323.1(497):341.382(498.

11)1913

The Treaty of Bucharest

and the Unresolved Balkan Issues
Makedonka MITROVA
Institute of National History
Skopje, Macedonia

This article is an attempt to analyze the historical processes that created the Balkan nation-states and their national programmes in the course of
the late 19th century until the Treaty of Bucharest (1913), using an overview of
the historiography. The consequences from this Treaty are still present on the
Balkan Peninsula. The emphasis is placed on the Macedonian and the Kosovo
issues, because the problems related to them dates exactly from the abovementioned Treaty. Due to the provisions of this Treaty, the Balkan states
spread their domination on different populations and by that, the ethnic diversity of the states increased. Namely, Ottoman Kosovo and Ottoman Macedonia during the Balkan Wars were conquered by, and the latter one divided
among, the Balkan allies. However, the Balkan historiographies (Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek) even today still claim that these two regions were liberated
from the Ottoman rule. This is, as a matter of fact, the main and still current
problem that burdens the relations among the Balkan countries.

The long prelude of the Balkan Wars

In the 19th century, Macedonia was a territory within the Ottoman
Empire that formally did not exist as an administrative Ottoman entity.1 It
was surrounded by the newly created states: Greece in the south, Serbia in
the north and Bulgaria in the east. At the end of the 19th century, it was in
the focus of their expansionistic ambitions. In order to explain the historical
/political context of the Macedonian question in this period, first one should
be familiar with the Ottoman social-political system.
1

Macedonia was part of three vilayets: Kosovo (Skopje after 1888), Bitola and
Thessaloniki.

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Makedonka MITROVA

The Balkan Peninsula was a part of the Ottoman Empire, which

was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional country. In other words, the Ottoman state was a non-national empire with strong medieval elements, where the bureaucracy seems to have been the only common institution linking,
but not unifying, all the populace.2
With the creation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 that was approved by the Sultan, a division of the Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire emerged. If until then every orthodox subject to the Sultan belonged to the Constantinople Patriarchy and in confessional sense was a
Greek, with the creation of the Exarchate a possibility to have an option
was given. Populations opportunity to decide or choose between the Greek
Patriarchy and the Bulgarian Exarchate Church was still not a decision in a
national identity context, but in certain way, it was channelizing the direction for the nation creation. Since the schools were also under the protectorate of the churches and with their influence in the socialization processes
in Ottoman society, they could also influence the building of certain national consciousness among the population. Hence, with the creation of the
Exarchate a church and cultural struggle emerged among the neighbouring
Balkan countries on the Macedonian territory. Apart from the Patriarchy
and the Exarchate churches, the two autonomous churches of Greece and
Serbia also tried to influence the Macedonian population.3
The new national and nation-state structure of the Balkans opened
many unresolved identity issues. In the initial phase, in the first place were
the language and religion as the collective criteria for belonging. Using of a
Christian i.e. European language (Greek or South-Slavic) and belonging
to Orthodoxy seemed to be sufficient criteria to belong to the Greek or the
Serbian nations. However, with the strengthening of the competitive movements both criteria proved to be inefficient or incapable to achieve national
consensus. In the areas where the religious and linguistic differences were
clearly distinctive (between the Christians and the Muslims, on one side or
the Greek, South-Slavic and Albanian languages, on the other) determining
whom they belonged to at a first sight seemed relatively easy. However, the
question is: where did the meaning of these criteria become a problem? As a
response, the German historian Holm Sundhaussen finds it in the fluid
2
3

TODOROVA, 2009: 163.

, 2009: 149.

