Radko Dimitriev
Radko Dimitriev | |
|---|---|
Lieutenant General | |
| Commands held | Bulgarian 3rd Army Russian 3rd Army Russian 12th Army |
| Battles/wars | Serbo-Bulgarian War
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| Awards |          |
Radko Dimitriev (
Biography
He was born in the village of Gradets (
During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) he was a translator in the 2nd Guards Division of the Russian Army. In 1879 he graduated the Military School in Sofia; in 1881 Dimitriev was promoted to a Lieutenant and in 1884 he became Captain after graduating the Saint Petersburg Academy. When only a captain he was one of the pro-Russian officers involved in the plot to kidnap Prince Alexander of Battenberg and force his abdication in 1886, for which he was exiled by Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov. He then served for ten years in the Russian army, and only returned to Bulgaria after the fall of Stambolov.
During the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885) Dimitriev was one of the commanders of the Western Corps and participated in the successful Battle of Pirot. After the war he took part in an unsuccessful coup d'état; emigrated to Romania and became a member of the club of the Emigrant Officers. Later he emigrated to Russia and served in the Russian Army.
He returned to Bulgaria in 1898 and became a second in command in the 5th Danube Infantry Division. On 18 May 1900 he was promoted to Colonel and was the Head of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army from 1904 to 1907. On 2 August 1912 Radko Dimitriev was promoted to Lieutenant General.
During the First Balkan War (1912–1913) he was in command of the 3rd Army which decisively defeated the Ottoman Empire at Lozengrad and Lule Burgas in Thrace.
During the
First World War
During the
In April 1915 despite knowing that German troops had replaced those of Austro-Hungary in the area of Gorlice, Radko Dimitriev had made no preparations to counter a German offensive or fortify his positions. The trenches in his sector were crude and in many places there was no second line of defence. In the breakthrough area of Gorlice 5½ Russian divisions (60,000 men) of poorly trained conscripts faced the 10 German divisions of the 11th army under Mackensen with 700 guns including many of heavy caliber, while the Russians had only 140 light field guns.
The concentrated bombardment which opened the
Sir Bernard Pares, who met Radko Dimitriev several times when he was covering the war on the Eastern Front, and knew him well, described him thus:
"General Radko Dimitriev is a short and sturdily built man with quick brown eyes and a profile reminiscent of Napoleon. He talks quickly and shortly, sometimes drums on the table with his fingers, and now and then makes a rapid dash for the matches. The daily visit of the Chief of the Staff is short, because, as the General says on his return, simple business is done quickly. Every piece of his incisive conversation holds together as part of a single and clear view of the whole military position, of which the watchword is 'Forward'."
After he was appointed to fight against the Ottomans in the Caucasus campaign out of favour, he was reappointed in late 1916 to command the 12th army on the Riga front, but in summer 1917 Alexeyev dismissed his commander-in-chief at the front, Ruszky, and the army commander Radko Dimitriev, for weakness and indulgence to the soldiers' committees that had sprung up everywhere after the February Revolution in 1917.
Radko Dimitriev fled to the resort town of
References
- ISBN 9780974493442.
- Недев, С., Командването на българската войска през войните за национално обединение, София, 1993, Военноиздателски комплекс „Св. Георги Победоносец“, 57–58.
- Димитров, И., Съединението 1885 – енциклопедичен справочник, София, 1985, Държавно издателство „д-р Петър Берон“, 92–93.
- Бутаков, Я. Как болгарский посол стал русским генералом. – http://www.stoletie.ru/territoriya_istorii/kak_bolgarskij_posol_stal_russkim_generalom_2010-10-13.htm.
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