Customer Reviews
The Balkan Wars a complex struggle for self-determination - By: Geor Galanopoulos, 04 Feb 2006 
The bookin question is a good analysis of the conflict.The maps are helpfull, but I would expect that they could be more detailed. The author states the facts without any prejudice for either party, but the narative & the quotes give emphasis on Bulgaria's partin the Balkan wars, perhaps because most of his sources are Bulgarian.
Further, ethnological data were missing, which are crucialin the understanding of the melting pot of Macedonia & the major objectives of all sides to this war. Such data could also challenge some of his pointsin the Albanian question.
It is good reading but lacksin depth. For instance, the right of peoples for self-determination or for the basic human rights of religion & equalityin law, were essentialin the minds of the Bulgarians, Serbs & Greeks who fought the first Balkan war against the Ottomans. The millet system, a religion-based administarive system gave some privileges which were brutaly supressed most of the time, could not guaranty those rights.
Anyway, his conclusions for the end of the 2nd Balkan war are very good. The Balkans are a difficult place for the outsiders to understand. Cooperation between the Balkan states can herald a new way of understanding within Europe.
A clear and concise account of the complex struggle - By: , 28 Mar 2004 
In a clear & concise narrative, Hall explains the background to the Balkan Wars, their events & outcomes, & how the Balkan Wars are really the first phase of the First World War. The 192-page paperback includes extremely useful maps at the start, plus extensive notes & bibliography (readers may be interested to also read The War Correspondence of Leon Trotsky The Balkan Wars 1912-13, Pathfinder Press), yet manages to explain the course & significance of the complex Balkan situation. Hall does thisin an organised structure, chapters dealing with origins & on each major theatre of the wars. Each chapter breaks down into relevant sections to cover the various battles & sieges.
Hall clearly sets out the course of events. The First Balkan War, October 1912- May 1913, saw a Balkan coalition of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, & Greece increase their territories at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Another outcome was that Albania became an independent state, but its borders excluded Kosovo (still a contentious area nowin 2004).
The problem, Hall points out, was that each of the victorious nations, although gaining huge territories, was dissatisfied with the outcome of the war: their national aspirations overlapped throughout the Balkans. At the end of June 1913 war broke out again. In the Second Balkan War Bulgaria fought all its previous allies, plus the Ottoman Empire & also Romania, effectively suffering invasion on every frontier from every neighbour. The Balkan crisis was still not resolved, Bulgaria this time being the main dissatisfied party.
When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914, Great Power rivalry added a fatal dimension to the volatile area, ensuring that instead of a 'Third Balkan War' breaking outin 1914, events got out of hand, & world war ensued. Hall sees the Balkan Wars as being part of a period of conflict for the area that continued with the First World War. Even that struggle failed to resolve the conflicting national aspirations of the Balkans.
A feature of the Balkan Wars was atrocities by the various sides. Hall dismisses "centuries-old hatred" as over-simplification. Atrocities arose, he claims, from the newer, exclusivist ideologies of the relatively new Balkan nations as they sought homogenous national states. Guerrilla war fuelled the spiral of violence. Hall concludes that such ideology is not the best model for the Balkans, & that a political structure that tolerates diversification is necessary if the Balkan nations are to develop enough to join the European community.
A fascinating, clear & concise account of conflictin an area that remains turbulent to this day.
