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| Balkans theatre | |||||||
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| Part of theEuropean theatre ofWorld War I | |||||||
 Serbian troops during the opening of the warc. 1914 | |||||||
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| Serbian campaign: Macedonian front: | |||||||
TheBalkan Front,Balkans theatre orBalkan campaign was a theatre ofWorld War I fought between theCentral Powers (Austria-Hungary,Bulgaria,Germany and theOttoman Empire) and theAllies (Serbia,Montenegro,France, theUnited Kingdom,Russia,Italy, and later,Greece).
The offensive began in 1914 with three failed Austro-Hungarianoffensives into Serbia. A new attempt a year later by the combined forces of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Bulgaria led to theconquest and occupation of Serbia andMontenegro.[17] The Serbian military did not surrender,retreating through the mountains of Albania and evacuated toCorfu before reforming inSalonika a few months later. On theMacedonian front, theRoyal Serbian Army joined the Franco-BritishAllied Army of the Orient and fought a protractedtrench war against Bulgarian and German forces. The Allied army presence in Greece resulted in theNational Schism on whether Greece should join theAllies or remain neutral, which would benefit the Central Powers. Greece eventually joined the Allied Powers in 1917. In September 1918, theVardar Offensive had broken through the Bulgarian lines,forcing them to surrender.Serbia, Albania and Montenegro's liberation soon followed.
The prime cause of the war was hostility between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Serbia held out against Austria-Hungary for over a year before being defeated in late 1915 during theSerbian campaign.
Dalmatia was a strategic region during the war that Italy and Serbia intended to seize from Austria-Hungary. Italy entered the war upon agreeing to the1915 Treaty of London, which promised them a substantial portion of the territory. However, the nation was granted only a small part of Dalmatia in the1919 Treaty of Versailles, leading to discontent among the Italian populace. This resentment, coupled with a desire to restore national pride, provided fertile ground for the emergence offascist ideology under the leadership ofBenito Mussolini. Mussolini's promise to rejuvenate Italy and return it to a position of power resonated with many Italians contributing to the rise of his "Fasces of Combat" in the country.
During World War I, the retreating Serbian troops fled to Albania, prompting the Central Powers to invade Albania. To aid the Serbian forces, Italian transport ships in the Adriatic Sea helped evacuate them toCorfu and other Greek islands before being relocated toThessaloniki. Meanwhile, the Allies landed in neutral Greece and formed theMacedonian front. In 1917, Greece joined the war on the Allies side, and the multinationalAllied Army of the Orient, stationed in northern Greece, launched an offensive in 1918. The offensive resulted in Bulgaria seeking a peace treaty, the recapture of Serbia, and a halt only at the border of Hungary in November 1918.
The Serbian forces defended against the largerAustro-Hungarian Army due to a Russian invasion from the north. In 1915, Austria-Hungary placed additional soldiers on the southern front and brought Bulgaria as an ally for theCentral Powers.
Soon, the Serbian military was attacked from the north and the east, forcing aretreat to Greece. Despite the loss, the retreat was successful, and the Serbian military remained operational in Greece with a newly established base.
Before direct intervention in the war,Italy had occupied the port ofVlorë in Albania in December 1914.[18] Upon entering the war, Italy spread its occupation to the region of southernAlbania beginning in the autumn of 1916.[18] Italian forces in 1916 recruited Albanian irregulars to serve alongside them.[18] Italy, with the permission of Allied command, occupiedNorthern Epirus on August 23, 1916, forcing the Greek military to withdraw its occupation forces in the area.[18]
In June 1917, Italy proclaimed central and southern Albania to be a protectorate of Italy. Northern Albania was allocated to the states of Serbia and Montenegro.[18] By October 31, 1918, French and Italian forces had expelled the Austro-Hungarian military from Albania.[18]
Dalmatia was a strategic region duringWorld War I that Italy and Serbia intended to seize from Austria-Hungary. Italy joined theAllies in 1915 upon agreeing to theLondon Pact, which guaranteed it the right to annex a large portion of Dalmatia in exchange for Italy's participation on the Allied side. From November 5 to 6, 1918, Italian forces were reported to have reachedLissa,Lagosta,Sebenico, and other localities on the Dalmatian coast.[19]
By the end of hostilities in November 1918, the Italian military had seized control of the entire portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the London Pact and by the 17th had captured Fiume as well.[20] In 1918, AdmiralEnrico Millo declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia.[20] The famous nationalistGabriele d'Annunzio supported the seizure of Dalmatia and proceeded to Zadar in an Italian warship in December 1918.[21]
In the aftermath of theBalkan Wars, Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the Western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them.[citation needed] Russia blamed Bulgaria for breaking up the alliance it had forged and for starting theSecond Balkan War against its former allies and now looked to Serbia as a more reliable Slavic ally against Austria-Hungary.[22] The Bulgarian government aligned itself with Germany and Austria-Hungary, even though this meant also becoming an ally of theOttomans, Bulgaria's traditional enemy. Bulgaria could no longer hold claims against the Ottomans, but Serbia, Greece, and Romania (allies of Britain and France) still held lands the Bulgarians perceived as Bulgarian.
