Edirne’deki Fransız Konsolosu Marcel Cuinet’in Balkan Savaşı Günlüğü
The Balkan War Diary of French Consul Marcel Cuinet In Edirne

Summary/Abstract: In 1912, the Balkan War I broke out between the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro. It came to an end with London Treaty on the 30th of May in 1913. Considering this war in terms of the Ottoman dominance in Balkans, it can be said that it was a vital one. Following the war, a psychological havoc was experienced besides the important losses of land. Even though the Ottoman Empire did not directly participate in the Balkan War II, which broke out soon afterwards, and took back the Eastern Thrace, Balkan Wars made their names in the history as the wars in which the Ottoman army, which was dealing with its domestic conflicts, failed to achieve anything against the aforementioned four states and important cities such as Thessaloniki, Skopje, Bitola, Ioannina, Shkoder as well as Edirne, which was previously one of the Ottoman capital cities, were lost Edirne was besieged by the Bulgarian army during Balkan War I and it was protected at the highest level as far as possible at the command of Mehmed Şükrü Pasha until the 26th of March in 1913. During the war, not only Ottoman people but also foreign diplomatic representatives maintained their lives under the siege in Edirne. One of them was French consul Marcel Cuinet. He made daily records of the incidents he had been through from the first days of the Balkan War I until the beginning of the interim armistice. Cuinet’s diary was published in French Le Matin in 1913 shortly after Edirne was occupied by Bulgaria. The Ottoman press also obtained the diary following its French edition. This diary witnesses military interventions in the lives of people, soldiers, and foreign diplomats in Edirne as well as the impressions of a French diplomat about the resistance of people.

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