The Ottoman Empire and the Balkan Alliance representatives signed a peace treaty in London before the Second Balkan War broke out at the end of June 1913. www.biquge.info What is doubly embarrassing is that only a little more than a month later, the allies and partners in the last war did not hesitate to turn their guns and attack each other, and the truth that national interests prevail over everything has once again been verified by reality.

With the support and instigation of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the biggest winner of the First Balkan War and militarily ahead of the other Balkan countries, adopted the strategy of striking first because of the irreconcilable contradictions with Serbia over the division of Macedonian dominance, and declared war on Serbia and Greece, which supported Serbia on this issue, and launched a military attack on the Serbian and Greek armies in Macedonia on the day of the declaration of war.

During the long and dark history of the 14th and 19th centuries, the Bulgarians were oppressed and bullied by the Ottoman rulers, and after gaining autonomy in 1878, their fate was still at the mercy of the Ottoman Empire and the great powers, and it was not until 1908 that Bulgaria truly declared independence from the Ottoman Empire. This predominantly mountainous and hilly southern European country is predominantly agricultural, and its national strength is relatively weak. Under the "Bulgarian Tsar", Ferdinand I, the founder of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom, economic production improved, and military diplomacy moved closer to Austria-Hungary instead of Tsarist Russia. With the financial support of Austria-Hungary and the German Empire, the Bulgarian army was expanded in size, and the training of personnel and armament was moving towards a modern level. In the First Balkan War, this army was overwhelmed in the battle against the Ottoman army, so it was praised by the outside world as "Prussia in Southern Europe" and "the first military power in the Balkans".

The Bulgarian army performed well, and the Serbs were unequivocal, and they also endured centuries of harsh Ottoman rule until the early 19th century, when they gained autonomy and declared independence after the Russo-Turkish War. The Serbs belonged to the Slavic ethnic branch and were militarily and politically close to Tsarist Russia. In such a country of rivers and mountains, the economic situation was not satisfactory, and the fierce folk customs provided the army with a large number of warlike soldiers, and it had a resourceful and determined military commander like Putnik. Thanks to his efforts, the conditions of training and equipment of the Serbian army improved significantly in the first decade of the early 20th century. When the Bulgarians tried to crush the main Serbian army with a surprise attack, Putnik calmly organized the Serbian army to defend and quickly contained the combined offensive of the three major Bulgarian armies, while the Greek army also took advantage of the terrain to hold the front. A few days later, the Serbian army was the first to blow the horn of a counterattack, and the reinforced Greek army also launched a decisive counteroffensive, and the two sides fought fiercely in the Macedonian region with unprecedented fierceness, and in some major areas the fighting was even more fierce than the fortified fortifications of the First Balkan War.

Faced with the stubborn offensive of the Serbian and Greek troops, the Bulgarian army was forced to retreat. At this time, the Romanians took advantage of the situation - they had not been able to plunder territory from the Ottoman Empire because they had not participated in the First Balkan War, so they demanded Dobroga from Bulgaria under the pretext of ethnic settlement, which Bulgaria refused. Taking advantage of the fact that the Bulgarian army was pinned down on the Macedonian front, Romania declared war on Bulgaria and penetrated deep into the territory without resistance, leaving the Bulgarian army in disarray. Soon after, the Ottoman Empire also tore up the Treaty of London and launched an attack on Bulgaria, by which time Enver had become Ottoman Minister of War and Chief of the General Staff, and was awarded the rank of Pasha (General). With the help of the German general von Sanders, Enver led his army to recapture the old capital of Adrianople, earning him a reputation as a national hero at home.

With its army already in full defeat, Bulgaria surrendered and signed the Peace of Bucharest with the Balkan states. Under the terms of the contract, Bulgaria lost not only most of the territory recovered in the previous war, but also the southern part of Dobroga; The Peace of Constantinople, signed at the same time, forced Bulgaria to return Edirne to the Ottoman Empire. The Second Balkan War resulted in a realignment of forces in the Balkans: Romania broke away from the alliance and moved closer to the Entente, and Bulgaria threw itself into the German-Austrian alliance, and the Balkans became a chessboard for the great powers.

Serbia was the biggest beneficiary of the two Balkan wars, almost doubling its territory. However, the rise of a Slavic state put the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had always been hostile to Tsarist Russia, on pins and needles, and the Austrian Emperor Joseph and his staff and important ministers were determined to contain the continued growth of Serbia, and did not hesitate to preemptively strike for this, which also laid the most direct hidden danger for the future war.

