1918 STORY OF THE SALONICA ARMY Macedonia GREECE Albania SERBIA Balkans BULGARIA

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Seller: dilapsus ✉️ (8,451) 100%, Location: Flamborough, Bridlington, GB, Ships to: AMERICAS, EUROPE, ASIA, AU, Item: 382326429802 1918 STORY OF THE SALONICA ARMY Macedonia GREECE Albania SERBIA Balkans BULGARIA.
 
 
 

The Story of the

Salonica Army

by

G. Ward Price

The Official Correspondent with the Allied Forces in the Balkans

This is the 1918 Edition

This is a graphic contemporary account of the War in Serbia, Greece, Macedonia and Albania by the Official Correspondent with the Allied Forces in the Balkans.

“It is a trying campaign that we are waging in Macedonia, a monotonous campaign, and one that by comparison with the Western front sometimes seems to the men out there like a backwater where they are half forgotten by their friends back home. But they keep their hearts high and their fighting spirit unabated . . .”

Front cover and spine

Further images of this book are shown below

 

 

Publisher and place of publication   Dimensions in inches (to the nearest quarter-inch)
London: Hodder & Stoughton   5 inches wide x 7¾ inches tall
     
Edition   Length
1918 Edition   [xiii] + 298 pages
     
Condition of covers    Internal condition
Original red cloth, blocked in black. The covers are faded and stained. The fading is particularly noticeable around the edges on the rear cover and is more general on the front cover. There is a noticeable old stain on the front cover and other smaller stains on the rear cover. The fading is severe on the spine (where there is total loss of original colour). There is a small pin-head sized indentation in the centre of the spine. The spine ends and corners are bumped and frayed.   The front inner hinge is cracked with a tear in the pastedown end-paper, but has been re-glued. There is a gift inscription on the front end-paper: "To J. Lee from Frank Marlow" which, interestingly, is dated 1917. Although the official published date from this volume (as printed on the Title-Page) is 1918, I believe that it actually appeared in the final weeks of 1917. Otherwise, the text is quite clean throughout on tanned paper. The edge of the text block is not trimmed and has a ragged edge, where pages had been carelessly opened, resulting in some loss. The front end-paper map and rear end-papers are foxed and there is some other fairly inoffensive foxing confined to the margins and edges.
     
Dust-jacket present?   Other comments
No   Apart from the gift inscription, this is an internally clean example of the 1918 Edition, with a cracked but re-glued hinge and in covers which are faded and stained, with the spine being very faded.
     
Illustrations, maps, etc   Contents
There is no separate list of illustrations and maps; however, all are shown in the listing; the List below has been transcribed from the captions.   Please see below for details
     
Post & shipping information   Payment options
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The Story of the Salonica Army

Contents

 

      Introduction
  I.   Has Salonica Been Worth While
  II.   The First Fighting and the French Push into Serbia
  III.   The Bulgar Attack on the Tenth Division
  IV.   The "Bird-cage"
  V.   Getting Ready; and Incidents of the Spring
  VI.   Ourselves and the Greeks: Relations at Salonica
  VII.   Ourselves and the Greeks: Official Developments and the "Salonica Revolution"
  VIII.   The Resurrection of the Serbian Army
  IX.   The Coming of the Russians and Italians
  X.   The Bulgar Summer Offensive of 1916 and its Check by the Serbs at Ostrovo
  XI.   The Push for Monastir, with British Cooperation
  XII.   Monastir Retaken
  XIII.   The Inevitable Winter Lull, and the Beginnings of Our Spring Offensive
  XIV.   The British Battle of Doiran
  XV.   King Constantine's Attitude, and the Occupation of Thessaly
  XVI.   The Great Impediments: Transport and Fever
  XVII.   People, Places and Things in Macedonia
  XVIII.   What is Happening in Albania
       
      Illustrations
     

General Sarrail, G.C.M.G., Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in the Balkans. (The signature is a printed facsimile ) The Voivode Misitch, G.C.M.G., General of the Royal Serbian Army, with Lieut.-General J. F. Milne, C.B., D.S.O., Commander-in-Chief British Salonica Army. [map] The Region of the Allied Advance into Serbia, Autumn, 1915. Inset: the scene of the operations of the "X Division." British Mountain Guns in Action Mules and Mountains-The Commonest Features of a Balkan Landscape Our Polyglot Army in the Balkans. L. To R., Back Row---Annamite, Frenchman, Senegalese, Englishman, Russian, Italian, Serbian (Partly Hidden), In Front---Cretan, British Indian. The steep tracks up which all ammunition, supplies and water have to be carried to much of our front line. [map] The Scene of the Struggle for Monastir, Autumn, 1916. Monastir and Loop of the Cerna. An Evening Convoy on the Kopriva Road The Way to Sofia---Across Pathless Mountains

The Story of the Salonica Army

Summary of the Campaign

How we came.

