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Abstract
This paper focuses on the war correspondents traveling in the Balkans during the period of the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) to cover military campaigns. It tries to explore the paths of information, the mechanisms of propaganda and the restrictions used by the Balkan states to control the content of the news transmitted. The Balkan Wars were among the first military events covered so extensively by newspapers all around the world. In the battle-fields the principles of the new field of journalism were highly tested. The lessons learnt in the Balkans during the Balkan Wars proved to be productive and useful for the improvement of the relationship between war correspondents and military authorities.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 For the Balkan Wars see the comprehensive analysis by Hall in his book The Balkan Wars 1912–1913. Prelude to the First World War. Especially for the army campaign see Erickson, Defeat in Detail. See also Georymatos, The Balkan Wars.
2 Malešević, “Wars that Make States and Wars that Make Nations,” 53; and Roudometof, Nationalism, Globalization and Orthodoxy, 165–70, 174–5.
3 The First War Correspondent.
4 London and New York: G. Routledge & co, 1858.
5 Korte, Represented Reporters, 38.
6 Smith and Higgins, “Introduction: Reporting War,” 132–3.
7 The perception of the Balkans in the West has been examined in the famous book of Todorova, Imagining the Balkans.
8 The Bulgarian historian Ivan Iltchev in his book Родината ми, праваил и не has described the different propaganda mechanisms used by the Balkan nations from 1821 to 1923.
9 He was a liberal British journalist who, in 1903, led a relief mission to Macedonia. Although he had supported Greeks against the Ottomans in the war of 1897, then he approached the Bulgarians, thereby cutting its links with Greece. He wrote the book Macedonia: Its Races and their Future which supported independence for the Bulgarians in Macedonia. See Michailidis, “The Carnegie Commission in Macedonia, Summer 1913.”
10 He was a French journalist who visited Macedonia at the beginning of the twentieth century. He wrote the book L’ Imbroglio Macédonien where he promoted the Greek interests. He has been accused of being paid by secret funds from the Greek ministry of Foreign Affairs.
11 He was an American journalist, who also visited Macedonia at the beginning of the twentieth century. He wrote the book Confessions of a Macedonian Bandit. A Californian in the Balkan Wars.
12 Michail, The British and the Balkans, 15–16.
13 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 2.
14 For the war correspondents served in the Russo-Japanese War see Nordlund, “A War of Others,” 28–46.
15 For the British newspapers views on the Balkan Wars see the article of Petrov, “балканскатавойна по страниците на британската преса.”
16 Lionel James, Crawford Price, S. J. Pryor and R. Rankin from The Times, Martin Henry Donohoe from The Daily Chronicle, George Ward Price, Charles Hands and Mr Norregard from the Daily Mail, Pilcher and Frank Fox from The Morning Post, Allan Ostler from the Daily Express, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Captain A. H. Trapmann, Major McHughand Count Leon Ostrorov from the Daily Telegraph, Frank McGee of the Daily Mirror, Phillip Gibbs of the London Graphic, Herbert Baldwin and Angus Hamilton of Central News, Bussey of the Westminster Gazette, Haworth Woodley of the Central News Agency, John Banister, Ivon Castle, M. Rodes and Etienne Labranche from Le Temps, M. Raymond, Jean Leune and Alain de Penennrun, from L’Illustration, Louis Nadeau from the French magazine Journal (For the French war correspondents in the Balkan Wars see Kolakovic, “French Intellectuals and the French Policy Change,” 199–212), Lieutenant Hermenegild Wagner and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko from Reichspost, Dr Zifferer of the Newe Freie Presse, Major von Zweiter from Germany, Baron Binder von Kriegelstein from Austria, Ernesto Vassalo from Corriere d’ Italia, Zoli Secolo, Oskar Tartaglia of the journal Sloboda published in Split (Despot, “Croatian Public Opinion Toward Bulgaria,” 154), the Hungarian Edm. Ch. Szemere of the Pester Lloyd and the Czech Vladimir Sis were only some of the war correspondents who arrived in the Balkans. The Russian revolutionist Leon Trotsky was also a war correspondent for the Russian newspaper Kievskaya Misl. There were also a lot of photographers; the Daily Mirror sent a group of them, Bernard and Horace Grant and some cinematographers like the young Englishman Bryan Leighton.
17 Wagner, With the Victorious Bulgarian, 243.
18 Ibid., 243.
19 Some of his articles from the Bulgarian capital have been published in the volume Кореспондентът на “Таймс” съобщава от София.
20 For a detailed description of the action of Bourchier in the Balkans see the article written by Foley, “From Bruff to the Balkans.”
21 James, With the Conquered Turk, xvi.
22 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 4.
23 Ibid., 7–8.
24 Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War, 44–5.
25 The Sun, New York, October 23, 1912.
26 The Sun, New York, November 3, 1912.
27 Gibbs and Grant, Adventures of War with Cross and Crescent, 1–2.
28 ‘Prisoners in the camp, guarded by sentries’ was the title of the article published in The Guardian, in November 1912 referring to the 36 war correspondents following the ottoman army, see The Guardian, November 2, 1912.
