THE WAR BETWEEN THE BALKAN ALLIES
On Sunday night, June 29th, without any declaration of war or even
warning, General Savoff ordered a general attack all along the Greek
and Servian lines. There was no direct provocation on the part of
Bulgaria's allies.
The responsibility for precipitating the war which brought about the
humiliation of Bulgaria can be directly fixed. Two general orders,
dated from the military headquarters at Sofia on June 29th, have been
published. They set forth an amazing and devilish scheme, which stands
out as a most cold and bloody calculation, even among all the horrors
of Balkan history. General Savoff stated positively that this
energetic action was not the commencement of a war. It was merely for
the purpose of occupying as much territory as possible in the contested
regions before the intervention of the Powers. It had a two-fold
object: to cut the communications between the Greeks and Servians at
Veles (Küprülü) on the Vardar, and to throw an army suddenly into
Salonika. The fighting began in the night-time. The Bulgarians
naturally were able to advance into a number of important positions.
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When the news became known at Salonika on the morning of the 30th,
General Hassapsieff, on the ground that he was a diplomatic agent, was
allowed to leave. Before his departure he gave an order to his forces
to resist, if they were attacked, as he would return with the Bulgarian
army in twenty-four hours.
Early in the afternoon the Greeks sent an ultimatum ordering the
Bulgarians in Salonika to surrender by six o'clock. Their refusal led
to all-night street fighting. Barricaded in St. Sophia and several
other buildings, they were able to defend themselves until the Greeks
turned artillery upon their places of refuge. Not many were killed on
either side. Salonika was calm again the next day. One thousand three
hundred Bulgarian soldiers and a number of prominent Bulgarian
residents of Salonika, under conditions of exceptional cruelty and
barbarism, were sent to Crete. The Greek forces in Salonika, among
whom were some twenty thousand from America, were hurried to the
outposts for the defence of the city.
There was no diplomatic action following the treachery of the
Bulgarians towards their allies. The Greek Foreign Minister stated
that Greece considered the Bulgarian attack an act of war, and that the
Greek army had been ordered to advance immediately to retake the
positions which the Bulgarians had captured. Nor did Servia show any
disposition to treat with Bulgaria. No official communications reached
Sofia from a Great Power. There had been a miscalculation. Bulgaria
was {332} compelled, as a consequence of her ill-considered act, to
face a new war. There was no withdrawal possible.
From a purely military point of view, it seems hard to believe that the
Bulgarians really thought that their night attack would bring about
war. Their army had borne the brunt of the campaign against the Turks,
and had suffered terribly during the winter spent in the trenches
before Tchatalja. They were not in a good strategic position, for the
army was spread out over a long line, and the character of the country
made concentration difficult. Adequate railway communication with the
bases of supplies was lacking. The Greeks and Servians, on the other
hand, held not only the railway from Salonika to Nish through the
valley of the Vardar, but even were it successfully cut, had
communication by railway with their bases at Salonika, Monastir,
Mitrovitza, Uskub, and Nish.
General Ivanoff, in command of the second Bulgarian army, was charged
with confronting the whole of the Greek forces, in a line passing from
the Ægean Sea to Demir-Hissar on the Vardar, between Serres and
Salonika. When we realize that General Ivanoff had less than fifty
thousand men, a portion of whom were recruits from the region of
Serres, and that he had to guard against an attack on his right flank
from the Servians, we cannot help wondering what the Bulgarian general
staff had counted upon in provoking their allies to battle. Did they
expect that the Greeks and Servians would be intimidated by the night
attack of June 29th, and would {333} agree to continue the project of a
conference at Petrograd? Or did they think that the Greek army was of
so little value that they could brush it aside, and enter Salonika,
just as the Greeks had been able to enter in November? Whatever
hypothesis we adopt, it shows contempt for their opponents and belief
in their own star. The proof of the fact that the Bulgarians never
dreamed of anything but the success of their "bluff," or, if there was
resistance, of an easy victory, is found in the few troops at the
disposal of General Ivanoff, and in the choice of Doiran, so near the
front of battle, as the base of supplies. At Doiran everything that
the second army needed in provisions and munitions of war was stored.
