The Balkan Conundrum and Relations between Austria-Hungary and Greece, 1912–1914

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Costis J. Ailianos
Keyword(s):  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
Aegean Islands ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Future ◽  
Total Lack ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
First World ◽  
Of Greece

Abstract Relations between Greece and Austria-Hungary had never been particularly cordial, despite some brief periods of a certain rapprochement, and Vienna displayed a total lack of consideration for the interests of Athens also during the Balkan Wars. Greek ‘dreams’ were only marginally ‘tangent’ to Vienna’s interests and the Ballhausplatz did not envisage any point of convergence of their political goals. The cooperation, let alone the alliance, between Greece and Serbia proved to be a thorn in the Greco-Austrian relations. All issues of Greek interest met with Vienna’s strong opposition: the drawing of the southern/southeastern borders of Albania; the fate of Thessaloniki and Kavalla; the future of the East Aegean islands. While Austria was aiming at bringing Bulgaria in her sphere of influence, Germany wanted to attract Athens closer to the Triple Alliance, which led to serious misunderstandings between the two empires. Ultimately, this divergence of policy worked in favour of Greece that obtained Thessaloniki and its hinterland, Kavalla, a large part of Epirus, safeguarded her titles on the Aegean islands and secured a common Greco-Serbian borderline. However, the issue of Northern Epirus was left in abeyance until after the First World War. Finally, the Ballhausplatz, re-evaluating the new geopolitical realities in the Balkans, started looking constructively to the future role of Greece in the region.

The Balkan Conundrum and Relations between Austria-Hungary and Greece, 1912–1914

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Costis J. Ailianos
Keyword(s):  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
Aegean Islands ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Future ◽  
Total Lack ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
First World ◽  
Of Greece

AbstractRelations between Greece and Austria-Hungary had never been particularly cordial, despite some brief periods of a certain rapprochement, and Vienna displayed a total lack of consideration for the interests of Athens also during the Balkan Wars. Greek ‘dreams’ were only marginally ‘tangent’ to Vienna’s interests and the Ballhausplatz did not envisage any point of convergence of their political goals. The cooperation, let alone the alliance, between Greece and Serbia proved to be a thorn in the Greco-Austrian relations. All issues of Greek interest met with Vienna’s strong opposition: the drawing of the southern/southeastern borders of Albania; the fate of Thessaloniki and Kavalla; the future of the East Aegean islands. While Austria was aiming at bringing Bulgaria in her sphere of influence, Germany wanted to attract Athens closer to the Triple Alliance, which led to serious misunderstandings between the two empires. Ultimately, this divergence of policy worked in favour of Greece that obtained Thessaloniki and its hinterland, Kavalla, a large part of Epirus, safeguarded her titles on the Aegean islands and secured a common Greco-Serbian borderline. However, the issue of Northern Epirus was left in abeyance until after the First World War. Finally, the Ballhausplatz, re-evaluating the new geopolitical realities in the Balkans, started looking constructively to the future role of Greece in the region.

scholarly journals A third Balkan war: France and the allied attempts at creating a new Balkan alliance 1914-1915

Balcanica ◽  
2007 ◽  
pp. 191-218
Author(s):  
Vojislav Pavlovic
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The initial phase of the First World War in the Balkans 1914-1915 was a natural continuation of the conflicts opened during the Balkan Wars, but national fervor now encompassed all of the Balkans, from Rijeka and Ljubljana to Athens, Sofia and Bucharest, because the role of the Dual Monarchy had changed from that of an arbiter to that of a participant in the conflict. With the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the further survival of the Habsburg Monarchy was challenged by the Serbian government's Yugoslav project, creating conditions for implementing the nationality principle in all of the Balkans. It seemed that, in support of the alliances that were being created in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole, the time had come for the final fulfillment of the national aspirations of the Balkan peoples. The outcome of this third Balkan war no longer depended solely on the balance of power inside the Balkans, but also on the overall course of the war. After the initial victories in 1914, Serbia suffered a defeat in 1915 and her armies were forced to retreat southward to Albania and Greece, but her Yugoslav project was the foundation of her future policies and the basis for materializing the concept of a common South-Slavic state.

The refugee question in Bulgaria before, during and after the First World War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolai Vukov
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
World War ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First World

This chapter focuses on the circumstances of displacement, the reception and settlement of refugees, and the state’s attempts to address the political, economic and social shock of accepting thousands of refugees from the lost territories. It outlines the centrality of the refugee issue to the development of the modern Bulgarian state particularly after the Balkan wars. The chapter focuses on three main episodes: before 1912, when a quarter of a million refugees already fled to Bulgaria whose population was around 4.5 million in 1912; between 1913 and 1918, when 120,000 refugees settled in the country; and in the years 1919-25 during which time Bulgaria witnessed the influx of an additional 180,000 refugees. Some consideration is given to prevailing social and economic conditions, such as the impact of refugees on urban and rural life in Bulgaria, and to the role of refugee relief organisations. Attention is also devoted to the international repercussions of the refugee crisis.