The Treaty of Bucharest and the Unresolved Balkan Issues

237

transitions between the South-Slavic languages and at the same time poses
the linguistic dilemma: where does the Serbian language begin, where does the Bulgarian, and let alone, where does the Macedonian?4
In this historical context, I would like to point out that Macedonia,
at the end of the 19th century, became a peripheral Ottoman province in the
Balkans. The neighbouring Balkan states: Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria were
given independence at the Berlin Congress. At the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th century, they also managed through exoduses and
through their state institutions to ethnically homogenise their population up
to a certain level. Thus, their perception of Ottoman Macedonia happened
simply in that nationalistic recourse, where the population was still divided
according to the religious and church affiliation, i.e. the Ottoman custom:
religion and, later on, the church depicted the nation. Namely, Macedonia
was the last Ottoman province in the Balkans apart from Albania and Thrace,
and consequently it was still an Ottoman-Balkan collage of different ethnics.
In some sense as Sir Charles Eliot wrote in 1900 in his book Turkey in
Europe, in Macedonia the race is only a political party.5 The struggle for
loyalty of the Slavic Orthodox peasantry was among the Greek, Serbian and
Bulgarian propaganda. All three of them opened schools in order to propagate their national ideals; they formed churches loyal to their bishops;
made maps and ethnographies to justify their demands, and when the more
peaceful methods did not guarantee success, they financed armed groups in
order to recruit supporters for their cause among the peasants. The ethnic
issue was as much a consequence as it was a reason for this unrest; the violence produced national affiliation and it was produced by them.6
Nonetheless, when MRO (1893) appeared on the political stage in
Ottoman Macedonia, agitation among the population began under the single slogan: Macedonia to the Macedonians. MROs national programme
differs from the neighbouring Balkan national programmes. The Organisation being familiar with the situation in the field was trying to unite under the
Macedonian identity all the confessional groups in Ottoman Macedonia.
However, after the failed Ilinden Uprising (1903) it was divided up by factiIbid.
During that period there was confusion in the use of the notions of race, nation,
nationality, religion, church.
6 SIR ELIOT, 1900: 271.
4
5

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Makedonka MITROVA

ons and failed to achieve its goal: autonomy for Macedonia. It should be
credited for the creation of the proto-Macedonian nationalism, which represented the uniting core of the population in Ottoman Macedonia at the time, nationalism that was different and particular compared to the neighboring nationalisms.
After the failed Ilinden Uprising, the Russian King Nicholas II and
the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph managed for the last time to agree on a
reform programme for Macedonia.7 The Mrzsteg reforms (October 1903)
were the last real cooperation between the two Great Powers in the Balkans. The Mrzsteg reform programme resulted from the terrible internal
situation in Ottoman Macedonia after the Ilinden Uprising. The real goal of
the reform programme officialised with the intention to help improve the
situation of the population and to calm down the rebellious province, was
to establish an unofficial protectorate of the Great Powers. In that sense the
reform programme of Austria-Hungary and Russia was qualified by the Serbian envoy to Constantinople, Jovan Hristic, as a condominium of the Anglo-French type in Egypt.8 The programme also had a clause that envisaged for Macedonia to be divided in areas according to the ethnic composition. This provision simply caused new fights among the Balkan paramilitary formations, since everyone was trying to ensure control in certain
areas.9 The reforms did not resolve the problems in Ottoman Macedonia.
Nor this was achieved with the armed repression. Until 1908, the Ottoman
authorities concentrated most of its army in the region. Its failure to control
the situation only showed the Ottoman military officers the evident incapability of Abdul Hamid II to rule.
In July 1908 a group of reform-oriented military officers in Macedonia, unsatisfied because of the Ottoman weakness and the continued western intervention started an uprising against the Porte.10 The Young Turk
Revolution started in Thessaloniki and it was carried out by the Ottoman
, 1984: 5-51; and , 1974: 52-71.
, 1987: 53.
9 & , 1994: . 23, 149-152.
10 The rival, i.e. Anglo-Russian reform project for Macedonia from June 1908 was
one of the many factors for the Young Turk movement to accelerate its
preparations for a revolution to overthrow the Sultans regime, see , 1994: 149.
7
8

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239

Third Macedonian Army.11 This revolution challenged the Great European

powers and Balkan states with completely new issues that needed to be solved.
Very important was the issue how the interested Balkan cabinets
would act towards the Young Turk tendencies and what they would do about the changes that happened in the European part of the Ottoman Empire,
i.e. Macedonia.12 While the Kingdom of Serbia, Montenegro and Greece took a position of waiting, the Great Powers with the exception of AustriaHungary,13 were surprised with the sudden change and the fast developments in the Ottoman state remaining for some time only as observers.14
The most important reaction on the international political stage was
the declaration of complete independence by Bulgaria and the annexation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary, which happened in a coordinated and simultaneous manner on the 5 and 6 October 1908.15 On 6 October, the island of Crete also declared its annexation to Greece.16 This is how
a new diplomatic crisis, known as the Balkan Annexation Crisis began.
Apart from the fight for establishing the 1876 Constitution and civil democracy an
additional motive that stimulated the actions of the Young Turks against the
Abdul Hamid II regime, were the efforts for keeping the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. In the 1907 declaration on the Sultans foreign policy the
Young Turks will remark that: That defeating policy resulted in territorial reduction of the Empire. If that policy continues other regions, such
as Albania and Macedonia, Arabia and Armenia will soon and unavoidably
break free from the Empire see , 1971: 172.
12 , 1936: 131.
13 The Austro-German diplomacy supported the Young Turk Revolution in 1908
in order to cause the failure of the Anglo-Russian reform action in Macedonia, see , 1984: 314-321; and , 1994: 123-141.
14 , 1936: 131.
15 Soon after the victory of the revolution the Young Turks presented their positions. Via the press and some other means, they put forward the issue about
the participation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eastern Rumelia and Cyprus
in the elections, and they even made allusions to Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. Among the other things this also gave a reason for Austria-Hungary to
act in a coordinated manner against the Young Turks efforts in the given
areas, see , 1958: 311-312.
16 At the same time the Greek population of Crete made an attempt to overthrow
the vassal status and to join Greece but they came across resistance on the
11

