The Politicization of the Army and Navy in the Balkan Wars

Before the Italo-Turkish War, which began in 1911, had even ended, the Balkan states (Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro) attacked the Ottoman Empire. Having missed the industrial revolutions and having chosen the wrong path from the beginning by opting for "transmission" (imitation) over "reason" at the crossroads of "reason or transmission," the Ottoman Empire, failing to achieve technological and social development, was forced into a constant retreat from the second half of the 19th century, not only militarily but also politically and administratively. As a farmer/peasant agricultural empire, the Ottoman State was attacked on all fronts following the 1877 Russo-Turkish War.

The Balkan War Begins

Although the Balkan War, which began with Montenegro's offensive on October 8, 1912, is generally treated in Turkish military history literature as a shocking loss of territory, from a strategic perspective, this war was a total systemic collapse of the state mechanism and defense doctrine. When the war began, enemy intelligence was virtually non-existent. A large portion of the army had been demobilized. Against the enemy's 700,000 troops, the Ottoman military had around 450,000. But most importantly, there was a shortage of provisions and clothing. On the other hand, the number of cavalry was extremely low. As a result of the year-long Italian war, the financial situation had also deteriorated significantly, and when the Balkan War broke out on top of that, an urgent ceasefire and peace treaty were requested from the Italians. Consequently, Libya and the Dodecanese were left to the Italians, and the focus shifted to the war in the Balkans. This war is the greatest tragedy of the Ottoman collapse period. The Balkan War was not fought against only four former Ottoman provinces. Behind Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro stood the great powers of Europe.

The Politicized Army

When the Balkan War began, Mustafa Kemal was still a young staff officer, but he had seen the true cause of the disaster very early on. To him, the issue was not merely the success of the Montenegrin, Bulgarian, Serbian, or Greek armies. The real issue was that the Ottoman army had been hollowed out from within by being drawn into politics over the years. Indeed, in his later assessments, he would specifically emphasize that the Balkan defeat was not directly a defeat of the Turkish soldier. The army had moved away from being a national war institution and had been drawn into the fierce political factionalism of the era, primarily the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki) circles. Opposing structures such as the Freedom and Accord Party (Hürriyet ve İtilaf) and the Savior Officers (Halaskâr Zabitan) had created deep divisions among the officer corps. Officers began to align themselves not around a common national goal, but around different political centers and factions. Political loyalty took precedence over merit in promotions, commanders did not trust one another, and the chain of command eroded more each day. The fragmented structure had exhausted the spirit of the army even before the Balkan War began. For this reason, the war was lost in the headquarters, not on the front lines.

The Politicized Navy and the Lost Reflex of a Maritime State

The Balkan War resulted in the loss of the Aegean Islands and Western Thrace, leading to the encirclement from the west that still resonates today. The fundamental reason for this was a lack of equipment. The Ottoman State lost the Aegean Islands one after another within 5 months (October 21, 1912 – March 16, 1913). The real reason for this was not just the lack of a navy; it was the absence of a maritime state reflex. This reflex defines the sea not merely as a border or an obstacle, but as the main strategic artery that ensures the state's survival, logistical sustainability, and geopolitical depth. The Ottoman Empire's maritime reflex had weakened and declined after Lepanto (1571) and had completely disappeared by the reign of Abdul Hamid II. While the Italian War was continuing in an overseas territory, not a single naval vessel could be sent to Libya to support the war. The Chamber of Deputies (Meclisi Mebusan) that gathered in Istanbul before the Balkan War began had paralyzed our will to control the Aegean Sea by surrendering naval dominance to Greece from the very start. This strategic vacuum at sea, just as in the Italian War in Libya, triggered the abandonment of the Turkish population on islands that had belonged to us since the 15th century, and also clogged the logistical veins of the land army, condemning military units to abandonment. This logistical blockage left our units in Rumelia without ammunition.

During the Balkan War, there was even a division between the Naval Headquarters and the Ministry of the Navy. Some officers were Unionists, while others belonged to the Freedom and Accord group. Aside from the impossibilities and weaknesses, the lack of merit and the division within the command staff made the situation much more dire.

