Victory at Skra di Legen

At 4.55 a.m. on 30 May 1918, after a day-long artillery bombardment, Greek soldiers went in to storm the Bulgarian positions around Skra di Legen, a rocky peak above the village of Ljumnica, west of the Vardar. In Greece, which still used the Julian calendar, it was 17 May. The British chronology of the war recorded the battle under 31 May, but the British official history of the Macedonian campaign (Falls) and Greek studies agree that the attack began and was decided on 30 May. The assault was made by two regiments of General Dimitrios Ioannou’s Archipelago Division, a regiment of the Serres Division and, on the right wing, units of the Crete Division. All belonged to the National Defence Corps, the first army of Eleftherios Venizelos, formed in Salonika even before the whole of Greece entered the war.

The attack was very fast. The first wave kept right behind its own artillery’s creeping barrage, so that when the fire lifted the Greeks were already at the entrances to the Bulgarian dugouts. Many defenders were taken prisoner in their shelters, unwounded and surprised. According to the Italian historian Luigi Villari, the Bulgarian artillery replied only when the attackers were far in front of their own trenches. The islanders of the Archipelago Division climbed the slopes of Skra di Legen, took the summit and in two further bounds reached their final objective. In the west, the ridge the French called the Éperon was in their hands by 6.15 a.m., and according to Greek studies the whole massif was taken by 6.30. The fighting lasted longer in the east, where the Cretans crossed the southern branch of the Ljumnica river and seized the ridge between its two branches. There, according to Falls, the objective was reached only in the afternoon.

The Bulgarian 49th Infantry Regiment, which held the salient, was surrounded and almost destroyed. In the afternoon and during the night the Bulgarians counter-attacked several times, especially against the Cretans, but without success. By evening the Greeks had taken a belt of trenches, dugouts and machine-gun posts about 12 km long and up to 2 km deep. General Adolphe Guillaumat, commander-in-chief of the Allied armies in Macedonia, reported on 3 June 1,812 prisoners, including 33 officers and German signallers. According to the French historian Colonel Bujac, the prisoners numbered about 2,500 including the wounded, while Greek studies give 2,063. The victory was costly: Falls puts Allied losses at 2,795 men, almost exclusively Greek, and Greek tallies speak of 441 killed, about 2,200 wounded and 164 missing.

For Guillaumat it was a test before the planned offensive. The British, and the Greeks themselves, doubted the worth of the Greek army, and the general took the risk although a defeat could have discouraged it for a long time. Now he at once publicised the success and telegraphed Venizelos that this victory would fill all of Greece with justified pride. The news did indeed arouse enthusiasm in the country, raised Venizelos’s prestige and made it easier to mobilise the former royal army, even in the Peloponnese, which was unsympathetic to him. “Few actions so small have caused so much stir,” wrote Falls.

The expected strong Bulgarian counter-blow did not come in the following days. According to Villari, the soldiers detailed for the counter-attack refused to march, which was one of the first clear signs of the collapse of morale in the Bulgarian army. Soon afterwards Guillaumat was recalled to France, where the Germans had just reached the Marne, and his successor, General Louis Franchet d’Espèrey, was instructed to continue the operations begun at Skra di Legen. In September 1918 the Greek divisions took part in the offensive that broke the Bulgarian front.