[citation needed] The Kingdom of Montenegro was the first country in the league to declare war to the Ottoman Empire.

[7] Despite scarce resources machine guns, artillery pieces and cannons, most of its citizens were soldiers or army officers Although it had few battalions, its casualties were serious, losing about of its 50% men.

The Bulgarian Army surrendered in less than a month and only lost 1% of its men, suffering only 1,201 casualties; 241 killed and 961 wounded.

[citation needed] On 28 July 1914, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian throne, the archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie Chotek, were assassinated by a Bosnian Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip.

[citation needed] Nicholas decided to maintain the neutrality because his country was recovering from the Balkan Wars and the army wasn't prepared to affront Austria-Hungary, a superpower with 10 times more men in their respective armed forces.

The Austro-Hungarian army wasn't very prepared, equipped or trained compared to both Serbia and Montenegro, both of which fought in the Balkan wars in previous years.

[citation needed] Montenegro mobilized 45–50,000 men of the royal army along with 62 batteries, 14 land cannons and 62 machine guns.