ON THE EVE OF THE OFFENSIVE
As soon as General Franchet d’Espérey reached Salonica he undertook to
execute the offensive planned by his predecessor. But he encountered
very decided opposition on the part of his own Government, as well as
on that of the other Allied Governments. The former did not believe
in the possibility of a successful offensive on the Macedonian front,
and it seems not to have had too much confidence in General Franchet
d’Espérey himself. It refused to send him reinforcements, and limited
itself to supplying him grudgingly with some artillery and other
material, but always in insufficient quantities. Britain and Italy
adopted a similar policy. Nevertheless he insisted on the advisability
of making the attempt. Two months were needed for the preparations,
and in spite of the opposition of the Governments, he at once took
them in hand. During the month of July at the Allied Councils many
members were doubtful, and believed that better results might be
obtained by attempting to secure a separate peace with Bulgaria.
The diplomatic and military commission before breaking up ordered
General Franchet d’Espérey to go ahead with his preparations, but
forbade him to commence the offensive without a definite authorization
from the Governments. At the beginning of August nothing had yet
been decided, and the British and Italian Governments were still
opposed to the idea of an offensive. General Guillaumat in Paris had
supported the projected operation in his conversation with members of
the French Government and had succeeded in convincing M. Clemenceau.
At the beginning of September he went to London and Rome to speak
in favour of the plan, but it was not until September 11th that the
Commander-in-Chief in Salonica was authorized to attack when he thought
it advisable. There was, however, so little confidence in the success
of the plan that General Guillaumat, who then had no Command, had
instructions to hold himself in readiness to proceed to Macedonia by
aeroplane to relieve General Franchet d’Espérey in case of failure.
Let us now see what were the respective conditions of the two
opposing armies. The enemy front was divided geographically into four
sectors--Albania, Monastir, Vardar-Doiran, and Struma--against any one
of which the attack might be launched. The Albanian sector offered some
advantages, inasmuch as it was less provided with defensive works. But
General Franchet d’Espérey did not wish to begin operations on a large
scale in that area because the Italian XVI Corps was not under his
orders; moreover, and this was the principal reason, communications
were so difficult there as to render the transport of troops in large
numbers impossible. An advocate of the action of the French G.H.Q.
states that General Ferrero refused to make use of Essad Pasha for the
operations in Albania, and almost blames him for it,[39] but General
Franchet d’Espérey had no more confidence in the assistance which that
shady adventurer might afford to the cause of the Allies than had
General Ferrero, and they were both right.[40]
[Illustration: AREA OF THE FRANCO-SERB GROUP.
To face p. 213.
]
In the Monastir sector it was possible to attack in the direction
of Pribilci-Kichevo-Gostivar-Kalkandelen (Tetovo), or towards
Prilep-Babuna-Veles, or Prilep-Gradsko-Negotin. But here the enemy
defences were in the highest possible state of efficiency, and as this
was one of the sectors in which an attack was always expected, the
Bulgaro-Germans held themselves constantly in readiness for it. The
same objections applied to the Vardar-Doiran area, which has always
been one of the traditional routes for Macedonian invasions, and was
the only one provided with a railway throughout its whole length.
The Struma sector extended along a very broad and marshy valley, and
the enemy positions on the mountains east of the river were extremely
strong. Moreover, a success in this direction would not have offered
the chance of striking a blow at the heart of the enemy, such as was
necessary to obtain really decisive results.
The vital centre of the enemy defences was the middle Vardar. From
Uskub, from Veles, and from Gradsko, all their lateral communications
spread out fan-wise. The Vardar railway put them in direct
communication with the Central Empires and their supply centres. From
Uskub there was a branch railway to Kalkandelen, whence a road, with a
décauville along a part of it, descended into the plain of Monastir.
From Veles and Gradsko all the troops in the area between Prilep and
the Vardar, and to some extent also those immediately to the east of
the river, were supplied. The enemy, however, counted on the very
powerful defences, natural and artificial, on both sides of it, in the
Demir Kapu gorge, to the west of Lake Doiran, and on the Beles range.
