Ottoman Muslim genocide during the Balkan Wars

Turkish refugees running from Bulgarian hostilities, First Balkan War, 1913

In 1912 Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro declared war on the Ottomans. The Ottomans quickly lost territory. According to Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, "the invading armies and Christian insurgents committed a wide range of atrocities upon the Muslim population."[14] In Kosovo and Albania most of the victims were Albanians while in other areas most of the victims were Turks and Pomaks. A large number of Pomaks in the Rhodopes were forcibly converted to Orthodoxy but later allowed to reconvert, most of them did.[15]

Postcard showing Turkish civilians who were massacred by the Bulgarian army

Postcard showing Turkish civilians who were massacred by the Bulgarian army

Postcard showing Turkish civilians who were massacred by the Bulgarian army

Postcard showing Turkish civilians who were massacred by the Bulgarian army

The Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars reported that in many districts the Moslem villages were systematically burned by their Christian neighbors. In Monastir 80% of the Muslim villages were burned by the Serbian and Greek army according to a British report. While in Giannitsa the Muslim quarter was burned alongside many Muslim villages in the Salonica province by the Greek army. Massacres and rapes are also reported by the Greek and Bulgarian armies towards Turks.[16]

Arnold Toynbee gives the number of Muslim refugees who fled the region that fell under Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek control between 1912–1915 as 297,918.[17]

Justin Mccarthy, a controversial historian, gives the number of refugees during and after the Balkan Wars (1912–20) as 413,922, and further states that in the period between 1911–1926 out of the 2,315,293 Muslims that lived in the areas taken from the Ottoman Empire in Europe (excluding Albania), 812,771 ended up in Turkey (including those of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey), 632,408 died, and 870,114 remained.[18] According to American historian Dennis P. Hupchick, the Ottoman Empire lost 1.5 million civilians during the Balkan Wars and approximately 400,000 were deported.[9] According to Berna Pekesen, one million refugees lost their lives traveling to the Ottoman empire.[6] By 1923, only 38% of the Muslim population of 1912 still lived in the Balkans. According to Emre Erol, 410,000 Muslims were displaced to the Ottoman Empire and more than 100,000 died during their flight.[19] Salonika (Thessaloniki) and Adrianople (Edirne) were crowded with them. By sea and land mostly they settled in Ottoman Thrace and Anatolia.

During the war, the Bulgarian army committed numerous atrocities, including mass murder, rape, torture, theft, and plundering against Turks and Muslims on a massive scale. [20][6][8][9]

The Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars states the following: "The Bulgarian army marched on to Doiran; on its departure looting and slaughter began. I saw an old man of eighty lying in the street with his head split open, and the dead body of a boy of thirteen. About thirty Moslems were killed that day in the streets,--I believe by the Bulgarian bands. On Wednesday evening, an order was issued that no Moslem might leave his house day or night until further notice." [20]

The Carnegie Commission visited the camp of the Moslem refugees outside Salonica and talked with two groups of them who came from villages near Strumnitsa. The Greeks told them that the Bulgarians would certainly massacre them if they stayed in the town; they urged, and pressed and persuaded. Most left under pressure. A few remained, and many were forced to leave. They heard that other villages had been burnt after they left, and some of them actually saw their villages in flames. [20]

A group of these refugees from the village Yedna-Kuk, near Strumnitsa, gave their experiences during the first war. The Bulgarian bands arrived before the regular army, and ordered the whole male population to assemble in the mosque. They were shut in and robbed of 300 pounds in all. Eighteen of the wealthier villagers were bound and taken to Bossilovo, where they were killed and buried. The villagers were able to remember nine of their names.[20]

The Catholic priest Gustave Michel, superior of the mission at Kukush, gave the following information to the correspondent of Le Temps (July 10). He could testify to certain massacres perpetrated by the Bulgarian bands at Kurkut. A Bulgarian band led by Donchev shut all the men of the place in the mosque, and gathered the women round it, in order to oblige them to witness the spectacle. The Bulgarian commandants then threw three bombs at the mosque but it was not blown up; so they then set fire to it, and all who were shut up in it, about 700 men, were burnt alive. Those who attempted to flee were shot down by Bulgarian commandants posted round the mosque, and Pere Michel found human heads, arms, and legs lying about half burned in the streets. At Planitsa, Donchev's band committed even worse atrocities. It first drove all the men to the mosque and burnt them alive; it then gathered the women and burnt them in their turn in the public square. At Rayonovo a number of men and women were massacred; the Bulgarians filled a well with their corpses. At Kukush the Moslems were massacred by the Bulgarian population of the town and their mosque destroyed. All the Turkish soldiers who fled without arms and arrived in groups from Salonica were massacred.[20]

