Balkan Legacies of the Great War

Othon Anastasakis, David Madden, Elizabeth Roberts, Othon Anastasakis, David Madden, Elizabeth Roberts

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137564139
• eBook ISBN: 9781137564146
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This is a rich yet succinct account of an underexplored story: the consequences of the Great War for the region which ignited it. It offers a fascinating tapestry: the collapse of Empires, the birth of Turkey and Yugoslavia, Greece as both victor and loser, Bulgaria's humiliating defeat; bitter memories, forced migrations, territorial implications and collective national amnesias. The legacies live on.The contributions in this volume significantly enhance the debate about how the Great War is remembered in South East Europe, and why it still evokes such strong emotions and reactions, more than a century after its beginnings.

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Introduction: The Past is Never Dead ...

Othon Anastasakis, David Madden and Elizabeth Roberts

Anastasakis, Othon, David Madden, and Elizabeth Roberts, eds. Balkan Legacies of the Great War: The Past is Never Dead. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. DOI: 10.1057/9781137564146.0004.

Historians are fond of remarking that the long 19th century ended with the First World War. Or as A. J. P. Taylor put it more sweepingly, ‘In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began.’¹

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 triggered the biggest military and political cataclysm the world had then seen. What happened in Sarajevo ultimately sparked a chain of events leading to the deaths of 15 million people; the collapse of the great autocratic empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Turkey; the destruction of the Ottoman Sultanate and three major European dynasties (the Romanovs, the Habsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns); not to mention the triumph of the world’s first socialist regime as a result of the Russian Revolution. The war changed the map of Europe (and the Middle East) more than any previous war in history. New states, claiming as their founding principle the right to self-determination, emerged from the ruins of the old empires. What led to this cataclysm? While its causes, still hotly disputed, extended widely beyond the Balkans, its deepest origins lay in the elusive answer to the so-called ‘Eastern Question,’ fundamentally a search for ways to address the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The constellation of issues surrounding Ottoman decline – including the stirrings of local revolt and the irreconcilability of Austrian and Russian goals over predominance in the Balkans, with roots stretching back into the 18th century – drew in all the major European Powers since each was determined to see that any adjustment of Ottoman frontiers should not alter the balance of power in any way that was detrimental to its own individual interests. Not only was the balance of power in the region, and hence in Europe, at stake; control of this strategic region also carried implications for European rivalries in Asia.

This collision of views, naturally, did not render war inevitable. Indeed, in the years leading up to 1914, the world had held its collective breath on a number of similarly combustible occasions in other possible theatres – the Moroccan crisis of 1898, or again in 1905 when Russian and British interests clashed over Russia’s war with Japan. Yet the Balkans, as Margaret MacMillan points out in this volume, were especially neuralgic – ‘a crossroads where great power rivalry intersected in a particularly dangerous way with local conflicts.’ Furthermore, ‘what made the situation more volatile was that the Balkan nations themselves were now trying to influence affairs.’ No doubt local Balkan rivalries could have been more contained had relations between the Great Powers been better; instead, they were exacerbated.

The 1856 Treaty of Paris had settled the Crimean War between Russia and the Ottoman Empire into which all the other main European powers had been drawn on the Ottoman side owing to fears of Russian expansion. This settlement, guaranteeing the neutrality of the Black Sea, appeared to promise a lasting peace. In reality, however, some of its provisions – particularly those where the signatory powers took upon themselves the role of protecting the rights of the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects – were simply storing up trouble for the future. Thus, when rebellions broke out in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria in 1875–76 and were met with fierce Ottoman suppression (Gladstone’s notorious Bulgarian massacres), the powers were again drawn in as the small Balkan states of Montenegro and Serbia, joined by Russian pan-Slavists, took up arms in support of their Christian brothers in Ottoman territory. These events led to another Russo-Turkish war in 1877. When a series of Russian successes opened the way to Constantinople, the Ottomans sued for peace, allowing the Russians to impose a settlement under the Treaty of San Stefano that threatened to upset the European equilibrium by bolstering Russian interests in the Balkans at Austria-Hungary’s expense.

As tensions escalated, Russia backed down, accepting the need for another peace conference under the chairmanship of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The Congress of Berlin duly opened in 1878, but while all the Great Powers (Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Britain, France, and Italy) took part, the small Balkan nations were excluded, giving rise to a lasting sense of grievance. These nations believed, not without some justification, that the Congress was designed to address the interests of the powers while leaving them as no more than passive witnesses to their own fate.

Serbia and Montenegro nevertheless succeeded in being recognized as sovereign, independent states. By contrast, the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were to be administered by Austria-Hungary while formal sovereignty was still vested in the Ottoman Empire. This arrangement was a recipe for disaster, realized when the Habsburgs, prompted in part by apprehensions about the rival attraction exerted by the rise to power of the modernizing Young Turks, annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. As Ivor Roberts reminds us in Chapter 3, the annexation provoked particularly furious reactions in Russia and Serbia. The Austrians were shocked because Russian Foreign Minister Izvolsky had agreed in July 1908 that, in exchange for Russian acquiescence in the annexation of Bosnia, Austria-Hungary would support the Russian bid for control of the Dardanelles (Russia’s long-cherished strategic aim). The virulence of the reactions, however, led to Izvolsky quietly dropping his support for the annexation. But, with Britain and France disinclined to confront Austria-Hungary, Russia and its client Serbia were forced to accept the annexation in 1909. As Ivor Roberts writes, ‘It was a humiliation that neither Russia nor Serbia would forget, and which came back to haunt everyone in July 1914.’

