End of the March offensive in Macedonia

Around 23 March 1917 the series of French attacks with which General Maurice Sarrail had tried to push the Bulgarians and Germans back from Bitola died down. The offensive had no clear end. Sarrail had ordered the attack between Lakes Ohrid and Prespa, begun on 11 March, to be halted as early as 19 March, because it had bogged down in the snow. The Austrian official history states, however, that French attacks on the isthmus were still very strong on 23 March and were repulsed. The fighting for Hill 1248 north of Bitola had died down a day earlier, and isolated clashes and counter-attacks continued until the end of the month.

The greatest success was achieved by the French 57th Division. After several days of fighting, on 18 March it took the summit of Hill 1248, from which the enemy had observed and shelled the town, and also the fortified village of Krklino. West of Bitola the 156th Division took several lines of trenches on the Red Wall ridge in the Baba range on 15 March. On 20 March the Germans counter-attacked and took the summit of Hill 1248 back from the French. On 21 March the French recaptured it, but could not occupy it under heavy fire. Sources differ on how this ended. According to French accounts, on 22 March the 16th Colonial Division occupied the summit without a fight. The British official history, the Italian historian Luigi Villari and the correspondent George Ward Price write, on the other hand, that the summit could not be held, and that the French and Bulgarians dug in on opposite slopes, leaving the top as no man’s land.

On 24 March Sarrail reported that, contrary to enemy communiqués, the French had won and held substantial gains in the Bitola area. By 27 March he had counted 2,104 prisoners, while the British official history gives a round 2,000, most of them taken on Hill 1248. Losses are not known exactly: according to some French accounts the French lost about 5,000 men in March, and the enemy a similar number. In the 76th Division, fighting between the lakes in deep snow, many soldiers were put out of action by frostbite. Sarrail admitted that he had not achieved his aim, the relief of Bitola. The town still lay within range of the Bulgarian and German artillery. Further attacks, however, would have required fresh troops, and Sarrail was saving these for the main offensive.

The plan for that offensive was ready. Sarrail intended to strike in April with the full strength of his armies and, if all went well, to reach even as far as Sofia. General George Milne’s British were to attack west of Lake Doiran, and the Serbs, French, Italians and Russians further west, in the mountains on the Greek–Serbian border, in the bend of the Crna and again at Bitola. The British were already regrouping their troops at Doiran, and from 17 March the Bulgarians shelled their lines, using gas shells for the first time on this front. The spring attacks, in April at Doiran and in May in the Crna bend, also failed to bring a breakthrough.

The March fighting was a small repeat of the battle of the Crna. The Allies again gained some ground and many prisoners, but the enemy again halted on the hills just behind the town. Bitola remained under fire until the autumn of 1918.