The Macedonian campaign

by Luigi Villari

On November 4th the Villa Giusti Armistice between General Diaz, representing the Allies, and the Austro-Hungarian Command, was signed. But it was not clear whether and to what extent it was applicable to Hungary. On November 3rd two Magyar Field Officers presented themselves at the outposts of the Armée d’Orient in the Banat, stating that Hungary wished to conclude an armistice on her own account. In Hungary there was indeed no longer any recognized central authority, and the country was rushing headlong towards anarchy. Count Karolyi, the head of the Government, but almost without any authority, wished to enter into negotiations with General Franchet d’Espérey, who, however, had no instructions for dealing with such a situation. On the 7th a meeting between them took place; Count Karolyi declared that he had no army which he could rely on to hold the troops of Marshals von Mackensen and von Koevess in check, and asked for certain political concessions, which General Franchet d’Espérey was unable to grant. The latter added that he would proceed with the offensive as long as Hungary did not ratify the Villa Giusti Armistice, and, in conformity with instructions received from Paris, he threatened to send British and French divisions to Budapest. Karolyi then agreed immediately to his request, and on the 13th an armistice was signed between General Henrys (General Franchet d’Espérey had returned to Macedonia) and Voivod Michich for the Allies and M. Bela Linder for Hungary. According to the terms of this agreement, the Hungarian troops were to withdraw behind a line passing by Fünfkirchen, Baja, Mariatheresienstadt, the course of the Maros and the upper valley of the Great Szamos. Otherwise the terms of the Villa Giusti Armistice were reproduced as far as they were applicable to Hungary, save that the latter was authorized to keep six divisions on a war footing for the maintenance of order, which was threatened by criminal Bolshevism. The further vicissitudes of Hungary were to cause the Allies more trouble yet.

There still remained the army of Marshal von Mackensen in Roumania to be dealt with. On October 19th, French troops reached the Danube. A few days previously General Berthelot had arrived at Salonica, with instructions to create a new “Army of the Danube” out of units of the Armée d’Orient to conduct operations in Roumania. This new organization, which appeared cumbersome and practically useless, comprised two French divisions, parts of two others, a cavalry regiment, a British division and the Garrison Brigade. All these forces were echeloned along the Danube within the month of October, three bridge-heads were built near Rustchuk, at Giurgiu, and between Shistov and Nicopolis, and on November 10th the troops began to cross the river. Roumania, after a heroic resistance, had been obliged, in consequence of the treachery of the Russian Bolsheviks acting on behalf of Germany, to sign the disastrous Peace of Bucarest, but now that the liberators were at the gates she was able to shake off the hated yoke; the Government ordered a fresh mobilization, and declared war against the Central Empires. This gave her afterwards the right to take part in the Peace Conference, in Paris, among the Allies. The day that the French troops crossed the Danube the Roumanian Army reappeared on the scene.

Marshal von Mackensen’s troops offered but slight resistance. They soon gave up all hope of holding the Danube line, and thought only of retiring through Hungary into Austria and Germany. But it was an army in dissolution, almost without discipline, and its passage through Hungary might have led to serious trouble. On the other hand, if it were forced to surrender, there were no means of feeding it in the Balkans, nor ships to convey it home by sea. In the meanwhile the Serbian troops, in order to cut the communications between Roumania and Germany, occupied Vershetz and Neusatz, and pushed on towards Temesvar. The Armistice with Germany having been concluded on November 11th, von Mackensen’s army would have had only eight days in which to make use of the Hungarian railways, which, moreover, were in such bad condition as to be of little help; but it was granted an extension of the time limit, as it was generally felt that, on the whole, the wisest course was to allow it to go home. Difficulties, however, arose with the Hungarian Government. Von Mackensen had been interned in the Castle of Pott, near Budapest, but it was feared that his Hungarian guards might leave him free to range through Hungary and perhaps promote disorders and insurrections. Consequently, to avoid trouble, a couple of squadrons of Morocco Spahis were sent to Pott, and on January 5, 1919 they escorted the Field Marshal to the Castle of Futtek near Neusatz, in an area occupied by troops of the Armée d’Orient, and later to Salonica. In that city which he had expected to enter one day in triumph, acclaimed by the inhabitants—who would not have failed to become pro-German for the occasion—he remained interned for some months.

