October 21st, 1915

- Despite the failure of the attack by the Guards Division on the 17th, General Haig of the British 1st Army remains confident that a more methodical approach will secure the ground on the northern flank of the Loos salient he deems essential to establish a good defensive position for his forces over the winter.  Among the tactics Haig implements is the digging of approach trenches as close to the German lines as possible, to minimize the time needed for the attacking infantry to cross No Man's Land.  This work cannot be rushed, however, and Haig does not believe his army will be ready to attack until November 7th.  Today Field Marshal French gives his approval to the proposed local attacks.

- Over the past week the remainder of the French 156th Division has arrived at the Strumica rail station, and in cooperation with Serb forces has repulsed an attack by elements of the Bulgarian 2nd Army.

- This morning the 3rd Battle of the Isonzo opens on the Italian Front as infantry assaults are undertaken by the Italian 2nd and 3rd Armies.  Given the lack of both surprise and sufficient munitions, to say nothing of the terrain, the Italian attacks get nowhere.  North of Plava the Italian 27th Division attempts to cross the Isonzo River at Loga and Ajba before dawn, hoping to catch the enemy by surprise.  The intention of the attackers had long since been betrayed by the noise of their assembly, and the crossing runs into a hail of fire and is shattered.  A second attempt after dusk makes use of a more substantial preliminary bombardment, but is no more successful.  South of Görz, 3rd Army assaults the Karst plateau at 10am.  Only along small sections of the front do Italian infantry manage to even reach the first enemy trench line, and these successes are soon erased by fierce Austro-Hungarian counterattacks.  Only on a two hundred yard stretch of the Austro-Hungarian line north of Mt dei sei Busi are the Italian attackers able to hold captured ground against enemy counterattacks.  By nightfall hundreds of Italian dead lay before Austro-Hungarian positions on Mt S Michelle.  After dark the Italian VII Corps attacks up the slope of Heights #121 east of Monfalcone, and after four failed attempts the fifth managed to reach the enemy trenches just before midnight.

The 3rd Battle of the Isonzo, Oct. 19th to Nov. 4th, 1915.

- Today British and French warships bombard the port of Dedeagach and other points on the Aegean coast of Bulgaria.

October 20th, 1915

- At OHL Falkenhayn has been observing the progress of the Serbian campaign with apprehension, as he views the progress to date, especially over the past week as the Kossava raged, as insufficient to secure the desired rapid victory.  The German chief of staff decides today to commit the German Alpine Corps, currently in the Tyrol, to the Serbian campaign, and decides to visit Mackensen's headquarters in three days' time.

- Four days ago, the British government offered to cede the island of Cyprus, acquired from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th-century, to Greece in exchange for Greek entry into the war on the side of the Entente.  The inducement is not sufficient to move King Constantine off of his policy of neutrality, and today the Greek government declines the British offer.

- In southern Serbia, Bulgarian forces attack and capture Veleš on the Salonika-Skopje railway forty kilometres north of Krivolak.  The Serbs appeal to General Sarrail to advance further north to maintain the line of communications with Skopje, but he refuses to move beyond Krivolak.  Between Krivolak and the Strumica rail station, he has already committed most of the forces at his disposal - the last elements of the French 57th Division are still disembarking at Salonika even as its lead elements are arriving at Krivolak today, and a third French division is still en route to the port.  Moreover, French forces at the Strumica rail station continue to engage Bulgarian forces, and defeat here would isolate the French forces moving to Krivolak, and reports from Krivolak itself indicate that the railway has already been cut just north of the town.

- As the Italian preliminary artillery bombardment continues, Italian prisoners captured by the Austro-Hungarians indicate that the anticipated infantry assault is to begin tomorrow morning.  Not only the timing but the location of the attack has been ascertained - the pattern of bombardment clearly shows that a major effort will be made against the Austro-Hungarian VII Corps south of Görz, and reserves of the adjacent III Corps are ordered to prepare to move north to aid their neighbour once the enemy attack begins.  Though outnumbered, the Austro-Hungarians are thoroughly prepared to meet the Italian offensive.

