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Title: The Macedonian campaign
Author: Villari, Luigi
Language: English
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THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA
By Professor PASQUALE VILLARI
Translated by LINDA VILLARI
Illustrated. Cloth, 8s. 6d. net
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
By Professor PASQUALE VILLARI
Translated by LINDA VILLARI
Illustrated. Cloth, 8s. 6d. net
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD LONDON
[Illustration: GENERAL SIR G. F. MILNE.
Frontispiece.
]
THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN
_By_ LUIGI VILLARI
_With Illustrations and Maps_
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First published in English 1922_
(_All rights reserved_)
PREFATORY NOTE
The operations of the Allied forces, and in particular those of the
Italian contingent in Macedonia, are less well known than those of
almost any other of the many campaigns into which the World War is
subdivided. There have already been several published accounts of it
in English and French, but these works have dealt almost exclusively
with the action of the British or French contingent, and are mostly of
a polemical or journalistic character; very little has been written
about the other Allied forces, or about the campaign as a whole.
Owing to the position which I held for two years as Italian liaison
officer with the various Allied Commands in the East, I have been able
to collect a good deal of unpublished material on the subject, and I
felt that it might be useful to give a consecutive account of these
events, correcting many inaccuracies which have been spread about. The
book was written originally in Italian, and dealt in particular detail
with the operations of the Italian expeditionary force. In the present
English edition I have omitted certain details concerning the Italian
force, which were of less interest for a non-Italian public, while I
have added some further material of a general character, which I only
obtained since the Italian edition was written.
The published authoritative and reliable sources for the history of the
Macedonian campaign are very few. A bibliography is appended. Besides
my own notes and recollections of the events, set down day by day, and
the records of various conversations which I had with the chief actors
in the Balkan war drama, I must acknowledge the valuable assistance
afforded to me by various Italian and foreign officers and officials.
My especial thanks are due to the following:
General Petitti di Roreto, for information on the events of the early
period of the campaign;
General Ernesto Mombelli, who supplied me with a great deal of useful
information and advice on the latter period;
Colonel Vitale, under whom I worked for some time, and who first
instructed me in the duties of a liaison officer;
Colonel Fenoglietto, who kindly provided a part of the photographs
reproduced in the book;
Commendatore Fracassetti, director of the Museo del Risorgimento in
Rome, who kindly placed a large number of photographs at my disposal,
authorizing me to make use of them;
Captain Harold Goad, British liaison officer with the Italian force
from soon after its landing at Salonica until it was broken up in
the summer of 1919, who supplied me with many details concerning the
topography of the Italian area of the Macedonian front, which he knew
stone by stone, and his notes and recollections of many political and
military episodes. Few men have done such admirable and disinterested
work in favour of good relations between Britain and Italy, both during
and after the war, as this officer, who was most deservedly decorated
with the Italian silver medal for valour in the field.
L. V.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFATORY NOTE 5
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION--REASONS FOR THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN AND FOR
THE PARTICIPATION OF ITALY. POLITICAL INTRIGUES AND
FIRST MILITARY OPERATIONS 11
II. OPERATIONS IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1916 36
III. THE COMMAND OF THE ALLIED ARMIES IN THE ORIENT. THE FRENCH
TROOPS 56
IV. THE BRITISH SALONICA FORCE 68
V. THE SERBIANS 85
VI. THE ITALIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 96
VII. OPERATIONS IN THE WINTER AND SPRING OF 1917 118
VIII. GREEK AFFAIRS 137
IX. SALONICA AND THE WAY THITHER 157
X. IRRITATION AGAINST GENERAL SARRAIL 171
XI. FROM THE SALONICA FIRE TO THE RECALL OF SARRAIL 179
XII. GENERAL GUILLAUMAT 191
XIII. MARKING TIME. ARRIVAL OF GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY 199
XIV. ON THE EVE OF THE OFFENSIVE 211
XV. THE BATTLE OF THE BALKANS 225
XVI. FINAL OPERATIONS 255
APPENDIX A. LETTER FROM VOIVOD MICHICH TO GENERAL PETITTI DI
RORETO CONCERNING THE FIGHTING ON HILL 1050 IN
FEBRUARY 1917 271
APPENDIX B. LOSSES OF THE BELLIGERENTS DURING THE MACEDONIAN
CAMPAIGN 272
APPENDIX C. GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY’S TELEGRAM TO THE FRENCH
GOVERNMENT CONCERNING THE ARMISTICE NEGOTIATIONS WITH
BULGARIA 273
APPENDIX D. ARMISTICE BETWEEN THE ALLIES AND BULGARIA, SIGNED AT
SALONICA ON SEPTEMBER 29, 1918 274
BIBLIOGRAPHY 277
INDEX 279
ILLUSTRATIONS
GENERAL SIR. G. F. MILNE _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
GENERAL ERNESTO MOMBELLI, COMMANDER OF THE ITALIAN
EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN MACEDONIA 10
ARCH OF GALERUS, SALONICA 20
GENERAL LEBLOIS BIDDING FAREWELL TO GENERAL PETITTI AT TEPAVCI 38
LANDING OF ITALIAN TROOPS AT SALONICA 38
CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE, SALONICA 58
TRANSPORT IN WINTER 62
THE ALLIED LIAISON OFFICERS AT G.H.Q., SALONICA 62
THE AUTHOR 76
GENERAL MOMBELLI INAUGURATING A SCHOOL FOR SERB CHILDREN BUILT
BY ITALIAN SOLDIERS AT BROD 88
ITALIAN BRIDGE OVER THE CERNA AT BROD 88
THE BAND OF THE 35TH DIVISION PLAYING IN THE PLACE DE LA
LIBERTÉ AT SALONICA 102
GENERAL GUILLAUMAT VISITS GENERAL MOMBELLI AT TEPAVCI 102
CAMP NEAR THE PARALOVO MONASTERY 122
H.Q. OF AN INFANTRY REGIMENT ON HILL 1050 122
HELIOGRAPH IN A CAVERN ON HILL 1050 126
ROCK-PERFORATING MACHINE ON HILL 1050 126
CAMP UNDER THE PITON BRÛLÉ 134
ITALIAN NATIONAL FESTIVAL (THE STATUTO) AT SAKULEVO. HIGH MASS 134
HILL 1075: ARTILLERY CAMP 140
ARTILLERY O.P. 140
THE GREEK NATIONAL FESTIVAL ON APRIL 7, 1917: M. VENIZELOS
LEAVING THE CHURCH OF S. SOPHIA, SALONICA 158
KING ALEXANDER OF GREECE VISITS A FRENCH CAMP 158
A FLOODED ROAD 172
LEAVE PARTY FROM MACEDONIA ON THE SANTI QUARANTA ROAD 172
(_Photograph by Lieut. Landini._)
BULGARIAN PRISONERS 180
IN THE “CASTELLETTO” TRENCHES 180
THE SALONICA FIRE, NIGHT FROM AUGUST 18 TO 19, 1917 192
CAMP OF THE 111TH FLIGHT: ITALIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 192
CRASHED ITALIAN AEROPLANE 246
COMMUNICATION TRENCHES IN THE MEGLENTZI VALLEY 246
CRASHED GERMAN AEROPLANE 250
GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY DECORATING GENERALS MILNE AND
MOMBELLI 250
AFTER THE VICTORY: ENEMY PRISONERS 256
GERMAN PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE ITALIANS ON HILL 1050 262
HILL 1050: HOURS OF REST 262
MONUMENT TO THE FALLEN OF THE 161ST ITALIAN REGIMENT ON VRATA
HILL 264
MAPS
AREA OF THE ITALIAN FORCE 104
AREA OF THE BRITISH XII CORPS 129
AREA OF THE FRANCO-SERB GROUP 213
ENEMY ORDER OF BATTLE, SEPTEMBER 15, 1918 227
THE PRILEP-KRUSHEVO AREA 236
GRÆCO-BULGARIAN FRONTIER 242
[Illustration: GENERAL ERNESTO MOMBELLI, COMMANDER OF THE ITALIAN
EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN MACEDONIA.
To face p. 10.
]
The Macedonian Campaign
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
REASONS FOR THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN AND FOR THE PARTICIPATION OF
ITALY. POLITICAL INTRIGUES AND FIRST MILITARY OPERATIONS.
The great victory of our army on the Italian front with which the war
came to an end made the Italian public almost forget the deeds achieved
by Italian troops on other fronts, and particularly in Macedonia.
This has happened not only in Italy; even France and Britain, who had
far larger contingents in Macedonia than ours, do not seem to have
appreciated at their full value the operations in that area. There was
a whole school of strategists, professional and amateur, competent
and incompetent, known as the “Westerners,” who desired that every
effort should be concentrated exclusively on the French and Italian
fronts, and that the operations on the various Eastern fronts should
be neglected or even abandoned altogether. Until the Balkan offensive
of September 1918, that front, in the opinion of the great majority of
the public and even in that of many political and military circles, was
of small importance; according to the pure “Westerners,” the Salonica
expedition was an error in its very origin, and a useless dispersion
of troops who might have been more usefully employed elsewhere. There
were even those who maintained the necessity of withdrawing the
troops already sent to the East, and others who, although they did
not go quite so far, were opposed to any increase of the forces in
Macedonia, and even objected to their being provided with the necessary
reinforcements and materials.
In support of this view it must be admitted that the Salonica
expedition absorbed a vast quantity of tonnage, at a moment when
tonnage in all the Entente countries was dangerously scarce, and when
the voyage between England, France, Italy and Macedonia was extremely
risky on account of submarines. It is also true that for about three
years that expedition produced no tangible results; so much so that
the Germans called it with ironical satisfaction their largest
concentration camp, “an enemy army, prisoner of itself.”
Yet it was with the victorious offensive of September, 1918, that the
Entente struck the first knock-down blow at the Central Powers and
produced the first real breach in the enemy barrier which helped the
armies in France and Italy to achieve final victory. Even Marshal
von Ludendorff, in his memoirs, recognized the enormous importance
of the Allied victory in the Balkans. Until September 15th, 1918, in
fact, the enemy’s line of chief resistance from the North Sea to the
Swiss frontier, from the Stelvio to the mouth of the Piave, from the
Voyussa to the Struma, was intact. When the Balkan front collapsed, the
whole of the rest of the enemy front in the West as in the East was
threatened by a vast encircling movement, the moral effect of which was
not less serious than its material consequences.
But it was not only at the moment of the victorious offensive that
the Eastern expedition justified itself. Even in the preceding period
of long and enervating suspense, the presence of the Allied armies in
Macedonia had an importance which was far from indifferent with regard
to the general economy of the war. Owing to causes which we shall
subsequently examine, the Army of the Orient[1] had not been able to
carry out the task originally assigned to it of bringing aid to invaded
Serbia and saving her from her extreme ruin, and it was therefore
believed that that army had no longer any _raison d’être_. The truth,
however, is very different, because for months and years it mounted
guard in the Balkans, preventing the Central Empires from reaching
Salonica and invading Old Greece,[2] where they might have established
innumerable new submarine bases and thus dominated the whole of the
Eastern Mediterranean. This would have rendered any traffic with Egypt
and consequently with India and Australia practically impossible, that
is to say, with some of the most important sources of supply for the
whole of the Entente and particularly for Italy. If the Army of the
Orient was enmeshed amidst the marshes and arid rocks of Macedonia,
on the other hand that Army nailed down the whole of the Bulgarian
Army, consisting of close on three-quarters of a million men,[3] amply
provided with artillery both Bulgarian and German, throughout the
whole of the war, and for a time certain German and Turkish divisions
as well, forces which might themselves have been employed elsewhere.
Incidentally, the operations in Albania against the Austrians could not
have been maintained without the support of the Army of the Orient on
its right.
In Italy, perhaps more than elsewhere, the advantages of the Macedonian
expedition were doubted, and in many political and military circles,
as well as among the mass of the public, the current of opinion was
opposed to any Italian participation in the operations of that sector.
Even when Italian participation had been decided upon, and the Italian
expeditionary force was actually in Macedonia, it was not always
possible for it to obtain all that it needed, and the command had to
struggle hard to obtain the indispensable minimum of reinforcements
and materials. Even among the officers of that force, many considered
Italian intervention in the East useless and even harmful. Various
reasons contributed to this opinion. In the first place, the fact that
Italy’s war aims were at the gates of Italy and not in the Balkans
influenced public feeling in general. Secondly, the fact that our
expeditionary force was in a subordinate position seemed to many to
be derogatory to Italian dignity; a feeling which may be compared with
the one that the war with Austria was in a certain sense apart from the
general World War. This attitude, which lasted to the end, has been
very injurious to our interests in the Balkans and elsewhere, and those
among us who really felt the inter-Allied character of the war have had
to struggle without ceasing both to convince our dissident compatriots
of their error, and to prove to the Allies that those who maintained
the purely Italian character of the war only represented a part of
Italian public opinion, and that part not the best informed.
Yet Italy’s participation in the Eastern expedition was inevitable.
Independently of boundary questions of a general character, it was
not possible that Italy should remain absent from that area, which
subsequent events have proved to be extremely important. Even before
the war we had great political and economic interests in the Balkans,
interests in part destroyed and in part menaced by the Austrians and
Germans in the course of the campaign; it was absolutely necessary that
we ourselves should participate in reconstructing them, instead of
leaving this work entirely to others. Further, in the new settlement
which the war would create in the Near East, fresh interests and new
currents of trade were bound to be created. For this reason too it was
necessary that Italy by her presence should participate directly in
shaping this new settlement. We complain now that our interests in the
East are not sufficiently recognized and respected, but how could we
have claimed recognition and respect for them if we had had no share
at all in the Macedonian campaign? Above all, what would have been our
prestige among the Balkan peoples if the latter had seen the victorious
troops of France, Britain, Serbia and even Greece marching past, and
not those of Italy? Our victory in Italy would not have sufficed to
affirm our position among the Balkan peoples if they had not seen us
take part in the victory won in their own homelands. It would indeed
have been better if our participation had been far greater and our
expeditionary force on a far larger scale.
The vicissitudes of the Army of the Orient are much less known than
those of all the other armies in the World War, and in particular those
of the Italian expeditionary force are largely ignored by the public,
even in Italy. Many believe that it was merely a modest contingent,
because it was called the “35th Infantry Division,” whereas in reality
its strength was superior to that of an army corps; and considering
the conditions of the area where it was fighting, its importance was
equal to that of an army. It is with the object of making known to the
public a little more of the actions of that fine unit and the debt of
gratitude which the country owes to its officers and men for their long
and arduous struggle, conducted in one of the most pestilent climates
in Europe amid great hardship, and the increase of Italy’s prestige
obtained by their merit, that I have undertaken to write these pages.
* * * * *
When the World War broke out, Austria immediately commenced an
offensive against Serbia, and the Entente Powers could not at first
send assistance to the latter on account of her geographical situation,
as she was surrounded on all sides by enemy or neutral States, except
to the south-west, but communications through Montenegro were extremely
difficult, and by that route only a few volunteers penetrated into
Serbia. Supplies and armies could arrive by way of Salonica, but always
in the face of serious difficulties, both on account of the obstruction
offered by Greece, whose neutrality was not benevolent, and of the
attempts made by Bulgarian bands, with or without the approval of the
Sofia Government, which was also neutral but still less benevolent, to
cut the Vardar railway. The Serbians, however, had proved themselves
in the first months of the war capable of defending their country, and
they inflicted serious defeats on the Austrians, first at Tzer, in the
loop formed by the Save and the Danube, in September, 1914, and later
on in the winter at Valievo, where the hostile army, after having
occupied Belgrade and penetrated into the heart of Serbia, was beaten
and put to flight, leaving thousands of prisoners and vast booty in the
hands of the Serbians.
Nevertheless the Serbians were in urgent need of assistance. Their food
situation was still very grave, their supply of arms and munitions
quite inadequate, and a terrible epidemic of spotted typhus was raging
throughout the country. But in addition to material obstacles, the
very psychology of the people rendered it difficult to assist them. In
the spring of 1915, when the intervention of Italy was certain, the
Serbs had a chance of inflicting a new and perhaps decisive defeat
on the Austrians by co-operating with us. France, Great Britain, and
Russia then brought strong pressure to bear on the Serbian Government
to induce it to launch an offensive in the direction of Agram at
the moment when the Italians were about to attack on the Isonzo.
The Government agreed, and submitted a plan of operations to the
Allies, which was approved, but just when it should have been put
into execution, the Serbian Army did not move; as a result of fresh
pressure on the part of the Allies the Government again promised to
attack, but again did nothing. Finally, when this pressure was renewed
for the third time, reinforced, it is said, by a personal letter from
the Tsar, Belgrade replied at the last moment that it had decided not
to attack in the direction of Croatia, because it wished to carry out
another plan against Bulgaria, who was still neutral! The reasons for
this sudden change in the decisions of the Serbian Government must be
sought in the influence of the secret societies which permeate the
whole political life of the country, and especially the army. The most
important of these societies was the notorious “Black Hand,” to which
many of the regicide officers belonged. Although the Government itself
was apparently favourable to the action proposed by the Entente, which
offered great possibilities of success, inasmuch as the Austrians had
only a small body of troops in Croatia, it was not strong enough to
resist the influence of the secret societies, who placed their veto
on any action in co-operation with Italy.[4] The full details of this
affair are not quite clear, but one thing is certain, and that is that
owing to Serbia’s inaction Austria was able to withdraw five out of the
six divisions which were left on the Save and send them to the Italian
front. At that period of the war the Serbian front was considered in
the Austrian Army almost as a rest camp.
In the autumn of 1915 the Serbian _débâcle_ took place, caused chiefly
by the Bulgarian attack. The intervention of Turkey on the side of the
Central Empires had rendered Bulgaria’s position extremely difficult,
but that was not the chief reason of the latter’s intervention.
Bulgaria had remained profoundly dissatisfied with the results of the
Peace of Bucarest (1913), which brought the Turko-Balkan War to an end
and deprived her of a great part of the fruits of her victory against
the Turks. The fault was to a large extent her own, because she had
attacked her ex-Allies, Serbia and Greece, and had been completely
defeated by them; she then lost not only the whole of Macedonia, to
conquer which she had entered the war, but also Eastern Thrace, with
Adrianople and Kirk-Kilisse, which were reoccupied by the Turks when
the Bulgarian Army had been beaten by the Serbs and Greeks, and a
part of Dobrugia which had belonged to her since the creation of the
Bulgarian State in 1878, and had been annexed by Roumania, who had
intervened in the war at the last moment. This left a bitter feeling of
spite in the soul of the Bulgarians, and sowed the seeds of a future
war of revenge.
This violent irritation against the Serbs, Greeks and Roumanians
was not the only cause which threw the Bulgarians into the arms of
the Central Empires, and of their former mortal enemies, the Turks.
Their main aspiration--almost their only one since the creation of
the Bulgarian State--has been Macedonia. The Dobrugia and Thrace are
of comparatively small interest to them, whereas Macedonia, on the
contrary, is the bourne of all their desires. In Thrace and in the
Dobrugia the population is very mixed, and the Bulgarians, in spite
of the statistics drawn up by the Sofia Government, are a minority,
and the non-Bulgarian elements of the population--Turks, Greeks,
Roumanians--are racially entirely different. In Macedonia, on the other
hand, at least in Central and Northern Macedonia, the great majority
is Slav, and the Bulgarians consider it Bulgarian. In reality the
population is racially and linguistically something between Serbian
and Bulgarian, and the predominance of Serbian or Bulgarian sentiments
varies according to the proximity of the frontier of one or other of
these States, the activity of their respective propagandists, and the
greater or less prestige and strength of the two Governments. I will
not quote statistics which, being drawn up by Balkan writers, have a
doubtful value and no scientific basis, but it is certain that the
Bulgarian peoples are convinced that if Macedonia were annexed to
Bulgaria, in a few years the population would become wholly Bulgarian,
so that the State would find itself with a considerable increase of
inhabitants--not aliens who cannot be assimilated, such as Greeks,
Roumanians or Turks, whose territories can only be Bulgarized by
massacre or deportation _en masse_, but of a race which is already
very closely akin to the Bulgarian race. Further, in Macedonia there
are several cities closely connected with the most ancient and sacred
historical traditions of the Bulgarian peoples, such as Monastir and
Ochrida. The latter was indeed for a time the capital of the Bulgarian
Empire and for many centuries the see of the Bulgarian patriarchate.
Bulgarian propaganda had always been much more active and more able
than that of the Serbians under the Turkish régime, a propaganda based
on excellent schools and assassinations, and, as until the wars of
1912–13, the Bulgarians appeared to be the most solid, and from a
military point of view the strongest of the Balkan States, Bulgaria
exercised a powerful force of attraction over the Macedonians. In
consequence of this propaganda and of Turkish persecutions, a large
number of active and intelligent Macedonians migrated into Bulgaria,
where they occupied many important positions in the country. A large
part of the political men, diplomats, consuls, high officials,
professors, school-masters, officers and merchants in Bulgaria are
Macedonians, and they have long dominated the internal and foreign
policy of the country, directing it naturally towards Macedonia. On the
whole, Bulgarian feeling predominates over Serbian or Greek feeling
throughout almost the whole of Macedonia.
During the Turko-Balkan War, the Bulgarians had conquered a large
part of Macedonia and Thrace, and their legitimate aspirations might
thus have been satisfied, but, owing to the mad ambition of their
Government, or rather of a small number of ambitious officers, they
attempted to obtain a great deal more, and threw themselves without
reflecting into the foolhardy enterprise which was the second Balkan
War. The unfortunate result of that campaign made them lose the
whole of their conquests, with the exception of Western Thrace and
the districts of Strumitza and Djumaya forming part of Macedonia.
They retained, it is true, the port of Dede-Agatch and the railway
connecting it with the rest of Bulgaria, passing through a strip
of Turkish territory (Sufli--Demotika--Adrianople--Mustafa Pasha).
But if they were justly prevented from obtaining satisfaction for
these exaggerated ambitions, they were on the other hand deprived of
territories to which on national grounds they had some legitimate
claims. The Serbian authorities in Macedonia, while maintaining that
that country was purely Serbian, showed by their policy that they
considered the population preponderantly Bulgarian, inasmuch as they
instituted a system of such extreme and rigorous terrorism as is
only explicable on the ground that they were ruling over a conquered
territory, whose inhabitants were hostile to them, and must be kept
down by force.
The Bulgarian aspiration to regain Macedonia was by no means eliminated
by the unfortunate outcome of the second Balkan War. On the contrary,
it was strengthened and embittered, and when the World War broke out
Bulgaria regarded it merely from the point of view of a possible
readjustment of the Macedonian frontier in her own favour. I have
been told that the Bulgarian Prime Minister, when a British diplomat
went to see him a short time before Bulgaria entered the war, pointed
to a map of the Balkans on the wall and said: “We care little about
the British, Germans, French, Russians, Italians or Austrians; our
only thought is Macedonia; whichever of the two groups of Powers
will enable us to conquer it will have our alliance.” I do not know
if this anecdote is true, but in any case it represents crudely
but accurately Bulgarian mentality. The Governments of the Entente
understood this state of feeling, but their situation was embarrassing
and delicate. They tried to convince Serbia of the necessity of handing
over Macedonia, or at least part of it, to Bulgaria, promising her
compensation elsewhere. But they did not care to insist too much,
because Serbia was an ally, and the compensation offered to her was
in territories still retained by the enemy, whereas Bulgaria was a
neutral, but a short while ago Serbia’s enemy, who was attempting a
sort of blackmail, and who hitherto made use of comitadji bands, or
at least gave them a free hand, to blow up the bridges on the Vardar,
Serbia’s only line of supply. Serbia would not hear of this proposal,
and in fact intended, as we have seen, to attack Bulgaria before the
latter came to a decision; but the Entente, and particularly the Tsar
of Russia, naturally dissuaded them from such action, which would have
been little different from that committed by the Germans in invading
Belgium. Certainly Serbia would have been wiser had she shown herself
more conciliatory towards Bulgaria; if she had done so, she would
have avoided the catastrophe of 1915 and the three terrible years of
German-Bulgarian slavery. But the Serbians, we must not forget, are
a Balkan people. They have no high political sense nor broad views,
and probably even on this occasion the secret societies, with their
insatiable and megalomaniac ambitions, brought pressure to bear on the
Government to induce it to reject any idea of compromise. However this
may be, Serbia did not give way, and the diplomacy of the Entente could
do nothing.
[Illustration: ARCH OF GALERUS, SALONICA.
To face p. 20.
]
The Entente counted much on the sympathy for Russia, which it believed
to be very widespread among the Bulgarians, but that sympathy carried
no weight in the decisions of the Sofia Government. The Bulgarians,
like other Balkan peoples, are vindictive for all offences suffered,
and understand gratitude largely in the sense of anticipation of
benefits to come. In the case of Russia, moreover, their gratitude
towards her for having freed them from the Ottoman yoke had been
much weakened by the foolish, overbearing and intriguing conduct of
the Russian officials in Bulgaria after 1878. The Bulgarians quickly
forgot the thousands of Russians who had fallen at Plevna for Bulgarian
liberty, but they retained a lively recollection of the persecutions
and brutality of Generals Kaulbars and Ernroth, and of their satellites
who misgoverned the country for many years; of Russia’s illicit
interference in their internal affairs at the time of Prince Alexander
of Battenberg; and of the fact that Russia abandoned Bulgaria when
she was attacked without warning or provocation by Serbia in 1885. By
the summer of 1915 the Bulgarians had come to the conclusion that the
Central Empires were stronger than the Entente, and that the former
therefore offered them a better chance of reconquering Macedonia than
the latter. On September 10th, 1915, a general mobilization was ordered
in Bulgaria, and on the 29th Bulgarian troops attacked Serbia at
Kadibogaz, without a formal declaration of war.
Bulgarian intervention had, however, already been decided upon for
some time. Bulgaria had obtained a loan from Germany which tied her
hand and foot, and, further, after protracted negotiations promoted by
Germany, she had concluded on September 6th an agreement with Turkey,
whereby the latter granted her a rectification of the frontiers, so
that the railway between Dede-Agatch and the rest of Bulgaria should
pass wholly through Bulgarian territory. There were two immediate
consequences of Bulgarian intervention. The first was that Turkey could
now receive supplies from Germany with greater facility because there
was only a small strip of Serbian territory to be invaded so as to
establish communications by way of the Danube, and it was very soon
occupied. The second consequence, which was a result of the first, was
that the situation of the Allies on the Dardanelles became far more
critical. The British Command knew that the arrival of powerful German
artillery at Gallipoli was imminent, and that as soon as it was in
position the situation of the Allied expeditionary force would become
very precarious. The fact that Bulgaria was now an ally of the Central
Powers greatly facilitated the sending of this artillery, and it was
on the eve of its arrival that the evacuation of the blood-stained
peninsula was decided upon.
Germany, after the various Austrian defeats in Serbia, determined
to take the command of a new punitive expedition herself, and in
view of the co-operation of Bulgaria she had concentrated a powerful
Austro-German army, amply supplied with artillery, including guns of
the heaviest calibre, in South Hungary under the command of the German
Field-Marshal von Mackensen. The invasion of Serbia was carried out by
the Austrians and Germans from the north and also from the west (from
Bosnia), and by the Bulgarian Army from the east and south-east. The
Serbians fought heroically, opposing a desperate resistance on three
fronts, and at one moment it seemed as if they might miraculously
succeed; perhaps indeed they might have saved themselves, or at least
avoided the extreme disaster, if they had only followed the advice
of the Allies. But although it soon became known that a new and more
formidable attempt was about to be made by the enemy to crush Serbia
definitely, the Serbs refused to create a modern defensive system of
trenches and wire entanglements, which in a mountainous territory
such as that of Serbia would at least have held up the invaders for
a considerable time. To the suggestions made by the Allies that
these methods be adopted, the Serbs replied with typical Balkan
vaingloriousness: “Wire entanglements and trenches are all very well
for the Germans and Austrians, for the French, Italians, British
or Russians, but we have no use for them; we fight in the open and
drive out the enemy.” Their victories over the Austrians had made
them lose their heads and forget that these victories were not due
solely to their own courage but also, to a considerable extent, to the
serious strategical and tactical errors of the Austrian commanders,
from General Potiorek downwards, errors which were not repeated by
Marshal von Mackensen. The new invasion carried out by the formidable
Austro-German Army to which we have referred, and there came also the
stab in the back on the part of the Bulgarians.
The enemy had 12 German and Austrian divisions advancing up the Morava
valley, and 7 Bulgarian divisions (divisions of 6 regiments each, many
of whose regiments were of 4 battalions), which pushed forward in the
direction of the Nish-Uskub railway. Altogether these forces comprised
341 battalions, of which 111 were German, 53 Austro-Hungarian, and
177 Bulgarian; against these forces the Serbs could only oppose 194
battalions--116 against the Austrians and Germans, and 78 against the
Bulgarians. They were, moreover, exhausted by the long struggle, and
reduced to about half their organic strength. Serbia had been deprived
of her lines of supply via the Morava and Toplitza valleys by the enemy
invasion. The only hope for her army was to establish a connexion
with the relieving forces which the Allies were preparing to send up
from Salonica. On October 17th the railway was cut at Vrania, thus
interrupting communications with Salonica; on the 27th Veles and Uskub
were occupied.
As soon as the preparations for a new enemy invasion of Serbia were
known, the Entente decided to send an expeditionary force to Salonica
and at the same time decided, as we have seen, to withdraw the
Dardanelles force.[5] This decision was taken at the end of September,
and on the 29th a mission, comprised of one British and two French
officers departed from Mudros for Salonica with very vague orders.
On reaching their destination, they set to work to prepare for the
disembarkation of the troops, but they found themselves faced with
the most insidious obstruction on the part of the Greek authorities.
The Athens Government, of which M. Venizelos was president, had given
its unwilling consent to the landing of the Allies, but the civil
officials and the military commanders on the spot did everything to
interfere with their operations. The first Allied contingents were
British and French troops from the Dardanelles. They were elements
of the 10th British Division commanded by General Sir Bryan Mahon,
who for some time commanded all the British troops in Macedonia,
and of the 156th French Division commanded by General Bailloud. The
landing began on October 5th, and in a short time the 2 divisions were
complete, although reduced in strength by sickness and losses to very
weak effectives. Later, the 57th French Division arrived. On October
12th General Sarrail arrived at Salonica as Commander of all the French
troops in the Orient. For a considerable time nothing was decided as
to the relations between the different commands in Macedonia, and
although the rank of Commander-in-Chief had been conferred on General
Sarrail, the British Commander, and later also the Serbian Commander,
insisted on maintaining their own autonomy. It was not until June 23,
1916, that an agreement was concluded on this matter between the French
and British General Staffs, but even this was somewhat vague. “The
question of the Command,” this document states, “is regulated by the
following formula: Instructions concerning the initial offensive as
well as the line of conduct necessary for the further development of
operations will be established by mutual agreement between the French
and British Commands. It is thus understood that the Commander of the
British forces will give the Commander of the French forces assistance
and co-operation in proportion to the effectives and equipment of
the troops under his orders. He will be responsible, however, to the
British Government for the employment of his forces. The Commander
of the French forces will consult with the Commander of the British
forces as to the manner in which the latter shall be employed; with
this reserve, he will have as Commander-in-Chief authority to establish
the duties and objectives to be attained, the area of action, and the
date for the commencement of operations.”[6] It is easy to see that
the authority of General Sarrail over the British Commander was quite
illusory. His orders might be discussed, and they were. Field-Marshal
French had said clearly to the British Commander in Macedonia:
“You will never be in a subordinate position,” and in fact every
time that Sarrail sought to make use of the British or even French
troops, temporarily placed under British Command, he had to conduct
negotiations as if it were a political act. We shall see subsequently
why it was that he never succeeded in imposing his authority, but the
fact certainly did not contribute to the success of the operations in
the Near East.
Day by day fresh troops and fresh material arrived at Salonica, but
the ill-will of the Greek authorities rendered everything difficult.
The buildings which the Allies needed were always found to have been
already requisitioned by the Greeks, so that the French and British
had to encamp on Zeitenlik, a spot at 5 km. to the north of Salonica,
at that time, before the drainage works afterwards carried out by
the Allies, infected with malaria. In the purchase of foodstuffs and
material every sort of difficulty was encountered. Worse still, every
movement of the Allies was spied upon by and communicated to the enemy,
either indirectly via Athens by the Greek authorities, or directly by
the German, Austrian, Bulgarian and Turkish Consuls, who continued
to reside in Salonica. The situation was absolutely preposterous--an
Entente army operating in a neutral country which was friendly to the
enemy.
On November 17th, 1915, the Anglo-French troops were about 120,000, of
whom two-thirds were French, and on the 20th a fresh British division
arrived, but they were still far from the 300,000 men deemed necessary
for operations on a large scale. There was another greater danger which
was anything but indifferent. The Greek Army, comprised about 240,000
men, of whom half were in Macedonia, and if its military value was not
very formidable, it might have, in alliance with the enemy, represented
a serious menace to the Entente.
The initial objective of the Allies was to bring assistance to the
Serbs who were retreating before the Austro-German and Bulgarian
invasion. This assistance was to have taken the form of an advance up
the Vardar Valley towards Uskub or towards Monastir. As soon as the
troops were landed at Salonica they were immediately pushed forward
towards the front, the British to the east of the Vardar and the
French to the west. On October 20th the French reached Krivolak on the
Vardar and occupied the whole peninsula formed by that river and the
Cerna, while the British were to the north of lake of Doiran, on the
Kosturino Pass on the Beles Mountains, whence it is possible to descend
into Bulgaria. The Serbs were being driven ever further south, but a
detachment of their army was holding Monastir. If they had followed
the advice of the Allies and had retreated towards them, perhaps a
part of the army might have been saved; but, attracted by the mirage
of an outlet on the Adriatic, or for some other motive, they insisted
on deviating towards the west, thus undertaking that retreat across
Albania which was to prove one of the most terrible tragedies of the
whole war. Before the invasion the Serbian Army comprised 400,000 men,
when it reached Albania it was reduced to 150,000, with some tens
of thousands of Austrian prisoners; the rest had died of hunger and
suffering. This miserable remnant was saved by the assistance of the
Allies, and particularly of the Italians, as we shall see further on.
The retreat through Albania rendered the situation of the Anglo-French
on the middle Vardar untenable. When the French learnt that the
Bulgarians had occupied the Babuna Pass between Veles and Monastir
at the beginning of November, they tried to break the enemy front on
the left bank of the Cerna in the hope of reaching the Serbs to the
north-west of that pass. For fifteen days (November 5–19th) a fierce
struggle went on between the French and the Bulgarians, in which our
Allies showed all their admirable military qualities. The Bulgarians
counter-attacked on the Cerna and were repulsed with heavy losses,
but as the bulk of the Serbian Army had retreated towards Albania
and the French had been unable to capture the dominating position of
Mount Arkhangel (west of Gradsko on the Vardar), the offensive passed
definitely to the Bulgarians. On the 2nd, General Sarrail ordered a
general retreat from Krivolak on Salonica. Even this operation was
anything but easy. It was necessary to withdraw 3 divisions (the 122nd
had been recently added to the 156th and 57th) and an enormous quantity
of material along the Vardar Valley over a single-track railway and
without decent carriage roads, in a season when the rains converted
the whole country into a vast muddy swamp. It must be admitted that
General Sarrail conducted this retreat in good order. The Bulgarians
were attacking from the north towards Krivolak and from the west on
the Cerna, while from the east they were attacking the British at
Kosturino, while irregular bands were trying to capture convoys along
the Vardar, and enemy artillery from the Beles range dominated the
railway. Added to this there was rain, snow and cold.
There were two plans of retreat, which may be described as the maximum
and the minimum. The first consisted in withdrawing to the entrenched
camp at Salonica, the other in resisting on an intermediate position
between the Krivolak-Cerna line and Salonica along the Greek frontier.
The first had the advantage of considerably shortening the line to
be defended, and of bringing it nearer to the base: but on the other
hand, besides adversely affecting the prestige of the Allies, it would
have left the road from Macedonia and Albania into Old Greece open
to the enemy, thus renewing and reinforcing German pressure on King
Constantine in favour of Greek intervention on the side of the Central
Empires. In that case Salonica, and with it the whole of the Allied
Armies, would have been irreparably lost. Consequently the second plan
was adopted.
The French retreat was carried out by echelons. First the detachments
on the left of the Cerna were withdrawn to the right bank and the
bridge at Vozartzi destroyed. Then a concentration took place at
Krivolak, which was the rail-head, and the troops retreated in four
stages. The Bulgarian attacks near the Cerna having been repulsed, the
French reached Demir-Kapu without difficulty. They passed through the
narrow gorge by night, while the rearguard covered the retreat. The
Bulgarians tried to out-flank the French, advancing by mountain paths
on the Marianska Planina so as to fall on them when emerging from
the gorge, but their attempt failed. On December 7th the bridge and
tunnel at Strumitza were blown up. On the 8th, although exhausted by
the interminable march, the French repulsed still other enemy attacks.
The great depots at Ghevgheli were evacuated, and on the 10th, as the
Bulgarians were attacking along the river, the convoys had to continue
their retreat over the mountains. The two African march regiments
counter-attacked with great vigour, and on the 11th, the depots having
been burnt and the railway and the bridge destroyed, all the troops
withdrew beyond the Greek frontier.
The British (10th Division), who occupied the area between the Vardar,
the Lake of Doiran and the Kosturino Pass, were not attacked until
the end of November, but on December 6th the Germans and Bulgarians
attacked and the British commenced their withdrawal. On the 12th they
too had crossed the Greek frontier between Ghevgheli and Doiran, and
the enemy did not advance farther for the time being.
The enemy had by now occupied the whole of Serbia, including Monastir,
which had been evacuated on December 5th, the Serbian garrison having
withdrawn to Salonica, but for political reasons they did not wish
to cross the Greek frontier, as they considered the Greece of King
Constantine (Venizelos having fallen) a benevolent neutral. This
gave the Allies breathing space and time to reinforce themselves. On
December 3rd, the French Government ordered General Sarrail to create
an entrenched camp at Salonica. The area from Topshin to Dogandzi
and Daudli was entrusted to the French, that from Daudli to the sea,
passing along the Lakes of Langaza and Besik and through the Rendina
gorge, to the British. The former had their usual 3 divisions, the
British five (22nd, 28th, 26th, 10th, and in addition the 27th without
artillery in reserve at Salonica). Within two months the first
positions were created with three lines of resistance and a barbed wire
entanglement 10 metres broad defended by 30 heavy batteries. These
defences had been made according to all the latest scientific rules
of war, and had the advantage of not having been constructed under
the pressure of the enemy, as was the case with the great entrenched
camps in France. Of the three lines of defence, the first and second
were in excellent condition, whereas the third was merely sketched.
The works were in groups of three, so that the two more advanced ones
were dominated by the one in the rear. They were united to each other
by communication trenches, which could also be used as firing trenches.
Beyond the entrenched camp the Allies occupied advanced positions,
the French as far as Sorovich, and later (March 21st, 1916) Florina,
and farther east along the railway between Kilkish and Kilindir; the
British towards the Lake Doiran.
Allies and enemies now stopped along the line which they were to occupy
without important change for several months. The enemy lines passed
to the south of Kenali (on the railway between Florina and Monastir)
along the ridge of Mount Kaimakchalan and thence along the mountains to
Lake Doiran. Beyond the lake they ascended on to the crest of the Beles
mountains, following the Græco-Bulgarian frontier of 1913. The enemy
attack was expected from week to week, but it did not come, and in the
meanwhile the Allies continued to receive reinforcements (French and
British) and material, and they were able to strengthen their defences
and improve their situation.
In all there were at the beginning of 1916 a little less than 100,000
French troops, about as many British and a few thousand Serbs,
altogether about 200,000 men to defend the entrenched camp, forming
an arc of a circle of 120 kilometres, in addition to the advanced
positions. There were 358 French and 350 British guns, but the heaviest
French guns were only long 155 mm. and the heaviest British were of 6
in. General Sarrail had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Allied
Armies in the Orient. The British Army, in May, 1916, was commanded by
Lieutenant-General George (now Sir George) Milne, under the superior
command, although in a limited measure, of General Sarrail. The enemy
forces amounted to about 280,000 men.
The results of these operations, although disaster had been avoided,
cannot be regarded as brilliant, nor were they of such character as
to raise the prestige of General Sarrail with the Allies, nor of the
Allies in general with the enemy States and those who were still
neutral. A well-executed retreat without heavy losses in men or
material may be a fine operation from a technical point of view, but it
does not arouse enthusiasm. On the other hand, the relative conditions
of the two armies amounted to a situation of stalemate from which it
would not be easy to emerge. General Lord Kitchener, who had come to
inspect the Macedonian Army in December 1915, had actually proposed
the withdrawal of the expedition, which appeared to him as to many
other experts a useless dispersion of forces, and the Governments
were in doubt as to whether or not it were advisable to carry out
this suggestion. But in the course of 1916 the Allies received a new
reinforcement, in the shape of the revived Serbian Army, which was
destined to exercise a considerable political and military influence on
the future vicissitudes of the Oriental campaign.
The disastrous retreat through Albania in which the Serbian Army had
lost nearly all its artillery and more than half its effectives, took
refuge in Corfu, save a few detachments which were sent to Bizerta.
In Corfu the exhausted and worn-out soldiers rested, were re-equipped
with everything and thoroughly reorganized. As soon as they began to
recover from their terrible experiences they wished to go to Macedonia
to take part in the Allied operations. They began to reach Salonica in
the spring of 1916, and at the end of April there were about 15,000 of
them, besides the detachment formed of the men who had escaped from
Monastir. At the end of June they amounted to 120,000 and in July to
152,000. They were divided into three armies, each comprising two
divisions: I Army (Morava and Vardar Division); II (Shumadia and Timok)
and III (Drina and Danube), in addition to the cavalry division and
the volunteer corps, with 72 machine-gun sections. The artillery was
supplied to a great extent by the French, except for a few guns saved
in the retreat, to which some others captured from the enemy were
afterwards added. They had 6 groups of 75 mm., 6 of 80 mm. mountain
batteries (afterwards replaced by 65 mm. quick-firing guns), 6 groups
of Krupp 70 mm. or Schneider 75 mm. mountain guns, 6 groups of 120
mm. howitzers, 6 batteries of 58 mm. trench guns. Scattered about
the mountains along the border between Macedonia and Albania and in
Macedonia there were irregular Serbian comitadji bands estimated, in
July 1916, at about 5,000 men, who broke up and reformed according to
circumstances, now attempting a raid, now hiding among the mountains.
Other bands continued to exist in Old Serbia, and in fact they rose in
revolt in the winter of 1916–17, causing serious anxiety to the enemy;
the movement, however, was ruthlessly repressed.
But the situation of the Allies continued to be made extremely
difficult by the conduct of the Greek authorities who, although
officially neutral, were in reality most unfriendly. They had created
a regular system of espionage in favour of the Central Empires, headed
by Colonel Messalas, who sent reports of every variation in the
strength and distribution of the Allied troops to the Ministry of War
at Athens and to the King and Queen, whence they reached the German
G.H.Q. The Consuls of the enemy States were naturally extremely active
in this work of espionage and the Allied G.H.Q., owing to its peculiar
situation, and not wishing to come to a regular breach with Greece,
either because it was feared that she might definitely go over to the
enemy or in the hope of inducing her to join the Entente, had its hands
tied. When, however, in consequence of information supplied by enemy
agents, German aeroplanes bombed the city, causing considerable damage,
and killing a number of people, General Sarrail declared that he would
henceforth consider the area occupied by the Allies as a war zone, and
on the night of December 30th Franco-British patrols arrested the four
enemy consuls and seized their archives, whence they obtained valuable
information concerning enemy spies. A British detachment had on its own
account arrested the German Consul at Drama in the train near Serres,
in spite of violent rhodomontades and protests of the Greek officers in
the same compartment.
Graver anxiety was caused by the Greek Army. At the end of 1915, its
distribution was as follows: The I and II Corps were in Old Greece,
except the artillery, which was between Salonica and Vassilika; the
III Corps was echeloned between Salonica, Yenidje-Vardar, Verria,
Ekshisu, Banitza and Florina; the IV between Serres and Drama, and the
V between Langaza and Guvesne. In theory the Greek troops were to guard
the frontier, preventing the Germans and Bulgarians from violating
it, but none of the Allies had the slightest confidence that they
would have offered any resistance to an attempt at invasion, even if
they did not actively co-operate in it. Further, Greek officers and
officials conducted an active and lucrative contraband in favour of
the “hereditary enemy.” The British writer, G. Ward Price, notes that
it is remarkable how instinctively the soldiers of the various Allied
Armies--the most heterogeneous collection of characters, types and
standards of conduct--were agreed in hating the Greeks at that time.[7]
The Allies now began to bring pressure to bear on the Greek Government
in order that the Greek Army should be withdrawn from Macedonia
and demobilized. On January 28th an Anglo-French detachment, with
the co-operation of warships, among which was the Italian cruiser
_Piemonte_, occupied the forts of Karaburun, south-east of Salonica,
the port of which is dominated by them, and expelled the Greek
garrison. On the night of January 31st-February 1st, a German Zeppelin
bombarded Salonica; it was afterwards brought down and destroyed near
the mouth of the Vardar, and at the same time luminous signals were
seen coming from the city. General Sarrail, who since January 15th had
assumed the control of the police, the railways and the telegraph,
seized the occasion to proclaim the state of siege. The chief of the
French _Sûreté_ and the British A.P.M. proceeded little by little to
cleanse the town of suspicious elements, and there was good need of
it. In the meanwhile the Greek troops slowly and unwillingly began to
evacuate Macedonia. On May 23rd, 1916, the Germano-Bulgar Army, on the
pretext that the Allies were carrying out threatening movements in the
Serres area, crossed the Greek frontier and demanded the evacuation
of Fort Rupel dominating the narrow defile through which the Struma
opens its way to the east Macedonian plain and flows down to the sea.
The Commander of the garrison made a feeble protest, fired a few shots
to salve his conscience, and asked for instructions from Athens. These
were to the effect that he should hand over the fort with all its
material, which he did with enthusiasm. In conformity with analogous
instructions, the whole of the IV Corps, distributed through the
Serres area and commanded by Colonel Hadzopoulos, surrendered to the
Bulgarians and Germans, except 2,500 men of the Serres Division who,
with their Commander, Colonel Christodoulos, refused to submit to this
dishonour and managed to escape to the island of Thasos, whence in
September they were transported to Salonica and formed the nucleus of
the future Venizelist army.
The conduct of the Greek Government is explained by some retrospective
history. M. Venizelos, although convinced of the erroneous policy
pursued by King Constantine, hesitated to promote an open rebellion
against him, also because he saw much weakness and indecision among the
Allies. The King had dissolved the Chamber in June 1915, and whereas in
that Parliament, which had been elected by 750,000 voters, the majority
was in favour of Venizelos, in the new Chamber, elected by only 200,000
voters in December in an illegal manner under Government pressure and
threats, the majority was hostile to him. But independently of these
illegalities, Greek public opinion was to a great extent opposed to
the policy of Venizelos, who desired the intervention of Greece in
favour of the Entente, not only in order to meet Greece’s obligations
of honour towards Serbia, but also in the higher interests of Greece
herself. Facts have proved that he was right, but in 1915 the policy
of Constantine might well have been deemed the more prudent. Serbia
was, like Belgium, invaded and devastated; Bulgaria and Turkey allied
to Germany and Austria; one half of Albania occupied by the Austrians
and the other half by the Italians--the latter undesired neighbours
of Greece--and German terrorist propaganda, which in Italy had failed
so miserably, in Greece achieved the success of fear. “Should we
throw ourselves into this conflict and run the risk of seeing our
country invaded and devastated?” the Greeks asked themselves, and
most of them came to the conclusion that it was better to remain
neutral and to make money through war trade; from the point of view
of their immediate interests, they were not altogether wrong. It is
not true, however, that the whole population was pro-German. The King
and the Queen (sister of the Emperor William) were pro-Germans, and
so also were nearly the whole of the General Staff, and the majority
of the generals and field officers educated in Germany or at least
trained according to German methods. The masses were indifferent to
the respective moral merits of the two groups of belligerents, and
did not want war, and as Constantine would have found it extremely
difficult to make war in open alliance with the Central Empires, he
tried to help them by remaining neutral. In the popular mind Venizelos
consequently came to be synonymous with intervention and Constantine
with peace; the people preferred peace. Further, as the army was
still mobilized there was a good deal of discontent, and the people
regarded Venizelos as responsible for this state of things. Another
reason in favour of neutrality was that if Greece had intervened
she would have found herself in alliance with Italy, against whom
she was much irritated owing to the question of the Dodecannese and
Southern Albania. Finally, she had reason to believe that the Allies
had offered a considerable part of Macedonia to Bulgaria in September
1915, in the vain hope of obtaining the latter’s intervention against
the Central Powers. In the meanwhile, Venizelos was awaiting the
moment for action. For all these reasons, the surrender of Rupel and
of the IV Army Corps did not arouse that reaction which was expected,
and which in other circumstances would certainly have occurred. King
Constantine had received as a reward for his policy a loan from the
Central Empires of 75 million drachmæ, while at the same time he was
trying to negotiate another for 125 millions from the Allies. In
spite of the declaration of the Prime Minister, M. Skouloudis, in the
Chamber, there was a general belief throughout the Allied countries,
as even M. Coronillas, Greek Minister in Rome, and his colleague in
Paris, M. Caclamanos admitted, that the Government of King Constantine
had concluded an agreement with Thrace, Germany and Bulgaria.[8] The
treachery of Rupel and the 4th Corps produced very unfavourable results
for the Allies. The whole of Eastern Macedonia fell into the hands of
the enemy without a blow having been struck. Demir-Hissar, Serres,
Drama, Kavalla were occupied by the Bulgarians, and the fighting line
was brought to the course of the Struma from Rupel to the sea, and
although these towns might have been retaken without great difficulty,
they were dominated by very strong positions on the mountains behind
them, which were immediately fortified. For this reason, Great
Britain, France and Russia renewed their demands on the Government at
Athens in order that all the remaining Greek troops be withdrawn into
Greece, the army demobilized, and the anti-Constitutional Government
abolished.[9] It will be noted that in all the affairs of Greece it
was always these three Governments who acted, and not the Entente as a
whole. This was due to the fact that, owing to the London Convention
of May 7, 1832, these three Powers were declared the protectors of the
Greek Kingdom and of its Constitution. The evacuation of Macedonia
was carried out slowly, as was also the demobilization. What remained
of the Greek Army was nearly all concentrated in the Peloponnese,
where it could be easily watched and prevented from returning towards
Macedonia. But the Royal Government did everything in its power to
avoid fulfilling its engagements, and while the demobilization was
being carried out, leagues of Epistrates (Reservists) were being
formed. These associations, organized by officers devoted to King
Constantine, constituted a new element hostile to the Entente. Then
also, the Government tried to maintain armed forces in Northern Greece
by strengthening the gendarmerie and creating hidden deposits of arms.
Although the importance of these attempts were much exaggerated, they
nevertheless caused some anxiety to the Allied Armies in Macedonia.
CHAPTER II
OPERATIONS IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1916
I have already set forth the reasons wherefore I consider that Italy’s
participation in the Macedonian expedition was opportune, and indeed
indispensable. Our Government was finally convinced of this necessity,
but accepted it somewhat unwillingly, both for political and military
reasons; consequently our participation was ever maintained within
modest proportions. In accordance with the terms of the agreement
concluded between ourselves and our Allies, Italy undertook, in the
summer of 1916, to participate in the Macedonian expedition with
a division, which, however, was only to be provided with mountain
artillery; the field and heavy artillery attached to our contingent
was to be supplied by the French Army. There were then some good
reasons for not endowing these troops too generously with artillery;
the Italian Army in general was inadequately provided with guns, and
during the Austrian offensive from the Trentino in the spring of
that year it had lost many batteries, especially of medium and heavy
calibre. These reasons, however, did not continue to exist in the later
phases of the campaign, but nevertheless our expeditionary force in
the Balkans was never provided with artillery of its own, except with
the above-mentioned mountain batteries, a fact which was to cause us
considerable difficulties in the future.
Our contingent consisted of the 35th Infantry Division, a name
destined to occupy a high place in the roll of honour of the Italian
Army, although it has been hitherto less well known than that of many
other units. To this division many other detachments had been added
which properly belong to an army corps or even an army. Originally,
it had consisted of the Sicilia Brigade (61st and 62nd Infantry
Regiments)[10] and the Cagliari Brigade (63rd and 64th), several
machine-gun companies, a squadron of the Lucca Light Cavalry (16th
Regiment), eight mountain batteries of four 65 mm. guns each, various
companies of engineers, transport and other services, etc. The division
had achieved an honourable record on the Alpine front, where it had
suffered heavy losses; but before coming out to the East it had been
reorganized, brought up to full strength, and admirably equipped. The
command of the force had been entrusted to General Petitti di Roreto, a
very distinguished and gallant officer, and an excellent organizer; his
Chief of the Staff was Colonel Garbasso.
The first Italian detachments reached Salonica on August 11, 1916. The
fine appearance, smart equipment, and the vigorous and martial aspect
of the men in their grey-green uniforms and steel helmets, marching
along the quay under the brilliant summer sun, created an excellent
impression. Representatives of the various Allied armies were there to
receive them, with the band of the Zouaves. The numerous and patriotic
Italian colony, which had seen the troops of almost all the other
Allied armies arrive--there was even a Russian contingent which had
come over from France--was in a paroxysm of excitement when at last
it saw the Italian troops and admired the battle flags of our fine
regiments fluttering in the breeze. It was not only to strengthen the
Allied front in the Orient that it was advisable to send an Italian
contingent, but also to affirm Italian prestige among the Balkan
peoples, a duty which the 35th Division fulfilled no less well than it
accomplished its purely military tasks.
Our expeditionary force was at first destined to take part in an
action on the Macedonian front, in co-operation with the Russian and
Roumanian offensive, Roumania’s intervention being already decided.
But the total strength of all the Allied forces in Macedonia was
insufficient for an operation on a large scale, and by the time the
Italians had landed this scheme was hardly thought of any longer.
General Petitti was to take orders directly from the Commander-in-Chief
of the Allied Armies in the Orient (General Sarrail), as regards the
tactical employment of his troops, but he alone was responsible for all
the details of their employment, and it was agreed that the Italian
division should not be split up.
The Italians had not come to the Balkans to stop in Salonica, and
General Petitti was anxious to be sent to the front at once. He was at
first entrusted with the Krusha Balkan sector, east of Lake Doiran and
opposite the Beles mountains, a formidable and imposing rock barrier
strongly held by the Bulgars. A month after the landing of the first
detachment the bulk of the division was already at the front. This
area, which had been first held by the 57th French Division, was not
then very active, but we had a front of 48 km. to hold with only two
brigades; there were no defences to speak of, and everything had to
be created anew. In the short time which we occupied it we completely
transformed it. Many lines of trenches were dug, wire entanglements
laid down, works of all kinds constructed, and, in addition, the whole
area was provided by us with a complete network of roads.
[Illustration: GENERAL LEBLOIS BIDDING FAREWELL TO GENERAL PETITTI AT
TEPAVCI.]
[Illustration: LANDING OF ITALIAN TROOPS AT SALONICA.
To face p. 38.
]
At first we were in liaison with the British on our right and the
French on our left; besides occupying the Krusha Balkan positions, we
also relieved the French in certain advanced positions in the valley
between the former range and the Beles. General Petitti from the first
disapproved of this distribution, because the aforesaid advanced
positions were isolated and so far from the main body of his forces
that they could not receive assistance in case of a sudden attack, nor
be protected by artillery, being beyond the range of our guns. General
Sarrail insisted on those positions being maintained, but the Italian
Commander repeatedly requested to be authorized to evacuate them, all
the more so as they represented no military advantage. They were
held by a battalion of the 62nd Regiment, of which one company was at
Gornji Poroj, a large village at the foot of the Beles range, and the
others at other points in the valley. Finally, on September 17th, he
received instructions to evacuate them, and he immediately gave the
necessary orders. On the day fixed for the withdrawal Gornji Poroj was
suddenly attacked by overwhelming Bulgarian forces, but it should be
noted that the attack had been provoked by us in order to give support
to another attack which the British were carrying out elsewhere. The
Gornji Poroj Company (the 6th),[11] was faced by a battalion and a half
of Bulgars, and had orders to resist at all costs so as to protect the
withdrawal of the other three companies, and it carried out its task
with great gallantry. The Bulgarian barrage fire prevented the arrival
of reinforcements, and the company was soon entirely surrounded. It
continued to hold out throughout the afternoon and night, and it was
not until 36 hours after the commencement of the engagement, when
its ammunition had given out, that the gallant survivors ended their
resistance with a charge. The battalion commander continued to hear in
the far distance the cries “Savoia!” and “Viva l’Italia!” without being
able to send assistance. Some 180 men failed to answer the roll call.
The 8th Company, which had remained at Poroj Station, some distance
from the village, to collect stragglers, was also attacked and almost
surrounded by superior hostile forces, but managed to effect its
withdrawal during the night.
General Petitti soon had occasion to be dissatisfied with the conduct
of General Sarrail towards the Italians. As I have said, we had a
French division (the 16th Colonial) on our left. On September 26th
the Italian Command learned from General Gérome, without any warning
from G.H.Q., that a part of that division was being withdrawn, as
well as certain other detachments on the lines of communication which
were expected to act as reinforcements for our troops. Thus the
Italians found themselves with their left flank in the air and not a
single battalion in support nearer than Salonica, whereas they had
6 Bulgarian regiments directly in front of them and a whole division
on their flank. General Sarrail even wanted them to extend their line
towards the left so as to relieve the departing troops. General Petitti
addressed an energetic protest to General Sarrail against such conduct,
refused to extend his front, and referred the matter to the Italian
Supreme Command. The protest proved effective, and a British brigade
relieved the departing French.
We now found ourselves with the British on our left as well as on our
right. From the very first our relations with the British Army had
always been of the friendliest nature. This complete collaboration
between the armies of the two Allied countries was afterwards
intensified on the Italian front, but I do not think that the feeling
was anywhere more intimate or cordial than in Macedonia, and this
in spite of the insinuations of General Sarrail to General Petitti.
During the two years in which the Italians fought on the Macedonian
front there was never the slightest conflict or disagreement between
ourselves and the British, which is more, I venture to think, than can
be said for any other two armies on that front.
Knowledge of the incidents with the Italians reached the French
G.H.Q. and General Sarrail received a reprimand from his superiors in
consequence. On October 2nd he came to our H.Q. at Karamudi with the
Prince Regent of Serbia and two French parliamentary commissioners,
and after the usual exchange of compliments, he complained to General
Petitti that he had caused him (Sarrail) to be reproved by Marshal
Joffre. General Petitti replied that he had merely communicated
to the Italian _Comando Supremo_ the protest which he had sent to
General Sarrail himself. The latter showed him Joffre’s telegram,
in which it was stated that he had failed to maintain a spirit of
_camaraderie_ with Petitti; General Petitti then showed him the text
of his own telegram to the _Comando Supremo_, whereupon General
Sarrail, addressing himself to the Prince Regent of Serbia and the two
deputies, said: “From the cordial manner in which General Petitti has
received us, you will gather by what a friendly spirit of _camaraderie_
we are united, and how a trifling incident has been magnified.” This
explained the reason why Sarrail had induced the Prince Regent of
Serbia and the two French political men to accompany him to Karamudli.
