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Bulgaria in World War I

Advertising postcard map of the Balkans from the Amidon Starch company — Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria,  Albania, Greece, and Turkey in Europe — with images of the Acropolis in Athens and Andrinople in Turkey. The map shows the region after the Second Balkan War.
Text, Reverse:
Text in French and Dutch:
Demandez L'Amidon REMY en paquets de 1, 1/2 et 1/4 kg.
Vraagt het stijfsel REMY in pakken van 1, 1/2 et 1/4 ko.
Ask for REMY Starch in packages of 1, 1/2, and 1/4 kg.
Il n'est pas de meilleur Amidon que l'Amidon REMY, Fabrique de Riz Pur.
Er bestaat geenen beteren Stijfsel dan den Stijfsel REMY, Vervaardigd met Zuiveren Rijst.
(There is no better starch than Remy Starch, made of pure rice.)

Advertising postcard map of the Balkans from the Amidon Starch company — Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and Turkey in Europe — with images of the Acropolis in Athens and Andrinople in Turkey. The map shows the region after the Second Balkan War.

Image text

Text in French and Dutch:



Demandez L'Amidon REMY en paquets de 1, 1/2 et 1/4 kg.



Vraagt het stijfsel REMY in pakken van 1, 1/2 et 1/4 ko.



Ask for REMY Starch in packages of 1, 1/2, and 1/4 kg.



Il n'est pas de meilleur Amidon que l'Amidon REMY, Fabrique de Riz Pur.



Er bestaat geenen beteren Stijfsel dan den Stijfsel REMY, Vervaardigd met Zuiveren Rijst.



There is no better starch than Remy Starch, made of pure rice.

Other views: Larger, Larger

October 14, 1915 to September 29, 1918

Bulgaria

Independent Bulgaria and the Balkan Wars

The Treaty of Berlin ending the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War established the Principality of Bulgaria as a Turkish vassal state. In 1885 Bulgaria significantly expanded by annexing Eastern Rumelia and forming a personal union under Tsar Ferdinand. On October 5, 1908, in the Balkan turmoil after the seizure of power by the Young Turks, Bulgaria declared independence.

With Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro, Bulgaria was a victor in the First Balkan War of 1912–13, but was dissatisfied with the treaty ending it and Serbia's refusal to honor pre-war commitments on the division of territory taken from the defeated Ottoman Empire. Bulgaria launched the Second Balkan War against Serbia and Greece, but was defeated when Romania struck its rear.

1915: Bulgaria Enters the War

After war began in 1914, both the Central Powers and Entente Allies tried to entice neutral nations to join their war effort. Bulgaria signed a secret treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary on July 17, 1915, and concluded a military convention with Germany on September 6. In return, Bulgaria immediately aquired ceded Turkish territory in Thrace and was promised land of Serbia and possibly Greece. The country began mobilizing on September 23. With no prior declaration of war, Bulgaria joined Germany and Austria-Hungary in their invasion of Serbia on October 14, 1915, attacking from the east, and becoming the fourth and final Central Power.

Serbia had turned back three Austro-Hungarian invasions in 1914, but on October 6, 1915, Austro-Hungarian and German troops under German General August von Mackensen crossed the Danube River into Serbia, taking its capital Belgrade on the 9th. Other forces under Generals Hermann Kövess and Max von Gallwitz crossed further west over the Save-Danube border from the north. On October 11, Bulgaria declared war against Serbia.

Serbia

Two Bulgarian armies invaded Serbia from the east on October 14. The Bulgarian First Army of 200,000 men under General Kliment Boyadjieff drove west towards Nisch and the Belgrade/Sofia rail line. The Second Army, 100,000 under General Georgi Teodoroff, attacked to the south to secure the communications center of Uskub and to hold the border with Greece.

French and British forces landed in the Greek port of Salonica on October 5 to advance north and aid their Serbian allies. But Bulgaria moved against them, invading Macedonia in eastern Greece on October 11. On the 20th they took Veles on the rail line southeast of Uskub. French General Maurice Sarrail and his Allied force were stopped in their attempt to advance up the Vardar River valley and the railroad that ran along it.

Great Britain declared war on Bulgaria on October 15. France did so the next day.

Facing this combined force alone, Serbia fell quickly. The Serbian army fled west, into the mountains of Albania and to the Adriatic coast. Of the 200,000 who set out, 20,000 were lost in the retreat.

