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The German General staff regarded the Balkan as an important, but
secondary theatre of war. From a German point of view, the decisive fronts
were in France, and Russia.
However, the Balkans were not completely neglected. The
neutral Balkan states were considered very important
for the outcome of the war, and the German diplomacy made every effort to
bring them on their side into the war. Bulgaria
and Romania were considered so important, that the German Chief of
Staff Erich v. Falkenhayn in 1915-16 regarded the
Balkan neutrals as militarily more crucial than the United States of America.
In 1915, when the English and French fleets attacked the Dardanelles, the German diplomacy feared that all the
neutral Balkan states would join the Entente. On 16 April 1915 (o.s.) the Chief of the Imperial Military Cabinet, general
Moritz v. Lyncker, wrote in his diary : “If the
Dardanelles fall, we cannot stop Italy,
Romania, Greece and Bulgaria. This means that the
entire Balkan region is against us and the whole Mediterranean
Sea too”.
Therefore Germany did everything to strengthen the Turkish resistance,
and in order to open supply lines to Turkey the Imperial Chancellor Theobald
v. Bethmann Hollweg and
his Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Gottlieb v. Jagow,
repeatedly stressed the Chief of the General Staff to conquer at least the so
called “Serbian north-east corner”. But it was only after the great victories
against the Russian Army in summer 1915, that the German Army was able to
strike on the Balkans and to attack Serbia.
By the beginning of September the Central Powers units began massing. Heeresgruppe Mackensen was
formed by transformation of A.O.K. 11 on 5 September 1915 in Temesvar, Hungary. It had the task to lead
all the allied forces during the offensive against Serbia. The 3rd
Austro-Hungarian Army, under gen. Herman Kövess von
Kövessháza, deployed the XIX at Kupinovo
on the Sava, the German XXII Reserve Corps
on its left, and the VIII Corps opposite Belgrad. A
new German 11th Army, under gen. Max v. Gallwitz,
was raised and received a new High Command in the previous A.O.K. 12. It
occupied the area from Semedria to Ram, with the
III Corps opposite Semedria, the IV Reserve Corps
cantered on Temes
Island, and the X
Reserve Corps directly across Ram. The Bulgarian 1st Army was
massed between the Danube and Sofia, to
operate against Nish. The 2nd
Bulgarian Army, put under the direct command of the Bulgarian General Staff, was
placed in the area Kyustendil-Gorna Dzhumaya, to operate in Macedonia and cut the vital railroad to Salonika at Skopje.
The ranging fire began on 20 September, and
three days later, the attack was launched. Like the bombardment at Gorlice-Tarnow, the artillery preparation was brief, but
intense, and in the evening of 24 September and in the following morning, the
infantry began the crossing of the Danube. Belgrad was abandoned by the Serbian Army on 25
September, Nish was taken by the 1st
Bulgarian Army on 24 October after a fierce combat, and on 29 October the linking
between the Austro-German and the Bulgarian forces were established. On 21
November, when Bitolja fell in the hands of the
Bulgarian troops, the campaign was effectively over. The 11th
German Army reached the Greek border in December.
This
was a nearly complete victory for the Central Powers. The Serbian Army was
defeated, losing almost all its weapons, the Anglo-French attack was
repelled, and the railroad from Berlin to Istanbul was
finally opened. The Entente lost the last hope to force the Straits,
and the last British troops left the Dardanelles
on 27 December 1915. The only flaw in the victory was the retreat of the
Serbian Army, although almost completely disorganized. It had to be rebuilt
almost from scratch, but, thanks to the help of the French and the British,
it could take part in the fighting throughout the rest of the war.
After the defeat of Serbia,
the German Army Commander in Macedonia,
Field Marshal August v. Mackensen wanted to attack
the Allied forces in Salonika and throw them into the Mediterranean
Sea. He was supported by the Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian High
Commands, but gen. Falkenhayn denied the request.
In a telegram addressed in December to the Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff,
gen. Franz Conrad v. Hötzendorf, he admitted that
“it would have been of great morale value to have driven the Entente out of
the Balkans entirely, and that would have been easier through continuation of
our operations than later on, when the enemy had been able to concentrate its
forces”, but, on the basis of a report of the Chief of Staff of Mackensen, gen. Hans v. Seeckt,
he thought that the railway connections were not sufficient to carry the
necessary troops and ammunition to the Salonika front. The poor supply
situation, the severe shortage of heavy artillery and the strength of the
enemy defences persuaded him that any advance against Salonika
would be enormously risky, leaving not “great illusions about the eventual
outcome of the operation.” Moreover he feared that an advance into the Greek territory
would drive the country into the arms of the Entente : the Greek neutrality,
despite the Greek-Serbian alliance, was regarded as a great advantage for the
Central Powers. Therefore he stopped the victorious troops at the frontier
and respected the Greek neutrality, despite the open violation of it by the
Anglo-French Army.
