March 21 marks the 70th anniversary of the death of General Nikola Bakardzhiev - military leader, general of the infantry.
Born on 26 September 1881 in Tarnovo. Nikola Petkov Bakardzhiev graduated from a military school in Sofia in 1901 and the General Staff Academy in Turin, Italy in 1907. He was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant on 1 January 1901 and to the rank of captain on 15 October 1908. He served first in the cavalry, then as battery commander in an artillery regiment.
In 1907 he was attached to the Army Staff. He was successively appointed senior adjutant of the 1st Brigade of the 7th Rila Infantry Division (1908); assistant chief of the military communications section at Army Headquarters (1909); lecturer at the military school (1909-1910); chief of the military communications section at Army Headquarters (1911); chief of the engineer section at the organization and construction department (1912).
During the Balkan War, 1912-1913, he was assistant chief of the operational section at the Headquarters of the active army. On 5 August 1913 he was promoted to the rank of major. During World War I, 1915-1918, he was chief of the operations section at the Headquarters of the Active Army and commander of a company in the 1st Sofia Infantry Regiment, with which he participated in the war with Romania. On 16 March 1917 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
After the war, with the rank of colonel, he was appointed head of a division and chairman of the Military Historical Commission at the Army Headquarters, commander of the 2nd Infantry Thracian Regiment in 1925. On 6 May 1926, he was promoted to the rank of major-general.
From 1929-1931 he was Minister of War. On 16 May 1934 he was promoted to the rank of General of Infantry and dismissed from the army.
He was awarded the Military Order "For Bravery" III degree, 2nd class, IV degree, 1st and 2nd class; the Order "St. Alexander" V degree with swords; the same order II without swords; the People's Order "For Military Merit" V degree on military ribbon and the same order I degree on ordinary ribbon.
He died on 21 March 1954 in Sofia.
Literature used:
Infantry General Nikola Petkov Bakardzhiev (p. 94) : Command of the Bulgarian Army in World War I (1915-1918). 1919-1918 // Nedev, Svetlozar. The command of the Bulgarian army during the wars of national unification 1885, 1912, 1913, 1915, 1918 : a reference book / Svetlozar Nedev. - Sofia : Military Publishing House Sv. Georgi Pobedonosets, 1993, pp. 141.
Bakardzhiev, Mihail. Unique diary of General Nikola Bakardzhiev from the military school in Sofia in the 1890s. // Military History Collection, No. 5, 1994, pp. 64-82.
Bakardzhiev, Nikola Petrov : [1881-1954]. // Bulgaria : a large encyclopedia : Vol. 1 / Ed. Sofia : B. ed., 2011, p. 157.
