Despite the collapse of the FPDSRAS, tension in the Balkans remained high in the lead up to the Fifth Balkan War. Macedonia and Bulgaria, in talks about possibly making minor territorial exchanged to better define the boundaries of the ethnic groups in each country. On the Second of April, Macedonia soldiers on the border with the People's Republic of the Aegean, were woken up with the sound of artillery fire from the south. At dawn, fighter craft made strafing runs on Macedonian military installations before soldiers poured over the border. In a surprise attack that took the world by surprise, Aegean forces had pushed more then thirty miles into their neighbors borders by sundown.
Not wanting the Aegean to be resurgent, Yugoslavia declared war on the Fourth of April. Bulgaria, however, in a secret agreement with the Aegean, declared war on Macedonia and Yugoslavia on the Fifth of April. By the Twelfth, all of Macedonia save it's capital at Skopje and a contingent of soldiers held up in Mt Athos. Reports of atrocities being done to ethnic Macedonians trickled out to the west.
By this point, NATO stepped in and said that all Aegean and Bulgarian forces must leave sovereign Macedonian by the Twentieth. When the deadline passed, President Gore urged NATO members to begin a campaign to defend the Macedonian people. On the Twenty-second, NATO forces began aerial sorties over Macedonia from airbases temporarily permitted to them by Yugoslavia as well as Italy. On the Twenty-fourth, Romania declared war on Bulgaria and the Aegean "in defense of self-determination and peace in the Balkans." In a quickly drawn up treaty with the United States, France and the United Kingdom, several air bases were granted to them for ten years in exchange for economic initiatives and trade deals.
In the following two months, Aegean and Bulgarian forces were forced back into their own borders. Turkey, eager to seize the Dardanelles, declared war on Bulgaria just a week before the initiation of a mass ceasefire, pressing Bulgarian out of their holdings in the area. At the same time, internal pressures and a power grab by the Yugoslav president Dragan Mikerević declared that elections that were due that August would be postponed until after any and all treaties had been signed. This led to mass protests in Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Albania. By July, as the war was drawing to a close, Yugoslav forces were sent into the autonomous city of Serejevo and opened fire on protesters. This event would spark yet another bloody war that would ravage the Balkans called the Yugoslav War.
((Map is the Balkans on the First of April, 2001, the day before the Fifth Balkan War))
Not wanting the Aegean to be resurgent, Yugoslavia declared war on the Fourth of April. Bulgaria, however, in a secret agreement with the Aegean, declared war on Macedonia and Yugoslavia on the Fifth of April. By the Twelfth, all of Macedonia save it's capital at Skopje and a contingent of soldiers held up in Mt Athos. Reports of atrocities being done to ethnic Macedonians trickled out to the west.
By this point, NATO stepped in and said that all Aegean and Bulgarian forces must leave sovereign Macedonian by the Twentieth. When the deadline passed, President Gore urged NATO members to begin a campaign to defend the Macedonian people. On the Twenty-second, NATO forces began aerial sorties over Macedonia from airbases temporarily permitted to them by Yugoslavia as well as Italy. On the Twenty-fourth, Romania declared war on Bulgaria and the Aegean "in defense of self-determination and peace in the Balkans." In a quickly drawn up treaty with the United States, France and the United Kingdom, several air bases were granted to them for ten years in exchange for economic initiatives and trade deals.
In the following two months, Aegean and Bulgarian forces were forced back into their own borders. Turkey, eager to seize the Dardanelles, declared war on Bulgaria just a week before the initiation of a mass ceasefire, pressing Bulgarian out of their holdings in the area. At the same time, internal pressures and a power grab by the Yugoslav president Dragan Mikerević declared that elections that were due that August would be postponed until after any and all treaties had been signed. This led to mass protests in Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Albania. By July, as the war was drawing to a close, Yugoslav forces were sent into the autonomous city of Serejevo and opened fire on protesters. This event would spark yet another bloody war that would ravage the Balkans called the Yugoslav War.
((Map is the Balkans on the First of April, 2001, the day before the Fifth Balkan War))
