Map to illustrate the Campaign in Serbia.
In 1897 Bulgaria proposed to form a league uniting Greece and the Balkan States against Turkey, and in 1912 the league was formed. Shortly afterwards the First Balkan War began. Turkey was badly beaten, and much territory was taken from her; but when the time came for dividing up the booty the victors fell out and fought amongst themselves. Greece and Serbia took the field against Bulgaria, and overcame her. Ever since that time Bulgaria bitterly hated Serbia. Her king, Ferdinand, was a vain and cunning man, without a spark of personal courage, but with a keen eye for the main chance, and with no scruples to prevent him from seizing it. During the present war he watched and waited, and bided his time. When he saw the Russians retreating day after day, and the British and French making no progress in Gallipoli or in the West, he felt sure that Germany would win. He was a German himself, and he was now prepared to range himself with the Central Powers—at a price. On 17th July he signed a treaty by which, as a reward for joining the two Kaisers, he was to receive Serbian Macedonia, Salonika,[80] and some Greek territory. All August and September he was busy making his preparations, and by the beginning of October he was ready to obey his masters' orders, and fall upon Serbia.
Why did not the Allies hasten to the defence of threatened Serbia? "Thereby hangs a tale." On 11th September the Greek Premier, who believed that his country ought to stand by its treaty with Serbia and enter the fray, asked France and Britain for 150,000 troops. About a fortnight later the Allies agreed to furnish these troops, and the Greek army began to mobilize. Ferdinand had already called up his armies, but he told the world that he had only done so for the purpose of self-defence, and that he had no intention of making war on his neighbours. Serbia, however, knew better, and towards the end of September she informed the British that she was not going to wait until the Bulgarians were fully prepared, but was about to attack them at once. The British Government persuaded her not to do so, because it still had hopes that Bulgaria might be persuaded to stay her hand. You will soon learn that Serbia, by taking the advice of the British Government, suffered terribly.
By agreement with the Greek Premier, the Allies began to land troops at the Greek port of Salonika in the first week of October. The Greeks objected, but did not hinder us; indeed, they helped our army to occupy the place. Then came a remarkable change of front on the part of the Greek king. He had married the Kaiser's sister, and he went in fear of his brother-in-law. Probably he believed that Germany was going to win; he knew that Bulgaria was strong and Serbia weak, and that the 150,000 troops of the Allies could not turn the balance in his favour. So he informed his Prime Minister that he had never consented to fight on behalf of Serbia; whereupon the Prime Minister resigned, and a new Government was formed. It declared that Greece meant to remain neutral, though it was very friendly to the Allies.
While our transports were crowding the harbour at Salonika and the Allies were busy putting the place into a state of defence, Ferdinand threw off the mask. A week later, on 12th October, when his advance guards were over the border, he declared war on Serbia. Four days later Britain declared war upon Bulgaria. Von Mackensen had already crossed the Danube, and was pressing against the Serbian front with 200,000 men; a quarter of a million Bulgarians were moving eastwards against the exposed right flank of Serbia; and in Salonika there were 13,000 French and British troops preparing to march inland against the Bulgarian left. Such was the position of affairs on 15th October.
Now let us return to the Danube and briefly follow the stages of Serbia's agony. By means of the great river, which is linked with the canals of the Elbe and the Rhine, barges full of big guns and supplies had been conveyed to the scene of action. On 19th September, before the big guns arrived, Austrian batteries opened fire on Belgrade; but the Serbians and the British sailors who were fighting with them prevented a crossing. On 3rd October the enemy's big guns were placed in position, and the Serbian trenches were pounded to dust. It was the Donajetz bombardment all over again. Belgrade could no longer be held, and by the 8th of October the Austrians and Germans had crossed the Danube and the Save at six places between Shabatz and Belgrade. There was a desperate struggle in the streets of the capital, but on the morning of the 9th the place was in the enemy's hands. The lesson of Warsaw had been learned, and all that was valuable in the city had been carried off.
