OPERATIONS IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1916
I have already set forth the reasons wherefore I consider that Italy’s
participation in the Macedonian expedition was opportune, and indeed
indispensable. Our Government was finally convinced of this necessity,
but accepted it somewhat unwillingly, both for political and military
reasons; consequently our participation was ever maintained within
modest proportions. In accordance with the terms of the agreement
concluded between ourselves and our Allies, Italy undertook, in the
summer of 1916, to participate in the Macedonian expedition with
a division, which, however, was only to be provided with mountain
artillery; the field and heavy artillery attached to our contingent
was to be supplied by the French Army. There were then some good
reasons for not endowing these troops too generously with artillery;
the Italian Army in general was inadequately provided with guns, and
during the Austrian offensive from the Trentino in the spring of
that year it had lost many batteries, especially of medium and heavy
calibre. These reasons, however, did not continue to exist in the later
phases of the campaign, but nevertheless our expeditionary force in
the Balkans was never provided with artillery of its own, except with
the above-mentioned mountain batteries, a fact which was to cause us
considerable difficulties in the future.
Our contingent consisted of the 35th Infantry Division, a name
destined to occupy a high place in the roll of honour of the Italian
Army, although it has been hitherto less well known than that of many
other units. To this division many other detachments had been added
which properly belong to an army corps or even an army. Originally,
it had consisted of the Sicilia Brigade (61st and 62nd Infantry
Regiments)[10] and the Cagliari Brigade (63rd and 64th), several
machine-gun companies, a squadron of the Lucca Light Cavalry (16th
Regiment), eight mountain batteries of four 65 mm. guns each, various
companies of engineers, transport and other services, etc. The division
had achieved an honourable record on the Alpine front, where it had
suffered heavy losses; but before coming out to the East it had been
reorganized, brought up to full strength, and admirably equipped. The
command of the force had been entrusted to General Petitti di Roreto, a
very distinguished and gallant officer, and an excellent organizer; his
Chief of the Staff was Colonel Garbasso.
The first Italian detachments reached Salonica on August 11, 1916. The
fine appearance, smart equipment, and the vigorous and martial aspect
of the men in their grey-green uniforms and steel helmets, marching
along the quay under the brilliant summer sun, created an excellent
impression. Representatives of the various Allied armies were there to
receive them, with the band of the Zouaves. The numerous and patriotic
Italian colony, which had seen the troops of almost all the other
Allied armies arrive--there was even a Russian contingent which had
come over from France--was in a paroxysm of excitement when at last
it saw the Italian troops and admired the battle flags of our fine
regiments fluttering in the breeze. It was not only to strengthen the
Allied front in the Orient that it was advisable to send an Italian
contingent, but also to affirm Italian prestige among the Balkan
peoples, a duty which the 35th Division fulfilled no less well than it
accomplished its purely military tasks.
Our expeditionary force was at first destined to take part in an
action on the Macedonian front, in co-operation with the Russian and
Roumanian offensive, Roumania’s intervention being already decided.
But the total strength of all the Allied forces in Macedonia was
insufficient for an operation on a large scale, and by the time the
Italians had landed this scheme was hardly thought of any longer.
General Petitti was to take orders directly from the Commander-in-Chief
of the Allied Armies in the Orient (General Sarrail), as regards the
tactical employment of his troops, but he alone was responsible for all
the details of their employment, and it was agreed that the Italian
division should not be split up.
The Italians had not come to the Balkans to stop in Salonica, and
General Petitti was anxious to be sent to the front at once. He was at
first entrusted with the Krusha Balkan sector, east of Lake Doiran and
opposite the Beles mountains, a formidable and imposing rock barrier
strongly held by the Bulgars. A month after the landing of the first
detachment the bulk of the division was already at the front. This
area, which had been first held by the 57th French Division, was not
then very active, but we had a front of 48 km. to hold with only two
brigades; there were no defences to speak of, and everything had to
be created anew. In the short time which we occupied it we completely
transformed it. Many lines of trenches were dug, wire entanglements
laid down, works of all kinds constructed, and, in addition, the whole
area was provided by us with a complete network of roads.
[Illustration: GENERAL LEBLOIS BIDDING FAREWELL TO GENERAL PETITTI AT
TEPAVCI.]
[Illustration: LANDING OF ITALIAN TROOPS AT SALONICA.
To face p. 38.
