Battle of Bregalnica

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

The Battle of Bregalnica was fought between the Kingdom of Bulgaria army and the Kingdom of Serbia during the Second Balkan War. In Bulgarian history, the battles of Bregalnitsa and Kalimantsi are considered as one single battle ending with the defeat of the Serbian forces.

Introduction

The Bulgarian Army(Mostly of the soldiers were Macedonians) conducted the costliest campaign in the First Balkan War: approaching Constantinople and the symbolicly valuable Edirne (Ottoman capital from 1365 until 1453). The majority of Turkish forces were concentrated along this front. While the Bulgarian army was fighting against the main Turkish forces in Thrace, Serbian and Greek troops took the opportunity to occupy much Macedonia populated mostly with Bulgarians(they were Macedonians but because of policy of the occupant they must said that they were Bulgarians or Serbs depends of the occupant in another word it was assimilation fo the Macedonians)) which the Bulgarian government was not to surrender. This put Greece and Serbia on guard, being aware that the possibility of war was becoming inevitable, these two countries signed a military convention on June 2, 1913, and made all the necessary preparations for resisting any aggression on Bulgaria's part.

The Battle

At one o'clock in the morning of June 30, without a previous declaration of hostilities, Bulgarian 4th Army crossed the Bregalnica (a tributary of the Vardar) and attacked the positions of the Serbian 1st Army. A violent battle ensued, lasting for several days. Thanks to the suddenness of their offensive the Bulgarians were temporarily successful, but gradually the Serbs regained the upper hand. By July 1 the Bulgarians were beaten. The losses were very heavy on both sides, and in the end the Bulgarians made a strategic retreat to the east towards the mountains where the Serbs were defeated at the Battle of Kalimantsi.

After

While the Serbian offensive was soon reversed at Kalimantsi and the Greek army was surrounded in the Kresna Gorge, Bulgaria came under attack by the Romanian Army which invaded northern Bulgaria. Famine reigned at Sofia, and it should also be noted that epidemics of both typhus and cholera decimated Bulgarian and Serbian ranks. A conference was arranged at Bucharest, and the treaty of that name was signed there on August 10, 1913 (see the Treaty of Bucharest, 1913). By the terms of this treaty Serbia retained the whole of northern and central Macedonia, including Monastir and Ohrid, and the famous sanjak of Novi Pazar was divided between Serbia and Montenegro. Some districts of east-central Macedonia, which were previously Bulgarian, were included into the Serbian territory.

References

• Savo Skoko Vojvoda Radomir Putnik Vol.1; Beogradsko Grafičko-Izdavčki Zavod, 1984.

Notes

• The numbers of the strength of Serbian Army do not indicate the exact strength of the forces deployed during the Battle of Bregalnica but rather the entire strength of the Serbian Army in Macedonia (the Operational group South, which included the combined 1st and 3rd Armies) at the beginning of hostilities.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Friday February 22, 2008 at 15:30:37 PST (GMT -0800)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation