MARKING TIME. ARRIVAL OF GENERAL FRANCHET D’ESPÉREY
The spring of 1918 had been the most menacing period for the Entente.
At that time the first effects of the Russian collapse were felt on the
Western front as they had been felt on the Italian front in October,
1917. On all fronts the Allies were standing still, held down without
the possibility of attempting any offensive. The “war map” was wholly
in favour of the Central Powers. Germany occupied almost the whole
of Belgium, a large and rich part of France. The Austrians were on
the Piave. Russia, after the shameful surrender of Brest-Litovsk,
had seen the German and Austrian armies spread over a vast part of
her territory. The Turks, after the withdrawal of the Russians from
Armenia, had invaded the Caucasus. Roumania, betrayed by the Russians,
had two-thirds of her territory occupied by the enemy, and after a
heroic resistance on the Sereth, had been forced to submit to peace
on disastrous terms. Now the Germans on the Western front and the
Austrians in Italy were preparing new and vast offensives which should
finally bring the struggle to an end with a colossal victory. The
British, French and Italians hoped to be able to resist, but all were
filled with deep anxiety. American assistance was arriving very slowly,
while the defeatist propaganda, conducted by Socialists and others in
the pay of Germany, was spreading secretly throughout all the Allied
countries.
On March 21, the German offensive in France was launched and its
successes were more rapid and more terrible than could have been
expected. After a few days all the territory laboriously conquered
at the cost of enormous losses by the Allied forces in the spring and
summer of 1917, were lost, and the enemy still advanced irresistibly
towards Amiens, to separate the British from the French Armies.
Immediately afterwards the offensive in Flanders began, which, although
less rapid than the other, achieved menacing successes. In May there
was another great German offensive on the Chemin des Dames, and in two
days the enemy regained the ground won by the French in the preceding
summer, and pushed much further on, crossing the Marne at several
points and again threatening Paris. It seemed as though nothing could
now hold up the overwhelming advance.
At this grave moment the Macedonian front was more neglected than
ever, and the Army in the East was indeed made use of to provide
reinforcements for the Western front. In the despairing search for
effectives to fill up the gaps in the French front it was decided to
withdraw certain units from the East. During the winter of 1917–18
the French Army in Macedonia had received sufficient reinforcements
to bring the battalions up to a semblance of their organic strength.
The total of the French Army which had been reduced to 180,000 men,
had been again raised to 210,000. The British, too, received some
reinforcements. We continued to maintain our own strength, except for
the withdrawal of the 7th battalion in the summer of 1917, which I have
already mentioned. But with the German offensive in France, the French
and British Commands sent a commission to the East to examine the
possibility of withdrawing troops, and it was decided to send to France
the equivalent of 12 battalions from each of the two armies. From the
British contingent, which comprised 12 brigades of 4 battalions each,
one whole battalion per brigade was withdrawn; the French instead
withdrew a corresponding number of men from various units, while a
few regiments, whose strength had been greatly reduced, were broken
up. This gave increasing importance to the Greek Army, which was in
a position to supply the Macedonian front with a number of men, not
by any means equivalent in fighting quality or training to the French
and British battalions withdrawn, but stronger in effectives. This
decision was generally deplored, because 24 battalions represented a
very negligible increase of strength on the French front where vast
armies millions strong were engaged, whereas by withdrawing them from
Macedonia they constituted a reduction of force which was anything but
indifferent, and could not be compensated by even twice that number
of Greek battalions; this made the situation of the Allied troops
remaining at that front--our own included--much harder.
In the East, another result of the German offensive in France was the
change in the Commander-in-Chief. General Guillaumat was very highly
thought of in France, and rightly so. In Macedonia he had, as I have
said, restored the shaken discipline of the French troops and had
entirely reorganized them, but in the extremely critical situation
in which Paris found itself in view of the German advance in May,
it was decided to entrust him with the defence of the Capital, and
consequently on June 8, he quietly departed from Salonica and was
succeeded by General Franchet d’Espérey. The loss of the Chemin des
Dames, where the latter had commanded an army, had not exactly caused
him to fall into disgrace, because the defeat does not appear to have
been due to any fault of his own, but it rendered him less highly
considered than he had been before, and consequently he was sent to
take command at Salonica, where it was not believed that important
operations would ever take place again. General Franchet d’Espérey is a
man of high historical and literary as well as military culture, he has
travelled a great deal abroad and belongs to an aristocratic family; he
is somewhat brusque in his manner, impulsive and sometimes dominated by
the last incident which had happened and had put him in a good or bad
humour with everybody. When he was in a good humour, he was gay, _bon
camarade_, and one could tell him or ask him anything, whereas when
something had gone amiss he was irritable and difficult to deal with.
