Allies retake Florina

On 17 September 1916 French and Russian troops entered Florina, a Greek town on the railway from Salonika to Bitola. The Bulgarians had taken it on 17 August, at the very start of their offensive in western Macedonia, and held it for exactly a month. The date of 17 September is given by the British official history of the operations in Macedonia and by the Italian historian Luigi Villari, author of a history of the Macedonian campaign published in 1922. The English Wikipedia says that the French entered the town only on 23 September, but gives no source for that date. The British official history explains only that after taking Florina the French fought for another two weeks on the hills west and north-west of the town, which they mastered only on 2 October, capturing the monastery of St Mark that dominates Florina. We adopt the date of 17 September.

At the end of August the Bulgarian attack stalled on the hills above Lake Ostrovo, where the Serbs held their defence. General Maurice Sarrail, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Macedonia, needed about two more weeks to prepare a counter-offensive. The British official history notes that the troops were thrown into the fighting in a hurry, without enough supplies and ammunition, in wild and almost roadless country. The main blow was to be delivered by the Serbian Danube and Vardar Divisions, supported by the Morava Division, along the road from Salonika which runs north of Lake Ostrovo through Gornichevo and Banitsa towards Bitola. On the left flank General Victor Cordonnier was to outflank the Bulgarian positions from the west with the French 156th Division, the Russian brigade and later also the French 57th Division.

The offensive began on 12 September. That day the 156th Division took the village of Rudnik, and the Serbs, after a heavy artillery preparation, attacked the fortified positions on the Malka Nidže ridge. On 14 September they took Gornichevo, the pass between Lake Ostrovo and the plain of Bitola, and according to the British official history captured 32 guns. Villari writes of 25 guns taken as early as 13 September, and the British journalist Gordon Gordon-Smith, who accompanied the Serbs, of 40 guns and about 2,000 Bulgarians killed and wounded. The Serbs reached Ekshisu railway station, but the Bulgarians had managed to blow up a large viaduct there, which for a long time cut the Allies off from the railway further west.

After the defeat at Gornichevo the Bulgarians swung back their right wing, pivoting on the peak of Kaymakchalan that dominates the area, to a line running from there past Florina. The French and Russians advanced slowly. According to Villari, the 156th Division advanced from Rudnik on Banitsa, the Russians towards Neretska, and the 57th Division, with two regiments of Chasseurs d’Afrique, towards Kastoria. The British official history writes that Cordonnier was slowed by the fatigue of his men after long marches and by difficulties in bringing up the artillery, whose horses were exhausted. Only on 17 September did the French and Russians enter Florina. The dispute over the pace of operations on the left flank was the beginning of a bitter conflict between Sarrail and Cordonnier.

The recapture of Florina closed the episode of the Bulgarian August offensive, but it did not yet open the way to Bitola. The Bulgarians held on to the hills north of the town and to the ridges on the Serbian border. The most important fighting was now for Kaymakchalan, which the Serbian Drina Division had been climbing since 12 September. The Serbs finally took it on 30 September, and at the beginning of October the Bulgarians fell back to the Crna River, to a line covering Bitola.