The Macedonian campaign

by Luigi Villari

The initial objective of the Allies was to bring assistance to the Serbs who were retreating before the Austro-German and Bulgarian invasion. This assistance was to have taken the form of an advance up the Vardar Valley towards Uskub or towards Monastir. As soon as the troops were landed at Salonica they were immediately pushed forward towards the front, the British to the east of the Vardar and the French to the west. On October 20th the French reached Krivolak on the Vardar and occupied the whole peninsula formed by that river and the Cerna, while the British were to the north of lake of Doiran, on the Kosturino Pass on the Beles Mountains, whence it is possible to descend into Bulgaria. The Serbs were being driven ever further south, but a detachment of their army was holding Monastir. If they had followed the advice of the Allies and had retreated towards them, perhaps a part of the army might have been saved; but, attracted by the mirage of an outlet on the Adriatic, or for some other motive, they insisted on deviating towards the west, thus undertaking that retreat across Albania which was to prove one of the most terrible tragedies of the whole war. Before the invasion the Serbian Army comprised 400,000 men, when it reached Albania it was reduced to 150,000, with some tens of thousands of Austrian prisoners; the rest had died of hunger and suffering. This miserable remnant was saved by the assistance of the Allies, and particularly of the Italians, as we shall see further on. The retreat through Albania rendered the situation of the Anglo-French on the middle Vardar untenable. When the French learnt that the Bulgarians had occupied the Babuna Pass between Veles and Monastir at the beginning of November, they tried to break the enemy front on the left bank of the Cerna in the hope of reaching the Serbs to the north-west of that pass. For fifteen days (November 5–19th) a fierce struggle went on between the French and the Bulgarians, in which our Allies showed all their admirable military qualities. The Bulgarians counter-attacked on the Cerna and were repulsed with heavy losses, but as the bulk of the Serbian Army had retreated towards Albania and the French had been unable to capture the dominating position of Mount Arkhangel (west of Gradsko on the Vardar), the offensive passed definitely to the Bulgarians. On the 2nd, General Sarrail ordered a general retreat from Krivolak on Salonica. Even this operation was anything but easy. It was necessary to withdraw 3 divisions (the 122nd had been recently added to the 156th and 57th) and an enormous quantity of material along the Vardar Valley over a single-track railway and without decent carriage roads, in a season when the rains converted the whole country into a vast muddy swamp. It must be admitted that General Sarrail conducted this retreat in good order. The Bulgarians were attacking from the north towards Krivolak and from the west on the Cerna, while from the east they were attacking the British at Kosturino, while irregular bands were trying to capture convoys along the Vardar, and enemy artillery from the Beles range dominated the railway. Added to this there was rain, snow and cold.

There were two plans of retreat, which may be described as the maximum and the minimum. The first consisted in withdrawing to the entrenched camp at Salonica, the other in resisting on an intermediate position between the Krivolak-Cerna line and Salonica along the Greek frontier. The first had the advantage of considerably shortening the line to be defended, and of bringing it nearer to the base: but on the other hand, besides adversely affecting the prestige of the Allies, it would have left the road from Macedonia and Albania into Old Greece open to the enemy, thus renewing and reinforcing German pressure on King Constantine in favour of Greek intervention on the side of the Central Empires. In that case Salonica, and with it the whole of the Allied Armies, would have been irreparably lost. Consequently the second plan was adopted.

The French retreat was carried out by echelons. First the detachments on the left of the Cerna were withdrawn to the right bank and the bridge at Vozartzi destroyed. Then a concentration took place at Krivolak, which was the rail-head, and the troops retreated in four stages. The Bulgarian attacks near the Cerna having been repulsed, the French reached Demir-Kapu without difficulty. They passed through the narrow gorge by night, while the rearguard covered the retreat. The Bulgarians tried to out-flank the French, advancing by mountain paths on the Marianska Planina so as to fall on them when emerging from the gorge, but their attempt failed. On December 7th the bridge and tunnel at Strumitza were blown up. On the 8th, although exhausted by the interminable march, the French repulsed still other enemy attacks. The great depots at Ghevgheli were evacuated, and on the 10th, as the Bulgarians were attacking along the river, the convoys had to continue their retreat over the mountains. The two African march regiments counter-attacked with great vigour, and on the 11th, the depots having been burnt and the railway and the bridge destroyed, all the troops withdrew beyond the Greek frontier.

The British (10th Division), who occupied the area between the Vardar, the Lake of Doiran and the Kosturino Pass, were not attacked until the end of November, but on December 6th the Germans and Bulgarians attacked and the British commenced their withdrawal. On the 12th they too had crossed the Greek frontier between Ghevgheli and Doiran, and the enemy did not advance farther for the time being.

The enemy had by now occupied the whole of Serbia, including Monastir, which had been evacuated on December 5th, the Serbian garrison having withdrawn to Salonica, but for political reasons they did not wish to cross the Greek frontier, as they considered the Greece of King Constantine (Venizelos having fallen) a benevolent neutral. This gave the Allies breathing space and time to reinforce themselves. On December 3rd, the French Government ordered General Sarrail to create an entrenched camp at Salonica. The area from Topshin to Dogandzi and Daudli was entrusted to the French, that from Daudli to the sea, passing along the Lakes of Langaza and Besik and through the Rendina gorge, to the British. The former had their usual 3 divisions, the British five (22nd, 28th, 26th, 10th, and in addition the 27th without artillery in reserve at Salonica). Within two months the first positions were created with three lines of resistance and a barbed wire entanglement 10 metres broad defended by 30 heavy batteries. These defences had been made according to all the latest scientific rules of war, and had the advantage of not having been constructed under the pressure of the enemy, as was the case with the great entrenched camps in France. Of the three lines of defence, the first and second were in excellent condition, whereas the third was merely sketched. The works were in groups of three, so that the two more advanced ones were dominated by the one in the rear. They were united to each other by communication trenches, which could also be used as firing trenches. Beyond the entrenched camp the Allies occupied advanced positions, the French as far as Sorovich, and later (March 21st, 1916) Florina, and farther east along the railway between Kilkish and Kilindir; the British towards the Lake Doiran.

