Lake Ohrid and the Péchot story

We are sorry not to meet our friends at the 16mm Peterborough AGM and Show. For the greater good, we are all staying at home. It is a chance to read, dream and plan expeditions we can undertake once travel restrictions are lifted. We start with a picture of the fascinating Péchot-Bourdon locomotive as it has several links with Lake Ohrid, links we discovered when researching our Péchot models and 'Colonel Péchot: Tracks To The Trenches'

Print of a Péchot-Bourdon locomotive, designed to run on portable track. Print courtesy Raymond Duton

It is an area we long to visit. Ohrid and its sister lake Prespa  are found in the Balkans peninsula, the vast peninsula which separates the Adriatic from the Black Sea. The Balkans are on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, so are generally interesting, but we’d like to focus on the Ohrid area.

Ohrid appeals to my Scottish soul because it has affinities with our own Loch Ness. The names of both lakes share the Scottish ‘huh’. Both lakes act as boundaries. Loch Ness lies along an ancient fault-line separating the eastern and western Scottish highlands while Lake Ohrid and Prespa are also in a borderland. They separate the worlds of Mediterranean Europe and the lands to the south. The lakes are survivors from a geotectonic depression which started perhaps five million years ago. The corrugations – rugged mountains and deep lakes of the Balkans - are the effect of the movement of vast tectonic plates which apply unimaginable pressures on the surface of the land.

Lake Ohrid is Europe’s oldest. How do we know that? Because of the variety of plants and animals which are found nowhere else. At the risk of boring you with Lake Ohrid facts, for its area, it is the most bio-diverse lake in the world. Species evolve at a certain rate, so the theory goes – it a bit like estimating the age of a hedgerow. So the unique waterweed and fishes are interesting in themselves but also suggest that Ohrid has been there for a million years. The lake never silts up. Although sediment is continually brought in by feeder streams, the restless earth sucks it away. They call it subduction.

Unfortunately, our own Loch Ness is rather short on aquatic life – too cold - so this method can’t be used to calculate its age but, naturally, being a good Scot, I believe that Loch Ness too conceals its own mysteries.

Lake Ohrid is the deepest lake of the Balkans. It is not the deepest lake in Europe - that distinction belongs to Loch Ness. Almost as beautiful and strange are the springs which constantly feed it. About 50% of its water comes in this way, from an underground system which links Prespa to Ohrid. This effect has a respectable scientific explanation; we are in karst country where water dissolves away rock to find underground channels. It disappears only to reappear miles away. From Celtic times, we Scots have found springs quite delightful, so allow me my little moment of wonder.

Southern Balkans, centred on Salonika/Thessaloniki circa 1920. Ohrid and Prespa are just west of Bitola. Courtesy Times Publishing

The water of lake Ohrid has two exits. The obvious one is the Black Drin River which flows through Albania to the Adriatic. There is another significant one that is  invisible. That is evaporation, which channels no less than 40% of the water away.

The lakes deserve to be better known – and the fact that they aren't, is a tragedy. They lie over the cultural and political fissures which divide the Balkans. At present, the western shores of Ohrid are Albanian, the eastern (roughly) in  the Republic of Macedonia (Former Yugoslavia. Lake Prespa is divided between RoM, Albania and Greece. Another block to them being better known is that they are also known as Ochrida and Presba.

This should not in itself be a problem. Lake Geneva, aka Lac Leman, has French shores and Swiss shores. Everyone gets along. People live on the French side and commute to the Swiss side. Tourists can enjoy both. Alas, tourists can’t easily take a boat and sail from one side of Ohrid to the other. Modern maps, so we are told, don’t even show both sides of the lake, which seems to float off into a misty neverland as you look from the shore.

Close-up of the area shows Presba/Presba and Ochrida/Ohrid. Salonika is to the south-east with Lake Lake Dojran due north of it. Snaking red national boundaries are very obvious. Courtesy Times Publishing

Its human history goes back millennia. From nearby, pottery has been found that is over seven THOUSAND years old. The decorations are as fine as anything produced by a modern artist. Tourists should also be inspired by ‘To The Lake: A Balkan Journey’ by Kapka Kassabova. As she puts it very kindly, history is still being made here - ancient tensions have still not been resolved.

Our maps, courtesy of Times Publishing, show the lakes circa 1920.

Another reason to visit is that Ohrid played a pivotal role in the Péchot story. True to character, it lay in a disputed no-man’s-land between the Allied Macedonian Front and the Bulgarian sector of the Central Powers. In every Front, generals attempted the breakthrough and on every Front, the usual result was stalemate. The German Spring Offensives of March/April 1918 came the nearest to punching through the British Front, but never quite succeded. After four years of war, the concept of breakthrough had acquired a mythical status. The Russian Front, it was true, had crumbled, but this was because of pressure from home rather than a knockout military blow.