29 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 72.
30 Baldwin, A War Photographer in Thrace, 214.
31 Ibid., 31.
32 Ibid., 39–40.
33 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 9.
34 Ibid., 11.
35 Gibbs and Grant, Adventures of War with Cross and Crescent, 45.
36 Fox, The Balkan Peninsula, 102.
37 Wagner, With the Victorious Bulgarians, 256–7; Gibbs and Grant, Adventures of War with Cross and Crescent, 44.
38 Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War, 72.
39 Gibbs and Grant, Adventures of War with Cross and Crescent, 53.
40 Fox, The Balkan Peninsula, 105–6.
41 Cassavetti, Hellas and the Balkan Wars, 78.
42 Historical and Diplomatic Archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1912, fond. 117/1.
43 Καράμπελας, “Etienne Labranche & Κωνσταντίνος Α. Βλαστός. Δύο πολεμικοί ανταποκριτές της Le Temps στην Πρέβεζα του 1912–13,” 246.
44 Despot, The Balkan Wars in the Eyes of the Warring Parties, 215.
45 New Zealand Herald, January 1, 1913.
46 Grant, To the Four Corners, 272–3.
47 Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War, 45, 52.
48 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 100.
49 Ibid., 104.
50 Wagner, With the Victorious Bulgarians, 246.
51 Cassavetti, Hellas and the Balkan Wars, 84.
52 Çetinkaya, “Atrocity Propaganda and the Nationalization of the Masses,”763.
53 Çetinkaya, “Illustrated Atrocity,” 476.
54 Iltchev, Родината ми, права или не, 180–93, 298–300.
55 Ginio, “Mobilizing the Ottoman Nation during the Balkan Wars,” 160.
56 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 22.
57 Grant, To the Four Corners, 142.
58 Trapmann, The Greeks Triumphant, 172. Cassaveti argues that Trapmann was the only correspondent who was allowed to accompany the Greek army, Cassavetti, Hellas and the Balkan Wars, 344.
59 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace; and Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War, 18. That perception of the Balkan Wars had already included in the Report published in 1914 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an International Commission who traveled in Macedonia during the summer of 1913 in order to inquire into the causes and conduct of the Balkan Wars, see Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 3–4.
60 The Sunday Star, Washington DC, July 20, 1913.
61 The Times, London, October 18, 1912.
62 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 59.
63 The prohibition to visit the front-lines was usual in most of the wars in late nineteenth–early twentieth century, see Bottomore’s dissertation “Filming, Faking and Propaganda,” XV.
64 The battle of Lule Burgas, at the end of October 1912, was one of the most significant battles in the Thrakian battle-fields, between the Ottomans and the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians won a great victory Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912–1913, 28–32.
65 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 62–3.
66 The New York Times, May 11, 1913.
67 For the photographers followed the Greek army see Χεκίμογλου, Προελαύνοντας για την απελευθέρωση. Ανέκδοτες ϕωτογραϕίες και μαρτυρίες ξένων πολεμικών ανταποκριτών από τη νικηϕόρο δράση του ελληνικού στρατού και στόλου στον Α’ Βαλκανικό Πόλεμο (1912–1913).
68 Grant, To the Four Corners, x–xi.
69 Baldwin, A War Photographer in Thrace, 118–19.
70 Despot, The Balkan Wars in the Eyes of the Warring Parties, 239–41.
71 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 217.
72 Ibid., 250.
73 James, With the Conquered Turk, 176–7.
74 The Guardian, November 28, 1912.
75 See for example the article of Gábor, “The Balkan Wars (1912–1913) in the Hungarian Press, Military Literature.”
76 Violence was the central feature transmitted from the Balkans, see Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 121–2.
77 Despot, The Balkan Wars in the Eyes of the Warring Parties, 68.
78 Baldwin, A War Photographer in Thrace, 52.
79 Trotsky, Τα Βαλκάνια και οι Βαλκανικοί Πόλεμοι, 104.
80 Price, The Balkan Cockpit. In his book Price makes a special notice to the Bulgaria atrocities during the Balkan Wars. The targeting is evident: ‘It was, in fact, nearly forty years ago that Gladstone made all Europe ring with his denunciation of the massacres at Batak. The great statesman coined the phrase “Bulgarian Atrocities” to symbolise the massacre of Bulgars by Turks. In such sense did it continue in use until 19/12/19 13, when the words were invested with another meaning, and “Bulgarian Atrocities” now stands for the butchery of Turks and Greeks by Bulgars’, Price, The Balkan Cockpit, 345.
81 It is interesting to note that the Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Geshov wrote the Preface in Wagner’s book on the Balkan Wars. Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War, 18.
82 Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace, 326.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Iakovos Michailidis
Iakovos Michailidis, Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 541 24, Greece. E-mail: [email protected]