]
At first we were in liaison with the British on our right and the
French on our left; besides occupying the Krusha Balkan positions, we
also relieved the French in certain advanced positions in the valley
between the former range and the Beles. General Petitti from the first
disapproved of this distribution, because the aforesaid advanced
positions were isolated and so far from the main body of his forces
that they could not receive assistance in case of a sudden attack, nor
be protected by artillery, being beyond the range of our guns. General
Sarrail insisted on those positions being maintained, but the Italian
Commander repeatedly requested to be authorized to evacuate them, all
the more so as they represented no military advantage. They were
held by a battalion of the 62nd Regiment, of which one company was at
Gornji Poroj, a large village at the foot of the Beles range, and the
others at other points in the valley. Finally, on September 17th, he
received instructions to evacuate them, and he immediately gave the
necessary orders. On the day fixed for the withdrawal Gornji Poroj was
suddenly attacked by overwhelming Bulgarian forces, but it should be
noted that the attack had been provoked by us in order to give support
to another attack which the British were carrying out elsewhere. The
Gornji Poroj Company (the 6th),[11] was faced by a battalion and a half
of Bulgars, and had orders to resist at all costs so as to protect the
withdrawal of the other three companies, and it carried out its task
with great gallantry. The Bulgarian barrage fire prevented the arrival
of reinforcements, and the company was soon entirely surrounded. It
continued to hold out throughout the afternoon and night, and it was
not until 36 hours after the commencement of the engagement, when
its ammunition had given out, that the gallant survivors ended their
resistance with a charge. The battalion commander continued to hear in
the far distance the cries “Savoia!” and “Viva l’Italia!” without being
able to send assistance. Some 180 men failed to answer the roll call.
The 8th Company, which had remained at Poroj Station, some distance
from the village, to collect stragglers, was also attacked and almost
surrounded by superior hostile forces, but managed to effect its
withdrawal during the night.
General Petitti soon had occasion to be dissatisfied with the conduct
of General Sarrail towards the Italians. As I have said, we had a
French division (the 16th Colonial) on our left. On September 26th
the Italian Command learned from General Gérome, without any warning
from G.H.Q., that a part of that division was being withdrawn, as
well as certain other detachments on the lines of communication which
were expected to act as reinforcements for our troops. Thus the
Italians found themselves with their left flank in the air and not a
single battalion in support nearer than Salonica, whereas they had
6 Bulgarian regiments directly in front of them and a whole division
on their flank. General Sarrail even wanted them to extend their line
towards the left so as to relieve the departing troops. General Petitti
addressed an energetic protest to General Sarrail against such conduct,
refused to extend his front, and referred the matter to the Italian
Supreme Command. The protest proved effective, and a British brigade
relieved the departing French.
We now found ourselves with the British on our left as well as on our
right. From the very first our relations with the British Army had
always been of the friendliest nature. This complete collaboration
between the armies of the two Allied countries was afterwards
intensified on the Italian front, but I do not think that the feeling
was anywhere more intimate or cordial than in Macedonia, and this
in spite of the insinuations of General Sarrail to General Petitti.
During the two years in which the Italians fought on the Macedonian
front there was never the slightest conflict or disagreement between
ourselves and the British, which is more, I venture to think, than can
be said for any other two armies on that front.
Knowledge of the incidents with the Italians reached the French
G.H.Q. and General Sarrail received a reprimand from his superiors in
consequence. On October 2nd he came to our H.Q. at Karamudi with the
Prince Regent of Serbia and two French parliamentary commissioners,
and after the usual exchange of compliments, he complained to General
Petitti that he had caused him (Sarrail) to be reproved by Marshal
Joffre. General Petitti replied that he had merely communicated
to the Italian _Comando Supremo_ the protest which he had sent to
General Sarrail himself. The latter showed him Joffre’s telegram,
in which it was stated that he had failed to maintain a spirit of
_camaraderie_ with Petitti; General Petitti then showed him the text
of his own telegram to the _Comando Supremo_, whereupon General
Sarrail, addressing himself to the Prince Regent of Serbia and the two
deputies, said: “From the cordial manner in which General Petitti has
received us, you will gather by what a friendly spirit of _camaraderie_
we are united, and how a trifling incident has been magnified.” This
explained the reason why Sarrail had induced the Prince Regent of
Serbia and the two French political men to accompany him to Karamudli.
