title: Edwardian era

text: The Liberal Party under Henry Campbell-Bannerman rallied Liberals around the traditional platform of free trade and land reform and led them to the greatest electoral victory in Liberal Party history. The Prime Minister was overshadowed by his frontbench, most notably H. H. Asquith at the Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. Campbell-Bannerman retired in 1908 and was succeeded by Asquith. He stepped up the government's radicalism, especially in the "People's Budget" of 1909 that proposed to fund expanded social welfare programmes with new taxes on land and high incomes. It was blocked by the Conservative-dominated House of Lords, but eventually became law in April 1910.


title: Edwardian era

text: Almost half of the Liberal MPs elected in 1906 were supportive of the "new liberalism", which advocated government action to improve people's lives.


title: Edwardian era

text: Liberals in 1906–1911 passed major legislation designed to reform politics and society, such as the regulation of working hours, National Insurance and the beginnings of the welfare state, as well as curtailing the power of the House of Lords. Women's suffrage was not on the Liberal agenda. There were numerous major reforms helping labour, typified by the Trade Boards Act 1909 that set minimum wages in certain trades with the history of "sweated" or "sweatshop" rates of especially low wages, because of surplus of available workers, the presence of women workers, or the lack of skills.


title: Edwardian era

text: At first it applied to four industries: chain-making, ready-made tailoring, paper-box making, and the machine-made lace and finishing trade. It was later expanded to coal mining and then to other industries with preponderance of unskilled manual labour by the Trade Boards Act 1918. Under the leadership of David Lloyd George Liberals extended minimum wages to farm workers.


title: Edwardian era

text: Conservative peers in the House of Lords tried to stop the People's Budget. The Liberals passed the Parliament Act 1911 to sharply reduce the power of the House of Lords to block legislation. The cost was high, however, as the government was required by the king to call two general elections in 1910 to validate its position and ended up frittering away most of its large majority, with the balance of power held by Labour and Irish Parliamentary Party members.


title: Edwardian era

text: Germany's Chancellor Otto von Bismarck dominated European diplomacy from 1872 to 1890, with a policy of using the European balance of power to keep the peace. There were no wars. Bismarck was removed by an aggressive young Kaiser Wilhelm in 1890, effectively decentralizing the Bismarckian Order that had been shrewdly managed, and empowering French efforts to isolate Germany. With the formation of the Triple Entente, Germany began to feel encircled: to the West lay France, with whom rivalry was awakening after a generation of dormancy following the Franco-Prussian War, to the East sat Russia, whose rapid industrialization worried Berlin and Vienna.


title: Edwardian era

text: Joseph Chamberlain, who played a major role in foreign policy in the late 1890s under the Salisbury government, repeatedly tried to open talks with Germany about some sort of alliance. Berlin was not interested. Meanwhile, Paris went to great pains to woo Russia and Great Britain. Key markers were the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the 1904 Entente Cordiale linking France and Great Britain, and finally the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907 which became the Triple Entente. France thus had a formal alliance with Russia, and an informal alignment with Britain, against Germany and Austria. By 1903 good relations had been established with the United States and Japan.


title: Edwardian era

text: Britain abandoned the policy of holding aloof from the continental powers, so called "Splendid Isolation", in the 1900s after being isolated during the Boer War. Britain concluded agreements, limited to colonial affairs, with her two major colonial rivals: the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904 and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. Britain's alignment was a reaction to an assertive German foreign policy and the build-up of its navy from 1898 which led to the Anglo-German naval arms race. British diplomat Arthur Nicolson argued it was "far more disadvantageous to us to have an unfriendly France and Russia than an unfriendly Germany".


title: Edwardian era

text: The impact of the Triple Entente was to improve British relations with France and its ally Russia and to demote the importance to Britain of good relations with Germany. After 1905, foreign policy was tightly controlled by the Liberal Foreign Secretary Edward Grey (1862-1933), who seldom consulted with his party leadership. Grey shared the strong Liberal policy against all wars and against military alliances that would force Britain to take a side in war. However, in the case of the Boer War, Grey held that the Boers had committed an aggression that it was necessary to repulse. The Liberal party split on the issue, with a large faction strongly opposed to the war in Africa


title: Edwardian era

text: The Triple Entente between Britain, France and Russia is often compared to the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary and Italy, but historians caution against the comparison. The Entente, in contrast to the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance, was not an alliance of mutual defence and Britain therefore felt free to make her own foreign policy decisions in 1914. The Liberals were highly moralistic, and by 1914 they have been increasingly convinced that German aggression violated international norms, and specifically that its invasion of neutral Belgium was completely unacceptable in terms of morality, Britain and Germany's obligations under the Treaty of London, and in terms of British policy against any one power controlling the continent of Europe.


title: Edwardian era

text: Until the last few weeks before it started in August 1914, almost no one saw a world war coming. The expectation among the generals was that because of industrial advances any future war would produce a quick victory for the side that was better-prepared, better armed, and faster to move. No one saw that the innovations of recent decades—high explosives, long-range artillery and machine guns—were defensive weapons that practically guaranteed defeat of massed infantry attacks with very high casualties.


title: Edwardian era

text: After 1805 the dominance of Britain's Royal Navy was unchallenged; in the 1890s Germany decided to match it. Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849 – 1930) dominated German naval policy from 1897 until 1916. Before the German Empire formed in 1871, Prussia never had a real navy, nor did the other German states. Tirpitz turned the modest little fleet into a world-class force that could threaten the British Royal Navy. The British responded with new technology typified by the Dreadnought revolution. It made every battleship obsolete and, supplemented by the global network of coaling stations and telegraph cables, enabled Britain to stay well in the lead in naval affairs.


title: Edwardian era

text: Apart from a determination to retain a strong naval advantage, the British lacked a military strategy or plans for a major war.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Edwardian era stands out as a time of peace and prosperity. There were no severe depressions, and prosperity was widespread. Britain's growth rate, manufacturing output and GDP (but not GDP per capita) fell behind its rivals, the United States and Germany, but the nation still led the world in trade, finance and shipping, and had strong bases in manufacturing and mining. The industrial sector was slow to adjust to global changes, and there was a striking preference for leisure over entrepreneurship among the elite.


title: Edwardian era

text: However, major achievements should be underlined. London was the financial centre of the world—far more efficient and wide-ranging than New York, Paris or Berlin. Britain had built up a vast reserve of overseas credits in its formal Empire, as well as in its informal empire in Latin America and other nations. It had huge financial holdings in the United States, especially in railways. These assets proved vital in paying for supplies in the first years of the World War. The amenities, especially in urban life, were accumulating—prosperity was highly visible. The working classes were beginning to protest politically for a greater voice in government, but the level of industrial unrest on economic issues was not high until about 1908.


title: Edwardian era

text: By the late-1880s, the Industrial Revolution had created new technologies that changed the way people lived. The growth of industry shifts in manufacturing factories, special-purpose machinery and technological innovations, which led to increased productivity. Gender roles shifted as women made use of the new technology to upgrade their lifestyle and their career opportunities.


title: Edwardian era

text: Mortality declined steadily in urban England and Wales 1870–1917. Robert Millward and Frances N. Bell looked statistically at those factors in the physical environment (especially population density and overcrowding) that raised death rates directly, as well as indirect factors such as price and income movements that affected expenditures on sewers, water supplies, food, and medical staff. The statistical data show that increases in the incomes of households and increases in town tax revenues helped cause the decline of mortality.


title: Edwardian era

text: The new money permitted higher spending on food, and also on a wide range of health-enhancing goods and services such as medical care. The major improvement in the physical environment was the quality of the housing stock, which rose faster than the population; its quality was increasingly regulated by central and local government. Infant mortality fell faster in England and Wales than in Scotland. Clive Lee argues that one factor was the continued overcrowding in Scotland's housing. During the First World War, infant mortality fell sharply across the country. J. M. Winter attributes this to the full employment and higher wages paid to war workers.


title: Edwardian era

text: For housewives, sewing machines enabled the production of ready-made clothing and made it easier for women to sew their own clothes; more generally, argues Barbara Burman, "home dressmaking was sustained as an important aid for women negotiating wider social shifts and tensions in their lives." Increased literacy in the middle class gave women wider access to information and ideas. Numerous new magazines appealed to her tastes and helped define femininity.


title: Edwardian era

text: The inventions of the typewriter, telephone, and new filing systems offered middle-class women increased employment opportunities. So too did the rapid expansion of the school system, and the emergence of the new profession of nursing. Education and status led to demands for female roles in the rapidly expanding world of sports.


title: Edwardian era

text: Women were very active in church affairs, including attendance at services, Sunday school teaching, fund raising, pastoral care, social work and support for international missionary activities. They were almost completely excluded from practically all leadership roles.


title: Edwardian era

text: As middle-class women rose in status, they increasingly supported demands for a political voice. There was significant support for woman suffrage in all the parties, but the Liberal Party was in control after 1906 and a handful of its leaders, especially H. H. Asquith, blocked it.


title: Edwardian era

text: There were numerous organisations which did their work quietly. After 1897, they were increasingly linked together by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) led by Millicent Fawcett. However, front page publicity was seized by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Founded in 1903, it was tightly controlled by the three Pankhursts, Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), and her daughters Christabel Pankhurst (1880–1958) and Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960).


title: Edwardian era

text: It specialised in highly visible publicity campaigns such as large parades. This had the effect of energising all dimensions of the suffrage movement. While there was a majority of support for suffrage in Parliament, the ruling Liberal Party refused to allow a vote on the issue; the result of which was an escalation in the suffragette campaign. The WSPU, in dramatic contrast to its allies, embarked on a campaign of violence to publicise the issue, even to the detriment of its own aims.


