The field artillery in the Balkans

The study of Cpt. Alvin was not founded on direct experiences or on conversations with officers who had taken part in the military operations, but was the first attempt to collect the informations arrived in France from various sources and to extract from them a lesson suitable for the western armies.

At first he gave a detailed account of the main features of the artillery material used by the opposite armies and of the circumstances that leaded to the adoption of quick-firing guns in the various fighting countries. From this technical analysis he concluded that the success of the artillery of the Balkan allies was due, more than to superiority of their matériel, to the skillful manner in which they used it. The Allies indeed employed their field artillery in close liaison with the infantry, striving, as far as the terrain permitted, to support as actively and as closely as possible, the movements of their troops.

Cpt. Alvin emphasized also that the Balkan armies were weaker in artillery compared with the armies of the western powers, like France or Germany. The Servian army had only one and half field gun per battalion of over 1000 men, that, counting also the mountain guns and the howitzers, rose at approximately two pieces per battalion, about half what French and Germans have. The Bulgars were still weaker proportionally in artillery, because their divisions, having 24 battalions of over 1000 men, were equipped with only 36 quick-firing guns.

Employment of the artillery

1. Emplacement of the batteries – Masked fire was employed to a large extent. As capt Bellenger had remarked, the Bulgarians, operating over a gently rolling terrain (except for the fighting to the northwest of Lozengrad), usually placed their batteries far in rear of the covering crests, and employed the telephone for the liaison between the units. This sometimes resulted in a slackening of the fire, which was very deplorable since the opportunity for the artillery duel rarely occurred, and the Bulgarian batteries were usually employed to support their own infantry. The Servians, operating over a very rough country, placed their batteries close under the covering crests. This method, which did away with the difficulties of transmission of commands to the battery, permitted better employment of the quick-firing guns.

However neither Serbs nor Bulgars hesitated to sacrifice defilade when the situation demanded it. Sometimes the guns were pushed up on the crest in order to permit fire against the enemy’s infantry. Cpt. Alvin mentioned that the French attaché at Belgrade reported that during the Interallied War, complete defilade was scarcely ever obtained, and that even the howitzer batteries did not always use flash defilade. The reason probably was that they principally opened fire at the enemy’s infantry, which permitted very little use to be made of the telephone. Sometimes the field batteries were placed in completely uncovered positions, as Serbs did at Monastir and at Alince.

As for the employ of accompanying batteris, cpt. Alvin reported the action of maj. Drulev at Odrin, described by col. De Mondesir. On the other hand, the Turks seemed to be ignorant of the principles of the occupation of positions, and, apparently, their batteries had not been exercised in indirect fire. Cpt. Alvin reported also the emplacement of a single battery or single gun in a position for direct laying at the top of a crest to be used as a directing pieces.

2. Execution of fire – The opinion of the belligerents was that shrapnel fire, to be efficient, should have a low burst. The Servian field batteries carefully adjusted the height of burst. On the other hand, the fire of the Turkish batteries, well adjusted for range, produced only mediocre effect because the height of burst was very poorly determined, partly for the poor instructions of the gunners, and partly for the absence of a corrector scale for the Krupp guns used in Macedonia. The Bulgars usually fired at very great ranges, even at more than 5000 m. The Servians placed their guns more closer to the enemy and frequently advanced their batteries by night over ground swept by fire during the day.

3. Conduct of fire – In spite of the opinion of general Heer, cpt. Alvin stated that the artillery duel, properly speaking, had no place in these battles, as the general Savov himself, the Deputy Commander of Bulgarian Army, adfirmed. Some Bulgarian officers, in trying to make clear to a French officer the character of the battles in which they participated, agreed that the artillery always sought to “s’infanteriser”. By this word they meant that the first idea of artillery entering an action should be to occupy itself only with infantry; to try to destroy the enemy’s infantry, and to break down obstacles which might stop the advance of its own infantry. If the enemy’s guns constituted one of these obstacles, it should take them under fire, but if their fire wais not dangerous to friendly infantry, even though it was directed against them, the Bulgarian guns should disregard the hostile artillery and fire only on the enemy’s infantry.

The Serbs had the same opinion: their artillery fired, first of all, against the infantry. Also, on the whole, the Turkish matériel suffered little. Out of 64 field guns and one mountain gun abandoned by the Turks at Kumanovo, only one was out of service. The total number of imprints of balls on the other pieces did not exceed a dozen, which were distributed on only three guns. The Turkish artillery too was engaged in the artillery duel only in cases of absolute necessity.

Only seldom artillery obtained destructive effect on the infantry, but frequently it was able to neutralize and immobilize it. This resulted to the large use made of temporary fortifications, as much by the Allies as by the Turks. The Allies always protected themselves by digging as soon as they received a few shells, but they knew when they had to quit their trenches to advance. The Turks too nearly always intrenched, but they did not appear to have shown any great desire to leave their trenches.