Our troops suffered a great deal from malaria, their area being one of
the unhealthiest in the country. The broad valley between the Krusha
Balkan and the Beles ranges, which had once been thickly populated and
well cultivated, was now a desert; having been abandoned for two years,
it constituted a terrible hotbed of malarial fever. The shores of the
lakes of Doiran and Butkova, at the two ends of the valley, are marshy,
and muddy watercourses flow sluggishly down, widening the fen zone. The
troops in the lower positions near the plain were the worst sufferers,
and a large part of the malaria cases in the Cerna loop in 1917 and
1918 were in reality relapses from the Krusha Balkan period.
During the spring of 1916 the Germans and Bulgars had been busy
preparing for an offensive on a large scale against the Allies. The
11th Bulgarian Division, composed of Macedonian troops, who were not
too trustworthy and provided a number of deserters, was dissolved. The
Monastir front was strengthened with units drawn from the Dobrugia
and Eastern Macedonia. In the spring there were 3 Bulgarian divisions
between Strumitza and Xanthi, 3 in the Dobrugia and 5 in the Monastir
area, in addition to 2 German divisions, and in July we have the
following distribution of forces; 3 divisions and 1 cavalry brigade
in the Dobrugia, 2 brigades and some other units on the Struma, 2
Bulgarian and 1 German division (the only one left in Macedonia) on
the Vardar, all these forces being detailed for the attack on the
entrenched camp at Salonica. In the Monastir plain there was a mobile
reserve for attack consisting of two infantry divisions and 3 cavalry
brigades. In all, 8 Bulgarian infantry and 1 cavalry division, 1 German
division, and 1 or 2 Turkish divisions. The plan consists of a rapid
offensive on the two wings, with the object of cutting the Allies’
retreat towards Greece or Albania,[12] so as to oblige General Sarrail
to fight a siege battle and perhaps to capitulate. Since the retreat
along the Vardar down to the summer of 1916 Sarrail had had orders
to remain on the defensive, but now that the alliance with Roumania
had been concluded, the Entente Powers contemplated, as we have seen,
an operation in Macedonia to give support to the Roumanian Army and
perhaps effect a junction with it. Roumania declared war on August
28th, but she had asked that the Army of the Orient should attack ten
days before. It was, on the contrary, the enemy who was the first to
attack.
General Sarrail was now “Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in
the Orient,” and his command was known as the _Commandement des Armées
Alliées_, abbreviated “C.A.A.” The French troops under his orders were
grouped together under the name of _Armée française d’Orient_ (commonly
called the “A.F.O.”), and then commanded by General Cordonnier. It was
the latter who conducted the operations of the summer and autumn of
1916.
On August 17th the Bulgarians crossed the Greek frontier at two points,
advancing eastward to the mouth of the Struma and westward towards
Lake Ostrovo, which they reached on the 23rd. Soon after they occupied
Florina and Banitza, obliging the Serbs, who were holding that area, to
fall back on Ekshisu and Sorovich.
Against the enemy the Allies disposed of the following forces: rather
less than 200,000 French and British, 120,000 Serbs, 10,000 Russians
(who had arrived in July) and 30,000 Italians. The French artillery
amounted to 346 guns, the British to 370, the Serbian to 284, ours to
32. The machine guns were a little over 1,300, the cavalry about 3300
sabres. In all 360,000 men, but in reality the strengths were much
reduced owing to malaria and the difficulties of communications, so
that barely half of that number was available.
The enemy had one great advantage as compared with the Allies--the
real and effective unity of command. While the greater part of the
enemy forces were Bulgarian the chief command was German, and it was
exercised without question. The Allies on the other hand only resigned
themselves to the unity of command--that of General Sarrail--in July,
1916, and even then most unwillingly. The other Allied commanders had
no confidence in Sarrail’s military qualities, and above all distrusted
him for his taste for petty political intrigue. Consequently he could
never exercise that absolute authority which is an indispensable
condition for success.
Our expeditionary force took orders from General Sarrail, but when any
question of great importance arose, such as the change of sector of
the division or of a part of it, the extension of its front, etc., the
consent of the Italian _Comando Supremo_ was necessary. All this of
course interfered with the development of the operations, and General
Sarrail complains about his situation in that connexion very bitterly
in his memoirs, but it was due to his own defects as recognized by all.
