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Down in the Babuna Pass the Serbians were making a similar stubborn defense, hoping against hope that the French would come to their relief. And possibly, had it not been for the defeats that the Bulgarians were receiving from the French at Strumitza, they would have been able to take the pass long before.
They also seized the commanding heights of Kara Hodjali north-east of the river, and repulsed the Bulgarian attempts to drive them off in the first week of November; while to the west they stretched out a hand towards the Serbians defending the Babuna Pass.
A still narrower chance intervened between the French and the Serbs who were fighting at the Babuna Pass to bar the way to Prilep and Monastir, and at one time the French flung out their left to within ten miles of the Serbian position. But their own communications were threatened all down the narrow line of the Vardar, and they were hopelessly outnumbered by the Bulgarian forces.
They then attempted to move toward Babuna Pass, twenty-five miles west of Krivolak, where they hoped to join hands with the Serbian column at that point. They were being faced by a Bulgarian army numbering one hundred and twenty-five thousand men, and found themselves in serious danger.
And now, after the failure of the French troops to join up with the Serbians in Babuna Pass, arose the probability of withdrawing their forces in Serbian and Bulgarian territory across the frontier to Saloniki. Thus arose the question: How would Greece comport herself on their retirement? Would she give them complete freedom of communication south of the frontier to Saloniki?
Pursuing the Serbians in retreat from the Babuna Pass they reached the Greek frontier and cut the railway between Salonika and Monastir at Kenali on 29 November, and on 5 December occupied Monastir itself. The Greek frontier was a feeble protection, and the French at Kavadar were threatened with encirclement on their left.
And this was the object of the powerful effort made by the Bulgarians to hurl their forces through the gap between Sarrail and the Serbians in the Babuna Pass. However, the Serbians decided on a determined effort to break through the net that was being drawn around them.
South of Katshanik the Bulgarians had crossed the road and had pushed westward until they were held up at the Babuna Pass. Should the pass be forced the Serbian line was in immediate danger of being flanked and the French, too, would be in a similar danger, for by striking south the Bulgarians could make a move around toward the French rear.
By November 2, 1915, the French were at Gradsko, where the Tcherna joins the Vardar River, hoping to get in touch with the Serbians who were defending the Babuna Pass and whose guns they could hear pounding over the ten miles of intervening mountain ridges. The British bore little of this fighting, having made their advance over toward Lake Doiran.
For a whole week Vassitch held Veles against the overwhelming attacks of the Bulgarians; then, finally, on the 29th, he was compelled to retire to the Babuna Pass, the narrow defile also known as the Iron Gate, through which passed the highway from Veles to Monastir, by way of Prilep.
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