October 19th, 1915

- Today Conrad achieves one of the great objectives of the war, one that however has nothing to do with the battlefield; instead it is marriage to his longtime mistress, Gina von Reininghaus.  They first met in 1907, when Conrad had become hopelessly smitten with Gina, who was less than half his age.  That Gina was already married with six children was but a mere inconvenience to Conrad, and he urged her to divorce her husband even as the two became lovers.  Conrad believed that if were victorious in war, his prestige and prominence would sweep aside all obstacles to making Gina his wife.  The current war, of course, has seen an unending succession of debacles, exposing his abysmal strategic judgement and the incompetence of the Austro-Hungarian army - the only victories he has achieved have occurred either due to Italian ineptitude (Cadorna is one of the few who legitimately rivals the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff in stubborness and detachment from the realities of war) or through German leadership.  What he has been unable to accomplish through battlefield glory has been accomplished through legal trickery: having divorced her husband, she has converted to Protestantism through a sham adoption by a sympathetic general, allowing her to skirt the Catholic Church's restrictions on divorce and remarriage.  Today's union legitimizes a relationship that Conrad and Gina had carried on openly and become the subject of mockery in Viennese social circles.  Unfortunately for the suffering Austro-Hungarian army, marital bliss does not confer martial ability on Conrad.

- In Serbia, on the western flank of the German XXII Reserve Corps the advance of 26th Division brings it into contact with the Austro-Hungarian 53rd Division of XIX Corps, held short of Obrenovac since its initial crossing of the Save River.  The arriving Germans turn the flank of the Serbian defenders, who pull back and allow the trapped Austro-Hungarians to finally break out.  To the east, the German 105th Division of IV Reserve Corps breaks through Serbian positions in the hills east of Lucić, suffering heavy casualties to overcome the fierce enemy resistance.  Meanwhile, however, the Germans score a coup when 232rd Reserve Regiment of 107th Division captures a Serbian patrol and an engineer detachment with orders to destroy the railway bridge over the Mlava River to the south.  Intelligence gleaned from the prisoners allow the Germans to capture the bridge intact, which will aid further advances.  To the south, while the Bulgarian 1st Army continues to be held up in the mountain passes east of Niš, to the south the Bulgarian 2nd Army has made much more progress, and today reaches the Vardar River at Veleš and cuts the railway linking Niš and Salonika.

- Both Russia and Italy formally declare war on Bulgaria today.

- The Serbian government has been pressuring General Sarrail to move his forces north from Salonika and concentrate them at Niš, to oppose the Bulgarians attacking from the east.  Sarrail knows that such a movement is impossible with the forces at his disposal, but recognizes that a gesture (beyond the deployment at the Strumica rail station) is needed.  As a result, he orders an infantry regiment and artillery battery, newly arrived at Salonika and from the French 57th Division, to move north to Krivolak, on the Salonika-Skopje railway thirty kilometres north of the Strumica rail station and south of Veleš.

The French advance from Salonika, October 1915.

- The Italian preliminary artillery bombardment along the lower Isonzo River is joined today by Italian aircraft, which this morning strike the Austro-Hungarian airbase at Aisovizza and begin airstrikes on marching columns and railway stations.  These raids are largely unopposed, as the Austro-Hungarian aircraft on the Italian Front are primarily designed for reconnaissance, not aerial combat.

- The government of Japan adheres to the Pact of London today, which had originally been signed on September 5th, 1914 by Russia, France, and Britain and by which they had pledged not to sign a separate peace with Germany.  Japan's agreement to remain in the war until the end does not, however, signal an expansion of the Japanese contribution to the war effort of the Entente.  Instead, the Japanese government hopes that adhering to the pact will secure it a seat at the peace conference at the end of the war and allow Japanese negotiators to secure the permanent transfer of captured German colonies in Asia and the Pacific to Japan.

October 18th, 1915

- The German III Corps has had a particularly difficult few days as a result of the Kossava, as in addition to the supply difficulties faced by the other German and Austro-Hungarian corps it is being drawn in two directions: 6th Division has been attempting to cross the Ralja River and advance southwards while 25th Division has been moving westward in an attempt to link up with the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army.  After difficult fighting, however, 6th Division is across the Ralja and today routs the Serbs out of a heavily defended position at Mala Krsna, and pursue the retreating enemy into the hills south of the river.

- On the Italian front the preliminary artillery bombardment for the 3rd Battle of the Isonzo begins precisely at 12pm.  Italian fire is concentrated on the frontline trenches of the Austro-Hungarian defenders opposite, but attention is also paid to known concentration of Austro-Hungarian reserves, communication trenches, and headquarters.  Only south of Görz on the Karst plateau, however, is notable damage done to the Austro-Hungarian positions.