The Bulgarian advance in the Monastir area at one moment made the
situation of the Allies appear really critical, because if the enemy
had succeeded in breaking through the line on the mountains north of
Vodena there would have been nothing more to stop them from descending
to the plain and consequently penetrating into Greece, and the Allies
would have had to remain besieged within the entrenched camp of
Salonica. But the further they advanced the more they became exhausted,
whereas while the Serbs fell back they were more and more strongly
reinforced. The critical point was the Lake of Ostrovo; on August 22nd
the Serb left repulsed five successive attacks on the heights west
of the lake between the Kayalar plain and the Rudnik basin, and was
subsequently reinforced by a part of the 156th French division. The
Allies immediately launched their counter-offensive, which was also
designed to assist the Roumanians, then just commencing hostilities.
On August 25th an Anglo-French incident occurred, neither the first nor
the last. General Cordonnier had requested General Sarrail that the
French Division on the Vardar, then at the disposal of the British,
should be placed under his own orders for the imminent operations
towards Monastir. General Sarrail not having authority to give orders
to General Milne, merely passed on the request to him; but General
Milne would not agree to the departure of more than one French
regiment. At the same time General Cordonnier, having placed some
French batteries at the disposal of the Serbs, at their own request,
sent a French general to the Serbian Army as “artillery commander.”
This aroused vigorous protests at the Serbian G.H.Q. in Salonica, and
the French artillery general had to be satisfied with the title of
“adviser.”
The duty of the British and of the Italians in the eastern area was
to watch the enemy and keep them occupied with demonstrative actions,
while the Serbs’ objectives were the Malka Nidze and Kaimakchalan
mountains, and the French and Russians under Cordonnier were to attack
the Bulgarians’ flank further west. The attack was to take place on the
12th of September on the western sector, but there were considerable
difficulties owing to the great distance from Verria where the reserves
were concentrated, and it was by no means easy to distribute them so
that they should be at the disposal of General Cordonnier. On the 13th
the Serbs advanced fighting, and occupied the Malka Nidze and Ostrovo,
capturing 25 guns, the 156th Division pushed on from Kayalar and Rudnik
towards Banitza, the Russians towards the Neretzka and the 57th French
Division, with the two regiments of Chasseurs d’Afrique, towards
Kastoria. On the 17th the French and Russians occupied Florina, and
the Serbs, after having driven the Bulgarians from the bare sinister
heights of Gornichevo--the pass between the lake of Ostrovo and the
Monastir plain--attacked them with fierce energy on the Kaimakchalan.
The Bulgarians resisted desperately, but the Serbs, spurred on by the
incentive of wresting from the enemy a first tract of their invaded
fatherland, after a long protracted struggle captured the positions.
Barely a hundred Bulgars were taken prisoners; the other defenders
were all dead. On September 29th the Bulgars still held a line south
of Monastir, passing through Kenali and along the north bank of the
Cerna; the French and the Serbs had been ordered by Sarrail to attack
once more, but they were repulsed owing to the failure of the artillery
preparation.
General Sarrail was determined to achieve a theatrical success at all
costs, and on the 28th he ordered a fresh attack for October 2nd in the
plain south of Monastir. General Cordonnier, after having conferred
with the commander of one of the Russian brigades, replied that, owing
to the state of exhaustion of his troops, it was impossible to demand
this fresh effort from them so soon. But Sarrail, still conducting the
campaign from his office in Salonica, reiterated the order. The date
of the attack was adjourned for a few days, then again anticipated,
thus imposing a vast amount of work on the Staff to keep up with these
various changes. Finally the Franco-Russian attack was launched on
October 6th, but it achieved no other result than that of costing the
Allies heavy losses, without gaining any ground to speak of. But the
surrender of a whole Bulgarian battalion convinced the C.-in-C. that
the _moral_ of the enemy was very much depressed, and he ordered yet
another attack which took place on the 14th. It was no more successful
than the previous one, and cost the French 1,500 casualties. General
Sarrail then went to General Cordonnier’s H.Q., and in the presence of
various French and foreign officers of inferior rank, made a violent
scene to the Commander of the A.F.O. He declared that it was only
the Serbs who had done anything at all, and refused to listen to his
excuses. General Dietrich, commanding one of the Russian brigades,
wrote a letter protesting against the order of attack addressed to
Cordonnier, but intended for Sarrail, and sent a copy of it to the
Russian Government.
General Petitti was anxious that the 35th Division should not remain
inactive during these operations. In October the Ivrea brigade (161st
and 162nd Regiments), commanded by General Beltramo, had arrived,
together with a second squadron of the Lucca Cavalry Regiment and some
other detachments, which brought our effectives up to over 50,000 men.
