As it was necessary, in view of reports of a coming enemy offensive, to obtain reliable information, local operations were intensified. On the night of April 14–15, 1918, Greek and British detachments made an incursion beyond the Struma (north-west of Lake Tahinos), and occupied various villages; the Bulgars counter-attacked and regained some of the lost positions. The Greeks had behaved well, although the engagement was of small importance. The local Greek press, and also the French papers, inspired by the C.A.A., extolled this episode to the skies as though it were a first-class victory. Even in the restaurants at Athens banquets were given, with abundance of champagne, to celebrate the great triumph.

At the end of May the National Defence Forces carried out a much more important operation. The enemy occupied a strong position on the massif known as the Srka di Legen[37] near Huma, which formed a very awkward salient for the Allies. During the last days of May, a powerful group of French artillery, together with 2 British 8-inch guns, were concentrated in that area and opened a heavy bombardment on the enemy lines. The British heavy batteries on the Smol (left bank of the Vardar) also contributed their share. On the 29th, the attack began, and the Greek troops rushed the enemy trenches at dawn on the 30th, supported by a powerful barrage fire. The 1st (Serres), 5th and 6th (Archipelago) Regiments gained possession of the defensive positions of the Srka di Legen, while the 7th (Cretan) Regiment occupied the heights between the two branches of the Ljumnitza River. On a front of 12 km. and for a depth of 2 km. the whole complicated maze of formidable defences was thus conquered. The action was so rapid that the Bulgarian barrage did not begin until the attacking troops were already well out of their trenches. The enemy counter-attacks, weakly pushed, were easily repulsed, and the Greeks captured some 1,700 prisoners and a considerable amount of booty, losing from 500 to 600 men, killed and wounded. The Greeks behaved extremely well, and their Commander, General Ioannou, greatly distinguished himself for his personal courage. A fresh Bulgarian counter-attack was expected during the next few days, especially as the Bulgarians were known to despise the Greeks and it was believed that they would never submit to a defeat at their hands without attempting a return match; elaborate defensive preparations were made, and the Greek troops were sent into the second lines to recuperate, and relieved by French units. But the counter-attack never materialized, and this was one of the first really significant signs of the enemy’s depressed moral. From Field Marshal Hindenburg’s memoirs and other sources we gather that the troops detailed for the counter-attack and for a general attack on the British lines had refused to march.

The operation had been admirably prepared by the French Staff, and the artillery concentrated in that area formed a formidable mass. Its objectives were almost more political than military, and full success having been achieved, it was very largely exploited and advertised. The battle of the Srka was indeed a strong encouragement for the Venizelist party in Greece, and public opinion came to have somewhat more confidence in the Greek Army. It seems almost paradoxical, but the Greeks themselves, who were ready to extol in the most exaggerated way the most modest successes of their troops, in their heart of hearts did not feel much confidence in them, and as a French officer said to me, they still believed that the Bulgarians trained by the Germans were worth more than the Greeks trained by the French. But in one of those fits of sudden exaltation, characteristic of all Balkan peoples, the Greeks swerved from a belief in German invincibility and terror of a Bulgaro-German invasion to the absolute confidence in a complete and immediate Allied victory obtained by virtue of Greek aid. In the cafés of Athens there was little to choose between the Marne, Gorizia, the Somme, Brusiloff’s offensive and the Srka di Legen.

But in spite of all exaggerations, we must remember that this was a really creditable episode; it exercised a favourable influence on the Greek mobilization, and showed that the Allies could count on at least a part of the Greek Army.

CHAPTER XIII
MARKING TIME. ARRIVAL OF GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY

The spring of 1918 had been the most menacing period for the Entente. At that time the first effects of the Russian collapse were felt on the Western front as they had been felt on the Italian front in October, 1917. On all fronts the Allies were standing still, held down without the possibility of attempting any offensive. The “war map” was wholly in favour of the Central Powers. Germany occupied almost the whole of Belgium, a large and rich part of France. The Austrians were on the Piave. Russia, after the shameful surrender of Brest-Litovsk, had seen the German and Austrian armies spread over a vast part of her territory. The Turks, after the withdrawal of the Russians from Armenia, had invaded the Caucasus. Roumania, betrayed by the Russians, had two-thirds of her territory occupied by the enemy, and after a heroic resistance on the Sereth, had been forced to submit to peace on disastrous terms. Now the Germans on the Western front and the Austrians in Italy were preparing new and vast offensives which should finally bring the struggle to an end with a colossal victory. The British, French and Italians hoped to be able to resist, but all were filled with deep anxiety. American assistance was arriving very slowly, while the defeatist propaganda, conducted by Socialists and others in the pay of Germany, was spreading secretly throughout all the Allied countries.

