Greece to roman road

After much debate, Constantine considered the importance of capturing Alexandroupolis as soon as possible, and the Greek navy was ordered to capture Alexandroupolis despite strong objections from the army.

Constantine naturally understood that Navy Commander Kontoriotis had his own little thoughts in this move.

In recent years, the Greek Navy has spent approximately 220 million drachmas on annual military expenditures.

In comparison, the Army's annual funding is about 360 million.

The navy's funding accounts for about 40% of the navy and army's funding, while the army's military spending reaches 60%.

This data made Kontoriotis, the commander of the Navy, feel crisis.

Because the proportion of the Greek Navy's funding in the total funding is shrinking year by year.

In other words, the Greek government's support for the navy is slowly decreasing and it is paying more and more attention to the army.

The Greek Army played an important role in all the wars that Greece participated in, winning large areas of territory for Greece.

In comparison, the performance of the Greek Navy was much inferior. In all previous wars, the Greek Navy played a minor role and never played a leading role.

So far, the most outstanding achievement of the Greek Navy is that it defeated the Ottoman Navy in the last war and recovered many islands in the Aegean Sea.

Different from the army, the construction cost of the navy is high and the construction cycle is long. The construction time of a warship is calculated in months, and the construction time of the main battleship is as long as one or two years, not to mention the technical requirements of the navy's crew. High, it needs to be cultivated year after year.

Before the war, the army can more easily mobilize troops if the war situation requires it.

In other words, if the navy cannot be taken seriously in peacetime, it will be too late to improvise when needed.

At present, Greece's annual fiscal revenue is about 1.4 billion, and its annual investment in military expenditure alone reaches 580 million. In peacetime, military expenditure accounts for 40% of Greece's fiscal revenue.

As for wartime, it is not easy to calculate. Victory is above all else. When a war starts, the government will naturally give priority to meeting the needs of the army and try every means to raise money for the army.

In fact, 40% of Greece's funding is not high in Europe.

In the Balkans, where wars are frequent, the situation is unstable, and national sentiments are fanatical, the economies of Serbia and Bulgaria are in a mess. In order to maintain huge military expenditures, almost all fiscal revenue is invested in military expenditures.

The military expenditures of major European countries also remain high, with basic military expenditures accounting for 50% of fiscal revenue.

Now that the war is over, Greece has completely established its position in the Balkans through this war. In a short period of time, Greece has no other war needs, so cutting high military expenditures will definitely be put on the agenda by the government. Work schedule.

Greece participated in two wars in a row within a year, resulting in huge losses that almost caused Prime Minister Venizelos to collapse.

Without the encouraging news of continuous victories from the front, I am afraid that the Greek government would be bankrupt by now as funds dry up.

The current government finances are completely useless. The national debt has been issued for 7.8 billion drachmas. In order to maintain the consumption of funds for the army, the government has completely stopped any non-essential expenditures.

The Greek government has a huge war hole, and it still doesn’t know how to fill it.

If the Greek navy has been unable to play its role, and the army has made great achievements, then it is conceivable that in order to save military expenses, the Greek government will naturally want to invest in naval funds.

The reason why Kontoriotis actively applied for the Greek navy to attack and let the navy undertake the important task of occupying the capital of Western Thrace was also to prove the importance of the navy to the government and remind the top military and political leaders of the need for Greece to build a navy.

Without the navy, if Western Thrace cannot be occupied in time, what is the point of the army's unprecedented victory?

According to the request of the Russians, the venue for war negotiations was Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

The navy, while escorting Prime Minister Venizelos to the Dardanelles Strait, also carried two thousand marines and landed at Alexandroupolis. After that, they encountered little effective resistance. Successfully captured the city.

All European powers sent special envoys to Bucharest to participate in the talks, while the prime ministers of the Balkan warring countries personally went to Romania to participate in the meeting.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Venizelos presented Greece's demands.

The demands are mainly divided into two aspects, territory and reparations.

