Prelude to the First World War: The Balkan Wars 1912-1913

by E.R. Hooton

The fuse to the First World War was lit in the Balkans where simmering hatreds exploded into violence. Like a string of firecrackers, these hatreds had been fueled by attacks on the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the previous few years. From 1911-1912, Italy seized Libya. In 1912, the Balkan states united to drive Turkey out of Europe in the First Balkans War, and in the following year in the Second Balkans War, turned on each other in a division of the spoils which allowed Turkey to retain a foothold in Europe. This was a war of land campaigns, sea battles and amphibious operations in which the new military technology was first used. Submarine and aircraft attacked ships, aircraft made reconnaissance flights and bombed troops while even electronic warfare was used. It also saw mirror images of the events in the First World War; Bulgarians driven from Salonika where an Allied army would later be contained and Turkish troops held back in the Dardanelles, their guns driving off a naval task force. These now forgotten wars were the overture to the First World War and yet they have overtones a century later. The First World War saw echoes of these campaigns in Salonika and especially in the Dardanelles, while the ethnic tensions would erupt into further bloodshed after the Cold War ended as Yugoslavia collapsed during the 1990s.

Genres: History, World War I, Military Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published July 19, 2014

About the author

E.R. (Ted) Hooton is a retired defence journalist who worked for Moench and Jane’s before establishing his own successful newsletter. A member of the Royal United Services Institute and the British Commission for Military History since retirement he has focused upon military history.