There was, however, another route which the enemy had not thought of
fortifying, relying on its formidable natural defences. Between the
Cerna and Nonte there is a group of high peaks rising from a wilderness
of rocks around a basin hidden among the mountains. The area is called
the Moglena, and it is here that the Moglenitza river has its source.
The mountains of this group are among the highest in Macedonia; several
summits, such as Floka, Kaimakchalan, Dzena, are over 2,000 m., the
Mala Rupa is over 1,900 m., Sokol, Dobropolje, Vetrenik, Kuchkov Kamen
and Kravitza are about 1,700–1,800 m. In the offensive of the autumn
of 1916 the Serbs had conquered the Kaimakchalan range and the Moglena
area, which was afterwards entrusted to the II Serbian Army. Since
then the sector had been a peaceful one, except for the engagements
in the spring of 1917. Voivod Michich had repeatedly insisted on the
advisability of an offensive against the Dobropolje, as offering the
best chances of success. General Sarrail had refused to trust the man
who knew far more about Balkan warfare than he did. General Guillaumat,
on the other hand, believed the plan to be possible, and began the
preliminary studies for an operation in that direction. But more and
heavier artillery was needed than the Armée d’Orient as yet possessed.
Guillaumat, therefore, only executed the attack on the Srka di Legen.
To General Franchet d’Espérey is due the merit of having taken up the
plan once more, perfected it and finally executed it. As a result of
his inspections along the front, he convinced himself that while the
vital ganglion of the whole enemy organization was the middle Vardar,
an attack on any of the four traditional sectors was, with the means at
his disposal, impossible. From Mount Floka he studied the conditions of
the ground with minute attention, and realized that a surprise attack
in the Moglena area might succeed, because the Bulgars were not likely
to expect it. It was necessary to break through in the centre, and once
the breach was made to spread out in a fan-like formation to reach
Gradsko and Demir Kapu, thus cutting the enemy’s communications and
separating the XI German Army from the I Bulgarian Army. At the same
time powerful diversive actions on the right and left wings (Doiran
sector and Cerna loop) would nail down the enemy and prevent them from
sending reinforcements to the centre.
To carry out this plan it was indispensable to concentrate a mass of
powerful artillery in the central area, have strong reserves, and at
the same time hold the vast line throughout the whole of its length.
The scheme appeared impossible owing to the absence of one of these
requisites--the reserves. But General Franchet d’Espérey--and this was
the touch of genius of his conception--created the reserves out of
nothing, by thinning out his line and reducing the number of troops
on all the other sectors to the minimum indispensable for safety and
sometimes going dangerously below it, so as to concentrate the largest
possible number of men on the points where the decisive effort was to
be made. In this way, although the total strength of the Allies was
slightly below that of the enemy, he managed to have an overwhelming
superiority at the points where he attacked.
The following were the forces of the Armée d’Orient. It comprised:
8 French divisions (30th, 57th, 76th, 122nd and 156th Metropolitan
Divisions, and 11th, 16th and 17th Colonial Divisions), one cavalry
group (1st and 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique and Morocco Spahis), some units
not forming part of any division (2nd bis Zouaves, 58th Battalion
of Chasseurs à pied, various battalions of Senegalese, Algerians,
Annamites, etc.); one Italian division equal to rather more than two
French divisions, and including two squadrons of cavalry and other
units; 4 British divisions (22nd, 26th, 27th and 28th), each with some
cavalry detachments, and the 228th Garrison Brigade; 6 Serbian infantry
divisions (Shumadia, Danube, Morava, Yugoslav, Drina and Timok) and one
cavalry division; 10 Greek divisions (Archipelago, Crete and Serres of
the National Defence Army, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 13th and 14th of
the regular army), of whom one--the 9th--was not trained and was never
sent to the front throughout the operations, and some cavalry; finally
a few Albanian detachments.[41] In all there were 29½ divisions,
of which the British, Serbian, Greek and the 5 Metropolitan French
divisions comprised 9 battalions each, the French Colonial ones 12
each, and the Italian 18. The total strength was as follows:
Divisions Battalions Ration Strength Rifles
French 8 87 200,000 45,000
British 4½ 40 135,000 32,000
Italians 1 18 44,000 10,000
Serbs 6 57 95,000 30,000
Greeks 10 84 100,000 40,000
--- --- ------- -------
Total 29½ 286 574,000 157,000
The Allied artillery amounted to 1,600 guns, the machine guns were
2,680, the aeroplanes 200.
