title: First Balkan War

text: The war was a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster for the Ottomans, who lost 83% of their European territories and 69% of their European population. As a result of the war, the League captured and partitioned almost all of the Ottoman Empire's remaining territories in Europe. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albania, which angered the Serbs. Bulgaria, meanwhile, was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia, and attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913 which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War.


title: First Balkan War

text: Tensions among the Balkan states over their rival aspirations to the provinces of Ottoman-controlled Rumelia (Eastern Rumelia, Thrace and Macedonia) subsided somewhat after the mid-19th-century intervention by the Great Powers, which aimed to secure both a more complete protection for the provinces' Christian majority as well as to maintain the status quo. By 1867, Serbia and Montenegro had both secured their independence, which was confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin (1878). The question of the viability of Ottoman rule was revived after the Young Turk Revolution in July 1908, which compelled the Ottoman Sultan to restore the suspended constitution of the empire.


title: First Balkan War

text: Serbia's aspirations to take over Bosnia and Herzegovina were thwarted by the Bosnian crisis, which led to the Austrian annexation of the province in October 1908. The Serbs then directed their war efforts to the south. After the annexation, the Young Turks tried to induce the Muslim population of Bosnia to emigrate to the Ottoman Empire. Those who took up the offer were resettled by the Ottoman authorities in districts of northern Macedonia with few Muslims. The experiment proved to be a catastrophe since the immigrants readily united with the existing population of Albanian Muslims and participated in the series of 1911 Albanian uprisings and the Albanian revolt of 1912. Some Albanian government troops switched sides.


title: First Balkan War

text: In May 1912, Albanian rebels seeking national autonomy and the re-installment of Sultan Abdul Hamid II to power, drove the Young Turkish forces out of Skopje and pressed south towards Manastir (now Bitola), forcing the Young Turks to grant effective autonomy over large regions in June 1912. Serbia, which had helped the arming of Albanian Catholic and Hamidian rebels and sent secret agents to some of the prominent leaders, took the revolt as a pretext for war. Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria had all been in talks about possible offensives against the Ottoman Empire before the 1912 Albanian revolt had broken out, and a formal agreement between Serbia and Montenegro had been signed on 7 March. On 18 October 1912, King Peter I of Serbia issued a declaration, 'To the Serbian People', which appeared to support Albanians as well as Serbs:


title: First Balkan War

text: In a search for allies, Serbia was ready to negotiate a treaty with Bulgaria. The agreement provided that in the event of victory against the Ottomans, Bulgaria would receive all of Macedonia south of the Kriva Palanka–Ohrid line. Serbia's expansion was accepted by Bulgaria as being to the north of the Shar Mountains (Kosovo). The intervening area was agreed to be "disputed" and would be arbitrated by the Tsar of Russia in the event of a successful war against the Ottoman Empire. During the course of the war, it became apparent that the Albanians did not consider Serbia as a liberator, as had been suggested by King Peter I, and the Serbian forces failed to observe his declaration of amity toward Albanians.


title: First Balkan War

text: After the successful coup d'état for unification with Eastern Rumelia, Bulgaria began to dream that its national unification would be realized. For that purpose, it developed a large army and identified as the "Prussia of the Balkans". However, Bulgaria could not win a war alone against the Ottomans.


title: First Balkan War

text: In Greece, Hellenic Army officers had rebelled in the Goudi coup of August 1909 and secured the appointment of a progressive government under Eleftherios Venizelos, which they hoped would resolve the Crete question in Greece's favor. They also wanted to reverse their defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1897) by the Ottomans. An emergency military reorganization, led by a French military mission, had been started for that purpose, but its work was interrupted by the outbreak of war in the Balkans. In the discussions that led Greece to join the Balkan League, Bulgaria refused to commit to any agreement on the distribution of territorial gains, unlike its deal with Serbia over Macedonia. Bulgaria's diplomatic policy was to push Serbia into an agreement that limited its access to Macedonia but, at the same time, to refuse any such agreement with Greece. Bulgaria believed that its army would be able to occupy the larger part of Aegean Macedonia and the important port city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) before the Greeks could do so.


title: First Balkan War

text: In 1911, Italy had launched an invasion of Tripolitania, now in Libya, which was quickly followed by the occupation of the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea. The Italians' decisive military victories over the Ottoman Empire and the successful 1912 Albanian revolt encouraged the Balkan states to imagine that they might win a war against the Ottomans. By the spring and the summer of 1912, the various Christian Balkan nations had created a network of military alliances, which became known as the Balkan League.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Great Powers, most notably France and Austria-Hungary, reacted to the formation of the alliances by trying unsuccessfully to dissuade the Balkan League from going to war. In late September, both the League and the Ottoman Empire mobilized their armies. Montenegro was the first to declare war, on 25 September (O.S.)/8 October. After issuing an impossible ultimatum to the Ottoman Porte on 13 October, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece declared war on the Ottomans on 17 October (1912). The declarations of war attracted a large number of war correspondents. An estimated 200 to 300 journalists from around the world covered the war in the Balkans in November 1912.


title: First Balkan War

text: When the war broke out, the Ottoman order of battle had a total of 12,024 officers, 324,718 other ranks, 47,960 animals, 2,318 artillery pieces and 388 machine guns. A total of 920 officers and 42,607 men of them had been assigned in non-divisional units and services, the remaining 293,206 officers and men being assigned into four armies.


title: First Balkan War

text: Opposing them and continuing their secret prewar settlements for expansion, the three Slavic allies (Bulgarian, Serbs and Montenegrins) had extensive plans to co-ordinate their war efforts: the Serbs and the Montenegrins in the theatre of Sandžak and the Bulgarians and the Serbs in the Macedonian and the Bulgarians alone in the Thracian theater.


title: First Balkan War

text: The bulk of the Bulgarian forces (346,182 men) was to attack Thrace and to be pitted against the Thracian Ottoman Army of 96,273 men and about 26,000 garrison troops, or about 115,000 in total, according to Hall's, Erickson's and the Turkish General Staff's 1993 studies. The remaining Ottoman army of about 200,000 was in Macedonia, to be pitted against the Serbian (234,000 Serbs and 48,000 Bulgarians under Serbian command) and Greek (115,000 men) armies. It was divided into the Vardar and Macedonian Ottoman armies, with independent static guards around the fortress cities of Ioannina (against the Greeks in Epirus) and Shkodër (against the Montenegrins in northern Albania).


title: First Balkan War

text: Bulgaria was militarily the most powerful of the four Balkan states, with a large, well-trained and well-equipped army. Bulgaria mobilized a total of 599,878 men out of a population of 4.3 million. The Bulgarian field army counted for nine infantry divisions, one cavalry division and 1,116 artillery units. The commander-in-chief was Tsar Ferdinand, and the operating command was in the hands of his deputy, General Mihail Savov. The Bulgarians also had a small navy of six torpedo boats, which were restricted to operations along the country's Black Sea coast.


title: First Balkan War

text: Bulgaria was focused on actions in Thrace and Macedonia. It deployed its main force in Thrace by forming three armies. The First Army (79,370 men), under General Vasil Kutinchev, had three infantry divisions and was deployed to the south of Yambol and assigned operations along the Tundzha River. The Second Army (122,748 men), under General Nikola Ivanov, with two infantry divisions and one infantry brigade, was deployed west of the First Army and was assigned to capture the strong fortress of Adrianople (Edirne). Plans had the Third Army (94,884 men), under General Radko Dimitriev, to be deployed east of and behind the First Army and to be covered by the cavalry division that hid it from the Ottomans' sight. The Third Army had three infantry divisions and was assigned to cross Mount Stranja and to take the fortress of Kirk Kilisse (Kırklareli). The 2nd (49,180) and 7th (48,523 men) Divisions were assigned independent roles, operating in Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia, respectively.


title: First Balkan War

text: Three hundred Armenians from throughout the Ottoman Empire, Europe, and Russia, a small yet significant number, volunteered to fight on the side of the Balkan League’s 750,000 soldiers. Under the leadership of Andranik Ozanian and Garegin Nzhdeh, the Armenian detachment was commissioned to fight the Ottomans first at Momchilgrad and Komotini and its environs, and then later İpsala, Keşan, and Malkara, and Tekirdağ.


title: First Balkan War

text: Serbia called upon about 255,000 men, out of a population of 2,912,000, with about 228 heavy guns, grouped in ten infantry divisions, two independent brigades and a cavalry division, under the effective command of the former war minister, Radomir Putnik. The Serbian High Command, in its prewar war games, had concluded that the most likely site for the decisive battle against the Ottoman Vardar Army would be on the Ovče Pole Plateau, ahead of Skopje. Thus, the main forces were formed in three armies for the advance towards Skopje and a division and an independent brigade were to co-operate with the Montenegrins in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.


title: First Balkan War

text: The First Army (132,000 men), the strongest, was commanded by Crown Prince Alexander and Chief of Staff was Colonel Petar Bojović. The First Army formed the centre of the drive towards Skopje. The Second Army (74,000 men) was commanded by General Stepa Stepanović and had one Serbian and one Bulgarian (7th Rila) division. It formed the army's left wing and advanced towards Stracin. The inclusion of a Bulgarian division was according to a prewar arrangement between Serbian and Bulgarian armies, but the division ceased to obey the orders of Stepanović as soon as the war began but followed only the orders of the Bulgarian High Command. The Third Army (76,000 men) was commanded by General Božidar Janković, and since it was on the right wing, had the task to invade Kosovo and then move south to join the other armies in the expected battle at Ovče Polje. There were two other concentrations in northwestern Serbia across the borders between Serbia and Austria-Hungary: the Ibar Army (25,000 men), under General Mihailo Živković, and the Javor Brigade (12,000 men), under Lieutenant-Colonel Milovoje Anđelković.


