Fighting begins at Krivolak

The British chronology of the war records under 24 October 1915 the first skirmish at Krivolak in Macedonia. Krivolak was a village with a railway station on the Vardar, on the line from Salonika to Serbia, about 13 kilometres east of the mouth of the Crna Reka and about 30 kilometres south-east of Veles. In the last days of October the French 57th Infantry Division arrived here, the most advanced unit of the Entente forces that were to come to Serbia’s aid. At Krivolak it met the Bulgarians for the first time. The sources describe the course of these first clashes very sparingly and disagree about the dates.

Race to Veles

After the first fight with the Bulgarians at Strumica station on 21 October the French held about 50 kilometres of railway, as far as the Vardar gorge at Demir Kapija. General Maurice Sarrail, commander of the French Army of the Orient, wanted to help the Serbs, so he sent the leading brigade of the 57th Division further on, to Krivolak. The first mixed brigade of this division, transferred from the front near Belfort, had landed at Salonika between 12 and 16 October, the rest between 20 and 23 October. On 23 October General Paul Leblois took command of the division.

According to the British official history of the Macedonian campaign, the French once again took the Bulgarians by surprise, as the road to Veles lay open. A further advance, however, would have been very risky. The French were few, and behind them stretched a long railway line that they had to defend. The road bridge on the highway from Negotino to Štip had lain in ruins since the Balkan War of 1912. The brigade had only a wretched Turkish ferry at its disposal and at first could not even get a detachment across to the east bank to occupy the heights north of Krivolak. The railway bridges over the Vardar were of steel, with the rails bolted to the sleepers and no footway.

Meeting the Bulgarians

The sources describe the first contact with the enemy differently. The Austrian official history states that units of a Bulgarian cavalry division moving south from Štip ran into the advance parties of the French 57th Division already before Krivolak. The British writer John Buchan, writing during the war, described the main body of the division beginning to arrive on 23 October, with the French crossing the swollen Vardar by ferry and taking up positions on the left bank of the river. According to him they occupied Krivolak itself without difficulty only on 27 October. By that day, according to the British history, the whole 57th Division was in the Vardar valley, but it had to defend a sector about 25 kilometres long, from Gradec in the south to Krivolak.

For the moment only small forces faced the French. Reports of the landing of tens of thousands of French and British troops at Salonika had been reaching the Bulgarian command, but it was thought that they were not yet ready for action. Now the Bulgarians had to turn against them, because the newcomers threatened the southern flank of their Second Army, which was advancing westwards against the Serbs.

Too late

Sarrail had, however, arrived too late. By the time his soldiers were reaching Krivolak, the Bulgarians already held Veles, and on 22 October they had taken Kumanovo and Skopje. According to the British official history, on 24 October the Bulgarian Second Army completely cut off the main Serbian forces from the French. From then on the army of Vojvoda Radomir Putnik, falling back from the north under pressure from the Germans and Austrians, could count on a link with Salonika only if Skopje could be recaptured.

The French did not have enough strength to bring that about, but they decided to hold on along the Vardar and to fortify a bridgehead on its east bank, on the Kara Hodjali massif dominating the valley. In the following days ever stronger Bulgarian forces began to advance against them.