Nizam Pasha was the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Ottoman Empire during the First Balkan War. He was a staunch supporter of the French Offensive Doctrine, developed primarily by Ferdinand Foch, his instructor at a French Staff College who later became Généralissimo, supreme commander of Allied forces on the Western Front in the final stages of World War I, . Following his appointment as a Chief of Staff, he made immediate changes to Turkish military doctrine, created by Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, the German officer who had been in charge of the reorganisation and training of the Ottoman army. Goltz's doctrine dictated that, in case of war with Balkan states, Turkish forces would remain on the defensive, both on the western (Vardar) and eastern (Thracian) approaches. now. ... // Combatants Ottoman Empire Balkan League: Bulgaria Montenegro Greece Serbia Commanders Nizam Pasha, Zekki Pasha, Esat Pasha, Abdullah Pasha, Ali Rizah Pasha Bulgaria: Vladimir Vazov, Vasil Kutinchev, Nikola Ivanov, Radko Dimitriev Serbia: Radomir Putnik, Petar Bojović, Stepa Stepanović Greece:Crown Prince Constantine, Panagiotis Danglis, Pavlos Kountouriotis Strength 350,000 men Bulgaria... Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch, OM, GCB, (October 2, 1851 – March 20, 1929) was a French soldier. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Western Front was a term used during the First and Second World Wars to describe the contested armed frontier between lands controlled by Germany to the East and the Allies to the West. ... Combatants Allied Powers: United Kingdom France Italy Russia United States Serbia Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Germany Ottoman Empire Commanders Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Ferdinand Foch Georges Clemenceau Nicholas II Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Reinhard Scheer Franz Josef I Conrad von Hötzendorf Ä°smail Enver Ferdinand I Casualties... Warning: this article is based primarily on information from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica and does not reflect modern scholarship. ... The Vardar (Macedonian: Вардар; Latin: Axius; Αξιός(Axios) is the ancient and current Greek name of the river) is the longest river in the Republic of Macedonia. ... Thrace (Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya; Greek: Θράκη, ThrákÄ“; Latin: Thracia or Threcia, Turkish: Trakya, Macedonian: Тракија) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. ...

Nizam Pasha's operational plan for the First Balkan War

Nizam Pasha abandoned der Goltz's defenisive (and probably realistic) doctrine, and, even though the Turkish army had severe problems in mobilizing its troops (less than half of the expected 600,000 troops), developed a bold offensive plan, including offensive operations on both fronts. Because the Serbian army was, after it's defeat in the Serbo-Bulgarian War, considered a weaker opponent even by western observers, Nizam Pasha planned to attack it first, and render it operationaly incapable. He would then attack Bulgaria (which was considered the strongest link in the Balkan alliance) from both the Macedonian and Thracian directions. His underestimation of Serbian strength led to the complete failure of his operational plan and the catastrophe which followed. The Serbo-Bulgarian War (Bulgarian: Сръбско-българска война, Srabsko-balgarska voyna; Serbian: Српско-бугарски рат, Srpsko-bugarski rat) was a war between Serbia and Bulgaria that erupted on November 14, 1885 and lasted until November 28 the same year. ...