Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/422

382 time the Bulgarian forces between Shtip and Krivolak were slowly driving back Timok II. to the Bregalnitsa, but it was now too late for this to influence either the main battle or that of the Greek front. On the latter, the Bulgarian advance had come to a standstill, as soon as King Constantine had brought up his reserves, and the

BATTLE OF THE BRECALNITZA 1913

counter-offensive opened on the 3rd. His left (loth and 3rd Divs.) retook Gevgeli, his centre (4th, 2nd, 5th) Kilkish, and his right (ist, 6th, 7th) drove back the Bulgarian left on Nigrita and also eastward on the Seres road (July 3-4). On July 7 the Greek right reached the Salonika-Drama railway, and their left from Gevgeli carried the pass over the Belashitsa which leads to Strumitsa. Thus Ivanov was cut off from the railway, and his only line of retreat lay up the narrow Struma valley to Jumaya.

Yielding to necessity, the Bulgarian forces on the Vardar with- drew, ere it was too late, into the Belashitsa valley, while those pursuing Timok II. on the lower Bregalnitsa halted and drew back.

The opportunity which thus presented itself to the Serbian III. Army of interposing between Ivanov and Bulgaria led to a regroup- ing of the Serbian forces for the benefit of this army, which, pursuing its advantage, drove back its opponents towards the line of moun- tains in the upper Bregalnitsa bend (Obozna-i34O-Grlena).

But the Bulgarians, in order to relieve pressure and to keep their hold upon Western opinion, seized the initiative again while the regrouping was in process and the Greeks had hardly yet entered the Struma and Strumitsa valleys.

Their new offensive was twofold local attacks by the I. and V. Armies on all the routes leading into Old Serbia, and heavy counter- attacks on the front of the Serbian I. Army. The first, made with columns of varying strengths on the routes leading to Zajechar, Kynashevats, Pirot and Vlasina, was repulsed by the Serbian II. Army after some initial successes, and was over by July 10. The second was more serious, and it seems that the process of building up the strength of the Serbian III. Army opposite Kochana was not only suspended but actually reversed to cope with a crisis. Finally, however, the Bulgarians were repulsed here also, and retired to the line of frontier mountains (Golemi Vrh-Bozderitsa-Rujan-Sivako- bila), more or less in touch with the right of the forces in the moun- tains of the Bregalnitsa bend.

By this time the Greeks were in possession of the Strumitsa basin and had made some progress up the Struma. But Ivanov had obtained an opportunity that he could not have gained by his own efforts to extricate the various forces of the Bulgarian left which were scattered from the Vardar to the Struma.

The new allied offensive, therefore, begun all along the Serbian line on the I5th, and starting on the battle-front above mentioned (Golemi Vrh-Siyakobila-Obochna), resolved itself into a series of local combats with the object of cutting off as much as possible of Ivanov's rearguard detachments and of making strategic connexion with the Greek left at Pehchevo. At this stage, indeed, bolder strategy was hardly required, for already Rumania had declared war on Bul- garia and had begun an unopposed march on Sofia, while the Turks at Chatalja and Bulair, ignoring the Treaty of London, reoccupied Adrianople without firing a shot.

Yet this relative inactivity of the Serbs gave the Bulgarians one more opportunity, which they seized. Using a manoeuvre which was destined to become a familiar practice of strategy in the World War, but, at that date and in that country of mountains and primitive communications, was conspicuously daring and novel, they trans- ferred Kutinchev's I. Army from theold Serbian frontier (Vidin-Pirot front) to Ivanov's theatre, placing the newcomers on the outer flank of the advancing Greeks. On July 25 Ivanov and Kutinchev simultaneously attacked the leading troops of the Greek central or Struma column l before the main body was clear of the Kresna defile. But the capacity of resistance of the Greek troops, especially in mountain country for which their aptitude was remarkable through- out these campaigns, enabled them to weather the first crisis; they were reinforced from the left as well as from the rear, and on the night of the 26th-27th the Bulgarians withdrew towards the Jumaya Pass.

The venture was at an end. Surrounded by hostile columns con- verging on Sofia from every quarter, Bulgaria yielded on July 31, and on Aug. 10 was signed the Peace of Bucharest.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. The outbreak of the World War in 1914 pre- vented all the combatants of the Balkan wars from producing official histories, and the only sources available are books and papers published immediately after the operations. Concise military accounts of the first war in all theatres are Boucabeille's Guerre Turco balkanique and Immanuel's Balkankrieg. For the Macedonian campaign and Scutari, by far the best authority is the French general staff publication Revue mil. des armees etrangeres (monthly numbers Feb. -July 1914). For the campaign of 1912 in Thrace, A. de Pennenrun's Campagne de Thrace is the best contemporary account ; an interesting study by Mai. (afterwards Brig.-Gen.) P. Howell, The Campaign in Thrace (1913), stops short before Chatalja. In 1915 Gen. Palat produced a volume, Guerre des Balkans, which assembles most of the known evidence for the Thracian campaign. For the second war of 1913 very little of military value has been published. A summary of dispositions, movements, and events will be found in Hazell's Annual, 1914, pp. 369-71. For the Serbian part in both wars A. Kutschbach's Die Serben im Balkankrieg is useful as containing official information. (C. F. A.) BALL, SIR ROBERT STAWELL (1840-1013), Irish astronomer, was born in Dublin July i 1840. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was appointed in 1865 assistant to the Earl of Rosse's observatory at Parsonstown, and whilst there he discovered four spiral nebulae. On the death of Lord Rosse two years later he became professor of mathematics in Dublin University and in 1874 Royal Astronomer of Ireland. This post he held until 1898; but in 1892 he was also made professor of astronomy and geometry at Cambridge and director of the university observatory. From 1897-9 he was president of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was knighted in 1886. He was an admirable lecturer and writer of popular books on his subject, as well as of more learned works such as his Treatise on Spherical Astronomy (1885) and Treatise on the Theory of Screws (1900); and he was a congenial figure in all circles. He died at Cambridge Nov. 25 1913.

1 The right, moving more or less independently, was at Dobrinishte in the Mesta valley. The left had reached Pehchevo.