I was thinking what you suggest in your edit, though it seems weird to say "the Balkan wars" (plural) if you're referring to what is sometimes (and only sometim

I was thinking what you suggest in your edit, though it seems weird to say "the Balkan wars" (plural) if you're referring to what is sometimes (and only sometimes) called the "third Balkan war". If that is what he meant, then I think it's hard to debate what is "more significant", a change in the continent's politics with economic impact, or hundreds of thousands of lives ended and ruined, albeit in only a limited region of the continent. I wouldn't really know where to come down on that fence. On the other hand - my history is very rough, but I do believe there is at least a case for claiming that the first two Balkan Wars had a hand in leading to the first world war, which in turn lay the foundation for the second world war... if you make that logic stick, then suddenly they were crazily important to the entire continent/world.