The peace agreement signed by the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan Alliance representatives in London was not yet dry. At the end of June 1913, the Second Balkan War broke out. It is sad that only more than a month later, the allies and partners in the previous war turned around without hesitation to attack each other. The truth that national interests surpassed everything was once again verified by reality.

With the support and instigation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the biggest winner of the First Balkan War, with military strength ahead of other Balkan countries, Bulgaria. Because of the irreconcilable contradictions with Serbia on the issue of the division of Macedonian rule, he adopted a strategy of starting the first move, and declared war on Serbia and Greece, which supported Serbia on this issue, and launched a military attack on Serbia and Greek troops in Macedonia on the day of the declaration of war.

In the long and dark history of the 14th and 19th centuries, the Bulgarians were oppressed and bullied by the Ottoman rulers. After gaining autonomy in 1878, their destiny was still at the mercy of the Ottoman Empire and the powerful countries. It was not until 1908 that Bulgaria truly broke away from the rule of the Ottoman Empire and declared independence. This southern European country dominated by mountains and hills was dominated by agriculture and its national strength was relatively poor. It was founded in the third Bulgarian Kingdom of the "Bulgarian Tsar", the "Bulgarian Tsar", the founding of the country.

Under the rule of the monarch Ferdinand I, economic production improved, and in military and diplomacy, it abandoned Tsarist Russia and moved closer to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the financial support of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire, the scale of the Bulgarian army was expanded, and personnel training and weapons and equipment were also moving towards a modernization level. In the First Balkan War, this army was unstoppable in fighting with the Ottoman army, and was therefore hailed by the outside world as "Prussia in Southern Europe" and "the first military power in the Balkans."

The Bulgarian army performed well, and the Serbs were not vague. They also endured hundreds of years of harsh rule by the Ottoman Empire. They only gained autonomy before the 19th century and declared independence after the Russian-Turkish War. The Serbs were a branch of the Slavic nationality and were relatively close to Tsarist Russia in military and political terms. Although the economic conditions of such a country with rivers and mountains were not satisfactory, their strong folk customs provided the army with a large number of warlike soldiers, and they also had a resourceful and firm military commander like Putnik. With his efforts, the training and equipment conditions of the Serbian army were in the 20th century.

The first 10 years of the first 10 years have achieved significant improvement. When the Bulgarians tried to defeat the main force of the Serbian army with a sudden attack, Putnik calmly organized the Serbian army to defend, and quickly curbed the joint offensive of the three Bulgarian armies. The Greek army also used the terrain advantages to defend the front. A few days later, the Serbian army took the lead in sounding the horn of counterattack, and the Greek army, which received reinforcements, also decisively entered the counterattack. The two sides launched an unprecedented fierce battle in the Macedonian region. In some major areas, the fierceness of the battle was even greater than that of the fortress offensive and defensive war during the First Balkan War.

Faced with the tenacious offensive of Serbian and Greek troops, the Bulgarian army was forced to retreat. At this time, the Romanians took advantage of the situation to rob the territory from the Ottoman Empire because they did not participate in the First Balkan War. They failed to plunder territory from the Ottoman Empire, so they sought Dobrokar from Bulgaria on the pretext of national settlement, but were rejected by Bulgaria. Taking advantage of the Bulgarian army being confined to the Macedonian front, Romania declared war on Bulgaria and did not meet.

Under the resistance, he went deep into the territory, and the morale of the Bulgarian army, which was attacked from both sides, was in chaos. Immediately afterwards, the Ottoman Empire also tore up the London Treaty to launch an attack on Bulgaria. At this time, Enville had served as the Ottoman Army Minister and Chief of General Staff, and was awarded the rank of Pasha (General). With the help of German general von Sanders, Enville led his army to regain the ancient capital Adria Fort, thus winning the reputation of a national hero in the country.

With the army completely defeated, Bulgaria declared surrender and signed the Bucharest Peace Treaty with the Balkan countries. According to the terms of the contract, Bulgaria not only lost most of the territory it had recovered in the previous war, but also lost the southern part of Dobrokar; the Constantinople Peace Treaty signed at the same time forced Bulgaria to return Edirne to the Ottoman Empire. The result of the Second Balkan War was the reorganization of the Balkan Peninsula: Romania left the alliance camp and approached the Allies, while Bulgaria cast its German-Austrian alliance, and the Balkans became a chessboard for the game between the great powers.

