Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dobro Pole 1918

8. Collapse

While the fighting raged at Doiran, to the west French and Serbian forces continued to advance through the gap in the Bulgarian lines opened at Dobro Pole. The Serbian First Army captured bridges over the Cherna at Rasim Bey and established positions on the other side of the river on 18 September. This placed the Serbian First Army in position to threaten the eastern flank of German Eleventh Army and its headquarters in Prilep. In the east, a French and Greek force captured the Dzena ridge, which dominated the eastern side of the bulge the Entente breakthrough had forced in the Bulgarian lines.1 The efforts of General von Reuter’s replacement division to plug the gap created by the collapse of the 2nd Thracian Division and to hold the line failed. On 18 September, General Todorov ordered the 3rd Balkan Division to new positions southwest of the Vardar River.2 This retreat severed the 3rd Balkan Division from its direct connection with the 2nd Thracian Division and from the rest of the Eleventh Army. Meanwhile COLLAPSE 8 147 collapse the Serbian Second Army raced for Gradsko, on the Salonika-Skopie railroad and just above where the Cherna flows into the Vardar. Because of its location astride the lines of communication, the control of Gradsko was critical for both sides. For the Bulgarians and Germans, Gradsko was vital for continued connection between the First and Eleventh Armies. For the Entente, control of Gradsko would provide their forces with access to the Vardar Valley and the railroad that could accelerate their progress toward Skopie and points further north. Initial reports reaching Sofia about the situation at the front were ominous . Seeking additional information, the Ministerial Council sent a delegation on 19 September to Bulgarian Army Headquarters in Kyustendil to investigate the extent of the apparent disaster. General Burmov reported to them that the situation was “very difficult” but “fixable.”3 He thought that additional Austro-Hungarian and German help would be necessary for the stabilization of the front. This was the Bulgarian government’s first indication that the Bulgarian army had suffered a serious reverse. After the Entente attacks began at Dobro Pole, the Bulgarians turned to their allies for assistance. The Germans had little help to spare. To General Todorov’s request on 18 September for ten German divisions, General von Hindenburg responded, “As your Excellency knows, Germany is in the most difficult fight on the Western Front. All strength must be directed there. It must be assumed, that the decisive act of the Great War will occur here.”4 Von Hindenburg could offer the Bulgarians only the undermanned 217th Infantry Division, then in Sebastopol in the distant Crimea. He advised the Bulgarians that they must endeavor not to lose the initiative and that they might have to retreat. Von Hindenburg’s advice probably came from experience. The Germans themselves were already retreating on the Western Front. They had few resources that they could direct to the Macedonian Front. They also tended to view the Bulgarian call for help with some condescension. After the war, Ludendorff wrote that the Bulgarians ought to have offered the Germans help in the west, and not demanded aid from them.5 Given Bulgaria’s lack of manpower and material resources, this was out of the question. Meanwhile the Bulgarian command considered its options. It planned a counterattack based on the success at Doiran against the British and Greek attack. In a meeting with General von Scholtz’s staff, together with General Balkan breakthrough 148 von Steuben, commander of the Eleventh Army, and General Reuter, commander of an amalgamated Bulgarian German division in which several units were thrown together, in the headquarters of the German Eleventh Army in Prilep on 18 September, General Todorov proposed an attack by some units of the Bulgarian First and Second Armies on the eastern right flank of the Entente offensive. This attack on the Serbian flank offered some chance of success.6 A strong Bulgarian thrust might have cut the Serbian advance off and surrounded it. The Bulgarian General Staff did not understand that the breach at Dobro Pole was not the cause of the general unrest in the army, but the consequence of it.7 The success of any such counterattack was problematic. Perhaps the Germans understood that the Bulgarian Army was a broken instrument. In any event they preferred to allow supply problems and the...