Naval Major Ali Rıza Bey summarized what happened in his memoirs (Farewell), published 100 years later: "We knew by then that we had lost these islands in the Aegean. We were helpless. We had been defeated while lying on our backs. We had already recalled the civil and military personnel from most of the islands occupied by the Greeks. When the Greeks landed on the abandoned Ottoman islands, even they were surprised by the silence... Communication facilities on the islands had not been properly established. Just as in the Italian occupation, we learned that some islands had been occupied only after the fact... We had learned by chance how we had abandoned five centuries of sovereignty."

I hope we never again read in our history the following telegram sent by an Ottoman citizen from Çeşme regarding the navy's failure to come to the aid of the islands and coasts during the Balkan War:

"A state like Greece is occupying our islands by turning its mail steamers and even cruiser launches into torpedo boats, hunting our soldiers on the mountain tops. Furthermore, they are collecting every boat they can find on our Anatolian coasts, including lifeboats... Days have passed. Our eyes are on the endless sea day and night, seeing nothing but Greek ships. Is the nation not feeding the navy for this day? Or are we saving them for a parade in front of the Byzantine walls?"

During the Balkan War, there were two critical sorties from the Dardanelles by the Ottoman Navy to gain naval superiority in the Aegean. They are known as the battles of Imbros and Lemnos. The first took place on December 16, 1912, and the second on January 18, 1913. In both battles, the Greek Navy's armored cruiser Averof disrupted the Ottoman battle formation with its superior speed and firepower. The Ottoman fleet was forced to retreat to the straits after sustaining heavy damage. Following these defeats, while Greece seized naval dominance in the Aegean, the Ottoman State effectively lost its connection with the Aegean islands.

This defeat suffered by the Ottoman Navy in the Balkan War was not merely the result of technical inadequacies, old ships, or missing ammunition. The real collapse was in the institutional structure. Or rather, it was that the spirit of naval warfare had been replaced by politics, fear, ambition, and the avoidance of responsibility. One of the most striking examples of this decay occurred before the Battle of Imbros. In his memoirs, Senior Captain Ali Rıza Bey from Amasya, a gunnery staff officer serving at the Naval Headquarters, recounts that the Ottoman Navy exited the Dardanelles many times. However, he writes that they returned as soon as the first sign of the enemy fleet was received, and that the navy set sail not to fight, but to be seen. Finally, when they exited the Straits again for the Battle of Imbros on December 16, 1912, those on the bridge unanimously decided to turn back. In his memoirs, he states that he told them, "Gentlemen, the salaries we receive will be forbidden (haram). Fight!" Ali Rıza Bey had seen that the Navy was now defeated by the fear within itself before the enemy.

The politicization of the navy and the paralysis of the merit system opened the doors to this disaster. The command echelon became a prisoner of political cliques in Istanbul and an atmosphere of fear instead of naval doctrine. The decision to turn back the moment the enemy was seen at the Battle of Imbros was an act of bankruptcy of decision-making responsibility rather than a technical inadequacy. The navy sacrificed its warrior spirit to political fears by setting sail only to be seen, not to engage the enemy. Many navies in history have lost ships. But the real disaster is to be locked in a port without fighting. The Ottoman Navy experienced exactly this during the Balkan War. The naval defeat in the Balkan War is an inevitable outcome of the "Golden Horn Period" between 1876 and 1909. The confinement of the navy to the Golden Horn caused not only the collapse of the ships but also the destruction of maritime culture and strategic vision.

Another legacy of this period is "sea blindness," the inability to view the islands from a geostrategic perspective. Despite centuries of sovereignty, the demographic structure of the islands was subjected to strategic neglect. For example, the Turkish population on Samothrace and Gökçeada had dwindled to negligible levels, and on Lemnos, only 1,000 Turks remained against 25,000 Greeks. The most striking data is in Lesbos: there were only 15,000 Turks against a Greek population of 125,000. This demographic weakness reduced the occupation of the islands to a process of surrender rather than a military operation.

Crete Was Lost First.

