Military history of Bulgaria during World War II

Military history of Bulgaria during World War II

The military history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 9 September 1944 (on 8 September, Red Army entered Bulgaria) and a period of alignment with the Allies until the end of the war. Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy during most of World War II. Tsar Boris III ruled with a Prime Minister and a Parliament.

A Bulgarian sentry at his post, Sofia, 1942

Contents

Initial neutrality (1939–1941)

The government of the Kingdom of Bulgaria under Prime Minister Bogdan Filov declared a position of neutrality upon the outbreak of World War II. Bulgaria was determined to observe it until the end of the war; but it hoped for bloodless territorial gains, especially in the lands with a significant Bulgarian population occupied by neighbouring countries after the Second Balkan War and World War I. However, it was clear that the central geopolitical position of Bulgaria in the Balkans would inevitably lead to strong external pressure by both World War II factions. Turkey had a non-aggression pact with Bulgaria. On 7 September 1940, Bulgaria succeeded in negotiating a recovery of Southern Dobruja in the Axis-sponsored Treaty of Craiova (see Second Vienna Award). Southern Dobruja had been part of Romania since 1913. This recovery of territory reinforced Bulgarian hopes for resolving other territorial problems without direct involvement in the War.

Axis Powers (1941–1944)

Bulgaria during World War II.
Bulgarian occupation of Greece (in light yellow).

Bulgaria joined the Axis Powers in 1941, when German troops preparing to invade Yugoslavia and Greece reached the Bulgarian borders and demanded permission to pass through Bulgarian territory. On 1 March 1941, Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact and officially joined the Axis bloc. With the Soviet Union in a non-aggression pact with Germany, there was little popular opposition to the decision.

On 6 April 1941, despite having officially joined the Axis Powers, the Bulgarian government maintained a course of military passivity during the initial stages of the invasion of Yugoslavia and the invasion of Greece. As German, Italian, and Hungarian troops crushed Yugoslavia and Greece, the Bulgarians remained on the side-lines. The Yugoslav government surrendered on 17 April and the Greek government surrendered on 30 April. Before the Greek government capitulated, on 20 April, the period of Bulgarian passivity ended when the Bulgarian Army entered Greece and Yugoslavia. The goal was to gain an Aegean Sea outlet in Thrace and Eastern Macedonia. The Bulgarians occupied territory between the Struma River and a line of demarcation running through Alexandroupoli and Svilengrad west of Maritsa. Included in the area occupied were the cities of Alexandroupoli (Дедеагач, Dedeagach), Komotini (Гюмюрджина, Gyumyurdzhina), Serres (Сяр, Syar), Xanthi (Ксанти), Drama (Драма) and Kavala (Кавала) and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace, as well as almost all of what is today the Republic of Macedonia and much of Eastern Serbia. During the spring of 1943, the Bulgarian government, after protests led by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Dimitar Peshev M.P., succeeded in saving Bulgarian Jews from being sent to Nazi concentration camps. However, the Bulgarian troops rounded up all Jews in Greek Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia and sent them to Auschwitz.[1][dubious – discuss]

Bulgaria did not join the German invasion of the Soviet Union that began on 22 June 1941 nor did it declare war on the Soviet Union. However, despite the lack of official declarations of war by both sides, the Bulgarian Navy was involved in a number of skirmishes with the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, which attacked Bulgarian shipping. Besides this, Bulgarian armed forces garrisoned in the Balkans battled various resistance groups.

The Bulgarian government was forced by Germany to declare a token war on the United Kingdom and the United States on 13 December 1941, an act which resulted in the bombing of Sofia and other Bulgarian cities by Allied aircraft.

Local soldiers in Vardar Macedonia, recruited in the Bulgarian Army, welcoming the IMRO vojvoda Petar Lesev, by his return from Sofia.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union caused a significant wave of protests, which led to the activation of a mass guerrilla movement headed by the underground Bulgarian Communist Party. A resistance movement called Fatherland Front was set up in August 1942 by the Communist Party, the Zveno movement and a number of other parties to oppose the then pro-Nazi government, after a number of Allied victories indicated that the Axis might lose the War. Partisan detachments were particularly active in the mountain areas of western and southern Bulgaria. In August 1943, after a visit to Germany, Bulgarian Tsar Boris III died suddenly, and his six-year-old son Simeon II succeeded him to the throne; a council of regents was set up because of the Simeon's age. The new Prime Minister, Dobri Bozhilov, was in most respects a German puppet.

