BULGARIAN ATTACKS--ALLIES CONCENTRATE AT SALONIKI
On December 5, 1915, the Bulgarians gave the first indications of
their preparations to break through the thin lines of the Allies. On
that date the British were to have their first taste of heavy
fighting. The Bulgarians delivered a massed attack at two points; one
at Demir Kapu, another against the British positions on the
Rabrovo-Doiran road.
The first assault of the enemy succeeded in gaining a foothold in the
British trenches, but the British were presently able to regain their
positions and drive the Bulgarians back. Here again it was obvious
that the hearts of the Bulgarian soldiers were not in this fighting.
Most of the British soldiers had never seen any fighting before, yet
they were able to accomplish what the fierce Serbians had not been
able to do; drive a superior force of Bulgarians back at the point of
the bayonet. Numbers of the Bulgarians were taken prisoners, willingly
enough, it seemed, and they told their captors that up to the actual
fighting, until they actually saw the troops they were engaging, they
had been under the impression they were to fight Greeks.
This first attack made the British commander realize, however, that
the enemy opposing him was vastly his superior in numbers. A second
assault, delivered in the face of a hot fire from the British, but
with overwhelming numbers, drove the British soldiers from their first
line of trenches; but they held on to their second line and every
effort to expel them was a costly failure.
Meanwhile, Sarrail, on the Vardar, under cover of a feigned attack on
Ishtip from Kara Hodjali, drew in his men from the Tcherna, and before
the enemy had realized what he was doing, he had retired from the
Kavaar Camp with all his stores, of which there was by this time a
tremendous accumulation, and entrained at Krivolak, blowing up the
bridges and tearing up the railroad behind him. On December 5, 1915,
he had reached the north end of the Demir Kapu Gorge (Defile)
practically without opposition, but in the gorge he had to fight hard
to get out of it.
He had had the forethought, however, to throw up strong defensive
works at the entrance and this enabled him to repel the attacks of the
Bulgarians in spite of the determination with which they were being
pushed. The retreat through the defile was an extremely precarious and
difficult task, as there was no way out except along the railroad,
running along a narrow shelf cut out of the steep, rocky banks of the
Vardar. Yet the retreat was successfully accomplished, with all the
stores, and, after destroying a tunnel and a bridge across the Vardar,
it was continued to Gradetz, where heavy intrenchments had been thrown
up.
Here, on December 8-9, 1915, the Bulgarians delivered a very violent
attack, but were driven off with heavy losses. On the 10th the French
announced that they were now occupying a new front, along the Bojimia,
a branch of the Vardar, and that they were in touch with the left
flank of the British.
Meanwhile, on the east side of the Vardar, General Todoroff was
continuing his attack on the British. He had massed together about
100,000 men. On the morning of the 6th, after the first assault and
under cover of dense mists that were rolling up from the swamps down
near Saloniki, he was able to get in close to the British without
being seen. As the dawn began breaking he poured a rain of
high-explosive shells on the British, which here consisted mostly of
Irish regiments.
As on the day before, the enemy came on in successive waves, so thick
that the later ones carried the first before them, even when they
turned to flee from the heavy fire of the British. Finally the British
were again compelled to give way before the heavy impact of numbers.
By evening they had retired two miles, not a great deal, considering
the masses that were driving them. More than once it looked as though
the British would be literally overwhelmed and annihilated. Eight guns
were lost and about 1,300 men were killed or wounded.
The retirement had been in the direction of the Vardar and by the end
of the second week of December, 1915, the British were able to make
another stand over on the banks of the Vardar, below the right wing of
the French.
The whole Bulgarian field army was evidently divided between the
Rabrovo road and north of Strumitza Junction. It was clearly the
enemy's intention to drive a wedge into the center, thus to isolate
all the northern divisions and to bring about a general disaster.
Sarrail recognized his danger and began to retire his northern units,
covering the movement with a fiercely contested action in the region
of Strumitza.
[Illustration: A British hydroplane returning to the mother ship after
patrol duty over Saloniki. In the background are the City of Saloniki
and warships of the Allies.]
