1st Army (Bulgaria)
|
1st Army |
|
|---|---|
| active | 1912-1913 1915-1918 1941-1945 |
| Country |
 Bulgaria
|
| Armed forces | Bulgarian armed forces |
| Armed forces | army |
| Type | army |
| headquarters | Sofia |
| Wars |
Balkan Wars First World War Second World War |
| commander | |
| Important commanders |
|
The 1st Army ( Bulgarian Първа армия ) was a large unit of the Bulgarian army during the Balkan Wars of 1912/1913, the First and Second World Wars .
history
Balkan Wars
First Balkan War
After the military reforms in Bulgaria in 1907, the Bulgarian territory was divided into three army inspections. Each of them was divided into three further districts, which formed a field army in wartime.
The 1st Army was thus formed by the First Army Inspection, which had its seat in Sofia , and initially by the 1st, 6th and 7th Divisions. After further reforms, the 6th and 7th Divisions were replaced by the 3rd and newly formed 10th Divisions, which were previously part of the Second Army Inspection. After the declaration of war and general mobilization in September 1912, the 1st Army consisted of three infantry divisions and one cavalry regiment . However, only the 3rd division was able to achieve its full strength of three infantry brigades, while the 10th division was formed with one brigade from the 1st division and another from the 6th division.
| Battalions | soldiers | Rifles | Machine guns |
Cannons | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Army command and staff | 1,439 | 424 | |||
| 1st "Sofia" Infantry Division | 17th | 24,976 | 17,885 | 16 | 60 |
| 3rd "Balkan" Infantry Division | 25th | 34,991 | 25.106 | 24 | 72 |
| 10th Infantry Division | 17th | 23,693 | 17,269 | 16 | 48 |
| 9th Cavalry Regiment | 504 | 373 | |||
| Rearguard | 3,000 | ||||
| Together | 59 | 88,603 | 61,067 | 56 | 180 |
The Bulgarian plan placed the 1st Army under the command of Lieutenant General Vasil Kutintschew on the East Thracian front. The 1st Army was the Ottoman forces between Kırklareli and Edirne , and between the right flank of the 2nd Army, which was advancing on Edirne, and the left flank of the 3rd Army, which by the beach Saddle -Gebirge towards Lüleburgaz penetrated attack . In order to ensure a quick advance of the Bulgarian troops, the 1st Brigade was assigned to the 3rd Division of the 2nd Army, while the rest of the 1st Army moved into the space between the two fortified cities. With the battle of Kırklareli , in which the 1st Army carried the main burden with 5745 dead, the way to Lüleburgaz was clear and almost the entire Strandscha Mountains fell into Bulgarian hands.
Second Balkan War
In the period after the First Balkan War, tensions between the allies increased significantly. Serbia and Greece formed a new alliance directed against Bulgaria. Skirmishes began, especially between the smaller Bulgarian forces that came from Macedonia and Serbian and Greek associations who had occupied Macedonia in the First Balkan War. Faced with this situation, the Bulgarian army began to move its troops from Eastern Thrace to the western part of the country and to reorganize them.
The First Army, still under the command of Lieutenant General Vasil Kutintschew, was relocated in the northwestern part of the country between Vidin and Berkovitsa , along the old border with Serbia. She sat around June 15th jul. / June 28, 1913 greg. composed of two divisions each with only two brigades, a few squadrons of cavalry and an independent infantry brigade.
| Battalions | soldiers | Rifles | Cannons | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Army command | 713 | |||
| 5th "Danube" Infantry Division | 14th | 20.097 | 18,680 | 48 |
| 9. "Pleven" Infantry Division | 16 | 26,740 | 22,284 | 32 |
| Independent brigade | 8th | 9,139 | 5,782 | 28 |
| Together | 38 | 56,689 | 46,746 | 108 |
The plan of operations of the Bulgarian armed forces saw the beginning of the war with an offensive and the advance of the 1st and 3rd armies towards Old Serbia . These were supposed to cut off the communication and supply lines of the Serbian army concentrated in Macedonia. However, the conflict began on June 16, jul. / June 29, 1913 greg. with the order of the 4th and 2nd Armies to attack the Serbian and Greek positions in Macedonia.
