First Balkans War

• First Balkan War fought between the members of the Balkan League—Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro—and the Ottoman Empire.
• Balkan League was formed under Russian auspices in the spring of 1912 to take Macedonia away from Turkey, which was already involved in a war with Italy.
• The The league was able to field a combined force of 750,000 men. Montenegro opened hostilities by declaring war on Turkey on October, 1912, and the other members of the league followed suit 10 days later.
• The new combined armed forces and attacked Turkey. In just seven weeks Turkey was driven out Europe.
•  A stunned Austria watched as Serbia became the largest Balkan state. Austria generals wanted to attack Serbia but could not risk an alliance chain event.

• If Austria attacks Serbia hen Russia would attack Austria. Germany would back its ally Austria and attack Russia.
• An attack on Russia would cause France to fight Germany and Austria to protect its ally.
• If France joined, Britain would likely follow suit. Nobody wanted a European war.

The London peace conference was called to help spilt up the new Balkan land. Austria- Hungary used this conference to create Albania in order to block Serbia's access to coastline.