Read more
Though persistently overshadowed by the Great War in historical memory, the two Balkan conflicts of 1912-1913 were among the most consequential of the early twentieth century. By pitting the states of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro against a diminished Ottoman Empire-and subsequently against one another-they anticipated many of the horrors of twentieth-century warfare even as they produced the tense regional politics that helped spark World War I. Bringing together an international group of scholars, this volume applies the social and cultural insights of the "new military history" to revisit this critical episode with a central focus on the experiences of both combatants and civilians during wartime.
List of contents
Table of Contents List of Tables
Acknowledgements
PART I: INTRODUCTIONS Introduction: The Wars of Yesterday: The Balkan Wars and the Emergence of Modern Military Conflict, 1912/13. An Introduction
Katrin Boeckh and Sabine Rutar Chapter 1. 'Modern Wars' and 'Backward Societies': The Balkan Wars in the History of Twentieth-Century European Warfare
Wolfgang Höpken PART II: BEYOND THE BALKANS: DIPLOMATIC AND GEOPOLITICAL ASPECTS Chapter 2. Ottoman Diplomacy on the Origins of The Balkan Wars
Gül Tokay Chapter 3. Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Balkan Wars: A Diplomatic Struggle for Peace, Influence, and Supremacy
Alma Hannig Chapter 4. Not Just a Prelude: The First Balkan War Crisis as the Catalyst of Final European War Preparations
Michael Hesselholt Clemmesen PART III: ARMIES, SOLDIERS, IRREGULARS Chapter 5. The Ottoman Mobilisation in the Balkan War. Failure and Reorganisation
Mehmet Besikçi Chapter 6. The Thracian Theatre of War 1912
Richard C. Hall Chapter 7. Morale, Ideology, and the Barbarization of Warfare among Greek Soldiers
Spyridon Tsoutsoumpis Chapter 8. A Forgotten Lesson: The Romanian Army between the Campaign in Bulgaria (1913) and the Tutrakan Debacle (1916)
Claudiu-Lucian Topor Chapter 9. Serbian Chetniks. Traditions of Irregular Warfare
Alexey Timofeev PART IV: CIVILIANS, WOUNDED, INVALIDS Chapter 10. The Future Enemy's Soldiers-To-Be: Fear of War in Trieste, Austria-Hungary
Sabine Rutar Chapter 11. The Plight of the Muslim Population in Salonica and Surrounding Areas
Vera Goseva and Natasha Kotlar-Traykova Chapter 12. Cleansing the Nation: War-Related Demographic Changes in Macedonia
Iakovos D. Michailidis Chapter 13. Jewish Philanthropy and Mutual Assistance Between Ottomanism and Communal Identities
Eyal Ginio Chapter 14. The Assistance of the British Red Cross to the Ottoman Empire
Oya Daglar Macar Chapter 15. War Neurosis and Psychiatry in the Aftermath of the Balkan Wars
Heike Karge Conclusion Katrin Boeckh and Sabine Rutar Index
About the author
Katrin Boeckh is a Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg and a Professor for East and Southeast European History at the LMU Munich. She is the author of Von den Balkankriegen zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Kleinstaatenpolitik und ethnische Selbstbestimmung auf dem Balkan (1996) and co-editor, with Sabine Rutar, of The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory (2017).
Sabine Rutar is a Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies. She is Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly Südosteuropa: Journal of Politics and Society and the author of Kultur – Nation – Milieu: Sozialdemokratie in Triest vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (2004).
Summary
Though persistently overshadowed by the Great War in historical memory, the two Balkan conflicts of 1912-1913 were among the most consequential of the early 20th century. Bringing together an international group of scholars, this volume applies the social and cultural insights of the "new military history" to revisit this critical episode.
