Chapter IV: The British Salonica Force

The British Army in Macedonia, officially known as the B.S.F. (British Salonica Force), originally consisted, like the French force, of units transported from the Dardanelles. Later it was reinforced by fresh divisions and became on autonomous army, although always under the superior command of the French C.-in-C. It comprised 2 Army Corps (the XII and the XVI), at first of 3 infantry divisions each (10th, 22nd, 26th, 27th, 28th, and 60th), the 228th Garrison Brigade and 2 cavalry brigades; in the course of 1917, as we have seen, two of these divisions--the 10th and the 60th--and the cavalry brigades were withdrawn and sent to Egypt, so that only four divisions remained, plus the garrison brigade, composed of men not fit for the front line. The artillery was strengthened in 1918 by a fairly large number of 6-in. guns and howitzers. Each division consisted as usual of 3 brigades, and each brigade at first of 4 battalions, but later on, when strengths had fallen very low, they were reduced to three. Each division had its own artillery, cavalry, engineers, and other services, and sometimes even the brigades were so provided, and there were in addition the army corps and army artillery and services, and the air force. The troops and services in the base area and on the lines of communication were under the Base Commandant; later a G.O.C. Lines of Communication was also appointed. As regards effectives, strengths were allowed to fall dangerously low, because the War Office was always somewhat hostile to the Macedonian enterprise--at a certain moment, as we shall see, a proposal was made that it should be withdrawn into the Salonica entrenched camp. Consequently, reinforcements were sent out grudgingly and in insufficient numbers, while disease and to a lesser extent war losses caused serious inroads into the strength of the B.S.F. During the last phase of the war the battalions rarely had more than 500 men each.

G.H.Q., Salonica, attempted to make good these losses by repeated “combings out,” sending to the battalions at the front all the men who could justly be regarded as fit, and reducing the number of British transport drivers, muleteers and soldiers attached to the base and lines-of-communication units to a minimum, and substituting them with Indians, Cypriots and Macedonian natives; a school for these new transport drivers was instituted at Lembet near Salonica and gave good results, while a great deal of useful work was accomplished by native labour battalions; the latter were also employed by other Allied armies, and there was a considerable amount of lively competition among the different forces to secure as large a share as possible of the available supply of native workers.

The British G.H.Q. was, as I have said, at Salonica, and Lieutenant-General Sir George Milne, who relieved General Mahon, was appointed Commander-in-Chief. He took orders from the C.A.A. only in the case of joint operations, and as long as General Sarrail was in Macedonia General Milne was his subordinate only in name, as he refused to tolerate any interference on the part of the former in whom he had no confidence, and whom he always suspected of political intrigue. General Sarrail on his part disliked General Milne, so that combined operations were practically impossible. General Milne was a man of uncommon intelligence, with extremely shrewd powers of observation and insight, and, unlike Sarrail, he was exclusively a soldier and did not take any interest in political matters. Our relations with him were always of the most cordial character. For General Mombelli he had a special regard, which was thoroughly reciprocated by the Italian Commander. He was a fine-looking man, a great lover of sport, a hard worker, a gentleman in every sense of the word; and he had a keen dislike for the atmosphere of Salonica as a hotbed of mean political and personal _potins_ and petty jealousies. He resided a great part of the year at Guvesne, some 24 km. from Salonica, where he had established his advanced G.H.Q., equally handy for reaching either of his two Corps H.Q.’s. While staying at Guvesne he usually motored into Salonica every morning, except when he went out to the Corps H.Q. of the front lines.

I knew his three successive Chiefs of the Staff--General Gilman, a singularly attractive personality, with whom our relations were more than cordial, especially in the dark days of the spring of 1917, when after the collapse of Russia it was felt to be particularly important that the armies of the only two Monarchies left among the great Powers of the Entente should keep on the terms of the closest friendship. He said to me when I called to bid him farewell on his departure for Mesopotamia: “Our two Armies out here have always been on such friendly terms that I can see no reason why this state of things should not continue under my successor.” General Cory, in fact (a Canadian by birth), followed on General Gilman’s footsteps, and when he left to take command of the 27th Division, General Duncan, who was appointed M.G.G.S. in his place, showed himself if possible even more cordial; he is now British Military Attaché in Rome. The Intelligence and Operations branches were in charge of lieutenant-colonels, assisted by numerous distinguished officers, many of whom were reserve or temporary officers, especially those in “I,” chosen for their knowledge of the country and the local languages. In both branches I was always received in the most friendly manner, and kept informed of everything of interest, even of extremely confidential matters, strengths, details concerning unsuccessful actions, etc.

