BLOOD, FIRE AND STEEL, 150 YEARS OF EUROPEAN HISTORY ; WW1 THE NORTH ATLANTIC 1916-1917

THE NORTH ATLANTIC CAMPAIGN JANUARY 1916 - 1917

On the sea, controversy raged over the effectiveness of Germany’s submarine warfare against the British trade lines. German Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Scherer and General Falkenhayn seemed to both agree that restricted submarine warfare in deference to America’s interests was preventing the German Navy from gaining the upper hand on the High Seas.

While the civilian staff of the foreign office were urging for restraint so as not to provoke the US into joining the Allies, the military leaders were pushing for an unrestricted submarine warfare policy. Between February 14 and May 1917, a policy of unrestricted warfare was permitted but soon stopped again.

With the support of Paul Hindenburg, the new Chief of Staff, the leaders of the military establishment were winning grounds in their push for unrestricted submarine warfare and when the Civilian leaders came to believe that Britain’s policy of blockade at sea would eventually starve Germany before a military victory could be achieved, the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare was soon adopted again by February 1917.

THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND

The summer of 1916, saw the long deferred confrontation between the world’s most powerful navies; the German High Seas fleet and Great Britain’s Grand Fleet in the battle of Jutland involving over 250 warships. Admiral Reinhardt Schumer took over command of the German High seas fleet and initiated a plan he hoped would split the British fleet in a naval confrontation that could give Germany a chance of victory.

 His plans consisted of drawing a portion of the Grand fleet to a position midway between the British coast and the Norwegian coast and destroy it before any reinforcements could get to the battlefield from the main fleet base at Scapa Flow. In that way he hoped to destroy the Royal Navy in piece meal engagements rather than a direct confrontation headlong with the main fleet.

The ambush was to be set by five battle cruisers of the Germans High seas fleet together with four light cruisers which were to sail northward under Hipper’s command from William Shaven, Germany to a point off the south western coast of Norway and roughly half way  across the planned movement route of the German fleet.

However, the signal for the start of the operation was intercepted and deciphered by the British Admiralty which decided to engage the whole fleet in the exercise. At 2:20 pm on May 31^st, 1916 when the main squadrons of the British fleet were still 65 miles away to the north from the point of the ambush, Beatty’s advance guard of light cruisers that were five miles ahead of his heavier ships and German Admiral Hipper’s scouting group discovered each other’s presence.

 Within an hour, the battle lines were drawn and the fighting began. In 50 minutes, the British inflicted such severe damages on the German ships that Hipper had to set up a protective screen around his warships with destroyers sent forward in a suicidal torpedo charge that sank the British battle cruiser, the Queen Mary.

At 4:35 pm, a British patrol sighted the main German fleet and an alerted Beatty steamed up towards where the Grand fleet was. When Beatty’s forces finally linked up with the main fleet under Admiral Jellicoe fifteen minutes later, the main German fleet came into view.

The Grand fleet just had enough time to turn side wards so as to bring their combined broad sides to bear on the approaching German fleet in what is known in naval parlance as the “Crossing of the T” i.e. when a fleet’s broadside guns are brought to bear on an approaching fleet which in response can only bring their forward guns to bear in frontal motion.

By so doing, the British had many more guns in action compared to the Germans who relied only on their forward guns aloft the stern of the ship. The Germans however were saved by the sturdy nature of their ships, excellent seamanship and the poor nature of the British shells.

Though repeatedly hit, their ships survived and fought hard enough to sink a British battle ship “The Invincible”. Admiral Scherer ordered his fleet out of the trap by executing an 180^o turn maneuver. This was flawlessly accomplished, but he found out that his ships had been cut off from their escape route back home by the Grand fleet that had somehow come in between them, and was attacking furiously.

To save his fleet, Admiral Scherer ordered a charge of his destroyers and Battle Cruisers against the main British fleet with a view to giving him the chance to escape. Jellicoe in a moment of fear and panic, desperate to save his ships from the expected deluge of torpedoes from the destroyers ordered the fleet to turn away from the approaching German ships.

 By so doing, the two fleets steered away from each other with the Germans destroyers laying a protective screen of smoke that hid the fleet from the sight of the British Admirals. By this time, it was 7:35pm and darkness was setting in. Taking advantage of the darkness, the Germans fleet escaped and steamed home to its home ports in the Baltic Sea. The German fleet thus escaped destruction as Jellicoe’s fleet could not find the German fleet in the dark.

