The fuse to the First World War was lit in the Balkans where simmering
hatreds exploded into violence. Like a string of firecrackers, these
hatreds had been fueled by attacks on the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the
previous few years. From 1911-1912, Italy seized Libya. In 1912, the
Balkan states united to drive Turkey out of Europe in the First Balkans
War, and in the following year in the Second Balkans War, turned on each
other in a division of the spoils which allowed Turkey to retain a
foothold in Europe. This was a war of land campaigns, sea battles and
amphibious operations in which the new military technology was first
used. Submarine and aircraft attacked ships, aircraft made
reconnaissance flights and bombed troops while even electronic warfare
was used. It also saw mirror images of the events in the First World
War; Bulgarians driven from Salonika where an Allied army would later be
contained and Turkish troops held back in the Dardanelles, their guns
driving off a naval task force. These now forgotten wars were the
overture to the First World War and yet they have overtones a century
later. The First World War saw echoes of these campaigns in Salonika and
especially in the Dardanelles, while the ethnic tensions would erupt
into further bloodshed after the Cold War ended as Yugoslavia collapsed
during the 1990s.