By December 11, 1915, the French and British lines were close back on
the Greek frontier, and although the Bulgarians delivered a heavy
attack on that day, it was their final effort; the following day the
Allies were across the frontier and the Bulgarians made no attempt to
follow them. Possibly they were restrained by their German allies, or
possibly they had no desire to involve Greece, for had the Bulgarians
set foot on Greek soil, it is more than likely that Greek troops would
have resisted them, and once such an encounter had taken place, Greece
would probably have thrown herself into the war on the side of the
Allies. As they retired, the allied troops destroyed the railroad
behind them and set fire to Gevgheli and other towns on the other
side of the border. And, by a fortunate coincidence, it was on the day
before they crossed the frontier that Greece had finally accepted the
proposals of the Allies that their forces were to be allowed freedom
of movement.
Considering the tremendous difficulties he had had to contend with, in
the face of the immense strength of his enemy, General Sarrail's
retreat by no means diminished his reputation as a military leader.
Although his men had at their disposal only one single-track line of
railroad and no roads, their retirement was conducted in such order
that they were able to save and withdraw all their stores, while the
total of their casualties did not exceed 3,500, a very moderate loss
under the circumstances. In less skillful hands the retreat might
easily have developed into an irretrievable disaster. In its main
object, saving Serbia from being crushed, the campaign had certainly
been a failure, but this was rather the fault of the allied
governments, and not because of the inefficiency of the leaders in the
field.
The Bulgarians, naturally, felt that they had attained a great
victory, and in a measure they had. On December 14, 1915, they
published their version of the operations as follows:
"December 12, 1915, will remain for the Bulgarian Army and nation a
day of great historical importance. The army on that day occupied the
last three Macedonian towns that still remained in the hands of the
enemy: Doiran, Gevgheli, and Struga. The last fights against the
British, French, and Serbians took place near Doiran and Ochrida
Lakes. The enemy was everywhere beaten. Macedonia is free! Not a
single hostile soldier remains on Macedonian soil.... In the course of
ten days the expeditionary army of General Sarrail was beaten and
thrown back on neutral territory. On December 12, the whole of
Macedonia was freed. The pursuit of the enemy was immediately stopped
when the neutral frontier of Greece was reached."
This communique further pointed out that Serbia had been beaten in
forty, and the British and French in ten, days. An official paper in
Sofia declared that the "victories won over the Franco-British hordes"
was even more glorious than those won over Serbia and declared that
Bulgaria had given a lesson to the so-called Great Powers, Great
Britain and France, showing them at the same time the manner in which
small nations could fight for their independence.
That the Bulgarians did not pursue the allied troops across the Greek
frontier was one of the surprises of the campaign. What the Greeks
would have done had their hereditary enemies invaded their soil, even
though not for the purpose of attacking them, was a question which
perhaps the Greek Government itself had not fully answered. Certainly
the critical character of the situation placed the Greeks in a very
uncomfortable position. It had been at their suggestion that the
Allies had come to Greece, and though a protest had been made against
their landing, that protest was the last word in formality.
Consequently the Allies had some shadow of a moral right to the use of
Saloniki, but now that Sarrail was falling back, with every prospect
of his bringing the battle front down with him into Greek territory,
the diplomatic situation became extremely delicate. To add to the
confusion of the situation, it must be remembered that two or three
divisions of the Greek Army had been concentrated in the very district
through which the Bulgarians must pass, should they decide to follow
the retiring column of the Allies' troops. Here, then, was the Greek
dilemma; they had allowed, under formal protest, a pacific penetration
of their country in accordance with the agreement they had made with
Serbia, that the latter should be allowed to import armies, munitions,
and other military material over the Saloniki-Uskub railroad. This
agreement, Venizelos insisted, was binding on Greece, notwithstanding
the equivocations of the king. But when the French and British troops
retired, another situation was created altogether, because it was
scarcely likely that the Bulgarians would stop short at the frontier
of Greece, and more than likely that they would follow up their
advance and incidentally shell and destroy Greek property. Thus
Bulgaria would be doing what the Allies had very carefully avoided
doing: commit an act of war against Greece.
But fortunately for Greece, the Bulgarians did not continue the
pursuit, though the Greek Government waited anxiously to see what turn
events would immediately take. Sofia published the most reassuring
things about the friendliness of Bulgaria for Greece, though of course
Athens, being herself the seat of a Balkan nation, knew what value
such protestations of affection had. Greece had only to recall the
expressions of friendliness Bulgaria had uttered to Serbia less than a
week before attacking her.
