LAiND AiND WATER 
jNovemDer 27, 1915- 
height of the Kara Hodjali which dominates the 
river and the railway from the east. 
The advance guards of the Bulgarian forces had 
already appeared upon the crest of that mountain. 
It was clear that if they held it in an\' force 
Krivolak and the railway leading to it, and thus 
the whole of the Vardar valley in that neighbour- 
hood, was untenable. The only means of passing 
the river at this point was a single boat, and with 
this alone, the French managed by incessant labour 
to get a whole regiment over on to the Eastern 
bank. Kora Hodjah hill was occupied, the Bul- 
garian outposts withdrew. But the importance 
of the Kora Hodjah was immediately recognised 
by the enemy, though too late. He ordered an 
attack in force upon the mountain on the 30th 
October, and began it upon the 4th and 5th Novem- 
ber. Both the attacks were thrown back and the 
possession of Krivolak was now secure. 
We learn with interest in connection with this 
Bulgarian attack upon the Kora Hodjali, that 
pieces of 6 in. calibre appeared upon the enemy's 
side. 
A pontoon bridge was constructed upon the 
Hne where the old ferry boat had first been used 
to convey the French force so precariously across 
the river, and in making this pontoon bridge, we 
learn from the same authority that English engi- 
neers lent taeir aid. 
The possession of Krivolak being thus firmly 
established, the next object of the French was to 
extend their left so as to get into touch with the 
small Serbian force which was holding the Babouna 
Pass and covering Prilep. If that could be done 
a united armed body, perhaps three divisions, or, 
at any rate, more than two divisions, strong, would 
hold considerable Bulgarian forces in front of it 
and might conceivably so reUeve the pressure on 
the main Serbian army to the north. Should the 
Bulgarians be unable to reinforce this ridge 
quickly enough, the French would push on to 
Veles, and once north of Veles they would have 
made the Bulgarian hold on Uskub impossible, 
as we have seen in previous issues of this paper. 
But the enemy could reinforce as rapidly as 
he chose, and forces which ultimately outnumbered 
the French, and the few Serbian troops in the 
neighbourhood, bv about three to one appeared 
against this southern front. No French advance 
was possible from Gradsko station, and the 
attempt to effect a junction with the Serbian 
troops in the Babouna Pass at C failed. 
There is only one road by which that junction 
could be effected. This road leaves Krivolak, 
passes through the villages of Negotinand Kavadar, 
there crosses the rapid " black " river (the 
Ctzerna) by a long wooden bridge A, the Vozarci 
bridge, and thence goes up into the mountains, 
over another bridge B, which crosses the torrent 
called Rajec. 
All that march the French column, operating 
towards the west to seek and join the Serbians, 
accomplished without difficulty and without 
apparently meeting any resistance. 
But within about ten miles of their objective, 
before they reached the summit between B and C, 
beyond which one overlooks the Prilep valley, they 
came in contact with the bulk of the Bulgarian 
forces upon the slope of the mountain called 
from one of its peaks Archangel. The French 
were unable to carry this height against the 
superior forces that held it. With further rein- 
forcements it would seem that they intended a 
second attack, but meanwhile the small Serbian 
force at C, not quite ten miles away, which they 
were attempting to join from B, had in its turn, 
been faced by such growing numbers of the Bul- 
garians that it had been compelled to fall back from 
the Babouna Pass and to retire behind Prilep. From 
tliat moment any further attempt of the French 
to extend their force westward was without pur- 
pose, for the force with which they desired to 
effect a junction was no longer there. The French 
retired, therefore, and entrenched themselves in 
the triangle of fairly open country which is bcunded 
on the west and east by the Czerna and Vardar 
rivers, both of them untordable. To this position, 
from the village at its centre, the name of "the 
entrenched camp of Kavadar," is given. There, 
at the moment of writing, the allied effort in the 
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