I was doing a bit of reading about the Balkan League, the alliance between Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro, which had the intended goal of kicking the Ottoman Empire out of Europe, and I realised how fragile it all really was. There were tensions between Serbia and Bulgaria over Vadar Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece over Thessaloniki and Aegean Macedonia, not to mention the Bulgarian snobbery towards the Greek military, and the Montenegrans didn't even really want to join and had minor territorial ambitions.

So, the question/challenge is, what if the Balkan League, despite Russian pressures, had fallen apart before the First Balkan War? Perhaps the tension between Serbia and Bulgaria is simply too much and they cannot come to an agreement over Macedonia? Maybe Greeks decide not to play second fiddle to the Bulgarians and keep their fleet at anchor. In the latter case, the Ottomans would be able to field reinforcements directly from Asia to Europe, especially in places like Adrianople, Thessaloniki, and of course Constantinople, if the war should still go on.

If, say, Montenergo and Greece back out, is there a chance that Russia would become more directly involved? They won a victory against the Turks in 1878, after all. Of course, the Russians knew that the great powers would stop at nothing to prevent Russian access to the Mediterranean, so the whole thing could lead to a second Crimean War. But I am getting ahead of myself here.

The real questions are these: If the Balkan League fails to emerge, or collapses before it can get any traction going, is the First Balkan War averted? If the First Balkan War is averted, what does Europe look like a few years down the line? Would such a thing prevent general war breaking out on the continent WWI-style, with Russia's influence in the Balkans now lessened? Is it likely that the Turkish position in Europe falters regardless, as they were facing revolts in Albania and disquet backed by Bulgaria in Macedonia and Thrace anyway?
 
Wow, zero views? I kind of thought this was quite interesting, since the Balkans and the conflicts there played such an intense role in the geopolitics of Europe at the time.
 
Well, as it was, the League (really more of an ad hoc alliance to take advantage of a very specific situation, i.e. a weakened Ottoman Empire embroiled in a war with Italy, and no Great Power actually willing to step in in its defence) was only created in spring 1912. There wasn't really all that much time for the League to fall apart before the outbreak of the Balkan Wars. From the moment the Balkan countries were willing to bridge their differences, or at least suspend them, the League was a fact and the Balkan Wars inevitable. What you are looking for is the League never even coming into existence, which is definitely possible if the Ottomans had played their cards better (e.g. engage Greece on the Cretan question to keep her from siding with Bulgaria and Serbia), or with a different British reaction. For most of these scenarios you need to go much further back than 1912 to make them plausible though.
 
The Balkan league was fragile in the sense that it didn't present a great chances of peaceful and mutually satisfactory post-war settlement. But all of the members were under a great deal of pressure from their public; Unification with co-nationals under Ottoman rule was an almost universal demand, and it was becoming clear that Balkan cooperation is the only way to accomplish that.

There are ways to prevent the rise of the Balkan League, but if created it's not going to immediately fall apart, as Spatharios said.

The First War could have been started without Montenegro (not that Montenegro has any reason to back off alone), but not without Bulgaria, Serbia or Greece.
 
What I'm after is a scenario wherein the First Balkan War either can't happen, or happens in such a way that it's either a disaster for the Balkan nations, makes things a lot worse (i.e. the other great powers are drawn in), or the victory is less than the Balkan nations wanted. If we have to go back a few years, that suits me just fine.

Is there a way to delay the Italo-Turkish War? Perhaps in doing so, we end up with a situation where the First Balkan War is really an alliance of the Balkan states and Italy. I can see this scenario going either one of two ways; the Ottomans surrender quickly as they are assailed from three fronts (Libya, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean/Aegean), or they fight on and end up badly defeated.

Edit: I wonder what happens to Albania in this scenario.
 
It either doesn't happen and they don't start the war, or it holds together long enough to get the war started.

IOTL, it actually did fall apart AFTER the war started, so I don't get what the alternative event is supposed to be.