title: Edwardian era

text: Although abortion was illegal, it was nevertheless the most widespread form of birth control in use. Used predominantly by working-class women, the procedure was used not only as a means of terminating pregnancy, but also to prevent poverty and unemployment. Those who transported contraceptives could be legally punished. Contraceptives became more expensive over time and had a high failure rate. Unlike contraceptives, abortion did not need any prior planning and was less expensive. Newspaper advertisements were used to promote and sell abortifacients indirectly.


title: Edwardian era

text: Not all of society was accepting of contraceptives or abortion, and the opposition viewed both as part of one and the same sin. Abortion was much more common among the middle-classes than among those living in rural areas, where the procedure was not readily available. Women were often tricked into purchasing ineffective pills. In addition to fearing legal reprimands, many physicians did not condone abortion because they viewed it as an immoral procedure potentially endangering a woman's life. Because abortion was illegal and physicians refused to perform the procedure, local women provided abortions, often using crochet hooks or similar instruments.


title: Edwardian era

text: Feminists of the era focused on educating and finding jobs for women, leaving aside the controversial issues of contraceptives and abortion, which in popular opinion were often related to promiscuity and prostitution. The Church condemned abortion as immoral and a form of rebellion against the child-bearing role women were expected to assume. Many considered abortion to be a selfish act that allowed a woman to avoid personal responsibility, contributing to a decline in moral values. Abortion was often a solution for women who already had children and did not want more. Consequently, the size of families decreased drastically.


title: Edwardian era

text: The 1834 Poor Law defined who could receive monetary relief. The act reflected and perpetuated prevailing gender conditions. In Edwardian society, men were the source of wealth. The law restricted relief for unemployed, able-bodied male workers, due to the prevailing view that they would find work in the absence of financial assistance. However, women were treated differently. After the Poor Law was passed, women and children received most of the aid.


title: Edwardian era

text: The law did not recognise single independent women, and put women and children into the same category. If a man was physically disabled, his wife was also treated as disabled under the coverture laws, even though coverture was fast becoming outmoded in the Edwardian era. Unmarried mothers were sent to the workhouse, receiving unfair social treatment such as being restricted from attending church on Sundays.


title: Edwardian era

text: During marriage disputes, women often lost the rights to their children, even if their husbands were abusive. However, women were increasingly granted custody of their children under seven years of age; this tendency was colloquially known as the "tender years doctrine," where it was believed that a child was best left under maternal care until the age of seven.


title: Edwardian era

text: At the time, single mothers were the poorest sector in society, disadvantaged for at least four reasons. First, women lived longer, often leaving them widowed with children. Second, women had fewer opportunities to work, and when they did find it, their wages were lower than male workers' wages. Thirdly, women were often less likely to marry or remarry after being widowed, leaving them as the main providers for the remaining family members. Finally, poor women had deficient diets, because their husbands and children received disproportionately large shares of food. Many women were malnourished and had limited access to health care.


title: Edwardian era

text: Edwardian Britain had large numbers of male and female domestic servants, in both urban and rural areas. Middle- and upper-class women relied on servants to run their homes smoothly. Servants were provided with food, clothing, housing, and a small wage, and lived in a self-enclosed social system within their employer's house. However, the number of domestic servants fell in the Edwardian era due to fewer young people willing to be employed in this capacity.


title: Edwardian era

text: The upper classes embraced leisure sports, which resulted in rapid developments in fashion, as more mobile and flexible clothing styles were needed. During the Edwardian era, women wore a very tight corset, or bodice, and dressed in long skirts. The Edwardian era was the last time women wore corsets in everyday life. According to Arthur Marwick, the most striking change of all the developments that occurred during the Great War was the modification in women's dress, "for, however far politicians were to put the clocks back in other steeples in the years after the war, no one ever put the lost inches back on the hems of women's skirts".


title: Edwardian era

text: Fabrics were usually sweet pea shades in chiffon, mousse line de sore, tulle with feather boas and lace. 'High and boned collars for the day; plunging off shoulder décolleté for the evening'. The Tea Gown's cut was relatively loose compared to the evening gown, and was worn without a corset. The silhouette was flowing, and was usually decorated with lace or with the cheaper Irish crochet.


title: Edwardian era

text: Long kid gloves, trimmed hats, and parasols were often used as accessories. Parasols are different than umbrellas; they are used for protection from the sun, rather from the rain, though they were often used as ornamentation rather than for function. By the end of the Edwardian era, the hat grew bigger in size, a trend that would continue in the 1910s.


title: Edwardian era

text: The Edwardians developed new styles in clothing design. The Edwardian Era saw a decrease in the trend for voluminous, heavy skirts.


title: Edwardian era

text: The turn of the century saw the rise of popular journalism aimed at the lower middle class and tending to deemphasise highly detailed political and international news, which remain the focus of a handful of low-circulation prestige newspapers. These were family-owned and operated, and were primarily interested not in profits but in influence on the nation's elite by their control of the news and editorials on serious topics.


title: Edwardian era

text: The new press, on the other hand, reached vastly larger audiences by emphasis on sports, crime, sensationalism, and gossip about famous personalities. Detailed accounts of major speeches and complex international events were not printed. Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe was the chief innovator. He used his "Daily Mail" and "Daily Mirror" to transform the media along the American model of "Yellow Journalism". Lord Beaverbrook said he was "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street". Harmsworth made a great deal of money, but during the First World War he also wanted political power. For that he purchased the highest prestige newspaper, "The Times". P. P. Catterall and Colin Seymour-Ure conclude that:


title: Edwardian era

text: The Edwardian era corresponds to the French "Belle Époque". Despite its brief pre-eminence, the period is characterised by its own unique architectural style, fashion, and lifestyle. Art Nouveau had a particularly strong influence. Artists were influenced by the development of the automobile and electricity, and a greater awareness of human rights.


title: Edwardian era

text: In November 1910, Roger Fry organised the exhibition "Manet and the Post-Impressionists" at the Grafton Galleries, London. This exhibition was the first to prominently feature Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, and Van Gogh in England and brought their art to the public. He followed it up with the "Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition" in 1912.


title: Edwardian era

text: George Frampton's statue of Peter Pan, "erected in Hyde Park in 1912 ... immediately became a source of contention, sparking debate about the role of public statuary and its role in spaces of recreation."


title: Edwardian era

text: In fiction, some of the best-known names are J. M. Barrie, Arnold Bennett, G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, John Galsworthy, Kenneth Grahame, M. R. James, Rudyard Kipling, A. A. Milne, E. Nesbit, Beatrix Potter, Saki, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and P. G. Wodehouse. Apart from these famous writers, this was a period when a great number of novels and short stories were being published, and a significant distinction between "highbrow" literature and popular fiction emerged. Among the most famous works of literary criticism was A. C. Bradley's "Shakespearean Tragedy" (1904).


title: Edwardian era

text: Live performances, both amateur and professional, were popular. Henry Wood, Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Arnold Bax, George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Thomas Beecham were all active. Military and brass bands often played outside in parks during the summer. The new technology of wax cylinders and gramophone records played on phonographs and talking machines, made live performances permanently available for repetition at any time.


title: Edwardian era

text: Cinema was primitive and audiences preferred live performances to picture shows. Music hall was very popular and widespread; influential performers included male impersonator Vesta Tilley and comic Little Tich.


title: Edwardian era

text: The most successful playwright of the era was W. Somerset Maugham. In 1908, he had four plays running simultaneously in London, and "Punch" published a cartoon of Shakespeare biting his fingernails nervously as he looked at the billboards. Maugham's plays, like his novels, usually had a conventional plot structure, but the decade also saw the rise of the so-called New Drama, represented in plays by George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville Barker, and Continental imports by Henrik Ibsen and Gerhardt Hauptmann. The actor/manager system, as managed by Sir Henry Irving, Sir George Alexander, and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, was in decline.


title: Edwardian era

text: Notable architects included Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Giles Gilbert Scott. In spite of the popularity of Art Nouveau in Europe, the Edwardian Baroque style of architecture was widely favoured for public structures and was a revival of Christopher Wren–inspired designs of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The change or reversal in taste from the Victorian eclectic styles corresponded with the historical revivals of the period, most prominently earlier Georgian and Neoclassical styles of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.


title: Edwardian era

text: White City Stadium, used for the 1908 Summer Olympics, was the first Olympic Stadium in the UK. Built on the site of the Franco-British Exhibition, it had a seating capacity of 68,000 and was opened by King Edward VII on 27 April 1908. It was the largest structure of its type in the world at the time, and was designed to be awe-inspiring and thereby enhance the love of large-scale spectacle that characterised Edwardian London.


title: Edwardian era

text: Filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon documented many scenes from Britain and Ireland from 1900 to 1907, sports, parades, factory exits, parks, city streets, boating and the like. Their films have survived in very good quality restored from the original negatives.


title: Edwardian era

text: The period featured many innovations. Ernest Rutherford published his studies on radioactivity. The first transatlantic wireless signals were sent by Guglielmo Marconi, and the Wright brothers flew for the first time.


title: Edwardian era

text: By the end of the era, Louis Blériot had crossed the English Channel by air; the largest ship in the world, RMS "Olympic", had sailed on its maiden voyage and her larger sister RMS "Titanic" was under construction; automobiles were common; and the South Pole was reached for the first time by Roald Amundsen's and then Robert Falcon Scott's teams.