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Bosnia and Herzegovinas annexation was a bitter blow for the Kingdom of Serbia, which after Petar Karadjordjevic came to the throne, broke
off the close relations with Vienna. Regardless of the fact that the Habsburg
government took over the rule of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian nationalists still hoped that someday, somehow they would be able to get what
they considered their national territory. The annexation distanced that opportunity even more. The Serbian leaders turned to Russia for support, and
the Habsburg Empire expected help from Berlin. Still the Russian government was not in a situation to help its Balkan ally.17 Its defeat by Japan in
1905 and the internal problems caused by the revolution that same year
weakened the position of the state on the international level. Therefore, Serbia, faced with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum had to change its initial position concerning the annexation and to give assurance that the state would
change the current policy towards Austria-Hungary and... from now on
they would live in good neighbourly relations.18 This episode was humiliating not only for the Serbian Government but also for Russia. The strategy
of cooperation with the Habsburg Monarchy concerning the Balkans issues
was harshly interrupted. Russia from that moment onwards was ready to
come to an agreement and to support a policy, which actually meant reopening of the Eastern Question.
side of Turkey and the Great Powers, since they had enormous control on
the island. The Crete issue was resolved in 1912. This kept Turkey and
Greece in constant tension and this also had a negative impact on the internal-political life in Macedonia, see , 1994: 153.
17 The Russians also opposed the annexation especially because they knew that the
Austrians wanted to build a railway on the South up to the Aegean. A British diplomat commented that the fight between Austria and Russia in the
Balkans was obviously just starting. Both Russia and Serbia also demanded
compensation from the Austrians, but none of them got it. The Serbs
were so sure in the Russian support that they were ready to declare war to
Austria. Everybody thinks about revenge that could only be carried out
with the help of the Russians, reported the Austrian Ambassador from
Belgrade. However, the Russians pulled back when the Germans warned
them that they would also mobilise themselves to support Vienna. Russia
is still not ready in terms of its army and right now it cannot afford to be
in a war, with these words the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs informed the Serbs, see SCHMITT, 1937: 67.
18 JELAVICH, 1974: 265-266.

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241

The map of the Balkans at that moment was drastically changed

with the almost complete collapse of the Ottoman power in Europe. The
Young Turk Revolution, instead of reconciling the Balkan subjects with the
Ottoman state, had hastened the empires disintegration. As the Habsburg
Empire was also to find out, nationalism dissolved the old imperial bonds.19
The Turkish nationalism that gave the revolutionaries from the Unification
and Progress Committee grounds to hope that they would modernise the
Empire only increased the Christian antagonism. In 1911, there were already numerous paramilitaries that operated in Macedonia and the perspectives
were darker than earlier.
More specifically, the efforts of the Young Turk authorities to modernise the Ottoman state only pushed back the people, who were traditionally loyal to the Empire: the Albanians. Most of them being Muslims, they
served the Sultan as paramilitaries and bodyguards and their loyalty was ensured with the readiness of the Porte to allow them to have arms and a high
level of autonomy or anarchy?20 As an observer, Edith Durham describes
villages which inhabitants when called on for military service will often
declare themselves Christians and exempt, and afterwards repel with guns
the men sent to collect the army tax on the grounds that they are Muslims
and not liable.21 In 1910 an uprising in Northern Albania was only defeated
with the aid of 20,000 Ottoman troops. In addition, the next year as Italy
went to war with the Ottoman Empire in Libya and contemplated an invasion of Albania an even larger revolt saw the rebels call for the first time
for the recognition of Albania as a separate nation and for self-government.
The formation of a commission at Dibra to consider a demand for the recognition of Albanians in official registers as Albanians and not as Muslims or non-Muslims is especially significant, noted the British Ambassador in Constantinople.22 The notables forming the commission are apparently themselves Muslims and that they should even consider a proposal to
demand a national instead of a religious status is an entirely new and very
remarkable development.23
MAZOWER, 2000: 97.
STAVRIJANOS, 2005: 478.
21 MAZOWER, 2000: 97.
22 LOWTHER & GREY, 2 Oct. 1912, in DESTANI, 1999: 292. Taken from MAZOWER, 2000: 98.
23 Ibid.
19
20