Our troops suffered a great deal from malaria, their area being one of
the unhealthiest in the country. The broad valley between the Krusha
Balkan and the Beles ranges, which had once been thickly populated and
well cultivated, was now a desert; having been abandoned for two years,
it constituted a terrible hotbed of malarial fever. The shores of the
lakes of Doiran and Butkova, at the two ends of the valley, are marshy,
and muddy watercourses flow sluggishly down, widening the fen zone. The
troops in the lower positions near the plain were the worst sufferers,
and a large part of the malaria cases in the Cerna loop in 1917 and
1918 were in reality relapses from the Krusha Balkan period.
During the spring of 1916 the Germans and Bulgars had been busy
preparing for an offensive on a large scale against the Allies. The
11th Bulgarian Division, composed of Macedonian troops, who were not
too trustworthy and provided a number of deserters, was dissolved. The
Monastir front was strengthened with units drawn from the Dobrugia
and Eastern Macedonia. In the spring there were 3 Bulgarian divisions
between Strumitza and Xanthi, 3 in the Dobrugia and 5 in the Monastir
area, in addition to 2 German divisions, and in July we have the
following distribution of forces; 3 divisions and 1 cavalry brigade
in the Dobrugia, 2 brigades and some other units on the Struma, 2
Bulgarian and 1 German division (the only one left in Macedonia) on
the Vardar, all these forces being detailed for the attack on the
entrenched camp at Salonica. In the Monastir plain there was a mobile
reserve for attack consisting of two infantry divisions and 3 cavalry
brigades. In all, 8 Bulgarian infantry and 1 cavalry division, 1 German
division, and 1 or 2 Turkish divisions. The plan consists of a rapid
offensive on the two wings, with the object of cutting the Allies’
retreat towards Greece or Albania,[12] so as to oblige General Sarrail
to fight a siege battle and perhaps to capitulate. Since the retreat
along the Vardar down to the summer of 1916 Sarrail had had orders
to remain on the defensive, but now that the alliance with Roumania
had been concluded, the Entente Powers contemplated, as we have seen,
an operation in Macedonia to give support to the Roumanian Army and
perhaps effect a junction with it. Roumania declared war on August
28th, but she had asked that the Army of the Orient should attack ten
days before. It was, on the contrary, the enemy who was the first to
attack.
General Sarrail was now “Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in
the Orient,” and his command was known as the _Commandement des Armées
Alliées_, abbreviated “C.A.A.” The French troops under his orders were
grouped together under the name of _Armée française d’Orient_ (commonly
called the “A.F.O.”), and then commanded by General Cordonnier. It was
the latter who conducted the operations of the summer and autumn of
1916.
On August 17th the Bulgarians crossed the Greek frontier at two points,
advancing eastward to the mouth of the Struma and westward towards
Lake Ostrovo, which they reached on the 23rd. Soon after they occupied
Florina and Banitza, obliging the Serbs, who were holding that area, to
fall back on Ekshisu and Sorovich.
Against the enemy the Allies disposed of the following forces: rather
less than 200,000 French and British, 120,000 Serbs, 10,000 Russians
(who had arrived in July) and 30,000 Italians. The French artillery
amounted to 346 guns, the British to 370, the Serbian to 284, ours to
32. The machine guns were a little over 1,300, the cavalry about 3300
sabres. In all 360,000 men, but in reality the strengths were much
reduced owing to malaria and the difficulties of communications, so
that barely half of that number was available.
The enemy had one great advantage as compared with the Allies--the
real and effective unity of command. While the greater part of the
enemy forces were Bulgarian the chief command was German, and it was
exercised without question. The Allies on the other hand only resigned
themselves to the unity of command--that of General Sarrail--in July,
1916, and even then most unwillingly. The other Allied commanders had
no confidence in Sarrail’s military qualities, and above all distrusted
him for his taste for petty political intrigue. Consequently he could
never exercise that absolute authority which is an indispensable
condition for success.
Our expeditionary force took orders from General Sarrail, but when any
question of great importance arose, such as the change of sector of
the division or of a part of it, the extension of its front, etc., the
consent of the Italian _Comando Supremo_ was necessary. All this of
course interfered with the development of the operations, and General
Sarrail complains about his situation in that connexion very bitterly
in his memoirs, but it was due to his own defects as recognized by all.
The Bulgarian advance in the Monastir area at one moment made the
situation of the Allies appear really critical, because if the enemy
had succeeded in breaking through the line on the mountains north of
Vodena there would have been nothing more to stop them from descending
to the plain and consequently penetrating into Greece, and the Allies
would have had to remain besieged within the entrenched camp of
Salonica. But the further they advanced the more they became exhausted,
whereas while the Serbs fell back they were more and more strongly
reinforced. The critical point was the Lake of Ostrovo; on August 22nd
the Serb left repulsed five successive attacks on the heights west
of the lake between the Kayalar plain and the Rudnik basin, and was
subsequently reinforced by a part of the 156th French division. The
Allies immediately launched their counter-offensive, which was also
designed to assist the Roumanians, then just commencing hostilities.
On August 25th an Anglo-French incident occurred, neither the first nor
the last. General Cordonnier had requested General Sarrail that the
French Division on the Vardar, then at the disposal of the British,
should be placed under his own orders for the imminent operations
towards Monastir. General Sarrail not having authority to give orders
to General Milne, merely passed on the request to him; but General
Milne would not agree to the departure of more than one French
regiment. At the same time General Cordonnier, having placed some
French batteries at the disposal of the Serbs, at their own request,
sent a French general to the Serbian Army as “artillery commander.”
This aroused vigorous protests at the Serbian G.H.Q. in Salonica, and
the French artillery general had to be satisfied with the title of
“adviser.”
The duty of the British and of the Italians in the eastern area was
to watch the enemy and keep them occupied with demonstrative actions,
while the Serbs’ objectives were the Malka Nidze and Kaimakchalan
mountains, and the French and Russians under Cordonnier were to attack
the Bulgarians’ flank further west. The attack was to take place on the
12th of September on the western sector, but there were considerable
difficulties owing to the great distance from Verria where the reserves
were concentrated, and it was by no means easy to distribute them so
that they should be at the disposal of General Cordonnier. On the 13th
the Serbs advanced fighting, and occupied the Malka Nidze and Ostrovo,
capturing 25 guns, the 156th Division pushed on from Kayalar and Rudnik
towards Banitza, the Russians towards the Neretzka and the 57th French
Division, with the two regiments of Chasseurs d’Afrique, towards
Kastoria. On the 17th the French and Russians occupied Florina, and
the Serbs, after having driven the Bulgarians from the bare sinister
heights of Gornichevo--the pass between the lake of Ostrovo and the
Monastir plain--attacked them with fierce energy on the Kaimakchalan.
The Bulgarians resisted desperately, but the Serbs, spurred on by the
incentive of wresting from the enemy a first tract of their invaded
fatherland, after a long protracted struggle captured the positions.
Barely a hundred Bulgars were taken prisoners; the other defenders
were all dead. On September 29th the Bulgars still held a line south
of Monastir, passing through Kenali and along the north bank of the
Cerna; the French and the Serbs had been ordered by Sarrail to attack
once more, but they were repulsed owing to the failure of the artillery
preparation.
General Sarrail was determined to achieve a theatrical success at all
costs, and on the 28th he ordered a fresh attack for October 2nd in the
plain south of Monastir. General Cordonnier, after having conferred
with the commander of one of the Russian brigades, replied that, owing
to the state of exhaustion of his troops, it was impossible to demand
this fresh effort from them so soon. But Sarrail, still conducting the
campaign from his office in Salonica, reiterated the order. The date
of the attack was adjourned for a few days, then again anticipated,
thus imposing a vast amount of work on the Staff to keep up with these
various changes. Finally the Franco-Russian attack was launched on
October 6th, but it achieved no other result than that of costing the
Allies heavy losses, without gaining any ground to speak of. But the
surrender of a whole Bulgarian battalion convinced the C.-in-C. that
the _moral_ of the enemy was very much depressed, and he ordered yet
another attack which took place on the 14th. It was no more successful
than the previous one, and cost the French 1,500 casualties. General
Sarrail then went to General Cordonnier’s H.Q., and in the presence of
various French and foreign officers of inferior rank, made a violent
scene to the Commander of the A.F.O. He declared that it was only
the Serbs who had done anything at all, and refused to listen to his
excuses. General Dietrich, commanding one of the Russian brigades,
wrote a letter protesting against the order of attack addressed to
Cordonnier, but intended for Sarrail, and sent a copy of it to the
Russian Government.
General Petitti was anxious that the 35th Division should not remain
inactive during these operations. In October the Ivrea brigade (161st
and 162nd Regiments), commanded by General Beltramo, had arrived,
together with a second squadron of the Lucca Cavalry Regiment and some
other detachments, which brought our effectives up to over 50,000 men.
General Sarrail now asked General Petitti whether he preferred to
extend his front to the left, so as to relieve the British, or, making
an exception to the principle that the division was not to be split up,
to send a brigade to take part in the operations in the Monastir area.
For political reasons, i.e. to render our co-operation more effective,
and also because he was certain that the arrangements for any extension
of his front would be made regardless of the forces actually at his
disposal, General Petitti chose the second alternative. Having asked
for and obtained the necessary authority from the _Comando Supremo_, he
sent the Cagliari Brigade with a squadron of cavalry and some mountain
batteries towards Monastir.
It was then possible to realize how appalling was the state of
communications in Macedonia. The Salonica-Monastir railway had a very
small carrying capacity, and we could only dispose of three trains a
day for transport of our troops. The movement began on October 22nd,
and the Command had orders to advance from Ekshisu on November 7th, but
as the various services had not yet all arrived the march was unable
to commence until the 11th. When General Roques, the French Minister
of War, came to Macedonia, he spoke of sending out fresh contingents
of troops, but General Petitti wisely reminded him that in the present
state of the roads these reinforcements would be immobilized and
useless.
The task of the Cagliari Brigade was to relieve the left brigade of
the 57th French Division and advance along the crest of the Baba
range south-west of Monastir, towards Kichevo and Gradeshnitza. A
French column was to advance in a direction parallel to ours, between
the crest of the ridge and the plain, while a Franco-Russian group
marched forward across the plain directly towards Monastir. On the
right the Serbs were operating in the Kaimakchalan-Cerna loop area.
The advance of our troops was extremely hard, as the Cagliari Brigade,
besides having to overcome the vigorous resistance of the enemy, had
to struggle against the snow blizzards over very broken ground, some
2,000 m. above the sea. The brigade had a front of attack of 12 km.,
and advanced slowly, gaining ground step by step, amid very deep snow.
On the 18th it occupied the Ostretz hill, on the 19th the 63rd Regiment
conquered the “tooth” of Velusina and occupied Hill 2209.
In the meanwhile the Serbs had made considerable progress at the
extreme right. On October 31st they reached Tepavci in the Cerna loop
(our future H.Q.); on November 2nd, Jaratok; on the 5th, Hill 1378, the
culminating point of the southern part of the loop. In the centre the
Franco-Russian column advanced fighting and broke through the Kenali
line. But here the Germans and Bulgarians offered a more stubborn
resistance, and on the 14th they repulsed an Allied attack with heavy
loss. The fall of Hill 1378 and the Italian advance along the Baba
range, however, threatened all the enemy positions round Monastir,
which were now no longer tenable. On the 15th the Bulgarians abandoned
their lines and soon afterwards evacuated Monastir. On the 19th a
platoon of French cavalry entered the town, followed by the rest of the
Franco-Russian column.
The Cagliari Brigade and the French at its right were to have pushed on
towards the Tzrvena Stena so as to capture the positions north-west of
Monastir. In fact, on the 21st the 63rd Regiment, after having overcome
the enemy’s resistance, captured Bratindol. But the French column
lower down, instead of continuing its advance in a parallel direction
towards the Tzervena Stena, effected a conversion to the right and
entered Monastir where it should never have gone. This obliged the
Cagliari Brigade to deviate also towards Monastir, as it could not
advance with its right flank as well as its left uncovered. Our troops
were disappointed in not having been able, through no fault of their
own, to participate directly in the taking of Monastir, to which they
had so greatly contributed, nor to drive the enemy from the positions
dominating the town from the north and north-west. Then there came an
order from G.H.Q., Salonica, suspending any further advance beyond
Monastir, and the French who had occupied some heights 5 km. from the
town, advanced no more. This brief respite gave the enemy, who had been
in full retreat towards Prilep, fresh courage, and they now returned
and reoccupied some important positions on Hill 1248; thence they
proceeded to bombard Monastir, which remained under fire until the
offensive of September 1918. The bad weather and the complete defeat of
the Roumanians induced the Entente Governments to suspend operations in
Macedonia.
The Italian troops entered Monastir soon after its occupation, and on
that occasion General Petitti, Brigadier-General Desenzani and some
other officers and men were wounded by the explosion of a shell near
the Italian Consulate, and Major Tamajo, engineer-in-chief of the
expeditionary force was killed.
The Serbs continued to advance, fighting from height to height and had
even captured Hill 1050, destined to become so famous, but worn out
and exhausted as they were with the long-drawn struggle and endless
marching, they were unable to withstand the fierce counter-attacks of
the enemy and the highest summit was lost. One of their armies was
reduced from 30,000 men to 6,000, and they were for the time being
incapable of any further effort.
On November 26th General Sarrail called on General Petitti in
the hospital at Salonica and informed him that the whole Italian
expeditionary force was to be relieved on the Krusha Balkan by the
British, and thence transferred to the Monastir area. This transfer
gave yet another opportunity for realizing how badly organized was
the inter-Allied G.H.Q. The British were sent into our area without
the Italian Command having been warned, so that the Italian troops
were not yet ready to leave; the arrangements for the movement of
troops were extremely faulty, and the Italian Command and above all
the _Intendenza_ were over-burdened with work necessary to make good
deficiencies for which they were not themselves responsible. The march
proved extremely arduous, above all owing to the lack of roads, the
destruction of the villages and the floods, which, especially between
Sarigöl and Naresh and between Topshin and Vertekop, had been very
serious. For weeks our troops never had a dry resting place. Even
the horse-drawn cavalry lorries could not proceed, and had to be
substituted by the small battalion carts. An English journalist tells
the story of a M.T. driver who was seen by his comrades buried up to
the neck in mud, and while they were trying to extricate him from his
difficulties, he said gaily: “I am all right, I am standing on the roof
of my lorry!”
During this period there were fears of an attack by the Greeks, and
General Sarrail decided to send some troops to the south to defend the
defiles from a possible Greek invasion from Thessaly. He therefore
asked General Petitti to send the two brigades of the 35th Division,
which had come from the Krusha Balkan, to Verria instead of to
Veretekop. General Petitti consented, although the movement promised
to be very difficult owing to the state of the roads. The information
supplied by G.H.Q. in this connexion proved absolutely erroneous, and
orders and counter-orders followed each other in quick succession.
Finally, on December 12th, General Sarrail ordered the concentration
of the whole division at Negochani, 15 km. east of Monastir, as news
had been received of the arrival of a German division at Prilep and an
enemy counter-attack was expected. The movement was carried out, and on
the 18th Sarrail ordered our troops to relieve the French in the sector
due north of Monastir.
General Petitti raised objections to the arrangement proposed. In the
first place his troops, who had been on the march since the beginning
of the previous month without a break, their services being completely
disorganized owing to the confusion reigning at G.H.Q., were in
absolute need of rest. The Cagliari Brigade in particular was exhausted
by the long and difficult march through the snows of Mount Baba. For
the defence of Monastir, which was one of the most ticklish sectors of
the whole front, at least one brigade was needed as a mobile reserve,
but the 35th Division was not in a position to provide it. Further, it
was necessary that the question of field and medium calibre artillery
to be assigned to our expeditionary force should be settled. “I do
not propose,” wrote General Petitti to General Sarrail, “to undertake
the responsibility of the defence of Monastir unless I am placed in
a position to do so with at least a probability of success; I do not
intend to sacrifice my troops and the honour of my Army by exposing
myself to an almost certain defeat, thus allowing it afterwards to be
said that the Italians were unable to hold what the other Allies had
conquered.” As a matter of fact, he felt sure that General Sarrail
would not place at his disposal the means necessary for the defence
of Monastir, and he believed that the C.-in-C. merely wished to rid
himself of this awkward task by handing it over to us, so as to be
able to wash his hands of all responsibility if the enemy succeeded in
reconquering the town. The true reason of the objections of the Italian
Commander was his want of confidence in the loyalty and military
qualities of General Sarrail.
On December 18th Sarrail again called on Petitti at the hospital, and
asked him to choose his own sector himself, undertaking to place at
his disposal two groups of 75 mm. batteries and the medium calibre
artillery which happened to be already in the sector chosen, and to
leave the division which the 35th was about to relieve in its immediate
rear, unless and until it became necessary to employ it elsewhere owing
to exceptional circumstances. Subsequently General Petitti, who was now
recovered, went to Florina, and, by agreement with General Leblois,
the new Commander of the A.F.O. who had relieved General Cordonnier,
he chose the western part of the Cerna loop, from Novak to Makovo as
his sector, and this arrangement was approved by General Sarrail. Our
division relieved one and a half French divisions and one Serbian
division. As the whole of the 35th Division would now be supported on
either side by troops of the A.F.O., Petitti himself proposed that he
should be placed tactically under the orders of the Command of the
latter. During the month of December the whole expeditionary force was
concentrated in its new sector in the Cerna loop (except of course
the base units at Salonica and the L.O.C. detachments), and there it
remained until September 1918, save for a few slight rectifications of
the line.
After the occupation of Monastir, the distribution of the Allied
forces was stabilized as follows. From Ersek, where a liaison had
been effected with our Albanian force (I shall deal later with the
relations between the armies in Macedonia and those in Albania) to the
eastern arm of the Cerna, the line was held by the A.F.O. The latter
now comprised seven French divisions, viz. the 30th, the 57th, the
76th, the 156th, and the 11th Colonial, the two Russian brigades, the
35th Italian, the 16th and 17th French Colonial Divisions. Of the two
Russian brigades which were for a short time in the Cerna loop, one was
soon afterwards transferred to the lake of Presba and the other to the
east of the Cerna. Later, when they were amalgamated into one division,
they were concentrated in the Presba area, where they remained until
their final break up. The 16th and 17th Colonial Divisions were on our
right in the Cerna loop. Between the Cerna and a point near Nonte there
were the three Serbian armies, afterwards reduced to two. The line
between Nonte and the Vardar was held by the 122nd French Division,
subsequently strengthened by one, later on by two, and finally by three
Greek divisions. The A.F.O. was divided into two “_groupements de
divisions_” (corresponding to army corps), one between the Cerna and
Albania, one in the Cerna loop (comprising the Italian troops); the
122nd Division with the Greek forces afterwards added to it formed the
“_1er groupement_.” Between the Vardar and the mouth of the Struma in
the Gulf of Orfano was the British area--the XII Corps (10th, 22nd and
26th Divisions) from the Vardar to lake Butkova, and the XVI Corps
(27th, 28th and 60th Divisions) from Butkova to the sea. There were in
addition the 228th Garrison Brigade and two cavalry brigades. The 10th
and 60th Divisions and the cavalry brigades were transferred to the
Palestine front in the summer of 1917.
The medium and heavy calibre artillery was wholly French and British,
and in the A.F.O. all the artillery was French, except for the Italian
mountain batteries, to which the Greek ones were afterwards added. A
fixed quantity of French field and medium calibre artillery had been
assigned to our division, and it was placed under the orders of the
Italian artillery commander. Some other medium and heavy artillery,
which was under the orders of the Army Command, was from time to time
assigned to the Italian sector in varying quantities, according to
necessity.
The Allied strengths at the beginning of 1917 were roughly as follows:
Ration Strength. Rifles.
French 210,000 50,000
British 180,000 50,000
Italian 55,000 18,000
Serbs 152,000 80,000
------- -------
Total 597,000 198,000
I shall subsequently have occasion to mention the variations in these
strengths.
This distribution shows how General Sarrail’s object was to have
French detachments always dovetailed in between troops of other
nationalities. Thus the Russians, who were at first divided into two
separate groups, were between two French divisions, the 35th Italian
Division was also between two French divisions, while French units
separated the Italians from the Serbs and the latter from a British
and the Greeks. He knew that he did not enjoy sufficient prestige
with the other Allies to be able to do what he liked with them, so
that he kept French troops scattered about all over the front, and he
stated that he acted thus in order to avoid incidents between Allies
who did not get on with each other. But he never succeeded in having
the whole of the _Armée d’Orient_ under his absolute control, and
for every operation undertaken in common or transfers of non-French
units, diplomatic negotiations were necessary, in which the interested
Governments took part and did not always decide according to Sarrail’s
desires. General Leblois commanded the A.F.O. for a short time, and
was subsequently relieved by General Grossetti, an excellent officer
with whom our Command was always on the best of terms. Unfortunately
he became seriously ill, and had to return to France, where he died.
General Régnault succeeded him temporarily, and finally General Henrys,
who commanded the A.F.O. until the end of the war. With him, too, our
Command always got on satisfactorily.
The Allies were faced by the enemy’s Army of the Orient, under a German
Commander-in-Chief, General von Scholtz, whose G.H.Q. was at Uskub,
with a German Staff. In the early part of the campaign, until after
the fall of Monastir, the Army comprised several German divisions, 2
Turkish ones and some Austrian battalions. But gradually the German
units were withdrawn, except the Staffs of the C.-in-C., of one of the
armies, 2 corps and 1 division, some infantry battalions (at first they
were about 20, afterwards reduced to 3 or 4), the artillery and some
detachments of specialists (air force, engineers, machine gunners,
trench-mortar companies, _Flammenwerfer_, etc). The Turkish forces
were all withdrawn, except the 177th Infantry Regiment, which remained
until the beginning of 1918. Several Austrian battalions remained in
the area west of the lake of Ochrida, some of whom took orders from
the Macedonian Command, whereas others, although they were facing
detachments of the Allied armies in Macedonia, belonged to the Austrian
Army in Albania. All the rest of the infantry was Bulgarian, and there
was also a considerable amount of Bulgarian artillery.
The area between the lake of Ochrida and the Mala Rupa (east of Nonte)
was held by the so-called XI German Army (German, as we have seen,
only in name and regards the command, but composed almost entirely of
Bulgarian troops), with its H.Q. at Prilep and commanded by General
von Steuben. It comprised two corps, the LXI and LXII German Corps,
whose liaison was at the western curve of the Cerna. The LXI consisted
of some Austrian battalions, the mixed Bulgarian division, the 4th,
1st, and 6th Bulgarian Divisions. The LXII Corps comprised the 301st
German Division consisting of a few German battalions, and several
Bulgarian regiments. It occupied the whole of the Cerna loop opposite
our division and the two French colonial divisions. Further east were
the 2nd and 3rd Bulgarian Divisions. From the Mala Rupa to a point
on the Beles range opposite Dova Tepe (east of Lake Doiran) the line
was held by the I Bulgarian Army comprising the 5th, 9th and Mountain
Divisions. Next, from Dova Tepe to the sea, came the II Bulgarian
Army (commanded by General Lukoff), together with elements of the IV
Army; the II comprised the 7th, 8th and 10th Divisions. Along the
Ægean coast as far as the river Mesta, the Ægean Coast Defence Group
was spread out. The II Army was nominally independent of the German
Command, but practically it was, like the whole of the rest of the
Bulgarian Army, at the complete disposal of the Germans. The Bulgarian
Commander-in-Chief was General Gekoff. The total strength of the
enemy on the Orient front varied from 600,000 to 800,000. The number
of battalions was slightly inferior to that of the Allies, but the
battalions were stronger, and whereas all Allied reinforcements had
to be transported by sea, with great difficulties and still greater
risks, the enemy’s depots were close at hand. Moreover, Germany and
Austria were, until the beginning of 1918, ever able to send troops to
the Balkans with much greater facility and speed than we could. Even
Turkey might have sent reinforcements to Macedonia by rail; but Germany
did not wish to make use of this assistance, because the Bulgarians
were jealous of Turkish co-operation in a country like Macedonia, which
until a few years ago had formed part of the Ottoman Empire.
The number of the enemy’s field and mountain guns was slightly
inferior to that of the Allies, but they were much stronger in medium
and heavy calibre guns; they also had a number of guns of greater
calibre and range than anything of which we could boast, and they kept
their forces on the Macedonian front supplied with their best and most
up-to-date material, whereas the Allies neglected theirs.
The enemy defences, which were rudimentary at first, were gradually
perfected until they came to constitute a system of really formidable
fortifications, especially in the Monastir area, Hill 1050, and the
sector west of Lake Doiran. Opposite the Serbian area and in certain
other sectors there were fewer artificial defences, but the enemy
positions were there, as indeed along almost the whole of the front,
infinitely superior to ours. In the Italian sector, as we shall see,
the summits of the ridge were all in the hands of the enemy, by
whom our lines of access were to a large extent dominated; the same
conditions existed opposite the II Serbian Army (Dobropolje-Vetrenik
area) and opposite the British, west of Lake Doiran.
It should always be borne in mind that the war in Macedonia, owing
to the nature of the country in which the operations took place, the
scarcity of railways, roads and resources, the pestilent climate, the
sparse population and the great distances which separated us from our
centres of supplies, was essentially a colonial campaign. But the
Germans, and the Bulgars organized and trained by the Germans, had all
the means and materials of modern war at their disposal. During the
early days of the expedition the Allied Command was not even provided
with staff officers who were well acquainted with modern warfare,
and the material means which the armies received from Europe were of
inferior quality. The C.A.A. never attributed sufficient weight to
these difficulties.
CHAPTER III
THE COMMAND OF THE ALLIED ARMIES IN THE ORIENT. THE FRENCH TROOPS.
Let us now see how the Chief Command of the Allied Armies at Salonica
was organized. This should have been essentially an inter-Allied
Command. But in practice it always remained a French Command, to
which some liaison officers were attached representing the other
Allied armies. Instead of devoting his attention to operations
exclusively, and particularly to those executed by several Allied
forces in collaboration, General Sarrail, and to a lesser extent even
his successors, was principally occupied with the _Armée française
d’Orient_, although the latter had its own Command and Staff. Sarrail
moreover attended personally to a number of other matters, such as the
police, the Press and postal censorship, trade, archæology etc., which
ought not to have required the attention of the Commander-in-Chief, or
at least should have been delegated by him to subordinates.
General Sarrail came to Salonica from the French front, where he had
commanded the III Army. He had proved himself a gallant soldier, and
had distinguished himself at the Marne and at the first battle of
Verdun. But he was not a good army commander, nor was he popular at
G.H.Q. on account of his intriguing nature. The French Government
wished to get rid of him, and, having recalled him from the command of
the III Army, contemplated sending him to the East to take command of
an expedition which was to have operated in the Dardanelles and in Asia
Minor. But when the impossibility of holding the Dardanelles became
manifest that scheme was abandoned, and General Sarrail was appointed
to command the troops in Macedonia. He at first did not wish to go, as
he regarded that command as inferior to his rank, but he soon saw that
the choice lay between Salonica and Limoges, so that he had to accept.
He therefore reached Macedonia under the shadow of failure, and this
was the initial reason which prevented him from exercising great
authority or personal prestige over the other Allied commanders. His
policy of intrigue increased this lack of confidence in him. In a
certain passage of his memoirs he makes the characteristic admission
that, while he was still in Paris before coming out to take up his
duties in the East, M. Millerand, then Minister of War, enjoined on
him at their last interview “not to frequent members of Parliament.”
He was extremely ambitious and had high political aspirations, so
that from the beginning of his reign at Salonica we find him deeply
involved in diplomatic questions, and he subordinated his whole
military activity to political considerations. He never showed himself
a really inter-Allied commander; he constantly acted in what he thought
were the interests of France, but he understood French interests only
in the narrowest and most exclusive sense, not only to the detriment
of the interests of the other Allies, but also to that of a common
friendly agreement of all the Allies, and consequently even of the
real higher interests of his own country. Many of the far more serious
disagreements which have subsequently developed between France and
her Allies have their remote origins in the bickerings engendered by
General Sarrail’s policy in Macedonia.
In appearance he was a handsome, attractive-looking man, of martial
bearing, in spite of his white hair, and he was affable with everybody.
He affected a slightly exaggerated _bonhomie_ which occasionally
assumed a somewhat vulgar tone, easily degenerating into coarseness.
Nor did he always maintain that dignity which should characterize the
bearing of every officer, but particularly of one invested with such
important functions. He allowed Captain Mathieu, attached to his Staff
(an officer of whom I shall have more to say later) to behave and
adopt a tone towards him at his own mess which scandalized the other
French or Allied officers who were present at these unedifying scenes.
A freemason, an anti-Clerical, of strong Radical-Socialist sympathies,
he had composed his Staff of officers having the same views, many of
whom had no other qualifications for their jobs. The great majority of
the French officers were anything but enthusiastic towards Sarrail’s
military and political conduct; they complained of favouritism in the
matter of promotions for merit, which were reserved for a small clique
of officers in his immediate entourage, and were seldom granted to the
real fighters. He rarely visited the front, save on the occasion of
ceremonies, conferring of medals, official visits, etc. He prepared his
plans of operations in his office at Salonica, where he spent nearly
all his time, even during important offensives.
His amorous relations were the subject of a vast amount of gossip. His
friendship for a Russian lady of high rank reached such a point that
she was allowed to enter his office at G.H.Q. at any moment, even when
he himself was not there and confidential documents were spread about
his desk. The lady in question was actually suspected of espionage,
and apart from this charge, which was probably unfounded, she was also
accused of illicit interference in political and military affairs. In
this connexion she once said to an Italian officer, some time after
Sarrail’s departure; “It has been stated that when General Sarrail was
here, it was I who commanded the Armée d’Orient. Unfortunately, this
was untrue; if I had commanded it, far fewer _bêtises_ would have been
committed.” The greatest surprise caused by General Sarrail was his
marriage with a French Red Cross nurse attached to one of the military
hospitals in Salonica, in the spring of 1917. The affair caused a
considerable scandal, as all Allied officers were forbidden to bring
their wives out to Macedonia, whereas Sarrail not only married, but
kept his wife with him in Salonica.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE, SALONICA.
To face p. 58.
]
The absolute want of confidence of the Allied commanders under his
orders in General Sarrail’s military qualities, his position became
ever more impossible. To command an army composed of soldiers
belonging to five different nationalities, two of them indigenous to
the country, each with its own military organization, is at best no
easy task, and only a leader endowed with great tact, a conciliatory
spirit and a keen respect for the national feelings of others could
have done so with success. In a national army the orders of the
commander are obeyed without discussion; but in a force like the
Armée d’Orient the Allied commanders under General Sarrail were
representatives of their respective G.H.Q.’s and Governments, to whom
they could always apply if he gave orders which appeared to them out
of place. Sarrail ever gave the first consideration to the political
effect which this or that event would produce, and he often gave orders
for an operation simply because he believed that it would make a good
impression on the public and on the Press, and consequently on the
world of politicians, even if it were of no real military value. It was
clear that with such a leader, even if he had had military qualities
superior to those which he actually possessed, and if he had had really
abundant resources at his disposal, it would have been very difficult
to carry out an offensive on a large scale with any likelihood of
success. In fact, while the Monastir offensive was only half a success
and produced hardly any results, the offensive of May, 1917 was, as we
shall see, a complete failure. Sarrail’s only real achievement was the
deposition of King Constantine, and that was a political rather than a
military enterprise.
A characteristic side of General Sarrail’s activities was his
commercial policy. He took a lively interest in the promotion of French
economic development in Macedonia, to the detriment, not of enemy
interests, which were non-existent, but of those of the other Allies.
He had instituted a very well-organized commercial bureau, but it was
generally regarded as not quite correct that an inter-Allied Commander
should avail himself of his position as such to develop the trade of
his own country alone. To attain this object he also made use of the
postal censorship, to which he devoted considerable attention. By its
means he learnt which local merchants sent their orders to France and
which to other countries; the latter were not infrequently the objects
of thinly veiled threats and persecutions, inflicted with a view to
inducing them to alter their ways. Matters reached such a point that
the other Governments ended by establishing postal censorships of their
own over the correspondence between Salonica and their respective
countries.
General Sarrail had numerous conflicts with the Italian Command. I
have already mentioned the incidents which occurred in connexion
with the Monastir operations and the transfer of the division. But
incidents were of almost daily occurrence. One day a movement order
concerning our own troops was not communicated to the Italian Command;
another time a communiqué from G.Q.G. on some operation in which an
Italian detachment had greatly distinguished itself failed to mention
the Italians at all. On one occasion the local French or Greek press
was allowed or inspired to print articles attacking and libelling
Italy, while on another the local Italian paper _La Voce d’Italia_
was suspended for having replied in a somewhat violent tone. It might
be thought that the Italians were too susceptible on these matters,
but incidents of this kind occurred with such frequency in connexion
with them that it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that there
was considerable animosity on Sarrail’s part against them. But above
all our Command was convinced that he had no notion of what war in the
Balkans really was. In this it was in perfect agreement with the other
Allied Commands.
With the other Allies too Sarrail’s relations were anything but
cordial. He was in constant disagreement with the British, whose
commander had succeeded in getting himself invested with the rank of
Commander-in-Chief so as to reduce his dependence on Sarrail to a
minimum. Even with the Serbs he was not on good terms. They complained
that French help had come too late to save their country from disaster,
and that the French never forgot to remind them of their debt to
France. They did not wish to take orders in matters of tactics
from the C.A.A., both because their army was commanded by the Crown
Prince who refused to accept a subordinate position, and because they
considered that they knew a good deal more about Balkan warfare than
Sarrail, and in this they were not altogether wrong. They were moreover
irritated by the fact that the French communiqués never gave sufficient
prominence to the actions of the Serbian troops, so that their G.H.Q.
ended by issuing communiqués of its own. Even with the Greeks, to whom,
after the Venizelist revolution, he always spoke “honeyed words” in
public, he was on the worst of terms, as appears from his memoirs and
articles published since the war. The street in Salonica which had been
gratefully baptized “Odos Sarrail” has recently had its name altered.
It can be fairly stated that General Sarrail stands condemned by his
own memoirs more severely than by any outside criticism. The volume
is very interesting and well written, but, as a distinguished Italian
officer stated, “on a background of undeniable truths, he has woven
a tissue of venemous untruths, with which he has sought in vain to
justify his action in the Orient.” His political intrigues, his conduct
towards the Allies, the manner in which he treated many gallant French
officers, such as General Cordonnier--to mention one case alone--all
this appears in the clearest light in his _Apologia pro vita sua_.
The G.H.Q. of the C.A.A. was of course at Salonica. It was, like other
French Army Commands, divided into two main branches--the _État-major
de l’Avant_ and the _Direction de l’Arrière_. The Chief of the General
Staff under General Sarrail was first Colonel George and then General
Michaud. The _Avant_ was divided into four bureaux: 1st, effectives
and materials; 2nd, information (intelligence); 3rd, operations; 4th,
supply and transport. Relations between the liaison officers and
the Command and its bureaux were as a rule extremely cordial, and
for my own part I shall always have the pleasantest remembrance of
them, especially of my connexion with the _Deuxième Bureau_, to which
we liaison officers were for a long time attached; its successive
chiefs (these unfortunately were constantly changing) were regular,
and usually very distinguished, officers of field rank, and the
other members of it were reserve officers, some of them eminent men
in different walks of life--university professors, archæologists,
jurists, etc. With the 3rd bureau too, to which we were afterwards
attached, I always got on well. But it should be added that with the
French Command (advisedly, I call it French, although in theory it
was inter-Allied) there was never that same _camaraderie_ that there
was with the British. With the former we were welcome guests, whereas
the latter treated us as brothers and hid nothing from us. Let me
quote an instance of this difference with regard to the question of
strength returns. It was very important for all the Allies to know
each other’s respective strengths. We naturally communicated ours to
the C.A.A. and the other Commands periodically and in the greatest
detail. To learn the French strength required immense labour and
ingenuity in collecting, collating and completing the figures; they
were communicated to us unwillingly, in an incomplete form and with
considerable delay--it was indeed far easier to learn what were the
enemy’s effectives than those of the French. The British on the other
hand placed their statistical returns at our disposal, showing the
organic strength, the actual strength, the reinforcements asked for
and those known to be on their way out, for each unit and specialty.
Nor did the Serbs or Greeks have any objection to communicating their
strengths to us. It was generally believed that the reason of this
reticence on the part of the French was that, while they maintained
the number of their units unchanged, their effective strength was
greatly reduced, and that they feared that the Allies, especially the
British, might avail themselves of this state of things as a pretext
for refusing to recognize France’s right to the supreme command of
operations in Macedonia. I do not know whether this was the real or
only reason, but the fact in itself is undoubted, and it certainly
rendered co-operation much more difficult than it ought to have been.
[Illustration: TRANSPORT IN WINTER.]
[Illustration: THE ALLIED LIAISON OFFICERS AT G.H.Q., SALONICA.
To face p. 62.
]
The services of the Army were carried out partly by the 1st and 4th
bureaux of the _Avant_, and partly by the _Direction de l’Arrière_, the
latter being for a long time under the sympathetic and jovial General
Boucher. The organization was not perfect, and transport and supplies
were sometimes faulty. The Italian expeditionary force in particular
often suffered from these defects whenever its services had to be
supplied by the French, not on account of any ill-will on the part of
the latter, but owing to the defects of the system and the imperfect
manner in which orders were executed. The French themselves were wont
to say that more time was needed for a letter to go from the _Avant_ to
the _Arrière_ than to ask for and obtain instructions from Paris.
Of the 8 French divisions 5 were Metropolitan (i.e. raised in France
proper)--the 30th, 57th, 76th, 122nd, and 156th--and 3 Colonial--the
11th, 16th and 17th. At first they were all of 4 regiments of 3
battalions each. But subsequently, owing to the reduction of strengths
and also to the general reorganization of the French Army, the
Metropolitan divisions were reduced to 3 regiments each, and the
brigades (which had been of 2 regiments each) abolished. Each regiment
in the colonial divisions comprised 2 white and 1 coloured battalion.
The divisions, as we have seen, were formed into groups, corresponding
to army corps but of somewhat looser formation, of whom there were
at first 2 and afterwards 3, and they also included non-French
troops. Special units were from time to time constituted according
to necessity for special operations, etc. There was in addition the
Cavalry Division, comprising the 1st and 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique and
the Morocco Spahis (coloured), commanded by General Jouinot-Gambetta.
There were also some units not forming part of any division such as
the 2nd bis Zouaves, the Algerian, Annamite, Madagascar, Indo-Chinese
_tirailleurs_, the Koritza gendarmerie, etc.
* * * * *
It was generally admitted that the French artillery in Macedonia was
excellent. In spite of the defective and seldom renovated material the
gunners accomplished wonders, and although the enemy during the early
period of the campaign had a larger number of guns than the Allies, and
was supplied to the very end with guns of heavier calibre and greater
range, the French batteries held their own admirably. The French
artillery officers attached to our force were always on the best of
terms with their Italian comrades, and they learned to appreciate each
others’ fine military qualities.
As regards general education, the French officers were superior to
those of any of the other Allied armies. There was hardly one of
them who had not a literary, political and historical culture which
we should have regarded as above the average, and in this they also
ranked above the British; their conversation was nearly always
extremely agreeable owing to their high intellectual level, wide
range of interests and their keen wit. Their knowledge of foreign
languages on the other hand was very slight; regular officers usually
knew German, and among the reserve officers one occasionally came
across some who for business or other reasons knew foreign languages,
but the great majority only understood French. Personally they were
generally attractive, had good manners, made a great many compliments
and very keenly appreciated any courtesy extended to them. At mess
their behaviour was decorous, and they spoke less loudly than their
Italian colleagues, many of whom invariably raised their voices to add
strength to the arguments they were sustaining. But they had a somewhat
exaggerated idea of the absolute superiority of the French over all
other nations in everything, and they did not hide it; for this reason
they sometimes appeared ungenerous, and succeeded in irritating their
foreign colleagues of all the Allied armies. The officers attached to
the General Staff seldom made any attempt to disguise their weakness
for foreign decorations, and the extremely transparent allusions which
they made to the subjects when conversing with liaison officers or
others whom they believed to have ribbons galore at their disposal
contributed not a little to make the horrors of war quite bearable.
French Staff officers were always under the incubus of the _mot
d’ordre_. One day the word would be passed round that optimism was
to be the keynote, and then one saw nothing but smiling faces,
cheerfulness and confidence in the final victory within a month.
Another day the _mot d’ordre_ was in a minor key; that meant long
faces, black pessimism, _le cafard_, no end to the war in sight, the
Germans invincible, peace goodness knows when and at goodness knows
what conditions. All this had nothing to do with the actual military
events either fortunate or the reverse, but was the result of orders
from above. Similarly, their attitude towards the Allies varied from
day to day, being warmly cordial at one moment and coldly courteous the
next.
But whatever the faults of the French may have been, it must be
admitted that in actual combat they were marvellous. Officers and
soldiers vied with each other in patriotism and courage. When they
were in the front lines no one could fail to admire their dash and
gallantry; their battle discipline was magnificent. On the other hand,
their discipline at the rear and on the lines of communication left
much to be desired, and the behaviour of the soldiers and even of not a
few officers at some distance from the front, especially at Salonica,
often led to unpleasant incidents. Once they were away from the front
these men seemed to forget the respect due to their officers, who
seldom dared to reprimand them even for quite serious disciplinary
offences. They often behaved riotously, got drunk, appeared with their
uniforms in disorder, and it was an unusual sight to see two men
dressed alike. A British officer connected with the officers’ clothing
store told the writer that as long as French officers were forbidden
to wear Sam Brown belts he was constantly receiving applications for
authority to purchase them (they could not be sold to non-British
officers without written authority from the A.Q.M.G.), but as soon as
their G.Q.G. issued a circular removing the ban on that article of
equipment the applications from the French fell off!
Rioting among French soldiers was by no means unknown, and encounters
were particularly frequent between French and Allied soldiers, whereas
other allies seldom had rows among themselves. Even the French camps
were less orderly and well-arranged than those of the British or
Italian troops. Where French and Italian troops were in direct liaison
at the front relations were excellent, and the former often had
recourse to the latter’s assistance in constructing huts.
But it was enough to see a French unit in fighting kit on the march
towards the front lines or returning from them to realize the high
military and warlike spirit of the French nation. Patriotic feeling
was extremely developed among all. “Defeatist” talk, expressions of
sympathy, or complaisant admiration for the enemy, such as were heard
among the officers of some other armies, were unknown, and would indeed
not have been tolerated for an instant. They might, as I have said,
often talk in a pessimistic tone, but anything like sympathy for the
enemy was inconceivable. The tradition of ten centuries of splendid
military history was not belied.
Of the sectors held by the French two were particularly hard--that of
Hill 1248, north of Monastir, and around the city, and the eastern part
of the Cerna loop, which presented features similar to those of our
own sector. The other French sectors were extremely uncomfortable, as
was indeed the whole of the Macedonian front, but less dangerous from
a purely military point of view. The Monastir area was exceptionally
hard, inasmuch as the town exercised a peculiar fascination over the
Bulgars--to them it was the symbol of Macedonia, the Mecca of their
Balkan aspirations; indeed almost the only territory not yet occupied
by them to which they laid claim, and which they had reasonable hopes
of acquiring. They therefore maintained a relentless and vigorous
pressure on those lines in the hope of breaking through and achieving
not only a strategic victory of considerable importance, but also a
highly significant moral and sentimental success. The German Command
at one time was anxious to withdraw from the Monastir area altogether,
but the opposition of Bulgaria to this plan for once prevailed. The
struggle round the town therefore continued with great violence,
and the troops on Hill 1248 had to keep a ceaseless vigil, sustain
perpetual attacks or deliver counter-attacks, and were always under the
fire of heavy bombardments. Monastir itself suffered severely as it
sheltered various staffs, and also many batteries of artillery.
The A.F.O. front was reached by railway to Armenohor (the station
for Florina) or Sakulevo, and thence by road and décauville to the
first lines, but supply trains at night went almost into Monastir.
For the troops west of the Pisoderi pass a “telepheric” line was used
for supplies, but it sufficed only for a small part of the necessary
materials, and the rest had to be conveyed by lorry or cart. The two
divisions in the eastern half of the Cerna loop were supplied by the
same routes as those used by the Italians. The H.Q. of the A.F.O. was
at Florina, a pleasant little town at the foot of the Pisoderi pass,
well watered by many runnels and adorned with trees. The troops of the
_Premier groupement_ (122nd Division and Greek units) were supplied by
the Vardar railway to a certain point, and thence by road.
CHAPTER IV
THE BRITISH SALONICA FORCE
The British Army in Macedonia, officially known as the B.S.F. (British
Salonica Force), originally consisted, like the French force, of units
transported from the Dardanelles. Later it was reinforced by fresh
divisions and became on autonomous army, although always under the
superior command of the French C.-in-C. It comprised 2 Army Corps
(the XII and the XVI), at first of 3 infantry divisions each (10th,
22nd, 26th, 27th, 28th, and 60th), the 228th Garrison Brigade and
2 cavalry brigades; in the course of 1917, as we have seen, two of
these divisions--the 10th and the 60th--and the cavalry brigades were
withdrawn and sent to Egypt, so that only four divisions remained, plus
the garrison brigade, composed of men not fit for the front line. The
artillery was strengthened in 1918 by a fairly large number of 6-in.
guns and howitzers. Each division consisted as usual of 3 brigades, and
each brigade at first of 4 battalions, but later on, when strengths
had fallen very low, they were reduced to three. Each division had its
own artillery, cavalry, engineers, and other services, and sometimes
even the brigades were so provided, and there were in addition the army
corps and army artillery and services, and the air force. The troops
and services in the base area and on the lines of communication were
under the Base Commandant; later a G.O.C. Lines of Communication was
also appointed. As regards effectives, strengths were allowed to fall
dangerously low, because the War Office was always somewhat hostile
to the Macedonian enterprise--at a certain moment, as we shall see,
a proposal was made that it should be withdrawn into the Salonica
entrenched camp. Consequently, reinforcements were sent out grudgingly
and in insufficient numbers, while disease and to a lesser extent war
losses caused serious inroads into the strength of the B.S.F. During
the last phase of the war the battalions rarely had more than 500 men
each.
G.H.Q., Salonica, attempted to make good these losses by repeated
“combings out,” sending to the battalions at the front all the men who
could justly be regarded as fit, and reducing the number of British
transport drivers, muleteers and soldiers attached to the base and
lines-of-communication units to a minimum, and substituting them with
Indians, Cypriots and Macedonian natives; a school for these new
transport drivers was instituted at Lembet near Salonica and gave
good results, while a great deal of useful work was accomplished by
native labour battalions; the latter were also employed by other Allied
armies, and there was a considerable amount of lively competition among
the different forces to secure as large a share as possible of the
available supply of native workers.
The British G.H.Q. was, as I have said, at Salonica, and
Lieutenant-General Sir George Milne, who relieved General Mahon, was
appointed Commander-in-Chief. He took orders from the C.A.A. only in
the case of joint operations, and as long as General Sarrail was in
Macedonia General Milne was his subordinate only in name, as he refused
to tolerate any interference on the part of the former in whom he had
no confidence, and whom he always suspected of political intrigue.
General Sarrail on his part disliked General Milne, so that combined
operations were practically impossible. General Milne was a man of
uncommon intelligence, with extremely shrewd powers of observation and
insight, and, unlike Sarrail, he was exclusively a soldier and did
not take any interest in political matters. Our relations with him
were always of the most cordial character. For General Mombelli he had
a special regard, which was thoroughly reciprocated by the Italian
Commander. He was a fine-looking man, a great lover of sport, a hard
worker, a gentleman in every sense of the word; and he had a keen
dislike for the atmosphere of Salonica as a hotbed of mean political
and personal _potins_ and petty jealousies. He resided a great part
of the year at Guvesne, some 24 km. from Salonica, where he had
established his advanced G.H.Q., equally handy for reaching either of
his two Corps H.Q.’s. While staying at Guvesne he usually motored into
Salonica every morning, except when he went out to the Corps H.Q. of
the front lines.
I knew his three successive Chiefs of the Staff--General Gilman, a
singularly attractive personality, with whom our relations were more
than cordial, especially in the dark days of the spring of 1917, when
after the collapse of Russia it was felt to be particularly important
that the armies of the only two Monarchies left among the great Powers
of the Entente should keep on the terms of the closest friendship.
He said to me when I called to bid him farewell on his departure for
Mesopotamia: “Our two Armies out here have always been on such friendly
terms that I can see no reason why this state of things should not
continue under my successor.” General Cory, in fact (a Canadian by
birth), followed on General Gilman’s footsteps, and when he left to
take command of the 27th Division, General Duncan, who was appointed
M.G.G.S. in his place, showed himself if possible even more cordial;
he is now British Military Attaché in Rome. The Intelligence and
Operations branches were in charge of lieutenant-colonels, assisted
by numerous distinguished officers, many of whom were reserve or
temporary officers, especially those in “I,” chosen for their knowledge
of the country and the local languages. In both branches I was always
received in the most friendly manner, and kept informed of everything
of interest, even of extremely confidential matters, strengths, details
concerning unsuccessful actions, etc.
In dealing with the British one had, in a word, the sensation that one
was among real Allies. And this does not only refer to the General
Staff, but also to all the other branches and the commands of units
at the front. The Quartermaster-General’s branch (Q), corresponding
roughly to our _Intendenza_, was organized on essentially business
lines, with all the methods in use in business houses; many of the
officers attached to those services were in fact business men in
private life. Archæologists were found particularly useful in “I” work,
because their training rendered them thoroughly capable of weighing,
sifting, and co-ordinating evidence, and deducing accurate or at least
reasonable conclusions. If a larger proportion of men of this stamp
had been employed in these services, not only in the British, but also
in other armies, a great many unfortunate and sometimes disastrous
mistakes would have been avoided. Unluckily, however, a number of Staff
officers seemed to have no other qualification for their work than an
extensive knowledge of the novels of William Le Queux and Phillips
Oppenheim, or the adventures of Arsène Lupin, whose situations they
attempted to realize in practice. At the head of the Q branch was
the Deputy Quartermaster-General, of whom I knew two; the first was
Major-General Travers-Clarke, afterwards Q.M.G. in France, the second
and last Major-General Rycroft, both of them very capable officers
and organizers. With the Adjutant-General’s branch, which dealt with
personnel, I came less frequently into contact. There were also
many offices and special services, among which that of the Military
Secretary, whose duties comprised such matters as the promotion of
officers, decorations, official visits and dinners and _protocol_
generally; for a long time this position was held by the brilliant and
agreeable Major Dudley-Carleton.
The British War Office made a point of selecting the officers for
the B.S.F. with peculiar care, especially those destined for Staff
appointments. As they would naturally come into frequent contact with
foreign officers, it was considered very important not to send any
officer to Macedonia who was not a thorough gentleman, so as to avoid
unpleasant incidents; officers were chosen for these services not
only for their technical ability, but also and above all for their
high moral character and good manners, points to which insufficient
importance was attached in some other armies. I cannot say that I
ever came across a man of the “T.G.” type in any responsible post.
British officers never caused scandals or provoked inter-Allied
incidents, and cases of financial shortcomings were extremely rare and
severely punished as soon as they were discovered. In the conduct of
operations they showed, if not genius--in this the French were very
superior--considerable efficiency and a thoroughly practical spirit.
The most complicated transactions were carried out with the utmost
simplicity--a couple of telephone calls, the sending of two or three
“chits” (usually written in pencil), and the thing was done. In my
position as liaison officer I had wide experience of the practical
character of British military methods. We were constantly in need
of assistance from the Allies for many of our services, especially
in the matter of transport, because our expeditionary force was
in certain respects incomplete, and according to the terms of the
previous agreements, it was the C.A.A. that was bound to supply the
deficiencies. The British were therefore under no obligation to assist
us. But when we applied to the French we were bandied about from
pillar to post before arriving at some useful result; very often we
obtained nothing at all, or if we did obtain what we required we had
first to overcome innumerable obstacles and refusals. The British on
the contrary did everything in their power to satisfy our requests,
and when they refused it was because the thing was really impossible,
so that it was useless to go back on the matter. What was particularly
agreeable about the British was their manner of rendering services as
though it were the most natural thing in the world. I remember how
on one occasion, I had to make an urgent application to the British
G.H.Q. for some fifty motor ambulances to transport a large number of
Italian wounded from the station to the hospitals after the action of
May 1917; although I had received no instructions on the subject until
late in the evening and some of the British officers responsible for
that service had gone to bed, the whole matter was arranged without the
slightest difficulty, and the next morning the motor ambulances were
ready at the station punctual to the minute. I afterwards went to thank
the A.Q.M.G. on behalf of our Command, and all that he replied was:
“We’ve got to win the war together.”
Another instance of the admirable organization of the British services
occurred during the great fire at Salonica. When the conflagration
began to approach the port, the building containing the British Army
telephone exchange was menaced, and in fact it caught fire soon after;
in less than an hour the exchange was transferred to a place of safety,
and at once began to function regularly.
British officers not only had a very high sense of duty, but some of
them seemed to have an almost fanatical attachment to their particular
job, which occasionally had its amusing side. One very distinguished
officer, whose duties were connected with the topographical section,
looked at every event on the Macedonian or other fronts exclusively
from the point of view of map-making. His only comment on the
deposition of King Constantine and the return of Venizelos to Athens
was that he trusted that it would now be possible for him to obtain
certain maps of Thessaly which the Royalist Staff had hitherto refused
to give him. During the gloomy days of the great German push in March
1918, what he chiefly deplored was the probable capture by the enemy
of the topographical plant and depot at the V Army H.Q. in Albert.
After the collapse of Bulgaria in September following, he regretted
that the end had come so soon because there was a certain sector of the
British front which he had not quite finished mapping, and now he would
be unable to complete the work; not to mention the fact that all the
beautiful maps which he had prepared with so much care were now mere
wastepaper!
In the British Army differences between the various arms and services
seemed to be less marked than in others, but the _esprit de corps_
among officers and men of the same regiment was extremely strong,
even though a regiment was not an effective unit. What appeared to
many officers of other Allied armies as a most excellent institution
was that of temporary rank. The fact that an officer entrusted with
duties pertaining to a higher rank than his own, on account of his
peculiar fitness for the position, could be temporarily promoted to
that higher rank, even though for administrative reasons it was not
possible to give him the effective rank, was very useful and presented
many advantages. With us, subalterns who in civil life held important
positions, in the army were either detailed for duties far below their
real capabilities and were thus wasted, or if they were entrusted with
more responsible duties, they retained their modest military rank and
often came into conflict with superior officers of the regular army who
were jealous of them. As a liaison officer, although only a lieutenant,
I seldom did any business with foreign officers below the rank of
major, and usually dealt in generals, but as I represented a foreign
army I was treated practically as an equal, which of course was not the
case when I had to do with Italian officers of superior rank.
There was a very strong sense of equality between officers of different
rank when off duty--at mess, in sport, etc. Officers belonging to
the same mess never waited for each other when dinner was announced,
whatever the rank of the absent colleague might be, nor were inferiors
expected to salute their superiors at mess or at the clubs, even in
the case of a general. This custom sometimes caused offence to certain
Italian generals or field officers, who could not understand why they
were not saluted by British subalterns whom they met at a restaurant
or club; it was of course not due to lack of deference on the part of
the latter, but to that tendency to exclude all feeling of _malaise_
between inferiors and superiors when off duty. The one real distinction
between categories of officers in the British Army was that existing
between those attached to the Staff and those who were not. The
feelings of the latter, especially of regimental officers, towards
the former were sometimes rather bitter, as indeed has been the case
in all armies from the days of the _Iliad_ downward; in our own army
the distinction was particularly marked. In the B.S.F., as I suppose
in other British armies, the Staff officer considered himself superior
intellectually to the average regimental or A.S.C. officer--and he
generally was--while the latter had a certain contempt not unmixed with
envy for the red-tabbed super-man enjoying the privileges and comforts
of G.H.Q., and proximity to that magnificent divinity the C.-in-C.,
or even of such minor divinities as corps or divisional commanders,
and avoiding the dangers of life in the front lines. “We run all the
risks and do all the really hard work, whereas they get all the plums,”
expresses the general attitude. But the conflict is inevitable and
universal, and should not be taken too seriously, the more so as the
majority of staff officers had usually been through the mill of trench
warfare themselves, and often had been given staff appointments only
after having been badly wounded. If anything, in the British Army the
feeling against supposed _embusqués_ was less virulent than in others.
The discipline of the British troops in the East was really admirable,
and was all the more remarkable inasmuch as a very large part of
the army was improvised; the men, however, had acquired a military
bearing equal to that of their professional comrades, but without a
trace of that militarism which made the Prussian so justly disliked.
If at the front the British Tommy was a first-class fighting man, his
discipline was equally well maintained at the base or along the lines
of communication. His personal cleanliness was remarkable, and so was
that of his kit and quarters. At Salonica drunkenness was by no means
uncommon, even among officers, especially those who had come down from
the trenches on a few days’ leave, but it seldom led to violence and
riotousness, and the much-dreaded A.P.M. was apt to come down with a
heavy hand on delinquents. British road discipline was also excellent,
and blocks seldom occurred even along the most frequented roads and
in moments of exceptionally heavy traffic. What greatly impressed the
local population, accustomed through centuries to the passage of
native or foreign armies, was the fact that this was the first war in
which, as regards the British area, women could move about the country
freely, without fear of being molested. This applied also to the
smaller Italian area, but not always to those of all the other Allied
armies.
The British military authorities took special care of the well-being
of the troops, which was particularly important in the case of armies
like the B.S.F. operating at a great distance from home and deprived of
all the amenities which made life on other fronts more tolerable. Not
only were all possible measures for safeguarding the health of the men
rigorously applied, but nothing was neglected that could contribute to
keep up their _moral_. Great importance was rightly attached to every
form of sport. Wherever a British detachment was stationed, football
and cricket fields and tennis courts were provided, and even the newly
invented game of handball was introduced. Gymnastic competitions of
all kinds, boxing matches and horse races were organized. Horse-shows
were held on a large scale, and it was very interesting for foreign
officers to attend them, not merely for the shows themselves--although
these were usually attractive spectacles--but because they enabled them
to see how admirably the British kept their horses and mules, in spite
of the enormous difficulties of supply and the terrible scarcity of
forage. Horses of the very first class were rare, but the average level
was extremely high, and one never saw lean or ill-groomed animals. At
the horse-shows there were competitions for troop horses, artillery
and transport teams, and points were also based on the state of the
harness; if the brass was not properly polished several points would
be lost. Above all, the mules were magnificent, and if, as a British
remount officer said to me, the prices paid for them were likewise
magnificent, the services they rendered were invaluable. Even when
the greater part of the British Tommies had been withdrawn from those
services and substituted with Indians, Cypriots or Macedonians, British
officers and N.C.O.’s succeeded in getting their animals almost as
carefully groomed as before. When General Lukoff, Commander of the
II Bulgarian Army, came to Salonica to negotiate the armistice, he was
enormously impressed with the British mules, and he said that if he had
had such transport animals his army would by that time have been at
Athens.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.