title: Edwardian era

text: The 1908 Summer Olympic Games were held in London. Popularity of sports tended to conform to class divisions, with tennis and yachting popular among the very wealthy and football favoured by the working class.


title: Edwardian era

text: Aston Villa maintained their position as the pre-eminent football team of the era, winning the FA Cup for the fourth time in 1904–05 and their sixth League title in 1909–10. The club colours of claret and sky blue were adopted by Burnley as a tribute to their success in 1910. Sunderland achieved their fourth league title in 1901–02. The era also saw Liverpool (1900–01, 1905–06), Newcastle United (1904–05, 1906–07, 1908–09) and Manchester United (1907–08) winning their first league titles.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defeated it, in the process stripping the Ottomans of its European provinces, leaving only Eastern Thrace under the Ottoman Empire's control. In the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria fought against the other four original combatants of the first war. It also faced an attack from Romania from the north. The Ottoman Empire lost the bulk of its territory in Europe. Although not involved as a combatant, Austria-Hungary became relatively weaker as a much enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples. The war set the stage for the Balkan crisis of 1914 and thus served as a "prelude to the First World War".


title: Balkan Wars

text: By the early 20th century, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia had achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large elements of their ethnic populations remained under Ottoman rule. In 1912, these countries formed the Balkan League. The First Balkan War began on 8 October 1912, when the League member states attacked the Ottoman Empire, and ended eight months later with the signing of the Treaty of London on 30 May 1913. The Second Balkan War began on 16 June 1913, when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its loss of Macedonia, attacked its former Balkan League allies. The combined forces of Serbian and Greek armies, with their superior numbers repelled the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked Bulgaria by invading it from the west and the south. Romania, having taken no part in the conflict, had intact armies to strike with and invaded Bulgaria from the north in violation of a peace treaty between the two states. The Ottoman Empire also attacked Bulgaria and advanced in Thrace regaining Adrianople. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria managed to regain most of the territories it had gained in the First Balkan War. However, it was forced to cede the ex-Ottoman south part of Dobruja province to Romania.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Balkan Wars were marked by ethnic cleansing with all parties being responsible for grave atrocities against civilians and helped inspire later atrocities including war crimes during the 1990s Yugoslav Wars.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The background to the wars lies in the incomplete emergence of nation-states on the European territory of the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the 19th century. Serbia had gained substantial territory during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878, while Greece acquired Thessaly in 1881 (although it lost a small area back to the Ottoman Empire in 1897) and Bulgaria (an autonomous principality since 1878) incorporated the formerly distinct province of Eastern Rumelia (1885). All three countries, as well as Montenegro, sought additional territories within the large Ottoman-ruled region known as Rumelia, comprising Eastern Rumelia, Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Throughout the 19th century, the Great Powers shared different aims over the "Eastern Question" and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Russia wanted access to the "warm waters" of the Mediterranean from the Black Sea; it pursued a pan-Slavic foreign policy and therefore supported Bulgaria and Serbia. Britain wished to deny Russia access to the "warm waters" and supported the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, although it also supported a limited expansion of Greece as a backup plan in case integrity of the Ottoman Empire was no longer possible. France wished to strengthen its position in the region, especially in the Levant (today's Lebanon, Syria, and Israel).


title: Balkan Wars

text: Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary wished for a continuation of the existence of the Ottoman Empire, since both were troubled multinational entities and thus the collapse of the one might weaken the other. The Habsburgs also saw a strong Ottoman presence in the area as a counterweight to the Serbian nationalistic call to their own Serb subjects in Bosnia, Vojvodina and other parts of the empire. Italy's primary aim at the time seems to have been the denial of access to the Adriatic Sea to another major sea power. The German Empire, in turn, under the "Drang nach Osten" policy, aspired to turn the Ottoman Empire into its own de facto colony, and thus supported its integrity. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Bulgaria and Greece contended for Ottoman Macedonia and Thrace. Ethnic Greeks sought the forced "Hellenization" of ethnic Bulgars, who sought "Bulgarization" of Greeks (Rise of nationalism). Both nations sent armed irregulars into Ottoman territory to protect and assist their ethnic kindred. From 1904, there was low-intensity warfare in Macedonia between the Greek and Bulgarian bands and the Ottoman army (the Struggle for Macedonia). After the Young Turk revolution of July 1908, the situation changed drastically.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The 1908 Young Turk Revolution saw the reinstatement of constitutional monarchy in the Ottoman Empire and the start of the Second Constitutional Era. When the revolt broke out, it was supported by intellectuals, the army, and almost all the ethnic minorities of the Empire. It forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to re-adopt the defunct Ottoman constitution of 1876 and parliament. Hopes were raised among the Balkan ethnicities of reforms and autonomy. Elections were held to form a representative, multi-ethnic, Ottoman parliament. However, following the Sultan's failed counter-coup of 1909, the liberal element of the Young Turks was sidelined and the nationalist element became dominant.


title: Balkan Wars

text: In October 1908, Austria-Hungary seized the opportunity of the Ottoman political upheaval to annex the "de jure" Ottoman province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had occupied since 1878 (see "Bosnian Crisis"). Bulgaria declared independence as it had done in 1878, but this time the independence was internationally recognized. The Greeks of the autonomous Cretan State proclaimed unification with Greece, though the opposition of the Great Powers prevented the latter action from taking practical effect.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Serbia was frustrated in the north by Austria-Hungary's incorporation of Bosnia. In March 1909, Serbia was forced to accept the annexation and restrain anti-Habsburg agitation by Serbian nationalists. Instead, the Serbian government (PM: Nikola Pašić) looked to formerly Serb territories in the south, notably "Old Serbia" (the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and the province of Kosovo).


title: Balkan Wars

text: On 15 August 1909, the Military League, a group of Greek officers, launched a coup. The Military League sought the creation of a new political system and thus summoned the Cretan politician Eleutherios Venizelos to Athens as its political advisor. Venizelos persuaded King George I to revise the constitution and asked the League to disband in favor of a National Assembly. In March 1910, the Military League dissolved itself.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Bulgaria, which had secured Ottoman recognition of her independence in April 1909 and enjoyed the friendship of Russia, also looked to annex districts of Ottoman Thrace and Macedonia. In August 1910, Montenegro followed Bulgaria's precedent by becoming a kingdom.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Following the Italian victory in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, the severity of the Ottomanizing policy of the Young Turkish regime and a series of three revolts in Ottoman held Albania, the Young Turks fell from power after a coup. The Christian Balkan countries were forced to take action and saw this as an opportunity to promote their national agenda by expanding in the territories of the falling empire and liberating their enslaved co-patriots. In order to achieve that, a wide net of treaties was constructed and an alliance was formed.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The negotiation among the Balkan states' governments started in the latter part of 1911 and was all conducted in secret. The treaties and military conventions were published in French translations after the Balkan Wars on 24–26 of November in Le Matin, Paris, France


title: Balkan Wars

text: In April 1911, Greek PM Eleutherios Venizelos’ attempt to reach an agreement with the Bulgarian PM and form a defensive alliance against the Ottoman Empire was fruitless, because of the doubts the Bulgarians held on the strength of the Greek Army. Later that year, in December 1911, Bulgaria and Serbia agreed to start negotiations in forming an alliance under the tight inspection of Russia. The treaty between Serbia and Bulgaria was signed on 29 of February/13 of March 1912. Serbia sought expansion to "Old Serbia" and as Milan Milovanovich noted in 1909 to the Bulgarian counterpart, "As long as we are not allied with you, our influence over the Croats and Slovens will be insignificant". On the other side, Bulgaria wanted the autonomy of Macedonia region under the influence of the two countries. The then Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs General Stefan Paprikov stated in 1909 that, "It will be clear that if not today then tomorrow, the most important issue will again be the Macedonian Question. And this question, whatever happens, cannot be decided without more or less direct participation of the Balkan States". Last but not least, they noted down the divisions should be made of the Ottoman territories after a victorious outcome of the war. More specifically, Bulgaria would gain all the territories eastern of Rodopi Mountains and River Strimona, while Serbia would annex the territories northern and western of Mount Skardu.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The alliance pact between Greece and Bulgaria was finally signed on 16/29 of May 1912, without stipulating any specific division of Ottoman territories. In summer 1912, Greece proceeded on making "gentlemen's agreements" with Serbia and Montenegro. Despite the fact that a draft of the alliance pact with Serbia was submitted on 22 of October, a formal pact was never signed due to the outbreak of the war. As a result, Greece did not have any territorial or other commitments, other than the common cause to fight the Ottoman Empire.


title: Balkan Wars

text: In April 1912 Montenegro and Bulgaria reached an agreement including financial aid to Montenegro in case of war with the Ottoman Empire. A gentlemen's agreement with Greece was reached soon after, as mentioned before. By the end of September a political and military alliance between Montenegro and Serbia was achieved.


title: Balkan Wars

text: By the end of September 1912, Bulgaria had formal-written alliances with Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro. A formal alliance was also signed between Serbia and Montenegro, while Greco-Montenegrin and Greco-Serbian agreements were basically oral "gentlemen's agreements". All these completed the formation of the Balkan League.


title: Balkan Wars

text: At that time, the Balkan states had been able to maintain armies that were both numerous, in relation to each country's population, and eager to act, being inspired by the idea that they would free enslaved parts of their homeland. The Bulgarian Army was the leading army of the coalition. It was a well-trained and fully equipped army, capable of facing the Imperial Army. It was suggested that the bulk of the Bulgarian Army would be in the Thracian front, as it was expected that the front near the Ottoman Capital would be the most crucial one. The Serbian Army would act on the Macedonian front, while the Greek Army was thought powerless and was not taken under serious consideration. Greece was needed in the Balkan League for its navy and its capability to dominate the Aegean Sea, cutting off the Ottoman Armies from reinforcements.


