Authored by Petrit Latifi

The following are reports from consulates in the Balkans in 1912 reporting on Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian atrocities.

“The British ambassador in Vienna, Fairfax Cartwright, first reported the atrocities committed against the Albanian population to Grey. In this report, he wrote about the actions against the Albanians in connection with the Prochaska affair: “The […] envoy is allegedly hated by the Serbian authorities, due to the fact that he witnessed atrocities committed by Serbian troops against the Albanian population. News is reaching Austria of terrible acts committed against Albanian men, women and children.”¹

“In Edward Grey’s telegram to the British ambassador in Rome, Rennell Rodd, dated 19 November 1912, we can read that according to the report of the Italian envoy in Skopje, the Serbian troops committed numerous atrocities, the obvious aim of which was to exterminate as many Albanians as possible.”²

“The Balkan Wars were the first case in modern history when ethnic cleansing appeared and was used as a tool to assert territorial claims. In his report of 7 March 1913, Ralph Paget, the British ambassador to Belgrade, told Grey that there was a rumour in the Balkans that the Great Powers were awarding to the future Albania any territory with a population of at least 75% Albanian. He concluded that the massacres were “for statistical purposes”.³

“The first mention of the former incident can be found in Ralph Paget’s report of 21 November 1912, according to which “500 Albanian corpses were seen floating” in the river”.⁴

Dietmar Müller, in the book “Staatsbürger aus Widerruf Juden und Muslime als Alteritätspartner im rumänischen und serbischen Nationscode : ethnonationale Staatsbürgerschaftskonzepte 1878-1941” writes:

“There are numerous reports from Serbian Social Democrats as well as from Austrian, German, and British diplomats, some of which have already been processed by N. Malcolm and K. Boeckh For the Social Democrats, see The Other Balkan Wars, p. 149; Tucović, Serbia and Albania, pp. 73ff., and some articles from the Social Democratic newspaper Radničke Novine (Workers’ Newspaper) of 1913 in: Srbija i Albanci.”⁵

“On the reports of English diplomats to their Foreign Office, see The British Official Documents on the Origin of the World War 1898-1914, Vol. 10/1. The Near and Middle East on the Eve of the War, ed. by G. P. Gooch/Harold Temperley, Leipzig 1936, pp. 3-90. See also Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. 255ff.; Katrin Boeckh: From the Balkan Wars to the First World War: Small State Politics and Ethnic Self-Determination in the Balkans (Southeast European Studies 97), Munich 1996, pp. 167ff.”⁶

“The assessment of Belgrade’s goals, which the British ambassador in Vienna, F. Cartwright, sent to London on September 27, 1913, appears to be incorrect: “According to reliable reports received here, the Serbian authorities have acted with unspeakable cruelty against the Albanian population and have done everything in their power to prevent the Albanians in Albania from continuing their trade with places now located on Serbian territory.

Undoubtedly, Serbia hopes, by making their lives unbearable, to gradually force these people to ignite a movement for annexation to Serbia. The pressure exerted by Serbia on the Albanian population must have been very drastic, otherwise such a widespread insurrectionary movement would not have broken out so suddenly. This movement appears to be of a spontaneous local nature and not instigated by the Provisional Government in Walona or by Essad Pasha.” In: The British Official Documents 10/1, pp. 31f.”⁷

“Usually complaints about attacks on Muslim villages, besides other acts of violence, include the general information that ‘women and young girls were violated”

OeStA, HHStA P.A. XII 390, von Päzel an Berchtold, no. 14, Prizren, 9 March 1913: Statement on some atrocities cited in a memorandum by the Catholic Archbishop of Prizren; ibid., from Heimroth to von Ugron in Belgrade, no. 22/po.

Uesküb, 18 March 1913: Protest by the French ambassador regarding Serbian attacks in Kaza Gilan at the beginning of March; ibid.:

Austro-Hungarian military attaché in Cetinje, 17 March 1913, no. 1324: Cruelties by Montenegrin troops; ibid., 391,

Report from Cavalla; ibid., 389, Heimroth to Berchtold, no. 26 strictly rep., Uesküb, 9 February 1913: Cruelties by the Serbs against Albanians, ibid., 413, SMS Kaiser. u. König. Maria Theresia. Res. no. 410. rres; ibid.,

P.A. XXXVIII Konsulate 397. Monastir 1912-1914, 1916: Vice-Consul Zitkovszky to Berchtold: Serbische Greuel, no. 142.

OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII. 389. Liasse XLV/3: Balkankrieg 389, Mensdorff an Berchtold, no. 19, London:

“If isolated cases of crimes have occurred’, as the Serbian government wrote in response to an intervention by the British government, ‘the offenders have been punished in the same manner as all offences committed by the members of comitadji bands which could not be controlled by the military authorities’”

28 February 1913: Beilage Memorandum des Foreign Office. Similarly, for the Bulgarian position, Radev, Ot triumf do tragediia, 67; see also Bulgarian Foreign Minister Stanchoff in a conversation with the Austrian consul-general in Saloniki, OeStA, HHStA P.A. XII 387. Liasse XLV/3: Balkankrieg 387, Kral an Berchtold, no. 197, Salonich, 5 December 1912: Gespräch mit Minister Stanchoff:

“The Greek government rejected all complaints about acts of violence against the civilian (Albanian) population, explaining the few it could not deny as pure ‘revenge’ for the many “Turkish atrocities’: ibid., 388: Telegramm Baron Braun, no. 1275, Athens, 7 January 1913.”

215 OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII 386. Kral to Berchtold, no. 188, confidential, Salonica, 22 November 1912: The events in Serres; ibid., 390, Legation Secretary Bilinski to His Excellency Leopold Count von Berchtold, no. 24, Janina, 27 March 1913:

“Situation in Janina; ibid., 414 P.A. XII. Turkey Liasse XLV/5: Balkan War, Kral to Berchtold Z1 213/confidential: The conditions in Cavalla”

Cf., for example, Andrija Jovičević, Dnevnik iz balkanskih ratova [Diary from the Balkan Wars) (Belgrade: Službeni list SRJ, 1996), 125; Azmanov, Moiata epokha, 95; Dodov, Dnevnik, 32; Stefan Khristov Kamburov, Edin mnogo dalg pāt: Dnevnik na Stoian Khristov Kamburov [A Very Long Way: The Diary of Stoian Khristov Kamburov] (Sofia: Pres izdatelstvo, 2003):

“… who writes about paramilitary volunteers (opălchentsi) burning down Muslim houses and ‘taking away what they could carry’ of what had been left behind by the fleeing Turkish population; similarly, see Nikolov, Treta otdelna Armiia, 129.”

220 OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII 385. Consul Halla an von Berchtold, no. 130 confidential, Monastir, 30 October 1912: The Defense of Monastir; ibid., 386, Consul General Kral an von Berchtold, no. 189, Salonica, 26 November 1912:” Report of the Austro-Hungarian Consular Agency in Cavalla of the 8th of this month, ZI: 343, on the events in Drama and Cavalla.”

Cf. the fighting around Ioannina in November 1912, about which Austrian observers reported that ‘andartes and the village population’ committed atrocities against the local Muslim (Albanian) and Wallachian population. OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII 385. Bilinski an Berchtold, no. 89, Janina, 17 November 1912: Zur Situation:

“Here it is reported that paramilitaries and the ‘local population committed awful crimes against soldiers and the unarmed Muslim population’. See also the report by the German major in the Ottoman army Günter to the German Foreign Office in PA AA, R 14 225 Akten betr. den Balkan-Krieg, Bd. 10: 22/23 October 1912. On violence committed by Greek andartes, cf. also the diary by French consul Guy Chantepleure (pseudonym of Jeanne-Caroline Violet-Dussap), who was in the city during the siege: Guy Chantepleure, La ville assiégée: Janina Octobre 1912-Mars 1913 (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1913), 230.”

Kamburov, Edin mnogo dalg păt, 23, Albanian lands in Mitrovic being given to Serbs:

“Reports about the local Serbian population from Mitrovica distributing the land of their Muslim neighbours among themselves can be found in OeStA, HHStA P.A. XII 391. v. Uron an Berchtold, no. 82 a-B, Belgrad, 15 April 1913: Militärische und politische Berichte aus Nisch und Mitrovitza, Beilage.”

P.A. XII 389. Atrocities and plundering by the Bulgarian bands during the war; similarly, for Monastir and Üsküb, ibid., 386, Halla to Berchtold, no. 137, Monastir, 25 November 1912:

The surrender of Monastir to the Serbs; ibid., 386, Political Report by Dr. Heimroth, no. 125, Üsküb, 18 November 1912; ibid., 388, Halla to Berchtold, no. 6, confidential Monastir, 17 January 1913: Devastation of the Muslim districts of the Vilayet of Monastir. Under the pretext of collecting weapons, as reported from the Greek and Bulgarian conquest of Salonica, soldiers ‘being guided by local vagabonds’ entered the houses in the city’s Turkish and Jewish quarter, plundering whatever they could find. Ibid.,”

Kral an Berchtold, no. 183, Salonica, 17 November 1912:

“The excesses of the Bulgarian and Greek troops. The Austrian consul in Adrianople reported his own observations that after the Bulgarian conquest of the city, ‘the mob’ together with soldiers and komitadži had plundered the houses of beds, other furniture and ‘even a piano”.