The short-lived Second Balkan War was over, and it seemed that the whole of Europe could once again sit back and enjoy peace. However, both the rulers who held military power and the staff officers who devoted themselves to the study of military tactics saw from the two Balkan wars the inadequacy of the existing military forces, and that both the size of the army and the equipment and technology had lagged behind the development of the war situation. As a result, the great powers have invariably increased their military investments:

With the approval of the Reichstag, the Germans increased the size of the standing army to 81. 20,000 men, and it also had a well-qualified reserve force of 4.5 million men (in Prussian tradition, all able-bodied young men in the Second German Reich were required to serve two or three times in military service, and for the first five and a half years after retirement they were assigned to the regular reserve army, the first reserve, then to the war reserve, or the second reserve, for twelve years, and then to the wartime militia, the third reserve, until the age of 45, when they were withdrawn from the reserve sequence, but they could still be called up for auxiliary tasks in the rear during wartime). Krupp was the most outstanding arsenal in the whole of Europe, and it provided the German army with a large number of modern light and heavy artillery, and each German army was equipped with an average of thirty-six 105 mm howitzers and sixteen 150 mm howitzers, and the firepower was far greater than that of the French and Russian field units. In terms of light weapons, the equipment of the German army is also the most ideal in the armies of the great powers, they are fully equipped with solid, accurate and durable Mauser G1898, and the German staff is well aware of the strategic value of the Maxim machine gun, the German-made Maxim that is, the MG08 water-cooled machine gun from 1908 began to install a large number of German troops, by 1913, the German army had 4000 MG08, more than twice the number of machine guns in the French army at the same time.

The size of the active forces of the French army closely followed the old enemy Germany, reaching 77. With 70,000 men and a reserve force of 3.78 million that can be mobilized in wartime, their greatest strategic advantage is actually a well-designed system of defensive fortifications (after the Franco-Prussian War, the newly unified Germany annexed Salsas and part of Lorraine, including the fortified city of Metz, making western France difficult to attack. To compensate for the geographical losses, French military engineers constructed a series of forts along the one hundred and fifty-mile Franco-German border, starting southeast from the impregnable Alps of Switzerland, with strong concrete fortresses stretching out from Berfort, Erbinar, Toure and Verdun, and designing a wide gap between Erbinar and Toure as a huge trap to prepare the enemy for entry, which was then annihilated by crossfire fired from well-covered concrete box bunkers). Within the French army, however, more and more young officers began to question the fixed defensive strategy that prevailed in the general staff, and this new offensive school sought Colonel Loiszo de Grammeçon as their spokesman, whose views influenced General Joseph Chauffy, who had been promoted to chief of staff in 1912, and led the French army to move from defensive to offensive theory. In terms of field equipment, the French army had far less heavy artillery than the German army, but they were equipped with a field artillery with excellent performance, that is, the 75 mm rapid-fire gun of the 1897 model, when supporting the infantry to attack or suppress the opposing infantry, one such artillery was almost equal to two German 77 mm field guns, but the French staff regarded artillery as a secondary supplement to the infantry, and they believed that the collective spirit would better compensate for the lack of technology, so they neglected the use of artillery for a long time. In terms of light weapons, the French army is equipped with the Hatch Chase air-cooled machine gun that is not inferior to the German MG08 in terms of performance and practicality, but the number of equipment is relatively small, and the infantry stationed in mainland France is still using the Lebel M1886 rifle, which is famous as the world's first rifle to use smokeless gunpowder, and its tubular magazine design has become outdated, while the French cavalry and colonial army have been equipped with more advanced Bochtier/Colonia rifles, but they all use 3-round magazines, The rate of fire was inferior to the Mauser G1898 of the German army and the Enfield of the British army.

After a crushing defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the Tsarist army began a painful and lengthy period of rebuilding. After nearly a decade of recuperation, the size of the Russian army's active force has reached a staggering 1.2 million, with nearly 6 million reserve soldiers who can be called up at any time, and the construction of the western railway network has been accelerated with French assistance to improve the efficiency of the Russian army's dispatch of troops from the hinterland to the Polish front. The officer corps was filled with nobles and wealthy men whose knowledge of war was limited to the use of sabers and swords, while the soldiers were mostly illiterate peasants with no courage but no fighting qualities.

