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Recent addition - death figure

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A recent addition was added, citing an article claiming that 100,000 Albanian civilians were killed by Serbian and Montenegrin forces during the Balkan Wars. The article cites two figures, one from Leo Freundlich estimating the death toll at 25,000 and a figure from Pierre Loti, estimating a death toll of 75,000. The author of the article then claims that they derived the figure of 100,000 by adding the two estimates together. The authors interpretation is flawed as one can't derive a total figure by adding two estimates together. For clarity, the text in the article is written as such: En fin de compte, Freundlich estime à 25 000 Albanais tués dans la région du Kosovo146 ! Un rapport d'un docteur de la Croix Rouge affirme que partout en Albanie il y a des massacres sans pitié où les femmes, les enfants et les vieux ne sont pas épargnés et où des villages brûlent tous les jours147. Quant à Pierre Loti, il estime à 70 000 musulmans massacrés148. En reprenant ces deux estimations, nous sommes déjà à 100 000 personnes tuées, hors combats. I have thus removed the text as it is evidently flawed. I have suggested a discussion on the Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars page which will hopefully result in a true figure being determined. ElderZamzam (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's flawed, I'm pretty sure I just misinterpreted the source. Yung Doohickey (talk) 04:09, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are two serious issues here:


1. The figures aren't backed by wp:RS
2. Those are figures that concern -as stated- the 'Balkan Wars', not representative for the 'First Balkan War' and as such have not place here.Alexikoua (talk) 05:36, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Biased word selections in some sentences

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"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." Imao, those sentences do not sound quite encyclopaedic rather literary. 128.106.103.76 (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Civilian casualties etc.

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The text below has been removed from First Balkan War, but needs to be incorporated to this article since it concerns figures of both 1st&2nd Balkan War time period:

According to contemporary accounts, around 20,000 and 25,000 Albanians in the Kosovo Vilayet were killed or died from hunger and cold by 1913.[1][2][3][4] Is estimated that up to around 100,000 Albanians were killed or died in Albania throughout the war.[5] Additionally, it is estimated that up to or more than 120,000 Albanians were killed either in Kosovo and Macedonia or in all regions occupied by the Serbian army.[6][7][8][9] According to documents from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 281,747 Albanians above the age of six were expelled from Old Serbia from 1912 to 1914.[10] However, the expulsion figures are disputed and scholarly estimates can range from 60,000–300,000 from 1912–13 to almost 300,000 by late 1914.[11][12][13]

Alexikoua (talk) 03:27, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate it, I’ll work on this as soon as I have some time SamuelLion1877 (talk) 02:50, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I stand corrected before, I wasn’t aware that the 120,000 (as opposed to 100,000) concerns 1912-14 and not just the first Balkan war SamuelLion1877 (talk) 02:51, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Consider that information of the the 1912-1914 period is more suited here compared to 1st BW. Alexikoua (talk) 21:30, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to put all that information here and it was quickly reverted by user Khiurig SamuelLion1877 (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I think about it, the opening to the atrocities section states “the heavy and rapid defeat of the Ottoman army prevented the safe evacuation of muslim civilians, making them a clear target for the invading armies of the Balkan League”, I think this alone clearly implies that the vast majority/almost all of the Ottoman muslim civilian deaths took place during the first Balkan war, or at least duirng the first war and interregnum between the First and second Balkan war SamuelLion1877 (talk) 00:36, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can't have the same information here and at First Balkan War, that is WP:CFORK. I do agree with you that it seems most of the Ottoman civilian deaths took part in the First Balkan War. The Second Balkan War did not involve the Ottomans as much. Khirurg (talk) 00:52, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then we agree, I say the best course of action is to simply leave the articles as they are now, with the atrocities section being on the First Balkan War as it always was before a few days ago SamuelLion1877 (talk) 01:19, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Someone will have to explain me how a section about the atrocities committed during the Balkan Wars shouldn't be mentioned in the article about the Balkan Wars. Pretty delusional, but it becomes clear that the users who are desperately trying to censor this information just don't like its content. The respective articles go deeper into detail about these events, there's no fork here whatsoever. Nishjan (talk) 11:54, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of making ridiculous accusations about "censoring", you would do well to read WP:CFORK, because that is what you are doing. The same material cannot be copy pasted across multiple articles. You should also read WP:STALK and WP:HOUND while you're at it. Khirurg (talk) 16:49, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It’s so funny that now you’ve (once again) switcherooed back to “no we can’t have them here in this article because it’s a fork!” from saying that the multiple sources that were given were somehow not valid, even though the article was doing well and left unharassed for weeks on end. I don’t know why you reported me again, no rules were broken whatsoever, nor do I have any malicious intent to speak of SamuelLion1877 (talk) 04:43, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Albanian soldiers in FBW

