Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918

ny's weakest front - Question whether it might not have been better to go to Salonika than to go to the Dardanelles - Objections to such a plan - The problem of Bulgaria - Consequences of the R

to say what ought to have been done - Real mistake, the failure to abandon the Dardanelles enterprise in May - The French attitude about Salonika - General Sarrail - French General Staff i

the road to Mandalay. The worst of the East, however, is that people hear it calling who have never been there in their lives. That there we

pation in some forgotten age. But Mr. Lloyd George, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at this time, is ever like a ray of sunshine illumining otherwise dark places, and on this occasion he was at his very brightest. He had made a discovery. He had found on a map that there was quite a big place-it was shown in block capitals-called Salonika, tucked away in a corner of the Balkans right down by the sea. The map furthermore indicated by means of an interminable centipede that a railway led from this place Salonika right away up into Serbia, and on from thence towards the very heart of the Dual Monarchy. Here was a chance of starting an absolutely new hare. The Chancellor, allegr

indifferent facilities for landing merchandise, or animals, or persons, considering the importance of the site. And it was, moreover, a case of one single line of railway meandering up a trough-like valley which at some points narrowed into a defile, a railway of severe gradients with few passing stations, a railway which assuredly would be very short of rolling stock-although this latter disability could no doubt be overcome easily enough. One somehow did not quite picture to oneself an army of many divisions comfortably advancing from Belgrade on Vienna based on Salonika, and depending upon the Salonika-Belgrade railway fo

onstitute any one of them the line of least resistance from the Entente point of view, was based on a complete misreading of the military situation. That theory was founded on the fallacy that the Western Front represented the enemy's strongest point. It was, on the contrary, the enemy's weakest point, because this front was from its geographical position the one where British and French troops could most easily be assembled, and it was the one on which a serious defeat to the enemy necessarily threatened that enemy

he time-abandoned that project. But although the Serbs had succeeded early in the winter of 1914-15 in driving the Austro-Hungarian invading columns ignominiously back over the Save and the Danube, the position of this isolated

uld have been to use those troops for lending Serbia a hand instead of despatching them to the Dardanelles. Even a weaker force than that with which Sir I. Hamilton embarked on the Gallipoli venture (nominally five Anglo-Australasian and two French divisions) would have proved an invaluable moral, and an effective actual, support to the Serbs; and its arrival on the Morava and the Save could hardly have failed to influence to some extent the attitude of Bulgaria and R

ing the enemy's game to the extent of virtually tying up that force and of condemning it to inactivity for the time being, so as to provide against a danger-hostile attack on Serbia-which might never materialize, and which actually did not materialize until the autumn. In the third place, there was always, with amateur strategists about, the grave risk that a measure taken with the object of safeguarding Serbia as far as possible, might translate itself into a great offensive operation against the Centra

cedonia happened as a result of the Balkan upheavals of 1912 and 1913 to belong to Serbia, and the rest of it belonged to Greece. Into the ethnographical aspect of the Macedonian problem it is not necessary to enter here. The cardinal fact remained that Bulgaria wanted, and practically demanded, this region. While we mi

d, the Tsar's stubborn soldiery, without ammunition and almost without weapons, could not even maintain themselves against the Austro-Hungarian forces, much less against the formidable German hosts that were suddenly turned loose upon them, and within the space of a very few weeks the situation on the Eastern Front, which at least in appearance had been favourable enough during the winter and the early spring, suddenly became transformed into one of profoundest gloom from the Entente point of view. Even a much less unpromising diplomatic situation than that which had existed in the Balkans between December and May was bound to become an untoward

e. The position was a decidedly awkward one. To despatch further contingents to this part of the world, over and above those already on the way or under orders, was virtually out of the question, unless the Near East was to be accepted as the Entente's main theatre of war-which way madness lay. To divert the Dardanelles reinforcements to Salonika destroyed such hopes as remained of the Gallipoli campaign proving a success after all. Human nature being what it is, there would have been a sore temptation to adopt the attitude of "wait and see" which might perhaps have commended itsel

at he had a short time previously arrived in the United Kingdom to act temporarily as Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (which practically meant the Dardanelles Committee at the moment), and he had been called upon, right off the reel, to prepare a memorandum on the Dardanelles situation, which was to be ready next morning. Knowing comparatively little about the Dardanelles, he had come to consult me. In the first inst

reshed and my equanimity restored by a rest and hearing the news from across the water, we grappled with the subject in the C.I.D. office. "Ole Luke Oie" could be trusted to put a thing tersely and with vigour once he knew what to say, and the document did not take long to draft. We took the line that in the Gallipoli Peninsula it was a case of getting on or of getting out

