The First World War, because of its scale and tragic intensity, almost completely overshadowed the limelight of the two previous Balkan wars. However, the outbreak of the First World War originated in the Balkan powder keg (Sarajevo assassination); the reason why the Balkans became the fuse of Europe and even the world was importantly related to the Balkan Wars.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > origin</h1>
Explaining the origin of the Balkan powder keg inevitably involves the extremely complex "Near East problem" in modern European history - after the successive defeats of the Ottoman Turkish Empire at the Hands of the Russian Empire in the 18th century, the centrifugal tendencies of the various peoples under its rule intensified, and the ancient empire was crumbling and slowly disintegrating. This was particularly acute in the Balkans, the European territory of the Ottoman Empire. From the beginning of the 19th century to 1878, Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, which once belonged to the Ottoman Empire, established their own states independently, but Turkey still occupied a large area of Macedonia (see figure below), and there were many Christians living in European territory. With the awakening of national consciousness, they demanded to break away from the rule of the Turkish Empire, and several newly established Eastern European countries were eager to wash away the humiliation of history and expand their territory. Although the European part of the Ottoman Empire still seems to be much larger than any of the above countries, it is already a foreign power. The European powers, out of their own interests, have also intervened in Balkan affairs, further worsening the situation.
Map of the Balkan territory before the outbreak of the war, pink for the Ottoman Empire
In the face of the crisis, the Turkish side is naturally unwilling to sit still. In 1908, the Young Turks staged a coup d'état to seize power, restored the Turkish Constitution, and deposed Sultan Abdul Hamid II the following year to support the weak Muhammad V to succeed him. The Young Turks' self-help operation did not restore the decline of the empire, but on the contrary, the civil unrest caused by it made the opponents feel that there was an opportunity to take advantage of it. In 1908, austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina under Turkish rule. In 1911, the Kingdom of Italy seized Tripoli and Cyrenaica, the Ottoman territory of North Africa, through the Italian-Turkish War. The former power that spanned the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe was almost reduced to a situation where people could be deceived, and it is no wonder that europeans called "the sick man of West Asia", which was the same disease as the Qing Empire at that time.
Muhammad V
In this situation, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro were encouraged to unite (forming the so-called Balkan Alliance) to attack the former suzerainty.
On October 8, 1912, Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire, and on October 14, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece jointly issued an ultimatum to the Turkish Empire, and the so-called conditions for peace were humiliating. The Ottoman Empire could not tolerate the disobedience of its former vassals and declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia three days later, and the next day Greece, a member of the Balkan League, declared war on the Ottoman Empire. At this point, the first Balkan War was in full swing.
Turkish soldiers in the Balkan Wars
Although Ottoman Turkey had the prestige of its former empire, it had fallen to Pingyang by this time. The total force it can mobilize in the Balkans is about 430,000 people, while in the Balkan Alliance, the Bulgarian army alone has 450,000 troops, and the total strength of the entire coalition army is about 750,000 people, which is quite a big difference. Coupled with the fact that only Germany was friendly to the Ottoman Empire among the great powers, and the rest of the great powers were reluctant to intervene, the Ottoman army soon began to retreat and lost a large area of territory.
First Balkan War
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > besiege Edirne</h1>
Faced with the three fronts of the north, south and west, the Ottoman army had to adopt a kind of "space for time" strategy, voluntarily giving up some territory. But in addition to the capital Istanbul, there is another historical city in the European part of the empire that cannot be voluntarily abandoned under any circumstances, that is, the former capital of the empire , Edirne.
I photographed the Edirne Selimiye Mosque in the summer of 2019
Today, Edirne is the capital of Turkey's Edirne Province and a literal border city (15 km from Bulgaria and 5 km from Greece). I visited this place in the summer of 2019, a clean, beautiful and simple medium-sized city (with a population of less than 200,000), many monuments, but relatively few tourists. Many people may not have heard of Edirne's daimyo, but it also has a prominent Latin name, Hadrianopolis, because the city was built by the famous Roman emperor Hadrian (reigned 117-138). In 378, the Battle of Adrianborg, which changed the course of the Roman Empire's history, broke out here, which was also the place where the Roman Emperor Valens died.
For the Turks, Edirne also had important historical and political implications, as Edirne served as the capital of the empire (1365-1453) long before the capture of Constantinople in 1453. There is the old Turkish Royal Palace, the Royal Cemetery, and the 16th-century masterpiece of the great Turkish architect Kocha Mimal Sinan, the Selimiye Mosque.
On 3 November 1912, 100,000 Bulgarian troops, led by General Nikola Ivanov (1861-1940), approached the city of Edirne, and the fierce and protracted siege of Edirne began. Although they carried as many as 424 guns, they were dismayed to find that Edirne was an uncompromising piece of hard bone. The Turkish defenders numbered about 55,000 men and 340 guns, with abdullapathia as the main and Sukuru Pasha as the main and Sukuru Pasha as the deputy. Although the strength and firepower are at a disadvantage, because of the importance of Edirne, the Ottoman Empire spent a lot of money to create a complex and solid city defense system, and specially hired German military experts to design and guide, known as impregnable.