title: First Balkan War

text: Greece, whose population was then 2,666,000, was considered the weakest of the three main allies since it fielded the smallest army and had suffered a defeat against the Ottomans 16 years earlier, in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. A British consular dispatch from 1910 expressed the common perception of the Greek army's abilities: "if there is war we shall probably see that the only thing Greek officers can do besides talking is to run away". However, Greece was the only Balkan country to possess a substantial navy, which was vital to the League to prevent Ottoman reinforcements from being rapidly transferred by ship from Asia to Europe. That was readily appreciated by the Serbs and the Bulgarians and was the chief factor in initiating the process of Greece's inclusion in the League. As the Greek ambassador to Sofia put it during the negotiations that led to Greece's entry into the League, "Greece can provide 600,000 men for the war effort. 200,000 men in the field, and the fleet will be able to stop 400,000 men being landed by Turkey between Salonica and Gallipoli."


title: First Balkan War

text: The Greek army was still undergoing reorganisation by a French military mission, which arrived in early 1911. Under French supervision, the Greeks had adopted the triangular infantry division as their main formation, but more importantly, the overhaul of the mobilization system allowed the country to field and equip a far greater number of troops than had been the case in 1897. Foreign observers estimated Greece would mobilize a force of approximately 50,000 men, but the Greek army fielded 125,000, with another 140,000 in the National Guard and reserves. Upon mobilisation, as in 1897, the force was grouped in two field armies, reflecting the geographic division between the two operational theatres that were open to the Greeks: Thessaly and Epirus. The Army of Thessaly (Στρατιά Θεσσαλίας) was placed under Crown Prince Constantine, with Lieutenant-General Panagiotis Danglis as his chief of staff. It fielded the bulk of the Greek forces: seven infantry divisions, a cavalry regiment and four independent Evzones light mountain infantry battalions, roughly 100,000 men. It was expected to overcome the fortified Ottoman border positions and advance towards southern and central Macedonia, aiming to take Thessaloniki and Bitola. The remaining 10,000 to 13,000 men in eight battalions were assigned to the Army of Epirus () under Lieutenant-General Konstantinos Sapountzakis. As it had no hope of capturing Ioannina, the heavily fortified capital of Epirus, the initial mission was to pin down the Ottoman forces there until sufficient reinforcements could be sent from the Army of Thessaly after the successful conclusion of operations.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Greek navy was relatively modern, strengthened by the recent purchase of numerous new units and undergoing reforms under the supervision of a British mission. Invited by Greek Prime Minister Venizelos in 1910, the mission began its work upon its arrival in May 1911. Granted extraordinary powers and led by Vice Admiral Lionel Grant Tufnell, it thoroughly reorganized the Navy Ministry and dramatically improved the number and the quality of exercises in gunnery and fleet maneuvers. In 1912, the core unit of the fleet was the fast armoured cruiser "Georgios Averof", which had been completed in 1910 and then was the fastest and the most modern warship in the combatant navies. It was complemented by three rather-antiquated battleships of the . There were also eight destroyers, built in 1906–1907, and six new destroyers, hastily bought in summer 1912 as the imminence of war became apparent.


title: First Balkan War

text: Nevertheless, at the outbreak of the war, the Greek fleet was far from ready. The Ottoman battlefleet retained a clear advantage in number of ships, speed of the main surface units and, most importantly, number and caliber of the ships' guns. In addition, as the war caught the fleet in the middle of its expansion and reorganization, a full third of the fleet (the six new destroyers and the submarine ) reached Greece only after hostilities had started, forcing the navy to reshuffle crews, who consequently suffered from lacking familiarity and training. Coal stockpiles and other war stores were also in short supply, and the "Georgios Averof" had arrived with barely any ammunition and remained so until late November.


title: First Balkan War

text: Montenegro was the smallest nation in the Balkan Peninsula, but in recent years before the war, with support from Russia, it had improved its military skills. Also, it was the only Balkan country never to be fully conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Montenegro being the smallest member of the League, did not have much influence. However, it was advantageous for Montenegro, since when the Ottoman Empire was trying to counter the actions of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, there was enough time for Montenegro to prepare, which helped its successful military campaign.


title: First Balkan War

text: In 1912, the Ottomans were in a difficult position. They had a large population, 26 million, but just over 6.1 million of them lived in its European part, only 2.3 million being Muslims. The rest were Christians, who were considered unfit for conscription. The very poor transport network, especially in the Asian part, dictated that the only reliable way for a mass transfer of troops to the European theatre was by sea, but that faced the risk of the Greek fleet in the Aegean Sea. In addition, the Ottomans were still engaged in a protracted war against Italy in Libya (and by now in the Dodecanese islands of the Aegean), which had dominated the Ottoman military effort for over a year. The conflict lasted until 15 October, a few days after the outbreak of hostilities in the Balkans. The Ottomans were unable to reinforce their positions in the Balkans significantly as their relations with the Balkan states deteriorated over the course of the year.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Ottomans' military capabilities were hampered by a number of factors, such as domestic strife, caused by the Young Turk Revolution and the counterrevolutionary coup several months later. That resulted in different groups competing for influence within the military. A German mission had tried to reorganize the army, but its recommendations had not been fully implemented. The Ottoman army was caught in the middle of reform and reorganisation. Also, several of the army's best battalions had been transferred to Yemen to face the ongoing rebellion there. In the summer of 1912, the Ottoman High Command made the disastrous decision to dismiss some 70,000 mobilised troops. The regular army ("Nizam") was well-equipped and had trained active divisions, but the reserve units ("Redif") that reinforced it were ill-equipped, especially in artillery, and badly-trained.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Ottomans' strategic situation was difficult, as their borders were almost impossible to defend against a coordinated attack by the Balkan states. The Ottoman leadership decided to defend all of their territory. As a result, the available forces, which could not be easily reinforced from Asia because of Greek control of the sea and the inadequacy of the Ottoman railway system, were dispersed too thinly across the region. They failed to stand up to the rapidly-mobilized Balkan armies. The Ottomans had three armies in Europe (the Macedonian, Vardar and Thracian Armies), with 1,203 pieces of mobile and 1,115 fixed artillery on fortified areas. The Ottoman High Command repeated its error of previous wars by ignoring the established command structure to create new superior commands, the Eastern Army and Western Army, reflecting the division of the operational theatre between the Thracian (against the Bulgarians) and Macedonian (against the Greeks, Serbs and Montenegrins) fronts.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Western Army fielded at least 200,000 men, and the Eastern Army fielded 115,000 men against the Bulgarians. The Eastern Army was commanded by Nazim Pasha and had seven corps of 11 regular infantry divisions, 13 Redif divisions and at least one cavalry divisions:


title: First Balkan War

text: The Western Army (Macedonian and Vardar Army) was composed of ten corps with 32 infantry and two cavalry divisions. Against Serbia, the Ottomans deployed the Vardar Army (HQ in Skopje) under Halepli Zeki Pasha, with five corps of 18 infantry divisions, one cavalry division and two independent cavalry brigades under the:


title: First Balkan War

text: The Macedonian Army (headquarters in Thessaloniki under Ali Rıza Pasha) had 14 divisions in five corps, deployed against Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro.


title: First Balkan War

text: Against Bulgaria, in southeastern Macedonia, two divisions, the Struma Corps (14th Infantry and Serez Redif divisions, plus the Nevrekop Detachment), were deployed.


title: First Balkan War

text: According to the organisational plan, the men of the Western Group were to total 598,000, but slow mobilization and the inefficiency of the rail system drastically reduced the number of men available. According to the Western Army Staff, when the war began, it had only 200,000 men available. Although more men would reach their units, war casualties prevented the Western Group from ever coming near its nominal strength. In wartime, the Ottomans had planned to bring more troops in from Syria, both "Nizamiye" and "Redif". Greek naval supremacy prevented those reinforcements from arriving. Instead, those soldiers had to deploy via the land route, and most of them never made it to the Balkans.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Ottoman General Staff, assisted by the German military mission, developed twelve war plans, which were designed to counter various combinations of opponents. Work on Plan No. 5, which was against a combination of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, was very advanced and had been sent to the army staffs for them to develop local plans.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Ottoman fleet had performed abysmally in the 1897 Greco-Turkish War, forcing the Ottoman government to begin a drastic overhaul. Older ships were retired and newer ones acquired, chiefly from France and Germany. In addition, in 1908, the Ottomans called in a British naval mission to update their training and doctrine. The British mission, headed by Admiral Sir Douglas Gamble, would find its task almost impossible. To a large extent the political upheaval in the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution prevented it. Between 1908 and 1911, the office of Navy Minister changed hands nine times. Interdepartmental infighting and the entrenched interests of the bloated and averaged officer corps, many of whom occupied their positions as a quasi-sinecure, further obstructed drastic reform. In addition, British attempts to control the navy's construction programme were met with suspicion by the Ottoman ministers. Consequently, funds for Gamble's ambitious plans for new ships were unavailable.


title: First Balkan War

text: To counter the Greek acquisition of the "Georgios Averof", the Ottomans initially tried to buy the new German armoured cruiser or the battlecruiser . Not able to afford the ships' high cost, the Ottomans acquired two old pre-dreadnought battleships, which became and . Along with the cruisers and , both ships were to form the relatively modern core of the Ottoman battlefleet. By the summer of 1912, however, they were already in poor condition because of chronic neglect: the rangefinders and ammunition hoists had been removed, the telephones were not working, the pumps were corroded, and most of the watertight doors could no longer be closed.


title: First Balkan War

text: Montenegro started the First Balkan War by declaring war against the Ottomans on . The western part of the Balkans, including Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia, was less important to the resolution of the war and the survival of the Ottoman Empire than the Thracian theatre, where the Bulgarians fought major battles against the Ottomans. Although geography dictated Thrace would be the major battlefield in a war with the Ottoman Empire, the position of the Ottoman Army there was jeopardized by erroneous intelligence estimates of the opponents' order of battle. Unaware of the secret prewar political and military settlement over Macedonia between Bulgaria and Serbia, the Ottoman leadership assigned the bulk of its forces there. The German ambassador, Hans Baron von Wangenheim, one of the most influential people in the Ottoman capital, had reported to Berlin on 21 October that the Ottoman forces believed that the bulk of the Bulgarian army would be deployed in Macedonia with the Serbs. Then, the Ottoman headquarters, under Abdullah Pasha, expected to meet only three Bulgarian infantry divisions, accompanied by cavalry, east of Adrianople. According to historian E. J. Erickson, that assumption possibly resulted from the analysis of the objectives of the Balkan Pact, but it had deadly consequences for the Ottoman Army in Thrace, which was now required to defend the area from the bulk of the Bulgarian army against impossible odds. The misappraisal was also the reason of the catastrophic aggressive Ottoman strategy at the start of the campaign in Thrace.


