Fighting at Demir Kapija

The British chronology of the war records under 5 December 1915 fighting at Demir Kapija, lasting until 6 December, during the French retreat from Serbia. Demir Kapija, Turkish for Iron Gate, is a narrow gorge of the Vardar through limestone rocks, some 15–20 kilometres south-east of Krivolak. Along the river ran the railway from Salonika to Serbia, cut into the walls of the gorge. There was no other road in the valley. Through this single gap two divisions of the French Army of the Orient, the 57th and 122nd, which on the night of 3–4 December had left their positions at Krivolak, had to squeeze. The gorge was the first of the intermediate positions that General Maurice Sarrail had ordered to be fortified back in November.

Through the Iron Gate

The French historian Jacques Ancel, who described the campaign in 1920, portrayed the passage through the gorge as a night march in darkness. The infantry walked in single file along the railway track itself, each battalion behind its commander carrying a lantern. Planks were missing on the bridges, and every stumble threatened a fall into the ravine or into the swollen river. The wounded were led along goat tracks on the slopes, where the thaw had turned the snow into mud, and the way was lit by candles stuck to helmets. A covering rearguard stood along the Bošava river, which flows into the Vardar at Demir Kapija. According to the British official history, when the troops reached this position the field artillery had to be loaded onto trains, so for a time the infantry was supported only by five mountain batteries.

The Bulgarian pursuit

The Bulgarians bridged the Crna Reka on the morning of 4 December and followed the French in four columns. According to Ancel, they did not want to venture into the gorge itself. Guided by komitadjis, local irregulars who knew every ravine, they tried to outrun the French through the mountains on the right bank of the Vardar and close the exit from the gorge to them. One night they attacked a French flank guard bivouacking in the valley of the Petrovska stream. It was met by a rain of shrapnel, and infantry with bayonets came running down the slopes. The French, singing so as to recognise one another in the dark, rallied on a hastily occupied position and beat off the attack.

Sources date the heaviest fighting differently. The British official history says that on the right bank of the Vardar, on the Crna Reka side, the Bulgarians made contact with the French only on 6 December, but then pressed them hard. On the left bank of the Vardar they attacked with less determination. The Austrian official history also dates the action at Demir Kapija to 6 December, and accounts of the history of the 57th Division, based on French unit records, speak of the defence of the position on 5 and 6 December. The available works do not give the exact losses on either side. The name “Demir-Kapou 1915”, however, was inscribed on the colours of the French regiments distinguished in this fighting.

Further retreat

On the morning of 6 December the French were still holding the gorge. According to the British official history, the 57th Division was to withdraw the following night through the position of the 122nd Division around Gradec station, where it linked up with the 156th Division standing next to the British. On 7 December the French set fire to Strumica station, blew up the tunnel and the bridge over the Vardar and destroyed the track. The same day the Bulgarian Second Army attacked the British on the ridge at Kosturino, east of the Vardar valley, and the retreat of the whole expedition entered its most dangerous phase.