Allies landed at Salonica, October, 1915. They came at the invitation of M. Venizelos, Greek Premier. Salonica, though neutral territory, was available as a base because Greece was united to Serbia by a treaty of alliance: Venizelos mobilised the Greek Army to co-operate, but King Constantine unconstitutionally drove him from power when the Allies had already begun to land.

Numbers.

Our forces at Salonica were limited at first to a few English and a few French divisions. Later arrived the Serbian Army from Corfu, and Russian and Italian contingents. Later still, one or two Greek divisions raised by Venizelos. The Bulgars have always outnumbered us, have heavier artillery and hold the stronger positions.

First stage, (Oct.-Dec., 1915).

Determined but unsuccessful attempt by French to join hands with the retreating Serbians. Subsequent retirement of French on Salonica, a British division which bad been protecting their flank becoming involved in the retreat.

Second stage, (Jan.-March, 1916).

Creation of the "entrenched camp" of Salonica.

Third stage, (April-June, 1916).

Gradual moving up of the Allied troops towards the Greek frontier. Establishment there of a line to serve either as an advanced position to resist an enemy attack or as a taking-off place for an Allied offensive. Much building of roads, bridges, railways, piers,---the country lacking all such means of transport.

Fourth stage, (July-August, 1916).

Bulgar advance on both flanks, reaching to Lake Ostrovo in the west and Cavalla in the east.

Fifth stage, (Sept.-Nov., 1916).

Thrust back of the offensive of the Bulgars in the west, culminating in the recapture of Monastir.

Holding attacks and local gains on the British sector.

Sixth stage, (Dec., 1916-Feb., 1917).

Winter of enforced inactivity---owing to mud---and preparation for spring offensive.

Seventh stage, (March-May, 1917).

Attacks in force by Allies along front from Lake Ochrida to Lake Doiran. Heavy fighting, but no substantial gain of ground.

Eighth stage, (June, 1917).

Occupation of Thessaly by Allies. Restoration of Venizelos to power and acquisition of co-operation of the Greek Army.

Present situation, (summer, 1917).

Eighteen months of very great labour, much sickness and hard fighting, whenever occasion offered, have left the Balkan campaign in a temporary condition of deadlock. As things stand at present the enemy's front and our own have proved mutually impregnable. Future developments may alter this, notably the arrival of Greek reinforcements.

The Story of the Salonica Army

Excerpts:

 

"WHAT is the Salonica Army doing?" is a question which hundreds of thousands of Englishmen have asked at one time or another, and one which this book is an attempt, however inadequate, to answer. But the spirit of the question really goes beyond the letter, and the average man by this enquiry means, "Why has the Salonica Army not done more?"

The aims for which an Allied expedition to the Balkans was warmly advocated, especially in France, in the autumn of 1915, have fallen a great way short of the fulfilment then expected for them. The rescue of invaded Serbia and the erection of a barrier across Germany's direct road to Turkey were the ends to which the public looked at the time of the landing at Salonica, and the feeling of disappointment that no such striking and decisive goals have been achieved has bred a mood of dissatisfaction with the Allied Army in the Balkans which it by no means deserves, when its quite inadequate numbers and equipment for tasks of such magnitude are taken into consideration. First of all the Allies arrived in the Balkans too late to do anything big there. Had they come a little earlier, ---in July, 1915, for instance. to reinforce the Serbian Army, which was then still in existence as a fighting force, it might possibly have been a different story. But in October, when our troops began to land, Serbia was already lost, outnumbered and overwhelmed by the Austrians from the north and the Bulgars from the east. In consequence of this, the Balkan Army, after a bold but ineffective attempt to join up with the retreating Serbs, to save at any rate the southern part of the country from the invader, was thrown solely upon its own resources to achieve what it might. Nor did any of the help which had been half counted upon when the expedition was first decided come from the Greek Army. Instead, the Greeks, after Venizelos had been driven from office by King Constantine, constituted themselves, in our rear and all around us, a virtual enemy all the more dangerous for being unavowed.

