The evacuation of what remained of the Serbian nation would finally prompt the Entente to act, thus starting one of the longest, and strangest campaigns in the Great War – the Salonika Front.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/2\/21\/Entente_on_the_Balkans.jpg\")
A Front for the Whole Family – from left to right: a soldier from Indochina, a Frenchman, a Senegalese, an Englishman, a Russian, an Italian, a Serb, a Greek and an Indian. \u00a0717,000 troops from 6 of the Entente coalition nations fought in Salonika<\/p><\/div>\n
Despite its primary role in the conflict, neither the Central Powers nor the Entente seemed to give Serbia much of a priority. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The initial planning<\/a> among the General Staffs of Germany and Austria-Hungry had assumed that the Dual Monarchy could quickly eliminate Serbia from the battlefield, perhaps even forestalling the expansion of the conflict which would surely bring in the Russian Empire to defend its fellow Slavs. \u00a0Instead, the Austro-Hungarian military proved itself to be a dysfunctional tortoise, slowly bringing 462,000 soldiers comprised largely of the nation’s ethnic sub-populations over a period of weeks. \u00a0Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Romanians and Serbs made up most of the invading army – understanding neither the language spoken by their German or Hungarian commanders, nor supporting the goal of eliminating an ethnic-based state (a hope many of Austria-Hungry’s minorities had for their own populations).<\/p>\n For the next year that followed, the Serbs delivered embarrassing blow after embarrassing blow against the Austro-Hungarians. \u00a0By December of 1914, the boundaries of the two nations had barely moved and the 215,000 casualties among the Dual Monarchy’s army had lead to a strategic standstill. \u00a0With battles on other fronts demanding men and materials from the Central Powers, Serbia, despite the odds, was surviving. \u00a0The costs had already been high – 170,000 men, not easily replaced, had been killed, wounded or captured.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Serbian retreat into Albania – the war devastated Serbian society. \u00a0An estimated 57% of the nation’s male population was killed or wounded between military and civilian losses<\/p><\/div>\n The interlude that followed was not kind to Serbia’s fortunes.<\/p>\n Between the end of significant fighting in December 1914 and the resumption of the war in the fall of 1915, Serbia tried in vain to re-equip herself. \u00a0The Entente had made empty promises for over a year, but only Russia had given the Serbs weaponry (only adding to Russia’s 2 million rifle shortage<\/a>). \u00a0For most Serbian troops, uniforms and cold-weather gear were luxuries. \u00a0The average Serbian soldier donned nothing more than his civilian clothes, complete with his shoes made of pig skin,\u00a0called opanak<\/i>.<\/p>\n The Austro-Hungarian troops opposing them were better armed and fed – and they weren’t alone. \u00a0An entire German army now joined them, and after considerably diplomatic pressure, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria had thrown in his lot with the Central Powers as well (this despite Ferdinand’s extremely low opinion of Franz Joseph as an\u00a0“idiot” and “old dotard”). \u00a0In return for assurances of territorial expansion, 550,000 Bulgarian troops\u00a0were now crashing against the thin Serbian line.<\/p>\n Greek King Constantine I & Greece’s Prime Minister Eleftherious Venizelos (right to left). The duo provoked, in essence, a civil war in Greece between the pro-German royalists forces and the pro-Entente republicans<\/p><\/div>\n Unwilling to help when assistance might have produced a Serbian victory, the Entente now agreed to enter the fight as Serbia prepared for defeat. \u00a0Despite having barely enough troops for the fronts that currently existed, the Entente committed themselves to yet another. \u00a0But from where was the Entente to attack? \u00a0Serbia herself was landlocked, and Albania’s infrastructure was deemed inefficient for the task of transporting thousands of soldiers and heavy equipment. \u00a0More importantly, Albania’s entry into the war gained the Entente nothing as the Italians already controlled most of the country. \u00a0But to the south, a Greek declaration of war against the Central Powers might break the front wide open.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n On paper, Greece had every reason to join the Entente. \u00a0Surrounded by hostile Central Powers-aligned nations (including the Ottomans, from whom the Greeks had won their independence less than 100 years earlier), the Greeks had a defense treaty with Serbia to come to their aid if attacked by Bulgaria. \u00a0With Serbia subdued, the victorious Central Powers could easily chose to absorb Greece if they wished.