Bulgaria in Balkan Wars

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 Bulgaria's 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 army's 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 Bulgaria's 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. "We've done it in three hours."

The euphoria lasted until the 28th, when stiff Turkish resistance was met at Lul� 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..."