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.

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 communiquÉ 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.

The Allies at Saloniki.