The total number of enemy battalions was somewhat less than that of
the Allies (282), but their effectives were stronger--they amounted to
about 700,000 men, including 204,000 rifles, while the men who could
be regarded as combatants were 400,000. Their artillery was weaker
as regards the number of guns (1,300). Until a few months previously
they had been far stronger in artillery, but during the summer the
Germans had withdrawn many of their batteries from the Eastern front
and sent them to France, whereas the Allied artillery had been steadily
strengthened. The enemy, however, still retained a larger number of
heavy and medium calibre guns than we had, as well as several guns of
greater calibre and range than anything on our side. Their machine guns
were 2,530, and their aeroplanes only 80.
In view of the Allies’ inferiority in numbers, an attack could be
delivered only by concentrating large forces on one point, and leaving
the other sectors to be held by weak forces or by Greek troops of
uncertain value.
General Franchet d’Espérey began by forming a new Army Group, called
the Central Franco-Serbian Group, concentrated in the Moglena area.
He withdrew from the Serbian front the Danube and Shumadia divisions,
leaving the other four, reinforced by two French divisions--the 122nd
(General Topard) and the 17th Colonial (General Pruneau)--attached to
the II Serbian Army, by 13 heavy batteries and 30 trench guns, besides
several flights of aeroplanes, engineer detachments, etc. He had asked
for and obtained fresh technical material from France. The whole group
was commanded by Voivod Michich. The Commander-in-Chief had decided on
this plan as early as the end of June, and had devoted the following
two and a half months to the necessary preparations. New roads and
décauvilles had to be constructed, heavy artillery transported to a
height of 1,800 metres, new aviation camps laid out, certain units
specially trained. The 17th Colonial and the 122nd Divisions did not
take over their sectors until the beginning of September. Although
all movements were carried out at night, the enemy became aware that
something was in preparation. In order to deceive them as to the point
where the attack was to be delivered, a number of raids were carried
out on various sectors.
The general distribution was as follows: The A.F.O. (General Henrys)
from the river Tomoritza in Albania to a point between the Cerna
and Gradesnitza; it comprised the 30th, 76th, 57th and 156th French
Divisions and several minor units not forming part of any division,
between the Tomoritza and the western end of the Cerna loop, the 35th
Italian Division from that point to a point a little to the west of
Makovo, while the line from hence to a point just beyond the east end
of the Cerna loop was held by the 11th French Colonial Division and
the 3rd Greek Division. Here began the area of the Franco-Serb group
(Voivod Michich), with the Drina and Morava Divisions of the I Army to
the left and the Yugoslav and Timok Divisions of the II Army to the
left, reinforced by the 122nd and 17th French Divisions, extending as
far as the neighbourhood of Nonte. To the right of the Serbs, was the
area of the I Group of Divisions (General d’Anselme) reaching to the
Vardar and comprising the 16th French Colonial Division, the Greek
Archipelago Division and for a short time the 27th British. East of
the Vardar was the British Army (General Milne), with the XII Corps,
commanded by General Wilson, comprising the 22nd and 26th British
Divisions, the 2nd bis Zouaves Regiment and the Greek Serres Division,
west of Lake Doiran, and the XVI Corps (General Briggs) east of the
lake, comprising the 28th British Division and Greek Cretan Division.
From Lake Butkova to the sea the sector was held by the I Greek Corps
(General Ioannou), under the orders of the British Commander-in-Chief,
comprising the 1st, 2nd and 13th Divisions. The 4th and 14th Greek
Divisions constituted a reserve for the British Army, and the 9th was
still in training near Florina.
