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http://nhw.livejournal.com/671288.html[return][return]Palmer wrote this in 1965, with access to the memoirs of all the major participants on all sides, as a comprehensive and masterly scholarly account of the Macedonia Campaign. He concentrates especially on the geopolitics, especially the squabbling between the armies' far-off masters in Paris and London debating what it should do (or indeed if it should still be there). The final chapter, where the commanding general manages to persuade/hoodwink the politicians into letting him try a September offensive against the Bulgarians, and they fold within days and partly as a result the whole war finishes a few weeks later, is very exciting and almost moving. There were several incidental details that I found very interesting:[return][return]i) the account of the trial and execution of "Apis" (Dragutin Dimitrijevi), which Rebecca West refers to in murky terms in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, but I found entirely comprehensible as presented here - Paai knew that Apis had already been responsible for the murders of King Alexander and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and didn't want any more names added to the list (and Paai was not the last Serbian Prime Minister to worry about rogue elements of military intellgence; unlike poor Zoran Djindji, he was able to get them before they got him); and[return][return]ii) the brief but intriguing and entertaining account of Essad Pasha's attempts to present himself as the legitimate ruler of Albania - obviously, while he was able to bring in extyra forces and territory, it was very welcome, but eventually the Allies decided they weren't all that interested in Albanian territory anyway.[return][return]One really annoying thing - the town of Veles is consistently mis-spelt Velea (except in the maps). And `tip is mis-spelt as Stip. As I keep on saying, if you're going to get the diacritical marks wrong, better not to use them at all.
