ABSTRACT
A long decade of death and disruption began with the First Balkan War in 1912, continued through the First World War and ended with the Greek defeat and forced evacuation from Anatolia in 1922. They left more than one and a half million deaths, military and civilian, and still more survivors forced to migrate. After the wars, occupations, and peace settlements, five independent states replaced the prewar Balkan states and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian borderlands that had surrounded them. Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and a Yugoslav Kingdom also incorporating Montenegro entered the 1920s under regimes whose aspirations put them in the broader context of interwar Europe’s struggles with modernity and democracy. The region’s designation as Southeastern Europe, not the separate Balkans, began at this time.