The Bulgarians tried to launch a strong offensive. The fortifications in Edirne were well designed, with multiple layers of fortifications providing crossfire cover for each other and a large number of artillery pieces. Morale was high, the Bulgarians suffered heavy losses in the strong attack, and had to abandon the idea of a quick battle, and instead dug trenches and began a long siege.
Turkish Edirne general Abdullah Pasha
On November 6, the battlefield suddenly changed. 47,000 Serbian soldiers, led by General Stepa Stepanović (later promoted to Marshal of the Serbian Army), arrived in Edirne at a rapid pace to join the Bulgarian Allies. They also brought 72 artillery pieces with plenty of supplies.
Balkan artillery units heading for the Edirne battlefield
Stepanović told Nikolai Ivanov that he would be made commander of the coalition forces and at his disposal. More than 40,000 fresh troops were quickly sent to the front, which greatly enhanced the strength and morale of the Bulgarian troops. The Balkan coalition forces were in full control of the Edirne battlefield, but the Turkish army still stubbornly held its ground, and the expected collapse did not occur. The fierce tug-of-war, which caused headaches on both sides, had to begin.
Serbian troop commander Stepanovic
Somewhat similar to the Verdun meat grinders of the Later World War I, the Bulgarian and Turkish armies often had to fight repeatedly for positions of only a few hundred meters. The Turks had first-class fortifications designed by German engineers, which greatly offset the strength and vitality of the Coalition forces. But the coalition also had its own "new weapons" – the Serbs used machine guns on a large scale for the first time in the Balkans. The aircraft of the coalition were originally only reconnaissance aircraft, but as the war became tight, the pilots carried grenades in the cockpit privately and threw them at the Turkish positions while scouting the enemy. It was also the first time in the history of the Balkans that aircraft were directly involved in the war. Although the damage is not great, it is undoubtedly a blow to the psychology of the Turks.
Schematic of the battlefield of the Great Siege of Edirne
The war raged from the winter of 1912 to the spring of 1913. However, Edirne did not become "Stalingrad". During the 5 months of fighting, the Turkish army suffered great attrition and its combat effectiveness continued to decline. At the end of March, the allied commanders deliberated and decided to adopt a new method of warfare to break the deadlock once and for all. Their choice is night raids.
Turkish artillery was fighting back, and the Selimiye mosque loomed behind it
On March 24, the long-planned night raid began. The Allies made elaborate preparations for this: before the attack, all the guns and guns were covered with a cover to avoid reflection, so as to achieve unexpected results; a group of light artillery specially organized in mules and horses, following the first line of assault infantry operations, providing fire support at any time; before the attack, the Allies also used the high-tech means of the time - to comprehensively interfere with the radio communications of the Turkish army, which made the latter command into chaos after the night attack.
In the end, the allied night raids worked wonders. On the night of 24 March, after an all-night battle, they succeeded in capturing all of Edirne's outer fortifications. The next day they continued the field battle and successfully broke through the defense of Edirne. (See the two red scissors in the city in the "Schematic Map of the Great Siege of Edirne".) In the early morning of March 26, Sukuru Pasha discovered that Bulgarians and Serbs had poured into the city, and in order to save the lives of his generals, he wisely chose to surrender. Edirne was lost.
Bulgarian soldiers capturing fortifications outside Edirne
The turks' captured forts.
After five months of long fighting, the Bulgarian coalition paid the price of more than 10,000 casualties. More than 13,000 people were killed or wounded on the Turkish side. However, the surviving 40,000 or so defenders were all taken prisoner. The former capital of the Empire was captured, and more than 50,000 elite defenders were completely destroyed, which terrified the entire Ottoman Empire, and it no longer had the courage to continue fighting.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the end</h1>
With the fall of Edirne, the Turkish Empire had to humiliate and make peace in order to save Istanbul. On May 30, 1913, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of London with the four balkan confederations, witnessed by the great powers. Turkey formally relinquished all of its European territory except those surrounding Istanbul – meaning it lost 83 percent of its European territory and 69 percent of its population.
After the end of the First Balkan War in 1913, the territory of the countries was the Turkish Empire in coffee, and Edirne was already owned by Bulgaria.
The Ottoman Empire was weakening, while the Kingdom of Bulgaria seemed to be on the rise. Of the four allies of the First Balkan War, Bulgaria provided about 60% of its troops, and the results were the most brilliant.
During the First Balkan War, a large number of journalists came to the front line to report, and the development of photographic technology and radio communications allowed the world to understand the detailed war situation in the first place, while also preserving a large number of first-hand information for us.
Photojournalist in the First Balkan War
A British journalist praised Bulgaria: "A country of less than 5 million people, recruited 400,000 soldiers in 14 days, penetrated 160 miles into enemy territory in 4 weeks, and defeated opponents of 20 million people..."
Bulgaria is indeed something to be proud of. After the war, the government's ambitions were inflated and nationalist sentiments in the country were intense, which sowed the seeds of the disaster that followed.
Perhaps a careful reader will wonder: since Bulgaria seized Edirne, why is it still owned by Turkey?
This cannot fail to speak of one of the great wonders of human history — the Second Balkan War. In less than a month, former close allies turned against each other because of the uneven sharing of the spoils. The Ottoman Turks took the opportunity to fight the Jedi counterattack, and Sukuru Pasha had a chance to be humiliated and successfully recaptured Edirne.
The wonderful story is left for the next time to be broken down.