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The Albanian uprising announced the radical changes in the balance

of powers in the Balkans. It showed that the armed uprising against the Ottoman authorities could be successful, stimulating the Balkan states to go
forward with their own demands for the Ottoman territory. That marked
the appearance of the organised and militant Albanian nationalism and alerted Serbia and Greece, which had territorial aspirations where significant Albanian population were present. The Albanian uprising encouraged AustriaHungary and Italy to take a diplomatic action to secure their strong points
in this part of Southeast Europe that alarmed the Balkan states even more.24
Because of that and with active help from the Russian diplomatic representatives, the Balkan governments signed series of documents that in fact
represented alliances aimed against the Ottoman Empire. The first agreement
between Bulgaria and Serbia was signed in March 1912. The relations between the two governments after 1903 were better but they still had difficulties reaching agreement on the territorial division of Ottoman Macedonia.
The Bulgarian representatives in these negotiations supported the creation
of an independent Macedonian state hoping that at the end it would be annexed to Bulgaria. Opposite that, Serbia preferred an agreement for division. The agreement that was signed then was only superficially a joint defence pact.25
The Agreement had a Secret Annex that regulated the future destiny
of Macedonia.26 Article 2 of the Secret Annex regulated the future joint coordinated actions against the Ottoman state and the resolution of all problems that would have resulted from that joint action. The agreeing parties
established that all the territorial gains from the war with the Ottoman state
would be under joint rule (condominium) of the two parties of the agreement. The liquidation of the condominium would happen immediately (or
within three months at the latest) after signing the peace agreement. That
would have been carried out based on the right of Bulgaria to the territory
east of the Rhodope Mountains and the Struma River and of Serbia to the
territories north and west of the Shara Mountain. In regard to the territories
between the Shara Mountain and Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea
, 2001: 288.
, 1988: 55.
26 , 1968: 106-109; , 1915: 77-80;
1865-1917, 1952: 113-117; & , 1994: 164166; , 1979: 75-77.
24
25

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243

and Lake Ohrid, i.e. Macedonia, the agreement envisaged: if both parties are
convinced in the inability to give autonomy to that area, and given the general interests of the Serbian and Bulgarian governments, the question about
this territory will be resolved with a precise diagonal line. The new border
was drawn from Golem Vrv near Kriva Palanka to the Gabovci Monastery
on Lake Ohrid. This demarcated the supposed future Serbian-Bulgarian
border in Macedonia. This borderline in the course of the First Balkan War
against the Ottoman state became the main problem between the two allies.
The war convention that was added to the Agreement contained
mutual obligations in case of an Austro-Hungarian attack against the Kingdom of Serbia, or a Romanian attack against Bulgaria. At the same time, the
necessary troops that the two countries were supposed to provide in the
war against the Ottoman Empire were agreed.27
The conclusion of the Serbian-Bulgarian Agreement opened a possibility for the Bulgarian diplomacy to start negotiations for concluding a similar agreement with Greece. In fact, with Greece the Bulgarian government
had to apply the same attitude they it applied with the Kingdom of Serbia.
One could not have expected Serbian-Greek rapprochement without having
the Serbian-Bulgarian relations regulated first. The attempts that were made then in order to come to an agreement with Greece, and the demarcation
of the Serbian-Greek spheres of influence in Macedonia and Albania, wrote Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Milovan Milovanovic, only provided
new evidence that for Serbia an accord with Greece could have had practical value, after previously the Serbian-Bulgarian community was established.
The Bulgarians among others had the same experiences in their attempts to
come to an agreement with Greece. The reason on one hand was the geographic position that connected Serbia and Bulgaria and tied their hands in
regulating the relations with Greece, at least not before regulating their own
relations.28
The agreement signed between Bulgaria and Greece on 29 May
1912 showed that there was a big clash between them on the issue of the division of Ottoman Macedonia. It was bigger even than the one between
Bulgaria and Serbia. The division of Ottoman Macedonia was not mentio-

27
28

1912-1913, 1959: 113-117.

, 1979: 23-24.

