Schematic plan · The Balkan Wars

Battle of Adrianople (1913)

23 March 1913
European Turkey
Victory for Bulgaria

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Bulgaria (Bul 2nd Army(+), 152,000 men under Gen Ivanhoff) attacked Ottoman Empire (Tk Adrianople Garrison, 75,000 men under Shukri Pasha) in European Turkey. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 80 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Bulgaria won. Losses: Bulgaria 9,300 (6%), Ottoman Empire 15,000 (20%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Bulgaria

Gen Ivanhoff

Unit	Arm	Men
Bulgaria left wing	Infantry	34,882
Bulgaria centre	Infantry	46,509
Bulgaria right wing	Infantry	34,882
Bulgaria reserve	Infantry	29,068
Bulgaria artillery (444 guns)	Artillery	6,660
Gen Ivanhoff	Commander	—
In this plan		152,001

Ottoman Empire

Shukri Pasha

Unit	Arm	Men
Ottoman Empire left wing	Infantry	17,100
Ottoman Empire centre	Infantry	22,800
Ottoman Empire right wing	Infantry	17,100
Ottoman Empire reserve	Infantry	14,250
Ottoman Empire artillery (250 guns)	Artillery	3,750
Shukri Pasha	Commander	—
In this plan		75,000

What the sources report

	Bulgaria	Ottoman Empire
Strength, this plan	152,000	75,000
Losses, this plan	9,300	15,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 252, “Adrianople”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 48 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Heavy precipitation, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 80 km (attacker), 32 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Bulgariaattacker	152,000	9,300	0	444	Frontal attack; Breakthrough
Ottoman Empiredefender	75,000	15,000	0	250	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · morale +1 · momentum +1 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2 · combat effectiveness +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 252 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Adrianople (1913) · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.