The Bulgarians battled the retreating Serbs at the Babuna Pass in early November and, with their allies, in the Battle of Kosovo at month's end. Sarrail attacked the Bulgarian line in early November, but to little effect. By the end of November the Serbians, French, and British were all in retreat. In a December 12 communiqué, the Bulgarian General Staff reported to the nation and army that the latter had occupied the last three Macedonian towns that had been held by the Entente Allies — Doiran, Guevgheli and Sturga — and that Macedonia was free of enemy soldiers.

On December 30, after a German air raid on Salonika, French and British troops entered the consulates of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey in the city, arresting staff and seizing documents that would lead them to spies for the Central Powers, denying them valuable information on Allied movements.

1916: The Romanian and Salonika Fronts

In the spring of 1916, many of the Serbian soldiers who had survived the retreat across Albania joined the Allies on the Salonika Front. With German support, the Bulgarians held a line across the northern border of Greece. Facing them were British, French, and Serbian troops, and a Montenegrin battalion under French command.

In January and February, Austria-Hungary invaded Albania, infuriating Ferdinand who threatened war against Austria-Hungary. Having taken much of Albania, the Austrians stopped their advance at the end of February. Italian forces landed in southern Albania, extending the Allied line across northern Greece to the Adriatic coast. Italian forces on the front remained outside the command structure of their allies.

The Central Powers as child soldiers marching through the city: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Bulgaria was the last to join, doing so in October, 1915, helping to defeat Serbia, and preventing French and British forces from coming to her aid. The title is from the song

In April, four Russian brigades landed at Marseilles, France, to support their allies. Two of the brigades continued on to Greece and entered the Allied line. That same month British forces near Lake Doiran at the eastern end of the Allied front clashed with German cavalry.

On May 26, 1916, a German-Bulgarian force advanced on Fort Rupel near the Bulgarian border in northeast Greece. The garrison initially resisted, but was ordered by the Greek Government to surrender the fort. The loss of this defensive barrier in ostensibly neutral Greece threatened the Allied forces in Salonica, and made blatant the pro-German position of Greek King Constantine and his Government. The Entente Allies would move against the Greek Government the next day.

Romania entered the war on August 27, 1916, crossing the Carpathian Mountains into Transylvania in Austria-Hungary with three of its four armies, leaving one to defend its long border with Bulgaria, most of it along the Danube River, but, in the east, in Dobruja, across land Romania had seized from Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War. Here Romania was exposed to an attack from Bulgaria and would require substantial Russian support.

Prime Minister Gheorghe Brătianu had negotiated Romania's entry into the war thinking the moment opportune, in great part because of the success of Russia's Brusilov Offensive and Italy's Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, both of which had come to a standstill by the time Brătianu acted at the end of August. Brătianu had also expected an Allied offensive against Bulgaria from the Salonica Front that would tie down Bulgarian forces and prevent an attack along Romania's southern — and largely exposed — border. The Prime Minister may have been swayed by the size of the forces France claimed to have available: 400,000 men, between 50,000 and 170,000 more than the actual number. The agreement Brătianu signed also left vague what the Salonica action would be.

On July 29, one month before Romania finally went to war, and with both sides expecting it to do so, the Bulgarians, Germans, and Austro-Hungarians agreed on a campaign against Romania in the event it did enter the war. A joint Bulgarian-German army under the command of German General August von Mackensen would be responsible for action along Romania's southern border, along the Danube and in Dobrudja.

In overall command of the Allied forces in Greece, Sarrail prepared an offensive against the Bulgarian forces to his north to prevent them from joining an offensive against Romania. But the Central Powers were well aware of Sarrail's preparations, and the Bulgarians struck first, hitting the Serbian sector of Sarrail's line on August 17, ten days before Romania would enter the war, and advancing until the 26th, when the Allies were able to stabilize their line just as Romania went to war. Sarrail did not launch his offensive into Serbia until September 10, and then in an offensive — the Battle of Monastir — that did little to aid his new ally. The Bulgarians held off Allied attacks in October but eventually yielded to ongoing Allied pressure. On November 18, the Bulgarians abandonned Monastir near Serbia's border with Greece, after torching it. French, Russian, and Serbian troops entered the Serbian city the next day.