Starting from this stone-cold beginning then, with the Bulgars and their German allies in full possession of Serbia and ourselves having no more than a precarious footing upon the somewhat dubiously neutral soil of Greece, let us consider some of the obstacles which the Allied Army of the Orient has since had to overcome.

First and fundamental among these obstacles has been the necessity of creating, importing and improvising, in a mother-naked land, the whole of the elaborate organisation which a modern army requires as a foundation to work upon. When you step out of Salonica you step into a virtual desert, roadless, treeless, uncultivated, populated only by scattered villages of the most primitive kind, inhabited by a low-grade peasantry. We found here none of the materials which modern armies need for their use, none of that machinery of civilisation which in France, for instance, lies ready-made to the hand. Two roads, in a condition quite inadequate to support heavy traffic, and three single lines of railway ran, at the most divergent angles possible, from Salonica towards the enemy's territory. Apart from these there was hardly even a track which in winter was possible for wheeled traffic. So that from the very beginning the Allied Forces have had to build up slowly, laboriously, the whole of the system of locomotion necessary for themselves and their supplies,---piers, roads, bridges, railways,---all have had to be created where nothing of the kind previously existed. The army, in fact, has only been able to move upcountry at all on condition of dragging with it a slowspun network of means of communication.

A handicap that has weighed heavily upon the Balkan Army is a climate most unpropitious for soldiering, cold and wet in winter, hot and feverish in summer. In fact the campaigning season in the Balkans may be said to be limited by weather conditions to a few weeks of the spring and autumn of each year. Winter, right up to the beginning of April, is a season of snow, rain, and, above all, mud. Tracks dissolve into quagmires; main roads break up into holes and ridges impassable for motor-traffic, and transport becomes a matter of the very greatest difficulty, testing almost to breaking-point any organisation of the service of supply.

It has not, moreover, been entirely an element of strength to the Balkan campaign that our army there is made up of contingents of all the Allies. With the best will in the world a mixed force will not work together so well as a homogeneous one. There are differences of language, differences of method, differences of character. Each of the Allied contingents has its own Staff, whose ideas have to be co-ordinated with those of the French General Staff, under General Sarrail, the Commander-in-Chief. Coalitions never yet did work without a certain amount of friction now and then. The Allied Governments themselves have to hold constant Councils to keep their views in harmony. Perhaps the creation of an Allied General Staff at Salonica would obviate the little misunderstandings that at present inevitably arise sometimes between the contingents of six nationalities that make up our force in the Balkans.

Under the restrictions that I have detailed above, what has the Allied Army in the Balkans achieved since October, 1915? Certain facts may be claimed to stand clearly to its credit:

1. If the Allies had not come to Salonica the Germans would have overrun and mastered the whole of the Balkan Peninsula.

This may be regarded as sure. The Greek king was already their man. His people have certainly always been against fighting anybody, for the Germans or against them, but the Germans would have known how to change all that.

2. Germany would have established a submarine base at Salonica, and even made of it a Mediterranean Kiel, if we had not occupied it.

This is also likely. On the other hand the Allied Fleets in that case could have blockaded Salonica as they blockade the Austrian ports, and the Germans have so many submarine bases in the Mediterranean already that they do not urgently need any more.

3. Our forces in the Balkans have held up a relatively greater number of the enemy.

The superiority in number of Germans, Austrians, Bulgars and Turks against us has sometimes been as great as 40,000-50,000 men. The Balkan Army has more than pulled its weight. But if it had never been sent to the Balkans it would have been pulling just as much weight on some other front, and probably at much less cost, for the great argument against maintaining a merely holding-front at the other end of Europe is its terrible costliness, especially in sea-transport.

4. It has given the Serbs back Monastir and kept them together and in heart as a nation.

This is indisputable. The Serbs must have lost their spirit long ago if it were not that they have been able to fight their way back on to a narrow fringe of Serbian soil.