Such a decision caused the irritation of the
Bulgarians. In autumn 1915 the German major v. Laffert
wrote from the Greek border that Bulgarian Army was waiting impatiently for the
order to attack and scolded the politicians : everybody wanted to fight the
troops of the Entente. But he concluded that the true reason of this desire
was to provoke a war with Greece
too. In fact Bulgaria
wished to retake the Thracian coastline that was seized by the Greeks in
1913, and directed its aim to town of Salonika
itself.
At the beginning of 1916 v. Falkenhayn
decided to attack Verdun in France and on 22 February 1916 he informed Mackensen that the German High Command had finally given
up the idea of renewing the advance towards Salonika.
Therefore he drew back most of the German divisions from the Balkans, despite
harsh Bulgarian and Austrian protests. Leaving too many German soldiers in Macedonia was
regarded as a waste of troops. He thought that the attack against Salonika needed a lot of effort to improve the line of
communications across the Balkans, would be very difficult, and, if
successful, would not have been decisive.
Falkenhayn considered Salonika as the largest
and voluntary German prisoners-of-war camp of the war. If the attack was
successful the allied troops would leave Salonika by ship and would be
transferred to France, Italy or Turkey,
where they would cause more damage than in Macedonia. Moreover the Bulgarian
leadership would have stopped any substantial military effort. It was very
unlikely that they would have offered their troops to fight on another front
: it was better that the Bulgarian Army blocked an increasing number of
allied troops. If 400,000 French, Serbian, English, Italian and Russian
soldiers were paralyzed by only 60,000 Germans, from a strategic point of
view this was a good deal for Germany.
However some German military leaders, among them Mackensen
himself, were reluctant to accept this course of action, since they were
trained to annihilate the enemy wherever possible, and this prudent attitude
was against their own feelings and ideas. They emphasized that a successful
attack against the Salonika bridgehead whould
secured the whole Balkan region for the Central Powers, removing the danger
of an intervention of Greece
into the side of the Entente. Furthermore they thought that the partisan
warfare in Serbian territory was encouraged by the presence of the Serbian
troops fighting in Macedonia.
If they withdrew, it should be easier to master the area. Finally a full
control of Salonika and of the Thracian coastline would enable the
establishment of bases for the German U-boot, making more difficult the enemy
communications in the Mediterranean Sea.
With the departure of the bulk of the German
troops, the 11th Army was composed mainly by Bulgarian divisions,
supported by heavy artillery, machine guns and technical troops provided by Germany. The
only German main unit left in Macedonia,
was the 101st Infantry Division. For operational reasons, on 26
November 1915 the high commands of the 11th German and of the 1st
Bulgarian army exchanged with each other. Field Marshal v. Mackensen kept the command of these two Armies, while the
Austro-Hungarian forces operating in Albania in December were detached
and formed a special Austrian front. The Bulgarian General Staff however, as
a result of special agreements with the German Supreme Army Command, received
the overall command in Macedonia.
Since on 30 July 1916 Field Marshal v. Mackensen had to take precautions for the threatening war
with Romania,
so his Army Group was dissolved, and reformed in Dobrudja
on 28 August 1916. Therefore all the Armies deployed in Macedonia
came under the direct command of the Bulgarian General Staff, after the High
Commands of the 11th German and of the 1st Bulgarian
Army had exchanged again with each other in view of the war situation. On 10
October 1916, after the victorious attack of the Serbian Army against Bitolja, a new German Army Group was established under
the command of general Otto v. Below. This division of the fighting forces
remained until the end of the war. When gen. v. Below was called to the
Western front to take over the command of the 6th Army, his
successor was gen. Friedrich v. Scholtz and his
Army Group was renamed accordingly.
In 1916, in order to strengthen the cohesion of
the Bulgarian forces after the fall of Bitolja, two
“General Commands for special purpose” were formed in Macedonia: Genkdo. z.b.V. 61, under gen.
Karl Suren, on 18 November, and Genkdo. z.b.V. 62, under gen. Richard v. Webern, on 15 December.
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