estern Powers, that aid must be well in motion before the enemy hosts should gather on the northern and western frontiers of our threatened Ally, otherwise the aid would assuredly be late owing to the difficulty of moving troops rapidly from board ship in Salonika roads, up to the theatre of operations. Hopes still existed, on the other hand, at least in the minds of some of the members of the Dardanelles Committee, that by sending additional reinforcements to Sir I. Hamilton a success might be obtained even yet in that quarter. The French for a week or two

is conceivable that Bulgaria might have remained neutral, and that Ferdinand might have broken such engagements as he had secretly entered into with the Central Powers. But utter distrust and bitter hatred of Bulgaria prevailed in Serbia. Our Ally perhaps hardly sufficiently realized that national aspirations ought rather to direct themselves towards the Adriatic and the regions inhabited by Serb stock under Austro-Hungarian rule, than towards districts peo

de the French, Russian, and Italian Governments took up-realized that Serbia's seizing the initiative put an end to all hopes of Greece lending a hand, and they virtually vetoed the project, as has already been mentioned in Chapter IV. That, as it turned out, was an unfortunate dec

ties in a new sphere, even if these were only to be of a temporary character. But, as it turned out, the Dardanelles Committee (or the War Council, I am not sure of the exact date when the Dardanelles Committee deceased) intervened, wishing me to remain at my post. In view of what followed, one was well out

House of Lords. But although the opinion of either of them is well worth having on most questions, and although both know their own minds, I doubt whether they, either of them, had any clear idea then as to what ought to have been done to avert the catastrophe, and I doubt whether they, either of them, have a clear idea now. Subsequent to May we were confronted with a horribly complex military and politic

the Asiatic side of the Straits, we were supposed to have troops to spare for that part of the world, and it was not until early September that all this was dropped in view of events on the Western Front. It is easy to say now, after the event, that the Entente ought to have foreseen that King Constantine would throw Serbia over in any case, and that therefore we ought not to have prevented the Serbs from attacking Bulgaria while she was still mobilizing. But we trusted a King's word, and we knew that M. Venizelos was heart and soul on our side. It is easy to say now that we ought to have insisted on Serbia buying off Bulgar hostility by handing over Macedonia. But Serbia might have refused despite our insisting, and, wh

d no more and that no aid was to be expected from Bulgaria or from Greece. It was just at that juncture that Russia began to give out and that the tide turned in favour of the Central Powers on the eastern side of Europe. The matter was primarily one for H.M. Government, because the French were not deeply committed to the effort against the Straits; bu

es in this area, with the idea of ultimate offensive operations northward ever in the background, we of the General Staff at the War Office demurred, and we were, at all events in principle, supported by the majority of the War Council. Lord Kitchener left for the Aegean at this time; but both before going and after his return he always, as far as I know, deprecated locking up fighting resources in Macedonia. Our Allies across the Channel were, however, somewhat insistent. Two conferences took place: one, a military one at Chantilly at the very end of October, and a

arters by this prominent, and in the opening days of the war highly successful, soldier should have been taken so seriously, it was hard for anybody on our side of the Straits of Dover to understand. One wonders whether M. Clemenceau might not have been somewhat less discomposed on the subject had he been at the head of affairs. But the attitude adopted on the point became extremely inconvenient at a later date when, after an offensive on a large scale undertaken on the Salonika front had

This representative of the French General Staff was astonished to find that we possessed numbers of detailed military reports concerning that part of the world, with full information as to railways and communications, and he was most complimentary on the subject. "Your England is an island, my general," he remarked to me; "you have not had the eastern frontier always to think of lik

ely abandoned all idea of attacking, and of thereby justifying the existence of, that great Allied army. The Bulgars had, with some assistance from German and Austro-Hungarian troops, secured possession of the mountainous region of the Balkans; and the Central Powers had thus acquired just that same advantageous strategical and tactical positi

acting temporarily as Deputy C.I.G.S. in 1917, things happened to be pretty well at a standstill in Macedonia, except that just at that time one British division was transferred from that theatre

eased. In what was to a great extent a war of attrition this was a point of some importance. But that great field army was for all practical purposes immobilized for the whole of the three years. It was immobilized partly by inferior bodies of troops-mainly Bulgarian, whom the German Great General Staff would have found it hard to utilize in other theatres. It was immobilized partly by having before it a wide zo

918-British, French, Italian, Serb and Greek-the fact remains that the Bulgars were defeated not in Macedonia but in Picardy and Artois. Exhausted by years of hostilities-they had been at it since 1912-they knew that the game was up before the offensive ever started, knew t

r of other side-shows which had their place in the Great War will be touched upon. In it the fact will be pointed out that side-shows are sometimes unavoidable, and it will