Chapter 139： Battle of Ohrid

When Petroch fired the first shot of the war, the awakened Serbian army also rushed into the trenches and prepared to resist the Bulgarian invasion.

The Bulgarian Fourth Division saw that its surprise attack was discovered, and it rushed to Serbia's first-line position. When a large number of Serbian troops arrived, they were already within fifty meters of the position. After suffering a wave of casualties, the Fourth Division rushed into the trenches and fought with the Serbian Sixth Division. The Bulgarian artillery cluster of 453 cannons also began to block artillery at this time. The reinforcements of the Sixth Division were completely unable to pass such a powerful fire interception.

Seeing that his reinforcements were blocked by artillery fire, Serbian Sixth Division Commander Podonovich was anxious in his heart.

Colonel Dewanat, the brigade commander of the 6th Division of the 3rd Division, who had only been reinforced today, said it loudly when he saw the helpless commander of the 6th Division. "The general is now the enemy's artillery is too fierce, our reinforcements can not go up, the first-line position is estimated to be unable to defend soon, it is better for us to stick to the second-line stratum defense."

Hearing the suggestion of Colonel Devanath who had reinforced him, Major General Podonovich realized that he was too impatient and called a messenger to tell him. "Call back the reinforced Twelfth Brigade to strengthen the second-line position."

Seeing the departure of the messenger, Major Podonovich secretly hurt himself for his 11th brigade on the front line. In the absence of reinforcements, it is unknown how many people will be left in the 11th brigade to escape back.

In fact, the 11th brigade on the first line was almost unstoppable, and the culprit that caused them to be unstoppable was the large number of Madsen machine guns in the Bulgarian Fourth Division. Under the suppression of this machine gun, a large number of soldiers of the 11th Brigade fell under its muzzle. If the shelling behind them were not too violent, many people would have escaped.

In Ohrid, Marshal Putnik (promoted from general to marshal on June 15th in recognition of his achievements in the battle against the Ottomans) had just been awakened by a telegram of the attack on the Sixth Division. The old marshal, who only wore a shirt, took over the sixth division telegram handed to him by a staff officer.

In the telegram, the Sixth Division stated that it had been severely attacked by the Bulgarian army and hoped to receive reinforcements. After reading the telegram, Marshal Putnik gave an order to the staff who was waiting for a reply. "Let the third and first divisions stationed outside the city quickly reinforce the defense line of the sixth division, and let the seventh and tenth divisions be prepared to reinforce at dawn."

After speaking, he felt that he hadn't said something, carefully, and wanted to continue talking to the staff officer. "Prepare the second division in the city to be stationed in the fortifications and prepare to attack at the same time."

"Yes, your marshal."

The staff officer who was ordered returned his sentence and immediately went out to send a telegram to the Third Division and the First Division.

Marshal Putnik couldn't sleep even after giving orders to the staff. He walked back and forth in the room thinking about whether there were loopholes in his deployment. Marshal Putnik had prepared Bulgaria to launch an attack before, taking into account all the circumstances, and now only needs to implement the plan according to the previously scheduled plan. After thinking for a while, he came to the lobby of the command headquarters, intending to wait for news from the front line. Seeing that under the brightly lit situation, the staff members were busy with their work, which filled the hall with the tense atmosphere of the coming war.

Marshal Putnik came to the front of the hall, looked at a huge high-scale military map hanging on the wall, and began to think.

Seeing the marshal standing in front of the map meditating, the voices of the staff were much lower. After about fifteen minutes, a staff officer looked at the telegram that he had just received, and walked to Marshal Putnik and said. "The Marshal just sent a telegram from the Sixth Division that the first-line position was lost, and they are fighting hard in the second-line position."

"What? Show me."

Marshal Putnik, who heard the latest information on the battlefield, couldn't believe his eyes. In his opinion, the defense line of the Sixth Division can be maintained for at least half a day, and it only takes an hour and a half for the reinforcements to reach the position. At present, it seems that the Sixth Division can't stand it for an hour and a half, and now it is estimated that the reinforcement time will be delayed by two hours due to darkness. How can this not surprise Marshal Putnik.

Marshal Putnik took the telegram from the staff and checked it. In the telegram, the commander of the Sixth Division, Portonovic, described the whole process of the attack in detail. Seeing that the Bulgarian army had strengthened all its heavy firepower to the vanguard, this was the reason why the Sixth Division was caught off guard and suffered heavy losses.

