Second Balkan War | |||||||
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Part of the Balkan Wars | |||||||
Map of the main land operations of the Allied belligerents (amphibious actions not shown) |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Bulgaria |
Serbia Romania Greece Montenegro Ottoman Empire |
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Ferdinand I Mihail Savov Vasil Kutinchev Nikola Ivanov Radko Dimitriev Stiliyan Kovachev Stefan Toshev |
Petar I of Serbia Radomir Putnik Stepa Stepanović Petar Bojović Carol I of Romania Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Romania Alexandru Averescu Constantine I Viktor Dousmanis Pavlos Kountouriotis Mehmed V Enver Pasha Ahmet Izzet Pasha Nicholas I of Montenegro Danilo, Crown Prince of Montenegro Janko Vukotić |
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Strength | |||||||
500,221–576,878 |
348,000 330,000 148,000 12,802 255,000 Total: 1,093,802 |
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
Bulgaria: 7,583 killed 9,694 missing 42,911 wounded 3,049 deceased 140 artillery pieces captured or destroyed Total: 65,927 dead or wounded |
Serbia: 50,000 9,000 killed 36,000 wounded 5,000 dead of disease Greece: 29,886 5,851 killed in action 23,847 wounded in action 188 missing in action Montenegro: 1,201 240 killed 961 wounded Romania: 6,000+ negligible combat casualties 6,000 dead of disease Ottoman Empire: 4,000+ negligible combat casualties 4,000 dead of disease Total: ~76,000 combat casualties ~91,000 total losses |
The defeat of Bulgaria
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 (O.S.)/29 June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked, entering Bulgaria. With Bulgaria also having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania, this war provoked Romanian intervention against Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to regain some lost territories from the previous war. When Romanian troops approached the capital Sofia, Bulgaria asked for an armistice, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest, in which Bulgaria had to cede portions of its First Balkan War gains to Serbia, Greece and Romania. In the Treaty of Constantinople, it lost Edirne to the Ottomans.
The political developments and military preparations for the Second Balkan War attracted an estimated 200–300 war correspondents from around the world.
During the First Balkan War, the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece) succeeded in driving out the Ottoman Empire from its European provinces (Albania, Macedonia, Sandžak and Thrace), leaving the Ottomans with only the Çatalca 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–Midia line, drawn from Midia (Kıyıköy) on the Black Sea coast to Enos (Enez) on the Aegean Sea coast, on an uti possidetis basis, and created an independent Albania.