The stalemate in the war and several defeats on the front line have made Italy very passive today.
Because of the poor performance of this war, all European countries knew that Italy's military level was too poor, and now many countries have expressed doubts about its level as a great power.
Now that the war has started, Italy no longer has the optimism it had before, and now they want to end the war with dignity as soon as possible.
In order to end the war as soon as possible, Italy began to drag people into trouble everywhere, hoping that new countries would come out to deal with the Ottoman Turkey.
The target was not difficult to find, and Italians quickly recalled the small countries in the Balkans.
One by one, those countries in the Balkans were all enemies of Ottoman Turkey. After independence, these countries all targeted Ottoman Turkey for expansion.
It's just that the current Balkan countries are very reserved. Without strong support, they know that they alone cannot defeat the Ottoman Turks.
In the past, Greece, without the support of the great powers, provoked a war with the Ottoman Turkey in order to regain Trik Island and other Greek territories. As a result, it was beaten by the Ottoman Turkey. Finally, with the intervention of the great powers, Greece
The tragedy of territorial reparations ended the war.
In the war between Italy and Ottoman Turkey, although Italy did not fight well, it gave the Balkan countries hope of taking advantage of the opportunity to expand.
Regardless of Italy's prowess, Italy is still a great power, and its national power is stronger than the Balkan countries combined.
The Balkan countries have poor economies and poor military weapons. They can rarely produce heavy weapons, but Italy can provide them with this.
Although the Balkan countries behaved very reservedly in the face of Italy's diplomatic solicitation, they had already accepted it in their hearts. They were just deliberately showing off in order to get better benefits.
Italy is well-known for being good at diplomacy. It soon sensed the small thoughts of the Balkan countries and decisively increased its efforts. It promised economic and military assistance to the Balkan countries and at the same time stated that it would persuade the European powers to side with them.
The first to be persuaded by Italy were Serbia and Bulgaria.
In fact, these two countries have been hooking up a long time ago, and their backend, Tsarist Russia, also had a matchup, but due to some reasons, it has never been implemented.
But things change and people change, and time can change many things. Things that could not succeed at the beginning have now achieved results.
After some twists and turns, with the support of Italy and the most important big brother, Tsarist Russia, the two countries finally stood together.
Bulgaria and Serbia were the first to reach an alliance agreement, not only because of Ottoman Turkey, but also partly because of their fight against Austria-Hungary.
The sudden annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908 shocked the Balkan countries, which also accelerated the process of mutual proximity and alliance between them.
Faced with the huge pressure from Austria-Hungary, Serbia very much hopes to get the support of Bulgaria. Although King Ferdinand of Bulgaria is the son of Prince Saxe-Coburg Koda of the German royal family, he always harbors hatred towards Russia and pro-Austria.
Recognize that an alliance with Serbia is necessary because the two countries have a common interest in fighting external threats.
However, the alliance between Bulgaria and Serbia has been troubled and not smooth sailing, because the goals of the alliance between the two countries are not the same, and it can be said that each has its own plans.
Bulgaria regarded the Ottoman Empire as its number one enemy and wanted to use Serbia's help to acquire Macedonia and Thrace. Serbia, on the other hand, regarded the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the biggest threat and also wanted to get involved in Macedonia, so the two sides failed to hit it off.
In September, King Ferdinand made a special trip to Serbia, but did not achieve positive results.
The reason for this result was that the Austro-Hungarian Empire took the opportunity to intervene after hearing the news and tried its best to sabotage it. It also warned the Bulgarian king not to expect assistance from Serbia in future wars, but Austria-Hungary could provide Bulgaria with assistance.
Help, and promised that once the Ottomans attack Bulgaria, Vienna will never sit idly by and will help Bulgaria and Serbia carve up Macedonia.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was also opposed to the alliance of the Balkan countries, which caused great trouble in the approach of Bulgaria and Serbia.
At that time, Serbia was very interested in forming an alliance with Bulgaria, which had a great impact on the domestic situation. At that time, many radical organizations asked the government to form an alliance with other Slavic countries as soon as possible to jointly deal with Austria-Hungary and Eismann.
empire.
In addition, due to the needs of foreign policy, Serbia is trying to consolidate its position in the Balkans and is trying its best to expand its sphere of influence.
According to Serbian Foreign Minister Milanovic, if we no longer unite with Bulgaria, we will no longer be able to exert influence on Croatia and Slovenia.
Due to changes in the Bulgarian government, in 1911 the previous year, the People's Party led by Gaishov and the pro-Russian Progressive Party headed by Danev came to power to form a coalition government. They changed their previous negative attitude and began to negotiate with Serbia.
Conduct serious negotiations on alliances.
In April 1911, Serbian Radical Party leader Pasic emphasized when talking with Bulgarian Ambassador to Serbia Tosev.