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ned at all and it was postponed for after the end of the war with the Ottoman state.29
The negotiations between Serbia and Greece started on 14 August
1912 and were not finalised by the beginning of the war. The Greek unpreparedness to help Serbia in case of attack by Austria-Hungary as well as the
mistrust that Serbia and Bulgaria created with their ally by not wanting to
inform it about their agreement for alliance, made the reaching of the agreement impossible. Apart from that between Serbia and Greece an allied relation and determination existed to jointly resolve the Balkan issue. 30
Montenegro was the last one to join the allies. In mid-September,
there were some oral discussions between Montenegro and Bulgaria. The
agreement between the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro was signed on
6 October 1912 in Lucerne only two days before the beginning of the war.31
These agreements did not regulate the issue of the division of the liberated territories.
The alliance between Serbia and Bulgaria, as well as of the other
Balkan states originated from the open and deep political crisis in the OttoOn the negotiations with Greece see: , 1968: 94-95. Looking at this issue
Stojan Danev states: As a matter of fact we had two problems that we
could not overcome. The first one was the need of time for something like
that In order to come to an agreement with Serbia I told you that we
negotiated for months. There was no reason to think that it was going to
be easier when resolving these issues with Greece Secondly, we more or
less felt that the border demarcation between us and the Greeks was possible only if we gave up Thessaloniki. At the time the Bulgarian government had no desire with a political act to state that it was giving up Thessaloniki head of the Progressive-Liberal Party (since December
1899), president of the 15th Ordinary National Assembly (1911-1913), Minister-President (1-4 July 1913), see , 1988: 59.
30 , 1968: 95-97; and 1912-1913, 1959: 131-132.
31 Until the first half of 1912, Serbia and Bulgaria refused to start negotiations with
Montenegro. The reason for this attitude was, according to them, the proAustrian policy of King Nikola. After the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary the Cetinje Government started to improve
its relations with Austria-Hungary, which brought about certain cooling
down of its relations with Russia. For these reasons exactly, Russia did not
agree for Montenegro to join the Balkan Alliance. For more see: , 1957: 47-60.
29

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man state at the beginning of 1912, and it represented a basis for the realisation of their interests. However, the relations among the allied Balkan states
were also not sufficient to got to war. The Balkan states could not afford to
go to war and to be depicted as those who violated the peace, led only by
their own interests. They needed to fight for goals that could have been and
should have been verified as deeply justified. Parallel to the negotiations and
the signing of the agreements for the foundation of the Balkan Alliance in
all the Balkan states actions were undertaken to prepare the public opinion
for the upcoming war.
The Balkan Wars: conquests and treaties
The Great Powers were familiar, maybe not to the smallest detail,
with these negotiations and they were becoming increasingly worried. They
did not want another Eastern Crisis. On 8 October, Russia and AustriaHungary warned the Balkan states on behalf of all the Great Powers. The
intervention came too late.32 The very same day Montenegro attacked the
Ottoman Empire. The Balkan allies immediately joined it. Hence, Greece,
Bulgaria and Montenegro for the first time were allied in a Balkan Alliance
and fought together against the Ottoman Empire.
The victory against the Turkish troops was easy. The Balkan forces
had about 700,000 troops while their opponent had only 320,000. The Ottoman military forces were weakened by internal political clashes and financial problems, so the army was left without modern weapons. Apart from
that, during the war the Greek fleet controlled the sea, so it was impossible
for them to bring in troops from Anatolia to Macedonia by the fastest and
shortest way. The Ottoman government was afraid of such a Balkan conflict and in preparing for the contingency in September signed a treaty with
the Albanians and in October with Italy.33 The Italian government not only
got Tripoli and Cyrenaica, but they also used the Balkan Wars as an excuse
Russia is trying to stop it, noted the French Prime Minister Raymond Poincar, and it is the one that turned on the engine. For the first time in the
history of the Eastern issue, noted another French diplomat small states
are in a position of having such a big independence from the great powers
that they feel capable of acting completely independently and to even drag
them in. See STAVRIJANOS, 2005: 510.
33 In 1911 Italy went to war with the Ottoman Empire for Tripoli.
32