Reviews

[Heinz Reinhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prelude to the First World War, by E.R. Hooten, is a detailed, analytical, traditional military history, written in narrative style, describing both of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.
This was a book I had read last summer, but had, admittedly rather skimmed through, and since I felt the bug to do a deeper dive in 2020 into the Great War, I wanted to reread this as part of a World War 1 reading list. 
Hooten spends a decent deal of time narrating how the wars came to be. It is impossible not to tell this story without taking a look at the decline of the Ottoman Empire starting in the early part of the nineteenth century. Hooten takes a look at how Ottoman weakness, following the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, saw a series of ethnic revolts and Great Power interventions both against, and for, the dying Caliphate. 
While not going into any great detail, Hooten relates the Greek War for Independence, which ended with Great Power interventions on the behalf of the Greek Christian's, the Crimean War of the 1850's, which likewise ended in Great Power interventions, but this time on behalf of the Ottomans, as well as the various Slavic revolts in the Balkans, culminating in the epic Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. That war, too, ended in Great Power interventions on behalf of the Ottomans, except in a diplomatic form as the powers of Western Europe utilized their political leverage to take away much of Russia's gains won by the sword. 
Every single one of the Balkan states, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Greece, all were born, or rather reborn, as independent entities due to warfare and revolution. This set a bloody precedent for the Balkan peninsula which still holds into the current age. 
This political volatility in the region, ably showcased by Hooten who, honestly, does a better job of clearly explaining and narrating political events rather than military ones, lead to considerable tension between two major Great Powers surrounding the region. 
Both the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires had a great deal of state interests in the region, as well as cultural and religious ones. In fact, religion, as Hooten demonstrates in this book, played a huge part in the lead up to the Balkan Wars. 
Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece were all dominant Orthodox Christian nations, while all of them contained large minorities of Roman Catholics, and Muslims. Russia, seeing itself as the Third Rome, and the heir to the Protectorate of the Church, had a keen interest in guiding the development of the Balkan states, specifically Serbia and Bulgaria. Vienna, an Empire built around the notion of being the Sword Defender of the Church of Rome, had an equally keen interest in stopping the expansion of the Slavic nations, of keeping down the growth of the Orthodox Church, of defending the interests of Catholicism in the region, while at the same time looking both to expand territorially in the region, as well as maintaining a block on any major revival of Ottoman power in Europe proper. 
These conflicting interests lead to several war scares between Russia and Austria-Hungary in the first decade of the 20th century, especially when the Austro-Hungarians went ahead and annexed the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina from Ottoman control in 1909. This blatant land grab by Vienna-Budapest prompted the Russians to work behind the scenes to assist in the formation of the Balkan League. 
The League's existence, in the eyes of St. Petersburg, was primarily to act as a counter to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while the individual Balkan League members: Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, saw it as the perfect opportunity to kick the hated Ottoman Caliphate out of Europe by force, and end centuries of oppression against Orthodox Christians in the region. However, as Hooten points out, the Ottomans were not universally harsh to Christian minorities, it truly depended on who was Sultan at the time, as well as the attitude of the regional governors. Ottoman cruelty was far more harshly meted out against their fellow Muslims who happened to err on the side of rebellion against Constantinople. The Yemeni in particular were routinely clobbered, brutally, by the Ottoman Army, who developed a reputation for cruel disdain and sneering superiority against their Arab subjects. An attitude that would haunt them in the First World War.  
And it must be said, that the Christian nations of the Balkans were far from innocent of cruelty of their own towards Muslims living in their own lands. 
The event that fully triggered war was the 1911 Italian invasion of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania (the two main provinces of Libya). Although the Ottomans, alongside Sennussi tribesmen, who thought it great fun to make war on both sides, managed to contain the Italians largely to the coastal settlements, the Italian Navy managed to control the sea around Libya, denying the Ottomans the ability to reinforce, and the Ottomans were forced to concede defeat. 
This mark of weakness emboldened the Balkan League, who determined upon a first strike, to drive the Ottomans from Europe once and for all. 
Lead by Bulgaria, the strongest of the Balkan League states, the preparations and planning for a united effort went apace. In early October, 1912, the Balkan League launched their simultaneous offensive against the Ottomans. 
Here, Hooten tends to fall just a little flat. He has a bit of the Col. Glantz syndrome of revealing an amazing amount of data and knowledge to the reader, in as dull a fashion as is humanly possible. Hooten is not an exciting narrator, his narration is bone dry, even if his analysis is top notch. It must also be said that the maps contained herein are relatively useless. The maps show nothing of the movement of the various forces engaged, and sometimes do not show the locations being discussed in the narration. Maps for specific battles, such as Lozengrad (better known as the Battle of Kirk Kilisse), do not show troop concentrations or the dispositions of the opposing forces, nor their movements. And not even a majority of the terrain features. That gripe aside, this is the only place, in English, where you're going to find a narration of the military events of the Balkan Wars. 
The Montenegrins kicked off the war by launching a straight on offensive to take the Albanian port city of Shkoder, the Serbians and the Bulgarians blasted into Macedonia, the Greeks surged into Salonika and Thessaloniki, while the Bulgarians blitzed into Thrace and straight towards Constantinople. Much like the Russo-Japanese War of seven years prior, this was a modern war with machine guns, rapid firing breech loading artillery, howitzers firing indirect trajectories, and even the utilization of aircraft for tactical and operational reconnaissance as well as the occasional (if pointless) bombing. However, the war was still fought, in part, with 19th century tactics, and the bayonet charge and hand to hand combat was not unheard of. 
Everywhere the Ottomans were thrown back, and only along the Catalca River line, against the Bulgarians, were the Ottomans militarily successful. 
Literally everywhere else they were stomped, battered, thrashed, and routed by the forces of the Balkan League. When it came time to call for an armistice, in May of 1913, the Ottomans had lost over a quarter of a million men, and all of their European possessions. 
However, Bulgarian and Serbian antipathy, stemming from disputes over territorial possessions in Macedonia, as well as Russia cooling towards the Bulgarians (largely due to Russia quietly panicking that the Bulgarians might actually take Constantinople, a prize Russia hoped to take for herself at some point in the future) lead to the Bulgarians gambling on striking the Serbians and Greeks in Macedonia to push their claims. 
This Second Balkan War, often overlooked, gets a full chapter in Hooten's work, and is well described. The Bulgarians gambled all, and a foolish gamble it was. The Serbians and Greeks managed to first contain the Bulgarians, and then push them back, while Romania and the Ottomans took the opportunity to strike while Bulgaria was occupied, and take territory at Sofia's expense. 
The Second War ended disastrously for Bulgaria, and in terms of territory and overall power, Belgrade proved the winner of both wars. 
Which, of course, lead directly to the assasination of Franz Josef in Sarajevo, and the triggering of the First World War. 
Despite Hooten's narrative being a bit dry at times, this was an excellent book. It covers all the aspects of the Balkan Wars, the political, diplomatic, religious and cultural, and the military, both land and Naval (to include the story of the Greek Marine assault which secured Mount Athos and the sacred monastery there). This is a book I can highly recommend to every student of history, and really, these wars should be seen as the beginning of the First World War. 

[Dana Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful information, desperately in need of editing.