title: Balkan Wars

text: On 13/26 of September 1912, the Ottoman mobilization in Thrace forced Serbia and Bulgaria to act and order their own mobilization. On 17/30 of September Greece also ordered mobilization. On 25 of September/8 of October, Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire, after negotiations failed regarding the border status. On 30 of September/13 of October, the ambassadors of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece delivered the common ultimatum to the Ottoman government, which was immediately rejected. The Empire withdrew its ambassadors from Sofia, Belgrade, and Athens, while the Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek diplomats left the Ottoman capital delivering the war declaration on 4/17 of October 1912.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The three Slavic allies (Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro) had laid out extensive plans to coordinate their war efforts, in continuation of their secret prewar settlements and under close Russian supervision (Greece was not included). Serbia and Montenegro would attack in the theater of Sandjak, Bulgaria, and Serbia in Macedonia and Thrace.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Ottoman Empire's situation was difficult. Its population of about 26 million people provided a massive pool of manpower, but three-quarters of the population lived in the Asian part of the Empire. Reinforcements had to come from Asia mainly by sea, which depended on the result of battles between the Turkish and Greek navies in the Aegean.


title: Balkan Wars

text: With the outbreak of the war, the Ottoman Empire activated three Army HQs: the Thracian HQ in Constantinople, the Western HQ in Salonika, and the Vardar HQ in Skopje, against the Bulgarians, the Greeks and the Serbians respectively. Most of their available forces were allocated to these fronts. Smaller independent units were allocated elsewhere, mostly around heavily fortified cities.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Montenegro was the first that declared war on 8 October (25 September O.S.). Its main thrust was towards Shkodra, with secondary operations in the Novi Pazar area. The rest of the Allies, after giving a common ultimatum, declared war a week later. Bulgaria attacked towards Eastern Thrace, being stopped only at the outskirts of Constantinople at the Çatalca line and the isthmus of the Gallipoli peninsula, while secondary forces captured Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia. Serbia attacked south towards Skopje and Monastir and then turned west to present-day Albania, reaching the Adriatic, while a second Army captured Kosovo and linked with the Montenegrin forces. Greece's main forces attacked from Thessaly into Macedonia through the Sarantaporo strait. On 7 November, in response to an Ottoman initiative, they entered into negotiations for the surrender of Thessaloniki. With the Greeks already there, and the Bulgarian 7th Rila Division moving swiftly from the north towards Thessaloniki, Hassan Tahsin Pasha considered his position to be hopeless. The Greeks offered more attractive terms than the Bulgarians did. On 8 November, Tahsin Pasha agreed to terms and 26,000 Ottoman troops passed over into Greek captivity. Before the Greeks entered the city, a German warship whisked the former sultan Abdul Hamid II out of Thessaloniki to continue his exile, across the Bosporus from Constantinople. With their army in Thessaloniki, the Greeks took new positions to the east and northeast, including Nigrita. On 12 November (on 26 October 1912, O.S.) Greece expanded its occupied area and teamed up with the Serbian army to the northwest, while its main forces turned east towards Kavala, reaching the Bulgarians. Another Greek army attacked into Epirus towards Ioannina.


title: Balkan Wars

text: On the naval front, the Ottoman fleet twice exited the Dardanelles and was twice defeated by the Greek Navy, in the battles of Elli and Lemnos. Greek dominance on the Aegean Sea made it impossible for the Ottomans to transfer the planned troops from the Middle East to the Thracian (against the Bulgarian) and to the Macedonian (against the Greeks and Serbians) fronts. According to E.J. Erickson the Greek Navy also played a crucial, albeit indirect role, in the Thracian campaign by neutralizing no less than three Thracian Corps (see First Balkan War, the Bulgarian theater of operations), a significant portion of the Ottoman Army there, in the all-important opening round of the war. After the defeat of the Ottoman fleet, the Greek Navy was also free to occupy the islands of the Aegean. General Nikola Ivanov identified the activity of the Greek Navy as the chief factor in the general success of the allies.


title: Balkan Wars

text: In January, after a successful coup by young army officers, the Ottoman Empire decided to continue the war. After a failed Ottoman counter-attack in the Western-Thracian front, Bulgarian forces, with the help of the Serbian Army, managed to conquer Adrianople, while Greek forces managed to take Ioannina after defeating the Ottomans in the Battle of Bizani. In the joint Serbian-Montenegrin theater of operation, the Montenegrin army besieged and captured the Shkodra, ending the Ottoman presence in Europe west of the Çatalca line after nearly 500 years. The war ended officially with the Treaty of London on 30(17) May 1913.


title: Balkan Wars

text: After pressure from the Great Powers towards Greece and Serbia, who had postponed signing in order to fortify their defensive positions, the signing of the Treaty of London took place on 30 May 1913. With this treaty, the war between the Balkan Allies and the Ottoman Empire came to an end. From now on, the Great Powers had the right of decision on the territorial adjustments that had to be made, which even led to the creation of an independent Albania. Every Aegean island belonging to the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of Imbros and Tenedos, was handed over to the Greeks, including the island of Crete.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Furthermore, all European territory of the Ottoman Empire west of the Enos-Midia (Enez-Midye) line, was ceded to the Balkan League, but the division of the territory among the League was not to be decided by the Treaty itself.


title: Balkan Wars

text: This event led to the formation of two ‘de facto’ military occupation zones on the Macedonian territory, as Greece and Serbia tried to create a common border. The Bulgarians were not satisfied with their share of spoils and as a result, the Second Balkan War broke out on the night of 29 June 1913, as Bulgaria confronted the Serbian and Greek lines in Macedonia.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Though the Balkan allies had fought together against the common enemy, that was not enough to overcome their mutual rivalries. In the original document for the Balkans league, Serbia promised Bulgaria most of Macedonia. But before the first war had come to an end, Serbia (in violation of the previous agreement) and Greece revealed their plan to keep possession of the territories that their forces had occupied. This act prompted the tsar of Bulgaria to invade his allies. The Second Balkan War broke out on 29 (16) June 1913, when Bulgaria attacked its erstwhile allies in the First Balkan War, Serbia and Greece, while Montenegro and the Ottoman Empire intervened later against Bulgaria, with Romania attacking Bulgaria from the north in violation of a peace treaty.


title: Balkan Wars

text: When the Greek army had entered Thessaloniki in the First Balkan War ahead of the Bulgarian 7th division by only a day, they were asked to allow a Bulgarian battalion to enter the city. Greece accepted in exchange for allowing a Greek unit to enter the city of Serres. The Bulgarian unit that entered Thessaloniki turned out to be an 18,000-strong division instead of the battalion, which caused concern among the Greeks, who viewed it as a Bulgarian attempt to establish a condominium over the city. In the event, due to the urgently needed reinforcements in the Thracian front, Bulgarian Headquarters was soon forced to remove its troops from the city (while the Greeks agreed by mutual treaty to remove their units based in Serres) and transport them to Dedeağaç (modern Alexandroupolis), but it left behind a battalion that started fortifying its positions.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Greece had also allowed the Bulgarians to control the stretch of the Thessaloniki-Constantinople railroad that lay in Greek-occupied territory since Bulgaria controlled the largest part of this railroad towards Thrace. After the end of the operations in Thrace, and confirming Greek concerns, Bulgaria was not satisfied with the territory it controlled in Macedonia and immediately asked Greece to relinquish its control over Thessaloniki and the land north of Pieria, effectively handing over all of Greek Macedonia. These demands, with the Bulgarian refusal to demobilize its army after the Treaty of London had ended the common war against the Ottomans, alarmed Greece, which decided to also keep its army mobilized. A month after the Second Balkan War started, the Bulgarian community of Thessaloniki no longer existed, as hundreds of long-time Bulgarian locals were arrested. Thirteen hundred Bulgarian soldiers and about five hundred komitadjis were also arrested and transferred to Greek prisons. In November 1913, the Bulgarians were forced to admit their defeat, as the Greeks received international recognition on their claim of Thessaloniki.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Similarly, in modern North Macedonia, the tension between Serbia and Bulgaria due to the latter's aspirations over Vardar Macedonia generated many incidents between their respective armies, prompting Serbia to keep its army mobilized. Serbia and Greece proposed that each of the three countries reduce its army by a quarter, as the first step towards a peaceful solution, but Bulgaria rejected it. Seeing the omens, Greece and Serbia started a series of negotiations and signed a treaty on 1 June(19 May) 1913. With this treaty, a mutual border was agreed between the two countries, together with an agreement for mutual military and diplomatic support in case of a Bulgarian or/and Austro-Hungarian attack. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, being well informed, tried to stop the upcoming conflict on 8 June, by sending an identical personal message to the Kings of Bulgaria and Serbia, offering to act as arbitrator according to the provisions of the 1912 Serbo-Bulgarian treaty. But Bulgaria, by making the acceptance of Russian arbitration conditional, in effect denied any discussion, causing Russia to repudiate its alliance with Bulgaria (see Russo-Bulgarian military convention signed 31 May 1902).


