Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dobro Pole 1918

4. Development of the Macedonian Front

The formation of the Macedonian Front, like that of the Western and Eastern Fronts, during the First World War, was accidental. Neither the Central Powers nor the Entente had anticipated establishing a line of conflict along the Greek frontier with Bulgaria and Serbian Macedonia. Both maintained forces along this front as a means of preventing the other side from employing those troops and military resources elsewhere. The Greeks interposed some military units along their frontier in between the two hostile forces to maintain the illusion of their sovereignty. At a Central Alliance military conference on 5 January 1916 in Niš, Bulgarian military and government leaders met with von Falkenhayn and the superfluous Kaiser Wilhelm. General Zhekov insisted upon an attack on Salonika to expel the Entente troops. Neither Tsar Ferdinand nor Prime Minister Radoslavov supported him.1 No important decisions ensued from these talks. Afterward Zhekov persisted in raising the issue during the sub4 DEVELOPMENT OF THE MACEDONIAN FRONT 59 development of the Macedonian front sequent visit of the German kaiser to Bulgaria, but to no avail. Von Falkenhayn insisted that the upcoming offensive at Verdun precluded an effort in Macedonia. Zhekov later dismissed this as an “excuse” to cover the “family politics” of the Germans toward the Greek king.2 Even so, the Central Powers managed to reach some agreement on the Greek issue. On 6 January 1916, the representatives of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Germany in Athens informed the Greek government that their armies intended to cross the Greek frontier.3 Although initially the Greeks agreed to this demarche, the evacuation of Gallipoli provided the Entente with reinforcements for Salonika, and distractions at Verdun prevented the immediate implementation of this threat. It was not implemented. The Germans did attack Salonika from the air. On the night of 31 January, a German zeppelin bombed the port area of the city, killing one British, one French, and one Greek soldier and eleven civilians, and destroying a bank.4 Within a month, Entente flyers were bombing Bulgarian installations on the other side of the Greek frontier. By April they were even flying over Sofia, dropping leaflets and a few bombs. Across the Greek border the Entente forces continued to dig in. As early as 21 November 1915 they had begun to plan to establish defenses in the area around Salonika, and even to broach the possibility of an evacuation . The Entente forces did not anticipate an immediate Bulgarian attack into Greek territory.5 The safe haven of Greece allowed them to recover from their defeat in the late autumn of 1915. It also permitted them the opportunity to established fortified positions in northern Greece without impediment from the Central Powers. The Entente leadership did not trust the Greeks. They had good reason not to do so. At the beginning of February Colonel Ionnis Metaxas, chief of staff of the Greek army and later the authoritarian ruler of Greece, stated, “If Venizelos himself was in power today and could order the Greek army to fight on the side of the Entente, the army would refuse.”6 Nevertheless, at the end of December 1915, the local Greek commander in Salonika signed an agreement promising not to interfere with Entente military operations in Greek territory.7 This provided a certain measure of security for the Entente efforts there. Bulgarian concerns about the increasing Entente presence in Salonika finally had some effect on their German allies. On 9 February 1916, during a visit of Tsar Ferdinand to German General Staff Headquarters in Balkan breakthrough 60 Pless, General Zhekov and General von Falkenhayn agreed to fortify their positions along the southern border of Bulgaria.8 Further, they decided to resolve the question of an offensive against Salonika by 15 March 1916. General von Mackensen had previously informed German General Headquarters in mid-January 1916 that because of logistical difficulties no offensive could ensue against Salonika before the middle of April.9 While this agreement offered the Bulgarians stronger defensive positions along their southern frontier, it postponed the decision to undertake an offensive against the Entente in Salonika. Afterward von Falkenhayn continued to resist the idea of an attack on Salonika. He pointed out that because of the limitations of the railroad line south of Niš and the roads in the region, the accruing of materials for an offensive could not be complete until April. Further, he warned, “It would be very questionable to undertake...