By 11th October the Austro-Germans held a hundred miles of front on the south banks of the Save and the Danube. The Serbians had fought desperately, but they could not stand before the mass of artillery brought against them. The Serbian left had been forced back towards the hills on which it had made its first stand against the third Austrian invasion, the centre had fallen back to a ridge seven miles south of the capital, and the right was being harried across the river plain and up the valleys of the Morava and the Mlava. On the Serbian right Mackensen moved his big guns slowly. He was waiting for the Bulgarians to take the Serbians in flank and in rear. On the 12th the Bulgarians attacked the Serbians at five different points, and it was clear that, if the Serbians were to avoid being completely surrounded, they must retreat, as the Russians had done. But, unlike the Russians, they had no vast land into which they could retire. Their only line of withdrawal lay to the west and south-west, into the bare, rugged highlands of Montenegro and the wilderness of Albania.
The French and British in the south were by this time struggling northwards in the attempt to reach Uskub, the great meeting-place of all routes in Southern Serbia. They were, however, too late: the Bulgarians entered Uskub on 22nd October, and the Allies were thus cut off from all communication with the interior.
The Serbians were now in a desperate plight. Along every road and track left open to the south-west thousands of old men, women, and children trudged wearily onward, bearing with them the few household goods which they could carry off. Food was scarce, carts could not be obtained for love or money, and on the desolate hills thousands of wretched peasants perished of cold and hunger. By 26th October the whole north-east corner of Serbia was in the hands of the enemy. The Serbian army which lay between the Drina and Nish was cut off from that which lay in the shape of a half-moon in front of the southern Bulgarian army. There was no more fighting for the northern army; it was slowly but surely being enclosed, and was now in full retreat along the valley of the river Ibar on the road to Montenegro. Meanwhile the southern army made a last despairing effort to stem the Bulgarian advance in the passes between Prisrend and Monastir, and, having failed, retreated into Albania.
Look at the railway line running from Uskub to Mitrovitza and find the pass of Katchanik. If the northern army was to get away safely into Montenegro, the Bulgarians must be prevented from pushing to their rear and swinging to the north to cut off the retreat. It was therefore necessary to hold the enemy at Katchanik Pass. Five thousand men, all that was left of the garrison at Uskub, along with three regiments from the north, now prepared to make a stand. Their guns were on the heights, and they had sufficient ammunition for a battle of several days. The Bulgarians advanced on a fifteen-mile front, but the Serbian guns drove them back. On the third day the Serbians attacked with bombs and the bayonet. All night the desperate struggle continued, and after twelve hours' fighting the Bulgarian line was pierced. But the enemy in overwhelming strength formed up behind the gap and began to enclose the little Serbian force. It fell back fighting and joined the retreating northern army. But it had done its work—the danger of disaster was over.
Another stand was made at the Babuna Pass, which you will see on the map, about fifty miles south of Katchanik Pass. You will notice from the map that if the Bulgarians could get to Prilep no supplies could reach the Serbians from the south. If, too, the Allies could retake the town of Veles,[81] Uskub would be threatened, and the Bulgarians would not be able to follow up the northern army. In the first days of November some 5,000 Serbians actually held the crest of the Babuna Pass for more than a week. The Allies, however, could make no headway from the south, and the gallant rearguard, finding six divisions of the enemy before it, was forced to fall back into Albania.
