The word Balkan is Turkish for "mountains", so it's probably not surprising that the aptly-named peninsula is covered in mountain ranges. These include:.
These mountains play a big role in the region's climate. In the north, the weather is similar to that of central Europe, with warm summers and cold winters. In the south and along coastlines, the climate is more Mediterranean with hot, dry summers and rainy winters. Within the many mountain ranges of the Balkans are rivers large and small. These blue rivers are commonly noted for their beauty but they are also full of life and home to an impressive variety of freshwater animals.
The two major rivers in the Balkans are the Danube and Sava. There is a regional term often used when talking about the Balkan Peninsula and this is the Western Balkans. The name "Western Balkans" describes the countries on the western edge of the region, along the Adriatic coast.
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Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. As a result, Greece and Serbia in ; In Wallachia and Bogdan Principals became independent in and Bulgaria became independent in The Balkan Peninsula, one of the five major peninsulas of Europe, has important features with its geostrategic position extending to Central Europe and the Mediterranean.
Aside from ancient times, the central position of the Balkan Peninsula and the Ottoman Empire in the time of the Ottomans, which had a great place in the history of the Balkans, brought this critical geographical region to a region where the interests of England, Russia, Habsburg Empire, France, numerous interventions, rebellions and wars. The main reason for the conflict is the accelerated growing activities of the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbia in the Balkans.
Bulgaria, which did not find what it hoped for in the Treaty of Berlin in , began to pursue an effective policy in the Balkans after gaining its independence in In , Russia began to mediate and regulate between Bulgaria and Serbia to ensure that the interests of these two states would not conflict.
The treaty of Russia with the Balkan States Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, who wanted to put an end to the existence of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, agreed to intervene between Russia and Ottoman and to remove the Turks from the Balkans. Battle of Tripoli also encouraged them.
Albania has also gained its independence. The Bulgarian army began to threaten Istanbul, moving up to Catalca. The armies of Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece have completely occupied Macedonia. Also, seeing other Balkan countries as a threat to itself, Albania has declared its independence.
Moreover, the agreement, which ended the war between the parties, was signed in London in May According to the Treaty of London: Albania won its independence. Greece took Crete Island. Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria, which do not agree to take more territory of Bulgaria, and the Kingdom of Romania, which did not participate in the First Balkan War, united and fought against Bulgaria.
Moreover, the Ottoman Army, taking advantage of the fact that the Bulgarians were overthrown and shifted the Eastern Thrace troops to the west, crossed the Mireya-Enez line and took Edirne and Kirklareli back. Bulgaria with this treaty; gave Dobruja to Romania, Kavala to Greece and a small piece of land from Macedonia. Following this agreement, the Ottoman Empire again built the Treaty of Istanbul in Western Thrace and Alexandroupoli stayed in Bulgaria.
Also, Crete and the Aegean Islands joined into Greece lands. This agreement also regulated the situation of the Turks who remained in Greece. Serbia and Montenegro did not sign a treaty because they did not have a border with the Ottoman Empire. There is no provision in these agreements concerning the Aegean Islands, which had been invaded by Italy and Greece and legally Ottoman land.
Furthermore, the conference took the decision to leave the island of Italy occupied by Italy except for Kastellorizo in February , the island which Greece occupied by Greece except for Imroz and Tenedos. The indisputable reality of the Balkans is that none of its peoples has been an altogether innocent victim of vicious neighbors.
Except possibly the Roma. All were complicit at one time or another in killing, rape, plunder and burning. And this was true in the first and second Balkan war, true in both World Wars and true in all of the Yugoslav civil wars of the s.
Yes, more than , Croats were displaced during combat with Serbs in But more than , Croatian Serbs became refugees as a result of the American-fostered Croatian offensives of in the Krajina region.
Yes, more than one million Bosnian Muslims were driven from their homes by Serb and Croat offensives. Few have been able to return. But , Bosnian Serbs and tens of thousands of Bosnian Croats were also forced into exile by the Muslims. Yes, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo in the spring of But it also reported that , Serbs and Montenegrins fled Kosovo in the same period, this constituting about 60 percent of the total. Proportionately, more Serbs were displaced during the bombing, and they -- unlike the Albanians whose majority returned despite rampant destruction of their homes -- did not return to Kosovo.
A new exodus then commenced, as the unleashed fury of the Albanians wreaked hideous vengeance on Serbs, Roma and even ethnic Turks -- shooting, knifing, strangling, grenading, shelling, burning -- killing more than 1, people. Against this background of intimidation and threat it is estimated that , non-Albanians have fled Kosovo since the NATO bombing ceased.
I am persuaded that much of this could have been avoided. Retracing NATO's steps in June, the inundation of arms in Kosovo could have been largely prevented rather early by sealing Kosovo's borders to Albania and Macedonia and then filtering the Albanian returnees to make sure the KLA was not bringing weapons back to the region. Attacks on Serbs and others have not diminished since then while Kosovo's Albanian remain armed to teeth. Incidentally, it was reported in February that some , people have moved since the summer from Albania to Kosovo, which despite the destruction caused by Serbs and NATO bombing is still better off than the ancestral lands to the south.
Going back to the days before the bombing, I believe that if the United States and its allies had taken a calmer view of the situation, much death and destruction could have been avoided. Possibly even the seemingly endless cycle of ethnic revenge could have been halted. A year ago after a difficult start, the American-inspired Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission KDOM numbering more than 1, personnel was beginning to get traction, separating the Serbian military and police forces from the Kosovo Liberation Army and enabling thousands of displaced Albanians to return to their homes.
In its hubris, however, the Clinton Administration sought more dramatic results -- amounting to abject submission of the Serbs to NATO rule. This was the message of Rambouillet. Had the observer mission been allowed to continue, I think Kosovo would have been a much gentler, happier place today.
Perhaps someday we will discover whether the White House chose, as some suspect, a Kosovo scenario as a deliberate shift of focus away from the domestic turmoil caused by the impeachment.
Perhaps we will learn how much importance the Kosovo operations, and Bosnia before it, had in Administration plans to turn NATO into an instrument of American foreign policy, and to assert American primacy in Europe. Nearly the entire Balkan area was under the rule of the Roman Empire in the 1st to 5th centuries, under the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire in the 5th to 6th c.
However, a strong historical footprint in the medieval period 7th through 17th centuries was left by the medieval Frankish and Bulgarian Empires, Serbian kingdom an Empire between and , Croatian and Hungarian kingdoms, Venetian, Genoese and Ragusan Dubrovnik republics, the crusader states including the Latin Empire, the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldova and the Mongol Golden Horde.
All this makes Southeastern Europe a unique showroom of Europe's history and geography. Achilles — a Greek hero from the Trojan War. Orpheus — legendary Thracian musician, poet, prophet and king. Ancient Greek philosophers Socrates , Aristotle and Plato.
Spartacus — Roman gladiator of Thracian origin, who led the major slave uprising against Rome. Emperor Simeon of Bulgaria — the first Tsar.
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