Britain, Balkan Conflicts and the Evolving Conceptions of Militarism, 1875–1913

Abstract

AbstractThis study explores official British perceptions of Balkan soldiers and armed forces against the background of evolving theories of militarism from the 1870s until 1913. The article is based on research on reports of British intelligence agents, the British War Office and the Foreign Office on Balkan armies and military exercises. These primary sources have hitherto remained unexploited in the historiography examining British images of the Balkans. British perceptions of Serbian and Montenegrin armies and soldiers remained relatively static until the early twentieth century. Through most of the period in focus here, they were regarded as untrained gangs of peasants incapable of engaging in armed conflict with advanced militaries. This perception began to change during the Balkan Wars as a consequence of the Serbian army's satisfactory performance. British images of Bulgarian soldiers and military traits were much more complex. In the late 1870s, they were represented as a submissive race; in the 1880s as masculine and obedient fighters; in the 1890s as militaristic; and on the eve of the Balkan Wars as a non‐expansionist nation of peasants. British officials' views were usually firmly rooted in personal observations and reflected the increasing emphasis on empiricism in intelligence gathering. Moreover, at the same time, racial theories and codes of masculinity influenced their opinions, as did preconceptions about Balkan social, religious and cultural realities.