In terms of territory, Greece requires Bulgaria to cede to Greece: Western Thrace, Eastern Macedonia, Pirin Macedonia, Eastern Rumelia and other provinces, approximately 80,000 square kilometers of territory.

In terms of reparations, Bulgaria paid one billion drachmas to Greece. At the same time, for the captured Bulgarian soldiers, the Bulgarian government paid for the redemption and paid all expenses during the period of capture, with each soldier receiving 300 drachmas.

After Prime Minister Venizelos expressed the Greek government's request, the representatives of Romania and Ottoman Turkey were not polite at all.

Romania demanded the entire Dobroga from Bulgaria.

The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, sought to recover the territory lost in the previous war, Eastern Thrace.

Edirne, the capital of East Thrace, was of great significance to the Ottoman Empire and served as a barrier to Constantinople.

Only the Serbian Prime Minister, Pasic, felt a little disgusted when he saw the prime ministers of the three countries in high spirits at the meeting.

Serbia was ultimately unable to participate in the war due to the pressure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's close military front.

In order to frighten Serbia and make it give up the idea of ​​taking advantage of the opportunity to get a piece of the defeated Bulgaria, Konrad, the Chief of General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, directly ordered the 200,000-strong Austro-Hungarian Second Army to march across the Danube River on A live-fire military exercise was conducted for half a month near Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

After the "evil deeds" of the Austro-Hungarian Empire spread in Serbia, the people in Serbia who were originally dissatisfied with the Austro-Hungarian Empire gritted their teeth with hatred after witnessing the naked insult of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Serbia.

Thinking of this, Prime Minister Pasic couldn't help but regret that Serbia had missed an opportunity for territorial expansion.

There was no chance to avenge the old enmity of Serbia's defeat by the Bulgarian army in 1885.

The territorial claims made by the three countries to Bulgaria caused an uproar after being transmitted back to Bulgaria, and even directly triggered unrest in the capital Sofia.

Citizens and students took to the streets, shouting slogans and demanding that the government not cede Bulgarian territory.

They even came to the embassies of major powers in Sofia and asked them to help Bulgaria.

The monetary losses are secondary, mainly due to the territorial demands of the three countries. If all are met, then Bulgaria will not only lose the territory it gained after the last Balkan War, but also lose most of its old territory.

Bulgaria is located in the southeastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, bordering Romania to the north (the Danube River serves as the border), the Ottoman Empire to the southeast, Greece to the southwest, Serbia to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the east.

Eastern Bulgaria is bordered by the Black Sea, and the Danube River is the boundary river between Bulgaria and Romania.

The Balkan Mountains run across central Bulgaria and are like the backbone of the country.

The Balkan Mountains divide Bulgaria into the Danube plain in the north and the Thracian lowlands in the south.

To the north of the Balkans is the vast Danube plain, and to the south are the Rhodope Mountains and the lowlands of the Maritsa Valley.

That's it for other places. Mainly Eastern Rumelia, which Greece demanded, directly ceded Bulgaria's territory south of the Balkan Mountains. This territory alone occupies almost half of Bulgaria's traditional territory.

The meeting was deadlocked on the issue of territorial cession.

The Greek diplomatic delegation headed by Venizelos is under tremendous diplomatic pressure.

The attitude of the major European powers is also very clear. Naturally, they do not want to see Greece dismember Bulgaria.

If Greece really gets Eastern Rumelia, Bulgaria will lose half of its citizens and territory, leaving only nearly 50,000 square kilometers of territory south of the Danube River and north of the Balkan Mountains.

The consequence is that Greece will become the strongest country in the Balkans, and no other country can check and balance it. The situation in the entire Balkans will tilt towards Greece.

Of course, Venizelos also had his own reasons for asking Bulgaria to cede Eastern Rumelia.

Although the majority of the population of Eastern Rumelia is Bulgarian, there are also hundreds of thousands of Greeks living there.

After the merger of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1885, the Ottomans who originally lived here were directly expelled by Bulgaria and their properties were plundered.

The original Ottoman lands were directly confiscated by the Bulgarian authorities, and the Greeks living there were also discriminated against and oppressed.