It was here, in the unpromising and rugged Balkan terrain, that the stalemate was broken by the one true military breakthrough of the First World War. Yet the battle of Monastir is hardly remembered because the place has changed its name. Monastir has vanished from the map

(A bit of backstory) In 1915, the Bulgarians entered the War on the side of the Central Powers. Their incentive was Serbian territory. The Allies formed the Macedonian Front to oppose them. The British frontline, somewhat unwisely, followed the valley of the Struma river and its tributary the Strumitza. Their main enemies were mosquitoes carrying malaria which caused many more casualties than the Bulgarians. The French and Serbs were to their west, on a Front running from from Lake Dohran/Dojran to Prespa and Ohrid. It was, to put it mildly, rough ground. But there were no mosquitoes and the Serbs were almost in home territory. One big disadvantage was the lack of transport. There were few railways anyway and the north-south links had been cut by the Bulgarians.

Various designs of portable prefabricated track were used by both sides in the first world war. If they could, they used captured material, as these jumbled tracks suggest. Photo Malcolm Wright

 In 1916, the Serbian-French were fighting south of the little railway town of Florina, in the valley of the Echisu/Ekhisu, in the southern headwaters of the Varna river. Over the next couple of years they pushed their way north along the track of the railway towards Monastir (modern Bitola) to the south of Ohrid. How did they transport the big guns, and more importantly, the ammunition?

The traditional way was by mule, 70kg per mule, quite inadequate for modern warfare. The iron road had to return; a 60cm portable railway with its freight-carrying capacity. General Franchet d’Esperey, field commander, asked for daily reports on progress of the line down the Ekhisu valley, so highly did he esteem the value of 60cm. The final assault on Monastir/Bitola could not take place until 60cm was in place. By September 15^th 1918, all was ready.

The battle for Monastir/Bitola was savage, involving trains, guns, planes and old-fashioned cavalry charges. The breakthrough happened in the Cerna river valley. By September 20th, the hole in the Bulgarian defences was 25 km deep, by the 25th, well over 50 km. At the most northerly point of the breakthrough, Serbs were entering Istip (Ishtip). It was a classic breakthrough, the attackers making their way through the weak point and fanning outwards. The map is like a refractive pattern,  waves making their way through a weak point in a barrier and then spreading out.

The Balkan Front (double line) 15thSeptember 1918, centred on Monastir/Bitola, Ohrid and Prespa lying to the west.The broken lines show the stages of the breakthrough, successively 20th, 25th, 30th September and then 5th and 12th October. Illustration magazine Courtesy Malcolm Wright

The northern shore of Lake Ohrid was not taken until September 30^th. By then the Bulgarian Government had agreed an Armistice with the French, valid from midnight. At this point, the British troops roused themselves and started thrashing the Bulgarians. Given the situation, this was not quite cricket.

After the Bulgarian Armistice, it was only a matter of time before the collapse of the other Central Powers. In the words of Prosper Péchot’s proud son, all could be credited to his father’s railway inventions. Once the War was over, all the track and rolling stock were safely gathered into French military depots,

This area reappears in the Péchot story. During the Second World War, the Nazis confiscated all the French military material. Most was scrapped including almost all Péchot-Bourdon locomotives. Two survived the War, one being relocated to the Dresden area in what was then the DDR and one came to Pozega in what is now Serbia. This precious survivor spent more than 60 years a few kilometres north of Ohrid. This Serbian Péchot-Bourdon is in France for restoration – a treasure of history.

Rough country! After the breakthrough, French colonial troops take a Bulgarian position. Illustration magazine. Picture courtesy Malcolm Wright

Wrightscale WD or Péchot kits

Our model kits include Welsh narrow gauge items, the Péchot wagon and British War Department bogies.

Wrightscale 16mm Péchot wagon detail

You may be wondering which to choose from these apparently disparate items. The designs are all connected, but before you buy, you may like to know the 'why?' and 'wherefore?' of each.

As we British are proud to relate, we were pioneers in railway development. The Welsh corner of Britain was particularly inventive, especially in narrow gauge. It was a combination of geology and ingenuity. Northern Wales has an abundance of slate, known for millennia as a good roofing material. What was produced in Wales had to stay in Wales until it could be exported and narrow gauge railways provided the missing link between the slate and the ports.

Detail of 16mm WD class D wagon on Wrightscale bogies

The Talyllyn, Corris and Festiniog railways were born this way, firstly with horse-drawn freight and then with locomotives. The Festiniog developed the well-loved Fairlie locomotive which pulled four-wheeled slate wagons down to Portmadog.

Wales had lessons for the French. They had compartmentalised ideas about railways. There were the ‘serious’ gauges – standard gauge and one metre – and light ones – very narrow gauges of 60 cm and less. From the mid-eighteen seventies, the Decauville company sold portable track in 40 and 50cm gauges. In the early eighteen eighties, they introduced a portable ‘military’ gauge but this tested the technology to the limit and was less than successful.

Four ton wagon typical of the narrow gauge freight wagons before the Péchot revolution. Photo courtesy MD Wright

Along came Prosper Péchot and combined the best of Welsh and Decauville then infused a spark of personal genius. He produced a sturdy portable system on which could run rugged and adaptable ten tonne bogie wagons. A significant number have survived to this day. Revolutionary features included: 60cm gauge; bogie-mounted wagons 6m by 1.7m (about 20’ by 5’8”); low centre of gravity for a wagon with a central well; adaptability ensured by stanchions; bogies which had compensatory as well as vertical springing; coupling attached to the bogies rather than to the wagon body; brake could be applied to every bogie wheel; a prominent brake-wheel at each end; ten tonne wagons with capacity for 8 tonnes of freight.