<\/p>\n Bulgarian troops on the march – the Salonika Front was Bulgaria’s major contribution to the war, with 550,000 soldiers tying down a larger Entente force<\/p><\/div>\n Such a fate was clearly on the mind of Prime Minister\u00a0Eleftherios Venizelos as he invited the Entente to land 150,000 troops at Salonika, a\u00a0port city on the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. \u00a0The move contradicted the preferred policy of Greece’s\u00a0King Constantine I, who as the brother-in-law of Kaiser Wilhelm II, desired to support the Central Powers, or at least keep Greece out of the war. \u00a0British and French troops were already landing at Salonika as Constantine removed Venizelos, revoking permission for the Allies to use the country as a forward base.<\/p>\n Constantine’s wishes were brushed aside – the Entente marched into Bulgaria. \u00a0A joint French-British command was hastily set up with the objectives of forcing the Bulgarians back into their country and saving the Serbian front. \u00a0On both counts, the mission failed miserably. \u00a0After two minor battles against the Bulgarians, Entente forces were defeated and forced to return back into Greece. \u00a0By December of 1915, the Entente was holed up at Salonika and Serbia was no more.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n British Boredom – the Salonika Front was essentially the Western Front without the fighting. \u00a0The British did lose over 10,000 soldiers, but most of them came from diseases in the trenches<\/p><\/div>\n By the start of 1916, political forces, not military ones, were dictating a stalemate at Salonika.<\/p>\n The Greeks remained officially neutral in the conflict, but heavily divided in practice. \u00a0The nation’s pro-German government refused to allow the Entente to attack the Central Powers, but remained too weak to forcibly remove the Allied troops who continued to resupply and wait. \u00a0The Bulgarians were eager to strike against the growing Entente army in Salonika, but were expressly forbidden by a German General Staff that feared a Greek entry into the war would weaken their Ottoman ally or perhaps even allowing the British to accomplish what Gallipoli had not – the capture of Constantinople.<\/p>\n Only the British appeared eager to leave the Balkans behind. \u00a0Salonika held no strategic importance to the larger war effort and was mocked by the Germans as being their “largest POW camp.” \u00a0For the British troops stationed there, with little to do but dig unused trenches in the mud, Salonika became “Muckydonia.” \u00a0Worse of all, the lack of action didn’t mean a lack of casualties. \u00a0Disease would force over 162,000 British troops out of service at Salonika by the end of the war.<\/p>\n The Central Powers celebrate the end of Serbia in October of 1915. \u00a0The nation that started the Great War had been finally eliminated; the conflict she started would go on<\/p><\/div>\n But the leadership in London and Paris (especially Paris), wanted the men in Salonika to stay. \u00a0Romania would soon enter the war on the side of the Entente, and pressure against the Central Powers in the south could aid the struggling Eastern Front. \u00a0Too important a front to abandon, but too weak to advance, the Salonika front froze in place.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n The various impasses would finally break in August of 1916.<\/p>\n Entente troops had poured into Greece over the previous nearly 10 months, as had Central Powers troops across the border. \u00a0German intelligence had coordinated with King Constantine to force an end to Greece’s semi-neutrality, leading the Germans and Bulgarians to invade Greek-occupied Macedonia. \u00a0Greek troops laid down their arms, or merely stepped aside for the advancing German army – as they had been ordered to do by Constantine.<\/p>\n Not Dead Yet – 155,000 Serbian soldiers had been evacuated out of Albania to join the Salonika Front. \u00a0Together with French help, they won a victory against the Bulgarians in 1916<\/p><\/div>\n The move infuriated the Greek people – Constantine had orchestrated a surrender to a foreign power. \u00a0In response, troops loyal to ousted PM\u00a0Eleftherios Venizelos, calling themselves\u00a0Venizelists, staged a coup and started a new government with Venizelos in power at Salonika. \u00a0Venizelos had popular support, but little of it came from the royalist trained military. \u00a0With a rival Greek government now based in an Entente military camp, relationships between the royal government and the Allies quickly turned violent. \u00a0Armed clashes between French and Greek troops broke out in Athens. \u00a0It appeared that Greece might descend into civil war.<\/p>\n Instead, Greece would enter a political and military limbo. \u00a0Greek army units laid down their weapons for Entente opponents as well as the Germans. \u00a0Despite the potential for an extremely bloody campaign, the royalist Greeks essentially surrendered while the Entente maintained the fiction that Constantine, and not Venizelos, governed Greece. \u00a0Only once Constantine abdicated the crown in favor of his young son in 1917 did Venizelos obtain full influence over Greece’s affairs, bringing the country into the war on the side of Entente.