Postcard showing Bulgarian troops forcing captured Turkish women to dance naked

After the occupation of Salonica, disarmed Turkish soldiers in groups of two to three hundred at a time marched through Kukush on their way to their homes. They were captured by the Bulgarian bands and slaughtered, to the number of perhaps 2,000. A commission of thirty to forty Christians was established, which drew up lists of all the Moslem inhabitants throughout the district. Everyone was summoned to the mosque and there informed that he had been rated to pay a certain sum. Whole villages, were made responsible for the total amount; most of the men were imprisoned and were obliged to sell everything they possessed, including their wives' ornaments, in order to pay the ransom. They were often killed in spite of the payment of the money in full; he, himself, actually saw a Bulgarian commandant cut off two fingers of a man's hand and force him to drink his own blood mixed with raki.[20]

Postcard showing Turkish civilians who were massacred by the Bulgarian army

The chief of bands, Donchev, arrived and matters were still worse. He burnt three Turkish villages in one day, Raianovo, Planitsa and Kukurtovo--345 houses in all. He shut up the men in the mosques and burnt them alive; the women were shut up in barns and ill used; children were actually flung against the walls and killed. This the witness did not see, but heard from his Christian neighbors. Only twenty-two Moslem families out of 300 remained in Kukush; the rest fled to Salonica. Twelve small Moslem villages were wiped out in the first war, the men killed and the women taken away.[20]

On November 6, 1912, the inhabitants of Serres, sent a deputation to meet the Bulgarian army and surrender the town. Next day Zancov, a Bulgarian Chief of bands, appeared in the town with sixteen men, and began to disarm the population. A day later the Bulgarian army entered Serres and received a warm welcome. That evening the Bulgarian soldiers, on the pretext that arms were still hidden in the houses of the Moslems, entered them and began to steal money and other valuables. Next day the Moslem refugees from the district north of Serres were invited to appear at the prefecture; they obeyed the Summons; but on their arrival a trumpet sounded and the Bulgarian soldiers seized their arms and began to massacre these inoffensive people; the massacre lasted three hours and resulted in the death of 600 Moslems. The number of the victims would have been incalculable had it not been for the energetic intervention of the Greek bishop, and of the director of the Orient bank. [20]

Bulgarian army set fire to a populated mosque

The Moslems of the town were then arrested in the cafes, houses and streets, and imprisoned, some at the prefecture and others in the mosques; many of the former were slaughtered with bayonets. Bulgarian soldiers in the meantime entered Turkish houses, violated the women and girls and stole everything they could lay their hands on. The Moslems imprisoned in the overcrowded mosques were left without food for two days and nights and then released. For six days rifle shots were heard on all sides; the Moslems were afraid to leave their houses; and of this the Bulgarian soldiers took advantage to pillage their shops. Moslem corpses lay about in the streets and were buried only when they began to putrify. For several days the Bulgarian soldiers destroyed houses and mosques in order to obtain firewood. The corn and animals of the Moslems were seized by the Bulgarian authorities without any receipt or note of requisition. Complaints made on this subject were ignored. The furniture and antiquities belonging to the schools, mosques and hospitals were taken and sent to Sofia. The Bulgarians subjected several Moslem notables to all sorts of humiliations; they were driven with whips to sweep the streets and stables; and many a blow was given to those who dared to wear a fez. In a word, during the Bulgarian occupation the Moslems were robbed and maltreated both in the streets and at the prefecture, unless they had happened to give board and lodging to some Bulgarian officer. The Bulgarian officers and gendarmes before leaving Serres took everything that was left in the shops of Moslems, Jews and Greeks, and pitilessly burnt a large number of houses, shops, cafes, and mills. [20]

It is reported that during the war, when the Bulgarians destroyed the Turkish villages of Davud, Topuklu and Maden, they murdered not only women and the elderly, but even children in the cradle, and in Radovishte, all the Turkish men were massacred. [21]

Postcard showing "Bulgarian savagery" against Turks

On the train route close to the village of Maraş, Turkish corpses with their heads torn to pieces, their backs cut with bayonets, and their faces torn apart were found. [22]