But in trying to form an opinion as to whether the Salonica expedition was or was not a wise enterprise to undertake, it must not be forgotten how greatly and unexpectedly the general conditions of the war have changed since our landing there was made. In 1915 there was apparently good reason for hoping that effective co-operation might be possible between a force based on Salonica and the Russians. We did not then know to what extent pro-German internal forces were at work in Russia, deliberately restricting her military action. If Russia had been knocking at the Bulgarian door on the other side our fortunes in the Balkans might have been far otherwise. The entry of Roumania into the war was the event to which the Allied Governments looked forward as the great opportunity for the Salonica force to begin an offensive against Bulgaria, henceforth threatened from two sides. But the misguided strategy which sent the greater part of the Roumanian Army on a badly organised invasion of Transylvania, in pursuit of an immediate territorial objective instead of using it to co-operate with the Allies at Salonica, defeated this hope, which in any case could hardly have been realised, in view of the treachery with which the Russian Government then in power deliberately abandoned Roumania to the enemy in pursuit of its policy of pro-Germanism and a separate peace . . .

 

 

 

 

 

I HAVE related in the last chapter how, a few days after the landing at Salonica, it had been agreed between the French and British commanders that the British contingent of the Balkan Expeditionary Force should act in support of the French. Accordingly, the 30th Brigade of the 10th Division, in the last week of October, moved up from Salonica to Guevgheli, on the Vardar at the Greco-Serbian frontier, and marched through Bogdanci by the Chenali river to Dedeli. After concentrating there this brigade took up a position facing north between the villages of Tatarli and Robrovo, with the French holding the range of hills just in front of them, while they were encamped at its foot in second line. The two other brigades of the 10th Division shortly afterwards followed the 30th and encamped on the Doiran-Dedeli road. On November 20th-21st, however, the 10th Division took. over the line in front of them which the French had hitherto held, and thus British troops came for the first time face to face with the Bulgars. The position which these Irishmen were now holding formed the right of the Allied Balkan front, of which the left wing, composed entirely of French, was thrown much in advance, having for a month past been pushed far up the Vardar, and become heavily engaged with the Bulgars on the Cerna. The sector for which we thus became responsible lay in the heart of a steep, confused, rocky mass of mountains between Kostorina and Lake Doiran. From Kostorina, where we linked up with the French, to just west of Memisli, our line was held by the 30th Brigade, which consisted of the 6th and 7th Dublins and the 6th and 7th Munster Fusiliers. Memish village, including an important advanced position 800 yards north of it, known as Rocky Peak (Piton Rocheux) , which was later to be the fulcrum of the Bulgar attack against us here, was held by the 31st Brigade, who had the 5th and 6th Inniskillings and the 5th and 6th Irish Fusiliers. Their line ran as far as Prstan. The 29th Brigade on the extreme right (10th Hampshires, 5th Connaught Rangers, Irish Rifles, Leinsters), had detached two battalions to reinforce the 30th Brigade. The rest of it was echeloned in the rear of the two forward brigades on the ridge above Humzali and Jumaabasi. Comparatively peaceful conditions prevailed on the front of this new British position until the end of November. The Bulgars seemed to be content to mask us with a skeleton force. To reach our lines from Salonica you took the train and arrived at Doiran four hours later. Nineteen miles of good motoring-road led on from the station to Dedeli, where Divisional Headquarters were. You passed through Doiran town, skirting the edge of the broad, shining lake, and then gradually climbed up the wide valley north-westwards,---how often since one has sat on the hills east of Doiran and watched the enemy's transport coming down that same road. Dedeli itself is a characteristic Turkish village of unpaved lanes and alleys filled with loose boulders. The low, two-storied houses, each in a little compound of its own, are the kind of dwelling you find all over Macedonia. The lower rooms are dank, earth-floored stables or storehouses, where the winter's supply of Indian corn is kept. A ramshackle outside wooden staircase leads up to a broad verandah on the upper floor. You need to walk gingerly, for half the planks are loose. Off this open the two or three rooms that make up the dwelling. These, when they have been cleaned with the vigour which the British soldier puts into such operations, when years'-old accumulation of filth has been scraped off the floor and burnt, and when walls and ceilings have been whitewashed, become quite tolerably habitable. The half-dome fireplace, indeed, reminds one rather of modern villa architecture at home. The furniture, if any, is of the roughest, but the roofs of these cottages are generally sound and the soldier asks no more. It is always astonishing to observe the resourcefulness and zeal with which army batmen will manufacture tables, chairs, washstands, bookcases, for their officers. They "scrounge" the material somehow under the most improbable circumstances, and are amply rewarded for hours of labour in what might have been their own spare time by a casual remark of their "boss." "Oh, by the way, Jenkins, the Colonel liked that armchair you knocked together for me, when he was in here to-day. He wants to know