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The
German General staff regarded the Balkan as an important, but secondary theatre
of war. From a German point of view the decisive fronts were in France, and Russia. However the Balkans were
not completely neglected. The neutral Balkan states were considered very
important for the outcome of the war, and the German diplomacy made every
effort to bring them on their side into the war. Bulgaria
and Romania were
considered so important, that the German Chief of Staff Erich v. Falkenhayn
in 1915-16 regarded the Balkan neutrals as militarily more crucial than the United States of America.
In
1915, when the English and French fleets attacked the Dardanelles,
the German diplomacy feared that all the neutral Balkan states would join the
Entente. On 16 April 1915 (o.s.) the Chief of the Imperial Military Cabinet,
general Moritz v. Lyncker, wrote in his diary : “If the Dardanelles fall, we
cannot stop Italy, Romania, Greece
and Bulgaria.
This means that the entire Balkan region is against us and the whole Mediterranean Sea too”.
Therefore
Germany did everything to strengthen the Turkish resistance, and in order to
open supply lines to Turkey the Imperial Chancellor Theobald v. Bethmann
Hollweg and his Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Gottlieb v. Jagow, repeatedly
stressed the Chief of the General Staff to conquer at least the so called “Serbian
north-east corner”. But it was only after the great victories against the
Russian Army in summer 1915, that the German Army was able to strike on the
Balkans and to attack Serbia.
By
the beginning of September the Central Powers units began massing.
Heeresgruppe Mackensen was formed by transformation of A.O.K. 11 on 5
September 1915 in
Temesvar, Hungary. It had the task to lead
all the allied forces during the offensive against Serbia. The 3rd
Austro-Hungarian Army, under gen. Herman Kövess von Kövessháza, deployed the
XIX at Kupinovo on the Sava, the German XXII
Reserve Corps on its left, and the VIII Corps opposite Belgrad. A new German
11th Army, under gen. Max v. Gallwitz, was raised and received a
new High Command in the previous A.O.K. 12. It occupied the area from
Semedria to Ram, with the III Corps opposite Semedria, the IV Reserve Corps
cantered on Temes
Island, and the X
Reserve Corps directly across Ram. The Bulgarian 1st Army was
massed between the Danube and Sofia, to
operate against Nish. The 2nd
Bulgarian Army, put under the direct command of the Bulgarian General Staff, was placed in
the area Kyustendil-Gorna Dzhumaya, to operate in Macedonia and cut the vital railroad to Salonika at Skopje.
The
ranging fire began on 20 September, and three days later, the attack was
launched. Like the bombardment at Gorlice-Tarnow, the artillery preparation
was brief, but intense, and in the evening of 24 September and in the
following morning, the infantry began the crossing of the Danube.
Belgrad was abandoned by the Serbian Army on 25 September, Nish
was taken by the 1st Bulgarian Army on 24 October after a fierce
combat, and on 29 October the linking between the Austro-German and the
Bulgarian forces were established. On 21 November, when Bitolja fell in the
hands of the Bulgarian troops, the campaign was effectively over. The 11th
German Army reached the Greek border in December.
This was a
nearly complete victory for the Central Powers. The Serbian Army was
defeated, loosing almost all its weapons, the Anglo-French attack was
repelled, and the railroad from Berlin to Istanbul was finally
opened. The Entente lost the last hope to force the Straits, and the last
British troops left the Dardanelles on 27
December 1915. The only flaw in the victory was the retreat of the Serbian
Army, although almost completely disorganized. It had to be rebuilt almost
from scratch, but, thanks to the help of the French and the British, it could
take part in the fighting throughout the rest of the war.
After
the defeat of Serbia, the
German Army Commander in Macedonia,
Field Marshal August v. Mackensen wanted to attack the Allied forces in
Salonika and throw them into the Mediterranean Sea.
He was supported by the Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian High Commands, but
gen. Falkenhayn denied the request. In a telegram addressed in December to
the Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, gen. Franz Conrad v. Hötzendorf, he
admitted that “it would have been of great morale value to have driven the
Entente out of the Balkans entirely, and that would have been easier through
continuation of our operations than later on, when the enemy had been able to
concentrate its forces”, but, on the basis of a report of the Chief of Staff
of Mackensen, gen. Hans v. Seeckt, he thought that the railway connections
were not sufficient to carry the necessary troops and ammunition to the
Salonika front. The poor supply situation, the severe shortage of heavy
artillery and the strength of the enemy defences persuaded him that any
advance against Salonika would be enormously
risky, leaving not “great illusions about the eventual outcome of the
operation.” Moreover he feared that an advance into the Greek territory would
drive the country into the arms of the Entente : the Greek neutrality,
despite the Greek-Serbian alliance, was regarded as a great advantage for the
Central Powers. Therefore he stopped the victorious troops at the frontier
and respected the Greek neutrality, despite the open violation of it by the
Anglo-French Army.