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Makedonka MITROVA

to keep the Dodecanese Islands that they previously occupied. Regardless

of these actions, the Young Turk regime was not prepared for war. Even
though in the previous years the Ottoman armies managed to defeat the
Balkan military forces, this time the combination was too powerful.34
Among the Balkan states, the Bulgarian army fought the biggest battles with the main Turkish forces in Thrace. The Bulgarian command was
forced to concentrate all its efforts there. In the meantime, the Serbian and
the Greek allies advanced towards the Albanian and Macedonian territories.
Montenegro advanced towards Lake Skadar and the Greek army tried to
conquer Ioannina. Both the Greek and the Bulgarian armies were rushing
towards Thessaloniki. On 8 November the Greeks got there first depriving
Bulgaria of the most important Macedonian city.35
With this evident collapse of the Ottoman reign, the European powers hurried to intervene. In May 1913, they forced the warring states to
stop the battles and to negotiate conditions for the London peace agreement. This agreement determined the Enos-Midia line demarcating the Ottoman properties in Europe that were brought down to Constantinople and
some territories in its surrounding. Bulgaria was given Edirne; Crete was finally given to Greece. The big problem with the division of Ottoman Macedonia remained. In that regard another problem appeared, one that the Balkan allies had not predicted. In their preliminary agreements, they set off
from the premise that they would divide the Albanian territory between
them. Instead of that, they discovered that the Great Powers insisted on the
foundation of an independent Albanian state.36
The main supporters of independent Albania were Italy and AustriaHungary. On the other hand, Russia supported the demands of the Balkan
states. One of the fundamental Serbian goals during the war was to get a
port at the Adriatic Sea, if possible Durres. As before, the Habsburg Empire, supported by Italy, opposed the spreading of Serbia towards the Adriatic
Sea. Both powers were firmly determined to ensure the creation of Albania
with firm national borders that would serve as a barrier from the neighbouring Slavic states. Given that with this act both Serbia and Greece were de, 1999: 112.
On the course and the results from the Balkan Wars see: CHRISTIAN, 1938 (repr.
New York 1969); and RICHARD, 2000.
36 , 2009: 235.
34
35

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247

prived of territories that they expected to annex as a compensation they demanded part of the Macedonian territory that still was not allocated. The
question about the national character of the territory in question was not asked, they were more interested in the balance of power between the Balkan
allies.37 Once again fearing Bulgaria as the biggest rival, this time Serbia and
Greece signed a Secret Agreement for territory division and mutual assistance in case of a new war.38 These two states were also constantly in touch
with Romania, Montenegro and even the Ottoman Empire.
In the meantime, Sofia became more and more aware of the situation. Bulgaria was not only the reason for envy and animosity among its former allies, but it also did not have the support of any of the Great Powers.
Wrongly assessing the situation, convinced that it could bring them military
victory on the night between 29 and 30 June 1913, Bulgaria attacked both
Greece and Serbia. The attack was a catastrophic mistake. The Romanian,
Montenegrin and Ottoman troops united in the fight against the Bulgarian
army. The Second Balkan War resulted in a complete defeat of Bulgaria. 39
On 31 July, a truce was signed.
With the Treaty of Bucharest, signed in August 1913, Ottoman Macedonia was divided and independent Albania was created. Thus, Serbia and
Greece became victorious. By getting the Macedonian and Kosovo territories Serbia almost doubled in size. Montenegro and Serbia divided Novi Pazar Sanjak that the Habsburg Monarchy returned after annexing Bosnia and
Herzegovina. By that, the two countries got a common border. Greece got
Southern Macedonia and part of Epirus with the town of Ioannina. The
Greek border on the east was expanded and it included Kavala. Regardless
of the defeat, Bulgaria got the territory around the valley of the River Struma and 128 km of the Aegean coast, including the port of Alexandroupolis.
The Ottoman Empire and Romania also got some territories: the Porte got
back Edirne, and Romania got Southern Dobrudza. The final agreement
was evidently an enormous step backwards for Bulgaria and the Ottoman
Empire.40

