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Austria-Hungary was the
second supplier of Bulgarian Army in World War I. The ties between the two
Armies were very bound, probably because the Bulgarian Chief of Staff and many
Bulgarian officiers had studied in Vienna. Only a few days
after entering the war in October 1915, the Bulgarian High Command sent an
urgent request to the Austro-Hungarian General Staff for immediate delivery
of 50,000 Mannlicher rifles and 50 million rounds for them, 300,000
greatcoats, 500,000 pair of boots, 250,000 rucksacks, 250,000 cartridge
belts, 500,000 aluminium canteens, 100,000 woolen blankets, 1,600,000 meters
of cotton cloth, and much more. During the war the co-operation between the two Army was unfailing and Austria-Hungary supplied a lot of
Schwarzlose machine guns and a great number of
weapons and equipments.
As for
artillery, the Bulgarian Army received by Austria-Hungary some batteries of
150 mm
heavy howitzer and 75 mm
mountain gun, both made by Skoda. The last was probably the best mountain gun
introduced during World War I and was intensively used also during World War
II by various Army. Even if it was designed “kanone” it was a true howitzer able to fire in curve trajectory, that was very useful in mountain warfare.
For Skoda it
was essential to take other consumers into account in order to maintain gun
production after the end of the war. This referred particularly to
Austro-Hungary’s allies, and the 75mm mountain gun was to prove an unrivalled
product. The delivery of 30 batteries (120 guns) to Bulgaria could be seen as the
beginning of long-term deliveries, especially because it was the first time
that Bulgarian Army ordered artillery from Skoda, instead of Schneider or
Krupp, as previously did.
But such a
great zeal of Skoda works in manufacturing guns for export, caused perplexity
and apprehension in the Danube Monarchy. In the light of the deteriorating
raw material situation, the Austro-Hungarian War Ministry was astonished that
Skoda could meet its delivery obligations to the Austro-Hungarian Army for
heavy artillery only with great difficulty, but used raw materials and
productions capacities for manufacturing mountain guns for export, especially
because such deliveries also included ammunition. But in that case economic
factors prevailed against military ones.
More serious
tensions grew up with Germany
in spring 1916. The Prussian war Minister accused Austria-Hungary of using
the raw materials supplied by Germany to manufacture guns sold to the allies,
whilst the Danube Monarchy was trying to compensate for its own artillery
deficits by guns and material deliveries from Germany. He judged that the
deliveries to Bulgarian and Turkish Army were reprehensible, because he
assumed that German subsidies were used to pay for them.
In his reply the
Austro-Hungarian War Ministry, General of Artillery Alexander von Krobatin, stated that the last reproach was quite
unjustified, since not only the deliveries by Skoda had not yet been paid,
but Bulgaria was also
supported financially by Austria-Hungary.
He added “that it must be in the interests of the overall situation of the
Central Powers to remedy as much as possible the military weakness of the
other allies, i.e. Bulgaria
and Turkey”.
The Prussian War
Minister was not satisfied by this reply and suggested to effect deliveries
to the allies after joint consultation to avoid misunderstandings in the
future. The project of jointly negotiable deliveries was not rejected
outright, but reserved for later comments. In the light of the fact that
Austrian deliveries abroad did not even make up 5% of the total wartime
production of guns, the Prussian War Minister reproaches seems excessive.
Apart from
Skoda mountain guns, Bulgaria
mainly received captured Serbian guns. After the defeat of Serbia a large quantity of guns
fell into Austrian hands. Many of them were found in the depots at Kragujevac and Kraljevo. The
recaptured Austro-Hungarian material lost in the 1914 battles was immediately
put in service, while the majority of the Serbian artillery of French origin,
although modern, was not introduced in the Austrian Army. Some of them were
exhibited as tropheis in public places in Vienna and in other cities of the Monarchy, but in 1916
they were handed over to the allies, above all Bulgaria.
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