Foreigners in Georgi Benkovski 's "Flying Cavalry"

The founder of the Internal Revolutionary Organisation for the Liberation of Bulgaria, Vasil Levski, was the first to involve foreigners in the liberation movement when he set up revolutionary committees in the Bulgarian provinces. The first foreign revolutionaries were the workers of Baron Moritz von Hirsch's "Eastern Railway". In 1876 the Bulgarians organised the April Uprising on the basis of his revolutionary network. Although it was crushed in a bloodbath, the Bulgarians continued to strive for independence, and two years later events led to the liberation of Bulgaria after five centuries of Ottoman rule.

1876 April Uprising placed Bulgarian national issue into European agenda

During the uprising in the Fourth Revolutionary District, the leader, Georgi Benkovski, set up a propaganda detachment to travel and incite the rural communities of Sredna Gora and Thrace. On 27 April the small cavalry unit, called Hvarkovatata Cheta (the Flying Cavalry), marched in parade formation into Belovo. They took over the railway station and destroyed the line to Constantinople.

There were about 200 foreign workers in Belovo - Italians, Germans, Dalmatians, Greeks, etc. Together with their families, there were more than 300 people. A Montenegrin (from the village of Bliszekuche), Krstjo Niklanovic, tells in his memoirs that in March, during the preparations for the uprising, he was sent to Plovdiv by the chairman of the local committee, Georgi Konsulov, to buy lead and 20 oka (a Turkish measure of weight, 1 oka - 1200 grams - ed.) of gunpowder for the uprising in Belovo.

Krstjo also had a uniform made so that he could take part in the uprising. Niklanović, together with the Croat Ivan Sutić, both participated in the production of ammunition for the rebels.

The crowd greeted the rebels with "Hurrah", "Živeo" and "Viva Captain Benkovski!

The headquarters of the detachment was housed in the home of Ivan Sutic, a Croat from Dubrovnik. Many foreigners donated horses, weapons, binoculars and compasses to the Flying Cavalry. Although Zahari Stoyanov - a revolutionary and chronicler of the uprising - initially regarded them as "tourists", some of the foreigners volunteered to join the Flying Cavalry. They were Krstjo Niklanović, his cousins Ivan and Georgi Niklanović, the Croats Luka (Stefo) and Djuro Radojević, and Sava Davidović from the Dalmatian town of Kaštela. Among the non-Bulgarian members of the detachment, the most courageous was the Austrian Albert Albrecht, whom the Bulgarians nicknamed "the German". Ivan Sutic also joined Benkovski's cavalry. To everyone's surprise, his 19-year-old wife enlisted as well. Benkovski excitedly told the chronicler: "Write down that today our troops were joined by the wife of Mr Ivan Sutic, Maria Angelova, a native Bulgarian.

In fact, the Dalmatians, as the Bulgarians called all foreigners, proved to be far more hearty and willing to fight than the local rebels, who were reluctant to stray far from their home villages. At the camp on Mount Eledjik, Sutic and Albrecht wanted to lead an attack on Ihtiman, but there were no volunteers to follow them. Rebel villages were burned and many civilians massacred, so some of the rebels blamed their leader Benkovski for why the other districts had not risen up, why the promised help from north of the Danube had not arrived. According to Zahari Stoyanov, it was only the well-armed Dalmatians who prevented the mob from turning violent. The detachment's standard-bearer, Kraycho Samohodov, deserted. The flag was then raised by Stefo Radojevic, nicknamed the Dalmatian.

The detachment, much thinned out, headed north. In fog, rain and cold, without roads or paths, hungry and exhausted, through ambushes, sipes and wild forests, pursued by the mercenary Bashibozuk and regular Asker soldiers, through Bunovo and the Etropole Balkan, about 30 insurgents made it to Cherni Vit.

Sava Davidovich died during this odyssey. "He spoke all the European languages and his body fed the eagles in the Balkans for the freedom of others, for the glory of a foreign nation," Zahari Stoyanov wrote admiringly in his notes.

In the highlands, on 8 May, the wretched company was hit by a snowstorm. The detachment was disbanded at the Cherni Vit river. Krstjo Niklanović says that they asked to stay with the commander, but Benkovski ordered them to surrender in Teteven, because they had Austro-Hungarian passports and as foreign subjects the Ottomans would release them. Stefo the Dalmatian gave his Austro-Hungarian passport to one of the Bulgarians, who lamented that he had three children and would die in vain. Stefo was thus the only foreigner to remain at Benkovski's side during the fatal ambush on the Kostina River, where the voivode was killed. Only Zahari Stoyanov, the Dalmatian, and Father Kiril Slepov survived, but they were captured by the Turkish army.

Kostina Historical Site - the place where Georgi Benkovski was killed.

The foreigners, together with the Bulgarians who had surrendered, were arrested, beaten and maltreated from Teteven to Sofia. In the autumn, under pressure from the European consuls, the "Dalmatians" and Maria Sutic were released. Weakened by his ordeal, Ivan Sutic died in 1878. Stefo the Dalmatian was captured but survived. After the liberation of Bulgaria, he worked again for the Eastern Railway. Krstjo Niklanović remained in free Bulgaria as a businessman. In 1901 he left a detailed memoir of the Dalmatians' participation in the memorable events of 1876.

Photos - Archive, museum-pz.com, militarymuseum.bg

Translated and posted by Elizabeth Radkova