For General Mombelli he had great sympathy, and even when our Commander
had occasion to complain energetically about some deficiency in the
services for which we were dependent on the C.A.A.--and occasions
were not lacking--he always accepted his remarks in a friendly spirit
and did everything that was possible to satisfy him. He did not enter
into discussions on the various questions submitted to him and often
made remarks that were not absolutely accurate, basing his opinion
on something that he had read or heard without going into the matter
thoroughly. But as a strategist he showed in Macedonia qualities of the
highest rank, and he commanded with success the extremely mixed team of
the Armèe d’Orient.
General Guillaumat deserves credit for having thought out the
Macedonian offensive, basing it on Voivod Michich’s old plan of 1916,
for the part which concerned him; General d’Espérey perfected the plan,
completed it, and then carried it out.
The engagement on the Srka di Legen was the last on the Macedonian
front before the great offensive, with the exception of a few small
raids on many sectors. The British were particularly active during this
period, both as regards raids in the Struma and in aerial bombardments.
Whereas, until about the middle of 1917, the enemy were decidedly
stronger than the Allies in the air, they had since then been steadily
losing their superiority and finally found themselves in a state of
absolute inferiority. The British were so constantly bringing down
German machines that the enemy hardly dared any longer to appear in the
air beyond their own lines.
There was now considerable activity in Albania in the sector where the
Armée d’Orient co-operated with the Italian 16th Corps, and on May
15, a French column, commanded by Colonel Caré, composed of the 58th
Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, 10 platoons of Albanian Gendarmerie, a
battalion of the 372nd Infantry Regiment, 3 mountain batteries, and a
regiment of Moroccan Spahis, plus a reserve of 7 Colonial companies,
took the offensive between the junction of the Kelizoni and the Devoli
and the height of Mali Korori (south-west of Moschopolje); an Italian
column was to deliver an attack at the same time from the line of the
Osum, near Cerevoda. The object of the Allies was to reduce the strong
enemy salient formed as a result of the French attack at Pogradetz,
which penetrated wedge-like between the positions then captured and
the Italian positions to the north and north-west of the Ersek road,
menacing the Santi Quaranta road between Ersek and Koritza. The two
attacks met with vigorous resistance, especially at the extreme left
of the Italians and the extreme right of the French; both the Italians
and the French captured some positions, lost them, and recaptured
them definitely. Towards the centre the resistance was weaker. On
the 17th the liaison between the two forces was realized at Backa,
according to plan. Mount Lesetz alone (east of Protopapa and south of
the Devoli) could not be captured by the French. A definite result
was the elimination of the enemy salient, the reduction of the French
and Italian front by about 40 kilometres, and the occupation of the
numerous villages contained in the salient itself. The new lines went
from the junction of the Devoli and the Kelizoni, passing by Tchafa
Becit, Maya Frenkut, Backa to Cerevoda. Thus the Santi Quaranta road
was now safe. The enemy made no attempt at a counter-offensive, save
for artillery fire, and the Italians and French were able to reinforce
the new lines unmolested.
On June 10 the French resumed the offensive, but this time without
Italian co-operation, as the advance was not in that sector. Various
positions were occupied, including Mount Lesetz, which they had
been unable to capture in the preceding operation; a new line was
constituted, reducing the enemy salient on Mount Kamia from Lungi to
the old line near Tchafa Becit, passing along Hill 1900, Sinapremte,
Gopes and Mount Tembet. The operation ended on the 14th; 400 prisoners,
10 guns and some machine guns having been captured.
