Battle of the Crna Bend (1917)

Part of Macedonian front (World War I)

Date	5 May 1917 – 9 May 1917
Location	Crna Loop, Kingdom of Serbia
Result	Central Powers victory

Belligerents

Bulgaria

German Empire

France

Italy

Russian Empire

Commanders and leaders

Strength

Central Powers

27 battalions, 19 batteries, 115 machine guns

13 battalions, 15 batteries, 131 machine guns
Total: 40 battalions, 34 batteries(122 guns, 8 mortars), 246 machine guns

Allies

45 battalions, 54 batteries, c. 312 machine guns

18 battalions, 32 batteries, 171 machine guns

6 battalions, 14 batteries, 32 machine guns
Total: 69 battalions, 100 batteries(412 guns), c. 515 machine guns

Casualties and losses

1,626

unknown

1,700

2,400

1,325
Total: 5,425

Central Powers

Allies

The Battle of the Crna Bend was a major military engagement fought between the forces of the Central Powers and the Entente in May 1917. It was part of the Allied Spring Offensive of the same year that was designed to break the stalemate on the Macedonian Front. Despite the considerable numerical and matériel advantage of the attackers over the defenders, the Bulgarian and German defense of the positions in the loop of the river Crna remained a very formidable obstacle, which the Allies were unable to defeat not only in 1917 but until the end of the war itself.

With the onset of the winter of 1916 all military operations on the Macedonian Front came to an abrupt end. The three-month-long Monastir Offensive provided the Allies with only limited tactical successes but it failed to knockout Bulgaria out of the war by a combined attack of General Sarrail's forces and the Romanian Army. On strategic level the overall result of the offensive was that it managed to keep over half of the Bulgarian Army and few German units on the Macedonian Front. On tactical level the front line was moved in favor of the Allies by only about 50 kilometers in the Sector of General Winkler's 11th German-Bulgarian Army. By the end of November however the Bulgarians and Germans were able to firmly establish themselves on the Chervena Stena - height 1248 - Hill 1050 - Dabica - Gradešnica defensive line and subsequently repel all Allied attempts to dislodge them of their positions. This brought about the stabilization of the entire front line and forced the Allies to call off the offensive altogether. The opposing sides were now free to regroup their exhausted forces and fortify their lines.

The strategic situation in the early spring of 1917 on all European theaters of war, except the Romanian portion of the Eastern Front, favored the implementation of the Allied offensive plans that were adopted during the inter-allied conference of November 1916 held in Chantilly, France. These plans included an offensive on the Macedonian Front designed to support main the Allied efforts on the other fronts and if possible completely defeat Bulgaria with the assistance of Russian and Romanian forces. The Bulgarians on their part asked the Germans to join an offensive against Salonika with six divisions but the German High Command refused and forced the adoption of a purely defensive stance of the Central Powers forces on the Balkan Front.

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Wikipedia