On March 21, the German offensive in France was launched and its successes were more rapid and more terrible than could have been expected. After a few days all the territory laboriously conquered at the cost of enormous losses by the Allied forces in the spring and summer of 1917, were lost, and the enemy still advanced irresistibly towards Amiens, to separate the British from the French Armies. Immediately afterwards the offensive in Flanders began, which, although less rapid than the other, achieved menacing successes. In May there was another great German offensive on the Chemin des Dames, and in two days the enemy regained the ground won by the French in the preceding summer, and pushed much further on, crossing the Marne at several points and again threatening Paris. It seemed as though nothing could now hold up the overwhelming advance.

At this grave moment the Macedonian front was more neglected than ever, and the Army in the East was indeed made use of to provide reinforcements for the Western front. In the despairing search for effectives to fill up the gaps in the French front it was decided to withdraw certain units from the East. During the winter of 1917–18 the French Army in Macedonia had received sufficient reinforcements to bring the battalions up to a semblance of their organic strength. The total of the French Army which had been reduced to 180,000 men, had been again raised to 210,000. The British, too, received some reinforcements. We continued to maintain our own strength, except for the withdrawal of the 7th battalion in the summer of 1917, which I have already mentioned. But with the German offensive in France, the French and British Commands sent a commission to the East to examine the possibility of withdrawing troops, and it was decided to send to France the equivalent of 12 battalions from each of the two armies. From the British contingent, which comprised 12 brigades of 4 battalions each, one whole battalion per brigade was withdrawn; the French instead withdrew a corresponding number of men from various units, while a few regiments, whose strength had been greatly reduced, were broken up. This gave increasing importance to the Greek Army, which was in a position to supply the Macedonian front with a number of men, not by any means equivalent in fighting quality or training to the French and British battalions withdrawn, but stronger in effectives. This decision was generally deplored, because 24 battalions represented a very negligible increase of strength on the French front where vast armies millions strong were engaged, whereas by withdrawing them from Macedonia they constituted a reduction of force which was anything but indifferent, and could not be compensated by even twice that number of Greek battalions; this made the situation of the Allied troops remaining at that front—our own included—much harder.

In the East, another result of the German offensive in France was the change in the Commander-in-Chief. General Guillaumat was very highly thought of in France, and rightly so. In Macedonia he had, as I have said, restored the shaken discipline of the French troops and had entirely reorganized them, but in the extremely critical situation in which Paris found itself in view of the German advance in May, it was decided to entrust him with the defence of the Capital, and consequently on June 8, he quietly departed from Salonica and was succeeded by General Franchet d’Espérey. The loss of the Chemin des Dames, where the latter had commanded an army, had not exactly caused him to fall into disgrace, because the defeat does not appear to have been due to any fault of his own, but it rendered him less highly considered than he had been before, and consequently he was sent to take command at Salonica, where it was not believed that important operations would ever take place again. General Franchet d’Espérey is a man of high historical and literary as well as military culture, he has travelled a great deal abroad and belongs to an aristocratic family; he is somewhat brusque in his manner, impulsive and sometimes dominated by the last incident which had happened and had put him in a good or bad humour with everybody. When he was in a good humour, he was gay, bon camarade, and one could tell him or ask him anything, whereas when something had gone amiss he was irritable and difficult to deal with. For General Mombelli he had great sympathy, and even when our Commander had occasion to complain energetically about some deficiency in the services for which we were dependent on the C.A.A.—and occasions were not lacking—he always accepted his remarks in a friendly spirit and did everything that was possible to satisfy him. He did not enter into discussions on the various questions submitted to him and often made remarks that were not absolutely accurate, basing his opinion on something that he had read or heard without going into the matter thoroughly. But as a strategist he showed in Macedonia qualities of the highest rank, and he commanded with success the extremely mixed team of the Armèe d’Orient.

General Guillaumat deserves credit for having thought out the Macedonian offensive, basing it on Voivod Michich’s old plan of 1916, for the part which concerned him; General d’Espérey perfected the plan, completed it, and then carried it out.