916 the Vienna government drew up plans for the annexation of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as border districts in Russia and Italy, and an economic plan to make Albania and Romania into economic dependencies.

Fifth, there was too little fear of war. After the Greco-Turk war of 1897, the ethnic fighting in Macedonia, the two Balkan Wars, and the Italian war with Turkey in 1911, war in the Balkans was not unusual. A little warfare had become commonplace, a normal aspect of foreign relations. No one foresaw what the World War would mean.

In sum, too many leaders on both sides in 1914 deliberately decided to risk crisis and war, and the initial Austro-Serb combat was the result.

Finally, why was the local war between Austria and Serbia so significant that it grew into a World War? Here, we can draw inferences from what we know of the Eastern Question and past Balkan politics. An essential element of Greek, Serb and Bulgarian nationalism had always been the destruction of the Ottoman Empire: the achievement of national unity necessarily meant the achievement of Ottoman collapse.

The same choice pertained to Austria-Hungary. Concessions to Serbian nationalism could only make Vienna's problems worse, not solve them. After the South Slavs would come the Romanians, the Italians, the Czechs and the Slovaks, each with their demands. Once the Habsburg Monarchy started down that road, it would inevitably disappear as a Great Power.

The potential collapse of Austria-Hungary was important not only for the Vienna government, but for Austria's German ally, for the other Great Powers and for the balance of power system. Because the clash with Serbia in 1914 affected an issue of such magnitude, it is not surprising that all the Powers soon became involved: all of them had interests at stake. The specific steps to the World War, and the division into two sides, reflected local considerations from Poland to Belgium: but the risk of world war, and not just war, entered the equation because of the larger ethnic issues behind the Sarajevo crisis of 1914.

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Second Balkan War

The Second Balkan War was a conflict which 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 June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked, penetrating into Bulgaria. Having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania, the new war caused a 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 give up much of its First Balkan War gains to Serbia, Greece, Romania and the Ottomans. The war caused a permanent break up of the Russo-Bulgarian alliance, and thus left Serbia as the only ally of Russia in this critical region. For this reason Serbia had Russia's full support.

This allowed Serbia to ignite the July crisis of 1914, and after that to keep the uncompromising position against Austria-Hungary that led (through the existing European chains of alliances) to World War I.

The First Balkan War

During the First Balkan War, the Balkan League, composed of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria, had succeeded in driving out the Ottoman Empire from its European provinces (Albania, Macedonia, the Sandžak and Thrace), leaving the Ottomans with only the Çatalca and Gallipoli peninsulas. The Treaty of London, signed on 30 May 1913, which ended the war, acknowledged the Balkan states' gains west of the Enez-Kıyıköy line on an uti possidetis basis, and created an independent Albania.

The Serbian-Bulgarian pre-war division of Macedonia, including the contested area However, the relations between the victorious Balkan allies became quickly strained over the division of the spoils, especially Macedonia. During the prewar negotiations that had led to the establishment of the Balkan League, Serbia and Bulgaria signed a secret agreement on 13 March 1912 which determined their future boundaries, in effect sharing north Macedonia between them along the Kriva Palanka–Ohrid line (with both cities going to the Bulgarians).

This left the bulk of Vardar Macedonia in Bulgarian hands. In case of a post-war disagreement, the northern part had been assigned as "disputed zone" under Russian arbitration and the southern part under Bulgarian control. Bulgaria's policy was to use the agreement to limit Serbia's access to Macedonia, while at the same time denying any such agreement with Greece, believing that its army would be able to occupy the larger part of south Macedonia and the important port city of Thessaloniki before the Greeks. In the event, during the war, the Serbs succeeded in capturing an area far south of the agreed border, down to the Bitola–Gevgelija line (both in Serbian hands).

At the same time, the Greeks were able to advance north, occupying Thessaloniki shortly before the Bulgarians arrived, and establishing a common border with the Serbs. When Bulgaria called upon Serbia to honor their prewar agreement over northern Macedonia, the Serbs, displeased at being forced by the Great Powers to evacuate Albania, adamantly refused to give up any more territory. Very soon, minor clashes broke out along the borders of the occupation zones between the Bulgarians, the Serbs and the Greeks. Responding to the perceived Bulgarian threat, Serbia started negotiations with Greece, which also had reasons to be concerned about Bulgarian intentions.

