Chapter XV: The Battle of the Balkans

The C.A.A. had succeeded in keeping the secret of its plan of operations up to the very last moment. The enemy, who dominated the lines of access on many parts of the front, could see that an offensive was in preparation, but, according to statements of prisoners and deserters, it had no precise idea as to the front or fronts where the attack was to be launched. It appears that only on September 14th they were convinced that the Serbian sector had been selected, but then it was too late to take precautions. The uncertainty which had reigned until that day had left them hesitating as to which area needed reinforcements. On the 14th, at eight o’clock, a heavy destructive barrage was opened on the enemy lines opposite the Franco-Serb positions. The following morning, at 5.30, the French infantry (122nd Division) advanced to the attack against the enemy positions on the Dobropolje. The enemy’s barrage fire began too late, and after two hours of hard fighting the Dobropolje fell. The French had lost 700 men, losses which were largely due to the failure of the Serbian infantry to co-operate. General Topard, commanding the division, now pushed forward against Hill 1765, behind Dobropolje, where the enemy still resisted, and in the early hours of the afternoon even that position was captured. Further to the left the enemy held out on the Sokol, where the bombardment had not yet destroyed the defences. But its capture was indispensable for the movement of the I Serbian Army, which was to commence on the following day; the Serbians were so much impressed by the difficulties, that the French had to act alone. Two battalions of the French 148th Regiment did not succeed in reaching the summit of the mountain, so that a third was sent up to reinforce them. The soldiers descended into the valley of the Matova, and, mounted on mules belonging to the divisional train, rapidly reached the positions of the first battalion, which renewed the attack, and at 21 hours the Sokol fell. To the right the 17th Colonial Division and the Serbian Shumadia Division took the Kravitza-Vetrenik group, advancing in broken order. The Serbians, creeping from rock to rock, reached the Slonovo Uvo at seven o’clock. In the afternoon they were on the eastern and western slopes of Vetrenik and near the Shlen and the Golo Bilo, where they were joined by the 17th Division on the left. The 17th Division deployed on the plateau of the Kravitza, in spite of the vigorous resistance of the enemy, who, having been reinforced, counter-attacked rapidly, but at 15.30 hours, the highest point of the Kravitza was occupied and the Bulgarian defenders captured or destroyed. In the evening, at 21 hours, the whole of the Sokol-Dobropolje-Kravitza--Vetrenik fortified system was in the hands of the Allies, and the great breach was made. The losses had not been very heavy, 1,700 French, of whom 1,200 of the 17th Division and 500 of the 122nd Division, and 200 Serbs.

It was necessary to develop this success at once so as to widen the breach, and in the night of the 15th-16th the I Serbian Army (General Boyovich) came into action, while Voivod Stepanovich pushed forward the Jugoslav and Timok Divisions, which had been hitherto kept in reserve, beyond the lines occupied by the assaulting divisions; this he was able to do because General Franchet d’Espérey had insisted that they should be kept close at hand, although the Serbian Command wished to leave them much further back. At 15.45 hours the Timok Division passed beyond the outposts of the 17th Colonial Division, and as the trenches captured corresponded roughly to the Greco-Serb frontier, the Serbian troops made a demonstration of sympathy to the French, whose splendid victorious effort had enabled them to re-enter their fatherland. The same day the Yugoslav Division, after a long march, attacked on the Koziak (Hill 1550, north of the Vetrenik), captured Hills 1810 and 1825, lost the former in consequence of a counter-attack delivered by Bulgarian reinforcements which had just arrived, but recaptured it definitely. To the extreme left, the Franco-Serb Group and the 1st Group of Divisions came into action with the attack of the 16th Colonial Division on Zborsko, where the trenches to the west were captured, but the enemy managed to hold the village. In the night of the 16th-17th, on the left of the I Serbian Army, the advance of the 11th Colonial Division began, together with elements of the 3rd Greek Division; while to the right and left of the Cerna (east) a battalion of Senegalese occupied Staravina, the Greeks occupied Zovik.