To face p. 76.
]
The various sporting events were not only held in Salonica or in other
parts of the base area, but also in the vicinity of the front lines,
at a few kilometres from the trenches. They were occasions for large
gatherings of officers, soldiers and nurses, and proved a most valuable
means for alleviating the monotony of life in Macedonia and eliminating
the _cafard_. Anyone who attended these entertainments felt, if only
for a few hours, that he had returned to civilian and civilized life
and to home habits, and the preparations for them aroused great
interest and distracted men’s thoughts from the discomforts and dangers
of the campaign, while the physical exercise that they involved had
an excellent effect on the health of all those who took part in the
matches, and these were very numerous. Officers of all arms, and
not merely those of the mounted services, took part in races and
horse-shows; I have been present at jumping competitions in which
army chaplains and even naval officers took part with distinction.
The British school of horsemanship is not so perfect and artistic
as the Italian or French schools, and few British officers have the
same wonderful mastery of the art as some of their Italian or French
colleagues. But there is a far larger number of officers who ride well
than in either of the other two armies, as that form of sport is far
more widespread.
It had been noticed that the enemy hardly ever opened fire or dropped
bombs on these large sports gatherings, which appeared to offer
ideal targets, and certain fields near the front lines, which were
sometimes used as exercise grounds and sometimes for football or other
matches, were constantly fired at in the first instance, but never in
the latter. This suggested that brother Bulgar had certain sporting
instincts, which enhanced the respect which the British Tommy had for
him. After the Armistice, however, it was discovered that the real
reason for the immunity which sports enjoyed was somewhat different.
Orders were discovered among the enemy’s papers that no form of sport
was to be interfered with because the big matches and horse-shows
always involved the sending of many telephone messages as to the
movement of details of the various units from their regular quarters
to the scene of the event; the enemy listening posts were often able
to intercept them and thus gather valuable information as to the
distribution of British troops. Thus was another pretty war legend
knocked on the head.
Another aspect of British military life in Macedonia was the soldiers’
theatres. They were not instituted until the second year of the
campaign, and at first encountered a good deal of opposition on the
part of the recognized officers of the old school. But gradually
all opposition was overcome, and the theatre became a recognized
institution. Each army corps, each division and many smaller units had
their own theatres. Officers attached to the postal censorship assured
me that these performances produced extraordinarily good results, as
appeared from the soldiers’ letters, the general tone of which showed
a marked improvement since the introduction of the theatres. “These
entertainments,” a British Staff officer told me, “are equivalent to an
increase of several battalions.” Officers and soldiers who took part in
them were usually exempted from all other duties while the rehearsals
and performances lasted, and no one dreamt of talking about _embusqués_
in this connexion because everyone appreciated the importance of this
form of activity. Soldiers’ theatres were also introduced into other
armies, including our own, but the chief feature of the British system
was the fact that the performances were acted exclusively by officers
and soldiers, usually belonging to the same units as the bulk of the
audience. This interested and amused the men far more than a more
ambitious performance, even if acted by professional artists of the
first rank. The writer was so much impressed by the British soldiers’
theatres that he sent a detailed report about them to the Italian
Commander; the report was forwarded to the _Comando Supremo_, and
as a result General Mombelli was authorized to introduce theatrical
performances into the 35th Division. They proved a great success.
I assisted at several of these entertainments, which were all
admirably acted and elaborately staged. On one occasion I witnessed
a first-rate performance of the “Chocolate Soldier”--quite a _pièce
de circonstance_, as the scene is laid in Bulgaria during the
Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885--at the theatre of the 22nd Division at
Rates, only 5 km. from the front lines; and on another a variety
entertainment at the XII Corps theatre at Janes, especially built by
the Y.M.C.A.; the tenor of the troupe had been detailed for a bombing
expedition that very night, but as he was the best artist available he
was let off duty when it was known that the Italian liaison officer at
G.H.Q. was to be present! I was much flattered.
At Salonica there were comparatively few British troops. There were of
course a great many officers at G.H.Q. with their orderlies, clerks,
batmen, guards, etc., and the magazines, depots and hospitals required
a numerous personnel. Along the Monastir and Lambet roads these vast
stores and dumps extended mile upon mile. Immense engineer parks,
mountains of packing-cases, clothing stores without end, remount
squadrons, veterinary hospitals etc., occupied huge areas; on the other
side of the town, on the hill of Kalamaria and towards the bay of Mikra
there was a whole city of hospitals in huts or tents, and close by a
colossal M.T. heavy repair workshop. The other armies in Macedonia also
had enormous supply depots and establishments of all kinds, but those
of the British struck one as being on the most imposing scale, erected
regardless of cost or labour; this system may have its drawbacks, as
the British tax-payer has discovered, but it certainly did contribute
to efficiency, and if it was also designed to impress Allies and
natives with the might and wealth of the British Empire it achieved its
purpose. The hospitals were magnificent; they increased considerably
in numbers during the last two years of the war, because the Q branch
was anxious to free the largest possible number of ships from hospital
service and the transport of the wounded and sick. During the early
days of the campaign serious cases were sent to Malta or Alexandria.
But it was found that malaria and dysentery patients recovered very
slowly in those places, and many succumbed; at the same time their
transport monopolized a large number of ships at a moment when the
ravages of submarine warfare made it necessary that the largest
possible amount of tonnage should be available for the transport of
troops and supplies. Consequently General Rycroft, on assuming the
duties of D.Q.M.G. thought that it would be better to increase the
hospitals at Salonica and in the neighbourhood, and the convalescent
hospitals on Mount Hortiach, where the air is excellent, and evacuate
only the most serious cases requiring a very long period in hospital.
Thus the transport of the sick was much reduced and the patients
benefited by the new system. But in spite of the great care which the
British Command devoted to the sick, malarial cases were extremely
numerous. In the summer of 1916 there were 11,500 beds in the British
hospitals at Salonica, and some 30,000 malarial cases admitted. These
figures increased during the succeeding summers, because, in addition
to the new cases, there were the relapses of the preceding years. Thus
in 1917 malarial cases rose to 63,000, and in 1918, when the total
strength was much reduced, to 67,000. Early in 1918 the so-called “Y”
system was introduced, whereby chronic malarial cases were sent home.
To reach the British front there were two main arteries--the Janesh
road and the Serres road. Both had existed before the war, but were
then in such an appalling state of neglect as to be in places almost
impassable, and full of holes throughout their entire length; they were
indeed little better than tracks, save for a few kilometres here and
there. The British military authorities had had practically to rebuild
them, and they made them into really magnificent thoroughfares. Their
construction and maintenance required armies of native labourers and
cost vast sums. But the expenditure was in a sense an economy, because
it spared the wear and tear of the lorries, the renewal of which would
not only have cost far more if the roads had been neglected, but they
would have been difficult to replace owing to the scarcity of tonnage
and submarine risks. These roads and the others built by the French
and the Italians, were a magnificent legacy left to Greece and Serbia,
but a few weeks of Balkan régime, after the greater Allies had handed
them over, sufficed to reduce them to their original state of hopeless
dilapidation and ruin once more.
Transport to the XII Corps area was effected by means of the
Constantinople railway as far as Sarigöl or Kilindir (goods were
conveyed by rail as far as lake Doiran), and thence by the various
décauville and the network of ordinary roads to the infantry and
artillery positions. Beyond Janesh the country opens out into a wide
plateau, somewhat undulated, surrounded by mountain ranges; those to
the east and west are fairly high, while immediately to the north they
appear insignificant, but in reality constitute formidable defences.
As occurred almost invariably on all the mountain fronts in the war,
from the Stelvio to the Struma, the enemy held all the higher and
stronger positions, dominating those of the Allies. Immediately to
the west of Lake Doiran rises the terrible group of the Grand and
Petit Couronnés[13] and the “P” ridges, which cost so much blood to
the British troops in their heroic efforts in 1917 and 1918. The “P”
ridges spread out in a succession of hills--P1, P2, P3, P4, P4¼, P4½,
P5--west of the Grand Couronné, forming with it an obtuse angle; the
“P” ridges dominated all the approaches to the Grand Couronné and
the latter those to the former. The Grand Couronné, which I visited
immediately after it had been evacuated by the enemy, was formidably
defended by the most perfect system of fortifications known to modern
military art; the dug-outs and O.P.’s were cut out of the living
rock, and often the sides and roof were several metres thick in solid
stone. A huge white splash near the summit, visible for many miles in
all directions, proved on inspection to be due to the tremendous but
useless bombardment of the British artillery.
It was on this sector that the enemy first tried his famous Gotha
aeroplanes on the Balkan front--it was, I believe, the first time that
they were used at all in the war, and then they were more formidable
than any machine possessed by the Allies. The officer in charge of
the O.P. who first noticed them, telephoned at once to the XII Corps
H.Q. that a new type of aeroplane had appeared above the lines; he was
immediately asked in a sceptical tone on what evidence he based his
assertion that they were of a new type, to which he replied: “In about
five minutes you will find out yourselves from personal experience.” In
fact immediately afterwards the Gothas were bombing Janesh for all they
were worth.
On this sector the Allied and enemy lines were often quite close to
each other as on the French and Italian fronts. East of Lake Doiran
there was a wide gap between the two lines, formed by a valley running
from that lake to Butkova. The main line of resistance extended along
the Krusha Balkan range south of the valley, but there were advanced
positions further down, such as the fort of Dova Tepe.
Between the eastern end of the lake and the western spur of the Beles
is a broad gap, and there many British officers believed that a break
through might be effected, although it was dominated by the batteries
on the Beles. But no attempt was made here, save an attack during the
last operations in September 1918, and even then it proved abortive and
was soon abandoned.
The XVI Corps area was reached by the great Serres road, some 70 km.
in length from Salonica to the Struma. For the first 25 km., as far as
Guvesne, transport could also be effected by means of a normal-gauge
railway built by the British during the war; at railhead there was a
M.T. park, whence innumerable lorries conveyed men and supplies to the
Struma. Various décauvilles spread out from the end of the road towards
the front lines. The road climbed over several steep ranges of hills
and plunged down into deep gullies, for the mountain chains in this
part of the country all run parallel to the Struma. The Corps H.Q.
was at Sivri in summer, a charmingly situated village just below the
last range of hills before the drop into the Struma valley; in winter
it moved down to a spot nearer the main road. The positions of chief
resistance were along this ridge in parallel lines, but there were also
a series of important bridge-heads along the river. Beyond the river
there were two or three lines of villages, some of them quite large,
others merely _chifliks_ or farms, abandoned by the inhabitants and
partly in ruins. Sometimes the first and even the second lines would
be held by the British, while the Bulgars held others further away,
along the foot of the mountains behind Serres. But in the summer of
1917, owing to the great heat and the ravages of malaria, the villages
beyond the Struma were evacuated by the British, and the bridge-heads
held with only an indispensible minimum of troops, while the defence
of the spaces between the bridge-heads was entrusted to the river
itself, which is difficult to wade, and to the cross-fire of the
ports defending the bridge-heads; in any case, in order to attempt
the passage of the Struma the enemy would have had to traverse a
broad tract of open country before reaching its banks, exposed to the
fire of the British batteries hidden amid the dense vegetation or in
the crevices of the hills to the west of the right bank. In order to
maintain contact with the enemy the British made frequent raids with
infantry and cavalry patrols into the villages occupied by isolated
detachments of Bulgars; the Bulgarian patrols and outposts did not
show much fighting spirit and usually retired precipitously. Sometimes
the British patrols penetrated into positions held by permanent enemy
garrisons. The most important and successful of these raids was that on
Homondos in the autumn of 1917, where many prisoners and some machine
guns were captured, as well as a voluminous official correspondence,
whence valuable information was acquired, especially concerning the
enemy’s _moral_, which appeared at that time to be considerably shaken.
On the whole this was a quieter front than that of the XII Corps, as
there were no positions corresponding to those of the Couronnés and
the “P” ridge, and a no-man’s-land some 12 km. wide separated the
two armies. For this reason it was deemed possible to hand it over
to the Greeks to hold when the rest of the Allied troops were being
concentrated elsewhere for attacks on a large scale.
The houses of Serres and Demir Hissar are easily visible to the naked
eye, and beyond the latter town I had pointed out to me from an O.P.
on a ruined belfry well beyond the river a large white slab on the
mountain side, and I was told that in 1913, after their victories over
the Bulgars, the Greeks had engraved on it an inscription in honour of
King Constantine (then still Diadoch) “Bulgaroctonos,” or slayer of the
Bulgarians, thus reviving the title of a famous Byzantine Emperor! The
Bulgarians I imagine must have erased it, perhaps with the approval of
him in whose honour it had been engraved.
CHAPTER V
THE SERBIANS
OF all the peoples who participated in the Great War the fate of the
Serbs represent the most tragic. Our subsequent disagreements with the
Yugo-Slavs should not make us forget the heroic part played by the
Serbians even though unfortunately they have forgotten the immense
benefits which we conferred upon them. It is the merit of the Italians
if the miserable remnants of the Serbian Army, after the disastrous
retreat through Albania, were saved from death by starvation, together
with thousands and thousands of Serbian civilians, who found a refuge
and a warm welcome in Italy, when their country was overrun by the
enemy. Let us hope that in the not too distant future the Serbs will
remember these facts, and also remember the many Italians who died on
Serbian soil fighting for the liberation of Serbia.
After the retreat through Albania the Serbian Army found itself in the
most appalling condition. Before the third enemy invasion it comprised
some 400,000 men, with 70,000 horses and 65,000 oxen (the mechanical
transport service was extremely limited). By the time it reached the
Adriatic it was reduced by hunger, cold and sickness, as well as by
fighting, to barely 150,000 men, 40,000 horses and 10,000 oxen. Part
of the army marched towards Scutari and Alessio and the rest towards
Durazzo. The second group was accompanied by several thousand civilian
refugees, and also by old King Peter, who was seriously ill, and the
Prince Regent Alexander, who was ill, too, for a part of the time. As
regards armament, equipment and food, everything was lacking. The
soldiers had been living for many months on 200 to 300 grammes of
biscuit every five days.
The work of the Italian Navy in saving the Serbians has often been
ignored. The Serbians appear to have forgotten or altogether denied
it, as have also some of their foreign apologists. It may therefore
be of interest to repeat what Admiral Sechi, the Italian Minister
of Marine, said in the Senate on July 19, 1920 in this connexion.
After reminding his hearers that the transport of the remnants of the
Serbian Army with their supplies, from the ports of Northern Albania,
where they had arrived exhausted and famished, to Valona, was the work
of the Italian Navy, it was, he said, one of the Allied Governments
that, at the end of October 1915 requested the Italian Government to
provide for these necessities, and “in spite of the almost insuperable
difficulties of the operation, especially on account of the insidious
enemy attacks, and the almost total lack of any landing facilities in
the places of disembarkation, the Italian Navy granted the request and
the transport was carried out successfully and without interruption.”
It was the Italian Navy which provided the transport of supplies for
the Serbian Army (about 28,000 tons). In all about 245,000 Serbian
soldiers, 25,000 Austrian prisoners whom they brought with them, over
10,000 animals, and a great deal of material, was thus transported. In
spite of the ever-present danger of enemy submarines, in all this vast
movement not a single ship was lost, nor did a single Serbian soldier
die.[14] But we did not only provide transport and food for these most
unfortunate warriors and civilians. Our military and naval medical
officers worked admirably for the assistance of the Serbians, saving
thousands from death by hunger, exhaustion and infection, as typhus
and cholera were raging among the Serbians. An English writer has
described in eloquent language this work in a book on the Italian Navy.
“Day and night,” writes Archibald Hurd, “caring nothing for the risk
of infection, striving with all weapons of modern research to prevent
this plague spot from infecting half a continent, the naval and
military doctors, with their sailor and soldier orderlies, fed, tended,
bandaged, and with hands soft as women’s nursed these poor spectres of
fellow creatures.”[15] On December 17 it was decided to send the Serbs
to Corfu. They were now reduced to 100,000 men with 54,000 rifles,
160 machine guns, and 70 guns. When they were transported to Valona
King Peter also went to Corfu and embarked on the Italian torpedo
boat destroyer, _G. C. Abba_. He wished to receive the salute of the
officers of the ship thanking them with generous words for all they
had done and the dangers they had faced on their mission of charity.
Reminding them of Garibaldi, their own national hero--to many of them
already, perhaps, almost a legendary figure--he told them that he had
himself twice met that famous soldier. Recalling to them the dark pages
of their own national history, with its eventual triumph, he suggested
to them that possibly Serbia might be the Piedmont of all the Serbians,
and even in this, its blackest hour, the forerunner of an undreamed of
and triumphant unity.[16] The Austrian prisoners were re-embarked for
Italy and interned in Sardinia, but many of them died of cholera during
the voyage. It may be added that while the most generous material
assistance was lavished on the Serbians by our Command, as well as by
our officers and men, the moral treatment accorded them by one or two
of our officers left something to be desired. Although this does not in
any way justify the ingratitude which the Serbs have subsequently shown
towards Italy, it may serve in part to explain it. Even a cruel phrase
or a lack of consideration for anyone who has suffered so terribly
are enough to cancel the memory of the great benefits received. As we
shall see, Generals Petitti and Mombelli did everything in their power
to make the Serbians forget these unfortunate incidents, and they
succeeded, at least for the time being.
The bulk of the Serbian troops were concentrated at Corfu, save a small
number at Bizerta. The first convoy embarked on January 6, 1916 and
during the winter the Allies, especially the British and the French,
set to work to re-equip and reorganize the army, and it must be said
the soldiers were greatly desirous of going to Salonica as soon as
possible to take part once more in the struggle against the invader,
although at that time to hope for success seemed madness. The Serbian
Government and Parliament also established themselves at Corfu, where
they remained until after the Armistice. The reorganization of the army
was carried out fairly quickly, and about the middle of April the first
detachments began to arrive at Salonica; to these were added the troops
who escaped from Monastir or down the Vardar Valley. Throughout the
second half of 1916 and the winter of 1916–17 the Serbians continued
to arrive, and in May 1917 the army was complete. But the Serbs did
not wait until then to begin fighting, because, as we have seen, they
took a very prominent part in the operations of the summer and autumn
of 1916. As each detachment reached Salonica it was first concentrated
in the Serbian camp at Mikra near the city, and then sent towards
the front, and its training in modern war methods was completed in
Macedonia.
The reorganized Serbian Army then comprised about 150,000 men, divided,
as we have seen, into 3 armies of 2 divisions each. Each division
comprised 3 regiments of 3 battalions each. As regards armament they
were fairly well equipped, and the number of rifles[17] was higher than
in the other armies in Macedonia because they had very few transport
or lines-of-communication troops. The Allies to a very great extent
supplied them with these services.
[Illustration: GENERAL MOMBELLI INAUGURATING A SCHOOL FOR SERB CHILDREN
BUILT BY ITALIAN SOLDIERS AT BROD.]
[Illustration: ITALIAN BRIDGE OVER THE CERNA AT BROD.
To face p. 88.
]
The Crown Prince Alexander, nominally Commander-in-Chief, kept his
modest Court at Salonica, but he spent a good part of the year at
the Serbian front with the soldiers, with whom he was very popular.
King Peter also resided habitually at Salonica, where he led an
extremely retired life an account of his illness, and he saw hardly
anyone. The military household of the Prince was composed for the most
part of field officers who had been seriously wounded, and as Minister
of the Royal Household he afterwards appointed M. Balugich, who was
considered to be one of the shrewdest diplomats in the Balkans. The
various foreign Governments had their representatives at Corfu, as the
Serbian Foreign Office was there, but the Prince Regent wished to have
a small diplomatic corps attached to his own person. The British and
French Governments acceded to this wish immediately, the former sending
Admiral Troubridge and the latter Commander Picot as honorary A.D.C.’s.
Later on he also wished to have an Italian officer, in the person of
Colonel Bodrero, formerly Commander of the Italian troops in Salonica
and afterwards in Valona, and the request was finally granted. Admiral
Troubridge, an attractive type of naval officer, had been Commander
of the squadron which had pursued the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ at the
beginning of the war, and had afterwards commanded the British naval
batteries on the Danube. After the Serbian _débâcle_ he followed the
remnants of the army to Corfu, and it was on that occasion that Prince
Alexander got to know and appreciate him. Admiral Troubridge had great
affection for Italy, whose language and literature he knew extremely
well, and he liked to be in the company of Italian officers whom he
often invited to his house, and in turn, he often went to their mess.
He did his best to maintain friendly relations between Serbians and
Italians, and gave excellent advice to Prince Alexander.
The actual Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian Army was the Chief of the
General Staff, General Boyovich, and the armies, afterwards reduced to
two, were commanded by the Voivods Michich and Stepanovich.
In the spring of 1916, Voivod Michich, Commander of the I Army, was
appointed Chief of the General Staff in the place of General Boyovich,
who took command of the said army in his place. The change was made on
the eve of the general offensive, because the plan of operation was to
a large extent the work of Michich himself. Although General Boyovich
was an excellent soldier and had always greatly distinguished himself,
Voivod Michich was a man of genius, one of the ablest leaders that the
Balkans has ever produced. Personally he was a very sympathetic figure,
jovial, always serene and good-tempered, even in the most tragic
moments, and always certain of final victory. The soldiers had such
great confidence in him that during the long period in which illness
kept him in hospital, they used to say: “We shall never be able to
return to our country if we have not Michich to lead us to victory.”
He never ceased to show cordiality towards Italy, and even after the
Armistice, in spite of the infatuation of hatred against Italy with
which the Serbian people had been filled, probably as a result of
a propaganda conducted by persons interested in sowing dissension,
his feelings towards us never changed, and if one day Italo-Serbian
relations improve, it will certainly be due in part to the work of the
gallant Voivod. His death, which occurred a short time ago, is a real
loss from every point of view.
In a general way the Serbians in Salonica conducted themselves
modestly, as was but becoming in their condition of exiles living on
charity--I use the word without any intention of offence. In this
connexion they offered a notable contrast to the Russian officers
after the Bolshevik revolution. Even their Commands and offices were
very simple, and their leaders were singularly free from bureaucratic
formalities.
The Serbs were supplied by the British and French, but even the
material supplied by the former reached them through the French
_Intendance_. They were not however, satisfied with this system, and
often complained of the manner in which the French treated them, both
on account of the insufficiency and the bad quality of part of the
supplies--they actually declared that the goods of excellent quality
supplied by the British were exchanged during transit through the
French offices, for others of inferior quality. They also objected
to the tone which the French adopted towards them, never letting
them forget that it was they (the French) who were maintaining them.
The French on their part complained of the excessive demands of the
Serbians, to whom they attributed what they called _la mentalité des
sinistrés_.
Relations between officers and soldiers were not always good. The
soldiers complained of being neglected and ill-treated by their
officers, and even accused some of them of financial dishonesty. An
American doctor, who had lived long in Serbia and with the Serbian
Army and knew the language well, assured me that these accusations
were justified, and that the Serbian civil and military administration
was both corrupt and incompetent. He believed, indeed, that when the
Serbian Government succeeded in re-establishing itself in Serbia it
would encounter serious difficulties with the population because the
Austrian Government, although politically oppressive, had accustomed
it to a more honest and competent civil service than that of the
Serbian State. These difficulties were due in part, according to
this same American, to the great gap existing between the slightly
educated classes, to whom the officers belonged, and the ignorant
peasants, who formed the common soldiers. The officers did not take
sufficient care for the well-being of their men, and a very large
number of them lived comfortably at Salonica, where they had little
to do, while the soldiers and the rest of the officers were fighting
and suffering great hardships at the front. There is certainly some
exaggeration in all this, but there is also some truth. In a general
way, the officers of the old Serbian Army were excellent, but as a
really educated bourgeoisie does not exist in the country, most of the
reserve officers, drawn from the semi-educated middle classes, left a
great deal to be desired. Another difficulty was due to the fact that
the Government was at Corfu while the army, which represented all that
remained of the nation, was in Macedonia, and the former soon lost all
touch with the latter. The atmosphere of Corfu had become a hotbed of
personal ambitions, intrigues and petty spite. The Serbians themselves
called it their Capua. Among the Serbians moreover, as I have said,
secret societies flourished, and these found a field of great activity
in the conditions of the moment. Even exile did not make the Serbians
forget the habit of conspiracy.
From the moment the Serbian Army took up its position in Macedonia its
front extended from the eastern arm of the Cerna to the neighbourhood
of Nonte. Divided after its reorganization into 3 armies, these were
as we have seen, in consequence of the reduction of the effectives,
reduced to 2 of 3 divisions each, plus the cavalry division. The I Army
(Drina, Morava and Timok Divisions) commanded by Voivod Michich, had
its H.Q. at Votchtaran and occupied the western sector; the II (Vardar,
Danube and Shumadia Divisions), commanded by Voivod Stepanovich,
occupied the eastern sector, with its H.Q. at Dragomantzi. Although the
Serbian G.H.Q. was at Salonica, there was also an advanced G.H.Q. near
Mount Floka. The ground on the Serbian front was extremely rough, with
huge masses of rock, high peaks and great forests spread over it. The
area of the II Army was a particularly uncomfortable one, as it was
almost everywhere exposed to the enemy fire. The roads were few and
bad, and communications extremely difficult. For its supplies, the I
Army made use of the Monastir railway as far as Sakulevo, then of the
décauville for a few kilometres, and finally of the ordinary roads.
The II Army could not use the railway beyond Vertekop. At the railway
terminus there were motor parks supplied by the British, who organized
an excellent service, principally with small Ford lorries which could
go anywhere, even over the most impossible roads. The Serbians knew
how to make the best use of the scanty agricultural resources of the
country, and although they complained that the least fertile areas had
been assigned to them, they managed so well that their horses never
lacked forage and always appeared fat and well fed. They were indeed
excellent horse-masters.
In the early days of the Macedonian campaign our relations with the
Serbs were somewhat cold. We could not help admiring their splendid
military qualities and burning patriotism, although we did not fail to
notice their serious defects of character, due to Oriental tradition.
The Serbs, on their part, were irritated against us on account of the
incidents in Albania already mentioned. General Petitti, however, made
every effort to eliminate misunderstandings by means of a conciliatory
and cordial policy. He began by the cession of materials, of which
the Serbians were in sore need, and did it with the greatest possible
tact, so as to avoid in any way hurting their feelings. The Serbs, as
we have said, were dependent on the French for their services, and
General Petitti, knowing that the latter were not always adequate,
often assisted them with motor vehicles, movable huts, etc., whenever
the occasion arose. As it was necessary to evacuate the civilian
population from a part of the Italian area, he made a point of always
consulting the Serbian authorities, to whom he showed the greatest
possible deference, before taking any action, and he provided transport
and even food for the people who were being evacuated. Relations
between our troops and the Serbian troops and the civilian population
never gave rise to any incident, and the Serbians could not help
admiring the order and efficiency of our transport and other services
and the condition of our animals, to which they were not accustomed
in Macedonia, except in the case of their own horses. In his work of
conciliating the Serbians, General Petitti found useful collaborators
in Lieutenant Cangià, Italian liaison officer with the I Serbian Army,
in Captain Goad, British liaison officer with the 35th Division, and in
Dr. Reiss the Swiss scientist, who was a good friend of ours and of the
Serbians.
When General Petitti was requested to grant facilities for the journey
of Voivod Michich’s wife from Italy, he arranged that she should cross
on one of our best steamers and then travel on an Italian staff car
from Santi Quaranta, escorted by an Italian officer. The Voivod had
first applied to the French authorities, who informed him that his wife
must travel via Patras. He therefore preferred that she should avail
herself of the facilities offered by the Italians.
On the occasion of the fighting in February 1917 on Hill 1050, Voivod
Michich, who had been present, sent a message to General Petitti[18]
expressing his unbounded admiration for the dash and gallantry of our
troops, which was sent to Italy and published, and made a very good
impression.
Personal relations between our officers and soldiers and the Serbians
went on improving, and many cordial individual friendships were
formed. General Mombelli continued General Petitti’s policy for a
_rapprochement_ with the Serbians and intensified it. He was on
excellent terms with the Prince Regent and neglected nothing to render
himself a _persona grata_ with him and his army. Our Command was very
generous in concessions of motor transport to Serbian officers and
officials travelling between Salonica, the Serbian front, and Corfu,
and they constantly applied to us for this purpose, preferring our
service even to that which was subsequently instituted by their own
Command.
We also co-operated in Serbian propaganda in Macedonia. In the small
strip of Serbian territory reoccupied after the capture of Monastir,
there was a mixed Serbo-Bulgarian population of somewhat uncertain
political sentiments, but predominantly Bulgarian. The Serbian
Government did everything to spread the Serbian idea among the
inhabitants by means of schools and propaganda. In the villages of Brod
and Tepavci, which were in our military area, General Mombelli had some
schools built by Italian soldiers for the native children. The Serbian
Relief Fund (a British association) and the American Red Cross provided
food, clothes, furniture etc. and also some nurses, while the Serbian
Government provided the teachers. The inauguration of the school at
Brod was a very pleasant festival of Italo-Serb cordiality.
The great weakness of the Serbian Army was its deficiency in
effectives, and this became more serious day by day. While all the
Allies in Macedonia suffered from the same trouble, because the
Governments and General Staffs were reluctant to send reinforcements
(only our expeditionary force was kept up to strength, at all events
until the autumn of 1917), the condition of the Serbs was far more
serious, because, save for small groups of volunteers from Europe and
America, very often of advanced age and unable to endure hardships,
there was no source whence reinforcements could be drawn to make
good the constant losses caused by fighting and sickness. “Our
reinforcements,” said a field officer attached to the Serbian G.H.Q.,
“are always the same--the men who come out of hospital more or less
cured.” This was a cause of great depression among the Serbians, and in
spite of their intense patriotism, there were, as we shall see, moments
in which their faith faltered and they contemplated the possibility of
concluding a separate peace. This tendency among certain parties was
very marked, and resulted in sundry plots and intrigues.
CHAPTER VI
THE ITALIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
The Italian expeditionary force, as we have seen, reached Macedonia
in August 1916; after a short stay at Salonica it was transferred
to the Krusha Balkan near Lake Doiran, and then to the Cerna loop,
where it remained until the offensive of September 1918. At Salonica
the Italian base was created, which subsequently became a detached
section of the _Intendenza_ at Taranto (commonly known in “initial”
language, adopted in the Italian Army in imitation of the British, as
the “U.S.I.A.M.”--_Ufficio staccato Intendenza Albania-Macedonia_). The
latter comprised the sanitary branch, the commissariat department, the
engineer command, artillery and engineer parks, the H.Q. of the M.T.
service, many depots of various kinds, ammunition dumps, the garrison
command, the _Comando di Tappa_ (where officers and men were forwarded
to their destinations) the court martial,[19] the convalescent camp,
the remount camp, etc. Part of these establishments were at Zeitenlik,
some 4 or 5 km. from the town, and on the outskirts were the three
military hospitals, one of which was the old Italian civilian hospital,
enlarged and militarized.
Our base had to be created in very difficult conditions, because when
we came to Salonica most of the scanty resources of the country had
already been requisitioned by the French and British Armies, who had
been in the country for ten months, so that we had to be content with
leavings. Furthermore, owing to the comparatively small size of our
contingent, we had to do without many institutions which would have
contributed to the welfare of our men as well as to our national
prestige. Unlike the British and French, we had few officers accustomed
to dealing with Oriental conditions. Nevertheless we managed to create
a base which in many respects was a model of its kind, and our soldiers
with their great ingenuity succeeded in making up for other material
deficiencies. A British medical officer, whom I escorted on a visit of
inspection to our military hospitals, was quite astonished at the sight
of what Italian soldiers had been able to create out of nothing, and at
the comparatively low cost at which these results had been achieved.
The men showed a love for their work which aroused the admiration of
everyone. When the Italian troops left the Krusha Balkan, where they
were relieved by the British, there was a certain bridge which they had
begun; the men engaged on the work asked to be left behind to finish
it, because they feared that their British successors might not carry
out the plan according to the original design.
The Italians at the base and on the lines of communication maintained
an excellent discipline, and were always noted for their good conduct
and almost total absence of drunkenness. Nor did one ever see Italian
officers take part in the outrageous orgies at the Tour Blanche or
other night resorts. If one criticism can be made it is addressed to
those who were responsible for selecting the officers to be sent to
Macedonia; only the most educated, best mannered and most gentlemanly
men should have been chosen for a force which was to be in such
constant contact with other armies. Whereas the great majority did
fulfil these requisites, the same cannot be said of all; if they never
got drunk, there were some who were not _à la hauteur_ as regards
character and conduct. The French made the same mistake, and indeed
not a few of their officers were sent to Macedonia as a punishment.
It was only the British who, as we have seen, made a point of sending
out their best men, especially those on Staff appointments. If this
insufficient consideration of character and manners is a general defect
of our whole bureaucratic system, a special effort should have been
made to overcome it in connexion with the Eastern expedition.
The excellent organization of our base services was largely due to the
merit of Major (now Colonel) Fenoglietto, director of the _Intendenza_,
who in all the confusion of Macedonian conditions never lost his
head or his temper, and succeeded in conciliating the most opposite
tendencies and the most crotchetty characters. Organizing capacity such
as his was particularly necessary, inasmuch as Salonica was our only
base for supplying a force of over 50,000 men; even when the Santi
Quaranta route was opened up and reinforcements and men going home
on leave or returning began to travel that way, supplies, munitions,
and material of all sorts continued to be landed at Salonica, and
everything was concentrated at that base.
There was not on the front in Italy a division or even an army corps
whose first lines were so far from their base as were those of the
35th Division. The distance from Salonica to Hill 1050 was not less
than 170 km., most of which had to be covered either by the Monastir
railway, which also supplied seven French divisions, all the Serbian
Army, and at different times sundry Greek and Russian units, or by the
high road, which also was in part used to supply those same forces. The
railway journey was not a pleasant experience; one spent the night in a
sordid dilapidated coach, often enlivened by bugs, with broken windows
and torn cushions. This _train de luxe_ conveyed us to Armenohor (the
station for Florina), whence one continued the journey by lorry. It
was more interesting to go the whole way by lorry or car, as well as
quicker and more comfortable.
On emerging from the narrow ill-paved streets of Salonica we get on to
the wide and very dusty Monastir road, overcoming numerous obstacles in
the shape of holes and other irregularities. Right and left the British
depots and dumps spread out over vast areas. Once the last huts and
sheds are left behind, we cross the wide desert plain of the Vardar,
partly marshy and very little cultivated, enclosed on the north-east
by the mountains behind Vodena. The vast pastures and the silvery
patches of water, with the background of distant blue mountains, remind
one of the Roman Campagna, but on a larger scale, less populated and
lacking in those stately ruins which render the country round Rome so
deeply suggestive and give it that sense of vitality derived from the
remains of the past. Here too there are historic memories in abundance,
for many splendid civilizations flourished in this land, but the
innumerable Barbarian invasions which devastated Macedonia have wiped
out almost every trace of them, and it would be necessary to excavate
in order to find ancient remains.
Shortly before reaching Yenidje-Vardar a strange-looking structure
appears to the right of the road; it consists of massive walls and
great blocks of stone into which iron pipes have been introduced,
whence water pours out in abundance. It is popularly known as the
Fountain of Alexander, and is, in fact, on the site of the ancient
Pellas, Alexander the Great’s capital; not far off, amid the fields,
the ruined arches of an ancient aqueduct may be seen. The fountain
has been restored by the Allied troops and is used by their pack and
transport animals. It was probably in the main piazza of the town;
there, where the horses of the great Macedonian king were watered
twenty-two centuries ago, those of the Chasseurs d’Afrique and of the
Cavalleggeri di Lucca and of the A.S.C. of the Armée d’Orient were
watered but yesterday.
Every now and then our car is held up by a Senegalese sentry--the
French make much use of these troops for their lines-of-communication
services--but as soon as he sees that it contains Allied officers
we are allowed to pass on. Soon after Alexander’s fountain we reach
Yenidje-Vardar. It is a large village, the only place of any importance
along the 85 km. between Salonica and Vodena, built on a ridge which
declines gradually towards the high road; it is very Oriental and
picturesque, dirty, and in a state of utter dilapidation. The open
shops, with their poor wares exposed on their window sills, are
typically Turkish; the narrow, tortuous, dirty side-streets, the
large trees and the abundance of greenery, and the numerous minarets
are signs that we are in the really Turkish East. The largest of
the mosques is externally handsome in appearance and imposing, but
internally almost a ruin. It had been occupied successively by Turkish
troops in flight, by Greeks in pursuit, and then by French, Serbs,
Italians and Russians passing through; even up to the end of the war
it served as a temporary shelter for French transport animals. The
walls around the courtyard had been adorned by the Greeks with the
names of their victories in the two Balkan wars--Yenidje-Vardar,
for it was here that the battle which decided the fate of Salonica
took place on November 1st-2nd, 1912,--a victory due to the Diadoch
Constantine--Kilkish (July 4th, 1913), Doiran (July 7th), etc. Close
to the mosque is the mausoleum, also in ruins, of the Hadji-Evremos
family, who have a curious history. Its founder was a Greek converted
to Islam in the reign of Osman (1317) and appointed Governor of
Brussa; in the expedition for the conquest of Salonica (1428), when
Yenidje-Vardar was the capital of Turkish Macedonia, several members
of the family distinguished themselves as stout warriors and pious
Moslems. For these merits the Sultan Murad II endowed them with the
tithe of Yenidje-Vardar in perpetuity, i.e. he granted them the right
to raise and enjoy the taxes in that district. This constituted an
important revenue, and the Hadji-Evremos became one of the wealthiest
families in the Empire, retaining their riches until our own times--a
rare distinction in Turkey. But with the Greek conquest of Salonica the
Hellenic Government refused to recognize their right which it regarded
as derogatory to the prerogatives of the State. There were protracted
discussions on this point during the peace negotiations, but the
Turkish Government in the end had to give way, and the Hadji Evremos
lost their revenues. The story of this family thus marks the beginning
and the end of Turkish rule in Salonica. Yenidje has lost almost all
its ancient importance. It is still frequented as an agricultural
centre in a townless territory; the country round is fertile and fairly
well cultivated, but malarious.
Some 25 km. further on, after crossing several branches of the Nisi
Voda river, we reach Vertekop, at the foot of the mountains; here we
again meet the Monastir railway, which has made a wide curve from
Salonica, passing Verria and Niaussa, before reaching Vertekop and
beginning the steep ascent. After Vertekop the road enters one of
the few really smiling tracts of land in this forbidding Macedonia.
The Nisi river falling from the heights of Vodena on to the plain,
whence it reaches the Vardar, forms innumerable cascades and runnels,
glimmering white amid the thick vegetation, reminding us of
The green steep
Whence Anio leaps
In floods of snow-white foam.
On reaching the plain below it divides again into many branches and
channels, irrigating a tract of country which is thus rendered green
and fertile. The road follows one of these streams, and the sight of
many fine trees, cultivated fields and orchards is very restful to
the eye. There are a few buildings amid the greenery, of the usual
Turco-Macedonian type, and the Orthodox monastery of Agia-Triada, in
whose grounds many antique fragments have been found, including some
fine statues. Along the route one occasionally encounters wayside posts
guarded by aged Serbian soldiers.
Then the road begins to ascend the steep incline up to the edge of
the cliff at Vodena. Looking back, we have a magnificent vista of
the Vardar plain, spreading out to the sea in the south-west and
surrounded by wild bare mountains. Vodena is a pleasant little town,
which the Greeks are trying to Hellenize, but they have not yet been
able to destroy its semi-Slav semi-Turkish appearance. Narrow streets,
flanked by picturesque houses of wood and plaster, the windows barred
by _musharabieh_ screens, all somewhat dilapidated; here and there a
few more pretentious modern buildings, large trees in the middle of
the streets and many runnels along the side walks, Oriental bazaars
and cafés--the usual Macedonian ensemble. Of antiquity we see no
trace, save a few fragments of ancient walls, but it is certain that
if excavations were made remains at least of the Byzantine epoch would
be unearthed. Amid the variegated Oriental crowd, French and Serbian
officers and soldiers strut about, and occasionally a few Senegalese.
Just beyond Vodena is Vladovo, a large Bulgarian village, after which
the road ascends a broad, fresh, green valley, the sides of which, in
spite of the ruthless destruction, are still clad with forests of high
trees and thick undergrowth. The forest of Kindrovo had been assigned
to our army, and it was there that timber was cut for trench and barbed
wire supports, and firewood for the bakeries and heating. There was
plenty of raw material, but every now and then a breakdown occurred on
the railway and for a time no more wood could be transported; and then
every expedient had to be resorted to to procure the indispensable fuel.
The scenery now becomes less smiling, and soon after we emerge into
the arid basin of Ostrovo with its pretty blue lake amid high bare
mountains. We are now in a rocky, mountainous region, without a tree or
a house; at every turn we have a fresh glimpse of the Lake of Ostrovo,
whose irregular bays penetrate into the folds of the mountains,
and then further off we see the silvery surface of Lake Petrsko.
Gornichevo, at the top of the pass, is a gloomy, forbidding village,
of primitive houses of rough stone, swept by icy winds in winter. Here
were fought fierce combats between Serbs and Bulgars in the summer of
1916, and here the former held up the advance of the enemy who, if
they had reached the lake, would have had an open road before them to
Vodena, and perhaps even to Salonica.
[Illustration: THE BAND OF THE 35TH DIVISION PLAYING IN THE PLACE DE LA
LIBERTÉ AT SALONICA.]
[Illustration: GENERAL GUILLAUMAT VISITS GENERAL MOMBELLI AT TEPAVCI.]
From Gornichevo the road descends by a series of hairpin bends into the
vast plain of Florina, which merges insensibly into that of Monastir
and Prilep. We pass through Vrbeni, a picturesque village, which
still bears the traces of the fighting in 1916, and close by are the
vast French and Italian dumps and depot of Sakulevo; here begins a
décauville which goes to Brod and beyond, and is used by the Italians,
the I Serbian Army and two French divisions. Just beyond is Hasan Oba,
where there is the Italian M.T. park. Here reigned my good friend Major
Anziani, famous throughout Macedonia for his exceptional efficiency and
cordial hospitality; he had made of his unit a model of its kind,
and indeed the Italian M.T. services in Macedonia, although far less
richly endowed than those of the other Allies, always worked admirably,
and in spite of the fearful strain to which they were subjected, never
broke down.
A few kilometres from Hasan Oba we pass the Græco-Bulgarian frontier,
but without noticing it because it is war time, and this is the
_Zone des Armées_, where only the writ of the inter-Allied Command
runs. The Serbs, however, clung to this, the first tract of their
fatherland to be reconquered, and although the civilian population
was still very scanty--the area was too near the front--the Serbian
Government had instituted prefects, sub-prefects and mayors, and even a
military-agricultural commission to introduce scientific improvements
in local farming. The first Serbian village is Batch, where the Crown
Prince often stayed, his H.Q. being the local school. Close by was
our aviation camp, with a flight commanded by Captain Aimone, a very
gallant officer, many times decorated for valour and a perfect fanatic
of flying, who, together with other Italian airmen, had occasion
to distinguish themselves several times during the campaign. Here,
too, but on the Greek side of the frontier, was one of the Scottish
Women’s hospitals, where, I believe, occurred the celebrated incident
of the Russian soldier, knocked down and injured by an Italian lorry,
conveyed in a French ambulance to a Scotch hospital in Greek territory
which looked after the Serbian wounded; there he was attended to by a
Canadian doctor, and the only language in which the two could converse
was German! This gives one some idea of the mixed conditions of the
Macedonian campaign.
After leaving Batch we reach Brod on the Cerna, where the décauville
divides into two branches, one going to the front of the I Serbian Army
and the other to the Italian lines. The Cerna, which is crossed here
by several military bridges, is a slow, muddy, winding river; it makes
a vast loop in the Monastir plain and amid the mountains west of the
Vardar, within which the whole of the Italian sector, as well as those
of the 16th and 17th French Colonial Divisions were comprised. A good
road, built by Italian soldiers, leads to Tepavci, which for twenty-two
months was our H.Q.
[Illustration: AREA OF THE ITALIAN FORCE.
To face p. 104.
]
Tepavci is a wretched little Macedonian village, half way up one of
the barest of the nameless hills of this barren land. Close by a
camp was made, which for six months sheltered the Italian Command.
But during one of the long periods of inactivity on this sector,
the interim commander thought of having a few stone huts built, as
it seemed as though this front were to remain immobile for years.
When General Mombelli took command he continued the work, and by the
autumn of 1917 there was a smart new village of stone, with quarters
for the officers, offices for the command, a wireless station, and
a commodious mess hut decorated with clever caricatures (types of
the Allied armies) by an Italian lorry driver, in which one was well
sheltered from the intolerable heat of the summer as from the rigours
of winter. The whole thing was done at a minimum of expense, as the
raw material was there in abundance and the labour was supplied by the
army. At no other H.Q. in Macedonia were the officers better housed and
fed, and nowhere else were passers-by more cordially and hospitably
received. General Mombelli did everything handsomely, and Tepavci
became a favourite resort for Allied officers. Many indeed were the
visitors to Tepavci, Italian and foreign. Among the latter was the
Crown Prince of Serbia, who came there often, and was always on the
best terms with General Mombelli; on the eve of the last offensive he
expressed his deep regret that the Serbian Army was not to be in direct
contact, during the coming operations, with the Italians, because,
as he said himself, there was always cordiality between Serbs and
Italians. The other Alexander, King of Greece, also came, a fanatic
of motoring and an excellent horseman. Besides the three successive
Commanders-in-Chief (Sarrail, Guillaumat and Franchet d’Espérey), and
many other French generals, several British officers came up, including
Generals Cory, the M.G.G.S., and Fairholme the Military Attaché at
Athens, where he had been a colleague of General Mombelli in the
work of thwarting German espionage. Comic relief was supplied by
a British north-country doctor who came out, not as a doctor, but as
something else; a dissenting parson wholly innocent of papers who got
through the _Zone des Armées_ goodness knows how; a well-known explorer
in black town clothes and a bowler hat who refused to put his horse to
a canter when the road was being heavily shelled from fear of breaking
his photographic plates, and was held up by the French on the charge of
supposed pro-German sentiments; and an aged and amiable Transatlantic
General who had not the remotest notion of what was going on in the
Balkans and was chiefly interested in the farming possibilities and
prospects of the country.
To get a good general idea of the Italian sector it was best to begin
with a visit to the Trident, as the divisional O.P. was called, reached
on horseback by mountain paths, or by motor along the new road built
partly by us and partly by the French (it also supplied the two French
divisions on our right). Some dug-outs had been arranged for the G.O.C.
and a few officers of his Staff, who often remained there for days at
a time when operations were in progress. The view was very extensive
and grand. Opposite arises the famous Hill 1050, with other peaks to
the right--the Piton Rocheux, the Piton Brûlé, Hill 1378, etc. Still
further to the right were the French positions. Between the O.P. and
Hill 1050 was a sea of rocks, gullies and hillocks, amid which the
second and third lines of defence wended their way; they had been
cleverly planned and executed by General Mombelli, and greatly reduced
the danger of an enemy break-through. Beyond Hill 1050 the broad plain
of Prilep spreads out, the _optatus alveus_ of our desires, which
seemed, when I ascended the Trident for the first time, so hopelessly
far and unattainable. Behind Prilep, to the north, were other
mountains, higher and more arduous yet--the Babuna and the Baba--so
that we could not help asking ourselves: “If we do succeed in piercing
the enemy lines on the terrible 1050 and reaching Prilep, shall we not
find ourselves faced by other obstacles equally formidable, guarded
by not less imposing defences?” More to the west lies the plain of
Monastir, once all cultivated with wheat, vegetables and fruit, but
now almost deserted as it was under enemy fire. A white patch at the
foot of the mountain is Monastir itself, and behind it we can make out
other terrible peaks--Hill 1248, the Tzervena Stena, the Peristeri,
and all the mighty barrier which separates Macedonia from Albania. To
the extreme right is another wild sea of mountains, peaks and rocks
extending to the Vardar--the area of the Serbian Army. Thus the whole
of the western half of the Macedonian front is spread out before us
like a topographical chart.
Hill 1050 is reached from Tepavci by a road, the first part of which
can be used by lorries; and during the last months of the war the
décauville from Brod had been prolonged almost to the foot of the
mountain. The landscape is quite fantastic. From a wilderness of stone
rise up pinnacles of black rock, suggestive of the scenery in the
pictures of the Italian primitives representing the hermitages of the
Thebaid, and one would hardly have been surprised if a thin, ascetic,
monkish figure had suddenly emerged from a cave, or from the crevices
of the rocks some monstrous dragon or serpent. Instead, we met Italian
infantrymen escorting heavily laden mules, and in the little valleys
we came upon A.S.C. camps or sanitary units, while from the dug-outs
emerged officers in shirt-sleeves, shaving. The last bit of the road
is on the flat, and being in sight of the enemy we always did it at
a canter. The enemy did not keep up a systematic fire on the lines
of approach, but the shell holes which we frequently encountered
proved that they did fire sometimes. On other parts of our sector the
approaches were so persistently shelled that supplies could only be
carried up after dark.
We descend into a gully where we are fairly sheltered, and cross a
broad torrent-bed, nearly dry in summer. Beyond it are sundry dug-outs
excavated out of the rock, as enemy shells and trench-mortar bombs are
frequently dropped. Here are detachments of Italian mountain artillery
and trench-mortar batteries and of the French field and medium calibre
artillery assigned to the Italian force, but the Italian guns and
trench mortars are not here; the former are higher up and further back
on the slopes towards the east, hidden amid the undergrowth and rocks,
whence they can fire without being discovered. The trench mortars are
also higher up, but further forward, half way up Hill 1050. We now
begin painfully to toil up the famous mountain, which for over twenty
months has been the centre of Italian military life in Macedonia.
All roads lead to 1050, all thoughts are concentrated on its hideous
slopes. Steamers convey hundreds of thousands of tons of food and
munitions to feed men and guns on the hill; the Santi Quaranta road
has been built in the face of immense difficulties so that lorries may
transport the reinforcements sent to take the place of the killed, the
wounded and the sick. From Italy and foreign countries all sorts of
improved scientific instruments are brought up to help in the study of
the 1050. A map department has been created at the Divisional H.Q.,
the principal duty of which is to portray the topography of 1050. Amid
these wild rocks and lower down towards the plain numerous cemeteries
have been made where sleep the victims of the pitiless monster,
and they are not few. The whole activity of the Italian Command is
concentrated on the study of the hill in all its details, the officers
on the Staff visit it day and night without respite, risking death so
that they may know it better, the officers and men of the infantry
regiments live on its slopes and in its caverns, and each one tries
to know his own sector stone by stone, sod by sod. Every peak, every
topographical detail, every gully, every tiny watercourse, every
irregularity has its own fancy name, conferred on it by the soldiers
on account of some fancied resemblance or remembrance--_Il Pane_
(bread), _Il Capello di Napoleone_ (Napoleon’s hat), _La Graziosa_ (the
gracious one), _L’Albero isolato_ (the lonely tree). Curiously enough,
the figure whereby the hill is known is inaccurate; it is called Hill
1050 owing to an error in the original triangulation, and is in fact
considerably higher. But as that figure appeared on the first maps of
the area it has always been maintained. Seen from a distance, the hill
looks like an enormous tooth, and indeed it is a poisoned tooth, which
pierces and kills. For the soldiers it has acquired a character of
almost diabolical malignity. Other positions on the sector--the Piton
Brûlé, the Piton Rocheux--are no less terrible, but none exercises the
same baleful fascination as the 1050.
The Italian sector is not all on 1050; it begins at the extreme western
end of the Cerna loop in the plain. The loop encircles a chain of
rocky heights, arid and broken, which are an extension of the Prilep
mountains, constituting what is known as the Selechka Planina, rising
here and there to the height of 1,500 metres. The Cerna, which has its
source in the mountains north of Monastir, flows across the plain in
a southerly direction, broadening out at certain points into a marshy
lake; south-east of Monastir it makes a conversion towards the east
at the foot of the Kaimakchalan, passing Brod and Skochivir, and then
turns northward through a narrow mountain gorge to its confluence with
the Vardar. The slopes of the Selechka Planina, high and steep in the
eastern part of the loop, decline towards the west, and all the western
part is flat. The Monastir-Prilep plain is one of the rare gaps through
the rugged mountain chains extending across the country from east to
west, a passage through which innumerable hordes and armies have made
their way since the dawn of history. It is, however, dominated by the
heights within the Cerna loop. The possession of those heights was
therefore indispensable for dominating the Monastir corridor; and as
half of them were in the hands of the Allies and half in those of the
enemy, neither side could be regarded as master of the plain and of the
passage. Had we lost our positions, the road would have been open to
the enemy towards Greece; if we had succeeded in capturing the whole
of the range all the enemy’s communications in the Vardar valley would
have been menaced. That is the meaning of the long-protracted struggle
for the possession of those arid rocks.
The lowest point of the ridge is the Makovo pass; to the north of
it a long spur stretches out, whose culminating point is the famous
1050. The position, as we have seen, had been reached by the Serbs
in the autumn of 1916, and its conquest had obliged the enemy to
evacuate Monastir. But the Serbs were so exhausted with the long and
desperate struggle that they were unable to hold their ground, and a
Bulgaro-German counter-attack drove them off the ridge. This enabled
the enemy to hold their own in the Monastir area for many months
longer. In order to secure the position the enemy Command garrisoned
it with some of their best troops and provided it with all the most
perfect defences known to the modern art of war. The fighting which
took place on these rocks left their traces in the corpses with which
they were covered, and the mere fact of remaining there cost the lives
of innumerable Italian, French, Serbian, Russian, Bulgarian and German
soldiers. The 1050 was as famous among the enemy as among our own men;
in the Bulgarian town of Dubnitza the chief restaurant was called--even
after the Armistice--the “Restaurant of Hill 1050 of the Cerna.”
The enemy line followed the crest of the mountains comprised within
the loop to north of the valley of the Morihovo torrent in the eastern
part, and that of Hill 1050 and of the great _pitons_ to the north of
the Suha torrent in the western part, and then crossed the plain to a
point north of Novak on the Cerna. The Allied line was a little below
the crest, but at many points very close to that of the enemy. The
total length of the line within the loop was about 25 km., of which the
western part (a little more than half) was held by the Italians, and
the rest by the French.
To the north of the Makovo pass rises a great mass of rock known as the
Piton Rocheux, from whose summit the enemy dominated our lines to the
right and the left, as well as the Morihovo and Suha valleys. In the
Piton Rocheux the enemy had excavated numerous caverns and dug-outs,
which hid machine-gun nests and sheltered the troops from the fire of
Allied artillery. The Italians here occupied a series of irregular
tooth-like rocks, between which were lines protected with sand-bags.
But they were dominated by the enemy on the Piton Rocheux, so that one
could not go from one position to another with comparative safety
except at night. Further west the enemy held another dominant position,
the Piton Brûlé, whose fire dominated the Italian positions which were
out of the range of that of the Rocheux. Our infantrymen in the front
lines had no other shelter in this part of the sector than the shallow
holes dug into the rock known as “Serb holes,” with low parapets of
heaped up stones and sand-bags in front of them; they were about 30 m.
from the enemy and 10 m. below them. The communication trenches between
these holes were so exposed that they could only be used after dark. In
no other sector of the Macedonian front were the troops more exposed to
the burning heat of summer, to cold, snow and wind in winter, and to
enemy fire at all seasons.
Beyond the Piton Brûlé the enemy trenches receded to some extent from
ours, ascending to the summit of 1050, which was also bristling with
machine guns. The enemy positions on 1050 and on the Rocheux sustained
each other mutually, so that if we had succeeded in occupying the one
we should have been exposed to an infernal fire from the other.
Hill 1050, seen from on high, may be compared to a long arrow-head
pointing towards the north-east, with two sharp barbs, and a triangular
depression between the two, about 1 km. broad at its widest. We held
the south-west barb and the depressions of the Meglentzi valley; our
line of main resistance ascended this spur, and at the head of the
Meglentzi valley met the first line. Thence it pushed on until just
below the highest ridge known as the _Castelletto_ (little castle).
From the Castelletto the enemy could observe the whole Italian front
from the Piton Rocheux to Novak, as well as the lines of approach,
except certain little gullies hidden beneath the steep rocks, where the
batteries were placed. Not a supply column, not a lorry, nor even an
isolated horseman or pedestrian could escape observation. In order to
give some shelter to the troops holding these positions trenches had
been cut out of the rocks, every little irregularity utilized, caverns
excavated in the mountain side. But the enemy bombardments, which were
often concentrated on these defences--sometimes as many as a thousand
shells were dropped in one day on a very narrow tract of the line--had
reduced the hill to a mass of shingle and sand which offered but slight
protection.
At the head of the Meglentzi valley our front line followed a zig-zag
course down into the triangular depression described. Although
comparatively far from the enemy, this was one of our worst positions
because it was exposed more directly to the fire of the trenches above.
Here no movement at all was possible along the line in day-time, and
even the wounded had to be evacuated at night, as the enemy did not
hesitate to fire on them. The communication trench with the line
of main resistance was equally impassable by day, although a whole
battalion had to be supplied by this, the only route.
The southern barb of Hill 1050 was cut at one point by a pass or
saddle, which separated the rocks of the 1050 proper from three
isolated heights known as the “Mamelons of Lebac,” on which were
Italian defensive works; they were very important because they
dominated the Meglentzi valley. The first line was here at about 1 km.
to the north of them and a little beyond the ruins of the village.
Below the pass there was a group of trees, which were soon reduced
to mere skeletons by the constant bombardment. On the crest of the
southern spur were enemy trenches, culminating in the O.P. known as
“Point A,” dominating the whole valley and our line as far as the
Cerna. The H.Q. of the battalion defending the positions below the
village of Meglentzi was in caverns dug into the side of a gully formed
by a torrent, which was so steep that in some places there were two
tiers of holes, one above the other.
From Meglentzi our lines followed the gully, being at one point very
close to those of the enemy. Finally they left the mountain area,
which here gradually declined, and crossed the swampy plain as far as
the Cerna. The last 6 km. of trenches were on the flat and at some
distance from the enemy. The 9 km. of mountainous front were held by
3 regiments, whereas for the 6 km. of plain one was enough. Beyond the
lines were elaborate wire entanglements. The centre of the defences
in the plain was the village of Novak, east of Monastir. A tumulus in
the second line, probably an ancient sepulchre, and the only eminence
over a wide stretch of country, made an excellent O.P. The trenches
here were all underground, and although the sector was quieter than the
mountainous part, the troops suffered from floods in winter and malaria
in summer.
The whole plain, which was once cultivated, was now a waste, but the
grass grew high and flourished, and at night the troopers of the
Lucca Cavalry went out beyond the barbed wire entanglements to mow
it and bring it back to their camp--often it was the only forage
available for the poor horses and mules of the 35th Division. In these
agricultural-military expeditions occasionally shots were exchanged,
generally without consequences.
