Excerpt from the book: The Macedonian Campaign – by Luigi Villari, Published 1922
This does not mean that there were no military operations; there were indeed quite a number of them, some fairly important, but they produced no practical results of great moment, and the line which was stabilized in November, 1916, changed but slightly during the next twenty-two months.
The Germans declared themselves satisfied with this state of things, because they considered that the Allied troops in Macedonia were immobile and therefore prevented from being sent to other fronts.
Events were to prove the Germans in the wrong, but even in the Entente countries, there were persons who continued to insist, ever more strongly, on the uselessness of the Eastern campaign.
The autumn operations came to an end with the capture of Monastir, after which the enemy was not vigorously pursued, partly owing to the wish of General Sarrail himself, who was always more influenced by political considerations regarding Greece than by military conditions, and partly on account of the exhaustion of the troops.
The Armee d 'Orient had thus conquered the important positions on the Cerna only by half.
The town of Monastir was in the hands of the French, but the heights immediately to the N.W., N. and N.E., which dominated it, were still held by the enemy. In the Cerna loop, we occupied part of Hill 1050, but as we have seen, the enemy held the topmost ridge which dominated our positions, and many of our trenches could be enfiladed. The same conditions obtained in the eastern half of the loop held by the French.
The Serbs, too, especially the units of the II Army, were dominated by the enemy, and so also were the British to the west and east of Lake Doiran.
The situation was certainly not satisfactory for the Allies, and the events in Roumania, where the Austrians, Germans and Bulgarians had proved completely victorious, might at any moment be followed by the arrival of enemy reinforcements on the Macedonian front and consequently by a general attack.
General Sarrail, in his memoirs, attributes the suspension of the operations to the losses suffered by all the Allies, particularly by the French and Serbs, to the inorganic plans of the British and to their small desire to risk fresh operations, to the want of energy of the Italians, due to orders from Rome to General Petitti not to act but to limit himself to being present, and to a divergence of views between the two Russian generals. In reality, the primary cause was, as usual, the want of confidence in General Sarrail on the part of the Allied commanders subordinate to him, and even on the part of some of the French commanders, and to his own want of energy in not seizing the opportune moment, after the fall of Monastir, when the enemy was in full retreat and demoralized.
He might then have occupied the heights dominating the town and constituted a far better defensive line, whence it would have been possible, later on, to launch a fresh offensive in more favorable conditions. But he let the occasion slip by, and the enemy, who had been beaten but not crushed, had time to reorganize and reinforce themselves in their positions, rendering them practically impregnable.
We have seen what was the distribution of the Armee d'Orient after the fall of Monastir. Some units of the Army were not yet available — the 16th French Colonial Division, which had been sent out from France, had not yet all landed — the 60th British Division was at Ekaterini to watch the Greeks, and a Serbian division was performing a similar duty at Grevena.
At this time (December, 1916) the conditions of the Serbian Army were causing anxiety. General Boyovich had requested that it should all be brought into the second line, as it was thoroughly exhausted. General Sarrail was unable to satisfy his wish, save in the case of three divisions. The most serious aspect of the situation was the internal political crisis through which the Serbian officers were passing.
General Sarrail himself telegraphed to Paris on January 3, 1917 :
" Influential partisans of Black Hand have been sent to Bizerta. Commander Morava Division, several Brigade Commanders, Chief of Staff Shumadia Division, Assistant Chief of Staff III Army have been relieved of their positions." (1 Sarrail, op. cit. p. 219)
Soon after he telegraphed that, according to a Serbian order :
"In consequence of plot some officers have been cashiered and will be replaced by officers friendly to present regime."
He also mentioned that several regicide officers to whom the present Dynasty owed the throne had been punished.
" Movement among officers seems to continue — colonel who ripped open Queen Draga's corpse has been imprisoned."
In March he telegraphed that there had been a new plot against the Prince Regent, and that he believed that shots had been fired at him. Later this statement was confirmed. It was a conspiracy on the part of officers affiliated to the secret societies, and who wished to murder the Prince Regent and to accept the Austrian peace proposals. The movement was crushed, and several officers condemned to death or imprisonment.
