page_title: History of modern Greece
section_title: Balkan Wars
hierarchical_section_title: History of modern Greece / Reign of King George I, 1864–1913 / Balkan Wars
caption_attribution_description: English: Greek lithograph of the battle of Lachanas (Second Balkan War), 1913 Ελληνικά: Λαϊκή λιθογραφία της Μάχης του Κιλκίς, 1913.
context_page_description: The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition of its autonomy from the Ottoman Empire by the Great Powers in 1828, after the Greek War of Independence, to the present day.
context_section_description: Through the spring of 1912, a series of bilateral agreements between the Christian Balkan states (Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia) formed the Balkan League, which in October 1912 declared war on the Ottoman Empire. In the First Balkan War, the Ottomans were defeated on all fronts, and the four allies rushed to grab as much territory as they could. The Greeks occupied Thessaloniki just ahead of the Bulgarians, and also took much of Epirus with Ioannina, as well as Crete and the Aegean Islands.
  The Treaty of London (1913) ended the war, but no one was left satisfied, and soon, the four allies fell out over the partition of Macedonia. In June 1913, Bulgaria attacked Greece and Serbia, beginning the Second Balkan War, but was beaten back. The Treaty of Bucharest (1913), which concluded the Second Balkan War, left Greece with southern Epirus, the southern half of Macedonia (known as Greek Macedonia), Crete and the Aegean islands, except for the Dodecanese, which had been occupied by Italy since 1911. These gains nearly doubled Greece's area and population.
  In March 1913, an anarchist, Alexandros Schinas, assassinated King George in Thessaloniki, and his son came to the throne as Constantine I. Constantine was the first Greek king born in Greece and the first to be Greek Orthodox by birth. His very name had been chosen in the spirit of romantic Greek nationalism (the Megali Idea), evoking the Byzantine emperors of that name. In addition, as the Commander-in-chief of the Greek Army during the Balkan Wars, his popularity was enormous, rivalled only by that of Venizelos, his Prime Minister.
caption: Greek lithograph of the Battle of Kilkis–Lachanas
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26"}