Sarrail recalled

On 10 December 1917 the French War Ministry informed General Maurice Sarrail, commander-in-chief of the Allied armies in Macedonia, by telegram that it had been decided to recall him. This is the date of the decision given by Cyril Falls’s British official history of the Macedonian campaign. Sarrail was succeeded by General Adolphe Guillaumat. The next day, 11 December, the government announced the change in a short note in which it acknowledged that the general had had serious difficulties to overcome and had rendered great services. Falls considered both statements true. The British chronology of the war gives 14 December, the day the post was handed over to Guillaumat, as the date of the recall, and in Salonika the new commander took up his duties on 22 December.

Two years in Salonika

Sarrail had arrived in Salonika in October 1915 as commander of the French Army of the Orient, and from January 1916 he commanded all the Allied troops in Macedonia. Under his orders fought French, British, Serbs, Italians, Russians and, in growing numbers, Greeks. To his credit he had the capture of Bitola in November 1916, but also the failed spring offensive of 1917, which he had to break off in May after the Serbs refused to go on. He was a political general, linked to the left and the Radicals, and it was largely politics that kept him in his post. In Greece he played an important part in the removal of King Constantine.

By the autumn of 1917 Sarrail had alienated almost all the Allies. In September he sent a detachment that took Pogradec on Lake Ohrid, and he continued to back Essad Pasha Toptani, who in Salonika acted as head of the government of Albania. This angered the Italians, who regarded Albania as their sphere of influence and pressed Paris to halt the expedition. The Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić came to his headquarters with complaints, and the Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos also complained about Sarrail. The British had long distrusted his plans. Falls writes that all the Allies, one after another, asked for Sarrail’s recall. According to the British historian Alan Palmer, the general’s fate was also sealed by his links with the politicians Joseph Caillaux and Louis Malvy, then suspected of secret contacts with Germany.

Clemenceau’s decision

Previous governments, despite the Allies’ complaints, had not dared to recall him. The situation changed when on 16 November a government was formed by Georges Clemenceau, who kept the War Ministry for himself. According to the American historian Robert Doughty, at the first meeting of the War Committee, on 6 December, Clemenceau made Salonika the main subject and declared that Sarrail could not remain there. Before that, as Falls writes, he had been reminded of the complaints the Allies had made to his predecessors, and had looked into the whole matter. As successor, Clemenceau and the commander-in-chief of the French Army, General Philippe Pétain, preferred General Louis Franchet d’Espèrey. The Chief of the General Staff, General Ferdinand Foch, however, won over first Pétain and then the prime minister to Guillaumat.

Guillaumat was 54 and one of the most highly regarded French generals. In three years of war he had risen from divisional to army commander, and in August 1917 his Second Army had carried out a successful offensive at Verdun. Falls describes him as a calm and firm man, brusque but sensible and willing to listen to others. He took to Macedonia a new chief of staff, Colonel Charpy, and a new commander of the French Army of the Orient, General Paul Henrys, a former associate of Lyautey in Morocco.

The change in Salonika

Guillaumat arrived in Salonika on 22 December and took command the same day. Sarrail left for France that very night. The British commander in Macedonia, General George Milne, reported that within a week the new commander-in-chief already had matters in hand. On 30 December Guillaumat read Milne his instructions, signed by Foch and countersigned by Clemenceau. The Allied armies were above all to prevent the enemy from occupying Greece and to hold the line from the Aegean Sea to the Albanian lakes. An attack could be considered only once the defence had been organised and a new Greek army prepared.

Sarrail’s departure did not cause a political storm. The general was given no further command, and in the spring of 1918 he was placed on the reserve list. Falls judged that he, more than anyone else, had kept the Balkan campaign alive for two years, but that in the circumstances of 1917 he would never have led the Allies to victory in Macedonia, because none of them trusted him any longer. Guillaumat improved relations with the Allies and prepared plans for a future offensive. In June 1918 he returned to France as Military Governor of Paris, and Franchet d’Espèrey took over command in Salonika.