Second Balkan War
continuation of the First Balkan War in which Bulgaria fought Serbia, Greece, Romania and the Ottoman Empire
The Second Balkan War (29 June – 10 August 1913) was a conflict fought between the Tsardom of Bulgaria and its former Balkan League allies, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, who were later joined by Romania and the Ottoman Empire.
The war began when Bulgaria, unhappy with the division of territory after the First Balkan War, launched attacks on Serbian and Greek forces, who repelled the offensive and pushed into Bulgarian territory. With most of Bulgaria's army committed in the south, Romania intervened from the north. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to recover territories lost the previous year.
As Bulgaria suffered military setbacks on multiple fronts and Romanian forces advanced towards its capital, Sofia, it requested an armistice. The war ended with the Treaty of Bucharest, which compelled Bulgaria to cede significant territory: Southern Dobruja to Romania, parts of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, and Adrianople (Edirne) to the Ottoman Empire under the separate Treaty of Constantinople.
The war altered the political balance in the Balkans and intensified regional tensions. Serbia expanded its territory and influence, heightening its rivalry with Austria-Hungary. Bulgaria, weakened by defeat and territorial losses, would later align with the Central Powers in the First World War.
Background
During the First Balkan War, which began in October 1912, the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece) succeeded in driving out the Ottoman Empire from its European provinces (Albania, Macedonia, Sandžak and Thrace), leaving the Ottomans with only East Thrace.
“Second Balkan War” enters the record as continuation of the First Balkan War in which Bulgaria fought Serbia, Greece, Romania and the Ottoman Empire. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Second, Balkan and continuation can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q184183. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1913 and 1912.
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This entry incorporates text from “Second Balkan War” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.