In Albania, the situation was still insecure and chaotic.
The Italian XVI Corps was spread over the area from the mouth of the Voyussa to the neighbourhood of Liaskoviki. Along the lower Voyussa there were regular defensive lines, but beyond there were only isolated posts and mobile detachments composed largely of Albanian irregulars. Opposite the Italians was the XIX Austro- Hungarian Corps composed of the 47th Division and the l/19th Gruppenkommando, which extended to the neighbourhood of Lake Ochrida. There was not yet any liaison between our XVI Corps and the Armee d'Orient.
North of Koritza towards Pogradetz on Lake Ochrida, there were some Austrian forces, about a brigade, and some Bulgarian detachments ; it was always feared that these troops might menace the left flank of the French. The latter therefore wished to extend their occupation so as to establish a connection with our troops in Albania, who, throughout the autumn of 1916, had been advancing from the coast towards the interior.
Besides the Austrians and Hungarians, there were several Albanian bands enrolled by the celebrated Salih Butka between Koritza and Tchafa Kiarit, and those of Hussein Nikolitza between Koritza and Ersek.
General Sarrail thought it advisable to reinforce the garrison at Koritza, where he sent the 76th Division, recently arrived from France, so as to ward off any danger on the part of the Albanian bands and the Austro-Bulgarian detachments, and also to menace the right flank of the enemy's forces in Macedonia.
He communicated with General Ferrero, Commander of our troops in Albania by wireless and by means of flying officers, and thus a common Franco-Italian operation was arranged to commence on February 17th, with the object of freeing the road between Koritza and Ersek. But General Sarrail also wished to extend his own operation area in Albania, perhaps with a view to having something with which to negotiate in his dealings with M. Venizelos, and therefore, in spite of the agreement with General Ferrero, he commenced operations before the date established, and began his advance from Koritza on the 15th.
After a small skirmish with the Albanian bands he occupied Kamenitza, Hill 907, to the right and to the left of the Ersek road, on the 16th Tchafa Kiarit, Helmiz, and Lubonia, sending reconnaissances as far as Ersek, and on the 17th the French infantry, under General de Vassart, met our troops under Colonel Rossi at Ersek. General Sarrail wished Ersek to remain in possession of the French troops, and had tried to obtain this result by means of the little trick of anticipating the date for commencing operations. In his memoirs he states that he had asked General Ferrero's permission to occupy Ersek and that the latter refused, saying :
" Ersek must be left for the Italians."
In reality it had always been agreed that Ersek was to be included in our area, and General Sarrail knew it. Otherwise he would not have made the above-mentioned attempt. He ended by recognizing his error, or rather, he threw the blame on the commander of the detachment operating towards Tchafa Kiarit, who, according to the General, had acted on his own initiative.
A definite connection between the French and Italians across Albania was thus established, and the whole road from Santi Quaranta to Fiorina was opened up for communications between the Allies, and closed to Greece and the Central Empires.
As we have seen, the Allies in Macedonia, at the beginning of 1917, were not in a position to attempt an offensive on a large scale. On the other hand, even the enemy did not seem to be very anxious to attack.
In Roumania, Germany and Austria had lost many men, and all their available reinforcements, in spite of the progressive weakening of Russia, were absorbed on the French or Italian fronts. The Bulgarians might perhaps have done more, but they were not enthusiastic over the idea of throwing themselves headlong into an offensive, the result of which might have been the conquest of Salonica, while they knew that that city was reserved for Austria and not for them.
Consequently, except for the town of Monastir, for which they had a special sentiment, all the territorial aims to which they might reasonably aspire were in their own hands, so that they had no strong inducement to face fresh risks.
These are the reasons why the enemy did not then attempt a great offensive in the Mackensen style, when the Allies were weak and divided, and when their Governments refused to send large reinforcements to the East.
This does not mean that they remained passive.
