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withdrawn and sent to Egypt, so that only four divisions remained, plus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a proposal was made that it should be withdrawn into the Salonica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.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.
To face p. 76.
]
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.