IN 1878, BULGARIA HAD NO ARMY. BY 1913, IT HAD ONE OF THE MOST FORMIDABLE LAND FORCES IN EUROPE. By David Johnson On the eve of the First Balkan War, Bulgaria had been an independent nation for only 34 years. Its army had been created from scratch and had so little on which to build that in the first seven years after Bulgaria gained its independence in 1878, the senior positions in the army had to be filled by officers on loan from Russia. During 400 years of Turkish occupation, most Bulgarian males had been denied a military career, since Christians were not allowed to serve in the armies of the Porte. From 1878 on, however, military service was universal and compulsory--officially from the age of 18 until 46, though in practice it usually began at 20. Muslims might be exempted on payment of 20 pounds sterling, but few of them could afford to pay that sum. The field army was divided into the active army and the active reserve. For the infantry, the terms of service were two years in the active army and 18 years in the reserve--for all other branches, three years and 16. The reserve built up by that system became one of the largest of any European army, and it was of good quality; command was exercised by officers who had transferred from the active army, by young men who had passed the necessary qualifying examinations, and by sergeant majors who had served in the active army for 10 years or more. Every year, segments of the reserve were called out in rotation for the annual district maneuvers, which were followed by grand maneuvers at the end of September. When his service in the reserve was finished, a man passed into the militia, which, unlike the field army, could only operate inside Bulgarias frontiers. The country was divided into nine military districts, each of which housed a division; each division was comprised of four infantry regiments in two brigades, two squadrons of cavalry, a regiment of field artillery, and an engineer battalion with telegraph, pontoon, railway, balloon and mining sections. A peacetime infantry regiment had two battalions--each made up of four rifle companies, a machine-gun company of two guns and a service company. On mobilization, two extra divisions were formed--the 10th, with two brigades, and the 11th with three. With the addition of reservists, the 72 battalions of the peacetime establishment expanded to 288 battalions of 1,000 men each; the basic machine-gun detachment doubled in size, from two 8mm Maxims to four. A rifle company numbered 270 men, plus eight pioneers; a regiment consisted of 70 officers and 4,550 men, of whom 4,000 were riflemen. The service company strength was three officers and 200 men. According to an Austrian military analyst, in 1909 the Bulgarian field army had a potential strength of 378,000 troops, and the militia 57,600. The backbone of the active armys field artillery was 81 batteries of Schneider-Canet 75mm quick-firing cannons, with a total of 324 guns. There were also 324 Krupp field guns in 54 six-gun batteries. The mountain artillery consisted of 54 Krupp guns in nine batteries; 36 Schneiders, also in nine batteries, and 54 older guns, possibly Russian or Turkish. There were nine batteries each of four quick-firing howitzers and five batteries each of six field howitzers, making a grand total of 858 guns in 176 batteries. In addition to the field artillery, the Bulgarians had three groups of fortress artillery; each group had two batteries and each battery four 155mm howitzers, with 12 munition wagons. Foreign observers at the annual maneuvers were always impressed by the skill of the mounted artillery drivers, who galloped into action at 15-yard intervals and turned the guns around before they were unlimbered. The cavalry was comprised of three Guard squadrons and 10 line regiments, of which the first four regiments had four squadrons each and formed a division. Regiments 5 through 10 had three squadrons each, and those 18 squadrons were attached in pairs to the nine divisional districts. At the beginning of the 20th century, Turkey still possessed large holdings in the Balkans, including all of what is now Albania and northern Greece, and the treatment of her Christian subjects there, especially in Macedonia, left much to be desired. In 1912, inspired by their hatred of Turkey and her oppressive rule, the Balkan kingdoms of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria buried their old mutual enmities to form a military alliance. All three had territorial designs on European Turkey. For Bulgaria, ousting the Turks from the stretch of Macedonian coastline adjoining her southern border would give her access to the Aegean Sea and the fine port of Kavala. In northern Macedonia was Monastir, traditionally