Austro-Hungarian III. Army (Kovess), and one Bulgarian army, the I. Another, smaller, Bulgarian army (the II., Todorov), not under Mackensen's command, was assembled for the seizure of Macedonia. The political treaty of alliance was ratified on Sept. 4, at Sofia, the military arrangements embodied in a convention at Pless on the 6th. According to the latter, within a period of 30-35 days, Germany and Austro-Hungary were to engage 6 divisions each and Bulgaria 4 (each equivalent in infantry strength to 2 normal divisions). 1 Another Bulgarian division was to operate, as above mentioned, into New Serbia (Macedonia).
Accordingly, Kovess's army, consisting of the Austro-Hunga- rian VIII. and XIX., and the German XXII. Res. Corps (seven divisions), was assembled in Syrmia, and Gallwitz's III., IV. Res. and X. Res. Corps (also seven divisions) in the Banat.
The Bulgarian I. Army (Boyadiev) (ist, sth, 6th and 8th Divs.) was disposed in the region of Vidin, Kula, Bclogradchik and Tsaribrod. The small Austrian forces still available in Bos- nia after meeting the demand of the Italian front, were to operate in the Upper Drina region, to hold the Montenegrins in check.
On the Serbian side, there was a definite and perhaps a decisive inferiority in numbers. Battle in 1914 and typhus in 1915 had cost the little country 125,864 dead by Oct. i 1915, without counting permanently disabled men and prisoners. Gaps had been made good by calling up two new conscript classes, and the ration strength had increased to 572,171 in August. But this figure was far in excess of that available for fighting service indeed, the German intelligence staff estimated the latter at not more than 200,000.
The Serbian dispositions were generally as follows: Drina front from the Lim to Bainabashta, Montenegrin forces; Middle and Lower Drina, Machva to Kolubara (exclusive), III. Army (Yurichich-Sturm), 3 divisions; Kolubara to Grotska, Belgrade force (Zhivkovich); the Lower Morava, II. Army (Mishich), 3 divisions; general reserve, Palanka, 2 divisions and cavalry divi- sion; in the N.E. angle were the Branicevo and Kraina groups.
On the Zayechar-Knzajchevats front, the Timok army (Goyko- vich), on the Nish-Pirot route and to the S. as far as Vranya, the II. Army (Stepanovich), and on the routes into Bulgaria, E. of Uskub, Boyovich's group, comprised 4 divisions and 3 Ban formations.
These dispositions, which at first sight seem to dispose in cor- don, weak everywhere, at least five-sixths of the available force, indicate not only a sense of the danger impending on the E. side, which the Western Powers had forbidden Serbia to meet by a pre- ventive offensive, but also the hope of assistance from Salonika. The help of Greece was invoked under the terms of the treaty of alliance of 1913, that of the Western Powers had been promised, if tardily and with reservations. To deploy, facing N., with three-fifths of her forces, and to guard the route to Salonika with the remainder, was, in sum, Putnik's plan.
As against an attack supported by artillery on the 1914 scale, there would have been no reason to suppose that this type of defence would be less successful than it had been in the Kolubara campaign. One line after another could be defended, and when the dead point of the offensive was reached, the reinforced defenders would deliver the counter-stroke of reconquest.
But tactics, unhappily for Serbia, had advanced since 1914, notably German tactics. Discreet reconnaissances, under the direction of the German Lt.-Col. Hentsch, chief-of-staff of Mack- ensen's group of armies the same who had borne so grave a responsibility at the Marne had been carried out for weeks past, for the purpose of fixing of battery positions and working out technical details of the Sava and Danube passages. Searchlights were assembled, large troop barges constructed, and for the pro- tection of the main crossings heavy artillery was massed. 2
1 An interesting sidelight is thrown on the relations of the allies by the fact that Germany thought it necessary to require from Bul- garia a written guarantee of unimpeded transport freedom through Bulgarian territory.
2 In the case of the Belgrade crossing, no fewer than 20 batteries of heavy and superheavy artillery were collected, nearly half of which consisted in 30-5 and 42-cm. howitzers, and i8-cm. long guns. In addition, about 90 field guns and howitzers were engaged.