In the central sector, where the attack was to be first launched, the
distribution was as follows: The I Serbian Army held a front of 16½
km. from the river Lesnitza to the Sokol, with the Danube and Drina
Divisions in the first line and the Morava behind the centre. The II
Army held a front of 17 km. from the Sokol to the river Sushitza,
with the French 122nd and 17th Colonial to the left, the Shumadia
to the right, the Yugoslav and the Timok in reserve. On the whole
Franco-Serbian front were concentrated 36,000 rifles, 2,000 light
machine guns, 81 aeroplanes and 600 guns--more than a third of the
whole artillery of the Armée d’Orient and almost the whole of its heavy
artillery, so that other sectors were stripped to a dangerous degree.
These 600 guns comprised 8 batteries of short 120 mm., 17 of short
155 mm., 4 of long 105 mm., 3 of long 120 mm., 5 of long 155 mm., 48
of 75 mm. field guns, 35 of 65 mm. mountain guns, 72 trench mortars
of 58 mm., and 12 of 240 mm. Thus the Allies had, on this sector, an
overwhelming artillery superiority over the enemy.
The plan of operations provided for an initial destructive barrage to
wreck the enemy’s first line defences opposite the II Serbian Army;
then their artillery positions were to be bombarded and reinforcements
prevented from coming up; finally, when a breach for the II Army was
made, the artillery was to alter its direction and open up another gap
for the I Army. The duty of the infantry was to try to capture all
the positions between the Sokol and the Vetrenik, so as to penetrate
as deeply as possible into the enemy’s lines in the direction of the
apex of the triangle formed by the Cerna and the Vardar. If this plan
succeeded, the enemy’s communications to the right and the left would
be threatened. In a second phase the British XII Corps was to attack
the two Couronnés and the P ridges to the west of Lake Doiran, while
the XVI Corps was to attempt to turn the positions to the north-east
of the lake, so as to threaten the road leading into Bulgaria by the
Kosturino Pass and Strumitza. Above all it was to be the task of the
British to prevent the enemy opposing them from sending reinforcements
to the Serbian front, just as our forces were to fulfil a similar
function on the Hill 1050 sector. Indeed, the best troops of the whole
of the enemy Army were those opposite the British and the Italian
sectors. In the third phase the Italians were to attack the famous
1050, with Prilep as their objective, while the Franco-Greek Group to
our right was to advance along the Cerna. In the fourth phase the rest
of the A.F.O. would enter the lists, attacking the positions around
Monastir, also with Prilep as their objective. The final phase was to
be an offensive by the I Greek Corps beyond the Struma, with a view to
capturing Serres, Demir Hissar and the Rupel road leading into Bulgaria
towards Djumaya. In view of the weakness of the effectives, it would be
necessary to transfer the scanty available reserves and the artillery
from one sector to another, and the various phases of the action were
so arranged as to give those forces time to effect the movements
contemplated--by no means an easy task on account of the state of
communications in Macedonia.
It must be borne in mind that the objectives which General Franchet
d’Espérey originally had in view were relatively modest, and many of
his subordinate Commanders doubted that even these could be fully
attained. The idea, even of the most optimistic, was that the Bulgarian
first lines would probably be broken through, but that the enemy would
offer a desperate resistance on the second and third lines, and that
it would then be necessary for the Allies to entrench themselves again
in new positions for another long period of waiting. The Commanders of
the different Allied contingents, therefore, made superhuman efforts to
collect all the necessary material with the object of reconstituting
the defences on the new advanced lines which they expected to occupy.
The scarcity of barbed wire was a source of grave anxiety for all
Commands, and Staff officers lay awake at night wondering how on earth
the troops could entrench themselves after having abandoned all the
barbed wire in front of their present positions.