In dealing with the British one had, in a word, the sensation that one was among real Allies. And this does not only refer to the General Staff, but also to all the other branches and the commands of units at the front. The Quartermaster-General’s branch (Q), corresponding roughly to our _Intendenza_, was organized on essentially business lines, with all the methods in use in business houses; many of the officers attached to those services were in fact business men in private life. Archæologists were found particularly useful in “I” work, because their training rendered them thoroughly capable of weighing, sifting, and co-ordinating evidence, and deducing accurate or at least reasonable conclusions. If a larger proportion of men of this stamp had been employed in these services, not only in the British, but also in other armies, a great many unfortunate and sometimes disastrous mistakes would have been avoided. Unluckily, however, a number of Staff officers seemed to have no other qualification for their work than an extensive knowledge of the novels of William Le Queux and Phillips Oppenheim, or the adventures of Arsène Lupin, whose situations they attempted to realize in practice. At the head of the Q branch was the Deputy Quartermaster-General, of whom I knew two; the first was Major-General Travers-Clarke, afterwards Q.M.G. in France, the second and last Major-General Rycroft, both of them very capable officers and organizers. With the Adjutant-General’s branch, which dealt with personnel, I came less frequently into contact. There were also many offices and special services, among which that of the Military Secretary, whose duties comprised such matters as the promotion of officers, decorations, official visits and dinners and _protocol_ generally; for a long time this position was held by the brilliant and agreeable Major Dudley-Carleton.

The British War Office made a point of selecting the officers for the B.S.F. with peculiar care, especially those destined for Staff appointments. As they would naturally come into frequent contact with foreign officers, it was considered very important not to send any officer to Macedonia who was not a thorough gentleman, so as to avoid unpleasant incidents; officers were chosen for these services not only for their technical ability, but also and above all for their high moral character and good manners, points to which insufficient importance was attached in some other armies. I cannot say that I ever came across a man of the “T.G.” type in any responsible post. British officers never caused scandals or provoked inter-Allied incidents, and cases of financial shortcomings were extremely rare and severely punished as soon as they were discovered. In the conduct of operations they showed, if not genius--in this the French were very superior--considerable efficiency and a thoroughly practical spirit. The most complicated transactions were carried out with the utmost simplicity--a couple of telephone calls, the sending of two or three “chits” (usually written in pencil), and the thing was done. In my position as liaison officer I had wide experience of the practical character of British military methods. We were constantly in need of assistance from the Allies for many of our services, especially in the matter of transport, because our expeditionary force was in certain respects incomplete, and according to the terms of the previous agreements, it was the C.A.A. that was bound to supply the deficiencies. The British were therefore under no obligation to assist us. But when we applied to the French we were bandied about from pillar to post before arriving at some useful result; very often we obtained nothing at all, or if we did obtain what we required we had first to overcome innumerable obstacles and refusals. The British on the contrary did everything in their power to satisfy our requests, and when they refused it was because the thing was really impossible, so that it was useless to go back on the matter. What was particularly agreeable about the British was their manner of rendering services as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I remember how on one occasion, I had to make an urgent application to the British G.H.Q. for some fifty motor ambulances to transport a large number of Italian wounded from the station to the hospitals after the action of May 1917; although I had received no instructions on the subject until late in the evening and some of the British officers responsible for that service had gone to bed, the whole matter was arranged without the slightest difficulty, and the next morning the motor ambulances were ready at the station punctual to the minute. I afterwards went to thank the A.Q.M.G. on behalf of our Command, and all that he replied was: “We’ve got to win the war together.”

Another instance of the admirable organization of the British services occurred during the great fire at Salonica. When the conflagration began to approach the port, the building containing the British Army telephone exchange was menaced, and in fact it caught fire soon after; in less than an hour the exchange was transferred to a place of safety, and at once began to function regularly.

British officers not only had a very high sense of duty, but some of them seemed to have an almost fanatical attachment to their particular job, which occasionally had its amusing side. One very distinguished officer, whose duties were connected with the topographical section, looked at every event on the Macedonian or other fronts exclusively from the point of view of map-making. His only comment on the deposition of King Constantine and the return of Venizelos to Athens was that he trusted that it would now be possible for him to obtain certain maps of Thessaly which the Royalist Staff had hitherto refused to give him. During the gloomy days of the great German push in March 1918, what he chiefly deplored was the probable capture by the enemy of the topographical plant and depot at the V Army H.Q. in Albert. After the collapse of Bulgaria in September following, he regretted that the end had come so soon because there was a certain sector of the British front which he had not quite finished mapping, and now he would be unable to complete the work; not to mention the fact that all the beautiful maps which he had prepared with so much care were now mere wastepaper!

