The Great Events by Famous Historians

All the morning of the 1st of July the Greek troops were busy rounding up Bulgarian comitadjis and collecting hidden explosives, but at 4 P.M. the Second Division marched out of the town. King Constantine, who had arrived in the small hours of the morning, had given the order for a general advance of his army. Greek patience was expended, and no wonder.

Meanwhile, let us consider the Bulgarian intentions as revealed by the captured dispatch-box of the General commanding the 3d Bulgarian Division, which contained documents likely to become historic. On the 28th of June the Bulgarian Divisional Commanders received orders from the Commander-in-Chief to undertake a general attack upon the Allies on the 2d of July. Unfortunately for the Bulgarians, General Ivanoff, Commanding-in-Chief against the Greeks, could not restrain his impatience, and instead of waiting for a sudden and general attack on the 2d of July his troops attacked piecemeal during the nights of the 29th and 30th of June as described; thus the Greek general forward movement on the 1st and 2d of July found the bulk of his troops unprepared, while the 14th Bulgarian Division, scheduled to arrive at Kilkis on the 2d of July from Tchataldja, was not available during that day to oppose the Greek initiative, though they saved the situation on the 3d of July by detraining partly at Kilkis and partly at Doiran.

The two weak points of the Allies were at Guevgheli and in the Pangheion region, and it was precisely at these points that the Bulgarians struck. As regards numbers, on the 2d of July the respective forces numbered: Bulgarians, 80,000; Greeks, 60,000; on the 3d of July (not deducting losses)—Bulgarians, 115,000; Greeks, 80,000; in both cases the troops on lines of communication are not reckoned with; these probably amounted to—Bulgarians, 25,000; Greeks, 12,000.

Almost immediately and at all points the opposing armies came into contact. The Bulgarian gunners had very carefully taken all ranges on the ground over which the Greeks had to advance, and at first their shrapnel fire was extremely damaging. The Greeks, however, did not wait to fight the battle out according to the usual rules of warfare—by endeavoring to silence the enemy's artillery before launching their infantry forward. Phenomenal rapidity characterized the Greek tactics from the moment their troops first came under fire. Their artillery immediately swept into action and plied the Bulgarian batteries with shell and shrapnel, the while Greek infantry deployed into lines of attack and pushed forward. At Kilkis so rapid was the advance of the Greek infantry that the Bulgarian gunners could hardly alter their ranges sufficiently fast, and every time that the Greek infantry had made good five hundred yards the Greek artillery would gallop forward and come into action on a new alinement. It was a running fight. By leaps and bounds the incredible élan of the Greek troops drove the Bulgarians back toward Kilkis itself, which position had been heavily entrenched. By 4 P.M. on the 2d of July, the Greek main army was within three miles of the town, while the 10th Division, helped by two battalions of Servian infantry, gradually fought its way up the Vardar toward Guevgheli. At 4.30 P.M. (at Kilkis) the Bulgarians delivered a furious counter-attack in which some 20,000 bayonets took part, but it was repulsed with heavy slaughter, and the weary Greek soldiers, who had fought their way over twenty miles of disputed country, rolled over on their sides and slept. Toward Guevgheli the Evzone battalions had for two hours to advance through waist-deep marshes under a heavy artillery fire, but they struggled along through muddy waters singing their own melancholy songs and without paying the least attention to the heavy losses they were sustaining. On the 3d of July the Greeks reoccupied Guevgheli, and toward evening the Bulgarian trenches at Kilkis were taken at the bayonet's point, the town being entirely destroyed, partly by Greek shell fire (for the Bulgarian batteries had been located in the streets) and partly by the Bulgarians, who fired the town as they retired. On the 3d and 4th the Bulgarians retired sullenly northward toward Doiran, contesting every yard and putting in the units of the 14th Division as quickly as they could be detrained; but the Greeks never flagged for one moment in the pursuit. The 10th and 3d Divisions, marching at tremendous speed, came up on the left, menacing the line of retreat on Strumnitza. It was in the pass ten miles south of this town that remnants of the Bulgarian 3d and 14th Divisions made their last stand upon the 8th of July. Throughout the week they had been fighting and retreating incessantly, had lost at least 10,000 in killed and wounded, some 4,500 prisoners, and about forty guns, while the Greeks lost about 4,500 and 5,000 men in front of Kilkis and another 3,000 between Doiran and Strumnitza.