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Serbs and the Greeks had a military advantage on the eve of the war because their armies confronted comparatively weak Ottoman forces in the First Balkan War and suffered relatively light casualties, while the Bulgarians were involved in heavy fighting in Thrace. The Serbs and Greeks had time to fortify their positions in Macedonia. The Bulgarians also held some advantages, controlling internal communication and supply lines.


title: Balkan Wars

text: On 29(16) June 1913, General Savov, under direct orders of Tsar Ferdinand I, issued attack orders against both Greece and Serbia without consulting the Bulgarian government and without an official declaration of war. During the night of 30(17) June 1913, they attacked the Serbian army at Bregalnica river and then the Greek army in Nigrita. The Serbian army resisted the sudden night attack, while most of the soldiers did not even know who they were fighting with, as Bulgarian camps were located next to Serbs and were considered allies. Montenegro's forces were just a few kilometers away and also rushed to the battle. The Bulgarian attack was halted.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Greek army was also successful. It retreated according to plan for two days while Thessaloniki was cleared of the remaining Bulgarian regiment. Then, the Greek army counterattacked and defeated the Bulgarians at Kilkis (Kukush), after which the mostly Bulgarian town was plundered and burnt and part of its mostly Bulgarian population massacred by the Greek army. Following the capture of Kilkis, the Greek army's pace was not quick enough to prevent the retaliatory destruction of Nigrita, Serres, and Doxato and massacres of non-combatant Greek inhabitants at Sidirokastro and Doxato by the Bulgarian army. The Greek army then divided its forces and advanced in two directions. Part proceeded east and occupied Western Thrace. The rest of the Greek army advanced up to the Struma River valley, defeating the Bulgarian army in the battles of Doiran and Mt. Beles, and continued its advance to the north towards Sofia. In the Kresna straits, the Greeks were ambushed by the Bulgarian 2nd and 1st Armies, newly arrived from the Serbian front, that had already taken defensive positions there following the Bulgarian victory at Kalimanci.


title: Balkan Wars

text: By 30 July, the Greek army was outnumbered by the counter-attacking Bulgarian army, which attempted to encircle the Greeks in a Cannae-type battle, by applying pressure on their flanks. The Greek army was exhausted and faced logistical difficulties. The battle was continued for 11 days, between 29 July and 9 August over 20 km of a maze of forests and mountains with no conclusion. The Greek king, seeing that the units he fought were from the Serbian front, tried to convince the Serbs to renew their attack, as the front ahead of them was now thinner, but the Serbs declined. By then, news came of the Romanian advance toward Sofia and its imminent fall. Facing the danger of encirclement, Constantine realized that his army could no longer continue hostilities. Thus, he agreed to Eleftherios Venizelos' proposal and accepted the Bulgarian request for an armistice as had been communicated through Romania.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Romania had raised an army and declared war on Bulgaria on 10 July (27 June) as it had from 28 (15) June officially warned Bulgaria that it would not remain neutral in a new Balkan war, due to Bulgaria's refusal to cede the fortress of Silistra as promised before the First Balkan War in exchange for Romanian neutrality. Its forces encountered little resistance and, by the time the Greeks accepted the Bulgarian request for an armistice, they had reached Vrazhdebna, from the center of Sofia.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Seeing the military position of the Bulgarian army, the Ottomans decided to intervene. They attacked, and, finding no opposition, managed to win back all of their lands which had been officially ceded to Bulgaria as a part of the Sofia Conference in 1914, i.e. Thrace with its fortified city of Adrianople, regaining an area in Europe which was only slightly larger than the present-day European territory of the Republic of Turkey.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The developments that led to the First Balkan War did not go unnoticed by the Great Powers. Although there was an official consensus between the European Powers over the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, which led to a stern warning to the Balkan states, unofficially each of them took a different diplomatic approach due to their conflicting interests in the area. As a result, any possible preventive effect of the common official warning was cancelled by the mixed unofficial signals, and failed to prevent or to stop the war:


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Second Balkan war was a catastrophic blow to Russian policies in the Balkans, which for centuries had focused on access to the "warm seas". 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. Accordingly, Bulgaria reverted its policy to one closer to the Central Powers' understanding over an anti-Serbian front, due to its new national aspirations, now expressed mainly against Serbia. As a result, Serbia was isolated militarily against its rival Austria-Hungary, a development that eventually doomed Serbia in the coming war a year later. Most damaging, the new situation effectively trapped Russian foreign policy: After 1913, Russia could not afford to lose its last ally in this crucial area and thus had no alternatives but to unconditionally support Serbia when the crisis between Serbia and Austria escalated in 1914. This was a position that inevitably drew Russia into an unwelcome World War with devastating results since it was less prepared (both militarily and socially) for that event than any other Great Power.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Austria-Hungary took alarm at the great increase in Serbia's territory at the expense of its national aspirations in the region, as well as Serbia's rising status, especially to Austria-Hungary's Slavic populations. This concern was shared by Germany, which saw Serbia as a satellite of Russia. These concerns contributed significantly to the two Central Powers' willingness to go to war against Serbia. This meant that when a Serbian backed organization assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the reform-minded heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, causing the 1914 July Crisis, the conflict quickly escalated and resulted in the First World War.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The epilogue to this nine-month pan-Balkan war was drawn mostly by the treaty of Bucharest, 10 August 1913. Delegates of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, hosted by the deputy of Romania arrived in Bucharest to settle negotiations. Ottoman's request to participate was rejected, on the basis that the talks were to deal with matters strictly among the Balkan allies. The Great Powers maintained a very influential presence, but they did not dominate the proceedings. The Treaty partitioned Macedonia, made changes to the Balkan borders and established the independent state of Albania.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Serbia gained the territory of north-east Macedonia, settled the eastern borders with Bulgaria and gained the eastern half of the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar, doubling its size. Montenegro gained the western half of the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar and secured the borders with Serbia. Greece more than doubled its size by gaining southern Epirus, the biggest part of southern Macedonia, including the city-port of Kavala in its eastern border. The Aegean Islands were annexed by the Greek Kingdom, apart from the Dodecanese, and the Cretan unification was completed and formalized. Romania annexed the southern part of Dobruja province. Bulgaria, even though defeated, managed to hold some territorial gains from the First Balkan War. Bulgaria embraced a portion of Macedonia, including the town of Strumnitza, and western Thrace with a 70-mile Aegean coastline including the port-town of Alexandroupolis.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Bulgarian delegates then met the Ottomans for negotiations in Constantinople. Bulgaria's hope to regain lost territories in Eastern Thrace, where the bulk of Bulgarian forces had struggled to conquer and many died, was dashed as the Turks retained the lands they had regained in the counter-attack. The straight line of Ainos-Midia was not accepted for the eastern Border; the regions of Lozengrad, Lyule Burgas-Buni Hisar, and Adrianople reverted to the Ottomans. After this Treaty of Constantinople, 30 September 1913, Bulgaria sought an alliance with the Ottoman Empire against Greece and Serbia (in support of their claims to Macedonia).


title: Balkan Wars

text: This was followed by the Treaty of Athens, 14 November 1913, between the Turks and Greeks, concluding the conflict between them. However, the status of the Aegean Islands, under Greek control, was left in question. Especially the islands of Imvros and Tenedos strategically positioned near the Dardanelles Straights. Even after signing this treaty, relations between the two countries remained very bad, and war almost broke out in spring 1914.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Finally, the second Treaty in Constantinople re-established the relations between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire, concluding officially the Balkan Wars. Montenegro never signed a pact with the Turks.


title: Balkan Wars

text: The Balkan Wars brought to an end Ottoman rule of the Balkan Peninsula, except for eastern Thrace and Constantinople. The Young Turk regime was unable to reverse their Empire's decline, but remained in power, establishing a dictatorship in June 1913. A large influx of Turks fled from the lost lands to the Ottoman heartland. By 1914, the remaining Empire saw a population increase of around 2.5 million. The estimated war dead were 122,000 killed in action, 20,000 of direct war wounds, and 82,000 of disease (according to Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis in "Voini I Narodo-Nacelenie Europi" [1960]).


title: Balkan Wars

text: A major issue was the partitioning of these Ottoman territories, inhabited by Greeks, Bulgarians, Aromanians, Serbs, Jews*, Turks, Albanians, and other nationalities. Albanians were largely unsatisfied since the majority of their population was left outside of the country's borders, mostly in areas like Kosovo and Macedonia, but also in small areas of Montenegro and Greece. On the other hand, Greece also claimed parts of Southern Albania because of the Greek minority there. Serbia complained that it lost an area with access to the Adriatic Sea.


title: Balkan Wars

text: During and after the wars, the Greek fleet proved the only considerable naval power in the Aegean Sea, blocking the Turkish fleet inside the Dardanelles. The Hellenic Navy managed to liberate the Greek islands and boost the morale of the Greeks. However, the Greek populations in Asia Minor and Pontus faced the rage of the Young Turks' regime, answering for the defeat with embargoes, exiles, persecutions, and population exchange between Turkey and Greece.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Citizens of Turkey regard the Balkan Wars as a major disaster ("Balkan harbi faciası") in the nation's history. The Ottoman Empire lost all its European territories west of the River Maritsa as a result of the two Balkan Wars, which thus delineated present-day Turkey's western border. By 1923, only 38% of the Muslim population of 1912 still lived in the Balkans and majority of Balkan Turks had been killed or expelled. The unexpected fall and sudden relinquishing of Turkish-dominated European territories created a traumatic event amongst many Turks that triggered the ultimate collapse of the empire itself within five years. Paul Mojzes has called the Balkan Wars an <nowiki>"unrecognized genocide"</nowiki>.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Nazım Pasha, Chief of Staff of the Ottoman Army, was held responsible for the failure and was assassinated on 23 January 1913 during the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état.


