Though persistently overshadowed by the Great War in historical memory, the two Balkan conflicts of 1912–1913 were among the most consequential of the early twentieth century. By pitting the states of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro against a diminished Ottoman Empire—and subsequently against one another—they anticipated many of the horrors of twentieth-century warfare even as they produced the tense regional politics that helped spark World War I. Bringing together an international group of scholars, this volume applies the social and cultural insights of the “new military history” to revisit this critical episode with a central focus on the experiences of both combatants and civilians during wartime.
Table of Contents:
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
PART I: INTRODUCTIONS
Introduction: The Wars of Yesterday: The Balkan Wars and the Emergence of Modern Military Conflict, 1912/13. An Introduction
Katrin Boeckh and Sabine Rutar
Chapter 1. 'Modern Wars' and 'Backward Societies': The Balkan Wars in the History of Twentieth-Century European Warfare
Wolfgang Höpken
PART II: BEYOND THE BALKANS: DIPLOMATIC AND GEOPOLITICAL ASPECTS
Chapter 2. Ottoman Diplomacy on the Origins of The Balkan Wars
Gül Tokay
Chapter 3. Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Balkan Wars: A Diplomatic Struggle for Peace, Influence, and Supremacy
Alma Hannig
Chapter 4. Not Just a Prelude: The First Balkan War Crisis as the Catalyst of Final European War Preparations
Michael Hesselholt Clemmesen
PART III: ARMIES, SOLDIERS, IRREGULARS
Chapter 5. The Ottoman Mobilisation in the Balkan War. Failure and Reorganisation
Mehmet Beşikçi
Chapter 6. The Thracian Theatre of War 1912
Richard C. Hall
Chapter 7. Morale, Ideology, and the Barbarization of Warfare among Greek Soldiers
Spyridon Tsoutsoumpis
Chapter 8. A Forgotten Lesson: The Romanian Army between the Campaign in Bulgaria (1913) and the Tutrakan Debacle (1916)
Claudiu-Lucian Topor
Chapter 9. Serbian Chetniks. Traditions of Irregular Warfare
Alexey Timofeev
PART IV: CIVILIANS, WOUNDED, INVALIDS
Chapter 10. The Future Enemy’s Soldiers-To-Be: Fear of War in Trieste, Austria-Hungary
Sabine Rutar
Chapter 11. The Plight of the Muslim Population in Salonica and Surrounding Areas
Vera Goseva and Natasha Kotlar-Traykova
Chapter 12. Cleansing the Nation: War-Related Demographic Changes in Macedonia
Iakovos D. Michailidis
Chapter 13. Jewish Philanthropy and Mutual Assistance Between Ottomanism and Communal Identities
Eyal Ginio
Chapter 14. The Assistance of the British Red Cross to the Ottoman Empire
Oya Dağlar Macar
Chapter 15. War Neurosis and Psychiatry in the Aftermath of the Balkan Wars
Heike Karge
Conclusion
Katrin Boeckh and Sabine Rutar
Index
