So long as the outcome of the effort to join up with the Serbians remained in doubt the Allies had not given much energy to fortifying Saloniki in great strength, but immediately the retirement was decided upon this task was undertaken with some dispatch. On and after December 12, 1915, the Allies, having at last succeeded in compelling Greece to agree to their plans for a permanent occupation, began preparations to meet all possible events in the future. As the Greek troops withdrew, French and British forces took their places, some being fresh arrivals, for reenforcements were landing daily at the rate of between 4,000 and 5,000. As there were many rumors of the enemy's intention to advance and attack before the city should be made more defensible, the work of making it as formidable as possible was pushed with fever heat.
Steps were at once taken to establish strong lines of intrenchments. In the course of a week or ten days this task was sufficiently under way to settle the alarms of an immediate attack from the enemy; the lines of the defensive works followed a half circle of hills and lakes, some fifty miles in extent, reaching on the west from the Vardar River to the Gulf of Orfano on the east and inclosing a very considerable area, giving the Allies sufficient freedom of movement.
Yet it was fortunate for the Allies that political considerations deterred the enemy from making the attack. Had the Bulgarians advanced in full force, the Allies would have been heavily outnumbered, not only in men, but in heavy artillery and ordinary field guns as well. It is doubtful whether they could successfully have resisted a determined effort to turn their flanks.
The conformation of the coast line around Saloniki is a handicap to a continuous defensive line. It would demand more men than other conformations would. Saloniki stands on a gulf, or bay, and this would necessitate spreading the defending lines around it in almost a complete circle, so that the adjacent shores would be protected as well.
There does exist a natural horseshoe of positions from which Saloniki could be held and which would cover the port from sea to sea, but their development extends from 120 to 130 miles of country, an area which could not well be held with less than a force of half a million men. At the eastern horn of the Gulf of Saloniki runs the Kaloron Ridge, culminating in a peak some 3,000 feet above sea level. All the southern slopes of this ridge are exposed to the fire of any fleet of warships that might lie offshore. This ridge continues toward the north by two more peaks, each connected with its neighbor by a saddle-shaped ridge. The positions along this ridge would pass first over a point about a thousand feet high, covering the village of Galatista, and next by a chain to the Hortak Dagh Mountains, one of the nearest points in the line to Saloniki.
To the north again the ground falls abruptly to the level of Lake Langaza, thence turns eastward to the height of Dautbaba, after which the lines could be stretched to the borders of the swampy region at the mouth of the Vardar, ground which is as impassable as the Pripet Marshes on the Russian front and which were formerly occupied by the Bulgarian comatjis, in spite of all the efforts of the Turks to eject or capture them.
The Allies at Saloniki.
On December 20, 1915, there arrived in Saloniki, General de Castelnau, Chief of the General Staff of the French Army. He came with the same purpose that had brought Lord Kitchener, to make a tour of inspection of the Near Eastern situation. No doubt a certain anxiety was felt in France and England regarding the security of the Saloniki position, and General de Castelnau had been dispatched to investigate. With General Sarrail he made a thorough survey of the French lines, and with General Mahon he undertook an equally searching tour of the British section. Apparently he was satisfied with the situation, for soon after he stated in an interview to the press that the position of the Allies in Saloniki was excellent. After having passed a week with Generals Sarrail and Mahon, he paid a short visit to King Constantine on the 26th. On the same day the French Government issued an official communiqué, which announced that General de Castelnau, together with Generals Sarrail and Mahon, had settled upon the plan of action to be followed by the Allies and that he had assured the French Government that the arrangements which had already been made rendered the safety of the whole expedition absolutely certain.