Košutnjak
Košutnjak is a park-forest and urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is divided between in the municipalities of Rakovica. With the adjoining Topčider, it is colloquially styled "Belgrade's oxygen factory"; the name, košutnjak, is derived from the medieval hunting forests of the Serbian nobility, meaning doe's breeder. as does used to live in the park until the World War I. The name was mentioned for the first time in 1831; the Košutnjak hill is 250 m high and the entire forest complex covers an area of 330 ha. Košutanjak has a few geological natural monuments, they include several Cretaceous maritime ridges of "Burdelj", "Tasin Majdan" and "Baremski", on the location of the assassination of the prince Michael, a geology profile where the mint is located today. Košutnjak is located 6 km southwest from the downtown Belgrade, it is bordered by the neighborhoods of Topčider to the north and west, Kanarevo Brdo to the northwest and Skojevsko Naselje to the south, Žarkovo and Banovo Brdo to the east.
Filmski Grad and Golf Naselje are sub-neighborhoods of Košutnjak. In the 19th century, Košutnjak was a fenced hunting ground and royal excursion place for the members of the Obrenović dynasty; until the World War I, the area was under quality oak forest. A document from 1849 says that there were 48 deers in Košutnjak, 13 bulls and 35 does. In 1884 the first railway in Serbia, which connected Belgrade and Niš, was constructed through the forest. In 1908 Belgian architect Alban Chambon drafted a new general urban plan in 1908 which made Košutnjak a public park. Košutnjak gained a sort of historical notoriety as prince of Serbia, Mihailo Obrenović III and his cousin Anka Konstantinmović were assassinated while walking in the park on 10 June 1869, when Ivan Stambolić, Slobodan Milošević's political opponent was abducted from the park on 25 August 2000 and assassinated and buried at Fruška Gora. There are remnants of the German cemetery and the monuments to the Serbian soldiers erected by their adversaries, German soldiers, in World War I.
Until World War II, the pheasants were abundant too and in this period Košutnjak was a healing destination for many city children. After 1945 city urbanists considered the way Topčider-Košutnjak complex has been handled was wrong the expansion of the railway station into the marshalling yard and construction of Filmski Grad, so the Belgrade's GUP in the 1950s projected the complete removal of the railway objects from the Topčider valley, but, never executed. After World War II, before skiing facilities were built on the mountains further from Belgrade, the slopes of Banovo Brdo, were used by Belgraders for skiing. Košutnjak is home to many animal species, some of which are under strict protection. There are 521 plant species, including lime tree, pedunculate oak, common hornbeam, Turkey oak, Hungarian oak, European yew, sweet chestnut, cherry laurel and Turkish hazel. About 5% of the forest is inhabited by the conifers cedar, black pine and white pine. In 2015, an average age of the trees has been estimated to 60–70 years.
In 2015, about 50 ha of Košutnjak has been re-forested with 4,400 seedlings of the common ash and sycamore. Animals inhabiting the forest are squirrels, hedgehogs and bats. Košutnjak is one of the most popular recreational places in Belgrade. With 40 ha, Sports Center Košutnjak is one of the largest and most diverse in the city, while the park has an auto-camp, modern settlements of Filmski Grad and Pionirski Grad, big studios of the national broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia, many popular restaurants and arranged paths criss-crossing the forest. There are jogging tracks and a ski run. In the lower parts, Košutnjak and Topčider forests grew together, while in the upper parts they are divided by the river Topčiderska reka and a railway passing through the river's valley. Nobelist author Ivo Andrić wrote: "You just hang on to Topčider and Košutnjak... Topčider is my favorite place, where I ate bread and drank wine in the sweetest and calmest manner". Andrić's longtme friend, painter Leposava Bela Pavlović, made two paintings of Košutnjak in 1943.
