How many Turks lived in Balkans (approximately) before the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Turks/Muslims living there were forced to migrate or slaughtered?
There’s no exact or approximate estimate pertaining to how many Turks lived in the Balkans before the Ottoman Empire collapsed. However, over a period of a few centuries, especially after the Ottoman Empire lost almost all its territory during the Balkan War of 1912-13 and World War I, many Turks/Muslims in Europe were forced to migrate to the Ottoman Empire. Around 10 million, to be precise. An estimated 25% to 33% of Türkiye’s 85 million population descend from these refugees who were called ‘Muhacir1’ (transl. refugees). Millions of these people were either persecuted, exiled, or killed2.