The Bulgarian Army’s Crucial Stand on the Drava, March 1945
Underrated Victory: Bulgaria’s Fierce Resistance on the Drava and Balaton in WWII
These days mark the 80th anniversary of the largest, most dramatic, and arguably most important battle that the Bulgarian army was forced to fight during World War II – the Battle of the Drava. Known as the Drava Operation and especially as the Drava Epic, it remains unparalleled in terms of dynamics, drama, and human losses. At the same time, the victory won in it once again reminded both enemies and allies of the indomitable Bulgarian fighting spirit.
It is a little-known fact that Bulgarian troops ended up in Hungary somewhat by chance, due to the changing military situation, and that initially, their presence there was not planned at all. When, on November 12, 1944, the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Marshal Tolbukhin, reported his plans for an offensive towards Vienna to Stalin, he proposed that the Bulgarian units be deployed in southern Hungary, along the northern bank of the Drava River, mainly to guard the left flank and rear of the Soviet armies advancing towards Austria against possible German attacks across the river. However, two days later, Stalin ordered him to prepare an offensive between the Sava and Drava rivers in a westward direction, i.e., in the territory of present-day Croatia towards Zagreb, together with Tito’s Yugoslav partisans. Moreover, the decision for Bulgarian soldiers to fight so far from their homeland was made by Moscow independently, without consulting Sofia, which shows who effectively controlled Bulgaria in the autumn of 1944.
The Bulgarian command decided to send the 1st Army, commanded by General Vladimir Stoychev, to these distant lands. This army had already fought in Yugoslavia, but with a significantly changed order of battle. Thus, only two (the 11th and 12th) of its six divisions had any combat experience, while the remaining four (the 3rd, 8th, 10th, and 16th) were completely “green.” Simple calculations show that the majority of the 130,000 soldiers who boarded the trains had never seen combat. The situation was further complicated by morale problems – many of the men in uniform, mostly ordinary peasants and workers, felt no hatred towards the Germans and did not know why they had to fight them. An additional burden was the political officers imposed on them according to the Soviet model, the so-called “assistant commanders,” usually former partisans and mostly communists, who are remembered for their low military culture and the Bolshevik terror they exercised over dissenters. Another interesting innovation was the Soviet military advisors. These officers possessed significant combat experience, but like most Red Army personnel, they were indifferent to human losses.
The first test for the new 1st Army on the battlefield ended in failure. Following Stalin’s order, at the end of December 1944, three divisions (the 3rd, 8th, and 11th) spent an entire week attacking the heavily fortified German positions in the area of the Croatian city of Vukovar, trying to advance along the highway to Zagreb. From every point of view, this proved to be a suicidal mission – the Bulgarian units lacked firepower in addition to experience, and they were also deprived of the support of tanks, aviation, and heavy artillery. Moreover, they were forced to attack across a completely flat terrain, which the Germans simply turned into a shooting range. Quite logically, the bodies of several hundred killed Bulgarian soldiers remained lying in the frozen fields in front of the villages of Sotin, Grabovo, and Orolik, many of whom died due to the impossibility of being evacuated in time. If anything could serve as consolation for the Bulgarian army, it was that their allies fared even worse – at the beginning of December, the Soviet landing operation at Vukovar was completely defeated, and the Yugoslavs who replaced the Bulgarian divisions in January 1945 were even forced to retreat under German pressure.
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After the failure at Vukovar, Stalin decided to withdraw the Bulgarians from there and send them to a quieter sector – on the northern bank of the Drava in Hungary. Throughout January, Stoychev’s army, under extremely difficult conditions, crossed the Danube twice to reach its new positions. There, it replaced four Soviet divisions, which subsequently played an important role in the Battle of Budapest. The long march and the distance from home had a demoralizing effect on many, and unrest began in some units. This even led to mutinies, such as the one in the 3rd Infantry Division, which was brutally suppressed by the assistant commanders and their “guardsmen” – former partisans. If there were anyone truly happy about the new situation, it was the local Hungarians – they breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that the Russians, who had constantly harassed and robbed them, would be replaced by the much more docile Bulgarians.