To face p. 227.
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The next objective to be reached was the Vardar at its confluence with the Cerna, so as to occupy not only the whole of the triangle formed by the two rivers, but to threaten the communications of the enemy troops south of Monastir and in the Cerna loop, as well as on Lake Doiran. The II Serbian Army pushed on towards the lower valley, crossed the Cerna, with the Morava Division (in reserve) between the two, and the 11th Colonial Division advanced echeloned obliquely so as to occupy as great a part as possible of the area to the right of the Cerna. The enemy grasped the seriousness of the situation, and the Command of the XI German Army gave orders to resist at all costs on the Kuchkov Kamen (Hill 1800 north of the Koziak). On the 17th the attacks of the II Serbian Army on that position and further east on the Topolatz, on the Studena Voda (Hill 1201), developed. The enemy resistance was desperate, and their counter-attacks were sometimes successful, but the Serbian advance continued irresistibly, and the enemy abandoned one position after another, losing a great deal of material. General Russoff, Commander of the 2nd Bulgarian Division, was relieved by order of the German Command, and succeeded by General Nikoloff, but neither this change of Command nor the sending of some feeble reinforcements could hold up the advance. On the same day the I Serbian Army attacked the Mount Beshista-Pandeli-Trezia line; on the 18th the Danube Division captured the important bridge of Razim Bey on the Cerna, and the entire army commenced a vast turning movement to occupy the whole of the right bank of the river from Selo-Monastir to Polosko. The Bulgarians defended themselves obstinately, hoping to save their vast depots filled with supplies, but being unable to succeed in this object, they were forced to fall back, burning the bridges between Polosko and Cebren, and everything they could not remove. On the 18th-19th the Danube Division created a bridgehead at Razim Bey on the Cerna, which it afterwards consolidated so as to co-operate with the French and Greeks on the left bank. It was, however, necessary to complete the operation by reaching the middle Vardar, as a frontal advance by Ghevgheli offered serious difficulties. The Serbian Cavalry Division, commanded by Colonel Georgevich, which had been brought to the immediate rear of the Serbian main lines, was now pushed forward to Kavadar, the important road centre a little to the south of the confluence of the Vardar and the Cerna. This was the extreme point reached by the Armée d’Orient in the autumn of 1915. But the advance of the Serbians had been very rapid, whereas the forces on their flanks were still on their old positions, so that an apparently dangerous salient had been created. At the same time the C.A.A. had received information from reliable sources that some German reinforcements had arrived on the Struma front; in fact, a Greek patrol had captured some prisoners of the 256th Reserve Regiment, a unit now identified for the first time in Macedonia, and which was believed to be in Roumania. This and other information concerning German movements led to the belief that an attack was being threatened against the right flank of the Armée d’Orient, which was held only by Greek troops without heavy artillery, and therefore regarded as the weakest sector. For a moment the Staff of the C.A.A. contemplated the possibility of suspending the offensive, and even of recalling the more advanced troops, but after short reflection, and in consequence of the earnest insistence of the Serbian Command, General Franchet d’Espérey decided to stick to his original plan. The advance thus continued; the Morava Division occupied Mount Chaterna, and crossed the Belasnitza torrent, the Yugoslav Division occupied Mount Rozden and advanced on the village of Mrzetzko; the Timok Division, after a lively engagement, captured the Studena Voda and the Blatetz; the I Group of Divisions, having overcome the enemy’s resistance at Zborsko, captured all the positions in that area and occupied Nonte and Mount Preslap. On the 19th, the line attained was the following: North of Nonte, north of Mount Blatetz, north of Rozden, Mrzetzko, course of the Belsnitza (which had been crossed at various points), Vrbetzko, course of the Cerna, passing by Vprchani, the bridge head of Razim Bey, then in a south-westerly direction towards the front of the 11th Colonial Division on the left of the Cerna. But the Serbian Cavalry Division had pushed ahead a great deal further towards Kavadar with such rapidity that the C.A.A. could no longer follow its operations. On the 20th the Danube Division was deployed along the left bank of the Cerna from Razim Bey to Godiak, the Morava Division from Godiak to Polosko, the Yugoslav Division on the Drachevatzko Brdo and on the heights north of Brusani, the Timok Division to the north-west of Radina and at the village of Bohila, while its divisional cavalry (not to be confused with the Cavalry Division) was descending into the valley of Boshava. News was received that the Cavalry Division was already in Kavadar, and had reached Marena and Sopot; soon afterwards it reached the Vardar at Negotin, and cut the Uskub-Ghevgheli railway. The I Group continued to advance, and on the 21st detachments of the 16th Colonial, the Greek Archipelago and 4th Divisions captured Mounts Dzena and Yarena, the chief points of the Eastern Moglena; there only remained Mount Porta, obstinately held by a Bulgarian detachment. But even this position fell soon after. The I Group now descended from a height of 2,000 m. to 100 m., reaching the Vardar and Demir Kapu. The same day the river was reached by troops of the II Serbian Army between Demir Kapu and Krivolak. The 122nd Division and all the heavy artillery was now being transferred towards the Cerna loop, with a view to new operations in that area. The speed of the advance had shown the diminishing combative spirit of the Bulgarians, who, in spite of the fact that the famous second and third lines did not exist, might have resisted on the many extremely strong natural positions. The number of prisoners captured was not very large, about 6,000, and the guns a little more than 100. It therefore seemed as though the Bulgarians were anxious to save their artillery and keep their army in being in order to defend themselves on positions further north, perhaps on the frontiers of Bulgaria.

In the morning the attack was commenced on the right flank with the object of preventing the enemy from sending reinforcements against the Serbs, and from threatening the salient that the advance of the latter had created. West and north of Lake Doiran the enemy had concentrated some of the best Bulgarian regiments, with three in reserve and two to the north-east of the lake. As we have seen, the British XII Corps was spread out to the west of the lake, comprising the British 22nd and 26th Divisions (Generals Duncan and Gay), the Greek Serres Division (in all 27 battalions), and the French 2nd bis Zouave Regiment, with a great deal of artillery, including nearly all the medium and heavy calibre guns not employed on the Serbian front. To the north-east there was the XVI Corps, comprising the 28th British Division (General Croker) and the Greek Cretan Division. After a very intense bombardment, lasting several days, the attack was launched at 5.15 hours on both sectors. The objectives of General Wilson’s attack were the same as those of the attacks in the spring of 1917, and the enemy positions were of immense strength. The hard rocky ground, as General Milne wrote in his dispatch of December 1, 1918, makes the consolidation of newly won positions very difficult, and gives overwhelming advantage to the defender in trenches that have been the work of three years, while deep cut ravines hold up progress and afford every opportunity for enfilading fire.

Soon after six o’clock, the Greeks on the right had stormed the enemy positions up to Doiran Hill, and had taken many prisoners, while on the left the 66th Brigade advanced on P ridge “with consummate self-sacrifice and gallantry.” The enemy had here three strong lines of defence, teeming with concrete machine-gun emplacements, whence they could mow down the advancing columns. After very severe fighting the 12th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, and the 9th South Lancashire, supported by the 8th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, reached the third line. But the devastating machine-gun fire and the explosion of a mine, which held them up for a little, made it impossible for the attacking force to hold their positions and obliged them to fall back on their lines of departure. The brigade lost 65 per cent. of its effectives, including two battalion commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Clegg Hill and Lieutenant-Colonel Bishop, who fell at the head of their troops. In the centre British and Greek forces attacked the positions between the Grand Couronné and the P ridge, and, in spite of the enemy’s desperate resistance and machine-gun fire, penetrated about one mile, and reached the lower slopes of the Grand Couronné. But the failure of the attack on the P ridge made it impossible for them to retain their ground, and they were forced to fall back, “the last to leave being the survivors of the 7th Battalion, South Wales Borderers--19 unwounded men and one wounded officer.”

To the north-east of the lake the Cretan Division and troops of the 28th Division had advanced across the plain between the lake and the Beles range, and at dawn attacked the enemy positions; the outpost lines were carried, and the main lines penetrated at two points, but the ground gained could not be maintained, and General Milne authorized the force to fall back on the railway.

In order to assist the progress of the Serbs and to prevent the enemy on the Doiran front from sending reserves against them, it was decided to renew the attack the next day. General Wilson’s force had been strengthened by the 14th Greek Division sent up from the training camp at Naresh to relieve the Serres Division, which had suffered heavily.