title: First Balkan War

text: In the Thracian Front, the Bulgarian army had placed 346,182 men against the Ottoman First Army, with 105,000 men in eastern Thrace and the Kircaali detachment, of 24,000 men, in western Thrace. The Bulgarian forces were divided into the First, Second and Third Bulgarian Armies of 297,002 men in the eastern part and 49,180 (33,180 regulars and 16,000 irregulars) under the 2nd Bulgarian Division (General Stilian Kovachev) in the western part. The first large-scale battle occurred against the Edirne-Kırklareli defensive line, where the Bulgarian First and Third Armies (a combined 174,254 men) defeated the Ottoman East Army (of 96,273 combatants), near Gechkenli, Seliolu and Petra. The Ottoman XV Corps urgently left the area to defend the Gallipoli Peninsula against an expected Greek amphibious assault, which never materialised. The absence of the corps created an immediate vacuum between Adrianople and Demotika, and the 11th Infantry Division from the Eastern Army's IV Corps was moved there to replace it. Thus, one complete army corps was removed from the Eastern Army's order of battle.


title: First Balkan War

text: As a consequence of the insufficient intelligence on the invading forces, the Ottoman offensive plan failed completely in the face of Bulgarian superiority. That forced Kölemen Abdullah Pasha to abandon Kirk Kilisse, which was taken without resistance by the Bulgarian Third Army. The fortress of Adrianople, with some 61,250 men, was isolated and besieged by the Bulgarian Second Army, but for the time being, no assault was possible because of the lack of siege equipment in the Bulgarian inventory. Another consequence of Greek naval supremacy in the Aegean was that the Ottoman forces did not receive the reinforcements that had been in the war plans, which would have been further corps transferred by sea from Syria and Palestine. Thus, the Greek navy played an indirect but crucial role in the Thracian campaign by neutralising three corps, a significant portion of the Ottoman army, in the all-important opening round of the war. Another more direct role was the emergency transportation of the Bulgarian 7th Rila Division from the Macedonian Front to the Thracian Front after the end of operations there.


title: First Balkan War

text: After the Battle of Kirk Kilisse, the Bulgarian High Command decided to wait a few days, but that allowed the Ottoman forces to occupy a new defensive position on the Lüleburgaz-Karaağaç-Pınarhisar line. However, the Bulgarian attack by the First and Third Armies, which together accounted for 107,386 rifleman, 3,115 cavalry, 116 machine guns and 360 artillery pieces, defeated the reinforced Ottoman Army, with 126,000 riflemen, 3,500 cavalry, 96 machine guns and 342 artillery pieces and reached the Sea of Marmara. In terms of forces engaged, it was the largest battle fought in Europe between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the beginning of the First World War. As a result, the Ottoman forces were pushed to their final defensive position across the Çatalca Line, protecting the peninsula and Constantinople. There, they managed to stabilize the front with the help of fresh reinforcements from Asia. The line had been constructed during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, under the directions of a German engineer in Ottoman service, von Bluhm Pasha, but it had been considered obsolete by 1912. An epidemic of cholera spread among the Bulgarian soldiers after the Battle of Luleburgas - Bunarhisar.


title: First Balkan War

text: Meanwhile, the forces of the Bulgarian 2nd Thracian division, 49,180 men divided into the Haskovo and Rhodope detachments, advanced towards the Aegean Sea. The Ottoman Kircaali detachment (Kircaali Redif and Kircaali Mustahfiz Divisions and 36th Regiment, with 24,000 men), tasked with defending a 400 km front across the Thessaloniki-Alexandroupoli railroad, failed to offer serious resistance, and on 26 November, the commander, Yaver Pasha, was captured with 10,131 officers and men by the Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps. After the occupation of Thessaloniki by the Greek army, his surrender completed the isolation of the Ottoman forces in Macedonia from those in Thrace.


title: First Balkan War

text: On , the offensive against the Çatalca Line began, despite clear warnings that if the Bulgarians occupied Constantinople, Russia would attack them. The Bulgarians launched their attack along the defensive line, with 176,351 men and 462 artillery pieces against the Ottomans' 140,571 men and 316 artillery pieces, but despite Bulgarian superiority, the Ottomans succeeded in repulsing them. An armistice was agreed on between the Ottomans and Bulgaria, the latter also representing Serbia and Montenegro, and peace negotiations began in London. Greece also participated in the conference but refused to agree to a truce and continued its operations in the Epirus sector. The negotiations were interrupted on , when a Young Turk coup d'état in Constantinople, under Enver Pasha, overthrew the government of Kâmil Pasha. Upon the expiration of the armistice, on , hostilities restarted.


title: First Balkan War

text: On 20 February, Ottoman forces began their attack, both in Çatalca and south of it, at Gallipoli. There, the Ottoman X Corps, with 19,858 men and 48 guns, landed at Şarköy while an attack of around 15,000 men supported by 36 guns (part of the 30,000-strong Ottoman army isolated in Gallipoli Peninsula) at Bulair, farther south. Both attacks were supported by fire from Ottoman warships and had been intended, in the long term, to relieve pressure on Edirne. Confronting them were about 10,000 men, with 78 guns. The Ottomans were probably unaware of the presence in the area of the new 4th Bulgarian Army, of 92,289 men, under General Stiliyan Kovachev. The Ottoman attack in the thin isthmus, with a front of just 1800m, was hampered by thick fog and the strong Bulgarian artillery and machine gunfire. As a result, the attack stalled and was repulsed by a Bulgarian counterattack. By the end of the day, both armies had returned to their original positions. Meanwhile, the Ottoman X Corps, which had landed at Şarköy, advanced until , when the reinforcements that had been sent by General Kovachev succeeded in halting them.


title: First Balkan War

text: Casualties on both sides were light. After the failure of the frontal attack in Bulair, the Ottoman forces at Şarköy re-entered their ships on and were transported to Gallipoli.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Ottoman attack at Çatalca, directed against the powerful Bulgarian First and Third Armies, was initially launched only as a diversion from the Gallipoli-Şarköy operation to pin down the Bulgarian forces in situ. Nevertheless, it resulted in unexpected success. The Bulgarians, who were weakened by cholera and concerned that an Ottoman amphibious invasion might endanger their armies, deliberately withdrew about 15 km and to the south over 20 km to their secondary defensive positions, on higher ground to the west. With the end of the attack in Gallipoli, the Ottomans canceled the operation since they were reluctant to leave the Çatalca Line, but several days passed before the Bulgarians realized that the offensive had ended. By 15 February, the front had again stabilized, but fighting along the static lines continued. The battle, which resulted in heavy Bulgarian casualties, could be characterized as an Ottoman tactical victory, but it was a strategic failure since it did nothing to prevent the failure of the Gallipoli-Şarköy operation or to relieve the pressure on Edirne.


title: First Balkan War

text: The failure of the Şarköy-Bulair operation and the deployment of the Second Serbian Army, with its much-needed heavy siege artillery, sealed Adrianople's fate. On 11 March, after a two weeks' bombardment, which destroyed many of the fortified structures around the city, the final assault started, with League forces enjoying a crushing superiority over the Ottoman garrison. The Bulgarian Second Army, with 106,425 men and two Serbian divisions with 47,275 men, conquered the city, with the Bulgarians suffering 8,093 and the Serbs 1,462 casualties. The Ottoman casualties for the entire Adrianople campaign reached 23,000 dead. The number of prisoners is less clear. The Ottoman Empire began the war with 61,250 men in the fortress. Richard Hall noted that 60,000 men were captured. Adding to the 33,000 killed, the modern "Turkish General Staff History" notes that 28,500-man survived captivity leaving 10,000 men unaccounted for as possibly captured (including the unspecified number of wounded). Bulgarian losses for the entire Adrianople campaign amounted to 7,682. That was the last and decisive battle that was necessary for a quick end to the war even though it is speculated that the fortress would have fallen eventually because of starvation. The most important result was that the Ottoman command had lost all hope of regaining the initiative, which made any more fighting pointless.


title: First Balkan War

text: The battle had major and key results in Serbian-Bulgarian relations, planting the seeds of the two countries' confrontation some months later. The Bulgarian censor rigorously cut any references to Serbian participation in the operation in the telegrams of foreign correspondents. Public opinion in Sofia thus failed to realize the crucial services of Serbia in the battle. Accordingly, the Serbs claimed that their troops of the 20th Regiment were those who captured the Ottoman commander of the city and that Colonel Gavrilović was the allied commander who had accepted Shukri's official surrender of the garrison, a statement that the Bulgarians disputed. The Serbs officially protested and pointed out that although they had sent their troops to Adrianople to win for Bulgaria territory, whose acquisition had never been foreseen by their mutual treaty, the Bulgarians had never fulfilled the clause of the treaty for Bulgaria to send 100,000 men to help the Serbians on their Vardar Front. The Bulgarians answered that their staff had informed the Serbs on 23 August. The friction escalated some weeks later, when the Bulgarian delegates in London bluntly warned the Serbs that they must not expect Bulgarian support for their Adriatic claims. The Serbs angrily replied that to be a clear withdrawal from the prewar agreement of mutual understanding, according to the Kriva Palanka-Adriatic line of expansion, but the Bulgarians insisted that in their view, the Vardar Macedonian part of the agreement remained active and the Serbs were still obliged to surrender the area, as had been agreed. The Serbs answered by accusing the Bulgarians of maximalism and pointed out that if they lost both northern Albania and Vardar Macedonia, their participation in the common war would have been virtually for nothing. The tension soon was expressed in a series of hostile incidents between both armies on their common line of occupation across the Vardar valley. The developments essentially ended the Serbian-Bulgarian alliance and made a future war between the two countries inevitable.