What of the Allies in Salonika? On 12th October General Sarrail arrived to take command of the French 2nd Division, which had been brought from Cape Helles. Before our 10th Division from Suvla was ready to move, the French moved up country in the hope of joining hands with the Serbians in the neighbourhood of Uskub. You will see on the map a railway running up the Vardar to Veles. Along this railway Sarrail moved his troops. It was a single, grass-grown track, quite inadequate for the advance of an army. Ninety miles north of Salonika, at a point marked X on the map, it begins to run through a narrow gorge with steep rocky walls, called the Iron Gate. If the Bulgarians once gained this ravine, the Allies would be held up and unable to advance. Early in the month of October Bulgarian raiders cut the railway at X, but on the 19th the French advance guards reached the place and drove them out. Four days later the rest of the division arrived, and detachments which were ferried across the Vardar seized positions on the left bank of the river, which was then swollen by the autumn rains. Meanwhile the British 10th Division extended the French right to Lake Doiran. It was now proposed to capture a steep wall of mountain which commanded the valley. In order to reach it the French left had to cross the swollen river once more. It had no pontoons, but by means of an old ferry-boat a detachment got across. The French scaled the summit, drove off the Bulgarians who held it, and dug themselves in. On 4th and 5th November the Bulgarians made a strong attack on the summit, but were repulsed after fierce fighting at close quarters.
Now that the French commanded the valley southward, they began to push on towards the Babuna Pass in order to join hands with the Serbians who were holding the crest. By the time they were within ten miles of the Serbian position the Bulgarians were flinging 125,000 men against the heroic rearguard. The French dared not proceed further. Supplies could only reach them along a hundred miles of single-line railway, which might be cut any day; their only means of crossing the Vardar was by a crazy wooden bridge, and there were twenty miles of bad road in their rear. The Serbians had already retreated from the Babuna Pass, and an advance could be of no service to them. Further, the Bulgarians were trying to cut them off from the bridge. They were, therefore, obliged to retreat; no other course was open to them. The Allied endeavour had come to nothing. The French and British fell back on Salonika, and there remained throughout the winter.
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow."
(From the picture by F. Matania. By permission of the Sphere.)
This picture shows old King Peter and his court retreating on foot
through the snows of winter into the wilds of Albania.
In those November days heartrending scenes were witnessed on the Serbian hills, now white with the first snows of winter. Fugitives in ox wagons, in country carts, and on foot, men, women, and little children, thronged the roads—a long procession of woe. The army which, a year ago, had flung the Austrians out of the country, was now a mere remnant of 150,000 famished and weary men. With it marched our British Naval Brigade and its guns. The devoted doctors and nurses, who had for nine months been ministering to the wounded and diseased, were scattered far and wide. By roundabout roads some of them reached the Allies at Salonika; others gained the Adriatic coast; and some, such as Lady Paget, remained and trusted to the tender mercies of the Bulgarians. Retreating with the army were the officials of the Court and the Government. Perhaps the most pathetic figure of all was the Serbian King, racked by rheumatism and sore of heart because his age and infirmities prevented him from fighting in the ranks with his heroic people. But behind all his sorrows there was a ray of hope. His army, though but a remnant, was still an army, and not a broken and dispirited mob. It would live to fight again.
So, for the Allies, the year 1915 closed in gloom. A visitor from Mars, presented with a map of the German conquests, might have been pardoned had he proclaimed the two Kaisers victorious. From the Yser to the Dvina, from the Baltic to the Bosphorus, and thence to the Tigris, they and their fellow-conspirators were masters of 177,000,000 people. They had driven the Russians before them; they had made another Belgium of Serbia; the French and British had failed in their Eastern enterprises, and could not break through in the West. The Germans loudly boasted of their triumph; but, to their amazement, there was no sign of war-weariness or faint-heartedness amongst the Allies. Conscious that the enemy had passed the first flush of his mighty strength, the Allies endured the heaviness of the night, and, while waiting for the morning,
END OF VOLUME IV.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Wild and mountainous country of the Balkans to the west of Serbia, with its coast on the Adriatic Sea.
[2] Sphagnum or bog moss occurs in large patches of a pale green or reddish colour on moors, and sometimes fills up small lakes or pools. The growth of bog moss has played a large part in the formation of peat. There are many varieties of bog moss, and some of them have now been put to practical use in our field hospitals.