if you can't make one like it for him." And yet all their labour is of no more than temporary service. When the battalion moves on these products of ingenious carpentry must be left behind. With four officers' kits to go in one half-limber there is no room for chairs. But where would you find such energy in peace time? If a castor came off a sofa would your butler, at thirty shillings a week all found, put it on again for you? If he noticed you had nowhere to keep your smoking things, would he sit up at night in his pantry carving you a pipe-rack? Yet your batman, at half-a-sovereign a month, will improvise you a bed or a bath-tub as cheerfully as he brings your morning tea. War is a great energiser. As soon as British troops on campaign arrive in a new place they start improving it. I suppose the dry torrent-beds of Macedonia have been used as roads by its inhabitants for thousands of years, yet until the British came in 1915, not a man of all the dozen races that have lived there thought of moving a single boulder out of the way to give pack-horses easier passage. If it is the right season our men plant gardens. If it is winter-time they lay out neat little paths all up and down the mountain sides with a regular edging of white stones. They make the wilderness look almost ridiculously tidy, like a wild man of the woods with his hair brushed back and parted. 10th Divisional Headquarters at Dedeli overlooked the half-mile broad valley of the Bojimia river, whose bed, however, was a dry waste of sand and rocks. Cotton, hemp, mulberry trees, withered vestiges of the inevitable Indian corn, witnessed to the fertility of the district whose inhabitants had been driven away by the approach of hostilities,---a kind of migration to which, as Macedonians, they were thoroughly accustomed. On the ridge on the far side of the Bojimia valley our entrenched positions lay, and a short walk eastwards along the river bed took you to Tatarli, where the General commanding the 31st Brigade had his headquarters. The Bulgarians were understood to hold a line of trenches, blockhouses and sangars along the ridge parallel to ours. It was estimated that there were about 10,000 of them spread out between the Greek frontier and Strumnitza, and believed to belong to the 2nd Philipopolis Division. Deserters would come in voluntarily in little bodies. They complained of shortage of food in the enemy lines. One sheep had to be divided between 250 men. They were generally men between twenty-five and thirty-five and seemed to be townspeople. One drew a good contour-map to explain how he had come; another mended the watches of the Divisional Headquarters Staff. They were eager to show that they had not fired their rifles. One deserter had taken off his tunic to make him less likely to be shot at. A rough ride of four miles took you from Dedeli to the headquarters of the 30th Brigade at Cadjali. The French, on November 3rd, had driven the Bulgars up the broad dry Cadjali ravine along which one passed, and through the village above. It had been a stiff action and the Bulgars lost out of one battalion alone 350 men. The French then had occupied the crest above Cadjali and the Bulgars the next one across a valley about 1,400 yards broad, where their main position was on Hill 850. While the French were laboriously building up their new line and had still only prised elementary trenches a few feet deep out of the rocky ground, with no wire in front of them at all, the Bulgars attacked on the night of November 16th with an energy which was a foreshadowing of that which they displayed a month later against ourselves. Creeping down the gullies on their side of the valley, wearing their opinskis, a native sandal of untanned leather, and climbing noiselessly the rough variegated slopes which led up to the French positions, they made a determined effort to rush them, and failing in the first onslaught, flung themselves down, a bare forty yards from their adversaries, where from behind the meagre protection of "scrapes" of earth hurriedly thrown up, they poured in a point-blank rifle fire, to the violence of which the piles of empty cartridge-cases lying by each individual position were evidence that still remained when we got there. But the attack failed and the Bulgars left 300 dead behind them. The line which the 30th Brigade set themselves to dig on taking over this position lay along the ridge just below the crest. The ground was of unrelenting rock, so hard to work that the French had chiefly relied on sangars or stone redoubts, but these being liable to splinter under shell fire the 30th Brigade did not occupy them, leaving them empty to draw the enemy's artillery. On this brigade front as on that of its neighbour, there was no action at all during November, the only losses being caused by an unlucky Bulgar shell which fell in a group of Dublin Fusiliers, killing nine and wounding a dozen. But while these Irish brigades were still imperfectly installed on the barren, inhospitable Dedeli ridge, they were savagely smitten by that cruel three-day blizzard which caused bitter suffering to our troops not only in the Balkans but at the Dardanelles. It began on November 27th with torrents of rain which soon turned to snow. Then it froze so quickly that the drenched skirts of greatcoats would stand out stiff like a ballet-dancer's dress. Even down at Strumnitza Station in the valley, 7.6° below zero Fahrenheit was registered, and up on that exposed knife-edge ridge where our trenches were, the biting wind made the cold more piercing still. The men had no shelter but waterproof sheets pegged across the top of the open trench and the weight of accumulated snow soon broke those in. They had had no time to make dugouts in the rocky mountain side; and if they had had time