GEN. SARRAIL ON SALONIKA

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160734, 21 August 1920, Page 5

GEN. SARRAIL ON SALONIKA

ALLEGED ALLIED JEALOUSIES. PALIS, June 26. Yivid light is thrown upon the complicated history of the much-criticised Allied campaign in the Balkans by General Sarrail’s book, "My Command in the Orient.” General Sarrail was Commardcr-iu-Chief of the Allied armies at Salonica from October, 3915, until his recall in December, 1917.

This personal book gives a clear idea of the daily anxieties of a general, as seen from the inside. Six Allied nationalities v ere represented in the Balkans, and on a- small scale the jealousies, conflicting interests, and confusion of aims which hampered the Allied cause as a whole were reproduced there.

General Sarrail claims that he created the organisation which made victory on the Balkan front possible, although, so he says, he was continually stinted in men and material.

“1 tried to command,” he says, “and I did achieve certain results, in spito of the British, who wanted to leave King Constantine in Athens and evacuate Salonica; in spite of the Italians, who only came to look after Albania and to have a claim to be heard in the peace negotiations; in spite of the Greeks, who often sought only party triumphs and always' desired the maximum of benefit with the minimum of risk and effort; and in spite of certain Frenchmen at home, who did not want a success in the Balkans because I did not belong to the General Headquarters set, and who could not forgive me for always having maintained that the end of the war could and would begin on the Balkan front.”

With regard to the part played by the British Salonica army. General Sarrail complains that the British Government was from ihe first against the Balkan expedition, and that 'it sent 'ti< ops there only under pressure from the French, while at the same time giving definite instructions to the British Army Commander that ho was not to take part in an offensive.

As early as December, 1915 two months after the landing, General Monro, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, informed General Sarrail that the British Government had decided to evacuate Salonica. He states that General Milne, who took command later, "was a personal friend of General Sir William Robertson, and consequently opposed to everything connected with the Salonica expedition.” General Sarrail had trouble with hii own subordinates, in the middle of the offensive which led to the taking of Monastir, for instance, he replaced General Cordonnier, who commanded the French army under his orders.

It is a harsh book, the story of a disappointed man, and it is believed that the French General Staff was opposed to its publication. Many of his ruthless judgments will be strongly contested.