At the end of the battle, the British lost more ships and men than the Germans; three battle cruisers, three cruisers, eight destroyers and 6,274 officers and men, while the Germans lost one battleship, one battle cruiser, four light cruisers, five destroyers and 2,545  officers and men. 

The loses did not affect the British superiority in terms of warships over the German navy; and the strategic fact was that the German navy remained bottled up at its home ports and never ventured out to confront the British Grand fleet for the rest of the war.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

BLOOD, FIRE AND STEEL ; THE WESTERN FRONT 1916

THE WESTERN FRONT 1916

Whereas in 1914, the center of gravity of the war had been on the western front, in 1915, it shifted to the East and in 1916, it moved once more back to France. The operations in the Dardanelles, Salonika and Mesopotamia had made a drain on the Allied resources but for Great Britain where conscription by virtue of the military service act of January 1916, had brought in additional 36 divisions; the Allies were ready once more to breach the Germans trench lines in France.

An Allied military conference was called in December 1915, in France in Marshal Joffre’s office involving military leaders of Great Britain, France, Russia, Belgium and Italy. It was agreed that a coordinated joint offensive was to be launched in 1916. Eventually counteraction by Germany precluded a coordinated offensive and in the event, only the British were to embark on the offensive.

Falkenhayn, the Germans Chief of Staff had come to a conclusion that Russia was no longer a credible threat and Italy had become ineffectual. His resolution centered on bringing a decisive blow on France after which Britain’s role in the field would be neutralized and thereafter she would be dealt with at sea by submarines.

Falkenhyans’ preferred method of dealing with France was through a process of battles of attrition in which he hoped to bleed France to the point of surrender on the battle field.  His plan involved choosing a strong point to attack against which predictably France would pour in its manpower in defense.

He chose the fortress city of Verdun on the Franco-German border with its complex series of forts and strongholds. He knew that for reasons of national pride and prestige, France would defend Verdun to the last man and there he determined, he would bleed the French Army of their prime in manhood.

Falkenhyans tactical plan involved setting up a concentric ring of heavy and medium range artillery around the city of Verdun and its fortresses on the North and East and then to stage a series of military advances on the city and the fortresses, knowing that assuredly French infantry would pour in to defend and recapture the forts.

These then would be pulverized by the field guns he had placed in vantage positions around the city. In addition, each German infantry surge would be preceded by a brief but intense bombardment meant to clear the target area of defenders.

Although the French had early intelligence warning of the oncoming offensive, the French High command was preoccupied with its own offensive plans and failed to prepare adequately. At 7:15am on February 21, 1916 the heaviest German bombardment of the war began on a stretch of eight miles around Verdun. That evening by 4:45 pm German infantry began to advance and fort after fort began to fall.

Henri Philippe Pétain

Henri Pétain took control of the French command at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. He was also in charge of restoring order when French troops held a mutiny in 1917.

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When the Germans began to attack both the west and east bank of the River Meuse, the French came to appreciate the gravity of the situation. To relieve the pressure on the French, the Russians launched an attack on the eastern front around Lake Naroch, while the Italians began their fifth offensive on the Isonzo and the British simultaneously took over control of the western front all the way from the Arras sector to Ypres southward of the Somme.

General Philippe Petain was assigned the defense of Verdun and this he performed gallantly, keeping the main road along which supplies were delivered open, even under the intense fire of the heavy field guns of the German army.

Though the bloodshed was horrendous, the Germans meanwhile kept pressing forward, taking one fort after the other in their grim advance, finally almost taking Belleville, the last stronghold before the city of Verdun itself. Petain was about to evacuate the east bank of the Meuse when British forces finally launched their assault.

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

The Germans generally accomplished their plan of attrition warfare in Verdun and the plan truly did bleed the French army and helped to somehow demoralize and weaken the French as was revealed in France’s later weak resolve to confront Germany resolutely in the next round of hostilities as was seen in the debacle of June 1940, during the 2^nd world war.

 Pressure on the French in Verdun was only let up when the British launched the offensive that came to be known as the 2^nd battle of the Somme. It was pretty clear that British General Douglas Haig taking advantage of the increasing number of British infantry divisions on the field, had also decided to resort to the process of attrition to bleed the German army because the strategic value of the second battle of the Somme has been difficult to apprehend in retrospect on a tactical if not strategic level.