From the financial standpoint alone, Bulgaria could not afford to risk
the loss of these supplies.
On July 2d, the Greek army, under the command of Crown Prince
Constantine, took the offensive against the Bulgarians, who had
occupied on the previous day the crest of Beshikdag, from the mouth of
the Struma to the plateau of Lahana, across the road from Salonika to
Serres, and the heights north of Lake Ardzan, commanding the left bank
of the Vardar. The positions were strong. If the Greek army had been
of the calibre that the Bulgarians evidently expected, or if General
Ivanoff had had sufficient forces to hold the positions against the
Greek attack, there would undoubtedly have been _pourparlers_, and a
probable cessation of hostilities just as the Bulgarians counted upon.
But the Greeks soon proved that they were as brave and as determined as
their opponents. Their {334} artillery fire was excellent. There was
no wavering before the deadly resistance of the entrenched Bulgarians.
After five days of struggle, in which both sides showed equal courage,
the forces of General Ivanoff yielded to superior numbers. The
Bulgarians were compelled to retreat, on July 6th, in two columns,
towards Demir-Hissar and Strumitza. The retreat was effected in good
order, and the Greeks, though in possession of mobile artillery, could
not surround either column. Victory had been purchased at a terrible
price. The Greek losses in five days were greater than during the
whole war with Turkey. They admitted ten thousand _hors du combat_.
The Greeks had received their first serious baptism of fire, and had
demonstrated that they could fight. The Turks had never given them the
opportunity to wipe out the disgrace of 1897.
It is a tribute to the quickness of decision of the Crown Prince
Constantine and his general staff, and to the spirit of his soldiers,
that this severe trial of five days of continuous fighting and fearful
loss of life was not followed by a respite. The Greek headquarters
were moved to Doiran on the 7th. It was decided to maintain the
offensive as long as the army had strength to march and men to fill the
gaps made by the fall of thousands every day. The Bulgarians, although
they contested desperately every step, were kept on the move. On the
right, the Greeks pushed through to Serres, joining there, on July
11th, the advance-guard of the detachments which the Greek fleet had
landed at Kavalla on the 9th.
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The advance of the Greek armies was along the Vardar, the Struma, and
the Mesta. On the Vardar, the Bulgarian abandonment of Demir-Hissar,
on the 10th, enabled the Greeks to repair the railway, and establish
communication with the Servian army. The right wing, advancing by the
Mesta, occupied Drama. On July 19th, the Bulgarian resistance was
concentrated at Nevrokop. When it broke here, the Greek right wing was
able to send its outposts to the foothills of the Rhodope Mountains, on
the Bulgarian frontier.
The Greeks began to speak of the invasion of Bulgaria, and of making
peace at Sofia. But the bulk of their forces met an invincible
resistance at Simitli. From the 23d to the 26th, they attacked the
Bulgarian positions, and believed that the advantage was theirs. But
on the 27th the Bulgarians began a counter-attack against both wings of
the Greek army at once. On the 29th, the Greeks began to plan their
retreat. On the 30th, they realized that the retreat was no longer
possible. The Bulgarians were on both their flanks. It was then that
the armistice saved them.
While the Greek army was gaining its victories in the _hinterland_ of
Macedonia, the ports of the Ægean coast, Kavalla, Makri, Porto-Lagos,
and Dedeagatch were occupied without resistance by the Greek fleet.
Detachments withdrawn from Epirus were brought to these ports. Some
went to Serres and Drama. Others garrisoned the ports, and occupied
Xanthi and other nearby inland towns.