In February they attempted operations which might have had dangerous results for the whole of the Armee d'Orient, if it had not been held up by the gallant defense of the 35th Division.
On the evening of February 12th, at 18.45 hours the trenches occupied by two companies of the 162nd Infantry (Ivrea Brigade) in the west sector of Hill 1050, were subjected to a tremendous bombardment by artillery, hand grenades, trench mortars and flame-throwers. It was the first time that the latter terrible weapon was employed on the Balkan front, so that its effects came as a complete surprise. Our first lines were smashed up by the explosions, about 600 m. of trench were wrested from their gallant defenders, and half a company was destroyed in a horrible manner by the flames. The survivors, strengthened by another company under the command of Captain Odello, were able to hold up the enemy advance along a lower line in the rear, and immediately afterwards a counter-attack was launched. Fighting continued throughout the night and the next day. In the evening, Colonel Basso, Commander of the regiment, personally took command of the troops destined for the counter-attack. He reorganized the battalions, reestablished the communications which had been cut and, after a bombardment by our artillery, the infantry moved to attack at 15 hours on the 15th. Two of the lost trenches were then recaptured, although the enemy reacted vigorously by means of artillery, trench-mortar and machine-gun fire, our infantry continued slowly to advance during the whole of the day. After a short halt in the afternoon, rendered necessary by the visibility, the attack was resumed and several more trenches recaptured.
About a fortnight later our Command decided to make another attack.
On the evening of February 27th, we opened a violent bombardment on the enemy positions with 150 guns, which fired some 20,000 rounds on the enemy defenses on Hill 1050 on the Piton Brule, east of the latter. After about two hours' fire with good results, the infantry attack to recapture the remaining positions which had been lost on February 11th was launched. The enemy kept up a very hot fire on our positions on Hill 1050 and on the lines of approach. At about 18 hours the scout section and the 11th Company of the 162nd Infantry, followed by the 9th and 2nd Companies issued from the trenches, and hurled themselves with splendid dash on the enemy positions, recapturing them and reaching the enemy dug-outs, where they captured about 70 prisoners. The 11th Company was able to hold the captured ground for some time, but while the scouts were trying to strengthen themselves in the conquered positions, a mine, prepared by the enemy, exploded and blew up the trench, killing nearly the whole of the detachment. The few survivors, supported by part of the 9th Company, clung desperately to the captured ground ; two of the three scout officers and four of those of the 9th Company (including the captain) and many other ranks had fallen. A violent machine-gun fire and a furious enemy counter- attack obliged these gallant survivors to fall back on their original positions.
Two more companies were sent to reinforce them, with Major Negro commanding the attacking troops, together with the remnants of the company already so hardly hit, returned to the charge ; but the machine-guns on Hill 1050 rendered even this new attack fruitless. The 11th Company, now reduced to its captain and a few men, and reinforced by part of the 2nd Company, continued to hold the conquered position, although it was isolated and subjected to a heavy enfilading fire from the enemy artillery, which ours was not able to silence, because the range of the enemy's emplacements had not been found. The brave detachment consequently had to be recalled.
We had thus recaptured all the lost positions except a small hummock on the crest of Hill 1050 which remained abandoned by both sides. It was the object of vigorous shelling and neither we nor the enemy were able to occupy it definitely. Its form was altered by the bombardment.
Our losses in this engagement amounted to about 400 men ; those of the enemy were probably equally numerous. The episode is interesting in as much as this was the first time in which Italian troops were engaged in a hand-to- hand encounter with the Germans, and the 74 prisoners captured by our men were all Germans, belonging to the 9th and 10th Jager Battalions, and to the 205th Company of Engineers.
All our detachments which took part in the action behaved admirably. If the attack did not succeed in driving the enemy from the crest of Hill 1050, it served to prove that that position could not be taken by a frontal attack unless the Piton Rocheux on the right had been first captured, because it was the batteries behind the latter that dominated Hill 1050, so that even though the latter had been captured, the troops who occupied it would have been exposed to the enfilading fire of the said batteries.
