The contribution of Italian soldiers on the Macedonian front in the Great War
In September 1918, on the Macedonian front, the Italian 35th Division took part in the last battles that led to the collapse of the Bulgarian army. An episode little remembered in Italy, but essential to understanding the role of our soldiers in the end of the Great War in the Balkans.
During the First World War the Macedonian front — also known as the “Salonika front” — was a theatre often marginal in the war news, but decisive in the autumn of 1918.
After years of stalemate, Allied pressure, led by the French general Franchet d’Espèrey, was concentrated between the river Vardar and the heights defending the city of Monastir (today Bitola, in North Macedonia).
The Italian Expeditionary Corps also operated here, made up of the 35th Infantry Division under General Ernesto Mombelli.
The Italian 35th Division in Macedonia
The division was made up of brigades that had already proved their worth on the Alpine front, such as the “Cagliari” and “Ivrea” brigades. The 35th had been in Macedonia since 1916, and in 1917-18 it was gradually moved to the Monastir sector, with the task of supporting the Franco-Serbian efforts to break the Bulgarian line.
On 22 September 1918, during the battle of Dobro Pole and the subsequent assaults on the heights north of Monastir, the division took Hill 1050, inflicting heavy losses on the German 302nd Division and taking 150 prisoners in that action.
In the following days the Italian advance pushed on towards the Cerna and Prilep, as numerous Bulgarian units surrendered.
The Bulgarian prisoners: myth and reality
The reports of the time spoke of a massive capture of prisoners: as early as 30 September 1918 international dispatches reported that the Allies had taken “over 10,000 prisoners” together with 200 guns.
This figure, however, referred to the whole Macedonian front and all the Allied armies (French, Serbian, Greek, Italian and British), not to the Italian 35th Division alone.
The 35th played a significant part in this process: hundreds of Bulgarian prisoners were gathered during its advances, a sign of the enemy army’s moral collapse after the Vardar offensive.
However, the symbolic figure of 10,000 prisoners cannot be credited directly to the Italian division alone; it remains an overall figure for the Allied army.
The armistice of Salonika and the occupation of Bulgaria
The defeat led Bulgaria to sign an armistice as early as 29 September 1918.
The Italian 35th Division was then given the task of entering Bulgarian territory, taking on garrison and public-order duties in the occupied areas until July 1919.
It was a little-known but significant experience, which saw Italian soldiers thrown into a Balkan reality far from the Alps and the trenches of the Piave.
General Mombelli and the Allied Forces
The echo of the “10,000 Bulgarian prisoners” captured in September 1918 should be read as a symbol of the Bulgarian army’s collapse rather than as a precise figure attributable to the 35th Division alone.
The fact remains, however, that Mombelli’s Italian soldiers played a decisive part in forcing the enemy’s surrender and opening the way to the end of the war in the Balkans.
After the victory General Mombelli took on a leading role in the inter-Allied phase: he represented Italy on the Inter-Allied Military Mission in Budapest in 1919, in a delicate context marked by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.
His career then continued with command posts at home and international missions, a sign of the trust the Allies placed in him as a balanced figure able to work in multinational settings.
In this episode, often overlooked by Italian historiography compared with Caporetto or the Piave, one can see the European dimension of the conflict and Italy’s contribution on a “secondary” front that nevertheless hastened the end of the Great War.
Roberto De Nart
Cover photo:
The Inter-Allied Military Mission in Budapest: (second from left) Minister Constantin Diamandy, Gen. Harry H. Bandholtz (USA), Gen. Ernesto Mombelli (Italy), Gen. Reginald Gorton (Great Britain), Gen. Jean César Graziani (France), Gen. Gheorghe Mărdărescu (Romania).
