 |
My Top 3 |
 |
This project began a year ago after two British people discovered a badly damaged and forgotten memorial to the British soldiers of the 22nd Division. The memorial had been erected at the end of World War One by soldiers, to remember their fallen comrades.
For British soldiers the Macedonian Campaign began on 5 October 1915 when troops began landing in Thessaloniki to support Greece against Bulgaria. It ended on 30 September 1918, with the signing of an armistice by Bulgaria.
By the summer of 1916 Austro-Hungarian, British, Bulgarian, French, German, Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Turkish soldiers were occupying trenches and dug-outs strung all across Macedonia.
The battles of Doiran which took place between 1916 and 1918 saw the allies attempting to assault Bulgarian positions near Lake Doiran, located in the hills above Nov Dorjan, a small town in southern Macedonia on the border with Greece. It is in these hills where, after the final battle in September 1918 was fought, British soldiers from the 22nd Division placed a memorial to so many of their comrades who had lost their lives.
Around 7,000 allied soldiers were killed that September and 3,000 Bulgarians were lost.
The two British people who found the memorial a year ago, together with the local Mayor, worked hard to ensure that it did not become another forgotten war memorial on what at the time was known as the ‘forgotten front’.
A replacement plaque was commissioned in the UK out of Portland stone and transported courtesy of the British Army, via the British contingent in KFOR (The Kosovo Force). Local stonemasons had the difficult task of embedding the plaque into the rock without damaging the original. And the Imperial War Museum in London worked with a local archaeologist to produce the information panels which will be used to educate visitors to the site.
Copyright UKMoD
Leave a Reply