First Balkan War: The First Battle of Çatalca begins - an attempt by Bulgaria to break through the last defensive line before the Turkish capital Constantinople.
The First Battle of atalca was one of the heaviest battles of the First Balkan War fought between 17 and 18 November [O.S. 45 November] 1912. It was initiated as an attempt of the combined Bulgarian First and Third armies, under the overall command of lieutenant general Radko Dimitriev, to defeat the Ottoman atalca Army and break through the last defensive line before the capital Constantinople. The high casualties however forced the Bulgarians to call off the attack.
The First Balkan War (Serbian: Први балкански рат, Prvi Balkanski rat; Bulgarian: Балканска война; Greek: Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; Turkish: Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior (significantly superior by the end of the conflict) and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success.
The war was a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster for the Ottomans, who lost 83% of their European territories and 69% of their European population. As a result of the war, the League captured and partitioned almost all of the Ottoman Empire's remaining territories in Europe. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albania, which angered the Serbs. Bulgaria, meanwhile, was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia, and attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913 which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War.