title: First Balkan War

text: Ottoman intelligence had also disastrously misread Greek military intentions. In retrospect, the Ottoman staffs seemingly believed that the Greek attack would be shared equally between both major avenues of approach: Macedonia and Epirus. That made the Second Army staff evenly balance the combat strength of the seven Ottoman divisions between the Yanya Corps and VIII Corps, in Epirus and southern Macedonia, respectively. The Greek army also fielded seven divisions, but it had the initiative and so concentrated all seven against VIII Corps, leaving only a number of independent battalions of scarcely divisional strength on the Epirus front. That had fatal consequences for the Western Group by leading to the early loss of the city at the strategic centre of all three Macedonian fronts, Thessaloniki, which sealed their fate. In an unexpectedly brilliant and rapid campaign, the Army of Thessaly seized the city. In the absence of secure sea lines of communications, the retention of the Thessaloniki-Constantinople corridor was essential to the overall strategic posture of the Ottomans in the Balkans. Once that was gone, the defeat of the Ottoman army became inevitable. The Bulgarians and the Serbs also played an important role in the defeat of the main Ottoman armies. Their great victories at Kirkkilise, Lüleburgaz, Kumanovo, and Monastir (Bitola) shattered the Eastern and Vardar Armies. However, the victories were not decisive by ending the war. The Ottoman field armies survived, and in Thrace, they actually grew stronger every day. Strategically, those victories were enabled partially by the weakened condition of the Ottoman armies, which had occurred by the active presence of the Greek army and navy.


title: First Balkan War

text: With the declaration of war, the Greek Army of Thessaly, under Crown Prince Constantine, advanced to the north and overcame Ottoman opposition in the fortified mountain passes of Sarantaporo. After another victory at Giannitsa (Yenidje), on , the Ottoman commander, Hasan Tahsin Pasha, surrendered Thessaloniki and its garrison of 26,000 men to the Greeks on . Two Corps headquarters (Ustruma and VIII), two Nizamiye divisions (14th and 22nd) and four Redif divisions (Salonika, Drama, Naslic and Serez) were thus lost to the Ottoman order of battle. Also, the Ottoman forces lost 70 artillery pieces, 30 machine guns and 70,000 rifles (Thessaloniki was the central arms depot for the Western Armies). The Ottoman forces estimated that 15,000 officers and men had been killed during the campaign in southern Macedonia, bringing their total losses to 41,000 soldiers. Another consequence was that the destruction of the Macedonian army sealed the fate of the Ottoman Vardar Army, which was fighting the Serbs to the north. The fall of Thessaloniki left it strategically isolated, without logistical supply and depth to maneuver, and ensured its destruction.


title: First Balkan War

text: Upon learning of the outcome of the Battle of Giannitsa (Yenidje), the Bulgarian High Command urgently dispatched the 7th "Rila" Division from the north towards the city. The division arrived there a day later, the day after its surrender to the Greeks, who were further away from the city than the Bulgarians. Until 10 November, the Greek-occupied zone had been expanded to the line from Lake Dojran to the Pangaion hills west to Kavalla. In western Macedonia, however, the lack of co-ordination between the Greek and the Serbian headquarters cost the Greeks a setback in the Battle of Vevi, on , when the Greek 5th Infantry Division crossed its way with the VI Ottoman Corps (part of the Vardar Army with the 16th, 17th and 18th Nizamiye Divisions), retreating to Albania after the Battle of Prilep against the Serbs. The Greek division, surprised by the presence of the Ottoman Corps, isolated from the rest of Greek army and outnumbered by the now-counterattacking Ottomans centred on Monastir (Bitola), was forced to retreat. As a result, the Serbs beat the Greeks to Bitola.


title: First Balkan War

text: In the Epirus front, the Greek army was initially heavily outnumbered, but the passive attitude of the Ottomans let the Greeks conquer Preveza on 21 October 1912 and push north towards Ioannina. On 5 November, Major Spyros Spyromilios led a revolt in the coastal area of Himarë and expelled the Ottoman garrison without any significant resistance, and on 20 November, Greek troops from western Macedonia entered Korçë. However, Greek forces in the Epirote front lacked the numbers to initiate an offensive against the German-designed defensive positions of Bizani, which protected Ioannina, and so had to wait for reinforcements from the Macedonian front.


title: First Balkan War

text: After the campaign in Macedonia was over, a large part of the Army was redeployed to Epirus, where Constantine himself assumed command. In the Battle of Bizani, the Ottoman positions were breached and Ioannina was taken on . During the siege, on 8 February 1913, the Russian pilot N. de Sackoff, flying for the Greeks, became the first pilot ever shot down in combat when his biplane was hit by ground fire after a bomb run on the walls of Fort Bizani. He came down near the small town of Preveza, on the coast north of the Ionian island of Lefkas, secured local Greek assistance, repaired his plane and resumed flying back to base. The fall of Ioannina allowed the Greek army to continue its advance into northern Epirus, now the south of Albania, which it occupied. There, its advance stopped, but the Serbian line of control was very close to the north.


title: First Balkan War

text: On the outbreak of hostilities on 18 October, the Greek fleet, placed under the newly promoted Rear Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, sailed for the island of Lemnos, occupying it three days later (although fighting continued on the island until 27 October) and establishing an anchorage at Moudros Bay. That move had major strategic importance by providing the Greeks with a forward base near the Dardanelles Straits, the Ottoman fleet's main anchorage and refuge. The Ottoman fleet's superiority in speed and broadside weight made Greek plans expect it to sortie from the straits early in the war. The Greek fleet's unpreparedness because of the premature outbreak of the war might well have let such an early Ottoman attack achieve a crucial victory. Instead, the Ottoman navy spent the first two months of the war in operations against the Bulgarians in the Black Sea, which gave the Greeks valuable time to complete their preparations and allowed them to consolidate their control of the Aegean Sea.


title: First Balkan War

text: By mid-November, Greek naval detachments had seized the islands of Imbros, Thasos, Agios Efstratios, Samothrace, Psara and Ikaria, and landings were undertaken on the larger islands of Lesbos and Chios only on 21 and 27 November, respectively. Substantial Ottoman garrisons were present on the latter, and their resistance was fierce. They withdrew into the mountainous interior and were not subdued until 22 December and 3 January, respectively. Samos, officially an autonomous principality, was not attacked until 13 March 1913, out of a desire not to upset the Italians in the nearby Dodecanese. The clashes there were short-lived, as the Ottoman forces withdrew to the Anatolian mainland, and the island was securely in Greek hands by 16 March.


title: First Balkan War

text: At the same time, with the aid of numerous merchant ships converted to auxiliary cruisers, a loose naval blockade on the Ottoman coasts from the Dardanelles to Suez was instituted, which disrupted the Ottomans' flow of supplies (only the Black Sea routes to Romania remained open) and left some 250,000 Ottoman troops immobilised in Asia. In the Ionian Sea, the Greek fleet operated without opposition, ferrying supplies for the army units in the Epirus front. Furthermore, the Greeks bombarded and then blockaded the port of Vlorë in Albania on 3 December and Durrës on 27 February. A naval blockade, extending from the prewar Greek border to Vlorë, was also instituted on 3 December, isolating the newly established Provisional Government of Albania that was based there from any outside support.


title: First Balkan War

text: Lieutenant Nikolaos Votsis scored a major success for Greek morale on 21 October by sailing his torpedo boat No. 11, under the cover of night, into the harbour of Thessaloniki, sinking the old Ottoman ironclad battleship and escaping unharmed. On the same day, Greek troops of the Epirus Army seized the Ottoman naval base of Preveza. The Ottomans scuttled the four ships present there, but the Greeks were able to salvage the Italian-built torpedo-boats and , which were commissioned into the Greek Navy as and , respectively. A few days later, on 9 November, the wooden Ottoman armed steamer "Trabzon" was intercepted and sunk by the Greek torpedo boat No. 14, under Lieutenant-General Periklis Argyropoulos, off Ayvalık.


title: First Balkan War

text: The main Ottoman fleet remained inside the Dardanelles for the early part of the war, and the Greek destroyers continuously patrolled the straits' exit to report on a possible sortie. Kountouriotis suggested mining the straits, but that was not taken up out of fear of international opinion. On 7 December, the head of the Ottoman fleet, Tahir Bey, was replaced by Ramiz Naman Bey, the leader of the hawkish faction among the officer corps. A new strategy was agreed with the Ottomans to take advantage of any absence of "Georgios Averof" to attack the other Greek ships. The Ottoman staff formulated a plan to lure a number of the Greek destroyers on patrol into a trap. The first attempt, on 12 December, failed because of boiler trouble, but a second attempt, two days later, resulted in an indecisive engagement between the Greek destroyers and the cruiser "Mecidiye".


title: First Balkan War

text: The war's first major fleet action, the Battle of Elli, was fought two days later, on . The Ottoman fleet, with four battleships, nine destroyers and six torpedo boats, sailed to the entrance of the straits. The lighter Ottoman vessels remained behind, but the battleship squadron continued north, under the cover of forts at Kumkale, and engaged the Greek fleet coming from Imbros at 9:40. Leaving the older battleships to follow their original course, Kountouriotis led the "Averof" into independent action: using her superior speed, she cut across the Ottoman fleet's bow. Under fire from two sides, the Ottomans were quickly forced to withdraw to the Dardanelles. The whole engagement lasted less than an hour in which the Ottomans suffered heavy damage to the "Barbaros Hayreddin" and 18 dead and 41 wounded (most during their disorderly retreat) and the Greeks had one dead and seven wounded.