Only a few years before, the Greeks and Bulgarians had fought a vicious guerrilla war in the area, and a Bulgarian regiment, which had been allowed to enter Thessaloniki eight months before, ostensibly for recuperation, had remained there ever since. The territorial gains of the Balkan states after the First Balkan War and the line of expansion according to the prewar secret agreement between Serbia and Bulgaria On 19 May/1 June 1913, a day after the Treaty of London was signed and just 16 days before the Bulgarian attack, a secret Serbian-Greek military protocol was signed, confirming the current demarcation line between the two occupation zones as their mutual border and concluding an alliance in case of an attack from Bulgaria or Austria-Hungary.

During the negotiations Serbia preferred not to explain the roots of its dispute with Bulgaria, failing to notify the Greeks about their prewar settlements with Bulgaria over Macedonia. With this agreement, Serbia succeeded in making Greece a part of its dispute over northern Macedonia, since Greece had guaranteed Serbia's current (and disputed) occupation zone in Macedonia.[6] Bulgarian diplomacy, under Prime Minister Geshov, in an attempt to halt the Serbo-Greek rapprochement, signed a protocol with Greece on 21 May agreeing on a permanent demarcation line between their respective forces, in effect unofficially accepting Greek's control over southern Macedonia. But his later dismissal ended his Serbia-targeting diplomacy.

Another point of friction was Bulgaria's refusal to cede the fortress of Silistra to Romania as promised before the war in exchange for Romanian neutrality. When Romania after the (First Balkan) war demanded its cession, Bulgaria's foreign minister offered instead some minor border changes, which excluded Silistra, and assurances for the rights of the Kutzovlachs in Macedonia. Romania threatened to occupy the promised territory by force, but a Russian proposal for arbitration prevented hostilities. In the resulting Protocol of St. Petersburg of 8 May 1913, Bulgaria agreed to give Silistra but not the area of Dobrudzha.

Under Russian pressure Romania finally agreed. The resulting agreement was a compromise between the Romanian demands for Dobrudzha and the Bulgarian refusal to accept any meaningful cession of its territory. However the fact that Russia failed to protect the territorial integrity of Bulgaria made the Bulgarians uncertain of the reliability of the expected Russian arbitration of the dispute with Serbia. The Bulgarian behavior had also a long termed consequence over the Russo-Bulgarian relations as together with the uncompromising Bulgarian position tο review the prewar agreement with Serbia during a second Russian initiative for arbitration between them, finally led Russia to cancel its alliance with Bulgaria. Both acts were making a conflict with Romania and Serbia inevitable.

Going to war - Bulgarian plans Ferdinand I of Bulgaria

In 1912 Bulgaria's national aspiration, as this had been expressed through the King Ferdinand and the military leadership around him, exceeded the provisions of what was considered in 1878 as maximalistic, Treaty of San Stefano, since it included both Eastern and Western Thrace and all Macedonia with Thessaloniki, Edirne and Constantinople. An early evidence of the lack of realistic thinking in Bulgarian leadership was that although Russia had sent clear warnings expressed for the first time in 5 November 1912 (well before the first battle of Çatalca) that if the Bulgarian Army occupied Constantinople they will attack it, they continued and tried to take the city.

Although the Bulgarian Army succeeded in capturing Edirne (with the help of the Serbian Army), King Ferdinand's ambition in crowning himself an Emperor in Constantinople proved also unrealistic when Bulgarian Army failed to capture the city in the battle of Çatalca. Even worse, the effort in capturing Thrace and Constantinople ultimately caused the loss of the major part of Macedonia including Thessaloniki and that could not be easily accepted, leading the Bulgarian military leadership around King Ferdinand to decide upon a war against its former allies.

However, with the Ottomans unwilling to definitely accept the loss of Thrace in the east, and an enraged Romania (on the north), the decision to open a war against both Greece (to the south) and Serbia (to the west), was a rather adventurous one, since: Peter I of Serbia In May the Turks had urgently requested a German mission to reorganize the Ottoman army.

By mid June Bulgaria became aware of the agreement between Serbia and Greece in case of a Bulgarian attack. In 27 June Montenegro announced that it would side with Serbia in the event of a Serbian-Bulgarian war, on 5 February Romania settled her differences over Transylvania with Austro-Hungary signing a military alliance and on 28 June officially warned Bulgaria that it would not remain neutral in a new Balkan war.