In the two Balkan wars, Serbia became the biggest beneficiary, and its territory almost doubled. However, the rise of a Slavic country made the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had always been hostile to Tsarist Russia, feel uncomfortable. Austrian Emperor Joseph and his aides and important officials decided to curb Serbia's continued growth, and did not hesitate to take the initiative, which also laid the most direct hidden danger for the future war.

The short-lived Second Balkan War ended, and Europe seemed to be able to sit down and enjoy peace with peace. However, both the rulers holding military power and the staff officers who were devoted to studying military tactics saw the shortcomings of existing military power from the two Balkan wars, and both the size of the army and the equipment technology were lagging behind the development of the war situation. Therefore, the powerful countries all increased their military investment:

With the approval of the parliament, the German army expanded the scale of the standing army to 812,000 people, and it also had a reserve force with a scale of 4.5 million and good quality (adhering to the Prussian tradition, all young people with healthy physiques in the Second German Empire had to serve two to three military service. In the first five and a half years after retirement, they were incorporated into the regular reserve army, namely the first reserve army, and then converted into the wartime reserve army, namely the second reserve army, for twelve years, and then transferred to the wartime militia, namely the third reserve army, until they were 45 years old, but they may still be recruited during wartime to perform auxiliary tasks in the rear). Krupp is the most outstanding arsenal in the whole of Europe, and it was promoted by the German team.

A large number of modern light and heavy artillery were supplied, and each German was equipped with an average of thirty-six 105mm howitzers and sixteen 150mm howitzers, with firepower far exceeding that of the French and Russian field troops. In terms of light weapons, the equipment status of the German team was also the most ideal among the great powers. They fully equipped the solid, accurate and durable Mauser G1898. Moreover, the German General Staff knew the strategic value of the Maxim machine gun. The German Maxim, namely the mg08 water-cooled machine gun, began to be equipped with a large number of German teams in 1908. By 1913, the German team had 4,000 mg08, more than twice the number of French team machine guns at the same time.

The French army's active troops were closely following the old enemy Germany, reaching 777,000 people, and could mobilize reserve forces during wartime. Their biggest strategic advantage was actually the carefully designed defensive fortress system (after the French-Prussian War, the newly unified Germany annexed part of Salsas and Lorraine, including the fortress city of Metz, making western France easy to attack and difficult to defend. In order to make up for geographical losses, French engineers built a series of fortresses along the 150-mile French-German border, and the southeast began with the indestructible barrier of Switzerland's Alps, with a solid mix.

The concrete fortress stretched out from Belfort, Erbinar, Tur and Verdun, and designed a wide gap between Erbinar and Tur as a huge trap for preparation for the enemy's entry, and then annihilated with crossfire fire from a well-covered concrete box bunker). However, within the French army, more and more young officers began to question the fixed defense strategy that dominated the staff, and this new school of offensive found Colonel Loiszo de Grammeson as their spokesperson, whose views were exacerbated in 1912.

General Joseph Xiafei, the chief of staff, made the French team start to shift from defense theory to offensive theory. In terms of field equipment, the French army had far fewer heavy artillery than the German team, but they equipped a field artillery with excellent performance, namely the 1897 type 75mm rapid-fire gun. When supporting infantry attacks or suppressing opposing infantry, one such artillery almost exceeded two German 77mm field artillery. However, the French staff regarded artillery as a secondary supplement to infantry. They believed that collective spirit would be more able to compensate for technical shortcomings, so they ignored the use of artillery for a long time.

In terms of equipment, the Hachcas air-cooled machine gun equipped by the French army is not inferior to the German mg08 in terms of performance and practicality, but the number of equipment is relatively small. The infantry stationed in France is still using the Leber M1886 rifle. It is famous as the world's first rifle that uses smokeless gunpowder. The design of its tubular ammunition cabin is out of date. The French cavalry and colonial army have been equipped with more advanced Berchtie/Colonian rifles, but they all use 3 round ammunition cabins, and their shooting speed is not as fast as that of the German Mauser G1898 and the British Enfield.

After the devastating defeat of the Russo-Japanese War, the Tsarist Russian army began a painful and long reconstruction. After nearly ten years of rest and recuperation, the size of the Russian active troops reached an astonishing 1.2 million, and nearly 6 million reserve troops could be recruited at any time. With the assistance of France, the construction of the western railway network was accelerated to improve the efficiency of the Russian army to dispatch troops from the hinterland to the Polish front line. However, due to the failure of the government and the army's state, the training and equipment of the army were still very bad, with pitiful few machine guns and cannons, and the ammunition reserves were seriously insufficient. The officer team was filled with nobles and rich people, whose war knowledge was still limited to the use of sabers and swords, while most of the soldiers were illiterate from peasants, with courage but lacked combat qualities.