One, titled "Košutnjak, 1943" just shows the nature and is today exhibited in the Memorial museum of Ivo Andrić. On the another one, "In Košutnjak during the occupation" she painted Andrić, Milica Babić-Jovanović and Nenad Jovanović; this painting is in the National Museum of Serbia. In 2014, city government declared "Košutnjak Forest" as the nature monument. Protected locality covers an area of 265.26 ha. Košutnjak is the natural reserve of common hornbeam and silver lime. In 1922 company "Čavlina and Sladoljev" from Zagreb drafted the project of connecting two banks of the Sava river by the cable car. In 1928, building company "Šumadija" again proposed the construction of the cable car, which they called "air tram" but this project was planned to connect Zemun to Kalemegdan on Belgrade Fortress, via Great War Island; the interval of the cabins was set at 2 minutes and the entire route was supposed to last 5 minutes. The project was never realized. Engineer and CEO of the Yugoslav institute for urbanism and dwelling "Juginus", Mirko Radovanac, revived the idea in the 1990s.
After conducting e
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy, was a constitutional monarchy in Central and Eastern Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed by giving a new constitution to the Austrian Empire, which devolved powers on Austria and Hungary and placed them on an equal footing, it broke apart into several states at the end of World War I. The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies, one autonomous region: the The Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown, which negotiated the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement in 1868, it was ruled by the House of Habsburg, constituted the last phase in the constitutional evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal. Foreign affairs and the military came under joint oversight, but all other governmental faculties were divided between respective states.
Austria-Hungary was a multinational one of Europe's major powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 km2, the third-most populous; the Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States and the United Kingdom. Austria-Hungary became the world's third largest manufacturer and exporter of electric home appliances, electric industrial appliances and power generation apparatus for power plants, after the United States and the German Empire. After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was annexed in 1908, provoking the Bosnian crisis among the other powers; the northern part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Novi Pazar was under de facto joint occupation during that period but the Austro-Hungarian army withdrew as part of their annexation of Bosnia. The annexation of Bosnia led to Islam being recognized as an official state religion due to Bosnia's Muslim population.
Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I which started when it declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia on 28 July 1914. It was effectively dissolved by the time the military authorities signed the armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918; the Kingdom of Hungary and the First Austrian Republic were treated as its successors de jure, whereas the independence of the West Slavs and South Slavs of the Empire as the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Second Polish Republic and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and most of the territorial demands of the Kingdom of Romania were recognized by the victorious powers in 1920. The realm's official name was in German: Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie and in Hungarian: Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia, though in the international relations better Austria-Hungary was used; the Austrians used the names k. u. k. Monarchie and Danubian Monarchy or Dual Monarchy and The Double Eagle, but none of these became widepsread neither in Hungary, nor elsewhere.
The realm's full name used in the internal administration was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen. German: Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der Heiligen Ungarischen Stephanskrone Hungarian: A Birodalmi Tanácsban képviselt királyságok és országok és a Magyar Szent Korona országai The Habsburg monarch ruled as Emperor of Austria over the western and northern half of the country, the Austrian Empire and as King of Hungary over the Kingdom of Hungary; each enjoyed considerable sovereignty with only a few joint affairs. Certain regions, such as Polish Galicia within Cisleithania and Croatia within Transleithania, enjoyed autonomous status, each with its own unique governmental structures; the division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship: one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both. This meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, never a common one.
However, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports which were written in Croatian and French and displayed the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia on them, it is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the control of both Austria and Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary after the Austrian Empire was created in 1804; the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire. Hungary's central government structures remained well separated from the Austrian imperial government; the country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary – located in Pressburg and in Pest – and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancell
Miloš Obrenović
Miloš Obrenović born Miloš Teodorović was Prince of Serbia from 1815 to 1839, again from 1858 to 1860. He participated in the First Serbian Uprising, led Serbs in the Second Serbian Uprising, founded the House of Obrenović. Under his rule, Serbia became an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire. Prince Miloš ruled autocratically. During his rule, he was one of the richest in the Balkans. Miloš Teodorović was the son of Teodor "Teša" Mihailović from Dobrinja, Višnja; this was the second marriage of his mother Višnja, from which sprung Jovan and Jevrem. From Višnja's first marriage, with Obren Martinović from Brusnica, Miloš had half-brothers Jakov and Milan, half-sister Stana. After the death of Obren, Višnja married Teodor in Dobrinja. After the death of his brother Milan, a famed revolutionary with great reputation among the people, Miloš adopted the surname Obrenović. In official documents, his name was sometimes written Miloš Teodorović Obrenović. Miloš fought in the First Serbian Uprising until its end in 1813.