title: First Balkan War

text: In the aftermath of Elli, on 20 December, the energetic Lieutenant Commander Rauf Bey was placed in effective command of the Ottoman fleet. Two days later, he led his forces out in the hope of again trapping the patrolling Greek destroyers between two divisions of the Ottoman fleet, one heading for Imbros and the other waiting at the entrance of the straits. The plan failed, as the Greek ships quickly broke contact. At the same time, the "Mecidiye" came under attack by the Greek submarine "Delfin", which launched a torpedo against it but missed; it was the first such attack in history. The Ottoman army continued to press upon a reluctant navy a plan for the reoccupation of Tenedos, which the Greek destroyers used as a base, by an amphibious operation scheduled for 4 January. That day, weather conditions were ideal and the fleet was ready, but the "Yenihan" regiment earmarked for the operation failed to arrive on time. The naval staff still ordered the fleet to sortie, and an engagement developed with the Greek fleet, without any significant results on either side. Similar sorties followed on 10 and 11 January, but the results of the "cat and mouse" operations were always the same: "the Greek destroyers always managed to remain outside the Ottoman warships' range, and each time the cruisers fired a few rounds before breaking off the chase".


title: First Balkan War

text: In preparation for the next attempt to break the Greek blockade, the Ottoman Admiralty decided to create a diversion by sending the light cruiser "Hamidiye", captained by Rauf Bey, to raid Greek merchant shipping in the Aegean. It was hoped that the "Georgios Averof", the only major Greek unit fast enough to catch the "Hamidiye", would be drawn into pursuit and leave the remainder of the Greek fleet weakened. In the event, "Hamidiye" slipped through the Greek patrols on the night of 14–15 January and bombarded the harbor of the Greek island of Syros, sinking the Greek auxiliary cruiser , which lay in anchor there (it was later raised and repaired). The "Hamidiye" then left the Aegean for the Eastern Mediterranean, making stops at Beirut and Port Said before it entered the Red Sea. Although it provided a major morale boost for the Ottomans, the operation failed to achieve its primary objective since Kountouriotis refused to leave his post and pursue the "Hamidiye".


title: First Balkan War

text: Four days later, on , when the Ottoman fleet again sallied from the straits towards Lemnos, it was defeated for a second time in the Battle of Lemnos. This time, the Ottoman warships concentrated their fire on the "Averof", which again made use of its superior speed and tried to "cross the T" of the Ottoman fleet. "Barbaros Hayreddin" was again heavily damaged, and the Ottoman fleet was forced to return to the shelter of the Dardanelles and their forts with 41 killed and 101 wounded. It was the last attempt for the Ottoman navy to leave the Dardanelles, which left the Greeks dominant in the Aegean. On , a Greek Farman MF.7, piloted by Lieutenant Michael Moutousis and with Ensign Aristeidis Moraitinis as an observer, carried out an aerial reconnaissance of the Ottoman fleet in its anchorage at Nagara and launched four bombs on the anchored ships. Although it scored no hits, the operation is regarded as the first naval-air operation in military history.


title: First Balkan War

text: General Ivanov, the commander of the Second Bulgarian Army, acknowledged the role of the Greek fleet in the overall Balkan League victory by stating that "the activity of the entire Greek fleet and above all the "Averof" was the chief factor in the general success of the allies".


title: First Balkan War

text: The Serbian forces operated against the major part of Ottoman Western Army, which was in Novi Pazar, Kosovo and northern and eastern Macedonia. Strategically, the Serbian forces were divided into four independent armies and groups: the Javor brigade and the Ibar Army, which operated against Ottoman forces in Novi Pazar; the Third Army, which operated against Ottoman forces in Kosovo; the First Army, which operated against Ottoman forces in northern Macedonia; and the Second Army, which operated from Bulgaria against Ottoman forces in eastern Macedonia. The decisive battle was expected to be fought in northern Macedonia, in the plains of Ovče Pole, where the Ottoman Vardar Army's main forces were expected to concentrate.


title: First Balkan War

text: The plan of the Serbian Supreme Command had three Serbian armies encircle and destroy the Vardar Army in that area, with the First Army advancing from the north (along the line of Vranje-Kumanovo-Ovče Pole), the Second Army advancing from the east (along the line of Kriva Palanka-Kratovo-Ovče Pole) and the Third Army advancing from the northwest (along the line of Priština-Skopje-Ovče Pole). The main role was given to the First Army. The Second Army was expected to cut off the Vardar Army's retreat and, if necessary, to attack its rear and right flank. The Third Army was to take Kosovo and, if necessary, to assist the First Army by attacking the Vardar Army's left flank and rear. The Ibar Army and the Javor brigade had minor roles in the plan and were expected to secure the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and to replace the Third Army in Kosovo after it had advanced south.


title: First Balkan War

text: The Serbian army, under General (later Marshal) Putnik, achieved three decisive victories in Vardar Macedonia, the primary Serbian objective in the war, by effectively destroying the Ottoman forces in the region and conquering northern Macedonia. The Serbs also helped the Montenegrins take the Sandžak and sent two divisions to help the Bulgarians at the siege of Edirne. The last battle for Macedonia was the Battle of Monastir in which the remains of the Ottoman Vardar Army were forced to retreat to central Albania. After the battle, Serbian Prime Minister Pasic asked General Putnik to take part in the race for Thessaloniki. Putnik declined and turned his army to the west, towards Albania, since he saw that a war between Greece and Bulgaria over Thessaloniki could greatly help Serbia's own plans for Vardar Macedonia.


title: First Balkan War

text: After pressure applied by the Great Powers, the Serbs started to withdraw from northern Albania and the Sandžak but left behind their heavy artillery park to help the Montenegrins in the continuing Siege of Shkodër. On 23 April 1913, Shkodër's garrison was forced to surrender because of starvation.


title: First Balkan War

text: Massacres of Albanians were perpetrated on several occasions by Serbian and Montenegrin armies and paramilitaries during the Balkan Wars. According to contemporary accounts, between 10,000 and 25,000 Albanians were killed or died because of hunger and cold during that period; many of the victims were children, women and the elderly. According to an Albanian imam organization, there were around 21,000 simple graves in Kosovo where Albanians were massacred by the Serbian armies. In August and September 1913, Serbian forces destroyed 140 villages and forced 40,000 Albanians to flee.


title: First Balkan War

text: In addition to the massacres, some civilians had their lips, ears and noses severed; Philip J. Cohen, examining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report, said that Serbian soldiers cut off the ears, noses and tongues of Albanian civilians and gouged out their eyes. Cohen also cited Durham as saying that Serbian soldiers helped bury people alive in Kosovo. According to Cohen, the Serbian Army generated so much fear that some Albanian women killed their children rather than let them fall into the hands of Serbian soldiers.


title: First Balkan War

text: American relief commissioner Willar Howard said in a 1914 "Daily Mirror" interview that General Carlos Popovitch would shout, "Don't run away, we are brothers and friends. We don't mean to do any harm." Peasants who trusted Popovitch were shot or burned to death, and elderly women unable to leave their homes were also burned. Howard said that the atrocities were committed after the war ended. According to Leo Freundlich's 1912 report, Popovitch was responsible for many of the Albanian massacres and became captain of the Serb troops in Durrës. Serbian Generals Datidas Arkan and Bozo Jankovic were authorized to kill anyone who blocked Serbian control of Kosovo. "Yugoslavia from a Historical Perspective", a 2017 study published in Belgrade by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, said that villages were burned to ashes and Albanian Muslims forced to flee when Serbo-Montenegrin forces invaded Kosovo in 1912. Some chronicles cited decapitation as well as mutilation.


title: First Balkan War

text: The principal reason for the Ottoman defeat in the autumn of 1912 was the decision on the part of the Ottoman government to respond to the ultimatum from the Balkan League on 15 October 1912 by declaring war at a time when its mobilization, ordered on 1 October, was only partially complete. During the declaration of war, 580,000 Ottoman soldiers in the Balkans faced 912,000 soldiers of the Balkan League. The bad condition of the roads, together with the sparse railroad network, had led to the Ottoman mobilization being grossly behind schedule, and many of the commanders were new to their units, having been appointed only on 1 October 1912. Furthermore, many Turkish divisions were still engaged in a losing war with Italy far away in the Libyan provinces. The strain of fighting a war on multiple fronts took an enormous toll on Ottoman finances, morale, casualties and materiél. The Turkish historian Handan Nezir Akmeșe wrote that the best response when they were faced with the Balkan League's ultimatum on 15 October on the part of the Ottomans would have been to try to stall for time via diplomacy while they completed their mobilization, instead of declaring war immediately.


title: First Balkan War

text: War Minister Nazım Pasha, Navy Minister Mahmud Muhtar Pasha and Austrian military attaché Josef Pomiankowski had presented overly-optimistic pictures of the Ottoman readiness for war to the Cabinet in October 1912 and advised that the Ottoman forces should take the offensive at once at the outbreak of hostilities. By contrast, many senior army commanders advocated taking the defensive when the war began, arguing that the incomplete mobilization, together with serious logistic problems, made taking the offensive impossible. Other reasons for the defeat were:


title: First Balkan War

text: The Treaty of London ended the First Balkan War on 30 May 1913. All Ottoman territory west of the Enez-Kıyıköy line was ceded to the Balkan League, according to the "status quo" at the time of the armistice. The treaty also declared Albania to be an independent state. Almost all of the territory that was designated to form the new Albanian state was currently occupied by either Serbia or Greece, which only reluctantly withdrew their troops. Having unresolved disputes with Serbia over the division of northern Macedonia and with Greece over southern Macedonia, Bulgaria was prepared, if the need arose, to solve the problems by force, and began transferring its forces from Eastern Thrace to the disputed regions. Unwilling to yield to any pressure Greece and Serbia settled their mutual differences and signed a military alliance directed against Bulgaria on 1 May 1913, even before the Treaty of London had been concluded. This was soon followed by a treaty of "mutual friendship and protection" on 19 May/1 June 1913. Thus the scene for the Second Balkan War was set.


title: First Balkan War

text: Although the developments that led to the war were noticed by the Great Powers, they had an official consensus over the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, which led to a stern warning to the Balkan states. However, unofficially, each Great Power took a different diplomatic approach since there were conflicting interests in the area. Since any possible preventive effect of the common official warning was cancelled by the mixed unofficial signals, they failed to prevent or to end the war:


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 1st Cavalry Division ("First Team") is a combined arms division and is one of the most decorated combat divisions of the United States Army. It is based at Fort Hood, Texas. It was formed in 1921 and served during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, with the Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the Iraq War, in the War in Afghanistan and in Operation Freedom's Sentinel. As of October 2017, the 1st Cavalry Division is subordinate to III Armored Corps and is commanded by Major General John B. Richardson.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The unit is unique in that it has served as a horseback cavalry division until 1943, an infantry division, an air assault division and an armored division during its existence.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The history of the 1st Cavalry Division began in 1921 after the army established a permanent cavalry division table of organization and equipment on 4 April 1921. It authorized a square division organization of 7,463 officers and men, organized as follows:


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: On 20 August 1921, the War Department Adjutant General constituted the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions to meet partial mobilization requirements, and authorized the establishment of the 1st Cavalry Division under the new TO&E on 31 August 1921. Since 1st Cavalry Division was to assemble from existing units, it was able to go active in September 1921, even though the subordinate units did not arrive completely until as late as 1922.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: 1st Cavalry Division was assigned to the VIII Corps Area, with its division headquarters and 2nd Brigade located at Fort Bliss, Texas, and the 1st Brigade at Camp Harry J. Jones in Douglas, Arizona. The headquarters facilities used by 1st Cavalry Division were those previously vacated by 8th United States Brigade when it was commanded by MG John J. Pershing in 1916, and the wartime 15th Cavalry Division, which had existed at Fort Bliss between 10 December 1917 and 12 May 1918.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 1st Cavalry Division assembled at Douglas, Arizona. The 1st, 7th, and 8th Cavalry Regiments had previously been assigned to the wartime 15th Cavalry Division until they were returned to the VIII Corps Area troop list on 12 May 1918. 1st Cavalry Regiment remained assigned until it was transferred to 1st Cavalry Division on 20 August 1921. The 7th, 8th, and 10th Cavalry Regiments were transferred on 13 September 1921, although the assignment of the 10th Cavalry Regiment to the 1st Cavalry Division was controversial because the transfer violated the Jim Crow laws. This controversy continued until 18 December 1922, when the 5th Cavalry Regiment, then on the VIII Corps Area Troop List, swapped places with the 10th Cavalry Regiment.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In 1923 the 1st Cavalry Division held division maneuvers for the first time, intending to hold them annually thereafter. However, financial constraints made that impossible. Only in 1927, through the generosity of a few ranchers who provided free land, was the division able to conduct such exercises again. In 1928 Major General Herbert B. Crosby, Chief of Cavalry, faced with personnel cuts, reorganized the cavalry regiments, which in turn reduced the size of the 1st Cavalry Division. Crosby's goal was to decrease overhead while maintaining or increasing firepower in the regiment. After the reorganization each cavalry regiment consisted of a headquarters and headquarters troop; a machine gun troop; a medical and chaplain element; and two squadrons, each with a headquarters element; and two line troops. The cavalry brigades' machine gun squadrons were inactivated, while the responsibility for training and employing machine guns fell to the regimental commanders, as in the infantry.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: About the same time that Crosby cut the cavalry regiment, the army staff, seeking to increase the usefulness of the wartime cavalry division, published new tables of organization for an even larger unit. The new structure increased the size of the signal troop (177), expanded the medical unit to a squadron (233), and endorsing Crosby's movement of the machine gun units from the brigades to the regiments (2X176). A divisional aviation section, an armored car squadron (278), and tank company (155) were added, the field artillery battalion was expanded to a regiment (1,717), and divisional strength rose to 9,595.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: With the arrival of the 1930s, serious work started on the testing and refining of new equipment and TO&Es for a mechanized and motorized army. To facilitate this, 1st Cavalry Division traded 1st Cavalry Regiment for 12th Cavalry Regiment on 3 January 1933.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Taking into account recommendations from the VIII Corps Area, the Army War College, and the Command and General Staff School, the board developed a new smaller triangular cavalry division, which the 1st Cavalry Division evaluated during maneuvers at Toyahvale, Texas, in 1938. Like the 1937 infantry division test, the maneuvers concentrated on the divisional cavalry regiments around which all other units were to be organized.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Following the test, a board of 1st Cavalry Division officers, headed by Brigadier General Kenyon A. Joyce, rejected the three-regiment division and recommended retention of the two-brigade (four-regiment) organization. The latter configuration allowed the division to deploy easily in two columns, which was accepted standard cavalry tactics. However, the board advocated reorganizing the cavalry regiment along triangular lines, which would give it a headquarters and headquarters troop, a machine gun squadron with special weapons and machine gun troops, and three rifle squadrons, each with one machine gun and three rifle troops. No significant change was made in the field artillery, but the test showed that the engineer element should remain a squadron to provide the divisional elements greater mobility on the battlefield and that the special troops idea should be extended to include the division headquarters, signal, and ordnance troops; quartermaster, medical, engineer, reconnaissance, and observation squadrons; and a chemical warfare detachment. One headquarters would assume responsibility for the administration and disciplinary control for these forces.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Although the study did not lead to a general reorganization of the cavalry division, the wartime cavalry regiment was restructured, effective 1 December 1938, to consist of a headquarters and headquarters troop, machine gun and special weapons troops, and three squadrons of three rifle troops each. The special troops remained as structured in 1928, and no observation squadron or chemical detachment found a place in the division. With the paper changes in the cavalry divisions and other minor adjustments, the strength of a wartime divisional rose to 10,680.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: With the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the "great laboratory" phase for developing and testing organizations, about which Marshall wrote in the summer of 1941, closed, but the War Department still had not developed ideal infantry, cavalry, armored, and motorized divisions. In 1942 it again revised the divisions based on experiences gained during the great GHQ maneuvers of the previous year. As in the past, the reorganizations ranged from minor adjustments to wholesale changes.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: 1st Cavalry Division retained its square configuration after the 1941 maneuvers, but with modifications. The division lost its antitank troop, the brigades their weapons troops, and the regiments their machine gun and special weapons troops. These changes brought no decrease in divisional firepower, but placed most weapons within the cavalry troops. The number of .50-caliber machine guns was increased almost threefold. In the reconnaissance squadron, the motorcycle and armored car troops were eliminated, leaving the squadron with one support troop and three reconnaissance troops equipped with light tanks. These changes increased the division from 11,676 to 12,112 officers and enlisted men.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The last of the 1st Cavalry Division's mounted units permanently retired their horses and converted to infantry formations on 28 February 1943. However, a mounted special ceremonial unit known as the Horse Platoon – later, the Horse Cavalry Detachment – was established within the division in January 1972. Its ongoing purpose is to represent the traditions and heritage of the American horse cavalry at military ceremonies and public events.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Although originally being part of the III Corps (which eventually participated in the European Theater), while training in the United States, most of the 1st Cavalry Division arrived in Australia as shown above, continued its training at Strathpine, Queensland, until 26 July, then moved to New Guinea to stage for the Admiralties campaign 22–27 February 1944. The division experienced its first combat in the Admiralty Islands, units landing at Los Negros on 29 February 1944. Momote airstrip was secured against great odds. Attacks by Japanese were thrown back, and the enemy force surrounded by the end of March. Nearby islands were taken in April and May. The division next took part in the invasion of Leyte, 20 October 1944, captured Tacloban and the adjacent airstrip, advanced along the north coast, and secured Leyte Valley, elements landing on and securing Samar Island. Moving down Ormoc Valley (in Leyte) and across the Ormoc plain, the division reached the west coast of Leyte 1 January 1945.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division then invaded Luzon, landing in the Lingayen Gulf area 27 January 1945, and fought its way as a "flying column" to Manila by 3 February 1945. More than 3,000 civilian prisoners at the University of Santo Tomas, including more than 60 US Army nurses (some of the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor") were liberated, and the 1st Cavalry then advanced east of Manila by the middle of February before the city was cleared. On 20 February the division was assigned the mission of seizing and securing crossings over the Marikina River and securing the Tagaytay-Antipolo Line. After being relieved 12 March in the Antipolo area, elements pushed south into Batangas and provinces of Bicol Region together with recognized guerrillas. They mopped up remaining pockets of resistance in these areas in small unit actions. Resistance was officially declared at an end on 1 July 1945.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division left Luzon 25 August 1945 for occupation duty in Japan, arriving in Yokohama 2 September 1945 and entering Tokyo 8 September, the first United States division to enter the Japanese capital. 101 unit was set up in May 1945 to search for the missing soldiers in the Second World War. The detachment consisted of two officers (a Captain MacColeman and a Lieutenant Foley) and 15 enlisted members (among them a Sergeant Ryan). The operation was successful, although it lasted three years. Occupation duty in Japan followed for the next five years.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In the summer of 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea, and the 1st Cavalry Division was rushed to Korea to help shore up the Pusan Perimeter.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: After the X Corps attack at Incheon, a breakout operation was launched at the Pusan Perimeter. The division then joined the UN counteroffensive that recaptured most of South Korea by the end of September. The UN offensive was continued northwards, past Seoul, and across the 38th Parallel into North Korea on 1 October. The momentum of the attack was maintained, and the race to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, ended on 19 October when elements of the division and the Republic of Korea Army (ROK) 1st Infantry Division captured the city. The advance continued, but against unexpectedly stiffening resistance. The Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) entered the war on the side of North Korea, making their first attacks in late October.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: On 28 October 1950, Eighth Army commander General Walton Walker relieved the 1st Cavalry Division of its security mission in Pyongyang. The division's new orders were to pass through the ROK 1st Division's lines at Unsan and attack toward the Yalu River. Leading the way on the twenty-ninth, the 8th Cavalry regiment departed Pyongyang and reached Yongsan-dong that evening. The 5th Cavalry Regiment arrived the next morning, with the mission to protect the 8th Cavalry regiment's rear. With the arrival of the 8th Cavalry Regiment at Unsan on the 31st, the ROK 1st Division redeployed to positions northeast, east, and southeast of Unsan; the 8th Cavalry took up positions north, west, and south of the town. Meanwhile, the ROK 15th Regiment was desperately trying to hold its position east of the 8th Cavalry, across the Samt'an River.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: During the afternoon of 1 November, the PVA attack north of Unsan gained strength against the ROK 15th Regiment and gradually extended to the right flank of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry. At nightfall, the 1st Battalion controlled the northern approaches to the Samt'an River, except for portions of the ROK 15th Regiment's zone on the east side. The battalion's position on the left was weak; there were not enough soldiers to extend the defensive line to the main ridge leading into Unsan. This left a gap between the 1st and 2nd Battalions. East of the Samt'an the ROK 15th Regiment was under heavy attack, and shortly after midnight it no longer existed as a combat force. At 19:30 on 1 November, the PVA 116th Division attacked the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, all along its line. At 21:00 PVA troops found the weak link in the ridgeline and began moving through it and down the ridge behind the 2nd Battalion, penetrating its right flank and encircling its left. Now both the 1st and 2nd Battalions were engaged by the enemy on several sides. Around midnight, the 8th Cavalry received orders to withdraw southward to Ipsok. At 01:30 on 2 November, no PVA activity was reported in the 3rd Battalion's sector south of Unsan. But as the 8th Cavalry withdrew, all three battalions became trapped by roadblocks made by the PVA 347th Regiment, 116th Division south of Unsan during the early morning hours. Members of the 1st Battalion who were able to escape reached the Ipsok area. A head count showed the battalion had lost about 15 officers and 250 enlisted men. Members of the 2nd Battalion, for the most part, scattered into the hills. Many of them reached the ROK lines near Ipsok. Others met up with the 3rd Battalion, the hardest hit. Around 03:00 the PVA launched a surprise attack on the battalion command post. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued for about half an hour before the PVA were driven from the area. The disorganized members of the 3rd Battalion formed a core of resistance around three tanks on the valley floor and held off the PVA until daylight. By that time, only six officers and 200 enlisted men were still able to function. More than 170 were wounded, and the number dead or missing were uncounted. Attempts by the 5th Cavalry to relieve the beleaguered battalion were unsuccessful, and the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, soon ceased to exist as an organized force.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Following the battle, there were disparaging rumors about the 1st Cavalry Division's fighting abilities, including a folk song of the time called "The Bug-Out Ballad". The series of engagements were rumored to have given rise to the song were due (at least partly) to the myth that the division lost its unit colors. Other Army and Marine units disparagingly described the division shoulder insignia as representing 'The horse they never rode, the river they never crossed, and the yellow speaks for itself'. Another version goes: "The shield they never carried, the horse they never rode, the bridge they never crossed, the line they never held, and the yellow is the reason why."