The Cerna marked the end of our sector, and here the French area
began. A wooden bridge, well defended by earthworks armed with machine
guns, united the two areas. For a long time (in Macedonia units
seldom changed their quarters) the division adjoining ours was the
11th Colonial, with whose officers ours were always on the best of
terms. From this point a road led to Monastir, but although it was the
shortest route between that town and our H.Q. no one was allowed to go
along it on horseback or by motor, as it was under enemy fire. Monastir
itself, which could be reached by another road, although constantly
under fire, offered to those who lived on the Macedonian front the
attractions of a city. A large part of the population had returned, and
the shopkeepers simply coined money with their modest establishments,
as they could demand what prices they liked. By the end of the war
about two-thirds of the houses were in ruins, and few were those which
did not bear traces of the two years’ bombardment.
Let us now visit the front lines near the summit of 1050. Firing
trenches, communication trenches, dug-outs, shelters of all kinds, are
cut out of the living rock and it would be difficult to imagine more
uncomfortable positions than these. Near the summit our lines are but
a few metres from those of the enemy, and through the loop-holes one
may see the tin hats of the Germans and Bulgars. Here there have always
been some German battalions. After the operations of the autumn of
1916 the German units were to a large extent withdrawn from Macedonia,
and the number of German battalions from about twenty was gradually
reduced to three or four; but some of them constantly remained on 1050
opposite our troops. The enemy command considered this to be the most
important point of the whole defensive system, and therefore garrisoned
it with the troops in which it felt most confidence. A tour through
our trenches offered some curious sights. As most of the work had to
be done at night, a daylight visitor found the great majority of the
men fast asleep; he saw nothing but emerging feet, because the shelters
opened on to the communication trenches and the soldiers slept with
their heads inside and their feet stretching out towards the opening.
At intervals, in some wider space, he came upon groups of soldiers
washing, shaving, playing cards, reading or writing letters. There
were always some, officers or men, who “did the honours” and pointed
out the curiosities; it was impossible to pass near a mess without
being asked in to drink a glass of good wine and eat biscuits or even
cake, but if it was anywhere near meal time he was forced by friendly
and cordial comrades to stay to lunch or dinner. The ingenuity with
which officers and men managed to make themselves fairly comfortable in
quite impossible situations was really wonderful. Hanging on to a bare
mountain side, the summit of which was held by the enemy, who dominated
the lines of approach and supply, who spied our every movement, in
an extremely variable and always detestable climate, life under such
circumstances might have seemed well-nigh unbearable. Yet our men held
on there for nearly two years, in the face of an enemy stronger in
numbers and in material means, as well as in more favourable positions.
Nor should we forget the deadly grey monotony of life amid those rocks,
varied only by bombardments and raids--ours or the enemy’s--and more
rarely by attacks on a large scale, sometimes with poison gas. But
the men knew that they were holding one of the keystones of the whole
Macedonian defensive system, that if they gave way everything would
collapse, and that the Allied armies would risk being driven into the
sea. They were moreover kept up by a sense of pride and a desire to cut
a good figure before the other Allies. It was considered absolutely
indispensable that the Italian line should hold; and although
theoretically the position was untenable, it was held without wavering,
until the final victory.
There were of course long periods in which there was no fighting.
On some days not a shot was heard. But it sufficed for one man to
discharge his rifle to provoke a hurricane of fire from the other side.
Certain visitors to our front were not at all welcome because, wishing
to make themselves conspicuous, they insisted on firing a few shots
or throwing a hand grenade just for the fun of the thing. The enemy
replied, and a quiet day was converted into one of lively but quite
useless exchange of rifle fire and shelling. This of course happened
when the importunate visitor had already left for some more sheltered
spot.
When the Italian troops took over this sector from the Serbs in
December, 1916, it was almost completely unprotected. The Serbs had
not had time to carry out important defensive works, and had limited
themselves to digging those small holes in the earth or rock which I
have already described. General Petitti at once set to work to fortify
the area, and his work was continued, completed and extended by General
Mombelli. During the period of our occupation, over 100 km. of trenches
and communication trenches, two metres deep, were dug, 500 caverns cut
out of the rock as shelters, and 120 km. of wire entanglements laid
down. All this vast labour was accomplished by troops who were supposed
to be at rest, for while two of the brigades were in the line the third
was employed in preparing these defences.
During the early days of the campaign there was a tendency, as on all
other fronts, to concentrate the largest possible number of men in
the front line defences, but later the opposite tendency prevailed,
viz. that the first lines should be held by an indispensable minimum
of troops only, the rest of the forces being kept in reserve in
well-protected shelters, ready to hasten forward at the moment of
attack, and that powerful second and third lines of main resistance
should be constructed. In this way the constant drain of small losses
when there was no real fighting going on was avoided, and at the same
time the consequences of a possible break-through in the first line
were guarded against, as the enemy, in attacking the second lines would
have been exposed to the fire of batteries which could easily find
their range on ground perfectly well known to them. It was General
Mombelli who reconstructed and reinforced the second line and created
the third, which was the most powerful of the three, _ex novo_. The
enemy knew very little about these defences behind the first line, and,
in fact, on a German Staff map found on a prisoner, whereas the first
line is represented with a fair amount of accurate detail, the second
is barely sketched and in an inaccurate manner, while the third is
merely hinted at with the indication “old Bulgarian trenches.” This is
one of the signs that the enemy was less well-informed about the Allied
armies than was generally supposed.
The Italian front in Macedonia had, as we have seen, an extension
of 15 km., afterwards reduced, with the diminution of strengths, to
about 12. Several times, especially during Sarrail’s régime, the
C.A.A. tried to induce the Italian Command to extend the line towards
the right, but all the three generals who successively commanded the
Italian expeditionary force refused to do so, there being no reason for
making the 35th Division occupy a sector wholly out of proportion to
its strength as compared with those held by other Allied forces; the
fact that the sector in question was one of the hardest and had the
most difficult communications, so that all movements from one point
to another were anything but simple, had also to be considered. The
C.A.A., in fact, ended by dropping the matter.[20] It was not until the
summer of 1918 that we again somewhat extended our front in view of
the coming offensive. As compared with conditions in Italy the Italian
front in Macedonia was certainly less deadly, but in some respects it
was one of the most objectionable. Unlike the troops in Italy, those
in Macedonia were to a very large extent precluded from leave, and at
the time of the Armistice there were no less than 30,000 men, out of a
total of 50,000, who, although entitled to leave, were unable to avail
themselves of the privilege; among them there were 6,000 who had been
at the front for twenty-five months on end without leave. When General
Mombelli took command, eleven months after the arrival of the force, no
one had been on leave at all from Macedonia, and many had been at the
front for many months in Italy before crossing the sea. It was at that
time believed that leave for the troops in Macedonia was impossible,
because they must not be exposed to the risks of the long sea-crossing
when it was not absolutely indispensable, while even the journey via
Santi Quaranta by lorry (which involved a shorter crossing) seemed too
complicated and difficult. But General Mombelli realized the enormous
importance of leave, even if comparatively few men had a chance of
enjoying it; the mere thought of not being cut off from all hope of
leave exercised a very great and beneficial effect on the _moral_ of
the troops. He therefore succeeded in overcoming the thousand obstacles
in his way and organized the transport of leave parties by lorry via
Santi Quaranta. This was one of his services to the 35th Division, and
one which made him particularly popular with the men.
Yet in spite of the moral and material suffering, the unhealthy
climate, malaria, the constant small losses, and the long enervating
inaction, whenever there was something to be done, the men went to
the attack with the most admirable dash. Their _moral_ always remained
high, and there was never among the Italian soldiers any movement of
revolt or even an outward expression of discontent such as occurred
among certain French units, not to speak of the Greeks and Russians,
among whom mutinies were frequent.
CHAPTER VII
OPERATIONS IN THE WINTER AND SPRING OF 1917
From the capture of Monastir to the great offensive of September 1918,
there were no notable changes in the situation of the two opposing
armies. This does not mean that there were no military operations;
there were indeed quite a number of them, some fairly important, but
they produced no practical results of great moment, and the line which
was stabilized in November, 1916, changed but slightly during the next
twenty-two months. The Germans declared themselves satisfied with
this state of things, because they considered that the Allied troops
in Macedonia were immobile and therefore prevented from being sent to
other fronts. Events were to prove the Germans in the wrong, but even
in the Entente countries, there were persons who continued to insist,
ever more strongly, on the uselessness of the Eastern campaign.
The autumn operations came to an end with the capture of Monastir,
after which the enemy was not vigorously pursued, partly owing to the
wish of General Sarrail himself, who was always more influenced by
political considerations regarding Greece than by military conditions,
and partly on account of the exhaustion of the troops. The Armée
d’Orient had thus conquered the important positions on the Cerna only
by half. The town of Monastir was in the hands of the French, but the
heights immediately to the N.W., N. and N.E., which dominated it, were
still held by the enemy. In the Cerna loop, we occupied part of Hill
1050, but as we have seen, the enemy held the topmost ridge which
dominated our positions, and many of our trenches could be enfiladed.
The same conditions obtained in the eastern half of the loop held by
the French. The Serbs, too, especially the units of the II Army, were
dominated by the enemy, and so also were the British to the west and
east of Lake Doiran. The situation was certainly not satisfactory for
the Allies, and the events in Roumania, where the Austrians, Germans
and Bulgarians had proved completely victorious, might at any moment
be followed by the arrival of enemy reinforcements on the Macedonian
front and consequently by a general attack. General Sarrail, in his
memoirs, attributes the suspension of the operations to the losses
suffered by all the Allies, particularly by the French and Serbs, to
the inorganic plans of the British and to their small desire to risk
fresh operations, to the want of energy of the Italians, due to orders
from Rome to General Petitti not to act but to limit himself to being
present, and to a divergence of views between the two Russian generals.
In reality, the primary cause was, as usual, the want of confidence
in General Sarrail on the part of the Allied commanders subordinate
to him, and even on the part of some of the French commanders, and to
his own want of energy in not seizing the opportune moment, after the
fall of Monastir, when the enemy was in full retreat and demoralized.
He might then have occupied the heights dominating the town and
constituted a far better defensive line, whence it would have been
possible, later on, to launch a fresh offensive in more favourable
conditions. But he let the occasion slip by, and the enemy, who had
been beaten but not crushed, had time to reorganize and reinforce
themselves in their positions, rendering them practically impregnable.
We have seen what was the distribution of the Armée d’Orient after the
fall of Monastir. Some units of the Army were not yet available--the
16th French Colonial Division, which had been sent out from France,
had not yet all landed--the 60th British Division was at Ekaterini
to watch the Greeks, and a Serbian division was performing a similar
duty at Grevena. At this time (December, 1916) the conditions of the
Serbian Army were causing anxiety. General Boyovich had requested that
it should all be brought into the second line, as it was thoroughly
exhausted. General Sarrail was unable to satisfy his wish, save in the
case of three divisions. The most serious aspect of the situation was
the internal political crisis through which the Serbian officers were
passing. General Sarrail himself telegraphed to Paris on January 3,
1917: “Influential partisans of Black Hand have been sent to Bizerta.
Commander Morava Division, several Brigade Commanders, Chief of Staff
Shumadia Division, Assistant Chief of Staff III Army have been relieved
of their positions.”[21] Soon after he telegraphed that, according
to a Serbian order: “In consequence of plot some officers have been
cashiered and will be replaced by officers friendly to present régime.”
He also mentioned that several regicide officers to whom the present
Dynasty owed the throne had been punished. “Movement among officers
seems to continue--colonel who ripped open Queen Draga’s corpse has
been imprisoned.” In March he telegraphed that there had been a new
plot against the Prince Regent, and that he believed that shots had
been fired at him. Later this statement was confirmed. It was a
conspiracy on the part of officers affiliated to the secret societies,
and who wished to murder the Prince Regent and to accept the Austrian
peace proposals. The movement was crushed, and several officers
condemned to death or imprisonment.
In Albania, the situation was still insecure and chaotic. The Italian
XVI Corps was spread over the area from the mouth of the Voyussa to
the neighbourhood of Liaskoviki. Along the lower Voyussa there were
regular defensive lines, but beyond there were only isolated posts and
mobile detachments composed largely of Albanian irregulars. Opposite
the Italians was the XIX Austro-Hungarian Corps composed of the 47th
Division and the 1/19th _Gruppenkommando_, which extended to the
neighbourhood of Lake Ochrida. There was not yet any liaison between
our XVI Corps and the Armée d’Orient.
North of Koritza towards Pogradetz on Lake Ochrida, there were some
Austrian forces, about a brigade, and some Bulgarian detachments; it
was always feared that these troops might menace the left flank of the
French. The latter therefore wished to extend their occupation so as to
establish a connexion with our troops in Albania, who, throughout the
autumn of 1916, had been advancing from the coast towards the interior.
Besides the Austrians and Hungarians, there were several Albanian bands
enrolled by the celebrated Salih Butka between Koritza and Tchafa
Kiarit, and those of Hussein Nikolitza between Koritza and Ersek.
General Sarrail thought it advisable to reinforce the garrison at
Koritza, where he sent the 76th Division, recently arrived from France,
so as to ward off any danger on the part of the Albanian bands and the
Austro-Bulgarian detachments, and also to menace the right flank of
the enemy’s forces in Macedonia. He communicated with General Ferrero,
Commander of our troops in Albania by wireless and by means of flying
officers, and thus a common Franco-Italian operation was arranged to
commence on February 17th, with the object of freeing the road between
Koritza and Ersek. But General Sarrail also wished to extend his own
operation area in Albania, perhaps with a view to having something with
which to negotiate in his dealings with M. Venizelos, and therefore, in
spite of the agreement with General Ferrero, he commenced operations
before the date established, and began his advance from Koritza on
the 15th. After a small skirmish with the Albanian bands he occupied
Kamenitza, Hill 907, to the right and to the left of the Ersek road, on
the 16th Tchafa Kiarit, Helmiz, and Lubonia, sending reconnaissances
as far as Ersek, and on the 17th the French infantry, under General
de Vassart, met our troops under Colonel Rossi at Ersek. General
Sarrail wished Ersek to remain in possession of the French troops,
and had tried to obtain this result by means of the little trick of
anticipating the date for commencing operations. In his memoirs he
states that he had asked General Ferrero’s permission to occupy Ersek
and that the latter refused, saying: “Ersek must be left for the
Italians.” In reality it had always been agreed that Ersek was to be
included in our area, and General Sarrail knew it. Otherwise he would
not have made the above-mentioned attempt. He ended by recognizing his
error, or rather, he threw the blame on the commander of the detachment
operating towards Tchafa Kiarit, who, according to the General, had
acted on his own initiative.
A definite connexion between the French and Italians across Albania was
thus established, and the whole road from Santi Quaranta to Florina was
opened up for communications between the Allies, and closed to Greece
and the Central Empires.
As we have seen, the Allies in Macedonia, at the beginning of 1917,
were not in a position to attempt an offensive on a large scale. On the
other hand, even the enemy did not seem to be very anxious to attack.
In Roumania, Germany and Austria had lost many men, and all their
available reinforcements, in spite of the progressive weakening of
Russia, were absorbed on the French or Italian fronts. The Bulgarians
might perhaps have done more, but they were not enthusiastic over the
idea of throwing themselves headlong into an offensive, the result of
which might have been the conquest of Salonica, while they knew that
that city was reserved for Austria and not for them. Consequently,
except for the town of Monastir, for which they had a special
sentiment, all the territorial aims to which they might reasonably
aspire were in their own hands, so that they had no strong inducement
to face fresh risks. These are the reasons why the enemy did not then
attempt a great offensive in the Mackensen style, when the Allies were
weak and divided, and when their Governments refused to send large
reinforcements to the East. This does not mean that they remained
passive. In February they attempted operations which might have had
dangerous results for the whole of the Armée d’Orient, if it had not
been held up by the gallant defence of the 35th Division.
[Illustration: CAMP NEAR THE PARALOVO MONASTERY.]
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF AN INFANTRY REGIMENT ON HILL 1050.
To face p. 122.
]
On the evening of February 12th, at 18.45 hours the trenches occupied
by two companies of the 162nd Infantry (Ivrea Brigade) in the west
sector of Hill 1050, were subjected to a tremendous bombardment by
artillery, hand grenades, trench mortars and flame-throwers. It was
the first time that the latter terrible weapon was employed on
the Balkan front, so that its effects came as a complete surprise.
Our first lines were smashed up by the explosions, about 600 m. of
trench were wrested from their gallant defenders, and half a company
was destroyed in a horrible manner by the flames. The survivors,
strengthened by another company under the command of Captain Odello,
were able to hold up the enemy advance along a lower line in the rear,
and immediately afterwards a counter-attack was launched. Fighting
continued throughout the night and the next day. In the evening,
Colonel Basso, Commander of the regiment, personally took command
of the troops destined for the counter-attack. He reorganized the
battalions, re-established the communications which had been cut and,
after a bombardment by our artillery, the infantry moved to attack at
15 hours on the 15th. Two of the lost trenches were then recaptured,
although the enemy reacted vigorously by means of artillery,
trench-mortar and machine-gun fire, our infantry continued slowly
to advance during the whole of the day. After a short halt in the
afternoon, rendered necessary by the visibility, the attack was resumed
and several more trenches recaptured.
About a fortnight later our Command decided to make another attack. On
the evening of February 27th, we opened a violent bombardment on the
enemy positions with 150 guns, which fired some 20,000 rounds on the
enemy defences on Hill 1050 on the Piton Brûlé, east of the latter.
After about two hours’ fire with good results, the infantry attack to
recapture the remaining positions which had been lost on February 11th
was launched. The enemy kept up a very hot fire on our positions on
Hill 1050 and on the lines of approach. At about 18 hours the scout
section and the 11th Company of the 162nd Infantry, followed by the 9th
and 2nd Companies issued from the trenches, and hurled themselves with
splendid dash on the enemy positions, recapturing them and reaching
the enemy dug-outs, where they captured about 70 prisoners. The 11th
Company was able to hold the captured ground for some time, but while
the scouts were trying to strengthen themselves in the conquered
positions, a mine, prepared by the enemy, exploded and blew up the
trench, killing nearly the whole of the detachment. The few survivors,
supported by part of the 9th Company, clung desperately to the captured
ground; two of the three scout officers and four of those of the 9th
Company (including the captain) and many other ranks had fallen. A
violent machine-gun fire and a furious enemy counter-attack obliged
these gallant survivors to fall back on their original positions. Two
more companies were sent to reinforce them, with Major Negro commanding
the attacking troops, together with the remnants of the company already
so hardly hit, returned to the charge; but the machine-guns on Hill
1050 rendered even this new attack fruitless. The 11th Company, now
reduced to its captain and a few men, and reinforced by part of the
2nd Company, continued to hold the conquered position, although it
was isolated and subjected to a heavy enfilading fire from the enemy
artillery, which ours was not able to silence, because the range of
the enemy’s emplacements had not been found. The brave detachment
consequently had to be recalled.
We had thus recaptured all the lost positions except a small hummock on
the crest of Hill 1050 which remained abandoned by both sides. It was
the object of vigorous shelling and neither we nor the enemy were able
to occupy it definitely. Its form was altered by the bombardment.
Our losses in this engagement amounted to about 400 men; those of
the enemy were probably equally numerous. The episode is interesting
inasmuch as this was the first time in which Italian troops were
engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with the Germans, and the 74
prisoners captured by our men were all Germans, belonging to the 9th
and 10th Jäger Battalions, and to the 205th Company of Engineers.
All our detachments which took part in the action behaved admirably.
If the attack did not succeed in driving the enemy from the crest of
Hill 1050, it served to prove that that position could not be taken
by a frontal attack unless the Piton Rocheux on the right had been
first captured, because it was the batteries behind the latter that
dominated Hill 1050, so that even though the latter had been captured,
the troops who occupied it would have been exposed to the enfilading
fire of the said batteries. The Piton Rocheux was the chief protection
of the enemy artillery, which could not be identified nor silenced
on account of the deep gullies with steep sides in which they were
hidden, and also because of the insufficiency of our air force. If the
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies had learnt the lesson from
this episode he would have avoided the failure and heavy losses which
he suffered in subsequent attacks, but General Sarrail does not appear
to have known exactly how this action had taken place nor its result.
At least that is what we must conclude from what he writes in his
memoirs,[22] in which he says that we had lost Hill 1050 on February
12th, and that in the operations of February 28th we had not been able
to recapture it, though losing 400 men. In fact, he says “_malgré,
parait-il, 400 hommes hors de combat_,” as though he doubted that we
had had such losses. It is easy to see how many inaccuracies, not to
use a cruder expression, this statement contains. We did not lose Hill
1050 on the 12th of February for the good reason that we had never
occupied it. It was, as we have seen, the Serbs who had lost it some
months before, immediately after capturing it; of the trenches which we
had actually lost on February 12th we recaptured nearly all, partly in
the attack on February 13th, and the others in that on the 27th. There
only remained the very small bit which I have mentioned, and even the
enemy could not hold this permanently.
These operations, and others on other sectors of the front, were only
a prelude to a wider action which General Sarrail intended to conduct
in the spring in order to try to break through the enemy line. As
regards our own sector, General Petitti had proposed a very promising
and well thought out plan of operations. The enemy positions on Hill
1050 were to be outflanked and only a demonstrative frontal action was
to be developed against them, whereas the line was to be broken at the
salient of Vlaklar, and the Piton Rocheux occupied in order to destroy
the artillery behind it. But in the month of March our sector of front
was shortened and part of the positions on the Piton Rocheux were given
over to the French, so that this area remained divided between the
Italians and the French.
The first phase of the offensive, according to Sarrail’s plan, was to
consist of a flanking movement with the object of breaking the enemy
line between the Lakes of Ochrida and Presba; Allied forces were
then to march round the latter, occupy Resna, and thence threaten
the enemy’s communications behind the Monastir front. At the same
time a frontal attack from Monastir was to be delivered against Hill
1248 so as to give the town, which was always under enemy fire, a
wider breathing space. On March 11th, the operations between the two
lakes began with an attack by the 76th French Division. Important
preparations had been made for transport along the difficult Pisoderi
road between Florina and Koritza, but the enemy’s resistance proved
more vigorous than was expected, and this fact, together with the
extremely bad weather which set in just then, caused the flanking
movement to fail, and it was soon abandoned. On the 13th a small
operation was carried out by detachments of the 63rd Italian Infantry
Regiment on Hill 1050 and certain enemy trenches, which formed a
troublesome salient within our lines, were captured. The French attack
on Hill 1248, which was to have been delivered at the same time, did
not commence until the 14th. After an intense bombardment, the French
attacked the Tzrvena-Stena west of Monastir, and captured some strong
entrenchments; others were captured on Hill 1248. On the 18th, after
other lively engagements, the French captured the whole of Hill 1248
as well as the fortified village of Krklina, taking 1,200 prisoners.
But the enemy succeeded, by a counter-attack, in recapturing part of
Hill 1248, whose summit remained abandoned by both sides. Monastir was
somewhat relieved, but the town continued to remain under fire until
the Armistice, and more than half of it was destroyed. It cannot be
said that the bombardment was unjustified because, besides various
Commands, the French had placed a number of batteries there.
[Illustration: HELIOGRAPH IN A CAVERN ON HILL 1050.]
[Illustration: ROCK-PERFORATING MACHINE ON HILL 1050.
To face p. 126.
]
On March 25th, the enemy again attacked the positions of the 63rd
Infantry Regiment on Hill 1050, but were repulsed. After another quiet
period the offensive was to be resumed in April, and this time the
British were to deliver the attack. General Sarrail wanted them to
advance simultaneously on Serres and Doiran, but General Milne replied
that with his weak effectives he could not attempt an offensive on
both sectors, and he decided to limit himself to the Doiran front. He
probably realized that General Sarrail wanted him to attack Serres
solely for political reasons, because Serres, being a place which even
the ordinary public had heard of, its capture would have been a good
advertisement for the Armée d’Orient, but if the capture of the town
appeared fairly easy, it would have been very difficult to hold it, as
it was dominated by formidable Bulgarian positions on the hills behind
it.
On April 25th the British attack was launched. The immediate objective
was the capture of the Grand and Petit Couronné, extremely strong
positions defending the passage between Lake Doiran and the Vardar.
Their capture would have opened two roads, that of the Vardar Valley
with the railway along the river, and that of the Kosturino Pass
towards Strumitza and the interior of Bulgaria. This sector of the
front was, like that of the Cerna loop and that of Hill 1248, similar
to the fronts of Italy and France, inasmuch as it was provided with all
the defensive systems known to modern warfare, and the lines of the two
adversaries were very close together, but it differed from the European
fronts as all the sectors of Macedonia differed from them, owing to the
far greater difficulties of supply and communications. Between Lake
Doiran and the Vardar the 22nd and 26th Divisions were distributed (XII
Corps), and they had held that sector for almost a year. The ground
was extremely broken, and if the mountains occupied by the enemy were
not very high, they dominated the British positions and were very
well adapted for a strenuous defence. The most conspicuous point of
the British position was a long hill like a hump, which the French
had named La Tortue, on account of its resemblance to the back of a
tortoise. The British trenches lay along the ridge on La Tortue, beside
which rose the Petit Couronné of about the same height, which was the
principal bastion of the first line defences of the Bulgarians. Between
the two heights there was a deep gully, known as the Ravin des Jumeaux.
Behind La Tortue were other hills, all dominated by the two formidable
positions of the Grand Couronné near the lake, and the P ridges, the
former 600 m. above the sea, and the highest point of the latter (P 2),
700 m.
On April 22nd the British artillery opened a heavy preparatory
bombardment which lasted throughout the 24th, so that the Bulgarians
had no difficulty in knowing that an attack was imminent, and they
took the necessary precautions. On the night of the 24th-25th the
attack was delivered--the 65th and 66th Brigades of the 22nd Division
to the left, and the 78th and 79th Brigades of the 26th Division to
the right, took part in it. Various trenches in the enemy line were
occupied, both on the Petit Couronné near the lake, and further to
the left. The losses were heavy, especially in the Jumeaux Ravine,
and the Bulgarian defences proved stronger than had been anticipated.
The enemy, moreover, was able to bring up reinforcements more rapidly
than the British could do, both on account of the shorter distance
that they had to traverse and the fact that the ground was less broken
on their side. The British were violently counter-attacked and mown
down by machine-gun fire, and consequently had to withdraw to their
original positions, except on the extreme left of the sector of
attack where they were able to hold some of the captured trenches in
the Dolzeli-Krastali sector. The Bulgarian counter-offensive against
these positions, between the 26th and 28th, was driven back with heavy
losses; the total British losses amounted to about 3,000. The troops
had all behaved with conspicuous gallantry, the battalions of the
Devonshire and Berkshire Regiments being specially mentioned.
[Illustration: AREA OF THE BRITISH XII CORPS.
To face p. 129.
]
Early in May, General Petitti di Roreto was recalled to Italy to take
up an important Command; he was succeeded in Macedonia by General
Pennella, who arrived at Tepavci on the eve of the important offensive
of that month. This attack was to have been delivered simultaneously
in the Cerna loop by the Italians and the French, on the Dobropolje
by the Serbs, and in the Vardar-Doiran sector by the British. But
General Sarrail was anxious about other matters besides military
considerations. In Greece the political situation was becoming ever
more critical, and while he was preparing for the offensive on the
Macedonian front, an offensive which everybody knew about, including
of course, the enemy, he was already contemplating an expedition to
Greece, which prevented him from concentrating all his efforts against
the Bulgarians and Germans. He even told an Italian field officer that
he did not hope to obtain more than a partial success on the front
and perhaps reach Prilep, and that, as soon as he had achieved some
advantage, he would send 3 divisions to Thessaly to obtain possession
of the harvest. This was important both for the supplies of the Armée
d’Orient and to prevent the Greeks, then under the rule of King
Constantine, from getting supplies. Greece would thus have been placed
at the mercy of the Entente. But he was already meditating, as we shall
see, a broader offensive against King Constantine, and his chief error
was to have attempted the offensive against the Bulgarians and Germans
whilst his attention was being attracted towards the south.
On May 6th, the British resumed their bombardment of the Bulgarian
positions west of Lake Doiran, and on the night of the 8th-9th, the
infantry attacked. The 60th, 22nd and 26th Divisions took part in the
operations, but the principal effort was made by the latter between the
Ravin des Jumeaux and the lake; to the left only demonstrative actions
were to take place. The positions to the right and left of the Petit
Couronné were captured at the cost of heavy losses, a battalion of the
Argyll and Sutherlands greatly distinguishing itself. Two detachments
of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry and the Berkshire Regiment
assaulted the eastern end of the hill and ascended its slopes, but the
violent machine-gun and trench-mortar fire and the counter-attacks
of the enemy rendered these positions untenable and they had to be
evacuated. The British were unable to hold the captured trenches except
in one or two sectors to the west of Krastali, where the enemy had
offered no serious resistance. Their conduct throughout this action, as
in that of the Ravin des Jumeaux, was admirable, but the losses were
very heavy--from 4,000 to 5,000 men--and no advantage was gained.
On May 9th, the attack was also delivered in the Cerna loop. The
plan of operations proposed by our Command was not, as we have seen,
accepted by General Sarrail, who, after having studied the ground on
which the action was to take place for one hour only, an inspection
which he made from the summit of Mount Tchuka, he decided to deliver a
frontal attack on the whole of Hill 1050 from point “A” to the Piton
Rocheux. None of the Commanders who were to carry out this operation,
Italian or French, had any confidence in its success. The attack was
planned in order to make it coincide with that of the Serbs, but
actually it did not do so. This fact, and the preliminary bombardment
to destroy the wire entanglements and other defences of the enemy,
which lasted for several days, gave the enemy ample warning as to the
points at which the attack was to be delivered. The troops detailed
for the operation were the 61st, 161st, and 162nd Italian Infantry
detachments, with the 62nd in support, the 16th French Colonial
Division and a Russian brigade. The artillery consisted of three French
batteries of short 155-mm. guns, 7 French batteries of old naval guns
of 120 mm. (long), 9 French field batteries of 75 mm., the 32 Italian
mountain guns of 65 mm., and two groups (16 pieces) of 240 mm. Italian
trench-mortars. But all this was insufficient to destroy the enemy
defences. The destructive barrage was resumed with greater vigour,
and at 6.30 the infantry attack began. On the left, the 1st Battalion
of the 61st Regiment reached and passed beyond the enemy lines on the
crest of Hill 1050 between points “A” and “A 2,” but there it was met
by very heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, suffered serious losses and
had to fall back on point “A 1,” where it remained until evening. The
3rd Battalion recaptured the old trenches, lost by the Serbs after
the fall of Monastir, to the south and south-east of point “A” and
went beyond them, but were attacked in the flank as well as in front
by the enemy fire; they had to fall back after having suffered heavy
losses, including the Battalion Commander, who was mortally wounded. In
the centre, a detachment of the 161st succeeded in getting round Hill
1050 on the right, whilst others in the centre and on the left reached
points “A 2” and “A 3.” These troops were also subjected to very heavy
artillery, trench-mortar and machine-gun fire, were counter-attacked
by strong detachments of the enemy, and suffered serious losses.
One company was almost completely destroyed by the explosion of a
mine which had been laid in the trench from which the enemy had been
driven. Nevertheless the few survivors advanced with great energy and
surprised the enemy in their dug-outs, capturing many German prisoners
and killing others. But the fire from the battery positions which our
artillery could not silence, rendered their position untenable, and
they, too, had to fall back on their original trenches, which in the
meanwhile had been wrecked by the enemy bombardment. On the right, the
attack by the 162nd Regiment encountered the same fate as the others.
Our men succeeded in their first dash in occupying the whole of the
enemy’s first line on the Piton Brûlé, on to which they also carried
their machine-guns. Then perhaps they might have been able to hold
their ground, but support failed them on the right, because even the
troops of the 16th French Colonial Division had been unable to maintain
themselves on the Piton Rocheux which they had at first captured, so
that the Italians were met by a very heavy artillery, machine-gun and
hand-grenade fire from behind, and by machine-gun fire on their right
coming from the Piton Rocheux. They were thus obliged to fall back,
partly on their own trenches and partly on positions between the old
and the new trenches. At 9.45, the attack was resumed, but conditions
not having improved in our favour, no better success was achieved,
whereas fresh heavy losses were suffered. About midday the order to
suspend the attack was given. Altogether we had lost about 2,700 men
killed and wounded. The troops had behaved splendidly, and perhaps they
might have broken through on the right if, as I have said, the support
from the Rocheux sector, where the French had been unable to reach the
ridge, had not failed them.
On the following day a new attack was ordered. As the French Command
had realized that the artillery at its disposal was not sufficient for
a general attack along the whole line, a fact which the Italians had
known for some time, it was decided to concentrate the whole of it
on the Piton Brûlé and the Piton Rocheux. At 5 a.m. a demonstrative
bombardment was commenced on Hill 1050, and a concentrated fire on the
Brûlé and Rocheux from the Italian and French batteries further east.
At 8 a.m. the range was lengthened, and the infantry (161st Regiment)
began the attack, but they were met by the usual hurricane of enemy
fire which held up the advance. As early as 7.30, our Command had
noticed a diminution in the intensity of the artillery fire against the
Rocheux, and in answer to a question by telephone, the French Command
replied that the bombardment was merely a feint because the attack had
been adjourned to the following day. The explanation was afterwards
given that, as everybody at the French H.Q. knew of this adjournment,
nobody had thought of communicating it to our Command. The batteries
were immediately ordered to cease fire and the two attacking battalions
to remain in their trenches; the battalion on the right suspended its
advance, but the one on the left, the telephone having been destroyed
by the enemy bombardment, could not be warned in time, and attacked
impetuously, reached the enemy trenches and occupied them, but found
itself without support, because the battalion on the right and the
French had not moved, and consequently it had to retire with heavy
losses.
On the 11th the attack was repeated in identical conditions, but the
enemy fire made any advance impossible, and the troops fell back on the
trenches whence they had started. A detachment of Italian infantry
which had pushed further forward remained under a rocky ridge the whole
day, the men shamming dead because they could not raise their heads,
and re-entered our lines after nightfall. The French attack was no more
successful. Our total losses were 3,000 men--those of the French about
the same.
In the meanwhile, the II Serbian Army had attacked Hill 1824, south of
the Dobropolje on May 9th, capturing it with small losses, and prepared
to attack Vetrenik. But after some operations of slight importance,
in which a little progress was made, the Serbs too, on account of the
enemy resistance and the bad weather, were held up, having lost about
1,000 men, and the Serbian Command asked the C.A.A. to suspend the
offensive. General Sarrail attributes this request to various causes,
among which was the fear of the Prince Regent of a movement among the
Serbs similar to that which was taking place among the Russians, to the
reaction of events on the Western front, and to the failure and losses
on other sectors of the Macedonian front, but chiefly to the crisis in
the internal political situation of the Serbs, and to the intrigues of
the French General Lebouc, commanding the French troops in the Cerna
loop, who, being unable to aspire to the post of Commander-in-Chief
on account of his inferior rank, had tried, according to General
Sarrail, to get the Prince Regent of Serbia appointed to that post in
the place of General Sarrail in order to become his “Major Général.”
There was some truth in all this, but the chief cause of the reluctance
of the Prince Regent to continue the offensive was, as usual, lack
of confidence on the part of the Serbs in the strategic qualities of
Sarrail, and the fear of incurring useless losses which could not be
made good.
Further to the right, the I Group of Divisions, commanded by General
Régnault, and composed of the 122nd French Division, the Greek
Archipelago Division (2 Regiments), and a Russian brigade commanded
by General Dietrich, had begun to explore the ground as early as May
5th, and on the 10th it advanced a little. On the Struma the British
attacked on the 15th and captured a few prisoners, and on the 16th and
18th they repulsed Bulgarian counter-attacks, inflicting losses on the
enemy. A few sporadic actions were conducted on various sectors of the
front, and on the 21st General Sarrail ordered the French and British
battalions to suspend all attacks, and on the 23rd he extended the same
order to the Serbs. The final result of these and other operations,
the losses in which were about 13,000 to 14,000, was absolutely nil.
A few enemy trenches had been captured, but no positions which could
in any way improve the situation of the Allies. The moral situation of
the latter had suffered considerably, both on account of the depression
caused by the unsuccessful attacks and of the heavy losses, and above
all, owing to the encouragement of the Bulgarians and Germans. Until
that moment the enemy _moral_ had been declining as a consequence
of the long period of inaction after their defeat in the autumn of
1916, the pressure of the Allies, and the conviction that, whatever
was the outcome of the war, the Bulgarians would obtain but slight
advantages besides those already achieved, even if the latter could be
preserved in their entirety. The possibility of a separate peace was
not excluded. Now, however, victory--the unsuccessful offensive of the
Allies appeared a victory to them--strengthened their determination to
carry on the war to the bitter end.
[Illustration: CAMP UNDER THE PITON BRÛLÉ.]
[Illustration: ITALIAN NATIONAL FESTIVAL (THE STATUTO) AT SAKULEVO.
HIGH MASS.
To face p. 134.
]
The reasons for the failure are various. In the first place, the
enemy, with their successive lines of trenches, well defended by
barbed wire, with dug-outs excavated in the rock, and their great
abundance of artillery and machine guns, occupied everywhere the
dominating positions. Their artillery was more numerous and included
heavier calibres than that of the Allies. On the other hand, the
Allied effectives, weakened by sickness, the gaps not being filled
up by adequate reinforcements, were inferior to those of the enemy.
The Allied Air Force was also inferior, as it was not provided with
machines capable of facing the swift and powerful German Gothas.
But the chief cause of the failure must be set down to the absolute
deficiency of the Chief Command. General Sarrail was peculiarly
unsuited to hold a command over troops of different nationalities
on account of his lack of tact and consideration in dealing with
the various commanders, nor did he possess the true qualities of a
commander of a large unit. He lacked clearness of vision and genius
in his strategic ideas, and firmness in carrying them out. He always
affected great contempt for the enemy forces, he acted on sudden
decisions taken almost at haphazard and without sufficient knowledge
of the topographical and military situation. As we have seen, he had
decided on the plan of operations in the Cerna loop after a flying
visit to Mount Tchuka, and adopted one very different from that
elaborated by our Command after a residence of nearly six months in
that sector. Nor would he listen to Voivod Michich, who knew more about
Balkan mountain warfare than most generals. He had no idea of the
methods of liaison, and instead of carrying out the operations in the
various sectors simultaneously, or else concentrating all his efforts
on one sector, he ordered a series of disconnected actions, carried out
at different moments; he began the attack between Lakes Ochrida and
Presba and that opposite Monastir in the month of March, he attacked
with the British west on Lake Doiran on April 25th, and in May he
conducted four attacks on as many sectors--with the French and Italians
in the Cerna loop, with the Serbs east of the Cerna, with the French,
Russians and Greeks west of the Vardar, and with the French and British
east of the Vardar, dispersing the artillery so that in no sector was
there a sufficiency of heavy and medium calibres to make an impression
on the extremely strong defensive lines of the enemy or silence their
batteries. He allowed each contingent to act on its own account,
without ever letting the guiding hand of the Commander-in-Chief be
felt, save occasionally in exceptional circumstances, and at moments
when it was out of place. Apart from all this, while the Allied
effectives were too weak for a serious offensive, he would not
concentrate them all at the front, but withdrew 3 divisions to keep
themselves ready to operate in Greece. The lack of confidence on the
part of the Allies, and even of a considerable section of the French,
in his military qualities was thus very much enhanced, because he was
seen to be always preoccupied by political questions, and those not of
inter-Allied policy. If the Greek situation was such as to require the
intervention of the Armée d’Orient, he should not have attempted an
offensive against the Germans and Bulgarians at that moment.[23]
If the enemy had thought of conducting a counter-attack, after the
unsuccessful attack by the Allies and the consequent reduction of their
strengths, in addition to that occasioned by the withdrawal of troops
to be sent to Greece, a disaster to the entire Armée d’Orient would not
have been impossible. If it did not take place, this was certainly not
due to the merits of the Commander-in-Chief.
CHAPTER VIII
GREEK AFFAIRS
We have already seen what difficulties and anxieties were inflicted on
the Allied armies by the attitude of Greece. The surrender of Rupel
and of the IV Greek Army Corps aroused a strong reaction in a part of
Greek public opinion--that part which still supported Venizelos in his
pro-Entente policy. As early as February, 1916, General Sarrail had
gone to Athens to try to induce the King and the Government to alter
their policy, at all events in the sense of a benevolent neutrality.
He received the impression that the King wished to remain neutral at
all costs, that the Premier, M. Skouloudis, and the General Staff were
frankly pro-German, and that Venizelos still hoped for the intervention
of Greece on the side of the Allies; Venizelos, however, stated that it
would be necessary to reconstitute and re-equip the whole army before
it could take the field. After the treachery of Rupel, the situation
became more critical, and a sort of Committee of Public Safety was
created at Salonica for the defence of the nation’s interests and
honour. Sarrail did not interfere with the movement, but was sceptical
as to its success.
In June, the Powers seemed at last inclined to take strong measures
against the Athens Government. Venizelists were being constantly
arrested in Greece and the Allies insulted, so that a naval
demonstration was decided on, together with the landing of a strong
contingent of Allied troops to be sent from Salonica. But Britain and
France were not in absolute agreement as to the line of action to be
taken, while both Governments hesitated before deciding on measures
capable of provoking an open rupture and of driving Greece definitely
into the arms of the Central Empires. Nor was there complete
understanding between General Sarrail and the French Admiral, Dartige
du Fournet, as each of them wished to have the operations under his
own control. But when the troops were embarked at Salonica and ready
to sail for the Piræus, M. Skouloudis resigned (June 20th), and was
succeeded by M. Zaïmis, a statesman apparently more favourable to the
Entente; the King thereupon accepted the Allies’ Note demanding the
demobilization of part of the army, the withdrawal of all Greek troops
from Macedonia and Thessaly, and the cession to the Allies of the fleet
and a certain amount of war material--with the firm intention of doing
nothing of the kind. The expedition was therefore suspended.
In August, 1916, Venizelos was already contemplating a revolutionary
movement at Salonica, under the protection of the Allies, but he did
not yet dare to act, hesitating at the thought of provoking civil war.
His followers were bolder, and on August 30th an insurrection against
the Athens Government broke out, under the leadership of Colonels
Zimbrakakis and Mazarakis, the ex-Prefect Argyropoulo and M. Tsanas.
The gendarmerie and the artillery joined the insurgents, whereas the
infantry, commanded by Colonel Tricoupis, Chief of the Staff of the III
Corps, remained faithful to the King. There were some encounters on
the Place d’Armes, near the barracks, and General Sarrail seized the
occasion to order the immediate evacuation of Salonica by the Royalist
troops, “to liberate Macedonia from all armed forces who were vassals
of Germany.”[24] The Committee of Public Safety, with the assent of
Sarrail, took possession of the administration, and Colonel Zimbrakakis
summoned Venizelos to Salonica. The latter arrived on September 9th,
unhindered by the Royal Government. According to General Sarrail, with
whom other observers are also in agreement on this point, there was
a tacit understanding between Constantine and Venizelos. There is,
however, no proof of it, and the personal hostility which had long
existed between the two seems to incompatible with such a supposition.
But it is certain that with the arrival of Venizelos at Salonica that
city was secured for Greece, whatever the outcome of the war might
be, and with Salonica the future of the kingdom was also assured.
If the Central Empires won, King Constantine might count, owing to
his anti-Entente policy, on their benevolence, whereas if the Allies
won Venizelos might claim anything of them. If Constantine had been
a little more astute he might have taken advantage of this curious
situation, in his own interest.
Venizelos, with General Danglis and Admiral Coundouriotis, constituted
a “triumvirate” which assumed authority under the name of “Provisional
Government of National Defence.” Its rule was limited to Greek
Macedonia (except the territories beyond the Struma occupied by
the Bulgarians and Germans), Crete and the other islands of the
Archipelago. Even in those territories the new Government had many
adversaries, and without the support of the Armée d’Orient and of the
Allied fleets it would have been unable to hold its own, because its
professedly interventionist attitude was not very popular. Epirus,
the Greeks of Koritza, and Thessaly hesitated, and Sarrail, in order
to avoid conflicts between Greeks, created the so-called Neutral Zone
between Macedonia and Thessaly. This territory was never violated, a
fact which proved advantageous to King Constantine, as it prevented the
penetration of Venizelist elements into the kingdom.
Venizelos at once set to work to raise an army capable of fighting
by the side of the Allies in Macedonia. It was a case not only of
creating an army out of nothing, but also of rehabilitating Greece from
the discredit which the ambiguous policy of the King, her intriguing
politicians, and the inadequate sense of dignity and lack of political
instinct of a great part of the army and of the people, had cast on
her. Deserted as he was by almost everyone in Greece, the undertaking
seemed well nigh impossible, and the fact that he succeeded at all is a
proof of his eminent qualities as well as of unhoped for good luck.
On September 22, 1916, a first Greek battalion was formed and sent to
the Struma incorporated in a French unit under a British Command.
On November 14th it was joined by two more battalions, and thus the
first regiment was formed. In March, 1917, two more regiments were
created, and the three constituted a division which was called the
Serres Division, because the first nucleus was formed of men belonging
to the old Serres Division who had escaped after the surrender of the
IV Corps. During the spring, drafts from the islands arrived and were
formed into a second division--that of the Archipelago, and some months
later the Cretan Division also arrived. The three divisions were welded
into an Army Corps, known as the National Defence Army Corps; this was
in fact the National Defence Army, commanded by General Zimbrakakis
(whom we have seen as Colonel).[25] Immense efforts had been necessary
to achieve this result. In Macedonia, real Greeks were few, and not all
of them very keen on intervention; the other elements of the population
were decidedly opposed to it, or, like the Turks, openly pro-German.
Everybody did their best to evade military service, with such pretexts
as commerce, work necessary for the Allied armies, propaganda, or the
production of documents and certificates of some neutral nationality
acquired with lightning speed.
The National Defence Government had to resort to every kind of violence
to raise even a few volunteers. General Sarrail has published in the
article already quoted a series of telegrams from that Government to
the local authorities in the various territories which had recognized
Venizelos containing very stringent instructions to force the
inhabitants to join the colours.[26]
[Illustration: HILL 1075. ARTILLERY CAMP.]
[Illustration: ARTILLERY O.P.
To face p. 140.
]
But in any case this Government had to be considered an ally; France
and Britain recognized it officially and sent diplomatic agents to
Salonica as their representatives, although they did not break off
relations with the Athens Government. Italy never recognized the new
Government, a fact which was the cause of disagreement between us
and our Allies. The Greeks of both persuasions did not fail to take
advantage of this lack of unity in the Allies’ policy, and incidents
between them and all the Allies were by no means infrequent. The
Salonica Venizelists were particularly incensed against us. Their Press
did not scruple to attack us in the most violent and coarsest manner,
circulating the most idiotic libels, such as the statement that the
Italian Government was starving the inhabitants of the Dodecannese to
death, when it was notorious that it was feeding them and selling them
food below cost price, so that prices were lower in those islands than
in Italy. A more serious incident was the absolutely unprovoked murder,
by a Greek sergeant, of two unarmed Italian soldiers of the Territorial
Militia while they were washing clothes in a stream. The assassin was
discovered and arrested by our _carabinieri_ and handed over to the
Greek authorities for punishment. The Greek court acquitted him and the
Public Prosecutor actually exalted him as a hero! The British, too,
were irritated against the Greeks, and even the French, who protected
them officially, in private conversation expressed the greatest
contempt for them. General Sarrail states that, as soon as it had been
recognized by France and Britain, the National Defence Government tried
to revive a number of old claims for preposterous indemnities demanded
by Salonica natives for requisitions or doubtful damages. The Finance
Minister at one moment had even decreed that the State Treasury was to
refuse French bank notes, so that the C.A.A. had to buy drachmæ at the
rate of 80 for 100 francs, even when the money was to be spent for the
Venizelist Army.
On September 11th the Zaïmis Cabinet, which was moderately pro-Entente,
fell and was succeeded by that of M. Kalogheropoulo, but as the Allies
refused to treat with the latter, it too fell on October 4th. Professor
Lambros then became Premier, with a frankly anti-Ally policy, and thus
we come to the catastrophe of December 1st. The Greek Government,
after having undertaken to withdraw the troops from Thessaly and to
hand over the fleet and war material, failed to do so. After endless
shuffling, the Allied fleets were sent to the Piræus and a policy of
coercion was decided on. As a pledge for the cession of war material,
the Government was to hand over 10 mountain batteries at once. Admiral
Dartige had certain strategic points in Athens and the road between
the capital and the Piræus occupied by detachments of French seamen
with machine guns. Then he went himself to Athens, and communicated
his plan of operations to the King.[27] Suddenly there was a general
burst of rifle fire. The detachment at the Zappeion and those along the
Athens-Piræus road were surrounded by Greek soldiers, as were also the
Allied legations. The French seamen had fallen into a regular ambush,
and 200 of them were killed. Admiral Dartige and several detachments of
seamen were taken prisoners and escorted to the Piræus. Both he and the
Foreign Ministers then agreed to accept six batteries instead of ten,
while the rest of the material was to be handed over on December 15th.
General Sarrail received the most contradictory instructions (which
he quotes textually in his memoirs). Whereas the French G.H.Q. and
the Government ordered him to take the military measures necessary to
re-establish the prestige of the Entente in Greece and sent out the
16th Colonial Division, which he was to reinforce with other troops
from Salonica, the French Minister at Athens and Admiral Dartige,
anxious for the safety of the foreign colonies, insisted on nothing
being done. Sarrail himself wanted to take action, occupying various
strategic points in Greece and blowing up the railway bridges at
Corinth and Lamia. The French Government had entrusted General Sarrail
with the conduct of the operations to be carried out in Greece, but
Admiral Dartige had held back the 16th Division. The British and
Italian Governments were adverse to any energetic action against King
Constantine because, in view of the general military situation and of
that on the Macedonian front in particular, they thought that it would
be dangerous to _brusquer les choses_. Thus, while the Greek Government
had suppressed all the Allied controls, the Athens wireless station
began to communicate with Sofia once more, and the Venizelists were
subjected to the most ferocious persecution, the Allies presented
a fresh ultimatum to Greece (these documents now came to be called
_pen_-ultimatums) on December 14th, demanding merely the withdrawal
of the troops from Thessaly, without mentioning the cession of war
material or claiming any satisfaction for the massacre of December 1st.
The Greek Government accepted without hesitation, and the 16th Colonial
Division departed for Salonica.
These events undoubtedly weakened the prestige of the Entente in the
East, because it was clearly seen that the Allies were by no means
agreed as to the policy to be followed and that they dare not take
strong measures. This consequently strengthened King Constantine and
the pro-German and neutralist elements. The only thing that the Allies
did decide to do was to impose a blockade on Greece, which aroused
great irritation against them without being sufficient to reduce the
Athens Government to obedience. At the Rome Conference in January,
1917, at which General Sarrail had been present, although little
attention was paid to him, no conclusion concerning Greece was arrived
at, except that of doing nothing for the present. But the situation at
Athens rendered that of the Armée d’Orient ever more difficult, and it
was necessary to find some solution for the former if the Macedonian
front were to be made safe. The Greek Government, although it had
withdrawn its troops from Thessaly, left many officers and strong
detachments of _gendarmerie_ there, which might serve as cadres for
the reservists. From the Peloponnese many soldiers were allowed to
go to Thessaly on leave. Whereas at Athens provisions were lacking,
they were being concentrated in abundance in the north; every now and
then the control officers, who had been re-established, found arms and
ammunition depots. Bands, comprising soldiers and reservists, were also
formed.[28] It was to oppose these bands and to prevent them from
penetrating into the Neutral Zone that General Sarrail sent detachments
to Kozani and Grevena. But the Greek question continued to provoke
inter-Allied incidents; according to Sarrail, General Phillips, the
Chief of the British Military Mission in Greece, tried to minimize the
importance of the trickery and chicanes of the Greeks; even two French
officers supported King Constantine--General Bousquier, Chief of the
French Military Mission at Athens, and General Baumann at Corfu (always
according to the French C.-in-C.).
The Greeks at Salonica having assumed a truculent attitude towards
ourselves, the Italian troops received orders that, while they were
to avoid giving rise to any incidents, they were to ensure respect
for the Italian name and uniform. An Italian soldier who, having been
insulted without the slightest provocation by a Greek, gave him a sound
thrashing, received an encomium and a reward. General Petitti, in
accordance with instructions from his own Government, did not recognize
the National Defence Government in any way, and merely exchanged
visiting cards with M. Venizelos, to whom he had been introduced by
the Italian Consul. But he refused to allow forced recruiting for the
National Defence Army among the inhabitants of the Italian area in
the Krusha Balkan. Subsequently our Command agreed that the native
labourers in our employ, if subject to military service, should be
exchanged with others who were exempt from such duties. Colonel
Bodrero, commanding the Italian garrison at Salonica, was, however,
on terms of friendship with M. Venizelos, and saw him often. He also
assisted at a religious ceremony of a political Venizelist character
at Santa Sofia, at a moment when it was reported that Italy was about
to recognize the Provisional Government. But nothing came of these
_avances_.
Finally, in April, the Powers decided to occupy Thessaly, and General
Sarrail received instructions to keep himself in readiness for the
operation, but the date was not yet fixed. He was then ordered to
proceed to Thessaly after the offensive in Macedonia, scheduled for
May, had been carried out. At first the intention was merely to
secure the harvest in Thessaly, both because it would be useful for
the Armée d’Orient, and because it would render the blockade of Greece
more effective. But Sarrail wished to go much further; he actually
proposed to upset King Constantine and establish a republic in Greece
with Venizelos as President. To this, however, both Britain and Italy
raised strong objection; two monarchies were certainly not going to
co-operate in upsetting another one, especially in view of the Russian
situation. After protracted discussions, it was agreed that Constantine
should be forced to abdicate, and that his son Prince Alexander should
be placed on the throne, with Venizelos as Prime Minister. The conduct
of the Allied action in Greece was entrusted to M. Jonnart, former
Governor-General of Algeria, as High Commissioner for the Entente.
Even Sarrail was placed under his orders, which did not please the
General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in the Orient. On June 3rd he sent
a detailed report on the situation to M. Jonnart, to whom he submitted
the plan of operations which he proposed to execute. On the 6th,
Jonnart reached Salonica to make his final arrangements with Sarrail
and Venizelos. In order to avoid any possibility of resistance on the
part of King Constantine, it was decided to occupy simultaneously
Thessaly to secure the harvest, the Isthmus of Corinth to prevent
the troops in the Peloponnesus, who were faithful to the King, from
entering Continental Greece, and the Piræus with a view to advancing on
Athens and forcing the King to abdicate.
M. Jonnart immediately left for the Piræus. On June 8th, a French
column commanded by General Venel advanced across the Neutral Zone
into Thessaly, while a Franco-British-Russian force, commanded by
General Régnault, embarked for the Piræus and the Isthmus of Corinth.
In Thessaly there was no resistance, except at Larissa, where a Greek
regiment opened fire on the French cavalry, but was soon reduced to
impotence. On the 10th, M. Jonnart, who had established his quarters on
board the French battleship _Justice_, had a meeting with M. Zaïmis,
the new Greek Premier. The Isthmus of Corinth was occupied, and the
ships conveying the troops destined for Athens were anchored off the
Piræus. On the 11th, Jonnart, in the name of the Protecting Powers of
Greece (France, Britain and Russia), sent an ultimatum to Zaïmis, in
which the abdication of King Constantine was demanded, in order that
Constitutional Government might be re-established in the country,
as the Constitution had been violated by the illegal dissolution of
the Chamber; the King himself was invited to choose his successor,
who, however, was not to be the Diadoch on account of his notoriously
anti-German sentiments. A reply was demanded within twenty-four hours.
Constantine now realized that all resistance was useless--his own
capital was within range of the guns of the fleet, and troops were
ready to land at the Piræus. That same evening M. Zaïmis informed M.
Jonnart that the ultimatum had been accepted unconditionally, and on
the 12th he sent him the official reply of the Greek Government to
the same effect. When the news of the King’s abdication became known
in the city, there were some demonstrations in his favour; but the
landing of the French and Russian troops (the British were at Corinth)
removed all danger of a rising, In order to preclude any contact with
the population and to draw off the attention of the crowd, some empty
Royal motor cars, with the blinds down, issued from the main entrance
of the Palace and drove towards the Zappeion, while the King and his
family departed secretly at about 17 hrs. in the direction of the Royal
villa of Tatoï, and thence proceeded to the little port of Oropos in
the Eubœa Channel, where they embarked on the Royal yacht _Sphacteria_.
Together with another vessel for the suite and the baggage, and
escorted by two French destroyers, the _Sphacteria_ sailed for Italy,
whence the ex-King and his family went into exile in Switzerland.
In the meanwhile Prince Alexander, Constantine’s second son, who had
been designated as successor, had taken the oath of allegiance to the
Constitution. M. Jonnart then published a proclamation to the Greek
people, announcing the raising of the blockade, the re-establishment
of good relations between the Protecting Powers and Greece, and the
imminent restoration of national unity. After a conversation with M.
Jonnart, M. Zaïmis ordered the expulsion from Greece of a certain
number of personages implicated in Constantine’s policy, including the
ex-Premiers Gounaris, Skouloudis and Lambros, six other Ministers,
General Dousmanis and another General, Colonel Metaxas, Assistant Chief
of the Staff, and Admiral Hösslin, the head of the German propaganda
service and several others--in all 160 people. Immediately after
ascending the throne, King Alexander announced in a proclamation to
the people that “he would follow in the glorious footsteps of his
father,” which was not exactly what was desired, and the phrase had a
somewhat disconcerting effect. But he corrected this faux pas directly
after in a letter to M. Zaïmis in which he promised faithfully to
respect the Constitution and declared himself ready to co-operate with
the Protecting Powers for the pacification of public feeling and the
reconciliation of the country (June 20th).
On the 21st the delegates of M. Venizelos met those of M. Zaïmis, and
M. Venizelos himself arrived at Salamis, where he had a conversation
with M. Jonnart on board the _Justice_. It was then decided to
re-convoke the Chamber elected in 1915, in which the majority was
Venizelist and had been illegally dissolved by Constantine. King
Alexander having agreed to send for Venizelos, Zaïmis resigned (June
27th), and Venizelos re-entered Athens under the protection of French
troops who had occupied all the strategic positions in the city, and
of 400 Cretan gendarmes. The new Cabinet comprised Venizelos himself
as Premier and Minister of War, Politis, Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Repoulis (Interior), Admiral Coundouriotis (Marine), Empiricos
(Communications), etc. Jonnart had authorized Venizelos to modify
certain points of the Constitution and to suspend the permanency of
the judiciary, so as to cleanse the State of Royalist[29] officials.
The process was carried out without excessive squeamishness. Many
officials, magistrates and officers were dismissed; the trials and
convictions for political offences, and the sentences of deportation
or exile were innumerable. The population, which had attacked the
Venizelists after December 1st with the utmost ferocity, and with
the complicity or the help of the authorities had committed the most
diabolical cruelties against them, accepted the new régime without
resistance, if without enthusiasm. There was still a strong Royalist
party, comprising almost the whole of the upper class and a great part
of the officers. But its chiefs having been arrested or deported, it
was in no position to offer any resistance. The mass of the people,
although less enthusiastic about Constantine than the higher classes,
was hostile to Venizelos because he represented war, and they had no
wish to fight. But there was also an ardently Venizelist minority,
comprising some of the best elements of the country, who saw beyond
mean party struggles and immediate material interests. It was this
group which, with support of the Allies, ended by triumphing.