His half-brother Milan took part in the Uprising, rising to become the vojvoda of the Rudnik district, until his death in 1810. After Milan's death, Miloš adopted the surname of his half-brother, Obrenović; this name was the patronymic which his half-brother derived from Obren, the first name of his own father. After the rebellion collapsed, Miloš was among the few of its leaders that remained in Serbia to face the returning Ottomans. In April 1815, Prince Miloš led the Second Serbian Uprising. After defeating the Turks, Napoleon's defeat in Russia, the Turks agreed to the terms of the agreement from 1815. After the killing of Karađorđe Petrović, in 1817, Obrenović became the leader of the Serbs; as a result of the agreement, Serbia remained under Ottoman sovereignty. Miloš Obrenović was left in power as its absolute ruler. Between the end of 1828 and the autumn of 1830, Prince Miloš created a so-called "legislative commission" to translate the Code Napoléon into Serbian and codify the laws and customs of the country.
After discussing the commission, Miloš invited two distinguished legal specialists to come from Hungary to prepare a more suitable criminal and civil code of laws for Serbia. They were Vasilije Lazarević, Bürgermeister of Zemun, Jovan Hadžić, lawyer and member of the municipal senate of Novi Sad. In January 1831, Prince Miloš informed a great national assembly that he had obtained an imperial edict from the Sultan ending all direct obligations of Serbian peasants to their former Turkish lords, guaranteeing Ottoman recognition of Serbian autonomy in most matters of internal administration, offering Serbia the prospect of territorial aggrandizement, as well as the express right to institute schools, a governmental administration of her own; the Sultan's decrees of 1830 and 1833 expanded the same rights to a larger territory, made Serbia a sovereign principality, with Miloš Obrenović as hereditary prince. A Metropolitanate of Serbia was established in Belgrade as an autonomous unit of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Russia's status as the guarantor of Serbia's autonomy was recognized. The supporters of the rule of law rebelled against Miloš's government. Following one such rebellion, he agreed to adopt a constitution, the Sretenje or Candlemas constitution, in 1835; the move was opposed by the ruling Ottoman Empire and Russia. It is believed that the three great empires saw the constitution as a danger to their own autocratic systems of government. Metternich's Austria ridiculed the fact that Serbia had its own flag and foreign ministry. Miloš abolished the constitution at the demand of Russia and Turkey, it was replaced by the "Turkish" Constitution of 1838. Miloš abdicated in 1839 in favor of his sons—Milan, who died a few weeks and Mihailo, who became prince. Mihailo was deposed in 1842, the family was out of power until 1858, when it returned with Miloš restored as prince for the last two years of his life. Miloš Obrenović was given the epithet the Great, he was proclaimed Father of the Fatherland by the National Assembly.
