The First Balkan war began on 8 October 1912. Initially, the Greek army concentrated on liberating Thessaloniki and Macedonia, while Epirus was considered a secondary theater of operations. As a result, the Greek forces here were relatively weak and their commander had to deploy them with care and caution, to avoid a major disaster that would jeopardize the overall Greek military plan. The terrain was very demanding; there were almost no major roads to allow for the rapid movement of artillery, while the mountain tracks required arduous and time-consuming hiking along ridges and around gorges and canyons.