Chapter XIV: On the Eve of the Offensive

As soon as General Franchet d’Espérey reached Salonica he undertook to execute the offensive planned by his predecessor. But he encountered very decided opposition on the part of his own Government, as well as on that of the other Allied Governments. The former did not believe in the possibility of a successful offensive on the Macedonian front, and it seems not to have had too much confidence in General Franchet d’Espérey himself. It refused to send him reinforcements, and limited itself to supplying him grudgingly with some artillery and other material, but always in insufficient quantities. Britain and Italy adopted a similar policy. Nevertheless he insisted on the advisability of making the attempt. Two months were needed for the preparations, and in spite of the opposition of the Governments, he at once took them in hand. During the month of July at the Allied Councils many members were doubtful, and believed that better results might be obtained by attempting to secure a separate peace with Bulgaria. The diplomatic and military commission before breaking up ordered General Franchet d’Espérey to go ahead with his preparations, but forbade him to commence the offensive without a definite authorization from the Governments. At the beginning of August nothing had yet been decided, and the British and Italian Governments were still opposed to the idea of an offensive. General Guillaumat in Paris had supported the projected operation in his conversation with members of the French Government and had succeeded in convincing M. Clemenceau. At the beginning of September he went to London and Rome to speak in favour of the plan, but it was not until September 11th that the Commander-in-Chief in Salonica was authorized to attack when he thought it advisable. There was, however, so little confidence in the success of the plan that General Guillaumat, who then had no Command, had instructions to hold himself in readiness to proceed to Macedonia by aeroplane to relieve General Franchet d’Espérey in case of failure.

Let us now see what were the respective conditions of the two opposing armies. The enemy front was divided geographically into four sectors--Albania, Monastir, Vardar-Doiran, and Struma--against any one of which the attack might be launched. The Albanian sector offered some advantages, inasmuch as it was less provided with defensive works. But General Franchet d’Espérey did not wish to begin operations on a large scale in that area because the Italian XVI Corps was not under his orders; moreover, and this was the principal reason, communications were so difficult there as to render the transport of troops in large numbers impossible. An advocate of the action of the French G.H.Q. states that General Ferrero refused to make use of Essad Pasha for the operations in Albania, and almost blames him for it,[39] but General Franchet d’Espérey had no more confidence in the assistance which that shady adventurer might afford to the cause of the Allies than had General Ferrero, and they were both right.[40]

To face p. 213.
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In the Monastir sector it was possible to attack in the direction of Pribilci-Kichevo-Gostivar-Kalkandelen (Tetovo), or towards Prilep-Babuna-Veles, or Prilep-Gradsko-Negotin. But here the enemy defences were in the highest possible state of efficiency, and as this was one of the sectors in which an attack was always expected, the Bulgaro-Germans held themselves constantly in readiness for it. The same objections applied to the Vardar-Doiran area, which has always been one of the traditional routes for Macedonian invasions, and was the only one provided with a railway throughout its whole length.

The Struma sector extended along a very broad and marshy valley, and the enemy positions on the mountains east of the river were extremely strong. Moreover, a success in this direction would not have offered the chance of striking a blow at the heart of the enemy, such as was necessary to obtain really decisive results.

The vital centre of the enemy defences was the middle Vardar. From Uskub, from Veles, and from Gradsko, all their lateral communications spread out fan-wise. The Vardar railway put them in direct communication with the Central Empires and their supply centres. From Uskub there was a branch railway to Kalkandelen, whence a road, with a décauville along a part of it, descended into the plain of Monastir. From Veles and Gradsko all the troops in the area between Prilep and the Vardar, and to some extent also those immediately to the east of the river, were supplied. The enemy, however, counted on the very powerful defences, natural and artificial, on both sides of it, in the Demir Kapu gorge, to the west of Lake Doiran, and on the Beles range.

