Bulgarians take Veles

The British chronology of the war records under 21 October 1915 the capture by the Bulgarians of Veles, a town on the Vardar, then also known by its Turkish name of Köprülü. Other sources point to a day or two earlier. According to the Austro-Hungarian official history, the Bulgarian cavalry division reached Veles as early as 19 October. The British history of the war published by Nelson states that the town fell on 20 October, and Serbian studies say that by that day the Bulgarian Second Army had reached Kumanovo and Veles.

The key to the Vardar valley

Veles lay about 50 kilometres south-east of Skopje, on the railway line from Salonika to the north, which here ran along the Vardar valley. From here a road also led west to Prilep and Bitola. The Serbs understood from the start how important the town was. At the end of September the deputy chief of the Serbian staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Živojin Pavlović, who during Vojvoda Putnik’s illness was in effect directing the army, urged through the British military attaché that the Allies send 100,000 soldiers to Veles to cover it against the Bulgarians. On 26 September the War Office in London replied that this would not be possible for the coming weeks.

Veles was the target of the Bulgarian cavalry, which followed the 7th Division through the Bregalnica valley and Štip and then across the Ovče Pole plain. It was opposed by weak units of the Serbian Bregalnica Division. On 17 October the Serbian command brought up to Veles a detachment that had until then guarded the railway further south, but it was unable to hold the town. The Serbs fell back west of the Vardar and took up a strong position on the pass in the Babuna mountains, on the road from Veles to Prilep.

Cut off from the Allies

The fall of Veles dashed the hope of linking the Serbs with the Entente forces. The French of General Maurice Sarrail were advancing by rail up the Vardar but were still far to the south. According to the British official history of the Macedonian campaign, for several days the Bulgarians did not know of their presence at all. They learnt of it on 21 October, when the Bulgarian 14th Infantry Regiment, coming down from Strumica to destroy a railway bridge, ran into the French near Strumica station and was repulsed. The Austrians date this clash to 22 October. A French brigade later got as far as Krivolak, about 30 kilometres south-east of Veles, but advanced no further.

A few days after the fall of Veles, when Russia and Italy too had declared war on Bulgaria, the Serbian command was still asking Sarrail to strike through Veles and the Ovče Pole at Skopje. The French, however, did not have the strength for it. By the end of October Bulgarian infantry units had arrived at Veles, and the Serbs on the Babuna pass defended the road to Prilep until mid-November.