Despite its vast "on paper" army, the Ottoman Empire had only limited manpower available to the European area. These were divided into the Western/Second and Eastern/First Armies. These were scattered across Macedonia, Albania and Thrace in numerous well-supplied garrison forts.

In the past the main function of the garrisons were to act as quick response forces to assist local posts in quelling various rebel groups. 52 Infantry and 2 Cavalry divisions were fielded with 850 field guns, a total of 340,000 foot and 6000 cavalry. The 22 Nizam Divisions were assigned to Corps. While the 21 Redif Divisions were assigned to a Corps and 9 operated Independently but were generally controlled by a Corps. Mustafiz and Asiret troops are not counted.

The First Eastern Army four Regular Corps + six Reserve Corps + five Cavalry Brigades + one Independent Detachment of two divisions + various local foot 'Mustafiz' garrison troops (Raised as militia for police operations.) or local Mounted 'Asiret' Quick Reaction troops.

The Second Western Army three Regular 'Nizam' Corps + one Reserve 'Redif' Corps + one Cavalry Division + four Independent detachments of two Divisions each.

Each Corps included three Infantry Divisions + one elite Rifle regiment + one-two Cavalry Brigades + mountain batteries or field artillery batteries.

An Infantry Division included three Infantry regiments of three battalions + one rifle battalion + a machine-gun company + one engineer battalion + three battalions of artillery. The Infantry battalion had four companies but averaged only 100 men rather than the authorized 200 men.

A Cavalry Brigade contained 2-3 Regiments of 5 Squadrons with 2-3 Horse artillery batteries. A Nizam Regiment had five squadrons and Redif's had four. A squadron had 100 men.

Up to 25% of the Reservists were non-Muslim including Greeks (13%) and Bulgarians (5%). As might be expected the desertion rates among these conscripted troops was very high.

The Maxim was the common machine-gun but some Hotchkiss were also used and both were carried by pack animals. Nizam Infantry carried the 7.65mm Mauser 1903 rifle and Redif reserve units carried the 9.65 Mauser 1887 rifle. Some poorly trained Redif and Mustafiz carried 1871 Martini-Henrys. Heavy Artillery batteries had four 120mm Krupp howitzers. 63 Field batteries had six 75mm Krupp guns, though another 67 batteries had 87mm or 77mm guns. Mountain batteries (25) had six 75mm Krupp guns mounted on pack animals.

Army Orders of Battle and Organizational Data

Bulgaria
Serbia
Montenegro
Greece
Ottoman Turkey
Roumania (Second Balkans Wars Only)