First Balkan War

First Balkan War
Part of the Balkan Wars
Clockwise from top right: Serbian forces entering the town of Mitrovica; Ottoman troops at the Battle of Kumanovo; Meeting of the Greek king George I and the Bulgarian tsar Ferdinand I in Thessaloniki; Bulgarian heavy artillery
Date 8 October 1912 – 30 May 1913 (7 months, 3 weeks and 1 day) Location Balkan Peninsula Result Balkan League victory Treaty of London Territorial changes Ottoman European territory divided between the Balkan League States.
Belligerents
Bulgaria  Greece  Serbia  Montenegro	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Ferdinand I Vladimir Vazov Georgi Vazov Mihail Savov Ivan Fichev Vasil Kutinchev Nikola Ivanov Radko Dimitriev Stiliyan Kovachev Georgi Todorov Andranik Ozanian Garegin Nzhdeh George I X Eleftherios Venizelos Constantine I Panagiotis Danglis Pavlos Kountouriotis Ioannis Damianos Nikolaos Delagrammatikas Konstantinos Sapountzakis Dimitrios Matthaiopoulos Konstantinos Damianos Peter I Prince Alexander Radomir Putnik Petar Bojović Stepa Stepanović Božidar Janković Živojin Mišić Pavle Jurišić Šturm Nicholas I Prince Danilo Petrović Prince Peter Janko Vukotić Radomir Vešović	Mehmed V Mahmud Shevket Pasha Enver Pasha Nazım Pasha Zeki Pasha Esat Pasha  Abdullah Pasha (POW) Ali Rıza Pasha Hasan Tahsin Pasha  İsmail Hakkı Pasha Hasan Rıza Pasha X Mehmed Şükrü Pasha Essad Pasha Toptani  Rauf Pasha
Strength
450,300+ men[1][2] 230,000 men[3] 125,000 men[4] 44,500 men[5] Total: 850,000+	436,742 men initially (significantly more than the Balkan League by the end)[6]
Casualties and losses
Bulgaria:[7] 14,000 killed 4,926 missing 50,000 wounded 19,000 dead of disease  Greece:[7] 5,169 killed 23,502 wounded 1,550 dead of disease  Serbia: 5,000 killed 18,000 wounded[8] 6,698 dead of disease  Montenegro:[7][9] 2,836 killed 6,602 wounded 406 dead of disease Total: 156,139 killed, wounded, or died of disease	Ottoman Empire:[9] 50,000 killed 100,000 wounded 115,000 captured 75,000 dead of disease Total: 340,000 killed, wounded, captured or died of disease
Numerous Albanian and Ottoman civilian casualties (see below...)

The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior (significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.

The war was a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster for the Ottomans, who lost 83% of their European territories and 69% of their European population.^[10] As a result of the war, the League captured and partitioned almost all of the Ottoman Empire's remaining territories in Europe. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albania, which dissatisfied the Serbs.^{[citation needed]} Bulgaria, meanwhile, was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia and attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913, which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War.

During the war, many civilians, overwhelmingly Muslim Turks, were either killed or forced to flee their homes. The highly politicized and disorganized units of the Ottoman army were quite incapable of evacuating the civilians in the war zone. This situation left many civilians in the occupied areas defenseless against the invading armies of the Balkan League. Although there are discussions about the exact amount of civilian casualties, when the war ended great changes occurred in the demographic makeup of the Balkan region.^[11]