Military Operations of the First Balkan War

Na noj!” (“Fix bayonets!”) had won. “Na noj! Give them the steel!” was the cry of a nation.

Continuing The First Balkan War,
with a selection from special article to Great Events by Famous Historians, volume 21 by Frederick Palmer published in 1914. This selection is presented in 3 installments, each one 5 minutes long. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The First Balkan War.

Time: 1912

A Serbian division, immediately after Kumanova, started southwest over the mountain passes in the snow and through the valleys in the mud to clinch the great Serbian object of the war with the nine points of possession. To young Serbia, Durazzo, the port of old Serbia, is as water to the gasping fish. It stands for unhampered trade relations with the world, for economic freedom. When that division, ragged and footsore, came at last in sight of the blue Adriatic — well, it may safely be called a historic moment for one little nation.

Now we turn from the side lines, where the Serbs and the Greeks were occupied, to the neck of the funnel through which the Turkish reinforcements from Asia Minor were coming. There the Bulgars had undertaken the great, vital task of the war against the main Turkish army.

The Bulgarian army was little given to gaiety and laughter but sang the “Shuma Maritza” on the march. This is the song of big men in boots — big white men with set faces — making the thunder of a torrent as they charge. “Roaring Maritza” is the nearest that you can come to putting it into English. The Maritza is the national river, and the song pictures it swollen and rushing in the winter rains or when the snows on the Balkans melt, on its way past the Bulgarian border into Turkey; and the gray army was now to follow it to the Aegean, in the spirit of its flood, and make the harbor at its mouth Bulgarian.

Yes, a gray army, bent on a grim business in a hurry, in gray winter weather and chill mountain mists, with the sun showing through overcast skies — something of the kind of weather that bred the Scotch. Cromwell or Stonewall Jackson would have felt at home, saying his prayers at the double-quick, in such company. As mementos from home, the soldiers wore in their caps and buttonholes withered flowers and sprigs of green which their womenfolk had given in farewell. The women were just as Spartan as the Spartans; perhaps more so. If any soldier lacked innate courage, the spur of public opinion drove him forward in step with his comrades.

Naturally, Bulgarian generalship had to adapt its plan of campaign to the obstacles between it and its adversary. For armies are cumbrous affairs. In all times they have been tied down to roads and bridges. The main highway and the main railway line from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to Constantinople both ran through Adrianople. Nature meant this city, set in a basin among hills, for defense, and for the center of any army defending Thrace. On the near-by hills is a circle of permanent forts that commands all approaches for guns or infantry. In front of it is the turbulent Maritza, and to the northeast lies the town of Kirk-Kilesseh, partly fortified and naturally strong, which formed the Turkish right. The left rested at Demotika, to the south of Adrianople, in a rough country inaccessible to prompt action by a large force.

The Bulgars must turn one wing or the other. Foreign military experts thought that Kirk-Kilesseh could be taken only after a long operation, and then only by a force much larger than the Bulgars could spare for concentration at any one point of the line. Let two weeks pass without a definite victory, and the Turks would have numbers equal to the Bulgars; a month, superior numbers. As it was, the Turks had altogether, including the Adrianople garrison, a hundred and seventy-five thousand men in strong position against the Bulgars’ first line of two hundred and eighty thousand.

A branch of the Sofia-Constantinople railway line runs northeast to Yamboli, on the Bulgarian frontier. Between Yamboli and Kirk-Kilesseh is a highway — the Turkish kind of highway — and no unfordable streams or other natural obstacles to an army’s progress. At Yamboli the Bulgars concentrated their third army corps, under General Demetrief, and a portion of their second. The rest of the second faced Adrianople, while the first corps operated to the south and east.

Swinging around on Kirk-Kilesseh, the third army would not take “No!” for an answer. The Bulgarian infantry stormed the redoubts in the moonlight. They knew how to use the bayonet and the Turks did not. Skillfully driven steel slaughtered Mohammedan fanaticism that fought with clubbed guns, hands, and teeth, asking no quarter this side of Paradise. Kirk-Kilesseh fell. The Turkish army, flanked, had to go; Adrianople was isolated. The Bulgarian dead on the field could not complain; the wounded were in the rear; the living had burning eyes on the next goal.

“Na noj!” (“Fix bayonets!”) had won. “Na noj! Give them the steel!” was the cry of a nation. Soldiers sang it out to one another on the march. Children prattled it at home as if it were a new kind of game:

Give them the steel and they will go! Nothing can stop Bulgaria!”

Not more than two Bulgarian soldiers out of twenty ever reached the Turk with a bayonet. The Turk did not wait for them. So, the bayonet counted no less in the morale of the eighteen than of the two. Frequently they fixed it at a distance of five or six hundred yards. Their desire to use it made them press close at all points with the grim initiative that will not be gainsaid. When they charged, the spirit of cold steel was in their rush.

There was a splendid audacity in General Demetrief’s next move after Kirk-Kilesseh. He did not pause to surround Adrianople. To the east was a wide gap in the investing lines. Through this the garrison might have made a sortie with telling effect. But Demetrief knew his enemy. He took it for granted that the garrison was settling itself for a siege. With twelve thousand Turkish reinforcements a day arriving from Asia, even hours counted.

J. Ellis Barker begins here. Frederick Palmer begins here. Stephen P. Duggan begins here.

More information here and here, and below.