On the 19th, at five o’clock, after an all-night bombardment, Scottish and Greek troops again attacked the Bulgarian positions on the lower slopes of the Grand Couronné, and captured a good deal of ground, in spite of the desperate resistance and heavy machine-gun fire of the enemy. But the 65th Brigade, which had come up from an influenza observation camp in the night to relieve the 66th, failed in its gallant attack on the P ridge. The troops at the centre and on the right thus found their left exposed, and were forced to fall back, and part of the ground gained on the previous day had also to be abandoned. The retreat was covered by the 12th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the 8th Royal Scots Fusiliers, and the 11th Scottish Rifles, who suffered severe casualties, including all their Commanding Officers killed or wounded. By midday General Milne decided to consolidate the ground won, which included the Petit Couronné, the Téton Hill, and Doiran town; but the P ridge and the Grand Couronné still held out.

The total losses of the British had been about 3,900, and of the Greeks 2,300. The Bulgarians, too, had lost heavily--some 4,600 men, including 1,200 prisoners. It was impossible to renew the attack owing to the greatly reduced strength of the British, whose battalions, even before the attack, were only about 400 men each, and now the slopes of the Grand Couronné and the P ridges were covered with British dead. Although the Bulgarians had been almost without food for four days as the British barrage had prevented the arrival of supplies, they still occupied their terrible positions, and the whole thing seemed a useless tragedy in spite of the great heroism shown. “Rather than miss the opportunity for which they had waited three years, officers and men remained in the ranks till often they dropped from sheer exhaustion,” wrote General Milne in his report--but nothing had been gained. The real objective, however, had been achieved: not a single Bulgarian soldier had been able to leave this sector to help in resisting the Serbian advance.

It was at this moment that the defeat of the enemy began to take shape. A great part of the Vardar-Cerna triangle was lost, the few troops remaining between Demir Kapu and Ghevgheli had now to fall back beyond the Vardar in a north-easterly direction, and this fact constituted a menace even for the troops round Lake Doiran, to whom no other line of supply was left but the Doiran-Kosturino-Strumitza road. On the 21st signs that a retreat was beginning were noted on the British front. Everywhere depots were observed to be in flames, and munitions dumps exploding. General Milne, with his XII Corps strengthened by the 14th Greek Division, renewed the offensive. The 9th Bulgarian Division having offered but slight resistance, the formidable defences collapsed without much effort, and the whole II Bulgarian Army fell back, seeking safety over the narrow Kosturino Pass. While the British infantry and cavalry pursued them, flights of aeroplanes, flying only a few metres from the ground, bombarded the Bulgarians and shot down men with machine guns along the Strumitza road, encumbered with vehicles, artillery, etc., by now in indescribable disorder. The spectacle offered by that road was one of appalling confusion and terror. From all sides fires broke out; guns were abandoned in gullies, rifles, equipment, baggage were thrown away, and the demoralized army fled towards its homeland.

On the 21st the A.F.O. came into action. The enemy troops on this sector were less threatened than on the other sectors, because, if they had lost the Prilep-Gradsko road, they still retained that over the Babuna Pass between Prilep and Veles, which could be easily defended, and the Kichevo-Kalkandelen road. But they were now threatened in another quarter. Day by day the communications between the XI German Army and Bulgaria were becoming more difficult, and it could be foreseen that at any moment they might be cut altogether, and then that Army would have had no other alternative but to retreat across Albania to reach the Herzegovina and Dalmatia. It was the fate of the Serbian Army in 1915 which seemed about to be repeated. On that day detachments of the 11th Colonial Division (General Farret) and the 3rd Greek Division (General Tricoupis) crossed the Cerna (east) between Selo-Monastir and Cebren, and advanced in the direction of Prilep. General Henrys, commanding the A.F.O., now ordered the advance of his whole army, beginning with an attack launched by the Italian Expeditionary Force.

The duties assigned to the latter were: 1st, to carry out, during the Franco-Serbian offensive, an intensive demonstrative action, to prevent the enemy in front of it from withdrawing troops to reinforce the centre (a duty similar to that of the British); 2nd, the Franco-Serbian attack having been launched, the I.E.F. was to continue to act demonstratively and to resist any counter-attack which might be attempted by the enemy, in fact, to provoke such counter-attacks so as to make the enemy believe that we ourselves intended to attack immediately, and to make of our sector the pivot of an enveloping movement on the part of the Serbs; 3rd, as soon as this movement had produced its effect on the right flank of the 302nd German Division (the one opposite to us) and on the lines of communication in the Cerna loop, to attack and pursue the enemy in the direction of Prilep, their chief centre of supplies west of the Vardar and headquarters of the XI German Army.

The first and second of these tasks were carried out in the period from the 14th to the 21st of September, and the Italian troops nailed down the enemy on its front by means of bombardments and repeated local attacks of so fierce a character as not only to prevent them from sending any help against the Franco-Serbs, but to make them believe that the attack in the centre was to be followed immediately by one on our area. In order to forestall this supposed intention, they attacked vigorously, so much so, that the object desired by the Commander in-Chief was more than achieved, but at the cost of heavy losses on our side. Our defences were seriously wrecked by the German and Bulgarian artillery, but the Italian infantry resisted admirably under this terrific fire, and the enemy attacks were all repulsed. On September 22nd the threat of an enveloping movement in the direction of the Cerna (east) began to be perceived by the enemy, and General Mombelli ordered the attack. At 17.30 hours our infantry sprang out of the trenches, where they had been held down for two years, unable to advance a step; an hour later they were beyond the enemy’s first lines, and the whole mighty defensive system collapsed. The terrible Hill 1050, which had been so powerfully fortified, which we had studied with such minute care and attention as though it were a zone of great archæological interest, and whose crest we had never been able to hold, was finally in our hands. Those cruel eyes of the enemy’s observation posts on the topmost ridge, whose pitiless glance had inflicted death or wounds to so many gallant soldiers, were now closed for ever.

The defences proved even stronger than we had suspected. Immense caverns there were, cut out of the solid rock on the northern slopes of the hill, which our shells had never been able to reach, illuminated by electricity and supplied with special appliances, by means of which the various detachments were warned of every different kind of bombardment, so that each man knew at once where to take refuge--nothing, in fact, had been neglected to make of this mountain an impregnable fortress.

