What? Another hypothetical scenario? Yes, but Balkan Front with its intriguing terrain and counter mix has always cried for more scenarios. As an example, "Plan Y", included in the box, has always garnered significant playing time for a hypothetical affair.

"The Macedonian War" isn't too far fetched, as hopefully you will gather by reading the historical background material.

Macedonia was part of Serbia before 1371, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The next centuries saw ever changing demographics in the area, as some of each neighboring people made their way into Macedonia. The French take their word for "mixed salad," macedoine, from the region because of its polyglot ethnic makeup.

The original VMRO, (Vatreshka Makendonska Revolutionna Organizatsia, or Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) was originally founded 1893 for work against the Turks. Anti-Turkish sentiment culminated in the St. Elijah's Uprising of 1903. In the First Balkan War (1912) Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece defeated the Turks and freed Macedonia from Turkish rule. The Serbs ended up with most of Macedonia as part of Greater Serbia after that conflict, however, a fact which irritated the Bulgarians enough to start the Second Balkan War (1913). The Bulgars turned on their former allies but were defeated, in part from Romanians invading over their weakly defended northern frontier. The prime portions of Macedonia were split between the victorious Serbia and Greece.

In World War I, Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1915, with the prime purpose of regaining Macedonia . In the same strategic position as Romania had been two years before, their invasion from the southeast ensured the conquest of most of Serbia, which had been successfully defending itself against the Austro- Hungarians to the north.

In 1919, however, the Treaty of Neuilly restored the pre- war frontiers and Macedonia reverted to Serbia, now temporarily called the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

The Macedonian language is closely related to Bulgarian, in fact some Bulgarian language scholars with a nationalistic bent say it is only a regional dialect of Bulgarian. Hence the Bulgarians view the Macedonians as Bulgars.

Macedonians generally retained the custom of slava, or "feast of the ancestors" that is the defining behavior of a Slav. Hence, the Serbs view Macedonians as bulgarized Serbs. Serbs regarded Macedonians as "Southern Serbs" and repressed any expression of Bulgarian culture. This led to the reestablisment of the VMRO is the 1920s under the leadership of Todor Aleksandrov.

In the 1930s Italian influence began to increase, to the alarm of the Bulgarians, but the Bulgarians and Italians seemed to have reached an understanding over the province and the Bulgarians awaited their chance in the future. On May 19, 1934, the new government in Bulgaria of Kimon Georgiev and Damian Velchev dissolved the VMRO and the Macedonian controversy subsided.

In actuality, the Bulgarians held their designs on Macedonia in abeyance in 1940. They received their reward for assistance in the April 1941 war when the foreign ministers of Italy and Germany signed the Vienna Agreement on 24 April, 1941. This agreement divided the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and split the Vardar part of Macedonia between Bulgaria and Italy [Vardar Macedonia is that part of the land not occupied by Greece.] Bulgaria occupied four-fifths and Italy the remainder.

Macedonians actively supported the Partisans, and at the end of the war, the Macedonian National Liberation Army numbered over 56,000 soldiers. The German, Italian, and Bulgarian occupiers had about 60,000 military and administrative police in this region. Macedonia reverted to Yugoslavia after the Soviets invaded Bulgaria in 1944.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, Macedonia became an independent republic in 1991. While one might think that would begin to make the Macedonian Question a moot one, the emotional politics that blanket the region refuse to let an issue die. Some 300 US troops were dispatched to Macedonia under UN auspices to serve as trip wire forces against Serbian aggression.

The March, 1994 issue of Foreign Policy Briefing contained the following analysis:

"Macedonia is also a potential arena for conflict arising from competing territorial claims of several other regional powers. Bulgaria qualified its recognition of Macedonia by reiterating its long-standing claim that Macedonians are merely 'western Bulgarians.' Sali Berisha, president of Albania, has demanded that Macedonia's Albanian population (some 21 percent of the total) be given cultural and political autonomy ... And Greece, of course, displays open hostility to the new republic; most recently, Athens imposed an economic embargo and virtually closed the border with its northern neighbor.

There is little indication that the situation in Macedonia is significantly more stable today than it was at the time of the Balkan Wars, given the smoldering ethnic and territorial disputes."

Hopefully our hypothetical 1940s fight will not become reality in a real turn of the century war.

There was a temptation to use some of the Hungarian units to represent Bulgarian units not presented in the Balkan Front counter mix, but I decided against it. It wasn't aesthetic, and it is easy to justify that the remainder of the Bulgarian army is guarding the Greek, Turkish, and Romanian frontiers. After all, the last time the Bulgarians tried to grab Macedonia, they had been undone by, among other things, an invasion by Romanian forces in their rear.

Another temptation was to make the thing into much more than it is, with possible Italian intervention, Greek intervention, or even Romanian participation. Figuring out how any of this would have worked would have been wandering in the Balkan darkness, however, and I declined to start walking down these avenues, lest one become too interesting.

Placing the scenario in the early summer of 1940 also provides a convenient way to do away with great power meddling. The Germans, French, and British have much more important things to worry about than another Balkan flare up. The Soviets, while traditionally friendly to the Serbs for their Slav roots, could also find ample reason to remain uninvolved.

More Macedonian War 1940

Europa Battle Scenario
Designer Notes
Order of Battle