The first major rehearsal of the disaster that reached the gates of Edirne in 1912 had taken place years earlier in Crete. The psychological, political, and strategic infrastructure of the great rupture that would occur in the Balkan War was actually prepared much earlier in Crete. The first major break in Crete occurred after the 1866 Cretan Revolt. Just as the Greek uprising was about to be suppressed by the Ottoman army, Britain and France intervened. The Ottoman State made concessions and retreated. The Sublime Porte (Babı Ali) had thought that every concession would bring peace. However, every concession paved the way for a new intervention. In 1878, following the 93 Russo-Turkish War, the weakening of the state triggered a new wave of rebellion in Crete. As a result, the condition that the Cretan governor must be chosen only from among Muslims was abolished. Greeks were brought to a majority in the administration, and Greeks were allowed into the Gendarmerie. In 1896, the island was shaken by another major revolt. Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Italy sent warships to Crete and initiated a process of direct intervention. A new order was imposed on the Ottoman State. It was demanded that the Cretan governor must be a Christian, and a general amnesty was declared once again. In the end, Turkish villages were burned, massacres occurred, and thousands of Muslims had to take refuge in Chania and Rethymno. The Ottoman Empire, which had no navy, declared war on Greece on April 18, 1897. Although the Ottoman army defeated Greek forces on land in a short time and opened the road to Athens, Abdul Hamid II halted the advance under pressure from Russia and Britain. The Ottoman army had won a military victory, but diplomacy without a navy had lost its influence over Crete at the table. The year 1898 became the turning point of the actual rupture. European states landed troops on the island on the pretext of public order and ensured the withdrawal of Ottoman soldiers from Crete. In the same year, the island was declared autonomous. Greek Prince George was brought to the office of High Commissioner. Thus, although Crete appeared to be legally tied to the Ottomans, it had effectively turned into a structure under European protection and Greek influence. In 1908, the Cretan Assembly unilaterally decided to unite with Greece. The Ottoman State did not recognize this, but it lacked the power to enforce it. Following the 1913 London and Athens Treaties, Crete was officially left to Greece.

The Land Front

The Balkan War disaster is not limited to military defeats on a few fronts. It is a major rupture where the political, military, logistical, and psychological dissolution of the state was reflected on the battlefield. Even the fact that small Bulgaria, which had declared its independence only a few years earlier in 1908, could advance to Çatalca, just 40 kilometers from the Ottoman capital, is enough to explain the collapse of the era. If the Balkan states had not entered into conflict among themselves in the Second Balkan War, it is within the realm of possibility that the Bulgarian pressure would have created much more severe consequences for Istanbul.

The fall of Edirne on March 26, 1913, was a great destruction not only militarily but also morally and psychologically. Because Edirne was not an ordinary city. It had served as the capital of the Ottomans for many years and had become the symbol of the empire's political will and historical memory in Europe. Şükrü Pasha's resistance, which lasted for months, remained one of the most honorable defenses in military history. However, hunger, disease, lack of ammunition, and strategic loneliness eventually determined the city's fate. It was not just a city that fell in Edirne; the state's self-confidence and deterrent power had also been lost.

At the root of this rout were structural problems that had been accumulating for many years. The army's involvement in politics, factionalism, the damage to the unity of command, poor management, and early demobilizations paralyzed the reflexes of the Ottoman army in the very first stages of the war. The Ottoman army was not completely powerless; there were self-sacrificing soldiers and experienced officers. However, the common goal and unity of doctrine had eroded. Political interventions had disrupted the military decision-making mechanism. Officer allegiance had begun to shift not to the state, but to different political centers. For this reason, the military power on the front could not be transformed into a strategic result.

The Balkan War was also a major logistical collapse. The Ottoman State was caught unprepared for the war. The mobilization system was inadequate. The communication and command-control mechanism was seriously malfunctioning. The sea routes, which were the main transport axis between Istanbul and Rumelia, had collapsed, and the forces in Rumelia were left logistically breathless. Sufficient ammunition, personnel, and supply support could not be sent via sea transport. Due to the pressure established by the Greek navy in the Aegean, ports could not be used, and the transport system collapsed. Land logistics were squeezed into a few poor highways and limited railway lines. Thus, the disorganization in Thrace combined with the ineffectiveness of the navy made the rout irreversible.

What happened on the front clearly showed the extent to which the state mechanism had dissolved. Hunger, typhus, and cholera sometimes became more destructive than the enemy. The bond between state, people, and army had been broken. The soldier could no longer feel the power of the state and nation behind him. This strategic loneliness also eroded the will to fight.