Austria: Order of the Iron Crown, Knight 1st Class Greece: Order of the Redeemer, Grand Cross Ottoman Empire: Nişan-ı Zişan Portrait of the Sultan with Jewels Portrait of the Sultan with Jewels Russia: Order of St. Anna with Crown, 1st Class Order of St. Anna with brilliants, 2nd Class Order of the White Eagle In 1805, Miloš married Ljubica Vukomanović; the couple had eight children. It is speculated that Ljubica had other pregnancies that resulted in miscarriages, stillbirths, or children who died shortly after birth, with some sources giving a number as high as 17 pregnancies. Prince Petar Princess Petrija Princess Savka Prince Milan Prince Mihailo Princess Marija Prince Todor Prince Gabriel Stojančević, Vladimir. "Политички погледи кнеза Милоша Обреновића". Историјски часопис. Научно дело. 9–10: 345–362. Cunibert, Barthélemy Sylvestre. Srpski ustanak i prva vladavina Miloša Obrenovića: 1804–1850. Vol. 96. Štamparija D. Dimitrijevića, 1901. Krestić, Nikola Petrović. Protokol kneza Miloša Obrenov
Princess Anka Obrenović
Princess Anka Obrenović was a member of the Serbian royal Obrenović dynasty as the niece of the dynasty's founder Miloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia. She was a society leader and writer whose translations in 1836 were the first literary works compiled by a woman to be published in Serbia, she was the inspiration for a poem by renowned Croatian poet Antun Mihanović, who had wished to marry her when she was 16 and he 41. In 1860, she established one of the first Serbian salons in her home in Belgrade, she was known as "Anka pomodarka". She was assassinated alongside her first cousin Mihailo Obrenović III, the ruler of the Principality of Serbia at the time, it was due to his marriage to Princess Anka's granddaughter Natalija Konstantinović, that Mirko, Prince of Montenegro was promised the Serbian crown. The present day pretender to the defunct throne of Montenegro is a descendant of Anka, it's via her line that the family of Obrenović continues. Princess Anka was born on 1 April 1821, the third daughter of Gospodar Jevrem Obrenović and Tomanija Bogičević, daughter of Vojvoda Antonije Bogičević.
Her father, who served as Governor of Belgrade and Regent of Serbia, was a younger brother of Serbian Prince Miloš Obrenović I. Her paternal grandparents were Teodor Mihailovica, an impoverished peasant from Montenegro, Višnja Gojković, she had four sisters, Simeona and Anastasia. She was described as having been "very beautiful intelligent, well-educated", she was evidently more modern than Prince Miloš's daughters Petrija and Savka, who still wore traditional Turkish garb. In fact, an extant painting of Anka shows her seated at her piano wearing a fashionable and elegant gown, she was one of the few people in Serbia at that time who owned and played the piano. It was Anka's modernity that earned her the sobriquet Anka pomodarka A Frenchman who met Anka commented on her good looks and considerable accomplishments, her father, Jevrem was the first man in Belgrade to introduce Western European customs and manners into his home. His love of literature was shared by Anka, who along with her siblings, received an excellent education from one of the best tutors in Serbia.
At the age of 13, Anka published a number of parables which she had painstakingly translated from the original German-a language in which she was fluent. She went on to have her writings published in a variety of periodicals, including the literary journal Danica ilirska, in which she used her pseudonym, "An Illyrian woman from Serbia". Two years in 1836, she published a compilation of her translations, the first literary work published by a woman in Serbia. Anka, still in her teens and inspired many poets, some of whom dedicated poems as well as entire volumes of poetry to her, enthusiastically comparing her to the Ancient Greek female poet, Sappho as well as the Milesian Aspasia, whose wit and conversation had drawn the greatest writers and philosophers in Athens. Croatian poet Antun Mihanović, the Austrian consul in Belgrade and a frequent visitor to her father's home, fell in love with her and sought her hand in marriage, she was 16 years old at the time and he was 41. While the proposal met with her father's approval, Anka's autocratic uncle Prince Miloš adamantly refused to give his consent to the match because Mihanović was Roman Catholic, while Anka and the royal family were Serbian Orthodox.
In 1839, Mihanović departed from Serbia. In 1840 he wrote a poem about Anka which he entitled "The Stone Maiden" and, published in 1844 in the Danica ilirska. In 1842, she married Alexander Konstantinović, son of Obrad Konstantinović and Danica Gvozdenović, by whom she had two children: Colonel Alexander Konstantinović, married Milena Opuić, by whom he had one daughter and one son, Vladimir. Katarina Konstantinovic, married firstly in 1868 General Milivoje Blaznavac, by whom she had issue. In 1860, she established one of the first Serbian salons at her home. Anka's "art gathering" as the Serbs called it, "greatly influenced the spiritual rebirth of Serbian society in the 1860s". Anka invited the most prominent artistic and intellectual women in Belgrade, as well as the wives of foreign diplomats to her celebrated salon, which featured musical performances along with readings of Serbian, French and Italian poetry. Discussions about politics and current affairs took place at the meetings. Sometime after her husband's death, Princess Anka and her daughter, Katarina were invited by her cousin Prince Mihailo to live at the royal court.
