9 - Armistices and demobilisation

Summary

The Central Powers disintegrate

Just as Foch’s general offensive was about to begin on the Western Front, events in Macedonia gave even greater reason for hope in a quicker than anticipated end to the war. The Allied armies in Macedonia numbered over half a million at the beginning of 1918, but by 14 September their strength had been increased by the arrival of Greek divisions. Greece had joined the war on 2 July 1917 after the removal of King Constantine, and a large French military mission, headed by General Braquet, the military attaché in Athens, had helped to put the Greek Army onto a war footing. Sarrail’s replacement as Allied CinC in Salonika, General Guillaumat, had been recalled to Paris as a precaution, because he was the only possible successor to either Foch or Pétain, should the aftermath of the German May 1918 offensive on the Chemin des Dames demand sackings, as had happened in 1917 after the French offensive there. General Franchet d’Espèrey, former commander of the Northern Army Group, replaced Guillaumat in Salonika. Franchet d’Espèrey had 670,000 men under his orders in twenty-eight divisions: four British (some of the earlier strength had been transferred to the Middle East), nine Greek, one Italian, six Serbian and the French cavalry brigade plus eight French infantry divisions commanded by General Henrys. As well as constituting the largest contingent, the French Army had also armed the Greek and Serbian contingents. The British official history of the Macedonian campaign praises the French for their work, which ‘cannot be too highly estimated’. After the Serbian and Romanian armies, the Greek ‘was the third East European Army of which France had undertaken the re-organization in the course of the war, in every case with striking success’.