Second Balkan War

Second Balkan War
Part of the Balkan Wars
The Great Powers under the terror of explosion in Balkans. Except for the United Kingdom, no Great Power's throne would survive the results of the next Balkan crisis of 1914, which ignited World War I.
Date June 16, 1913 – July 18, 1913 Location Balkan Peninsula Result The defeat of Bulgaria and the Treaty of Bucharest, 1913
Belligerents
Bulgaria	Serbia  Romania Greece Montenegro  Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Mihail Savov Vasil Kutinchev Nikola Ivanov Radko Dimitriev Stiliyan Kovachev Stefan Toshev	Radomir Putnik Crown Prince Ferdinand Alexandru Averescu Constantine I of Greece
Strength
500,221 - 576,878	348,000 [1] 330,000 [1] 148,000 12,802 [1] 255,000 Total: 1,093,802
Casualties and losses
Bulgaria: 18,000 killed 60,000 wounded 15,000 dead of disease[2] Total: 93,000 dead or wounded	Serbia: 9,000 killed 36,000 wounded 5,000 dead of disease[2] Greece: 5,851 killed in action 23,847 wounded in action 580 frostbitten 188 missing in action Unknown non-combat related casualties[3] Montenegro: 240 killed 961 wounded[2] Romania: negligible combat casualties 6,000 dead of disease[4] Ottoman Empire: negligible combat casualties 4,000 dead of disease[5] Total: ~91,000 dead or wounded

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

Map of the conflicting Balkan territorial aspirations, that led to the Second 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.

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.

The Serbian-Bulgarian pre-war division of Macedonia, including the contested area

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.^[1]. 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 Tsar 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^[7]. An early evidence of the lack of realistic thinking in Bulgarian leadership^[8] 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), Tsar 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 Tsar 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.^[6]

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^[9], 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^[9] 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"^[1]. 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 only 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 Tsar 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 Tsar 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 Tsar 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 (officially declared) Romanian intervention or an Ottoman counterattack, strangely assuming that Russia would assure that no attack would come from those directions^[10], 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)^[6]. 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 core of the Armed forces consisted of nine infantry and one cavalry division. The Bulgarian Army had a unique organization among the armies of Europe, 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,^[11] which was more than the equivalent of two 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 ^[10][12] 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 3rd armies (under generals Vasil Kutinchev and Radko Dimitriev respectively) were deployed along the old Serbian-Bulgarian borders, with the 5th Army under general Stefan Toshev around Kyustendil, and the 4th Army under general Stiliyan 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.^[1]

The Ottoman Empire entered the war with an army of 255,000 men.

Outbreak of the war

Initial Bulgarian plan of operations

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 battalion 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

Constantine I of Greece and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos at the Greek GHQ during the Second Balkan War

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)^[14]. All modern historians agreed that Ivanov underestimated the number of his soldiers but the Greek army still had a numerical superiority.^[1] The Greek Headquarters also estimated the numbers of their opponents from 80,000 to 105,000 men.^[15]

The Greek army, commanded by King Constantine I, had 8 divisions and a cavalry brigade (117,861 men) with 176 artillery guns ^[16] 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^[17]. Bulgarian sources are giving a total of 6,971 casualties^[17]. To these Greeks captured more than 6,000 prisoners and more than 130 artillery pieces, suffering 8,700 casualties^[17]. 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

Serbian soldiers during the Second Balkan War

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. The 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

Greek troops advancing in the Kresna Gorge

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 counterattacking Bulgarian armies, and the Bulgarian General Staff, attempting to encircle the Greeks in a Cannae-type battle was applying pressure on their flanks^[17] 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^[18]. 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

Map showing the final territorial gains of the Balkan countries after the Balkan Wars

The 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^[19]. 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 ^[20]. 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.^[21]

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.

References

Further reading

• Erickson, Edward J.; Bush, Brighton C. (2003). Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-97888-5. 
• Hall, Richard C. (2000). The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913: Prelude to the First World War. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22946-4. 
• Schurman, Jacob Gould (2004). The Balkan Wars 1912 To 1913. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1-4191-5345-5.