Siege of Adrianople

1912 Nov 3 - 1913 Mar 26 Edirne, Edirne Merkez/Edirne, Türkiye

Siege artillery arriving before Adrianople, 3 November 1912. © Anonymous

The siege of Adrianople began on 3 November 1912 and ended on 26 March 1913 with the capture of Edirne (Adrianople) by the Bulgarian 2nd Army and the Serbian 2nd Army. The loss of Edirne delivered the final decisive blow to the Ottoman army and brought the First Balkan War to an end.^[44] A treaty was signed in London on 30 May. The city was reoccupied and retained by the Ottomans during the Second Balkan War.^[45]

Siege of Adrianople (1912-13) map. © Kandi

The victorious end of the siege was considered to be an enormous military success because the city's defenses had been carefully developed by leading German siege experts and called 'undefeatable'. The Bulgarian army, after five months of siege and two bold night attacks, took the Ottoman stronghold.

The victors were under the overall command of Bulgarian General Nikola Ivanov while the commander of the Bulgarian forces on the eastern sector of the fortress was General Georgi Vazov, the brother of the famous Bulgarian writer Ivan Vazov and of General Vladimir Vazov.

The early use of an airplane for bombing took place during the siege; the Bulgarians dropped special hand grenades from one or more airplanes in an effort to cause panic among the Ottoman soldiers. Many young Bulgarian officers and professionals who took part in this decisive battle would later play important roles in Bulgarian politics, culture, commerce and industry.

Battle of Kumanovo

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Balkan Wars

References

Bibliography

Clark, Christopher (2013). 'Balkan Entanglements'. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-219922-5.
Erickson, Edward J. (2003). Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913. Westport, CT: Greenwood. ISBN 0-275-97888-5.
Fotakis, Zisis (2005). Greek Naval Strategy and Policy, 1910–1919. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35014-3.
Hall, Richard C. (2000). The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913: Prelude to the First World War. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22946-4.
Helmreich, Ernst Christian (1938). The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912–1913. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674209008.
Hooton, Edward R. (2014). Prelude to the First World War: The Balkan Wars 1912–1913. Fonthill Media. ISBN 978-1-78155-180-6.
Langensiepen, Bernd; Güleryüz, Ahmet (1995). The Ottoman Steam Navy, 1828–1923. London: Conway Maritime Press/Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-85177-610-8.
Mazower, Mark (2005). Salonica, City of Ghosts. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0375727388.
Michail, Eugene. 'The Balkan Wars in Western Historiography, 1912–2012.' in Katrin Boeckh and Sabine Rutar, eds. The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2016) pp. 319–340. online[dead link]
Murray, Nicholas (2013). The Rocky Road to the Great War: the Evolution of Trench Warfare to 1914. Dulles, Virginia, Potomac Books ISBN 978-1-59797-553-7
Pettifer, James. War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy Before World War I (IB Tauris, 2015).
Ratković, Borislav (1975). Prvi balkanski rat 1912–1913: Operacije srpskih snaga [First Balkan War 1912–1913: Operations of Serbian Forces]. Istorijski institut JNA. Belgrade: Vojnoistorijski Institut.
Schurman, Jacob Gould (2004). The Balkan Wars, 1912 to 1913. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger. ISBN 1-4191-5345-5.
Seton-Watson, R. W. (2009) [1917]. The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans. Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar. ISBN 978-1-113-88264-6.
Stavrianos, Leften Stavros (2000). The BALKANS since 1453. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-9766-2. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
Stojančević, Vladimir (1991). Prvi balkanski rat: okrugli sto povodom 75. godišnjice 1912–1987, 28. i 29. oktobar 1987. Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti. ISBN 9788670251427.
Trix, Frances. 'Peace-mongering in 1913: the Carnegie International Commission of Inquiry and its Report on the Balkan Wars.' First World War Studies 5.2 (2014): 147–162.
Uyar, Mesut; Erickson, Edward (2009). A Military History of the Ottomans: From Osman to Atatürk. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International. ISBN 978-0-275-98876-0.

Further Reading

Antić, Čedomir. Ralph Paget: a diplomat in Serbia (Institute for Balkan Studies, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2006) online free.
Army History Directorate (Greece) (1998). A concise history of the Balkan Wars, 1912–1913. Army History Directorate. ISBN 978-960-7897-07-7.
Bataković, Dušan T., ed. (2005). Histoire du peuple serbe [History of the Serbian People] (in French). Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme. ISBN 9782825119587.
Bobroff, Ronald. (2000) 'Behind the Balkan Wars: Russian Policy toward Bulgaria and the Turkish Straits, 1912–13.' Russian Review 59.1 (2000): 76–95 online[dead link]
Boeckh, Katrin, and Sabine Rutar. eds. (2020) The Wars of Yesterday: The Balkan Wars and the Emergence of Modern Military Conflict, 1912–13 (2020)
Boeckh, Katrin; Rutar, Sabina (2017). The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-44641-7.
Ćirković, Sima (2004). The Serbs. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 9781405142915.
Crampton, R. J. (1980). The hollow detente: Anglo-German relations in the Balkans, 1911–1914. G. Prior. ISBN 978-0-391-02159-4.
Dakin, Douglas. (1962) 'The diplomacy of the Great Powers and the Balkan States, 1908-1914.' Balkan Studies 3.2 (1962): 327–374. online
Farrar Jr, Lancelot L. (2003) 'Aggression versus apathy: the limits of nationalism during the Balkan wars, 1912-1913.' East European Quarterly 37.3 (2003): 257.
Ginio, Eyal. The Ottoman Culture of Defeat: The Balkan Wars and their Aftermath (Oxford UP, 2016) 377 pp. online review
Hall, Richard C. ed. War in the Balkans: An Encyclopedic History from the Fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Breakup of Yugoslavia (2014)
Howard, Harry N. 'The Balkan Wars in perspective: their significance for Turkey.' Balkan Studies 3.2 (1962): 267–276 online.
Jelavich, Barbara (1983). History of the Balkans: Twentieth Century. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521274593.
Király, Béla K.; Rothenberg, Gunther E. (1987). War and Society in East Central Europe: East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars. Brooklyn College Press. ISBN 978-0-88033-099-2.
MacMillan, Margaret (2013). 'The First Balkan Wars'. The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8129-9470-4.
Meyer, Alfred (1913). Der Balkankrieg, 1912-13: Unter Benutzung zuverlässiger Quellen kulturgeschichtlich und militärisch dargestellt. Vossische Buchhandlung.
Rossos, Andrew (1981). Russia and the Balkans: inter-Balkan rivalries and Russian foreign policy, 1908–1914. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802055163.
Rudić, Srđan; Milkić, Miljan (2013). Balkanski ratovi 1912–1913: Nova viđenja i tumačenja [The Balkan Wars 1912/1913: New Views and Interpretations]. Istorijski institut, Institut za strategijska istrazivanja. ISBN 978-86-7743-103-7.
Schurman, Jacob Gould (1914). The Balkan Wars 1912–1913 (1st ed.). Princeton University.