The E. front was chosen for attack. The preliminary bombard-
ment was carried out on March 24, and in the night of the 24th
25th the whole of the advanced line on the E. front was stormed, on
a 6 m. frontage. During the day of the 25th the Bulgarians suffered
a good deal in the captured positions, but Gen Ivanov determined to
push home the assault on the main position on the night of the 25th-
26th, an order which involved an approach march in broad daylight
and consequently heavy losses.
The assault was duly delivered in the night, and came to a stand- still on the Turkish wire, save at the point where the loth Bulgarian Regt. of the 8th Div. (brought over from the S. front for the assault) broke into Fort Ayi Yolu, the second work from the N.E. salient of Arnautkoi.
At dawn this regiment found itself isolated but in possession of the fort, and the open gorges of the row of forts tempted the audacious commander to strike out right and left along the ridge. Thus he cleared the -way for unit after unit held up at the frontal wire, and, growing snowball fashion, the Bulgarian attack, soon joined by accompanying field batteries, cleared the whole line of the eastern forts by 8 A.M. on the 26th. Meantime the Serbians had captured Papas Tepe, though with considerable losses, and at other parts of the front fierce local attacks were delivered. Shukri's position was hopeless, and he surrendered about midday, with some 60,000 men and all his materiel. This great triumph cost the Bulgarians on the E. front 6,300 killed and wounded, and on the S. side 1,700, or 8,000 in all, while the Serbians lost 1,000 in the Papas Tepe sector and 400 elsewhere -a total loss to the allies of 9,400.
V. The Second Balkan War, 1913. The Turkish war having again been brought to a conclusion by a general armistice, a few days after the fall of Adrianople, peace negotiations were resumed in London, and in these negotiations the settlement of peace as far as Turkey was concerned was, it may be said, the least of many preoccupations. Not only was the Balkan league on the point of internal explosion, but the Concert of Europe was trying to create the new state of Albania in the midst of a three-cornered diplomatic contest between Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia. Further, Rumania was on the point of intervening in order to secure herself against the consequences of Bulgarian aggrandisement, and the internal politics of Turkey became more confused than ever. In these conditions the Peace of London, signed on May 30, lacked every element of reality.
Already Serbia had drawn her western forces into the Ovche Polye area, to dispute possession of the debatable region which Bul- garia claimed, and the II. Army, which had taken part in the siege of Adrianople, was extricated as rapidly as possible lest it be isolated and disarmed in the territory of its allies. The Greeks, who had concentrated the bulk of their forces in roadless Epirus for the siege of Yannina, lost no time in getting them down to the, coast and shipping them to Salonika. For their part the Bulgarians used the railway lines Adrianople-Sofia and Dede Aghach-Seres (the latter secured by the conquest of the coastal region by the 7th and 2nd Divs. in the first campaign) to bring most of their forces into Mace- donia.
They were deployed along a " line of demarcation " which was a battle-front in all but name. Only one division remained in Adri- anople and some militia on the Dobruja frontier.
The origin of the war, as between Bulgaria and Serbia, lay in the non-observance by Bulgaria of the original treaty stipulation that she should aid the Serbian campaign in Macedonia with 100,000 men. Having failed to fulfil her part, she now claimed the territory about Uskub, Kumanovo, and Shtip in virtue of other clauses of that treaty. This claim Serbia was in no mood to concede, all the less so since her advance to the Adriatic had been forbidden by the Great Powers. As between Bulgaria and Greece, the former's claim to Salonika seems to have had no better basis than a desire to possess it. As already mentioned, the Bulgarian 7th Div., in arriving from the Struma side a' few days after the Crown Prince had fought his way into Salonika from the W., had lost no time in publicly claiming ownership, and it was with hardly concealed joy that the Greek Government received and promptly executed a request to transport this division by sea to the Thracian theatre.
On all these matters bargaining might possibly have reached satisfactory solutions, since there was much to justify Bulgaria's claim in Macedonia. But the Bulgarians had skilfully exploited their primacy during the first war to induce the European press and public to regard Serbians and Greeks as mere satellites, 1 and, as is not unusually the case with successful propaganda, they had come to believe in it themselves, fortified in the belief by fulsome compli- ments addressing them as the " Prussians of the Balkans " and the " Japanese of the West." On the other hand, the Serbs and the Greeks, thus kept out of the banquet, were not only exasperated, but sober as well. When war came in the last days of June 1913, outpost " incidents " were occurring at many points of the line from Salonika to the old Serbian frontier at Vranya. The combatants were fully deployed, and their battle was the first example of the form that has
1 For example, a British officer lecturing at the staff college on his return from Thrace told his hearers that the Bulgarian 7th Div. had remained in the Macedonian theatre to stiffen the Serbs an extraordinary travesty of the facts.
since become typical of national warfare, the front-to-front conflict along a line which stretches from neutral ground to neutral ground and shows no flank. In this instance it stretched from the Danube to the sea.
