The main Serbian army under Commander-in-Chief
Mikhail Chernyayev, a Russian general, concentrated at the Southern fortress of
Aleksinac. It consisted of three Serbian divisions and a variety of volunteer formations totaling about 45,000 men. In the northeast,
Milojko Lešjanin based at
Zaječar commanded an infantry division (6,000) with cavalry support and the
Bulgarian Legion (2,000). In the west there were two weak divisions (3,500 each), one in the southwest at
Užice commanded by
František Zach and one in the northwest at
Šabac commanded by
Ranko Alimpić. The main rifle was the
Peabody M.1870 which had a performance similar to the
M1867 Russian Krnka. Whilst the Peabody was the best weapon available to Serbian troops many had to make do with the erratic
M.1867 Serbian Green conversion and other
breechloaders, and even
muzzleloaders (about 39,000
Russian musket model 1845/63 and 7,000
Belgian rifle model 1849/56). Officers were armed with
Francotte Revolver m/1871. Artillery batteries contained a variety of mostly bronze guns almost all inferior to the Ottoman
Krupps. There were very few cavalry squadrons reflecting the nature of the terrain and those which existed were poorly equipped. At that time Serbia was accepting all volunteers; there were many volunteers from different countries, including Russians, Bulgarians, Italian followers of
Giuseppe Garibaldi and Prussian officers, and also Englishmen, Frenchmen, Greeks, Romanians and Poles. The biggest detachments were those of the Russians and Bulgarians. During the war of 1876–1877 a detachment was created consisting of several hundreds of Italian volunteers. Russian volunteer detachments formally independent of the Russian state stood up in defense of Serbia. The biggest number of Russian volunteers fought in the Timok-Morava Army, their number reaching around 2,200, out of which there were 650 officers and 300 medical personnel. The main Ottoman army was based at
Sofia under Abdul Kerim with 50,000 men plus irregulars (
bashi-bazouk) and
Circassians. There was a garrison at the border fortress of
Niš commanded by
Mehmed Ali with 8,000 men. At
Vidin,
Osman Nuri had 23,000 men. In the west, in the
Sanjak of Bosnia, there were small garrisons at
Bijeljina and
Zvornik with a larger force (12,000 mostly Egyptians) organized in three infantry regiments under the command of Hosni Rashid Pasha (Egyptian Army) and Dervish Pasha and Mehmed Ali. Substantial numbers of Redif troops were called up for this war mostly armed with former British
Sniders. The superior
Peabody–Martini was becoming more widely available and was certainly used by the Egyptian troops. == Operations ==