In the days that followed, there was confusion and the remaining three Bulgarian armies received no orders to attack. Not until the evening of June 21st . / 4th July 1913 greg. the 1st Army was ordered to march against the town of Knjaževac and its occupation is to be divided into two. The 1st Army was to march on one train against Zajecar and the second to march south to support the 3rd Army at Pirot . Opponents of the 1st Army was the Serbian Timok Army with 31 companies and 12 artillery - batteries under the command of Colonel Vukuman Arachich. The Bulgarians managed to defeat part of these forces and occupy Knjaževac with only 280 dead and 820 wounded.
In the meantime Romania declared war on Bulgaria and invaded its neighboring country with its armies in the northern part. This new enemy threatened the rearguard of the 1st Army and forced the Bulgarian High Command to order it to retreat. The ordered withdrawal had a negative impact on the morale of the troops and caused mutiny, for example in the 9th Division, which withdrew completely unorganized. The situation was particularly bad in the 2nd company of the division, which surrendered to the Romanian forces near Montana . The rest of the division moved back to Sofia and later played an important role in the battle in the Kresna Gorge .
With the beginning of the withdrawal of the 1st Army, the Serbs recaptured Knjaževac, invaded Bulgarian soil and captured Belogradchik , where they made contact with the Romanian forces. Thus, the entire north-east of Bulgaria was occupied by the Serbs. Only Vidin , under Colonel Krastju Marinow, with some of the broken companies from Belogradchik and over 3000 volunteers, was able to repel the Serbian attacks until the end of the war. However, most of the 1st Army withdrew in the direction of Sofia. Another part took positions in the passes of the Balkan Mountains to stop the Romanian advance on the Bulgarian capital. The greater part of the remaining 1st Army was assigned to the other Bulgarian Army.
On July 15 jul. / July 28, 1913 greg. a general armistice was agreed between the warring parties and about ten days later the Peace of Bucharest was signed, which, among other things, provided for the immediate demobilization of the Bulgarian army.
First World War
On October 14, 1915, Bulgaria entered the war as part of the Central Powers' Serbian campaign . The Central Powers had successfully launched an offensive against the Kingdom of Serbia since October 6, 1915 .
The 1st Army marched on the Bulgarian western border, east of the lower Timok and in the Caribrod area with the 4th, 6th, 8th and 9th divisions. Opposite her, the Serbian 2nd Army under General Stepanović secured four divisions between Nisch , Pirot and Vranje . On October 15, General Boyajev forced the Timok crossing at Knjazevac and southeast of Pirot. It was not until October 16 that the transition at Negotin could be enforced. The 6th Division, east of the fortress Zajecvar, encountered strong resistance from the Serbian Combined Division. The 3rd Division occupied Kriva Palanka . The 7th Division broke across the border mountains into the Bregalnica valley and reached Pehcevo on October 16 . The 8th and 9th Divisions advanced on Nisch via Knjazevac. The 3rd Division stormed the Serbian heights at Kriva Palanka. The Serbian withdrawal on October 27th enabled the separately operating group of General Ribarow (1st and 6th Divisions) to capture Zajecar and Pirot and move up the 1st Army on the Paracin-Nisch-Leskovac line. By November 7th, the 1st Army had reached the southern Morava on a broad line between Aleksinac and Niš and established the connection to the German 11th Army in the further course of the operations . Meanwhile, in the southern section of the front, the Bulgarian 2nd Army under General Todorow advanced south through the Vardar valley and pursued the Serbs through Macedonia with its northern wing.
Second World War
On the side of the Axis powers
Bulgaria joined the Axis Powers in 1941 when German troops prepared to invade Yugoslavia and Greece, reached the Bulgarian borders, and demanded permission from Bulgaria to freely pass through Bulgarian territory. On March 1, 1941, Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact and officially sided with the Axis powers. In the Bulgarian Army at that time there were three other armies with around 30 divisions in addition to the 1st Bulgarian Army.
In the course of the Balkan campaign , the 1st Army intervened in World War II and occupied the Yugoslav Vardarska banovina and parts of the Moravska banovina , thus securing the rearguard of the Wehrmacht .
