The Effort to Prevent Outbreak of
the Second Balkan War, 1913.
1. THE TREATY OF LONDON, MAY 30, 1913.
The Treaty of London signed on May 30, 1913, settled the frontier line
between the Balkan States and Turkey, but left conflicting claims between themselves
unsettled. On June 9 the London Peace Conference met for the last time, the attempt to
reach an agreement on the points left unsettled by the Treaty of London having been
abandoned and a protocol adopted leaving it to the Balkan States to supplement the treaty
by direct conventions.
2. THE DISPUTE BETWEEN GREECE AND BULGARIA.
Of this there was, however, very little prospect. There was, in the
first place, the dispute between Greece and Bulgaria respecting their respective shares of
Macedonia. The Greeks had occupied Salonika, which Bulgaria greatly desired, and Bulgaria
found herself in possession of Thrace, which she did not much care for.
3. DISPUTE BETWEEN SERBIA AND BULGARIA.
There was a similar dispute between Bulgaria and Serbia, the latter
being in possession of that section of Macedonia of which Monastir is the center -- a city
and section that Bulgaria claimed as her portion. Bulgaria insisted that Serbia execute
the arrangements agreed upon as to the future frontier between the two States in the
treaty of March 13, 1912. But Serbia maintained that the creation of an independent
Albania invalidated the provisions of the treaty.
4. ALLIANCE BETWEEN SERBIA AND GREECE, 1913.
After their return from London, Premiers Venizelos and Pashitch,
representing Greece and Serbia respectively, made an offensive and defensive alliance for
10 years directed against Bulgaria, and military conventions were arranged.
5. THE CZAR PROPOSES TO ACT AS ARBITRATOR.
On May 28, Serbia demanded that Bulgaria should renounce her rights under the treaty of March 13, 1912. The Czar of All the Russias then stepped in as peacemaker, sending, on June 8, an identical telegram to the Kings of Bulgaria and Serbia, offering to act as arbitrator in this "fratricidal war," in accordance with the terms of their treaty of alliance.
Neither of the disputants appears to have desired the arbitrament by the
Czar, but both agreed to submit to Russian arbitration, Serbia and Greece proposing that
each of the three countries involved reduce its army one-fourth, in order to facilitate a
pacific solution of the controversy.
6. BULGARIA BEGINS THE SECOND BALKAN WAR.
But in the meantime a new cabinet had been formed in Bulgaria, where the warlike Dr. Daneff replaced the pacific M. Gueshoff as premier. On June 15, Bulgaria proposed simultaneous demobilization on condition that the contested districts should be occupied by mixed garrisons. Under circumstances which are still somewhat obscure, on June 29, Bulgaria began the Second Balkan War by an attack on the Serbian and Greek positions.
Source: Anderson, Frank Maloy and Amos Shartle Hershey, Handbook for the Diplomatic History of Europe, Asia, and Africa 1870-1914. Prepared for the National Board for Historical Service. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1918.