, 2001: 291.
STAVRIJANOS, 2005: 513.
39 BOZEVA-ABAZI, 2007: 220.
40 , 1999: 116.
37
38

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Makedonka MITROVA

Thus, the Balkan Wars put an end to the Ottoman ruling on the Peninsula, with the exception of the area of Thrace and Constantinople. The
Young Turk regime was not able to stop the further deterioration of the
Empire.41
Conclusion: unfinished historical processes
The 1912 and 1913 Balkan Wars, which happened in a very short interval of less than a year, left severe consequences for the Balkan nations.
For Turkey, these wars represent the biggest trauma in its modern history,
loss of its most western and most developed European provinces. This trauma in the Turkish historiography and in the history textbooks is ignored,
but it is important yeast for the modern nationalism in the country.
In the case of Bulgaria, the trauma was even greater. These developments have been experienced and until this very day interpreted as a division of the Bulgarian national tissue, as treason by the allies, primarily by
Serbia, which according to that logic took half of the Bulgarian territory
and divided the Bulgarian people (referring to the Macedonians). This is a
source of permanent dissatisfaction and national frustration in Bulgaria.
The Albanians after the Balkan Wars felt a great change. At the
London peace conference an independent Albanian state was created. However, with the decisions of the Great Powers at the conference the Kosovo
territory went into the hands of the Kingdom of Serbia. This move created
deep frustration within the Albanian national movement, and today the history textbooks in both Kosovo and Albania say that with an unjust decision
of the Great Powers, the Albanian people in 1913 was divided in two. This
was the foundation of the tendency of the Albanian people for separation
from Serbia and unification with the homeland in the course of 20th century,
which at the same time burdened the relation between the two nations.
The Balkan Wars have a particularly painful and frustrating role in
the historical memory of the Macedonians. They are seen as the best proof
of the greediness of the neighbouring nations whose national interests"
were formulated to the disadvantage of the Macedonian territory. The Second Balkan War was fought exclusively for the division of the Macedonian
territory. And it ended with the Bucharest Peace Agreement that sanctioned
41

, 2004: 292.

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249

the division of Macedonia into Vardar, Pirin and Aegean Macedonia between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece.42
With the political division of Macedonia in 1913, the Slavic Macedonian ethnic period ended and the period of de-Slavicisation and de-Macedonisation on the Macedonian ethnic-historical space started. The process of de-Slavicisation and de-Macedonisation is noticeable in the Aegean part of Macedonia,
processes of de-Macedonisation but with Slavicisation of another (Serbian) ethnic element were evident in the Vardar part of Macedonia and the processes
of colonisation were noticeable in the Pirin part of Macedonia. The intensity
and the proportions of these developments and processes were different in
the Aegean, Vardar and Pirin parts of Macedonia.43
After the Treaty of Bucharest, the Greek state, from being an almost ethnically homogenous state, became a multinational state. Most of
the population that lived in the Aegean part of Macedonia after the Balkan
Wars was with non-Greek origin. According to the languages spoken at home i.e. within the family 370,371 or 35.20% Macedonians, 274,052 or
25.05% Turks, 236,755 or 22.50% Greeks, 68,206 or 6.49% Jews, 44,414 or
4.22% Vlachs, etc. lived in that part of Macedonia. Meaning out of the total
of 1,052,227 inhabitants, 77.50% were non-Greek and only 236,755 or
22.50% were Greeks according to their origin and mother tongue.44
However, by laying in the foundations of its statehood the principle
where we are, there is no place for anyone else, immediately after 1913
the Greek state started implementing the policy of creating one nation, one
language state. For that reason after the Treaty of Bucharest, Greece started
to implement the policy of expelling the Macedonian population and colonising the non-Slavic population in order to change the traditional Macedonian ethnic-historical appearance of the Aegean part of Macedonia.45
After the Balkan Wars the Greek state, regardless of the fact that it
took the biggest part of the Macedonian territory, was not satisfied because
of the division of the Thrace region with Bulgaria and the fact that Northern Epirus, with dominant Greek population, became part of independent
Albania.
On this see: , 2000: 29.
Ibid.
44 , 1900: 289.
45 , 2000: 30.
42
43

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Consequently, one unavoidably concludes that the Balkan Wars were a matrix for national frustrations among the Balkan nations who participated in them. This painful experience of the Balkan nations showed that
nobody was satisfied with the state borders won in the wars; especially since
that reality was rather far from the imagined state borders that were based
on the historic rights concept. Namely, every Balkan nation linked its national dream with the Middle Ages, when their states reached the maximum
size. Equally unrealistic was the concept of those who referred to the ethnic principle. Specifically, in the ethnically mixed Balkan space, especially
in a situation when all the nations were not established in a definite way, it
was impossible to draw a line that would have satisfied all and which later
on would not have caused dissatisfaction and irredentism.
Hence, every war in the Balkans leads towards a new war and every
division towards a new division. It is a case of a completely logical and only
possible consequence in the attempt to create clean ethnic states in an ethnically mixed area. Hence, as long as this logic is applied and the state programme follows it (as today in Serbia the issue of the separation of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and the attempt to divide Kosovo are still current
issues), the breaking up of the space will continue, and instead of countries
becoming bigger following the state dream, they will become smaller and
smaller.
During the Balkan Wars, massive crimes were committed against
the civilian population. Namely, for the first time in history these wars were
also covered by the media. Journalists joined the troops and reported about
the situation on the fronts. Reports of massive crimes against the civilian
population soon spread around the world. As a reaction to that information,
the Carnegie Foundation sent a special Commission on the Balkans to investigate the crimes and wrote more than a hundred pages long report on
that. Thus, the Carnegie Commission established that 80% of the Muslim
villages were burned down by the Balkan armies. Not even the Christian
population in Ottoman Macedonia was spared from those methods. There
were cases when the armies would go into the villages, separate the men
from the women and children and finally kill only one of the two groups or
both. Usually this was done by the joint troops of the allied Balkan states.
One should especially point out the case in Strumica, where a Serbian Major
together with three Bulgarian officers went from house to house with a witness that confirmed the guilt of the future victims. And according to the