title: Balkan Wars

text: Most Greeks regard the Balkan Wars as a period of epic achievements. They managed to liberate and gain territories that had been inhabited by Greeks since ancient times and doubled the size of the Greek Kingdom. The Greek Army, small and ill-equipped compared to the superior Ottoman but also Bulgarian and Serbian armies, won very important battles. That made Greece a viable pawn in the Great Powers' chess play. Two great personalities rose in the Greek political arena, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, the leading mind behind the Greek foreign policy, and Crown Prince, and later King, Konstantinos I, the Major General of the Greek Army.


title: Second Life

text: Second Life is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003, it saw rapid growth for some years and in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017 the active user count had declined to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, "Second Life" is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective".


title: Second Life

text: The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own client software or via alternative third-party viewers. "Second Life" users, also called 'residents', create virtual representations of themselves, called "avatars", and are able to interact with places, objects and other avatars. They can explore the world (known as the grid), meet other residents, socialize, participate in both individual and group activities, build, create, shop, and trade virtual property and services with one another.


title: Second Life

text: The platform principally features 3D-based user-generated content. "Second Life" also has its own virtual currency, the Linden Dollar (L$), which is exchangeable with real world currency.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" is intended for people ages 16 and over, with the exception of 13–15-year-old users, who are restricted to the "Second Life" region of a sponsoring institution (e.g., a school).


title: Second Life

text: Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab in 1999 with the intention of developing computer hardware to allow people to become immersed in a virtual world. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of the hardware, known as "The Rig", which in prototype form was seen as a clunky steel contraption with computer monitors worn on shoulders. That vision changed into the software application Linden World, in which people participated in task-based games and socializing in a three-dimensional online environment. That effort eventually transformed into the better known, user-centered "Second Life". Although he was familiar with the metaverse of Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash", Rosedale has said that his vision of virtual worlds predates that book, and that he conducted early virtual world experiments during his college years at the University of California, San Diego, where he studied physics.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" began to receive significant media attention in 2005 and 2006, including a cover story in "BusinessWeek" magazine featuring the virtual world and "Second Life" avatar Anshe Chung. By that time, Anshe Chung had become "Second Life"s poster child and symbol for the economic opportunities that the virtual world offers to its residents. At the same time, the service saw a period of exponential growth of its user base.


title: Second Life

text: One of the principal developers, Cory Ondrejka, was forced to resign as chief technology officer in December 2007, with Rosedale citing irreconcilable differences in the way the company was run. Nevertheless, the platform continued to grow rapidly, and by January 2008, residents spent a total of 28,274,505 hours "inworld" and on average 38,000 residents were logged in at any moment. The maximum concurrency (number of avatars inworld) recorded was set at 88,200 in the first quarter of 2009.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" was honored at the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the development of online sites with user-generated content in 2008, adding to the media attention. Rosedale accepted the award. although he had announced plans to step down from his position as Linden Lab CEO and to become chairman of Linden Lab's board of directors instead in March 2008 . Rosedale announced Mark Kingdon as the new CEO effective May 15, 2008. In 2010, Kingdon was replaced by Rosedale, who took over as interim CEO. After four months, Rosedale abruptly stepped down from the Interim CEO position. It was announced in October 2010 that Bob Komin, Linden Lab's chief financial officer and chief operating officer, would take over the CEO job for the immediate future.


title: Second Life

text: With the platform's failure to continue its high rate of growth after 2009, Linden Lab announced layoffs of 30% of its workforce in 2010. Some 21.3 million accounts were registered by this point, although the company did not make public any statistics regarding actual long-term consistent usage and numbers of dormant accounts.


title: Second Life

text: Despite speculation as to the actual size of the user base, "Second Life" continued as a commercial success. In 2015, "Second Life" users cashed out approximately $60,000,000 (60 million US dollars) and "Second Life" had an estimated GDP of $500,000,000 (500 million US dollars), higher than some small countries.


title: Second Life

text: Recognizing improvements in computing power and particularly in computer graphics, Linden Lab began work on a successor to "Second Life", a VR experience called "Sansar", launching a public beta in July 2017. Uptake was low and Linden Lab halted development in 2020 to focus their attention fully on "Second Life". The rights to "Sansar"'s assets were sold to Wookey Search Technologies, who are expected to continue development on the title without Linden Lab. "Second Life", the usage of which peaked in the first decade of the 21st century, has been cited as the first example of the metaverse, a concept which has been taken up by other major corporations such as Facebook in 2021. As a notable precursor (which retains a small and loyal following), it provides several examples of virtual reality social issues and lessons learned.


title: Second Life

text: During a 2001 meeting with investors, Rosedale noticed that the participants were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of "Second Life". As a result, the initial objective-driven, gaming focus of "Second Life" was shifted to a more user-created, community-driven experience.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life"s status as a virtual world, a computer game, or a talker, is frequently debated. Unlike a traditional computer game, "Second Life" does not have a designated objective, nor traditional game play mechanics or rules. It can also be argued that "Second Life" is a multi-user virtual world, because its virtual world facilitates interaction between multiple users. As it does not have any stipulated goals, it is irrelevant to talk about winning or losing in relation to "Second Life". Likewise, unlike a traditional talker, "Second Life" contains an extensive world that can be explored and interacted with, and it can be used purely as a creative tool set if the user so chooses. In March 2006, while speaking at Google TechTalks, Rosedale said: "So, we don't see this as a game. We see it as a platform."


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" used to offer two main grids: one for adults (18+) and one for teens. In August 2010, Linden Lab closed the teen grid due to operating costs. Since then, users 16 and over can sign up for a free account. Other limited accounts are available for educators who use "Second Life" with younger students.


title: Second Life

text: There is no charge for creating a "Second Life" account or for making use of the world for any period of time. Linden Lab reserves the right to charge for the creation of large numbers of multiple accounts for a single person (5 per household, 2 per 24 hours) but at present does not do so. A Premium membership (US$11.99 monthly, US$32.97 quarterly, or US$99 annually) extends access to an increased level of technical support, and also pays an automatic stipend of L$300/week into the member's avatar account, and after 45 days that resident will receive a L$700 bonus, making it L$1,000 for that week. This amount has decreased since the original stipend of L$500, which is still paid to older accounts. Certain accounts created during an earlier period may receive L$400. This stipend, if changed into USD, means that the actual cost for the benefit of extended tech support for an annual payment of US$72 is only about US$14, depending on the currency exchange rates. However, the vast majority of casual users of "Second Life" do not upgrade beyond the free "basic" account.


title: Second Life

text: Avatars may take any form users choose (human, animal, vegetable, mineral, or a combination thereof) or residents may choose to resemble themselves as they are in real life. They may choose even more abstract forms, given that almost every aspect of an avatar is fully customizable. "Second Life" Culture consists of many activities and behaviors that are also present in real life. A single resident account may have only one avatar at a time, although the appearance of this avatar can change between as many different forms as the Resident wishes. Avatar forms, like almost everything else in Second Life, can be either created by the user, or bought pre-made. A single person may also have multiple accounts, and thus appear to be multiple Residents (a person's multiple accounts are referred to as "alts").


title: Second Life

text: Avatars can travel via walking, running, vehicular access, flying, or teleportation. Because "Second Life" is such a vast virtual world, teleportation is used when avatars wish to travel instantly and efficiently. Once they reach their destination, they may travel in more conventional means at various speeds.


title: Second Life

text: Avatars can communicate via local chat, group chat, global instant messaging (known as IM), and voice (public, private and group). Chatting is used for localized public conversations between two or more avatars, and is visible to any avatar within a given distance. IMs are used for private conversations, either between two avatars, or among the members of a group, or even between objects and avatars. Unlike chatting, IM communication does not depend on the participants being within a certain distance of each other. As of version 1.18.1.2 (2007-Aug-02), voice chat, both local and IM, was also available. Instant messages may optionally be sent to a Resident's email when the Resident is logged off, although message length is limited to 4096 bytes.


title: Second Life

text: Identities in "Second Life" can relate to the users' personality or creating their own character. It is based on their decisions on how to express themselves. Most avatars are human, but they can choose to be vampires or animals. Sometimes, what they choose does not relate to their offline selves.


title: Second Life

text: In "Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human", anthropologist Tom Boellstorff notes that the interface of "Second Life" is designed with the purpose of disconnecting a player's virtual identity from their physical identity in mind. As of 2015 "Second Life" has made it possible to display one's legal name in the player's profile or as their screen name, but when Boellstorff first published the book in 2008 users were required to select a last name from a pre-determined list of options. Boellstorff describes this mentality as being in direct contrast to the one held by other mainstream social media websites, where anonymity is shunned and users are encouraged to make the link between their online and physical presence clear.


title: Second Life

text: The ability to create content and shape the "Second Life" world is one of the key features that separate this from online games.


