Considering the tremendous difficulties he had had to contend with, in the face of the immense strength of his enemy, General Sarrail's retreat by no means diminished his reputation as a military leader. Although his men had at their disposal only one single-track line of railroad and no roads, their retirement was conducted in such order that they were able to save and withdraw all their stores, while the total of their casualties did not exceed 3,500, a very moderate loss under the circumstances. In less skillful hands the retreat might easily have developed into an irretrievable disaster. In its main object, saving Serbia from being crushed, the campaign had certainly been a failure, but this was rather the fault of the allied governments, and not because of the inefficiency of the leaders in the field.
The Bulgarians, naturally, felt that they had attained a great victory, and in a measure they had. On December 14, 1915, they published their version of the operations as follows:
"December 12, 1915, will remain for the Bulgarian Army and nation a day of great historical importance. The army on that day occupied the last three Macedonian towns that still remained in the hands of the enemy: Doiran, Gevgheli, and Struga. The last fights against the British, French, and Serbians took place near Doiran and Ochrida Lakes. The enemy was everywhere beaten. Macedonia is free! Not a single hostile soldier remains on Macedonian soil.... In the course of ten days the expeditionary army of General Sarrail was beaten and thrown back on neutral territory. On December 12, the whole of Macedonia was freed. The pursuit of the enemy was immediately stopped when the neutral frontier of Greece was reached."
This communiqué further pointed out that Serbia had been beaten in forty, and the British and French in ten, days. An official paper in Sofia declared that the "victories won over the Franco-British hordes" was even more glorious than those won over Serbia and declared that Bulgaria had given a lesson to the so-called Great Powers, Great Britain and France, showing them at the same time the manner in which small nations could fight for their independence.
That the Bulgarians did not pursue the allied troops across the Greek frontier was one of the surprises of the campaign. What the Greeks would have done had their hereditary enemies invaded their soil, even though not for the purpose of attacking them, was a question which perhaps the Greek Government itself had not fully answered. Certainly the critical character of the situation placed the Greeks in a very uncomfortable position. It had been at their suggestion that the Allies had come to Greece, and though a protest had been made against their landing, that protest was the last word in formality.
Consequently the Allies had some shadow of a moral right to the use of Saloniki, but now that Sarrail was falling back, with every prospect of his bringing the battle front down with him into Greek territory, the diplomatic situation became extremely delicate. To add to the confusion of the situation, it must be remembered that two or three divisions of the Greek Army had been concentrated in the very district through which the Bulgarians must pass, should they decide to follow the retiring column of the Allies' troops. Here, then, was the Greek dilemma; they had allowed, under formal protest, a pacific penetration of their country in accordance with the agreement they had made with Serbia, that the latter should be allowed to import armies, munitions, and other military material over the Saloniki-Uskub railroad. This agreement, Venizelos insisted, was binding on Greece, notwithstanding the equivocations of the king. But when the French and British troops retired, another situation was created altogether, because it was scarcely likely that the Bulgarians would stop short at the frontier of Greece, and more than likely that they would follow up their advance and incidentally shell and destroy Greek property. Thus Bulgaria would be doing what the Allies had very carefully avoided doing: commit an act of war against Greece.
But fortunately for Greece, the Bulgarians did not continue the pursuit, though the Greek Government waited anxiously to see what turn events would immediately take. Sofia published the most reassuring things about the friendliness of Bulgaria for Greece, though of course Athens, being herself the seat of a Balkan nation, knew what value such protestations of affection had. Greece had only to recall the expressions of friendliness Bulgaria had uttered to Serbia less than a week before attacking her.
Meanwhile the French and British had fallen back on an intrenched line two or three miles to the south of the Greek frontier. This front stretched from Karasuli, on the Vardar River, to Kilindir, on the Doiran-Saloniki railroad, and was about fifteen miles in length. The French were still on the left and the British on the right. The British flank, in the east, was about thirty miles from Saloniki. These lines were strongly intrenched and otherwise strengthened, for it was not yet certain that the enemy did not mean to invade Greece.
In the early days of October, when the Allies had first begun landing their troops, it had not yet been definitely decided that Saloniki was to be held permanently, or at least as long as the war lasted, but by this time the value of the port had been realized. So long as it was held in strong force it constituted a constant threat against any attempt on the part of the Austro-Germans to push their invasion down into Egypt. Further, it was suggested by naval experts that if ever it passed into the hands of the Germans, it might easily become the base for an effective submarine warfare in the eastern Mediterranean, which would be extremely dangerous to the allied fleets in those waters, already the scene of considerable submarine activity, as was demonstrated by the sinking of not a few transports, war vessels, and other, ships by the enemy. These waters could not be dragged with steel nets, as had been done in the British Channel. As the terminus of the railroad running through Macedonia from Belgrade, Saloniki was potentially an important city. Austria had long been aware of the high significance of this port and it was, in fact, the final objective of her "Drang nach Osten" policy. When it fell to Greece after the Second Balkan War she had been bitterly disappointed, which was one reason why she had done her best to spur Bulgaria on to precipitate that unfortunate campaign. And this was another little matter which probably helped to swing the balance of Greek sympathy toward the Allies. What prosperity Saloniki had enjoyed during Turkish rule had been entirely due to its big Jewish population, which had been the mainstay of its commercial activities.
When Greece acquired possession little change followed, and when the troops of the Allies began to disembark in the beginning of October they were at once confronted by a serious difficulty in the absence of docking and local transportation facilities. There was, further, the serious difficulty of obtaining space ashore for camp ground for the troops, as well as suitable level stretches for aeroplanes, Greek troops being in occupation of all such spots. Moreover, the railroad facilities, even when given over entirely to their use, were inadequate.