dear to Bulgarian hearts and full of pro-Bulgars. Just across Bulgarias southeastern frontier, in Turkish Thrace, lay the glittering prize of Adrianople. In August 1912, the small independent Serb kingdom of Montenegro agreed to join the Balkan League, as the defensive alliance against Turkey was called. On October 7, following warnings from Sergei Dmitrievich Sazonov of the Russian Foreign Office about the growing danger of a Balkan war, the Western powers informed the League that they would not countenance action against Turkey or any change in the territorial status quo. On the very next day, however, Montenegro declared war on Turkey and set the Balkans alight. In Bulgaria, mobilization had been ordered as early as September 30, by the simple expedient of posting notices on public buildings and churches. Within 12 hours, the entire male population eligible for arms was on the way to the centers, aboard trains composed of anything from 45 to 60 carriages, traveling at 15 miles an hour. Civil traffic on the railways had been suspended some days earlier, but no trains had been allotted to particular units. No tickets were needed. Each train was crammed to its utmost capacity, not only inside but even on the roofs of the carriages. Each man had with him sufficient food, taken from his own home, for the journey. On the roads, long streams of country carts, drawn by bullocks or horses, poured in toward the centers. Although Bulgarian enthusiasm was intense, it was severely restrained; there was little singing or cheering. Among the foreign observers to witness the mobilization was a British colonel who was deeply impressed by the Bulgar soldiery. He described them as: Fine, broad, deep-chested, hairy men, reared on sour milk and brown bread, with clear pale skins and resolute brown eyes. Splendid fellows, splendidly trained and led. The First Army concentrated near Harmanlu, a small town close to the Turkish frontier, with the Second and Third armies and the cavalry division gathered at Yamboli. War was declared on October 17. On the 21st, the Third Army crossed the frontier and encamped on Turkish soil. On the 23rd, the Bulgarians launched a night bayonet attack on the Turkish trenches in front of Kirk Kilissa. Following the Bulgar-Serb war in 1885, it had been rumored that the Serbs had abandoned their trenches as soon as they heard the strains of the Bulgar national hymn, Shumi Maritza; whatever the truth of that, on October 24, the entire Turkish garrison of Kirk Kilissa retired. General [Colmar Freiherr] von der Goltz said Prussian soldiers would take this place in three days, a Bulgarian officer remarked to a war correspondent. Weve done it in three hours. The euphoria lasted until the 28th, when stiff Turkish resistance was met at Lulé Burgas, and a prolonged and bloody battle developed. For a week the Turkish infantry endured murderous barrages from the Bulgarian artillery, but by November 3, they were in full retreat toward the lines of Tchataldja, the last line of defense before Constantinople, which lay only 30 kilometers to the south. The Bulgarian achievements up to this point were fairly summarized by a British war correspondent: A nation with a population of less than five million and a military budget of less than two million pounds per annum placed in the field within fourteen days of mobilization an army of 400,000 men, and in the course of four weeks moved that army over 160 miles in hostile territory, captured one fortress and invested another, fought and won two great battles against the available armed strength of a nation of twenty million inhabitants, and stopped only at the gates of the hostile capital. With the exception of the Japanese and Gurkhas, the Bulgarians alone of all troops go into battle with the fixed intention of killing at least one enemy. All in all, the Bulgar soldiers would have been entitled to feel that the prophecy contained in a Bulgarian cradle song had been fulfilled. The Turks came and the ravished me Because I was young and comely Sleep, my little one, sleep; Soon you will grow tall and strong And avenge your mother... On November 17 and 18, the Bulgarians attacked the Tchataldja lines but could make no headway against them. Meanwhile, in the northern theaters of war, the Greeks had taken Salonica and the Serbs had won a victory at Monastir; the Serbs now sent strong forces of infantry and siege artillery to assist the Bulgars besieging Adrianople. Though not a fortress of the first rank, it had defenses that had been modernized by German military engineers; Shukri Pashas 58,000-man garrison was comprised of six regular infantry regiments, three reserve divisions, five regiments of fortress artillery, two battalions of engineers, five