Italians land at Salonika

On 11 August 1916 the Italian 35th Infantry Division under General Carlo Petitti di Roreto, the first large formation of the Italian Army sent to the Salonika front, began disembarking at Salonika. This is the date given by the British official history of operations in Macedonia. According to Italian accounts, the first convoy sailed from Taranto on 8 August, and the first units came ashore as early as the evening of 10 August. The British chronology of the war records the Italian landing under 12 August. Further transports continued to arrive over the following days.

Long bargaining

Since the autumn of 1915 the Allies had been urging the Italians to send troops to Macedonia. The French at first spoke of as many as several divisions. Rome refused for a long time. The Chief of Staff of the Italian Army, General Luigi Cadorna, did not want to weaken the front on the Isonzo and in the Trentino, and the government preferred to keep its own corps at Vlorë in Albania, where the Italians had landed as early as December 1914. At the Chantilly conference in March 1916 General Joseph Joffre asked the Italian representative, General Carlo Porro, whether the Italians could attack from Vlorë. Porro replied that an offensive in those mountains was impossible.

The matter returned in the summer, when the Entente was preparing Romania’s entry into the war. The Romanians made it a condition that the Allied army at Salonika should attack the Bulgarians and tie down their forces. According to Italian accounts, in July 1916, after many disputes, the government and the Supreme Command finally agreed to send one division to Macedonia. The Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, also had reasons of his own. Italy viewed with suspicion the plans of the Serbs and Greeks concerning Albania and the Adriatic coast, and did not want the future of the Balkans to be decided without it.

A showcase division

The choice fell on an experienced formation. General Petitti di Roreto had taken over the 35th Division in mid-May 1916, just as the Austro-Hungarian offensive was starting on the Asiago plateau, and commanded it in heavy defensive fighting in May and June. In Macedonia the division consisted of two infantry brigades, “Sicilia” and “Cagliari”, with mountain artillery, a cavalry squadron, engineers and services. The British official history notes that the contingent had been carefully chosen to uphold Italy’s prestige in this theatre of war. The division had a good reputation, was brought up to full strength and was excellently equipped, although its artillery numbered only 32 mountain guns. According to Italian accounts, transporting it required several dozen ships, which made the run between Taranto and Salonika several times each. The first convoy consisted of three ships, among them the Gallia carrying the headquarters of the division and of the “Cagliari” brigade.

An army of many nations

The Italians joined an army that already contained a full cross-section of the Entente. General Maurice Sarrail, since January commander of all Allied troops at Salonika, had under him French, British, the reconstituted Serbian army and a Russian brigade that had arrived at the end of July. On the same day the command was reorganised: on 11 August command of the French divisions, henceforth called the Armée française d’Orient, was taken over by General Maurice Cordonnier, newly arrived from France, and Sarrail became Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied Armies in the East. The British official history judges that both new contingents, the Russian and especially the Italian, were a valuable acquisition.

The Italians were to have no time to acclimatise. Only a few days later the Bulgarians forestalled Sarrail’s planned offensive, and he decided to relieve the French 57th Division with the Italians and move it to the threatened left wing. By 27 August the 35th Division had taken over the sector from Butkovo to the shore of Lake Dojran, in the Krusha range, between the British corps. The Italian soldiers dug in there in difficult terrain, partly mountainous and partly marshy, and after a few weeks malaria began to decimate them. In the autumn the division received a third brigade, “Ivrea”, and from then on numbered 18 battalions, and in November some of its units were moved west to the fighting for Bitola.