Origins

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Dmitar Tasić
Keyword(s):  
State Building ◽  
First World War ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Chapter I presents the story of origins of modern Balkan paramilitaries which was shaped during the late 19th—early 20th century nation and state building processes in the Balkans. Existing traditions of guerrilla warfare were used during the struggle between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia over Ottoman Macedonia when all three countries initiated sending of small armed bands to Macedonia in order to protect their own and intimidate rivals followers. It also describes appearance of Albanian national movement and how Balkan countries used their respective paramilitaries during the Balkan Wars 1912-1913 and the First World War. It also shows how during the Toplica uprising in 1917 against Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian occupation regimes in Serbia happened yet another bloody encounter of Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian paramilitaries. Situation after the First World War was characterised by adjusting to new realities, by creation of new organizations and by arrival of non-Balkan actors—‘White’ Russians émigrés and former participants in Russian revolutions. Both groups brought their own experiences, visions and rivalries.

scholarly journals ПРИКАЗ ВЕЛИКОГ РАТА У КЊИЗИ ЖИВОТ ЧОВЕКА НА БАЛКАНУ СТАНИСЛАВА КРАКОВА

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Горан М. Максимовић
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
Special Analysis ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World ◽  
Greek Island

The paper analyzes the review of the Great War (1914-1918) in the memoir book The Life of a Man in the Balkans, by the writer Stanislav Krakov (1895-1968), which he wrote most probably between 1936 and 1968, and was published from a manuscript legacy three decades later after his death, in 1997. Krakov directly participated as a participant at the front in three wars, the First and Second Balkan Wars and the Great War, during which he was severely wounded three times and awarded several times for heroism. The subject of our special analysis is a review of events from the First World War. This refers primarily to the mobilization and war operations in 1914, and then to the withdrawal of the serbian army at the end of 1915 and the beginning of 1916 through Montenegro and Albania, all the way to the Greek island of Corfu. Krakov presented the most complete picture of the war operations in the records from the Salonica Front (1916-1918), as well as in the review of the war operations for the liberation of the entire country until the end of 1918. It is one of the most exciting books of Serbian documentary-artistic prose written in the 20th century, in which the features of autobiographical-memoir and novel prose intersect in a creative way.

The Greek Crisis — Its Constitutional Background

1948 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril E. Black
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Region ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
Aegean Islands ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Constitutional Regime ◽  
First World ◽  
Of Greece

Ever since the liberation of Greece over a century ago, the central issues in Greek public life have been the political unification of all Greek-speaking peoples, questions of domestic, social and economic policy, and the elaboration of a satisfactory constitutional regime.Since Greece received at the time of its liberation only a small share of the lands which it considered to be Greek, its foreign policy has always had this goal: the unification under the political sovereignty of the national state of all the territories in the Eastern Mediterranean region where Greek-speaking inhabitants predominate. By the acquisition of the Ionian Islands in 1863, Thessaly in 1881, and Crete, die Aegean Islands, Southern Epirus and Southern Macedonia in 1913, the greater part of this task had been accomplished on the eve of the first World War.

Bulgaria, Serbia and Russian society during the Balkan wars (1912-1913)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikita S. Gusev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Red Cross ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Media ◽  
Real Picture ◽  
Balkan States ◽  
First World

The book examines the place that Bulgaria and Serbia took in the life of Russian society during the Balkan wars of 1912-1913. The war of the Orthodox peoples of the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire stirred up Russian society. The media closely monitored the events, public lectures and meetings devoted to the war were held, donations, volunteers and Red Cross infirmaries went to the Peninsula. The Balkan states attempted use the sympathy of the Russian society to put pressure on the official Petersburg. At first, the need to remake the Balkans was justified in various ways. And then the Bulgarians and Serbs tried to prove their case in the dispute over Macedonia. The book shows the methods by which this pressure was carried out, identifies foreign and Russian subjects who participated in this propaganda campaign. Descriptions of the Balkans and Balkan peoples interested Russian readers, and correspondents described in detail what they saw. The monograph reconstructs the existing image of Bulgaria and Serbia. On its basis, with the involvement of other sources and scientific literature, an attempt is made to restore the real picture of life in Bulgaria and Serbia on the eve of the First world war and its features, to understand the peculiarity of Westernization "in the Balkan way".

Becoming and unbecoming refugees: the long ordeal of Balkan Muslims, 1912–34

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uğur Ümit Üngör
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
World War ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
To Come ◽  
First World

In the process of Ottoman imperial collapse, roughly in the decade 1912-1923, millions of soldiers were killed in regular warfare. But hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians were also victimised as a result of expulsions, pogroms, and other forms of persecution and mass violence. The Balkan wars of 1912-13 erased the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans and marked a devastating blow to Ottoman political culture. The wars produced an unparalleled refugee stream from the European provinces of the empire to Istanbul, and shaped politics and policy for years to come. The scale of displacement was such that any and all relief measures, both private and public, fell short in accommodating and providing for the refugees. Barely having recuperated from this crisis, the First World War brought more violence to Ottoman society, this time closer to its heartland. The years 1915-16 saw the destruction of the Anatolian Armenians, organized by the Young Turk political elite and carried out by a host of military, paramilitary, and civilian forces. The genocide uprooted a civilian population of over two million Armenians and made them into refugees for decades to come.

تطورات رومانيا الداخلية وسياستها الخارجية أبان الحرب العالمية الاولى حتى احتلال بخارست (آب 1914 – كانون الاول 1916)

لارك ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
فهد عويد عبد
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
World War ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Balkan Region ◽  
First World

The Balkan region in general and Romania in particular have witnessed major political developments during the First World War. Suffice it to say that the first outbreak of war began from the Balkans, namely Sarajevo, and ended in the Balkans, where the last peace treaties were signed with the surrender of Bulgaria on September 29, 1918. Years of War The Balkans were generally a theater in which the armies of the belligerents demonstrated their military capabilities. Moreover, in the same period, both sides of the conflict (the Axis Powers or the Wafd States) were struggling to obtain the support of the Balkans, including Romania, Sugary, political and economic, both on military operations or planed Supply issues or control over trade routes, and on the other side of Romania was seeking for its part to take advantage of the chance of war to the maximum extent possible to achieve the national dream of achieving political unity.

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