Battle of Kačanik

The Battle of Kačanik was the Serbian army’s last attempt to break out of Kosovo southwards, to Skopje and to the French on the Vardar. Through the narrow gorge of the Lepenac ran the only good road and the railway from Kosovo Polje to the valley of the Vardar. Throughout November 1915 weak Serbian divisions, made up largely of recruits, defended it against the Bulgarian Second Army. When the main Serbian forces gathered in Kosovo at the end of the month, Putnik threw them into an attack through the gorge. After two days of heavy fighting in the snow the Bulgarians repulsed the Serbs, and Serbia was left with only the road through the mountains of Albania.

Name and dates

The fighting for the gorge went on intermittently from the end of October to the last days of November 1915, and sources divide and date it in different ways. The British chronology of the war gives the “Battle of Kačanik” as 5–8 November. According to the Austrian official history, which drew on the Serbian general staff’s work, the Bulgarian troops at Kačanik and Gnjilane were ordered to attack on 6 November, the Serbs repulsed them on 8 and 9 November, and on 10 November they went over to the counter-attack. Serbian studies, on the other hand, associate the name of Kačanik above all with the so-called Kačanik manoeuvre, the attempt to break through towards Skopje on 17–21 November. According to the Austrian official history the main Serbian attack began on 19 November and was repulsed on 21 November.

On this page we treat both stages as a single battle for the gorge and adopt the dates 5–21 November 1915. The start is the date from the British chronology, which differs by a day from the Bulgarian order to attack. The end is the day on which the Bulgarians repulsed the last Serbian attempt to break through. After that the fighting in the gorge died down, and according to Serbian sources the Bulgarians took Uroševac, at its northern exit, only on 25 November, when the Serbs were already leaving Kosovo.

Background

After taking Skopje on 22 October, the Bulgarian Second Army of General Georgi Todorov cut Serbia off from Salonika and from the Entente forces. According to Serbian studies, on 26 October Bulgarian troops, supported by rebel Albanians, forced their way into the Kačanik gorge. The Serbian forces in Macedonia, the so-called New Territories troops, fell back towards Kosovo. According to the Austrian official history they were commanded by General Damjan Popović. Some studies state that at the end of October he was replaced by General Petar Bojović. They consisted of the Bregalnica and Vardar Divisions, formed in the lands Serbia had won in the Balkan Wars, largely from recruits and the oldest reserve classes.

In the north, meanwhile, Mackensen’s armies were driving the main Serbian forces out of Šumadija. On 1 November the Serbs lost Kragujevac, and their armies fell back behind the West and South Morava. Vojvoda Radomir Putnik knew that the road south across Kosovo Polje, through Kačanik to Skopje or through Tetovo to Bitola, was the only chance of joining up with the Allies. As early as 29 October he had asked General Maurice Sarrail for the French to strike quickly from the Vardar valley towards Skopje. The French were already fighting on the Vardar at Krivolak, but they had too few troops to get that far. Putnik therefore sent the Morava Division (first levy) south, towards Priština, to strengthen the defence of Kosovo on the Macedonian side.

The Bulgarians, for their part, wanted to enter Kosovo Polje from the south and close the Serbs’ last line of retreat. At the beginning of November the northern group of the Bulgarian Second Army had one brigade each of the 3rd and 5th Divisions at Kačanik and at Gnjilane, and further north, near Leskovac, the group of General Nikola Ribarov with the rest of the 3rd Division (PL).

Course of the battle

Defence of the gorge, 5–10 November. On 6 November the Bulgarian northern group was ordered to make a concentric attack on Kosovo Polje, through Gnjilane and through Kačanik towards Uroševac and Priština. According to the Austrian official history the Bregalnica and Vardar Divisions, reinforced by the Morava division, defended themselves on 8 and 9 November “with lion-like courage”, and on 10 November themselves went over to the counter-attack and forced the Bulgarians onto the defensive. The Bulgarian command had to bring Ribarov’s group south, and Ribarov himself took command of the whole northern group. Bulgarian studies also write that the attack on the Gnjilane–Kačanik line met fierce resistance and was halted.

Gnjilane, 11–16 November. On 11 November news reached Serbian headquarters that the French on the Vardar had suffered a setback. Putnik decided that the armies from the north would withdraw to Kosovo Polje and break through to the south themselves from there. On 12 November Sarrail received an order from Paris to halt the offensive, of which the Serbs knew nothing. The Bulgarians, meanwhile, concentrated three brigades at Gnjilane and on 15 November threw back the Vardar and Morava Divisions with heavy losses. At Kačanik, however, they were unable to break through. There the Bregalnica Division, with difficulty but successfully, barred the way to Priština and Prizren. Putnik sent the Timok Army Group and a cavalry division to its aid, and a second Morava division to Gnjilane.

The break-out attempt, 17–21 November. According to Serbian studies, forces for the break-out towards Skopje were concentrated from 12 November, but constant enemy pressure from the north and east left no time to gather them all. They date the attempt, called the Kačanik manoeuvre, to 17–21 November. The Timok Group with the Bregalnica Division and the cavalry was to open the Kačanik gorge and take the Žegovac mountains, while the Morava and Vardar Divisions attacked east of them. In a snowstorm Serbian regiments travelled from Priština to Kačanik in open wagons and went straight from the trains into the mountains. The British correspondent Gordon Gordon-Smith, who watched them leave Priština, wrote of “a last desperate throw of the dice”. According to the Austrian official history most of these forces went into the attack on 19 November. The exhausted Serbs took ridge after ridge and, according to the Serbian general staff, recaptured an important position on the Žegovac. The Bulgarians, however, quickly sent to Gnjilane the main forces of their 8th Division, which had arrived via Kumanovo, and on 21 November, after two days of fierce fighting, repulsed the Serbs. That day the Serbian command ordered the armies to fall back behind the river Sitnica. The Bulgarians, however, still could not advance a single step along the road from Skopje to Priština.

Losses

The losses in the fighting at Kačanik cannot be given separately. The Austrian official history speaks only of the “heaviest losses” of the Vardar and Morava Divisions at Gnjilane on 15 November and of the “heaviest sacrifices” at which the Serbs took positions during the last attack. Gordon-Smith noted that a machine-gun section which he had seen before the attack at Priština station, about 84 men strong, numbered only 26 after the fighting at Kačanik and the march to Albania.

Significance

The defence of the Kačanik gorge saved the Serbian army from encirclement from the south. The British official history writes that the two divisions which heroically defended the gorge saved their comrades from complete encirclement and destruction. The Bulgarians entered Kosovo Polje from the south only when the Serbs had begun to withdraw from it, and the Germans and Austrians were marching into Priština and Mitrovica from the north.

The failed attempt to break through towards Skopje dispelled the last hope of joining up with the French. Sarrail’s troops did not get beyond the Vardar valley, and during the days of fighting at Kačanik they began to withdraw towards the Greek frontier. Between 23 and 25 November the Serbian government and high command decided that the army, the king and the government would leave through the mountains of Montenegro and Albania for the Adriatic. The Great Retreat began.