In the British Army differences between the various arms and services seemed to be less marked than in others, but the _esprit de corps_ among officers and men of the same regiment was extremely strong, even though a regiment was not an effective unit. What appeared to many officers of other Allied armies as a most excellent institution was that of temporary rank. The fact that an officer entrusted with duties pertaining to a higher rank than his own, on account of his peculiar fitness for the position, could be temporarily promoted to that higher rank, even though for administrative reasons it was not possible to give him the effective rank, was very useful and presented many advantages. With us, subalterns who in civil life held important positions, in the army were either detailed for duties far below their real capabilities and were thus wasted, or if they were entrusted with more responsible duties, they retained their modest military rank and often came into conflict with superior officers of the regular army who were jealous of them. As a liaison officer, although only a lieutenant, I seldom did any business with foreign officers below the rank of major, and usually dealt in generals, but as I represented a foreign army I was treated practically as an equal, which of course was not the case when I had to do with Italian officers of superior rank.

There was a very strong sense of equality between officers of different rank when off duty--at mess, in sport, etc. Officers belonging to the same mess never waited for each other when dinner was announced, whatever the rank of the absent colleague might be, nor were inferiors expected to salute their superiors at mess or at the clubs, even in the case of a general. This custom sometimes caused offence to certain Italian generals or field officers, who could not understand why they were not saluted by British subalterns whom they met at a restaurant or club; it was of course not due to lack of deference on the part of the latter, but to that tendency to exclude all feeling of _malaise_ between inferiors and superiors when off duty. The one real distinction between categories of officers in the British Army was that existing between those attached to the Staff and those who were not. The feelings of the latter, especially of regimental officers, towards the former were sometimes rather bitter, as indeed has been the case in all armies from the days of the _Iliad_ downward; in our own army the distinction was particularly marked. In the B.S.F., as I suppose in other British armies, the Staff officer considered himself superior intellectually to the average regimental or A.S.C. officer--and he generally was--while the latter had a certain contempt not unmixed with envy for the red-tabbed super-man enjoying the privileges and comforts of G.H.Q., and proximity to that magnificent divinity the C.-in-C., or even of such minor divinities as corps or divisional commanders, and avoiding the dangers of life in the front lines. “We run all the risks and do all the really hard work, whereas they get all the plums,” expresses the general attitude. But the conflict is inevitable and universal, and should not be taken too seriously, the more so as the majority of staff officers had usually been through the mill of trench warfare themselves, and often had been given staff appointments only after having been badly wounded. If anything, in the British Army the feeling against supposed _embusqués_ was less virulent than in others.

The discipline of the British troops in the East was really admirable, and was all the more remarkable inasmuch as a very large part of the army was improvised; the men, however, had acquired a military bearing equal to that of their professional comrades, but without a trace of that militarism which made the Prussian so justly disliked. If at the front the British Tommy was a first-class fighting man, his discipline was equally well maintained at the base or along the lines of communication. His personal cleanliness was remarkable, and so was that of his kit and quarters. At Salonica drunkenness was by no means uncommon, even among officers, especially those who had come down from the trenches on a few days’ leave, but it seldom led to violence and riotousness, and the much-dreaded A.P.M. was apt to come down with a heavy hand on delinquents. British road discipline was also excellent, and blocks seldom occurred even along the most frequented roads and in moments of exceptionally heavy traffic. What greatly impressed the local population, accustomed through centuries to the passage of native or foreign armies, was the fact that this was the first war in which, as regards the British area, women could move about the country freely, without fear of being molested. This applied also to the smaller Italian area, but not always to those of all the other Allied armies.