German General Erich Falkenhayn drove Romanian troops from Austria-Hungary and continued advancing into western Romania. He also formed a Bulgarian-German Danube Army under Mackensen on Romania's southeastern border at Dobruja between the Danube and the Black Sea. Here, where the Danube, which flowed east between Romania and Bulgaria, turned north before reaching the Black Sea, Romania was vulnerable.

Postcard of a September 4, 1916 German air raid on Constanta, Romania

On September 2, five days after Germany declared war on Romania, Mackensen's forces crossed the border into Dobruja. The Romanian fortified cities on the Danube, Bulgarian before the Second Balkan War, fell quickly: Turtukai surrendered on September 6; Silistria on September 9. By mid-September Mackensen was approaching the sole Dobruja rail line that bifurcated the region, that was Romania's primary Danube crossing point, and that connected the Black Sea port of Constanza to the capital of Bucharest.

But Russia made good on its promise to support Romania. Three divisions, 30,000 men, under General Andrei Zaionchovsky had arrived on September 1 when Mackensen began his invasion, and were in position north of the rail line on September 16. Units of the Romanian Third Army which had been positioned west of Dobruja had moved east against Mackensen. The Romanians had also transferred three divisions from the Transylvania offensive, weakening it. The Romanian and Russian forces stopped Mackensen's advance on September 20, and pushed it back 10 miles in four days of bitter fighting.

On September 30, the Romanians executed the Flămânda Maneuver, bridging the Danube and crossing into Bulgaria in hopes of striking Mackensen's army from the rear as Romanian and Russian troops attacked in Dobrudja. The attempt was short lived. German aircraft bombed the bridge on October 1. The next day Austro-Hungarian patrol boats released mines to float downriver into the bridge. In short order the Romanians were cleared from Bulgaria.

Having reinforced his Army with two Turkish divisions, Mackensen resumed his attack on October 20, and took Constanza and the railroad that crossed Dobruja by October 25. On November 23, he crossed the Danube southwest of Bucharest as Falkenhayn continued his advance. The Romanians sought to exploit a gap between Falkanhayn's right and Mackensen's forces. With inadequate strength and support, the Romanians fought in the last days of November and the first of December. They failed and abandoned Bucharest to preserve it from protracted battle. On December 6, Mackensen entered the city.

1917

At the beginning of 1917, Bulgarians held the Salonica front facing the French-led Allied army.

By early 1917, Sarrail had over 600,000 men under his command on the Salonica Front, many sick from malaria and other diseases. The divided government of Greece broke utterly, with its pro-German King Constantine leading royalist forces and a revolutionary government under the former Prime Minister, pro-Entente Eleftherios Venizelos, with its own military. Constantine secretly mobilized his army to move against the Allied forces. Sarrail was a prominent republican and was prepared to move against the King, but Tsar Nicholas of Russia hesitated to act against another crowned head of state. The Tsar's constraint was removed when he was forced to abdicate after the February Revolution, and Sarrail was allowed to suppress Greek Royalist troops, using British troops in Athens to do so. On June 11, King Constantine was forced to abdicate and went into exile.

Bulgarian machine-gunners laying out ammunition belts on the Salonica Front.

Sarrail planned a spring offensive for 1917 and on the night of April 24–25, the British began an diversionary attack that came to nothing. Sarrail had delayed the offensive, but had not informed his ally. On May 8, the British attacked again to begin Sarrail's offensive. Their French, Serbian, Russian, and Italian allies attacked across the front the next day. On the 10th the French again cancelled an attack, a Franco-Italian one, but did not tell the Italians and one of their own commanders. The French attack on the 11th failed as well. Sarrail continued his offensive until the 20th.

After Sarrail's failures, the dispute between 'Westerners' and 'Easterners' that dated to the first months of the war flared again. Prime Ministers Ribot in France and Lloyd George in the United Kingdom were both pressed to answer for the large number of forces on the Salonica Front when they were desperately needed in France. For the most part, the French pressed to stay, the British to leave. Holding the eastern end of the Allied line, the British were in the worst position and suffered more than others from disease. In August, they began to pull back and redeploy two divisions to Egypt and Palestine. These could be replaced by other Allied troops, including the Greeks.

From west to east, from the southern Adriatic across the top of Greece, crossing the border at Monistir (captured in 1916), were Italian, Serbian, Russian, French (including a Montenegrin brigade), and British troops. Those Greeks fighting with the Allies took over some of the Allied right wing from the British.