Due to the high nationalist sentiment in Bulgaria, Greeks were often expelled and plundered under such circumstances.

Greeks from Eastern Rumelia are forced to leave their homes all year round and go to Greece to make a living.

Now that Greece has defeated Bulgaria, the Greek people naturally hope to take back Eastern Rumelia and change the tragic fate of the Greeks there.

Due to special historical factors, the Balkans have been ruled by multiple empires and kingdoms. As a result, people with widely different ethnic groups and religious beliefs live mixed with each other, making the situation here very complicated, like a mess.

For the same piece of land, everyone can find conclusive historical evidence to prove its ownership.

The envoys from major countries participating in the meeting had different attitudes towards Greece's demands.

Among them, the Russian envoy hopes that the traditional settlement areas of the Bulgarians can be preserved. After all, the Bulgarians also belong to the Slavic nation. Russia's influence in the Balkans is mainly based on Pan-Slavism, and naturally it is unwilling to see the territory of the Slavic nation being ceded.

Although Greece has a good relationship with Russia, Greece is still closer to Britain and France.

Among them, Germany and Austria-Hungary also obviously favored Bulgaria, and especially had a very strong attitude towards Greece's request for Eastern Rumelia.

Not only did he not agree to Greece's request to obtain Eastern Rumelia, but he also tried to persuade Prime Minister Venizelos to agree to the withdrawal of Greek troops from Western Thrace.

As for Britain and France, they supported Greece in gaining some territory, but they also disagreed with Greece's move to cede Eastern Rumelia.

Since all countries held objections to Greece's request, especially Greece's request for East Rumelia, almost no country participating in the meeting agreed with Greece's opinion.

After half a month of negotiations, Greece finally had to make concessions under strong pressure from various countries.

On July 28, 1913, the various countries finally negotiated the Bucharest Agreement in Bucharest.

At this point, the Second Balkan War ended with the victory of Greece, the Ottoman Empire, and Romania, and the defeat of Bulgaria.

The treaty stipulates:

First, Bulgaria admitted its defeat to all countries and took the main responsibility for this war.

Second, cede 50,000 square kilometers of territory to Greece, including East Macedonia, Pirin Macedonia, and Western Thrace; cede the entire Dobroga to Romania; and return East Thrace to the Ottoman Empire.

Third, Bulgaria paid 600 million drachmas in compensation to Greece.

Fourth, considering Bulgaria's financial difficulties, Greece will release Bulgarian prisoners accordingly based on Bulgaria's progress in paying compensation. During the period of detention, these Bulgarian soldiers will work for free to pay for their living expenses.

Fifth: After the contract is signed, the two countries officially end the state of war, and the armies of both sides are no longer allowed to attack each other.

Sixth. The Bulgarian government guarantees fair and legal treatment of Greeks living in Bulgaria and guarantees their personal safety.

After the contents agreed upon at the meeting were sent back to Athens, Constantine read them in detail. There were dozens of different armistice treaties, but there were only a few core issues.

Although Constantine had anticipated that Bulgaria's proposal to cede Eastern Rumelia was unlikely to succeed before this, he still felt a little disappointed after it became clear that it had been rejected.

In the absence of significant changes in the current situation in Europe, it will be difficult for Greece to expand to its surrounding areas.

Otherwise, like this Bucharest Conference, major countries will join forces to suppress it with a tacit understanding.

However, it is gratifying that through the two Balkan Wars, Greece almost completely acquired the entire Macedonian region, thus nearly doubling its territory!

After data collection by the General Staff, the casualty data of the Greek army in this war have been sorted out.

The Greek army suffered 68,000 casualties, including 32,000 indigenous black Congolese soldiers and 36,000 native Greek soldiers.

As for Bulgaria, due to the storming of the tightly defended defense lines of the Greek army, casualties were relatively high, with 120,000 casualties and 160,000 prisoners.

After this battle, the Bulgarian Army was severely damaged by the Greek Army, and most of the army of more than 500,000 people was annihilated by the Greek Army.