If the POD is "no Balkan League and no Balkan Wars" that really is an interesting question, and maybe that is what the OP was trying to act. I will try to address this hypothetical:

1.) Serbian nationalists might still be focused on expanding south, instead of into Bosnia, and they want to go to war with Turkey but just can't get the band together. In this case they keep trying to get an alliance with Turkey, with Russian backing. This essentially means no assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and no Bosnian crisis to set off World War I. The Great War as we know it is butterflied away. The timing is critical, because there was alot of big movements under the surface diplomatically and militarily happening in 1913-14 and the timing of the war was important to get it started with IOTL war plans, configurations of forces, and alliances. Even if it starts at some other time due to some other crisis, such as a later Balkan War, its just not World War I as we know it.

2.) Serbian nationalists give up on expanding south or are not that interested, which could be the POD for no Balkan League in itself. They focus on weakening the Hapsburg monarchy or at least forcing them out of Bosnia, and there is some Russian support for this (historians debate how much). That means the Sarajevo assassination and therefore World War I kicks off on schedule. But the difference here is that Turkey controls more territory in Europe. This is easier to speculate on but leads to some questions. Does Turkey still join the Central Powers (probably yes)? Do the landings on Gallipoli still go forward (yes, if Turkey joins the CP)? What about Salonika (no, why does Turkey agree to the Entente force there?)? Does this change the allegiances of the other Balkan countries (Greece and Bulgaria are more likely to join the Entente in this scenario, but with Turkey starting out holding Macedonia and Salonika this doesn't help much, plus if Bulgaria sides with the Entente, Rumania will probably join the CP to get in on the Bulgarian territory they grabbed IOTL). I suspect the net effect is that the CP does better in the actual war than IOTL, not enough to change the main result, though Falkenhayn not being forced out of OhL at the time he was due to, supposedly, Rumania joining the Entente is now butterflied away and that could have significant effects.
 
That's all very interesting @Galba Otho Vitelius , thanks for the input. What drew Bulgaria into the Central Powers in the first place iOTL? Was it simply a desire for territory against Serbia and Rumania? Obviously Serbia ended up with a lot more of Macedonia than the Bulgarians wanted after the Balkan Wars, but if this is avoided, would the Bulgarian entry be to grab territory from the Turks?

As an aside, and an alternative POD to change the face of the Balkan Wars, at least, could we have a scenario wherein the Italians accept the first Ottoman proposal re: Libya; i.e. they have control over it, but it's under Ottoman suzerainty a la Egypt and Britain. This avoids the war and the weakening of the Turks, and thus the opportunity for the Balkan League to declare war is missed.
 
In response to the question on Bulgarian, after the first Balkan War, the Bulgarians though they were being cheated on their share of the spoils by their allies, attacked their allies, and got their a__ handed to them, with the Turks and Rumanians piling on, and wound up losing even more territory.

In 1915, they took the deal offered by Germany for them to help against Serbia in return essentially for taking over Macedonia (this will create arguments, but there is no real distinction between Macedonians and Bulgarians, or at least there wasn't until the late nineteenth century). They also took back the territory they lost to Rumania when Rumania joined the Entente powers in 1916-17. But the Entente had hopes of getting them on their side too. Aside from the help in the Serbian and Rumanian campaigns, they provided most of the troops screening the combined Entente army at Salonika, which had been assembled to assist the Serbs.

So if Turkey-in-Europe holds to its 1913 borders, more than likely no force at Salonika to screen, since the Turks hold Salonika, and all the territory the Bulgarians want is in Turkish hand. So they remain neutral or join the Entente. It would be stupid to join the Entente, since the German 11th Army, with Turkish help, could easily handle Bulgaria, once they dealt with the Serbs, but Bulgarian's leaders showed their capacity for making stupid decision in 1913. And then maybe Rumania sides with Germany to grab the Bulgarian territory they grabbed IOTL in 1913. They leaned strongly to the Entente side, but were mainly interested in grabbing territory, and might have gone with Bessrabia/ southern Dobrudja (spelling probably incorrect) instead of Transylvania. IOTL the first option was less enticing because they already held southern Dobrudja.
 
Top