The Piton Rocheux was the chief protection of the enemy artillery, which could not be identified nor silenced on account of the deep gullies with steep sides in which they were hidden, and also because of the insufficiency of our air force. If the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies had learnt the lesson from this episode he would have avoided the failure and heavy losses which he suffered in subsequent attacks, but General Sarrail does not appear to have known exactly how this action had taken place nor its result. At least that is what we must conclude from what he writes in his memoirs, 1 in which he says that we had lost Hill 1050 on February 12th, and that in the operations of February 28th we had not been able to recapture it, though losing 400 men. In fact, he says " malgre, paraitil, 400 hommes hors de combat,'''' as though he doubted that we had had such losses. It is easy to see how many inaccuracies, not to use a cruder expression, this statement contains. We did not lose Hill 1050 on the 12th of February for the good reason that we had never occupied it. It was, as we have seen, the Serbs who had lost it some months before, immediately after capturing it ; of the trenches which we had actually lost on February 12th we recaptured nearly all, partly in the attack on February 13th, and the others in that on the 27th. There only remained the very small bit which I have mentioned, and even the enemy could not hold this permanently.
These operations, and others on other sectors of the front, were only a prelude to a wider action which General Sarrail intended to conduct in the spring in order to try to break through the enemy line. As regards our own sector, General Petitti had proposed a very promising and well thought out plan of operations. The enemy positions on Hill 1050 were to be outflanked and only a demonstrative frontal action was to be developed against them, whereas the line was to be broken at the salient of Vlaklar, and the Piton Rocheux occupied in order to destroy the artillery behind it.
But in the month of March our sector of front was shortened and part of the positions on the Piton Rocheux were given over to the French, so that this area remained divided between the Italians and the French.
The first phase of the offensive, according to Sarrail's plan, was to consist of a flanking movement with the object of breaking the enemy line between the Lakes of Ochrida and Presba ; Allied forces were then to march round the latter, occupy Resna, and thence threaten the enemy's communications behind the Monastir front. At the same time a frontal attack from Monastir was to be delivered against Hill 1248 so as to give the town, which was always under enemy fire, a wider breathing space.
On March 11th, the operations between the two lakes began with an attack by the 76th French Division. Important preparations had been made for transport along the difficult Pisoderi road between Fiorina and Koritza, but the enemy's resistance proved more vigorous than was expected, and this fact, together with the extremely bad weather which set in just then, caused the flanking movement to fail, and it was soon abandoned. On the 13th a small operation was carried out by detachments of the 63rd Italian Infantry Regiment on Hill 1050 and certain enemy trenches, which formed a troublesome salient within our lines, were captured. The French attack on Hill 1248, which was to have been delivered at the same time, did not commence until the 14th. After an intense bombardment, the French attacked the Tzrvena-Stena west of Monastir, and captured some strong entrenchments ; others were captured on Hill 1248. On the 18th, after other lively engagements, the French captured the whole of Hill 1248 as well as the fortified village of Krklina, taking 1,200 prisoners. But the enemy succeeded, by a counter-attack, in recapturing part of Hill 1248, whose summit remained abandoned by both sides.
Monastir was somewhat relieved, but the town continued to remain under fire until the Armistice, and more than half of it was destroyed. It cannot be said that the bombardment was unjustified because, besides various Commands, the French had placed a number of batteries there.
On March 25th, the enemy again attacked the positions of the 63rd Infantry Regiment on Hill 1050, but were repulsed. After another quiet period the offensive was to be resumed in April, and this time the British were to deliver the attack. General Sarrail wanted them to advance simultaneously on Serres and Doiran, but General Milne replied that with his weak effectives he could not attempt an offensive on both sectors, and he decided to limit himself to the Doiran front. He probably realized that General Sarrail wanted him to attack Serres solely for political reasons, because Serres, being a place which even the ordinary public had heard of, its capture would have been a good advertisement for the Armee d'Orient, but if the capture of the town appeared fairly easy, it would have been very difficult to hold it, as it was dominated by formidable Bulgarian positions on the hills behind it.
