Second Balkan War

Second Balkan War
Part of the Balkan Wars

Map of the mainland operations of the Allied belligerents
(amphibious actions not shown)
Date
  • 29 June – 10 August 1913
  • (1 month, 1 week and 5 days)
Location
Balkan Peninsula
Result

Bulgarian defeat

Territorial
changes

Bulgaria cedes:

Belligerents
 Bulgaria
Commanders and leaders
Strength
Tsardom of Bulgaria (1908–1946) 600,000+[1]
  • Kingdom of Serbia 348,000[2]
  • Kingdom of Romania 330,000[2]
  • Kingdom of Greece 148,000
  • Kingdom of Montenegro 12,800[2]
  • Ottoman Empire 255,000[3]
  • Total:1,093,802
Casualties and losses
 Kingdom of Bulgaria:[1][better source needed]
  • 7,583 killed
  • 9,694 missing
  • 42,911 wounded
  • 3,049 deceased[clarification needed]
  • 140 artillery pieces captured or destroyed
  • Total: 65,927 killed or wounded
 Serbia: 50,000
  • 9,000 killed
  • 36,000 wounded
  • 5,000 dead of disease[4]
  •  Romania: 1,600[5][6][7]
  • negligible combat casualties
  • 1,600 dead of a cholera outbreak
  •  Greece: 29,886
  • 5,851 killed in action
  • 23,847 wounded in action
  • 188 missing in action[8]
  •  Montenegro: 1,201
  • 240 killed
  • 961 wounded[4]
  •  Ottoman Empire: 4,000+
  • negligible combat casualties
  • 4,000 dead of disease[9]
  • Total:
  • c. 76,000 combat casualties
  • c. 91,000 total losses

The Second Balkan War was a conflict that 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 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counterattacked, entering Bulgaria. With Bulgaria also having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania[10] and the bulk of Bulgarian forces engaged in the south, the prospect of an easy victory incited 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 Adrianople to the Ottomans.

The political developments and military preparations for the Second Balkan War attracted an estimated 200 to 300 war correspondents from around the world.[11]

  1. ^ a b "Bulgarian troops loses during the Balkan Wars". Archived from the original on 29 December 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
  2. ^ a b c Hall 2000, p. 117
  3. ^ Erickson 2003, p. 323.
  4. ^ a b Hall 2000, p. 135
  5. ^ Leașu, Florin; Nemeț, Codruța; Borzan, Cristina; Rogozea, Liliana (2015). "A novel method to combat the cholera epidemic among the Romanian Army during the Balkan War – 1913". Acta medico-historica Adriatica. 13 (1): 159–170. PMID 26203545.
  6. ^ Ciupală, Alin (25 May 2020). "Epidemiile în istorie | O epidemie uitată. Holera, România și al Doilea Război Balcanic din 1913" (in Romanian). University of Bucharest.
  7. ^ Stoica, Vasile Leontin (2012). Serviciul Sanitar al Armatei Române în perioada 1914–1919 (PDF) (Thesis) (in Romanian). Chișinău: Ion Creangă State Pedagogical University. pp. 1–196.
  8. ^ Calculation (PDF) (in Greek), Hellenic Army General Staff, p. 12, archived (PDF) from the original on 7 June 2011, retrieved 14 January 2010.
  9. ^ Hall 2000, p. 119
  10. ^ Iordachi, Constantin (2017). "Diplomacy and the Making of a Geopolitical Question: The Romanian-Bulgarian Conflict over Dobrudja, 1878–1947". Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Vol. 4. Brill. pp. 291–393. ISBN 978-90-04-33781-7. p. 336: the adjustment of the common frontier in Dobrudja had dominated diplomatic relations between Romania and Bulgaria ever since the aftermath of the Congress of Berlin (1878).
  11. ^ "Correspondants de guerre", Le Petit Journal Illustré (Paris), 3 novembre 1912.