Meanwhile the French and British had fallen back on an intrenched line
two or three miles to the south of the Greek frontier. This front
stretched from Karasuli, on the Vardar River, to Kilindir, on the
Doiran-Saloniki railroad, and was about fifteen miles in length. The
French were still on the left and the British on the right. The
British flank, in the east, was about thirty miles from Saloniki.
These lines were strongly intrenched and otherwise strengthened, for
it was not yet certain that the enemy did not mean to invade Greece.
In the early days of October, when the Allies had first begun landing
their troops, it had not yet been definitely decided that Saloniki was
to be held permanently, or at least as long as the war lasted, but by
this time the value of the port had been realized. So long as it was
held in strong force it constituted a constant threat against any
attempt on the part of the Austro-Germans to push their invasion down
into Egypt. Further, it was suggested by naval experts that if ever it
passed into the hands of the Germans, it might easily become the base
for an effective submarine warfare in the eastern Mediterranean, which
would be extremely dangerous to the allied fleets in those waters,
already the scene of considerable submarine activity, as was
demonstrated by the sinking of not a few transports, war vessels, and
other, ships by the enemy. These waters could not be dragged with
steel nets, as had been done in the British Channel. As the terminus
of the railroad running through Macedonia from Belgrade, Saloniki was
potentially an important city. Austria had long been aware of the high
significance of this port and it was, in fact, the final objective of
her "Drang nach Osten" policy. When it fell to Greece after the
Second Balkan War she had been bitterly disappointed, which was one
reason why she had done her best to spur Bulgaria on to precipitate
that unfortunate campaign. And this was another little matter which
probably helped to swing the balance of Greek sympathy toward the
Allies. What prosperity Saloniki had enjoyed during Turkish rule had
been entirely due to its big Jewish population, which had been the
mainstay of its commercial activities.
When Greece acquired possession little change followed, and when the
troops of the Allies began to disembark in the beginning of October
they were at once confronted by a serious difficulty in the absence of
docking and local transportation facilities. There was, further, the
serious difficulty of obtaining space ashore for camp ground for the
troops, as well as suitable level stretches for aeroplanes, Greek
troops being in occupation of all such spots. Moreover, the railroad
facilities, even when given over entirely to their use, were
inadequate.
So long as the outcome of the effort to join up with the Serbians
remained in doubt the Allies had not given much energy to fortifying
Saloniki in great strength, but immediately the retirement was decided
upon this task was undertaken with some dispatch. On and after
December 12, 1915, the Allies, having at last succeeded in compelling
Greece to agree to their plans for a permanent occupation, began
preparations to meet all possible events in the future. As the Greek
troops withdrew, French and British forces took their places, some
being fresh arrivals, for reenforcements were landing daily at the
rate of between 4,000 and 5,000. As there were many rumors of the
enemy's intention to advance and attack before the city should be made
more defensible, the work of making it as formidable as possible was
pushed with fever heat.
Steps were at once taken to establish strong lines of intrenchments.
In the course of a week or ten days this task was sufficiently under
way to settle the alarms of an immediate attack from the enemy; the
lines of the defensive works followed a half circle of hills and
lakes, some fifty miles in extent, reaching on the west from the
Vardar River to the Gulf of Orfano on the east and inclosing a very
considerable area, giving the Allies sufficient freedom of movement.
Yet it was fortunate for the Allies that political considerations
deterred the enemy from making the attack. Had the Bulgarians advanced
in full force, the Allies would have been heavily outnumbered, not
only in men, but in heavy artillery and ordinary field guns as well.
It is doubtful whether they could successfully have resisted a
determined effort to turn their flanks.
The conformation of the coast line around Saloniki is a handicap to a
continuous defensive line. It would demand more men than other
conformations would. Saloniki stands on a gulf, or bay, and this would
necessitate spreading the defending lines around it in almost a
complete circle, so that the adjacent shores would be protected as
well.
There does exist a natural horseshoe of positions from which Saloniki
could be held and which would cover the port from sea to sea, but
their development extends from 120 to 130 miles of country, an area
which could not well be held with less than a force of half a million
men. At the eastern horn of the Gulf of Saloniki runs the Kaloron
Ridge, culminating in a peak some 3,000 feet above sea level. All the
southern slopes of this ridge are exposed to the fire of any fleet of
warships that might lie offshore. This ridge continues toward the
north by two more peaks, each connected with its neighbor by a
saddle-shaped ridge. The positions along this ridge would pass first
over a point about a thousand feet high, covering the village of
Galatista, and next by a chain to the Hortak Dagh Mountains, one of
the nearest points in the line to Saloniki.
