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Photograph of a French aviator downing a German observation balloon near St. Mihiel on September 16, 1918, the last day of the American St. Mihiel Offensive. That same day American airmen Frank Luke and Joe Wehner downed three balloons in the sector.
Syria and Palestine Front: Showing Cairo, Egypt, the northern Sinai peninsula, Akaba on the Red Sea, Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo. The Hejaz Railway runs north, parallel to the Mediterranean coast. From Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus by Karl Baedeker.
A British encampment at Zeitelik on the Salonica Front. Colorized version of a black and white postcard.
Indian Lancers riding through Jerusalem. The city was taken by the Allies on December 11, 1917.
Bulgarian machine-gunners laying out ammunition belts on the Salonica Front.
"'How would it be if we left the airdrome just in time to get those balloons at dusk, when their observers are taking a last look at our troop movements? Wehner can get one about seven-ten, I'll get another about seven-twenty, and between us we ought to get the third about seven-thirty. Just start burning flares and shooting rockets here on the drome about that time and we'll get back all right. I'll promise you that.'" ((1), more)
"The Royal Air Force launched aerial attacks on Daraa on 16 September in a bid to disrupt Ottoman communications and to encourage Liman von Sanders to focus on the defence of the Hijaz Railway. T. E. Lawrence led Arab forces in an attack with armoured cars on the railway south of Daraa, where they succeeded in destroying a bridge. The following day, the main Arab force attacked the railway to the north of Daraa with relative impunity. The Ottomans rushed to repair the line, and Liman called up reserves from the coastal port of Haifa to reinforce Daraa—playing perfectly into Allenby's deception." ((2), more)
"On this side of the lake the attack began at five on the morning of 18th, and fighting continued all day with tremendous intensity. . . .If the fighting on the west of Lake Doiran was heavy on September 18th it was equally severe on the following day, when the main purpose of the British and Greek troops was decisively attained. This purpose was not merely territorial gain, but the retention of enemy troops, which would otherwise have been used against the Allied advance in the vast area between the Vardar, the Negotin-Prilep road, and the Cerna. Here the Serbs, Jugo-Slavs, French and Greeks were pushing forward with amazing rapidity, and the Bulgar could send no help from the Doiran front to stem the onset." ((3), more)
"At 3.30 in the morning of September 19th began a tremendous drum fire against the whole front of the right wing of the Eighth Army from the coast to the mountains. Shortly after daybreak squadrons of British fliers appeared over the houses of headquarters of the Seventh and Eighth Armies, over the tent camps of the various corps headquarters, and over the central telephone office of the Army Group in Affuleh; flying low, they threw bombs on them and destroyed part of our wire. . . .Numerous wires in our land lines had been cut in the early morning hours by the Arabs. . . .Between 9 and 10 a.m. headquarters of the Seventh Army wired from Nablus that Colonel von Oppen had reported that the front of the right flank group in the coast sector had been broken through, and that strong cavalry forces were advancing northward along the coast. . . .Up to this day no exhaustive account has appeared of the complete and sudden collapse of the 7th Division in the western part of the coast sector, and of the adjoining two regiments of the 20th Division. . . . After two hours of drum fire they had completely disappeared on September 19th . . ." ((4), more)
"Todorov, it is interesting to note, had no experience of the Doiran front. . . . Nerezov, on the other hand, had spent two years building up the defenses of Doiran . . .A Bulgarian writer describes how the First Army, in the clear moonlight, was preparing to meet renewed British attacks and even, perhaps, to go over to the offensive. Now, before dawn on September 20, the operational order for a retreat went out from Nerezov's headquarters at Dedeli: the First Army must fall back to cover the withdrawal of the 3rd Division on its right. In a stunned silence the divisional commanders returned to their advanced positions. It had been a bitter blow for them, but they felt there was one small crumb of consolation: they, at any rate, were not retreating under pressure from their adversaries." ((5), more)
(1) American Lieutenant Frank Luke to his commanding officer Major Hartney on September 16, 1918. Luke had a short and spectacular career as a pilot, downing four German airplanes and fourteen German observation balloons between August 16 and September 29, 1918 when he died after being shot down over Murvaux, France after shooting down three balloons. Joe Wehner partnered with Luke, sometimes providing cover from enemy planes while Luke went after a balloon. Wehner was killed on September 18. Frank Luke was the leading American 'balloon buster' of the war, but was surpassed by the Belgian Willy Coppens, with 37 victories, 35 of them balloons. Coppens survived the war.
The Balloon Buster by Norman S. Hall, page 88, copyright © 1928 Liberty Weekly, Inc., renewed, 1956, Lorraine Lester et al., publisher: Bantam Books, publication date: 1966
(2) Under the command of General Edmund Allenby, the British entered Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, then continued advancing along the Mediterranean coast in Palestine. Allenby failed to take Nablus in an attack launched on March 8, 1918, and further attacks were suspended after the success of Germany's Spring Offensives made the Allied position on the Western Front desperate, demanding men and materiel in France. With the ultimate German failure and the success of Allied offensives beginning in July, Allenby resumed his campaign. He would do so on September 19, attacking along the coast rather than inland. The Daraa raid deceived German General Otto Liman von Sanders who commanded Turkish and German forces in the region. T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, worked with the Arabs opposing the Turks and led a campaign sabotaging the Hijaz Railway that ran from Medina in Arabia, north to Maan, Amman, and Damascus.
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan, page 374, copyright © 2015 by Eugene Rogan, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2015
(3) Excerpts from the official report of British General George Milne, commander of British forces on the Salonica Front. On September 15, 1918 French General Franchet d'Esperey, commander of Allied forces — French, Italian, Greek, Serbian, and British — in the theater, opened an offensive through the mountains between Greece and Serbia. East of the initial advance and also on the Greco-Serbian border, the British, with some Greek units, held the sector around Lake Doiran. The British opened their phase of the offensive on September 18 against Bulgarians who had two years of strengthening their defenses behind them. General Milne may have been putting a good face on what looked to be a failed attack.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, pp. 315–316, 317, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) Excerpts from German General Otto Liman von Sanders account of the September 19, 1918 British attack on the Turkish forces in Palestine. British General Edmund Allenby attacked along the coast rather than inland where Arab forces working with T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, staged a raid on Daraa and the Hejaz Railroad. Sanders account on the 19th and subsequent days gives ample evidence of the success of the deception and of Arab and Royal Air Force attacks on communications.
Five Years in Turkey by Liman von Sanders, pp. 275–277, publisher: The Battery Press with War and Peace Books, publication date: 1928 (originally)
(5) On September 15, 1918 French General Franchet d'Esperey, commander of Allied forces — French, Italian, Greek, Serbian, and British — on the Balkan Front, opened a successful offensive through the mountains between Greece and Serbia. The British, with Greek support, held the sector around Lake Doiran to the east of the initial advance and opened their phase of the offensive on September 18 against Bulgarians who had held and strengthened their position for two years. The British offensive, like their previous assaults at Lake Doiran, was failing when the Bulgarians retreated. General Georgi Todorov, who had replaced the ailing Nicola Zhekov as Commander-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Army ten days earlier, agreed with the Germans that the Allies' supply problems would only increase as they advanced, and that the best action was an orderly retreat. General Stefan Nerezov was commander of the Bulgarian First Army holding the Lake Doiran sector.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, pp. 214–215, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
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