The British military authorities took special care of the well-being of the troops, which was particularly important in the case of armies like the B.S.F. operating at a great distance from home and deprived of all the amenities which made life on other fronts more tolerable. Not only were all possible measures for safeguarding the health of the men rigorously applied, but nothing was neglected that could contribute to keep up their _moral_. Great importance was rightly attached to every form of sport. Wherever a British detachment was stationed, football and cricket fields and tennis courts were provided, and even the newly invented game of handball was introduced. Gymnastic competitions of all kinds, boxing matches and horse races were organized. Horse-shows were held on a large scale, and it was very interesting for foreign officers to attend them, not merely for the shows themselves--although these were usually attractive spectacles--but because they enabled them to see how admirably the British kept their horses and mules, in spite of the enormous difficulties of supply and the terrible scarcity of forage. Horses of the very first class were rare, but the average level was extremely high, and one never saw lean or ill-groomed animals. At the horse-shows there were competitions for troop horses, artillery and transport teams, and points were also based on the state of the harness; if the brass was not properly polished several points would be lost. Above all, the mules were magnificent, and if, as a British remount officer said to me, the prices paid for them were likewise magnificent, the services they rendered were invaluable. Even when the greater part of the British Tommies had been withdrawn from those services and substituted with Indians, Cypriots or Macedonians, British officers and N.C.O.’s succeeded in getting their animals almost as carefully groomed as before. When General Lukoff, Commander of the II Bulgarian Army, came to Salonica to negotiate the armistice, he was enormously impressed with the British mules, and he said that if he had had such transport animals his army would by that time have been at Athens.

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The various sporting events were not only held in Salonica or in other parts of the base area, but also in the vicinity of the front lines, at a few kilometres from the trenches. They were occasions for large gatherings of officers, soldiers and nurses, and proved a most valuable means for alleviating the monotony of life in Macedonia and eliminating the _cafard_. Anyone who attended these entertainments felt, if only for a few hours, that he had returned to civilian and civilized life and to home habits, and the preparations for them aroused great interest and distracted men’s thoughts from the discomforts and dangers of the campaign, while the physical exercise that they involved had an excellent effect on the health of all those who took part in the matches, and these were very numerous. Officers of all arms, and not merely those of the mounted services, took part in races and horse-shows; I have been present at jumping competitions in which army chaplains and even naval officers took part with distinction. The British school of horsemanship is not so perfect and artistic as the Italian or French schools, and few British officers have the same wonderful mastery of the art as some of their Italian or French colleagues. But there is a far larger number of officers who ride well than in either of the other two armies, as that form of sport is far more widespread.

It had been noticed that the enemy hardly ever opened fire or dropped bombs on these large sports gatherings, which appeared to offer ideal targets, and certain fields near the front lines, which were sometimes used as exercise grounds and sometimes for football or other matches, were constantly fired at in the first instance, but never in the latter. This suggested that brother Bulgar had certain sporting instincts, which enhanced the respect which the British Tommy had for him. After the Armistice, however, it was discovered that the real reason for the immunity which sports enjoyed was somewhat different. Orders were discovered among the enemy’s papers that no form of sport was to be interfered with because the big matches and horse-shows always involved the sending of many telephone messages as to the movement of details of the various units from their regular quarters to the scene of the event; the enemy listening posts were often able to intercept them and thus gather valuable information as to the distribution of British troops. Thus was another pretty war legend knocked on the head.

Another aspect of British military life in Macedonia was the soldiers’ theatres. They were not instituted until the second year of the campaign, and at first encountered a good deal of opposition on the part of the recognized officers of the old school. But gradually all opposition was overcome, and the theatre became a recognized institution. Each army corps, each division and many smaller units had their own theatres. Officers attached to the postal censorship assured me that these performances produced extraordinarily good results, as appeared from the soldiers’ letters, the general tone of which showed a marked improvement since the introduction of the theatres. “These entertainments,” a British Staff officer told me, “are equivalent to an increase of several battalions.” Officers and soldiers who took part in them were usually exempted from all other duties while the rehearsals and performances lasted, and no one dreamt of talking about _embusqués_ in this connexion because everyone appreciated the importance of this form of activity. Soldiers’ theatres were also introduced into other armies, including our own, but the chief feature of the British system was the fact that the performances were acted exclusively by officers and soldiers, usually belonging to the same units as the bulk of the audience. This interested and amused the men far more than a more ambitious performance, even if acted by professional artists of the first rank. The writer was so much impressed by the British soldiers’ theatres that he sent a detailed report about them to the Italian Commander; the report was forwarded to the _Comando Supremo_, and as a result General Mombelli was authorized to introduce theatrical performances into the 35th Division. They proved a great success.

I assisted at several of these entertainments, which were all admirably acted and elaborately staged. On one occasion I witnessed a first-rate performance of the “Chocolate Soldier”--quite a _pièce de circonstance_, as the scene is laid in Bulgaria during the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885--at the theatre of the 22nd Division at Rates, only 5 km. from the front lines; and on another a variety entertainment at the XII Corps theatre at Janes, especially built by the Y.M.C.A.; the tenor of the troupe had been detailed for a bombing expedition that very night, but as he was the best artist available he was let off duty when it was known that the Italian liaison officer at G.H.Q. was to be present! I was much flattered.