The French and Italians resumed the offensive on a larger scale on
July 6. The French objective was to advance along the valley of the
Devoli as far as its great loop at a short distance from the valley
of the Skumbi, whereas ours was to turn the Malakastra--the best
defended position in the whole of Albania--occupy Fieri and Berat
and then push on towards the Skumbi. Both corps were to try to reach
the Durazzo-Elbasan road, but the latter town was to be reserved for
Italian occupation. The general objective was not so much territorial
occupation as the weakening of the enemy, so as to prevent Austrian
forces in Albania from coming to the assistance of the Bulgarians in
Macedonia during the Allied offensive which was about to take place in
the latter territory.
The French force, commanded by Colonel Foulon, comprised the 372nd
Infantry Regiment, the 58th Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, the Spahis
and three mountain batteries. The positions between the old line of
the junction of the Devoli and the Tomoritza were occupied without
resistance, and so was the whole of the triangle formed by these two
rivers and the chain of the Bofnia and Kosnitza mountains. The French
pushed forward still further between the Devoli and Holta, occupied
Gramsi, an important base of supplies for the enemy, on the 13th, and
the Austrians withdrew to the heights east of Chekina, Strori and
Kruya, to the south-west of the Tomoritza where the Italians were
operating, and the French and Italian liaison was being constantly
advanced northwards. On the 15th, Lubin was taken, a little to the east
of the confluence of the Devoli and the Tomoritza.
But the Italians were also advancing towards Berat and Fieri. The
latter town was captured as the result of a brilliant operation by the
cavalry, which turned the extreme north-west spur of the Malakastra,
while infantry detachments forced a passage between Levani and Fieri.
Thus the whole enemy defensive organization of the Malakastra, the only
one, it may be said, which the Austrians had created in Albania, fell.
Beyond Fieri the Italians pressed on to the river Semeni, which they
forced at the Metali bridge. Another column occupied Berat, the H.Q. of
an Austrian brigade, and reached the southern loop of the Devoli.
During these operations a misunderstanding arose between the
Italian and French Commands, due probably to the imperfect liaison,
communications being indeed very difficult, on account of the broken
nature of the ground. Our Command wished to push forward in a northerly
direction, as far as the apex of the loop of the Devoli, so as to
occupy the whole of the mountain range of the Mali Siloves, which
dominates the left bank of the river, while the French, in view of
their weak effectives in Albania, were opposed to this advance which
seemed to them too risky. The advance, however, was effected, and
a part of the above mountain range was occupied, but the Austrian
Supreme Command, alarmed by the rapid success of the various French
and Italian offensives in Albania, the result of which had been not
only an important strategic loss for them, but also a serious danger
of insurrection on the part of the untrustworthy natives on account
of the weakened Austrian prestige, and represented a menace in the
direction of Montenegro, changed the Commander-in-Chief and sent out
important reinforcements. General Pflanzer-Baltin flew by aeroplane
to Albania, where he took command. At the same time the Italians were
suffering terribly from malaria. The coastal zone of Albania is very
unhealthy; as long as the troops remained in their camps or were making
no great effort, they held out fairly well, but as soon as they began
the advance and had to sleep in the open, often in marshy places, they
were mown down by fever, especially the detachments operating along
the lower Semeni. To give one instance, in a whole regiment of cavalry
only 70 men were not on the sick list. From Italy no reinforcements
arrived, because preparations in course made for the great offensive on
the Italian front, which had originally been intended to take place in
the month of August. Thus, when the enemy, in the second half of July,
strengthened by large reinforcements arriving from healthy places and
not yet infected by malaria, launched a counter-offensive, the Italian
troops were forced to withdraw to some extent. This they did in good
order and without serious losses in prisoners or material, and if the
evacuation of Fieri and Berat were regrettable episodes, our situation
still remained far better than it had been before the offensive, as we
maintained our positions on the heights to the south of those towns,
and especially on the important lines of the Malakastra. Enemy pressure
made itself felt also in the Mali Siloves area, where our column had
to withdraw so as not to remain with its left flank uncovered. The
French now opposed this withdrawal, as they did not believe in the
existence of Austrian reinforcements, simply because the latter had not
been seen in the French sector. This led to a disagreement between the
two Commands, which, however, was soon settled, and the French column
also withdrew a little further back. Our line was then stabilized as
follows: Sinya (south-west of Berat)-Barguliasi-Tchafa Glunaka-Oyanik,
where the French line began. The latter had abandoned a part of the
triangle formed by the Tomoritza and the Devoli, but held the heights
of Mount Kosnitza. Their line then followed the direction of Lungi
and the Gora Top.[38] Towards the middle of August the operations
in Albania were suspended. We were in positions easy to defend and
the Austrians, exhausted by their advance, also began to feel the
full effects of the climate in that season. Now they were no longer
receiving any reinforcements, partly because the Italian Navy rendered
transport from Dalmatia by sea almost impossible, while General Ferrero
had been reinforced by two brigades and some other detachments from
Italy.