On April 25th the British attack was launched.
The immediate objective was the capture of the Grand and Petit Couronne, extremely strong positions defending the passage between Lake Doiran and the Vardar. Their capture would have opened two roads, that of the Vardar Valley with the railway along the river, and that of the Kosturino Pass towards Strumitza and the interior of Bulgaria. This sector of the front was, like that of the Cerna loop and that of Hill 1248, similar to the fronts of Italy and France, in as much as it was provided with all the defensive systems known to modern warfare, and the lines of the two adversaries were very close together, but it differed from the European fronts as all the sectors of Macedonia differed from them, owing to the far greater difficulties of supply and communications. Between Lake Doiran and the Vardar the 22nd and 26th Divisions were distributed (XII Corps), and they had held that sector for almost a year. The ground was extremely broken, and if the mountains occupied by the enemy were not very high, they dominated the British positions and were very well adapted for a strenuous defense. The most conspicuous point of the British position was a long hill like a hump, which the French had named La Tortue, on account of its resemblance to the back of a tortoise.
The British trenches lay along the ridge on La Tortue, beside which rose the Petit Couronne of about the same height, which was the principal bastion of the first line defenses of the Bulgarians. Between the two heights there was a deep gully, known as the Ravin des Jumeaux. Behind La Tortue were other hills, all dominated by the two formidable positions of the Grand Couronne near the lake, and the P ridges, the former 600 m. above the sea, and the highest point of the latter (P 2), 700 m.
On April 22nd the British artillery opened a heavy preparatory bombardment which lasted throughout the 24th, so that the Bulgarians had no difficulty in knowing that an attack was imminent, and they took the necessary precautions. On the night of the 24th-25th the attack was delivered — the 65th and 66th Brigades of the 22nd Division to the left, and the 78th and 79th Brigades of the 26th Division to the right, took part in it. Various trenches in the enemy line were occupied, both on the Petit Couronne" near the lake, and further to the left. The losses were heavy, especially in the Jumeaux Ravine, and the Bulgarian defenses proved stronger than had been anticipated. The enemy, moreover, was able to bring up reinforcements more rapidly than the British could do, both on account of the shorter distance that they had to traverse and the fact that the ground was less broken on their side. The British were violently counter-attacked and mown down by machine-gun fire, and consequently had to withdraw to their original positions, except on the extreme left of the sector of attack where they were able to hold some of the captured trenches in the Dolzeli-Krastali sector. The Bulgarian counter-offensive against these positions, between the 26th and 28th, was driven back with heavy losses ; the total British losses amounted to about 3,000. The troops had all behaved with conspicuous gallantry, the battalions of the Devonshire and Berkshire Regiments being specially mentioned.
Early in May, General Petitti di Roreto was recalled to Italy to take up an important Command ; he was succeeded in Macedonia by General PenneHa, who arrived at Tepavci on the eve of the important offensive of that month. This attack was to have been delivered simultaneously in the Cerna loop by the Italians and the French, on the Dobropolje by the Serbs, and in the Vardar- Doiran sector by the British. But General Sarrail was anxious about other matters besides military considerations. In Greece the political situation was becoming ever more critical, and while he was preparing for the offensive on the Macedonian front, an offensive which everybody knew about, including of course, the enemy, he was already contemplating an expedition to Greece, which prevented him from concentrating all his efforts against the Bulgarians and Germans.
He even told an Italian field officer that he did not hope to obtain more than a partial success on the front and perhaps reach Prilep, and that, as soon as he had achieved some advantage, he would send 3 divisions to Thessaly to obtain possession of the harvest. This was important both for the supplies of the Armee d'Orient and to prevent the Greeks, then under the rule of King Constantine, from getting supplies. Greece would thus have been placed at the mercy of the Entente. But he was already meditating, as we shall see, a broader offensive against King Constantine, and his chief error was to have attempted the offensive against the Bulgarians and Germans whilst his attention was being attracted towards the south.