For this reason, the Balkan War is not just a military defeat, but the image of the total dissolution of the state mechanism on the battlefield. When the land army's disorganization in Thrace, logistical inadequacies, political factionalism, and lack of preparation combined, the Ottoman army was forced to retreat on almost all fronts. As a result, the Bulgarian army reached Çatalca, Edirne fell, and the imperial capital came under direct threat.

Lieutenant Selahattin Yurtseven, who served in the army retreating from Thrace, wrote in his memoirs (İlhan Selçuk, The Novel of Captain Selahattin): "I walked for 3 hours to reach the place where my regiment had newly moved. The scene on the roads was too horrific to be imagined. A lot of lifeless bodies were left as they were, rotting; dogs had eaten some of them. People who looked like they had jumped out of a grave when you looked at their faces were trying to walk by leaning on their sticks. The 100,000-strong army, located 45 km from the capital of the Ottoman Empire, was hungry, miserable, and neglected. Typhus, cholera, and dysentery were decimating the soldiers. Neither medicine nor doctors nor hospitals were sufficient. Especially the villages, the villagers, and the refugee caravans were heartbreaking. On the way, I came across a caravan. An eighty-year-old man was at their head. In a broken oxcart, there were tattered things under the name of belongings. A few sheep. A dog. A young woman next to the cart. A child in her arms. She was both crying and walking. When the old man saw that I was interested in them, he said, 'Sir, we are refugees from Çorlu. When the army was fleeing, we joined them, but they went quickly. We were left behind. The Bulgarians caught up with us. My son-in-law was a young lad. They killed him before our eyes. They raped my daughter. The girl lost her mind. She doesn't understand or listen to anything we say. Three days ago, the child in her arms froze. Now he is dead. But she is constantly trying to breastfeed him. If you tell her, maybe it will work.' I approached the woman and said, 'My daughter, your child is dead, leave him.' The girl looked at me for a while as if she had seen a wild animal. Then she threw the child away. I walked on."

Captain Selahattin adds the following regarding the period after Edirne fell: "In March 1913, I was assigned to the 8th Depot Battalion established at the Çağlayan Mansion in Kağıthane. At that time, the Bulgarians were attacking Çatalca. Their target was Istanbul. We started training the soldiers in Kağıthane. May 6, 1913, was the spring festival, that is, Hızır İlyas. Over the years, the Golden Horn and the Kağıthane banks had become one of the world's leading entertainment venues. During the collapse periods of the Ottoman Empire, pleasure and entertainment parties were held in Kağıthane. Now, in May 1913, the enemy was 80 km from Istanbul. Since 1722, we had retreated from the Danube to Çatalca. But the entertainment and parties continued. When I started to leave the palace with the soldiers I took with me in the morning and walk around the area, I was surprised. The place was becoming as crowded as the apocalypse. Thousands of people had spread out on the meadows. It was truly a sight to behold. While the clamor resembling the apocalypse—drums, carts, donkeys, horses—continued, the Bulgarian cannons in Çatalca were firing as if they were celebrating this entertainment. It was a sign of warning. A people who had lost all their lands on the European continent and left three million Turks in enemy hands were having fun under the sound of enemy cannons. The crowd had reached such a level that it was impossible to even go to the sellers to buy something..."

What can be added to these accounts? A public that continues to have fun while the occupying forces are 40 km away, and a state that allows this!

At the end of the Balkan War, the Ottoman State lost approximately 83% of its lands in Europe, that is, an area of approximately 167 thousand square kilometers. Approximately 69% of its population in Europe was lost. In the Ottoman army, which had 450 thousand soldiers at the beginning of the war, approximately 100-125 thousand soldiers lost their lives, approximately 75 thousand soldiers died due to typhus, cholera, and epidemics, approximately 100 thousand soldiers were wounded, and approximately 115 thousand soldiers were taken prisoner. There were 800 thousand soldiers on the opposing front at the beginning. During the period when the capital entered its most difficult days and the Bulgarian armies reached the Çatalca line, the Ottomans had approximately 140 thousand soldiers, while the Bulgarian forces were approximately 176 thousand people. Or, during the Siege of Edirne, while the Ottoman garrison under the command of Şükrü Pasha consisted of approximately 60 thousand soldiers, the Bulgarian-Serbian forces reached approximately 150 thousand. The siege lasted about 5 months, and at the end of the war, approximately 60 thousand Ottoman soldiers were taken prisoner. The civilian disaster that emerged during the Balkan War was also extremely large; approximately 400 thousand to 800 thousand Muslim refugees had to migrate from Rumelia to Anatolia.