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Albanians who fought against the allies of the Balkan Wars in the First Balkan War were conscripts and volunteers of the Ottoman army as Ottoman citizens. It is a mistake to include them separately from the rest of the Ottoman army and it is a bigger mistake to add the Albanian flag to represent them. The Albanian flag was used to declare independence from the Ottoman Empire, it was never used in any context in the Ottoman army.--Maleschreiber (talk) 16:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it a mistake to add any information about Albanian volunteers for this conflict, yet perfectly alright to leave information about Circassian volunteers who were in the exact same situation as Albanians at the time, subjects of the Ottoman Empire without an independent state? A precedent was set with adding copious amounts of information in the infobox on the Battle of Kosovo page so I do not see why information on Albanian volunteers shouldn't be added into this infobox. For other conflicts involving Albanians pre-independence i.e. Greco-Turkish War (1897), an Albanian flag was used in the infobox. If the issue is solely the flag then I don't see why that just can't be removed. The content is well sourced. ElderZamzam (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we're going to add Albanians, then we should basically add them as a third party as well, fighting against both other sides (though that would be very impractical because it would throw the entire article off balance and shift attention away from its core topic). There were generally two "groups" of Albanians participating in the Balkan Wars, those that were fighting on their own, for their own territory, and those that were serving in the Ottoman ranks (who, as pointed out by Maleschreiber, should not be separated from the rest of the Ottoman army). Let's not forget that just a month before the First Balkan War the Albanians had defeated the Ottomans in an uprising of their own that demanded political separation from the Ottoman Empire. To say that they were then fighting on the side of the Ottomans just a month after that revolt is major historical revisionism and completely ignores the factual contemporary situation on the ground. Even the sources that are being used to back the inclusion of Albanians in the infobox clearly say that Albanians were not fighting "for a continuation of Turkish rule". Just because they happened to have the same enemy at the time does not warrant putting them in the infobox as fighting on the Ottoman side. You can put Albanians in articles such as Battle of Lumë, but those battles were not at all fought on behalf of the Ottomans, nor under Ottoman command. They were direct battles between Albanian irregulars fighting for their own territory and invading armies. The fact that those armies were fighting against the Ottomans at the same time does not by automation mean that Albanians were fighting on behalf of the Ottomans. The agenda being pushed here is clear, but misciting 3 sources to make a cheap point is definitely not something that belongs on Wikipedia. Uniacademic (talk) 23:53, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a major difference between the Circassians and the Albanians in this case - the Albanians quite literally declared independence from the Ottoman Empire on the 28th of November, 1912. The only cooperation between Albanian and Ottoman forces I can think of during this war was the Siege of Shkodër, but with that being said, that began prior to the Declaration of Independence, when Albanians were still technically citizens of the Ottoman Empire; post-independence, the Ottoman forces and any Albanians defending the city were all trapped within the walls as a result of the siege. Furthermore, some Albanian tribes actually aided the Serbo-Montenegrin side during the siege, having been naively persuaded to support them, so are we now supposed to list Albanian volunteers and irregulars on both sides of the Belligerents section?