On May 6th, the British resumed their bombardment of the Bulgarian positions west of Lake Doiran, and on the night of the 8th-9th, the infantry attacked. The 60th, 22nd and 26th Divisions took part in the operations, but the principal effort was made by the latter between the Ravin des Jumeaux and the lake ; to the left only demonstrative actions were to take place. The positions to the right and left of the Petit Couronne were captured at the cost of heavy lossess, a battalion of the Argyll and Sutherlands greatly distinguishing itself. Two detach- ments of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry and the Berkshire Regiment assaulted the eastern end of the hill and ascended its slopes, but the violent machine-gun and trench-mortar fire and the counter-attacks of the enemy rendered these positions untenable and they had to be evacuated. The British were unable to hold the captured trenches except in one or two sectors to the west of Krastali, where the enemy had offered no serious resistance. Their conduct throughout this action, as in that of the Ravin des Jumeaux, was admirable, but the losses were very heavy — from 4,000 to 5,000 men — and no advantage was gained.
On May 9th, the attack was also delivered in the Cerna loop. The plan of operations proposed by our Command was not, as we have seen, accepted by General Sarrail, who, after having studied the ground on which the action was to take place for one hour only, an inspection which he made from the summit of Mount Tchuka, he decided to deliver a frontal attack on the whole of Hill 1050 from point " A " to the Piton Rocheux. None of the Commanders who were to carry out this operation, Italian or French, had any confidence in its success. The attack was planned in order to make it coincide with that of the Serbs, but actually it did not do so. This fact, and the preliminary bombardment to destroy the wire entanglements and other defenses of the enemy, which lasted for several days, gave the enemy ample warning as to the points at which the attack was to be delivered. The troops detailed for the operation were the 61st, 161st, and 162nd Italian Infantry detachments, with the 62nd in support, the 16th French Colonial Division and a Russian brigade. The artillery consisted of three French batteries of short 155-mm. guns, 7 French batteries of old naval guns of 120 mm. (long), 9 French field batteries of 75 mm., the 32 Italian mountain guns of 65 mm., and two groups (16 pieces) of 240 mm. Italian trench-mortars. But all this was insufficient to destroy the enemy defenses. The destructive barrage was resumed with greater vigor, and at 6.30 the infantry attack began. On the left, the 1st Battalion of the 61st Regiment reached and passed beyond the enemy lines on the crest of Hill 1050 between points "A" and "A 2," but there it was met by very heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, suffered serious losses and had to fall back on point " A 1," where it remained until evening. The 3rd Battalion recaptured the old trenches, lost by the Serbs after the fall of Monastir, to the south and south-east of point " A " and went beyond them, but were attacked in the flank as well as in front by the enemy fire ; they had to fall back after having suffered heavy losses, including the Battalion Commander, who was mortally wounded. In the centre, a detachment of the 161st succeeded in getting round Hill 1050 on the right, whilst others in the centre and on the left reached points " A 2 " and " A 3." These troops were also subjected to very heavy artillery, trench-mortar and machine-gun fire, were counter-attacked by strong detachments of the enemy, and suffered serious losses.
One company was almost completely destroyed by the explosion of a mine which had been laid in the trench from which the enemy had been driven. Nevertheless the few survivors advanced with great energy and surprised the enemy in their dug-outs, capturing many German prisoners and killing others. But the fire from the battery positions which our artillery could not silence, rendered their position untenable, and they, too, had to fall back on their original trenches, which in the meanwhile had been wrecked by the enemy bombardment. On the right, the attack by the 162nd Regiment encountered the same fate as the others. Our men succeeded in their first dash in occupying the whole of the enemy's first line on the Piton Brule, on to which they also carried their machine-guns. Then perhaps they might have been able to hold their ground, but support failed them on the right, because even the troops of the 16th French Colonial Division had been unable to maintain themselves on the Piton Rocheux which they had at first captured, so that the Italians were met by a very heavy artillery, machine-gun and hand-grenade fire from behind, and by machine-gun fire on their right coming from the Piton Rocheux. They were thus obliged to fall back, partly on their own trenches and partly on positions between the old and the new trenches. At 9.45, the attack was resumed, but conditions not having improved in our favor, no better success was achieved, whereas fresh heavy losses were suffered. About midday the order to suspend the attack was given. Altogether we had lost about 2,700 men killed and wounded. The troops had behaved splendidly, and perhaps they might have broken through on the right if, as I have said, the support from the Rocheux sector, where the French had been unable to reach the ridge, had not failed them.
