II. Prologue
IIb. The Greek effort in the Great War
"I am afraid that the Bulgarian juggernaut seem to have slipped on some Greece. I don't think it will be up for a bit." David Lloyd George, Premier of Great Britain, 12th of May 1918.
The strategical and tactical situation.
After the formal declaration of war on the 2nd of November, 1915, the Greeks quickly rushed to mobilise and to secure positions at the border. The Greek Army was larger, better led and much better equipped than the one that had been defeated at the hands of the Ottomans 1897 and been a junior partner in the First and Second Balkan Wars. However, it was still far from western standards. The Army was lacking in artillery, having almost no heavy pieces, with few machine guns and a strained supply system, which would prove especially unreliable concerning ammunition as the war progressed. However, the Greek Army displayed a high morale, excellent cameradie and good elan. The troops were used to the mountainous, barren terrain that would be the battlefield and often had the support of locals. Shepherds, often of Greek ethnic origin, would show the Greek troops mountain paths and hidded passes for infiltration and enveloping more than once.
Even if the tactical situation left much to be wanted, the strategic situation was sound, perhaps even excellent. The Salonica Army, consisting of well-equipped Entente troops, guarded the Greek right flank against any serious Bulgarian or Ottoman incursions. The Austro-German forces that was driving the remnants of the Serb Army in front of them were losing momentum as their supply lines lengthened and the infrastructure worsened the further they advanced. Autumn rains with swollen rivers and streams and the onset of winter would soon halt their advance. The Bulgarians were still busy erecting defences north and east of the Salonica Army and occupying Serb Macedonia. While these forces would soon become a very real threat, for the moment they were unable to conduct any offensives against the Greek Army.
The Entente had promised supplies, weapons, instructors as well as allied forces in case of a Greek entrance into the war. A mountain of promises turned into a molehill of actually delivered supplies, but to the Greek Army it was a steady river of desperately needed goods. The Greek army would grow from a meager and under-equipped force to 15 divisions of almost 450 000 experienced men, equipped and trained to close to western standards during the course of the war, much thanks to primarily French weapons and British supplies.
Greece mobilised 10 divisions, a grand total of about 300 000 men in early November and soon advanced hand in hand with the Entente Salonica Army northwards. At first, the Greek troops encountered none or easily overcome resistance.
The invasion of Albania and the Serb retreat.
A Greek division, supported by an Evzoni battalion, entered southern Albania and secured the mountain passes for the remnants of the Serb army to retreat through. Stories and rumours had been floating around concerning the state of the brave Serbs, but no rumours, regardless how ghastly, could prepare the Greek troops for what met them when the starved, worn, diseased and pitiful remnants of the Serb Army crossed the passes. These were men that had fought the Austrians long and hard, veterans from two Balkan Wars famined down to mere ghosts of their former pride. The Greeks welcomed their Serb allies as friends, rushing supplies north as the Serbs made camp in Epirus, greeted in some places as liberators and everywhere as friends and honoured guests. Seeing the state of the Serb Army (which was skillfully used in widely distributed Entente Greek-language propaganda pamphlets) instilled a sense of shame in many Greek that they had abandoned their Serb allies and the warm welcome for the Serb Army and refugees that followed was a direct result of this collective shame. The Entente pledged more support to rebuild the Serb Army, but for the time being, it was not accountable as a fighting force.
At the same time, quietly, the Greek annexed southern Albania (a region long sought by various Greek governments and always called northern Epirus by the Greek) by replacing key officials such as mayors, policemen, gendarmes and so one with those loyal to Greece, instituting mandatory schooling with Greek as one of the subjects on the curriculum, passing out generous bribes to clan leaders and starting several large infrastructure projects, mostly to improve the supply situation of the Greek forces in the area, but also with the side effect of providing work and pay, and thus almost instant support in a poor region.