In this first attack we took few prisoners, about 150, because the broken nature of the ground enabled the bulk of the enemy forces to escape us, as had happened to the Franco-Serbians for the same reasons on the first days. The Lucca Light Cavalry and the detachments of machine gunners on motor lorries, which General Mombelli had kept ready near the front, dashed forward in pursuit of the enemy and had some heavy engagements at Kanatlarci. The whole division then advanced. On the morning of the 22nd the battalions were 10 km. beyond the enemy lines, and were pursuing the Bulgarian rearguard. The Command also pushed forward its G.H.Q., and Tepavci was abandoned for good. In the Monastir-Prilep plain, behind Hill 1050, there were several heights on which the enemy might have made a stand, but as on the Serbian front, there were no second lines, except a few lines of insignificant wire entanglements and some isolated trenches. The Bulgarians offered a certain resistance on the heights of Cepik (Hill 664), Kalabak (Hill 1772), and Topolchani (Hill 603), on both sides of the Monastir-Prilep road, while our troops occupied the edge of these same heights. From that point the advance on Prilep would have been easy, but at 14 hours on the 23rd our Command received orders from the G.Q.G. to let Prilep be occupied by the 11th Colonial Division on our right, and to advance on Krushevo. The reason for this change of programme was to prevent the enemy troops in the Monastir area from retreating towards Kichevo, whence a road leads across the mountains to Gostivar and Kalkandelen, the terminus of the railway from Uskub. This task was really important, because its object was to prevent numerous Bulgarian regiments from reaching Uskub and to facilitate the action of the Franco-Serb offensive towards that very important railway and road junction, the only point through which the remains of the XI German Army could hope to rejoin the rest of the enemy troops. But it cannot be denied that this change of programme was a disappointment for our officers and men. Prilep was a well-known objective, and had been much talked about as it was the headquarters of the Army Command, and was provided with depots and shelters; it had to be occupied by someone, and its occupation by our troops would have been a slight moral and material satisfaction for the 35th Division such as it was not accustomed to. The matter was really of small importance, but it would have pleased us had it been known that that important centre had been first occupied by the Italians. The fact that French troops were sent there instead of ours was not, perhaps, due to any lack of consideration towards us on the part of the C.A.A., but it appeared in that light, all the more so as the same thing had happened when we were acting in liaison with the French in the Monastir operations, and it would have been better to avoid even the appearance of unfriendliness.

To face p. 236.
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But the Division at once set to work to execute this new plan, and after effecting a conversion of 90 degrees in a westerly direction, it set forth on an exhausting march, after the long and arduous fighting advance of the previous days. The troops, however, gave no signs of fatigue, and reached the line between Cepik and the bridge over the Belavitza. On the 24th our right wing (Sicilia Brigade with 6 mountain batteries), which was advancing towards Zapolchani, was temporarily held up by the enemy artillery, firing from the heights of Novo Selani, while the centre and the left (Cagliari Brigade with 2 mountain batteries, 9 French field batteries, 1 heavy French battery, and 2 squadrons of the Lucca cavalry) reached the Vodiani-Krivogastani line, and found itself confronted by the enemy infantry in strong positions on the edge of the heights of Krushevo (Hill 1176), and of the Draghisetz (Hills 1150 and 1291), and in the gorge of the Cerna, near the Buchin bridge and Vodiani. The Ivrea Brigade, which was in reserve, followed towards the left.

On the 25th the Sicilia Brigade, strengthened by detachments of the 11th French Colonial Division, which had just come up, reached the heights of Godivla, north-east of Krushevo; the centre halted on the edge of the heights of Krushevo, rising precipitously 550 m. above the plain, while the left began the attack on Buchin, where it became engaged in a vigorous combat. On the 26th the whole Division, having overcome the enemy resistance, crossed the great barrier of the Baba Planina and Draghisetz mountains, its right pushed forward to the foot of Mount Cesma, the centre at Krushevo and Ostreltze, and its left along the line Sveta-Hill 1150-Hill 1291 of the Draghisetz. Thus the Bulgarians, in retiring from the Monastir area, could no longer fall back on Prilep, but were forced to try to reach the Kichevo-Kalkandelen gorge, which was becoming more crowded every hour. The same evening we pushed a strong column westward from Krushevo in the direction of Karaul Kruska and Sop, while another, which had also started from Krushevo, advanced through Ostreltze towards Tzer.

On the 27th, our positions were as follows. The right wing occupied the greater part of Mount Cesma, and, together with the French troops, drove back the enemy from the Harilovo-Diviak area. The main column of the centre, having advanced beyond Pustareka, had reached Karaul Kruska, and the flanking column on the left, which, after having passed through Kochista, reached the neighbourhood of Tzer; the left, after occupying Priblitzi, pushed forward through Dolentzi to Sop, along the Monastir-Kichevo road. On the 28th, the right column completed the occupation of Mount Cesma, and advanced towards the Stramol and Baba mountains, north-east of Sop; the principal column and the centre, after overcoming the enemy’s vigorous resistance, occupied a line of heights 3 km. to the east of that village, while its left flanking column co-operated in the action from Tzer. The left reached Hill 932 to the south of Sop, in support of the action of the centre.

The Bulgarians here were in very strong positions. With numerous forces of infantry, a great many machine guns, and several field and heavy batteries withdrawn from the Monastir front, they had entrenched themselves on formidable lines in the Sop gorge, where they were prepared to offer a desperate resistance. The following day the Sicilia Brigade succeeded in driving the enemy from Mounts Stramol and Baba, and after occupying these positions pushed on towards Plasnitza to co-operate with the 11th Colonial Division, which was attacking the enemy entrenched on the heights of Izitza to the north of the Yelika valley. In the centre our battalions renewed the attack on Sop from the south-east and east so as to pin down the enemy, while those of the right column executed a turning movement from Karaul Kruska towards the north-east to cut off their retreat. The fighting during those days was very fierce, and cost us 500 casualties. The Bulgars had been strengthened on the night of the 28th-29th by two more regiments and several machine-gun companies, which had fallen back from Monastir, but had been recalled. The behaviour of our troops in all these very stiff engagements against an enemy superior in numbers, in dominating positions, and supplied with great abundance of artillery of all calibres and machine-guns, had been admirable, and it must be remembered that they were exhausted by the long and tiring marches over very rough country. If the Serbs had advanced further, they had, however, after the first two days found an enemy that resisted far less vigorously than was the case in our sector. Furthermore, the enemy opposed to us was directly under German Command--Army Command, Corps Command, and partly Divisional Command--and was stiffened by the presence of several German detachments.

