The Ottoman Empire - the great power which had ruled much of southeastern Europe and the Middle East for over five centuries - was manifestly in decline by 1912. Its decline had been gradual, but by the early years of the twentieth century, the collapse of the mighty world that had once stretched to the gates of Vienna seemed increasingly inevitable. New Balkan states - Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece - combined forces in the First Balkan War (1912-1913) to bring about its downfall. But with victory in their grasp, they were soon at one another's throats. This book contains 83 selected and edited consular dispatches and reports sent to the Foreign Office in London focusing on events in Macedonia during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1914. They reveal the extent of human suffering in the southern Balkan region in this period and provide much insight into the realities of the Balkan conflagration as it affected Macedonia and its environs. As a first-hand, on-the-spot account, this is an invaluable source for historians of twentieth-century Europe, the lead-up to World War I and the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Bejtullah Destani is a British-Albanian scholar and founder of the Centre for Albanian Studies in London, of which he is the Director. Robert Elsie is a writer, translator, interpreter and specialist in Albanian studies.