they had no materials. In that terrible weather our patrols and those of the Bulgars which used both to visit the unoccupied village of Ormanli would be driven to shelter and light fires in houses so close together that each could hear the other talking, and each by tacit agreement left the other undisturbed. It was too cold to fight. There were 750 cases of frostbite in one brigade alone during those three fierce days, when it seemed as if the Balkan winter were showing the worst of which it was capable. Men frozen stiff were carried in scores from the trenches to the first-aid posts to be rubbed back to life again. Warm underclothing reached the division in the very middle of the snowstorm, but the cold was too bitter for the men to undress to put it on, and it was added anyhow to the sacks and blankets and other additional garments that each did his best to accumulate, a pair of drawers being used as a muffler or tied round the middle. It must be remembered, too, that the men of the 10th Division were already in poor physical condition when this severe ordeal came upon them. They looked worse indeed than they had at Suvla. The faces of most of them were yellow and wizened and their bodies thin. The trying climate of the Gallipoli Peninsula had sapped their strength. On December 1st the 6th Munsters and 6th Dublin Fusiliers of the 30th Brigade had suffered so much by cold that they were relieved in the front line by the 5th Connaught Rangers and the 10th Hampshires of the 29th Brigade. It was on December 4th that the Bulgars' artilleryfire began to be better directed and concentrated; and the fact became evident that they had received reinforcements. On December 5th they started an attack on the French upon our left to the west of the Doiran-Strumnitza road. Meanwhile their activity against us increased and small parties of Bulgars began to creep up the little nullahs towards our front line and open rifle fire. The weather since December 2nd had become extremely foggy. To meet the increased Bulgar artillery activity, two batteries of field guns had been man-handled with great difficulty to a position 1,000 yards south of Memisli. These were the guns that had later to be abandoned in the retreat. It was only by the hardest labour that wheeled guns were ever got up to such a position at all, but we had no mountain artillery, and unless this step had been taken we should have been without reply to the enemy's shelling. There was a working party of 100 men told off to get the guns away had there been time, but to move some of them it was necessary to go out in front of the position, and even then it was calculated that two days' careful work would have been required to withdraw them. At length, on the afternoon of December 6th, the Bulgar attack on the 10th Division began. Eight hundred yards north of Memisli was the advanced post known as Rocky Peak. The effect of our occupying this had been to deny to the enemy artillery access to the right flank of the 30th Brigade. The hill had originally been held by a battalion of Irish Fusiliers. But there was no cover there; it was nothing but a treeless, shelterless, boulder-strewn height, and the battalion had suffered so severely during the blizzard in that isolated position that it was withdrawn and only one company and one machine-gun were left to hold it. In their first attack on Rocky Peak in the afternoon of December 6th the Bulgars captured a small trench, but later were driven out and off the hill again. During the same night, however, they crept along the ravines that surrounded the isolated peak and carried it by storm at 5.30 on the morning of December 7th. About thirty of our troops holding it were captured; the rest got away. This loss gave the enemy a serious footing in our line, for the Bulgars brought up mountain artillery and machine-guns onto Rocky Peak and began to enfilade the front of the 30th Brigade, which was also bombarded from the other side by field-gun batteries at Cepelli. The 30th Brigade had a line which made a salient, and was thus considerably exposed, and it became clear that they were to be the object of the main Bulgar attack. During the night of December 6th-7th two attacks were also made on the trenches of the Connaughts on Kostorino ridge by largely superior forces of Germans and Bulgars, but these were driven off, and all night long the artillery bombardment, strangely muffled by the fog, continued with enough severity to hinder supplies from reaching the trenches. Only gradually was it realised that the hitherto passive Bulgars were about to make an attack in force upon our right. General Mahon, who was at 30th Brigade Headquarters on the morning of the 7th, had asked General Sarrail to expedite as much as possible the retreat which was now in full progress under most difficult conditions of the French contingent down the Vardar. An air-reconnaissance had reported no signs of Bulgar reinforcements arriving on our front, but this was due no doubt to the prevailing fog. The converging artillery fire upon the 30th Brigade front was now becoming very severe and causing heavy losses to the 10th Hampshires and 5th Connaughts. The Connaughts were holding a salient which was in fact too big for them, and the Bulgars began massing for an attack in some dead ground 600 yards in advance of their trenches, where our artillery could not reach them. At 2.40 P.M. this attack was launched in mass on 600 yards of front, at a place where the ground gave cover close up to our line. The Bulgars had about four battalions to our two, but the Connaughts had already lost so heavily that having come up into the line 960 strong they could only muster 350 after this day's fighting. The 10th Hampshires retired to the prepared second position a mile behind, losing