The French divisions of the A.F.O. (30th, 57th, 76th, 156th) came into action almost at the same moment as the Italians. General Henrys wished to cut off the enemy’s retreat by the Kichevo-Kalkandelen road, the only one which still remained open, but in the sector of Hill 1248 the Bulgarians still resisted tenaciously and held up the advance. To the west, the 302nd German Division had begun to fall back, the 6th and 1st Bulgarian Divisions were forced to follow suit, and this enabled the French to deploy along the Dihovo-Dragarina line to the north-west of Monastir, finally liberating that unfortunate city from a bombardment that had lasted nearly two years. On the 23rd the French occupied Berantzi and Topolchani, and on the evening of that day, while the Italians were advancing towards Krushevo to the north-west, they reached the line Kukurechani-Novo Selani-Prilep, cutting across the line of our advance, and the French cavalry entered Prilep, followed on the 24th by the 11th Colonial Division. On the 25th the Bulgars still held out to the west of Monastir, and with the help of three regiments, which had retired but had been subsequently recalled, repulsed the attacks of the 76th Division; the 156th was at Stari Srptzi, and beyond the sector occupied by the 35th, the 3rd Greek Division (attached to the 11th Colonial) was deployed across the Prilep-Brod road.[42] It was then suspected by the C.A.A. that a new defensive plan had been evolved by the enemy--and its existence has been subsequently confirmed by Marshal von Hindenburg’s _Memoirs_--to withdraw the centre and right, making a pivot of the Doiran sector, and resisting at Uskub, until the arrival of the Bulgarians retreating from the Monastir area, _via_ Kichevo-Kalkandelen, and of the reinforcements expected from Germany and Austria. The Bulgarians, as we have seen, tried to delay the advance of the French and Italians, calling back regiments that had begun to retire but this decision proved fatal. The troops that had withdrawn on the 25th found their line of retreat cut to the north by Allied detachments. On the same day the 30th Division reached Prevaletz (Hill 912), on the road from Monastir to Resna, and on the 26th it reached the latter place; the 76th crossed the Semnitza river, and the 156th occupied Hill 1493 on the Drvenik, to the south of Vodiani. In the meanwhile General Franchet d’Espérey had created a new unit, called the Groupement Tranié, composed of the 42nd and 44th Regiments of the 11th Colonial Division, the 58th Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, the Cavalry Brigade, a group of 75 mm. batteries and one of 65 mm., with orders to push on towards Uskub. Later the 76th Division rapidly left the Babuna road from Prilep towards Veles and Uskub, and along the heights to the north-west of it. On the 26th the line held by the A.F.O. (the 35th Division included) was the following: Resna-Sveti Petar-Murgas-west of Krushevo-Belushin-Yakrenovo-Ropotovo (on the Prilep-Kichevo road). On the 28th, with the occupation of Ochrida by the 57th, the line passed by Hill 975, Demir Hissar (on the Monastir-Kichevo road), and Brod on the Prilep-Kichevo road. The French reached Trebuniste, to the north of Ochrida on the 29th, and advancing along the west shore of the lake, cut the Elbasan-Ochrida road at Lin, and thus the last line of escape across Albania which remained to the XI German Army was closed.

The I Serbian Army pushed on down Cerna valley to the west of the river, and advanced in a north-westerly direction, reaching the Leniste-Pletvar-Troyatzi-Toplitza-Drenovo (to the north-west of the Prilep-Gradsko road) line. Along this road the Serbs captured a great deal of booty and many vehicles. The Bulgarians, urged by the German Command, made every effort to defend Gradsko, a vital centre of their communications, full of large military depots, against the Franco-Serbs (Yugoslav Division and 17th Colonial Division), but on the 23rd, after the 11th Colonial Division had captured the monastery and the village of Chichevo, Gradsko fell into the hands of the Serbs. Once Gradsko was lost, the enemy tried to defend Veles, but the Tranié Group was, as we have seen, on the Babuna road, and on the same day the Serbian Army reached the same road beyond Izvor. On the 25th the Serbian cavalry entered Istip, and on the 26th the II Army, after a fairly brisk engagement, occupied Veles, and pushed on towards the north-west. Immediately afterwards the Serbian cavalry reached Kochana, Grlena and Tzarevo Selo, this latter an important point whence the upper valley of the Struma, which is in Bulgaria, could be menaced. The cavalry was followed by the infantry, conveyed in British and French lorries, and entered Kochana. On the 29th the French cavalry, commanded by General Jouinot-Gambetta, to which a part of the Serbian Cavalry was attached, after a forced march, entered Uskub, the chief city of Northern Macedonia, and erstwhile German G.H.Q. in the Balkans, a junction of four railways and of numerous roads. Thus the enemy’s hope of resisting, by effecting a junction between the detachments of the XI German Army, arriving from Kalkandelen (which, according to Von Hindenburg, was in excellent condition), and the Austrian and German reinforcements from the north, was rendered vain. Soon afterwards the remainder of the Tranié Group arrived, while the Serbian Yugoslav and Timok Divisions pushed eastwards towards the Bulgarian frontier. The Bulgarians still held out on the Tzrni Kamen and in the Tzarevo Selo, Bogdanovatz, and Chavka area, and protected the retreat of the remnants of the I Army towards Djumaya. The Yugoslav Division and the cavalry occupied Tzar Vrh (Hill 2104), Tzrkvenetz, and Ostretz, and spread out to Tzarevo Selo, thus dominating the approaches to Kustendil. Contemporaneously with these operations, the I Group of Divisions (from which the 27th British Division had been detached to rejoin the rest of the British Army) had cleaned up the whole of the area to the north-west of Ghevgheli and to the north-east of the Vardar on the Gradetz mountains. On the 29th it occupied Radovista, and effected a junction with the Serbs.

To face p. 242.
]

The British now continued their pursuit of the enemy in their desperate retreat towards Strumitza, and soon occupied the whole of the area to the west and north of Lake Doiran. On the 25th the troops of the XVI Corps advanced to the right and left of the Doiran-Strumitza road, and penetrated into Bulgaria by the Kosturino pass; on the 26th they occupied Strumitza itself.[43] These were the first Allied detachments to penetrate into enemy territory in the Balkans; actually the first to enter were the Derbyshire Yeomanry. The XII Corps had, in the meanwhile, pushed towards the right of the XVIth, and on the 25th commenced the attack on the Beles to the east and the right. On the same day General Milne transferred his G.H.Q. from Salonica to Janesh in order to be nearer the scene of operations. On the 26th, detachments of the British 22nd and 20th Divisions and the Cretan Division, and of the 2nd bis Zouaves regiment attacked the Bulgarians entrenched on the Beles, that vast mountain wall from 1,100 m. to 1,600 m. high, which for two years has seemed an absolutely impregnable barrier. The enemy offered but slight resistance, because they were already beaten, and the heights were occupied one after the other. On the 28th a regiment of the Cretan Division pushed along the ridge from west to east, another, together with the British 228th Brigade, advanced along the valley below towards Lake Butkova, and a third column of the XVI Corps followed the parallel valley to the north, down the course of the River Strumitza. The object of this triple advance was to reach the Struma towards the Rupel and Kresna gorges, and thus cut off the retreat of the forces of the II Army, which had remained until then on the lower Struma.

