greatwar-1914:September 18, 1918 - Bulgarians Stave Off Collapse at Lake DoiranPictured - The Bulgar
greatwar-1914:September 18, 1918 - Bulgarians Stave Off Collapse at Lake DoiranPictured - The Bulgarians dig in and fight on in the face of inevitable defeat. It is a credit to Bulgarian arms that despite the collapse of the front in Greece, sharp stings could still be inflicted on the Entente. The Allied Dobro Pole offensive in September 1918 was an attempt to break through Bulgarian lines and enter the flat terrain of the Vardar River valley, from where it would be easy to march up to Skopje and then occupy Bulgaria itself. French commander General D’Esperey amassed a sizeable Allied force to smash through the under-strength Bulgarian lines. After two days of battle of the Bulgarian army was in retreat, with many soldiers simply deserting to head home, often still bearing arms and determined to speak their mind to the government which had kept them in Salonika for three long years. Others clung to their positions, more out of resignation than any hope of victory. A secondary offensive by British and Greek troops sought to capture the high ground around Lake Doiran, a strong-point of Bulgarian defenses along the Vardar. Here the Bulgars resisted desperately, throwing back every Anglo-Hellene attack, made up of men from Wales, Salonika, and Crete.The South Wales Borderers regiment reached the summit around the lake only to be thrown back by machine-gun fire, and then stumbled into a British poison gas cloud. Their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Burges, was hit three times and taken prisoner, later to be awarded the Victoria Cross. After the war the British Legion, a veteran’s organization, paid tribute to the Bulgarian defender of Lake Doiran, a General Vazov: “He is one of the few foreign officers whose name features in our history”. -- source link