General Sarrail now asked General Petitti whether he preferred to
extend his front to the left, so as to relieve the British, or, making
an exception to the principle that the division was not to be split up,
to send a brigade to take part in the operations in the Monastir area.
For political reasons, i.e. to render our co-operation more effective,
and also because he was certain that the arrangements for any extension
of his front would be made regardless of the forces actually at his
disposal, General Petitti chose the second alternative. Having asked
for and obtained the necessary authority from the _Comando Supremo_, he
sent the Cagliari Brigade with a squadron of cavalry and some mountain
batteries towards Monastir.
It was then possible to realize how appalling was the state of
communications in Macedonia. The Salonica-Monastir railway had a very
small carrying capacity, and we could only dispose of three trains a
day for transport of our troops. The movement began on October 22nd,
and the Command had orders to advance from Ekshisu on November 7th, but
as the various services had not yet all arrived the march was unable
to commence until the 11th. When General Roques, the French Minister
of War, came to Macedonia, he spoke of sending out fresh contingents
of troops, but General Petitti wisely reminded him that in the present
state of the roads these reinforcements would be immobilized and
useless.
The task of the Cagliari Brigade was to relieve the left brigade of
the 57th French Division and advance along the crest of the Baba
range south-west of Monastir, towards Kichevo and Gradeshnitza. A
French column was to advance in a direction parallel to ours, between
the crest of the ridge and the plain, while a Franco-Russian group
marched forward across the plain directly towards Monastir. On the
right the Serbs were operating in the Kaimakchalan-Cerna loop area.
The advance of our troops was extremely hard, as the Cagliari Brigade,
besides having to overcome the vigorous resistance of the enemy, had
to struggle against the snow blizzards over very broken ground, some
2,000 m. above the sea. The brigade had a front of attack of 12 km.,
and advanced slowly, gaining ground step by step, amid very deep snow.
On the 18th it occupied the Ostretz hill, on the 19th the 63rd Regiment
conquered the “tooth” of Velusina and occupied Hill 2209.
In the meanwhile the Serbs had made considerable progress at the
extreme right. On October 31st they reached Tepavci in the Cerna loop
(our future H.Q.); on November 2nd, Jaratok; on the 5th, Hill 1378, the
culminating point of the southern part of the loop. In the centre the
Franco-Russian column advanced fighting and broke through the Kenali
line. But here the Germans and Bulgarians offered a more stubborn
resistance, and on the 14th they repulsed an Allied attack with heavy
loss. The fall of Hill 1378 and the Italian advance along the Baba
range, however, threatened all the enemy positions round Monastir,
which were now no longer tenable. On the 15th the Bulgarians abandoned
their lines and soon afterwards evacuated Monastir. On the 19th a
platoon of French cavalry entered the town, followed by the rest of the
Franco-Russian column.
The Cagliari Brigade and the French at its right were to have pushed on
towards the Tzrvena Stena so as to capture the positions north-west of
Monastir. In fact, on the 21st the 63rd Regiment, after having overcome
the enemy’s resistance, captured Bratindol. But the French column
lower down, instead of continuing its advance in a parallel direction
towards the Tzervena Stena, effected a conversion to the right and
entered Monastir where it should never have gone. This obliged the
Cagliari Brigade to deviate also towards Monastir, as it could not
advance with its right flank as well as its left uncovered. Our troops
were disappointed in not having been able, through no fault of their
own, to participate directly in the taking of Monastir, to which they
had so greatly contributed, nor to drive the enemy from the positions
dominating the town from the north and north-west. Then there came an
order from G.H.Q., Salonica, suspending any further advance beyond
Monastir, and the French who had occupied some heights 5 km. from the
town, advanced no more. This brief respite gave the enemy, who had been
in full retreat towards Prilep, fresh courage, and they now returned
and reoccupied some important positions on Hill 1248; thence they
proceeded to bombard Monastir, which remained under fire until the
offensive of September 1918. The bad weather and the complete defeat of
the Roumanians induced the Entente Governments to suspend operations in
Macedonia.
The Italian troops entered Monastir soon after its occupation, and on
that occasion General Petitti, Brigadier-General Desenzani and some
other officers and men were wounded by the explosion of a shell near
the Italian Consulate, and Major Tamajo, engineer-in-chief of the
expeditionary force was killed.
