OPERATIONS IN THE WINTER AND SPRING OF 1917
From the capture of Monastir to the great offensive of September 1918,
there were no notable changes in the situation of the two opposing
armies. 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 Armée
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 favourable
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 Armée 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.”[21] 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 régime.”
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 1/19th _Gruppenkommando_, which extended to the
neighbourhood of Lake Ochrida. There was not yet any liaison between
our XVI Corps and the Armée 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 connexion 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 connexion between the French and Italians across Albania was
thus established, and the whole road from Santi Quaranta to Florina 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 Armée d’Orient, if it had not
been held up by the gallant defence of the 35th Division.
[Illustration: CAMP NEAR THE PARALOVO MONASTERY.]
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF AN INFANTRY REGIMENT ON HILL 1050.
To face p. 122.
]
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, re-established 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 defences on Hill 1050 on the Piton Brûlé, 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
inasmuch 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 Jäger 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,[22] 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 “_malgré,
parait-il, 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 Florina 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.
[Illustration: HELIOGRAPH IN A CAVERN ON HILL 1050.]
[Illustration: ROCK-PERFORATING MACHINE ON HILL 1050.
To face p. 126.
]
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 Armée 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 Couronné, 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, inasmuch 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 defence. 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 Couronné of about the same height, which was the
principal bastion of the first line defences 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 Couronné 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 Couronné near the lake, and further to
the left. The losses were heavy, especially in the Jumeaux Ravine,
and the Bulgarian defences 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.
[Illustration: AREA OF THE BRITISH XII CORPS.
To face p. 129.
]
Early in May, General Petitti di Roreto was recalled to Italy to take
up an important Command; he was succeeded in Macedonia by General
Pennella, 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 Armée
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
Couronné were captured at the cost of heavy losses, a battalion of the
Argyll and Sutherlands greatly distinguishing itself. Two detachments
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 defences 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
defences. The destructive barrage was resumed with greater vigour,
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 Brûlé, 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 favour, 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 Brûlé and the Piton Rocheux. At 5 a.m. a demonstrative
bombardment was commenced on Hill 1050, and a concentrated fire on the
Brûlé 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 Général.”
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
Régnault, 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.
[Illustration: CAMP UNDER THE PITON BRÛLÉ.]
[Illustration: ITALIAN NATIONAL FESTIVAL (THE STATUTO) AT SAKULEVO.
HIGH MASS.
To face p. 134.
]
The reasons for the failure are various. 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 Armée d’Orient, he should not have attempted an
offensive against the Germans and Bulgarians at that moment.[23]
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 Armée 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.