There was, however, another route which the enemy had not thought of fortifying, relying on its formidable natural defences. Between the Cerna and Nonte there is a group of high peaks rising from a wilderness of rocks around a basin hidden among the mountains. The area is called the Moglena, and it is here that the Moglenitza river has its source. The mountains of this group are among the highest in Macedonia; several summits, such as Floka, Kaimakchalan, Dzena, are over 2,000 m., the Mala Rupa is over 1,900 m., Sokol, Dobropolje, Vetrenik, Kuchkov Kamen and Kravitza are about 1,700–1,800 m. In the offensive of the autumn of 1916 the Serbs had conquered the Kaimakchalan range and the Moglena area, which was afterwards entrusted to the II Serbian Army. Since then the sector had been a peaceful one, except for the engagements in the spring of 1917. Voivod Michich had repeatedly insisted on the advisability of an offensive against the Dobropolje, as offering the best chances of success. General Sarrail had refused to trust the man who knew far more about Balkan warfare than he did. General Guillaumat, on the other hand, believed the plan to be possible, and began the preliminary studies for an operation in that direction. But more and heavier artillery was needed than the Armée d’Orient as yet possessed. Guillaumat, therefore, only executed the attack on the Srka di Legen. To General Franchet d’Espérey is due the merit of having taken up the plan once more, perfected it and finally executed it. As a result of his inspections along the front, he convinced himself that while the vital ganglion of the whole enemy organization was the middle Vardar, an attack on any of the four traditional sectors was, with the means at his disposal, impossible. From Mount Floka he studied the conditions of the ground with minute attention, and realized that a surprise attack in the Moglena area might succeed, because the Bulgars were not likely to expect it. It was necessary to break through in the centre, and once the breach was made to spread out in a fan-like formation to reach Gradsko and Demir Kapu, thus cutting the enemy’s communications and separating the XI German Army from the I Bulgarian Army. At the same time powerful diversive actions on the right and left wings (Doiran sector and Cerna loop) would nail down the enemy and prevent them from sending reinforcements to the centre.

To carry out this plan it was indispensable to concentrate a mass of powerful artillery in the central area, have strong reserves, and at the same time hold the vast line throughout the whole of its length. The scheme appeared impossible owing to the absence of one of these requisites--the reserves. But General Franchet d’Espérey--and this was the touch of genius of his conception--created the reserves out of nothing, by thinning out his line and reducing the number of troops on all the other sectors to the minimum indispensable for safety and sometimes going dangerously below it, so as to concentrate the largest possible number of men on the points where the decisive effort was to be made. In this way, although the total strength of the Allies was slightly below that of the enemy, he managed to have an overwhelming superiority at the points where he attacked.

The following were the forces of the Armée d’Orient. It comprised: 8 French divisions (30th, 57th, 76th, 122nd and 156th Metropolitan Divisions, and 11th, 16th and 17th Colonial Divisions), one cavalry group (1st and 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique and Morocco Spahis), some units not forming part of any division (2nd bis Zouaves, 58th Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, various battalions of Senegalese, Algerians, Annamites, etc.); one Italian division equal to rather more than two French divisions, and including two squadrons of cavalry and other units; 4 British divisions (22nd, 26th, 27th and 28th), each with some cavalry detachments, and the 228th Garrison Brigade; 6 Serbian infantry divisions (Shumadia, Danube, Morava, Yugoslav, Drina and Timok) and one cavalry division; 10 Greek divisions (Archipelago, Crete and Serres of the National Defence Army, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 13th and 14th of the regular army), of whom one--the 9th--was not trained and was never sent to the front throughout the operations, and some cavalry; finally a few Albanian detachments.[41] In all there were 29½ divisions, of which the British, Serbian, Greek and the 5 Metropolitan French divisions comprised 9 battalions each, the French Colonial ones 12 each, and the Italian 18. The total strength was as follows:

Divisions Battalions Ration Strength Rifles

French 8 87 200,000 45,000
British 4½ 40 135,000 32,000
Italians 1 18 44,000 10,000
Serbs 6 57 95,000 30,000
Greeks 10 84 100,000 40,000
--- --- ------- -------
Total 29½ 286 574,000 157,000

The Allied artillery amounted to 1,600 guns, the machine guns were 2,680, the aeroplanes 200.

