Map of the the Balkan Front — Germany's Southeast Front — with the mountain passes between Austria-Hungary and Romania. From the Reichsarchiv history of the wars in Serbia and Romania, Herbstschlacht in Macedonien; Cernabogen 1916.The capitals of Belgrade (Serbia), Bucharest (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), and Constantinople (Turkey) are prominent, as is Salonica, Greece, the Allied entry port into the country.
Übersichtskarte der Süd-Ost-FrontSkizze I.Erklärungen:Oesterreich UngarnLandesgrenzenOverview map of the south-east front Sketch I. Explanations: Austria-HungaryBorders
"Meanwhile, sixty miles west of Doiran, the weather had improved sufficiently for Grossetti to launch Sarrail's long-heralded spring offensive. At dawn on Wednesday, May 9 [1917], just eight and a half hours after the resumed British attack, the French 16th Colonial Division moved forward in the center of the Crna loop, supported by the Russian Second Brigade on the right and the Italian 35th Division to the left. At the same time, farther east, in the Moglena Mountains the Serb Second Army, under General Stepanović, assaulted hill positions south of the Dobropolje mountain, a limestone wall only half as high as the Kajmakcalan but far steeper."
Along the Salonica Front extending across northern Greece and into Serbia, an Allied French, British, Serbian, Russian, and Italian army under the command of French General Maurice Sarrail faced a Bulgarian army supported by German troops. On May 8, 1917, British troops attacked at Lake Doiran on the eastern end of the Allied line in the first action of Sarrail's 1917 spring offensive. The other national forces attacked on the 9th. A Russian brigade advanced, but was then cut off and nearly wiped out. Neither the French nor Italians made significant progress.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 126, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
1917-05-09, 1917, May, Salonika Front, Sarrail, Maurice Sarrail, Cernabogen 1916
