lowed the Moravitsa valley; Danube I. and Danube II., on the left that of the Pcinja ; while Drina I. moved along the watershed between these rivers. The cavalry division was kept back till the infantry should have gained ground in the plain. The II. Army moved on the same day, but very slowly, along the Kyustcndil- Egri-Palanka road, with instructions to advance thence both on Stratsin (Stracin) and on Kratovo, gaining touch with the I. Army W. of the former place. Bulgarian cooperation was limited to a movement by one brigade over the mountains towards the upper Bregalnitsa. The rest of the yth Div. frankly began its march over Jumaya Pass into the Struma valley, heading for Seres.
That evening, without having obtained touch either with the II. or the III. Armies, the I. Army halted on the line Tabanovche- Star-Nagorichino, disposed in depth and entrenched, with orders to stand fast on the 22nd and wait developments on its flanks. Resist- ance so far had been slight, but on the 22nd Turkish forces of some strength were reported at Kumanovo.
The Ovche Polye was, after all, not to play the part of Konig- gratz. At first, it seems, the Goltz plan of a defensive concentration there, to be followed by radial attacks on divided enemies, was adhered to by the Turks. But when at the last moment it became clear that the Bulgarian effort was concentrated on Thrace, 'Ali Riza Pasha, commander-in-chief in the Macedonian theatre, was ordered to take the offensive. Zekki Pasha, in charge of the three corps grouped in the Vardar region, was at once directed by 'Ali Riza to move forward against the Serbians as they debouched from the mountains.
Of 'Ali Riza's 25 divisions, 3 were scattered between Prishtina and the Austrian frontier, 35 at Scutari, j at Dibra, and I at Prizren; 2 opposing the Greek main army in Thessaly and 2 the Greek secondary army in Epirus; 3 in the Struma valley and I guarding the railway between Veles and Salonika, making, in all, 16 which were totally unavailable for battle in the decisive theatre. 1 Of the remaining 9, I was at Prishtina, 2 in the valleys of the Bregalnitsa and the Zletovska facing Kochana and Kratovo, and 6, forming the main group under Zekki, advanced across the Ovche Polye on the 2 1st and 22nd, the V. Corps then halting N. of Novoselyani, the VI. N. of Slatina and the VII. N. and N.E. of Kumanovo.
Viewed as a whole, 'Ali Riza's forces, scattered as they inevitably were through the need of holding territory, were reasonably well distributed, in that, though the Turks were in the ensemble inferior in the ratio of I to 2\, their handicap on the decisive battlefield reduced itself to the ratio of I to about I j. Had still further econ- omies been practised (in the Struma valley for instance) this handi- cap might have disappeared. But uncertainty as to Bulgarian move- ments and dispositions was not yet cleared up. In any case, the seizure of the initiative at a moment when the Serbian I. Army was rstill cramped and out of touch with its neighbours went far to meutralize the numerical disadvantage.
As a matter of fact, Zekki intended to use the day of the 23rd for closing up his columns and narrowing his front; and, Prince Alex- .ander's intentions being the same, the day would have been unevent- ful but for the initiatives of subordinates on both sides.
Turkish attacks Turkish corps Serbian troops
The Serbian Danube I. Div., on the evening of the 22nd, had been
tempted to go forward, out of alignment, by the evident tactical
advantages of a position farther south. On the morning of the 23rd
it was formed in an arc facing S. and S.W., with its left flank on the
Pcinja, near Voynik, its centre looking towards Slatina and its right
on hill 650, and in that position it was attacked by the heads of 4
Turkish divisions. A fierce battle raged all day on this front, while
the other 2 Turkish divisions (VII. Corps) engaged Morava I., N. of
Kumanovo with indecisive results, and the remaining Serbian
'These outlying divisions are catalogued here as such. But their tstrengths were in reality very unequal.
divisions, Drina I. in the centre, Timok II. behind the right and Danube II. behind the left, remained practically inactive, partly in ignorance of what was taking place (the Army Command itself was in the like case), partly because strict orders had been given to stand fast during the 23rd. Only Drina I. came into action towards eve- ning, and the situation was critical when fighting died away and army headquarters at last became aware of the facts. During the night the remaining divisions were urged forward to the battlefield.