This book is one of few that focuses on the Balkan wars, and it a valuable historical piece for that reason alone. It spends some time on the situation leading up to fall of 1912, in particular motivations of the individual Balkan nations to covet and eventually take territory from the dying Ottoman empire. This is a fascinating drama before the wars break out, showing how the various nations who weren't friendly with one another necessarily, created the Balkan League (against the wishes of Great Powers), to drive the Ottomans out of the region. It heavily focuses on these nations and the Great Powers mostly take a back seat, only showing up to give approval or dissent. This is good because it keeps focus local, rather than slipping into the well-documented big picture machinations of larger Europe. The author's perspective seems to be very neutral and presents all belligerents equally.

During the war narrative, it pivots to an overhead combat account of maneuvers from beginning to end. This is a fine method as it shows how political borders came to be. It's rather dry as to be expected, but the existence of this record is good. I would have liked a little more on the personal level, in particular I think more than a vague mention of atrocities committed by all sides is important and was missed.

However in these sections also lies my main complaint. There is a distinct lack of editing and organization. First of all, formatting (my copy appears to be a 2014 edition hardcover) is full of errors. Map titles are out of order, tables are hard to find, chapter page headers and maps themselves appear to be roughly 4 or 5 pages before their intended location. This makes referencing maps for events in the narrative quite difficult. Additionally, the way the Balkan wester front chapter is told is highly confusing and could have used more sub-chapters and benefited from reorganization.

It's these things primarily that knock this down to 3 stars for what would have otherwise been excellent. I'm hoping if there are further editions, they'll iron those out.

[Joe Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative book on the very overlooked wars in the Balkans prior to the Great War. It is heavy into the combat and military actions, but does cover some of the political aspects as well. I will admit that I found myself lost several times in it because the names of the generals and cities / regional locations where very new to me and sometimes I would forget who was who. Because it is sort of an obscure war, it would have been very useful to had a list of the players at the beginning of the book so I could refer back to it when I started to get confused on which individual served in which national army. Regardless of that, it was very detailed for military formations, artillery strengths at fortifications, and the overall military operations.

[Francis Telegadas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing was very informative but dry and technical. Very much a factual account about which side did xyz but not a lot of life in the narrative

[Mac McCormick III · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Balkan Wars are some of the lesser known and written about wars even though they set helped set the stage for and foreshadowed World War I. In this centennial year of the beginning of World War I, I wanted to read up on this prelude to the great war. I came away from reading Prelude to the First World War: The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 with mixed feelings. I was looking forward to reading it, I wanted to like it, but ultimately just couldn't get past "meh."

This isn't a bad book. It's very informative; it sets the stage for the wars, takes a look at the capabilities of the combatants, explains why things happened the way they did and frames what happened in reference to World War I to come. The problem is that this book falls into an easy trap for military history books; for the most part it was dry. It mostly consists of "such and such Division/Corps/Army had X number of troops, Y number of guns, and moved toward so and so. Without a doubt, the forces and equipment are important, but I feel that the author could have done more to develop the personalities of the key players. Another issue is that there were maps in line with the text, but they were somewhat misplaced; it would have been nice to have them closer to the battles they were relevant to.

After thinking about it for a few days, I can only give Prelude to the First World War: The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 three stars. I never felt that I got really into the book or drawn into the history of the Balkan Wars. Despite the fact that it was informative and I learned a lot about the topic, I never really felt engaged. If you really want to learn about the Balkan Wars, I would recommend it but if you're just looking for a casual read this is not the book for you.

[Rayrumtum · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because of my interest in the origins of the First World War. Many books about the origin refer briefly to the Balkan Wars as being a precursor of instability in the Balkans. I thought a book dedicated to this topic would help fill in the historical gaps. Unfortunately this book didn't really help as it is a REAL MESS.
On the plus side, the book gave a lot of very minor details on the campaign about weaponry and order of battle. If I wanted to design a board game or computer simulation of the war I would have everything I needed. Also, there were many interesting photos included.
On the negative, the chapter on the prelude to the first Balkan War was comprehensive but told so briefly with limited details as to be comprehended. The chapter on the weaponry laid out in detail the order of battle, the calibers of weapons, ships, etc. But it did that in dense prose that would have been better presented in tabular form with a couple of paragraphs of analysis. The discussion of the campaign was presented in stilted prose with an occasional trite cliche interjected. For these wars about areas unfamiliar to most readers, maps are key. This book lacked an overall strategic map of the Balkans which would have helped understand an area whose borders were a lot different then than they are today. There were ample tactical maps but they were so small that the print of town names was unreadable. Also, the placement of the maps tended to be some distance from the discussion/ Nor was there a key to the maps.
All in all, I would say this was a disappointing book.