The total number of enemy battalions was somewhat less than that of the Allies (282), but their effectives were stronger--they amounted to about 700,000 men, including 204,000 rifles, while the men who could be regarded as combatants were 400,000. Their artillery was weaker as regards the number of guns (1,300). Until a few months previously they had been far stronger in artillery, but during the summer the Germans had withdrawn many of their batteries from the Eastern front and sent them to France, whereas the Allied artillery had been steadily strengthened. The enemy, however, still retained a larger number of heavy and medium calibre guns than we had, as well as several guns of greater calibre and range than anything on our side. Their machine guns were 2,530, and their aeroplanes only 80.

In view of the Allies’ inferiority in numbers, an attack could be delivered only by concentrating large forces on one point, and leaving the other sectors to be held by weak forces or by Greek troops of uncertain value.

General Franchet d’Espérey began by forming a new Army Group, called the Central Franco-Serbian Group, concentrated in the Moglena area. He withdrew from the Serbian front the Danube and Shumadia divisions, leaving the other four, reinforced by two French divisions--the 122nd (General Topard) and the 17th Colonial (General Pruneau)--attached to the II Serbian Army, by 13 heavy batteries and 30 trench guns, besides several flights of aeroplanes, engineer detachments, etc. He had asked for and obtained fresh technical material from France. The whole group was commanded by Voivod Michich. The Commander-in-Chief had decided on this plan as early as the end of June, and had devoted the following two and a half months to the necessary preparations. New roads and décauvilles had to be constructed, heavy artillery transported to a height of 1,800 metres, new aviation camps laid out, certain units specially trained. The 17th Colonial and the 122nd Divisions did not take over their sectors until the beginning of September. Although all movements were carried out at night, the enemy became aware that something was in preparation. In order to deceive them as to the point where the attack was to be delivered, a number of raids were carried out on various sectors.

The general distribution was as follows: The A.F.O. (General Henrys) from the river Tomoritza in Albania to a point between the Cerna and Gradesnitza; it comprised the 30th, 76th, 57th and 156th French Divisions and several minor units not forming part of any division, between the Tomoritza and the western end of the Cerna loop, the 35th Italian Division from that point to a point a little to the west of Makovo, while the line from hence to a point just beyond the east end of the Cerna loop was held by the 11th French Colonial Division and the 3rd Greek Division. Here began the area of the Franco-Serb group (Voivod Michich), with the Drina and Morava Divisions of the I Army to the left and the Yugoslav and Timok Divisions of the II Army to the left, reinforced by the 122nd and 17th French Divisions, extending as far as the neighbourhood of Nonte. To the right of the Serbs, was the area of the I Group of Divisions (General d’Anselme) reaching to the Vardar and comprising the 16th French Colonial Division, the Greek Archipelago Division and for a short time the 27th British. East of the Vardar was the British Army (General Milne), with the XII Corps, commanded by General Wilson, comprising the 22nd and 26th British Divisions, the 2nd bis Zouaves Regiment and the Greek Serres Division, west of Lake Doiran, and the XVI Corps (General Briggs) east of the lake, comprising the 28th British Division and Greek Cretan Division. From Lake Butkova to the sea the sector was held by the I Greek Corps (General Ioannou), under the orders of the British Commander-in-Chief, comprising the 1st, 2nd and 13th Divisions. The 4th and 14th Greek Divisions constituted a reserve for the British Army, and the 9th was still in training near Florina.