His design was copied and adapted; by 1918, there were thousands of kilometres of track on which ran tens of thousands of ten tonne bogie wagons. The bulk of this material was sold off as War surplus – some track, wagons and locomotives returning to the land where it all began, Wales.

Ten tonne bogie wagon of 1895 after the Péchot revolution. It still has the traditional couplings,  attached tothe wagon body. Drawing by Victor Rose. Courtesy MD Wright

Malcolm has celebrated the Péchot designs, both the originals and important adaptations.

Even while the French military were experimenting with Péchot designs, the German Army were looking on. By early 1888, they were beginning to produce their own versions. They moved from 72 and 75cm gauge to 60cm, from four wheeled wagons to ten tone bogie wagons and from horse drawn to locomotive haulage. Yes, German engineers and their ‘Pioneer’ railway troops were among the best for the time.

But no, they were quite capable of industrial espionage. Paul Decauville caught them at it, as he explained to the French Government. In 1907, when the sugar-works at Cramaille took delivery of a 60cm gauge railway by Aubineau, they were soon visited by ‘technicians’ from Orenstein and Koppel. In no time at all, O&K were selling suspiciously similar 60cm wagons. Eric Fresné goes so far to say ‘the O&K wagons were ‘furiously inspired’ by the Aubineau ones’. (’70 years de chemins de fer betteraviers’ p 113)

The German adapted the pirated design to produce their own Brigadewagen (military wagon). Although the important features were retained – 6m approx by 1.7, bogie mounted, brake to every bogie-wheel, coupling through sprung bogies, 8 tonne capacity etc, they made changes.  The bogies were lighter and the wagon body was a comparatively simple framework with wood instead of steel plate. The wagon bodies did not have the well and were more easily adapted than the all-steel Péchot design. For the standard Brigadewagen, the idea of stanchions was retained, though they were usually seen attached to wooden sides. The bogie couplings also provided the springing – an arrangement which was both economical and effective. Overall, they were cheaper to make. The bogies projected a generous 50cm beyond the wagon body, making the life of the Bremser (brakesman) safer and more comfortable.

Brigadewagen on a slope. Line drawing courtesy Eric Fresné

By the time the First World War started, the Germans had a considerable stock of material. The French had a couple of hundred Péchot wagons (modèle artillerie 88) which had been in service since 1888. Once the Western Front was established and hundreds of miles of trench had to be supplied, the French realised their need for more wagons. Most of what they ordered was of a lighter pattern, reminiscent of the Brigadewagen as well as the artillerie 88. It was known as the Decauville 15.

By 1916, the British, though initially sceptical, began to admit that 60cm had advantages. They produced their own War Department design, but with similar features to the Péchot design. This was produced to metric rather than Imperial scale. Can you imagine what torment this would have been to the Eurosceptics of the time! Rather than sticking to a standard shape, they produced a number of wagon bodies. The Classes E and F had a well, useful for transporting bulky loads.

When the USA joined the War, they immediately designed their own military narrow gauge system, known as Pershing. Another nation of Imperial measurement, they too were forced to bow to the Péchot design. Their locomotives and rolling-stock ran on 60cm gauge. The Pershing was a bogie wagon. Each bogie was fitted with brakes and a brakewheel. The couplings were to the bogie not the wagon body.

16mm model of WD class D wagon on Wrightscale bogies

These later designs were all more prolific than the Péchot original but there was a catch. Although there were thousands of examples of these alternative designs, they did not have the sheer staying power of the artillerie 88. When World War One ended, the Germans had to hand over most of their 60cm gauge material. This and Allied material were used as temporary railways to restore and rebuild the ruins of the Western Front. Afterwards, they were sold off. In France, agricultural systems such as for sugar-beet were the main beneficiaries. English and Welsh quarries also bought surplus stock. Thus the grand-children of the original designs came home to Wales. Being of wood and light steel construction they had a short life. There are few photos, and these show them in a very poor state.

WD wagon photographed in the 1980s Photo courtesy J. Hawkesworth

Eric Fresné is not a fan of the Péchot design which he describes as ‘a veritable monster, heavy and over-engineered’. (Betteraviers page 114). Without appreciating the contradiction, he goes on (page 115) to say ‘the Army took great care to return the Péchot wagons to their bases and depots once the job of (post-war) reconstruction was over’ These ‘monsters’ are now beginning to reappear to great acclaim and can be seen at preserved railways in the UK and France. Though few in number, those Péchot wagons just keep rolling along.

Péchot wagon 2015, minus stanchions but still going strong. MD Wright

Sources: ‘Colonel Péchot: Tracks To The Trenches’ Sarah Wright

‘Chemins de fre betteraviers’ Eric Fresné  A French language treasure trove

‘La Voie de 60’ Dr Christian Cénac