In the second half of June there was a general _détente_ in the
European military situation. After the great German push in May, the
operations in France had been suspended, and on the 15th of June the
Austrians launched their offensive on the Piave. It failed completely,
and the enemy did not succeed in retaining any part of the ground
conquered in the first attack--in fact on the Lower Piave, they lost
some which they had held since the previous November. This event had
a repercussion on all fronts, and encouraged all the Allies, because
it was the first great Allied victory in 1918, and also the first
time that a vast offensive, launched with all the apparatus of modern
warfare, was held up at once without achieving even the smallest
lasting advantage. On the Macedonian front, too, the effect of it was
felt in the shape of signs of exhaustion on the part of the enemy.
Deserters were ever more numerous, and they were unanimous in stating
that the causes of their desertion were the difficulty of supply due
by the continuous requisitions of foodstuffs by Germany in Bulgaria to
be sent to Germany, the fact that the Bulgarians, having obtained all
the territories they wanted, were not anxious to go fighting simply for
the convenience of Germany, and the general lack of confidence in the
victory of the latter. This corresponded with the information obtained
from the interior of Bulgaria, where the pro-German policy of King
Ferdinand and the Radoslavoff Ministry were becoming every day more
unpopular. The Cabinet fell in June and was succeeded by that of M.
Malinoff, who was of pacifist tendencies. There was also a party in the
country more or less in favour of the Entente, and now it was working
hard to convince public opinion that it was possible, if peace were
made with the Allies, to obtain recognition of Bulgaria’s right to the
conquered territory as a reward.
In Great Britain there had been since the early days of Bulgaria’s
intervention, a party in favour of making concessions to Bulgaria
with the object of inducing her to abandon the Central Empires.
Apart from the Bulgarophil movement, the Buxton brothers had always
supported Bulgarian claims as a sentimental memory of the struggle of
the Bulgarians against the Turks, when the latter dominated Macedonia
and Thrace, and even in Government spheres this tendency had its
supporters. As early as August, 1917, a British officer of high rank,
who expressed the ideas of Government circles in his country and in
Paris, told me that both in France and Britain people were convinced
of the advisability of offering very advantageous concessions to
Bulgaria, and there was talk of granting to her the Serbian part of
Eastern Macedonia as far as the Vardar, excluding Uskub, but, perhaps,
including Monastir, the Greek part of Eastern Macedonia as far as
the Struma, the Dobrugia up to the frontiers existing before the
Balkan War, and further generous pecuniary compensation in addition;
the Serbians would be indemnified by means of other territories at
the expense of Austro-Hungary. In any case the Serbian population,
according to this officer, were so weakened and reduced by five years
of uninterrupted warfare, that it would not have been in a position to
govern Southern Macedonia, where the population is mostly Bulgarian in
feeling and opposed to Serbian rule. According to him, it only remained
to convince the Italian Government of the possibility and advisability
of this policy.
On the other hand, there were also pro-Serbian tendencies amongst the
British, which strongly opposed any idea of conferring favours on the
Bulgarians. Another British officer, occupying an important position in
connexion with Serbia, told me that the attitude of those who wished
to make such concessions at the expense of Serbia was the cause of
very injurious consequences in Serbian circles, where such a tendency
was regarded as nothing less than treachery against those who had
fought from the beginning on the side of the Allies, and had suffered
terribly, especially at the hands of those very Bulgarians whom it was
now proposed to reward.