In the central sector, where the attack was to be first launched, the distribution was as follows: The I Serbian Army held a front of 16½ km. from the river Lesnitza to the Sokol, with the Danube and Drina Divisions in the first line and the Morava behind the centre. The II Army held a front of 17 km. from the Sokol to the river Sushitza, with the French 122nd and 17th Colonial to the left, the Shumadia to the right, the Yugoslav and the Timok in reserve. On the whole Franco-Serbian front were concentrated 36,000 rifles, 2,000 light machine guns, 81 aeroplanes and 600 guns--more than a third of the whole artillery of the Armée d’Orient and almost the whole of its heavy artillery, so that other sectors were stripped to a dangerous degree. These 600 guns comprised 8 batteries of short 120 mm., 17 of short 155 mm., 4 of long 105 mm., 3 of long 120 mm., 5 of long 155 mm., 48 of 75 mm. field guns, 35 of 65 mm. mountain guns, 72 trench mortars of 58 mm., and 12 of 240 mm. Thus the Allies had, on this sector, an overwhelming artillery superiority over the enemy.

The plan of operations provided for an initial destructive barrage to wreck the enemy’s first line defences opposite the II Serbian Army; then their artillery positions were to be bombarded and reinforcements prevented from coming up; finally, when a breach for the II Army was made, the artillery was to alter its direction and open up another gap for the I Army. The duty of the infantry was to try to capture all the positions between the Sokol and the Vetrenik, so as to penetrate as deeply as possible into the enemy’s lines in the direction of the apex of the triangle formed by the Cerna and the Vardar. If this plan succeeded, the enemy’s communications to the right and the left would be threatened. In a second phase the British XII Corps was to attack the two Couronnés and the P ridges to the west of Lake Doiran, while the XVI Corps was to attempt to turn the positions to the north-east of the lake, so as to threaten the road leading into Bulgaria by the Kosturino Pass and Strumitza. Above all it was to be the task of the British to prevent the enemy opposing them from sending reinforcements to the Serbian front, just as our forces were to fulfil a similar function on the Hill 1050 sector. Indeed, the best troops of the whole of the enemy Army were those opposite the British and the Italian sectors. In the third phase the Italians were to attack the famous 1050, with Prilep as their objective, while the Franco-Greek Group to our right was to advance along the Cerna. In the fourth phase the rest of the A.F.O. would enter the lists, attacking the positions around Monastir, also with Prilep as their objective. The final phase was to be an offensive by the I Greek Corps beyond the Struma, with a view to capturing Serres, Demir Hissar and the Rupel road leading into Bulgaria towards Djumaya. In view of the weakness of the effectives, it would be necessary to transfer the scanty available reserves and the artillery from one sector to another, and the various phases of the action were so arranged as to give those forces time to effect the movements contemplated--by no means an easy task on account of the state of communications in Macedonia.

It must be borne in mind that the objectives which General Franchet d’Espérey originally had in view were relatively modest, and many of his subordinate Commanders doubted that even these could be fully attained. The idea, even of the most optimistic, was that the Bulgarian first lines would probably be broken through, but that the enemy would offer a desperate resistance on the second and third lines, and that it would then be necessary for the Allies to entrench themselves again in new positions for another long period of waiting. The Commanders of the different Allied contingents, therefore, made superhuman efforts to collect all the necessary material with the object of reconstituting the defences on the new advanced lines which they expected to occupy. The scarcity of barbed wire was a source of grave anxiety for all Commands, and Staff officers lay awake at night wondering how on earth the troops could entrench themselves after having abandoned all the barbed wire in front of their present positions.

