The Balkans Front
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4. The Balkans Front
1914 .. return to top
29 July
Austrians shell Belgrade, but are unready for offensive operations
12-21 August
Austrian invasion repulsed by the battle hardened (from the earlier Balkan Wars) Serbs
6 September
Serbs invade Bosnia, with an eye to incorporation
7-17 September
Battle of the Drina (River) Austrians invade Serbia, disregarding Serbs in Bosnia, who are shifted back to defend Belgrade, but after ten days of fierce fighting are forced to withdraw southwest of their capital (still in Serb hands)
5-30 November
Austrian offensive pushes Serbs back into the mountains, and Belgrade is seized by them; once the Austrians were fully extended into the mountains,
3-9 December
Battle of Kolubra Serbians counterattack, pushing the Austrians back, and then force the collapse of their enemy who retreats from Serbian soil
1915 .. return to top
6 October
Austro-German-Bulgarian invasion of Serbia pits 330,000 men against half as many Serbs at the point of contact, who conduct a three month long fighting withdrawal towards Montenegro and Albania, from the coast of which the survivors are evacuated by French and Italian vessels to Corfu (January 1916); Serbian Army is reequipped and retrained on Corfu preparatory to being committed in Greece
9 October
Anglo-French forces land at Salonika, northeastern Greece, on invitation of the pro-Allied Greek government, fearful of a Bulgarian invasion; on the same day King Constantine of Greece, a pro-German monarch, changed his government and announced Greek neutrality, but the Allies were not about to go home at that point; you thus have the anomaly of a neutral country with the war going on within it, while it watches
1916 .. return to top
17-27 August
Battle of Florina Bulgar-German offensive drives the Allies, under French General Sarrail, back to the Struma River line, where the front is stabilized
10 September-19 November
Allied counteroffensive recovers much of the lost ground, and seizes Monastir, a key strategic objective in the theater
July-October
Italian operations in Albania, disconnected from the Salonika front, proceed against the Austrian occupiers of that country, until the two fronts are joined on 10 November
1917 .. return to top
January-June
Stalemate Two Allied offensives fail to gain ground, 11-17 March and 5-19 May, while German air supremacy crippled the Allied intelligence service and rendered them vulnerable to harassment from the air; Allied commanders were at cross-purposes and Greece was in turmoil
12 June
Constantine forced to abdicate and the new King Alexander reappoints a pro-Allied government (26 June), whereupon
27 June
Greece enters the war on the Allied side, and
10 December
Clemenceau replaces Sarrail with General M.L.A. Guillaumat, who begins an overhaul of the Allied Army
1918 .. return to top
July
Clemenceau replaces Guillaumat with the brilliant warrior General Franchet d'Esperey, who supported by Milne his British colleague, wrests agreement from the Allied Supreme War Council for a major offensive in the Balkans
15-29 September
Battle of the Vardar In which d'Esperey with 200,000 men fit to fight (out of 600,000, the rest of whom were malarial, unfit, or otherwise rendered hors d'combat due to disease and conditions in the theater) attacked the Bulgarian Army of 400,000 men
15-16 September
Franco-Serb assault, led by the Serbs, begins to penetrate Bulgarian lines
18 September
British diversionary attack begins and takes ground, pinning Bulgarians who cannot thus aid on the main front, where the Serbs continue to make gains
25 September
the Serb attack split the Bulgarian Army, and the French on the flanks of the Serbs drove open the wedge;
26 September
the British reach Strumitsa, while French cavalry penetrated the Serbian spearhead, and
29 September
French cavalry reached Skoplje as Allied air power created panic in the retreating Bulgarian armies which were continually attacked in the narrow passes north of the battlefield, leading to
29 September
Bulgarians signed an armistice, but d'Esperey pushed rapidly north for the next six weeks, headed for Austria by the back door, and on
10-11 November
Allied forces seized a crossing over the Danube River as Germany, threatened from all sides capitulated
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