Today, 23 October, is 163 years since the birth of Pantelei Kisselov, the general whose 4th Preslav Division took the Romanian fortress of Tutrakan in September 1916. He was born in Svishtov on 23 October 1863 by the old calendar, which is 4 November by the new one.
Svishtov was then a busy port on the Danube, in the Ottoman Empire. Pantelei was the third child of the merchant Georgi Kisselov. He went to the local school in his home town and also had a private tutor.
The river led him to his career. In the summer of 1877, during the Russo-Turkish War, the Russian army crossed the Danube right at Svishtov. Pantelei was 13, and the war arrived in his home town. That event inspired him to become a soldier.
On 30 July 1883 he graduated from the Military School in Sofia and became an officer in the army of the young Principality of Bulgaria. Officers from those first graduating classes built the army almost from scratch.
In 1908–1909 Kisselov trained with the French army and served for a year in the 82nd French Regiment. From March 1912 he commanded the 8th Coastal Infantry Regiment, and after mobilisation on 17 September 1912 he led it in the First Balkan War.
From 1914 he headed the 4th Preslav Division. The battle of Tutrakan lasted from 2 to 6 September 1916. On 5 September the division attacked the main Romanian defence line, and on 6 September the fortress fell. About 480 officers and 28,000 soldiers were taken prisoner, and the Bulgarians also captured about 120 guns.
Kisselov kept full control of his command. He even chose not to carry out orders from German field marshal August von Mackensen, who led the forces that invaded Dobruja. But the victory was costly, as the division suffered heavy losses.
Tutrakan remains one of the most celebrated victories in Bulgarian military history. Bulgaria had come out of the Second Balkan War beaten only three years earlier, and the win gave the country reason to believe in its army again, although it went on to lose the First World War.
Pantelei Kisselov died in Sofia on 14 October 1927, aged 63. Today Tutrakan has monuments to the 1916 battle.
His life is told in detail in the "Great Bulgarians" series: Pantelei Kisselov and the summer the army crossed the Danube at Svishtov; Tutrakan, two September days on the Danube and General Kisselov's division; October 1927 in Sofia and General Kisselov's path between two Danube towns.