The period following the military coup of Goudi and the rise to power of Venizelos was a period of internal reconstruction in the institutional and military sector. As a consequence, it was hoped that relations with the Ottoman Empire would not be particularly tense.

The one-sided declaration on the part of the Cretan Assembly in 1908 regarding the Union with Greece and the imposition on Turko-cretan deputies to take an oath of loyalty to the Greek King disturbed the subtle balances that the Greek government wanted to preserve. In 1912 the Cretan representatives claimed participation in the Greek Parliament. Their claim was not granted in May, but they were enthusiastically received in the parliament of October of that same year, with the outbreak of the First Balkan War. In the same period (1911-12) the Italo-Turkish war was waged, which led to the capture of the Dodecanese islands by the Italians and caused one more complication in the area of Eastern Mediterranean. The Balkan states remained neutral but they suffered certain of the oppressive measures imposed by the Young Turks on the Christian populations of the Empire.

At the same time, in the beginning of the 1910s, conciliatory discussions between the Balkan states (with a view to presenting a united front to the Ottoman Empire and dividing up its European territories) were under way. This was inaugurated by the Serbo-Bulgarian Treaty on 29 February/13 March 1912, which, apart from the obligation for mutual military aid in case of an attack by a third country, also provided for the distribution of the territories of northern and central Macedonia, largely between the two countries in the event of a war with Turkey. The Greek government could not remain idle in the face of these developments. She concluded a treaty with Bulgaria on 16/29 May 1912, that provided for an alliance of the two countries against Turkey; it did not however include any agreement concerning the distribution of European territories in the event of a victory. In this way the conditions that would lead to the outbreak of the First Balkan War were shaped.