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251

Carnegie Commission Report, it is believed that in this way between 3 and 4

thousand people in the Strumica region were killed.46
The initial goal of the Balkan wars was to expand the borders of the
national states to the disadvantage of the Ottoman Empire and, together
with the old state, the Muslim population in the Balkans to leave. This empiric, as a matter, of fact was part of the previous military experiences of the
Balkan countries. Namely, after the Great Eastern Crisis when Serbia had
experienced a huge territorial expansion southward, about 70,000 Muslims,
most of them Albanians, left those territories.47 The majority of the Albanians populated the Kosovo territory where they took revenge against the local Serbs for their exile from the territories that were given to Serbia. In
1913 when Kosovo was annexed to the Serbian state, this backlashed. The
German Historian Holm Sundhaussen wrote that the vicious circle of mutual prosecution started marking the Serbian-Albanian relations in the next
century.48 After the Balkan Wars Serbia became a multi-ethnic state and it
increased its territory for about 81%, receiving about 1.3-1.4 million new inhabitants. Kosovo had approximately 600,000 and Macedonia about
800,000 inhabitants. In both cases, the Serbs were a minority. Almost three
fourths of the population in Kosovo spoke Albanian.49 After the military
conflicts, it is believed that 20,000 Albanians lost their lives, and about
60,000 Muslims fled.50 The relations between the Serbian and the Albanian
population were permanently damaged, and the trust was never restored.
Because of that, the historical memory was an important factor in the clashes in Kosovo in the course of the 1990s.
The national anxiety from the Balkan Wars today burdens the Greek-Macedonian relations. The problem with the Greek refusal to recognise
the name of the Macedonian state actually originates from the Treaty of Bucharest. Through its state institutions, the Greek state managed to create an
almost ethnically homogenous state. Actually, the problem with the recognition of the Macedonian minority in the Republic of Greece has been latently present in disputing the name of the Republic of Macedonia by the Greek
I K , 2000: 106.
, 2009: 156.
48 Ibid.: 155.
49 Ibid.: 236.
50 Ibid.: 238.
46
47

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Makedonka MITROVA

state. This problem in fact is of essential importance for the solution of the
problem between the two states.51 Furthermore, the Turkish-Greek relations
remain problematic, especially because of the Cyprus issue. Additionally,
one needs to emphasise the complex Serbian-Albanian relations in the Balkans after the creation of the Kosovar independent state as well as the new
relations between Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo.
As the historian Maria Todorova states: practically nobody, however, emphasized the fact that it was not ethnic complexity per se but ethnic
complexity in the framework of the idealised nation-state that leads to ethnic homogeneity, inducing ethnic conflicts.52 And really, the issue of the
minorities has always been part of the development of the national states,
and especially in Southeast Europe. Moreover, it is appropriate to emphasise the fact that the national revolutions in the Balkans represented an expression of the influence of the national movements in Central and Western
Europe. Therefore, the model of one nation-one state in the Balkans is reflected under the influence of the Western ideology. Europe has passed to
the Balkans the categories that its nations use to define themselves, and also
it has given them the ideological weapon primarily in a form of modern
romantic nationalism that has continuously been causing mutual disrespect,
suspicions, fears, conflicts and destruction. Consequently, the process of nation building is of later date and is more compressed in the Balkans, ethnic
nationalism becomes stronger, and the civil traditions more fragile.
Hence, at the very end, we could underline the following as a conclusion: the only historical perspective for the Balkans in the 21st century in
overcoming the historical trauma and prejudices is to develop civil society
and economic prosperity as a commonly inter-related region, on all levels of
communication.

On this see: , (. : , , ), 2008.

52 TODOROVA, 2009: 128.
51

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253

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