Such a decision caused the irritation of the Bulgarians. In autumn
1915 the German major v. Laffert wrote from the Greek border that Bulgarian
Army was waiting impatiently for the order to attack and scolded the
politicians : everybody wanted to fight the troops of the Entente. But he
concluded that the true reason of this desire was to provoke a war with Greece too.
In fact Bulgaria wished to
retake the Thracian coastline that was seized by the Greeks in 1913, and
directed its aim to town of Salonika
itself.
At
the beginning of 1916 v. Falkenhayn decided to attack Verdun
in France and on 22
February 1916 he informed Mackensen that the German High Command had finally
given up the idea of renewing the advance towards Salonika.
Therefore he drew back most of the German divisions from the Balkans, despite
harsh Bulgarian and Austrian protests. Leaving too many German soldiers in Macedonia was
regarded as a waste of troops. He thought that the attack against Salonika needed a lot of effort to improve the line of
communications across the Balkans, would be very difficult, and, if
successful, would not have been decisive.
Falkenhayn
considered Salonika as the largest and
voluntary German prisoners-of-war camp of the war. If the attack was
successful the allied troops would leave Salonika by ship and would be
transferred to France, Italy or Turkey,
where they would cause more damage than in Macedonia. Moreover the Bulgarian
leadership would have stopped any substantial military effort. It was very
unlikely that they would have offered their troops to fight on another front
: it was better that the Bulgarian Army blocked an increasing number of
allied troops. If 400,000 French, Serbian, English, Italian and Russian
soldiers were paralyzed by only 60,000 Germans, from a strategic point of
view this was a good deal for Germany.
However
some German military leaders, among them Mackensen himself, were reluctant to
accept this course of action, since they were trained to annihilate the enemy
wherever possible, and this prudent attitude was against their own feelings
and ideas. They emphasized that a successful attack against the Salonika
bridgehead whould secured the whole Balkan region for the Central Powers,
removing the danger of an intervention of Greece into the side of the
Entente. Furthermore they thought that the partisan warfare in Serbian
territory was encouraged by the presence of the Serbian troops fighting in Macedonia. If
they withdrew, it should be easier to master the area. Finally a full control
of Salonika and of the Thracian coastline would enable the establishment of
bases for the German U-boot, making more difficult the enemy communications
in the Mediterranean Sea.
With the departure of the bulk of the German troops, the 11th
Army was composed mainly by Bulgarian divisions, supported by heavy
artillery, machine guns and technical troops provided by Germany. The
only German main unit left in Macedonia,
was the 101st Infantry Division. For operational reasons, on 26
November 1915 the high commands of the 11th German and of the 1st
Bulgarian army exchanged with each other. Field Marshal v. Mackensen kept the
command of these two Armies, while the Austro-Hungarian forces operating in Albania in
December were detached and formed a special Austrian front. The Bulgarian
General Staff however, as a result of special agreements with the German
Supreme Army Command, received the overall command in Macedonia.
Since on 30 July 1916 Field Marshal v. Mackensen had to take
precautions for the threatening war with Romania, so his Army Group was dissolved,
and reformed in Dobrudja on 28 August 1916. Therefore all the Armies deployed
in Macedonia
came under the direct command of the Bulgarian General Staff, after the High
Commands of the 11th German and of the 1st Bulgarian
Army had exchanged again with each other in view of the war situation. On 10
October 1916, after the victorious attack of the Serbian Army against
Bitolja, a new German Army Group was established under the command of general
Otto v. Below. This division of the fighting forces remained until the end of
the war. When gen. v. Below was called to the Western front to take over the
command of the 6th Army, his successor was gen. Friedrich v.
Scholtz and his Army Group was renamed accordingly.
In 1916, in
order to strengthen the cohesion of the Bulgarian forces after the fall of
Bitolja, two “General Commands for special purpose” were formed in Macedonia:
Genkdo. z.b.V. 61, under gen. Karl Suren, on 18 November, and Genkdo. z.b.V.
62, under gen. Richard v. Webern, on 15 December.
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