machine-gun companies, one company of sapper/telegraphists and five squadrons of cavalry. On December 3, the siege was suspended when Bulgaria and Serbia both agreed to an armistice with Turkey. Eight weeks later, however, the fighting--and the siege of Adrianople--resumed under appalling conditions, with 6 feet of snow in the siege trenches and the temperature under 18 degrees below freezing. Some sentries in forward positions had to have fingers and toes amputated. The sick and wounded suffered agonies as the rough-hewn wheels of the ox carts jolted over rutted dirt roads to the field hospitals. Owing to the shortage of horses in Bulgaria, much of the armys transport was drawn by oxen and driven by civilians; the vehicles keeping the heavy guns supplied before Adrianople could only take six shells at a time, and the journey to the outlying batteries of siege artillery lasted six days each way, over a swampy plain inundated by the Maritza River. The weather improved in March 1913, and preparations for the final assault were begun, in accordance with a plan drawn up by the Bulgarian commander in chief, General Mikhail Savoff. Adrianople was defended by 53 battalions, 612 guns, 50 machine guns and extensive barbed-wire entanglements--the latter a formidable obstacle for the Bulgarian infantry in their thin sandals. The first phase would be a general attack on the Turks advanced positions. Next, the Turkish commander had to be tricked into thinking that the main thrust would be made against his southern sector, because the key objectives were really in the northeastern salient of his defenses--the forts of Ai-Yolou and Aivas-Baba. To aid a surprise attack on those forts, the Bulgarian and Serb artillery in the eastern sector, of which the Turks were as yet unaware, would be kept masked until the last possible moment. At 11:30 on the night of March 23, General Nikola Ivanoff (Second Army) informed his subordinates, The infantry will attack during the night of 24/25th March, at 3 in the morning. He knew that, in the moonlight, his men would be visible to the naked eye for 400 paces, and to binoculars for 600, so the advance would have to be rapid, barbed wire or no barbed wire. The advancing infantry would signal to the artillery with colored lanterns--white for Carry on firing and red for Cease fire. At 1 p.m. on the 24th, the barrage opened, with the field guns targeting the Turks forward positions, while the siege guns fired on the objectives allotted to them. Shukri Pasha had several reasons to expect Ivanoffs main attack to come from the south, where the heights of Kartal Tépé dominated the plain and the first line of defense. He knew that Ivanoffs headquarters and the 1st and 3rd brigades of the crack 8th Division were opposite his southern sector, and the terrific concentration of enemy artillery fire on it finally convinced him. Meanwhile, the 8th Divisions 2nd Brigade was waiting with fixed bayonets to attack the forts in the northeastern salient, supported by three infantry brigades detached from the Tchataldja front--a total of 52 battalions, backed up by 112 siege guns, 72 field pieces and seven squadrons of cavalry. The assault on the forts was led by the 8th Divisions 10th and 23rd regiments. Some of the barbed wire had been flattened by the barrage; what the Bulgar sappers had failed to cut, the infantry would have to cover with their greatcoats. The 23rd Regiments advance was brilliantly assisted by Commandant Droumeffs mounted battery of seventy-fives, which galloped into action under the muzzles of the Turkish guns and poured shrapnel onto the enemy trenches and onto a dangerous strongpoint. Ai-Yolou, the first of the two forts, was taken by the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Regiment at 1 a.m. on March 26th. Just after 6 a.m., the officer commanding the Aivas-Baba fort informed his sector commandant by telegraph that the Turkish guns on his front were destroyed, the gunners were lying dead, and Bulgarian infantrymen were entering his fort. He then destroyed the telegraph and shot himself. In this and many other sectors, the Turkish gunners had fought to the end; three successive teams had served the guns in Batteries 41 and 42, and all were lying dead in the emplacements where the Bulgarian shrapnel had caught them. No account of the taking of Adrianople can exclude the astonishing exploit of Colonel Genko Markholeff, the first Bulgarian to enter the place, leading his Guard cavalry squadrons with drawn swords through streets teeming with Turkish soldiery, pausing here and there to capture and interrogate a general; Markholeff posted some of his men on the Toundja and Maritsa bridges, detached others to protect the women and children sheltering