In pursuit of the "Megali Idea" ("Great Idea"), the irredentist belief that Ottoman-controlled Greek lands would be reclaimed and the Byzantine Empire restored, Greece recovered Volos and other parts of Thessaly in the 1881 Convention of Constantinople, but suffered a humiliating defeat in the First Greco-Turkish War in 1897 under the military leadership of George's eldest son, Prince Constantine. George survived an assassination attempt the following year and a military coup attempt in 1909, which ended with the appointment of a new prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, who reorganized the Greek military and relegated Constantine to a ceremonial role. When Greece's Balkan League allies Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro declared war against the Ottoman Empire in October 1912, George saw it as an opportunity to restore Greece's reputation following its defeat fifteen years earlier.