On an unknown date, Anka gave birth to an illegitimate daughter by her former brother-in-law, Jovan Ghermani, the husband of her late sister, who had died in 1837 at the age of 19. Anka bestowed her dead sister's name on her daughter; the child, Simeona would go on to marry an important Romanian minister, Alexander Lahovary, by whom she had issue. Since the death of Prince Miloš in September 1860, his only surviving son and Anka's first cousin, Prince Mihailo had ruled Serb
Peter I of Serbia
Peter I reigned as the last King of Serbia and as the first King of the Serbs and Slovenes. Since he was the king of Serbia during a period of great Serbian military success, he was remembered by Serbian people as King Peter the Liberator, known as Old King. Peter was Karađorđe's grandson and third son of Persida Nenadović and Prince Alexander Karađorđević, forced to abdicate. Peter lived with his family in exile, he fought with the French Foreign Legion in the Franco-Prussian War. He joined as volunteer under the alias Peter Mrkonjić in the Herzegovina Uprising against the Ottoman Empire, he married Princess Zorka of Montenegro, daughter of King Nicholas, in 1883. She gave birth including Prince Alexander. After the death of his father in 1885, Peter became head of the Karađorđević dynasty. After a military coup d'état and the murder of King Alexander I Obrenović in 1903, Peter became King of Serbia; as king, he advocated a constitutional setup for the country and was famous for his libertarian politics.
King Peter was the supreme commander of the Serbian army in the Balkan wars. Because of his age, on 24 June 1914, he proclaimed his son, heir-apparent to the throne, as regent. In the First World War he and his army retreated across Albania. Peter was born in Belgrade on 11 July 1844, the fifth of Prince Alexander Karađorđević and his consort Persida Nenadović's ten children, he was the grandson of Karađorđe, the leader of the First Serbian Uprising and the founder of the Karađorđević dynasty. Peter was not born in the Royal Court, undergoing renovations at the time, but at the home of merchant Miša Anastasijević, his birth was not met with much celebration because he was his parents' third son and his older brother Svetozar was the heir to the throne. His parents' oldest son, had died three years prior to Peter's birth, aged five, at which point Svetozar became heir. Peter did not become heir until Svetozar's death in 1847 at the age of six. Besides Belgrade, Peter spent much of his childhood in the town of Topola, from where the Karađorđević dynasty originated.
He received his elementary education in Belgrade. In 1858, just as the fourteen-year-old Peter was preparing to depart for Geneva to attend high school, his father was forced to abdicate the throne; the Karađorđević dynasty's rivals, the Obrenović dynasty, were reinstated, an Obrenović prince, claimed the throne. The two dynasties had been vying for power since 1817, when Karađorđe was assassinated on the orders of Miloš Obrenović, the founder of the Obrenović dynasty. Peter left Geneva for Paris in 1861 and enrolled in the Collège Sainte-Barbe, located in the heart of the city's Latin Quarter; the following year, Peter enrolled in France's most prestigious military academy. He graduated from the academy in 1864, continued living in Paris for some time thereafter. During this period, he pursued interests such as photography and painting, read works of political philosophy, learning about liberalism and democracy. In 1866, he entered the Higher Military School in Metz. Two years his Serbian-language translation of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty was published.
At the outbreak of the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War, Peter joined the French Foreign Legion under the pseudonym Petar Kara, together with relative Nikola Nikolajević. During his service, Peter held the rank of either lieutenant or second lieutenant, depending on the source, fought with the 1st Foreign Regiment, he participated in the Second Battle of Orléans on 3–4 December 1870, as well as the Battle of Villersexel on 9 January 1871. He was awarded the Legion of Honour for his conduct during the two battles, but was captured by the Prussians shortly thereafter, he returned to the front. Peter was involved in the Paris Commune in the spring of 1871, together with close friend and relative Vladimir Ljotić, though the exact nature of his involvement remains unknown. With the outbreak of the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–78, which erupted after Bosnian Serb rebels in Nevesinje staged a revolt against the Ottoman Empire, Peter returned to the Balkans and fought the Ottomans in northwestern Bosnia.
