On the afternoon of 6 December 1915 Bulgarian infantry attacked the 10th (Irish) Division on the Kosturino ridge, near Lake Doiran, just north of the Greek border. The Irish battalions, already worn down by a blizzard that had sent hundreds of men to hospital with frostbite, held long enough to cover the French withdrawal, then fought their way back into Greece. The battle went on until 12 December and ended in a Bulgarian victory.
From Gallipoli to the Balkans
The 10th (Irish) Division came to the Balkans from Gallipoli and landed at Salonika in October 1915. It moved inland to help Serbia, then under attack by Bulgaria and the Central Powers, and its task was to hold the line as long as possible while the French withdrew alongside it. On 20 November it took over a ridge at Kosturino, close to Lake Doiran. According to Ronan McGreevy of The Irish Times, the division was guarding the only mountain pass across the Vardar valley.1
The weather turned first. Rain became snow and then a blizzard. Captain Noel Drury wrote in his diary on 28 November that the snow had turned to an intense frost and that the men could hardly hold their rifles because their hands froze to the metal. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association records that 1,656 men were evacuated when the weather eased, 998 of them with frostbite; McGreevy puts the frostbite cases at more than a thousand before a shot was fired.2
Rocky Peak
Bulgarian artillery began to shell the British positions on 4 December, two days before the main infantry attack. On the afternoon of 6 December the Bulgarians made their first attack on Rocky Peak, a height in the British line, and took a small trench before they were driven off the hill.3
They came back before dawn. According to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association, Bulgarian troops crept up through the ravines and took Rocky Peak by storm at 5:30 a.m. on 7 December, capturing about thirty of its defenders and gaining a commanding position over the brigade's front. McGreevy calls 7 December the worst day of the war for the Connaught Rangers: two Bulgarian brigades fell on the 5th Battalion, some 138 men were killed, mostly in hand-to-hand fighting, and another 130 were taken prisoner. Artillery fire also caused heavy losses to the 10th Hampshires.4
Back into Greece
The division fell back to new positions, and on 8 December two companies of the 6th Royal Dublin Fusiliers were driven off Crête Rivet with ten dead and fifty-four wounded. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records that the Bulgarians broke through on 11 December, capturing an important ammunition dump, and that on 12 December the 9th Battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment was cut off. The division fought its way back across the border into Greece and made a hazardous retreat to Salonika with few rations and no pack animals. The National Army Museum dates the battle from 6 to 12 December and records it as a Bulgarian victory.5
The cost is given differently. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission counts over 1,200 British casualties, including 99 dead, more than 380 wounded and over 720 missing. Alan Wakefield, writing for the Western Front Association, gives about 300 dead and 800 wounded or captured, and McGreevy gives 1,500 casualties including 300 dead.6
