Outnumbering the Tenth Division in the proportion of at least eight to one, they were obstinately bent on its destruction at whatever cost to themselves. Their artillery far exceeded ours in weight of metal, but in effectiveness there was no comparison. Almost all our shells told, while many of theirs did no more than splinter the rocks yards away. So Monday, December 6, was passed with the Tenth Division mightily pressed but still well able to hold its own. Tuesday the 7th was an exact replica of the previous day.
The Bulgars heavily bombarded our line; then sent forward strong storming parties before whom we recoiled a little, but no more. The division never lost its cohesion, and it gave ground only at the rate of two miles a day, which is a proof, if any were needed, of the splendid rearguard action that this much outnumbered force fought. Our artillery kept them in sufficient check to give us all the respite we needed, and the rifle fire of the different regiments bit gaping wounds in the enemy mass that helped to throw them into temporary confusion.
Teodorow, the Bulgarian General, is a great believer in the German method of attack. He reckons no loss in men is too great if the objective be gained. The objective in this case was the decimation of the Tenth Division, and under his orders the Bulgars charged and charged until the snowdrifts over which the battle was fought were black with the recumbent forms of his men.
III—"WE OUTLIVED THE HORRORS OF SULVA"
We fought as at Mons. The arrowhead of the division consisting of two or three regiments, the Dublins, the Munsters and the Connaughts, took the shock of the enemy attacks, while the sides made good their retirement, then the arrowhead rapidly fell back and joined us with the main body, while other regiments received the shock in turn.
In the two days we drew four miles nearer to the Greek frontier. If we could continue to maintain this deliberate rate of retirement with our formations still intact we could hope for salvation, for we knew that re-enforcements were due.
The night of the 7th the Bulgars made a final attempt to smash our resistance. They redoubled the force of their bombardment; they increased still more the momentum of their infantry attacks. They came very near to achieving their purpose, and there were hours when one would have asked prayers for the Tenth Division, but British bulldog courage and obstinacy withstood all the fury of the enemy's onset, and our mountain artillery always found an easy target. By the 8th the force of the Bulgar attacks had spent itself.... In the two days' battle the Tenth Division inflicted on the enemy at least four times their own number of casualties and, what is possibly of equal importance, they taught him the temper and morale of British infantry....
The Tenth Division outlived the horrors of Sulva; it outlived the days and nights of biting cold on the Serbian frontier ranges, and it finished the miracle, to quote the official phrase, by "sustaining violent attacks delivered by the enemy in overwhelming numbers." The slow, punishing, rearguard action it fought allowed the Allies to withdraw all their accumulated stores and munitions and to fall back without congestion into Greek territory again.
The Tenth Division saved the situation by a display of courage and dogged heroism that cannot be too highly praised. One of these days we shall be told what the general said to the thinned units when he met them again at Salonica....
You ask the most talkative of them to give you a picture of the oncoming Bulgar masses.