Salonica and After the 8ideshow that Ended the War. By
H. Collinson Owen. (Hodder and Stoughton. 10s. 6d. net)— Mr. Owen, the editor of the Balkan News for the last two years of the war, has written an interesting book about Macedonia and the Allied armies which after a long defensive campaign suddenly finished off the Bulgarians in a fortnight in September, 1918. He gives a vivid account of the physical difficulties of operating in such a wild fever-ridden country, aggravated while King Constantine reigned by treachery of the most unblushing kind. Mr. Owen states that on the eve of the final offensive the Bulgarians, in their seemingly impregnable positions, were almost as numerous as the Allies, though they had not qntte so many guns and were inferior in aeroplanes. The Serbians broke through by concentrating against the one point in the Bulgarian lines which looked impassable, except to mountain goats. The holding action fought simultaneously by the British and Greek troops at Doiran was a desperate business. In the 7th South Wales Borderers, who stormed the Grand Couronne and almost succeeded, only one wounded officer and eighteen men returned from the assault. But the action prevented the Bulgarians from reinforcing their broken centre until it was too late, and thus played a great part in the Allied victory.
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