By the end of January 1945, the Bulgarian army had occupied about 100 km of the northern bank of the Drava River between Babocsa and Valpovo, as well as another 25 km stretching north of Babocsa, towards Lake Balaton. The expectations that this area would be a quiet one soon proved to be an illusion – Hitler, in his firm intention to hold the oil fields near Lake Balaton, ordered a powerful offensive to be carried out. Some of the last reserves of the Reich were replenished and sent to this area. Thus, three groupings were formed. The most powerful of these (6. Panzer-Army and 6. Army) was to advance from the northwest, between Lake Balaton and Lake Velence, another would attack from the west, driving a wedge between the Bulgarian and Soviet positions south of Lake Balaton, and the third would cross the Drava from the south at the Croatian city of Donji Miholjac and head straight north, towards the Danube, cutting off the retreat route of the entire 3rd Ukrainian Front.
In view of what was written in post-war Soviet studies, it is generally accepted that the command in Moscow was fully aware of the goals of the German offensive and even the exact sectors where it would take place. However, declassified documents of their intelligence show that the only thing the Russians knew was that at some point the Germans would launch an offensive in Hungary. Everything else was a complete mystery to them. That is why Tolbukhin ordered defenses to be prepared wherever possible, but in such a situation, it was impossible to cover all sectors. One such incompletely covered sector was the northern bank of the Drava opposite Donji Miholjac, which was defended by only two battalions from the 3rd and 11th Divisions. In their rear, at some distance, was an infantry regiment and some artillery, but all the main reserves of the army were deployed further west, a day or two away.
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The Germans were aware of the aforementioned problems of the Bulgarians, and this filled them with optimism. Hitler himself, at a meeting of the high command on March 2nd, confidently stated that his troops would succeed in capturing Stoychev’s headquarters, and the Bulgarian units would scatter. He had no idea how wrong he was.
1) Was Budapest liberated?
The triple German offensive in Hungary, which turned out to be the last significant offensive of the Wehrmacht during the war, began on the morning of March 6th. (We can safely call it triple because it was actually three separate attacks with a common goal, whose spearheads never met on the Danube.)
2) Did the Russians intend to preserve Budapest?
The most powerful blow was delivered in the north, between Lake Balaton and Lake Velence, where hundreds of tanks tried to crush the multi-layered Soviet defense. The terrain was terrible, many of the tracked vehicles got bogged down in the mud, and the resistance of the Russians was fierce. Nevertheless, the Germans slowly but methodically advanced southeast towards the Danube. This operation would go down in history under the name Operation “Spring Awakening,” although there was nothing spring-like about it – besides being muddy and damp, the temperatures were close to zero.
3) Was the siege of Budapest “Stalingrad on the Danube”?
A little earlier than that, before sunrise on March 6th, Operation “Icebreaker” also began, the offensive of the German 2. Panzer Army south of Lake Balaton directly east, towards Kaposvár. The Germans’ intentions were obvious – with a powerful strike at the junction of the Bulgarian 1st and Soviet 57th Armies, they aimed to separate them and destroy them piecemeal. Wave after wave of German and pro-Hitler Hungarian infantrymen attacked the positions of the 10th and 12th Infantry Divisions, for a week, but the Bulgarians did not yield. Moreover, they faced quite serious and experienced opponents – the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division and the 71st Infantry Division, which had come from Italy, supported by two assault gun brigades, two armored trains, and several Hungarian infantry battalions. The fighting was extremely bloody, the battlefield was littered with corpses and burned-out German equipment. The Bulgarian losses were also significant – on March 10th alone, the 31st Silistra Regiment lost 371 men. Hand-to-hand combat was frequent, and in some cases, German assault guns were forced to crush Bulgarian anti-tank guns and their crews with their tracks to break through. The strong pressure on the Bulgarian positions was entirely logical – the Germans considered them the weaker link compared to the Russians and expected them to break first. But their intentions failed. As early as March 7th, the command of the 2. Panzer Army was forced to admit that “the Bulgarians are fighting very well.”
4) Did the Russians besieging Budapest have multi-fold numerical superiority?
What is noteworthy about the fighting in this area, besides the heroism of the Bulgarian soldiers, is the flexibility shown by their commanders despite their lack of experience. They did not adhere rigidly to schemes, and often, depending on the situation, they formed composite infantry and cavalry units made of elements from different divisions. Moreover, the infantry in battle was always accompanied by artillery and anti-tank guns. However, the most impressive fact remains that after holding back the initial enemy thrust, the Bulgarians were used as an active second echelon of the Soviet 299th Division. That is, every time the Russians faltered and began to retreat in the battle, units of the Bulgarian 10th and 12th Divisions intervened and pushed the Germans back. Moreover, even for a short time, the 299th Division itself was subordinated to the commander of the Bulgarian 3rd Corps and received orders from him.