title: Second Life

text: Built into the software is a 3D modeling tool based on simple geometric shapes that allows residents to build virtual objects. There is also a procedural scripting language, Linden Scripting Language, which can be used to add interactivity to objects. Sculpted prims ("sculpties"), 3D mesh, textures for clothing or other objects, animations, and gestures can be created using external software and imported. The "Second Life" terms of service provide that users retain copyright for any content they create, and the server and client provide simple digital rights management (DRM) functions. However, Linden Lab changed their terms of service in August 2013 to be able to use user-generated content for any purpose. The new terms of service prevent users from using textures from third-party texture services, as some of them pointed out explicitly.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" has an internal economy and closed-loop virtual token called the "Linden dollar (L$)". L$ can be used to buy, sell, rent or trade land or goods and services with other users. The "Linden Dollar" is a closed-loop virtual token for use only within the Second Life platform. Linden Dollars have no monetary value and are not redeemable for monetary value from Linden Lab. A resident with a surplus of Linden Dollars earned via a Second Life business or experiential play can request to refund their Linden Dollar surplus to PayPal. Linden Lab reports that the "Second Life" economy generated US$3,596,674 in economic activity during the month of September 2005, and in September 2006 "Second Life" was reported to have a GDP of $64 million. In 2009, the total size of the "Second Life" economy grew 65% to US$567 million, about 25% of the entire U.S. virtual goods market. Gross resident earnings are US$55 million in 2009 – 11% growth over 2008. In 2013, Linden Labs released an info graphic that showed that over 10 years $3.2 billion in transactions for virtual goods had exchanged between "Second Life" residents, with an average of 1.2 million daily transactions.


title: Second Life

text: There is a high level of entrepreneurial activity in "Second Life". Residents of "Second Life" are able to create virtual objects and other content. "Second Life" is unique in that users retain all the rights to their content which means they can use "Second Life" to distribute and sell their creations, with 2.1 million items listed on its online marketplace. At its height circa 2006, hundreds of thousands of dollars were changing hands daily as residents created and sold a wide variety of virtual commodities. "Second Life" also quickly became profitable due to the selling and renting of virtual real estate. 2006 also saw "Second Life"s first real-world millionaire; Ailin Graef, better known as Anshe Chung (her avatar), converted an initial investment of US$9.95 into over one million dollars over the course of two and a half years. She built her fortune primarily by buying, selling, and renting virtual real estate.<ref name="nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/03/million.html"></ref>


title: Second Life

text: Major tech corporations have tried to use "Second Life" to market products or services to "Second Life"s tech-savvy audience. IBM, for example, purchased 12 islands within "Second Life" for virtual training and simulations of key business processes, but has since moved on to other platforms due to maintaining costs. Others, like musicians, podcasters, and news organizations (including CNET, Reuters, NPR's "The Infinite Mind", and the BBC) have all had a presence within "Second Life".


title: Second Life

text: Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, and works of art. Services include business management, entertainment, and custom content creation (which can be broken up into the following six categories: building, texturing, scripting, animating, art direction, and the position of producer/project funder). L$ can be purchased using US dollars and other local currencies on the LindeX exchange provided by Linden Lab. Customer USD wallets obtained from Linden Dollar sales on the Lindex are most commonly used to pay "Second Life"s own subscription and tier fees; only a relatively small number of users earn enough profit to request a refund to PayPal. According to figures published by Linden Lab, about 64,000 users made a profit in "Second Life" in February 2009, of whom 38,524 made less than US$10, while 233 made more than US$5000. Profits are derived from selling virtual goods, renting land, and a broad range of services.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" comprises the "viewer" (also known as the "client") executing on the user's personal computer, and several thousand servers operated by Linden Lab.


title: Second Life

text: Linden Lab provides official viewers for the operating systems Windows, macOS, and most distributions of Linux where the more known ChromeOS has been excluded so far. The viewer renders 3D graphics using OpenGL technology. The viewer source code was released under the GPL in 2007 and moved to the LGPL in 2010.


title: Second Life

text: There are now several mature third party viewer projects, like Firestorm as the most popular one, that contain features not available in the Linden Lab 'Official' client, target other platforms or cater to specialist & accessibility needs. The main focus of third party development is exploring new ideas and working with Linden Lab to deliver new functionality.


title: Second Life

text: An independent project, libopenmetaverse, offers a function library for interacting with "Second Life" servers. libopenmetaverse has been used to create non-graphic third party viewers.


title: Second Life

text: There are several "Alternate Viewers" published by Linden Lab used for software testing by volunteers for early access to upcoming projects. Some of these clients only function on the "beta grid" consisting of a limited number of regions running various releases of unstable test server code.


title: Second Life

text: Each full region (an area of 256×256 meters) in the "Second Life" "grid" runs on a single dedicated core of a multi-core server. Homestead regions share 3 regions per core and Openspace Regions share 4 regions per core, running proprietary software on Debian Linux. These servers run scripts in the region, as well as providing communication between avatars and objects present in the region.


title: Second Life

text: Every item in the "Second Life" universe is referred to as an "asset". This includes the shapes of basic 3D polygon objects formally known as "Primitive Mesh" (commonly known as "primitives" or "prims" for short), the digital images referred to as "textures" that decorate primitives, digitized audio clips, avatar shape and appearance, avatar skin textures, LSL scripts, information written on notecards, and so on. Each asset is referenced with a universally unique identifier or "UUID".


title: Second Life

text: Assets are stored on Isilon Systems storage clusters, comprising all data that has ever been created by anyone who has been in the "Second Life" world. Infrequently used assets are offloaded to S3 bulk storage. , the total storage was estimated to consume 100 terabytes of server capacity. The asset servers function independently of the region simulators, though the region simulators act as a proxy for the client, request object data from the asset servers when a new object loads into the simulator. Region simulators areas are commonly known as "sims" by residents.


title: Second Life

text: Each server instance runs a physics simulation to manage the collisions and interactions of all objects in that region. Objects can be nonphysical and non-moving, or actively physical and movable. Complex shapes may be linked together in groups of up to 256 separate primitives. Additionally, each player's avatar is treated as a physical object so that it may interact with physical objects in the world. , "Second Life" simulators use the "Havok 2011.2" physics engine for all in-world dynamics. This engine is capable of simulating thousands of physical objects at once.


title: Second Life

text: Linden Lab pursues the use of open standards technologies, and uses free and open source software such as Apache, MySQL, Squid and Linux. The plan is to move everything to open standards by standardizing the "Second Life" protocol. Cory Ondrejka, former CTO of "Second Life", stated in 2006 that a while after everything has been standardized, both the client and the server will be released as free and open source software.


title: Second Life

text: In January 2021, Linden Labs completed the migration of all of its services and databases to AWS servers.


title: Second Life

text: In January 2007, OpenSimulator was founded as an open-source simulator project. The aim of this project is to develop a full open-source server software for "Second Life" clients. OpenSIM is BSD Licensed and it is written in C# and can run under Mono environment. From 2008, alternative grids began to emerge and many of these allow cross visits from other grids through the hypergrid protocol using OpenSimulator.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" residents express themselves creatively through virtual world adaptations of art exhibits, live music, live theater and machinima, as well as other art forms.


title: Second Life

text: A wide variety of recreational activities, both competitive and non-competitive, take place on the "Second Life" Grid, including both traditional sports and video game-like scenarios.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities. Since 2008, the University of San Martin de Porres of Peru has been developing "Second Life" prototypes of Peruvian archeological buildings, and training teachers for this new paradigm of education. The West Virginia University (WVU) Department of Special Education has used "Second Life" widely in education, and it provided teaching certification and certificates of degree in seven different distance education programs. WVU started a pilot program in the college's computer lab in spring 2011.


title: Second Life

text: The Maldives was the first country to open an embassy in "Second Life". The Maldives' embassy is located on "Second Life's" "Diplomacy Island", where visitors will be able to talk face-to-face with a computer-generated ambassador about visas, trade and other issues. "Diplomacy Island" also hosts Diplomatic Museum and Diplomatic Academy. The Island is established by DiploFoundation as part of the Virtual Diplomacy Project.


title: Second Life

text: In May 2007, Sweden became the second country to open an embassy in "Second Life". Run by the Swedish Institute, the embassy serves to promote Sweden's image and culture, rather than providing any real or virtual services. The Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, stated on his blog that he hoped he would get an invitation to the grand opening.


title: Second Life

text: In September 2007, Publicis Group announced the project of creating a Serbia island as a part of a project Serbia Under Construction. The project is officially supported by Ministry of Diaspora of Serbian Government. It was stated that the island will feature the Nikola Tesla Museum, the Guča Trumpet Festival and the Exit Festival. It was also planned on opening a virtual info terminals of Ministry of Diaspora.


title: Second Life

text: On Tuesday December 4, 2007, Estonia became the third country to open an embassy in "Second Life". In September 2007, Colombia and Serbia opened embassies. As of 2008, North Macedonia and the Philippines have opened embassies in the "Diplomatic Island" of "Second Life". In 2008, Albania opened an embassy in the Nova Bay location. SL Israel was inaugurated in January 2008 in an effort to showcase Israel to a global audience, though without any connection to official Israeli diplomatic channels. In 2008 Malta opened an embassy on "Second Life".


title: Second Life

text: Religious organizations have also begun to open virtual meeting places within "Second Life". In early 2007, LifeChurch.tv, a Christian church headquartered in Edmond, Oklahoma, and with eleven campuses in the US, created "Experience Island" and opened its twelfth campus in "Second Life". In July 2007, an Anglican cathedral was established in "Second Life"; Mark Brown, the head of the group that built the cathedral, noted that there is "an interest in what I call depth, and a moving away from light, fluffy Christianity".


title: Second Life

text: The First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Second Life was established in 2006. Services have been held regularly, making the FUUCSL Congregation one of the longest-running active congregations in "Second Life".


title: Second Life

text: The Egyptian-owned news website Islam Online has purchased land in "Second Life" to allow Muslims and non-Muslims alike to perform the ritual of Hajj in virtual reality form, obtaining experience before actually making the pilgrimage to Mecca in person.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" also offers several groups that cater to the needs and interests of humanists, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers. One of the most active groups is SL Humanism which has been holding weekly discussion meetings inside "Second Life" every Sunday since 2006.


title: Second Life

text: Romantic relationships are common in "Second Life", including some couples who have married online. The social engagement offered by the online environment helps those who might be socially isolated. In addition, sex is often encountered. However, to access the adult sections requires age verification. There are also large BDSM and Gorean communities.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" relationships have been taken from virtual online relationships into personal, real-world relationships. Booperkit Moseley and Shukran Fahid were possibly the first couple to meet in "Second Life" and then marry in real life. Booperkit travelled to the United States to meet Shukran and he returned to England with her after one week. They married in 2006, had twin boys in 2009, and are still married. Some couples meet online, form friendships, and eventually move to finding one another in the real world. Some even have their weddings on "Second Life", as well as in a real-world setting.


title: Second Life

text: Relationships in virtual worlds have an added dimension compared to other social media, because avatars give a feeling of proximity making the voyeur experience more intense than simply a textual encounter. The complexities of those encounters depend on the engagement levels of the people behind the avatars, whether they are engaging disassociatively (entertainment only), immersively (as if the avatar was them), or augmentatively (meaning they engage for a real-life purpose).


