Balkan Wars 1912-1913
Topic: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Balkan Wars were two short wars in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913. In the first war, the Balkan League (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro) drove the Ottoman Turks out of almost all their European lands. In the second war, the allies fought one another over the captured land. The wars made Serbia stronger and alarmed Austria-Hungary. They showed how Balkan nationalism, mixed with great-power rivalry, was pushing Europe towards the First World War.
Example
In the Second Balkan War of 1913, Bulgaria attacked its former allies Serbia and Greece over Macedonia and was defeated. A year later, in 1914, Austria-Hungary's conflict with Serbia set off the First World War.
Don't confuse with
- Greek war of independence: this struggle against the Ottomans began in 1821, and Greece's independence was recognised in 1832. It was a single nation's freedom struggle, not a war between allied Balkan states.
Related concepts
- Imperialism
- Balkan problem
- Ottoman Empire
- Sick man of Europe
- Eastern Question
- Crimean War
- Congress of Berlin 1878
- Pan-Slavism
- Austria-Hungary
- Young Turks