Sarrail takes command of all Entente troops at Salonika

On 16 January 1916 the commander of the French Army of the Orient, General Maurice Sarrail, took command of all Allied troops at Salonika. The British official history of the Macedonian campaign states that from then on he had under him not only the French divisions but also Lieutenant-General Bryan Mahon’s British Salonika Army and a Serbian detachment, numbering at that time about 3,000 men. Thus a unified command in French hands came into being, and on this front it lasted until the end of the war.

Two armies, two commanders

Since the autumn of 1915 the French and the British had operated in Macedonia side by side, but not under a single command. Mahon was not subordinate to Sarrail. He received his orders from London, and from November he was also formally subordinate to the British Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, General Charles Monro, who had his headquarters on Lemnos. This arrangement caused friction. The most recent example was the arrest of the Central Powers’ consuls on 30 December, of which Sarrail had warned Mahon only twenty minutes in advance. On the French side the question of command had already been settled in December, when Sarrail came under the orders of Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of all the French armies.

After the evacuation of Gallipoli Monro returned to France, and command of his forces was taken over by General Archibald Murray, who was to concern himself above all with the defence of the Suez Canal. He was also to “supervise the operations at Salonika”. The day after he took command, on 11 January, however, new instructions arrived. In a telegram sent on the evening of 10 January the Chief of the Imperial General Staff instructed Mahon to comply with Sarrail’s directions regarding military operations for the defence of the city and port of Salonika as soon as Sarrail received the appropriate instructions from his government. The telegram also conveyed the French government’s thanks for Mahon’s cooperation so far and gave assurances that the two governments had agreed to this arrangement solely on account of the military situation and the “special interests of France” in the matter of Salonika.

A French commander of a larger British army

The British official history had no doubt that a single command was needed at Salonika, and considered that France’s interests justified entrusting it to a French general. It observed, however, that the British contingent was the larger. The British had five divisions at Salonika and the French three, although the French troops had more artillery and cavalry, as well as aircraft, which the British did not have there. Sarrail was also expecting a fourth division, the 17th Colonial, which after the evacuation of Cape Helles was waiting on Lemnos and Lesbos to be shipped to Macedonia.

Sarrail’s authority over the British was limited. In administrative matters Mahon remained subordinate to Murray and was to communicate through him with the War Office on all questions of principle. Reports on the enemy, on events at the front and administrative matters he could send to London directly. The new arrangement was introduced at a time when the British government had still not finally decided whether its troops would stay at Salonika at all. As late as December the British had wanted to evacuate the city and gave way only under French pressure. The British press reported Sarrail’s appointment on 17 January.

A political general

Sarrail was a controversial figure. A favourite of the French Left, in 1914 he commanded the Third Army at Verdun, but in July 1915 Joffre relieved him of his command after unsuccessful fighting in the Argonne. The government then entrusted him with the troops in the East, and in the autumn of 1915 he led an unsuccessful expedition up the Vardar, from which he nevertheless managed to withdraw his divisions efficiently. The British official historian Cyril Falls credited him with charm, strength of character and a soldierly bearing, but reproached him for secretiveness towards his allies and a taste for Balkan politics, which caused British, Serbian and Italian commanders a great deal of trouble. According to Falls the friction in Macedonia arose from the commander’s personality rather than from the principle of a single command itself. From August 1916 Sarrail bore the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in the Orient, and later the reconstituted Serbian army as well as Italian and Russian troops also came under his orders.