Yet while Serbian, Montenegrin (and Romanian) aspirations for independence were realized by the Berlin Treaty, the same was not true for Albanians or Macedonians. Bulgaria, which had seen its territory dramatically reduced and its status as an autonomous principality compromised, was left markedly aggrieved. In response to the territorial adjustments put in place by the Treaty of San Stefano and modified by the Congress of Berlin, a group of Albanian notables established the Prizren League of 1878 with a limited autonomist agenda and a determination to preserve the territorial integrity of Albanian-inhabited lands. The first genuinely anti-Ottoman stirrings of revolt, however, only broke out some ten years later when Albanians led by northern Catholics began nationalist uprisings – again in response to the centralizing tendencies of the Young Turks. In turn, emergent Albanian nationalism challenged Serbian and Montenegrin aspirations for territorial expansion to the south; they suspected that Austria-Hungary was, if not complicit, at least not averse to this. The Berlin Treaty also saw Macedonia, nearly entirely allocated to an enlarged Bulgaria under the Treaty of San Stefano, returned to Ottoman rule with predictably troublesome consequences since Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs all entertained irredentist claims to this strategically quintessential territory at the centre of the region.

In the years between 1878 and 1914, the affairs of South East Europe continued to be swayed by the conflicting fortunes of the two empires which had dominated the region for centuries. The Austro-Hungarian Empire remained determined to hold its ground in South East Europe, as demonstrated by the annexation. Its highhanded treatment of Turkey over the annexation changed the dynamic in the Balkans as Italy was emboldened to challenge the Porte. In 1911, eager to ensure its own colonial expansion, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded the Ottoman province of Tripolitania (modern Libya), occupying Tripoli, Benghazi, and Misrata. The Sultan was then forced to sign a peace treaty ceding Tripolitania to Italy in 1912. For the Balkan states, Italy’s attack on the Ottoman Empire was a call to action. What one of the powers could do in undermining the Berlin settlement with impunity could surely be imitated by the small Balkan states. Covert negotiations led swiftly to the formation of the Balkan League, comprising Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro. Initially, Serbia and Montenegro achieved such remarkable and rapid success in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and the Sandžak during the First Balkan War that within a few short weeks between October and December 1912 Serbia and Montenegro had a common border and Serbia, seemingly on the point of realizing its foremost strategic goal, had reached the Adriatic Sea. These developments were immediately destabilizing. Serbian access to the sea threatened Austria-Hungary’s domination of the Adriatic, potentially leading to a Russian presence there. The tension escalated when Montenegro’s determination to wrest the Albanian-inhabited city of Scutari (modern Shkodra) from Ottoman control seemed likely to be supported by Russia in the teeth of Austro-Hungarian opposition. At one stage this situation led British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey to declare that ‘it [Scutari] was a bomb which might set the whole of Europe on fire.’² As Grey saw it, ‘If Austria marched against Montenegro, Russia would march against Austria; Germany would then march against Russia, and France would march against Germany: all this on account of Scutari. It would be intolerable.’³ In the event Montenegro was eventually forced to back down only days after the city surrendered to the Montenegrins. The powers had sent a fleet to blockade Montenegro, and the Austrians prepared to take action (unilateral, if necessary) against Montenegro. King Nikola, faced with such overwhelming odds, decided to settle and agreed to withdraw from Scutari in exchange for a very significant foreign loan. Another dramatic confrontation was thus resolved at the last minute. As the Russian Foreign Minister was reported to have said, ‘King Nikola was going to set the world on fire to cook his own little omelette.’⁴

While Austria-Hungary emerged with its prestige enhanced from this showdown with a small Balkan state, several severely negative consequences would play into the crisis of summer 1914. First, Grey was impressed by Berlin’s willingness to curb Vienna’s aggressive inclinations, leading him to the fatal assumption that the Wilhelmstrasse would exert similar restraining influence in July 1914. Second, Count Berchtold, the Austrian Foreign Minister, clearly felt that issuing ultimata to Montenegro or Serbia, backed with the threat of force, paid dividends. Last, Grey, encouraged by the success of the London Conference under his leadership, was overly confident that another conference could always be convened to stave off another crisis, even at the eleventh hour.