Once the two countries formed an alliance, their purpose was not only to oppose the common enemy, but also to expand the territories of the two countries by carving up the Ottoman Empire's territory in Europe, and once again set the tone for Serbia's alliance with Bulgaria.
The Ottoman territory that Pasic is talking about here is obviously Macedonia, because there are Serbs, Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, etc. living in it.
Therefore, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece all have their own requirements for this territory. They hope that if they cannot fully control it, then at least part of it will be obtained. Pasic from Bulgaria agreed, and the negotiations between the two parties have been accelerated since then.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! The attitude of the European powers, especially Russia, plays a decisive role in the military closeness to Bulgaria and Serbia.
Russia agreed with the alliance between Bulgaria and Serbia, and the two countries naturally did not disappoint him.
It has had extensive contact with Bulgaria since 1910. Because Bulgaria is eager to regain its ambition of "Greater Bulgaria" and hopes to gain support from Russia, it is also actively moving closer to Russia. However, during the negotiation process, the two sides discovered that the strategic goals
There are big differences in aspects.
First of all, Bulgaria's expectations were too high and it hoped to obtain Salonika and Adrianople with Russia's help.
Regarding this request, Russia is worried that it will assume too many obligations to Bulgaria and involve itself in conflicts with other European powers. This is the result that Russia least wants to see.
Russia insisted that the goal of the alliance between Bulgaria and Serbia should be aimed at Austria-Hungary and not against Turkey. This was of course rejected by Bulgaria. As a result, the final negotiations reached a deadlock.
However, things soon took a turn for the better. Starting from late 1911, Russia's attitude towards Bulgaria became enthusiastic again. It tried hard to push Serbia to get closer to Bulgaria and emphasized that Russia could only consider peace with Bulgaria under the condition of an alliance between the two countries.
Bulgaria’s alliance issue, thus giving a boost to the negotiations between Serbia and Bulgaria.
Not only that, the Russian Ambassador to Serbia Hartwig and the Russian Ambassador to Bulgaria Nelyudov also began to actively participate in the diplomatic negotiations between the two sides, proposing a solution acceptable to both sides for the most thorny issue of Mariton. The southeastern corner of northern Macedonia
It belongs to Bulgaria, and the northwest corner belongs to Serbia. As for the ownership of the land between the two, it will be decided by the Russian tsar in the future.
Romanovsky, the Russian military attaché in Bulgaria, further elaborated on many details of this proposal. Southern Macedonia was left to Greece because the Greek navy was needed to block military reinforcements from the Ottoman Asian territories and cut off its most important sea transportation.
.
The resolution of the Macedonian issue has removed one of the biggest obstacles to the alliance between the two countries.
With the acceleration of progress and Italy's urging, the two countries finally formally signed a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance on March 12, 1912, between Bulgaria and Serbia. The content of the treaty was that they should bear military obligations to each other if one of the two countries was attacked.
The treaty also stipulated that Ottoman Turkish rule in Kosovo and Macedonia should end, and a secret agreement should be reached on the partition of Macedonia.
The military provisions attached to the treaty are as follows. Once war breaks out, Bulgaria should provide 200,000 troops, and Serbia should provide 150,000 troops to fight together, of which 100,000 should be sent to Macedonia to help Bulgaria.
The Russian government was very satisfied with this treaty, and Italy was equally happy because they saw the hope of war.
After Bulgaria and Serbia reached an agreement, their contacts with Greece went smoothly. In fact, Greece had long wanted to join forces with the two countries to deal with Ottoman Turkey.
After taking office as Prime Minister of Greece in 1910, Veniziros showed a strong interest in Bulgaria. He established a committee composed of 10 famous politicians to study how to improve relations between the two countries, and initially developed many specific plans.
In 1911, Bulgaria and Greece negotiated and touched upon the Macedonian issue. Although they failed to reach an agreement, they increased their understanding of each other. After the signing of the treaty between Serbia and Bulgaria, and Italy's threat to bombard the Dardanelles Strait, it prompted
Greece has taken a more proactive approach.
In April 1912, Veniziros proposed a plan for an alliance between Greece and Bulgaria. Later, at the request of Bulgaria, he responded positively to the Macedonian issue. It was handled by Greek Prime Minister Veniziros without the knowledge of the Greek government.
, Bulgaria and Greece are negotiating in top secret.
Finally, the Bulgarian-Greek Defense Alliance Treaty was signed on May 29, 1912, stipulating that when fighting Turkey, Bulgaria should provide 300,000 troops, while Greece should provide 120,000 troops.
Seeing Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece forming alliances one by one, the happiest among the great powers was of course Italy, who was even happier than Tsarist Russia.
It's just that Italy didn't know it, but what happened next made him unhappy.
Although the Balkan League was established on May 29, it was not until the end of the Italian-Turkish War (war time: September 18, 1911) that the Balkan League declared war on the Ottoman Empire on May 9.
In other words, Italy spent a lot of money and effort to find thugs, but in the end he played the whole game by himself.
This chapter has been completed!