World War I Tank

A Mark IV tank, a British tank that was used in service in 1917, traverses the battlefield during World War I. Tanks were first used in the war by the British during the First Battle of the Somme in 1916. However, tanks did not become effective in battle until the next year, when their design was improved.

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 For French Marshall Joffre, the second battle of the Somme was strategic only in that it helped to ease the pressure the Germans were putting on the French in Verdun. As ferocious as the attacks the British infantry exerted on the German lines were, it was difficult to apprehend the strategic motive behind that major offensive and the resulting bloodshed.

The offensive was launched on July 1^st, 1916 under the command of Gen Emile Fayolle and General Sir Henry Seymour Rawlinson who were opposed by German General Fritz Von Below. French General Fayolle could only muster three divisions for the assault astride the Somme River but because of his strength in artillery, he was able to secure his objective for the day.

The British 13^th corps on the French left did equally well but that was all. The main body of the British infantry ran into a fire storm and a web of dug in defenses that cost them casualties of about 60,000 in one day of battle; a record unequalled in British history. Haig was constrained to pressing on in a theater of operation where he had initially enjoyed some success.

German Casualties at Somme

On July 1, 1916, the British launched an offensive to try to divert German troops who were fighting the French at the Battle of Verdun. The British targeted their attack along the Somme River in northern France. On the first day, 60,000 British soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. When the attack halted in November, the Allies and the Germans had each suffered more than 600,000 casualties.

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 He formed a new army called the fifth army under Lt. Gen Sir Hubert de la Poe Gough for a holding operation on the Acre River. The Germans did likewise putting General Max von Kollwitz in command of a new army south of the Somme. The battle raged for weeks ferociously without any side gaining a significant breakthrough.

 On August 29, Falkenhyans was relieved of his command by a visibly displeased German Emperor. Hindenburg was appointed in his place with Ludendorff as his deputy. On September 15^th, the British launched a general attack on a 10 mile front. Thirty six tanks were used for the first time in this operation with considerable success.

 However, because so many lives were lost and not much was accomplished in military terms, the battle of the Somme’s came to be regarded as a strategic blunder and a meat grinder. In  retrospect it has become obvious that the German General Staff came to a realization at this point that outright victory on the Western front was becoming more of a mirage and they began to increasingly look to the Eastern front for a decisive break through.

 The bloody impasse eventually cost French General Joffre and British General Haigh their positions as both of them were replaced in December 1916. The casualties for the British were 420,000, French 195,000 and 650,000 Germans. In all, 95 Germans divisions, 55 British divisions and 20 French divisions were involved.

1917 began on a note of promise following the appeals for peace from US President Woodrow Wilson, Pope Benedict XV and the new Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles 1. The belligerents were unwilling to bulge. Wilson had appealed to the warring countries to accept peace without victory.

 He demanded terms of peace and a statement of war aims from all the belligerents. The Central Powers disclosed none, and the Allies sent in terms that were so unacceptable that his mediation role lapsed into irrelevance.

Interestingly, three months later, President Wilson was to lead the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. What prompted US intervention was the proclamation by the German government of a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic beginning January 31^st, 1917.

Battle of the Argonne

A machine-gun nest is set up by the Allied forces to blast the Germans in the Battle of the Argonne in France in 1918. This large-scale offensive destroyed highly fortified German defense positions in western Europe, forcing the Germans to accept an armistice.

Corbis

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America’s entry did not immediately change the strategic situation as the country was not yet fully mobilized, but her vast navy brought succor to the Allies in extending their capacity for anti-submarine operations. By June 5^th, 34 American destroyers were based on Queenstown (now Cobh) from which they joined in the anti-submarine operations in the Atlantic.

THE EASTERN FRONT 1916

In the hope of diverting German strength from the attack at Verdun on the western front and under pressure from the Western Allies, the Russians boldly but unwisely opened an offensive north and south of Lake Nar chest at Vilna on March 18, 1916 and continued until March 27 winning some territory at great cost and even then the gains were to be of a temporary nature.

The Russians then planned a major offensive for July. The main blow was meant to be delivered by AE Evertad’s army corps assisted by an internal movement of AN Kropotkin’s army in the southwestern front which was ordered to feign a diversionary attack to cover the main attack. Interestingly, Brusilow’s offensive turned out to be the main attack.

