Second Balkan War

Second Balkan War
Part of Balkan Wars
Date June 16 1913 - July 18 1913 Location Balkan Peninsula Result Bulgarian defeat, Treaty of Bucharest, 1913
Combatants
Bulgaria	Greece Serbia Montenegro Romania Ottoman Empire
Commanders
Mihail Savov, Nikola Ivanov, Vasil Kutinchev, Radko Dimitriev	King Constantine, Radomir Putnik, Crown Prince Ferdinand, Alexandru Averescu
Strength
500,000 men	Serbia 220,000 men, Romania 300,000 men, Greece 150,000 men, Montenegro 12,000 men

The Second Balkan War was fought in 1913 between Bulgaria on one side and its First Balkan War allies Greece and Serbia on the other side, with Romania and the Ottoman Empire intervening against Bulgaria. The outcome turned Serbia, an ally of the Russian Empire, into an important regional power, alarming Austria-Hungary and thereby indirectly providing an important cause for World War I.

Background - The First Balkan War

During the First Balkan War, the Balkan League (Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria) succeeded in conquering the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire (Albania, Macedonia and Thrace), leaving the Ottomans with only the Chatalja and Gallipoli peninsulas. The Treaty of London, signed on 30 May 1913, which ended the war, acknowledged the Balkan states' gains west of the Enos-Medea line and created an independent Albania. However, the treaty did not satisfy anyone. The Balkan states had made no preliminary agreement on the partition of the conquered territories, especially with regards to Macedonia, and the London Conference simply recognized the status quo, whereby the territories went to the occupying power. Bulgaria felt that their territorial rewards from the war, particularly in Macedonia, were insufficient, and laid claim to the important city of Salonika, where a Bulgarian regiment was already stationed. Greece and Serbia were already displeased at being forced to evacuate Albania, and responded to the perceived Bulgarian threat by entering into negotiations, ostensibly aimed at preventing Bulgarian expansion. They settled their mutual differences and signed a military alliance on May 1, 1913, followed by a treaty of "mutual friendship and protection" on May 19/June 1, 1913. A further dispute of Bulgaria was with Romania, over the latter's claim on the Bulgarian fortress of Silistria on the Danube river, as the price for their neutrality in the First Balkan war. Russian arbitration, provided for in the 1912 Serbo-Bulgarian treaty, was progressing slowly, as Russia didn't wish to lose either of its Slavic allies in the Balkans. During the negotiations, skirmishing continued in Macedonia, mainly between Serbian and Bulgarian troops. On June 16, the Bulgarian high command, without notifying the government, ordered Bulgarian troops to attack Serbian and Greek positions, and declarations of war ensued. Bulgaria hoped to acquire all of Bulgarian Macedonia and dominate the Balkans, as envisaged in the Treaty of San Stefano, while Serbia and Greece hoped to take larger portions of Macedonia and prevent Bulgarian hegemony.

Forces

The Bulgarian army had 500,000 men divided into five armies, deployed over 500 km front from the Danube river on the North, to the Aegean Sea on the South. The Serbian army accounted for 230,000 men divided into three armies, its main force deployed on the Macedonian front along the Vardar river and Skopije. The Greek army had 120,000 men, mainly around Salonica. Montenegro sent one division (12,000 men) on the Macedonian front. Romania mobilized 500,000 men, allocated in five corps. Turkey entered the war with an army of 255,000 men.

The Beginning of the Second Balkan War

Bulgarian dead in the Balkan Wars

The main Bulgarian attack was planned against the Serbs with their 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th Armies, while the 2nd Army was tasked with an attack towards Greek positions at Salonika. The Bulgarians were outnumbered on the Greek front and the low-level fighting soon turned into Greek attack all along the line on 19 June. The Bulgarian forces immediately withdrew from their positions north of Salonika (except the isolated Salonika garrison which was quickly overrun) to defensive positions between Kilkis and Struma river. The plan was to quickly destroy the Serbian army in central Macedonia by concentrated attack; it did not succeed and the Bulgarians were stopped.