Thus the enemy armies were cut in two. The rapid advance of the French and Serbs had driven a deep wedge in between the XI German Army and the rest of the hostile forces. The XI Army was partly on the mountains to the north of the Monastir-Prilep plain, and partly in the Kalkandelen area; the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 13th Divisions of the I Bulgarian Army were echeloned between the Uskub-Kumanovo road and the valley of the Strumitza, but they had lost a large part of their artillery; the II Army was still on the lower Struma, and its retreat towards Bulgaria was seriously threatened by the Anglo-Greek advance. Bulgaria was invaded by the British in the Strumitza Valley, the Serbians were watching on the Bulgarian-Macedonian frontier between Tzarevo Selo and Pehtzevo, ready to descend on the territory of the hated enemy and take vengeance for their past sufferings. The I Greek Corps, which until then had remained inactive, was now ready to cross the valley of the Struma and launch an attack on Serres and Demir Hissar.

General Mombelli was making his preparations for a general attack on Sop, where large Bulgarian forces were concentrated. The attack was to take place on the morning of the 30th in order to compel the enemy to surrender. The German Commands of the XI Army, of the LXI and LXII Corps, and of the 302nd Division, as well as the artillery, machine-gun companies and German specialist detachments, realizing that the Bulgarian defeat was now inevitable, fled in the night, after having cut all the telegraph and telephone wires, so that for several days the Bulgarian Army had no communication with the rest of the army or with their country. It had to improvise new Commands and Staffs for its units, which had been abandoned by their erstwhile omnipotent Allies. The attack on Sop was to have been launched from the north and north-east by the Sicilia Brigade, and contemporaneously from the south and south-west by the Ivrea and Cagliari Brigades, but at 5.30 General Mombelli received a wireless message announcing the conclusion of the Armistice, which was to come into force on that very day. The attack was therefore suspended, and the Bulgarian Commander invited to surrender. But as the communications with their G.H.Q. and with the Sofia Government had been cut, he refused at first to believe the news, and it took two days of discussion, conducted on the Italian side by General Freri, Commander of the Cagliari Brigade, to convince the Bulgarians, and it was only on October 3rd that the surrender took place. The capitulation was unconditional, the officers alone being allowed to retain their swords and revolvers. The prisoners comprised a Divisional Commander, two Brigadiers, 16 field officers, 224 junior officers, and 7,727 men; 8 guns and 70 machine guns, and a large quantity of other booty were captured. At the same time, the rest of the troops who had been fighting against us on the Stramol and Baba mountains--over 10,000 men and many batteries--surrendered to the 11th French Colonial Division near Kichevo, because it was easier of access. It was thus against a total of nearly 18,000 men with a large number of batteries and machine guns that the troops of the 35th Division, inferior in numbers and material, had fought for three days and won. Except for the fighting of the British at Lake Doiran, it had been the bitterest struggle of the great battle of the Balkans.

For several days the Bulgarians had realized that they had lost the war. After the fall of Gradsko, which Marshal von Hindenburg attributes to “pusillanimity or worse,” there was no longer any hope, because the vital centre of communications had been cut. The great bulk of the Bulgarian soldiers had had enough of fighting, and desertions _en masse_ from the divisions at the centre towards the interior began. The German Command, not having succeeded, in spite of the reserves which had been drawn from the right and the left, in saving Gradsko, decided to retreat. As Marshal von Hindenburg rightly observes, the great natural defensive positions in the Balkan peninsula extend one behind the other, so that an army which retires in good order has always fresh lines on which to fall back; the Bulgarian generals, however, were of the opinion that the army could hold out only on condition that it remained where it was, but that it would go to pieces if the order for a general retreat were given. In fact, as soon as the withdrawal of the troops on the Doiran sector began, it soon degenerated into a rout. According to the German Field Marshal, all the Staffs failed in their duty, especially those of the I Bulgarian Army. The only man who did not lose his head was the German Commander-in-Chief, General von Scholtz. The Bulgarian Government made desperate appeals for help to Germany and Austria, but to these “S.O.S.” signals the Central Powers were no longer in a position to reply adequately. The armies of Germany had been seriously beaten in France, and were falling back, fighting a desperate and hopeless battle; the Austrians were pinned down on the Piave and in the Seven Communes in front of the Italian Army, which was preparing to launch the final attack. A few divisions collected here and there were hurried forward; the Alpen Corps from France, two infantry divisions from the Crimea, and some other units. Then there was in Roumania a fairly large army, although not in a fit condition to go into the first line. A mixed brigade destined for the Caucasus, and already half-way across the Black Sea, was recalled by wireless, landed at Varna and Constanza, and hurried off to Macedonia. The German troops who arrived in Sofia found everything quiet, but parties of Bulgarian soldiers were constantly pouring in, having abandoned the front lines. They did not molest their officers, nor oblige them to desert if they wished to remain; they were even ready to help the Germans who were going towards the front; but they were fed up and wished to return to their fields and their families. They had ceased to take any further interest in Macedonia. Even an Army Commander telegraphed to the Tzar insisting that an armistice should be asked for, but received the reply: “Go and get killed in your present lines.” The assurances given by the Imperial Chancellor to the Reichstag that help for Bulgaria had been provided for, and that powerful reinforcements were being hurried up, no longer deceived anybody.