Despite having Europe's leading arsenal, a complete military system and well-organized heavy artillery troops, the military condition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not much better than its number one enemy. The complex national structure and ******* were its most fatal problems. Since few people could master more than 20 languages ​​at the same time, many grassroots officers could not let every soldier understand his words, and the soldiers of different ethnic groups lacked a sense of identity, so only the most elite royal troops and some local defense forces had sufficient stability and centripetal force. Without mobilization, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had 450,000 Imperial Wehrmacht and local defense forces, and the total mobilization could expand the army to 3.35 million. Infantry and cavalry were mainly equipped with the Steyr-Chalimann m1895 series rifles produced by their own country, and were equipped with Schwarzlose machine guns and Skoda machine guns with good performance.

The army competition has just begun, and the naval competition has been in full swing. The two protagonists who stirred up the world's naval structure, Britain and Germany, continue to compete in quantity and quality. Just half a year later, the two countries have successively started to build new levels, Queen Elizabeth-class and Bavarian-class, which are also regarded as the core of the fleet.

With its existing technological and resource advantages, the British Navy ambitiously customized five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. They are equipped with unprecedented 15-inch naval guns, have a majestic long forecastle, and have strong power due to the use of a fully oil-fueled boiler. They have comprehensive performance better than any British warship that has been in service or under construction. The first ship was built at the Portsmouth Shipyard in southern England at the end of 1912.

After obtaining the information that the British Navy had started to build a new ship, German Emperor William II personally issued an order to the Krupp factory, requiring them to accelerate the development of 15-inch naval guns to equip Germany's new battleships.

Developing a new artillery was a difficult and time-consuming precision work. The British took more than a year to complete the leap from 13.5 inches to 15 inches. In order to catch up with the construction progress of the new ship, the main gun was trial production and manufacturing at the same time, winning the adventure. The technicians and naval officials all sighed "God Blessing". Based on this standard, the Germans obviously received double the "God Blessing". The German Emperor's order made them decisively give up the development of the 13.5-inch naval gun and directly leap from 12 inches to 15 inches. In a shorter time than the British, Krupp's engineers handed over a perfect answer: assembled the 15-inch naval gun barrel of the Bavarian-class to reach 45 times the diameter, and the theoretical range and power are stronger than the same caliber naval gun with a diameter of 42 times the diameter of the British warship!

During the same period, the main gun caliber and number of German warships of the same class were equivalent to those of British warships, which was the first time in the British-German naval competition. In terms of defense, although the Queen Elizabeth class has been greatly enhanced compared with the previous British battleships, it still feels ashamed in front of the Bavarian class of Germany. The main armor belt of the waterline (largest), turret (front) and commander tower, all German new battleships reached 14 inches, while the new British warships were only 13 inches, 13 inches and 11 inches; in terms of power, Germany

Although the new battleship follows the consistent configuration of the oil-fired boiler for battleships and coal-fired boiler for battleships, thanks to the superior performance of Hubert impulse turbines, the maximum speed of this class of warships can reach 24 knots, slightly inferior to that of the British opponents, but because it is designed and equipped with a large diesel unit for cruise, the endurance of the Bavarian-class is stronger than that of the Queen Elizabeth class. In addition, the Bavarian-class battleship also designed a sturdy tripod mast and an integrated shooting command system is equipped on the mast floor, thus ensuring relatively ideal firepower accuracy.

The focus of the naval competition was on the British and German navy, but this was not a game between the two countries after all. The French finally walked out of the dark side of "the most advanced former dreadnought". The real dreadnought Kolbet class was built and put into service in 1913. Its design is unique, but its overall performance cannot keep up with the footsteps of the British and German navy. It can only compete with competitors in the Mediterranean. The Austro-Hungarian Empire began to build their joint power class, and the firepower configuration of the four triple main guns was exactly the same as that of the German Nassau and Helgolan class, but due to the dock specifications, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's tonnage was very limited, ensuring firepower and aviation.

In the case of speed, they had to sacrifice their defense; the Dante dreadnought, which the Italians started construction earlier, progressed slowly due to its usual drag style and technical reasons. It also adopted the firepower configuration of four triple main guns, and followed the British's design path of high speed and light armor, and its defense performance was not as good as the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought; the Russians were still looking forward to the start of construction of the first dreadnought, and across the ocean, the wealthy Americans had already served 8 quasi-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts, and there were also new main battleships equipped with 14-inch main guns under construction, and their naval strength was second only to Britain and Germany.
Chapter completed!