Next day they came progressively into action. The stubborn resistance of Danube I. had shaken the attacking power of two-thirds of Zekki's force, and the intervention of Danube II. and the Serbian cavalry division on the 24th completed the work, after hard fighting beyond the Pcinja. And when a few advanced troops of the II. Army from Egri Palanka reached the outskirts of the battlefield, the V. and VI. Turkish Corps, fearing to be enveloped, retreated south- ward into the Ovche Polye. In the centre, Drina I. drove forward far into the weakest part of the enemy's system. On the Serbian right, the Turkish positions between Cerno Polye and Lipkovo in the foothills of the Kara Dagh fell to the attack of Morava I. and Timok
II. in the afternoon. With a loss of some 4,500 killed and wounded (nearly half of these in Danube I.), the Serbians had won the first great battle of the campaign. But it was not a bataille sans lendemain as the Serbo-Bulgarian convention had intended it to be. Neither the
III. Army, which coming in from Prishtina was still two days' marches distant, nor the II., which consisted effectively of one division only, could help to make it so. And in consequence no real pursuit was made, the I. Army halting and entrenching on the ground it had gained. Actually, a pursuit would have closed the campaign, for the Turkish retreat had converted itself into a rout. Even Uskub was evacuated, and the force barring the Kachanik defile against the III. Serbian Army withdrawn.
For some days the Serbian G.H.Q. continued to keep a tight rein on its armies, grouping them principally for a battle against the " Turkish main army " presumed to be about Veles-Shtip. The cavalry division advanced to St. Nicholas, a point equidistant from these two towns, while Timok I. (II. Army) passed Kratovo and moved on Cerni Vzh, which was not captured till the 26th. The I. Army followed carefully to the latitude of Gradishte, while the III., parts of which for the sake of earlier contact with the I. had used routes E. of Kachanik that had now become eccentric, moved up slowly on its right. Drina II. was left at Prishtina to secure the country and cooperate with the Ibar Force, while Uskub was held by Morava I. So difficult was the country and so imperfect the liaisons that it was not till the 29th that the deployment of the I., II. and III. Annies across the Ovche Polye was complete.
By that time the Turks had long evacuated the right bank of the Vardar. The remains of the VII. Corps from Uskub had gone to Tetovo and part of the V. Corps had retreated down the Vardar, but the bulk of the V. and VI. Corps had retired through Veles towards Monastir and were preparing to offer a new resistance in the Babuna Pass.
But the Serbian G.H.Q. had now gleaned many details of the Turkish rout, and, assuming Zekki's army to be reduced to a remnant which could be crushed between a single Serbian army and the Greeks, it made entirely new dispositions on the 29th. To aid the Bulgarians in the siege of Adrianople, it sent the II. Army, and actually added to it Danube II. in replacement of the Bulgarian 7th Div. which continued its way down the Struma.
To penetrate Albania and gain the desired foothold on the coast, the III. Army (reduced to Drina II. and Shumaja I. and army troops) was sent eastward on Oct. 31.
The I. Army, now consisting of Morava I., Drina I., Danube I., Timok II., Morava II. and the Morava Brigade, was to pursue the Turkish army and complete its ruin, in cooperation with the Greeks.
Meantime, the conquest of the Sanjak of Novibazar and of north- ern Kosovo had been practically completed. From Oct. 10, Monte- negrin forces under Gen. Vukovich had been operating from the inner part of their country towards Plevlye, Byelopolye, Berane, and Gusinye. On the igth, the Ibar Force under Zhivkovich (Shumaja II.) had advanced in several columns which, with more or less irregu- lar fighting and one or two critical moments, had converged on the town of Novibazar and captured the Turkish works on the surround- ing heights by the evening of the 22nd. On the 23rd, Novibazar was occupied, and the work of hunting down the dispersed enemy and their Arnaut auxiliaries began. On the 28th a force from Novibazar, in concert with a detachment of the III. Army from Prishtina, cap- tured Mitrovitsa. In the extreme N. the few Turkish troops avail- able were forced, under pressure from the Montenegrins and the Serbian Yavor Brigade, to concentrate at Plevlya; there they were attacked on the 29th and driven over the Austrian border. On the 3Oth Ipek (Pech) fell to the Montenegrin southern columns. Thence- forward the troops in these regions were only employed on police duties; but their withdrawal to other theatres of war was, in view of a possible intervention by Austria-Hungary, considered undesirable.
The Greek campaign opened on Oct. 18. The 4 active divisions of the Greek army and 3 of the new divisions (5th, 6th, yth) formed the main army in Thessaly under the Crown Prince Constantine, whose chief-of-staff was Gen. Danglis. The 8th and gth Divs., composed almost entirely of reservists and volunteers, constituted the Epirus Army under Sapundjakis.
