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Radko Dimitriev (Bulgarian: Радко Димитриев) (24 September 1859 in Gradets – 18 October 1918 near Pyatigorsk) was a Bulgarian general, Head of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army from 1 January 1904 to 28 March 1907, as well as a general in the Russian Army during the First World War.
During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) he was a translator in the 2nd Guards Division of the Russian Army. In 1879 he graduated the Military School in Sofia; in 1881 Dimitriev was promoted to a Lieutenant and in 1884 he became Captain after graduating the Saint Petersburg Academy. When only a captain he was one of the pro-Russian officers involved in the plot to kidnap Prince Alexander of Battenberg and force his abdication in 1886, for which he was exiled by Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov. He then served for ten years in the Russian army, and only returned to Bulgaria after the fall of Stambolov.He returned to Bulgaria in 1898 and became a second in command in the 5th Danube Infantry Division. On 18 May 1900 he was promoted to Colonel and was the Head of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army from 1904 to 1907. On 2 August 1912 Radko Dimitriev was promoted to Lieutenant General.
During the First Balkan War (1912–1913) he was in command of the 3rd Army which decisively defeated the Turks at Lozengrad and Lule Burgas in Thrace.During the First World War (1914–1918) he served in the Russian Army as a commander of a corps. At the beginning of spring 1915, Radko Dimitriev commanded the 3rd Army in Galicia facing the Austrians along the line of Gorlice-Tarnów. His role was to hold the line while the Russian 11th and 12th armies in Bukovina renewed the offensive through the Carpathians towards Hungary.In April 1915 despite knowing that German troops had replaced those of Austro-Hungary in the area of Gorlice, Radko Dimitriev had made no preparations to counter a German offensive or fortify his positions. The trenches in his sector were crude and in many places there was no second line of defence. In the breakthrough area of Gorlice 5˝ Russian divisions (60,000 men) of poorly trained conscripts faced the 10 German divisions of the 11th army under Mackensen with 700 guns including many of heavy caliber, while the Russians had only 140 light field guns.
The concentrated bombardment which opened the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive on 2 May 1915 tore the front open, but initially General Alexeev at Stavka refused to take the offensive seriously; Stavka remained convinced that main German attack would come in the north, and were focused on their own offensive in the south. A Russian counterattack was ordered by Stavka and took place at Dokra Pass on 7 May 1915 but this became a senseless massacre. Consequently, much of the 3rd Army was either cut off or destroyed by the time Stavka allowed Radko Dimitriev to order a retreat on 10 May 1915, and only 40,000 out of an army of 200,000 reached the River San. Radko Dimitriev claimed correctly that his army had been "bled white" but was removed from command 2 June 1915 and replaced by General Leonid Lesh.
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