Bombardment of Dedeagach

On the afternoon of 21 October 1915 a squadron of British, French and Russian warships bombarded the Bulgarian port of Dedeagach (PL), today the Greek city of Alexandroupolis, and the Aegean coast to the west of it as far as Porto Lagos. It was the first attack by the Entente fleet on Bulgaria, five days after the declaration of a blockade of its Aegean coast. The bombardment lasted about three hours. The ships destroyed barracks, the railway station, rolling stock, warehouses and port installations, meeting no resistance at all.

The target: the railway to Constantinople

According to the British official history, Vice-Admiral John de Robeck received the order to attack when Russia announced that it would bombard the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna on the same day. It was hoped that a blow from two sides would draw some Bulgarian forces away from Serbia. British scouting trawlers reported that the Bulgarians were feverishly entrenching on the coast, fearing a landing. The most important target was the railway. A line from the interior of Bulgaria reached Dedeagach, and after the agreement with Turkey it now ran entirely on Bulgarian soil. At Dedeagach the line from Salonika came down to the sea and ran on to Constantinople, exposed for some ten-odd kilometres to fire from ships. About eight kilometres inland, at a place the British called Bodoma, a loop line had been built behind the hills by which trains could bypass the port. The admiral designated this junction, within range of the monitors’ heavy guns, as the main target.

The main squadron, commanded by Captain Frank Larken, consisted of the cruisers Doris and Theseus, three monitors, four destroyers and the seaplane carrier Ben-my-Chree, whose airmen were to spot for the guns. The second squadron, made up of the French cruiser Kléber, the Russian cruiser Askold, four British destroyers and four trawlers, under the command of Captain S. Ivanov of Askold, was to operate west of Dedeagach as far as Porto Lagos. The British suspected that there, at Dedeagach and in the mouth of the Maritsa there were fuel depots for German submarines. The ships were to search for coastal batteries and to spare neutral shipping and, as far as possible, dwelling houses. De Robeck watched the operation from the yacht Triad.

Fire on the port

In the morning the destroyers swept the waters off the town but found no mines. The airmen reported, however, that visibility was too poor to direct fire on the distant Bodoma junction, and the monitors, delayed by a head wind, had not yet arrived. Attention was therefore concentrated on Dedeagach itself. At 1 p.m. Doris and Theseus opened fire on the barracks from a range of about 4.5 kilometres. According to the British account every shell hit, hundreds of soldiers fled towards the hills, and the whole range of buildings was soon reduced to blazing ruins. The ships then shelled other military buildings, the station and long lines of wagons by the sea. Two destroyers closed the shore and set fire to many wagons, probably filled with oil. The first of the monitors, M16, destroyed a railway bridge east of the town, and the others joined in the bombardment of the rolling stock, the tracks, the port, the warehouses and the shipping. The destroyers also set fire to a coal heap and a fuel depot. At 4 p.m. fire ceased. Meanwhile the second squadron destroyed warehouses at Porto Lagos and signal stations on the coast. During the night the ships feigned landings on both sides of the port, but even then no one opposed them.

The British Admiralty announced on 23 October that the ships had done serious damage to the port, the railway station and the shipping, while trying to fire only at military targets. The French Ministry of Marine stressed that residential quarters had not been shelled. A communiqué from Sofia claimed, by contrast, that the ships had bombarded open, unfortified towns, Porto Lagos, Makri and Dedeagach, and that the whole action had no military significance.

No effect on Serbia’s fate

The attack took the Bulgarians by surprise but did not halt their offensive. Their efforts were then concentrated on Skopje, which they took the next day. For the British government it was another reason not to follow the example of General Maurice Sarrail, who had led French divisions from Salonika deep into Macedonia to help the Serbs. The coastal bombardment showed that the fleet could strike at Bulgaria with impunity, but ships alone could not change the course of the war on land.