As skirmishing continued in Macedonia, mainly between Serbian and Bulgarian troops, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia tried to stop the upcoming conflict, since Russia didn't wish to lose either of its Slavic allies in the Balkans. On 8 June, he sent an identical personal message to the Kings of Bulgaria and Serbia, offering to act as arbitrator according to the provisions of the 1912 Serbo-Bulgarian treaty. Serbia was asking for a revision of the original treaty, since it had already lost north Albania due to the Great Powers' decision to establish the state of Albania, an area that had been recognized as a Serbian territory of expansion under the prewar Serbo-Bulgarian treaty, in exchange for the Bulgarian territory of expansion in northern Macedonia.

The Bulgarian reply to the Russian invitation contained so many conditions that it amounted to an ultimatum, leading Russian diplomats to realize the Bulgarians had already decided to go to a war with Serbia. That caused Russia to cancel the arbitration initiative and to angrily repudiate its alliance with Bulgaria (see Russo-Bulgarian treaty of alliance of 1902). Bulgaria was shattering the Balkan league, Russia's best defense against Austria-Hungarian expansionism a structure that had cost Russia so much blood, money and diplomatic capital during the last 35 years.

Sazonov's exact words to Danev were "Do not expect anything from us and forget the existence of any of our agreements from 1902 until present". Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was already angry with Bulgaria because of the later's denial to honor its recently signed agreement with Romania over Silistra succeeded also after Russian arbitration. Then Serbia and Greece proposed that each of the three countries reduce its army by one fourth, as a first step to facilitate a peaceful solution, but Bulgaria rejected it.

Carol I of Romania Bulgaria was already on the track to war, since a new cabinet had been formed in Bulgaria where the pacifist M. Geshov was replaced by the hardliner and head of a russophil party Dr. Danev as premier. There is some evidence that to overcome King Ferdinand's reservations over a new war against Serbia and Greece, certain personalities in Sofia threatened to overthrow him.

In any case on 16 June, the Bulgarian high command, under the direct control of King Ferdinand and without notifying the government,ordered Bulgarian troops to start a surprise attack simultaneously against both the Serbian and Greek positions, without declaring war and to dismiss any orders contradicting the attack order. The next day the government put pressure on the General Staff to order the army to cease hostilities which caused confusion and loss of initiative and failed to remedy the state of undeclared war.

In response to the government pressure King Ferdinand dismissed General Savov and replaced him with General Dimitriev as Commander-in-chief. Nicholas I of Montenegro Bulgaria's intention was to defeat Serbs and Greeks and to occupy areas as large as possible before the Great Powers interfered to stop the hostilities. In order to provide the necessary superiority in arms, the entire Bulgarian army was committed to these operations.

No provisions were made in case of a Romanian intervention or an Ottoman counterattack, strangely assuming that Russia would assure that no attack would come from those direction, even though on 9 June Russia had angrily repudiated its Bulgarian alliance and shifted its diplomacy towards Romania (Russia already had named Romania's King Carol an honorary Russian Field Marshal, as a clear warning in shifting its policy towards Sofia in December 1912).

The plan was for a concentrated attack against the Serbian army across the Vardar plain to neutralize it and to capture north Macedonia, together with a less concentrated one against the Greek Army near Thessaloniki, which had approximately half the size of the Serbian in order to capture the city and south Macedonia. The Bulgarian high command was not sure whether their forces were enough to defeat the Greek Army, but they thought them enough for defending the south front as a worst case scenario, until the arrival of additional forces after defeating the Serbian Army to the north.

Opposing forces

According to the Military Law of 1903, the armed forces of Bulgaria were divided in two categories: the Active Army and the National Militia. The the core of the Armed forces consisted of nine infantry and one cavalry division.

Unlike most other armies of Europe, the Bulgarian Army had a very heavy, almost misleading organization, since each infantry division had three brigades of two regiments, composed of four battalions of six heavy companies of 250 men each, plus an independent battalion, two large artillery regiments and one cavalry regiment, giving a grand total of 25 very heavy infantry battalions and 16 cavalry companies per division, which was more than the equivalent of six nine-battalion divisions, the standard divisional structure in most contemporary armies, as was also the case with the Greek and Serbian armies in 1913.

Consequently although the Bulgarian Army had a total of 599,878 men mobilized in the beginning of the First Balkan War, there were only 9 organizational divisions, giving a divisional strength closer to an Army Corps than to a Division.

Tactical necessities during and after the First Balkan War modified this original structure: a new 10th division was formed using two brigades from the 1st and 6th divisions, and an additional three independent brigades were formed from new recruits. Nevertheless, the heavy structure generally remained. By contrast, the Greek Army of Macedonia had also 9 Divisions but the total number of men under arms was only 118,000. Another decisive factor affecting the real strength of the divisions between the opposing armies was the distribution of artillery.