The Armée d’Orient was now scattered over an immense territory. The Commander-in-Chief, still General Franchet d’Espérey, remained at Constantinople with his Staff. The city and the adjoining area was garrisoned by General Wilson’s inter-Allied Force. At Salonica there remained fragments of the various Allied armies, commanded by General Génin, with detachments in other parts of Macedonia, especially in the old fighting zone, to collect the vast quantities of war material and to guard the prisoners. The latter were regarded as public nuisances, difficult to feed, and of little use for labour as there was very little work for them to do, so that the various Commands who had fought so hard to capture them were only too delighted when some of them escaped. The old Italian headquarters at Tepavci was occupied by the Bulgarian generals and field officers captured by our troops.

The bulk of the Italian Expeditionary Force was now in Bulgaria. The Dobrugia was occupied by Franco-British, and afterwards by Italian, detachments. In Roumania, besides some Roumanian divisions, there was part of General Berthelot’s army; the rest of it was for a short time in South Russia, together with some Greek and White Russian units, commanded by General d’Anselme.

The remnants of the A.F.O. and the Serbian Army were scattered about the new provinces occupied by Serbia, which were destined to form the new S.H.S. State, principally in the Banat and in Croatia-Slavonia. Small French detachments were in Montenegro, Cattaro, Ragusa, etc. In many of these places there were also Italian troops, and at Fiume there was a mixed Italian-French-British garrison. At Scutari the pre-war inter-Allied occupation was reconstituted, and a garrison consisting of a French, an Italian and a British battalion, commanded by General Foulon, was sent there.

All these troops took orders from General Franchet d’Espérey in Constantinople. The Italian troops in Bulgaria, in European Turkey and in Macedonia, belonging to the 35th Division, formed part of the Armée d’Orient. But the Italian detachments at Scutari and along the mid-Adriatic coast took orders from the Albanian Command, while those at Fiume were under the Italian III Army. Neither the former nor the latter had anything to do with the C.A.A. at Constantinople, whereas the French detachments in the same places were under it. The British Army, still commanded by General Milne, was under the C.A.A., but to a very limited extent, while the British troops in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus, etc., were also under General Milne, who, as far as they were concerned, had nothing whatever to do with the C.A.A. The Serbian Army was now acting entirely on its own.

All this Chinese puzzle of Commands seemed to have been invented for the express purpose of promoting inter-Allied disagreements—and it certainly succeeded in doing so. But the subsequent political and military vicissitudes of the Allied troops in the East do not belong to the history of the Balkan Campaign, but to that of the Peace Conference.

The Italian troops remained in Bulgaria until July 1919, when the 35th Division was broken up and its various elements repatriated, except the Regimental Command and one battalion of the 61st Regiment, which remained in Constantinople. During this period General Mombelli and his officers and men had occasion to show how high was the level of Italian civilization. No operation is more thankless nor more likely to become odious than the occupation of a vanquished country. But the Italian Expeditionary Force, which had borne itself so well during the war, also proved, in the eyes of the Bulgarians, whom it had so valiantly contributed to defeat, generous and dignified during the Armistice period. No unpleasant incident marred the relations between the troops and the inhabitants, but at the same time our men showed a proper reserve in their dealings with a nation with whom we were still technically at war. Further, the Italian soldiers did many acts of kindness and courtesy towards the natives that left indelible traces for the future good relations between the two peoples. We were fortunately spared the odium of garrisoning the country at the time when the dura lex sed lex of the Treaty of Neuilly had to be applied. On their departure the Italian troops were bidden farewell with numerous demonstrations of sympathy, which those who had some interest in presenting Italy in an unfavourable light tried to misrepresent as signs of deep and dark intrigues on her part, but which were in reality nothing more than manifestations of gratitude.

Here we shall end our brief chronicle of the Balkan Campaign. Let us hope that the remembrance of the common effort for the common cause, and of the great victory by which it was crowned, prove an earnest for the future brotherhood of the peoples who fought together, in the hard struggles for the peace of the world.