The story of the discovery of the properties of the moss is interesting. One day in a peat moss litter works some distance from Kiel a worker met with a serious injury. There were no appliances to deal with the case at the works, but the men did the best they could. They took a quantity of the article which they manufactured, peat moss litter, and laying it on the wounds tied bandages over it. The injured man was then conveyed to Kiel, and taken to a hospital. When the doctors undid the bandages, and found the dirty-looking moss litter in the wound, they were horrified, and declared that the injured limb would have to be cut off. Very soon, however, their horror gave way to surprise, and they said, "Ah, here is something which we do not know about!" They found that, far from the poisoning which they had expected, the injury had been beautifully cleaned by the rude dressing, and had actually begun to heal. With German thoroughness, they made further experiments, and so "discovered" sphagnum moss from the surgeon's point of view.
[3] To change from one tack to the other without going about; to shift a fore-and-aft sail from one side to the other when the wind is aft or on the quarter.
[4] A nautical measure = 6 ft.
[5] Plural of fellah, an Egyptian or Syrian peasant.
[7] See Vol. II., p. 237.
[8] Ku´fee.
[9] Croo´ee.
[10] Unnamed hills are numbered on the map by their height above sea-level. Thus Hill 132 means a hill which is 132 metres, or 440 ft., in elevation.
[11] Sant meh-nou´.
[12] Soo-ahn.
[13] Pert.
[14] Boh say-joor.
[15] See Vol. II., chap. ix.
[16] Lays-ay parge.
[17] Tee-ō-koor.
[18] The narrowest part of the Dardanelles, 14 miles from the Mediterranean. The width of the strait at the Narrows is about three-quarters of a mile.
[19] For an account of the Narrows, see Chapter XX.
[20] Blackwood's Magazine, October 1915.
[21] Pshas´nish.
[22] Boo-ko-vē´na.
[23] Stan´is-low, 75 m. S.S.E. of Lemberg. It has extensive railroad shops.
[24] Vol. III., p. 247.
[25] Moo´ziks, Russian peasants.
[26] The Russian Campaign, April to August, 1915, by Stanley Washburn.
[27] Pee-aitr.
[28] The Thunderer; the blacksmith god of the ancient Norse. He is represented as wielding a hammer.
[29] The French word for a keepsake.
[30] Some of the earliest hand grenades used by our men were made of jam pots which came from the factory of Messrs. Tickler; hence the nickname.
[31] During 1915 Russia was busy developing the ice-free port of Alexandrovsk, at the mouth of the river Kola, but it was not available at the close of the year.
[32] King of ancient Persia from 485 to 465 B.C. He crossed the "Narrows" with a vast army in 481 B.C.
[33] King of Macedonia from 336 to 323 B.C. He conquered all Western Asia, and even the north of India. As a soldier few of the great generals of history can compare with him.
[34] Aviation ground with hangars or sheds in which aeroplanes are stored.
[35] German for "God punish England"—the common curse of the Germans at that time.
[36] Military cyclists are known at the front as Gaspipe Cavalry.
[37] Native captain in the Indian army.
[38] Loce, about a mile to the north-west of Lens.
[39] According to the old classical story, there was in Crete a building constructed for King Minos, in which dwelt the terrible beast known as the Minotaur. This building, which was known as the Labyrinth, contained many winding passages, arranged in such a fashion that a way out was most difficult to find.
[40] See Vol. III., p. 61.
[41] See Chap. XXX.
[42] City and district of the Punjab ("land of five rivers"), North-West India.
[43] Born 1853. He had for forty years served with distinction in every British war, and had been present with the Japanese in Manchuria. He was an excellent writer and something of a poet. Since 1910 he had been Inspector of Oversea Forces.
[44] In the Turkish island of Lemnos, one of the largest islands in the Ægean Sea. It is about sixty miles as the aeroplane flies from Gaba Tepe.
[45] Made up of the initial letters of the words—Australian New Zealand Army Corps.