On the following day a new attack was ordered. As the French Command had realized that the artillery at its disposal was not sufficient for a general attack along the whole line, a fact which the Italians had known for some time, it was decided to concentrate the whole of it on the Piton Brule and the Piton Rocheux. At 5 a.m. a demonstrative bombardment was commenced on Hill 1050, and a concentrated fire on the Brule and Rocheux from the Italian and French batteries further east. At 8 a.m. the range was lengthened, and the infantry (161st Regiment) began the attack, but they were met by the usual hurricane of enemy fire which held up the advance, As early as 7.30, our Command had noticed a diminution in the intensity of the artillery fire against the Rocheux, and in answer to a question by telephone, the French Command replied that the bombardment was merely a feint because the attack had been adjourned to the following day.
The explanation was afterwards given that, as everybody at the French H.Q. knew of this adjournment, nobody had thought of communicating it to our Command. The batteries were immediately ordered to cease fire and the two attacking battalions to remain in their trenches ; the battalion on the right suspended its advance, but the one on the left, the telephone having been destroyed by the enemy bombardment, could not be warned in time, and attacked impetuously, reached the enemy trenches and occupied them, but found itself without support, because the battalion on the right and the French had not moved, and consequently it had to retire with heavy losses.
On the 11th the attack was repeated in identical conditions, but the enemy fire made any advance impossible, and the troops fell back on the trenches whence they had started. A detachment of Italian infantry which had pushed further forward remained under a rocky ridge the whole day, the men shamming dead because they could not raise their heads, and re-entered our lines after nightfall. The French attack was no more successful. Our total losses were 3,000 men — those of the French about the same.
In the meanwhile, the II Serbian Army had attacked Hill 1824, south of the Dobropolje on May 9th, capturing it with small losses, and prepared to attack Vetrenik. But after some operations of slight importance, in which a little progress was made, the Serbs too, on account of the enemy resistance and the bad weather, were held up, having lost about 1,000 men, and the Serbian Command asked the C.A.A. to suspend the offensive.
General Sarrail attributes this request to various causes, among which was the fear of the Prince Regent of a movement among the Serbs similar to that which was taking place among the Russians, to the reaction of events on the Western front, and to the failure and losses on other sectors of the Macedonian front, but chiefly to the crisis in the internal political situation of the Serbs, and to the intrigues of the French General Lebouc, commanding the French troops in the Cerna loop, who, being unable to aspire to the post of Commander-in-Chief on account of his inferior rank, had tried, according to General Sarrail, to get the Prince Regent of Serbia appointed to that post in the place of General Sarrail in order to become his " Major General." There was some truth in all this, but the chief cause of the reluctance of the Prince Regent to continue the offensive was, as usual, lack of confidence on the part of the Serbs in the strategic qualities of Sarrail, and the fear of incurring useless losses which could not be made good.
Further to the right, the I Group of Divisions, commanded by General Regnault, and composed of the 122nd French Division, the Greek Archipelago Division (2 Regiments), and a Russian brigade commanded by General Dietrich, had begun to explore the ground as early as May 5th, and on the 10th it advanced a little. On the Struma the British attacked on the 15th and captured a few prisoners, and on the 16th and 18th they repulsed Bulgarian counter- attacks, inflicting losses on the enemy. A few sporadic actions were conducted on various sectors of the front, and on the 21st General Sarrail ordered the French and British battalions to suspend all attacks, and on the 23rd he extended the same order to the Serbs.