I think everyone is forgetting that the Albanians were engaged in constant conflict with the Ottomans for years on end prior to this war. Once they had finally rid themselves of the Ottomans, they were attacked by all of their neighbours. Just because the Slav-Greek coalition was fighting both Albanians (mainly civilians) and Ottomans at the same time does not mean that the Ottomans and Albanians were allied; in fact, their relations at the time were quite the opposite. Many Albanian irregulars and freedom fighters were still targeting Ottoman troops and military instalments/fortifications prior to and during the first month of the onset of the Balkan Wars. Botushali (talk) 23:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Albanian armed groups though not under a separate banner provided a valuable force in the Ottoman armies. Several leading Ottoman generals were Albanians. This however can't be reflected in infobox since all those Albanians fought as part of the Ottoman Empire.Alexikoua (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Valid points. I agree that adding a third party would turn the infobox into a mess so I agree to leave it as is given the consensus reached. ElderZamzam (talk) 11:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Leo Freundlich: Albania's Golgotha Archived 31 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Hudson, Kimberly A. (5 March 2009). Justice, Intervention, and Force in International Relations: Reassessing Just War Theory in the 21st Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 128. ISBN 9780203879351.
  3. ^ Judah, Tim (2002). Kosovo: War and Revenge. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-30009-725-2.
  4. ^ Archbishop Lazër Mjeda: Report on the Serb Invasion of Kosova and Macedonia Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ McCarthy, Justin. "1912–1913 Balkan Wars Death and Forced Exile of Ottoman Muslims" (PDF). tc-america.org. not including an estimated 100,000 dead in Albania
  6. ^ "dokument 5". 2013-12-25. Archived from the original on 25 December 2013. Retrieved 2023-03-23.
  7. ^ Rifati, Fitim. Kryengritjet shqiptare në Kosovë si alternativë çlirimi nga sundimi serbo-malazez (1913-1914) (PDF). Journal of Balkan Studies. p. 84. According to Serbian Social Democrat politician Kosta Novakovic, from October 1912 to the end of 1913, the Serbo-Montenegrin regime exterminated more than 120,000 Albanians of all ages, and forcibly expelled more than 50,000 Albanians to the Ottoman Empire and Albania.
  8. ^ Alpion, Gëzim (30 December 2021). Mother Teresa: The Saint and Her Nation. Bloomsbury. p. 11. ISBN 9789389812466. During the Balkan wars, in total '120,000 Albanians were exterminated', hundreds of villages' were shelled by artillery and 'a large number of them were burned down' across Kosova and Macedonia. The figures do not include people killed in present-day Albania and the devastated houses, villages and towns that Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers left behind when they were eventually forced to retreat.'
  9. ^ Geshov, Ivan Evstratiev (1919). La genèse de la guerre mondiale: la débâcle de l'alliance balkanique (in French) (as for example that of the Serbian deputy Triša Kaclerovićh, who, in an article published in 1917 by the International Bulletin, affirms that in 1912-1913 120,000 Albanians were massacred by the Serbian army ed.). P. Haupt. p. 64. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
  10. ^ "SERBIAN OCCUPYING WARS AND OTHER MEASURES FOR EXPULSION OF ALBANIANS (1912-1941)". The Institute of History, Prishtina. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012.
  11. ^ Štěpánek, Václav (2010). Problem of colonization of Kosovo and Metohija in 1918–1945 (PDF). p. 88.
  12. ^ Alpion, Gëzim (30 December 2021). Mother Teresa: The Saint and Her Nation. Bloomsbury. p. 11. ISBN 9789389812466.
  13. ^ Qirezi, Arben (2017). "Settling the self-determination dispute in Kosovo". In Mehmeti, Leandrit I.; Radeljić, Branislav (eds.). Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 9780822981572.
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