| 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 (Photograph by Lieut. Landini.) | [172] |
| 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] |
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.