The Macedonian campaign

by Luigi Villari

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.