I know that some definite proposals were made to the Bulgarians, and
in any case it is certain that the idea of a separate peace with her,
to be obtained in this way, was in the air. In June, 1918, General
Bartlett, the United States Military Attaché at Athens, came to
Salonica, and it was believed that his presence there had something
to do with the rumours of the possible intervention of the United
States in the Balkans. America had never declared war against Turkey
or Bulgaria and had no troops in Macedonia, and although Turkey had
immediately broken off diplomatic relations with her, diplomatic
relations between Bulgaria and America continued through the whole of
the war, and an American Chargé d’Affaires continued to reside at
Sofia. There was much speculation in the Entente countries as to the
reasons for this attitude on the part of the United States, and even
in America the public could not understand it. In the spring of 1918
some members of the American House of Representatives and of the Senate
had presented a motion to Congress in favour of a declaration of war
against those two States, but President Wilson requested the authors of
that motion to suspend all discussion on the subject, without giving
any reason for his request, and nothing more was said about the matter.
The above-mentioned general had come to Salonica to call on General
Franchet d’Espérey and the other Allied Commanders, and he visited
various sectors of the front, including our own. Although he maintained
the utmost reserve regarding the attitude of his country in connexion
with Bulgaria, he ended by saying that in America it was believed
that the cause of the Allies in the East might be better served by
keeping the threat of declaring war against Bulgaria hanging like the
sword of Damocles over the head of that State, instead of actually
declaring it. In fact, Bulgaria strongly desired to avoid a break with
the United States; she now began to realize that the defeat of the
Central Empires was possible if not probable, and she hoped to see the
United States at the future Peace Conference, if not as a friend, at
least as a benevolent neutral who would defend her from the extreme
retribution of the Allies, especially of Serbia, Roumania and Greece.
In the meanwhile, Mr. Murphy, the American Chargé d’Affaires at Sofia
was able to conduct an active, although prudent propaganda, in favour
of a separate peace, hinting that the sooner the Bulgarians abandoned
the now hopeless cause of the Central Empires, the better would be the
conditions which the Entente would offer them.
The shrewdest observers of the Balkan situation did not yet believe
in the possibility of a Bulgarian secession, and to many it seemed
unjust to sacrifice Serbia or Roumania in favour of Bulgaria. Some
concessions might have been offered her at the expense of Turkey, but
it should not be forgotten that even with Turkey the possibility of a
separate peace was contemplated, and this was not conceivable if the
concession of Turkish territories to Bulgaria were to be the object of
negotiations. As long as Greece was under Constantine, neutral, and
pro-German, the possibility of giving Bulgaria some Greek territory
in Eastern Macedonia might be considered--Cavalla, Drama, Serres,
etc.--but the Bulgarians already occupied these places, and from the
moment that Greek soldiers had begun to co-operate with the Allies,
such proposals could not be entertained without the consent of Greece,
who would never have given it. General Mombelli was convinced that the
talk about separate peace with Bulgaria had no serious foundation and
that the Bulgarians would never decide to take the fatal step until
they were first convinced of the marked superiority of the Allies; they
had not yet that absolute conviction, and it was therefore necessary to
persuade them by means of a military defeat. General Franchet d’Espérey
was of the same way of thinking, and he told the writer that the
Bulgarians would be more likely to abandon their Allies “après la pile
que je vais leur flanquer quand mes préparatifs seront terminés.”
The French national fête of the 14th of July was celebrated in Salonica
with special solemnity, and King Alexander of Greece was also present.
In spite of the weak effectives available and the limited space, the
spectacle proved fairly imposing and made a good impression on the
public. The feeling of victory was now in the air. Our success on the
Piave had raised the _moral_ of all the Allies, and on July 15th the
last German offensive was launched, which after three days of small
successes, was repulsed by the great counter-offensive of Marshal Foch
beginning on the 18th. I remember that when I congratulated a French
General on this victory, he replied: “Mais ce sont les Italiens sur le
Piave que nous ont donné le premier exemple.”