Urged on by the Italians to launch an offensive to counter Austria’s Asiago offensive in May, the Russians once more launched a major attack that turned out to be their last major offensive in the war.

 The offensive initially began well as Brusilow’s four armies were dispersed along a very wide front reaching to Lutsk at the Northern end; Ternopol and Bichat in the central sector and Czernowitz at the southern end. Having struck first in Ternopol and Czernowitz sectors on June 4, Brusilov on June 5 took the Austrians wholly by surprise when he launched AM Kaledins army towards Lutsk.

The defenses gave way and the attackers pushed in between two Austrian armies. As this offensive gained momentum, the Russians penetrated further in the Buchach sector and their advance into Bukovina resulted in the capture of Czernowitz alongside 200,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war.

 The offensive was however hampered by the refusal of Generals Evert and Kropotkin to coordinate their strikes as agreed upon. An attempt by the Russian Chief of General Staff MV Alekseev to transfer the reserve forces of these inept Generals came too late to stop the Germans from reinforcing the Austrians and capitalize on the late arrival of the reserves.

Brusilov’s advance however got to the Carpathian Mountains but thereafter was checked by a German counter strike under General Alexander von Vlissingen’s army in the Lutsk sector. Further efforts by the Russians were launched in July but the opportunity to capitalize on the advances was lost.

Brusilov’s advance had driven the Austrians from Bukovina and much of Eastern Galicia and had inflicted huge losses of men and materials on them but he had also cost Russia, casualties of over one million men.

Although Brusilov’s victory decimated the Austrians, Russia seemed to lose more in terms of men and materials as the loss of over one million men became too much for the country to bear, even though most were deserters and prisoners.

Brusilov’s offensive also had an indirect result of great consequence. First it had compelled the Germans to withdraw seven divisions from the Western front, where they could ill afford to spare them from the battles of Verdun and the Somme. Secondly it paved the way for Romania’s unfortunate entry into the war.

Romania in utter disregard of her military weakness and unpreparedness had yielded to the Allies’ entreaty to enter the war against the Central Powers with offers of land and territorial gains and the belief that the Central Powers would not have time to look her way. By so doing, she launched an attack with 12 out of 23 divisions against the Austro-Hungarians who could muster only five divisions.

The counter measures of the Central Powers proved to be more devastating than the Romanian attack, as the Germans mustered five divisions alongside two Austrian divisions under Malkensen’s at the orders of Falkenhayn who though relieved of his overall command had this particular plan of his approved.

Malkensen’s forces operating from Bulgaria stormed the Turtucaia (Tutraken) bridge head on the Danube Southeast of Bucharest on the 5^th of September. His subsequent advance eastward caused the Romanians to abandon their main advance in pursuit of the Bulgarian offensive.

 Falkenhayn now a direct field commander after his being relieved as the German Chief of staff attacked the Romanians at the southern end of the 200 mile front where he threw one of the Romanian columns back into the Roter Tuvin pass; by October 9 he had defeated another Romanian army at Kroonstad.

For a month however the Romanians resisted the German armies’ attempt to drive them out of the Vukan and Surduc passes into Walachia. However just before winter snow could block their way; the Germans took the two passes and advanced southward into Torgu jiu which they also held.

At this point Malkensen’s attacks converged with that of Falkenhayn on the Bulgarian lines westward from Dobruja after crossing the Danube near Bucharest. Bucharest fell on the 16^th of December together with the rest of the Romanian troops in it. The victory gave the Central Powers control over Romanian’s wheat field and oil wells while eventually giving the Russians 300 more miles to defend as a result of the Bulgarian collapse.

THE NORTH ATLANTIC CAMPAIGN 1916-JANUARY 1917

On the sea, controversy raged over the effectiveness of Germany’s submarine warfare against the British trade lines. German Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Scherer and General Falkenhayn seemed to both agree that restricted submarine warfare in deference to America’s interests was preventing the German Navy from gaining the upper hand on the High Seas.

While the civilian staff of the foreign office were urging for restraint so as not to provoke the US into joining the Allies, the military leaders were pushing for an unrestricted submarine warfare policy. Between February 14 and May 1917, a policy of unrestricted warfare was permitted but soon stopped again.