Thus the National Defence Government came to an end, and Greece was
once more united. In Italy, the Greek situation was never fully
understood, nor the inner meaning of these events. For some time before
the great war Italo-Greek relations had been unfriendly on account of
the Dodecannese question and our interests in Albania. Italian public
opinion had defended Albanian independence, whereas Greece aspired to
annex the southern part of the country, including Argyrocastro and
Koritza which Greeks described as “Northern Epirus.” During the Balkan
War the Greeks had occupied Epirus and South Albania, but later they
had had to evacuate the latter territory; on the outbreak of the Great
War they invaded it again and devastated it. The feelings of Greece
towards the Entente were uncertain; our intervention rendered her
somewhat hostile because she did not, for the above-mentioned reasons,
wish to find herself in alliance with Italy.[30] The insolent and
petulant attitude of the Greek press intensified anti-Greek feeling
in Italy. Greece’s failure to meet her engagements arising from the
Serbo-Greek Alliance, and later her whole attitude towards the Allies
in Macedonia, culminating in the surrender of Rupel and the IV Army
Corps, convinced Italian public opinion that the great majority of the
Greek people were pro-German. On the other hand we were suspicious of
Venizelos because he represented the Imperialist spirit of unlimited
Greek expansion, and Italians did not believe that Greek Imperialism
had a sound basis, because they considered that the Greeks lacked the
qualities required in a race destined to rule. But in Italy it was
not perhaps understood that Venizelos himself was a much bigger man
than the _milieu_ in which his activity was displayed, and that he was
in reality rendering services to the Entente and therefore to us. In
Britain and France, on the other hand, public opinion wrongly believed
that he had his people absolutely behind him and that that people was,
as a whole, up to his standard.
The real reason why Britain and France, especially the latter, desired
Greek intervention in the war and therefore supported Venizelos, was
that a hostile Greece might prove fatal to the Macedonian expedition.
If Greece were really neutral the Armée d’Orient might hold its own
on its positions, but a new offensive could only be attempted with
any hope of success if fresh reinforcements were forthcoming. These
might have been drawn from the French front or from Italy; but the
British, French and Italian G.H.Q.’s were irremovably opposed to
the sending of more troops from what were regarded as the essential
fronts to the East. The Serbs were not even able to fill up the gaps
caused by battle and sickness. The only source of supply for man-power
which could still be tapped was Greece. No one really wanted Greek
assistance--neither the French nor the British, and still less the
Italians and the Serbs. Everybody knew that the Greek Army was torn by
political strife, disorganized, lacking in artillery and equipment,
badly led and anything but friendly to the Entente, and that it could
not therefore represent an important addition of strength to the
Allies. There were, it is true, the three National Defence Divisions
which included good material, and the officers at least were all
volunteers. But they were only nine regiments in all, with a few
mountain batteries. There was therefore nothing else to be done but to
get the whole of Greece, _nolens volens_, into the war, and trust to
the Allied military missions and to a vast cleansing operation to make
something useful out of the Greek Army. It would certainly have been
preferable if a few already war-trained divisions from France or Italy
had been available. But the Government of the Great Powers were not
friendly towards the Macedonian campaign, and would not realize that
3 or 4 divisions, withdrawn from the fronts of Italy or France would
not have weakened those armies perceptibly, whereas in Macedonia they
might have just tilted the balance in our favour. But as this course
was rejected it was necessary to have recourse to Greece, a necessity
which was not understood in Italy. We did not desire Greek intervention
because we knew what enormous demands for compensation Greece would
afterwards make, demands which were to some extent incompatible with
our own interests. But on the other hand we were even more opposed
than the French or the British to the sending of fresh troops to
Macedonia. The only other solution was to withdraw the Armée d’Orient
altogether, or let it be starved for men and remain in idleness, with
the ever-present risk of being driven into the sea by the enemy. France
and Britain, who attached a little more importance than we did--though
not very much more--to the Macedonian expedition, finally decided to
apply for Greek help, trusting in Venizelos. Italy, in her opposition
to the vast aspirations of Venizelist Greece, had the appearance of
supporting Constantine, and this did us a great deal of harm. We had,
perhaps, interests to defend in the Near East which were to some extent
in contrast with those of other Allies. But in order to defend them
adequately we should have done nothing to make our policy appear in any
way suspected of pro-Germanism--and at that time to be pro-Constantine
was regarded as equivalent to being pro-German. Instead, Italian public
opinion and the press, and some of our officers and diplomats assumed
an attitude which made our Near Eastern policy suspect in the eyes of
the French, and even of the British. We continued to suffer the great
harm which these circumstances caused us for a long time afterwards,
especially at the Peace Conference. Moreover, our pro-Constantine
policy did not succeed. France and Britain brought about Constantine’s
fall and the return of Venizelos. We limited ourselves to occupying
Epirus for a short time, as a _pendant_ to the French occupation of
Thessaly; we made ourselves still more unpopular with the Venizelists,
without gaining the sympathies of the Royalists. Our true policy should
have been to send important reinforcements to the East. Had we done so
we should have been, after the Armistice, in a far better position to
defend our own aspirations and interests in the negotiations with our
Allies.
Let us now see what the Greek Army really was. I have mentioned the
National Defence Army Corps. This was the best that Greece could
produce in the way of a military force, and subsequently, as we shall
see, its regiments behaved well. But even their _moral_ at first left
something to be desired. Desertions were numerous, and when M. Jonnart
arrived there had been no less than 700 of them in the Archipelago
Division alone.[31] Up to that moment only a few Greek detachments had
been sent to the front, and always incorporated in Allied units and
on relatively quiet sectors. After the fall of Constantine, Greece
entered into a state of war with the Central Empires, and the French
set to work to reorganize the Greek Army so that it might co-operate
effectively in Macedonia.
The task was no easy one. The first thing to be done was to proceed
to the cleansing of the officers’ corps. This was indispensable,
because nearly all the Staff officers had studied in Germany and, like
the great majority of field officers, were imbued with pro-German
sentiments. But the result of this process was that the Army was
left with hardly any Staff officers at all, and very few officers of
superior rank. It thus became necessary to promote large numbers of
uneducated junior officers and of still more ignorant N.C.O.’s. A hasty
and intensive course of military training had to be imparted to all.
Even the troops of the National Defence Army had but scanty notions of
modern warfare, trenches, barbed wire, the scientific use of machine
guns, hand grenades, camouflage, signalling, etc. As for their supply
and transport services, they were even more defective, so that at first
everything had to be provided and transported by the Allies, and the
latter, even at the end of the campaign, had to supply the Greeks with
most of their services. The experience which the Greeks had gained in
the Balkan Wars was of no use whatever, in fact they were a hindrance
rather than a help; the former had been, so to speak, retail wars,
whereas this was a wholesale one. In the former, the armies were
small and could live on the country, in the latter, not only were the
armies much larger, but the country had been so completely devastated
that it could supply practically nothing. The troops of the National
Defence Corps were now no longer lacking in military spirit, but it
was necessary to infuse it into those of the old regular army. The men
on the whole were not bad, but most of the officers were inadquately
trained, and it was indispensable to instil into all of them the
conviction that intervention in the war was necessary for the salvation
of Greece.
The chief difficulties which the French Military Mission found itself
up against were Oriental indolence, scanty love of hard work, and
dislike of discipline. At the front, even when they had fought well
and successfully, the Greek soldiers did not want to tire themselves
by digging trenches and strengthening their positions, so that they
could not have held out against vigorous counter-attacks; consequently,
after every successful attack, when an enemy reaction was feared, the
Greeks would be relieved by other troops. In the training courses the
French instructors had to work themselves to death trying to persuade
their pupils that discipline and military knowledge were indispensable.
As one of these officers said to me: “_Ils ne nous détestent pas, mais
il nous trouvent trés gênant._” On the other hand sporadic cases of
indiscipline and mutiny were less alarming than they would have been in
a European army, although they were serious enough in themselves. Greek
detachments, while travelling towards the Macedonian front, were apt
to disperse en route, because, if the men happened to be passing near
their own homes, they could not resist the temptation of going to visit
their families. There were graver cases of mutiny proper, especially
at Lamia and Larissa, provoked by Royalist propagandists who spread
catastrophic and fantastic rumours or appealed to the Royalist and
neutralist sentiments with which a part of the army was imbued; this
is not surprising in view of the violent political passions by which
the Army was torn and of the fact that the men realized the war very
slightly. Cases of desertion to the enemy, although not infrequent,
were far less numerous than was commonly believed at Salonica. On the
whole it must be admitted that the French Mission carried out its task
as well as it was possible for it to do with the material which it had
to handle. But superhuman patience was necessary, and we must not be
surprised if French officers at times indulged in the most bitter and
often unjustified diatribes against the Greeks.
The troops of the National Defence Corps were scattered about the
various sectors of the front to complete their training under the ægis
of French units. As their training progressed, they were incorporated
into ever larger units, so that whereas at first each Greek company was
placed between companies belonging to other armies, later they were
grouped in battalions, then in regiments, and finally in divisions. For
a time there was one Greek division on the Monastir front, and one with
the I Group of Divisions west of the Vardar; later on, two were grouped
together, and early in 1918, all three were united in the latter
sector, thus constituting a complete army corps. Until that moment
the Greek Command was a Corps Command, under General Zimbrakakis,
with its G.H.Q. at Salonica, and later at Boemitza, near front of the
I Group. The latter, however, continued to be commanded by a French
General--first General Gérome, and then General d’Anselme.
In the late autumn of 1917, detachments of the Greek Regular Army began
to reach Salonica. Their training was divided into three periods--the
first in Old Greece, the second at the training camp at Naresh, near
Salonica, and the third in a quiet sector of the front. The last
detachments did not reach Macedonia until the eve of the offensive of
September, 1918. The 1st, 2nd and 13th Divisions composed the I Army
Corps; the others were not embodied in corps until after the Armistice,
but served under Allied units in different sectors. To the I Corps
(Gen. Paraskevopoulo) was entrusted the lower Struma area in the summer
of 1918, at first under the command of the British XVI Corps, and
subsequently directly under the British G.H.Q.
After the revolution of June, 1917, General Danglis was appointed
Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army. He was a good soldier, but rather
old; when the bulk of the troops had been transferred to Macedonia he
moved his own G.H.Q. from Athens to Salonica. Later on he was relieved
of his Command, and succeeded by General Paraskevopoulo. But the Greek
Chief Command never really operated, save as an administrative and
disciplinary organ, because there never was a real Greek Army. There
were divisions and even corps, but the effective Army Command was
always French or British. The lines of communication, the commissariat,
the _intendance_ only existed in embryo. The mobilization had never
been general from fear of provoking insurrections, and had to be
effected gradually and partially; only the youngest classes were called
to the colours, so that there was a lack of men for the rear services.
The Greeks, like other Oriental peoples, were lacking in the sense
of organization, and even as collaborators they were the despair of
the British Q service which had to supply them. The Greek officers
recognized it themselves openly, and said that everything with which
the British undertook to supply them arrived regularly, whereas the
supplies for which the Greek _intendance_ was responsible arrived with
considerable delay or remained on the road. Another difficulty was the
inveterate habit of the Greek soldier of selling his kit to civilians.
The temptation was considerable, as the prices paid for these articles
were very high, and there was a regular secret organization for such
purchases, besides private transactions between friends or relations.
The result was that certain units had to be re-equipped two or three
times before they had marched a kilometre. The same thing happened at
Salonica even among other Allied armies, but to a much smaller extent,
and such cases were always severely punished at once.
But with all their faults we must not forget that the Greeks did give
a useful contribution to the Macedonian campaign. As we shall see
later, the units that had occasion to fight behaved well, and the great
sobriety and endurance of the men proved valuable assets in country as
difficult and as poor in resources as Macedonia. If their losses in the
war were trifling in comparison with those of the other Allies, and
even as a percentage of the total numbers engaged, their utility lay
in having, to some extent, solved the crisis of effectives from which
the Armée d’Orient was suffering so grievously and which, in view of
the reluctance of Great Powers to send reinforcements to Macedonia, had
seemed well nigh insoluble. By entrusting to the Greeks, as was done in
the summer of 1918, the whole of the Struma front, which, although it
was not one of the very difficult sectors, required, nevertheless, a
considerable number of troops to hold on account of its extension, the
concentration of British troops elsewhere was rendered possible.
The Greek front on the Struma was nothing else than the old front of
the British XVI Corps, and was now held by the three divisions of the
Greek I Corps. Three more divisions were with the I Groupement between
Nonte and the Vardar under French command, and another division was
placed under another French General in the Cerna loop on the eve of
the offensive. The rest of the Greek forces remained in reserve. The
9th Division, which was in Epirus, had originally been intended to
co-operate with the Italian XVI Corps in Albania; but it was considered
advisable to avoid contact between Italians and Greeks, and it was
therefore sent to Macedonia in the summer of 1918, part of it being
conveyed by sea via Salonica and the rest marching overland via Ersek
and Koritza. During their passage through Albania the various units of
that division were supplied, at General Franchet d’Espérey’s request,
by the Italian military authorities, and the latter is said to have
stated that the greatest success of his whole career was to have
induced the Italians to feed the Greeks!
CHAPTER IX
SALONICA AND THE WAY THITHER
Salonica was undoubtedly the most curious of all the “war capitals,”
and no other was such a centre of contending claims and political
intrigues. Its population is unlike that of any other city, and
although most of the inhabitants took no active part in the war, all
were deeply interested in its eventual results. The majority are
Jews of Spanish origin, who had settled there after their expulsion
from Spain in the fifteenth century, and they still speak a bastard
Spanish dialect. The next element in importance are the Greeks, who
have largely increased by immigration since the annexation of Southern
Macedonia to Greece. There is also a considerable number of Turks and
other Moslems, and smaller communities of Bulgars, Serbs, Albanians,
Kutzo-Vlachs, Europeans of various nationalities, and even a few
Americans.
The city is in a certain sense an island, for it is surrounded on
three sides by an almost uninhabited country, and on the fourth by the
sea. It cannot be said to belong naturally to any State or race in
particular, and no population looks to it as a centre of intellectual
development and culture. But it is extremely important for the trade
of many lands, and has consequently been fiercely contested by many
peoples throughout the ages. It is this fatal attraction that has made
its history such a tragedy. P. Risal, the author of the only modern
work on Salonica, has rightly called it “_La ville convoitée_.” It is
indeed better situated than any other in the Ægean; along the European
shores of that sea it is half-way between the two extremities, at the
head of the most sheltered gulf, at the outlet of the Vardar valley
and consequently of the easiest road of access to the fertile lands
of the interior. As Professor Hogarth has stated,[32] the other ports
which might compete with it are either blocked by mountain barriers
or surrounded by unstable populations. Were it not for malaria,
the backward civilization and the lack of safety of its immediate
hinterland, Salonica might have become an important agricultural
and perhaps even industrial centre, but the farming methods of the
neighbouring territories are extremely primitive and industry is
non-existent. Its radius of commercial action is considerable. It is
easier to send goods from any part of Macedonia and even from parts of
Albania and Epirus to Salonica than to the ports of Albania; even the
upper reaches of the valleys of some of the tributaries of the Danube
are reached more easily from Salonica than from the Black Sea ports.
Salonica is the junction of the railways from Constantinople, Uskub and
Belgrade, and Monastir and Athens.
[Illustration: THE GREEK NATIONAL FESTIVAL ON APRIL 7, 1917.
M. Venizelos leaving the Church of S. Sophia, Salonica.]
[Illustration: KING ALEXANDER OF GREECE VISITS A FRENCH CAMP.
To face p. 158.
]
Under the Turks, Salonica was the outlet for the trade of half the
Balkan Peninsula, as it ought to be to-day. But the wars of 1912–13
drove the Turks from Macedonia and partitioned the hinterland among
several States, so that Greek Salonica is but a short distance from the
frontiers of Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania, and the customs barriers
have placed artificial obstacles in the way of traffic. The Greek, the
Serb, and the Bulgarian each aspired to the possession of Salonica,
hoping, in their narrow Balkan mentality, to capture its trade and
enjoy its advantages entirely for himself to the exclusion of his
neighbours. None of them understood that the prosperity of Salonica was
bound up with that of the interior as a whole and of all the peoples
of the Peninsula, and that commercial restrictions to the advantage of
one nation alone were bound to prove detrimental to all, the _non beati
possidentes_ included. The port cannot prosper unless trade comes to
it unhampered from Monastir and Uskub, from Nish and Belgrade, from
Kustendil, Sofia and Ochrida, and not merely from Verria, Florina and
Serres. As a Greek port it will always be a poor thing, and the
Piræus will never allow an appreciable portion, even of Greek trade,
to be diverted to Salonica, so that in present circumstances it is
destined to fall into decay. The same would happen if it were to become
exclusively a Serb or Bulgarian port. By its nature it is essentially
an international port, and it should be subjected to a special régime,
such as will probably be applied to many other ports in the near
future. It would in this way not only prosper, but also become a bond
of union to conciliate, through commercial interest, States and peoples
who now hate each other. Apart from political and administrative
difficulties, a great deal of capital will have to be invested in the
port to carry out important works to prevent it from being silted up by
the Vardar, but the capital will not be available unless investors are
first assured that trade will be attracted to the port and not driven
away from it by political quarrels.
The climate of Salonica is not an ideal one. In summer the heat is
intolerable, and the summer lasts from May to the end of September.
For weeks on end the thermometer marks 40 degrees Centigrade in the
shade. There is the sea, it is true, but the sea at Salonica does not
contribute to render the heat more tolerable, and sea bathing is an
arduous enterprise.
Distractions were neither very numerous nor particularly edifying.
The hotels were bad and dear; before the fire there were some good
but expensive restaurants, and after the fire a few of them were
resuscitated. The local Cercle de Thessalonique was quite attractive
before the fire, but afterwards it was transferred to smaller and
more modest quarters. Naturally, during the war, the military element
was absolutely predominant. Six armies were represented in the town,
of whom three--the French, the British and the Serb--by very large
contingents. The Italians were less numerous, and the Russians still
fewer at first, ended by disappearing altogether, save for some
derelict officers, whose behaviour was not exactly exemplary. The
masters of the house--the Greeks--in the early days of the war, kept
very much to themselves, being suspected by the Allies; then, after
the arrival of Venizelos, they made themselves more conspicuous, and
finally, when Greece was again united and the army reconstituted,
they spread all over the place. Never in any other city did one see
such a collection of different uniforms as at Salonica during the war
years. British khaki, Highland kilts, French _bleu horizon_, Italian
_grigio-verde_, the Serbs in grey, the Greeks in uniforms combining
features of all the others, Russians who invented their own, Colonials
of various kinds--coal-black Sudanese, swarthy Algerians, yellow
Tonkinese and Annamites, dignified Indians in imposing turbans. Of
these various armies the French, the British, the Serbs, and afterwards
the Greeks, had their respective G.H.Q.’s at Salonica, which to the
outside observer meant chiefly innumerable officers and swift Staff
cars. The French occupied a large, ugly, inconvenient building near
the port; afterwards, while retaining that one for their Q services,
they removed the _Etat Major de l’Avant_ to a row of villas in the
residential quarter, one of them the ex-Bulgarian Consulate. The
British were scattered all over the town, but most of the offices of
the General Staff, which had at first been spread over three or four
villas, were concentrated in a huge building, formerly a hospital and
orphanage, popularly known as the “War Office,” far more commodious
than the French quarters. The Serbs were modestly housed in the
ex-Austrian Consulate and one or two other buildings, and the Greeks
mostly in the large ex-Turkish barracks in the Place d’Armes. We
were close to the Greeks in a group of small buildings, some of them
constructed for the purpose by Italian soldiers. The Russians were in
the Russian Consulate.
Military messes were of course a great feature of Salonica life.
British messes were all small, and consequently numerous; they were
usually installed in private houses where the members of the mess also
resided, and they were more characteristically bits of England than the
French or Italian messes were bits of Italy or France. The French and
Italian messes were much larger--our Base mess comprised some forty
or fifty officers. Our M.T. mess, to which I was attached, became
essentially the reception mess, as it was here that most foreign
officers were invited; indeed in few places was the inter-Allied spirit
more sedulously and agreeably cultivated.
The French created a military institution for which they deserve great
credit--the Cercle Militaire. It was not, as its named implied, a
real club, but a large military restaurant, intended primarily for
French officers, but to which all Allied officers were admitted. Meals
were good and cheap, while if one ordered a special dinner one could
obtain all possible delicacies. Later, the British also instituted an
Officers’ Rest House, with a large but not very good restaurant, and
many comfortable bedrooms reserved for officers who had come down from
the front for a few days. Foreign officers were not admitted, except
the liaison officers and guests.
Of the resorts open to the public there was one deserving special
mention, though not quite in a eulogistic sense--the famous Tour
Blanche, near the historic monument of that name. It was a large
café and restaurant, with a theatre and concert hall, surrounded
by a garden. At all times of the year it was much frequented, but
particularly in summer. The meals were fair, the drinks bad, but sold
at exorbitant prices, the performances less than mediocre, but the
spectators themselves were the most interesting part of the show. The
place was usually crammed, mostly with officers and soldiers. Even if
the artistes had been Carusos or Tetrazzinis, not a note of their songs
would have been heard on account of the uproarious shouting of the
audience--a large part of which was obviously “the worse.” The Russians
excelled in these Bacchanals, but the British were good seconds. A
little trick of the Russians, which the French sometimes imitated, was
to demolish the partitions between the boxes and to jump down from the
upper circle into the pit. It was by no means unusual to see officers
and soldiers dancing wildly on the stage. Sometimes the pandemonium got
to such a pitch that serious rioting took place, and then the C.A.A.
would have it closed or declared out of bounds for Allied troops for
several evenings.
The Salonica Press was of some interest. Before the fire there were
no less than eighteen daily papers, for a city of barely 200,000
inhabitants. Even after that catastrophe their numbers were only
reduced to ten. Of these four were printed in French; one of them,
_L’Indépendant_, was the organ of a group of local Jews and was, on
the whole, the best written, while _La Tribune_ was a Greek paper
published in French, opposed to the more extreme Chauvinism of the
Greek people and anxious to bring about a good understanding with
Italy. The other two, _L’Opinion_ and the _Echo de France_ were more
or less organs of the French G.H.Q. and represented the political
attitude of the Commander-in-Chief towards the different Allies. From
a journalistic point of view, none of them ranked very high, while the
two latter belonged to the class which Bismarck defined as the “reptile
press.” The British had only one paper, _The Balkan News_, edited by
Mr. Collinson Owen. It was purely a paper for the army, containing
the news of the day and a few special articles, and was well written,
bright, full of wholesome cheerfulness and wit, and wholly free from
local political tendencies--unlike the French papers, it never tried
to create bad feeling between the Allies. We also had only one paper,
_La Voce d’Italia_; it was not badly edited, but was sometimes too
violent and inclined to enter into polemics with other local papers,
until the Italian Command undertook to censor it (a function which, for
his sins, was entrusted to the present writer). There were five papers
printed in Greek, all equally violent, tendentious and wholly free from
scruples or respect for accuracy. The Serbs published three papers,
and the Russians, until their collapse, two. One of the Serb papers
printed long poems in the style of the Kossovo cycle almost daily; they
were eagerly read by the Serb soldiers, and a Serb officer told me that
his batman always cut them out and kept them when the paper was thrown
into the waste paper basket. There were two papers in Hebrew-Spanish,
of no particular character, and several small weeklies in different
languages. There were always plenty of foreign papers, although they
naturally arrived many days or even weeks late. The _Journal de
Genève_, which, like all neutral papers, was banned in most other
war zones, was obtainable in Salonica and much sought after, as it
contained the enemy communiqués. The British G.H.Q. issued a daily
bulletin of war news from all sources, including those of the enemy,
which was distributed to Allied Commands and Staffs.
A curious figure of Salonica life was Essad Pasha, the Albanian. An
ex-General in the Turkish Army, he had fought against the Balkan Allies
in the war of 1912–13, and when Prince William of Wied’s Government was
set up in Albania, he organized a rebellion against it. He exercised
a certain amount of influence in Central Albania, where he had large
landed estates, and was thus able to raise some armed bands. After
the departure of Wied he tried to set up a government of his own; at
one time he professed friendship for Italy, but he ended by turning
against us when he found that Italian policy was not in conformity with
his own personal ambitions. After the Allied Armies came to Salonica
he also repaired thither, having had to leave Albania in September,
1916, as he was causing trouble to the Italian military authorities.
General Sarrail received him officially and recognized his self-styled
title of “President of the Albanian Government.” Protected more or
less by various Powers, and subsidized simultaneously by at least
four, he does not appear to have rendered useful services to anyone.
He had set up a miniature _opéra-bouffe_ court at Salonica, with a
Government and Ministries of War, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, etc.,
although he had neither a State nor an Army. He lived in a handsome
villa, with his harem, and he disported himself about the town in the
uniform of an Albanian General, invented by himself, and every now
and then he promoted himself to a higher rank by adding a fresh star.
His suite comprised a very small number of officers and soldiers, the
latter mostly employed in cultivating a diminutive kitchen garden. In
spite of all this, some of the Allies appeared or professed to take
him seriously: the French, the Greeks and the Serbs had appointed
diplomatic agents to his “Court,” and did not fail to show him a
certain deference. Among the Italian element the _mauvaises langues_
said that he was thus supported in order to oppose Italian interests
in Albania. As his own influence was limited to Central Albania, he
had no hope of dominating the northern and southern territories, and
was therefore disposed to give away the former to the Serbs and the
latter to the Greeks. I do not profess to know what motive inspired
the attitude of the French Government towards this disreputable and
ridiculous adventurer, but I believe that the C.A.A. treated him with
consideration for the following reason. He claimed to be in a position
to raise a rebellion in the part of Albania occupied by Austria,
and although the _Deuxième Bureau_ was somewhat sceptical as to his
professions, it was thought worth while not to cast him off altogether,
on the chance that something might come of it. As a matter of fact,
he never did anything useful for the Allies, and was indeed hated by
the enormous majority of the Albanians. According to Miss Durham,[33]
who knows more about Albania than almost any other writer, if he had
been thrown over at the beginning of the war a large Albanian force
might have been raised to fight against the Austrians, and the Serbian
_débâcle_ prevented. His only merit was that he contributed something
to the gaiety of nations during the duller periods of the campaign.
After the Armistice, he redoubled his intrigues with Belgrade and
Athens in the hope of carrying off his little plan for a Central
Albania ruled by himself and the rest of the country sold to Serbia and
Greece. But the trick did not come off, and while he was in Paris he
was murdered by an Albanian student on June 13, 1920. If the deed must
be deplored as an act of violence, it cannot be said this his death was
a loss to humanity in general nor to the Albanian people in particular.
His assassin was acquitted by a Parisian jury.
The great problem of the Macedonian expedition was that of
communication and transport. Whereas the enemy could send
reinforcements and supplies from Central Europe to the Macedonian
front by rail, every man and every ton of goods which the Allies sent
out had to be conveyed across submarine-infested seas. This was one
of the chief arguments of those who were opposed to the undertaking
altogether, as tonnage was so precious and so inadequate even for
supplying Britain, France and Italy.
In the early days of the campaign, the Allied bases were Marseilles,
Toulon and certain English ports. Even from Marseilles the voyage
to Salonica required about a week, and when submarines were sighted
immense detours were made, involving a journey of two or three weeks,
or more. The voyage from England was, of course, longer, but even
the British generally made use of Marseilles. When Italy decided
to take part in the Macedonian campaign the Italian contingent was
embarked at Naples, but soon afterwards the port of Taranto became the
Italian base, and was eventually used by the British and French as
well, all troops and part of the supplies being transported by rail
through France and Italy. Taranto offered many advantages; the port is
admirably sheltered, and the Mare Piccolo is an immense land-locked
bay with unlimited space. Large British French and Italian camps were
established near the town, and in due course the convoy system was
adopted for greater safety. Besides the important Italian naval base,
both the other Allies instituted naval bases there, and the British
drifters and other anti-submarine craft became regular visitors to the
Apulian port.
The voyage from Taranto to Salonica, via the Ionian Sea round Cape
Matapan, took about three days, which was a great improvement on the
Marseilles route, although it was by no means free from danger, and at
times ships only travelled at night and had to take shelter in various
intermediate ports, which, of course, increased the time. The usual
precautions against submarines were taken, and the ships were painted
all sorts of colours in curious geometrical designs, and the systems
of intelligence and signalling were perfected. But in spite of all
these efforts, many ships were lost on the Taranto-Salonica route,
and still more among those which continued to cross from Marseilles
or Southampton. Not infrequently, when a ship was expected carrying
precious reinforcements or long-desired supplies, the ugly news would
be flashed across the seas that she had been lost. Italian losses were
not very numerous on this route, but among them was the large steamer
_Minas_ which sank with many hundreds of soldiers.
The possibility of shortening the dangerous passage was carefully
studied. The first idea had been to land the troops somewhere in
Greece and forward them by the Greek railways. But at that time the
Greek Government, although nominally neutral, was really assisting
the Central Empires and refused to grant permission for Allied troops
to traverse Greek territory, and even if it had been forced to do so
it would certainly have placed every conceivable obstacle in the way.
This plan having been dropped, the Italians began to study the Santi
Quaranta route. There was an elementary Turkish road or rather track
across Albania, but it was absolutely impassable for lorries, and even
light carts could not always use it. As soon as the Italian occupation
in South Albania began to extend inland, work was commenced on the
road between Santi Quaranta and Ersek, while the French started on the
section between Florina and Ersek over the Pisoderi pass. By the spring
of 1917 a few motor cars had succeeded in going over the whole route,
although not without serious difficulty. In the summer the immense work
was accomplished, and by the end of July the first columns of lorries
began to circulate regularly between Santi Quaranta and Florina. But
the carrying capacity of the road was limited, as was the capacity of
the depots and magazines at Santi Quaranta, so that the route could
not serve all the Allied armies and was not even sufficient for all
the supplies of the Italian contingent, the more so as part of it was
also used by the Albanian force. It was therefore decided to use it
only for the mails land the transport of Italian troops; supplies,
save in quite exceptional cases, continued to be sent by sea to
Salonica. Allied officers, however, especially Serbs going to and from
Corfu, made great use of it. Its main advantage lay in the fact that
the passage from Taranto or Brindisi to Santi Quaranta was only one
night’s crossing, so that the danger of submarine attacks was reduced
approximately to one-sixth. Another advantage was that by establishing
an uninterrupted line of posts right across from the Adriatic to the
Ægean the passage of messengers between King Constantine’s Government
and the Central Empires was practically precluded, and even after
the fall of Constantine it was just as well to keep watch over the
activities of Royalist sympathizers who might have continued to carry
on their master’s policy. A part of the route, not far from Santi
Quaranta, passed through Greek territory, and permission to use it had
to be negotiated while Constantine was still on the throne.
About half-way between Salonica and Santi Quaranta is Koritza, a
pleasant spot and the centre of many intrigues. The town, which is
situated in a fertile plain at the junction of several important
roads, had been assigned to Albania by the Ambassadors’ Conference
in London (1913) and the Protocol of Florence (1914), the enormous
majority of the population being Albanian. But as there was an active
and intelligent minority professing Greek sentiments, Greece laid claim
to the town and district. In 1914, Greek bands occupied it, numbers of
Greek schools were opened by the Greek authorities which had installed
themselves there, and the presence of a large Albanian population was
explained away by being called “Albanophone Greeks.” When the Italian
troops began to advance from the coast towards the interior, General
Sarrail sent a detachment of cavalry under Colonel Descoins to occupy
Koritza (November 1916). There remained the problem of administering
the district; it could not be given to Greece, because the Treaty of
London had assigned it to Albania, but Sarrail did not wish to hand
it over to the latter as there was no regularly constituted Albanian
Government, and he intended to make use of the district for eventual
military operations. He solved the difficulty by making of the Kaza of
Koritza an autonomous “Republic.” He created a local council composed
of natives, with a certain Themistocles, a noted band-leader, as
President, but under French military control. The Republic had its
stamps, its paper money, its budget. Later the French authorities
believed that they had evidence that Themistocles was dealing with the
Austrians; he was court-martialled, condemned to death and shot. It
afterwards appeared that the sentence was due to a judicial error, and
that the members of the court martial had been deceived by agents of
the local Greek party who wished to get rid of Themistocles because
he was an influential Albanian leader. The local council was then
dissolved and the territory administered very efficiently by the French
military authorities. The Greeks, however, continued their attempts
to get Koritza assigned to them, claiming that both that town and
Moschopolje had been centres of Greek culture since the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. They conducted a vigorous propaganda to
induce the inhabitants to send their children to the Greek schools, but
the latter remained deserted, save by the children of the few Greek
subjects and some Albanians of Greek sentiments. The question was not
finally settled until October, 1921, when the Conference of Ambassadors
definitely assigned Koritza to Albania and the Albanian State was
recognized by the Powers. The French raised a small local force, known
as the Koritza Gendarmerie and afterwards as the Koritza Tirailleurs.
But they did not prove of much use during the war, any more than did
the so-called Tabur of Essad Pasha; between these two forces there was
bitter hostility, and they could not be brought within sight of each
other.
From Koritza the road ascends the Tchafa Kiarit range, then down into
the broad Starja plain to Ersek, keeping at a height varying from
1,000 to 1,200 m. above the sea. The plain is green and fertile,
and surrounded by fairly high mountains, the Mavri Petra, on the
Graeco-Albanian frontier being 1,960 m. high. Ersek, where one usually
spends the night, is the first Italian post.
The next place of some importance is Liaskoviki; this was once a
pleasant and prosperous little town, in a very healthy situation amid
grand and wild scenery, where many wealthy Albanian landowners had
their summer residences in order to escape the malaria of the plains.
But during the Greek invasion of 1914 it was almost completely
devastated, save for the houses of the few orthodox Albanians who were
presumed to be of Greek sentiments. In October, 1916, Italian troops
occupied Liaskoviki and the Greeks withdrew. Here I first saw the
Albanian bands in Italian service; their appearance was satisfactory,
but opinions differed as to their military qualities and reliability.
As a rule those who were more directly under Italian control were the
best; left to themselves they were less useful.
Before the Italian occupation Santi Quaranta was a wretched village,
consisting of large Turkish barracks, a custom-house and a few
fishermen’s huts. During the war it became an important military and
naval base; many large huts and even some handsome brick buildings were
erected. It had been chosen as a base for transport to all parts of
South Albania and later for Macedonia on account of its well-sheltered
port, easy to defend against submarine attacks, and protected by the
island of Corfu just opposite. Steamers cannot be moored up to the pier
as the water is too shallow near the shore, and no attempt was made to
deepen it or lengthen the jetties, as it was realized that after the
war Santi Quaranta would lose much of its importance, Durazzo being
a far more suitable starting point for a trans-Albanian commercial
road or railway. The curious name of this little town is derived from
the legend that forty Christians inhabiting it were massacred at some
unspecified date by the Turks. The old town was not on the shore,
but on a height dominating the port, and the ruins of two Venetian
castles and other buildings are still visible. A third Venetian castle,
with fine walls, is in the middle of the modern town. Throughout the
latter period of the war Santi Quaranta was a busy place, when large
troopships were constantly arriving and landing troops and stores,
while torpedo boats and destroyers flitted about the bay, smaller boats
plied to and from Corfu, and lorries dashed up and down the one long
narrow street. At Corfu itself there were various military forces and
more or less vague military missions. The French had a naval base and
a military mission, the British a convalescent hospital and a mission,
the Serbs a whole Government with the Skuptschina and the Diplomatic
Corps, the Italians a military mission, a battalion of territorial
militia and a squadron of cavalry. The atmosphere proved as fertile for
inter-Allied intrigue as the soil was for olives, vegetables and fruit.
After the abdication of Constantine and the entry of Greece into the
ranks of the Allies, a new route to Macedonia was opened up--that
via the Gulf of Patras and Itea. It was used only by the French and
the British, but officers of other Allied armies travelled by it
occasionally. The sea-passage from Taranto to Itea was much longer than
that to Santi Quaranta (forty-eight hours instead of fifteen), but the
part of it exposed to submarine attack was just the same, as the boats
crossed from Taranto in one night to Corfu, lay off the island all
day, sailed again at nightfall, along the channel between the mainland
and the Ionian Islands, which was practically safe from attack, to the
entrance of the Gulf of Patras, and thence up the Gulf to Itea on the
northern shore.
At Itea there was a small Franco-British base, whence a good road leads
to Vralo on the Athens-Salonica railway.
Altogether the journey from Taranto to Salonica via Santi Quaranta
could be covered in three days, if one had a good car, while by
lorry it took a little longer; but the front of the A.F.O. could be
reached in two and a half days. The route from Itea to Salonica was
longer--nearly four days. Detachments of troops, of course, required
more time to reach their destination, so that the all-sea route was
decidedly shorter, but the latter was infinitely more risky, and the
opening up of the two land, or rather, semi-land routes reduced the
losses from submarines very considerably, and contributed their share
to the defeat of the enemy’s submarine campaign.
CHAPTER X
IRRITATION AGAINST GENERAL SARRAIL
One fact which the operations in Greece had made clear was that the
enemy were not at all inclined to carry out an offensive or were not
in a position to do so. If they had had any such intention, no better
occasion could have offered itself than at the moment when several
Allied divisions had been withdrawn and when the troops were depressed
by the unsuccessful offensive. If they did not know how greatly reduced
was the strength of the Allied forces, they could not ignore the
sending of troops to Greece. So favourable a chance of attacking was
never likely to occur again, and at Salonica everybody was expecting
an offensive which might have had disastrous results. But nothing
happened, which was a proof either of disagreement between the Bulgars
and Germans, or of the fact that the enemy did not feel very sure of
themselves. Soon after, the divisions sent to Greece returned to the
Macedonian front, and the immediate danger was over.
Salonica had now ceased to be a capital, and became once more a
provincial town, but its military importance remained, inasmuch as
it was still the centre of important military operations, and the
hotbed of infinite political intrigues. General Pennella, after having
remained only a few weeks in Macedonia, was recalled to Italy to
assume the important position of Chief of Staff to H.R.H. the Duke
d’Aosta (III Army), and the temporary command of the 35th Division
was assumed by Brigadier-General Chiossi. On June 30th Major-General
Ernesto Mombelli arrived at Salonica to take up the Command of the
expeditionary force, which he held until it broke up in July 1919,
He had begun his military career in the mountain artillery, had
passed brilliantly through the Staff College, and then entered the
Staff Corps. In Libya he had distinguished himself as a Commander
of Alpine troops and afterwards of a mixed force of the three arms.
Subsequently he went to Rhodes as Chief of Staff to General Ameglio.
The plan of operations of the successful battle of Psitos was his.
From Rhodes he was sent to Constantinople as Military Attaché, and
remained there until Turkey entered the war, when he was transferred to
Athens. There he had occasion to display the most valuable activity,
both in counter-espionage and in affirming Italy’s steady loyalty
within the Entente. In his dealings with the French and British on
more than one occasion he was able to thwart the shady manœuvres
of the Germans and their Royalist satellites. He had a thorough
knowledge of the political and military situation of the near East,
was endowed with great diplomatic tact, and was a man of the world,
of high character, and imbued with all the best Italian military
traditions. As Commander of the Italian expeditionary force under the
orders of a foreign Commander-in-Chief his position was anything but
easy, as the relations between the 35th Division and the C.A.A. had
never been properly defined. Further, General Sarrail, as we have
seen, was not too favourably inclined towards us, and never missed
an opportunity of giving proof of his antipathy. Our expeditionary
force was not complete--we had no field or medium calibre artillery,
we were inadequately provided with means of transport and lacked
certain materials with which the C.A.A. were bound to supply us, but
which it very often would not or could not provide. There was thus
constant friction, and our troops were finally convinced that General
Sarrail wished to exploit them to the utmost limit without ever
recognizing their merits. But General Mombelli, while defending our
rights and dignity with the greatest possible energy and vivacity in
his dealings with the C.A.A., succeeded in making himself popular,
and in maintaining relations of great courtesy with the successive
Commanders-in-Chief. With the British and Serbian Commanders, as I
have said, his relations were always inspired by the greatest
friendliness, especially with General Milne and Voivod Michich. In all
military operations which he had occasion to carry out, he gave proof
of eminent qualities as a Commander and of gallantry as a soldier. He
was rigid in the matter of discipline, and devoted the greatest care
to the moral and material welfare of his men. He insisted obstinately
on obtaining leave for his troops, although it was claimed that such a
thing was impossible for detachments beyond the sea on account of the
enormous difficulties and dangers of sea transport, but he succeeded,
and not a single ship transporting troops going on or returning from
leave was ever torpedoed. He was relentlessly severe against all who
failed in their military duties, or whose conduct was incompatible with
the dignity of an Italian soldier. He had no consideration for those
officers, very few in number it must be said, who neglected their men
at the front.
[Illustration: A FLOODED ROAD.]
[Illustration: LEAVE-PARTY FROM MACEDONIA ON THE SANTI QUARANTA ROAD.
_Photo by Lieut. Landini._]
To face p. 172.
]
Among the incidents which occurred between the Italians and General
Sarrail, there was one due to the obstruction which the latter
placed in the way of the creation of our lines-of-communication
posts along the Santi Quaranta road in the part which crossed the
French zone. Other incidents arose on account of the attitude of the
local Franco-Greek press which was subsidized by or under the strict
control of the C.A.A. To the Press General Sarrail attributed enormous
importance. Every day he received the journalists, and daily devoted an
hour to listening to the reports of the censorship officers, even in
critical moments when a Commander-in-Chief should have been occupied
with very different matters. For all these reasons General Sarrail made
himself ever more unpopular and impossible. As early as the beginning
of 1916 the British, Italian and Russian Governments had brought
considerable pressure to bear on that of France in favour of the
recall of Sarrail, and it appears that the first to demand this was M.
Isvolski, the Russian Ambassador in Paris, who had been informed of the
complaints against Sarrail, especially those which General Dietrich had
made after the autumn operations.[34] At the same time, Lord Bertie,
British Ambassador in Paris, in a note to the French Government,
pointed out General Sarrail’s preference for political operations, and
verbally dwelt on the difficulties of the relations between him and
the other Commanders, due to his own character and to his entourage.
He added that he was also speaking in the name of Italy and Russia. M.
Briand, then Prime Minister, at first showed annoyance and said that
France refused to discuss the merits of a French General in whom she
had confidence, but to this Lord Bertie replied that if Sarrail was
a French General, the Army d’Orient was international. He quoted the
words attributed to General Cadorna, who is reported to have said: “I
shall send more troops to Macedonia when there is a General to command
them.” All this made a certain impression in France, but the capture of
Monastir raised Sarrail’s prestige, although the exaggerated praises
lavished on him by his political friends did him harm, especially
those of M. Painlevé, the Minister of Public Instruction. Criticism
did not cease, and an Italian Ambassador is reported to have said that
Sarrail “preferred to reap the grain harvest in Thessaly rather than
laurels round Monastir.” An Italian Minister said to a French diplomat
in connexion with the disagreement among the Allies in Macedonia: “All
this would not have happened if you had given us a General who besides
having our sympathy also enjoyed our confidence, but you have sent
to Salonica, and you maintain there, a General who is merely imposed
on you by your internal situation.” The real reason why Sarrail,
who was not popular even in French Government circles, where he was
admitted to be unsuited to his duties, continued to be supported
must be sought in his political antecedents. The men at the head of
affairs in France believed at that time that, after the war, there
would be a strong revival of religious, Legitimist and anti-Republican
feeling, and of the generals of high rank General Sarrail was the only
one on whom the Government, or rather the Radical-Socialist Party,
believed that it could count absolutely for the defence of Republican
institutions. Sarrail, in fact, as I have said, was a FreeMason and an
anti-Clerical, and during the Combes Ministry he had co-operated--the
only field officer who would agree to do so--in the system of _fiches
de delation_ against officers guilty of religious practices. He was
therefore so thoroughly compromised in the eyes of the Clerical,
anti-Masonic, Monarchical parties, that there was no danger of his
coming to an agreement with them. Naturally he was anything but popular
with the enormous majority of officers of all ranks, and even those who
were not fervent Clericals had no sort of regard for him. At the same
time, the French Government did not wish to have him in France, because
they feared him as an incorrigible intriguer and wished to keep him
out of the way. For all these reasons, the Government did not dare to
recall him, although they did not wish to entrust him with an important
Command on any part of the front. They therefore gave evasive replies
to the protests of the Allies.
Nevertheless the Allied Governments again insisted in demanding his
recall. On the eve of the May offensive in 1917, Mr. Lloyd George had
been given the assurance that General Sarrail would be relieved as
soon as the operations were ended. This would also have given time
to reconsider the whole question of the Command in the near East. At
one time it had been proposed to send strong Italian reinforcements
to that front with the Duke of Aosta as Commander-in-Chief of the
Allied armies, but the proposal was dropped. When the offensive came
to an absolutely unsuccessful end, chiefly owing to the failure of
Sarrail, the latter continued to hold his Command in spite of the
ever-increasing irritation at his conduct on the part of all the
Allies, including now even the Crown Prince of Serbia. The French
Government, however, now asked that he should be left in Salonica until
the Greek question had been finally settled. After the abdication
of Constantine and the return of Venizelos, the British Government
reopened the Sarrail question; but M. Painlevé, who had become Minister
of War in the Ribot Cabinet, continued to support him. On July 25th Mr.
Lloyd George said to him: “You assume the whole responsibility, but
as a matter of fact, the Armée d’Orient is now condemned to immobility
because the failure of the Russian offensive (that ordered by Kerensky)
removes all hopes of co-operation between the Russian and Roumanian
Armies and that of the Orient.” But M. Painlevé had such a fanatical
admiration for Sarrail that this responsibility caused him no anxiety
whatever. A few days later, on the fall of the Ribot Cabinet, Painlevé
became Prime Minister.
Although the Allied Governments continued to desire the recall of
Sarrail, they considered that it was advisable to suspend their demand
for the moment. In France there was great depression and pessimism
about the progress of the war, owing to the unsuccessful offensive at
the Chemin des Dames and the enormous losses suffered, as well as to
the serious military mutinies organized by the Socialists, which had to
be repressed with ruthless but just severity. The Allies, therefore,
deemed it inadvisable to add to the embarrassments of the French
Government.
After the May operations, the Governments of France, Great Britain
and Italy were more than ever convinced, as Mr. Lloyd George had
said, that an Allied offensive in Macedonia was impossible, at least
for the moment--perhaps they did not yet understand how large a part
of the failure was due to the strategic errors of General Sarrail.
Although it was not their intention to withdraw the expeditionary force
altogether, a shortening of the front was contemplated. The British,
above all, were anxious to achieve this, and two Divisions (the 10th
and 60th) were already in course of evacuation, being destined for
Palestine, and the French, although they did not withdraw any of their
units, allowed their strengths to drop progressively without filling
the gaps. We alone had, until then, maintained our effectives up to
strength--our 3 brigades comprised 18,000 rifles--but now, seeing that
the Allies were reducing their strengths, we also ended by sending to
Albania and thence to Italy, the so-called 7th Battalions.[35] The
British Government wished that the whole front should be withdrawn
within the entrenched camp at Salonica, and the French were not
altogether opposed to this scheme. Its execution, it is true, presented
serious practical difficulties. A withdrawal of this kind in the face
of an enemy in full efficiency is always a very risky operation. It
would probably have caused the loss of a great many men and of a
large part of the artillery, which it would have been difficult to
transport over the rough ground of Macedonia. Another problem was how
to defend the entrenched camp, if a great deal of the artillery were
lost. The strongest opposition to the scheme came from the Serbs.
The Prince-Regent declared definitely that a withdrawal would have
a disastrous moral effect on the whole Serbian Army, and that if it
were effected he would have great difficulty in exercising authority
over it. Depressed as the troops already were, the evacuation of the
small tract of Serbian territory which they had reconquered with so
much bloodshed, would have produced a regular _débâcle_, and as the
Austrians at that time were offering them extremely advantageous peace
terms, which an influential party in the army were prepared to accept,
it was by no means impossible that the Russian collapse would have
been followed by a Serbian separate peace. Finally, if the Allies had
limited themselves to holding the entrenched camp at Salonica, the
Central Empires would no longer have been prevented from communicating
with their friends in Greece. For all these reasons the plan, which was
really a mad one, was abandoned.
We had another difficulty with General Sarrail concerning the extension
of our front. He was always insisting that we should extend our line
so as to give the French divisions a chance of more frequent turns of
rest, but our sector was one of the most difficult, and the defences
were anything but complete, so that General Petitti had constantly
opposed this request. General Pennella, to whom it was presented
again, replied to the same effect. On General Mombelli, General
Sarrail brought new and stronger pressure to bear with the same end in
view, but after a careful study of the situation, he came to the same
conclusion, and appealed to the Italian _Comando Supremo_. The latter
referred the question to the Commander-in-Chief in France, who stated
that he would try to convince General Sarrail, but that if the latter
insisted on his plan, he would not be able to take upon himself the
responsibility of giving contrary orders. As a matter of fact, however,
General Sarrail did not insist and the Italian front remained for the
moment unchanged.
CHAPTER XI
FROM THE SALONICA FIRE TO THE RECALL OF SARRAIL
On August 18, 1917, there occurred one of those catastrophes in which
the history of Salonica is so rich. At about three p.m. a fire broke
out in a small house occupied by a poor Jewish widow in the central
part of the old town. For four months not a drop of rain had fallen,
and at Salonica there was no adequate organization for fighting the
flames, except a small and ill-equipped fire-brigade inherited from the
Turks. The Allied Armies had their own fire-engines, but the C.A.A.
had made no arrangements in view of a possible conflagration in the
city, for which the local authorities were supposed to provide. Big
fires were by no means unknown in Salonica; some thirty years before
a considerable part of the town had been destroyed by the flames,
and other fires had occurred fairly frequently. The water supply was
totally inadequate and the pressure very weak. The great majority of
the houses in the old town were of wood and even in the others there
was a great deal of woodwork; as if this were not enough, a high wind
was blowing at the time. All circumstances were therefore propitious
for a first-class fire. In a very short time the flames spread far and
wide, and from the poor hovel of the Jewish widow it soon enveloped
a large part of the city in a vast conflagration. About sunset the
Italian military band was still playing in the Place de la Liberté
near the sea, and no one imagined that the flames could possibly come
so far down (the quarter where it had broken out was half-way up the
hill). But by ten at night the handsome buildings along the sea front
were menaced, and had to be rapidly evacuated; during the night they,
too, caught fire. The heat of the flames was so terrific that, although
these structures were of brick and stone, they were swept away like the
wooden hovels. Even the rails of the railway along the quay on the side
opposite the houses and many yards away from them, were twisted out
of shape by the heat. Throughout the night there was a general exodus
of the population from the awful furnace. One saw families abandoning
their homes carrying some clothes, bedding and other household goods,
which were afterwards set alight by sparks scattered by the wind.
Allied detachments were distributed about the various quarters of the
town to prevent pillaging, to which the local hooligans and a certain
number of soldiers belonging to one or two of the Allied armies devoted
themselves. We were glad to be able to establish that no Italian
soldiers took part in these operations, and the same may be said of the
British. The military lorries, especially those of the British Army,
accomplished admirable salvage work; all through the night and the
following day they plied back and forth between the fire zone and the
British camps outside the city. Our own lorries were for the most part
engaged in clearing our clothing depot, which was the only military
establishment in the centre of Salonica; fortunately the flames only
just reached its outer wall, which was blackened, and a few days later
it was possible to occupy it again. The premises occupied by the C.A.A.
were also evacuated for a day or two, as they were at one moment in
danger, but the fire never actually reached them. Luckily no military
establishment was destroyed, save one or two depots of trifling
importance.
[Illustration: BULGARIAN PRISONERS.]
[Illustration: IN THE “CASTELLETTO” TRENCHES.
To face p. 180.
]
The damage to the city was, however, enormous. All the hotels, very
many business houses, all the best shops, a large number of stores
and warehouses, the post office and other public buildings and a
vast number of private dwellings, especially in the poorer part of
the Jewish quarter, were razed to the ground. The banks were spared,
and so also were the hospitals, and the flames never reached the
new quarters where all the best private houses were situated. One of
the most serious losses, because it was irreparable, was that of the
beautiful church of St. Demetrius, historically and artistically the
most important monument in Salonica.
This catastrophe, although it did not directly affect the Allied
armies, created a problem which the military authorities could not
disregard, viz., that of housing and feeding many thousands of
refugees. By far the greater part of these were Jews, and the Greek
authorities, supported in this by General Sarrail, had at first
contemplated their evacuation, and it was proposed that they should
be sent to Old Greece, to the islands and abroad, so as to avoid
exposing them to hardships and to preserve the city from the dangers of
epidemics, which the excessive overcrowding in the few remaining houses
might easily have caused. This scheme naturally appeared the soundest
from the point of view of public health. Incidentally it also presented
the advantage, from the Greek point of view, that with the exodus of a
large part of the Jewish inhabitants, the Greek element would have come
to constitute an absolute majority of the population, thus eliminating
the danger that at the future Peace Conference, the Salonica Jews,
anything but attached to the Greek régime, might demand autonomy on the
basis of “self-determination.”
In any case the question was settled by the Jews themselves, who, save
a very small minority, refused to depart. They knew that as long as
the Allied armies were there they were assured of a necessary minimum
of food, and that they would be able, in a very short time, to make
good the losses they had suffered, whereas if they went to Old Greece
or elsewhere they would find themselves in the midst of an unfriendly
and poor population, where they could not even manage to earn their
daily bread. It was said of the Salonica Jews, as of the Armenians,
that their idea of paradise was an endless street of shops with Allied
soldiers walking up and down it; Salonica, even after the fire, was
not very different from this picture. The Jews whose houses were
still standing were very generous in giving hospitality to their less
fortunate co-religionists, and everyone was ready to limit the space
occupied. Provisionally, the British gave shelter to many thousands of
the more needy refugees in some large camps on the outskirts of the
city, while the Greek Government and all the Allied armies contributed
towards feeding them. Little by little, all found shelter of some
sort, goodness knows how, and soon trading on a small scale began to
spring up again. At first it would be an itinerant pedlar with a tray
full of reels of cotton, a few pairs of stockings, some yards of linen
or canvas, and a little hardware. Then the tray became a hand-cart,
with a somewhat more abundant stock of goods, and the hand-cart was
next transformed into a stationary cart. A few days later the cart was
sheltered by a few boards; the whole outfit soon began to take on the
appearance of a modest hut, a little better stocked, almost a regular
shop. The profits of these traders, owing to the great scarcity of
goods, were quite fabulous.
For a long time the Greek Government refused to grant any permits to
rebuild in the burnt area, because it contemplated a grandiose plan
of reconstruction, based on an elaborate scheme which should have
made of Salonica a model city, with broad piazze, wide boulevards,
imposing public buildings, stately residences, perfect workmen’s
dwellings, Rowton houses, an elaborate electric tramway system,
electric undergrounds, a university, opera houses, concert halls, and
even a forest on the outskirts. But as all this was in the dim and
distant future and the inhabitants insisted on being allowed to make
some temporary arrangements, permission was finally granted to rebuild
the ground floors of the houses, the authorities reserving the right to
demolish them without compensation if the general reconstruction plan
were carried out. The Salonica merchants did not hesitate to take that
risk, and at once began to rebuild. In a few months they had recouped
themselves for their losses with a broad margin of profit. One cannot
help admiring their persistence, which was amply rewarded. But the
problem of general reconstruction has remained unsolved to this day. A
wealthy business man told me (and his opinion was confirmed by other
experts) that everything depended on the future political status of
the city. If it should be endowed with local autonomy and become a
free port, the money would easily be found, not only for rebuilding
Salonica, but also for the necessary works to prevent the silting up
of the harbour; the local Jews, with their own resources and those of
their co-religionists abroad, would provide it. But if Salonica were
to remain a Greek provincial town, without autonomy, at the mercy of
the Athens politicians, no one would invest any capital in it. Indeed,
many of the most far-sighted and enterprising business men would
leave altogether. I do not know whether this opinion is right, but it
certainly represented the conviction of almost the whole of the city’s
business community.
On August 31st an Italian detachment made a surprise attack on the
summit of Hill 1050. The position was captured with brilliant dash,
but before the troops could entrench themselves adequately they were
exposed to such a terrific artillery and trench-mortar fire that it was
not possible to remain, and General Mombelli, in order to avoid useless
losses, recalled the detachment. There were no enemy counter-attacks.
Early in September, General Sarrail undertook an action at his extreme
left against the Austrians and Bulgarians in Albania, to liberate the
road between Florina and Ersek from the menace of hostile attack, and
to push on the Pogradetz on the Lake of Ochrida. With this object
in view he made up a group consisting of 3 infantry regiments, some
mountain artillery and other minor units. The French line just skirted
the Lake of Ochrida and then turned sharp to the south, east of the
river Cerava, reached Lake Malik near Nishavetz and continued to the
south of the lake, almost parallel with the Koritza-Ersek road. On
September 7th, a column of the 176th Regiment occupied Placa between
the Lakes of Ochrida and Malik, and drove back the enemy beyond the
Cerava. On the 8th, another column forced the passage of the Devoli
river, west of Lake Malik. On the 9th, Pogradetz was occupied, this
being the only place where some resistance was offered, the enemy
forces consisting of Bulgarians, Austrians, Albanians in the Austrian
service, and some Saxon troops sent over expressly from another
sector of the front. The French pushed forward along the west shore
of Lake Ochrida as far as Udunista (9 km. north of Pogradetz) and
spread westward as far as Hill 1704, whence they hoped to command the
Durazzo-Struga road, one of the lines of supply of the extreme right
wing of the enemy. At the same time a column composed of French troops
and Albanian irregulars advanced along the upper Skumbi, and on the
21st a French detachment delivered a surprise attack on Golik (6 or
7 km. south of the Durazzo-Struga road), capturing 480 prisoners and
putting a similar number of the enemy _hors de combat_, with the loss
of only 16 men. Altogether the French made about a thousand prisoners
in these operations. In October, there was a slight renewal of activity
in this area, but the line occupied varied little, and was finally
stabilized along the following points: Udunista, Hill 1704, Velichani
Mokra, Gora Top, and thence southward. There was not, however, a
continuous line, as on the Western fronts or even in other parts of
the Macedonian front, but only a series of more or less isolated
posts. The troops in this sector were formed into what was called the
Provisional Infantry Division, commanded by General Jacquemot. The
detachments forming it soon afterwards returned to their respective
units, but subsequently, in consequence of information received
concerning a probable Bulgarian counter-offensive along the west shore
of Lake Ochrida, with the object of recapturing Pogradetz and perhaps
again menacing the Santi Quaranta road, the Provisional Division was
reconstituted; but the threatened attack never took place.
The French had thus obtained some not indifferent territorial
advantages by means of this very well conducted operation. But they now
found themselves with an extended front and their left flank in the
air, a situation which, in the face of an enterprising enemy, might
have been very dangerous, all the more so as their supplies had to
be transported on mule-back over very difficult country. But neither
the Bulgarians nor the Austrians were then in a position to attempt
operations in that area, which was as arduous for them as for the
French.
During the month of November, in consequence of the terrible disaster
of Caporetto, there were persistent rumours from various sources of
an imminent enemy offensive on the Macedonian and Albanian fronts.