The Bulgarians may have had some reason to {336} discount the value of
the Greek army. For it had not yet been tried. But the Servians had
shown from the very first day of the war with Turkey that they
possessed high military qualities. The courage of their troops was
coupled with agility. They had had more experience than the Bulgarians
and Greeks in quick marches, and in breaking up their forces into
numerous columns. There is probably no army in Europe to-day which can
equal the Servians in mobility. It is incredible that the Bulgarians
could have hoped to surprise the Servians, and find a weak place
anywhere along their lines. On the defensive, in localities which they
had come to know intimately by nine months in the field, it would have
taken a larger force than the Bulgarians could muster to get the better
of soldiers such as the Servians had proved themselves to be.
Whether it was by scorn for the Greeks, or by appreciation of the
Servian concentration, the Bulgarians had planned to confront the
Servians with four of their five armies. We have already seen that
General Ivanoff had the second army alone to oppose to the Greeks, and
that even a few battalions of his troops were needed on the Servian
flank.
The engagements between the Bulgarians and the Servians had two
distinct fields of action, one in Macedonia, and the other on the
Bulgaro-Servian frontier.
In Macedonia, the Bulgarians experienced the same surprise in regard to
the Servians as in regard to the Greeks. Their sudden attack of June
30th did not strike terror to the hearts of their opponents. {337}
Instead of gaining for them a favourable diplomatic position, they
found that the Servians did not even suggest a parley. On July 1st,
the Servians started a counter-attack, and kept a steady offensive
against their former allies for eight days. Gradually the Bulgarians,
along the Bregalnitza, gave ground, retreating from position to
position, always with their face towards the enemy. The battle, after
the first day, was for the Bulgarians a defensive action all along the
line.
On July 4th, General Dimitrieff assumed the functions of generalissimo
of the Bulgarian forces. He tried his best to check the Servian
offensive. But the aggressive spirit had gone out of the Bulgarian
army. Lulé Burgas could not be repeated. It was incapable of more
than a stubborn resistance to the Servian advance. By July 8th, the
Servians were masters of the approaches to Istip, and had cleared the
Bulgarians out of the territory which led down into the valley of the
Vardar. Then they stopped. From this time on to the signing of the
armistice, the Macedonian Servian army was content with the victories
of the first week.
Along the Servian-Bulgarian frontier, the Bulgarian army had some
initial success. But General Kutincheff did not dispose of enough men
to make possible a successful aggressive movement towards Nish. From
the very first, when the Macedonian army failed to advance, the
Bulgarian plans for an invasion of Servia fell to the ground. They had
based everything upon an advance in Macedonia to the Vardar. So the
forward movement wavered. {338} The Servians, now sure of Rumanian
co-operation, advanced in turn towards Widin. General Kutincheff was
compelled to fall back on Sofia by the Rumanian invasion. Widin was
invested by the Servians on July 23d.
Rumania had watched with alarm the rise of the military power of
Bulgaria. She could not intervene in the first Balkan war on the side
of the Turks. The civilized world would not have countenanced such a
move, nor would it have had the support of Rumanian public opinion.
Whatever the menace of Bulgarian hegemony in the Balkan Peninsula,
Rumania had to wait until peace had been signed between the allies and
the Turks. But, as we have already seen, during the first negotiations
at London, her Minister to Great Britain had been instructed to treat
with Bulgaria for a cession of territory from the Danube at Silistria
to the Black Sea, in order that Rumania might have the strategic
frontier which the Congress of Berlin ought to have given her, when the
Dobrudja was awarded to her, without her consent, in exchange for
Bessarabia. As Rumania had helped to free Bulgaria in 1877-78, and had
never received any reward for her great sacrifices, while the
Bulgarians had done little to win their own independence, the demand of
a rectification of frontier was historically reasonable. Since Rumania
had so admirably developed the Dobrudja, and had constructed the port
of Constanza, it was justified from the economic standpoint. For the
possession of Silivria, and a change of frontier on the Dobrudja, was
the only means by which Rumania {339} could hope to defend her southern
frontier from attack.
At first, the Bulgarians bitterly opposed any compensation to Rumania.
