The Salonika Front 

If you are going to play World War One, this is where to do it

Greek Troops in action, Salonika Front

Background to the Front

When thinking about World War One, most gamers are familiar with The Western Front and its Trenches, and have some familiarity with operations on the Eastern Front. Most have heard of Gallipoli and Palestine (and maybe seen the movies). Some have even heard of East Africa and Southern Africa,. But most are fairly ignorant of the fighting in and around the Balkans during the war, on what is called the Salonika or Macedonian Front.

The campaign in Macedonia was considered by many to be a "side-show". The Allied army was known back home as the "Gardeners of Salonika" due to the apparent lack of activity and people would comment "If you want a holiday, go to Salonika".. and has been widely ignored, despite tying up about a million men on each side.

From a gaming point of view this is a pity as it has three huge advantages over the other fronts, as it:

(i) Allows you to use some marvellous “contemptible little armies” from Bosnia, Greece, Italy, Serbia etc, and some colourful irregulars

(ii) Is not just trench warfare – there is open ground warfare, mountain warfare, fighting in heavy woods and even dashing cavalry actions

(iii) Everybody who is Anybody was also there – British, French, Germans, Russians and Austro Hungarians (on both sides as they collapsed).

For example, General Sarrail's 1917 Armee d' Orient had been reinforced to the point that he had 24 divisions: 6 French, 6 Serbian, 7 British, 1 Italian, 3 Greek and 2 Russian brigades.

The 1914 / 1915 Campaigns

Austria-Hungary had already attacked Serbia in August 1914, but had failed to make much headway. Bulgaria and Serbia had just fought the Second Balkan War, which Bulgaria felt had led to a settlement that was unjust. With the Allied defeat at the Battle of Gallipoli and the Russian defeat at Gorlice-Tarnów, Bulgaria felt they could see which way the wind was blowing and, given a chance to have a crack at Serbia, they signed a treaty with Germany in September 1915 and began mobilizing.

A German Army and an Austro-Hungarian Army, all under the command of Field Marshal Mackensen, began their attack on October 7 and on the 11th, the Bulgarian Army attacked from two directions, one from the north of Bulgaria towards Niš, the other from the south towards Skopje. In total there were more than 800,000 soldiers in this combined army.

The Serbian army was rapidly overwhelmed and Serbian Marshal Putnik ordered a full retreat, south and west through Montenegro and into Albania. Despite appalling weather and terrible roads (plus the tens of thousands of civilians who retreated with them), some 125,000 Serbian of an original c 225,000 soldiers reached the coast of the Adriatic Sea and embarked on French transport ships that carried the army to various Greek islands (many went to Corfu) before being sent to Salonika (present day Thessaloniki).

At the same time the Austro-Hungarian Army attacked Serbia's ally Montenegro. The small Montenegran army offered strong resistance in the Battle of Mojkovac that greatly helped the withdrawal of the Serbian army, but soon faced impossible odds and was compelled to surrender on January 25. The Austro-Hungarians continued advancing down the Adriatic Coast, attacking into Italian-controlled Albania. By the end of the winter, the small Italian Army had been forced out of nearly the whole country.

The railroad from Berlin to Constantinople was finally opened and as a result, Germany was able to prop up its weak partner, the Ottoman Empire.

Why Salonika?

In the meantime, when Bulgaria began mobilization, the French and British sent two divisions to help Serbia but they arrived in the Greek town of Salonika too late to take part.. Part of the reason for the delay was the Greek government's conflicted views about the war.

Officially, Greece was neutral, but King Constantine I was pro-German, while Prime Minister Venizelos was pro-British. After the Allies landed in Salonika the King gradually changed policy to favour Germany. Prime Minister Venizelos then resigned, and kept working on trying to turn Greece towards the Allies as he felt that was the better long term future...

The French and British divisions marched north from Salonika in late November under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail. However, the British divisions were ordered by the War Office in London not to cross the Greek frontier. So the French divisions advanced on their own up the Vardar River. This advance was of some limited help to the retreating Serbian Army as the Bulgarian Army had to concentrate forces on their southern flank to deal with the threat. By mid-December, General Sarrail, facing determined Bulgarian assaults on his positions, went back to Salonika to marshal the army, collect the Serbs and start all over again next spring

1916 Campaign

General Sarrail began preparations for an attack on the Bulgarian Armies facing his forces. The Bulgarians (and one German division), however, with intelligence from their Greek supporters, launched an attack of their own on August 17, just three days before the Allied offensive was scheduled to start. The Allied forces held them after two weeks and counterattacked from mid-September. The Germans sent two more divisions to help bolster the Bulgarian Army, but by mid November the French and Serbian Army captured Kaymakchalan, the highest peak of Nidže mountain and compelled the Central powers to abandon Monastir. The front had been advanced just 25 miles.