The landing of several German divisions at Durazzo and the arrival of
numerous reinforcements on the Macedonian front from Roumania were
reported, chiefly from neutral countries (Spain and Switzerland).
The Austro-German victory on the Italian front was enthusiastically
fêted by the enemy forces in the Balkans, and a vigorous propaganda
was conducted, especially among the Serbs, by means of grandiloquent
proclamations and invitations to make a separate peace, dropped into
the Allied lines. General Sarrail did not believe in this offensive,
and as things turned out his scepticism proved well founded. All that
actually did happen was a slight increase in the enemy’s battalion
strength. The number of enemy battalions, which had risen from 239 in
February to 267 in May, and had fallen to 237 in August, again rose to
285 in November. These battalions were nearly all Bulgarian, save for
a variable but ever-decreasing number of German battalions--they were
then eight or nine--and the 177th Turkish Regiment, the last remnant
of the 2 Turkish divisions which had been formerly on the Macedonian
front; even this was soon afterwards withdrawn. It appears, however,
that the actual strength of the battalions had been progressively
weakened, so that the increase was more apparent than real.
Besides all their other difficulties, the Russian trouble was now
added. In the early days of the campaign the Russian troops had
fought very well, especially in the operations round Monastir. But
the revolution in Russia had its reaction, although in an attenuated
form, also in Macedonia. At first the trouble was caused by the
partisans of the old régime, who appeared unwilling to go on fighting
for the Russian Republic, and among these there was, it is said, a
Brigadier-General. Then the poisonous Bolshevik infection began to
spread among the troops, destroying all discipline and patriotic
sentiment. Whereas formerly many of the officers had neglected and
brutally ill-treated their men, and often embezzled the army funds, now
the brutalized and ignorant soldiers began to refuse to obey them. The
famous soldiers’ committees were formed, the result of which was the
abolition of all respect for authority and the placing of a premium on
cowardice and treachery. It was impossible to punish a soldier even
if he were guilty of the most infamous crime without the judgment of
the committee, and the latter invariably acquitted the accused. If
the idiotic blunders of Kerenski and the ignoble infamies of Lenin
and Trotzky did not produce such immediate and disastrous effects in
Macedonia as they did in Russia, it is because the Russians were but a
small minority among the other Allied troops who were not infected by
the plague.
At the time of the expedition to Greece the effects of revolutionary
ideas among the Russian troops became even more visible, the conduct
of the men being disgracefully undisciplined and scandalous. Then
there were rumours of “fraternization” at the front between Russians
and Bulgarians, and, although no very serious incidents seem to
have occurred, the mere possibility of them was in itself alarming.
The 7th and 8th Regiments gave most signs of insubordination and
demoralization, and one of the most culpable individuals appear to
have been Colonel Mindru, the Commander of the 7th Regiment, who
hoped to make himself popular by placing himself at the head of the
revolutionary movement. General Dietrich, an excellent officer, had
been recalled to Russia in the summer of 1917, and after a series of
temporary Commanders, General Taranowski had arrived at the beginning
of November to take command of the division. But by that time the
Bolshevik revolution was triumphant, and the Russian division was
going to pieces. At the beginning of January 1918, the Soviets of the
3rd, 7th and 8th Regiments demanded to be withdrawn to the second
line, whereas the 4th was ready to remain in the trenches. The more
insubordinate elements were sent to North Africa to perform almost
forced labour. The others were offered the choice of either continuing
to fight or of working in Macedonia as paid labourers. A small minority
requested to be sent to fight, and were shipped off to France where
they were incorporated in the Russian legion, and so did those of
Polish nationality, who joined the Polish Legion. Some of the others
agreed to work, but the great majority would neither fight nor work,
and these were consequently forced to work, practically as prisoners
of war. It is not likely that the French officers and men who had
charge of them were particularly tender towards these blackguards who
had betrayed the cause of the Entente and were responsible for the
indefinite prolongation of the war, to the total advantage of the
German.
Gradually the Russian Division was dissolved, by no means a simple
matter, owing to the administrative chaos in which its officers had
left it. The Russian officers remaining in Macedonia or relegated
to Greece did not, save a few exceptions, give a very edifying
spectacle of themselves. They continued their unseemly riotous living,
extravagantly spending money obtained no one knew how, and bombarded
the French _Intendance_, to whom the liquidation of the force was
entrusted, for increases of salary, advances, demobilization bonuses,
etc. The total number of Russian troops in Macedonia had been about
15,000, so that their disappearance constituted an appreciable
reduction of effectives.
The discipline of the French troops of the A.F.O. under Sarrail’s
régime had been getting worse and worse, as was proved by the mutinies
which occurred in the 57th Division. The immediate cause of the trouble
was the impossibility of granting leave to the majority of the men who
were entitled to it. Salonica was full of soldiers on their way home
on leave, but who could not depart owing to the scarcity of tonnage.
The worst disorders occurred among the men of the 242nd Infantry
Regiment, who after the end of their period of rest, refused to return
to the trenches. The Command was not in a position to apply extreme
measures, and had to adopt sometimes the strong and sometimes the
gentle manner. Order was, however, finally re-established, and the last
ninety mutineers were surrounded and disarmed without bloodshed (July
1917). Similar incidents occurred in the 2bis Zouaves. General Sarrail
attributed the trouble to the officers who had, he declares, first
encouraged them and then tried to keep in the background.[36]
All these episodes were signs of a very unsatisfactory spirit, and
were calculated to make the French Government ever more doubtful of
Sarrail’s military qualities. Another incident was now to prove the
last straw. We have already spoken of General Sarrail’s situation with
regard to the Allies and to French policy. Partly from a legitimate
desire to see the Armée d’Orient treated with more consideration and
adequately supplied with reinforcement and material, but still more
from his incorrigible tendency to political intrigue, he tried, while
M. Briand was still in office, to provoke a political campaign against
him in France, as he considered him responsible for the troubles of
his Army and attributed to his influence the fact that the French
Government often gave way to the Allies in matters concerning the
Macedonian Campaign. He had sent to Paris a report on the Armée
d’Orient whose conditions he described in the darkest colours,
insisting that this state of things should be remedied adequately,
so as to avoid an otherwise inevitable disaster. So far there was,
of course, no harm. But when the _Bonnet Rouge_ scandal broke out it
appeared from the papers of the traitor Almereyda that he had had a
copy of the Sarrail report in his hands and that he had communicated it
to agents of the German Government, who thus came to know the state of
weakness of the Macedonian force; had the enemy been in a position to
act upon this knowledge the Macedonian campaign might have ended in a
very disastrous manner. But who had communicated the precious document
to Almereyda? It was discovered in the course of the inquiry that he
had received it from a certain Sergeant Paix-Séailles, a journalist and
politician, who in all probability ignored the fact that Almereyda was
a traitor, but wished to make use of him for the campaign against M.
Briand. Paix-Séailles had obtained the document from Captain Mathieu,
an officer attached to the Staff of General Sarrail. Mathieu took
upon himself the whole responsibility for the affair, and received a
disciplinary punishment from the court martial, but it was impossible
to eliminate the general conviction that he would never have made such
use of so confidential a document if he had not been authorized to do
so by his Chief, whose full confidence he enjoyed and whose hostility
to Briand was notorious. About the same time the famous Caillaux
_dossier_ came to light, in which was a plan for the appointment
of General Sarrail as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army; the
appointment was to be made after the _coup d’état_ which Caillaux was
contemplating. Even if Sarrail himself had no knowledge of this scheme,
the mere fact that his name appeared among the persons in whom Caillaux
had confidence made a very bad impression.
On November 13th the Painlevé Cabinet fell and was succeeded by
that of M. Clemenceau. To the latter the Allied Ministers, in the
Versailles meeting of December 2nd, communicated all the complaints
against Sarrail. M. Clemenceau studied the various files concerning him
very carefully, and thus became acquainted with the above-mentioned
episodes. In spite of the pressure of the General’s political friends,
Clemenceau had the courage to cut the Gordian knot without hesitating;
on December 7th Sarrail received his order of recall, on the 22nd he
left Salonica, and after a series of inquiries he was placed on the
retired list.
His departure was welcomed with a sense of relief and satisfaction by
all the Allies, and even among the French officers it caused no regret,
save in a small group of persons in his immediate entourage who had
taken advantage of his friendship to obtain exceptional promotion and
other advantages for themselves. With General Sarrail his Chief of the
Staff, General Michaud, also departed.
CHAPTER XII
GENERAL GUILLAUMAT
General Sarrail was succeeded by General Guillaumat. The latter was a
man of very different stamp. A good soldier and a thorough gentleman,
he immediately acquired an authority over the other Allied Commanders
such as had never been enjoyed by his predecessor. In France he had
given proof of high military qualities, but he remained a short time
in Macedonia and had no opportunity of carrying out an offensive. His
earnestness of purpose and conduct, however, which were soon made
manifest, argued well for the future, and while the merit of the
victory is justly attributed to General Franchet d’Espérey, the plan of
operations is due, in no small part, to General Guillaumat. Above all
he restored the discipline of the A.F.O., which had been badly shaken
under the unfortunate Sarrail régime. He brought a new Chief of the
Staff with him, General Charpy, who was certainly superior to General
Michaud, but he was to prove not too friendly towards the Italians; he
retained his post until after the end of the campaign.
The Commander of the A.F.O. was also changed in the autumn of 1918,
but for other reasons. General Grossetti was forced to leave Macedonia
owing to a serious illness, which had a fatal ending; he left an
excellent memory of himself, for his fine military qualities and
his character. He was succeeded by General Régnault, late Commander
of a group of divisions in Macedonia; he in his turn was succeeded
by General Henrys. With the successive Commanders of the A.F.O. our
relations were always cordial and friendly, even when they were less so
with the C.A.A. It was in fact much easier for two fine soldiers such
as Generals Petitti and Mombelli to agree with fighting leaders endowed
with qualities similar to their own than with Generals whose attention
was largely monopolized by political affairs.
[Illustration: THE SALONICA FIRE (NIGHT FROM AUGUST 18TH TO 19TH,
1917).]
[Illustration: CAMP OF THE 111TH FLIGHT (ITALIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE).
To face p. 192.
]
While the Armée d’Orient had suffered a reduction of strength in
consequence of the Russian defection, it received in the winter of
1917–18 an unexpected reinforcement in the Serbian Army. During
the early period of the war a large number of Yugoslav subjects of
Austria-Hungary--Serbs, Bosnians and Herzegovinians, Croatians,
Slovenes, etc.--had been made prisoners by the Russians. Not a few had,
in fact, from hatred of their own Government, voluntarily surrendered.
They afterwards declared themselves ready to enlist in the Russian
Army to fight against the Dual Monarchy, and as there were very few
officers among them (the Austro-Hungarian Command was careful to
bestow commissions only on persons on whose loyalty it could depend),
a number of regular officers of the Serbian Army were sent out to
command them. Thus some Yugoslav divisions were formed which fought
gallantly on the Russian side against the Austrians and Germans. When
the revolution broke out in Russia they continued to fight in spite of
the gradual defection of the Russian Army, and in the last offensive in
June and July 1917 in Galicia, which began with a success and ended in
disaster, they found themselves abandoned by their erstwhile comrades
in arms, and suffered enormous losses, as the Russians, infected
with Bolshevism, either ran away or began to “fraternize” with their
own worst enemies. Finally, when the Russian situation had become
manifestly hopeless, they determined to go and join their brothers in
Macedonia. The enterprise was no easy one, for if the distance between
the borders of Galicia and Macedonia was short, invaded Roumania and
hostile Bulgaria stood between. It was therefore necessary to cross
the whole of Russia. The first detachments went to Archangel, where
they embarked for England, thence they travelled across France to
Toulon, there they re-embarked for Italy, and finally came on by road
and rail to Salonica, where they began to arrive at the end of
November, 1917, after a journey of many months. Others followed in
December and January. Those of them whom I saw in the train between
Vralo and Salonica were really fine-looking soldiers; indeed, only
picked men could have had the endurance to face all these difficulties
voluntarily. But the last detachments underwent even more dramatic
vicissitudes. They found themselves in the midst of Bolshevized Russia,
hostile to themselves and a vassal to Germany. Lenin, acting in
Germany’s interests, did not wish to allow them to leave, and it was
only thanks to the absolute anarchy then dominant in the country that
they were able, after infinite difficulties, to continue their journey.
The Bolsheviks at first demanded that the infamous soldiers’ councils
should be instituted among them, but the Yugoslavs refused to destroy
their own discipline. Lenin insisted that every single man should
state individually that he wished to go to Macedonia, and the great
majority did so. But during the journey they had to give up their arms
and encountered every sort of obstacle and obstruction, while Russian
employers and contractors, by offering them very high wages, tried
to induce them to remain in Russia, where no one else wanted to work
any longer; a certain number could not withstand the temptation and
remained behind. The Archangel route being no longer practicable, they
had to travel by the Trans-Siberian railway, so that to go from the
Danube to Salonica they crossed the whole of European Russia, Siberia,
Manchuria and on to Dalny, where they embarked, crossed the China Sea,
the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean,
finally landing at Salonica--a trifle of some 15,000 km.
On reaching Salonica they were sent to the camp at Mikra, re-equipped,
armed and sent on to the front. In all they were 8,000 to 10,000 men;
part of them were distributed among the existing units, so as to infuse
fresh blood into their reduced effectives, but some 3,500 to 4,000
were embodied in a new brigade of 2 regiments attached to the Vardar
Division, which thenceforth assumed the name of Yugoslav Division; its
other brigade, made up of the effectives of its 3 original regiments
(reduced to 2) was called the Vardar Brigade. This division was the
only one in the Serbian Army which comprised 4 regiments.
The arrival of these reinforcements produced a moral effect wholly
out of proportion with the material increase of strength which it
represented. The spirit of the soldiers had been gradually becoming
more and more depressed owing to the long-delayed expectation and
the constant losses which were never made good. They saw everything
in the gloomiest colours and had lost practically all hope of final
victory; the influence of the party favourable to a separate peace with
Austria steadily grew stronger. But the mere sight of these 8,000 new
combatants, who had faced such fearful hardships to reach Macedonia and
who knew that if they were taken prisoners they would receive but short
shrift, spread a new spirit of hope throughout the Serbian Army. These
were the first reinforcements which it had received for about a year.
I went to see some of the Yugoslav detachments which had arrived from
Russia at their camp, and I learned that the great majority of them
were Orthodox Bosnians and Herzegovinians. The Catholic Croatians,
Dalmatians and Slovenes were but a trifling minority. In fact, most
of the Yugoslavs of Croatia, Dalmatia and the Slovene lands, who had
been captured in Russia refused to enrol themselves to fight against
Austria, with very few exceptions, for the inhabitants of those
territories remained faithful henchmen of the Dual Monarchy until the
Armistice.
In Italy there were some 30,000 more Yugoslav prisoners, part of whom
had been captured by the Serbs and then conducted into Albania after
the collapse of the Serbian Army, whence they were afterwards shipped
to Italy. In consequence of the serious crisis of effectives which
paralysed the Serbian Army in Macedonia, the Serbian Government,
then established at Corfu, made application to that of Italy that
all the prisoners of Yugoslav race should be given into its charge.
Negotiations were instituted with this object, but the Italian
Government raised objections of various kinds. There was at first some
hesitation in handing them over to the Serbs for fear of reprisals
by Austria against our own prisoners. It also transpired that at
least a large part of them had no desire to go to fight in Macedonia,
especially those who were not Orthodox. Furthermore, the Serbian
Government committed the _gaffe_ of sending as its representative
to visit the prisoners in question an officer of the Serbian Army,
who was a Slovene from Opcina near Trieste and consequently a future
Italian citizen. On the eve of the general offensive in Macedonia the
negotiations had led to no result, and the Serbian Government made
a show of great irritation against us, attributing our reluctance
to ill-will against the Yugoslav nation. But as a matter of fact,
while the Serbian G.H.Q. at Salonica and the Government at Corfu were
officially and ostentatiously insisting that the prisoners should be
consigned to them, I learned from Serbian officers in very close touch
with the leading generals that the latter were by no means too anxious
to swell the ranks of their army with elements whose loyalty was
regarded with considerable doubt. A few days before the offensive, one
of those officers admitted to me in confidence: “Just now our Command
is so fully occupied with preparations for the coming action that it
has no time to think about the prisoners in Italy. And then we do not
particularly trust these semi-Austrian gentry.” The difficulties raised
by us were the object of complaints made to the other Allies regarding
our conduct, but in truth the Serbian Government was by no means sorry
to have an excuse for dropping the scheme.
By this time almost the whole of the Greek Army had been transported
to Macedonia. The three divisions of the National Defence Army Corps
(except for one regiment retained in Athens) was united under the
command of General Zimbrakakis, and distributed between Nonte and the
Vardar, forming part of the 1st Group of Divisions. Other divisions
belonging to the regular army and reorganized by the French Military
Mission, were moving towards the Struma front. Their effectives were
considerable, as the divisions were all up to strength and almost free
from war losses. But in spite of the intensive training to which they
had been subjected by the French officers at the Naresh camp, both
officers and men still had very scanty notions of modern methods of
warfare. Among the officers, moreover, even after the severe cleansing,
Royalist feeling had by no means disappeared, and a British officer
attached to the Greek Army assured me that at more than one Greek mess
the health of the exiled King was still drunk. The great unknown factor
was the fighting value of these soldiers. Those of the National Defence
Corps were now sufficiently inured to war, but about the others nothing
was known.
As it was necessary, in view of reports of a coming enemy offensive,
to obtain reliable information, local operations were intensified. On
the night of April 14–15, 1918, Greek and British detachments made an
incursion beyond the Struma (north-west of Lake Tahinos), and occupied
various villages; the Bulgars counter-attacked and regained some of the
lost positions. The Greeks had behaved well, although the engagement
was of small importance. The local Greek press, and also the French
papers, inspired by the C.A.A., extolled this episode to the skies as
though it were a first-class victory. Even in the restaurants at Athens
banquets were given, with abundance of champagne, to celebrate the
great triumph.
At the end of May the National Defence Forces carried out a much
more important operation. The enemy occupied a strong position on
the _massif_ known as the Srka di Legen[37] near Huma, which formed
a very awkward salient for the Allies. During the last days of May,
a powerful group of French artillery, together with 2 British 8-inch
guns, were concentrated in that area and opened a heavy bombardment on
the enemy lines. The British heavy batteries on the Smol (left bank
of the Vardar) also contributed their share. On the 29th, the attack
began, and the Greek troops rushed the enemy trenches at dawn on the
30th, supported by a powerful barrage fire. The 1st (Serres), 5th
and 6th (Archipelago) Regiments gained possession of the defensive
positions of the Srka di Legen, while the 7th (Cretan) Regiment
occupied the heights between the two branches of the Ljumnitza River.
On a front of 12 km. and for a depth of 2 km. the whole complicated
maze of formidable defences was thus conquered. The action was so rapid
that the Bulgarian barrage did not begin until the attacking troops
were already well out of their trenches. The enemy counter-attacks,
weakly pushed, were easily repulsed, and the Greeks captured some
1,700 prisoners and a considerable amount of booty, losing from 500 to
600 men, killed and wounded. The Greeks behaved extremely well, and
their Commander, General Ioannou, greatly distinguished himself for
his personal courage. A fresh Bulgarian counter-attack was expected
during the next few days, especially as the Bulgarians were known to
despise the Greeks and it was believed that they would never submit to
a defeat at their hands without attempting a return match; elaborate
defensive preparations were made, and the Greek troops were sent into
the second lines to recuperate, and relieved by French units. But the
counter-attack never materialized, and this was one of the first really
significant signs of the enemy’s depressed _moral_. From Field Marshal
Hindenburg’s memoirs and other sources we gather that the troops
detailed for the counter-attack and for a general attack on the British
lines had refused to march.
The operation had been admirably prepared by the French Staff, and
the artillery concentrated in that area formed a formidable mass. Its
objectives were almost more political than military, and full success
having been achieved, it was very largely exploited and advertised.
The battle of the Srka was indeed a strong encouragement for the
Venizelist party in Greece, and public opinion came to have somewhat
more confidence in the Greek Army. It seems almost paradoxical, but the
Greeks themselves, who were ready to extol in the most exaggerated way
the most modest successes of their troops, in their heart of hearts did
not feel much confidence in them, and as a French officer said to me,
they still believed that the Bulgarians trained by the Germans were
worth more than the Greeks trained by the French. But in one of those
fits of sudden exaltation, characteristic of all Balkan peoples, the
Greeks swerved from a belief in German invincibility and terror of a
Bulgaro-German invasion to the absolute confidence in a complete and
immediate Allied victory obtained by virtue of Greek aid. In the cafés
of Athens there was little to choose between the Marne, Gorizia, the
Somme, Brusiloff’s offensive and the Srka di Legen.
But in spite of all exaggerations, we must remember that this was a
really creditable episode; it exercised a favourable influence on the
Greek mobilization, and showed that the Allies could count on at least
a part of the Greek Army.
CHAPTER XIII
MARKING TIME. ARRIVAL OF GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY
The spring of 1918 had been the most menacing period for the Entente.
At that time the first effects of the Russian collapse were felt on the
Western front as they had been felt on the Italian front in October,
1917. On all fronts the Allies were standing still, held down without
the possibility of attempting any offensive. The “war map” was wholly
in favour of the Central Powers. Germany occupied almost the whole
of Belgium, a large and rich part of France. The Austrians were on
the Piave. Russia, after the shameful surrender of Brest-Litovsk,
had seen the German and Austrian armies spread over a vast part of
her territory. The Turks, after the withdrawal of the Russians from
Armenia, had invaded the Caucasus. Roumania, betrayed by the Russians,
had two-thirds of her territory occupied by the enemy, and after a
heroic resistance on the Sereth, had been forced to submit to peace
on disastrous terms. Now the Germans on the Western front and the
Austrians in Italy were preparing new and vast offensives which should
finally bring the struggle to an end with a colossal victory. The
British, French and Italians hoped to be able to resist, but all were
filled with deep anxiety. American assistance was arriving very slowly,
while the defeatist propaganda, conducted by Socialists and others in
the pay of Germany, was spreading secretly throughout all the Allied
countries.
On March 21, the German offensive in France was launched and its
successes were more rapid and more terrible than could have been
expected. After a few days all the territory laboriously conquered
at the cost of enormous losses by the Allied forces in the spring and
summer of 1917, were lost, and the enemy still advanced irresistibly
towards Amiens, to separate the British from the French Armies.
Immediately afterwards the offensive in Flanders began, which, although
less rapid than the other, achieved menacing successes. In May there
was another great German offensive on the Chemin des Dames, and in two
days the enemy regained the ground won by the French in the preceding
summer, and pushed much further on, crossing the Marne at several
points and again threatening Paris. It seemed as though nothing could
now hold up the overwhelming advance.
At this grave moment the Macedonian front was more neglected than
ever, and the Army in the East was indeed made use of to provide
reinforcements for the Western front. In the despairing search for
effectives to fill up the gaps in the French front it was decided to
withdraw certain units from the East. During the winter of 1917–18
the French Army in Macedonia had received sufficient reinforcements
to bring the battalions up to a semblance of their organic strength.
The total of the French Army which had been reduced to 180,000 men,
had been again raised to 210,000. The British, too, received some
reinforcements. We continued to maintain our own strength, except for
the withdrawal of the 7th battalion in the summer of 1917, which I have
already mentioned. But with the German offensive in France, the French
and British Commands sent a commission to the East to examine the
possibility of withdrawing troops, and it was decided to send to France
the equivalent of 12 battalions from each of the two armies. From the
British contingent, which comprised 12 brigades of 4 battalions each,
one whole battalion per brigade was withdrawn; the French instead
withdrew a corresponding number of men from various units, while a
few regiments, whose strength had been greatly reduced, were broken
up. This gave increasing importance to the Greek Army, which was in
a position to supply the Macedonian front with a number of men, not
by any means equivalent in fighting quality or training to the French
and British battalions withdrawn, but stronger in effectives. This
decision was generally deplored, because 24 battalions represented a
very negligible increase of strength on the French front where vast
armies millions strong were engaged, whereas by withdrawing them from
Macedonia they constituted a reduction of force which was anything but
indifferent, and could not be compensated by even twice that number
of Greek battalions; this made the situation of the Allied troops
remaining at that front--our own included--much harder.
In the East, another result of the German offensive in France was the
change in the Commander-in-Chief. General Guillaumat was very highly
thought of in France, and rightly so. In Macedonia he had, as I have
said, restored the shaken discipline of the French troops and had
entirely reorganized them, but in the extremely critical situation
in which Paris found itself in view of the German advance in May,
it was decided to entrust him with the defence of the Capital, and
consequently on June 8, he quietly departed from Salonica and was
succeeded by General Franchet d’Espérey. The loss of the Chemin des
Dames, where the latter had commanded an army, had not exactly caused
him to fall into disgrace, because the defeat does not appear to have
been due to any fault of his own, but it rendered him less highly
considered than he had been before, and consequently he was sent to
take command at Salonica, where it was not believed that important
operations would ever take place again. General Franchet d’Espérey is a
man of high historical and literary as well as military culture, he has
travelled a great deal abroad and belongs to an aristocratic family; he
is somewhat brusque in his manner, impulsive and sometimes dominated by
the last incident which had happened and had put him in a good or bad
humour with everybody. When he was in a good humour, he was gay, _bon
camarade_, and one could tell him or ask him anything, whereas when
something had gone amiss he was irritable and difficult to deal with.
For General Mombelli he had great sympathy, and even when our Commander
had occasion to complain energetically about some deficiency in the
services for which we were dependent on the C.A.A.--and occasions
were not lacking--he always accepted his remarks in a friendly spirit
and did everything that was possible to satisfy him. He did not enter
into discussions on the various questions submitted to him and often
made remarks that were not absolutely accurate, basing his opinion
on something that he had read or heard without going into the matter
thoroughly. But as a strategist he showed in Macedonia qualities of the
highest rank, and he commanded with success the extremely mixed team of
the Armèe d’Orient.
General Guillaumat deserves credit for having thought out the
Macedonian offensive, basing it on Voivod Michich’s old plan of 1916,
for the part which concerned him; General d’Espérey perfected the plan,
completed it, and then carried it out.
The engagement on the Srka di Legen was the last on the Macedonian
front before the great offensive, with the exception of a few small
raids on many sectors. The British were particularly active during this
period, both as regards raids in the Struma and in aerial bombardments.
Whereas, until about the middle of 1917, the enemy were decidedly
stronger than the Allies in the air, they had since then been steadily
losing their superiority and finally found themselves in a state of
absolute inferiority. The British were so constantly bringing down
German machines that the enemy hardly dared any longer to appear in the
air beyond their own lines.
There was now considerable activity in Albania in the sector where the
Armée d’Orient co-operated with the Italian 16th Corps, and on May
15, a French column, commanded by Colonel Caré, composed of the 58th
Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, 10 platoons of Albanian Gendarmerie, a
battalion of the 372nd Infantry Regiment, 3 mountain batteries, and a
regiment of Moroccan Spahis, plus a reserve of 7 Colonial companies,
took the offensive between the junction of the Kelizoni and the Devoli
and the height of Mali Korori (south-west of Moschopolje); an Italian
column was to deliver an attack at the same time from the line of the
Osum, near Cerevoda. The object of the Allies was to reduce the strong
enemy salient formed as a result of the French attack at Pogradetz,
which penetrated wedge-like between the positions then captured and
the Italian positions to the north and north-west of the Ersek road,
menacing the Santi Quaranta road between Ersek and Koritza. The two
attacks met with vigorous resistance, especially at the extreme left
of the Italians and the extreme right of the French; both the Italians
and the French captured some positions, lost them, and recaptured
them definitely. Towards the centre the resistance was weaker. On
the 17th the liaison between the two forces was realized at Backa,
according to plan. Mount Lesetz alone (east of Protopapa and south of
the Devoli) could not be captured by the French. A definite result
was the elimination of the enemy salient, the reduction of the French
and Italian front by about 40 kilometres, and the occupation of the
numerous villages contained in the salient itself. The new lines went
from the junction of the Devoli and the Kelizoni, passing by Tchafa
Becit, Maya Frenkut, Backa to Cerevoda. Thus the Santi Quaranta road
was now safe. The enemy made no attempt at a counter-offensive, save
for artillery fire, and the Italians and French were able to reinforce
the new lines unmolested.
On June 10 the French resumed the offensive, but this time without
Italian co-operation, as the advance was not in that sector. Various
positions were occupied, including Mount Lesetz, which they had
been unable to capture in the preceding operation; a new line was
constituted, reducing the enemy salient on Mount Kamia from Lungi to
the old line near Tchafa Becit, passing along Hill 1900, Sinapremte,
Gopes and Mount Tembet. The operation ended on the 14th; 400 prisoners,
10 guns and some machine guns having been captured.
The French and Italians resumed the offensive on a larger scale on
July 6. The French objective was to advance along the valley of the
Devoli as far as its great loop at a short distance from the valley
of the Skumbi, whereas ours was to turn the Malakastra--the best
defended position in the whole of Albania--occupy Fieri and Berat
and then push on towards the Skumbi. Both corps were to try to reach
the Durazzo-Elbasan road, but the latter town was to be reserved for
Italian occupation. The general objective was not so much territorial
occupation as the weakening of the enemy, so as to prevent Austrian
forces in Albania from coming to the assistance of the Bulgarians in
Macedonia during the Allied offensive which was about to take place in
the latter territory.
The French force, commanded by Colonel Foulon, comprised the 372nd
Infantry Regiment, the 58th Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, the Spahis
and three mountain batteries. The positions between the old line of
the junction of the Devoli and the Tomoritza were occupied without
resistance, and so was the whole of the triangle formed by these two
rivers and the chain of the Bofnia and Kosnitza mountains. The French
pushed forward still further between the Devoli and Holta, occupied
Gramsi, an important base of supplies for the enemy, on the 13th, and
the Austrians withdrew to the heights east of Chekina, Strori and
Kruya, to the south-west of the Tomoritza where the Italians were
operating, and the French and Italian liaison was being constantly
advanced northwards. On the 15th, Lubin was taken, a little to the east
of the confluence of the Devoli and the Tomoritza.
But the Italians were also advancing towards Berat and Fieri. The
latter town was captured as the result of a brilliant operation by the
cavalry, which turned the extreme north-west spur of the Malakastra,
while infantry detachments forced a passage between Levani and Fieri.
Thus the whole enemy defensive organization of the Malakastra, the only
one, it may be said, which the Austrians had created in Albania, fell.
Beyond Fieri the Italians pressed on to the river Semeni, which they
forced at the Metali bridge. Another column occupied Berat, the H.Q. of
an Austrian brigade, and reached the southern loop of the Devoli.
During these operations a misunderstanding arose between the
Italian and French Commands, due probably to the imperfect liaison,
communications being indeed very difficult, on account of the broken
nature of the ground. Our Command wished to push forward in a northerly
direction, as far as the apex of the loop of the Devoli, so as to
occupy the whole of the mountain range of the Mali Siloves, which
dominates the left bank of the river, while the French, in view of
their weak effectives in Albania, were opposed to this advance which
seemed to them too risky. The advance, however, was effected, and
a part of the above mountain range was occupied, but the Austrian
Supreme Command, alarmed by the rapid success of the various French
and Italian offensives in Albania, the result of which had been not
only an important strategic loss for them, but also a serious danger
of insurrection on the part of the untrustworthy natives on account
of the weakened Austrian prestige, and represented a menace in the
direction of Montenegro, changed the Commander-in-Chief and sent out
important reinforcements. General Pflanzer-Baltin flew by aeroplane
to Albania, where he took command. At the same time the Italians were
suffering terribly from malaria. The coastal zone of Albania is very
unhealthy; as long as the troops remained in their camps or were making
no great effort, they held out fairly well, but as soon as they began
the advance and had to sleep in the open, often in marshy places, they
were mown down by fever, especially the detachments operating along
the lower Semeni. To give one instance, in a whole regiment of cavalry
only 70 men were not on the sick list. From Italy no reinforcements
arrived, because preparations in course made for the great offensive on
the Italian front, which had originally been intended to take place in
the month of August. Thus, when the enemy, in the second half of July,
strengthened by large reinforcements arriving from healthy places and
not yet infected by malaria, launched a counter-offensive, the Italian
troops were forced to withdraw to some extent. This they did in good
order and without serious losses in prisoners or material, and if the
evacuation of Fieri and Berat were regrettable episodes, our situation
still remained far better than it had been before the offensive, as we
maintained our positions on the heights to the south of those towns,
and especially on the important lines of the Malakastra. Enemy pressure
made itself felt also in the Mali Siloves area, where our column had
to withdraw so as not to remain with its left flank uncovered. The
French now opposed this withdrawal, as they did not believe in the
existence of Austrian reinforcements, simply because the latter had not
been seen in the French sector. This led to a disagreement between the
two Commands, which, however, was soon settled, and the French column
also withdrew a little further back. Our line was then stabilized as
follows: Sinya (south-west of Berat)-Barguliasi-Tchafa Glunaka-Oyanik,
where the French line began. The latter had abandoned a part of the
triangle formed by the Tomoritza and the Devoli, but held the heights
of Mount Kosnitza. Their line then followed the direction of Lungi
and the Gora Top.[38] Towards the middle of August the operations
in Albania were suspended. We were in positions easy to defend and
the Austrians, exhausted by their advance, also began to feel the
full effects of the climate in that season. Now they were no longer
receiving any reinforcements, partly because the Italian Navy rendered
transport from Dalmatia by sea almost impossible, while General Ferrero
had been reinforced by two brigades and some other detachments from
Italy.
In the second half of June there was a general _détente_ in the
European military situation. After the great German push in May, the
operations in France had been suspended, and on the 15th of June the
Austrians launched their offensive on the Piave. It failed completely,
and the enemy did not succeed in retaining any part of the ground
conquered in the first attack--in fact on the Lower Piave, they lost
some which they had held since the previous November. This event had
a repercussion on all fronts, and encouraged all the Allies, because
it was the first great Allied victory in 1918, and also the first
time that a vast offensive, launched with all the apparatus of modern
warfare, was held up at once without achieving even the smallest
lasting advantage. On the Macedonian front, too, the effect of it was
felt in the shape of signs of exhaustion on the part of the enemy.
Deserters were ever more numerous, and they were unanimous in stating
that the causes of their desertion were the difficulty of supply due
by the continuous requisitions of foodstuffs by Germany in Bulgaria to
be sent to Germany, the fact that the Bulgarians, having obtained all
the territories they wanted, were not anxious to go fighting simply for
the convenience of Germany, and the general lack of confidence in the
victory of the latter. This corresponded with the information obtained
from the interior of Bulgaria, where the pro-German policy of King
Ferdinand and the Radoslavoff Ministry were becoming every day more
unpopular. The Cabinet fell in June and was succeeded by that of M.
Malinoff, who was of pacifist tendencies. There was also a party in the
country more or less in favour of the Entente, and now it was working
hard to convince public opinion that it was possible, if peace were
made with the Allies, to obtain recognition of Bulgaria’s right to the
conquered territory as a reward.
In Great Britain there had been since the early days of Bulgaria’s
intervention, a party in favour of making concessions to Bulgaria
with the object of inducing her to abandon the Central Empires.
Apart from the Bulgarophil movement, the Buxton brothers had always
supported Bulgarian claims as a sentimental memory of the struggle of
the Bulgarians against the Turks, when the latter dominated Macedonia
and Thrace, and even in Government spheres this tendency had its
supporters. As early as August, 1917, a British officer of high rank,
who expressed the ideas of Government circles in his country and in
Paris, told me that both in France and Britain people were convinced
of the advisability of offering very advantageous concessions to
Bulgaria, and there was talk of granting to her the Serbian part of
Eastern Macedonia as far as the Vardar, excluding Uskub, but, perhaps,
including Monastir, the Greek part of Eastern Macedonia as far as
the Struma, the Dobrugia up to the frontiers existing before the
Balkan War, and further generous pecuniary compensation in addition;
the Serbians would be indemnified by means of other territories at
the expense of Austro-Hungary. In any case the Serbian population,
according to this officer, were so weakened and reduced by five years
of uninterrupted warfare, that it would not have been in a position to
govern Southern Macedonia, where the population is mostly Bulgarian in
feeling and opposed to Serbian rule. According to him, it only remained
to convince the Italian Government of the possibility and advisability
of this policy.
On the other hand, there were also pro-Serbian tendencies amongst the
British, which strongly opposed any idea of conferring favours on the
Bulgarians. Another British officer, occupying an important position in
connexion with Serbia, told me that the attitude of those who wished
to make such concessions at the expense of Serbia was the cause of
very injurious consequences in Serbian circles, where such a tendency
was regarded as nothing less than treachery against those who had
fought from the beginning on the side of the Allies, and had suffered
terribly, especially at the hands of those very Bulgarians whom it was
now proposed to reward.
I know that some definite proposals were made to the Bulgarians, and
in any case it is certain that the idea of a separate peace with her,
to be obtained in this way, was in the air. In June, 1918, General
Bartlett, the United States Military Attaché at Athens, came to
Salonica, and it was believed that his presence there had something
to do with the rumours of the possible intervention of the United
States in the Balkans. America had never declared war against Turkey
or Bulgaria and had no troops in Macedonia, and although Turkey had
immediately broken off diplomatic relations with her, diplomatic
relations between Bulgaria and America continued through the whole of
the war, and an American Chargé d’Affaires continued to reside at
Sofia. There was much speculation in the Entente countries as to the
reasons for this attitude on the part of the United States, and even
in America the public could not understand it. In the spring of 1918
some members of the American House of Representatives and of the Senate
had presented a motion to Congress in favour of a declaration of war
against those two States, but President Wilson requested the authors of
that motion to suspend all discussion on the subject, without giving
any reason for his request, and nothing more was said about the matter.
The above-mentioned general had come to Salonica to call on General
Franchet d’Espérey and the other Allied Commanders, and he visited
various sectors of the front, including our own. Although he maintained
the utmost reserve regarding the attitude of his country in connexion
with Bulgaria, he ended by saying that in America it was believed
that the cause of the Allies in the East might be better served by
keeping the threat of declaring war against Bulgaria hanging like the
sword of Damocles over the head of that State, instead of actually
declaring it. In fact, Bulgaria strongly desired to avoid a break with
the United States; she now began to realize that the defeat of the
Central Empires was possible if not probable, and she hoped to see the
United States at the future Peace Conference, if not as a friend, at
least as a benevolent neutral who would defend her from the extreme
retribution of the Allies, especially of Serbia, Roumania and Greece.
In the meanwhile, Mr. Murphy, the American Chargé d’Affaires at Sofia
was able to conduct an active, although prudent propaganda, in favour
of a separate peace, hinting that the sooner the Bulgarians abandoned
the now hopeless cause of the Central Empires, the better would be the
conditions which the Entente would offer them.
The shrewdest observers of the Balkan situation did not yet believe
in the possibility of a Bulgarian secession, and to many it seemed
unjust to sacrifice Serbia or Roumania in favour of Bulgaria. Some
concessions might have been offered her at the expense of Turkey, but
it should not be forgotten that even with Turkey the possibility of a
separate peace was contemplated, and this was not conceivable if the
concession of Turkish territories to Bulgaria were to be the object of
negotiations. As long as Greece was under Constantine, neutral, and
pro-German, the possibility of giving Bulgaria some Greek territory
in Eastern Macedonia might be considered--Cavalla, Drama, Serres,
etc.--but the Bulgarians already occupied these places, and from the
moment that Greek soldiers had begun to co-operate with the Allies,
such proposals could not be entertained without the consent of Greece,
who would never have given it. General Mombelli was convinced that the
talk about separate peace with Bulgaria had no serious foundation and
that the Bulgarians would never decide to take the fatal step until
they were first convinced of the marked superiority of the Allies; they
had not yet that absolute conviction, and it was therefore necessary to
persuade them by means of a military defeat. General Franchet d’Espérey
was of the same way of thinking, and he told the writer that the
Bulgarians would be more likely to abandon their Allies “après la pile
que je vais leur flanquer quand mes préparatifs seront terminés.”
The French national fête of the 14th of July was celebrated in Salonica
with special solemnity, and King Alexander of Greece was also present.
In spite of the weak effectives available and the limited space, the
spectacle proved fairly imposing and made a good impression on the
public. The feeling of victory was now in the air. Our success on the
Piave had raised the _moral_ of all the Allies, and on July 15th the
last German offensive was launched, which after three days of small
successes, was repulsed by the great counter-offensive of Marshal Foch
beginning on the 18th. I remember that when I congratulated a French
General on this victory, he replied: “Mais ce sont les Italiens sur le
Piave que nous ont donné le premier exemple.”
CHAPTER XIV
ON THE EVE OF THE OFFENSIVE
As soon as General Franchet d’Espérey reached Salonica he undertook to
execute the offensive planned by his predecessor. But he encountered
very decided opposition on the part of his own Government, as well as
on that of the other Allied Governments. The former did not believe
in the possibility of a successful offensive on the Macedonian front,
and it seems not to have had too much confidence in General Franchet
d’Espérey himself. It refused to send him reinforcements, and limited
itself to supplying him grudgingly with some artillery and other
material, but always in insufficient quantities. Britain and Italy
adopted a similar policy. Nevertheless he insisted on the advisability
of making the attempt. Two months were needed for the preparations,
and in spite of the opposition of the Governments, he at once took
them in hand. During the month of July at the Allied Councils many
members were doubtful, and believed that better results might be
obtained by attempting to secure a separate peace with Bulgaria.
The diplomatic and military commission before breaking up ordered
General Franchet d’Espérey to go ahead with his preparations, but
forbade him to commence the offensive without a definite authorization
from the Governments. At the beginning of August nothing had yet
been decided, and the British and Italian Governments were still
opposed to the idea of an offensive. General Guillaumat in Paris had
supported the projected operation in his conversation with members of
the French Government and had succeeded in convincing M. Clemenceau.
At the beginning of September he went to London and Rome to speak
in favour of the plan, but it was not until September 11th that the
Commander-in-Chief in Salonica was authorized to attack when he thought
it advisable. There was, however, so little confidence in the success
of the plan that General Guillaumat, who then had no Command, had
instructions to hold himself in readiness to proceed to Macedonia by
aeroplane to relieve General Franchet d’Espérey in case of failure.
Let us now see what were the respective conditions of the two
opposing armies. The enemy front was divided geographically into four
sectors--Albania, Monastir, Vardar-Doiran, and Struma--against any one
of which the attack might be launched. The Albanian sector offered some
advantages, inasmuch as it was less provided with defensive works. But
General Franchet d’Espérey did not wish to begin operations on a large
scale in that area because the Italian XVI Corps was not under his
orders; moreover, and this was the principal reason, communications
were so difficult there as to render the transport of troops in large
numbers impossible. An advocate of the action of the French G.H.Q.
states that General Ferrero refused to make use of Essad Pasha for the
operations in Albania, and almost blames him for it,[39] but General
Franchet d’Espérey had no more confidence in the assistance which that
shady adventurer might afford to the cause of the Allies than had
General Ferrero, and they were both right.[40]
[Illustration: AREA OF THE FRANCO-SERB GROUP.
To face p. 213.
]
In the Monastir sector it was possible to attack in the direction
of Pribilci-Kichevo-Gostivar-Kalkandelen (Tetovo), or towards
Prilep-Babuna-Veles, or Prilep-Gradsko-Negotin. But here the enemy
defences were in the highest possible state of efficiency, and as this
was one of the sectors in which an attack was always expected, the
Bulgaro-Germans held themselves constantly in readiness for it. The
same objections applied to the Vardar-Doiran area, which has always
been one of the traditional routes for Macedonian invasions, and was
the only one provided with a railway throughout its whole length.
The Struma sector extended along a very broad and marshy valley, and
the enemy positions on the mountains east of the river were extremely
strong. Moreover, a success in this direction would not have offered
the chance of striking a blow at the heart of the enemy, such as was
necessary to obtain really decisive results.
The vital centre of the enemy defences was the middle Vardar. From
Uskub, from Veles, and from Gradsko, all their lateral communications
spread out fan-wise. The Vardar railway put them in direct
communication with the Central Empires and their supply centres. From
Uskub there was a branch railway to Kalkandelen, whence a road, with a
décauville along a part of it, descended into the plain of Monastir.
From Veles and Gradsko all the troops in the area between Prilep and
the Vardar, and to some extent also those immediately to the east of
the river, were supplied. The enemy, however, counted on the very
powerful defences, natural and artificial, on both sides of it, in the
Demir Kapu gorge, to the west of Lake Doiran, and on the Beles range.
There was, however, another route which the enemy had not thought of
fortifying, relying on its formidable natural defences. Between the
Cerna and Nonte there is a group of high peaks rising from a wilderness
of rocks around a basin hidden among the mountains. The area is called
the Moglena, and it is here that the Moglenitza river has its source.
The mountains of this group are among the highest in Macedonia; several
summits, such as Floka, Kaimakchalan, Dzena, are over 2,000 m., the
Mala Rupa is over 1,900 m., Sokol, Dobropolje, Vetrenik, Kuchkov Kamen
and Kravitza are about 1,700–1,800 m. In the offensive of the autumn
of 1916 the Serbs had conquered the Kaimakchalan range and the Moglena
area, which was afterwards entrusted to the II Serbian Army. Since
then the sector had been a peaceful one, except for the engagements
in the spring of 1917. Voivod Michich had repeatedly insisted on the
advisability of an offensive against the Dobropolje, as offering the
best chances of success. General Sarrail had refused to trust the man
who knew far more about Balkan warfare than he did. General Guillaumat,
on the other hand, believed the plan to be possible, and began the
preliminary studies for an operation in that direction. But more and
heavier artillery was needed than the Armée d’Orient as yet possessed.
Guillaumat, therefore, only executed the attack on the Srka di Legen.
To General Franchet d’Espérey is due the merit of having taken up the
plan once more, perfected it and finally executed it. As a result of
his inspections along the front, he convinced himself that while the
vital ganglion of the whole enemy organization was the middle Vardar,
an attack on any of the four traditional sectors was, with the means at
his disposal, impossible. From Mount Floka he studied the conditions of
the ground with minute attention, and realized that a surprise attack
in the Moglena area might succeed, because the Bulgars were not likely
to expect it. It was necessary to break through in the centre, and once
the breach was made to spread out in a fan-like formation to reach
Gradsko and Demir Kapu, thus cutting the enemy’s communications and
separating the XI German Army from the I Bulgarian Army. At the same
time powerful diversive actions on the right and left wings (Doiran
sector and Cerna loop) would nail down the enemy and prevent them from
sending reinforcements to the centre.
To carry out this plan it was indispensable to concentrate a mass of
powerful artillery in the central area, have strong reserves, and at
the same time hold the vast line throughout the whole of its length.
The scheme appeared impossible owing to the absence of one of these
requisites--the reserves. But General Franchet d’Espérey--and this was
the touch of genius of his conception--created the reserves out of
nothing, by thinning out his line and reducing the number of troops
on all the other sectors to the minimum indispensable for safety and
sometimes going dangerously below it, so as to concentrate the largest
possible number of men on the points where the decisive effort was to
be made. In this way, although the total strength of the Allies was
slightly below that of the enemy, he managed to have an overwhelming
superiority at the points where he attacked.
The following were the forces of the Armée d’Orient. It comprised:
8 French divisions (30th, 57th, 76th, 122nd and 156th Metropolitan
Divisions, and 11th, 16th and 17th Colonial Divisions), one cavalry
group (1st and 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique and Morocco Spahis), some units
not forming part of any division (2nd bis Zouaves, 58th Battalion
of Chasseurs à pied, various battalions of Senegalese, Algerians,
Annamites, etc.); one Italian division equal to rather more than two
French divisions, and including two squadrons of cavalry and other
units; 4 British divisions (22nd, 26th, 27th and 28th), each with some
cavalry detachments, and the 228th Garrison Brigade; 6 Serbian infantry
divisions (Shumadia, Danube, Morava, Yugoslav, Drina and Timok) and one
cavalry division; 10 Greek divisions (Archipelago, Crete and Serres of
the National Defence Army, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 13th and 14th of
the regular army), of whom one--the 9th--was not trained and was never
sent to the front throughout the operations, and some cavalry; finally
a few Albanian detachments.[41] In all there were 29½ divisions,
of which the British, Serbian, Greek and the 5 Metropolitan French
divisions comprised 9 battalions each, the French Colonial ones 12
each, and the Italian 18. The total strength was as follows:
Divisions Battalions Ration Strength Rifles
French 8 87 200,000 45,000
British 4½ 40 135,000 32,000
Italians 1 18 44,000 10,000
Serbs 6 57 95,000 30,000
Greeks 10 84 100,000 40,000
--- --- ------- -------
Total 29½ 286 574,000 157,000
The Allied artillery amounted to 1,600 guns, the machine guns were
2,680, the aeroplanes 200.
The total number of enemy battalions was somewhat less than that of
the Allies (282), but their effectives were stronger--they amounted to
about 700,000 men, including 204,000 rifles, while the men who could
be regarded as combatants were 400,000. Their artillery was weaker
as regards the number of guns (1,300). Until a few months previously
they had been far stronger in artillery, but during the summer the
Germans had withdrawn many of their batteries from the Eastern front
and sent them to France, whereas the Allied artillery had been steadily
strengthened. The enemy, however, still retained a larger number of
heavy and medium calibre guns than we had, as well as several guns of
greater calibre and range than anything on our side. Their machine guns
were 2,530, and their aeroplanes only 80.
In view of the Allies’ inferiority in numbers, an attack could be
delivered only by concentrating large forces on one point, and leaving
the other sectors to be held by weak forces or by Greek troops of
uncertain value.
General Franchet d’Espérey began by forming a new Army Group, called
the Central Franco-Serbian Group, concentrated in the Moglena area.
He withdrew from the Serbian front the Danube and Shumadia divisions,
leaving the other four, reinforced by two French divisions--the 122nd
(General Topard) and the 17th Colonial (General Pruneau)--attached to
the II Serbian Army, by 13 heavy batteries and 30 trench guns, besides
several flights of aeroplanes, engineer detachments, etc. He had asked
for and obtained fresh technical material from France. The whole group
was commanded by Voivod Michich. The Commander-in-Chief had decided on
this plan as early as the end of June, and had devoted the following
two and a half months to the necessary preparations. New roads and
décauvilles had to be constructed, heavy artillery transported to a
height of 1,800 metres, new aviation camps laid out, certain units
specially trained. The 17th Colonial and the 122nd Divisions did not
take over their sectors until the beginning of September. Although
all movements were carried out at night, the enemy became aware that
something was in preparation. In order to deceive them as to the point
where the attack was to be delivered, a number of raids were carried
out on various sectors.
The general distribution was as follows: The A.F.O. (General Henrys)
from the river Tomoritza in Albania to a point between the Cerna
and Gradesnitza; it comprised the 30th, 76th, 57th and 156th French
Divisions and several minor units not forming part of any division,
between the Tomoritza and the western end of the Cerna loop, the 35th
Italian Division from that point to a point a little to the west of
Makovo, while the line from hence to a point just beyond the east end
of the Cerna loop was held by the 11th French Colonial Division and
the 3rd Greek Division. Here began the area of the Franco-Serb group
(Voivod Michich), with the Drina and Morava Divisions of the I Army to
the left and the Yugoslav and Timok Divisions of the II Army to the
left, reinforced by the 122nd and 17th French Divisions, extending as
far as the neighbourhood of Nonte. To the right of the Serbs, was the
area of the I Group of Divisions (General d’Anselme) reaching to the
Vardar and comprising the 16th French Colonial Division, the Greek
Archipelago Division and for a short time the 27th British. East of
the Vardar was the British Army (General Milne), with the XII Corps,
commanded by General Wilson, comprising the 22nd and 26th British
Divisions, the 2nd bis Zouaves Regiment and the Greek Serres Division,
west of Lake Doiran, and the XVI Corps (General Briggs) east of the
lake, comprising the 28th British Division and Greek Cretan Division.
From Lake Butkova to the sea the sector was held by the I Greek Corps
(General Ioannou), under the orders of the British Commander-in-Chief,
comprising the 1st, 2nd and 13th Divisions. The 4th and 14th Greek
Divisions constituted a reserve for the British Army, and the 9th was
still in training near Florina.
In the central sector, where the attack was to be first launched, the
distribution was as follows: The I Serbian Army held a front of 16½
km. from the river Lesnitza to the Sokol, with the Danube and Drina
Divisions in the first line and the Morava behind the centre. The II
Army held a front of 17 km. from the Sokol to the river Sushitza,
with the French 122nd and 17th Colonial to the left, the Shumadia
to the right, the Yugoslav and the Timok in reserve. On the whole
Franco-Serbian front were concentrated 36,000 rifles, 2,000 light
machine guns, 81 aeroplanes and 600 guns--more than a third of the
whole artillery of the Armée d’Orient and almost the whole of its heavy
artillery, so that other sectors were stripped to a dangerous degree.
These 600 guns comprised 8 batteries of short 120 mm., 17 of short
155 mm., 4 of long 105 mm., 3 of long 120 mm., 5 of long 155 mm., 48
of 75 mm. field guns, 35 of 65 mm. mountain guns, 72 trench mortars
of 58 mm., and 12 of 240 mm. Thus the Allies had, on this sector, an
overwhelming artillery superiority over the enemy.
The plan of operations provided for an initial destructive barrage to
wreck the enemy’s first line defences opposite the II Serbian Army;
then their artillery positions were to be bombarded and reinforcements
prevented from coming up; finally, when a breach for the II Army was
made, the artillery was to alter its direction and open up another gap
for the I Army. The duty of the infantry was to try to capture all
the positions between the Sokol and the Vetrenik, so as to penetrate
as deeply as possible into the enemy’s lines in the direction of the
apex of the triangle formed by the Cerna and the Vardar. If this plan
succeeded, the enemy’s communications to the right and the left would
be threatened. In a second phase the British XII Corps was to attack
the two Couronnés and the P ridges to the west of Lake Doiran, while
the XVI Corps was to attempt to turn the positions to the north-east
of the lake, so as to threaten the road leading into Bulgaria by the
Kosturino Pass and Strumitza. Above all it was to be the task of the
British to prevent the enemy opposing them from sending reinforcements
to the Serbian front, just as our forces were to fulfil a similar
function on the Hill 1050 sector. Indeed, the best troops of the whole
of the enemy Army were those opposite the British and the Italian
sectors. In the third phase the Italians were to attack the famous
1050, with Prilep as their objective, while the Franco-Greek Group to
our right was to advance along the Cerna. In the fourth phase the rest
of the A.F.O. would enter the lists, attacking the positions around
Monastir, also with Prilep as their objective. The final phase was to
be an offensive by the I Greek Corps beyond the Struma, with a view to
capturing Serres, Demir Hissar and the Rupel road leading into Bulgaria
towards Djumaya. In view of the weakness of the effectives, it would be
necessary to transfer the scanty available reserves and the artillery
from one sector to another, and the various phases of the action were
so arranged as to give those forces time to effect the movements
contemplated--by no means an easy task on account of the state of
communications in Macedonia.
It must be borne in mind that the objectives which General Franchet
d’Espérey originally had in view were relatively modest, and many of
his subordinate Commanders doubted that even these could be fully
attained. The idea, even of the most optimistic, was that the Bulgarian
first lines would probably be broken through, but that the enemy would
offer a desperate resistance on the second and third lines, and that
it would then be necessary for the Allies to entrench themselves again
in new positions for another long period of waiting. The Commanders of
the different Allied contingents, therefore, made superhuman efforts to
collect all the necessary material with the object of reconstituting
the defences on the new advanced lines which they expected to occupy.
The scarcity of barbed wire was a source of grave anxiety for all
Commands, and Staff officers lay awake at night wondering how on earth
the troops could entrench themselves after having abandoned all the
barbed wire in front of their present positions.
The Serbs alternated between the most unlimited hopes and the blackest
pessimism. A great many of them doubted the possibility of breaking
through the Vetrenik-Dobropolje line, while on the other hand the
officers of the Serbian G.H.Q. openly declared that an offensive which
did not result in an advance beyond Uskub would be an irreparable
disaster, because the Army would suffer such losses that, if the
troops did not re-enter Old Serbia, it would be impossible to fill
up the gaps and they would be incapable of carrying out any more
operations. General Franchet d’Espérey himself, to judge by his
statements, did expect to strike a formidable blow at the Bulgarians
and thus render them inclined to conclude a separate peace, to which
the Allied victories in France and the fact that neither the Germans
nor the Austro-Hungarians were now in a position to send help to their
satellites in the East, would contribute. But even he did not dream of
a complete and overwhelming victory.
There were no important changes in the enemy distribution on the
eve of the offensive. The Commander-in-Chief was still General von
Scholtz, with his G.H.Q. at Uskub. The Bulgarian Army was temporarily
commanded by General Todoroff, the effective Commander-in-Chief,
General Gekoff, being under treatment in an Austrian clinique. The
enemy forces opposed to the Allies comprised three armies and part of
a fourth, plus some ten Austro-Hungarian battalions on their extreme
right, between the Tomoritza river and the Gora Top, belonging to
General Pflanzer-Baltin’s force in Albania. The area from the Gora
Top to Nonte was held by the XI German Army, commanded by General von
Steuben, with headquarters at Prilep; this comprised two German army
corps--the LXII from the Gora Top to the west end of the Cerna loop
and the LXI from thence to a point north-west of Staravina--and the
2nd and 3rd Bulgarian Divisions. The XLII Corps comprised the Mixed
Division (from the Gora Top to the Lake of Prespa), the 6th Division
(as far as Magarevo), and the 1st (as far as the west end of the Cerna
loop). The LXI comprised the 302nd German Division, composed of German
and Bulgarian battalions (from the Cerna west to Makovo, i.e. opposite
the Italians) and the 4th (as far as Staravina). The 2nd Division
extended to the Dobropolje, and the 3rd to Nonte. The I Bulgarian Army,
commanded by General Nerezoff, with headquarters at Valandovo, held the
line from Nonte to Gornji Poroj (between Lakes Doiran and Butkova), and
comprised the 5th Division (to the Vardar), the 9th (to Lake Doiran),
and two more regiments taken from the 5th at the extreme left. The II
Bulgarian Army, commanded by General Lukoff, whose headquarters were at
Livunovo, extended to Lake Tahinos, and comprised the 11th (as far as
the Struma east of Lake Butkova), the 7th as far as Serres, and the 8th
to Lake Tahinos. Besides these forces there were various detachments of
the IV Army, also called the Ægean Defence Force, with its headquarters
at Xanthi, holding the line as far as Dede-Agatch--10th and 14th
Divisions and several regiments of Militia.