The nine division-strong Greek Army had a total of 176 guns and the ten division-strong Serbian Army, 230. The Bulgarians had 1,116, a ratio of 6:1 against the Greeks and 5:1 against the Serbian Army. There is a dispute over the strength of the Bulgarian Army during the Second Balkan War. At the outbreak of the First Balkan War, Bulgaria mobilized a total of 599,878 men(366,209 in the Active Army;53,927 in the supplementing units;53,983 in the National Militia; 94,526 from the 1912 and 1913 levies;14,204 volunteers;14,424 in the border guards). The non-recoverable casualties during the First Balkan War were 33,000 men (14,000 killed and 19,000 died of disease).

To replace these casualties Bulgaria conscripted 60,000 men between the two wars, mainly from the newly occupied areas, using 21,000 of them to form the Seres, Drama and Odrin independent brigades. It is known that there were no demobilized men.

According to the Bulgarian command the Army had 7,693 officers and 492,528 soldiers in its ranks on the 16th of June (including the above mentioned three brigades).[13] This gives a difference of 99,657 men in strength between the two wars. In comparison, subtracting the actual number of casualties including wounded and adding the newly conscripted men produces a total of no less than 576,878 men. The army was experiencing shortages of war materials and had only 378,998 rifles at its disposal.

The 1st and 5th armies (under Generals Vasil Kutinchev and Stefan Toshev respectively) were deployed along the old Serbian-Bulgarian borders, with the 3rd Army under General Radko Dimitriev around Kyustendil, and the 4th Army under Stilian Kovachev in the Kočani-Radoviš area. The 2nd Army under General Nikola Ivanov was detailed against the Greek army. The army of the Kingdom of Serbia accounted for 348,000 men (out of which 252,000 were combatants)[1] divided into three armies with 10 divisions. Its main force was deployed on the Macedonian front along the Vardar river and near Skopje.

Its nominal commander-in-chief was King Peter I, with Radomir Putnik as his chief of staff and effective field commander. By early June, the army of the Kingdom of Greece had a grand total of some 142,000 armed men with nine infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade. The bulk of the army with 8 divisions and a cavalry brigate (117,861 men) was gathered in Macedonia, positioned in an arc north, northeastern of Thessalonica while one division and independent units (24,416 men) were left in Epirus.

With the outbreak of hostilities, the 8th division (stationed in Epirus) was transferred to the front, and with the arrival of new recruits, the army's strength in the Macedonian theater increased eventually to some 145,000 men with 176 guns. King Constantine I assumed command of the Greek forces, with Lt. General Viktor Dousmanis as his chief of staff but as in the First Balkan War the organizational and strategic mind behind the scene was Major (later Lt. General) Ioannis Metaxas.

The Kingdom of Montenegro sent one division of 12,000 men under General Janko Vukotić to the Serbian-Macedonian front. The Kingdom of Romania mobilized over 330,000 men, allocated in five corps. 80,000 of them were assembled to occupy the Southern Dobrudja, while an army of 250,000 was assembled to carry the main offensive into Bulgaria.


Outbreak of the war

The main Bulgarian attack was planned against the Serbs with their 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th Armies, while the 2nd Army was tasked with an attack towards Greek positions around Thessaloniki. However in the crucial opening days of the war only the 4th Army and 2nd Army were ordered to advance.

This allowed the Serbs to concentrate their forces against the attacking Bulgarians and hold their advance. The Bulgarians were outnumbered on the Greek front and the low-level fighting soon turned into Greek attack all along the line on 19 June. The Bulgarian forces were forced to withdraw from their positions north of Thessaloniki (except the isolated regiment stationed in the city itself which was quickly overrun) to defensive positions between Kilkis and Struma river.

The plan to quickly destroy the Serbian army in central Macedonia by concentrated attack turned out to be unrealistic and the Bulgarian Army started to retreat even before Romanian intervention and the Greek advance necessitated disengagement of forces in order to defend Sofia.

Battle of Kilkis-Lachanas

The Bulgarian 2nd Army in southern Macedonia commanded by General Ivanov held a line from Dojran Lake south east to Kilkis, Lachanas, Serres and then across the Pangaion Hills to the Aegean Sea. The army had been in place since May, and was considered a veteran force, having fought at the siege of Adrianople in the First Balkan War.

