Bingöl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi

Abstract

The
misdirection acts of both national and international press for the Ottoman
public opinion about that the Balkan War would not occur had succeeded in the
bureaucracy area of the Ottoman State and in this misperception atmosphere, the
Ottoman Army was caught very unprepared for a war that would take place very
soon. In this unprepared war, the Ottoman State left its geographical position
that firstly arrived in the 14th century, and perhaps that was the main source
of its power, and also in this region, Ottoman State left a mass of population
which owning a very strong moral connection with themselves. In terms of
Ottoman, amidst the causes of these wars that had been lost in Balkan
geography; the importance of religious, political and economic factors is
doubtless. But the wrongs those made in the military area have another
important cause of this distressing result. On the eve of the Balkan War,
crucial geography which has been ruling for centuries was lost mainly due to
wrong military force concentration, also the ignorance of military education,
equipment, hardware deficiencies, reflections of intra-military politics and
insufficient compliance with war principles. Moreover, by population movements,
demographic structure of the region had also changed. The Balkan Wars, which
would be remembered as the “the Balkan Tragedy” by the Ottomans, and which had
significantly changed the political map of the Balkans, had been a preparation
for a kind of World War I with its effects. In this article, the east operation
area of the First Balkan War will be examined on the main axis of “organization
equipment-guns-reflections-training-war principles” and findings that will be
put forth in terms of military history.