Marshal Putnik was very surprised by this, and this completely subverted military common sense made him feel incredible. But now he can't care about gaffes, he needs to come up with a reliable way to solve the problem. After thinking for a while, he made arrangements to withstand the attack of the Bulgarian army.

"Send a telegram to the Seventh and Tenth Divisions and let them immediately reinforce the positions of the Sixth Division.

Hearing that the Marshal made two decisions to increase troops within an hour, the staff officer immediately replied. "Yes, your marshal."

When Marshal Putnik made the decision to die with Bulgaria, the second line of defense of the Sixth Division was also attacked by fierce artillery. The first line of defense had been lost before, and the remnants of the 11th brigade were picked up by them. Looking at the Eleventh Brigade with less than 3,000 people in front of him, General Podonovich was bleeding. You must know that there were more than 7,000 people before the Eleventh Brigade, plus the machine guns and small artillery he had added to them. Up to eight thousand people. Now he can only line up the remnants of the 11th brigade to the third line of defense.

The heavy Bulgarian shelling lasted only fifteen minutes before it was over. Then the soldiers of the Bulgarian Fourth Division appeared in front of them, and the remaining soldiers of the Sixth Division and the reinforcements of the sixth brigade of the Third Division began to launch a fierce counterattack. One side relied on its own fortifications to resist, and the other relied on its own fierce firepower, and the battle situation was fierce and unusual. After more than ten minutes, Bulgaria pushed up the small artillery. Facing the bayonet tactics of the Bulgarian artillery, the Serbian Sixth Division gradually rushed to struggle.

One by one supporting firepower was broken by Bulgaria's tactics, which greatly increased the pressure on the defensive Sixth Division. The Fourth Division finally succeeded in breaking into the position of the Sixth Division with the cover of night, and the Serbs who fought for a while retreated steadily. The Third Army behind the Fourth Division also sent two divisions to step forward for reinforcements. In the end, the Sixth Division failed to withstand the Bulgarian attack and withdrew from the second and third positions one after another.

But this way the Bulgarian army could not let go of their plans. With the reinforcement of the two divisions of the Third Army, the Bulgarian Fourth Division followed all the way to the attack, which completely collapsed the sixth brigade of the Sixth Division and the Third Division, and the soldiers rushed to Ohrid in the rear. The reinforcements of the 3rd and 1st Divisions were caught off guard, and were defeated by the Bulgarian troops of the three divisions in the marching state. This also affected the second batch of reinforcements, and the seventh and tenth divisions were also defeated by the Bulgarian army of three divisions. These divisions didn't reply until the next morning, which Marshal Putnik didn't expect at all.

In order to avoid being surrounded by the Bulgarian army, Marshal Putnik could only lead his troops and retreat to Miako, 30 kilometers away, intending to regroup and continue fighting.

The Serbian army lost about 30,000 people in this battle. Among them, 6,158 were killed, 4315 were injured, and 18,417 were captured. Most of them were captured after they were lost on the battlefield. Bulgaria lost 11,000 people, of which 5,719 were killed and 5,134 were injured. The management loss is less, but the Bulgarian machine guns consume more bullets The main force of this raid, the fourth division, has an average of more than 50 bullets left for each Madsen machine gun, which is not enough for two magazines. We must know that Bulgaria supplied half of the Madsen machine gun bullets in its inventory to the Fourth Division. Now that there are less than two magazines left, we can see the intensity of the battle.

On another battlefield, Bitola's Serbian army could not withstand the Bulgarian raid and was defeated, surrendering the occupied Bitola area to the Bulgarian First Army. More than 70,000 Serbian troops returned only about 50,000, and 20,000 were left there. The First Army also lost a little over 80,000 and the remaining 70,000 troops.

The same is true in Thessaloniki area, where the Second Bulgarian Army launched a surprise attack on the defensive Greek army. Despite the stubborn resistance of the Greek army, the Bulgarian army, which had strengthened its firepower and had no shortage of ammunition, was still defeated. Only about 60,000 of the more than 70,000 Greek troops who were defending survived back to a small town called Dambia on the border. The Bulgarian Second Army also suffered a loss of almost 10,000.

The results of the battle between the Bulgarian and Sisi armies surprised the European powers. For a time, Bulgaria was the Balkans and Prussia was called very loudly.

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