[46] On the night of September 12-13, 1759, General Wolfe's army of 4,000 men climbed a wooded precipice on hands and knees, and next day defeated a French army on the plateau (Heights of Abraham) to the south-west of Quebec. This victory gave us Canada.
[47] Blackwood's Magazine, February 1916.
[49] Quinn's Post lay at the head of Shrapnel Valley, the Valley of Death referred to on page 273. Pope's Hill lay to the left front of Quinn's Post, and Courtney's Post was on the right of Quinn's Post.
[53] Pan-dō´ra. In ancient Greek story, a goddess who possessed a box containing every kind of ill; this was opened, and the ills escaped and spread all over the earth, Hope alone being left at the bottom of the box.
[55] Or Kurland, Baltic province of Russia between the Gulf of Riga on the north and the province of Kovno on the south. It has many small, scattered lakes, and almost one-third of the surface is covered with forest.
[56] Sacred pictures found in all Russian churches and houses.
[57] Shō-pan´. Frédéric François Chopin (1809-49), great Polish musical composer and the finest pianist of his time. No man has ever excelled him in writing music for the piano.
[58] Equivalent to our second lieutenant.
[59] In 1707, when Charles XII. of Sweden invaded Russia and bade fair to overrun the country, Peter the Great put himself at the head of his army, and on July 5, 1709, inflicted a great defeat on the Swedes and drove them out of the country.
[60] In 1812, when Napoleon invaded Russia and marched to Moscow (see Vol. I., p. 64), Alexander I. placed himself at the head of the army, and by wasting the country forced Napoleon to retreat.
[61] See chap. xxxi.
[62] South Tirol, on the north-east frontier land of Italy; part of Austria, but inhabited chiefly by Italian-speaking people, and therefore claimed by Italy, which also claims the coast-lands round the head of the Adriatic Sea.
[63] River rising at the junction of the Julian and Carnic Alps and flowing southwards in a winding course to the Gulf of Trieste. Its length is about seventy-five miles, of which but little is navigable.
[64] Austrian territory along the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea.
[65] Louis Botha, born 1863, commanded Boer forces during the South African War; became first prime minister of the Union of South Africa (1910); and in 1914 was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union defence forces.
[66] For an account of German South-West Africa, see Vol. III., p. 177.
[67] Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar, Act IV., Sc. iii.
[68] As the safety pins were not withdrawn, they did not explode.
[69] In 451, when Attila, the King of the Huns, was overthrown; in 1430, when the English hold on France was shaken by the victorious progress of Joan of Arc from Orleans to Rheims; and in 1792, at Valmy, where the Prussians were beaten and the young republic of France was saved.
[70] Mr. E. A. Powell in Vive la France.
[71] "Forward! Conquer or die!"
[72] French officer who crossed Africa from the Atlantic coast to the White Nile in 1898 and claimed Fashoda for the French. He was met by Lord (then Sir Herbert) Kitchener, who said to him, "I congratulate you on all you have accomplished." "No," replied Major Marchand, pointing to his troops, "it is not I but these soldiers who have done it." Kitchener surrounded Marchand's forces and ordered him to withdraw his troops or to haul down his flag. For a moment there was a chance of war between Britain and France, but the French Government decided to withdraw the troops, and the incident ended with an acknowledgment of our right to the Nile valley.
[73] French word for rising ground, knoll.
[74] Mass-seige.
[75] Krass-e-a.
[76] Haine.
[77] Killed by a chance bullet on October 24, 1915.
[78] See Vol. III., page 74.
[79] Gree-nay´, French cape fronting the Strait of Dover.
[80] Sa-lo-nēka, port of Greece on the gulf of the same name, 12 miles to the east of the mouth of the river Vardar. After Constantinople it is the chief port of what was formerly European Turkey. The harbour is safe and roomy, and before the war the town had a population of over 160,000. Salonika is the Thessalonica of the New Testament.
[81] Ve-leze.