I'm here on a French cemetery in Skopje (North Macedonia).
Here you see the graves of the French soldiers that fell during WW1. When you're in North
Macedonia you don't see many traces of WW2. But during WW1 there was heavy fighting on
this territory. Here in Skopje the Allied Vardar Offensive ended. At the end of September 1918
after which Central Power Bulgaria sued for peace. This here is the story of the Vardar Offensive,
the Allied offensive that knocked Bulgaria out of the war. Keep watching!
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When WW1 broke out it seemed like the Third Balkan War was a fact. Since the conflict spiraled so
out of control due to the alliences (Triple Entente versus Triple Alliance) which evolved
in the Great War (later known as the First World War) between the Allies and the Central Powers.
When WW1 broke out some of the Greeks wanted to participate after having won two wars before (the
First and Second Balkan War). This led to the National Schism. Because Greek king Constantine
was against Greece joining the Entente. (His brother-in-law was the German Kaiser.) He
preferred Greece to be neutral as he believed there was nothing to gain, only to lose. Greek
Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos believed that by joining the Entente the Greek Grand Idea
of uniting all Greeks in one country could become a reality. It resulted in Venizelos establishing
another government in Salonika named the Provisional Government of National Defence (which
declared war on the Central Powers in November 1916). This was in reaction to the Bulgarian
invasion of Greece (of Eastern Macedonia) were the government in Athens refused to act on. Even
Fort Rupel was ceded to the Central Powers. The Entente was quick to recognize this government
as the legitimate Greek government. Venizelos had approved Entente forces to embark in Greek ports
to aid the Serbs in October 1915. When Serbia was defeated remnants of the Serbian Army arrived
in Salonika. Dispite all this Greece was still officially neutral, but in reality this neutrality
was violated from the moment Entente forces safely set foot on Greek soil. King Constantine left the
country and in June 1917 Venizelos returned to Athens to reunite Greece as one state. On June 28,
1917 (according to most Greek sources) the Greek state declared war on the Central Powers.
Although Greek troops saw their first action on the Macedonian Front a month
before. Now there was a six-national allied armed force on the Salonika front:
France, Britain, Serbia, Russia, Italy and Greece.
The 'Army of the Orient', these men became known as the gardeners of Salonika as they
created a defensive belt around the city of Salonika (Thessaloniki). These men
however were plagued by mosquitos and many became ill with malaria.
That year the Entente achieved minimal gains on the Macedonian Front (a.k.a. the Salonica Front).
By the time the Greeks declared war on the Central Powers their army had gone up to
60,000 men. Do notice that most Greeks fighting in this army were from the north,
known as the New Lands. In Southern Greece, or Old Greece, whole units had mutinied the
previous year. In other words: the National Schism was perhaps over on paper but not in reality.
During the last months of 1917 and the early months of 1918 the Allies prepared a new
offensive on the Macedonian Front. In May 1918 three Greek divisions took part in the Battle of
Skra and proclaimed victory over the Bulgarians. Before 1918 Bulgaria hadn't lost any of the major
battles it participated in. For example, on multiple occasions it repelled Allied attacks
at Doiran, a small town in Macedonia, where a Bulgarian force built a strong defence line,
which withstood systematic assaults by the Allies. Despite the country's military
successes, the length of the war began to wear the country down: dwindling manpower and resources,
as well as the the toll the war took on the Bulgarian economy. By 1917 the country
had become war-weary when a food crisis began to hit the Bulgarian cities. Many
Bulgarians became malnourished. They became angry much of their food and material went
to their ally Germany. Mid-June Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand got the following report:
‘The soldiers struggle for a daily survival … Meat is given once a week only. The situation
with the clothing is even more awful. The soldiers are poorly dressed and with no shoes. They have to
run barefoot on the rocks against the enemy. Instead of army caps they wear kerchiefs made
of torn sand-sacks. And the winter is coming … The current government created this situation.’
The decisive battle was fought in September that year when the Entente launched the
Vardar Offensive. The Allied force was led by French general Louis Franchet d'Espèrey. The
Allied offensive started with a 580-gun artillery barrage, the most powerful seen in the Balkans.
Yet, the machine guns of the Bulgarians and Germans weren't all put of out action. The
French therefore resorted to flamethrowers to take them down. This was the Battle of Dobro
Pole. By the 18th the Allies had advanced over 15 km. That day British and Greek forces attacked on
Lake Doiran. After two days of heavy fighting the Allied forces were stopped here. However,
two regiments of the Bulgarians mutinied and this resulted in a full Bulgarian retreat. All
in all the Allies had over 17,000 casualties. The Bulgarians over 4,000 and 77,000 were taken POW.
Within a few days most of the Bulgarian Army had collapsed. By 25 September the Bulgarian
government decided to ask the Allies for an end to hostilities. Four days later Bulgaria,
the last country to join the Central Powers,
became the first of the Central Powers to exit the war when an armistice was signed at Salonika:
“In it Bulgaria agreed to the full demobilization of its army (with the exception of a handful of
troops to guard the border with Turkey and the railway lines); the occupation of several
strategic points by Allied troops; the handover of military equipment to Entente forces; and,
most controversially for the government in Sofia, the complete evacuation of all Greek
and Serbian territories conquered during the war, including Macedonia, a territory
that Bulgaria had laid claim to ever since independence in the late nineteenth century.”
After Bulgaria had sued for peace, eventually the Armistice of Salonika was signed. And
this ended the war for Bulgaria. WW1 however would rage on however till November 11, 1918.