about 200 killed and wounded. The Connaughts, who had been badly cut up by the heavy artillery-fire, fell back too. The commander of the 31st. Brigade, having the impression that his right flank was being surrounded, retired also about the same time. This new position to which the 30th Brigade withdrew lay between Cadjali and Tatarli on Crête Simonet with an advanced position on Crête Rivet. The Bulgars pushed on after us, but were held back from continuing the pursuit by the fire of our field-artillery which prevented them from crossing the Kostorino ridge. Their advance to that point was witnessed at close range by a young subaltern of the 7th Munsters who had been on the left flank of the Connaughts, and was left behind with his platoon in a wood. He was never found by the enemy and got safely away with his men at night. The Bulgars came on, he said, with their rifles slung on their backs, shouting and singing. He saw many Germans among them. They entered Kajali, 30th Brigade's old headquarters, and a British army doctor who had arrived in the middle of all these events and wanted to report at Brigade Headquarters, straying innocently into the village that night, stumbled to his astonishment upon Bulgars rejoicing round their bivouac fires. He was fired at, but got away in the fog. December 8th was a day of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire upon our new position. During the night we had been reinforced by three French companies and a mountain-battery. The fog grew constantly denser, and in this broken country of steep, twisting ravines and pathless hill-sides, it was difficult to know whether the enemy might not be pushing on upon the flanks to surround us. At 5 P.M. on December 8th the 30th Brigade were ordered to withdraw to a new line across the Dedeli pass, while the 31st was to take up a position in alignment with them along the Karabail ridge, behind which runs the road back to Doiran, where two battalions of the 29th Brigade were already established. The 30th Brigade started retiring at 5.30 P.M. and as the last battalion left the position the Bulgars rushed up the hill with cheers, firing flares as they came. The gallant rearguard of two companies which had held on to Crête Rivet, the advanced position 800 yards in front, throughout the whole day, under very heavy shelling, gave them a final burst of rapid fire as they came. It was thanks to these two companies that the main position of Crête Simonet was only attacked as we left it. The costly retirement from the original line, where the advanced position on Rocky Peak was lost, contrasts in this respect with the safety with which Crête Simonet was evacuated. In these two companies which held off the Bulgars, however, all the officers were killed and wounded, and one came away only twenty-nine, the other fifty-nine strong. Meanwhile the French on our left, being now exposed to the danger of outflanking, retired southwards on December 8th to Cestovo, their line facing north-west and later to Kizil-Doganli. On December 9th the 31st Brigade on Karabail was replaced by a brigade of another division which began to arrive, the 31st going into reserve. The general commanding this division came up at the same time and took charge of the operations. The dense fog made it difficult for the new brigade to orient itself, and for the 30th to get in touch with them, so that a proper liaison was not made before the 10th. On that day the French were heavily attacked on their new line at Cestovo while their left again was being rapidly driven back down the Vardar on Guevgheli. By the afternoon of the next day the Bulgars were pressing so hard upon the French that they had fallen back to a front stretching from Furka through Bogdanci to Guevgheli, and it was the 10th Division's turn for its flank to be left in the air. The Bulgars furthermore were now also trying to get round our right flank and so down to Lake Doiran to cut our only road of retreat where it reaches the north-west end of the Lake. Fortunately the pathlessness of the mountains prevented that attempt from succeeding. But Dedeli had to be evacuated hastily on the night of the 11th or it would be too late. Accordingly a general order was given for the 10th Division to retire across the Greek frontier. It was not, of course, sure whether the Bulgar pursuit would stop at this political obstacle, and there was further a strong report that the Greeks were coming in against us, and that the communications of the division with Salonica were anything but safe. The 31st Brigade, already concentrated, marched back first, then the 30th Brigade was withdrawn south of Doiran and bivouacked near the lake. A good deal of confusion inevitably attended these rapid movements of retreat. Thus at 1 A.M. on the morning of the 12th when the 30th Brigade received orders at Dedeli to retire on Doiran, one battalion had all its company cooks (about fifteen men) sleeping together in a house. Dedeli, like all Macedonian villages, is a straggling place, and when the order was being circulated, the cooks' house was overlooked. So, huddled round their comfortable fire, they slept on undisturbed till daylight, when on going to the door, they were horrified to find the street full of Bulgars. The cooks seized their rifles, and the Bulgars at this sign of what looked like hostile action, took cover and opened a characteristically ill-aimed fire, of which the cooks took advantage to make a bolt for it as hard as they could go down the road to Doiran under cover of the fog, and all rejoined their battalion safely. The Bulgars advancing down the Strumnitza road stopped just short of the Greek frontier stone on the outskirts of Doiran town, the 30th Brigade Headquarters only leaving Doiran about ten minutes before their arrival.