in the Sultan Selim mosque, galloped on his superb Irish charger through vast empty corridors; he climaxed his performance by finally running the Turkish general to ground in the fort of Haiderlik and taking him prisoner. In grim contrast to so outrageously romantic an episode, Bulgarian sappers had been cut in two by Nordenfeldt guns as they tried to sever barbed wire, and a great concentric entrenchment in the southern sector contained the bodies of 730 Turkish soldiers, bayoneted to death there before dawn on the 26th. A graphic account of the Bulgarian infantrys predilection for the bayonet was written by an Austrian war correspondent. When it came to realities the Bulgarian infantry raised their charging shout Na nos! (With the knife! i.e. the bayonet), paying no regard to modern tactical theory. Four hundred paces or even more in front of the enemys position, whole regiments in the firing line would rise up and hurl themselves upon the Turks in one irresistible rush, without pausing, without firing, and disdaining all cover. Each Bulgar longed to run his bayonet into the body of a Turk, and officers were powerless to control the excitement of their men. Even a regiment that was following in support would raise the wild battle cry and hurl itself upon the enemy, perhaps at the call of one of its sergeants, taking no notice whatever of the officers orders to halt and lie down These attack methods of the Bulgarian infantry were in the highest degree responsible for the enormous losses the army had to suffer in this war. During one action in Thrace, as the Bulgarian infantry was preparing to fix bayonets, the preliminary command, Pret na nos! repeated all along the line, was heard by the Turkish in the opposing trenches. What are they saying? Turkish troops asked a comrade who understood some Bulgarian. Mistaking the word pret for a number, pyat, he replied, to their horror, Theyre saying, Five on each bayonet! Several French officers acting as observers in the First Balkan War mention the lethal sharpness of the broad-bladed Bulgarian bayonet, but the most penetrating comment on the wars weaponry came for the French military artist Georges Bertin Scott, who had noticed men in the trenches trying to protect their heads with shovels when they heard the sound of shrapnel. One thing this war had proved time and time again, he wrote, is that rifle bullets dont necessarily kill, but the use of shrapnel has profoundly changed battle conditions. This dense rain of mitraille riddles every inch of ground, breaking skulls, crushing brains, bringing certain death. In future the helmet will be no longer just a parade headdress, but a piece of defensive armor. With the taking of Adrianople, Bulgaria held all Macedonia east of Salonica, and all Thrace up to the Tchataldja lines. Three weeks later, Bulgaria signed an armistice with Turkey and the rest of the League followed suit. On May 20, representatives of the Great Powers assembled in rooms provided for them at St. James Palace to apportion the spoils of war, and a treaty was signed on the 30th; but the presence of Greeks in Salonica and Serbs in Monastir goaded Bulgaria into further action. At the end of June, Czar Ferdinand secretly ordered General Savoff to move against Bulgarias recent allies, and the night attacks went in on the 29th. The outbreak of this Second Balkan War gave Romania an unexpected opportunity to acquire some spoils for herself--she promptly invaded Bulgaria. Meanwhile, Enver Bey led the Turks out of the Tchataldja lines by forced marches and retook Adrianople. It was all over by July 30. Bulgarias defeated regiments returned to a heros welcome, marching grim-faced through the packed streets of Sofia. Contemporary photographs showed Czar Ferdinand and his generals riding at their head, on saddles and saddlecloths decked with flowers, the czar smiling broadly at the wildly cheering crowds. By the treaty signed in August, Bulgaria had to cede to Romania the fortress of Silistria and the ethnically Bulgarian southern part of the Dobrudja. For the next few years, at least, she was allowed to retain a part of the Thracian coastline and her access to the Aegean, but via the second-rate port of Dedeagatch instead of Kavala, which went to Greece. All the signatories looked on both treaties of the Balkan wars as mere scraps of paper that would only generate further conflict, and they were right. Bulgaria, the former protégé of Russia, now sought the friendship of Austria-Hungary. In 1915, the Bulgarians entered World War I and fought as allies of Austria-Hungary and Germany, and their once-bitter enemy, Turkey.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 10:07:12 +0000
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