Thomas A. Hendricks

Called by historians the "Battle of the captains vs the generals," referring to the young Bulgarian army, whose highest rank went up to a captain,... the Battle of Slivnitsa was a decisive factor in the victory of the Bulgarian army over the Serbians on November 17–19, 1885 in the Serbo-Bulgarian War. It solidified the unification between the kingdom of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia. The conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War and the Congress of Berlin 1878 left Bulgaria divided into two sections. The area north of the Balkan Mountains and Sofia became an autonomous principality. Eastern Rumelia between the Balkan and Rhodope mountains gained semi-autonomous status with an Ottoman appointed Christian governor. The Bulgarian Assembly chose Prince Alexander Battenberg as their ruler and continued to press for the reunification of their country. Political changes in 1883 caused a cooling in relations between Bulgaria and their protector Russia, who now opposed reunification. In September 1885 a rebellion broke out in Eastern Rumelia. Alexander was placed in a difficult position.
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The Battle of Loon Lake concluded the North-West Rebellion on June 3, 1885 and was the last battle fought on Canadian soil. Led by Major Sam Steele,... a force of North-West Mounted Police, Alberta Mounted Rifles and Steele's Scouts caught up with and dispersed a band of Plains Cree warriors and their white and Métis hostages. Cree scouts made a determined stand with what was left of their ammunition, but the body of the Cree column, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, released their prisoners and fled. Wandering Spirit, the war chief leading the Cree military campaign, surrendered to authorities at Fort Pitt. Big Bear, the aging peacetime chief of this band of Cree, eluded capture until July 2. In the spring of 2008, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Christine Tell proclaimed in Duck Lake, that "the 125th commemoration, in 2010, of the 1885 Northwest Resistance is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today.
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The Battle of Frenchman's Butte, fought on May 28, 1885, occurred when a force of Cree, dug in on a hillside near Frenchman's Butte, was... unsuccessfully attacked by the Alberta Field Force. A band of Cree led by Chief Big Bear, living in what is now central Alberta and Saskatchewan joined the North-West Rebellion of 1885 after the Métis success at the Battle of Duck Lake. The starving band seized food and supplies from several white settlements and captured Fort Pitt, taking prisoners. Major-General Thomas Bland Strange, a retired British officer living near Calgary, raised a force of cowboys and other white settlers, added to them two units of North-West Mounted Police , and headed north. He was reinforced by three infantry units from the east, bringing his forces to some 1,000 men. While he left some of his force to provide protection for the isolated white settlements in the area, he led several hundred troops east to Fort Pitt. The Cree burnt the fort ahead of him and retreated to the nearby hills. Over the next few days, Strange's scouts fought skirmishes with small groups of Cree and marched over Frenchman's Butte.
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The Battle of Batoche was the decisive battle of the North-West Rebellion. Fought from 9 May to 12 May 1885 at the ad hoc Provisional Government of... Saskatchewan capital of Batoche, the greater numbers and superior firepower of Middleton's force could not be successfully countered by the Métis , and the town was eventually captured. The defeat of the Métis led to the surrender of Louis Riel on 15 May and the collapse of the Provisional Government. In the weeks that followed, Poundmaker would surrender and only the Cree under Big Bear would continue to engage Canadian authorities – see Battle of Frenchman's Butte and Battle of Loon Lake. Conscious of the numerous reverses that had been suffered by government forces in previous clashes with the rebels , Middleton approached Batoche with caution, reaching Gabriel's Crossing on 7 May and advancing within eight miles of the town the following day.
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