Milne replaces Mahon

On 9 May 1916 Lieutenant-General George Milne took command of the British Salonika Army. He replaced Lieutenant-General Sir Bryan Mahon, who had commanded the British forces in Macedonia since the autumn of 1915. The British official history of the Macedonian campaign states that Mahon handed over command on 9 May and sailed for Egypt the same day. The change was announced publicly only later. The London weekly The Near East wrote in its issue of 26 May that the War Office had announced it “last Friday”, that is, around 19 May. The same weekly reported that Mahon had left Salonika “on Friday”, which is hard to reconcile with the date in the official history. The date of the official history, based on military documents, seems more reliable.

A telegram from Egypt

The decision was taken in London. On 4 May a War Office telegram to General Archibald Murray, commander of the British forces in Egypt, reached Salonika from Egypt. The War Office had decided that Mahon, because of his “knowledge of Egypt and special qualifications”, would be more useful as successor to General William Peyton at the head of the Western Frontier Force of Egypt, which guarded the country against the Senussi order, than in his current post. Mahon did indeed know the country, having served years before in the Egyptian Army and fought in the Sudan. Murray was to appoint him to the new post and replace him at Salonika with Milne, until then commander of XVI Corps.

The official history stresses that Mahon was not recalled for any mistakes. In a difficult position he had shown good sense and tact, and he had strengthened the entrenched camp around Salonika with energy. He had, however, received the command largely by chance, as the senior officer on the spot at a time when he had only one division under his orders. General Charles Monro had already reported earlier that Mahon was overworked and needed a rest. The British government decided that now, when the Allies once again stood face to face with the enemy, an offensive might begin, and the French and the British differed ever more clearly in their view of the campaign’s aims, Salonika needed a commander with wide experience of this war and an exceptionally strong will. The farewell was cordial. According to The Near East, General Maurice Sarrail, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, told a correspondent that he had found in Mahon “not only an ideal collaborator, but a true friend”. British generals and staff officers, Serbian officers and Greek generals with their staffs came to see him off.

The gunner from Omdurman

George Francis Milne was born in 1866 in Aberdeen. He was an artillery officer. In 1898 he fought in the Sudan at the Battle of Omdurman, and later in the Boer War. In 1914 he went to France as commander of the artillery of the 4th Division and led it at Le Cateau and on the Marne, among other places. In 1915 he was chief of staff of the Second Army, and in the summer he took command of the 27th Division, which at the end of the year was moved to Salonika. He himself arrived there on 8 January 1916 and, already a lieutenant-general, took charge of the newly formed XVI Corps. He had been friends with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General William Robertson, since their course at the Staff College.

A new commander, the old policy

Milne took over an army of five divisions. In April and early May the Allied forces had moved out of the entrenched camp towards the border with Serbia and Bulgaria. With the consent of London, which allowed them to approach the border but not to cross it, Mahon had sent north, to the area of Kukush (Kilkis), two brigades of the 22nd Division and a cavalry brigade under General Frederick Gordon. One of the new commander’s first orders, issued on 10 May in line with Sarrail’s wishes, was that this detachment’s positions between the villages of Dereselo and Chirsova should be held as a line of resistance and reinforced with the division’s third brigade. Milne also changed his chief of staff. Brigadier-General Howell, who had been Mahon’s right hand, left for London, and his place was taken by Brigadier-General W. Gillman from the staff in Egypt.

London’s policy did not change. According to the official history, Milne was not even asked to estimate how many divisions an offensive in Macedonia would need. The government still held that the troops at Salonika were to defend the city, not to attack. When in May Sarrail presented a plan for an offensive, Robertson instructed Milne to explain to the French commander that Great Britain had not agreed to any offensive operations, even limited ones. The message was sent to Salonika on 28 May, two days after the Bulgarians and Germans took the Greek Fort Rupel on the Struma.

Mahon did not enjoy his new post for long. He arrived in Egypt in heat exceeding 38 degrees in the shade at noon, suffered sunstroke, barely escaped with his life and had to return home. In November 1916 he became commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland. Milne commanded in Macedonia until the end of the war. After the war he became Chief of the Imperial General Staff, a field marshal and a peer as Baron Milne of Salonika.