Allies and enemies now stopped along the line which they were to occupy without important change for several months. The enemy lines passed to the south of Kenali (on the railway between Florina and Monastir) along the ridge of Mount Kaimakchalan and thence along the mountains to Lake Doiran. Beyond the lake they ascended on to the crest of the Beles mountains, following the Græco-Bulgarian frontier of 1913. The enemy attack was expected from week to week, but it did not come, and in the meanwhile the Allies continued to receive reinforcements (French and British) and material, and they were able to strengthen their defences and improve their situation.

In all there were at the beginning of 1916 a little less than 100,000 French troops, about as many British and a few thousand Serbs, altogether about 200,000 men to defend the entrenched camp, forming an arc of a circle of 120 kilometres, in addition to the advanced positions. There were 358 French and 350 British guns, but the heaviest French guns were only long 155 mm. and the heaviest British were of 6 in. General Sarrail had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in the Orient. The British Army, in May, 1916, was commanded by Lieutenant-General George (now Sir George) Milne, under the superior command, although in a limited measure, of General Sarrail. The enemy forces amounted to about 280,000 men.

The results of these operations, although disaster had been avoided, cannot be regarded as brilliant, nor were they of such character as to raise the prestige of General Sarrail with the Allies, nor of the Allies in general with the enemy States and those who were still neutral. A well-executed retreat without heavy losses in men or material may be a fine operation from a technical point of view, but it does not arouse enthusiasm. On the other hand, the relative conditions of the two armies amounted to a situation of stalemate from which it would not be easy to emerge. General Lord Kitchener, who had come to inspect the Macedonian Army in December 1915, had actually proposed the withdrawal of the expedition, which appeared to him as to many other experts a useless dispersion of forces, and the Governments were in doubt as to whether or not it were advisable to carry out this suggestion. But in the course of 1916 the Allies received a new reinforcement, in the shape of the revived Serbian Army, which was destined to exercise a considerable political and military influence on the future vicissitudes of the Oriental campaign.

The disastrous retreat through Albania in which the Serbian Army had lost nearly all its artillery and more than half its effectives, took refuge in Corfu, save a few detachments which were sent to Bizerta. In Corfu the exhausted and worn-out soldiers rested, were re-equipped with everything and thoroughly reorganized. As soon as they began to recover from their terrible experiences they wished to go to Macedonia to take part in the Allied operations. They began to reach Salonica in the spring of 1916, and at the end of April there were about 15,000 of them, besides the detachment formed of the men who had escaped from Monastir. At the end of June they amounted to 120,000 and in July to 152,000. They were divided into three armies, each comprising two divisions: I Army (Morava and Vardar Division); II (Shumadia and Timok) and III (Drina and Danube), in addition to the cavalry division and the volunteer corps, with 72 machine-gun sections. The artillery was supplied to a great extent by the French, except for a few guns saved in the retreat, to which some others captured from the enemy were afterwards added. They had 6 groups of 75 mm., 6 of 80 mm. mountain batteries (afterwards replaced by 65 mm. quick-firing guns), 6 groups of Krupp 70 mm. or Schneider 75 mm. mountain guns, 6 groups of 120 mm. howitzers, 6 batteries of 58 mm. trench guns. Scattered about the mountains along the border between Macedonia and Albania and in Macedonia there were irregular Serbian comitadji bands estimated, in July 1916, at about 5,000 men, who broke up and reformed according to circumstances, now attempting a raid, now hiding among the mountains. Other bands continued to exist in Old Serbia, and in fact they rose in revolt in the winter of 1916–17, causing serious anxiety to the enemy; the movement, however, was ruthlessly repressed.

But the situation of the Allies continued to be made extremely difficult by the conduct of the Greek authorities who, although officially neutral, were in reality most unfriendly. They had created a regular system of espionage in favour of the Central Empires, headed by Colonel Messalas, who sent reports of every variation in the strength and distribution of the Allied troops to the Ministry of War at Athens and to the King and Queen, whence they reached the German G.H.Q. The Consuls of the enemy States were naturally extremely active in this work of espionage and the Allied G.H.Q., owing to its peculiar situation, and not wishing to come to a regular breach with Greece, either because it was feared that she might definitely go over to the enemy or in the hope of inducing her to join the Entente, had its hands tied. When, however, in consequence of information supplied by enemy agents, German aeroplanes bombed the city, causing considerable damage, and killing a number of people, General Sarrail declared that he would henceforth consider the area occupied by the Allies as a war zone, and on the night of December 30th Franco-British patrols arrested the four enemy consuls and seized their archives, whence they obtained valuable information concerning enemy spies. A British detachment had on its own account arrested the German Consul at Drama in the train near Serres, in spite of violent rhodomontades and protests of the Greek officers in the same compartment.