To the north again the ground falls abruptly to the level of Lake
Langaza, thence turns eastward to the height of Dautbaba, after which
the lines could be stretched to the borders of the swampy region at
the mouth of the Vardar, ground which is as impassable as the Pripet
Marshes on the Russian front and which were formerly occupied by the
Bulgarian comatjis, in spite of all the efforts of the Turks to eject
or capture them.
[Illustration: The Allies at Saloniki.]
On December 20, 1915, there arrived in Saloniki, General de Castelnau,
Chief of the General Staff of the French Army. He came with the same
purpose that had brought Lord Kitchener, to make a tour of inspection
of the Near Eastern situation. No doubt a certain anxiety was felt in
France and England regarding the security of the Saloniki position,
and General de Castelnau had been dispatched to investigate. With
General Sarrail he made a thorough survey of the French lines, and
with General Mahon he undertook an equally searching tour of the
British section. Apparently he was satisfied with the situation, for
soon after he stated in an interview to the press that the position of
the Allies in Saloniki was excellent. After having passed a week with
Generals Sarrail and Mahon, he paid a short visit to King Constantine
on the 26th. On the same day the French Government issued an official
communique, which announced that General de Castelnau, together with
Generals Sarrail and Mahon, had settled upon the plan of action to be
followed by the Allies and that he had assured the French Government
that the arrangements which had already been made rendered the safety
of the whole expedition absolutely certain.
This statement came as rather a strong contrast to an official
declaration made by the German Government to the effect that Germany
would be established in Saloniki by January 15, 1916. Possibly the
Teutonic allies may have planned at that time to initiate a campaign
against Saloniki, but apparently pressure on their lines on the other
fronts became so strong as to divert them from this object.
However, the year was not to close without some disturbance of the
monotony of the situation that now set in at Saloniki. In the middle
of the forenoon of December 30, 1915, an attack was made on the city
by a fleet of the enemy's aeroplanes, which sailed overhead at a great
height and dropped bombs, doing considerable damage. One bomb fell on
a detachment of Greek troops, which was carrying on drill maneuvers
outside the city in the presence of Prince Andrew of Greece. Attempts
were made from the warships in the harbor to reach the aircraft with
their antiaircraft guns, but as the aeroplanes were over ten thousand
feet high they were not hit. French aeroplanes were sent up to engage
them, but by the time they had circled up to the same high altitude,
the enemy had disappeared over the mountain tops toward Monastir.
Less than six hours later the soldiers of the Allies suddenly
descended on the German, Austrian, Bulgarian, and Turkish consulates
and arrested the enemy consuls and vice-consuls, taking them prisoners
together with their families and entire staffs. They were immediately
marched down to the quays and sent aboard one of the battleships. The
four consular buildings were then taken over by the Allies as
barracks. On the following day the consuls and their belongings were
on their way across the Mediterranean to some unknown destination,
though, as developed later, they were landed at Marseilles in France,
thence sent to, and liberated in, Switzerland. Later the Norwegian
consul was also arrested on a charge of espionage.
One of the disadvantages under which the Allies labored in Saloniki
was the comparative ease with which the enemy could spy on their
movements. This had especially been the case when their lines had been
advanced beyond the Greek frontier.
The Greek Government protested at this breach of neutrality, declaring
that such high-handed proceedings undermined its sovereignty and the
enemy Powers also protested and threatened reprisals.
Further proof of the decision that the Allies had made to remain in
Saloniki was given by their occupation of Castellorizo, an island
lying off the mainland of Asia Minor near Rhodes, commanding the Gulf
of Adalia. Five hundred French soldiers had been landed, with a view
to using the place as a base for operations in that part of Turkey,
should that later become feasible. The Greek Government again
protested, as it also did when, in the first week of January, the
Allies arrested the German, Austrian, and Turkish consuls at Mitylene
for the same reasons that had led to the arrests in Saloniki, and
shipped these men away on a man-of-war. Greece was indeed kept quite
busy framing protests during this period, for on January 11, 1916, a
detachment of French soldiers took possession and military control of
the island of Corfu, but the Greek garrison there offered no
opposition. The place had some strategic value, but the main purpose
for which it was to be used was as a sanitarium for the Serbian
refugees, who were beginning to arrive from Albania, and many of whom
were in miserable physical condition.