Making the Balkan League with(out) European powers

Stojić, Biljana (2024) Making the Balkan League with(out) European powers. In: The Balkan Wars Ottoman Perspectives. South-East European History (6). Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA, pp. 27-40. ISBN ISBN 9781433196638 (hardback)

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Abstract

On October 15, the Sublime Porte ordered its ambassadors to leave Belgrade, Sofia, and Athens. Turkish diplomats left the Balkan capitals on October 17. On the same day, Gabriyel Noradunkyan Effendi, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, ordered the Serbian, Greek, and Bulgarian ambassadors to İstanbul to leave. Some respected contemporaries questioned Noradunkyan's decision to withdraw the Turkish diplomats and reject the ultimatum presented by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece out of hand. Dr. Cemil Topuzlu, the mayor of İstanbul in 1912, provides one example. In his memoirs, Hrant Noradounghian, the cousin of Gabriyel Effendi, a secretary in the Ottoman Embassy in Belgrade, defended his famous cousin's decision, arguing that if the Porte acknowledged Macedonian autonomy it would have been defeated without firing a single bullet. On the other hand, Hrant placed the guilt on the army and the officers, pointing out in his remark that the Turks could have turned the war's outcome to their advantage if they had Mustafa Kemal Atatürk or İsmet İnönü leading them through the Balkan Wars

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