He adopted the nom de guerre of Petar Mrkonjić, upon reaching the regions of Banija and Kordun in Austria-Hungary, took control of guerilla unit of about 200 men. He received a cold welcome, he discovered that Prince Milan of Serbia was plotting to assassinate him fearing that Peter would attempt to wrest back the throne from the Obrenović dynasty. This revelation, combined with a string of battlefield defeats, compelled Peter and his followers to leave Bosnia and withdraw to Austria-Hungary, they were subsequently detained by the Austro-Hungarian Army near Glina. Peter returned to Bosnia and organized another band of rebels. Once again, his involvement in the fighting aroused suspicion in Belgrade, by May 1876, his presence proved divisive; the rebels split into three separate camps: one that supported Peter, another that supported Milan and a third that advocated Austro-Hungarian arbitration. Not wishing to cause further divisions among the rebels, Peter agreed to leave Bosnia. Prior to his departure, he wrote a letter to Milan explaining why he was leaving the battlefield and offering to make peace with the Obrenović dynasty.
Despite his attempts to make peace with Milan, accusations of treason continued to be levelled against Peter. He decided to travel to Kragujevac, the seat of the Royal Serbian Government, address the National Assembly in an attempt to c
Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Kingdom of Bulgaria referred to as the Tsardom of Bulgaria and the Third Bulgarian Tsardom, was a constitutional monarchy in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, established on 5 October 1908 when the Bulgarian state was raised from a principality to a kingdom. Ferdinand I was crowned a Tsar at the Declaration of Independence because of his military plans and for seeking options for unification of all lands in the Balkan region with an ethnic Bulgarian majority; the state was constantly at war throughout its existence, lending to its nickname as "the Balkan Prussia". For several years Bulgaria mobilized an army of more than 1 million people from its population of about 5 million and in the 1910s it engaged in three wars – the First and Second Balkan Wars, the First World War. Following the First World War, the Bulgarian army was disbanded and forbidden to exist by the Allied Powers, all plans for national unification of the Bulgarian lands failed. Less than two decades Bulgaria once again went to war for national unification as part of the Second World War, once again found itself on the losing side, until it switched sides to the Allies in 1944.
In 1946, the monarchy was abolished, its final Tsar was sent into exile and the Kingdom was replaced by the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Despite the establishment of the Principality of Bulgaria in 1878, the subsequent Bulgarian control over Eastern Rumelia after 1885, there was still a substantial Bulgarian population in the Balkans living under Ottoman rule in Macedonia. To complicate matters and Greece too made claims over parts of Macedonia, while Serbia, as a Slavic nation considered Macedonian Slavs as belonging to the Serbian nation, thus began a three-sided struggle for control of these areas which lasted until World War I. In 1903, there was a Bulgarian insurrection in Ottoman Macedonia and war seemed likely. In 1908, Ferdinand used the struggles among the Great Powers to declare Bulgaria an independent kingdom with himself as Tsar, he did this on 5 October in the St Forty Martyrs Church in Veliko Tarnovo. In 1911, the Nationalist Prime Minister Ivan Geshov set about forming an alliance with Greece and Serbia, the three allies agreed to put aside their rivalries to plan a joint attack on the Ottomans.
In February 1912 a secret treaty was signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, in May 1912 a similar treaty was signed with Greece. Montenegro was brought into the pact; the treaties provided for the partition of Macedonia and Thrace between the allies, although the lines of partition were left dangerously vague. After the Ottomans refused to implement reforms in the disputed areas, the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912; the allies had an astonishing success. The Bulgarian army inflicted several crushing defeats on the Ottoman forces and advanced threateningly against Constantinople, while the Serbs and the Greeks took control of Macedonia; the Ottomans sued for peace in December. Negotiations broke down, fighting resumed in February 1913; the Ottomans lost Adrianople to a Bulgarian task force. A second armistice followed in March, with the Ottomans losing all their European possessions west of the Midia-Enos line, not far from Istanbul. Bulgaria gained possession of most of Thrace, including the Aegean port of Dedeagach.