4. Liaison with infantry – The artillery, in order not to fire on friendly infantry, should keep constantly informed about the progress of the firing line. To this end the Serbs employed signaling by means of flags and during the Interallied War marked each important change of position of the firing line by lighting fires of brush wood or straw, or in case of need, by setting fire to the houses of a village or an isolated farm.

In the Bulgarian army the service of communication did not always function perfectly. This resulted in mistakes and in some occasions the Bulgarian artillery fired on its infantry, like at Papas Tepe, and during the attack to the fort of Kestenlik. Cpt. Alvin presumed that no arrangements had been made to secure the necessary cooperation. Some divisions and brigades commanders had taken the initiative in seeking some practical means to establish this highly necessary liaison between the artillery and infantry, but with poor effect. Some of them employed flags and colored lanterns, while others required the men to carry a little straw on their knapsacks, which, piled together and burned, served as a signal, either by day or night.

With the Greeks, the liaison of infantry and field artillery was incomplete and this was one of the causes of the losses suffered by the Greek infantry. On the other hand, the mountain guns were always able to support effectively their troops, regulating their fire on the advice of the infantry officers of communication, in order to avoid any chance of error in objectives.

5. Effect of fire – During the war artillery fire was most effective against infantry; fire against a defiladed battery was practically useless and a battery suffered from shell fire only when it was taken in the act of maneuvering or in an exposed position. In confirmation of this fact the losses suffered by the gunners during the whole campaign were very small. On the contrary the losses suffered by the infantry, from artillery fire, appeared to have been considerably greater than in previous wars.

Doctor Guentchitch, the director of the Sanitary Service of the Servian armies, estimated that, with the Servians, 2% of the wounds were due to artillery fire; with the Turkish prisoners, from 15% to 20%. Generally speaking, the losses due to artillery fire on both sides were about 10% or 12%. This was confirmed by the French Surgeon Cousergue, attaché to Belgrade and Sofia, who stated that 15% of the 1200 wounded Serbs that he examined in the hospital at Belgrade, had been struck by shrapnel balls.

The Bulgarian losses might have been even greater, since their formations were more dense and the attacks more determined, not utilizing to so good advantage the irregularities of the ground. As for the Greek Army, a qualified correspondent estimated that the percentages put out of action by artillery and by infantry fire were in the proportion of 1 to 9. This meant that, although artillery fire was most efficient against infantry, it caused only about 10% of their total losses. It was therefore the rifle which caused the greatest number of wounds. However, in the opinion of Doctor Lacombe, Surgeon in Chief of the French hospital in Istanbul, shrapnel bullets caused wounds of a much more serious character than did rifle bullets.

Cpt. Alvin thought that such considerations should be generalized with great caution: in the case of a Franco-German war the effects of artillery fire would be probably more severe, because of the greater proportional number of guns engaged, and because of the employment of more effective projectiles, like explosive time shells or explosive shells with a delayed action fuze.

The Balkan War showed also the uselessness of firing at long ranges, i.e. beyond 4000 m, either for field or heavy mobile artillery. However batteries should not advance with no other thought than to gain ground, since this might cause great losses or even the desctruction of a whole battery, if it was deployed in a position completely exposed. Positions should be occupied judiciously, approaching without useless exposure. Cpt. alvin thought that such a state of efficiency could only be attained by maneuvers in time of peace, in the course of which the batteries became skilled in their drill, and learned to seek, by the use of cover, a protection not afforded by the shields. However he recognized the advantage of shields, and suggested to supplement them by the wearing of a helmet, since a man sought instinctively to protect his head.

Use of heavy artillery and howitzers

Like cpt. Bellenger, also Cpt. Alvin seemed little persuaded by general Herr’s arguments about the decisive role that the heavy artillery could play in field combats, expecially in region like Macedonia, characterized by the presence of a rough ground crossed by a little number of bad roads. During the war the Serbian artillery frequently arrived late, or it did not arrive at all, and the abandonment of Tukish guns on the battleflield was due in part to the difficult terrain which hindered materially the movements of the carriages. In Thrace the ground was better, but the military operations was often hindered by mud. This meant that field artillery should be as light as possible and that only a large employ of mountain guns could overcame such difficulties.

As for heavy artillery cpt. Alvin repeated basically the same remarks stated by cpt. Bellenger. Only his deductions were more cautious. If both Bulgars and Serbs managed to draw some of their 120 mm batteries with oxen, actually they employed them only in position warfare, at Odrin and Chataldzha. The only exception was the battle of Bunar Hissar, where the Bulgarian army used its howitzers, but their employment was justified neither by the need of a curved trajectory nor by the need of powerful guns, but by a critical situation that demanded the utilization of all available forces.

According with the statements of the officers who made the campaign, heavy calibers were not required for the curvature of their trajectories, but were really necessary only in the attack of strongly fortified positions. However cpt. Alvin stated that this opinion was the result of the peculiar conditions under which the Balkan armies operated, and did not permit to decide for or against the employment of heavy guns and howitzers in western armies.