To face p. 246.
]

On September 26th a Bulgarian officer with a white flag appeared before the British lines; General Milne sent him to General Franchet d’Espérey, who, however, replied that he could only deal with _parlementaires_ provided with proper credentials. The Bulgarian Government, in the meanwhile, was trying, through Mr. Murphy, the American Chargé d’Affaires in Sofia, to obtain the intervention of that Government, which was not in a state of war with Bulgaria. Mr. Murphy, in fact, had tried to intervene, and asked permission to accompany the plenipotentiaries which the Sofia Government decided to send to Salonica, but the C.A.A. did not see fit to adhere to this request. The useful part played by Mr. Murphy with his propaganda in Bulgaria in favour of a separate peace with the Entente should not be forgotten, but it appears that he tried, without success, to obtain favourable armistice conditions for the Bulgarians. In the meanwhile General Franchet d’Espérey had telegraphed to Paris, asking for authority to negotiate an armistice. The authorization arrived on the 27th, together with instructions as to the terms of the agreement to be negotiated. On the 28th, the official Bulgarian delegation reached the British front. It was composed of M. Liapcheff, Finance Minister, General Lukoff, Commander of the II Army, and the diplomat, M. Radeff, with two A.D.C.’s. Soon afterwards a huge German Staff car, adorned with the Royal arms of Bulgaria, flashed down the Janesh road and reached Salonica, conveying the first enemy plenipotentiaries coming to sue for peace with the Entente. After a first meeting with General Franchet d’Espérey, the delegates withdrew to their lodgings, and the official meetings began on the morning of the 29th, at the house of the Commander-in-Chief. The negotiations were short and business-like, but the Bulgarians tried to turn to account the fact that their country had never been very enthusiastic about the war, and had no particular sympathy for the Germans, nor animosity against the Allies. M. Liapcheff even went so far as to suggest that Bulgaria had now become a neutral State, and might almost be considered an ally. But General Franchet d’Espérey curtly replied: “You are defeated, and you must submit to the Allies’ terms. Bulgaria is not a neutral country, but a military zone, and it is inadmissible that we should not pass through it.”[44]

The Bulgarian delegates, duly authorized by their Government, accepted all the conditions imposed on them by the Armistice. They only raised some difficulties over the occupation of Bulgarian territory by the Serbs and Greeks (one of the secret clauses of the Armistice gave the Allies the right to occupy certain areas in the interior of Bulgaria), but General Franchet d’Espérey waived aside these objections, saying that the Entente was a group of peoples, great and small, but all free, whereas in the enemy Alliance Germany was the mistress and the others were her vassals. Therefore the Greeks and Serbs should be able to take part in the occupation of Bulgaria like the other Allies. However, the Prince Regent of Serbia, having heard that some of his Generals were insisting on being allowed to occupy Bulgarian territory, in order to satisfy their national pride and avenge the persecutions inflicted on Serbia by the Bulgarians, telegraphed to the Commander-in-Chief that he preferred to waive this right in order not to embitter relations between Serbia and Bulgaria still more; he wished, on the contrary, to contribute to the pacification of the Balkans. M. Venizelos made a similar pronouncement. The decision was certainly a wise one; reprisals and acts of revenge were thus avoided, for the Serbs and Greeks, if they had been in occupation of the land of the hated enemy, would not have been able to restrain themselves.

The Armistice provided:--

(1) The immediate evacuation of the territories still occupied by
the Bulgarians in Serbian and Greek Macedonia;

(2) The immediate demobilization of the whole Bulgarian Army,
except 3 infantry divisions and 4 cavalry regiments for the
defence of the Turkish frontier and the Dobrugia, and for
guarding the railways;

(3) The arms and other material of the demobilized units to be
stored in places to be subsequently determined, under Allied
control;

(4) All material of the IV Greek Army Corps (which had surrendered
to Germany), and was still in Bulgaria, to be handed over to
Greece;

(5) The Bulgarian troops to the west of the meridian of Uskub were
to surrender as prisoners of war;

(6) The Allies had the right to use all Bulgarian prisoners of war
until peace was signed, but Bulgaria must hand over to the
Allied authorities all Allied prisoners and deported civilians
without reciprocity;

(7) The troops and diplomatic and consular representatives of
Germany and Austria must leave Bulgaria within four weeks.[45]

The secret clauses authorized the Allies to make use of the railways, roads, and other means of communication and transport in Bulgaria for the movement of their troops and to occupy certain strategic points. Sofia was not to be occupied save in exceptional circumstances.[46]

At 22.30 hours on September 29th the Armistice was concluded. It was signed by General Franchet d’Espérey for the Allies and by the Finance Minister, Liapcheff, and General Lukoff for Bulgaria; it came into force on September 30th at noon.

On September 30th the number of prisoners captured by the Allies was not very great, about 15,000 to 20,000 (those opposite the 35th Division did not surrender, as we know, until a few days later). But the Bulgarians had lost about one-third of their artillery; 350 guns had been captured, and many others, which had been abandoned or hidden in the woods and gullies, were found subsequently, and the ammunition dumps had been blown up.

The causes of the Allied victory may be summed up as follows:

1. The great military qualities of General Franchet d’Espérey should be recognized; his able dispositions, based partly on the old plan of Voivod Michich, afterwards elaborated by General Guillaumat, consisted in the concentration in the Moglena sector of a mobile reserve for attack, created even at the cost of withdrawing troops from other areas and leaving them weakly defended. The Moglena sector had been chosen because, as it presented the greatest natural difficulties, the Bulgarians had taken less trouble over its artificial defences. In view of the great scarcity of Allied reserves, those that were available had to be transported from one area to the other according to necessity. This was done in the case of the 122nd French Division and the heavy artillery; as soon as a breach had been made they were transferred to the sector of the A.F.O., but as a matter of fact there was no need of the 122nd Division, because the A.F.O. was able to act on its own account; the division therefore went into army reserve.