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" is used for scientific research, collaboration, and data visualization. Examples include SciLands, American Chemical Society's ACS Island, Genome, Virginia Tech's SLATE, and Nature Publishing Group's Elucian Islands Village.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" can be a real-time, immersive social space for people including those with physical or mental disabilities that impair their first lives, who often find comfort and security interacting through anonymous avatars. (Indeed, some academics believe using "Second Life" might even help improve motor ability for people with Parkinson’s disease.). An example of how "Second Life" has been used by disabled people is Wheelies, the widely publicised disability themed nightclub founded by Simon Stevens.


title: Second Life

text: ShoutCast and Icecast Internet radio stations can be streamed into a land parcel in "Second Life". Streaming codecs are currently MP3 as AAC and OGG are not currently supported. There are internet radio providers that offer these services or select from a list compiled by Lindal Kidd and is updated whenever by whoever as there's no officiant for it. At the time of this writing, media on a prim (MOAP) is not a reliable enough way of displaying media and such, sites listed work best with Parcel Media or Parcel Audio.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" gives companies the option to create virtual workplaces to allow employees to virtually meet, hold events, practice any kind of corporate communications, conduct training sessions in 3D immersive virtual learning environment, simulate business processes, and prototype new products.


title: Second Life

text: In 2020, CEO of "Second Life" Ebbe Altberg announced a microsite for "Second Life" to serve as a space for digital meetings to take place amidst global social distancing, self-isolation, and quarantine orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Second Life

text: Linden Lab has twice, in 2007 and 2010, banned a California educational institution, Woodbury University, from having a representation within "Second Life". On April 20, 2010, four simulators belonging to the university were deleted and the accounts of several students and professors terminated, according to "The Chronicle of Higher Education". Edward Clift, dean of the School of Media, Culture and Design at Woodbury University, told "The Chronicle of Higher Education" that their campus "was a living, breathing campus in "Second Life"", including educational spaces designed mostly by students, such as a mock representation of the former Soviet Union and a replica of the Berlin Wall. According to Clift, the virtual campus did not "conform to what Linden Lab wanted a campus to be".


title: Second Life

text: The article in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" concluded with: "Meanwhile, many people in "Second Life" expressed on blogs that they were glad to see the virtual campus go, arguing that it had been a haven for troublemakers in the virtual world."


title: Second Life

text: In 2004, the newspaper "The Alphaville Herald", founded and edited by the philosopher Peter Ludlow, migrated to "Second Life", and in the following years the newspaper played a prominent role in reporting on "Second Life" and in the public discussion of the game. The newspaper, which was known as "The Second Life Herald" from 2004 to 2009, was later edited by the Internet pioneer Mark P. McCahill. According to scholars Constantinescu and Decu, "The Alphaville Herald" was the first "virtual free press," pioneering mass communication in virtual worlds.


title: Second Life

text: In January 2007, a "virtual riot" erupted between members of the French National Front (FN) who had established a virtual HQ on "Second Life", and "anti-racism" activists, including Second Life Left Unity, a socialist and anti-capitalist user-group. Since then, several small Internet-based organizations have claimed some responsibility for instigating the riots.


title: Second Life

text: Corporate marketers, especially during the height of "Second Life" in the cultural zeitgeist of 2005–2010, have been accused of being overly credulous of the actual reach and influence of "Second Life". Journalists have theorized this might be partially due to blithely accepting total account statistics rather than harder-to-discern active player counts. Reasons for account "inflation" can include in-world systems which encourage the creation of bogus extra accounts such as "traffic bots" which simply remain stationary in a store, causing the system to rank the store as popular because there are people there, as well as simply idle and long inactive accounts. One article in "Wired" featured a marketer for Coca-Cola who found "Second Life" to be essentially deserted when personally inspecting it, yet still funded a marketing campaign there anyway from fear of missing out.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" has been attacked several times by groups of residents abusing the creation tools to create objects that harass other users or damage the system. This included grey goo objects which infinitely reproduce, eventually overwhelming the servers; "orbiters" which throw an avatar so far upwards they cannot get back down in a reasonable timeframe without teleporting; "cages" which surround avatars, preventing them from moving, and similar tools. Although combat between users is sanctioned in certain areas of the world, these objects have been used to cause disruption in all areas. Attacks on the grid itself, such as Grey Goo, are strictly forbidden anywhere on the grid. It was possible to perpetrate denial-of-service attacks (DoS) on other users simply by scripting objects that spew screen filling characters from anywhere on the grid to another avatar's location, thereby disabling a clear view to the virtual world. Bugs in the client and server software were also exploited by griefers to kick users, crash servers, and revert content before being patched out.


title: Second Life

text: The Emerald client was developed by a group of users based on Snowglobe, an opensource fork of the "Second Life" client. Several groups alleged that the Emerald viewer contained Trojan code which tracked user details and demographics in a way that the developers could later recover. One of these groups was banned from "Second Life" by Linden Lab after publishing their discovery. Shortly afterward, a member of the Emerald team was accused of a DDOS attack against another website. In response, Linden Lab revoked Emerald's third-party viewer approval and permanently banned several of Emerald's developers. Due to what happened with Emerald, Linden Lab instituted a new third-party viewer policy.


title: Second Life

text: The support staff and one of the developers of the Emerald project, who was not banned, left to work on a new viewer project, Phoenix (using some of the Emerald codebase, but without Off-the-Record Messaging nor any potentially malicious code). The Phoenix team are now the developers behind Firestorm Viewer, a fork of "Second Life"'s "viewer 2.0" open source client.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" has seen a number of controversies, as well. Issues range from the technical (budgeting of server resources), to moral (pornography), to legal (legal position of the Linden Dollar, "Bragg v. Linden Lab"). Security issues have also been a concern.


title: Second Life

text: In the past, large portions of the "Second Life" economy consisted of businesses that are regulated or banned. Changes to "Second Life"s terms of service in this regard have largely had the purpose of bringing activity within "Second Life" into compliance with various international laws, even though the person running the business may be in full compliance with the law in their own country.


title: Second Life

text: On July 26, 2007, Linden Lab announced a ban on in-world gambling due to federal and state regulations on Internet gambling that could affect Linden Lab if it was permitted to continue. The ban was immediately met with in-world protests.


title: Second Life

text: In August 2007, a $750,000 in-world Linden Dollar bank or Ponzi scheme called Ginko Financial collapsed due to a bank run triggered by Linden Lab's ban on gambling. The aftershocks of this collapse caused severe liquidity problems for other virtual "Linden Dollar banks", which critics had long asserted were scams. On Tuesday, January 8, 2008, Linden Lab announced the upcoming prohibition of payment of fixed interest on cash deposits in unregulated banking activities in-world. All banks without real-world charters closed or converted to virtual joint stock companies by January 22, 2008. After the ban, a few companies continue to offer non-interest bearing deposit accounts to residents, such as the e-commerce site XStreet, which had already adopted a zero-interest policy 3 months before the Linden Lab interest ban.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" has suffered from difficulties related to system instability. These include increased system latency, and intermittent client crashes. However, some faults are caused by the system's use of an "asset server" cluster, on which the actual data governing objects is stored separately from the areas of the world and the avatars that use those objects. The communication between the main servers and the asset cluster appears to constitute a bottleneck which frequently causes problems. Typically, when asset server downtime is announced, users are advised not to build, manipulate objects, or engage in business, leaving them with little to do but chat and generally reducing confidence in all businesses on the grid.


title: Second Life

text: Another problem is inventory loss, in which items in a user's inventory, including those which have been paid for, can disappear without warning or permanently enter a state where they will fail to appear in-world when requested (giving an "object missing from database" error). Linden Lab offers no compensation for items that are lost in this way, although a policy change instituted in 2008 allows accounts to file support tickets when inventory loss occurs. Many in-world businesses will attempt to compensate for this or restore items, although they are under no obligation to do so and not all are able to do so. A recent change in how the company handles items which have "lost their parent directory" means that inventory loss is much less of a problem and resolves faster than in recent years. "Loss to recovery times" have gone from months (or never) to hours or a day or two for the majority of users, but inventory loss does still exist.


title: Second Life

text: "Second Life" functions by streaming all data to the user live over the Internet with minimal local caching of frequently used data. The user is expected to have a minimum of 300kbit/s of Internet bandwidth for basic functionality. Due to the proprietary communications protocols, it is not possible to use a network proxy service to reduce network load when many people are all using the same location, such as when used for group activities in a school or business.