Medieval Bulgarian Army
The medieval Bulgarian army was the main military instrument of the First and Second Bulgarian Empires . In the first decades after the establishment of the empire, the army consisted of infantry and cavalry of Slavic Bulgarians . The core of the Bulgarian army was the heavy cavalry, which consisted of 12,000 to 30,000 heavily armed riders. In its heyday from the 9th to 10th centuries, it was one of the most powerful armed forces in Europe. There are several documented cases in which Byzantine generals refused to invade with their troops in order not to have to fight the Bulgarian army defending their homeland.
The army was inextricably linked with the existence of the Bulgarian state. Her success under Tsar Simeon I marked the creation of a great empire, and her defeat in a protracted war of attrition in the early 11th century that marked the end of Bulgaria's independence. After the Bulgarian state was restored in 1185, a number of able tsars achieved a notable streak of victories over the Byzantines and the Western Crusaders. When the state and its army were fragmented in the 13th and 14th centuries, it was unable to stop the Ottoman advance that led to the conquest of Bulgaria in 1422. Only in 1878, with the liberation of Bulgaria, a new Bulgarian army was set up.
See also
literature
- DM Lang : The Bulgarians from Pagan Times to the Ottoman Conquest . Thames & Hudson, Southampton 1976.
- Stephen Lowe: Byzantium's Neighbors: 1. The Bulgarians .
- P. Pavlov: Commanders and allies Cumans, Tatars and Alans in the Second Bulgarian Empire . In: Rebels and adventurers in Medieval Bulgaria ( Bulgarian ). LiterNet, Varna 2005.
- Steven Runciman : A history of the First Bulgarian Empire . G. Bell & Sons, London 1930.
- Vasil Zlatarski : History of the Bulgarian state in the Middle Ages: Part 1 ( Bulgarian ). II nd edition, Sofia 1971.
- Vasil Zlatarski: History of the Bulgarian state in the Middle Ages: Part 2 ( Bulgarian ). II nd edition, Sofia 1971.