brief and unsatisfying in the main. Great things, however, were done
there, and none greater than those accomplished by the British. Some of
these accomplishments are told in the pages that follow.

BRITISH OPERATIONS AT SALONIKI

OFFICIAL REPORT OF GENERAL MILNE

[Sidenote: Reinforcements needed north of Saloniki.]

[Sidenote: Italy to send 300,000.]

Since the conference at Rome the situation in Macedonia has been
radically changed. The weakness of General Sarrail's position lay in the
fact that neither England nor France felt free to send from the critical
western front the large reinforcements of men which the situation north
of Saloniki called for. Italy had the men, but was unwilling to send
them and to incur the heavy additional expense of maintaining them in
Macedonia. The conference at Rome, in which Premier Lloyd George was the
dominant figure, overcame that reluctance, probably promising Italy
parts of the Turkish Empire that had been earlier assigned tentatively
to Greece and guaranteeing the cost of the new expedition. The result
has been immediate and of the highest importance. Rome dispatches
indicate that Italy has sent, or is sending, a force of not less than
300,000 men; that these troops, to avoid the danger of submarines, are
being dispatched, not to Saloniki, but to Avlona, which is within forty
miles of the Italian coast; and, finally, these Italian forces have not
only built an excellent highway through the Albanian mountains but have
already joined forces with General Sarrail's right wing at Monastir. All
these facts indicate early activity in the Macedonian sector.

[Sidenote: General G. F. Milne's report.]

This glimpse of present conditions will serve to introduce the following
report of General G. F. Milne, commanding the British Saloniki Army in
Macedonia, on last Summer's operations in that sector. His report,
submitted to the British War Office early in December, 1916, covered the
army's operations from May 9, 1916, to October 8, 1916. The official
text of the report is here reproduced, with a few minor omissions:

[Sidenote: Found army concentrated near Saloniki.]

[Sidenote: British forces responsible for front on east and northeast.]

[Sidenote: Construction of defenses.]

"On May 9, 1916, the greater part of the army was concentrated within
the fortified lines of Saloniki, extending from Stavros on the east to
near the Galiko River on the west; a mixed force, consist