General Ivanov, possibly to avoid any responsibility for his crushing defeat, claimed after the war that his Army consisted of only 36,000 men and that many of his units were understrength, but a detailed analysis of his units contradicted him.

Ivanov's 2nd Army was consisted of the 3rd Division minus one brigade with 4 regiments of 4 battalions (total 16 battalions plus the divisional artillery), the I/X brigade with the 16th and 25th regiments (total of 8 battalions plus artillery), the Drama Brigade with the 69th, 75th and 7th regiments (total of 12 battalions), the Serres Brigade with 67th and 68th regiments (total of 8 battalions), the 11th Division with the 55th, 56th and 57th regiments (total of 12 battalions plus the divisional artillery), the 5th border battalion, the 10th independent battalion and the 10th Cavalry Regiment of 7 mounted and 7 infantry companies. A total of 232 companies in 58 infantry battalions, a cavalry regiment (14 companies) with 175 artillery guns.

That gives a total between 80,000 (official Bulgarian source) and 108,000 (official Greek source according to the official Bulgarian history of the war before 1932). All modern historians agreed that Ivanov underestimated the number of his soldiers but the Greek army still had a numerical superiority.

The Greek Headquarters also estimated the numbers of their opponents from 80,000 to 105,000 men.The Greek army, commanded by King Constantine I, had 8 divisions and a cavalry brigade (117,861 men) with 176 artillery guns in a line extending from the Gulf of Orphano to the Djevjeli area. Since the Greek headquarters did not know where the Bulgarian attack would take place, the Bulgarian Army would have temporary local superiority in the area chosen for the attack.

On 26 June the Bulgarian Army received orders to destroy the opposing Greek forces and to advance towards Thessaloniki. The Greeks stopped them and by June 29 an order for general counterattack was issued. At Kilkis the Bulgarians had constructed strong defenses, including captured Ottoman guns which dominated the plain below. The Greek 4th, 2nd and 5th divisions attacked across the plain in rushes supported by artillery. Greeks suffered heavy casualties but by the following day had carried the trenches. On the Bulgarian left, the Greek 7th Division had captured Serres and the 1st and 6th divisions Lachanas.

The defeat of the 2nd Army by the Greeks was the most serious military disaster suffered by the Bulgarians in the 2nd Balkan war. Bulgarian sources are giving a total of 6,971 casualties. To these Greeks captured more than 6,000 prisoners and more than 130 artillery pieces, suffering 8,700 casualties.

On 28 June, the retreating Bulgarian army and irregulars burned down the major city of Serres (a predominantly Greek town surrounded by a largely Bulgarian hinterland), ostensibly as a retaliation for the burning of the Bulgarian town of Kilkis by the Greeks, which had taken place after the named battle. On the Bulgarian right Evzones captured Gevgelija and the heights of Matsikovo. As a consequence the Bulgarian line of retreat through Doiran was threatened and Ivanov's army began a desperate retreat which at times threatened to become a rout. Reinforcements in the form of the 14th Division came too late and joined the retreat towards Strumica and the Bulgarian border.

The Greeks captured Doirani on 5 July but were unable to cut off the Bulgarian retreat through Struma pass. On 11 July the Greeks came in contact with the Serbs and then pushed on up the Struma River until they reached Kresna Gorge on 24 July. At this point the exhausted Greeks had overstretched their supply lines, and were forced to halt.

Battles of Bregalnica and Kalimanci

During the night of 17 June 1913 Bulgarians attacked the Serbian army at Bregalnica river (Battle of Bregalnica 30 June - 9 July). Thanks to the suddenness of their offensive the Bulgarians were temporarily successful but Serbian army resisted the sudden night attack, while most of the soldiers did not even know who they fought, as Bulgarian camps were located next to Serbians and were considered allies. Montenegro forces were few kilometers away and ran to the battlefield in pijamas.

violent battle lasted for several days, but gradually the Serbs regained the upper hand. By 1 July the Bulgarians were beaten. The losses were very heavy on both sides, and in the end the Bulgarians made a strategic retreat to the east through the mountains. On the north the Bulgarians started to advance towards the Serbian town of Pirot (near the Serbian - Bulgarian border) and forced Serbian Command to send reinforcements to the 2nd Army defending Pirot and Niš. This enabled Bulgarians to stop the Serbian offensive in Macedonia at Kalimanci on 18 July.