Conclusion

The Balkan War is not an ordinary war lost in a few months. In fact, this war is the final act of the Ottoman State's mental, political, military, and strategic collapse, which had been accumulating for years, becoming visible on the battlefield. The roots of the Balkan rout should not be sought in front of Edirne, but in the dissolution that began much earlier. After the 1909 Reval Meeting, Britain's approach to Russia and the fact that the sharing calculations over the Straits and Ottoman geography were now clearly felt further collapsed the already shaken state psychology. Subsequently, the de facto loss of Crete, the Tripolitanian War, and the loss of the Dodecanese shattered the empire's self-confidence. The espionage, detective/police pressure, exile, and purge processes of the Abdul Hamid II era, which pitted the nation against each other, had destroyed the bonds of social solidarity and mutual love and respect. Polarization was at its peak. The reflection of this situation in the military field was inevitable. Therefore, the state first lost its moral superiority and then its lands. The Balkan War is the military result of this dissolution.

One of the biggest reasons for this collapse was the politicization of the army. Because a politicized army ceases to be a national power institution. Officer allegiance begins to shift not to the state, but to factions and political camps. As the common goal disappears, the unity of command is disrupted. This is exactly what happened in the Balkan War. The Ottoman army was not completely powerless. Despite the human resources and the purges that took place, it had experienced officers. However, early demobilizations, poor management, factionalism, political interventions, and the lack of cooperation and coordination between institutions paralyzed the army's will to fight. The words Mustafa Kemal said years later, "The army must be definitively and truly separated from politics," were not a sentence spoken by chance. Behind those words is the bitter memory of the Balkan rout. Because Atatürk had seen very well that an army does not collapse by enemy fire, but first by the politicization and factionalism within.

The Balkan War was also a major logistical bankruptcy. What collapsed along with the front lines were also the transport, communication, supply, and mobilization systems. Aid could not be delivered to the units in the Balkan provinces from the Aegean and Adriatic Seas. Land and rail roads were broken. Hunger, typhus, and cholera sometimes became more deadly than the enemy.

The collapse on the naval front directly determined the fate of the Balkan War. The psychology of the Ottoman navy being locked in the Golden Horn between 1876-1909 and the land army's disorganization in Thrace were actually two different images of the same mental collapse. Since the already very limited naval power was not used effectively even in the Aegean Sea, let alone the Adriatic Sea, the initiative was lost. All of the islands fell within 5 months. Sea transport lines were put under pressure, and a blockade was applied to Ottoman maritime trade. Thus, the logistical veins of the land army were cut. The land forces, on the other hand, retreated in poor management, factionalism, and strategic blindness.

The greatest lesson given by the Balkan War on the naval front is the fact that a politicized navy cannot fight. Because the naval warfare environment does not forgive fear, indecision, and political calculations. In a structure that has been politicized and managed by a culture of fear, the voice of professional naval reason was suppressed in this war. For some of the commanders, the priority became not defeating the enemy, but completing their term of duty without taking responsibility. Taking risks could end a career. Naval superiority could not be established within such a psychology.

The Aegean islands lost in 5 months and the Bulgarian army approaching Çatalca opened the strategic door to the path leading to the British and French Gallipoli landings in 1915 and the Greek occupation of Izmir in 1919 on the imperial front. The fact that the Ottomans could not defend in depth from the sea and the land army retreated in a short time reinforced the idea among the great powers that the Ottomans could now be approached on their coasts and that the straits could be passed by the use of force. Therefore, for the Ottomans in the peninsula geography, the harshest and most real lesson of the Balkan War should be the approach that "he who loses the sea also loses the land.”

Today, the Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) is the geopolitical continuation of this historical memory. Because the fact that the defense of Anatolia begins in the depths of the Aegean and Mediterranean was learned with the Balkan rout. The reason why ports, energy terminals, tanker routes, maritime transport networks, and logistical corridors are a survival element today is also the result of this historical experience. In modern warfare, logistics is no longer a support element of the war, but the war itself.