All events · The World Wars

The Balkan Wars and their Reciprocal Expulsions

1912–1913 · Balkans, Anatolia & the Caucasus

Displacement Territory Seized Mass Killing Sexual Violence

Displaced

540,000

Berna Pekesen, writing for the Leibniz Institute of European History, records roughly 400,000 Muslim refugees reaching Ottoman territory after the First Balkan War of 1912 and about 135,000 more after the Second in 1913; Christian populations were also displaced in the opposite direction, notably Bulgarians from Aegean Macedonia and Greeks from areas taken by Bulgaria. The Turkish Coalition of America's annotated map, prepared by Justin McCarthy, puts Muslim deaths and forced exile in the conquered areas of Ottoman Europe together at around 1.5 million and Muslim mortality there at 27 percent, figures that other demographers regard as high. The evidence is Ottoman and Balkan state records, the Carnegie Endowment's 1914 international commission report, and later demographic reconstruction.

Share of the population affected

9.8%

of the population of the Ottoman European provinces (Rumelia) lost in 1912-1913, across the vilayets of Salonica, Monastir, Kosovo, Scutari, Janina and Adrianople, 1911

Killed

150,000–650,000

excess mortality incl. disease and starvation

Open on the interactive map →

What happened

The Balkan League's victory over the Ottoman Empire in 1912 and the allies' war among themselves in 1913 redrew the map of south-eastern Europe and were accompanied by systematic violence against civilians identified with the losing side. The Carnegie Endowment sent an international commission which reported in 1914 on massacres, village burning and forced conversion by all the belligerents. Pekesen records about 400,000 Muslim refugees moving into Ottoman territory after the first war and roughly 135,000 more after the second, while Christian populations moved in the opposite direction. A Bulgarian-Ottoman convention annexed to the 1913 Treaty of Constantinople provided for a limited exchange of populations along the new border, the first such instrument in the region. The wars established the practice of moving populations to match frontiers that would be applied on a far larger scale in 1923.

Parties

The armies of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro, and Ottoman forces, drove out and killed civilians of the opposing religion or nationality across Macedonia, Thrace, Kosovo and Epirus as the frontiers moved

Disputed

The scale of Muslim mortality is the sharpest dispute: Justin McCarthy's demographic reconstruction, widely cited in Turkey, is much higher than the figures used by Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian historiography, and each national tradition emphasises the atrocities committed against its own population.

The denominator

Ottoman population statistics of 1911-1912 and the reconstructions built on them (Karpat; Justin McCarthy) give roughly 5-6 million inhabitants in the European provinces transferred to Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and the new Albanian state, of whom something over 2 million were Muslims. Ottoman counts of non-Muslims are widely held to be understated, and Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian counts of the same districts differ sharply.

The affected figure aggregates refugees and expellees of every community — Muslim, Bulgarian, Greek and Serb — moving in opposite directions across the same territory, so it counts movements rather than a single displaced group.

Where the baseline comes from

On the death toll

There is no agreed civilian death toll. McCarthy's reconstruction, cited by the Turkish Coalition of America, implies well over half a million Muslim deaths in the conquered areas, a figure other demographers consider too high because it treats unexplained population shortfalls as deaths rather than as unrecorded migration. Lower estimates count documented massacres and epidemic deaths among refugees. Combatant deaths on all sides added roughly 150,000 more.

Documented forms of violence

Mass KillingSummary ExecutionSexual ViolenceDestruction of PropertyCultural Destruction

Massacres, village burning, forced conversions and the destruction of mosques and churches by all the belligerents were documented on the ground by the Carnegie Endowment's international commission in 1913 and published in its 1914 report.

Formal findings

International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) (1914) — The commission's 1914 report found that all the belligerent armies and irregular bands had burned villages, massacred civilians and driven out populations of the opposing religion, and described the wars as having been fought with the object of changing the composition of the population. — source

Movements mapped

Muslim refugees from Macedonia and Thrace -> Ottoman Istanbul and Anatolia400,000
Bulgarians from Aegean Macedonia and Thrace -> Bulgaria

Countries touched, on present-day borders

Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria

Sources

This entry rests only on reference, press or open-edited sources. Treat its figures as indicative and follow the links before relying on them.