- With the entry of Bulgaria into the war, German submarines in the Black Sea can now operate out of Bulgarian ports, located closer to the Russian coast than Ottoman bases, and today the first German submarine - UB-8 - arrives at Varna.

October 17th, 1915

- After the failure of the attack on the 13th, Field Marshal Sir John French had called off the British offensive at Loos, limiting further operations to seizing ground deemed essential to repulsing any potential German counterattack.  Haig's conclusion is that several key positions on the northern flank of the Loos salient, including The Quarries, Fosse 8, and The Dump, will need to be captured.  Today the first attack is undertaken by the Guards Division, aiming to capture German trenches on either flank of the Hohenzollern Redoubt, isolating the position and allowing for a further attack to seize Fosse 8.  The Guards had only come into the line yesterday to replace the battered 46th Division, and its readiness to attack at 5am this morning is a testimony to the experience and skill of the staff officers.  The attack itself, however, is over ground that has been fought over for the past month, and thus is covered with the dead as well as the debris of battle, severely impeding the advance of the infantry.  Moreover, only a short artillery bombardment precedes the attack, which does little more than alert the German defenders that the British are coming.  The broken terrain and heavy German fire conspire to prevent any Guards infantry from reaching their objectives, and Lord Cavan, commander of the division, calls off the attack at 8am, the Guards having suffered 101 dead for no gain.

- Only today does the Kossava abate in Serbia, allowing the flow of men and supplies across the Save and Danube Rivers to resume.  South of Belgrade, with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians pushing across the Avala Hills, General Živojin Mišić, commanding the Serbian 1st Army, orders a retreat southwards to a new line of hills centred on Kosmaj Mountain, covering the Kolubara River and the town of Valjevo.  During the day, the Serbian divisions under his command disengage and pull back seven miles to the new line by nightfall.  The pursuit by the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army is slowed by the poor state of the roads in the aftermath of the Kossava and the destruction of several viaducts cutting the only railway south of Belgrade.  To the east on the front of the German 11th Army, after two days of fighting German forces push through a new Serbian defensive line on the Sapina Hills running through Smoljinac and Makci, with 107th Division seizing the former and X Reserve Corps capturing the latter.

The advance of the German 11th and Austro-Hungarian 3rd Armies, Oct. 17th to 22nd, 1915.

October 16th, 1915

- In Serbia a further advance by the German 44th Reserve Division and the Austro-Hungarian 59th Division of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army secure today the northern face of the Avala Hills, the main Serbian defensive line south of Belgrade.

- The French government formally declares war on Bulgaria today.

October 15th, 1915

- Field Marshal Sir John French learns that Joffre has called off the French offensives in Artois and Champagne, which invalidates the strategic premise of the British offensive at Loos.  This, in conjunction with the failure of the attack of the 13th to secure significant gains, compels the commander of the BEF to call off the offensive in Flanders.  Henceforth, the British 1st Army will limit itself strictly to those operations essential to seize ground to protect itself from German counterattacks against the ground captured on the 13th.

Since September 25th the British 1st Army has suffered approximately 50 000 casualties, including almost 16 000 dead, while pushing forward between 800 and 2500 yards on a 6000 yard stretch of the German line north and south of the village of Loos.  As with the French in Champagne, most of this ground was seized in the first hours of the attack on the morning of the 25th, and again in common with the French the British proved unable to sustain the initial momentum and subsequent attacks proved increasingly futile.  In the case of Loos, the failures from the afternoon of the 25th onward have been ascribed by Haig and his supporters as primarily the responsibility of Field Marshal's French's mishandling of the reserves, a dispute that continues to fester in the upper ranks of the British army.  The battle has also proven to be a bitter introduction to the divisions of Kitchener's 'New Armies' to combat on the Western Front, the attack of 21st and 24th Divisions, though driven home with great courage, was an abysmal failure, gaining no ground at the cost of several thousand casualties.  They will not be the only divisions of the 'New Armies' to have such a deadly debut on the Western Front.

- With Bulgaria's entry into the war on the side of Germany with its invasion of Serbia, Great Britain and Montenegro formally declare war on Bulgaria today.

- Today Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for India, informs Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, that the Cabinet is discussing the withdrawal of the two divisions of Indian Expeditionary Force A from France and dispatching them to Mesopotamia.  This redeployment has two purposes: (1) to facilitate the capture of Baghdad; and (2) to secure the region if an Entente withdrawal from the Dardanelles allows the Ottomans to redeploy divisions there to Mesopotamia.