Great Balkan War
The term "Great Balkan War" is used to refer to the CSDS civil war that led to the dissolution of the Danubian Confederation.
There were several Balkan Wars, but none as large or extended as the most recent one which is generally called the Great Balkan War. The GBW started in late 1988 and ended in mid-1999.
Its origins were in the Danubian Confederation, which already showed signs of cracking in the early 80's after the death of Josip Broz, the Slovenian communist who ruled the country with an iron fist from the creation of the Confederation of Socialist Danubian States (CSDS) in 1947 after a lengthy civil war between communists and monarchists. Surprisingly enough, that civil war had the combatants organized according to political views as opposed to ethnicity. One of the most common slogans in the CSDS was "Bratstvo in Jedinstvo", Slovenian for "Brotherhood and Unity" (in Dalmatian: "Froatreta e Yunitota"), which reflected Broz's enforced unity of the various ethnic groups (Dalmatian, Serb, Croat, Slovene, Bulgarian and Muslim Slav were the majorities, with small numbers of Albanians, Greeks, Muntenians, Hungarians, Germans and Italians). The CSFS was made up of six consituent socialist republics: The Dalmatian SR (DSR), the Slovene SR (SlSR), the Serbian SR (SeSR), the Croatian SR (CSR), the Bulgarian SR (BSR) and the SR of Sanjak (SRS), with the federal capital at Užice in the SeSR (nowadays in Sanjak). After Broz died, a Croat named Fraňo Tuďman became head of the Communist Party of the CSDS (CPDC for short) and thus the President of the CSDS, who was very much a Croat nationalist and had even spent three years in prison for nationalist activities. In response to this, nationalistic premiers were elected in all the republics (Slovenia: Tomaž Hoštnik; Serbia: Slobodan Milošević, who was a monarchist and member of the Karadjordjevic family; Sanjak: Mustafa Izetbegović, who is now the Ajatallah of the Islamic Republic of Sanjak; Bulgaria: Yasen Yotov; Dalmatia: Radu Pilatu, whose Dalmatian Radical Party was defeated in the last Dalmatian general elections). Tensions continually rose as Tudjman passed more and more chauvinistic laws, until the Bulgarian SR finally declared independence in February of 1988. The Bulgarian war of independence lasted nine days, but this was primarily the Croat-dominated CSDS Army units fighting their way out of Bulgaria (there are very few Croats in Bulgaria). However, as soon as Bulgaria declared independence, the Greeks thought it would be a great idea to try to take northern Macedonia from the Bulgarians, and a four-month-long war was fought between the two countries, in which the Bulgarians close to exterminated the Greek armies. In the end of April, Dalmatia, Serbia and Sanjak all declared independence, and everything went to hell. In short:
Dalmatia fought Croatia, then later Sanjak, to regain the historically important Kampa da Miarle, then later Serbia, briefly.
Serbia fought Croatia and Sanjak almost simultaneously, expelling the CSDS Army in short time and trying to capture eastern Slavonia from the Croats, which did not succeed; they also conquered Sanjak in short order, but arms and Mujahideen volunteers from other Muslim countries, as well as arms from Iraaq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, helped to turn the tide in favour of the Muslims. During this time Dalmatia was heavily busy with Croatia fighting mainly in the Kozara and Baranya regions, but when Serbia took most of Sanjak, Dalmatia quickly grabbed Kampa da Miarle (which was mostly Dalmatian anyway by ethnic population), and adding that area added more men to the Dalmatian army; but the men from that area stayed there, and repelled the Muslims several times.
Slovenia declared independence in 1996, well into the war, but the Croats quickly crushed Slovenian resistance and incorporated it into Croatia.
Castile & Leon was the main Western supplier of arms in the conflict, supplying both Dalmatia and Croatia with arms, on the provision that the arms be used to fight the Muslims. When the arms ended up being used against each other, the shipments stopped.