Please note: to avoid opening the book out, with the risk of damaging the spine, some of the pages were slightly raised on the inner edge when being scanned, which has resulted in some blurring to the text and a shadow on the inside edge of the final images. Colour reproduction is shown as accurately as possible but please be aware that some colours are difficult to scan and may result in a slight variation from the colour shown below to the actual colour.

In line with eBay guidelines on picture sizes, some of the illustrations may be shown enlarged for greater detail and clarity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Front end-paper map (foxed, with cracked hinge):

 

U.K. buyers:

To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the postage figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from postage and packaging. Postage can be combined for multiple purchases.

 

Packed weight of this item : approximately 550 grams

 

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  • Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (postage, payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me, using the contact details provided at the end of this listing.

International buyers:

To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the shipping figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from shipping and handling.

Shipping can usually be combined for multiple purchases (to a maximum of 5 kilograms in any one parcel with the exception of Canada, where the limit is 2 kilograms).

 

Packed weight of this item : approximately 550 grams

 

International Shipping options:

Details of the postage options to various  countries (via Air Mail) can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments ” option at the head of this listing (above) and then selecting your country of residence from the drop-down list. For destinations not shown or other requirements, please contact me before buying.

 

Due to the extreme length of time now taken for deliveries, surface mail is no longer a viable option and I am unable to offer it even in the case of heavy items. I am afraid that I cannot make any exceptions to this rule.

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  • Regretfully, due to extremely high conversion charges, I CANNOT accept foreign currency : all payments must be made in GBP [British Pounds Sterling]. This can be accomplished easily using a credit card, which I am able to accept as I have a separate, well-established business, or PayPal.

  • Please contact me with your name and address and payment details within seven days of the end of the auction; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the auction and re-list the item.

  • Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (shipping, payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me, using the contact details provided at the end of this listing.

Prospective international buyers should ensure that they are able to provide credit card details or pay by PayPal within 7 days from the end of the auction (or inform me that they will be sending a cheque in GBP drawn on a major British bank). Thank you.

(please note that the book shown is for illustrative purposes only and forms no part of this auction)

Book dimensions are given in inches, to the nearest quarter-inch, in the format width x height.

Please note that, to differentiate them from soft-covers and paperbacks, modern hardbacks are still invariably described as being ‘cloth’ when they are, in fact, predominantly bound in paper-covered boards pressed to resemble cloth.

Fine Books for Fine Minds

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  • Condition: A detailed description of this item's current condition is given in the listing below but please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information.
  • Non-Fiction Subject: History & Military
  • Publication Year: 1918
  • Year Printed: 1918
  • Binding: Hardback
  • Author: G. Ward Price
  • Language: English
  • Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
  • Place of Publication: London
  • Special Attributes: 1st Edition, Illustrated

PicClick Insights - 1918 STORY OF THE SALONICA ARMY Macedonia GREECE Albania SERBIA Balkans BULGARIA PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 6 watchers, 0.0 new watchers per day, 1,055 days for sale on eBay. Super high amount watching. 1 sold, 0 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 8,451+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.

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