Bulgarian committee members also demonstrated complete brutality in Drama. In addition to stealing the money of someone named Şaban Agha in the 400-household Roksar village, they first cut out his eyes, then cut off his nose and ears, then his arms and legs, and threw his body in the middle of the street. Again, in the same village, they murdered a young teacher, one of the Education officers, by cutting out his eyes and cutting off his ears. They left only 40 people in the said village and killed the rest in an extremely cruel and brutal manner. [23]

According to the information provided by a Russian newspaper, at the beginning of the war, Bulgarian committee members and their members burned 39 men and women alive in a mosque in the village of Debernecik, and slaughtered all the Turks in the village of Karaşova. [24]

Bulgarian committee members constantly attacked the migrating convoys, thus causing the deaths of thousands of innocent Turkish people. In Xanthi, the Bulgarians dismembered the Turks they captured, and between Komanova and Skopje they massacred approximately 3000 Turks. In Syros, on the grounds that the Turks killed two soldiers in self-defense, the Bulgarian officer looked at his watch and said: "It's half time now, you can do whatever you want to the Turks until the same hour tomorrow," the massacre began and between 1,200 and 1,900 innocent Turkish people were killed throughout the day. [25]

Many of the Bulgarian prisoners captured during the war had female ears and fingers decorated with earrings and rings in their pockets. [26]

Postcard showing Bulgarian atrocities against Turkish civilians

In the town of Kirmi, which consisted of 25 villages and whose population of around 12,000 was almost entirely Muslim-Turkish, the Bulgarians burned the houses and started to oppress the people. Those who could escape fled, and most of those who could not escape were killed by the Bulgarians. In the Çakal township, which consisted of 15 villages, belongings were looted and the people migrated to Komotini. However, although they were able to return to their homes, after their teachers, imams, headmen and other notables were massacred, those who remained were forced to reintegrate. According to information received from the town of Tutrakan, all Muslim-Turks in Tutrakan were waiting for the day when they will be "martyred" at the hands of the Bulgarians and "make several sacrifices every day." It is also reported that there was no house left in Maksutlar village of Tutrakan that was not plundered or a young Turkish Muslim girl left that was not raped by the Bulgarians. [27][28][29]

The Bulgarians treated the Ottoman prisoners they captured during the war no differently than they treated the innocent people. As a matter of fact, they brutally massacred 3000 Ottoman prisoners they captured in Stara Zagora. [30]

Albanian civilians taken prisoner in Pristina by the Serbian army

During the Balkan Wars, Albanians were killed regardless of religion as numerous Catholics were subjected to massacres and forced conversions because they were equated with Turks.[31][32][33][34]

According to contemporary accounts, around 20,000 to 25,000 Albanians were killed in the Vilayet of Kosovo during the first two to four months of the Balkan Wars, before the violence climaxed. Included in these estimates, are 5,000 massacred in Pristina, 5,000 massacred in Prizren, 3,000 massacred between Kumanovo and Uskub, and 1,200 massacred in Ferizaj.[35]

Examinations from a study by the University of Belgrade concluded that approximately 50,000 Albanians were killed in present-day Kosovo, however, the population figures that were used were significantly lower than what was concluded in the Ottoman census. According to Serbian socialists, the number of Albanians killed was 120,000 either in Kosovo and Macedonia or all of the regions occupied exclusively by the Serbian army.[36][37][38][39][40] Other estimates, however, can be significantly higher. According to Justin McCarthy, around 100,000 Albanians died in Albania during the Balkan Wars.[8]

Historians have, referring to documents from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, concluded that the number of Albanians deported from the regions annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia is approximately 239,807 (excluding children under the age of six) by early 1914. This number reached 281,747 later in the year.[41] These figures, however, are often disputed and estimates can range from 60,000–300,000, but are usually above 100,000.[42][43][44]

The war crimes committed against the Albanian population are often characterized as systematic, including by the United States Department of State.[45][46] As a result, numerous scholars refer to the events as a genocide against the Albanians.[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]

Jewish civilians were targeted during these atrocities because they were viewed as collaborating with the "oppressors."[6] Even though violence was mostly directed towards Muslims, Jews still faced numerous atrocities. Plundering and the burning of Jewish homes and shops were common and massacres were not rare.[57]

As a result of the influx of refugees and the mass murder of Ottoman civilians in the European territories, hatred of minorities increased within the Ottoman population. As a result, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated multiple genocides, namely the Armenian genocide and the Greek genocide during the First World War.[13] Albanians continued to be killed and expelled throughout the First World War and during the interwar period due to the Yugoslav colonization of Kosovo.