2. The admirable dash and excellent discipline and staying power of all the Allied contingents over extremely difficult ground and under a semi-tropical sun, until the rainy season began, when the whole country became a muddy swamp. To the French troops, above all, was due the breach in the enemy front on September 15th; the British distinguished themselves for the magnificent tenacity in their attack on the terrible positions of the Lake Doiran area, an attack, which if it did not succeed, yet contributed very materially, according to the Bulgarians themselves, to the victory; our own troops had the great merit first of having held on for two years on the theoretically untenable sector of Hill 1050, and afterwards of having developed the rapid pursuit of the enemy with an extremely arduous battle at the end, when the Bulgarians were outflanked at Sop, a battle, the continuation of which, was interrupted at the last moment by the Armistice. The Serbians played a valiant part in the attack at the centre, but the outstanding feature of their action was their magnificent and fantastic march towards the Fatherland, regardless of the impervious mountain ranges, extending one behind the other across the line of advance, almost without food, with few munitions and practically no equipment. Inspired by patriotic enthusiasm which was a religious faith, they drove the enemy from height to height, from valley to valley, without troubling to see if they were followed by their supplies, which, in fact, never came up with them. One saw old soldiers who had been detailed as hospital orderlies on the lines of communication, because they were regarded as unfit for active service, abandoning their posts, seizing rifles and haversacks filled with biscuit, hurry forward to join in the pursuit. In every village deserters from the Bulgarian Army, who were Serbs enrolled by force, were discovered, and now rejoined the Serbian Army. When the latter reached Serbia proper, these increases in strength were even more considerable, because there were many Serbian soldiers who had remained hidden in the mountains during the Bulgarian occupation of the country, and who, the moment they saw the liberating army of their brothers arrive, also joined in the pursuit of the enemy. It is said that in the Morava Division, which at the beginning of the offensive numbered only 3,500 rifles in all, one regiment alone, after a few weeks, had no less than 5,000.

To face p. 250.
]

Nor must the Greeks be forgotten. With all the defects of their Army, many detachments fought valiantly, especially the Serres Division, which, fighting under the British, distinguished itself at the battle of Doiran and suffered severe losses. The French and Serbian cavalry, once the breach had been made, were in the vanguard of the pursuit, and pushed forward by forced marches which have few equals in the annals of the war.

3. The perfect co-operation between armies of different nationalities, a co-operation which Sarrail had never been able to achieve. This was one of General Franchet d’Espérey’s main successes. There were, in fact, the Central Franco-Serbian Group, composed of 6 Serbian Divisions and 2 French; the I Group of Divisions, with 1 French, 2 Greek, and for a short time 1 British Division; the A.F.O., comprising 5 French, 1 Italian, and 1 Greek Division; the British Army with 3, and afterwards 4 British, 5 Greek Divisions, and one French Regiment. Nevertheless everything functioned regularly as if it had been a perfectly homogeneous force.

4. The faulty dispositions of the enemy. Although, as we have seen, the latter were stronger in effectives than the Allied forces, they had failed to create reserves. In Bulgaria there were only three regiments available, and the Germans had withdrawn all their battalions from the Balkan front, except three, to which a few others were added during the offensive. In Serbia and Roumania, the German and Austrian garrisons were numerous, but they were composed of units whence nearly all the younger soldiers had been withdrawn. The enemy thus had only small area reserves, and no army reserves. When the central sector was broken through the enemy Command tried to stem the advancing tide by concentrating regiments withdrawn from distant sectors, such, for instance, as the 14th, which was notorious for its mutinies; but it was then too late. Only in the Doiran sector, where some of the best regiments were collected, was it possible to hold up the British and Greeks for a few days, and also in the Cerna loop, where the German Command made its influence more directly felt, and there the resistance was more vigorous.

5. The Bulgarian demoralization. The Bulgarians had for some time been fed up with the war. They believed that they had obtained definitely everything to which they aspired, and they did not see why they should continue to fight simply to please the Germans. They, like the Serbs, were drawn by an irresistible desire towards their homes, but the Serbs in order to do this had to fight, while the Bulgarians saw that the only way to achieve their object was to make peace. The Allied victories in France, although the Command tried to suppress all news of them, ended by becoming known to the masses and produced a depressing effect. The overbearing attitude of the Germans, who treated Bulgaria almost as a conquered country and not as an ally, and especially the requisitions of foodstuffs in Bulgaria to be sent to Germany, provoked serious discontent. Then there was the question of Dobrugia, which aroused much disaffection. The Bulgarians hoped that, after the defeat of Roumania, the whole of that province would have been ceded to them, instead of only the southern district, as was provided for in the treaty of alliance with Germany. The latter did not wish to hand over the whole province, because she intended to keep control over the Cernavoda-Constanza railway, and also because Turkey objected to that line being in the hands of the Bulgarians. Actually they were granted the southern district (the part ceded to Roumania by the peace of 1913), while the rest was administered by Turkey, an arrangement against which the Bulgarian Government, and finally even the Commander-in-Chief, General Gekoff, protested vigorously, putting the blame on the German General Staff. There was discontent also over the question of Adrianople. Signs of demoralization appeared in the numerous mutinies and the ever more frequent desertions. The fact of having forcibly applied conscription to the inhabitants of the occupied territories, although it helped to strengthen the Army with fresh effectives, weakened it in its moral unity, because the inhabitants of the province of Nish were true Serbs and hated the Bulgarians, and those of Macedonia, if they had more sympathy for the Bulgarians than for the Serbs, did not wish to fight for either. The Allied Commands were fairly well informed of this state of feeling, and appreciated it at its proper value. The pro-German Radoslavoff Cabinet had resigned in June, and the Malinoff Cabinet, by which it had been succeeded, was disposed to seek to come to some agreement with the Entente.

6. Finally, there was the hope on the part of the Bulgarians, who now realized that German power was shaken, of obtaining favourable conditions from the Entente by means of a separate peace. If they could no longer dream of the creation of that big Bulgaria which had been promised to them by Germany, they hoped at least to preserve some part of their conquests, to keep the territories gained from Turkey, and perhaps to receive substantial financial assistance. The Entente had promised nothing of all this, but its semi-official propaganda gave the Bulgarians to understand that the sooner they surrendered the better would their treatment be.

The immediate consequences of the Bulgarian capitulation were of great importance. This was the first decisive blow struck at the Central Powers. Until September 15th the main line of the enemy resistance from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier, from the Stelvio to the mouth of the Piave, from the mouth of the Semeni to that of the Struma, was intact. In France the Germans had had to fall back before the Anglo-Franco-American attacks, but the famous Hindenburg line was not yet broken, and their Armies had been beaten, but not vanquished; on the Piave the Austrians had been seriously defeated in their June attack, but they had lost very little ground, and their Army was still in full efficiency. It was on the Macedonian front that the first fatal breach was made. The Central Powers not only had one ally the less, but they were threatened from behind, and had to consider the necessity of creating a new front on their eastern gateway, which until then had been defended by the Bulgarians. Turkey, moreover, already staggering under the sledge-hammer blows delivered by General Allenby in Palestine and Syria, now no longer possessed any line of communication by land with Germany and Austria.