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Oct. 6 was fixed as the initial day for Kovess * and Gallwitz, the nth for the Bulgarians.
The bombardment opened on the 5th, laying towns and vil- lages in ruin all along the line; but on the Serbian side only out- posts held the river lines, local reserves being kept under cover.
Kovess's main crossing place was to be Belgrade, opposite which place technical preparations had been multiplied and two corps out of three assembled. The third (XIX. Austro-Hunga- rian) was to pass the Drina at Byelyina, and the Sava at Shabats, Kupinovo, Progar and Zabrezh, in order to create bridgeheads and to prevent the defenders from concentrating to the eastward
Gallwitz's crossings were to take place at Ram and at Semen- dria, on each side of the Morava mouth, opposite which points lay the railheads, and at the island of Temes Sziget between them; the attack was to be accompanied by a demonstration from Orsova and a Bulgarian threat towards Negotin.
On Kovess's front the secondary crossings, especially in the Machva, secured footholds on the S. side of the water, but all attempts to advance out of the waterlogged river valleys them- selves were checked (Oct. 7). Opposite Belgrade, in the early morning hours of the 7th, the first boatloads of troops of the VIII. Corps pushed off into the stream under cover of innumerable searchlights, heavy artillery fire, and monitor activity, while a little way up the Sava the XXII. Res. Corps put over its advanced troops into Ostrovo Tsiganliya (Gipsy Island). Zhivkovich had 16 battalions and nearly all the Serbian heavy artillery, including French and British 6-in. guns, to oppose to them. The landing the only operation in the World War analogous in form and spirit to that of the Gallipoli Peninsula succeeded, but only after the fiercest fighting was the foothold really made good and room secured on the front of both attacking corps for the passage and deployment of large forces. On the night of g-ioth, Zhivkovich abandoned the attempt to hold the town, and fell back a little way S., on the line Zarkovo-(249)-Visznitsa.
Simultaneously, Gallwitz's 3 corps had been launched, on both sides of the Morava. Preceded by a demonstration at Orsova on the 6th, the left corps (X. Res.) forced the passage at Ram on the night of 67th, and drove inland, over the Anatema heights to Kuryatse, threatening Pozharevats from the north-east. The IV. Res. Corps (3 divisions) seized Temes Sziget Island with little difficulty and reached Brezhani (Brezani). But the front from Semendria to Gatsko defied the III. Corps, and not only pro- tected the right rear of Zhivkovich, but gave time to Putnik to bring troops from the Machva. 4
Nevertheless, it was clear by the nth that the nver barrier was lost and Putnik began a steady policy of fighting successive de- laying actions on the N. front, while at all costs keeping back the Bulgarians on the right and rear, in order to gain time for the arrival of French and British aid, the first elements of which had already reached Salonika.
On the 1 2th Mackensen opened the general advance, in the midst of a gale which, known as the Kossova, descends season- ally upon the country from the south-east. Kovess made slow progress till the i6th, when the Serbians evacuated under pres- sure the Petrov Grob-Avala-Velika Kamen line, and fell back to Melyak-Ripany-line of R. Ralya.
Gallwitz by that date had enforced the evacuation of Pozhare- vats, cleared the way for his III. Corps to advance on the Semen- dria front, and brought his left flank to Bozevats. To the E. of Kovess, the Austrian offensive was a simple follow-up of the retiring Serbs, who now attempted no real defence W. of the Kolubara, though small forces with local riflemen delayed the Austrians long enough for the families and the live stock to be evacuated on Valyevo. The Montenegrins, and with them some Serbs, were maintaining a particularly independent struggle between the Yadar and the Lim.
By this time the Bulgarian advance on the right flank had begun, though some days later than had been intended. In the south, Todorov's II. Army (7th Div. with improvised formations)
3 The Drina portion of Kovess's army was, however, behind time.
4 AH Austrian forces in Bosnia were late in their preparations and took no effective part in the offensive.
