The Macedonian campaign

by Luigi Villari

THE SALONICA FIRE (NIGHT FROM AUGUST 18TH TO 19TH, 1917).

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.