The Liberation of Macedonia

The reward for the efforts and sacrifices of the participans in the Macedonian Struggle came with the victorious Balkan Wars of 1912-13, by which Macedonia shook off the Ottoman yoke that had lain upon it for five centuries. The Treaty of Bucharest (10 August 1913) finally fixed the frontiers of the Balkan states in Macedonia.

The part of Macedonia which came into Greek possession included most of the vilayets of Thessaloniki and Monastir, with the exception of some provinces which today lie within Yugoslavian and Bulgarian Macedonia. To be more specific, Macedonia was divided up according to the following proportions:

Greek Macedonia	:	34,603 kM2 or 51.57%
Yugoslavian Macedonia	:	25,714 kM2 or 38.32%
Bulgarian Macedonia	:	6,789 kM2 or 10.11%

To quote from Ekdotiki Athinon's volume Macedonia, 4000 Years of Greek History and Civilization (Athens 1983, p. 484):

"The solution achieved in the second decade of the twentieth century can only be considered the most natural outcome of a long process. Ottoman domination had been thrown off The mainly Slav northern areas went to the Slav Balkan countries (not withstanding the fact that the amount of territory received by Serbia and Bulgaria was in inverseproportion of the national preference of the Slavpopulation). By a cufious coincidence, the southern area that went to Greece was roughly identical in extent with the "historical" Macedonia of the classical period, with the exception of a smah strip that remained within the Serbian and Bulgarian territories. This southern zone included, in addition to the Greek-speaking population, the majority of the Slav-speaking inhabitants who had retained a Greek national conscience".

Nonetheless, considerable Greek populations remained within the territories passed to Serbia and Bulgaria, and quite a number of Bulgarians were left on Greek soil. The First World War which followed the Asia Minor campaign and its dramatic conclusion were to cause widespread movements of population which stabilised the national homogeneity of Greek Macedonia.