Despite its premier arsenal in Europe, its well-developed military-industrial system, and its well-organized heavy artillery units, the Austro-Hungarian army was no better off than its number one rival, and its most fatal problems were its complex ethnic structure and ******** - because very few people could master more than 20 languages at the same time, many junior officers could not make every one of their soldiers understand their own words, and there was a lack of identity among soldiers of different nationalities. So only the most elite royal forces and some local defense forces have sufficient stability and centripetal force. Without mobilization, Austria-Hungary had 450,000 Imperial Wehrmacht and local defense forces, and the general mobilization would have expanded the size of the army to 3.35 million, and the infantry and cavalry were mainly armed with the Steyr-Charliman M1895 series rifles of national production, and the Schwartzlozer machine guns and Skoda machine guns were equipped with good performance.

The army race has just begun, and the navy race is already in full swing. The two protagonists of the world's naval landscape, Britain and Germany, continue to compete in both quantity and quality. In just six months, the two countries have built a new class of capital ships, which are also regarded as the core of the fleet, the British Queen Elizabeth class and the German Bavarian class.

Relying on the existing technology and resource advantages, the British Navy ambitiously ordered five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, which were equipped with unprecedented 15-inch guns, had a majestic long bow, and were powered by all-oil boilers, and their performance was better than that of any British battleship already in service or under construction, and the first ship began construction at the Portsmouth shipyard in southern England at the end of 1912.

After receiving information about the construction of new ships in the British Navy, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally issued an order to the Krupp factory, asking them to accelerate the development of 15-inch naval guns to equip new German battleships.

The development of a new artillery was a difficult and time-consuming task, and it took the British more than a year to complete it from 13. The leap from 5 inches to 15 inches, and in order to catch up with the construction schedule of the new ship, the trial production and manufacture of the main gun were carried out at the same time, and this adventure was won, and the technicians and naval officers all sighed "God forbid". By this standard, the Germans apparently received a double "God forbid", and the Kaiser's order made them decisively abandon 13. The development of the 5-inch naval gun jumped directly from 12 inches to 15 inches, and in less time than the British, the Krupp engineers handed over a perfect answer: the 15-inch naval gun barrel equipped with the Bavarian class reached 45 times the diameter, and the theoretical range and power were stronger than the 42 times the diameter of the British new warship of the same caliber naval gun!

In the same period, the caliber and number of main guns of German battleships were equal to those of British warships, which was the first time in the Anglo-German naval competition. In terms of defense, the Queen Elizabeth class, although much stronger than the previous British battleships, was still ashamed of itself in front of the German Bavarian class. The main armor belt of the waterline (maximum), the turret (frontal), and the conning tower, the new German battleships all reached 14 inches, while the new British battleships were only 13 inches, 13 inches, and 11 inches; In terms of power, although the new German battleships inherited the consistent configuration of oil-fired boilers for battle cruisers and coal-fired boilers for battleships, thanks to the superior performance of Hubert's impulse engine, the maximum speed of this class of battleships can reach 24 knots, which is slightly inferior to the British opponent, but because it is designed and equipped with a large diesel engine for cruising, the endurance of the Bavaria-class is stronger than that of the Queen Elizabeth class. In addition to this, the Bavaria-class battleships were designed with a sturdy tripod mast and an integrated fire command system on the mast, which ensured relatively ideal fire accuracy.

The naval race focused on the Anglo-German navy, but it was not a game between two countries. The French finally got out of the dark side of the "most advanced pre-dreadnought", the real dreadnought-Kolbe class, which was completed and put into service in 1913, its design was unique, but the overall performance could not keep up with the pace of the British and German navies, and could only compete with competitors in the Mediterranean; Austria-Hungary began to build their combined forces class, with four triple guns in the same firepower configuration as the German Nassau and Helgoland classes, but due to dock specifications, Austria-Hungary's dreadnought tonnage was very limited, and they had to sacrifice defense while maintaining firepower and speed; The "Dante" dreadnought, which was started earlier by the Italians, made slow progress due to the usual towing style and technical reasons, and it also adopted the firepower configuration of four triple main guns, and learned from the British to follow a high-speed, lightly armored design path, and its defensive performance was not up to the level of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought; The Russians are still eagerly awaiting the start of construction of the first dreadnought, and on the other side of the ocean, the deep-pocketed Americans have already commissioned eight quasi-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts, and there are new capital ships equipped with 14-inch guns under construction, and the naval strength is second only to Britain and Germany.

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