The communications of the Allies were as follows: (1) The railway from
Salonica to Monastir, which operated as far as Armenohor (Florina)
for troops and to Sakulevo for goods; occasionally a train went into
Monastir at night, but the last section of the line was still under
enemy fire. (2) The Vardar railway from Salonica to a point south
of Ghevgheli. (3) The Constantinople railway from Salonica to Lake
Doiran; the section from Doiran to the Demir Hissar bridge (blown up
by the French in 1916) was between the British and Bulgarian lines and
therefore useless. (4) The branch line between Karasuli on N 2 and
Kilindir on N 3. (5) A short branch line built by the British during
the war, from Salonica to Guvesne on the Serres road. (6) The line
from the station of Salonica across the town to Mikra Bay. There were
many décauvilles, some of them very long, which rendered most valuable
services. The following were the most important: Florina-Armensko (in
the direction of Albania) unfinished, but continued with a telepheric
to the Pisoderi Pass; Sakulevo-Brod with an extension towards the
Italian front and another towards that of the I Serbian Army; Vertekop
(on the Monastir railway) to the II Serbian Army front; Sarigöl-Janesh,
with branches towards the British XII Corps front; several along the
Struma, north-west of Lake Tahinos; one from Arakli to the British
trenches beyond the Struma, south of that lake. Many excellent
roads had been built throughout the _Zone des Armées_, except in
the Franco-Albanian area and in that of the II Serbian Army, where
communications were very deficient, owing to the extremely broken
nature of the ground, but in the latter area several new roads had been
built, as we have seen, in view of the coming offensive.
To sum up, the troops of the A.F.O. and of the I Serbian Army were
supplied by the Monastir railway as far as Florina and Sakulevo, by
the Florina-Armensko décauville and the Pisoderi telepheric, and the
Sakulevo-Brod décauville with its extensions; the II Serbian Army by
the railway as far as Vertekop and thence by décauville; the I Group
of Divisions by the Vardar railway to Karasuli and thence by road;
the British XII Corps by rail to Sarigöl and Kilindir and thence by
décauville; the British XVI Corps, as long as it was on the Struma, by
rail to Guvesne and thence by road to the Struma, whence a décauville
reached various sectors; the brigade on the lower Struma, by rail to
Arakli and thence by décauville. When the XVI Corps was moved to the
area east of Lake Doiran, it was supplied by the same routes as the XII
Corps, while the communications to the Struma now served the Greek I
Corps. Everywhere the inadequacy of the railways was made good by the
excellent M.T. services, and this not only for the areas where there
were no railways at all, because the motor lorries helped to intensify
transport even towards sectors served by railways, the carrying
capacity of the latter being wholly inadequate to the immense needs of
the armies. The British and French had several thousand lorries, we had
about 400, the Greeks and Serbs were supplied by French and British
lorries.
If communications between the base at Salonica and the various
sectors of the front had been rendered fairly satisfactory, lateral
communications were extremely difficult, and this was particularly
felt during the September offensive, when it was frequently necessary
(though not so often as was expected beforehand) to transfer troops and
artillery from one sector to another.
The enemy’s communications were the following: The vital artery
of the whole army was the Belgrade-Nish-Uskub-Veles-Ghevgheli
railway, with a branch from Uskub to Kalkandelen (Tetovo). The
Nish-Sofia-Constantinople line supplied the troops further east. From
the former, several décauvilles and telepherics branched off. The most
important was the one from Gradsko to Prilep, whence others extended
to all the chief points of that area. Prilep, in fact, was a sort
of Clapham Junction for décauvilles, with an imposing station. From
Radomir on the Sofia-Kutstendil-Guyeshevo railway there was a very long
décauville to the Demir Hissar bridge, which supplied almost the whole
of the II Army. The enemy was richer in décauvilles than we were, but
their road system was much poorer. As they had few lorries, and these
without rubber tyres, the iron wheels reduced the roads to an appalling
state. The Bulgarian Army made great use of the peasants’ ox-carts and
of mules and small mountain ponies. On the whole the enemy’s transport
was inadequate. Their only advantage was the possibility of obtaining
supplies from Central Europe by rail. Salonica, it is true, was nearer
to the Allied front than Belgrade, Nish or Sofia to that of the enemy,
but the sea passage to Salonica was still exposed to submarine dangers,
and tonnage was scarce, especially in the summer of 1918, on account of
the transport of American troops to France. The enemy could, moreover,
obtain reinforcements from the German garrisons in Roumania and from
the depots in Bulgaria. What the Allies did not know was how far the
Germans could reduce their garrisons in Roumania and whether the
Bulgarians were still provided with abundant reserves. The Bulgarian
battalions at the front were much stronger than those of the Allies,
but according to information obtained by the Allied intelligence
services it appeared that the depots were almost empty and that there
were not more than three or four Bulgarian militia regiments available
in Serbia or Bulgaria to be sent to the front. The conditions of the
Germans in Roumania and South Russia were even less well known. The
Bulgarian _moral_ was, as we have seen, becoming even more depressed.
War weariness was spreading and led to increased desertions, and in
a few cases to mutiny. The German troops which served to stiffen the
Bulgarians had been greatly reduced, and relations between the two were
by no means too friendly.
What was certain was that neither the French, the British nor the
Italian Commands intended to send out another man to Macedonia, so
that the C.A.A. must count exclusively on the troops actually in the
country for the coming struggle. The Italian forces in Albania being
about equal to those of the Austrians, there was no likelihood of
reinforcements being available on either side.
CHAPTER XV
THE BATTLE OF THE BALKANS
The C.A.A. had succeeded in keeping the secret of its plan of
operations up to the very last moment. The enemy, who dominated the
lines of access on many parts of the front, could see that an offensive
was in preparation, but, according to statements of prisoners and
deserters, it had no precise idea as to the front or fronts where the
attack was to be launched. It appears that only on September 14th
they were convinced that the Serbian sector had been selected, but
then it was too late to take precautions. The uncertainty which had
reigned until that day had left them hesitating as to which area needed
reinforcements. On the 14th, at eight o’clock, a heavy destructive
barrage was opened on the enemy lines opposite the Franco-Serb
positions. The following morning, at 5.30, the French infantry (122nd
Division) advanced to the attack against the enemy positions on the
Dobropolje. The enemy’s barrage fire began too late, and after two
hours of hard fighting the Dobropolje fell. The French had lost 700
men, losses which were largely due to the failure of the Serbian
infantry to co-operate. General Topard, commanding the division, now
pushed forward against Hill 1765, behind Dobropolje, where the enemy
still resisted, and in the early hours of the afternoon even that
position was captured. Further to the left the enemy held out on the
Sokol, where the bombardment had not yet destroyed the defences. But
its capture was indispensable for the movement of the I Serbian Army,
which was to commence on the following day; the Serbians were so much
impressed by the difficulties, that the French had to act alone. Two
battalions of the French 148th Regiment did not succeed in reaching
the summit of the mountain, so that a third was sent up to reinforce
them. The soldiers descended into the valley of the Matova, and,
mounted on mules belonging to the divisional train, rapidly reached
the positions of the first battalion, which renewed the attack, and
at 21 hours the Sokol fell. To the right the 17th Colonial Division
and the Serbian Shumadia Division took the Kravitza-Vetrenik group,
advancing in broken order. The Serbians, creeping from rock to rock,
reached the Slonovo Uvo at seven o’clock. In the afternoon they were
on the eastern and western slopes of Vetrenik and near the Shlen and
the Golo Bilo, where they were joined by the 17th Division on the
left. The 17th Division deployed on the plateau of the Kravitza,
in spite of the vigorous resistance of the enemy, who, having been
reinforced, counter-attacked rapidly, but at 15.30 hours, the highest
point of the Kravitza was occupied and the Bulgarian defenders
captured or destroyed. In the evening, at 21 hours, the whole of the
Sokol-Dobropolje-Kravitza--Vetrenik fortified system was in the hands
of the Allies, and the great breach was made. The losses had not been
very heavy, 1,700 French, of whom 1,200 of the 17th Division and 500 of
the 122nd Division, and 200 Serbs.
It was necessary to develop this success at once so as to widen the
breach, and in the night of the 15th-16th the I Serbian Army (General
Boyovich) came into action, while Voivod Stepanovich pushed forward the
Jugoslav and Timok Divisions, which had been hitherto kept in reserve,
beyond the lines occupied by the assaulting divisions; this he was
able to do because General Franchet d’Espérey had insisted that they
should be kept close at hand, although the Serbian Command wished to
leave them much further back. At 15.45 hours the Timok Division passed
beyond the outposts of the 17th Colonial Division, and as the trenches
captured corresponded roughly to the Greco-Serb frontier, the Serbian
troops made a demonstration of sympathy to the French, whose splendid
victorious effort had enabled them to re-enter their fatherland. The
same day the Yugoslav Division, after a long march, attacked on the
Koziak (Hill 1550, north of the Vetrenik), captured Hills 1810 and
1825, lost the former in consequence of a counter-attack delivered
by Bulgarian reinforcements which had just arrived, but recaptured
it definitely. To the extreme left, the Franco-Serb Group and the
1st Group of Divisions came into action with the attack of the 16th
Colonial Division on Zborsko, where the trenches to the west were
captured, but the enemy managed to hold the village. In the night of
the 16th-17th, on the left of the I Serbian Army, the advance of the
11th Colonial Division began, together with elements of the 3rd Greek
Division; while to the right and left of the Cerna (east) a battalion
of Senegalese occupied Staravina, the Greeks occupied Zovik.
[Illustration: ENEMY ORDER OF BATTLE, SEPTEMBER 15, 1918.
To face p. 227.
]
The next objective to be reached was the Vardar at its confluence
with the Cerna, so as to occupy not only the whole of the triangle
formed by the two rivers, but to threaten the communications of the
enemy troops south of Monastir and in the Cerna loop, as well as on
Lake Doiran. The II Serbian Army pushed on towards the lower valley,
crossed the Cerna, with the Morava Division (in reserve) between the
two, and the 11th Colonial Division advanced echeloned obliquely so
as to occupy as great a part as possible of the area to the right of
the Cerna. The enemy grasped the seriousness of the situation, and
the Command of the XI German Army gave orders to resist at all costs
on the Kuchkov Kamen (Hill 1800 north of the Koziak). On the 17th the
attacks of the II Serbian Army on that position and further east on
the Topolatz, on the Studena Voda (Hill 1201), developed. The enemy
resistance was desperate, and their counter-attacks were sometimes
successful, but the Serbian advance continued irresistibly, and the
enemy abandoned one position after another, losing a great deal of
material. General Russoff, Commander of the 2nd Bulgarian Division,
was relieved by order of the German Command, and succeeded by General
Nikoloff, but neither this change of Command nor the sending of some
feeble reinforcements could hold up the advance. On the same day the
I Serbian Army attacked the Mount Beshista-Pandeli-Trezia line; on the
18th the Danube Division captured the important bridge of Razim Bey on
the Cerna, and the entire army commenced a vast turning movement to
occupy the whole of the right bank of the river from Selo-Monastir to
Polosko. The Bulgarians defended themselves obstinately, hoping to save
their vast depots filled with supplies, but being unable to succeed
in this object, they were forced to fall back, burning the bridges
between Polosko and Cebren, and everything they could not remove. On
the 18th-19th the Danube Division created a bridgehead at Razim Bey on
the Cerna, which it afterwards consolidated so as to co-operate with
the French and Greeks on the left bank. It was, however, necessary to
complete the operation by reaching the middle Vardar, as a frontal
advance by Ghevgheli offered serious difficulties. The Serbian Cavalry
Division, commanded by Colonel Georgevich, which had been brought to
the immediate rear of the Serbian main lines, was now pushed forward
to Kavadar, the important road centre a little to the south of the
confluence of the Vardar and the Cerna. This was the extreme point
reached by the Armée d’Orient in the autumn of 1915. But the advance of
the Serbians had been very rapid, whereas the forces on their flanks
were still on their old positions, so that an apparently dangerous
salient had been created. At the same time the C.A.A. had received
information from reliable sources that some German reinforcements had
arrived on the Struma front; in fact, a Greek patrol had captured some
prisoners of the 256th Reserve Regiment, a unit now identified for the
first time in Macedonia, and which was believed to be in Roumania.
This and other information concerning German movements led to the
belief that an attack was being threatened against the right flank of
the Armée d’Orient, which was held only by Greek troops without heavy
artillery, and therefore regarded as the weakest sector. For a moment
the Staff of the C.A.A. contemplated the possibility of suspending
the offensive, and even of recalling the more advanced troops, but
after short reflection, and in consequence of the earnest insistence
of the Serbian Command, General Franchet d’Espérey decided to stick
to his original plan. The advance thus continued; the Morava Division
occupied Mount Chaterna, and crossed the Belasnitza torrent, the
Yugoslav Division occupied Mount Rozden and advanced on the village of
Mrzetzko; the Timok Division, after a lively engagement, captured the
Studena Voda and the Blatetz; the I Group of Divisions, having overcome
the enemy’s resistance at Zborsko, captured all the positions in that
area and occupied Nonte and Mount Preslap. On the 19th, the line
attained was the following: North of Nonte, north of Mount Blatetz,
north of Rozden, Mrzetzko, course of the Belsnitza (which had been
crossed at various points), Vrbetzko, course of the Cerna, passing
by Vprchani, the bridge head of Razim Bey, then in a south-westerly
direction towards the front of the 11th Colonial Division on the left
of the Cerna. But the Serbian Cavalry Division had pushed ahead a great
deal further towards Kavadar with such rapidity that the C.A.A. could
no longer follow its operations. On the 20th the Danube Division was
deployed along the left bank of the Cerna from Razim Bey to Godiak,
the Morava Division from Godiak to Polosko, the Yugoslav Division on
the Drachevatzko Brdo and on the heights north of Brusani, the Timok
Division to the north-west of Radina and at the village of Bohila,
while its divisional cavalry (not to be confused with the Cavalry
Division) was descending into the valley of Boshava. News was received
that the Cavalry Division was already in Kavadar, and had reached
Marena and Sopot; soon afterwards it reached the Vardar at Negotin, and
cut the Uskub-Ghevgheli railway. The I Group continued to advance, and
on the 21st detachments of the 16th Colonial, the Greek Archipelago and
4th Divisions captured Mounts Dzena and Yarena, the chief points of the
Eastern Moglena; there only remained Mount Porta, obstinately held by
a Bulgarian detachment. But even this position fell soon after. The I
Group now descended from a height of 2,000 m. to 100 m., reaching the
Vardar and Demir Kapu. The same day the river was reached by troops of
the II Serbian Army between Demir Kapu and Krivolak. The 122nd Division
and all the heavy artillery was now being transferred towards the Cerna
loop, with a view to new operations in that area. The speed of the
advance had shown the diminishing combative spirit of the Bulgarians,
who, in spite of the fact that the famous second and third lines did
not exist, might have resisted on the many extremely strong natural
positions. The number of prisoners captured was not very large, about
6,000, and the guns a little more than 100. It therefore seemed as
though the Bulgarians were anxious to save their artillery and keep
their army in being in order to defend themselves on positions further
north, perhaps on the frontiers of Bulgaria.
In the morning the attack was commenced on the right flank with the
object of preventing the enemy from sending reinforcements against
the Serbs, and from threatening the salient that the advance of the
latter had created. West and north of Lake Doiran the enemy had
concentrated some of the best Bulgarian regiments, with three in
reserve and two to the north-east of the lake. As we have seen, the
British XII Corps was spread out to the west of the lake, comprising
the British 22nd and 26th Divisions (Generals Duncan and Gay), the
Greek Serres Division (in all 27 battalions), and the French 2nd bis
Zouave Regiment, with a great deal of artillery, including nearly all
the medium and heavy calibre guns not employed on the Serbian front.
To the north-east there was the XVI Corps, comprising the 28th British
Division (General Croker) and the Greek Cretan Division. After a very
intense bombardment, lasting several days, the attack was launched at
5.15 hours on both sectors. The objectives of General Wilson’s attack
were the same as those of the attacks in the spring of 1917, and the
enemy positions were of immense strength. The hard rocky ground,
as General Milne wrote in his dispatch of December 1, 1918, makes
the consolidation of newly won positions very difficult, and gives
overwhelming advantage to the defender in trenches that have been the
work of three years, while deep cut ravines hold up progress and afford
every opportunity for enfilading fire.
Soon after six o’clock, the Greeks on the right had stormed the enemy
positions up to Doiran Hill, and had taken many prisoners, while
on the left the 66th Brigade advanced on P ridge “with consummate
self-sacrifice and gallantry.” The enemy had here three strong lines
of defence, teeming with concrete machine-gun emplacements, whence
they could mow down the advancing columns. After very severe fighting
the 12th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, and the 9th South Lancashire,
supported by the 8th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, reached the
third line. But the devastating machine-gun fire and the explosion of
a mine, which held them up for a little, made it impossible for the
attacking force to hold their positions and obliged them to fall back
on their lines of departure. The brigade lost 65 per cent. of its
effectives, including two battalion commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel
Clegg Hill and Lieutenant-Colonel Bishop, who fell at the head of
their troops. In the centre British and Greek forces attacked the
positions between the Grand Couronné and the P ridge, and, in spite
of the enemy’s desperate resistance and machine-gun fire, penetrated
about one mile, and reached the lower slopes of the Grand Couronné.
But the failure of the attack on the P ridge made it impossible for
them to retain their ground, and they were forced to fall back, “the
last to leave being the survivors of the 7th Battalion, South Wales
Borderers--19 unwounded men and one wounded officer.”
To the north-east of the lake the Cretan Division and troops of the
28th Division had advanced across the plain between the lake and the
Beles range, and at dawn attacked the enemy positions; the outpost
lines were carried, and the main lines penetrated at two points, but
the ground gained could not be maintained, and General Milne authorized
the force to fall back on the railway.
In order to assist the progress of the Serbs and to prevent the enemy
on the Doiran front from sending reserves against them, it was decided
to renew the attack the next day. General Wilson’s force had been
strengthened by the 14th Greek Division sent up from the training camp
at Naresh to relieve the Serres Division, which had suffered heavily.
On the 19th, at five o’clock, after an all-night bombardment, Scottish
and Greek troops again attacked the Bulgarian positions on the lower
slopes of the Grand Couronné, and captured a good deal of ground,
in spite of the desperate resistance and heavy machine-gun fire of
the enemy. But the 65th Brigade, which had come up from an influenza
observation camp in the night to relieve the 66th, failed in its
gallant attack on the P ridge. The troops at the centre and on the
right thus found their left exposed, and were forced to fall back,
and part of the ground gained on the previous day had also to be
abandoned. The retreat was covered by the 12th Battalion, Argyll and
Sutherland Highlanders, the 8th Royal Scots Fusiliers, and the 11th
Scottish Rifles, who suffered severe casualties, including all their
Commanding Officers killed or wounded. By midday General Milne decided
to consolidate the ground won, which included the Petit Couronné, the
Téton Hill, and Doiran town; but the P ridge and the Grand Couronné
still held out.
The total losses of the British had been about 3,900, and of the
Greeks 2,300. The Bulgarians, too, had lost heavily--some 4,600 men,
including 1,200 prisoners. It was impossible to renew the attack owing
to the greatly reduced strength of the British, whose battalions, even
before the attack, were only about 400 men each, and now the slopes of
the Grand Couronné and the P ridges were covered with British dead.
Although the Bulgarians had been almost without food for four days as
the British barrage had prevented the arrival of supplies, they still
occupied their terrible positions, and the whole thing seemed a useless
tragedy in spite of the great heroism shown. “Rather than miss the
opportunity for which they had waited three years, officers and men
remained in the ranks till often they dropped from sheer exhaustion,”
wrote General Milne in his report--but nothing had been gained. The
real objective, however, had been achieved: not a single Bulgarian
soldier had been able to leave this sector to help in resisting the
Serbian advance.
It was at this moment that the defeat of the enemy began to take shape.
A great part of the Vardar-Cerna triangle was lost, the few troops
remaining between Demir Kapu and Ghevgheli had now to fall back beyond
the Vardar in a north-easterly direction, and this fact constituted a
menace even for the troops round Lake Doiran, to whom no other line of
supply was left but the Doiran-Kosturino-Strumitza road. On the 21st
signs that a retreat was beginning were noted on the British front.
Everywhere depots were observed to be in flames, and munitions dumps
exploding. General Milne, with his XII Corps strengthened by the 14th
Greek Division, renewed the offensive. The 9th Bulgarian Division
having offered but slight resistance, the formidable defences collapsed
without much effort, and the whole II Bulgarian Army fell back, seeking
safety over the narrow Kosturino Pass. While the British infantry
and cavalry pursued them, flights of aeroplanes, flying only a few
metres from the ground, bombarded the Bulgarians and shot down men
with machine guns along the Strumitza road, encumbered with vehicles,
artillery, etc., by now in indescribable disorder. The spectacle
offered by that road was one of appalling confusion and terror. From
all sides fires broke out; guns were abandoned in gullies, rifles,
equipment, baggage were thrown away, and the demoralized army fled
towards its homeland.
On the 21st the A.F.O. came into action. The enemy troops on this
sector were less threatened than on the other sectors, because, if they
had lost the Prilep-Gradsko road, they still retained that over the
Babuna Pass between Prilep and Veles, which could be easily defended,
and the Kichevo-Kalkandelen road. But they were now threatened in
another quarter. Day by day the communications between the XI German
Army and Bulgaria were becoming more difficult, and it could be
foreseen that at any moment they might be cut altogether, and then
that Army would have had no other alternative but to retreat across
Albania to reach the Herzegovina and Dalmatia. It was the fate of
the Serbian Army in 1915 which seemed about to be repeated. On that
day detachments of the 11th Colonial Division (General Farret) and
the 3rd Greek Division (General Tricoupis) crossed the Cerna (east)
between Selo-Monastir and Cebren, and advanced in the direction of
Prilep. General Henrys, commanding the A.F.O., now ordered the advance
of his whole army, beginning with an attack launched by the Italian
Expeditionary Force.
The duties assigned to the latter were: 1st, to carry out, during
the Franco-Serbian offensive, an intensive demonstrative action,
to prevent the enemy in front of it from withdrawing troops to
reinforce the centre (a duty similar to that of the British); 2nd, the
Franco-Serbian attack having been launched, the I.E.F. was to continue
to act demonstratively and to resist any counter-attack which might
be attempted by the enemy, in fact, to provoke such counter-attacks
so as to make the enemy believe that we ourselves intended to attack
immediately, and to make of our sector the pivot of an enveloping
movement on the part of the Serbs; 3rd, as soon as this movement had
produced its effect on the right flank of the 302nd German Division
(the one opposite to us) and on the lines of communication in the Cerna
loop, to attack and pursue the enemy in the direction of Prilep, their
chief centre of supplies west of the Vardar and headquarters of the XI
German Army.
The first and second of these tasks were carried out in the period from
the 14th to the 21st of September, and the Italian troops nailed down
the enemy on its front by means of bombardments and repeated local
attacks of so fierce a character as not only to prevent them from
sending any help against the Franco-Serbs, but to make them believe
that the attack in the centre was to be followed immediately by one on
our area. In order to forestall this supposed intention, they attacked
vigorously, so much so, that the object desired by the Commander
in-Chief was more than achieved, but at the cost of heavy losses on our
side. Our defences were seriously wrecked by the German and Bulgarian
artillery, but the Italian infantry resisted admirably under this
terrific fire, and the enemy attacks were all repulsed. On September
22nd the threat of an enveloping movement in the direction of the Cerna
(east) began to be perceived by the enemy, and General Mombelli ordered
the attack. At 17.30 hours our infantry sprang out of the trenches,
where they had been held down for two years, unable to advance a step;
an hour later they were beyond the enemy’s first lines, and the whole
mighty defensive system collapsed. The terrible Hill 1050, which had
been so powerfully fortified, which we had studied with such minute
care and attention as though it were a zone of great archæological
interest, and whose crest we had never been able to hold, was finally
in our hands. Those cruel eyes of the enemy’s observation posts on the
topmost ridge, whose pitiless glance had inflicted death or wounds to
so many gallant soldiers, were now closed for ever.
The defences proved even stronger than we had suspected. Immense
caverns there were, cut out of the solid rock on the northern slopes of
the hill, which our shells had never been able to reach, illuminated by
electricity and supplied with special appliances, by means of which the
various detachments were warned of every different kind of bombardment,
so that each man knew at once where to take refuge--nothing, in fact,
had been neglected to make of this mountain an impregnable fortress.
In this first attack we took few prisoners, about 150, because the
broken nature of the ground enabled the bulk of the enemy forces to
escape us, as had happened to the Franco-Serbians for the same reasons
on the first days. The Lucca Light Cavalry and the detachments of
machine gunners on motor lorries, which General Mombelli had kept ready
near the front, dashed forward in pursuit of the enemy and had some
heavy engagements at Kanatlarci. The whole division then advanced. On
the morning of the 22nd the battalions were 10 km. beyond the enemy
lines, and were pursuing the Bulgarian rearguard. The Command also
pushed forward its G.H.Q., and Tepavci was abandoned for good. In the
Monastir-Prilep plain, behind Hill 1050, there were several heights on
which the enemy might have made a stand, but as on the Serbian front,
there were no second lines, except a few lines of insignificant wire
entanglements and some isolated trenches. The Bulgarians offered a
certain resistance on the heights of Cepik (Hill 664), Kalabak (Hill
1772), and Topolchani (Hill 603), on both sides of the Monastir-Prilep
road, while our troops occupied the edge of these same heights. From
that point the advance on Prilep would have been easy, but at 14 hours
on the 23rd our Command received orders from the G.Q.G. to let Prilep
be occupied by the 11th Colonial Division on our right, and to advance
on Krushevo. The reason for this change of programme was to prevent
the enemy troops in the Monastir area from retreating towards Kichevo,
whence a road leads across the mountains to Gostivar and Kalkandelen,
the terminus of the railway from Uskub. This task was really important,
because its object was to prevent numerous Bulgarian regiments from
reaching Uskub and to facilitate the action of the Franco-Serb
offensive towards that very important railway and road junction, the
only point through which the remains of the XI German Army could hope
to rejoin the rest of the enemy troops. But it cannot be denied that
this change of programme was a disappointment for our officers and men.
Prilep was a well-known objective, and had been much talked about as it
was the headquarters of the Army Command, and was provided with depots
and shelters; it had to be occupied by someone, and its occupation by
our troops would have been a slight moral and material satisfaction
for the 35th Division such as it was not accustomed to. The matter
was really of small importance, but it would have pleased us had it
been known that that important centre had been first occupied by the
Italians. The fact that French troops were sent there instead of ours
was not, perhaps, due to any lack of consideration towards us on the
part of the C.A.A., but it appeared in that light, all the more so
as the same thing had happened when we were acting in liaison with the
French in the Monastir operations, and it would have been better to
avoid even the appearance of unfriendliness.
[Illustration: THE PRILEP-KRUSHEVO AREA.
To face p. 236.
]
But the Division at once set to work to execute this new plan, and
after effecting a conversion of 90 degrees in a westerly direction, it
set forth on an exhausting march, after the long and arduous fighting
advance of the previous days. The troops, however, gave no signs of
fatigue, and reached the line between Cepik and the bridge over the
Belavitza. On the 24th our right wing (Sicilia Brigade with 6 mountain
batteries), which was advancing towards Zapolchani, was temporarily
held up by the enemy artillery, firing from the heights of Novo Selani,
while the centre and the left (Cagliari Brigade with 2 mountain
batteries, 9 French field batteries, 1 heavy French battery, and 2
squadrons of the Lucca cavalry) reached the Vodiani-Krivogastani line,
and found itself confronted by the enemy infantry in strong positions
on the edge of the heights of Krushevo (Hill 1176), and of the
Draghisetz (Hills 1150 and 1291), and in the gorge of the Cerna, near
the Buchin bridge and Vodiani. The Ivrea Brigade, which was in reserve,
followed towards the left.
On the 25th the Sicilia Brigade, strengthened by detachments of the
11th French Colonial Division, which had just come up, reached the
heights of Godivla, north-east of Krushevo; the centre halted on the
edge of the heights of Krushevo, rising precipitously 550 m. above
the plain, while the left began the attack on Buchin, where it became
engaged in a vigorous combat. On the 26th the whole Division, having
overcome the enemy resistance, crossed the great barrier of the Baba
Planina and Draghisetz mountains, its right pushed forward to the
foot of Mount Cesma, the centre at Krushevo and Ostreltze, and its
left along the line Sveta-Hill 1150-Hill 1291 of the Draghisetz.
Thus the Bulgarians, in retiring from the Monastir area, could no
longer fall back on Prilep, but were forced to try to reach the
Kichevo-Kalkandelen gorge, which was becoming more crowded every hour.
The same evening we pushed a strong column westward from Krushevo in
the direction of Karaul Kruska and Sop, while another, which had also
started from Krushevo, advanced through Ostreltze towards Tzer.
On the 27th, our positions were as follows. The right wing occupied
the greater part of Mount Cesma, and, together with the French troops,
drove back the enemy from the Harilovo-Diviak area. The main column
of the centre, having advanced beyond Pustareka, had reached Karaul
Kruska, and the flanking column on the left, which, after having passed
through Kochista, reached the neighbourhood of Tzer; the left, after
occupying Priblitzi, pushed forward through Dolentzi to Sop, along the
Monastir-Kichevo road. On the 28th, the right column completed the
occupation of Mount Cesma, and advanced towards the Stramol and Baba
mountains, north-east of Sop; the principal column and the centre,
after overcoming the enemy’s vigorous resistance, occupied a line of
heights 3 km. to the east of that village, while its left flanking
column co-operated in the action from Tzer. The left reached Hill 932
to the south of Sop, in support of the action of the centre.
The Bulgarians here were in very strong positions. With numerous
forces of infantry, a great many machine guns, and several field and
heavy batteries withdrawn from the Monastir front, they had entrenched
themselves on formidable lines in the Sop gorge, where they were
prepared to offer a desperate resistance. The following day the Sicilia
Brigade succeeded in driving the enemy from Mounts Stramol and Baba,
and after occupying these positions pushed on towards Plasnitza to
co-operate with the 11th Colonial Division, which was attacking the
enemy entrenched on the heights of Izitza to the north of the Yelika
valley. In the centre our battalions renewed the attack on Sop from
the south-east and east so as to pin down the enemy, while those
of the right column executed a turning movement from Karaul Kruska
towards the north-east to cut off their retreat. The fighting during
those days was very fierce, and cost us 500 casualties. The Bulgars
had been strengthened on the night of the 28th-29th by two more
regiments and several machine-gun companies, which had fallen back from
Monastir, but had been recalled. The behaviour of our troops in all
these very stiff engagements against an enemy superior in numbers, in
dominating positions, and supplied with great abundance of artillery
of all calibres and machine-guns, had been admirable, and it must be
remembered that they were exhausted by the long and tiring marches
over very rough country. If the Serbs had advanced further, they had,
however, after the first two days found an enemy that resisted far
less vigorously than was the case in our sector. Furthermore, the
enemy opposed to us was directly under German Command--Army Command,
Corps Command, and partly Divisional Command--and was stiffened by the
presence of several German detachments.
The French divisions of the A.F.O. (30th, 57th, 76th, 156th) came
into action almost at the same moment as the Italians. General Henrys
wished to cut off the enemy’s retreat by the Kichevo-Kalkandelen
road, the only one which still remained open, but in the sector of
Hill 1248 the Bulgarians still resisted tenaciously and held up the
advance. To the west, the 302nd German Division had begun to fall
back, the 6th and 1st Bulgarian Divisions were forced to follow suit,
and this enabled the French to deploy along the Dihovo-Dragarina line
to the north-west of Monastir, finally liberating that unfortunate
city from a bombardment that had lasted nearly two years. On the 23rd
the French occupied Berantzi and Topolchani, and on the evening of
that day, while the Italians were advancing towards Krushevo to the
north-west, they reached the line Kukurechani-Novo Selani-Prilep,
cutting across the line of our advance, and the French cavalry entered
Prilep, followed on the 24th by the 11th Colonial Division. On the
25th the Bulgars still held out to the west of Monastir, and with the
help of three regiments, which had retired but had been subsequently
recalled, repulsed the attacks of the 76th Division; the 156th was
at Stari Srptzi, and beyond the sector occupied by the 35th, the 3rd
Greek Division (attached to the 11th Colonial) was deployed across the
Prilep-Brod road.[42] It was then suspected by the C.A.A. that a new
defensive plan had been evolved by the enemy--and its existence has
been subsequently confirmed by Marshal von Hindenburg’s _Memoirs_--to
withdraw the centre and right, making a pivot of the Doiran sector, and
resisting at Uskub, until the arrival of the Bulgarians retreating from
the Monastir area, _via_ Kichevo-Kalkandelen, and of the reinforcements
expected from Germany and Austria. The Bulgarians, as we have seen,
tried to delay the advance of the French and Italians, calling back
regiments that had begun to retire but this decision proved fatal. The
troops that had withdrawn on the 25th found their line of retreat cut
to the north by Allied detachments. On the same day the 30th Division
reached Prevaletz (Hill 912), on the road from Monastir to Resna, and
on the 26th it reached the latter place; the 76th crossed the Semnitza
river, and the 156th occupied Hill 1493 on the Drvenik, to the south
of Vodiani. In the meanwhile General Franchet d’Espérey had created
a new unit, called the Groupement Tranié, composed of the 42nd and
44th Regiments of the 11th Colonial Division, the 58th Battalion of
Chasseurs à pied, the Cavalry Brigade, a group of 75 mm. batteries and
one of 65 mm., with orders to push on towards Uskub. Later the 76th
Division rapidly left the Babuna road from Prilep towards Veles and
Uskub, and along the heights to the north-west of it. On the 26th the
line held by the A.F.O. (the 35th Division included) was the following:
Resna-Sveti Petar-Murgas-west of Krushevo-Belushin-Yakrenovo-Ropotovo
(on the Prilep-Kichevo road). On the 28th, with the occupation of
Ochrida by the 57th, the line passed by Hill 975, Demir Hissar (on the
Monastir-Kichevo road), and Brod on the Prilep-Kichevo road. The French
reached Trebuniste, to the north of Ochrida on the 29th, and advancing
along the west shore of the lake, cut the Elbasan-Ochrida road at Lin,
and thus the last line of escape across Albania which remained to the
XI German Army was closed.
The I Serbian Army pushed on down Cerna valley to the west of the
river, and advanced in a north-westerly direction, reaching the
Leniste-Pletvar-Troyatzi-Toplitza-Drenovo (to the north-west of the
Prilep-Gradsko road) line. Along this road the Serbs captured a great
deal of booty and many vehicles. The Bulgarians, urged by the German
Command, made every effort to defend Gradsko, a vital centre of their
communications, full of large military depots, against the Franco-Serbs
(Yugoslav Division and 17th Colonial Division), but on the 23rd,
after the 11th Colonial Division had captured the monastery and the
village of Chichevo, Gradsko fell into the hands of the Serbs. Once
Gradsko was lost, the enemy tried to defend Veles, but the Tranié
Group was, as we have seen, on the Babuna road, and on the same day
the Serbian Army reached the same road beyond Izvor. On the 25th the
Serbian cavalry entered Istip, and on the 26th the II Army, after a
fairly brisk engagement, occupied Veles, and pushed on towards the
north-west. Immediately afterwards the Serbian cavalry reached Kochana,
Grlena and Tzarevo Selo, this latter an important point whence the
upper valley of the Struma, which is in Bulgaria, could be menaced.
The cavalry was followed by the infantry, conveyed in British and
French lorries, and entered Kochana. On the 29th the French cavalry,
commanded by General Jouinot-Gambetta, to which a part of the Serbian
Cavalry was attached, after a forced march, entered Uskub, the chief
city of Northern Macedonia, and erstwhile German G.H.Q. in the Balkans,
a junction of four railways and of numerous roads. Thus the enemy’s
hope of resisting, by effecting a junction between the detachments of
the XI German Army, arriving from Kalkandelen (which, according to Von
Hindenburg, was in excellent condition), and the Austrian and German
reinforcements from the north, was rendered vain. Soon afterwards the
remainder of the Tranié Group arrived, while the Serbian Yugoslav and
Timok Divisions pushed eastwards towards the Bulgarian frontier. The
Bulgarians still held out on the Tzrni Kamen and in the Tzarevo Selo,
Bogdanovatz, and Chavka area, and protected the retreat of the remnants
of the I Army towards Djumaya. The Yugoslav Division and the cavalry
occupied Tzar Vrh (Hill 2104), Tzrkvenetz, and Ostretz, and spread
out to Tzarevo Selo, thus dominating the approaches to Kustendil.
Contemporaneously with these operations, the I Group of Divisions
(from which the 27th British Division had been detached to rejoin the
rest of the British Army) had cleaned up the whole of the area to the
north-west of Ghevgheli and to the north-east of the Vardar on the
Gradetz mountains. On the 29th it occupied Radovista, and effected a
junction with the Serbs.
[Illustration: GRÆCO-BULGARIAN FRONTIER.
To face p. 242.
]
The British now continued their pursuit of the enemy in their desperate
retreat towards Strumitza, and soon occupied the whole of the area to
the west and north of Lake Doiran. On the 25th the troops of the XVI
Corps advanced to the right and left of the Doiran-Strumitza road,
and penetrated into Bulgaria by the Kosturino pass; on the 26th they
occupied Strumitza itself.[43] These were the first Allied detachments
to penetrate into enemy territory in the Balkans; actually the first
to enter were the Derbyshire Yeomanry. The XII Corps had, in the
meanwhile, pushed towards the right of the XVIth, and on the 25th
commenced the attack on the Beles to the east and the right. On the
same day General Milne transferred his G.H.Q. from Salonica to Janesh
in order to be nearer the scene of operations. On the 26th, detachments
of the British 22nd and 20th Divisions and the Cretan Division, and
of the 2nd bis Zouaves regiment attacked the Bulgarians entrenched on
the Beles, that vast mountain wall from 1,100 m. to 1,600 m. high,
which for two years has seemed an absolutely impregnable barrier. The
enemy offered but slight resistance, because they were already beaten,
and the heights were occupied one after the other. On the 28th a
regiment of the Cretan Division pushed along the ridge from west to
east, another, together with the British 228th Brigade, advanced along
the valley below towards Lake Butkova, and a third column of the XVI
Corps followed the parallel valley to the north, down the course of
the River Strumitza. The object of this triple advance was to reach
the Struma towards the Rupel and Kresna gorges, and thus cut off the
retreat of the forces of the II Army, which had remained until then on
the lower Struma.
Thus the enemy armies were cut in two. The rapid advance of the French
and Serbs had driven a deep wedge in between the XI German Army and the
rest of the hostile forces. The XI Army was partly on the mountains to
the north of the Monastir-Prilep plain, and partly in the Kalkandelen
area; the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 13th Divisions of the I Bulgarian
Army were echeloned between the Uskub-Kumanovo road and the valley
of the Strumitza, but they had lost a large part of their artillery;
the II Army was still on the lower Struma, and its retreat towards
Bulgaria was seriously threatened by the Anglo-Greek advance. Bulgaria
was invaded by the British in the Strumitza Valley, the Serbians were
watching on the Bulgarian-Macedonian frontier between Tzarevo Selo and
Pehtzevo, ready to descend on the territory of the hated enemy and take
vengeance for their past sufferings. The I Greek Corps, which until
then had remained inactive, was now ready to cross the valley of the
Struma and launch an attack on Serres and Demir Hissar.
General Mombelli was making his preparations for a general attack
on Sop, where large Bulgarian forces were concentrated. The attack
was to take place on the morning of the 30th in order to compel the
enemy to surrender. The German Commands of the XI Army, of the LXI
and LXII Corps, and of the 302nd Division, as well as the artillery,
machine-gun companies and German specialist detachments, realizing
that the Bulgarian defeat was now inevitable, fled in the night, after
having cut all the telegraph and telephone wires, so that for several
days the Bulgarian Army had no communication with the rest of the army
or with their country. It had to improvise new Commands and Staffs
for its units, which had been abandoned by their erstwhile omnipotent
Allies. The attack on Sop was to have been launched from the north
and north-east by the Sicilia Brigade, and contemporaneously from the
south and south-west by the Ivrea and Cagliari Brigades, but at 5.30
General Mombelli received a wireless message announcing the conclusion
of the Armistice, which was to come into force on that very day. The
attack was therefore suspended, and the Bulgarian Commander invited
to surrender. But as the communications with their G.H.Q. and with
the Sofia Government had been cut, he refused at first to believe the
news, and it took two days of discussion, conducted on the Italian
side by General Freri, Commander of the Cagliari Brigade, to convince
the Bulgarians, and it was only on October 3rd that the surrender took
place. The capitulation was unconditional, the officers alone being
allowed to retain their swords and revolvers. The prisoners comprised
a Divisional Commander, two Brigadiers, 16 field officers, 224 junior
officers, and 7,727 men; 8 guns and 70 machine guns, and a large
quantity of other booty were captured. At the same time, the rest of
the troops who had been fighting against us on the Stramol and Baba
mountains--over 10,000 men and many batteries--surrendered to the 11th
French Colonial Division near Kichevo, because it was easier of access.
It was thus against a total of nearly 18,000 men with a large number
of batteries and machine guns that the troops of the 35th Division,
inferior in numbers and material, had fought for three days and won.
Except for the fighting of the British at Lake Doiran, it had been the
bitterest struggle of the great battle of the Balkans.
For several days the Bulgarians had realized that they had lost the
war. After the fall of Gradsko, which Marshal von Hindenburg attributes
to “pusillanimity or worse,” there was no longer any hope, because the
vital centre of communications had been cut. The great bulk of the
Bulgarian soldiers had had enough of fighting, and desertions _en
masse_ from the divisions at the centre towards the interior began. The
German Command, not having succeeded, in spite of the reserves which
had been drawn from the right and the left, in saving Gradsko, decided
to retreat. As Marshal von Hindenburg rightly observes, the great
natural defensive positions in the Balkan peninsula extend one behind
the other, so that an army which retires in good order has always fresh
lines on which to fall back; the Bulgarian generals, however, were of
the opinion that the army could hold out only on condition that it
remained where it was, but that it would go to pieces if the order
for a general retreat were given. In fact, as soon as the withdrawal
of the troops on the Doiran sector began, it soon degenerated into a
rout. According to the German Field Marshal, all the Staffs failed in
their duty, especially those of the I Bulgarian Army. The only man who
did not lose his head was the German Commander-in-Chief, General von
Scholtz. The Bulgarian Government made desperate appeals for help to
Germany and Austria, but to these “S.O.S.” signals the Central Powers
were no longer in a position to reply adequately. The armies of Germany
had been seriously beaten in France, and were falling back, fighting a
desperate and hopeless battle; the Austrians were pinned down on the
Piave and in the Seven Communes in front of the Italian Army, which
was preparing to launch the final attack. A few divisions collected
here and there were hurried forward; the Alpen Corps from France, two
infantry divisions from the Crimea, and some other units. Then there
was in Roumania a fairly large army, although not in a fit condition to
go into the first line. A mixed brigade destined for the Caucasus, and
already half-way across the Black Sea, was recalled by wireless, landed
at Varna and Constanza, and hurried off to Macedonia. The German troops
who arrived in Sofia found everything quiet, but parties of Bulgarian
soldiers were constantly pouring in, having abandoned the front lines.
They did not molest their officers, nor oblige them to desert if they
wished to remain; they were even ready to help the Germans who were
going towards the front; but they were fed up and wished to return to
their fields and their families. They had ceased to take any further
interest in Macedonia. Even an Army Commander telegraphed to the Tzar
insisting that an armistice should be asked for, but received the
reply: “Go and get killed in your present lines.” The assurances given
by the Imperial Chancellor to the Reichstag that help for Bulgaria had
been provided for, and that powerful reinforcements were being hurried
up, no longer deceived anybody.
[Illustration: CRASHED ITALIAN AEROPLANE.]
[Illustration: COMMUNICATION TRENCHES IN THE MEGLENTZI VALLEY.
To face p. 246.
]
On September 26th a Bulgarian officer with a white flag appeared
before the British lines; General Milne sent him to General Franchet
d’Espérey, who, however, replied that he could only deal with
_parlementaires_ provided with proper credentials. The Bulgarian
Government, in the meanwhile, was trying, through Mr. Murphy, the
American Chargé d’Affaires in Sofia, to obtain the intervention of that
Government, which was not in a state of war with Bulgaria. Mr. Murphy,
in fact, had tried to intervene, and asked permission to accompany
the plenipotentiaries which the Sofia Government decided to send to
Salonica, but the C.A.A. did not see fit to adhere to this request. The
useful part played by Mr. Murphy with his propaganda in Bulgaria in
favour of a separate peace with the Entente should not be forgotten,
but it appears that he tried, without success, to obtain favourable
armistice conditions for the Bulgarians. In the meanwhile General
Franchet d’Espérey had telegraphed to Paris, asking for authority to
negotiate an armistice. The authorization arrived on the 27th, together
with instructions as to the terms of the agreement to be negotiated.
On the 28th, the official Bulgarian delegation reached the British
front. It was composed of M. Liapcheff, Finance Minister, General
Lukoff, Commander of the II Army, and the diplomat, M. Radeff, with
two A.D.C.’s. Soon afterwards a huge German Staff car, adorned with
the Royal arms of Bulgaria, flashed down the Janesh road and reached
Salonica, conveying the first enemy plenipotentiaries coming to sue
for peace with the Entente. After a first meeting with General
Franchet d’Espérey, the delegates withdrew to their lodgings, and the
official meetings began on the morning of the 29th, at the house of the
Commander-in-Chief. The negotiations were short and business-like, but
the Bulgarians tried to turn to account the fact that their country
had never been very enthusiastic about the war, and had no particular
sympathy for the Germans, nor animosity against the Allies. M.
Liapcheff even went so far as to suggest that Bulgaria had now become
a neutral State, and might almost be considered an ally. But General
Franchet d’Espérey curtly replied: “You are defeated, and you must
submit to the Allies’ terms. Bulgaria is not a neutral country, but a
military zone, and it is inadmissible that we should not pass through
it.”[44]
The Bulgarian delegates, duly authorized by their Government, accepted
all the conditions imposed on them by the Armistice. They only raised
some difficulties over the occupation of Bulgarian territory by the
Serbs and Greeks (one of the secret clauses of the Armistice gave the
Allies the right to occupy certain areas in the interior of Bulgaria),
but General Franchet d’Espérey waived aside these objections, saying
that the Entente was a group of peoples, great and small, but all free,
whereas in the enemy Alliance Germany was the mistress and the others
were her vassals. Therefore the Greeks and Serbs should be able to take
part in the occupation of Bulgaria like the other Allies. However, the
Prince Regent of Serbia, having heard that some of his Generals were
insisting on being allowed to occupy Bulgarian territory, in order to
satisfy their national pride and avenge the persecutions inflicted on
Serbia by the Bulgarians, telegraphed to the Commander-in-Chief that
he preferred to waive this right in order not to embitter relations
between Serbia and Bulgaria still more; he wished, on the contrary,
to contribute to the pacification of the Balkans. M. Venizelos made a
similar pronouncement. The decision was certainly a wise one; reprisals
and acts of revenge were thus avoided, for the Serbs and Greeks, if
they had been in occupation of the land of the hated enemy, would not
have been able to restrain themselves.
The Armistice provided:--
(1) The immediate evacuation of the territories still occupied by
the Bulgarians in Serbian and Greek Macedonia;
(2) The immediate demobilization of the whole Bulgarian Army,
except 3 infantry divisions and 4 cavalry regiments for the
defence of the Turkish frontier and the Dobrugia, and for
guarding the railways;
(3) The arms and other material of the demobilized units to be
stored in places to be subsequently determined, under Allied
control;
(4) All material of the IV Greek Army Corps (which had surrendered
to Germany), and was still in Bulgaria, to be handed over to
Greece;
(5) The Bulgarian troops to the west of the meridian of Uskub were
to surrender as prisoners of war;
(6) The Allies had the right to use all Bulgarian prisoners of war
until peace was signed, but Bulgaria must hand over to the
Allied authorities all Allied prisoners and deported civilians
without reciprocity;
(7) The troops and diplomatic and consular representatives of
Germany and Austria must leave Bulgaria within four weeks.[45]
The secret clauses authorized the Allies to make use of the railways,
roads, and other means of communication and transport in Bulgaria for
the movement of their troops and to occupy certain strategic points.
Sofia was not to be occupied save in exceptional circumstances.[46]
At 22.30 hours on September 29th the Armistice was concluded. It was
signed by General Franchet d’Espérey for the Allies and by the Finance
Minister, Liapcheff, and General Lukoff for Bulgaria; it came into
force on September 30th at noon.
On September 30th the number of prisoners captured by the Allies
was not very great, about 15,000 to 20,000 (those opposite the 35th
Division did not surrender, as we know, until a few days later). But
the Bulgarians had lost about one-third of their artillery; 350 guns
had been captured, and many others, which had been abandoned or hidden
in the woods and gullies, were found subsequently, and the ammunition
dumps had been blown up.
The causes of the Allied victory may be summed up as follows:
1. The great military qualities of General Franchet d’Espérey should
be recognized; his able dispositions, based partly on the old plan of
Voivod Michich, afterwards elaborated by General Guillaumat, consisted
in the concentration in the Moglena sector of a mobile reserve for
attack, created even at the cost of withdrawing troops from other
areas and leaving them weakly defended. The Moglena sector had been
chosen because, as it presented the greatest natural difficulties, the
Bulgarians had taken less trouble over its artificial defences. In view
of the great scarcity of Allied reserves, those that were available had
to be transported from one area to the other according to necessity.
This was done in the case of the 122nd French Division and the heavy
artillery; as soon as a breach had been made they were transferred to
the sector of the A.F.O., but as a matter of fact there was no need
of the 122nd Division, because the A.F.O. was able to act on its own
account; the division therefore went into army reserve.
2. The admirable dash and excellent discipline and staying power of
all the Allied contingents over extremely difficult ground and under a
semi-tropical sun, until the rainy season began, when the whole country
became a muddy swamp. To the French troops, above all, was due the
breach in the enemy front on September 15th; the British distinguished
themselves for the magnificent tenacity in their attack on the terrible
positions of the Lake Doiran area, an attack, which if it did not
succeed, yet contributed very materially, according to the Bulgarians
themselves, to the victory; our own troops had the great merit first of
having held on for two years on the theoretically untenable sector of
Hill 1050, and afterwards of having developed the rapid pursuit of the
enemy with an extremely arduous battle at the end, when the Bulgarians
were outflanked at Sop, a battle, the continuation of which, was
interrupted at the last moment by the Armistice. The Serbians played a
valiant part in the attack at the centre, but the outstanding feature
of their action was their magnificent and fantastic march towards the
Fatherland, regardless of the impervious mountain ranges, extending
one behind the other across the line of advance, almost without food,
with few munitions and practically no equipment. Inspired by patriotic
enthusiasm which was a religious faith, they drove the enemy from
height to height, from valley to valley, without troubling to see if
they were followed by their supplies, which, in fact, never came up
with them. One saw old soldiers who had been detailed as hospital
orderlies on the lines of communication, because they were regarded as
unfit for active service, abandoning their posts, seizing rifles and
haversacks filled with biscuit, hurry forward to join in the pursuit.
In every village deserters from the Bulgarian Army, who were Serbs
enrolled by force, were discovered, and now rejoined the Serbian Army.
When the latter reached Serbia proper, these increases in strength were
even more considerable, because there were many Serbian soldiers who
had remained hidden in the mountains during the Bulgarian occupation of
the country, and who, the moment they saw the liberating army of their
brothers arrive, also joined in the pursuit of the enemy. It is said
that in the Morava Division, which at the beginning of the offensive
numbered only 3,500 rifles in all, one regiment alone, after a few
weeks, had no less than 5,000.
[Illustration: CRASHED GERMAN AEROPLANE.]
[Illustration: GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY DECORATING GENERALS MILNE AND
MOMBELLI.
To face p. 250.
]
Nor must the Greeks be forgotten. With all the defects of their Army,
many detachments fought valiantly, especially the Serres Division,
which, fighting under the British, distinguished itself at the battle
of Doiran and suffered severe losses. The French and Serbian cavalry,
once the breach had been made, were in the vanguard of the pursuit, and
pushed forward by forced marches which have few equals in the annals of
the war.
3. The perfect co-operation between armies of different nationalities,
a co-operation which Sarrail had never been able to achieve. This was
one of General Franchet d’Espérey’s main successes. There were, in
fact, the Central Franco-Serbian Group, composed of 6 Serbian Divisions
and 2 French; the I Group of Divisions, with 1 French, 2 Greek, and for
a short time 1 British Division; the A.F.O., comprising 5 French, 1
Italian, and 1 Greek Division; the British Army with 3, and afterwards
4 British, 5 Greek Divisions, and one French Regiment. Nevertheless
everything functioned regularly as if it had been a perfectly
homogeneous force.
4. The faulty dispositions of the enemy. Although, as we have seen,
the latter were stronger in effectives than the Allied forces, they
had failed to create reserves. In Bulgaria there were only three
regiments available, and the Germans had withdrawn all their battalions
from the Balkan front, except three, to which a few others were added
during the offensive. In Serbia and Roumania, the German and Austrian
garrisons were numerous, but they were composed of units whence nearly
all the younger soldiers had been withdrawn. The enemy thus had only
small area reserves, and no army reserves. When the central sector
was broken through the enemy Command tried to stem the advancing tide
by concentrating regiments withdrawn from distant sectors, such, for
instance, as the 14th, which was notorious for its mutinies; but it
was then too late. Only in the Doiran sector, where some of the best
regiments were collected, was it possible to hold up the British
and Greeks for a few days, and also in the Cerna loop, where the
German Command made its influence more directly felt, and there the
resistance was more vigorous.
5. The Bulgarian demoralization. The Bulgarians had for some time been
fed up with the war. They believed that they had obtained definitely
everything to which they aspired, and they did not see why they
should continue to fight simply to please the Germans. They, like
the Serbs, were drawn by an irresistible desire towards their homes,
but the Serbs in order to do this had to fight, while the Bulgarians
saw that the only way to achieve their object was to make peace. The
Allied victories in France, although the Command tried to suppress
all news of them, ended by becoming known to the masses and produced
a depressing effect. The overbearing attitude of the Germans, who
treated Bulgaria almost as a conquered country and not as an ally,
and especially the requisitions of foodstuffs in Bulgaria to be sent
to Germany, provoked serious discontent. Then there was the question
of Dobrugia, which aroused much disaffection. The Bulgarians hoped
that, after the defeat of Roumania, the whole of that province would
have been ceded to them, instead of only the southern district, as was
provided for in the treaty of alliance with Germany. The latter did
not wish to hand over the whole province, because she intended to keep
control over the Cernavoda-Constanza railway, and also because Turkey
objected to that line being in the hands of the Bulgarians. Actually
they were granted the southern district (the part ceded to Roumania
by the peace of 1913), while the rest was administered by Turkey, an
arrangement against which the Bulgarian Government, and finally even
the Commander-in-Chief, General Gekoff, protested vigorously, putting
the blame on the German General Staff. There was discontent also over
the question of Adrianople. Signs of demoralization appeared in the
numerous mutinies and the ever more frequent desertions. The fact of
having forcibly applied conscription to the inhabitants of the occupied
territories, although it helped to strengthen the Army with fresh
effectives, weakened it in its moral unity, because the inhabitants of
the province of Nish were true Serbs and hated the Bulgarians, and
those of Macedonia, if they had more sympathy for the Bulgarians than
for the Serbs, did not wish to fight for either. The Allied Commands
were fairly well informed of this state of feeling, and appreciated it
at its proper value. The pro-German Radoslavoff Cabinet had resigned
in June, and the Malinoff Cabinet, by which it had been succeeded, was
disposed to seek to come to some agreement with the Entente.
6. Finally, there was the hope on the part of the Bulgarians, who
now realized that German power was shaken, of obtaining favourable
conditions from the Entente by means of a separate peace. If they could
no longer dream of the creation of that big Bulgaria which had been
promised to them by Germany, they hoped at least to preserve some part
of their conquests, to keep the territories gained from Turkey, and
perhaps to receive substantial financial assistance. The Entente had
promised nothing of all this, but its semi-official propaganda gave the
Bulgarians to understand that the sooner they surrendered the better
would their treatment be.
The immediate consequences of the Bulgarian capitulation were of great
importance. This was the first decisive blow struck at the Central
Powers. Until September 15th the main line of the enemy resistance from
the North Sea to the Swiss frontier, from the Stelvio to the mouth
of the Piave, from the mouth of the Semeni to that of the Struma,
was intact. In France the Germans had had to fall back before the
Anglo-Franco-American attacks, but the famous Hindenburg line was not
yet broken, and their Armies had been beaten, but not vanquished; on
the Piave the Austrians had been seriously defeated in their June
attack, but they had lost very little ground, and their Army was still
in full efficiency. It was on the Macedonian front that the first fatal
breach was made. The Central Powers not only had one ally the less, but
they were threatened from behind, and had to consider the necessity of
creating a new front on their eastern gateway, which until then had
been defended by the Bulgarians. Turkey, moreover, already staggering
under the sledge-hammer blows delivered by General Allenby in Palestine
and Syria, now no longer possessed any line of communication by land
with Germany and Austria.
CHAPTER XVI
FINAL OPERATIONS
The armistice with Bulgaria marked the final collapse of German
influence in that country. The Tzar Ferdinand abdicated and went
into exile, and was succeeded by his son Boris. The capitulation
created a profound impression in Germany. The Press published violent
invectives against the “treacherous” ally, there was a panic on the
stock exchange, and on September 30th the Imperial Chancellor, von
Hertling, resigned, and was succeeded by Prince Max of Baden. Marshal
von Hindenburg, in a letter addressed to the latter on October 5th,
admitted that the collapse of the Macedonian front was one of the
causes which excluded all hope--as far as man can judge, of forcing the
enemy to make peace. Some German papers demanded that Bulgaria should
be driven back into the fold by force. But the necessary force was now
wanting. There was nothing for it but to reconstitute a new front in
Serbia and Roumania, and this the Germans and Austrians tried to do.
The German units of the XI Army who had escaped capture, withdrew into
Serbia to join the other German and Austrian forces already there or on
their way from other sectors. Thus the 21st Infantry Regiment, elements
of the 256th Reserve Regiment (the one which had appeared recently on
the Struma front), of the 275th Regiment, which was in Macedonia, and
of the 12th Landwehr concentrated in Serbia. From France the Alpen
Corps arrived, which had only just come out of the line after much hard
fighting, the 50th Landwehr from Minsk, and from South Russia the 217th
and 219th Infantry Divisions, while Austria sent the 9th Division
withdrawn from Italy, and the 25th. But these troops did not all reach
the new front at the same time, except those who were already in Serbia
or who had retreated from Macedonia; the other reinforcements arrived
_par petits paquets_. In Roumania there was a still more numerous
Army--on paper--commanded by Marshal von Mackensen, consisting of 3
German divisions, strengthened by 7 Landwehr divisions from Russia.
This force, echeloned along the Danube from the Iron Gates to Cernavoda
and along the railway from Cernavoda to Constantza, was divided into
two armies, one of which assumed the name of the XI German Army which
had gone to pieces in Macedonia, and was commanded by General von
Scholtz himself, and the other, called the Army of Occupation in
Roumania, commanded by General Koch. These forces were, in appearance,
by no means negligible, but were spread over too vast a front, and
the difficulties of communications south of Belgrade rendered their
concentration very slow. Many of the men, moreover, belonged to the
older classes and were partially unfit.