Bulgaria, recuperating from the Balkan Wars, sat out the first year of World War I. When Germany promised Bulgaria all ofSerbian Macedonia, parts of northeastern Serbia, as well as a new loan of 200,000,000gold francs,[23] Bulgaria declared war on Serbia in October 1915. Britain, France and Italy then declared war on Bulgaria.
Although Bulgaria, allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, won military victories against Serbia and Romania: occupying much of Southern Serbia (takingNish, Serbia's war capital on November 5), advancing intoGreek Macedonia. They were assisted by theIMRO who joined the Bulgarian army as the11th Macedonian Infantry Division. Bulgaria later tookDobruja from the Romanians in September 1916, the war soon became unpopular with the majority of Bulgarian people, who had suffered enormous economic hardship. TheRussian Revolution of February 1917 had a significant effect in Bulgaria, spreadingantiwar andanti-monarchist sentiment among the troops and in the cities.
In September 1918, a collective group of Serbian and Allied forces broke through on theMacedonian front in theVardar Offensive. While Bulgarian forcesstopped them inDojran,Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace.
To head off the revolutionaries,Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his sonBoris III. The revolutionaries were suppressed successfully, and their forces disbanded. Under theTreaty of Neuilly (November 1919), Bulgaria lost its Aegean coastline in favour of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (transferred later by them to Greece) and nearly all of its Macedonian territory to the new state ofYugoslavia, and had to give Dobruja back to the Romanians (see also Dobruja, Western Outlands, Western Thrace).
Following the start ofWorld War I theKingdom of Greece was politically split between joining the war and being neutral, led by the Pro-EntenteVenizelos and the pro-Central PowersKing Constantine. Following theconquest of Serbia Venizelos allowed the Allies intoThessaloniki leading to the creation of theMacedonian front. Following thisVenizelos set up theProvisional Government of National Defence in Allied-controlled North Greece.[24]The Allies and the Provisional Government of National Defence clashed during theNoemvriana.
The inability of theKingdom of Greece to joinWorld War I against theCentral Powers lead theUnited Kingdom andFrance to recognize theProvisional Government of National Defence as the legitimate government ofGreece, and blockaded Greece. In June, 1917 theFrench captured Thessaly andKing Constantine fled Greece andVenizelos re-entered Athens, declaring war on theCentral Powers in July.[24]
In 1915, the Austro-Hungarians gained the support of Germany and allied with Bulgaria. Serbian forces were attacked from both north and south, forcing them to retreat through Montenegro and Albania, with only 155,000 Serbs, mainly soldiers, reaching the coast of theAdriatic Sea and evacuating to Greece by Allied ships.
TheMacedonian front stabilized roughly around the Greek border after the intervention of a Franco-British-Italian force that had landed inSalonica. The German generals had not let the Bulgarian army advance toward Salonica because they hoped to persuade the Greeks to join the Central Powers.
In 1918, after a prolonged build-up, the Allies, under French GeneralFranchet d'Esperey, led a combined French, Serbian, Greek and British armyattack out of Greece. His initial victories convinced the Bulgarian government to sue for peace. He then attacked the north and defeated the German and Austro-Hungarian forces that tried to halt his offensive.
By October 1918, havingrecaptured all of Serbia his forces prepared to invade Hungary proper until the Hungarian leadership offered to surrender in November 1918, halting the offensive.
The French and British each kept six divisions on the Greek frontier from 1916 to late 1918. The French and British went to Greece to help Serbia, but with Serbia's conquest in the fall of 1915, their continued presence there did not have an effect, so they relocated their forces to the Western Front.
In mid-1918, led by General Franchet d'Esperey, those forces were added to in order to conduct a major offensive on the south flank of the Central Powers (8 French divisions, 6 British divisions, 1 Italian division, 12 Serbian divisions).[25] After the successful offensive launched on September 10, 1918, they freed Belgrade, forcing Bulgaria to an armistice on September 29, threatening Austria-Hungary (which accepted an armistice on November 4, 1918) and the German political leadership.
The historianJohn Keegan argued that "the installation of a violently nationalist and anti-Turkish government in Athens led to Greek mobilization in the cause of the"Great Idea" - the recovery of the Greek Empire in the east - which would complicate the Allied effort to resettle the peace of Europe for years after the war ended."[26]
There, as a result of his peremptory orders, the Austro-Germans and Bulgarians, reinforced by the Turks have begun a great effort to crush the Serbians and destroy the Franco-British forces before the latter's numbers are augmented by the troops landing daily at Saloniki