Bulgaria had maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union while being a member of the Axis Powers. In the summer of 1944, after crushing the Nazi defence around Iaşi and Chişinău, the Soviet Army was approaching the Balkans and Bulgaria. On 23 August 1944, Romania left the Axis Powers and declared war on Germany, and allowed Soviet forces to cross its territory to reach Bulgaria. On 26 August, the Fatherland Front made the decision to incite an armed rebellion against the government, which led to the appointment of a new government on 2 September. Support for the government was withheld by the Fatherland Front, since it was composed of pro-Nazi circles, in a desperate attempt to hold on to power. On 5 September, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and invaded. Within three days, the Soviets occupied the northeastern part of Bulgaria along with the key port cities of Varna and Burgas. The Bulgarian Army was ordered to offer no resistance. On 8 September, the Bulgarians changed sides and joined the Soviet Union in its war against Nazi Germany.

Allies (1944–1945)

Main articles: Operation Frühlingserwachen, Battle of Drava, Nagykanizsa–Körmend Offensive, and Vienna Offensive
Meeting of Bulgarian soldiers and partisans from Vardar Macedonia in Prilep, autumn 1944.

Garrison detachments, led by Zveno officers, overthrew the government on the eve of 9 September, after taking strategic points in Sofia and arresting government ministers. A new government of the Fatherland Front was appointed on 9 September with Kimon Georgiev as prime minister. War was declared on Germany and its allies at once and the weak divisions sent by the Axis Powers to invade Bulgaria were easily driven back. In Macedonia, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces, and betrayed by high-ranking military commanders, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Unlike the Communist resistance, the right wing followers of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) saw the solution of the Macedonian Question in creating a pro-Bulgarian Independent Macedonian State. At this time the IMRO leader Ivan Mihailov arrived in German reoccupied Skopje, where the Germans hoped that he could form a Macedonian state on the base of former IMRO structures and Ohrana. Seeing that Germany had lost the war and to avoid further bloodshed, after two days he refused and set off.[2] Under the leadership of a new Bulgarian pro-Communist government, three Bulgarian armies (some 455,000 strong in total) entered Yugoslavia in September 1944 and moved from Sofia to Niš and Skopje with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Southern and eastern Serbia and Macedonia were liberated within a month and the 130,000-strong Bulgarian First Army continued to Hungary, driving off the Germans and entering Austria in April 1945. Contact was established with the British Eighth Army in the town of Klagenfurt on 8 May 1945, the day the Nazi government in Germany capitulated.

Consequences and results

As a consequence of World War II, a Communist regime was installed in Bulgaria with Georgi Dimitrov in front. The monarchy was abolished and the Tsar sent into exile.

The Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 confirmed the incorporation of Southern Dobruja into Bulgaria during the War, thus making Bulgaria the only German ally that increased its pre-War territory. The occupied parts of the Aegean region and Vardar Macedonia remaining within the borders of Bulgaria were returned, with 150,000 Bulgarians being expelled from Western Thrace.

Armed forces

Main article: Military of Bulgaria

By the end of the war, Bulgaria managed to mobilize about 450,000 men. Military equipment was mostly of German origin. By 1945, Bulgaria had also received stocks of Soviet weaponry, mostly small arms.

Infantry weapons

Vehicles

Aircraft

Ships

  • Bulgaria Drazki patrol boat
  • Bulgaria Smeli patrol boat
  • Bulgaria Hrabri patrol boat
  • Bulgaria Shumni patrol boat
  • Bulgaria Strogi patrol boat

See also

References

  1. ^ Plaut, J. E. (2000). "1. The Bulgarian Occupation Zone" in "1941-1944: The Occupation of Greece and the Deportation of the Jews" in Greek Jewry in the 20th Century, 1912-1983: Patterns of Jewish Survival in the Greek Provinces Before and After the Holocaust. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 54-57. ISBN 9780838639115. Retrieved on September 20, 2009.
  2. ^ Hitler's new disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia, Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Columbia University Press, 2008, ISBN 0231700504, pp. 238-240.
  3. ^ Caballero & Molina (2006), p. 66
  4. ^ Doyle & Jentz (2001), p. 41; Perrett (1999), p. 44, claims Bulgaria received 88 Panzer IVs.
  5. ^ Bílý, Miroslav and Jiří Vraný. Avia B-534: Czechoslovak Fighter, 3rd and 4th Version (Model File). Praha, Czech Republic: MBI, 2008. ISBN 80-8652415-9. With 71 pages the most comprehensive detail publication about the B-534 to date.
  6. ^ Griehl 2001, p. 135.

External links

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