At Salonica there were comparatively few British troops. There were of course a great many officers at G.H.Q. with their orderlies, clerks, batmen, guards, etc., and the magazines, depots and hospitals required a numerous personnel. Along the Monastir and Lambet roads these vast stores and dumps extended mile upon mile. Immense engineer parks, mountains of packing-cases, clothing stores without end, remount squadrons, veterinary hospitals etc., occupied huge areas; on the other side of the town, on the hill of Kalamaria and towards the bay of Mikra there was a whole city of hospitals in huts or tents, and close by a colossal M.T. heavy repair workshop. The other armies in Macedonia also had enormous supply depots and establishments of all kinds, but those of the British struck one as being on the most imposing scale, erected regardless of cost or labour; this system may have its drawbacks, as the British tax-payer has discovered, but it certainly did contribute to efficiency, and if it was also designed to impress Allies and natives with the might and wealth of the British Empire it achieved its purpose. The hospitals were magnificent; they increased considerably in numbers during the last two years of the war, because the Q branch was anxious to free the largest possible number of ships from hospital service and the transport of the wounded and sick. During the early days of the campaign serious cases were sent to Malta or Alexandria. But it was found that malaria and dysentery patients recovered very slowly in those places, and many succumbed; at the same time their transport monopolized a large number of ships at a moment when the ravages of submarine warfare made it necessary that the largest possible amount of tonnage should be available for the transport of troops and supplies. Consequently General Rycroft, on assuming the duties of D.Q.M.G. thought that it would be better to increase the hospitals at Salonica and in the neighbourhood, and the convalescent hospitals on Mount Hortiach, where the air is excellent, and evacuate only the most serious cases requiring a very long period in hospital. Thus the transport of the sick was much reduced and the patients benefited by the new system. But in spite of the great care which the British Command devoted to the sick, malarial cases were extremely numerous. In the summer of 1916 there were 11,500 beds in the British hospitals at Salonica, and some 30,000 malarial cases admitted. These figures increased during the succeeding summers, because, in addition to the new cases, there were the relapses of the preceding years. Thus in 1917 malarial cases rose to 63,000, and in 1918, when the total strength was much reduced, to 67,000. Early in 1918 the so-called “Y” system was introduced, whereby chronic malarial cases were sent home.

To reach the British front there were two main arteries--the Janesh road and the Serres road. Both had existed before the war, but were then in such an appalling state of neglect as to be in places almost impassable, and full of holes throughout their entire length; they were indeed little better than tracks, save for a few kilometres here and there. The British military authorities had had practically to rebuild them, and they made them into really magnificent thoroughfares. Their construction and maintenance required armies of native labourers and cost vast sums. But the expenditure was in a sense an economy, because it spared the wear and tear of the lorries, the renewal of which would not only have cost far more if the roads had been neglected, but they would have been difficult to replace owing to the scarcity of tonnage and submarine risks. These roads and the others built by the French and the Italians, were a magnificent legacy left to Greece and Serbia, but a few weeks of Balkan régime, after the greater Allies had handed them over, sufficed to reduce them to their original state of hopeless dilapidation and ruin once more.

Transport to the XII Corps area was effected by means of the Constantinople railway as far as Sarigöl or Kilindir (goods were conveyed by rail as far as lake Doiran), and thence by the various décauville and the network of ordinary roads to the infantry and artillery positions. Beyond Janesh the country opens out into a wide plateau, somewhat undulated, surrounded by mountain ranges; those to the east and west are fairly high, while immediately to the north they appear insignificant, but in reality constitute formidable defences. As occurred almost invariably on all the mountain fronts in the war, from the Stelvio to the Struma, the enemy held all the higher and stronger positions, dominating those of the Allies. Immediately to the west of Lake Doiran rises the terrible group of the Grand and Petit Couronnés[13] and the “P” ridges, which cost so much blood to the British troops in their heroic efforts in 1917 and 1918. The “P” ridges spread out in a succession of hills--P1, P2, P3, P4, P4¼, P4½, P5--west of the Grand Couronné, forming with it an obtuse angle; the “P” ridges dominated all the approaches to the Grand Couronné and the latter those to the former. The Grand Couronné, which I visited immediately after it had been evacuated by the enemy, was formidably defended by the most perfect system of fortifications known to modern military art; the dug-outs and O.P.’s were cut out of the living rock, and often the sides and roof were several metres thick in solid stone. A huge white splash near the summit, visible for many miles in all directions, proved on inspection to be due to the tremendous but useless bombardment of the British artillery.