Battle of Kilkis-Lahana

The Bulgarian 2nd Army in southern Macedonia commanded by General Ivanov held a line from Lake Doiran (a key battlefield for British troops three years later) south east to Lakes Langaza (modern Lake Koronia) and Beshik (modern Lake Volvi), then across to the port of Kavala on the Aegean. The army had been in place since May, and had fought at the siege of Adrianople in the First Balkan War. Bulgarians claim that their troops were overextended and that they numbered no more than 40,000 men in two weak divisions. Many of the gaps were filled with recruits from the local population. The Greeks estimated their opponents at at least 80,000 men. The Greek army, commanded by King Constantine I, had nine divisions and a cavalry division (120,000 men), outnumbering the Bulgarian forces, which were however heavily fortified. At Kilkis the Bulgarians had constructed strong defences, including captured Ottoman guns which dominated the plain below. On 3 July the Greek 4th, 2nd and 5th divisions attacked across the plain in rushes supported by artillery. They suffered heavy casualties but by the following day had carried the trenches. Meanwhile on the Bulgarian left the Greek 7th Division had captured Nigrita and the 1st and 6th divisions Lahana. On the Bulgarian right Evzoni captured Gevgelija and the heights of Matsikovo. As a consequence the Bulgarian line of retreat through Doiran was threatened and Ivanov's army began a desperate retreat which at times threatened to become a rout. Reinforcements in the form of the 14th Division came too late and joined the retreat towards Strumica and the Bulgarian border. The Greeks captured Doiran on 5 July but were unable to cut off the Bulgarian retreat through Struma pass. On 11 July the Greeks joined up with the Serbs and then pushed on up the Struma River until they reached Kresna Gorge on 24 July. At this point the exhausted Greeks had overstretched their supply lines, and were forced to halt and were surrounded. Only the beginning of peace negotiation saved the Greek army from a complete disaster. The Bulgarians suffered some 7,000 casualties at Kilkis. A further 6,000 were taken prisoner together with 130 guns. The Greeks also suffered heavily with 8,700 casualties. It was the greatest Greek success in both Balkan wars.

Bregalnica, Kalimantsi and Kresna Gorge

On the front in central Macedonia the Serbs pushed Bulgarian forces eastwards at the battle of Bregalnica (30 June - 9 July). Meanwhile on the north the Bulgarians started to advance towards Serbian town of Pirot (near the Serbian - Bulgarian border) and forced Serbian Command to send reinforcements to the 2nd Army defending Pirot and Nis. This enabled Bulgarians to stop the Serbian offensive in Macedonia at Kalimantsi on 18 July. After the situation on the Serbian front calmed down, the Bulgarians shifted their 1st Army to support the 2nd Army facing the Greeks in the excellent defensive position of Kresna Gorge. King Constantine rejected his government's proposal for an armistice, seeking a decisive victory on the battlefield. On 29 July the consolidated Bulgarian army launched attacks on both flanks pushing the Greeks down the Struma and Mesta River valleys. Constantine's army faced annihilation and pleaded for support from the Serbs. The Serbs were in no position to offer help after their defeat at Kalimantsi and Constantine was obliged to ask his government to seek an armistice. The Greeks had sustained about 10,000 casualties in the previous ten days of fighting. The Bulgarian government was equally desirous of peace and the Greek army was saved from destruction.

End of the War

Despite stabilising the front in Macedonia, the Bulgarian government's acceptance of an armistice was driven by events far from Macedonia. Romania invaded on 27 June/10 July, occupying the undefended Southern Dobruja and marching through Northern Bulgaria to threaten Sofia. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to recover some of their former possessions in Thrace including Adrianople (which the Bulgarians abandoned on 23 July without firing a shot). Ottoman troops marched into Yambol. Because Bulgarian troops had all been allocated to the front with Serbia and Greece, the Ottoman and Romanian armies suffered no combat casualties, although both suffered heavily from a cholera outbreak. A general armistice was agreed to on 18/31 July, 1913, and the territorial spoils divided in the treaties of Bucharest and Constantinople. Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War including the southern Dobrudja (to Romania), most of Macedonia, and Eastern Thrace (to the Ottomans), while retaining Western Thrace, its Aegean outlet, with the port of Dedeagach. Serbia made gains in northern Macedonia, while Greece gained the region's southern half, including the coveted prizes of Salonika and Kavala. The boundary settlements of the Treaties of Bucharest and Constantinople were only temporary; ten months later the fighting was renewed with the start of the First World War.

Notes

See also

• First Balkan War