The Serbs alternated between the most unlimited hopes and the blackest
pessimism. A great many of them doubted the possibility of breaking
through the Vetrenik-Dobropolje line, while on the other hand the
officers of the Serbian G.H.Q. openly declared that an offensive which
did not result in an advance beyond Uskub would be an irreparable
disaster, because the Army would suffer such losses that, if the
troops did not re-enter Old Serbia, it would be impossible to fill
up the gaps and they would be incapable of carrying out any more
operations. General Franchet d’Espérey himself, to judge by his
statements, did expect to strike a formidable blow at the Bulgarians
and thus render them inclined to conclude a separate peace, to which
the Allied victories in France and the fact that neither the Germans
nor the Austro-Hungarians were now in a position to send help to their
satellites in the East, would contribute. But even he did not dream of
a complete and overwhelming victory.
There were no important changes in the enemy distribution on the
eve of the offensive. The Commander-in-Chief was still General von
Scholtz, with his G.H.Q. at Uskub. The Bulgarian Army was temporarily
commanded by General Todoroff, the effective Commander-in-Chief,
General Gekoff, being under treatment in an Austrian clinique. The
enemy forces opposed to the Allies comprised three armies and part of
a fourth, plus some ten Austro-Hungarian battalions on their extreme
right, between the Tomoritza river and the Gora Top, belonging to
General Pflanzer-Baltin’s force in Albania. The area from the Gora
Top to Nonte was held by the XI German Army, commanded by General von
Steuben, with headquarters at Prilep; this comprised two German army
corps--the LXII from the Gora Top to the west end of the Cerna loop
and the LXI from thence to a point north-west of Staravina--and the
2nd and 3rd Bulgarian Divisions. The XLII Corps comprised the Mixed
Division (from the Gora Top to the Lake of Prespa), the 6th Division
(as far as Magarevo), and the 1st (as far as the west end of the Cerna
loop). The LXI comprised the 302nd German Division, composed of German
and Bulgarian battalions (from the Cerna west to Makovo, i.e. opposite
the Italians) and the 4th (as far as Staravina). The 2nd Division
extended to the Dobropolje, and the 3rd to Nonte. The I Bulgarian Army,
commanded by General Nerezoff, with headquarters at Valandovo, held the
line from Nonte to Gornji Poroj (between Lakes Doiran and Butkova), and
comprised the 5th Division (to the Vardar), the 9th (to Lake Doiran),
and two more regiments taken from the 5th at the extreme left. The II
Bulgarian Army, commanded by General Lukoff, whose headquarters were at
Livunovo, extended to Lake Tahinos, and comprised the 11th (as far as
the Struma east of Lake Butkova), the 7th as far as Serres, and the 8th
to Lake Tahinos. Besides these forces there were various detachments of
the IV Army, also called the Ægean Defence Force, with its headquarters
at Xanthi, holding the line as far as Dede-Agatch--10th and 14th
Divisions and several regiments of Militia.
The communications of the Allies were as follows: (1) The railway from
Salonica to Monastir, which operated as far as Armenohor (Florina)
for troops and to Sakulevo for goods; occasionally a train went into
Monastir at night, but the last section of the line was still under
enemy fire. (2) The Vardar railway from Salonica to a point south
of Ghevgheli. (3) The Constantinople railway from Salonica to Lake
Doiran; the section from Doiran to the Demir Hissar bridge (blown up
by the French in 1916) was between the British and Bulgarian lines and
therefore useless. (4) The branch line between Karasuli on N 2 and
Kilindir on N 3. (5) A short branch line built by the British during
the war, from Salonica to Guvesne on the Serres road. (6) The line
from the station of Salonica across the town to Mikra Bay. There were
many décauvilles, some of them very long, which rendered most valuable
services. The following were the most important: Florina-Armensko (in
the direction of Albania) unfinished, but continued with a telepheric
to the Pisoderi Pass; Sakulevo-Brod with an extension towards the
Italian front and another towards that of the I Serbian Army; Vertekop
(on the Monastir railway) to the II Serbian Army front; Sarigöl-Janesh,
with branches towards the British XII Corps front; several along the
Struma, north-west of Lake Tahinos; one from Arakli to the British
trenches beyond the Struma, south of that lake. Many excellent
roads had been built throughout the _Zone des Armées_, except in
the Franco-Albanian area and in that of the II Serbian Army, where
communications were very deficient, owing to the extremely broken
nature of the ground, but in the latter area several new roads had been
built, as we have seen, in view of the coming offensive.
