First Battle of Doiran : the aftermath

From Alan Palmer’s The Gardeners of Salonika, published in 1965 by Andre Deutsch Limited, London (p. 125):

… twenty-four hours after the action began, all the survivors of the main attack were once again in the British lines.

The 26th Division alone had lost in this one action 1,700 dead, wounded or missing: this was as high a casualty rate as a fortnight before. The total number killed or incapacitated in both these operations was more than 5,000. These two, largely abortive, night attacks of April 24th and May 8th (and the subsequent counter-attacks) accounted for almost a quarter of the battle casualties for the British Salonika Army in the whole three years of the Macedonian campaign. Not a single allied soldier had come within two miles of Grand Courroné, the central keep of the Devil’s citadel; from its ramparts the Eye would stand sentinel for another sixteen months, watching and counting and waiting.

To find out more about casualty evacuation and other aspects of medical services in the First Battle of Doiran, this excellent book – which is available online – is thoroughly recommended (see Chapter IV, page 114):

History of the Great War (Based on Official Documents): Medical Services. General History – Volume IV: Medical Services during the Operations on the Gallipoli peninsula; in Macedonia; in Mesopotamia and North-West Persia; in East Africa; in the Aden Protectorate, and in North Russia. Ambulance Transport During the War.

 By Major-General Sir W. G. MACPHERSON, K.C.M.G., C.B., LL.D.. and Major T. J. MITCHELL, D.S.O., Royal Army Medical Corps.

Published in 1924 by HMSO, London.

A dressing station on the Salonika Front in 1917. Walking wounded from 77th Brigade are being assisted into an ambulance by Royal Army Medical Corps orderlies. THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN, 1915-1918 © IWM (Q 31801)

Find out more

• Falls, Captain Cyril (1935, republished 2011), OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR OTHER THEATRES: MILITARY OPERATIONS MACEDONIA VOL II. From the Spring of 1917 to the end of the war; Naval & Military Press
• Palmer, Alan (1965), The Gardeners of Salonika; Andre Deutsch Limited
• Wakefield, Alan and Simon Moody (2010), Under the Devil’s Eye: The British Military Experience in Macedonia 1915-18; Pen & Sword Military