In May 1913, the Treaty of London put an end to the small Balkan states’ hostilities against the Ottoman Empire, but it proved to be no more than an interregnum between two periods of war. Barely a month later, the Balkan states were battling one another over the distribution of spoils. Steered by Austria and Italy, the Great Powers’ plans to create an Albanian state jeopardized Greece and Serbia’s anticipated territorial gains to the south. They consequently sought compensation in Macedonia, threatening Bulgaria’s long-standing claims to the same territory. To pre-empt an attack by Serbia and Greece, the Bulgarians initiated the six-week Second Balkan War – only to find themselves attacked from all sides, not only by Greece and Serbia but also by Romania and Montenegro (and even some Ottoman troops). The result was a catastrophic defeat. By the Treaty of Bucharest signed in August 1913, Serbia and Greece divided the greater part of Macedonia between them and a new state of Albania was brought into being. The Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were the greatest losers. In reality, however, the settlement left all the Balkan nations dissatisfied, even Greece and Serbia which had made the most substantial gains. As Sir Edward Grey wrote, ‘The settlement after the Second Balkan War was not one of justice, but of force. It stored up inevitable trouble for the time to come.’⁵

The two Balkans Wars were a dress rehearsal for the Great War to come in many respects: the use of rapid-firing artillery; the advent of trench warfare; the extensive impact of the war on civilian populations, in part due to disease; and the conscription of soldiers inspired by nationalist ideologies.⁶ The end of the Balkan Wars saw the effective expulsion of the Ottoman Empire from Europe, barring Constantinople and a corner of Thrace. Russia, having opted to support Serbia rather than Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, had forfeited the possibility of gaining indirect control of the Turkish Straits via Bulgaria. Its influence in the peninsula would henceforth need to be exerted primarily through its ties to Serbia.

In Serbia and annexed Bosnia, nationalist anti-Ottoman sentiment was meanwhile slowly redirected against Austria-Hungary. Its hostility towards Serbia and Montenegro had been significantly increased by these two nations’ campaigns against the Albanians in the Balkan Wars and their opposition to the creation of an Albanian state. Serbia’s victory in these wars had sharpened its desire to be the Piedmont of the Balkans, and the only other direction for pan-Slavists to expand was to the north and west. In this volume, Ivor Roberts describes the emergence of the Black Hand, a shadowy secret organization, as initially a threat to not only the Serb monarchy and its government but also to the Habsburg Empire. Bosnian Serb emigrants (including most fatefully Gavrilo Princip) in Belgrade spent their time discussing irredentist plots against Austria-Hungary, aided and abetted by Black Hand operatives. Their interaction led directly to the assassination of the Archduke.

At the outbreak of the Great War, the European Powers were divided into two essentially defensive alliance systems: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and Russia). Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July was backed by the knowledge that should Russia enter the war on the Serbian side, Germany would intervene in support of Austria. Spurred on by pan-Slav nationalists, the Russian Tsar reluctantly gave the order for general mobilization on 30 July and, in the ensuing chain reaction, Germany declared war on both Russia and France while Britain entered the war in their support on 4 August. With the majority of the Great Powers now at war, the countries and political elites of the region were divided in siding either with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) or with former members of the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and Russia), now known as the Allies. The Ottoman Empire, devastated, defeated, and expelled from European territory, sided with Germany in the expectation ‘that if the war went particularly well for the Central Powers, the Ottomans might actually recover some of the territory they surrendered in the Balkan Wars in 1912–13. Secondly, should Greece enter the war on the side of the Entente Powers, and be defeated, Germany would assure the return of the three Aegean Islands of Chios, Mytilene (Lesbos), and Limnos to Turkish sovereignty,’ as Eugene Rogan puts it in this volume. In April 1915, Italy was persuaded to abandon its former partners in the Triple Alliance and enter the war on the side of the Allies after Britain and France, in the secret Treaty of London, had promised to reward her at the end of the war with territories inhabited by Slovenes and Croats. Five months later, the Central Powers secured the support of Bulgaria by exploiting a combination of territorial bribes and old resentments focused principally on the loss of Macedonia, a decision which was to cost the Bulgarians dearly in human, territorial, political, and financial terms. As Richard Crampton argues in this volume, for Bulgaria, the Second Balkan War and the First World War were two national catastrophes whose names no one dared to utter for a long time.

In turn, Bulgaria’s decision – important as it was for control of the Straits – was also fateful for Serbia which, pinioned between the Austrians to the north and the Bulgarians to the south, had little chance of holding out in the longer term. Their initial successes gave way to defeats and a retreat through Kosovo and Albania to the Adriatic and ultimately to Corfu, where a government-in-exile was established. For the Allies, the Serbian defeat made the question of Greece and Romania’s allegiance acute.

Opinion in Greece was bitterly polarized over which side to take, a division that split the country into two political camps (Royalists versus Venizelists) and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction: The Past is Never Dead...
• 2  Too Much History and Too Many Neighbours: Europe and the Balkans before 1914
• 3  The Black Hand and the Sarajevo Conspiracy
• 4  The Contrasting Legacies of the South Slav Question
• 5  Was the First World War the Turning Point at Which Bulgarian History Failed to Turn?
• 6  World War I and the Fall of the Ottomans: Consequences for South East Europe
• 7  Unwanted Legacies: Greece and the Great War
• 8  Epilogue:...It Is Not Even Past!