First Balkan War Timeline of Events

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First Balkan War

The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...

Timeline of Events

1912

10.21.1912

During the First Balkan War, Kardzhali is liberated by Bulgarian forces

10.23.1912

First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo between the Serbian and Ottoman armies begins.

10.24.1912

First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo concludes with the Serbian victory.

10.26.1912

First Balkan War: The capital city of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, is unified with Greece on the feast day of its patron Saint Demetrius. On the same day, Serbian troops captured Skopje.

12.3.1912

Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month long First Balkan War.

12.3.1912

First Balkan War: The Naval Battle of Elli takes place.

1913

1.5.1913

First Balkan War: During the Naval Battle of Lemnos, Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.

1.14.1913

First Balkan War: The Greek army defeats the Turks at Bizani.

1.18.1913

A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos during the First Balkan War, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece.

5.30.1913

First Balkan War: the Treaty of London, 1913 is signed ending the war. Albania becomes an independent nation.

12.1.1913

Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.