Doiran – 1918

I stand quietly as the winds of the air of the Macedonian night blow through my beat-up tunic. The mud hardens into a moldy slush from the cold temperatures and the blood of comrades. With the cold winds passing, my fingers begin to feel numb. My fingertips shiver as the fingertips of my gloves are ripped and torn from the dangerous and muddy terrain of the battlefield. I can just barely hear the sound of large mortars in the distance, most likely fellow Bulgarians enduring defense against the Greek army. I dismiss the music of war and continue to look out to the coast of the Doiran Lake, so peaceful and calm. The sound of the small waves hitting the shoreline distracts me from the thoughts of war and bloodshed. I sit down on the paste-like mud, and another man takes my spot as a guard over the trench. As I channel out the chaos from the distance and focus on the sounds of the lake, my eyes begin to close slowly. Even with all this war and enduring sleepless nights through carnage and hell I finally manage to drift
off to sleep.

I’m woken up by the sound of machine fire, explosions, and high-pitched whistles from the distance. As I panic, I grab my rifle. With my hands shivering in fear, I pull back the bolt and check if it is loaded. Seeing the bullet in the chamber, I release the bolt and take a small peak over the trench. I see a horde of men all wearing the same or similar uniforms with the British flag emerging from the enemy battalion. I glance to my left and see a man not too much unlike myself releasing heavy machine fire on the advancing troops. He manages to stay firm as explosions bombard the trench.

I stumble down from the impact of mortar shells falling all around me. I hustle up to the edge of the trench and lift my rifle up to my eyes, aiming the weapon down towards the advancing battalion. I only take a few moments to process the location of the enemy charging rapidly towards our position. I quickly fire at one of the hundred British soldiers that offense the trench and charge my weapon once more. He falls down to the ground, with blood splatting behind him for a brief moment. I turn the barrel of my gun towards another enemy soldier and fire. The smoke from the explosions that reap the ground hinders my vision, making the oncoming soldiers increasingly difficult to see. One by one the blurry soldiers from behind the
smoke begin to fall. I can barely believe my eyes as they force charging and slaughtering the men to both sides of me and begin to attempt to retreat. Take a small glance at the same soldier to my left. His body lies still with blood leaking out from his chest and mouth.

I hear the loud sound of a whistle from nearby, very clearly from the officer in the trench. Men rise out from their trenches, including myself, and charge towards the retreating British forces. As I advance in a counter-attack, I take quick and brief pauses to fire at the soldiers as they fall back to their trench. I trip on the mud and collapse on the ground. I take one small look as the remaining men in the trench either run out and die or organize into groups of four to six and begin operating our artillery cannons. I pounce back up onto my feet and charge towards the enemy, the explosions of British artillery follow me and my fellow men of Bulgaria as we loom closer and closer to the British trench. I watch as men around me become cannon fodder to British rifles, some are gunned down by the machine guns unleashing hellfire onto us.
I stumble as a singular bullet rips through my worn and torn pants. Blood gushes from my leg; if I don’t do something quick I’ll die. I quickly get down into a small crater created from the days of chaos and from the battles of Doiran. I turn my head to my right and see a dead soldier in the same Bulgarian uniform that I wear. After laying down my gun, I crawl over to his body and attempt to rip off one of his sleeves from his tunic. With much strength, I finally manage to get one of his arm sleeves off his corpse and I tie it around where the bullet penetrated my calf. I stunt back up after grabbing my gun, charging with the remaining forces. Many others and I stop in front of some of the wire just in front of the British trench before taking a shot and moving to the next bit of barbed wire as cover. As I continue firing and go to pull back the bolt
of my gun, I see a soldier run at me with his bayonet. I pull the trigger but I’m out of ammo. I quickly raised my gun and stabbed him with my bayonet before he could reach my chest with his blade. The man falls down into the mud, his blood slowly flowing down from his chest onto the very ground where his lifeless body lies.

Quickly, I reload my gun before storming the British trench. I hop down into the slightly nicer British trench. I turn to my right and fire at a soldier as more come to take his place. Others jump down to reinforce me against the ever-increasing British forces coming from my right. Itake cover in a small foxhole to my left, nearly getting nailed by a British round. I pull back the bolt on my rifle and lean my head out to fire. I pull the trigger and hit a British infantryman.  Before leaning back to cover, I watch as Bulgarian soldiers light up the British horde with a flamethrower. The flames from his flamethrower begin to warm up the air. I charge my rifle and fire again, hoping to end the suffering of one of the British soldiers. I go to charge my rifle once more, but realize after pulling back the bolt that I am completely out of bullets. I put my rifle on my back and whip out my pistol. I fire two bullets at the enemy soldiers before coming out of the foxhole to aid my comrades in clearing the trench. As I join my fellow soldiers in clearing the trench, as I run through the trench I see a very badly wounded British soldier with blood flowing out his stomach. I kneel down to see if I can help the man by putting pressure on his wound. The man looks me dead in the eyes before his head goes limp. I get back up, still looking at the now-dead man, and get back to clearing the trench.

Hours pass of onslaught and cries from the dead men of both sides. Finally, we managed to overrun the British trench, but now the trench that was once filled with people just like myself is now filled with bodies on the ground. The remaining forces retreat into the thick forest that surrounds the lake. With the battle finally over after a whole day of fighting, I call out for a medic to attend to my leg. A medic approaches me from the left and bends over to help attend to my injured leg. While he tends to my leg, my hearing begins to restore itself from the explosions of British cannons. I look straightforward with no emotions left to feel. I shed a single tear down my face. It is not a tear of happiness that I have served my duty to not only my country but to the Tsar. This war is not what I signed up for when I joined the Bulgarian army, as I have yet to find any of the things promised to us. We were told the war would be glorious, fun, and exciting, but
instead, it has just been anarchy and horrific. Rather the tear I shed is a tear of sadness for what I have become but also what the world has become since the start of this “Great War”. People as young as 18 lay down their lives just for mere inches of land. Mothers lose their sons, children lose their parents, and families collapse from not just combat but hunger. Great powers send their own people to die in a war bringing death and instability to not just the frontlines but to the homefront as well.

Ten days have passed since the battle. We all begin to recover some of our strength from the battle, officers count our losses, and trucks arrive with what little supplies and food we have left. Suddenly small-sized crowds begin to form in the newly captured trench. I join one of the crowds of soldiers, which I notice are smiling, and see a singular radio. I listen to the radio with my comrades at my side. My body suddenly goes numb as I hear the words of the radio and I begin to regain my sense of emotion, feeling, and identity. I feel sadness, anger, fear, happiness, every possible emotion runs throughout my body as I finally break out a smile for the first time in years.

The Tsardom of Bulgaria has officially surrendered