You have an army. Tens of thousands of men. And you come to the aid of a beleaguered ally;
so close you can hear sounds of battle as your ally gamely holds out. But then the harsh
realities of nature get in the way.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War
Last week things were still crazy at Gallipoli with plans changing every day, even as the
situation constantly deteriorated for the allies. The Austro-Hungarian, German, and
Bulgarian armies were driving their way through Serbia, and battles at the Isonzo River, in
Artois, and in Champagne all came to an end with total casualties on all sides approaching
half a million men, and on the Eastern Front sporadic Russian attacks took POWs by the
tens of thousands. Here’s what followed.
That battle at the Isonzo River was the Third Battle for that river.
As it turned out, there was only a week between the end of the Third Battle of the Isonzo
River and the beginning of the fourth one, which kicked off November 10th, so a lot of
people think of the Fourth as a continuation of the Third. But you know, what? It’s kind
of more accurate to call the Fourth a replay of the Third. The objectives, the commanders,
the strategy and tactics were all basically the same. The main difference was the weather.
Winter had arrived early this year in the Julian Alps, and- at least up there- snow
and sleet made combat there almost impossible.
Casualties in the Third battle had been high on both sides, some 68,000 for the Italians
and 42,000 for the Austro-Hungarians, and both sides worked really hard to bring their
armies back up to snuff. Thing is, by this time experienced Italian soldiers were being
replaced with raw recruits straight out of training camp. That doesn’t bode well for
reducing casualties. Especially when Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna’s belief in
“the final push” with mass infantry attacks against entrenched Austrian positions comes into the picture.
On the Austrian side, since things were looking a lot better over on the Eastern Front than
several months ago, General Svetozar Borojevic von Bojna was able to not only replace his
losses from the Third Battle, but also increase his reserves. His biggest problem was that
Austrian industrial production couldn’t keep up with demand, so he was always short
of artillery shells, grenades, mortars, and even ammunition. One thing he did have was
high morale. Against Russia, many of the polyglot soldiers of the Imperial army had no sympathy
for war, but against the Italians not so. They believed they were fighting to defend
their homeland against traitors, so on this front they were really gung ho. Remember,
Italy had been an ally of Austria-Hungary until the war broke out, but earlier this year had joined the allies.
Oh, a side note here. In the Thi rd Battle, the Italian army had begun using steel helmets,
brought in from France. I’ve said before that on this front, since it was all rock,
splinters from the limestone often caused deadly head wounds, so it’s sort of remarkable
that the Austrians would have to wait until autumn 1916 to get their own steel helmets.
And heading further southeast to Serbia, we can see what the Austrians were up to there,
where things were looking quite good for them.
The Serbs were being inexorably pushed back by the Austrians, the Germans, and the Bulgarians.
The fall of Nis, on November 5th, had been the worst blow to the Serbs since Belgrade
fell a month ago. The German and Austrian papers made a big deal about it, because it
allowed a direct rail link between Berlin and Constantinople, and all of Europe now
realized that the final days of Serbian resistance were now at hand.
Down in Macedonia, though, the Bulgarians under General Todoroff were having a tricky
time with the invasion. The Serbs under Colonel Bojovic were defending themselves in the Katshanik
Pass, daily beating back the Bulgarian assaults, and keeping open the line of retreat for the
main Serbian army. The Bulgarians were basically in the same position and trying to do the
same thing as they had in the Second Balkan War in 1913, only then they were trying to
drive a wedge between the Serbs and the Greeks, and now it was the French in place of the Greeks.
Further south, the Bulgarians advanced toward the Babuna Pass, also well defended by the
Serbs. If they forced this pass, both the Serbian line and the French line to the south
were in danger of being flanked. It must be held at all costs, and here’s a quote from
“The Story of the Great War” about what followed: “The stand the Serbians made in
Babuna Pass was one of those feats which will remain inscribed of the pages of history through
the ages and will excite the admiration of all people, regardless of how their sympathies
may lie toward the main issues of the war. “
In early November, Serbian Colonel Vassitch had around 5,000 men. The Bulgarians had four
times that number and a big advantage in artillery. Bulgarian attacks intensified as this week
began, but they were still thrown back again and again. By this time, the French were only
15 kilometers away and could hear the sounds of battle.
The road the French under General Maurice Sarrail would have to take to the pass crossed
the Tcherna River- the Black River- and then crossed difficult mountain ridges, which the
Bulgarians had fortified. Sarrail was still determined to try. Thing is, the river was
not fordable, and was only crossable in one place, a small plank bridge at Vozartzi. At
the beginning of the week, the French began to cross the bridge and scale the heights,
the sound of battle now in range. On November 6th, the French attacked the Bulgarians on
Mount Archangel, and Sarrail knew he must break through here if he was to reach the
Serbian forces.
The French were outnumbered and the Bulgarian positions fortified, but still, at the first
attack, the Bulgarians were driven from the base of the mountain. By the 10th, the French
had pushed the Bulgarians out of Sirkovo, but Bulgarian reinforcements had begun to
arrive and by the end of the week the Bulgarians, now 60,000 strong began to take the offensive.
The French could advance no more.
Someone else who could seemingly advance no more was the Germans in the Northeast.
We saw that Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg’s forces had been stopped and were unable to
take Dvinsk or Riga, and on November 12th, in a meeting with the Kaiser, Hindenburg said
that if the Kaiser insisted on their capture, Hindenburg would resign. His forces were spending
these days slowly retreating from Riga, Shlok, and Kemmen.
And here’s something that happened last week that I didn’t have time to talk about.
The Battle of Banjo happened in Kamerun November 4-6. Now, earlier this year, the British Commander
in the region, Hugh Cunliffe had won the second battle of Garua and the battle of Ngaundere,
and when the rainy season had come he had taken part in the on-going siege of Mora instead
of advancing to the German base at Jaunde. Now that the rains had come and gone, he had
moved toward the town of Banjo, near which was a German fort under Captain Adolf Schipper
that was the last German stronghold before Jaunde.
The British occupied the town of Banjo in late October, but didn’t attack the fort
until November 4th. They attacked in a fog and surprised the Germans and askaris, but
were still forced to retreat. Throughout the next day they were held at bay, with the Germans
often using dynamite to hold them off, until the night of the 5th in a thunderstorm, when
the final attack was made. Schipper was killed and much of the German garrison deserted,
though most of the deserters were later captured. This pretty much marked the end of German
resistance in northern Kamerun, though the siege of Mora would continue for months and
Jaunde wouldn’t fall into British hands until January 1916.
And that was the week. The Italians trying yet again just a few days after the last push.
The Germans despairing of taking Riga or Dvinsk, losing important territory in Africa, but
on the move through northern Serbia, as further south the French were unable to breakthrough
and stop the Bulgarians.
One little wooden bridge. That’s all the French had to get their men across the Tcherna
River. So close they could hear their allies fighting the Bulgarians. Imagine how frustrating
it must have been to hear that, and know that the river was unfordable, uncrossable except
ever so slowly on a rickety wooden bridge. If only the river was shallower, if only the
cliffs weren’t so steep, “if only”- how many lives might have been saved? You
could have reached your ally and made a stand together. You could have bought time to save
tens of thousands of your civilians from the invaders. If only. Yeah, if only this war
had never begun, you wouldn’t need to say if only.
Bulgaria was still fairly new to the Great War in Europe and if you want to find out
why they joined on the side of the Central Powers, check out our special episode right here.
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