<\/p>\n Venizelos inspects Greek troops in 1918<\/p><\/div>\n Until then, the Entente would have to make due with stabilizing the Salonika front in the form of the Monastir Offensive as nearly 400,000 Entente troops hit 260,000 Bulgarians. \u00a0The Bulgarians, so successful on the defense against the Entente in late 1915, were repulsed in the late summer\/early fall of 1916 while on the attack. \u00a0At the cost of 61,000 casualties, the Central Powers’ hopes of crushing the Salonika front and bringing the Greeks into the war on their side had both failed.<\/p>\n The front would again fall from the priorities of either side.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n By the spring of 1917, the Salonika Army was now the Allied Army of the Orient, comprised of representatives of almost every nation under the Entente banner. \u00a024 divisions, over 700,000 troops, were created out of British, French, Russian, Italian, Serbian and Greek soldiers, with men pulled from the far-reaches of the Entente empires. \u00a0Opposing them were nearly 600,000 men, almost all of which were Bulgarians. \u00a0On both sides, the troops largely sat.<\/p>\n The picture claims to depict French Indochinese troops. More likely, they’re “coolies” – low-skilled laborers or supply carriers. Nevertheless, Salonika was the front were troops the Entente trusted the least were sent to “fight”<\/p><\/div>\n The combatants would come and go as fortunes on other fronts changed. \u00a0Russian troops departed in 1917 as revolution would take the Tsar’s armies out of the war. \u00a0Turkish troops would leave the front as well that year as the Ottoman Empire crumbled in the Middle East. \u00a0Unable, or unwilling, to risk casualties, the Entente rarely launched sizable offensives until 1918. \u00a0At Salonika, the Entente obsession with tertiary fronts might not have been as disastrous to the Allied cause as Gallipoli<\/a>, but still managed to bleed resources from other fronts at little cost to the Central Powers who relied on the Bulgarians to fight with minimal German support (something the Austro-Hungarians or Ottomans couldn’t possibly state).<\/p>\n For the Bulgarians, the ability to tie down a larger army of Western nations\u00a0was a point of national pride. \u00a0But as the war dragged on, the cost of being a member of the Central Powers became harder and harder to bare. \u00a0The war would devastate Bulgaria demographically, materially, and psychologically. \u00a0The army suffered 101,224 dead and 144,026 wounded. \u00a0However, the full extent of the Bulgarian experience is only grasped when the losses of the preceding Balkan War are taken into account. \u00a0The country endured a total of 157,000 dead and 154,000 wounded in six years of fighting from 1912 to 1918 – this from a nation of 4.2 million.<\/p>\n Ferdinand I of Bulgaria – he would live to see the Bulgaria he helped shape totally destroyed (and the same fate happen to his family)<\/p><\/div>\n In the end, the choice to go to war ruined Bulgaria. \u00a0The Treaty of Neuilly of 1919 imposed reparation payments of 1.5 million gold francs to the Entente powers as well as the transfer of specified quantities of livestock and railroad equipment to Greece, Romania, and the newly formed nation of Yugoslavia. \u00a0Bulgaria also had to deliver 50,000 tons of coal annually to Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n Ferdinand I of Bulgaria would see his territorial schemes come completely undone within his life. \u00a0Abdicating the throne in favor of his son, Ferdinand would escape to Germany. \u00a0From exile, Ferdinand would watch his son, Boris III, die mysteriously at the hands of the Axis in World War II, and his sole-surviving son, Kyril, executed by the People’s Republic of Bulgaria as an enemy of the State. \u00a0“Everything is collapsing around me,” Ferdinand stated as Kyril’s fate was told to him. \u00a0It was a fate born, in part, by Ferdinand’s decision in the fall of 1915.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By the tens of thousands, they marched through snow-capped mountains on the Serbian\/Albanian border. \u00a0Most of them injured or riddled with disease, the survivors of Serbia’s resistance in the Great War, military or civilian, shuffled towards the faint hope of Entente salvation on October 7th, 1915. The last chapter from the\u00a0first act of World War […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-ww1-fact-and-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54625"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61366,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54625\/revisions\/61366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/64\/%D0%9E%D0%B4_%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%9B%D0%B8_%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8.JPG\")
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