At the same time, the Italians had deployed more forces to Albania and these new troops managed to push the Austrian corps back through very hilly country south of Lake Ostrovo.

The Greek Question – a resolution of sorts

The Bulgarian advance into Greek-held Eastern Macedonia had, however, precipitated a Greek political crisis. The government, determined to remain neutral, ordered its troops not to resist, but the surrender of recently hard-won territory (In the Balkan War of 1909-10) to the hated Bulgarians was seen by many Venizelist Army officers as the last straw. They launched a coup which secured Salonika and most of Macedonia for Venizelos. From that point Greece had, by de facto, two governments, the "official" royalist at Athens, maintaining her neutrality and the "revolutionary", Venizelist government at Salonika.

The Allies then occupied Thessaly, which had been evacuated by the royalist Greek Army, and the Isthmus of Corinth, practically severing the country in two. Six months later in June 1917, they presented a final ultimatum - resulting to the exile of the Greek king and the reunification of the country under Prime Minister Venizelos. The new government immediately declared war on the Central Powers and started to create a new Army.

Elsewhere, it was all quiet on the Salonika front (in other words, lots of fascinating small scale actions to build wargaming scenarios out of)

1918

In May, General Guillaumat's (who had replaced Sarrail) Greek troops attacked and captured the strong Bulgarian position of Skra-di-Legen, the first major Greek action on the Allied side in the war. Guillaumat was then replaced by General Franchet d'Esperey (or Desperate Frankie as the British called him).

The Allied forces now had the Greek army fully on their side (9 divisions strong), plus some 6,000 men from the Czechoslovak Legion, (who had been evacuated from Russia and sailed around the world, ready to fight the hated Austro-Hungarians – now there’s a story). The two sides were now roughly equal (291 Allied battalions vs. 300 Bulgarian battalions, plus 10 German battalions).

After some allied bickering, d'Esperey was allowed to launch his grand offensive finally in September. The Battle of Dobro Pole started with an artillery bombardment of enemy positions on September 14. The following day, the French and Serbians attacked and captured their objectives. On September 18, the Greeks and the British attacked as well, but were stopped with heavy losses by the Bulgarians in the Battle of Doiran. However the Franco-Serbian army continued advancing vigorously. The next day, some Bulgarian units started surrendering positions without a fight. Bulgarian command ordered a retreat.

But with the Ottoman Empire in near collapse, the Austro-Hungarian government was in chaos, and the mighty German Army now clearly beaten on the all-important Western Front, the Bulgarians were not willing to fight and die for a lost cause. A Soldiers Revolt started in Sofia, there was popular “Regime change” as the Monarchy were booted out (to join their Greek friends) and at the Armistice of Solun, Bulgaria exited the war.

Wait - its not over yet….

The British headed east towards Constantinople with the Greeks, and as they neared Constantinople. with no serious forces to stop it, the Ottoman government asked for an armistice.

d'Esperey and the Franco-Serbian Army re-captured Serbia and overran several weak German divisions that tried to block its advance near Niš (which is where we started, if you recall). On November 10, d'Esperey's army crossed the Danube river into Hungary when the war finally came to an end with the Hungarian government asking for an armistice.

The Salonika Front for the Wargamer

This arena is perfect for small-force wargaming, with lots of small actions all over the front, its perfect for World War One skirmish style gaming with lots of different troop types.

Not only that, but Balkan troops can be used in the various other small Balkan wars, and numbers of Irregulars – Greeks, Turkish Bashi Bazouks, various Balkan Bandi…I mean Heroic Mountain Men – also fought, so there is the opportunity for adding some colourful units of variable quality in the scenarios.

We tried out 3 different World War 1 rule sets, most of which are looking to use c 50 -100 figures a side. As mentioned in the introduction, the Salonika front affords a wide variety of opponents including all the major powers, and a wide range of scenarios and terrains to fight over. 

Building a Contemptible Little Army

If you are interested in building a Balkan army, there is quite a bit of information on the Web on all the smaller Balkan armies’ TO&E structure, uniforms, equipment etc (Start at Tiger Miniatures for example (http://tigerminiatures.co.uk/page13.htm ) and the Osprey book here http://bit.ly/4BOV4L ), however it does require a bit of dedication to hunt it all down.

By and large the 1914 – 1918 period in the Balkans sees the Machine Gun increasing from a few per Brigade to being commonly deployed at Company level, the rise of the Light Machine Gun, reduced sizes of sections and reduced numbers of platoons due to attrition. Some organisation structures for specialised trench assault troops emerged, and a few small mortars and specialist grenade throwers were used, but as there was less intense trench warfare there tend to be far fewer specialist trench troops.