The Serbs alternated between the most unlimited hopes and the blackest pessimism. A great many of them doubted the possibility of breaking through the Vetrenik-Dobropolje line, while on the other hand the officers of the Serbian G.H.Q. openly declared that an offensive which did not result in an advance beyond Uskub would be an irreparable disaster, because the Army would suffer such losses that, if the troops did not re-enter Old Serbia, it would be impossible to fill up the gaps and they would be incapable of carrying out any more operations. General Franchet d’Espérey himself, to judge by his statements, did expect to strike a formidable blow at the Bulgarians and thus render them inclined to conclude a separate peace, to which the Allied victories in France and the fact that neither the Germans nor the Austro-Hungarians were now in a position to send help to their satellites in the East, would contribute. But even he did not dream of a complete and overwhelming victory.

There were no important changes in the enemy distribution on the eve of the offensive. The Commander-in-Chief was still General von Scholtz, with his G.H.Q. at Uskub. The Bulgarian Army was temporarily commanded by General Todoroff, the effective Commander-in-Chief, General Gekoff, being under treatment in an Austrian clinique. The enemy forces opposed to the Allies comprised three armies and part of a fourth, plus some ten Austro-Hungarian battalions on their extreme right, between the Tomoritza river and the Gora Top, belonging to General Pflanzer-Baltin’s force in Albania. The area from the Gora Top to Nonte was held by the XI German Army, commanded by General von Steuben, with headquarters at Prilep; this comprised two German army corps--the LXII from the Gora Top to the west end of the Cerna loop and the LXI from thence to a point north-west of Staravina--and the 2nd and 3rd Bulgarian Divisions. The XLII Corps comprised the Mixed Division (from the Gora Top to the Lake of Prespa), the 6th Division (as far as Magarevo), and the 1st (as far as the west end of the Cerna loop). The LXI comprised the 302nd German Division, composed of German and Bulgarian battalions (from the Cerna west to Makovo, i.e. opposite the Italians) and the 4th (as far as Staravina). The 2nd Division extended to the Dobropolje, and the 3rd to Nonte. The I Bulgarian Army, commanded by General Nerezoff, with headquarters at Valandovo, held the line from Nonte to Gornji Poroj (between Lakes Doiran and Butkova), and comprised the 5th Division (to the Vardar), the 9th (to Lake Doiran), and two more regiments taken from the 5th at the extreme left. The II Bulgarian Army, commanded by General Lukoff, whose headquarters were at Livunovo, extended to Lake Tahinos, and comprised the 11th (as far as the Struma east of Lake Butkova), the 7th as far as Serres, and the 8th to Lake Tahinos. Besides these forces there were various detachments of the IV Army, also called the Ægean Defence Force, with its headquarters at Xanthi, holding the line as far as Dede-Agatch--10th and 14th Divisions and several regiments of Militia.

The communications of the Allies were as follows: (1) The railway from Salonica to Monastir, which operated as far as Armenohor (Florina) for troops and to Sakulevo for goods; occasionally a train went into Monastir at night, but the last section of the line was still under enemy fire. (2) The Vardar railway from Salonica to a point south of Ghevgheli. (3) The Constantinople railway from Salonica to Lake Doiran; the section from Doiran to the Demir Hissar bridge (blown up by the French in 1916) was between the British and Bulgarian lines and therefore useless. (4) The branch line between Karasuli on N 2 and Kilindir on N 3. (5) A short branch line built by the British during the war, from Salonica to Guvesne on the Serres road. (6) The line from the station of Salonica across the town to Mikra Bay. There were many décauvilles, some of them very long, which rendered most valuable services. The following were the most important: Florina-Armensko (in the direction of Albania) unfinished, but continued with a telepheric to the Pisoderi Pass; Sakulevo-Brod with an extension towards the Italian front and another towards that of the I Serbian Army; Vertekop (on the Monastir railway) to the II Serbian Army front; Sarigöl-Janesh, with branches towards the British XII Corps front; several along the Struma, north-west of Lake Tahinos; one from Arakli to the British trenches beyond the Struma, south of that lake. Many excellent roads had been built throughout the _Zone des Armées_, except in the Franco-Albanian area and in that of the II Serbian Army, where communications were very deficient, owing to the extremely broken nature of the ground, but in the latter area several new roads had been built, as we have seen, in view of the coming offensive.

