was vastly his superior in numbers. A second
assault, delivered in the face of a hot fire from the British, but
with overwhelming numbers, drove the British soldiers from their first
line of trenches; but they held on to their second line and every
effort to expel them was a costly failure.

Meanwhile, Sarrail, on the Vardar, under cover of a feigned attack on
Ishtip from Kara Hodjali, drew in his men from the Tcherna, and before
the enemy had realized what he was doing, he had retired from the
Kavaar Camp with all his stores, of which there was by this time a
tremendous accumulation, and entrained at Krivolak, blowing up the
bridges and tearing up the railroad behind him. On December 5, 1915,
he had reached the north end of the Demir Kapu Gorge (Defile)
practically without opposition, but in the gorge he had to fight hard
to get out of it.

He had had the forethought, however, to throw up strong defensive
works at the entrance and this enabled him to repel the attacks of the
Bulgarians in spite of the determination with which they were being
pushed. The retreat through the defile was an extremely precarious and
difficult task, as there was no way out except along the railroad,
running along a narrow shelf cut out of the steep, rocky banks of the
Vardar. Yet the retreat was successfully accomplished, with all the
stores, and, after destroying a tunnel and a bridge across the Vardar,
it was continued to Gradetz, where heavy intrenchments had been thrown
up.

Here, on December 8-9, 1915, the Bulgarians delivered a very violent
attack, but were driven off with heavy losses. On the 10th the French
announced that they were now occupying a new front, along the Bojimia,
a branch of the Vardar, and that they were in touch with the left
flank of the British.

Meanwhile, on the east side of the Vardar, General Todoroff was
continuing his attack on the British. He had massed together about
100,000 men. On the morning of the 6th, after the first assault and
under cover of dense mists that were rolling up from the swamps down
near Saloniki, he was able to get in close to the British without
being seen. As the dawn began breaking he poured a rain of
high-explosive shells on the British, which here consisted mostly of
Irish regiments.

As on the day before, the enemy came on in successive waves, so thick
that the later ones carried the first before them, even when they
turned to flee from the heavy fire of the British. Finally