The Serbs continued to advance, fighting from height to height and had
even captured Hill 1050, destined to become so famous, but worn out
and exhausted as they were with the long-drawn struggle and endless
marching, they were unable to withstand the fierce counter-attacks of
the enemy and the highest summit was lost. One of their armies was
reduced from 30,000 men to 6,000, and they were for the time being
incapable of any further effort.
On November 26th General Sarrail called on General Petitti in
the hospital at Salonica and informed him that the whole Italian
expeditionary force was to be relieved on the Krusha Balkan by the
British, and thence transferred to the Monastir area. This transfer
gave yet another opportunity for realizing how badly organized was
the inter-Allied G.H.Q. The British were sent into our area without
the Italian Command having been warned, so that the Italian troops
were not yet ready to leave; the arrangements for the movement of
troops were extremely faulty, and the Italian Command and above all
the _Intendenza_ were over-burdened with work necessary to make good
deficiencies for which they were not themselves responsible. The march
proved extremely arduous, above all owing to the lack of roads, the
destruction of the villages and the floods, which, especially between
Sarigöl and Naresh and between Topshin and Vertekop, had been very
serious. For weeks our troops never had a dry resting place. Even
the horse-drawn cavalry lorries could not proceed, and had to be
substituted by the small battalion carts. An English journalist tells
the story of a M.T. driver who was seen by his comrades buried up to
the neck in mud, and while they were trying to extricate him from his
difficulties, he said gaily: “I am all right, I am standing on the roof
of my lorry!”
During this period there were fears of an attack by the Greeks, and
General Sarrail decided to send some troops to the south to defend the
defiles from a possible Greek invasion from Thessaly. He therefore
asked General Petitti to send the two brigades of the 35th Division,
which had come from the Krusha Balkan, to Verria instead of to
Veretekop. General Petitti consented, although the movement promised
to be very difficult owing to the state of the roads. The information
supplied by G.H.Q. in this connexion proved absolutely erroneous, and
orders and counter-orders followed each other in quick succession.
Finally, on December 12th, General Sarrail ordered the concentration
of the whole division at Negochani, 15 km. east of Monastir, as news
had been received of the arrival of a German division at Prilep and an
enemy counter-attack was expected. The movement was carried out, and on
the 18th Sarrail ordered our troops to relieve the French in the sector
due north of Monastir.
General Petitti raised objections to the arrangement proposed. In the
first place his troops, who had been on the march since the beginning
of the previous month without a break, their services being completely
disorganized owing to the confusion reigning at G.H.Q., were in
absolute need of rest. The Cagliari Brigade in particular was exhausted
by the long and difficult march through the snows of Mount Baba. For
the defence of Monastir, which was one of the most ticklish sectors of
the whole front, at least one brigade was needed as a mobile reserve,
but the 35th Division was not in a position to provide it. Further, it
was necessary that the question of field and medium calibre artillery
to be assigned to our expeditionary force should be settled. “I do
not propose,” wrote General Petitti to General Sarrail, “to undertake
the responsibility of the defence of Monastir unless I am placed in
a position to do so with at least a probability of success; I do not
intend to sacrifice my troops and the honour of my Army by exposing
myself to an almost certain defeat, thus allowing it afterwards to be
said that the Italians were unable to hold what the other Allies had
conquered.” As a matter of fact, he felt sure that General Sarrail
would not place at his disposal the means necessary for the defence
of Monastir, and he believed that the C.-in-C. merely wished to rid
himself of this awkward task by handing it over to us, so as to be
able to wash his hands of all responsibility if the enemy succeeded in
reconquering the town. The true reason of the objections of the Italian
Commander was his want of confidence in the loyalty and military
qualities of General Sarrail.
On December 18th Sarrail again called on Petitti at the hospital, and
asked him to choose his own sector himself, undertaking to place at
his disposal two groups of 75 mm. batteries and the medium calibre
artillery which happened to be already in the sector chosen, and to
leave the division which the 35th was about to relieve in its immediate
rear, unless and until it became necessary to employ it elsewhere owing
to exceptional circumstances. Subsequently General Petitti, who was now
recovered, went to Florina, and, by agreement with General Leblois,
the new Commander of the A.F.O. who had relieved General Cordonnier,
he chose the western part of the Cerna loop, from Novak to Makovo as
his sector, and this arrangement was approved by General Sarrail. Our
division relieved one and a half French divisions and one Serbian
division. As the whole of the 35th Division would now be supported on
either side by troops of the A.F.O., Petitti himself proposed that he
should be placed tactically under the orders of the Command of the
latter. During the month of December the whole expeditionary force was
concentrated in its new sector in the Cerna loop (except of course
the base units at Salonica and the L.O.C. detachments), and there it
remained until September 1918, save for a few slight rectifications of
the line.