The Bulgarian scheme of operations, necessarily offensive, suffered from the weakness of having two objectives the Ovche Polye and Salonika and being based on two main lines of communication diverging towards the rear Kyustendil and Seres-Drama. It also suffered from the political necessity of avoiding the outward sem- blance of an aggression. The scheme, therefore, was to begin with a succession of outpost affrays along the whole line (which could be represented as a provocation suffered), and then to strike vigorous offensive blows (a) from Seres towards Salonika, (b) from Strumitsa and Radovishta against the Vardar at Krivolak and Gevgeli (Gyev- gheli), (the link between the Serbian and Greek armies) ; and (c) a blow from the region of Kochana towards Egri Palanka. The out- post affrays duly occurred and the real offensives were launched on June 30.
At the opening of the Bregalnitsa battle, the forces were thus disposed : Bulgarian Army. Commanded by Gen. Radko Dimitriev.*
I. Army (Kutinchey) (Vidin-Berkovitsa front).
V. Army (Petrov) (Pirot-Vlasina front).
III. Army (Toshev)
(Kyustendil).
IV. Army (Korachev)
(Kochana- Radovishta front).
9th Div. ; one brigade each of 5th, 8th, and I4th Divs. ; I3th Div.
1st Div.; main body 5th Div.; main body I4th Div., and one brigade loth Div.
I2th Div., 15th Div., and main body 4th Div.
VI.
Army (Ivanov) (Stru mitsa-Seres front).
Volunteer brigade; one brigade 4th Div.; 7th Div., main body 8th Div.; one brigade 3rd Div. ; main body 6th Div. ; 2nd Div.
Main body 3rd Div.; a volunteer brigade; nth Div.; one brigade loth Div., and one brigade 6th Div.
(The divisions 12 to 15 were new formations, much weaker than the divisions I to 9; the loth and nth Divs., created in Oct. 1912, were of intermediate strength.)
Serbian Army. Commanded by Putnikas, Chief of General Staff. II. Army (Stepanovich) Third Ban garrisons of Zayechar and (Danube to Vlasina). Knyashevats. TimokL.Shumaja II. I. Army (Crown Prince) Danube II., Danube I., Shumaja I. (from the old frontier to Car Vrh, astride the Egri Palanka road). III. Army (Yankovich)
(along the Zletovska and the lower Bre- galnitsa with detach- ments at Krivolak and Gevgeli).
Greek Army. Commanded by Constantino (since March 18, King of the Hellenes).
(Front : Gevgeli Left group
on the Vardar Centre "
to the Right '
Struma mouth.) Reserve
(The loth Div. was an improvised formation.)
In addition, to deal with Albanian troubles, each of the allies retained considerable forces in the mountains; including the main body of the Montenegrin army.
Beginning on June 30, the Bulgarian II. Army drove the Greek front back all along the line till it lay S. of Gevgeli N. of Langaza W. of Struma mouth. The Bulgarian IV. Army broke in between the allies and captured Krivolak with its left, while its right, along with the III. Army, attacked the Serbians along the whole Bregalnitsa- Zletovska line, which was forced. On the Egri Palanka front the Bulgarian IV. Army similarly drove in the Serbian I. Army's out- posts.
But the Serbians, and also the Greeks, were disposed in consider- able depth, and the Bulgarian soldier had little heart for the offensive once it became evident that the enemy was determined to fight. By the night of July I the offensive had died down, and it was the allies' turn to counter-attack. At this moment the Bulgarian-Serbian battle line ran approximately through Krivolak-Dragoyevo-Shtip line of the Bregalnitsa and lower Zletovska-Raychani heights Gorni Posadnik-Redki Buku-Car Vrh-heights E. of Egri Palanka-heights W. of and parallel to the frontier-headwaters of river Pcinja. At the apex of the Serbian salient the Bulgarians had obtained a firm hold on Car Vrh.
Initiated on July 2, and developed on a large scale on the 3rd, the counter-attack of the Serbian III. Army broke through the Bulgarian line between the Zletovska and Redki Buku inclusive, hustling the defenders back on the 3rd and 4th to the upper Bregalnitsa. Mean-
2 Gen. Savov had resigned, not being in agreement with the war policy of the Government.
Drina II.
Morava II. Morava I., Timok II. Montenegrin contingent, Cavalry divi- sion.
3rd and loth Divs. 4th and 5th Divs. 1st, 6th and 7th Divs. 2nd Div.