To sum up, the troops of the A.F.O. and of the I Serbian Army were supplied by the Monastir railway as far as Florina and Sakulevo, by the Florina-Armensko décauville and the Pisoderi telepheric, and the Sakulevo-Brod décauville with its extensions; the II Serbian Army by the railway as far as Vertekop and thence by décauville; the I Group of Divisions by the Vardar railway to Karasuli and thence by road; the British XII Corps by rail to Sarigöl and Kilindir and thence by décauville; the British XVI Corps, as long as it was on the Struma, by rail to Guvesne and thence by road to the Struma, whence a décauville reached various sectors; the brigade on the lower Struma, by rail to Arakli and thence by décauville. When the XVI Corps was moved to the area east of Lake Doiran, it was supplied by the same routes as the XII Corps, while the communications to the Struma now served the Greek I Corps. Everywhere the inadequacy of the railways was made good by the excellent M.T. services, and this not only for the areas where there were no railways at all, because the motor lorries helped to intensify transport even towards sectors served by railways, the carrying capacity of the latter being wholly inadequate to the immense needs of the armies. The British and French had several thousand lorries, we had about 400, the Greeks and Serbs were supplied by French and British lorries.

If communications between the base at Salonica and the various sectors of the front had been rendered fairly satisfactory, lateral communications were extremely difficult, and this was particularly felt during the September offensive, when it was frequently necessary (though not so often as was expected beforehand) to transfer troops and artillery from one sector to another.

The enemy’s communications were the following: The vital artery of the whole army was the Belgrade-Nish-Uskub-Veles-Ghevgheli railway, with a branch from Uskub to Kalkandelen (Tetovo). The Nish-Sofia-Constantinople line supplied the troops further east. From the former, several décauvilles and telepherics branched off. The most important was the one from Gradsko to Prilep, whence others extended to all the chief points of that area. Prilep, in fact, was a sort of Clapham Junction for décauvilles, with an imposing station. From Radomir on the Sofia-Kutstendil-Guyeshevo railway there was a very long décauville to the Demir Hissar bridge, which supplied almost the whole of the II Army. The enemy was richer in décauvilles than we were, but their road system was much poorer. As they had few lorries, and these without rubber tyres, the iron wheels reduced the roads to an appalling state. The Bulgarian Army made great use of the peasants’ ox-carts and of mules and small mountain ponies. On the whole the enemy’s transport was inadequate. Their only advantage was the possibility of obtaining supplies from Central Europe by rail. Salonica, it is true, was nearer to the Allied front than Belgrade, Nish or Sofia to that of the enemy, but the sea passage to Salonica was still exposed to submarine dangers, and tonnage was scarce, especially in the summer of 1918, on account of the transport of American troops to France. The enemy could, moreover, obtain reinforcements from the German garrisons in Roumania and from the depots in Bulgaria. What the Allies did not know was how far the Germans could reduce their garrisons in Roumania and whether the Bulgarians were still provided with abundant reserves. The Bulgarian battalions at the front were much stronger than those of the Allies, but according to information obtained by the Allied intelligence services it appeared that the depots were almost empty and that there were not more than three or four Bulgarian militia regiments available in Serbia or Bulgaria to be sent to the front. The conditions of the Germans in Roumania and South Russia were even less well known. The Bulgarian _moral_ was, as we have seen, becoming even more depressed. War weariness was spreading and led to increased desertions, and in a few cases to mutiny. The German troops which served to stiffen the Bulgarians had been greatly reduced, and relations between the two were by no means too friendly.

What was certain was that neither the French, the British nor the Italian Commands intended to send out another man to Macedonia, so that the C.A.A. must count exclusively on the troops actually in the country for the coming struggle. The Italian forces in Albania being about equal to those of the Austrians, there was no likelihood of reinforcements being available on either side.