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 1st Cavalry Division remained in the line until it was relieved by the 45th Infantry Division from the United States Army National Guard in January 1952. Following the relief, the division returned to Japan. The division returned to Korea in 1957, where it remained until 1965.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: As a result of the Howze Board, helicopters were used in Vietnam for reconnaissance, command and control, troop transport, attack gunships, aerial rocket artillery, medical evacuation, and supply. It was a revolution in maneuver doctrine that freed the infantry from the limitations of terrain to attack the enemy at the time and place of its choosing.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 11th Airborne Division had been reactivated at Fort Benning on 1 February 1963 and redesignated as the 11th Air Assault Division (Test). In September 1963, Air Assault I exercises tested the Airmobility concept at the battalion level at Fort Stewart in Georgia. Air Assault II, a much larger exercise, was conducted across two states in October 1964. The 11th Air Assault Division operated against the 82nd Airborne Division and the 11th thoroughly dominated the exercise.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: When the test proved successful, the assets of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test), the 10th Air Transport Brigade, and the 2nd Infantry Division were merged into a single unit. The colors and subordinate unit designations of the 1st Cavalry Division were transferred from its post in Korea. On 3 July 1965, the colors of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) were cased and retired and the 1st Air Cavalry Division colors were moved onto the field at Doughboy Stadium and passed to the commander of the former 11th Air Assault Division, Major General Kinnard. At the same time the personnel and units of the 1st Cavalry Division that remained in Korea were reflagged as a new 2nd Infantry Division. On 29 July 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the 1st Air Cavalry Division to Vietnam.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Shortly thereafter, the division began deploying to Camp Radcliff, An Khe, Vietnam, in the Central Highlands and was equipped with the new M16 rifle, the UH-1 troop carrier helicopter, UH-1C gunships, the CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter, and the massive CH-54 Skycrane cargo helicopter. All aircraft carried insignia to indicate their battalion and company.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division's first major operation was to help relieve the Siege of Plei Me near Pleiku and the pursuit of the withdrawing People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) which culminated in the Battle of Ia Drang, described in the book "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young", was also the basis of the film "We Were Soldiers". Because of that battle the division earned the Presidential Unit Citation (US), the first unit to receive such in the war. In 1966, the division attempted to root the communist Viet Cong (VC) and PAVN out of Bình Định Province with Operation Masher, Operation Crazy Horse and Operation Thayer. 1967 was then spent conducting Operation Pershing, a large scale search and destroy operation of PAVN/VC base areas in II Corps in which 5,400 PAVN/VC soldiers were killed and 2,000 captured. In Operation Jeb Stuart, January 1968, the division moved north to Camp Evans, north of Hue and on to Landing Zones Sharon and Betty, south of Quang Tri City, all in the I Corps Tactical Zone.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In the early morning hours of 31 January 1968, the largest battle of the Vietnam War, the Tet Offensive, was launched by 84,000 PAVN/VC soldiers across South Vietnam. In the division's area of operation, the PAVN/VC forces seized most of the city of Huế. As the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, fought to cut off PAVN/VC reinforcements pouring into Huế, at Quang Tri City, five battalions, most from the 324th Division, attacked the city and LZ Betty (Headquarters 1st Brigade). To stop allied troops from intervening, three other PAVN/VC infantry battalions deployed as blocking forces, all supported by a 122mm-rocket battalion and two heavy-weapons companies armed with 82mm mortars and 75mm recoilless rifles. After intense fighting, 900 PAVN/VC soldiers were killed in and around Quang Tri City and LZ Betty. However, across South Vietnam, 1,000 Americans, 2,100 South Vietnamese, 14,000 civilians, and 32,000 PAVN/VC were killed.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In March 1968 the division shifted forces to LZ Stud, the staging area for Operation Pegasus to break the siege of the Marine's Khe Sanh Combat Base—the second largest battle of the war. All three brigades participated in this airmobile operation, along with a Marine armor thrust. US Air Force B-52s alone dropped more than 75,000 tons of bombs on PAVN soldiers from the 304th and 325th Divisions encroaching the combat base in trenches. As these two elite enemy divisions, with history at Dien Bien Phu and the Ia Drang Valley, depleted, the division leapfrogged west, clearing Route 9, until at 0:800 hours 8 April, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, linked-up with Marines at the combat base, ending the 77-day siege.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: On 19 April 1968, as the 2nd Brigade continued pushing west to the Laotian border, the 1st and 3rd Brigades (about 11,000 men and 300 helicopters) swung southwest and air assaulted A Shau Valley, commencing Operation Delaware. The PAVN was a well-trained, equipped, and led force. They turned A Shau into a formidable sanctuary —complete with PT76 tanks; powerful crew-served 37mm antiaircraft cannons, some radar controlled; twin-barreled 23mm cannons; and scores of 12.7mm heavy machine guns. A long-range penetration operation was launched by members of the Division's long-range reconnaissance patrol (LRP) against the PAVN when they seized "Signal Hill"—the name attributed to the peak of Dong Re Lao Mountain, a densely forested mountain midway in the valley—so the 1st and 3rd Brigades, slugging it out hidden deep behind the mountains, could communicate with Camp Evans near the coast or with approaching aircraft.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: Despite hundreds of B-52 and jet air strikes, the PAVN forces shot down a C-130, a CH-54, two Chinooks, and nearly two dozen UH-1 Hueys. Many more were lost in accidents or damaged by ground fire. The division also suffered more than 100 dead and 530 wounded in the operation. Bad weather aggravated the loss by causing delays in troop movements, allowing a substantial number of PAVN to escape to safety in Laos. Still, the PAVN lost more than 800 dead, a tank, 70 trucks, two bulldozers, 30 flamethrowers, thousands of rifles and machine guns, and dozens of antiaircraft cannons. They also lost tons of ammunition, explosives, medical supplies and foodstuffs.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In mid-May 1968 Operation Delaware ended, however, the division continued tactical operations in I Corps as well as local pacification and "medcap" (medical outreach programs to local Vietnamese). In the autumn of 1968, the division relocated south to Phước Vĩnh Base Camp northeast of Saigon. In May 1970, the division participated in the Cambodian Incursion, withdrawing from Cambodia on 29 June. Thereafter, the division took a defensive posture while US troops withdrawals continued from Vietnam. On 29 April 1971 the bulk of the division was withdrawn to Fort Hood, Texas, but its 3rd Brigade remained as one of the final two major US ground combat units in Vietnam, departing 29 June 1972. However, its 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Task Force Garry Owen, remained another two months.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In the Vietnam War, the division suffered more casualties than any other army division: 5,444 men killed in action and 26,592 wounded in action. However, the First Marine Division suffered 7,012 men killed in action and the Third Marine Division suffered 6,869 men killed in action.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: This list of air cavalry troops is alphabetical by regiment, per the U.S. Army Combat Arms Regimental System, known as CARS, in use from 1957 to 1981. Under this system the unit nomenclature "regiment" was not used to designate the lineage of companies/batteries/troops or their parent battalions/squadrons. However, there were five armored cavalry regiments (ACRs) not organized under CARS, these units, including the 11th ACR, retained the "regiment" nomenclature in their official designation.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: When the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) departed Vietnam, its colors were retained by reflagging the existing 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood as the "new" 1st Cavalry Division, configured as an armored division. Concurrently, the colors of the 1st Armored Division were transferred to Germany where the 4th Armored Division was reflagged as the 1st Armored Division.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In the aftermath of Vietnam, the 1st Cavalry Division was converted from an airmobile light infantry role into a triple capabilities (TRICAP) division. The unit received an infusion of mechanized infantry and artillery, to make it capable of missions needing three types of troops; armored, airmobility, and air cavalry.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In the post-Vietnam era, morale in the US Army waned. In response, the Department of the Army released a morale–enhancing order in 1973 permitting local commanders to encourage morale-enhancing uniform distinctions. Consequently, many units embraced the wear of various military berets. The 1st Cavalry Division's use of various colored berets started in 1971 with the TRICAP experiment: black for armor, light–blue for infantry, red for artillery, and kelly–green for support. The division eventually settled on the use of black berets for all 1st Cavalry soldiers and continued wearing them until the Army's moral enhancing order ended in 1979.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: However, the TRICAP concept was short-lived, and by 1975, the division was reorganized under the Round-Out Division concept, with two active duty armored brigades and one National Guard armored brigade - the Mississippi Army National Guard's 155th Armored Brigade from 1984–1991.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division participated in numerous REFORGER exercises, and was used to test new doctrinal concepts and equipment, including the XM-1 tank. The unit assignment and structure changed significantly, notably when 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry, the division's most famous unit, was inactivated. The 13th Signal Battalion fielded mobile subscriber equipment (MSE), a secure digital communications system for corps and below units.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: By October 1986 all heavy army and national guard divisions, including the 1st Cavalry Division, had transitioned to the Army of Excellence J-series TOE. Thus the division's tank battalions fielded 58 M1A1 Abrams tanks, 6 M3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicles and 6 M106A2 mortar carriers. The two tank battalions of the 155th Armored Brigade were also equipped with M1A1 Abrams tanks. The division's and 155th brigade's mechanized battalions fielded 54 M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 12 M901 ITV anti-tank vehicles, 6 M3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicles, 6 M106A2 mortar carriers.