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The Balkans, partly corresponding with the Balkan Peninsula, encompasses areas that may also be placed in Southeastern, Southern, Eastern Europe and Central Europe. The distinct identity and fragmentation of the Balkans owes much to its often turbulent history, with the region experiencing centuries of Ottoman conflict and conquest.
The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, in which the Haemus Mountains are referred to as Balkan. [19] The first attested time the name "Balkan" was used in the West for the mountain range in Bulgaria was in a letter sent in 1490 to Pope Innocent VIII by Buonaccorsi Callimaco, an Italian humanist, writer and ...
Coined in the early 20th century, the term "Balkanization" traces its origins to the depiction of events during the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and the First World War (1914–1918). It did not emerge during the gradual secession of Balkan nations from the Ottoman Empire over the 19th century, but was coined at the end of the First World War.
The powder keg of Europe or Balkan powder keg was the Balkans in the early part of the 20th century preceding World War I. There were many overlapping claims to territories and spheres of influence between the major European powers such as the Russian Empire , the Austro-Hungarian Empire , the German Empire and, to a lesser degree, the Ottoman ...
Map showing the borders of the Balkan states before and after both Balkan Wars.. The League of the Balkans was a quadruple alliance formed by a series of bilateral treaties concluded in 1912 between the Eastern Orthodox kingdoms of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, and directed against the Ottoman Empire, [1] which still controlled much of Southeastern Europe.
In terms of forces engaged, it was the largest battle fought in Europe between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the beginning of the First World War. [60] As a result, the Ottoman forces were pushed to their final defensive position across the Çatalca Line, protecting the peninsula and Constantinople .
First, it marked the end of the Balkan League, a vital arm of the Russian system of defense against Austria-Hungary. Second, the clearly pro-Serbian position Russia had been forced to take in the conflict, mainly due to the disagreements over land partitioning between Serbia and Bulgaria, caused a permanent break-up between the two countries.
The political situation in the northern Balkans was in constant flux with various tribes dominant over their neighbours at any one time. Within tribes, military expeditions were conducted by "an enterprising and mobile warrior class able from time to time to conquer large areas and to exploit their population". [ 2 ]