After the occupation of Monastir, the distribution of the Allied
forces was stabilized as follows. From Ersek, where a liaison had
been effected with our Albanian force (I shall deal later with the
relations between the armies in Macedonia and those in Albania) to the
eastern arm of the Cerna, the line was held by the A.F.O. The latter
now comprised seven French divisions, viz. the 30th, the 57th, the
76th, the 156th, and the 11th Colonial, the two Russian brigades, the
35th Italian, the 16th and 17th French Colonial Divisions. Of the two
Russian brigades which were for a short time in the Cerna loop, one was
soon afterwards transferred to the lake of Presba and the other to the
east of the Cerna. Later, when they were amalgamated into one division,
they were concentrated in the Presba area, where they remained until
their final break up. The 16th and 17th Colonial Divisions were on our
right in the Cerna loop. Between the Cerna and a point near Nonte there
were the three Serbian armies, afterwards reduced to two. The line
between Nonte and the Vardar was held by the 122nd French Division,
subsequently strengthened by one, later on by two, and finally by three
Greek divisions. The A.F.O. was divided into two “_groupements de
divisions_” (corresponding to army corps), one between the Cerna and
Albania, one in the Cerna loop (comprising the Italian troops); the
122nd Division with the Greek forces afterwards added to it formed the
“_1er groupement_.” Between the Vardar and the mouth of the Struma in
the Gulf of Orfano was the British area--the XII Corps (10th, 22nd and
26th Divisions) from the Vardar to lake Butkova, and the XVI Corps
(27th, 28th and 60th Divisions) from Butkova to the sea. There were in
addition the 228th Garrison Brigade and two cavalry brigades. The 10th
and 60th Divisions and the cavalry brigades were transferred to the
Palestine front in the summer of 1917.
The medium and heavy calibre artillery was wholly French and British,
and in the A.F.O. all the artillery was French, except for the Italian
mountain batteries, to which the Greek ones were afterwards added. A
fixed quantity of French field and medium calibre artillery had been
assigned to our division, and it was placed under the orders of the
Italian artillery commander. Some other medium and heavy artillery,
which was under the orders of the Army Command, was from time to time
assigned to the Italian sector in varying quantities, according to
necessity.
The Allied strengths at the beginning of 1917 were roughly as follows:
Ration Strength. Rifles.
French 210,000 50,000
British 180,000 50,000
Italian 55,000 18,000
Serbs 152,000 80,000
------- -------
Total 597,000 198,000
I shall subsequently have occasion to mention the variations in these
strengths.
This distribution shows how General Sarrail’s object was to have
French detachments always dovetailed in between troops of other
nationalities. Thus the Russians, who were at first divided into two
separate groups, were between two French divisions, the 35th Italian
Division was also between two French divisions, while French units
separated the Italians from the Serbs and the latter from a British
and the Greeks. He knew that he did not enjoy sufficient prestige
with the other Allies to be able to do what he liked with them, so
that he kept French troops scattered about all over the front, and he
stated that he acted thus in order to avoid incidents between Allies
who did not get on with each other. But he never succeeded in having
the whole of the _Armée d’Orient_ under his absolute control, and
for every operation undertaken in common or transfers of non-French
units, diplomatic negotiations were necessary, in which the interested
Governments took part and did not always decide according to Sarrail’s
desires. General Leblois commanded the A.F.O. for a short time, and
was subsequently relieved by General Grossetti, an excellent officer
with whom our Command was always on the best of terms. Unfortunately
he became seriously ill, and had to return to France, where he died.
General Régnault succeeded him temporarily, and finally General Henrys,
who commanded the A.F.O. until the end of the war. With him, too, our
Command always got on satisfactorily.