Battle of Kresna and armistice

Meanwhile after the Serbian front became static, King Constantine seeing that the Bulgarian Army in his front had been already defeated ordered the Greek Army to march further into Bulgarian territory and take the capital city of Sofia. King Constantine wanted a decisive victory on this war despite the objections of Eleftherios Venizelos who realized that Serbs having won their territorial objectives, were now trying to move the weight of the rest of the war to the Greeks by staying passive.

In the pass of Kresna (Battle of Kresna Gorge) the Greeks were ambushed by the Bulgarian 2nd and 1st Army newly arrived from the Serbian front that had already taken defensive positions there. By 8 July the Greek army was outnumbered by the now counterattaking Bulgarian armies, and the Bulgarian General Staff, attempting to encircle the Greeks in a Cannae-type battle was applying pressure on their flanks The Greek army resisted successfully however, and even launched local counter-attacks.

After committing all available forces to the attack without succeeding a penetration, by 17 July Bulgarian Armies reduced their attack activity having to repulse Greek counterattacks on both sides. To the western flank, Greek Army occupied Berovo, closing Mehomia to the eastern. By then, news came for the Romanian success towards Sofia and its imminent fall.

King Constantine realizing the aimless of the continuation of the counterattack, listened to Venizelos' proposal and accepted the Bulgarian request for armistice, delivered through Romania. Both sides had suffered heavy casualties. The resulted general armistice signed on 18/31 July 1913 ending the most bloodshed battle of the Second Balkan War.

The Bulgarians, with the Romanians having declared war over Silistra and their army closing Sofia had asked for a Russian arbitration. At the day of the armistice the Romanian forces had reached Vrazhdebna, just 7 miles from Sofia. The Turks who invaded Eastern Thrace (12 July) without meeting Bulgarian resistance were already in Edirne being unwilling to stop their advance.

In helping Bulgaria facing the rapid Ottoman advance in Thrace, Russia threatened to enter the war against the Turks by attacking through the Caucasus, and sending the Black Sea Fleet to Constantinople which resulted in a British intervention.

Peace treaty and aftermath

territorial spoils were divided in the Treaty of Bucharest and the Treaty of Constantinople. Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War, including the southern Dobrudja (to Romania), most of Macedonia, and Eastern Thrace (to the Ottomans).

With the strong diplomatic support of Russia it succeeded in retaining Western Thrace, its Aegean outlet, with the port of Dedeagach (Alexandroupolis), and part of Macedonia. Bulgaria thus enlarged its territory by 16 percent compared to what it was before the First Balkan War, and increased its population from 4.3 to 4.7 million people.

Romania enlarged her territory by 5 percent and Montenegro by 62 percent. Greece increased her population from 2.7 to 4.4 million and her territory by 68 percent. Serbia almost doubled her territory enlarging her population from 2.9 to 4.5 million. The treaties forced Greek Army to evacuate the Western Thrace and Pirin Macedonia, which it had occupied during operations.

The retreat from these areas that had to be ceded to Bulgaria, together with the loss of Northern Epirus to Albania, was not well received in Greece; from the occupied during the war areas, Greece succeeded to retain only the territories of Serres and Kavala after a diplomatic support from Germany.

Serbia made additional gains in northern Macedonia and having fulfilled its aspirations to the south, turned its attention to the north where its rivalry with Austro-Hungary over Bosnia-Herzegovina led the two countries to war a year later igniting the First World War. Italy used the excuse of the Balkan wars to keep the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean which had occupied during the Turko-Italian war of 1911 over Libya, despite the agreement that ended that war in 1912.

To the strong insistence of Austro-Hungary and Italy, both hoping to control for themselves the state and thus the Otranto Straits in Adriatic, Albania acquired officially its independence according to the terms of the Treaty of London. With the delineation of the exact boundaries of the new state under the Protocol of Florence (17 December 1913), the Serbs lost their outlet to the Adriatic and the Greeks the region of Northern Epirus (Southern Albania).

This was highly unpopular with the local Greek population, who, after a revolt, managed to acquire local autonomy under the terms of the Protocol of Corfu.

After its defeat, Bulgaria turned into a revanchist local power looking for a second opportunity to fulfill its national aspirations, which ensured its voluntarily participation in the First World War on the side of the Central Powers, since its Balkan enemies (Serbia, Greece and Romania) were pro-Entente (see articles on the Serbian Campaign and the Macedonian Front of World War I).

The resulting enormous sacrifices during World War I and renewed defeat caused Bulgaria a national trauma and new territorial losses.

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