Bulgarians take Štip

The British chronology of the war records under 19 October 1915 the capture by the Bulgarians of Štip, a town on the Bregalnica in the eastern part of Serbian Macedonia. The Austro-Hungarian official history, which describes the course of the campaign most precisely, does not give the day the Bulgarians entered the town. It follows from it, however, that Štip must have been in their hands by that day at the latest, because on 19 October the Bulgarian cavalry division, which was moving down the Bregalnica valley behind the infantry, had already reached the Vardar near Veles.

Down the Bregalnica valley

Štip lay on the route of the 7th Infantry Division, known as the Rila Division, of General Georgi Todorov’s 2nd Army. While the 3rd Division advanced in the north on Vranje and Kumanovo, the 7th Division was tasked with crossing the difficult border mountains straight into the Bregalnica valley. By 16 October it had reached Tsarevo Selo, today’s Delčevo, and with its main body was pressing on through Pehčevo. Behind it the Bulgarian cavalry division set out from the Kyustendil area, with orders to push on to the Vardar as far as Veles once the infantry had taken Kočani. The road from Kočani to the Vardar ran through Štip and the Ovče Pole plain.

The Serbs defended eastern Macedonia with weak forces. The command of the troops in the so-called new territories, won in the Balkan Wars, had two divisions here, the Bregalnica and the Vardar, largely made up of recruits, volunteers and irregular units. The Bregalnica Division could not stop the superior Bulgarian forces and fell back west. The Bulgarians later called the fighting in this direction the Ovče Pole operation.

A town with a past

For the Bulgarians Štip was a special place. In the autumn of 1912, during the First Balkan War, the town fell to the Serbs, and in the Second Balkan War in 1913 the Bulgarians suffered a defeat in the Bregalnica area after which they lost almost all of Macedonia. Now the Bulgarian army was returning to these parts with the promise, written into the September treaty with Germany, that after the war these lands would go to Bulgaria. Many soldiers from Macedonia served in its ranks, and in Sofia a new 11th Division was being formed from Macedonian refugees.

Taking the Bregalnica valley opened the Bulgarians’ road to the Vardar, into the very middle of the Serbian line of communications with Salonika. As early as 17 October the Serbian detachment guarding the railway in the Vardar valley was summoned north, to Veles, and its place was taken by the French of General Maurice Sarrail, who had landed at Salonika and were moving up the river. At the end of October the main forces of the 11th Division gathered in the Štip area, and the town became the base of the Bulgarian troops fighting the French at Krivolak.