Arrayed against the Allied forces were those of the Central Powers, mostly Bulgarians with some Turks in the east, but also with German troops and officers.

On December 10, General Sarrail was replaced by General Adolphe Guillaumat who began building the infrastructure for an attack the following year.

1918

The new Bolshevik government in Russia agreed ceasefires while peace negotiations went ahead. Vladimir Lenin called for an immediate peace that would leave Germany retaining much of the territory it had taken, but many in the party, including chief negotiator Leon Trotsky, called for peace with no annexations. After multiple deadlines had passed, Trotsky declared "no war, no peace," and left the negotiations on February 10, 1918, the day after Ukraine signed a treaty with the Central Powers. Unwilling to consider this a proper resolution to the situation, the Germans advanced over great swaths of Russia with little opposition. Lenin had been right, and, having lost even more territory, Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers — Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria — on March 3.

On March 21, Germany launched the first of its five 1918 offensives, overwhelming Allied forces on the Western Front. French General Louis Franchet d’Esperey was one of those blamed for the failure to stop the Germans and was transferred to the Salonica Front as Guillaumat was recalled to France. Franchet d’Esperey continued his predecessor's preparations for an offensive.

Seventeen Bulgarian divisions, supported by German battalions and artillery, and two divisions of Turkish troops to the east, faced a combined Serbian, French, British, and Italian force along the northern border of Greece. With the Allies advancing on the Western Front, Franchet d’Esperey was able to launch his offensive, beginning the Battle of Dobro Pole across the entire front on September 15 after a day of the heaviest bombardment on the front. The Serbs, moving through the mountains, advanced 20 miles in two days west of the Vardar River valley. Mounted Moroccan French Spahis also advanced through the mountains. Across their sector, the French advanced and the Bulgarian right collapsed.

German pencil sketch of Lake Doiran, on the Greco-Serbian border, site of a battle in which the Bulgarians defeated the French, English, and Serbians in December, 1915, and of the Battle of Doiran in September 1918. Tents can be made out in the foreground. It looks to be dated March 30, 1916 (30 III 1916).

In the east, where the Bulgarians had strengthened their defenses over two years, the British and Greeks attacked at Lake Doiran on September 18 and 19 against the First Army under General Stefan Nerezov. They were repulsed with heavy casualties. Faced with the collapse of his right wing, and hoping for an orderly retreat, Bulgarian Commander in Chief General Georgi Todorov ordered Nerezov to withdraw his army, one that was holding against the Anglo-Greek offensive. Stunned at the command, the officers and men of the First Bulgarian Army retreated from Doiran through narrow mountain passages. On the 21st, two British aircraft found the retreating column, packed in narrow confines and moving slowly. Strafed and bombed by the British, the at-first orderly withdrawal became a rout.

On September 23 and 24, Bulgarian Socialists organized soviets in Pechaev, Berovo, and Tsarevo Selo. Demonstrations took place by the royal palace in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital.

On September 26, the Bulgarians asked that hostilities be suspended. Defeated, Bulgaria signed an armistice on September 29, the same day the British breeched the Hindenburg Line on the Western Front. Pro-allied politicians took power in Bulgaria and Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his son.

On November 5, Franchet d’Esperey set out for Belgrade to meet with representatives of the new Hungarian government, crossing Bulgaria to pass a night in Sofia. Continuing across Serbia, he reached Serbia's capital on November 10, on the Danube, Serbia’s border with Austria-Hungary. The same day, Romania's King Ferdinand mobilized the army, and Romania re-entered the war on the side of the Allies.

1915-10-14

1918-09-29

Events contemporaneous with Bulgaria in World War I

Start Date End Date View
1915-02-19 1916-01-09 Dardanelles and Gallipoli Campaigns
1915-04-25 1916-01-09 Gallipoli Campaign
1915-06-23 1917-11-12 Battles of the Isonzo
1915-09-25 1915-10-14 Third Battle of Artois
1915-10-06 1915-11-25 Defeat of Serbia
1915-10-14 Bulgaria Enters the War
1915-10-14 1915-10-14 Bulgaria declares war on Serbia
1915-10-15 1915-10-15 Great Britain declares war on Bulgaria
1915-10-16 1915-10-16 France declares war on Bulgaria
1915-10-19 Italy declares war on Bulgaria.