Blood, Fire and Steel, 150 years of European History, the forging of the European Union, WW1; the years of stalemate in the war

THE YEARS OF STALE MATE IN THE WAR

At the end of 1914, it had become clear to the warring nations that none had the power to prevail in breaking the deadlock on the western front. As both groups settled in the dug-in fortifications, the trench lines grew more formidable and became a slaughter house for millions of young men who died trying to breach the lines in desperate assaults that proved ultimately futile.

Troop Inspection, 1916

French troops line up in 1916 for an inspection in a trench strung with barbed wire. Armies in World War I (1914-1918) made extensive use of field fortifications composed of large numbers of parallel and intersecting trenches. This so-called trench warfare was used on both sides throughout the conflict.

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To breach the trench lines, the British devised a mobile vehicle fighting machine called the tank designed to overcome the trench barrier. Some other strategic thinkers notably Winston S. Churchill, Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty also felt that a new front be opened in the Balkans whereby the Allies could begin to reduce the Central powers particularly Turkey. It turned out to be an ill-conceived and badly executed operation with grave political repercussions for the Allied leadership particularly Britain

The campaign opened on February 19^th, 1915 with a naval bombardment on the Gallipoli peninsula with a view ultimately to advancing up the peninsular and seize Constantinople modern day Istanbul capital of Turkey. The naval bombardment however began without infantry support to exploit the opportunities for breakthroughs and was frequently interrupted by spells of bad weather. When British infantry units finally arrived from Egypt, the defenders on the ground were six times as many in number as had been there previously.

 Despite the stiff resistance put up by the local Turkish commander Mustafa Kemal, who later became known as the founder of the modern Turkish nation, the Australian and New Zealand corps won a bridgehead on the famous ANZAC cove north of Kaba Tepe, on the Aegean side of the peninsula, landing some 20,000 men in the first two days of the landings.

The British attempt to expand the bridgehead by landing at five more ports succeeded in only three spots which were in any case strongly contested. A request for reinforcements went unheeded as the Turks flooded the peninsula with reinforcements.

Meanwhile the operation had resulted in a political crisis back home in England as Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord openly disagreed with Winston Churchill the liberal government’s First Lord of the Admiralty. Fisher demanded an end to the operation and Churchill refused.

 Fisher’s subsequent resignation led to the dissolution of the liberal government and the forming of a coalition cabinet which still retained Churchill in the war council of the cabinet.

In July 1915, the British decided to reinforce their position on the peninsula by bringing in five more divisions to the peninsula with the hope of cutting the Turks North-South communications down the peninsula by seizing the Saur Bair heights which commanded the straits from the west. However within a few days both the initial landings and subsequent landings proved ineffectual.

Despite the wrangling in the war council and several reinforcements, it was obvious that the landings were not achieving the desired results. Much later in the year, it was agreed to discontinue the operation and the troops were evacuated under the cover of darkness from Surla Bay and from Anzac cove between December 1915 and January 1916 in the cape Helloes beaches.

 Thus the Dardanelles campaign came to an end at the cost of 214,000 casualties and no apparent result. It however led to the fall of Lord Asquith’s Liberal government and the takeover by Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s Labor government.

THE EGYPTIAN FRONTIERS 1915-JULY 1917

In spite of the Gallipoli evacuation, the British Army in Egypt still totaled over 250,000 men to counter the threat of a Turkish incursion into Egypt from Palestine across the Sinai desert. The threat was momentarily mothballed by the insurrection against the Turks led by Hashemite Emir Husayn Bin Ali in Hejaz and developed by the genius of an English settler by the name of T.E Lawrence.

He stoked the revolt to such a point that the whole Turkish position in Palestine and Arabia was threatened with the Damascus, Amman-Maan-Medina rail line almost severed. Under this condition, Sir Archibald Murray’s men began an advance on Palestine in December 1916. The advance led to the capture of some Turkish positions and outposts on the northeastern edge of the Sinai desert.

However by March 1917 when it looked like they were about to overrun the whole Turkish position in Gaza, they made a strange decision to withdraw. When they finally attempted to retake the position they were repulsed with heavy losses.

In June, the British command was transferred from Murray to Sir Edmund Allenby.  T.E Lawrence unlike Murray captured Aqaba (Al-Aqabah) on July 6^th, 1917 overrunning 1,200 Turks with a handful of Arab fighters.

