Armistice of Thessaloniki

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With the Armistice of Thessaloniki (also: Armistice of Saloniki ), which was signed on September 29, 1918 in Thessaloniki , the Tsarist Bulgaria was the first of the four Central Powers to leave the First World War . This was preceded by a strategic success of the Allies on the Salonika Front in the course of the breakthrough battle on Dobro Polje , which began on September 15 , which had led to a retreat of the Bulgarian army beyond the national borders and the immediate threat of the capital Sofia by an Allied invasion.

prehistory

Bulgaria had been at war with the Allies since October 1915, after participating on the side of the Central Powers in the 1915 campaign in Serbia . The three-year involvement in the war, mainly on the Salonika Front against the Allied Orient Army fighting under French leadership and from August 1916 to December 1917 also in the Romanian theater of war against Romania , had drained the country economically and led to considerable war fatigue and demoralization. Although the army was far in the former Serbian Vardar Macedonia and in the peace treaty of Bucharest with Romania of May 7, 1918, the southern Dobruja , which had been lost in the Second Balkan War , was regained, but the claim to an annexation of the entire Dobruja was against the objection of the others Central Powers failed. The North Dobruja was declared a condominium of the Central Powers in the treaty . As a result, both Austria-Hungary ( Vranje triangle) and the Ottoman Empire (parts of Thrace ) filed claims to territories previously assured to Bulgaria. Furthermore, in view of the more or less obvious failure of the German spring offensive on the Western Front in the summer of 1918 , for which the German troops on the Salonika Front had been almost completely withdrawn, skepticism spread that in the end they would be on the side of the winners of the war. On June 20 of that year, the pro-German Prime Minister Vasil Radoslawow resigned and made room for the moderate Aleksandar Malinov , who was supposed to lead the country out of the war as unscathed as possible.

When Malinov took office, the country faced major problems, the food situation in particular was precarious and the 1918 harvest did not promise any improvement. The inflation assumed large proportions and the black market flourished. The population felt abandoned by the politicians, as did the army by their allies. In this situation radical slogans spread like those advocated by the Peasant People's Union of the war opponent Aleksandar Stambolijski, who had been imprisoned since 1915, and by the socialist parties. Inspired by the Russian Revolution , soldiers' councils had formed in some army units and desertions increased.

The Allied breakthrough on the Salonika Front

Front lines on 15th and armistice operations

On the morning of September 15, 1918, after a day's artillery bombardment in the mountains in the border region of Greece and Macedonia, the long-prepared decision-making offensive of the Allied Orient Army under General Franchet d'Espèrey began , led mainly by Serbian and French units. The Allies planned to use a pincer movement on Prilep in order to get into the rear of the Bulgarian army and force them to retreat hastily. In doing so, the path of retreat through the Vardar Valley was to be cut off. Although the Bulgarian army succeeded in defending against the right-wing, British-Greek wing of the Orient Army in the Battle of Lake Dojran ( September 18-19 ), Franchet's plan largely worked. The defeated army, which had lost thousands of soldiers as prisoners, withdrew behind the national borders, pursued by cavalry attacking them. On September 25, the first Allied units crossed the Bulgarian border.

Armistice negotiations

The Bulgarian delegation (from left to right: Lukow, Lyaptschew, Radew)

On September 24, the Bulgarian government decided to apply for an armistice to the Allied Commander-in-Chief Franchet d'Espèrey. The request was brought by an officer to the British commander George Milne and a request for mediation was directed to the American Consul General in Sofia, Dominick Murphy. D'Espèrey turned down the request for a 24-hour ceasefire, as did Murphy's offer to accompany the Bulgarian delegation to Salonika, and first asked his government for permission to negotiate. This arrived on September 27, along with instructions on the conditions to be set. On September 28, the Bulgarian delegation, consisting of Finance Minister Andrei Lyaptschew , the diplomat Simeon Radew and General Ivan Lukow , the commander of the 2nd Army, arrived at the British lines.

Negotiations began on the morning of September 29 at the Franchet d'Espèreys house. Although the Bulgarians tried to obtain favorable terms for them on some points - such as the participation of Serbian and Greek troops in the occupation - they had authorization to agree to the Allies' demands under all circumstances. The French conducted the negotiations alone, without consulting the allies. The conditions were accepted and the armistice was signed around 10:30 pm that same day.

conditions

The treaty, which dealt with practically purely military questions, included not only its published clauses but also some secret clauses. The published clauses included:

  1. immediate withdrawal of the Bulgarian army from the areas still occupied by it
  2. Immediate demobilization of the army, with the exception of the troops intended for manning the border with the Ottoman Empire and similar purposes
  3. Handover of the weapons of the demobilized units to Allied control
  4. Handover of the weapons of the Greek IV Army Corps (previously interned by the Central Powers) to the Allies
  5. all Bulgarian troops still west of Skopje become prisoners of war
  6. Extradition of all prisoners of war and civilian deportees held by Bulgaria, Bulgarian prisoners of war were allowed to be used by the Allies for work
  7. Expulsion of the military associations and citizens of the other Central Powers within four weeks

The secret clauses were:

  1. Permission to use the Bulgarian roads by allied troops
  2. Permission to fill strategic points within Bulgaria
  3. the allied commander in chief reserves the right to demand the severance of all relations between Bulgaria and the other Central Powers
  4. Opening of the Bulgarian ports to allied and neutral ships

The political and territorial questions were reserved for the later peace agreement.

The treaty came into force on September 30 at noon.

Immediate consequences

The German Supreme Army Command under Erich Ludendorff recognized that the war was lost with this armistice at the latest, and - for tactical reasons - immediately spoke out in favor of parliamentarizing the Reich government. This new government should - instead of the military - make the now inevitable peace. The newly formed government under Max von Baden turned to US President Woodrow Wilson on October 4 with a request to mediate a ceasefire , which was followed by the Wilson Notes .

In Bulgaria there was a rebellion of deserting soldiers at the end of September, which threatened the capital Sofia. Under the pressure of the street and feeling betrayed by his government, Tsar Ferdinand I abdicated on October 3rd. He was succeeded by his son as Boris III.

The Allies used the freedom of movement granted to them to move troops through Bulgaria towards Romania, Hungary and European Turkey. The Turkish government under Grand Vizier Talat Pasha resigned on October 7th. The new government under Ahmed İzzet Pasha signed the Moudros ceasefire on October 30th . This was followed on November 3rd by Austria-Hungary with the armistice of Villa Giusti and finally on November 11th by the German Empire with the armistice of Compiègne .

aftermath

The armistice remained in force until the conclusion of peace on November 27, 1919. In the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine , Bulgaria lost territories to Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania and had to pay high reparations.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ RJ Crampton: Bulgaria. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-820514-2 , pp. 216 f.
  2. The United States and Bulgaria were not at war with each other, although diplomatic relations had been severed in 1917.
  3. United States Senate: Armistice agreements. Terms of the armistice agreements concluded between the Allied and Associated Governments and the Governments of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. Presented by Mr. Lodge, October 30, 1919.