On the Allied side
After the occupation of Bulgaria by the Red Army in September 1944, the Bulgarian armed forces were placed under Soviet leadership, so the 1st Army from September to November 1944 together with two other armies (the 2nd and 4th Army) tried the Germans retreating from Greece To flank forces in Macedonia , southern Serbia , Kosovo and Metohija . Here was the first army of the 1st, 2nd and 11th Infantry - Division , as well as parts of the second and first equestrian Sofia -Division (these consisted of partisans Troops).
From December 1944 to May 1945 the reorganized 1st Army fought with 99,662 men under the command of the Red Army. The army was subordinate to General Vladimir Stoychev and accompanied the advance of the 3rd Ukrainian Front on the Balkan Peninsula to the north. The 1st Army consisted of the 3rd, 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 16th Infantry Divisions. These were grouped into two corps (3rd and 4th).
The 1st Army fought in the fall of 1944 as part of the 3rd Ukrainian Front on Yugoslav and Hungarian soil. Due to its own supply bottlenecks, the 1st Army received 44 aircraft, 65 T-34 tanks, 410 artillery pieces, 115 anti-aircraft artillery pieces, 370 grenade launchers, 370 transport vehicles and around 30,000 hand weapons from the Red Army in the spring of 1945.
In Operation Spring Awakening , the Germans attacked in three directions. In the north at Lake Balaton, in the middle against the Soviet 57th Army and the Bulgarian 3rd Corps in the direction of Pécs and on the south wing over the Drava in the direction of Valpovo (today's Croatia) against the Bulgarian 4th Corps and the Yugoslav 3rd Army . Despite heavy losses and poor conditions in winter, the Germans managed to stop by March 15, 1945 and to push back behind the Drava by March 19.
Structure in March 1945
3. bulgar. Corps Lieutenant General Todor Toshew
- Bulg. 8th Division Major General Boris Harizanov
- Bulg. 10th Division Major General Ivan Hubenov
- Bulg. 12th Division General Stephen Taralezhkov
4. bulgar. Corps General Stoyan Trendafilow
- Bulg. 3rd Division Major General Vasil Lyubenow
- Bulg. 11th Division Major General Angel Dotsev
- Bulg. 16th Division Major General Tsonyo Ganew
- Bulgarian Guard Division Major General Sławczo Trynski
The main objective of the Bulgarians remained to divert and bind the German 6th Army before the main Soviet thrust in the direction of Vienna . In order to protect the south wing of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, the Bulgarians advanced to Völkermarkt in Carinthia as part of the “ Vienna Operation ” until the beginning of May 1945 . 20 km from Klagenfurt they met the British 8th Army advancing from Italy over the Wurzenpass .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Войната между България и Турция, vol. II , Sofia, 1928, pp. 649-652.
- ↑ Кратък обзор на бойния състав, организацията, попълването и мобилизацията на на бългиарската; на бългиарската ; pag. 92
- ↑ А.Христов. Исторически преглед на войната на България срещу всички балкански държави , Publishing House Печаната, Печатикица на Армет34, 19.
- ↑ Austria-Hungary's last war. Volume III, Vienna 1932, pp. 227, 239, 265f.
- ↑ Gosztony, Peter: Stalin's Foreign Armies . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn, 1991, ISBN 3-7637-5889-5 , p. 211.
literature
- Richard C. Hall: The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913: Prelude to the First World War . Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-22946-4 .
- Edward J. Erickson: Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913 . Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, ISBN 0-275-97888-5 .
- Richard Hall: Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dobro Pole 1918 . Indiana University Press, 2010, ISBN 0-253-35452-8 .
- Peter Gosztony: Stalin's Foreign Armies . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-7637-5889-5 .
- Andrew Mollo: The Armed Forces of World War II . Crown, New York 1981, ISBN 0-517-54478-4 . .
- J. Lee Ready: World War Two Nation by Nation . Arms and Armor Press, London 1995.
- Thomas Nigel, Mikulan, Krunoslav: Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941–45 . Osprey, Oxford / New York 1995, ISBN 1-85532-473-3 .
- Щаб на войската: Българската армия в Световната война, vol. II. Държавна печатница, Sofia 1938.
- Щаб на войската: Българската армия в Световната война, vol. IV. Държавна печатница, Sofia 1940.
- Петър Дошкинов: Чеганската операция. Книга 2 . Печатница на военно-издателския фонд, Sofia 1940.