The most dramatic in terms of development among the three German operations turned out to be “Forest Devil.” It began in the early hours of March 6th when German groups crossed the Drava River in boats and attacked the shocked Bulgarian companies guarding the bank. Even before sunrise, they managed to secure a foothold on the northern bank and allow the main forces to cross the river. The Bulgarians fought selflessly, often to the last bullet, and did not shy away from hand-to-hand combat, but they were soon overwhelmed. Within a day, the Germans captured a number of villages and farmsteads and seized a bridgehead with approximate dimensions of 5 by 10 km. They were confident in their success and reported that they were meeting weak resistance.
It did not take long for the Bulgarian command to figure out the enemy’s plans. The attack was launched by the German 297. Infantry Division of the 91. Army Corps in a northerly direction, towards Harkány, and the ultimate goal was the city of Mohács on the Danube. Achieving this would cut off Stoychev’s army from all supplies and evacuation routes. As a second echelon across the Drava, the 104. Jäger Division was supposed to come to consolidate the success, and probably other units as well. And indeed, in the following days, a tank battalion (with captured Italian tanks), a dozen assault guns, and other support units arrived on the northern bank. Overall, the German divisions were very experienced and excellently equipped with modern weapons, which allowed them to achieve multifold superiority in firepower over the Bulgarians.
5) Did the Russians sustain terrible losses during the siege of Budapest?
To stop the Germans, General Stoychev threw the entire 3rd Infantry Division and a regiment from the 11th into battle. And he succeeded. On March 7th, the HQ of the German 91. Army Corps already reported that Bulgarian resistance had increased many times over, forcing it to change the direction of the attack from Mohács to Pécs. Marshal Tolbukhin also sent help – the 133rd Rifle Corps (two divisions) and armored units. Despite the stabilization of the front, the Marshal was extremely dissatisfied with the performance of the Bulgarian 3rd Infantry Division and insisted that urgent measures be taken to improve its combat effectiveness.
Why is March 7th an important date? Because in the book “The Defeat of the 6th SS Panzer Army,” published in Moscow in 2009, one of its authors – Kolomiets – quoting Tolbukhin’s order, writes that “the Bulgarian 3rd and 11th Infantry Divisions panicked and fled, and their commanders… took no measures to restore order.” Moreover, this absurd work was later translated into English, and today almost the whole world knows that the Bulgarians at the Drava fled. But what is the truth? At the Drava, the Bulgarians themselves stopped the Germans without outside help as early as the 7th, and as mentioned above, south of Lake Balaton, they even saved the Russian defense from collapse. What Kolomiets does not say, however, is what happened in the sector of the main German attack, between Lake Balaton and Lake Velence. There, the SS divisions, despite the mud and Soviet air superiority, made a deep breakthrough of over 40 km, causing such panic in the Soviet ranks that their infantry actually retreated in disarray, abandoning anti-tank batteries to the “mercy” of the German tanks. The panic reached as far as Moscow, and on March 9th, Stalin suggested to Tolbukhin that he withdraw to the eastern bank of the Danube. This ultimately did not happen, partly because of the resolve shown by the Bulgarians in the battle.
On March 8th, with the arrival of the Soviet 133rd Corps, the impetus of “Forest Devil” was finally stopped. The hour of the Bulgarian-Soviet counteroffensive struck, lasting 12 days. Key to the fate of the bridgehead was the village of Drava Szabolcs, through which the road and railway line from Pécs to Croatia passed. The Germans immediately turned it into a fortress and began repelling one attack after another. The Russians attacked it from the northeast, the Bulgarians from the northwest, and often when someone managed to achieve a breakthrough, the fighting continued inside the houses themselves. For several days, 22 Pz IV tanks of the Bulgarian armored battalion also participated in the battle, some of which were irretrievably lost in the attacks. The semi-destroyed village was captured only on March 15th, and with that, the fate of the bridgehead was decided. The inexperienced 16th Rhodope Infantry Division performed particularly well, entering the battle for the first time on March 12th, but ultimately tipping the balance of power in favor of the Bulgarians and Russians. After the fall of Drava Szabolcs, the Germans realized that their days on the northern bank of the Drava were numbered and began a retreat back south, into Croatia, which ended on March 19th. Unlike the modern Russian “patriot” Kolomiets, who declared the Bulgarians to be panickers, the Soviet commanders of the time were impressed by their spirit and, after the end of the battle, awarded thousands of them with orders and medals.