It was on this sector that the enemy first tried his famous Gotha aeroplanes on the Balkan front--it was, I believe, the first time that they were used at all in the war, and then they were more formidable than any machine possessed by the Allies. The officer in charge of the O.P. who first noticed them, telephoned at once to the XII Corps H.Q. that a new type of aeroplane had appeared above the lines; he was immediately asked in a sceptical tone on what evidence he based his assertion that they were of a new type, to which he replied: “In about five minutes you will find out yourselves from personal experience.” In fact immediately afterwards the Gothas were bombing Janesh for all they were worth.

On this sector the Allied and enemy lines were often quite close to each other as on the French and Italian fronts. East of Lake Doiran there was a wide gap between the two lines, formed by a valley running from that lake to Butkova. The main line of resistance extended along the Krusha Balkan range south of the valley, but there were advanced positions further down, such as the fort of Dova Tepe.

Between the eastern end of the lake and the western spur of the Beles is a broad gap, and there many British officers believed that a break through might be effected, although it was dominated by the batteries on the Beles. But no attempt was made here, save an attack during the last operations in September 1918, and even then it proved abortive and was soon abandoned.

The XVI Corps area was reached by the great Serres road, some 70 km. in length from Salonica to the Struma. For the first 25 km., as far as Guvesne, transport could also be effected by means of a normal-gauge railway built by the British during the war; at railhead there was a M.T. park, whence innumerable lorries conveyed men and supplies to the Struma. Various décauvilles spread out from the end of the road towards the front lines. The road climbed over several steep ranges of hills and plunged down into deep gullies, for the mountain chains in this part of the country all run parallel to the Struma. The Corps H.Q. was at Sivri in summer, a charmingly situated village just below the last range of hills before the drop into the Struma valley; in winter it moved down to a spot nearer the main road. The positions of chief resistance were along this ridge in parallel lines, but there were also a series of important bridge-heads along the river. Beyond the river there were two or three lines of villages, some of them quite large, others merely _chifliks_ or farms, abandoned by the inhabitants and partly in ruins. Sometimes the first and even the second lines would be held by the British, while the Bulgars held others further away, along the foot of the mountains behind Serres. But in the summer of 1917, owing to the great heat and the ravages of malaria, the villages beyond the Struma were evacuated by the British, and the bridge-heads held with only an indispensible minimum of troops, while the defence of the spaces between the bridge-heads was entrusted to the river itself, which is difficult to wade, and to the cross-fire of the ports defending the bridge-heads; in any case, in order to attempt the passage of the Struma the enemy would have had to traverse a broad tract of open country before reaching its banks, exposed to the fire of the British batteries hidden amid the dense vegetation or in the crevices of the hills to the west of the right bank. In order to maintain contact with the enemy the British made frequent raids with infantry and cavalry patrols into the villages occupied by isolated detachments of Bulgars; the Bulgarian patrols and outposts did not show much fighting spirit and usually retired precipitously. Sometimes the British patrols penetrated into positions held by permanent enemy garrisons. The most important and successful of these raids was that on Homondos in the autumn of 1917, where many prisoners and some machine guns were captured, as well as a voluminous official correspondence, whence valuable information was acquired, especially concerning the enemy’s _moral_, which appeared at that time to be considerably shaken.

On the whole this was a quieter front than that of the XII Corps, as there were no positions corresponding to those of the Couronnés and the “P” ridge, and a no-man’s-land some 12 km. wide separated the two armies. For this reason it was deemed possible to hand it over to the Greeks to hold when the rest of the Allied troops were being concentrated elsewhere for attacks on a large scale.

The houses of Serres and Demir Hissar are easily visible to the naked eye, and beyond the latter town I had pointed out to me from an O.P. on a ruined belfry well beyond the river a large white slab on the mountain side, and I was told that in 1913, after their victories over the Bulgars, the Greeks had engraved on it an inscription in honour of King Constantine (then still Diadoch) “Bulgaroctonos,” or slayer of the Bulgarians, thus reviving the title of a famous Byzantine Emperor! The Bulgarians I imagine must have erased it, perhaps with the approval of him in whose honour it had been engraved.