Even for the Allies communications were now extremely difficult. As far
as the line of the old front they were comparatively good. But beyond
it the retreating enemy had destroyed the railways, and the roads
were in an appalling condition. From Ghevgheli to Veles the line was
destroyed in many places, but it was repaired fairly quickly, so that
by October 15th trains were already running with one interruption. From
Veles to Uskub the destruction had been almost complete, as was also
the case north of Uskub. The Constantinople railway was interrupted
at Demir Hissar, where the bridge, as we have seen, had been blown up
by the French early in the war. The C.A.A. had therefore to limit the
number of troops pushing north to an indispensable minimum. Nothing,
however, could restrain the Serbs, irresistibly drawn forward by the
longing to return to their homeland. For supplies they had to rely on
lorries, and the British provided them with 300 Fords, carrying 500
kilograms each, for the roads over which heavier vehicles could not
pass.
[Illustration: AFTER THE VICTORY. ENEMY PRISONERS.
To face p. 256.
]
The objectives of the Allies were now four: the liberation of Serbia,
the occupation of Bulgaria, the liberation of Roumania, and the capture
of Constantinople. The territory over which the Armée d’Orient was
operating, already vast before the Bulgarian capitulation, had now
become immense; it was, we may say, the whole of the Balkan Peninsula,
except Albania, which was left to the Italian XVI Corps, and Eastern
Thrace, still in Turkish hands. To the north its operations were
intended to link up eventually with those of the Italian Army, and
General Franchet d’Espérey said that he hoped soon to shake hands with
General Diaz in Croatia.
The I Serbian Army, the Danube Division leading, undertook the first
of these tasks, supported by the French and Serbian cavalry, while the
II Army still remained for a little to mount guard on the Bulgarian
western frontier. The left flank of the I Army in the Mitrovitza area
was covered by the Tranié Group, which, however, was relieved between
the 5th and the 20th of October by the II Serbian Army and moved
eastward. On the 7th the I Army was at Leskovatz in Old Serbia[47] and
advancing on Nish, which the Austro-Germans had orders to hold at all
costs, as it was the chief centre of the area, with immense depots and
dumps, and the junction of the Belgrade-Salonica railway with the line
towards Sofia and Constantinople; a local line also branches off to
Zayetchar. A force consisting of troops of 3 German divisions (217th,
219th and Alpen Corps) and of 2 Austrian divisions (9th and 25th) tried
to hold back the Serbs. But the latter on the 11th had occupied the
heights dominating the town from the south, thus obliging the enemy to
evacuate it after a brief engagement. The I Army continued its advance
along the Morava valley, preceded by the cavalry, and did not trouble
to await the two forces that were to support its flanks--the II Army
on the left and the French divisions of the A.F.O. on the right, which
had been delayed by the state of the roads--but was content with the
support afforded by the Serbian and French cavalry. The enemy offered
some resistance at Bukovich, and then at Parachin, where the fighting
was more obstinate (October 23rd-24th); but the Serbs, although
inferior in numbers, inflicted a serious defeat on them. This obliged
them to evacuate even their positions at Kraguyevatz to the west of
the railway, with its important arsenal. This town was occupied by the
Drina Division on the 26th, which the following day conquered Mounts
Ovchar and Chablatz, dominating positions and the scene of Voivod
Michich’s great victory in the winter of 1914. On the 30th the I Army
reached the Danube, and occupied the Biskuplje-Semendria line, while
other detachments, after a sharp struggle, captured Mount Kosmaj and
then Stoinik, 38 km. from Belgrade, whose outer defences are dominated
from that point. On November 1st the Serbs re-entered their capital in
triumph.
In the meanwhile the II Army was advancing through the Sanjak of
Novibazar and Western Serbia, while the Tranié Group was pushing
on towards Montenegro and Bosnia. On October 7th it had reached
Ferizovich, on the 12th, after a sharp fight, Mitrovitza, and on the
15th, Ipek (Montenegro), where it captured 600 prisoners; 900 more fell
into its hands on the 20th, after which it effected a conversion to the
east, leaving the Yugoslav Division in charge of that area. The only
French detachment remaining there was the 58th Battalion of Chasseurs à
pied, while the 57th Division returned to Macedonia to be broken up.
The II Group of Divisions (General Patey), comprising the 17th
Colonial and the 76th Divisions, to which the Tranié Group was now
also attached, extended its occupation to Western Serbia and Eastern
Bulgaria, which it entered by rail. On the 17th it was at Pirot,
whence it pushed on an advanced force to Kniazhevatz, and on the
19th it reached Zayetchar. The 76th Division reached the Danube, and
occupied the loop of the river between Vidin and Lom Palanka, thus
interrupting the navigation on the Danube for the Central Empires.
General Jouinot-Gambetta’s cavalry group had already reached the
river, after a fantastic raid from Uskub. On the 27th it occupied Mount
Antonov-Kladenatz, beyond Zayetchar, and then Dolnji Milanovatz near
the Danube. On the 30th it was north-west of Negotin and in liaison
with the Serbian cavalry, followed at a short distance by the 17th
Colonial Division.
By November 1st the whole of Serbia was free of the enemy, except the
north-west territory; but out of this, too, they were soon driven by
the II Serbian Army, which then spread over into Bosnia and Montenegro.
The remnants of the German and Austrian Divisions, exhausted and
without supplies, recrossed the Danube and the Save. The whole of
Bosnia arose in favour of the Yugoslav State, and also in Croatia and
Slavonia there were demonstrations in the same sense. In the Banat,
which the Serbs entered after crossing the Danube at Moldova and
Basiatz, some final engagements occurred with the German troops, who
were invariably defeated.
The demonstrations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Croatia-Slavonia, and in
the Banat were in favour of a Yugoslav Federation. This was the idea
that united the various peoples of Yugoslav race, of whose aspirations
Serbia had made herself the standard-bearer. It would have been more
difficult to raise similar enthusiasm for the purely pan-Serb idea,
which the Government, and above all the Army, always had in mind, even
though they did not proclaim it openly. To this fact are due, to a
large extent, the conflicts which subsequently divided the different
parts of the new kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
It should be borne in mind that the Serbian advance was enormously
facilitated by the events on the Italian front. If Austria could only
send weak and totally inadequate reinforcements to stem the Serbian
advance, it was because her whole Army was nailed down on the Piave and
on the Asiago Plateau by the menace of the coming Italian offensive,
and afterwards overwhelmed in the irreparable disaster of Vittorio
Veneto. The last vigorous resistance of the enemy in Serbia was at
Parachin on October 23rd and 24th. On the 24th the Italian offensive
was launched. The latter also contributed very largely to the outbreak
of the revolt of the Yugoslavs, who until that moment had been the most
faithful subjects of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty.
There were still the other two tasks to be accomplished--Roumania
and Constantinople. General Allenby had been rapidly conquering
Northern Palestine and Syria,[48] and the moment seemed to have
arrived to deliver the _coup-de-grâce_ against Turkey by an attack
on Constantinople. Britain attached great importance to the new
expedition, which might be regarded as the long-expected retribution
for the bloody but heroic check at the Dardanelles. General Sir George
Milne was to command it. He brought back his G.H.Q. from Janesh to
Salonica, and preparations were at once commenced in Eastern Macedonia,
which had just been evacuated by the Bulgars. The expeditionary force,
officially described as the “Oriental Section of the Allied Armies,”
was formed on October 6th, and comprised the 22nd, 26th and 28th
British Divisions (the 26th was at Mustafa Pasha on the Turco-Bulgarian
frontier, and the other two between Stavros and Dede-Agatch), the
Italian Sicilia Brigade, which had been brought back to Salonica from
the Monastir-Prilep area, and was commanded by General Garruccio, the
122nd French Division (General Topard), the I Greek Corps (General
Ioannou), to which two more divisions of the National Defence Corps
were to be added. The British divisions, greatly reduced in strength
after the very heavy fighting at Lake Doiran, had been reinforced by
some Indian battalions, which had arrived too late to take part in the
offensive.
According to reliable information, the scanty forces detailed for
the defence of Constantinople had been strengthened by four Caucasus
divisions,[49] already arrived or _en route_, and by some others from
Anatolia, while Germany was sending German troops by way of the Black
Sea. But the Turkish units were greatly reduced in strength by battle
losses, sickness, and above all by desertions, and it was estimated
that their total number of rifles was not more than 12,000 to 15,000.
Towards the end of October it was known that the German troops were
already leaving Thrace for Roumania, perhaps on their way to the
Western front. The plan of operations of the new Allied expeditionary
force was the following: The river Maritza was to be crossed by a
surprise movement, and three bridge-heads were to be built on its
banks, whence three columns would advance on Adrianople, Kuleli Burgas
and Ipsala respectively. Immediately afterwards the bulk of General
Milne’s forces would cut the Turkish Army in two, separating those in
the Gallipoli Peninsula from those in Thrace, and occupying the Lule
Burgas-Muradli-Rosdosto line, while the Allied fleets would bombard the
enemy batteries in the Gulf of Enos. Finally, the Isthmus of Bulaïr
would be attacked, with the object of seizing the whole of the European
shore of the Dardanelles. Then the artillery fire would be concentrated
on the batteries on the Asiatic shore. Once the Dardanelles were
conquered the fleets could penetrate into the Sea of Marmara, whence it
would be easy to force Constantinople to capitulate.
In the meanwhile, General Allenby was advancing by leaps and bounds; he
had conquered the whole of Syria, and captured two Turkish armies, with
many guns and immense booty. The expeditionary force in Mesopotamia
was also pushing ahead rapidly. The Turkish Army was visibly dwindling
away, and the deserters numbered several hundreds of thousands, so
that it was obvious that Turkey was not in a position to resist the
blow which General Milne was about to strike; he had indeed already
seized the bridgehead at Ipsala and was about to cross the Maritza at
other points. On October 29th, General Townshend, who had been taken
prisoner by the Turks at Kut-el-Amara in 1916, was set free, and sent
to the inter-Allied Naval Command at Mudros, bearing a request for
an armistice. The Turkish Cabinet, which emanated from the notorious
Committee of Union and Progress, had fallen, and was succeeded by
another, constituted with the express object of concluding peace.
Enver and Talaat, the two evil geniuses of Turkey, had fled with
their most compromised satellites and large funds embezzled from the
Government Treasury and from private persons. The Turkish proposals
were considered, and as soon as the Turkish plenipotentiaries arrived,
among whom was Raouff Bey, the Minister of Marine in the new Cabinet
and a well-known Ententophil, negotiations were commenced between
them and Admiral Calthorpe, Commander of the British Naval Forces in
the Ægean, as representing the Allies. After a short discussion, the
Armistice was concluded on October 30th, and came into force on the
31st. The order to advance from the Maritza was therefore suspended.
The Allied fleets, commanded by Admiral Calthorpe, passed through the
Dardanelles on November 10th, and anchored in the Bosphorus off the
Sultan’s palace at Dolma Bagshe. It was the first time that a hostile
fleet passed through the Straits and trained its guns on the Ottoman
capital since the conquest in 1453. The previous day, General Sir Henry
Wilson, Commander of the British XII Corps, had reached Constantinople,
where he had been sent with a small Staff by General Franchet d’Espérey
as his representative in Turkey. He was given command of all the Allied
troops destined for the occupation of the city and of European Turkey
(including the Asiatic shores of the Straits). These forces comprised
the 28th British Division, the 122nd French and later an Italian
regiment (the 61st) and a Greek battalion, besides some detachments
of gendarmes. The points occupied were the city itself, Scutari, and
various places on the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Subsequently the
occupation was extended to other areas.
A few weeks later Sir George Milne removed to Constantinople with
his whole Staff, and on February 8, 1919, General Franchet d’Espérey
also arrived with the C.A.A. The further vicissitudes of the Allied
occupation of Turkey belong to another chapter of history.
[Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE ITALIANS ON HILL 1050.]
[Illustration: HILL 1050. HOURS OF REST.
To face p. 262.
]
Let us now return to the 35th Division. After the Armistice with
Bulgaria began a veritable Odyssey for the Italian troops, a
constant marching and counter-marching along roads deep in mud, without
shelter for the night, across wild mountains, under torrents of rain,
and later amid snowstorms; the soldiers, however, were cheered by
the thought that they had won the war and that their homecoming was
near. From Sop the division at once began to march in a north-easterly
direction, as it appeared then that it was destined, as General
Mombelli strongly desired, to take part in the operations in Serbia.
On October 9th the headquarters were at Prilep, and a large part of
the troops were encamped in the neighbourhood of that town. Squads
of Bulgarian prisoners, guarded by Allied infantry and reinforced by
Italian engineer companies, set to work to improve the impossible roads
and to repair the Monastir-Prilep décauville. A few days later the
whole force crossed the Babuna Pass, except the Sicilia Brigade, which,
as we have seen, was to take part in the Constantinople expedition, and
was sent to Monastir, and the newly-created Spezia Brigade, made up out
of elements of the others, which remained at Prilep.
General Mombelli’s wish that his troops should be sent to Serbia to
co-operate with the Serbian Army was shared by the Prince Regent
Alexander, who expressed himself very decidedly in that sense. Had the
35th Division been given that destination, and had been able to fight
on Serbian soil by the side of Voivod Michich’s soldiers, the relations
between the two peoples, which at that time were very good, would have
become ever friendlier. The Italian soldiers, had they been left to
garrison Serbia, Slavonia and the Banat, would certainly have made
themselves popular with the inhabitants, as occurred in Bulgaria, still
technically an enemy country, and our relations with the Serbian State
would have been very different from what they actually became. This was
then desired on both sides.
But tendencies and forces hostile to an Italo-Serb understanding
unfortunately prevailed. The destination of the 35th Division was
altered by order of the C.A.A., and the bulk of its troops were sent
towards Bulgaria. Hence new and exhausting marches, with supplies
never arriving up to time on account of the badness of the roads and
the deficiencies of certain services of the C.A.A. on which they still
had to depend. After various intermediate halts, the Command reached
Kustendil on November 13th, with the troops echeloned between Guyeshevo
and Sofia, and soon after removed to Sofia itself. The division now
spread over a large part of Bulgaria--Kustendil, Sofia, Vidin, Lom
Palanka, etc. For some time there was a battalion at Burgas, and one at
Philippopolis, belonging to the Sicilia Brigade, most of which had now
left Salonica. When the British garrisons left the Dobrugia they were
relieved by Italian troops.
Although the French forces in Bulgaria were now very few, the
Inter-Allied Command in that country was entrusted to the French
General Chrétien. His position was certainly anomalous, as hitherto the
principle had been always applied that the Command in any given area
should be entrusted to a general of the nation which had most troops in
it. But the tact, character and excellent military qualities of General
Chrétien rendered this illogical situation tolerable.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO THE FALLEN OF THE 161ST ITALIAN REGIMENT ON
VRATA HILL.
To face p. 261.
]
With the break-up of Austria-Hungary thousands of Italian prisoners
were set free or freed themselves. While the bulk of them made for
Italy, many tens of thousands who were in Hungary, Roumania, Galicia
and Russia proceeded towards Salonica, as they knew that there were
Italian troops in Macedonia. They had been cast adrift without food,
with insufficient clothing, often in rags and unshod, when they set
forth on their wretched pilgrimage towards their victorious comrades
across the icy-cold, wind-swept tracks of the Balkans. The country was
almost denuded of resources and, owing to the execrable state of the
communications, it was impossible to send up supplies from Salonica,
where they abounded. General Mombelli made superhuman efforts to bring
relief to these unfortunate wanderers; he sent detachments of troops
to Serbia, and with immense difficulty organized a service of supply
and transport. Gradually the liberated prisoners were conducted to
Salonica, Burgas, or Constantza, and thence embarked for Italy. But
large numbers perished from cold and hardships at the very moment when
all were rejoicing over the glorious victory.
On November 4th the Villa Giusti Armistice between General Diaz,
representing the Allies, and the Austro-Hungarian Command, was signed.
But it was not clear whether and to what extent it was applicable to
Hungary. On November 3rd two Magyar Field Officers presented themselves
at the outposts of the Armée d’Orient in the Banat, stating that
Hungary wished to conclude an armistice on her own account. In Hungary
there was indeed no longer any recognized central authority, and the
country was rushing headlong towards anarchy. Count Karolyi, the head
of the Government, but almost without any authority, wished to enter
into negotiations with General Franchet d’Espérey, who, however, had no
instructions for dealing with such a situation. On the 7th a meeting
between them took place; Count Karolyi declared that he had no army
which he could rely on to hold the troops of Marshals von Mackensen
and von Koevess in check, and asked for certain political concessions,
which General Franchet d’Espérey was unable to grant. The latter added
that he would proceed with the offensive as long as Hungary did not
ratify the Villa Giusti Armistice, and, in conformity with instructions
received from Paris, he threatened to send British and French divisions
to Budapest. Karolyi then agreed immediately to his request, and on the
13th an armistice was signed between General Henrys (General Franchet
d’Espérey had returned to Macedonia) and Voivod Michich for the
Allies and M. Bela Linder for Hungary. According to the terms of this
agreement, the Hungarian troops were to withdraw behind a line passing
by Fünfkirchen, Baja, Mariatheresienstadt, the course of the Maros and
the upper valley of the Great Szamos. Otherwise the terms of the Villa
Giusti Armistice were reproduced as far as they were applicable to
Hungary, save that the latter was authorized to keep six divisions on
a war footing for the maintenance of order, which was threatened by
criminal Bolshevism. The further vicissitudes of Hungary were to cause
the Allies more trouble yet.
There still remained the army of Marshal von Mackensen in Roumania
to be dealt with. On October 19th, French troops reached the Danube.
A few days previously General Berthelot had arrived at Salonica,
with instructions to create a new “Army of the Danube” out of units
of the Armée d’Orient to conduct operations in Roumania. This new
organization, which appeared cumbersome and practically useless,
comprised two French divisions, parts of two others, a cavalry
regiment, a British division and the Garrison Brigade. All these
forces were echeloned along the Danube within the month of October,
three bridge-heads were built near Rustchuk, at Giurgiu, and between
Shistov and Nicopolis, and on November 10th the troops began to cross
the river. Roumania, after a heroic resistance, had been obliged, in
consequence of the treachery of the Russian Bolsheviks acting on behalf
of Germany, to sign the disastrous Peace of Bucarest, but now that the
liberators were at the gates she was able to shake off the hated yoke;
the Government ordered a fresh mobilization, and declared war against
the Central Empires. This gave her afterwards the right to take part
in the Peace Conference, in Paris, among the Allies. The day that the
French troops crossed the Danube the Roumanian Army reappeared on the
scene.
Marshal von Mackensen’s troops offered but slight resistance. They
soon gave up all hope of holding the Danube line, and thought only of
retiring through Hungary into Austria and Germany. But it was an army
in dissolution, almost without discipline, and its passage through
Hungary might have led to serious trouble. On the other hand, if it
were forced to surrender, there were no means of feeding it in the
Balkans, nor ships to convey it home by sea. In the meanwhile the
Serbian troops, in order to cut the communications between Roumania
and Germany, occupied Vershetz and Neusatz, and pushed on towards
Temesvar. The Armistice with Germany having been concluded on November
11th, von Mackensen’s army would have had only eight days in which to
make use of the Hungarian railways, which, moreover, were in such bad
condition as to be of little help; but it was granted an extension of
the time limit, as it was generally felt that, on the whole, the wisest
course was to allow it to go home. Difficulties, however, arose with
the Hungarian Government. Von Mackensen had been interned in the Castle
of Pott, near Budapest, but it was feared that his Hungarian guards
might leave him free to range through Hungary and perhaps promote
disorders and insurrections. Consequently, to avoid trouble, a couple
of squadrons of Morocco Spahis were sent to Pott, and on January 5,
1919 they escorted the Field Marshal to the Castle of Futtek near
Neusatz, in an area occupied by troops of the Armée d’Orient, and
later to Salonica. In that city which he had expected to enter one day
in triumph, acclaimed by the inhabitants--who would not have failed
to become pro-German for the occasion--he remained interned for some
months.
The Armée d’Orient was now scattered over an immense territory. The
Commander-in-Chief, still General Franchet d’Espérey, remained at
Constantinople with his Staff. The city and the adjoining area was
garrisoned by General Wilson’s inter-Allied Force. At Salonica there
remained fragments of the various Allied armies, commanded by General
Génin, with detachments in other parts of Macedonia, especially in the
old fighting zone, to collect the vast quantities of war material and
to guard the prisoners. The latter were regarded as public nuisances,
difficult to feed, and of little use for labour as there was very
little work for them to do, so that the various Commands who had fought
so hard to capture them were only too delighted when some of them
escaped. The old Italian headquarters at Tepavci was occupied by the
Bulgarian generals and field officers captured by our troops.
The bulk of the Italian Expeditionary Force was now in Bulgaria. The
Dobrugia was occupied by Franco-British, and afterwards by Italian,
detachments. In Roumania, besides some Roumanian divisions, there was
part of General Berthelot’s army; the rest of it was for a short time
in South Russia, together with some Greek and White Russian units,
commanded by General d’Anselme.
The remnants of the A.F.O. and the Serbian Army were scattered about
the new provinces occupied by Serbia, which were destined to form the
new S.H.S. State, principally in the Banat and in Croatia-Slavonia.
Small French detachments were in Montenegro, Cattaro, Ragusa, etc. In
many of these places there were also Italian troops, and at Fiume there
was a mixed Italian-French-British garrison. At Scutari the pre-war
inter-Allied occupation was reconstituted, and a garrison consisting
of a French, an Italian and a British battalion, commanded by General
Foulon, was sent there.
All these troops took orders from General Franchet d’Espérey in
Constantinople. The Italian troops in Bulgaria, in European Turkey
and in Macedonia, belonging to the 35th Division, formed part of the
Armée d’Orient. But the Italian detachments at Scutari and along the
mid-Adriatic coast took orders from the Albanian Command, while those
at Fiume were under the Italian III Army. Neither the former nor the
latter had anything to do with the C.A.A. at Constantinople, whereas
the French detachments in the same places were under it. The British
Army, still commanded by General Milne, was under the C.A.A., but to
a very limited extent, while the British troops in Asia Minor, in the
Caucasus, etc., were also under General Milne, who, as far as they were
concerned, had nothing whatever to do with the C.A.A. The Serbian Army
was now acting entirely on its own.
All this Chinese puzzle of Commands seemed to have been invented for
the express purpose of promoting inter-Allied disagreements--and it
certainly succeeded in doing so. But the subsequent political and
military vicissitudes of the Allied troops in the East do not belong to
the history of the Balkan Campaign, but to that of the Peace Conference.
The Italian troops remained in Bulgaria until July 1919, when the 35th
Division was broken up and its various elements repatriated, except
the Regimental Command and one battalion of the 61st Regiment, which
remained in Constantinople. During this period General Mombelli and
his officers and men had occasion to show how high was the level of
Italian civilization. No operation is more thankless nor more likely
to become odious than the occupation of a vanquished country. But the
Italian Expeditionary Force, which had borne itself so well during
the war, also proved, in the eyes of the Bulgarians, whom it had so
valiantly contributed to defeat, generous and dignified during the
Armistice period. No unpleasant incident marred the relations between
the troops and the inhabitants, but at the same time our men showed
a proper reserve in their dealings with a nation with whom we were
still technically at war. Further, the Italian soldiers did many acts
of kindness and courtesy towards the natives that left indelible
traces for the future good relations between the two peoples. We were
fortunately spared the odium of garrisoning the country at the time
when the _dura lex sed lex_ of the Treaty of Neuilly had to be applied.
On their departure the Italian troops were bidden farewell with
numerous demonstrations of sympathy, which those who had some interest
in presenting Italy in an unfavourable light tried to misrepresent as
signs of deep and dark intrigues on her part, but which were in reality
nothing more than manifestations of gratitude.
Here we shall end our brief chronicle of the Balkan Campaign. Let us
hope that the remembrance of the common effort for the common cause,
and of the great victory by which it was crowned, prove an earnest for
the future brotherhood of the peoples who fought together, in the hard
struggles for the peace of the world.
APPENDIX A
LETTER FROM VOIVOD MICHICH TO GENERAL PETITTI DI RORETO CONCERNING
THE FIGHTING ON HILL 1050 IN FEBRUARY 1917
“The magnificent exploit of your gallant troops, who, in spite of the
desperate resistance of the enemy and their infernal fire, in spite of
the enormous difficulties of the ground, yesterday, with irresistible
dash, captured Hill 1050 by assault, has filled me with admiration;
the two columns of your heroic 162nd Infantry Regiment have covered
themselves with glory, inscribing a new and splendid page in the annals
of the Italian Army, which are already so glorious. Under your high
leadership your officers and men have given brilliant proof of their
great valour.
“I congratulate you with all my heart, my dear General, and I beg you
to inform them all of the deep homage of my admiration and of that
of my whole army. I am really heart-broken, my dear General and dear
comrade-in-arms, that a terrible accident, impossible to foresee and
to prevent, should have obliged you to evacuate the positions captured
so gallantly and at such cost. I deeply regret with you the death
of all the dear and gallant comrades-in-arms who have so heroically
fallen on the soil of my Fatherland, and I bow my head with the most
profound respect before their sublime self-sacrifice, before their
proud contempt of death in the struggle for the Great Common Cause. If
you have had to abandon temporarily the positions occupied, it is a
material loss easy to make good with troops such as yours. The great
moral result so brilliantly obtained yesterday by your intrepid troops
remains intact.
“Happy and proud to fight by your side, I beg you, my dear General,
to accept the assurances of my high consideration and of my best
sentiments.
(_Signed_) “MICHICH.”
APPENDIX B
LOSSES OF THE BELLIGERENTS DURING THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN
Killed Wounded Prisoners Missing
French[50] 20,000 --- --- ---
British 9,800 16,914 --- 2,642
Italians 2,841 5,353 --- ---
Serbs[51] 45,000 133,000 70,423 82,535
Greeks 5,000 21,000 --- 1,000
Bulgarians 63,000[52] 152,390 10,623[53] 13,729
[50] Including men who died of disease and missing; no more detailed
figures for the French Army are available.
[51] Including losses in operations before the Macedonian campaign.
[52] Including 888 accidentally killed and 13,198 died of wounds.
[53] Not including the large number of prisoners captured during the
final retreat in September 1918.
APPENDIX C
GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY’S TELEGRAM TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
CONCERNING THE ARMISTICE NEGOTIATIONS WITH BULGARIA
This evening a Bulgarian Field Officer presented himself with a flag of
truce, asking in the name of General Todoroff, who describes himself as
Commander-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Army, for a suspension of hostility
for 48 hours to allow for the arrival of two delegates authorized by
the Bulgarian Government, the Finance Minister Liapcheff and General
Lukoff, Commander of the II Army, who are coming, with the consent of
the Tzar Ferdinand, to arrange the conditions for an armistice and
eventually for peace.
As this request may be merely a stratagem to permit a re-grouping of
forces or the arrival of reinforcements, I have replied as follows:
“The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Allied Armies in the
Orient, to H.E. the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief,
Bulgarian Army.
“I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of the letter
which you have forwarded to me through the General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief, British Army in the Orient. My reply, which I
am delivering to the Bulgarian Field Officer bearer of the letter
in question, can, in view of the military situation, be only as
follows.
“I cannot grant any armistice or suspension of hostilities
interrupting the operations now in course of execution. I shall,
however, receive with all suitable courtesy, the properly
accredited delegates of the Royal Bulgarian Government to whom Your
Excellency alludes in your letter. These gentlemen should present
themselves before the British lines, accompanied by an officer
bearing a flag of truce.”
APPENDIX D
ARMISTICE BETWEEN THE ALLIES AND BULGARIA, SIGNED AT SALONICA ON
SEPTEMBER 29, 1918
Military Convention regulating the conditions for the suspension of
hostilities between the Allied Powers and Bulgaria.
1. Immediate evacuation, in accordance with an agreement to be
concluded, of the territories still occupied (by the Bulgarians) in
Greece and Serbia. No cattle, wheat or foodstuffs of any kind shall
be removed from these territories. No damage shall be inflicted while
evacuating them. The Bulgarian administration shall continue to
function in the parts of Bulgaria at present occupied by the Allies.
2. Immediate demobilization of the whole Bulgarian Army, except for a
group of all arms, to be kept on a war footing, comprising:
3 divisions of 16 battalions each,
5 regiments of cavalry.
Two divisions to be employed for the defence of the Eastern frontier
and the Dobrugia, and one for guarding the railways.
3. The arms, munitions, military vehicles belonging to the demobilized
units to be deposited at points which will be designated by the High
Command of the Armies in the Orient; they will be put into store by the
Bulgarian authorities under Allied control. The horses will also be
handed over to the Allies.
4. The material of IV Greek Army Corps, taken from the Greek Army when
Eastern Macedonia was occupied, to be handed over to Greece, except
such part of it as may have been sent to Germany.
5. Bulgarian troops who at present are to the west of the Uskub
meridian and belonging to the XI German Army shall lay down their arms
and be considered prisoners of war until further notice; the officers
will retain their arms.
6. The Allied Armies will employ Bulgarian prisoners in the Orient
until peace is signed, without reciprocity as regards Allied prisoners
of war. The latter shall be handed over to the Allies without delay,
and interned civilians shall be absolutely free to return to their
homes.
7. Germany and Austria-Hungary will be granted a delay of four
weeks in which to withdraw their troops and military organization,
from Bulgaria. During the same period the diplomatic and consular
representatives of the Central Powers and their nationals shall leave
Bulgaria.
(_Signed_) FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY.
ANDRE LIAPCHEFF.
GENERAL LUKOFF.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Général Sarrail, “Mon Commandement en Orient.” (Paris, 1920.) “La
Grèce Vénizéliste.” (_Revue de Paris_, December 15, 1919.)
Mermeix, “Le Commandement unique, II partie: Sarrail et l’Armée
d’Orient.” (Paris, Ollendorf, 1920.)
Sarraut, Maurice, et Lieut.-Colonel Revol, “Un Episode du Drame
serbe.” (Paris, Hachette, 1919.)
Vaucher, Robert, “Constantin détroné.” (Paris, Perrin, 1918.)
Recouly, Raymond, “M. Jonnart en Grèce et l’Abdication de
Constantin.” (Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 1918.)
“Documents Diplomatiques” (1913–1917), a collection of documents
published by the Greek Ministry for Foreign Affairs. (Athens, 1917.)
General Sir George Milne’s Dispatches in Naval and Military
Dispatches, Part VI, p. 178 (1917), and Part VIII, p. 147 (1919).
P. Risal, “La Ville Convoitée.” (Paris, Perrin, 1917.)
Ward Price, G., “The Story of the British Salonika Army.” (London,
Hodder and Stoughton, 1918.)
Owen, Collinson, “Salonika and After.” (London, 1919.)
Frappa, Jean José, “A Salonique sous l’Œuil des Dieux.” (Paris,
Flammarion, 1917.)
Photiades, Constantin, “La Victoire des Alliés en Orient.” (_Revue
de Paris_, September 15th and November 15, 1919, and February 15,
1920.)
Ancel, Jacques, “La Croisade Française en Macédoine.” (_Revue des
Deux Mondes_, February 1 and 15, 1920.)
Marshal von Hindenburg’s “Out of My Life” (London, 1920) contains
some useful information, especially on the reaction in Germany
produced by the last phase of the Balkan campaign.
Colonel F. Feyler, “La Campagne de Macédoine” in two parts. (Geneva,
Boissonnas, 1921.)
FOOTNOTES
[1] The official designation of the Macedonian force was “Allied Armies
in the Orient,” but it was often abbreviated to “Army of the Orient.”
[2] I use the expression “Old Greece” to indicate the territory of the
Greek Kingdom as it was before the acquisition of Southern Macedonia in
consequence of the Balkan War of 1912–13.
[3] It is not true, as is generally believed, that Bulgarian units were
employed on other fronts except in Roumania.
[4] From private sources of information. See also in this connexion,
_Une Episode de Drame Serbe_, by Senator M. Sarraut and Lieut.-Colonel
Revol (Paris, Hachette 1919), _passim_.
[5] The final withdrawal took place later.
[6] Mermeix, _Le commandement unique_, second part, pp. 23–24.
[7] _Story of the British Salonica Army_, p. 97.
[8] See _Documents Diplomatiques_, published by the Greek Foreign
Office, Athens 1917, pp. 60, 61, etc., and R. Recouly _Jonnart_, p. 37.
[9] Ultimatum of June 21, 1916.
[10] An Italian infantry brigade, commanded by a Brigadier-General or
sometimes by a Colonel, comprises two regiments of three battalions
each, each battalion of about 1,000 men.
[11] An Italian regiment comprises 12 companies (4 per battalion).
[12] It should be borne in mind that there was as yet no contact
between the Italian forces in Albania and the Allies in Macedonia.
Between the two there was a vast mountain area, sparsely inhabited by
Albanians, and almost without roads.
[13] These names had been given to the positions by the French troops
who were first in this area, from supposed resemblance to places in
France.
[14] Quoted in the _Corziere della Sera_, July 20, 1920.
[15] Archibald Hurd: _Italian Sea Power in the Great War_ (Constable,
1918), p. 65.
[16] Hurd, _ibid._
[17] By rifles I mean soldiers who habitually use their rifles, viz.
the infantry, excluding machine-gunners, men attached to the transport
service, etc., who are also armed with rifles.
[18] See Appendix A.
[19] Military tribunals in the Italian Army are organized on a
permanent basis.
[20] On the front in Italy the average sector held by a division of two
brigades (the 35th had three) was 10,900 metres, but on the Western
sectors of that front the troops were spread out very thin, whereas on
the Asiago plateau and on the Carso the front of each division was much
shorter. After Caporetto the average was reduced to 3,800 metres.
[21] Sarrail, _op. cit._ p. 219.
[22] Pages 206–7.
[23] General Sarrail in his memoirs tries to defend himself by
publishing the orders of the French Government, which enjoined on him
now an action in Greece, now an offensive on the front; but he does not
appear to have put the question in clear language--either one thing
or the other; if one was to be carried out he must have no _arrière
pensée_ for the other.
[24] Sarrail, “La Grèce Vénizéliste,” _Revue de Paris_, December 15,
1919.
[25] The regiments of this force were numbered from 1 to 9, but they
were always described as National Defence Regiments, to distinguish
them from regiments of the regular army having the same numbers.
[26] The authorities in the island of Samos were instructed to promise
land in Asia Minor to all volunteers, and if that was not enough “a
reign of terror must be established.” (Sarrail, _ibid._).
[27] Sarrail, _Mon Commandement en Orient_, p. 194.
[28] Telegrams sent by General Sarrail between January and May, 1917
(Sarrail, _op. cit._ pp. 231–32).
[29] Although the Monarchy was maintained in Greece, the word
“Royalist” came to be applied exclusively to followers of the ex-King;
his opponents were described as Venizelists or Liberals.
[30] By the terms of the Treaty of London (April 26, 1915), Italy
undertook, if a small neutral Albanian State were created, not to
oppose Greek claims over South Albania and those of Serbia and
Montenegro over the northern districts, if she was given Valona and
all the Adriatic territories which she claimed, including Northern
Dalmatia. Italy was to direct Albania’s foreign policy. But the general
trend of public opinion was in favour of a completely independent
Albania, and the clauses of the Treaty providing for the partition
of Albania were eventually dropped. The general object of Italian
policy had been to prevent the Albanian coast from being occupied by a
potentially hostile Power.
[31] Sarrail, “La Grèce Vénizéliste,” _Revue de Paris_, December 15,
1919.
[32] _The Nearer East_, by D. G. Hogarth, pp. 238–39.
[33] _Contemporary Review_, August, 1920.
[34] Mermeix, _Le Commandement Unique_, Part II, pp. 114 and following.
[35] They were supplementary battalions, one to each brigade.
[36] Sarrail, _Mon Commandement en Orient_.
[37] The name appears in this odd semi-Italian form in the Austrian
1/200000 staff map.
[38] By line in the Albanian sector, whether Italian or French, I do
not mean a continuous line of trenches, but merely a series of isolated
posts.
[39] Constantin Photindes, “La Victoire des Alliés en Orient,” _Revue
de Paris_, September 15, 1919.
[40] General F. d’Espérey himself, in reply to a question from his
Government as to the strength of Essad’s army, telegraphed that it
consisted of 13 men.
[41] These had nothing to do with Essad Pasha, but were local levies
raised and trained by the French or under leaders friendly to the
Allies.
[42] Brod to the north of Monastir, not to be confused with the other
Brod in the Cerna loop.
[43] It must be remembered that Strumitza station is in Serbian
territory, whereas the town was then in Bulgaria. Now the town too has
been assigned to Serbia.
[44] Photiades, _op. cit._
[45] See complete text in Appendix.
[46] The capital was, however, actually occupied.
[47] I use the expression “Old Serbia” to designate the Serbian State
as it was before the Balkan Wars, i.e. exclusive of Macedonia.
[48] The British first broke through the enemy lines on September 19th.
[49] The Caucasus divisions, created during the war for the campaign in
that area, were numbered apart.
INDEX
Adrianople, 261
Ægean Sea, 167
Air Force--
Allied, 134, 202, 215, 218
Enemy, 134
Albania, Albanians, 26, 51, 53, 85–87, 120, 121, 148, 156, 158,
163–166, 183–185, 202–206, 212, 217, 220, 224, 234, 257
Alexander, King of Greece, 104, 145 _sq._
Alexander, Prince Regent of Serbia, 40, 41, 85, 88, 89, 103, 104,
120, 133, 175–177, 247, 263
Allenby, General, 254, 261
Almereyda, 188, 189
America, see U.S.
American Red Cross, 95
Anselme, General d’, 154, 217, 268
Antonov-Kladenatz, mt., 259
Archipelago, 139
Argyrocastro, 148
Argyropoulo, M., 138
Arkhangel, mt., 26
Armée d’Orient, 42, 53, 59, 119, 127, 129, 135, 145, 174, 188, 192,
202, 214 _sq._, 228 _sq._, 268
Armée française d’Orient, 42, 45, 50, 51, 53, 56, 191, 217, 219, 222,
239, 257
Armenohor, 222
Armensko, 221, 222
Armistice--
with Bulgaria, 244 _sq._, 274–275
with Austria-Hungary, 265
with Hungary, 265
with Turkey, 262
Austria, Austrians, 53, 91, 120, 121, 183–185, 192, 204–206, 208,
245, 248, 255 _sq._, 264, 266, 275
Austrian prisoners, 87, 192
Baba range, 46, 47, 105, 237, 238, 244
Babuna pass, 26, 105, 212, 240, 241, 263
Backa, 203
Bailloud, General, 24
Baja, 265
_Balkan News_, 162
Balugich, M., 89
Banat, 259, 263, 268
Banitza, 42
Bartlett, General, 208
Baumann, General, 144
Belasnitza river, 229
Belavitza river, 237
Belgrade, 15, 158, 223, 258
Beles range, 26, 27, 38, 39, 41, 54, 82, 231
Beltramo, General, 46
Belushin, 240
Berantzi, 239
Berthelot, General, 266, 268
Bertie, Lord, 174
Beshista mt., 228
Biskuplje, 258
Blatetz, 229
Bodrero, Colonel, 89, 144
Boemitza, 154
Bofnia, 204
Bogdanovatz, 242
Bohila, 229
Bolsheviks, 186, 192 _sq._, 266
_Bonnet Rouge_, 188
Boshava, 229
Bosnia, Bosnians, 192, 258, 259
Bosphorus, 262
Bousquier, General, 144
Boyovich, General, 89, 90, 119, 226
Briggs, General Sir Charles, 217
British Army, 26 _sq._, 40, 42, 46, 48, 51, 52, 60, 68 _sq._, 119,
127, 129 _sq._, 159 _sq._, 196, 200, 202, 215 _sq._, 230 _sq._,
242, 243, 250, 260–262, 267, 268
British policy, 137, 140, 145, 149–151, 173 _sq._, 207, 208, 211
Brod on the Cerna, 94, 103, 108, 221, 222
Brod, north of Monastir, 240
Brusani, 229
Budapest, 265
Bucarest, 266
Buchin, 237
Bukovich, 258
Bulaïr, 261
Bulgaria, Bulgarians, 13, 17–22, 40, 41, 43–45, 47, 53–55, 83, 122,
127, 129, 133, 183–185, 196–198, 204, 207–211, 218 _sq._, 244
_sq._, 250 _sq._, 255 _sq._, 263–265, 267–269, 273–275
Burgas, 264, 265
Butkova, lake, 52, 82, 217, 221, 243
Caclamanos, M., 35
Cagliari Brigade, 37, 47, 50, 237, 244
Caillaux, M., 189
Calthorpe, Admiral the Hon. Gough, 262
Caré, Colonel, 202
Cattaro, 268
Cepik, 236, 237
Cerava river, 183, 184
Cerevoda, 203
Cerna river, 26 _sq._, 47, 50, 51, 54, 92, 96, 103, 108, 109, 112,
118, 129 _sq._, 155, 213, 214, 217–220, 227 _sq._
Cernavoda, 252, 256
Cesma, mt., 237
Chablatz, 258
Chaterna, 229
Chavka, 242
Chekina, 204
Chichevo, 241
Chrétien, General, 264
Christodoulos, Colonel, 33
Constantine, King of Greece, 28, 33–35, 59, 137 _sq._, 142 _sq._,
167, 196, 210
Constantinople, 158, 221–223, 257, 260, 262, 267, 268
Constantza, 245, 256, 265
Cordonnier, General, 44, 45, 50
Corfu, 87–89, 91, 169, 170
Corinth, 145
Cory, General, 70, 104
Coundouriotis, Admiral, 139, 147
Couronné, Grand, 81, 127, 128, 218, 231, 232
Couronné, Petit, 81, 127, 128, 218, 232
Crete, 139
Croatia, Croatians, 192, 257, 259, 268
Croker, General, 230
Cypriots, 69
Danglis, General, 139, 154
Danube, river, 158, 256, 268
Dardanelles, 260–262
Dartige du Fournet, Admiral, 138, 142
Dede-Agatch, 221, 260
Demir Hissar on the Struma, 84, 219, 221, 223, 243, 256
Demir Hissar, north of Monastir, 240
Demir Kapu, 27, 35, 213, 214, 229, 230, 233
Descoins, Colonel, 167
Devoli river, 184, 202, 203 _sq._
Dietrich, General, 45, 133, 173, 187
Dihovo, 239
Diviak, 238
Djumaya, 219, 242
Dobropolje, 55, 129, 213, 214, 219, 221, 225
Dobrugia, 17, 208, 248, 264, 274
Dodecannese, 141, 148
Doiran, lake of, 26 _sq._, 38, 41, 55, 81, 96, 127, 129 _sq._, 212
_sq._, 217, 221, 227, 230–233, 240, 242, 250
Dousmanis, General, 147
Dova Tepe, 54, 82
Drachevatzko Brdo, 229
Dragarina, 239
Draghisetz, 237
Dragomantzi, 92
Drama, 35, 210
Drenovo, 241
Drvenik, 240
Duncan, General, 70, 230
Durazzo, 185, 204
Dzena, 213, 229
_Echo de France_, 162
Effectives--
Allied, 25, 30, 32, 55, 62, 176, 185, 200, 201, 215, 216, 218
Enemy, 23, 54, 55, 185, 216
Elbasan, 204, 241
Empiricos, M., 147
Enver Pasha, 262
Epirus, 139, 148, 156, 158
Ersek, 51, 121, 166, 183, 203
Essad Pasha, 163, 164
Fairholme, General, 104
Farret, General, 234
Fenoglietto, Colonel, 98
Ferdinand, Tzar of Bulgaria, 207, 246, 255, 273
Ferizovich, 258
Ferrero, General, 121, 206, 212
Fieri, 204, 205
Floka mt., 92, 213, 214
Florina, 42, 44, 122, 158, 166, 183, 217, 221, 222
Foulon, General, 268
Franchet d’Espérey, General, 104, 156, 201, 202, 209, 210, 211 _sq._,
240, 246–249, 251, 257, 262, 265, 267, 268, 273, 275
French Army, 26, 27 _sq._, 42, 46–48, 51, 52, 59, 61 _sq._, 64–66,
119, 121, 126, 129 _sq._, 159 _sq._, 183–185, 187, 188, 200
_sq._, 215 _sq._, 225, 239 _sq._, 243 _sq._, 249, 250, 262
French Military Mission in Greece, 151 _sq._, 195
French Policy, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 137, 140, 149–151, 163, 164, 173
_sq._, 188 _sq._, 211 _sq._
Freri, General, 244
Gallipoli, 261
Gay, General, 230
Gekoff, General, 54, 220, 252
Génin, General, 267
George, Colonel, 61
German Army, 22, 53, 54, 151 _sq._, 159 _sq._, 197, 220, 223, 224,
228, 233 _sq._, 239, 243–246, 248, 252 _sq._, 266, 274, 275
German Policy, 22, 43, 47, 53–55, 113, 124, 129, 131, 207, 212–214,
245 _sq._, 254 _sq._
Gérome, General, 39, 154
Ghevgheli, 28, 221, 223, 229, 233, 242, 256
Gilman, General, 70
Giurgiu, 266
Goad, Captain, 10, 93
Godiak, 229
Godivla, 237
Golo Bilo, 226
Gopes, 203
Gora Top, 206, 220
Gornichevo, 102
Gornji Poroj, 39, 221
Gostivar, 212, 236
Gounaris, M., 145
Gradetz, 242
Gradsko, 212–214, 223, 233, 241
Gramsi, 204
Greece--
Greek Army, 31–35, 49, 51, 133, 138 _sq._, 145 _sq._, 149, 177,
181–183, 193 _sq._, 200, 201, 215, 228 _sq._, 242, 243, 247,
250, 268, 274
Greek Policy, 23, 25, 28, 31, 33, 61, 118, 129, 133, 137 _sq._, 165
Grlena, 241
Grossetti, General, 191
Guillaumat, General, 104, 191 _sq._, 201, 211, 214
Guvesne, 70, 82, 221, 222
Guyeshevo, 233, 264
Hadzopoulo, Colonel, 33
Henrys, General, 191, 217, 239, 265
Hertling, Herr von, 255
Hill 1050, 48, 55, 98, 105 _sq._, 118, 122–125, 130–133, 183, 218,
219, 235, 250, 271
Hill 1248, 48, 66, 67, 126
Hill 1378, 47, 105
Hindenburg, Marshal von, 197, 240, 241, 244, 245, 255
Hoesslin, Admiral, 147
Holta, 204
Homondos, 83
Hortiach, mt., 80
Huma, 196
Hungary, 265–267
Hussein Nikolitza, 121
_Indépendant_, 162
Ioannou, General, 197, 217
Ipek, 258
Ipsala, 261
Istip, 241
Italian Army, 13, 14, 36 _sq._, 55, 60, 63, 96 _sq._, 120, 122 _sq._,
126, 129, 144, 159 _sq._, 203–206, 215, 217, 220, 234 _sq._,
243 _sq._, 250, 257, 259, 262–264, 267–269
Italian Navy, 86, 87
Italian Policy, 14, 140, 141, 148–151, 173 _sq._, 211
Itea, 170
Ivrea Brigade, 46, 122, 237, 244
Izitza, 238
Izvor, 241
Jacquemot, General, 184
Janesh, 81, 221, 242, 260
Jews of Salonica, 157 _sq._, 182–183
Jonnart, M., 145 _sq._
Jouinot-Gambetta, General, 63, 241, 258
Jumeaux ravine, 128–130
Kaimakchalan range, 44, 47, 108, 213
Kalabak, 236
Kalkandelen, 212, 213, 223, 233, 236, 238 _sq._, 241, 243
Kalogheropoulo, M., 141
Kamia, mt., 203
Kanatlarci, 235
Karamudli, 40, 41
Karasuli, 221, 222
Karaul-Kruska, 238
Karolyi, Count, 265
Kavadar, 229
Kavalla, 35, 210
Kayalar, 43
Kelizoni river, 202, 203
Kichevo, 212, 233, 236, 237, 239, 240, 244
Kilindir, 221, 222
Kindrovo, 102
Kitchener, General Lord, 30
Kniazhevatz, 258
Koch, General, 256
Kochana, 241
Koevess, Marshal von, 265
Koritza, 121, 139, 148, 167, 183, 203
Kosmaj, mt., 258
Kosnitza, mt., 206
Kosturino pass, 26 _sq._, 218, 233, 242
Kozani, 144
Koziak, 227
Kraguyevatz, 258
Krastali, 130
Kravitza, 213, 226
Kresna, 243
Krivogastani, 237
Krivolak, 26, 230
Krklina, 126
Krusha Balkan range, 38 _sq._, 41, 48, 49, 96, 144
Krushevo, 236–239
Kruya, 204
Kuchkov Kamen, 213, 227
Kukurechani, 239
Kuleli Burgas, 261
Kumanovo, 243
Kustendil, 158, 223, 264
Lambros, Professor, 141, 147
Lamia, 153
Larissa, 145, 153
Leblois, General, 50, 53
Lebouc, General, 133
Leniste, 241
Lesetz, mt., 203
Leskovatz, 257
Lesnitza, 217
Levani, 204
Liapcheff, M., 246, 247, 249, 273, 275
Lin, 241
Linder, Bela, 265
Ljumnitza river, 197
Lom Palanka, 258, 264
Losses--
Allied, 272
Enemy, 272
Lubin, 204
Lule Burgas, 261
Lukoff, General, 54, 77, 221, 246, 249, 273, 275
Lungi, 203, 205
Macedonia, 17–20, 23, 46, 48, 53–55, 59, 62, 91, 96, 97, 138, 144,
157 _sq._, 185, 191 _sq._, 200 _sq._, 207 _sq._, 211, 224, 248,
255, 256, 260, 264, 267
Mackensen, Marshal von, 22, 256, 265–267
Magarevo, 220
Mahon, General Sir Bryan, 24
Makovo, 220
Malakastra, 204–206
Mala Rupa, 53
Malik, lake, 183
Mali Korori, 203
Malinoff, M., 207, 253
Mali Siloves, 205, 206
Marena, 229
Maritza river, 261
Marmara, Sea of, 261
Maros river, 265
Matapan, Cape, 165
Mathieu, Captain, 189
Matova, 226
Maya Frenkut, 203
Mazarakis, Colonel, 138
Meglentzi, 110, 111
Messalas, Colonel, 31
Metali bridge, 204
Metaxas, Colonel, 147
Michaud, General, 61, 190
Michich, Voivod, 89, 90, 92–94, 173, 214, 216, 217, 249, 263, 265, 271
Mikra, 88, 193, 221
Milne, General Sir George, 29, 44, 69, 70, 173, 217, 230–233, 242,
244, 260–262, 268, 273
Mindru, Colonel, 187
Mitrovitza, 257, 258
Moglena, 213, 214, 216, 249
Moglenitza, 213
Mombelli, General, 69, 79, 87, 94, 104, 105, 114, 115, 171 _sq._,
177, 178, 183, 202, 235 _sq._, 243, 244, 263, 264
Monastir, 28, 41, 43, 45–48, 50, 66, 67, 105, 106, 108, 112, 119,
122, 158, 174, 185, 208, 212, 213, 219, 221, 222, 227, 236,
237, 239, 240, 243, 263
Montenegro, 205, 258, 259, 268
Morava river, 257
Mrzetzko, 229
Muradli, 261
Mudros, 261
Murgas, 240
Murphy, Mr., 209, 246
Mustafa Pasha, 260
National Defence Army, 140, 144
National Defence Government, 139 _sq._, 144, 148
Naresh, 154, 196, 232
Negochani, 49
Negotin, 212, 229
Nerezoff, General, 221
Neuilly, treaty of, 269
Neusatz, 266
Neutral Zone, 139, 144, 145
Nicopolis, 266
Nikoloff, General, 227
Nish, 158, 223, 253, 257
Nishavetz, 183
Nisi Voda, 100
Nonte, 51, 92, 155, 195, 213, 217, 220, 229
Novak, 109, 110, 112
Novibazar, Sanjak of, 258
Novo Selani, 237, 239
Ochrida, lake of, 53, 126, 133, 158, 183, 184, 241
Odello, Captain, 123
_Opinion_, 162
Orfano, Gulf of, 51
Ostreltze, 238
Ostretz, 242
Ostrovo, lake of, 43, 102
Osum, river, 203
Ovchar, 258
Owen, Collinson, 162
“P” ridges, 81, 128, 218, 231, 232
Painlevé, M., 174–176
Paix-Séailles, M., 189
Palestine, 260, 261
Pandeli, 228
Parachin, 257
Paraskevopoulo, General, 154
Patras, Gulf of, 170
Pehtzevo, 243
Peloponnesus, 143
Pennella, General, 171, 177
Peristeri mts., 106
Peter, King of Serbia, 85, 86, 87
Petitti di Roreto, General, 37–41, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 87, 93, 94,
114, 119, 128, 144, 177, 271
Petrsko, lake of, 102
Pflanzer-Baltin, General, 205, 220
Phillips, General, 144
Philippopolis, 264
Picot, Commander, 89
Piræus, 138, 142, 145 _sq._, 159
Pirot, 258
Pisoderi pass, 126, 221, 222
Piton Brûlé, 105, 110, 123, 131, 132
Piton Rocheux, 105, 109, 110, 124–126, 130–132
Placa, 183
Plasnitza, 238
Pletvar, 241
Pogradetz, 183, 184, 203
Polosko, 228, 229
Porta, 229
Presba, lake of, 51, 126, 133, 220
Preslap, mt., 229
Press, 59, 60, 161, 173
Prevaletz, 240
Pribilci, 212
Prilep, 48, 105, 212, 219, 220, 233, 236, 239–241, 243, 263
Protopapa, 203
Pruneau, General, 216
Pustareka, 238
Radeff, M., 246
Radomir, 223
Radoslavoff, M., 207, 253
Radovista, 242
Razim Bey, 228, 229
Régnault, General, 133, 145, 191
Repoulis, M., 147
Resna, 240
Ribot, M., 175, 176
Rodosto, 261
Ropotovo, 240
Roumania, 37, 38, 48, 176, 185, 192, 209, 223, 228, 245, 252, 257,
260, 261, 266, 268
Rozden, 229
Rupel, 32–34, 137, 219, 243
Russia, Russians, 42, 45–47, 51, 52, 133, 159, 173, 174, 176,
185–187, 192, 268
Rustchuk, 266
Ryeroft, General, 71, 80
Russoff, General, 227
Sakulevo, 221, 222
Salonica, 23, 28, 29, 32, 56–58, 70, 88, 92, 96, 98, 137–139, 144,
145, 157 _sq._, 171, 177, 192, 221, 222, 246, 260, 264, 267
Salonica fire, 179 _sq._
Salih Butka, 121
Santi Quaranta, 116, 122, 165 _sq._, 173, 184
Sarigöl, 221, 222
Sarrail, General, 24, 26, 38–40, 44–46, 48–50, 53, 56–59, 61, 70,
104, 116, 118–121, 125, 127, 129 _sq._, 137 _sq._, 140 _sq._,
145, 163, 164, 167, 173 _sq._, 177, 178, 183, 187–190, 214
Scholtz, General von, 53, 220, 245, 256
Selechka Planina, 108
Selo Monastir, 228
Semendria, 258
Semeni river, 204, 205
Semnitza, 240
Serbia, Serbs, 15–17, 26, 30, 31, 42, 43, 51, 52, 55–57, 60, 61, 85
_sq._, 108, 109, 114, 119, 120, 129, 130, 133, 149, 159 _sq._,
213, 215 _sq._, 223, 225 _sq._, 243, 247, 250 _sq._, 259, 263,
268, 274
Serbian Relief Fund, 95
Serbian Prisoners, 192 _sq._
Serres, 35, 83, 84, 127, 158, 210, 219, 221, 243
Shistov, 266
Shlen, 226
Sicilia Brigade, 37, 237, 238, 244, 260, 263
Sinapremte, 203
Sivri, 83
Skouloudis, M., 35, 137 _sq._, 147
Skumbi, 204
Slavonia, 259, 263, 268
Slovenes, 192, 259
Smol, 196
Sofia, 158, 209, 223, 245, 248, 264
Sokol, 213, 218, 225, 226
Sop, 238, 244, 264
Sopot, 229
Spezia Brigade, 263
Srka di Legen, 196–198, 214
Staravina, 220, 227
Stari Srptzi, 240
Stavros, 260
Stepanovich, General, 89, 92, 226
Steuben, General von, 54, 220
Stoinik, 258
Stramol, mt., 238, 244
Strori, 204
Struma, 51, 82, 83, 133, 134, 155, 195–197, 212, 213, 221, 222, 243
Strumitza, 27, 218, 242, 243
Studena Voda, 227, 229
Sushitza, 218
Sveta, 237
Sveti Petar, 240
Syria, 260, 261
Szamos, Great, river, 265
Tahinos, lake, 221, 222
Talaat Pasha, 262
Tamajo, Major, 48
Taranowski, General, 187
Taranto, 96, 165, 166, 170
Tchafa Becit, 203
Tchafa Kiarit, 121, 122
Tembet, mt., 203
Temesvar, 268
Tepavci, 47, 95, 104, 236, 267
Téton Hill, 232
Themistocles, 167, 168
Thessaly, 129, 138, 139, 141–145, 174
Thrace, 207, 257, 261
Todoroff, General, 220, 273
Tomoritza river, 204, 206, 217, 220
Topard, General, 216, 225, 260
Topolatz, 227
Topolchani, 236, 239
Topolitza, 241
Tortue Hill, 127, 128
Toulon, 165
Tranié, General, 240, 241, 258
Travers Clarke, General, 71
Trebuniste, 240
Trezia, 228
_Tribune_, 162
Tricoupis, M., 138
Tricoupis, General, 234
Troubridge, Admiral, 89
Troyatzi, 241
Tsanas, M., 138
Turkey, Turks, 53, 54, 158, 185, 207–209, 252, 254, 260, 261
Tzarevo Selo, 243
Tzar Vrh, 242
Tzer, 238
Tzrkvenetz, 252
Tzrni Kamen, 242
Tzrvena Stena, 47, 106, 126
Udunista, 184
Union and Progress, Committee of, 261
United States Policy, 208, 209
Uskub, 23, 53, 158, 207, 213, 220, 223, 229, 236, 240, 241, 243, 248,
256, 259, 274
Valandovo, 220
Valona, 86
Vardar, 25 _sq._, 51, 52, 98, 127, 133, 155, 159, 195, 207, 212
_sq._, 218, 221, 229 _sq._
Varna, 245
Vassart, General de, 121
Veles, 23, 212, 213, 223, 231, 240, 241, 256
Venel, General, 145
Venizelos, M., 33, 34, 121, 137 _sq._, 145 _sq._, 247
Verria, 49, 158
Vershetz, 264
Vertekop, 49, 100, 221
Vetrenik, 55, 213, 219, 226
Vidin, 258, 264
Vladovo, 102
_Voce d’Italia_, 162
Vodiani, 237, 240
Vodena, 98, 101
Votchtaran, 92
Voyussa, 120
Vprchani, 229
Vrania, 23
Vrbetzko, 229
_Westerners_, 11, 12
Wilson, President, 209
Wilson, General Sir Henry, 217, 230, 232, 262, 267
Xanthi, 221
Yakrenovo, 240
Yarena, 229
Yelika, 238
Yenidje-Vardar, 99
Yugoslavs, 192 _sq._, 259, 260
Zaïmis, M., 138, 141, 145–147
Zapolchani, 237
Zayetchar, 257–259
Zborsko, 227, 229
Zimbrakakis, General, 138, 140, 154, 195
Zovik, 227
Transcriber’s Notes
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Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been resequenced
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