They discounted the importance of her neutrality, for they knew that
she could not act against them as long as they were at war with Turkey.
They denounced the demands of Rumania, perfectly reasonable as they
were, as "blackmail." They were too blinded with the dazzling glory of
their unexpected victories against the Turks to realize how essential
the friendship of Rumania--at least, the neutrality of Rumania--was to
their schemes for taking all Macedonia to themselves. When, in April,
they signed with very ill grace the cession of Silivria, as a
compromise, and refused to yield the small strip of territory from
Silivria to Kavarna on the Black Sea, the Bulgarians made a fatal
political mistake. It was madness enough to go into the second Balkan
war in the belief that they could frighten, or, if that failed,
overwhelm the Servians and Greeks. What shall we call the failure to
take into their political calculations the possibility of a Rumanian
intervention? Even if there were not the question of the frontier in
the Dobrudja, would not Rumanian intervention still be justified by the
consideration of preserving the balance of power in the Balkans? By
intervening, Rumania would be acting, in her small corner of the world,
just as the larger nations of Europe had acted time and again since the
sixteenth century.
The Rumanian mobilization commenced on July {340} 3d. On July 10th,
Rumania declared war, and crossed the Danube. The Bulgarians decided
that they would not oppose the Rumanian invasion. How could they?
Already their armies were on the defensive, and hard pressed, by Greeks
and Servians. There is a limit to what a few hundred thousand men
could do. It is possible, though not probable, that the Bulgarian
armies might have gained the upper hand in the end against their former
allies in Macedonia. But with Rumania bringing into the field a fresh
army, larger than that of any other Balkan States, Bulgaria's case was
hopeless. The Rumanians advanced without opposition, and began to
march upon Sofia. They occupied, on July 15th, the seaport of Varna,
from which the Bulgarian fleet had withdrawn to Sebastopol.
It would have been easy for the Rumanians to have occupied Sofia, and
waited there for the Servian and Greek armies to arrive. The
humiliation of Bulgaria could have been made complete. Why, then, the
armistice of July 30th? Why the assembling hastily of a peace
conference at Bukarest? Political and financial, as well as military,
considerations dictated the wisdom of granting to Bulgaria an armistice.
Greece and Servia were exhausted financially, and their armies could
gain little more than glory by continuing the war. The Greek army, in
fact, was in a critical position, and ran the risk of being surrounded
and crushed by the Bulgarians. The Servians had not shown much hurry
to come to the aid of the Greeks. The truth of the matter is that,
{341} after the battle of the Bregalnitza, which ended on July 10th,
the Servians began to get very nervous about the successes of their
Greek allies. They knew well the Greek character, and feared that too
easy victories over the Bulgarians might necessitate a third war with
Greece over Monastir. So, on July 11th, with the ostensible reason
that such a measure was necessary to protect their rear against the
Albanians, the Servian general staff withdrew from the front a number
of the best regiments, and placed them in a position where they could
act, if the Greeks tried to seize Monastir. On the other hand, Rumania
gave both Greece and Servia to understand that she had entered the war,
not from any altruistic desire to help them, but for her own interests.
To see Bulgaria too greatly humiliated and weakened was decidedly no
more to the interest of Rumania than to see her triumphant.
As for Montenegro, she had entered the second Balkan war to give loyal
support to Servia, from whom she expected in return a generous spirit
in dividing the _sandjak_ of Novi Bazar. Her co-operation, however, as
I am able to state from having been in Cettinje when the decision was
taken to send ten thousand men against Bulgaria, was not made the
subject of any bargain. So, when Servia thought best to sign the
armistice, Montenegro was in thorough accord.
After a month of fighting, in which the losses had been far greater
than during the war with Turkey, and the treatment of non-combatants by
all the armies horrible beyond description, the scene of {342} battle
shifted from the blood-stained mountains and valleys of Macedonia to
the council chamber at Bukarest. Rumania was to preside over a Balkan
Congress of Berlin!
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