informed by the British Government that he was not to engage in offensive operations, and was only to consider himself under Sarrail's orders in respect of the defence of the entrenched camp. He informed Sarrail accordingly, and suggested that the British should take over the Struma front, to which Sarrail agreed. The Serbs were now preparing to take up the front from Vodena to Lyumnitsa, with their centre of gravity on the right, the French held from Lyumnitsa to the Poroy road, and the British to the right of that road from Loznitsa to Orlyak. On the 1 2th Sarrail was ordered not to take any action that would involve the British in operations unconcerned with the defence of Salonika itself, and to limit himself to threatening the Bulgarians by a deployment close up to the frontier; and on the I4th he was notified that the French Government had agreed to the British proposal to postpone the offensive.
A few days later, on the 25th, he was informed that though the instructions of the i4th held good in general, events might rapidly make it necessary for him to attack, though with a limited objective, and using the French and the Serbians only; and on July 15 he was told that the British Government had agreed that if Rumania intervened all British troops equipped for mountain warfare should participate in Sarrail's offensive, and instructed to prepare to " pin the Bulgarians on the Greek frontier and put them out of action so far as serious operations against Rumania were concerned." Three days later, on July 17, G.Q.G. informed the French commander that the Entente- Rumanian military convention would probably be signed on the basis of (a) an offensive from Salonika on Aug. i, to cover the final preparations of the Rumanians and their initial operations against Transylvania; (b) a Russo-Rumanian offensive begin- ning on Aug. 8, and directed against Bulgaria; and finally (c) a combined advance of the Russo-Rumanian Army and the Salonika forces with a view to uniting and crushing the Bul- garian Army in the field. A few days later a formula agreed upon between the various Allies constituted Sarrail commander- in-chief of the French, British, and Serbian Armies, as also of the Italian and Russian contingents, 1 Gen. Cordonnier being appointed to command the Armee franqaise d' Orient as a con- stituent part of the Allied Army.
Sarrail's new plan was to dispose Milne's available forces on the front Dova Tepe (exclusive)-Lake Ardzan (exclusive) or to the Vardar if possible, to reduce Cordonnier's troops E. of Dova Tepe and Milne's on the Struma front 2 to a minimum, and with Cordonnier's Army to attack on the front Vardar- Doiran, while the Serbs from above Vodena made their main attack on Huma and subsidiary advances towards the Cerna bend and possibly Monastir. This plan was approved by Joffre, who added that the British Army would receive instructions from the War Office not to limit itself to defensive or demon- strative action. But these instructions, from Gen. Robertson to Gen. Milne, introduced an important limitation in their general approval. Milne was " not to try to take the enemy's positions until an adequate equipment of heavy artillery and other conditions gave a reasonable expectation of success," and the offensive was " not to be taken till Rumania definitely came into the field," an event of which Sir W. Robertson, like Sarrail, had his doubts. Presently came the first hitch in the military convention negotiations. Rumania was not to move till Aug. 14, and Sarrail was to act ten days before that date. But on Aug. 3, the eve of the offensive, the convention was still unsigned, Rumania having expressed the intention of not declar- ing war on Bulgaria unless large Russian forces were added to her Danube Army; in these circumstances Sarrail's mission
1 In the case of the Italian Division the powers of the commander- in-chief were specially limited. The Russians were, however, unre- servedly at the disposal of the French. In general the formula from which Sarrail derived his authority was somewhat similar to that which was agreed upon later in the case of Nivelle. It was far from being a real international command such as that of Foch in 1918.
2 The prevalence in that region of malaria, discovered by expe- rience, had caused Sarrail to abandon the earlier project of deliver- ing a principal attack with three French Divisions on the Belashitsa front in the summer months.
was reduced to " harassing " the Bulgarian Armies on his front, without ulterior purpose, from a date to be determined later (telegrams from Joffre to Sarrail Aug. 3 and 6). Finally, the convention was signed on Aug. 17, without any engagements on Rumania's part to declare war on Bulgaria. On that very day the Bulgarians began to push forward. Proposals for shortening and improving their line by pushing it forward on the one hand from the Monastir frontier towards Ostrovo, and on the other from Rupel to the angle of the Struma, had, in the spring, been put before Falkenhayn by Mackensen (who still commanded, under somewhat indeterminate conditions, the forces of the Central Powers in Bulgaria and Macedonia). Falkenhayn had declined at the time owing to the risk of bring- ing Greece into the ranks of the enemy. Now, however, it seemed safe to ignore this danger, and desirable to forestall the relief offensive that would doubtless accompany Rumania's intervention, 3 and on Aug. 17 a series of encounter-combats began between Sarrail's various groups, advancing for their deployment on the frontier, and the wing elements of the enemy. In the centre, the i7th Colonial Division, the British assisting to some extent, 4 took, lost and retook Dodzelli (Aug. 17-8). But on the left the French cavalry group, already mentioned, which was operating E. of the Struma bend, was driven in by a serious Bulgarian movement from Rupel and through the mountains from the Nevrekop region, and, had it not been that the Bulgarians used part of their forces in taking possession of the coveted coastal strip of Kavalla, the Struma line itself might have been forced. As it was both the French cavalry group and the British force further down the river were able to establish a sufficiently strong defence of the river. On the other flank the Bulgarian attack encountered the Serbians in the process of concentrating forward.
The new Serbian Army, commanded by the Prince Regent Alexander, with Boyovich as his assistant, was organized in three weak " Armies," the I. Army under Mishich, the II. under Stepanovich, and the III. under Yurichich-Sturm, who was shortly afterwards succeeded by Col. Vasich; of these the I. was in touch with the left of the French i22nd Div. about Lyumnitsa, the II: on .its left, and the III. formed the left wing, advancing methodically and by short stages towards Banitsa. On the 1 7th advanced elements of the Danube Div. (III. Army) were driven out of Fiorina, and on the i8th a hasty counter- attack on that point failed. The Bulgarian Army developed considerable strength (6th and 8th Divs. I. Army) and on the igth, the Danube Div., attacking again, was flung back a con- siderable distance to beyond Banitsa. Meantime the II. Army, working up in the Moglena district, repulsed such attacks as were made on it, and continued its deployment in front of the Moglena mountains, the left directed on Kaimakchalan, and the I. Army, between the II. and the French left at Lyumnitsa, remained undisturbed.
8 A new military convention between the four Central Powers had provided that, in case Rumania declared war on Austria, Bul- garia and Turkey would do so against her.
4 On the 1 8th the French divisional commander asked for British aid to secure his flanks and enable him to hold what he had won. But, Rumania having refused to declare war against Bulgaria, Milne, having regard to War Office reservations, declined and appealed to Sarrail to refrain from putting him, as a soldier, in the impossible position of being an inactive witness of enterprises that had no chance of success without his assistance. Sarrail, however, says that Milne had promised, before the movement on Doiran began on Aug. 10, that although he was not authorized to take the offensive, he would not leave the French with their flanks in the air. Taking these two pieces of evidence together, the only conclusion possible is that the formula defining Sarrail's authority as commander-in-chief was too limited to be of much practical value in ensuring military unity, yet too extended if the Governments desired to preserve their control of policy. Too much was left to interpretation, and the commander-in-chief was obviously exposed to the temptation of planning his operations so as to create the case for the promised assistance. Indeed Joffre's directions of July 15 contained a per- sonal instruction to Sarrail in this sense (see Sarrail, p. 361, telegram 4977/M., 4979/M, and especially 4g8o/M pour le General seal). The story of the Salonika campaign can only be understood by bear- ing in mind the political and personal undercurrents affecting it.