The Allies were faced by the enemy’s Army of the Orient, under a German
Commander-in-Chief, General von Scholtz, whose G.H.Q. was at Uskub,
with a German Staff. In the early part of the campaign, until after
the fall of Monastir, the Army comprised several German divisions, 2
Turkish ones and some Austrian battalions. But gradually the German
units were withdrawn, except the Staffs of the C.-in-C., of one of the
armies, 2 corps and 1 division, some infantry battalions (at first they
were about 20, afterwards reduced to 3 or 4), the artillery and some
detachments of specialists (air force, engineers, machine gunners,
trench-mortar companies, _Flammenwerfer_, etc). The Turkish forces
were all withdrawn, except the 177th Infantry Regiment, which remained
until the beginning of 1918. Several Austrian battalions remained in
the area west of the lake of Ochrida, some of whom took orders from
the Macedonian Command, whereas others, although they were facing
detachments of the Allied armies in Macedonia, belonged to the Austrian
Army in Albania. All the rest of the infantry was Bulgarian, and there
was also a considerable amount of Bulgarian artillery.
The area between the lake of Ochrida and the Mala Rupa (east of Nonte)
was held by the so-called XI German Army (German, as we have seen,
only in name and regards the command, but composed almost entirely of
Bulgarian troops), with its H.Q. at Prilep and commanded by General
von Steuben. It comprised two corps, the LXI and LXII German Corps,
whose liaison was at the western curve of the Cerna. The LXI consisted
of some Austrian battalions, the mixed Bulgarian division, the 4th,
1st, and 6th Bulgarian Divisions. The LXII Corps comprised the 301st
German Division consisting of a few German battalions, and several
Bulgarian regiments. It occupied the whole of the Cerna loop opposite
our division and the two French colonial divisions. Further east were
the 2nd and 3rd Bulgarian Divisions. From the Mala Rupa to a point
on the Beles range opposite Dova Tepe (east of Lake Doiran) the line
was held by the I Bulgarian Army comprising the 5th, 9th and Mountain
Divisions. Next, from Dova Tepe to the sea, came the II Bulgarian
Army (commanded by General Lukoff), together with elements of the IV
Army; the II comprised the 7th, 8th and 10th Divisions. Along the
Ægean coast as far as the river Mesta, the Ægean Coast Defence Group
was spread out. The II Army was nominally independent of the German
Command, but practically it was, like the whole of the rest of the
Bulgarian Army, at the complete disposal of the Germans. The Bulgarian
Commander-in-Chief was General Gekoff. The total strength of the
enemy on the Orient front varied from 600,000 to 800,000. The number
of battalions was slightly inferior to that of the Allies, but the
battalions were stronger, and whereas all Allied reinforcements had
to be transported by sea, with great difficulties and still greater
risks, the enemy’s depots were close at hand. Moreover, Germany and
Austria were, until the beginning of 1918, ever able to send troops to
the Balkans with much greater facility and speed than we could. Even
Turkey might have sent reinforcements to Macedonia by rail; but Germany
did not wish to make use of this assistance, because the Bulgarians
were jealous of Turkish co-operation in a country like Macedonia, which
until a few years ago had formed part of the Ottoman Empire.
The number of the enemy’s field and mountain guns was slightly
inferior to that of the Allies, but they were much stronger in medium
and heavy calibre guns; they also had a number of guns of greater
calibre and range than anything of which we could boast, and they kept
their forces on the Macedonian front supplied with their best and most
up-to-date material, whereas the Allies neglected theirs.
The enemy defences, which were rudimentary at first, were gradually
perfected until they came to constitute a system of really formidable
fortifications, especially in the Monastir area, Hill 1050, and the
sector west of Lake Doiran. Opposite the Serbian area and in certain
other sectors there were fewer artificial defences, but the enemy
positions were there, as indeed along almost the whole of the front,
infinitely superior to ours. In the Italian sector, as we shall see,
the summits of the ridge were all in the hands of the enemy, by
whom our lines of access were to a large extent dominated; the same
conditions existed opposite the II Serbian Army (Dobropolje-Vetrenik
area) and opposite the British, west of Lake Doiran.
It should always be borne in mind that the war in Macedonia, owing
to the nature of the country in which the operations took place, the
scarcity of railways, roads and resources, the pestilent climate, the
sparse population and the great distances which separated us from our
centres of supplies, was essentially a colonial campaign. But the
Germans, and the Bulgars organized and trained by the Germans, had all
the means and materials of modern war at their disposal. During the
early days of the expedition the Allied Command was not even provided
with staff officers who were well acquainted with modern warfare,
and the material means which the armies received from Europe were of
inferior quality. The C.A.A. never attributed sufficient weight to
these difficulties.