To sum up, the troops of the A.F.O. and of the I Serbian Army were
supplied by the Monastir railway as far as Florina and Sakulevo, by
the Florina-Armensko décauville and the Pisoderi telepheric, and the
Sakulevo-Brod décauville with its extensions; the II Serbian Army by
the railway as far as Vertekop and thence by décauville; the I Group
of Divisions by the Vardar railway to Karasuli and thence by road;
the British XII Corps by rail to Sarigöl and Kilindir and thence by
décauville; the British XVI Corps, as long as it was on the Struma, by
rail to Guvesne and thence by road to the Struma, whence a décauville
reached various sectors; the brigade on the lower Struma, by rail to
Arakli and thence by décauville. When the XVI Corps was moved to the
area east of Lake Doiran, it was supplied by the same routes as the XII
Corps, while the communications to the Struma now served the Greek I
Corps. Everywhere the inadequacy of the railways was made good by the
excellent M.T. services, and this not only for the areas where there
were no railways at all, because the motor lorries helped to intensify
transport even towards sectors served by railways, the carrying
capacity of the latter being wholly inadequate to the immense needs of
the armies. The British and French had several thousand lorries, we had
about 400, the Greeks and Serbs were supplied by French and British
lorries.
If communications between the base at Salonica and the various
sectors of the front had been rendered fairly satisfactory, lateral
communications were extremely difficult, and this was particularly
felt during the September offensive, when it was frequently necessary
(though not so often as was expected beforehand) to transfer troops and
artillery from one sector to another.
The enemy’s communications were the following: The vital artery
of the whole army was the Belgrade-Nish-Uskub-Veles-Ghevgheli
railway, with a branch from Uskub to Kalkandelen (Tetovo). The
Nish-Sofia-Constantinople line supplied the troops further east. From
the former, several décauvilles and telepherics branched off. The most
important was the one from Gradsko to Prilep, whence others extended
to all the chief points of that area. Prilep, in fact, was a sort
of Clapham Junction for décauvilles, with an imposing station. From
Radomir on the Sofia-Kutstendil-Guyeshevo railway there was a very long
décauville to the Demir Hissar bridge, which supplied almost the whole
of the II Army. The enemy was richer in décauvilles than we were, but
their road system was much poorer. As they had few lorries, and these
without rubber tyres, the iron wheels reduced the roads to an appalling
state. The Bulgarian Army made great use of the peasants’ ox-carts and
of mules and small mountain ponies. On the whole the enemy’s transport
was inadequate. Their only advantage was the possibility of obtaining
supplies from Central Europe by rail. Salonica, it is true, was nearer
to the Allied front than Belgrade, Nish or Sofia to that of the enemy,
but the sea passage to Salonica was still exposed to submarine dangers,
and tonnage was scarce, especially in the summer of 1918, on account of
the transport of American troops to France. The enemy could, moreover,
obtain reinforcements from the German garrisons in Roumania and from
the depots in Bulgaria. What the Allies did not know was how far the
Germans could reduce their garrisons in Roumania and whether the
Bulgarians were still provided with abundant reserves. The Bulgarian
battalions at the front were much stronger than those of the Allies,
but according to information obtained by the Allied intelligence
services it appeared that the depots were almost empty and that there
were not more than three or four Bulgarian militia regiments available
in Serbia or Bulgaria to be sent to the front. The conditions of the
Germans in Roumania and South Russia were even less well known. The
Bulgarian _moral_ was, as we have seen, becoming even more depressed.
War weariness was spreading and led to increased desertions, and in
a few cases to mutiny. The German troops which served to stiffen the
Bulgarians had been greatly reduced, and relations between the two were
by no means too friendly.
What was certain was that neither the French, the British nor the
Italian Commands intended to send out another man to Macedonia, so
that the C.A.A. must count exclusively on the troops actually in the
country for the coming struggle. The Italian forces in Albania being
about equal to those of the Austrians, there was no likelihood of
reinforcements being available on either side.