Battle of Kirk Kilisse

Battle of Kirk Kilise
Part of First Balkan War
Date 24 October 1912
Location Kırkkilise District, Edirne Province, Ottoman Empire
(now Kırklareli, Turkey)
Result Decisive Bulgarian victory
Belligerents
Bulgaria  Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
General Radko Dimitriev
General Ivan Fichev		 Mahmud Muhtar Pasha
Abdullah Pasha
Strength
153,745 men[1] 98,326 men[1]
Casualties and losses
880 killed, 3000 wounded Heavy, 58 cannons captured, 2 airplanes captured

The Battle of Kirk Kilisse or Battle of Kirkkilise[2] or Battle of Lozengrad was part of the First Balkan War between the armies of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. It took place on 24 October 1912, when the Bulgarian army defeated an Ottoman army in Eastern Thrace.

The initial clashes were around several villages to the north of the town. The Bulgarian attacks were irresistible and the Ottoman forces were forced to retreat. On 10 October the Ottoman army threatened to split 1st and 3rd Bulgarian armies but it was quickly stopped by charge by 1st Sofian and 2nd Preslav brigades. After bloody fights along the whole town the Ottomans began to pull back and on the next morning Kırk Kilise (Lozengrad) was in Bulgarian rule.

After the victory, the French minister of war Alexandre Millerand stated that the Bulgarian Army was the best in Europe and that he would prefer 100,000 Bulgarians for allies than any other European army. [3]

References

  1. ^ a b Министерство на войната (1928), p. 204
  2. ^ Edward J. Erickson, Defeat in detail: the Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913 , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, ISBN 9780275978884, p. 86, 181.
  3. ^ В. Мир, № 3684, 15. X. 1912.

Sources