The final result of these and other operations, the losses in which were about 13,000 to 14,000, was absolutely nil. A few enemy trenches had been captured, but no positions which could in any way improve the situation of the Allies. The moral situation of the latter had suffered considerably, both on account of the depression caused by the unsuccessful attacks and of the heavy losses, and above all, owing to the encouragement of the Bulgarians and Germans. Until that moment the enemy moral had been declining as a consequence of the long period of inaction after their defeat in the autumn of 1916, the pressure of the Allies, and the conviction that, whatever was the outcome of the war, the Bulgarians would obtain but slight advantages besides those already achieved, even if the latter could be preserved in their entirety. The possibility of a separate peace was not excluded. Now, however, victory — the unsuccessful offensive of the Allies appeared a victory to them — strengthened their determination to carry on the war to the bitter end.
In the first place, the enemy, with their successive lines of trenches, well defended by barbed wire, with dug-outs excavated in the rock, and their great abundance of artillery and machine guns, occupied everywhere the dominating positions. Their artillery was more numerous and included heavier calibres than that of the Allies.
On the other hand, the Allied effectives, weakened by sickness, the gaps not being filled up by adequate reinforcements, were inferior to those of the enemy. The Allied Air Force "was also inferior, as it was not provided with machines capable of facing the swift and powerful German Gothas. But the chief cause of the failure must be set down to the absolute deficiency of the Chief Command.
General Sarrail was peculiarly unsuited to hold a command over troops of different nationalities on account of his lack of tact and consideration in dealing with the various commanders, nor did he possess the true qualities of a commander of a large unit. He lacked clearness of vision and genius in his strategic ideas, and firmness in carrying them out. He always affected great contempt for the enemy forces, he acted on sudden decisions taken almost at haphazard and without sufficient knowledge of the topographical and military situation. As we have seen, he had decided on the plan of operations in the Cerna loop after a flying visit to Mount Tchuka, and adopted one very different from that elaborated by our Command after a residence of nearly six months in that sector.
Nor would he listen to Voivod Michich, who knew more about Balkan mountain warfare than most generals. He had no idea of the methods of liaison, and instead of carrying out the operations in the various sectors simultaneously, or else concentrating all his efforts on one sector, he ordered a series of disconnected actions, carried out at different moments ; he began the attack between Lakes Ochrida and Presba and that opposite Monastir in the month of March, he attacked with the British west on Lake Doiran on April 25th, and in May he conducted four attacks on as many sectors — with the French and Italians in the Cerna loop, with the Serbs east of the Cerna, with the French, Russians and Greeks west of the Vardar, and with the French and British east of the Vardar, dispersing the artillery so that in no sector was there a sufficiency of heavy and medium calibres to make an impression on the extremely strong defensive lines of the enemy or silence their batteries.
He allowed each contingent to act on its own account, without ever letting the guiding hand of the Commander-in-Chief be felt, save occasionally in exceptional circumstances, and at moments when it was out of place.
Apart from all this, while the Allied effectives were too weak for a serious offensive, he would not concentrate them all at the front, but withdrew 3 divisions to keep themselves ready to operate in Greece. The lack of confidence on the part of the Allies, and even of a considerable section of the French, in his military qualities was thus very much enhanced, because he was seen to be always preoccupied by political questions, and those not of inter-Allied policy. If the Greek situation was such as to require the intervention of the Armee d'Orient, he should not have attempted an offensive against the Germans and Bulgarians at that moment. 1
If the enemy had thought of conducting a counter- attack, after the unsuccessful attack by the Allies and the consequent reduction of their strengths, in addition to that occasioned by the withdrawal of troops to be sent to Greece, a disaster to the entire Armee d'Orient would not have been impossible. If it did not take place, this was certainly not due to the merits of the Commander- in-Chief.
1 General Sarrail in his memoirs tries to defend himself by publishing the orders of the French Government, which enjoined on him now an action in Greece, now an offensive on the front ; but he does not appear to have put the question in clear language — either one thing or the other ; if one was to be carried out he must have no arriere pensee for the other.
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