Impressed by the attacks on his flanks and in particular that on his left, and limited by the outcome of the Rumanian negotia- tions to fighting without ulterior purpose instructed, further, by Joffre (apparently on the i6th) to attack three days after the signature of the Rumanian convention, viz. on the zoth Sarrail changed his plan. Everything E. of the Vardar was to be defensive, everything W. of it offensive. On the extreme left irregular bands (which Sarrail had formed or subsidized) were to cut communications between Fiorina and the S., and to work their way into southern Albania, where cooperation had been promised by the Italian troops at Valona. An improvised French brigade was to move over to support the left of the Serbians by an attack round the S. and W. sides of Lake Ostrovo. The Serbian left was to hold up the Bulgarian advance, and the four remaining divisions to attack Kaimakchalan and the range to the E. of that point, supported by part of the French 1 2 2nd Div. in front of Lyumnitsa. East of the river, the re- mainder of the 1 2 2nd Div. was to stand fast, the zyth Colonial to attack W. of Lake Doiran and the 57th to demonstrate E. of it, all available British artillery participating in the effort of the I7th Colonial. The British divisions in this region (22nd and z6th) were to follow, and the Italian Div. of Gen. Pettiti, in process of disembarkation, was to relieve the 57th French Div., which was then to be transferred to the left wing. East of Dova Tepe the defensive front was to be under the command of Gen. Briggs and held by the British 28th Div., the French cavalry group (which was to explore on the further bank as before) and part of the British 27th Div., the remainder of Milne's Army being in reserve.
At this date, according to a French parliamentary paper, Sarrail's total force, combatant and non-combatant, inclusive of all details, had a ration strength of about 350,000 (four French, five British, six Serbian, and one Italian division, and a Russian brigade), and a combatant strength of 145,000 rifles, 3,000 sabres, 1,300 machine-guns and 1,032 guns, of which, however, 36,000 British infantry were not available for general service, and the 11,000 Italians only began to disembark in the last days of August.
During the regrouping process the Serbian left was driven back slowly, but in order, and on the 23rd the Vardar and the Danube divisions were about the N.W. corner of Lake Ostrovo with part of Timok, and the French Provisional divisions and the French 12 2nd Div. were engaged in various partial combats on the line Kaimakchalan-Lyumnitsa. On the Doiran and Struma fronts small engagements were frequent, and the French cavalry group, which again attempted to operate E. of the Struma, was driven in by superior forces with somewhat heavy losses. The Bulgarian attacks, however, as has been said before, had no more serious purpose than shortening the line and sketching out a sort of preventive attack, and they died down about Sept. i, at which date the position of the Serbian left was practically the same as it had been on the 23rd, while the Struma front was unmolested.
Meanwhile the Rumanians had come into the field, and Bulgaria had declared war upon them. In a directive of the 24th, therefore, Joffre ordered Sarrail to continue to check the Bulgarian advance, thereby fulfilling his mission of protecting the Rumanian deployment, and to prepare for a counter- offensive, the date and objective of which was practically left to Sarrail's discretion. For this offensive Sarrail relieved the 57th Div. from the Dova Tepe front and the 12 2nd from the Vardar valley front, the Italians replacing the 57th, and the British divisions already on the spot taking over the whole front from Doiran to the Vardar. This enabled a group to be formed under Cordonnier consisting of the French 5 7th and i56th Divs. and provisional brigade, the Serbian Morava Div. 1 (released from the Lyumnitsa region by the I22nd), the Russians, and the various irregular bands above mentioned. As soon as this group should be ready the offensive was to be launched against the right flank of the enemy's new line. This
1 In the sequel this division was taken to support the Gornichevo attack, and did not join Cordonnier.
was carried out on the whole front on Sept. 10. On the Struma front (Briggs) six British detachments, and another French cavalry group also, were sent over the river at different points to engage and hold the enemy in that quarter. No permanent foothold was gained or sought, and the troops were withdrawn on the nth. On the Doiran- Vardar front, after heavy bombard- ments on the nth, i2th and i3th, a salient in the position of the German loist Div. was stormed on the night of the 13-14, but given up under counter-attacks on the following day. The French I7th Colonial Div. and the Italians made similar local attacks, and from time to time other coups de main took place as well as patrol activity and aerial bombing, with the object of detaining as many troops of the German XI. and Bulgarian II. Armies as possible, while the main attack was being developed W. of the Vardar. This began on the nth, both for the Serbians and for the Cordonnier group. The former pushed up towards Kaimakchalan and Vetrenik mountains with three divisions (aided by the French i22nd Div. which carried Mayadag) and grouped the Vardar, Danube and Morava divisions for the attack of the mountain pass of Gornichevo W. of Lake Ostrovo. The Cordonnier group, much hampered in its concentration by road difficulties, and by the piecemeal arrival of the formations composing it, advanced to Rakita and Hill 633 on the Kayalar- Banitsa road on the nth, with the Russians, as flank guard at the mountain pass of Vlachoklisura. On the izth Cordonnier's main body reached Rudnik, the Russians the mountains 1414 and 1348 N. of Vlachoklisura, and a Serbian liaison group occupied Sotir. On the i3th there was fighting along the whole front from Kaimakchalan to the Russian positions, Cordonnier gaining a line at the foot of the Malareka ridge, and on the i4th the Serbs broke through the hostile line at Gornichevo, capturing 32 guns.
Unhappily, in these operations an acute difference arose between Cordonnier and Sarrail. The former, the man on the spot, conducting his offensive on the methodical lines of the battles of France, from which he had recently come and in which he had played a brilliant role, moved too slowly to sat- isfy Sarrail, who, released at last from all restrictions of higher policy, was determined to signalize his name and silence his opponents with a first-class victory. As to which was in the right it will be for history to say; probably it will be found that this is no more than one of the incidents between a higher com- mand in a central command post and a subordinate command in the field that are so common and indeed inevitable in moments of crisis. But the peculiar factors of this case, personal and international, gave the incident a lasting importance. In the event, the Bulgarians, broken by the Serbians at Gornichevo, were able to retreat across the front of Cordonnier's force and reestablish themselves on the line of the Brod, blowing up in their retreat the important viaduct of Ekshisu.
The battle now entered upon a second phase, which lasted from Sept. 15 to Oct. 30. In this period small actions on the Struma and Doiran front were continued; thus the British sent several detachments over the Struma on the isth and 23rd, and a more serious move was made on the 3oth, when Gen. Briggs initiated a methodical advance which brought him by Oct. 8 to the line Agomali-Elishan-Ormanli with advanced elements along the Belika stream facing Seres. On the Doiran front several local enterprises were carried out by the British and Italians. Meantime, on the Adriatic coast, the Italians were moving onwards from Valona along the Voyusa valley, Premeti being occupied on Oct. 9.
The practical effect of these holding attacks and demon- strative moves on the main battle-front between Vardar and Brod seems, however, to have been much smaller than it had been in the first stage. According to Sarrail twenty Bulgarian battalions were shifted over from the British front to that of the French and Serbians in the last days of September. This was only to be expected. When the real front of battle became definite, merely potential battles ceased to possess effective binding power. But the Struma front, though militarily eccentric, had possibilities in the political sense; an advance on that side threatened the Bulgarian occupation of the Kavalla region