Ibid., 391, Tarnowski an Berchtold, no. 27, E, Sofia, 14 April 1913; supplement Dr Max von Herzfeld, no. 1/re Adrianople, 9 April 1913: “lncidence after the capture of the city. For the city of Kavalla, see the report based on first-hand observations after the Bulgarians had left the city, by British Navy Cpt. Boyle, TNA, RN: ADM 116/1193, Cpt. Boyle to Sir F. Elliot, Athens, 5 August 1913 [3751], confidential.”

226 PA AA, R 14 230, Akten betr. den Balkan-Krieg Vol. 15: Report of the Austrian Consul in Janina, 11 March 1913. See the more detailed original report on the conquest of Janina, in OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII 390. Liasse XLV/3: Balkankrieg, Bilinski an Berchtold, no. 12, Janina, 11 March 1913:

“Fall of the fortress of Janina. His colleague Halla from Monastir/Bitola spoke in a similar way about ‘an unbound Christian population’ when Greek soldiers had entered the city of Korca. Ibid., 388, Halla an Berchtold, no. 1, Monastir, 4 January 1913: Der Einzug der Greeks in Korca”

no. 136 E, Belgrade, 15 November 1912: News from Üsküb; ibid., 387, Kral to Berchthold, no. 203, Salonich, 9 December 1912:

“The atrocities of Strumitz; ibid., P.A. XII 438. Liasse XLV/15: Balkan War, Graf Tarnowski to Berchthold, no. 48 D, Sofia, 17 August 1913: Massacre of Bulgarian prisoners of war; on the alleged killing of prisoners by Serbian soldiers in Prizren

On the miserable food supply of prisoners in Montenegro, see OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII 385. Giesl an Berchtold, no. 89, vertr., Cetinje, 28 October 1912: Unterredung mit König Nikola.

“The Carnegie Commission also reported on hunger among the prisoners in Greek-controlled Macedonia. Ibid., 438, Prinz Emil Fürstenberg an Berchthold no. 41 D, Athens, 6 September 1913: Die Carnegie-Mission in Griechenland.”

200 Cf., for example, PA AA, R 14 222, Dt. Botschaft Pera an Reichskanzler Bethmann-Hollweg, 24 October 1912; OeStA, HHSIA P.A. XII 388. Prochaska an Berchtold, no. 5, Prizren, 30 January 1913:

“The fighting in Luma, claiming that due to the situation there is hardly any chance of getting unbiased information.”

201 OeStA, HHSŁA P.A. XII 388. Count Mensdorff to Berchtold no. 11 G, London, 31 January 1913: Interpellation in the English House of Commons about cruelties in the Balkans; ibid., 389, Count Mensdorff to Berchtold, no. 16 F, London, 15 February 1913; ibid., 390, Mensdorff to Berchtold, no. 21, London, 3 March 1913: “Massacres of Albanians by Serbian troops”

Official documents on Serbian atrocities:

Freundlich, Leo. Albania’s Golgotha: Indictments against the Exterminators of the Albanian People. Vienna: J. Roller, 1913.

The Albanian Correspondence: Agency Reports from Times of Crisis, June 1913–August 1914, ed. Robert Elsie. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2012.

References

The Wars of Yesterday The Balkan Wars and the Emergence of Modern Military Conflict, 1912-13, 2018. Katrin Boeckh, Sabine Rutar.

1. https://edit.elte.hu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10831/34808/Ingenia_Hungarica_II_Balatoni_Balazs_p_81-114.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y ↩︎
2. imbid. ↩︎
3. imbid. ↩︎
4. imbid. ↩︎
5. Staatsbürger aus Widerruf Juden und Muslime als Alteritätspartner im rumänischen und serbischen Nationscode : ethnonationale Staatsbürgerschaftskonzepte 1878-1941 By Dietmar Müller · 2005 https://www.google.se/books/edition/Staatsb%C3%BCrger_aus_Widerruf/0UckOb6n71cC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=albanische+Ortschaften+zerst%C3%B6rt&pg=PA199&printsec=frontcover ↩︎
6. imbid. ↩︎
7. imbid. ↩︎