The Macedonian campaign

by Luigi Villari

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.