In the winter of 1917, British Captain Gilbert Ware Murlis-Green, who was destined to become the RFC’s top fighter ace in Macedonia, was in the process of running up his score with wingman Lieutenant J.C.F. Owen. On February 18, 1917, the duo decided to do something about Eschwege. They headed for Drama. As Eschwege climbed to intercept the two intruders, Green and Owen dived on him, firing. Green’s single gun jammed, so he turned away to clear it, leaving Owen and Eschwege to fight it out. Owen’s Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12 engine took several rounds, which knocked it out. Lieutenant Owen landed near the Drama airfield, and Eschwege landed beside him and took him prisoner, but he was not in time to keep Owen from burning his plane. It was Eschwege’s fourth official victory.

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The following day a British aircraft flew over the Drama airfield and dropped a note inquiring about Lieutenant Owen’s fate. The Germans obliged and replied.

In late February 1917 Hauptmann (Captain) Georg Heydemark relieved a Lieutenant Geisler as commanding officer of FFA 30. On his way to take up his command, Heydemark stopped by German aviation headquarters in Uskub, where he was shocked to learn that FFA 30 was flying three reconnaissance aircraft at one time but had only one escorting scout. In an effort to reassure Heydemark, the brass told him, ‘Yes–but the scout is Eschwege!’ Such was Eschwege’s reputation after only five months in Macedonia.

Many Royal Navy aircraft were based on the island of Thasos, as well as at Stavros on the Greek mainland and on two seaplane carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Empress. Eschwege encountered an RNAS two-seater Nieuport 10 over the road between Drama and Kavalla on March 22, 1917, and wounded the pilot, Lieutenant Sydney Beare, and the observer, a Lieutenant Hyde, with short bursts from his machine gun. The plane crash-landed near the road, and the wounded officers were later treated at a field hospital, where Eschwege visited them.

By this time Eschwege had been issued a twin-gunned Albatros D.III fighter. In May Eschwege demonstrated aggressiveness in the face of superior numbers when he intercepted two English B.E. two-seaters over Lake Tachyno. As Eschwege attacked one of the aircraft, the other B.E. circled and fired a well-aimed burst that hit Eschwege’s right arm and the fuel tank. The German pilot managed to escape further damage by virtue of a sideslip followed by a quick climb. But as he regained control of his Albatros, the two English planes sped off toward their base at Monuhi, on the western shore of the lake.

The Albatros’ Mercedes engine began to cough and sputter due to loss of fuel from the punctured tank. Disregarding his painful wound, Eschwege switched to the auxiliary gravity tank in the upper wing and sped after his escaping quarry. He ended the battle by destroying one of the British planes.

When Eschwege returned to his airfield, the engine stopped the instant the wheels of the Albatros touched the ground. The wounded airman had used his last drop of fuel.

Although the German airman was flying on a front that received little attention in the war, Eschwege’s fame was spreading. In addition to his other nickname, the Eagle of the Aegean, some who knew of his exploits were beginning to call him the ‘Richthofen of the Balkans.’

By now it was early June 1917, and the wheat in the Bulgarian fields was ripe enough to burn. Starvation was a legitimate weapon in this brutal little war, and British planes were scheduled to spread incendiary bombs over the Bulgarian wheat fields of the Sary Schaban plain. The British determined that the ideal time to firebomb the wheat was between June 3 and June 7.

Such raids had been carried out earlier without interference, but that had been before Eschwege was on the job. Drama was too far from the Sary Schaban plain for him to intercept the enemy planes. Eschwege knew that if he waited at Drama, the fields would be ablaze and the bombers would have returned to Thasos unscathed. The clever German flew to an emergency airfield midway between Thasos and Sary Schaban early on the morning of June 5 and lay in the shade of his Albatros’ wings, waiting for the bombers. He knew that the British planes normally appeared around midday, when the evening dew had evaporated.

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