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The authorized strength for an armored J-Series division was 17,027 men, 348 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, 316 cavalry/infantry fighting vehicles, 72 M109 155mm self-propelled howitzers, 9 M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, 12 M110 203mm self-propelled howitzers (transferred in 1986 to field artillery brigades at corps level), 50 to 44 attack helicopters (50 for an all AH-1S Cobra combat aviation brigade, 44 for an all AH-64 Apache combat aviation brigade), 38 to 28 utility helicopters (38 if the Assault Aviation Company was equipped with UH-1H Iroquois helicopters, 28 if the Assault Aviation Company was equipped with UH-60A Black Hawk helicopters; in the first case 2 were assigned to the aviation intermediate maintenance company as reserve), and 54 OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopters (4 assigned to divisional Aviation Office). The divisional air defense artillery battalion was to be equipped with 18 MIM-72 Chaparral and 36 M247 Sergeant York (DIVAD) systems, but with the cancelation of the York air defense battalions retained a mix of MIM-72 Chaparral, M163 Vulcan and FIM-92 Stinger systems, until the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger could be fielded, with the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery receiving the first systems in 1989.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 1st Cavalry next fought as a heavy division, during Operation Desert Storm in January and February 1991. It participated in the Battle of Norfolk. The 1st Cavalry Division deployed in October 1990 as part of XVIII Corps. The division's 'round-out' formation, the 155th Armored Brigade was not deployed in a surprise political decision. It was planned to augment the division by attaching the Tiger Brigade from the 2nd Armored Division, but that brigade was attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (1st & 2nd Marine Divisions) to add heavy armor support to that force. Consequently, the 1st Cavalry Division was assigned the role of CENTCOMs' reserve. During the Ground war, was assigned to VII Corps and was crucial in the movement of ground forces to the Kuwaiti and west Saudi Arabian theaters by making two assaults into Iraqi held territory with the division's Black Jack Brigade moving north drawing Iraqi divisions out of Kuwait to support the Iraqi units defending in Iraq. This movement was led by the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, from the Wadi Al-Batin to just north of Basra through several Iraqi divisions before stopping. The assault by M1 Abrams main battle tanks, M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and other support vehicles moved much faster than was thought possible, catching the Iraqi Army off guard.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 13th Signal Battalion was the first unit in the U.S. Army to deploy mobile subscriber equipment (MSE) into combat. Installing, operating, and maintaining communications equipment to support a communications network spanning over 280 kilometers, the 13th Signal Battalion again provided the division's communications. 13th Signal Battalion was the first unit in the U.S. Army to provide digital communications in Southwest Asia. It was a gateway link from the Port of Dammam to the U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: After the division returned from Kuwait, the 1st "Tiger" Brigade, 2d Armored Division was reflagged as the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division (separate lineage). In response to the continued hostile movements by the Iraqi Armed Forces after Desert Storm, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered successive Operation Intrinsic Action deployments by combat brigades and special forces units to the Iraq/Kuwait border. The 1st Cavalry's three brigades contributed heavily to the decade-long deployments from 1992–2002.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 1st Cavalry Division took control of the U.S. peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia-Herzegovina with approximately 6,900 personnel on 20 June 1998, as part of the multinational Stabilization Force (SFOR). 1st Brigade served for Rotation SFOR 4. 2nd Brigade served for Rotation SFOR 5. 2nd Brigade was alerted for action during the Russian move from Bosnia to the Pristina International Airport in June 1999, but no action was ultimately taken after consultation at the highest levels in NATO. In August 1999, the 10th Mountain Division took over operations in the Tuzla/Multinational Division North area.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In October 2001 an advance party of a division brigade combat team was deployed to the Iraq/Kuwait border. Some divisional units participated in the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq. The division in its entirety deployed to Iraq in January 2004, sending an initial detachment of the 9th Cavalry Regiment into combat in September 2003. The 1st Cavalry relieved the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad. Among its subordinate formations were: Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade; Arkansas' 39th Infantry Brigade; element of A Company, 28th Signal Battalion; elements of Washington's 81st Armored Brigade; and the 2d Battalion, 162nd Infantry (Oregon Army National Guard), and Company E (Air Traffic Control Services), 126th Aviation, MA ARNG. After spending more than a year in Iraq, it redeployed back to the US by April 2005. It was relieved by the 3d Infantry Division. Division Artillery (DIVARTY) was organized as the 5th BCT. It contained HHB, DIVARTY; 1–7 CAV; 1–8 CAV; 1–21 FA; and the 515th FSB (Provisional). The division fought in many key battles against insurgents, including the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, where the 2nd Brigade Combat Team engaged in house to house intense urban combat to root out enemy cells in the city.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: During its OIF2 deployment division assigned and attached personnel numbered approximately 40,000. 168 personnel were killed in action, with approximately 1,500 wounded.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division assumed duties as Headquarters, Multi-National Division – Baghdad from November 2006 to December 2007. 4th Brigade Combat Team, activated in 2005, arrived in Ninawa Governorate in October and November 2006. However, 2–12 Cavalry was detached, deployed to Baghdad to augment the division efforts there.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 3d Brigade Combat Team, "Greywolf", deployed to the Diyala Province in September 2006 and fought in the Battle of Baqubah as a part of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division assumed duties as the Headquarters, Multi-National Division – Baghdad Jan 2009– Jan 2010. The deployment was extended by 23 days past the one year mark.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 4th Brigade Combat Team "Long Knife" deployed to Mosul, Nineva Province, September 2010 to September 2011.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In November 2001, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division (3d Platoon, 545th MP CO, originally assigned to 2d Brigade "BlackJack" 1st Cav) deployed to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In May 2011, the division headquarters deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and assumed command of Regional Command East, replacing the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). The 1st Infantry Division HQ took command of RC-East on 19 April 2012.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In June 2014, the division headquarters returned to Afghanistan and assumed command of Regional Command South, replacing the 4th Infantry Division.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In October 2014, the division flag returned to Fort Hood, leaving its Deputy Commanding General behind as the new Train Advise Assist Command South.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: After the completion of Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan, the new US deployment to Afghanistan was known as Operation Freedom's Sentinel.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In June 2015, the division element in TAAC South was relieved by an element from the 7th Infantry Division Headquarters.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In September 2016, the 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters deployed again to Afghanistan, this time with the 1st Cavalry Division Sustainment Brigade alongside it. The headquarters serves as the United States Forces – Afghanistan National Support Element, and is also responsible for Bagram Airfield, the largest US military base in Afghanistan. It supports forces serving in the United States' Operation Freedom's Sentinel and NATO's Resolute Support Mission, enabling both the international effort to train, advise, and assist the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and the counterterrorism fight. The 1st Cavalry Division Sustainment Brigade also supported both Operation Freedom's Sentinel and Resolute Support, and was the Army's only currently-deployed active duty Sustainment Brigade until US forces withdrew in 2021.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The division's 3d BCT deployed in February 2017 to Kuwait, and elements of 3ABCT supported operations in Iraq to retake Mosul from ISIS.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: The 1st Cavalry Division currently holds three of the active Army's ten armored brigade combat teams. The division provides the Army and Combatant Commanders with trained and ready forces.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In April 2014, 2–5 Cavalry from 1st BCT, 1CD deployed to Europe to support Operation Combined Resolve II, a NATO exercise in southeastern Germany. In October 2014, 1CD returned to Europe to support its NATO partners in another pair of exercises, this time participating in Operations Combined Resolve III and Atlantic Resolve with the majority of 1ABCT.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: A battalion task force from the Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division deployed to Germany in November 2015; it participated in Atlantic Resolve, then stayed in Germany for the next nine months to provide aviation support to US and NATO forces across Europe.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: In June 2015, the 2d BCT was the first rotational brigade deployed to South Korea, relieving the 1st BCT, 2d Infantry Division as it inactivated. The 2d BCT deployed for nine months; in February 2016, the Army called on the First Team again, and the 2d BCT was replaced by the 1st BCT on another nine-month rotation.


title: 1st Cavalry Division (United States)

text: On 15 July 2005, the 1st Cavalry Division transitioned to the Unit of Action modified table of organization and equipment (MTOE). No longer are there battalion-sized elements made up purely of armor and/or infantry battalions. Brigades are now composed of combined arms battalions, meaning every maneuver battalion combines infantry and armor, excluding the reconnaissance squadrons. The division's artillery battalions are assigned to all three of the Brigade Combat Teams.