To carry out this plan it was indispensable to concentrate a mass of powerful artillery in the central area, have strong reserves, and at the same time hold the vast line throughout the whole of its length. The scheme appeared impossible owing to the absence of one of these requisites--the reserves. But General Franchet d’Espérey--and this was the touch of genius of his conception--created the reserves out of nothing, by thinning out his line and reducing the number of troops on all the other sectors to the minimum indispensable for safety and sometimes going dangerously below it, so as to concentrate the largest possible number of men on the points where the decisive effort was to be made. In this way, although the total strength of the Allies was slightly below that of the enemy, he managed to have an overwhelming superiority at the points where he attacked. The following were the forces of the Armée d’Orient. It comprised: 8 French divisions (30th, 57th, 76th, 122nd and 156th Metropolitan Divisions, and 11th, 16th and 17th Colonial Divisions), one cavalry group (1st and 4th Chasseurs d’Afrique and Morocco Spahis), some units not forming part of any division (2nd bis Zouaves, 58th Battalion of Chasseurs à pied, various battalions of Senegalese, Algerians, Annamites, etc.); one Italian division equal to rather more than two French divisions, and including two squadrons of cavalry and other units; 4 British divisions (22nd, 26th, 27th and 28th), each with some cavalry detachments, and the 228th Garrison Brigade; 6 Serbian infantry divisions (Shumadia, Danube, Morava, Yugoslav, Drina and Timok) and one cavalry division; 10 Greek divisions (Archipelago, Crete and Serres of the National Defence Army, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 13th and 14th of the regular army), of whom one--the 9th--was not trained and was never sent to the front throughout the operations, and some cavalry; finally a few Albanian detachments.[41] In all there were 29½ divisions, of which the British, Serbian, Greek and the 5 Metropolitan French divisions comprised 9 battalions each, the French Colonial ones 12 each, and the Italian 18. The total strength was as follows: Divisions Battalions Ration Strength Rifles French 8 87 200,000 45,000 British 4½ 40 135,000 32,000 Italians 1 18 44,000 10,000 Serbs 6 57 95,000 30,000 Greeks 10 84 100,000 40,000 --- --- ------- ------- Total 29½ 286 574,000 157,000 The Allied artillery amounted to 1,600 guns, the machine guns were 2,680, the aeroplanes 200.