THE ITALIAN FRONT 1915-1916

As the war progressed in 1915, the United Kingdom, France and Russia signed a secret document in which they induced Italy to join the war on the side of the Allies by dumping her obligations under the Triple Alliance on account of territorial gains at the expense of Austro-Hungary. The Italian- populated province of Trenton and Trieste alongside the South Tyrol, Gorizia, Istria and Northern Dalmatia were thus offered to Italy.

Accordingly, Italy declared war on Austro-Hungary on May 23^rd, 1915. The Italian offensive opened under the command of General Luigi Cadorna on the Province of Venetia across the lower valley of the Isonzo (Soca) River. He risked an Austrian descent on his rear from the Trenton which bordered Venetia to the northwest and on his left flank from the Cornice Alps (to the north). He was cautious about his advance.

The advances eastward beginning in late May was soon slowed down largely because of the floodwaters of the Isonzo River and tied down; both sides soon resorted to trench warfare. Cardona’s intent on moving forward led him to repeatedly make frontal attacks on the Austro-Hungarian positions in the battles which came to be known as the battles of the Isonzo.

A series of attack spanning 23^rd July, 18^th August, October 18^th, and November 4-10 ending December 2^nd cost the lives of over 280,000 men without any tactical or strategic achievement. The Austrians in facing the Italians showed a determination of spirit which was not seen when they faced the Russians.

After the Battle of Caporetto

In October 1917 Austro-Hungarian and German forces launched a massive attack on the Italian front. Exhausted by long months of bloody offensives and counterattacks, the Italians were defeated at Caporetto (now Kobarid, Slovenia) and retreated to the Piave River, where, with British and American help, they later stopped the advance of the enemy. Shown here are civilians who were forced to leave their villages after the battle.

In mid-May 1916, the Austrians decided to launch an offensive of their own into the province of Asia go in western Venetia. Though the Italians were able to avert an Austrian break through into the rear of the Isonzo from Venetia, their counter offensive of mid-July 1916, won them back one third of the territory overrun by the Austrians north and sixth battle of Isonzo southwest of Asia go.

The (August 6-17) offensive however did win Goriza for the Italians. On August 28, Italy declared war on Germany. The next three months saw the Italians making three more attempts on Austrian lines on the Isonzo with no tangible effect. On the whole, in 1916 Italy suffered over 500,000 casualties, over twice the number suffered by the Austrians without breaking out of the Isonzo area.

SERBIA AND THE SALONIKA EXPEDITIONS 1915-1917

Austria had made three attempts to invade Serbia since the war began and each had been repulsed. However by 1915, the Central Powers decided it was time to close the case of Serbia in the war to enable them make tangible progress in conjunction with the Turks across the Balkans.

In August, Germany got militarily involved and sent units to Austria’s southern front followed by a treaty concluded on September 15^th, in which the Central Powers offered Bulgaria territorial concession in order to join them in the attack on Serbia. Germany and Austria struck the Serbian positions on October 6^th, while the Bulgarians unmoved by Russian threats attacked eastern Serbia on October 11^th and Serbian Macedonia in October 1914.

The spate of events shocked the Allies who decided to help Serbia through neutral Greece’s Macedonian port of Salonika relying on the pro-Allied Greek premier Eleutherious Venizelos. French troops coming in from Gallipoli got to Salonika on October 5^th, but on that same day, the Greek Prime Minister was removed from office.

The Allied advanced up the Vader into Serbian Macedonia but were prevented from linking up with the Serbs by virtue of the westward advance of the Bulgarians which cut them off from the junction with the Serbs.

The Allies were subsequently merely occupying Salonika by mid-December 1916, as they retreated from the Greek frontier. In order to avoid being surrounded and cut off, the Serbian army embarked on a retreat in winter westward over the Albanian mountains while the Allies took refuge on the Island of Corfu.

In the spring of 1916, the Allies in Salonika were reinforced with troops from Serbia, France, Britain and Russia and the Salonika bridgehead was expanded to Edessa and Eastward to Kiki’s. The Bulgarians on the other hand overran Fort Rupel (Kilda on the Struma) in Greece in mid-August, and subsequently invaded the Florin a region of Greek Macedonia to the west of the Allies’ wing in Vodena.

An Allied counter offensive took Monastiv from the Bulgarians in November 1916, and tried to make more progress from March to May 1917, but failed. Over 500,000 Allied soldiers were tied down in Salonika without upsetting the Central Powers in any significant way.

THE WESTERN FRONT 1916