Bulgaria gained a slice of Macedonia and east of Thessaloniki, but only some small areas along her western borders. Bulgaria sustained the heaviest casualties of any of the allies, on this basis felt entitled to the largest share of the spoils; the Serbs in particular did not see things this way, refused to vacate any of the territory they had seized in northern Macedonia, stating that the Bulgarian army had failed to accomplish its pre-war goals at Adrianople and that the pre-war agreements on the division of Macedonia had to be revised. Some circles in Bulgaria inclined toward going to war with Greece on this issue. In June 1913 Serbia and Greece formed a new alliance, against Bulgaria; the Serbian Prime Minister, Nikola Pasic, told Greece it could have Thrace if Greece helped Serbia keep Bulgaria out of Serbian part of Macedonia, the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos agreed. Seeing this as a violation of the pre-war agreements, discreetly encouraged by Germany and Austria–Hungary, Tsar Ferdinand declared war on Serbia and Greece and the Bulgarian army attacked on June 29.
The Serbian and the Greek forces were on the retreat on the western border, but they soon took the upper hand and forced Bulgaria into retreat. The fighting was harsh, with many casualties during the key Battle of Bregalnica. Soon Romania attacked Bulgaria from the north; the Ottoman Empire attacked from the south-east. The war was now lost for Bulgaria, which had to abandon most of her claims of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, while the revived Ottomans retook Adrianople. Romania took possession of southern Dobruja. In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them; the government of Vasil Radoslavov aligned Bulgaria with Germany and Austria–Hungary though this meant becoming an ally of the Ottomans, Bulgaria's traditional enem
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire known as Imperial Russia or Russia, was an empire that existed across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917. The third largest empire in world history, at its greatest extent stretching over three continents, Europe and North America, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires; the rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Golden Horde, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south; the House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov ruled from 1762. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean, into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east.
With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics and religion. There were numerous dissident elements. Economically, the empire had a predominantly agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs, Russian peasants; the economy industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways and factories. The land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that emerged, he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, laid the foundations of the Russian state. Emperor Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an huge empire into a major European power, he moved the capital from Moscow to the new model city of St. Petersburg, led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political mores with a modern, Europe-oriented, rationalist system.
Empress Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. Emperor Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861, his policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. That connection by 1914 led to Russia's entry into the First World War on the side of France, the United Kingdom, Serbia, against the German and Ottoman empires; the Russian Empire functioned as an absolute monarchy on principles of Orthodoxy and Nationality until the Revolution of 1905 and became a de jure constitutional monarchy. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917 as a result of massive failures in its participation in the First World War. Though the Empire was only proclaimed by Tsar Peter I following the Treaty of Nystad, some historians would argue that it was born either when Ivan III of Russia conquered Veliky Novgorod in 1478, or when Ivan the Terrible conquered the Khanate of Kazan in 1552. According to another point of view, the term Tsardom, used after the coronation of Ivan IV in 1547, was a contemporary Russian word for empire.
Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonization of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War that incorporated left-bank Ukraine, the Russian conquest of Siberia. Poland was divided in the 1790 -- 1815 era, with much of the population going to Russia. Most of the 19th-century growth came from adding territory in Asia, south of Siberia. Peter I the Great played a major role in introducing Russia to the European state system. While the vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns; the class of kholops, close in status to slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation. Russian agricultural kholops were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. Peter's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks.
His attention turned to the North. Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangel on the White Sea, where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Sweden. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him to make a secret alliance in 1699 with Saxony, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark against Sweden, resulting in the Great Northern War; the war ended in 1721. Peter acquired four provinces situated east of the Gulf of Finland; the coveted access to the sea was now secured. There he built Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, to replace Moscow, which had long been Russia's cultural center. In 1722, he tur
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