Greek forces marched into Durazzo on the 1st of December, which was hailed as a major victory in Entente propaganda. Indeed, the port would prove important, perhaps even vital to the Greek war effort in Albania and western Macedonia during the rest of the war, as supplies from Italy and the other Entente powers, as well as reinforcements from Greece proper was shipped in, avoiding problems with the nearly non-existant infrastructure in the mountainous Epirus and southern Albania. As a victory, however, Durazzo was not that honourable, as no enemy forces were present, the only resistance coming from a few scattered irregular Albanian forces, mostly adventurous young males from muslim clans with some loyalty left for the old masters or simply bribed with plenty of good gold by German or Austrian agents.
The First Battle of Macedonia.
In the meantime, six Greek divisions, supported by one French division, readied themselves for an offensive into Serb Macedonia, in order to liberate it from Bulgarian occupation and hopefully put enough pressure on the Bulgarians to force them to sign a separate peace. Political reasons also played a part. Giving the Serbs some territory back would ensure that they stayed in the war and hopefully silence the Russians, who were demanding Entente efforts after their disastrous losses as the Germans and Austrians broke through at Gorlice-Tarnow. The Western Front was a stalemate, and only the winter had stopped the Teuton advance on the Eastern Front. As the operations at Gallipoli had also stalled, the Ottomans barely turned back from the Suez Canal and Sinai and the British Colonial Troops attacking Iraq becoming surrounded at Kut, the Balkans seemed like the only front where the Entente was advancing and thus the natural site for the next major offensve.
The French were confident that the Bulgarian front in Macedonia could be rolled up before sizable Austrian and German reinforcements could arrive and the Greek General Staff agreed, over-confident after the successful operations in Albania, forgetting that in Albania, they had been welcomed in the south and had only faced weak, uncoordinated and spread-out irruglar opposition in the north. Indeed, the advance had stalled immediately as a single Austrian brigade had moved south from Montenegro and plans for contacts with Montenegrian and Serb Chetnik resistance fighters had to be shelved.
The attack was probably doomed from the start when it commenced on the 15th of December 1915. Yet initially it showed promising signs of success. In western Macedonia, a Greek division attacking from Albania in good coordination (which was probably more due to luck than skill or good communications) with two more divisions attacking from the south managed to turn the Bulgarian flank by ripping through the single Bulgarian division in the area. The Evzoni battalion that had taken part in the invasion of Albania infiltrated with the aid of local shepherds over the mountains and caused great confusion, greatly contributing to the Bulgarian rout. In parade, a Serb battalion, hand-picked among the reforming Serb remnants in Epirus, escorted parts of the Serb government back to Serb territory.
After the initial, much-hailed success, the attack ran head-first into well-entrenched Bulgarian troops and reserves, supported by German observers and two battalions of Austrian heavy siege artillery, against which the Greeks had no counter. As the first snow fell on the 19th of December, the attack in eastern Macedonia had only made marginal gains at staggering losses, gains that was soon reversed in Bulgar counterattacks.
Indeed, it was only British prudence, refusing to commit their single division in the Salonica Army to the offensive that saved the Greek and French right flank from being enveloped as the Bulgarians commited reserves to a counter-offensive from Bulgar Thrace, aimed at Thessaloniki. The Bulgarian attack ran headlong into the British division and, suffering the same problems with cold, snow, swollen rivers and infrastructure turning into mudpits, their attacks soon died down. By christmas, the front was pretty much quiet, despite local attacks and counterattacks, and an attempt by both sides to move forces westward in order to force a settlement there, where troop density was lower and entrenchment and fortification works far less developed. The only result was that the trenches extended westward, from the Aegean, through northern Greek Thrace, over the border in Macedonia, turning northwest in Serb Macedonia, over the border to Albania to find another sea in the Adriatic in northen Albania.
The Greek army celebrated christmas in a solemn and muted spirit, as they settled in for a long war, as the same thing happened on the other side of no-man's-land where the flesh in the uniforms spoke Bulgarian rather than Greek.
The First Battle for Macedonia had cost the Greek about 38 000 casualties, with a further 5000 French and 2000 British dead and wounded. The Bulgarian casualties had also mounted, for a total of about 35 000.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
