Greece in the Balkan Wars
It also served as a catalyst of political developments, as it brought to prominence two personalities, whose relationship would dominate the next decade and have long-lasting repercussions for Greece: the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, and the Army's commander-in-chief, the Crown Prince and later King, Constantine I.
The initial principal thrust on land was by the Army of Thessaly, which succeeded in occupying much of Macedonia, including the strategically important port of Thessaloniki, the latter just hours ahead of a Bulgarian division; this would result in increased tension between the two allies in the coming months, and would be one of the causes of the Second Balkan War.
[1] The first states to be formed out of the Ottoman Empire were Serbia (as an autonomous principality in 1804–1817) and Greece (as a fully independent kingdom in 1821–1832), in both cases following protracted wars.
[5] Macedonia was inhabited by a dense mixture of nationalities, including Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Vlachs, Turks and other Balkan Muslims, Albanians, and featured even a large community of Sephardic Jews, who were the dominant element in the region's major city, Thessaloniki.
All countries with minorities in the region tried to make progress at the expense of the others, funding schools and publishing ethnographic statistics and maps that supported their claims.
In the late 1890s, the antagonism for Macedonia, hitherto mostly confined to a cultural and propaganda war, entered a new phase,[5] as the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, founded in 1893, initiated an armed guerrilla campaign against the Ottomans.
Following the Ilinden Uprising, the Bulgarian efforts were countered by Serb and Greek armed groups, in what is known as the "Macedonian Struggle" in Greece.
[7][8] These armed bands functioned as the military wing of national committees that carried out an intensive campaign of cultural assimilation amongst the rural populace, funding schools and orphanages, among other things.
Coupled with Bulgarian aspirations for Macedonia and Austrian designs on Thessaloniki,[14] it made clear that, if Greece did not want to be left out of the Ottoman spoils, it had to act.
[16] Feelers about a rapprochement and an alliance had also been put forward to Bulgaria by Venizelos in early 1911, but not until after the conclusion of the Serbian-Bulgarian pact did negotiations commence in earnest.
Unlike the treaty with Serbia, no provisions were made for the division of territory, primarily because the Bulgarians assumed that their army would seize most of its aims before the Greeks got there.
[20] Among the Balkan nations, only Greece possessed a considerable navy, while Bulgaria was limited to a few torpedo boats to guard its Black Sea coast.
The Army of Thessaly comprised seven infantry divisions, four independent Evzones battalions, a cavalry brigade and various support units, as well as four Farman aircraft, a total of 100,000 men, 70 machine guns and 120 artillery pieces, with 80,000 in the field.
The Army of Epirus was of divisional strength, being composed of 8 infantry and one Evzones battalions, one cavalry company and 24 field guns, with a total of ca.
The French military mission proposed additional reforms after studying its performance in the wars notably the creation of five new army corps.
