The Macedonian campaign

by Luigi Villari

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.

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.