On the Salonika front artillery usage increased as it did everywhere else, but owing to the difficult terrain very heavy guns were less useful. The Greeks made quite heavy use of 75mm light mountain guns they designed themselves. There were very few tanks, mainly armoured cars (including some fascinating DiY builds) and a few tankettes were used.

For accurate TO&E bear in mind that (i) actual on the ground organisation structure differed from the ideals and (ii) the various rule sets do pretty much define what you can field at this “Big Skirmish” game level.

As to recruiting your own little lead men for the Salonika Front, getting the Major Poers is fairly easy, but for Balkan nations I have found the following sources useful:

- Tiger Miniatures (http://tigerminiatures.co.uk/page11.htm) does all the Balkan nations and Turks.

- Old Glory (http://www.oldgloryuk.com/disp_items.php?m=12&sh=2) does the major powers (including Austro Hungarians) and Serbians, Montenegrans and Italians. They used to do Turks (I have a few, who can also be used as Austro-Hungarian Bosnian troops) but don’t seem to any more.

- Eureka (http://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=87_126_193) do various useful things -, Turks, Russians including a Russian Tchanka, the British in Palestine (very usable on the Salonika front), and their Turks from the Russo-Turkish war are usable as reservists. They also do Ghurkhas in Gaiters; there are pictures of British in slop-hats so also useable.

Eureka and Old Glory are “true” 28mm size, Tiger Miniatures are more like Colin & Janos’ Redoubt figures, ie near 30mm.

In addition, these smaller Balkan countries increasingly used a lot of their Major Power benefactors’ equipment, helmets etc (mainly French in the Greeks’ case, but with some British equipment) so there is the opportunity to do a bit of creative mixing, matching and converting. All the Balkan armies tended to use captured enemy equipment whenever possible as well, so don’t let a little thing like unavailability of figures stop you. The major powers’ figures and gear are covered by many manufacturers, listed in an earlier Compost article.

Building a Greek Army in World War One

I built Greeks, mainly because some years ago I was offered a deal I couldn’t refuse on some specially made Evzones from Eureka Miniatures, (I had in mind building an army for various smaller wars pre-and post World War One and “Balkan Back of Beyond” sort of adventures.) but when the club decided to do WW1 it was clearly time to get them into action.

Greek Evzones are those guys who wear skirts – the fustinella – and now are ceremonial guards. They were attached to the Greek infantry divisions and were elite light infantry, and were also used as the assault troops of the Greek army, especially in mountain warfare.

Greek organisation was fairly typical of the period – in the early war a Regiment had 3 Infantry Battalions, a Battalion had c 1000 men in 4 companies, a company had c 250 men in 4 Platoons of 60 men plus a small HQ, and a platoon had 4 sections of 15 men.

A Division had 3 Regiments with an attached Artillery Brigade with 24 guns, in 2 battalions of 12 guns each having 3 batteries of 4 guns. In support was an Evzone Regiment plus 1 Squadron of Cavalry, a Pioneer Company and a Medical Company.

Initially a Machine Gun Platoon of 4 Machine guns was attached at Brigade level, but experience soon showed that they needed them at a lower level and the 4^th Platoon in a company was changed into a Machine Gun platoon. Other combinations of experience, attrition and French and British influence changed the organisation quite a few more times - and of course real organisation and paper did not always match either.

Bear in mind that, as mentioned above, the rules used often define the organisation structure for the game, which, for the rules we are playing, is c 1 -2 companies in scale. Thus, its easier to build a bunch of components to use, so I have built what is in effect a later war reinforced half company, with the understrength sections that were increasingly common as the war progressed:

- 2 platoons, each of 3 sections of 12 infantrymen, and each including a small HQ of junior officer and trumpeter (they were still used to transmit battle instructions).

- A small Company HQ with a more senior officer, standard bearer (they tend to appear in the heroic portraits) and trumpeter

- 2 Heavy machine guns and teams (pro-rata share)

- 4 Light Machine guns (added to some sections later in the war)

- A Mortar team

- A 75mm Mountain Gun (No self respecting Greek army should be without one)

-        A friend also gave me enough men for a French Legion Etranger platoon, bringing the force up to about 100 figures.

I have figures from all 3 manufacturers mentioned above, as shown in the photo.

In Conclusion

So, you don’t have to build one of the Big 4 (or 5 if you count Austro-Hungary) if you fancy getting into World War One gaming – get yourself a small Balkan force, with the added benefit is that there are all sorts of actions pre and Great War that you can use them for. In addition, Balkan Back of Beyond beckons. Herge (in Tintin’s adventures) based the Syldavia/Borduria conflict loosely on Serbia/Bulgaria, but many other imaginary States of mind are possible.